Category: Podcast

This case, what you’re treating, we do recommend, you know, different packages and we will say, okay, for this patient, think about including, you know, an extra refinement because this is a more complex case. So it’s totally, totally customised. And the idea is that you’re not overpaying ever for something that you don’t need or something that you don’t want. And also so that people who come in with different preferences have those needs met.

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 Sonja Shimotsuki onto the podcast. Sonia is an Oxford graduated doctor who didn’t really work as a doctor that long and then joined Boston Consulting Group in their start up business sort of area as a consultant and is now the founder of 32 Co, which is an innovative sort of disruptor in the eyeliner space. Lovely to have you, Sonia.

Lovely to be here, Payman Thank you for having me.

We’re actually at Sonia’s offices right now. Sonia You know, let’s start with one simple question. Do you now regret studying medicine? Should have studied dentistry.

It’s a good question. No, I’m not someone who regrets things. I take everything as a learning opportunity. I had a fantastic time studying medicine, being a doctor. I was a doctor for four years. I got a chance to work in some amazing places, have some amazing experiences, meet great people, and fundamentally learn a lot about health care, which has helped where we are now in terms of this business. But I think I wasn’t so much aware of dentistry as a profession when I was choosing my, my, my degree. And I think had I known a bit more about it, I would have been very tempted. I think I went down a route of exploring the Max Facts conversion and published some papers in Max Facts, but decided that the additional four years at the time was probably too much to convert. So don’t regret any of medicine. Loved it as a as a discipline and as a science. My degree was very academic and I really enjoyed that. But I think wanting to do something more entrepreneurial meant that I had to go and find a slightly different route after I’d done done my time.

But what was it what was it about you that made you want to do that? Rather than taking the traditional path of either becoming a GP or a surgeon or whatever?

Yeah, I when I while I was at medical school, I was running a different business. I ran an education business tutoring business, which I really enjoyed. I got got the bug. I think building something yourself, watching it grow, making a lot of mistakes, making some good decisions and ultimately building a business that that did did okay while I was while I was studying and then latterly into being a doctor. So I think what was important for me is the freedom to be able to make decisions about where my life was going. And although medicine is very varied, you can become, like you say, a GP, you can choose the surgical path, you can become a medic. The route that I was initially going down, which was to become an eye surgeon, an ophthalmologist, felt more and more and more restricted the more I got into it. So for those who don’t know, when you when you study ophthalmology, you go through a series of of exams and then you subspecialize in ophthalmology. So you’re not just looking at the eye, which is already a small part of the body. Now you’re looking at a specific area of the eye, maybe the cornea. And that that started to feel really quite restrictive for me. And I wanted to do something where I could spread my wings, build something, innovate, be creative. So that’s I think, why.

At the time when you were thinking of giving up medicine, were you getting advice from, I don’t know, parents or people saying, you know, why would you?

Yeah, yeah, a lot of that. What were.

You thinking? You said were you thinking had you made your mind up?

Yeah, I think I had. I think the interesting thing where I where I where I studied, I was surrounded by a lot of non medics as well. So I was able to see what they were doing in their careers and people going down really interesting different routes to what I was doing. And so I had exposure to people going into the city, you know. Building businesses, going into law firms, going into investment banks. And so I knew. What else was out there. When I started to think about leaving, I think, you know, parents always want you to they want you to succeed and be happy. But being a doctor is kind of kind of cool. So I think that’s difficult. And there is an element of what a waste. I don’t see it like that. I think it’s helped build me into where I am today and what I am today. But, you know, that kind of sense of loss that, you know, we’ve lost a doctor. I think the fact that I then went into into BCG and did a lot of health care consulting, so going back into hospitals with a completely different hat on and saying now trying to improve the hospital systems, trying to improve theatre efficiency, trying to improve access to certain services with a completely different mindset, meant that that, you know, that knowledge was still being put to use.

And to be honest, I had a lot of medic friends who had also left and who were not necessarily encouraging. I think, you know, I think BCG, for example, it’s tough. It’s really hard work. So it was more be mindful of what you’re getting yourself into. The grass isn’t always greener. This is how it’s different and this is how it’s better and this is how it’s worse and make up your own mind. But if you want help, we will help you get in. So I had a lot of help leaving medicine because although I think the assumption when you’re a medic is that you can do lots of things and you’re very academic and you’re all very clever, I didn’t find that to be the case when I left and went into the real world and had to do things like build models on Excel and, you know, present and and all of those things that you don’t get taught as a medic. So there was a lot of learning to do there and it was quite humbling for a while going from thinking that I mean, thinking that the world kind of owes you something because you’re a doctor to being right at the bottom and having to learn things from scratch. I think that was a really good experience.

And I guess, you know, you grew up in the Netherlands. Yeah. And for someone to get into Oxford in the first place, you would probably top of your class and that sort of thing. And then you’ve gone through medicine in Oxford and now it’s the first time really, where you feel at a disadvantage compared to your peers.

Yeah, it’s funny when I so yeah, to all of the above. I was very academic. I loved school, I was good at a lot of things at school. And so it made it very easy for me. I decided to go to Oxford, you know, I did well there. And then when I got when I when I got to my first day at BCG, I always tell this story because I think it’s really important. They they said, look, everyone here has always been top of their class at everything. You think that you’re going to be amazing at this. Let me tell you now, you’re going to be rubbish at this job for the first six months. And then they said, And now what you’re thinking is, Ah, I am never the person that’s rubbish at anything. I’m going to nail this, but you’re not. So get comfortable with that. It’s going to be a steep learning curve, but you’re going to figure it out because we’re going to help you. And they did. It was fantastic company to work at. So yeah, it was it was humbling, but but also very empowering to be on that learning curve and actually get, you know, acquire a whole new set of skills very quickly.

And a consultant’s life is as hard as a junior doctor’s life in many ways. Yeah. Constantly on a plane and you’re constantly going around the place, what would you say? You know, there’s loads of dentists these days who want to stop. Is your advice? You know, caution.

Yeah, absolutely.

I think there’s an element in medicine, dentistry. There’s an element of you think that’s all you know and that’s who you are. Yeah. People tell you your skills are transferable, but deep down you know that they might not be. So. I don’t know if it was a younger sister or something who was a dentist and said, Oh, I hate all of this. I want to do something else. Would you say go for it or would you not say go for it?

I always. I do. I do get asked a lot, you know.

You must. Yeah.

You know, how did you get out and what would you advise? And I always take the calls because I was on that. I was on the other end of that when I was leaving. And there were some very kind people randomly giving me lots of advice. So so I spend a lot of time listening to them and figuring out whether whether they really how much they know about leaving. Some people come with a very clear set of goals. You know, I’d like to get into consulting. I’ve done X, Y, and Z, What do I do now? And some people just say, look, I just don’t know what to do and but I don’t think I’m happy. And my first advice is the grass isn’t always greener. Being a doctor is a fantastic career. I think it can be really challenging for for a lot of reasons. And so is being a dentist. So what is it that you’re trying to optimise for? Because from a from a work life balance perspective, when you factor in pay, dentists do well, I would say from an early age.

Yeah, they do well early. Yeah.

So that makes it difficult. It’s kind of a golden cage in a lot of ways. Medics are paid less well, easier for them. You know, there’s a lot of shinier opportunities for medics. But, you know, working in an office 9 to 5 or, you know, 9 to 9 to midnight, as it was often at BCG, you know, it’s not right for everybody. You know, if you’re used to getting up, being around people and patients using your hands, then you might find it quite stifling and quite. Uninspiring. You know, it just depends what you’re trying to optimise for. If you if it’s just money, there’s plenty of ways that you can make lots of money in dentistry. So it’s trying to start almost again in a different career. Doesn’t sound like the most sensible thing in the world.

So I think with dentists, it’s really money that’s the problem, isn’t it? I think the current situation with the lawsuits and GDC is putting a lot of people off. But okay, so what is what is it like entering consulting from the beginning? Do they train you really intensively for the first six months? Yeah. What is that training?

I think to some extent you’re thrown in the deep end and it’s, you know, you’re carefully selected for your problem solving abilities. So the interviews are very much about problem solving, quick mental maths, you know, being able to reason through problems. And so when you get there, that’s what you’re supposed to be doing is I don’t really know how to build a model. Okay, well, we’ll provide a little bit of training. Here’s a mentor who can help you, but you kind of got to go and build it yourself because that is the only way that you’re going to learn. So the way that they did it when I joined was because BCG is quite diverse in terms of the industries that it works in. I mean, it works with every industry, health care being one of them. I had said, I want to work in anything but healthcare because that’s what I’m trying to leave and, you know, explore the world of work in different ways. But they said, start your first project in healthcare. It’s an area that you’re familiar with and you will learn your trade, your skills, where you’re comfortable, and then you can go and progress on to different things. So I think I spent three months doing some work for a trust with a with a team. I think it was looking at referral pathways and trying to trying to optimise those and reduce waiting times, you know, relatively NHS trust. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. You know, some of the places that I worked before, so I kind of, I kind of knew them.

So yeah, and that does involve, you know, Monday to Thursday you’re on a, you’re travelling normally, so you’re in a hotel somewhere and then you come back to the office on Friday, you know, during those times. I think the big difference is that, you know, you’re not if someone phoned, if if work needs to be done on a Saturday, you’re coming in on a Saturday, you know, your phone doesn’t turn off. You know, that’s one of the things that I explain when I say, look, here are the trade offs. You know, when you leave hospital, having done your shift, you know that there is another junior doctor looking after your patients. You’re not going to get phoned as a junior doctor, different if you’re a consultant. But so there’s no off time. You know, you’re expected to do the work and it’s project based, so you know, you’re going hell for leather until the end of the project and then you stop and then you go on to a different project, which might be something totally different in a different country, in a different industry with a different team, which is also what made it fun. But it’s quite relentless. So it’s, you know, it’s the kind of industry where you have lots of people that start and then as you get more senior, you know, fewer and fewer people stay for different reasons for some people.

So did you go into it knowing you were going to leave it and do a start up, or were you thinking at the time that you’re going to go up the whole consulting partnership?

Yeah, I think I, I wanted to keep my options open. I was very open to really enjoying that life. And I think I think I would have enjoyed it. But I also got to a point where. And again this a partner sat me down once at BCG and said, look, you know, you’re getting to the point now where you really, really understand what this job is about. You kind of get it now. Now you have to decide whether you want to to keep going or whether you want to go and do something else and be really honest with yourself about that. What are your strengths and weaknesses and where do you want to where do you want to go? And I think at that point it was quite obvious to me that this is what I wanted to do. Having said that, I had a nice transition because while I was there, I moved into a different, completely different part of the company, which was the start up arm. So it was a different group. It’s called Digital Ventures. And they basically we build start ups for corporate clients. Oh, so while I was there, I, I was building what is now the world’s leading app for patients with haemophilia, which we spent a year doing that built up the team. It’s now a flourishing company in Germany that’s doing great things. And so I essentially got to go straight into the start ups through through the BCG route, which was fantastic for me.

And but it’s not start up in the same way as you’re now, you know, having to raise finance and there was a big company behind it.

Yeah. So the finance was in place already because it was someone paying for it. It was, it was the kind of the next bit, which is, okay, now build the company, build the product, hire the team. I guess that.

Gave you confidence.

Big, big comfort, blanket. Of course, you know, you don’t there’s no risk there for you as an individual, which is a completely different, completely different ball game to when you’re doing it. You know, you’re out by yourself. Just got to figure it out. You know, build this thing, get some people to buy some stuff, you know, It’s very different. Yeah.

So now, now, now 32 Co which a couple of years ago was 32 stories. Yeah. First incarnation. The first.

Incarnation. Yeah.

And I guess you pivoted the if you explain let’s start with I was on your site today and the first thing it said was something about the broken aligner industry. Yeah. So what’s your analysis of the aligner industry that that would, you’d characterise it as broken. What, what what are the bits of it that. Yeah.

I think specifically it’s broken for the dentist. So when we look at the aligner industry and where it came from, it’s it’s, it’s been around for over 25 years. You know, it was invented by two students who again went and raised a lot of VC money and turned it into what is now Invisalign. You know, it’s thriving business. They they IPO’d quite soon afterwards. And essentially they’ve led the charge because they owned the they held the patents for so long. So they built the technology and nobody else could really build this, which meant that they really controlled the industry, they controlled the costs, the margins, and and they built a very successful company off the back of that. As soon as the patents expired, anyone was able to make an aligner. And that is what we’ve seen. And people have adopted different models from going directly to patients and cutting out the clinician altogether to doing what I would kind of class as Invisalign copycats because it’s basically doing the same thing with a bit of different branding. But in all of this, I think the what has been lost, I think in the commercialisation of this device is the real clinical expertise that’s required to do a good job for your patients. And what I mean by that is that the direct to consumer model cuts out the clinical expertise altogether, forgets about it, says it doesn’t matter. You know, if some of these patients are unhappy, they’ll sue us.

But we’ve got waivers. So they won’t get very far. And that’s that side of the market, which I think, you know, if you look at Smiledirectclub shares share price, it kind of tells the story of what’s going to happen to that side. And then on the other side, I think what we’ve seen is that there’s been an increasing kind of trivialisation of the process. So make it easier and easier and easier and easier. Don’t think about it too much and kind of hope for the best. And when we speak to dentists, we increasingly hear. Look, I would like to provide this sort of treatment, but I don’t necessarily feel like I have access to the expertise, the training or the support to do a really fantastic job at this. Every time I’m aware that this is a specialist treatment, moving teeth is a specialist discipline. I’m sort of being lured into a sense of a false sense of security by just the ease at which I can sort of go on a one day course, get an account within two minutes. I’ve got a sort of cartoon and I can press go. But when I started doing it, I realised that I was running into problems. I didn’t really know how to plan treatment. I wasn’t really sure how to assess complexity. I got to the end of treatment and refinement after refinement, after refinement.

What I thought was going to be a profitable treatment ended up not being so I wasted so much time and the sort of high refinement rates have become normalised in a part of treatment. It’s just what people expect. So I think it’s broken in the sense that people have forgotten to take it seriously and have and have been sort of fed this line that don’t worry about it too much. Everyone’s doing it. Just kind of, you know, you’ll be fine. You’ll be fine. And what we’re seeing from yeah, to your point, the indemnifies and and younger dentists coming out is actually, I don’t want to do that. I would like to do this properly, but I don’t have any way of doing that. I can go on a on a on a course that let’s forget about the sort of one day courses because I think everyone kind of accepts that there’s not much you can learn on a one day course that you will retain. But let’s say you go on a year long course. It’s expensive, it requires travel. It’s not that accessible to people. So obtaining the knowledge and having, you know, real time help from someone who knows what they’re doing is is lacking because that’s really what dentists are asking for. And that’s what we’ve tried to do to kind of fix this, this broken system, we think, for dentists.

So that’s one side. Yeah. And the other side is like a marketplace. Yeah. For the device itself. Yeah. Explain. Just take, take, take me through that. So the one side is an orthodontist helps the dentist through the process of treatment planning. Yeah. Now we know what we’re going to do. You then tender it out to different labs. Yeah.

Yeah. So the other thing that’s broken is the sort of vendor tie in. So dentists will be tied into a specific brand and we’ll literally feel tied in because they might have got a scanner and sort of have to pay that debt off with cases or they might be trying to get to the next level of a of a discount, which it can feel. I mean, it’s a bit mad really in some ways that you as a clinician are really being told what to do by a company in terms of where to buy things and what price you’re going to get. And you know, they say jump and you say how high? That’s what it feels like to a lot of people. And and it doesn’t need to be that way because, as I said, the device has come off patent. There are global manufacturers all over the world making really high quality aligners often for the big brands. But but, you know, whacking a different label on and using the same 3D printers and the same materials. So for us, it makes no sense that a dentist is being tied into increasing prices when this is a commodity device. Once you’ve got your treatment plan, you can get it manufactured by any manufacturer that’s of a certain quality and your patient will get great results provided that that treatment plan is is has been well planned, reliable and safe.

So what we want to see is increased democratisation in the market whereby dentists can choose they are the masters of their own destiny, as it were. They can they can choose from different manufacturers and make purchasing decisions based on their preferences, price, shipping, speed, you know, the things that are important to them that those manufacturers are very keen to offer and essentially cut out the middleman and get kind of a wholesale kind of deal. And the nice thing about having a manufacturer and marketplace like this is that because we are pooling all of our dentists orders, we are basically giving them mass buying power and mass purchasing power, which gives them huge negotiating leverage in terms of price, which as an individual dentist, you would obviously never have. So rather than having to sort of fight for, you know, getting up the discount rung the day you join, you’re part of such a big group of people that you’re getting the top discount from from day one. And that’s what we’re trying to do is get the prices to be more reasonable for dentists.

Understand that. But but let’s say someone one of your users. Yeah. Does loads and loads of treatments. Does he not get a further discount from someone who does 1 or 2 a month?

No, actually I think that’s quite important for us is we we want to treat dentists fairly and the same.

I’m fair. Is it? I mean, if the guy is doing so many in every other.

But how.

You would get your own volume discount by doing so many.

But you would never get the volume discount that you would get if you if you pooled everybody’s together. So it’s a group buying thing. And I think dentists are often. When pitted against each other. To be honest, I think there is a lot of competitiveness and I think if you can work together as a group, everybody is better off because there are people who are missing out on the clearer line a game, as it were, because they feel isolated. They’re not supported, priced out as they’re priced out because the guy next door has got a bigger discount. So you’re not giving those people a chance to access this market. And if we really think about it, you know, coming coming at it from, you know, what are we actually trying to achieve? We’re trying to increase access for patients as well. So for us, if every dentist can do a line of work, whether they choose to do 50% of their work in Aligners or, you know, a couple of cases, you know, a month or a year, we want to treat those people the same and give them the same level of support and encouragement. If they want to do more, then great. But if they don’t, I don’t think that they should be penalised for that.

Okay. A couple of other things then. So let’s imagine this scenario. That patient comes in asking for Invisalign. Classically, the dentist explains to the patient that it’s not about the system, it’s about the treatment plan. Yeah. Is that how you train them? Yeah. Patient says okay, you know best doc when they received their product is any aspect of that branded 32 Co or the dentist brand or is it just generic sort of it can be.

It can be a mixture. So for for we try and keep it relatively neutral to try and communicate that this is a high quality device that doesn’t have all of the extra branding on top of it. We can and do brand for dentists if that’s important to them. Some practices have a strong brand, others don’t. So that is something that we do for for the for the groups that we work with. So and again, you know, this comes back to what we’re trying to do is to to empower the dentist. If you promote a brand of aligner in your practice and you spend money on that AdWords, you know, cost money, those are expensive AdWords keywords. And a patient comes in and has a fantastic treatment with you and then says to their friend, Oh, wonderful treatment, what did you have? Oh, I had this system, this brand. Where is the patient going to go? Are they going to come back to you, the dentist who provided the treatment, or are they going to go and Google it on the Internet and find any local provider we’re trying to do is make sure that patients come back to you. So if you can have your own branded aligner now suddenly we’re talking about Payman Airlines. I had a wonderful experience with with, you know, Dr. Langroudi, who was fantastic. You know, you should go and see him rather than go on to the website of of a system and find any old provider, any old, you know, not you. So that’s another thing that we’re trying to do is promote the dentist over and above ourselves.

Yeah, I think the stronger the brand is, the more likely that problem is that people will go shopping around. Yeah, exactly. The brand. Exactly. That is a problem. Yeah. Yeah. Even we see it in bleaching. It does happen. Yeah. So. All right. The. Patient comes comes to that same dentist says Invisalign. Dentist talks to them, says this is a better way of doing it. The product comes if he wants with his brand on it. The difference when you’re when you’re tendering out to the different labs, how do you explain to the dentist which lab is better or worse or quicker or cheaper, or does it get a choice? Yeah, they get a choice. Here’s a lab in China that’s a bit cheaper and slower. Yeah. Here’s a lab in Germany that’s quicker and more expensive.

Yeah, there’s all sorts of things.

Those are the only two moving parts. The cost and the time. Or is it.

Materials, Plastics. Plastics as well. So the way that we’ve we’ve done so we’ve worked with probably, you know, 30 of the biggest global manufacturers and I say use that word quite deliberately. It’s the manufacturer, not the brand, because one manufacturer can carry hundreds of brands and they do. And what we have done is basically created them in terms of level of service and the quality of their product. So anyone who’s on the platform has been vetted to be of a high standard in terms of those two factors. That means that we give dentists essentially the freedom to confidently pick any one of these because all of them are going to do a great job. But I might have a preference, for example, in terms of material, we list the material and other brands that use that material. If that’s if you have a preference, if you think I really like the way that that plastic feels my patients do, then I’m going to go for that one. But what we tend to see happening is that manufacturers will run deals. Obviously they want to get the attention of these dentists. So, you know, you might get a deal on for two weeks on a specific plastic from a specific manufacturer. And that’s what we want. You know, we want dentists to be getting better and better deals on their on their materials.

The other thing that we give them choice on is the finish. So we have people who say really like the sort of wavy scalloped edge. I think it looks nice, but the evidence suggests that perhaps a straight edge gives you slightly higher retentive forces. So every patient you should be able to customise your treatment depending on what the patient wants. If the patient wants a nice maybe they’ve got sort of bulbous gums and you know, it might chafe a bit. You go for a scalloped edge, whereas if you’ve got a more complex case where maybe you’re using elastics, maybe you want to use a straight edge. So all of these factors are there things that dentists don’t get taught about. So part of our training and what we do in product as well is to sort of explain, you know, here are the differences based on this case what you’re treating. We do recommend, you know, different packages and we will say, okay, for this patient, think about including an extra refinement because this is a more complex case. So it’s totally, totally customised. And the idea is that you’re not overpaying ever for something that you don’t need or something that you don’t want. And also so that people who come in with different preferences have those needs met.

And the orthodontists. I mean, I think some people would dispute whether just being an orthodontist is enough. Yeah, they need to be orthodontists who have got a special interest in the line. Yes. Yes. How are you picking them? Have you got, like one chief? One who tells you about.

Yeah. So our clinical lead is is Professor AMA Joel, who many, many of your listeners will know. And yeah, you’re right. Having just being a specialist orthodontist isn’t necessarily sufficient to be to be both clear aligner experience and also a good teacher. Those are the two things that we screen for. So when new orthodontists apply to work with us, we, we schedule interviews. We we look at their their interests and the cases that they’ve done. We have a community of orthodontists, so they meet each other and basically we’re we’re making sure that that they’re meeting. I suppose the the minimum standard in terms of service that they can provide because it is a service at the end of the day. I mean, they’re helping and they’re mentoring, but the dentist needs to be needs to feel reassured by the advice and the mentorship that they’re being given. So there is a lot of training, there’s a lot of support as well between specialists. So if a really tricky case comes in, it’s not uncommon at all for us to talk about it, you know, with multiple authors and say, how would you how would you do this if you’ve ever seen this before? And they obviously really enjoy that as well because they haven’t seen everything either. And sometimes getting it through the lens of a of a dentist actually really makes people think about, well, how do I how do I explain this? Because an author might see the nuances of this case and understand why this is complex. But if if you’re a dentist and you haven’t had orthodontic training, you might miss certain parts of the occlusion that might make it a more tricky, a tricky case. So actually coming taking a step back and saying, well, how would I explain this? What actually is going on here is a good learning experience for the specialist as well.

What do you say to someone who might say to you, look, a company like align. Has got more expertise than any other supplier. Yeah. And are you saying it is. It’s purely a commodity? There’s no there’s nothing about an Invisalign experience that’s better. Or maybe this is a bit unfair. Make the case for Invisalign.

No, I think it’s a fair point. So I think what they’ve done really well, as I said, is really simplify the process. So I think now it’s clear that when your plan is submitted, it’s it’s, you know, sort of an automated simulation comes back. A technician based somewhere who’s not a dentist, not clinically trained, is interpreting your instructions and is designing the tooth movement. That makes it very easy. And it means that you’re very quickly getting something that you can put in front of your patient and you can sell. And ultimately dentists want to sell. So that’s what they’ve been very good at, stripping back any of the technical complexity and almost saying, Look, don’t worry too much about it. I think there is some. There is some. I suppose there’s a misconception that there’s lots of AI in the background that’s doing this. When you look at the regulations and the software that’s being used to plan treatments, the the license, because the FDA, you know, is the the American body that approves these sorts of softwares because these softwares are medical devices. It’s on condition that it’s operated by a licensed dental professional who understands orthodontics. So, you know, the idea that this is all done by AI, I mean, the the regulation is predicated on the fact that it has to be done by a dentist, which suggests that the AI itself can’t do the treatment planning. It’s not allowed to do that because it’s not it’s not in a position. To plan treatment yet? Not by itself.

Yeah, it needs. It needs human input. So. So that’s, I think what they’ve what they’ve done. Well, I think what we’re saying is let’s amplify the clinicians input. Let’s, let’s recognise how important it is and let’s make sure that people are trained to do it well and let’s try and do that in a way that makes it as easy as you would get with Invisalign. But with that added expertise being thrown in, thrown on top, so you still get a plan back. It’s still a you know, you still get a lovely simulation, but on top of that, you get the advice of an expert who’s done many, many cases before, explaining to you not just what they’ve done, more importantly, what they haven’t done. So when you think about when you’re consenting a patient, what do you have to do? You have to tell them what are the risks and also what are we not going to address. And Invisalign can’t do that for you, right? It can’t help you understand what’s going on. All it can do is give you a simulation on that moves the teeth into alignment. And if that’s what you want, because it’s a simple patient, you want to think about it too much, then that’s great. Genuinely, I think that’s great. But if you’re trying to understand what’s going on, that’s not enough. And I think that’s where that’s where we’re enabling a far greater population of dentists to take this on.

Then you can always get an orthodontist to plan your Invisalign Spark whatever case. And that exists, right? I mean, there’s lots of dentists do that. Yeah. They get a really super, super experienced, you know, specialist to look at any of their cases that they’re worried, worried about and to make the treatment plan. Yeah. So does that is that competition to you then is it must be right?

I don’t think so. Not in the same way because the the challenge with that is, is workflow. How do you get it to that specialist? You know, you have to give them a login to your this is what we hear from dentists and specialists who do this. It’s a pain. So I have to remember the login for this person, do it for them. How am I communicating with them? By phoning them, you know, how am I giving them feedback on this? If they’re paying me, how are they paying me? It’s a really clunky process. And I mean, the big thing is that you’re paying in addition to your lab bill, whereas with us it’s baked in, so it’s not an extra service. It’s part of the workflow, it’s part of the experience, it’s seamless. So I think what we’ve done is, is go one better and just make it all easier. Actually, interestingly, the the specialists that we speak to who try and go down that route, they find it most annoying because they’re busy people. Right? If you’re not going to make it really, really, really easy for them to do this, which is what we do, then it’s just a headache for them. And they’ll do they’ll do a couple here and there for friends, people who they feel that they really want to help. But everybody else, you know, if you don’t know and also you’re you’re a bit unlucky.

So as most of your time spent not your the company’s time spent making the platform frictionless. And I don’t know it’s probably a stupid example, but my my parents live in Spain. I tend to just go to Easyjet. Yeah, I’m sure there’s cheaper or whatever. Better. Yeah. But like, I just like the website. It’s just I just feel like I can get my ticket quicker. Is that, is that front and centre in your mind that you want the experience for the, for both sides, I guess both the dentists and the specialists to be pleasant and frictionless. Yeah. And so in, in many ways you’re definitely not a device company are you. You’re not making any devices. You’re, you’re an education company. Yeah. And I guess a tech company is a tech company.

Yeah. Yeah. So most so, you know, we’re a team of over 40 people now and half of that is tech and product. So it takes a lot to build this sort of infrastructure and it takes a long time and it takes a real knowledge and understanding of building products. So our our product lead, Dan, has got a lot of experience building digital platforms in healthcare. And his his role really is to scrutinise to the nth degree every user’s experience and to try and optimise it. And that’s a real art and a science at the same time. Some, some some listeners may have been in contact with Dan because he does a lot of user research to really understand, Well, what do you want to happen right now? What would be the ideal flow for you? And the nice thing about being a Start-Up is that our earlier users will see all of their feedback being built in continuously. And again, because we can move fast, it happens really, really quickly. So we’re about to release some new features that are that are based directly on feedback that we’ve had over the last two months about things that that people thought were a bit bit clunky. You know, they wanted it to be slicker there or. More information here or this easier to find. And we’ve built all of that in two months. So it is it takes a long time to get this right. And I think the most important thing is that you never rest on your laurels. You’ve never got it right. You’ve never built the perfect product. You have to keep going, keep going until every single customer is delighted with what you’ve built.

Well, you’re never going to delight all customers. My my experience has been a lot of times you delight one customer and annoy another one. And at the same time, yeah. So and it’s really difficult. You look you’ve chosen to go in health care software, I guess, right? That’s where you’re at. Yeah. You could have you could have gone into software as a service, something else. Like why did you come back to health care after after shunning it at the beginning? Did you did you not think you were just going to do like a Silicon Valley type? Start-up In some sort of enterprise software.

Yeah, that’s a good question.

Because it is slightly complicated what you’ve chosen to do. Yeah. Firstly, we’ve got the, the biggest company in dentistry. Yeah. And I guess that’s why you’re going after them, right? And all the other competitors are too. Yeah. But you’ve got the dentists quite slow to change. Yeah. You know, we were having this chat before, um, and you know, if they’re making it work for themselves, it’s quite a difficult to get someone to change something they’re doing happily. It’s quite hard. Yeah. So did you did you not think of doing something more traditionally, You know, tech.

Tech? Yeah. So I think a couple of things. Firstly. You can’t build something that you don’t care about. I think genuinely and I you know, when when I came into this problem, it was never so much about dentists or clear aligners and it still really isn’t. We are a tech company that’s helping clinicians. That was that’s always been the core. And how do you help clinicians? You give clinicians access to expertise, you know, expertise that they can’t get anywhere else. When I was in working in in A&E, in in one of the biggest trauma centres in Europe, you know, it wasn’t until I left that I really understood that when I was walking around that A&E on a shift, I could just turn round and tap on the shoulder of any of the consultants, you know, leading, leading pre-hospital doctors and, you know, neurosurgeons and vascular surgeons and just ask them something. When when I then sort of took a step back and looked at primary care GP land and and dentists, it was very clear that none of that existed. No access to help. It’s very siloed. It can be very lonely and it can be and that can that can be very scary for people. So the vision for me was always, how do you empower clinicians? How do you connect them? How do you make information from experts flow to people on the front line who have patients who want treatment, and especially more specialised treatment, more innovative treatment, newer treatment that they didn’t have a chance to learn at school because innovation is happening at such a rate in healthcare.

So to come back to your question, why this? I saw both innovation in healthcare happening at breakneck speed, and then I also saw or realised that had I been still been a doctor, I would never have been able to get my hands on any of these new devices or these new tools or these new drugs or these new protocols, because how would I have known what to do? I would have been a GP. I would have never had access to that. So it would have taken another generation to get this into the hands of clinicians. So that was always the vision of the company is accelerating that process to get general clinicians up the curve more quickly by giving them access to expertise. And what better way than having a world expert in whatever you’re working on literally at the other end of a platform in a way that’s convenient for you and easy. So yes, we’re in the clear aligner space, but we don’t really see ourselves as just a clear aligner company. We think of ourselves as a as a technology company that’s helping clinicians. And it just so happens that we’re looking at clear aligners because there is a big gap between just the sheer volume of patients that want this treatment and the number of clinicians that are that are currently providing it.

And if patients are resorting to kind of at home treatments that are delivered online with an impression kit, we’ve got a problem, right? Because they should be able to go to their local dentist no matter how complex, and find an answer, even if it’s look, you’re way too complex for for a dentist to treat. With aligners, we’re going to refer you to a specialist. The vast majority of patients don’t fall into that category. And if enough dentists are saying, look, I don’t do this, where are these patients going to go? You know, everyone has a specialist orthodontist that they can just, you know, go and visit in a heartbeat. And everyone lives in central London, you know, the rest of it. So now to your other point, why not build a SaaS company? You know, I have a lot of, you know, friends and other founders and CEOs doing really interesting, different things. And I think the the the learning, I think, for me is that it’s never easy. No industry is easy if you’re trying to sell productivity tools. Into companies. I mean, good luck with that at the moment. If you’re trying to sell fintech tools or accounting tools into accountants, just too slow moving as dentists or lawyers, so it is never easy. The point of building a Start-Up is to really break things, shake things up, find holes, find problems, which is never plain, is never plain sailing.

And look, I’m interested. I’ve been in this market for 22 years and you came and asked me some questions, but I’m quite interested in fresh eyes on on this market. What’s your sense of dentistry as a market? And the difference between that and medicine and GPS.

And yeah, I think dentists are much more commercial. Also, part of the reason why we started in clear aligners, so that gives them a lot more freedom to manoeuvre and ability to make purchasing decisions which as a supplier helps. I think. It, it feels like. It is driven by. To some extent, themes and tropes that are prevalent on social media. Because that’s what people see. I think it’s a it’s a community of people that really want to be connected and go to a few different sources to find that connection. And, you know, I think there’s a there’s a desire to to be around other people a lot more. I don’t see, for example, in medicine anywhere near the kind of meetups and dinners and parties that you that you see in dentistry courses that people it just doesn’t really happen. It’s, you know, medicine is a lot more fragmented than than dentistry. So I think it’s a great place to be if you’re a young dentist and you’re willing to participate in the community and learn from others and, you know, go on courses and days out and things like that. And yeah, for anyone setting up a company, I think because of that, it’s tight knit and you need to earn the trust of, of dentists. They’re going to be looking around at other people and asking the question, Does anybody else use this? Has anyone else got good things to say about this? And but once you’ve established that core of trust, then it’s, you know, then suddenly everything is much easier. But yeah, it’s you have to be humble coming into this and introduce yourself politely to the market and say, Look, this is what we’ve got to offer. We think there’s a problem. Um, and then hope that you’ve, you know, hope that you’ve got it right, hope that you’ve actually listened and built something that really solves their problem rather than something which you thought was nice to build but no one actually cares about.

And what about as a founder now that I mean, you said it at Boston Consulting, you know, you were in that area where it was start-ups, but you didn’t have to worry about raising cash. Yeah. Now, what’s the most stressful part of your job? Is it going into profitability, raising cash, your burn rate? Yeah. What what keeps you up at night? Right now?

Uh, all of the above, I would say so. Raising money comes in waves. So when you’re doing when you’re out, you’re very. You’re far away from. You’re taken away from the business. So you have to really trust that the people that are in the team are, you know, capable of of manning the ship, which in our case they very much are. And so those periods are.

Take me through the process. I mean, it has to be you and your CFO, I guess.

Yeah. So all just me or just you?

Yeah. And so what does it take to raise raise cash for a Start-Up?

So, yeah, the process is I mean, it’s a dark art in many ways. I think, again, have had the benefit of many, many founders before me sitting down and there’s a very strong founder community basically that helped each other. So it’s firstly go and talk to them and figure out, right, who am I supposed to be talking to? Who’s who’s, who’s investing in this kind of business? Who who are investors that are well known, who, you know, reputation is important, who is interested in this industry? Have they got any similar investments that would suggest that they’d be interested? And then it’s just a lot of meetings, a lot of meetings.

So when you say strong founder community, were you in some sort of incubator or something where you were?

No, no, just just, you know, a lot of just through the years have met and know and spend time with a lot of founders who who help each other a lot with this kind of stuff.

And so you so you’re gone. Just step by step. Take me through the process. What do you do? Send an email, knock on a door.

So normally, no, normally normally you’re introduced by somebody else to the investor, whether it’s a.

One of your other investors, maybe.

An angel investor. Yeah. Or a a VC firm or a family office. You know, there’s different flavours of investors. You’re normally introduced by somebody else or they find find out about your business and contact you usually by email or on LinkedIn, and then you go and meet them and you go and talk about your business and you have to make it. You have to really. Bring it back to real basics because none of the people that you’ll be speaking to will know anything about Clear Linus or probably won’t know much about Claire. Linus Yeah, certainly not the industry. They certainly won’t have researched it because most of these investors are invest in lots of different things. So, you know, one minute they’re looking at a fintech product and then the next minute it’s something really specific in dentistry. So you talk to them about your business and if you’re successful in kind of convincing that this is interesting and things that are interesting are companies that have a, you know, a big vision. You know, it’s not just about what we’re doing now. You know, where can this go? People will probably have heard of the terms, Tam, you know, how big is this market really, and how big?

Total addressable. So, so, so is that do you end up having to oversell and say, you know, say stuff that you really have no idea about in the future? Do you know, what do you do? You say we’re going to be global doing this.

I think experienced investors, especially VC investors, understand that it’s a vision. I mean, obviously, you don’t know and they’ve been in this game for long enough to know that if you pick a winner, which is obviously what they’re all trying to do.

The right resources will come to that winner.

Exactly. Yeah. So so they’re taking a chance every time they invest in a company and they’re sort of projecting into the future, you know, where if this is actually going to happen, this is the opportunity. And if we’ve got a portfolio of 50 of these or 100 of these and one of these goes to the moon, you know, we’ve made our money. That’s how they think about this. So you’ve got to convince them that you’re going to build a billion plus dollar business. Otherwise, why would they invest if it’s a VC fund? I mean, other you know.

Your venture backed. Your VC backed. Yeah. So then does that not weigh on you that that the majority of of their investments of which you could be one isn’t going to get anywhere. I think.

It’s I think it’s really motivating.

Actually it’s motivating to become the.

One so we raise money from one of the most well known tech funds and one of the most established tech funds in in Europe and the UK. And you know, there are other investments. So the investors are very early in us. They wouldn’t normally invest this early in a business.

In 32.

Stories in 32. Co 3232 stories is a it was a pre-COVID incarnation that we. That for Covid reasons, we basically started from scratch with 32. Okay.

Sorry I interrupted you. There were early investors in 32.

Sorry. Yes, there were very early investors. As in early from their point of view. So at at seed stage, you know, the other investments that they’ve made at this stage with things like Revolute. Right. So that’s your example. I mean, that’s a 50 billion plus dollar company. So that’s really motivating because these guys are experienced, they know how to pick winners and they picked this company with this vision. So it’s now up to you to go and prove it. I think there’s no point in having fear or reservations about this, you know, And and if that’s I think if that’s the mindset, then I think one would find this life very, very tough.

And what’s what’s the level of support, stroke interference with your tactics, your vision, your you know, how often, how often do you meet the investor and how often do they give you a suggestion of what you should be doing that you don’t agree with? And in sort of thing.

So so balderton have been fantastic. They are a they’re a great fund. We we get a lot of support from them. So as an example, you know, they’ll have a senior senior executives in residence they call it. So those are people who have come from, you know, top, top companies who have really specific expertise in a certain area, for example, product or tech or HR or legal. And we just have access to those people. So that’s been hugely helpful for us because if you if you can hear from people who’ve made all the mistakes in the past, you know, you can learn a lot and you can you can go faster. So meet them regularly in regular communication. They’re they want you to succeed. They’re trying to help. And so far, you know, it’s been a very positive, very positive experience for us.

And you’re not you’re not a techie yourself. Right. So what’s it like? What’s it like having a tech company when you’re not a techie?

I have to learn it, basically. You have to learn the language. I think I’m proficient enough in terms of understanding product that the tech bit, you know, we have a fantastic tech lead. So you hire the right people, basically. And. And make sure that you know what you’re talking about. I think I kind of internally have a bit of a rule that you you have to figure out how we’re going to do this ourselves before you hire in someone else to go and do it for you. I think it’s always it’s a very natural reaction to say, well, we don’t know how to do this. Let’s hire in an expert. And I think that invariably that leads that leads to.

You don’t even understand the vocabulary, understand the problem.

You can’t measure it. You can’t track it. So although so we invest a lot of time in in in forcing ourselves to figure it out, understanding what that expert is going to come in and do, and then they can go and do it. So to to enable that you need some pretty smart people on the team, some some generalists who really know how to solve problems and are unafraid and are really hungry to go and figure the next thing out. So that can sometimes feel quite chaotic, I think. But it’s very, very motivating.

And what percentage of your team are. Working in the office and what percentage you know.

About about third in the office.

And the others are all over the world. All over the world. Yeah. Oh, how interesting. Yeah.

Different different skills in different countries. You know, Covid did did us some real did a real favour. It just expanded the the the talent pool internationally and it becomes very just very normal now to have talent from all over the world working with you.

And so we were talking about AI before and it’s kind of it’s very early, isn’t it, to understand how that’s going to affect everything. But surely you must be thinking now. Yeah, very much so. Either you’re going to what, stop hiring any more people or even shrink the team a little bit because each one of these guys is now going to be empowered to do so much more. Yeah, that’s certainly. Are you thinking about that?

Certainly. Certainly looking at that. It’s it’s something that’s that we’re actually running some special projects on to try and figure out what the impact is on on a business like ours. And again, being where we are in terms of the agility that we have versus a big, slow moving corporate, we can actually do all this stuff and do it very quickly. So we had a speaker in yesterday. We bring speakers in to come and talk to the team yesterday who sold so built and sold a an AI legal company. So what they were doing is using AI to automate discovery in legal processes. And he came in basically to talk to us about how did I impact his business, to see how we could we as a team could learn. So do that quite a lot. Bring in bring in external speakers just to spark creativity and interest in other sectors and see what we can learn.

So this would be through that, through the founder community that Yeah.

Yeah. And just to be honest as well, just from Oxford, just very, very big groups of people doing lots of interesting things and spread all over the world and building cool companies and yeah.

So on. Dental Leaders we have a thing where we talk about errors, okay? You know, from that sort of black box thinking idea where you know, when a plane crashes, they, they, they figure out what went wrong and then they share the knowledge with the whole community. So. So that it never happens again. Yeah. But in medical, we tend to hide our mistakes because the system’s never blamed. It’s always the individual that gets blamed. And so that book was about, you know, if we did discuss mistakes in medicine more, then we could learn from each other’s mistakes. Yeah. I’m not going to. I’m not going to I’m not going to get you to tell me your biggest mistake as a doctor. But what would you say is your biggest mistake as a businessperson?

Hm That’s a good question. Um, I’d say the first I’d say in the early days, because when you’re starting to work on businesses, you are it’s never the first idea that you have. That’s actually the thing that goes on either. It’s, you know, you’ve been a couple of ideas and then the next idea, you end up pivoting to something else. In my experience anyway, so in the early days of trying to figure out what I was going to build made a lot of mistakes and I think all of them were related to not listening to customers. So not obsessing about what the customer wants or needs and even going a level deeper into what are they not even know that they need? What is the implication of what they’re saying and. If you’re if you’re not obsessed with customers and trying to solve their problems, you’re never you’re never going to build something that they fall in love with. And in this competitive environment, in terms of building tech companies, you’re never going to you’re never going to succeed. Eventually, eventually, you will be caught out, no matter how much marketing spend you put behind it.

Well, what about that Henry Ford thing about, you know, the the horse?

I love that. I think it’s one of the guiding principles, I think, for us.

So but what about that thing that the customer has no idea what he needs?

Yeah, but that’s what really good discovery is about. So that’s what a good product lead does is right, They say, Right, tell me about your problems. And then they ask it a different way and then a different way and then say, Well, what if I told you this? How does that make you feel? So they almost try and trick you into really revealing.

It’s really figure.

It out, really figuring it out. And again, I don’t give away all of Dan’s secrets, but that’s what he’ll do when he speaks to our dentists is to try and get them to again. The biggest mistake that people make, I think, is in building products is I mean, there’s an ugly word for it. It’s called solution izing. It’s kind of coming at the problem, then immediately saying, here’s the solution. Because if you haven’t really understood, really thought about the problems, that there might be 50 other ways of doing it. But if you have this gut feel that it should be this. It takes real discipline to stand back and say maybe it’s hang on, maybe it’s not that. Let’s go back right back to basics. What is the problem? Let’s quantify let’s codify it and let’s think of all the different ways that you could solve it. And invariably, the thing that your gut told you was the right answer. It’s probably not the best answer.

So what was your mistake?

What was my mistake? So I I’m talking about lots of different companies where I went down the route of what was I tried to go down the route, for example, of I was really convinced that. There was a there was a there was a niche in the market for luxury towels. And the reason that I thought that was because I was going into people’s bathrooms and I was like, There’s your hand soap, which cost £40 and you’ve got your Jo Malone candle, which costs, I mean, I don’t know how much Jo Malone candles cost now, but it was expensive and yet you’ve got this crappy hand towel that doesn’t even, that doesn’t feel very nice. So I went round. Um, all around. I went literally everywhere. I went to Portugal to find out where these things were made to to to figure out if there was a better way of making a towel that wasn’t your normal stuff and whether we could premium ize it because towels are not very expensive. Even the really, really premium ones are quite cheap. So we went down this really long rabbit hole and talking to suppliers and designing what it could look like. And I hadn’t actually spoken to towel owners at all in that process. I actually hadn’t spoken to anyone and said, If I gave you a hand towel that costs £150 and was made of cashmere with gold laced through it, would you buy it? I didn’t do that. I didn’t do any user research. So. Um, and it turned out to just be a dumb idea. It was not a good idea. The financials didn’t make sense. No one really wanted it. People were quite happy with their fluffy marks and Spencer’s hand towel. So. So I would say I wasted a lot of time, but it wasn’t a waste of time. It was hugely, hugely valuable to learn that lesson.

So I don’t see that as a mistake then.

No, it’s not mistake.

No. No mistake.

A mistake. Did you.

Ever lose? Lose a key member of the team? And then later on reflect that maybe you could have done something differently to keep that person or blindsided. I don’t know the all the problems of running a 50 man team. Yeah, I’d expect some errors in that side.

Yeah, no, definitely some errors. I think the reason why I’m struggling is because, number one, errors happen all the time and you get and you you build a muscle to, to, to look at it as an opportunity to solve a problem as opposed to something that’s bad. And I really meant it when I said like, I don’t ever regret things. I think you have to prepare and you have to make sure that you minimise the rate of errors. But every time something goes wrong here, it’s like, Oh, I can see why that happened.

Look, I mean, you wouldn’t, you wouldn’t have been, you wouldn’t be who you are if you weren’t optimistic. Yeah. You know, it takes an optimistic person to start a company and raise money and all that at the same time. You. You seem to be a bit of a glutton for punishment. Yeah, because, you know, medicine. Oxford. Yeah. Bcg. And now this. I mean, you can’t have much time on your hands. I mean, you must be working seven days a week.

Yeah, I guess. I guess again, I think I do believe it’s a muscle. I think that you learn how to work hard and you learn how to work efficiently and then you learn how to carve out time for the things that are important. So I genuinely love working. I love what we’re doing here, so it doesn’t really feel like work. And even when it does, even when it’s bad and, you know, a big mistake happens, uh, the next in the next five minutes, something amazing will happen. So it’s really, really up and down. And I think that think about the dopamine hits that you’re getting every time there. So it’s probably a bit of a bit of that. Uh, but I do think that I do think it’s something that you have to practice and working hard and being okay with that and building structures around to make sure that it is sustainable and that you are enjoying it. Um, but yeah, I’ve, I’ve, you know, I’m not, I’ve not forgotten your question about mistakes. I think it’s, I think it sounds like I’m being evasive. I think I genuinely mistakes happen all the time and I make mistakes. And the example that you just cited, which is, you know people leaving the team and that, you know, where you didn’t want them to leave, that has happened. But we managed to get them back, you know, So so I again, it is a mistake. But, you know, manage to find find a resolution. I’d say we’re fortunate that, you know, with a lot of companies, if they’ve been around for a long time, they can point to one big marketing or launch error. Yeah, I don’t think we’ve had that.

I’ve had long enough to make.

I am sure it will happen. I am sure it will happen. But not not of that, not of that kind of magnitude I think.

Yet what’s, what’s been your worst day?

Um, when I thought. So fundraising. The first time when I thought that we weren’t going to raise because the I made a big mistake. I went raising over in December, which is it.

Was winding down.

Unbeknown to me. If you start raising after Thanksgiving, nobody’s got any time. So I spent a lot of time talking to sort of exhausted investors who just wanted to go away for Christmas. No one was giving out term sheets, and then I had to start from scratch again and lost a lot of time, lost a lot of energy. So that was a mistake, which I won’t make again. Um, but, but thinking, you know, it’s relentless, right? You’re talking to investor after investor and half of them hate it because they hate dentists or something and then the other half don’t understand it. And then how.

Many do you have to talk to before one bites?

Um, I think you’re talking 50 plus.

So 49 people say no and they.

Don’t say no.

Or they sort of say, well.

People people are investors are looking for consensus. So as soon as a big VC comes aboard, suddenly everyone piles in. And we were way oversubscribed. You know, there’s a there’s a catalyst, you know.

Sheep like herd mentality. Yeah.

And you can understand, right? I mean, it’s the same with investing in anything. If you suddenly feel like, Oh, people are really interested in this and they’re interested, I’m going to be interested. So it’s before you’ve got to that point, when is it going to come? And again, I’ve spoken to lots of people who had been through this and said, When does it I’m exhausted. I’m sick of the sound of my invoice. I’m sick of my the story that we’re telling. Um, lots of blank stares and yeah, literally people being like. I don’t know much about dentistry, so I’m I’m out. Like, you sort of knew that when we were coming into this conversation. So then and then the sort of the best day then comes literally the day after where it’s, oh, it’s all fine. And you know, we’ve got one of the top VCs backing us now, so everything’s going to be plain sailing from here.

And so you said they invested in the seed round. Was was that the only round you had or have you.

Yeah, we’ve owned on seed. Yeah.

So. So then there was a valuation. Yeah. Now right now, the macro climate for for all of finance but for start-ups seems seems much more difficult. Yeah. And you must feel, you must feel sad about that because all the years that you didn’t have a Start-Up was the golden years of. Yeah, of Start-Up. Certainly it affected you now.

Certainly 20, 22, 2022 would just bonkers years in terms of valuations. I mean, money was free. So. So then you’re going to invest in riskier assets, right?

So, so you’ve been valued at that time at quite a high valuation because of the time?

Yeah, I think we’re okay. Actually. I think it was I think we’re okay because certainly early, early stage, you know, things weren’t going so bonkers. I mean, there were companies that were raising, you know, $1 billion valuation with just a deck and no customers and no product. You know, they’re a bit screwed. You’re never going to go into that valuation. So I think it’s harder for them. I think we were, you know, we’d already built the product to a great we already had customers. You know, we had a really, really good story and it’s only grown from there. So so the market is in the market is so volatile. I think for early stage companies, there is still plenty of what they would call dry powder. If you’re a growth stage company, you are struggling. You are struggling because you know you’ve raised 500 million valuation. Okay, Well, now you’ve really got to grow into that because multiples on revenue have, you know, halved or it’s a third suddenly. And now no one wants to do a down round. So everyone’s doing convertibles and it’s kind of postponing the pain. And everyone hopes that in 2024, suddenly, you know, interest rates will drop and it’ll all be back to normal. And it might be, you know, it really might be. You don’t.

Where were you in 2008? University Oh, yeah. So I don’t know what it was like in the sort of Start-Up World back then, but I don’t think it recovered until sentiment didn’t recover until 2016. Probably.

Yeah, maybe more.

2018 or it wasn’t the kind of thing we haven’t had a 2008 event quite yet. Yeah, but it wasn’t a 1 or 2 year recovery at all. Yeah. If anything, things were worse and I felt like things were worse than 2010 than they were in 2008 because, you know, you felt like you were never going to get out of it. Yeah. So, look, I don’t think there’s ever a good time to do anything. It’s one of those things that there’s never a good time to have a kid or start a company or you just do it. I understand that. But with your experience, it must you must laugh a little bit at your sort of the luck of the draw to now when it’s your thing to be to have these challenges. Yeah, yeah. And so the Silicon Valley Silicon Valley Bank was the first and there was a lot of start ups that, that were exposed. Start-ups Yeah, it was a bit crazy really, that there was so much exposure, I suppose to one bank. Yeah. And you know.

I knew a lot of founders that had tens of millions.

Well, you.

Know, over the weekend, just like panicked whatsapps being like, we’ve got 25 million stuck in SVB. We don’t know whether we can get it out. Luckily, it resolved really quickly. Banks get bailed out. That’s the rules. That’s how it seems to happen. So luckily, luckily it was okay. I think it was really scary for people for for a while.

Although this might not be the case, you know. So know. Have you heard of the notion of bail in? No bail out. So they did it in Cyprus. When the bank went down, they took the money from all the savers.

Right.

Rather than bailing it out. Yeah. And it depends. I mean, I know. Credit Suisse. Big, big name to be in trouble. Big, big name. Yeah. Um, who knows where it’s going? Let’s let’s hope it’s not awful. But then that said, it’s been too good for too long. That’s. That’s it really, really hurts.

Yeah, it’s certainly true.

From, from the finance side. Yeah.

And it’s the same in dentistry, right. I mean multiples on practices were. Yeah. Very, very, you know, favourable for a long time. The interesting thing is that when you look at recessions, I mean, health care is always very resilient. Yeah. Weird. You know, during I mean, obviously during Covid people had lots of disposable income, but, you know, a liners through the roof. Yeah. You know, when when when the chips are down. Okay. People aren’t buying. People maybe not going on holidays. They’re not buying kitchen extensions, but their health, what have they deemed to be their health? It’s always pretty safe.

Yeah, I feel like dentistry has been quite, quite resilient. Quite resilient. A lot of times dentists can switch into needs. Doesn’t help me in you. Yeah, with our wants. But. But then. But then that keeps that keeps the boat afloat. And then. And then they go back to. Yeah. To want. It’s actually quite a nice time because when I qualified back in 96, I wanted to be a cosmetic dentist. There wasn’t, you know, there wasn’t any education on it. There wasn’t. There wasn’t there wasn’t the the conversation there where a patient would come into you come in for a check-up. The conversation of would you like wasn’t even a thing. It was always you need, you need, you need. Yeah. Whereas now if if a dentist can say I want to just do a liners. Yeah. And they can say that pretty early on. Yeah. And it’s interesting work, right? It’s nice work. It’s consensual kind of work because it’s like. Yeah, there’s no blood. Exactly. Yeah.

It makes people happy as well. Ultimately, you go into healthcare because you want to make people’s lives better. I think that’s what most it’s five year degree. It’s a long time to be slaving away. If you don’t feel there’s some existential need to to to bring joy to people. And I think that point around disease treatment is and feeling a bit dirty about money and commercials I think is kind of UK based teaching, I think, and perhaps rightly so. You know, I always talk about medics being totally financially illiterate when it comes to the things that they prescribe and do and how much they cost. So you’re walking around a hospital and you’re like MRI here and these 17 blood tests here and no idea what it costs. Yeah, because the bill doesn’t go anywhere, so people don’t value it. Patients don’t necessarily value it because it’s all sort of free. I mean, growing up in the Netherlands. Where we have had you know, it’s a sort of private mandatory insurance kind of process where and because it’s a small country and everything works fantastically well there, you know, you get great health care, but you get a bill, you don’t pay it, but you see it often. So, you know, that’s interesting. What what went into that and you and you appreciate it a bit more whereas yeah here you walk in you know have a extensive. Bowel surgery, whatever it is. And obviously a very, very grateful, but no idea what it took to make that happen.

What other what other differences do you see between the UK and the Netherlands?

I think so. When I came to the UK, I mean, I know that I speak like this, but I was very culturally Dutch, I think. Why did you.

Come to the UK? Because of Oxford?

Yeah, I just really wanted to go to. I also went to a link. No, I went to the I went to a British school in my secondary in Holland, in my secondary school. So my parents sort of worked as sort of diplomatic in diplomatic type roles in in The Hague. And so we so I went to Dutch schools and Dutch friends and, and then they decided that to give me the chance of going anywhere in the world for university, that we should go to a British school. And I found that really tough. Initially, I had to wear a uniform. Only school in Holland, had to wear a stupid uniform. And I found I found the kids quite soft. You know, I you know, the Dutch are the direct and and, you know, they’re not known for their sort of polite, you know, niceties. But I also got to appreciate the great sides of British culture, which is humour and sarcasm and all of those things. So yeah.

The Dutch have that too. I mean, I really enjoy working with the Dutch because you want to work with direct people. Yeah. You know, if you, if you ask for something, you want to know the direct answer to that. Yeah I agree. You know I’ve got suppliers in the US. Some are very good, but some whatever the question is, the answer is yes. Whether they can do it or not.

It’s unhelpful in business, for sure.

Yeah, for sure. It’s kind of the American way of sort of everything’s happy. And so whereas with my Dutch, I had customers in Holland a lot. They were 100% direct and honest. In business you need that, you know, you need to know even in the UK, I wouldn’t say we’re direct enough. Yeah. When it comes to work, I agree. I feel like we give messages, but not. Not. Not directly. Yeah, it’s all around the houses. Yeah.

Yeah. Platitudes. And then finally, we might say.

And then I work with the Germans a lot. A lot of. Most of our suppliers are in Germany. Yeah. Again, very direct and excellent for work. No. Interestingly, with the Germans, you can’t discuss price at all.

Yeah. Interesting.

And both we’ve got customers in Germany and suppliers in Germany. Both of them. Price isn’t even on the table. Yeah, price is the price. Now we can talk about everything else, which is so delicious. Yeah. You know, with my part of the world, it’s the only thing you can’t discuss. Quality times, only prices.

Yeah, it’s interesting.

Although I find the Dutch just the perfect combination of. I know they don’t like being. You guys don’t like being being compared to the Germans because that’s the Germans. They get on very well. But I find them the perfect combination of the German efficiency and UK sense of humour and all of that, because you can have fun with the Dutch guy too. You can.

And they’re practical people. I mean, they’re well travelled and they don’t. They don’t see their dutchness as a sort of barrier to integrating with others, so they are open to new culture. Interestingly, everyone speaks fabulous English in Holland because they understand that in order to participate and punch above their weight, as they do in the global economy, you’ve got to be able to talk to people in their language. So a lot of the university courses are actually taught in English. And I remember debating we had this I don’t know if any of the any of the listeners did this, but the model United Nations debating tournaments, they were held in The Hague, the global one was held in The Hague. So we were the natural host school for it. So we hosted all these international kids and had this big debate. And these people are prepared for ages. And I remember debating against some Dutch kids and thinking, Oh, you know, your English is way better than anybody else’s here. But the English kids. Yeah.

The English, literally.

Yeah. Very. Yeah. Fantastic place to grow up. Very liberal and grow up fast.

I’ve had some wonderful King’s day, Queen’s Day celebrations there, too. Yeah. We’re coming to the end. I’m going to ask you to end it in the way that we always end it. So the same, same two questions. It’s actually very sad that Prav couldn’t make it today because he’s also an Oxford medic who stopped being a doctor. But I’m sure you two will meet. But my The final questions Fantasy dinner party. Three guests. Dead or alive? Who would you.

Have? Um. Dead or alive. And someone else is cooking, I hope. Sure. Yeah. Okay.

Delivery for that. Yeah.

So I think. I think I’d like to meet some people from ancient history. I think it must be fascinating. I think I love history because I think you can learn a lot from the cycles. You know, we think we’re going through whatever we’re going through and the first time it’s ever happened, it’s obviously nonsense. You know, history repeats itself. So and I’m fascinated by ancient civilisations and how far we got in terms of intelligence, um, and, and achievements and how that disappears in time. So I’d love to meet I’d love to meet an Aristotle, I’d love to figure out how much, how much smarter someone you know, who lived thousands of years, 2000 years ago is than I am today. I bet. I bet much more intelligent than I am today, which is amazing, I think. I don’t know if you have fun dinner party guests.

You know, there’s that aspect of humanity that never changes, right? If you read a if you read a Dostoyevsky book, there are characters in that book who you see in your street. Yeah. You know, whatever the rich guy, the jealous guy, the. The classic human traits. Yeah. That’s it. You talk to your parents about what it was. What was it like in the 60s? Or I don’t know if your parents are that old, but but you know, when you think 50, 60 70s, each of those decades has a particular flavour to it. And, you know, even though humanity has always been the same. We do, we do evolve as well. You know we do.

But but we don’t.

It’s interesting to.

We go backwards.

You’re right. It’s very interesting to see exactly how much or not. Yeah, it’s a very interesting choice.

Yeah, I think the loss of the loss of knowledge is quite scary. I mean, you burn down the Library of Alexandria. What did we really lose there? I mean, what would have been different? I find it I find the concept of the Dark Ages fascinating. How can you just suddenly make people forget everything? It’s so fragile.

The notion of like some sort of event that wiped out 99% of humanity and and all that information, you know? Yeah, sort of. Maybe, you know, the pyramids and all of that. Yeah, it’s very interesting. Very interesting. Okay, so, Aristotle.

So you made me think about. Yeah. People who. So what you made me think of there is. Okay. Would that be true if an asteroid hit now? I mean, we have we would be able to store things somewhere because we have the Internet now and we have even if all the servers were, it would be somewhere some of this information. So maybe another interesting person, people who are pioneers in technology. So someone like Tim Berners-Lee or someone like Ada Lovelace, you know, these people who are real pioneers in the way that technology has allowed us to do what we do today. Tim Berners-Lee obviously interesting because he never he gets credit, but he didn’t become a trillionaire. No, Yeah. For what he, for what he did. Like an academic. Just him. But he.

I think he’s still alive, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then someone like Ada Lovelace, who was never recognised for anything that she did.

But who is.

She? She. She’s considered to be the first programmer. And she was a woman and she was never recognised. British. British until she. Yeah, until after. Long after she died. So. So maybe we’ll have one of those to see if they’re available. And then maybe one more kind of contemporary person who’s, who’s a bit more fun. I’m actually really fascinated by Derren Brown. I think he’s a really interesting person. I think someone who has perfected his craft to the extent that he has. And and has scary powers as well. I mean, powers that some people would consider quite scary, the ability to manipulate and influence. I think it would be I think I’d be nervous having dinner. Having dinner with.

Interesting party with the Aristotle.

Yeah, it doesn’t sound like a whole barrel of laughs. Maybe quite serious.

But who’s who’s your favourite entrepreneur or. Technologist or.

Entrepreneur.

Or brand for that matter.

So. I really? I don’t know the entrepreneur, but the product that I think has been totally game changing for companies all over the world is a tool called Figma. Yeah, which is which is a maybe you’ve used it, but um, before Figma. I mean, what were people doing? I don’t really know. Yeah. So, Figma for those people who don’t know is a tool. It’s a design tool. It’s a design tool that any, any person trained or untrained in design can use to, to mock up pretty much anything. And we started using it pretty early. It’s now a million times better than it was even then. So I think I’m a big fan of that of that company. I also think notion is a is a is a tool that we use here. I’m looking at Josh, who’s listening, who is obsessed with notion. Josh is our chief of staff. Um, it’s just an organisation tool. It’s it’s if you look at it, it’s, it’s innocuous. But every Start-Up, everywhere that I know uses notion. It’s project management, a little bit of a project management tool, you know, um, record keeping, task setting, that kind of stuff. It does, it does a lot for, for, for us. So there’s another thing, so not really individual.

So are you guys organised in that same way as you go for sprints? Yep. Yep.

Yeah. The model, the model changes. I think as you grow you kind of you have to change the way that you know, the team is structured. But sprints, Agile, working works really well for certain types of projects. It just means you keep the pace up. You’re no one’s ever wondering what we’re doing and there’s so many of these models. To be honest.

I should have asked you your what’s your exit strategy? If you thought about that.

I think the minute you start thinking about exit strategy, you take your eye off the ball. I think it’s a really important you have to build the exits. Options will come when you build a fantastic company. Yeah, true. You obviously you have to think about it in your investors think about it and the sort of well, here are the seven options that might appear, but none of it happens until you’ve built a massive and fantastic company. So it’s almost not really worth your while thinking about it too hard.

It’s a very good point. Okay. So perhaps final question is it’s kind of a deathbed question. Okay. On your deathbed. Yeah. Surrounded by your friends and family or anyone who’s important to you, what are three pieces of advice you would give them?

Three pieces of advice. Um. Okay. So. I think my first one is. If they’re young people. I’m presuming that I’ve lived a long, long and healthy life. Yeah, because I don’t want to sound too, too preachy, but my it’s. It’s this concept that the world doesn’t owe you anything. Everything that you’re going to do is going to come from you and only you working hard and going and getting it. I think I’ve learned that from doing lots of different things and, you know, things not going very well, some things going very well, but always knowing that the only thing that was going to get me through was my own determination and hard work and discipline. I think that would be my first. I think there are lots of people who the reason I say that is because I think especially now, there are lots of people who feel like, well, because of this, I should get this and it’s unfair of this. And and I think that’s really unhelpful. I think if you if you can teach your kids that, I think it’s it’s a great way to be. The second is probably say yes to things. I don’t. I think you always regret the things that you don’t do and not the things you do do. Even if it doesn’t seem like an interesting place to go or an interesting webinar or, you know. Say yes to things that are different because you. You have no idea what you will learn. Don’t do the same things again and again. If you’re not enjoying watching webinars as an example, then don’t but try different things. You never know what will happen. And. I genuinely believe in the the goodness of people. I think even be patient with people, even if someone is being a rude, mean. Unpleasant, obnoxious, whatever it might be. There’s always a reason for that. And if you can be if you can force yourself to be a little bit more patient with people, you will understand a lot more. And and just have deeper, deeper connections with people.

I think one of my other guests said something like, be kind to people, especially when they don’t deserve it.

Yeah, that’s a nice way of saying it. It’s a more concise way of saying it.

But it’s a nice sentiment. A nice sentiment. Yeah.

I think, you know, working in an environment that can be quite stressful and quite chaotic, everybody feels at times overwhelmed, you know, snappy. And in that scenario, you know, we have we have a rule in the office, which is that nobody ever says anything negative about customer. It’s just a blanket rule. And why not? Because. Not because it’s sometimes not reasonable to be annoyed by something they’ve said or done, but build, build the resilience and the discipline to look at it from their perspective and say, Why are they saying that? Is it maybe because they’ve got a patient who’s giving them hell. They’re scared because something feels like it’s going wrong. They’ve not been given enough information. So if you can if you can force yourself to do that.

Yeah, it’s actually that’s one of my bugbears because people get frustrated, right? People in touch with customers every day. Yeah. Do you get frustrated? Yeah. Even if a customer is rude, it happens. Yeah. For me. You’re the only the only way to live is to blame yourself for for anything like that. Because the moment you start blaming the customer.

You really aren’t hiding to nothing.

Yeah. I mean, number one, you’re predicating your kind of happiness based on someone else’s actions. But number two, you shouldn’t be in business. You know, even even the error might have been a communication error. Right. Um, I sometimes I it’s so strange. Sometimes I do a webinar and directly after I’ve said something, someone will ask a question about the thing I just said. And it’s a little bit frustrating. Right. But then you’ve got to remind yourself that, you know, you’ve said that a thousand times. This person has just heard it for the first time, you know, Yeah, that’s still your fault. Yeah. It’s not even if the person’s not listening, that’s your fault because you’re not interesting enough. Yeah. You know, and making it your fault just makes it all easier to handle.

Yeah, it means you’re looking for the solution. Yeah. Yeah. And it not happening again. Yeah.

And, you know, it’s like you’re responsible for your own success. Yeah. Not not someone else. Yeah, but you’re right. That’s a bugbear of mine, too. In the office. That’s a good one. But I’ve really enjoyed it. I’ve really enjoyed it. I wish. I wish you the best.

Me, too.

Um, how’s it going? How are you? Are you on track?

More than on track. Really? Really. Excellent.

Yeah, Excellent. And I’m going to see you at the dentistry show.

Yes, Yes. Brilliant.

Brilliant. So I’ll see you there. See you then. Thank you so much for doing this. Thank you for doing.

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

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

Six star rating.

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

Thanks a lot, guys. Bye.

I think that’s it. I am still curious, you know, I mean, you carry on working and dentistry is that it is always evolving. And I think if you keep in mind every now and then you come across something that just makes you go, ooh, you know, and that that’s how it is with bonding. Bonding has really evolved over the years, you know, I mean, we must agree from bonding that look like chewing gum on teeth to that looks like ceramics now. I mean, you know, it’s it’s amazing. So and we have such resources now. There are so many people who are so good at it. I mean, it is amazing, you know, So to see what he can do and to, you know, just to get a little snippet is it’s incredible. It’s amazing.

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

It gives me great pleasure to welcome Dr. Shirin Ali onto the podcast. The reason I’m having shown on is because I met her at a training that we did in one of the enlightened practices, and I saw her bring out a patient from the room and just a consummate professional. You know, you could see a seasoned pro Shirin with with that patient. And then we did the training and I saw a brilliant team member. And then you came onto our composite course and I saw you do brilliant work there. And then we got talking and I kind of hit me that, you know, there are all these famous dentists and then there are thousands of brilliant dentists that people don’t know and people who choose not to be sort of out there. And I was looking looking for Shirin on on Instagram. Couldn’t find you. Are you on it? I am. I’m a massive pleasure to have you.

I’m just not Instagram generation. It’s never you know, I mean, I understand it. I do understand it, but it’s just not me sharing myself with people that I don’t know. It’s just not for me, you know? I get it. So.

Yeah, Yeah. Are you on Facebook?

I am. But again, I don’t post, you know, I keep in touch with people I know and that’s enough for me. I just I just think with these sort of platforms, you become someone that you’re not, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And sometimes sometimes you become a slave to it as well. I’m in that situation because I obviously have to use it for work. And, you know, we’re going to have a little snippet of this on, on, on whatever, on Instagram and TikTok and all of that. And you do become a slave to it. And I don’t really care at all about it, but I do become a slave to it. You know, sometimes, you know that thing where you’re on holiday and you’re thinking about the photo more than the situation.

Absolutely. And you actually miss being there. You actually miss the whole substance of it because you’re so busy trying to take a picture that you just don’t see what’s there.

Yeah, I remember. I remember, you know, with kids when when when you’ve got kids and they’re in in a little play or something, there’s always this massive pressure to record every second of it. And I remember thinking, I remember thinking, I’m missing this so that the kid can have it on video. And the kid the kid will, you know, still hasn’t seen it. He’s 16 now or whatever. But I get where you’re coming from.

Yeah. Yeah.

Tell. Tell me, Sharon, when was the first time you thought I want to be a dentist? How old were you? Do you remember?

Well, I’ve always sort of been in channel in this direction because, you know, my dad was a doctor and all this sort of thing, so I was always there. But I like doing things like using my hands, you know, And I like I like the people interaction I always have, but I like the Dewey sort of thing, you know? So I think from a very early age, I just wanted to go down this direction. And I think for women as well, I think you realise later on, I think it’s a very good profession for women because you can dip in and out. Yeah, yeah. I mean I haven’t had to, but in terms of working part time and all this sort of thing, I think it does have quite a lot of flexibility.

What kind of a doctor was your dad or is your dad a radiologist? Oh, really? So did you not want to be a doctor?

Well, my parents wanted me to be a doctor. Of course, Asian parents. But, um.

Are you the oldest or the youngest?

I’m the youngest. I’m the youngest. But again, it’s that. It’s that Dewey thing. And. And seeing, seeing changes and results was it was either going to be going down this sort of route or being a fashion designer, something like that. Like changing things. Yes. And, you know. Yeah.

Did one of your other siblings become a medic?

My middle brother is a doctor and my oldest brother is in business, he’s in property and that sort of thing.

So where did you grow up?

I grew up in London. I’m very much a Londoner. I can remember living in West London, in Shepherd’s Bush and going to the Shepherd’s Bush market and buying dollies and this sort of thing. And then we moved to North London. I went to Edinburgh University, which I absolutely loved. I’ll always have a soft spot for great.

City.

Great, beautiful, beautiful city, beautiful people, you know. I wanted to come back home. Wanted to come back to London.

Do you remember getting to Edinburgh and thinking sort of what were your thoughts? Were you that sort of I mean, we’re talking someone turning up. I mean, a girl turning up in Edinburgh who’d lived at home all those years. Was it? Was there a feeling of I can go berserk? Was that was that something?

Well, it wasn’t the predominant thought, but I did want to get away from home.

I remember it being the predominant thought in my head, so I brought it up.

So no one to want to be on my own and try and do things on my own. Because, yes, I lived a very sheltered life. You know, I’m the only girl in the family and the youngest so very sheltered. And I mean, you couldn’t get further away, really. But yes, I did want to see what I could do and what I could be on my own.

Quite an independent thing to do, to even go to Edinburgh because loads of people just stay at home, don’t they? They stay in the same town and and all of that more than I thought. Actually. It’s quite a common story when I’m having people on here. But you went as far away as possible.

That does surprise me. Yes. Yes, it did. At that age. I mean, when you’re young, you think you’re so grown up, don’t you? Yeah. So I just you know, it was the first opportunity I had to actually be on my own and go out there on my own and see what I could be. And I’m actually surprised my parents let me go. So.

And so.

Did.

Yeah. What were you like? What were you like as a dental student? Oh, were you top of your class or.

You know, I was on top of the class. I wasn’t bottom of the class. I was, you know, I was doing what I needed to do, passing all my exams, you know, having fun as well, and just trying to make the most of everything, you know? So, yeah, I mean, I’m never going to cut a dash in anything, you know? But, um, but, you know, I’ve always done well, I think. Yeah.

And the Scots, the Scots, they’re very like warm people, right? The different. I mean, did you feel that feeling, the fact that they were different to, to us down Southerners sort of.

Oh my goodness. They’re very mistrustful of Southerners. Oh, they were. And they probably still are. Yeah. And we felt that quite a lot because there were a few people from England. Um, but you know, it didn’t, it didn’t impact on anything. You know, we were still really good friends, you know, and just got on with it and had a great time.

So tell me about, okay, you qualified. What was your first Dental job?

I went from well, I was I mean, it’s a five year course, as you know. And by the end of five years, you know, most of us just wanted to get out there and just get on with it, you know? So that’s exactly how I felt. So in those days, you didn’t have to do. So I didn’t I went straight into into practice. It was a practice in Acton and this practice, it was owned by somebody called Peter Hunter, who was an older dentist in those days. But when he opened the practice back in the 60s, it was very famous. They had water beds instead of chairs. They had like the Beatles, John Thaw and all these celebrities. Wow. So I know by the time I went, they still had the beds, but not they weren’t water beds. They kind of looked like coffins actually, but they were bed. Their head was sort of angled so you could see properly. But he started a society with some of his friends. It was called Saad Saad, and it stood for Society for the Advancement of anaesthesia in dentistry.

Sedation thing, wasn’t it?

Yeah, exactly. So we were a centre for sedation, so I saw a lot of dentistry, you know, dentitions and various conditions. So that was an amazing start for me, for my career. And it was. Yeah, yeah. I was there for a good nine, ten years.

And then in that first job.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m a stayer. You know, I give things a really good go. And I was very lucky because. Because we saw such a variety of cases, I found that I really did like doing veneers. And, you know, that that sort of direction really impressed me.

It’s kind of kind of what you’re saying about fashion, designing and all that. So there was there was an element of artistry back then. But interestingly, I mean, veneers weren’t very common back then. I remember wanting to do a cosmetic dentistry course and couldn’t find one. There wasn’t one. There was. There was. There was one. There was. There was a guy. There was a guy called the. He had a he had a thing called adapt. Do you remember that as aesthetic dentistry and professional testing or something? I can’t remember the guy’s name, but that was the only one that was the only course that had anything to do with aesthetic on it. Or you could go to the US or whatever, but it wasn’t a common thing.

Yeah, yeah. So again, I’ve just been very, very lucky in my career because we, I mean, I don’t know what it’s like now, but in those days you did your dental degree and you left with, I think, just a smattering really, you know, and you just had to make your way and learn, you know, just get on with it and just learn. So I was lucky in that I did have veneer cases and I think young people are bold and I was quite bold. So I went ahead and, you know, I read, I tried and it worked out. And then I was very fortunate in joining dentists who were a group of practices, who mainly did veneers and was taught how to do them there and was able to practice there. And, you know, they were great teachers, they’re great commissioners there and I learnt from them. It’s fabulous.

Yeah. So, so and so dentists for anyone who doesn’t know, I mean, I remember, I remember dentists for the first time I saw dentists from the outside thinking that’s what dentistry should be because it was way ahead of its time. As far as the sort of the shop front sort of I mean, way before White Cross and all of these cats started doing and it was a partnership. It was Russell Wright, wasn’t it?

Russell Russell Craddock Who was the dentist? Russell Craddick Yeah, his partner was Jennifer Golden. So. Jennifer. Jennifer Yeah, yeah. Jennifer was the sales expert and Russell was the dentistry. And together, you know, they made this group of practices and it was, it was very, very forward. But I think Jennifer was a lot to do with that because in those days, marketing was advertising in magazines and papers. There was no there was no Facebook and Twitter and things like that. So it was.

Wasn’t it? It was PR, it was getting getting your story in front of Vogue or whatever. And I remember I remember the clinical lead was Chris Hall.

He? Well, at one time.

When you were there.

Yes. Yes. I knew Chris when he was a young he was only about 24 or so. He was a really young lad. He was just one of the associates. So my clinical director was Joe Oliver, who then, you know, and. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Great guy.

Great guy.

Absolutely. So, you know, I’ve worked with really good people and I’ve been able to learn from really good people.

So. Chris Crystal, did he teach you as well in there or teach you? He was just a young guy like you. He was. He was one of you.

Yeah, he was one of us.

He was one of us. Can you imagine, Chris? All because because remember, we were selling a bleaching light back then. And I remember first having several meetings with Jennifer, and then she put me in front of Chris all, and he said, Where’s the evidence? And to this day, there is an evidence for light activated whitening. So, so, so I was having to try and persuade Chris or to put this light in there. And I remember thinking, I think we were maybe three, four years into Enlightened at the time. And I remember thinking, if I can’t get this bloody product into dentists, which is like cosmetic across the wall as all they do, then I’m not going to get anywhere with this business. So it was so strange because I’d put it down as if I don’t do this, I’m a total failure. And they weren’t biting. They weren’t biting.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So. So then. So you were basically cutting veneers all day, every day. Yeah. Yeah. Dentists. Give me. Give me a sense of. Give me a sense of a day. There. Was it was it literally cutting in the morning, fitting in the afternoon? Was that not not the same patient?

But no, not no. Well, basically, yes. You’d have consultations, you know, you’d go through the same procedure of consultation that you would. Now that probably hasn’t changed much. We used to do smile simulations, which was lovely on the patient there and there, which, you know, that’s still going on now. But in those days, in the day of quick fixes, it was veneers because Invisalign was, it was in its infancy then Invisalign.

Didn’t exist, did it at that point?

Exactly. I remember somebody coming in giving us a talk about it and, you know, it was just it was just it just wasn’t happening at that time. So it was all about the veneers. And we used to have patients referred to us by dentists so they could have veneers and, you know.

Which year are we talking, Which year is this?

So we are talking qualified in 1990. So I joined dentists in about 2000 ish.

Yeah, because we started 2001. It was about 2 or 3 years before. So, so, So I guess you were making a lot of money, right?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. It was very it was a golden hat.

Unlimited number of patients because their marketing had just killed it, hasn’t it?

Yeah, absolutely. There was nobody else doing it. Yeah, there was nobody else doing it. And dentists didn’t feel comfortable doing it. And it’s like everything really, you know, you have it gets started and people are very sceptical, but then everybody starts doing it. Yeah, so you do have to move with the times, you know. But at that time it was very much dentists were the only people really who were doing it.

And just, just going backwards a second. Was the Acton practice fully private as well?

No, the Acton was completely NHS.

Oh, was it. Was it. Was it.

Yes. But it was in the days where you didn’t have these Udas and all this. Yeah. Still don’t understand. Don’t get it. I just don’t understand. You would get paid for what you did. You had a limit that you could quote up to and any treatment that went above that limit, you’d have to get approval.

For prior approval. Yeah.

Yeah. Which, I mean, that’s fair enough. I don’t understand a system where you have to you have units of dental allowance. I just don’t understand budgets, of course, but I don’t understand this.

But then how did you how did you pull off getting that job in dentists coming from that NHS background, Did you what did you do? You just apply for it and turn up for an interview? What happened?

Absolute chutzpah. Um, I yeah, yeah. Basically. So I rocked up, you know, I really liked doing veneers. Give me a go, you know, and. Yeah. And I don’t know, they must have seen something in me because my CV was an A4 sheet of paper. Um, you didn’t take pictures in those days, so I had no evidence. So, yeah, I think you know what it was.

I remember at the time, even cutting teeth for cosmetics was a kind of a strange thing to do that that hardly anyone did. And I remember. I remember I don’t know if it was Joe Oliver or one of them telling me that, you know, that that’s the main thing that they’re they’re talking they’re looking for someone who’s happy to cut teeth.

And I know that.

Um, but, you know, at the time there was that’s, that’s what cosmetic dentistry was, right? So, so then and then they kind of taught you on the job as well. Yeah. And then it got sold right?

Yes, yes, yes it did. So they so I think that Russell had had enough. So and without Russell you know, what was Jennifer going to do. So I think then care bought it first and then they sold it and then eventually it ended up with Oasis. And it’s just it was a shame really, because they they didn’t really understand the animal. So it kind of, you know. Yeah, yeah. It just yeah, there are a lot of issues, a lot of issues. So in the end, it just didn’t work for me.

Go and expand on it. What were the issues?

Well, you know, they just they didn’t understand what we were doing. I mean, for instance, there are corporations, so of course, they they look at the money and it’s always about the money. So, for instance, we would have huge lab bills because we did. Is all the time. And they didn’t sort of correlate that. You know, these guys are doing veneers. That’s why their lab builds are so big, you know, so that sort of thing going on. And there was a flagship clinic in Selfridges for a very short time, and they had the most inexperienced dentists working there. And it just it absolutely caved. It costs such a lot of money. It caved. And then it just they just wanted they didn’t understand the whole cosmetic dentistry thing. They just wanted the practices to be general dentists, you know, they thought they forward waste. Yeah, Yeah.

It was just correct me if I’m wrong. I remember the first dentists was Kings Road, right? And then there was Church Street in Ealing. Oh, there was the original original one that Russell. But it wasn’t called dentists or something. It was it was called something else.

I thought it was called dentists. But, you know, that was before my time. Yeah. Yes. They had the they had the one in the Kings Road. I worked in the one in well, I worked in most of them actually. But there was the one in Kensington on Church Road.

Street.

Street.

That’s it. There was one in Hoban on High Hoban. Yeah. There was one in Soho.

Soho as well.

And there was later on, there was one in the city in Throgmorton Street. So at some point or another, I worked in all of those. But not not the King’s Road one that was closed by the time I got there, as was the one in Ealing.

So what were the.

Outside of porcelain, outside the prepping and the fitting? What were the key lessons you learned in that job?

I’ve actually you know, the key lessons, I think, was customer service, really, because the dentistry, all dentists can do the dentistry. But you you never get taught how to treat people. What people think, you know, the selling side, as it were, you know, and that’s where Jennifer was, was great, you know, because the dentistry everybody can do. But you need to treat people like people like people they buy into you. They don’t know what your margins are like and, you know, and all this sort of thing. But they want to go in and they want to trust you. And for instance, you know, we were taught to go and get the patient, you know, and that time you have on the waiting area to the surgery is just so important. Before you’ve even picked up the probe, you’ve sold that patient. You know, it’s just an important piece of time. And it’s just it’s such a small thing, you know, So just treating people like people and making them feel good, you know, is a huge lesson.

Of course.

Of course. Yeah.

And what about on the sort of the the did they share with you the sort of the tricks of getting patients in the first place, the marketing side of it? Or was that not nothing to do with you guys?

We just did the dentistry. We just did the dentistry. So yeah, so the marketing was that was all. Jennifer And you know, and she had her little team so they would get the patients in and then like anywhere it’s up to you to, to sell the treatment really. You don’t really want to call it selling, but it is really.

Just face it. Yeah. Especially. Especially when it’s a want, right? I mean, it’s a totally different conversation. So. And then what do you think about these days? I mean, you see these people sort of have their kind of artistic signature. Mean, I don’t mean literally, but. But. But, but but. I mean what I mean is. What I mean is small design has now become a kind of a science in a way, whereas back then it was more of an art. It was more of a and today you still see it, you see it, you see a doctor, a patient, and you can tell it’s not even just the dentist, it’s the technician as well. Yeah, but, but but that, you know, I think what we didn’t appreciate back then or maybe you did I didn’t was, you know, the way we would make the case beautiful was by prepping more. Because you could make space for the porcelain, that the porcelain wasn’t as contact lens thin as it is today. So if you didn’t prep more, you’d have big teeth, right? It would look slightly unnatural. And and back then, this unnatural look that suddenly become very, very, very fashionable today wasn’t a thing. And so we used to prep more and we weren’t really aware of the loss of bond strength when it got into Dentine. And I remember looking at the prep sometimes and they were basically sort of these three quarter crowns. I was in the I was in the dentist’s lab. I was I was looking at the cases and I was thinking, oh, I guess that’s a veneer, not what I’m doing. But it turns out, I mean, because I was doing not many if you’re doing them all day, you learn how to make things pretty. Right now what I want you to do is contrast what you had to do then with what you do now for veneers.

Well, I hardly ever do veneers nowadays because people. Yeah, they just don’t want it, which is absolutely fair enough. You know, there are so many other treatments now and they’re so conservative, which is wonderful, you know. So I haven’t done a veneer case. Oh, gosh, in a good couple of years, I’d say. And they just come. Yeah, yeah, they come. They’re very few and far between now because even with no prep veneers, people go for bonding now rather than veneers.

Interestingly, do you know.

How I think I feel like I mean, look, we do a bonding course, right? But but I feel like it’s kind of going the other way now where I was seeing quite a lot more aligned bleach veneer cases. Right.

Right.

And you know, the rights and wrongs of it. Because let’s let’s leave it to one side because I don’t think I’m qualified to to tell someone whether they’re doing the right thing or the wrong thing. But but we know composite isn’t long lasting. Yeah. Yeah. As I mean, it can be, but but it’s not as long lasting as porcelain. And so I’m I don’t know about you. I’m seeing more of those sort of cases. And and when I spoke to someone about it, he was saying, well, look, why not? If you can get the teeth in the right position, bearing in mind you’re going to veneer things. And it’s kind of a different way of looking at it again, you know, it’s yet another way of looking at it. And funny how in dentistry we go in these sort of weird circles, like fashions come and go and then they come back again. So what are you doing mostly? Are you doing a line bleach bond?

Yes. Yes. Basically, to cut a long story short, yeah.

So and but you’re not only doing cosmetics, are you doing or are you General.

General as well. General as. Well. The only thing I don’t do is treatment and dentures. So like it’s nice to see. Take the patient from beginning to end. Oh, and implants. Of course I’m not doing so It’s nice to actually make the plan and, you know, see them through, get them healthy, get them aligned and then, you know, get them to their end point.

Yeah.

So then when you left dentists, you went on to the legendary Walpole Street practice with Eddie Share.

Yeah.

What a career you’ve had, man. Amazing.

I know. I’ve been very, very fortunate. I’ve worked with wonderful people.

And you say you say you were a stayer. And I noticed on your on your LinkedIn you stayed there for 17 years.

No, gosh, 17 years.

I love that. And it made me it made me think about this sort of idea of, you know, associates and principles. Yeah. So I take it, I mean, correct me if I’m wrong, but I take it that you you don’t have the ambition of owning a practice that’s not that’s not in your outlook. You don’t want to own a practice.

I did think about when I first qualified. I did. You know, I did want to. But then I just just not the business aspect is just not for me. And as much as I really do like dentistry, I work to live, you know? And I just think if you’ve got this, you know, you’re on it the whole time. You just cannot switch off from it and, you know, just smell the roses, you know? So.

Yeah.

And the number of the number of associates who become principals and suddenly hate their lives, it’s real.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

It’s a real thing. But, but I’m quite interested in this idea of, you know, almost the, the there’s a, there’s a thing in dentistry that almost says you can abuse your associate. And then when that associate becomes a principal, they can abuse their associate. So it’s almost like you’re doing your time.

You know.

I’m not saying that’s written down anywhere. Right But but, but, but, you know. You know what I mean? Insomuch as you, me and. You have seen the loss of an associate get harder and harder and harder and harder. I mean, back in the day it was 5050. You know, there was a the associate had a lot more autonomy than they tend to have today. Give me some of your reflections on that, because the weird thing is, if you’re never going to be a principal, then you end up just just getting the the bad side of that deal that you don’t get the other side of the deal where you’re the one. Exploiting.

Exploiting someone.

Well, give me your reflections on that.

Yes. I mean, for me, I’ve just you know, I’ve just really enjoyed it because I’ve just I just want to treat patients, you know, And I just want it to be I just want it to be a happy situation. And that’s that’s what it’s been. You know, I’ve been very, very fortunate. I’ve worked in good practices. I’ve had lovely patients. And that’s one of the thing that keeps me somewhere for so long is that you have people coming back to you time and time again. You form relationships, which is. Yeah, which is lovely. So, you know, and I think I’ve been in bigger. I mean my first practice is quite a big practice. Local street was quite small, dentists was quite big and but they’ve been you form relationships within the practice as well and I’ve been treated well so I don’t know I’d be really lucky I guess.

So. Yeah, so.

But but, but. Okay, there is, like I said in my introduction, right when when I was in Banning, I could see you were, you know, you were you were a good team player. You were you were still like enthusiastic in the training and all of that. Yeah, but is there an element is there an element of you’ll just like keep the peace and, you know, you’re that person that you’d rather you’d rather keep the peace than cause the situation or because 17 years, somewhere a long time.

I just don’t want to you know, I hate rocking boats and all this. I just want to go in. I just want to have a peaceful time and come away and think, think working part time really helps. I think dentistry is very, very intense. You know, I think the days that I work, I come home and I’m exhausted, you know, and and I had good days, you know, So but it’s so intense for me working part time really helps. So I can work, I’ll be tired, I can recover. I do nice things and it’s a balance. I think I’ve hopefully I think I’ve achieved the balance and that that works for me. You know.

We always part time. Were you part time in dentists as well?

Yes, Not as part time as I am now, but it’s only when I was in Springfield, my first practice that was very full on, that was six days and evenings and all this sort of thing. But I was younger. You can do these things and you can you can still have a life, you have the energy. So yeah, so yes, I have been part time dentists. I was working, I think four days a week, Walpole Street. I was working three and a half days a week and at Banning it’s 2 to 3 days a week.

It’s going down.

With every with every move. Good on you. Good on you. Because. Because I think three days is perfect in dentistry. Absolutely perfect. I’ve done it. I’ve done it all I’ve done I’ve done one. I haven’t done six. I’ve done 1 to 5 though. I’ve done all of them in between and three days. I think if you want to call yourself a dentist, I think three days is good If you want to call yourself something else and a bit of a bit of dentistry on the side, then two days, you know, it’s better. Yeah, but but three days is good. So what did you learn at Eddie Shares place. I mean, tell me a bit about him. Why. Why is he so high profile. What’s what’s what is it about him?

How much he. Clinically he’s a perfectionist. Yeah. So I learned so much about, you know, record keeping, communication, treatment planning. I learned so much from him. And, you know, he’s I mean, he’s. He’s top of the tree, really, isn’t he? And he’s still well, you know, he’s quite humble, I’d say. So. You know, I learned a lot from him.

But. So did you learn implants at all? I mean, forget the implants, the placement side, the restorative.

No, no. It just. Well, he wanted to do all of it. He was. Well, he is sorry. I shouldn’t say he was. He is he is very, very careful in terms of litigation and all that sort of thing. So he just felt that you were implants are concerned. You should go from the beginning to the end. So if there is a problem, you’re dealing with one person and one situation. You know, the waters aren’t muddied at all. So he preferred to take it from beginning to end anyway. Um, that being said, you know, I’m just the whole implant thing. It just. It’s just not my bag.

So he’s, he’s.

Also, he’s also sort of massively connected, right? I mean, he, he, he was, I don’t know the head of everything, wasn’t he the editor of everything. Did he, did he, did he sort of introduce you to, to, to different sort of courses people, that sort of thing.

Yeah. Yeah.

He was he was completely up for that and education and, you know, just learning. So that was it’s it’s great just in terms of going forward and seeing what’s out there, you know, he was right at the forefront. So, yes, again, luck very lucky.

And in that in that 17 years. Right. You must have seen whole families, right? You must seen families become real. Yeah. Good friends.

And.

Yeah, yeah, it was lovely.

So. So then so then the difference between authentic patient and a Walpole street patient. I expect the dentist patient was more transient.

Yes, absolutely. So they would come just to have their smile make over, whereas they were. Yes, exactly. It was walpole’s patients. They were there for the for the full, full treatment for everything to be looked after.

So they’re opposed.

By referral as well. Right?

Yeah.

That is a different type of. And Walpole Street is. Where is Chelsea, right?

Yeah, Yeah.

Sloane Square.

Sloane Square. Sloane Square. So. So that, that, that type of patient. I mean, do you now you work. Remind me the area. Sorry. Was there. What’s the area called? Blackfriars.

What now?

Okay, now, Now. Yeah.

Yeah. So, Blackfriars.

Yeah. So different again. Totally different again. Because. Yeah. What I saw. I mean, I don’t know that area very well, but what I saw, what I was waiting to come to talk to the team, was kind of a mix of professionals and young families sort of thing.

The absolutely. The whole spectrum. It’s, it’s, it’s very interesting. So, yes, you have professionals. You have white collar, blue collar families. You know, it’s very, very interesting demographic. But you find that in London, wherever, whichever area you go to, you have a type of patient. So the people I had in Holborn, you know, you had the lawyers and all this sort of thing, they were one type in the city. There were city types. There were different on the Kings, not the King’s Road in Kensington. Again, there are different type of people. And the Kensington folk were different from the Chelsea folk. So in London, it’s interesting. Interesting, Yeah, yeah. The different areas, they are like little. They’re like little planets.

But then but then, I mean, correct me if I’m wrong, the Walpole street patients probably had more more means than your current patients. Is that right?

Yes. Yes, they do. But they they’re kind of too posh to care about how their teeth look, you know. So. Yeah. Yes, it’s yeah, yeah. It’s, you know, very, very different, very different people.

So then, for everyone who doesn’t know, explain Banning Dental where you’re working now, because I’ve been to for 3 or 4 of them and some of the most beautiful practice, I mean, from the design perspective, they’ve really gone for it. How many are there?

Well, I think there are about five, aren’t there? The solution? Canning Town.

There’s more than that. There’s more than that.

Oh, there’s Leighton Buzzard. I have no idea.

So, I mean, I think they’re going for a large number. Right. That’s. That’s. That’s the plan.

Seems to be.

Seems to be.

But, but I mean, number one, they get these gigantic sites. I mean, it’s one of the biggest practices I’ve seen.

Yeah, Yeah. My jaw dropped the first time I walked into the practice. I couldn’t believe it.

And then done up to this superb level, like very high level sort of interior design. And then to boot, on top of that sort of pricing, sort of fair pricing kind of idea like the cheapest Invisalign in town or whatever.

Yeah. What do they.

What do they tell you? I mean. I mean, it’s obviously working for them. I can see their enlightened numbers right through the roof as a group. Yeah. And what do they tell you? What do they tell you about it? Do they say what we want? I mean, I’m going to have I probably have them on the show, Honour and all those guys. Right. But what they tell you, do they do they say we want fantastically brilliant service and low prices or are you just giving fantastically brilliant service because that’s you?

Uh, their pricing, it didn’t really come up. I was when I was, I was when I was looking for a job. I was actually in Portugal, and I just did this zoom meeting with with honour. And it was, it was basically what we talked about really is.

You make it.

Sound so easy to get these jobs. Can’t remember how I got them.

Ticks bloated. I have no idea. But yes, we just. We just had a chat and, you know, and it just it just looked like a really nice, nice place to to work. I liked what they said in their in their advertisement about, you know, providing nice treatment and good treatment and looking after patients and on working as a team and, you know, and learning things and all that sort of thing. So yes, the actual, you know, the pricing and all all this sort of thing just didn’t come into it. It just seemed like a a really.

Well, I’m not specifically talking about the application process. What about within the training?

Yeah, Yeah.

Listen, there must be training going on here because I sat in the waiting room for about 15 minutes waiting for everyone to get ready. And three times, people offered me coffee. Yeah, three times.

Yeah.

So there’s someone’s training people. So. So what are they saying in the training?

So I don’t know really. That part of it. I haven’t been. I don’t know. I just know that they do it. So I suppose when they become initiated they must go through a training process. You know, this is what you have to do and this is what we want and this is our brand and all this sort of thing. Well, the dentist, we’ve just been, you know, off you go, off you do your dentistry. And that’s where I stand, really. I mean, there is a culture that, you know, of, of pride and pride in the practice and look after the practice and, you know, and because everything has a knock on effect, if you don’t look after the practice, then if you don’t care, then your patients, you’re going to lose patience because you’re going to lose their respect. It’s a it’s a broken window scenario, isn’t it? Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. And what about I mean, I noticed they had all those different sort of skin treatments and things. Do they do they encourage you to cross-sell into that as well?

They do. But that I need training on because that is something that I haven’t had to incorporate into my work so far. I mean, I know about Botox when it comes to grinding, you know, and I know about the gummy smiles and this sort of thing, but they do far more. And the last thing I want to do is, is put a patient off because I’m being salesy. You know, I wouldn’t like it. It’s not professional. And I think I would lose credibility. So I need training as to how to how to not sound salesy because, you know, I want the practice to succeed. And that is a big part of the practice. But at the moment, I’m not really talking about the skin aspect of it. I’m just I’m letting reception do all that because.

It sounds it.

Sounds like they’re letting you get on with it, right? It doesn’t. They’re not particularly telling you what to do.

No, No, they’re not. I am being left to just literally get on with it. So. Yeah, which is lovely for sure.

For sure. I mean, look, I mean, in a lot of ways that that is one of the best sort of sort of formulae for success. It’s just that when the reason I’m asking you these questions is because I’ve been to a few of them and they all look the same and they all look very like on point and so forth. And so it made me think, Oh, maybe they’ve got like a way that they make you do dentistry as well. So I mean. I mean, I mean it would be it would be funny wouldn’t it, if you turned up and they said, look, you’re not allowed to use this lab, but you have to use that lab. That would piss you off a bit, wouldn’t it?

Well, it well, it didn’t because, I mean, I was using the same lab for over 20 years and now I have to use the banning lab, which, you know, I understand. And it’s nice having the lab in house, but that’s a little bit of a transition because when you’re talking about handwriting, you know, you get with your lab, you have a particular way of doing things. And they they when you’ve been using them for a long time, they know your work. You know, they’re. And that is something that grows. So that’s something I’ve had to give up, so. Ho, you know, it’s all part of the show.

But now you’ve got the technician in the house, so you can literally talk to the technician. Is that right?

Absolutely. And that’s something that’s lovely for me as well. We had that in Dental. There was a the lab was in the Holborn branch, so that that was really handy. And they know so much, you know, technicians know so much. So it’s wonderful having them in house and they’re always kind. And, you know, if you just need to just get away from from surgery and people, you just sit in the corner in the lab just for five minutes and it just, you know, it just centres you a little bit. So yeah, it’s great having the lab in house, but I do miss the people I’ve worked with for so long. They made me.

Yeah, I bet she didn’t tell me this. You know, you turned up to many small makeover. Yeah. We don’t get many people our age on many small makeover. Yeah, we get. We get mainly people much younger. You know, people want to leave the NHS and find a private job or people who’ve started doing Invisalign and now they’ve realised that they’ve got to do. We don’t we don’t really get older. We do, we get some, don’t get me wrong. But we’re not many. Not many. What is it about you that you’re still curious to go and go on courses and do hands on and that sort of thing?

I think that’s it. I am still curious, you know, I mean, you you carry on working and dentistry is that it is always evolving. And I think if you keep in mind every now and then you come across something that just makes you go, ooh, you know, and that that’s how it is with bonding. Bonding has really evolved over the years, you know, I mean, you must agree from bonding that look like chewing gum on teeth.

To.

That looks like ceramics now. I mean, you know, it’s it’s amazing. So and we have such resources now. There are so many people who are so good at it. I mean, it is amazing, you know, so to to see what he can do and to, you know, just to get a little snippet is it’s incredible. It’s amazing.

But but what I’m saying is, how do you have how come you’ve still got the enthusiasm and so many others by by by your period, by our period in their profession, they’ve sort of they know what they know. And that’s that.

You know, I think maybe it is because I work part time because, as I said, you know, it’s exhausting. It really does help. So I think you need to give yourself a break so you can still have a little bit of energy for for this for this job because otherwise it crushes you. It’s so intense. If you don’t recover from it, it crushes you. So I think maybe that’s part of it. So I do have time to to to find things that. Yeah. To recover. Yeah. Yeah. Literally.

Literally.

How have you got on with digital with with scanners and things. Have you, have you started that journey.

Absolutely love it. So we had three because it was Eddie share so you know he has to have the latest things and we have to because he’s teaching all this sort of thing. So we were lucky to get three shape. Everything new is scary, but you know, you just go for it, haven’t you? So we had three shapes and I loved it. And it’s all digital here in Benning as well. So but we have Itero here, which is different from three shape. Yeah. You know, you’ve just got to just keep plugging, keep trying, and you get better.

And get comfortable with the fact that you’re going to be bad at it for a while, right?

Yes, of course you are. Of course you are comfortable with it.

I remember. I remember. Cerec Did you ever use Cerec back in the day with the powder and all that?

No, no, no, no.

I remember that. I remember doing my first one and thinking I could have done that so much better without Cerec with, you know, with with gum or whatever it was. And. And it was powder, man. You had to put the silver powder over everything. And then the camera was black and black and white and not very good and huge. And then it, it, it printed the, the filling or inlay or whatever it was. I design and it fitted surprisingly well. You know, I was really shocked at how well it did fit, but it was ugly. And I mean, really, it wasn’t pretty at all. Now, maybe that was all it was all my fault. Of course I’m sure it was. Yeah. And and I remember thinking, how many more of these have I got to do badly before I get back to the standard I was at with Emperor Gum and my technician. And thank goodness soon after that I gave up dentistry. Of that. But what I’m saying, my point is you’ve got to get comfortable.

Yeah, that’s the thing.

You know, that’s. That’s why it’s called practice, isn’t it? Because you have to just keep practising.

Yeah. So I saw.

I saw this robotic arm yesterday. I don’t know. Have you come across that? It’s this thing for placing implants and the is talking to you and it’s saying locked on. And it goes like you’re kind of holding it, but you’re pushing it near the right place, and then the robot’s putting it in exactly the right angulation.

Um, yeah.

I mean, the future’s bright. Yeah.

Yeah, it is.

What you what do you do on your days off?

Well, one day I have to just spend just doing absolutely nothing. So I do that. And then I just. I see friends, I see family. I go for walks. I anything I want to. Absolutely anything. Or I might because I have days, consecutive days off. I might go somewhere for a few days and. Yeah.

Okay.

All good.

But. So there’s no there’s no rhythm on your days off. Like you don’t play tennis on a Tuesday and whatever on a Wednesday.

No, no, no. I mean, am really into training and I make sure I do all of that. That’s part of my lifestyle. But no, it’s not rigid.

To what do you train every day?

I train 4 or 5 times a day. Yeah, I trained. Yes, sir. A day. A week? Yes, a week.

But if I said if I said, look, you’ve got half a day to do whatever the hell you want and you’ve got no one. You’d have to be anywhere for anyone.

What would you do?

Anything want. Am I going to see my mom? Is that. What do you mean?

What would you do?

Well, if.

You just gave me half, if I was working and you said you’ve got the afternoon off because. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And no one and there’s no expectation there’s no, I don’t know, I don’t know. Do you have children or anything. But, but there’s no family expectation. There’s no children expectation. There’s no expectation from anywhere. What would you do with yourself?

I love it. I would. I love that if I’m just working in the morning, I’ve a random afternoon off. So, I mean, I’m in the city. It’s a nice day. I might go to the river to see how I feel. If I’m tired, I’ll go home. I’ll. If somebody is free, I might go and see them. So, you know, I’m just I’m very fluid. I might go and see, go to an art exhibition or. Yeah, anything.

Are you comfortable?

Are you comfortable in your own, in your own sort of company by yourself?

I love it. I love being on my own. I just.

Love it. Yeah.

Not enough. Not enough people are. There’s loads of people who’d hate that.

Yeah, Yeah. Oh, many, many people. But no, I love it. You know, nobody bothers me. I watch what I like on TV. I just. I love it. Yeah. I mean, having said that, I love company as well. Of course. Yeah. But I love being on my own. I love it.

Let’s move to darker parts.

Oh.

Let’s talk about errors.

Okay.

What have been your errors? Both clinical and non-clinical.

Okay, clinical. When I first started working and it was an I had an evening shift to do and I went in and I had to do a root filling on a floor on a lower floor. That was my first ever patient. And he complained about me to the GDC.

First ever patient.

My first ever patient.

What a nightmare. But what have you done? What have you done wrong?

Everything did. That was clearly. But I.

Hadn’t. But in those days it was the GDC. I’m face think they still kind of are. But there were very, very ticked towards the patient. So he went straight to the GDC and they threw the book at me and he went to hospital and I hadn’t done anything wrong. You know, it was the right tooth, you know, But nothing, nothing came of it. But in those days, my goodness, you know, whatever the patient said went. So that was that was not a very lovely start. And oh, yeah, yeah, that was awful because you can’t forget it can you? When you’ve got somebody pained about you, you just it’s all in the back of your head and it just takes so long to resolve, you know. And 28 days to reply and 28 and this 28 and it just goes on for ages.

So I bet you were scared, right?

It was bricking it. Of course. That was my first ever patient. I was. 20 something early 20s, you know, and it was just What a start, What a start.

With all the veneers you fitted, there must have been a patient who was a nightmare. Like someone. Someone. Someone who said. Someone who just said, I don’t like them. I mean. So what happens there? What happens there? Give me an example of what did you do?

It’s a it’s a learning curve. It’s an absolute learning curve. And you do get better and better because patients who just want cosmetic treatment, they have such a lot going on in their head. And I’m getting better at at knowing whether it’s the teeth they want changed or whether it’s something that’s going on in their head that they want changed. But, you know.

Would you say would you say there are telltale signs or would you say it’s just an intuition, like a sixth sense, that you’ve got.

A sixth sense?

It comes with experience. You know, you don’t get this is it. When you go to university, they don’t teach you. They don’t. I really do think they should be a psychology module, you know, as well as marketing and all of this sort of thing, because they they send you out there and it’s not. Then you treat people, you don’t treat teeth. And I just think very ill equipped to deal with people. You’re dealing with people, you know, and they come in all shapes, sizes, forms, whatever, and think that is the tricky part. You know, think.

Do you get do.

You get you get I mean, as I, I know you said this is sixth sense and there’s there’s no clear, clear pattern. But when I’m I was listening to a podcast, the guy was a doctor who did lips and and the lady was his patient on the one interviewing him was this was his patient. And she said, yeah, I saw this picture of Naomi Campbell and I didn’t know what it was about her, but I just wanted more of that. So I came to you and I said, I want more of this. And I said, You know, that’s one of the most beautiful women who’s lived in the last 30 years, right?

Yeah.

Yeah. So and then he had to he had to sort of figure out what did she mean by this. Yeah. Now, now, that doesn’t mean she was wrong. That doesn’t mean she was one of those body dysmorphia types. Yeah. Does not mean that she, she, she, she just couldn’t put it into words. Yeah. Yeah. The thing that I mean, not necessarily, but the thing that you’ve described is that patient that it doesn’t matter what you do to the teeth. Yeah. The teeth are not the problem.

The teeth are not the problem. They used to all come in with pictures of Britney Spears in my day. Dentists, you know. And what do you do with that? You’re not going to turn into Britney Spears, you know, So you just have to you just have to be very clear that all you’re doing is treating the teeth. You know, this is what I can do for you. What you do with that is your business, you know, and doing diagnostic wax ups and all that sort of thing. And smile stimulations are very, very helpful. But I think you just have to be very, very clear that you’re just treating the teeth is I’m just going to change your your teeth, that’s all. You know, what you do with it thereafter is your affair.

But on you must have got it. You must have got it wrong once. So tell me, tell me, tell me a story of that where the patient was so I don’t know much more pernickety than, than than you realised or that a patient said I don’t like them. And you changed the veneers. And then they said, I don’t like them again. You change the veneers. You know what I mean? You must have got yourself in that hole when you’ve done the number of veneers that you’ve done.

Yeah.

I’ve probably blanked them all out.

But, you know.

I love that.

Model.

Because you know what? Cosmetic patients are bonkers. They are absolutely bonkers. So I’m sure.

I have cause I have.

You know, but in that sort of situation, I think I try and I try and get them to tell me specifically what it is they don’t like. You know, you can’t just tell me you don’t like the teeth. You have to tell me what it is that you don’t like so I can change it for you. Otherwise it does. It goes on forever and ever. And you’re they they don’t come in wearing a flag, you know, waving a flag, wearing a sign that I am mad. They come in and you mistake them for a normal person. You know, it’s only after you’ve started treatment that you start seeing signs that actually they’re not quite right. And then by then you’re in it, you’re knee deep in it. And that that’s difficult. And I know I have had cases like that. I know I have, but I probably have so many that they’ve all homogenised into one person. Um, but.

So I get it. I get it. I get it. I get it. I get it. So, so, so, so the way you’re you’re telling me is there’s a there’s this kind of a spidey sense that gets sharpened. Sharper the longer you’ve been doing it. And then what about the conversation when you when you kind of see you feel a red flag and you don’t want to treat this patient, how would you say how do you break it to them?

Or refer your case is too complex to refer refer, refer.

You know, they say dentists end up attracting patients that are like them. You know, I mean, look, let’s look at it like this. Let’s look at it like this, especially in the 17 year job. Yeah, let’s imagine. I’m a really very technical guy. Yeah. And I love the whole meccano. I’m not like that at all. But let’s imagine I was. Yeah. So. So if I. If I’m talking to a patient and I and I say porcelain bonded crown and I start going into the the way the porcelain is bonded to the crown and the amount I have to drill. And now that it’s completely the wrong way for any younger dentist to completely the wrong approach. Right. Much better to talk about the outcome than the process or whatever. But let’s say I’m that cat who likes talking about the process. Yeah, there’s going to be some of my patients who that resonates with. Yeah. And that group will think I’m amazing and they’ll tell people like them to come and see me. And so over a period of 17 years, your patient base ends up being more like you than someone else’s.

Yes, I suppose. Yes, absolutely. I guess I’ve never thought about that. I’m a very human person rather than a very technical person. So I was. Yeah.

But artistic. Artistic, right.

Yeah, Well, I hope so. I hope so. I suppose I. I’ve never thought about it. I, I attract the people, people I enjoy treating the people, people rather than the ones who I can’t think of anybody who who was so into the process of it.

So. So someone like Eddie might be, you know, that that cat. Yeah.

Even then I don’t think he’s he’s so much into the, the, you know, the technical side.

I kind of, I overegged it a bit, I overegged it a bit. Right. So you know I was, I was trying to.

Make a point. Let’s, let’s, let’s let’s.

Let’s let’s talk about your best day in dentistry. What would you say that is what comes to mind when I say that.

Oh my gosh. I had a really good day today because I just like everything to flow. It just flows. You know, You have nice people. Everything that blows my nerves from Eddie’s practice just joined today. I’ve worked with her for ten years. She. She reads my mind. She is.

Gold.

That is gold. She is way ahead of me in what is going on with the patient. So, you know, so I can just concentrate on the patient, you know. And she’s, you know, she interacts with people well, all of this. So, you know, the good days when everything just flows, everything is organised, you know, you know what you’re doing. And, you know, we we think it’s the same for all dentists. That sort of day is the best day when everything is all your ducks are in a row, all your lab work is in, everybody is nice.

You’re right. You’re right when you, when it seems easy, right?

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Um, so, you know, leave me with some final thoughts around. If you if you weren’t a dentist, what would you be?

When I was younger, I really liked numbers. I used to like teaching. Um, so I was very interested. I was always good at and I really liked maths. So maybe something down that that sort of field. I’ve always been creative as well. So design, I’ve always liked maybe design, that sort of thing, you know, I like physical effort as well, so maybe, I don’t know, that sort of thing. I don’t know.

But.

But, but don’t you have, like you said, fashion designer? But don’t you have this, like, secret sort of profession that you wish you were? You know, like that sort of thing.

And not really, because I think although I do, I really do like dentistry. I’ve always enjoyed being a dentist. It’s work. And I think even if it’s something that you absolutely love, once it becomes something that you have to do in which to, you know, to earn your living, it turns into a job. And I think that takes away from it. You know, it stops becoming something that you really enjoy and you do just because you enjoy it and it becomes something that you have to do.

It’s funny, someone else said that to me, and I thought I always thought that was the goal. Right. But someone else said that to me recently. Yeah, but I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe I’m some sort of a bit ADHD or whatever, but I hate doing anything that I don’t love. You know, I hate it. I procrastinate. I do all sorts of like, you know, I’ve got this particular thing I’ve got to write, you know, that I’ve been I’ve been procrastinating about it for the last ten days. And my team keeps saying, my team keeps saying, Is it ready yet? And I told them, listen, I’ll do this bit now, not you. I will write this thing. Is it ready yet? Is it it? And I’m procrastinating and yet, you know, I can sit on this pod and talk to you for an hour. And by the way, this is this is work in the end. In the end, it’s work for me.

Right, Right. Yeah.

And and so I always thought that was the goal. And I said to someone I was on holiday and I said I said to the it was a kid and he was really good at art. And I said, hey, maybe, maybe you want to do something in design or movie set design or whatever. And and he went, But that that would mean having to do it for a job and that would take all the pleasure away from me.

Imagine if you.

Well imagine this evening, you know, and you’ve had a really hard day and your car’s broken. You need a new car and you really don’t feel like talking to me. You just don’t feel like it. You want to sit on your sofa with a glass of wine looking at the telly. What would you think of that? And you have to talk to me because you’ve arranged it and this is work.

But that’s what I’m saying. I feel super lucky. I feel super lucky that my work is enjoyable and. And by the way, I at work work because this isn’t. I sell teeth whitening products right at work where I really, really try and hire in people for all the bits I don’t like. I just I just made an error. I mean, look, we we met each other at Mini Smile Makeover. I genuinely adore being at Mini Smile Makeover. I love it. Love it. Really, really love it. I mean, I don’t have to be there. Really. It’s not me, is it? It’s the. It’s the teaching. And it could be someone else there. But I.

Love it. You see?

Don’t have to be there, do you? Nobody’s telling you that. You’ve got to be there.

You’re right. You’re right. I mean, when you when you say job, you’re implying there’s a boss. And then once you once you bring your boss into play, then you’re being told what to do. And there’s a difference.

Yeah. No, I mean.

I think that there are just days when you just don’t feel like it.

Oh, I get it. I get it.

Do it.

I think.

So then. So then would you stop?

Well, dentistry, Yeah. Eventually, Yes. I’m not ready now, but probably will come a day when you know, when I’ll think I’ve had enough now, you know, and hang up the drills and just carry on. So.

So going forward, like what are you planning going forward? Like, what do you think you’re going to be doing in five years time?

Not particularly. You know, I’m enjoying the moment now and I’ve got a nice balance going on now. When that balance is is is not it’s become an imbalance, then I think I’ll have to rethink. What’s happening, you know, But I’m just I’m in a good place at the moment, so, you know, I’ll go with it.

Yeah. You seem to have mastered yourself. You’re very comfortable. Comfortable in your own skin. It’s nice.

Yes, I’m in a good place, you know, And I’m not that good at planning very far ahead because things you just don’t know what’s around the corner. I think it’s really I think it’s really important to get the present right.

Amazing.

We’re going to end it. We’re going to end it with our usual questions. Don’t know if you had a chance to have a look, but the fantasy dinner party.

Oh, okay. Yes, I have thought about this. And do you know who? Absolutely.

Guests.

Okay.

Uh.

One of them is dead. My first one is dead. And this person has always absolutely blown my mind is Anne Boleyn. You know, of.

Of Henry. The eighth.

Of Henry. The eighth. Order. And this woman at a time when women had no power. She told the boss, the big boss, what she wanted, you know, and because of her. Probably the whole religious infrastructure of the country changed. You know, this country probably would have been a Catholic country if that whole thing hadn’t happened. So. I mean, the the the audacity, the you know, it just absolutely blows my mind. And I would love to know how somebody of her age would have that that sort of temerity really. I mean, was it was it bravery? Was it stupidity? I don’t know. So I’d love to know. So that whole whole thing just blows my mind. So.

Well, she she was.

One of the ones that got executed.

He was. So she came a cropper in the end. But, you know, she.

What was the story that she she couldn’t have boys or something?

Well, basically, yes. So he was married to his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. And then his Anne Boleyn caught his eye and she said that she wanted to you know, she she she’d only be available if he would marry her at that time when divorce wasn’t a thing. Yeah. Yeah. And he he had a queen and all this sort of thing. But then there was, you know, the question of succession and the Tudors and being, um, being on a on a strong footing and all that sort of thing. But anyway, that’s, that’s all boring.

So she was kind of the Camilla Parker Bowles of her time.

Oh, my gosh. I mean, I suppose the push for feminism.

Really?

Okay. Okay. Okay. Anne Boleyn. Anne Boleyn. Who are we having next? Who are you?

Kelly Holmes. I love Kelly Holmes because she just.

Who’s that? The athlete.

The athlete, you know, who won the 800m, 2004? Yeah. So she was a soldier and she, I mean, people who break the mould, people who are told they can’t do something and they do it and they absolutely smash it, you know, and she, she was, she was told, you know, you’re too short, you’re too old, you’re this, you’re that, you can’t do this. And she did. She did it. And she won an Olympic gold. I mean, that’s just, you know, amazing. Absolutely amazing.

Yeah. I’ve got I’ve got I’ve got faint memories of her, which was suddenly, like in the limelight a lot, wasn’t she?

Yes. Suddenly.

Because she won Olympic gold, I guess that’s what did it. Yeah.

Yeah, it is.

Because before then, you know, people didn’t take her seriously, you know?

So is she still around?

He was absolutely around. Um, yeah, but she had mental health issues and all this sort of thing, so, you know, a little sad.

But so, so.

The Katie Holmes from the 2004 sort of period, wherever it was.

When she won.

And you know that look on her face. That look.

I remember.

I do remember that. With the flag and all that.

Yeah. Oh, my. I do remember.

Yeah. People. People who break the mould who just who aren’t afraid of going for their dreams, just pursuing their dreams, no matter what anybody says. You know, that’s that’s a that’s a wonderful thing to have. That sort of courage is just wonderful. So, yes, she is a nice lady as well. You wouldn’t want her. Well, you know, um, and my parents, you know what they did and their story is not unique. People who have left their homes, left their countries to seek a new life. You know that. That’s so brave. And they were so young.

Where did they move from.

Though? Bangladesh. My family are from Bangladesh, so and they had more than a sack on their back, you know, and to make a life, you know, so that we could have a better life, you know, So for.

Sure, I.

Really, really admired that.

Do you know which year they moved?

Uh, they came over in 1966, I suppose.

Crazy time to come over as a Bangladeshi.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

And was your dad a doctor before he moved?

No. He came over here and studied.

Oh, that’s a really young.

Yeah.

Yeah. Amazing.

Yeah.

Amazing. And then the final, final question is it’s kind of like a deathbed kind of story.

A way to end your dying. You know, you’ve had a lot of time. You’re dead.

It’s funny because I’ve stopped even saying it now because like a couple of people have told me, oh, it’s a bad way to end it, saying death.

But I feel.

Like you need to talk about death as well.

Yeah, I mean, it’s a fact of life, isn’t it? So.

Yeah. So.

If you are surrounded by your friends and family in any any of your loved ones and 130 years old, what what are three pieces of advice you would leave?

So I would say make the most of your time, you know, because it is very, very fleeting. So look back and make the most of it. Surround yourself with positive people. I’d say no naysayers. Um. What else would I say? I did have another one. I’ve forgotten. It’s near my bedtime. Travel, I suppose, you know, and. Uh, just don’t be afraid to try things and do things.

Be curious.

Be curious.

Curious? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the time thing, you know, make the most of your time and just. Just surround yourself with positive people.

Beautiful.

Really, really beautiful. Thank you so much for doing this. I know you were very, very reluctant when I asked you.

You.

You might go two minutes. I don’t know. Might be enough to warm up somebody else’s.

No, no, no.

You’re not the only one. I mean, there are other reluctant types, but. But you’re particularly reluctant. Made me feel like I even wanted to get you on more then. But. But but I mean, what I said. I mean, what I said at the beginning that, you know, in a way you, to me, represent the unsung heroes of dentistry, the thousands of brilliant dentists out there who, you know, look after their patients and and look after their teams. So thank you so much for doing this. And I know it was hard for you.

I just I just don’t like being the centre of attention. I’m just I’m the one behind the plant. You know? That’s that’s.

Me. I’m the same.

I’m actually the same. I know what you mean. All right. Brilliant. Thank you so much, sir.

Thank you. Thank you for your interest.

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

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And it’s difficult. It’s really, really hard. And I think I’ve learned that you can’t. As much as I aspired originally to own one of the best practices in the country, let alone the world eventually, but at the same time also be the go to dentist that everybody wants to go to, the person that can do what the other practices around you cannot. The place that everybody refers their tricky cases to because they don’t know what to do. And we’ve got then turns to the southwest. Thankfully we’ve got there we are the place that everybody sends all their tricky cases that they don’t know what to do with. But at the same time, I can’t be that person and also run a business empire at the same time. It’s not possible, physically possible as one person to do that unless you really hone in and get the right amount of people around you. But then it’s a question of what is the best use of your time. And this is where you get to eventually thinking, I’m one person. There is a limit to what I can earn in my hourly rate treating patients. Regardless of how good you think you are, even if you upped your hourly rate to 400 an hour, 500, 600, 700, a thousand, there is still a limit to how much you can earn through your own handiwork, through your own hands, through a given day. Whereas actually you can quadruple that by actually being able to run businesses or multiple businesses on multiple fronts very well and actually being the inspiration behind them.

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 Ahmad Nunu onto the podcast. Ahmad is one of the most energetic dentists I’ve ever come across. The guy’s always got something going on. Principal of Black Swan Dental Spa, which is kind of taken Somerset in the southwest by storm, one of the leading cosmetic centres and multidisciplinary centres in the Southwest. More recently, principal of Bristol Dental Suite and even more recently, Ahmed started a sort of a mentoring, private kind of mentoring scheme called the Private Dental Mentor. Lovely to have you on the podcast finally, buddy.

It’s been an absolute pleasure. It’s taken, what, three years, however long?

Yeah, because you’re busy, but you are busy. I mean, this podcast, you’ve listened. You said you listened to a few episodes before. We tend to sort of start at the beginning and end at the end, but these days I like to ask a question that’s burning so that I just get that question out so that I don’t have to worry about that question anymore. And it really comes down to when the going gets tough, the tough get going. You really are that cat in my book. You know, you you you really, really work your butt off. What’s the story with that?

Um, I guess from my point of view, it’s always been about wanting to better improve myself, but more so I guess it was the fear of failure that drove me initially. A lot of people won’t know this story unless they were my year at dental school and it’s that I didn’t pass my first time round. I failed two of my exams for various family related background reasons and things which I won’t go into, but I wasn’t ready to take finals. And I remember going up to the Dean’s office a couple of days before finals. Passed all my internals gateways absolutely fine, no problem at all. But and basically said, Look, I haven’t done any work for six weeks, literally nothing. I’ve got so much going on in the background. And the university said to me at the time, you pass all your exams, you haven’t failed a single one. We can’t stop you from taking finals. You have no choice. You have to sit them regardless. So I did. It wasn’t a total surprise that I passed my restorative first time round with barely any revision. Bless them. But I knew my stuff for restorative. I was quite confident with that. But the others, which was paediatrics and orthodontics and the oral surgery oral side of it, I wasn’t at the races for those and I wasn’t ready.

So it was no surprise that I needed the extra six months, which I then shadowed consultant clinics like crazy for for six months. And ironically it’s put me in the position that I’m in today because I wouldn’t have gained I wouldn’t have got any of that extra experience, which gave me the confidence to then do the work that I’m doing right now, which is a lot more orthodontic heavy and a lot more surgery heavy than than I ever envisaged it would be. But guess that’s stuck with me ever since because it made me feel like I was a step behind everybody else right from the very beginning. And I think from that point on, I’ve just carried on going and going and going and going, and I don’t know why. I just haven’t stopped since then. Don’t feel like I’ve got to where I want to get. And I still don’t feel like I’ve got to where I want to get. And I haven’t given the dental industry what I can give it, give it and what I can offer. And that’s I guess that’s the easiest answer to that question.

Was there an element of, oh, I’ll show them sort of thing?

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, there’s been hardships and challenges all along the way over the last ten. It’s probably been 13 years now, actually across the journey. 15 years, jeez, 15 years. And there’s been a lot of ups and downs across the way. And I think it’s that constant reminder every time there’s a backward step at each point where you go, right, that’s it. It’s having your own internal confidence in yourself, knowing that maybe I haven’t done as well as I could have done in this one, or I’ll strike this off as a learning curve. Let’s move on. Let’s prove to not anybody else really but myself. I think a lot of this is self motivation from inwards where I don’t want to fail and I don’t want to believe that I failed at something.

Yeah. So I felt finals, by the way. So I feel your pain. Yeah. I don’t have any family issues. I just didn’t work. But. But there was an element of, like, shame in it for sure. Yeah. And I hear exactly what you’re saying about people who’d started. Like you feel like you’re behind right away. You feel like you’re behind. Yeah. And I also agree with you on that. Six months was the, for me, the best six months of my career because I really sat down and did the work. And and then I don’t know how it worked in Bristol. You were in Bristol, weren’t you? Yeah, in Cardiff. They used to give you a house job as kind of like a consolation prize for being a failure. And I was never the type to do a house show, let alone oral surgery and all of that. And so you’re right. It can it can sometimes be the best thing for you. And the other thing is people fail at all different levels. You know, I’ve got a friend. His dad didn’t win the Nobel Prize and unfortunately committed suicide because of it. And so, you know what I mean, that probably that never failed in his life. And then at that Nobel Prize level, he he ended up failing. But was the first time I mean, what were you like as a kid? Were you were you particularly studious as a kid or not?

I was, yeah, absolutely. And coming back to that point in a second, But I’m just going to you’ve just you’ve sparked a story. So remember, do you remember what the industry show or whichever one it was? And I was lecturing with you guys for Enlighten. Yeah. And I remember I was walking around the trade show at that particular one and two people from my year who graduated with me, they obviously passed first time round. They saw me walking around and I was like, I was dressed in a suit and I had the lanyard on me that said speaker on it. Yeah, the lecturer one. And and they saw me walking round and they said, What are you doing here and why have you got that lanyard? And I said, Well, I’m obviously working with one of the companies. And I’m and they said, Yeah, but it says that your lecturing. And I said, Yeah. And they said, But how could you be lecturing? You failed two years ago. And it was honestly the most enlightening moment because thinking to myself, you do realise that was a couple of years ago, Like have you not moved on since then? Because I have and I think that was. Yeah. So it’s funny that the stigma stays with you, I guess, for a long period of time afterwards, and I guess it stays for as long as you want it to stay with you. Yeah. And it comes down to mental, mental toughness and mental confidence in your own self. I was devastated during that period.

I’m not gonna lie. The first month I locked myself in my bedroom and I was absolutely devastated. And I mean, it wasn’t even it wasn’t it wasn’t sort of a guilt thing as well. It was sort of like, I can’t believe I failed and I failed before. It wasn’t the first time I’ve ever failed in my life. But that was a big deal. That was your finals. You worked five years to get to this point, etcetera. But then once I got that out of my system, it was then the whole Do you know what? So what? I’ve got another opportunity. I’ve only lost six months of my life. I will you can gain it back. You can you can achieve a hell of a lot more just by moving forward. And it was just the mental, I guess, side of you fixing yourself and trying to turn it around so that you can you can make a good situation out of a bad situation. So. So, yes, I feel you on that one because I know exactly what it felt like and I’ve been through it. Going back to the question you did ask school. I was yes, I was quite studious. I always have been. I guess it’s been drummed into us from my parents from a young age. All my siblings have done very well in their careers, bless them. And and it’s something that’s that’s always stuck with us. Dental school was slightly different, though. It wasn’t the same number.

Are you which number?

Sibling I am the eldest, so I’m the oldest. I’m one of the oldest.

Yeah. Now everything’s becoming clear. I’m joking. I’m joking because I’m the youngest. Go on.

And so. Yes, but that didn’t really matter when you got to Dental school because everybody at Dental school was clever. Everyone’s top of their classes. So you’re sort of then thrown into the mix of a bunch that you’re all quite similar. You’ve all got different personalities, but you’ve all gone through very similar experiences to be where you are. And guess that’s that was the other eye opener for me because suddenly you’ve gone from being top of your class for practically everything to being mean. Yes, I did do very well in certain exams. I did come first in my year for for a few things. But but in the in the main, you’re sort of in the middle of the range of the class. Yeah. And and that for a lot of people that’s a real massive eye opener because you’ve got to just find a way of getting through it rather than actually being devastated Every time you don’t come in the top one or 2 or 3 people.

Where did you grow up?

I actually grew up in Bristol, so I was born in Glasgow originally. I didn’t stay that very long, so I was only there for two years. My dad was finishing off his PhD up there and we moved to a combination of Saudi and Egypt for a very short period of time. Both. Many origin places and ended up in London for about a couple of years before then. Moving on to Bristol and I’ve been pretty much in Bristol ever since. I got to Bristol at the age of about eight, and we’ve been there ever since.

What was your dad’s PhD in?

Civil Engineering. So nothing to do with medical whatsoever. My mum’s an accountant, my dad’s a civil engineer. He’s a university lecturer and has been for many years, bless him. But yes, I am the only dentist in my entire family.

So what made you do dentistry then?

It was a toss up. This is going to be very ironic. At a toss up between medicine and dentistry. I was always quite medical. Like I knew I wanted to go into something medical. The reason I chose dentistry was I was quite artistic and that’s something that’s always appealed to me. And I assumed and thought the hours would be easier in dentistry. You’d be able to go home at 5:00 every single day. You’d be able there’d be no on calls. That was the original thinking behind it. Obviously, it hasn’t quite worked out like that.

Well, dentistry can be that if you want it to be that. But you just. You’re not that soldier.

No, I was for the first year or two, but yeah, it didn’t quite go according to plan. So.

So okay, you you finally qualified from Bristol. Did you have a good time as a as a as a student?

I enjoyed it. Yeah. And it was good fun. I got involved in a lot of activities in various different committees and societies and made quite a lot of friends at university was good. I did enjoy it. It gave me a lot of practical skills that I was able to take on in life later, actually, whether it’s in the university or outside the university. I ran my own radio show at one point. And yeah, there’s a lot of yeah, there’s a lot of things that I took forward, part time jobs and stuff that I did when I was at university at the time as well, gave me an excellent grasp of communication skills, sales techniques, business skills, etcetera, sort of weekend work and things like that. So yeah, no, I did make the most of it as much as I could and it’s really helped me actually when it came to later on, business experience and stuff for sure.

Did you not think I’m going to leave Bristol?

I did. I got a position. In fact, I got accepted into London and Bristol, and out of the two I decided to go for Bristol. I’ve always had my eye on Bristol. I liked the Dental School. It wasn’t so much about being close to home. If ironically, my parents were living in Gloucestershire at the time, so they weren’t actually in the local area. They’d moved to Gloucestershire, Cheltenham region. So I was in Bristol pretty much by myself, but I liked Bristol. I’ve always had a soft spot for it and and the university really appealed to me. So, so yeah, it was a no brainer. When I got the two offers, it was always going to be Bristol for me.

So then let’s talk about your first job, because ironically, now you’re, you’re you’re going to do this private thing. What was your like? Did you go straight to vet?

I did. So, yes, I pretty much went to Wellington, actually, as my first job. I didn’t have as much pressure on me in terms of fear about first patients and stuff as others may have done. I guess it came from having a bit of experience, which was a bit longer. I was left to my own devices when I was doing various things, whether it’s at dental school, etcetera, just because after a while they sort of trust you enough to know that actually you are capable of doing this. You don’t need someone supervising over your shoulder for this extraction or any of this, so didn’t find it particularly stressful. I really enjoyed my PhD actually, and my trainer gave me quite a lot of freedom clinically to be able to do the things that I wanted to do, which allowed me to investigate certain cosmetic procedures and things on a few patients, even if it was sort of included under the NHS, they weren’t quite as strict at that time as they probably were would be nowadays. So that gave me quite a good opportunity to investigate things and and didn’t take the piss. I genuinely did what I could. I finished my quotas, well, looked after the patients, built a very good list. I was the first PhD in that particular practice to on. So it was a completely new experience for them as well. So it was very enjoyable. I really did enjoy it and it gave me the foundation to be able to look at the various things. Later I started looking at the various pathways of what I wanted to do, probably about halfway through my PhD or at the time, as it was called, and I guess this is what will transpire later as to why has been created, because there wasn’t really unless you were going back to hospital dentistry or you had a specialist interest in mind that you wanted to work your way up to.

There wasn’t really anything available that was a clear cut pathway for young dentists to try and emulate or follow once they’d finished their foundation year. It also in your foundation year, it very much depended on what your trainer’s interests were as to the experience that you would get. Yes, you’d get a few things from the study days here and there, but if you were lucky and with the right trainer, you would get a really good, good amount of experience in the things that you might enjoy you. If not, then it will be it will be very heavily reliant on what that practice does and which I guess has its good points and bad points because it is a reality check of what the real world of dentistry really is like in a way. But at the same time, it doesn’t really give you the opportunity to investigate different things and ask the right questions that you’d want to looking back. Now, knowing what I know now compared to what I knew 14 years ago, it’s chalk and cheese. There was there’s so much advice that I would would have wanted to have differently at the time, but probably would have changed my career trajectory.

See, I mean, it’s a funny one because, I mean, were you already were you already at this point now with this super driven guy?

I guess I was more so because of what happened to me at that point. Had that not happened, I probably wouldn’t have been I would have gone with the flow with everybody else. But at that point, I mean, the biggest spark for me was was the actually ironically, I was looking for mentorship and I contacted Neil Gerrard at the time, who was one of the well known cosmetic dentist in Bristol. Brilliant man, Absolutely huge amount of time for and respect for Neil always and still do. And and I shadowed him at his practice. I took a couple of days off from my practice. They were very supportive and I shadowed him at his practice. And one of the things he said to me was he invited me to come to one of the lectures, and this was I was still six months into my I hadn’t really experienced dentistry. I’ve always been told my composite anterior work was great. I remember at dental school, 1 or 2 of the lecturers would come and check my work and ask the question, which is what we always want to hear at dental school, isn’t it? When they come to you and look at your work and they go, Sorry, which fillings have you actually done? I can’t see anything.

And it’s the it’s the magic buzzwords you always want to hear. And I took on that invitation. It was at one of the Bristol Hilton’s in one of the evenings, and I think that was the first time my eyes were truly opened to the world of dentistry, because I sat there in that lecture and it was actually ironically, it was Chris Orr and James Gornik that were both there giving the lecture. I mean, two stalwarts of the dental world and I, for the first time ever, I’d seen work that didn’t even believe was possible and think before my eyes. That was that was my turning point of thinking. If I’m cruising and thinking my work is great, I mean, I have a very long way to go. If this quality of work can be produced, my my knowledge is severely lacking. I have a very long journey to go at this point. And yeah, unfortunately that that experience I guess, probably ruined me for the next 15 years because it gave me a pathway that I never even imagined I wanted to go down.

It’s interesting, isn’t it? The first time you noticed that there are a lot of firsts in dentistry that that for me, the first time you see a bad failure of your own work. Is a real moment, you know, that sort of makes you realise, oh, you know, and remember, for me it was, it was staying interproximal staining of porcelain veneers that I’d been doing quite a lot of. And then there was this patient just, you know, she was like red wine, black coffee and hadn’t even been at the practice that long. I think I’d stayed there for three years or something. And three years after I’d put these ten veneers on someone’s top teeth, they were staining. And, you know, I guess I just hadn’t prepped Interproximally enough or whatever it was. Yeah, it’s a moment of clarity. And I remember what you said about the Chris Hall lecture for me was Sanjay Sethi The first time I saw his composites and there were, you know, completely invisible, beautifully polished. I remember thinking, oh, my goodness. Or there was a mike Wise lecture. Have you ever was he before your time? Absolutely.

No, I did briefly. Briefly. Very much touched on Mike Wise. He was he was towards the end of his his time as I was starting.

I remember I remember the Mike Wise lecture. Yeah. Pretty much about 90% of what he said. I didn’t understand. Yeah. Didn’t didn’t get you didn’t understand what he was saying. Yeah. But the 10% that I understood was this excellence mindset that he had going on. And it just like, you know, the little moments in your career that sort of wake you up, aren’t they? It’s interesting. So what did you do after that job? Did you stay there or did you go somewhere else?

No, I didn’t. They didn’t have they didn’t have what I wanted. They did offer me a vacancy to stay at the practice. This was in Somerset. I was still living in Bristol at the time, just gotten married, and we moved to moved back to Bristol from Wellington. It was Wellington in Somerset, moved back to Bristol and I started a job in Cheltenham, which was a mixed practice. And basically I was I was in that transition phase. I was about to start my restorative MSC in distance learning with I think it was Manchester, it was the Manchester one which had just just started.

Not that smile on that one.

The smile on one. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. So, yes, that was very early days, actually. It literally just started. Was it the king’s one? God, sorry, I can’t even remember now. I think it was the smile on and they were so they’re practical day was smack bang in the middle of my eldest daughter’s due date, so I clearly had to cancel. It wasn’t even worth the risk because the entire year pretty much depended on that that particular sort of ten day period. So I cancelled and I moved it on a year for for the next year. And it was while I was at that practice that two things hit me. One was I went to do some training with Wai-man Chan as he was the first person who ever taught me whitening actually the old Whiten system. That was a real eye opener and experience for me. Plus also after seeing the the Chris Hall lecture, I started to look into alternative courses that I could do in that year just to keep me going. I had the day booked off anyway from the practice, from my from my MSC, so I thought, well, rather than just waste a year, I may as well start looking around. And that’s when I also came across the, the advanced dental seminars. Chris Daukaus and, and subscribed to that and think everything from that point on really never looked back.

You did the whole year.

Course I did. Yes, absolutely. So I didn’t actually go on and do the MSC because I didn’t feel I needed to After that, it was completely pointless. Everything I wanted to get in terms of the information I’d got out of that course and it gave me the foundations and the pathway to be able to go on to the next steps. Also, what it did is it gave me the confidence to start looking at moving away from practice. So the practice I was at were not particularly advanced in terms of their their aims, objectives, etcetera. It was very much a run of the mill practice. And it I’m not going to deny after about year one, it got pretty boring. All my patients were stable. I had a very, very stable, very good quality list and I was reducing my commitments and increasing my private commitments. But there was I couldn’t get any of the products that I wanted at the practice. I couldn’t get any of the the work that I wanted to do properly or advertised or promoted or marketed. So it was it was obvious for me I had to look elsewhere for the private side experience. It’s pointless doing the course if you’re not actually working at a practice where you can implement it for sure. So at that point I did actually get a job. It started off as a one day a week vacancy at Black Swan in Somerset under the previous owner, and at that particular point the one day grew to two days within, I think it was within a month or two because the work was just was there. I mean, it was such a high demand that grew from a Wednesday only to a Wednesday on a Thursday. Then it grew within three months. So Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. And it was pretty obvious for me that there was absolutely no point continuing with my practice. I have to move. And then the opportunity to actually purchase the practice came up. And unfortunately, the.

Which year was that?

2011.

Sorry. Go ahead. What happened to the principal?

So the previous owner of the practice, when I joined it, he’d already had a horse riding accident playing polo. Oh, so he was not able to practice dentistry and was relying on associates and other staff to run it. It was in a huge amount of debt already, just because it had been newly built, or at least some of it had been finished, newly built. And it had it really hadn’t taken off the way it was intended to because the principal dentist was not able to work. So after about six months of being there, he sat down with me and he said, Look, the banks are chasing me. They’re hounding me. This place is going to close in the next three months unless unless I sell. And I said to him, I’ll be honest, I have no intention of buying a practice at this stage in my career. I’ve got a lot of education still to go. I’m not ready to be a principal unless I mean, I’m not stupid. At the end of the day, if there’s an opportunity to be discussed, you would certainly look into it. Unless the business opportunity presented itself, that made it affordable for me, but at the same time made it viable, in which case I would be able to achieve both of my objectives and take this practice forward. I can see the potential in this place, but it needs a lot of work. And we did. We came to an arrangement that actually did work for both parties and had I not had that opportunity, I probably wouldn’t have been able to buy anywhere near that early on in my career. So that was I bought the practice in 2012, so that was the first.

Get it for an absolute bargain.

Yes and no. It wasn’t so much the cost. It was the terms that were very favourable because we managed to do a deal outside of the banks, which made it spread over a period of time, interest free, etcetera, etcetera. And yeah, out of respect, I’m not going to sort of disclose the figures and stuff, but it was, it was very much affordable. I could afford it without needing a whopping great big deposit to, to basically buy the place. I mean, the truth was I was buying a failing business, which needed a lot of work and a lot of time to basically be able to turn it around.

Yeah, but. Okay, so. So tell me this dude, were you already thinking I will be opening my practice and you were already saving up or whatever it is?

No, I mean, if I would have found the ironic thing in all of this is if I would have found a practice to work at, like Black Swan, I wouldn’t be where I am today. If I would have been happy being an associate at a practice like that, I couldn’t find one. There wasn’t any there that I could apply to that I could approach. And I approached a number of factors in Bristol looking for jobs, but none of them really, in my opinion, none of them cut the mustard, really. They were all bog standard practices that were doing okay work.

But my point my question is my question is you’re saying you wouldn’t have necessarily bought the practice at this time if this particular opportunity hadn’t come along. At what point would you have bought a practice? Were you were you thinking, I am going to buy a practice?

Absolutely. Oh, yes. In my head it would have been probably another 3 or 4 years down the line. I needed to do a lot more education and get a bit more experience before then going down and transitioning down the business route. So yes.

So you bought the practice then? Did he did he leave straight away?

He wasn’t able to work anyway, so there was no tie in in that sense at all. And so he did. Yes.

And now you’ve got this sort of, what was it, a debt ladened? Business that didn’t have that many patients. And you turned that into this magnificent success story. How long did it take for the turnaround? I mean, how much pain was involved? Well, take me through some of the steps.

I’ll tell you what, one of one of the quotes that will always stick with me till till I die will be when a man said to me a number of years ago, God rest his soul, that. He was obviously getting quite big at that point. He was quite heavily involved in the and he said to me, It’s amazing how many people keep messaging me, wanting to be the next big person in dentistry because it’s taken Anoop Maini 15 years to become an overnight success, he says. And that’s what it takes. And that’s stuck with me ever since then actually, because he’s absolutely spot on, right? Nobody looks at the last ten years of sweat, tears, blood grafting, late nights, lack of sleep every single night to be able to achieve and get to where you want to get. And without that journey, you don’t you don’t you don’t understand what it takes to get to that position because you need to struggle. You need to struggle, and you need to understand the struggle to be able to really appreciate where you are later and actually feel like you deserve to be where you are. If you’re handed if you’re handed it on a plate, it’s not the same. It doesn’t taste the same. You’ve got to actually go through the hardship to be able to get there. So it took I’d say the first two years were very, very tricky five, five, six day weeks, every single week, taking on cash crises. It’s literally cash flow nightmare in terms of money coming in and money coming out at constant periods of time.

But what it did is it taught me a very valuable lesson in managing those types of scenarios and situations because you don’t get that experience in your personal life as a dentist. When we graduate in our first year or two, we’re on. Let’s be honest, we’re on very good money for what? For our age and our level of experience in life. So regardless of where you’re working, whether it’s in private mix, etcetera, anyone who’s earning over 60 or 70 K in the first two years of graduating from university, you you have a lot of disposable income to play with and not many responsibilities in your life at that point. So any particular cash crisis that happens, it doesn’t take very long for you to bail yourself out of it. You can pretty much bail yourself out within a within a month, two months, three months just by working hard. You can’t do that When you run a business. The figures get higher and you can’t just extend your working hours here and there to be able to get yourself out of it. It’s a very different ball game. You revert to things. You’ve got to have a vision. You’ve got to understand what you’re trying to go, but at the same time you’ve got to try and figure. I mean, I’ve done the the interest free credit cards and you name it. Me too. You name it, it’s been done. And you need to get yourself out of certain situations and crises that happen.

And let’s dig into it. Let’s dig into it. Yeah. So on day one, on day one, what had you bought? How many surgeries, how many dentists, how many staff?

So Black Swan was a four surgery practice at the time. Two of the surgeries were working, the other two were not. One of them was not even finished. Sorry. It was a three surgery practice. The fourth surgery got the player in later. There was a fourth three surgery practice. Two of them were being used. The third one was completely run down with the dental chair that was constantly failing and breaking down. Having been moved from a previous practice, number of staff we had was seven. We had seven members of staff on day one. That was myself, the manager, a couple of nurses and two receptionists, and that was purely what we inherited.

Inherited aesthetically the old Black Swan. And now we’ve got a new super duper black swan. But the old black swan that I saw, I haven’t been there, but the one that I’ve seen in pictures and videos. How much did it look like that or did it not look like that at all?

We changed a few things. It didn’t look like that from the outside. It looked like a tattoo parlour, to be completely honest. It was very I’m not joking. It was very, very black. It was all sort of completely frosted over and looking at it from the outside, you wouldn’t think it was a dental practice. You would automatically think, Right, that’s got to be something dark and murky. It’s got to be it’s got to be a tattoo parlour or something along those lines. And on the.

Inside. On the inside. I remember your original. It kind of was like leather sofas, like someone’s sort of sort of reading room. Or was it like that when you bought it, Did you?

Yeah, the safest was certainly there. We changed a few things around with the tables and sort of chests of drawers and adding a TVs and stuff in there. The reception desk we updated. So there was a couple of tweaks and changes that we made. The biggest change, to be honest, was the branding. We completely revamped the branding and changed the outside of the practice. That’s what needed the most work. It was to open it up and actually remove all the frosting from the front and and everyone just assumed that this was a completely brand new practice that had opened up. It wasn’t. It’s been there for a year and a half before that. It just nobody realised it was a dental practice.

And had it been a squat when he started it?

Yes, it was, yeah. So it was a complete squat. But he was working in the area not a million miles away before he had a good reputation. He was a good dentist. I’ve seen a lot of his work since. Very, very good quality restorative work, bridges, long span bridges especially, that have lasted ten, 15 years, minimum, etcetera, which is the minimum requirement. That’s what it’s what you want. It’s what you ask for.

In many ways. You bought. In many ways, though, you bought the perfect business, right? Because I mean, of course there are many ways you didn’t as well. But, but, but you know the first couple of years of. Of a squat a really bloody painful. And someone else had been through that and you know, the actually the building of a squat, as you know, is bloody painful and someone else had been through that. And so in a way, even though it was early in your career and there were these problems in many ways kind of a nice situation, kind of an in between buying an established practice and starting your own. So I was I was.

Very lucky with that situation and I always stand by that simply because you’re absolutely right. You didn’t go through the start of a business, which is an existence zero patience you’re walking into work with without a single person booked in, or if you’ve had a good, decent campaign beforehand, you’ve obviously got a few coming in. But it’s the constant worry of where are the next group of patients going to come from? And thankfully, because I was working as an associate there already for about a year, it was just under a year that was already an associate there. So I had an established list. I wasn’t that bad.

Yeah. And did you make a speech? You know, like, did you did you say to the team sometimes a lot of associates who buy the practice they’re in find it very difficult going from an associate to a principal. Did you have those moments? Did you?

Did you? Absolutely. So did you.

Set out your vision for it?

I did, yeah. So it was it wasn’t a secret that I was buying the practice. I think everybody knew in the practice it wasn’t mean because the previous owner wasn’t physically there working. He’d given and they all needed to know, to be honest, for their own lives and security and everything else. So that’s helped to alleviate and calm a lot of their fears which was needed at the time. Yes, there was the moment, the day the contracts were signed. Obviously we had a cake release and drinks and sort of it was one of those that sort of set out the the vision, etcetera. I think the hardest part actually, which knowing what I know now and looking back and every single young principal will go through this is like you said, the transition from associates to principal is a very, very tricky one, simply not necessarily on day one. It’s the next couple of weeks afterwards, you’ve gone from being everyone’s friend to everyone’s boss and you won’t appreciate that and they won’t appreciate it either. You carry on treating them like like, like, like they’re your friends. You will have a real hard time trying to get everyone to do what you need them to do and what you want them to do. Because obviously you want to change the environment. You’re inevitably you’re going to make some tweaks and changes. People will struggle if they think you’re their friend and you’re telling them what to do. If you’re not their friend and you just instantly change overnight, it doesn’t work either because you can’t be that cold of a person to shut it off. I mean, you must be a horrible human being to be able to literally isolate yourself and switch yourself off or an absolute genius.

So what’s your advice? Evolution, not revolution, right.

I think it needs to be. I think it’s learning that what you need to do is over the first couple of weeks of going through a transition like that, you need to understand that you need to adapt a much more colder personality with your staff and learn that they’re not your friends. It sounds horrible, but they’re not your friends. And the reason the time this will hit you is when you need to have a sit down with them because someone has done something bad or they are not obeying the rules or something and you need to sit down and have a face to face with them and official proper disciplinary meeting and the look on their face looking at you will give you everything you need to know. They will be so confused as well. How could you talk to me like this? Like you’ve been my friend for all this time. How can you sit there and talk to me like this? You look like you might even sack me like this is. How could you? And that’s a very different one. So if you’ve employed them right from the very beginning as their boss, right from the start, that relationship is there right from the beginning. It’s a very different prospect. So that that is a difficult one. And actually, ironically, the pretty much all of the staff I inherited, apart from three of them at the very beginning, have all left. None of them are left at the practice now. And part of it, I will admit, is probably as a result of that journey and that transition, just not suiting them. They didn’t like the direction that the practice was heading in. So they they felt they needed to leave or they were removed, depending on the scenario.

So, look, I don’t want to put people off because I think I think it’s actually one of the smartest moves possible is to buy the practice you’re the associate in because, you know, that’s the one place where you really know the ins and outs of it. Well, as you say, you can see the potential in the place. Absolutely. Whereas when you go and as you know, when you go and buy another business, you can you can look at the books, you can you can try you can even go spend some days in that place. Yeah, but you don’t really know what you’ve got until you’ve bought it. So I think I think the advice really would be, hey, if you’re an associate in a business that you can see potential in 100% buy that practice. But be warned there will be there will be these moments.

You’ve got to. Right. You’ve got to write off the first year. I think it’s it’s learning that you’ve got to sacrifice the first. With any business that you take on, it might even be longer than that, depending on your journey, what you want to aspire to. It’s very rare for associates to buy a business that’s firing on all cylinders, running at 100% capacity. Why would you mean that’s going to cost you an arm and a leg to be able to do that anyway? And it’s going to take you many, many years to be able to recoup what you’ve paid and actually start making a profit. So nine times out of ten, you’re buying a business that hasn’t reached its potential. It needs a fair bit of work to be able to go up to the next step, which is the sensible thing to do. But you need to be prepared to change your mindset and realise that it will be hard, it will be difficult. You’re the only person that the buck will stop with at any point. You can’t blame anyone else. At any point. Your staff will constantly come to you.

You will be blamed for everything that goes wrong and you need to you need to toughen up and just realise that actually it’s going to be a tough two years. You need to get through it. You’re absolutely right. The best situation to do that in is in a business that you already know simply because you will know a lot of the business’s secrets even if you haven’t gone out of your way to find them out, you will already know them. So when things hit you, when when certain surprises come along, you’ll be in a much better position to understand what’s happened because you’ve got a bit of history with that place and you understand what’s happened before, and the patients will see that as well. You’re not the new stranger that’s come to town. You’ve already been there before. The dentistry isn’t quite as stressful if you’ve already been treating the patients before, you’ve got a stable list and there is everything to be said for a stable list. Bread and butter dentistry will is what makes a business survive at the very early stages for sure.

So look, your practice is known or famous for amazing customer service. Did you have a you know, in those jobs that you had before? Sometimes, you know, you do you do you go, I’m thinking of all the principles I had and you learn a lot from them. But then are certain things you learn not to do as well from from people you know, along the way. But this this notion of like super duper customer service, did you feel like, you know, that that was a there was a deficit or not necessarily in that practice but in dentistry? Because I did.

I think in general, even to this day, I don’t think dentistry as a whole and actually medicine, let’s be honest, in terms of doctors surgeries, etcetera. Customer service is something that we’re all very, very bad at. We’re not good at it. And it’s because we feel like we’re in a health care sector. We’re providing a health care service, and that’s all we need to do. As long as we’re providing the patients with that service, that’s that’s where the buck stops. It’s not a big deal. We will try. We will we will try and do a bit here and there. We will get some speakers in. We will get this particular service and we will attend this seminar. We will go to this. But generally everybody goes back and just settles back into what they’ve been used to doing for many, many years. And I think across the board, especially because of the side of it, it’s got us into that attitude. And that’s something I always realised very, very early on. One of the jobs that did hit me was not a dental job. Actually. I used to work for the old orange retail, which is the orange mobile phone shops. When I was at dental school, it was one of the Saturday jobs I had for a good two years actually. Um, and it wasn’t so much the sales that it taught me. It was how you treat people. The difference with that is you are working for a strong brand. Everyone that it wasn’t phones for you, it wasn’t Carphone Warehouse.

People would come in already having researched you. They knew the products they pretty much wanted. All it relied on was you being extra nice to people to basically get that sale. You didn’t have to start from scratch and drag them in off the street. Yeah, and that just working in an environment like that just showed me, number one, the importance of brand strength, the strength of a brand and how it can sell to people before they’ve even come through the door. But secondly, you could look around at the team and see who the ones that were doing well in terms of sales were and who the ones that were not doing very well in terms of sales were. And you’d be able to see the difference if you worked hard, if you were extra nice to customers, you would see that repetition. They would come in and buy a phone off you. For example, the next week or two weeks later, that same person would come back with a brother, a mother, a father, and they would also buy off you. And then the granddad or the grandfather or whatever would come in a couple of weeks later and suddenly it was word of mouth and it didn’t take very long. I mean, you’d have to be a genius to work out that actually if you treat people really nicely, they want to come back and spend money with you on that.

On a side note, had you always done work as a kid? Had you worked Summers Yes.

Yes. So did a paper around when I was 13, the moment I could, and local area. I worked in newsagents shops when I was 16. The moment I turned 16, just summer jobs, etcetera. I couldn’t help it. I mean, one of the things I did a weekend job throughout my A-levels and GCSEs working at the Science Centre and at Bristol near the train station, and again it was just to show people around and stuff, but it was I don’t know how to live any differently to that. It’s not. I mean, part of it was obviously wanting the spending money, but also it was all picking up experiences throughout my life.

I’m super interested in it. I’m super interested in it because I’ve spoken to a bunch of people on this show, right? And people like Millie, Millie Morrison, Prav Prav himself. He puts all of his success down to working in his dad’s shop, all of his success, you know, like you’d imagine that’s what got him into Oxford University. He literally puts it all down to working in that corner shop. And then I said to him, look, lots of people work in. Cornish But but this question of work, was it something that your parents kind of instilled in you? And are you instilling that in your kids now? Are you telling them to go out and work trying to?

So it wasn’t something that my parents necessarily pushed for, but it was it was more of a say, if you want more spending money, then you’ve got to go out and earn it. And I think that was the.

That’s all it takes, right? That’s all it takes.

It is. Yeah.

So what are you doing that with your kids?

Yes, I’m trying to. They’re not old enough yet, so my eldest is 12. Okay. So she’s they’re getting there, but it’s trying to instil in them that actually you can’t just even if you, even if we’ve got the money, you can’t just get something for nothing. You’ve got to you’ve got to have a reward based system or scheme to be able to to get that. And I’m trying my best to that’s one of the things that we’re going to try because the number of dentists, not necessarily dentists, but generally people who earn well, who are well off that I know personally and their children haven’t done quite as well as they have. They’ve inherited family businesses. As they’ve inherited various things they haven’t taken the drive for. They don’t have that same level of drive to succeed.

I’ll tell you what it is. Look, I was thinking about this year with my sons, now 16. Yeah. And he’s never worked for money, ever. He’s done some charity bits and massive eye opener for him. But a pair of shoes came in in the in the post and he was trying them on. And I said, so you know who paid for those? And he looked at me like, I’m asking him like in talking to him in Chinese, you know, like he was he just sort of raised his hands, you know, And I wasn’t saying you can’t have them here. I was just asking the question because I don’t deal with this shoe payments. I guess his mum takes care of that. But I realised, you know, having talked to Prav and talked to Millie and talk to all these people talking to you right now. Yeah. That, you know, I haven’t set budgeting. And if you want more than this budget, do that and put bad the way the way we’ve brought up my son has always been Hey, study. Yeah. Get your results. Yeah, we’ll take care of everything else. Study. And yet I talk to you and you’re telling me, hey, yeah, study. Sure. But what gave you the most value was the work piece. And think of it myself. That my parents made me go and work for a couple of weeks. And in Oxford Street when I was 17. And it was those two weeks I learned more than I’d learned the whole of school. So it’s funny.

It’s funny. The world, the world is moving in a direction which is very, very unpredictable. And I think this is the thing that they’re trying to get your head around, where people can earn ridiculous amounts of money and be very, very successful and not really have to concentrate on their education level if they’re very good at something or if they get lucky. And there’s that aspect to it as well. And it’s trying to get the kids actually to change that mindset of not wanting the entire goal in life to be YouTubers. And that’s that’s what I want to do and achieve in my life, because unfortunately, I know my generation of kids is certainly growing up with that mindset. So what do you want to achieve in life? Well, I’m going to be a YouTuber and that’s how I’m going to make it in life. Well, okay, well, what if you don’t make it as a YouTuber? What do you then do? Oh, I haven’t thought that far ahead. Well, you need to think like that because, yes, getting an education is great, but that’s not the only thing you need in life. You need practical skills. And. And it’s it’s giving. It’s giving them that side of it think, which is really, really important.

And it gave me that side of it as well. My parents were always very, very heavily involved in the community, lots of charity work, etcetera, and we grew up with that. I grew up doing charity events. I grew up doing sort of charity performances and being on stage, acting, singing to a certain extent, but not quite and and running, running events and sort of growing up in that sort of community leadership environment. And it’s stayed with me. I was an event organiser at school at Uni. We formed our own sort of mini company back in uni organising events and stuff, mainly for charity, but at the same time we were business minded and gained a lot of experience out of that. It’s what made me have the experience to run a lot of the the young dentists conferences and stuff later on, which we’ll probably get to. And and that side of it all helped to sort of build the the bigger picture of, of chasing the next buzz. So you’ve got to do something that you enjoy at the end of the day, you’ve got to do something that really helps you tick and gives you the buzz that you need.

But at the same time, there is an actual goal. You know what you’re working towards, you know what you want to achieve and feeling like you’re actually being able to achieve it was saving up when when I was doing all of those jobs, I was saving up for my first mobile phone. That’s that was my goal and that was my drive all those years ago when I was 16. That’s when mobile phones first came out showing my age. And so for me, that was what was saving my money for at the time. And then it was whether it was computer games or whatever it is that we all wanted to do and play with at the time. But it was the realisation that if I wanted something, I’ll get the basics in terms of what I needed for living and stuff from my parents. But actually they couldn’t afford everything that I would have wanted at the time that there was four of us and one of four. So if you wanted extras, if you wanted extra luxuries, you got to go out and earn them. And you’ve got to you’ve got to buy them yourself.

And it put you in good stead. So, look, I do a thing when I visit a practice where I look at their Google reviews and, you know, there’s different ways of looking at Google reviews, isn’t there? You can look at the number. You can look at the five star ones. You can look at the one star ones and all that, which I noticed. You don’t have any. Yours are all four and five. But you know what I look at, you know, at the top of the Google reviews, it has the words that are mentioned the most. And there’s one word I’m particularly looking for more than any other word. And black swan has the word. It’s the number one mentioned word. Can you think what that word is?

Customer service excellence.

It comes to it. It comes to it. Feel, feel.

Feel.

Feel. And it’s amazing the number of top practices where feel is in that list. I mean, there’s there’s words you’d expect Invisalign hygienist, these sort of things. But the number one word on Black Swan Dental Spa is field mentioned 27 times or something. Yeah. And so how did you get that message around to your team? And then what do you do to make that experience special?

It’s been really hard, actually. That’s a very good question. It’s a question that not a lot of people will ask, and if they do ask, they won’t really appreciate how hard it is to achieve this, because customer service is one of the hardest things to instil in a team that don’t actually do it. Well, yeah, you can’t change people’s habits easily. It’s very difficult to change people’s habits. It’s sometimes easier to change staff than it is to change their habits. It’s true, absolutely. And I’ve learned that over the years. It’s just a case of the team you inherited at the beginning. Can they be changed and moulded the way you want them to? It all comes down to the principal in their vision. If the principal in their vision is if they’re driven, they’re actually sticking to their guns. If they’re consistent, they know what they want and they drive from the top down. Everybody will see and feel that and start to go along the journey with you. If you’re not consistent, if you’re saying things to your staff that you want them to do, but you’re not following these things, you’re not actually consistent, you’re not showing a very good example of that, then that will be perceived in the entire model and and perception of the practice and the business and the rest of the team ethos, etcetera, etcetera.

So one of the things, and I believe this was the real eye opener at the very beginning, what we started to do was we put something together which was we call it an end of year review or end of year review day. So at the end of every single year and the days have changed over the years, but at the end of that first year, we took a whole day off, closed all the the clinics, etcetera, away from the practice, went to one of the local hotels or conference rooms or whatever, and literally sat down for an entire day together planning where the practice was, what we wanted to change, where we wanted to go. We even role played the customer service experience of entering the practice and making the contact with that first patient just so everyone understands what it is that we actually want to achieve. What are the words that are being said to them and the consistency of what should be followed, whether it’s in the surgery, on reception, on the phone call, etcetera, that was useful because what it did was it took everyone out of that clinical environment and actually it made everyone sit down as equals going, Right, this is our business, this is what we want to achieve in the next year.

This is where we want to be this time next year when we sit down, this is where we want to reach and get to. And the way I decided to do it was by not standing there and dictating to them all what what it is that we’re going to do, etcetera. And this is what I want to achieve, etcetera. What I did was I, I had my own ideas and visions, but I wanted it to come out of them as a team, as we think through it, as we plan it together. So there was all these little bits of, of points that were dropped in at certain times to try and take the conversation and lead it where we wanted it to, where I wanted it to end up, but to get it to come from them and some of the ideas they improved on, which is even better because I mean, I’m one person. You put a whole team together and you get an array of different ideas and some of them will be excellent and things that I wouldn’t have considered, but it allowed us as a team to come together, as by the end of that day we had the blueprint for, I think it was 2012 at that time. This is to.

Some of them, some of them will be crap as well.

Well, yes, absolutely. The idea, as you mean. Yeah, Yeah. I didn’t say we wrote. We didn’t write everything down. Obviously shocked.

Yeah. No, but you know, it’s a skill in itself. This, this, this question of making it come out of your team. And then sometimes, you know, you say, Hey, everyone, give me ideas and then a terrible idea comes out and then you’ve got to you got to stop that idea without hurting that person in itself is quite difficult. We have a word enlightened. We use the word enlightened called. Sure. Sure it does. It doesn’t mean yes, It doesn’t mean no. It’s just a Sure.

It.

Keeps you keeps the idea kind of in the middle of nowhere. It’s difficult, though, is my point.

It’s difficult.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

So give me an example. When you say we want to be here by this time next year, are they financial goals?

Is a.

Mixture. It was a mixture of all sorts. So it was give me some examples if we’re talking about the actual metrics. So it was a number of new patients coming to the practice in a given month. What was our monthly average for last year? What is our monthly average going to be at this time next year? What are we aiming for? Yeah, part of that. As also the number of Invisalign wasn’t there at the time or we weren’t doing it, but it was looking at number of cases of specific treatments. We want to increase the number of whitening cases that we’re doing. We want to increase the number of patients we’re coming in for Smile makeovers. Implant cases was one of the ones that we spoke about in the first year as well. We want to try and attract. We’ve been referring a lot of implant cases out because we didn’t have in-house ability to do it. We want to start doing a lot more in-house treatments, figures like illness numbers and sickness. We want to and we were very honest about it. I mean, it’s one of the things that we were very honest about from the from day one, everyone’s figures for sickness for the year were plastered all over the screen right in front of everyone. Right. That’s it. That’s what everyone’s been off for this last year. Everyone needs to look at their their figures and you need to figure out a way of reducing that for next year. That’s your own personal goal. Targets. How could you figure out a way of reducing your sickness levels for next year? I’m not talking about long term sickness. I’m talking like day here, day there, day here, day there. And there were some some 1 or 2 members of staff that were chronic abusers of that system. And it would it would be really obvious. So it’s.

Dude.

But dude, how do you how do you I mean, I want this to be valuable. Yeah. I want this to be valuable for people and for me as well. By the way, how do you how do you enthuse a nurse on the question of we want to increase our implant numbers? Do you do you sort of spell it out that if we do more implants, then there will be more career opportunities for you? The nurse, Is that the way you say it?

Kind of.

It’s because what’s in.

It for her? Like? Yeah.

Absolutely.

Absolutely. And it was partly because of the opportunities it would bring. One of the things that we thought at the very start, which is a big problem in dentistry, it’s the like you’ve mentioned, the career pathway of a dental nurse doesn’t really exist in dentistry. Yeah. As practices have taken that on and they’ve created their own pathway. But as a general rule, it doesn’t really exist when you qualify as a dental nurse, the only way you could earn more money is if you’re in the right practice and they just give you a wage rise every single year or every couple of years or whenever they feel like it. But actually there is no incentive to incentivise and do more skills. So what we did very early on is actually create a pay structure for our nurses. So which is based on achievement and based on qualifications, we will pay for the qualifications. These are the qualifications I want you to do. This is the order that they’ll be done in. As you achieve more, your wage will go up and you will earn more. When you’ve achieved everything on that list, you will then be on a normal sort of percentage rise based on every year’s appraisal, etcetera, moving forward. And we’ve got the opportunity and the ability to be able to add to that skill set. For example, we’ve got Intraoral scanner that was then added onto the, onto the pay scale in terms of if you do the training for it, you will be able to then earn more in that sense. So it’s things like radiography, training, photography, training, so our nurses and the majority, it’s quite nice doing Invisalign open days and it’s actually the nurses that are taking the photos, not purely the dentists, the nurses that are doing the scanning for the patients, not the dentists, the nurses that are doing the X-rays for the patients, not the dentists.

And it’s all of those skills that’s taken years to get to that position. I mean, it’s it’s it’s something that’s required many years to get them to that position. But that’s what I mean. And also the implant side of it as well. We get more cases through the door. We will it’s an additional skill that you guys will be trained to do because then it warrants us actually getting some proper decent training will send you on a proper implant training course to be able to do. And also being honest about the finances. At the end of the day, everybody wants to earn more money, but unless you unless the practice is doing better, unless the finances are getting better through the door, unless we’re becoming more popular, it’s wanting to drive the business forward and actually caring about that place. And you’re absolutely right, the majority of people don’t. And but it’s finding the right ones that do. This isn’t just the job to them. And that’s really difficult to find those members of staff that genuinely care about the business. And they’re few and far between. And it takes years and years and years to slowly pick them off one by one and add them to the team to get that perfect team.

I mean, do.

You publish your numbers?

Yes and no. I used to think I’m very honest about the numbers. Now that the practice is in a very different state, I probably don’t as much now, but we used to. Yes. So we would publish all of the figures in terms of income. We would publish mean, let’s be honest, the first two years there wasn’t any profit, so that wasn’t particularly difficult to publish. Um, and, but the numbers in terms of new patient numbers, etcetera. Yeah, very honest about it.

Turnover numbers.

Turnover numbers in terms of how much money we’ve made, how much money we’ve brought in, how much money has gone out, it depended on the numbers mean some. There were some periods of time where the numbers were frightening and didn’t really want to share them with my team, just simply because the money going out in a particular month was way more than the money going in. So the last thing you want to do is freak out your staff and go, Am I going to get my wages next month? One thing I’ve done since day one is I’ve made sure that we’ve never missed a payday for the last 12 years, 12 years, 12 years of owning Black Swan. I’ve never missed a payday. Regardless of what’s going on in the background, the staff’s wages will always be protected. And I think that’s one thing that they do all appreciate because they really realise that actually they will always come first. Their wages and their structure will always come first, regardless of what else is going on in the business. And that’s, that’s something that’s quite nice for them to always have that safety blanket. Knowing that, because unfortunately I’ve worked at businesses, in fact, I’ve worked at another practice where that was not the case and I knew how it felt from a personal experience level payday would arrive, whether it’s because they haven’t got the finances or sometimes it’s just they give you the impression they just don’t care. Payday comes and you’re as a dentist, you’re supposed to get paid on the 10th of the month. It gets to the 17th of the month, and you then have to approach your principal and go, Am I getting paid this month? Oh, yeah, sorry, I forgot about that. Yeah. Give us a couple of days. We’ll get it sorted and you’re sort of like and I’m in a one off maybe, but when it happens a few.

Times, people.

Play a cash flow game, right?

That’s a cash flow. Can’t do that with.

Cash in.

The business.

Yeah, but you can’t do that with your staff. It doesn’t work.

No, I agree.

I agree. I agree. Although people do it with suppliers all the time. But but I mean, I know exactly exactly where you’re coming from. I’m glad you now have. Now it’s a much bigger business right now. What are the numbers now?

In terms of what?

Employees.

Dentists.

So we’ve got, um, oh, I would say in total, the team is probably about 35 now.

Across the two.

Sites.

No, across the Black Swan.

Oh, really? How many Across the two?

Across the two. It’s probably coming up Two. If I would count, it’s definitely 50. It’ll be more than 50 between the two. Yeah.

So you strike me as a bit of a control freak. I might be wrong about that. I might be wrong about that. But you strike me as that. Yeah, right. So. So, for instance, I’ve got partners. Yeah. You don’t strike me as the kind of guy who wants partners. You want to kind of just do it all yourself, and the buck stops here, and so.

Do you have.

Tried having a partner and it didn’t.

Work. Oh, did you. Did you. Did you did you have a.

Partner in this business.

For for Bristol. Oh, for.

Bristol. Oh, really? Really, Really. So what, you bought the guy out?

Yeah.

Yeah. So. So I was going to ask, what about lieutenants? Like there must be running with 50 people. There must be five key people or four. Three key people who report to you. You can’t have 50 reporting to you.

Absolutely. You have to. So the structure now, in terms of the two businesses, obviously, I’ve got managers at both sites, but the Bristol practice is a smaller prospect. So it’s a bit easier to sort of manage in that sense. But with Black Swan, it’s had to go to a heads of teams system where you’ve got the main overall manager who reports to me. Our regular meetings. I’ve also got heads of teams for the various different teams. Mean when you’ve got sort of a team of 10 to 15 nurses, you can’t ever get grab them all in the same place to be able to have a discussion or a meeting with them. So you’ve got a sort of a head nurse, head receptionist, head clinician, media team head, which are all part of sort of the structure for, for regular sort of monthly meetings, etcetera. But they’re all they’ve all got their own responsibilities and their own ways of doing it. I’ve also had to I’ve got a main lead for now as well, who’s also my personal PR, which had to do. I couldn’t survive any longer without without having a PR.

So I’ve got a question then. The kind of person who’s a control freak. I don’t want to say it in a derogatory sense because it’s also your superpower as well, right? You know, you want everything exactly the way you want it, Right. But the kind of person who has that that trait has trouble trusting people. Yeah.

Absolutely.

And then that lack of trust also ends up with sort of slows down scaling in a way because you want to sort of prescribe everything everyone does in a way. And so how do you square that circle? Are you are you more comfortable in that now? Have you gone through pain?

Think you have.

You have to. You haven’t got a choice. I think when you’re facing a reality where you can’t do it, you I mean, we’ve all been I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s gone through this, but when you go through an evening where you sit down at the end of the day and it’s happened to me so many times over the last 12 years, you sit down and you’ve got a long list. As long as your arm of all the things that need to be done, the people that need to be responded to and everything that needs to be done yesterday, not even today. So, yeah, and all of them are looking for a response immediately. And and you just you can’t do it. You sit there and you sort of break it down and go, I can’t do this anymore. There’s a limit. I’m a human being. I’m one person. I mean, let’s not deny it. You mental breakdowns are a part of this this role and this job. It will happen on a regular basis as you as you rise through until eventually you come to the realisation that actually you physically can’t do it all. If you want to own more than one business, you have to learn to let go of various different things. You can’t also be a clinician and a businessman at the same time. It’s really difficult, especially when you get some of the bigger cases. And Covid was the big eye opener for me for this, and we’ll probably get to that if we’re going to touch on it later because that changed a lot of things in the way that I did things, and it really opened up my eyes to a lot of different ways of doing it. But I couldn’t carry on the way I was before. I had to change and I didn’t have a choice. I would have I would have gone absolutely, completely bonkers crazy if I didn’t.

Well, I want.

To I want to get to some of those moments, actually. But, you know, I think the way to look at it is let’s say you’re doing one thing for the sake of the argument. Let’s call it the you’re taking care of the Instagram for Black Swan. And at one point it becomes obvious, look, I can’t do this anymore. I’ve got too much other stuff going on now. You’re going to bring someone else to do the Instagram for Black Swan. Yeah, A lot of people, by the way, make this massive error of going to the person who’s on Instagram the most and saying, Hey, you can do it. And you know, the biggest mistake that most dentists make is that one, right? But okay, you’re bringing this other person who’s kind of good at Instagram or whatever. Yeah. What you’ve got to accept is that that person won’t do it as well as you do it. To start with. Definitely.

There’s a lot of companies that won’t do it as well as you do it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whoever you bring in and.

You’re paying them to.

Do it.

Yeah. Whoever you bring in won’t do it to your standard. And you’ve got to figure out and this is the most important. There’s loads of stuff Enlightened does that I’m not happy with here. But, but, but you’ve got to come to this point that let’s call that person, that job, whatever, whichever job it is, let’s say they’re doing it 70%. It’s a lot better for six times 70% than one times 100%.

Exactly.

That, isn’t it? Exactly. That’s the thing. And you’ve got you’ve got to accept there’s going to be a small drop. Hopefully it’s going to go up again and it’s going to go to a higher place than where it was before. But you’ve got to accept that drop. And for someone like you, it’s going to be painful. I can see it.

It has been painful.

But like you said, you’re absolutely spot on because at the end of the day, think it’s coming to terms with what can you not compromise on? What aspects do I need to have my finger on the trigger for at all times? And then what can I compromise on? Where can mistakes occasionally be made where it’s not really going to detriment the business, it’s not going to damage us per se, and that it’s realising that and realising where your weak points can exist and then working the rest around.

So then let’s get.

Let’s get to it then, because I think that’s you’ve, you’ve hit, you’ve hit the nail on the head. The things that you decide you cannot slip on defines your business. And they’re different for different businesses, you know, because, you know, we’re all different. Right. Your business stands out in the Southwest as a bit of a, you know, happening cosmetic practice. But the business next door to yours, let alone the practice across the road from yours or whatever, you will have different priorities on what can’t can’t go, what can’t you get wrong? So what would you give me? A few highlights. The things that definitely can’t go wrong at Black Swan from your perspective.

Customer service. You. There cannot be a single person that walks out of this place that feels like they did not get number one value for money, but number two, an exceptional service that they’ve never received elsewhere. That is the number one key priority for this business. We can make mistakes with dentistry. Dentistry, You can’t be perfect. No one’s perfect. You’ll make mistakes occasionally. It’s how you deal with those things and how you make people mean you’ve hit the nail on the head. How you make people feel ultimately is what drives the entire ethos and the brand of the business. I don’t want a single person walking out after an experience with us to say, Oh no, I don’t know. I don’t trust them or I don’t like how they they treated me or I didn’t like how they made me feel or they didn’t get back to me when I made an inquiry. Those are the things that are just a complete no no. If anything like that happens, that is that for me is a huge, huge red flag. You’ve messed up. You’ve absolutely messed up. If something like that affects your business because that will hit your brand, as you say on the on our Google reviews, I can’t remember whether we have got any one star Google reviews or not.

No.

They’re all it’s only fives and fours.

But that’s taken 12 years of solid, hard work to make sure that we don’t get many. I mean, the difference is in Bristol, we have got some we’ve got we’ve got a couple in the early stages. And and that’s.

You can’t you can’t.

You can’t. Sometimes someone will come in and say, can I have you say, no, that’s a one star review. There you go. Straight away. Yeah. So, so, so, so I’m not going to judge people for having one.

No, no, absolutely not.

Absolutely not. But another question. But another question. I noticed Laura Horton is on one of on your on your list of mentors. Has she helped you with all of this in Black Swan?

She we attended a bit of her training. I’ve been in touch with Laura for years, so I know her quite well. And one of the things that she did was she helped us with our treatment coordinator training. Right at the very beginning. A couple of us all attended her courses at the very start, and that was a bit of an eye opener in terms of for me, for the the communication side, the the way to treat patients in terms of customer service as well. It wasn’t so much the reception side that was a different discussion. But the in terms of the clinical side, in terms of getting them in at the start, talking to them, then doing the clinical bit that we need to do and then presenting to them afterwards. And it was that side of it that that did help actually open up my staff’s eyes to a number of things that could be done.

So then, okay, let’s talk tactics since we’re talking customer service for now and I’m sorry, I’m only focusing on this, but it’s your superpower, so it’s important we go into it, right. In terms of tactics for customer service. You’re telling me, okay, you picked up a couple of things from Laura Horton for the sake of the argument. Yeah. Do you go and put your staff through many courses, all the ones we’ve heard of, Do you take your team out to amazing places so that they can see what amazing customer service is? Do you make it all up yourself and, you know, figure out when you go to a lovely hotel in Istanbul or whatever, try and understand why did that make me feel special and how can I translate that? And I know it’s all of those, but, but, but, but which.

Was literally about to say tactics.

All of the above. And there’s been a couple of things. Obviously, we’ve done various different team courses and getaways over the years as well. One of the biggest one which will stick with with them for a long time was Spear. I sent not my dentist, my support staff to spear in Arizona at one point. This was many years ago when they were doing the team training. I don’t know if they still do it actually, but that was a real eye opener for a few of them because they got to see the American side of customer service, which is a completely different league to what we have in the UK. Customer service in America, as I’m sure you know, because you’ve been there millions of times, is just embedded in the culture. It’s their way of getting more money out of you. And it’s accepted that if you get a good customer service experience, you need to pay for it. And that doesn’t exist really in the UK. It does when you go to five star hotels and things to a certain extent, but in general, day to day life you will not necessarily get that if you’re going to normal shops, If you’re going to restaurants, it’s not the same. It’s very, very different. So it’s that was part of it. It was it was very interesting for my manager and a couple of my higher members of staff at the time to go across and see what they were teaching and what they were advocating, and that helped to instil it, even though none of it would have been amazingly new, we would have seen it on various different courses. They’ve been to conferences for the team, training stuff and things before, but it was going there to experience life in a different country as well. For the five days or six days or however long they went and to see how. Our customer service can actually be in a different environment. I think that was quite a powerful trip. That was about seven years ago, quite early on in the in the practice infancy.

What about just specific specifics for your patient journey? You know, you talked about follow up. It’s one of the biggest issues in dental practices. In fact, it’s one of the biggest issues in businesses in general. Right. I took it upon myself to book the hotel for one of these mini smile makeovers that we did somewhere. I said, I want to do it. And I just wanted to know what it’s like, right. To do the to do the booking and get it all right. You know, because I’d done it years ago. Then it’s been someone else taking care of it. I want to know where where it’s at right now. And honestly, man, the hotel that responds first has got this massive head start. Massive head start. There’s, by the way, the hotel who never responds here, who might be an amazing hotel. Yeah. And yet they didn’t have a system in place for follow up. Yeah. So it’s so interesting. So so. So do you have a CRM system that kind of prompts people to follow up? How often do you train your people on it? Because one thing I’ve noticed is it’s not a one time thing. You got to keep on training for customer service.

It’s very difficult.

It’s very difficult because you’re absolutely You mean you’ve hit the nail on the head there with with software, you can have the best softwares in the world, but unless you’ve got the right staff in there to actually implement and follow it and actually do what’s needed and be honest with it as well and is is the biggest problem. So yes, we do have a CRM software. We’ve changed over the years many times actually. At the moment we’re using a combination of my smiles, one as well as robo reception. So we’re using robo reception and I’m just trying to member the other one. Dan Graham So it’s Dan Graham and and robo reception. We’re using a different what’s robo reception.

One of those bots that asks you questions.

Yeah but they’ve now they’ve now got their own CRM one similar to enquiry bot actually enquiry bot we’ve used as well and we’ve really liked it. That’s another good one that, that came through in Covid, but it’s making sure that the two things, number one, limiting the people that have access to it so that you’ve got the right people looking at it and reducing the numbers significantly because it reduces errors. The more people you have doing things, the more errors you’re going to have, the less follow up you’re going to have for people. The mistakes get made and unfortunately, you can’t track the mistakes. The whole point of the software is to be able to track. But if mistakes are made and you can’t track the mistakes, you have no idea what you’re dealing with and what’s going on. So that’s why the only people who have access to it are my managers and my treatment coordinators. They’re the only ones that have my reception. Do not. We went through all of that many years ago. We discovered it doesn’t work. So.

So have you set up like minimum service levels? So patient sends an inquiry through the website. What happens next?

So enquiry through the website will lead to the treatment coordinator picking up that inquiry or the manager depending on who’s in first. The inquiry will then be followed up with a contact initially, depending on what the inquiry was. They have got the option to basically say whether they want a phone call or a WhatsApp. So that’s our two main contact points. It’s either WhatsApp or a phone call. We don’t really deal with email in terms of inquiries unless it’s an email enquiry that’s come to us. But even then they would normally state how they’d want to be contacted. So we try and have an actual direct conversation with the person to figure out what they’re looking for. It’s got to be within the first couple of hours of getting the enquiry. Yeah. So within two hours really we’ve got to try and contact them within reason. I mean if it’s a weekend and we’re not open, it’s going to be Monday morning of course. And then the next they then get put into depending on what that achieves, if we do make contact with them and it’s led to something, they then go through the normal process in terms of getting the informative emails, in terms of getting the the build up to appointment day, etcetera.

Go on, go on. What’s that. What’s that. What’s that.

So that will be obviously the obvious medical history forms, it will be the, the directions, the video of where the, the practice is and how to get to us. It will be the the details of let’s say it’s Invisalign. They’ve inquired about the details of Invisalign at Black Swan. What do we provide, what do they can they expect if it’s a video consult that they’ve booked in for, then they will obviously will give them a bit of a brief about what the video consult will entail. Once they’ve had the video consult, they’ll then get a bit more information about what was discussed in their video consult should be a bit more relevant to them before their actual booked in appointments. So we try and sort of follow up with it and try and give them as much information as we can.

It’s beautiful.

It’s beautiful, right. Because the guy has not yet stepped in, has he? No. And he’s already had directions, videos, specific videos to his inquiry. Like that’s important, right? He’s already in your ecosystem. Right.

Let’s put it this way. And this isn’t us bragging, but it is. And that we any patient that ends up in the chair in a surgery having come through that system is going ahead for treatment. The only thing that will stop them going ahead for treatment. As if we say you cannot have it done. Perrier, for example, or something else. You will. You need to have something else done first, or the treatment plan needs to change, etcetera. Our conversion rates are extremely high and for all.

Of them is.

Part of the process, giving them an estimation of of possible range of costs as well.

They need to you need to be time wasters.

You need to be transparent about it right from the offset. Then why hide it? Because if you start hiding these things and patients come in later and then they all they want to know from that initial inquiry. Let’s face it. Why do patients inquire with practice? Why do they phone around with practice? They want to know how much you charge. What is the cost of your Invisalign? Yes, you can give them all the other perks. You can give them all the extra things and that you do and you should do, because actually that’s what sets you off from all the competition and sets you apart. But ultimately they want to know how much it costs. And if they if you turn around and say, Oh, Invisalign treatment is, I don’t know, 2495 3195 3695 3995. Whatever it is. And the patient turns around and says, Oh no, my budget is 1500. And and you’ve seen the photos, you’ve seen the case. You cannot meet their expectations. There is no point continuing with that particular enquiry in terms of getting the patient in the chair, getting them to spend money on the consultation, etcetera. If they can’t actually afford the treatment, you can say to them when you’re ready and able, then obviously we’re here.

But this is a realistic expectation of what what it’s going to entail. If you want to discuss alternative options, if it’s Invisalign that you want. Fair enough. If you want to discuss alternative options, we’d be delighted to come and see you. These are what the alternative options can be. And it’s just. Yes, you direct or divert a couple of patients away from you that probably aren’t the right specific patient for your business. There’s no shame in saying it at the end of the day. Lots of enquiries, especially with the NHS crisis at the moment. We’re getting a lot of enquiries for all sorts of various different things and if they can’t afford the basics of what we can offer, how are they going to afford the root canal treatment or the extraction that they may need later on and the crown costs that they’re going to need? You can’t. This is how you get a complaint. You get a complaint by attracting the wrong patient to your business right from the very outset, because then they will find something they’re not particularly happy about or they feel like they’ve been misled. And as a result of that, that’s what will cause a grievance later on down the line.

And let’s not forget, right now, we’re discussing positioning. Yeah, let’s not let’s not forget the higher end patient needs to know your positioning is higher end.

Yeah.

Absolutely. That that’s that’s key too, right? You know, if I if I’m going to let’s say I come to Bristol, I want to get myself a steak and I say, hey, Ahmed, where’s a good steak? And you say this place. And I look in the menu. If the steak is under £19 or something, I won’t even like I It’s too cheap for me, isn’t it? Like, that’s not going to be a good steak as far as I’m concerned. Yeah. I’m willing to spend £90 on a steak. Yeah. How will I know that the place is that place if the menu and the pricing isn’t there?

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Absolutely. And it’s attracting the right type of patient for your business. You’ve got to price it up accordingly. Absolutely. The most insulting thing for me to hear is when a patient comes in and goes, Geez, you guys are the cheapest in the area. And I’m just thinking to myself, well, mean, I’m not taking that as a compliment. That’s a disaster because we’re not supposed to be.

Yeah. Are you trying to be the most expensive?

We’re not. No. Think we’re trying to be the best value for money. Guess mean. We will end up where we end up, but at the same time mean It’s difficult with Invisalign because it depends on your on your discount level and things as well. It doesn’t. It’s about profit margin rather than the actual cost of the treatment. So it depends on how.

Much Invisalign.

Do you see Invisalign as a as a profit centre or do you see it more as a way of attracting patients?

Bit of both. It depends how you price it. I think we’re second highest or definitely one of the highest Invisalign providers in the area that we’re in. So we do get a lot of patients coming in. We’re not the cheapest and we’re not intending to be. But at the same time, we’ve got a waiting list of patients, think we’ve got a 3 or 4 month waiting list at the moment in terms of cases coming in. And part of that is not just because of Invisalign, it’s word of mouth purely, it’s going through the Black Swan experience, which we hear time and time again. Patients want to come in through the place. They want to experience how we’ve made their friends feel and family feel. And it’s the end result. It’s the treatment planning service that makes it makes you stand out from everybody else because Invisalign is a tool. Anyone can do Invisalign. It’s how you straighten the teeth and what position you get them into which. If you understand orthodontics, you can do better than the others around you and also limitations. You don’t want to have any problems at the end of it. Then you throw in the whitening experience. Then you throw in the the bonding and the sort of the enamel oplasty, the tweaking around the smile to give them that smile that they actually wanted at the very start. Straighten the teeth will not always give them the smile they really want and it’s about and know exactly and it’s about understanding what they really, really want. And then you throw in there that the videographer is going to come in and film some of this we’re going to interview before and after. We’re going to get really good quality before and after photos. And suddenly you’ve got an experience that that patient will remember for the rest of their life.

Tell me this, but do you do ads to get patients for Invisalign?

We do, but that’s not the majority of our.

The majority is word of mouth.

It is word of mouth. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. So the inquiries that we get in. Yes, I’d say if I’m being completely honest, I’d say about 20% of our cases probably come from social media ads and paid ads, paid.

Paid ads, paid ads. Then in the in.

The in the creative for the paid ads, how do you distinguish yourself like, for instance, Prav Prav got an ad he’s he’s done for someone that the headline says cheap Invisalign you’re in the wrong place. Yeah, because the guy saying he’s not cheap Invisalign, he’s he’s quite the opposite. How do you distinguish yourself in an ad? Do you do you somehow manage to get the brand over in the ad.

Agency.

Deal with that. What do you do?

Bit of both.

But you need to be working with the right agency that can do that and actually can reflect your brand firstly. But secondly, it’s about trying to stick out from what everyone else is trying to do. Let’s face it, every single practice in the country is currently advertising £1,000 off Invisalign free whitening free retainers.

And because it kind of.

Works right, it kind of works on that generic vanilla vanilla.

Level.

It does to a certain extent. But in the market now saturated, isn’t everyone looking at these ads and going, Well, this place is doing £1,000 off, this place is doing £1,000 off. Patients aren’t stupid. After a while they’re going to realise no one’s really giving £1,000 off. They’re just saying in the ad and what they’ve all done is they’ve bumped their prices up to a certain extent. And let’s face it, that’s pretty much what 99% of practices are doing. So it doesn’t actually have any value to it and it doesn’t mean anything.

Well, I think, well, well, one thing we can’t say they’ve all done that, number one. But also the way that ad works is not necessarily for someone who’s looking at lots of ads. Yeah, the way that ad works is someone comes across the ad. Yeah, it hasn’t hasn’t come across lots of ads. Comes across the ad, you know, I don’t know. I might want laser eye surgery. By the way, I’m never going to go for a cheaper version. Right, Because I’m not. But but but somewhere someone might say, hey, £500 off laser eye surgery. Not necessarily that I’ve looked at others necessarily. I would. Right. But but you know what I mean, That that’s why that ad works. But but what you’re saying. Yeah, the brand part of it is a whole different thing. So how do you how.

Do you differentiate?

So when we did our adverts, most recent campaigns, for example, we used a lot of our own photos. We used a lot of our own videos of actual real life patients in the ads. We’ve used clever sort of marketing videos and designed in a specific way with the Black Swan brand all over it. We’ve we’ve gone for feel people we we wanted to do was inspire. We wanted patients to look at the ads or look at and go I want to I want to be that person in that photo. That’s that’s the experience. I want to get mean All the other stuff about discounts and this and bonuses and everything else, it’s great. I mean, they’re taking all the boxes. They’re saying what everybody else is saying. But actually I want I want that feel. And also showing off the the experience that we can give, the look of the premises and everything else. It’s it’s what makes it quite easy to distinguish yourself from everybody else around you. Otherwise you literally are trying to do exactly what everyone else is trying to do stock images, stock ads and everything else. At the end of the day, people want to see that these are real life, genuine cases that you’ve done using the same image of an Invisalign patient holding a tray and smiling and looking absolutely beautiful and all this and all that. It’s what everyone does. Patients can distinguish between a stock image and a real genuine image, especially when they see people actually holding things that are brand related to them.

Yeah.

You’ve definitely got a knack for marketing, buddy. You’ve definitely got a knack for marketing. Well, how do you balance the question of clinical excellence and business excellence? You said you kind of alluded to it before. You said you can’t be both brilliant clinician and brilliant businessman. What did what did you mean by that?

It’s very difficult because running a business requires your utmost attention 24 over seven. If you want it as a small scale business, it’s perfectly doable. If you want to upscale, you want to open yourself up to multiple avenues. You can’t also be the main go to clinical guy. And this has been the absolute bullet for me since Covid, because the number of big cases that we’ve been getting in, it’s been about 1 or 2 a week. And when I say big cases, I’m talking sort of ten, 15, 20 grand cases that walk in. They’ve they’ve been neglected for years. They want to get all this treatment done. You discuss it briefly at the very start just to get a rough idea of whether they’re interested or not. And then they say, yeah, absolutely, fine. When can we start? And suddenly you’ve got yourself into a sort of a 20 grand plus case, whether it’s sort of a rare case, whether it’s a alignment and on all sorts of other restorative work. And it’s difficult because you can’t then sit there at the end of that day and plan all these cases and try and get them all in the diary, etcetera, whilst also treating the rest of your patients whilst also trying to run your business, keep everybody happy, keep all the staff happy, manage all the finances, pay all the bills that need to be paid and keep the place afloat. Look, sit back and look at the figures for the month, how well you’re doing, Analyse the data, talk with the accountants, the bookkeeper. I mean, it’s never ending. It’s never, never ending. And it’s difficult. It’s really, really hard. And I think I’ve learnt that you can’t, as much as I aspired originally to want to be, to own one of the best practices in the country, let alone the world eventually, but at the same time also be the go to dentist that everybody wants that wants to go to the person that can do what the other practices around you cannot.

The place that everybody refers their tricky cases to because they don’t know what to do. And we’ve got then turns to the southwest. Thankfully we’ve got there we are the place that everybody sends all their tricky cases that they don’t know what to do with. But at the same time, I can’t be that person and also run a business empire at the same time. It’s not possible, physically possible as one person to do that unless you really hone in and get the right amount of people around you. But then it’s a question of what is the best use of your time. And this is where you get to eventually thinking, I’m one person. There is a limit to what I can earn in my hourly rate treating patients. Regardless of how good you think you are, even if you upped your hourly rate to 400 an hour, 500, 600, 700, a thousand, there is still a limit to how much you can earn through your own handiwork, through your own hands and through a given day. Whereas actually you can quadruple that by actually being able to run businesses or multiple businesses on multiple fronts very well and actually being the inspiration behind them. And it’s getting that balance right. I don’t I haven’t got it right yet.

So. So what is the actual situation? You said you’re kind of the beginning and end.

Yeah.

So you said that off off mic. But to explain that.

So at the moment we I’m going through a transition. I’m trying to reduce my clinical work to a certain extent to concentrate on doing the things that I believe I can do and that I should be doing, reduce the work that I don’t need to be the one doing by inspiring and and training and mentoring the other dentists around me to be able to take on the work to the same standard, to the same level so the patients don’t feel like they’re being neglected or being significantly shortchanged and to maintain that standard in the practice. And I think that’s that’s the transition we’re currently going through over the next year or two to achieve to that level. But then allow me to then be able to have more time to be able to spend on the businesses themselves rather than me physically being in the surgery all the time.

So what is your week like? So how many days.

Are you actually at the.

Moment? It’s Monday, Tuesday. Wednesday is clinical at Black Swan with patients longer days, Thursdays alternates are the my longer appointment days. So they’re the ones where we’ve got the videographer in where we do the filming etcetera for for some of the longer appointments, the reveals, etcetera. And then at the moment the Fridays and the Saturday alternates, I work at the Bristol practice clinically and again, something I’m trying to cut down over the next year or so and try and reduce my clinical attachment to the Bristol practice because it’s very difficult to to run a business, and especially if I’m not there as often and manage it sort of from the sidelines and also be the clinician in that practice at the same time.

So. But are you thinking of more practices?

Um, I didn’t envisage owning more than one practice. A couple of years ago, so I will never rule anything out if an opportunity presents itself like it did last time, I may consider it, but it gets to the point you need to have that infrastructure in place before you start expanding or doing more, because otherwise you end up going crazy. You can’t take on more responsibility if you haven’t even got the infrastructure in place to manage the ones you’ve got at the moment when they don’t rely on you. So it’s the obvious question is can you take a month of holiday off all your businesses and can they run themselves for a month while you’re not there? If the answer to that question is yes, then you’re okay. You can take on another business. If the answer to that is no, then you’re not ready.

So. So take us through the opportunity that presented itself with the centre of Centre for Dentistry Practice that you bought, which explain to others. The Centre for Dentistry was a corporate that was had was operating practices inside Sainsbury’s stores and around Covid time. They got into financial difficulties. I was dealing with them as well, unfortunate because I liked the management there. They had good vision, they wanted to do the right thing. Tell me about it.

What happened?

So that particular practice used to be around the corner from where I lived, so it was very, very close to where I was. I got a job there doing their orthodontics. I saw an advert up about, I think it was about a year and a half before Covid actually offer alternate Saturday work. And at the time I thought, you know what I mean? It was a bit of a punt, but I thought, I can see what they’re trying to do with this corporate and it’s a private corporate which is unique. There’s not many of them around. And it’s a it’s a unique idea. I want to get a job there and I want to see what it’s all about. So I did. Is that.

Why you did the.

Job there?

Purely unfortunately, yes.

I can see that because it seems like a strange move. Yeah.

So I did that and I didn’t necessarily hide it, but at the same time, I enjoyed my dentistry, I enjoyed my orthodontics, I enjoy doing sort of high end dentistry. So I could be in a position where I can pick the cases and the way that I want to do. So I got a job there. They were very they’ve made no secret of that at the time. They were very surprised that that I would apply for a vacancy like this. And I said, look, I just I just want to experience I want to work in the in the corporate. I want to see what it’s like on the inside. And and it’s around the corner from my house. And what’s the harm of earning a bit more money? So I did it for about I did it for about a year initially and it was very obvious right from the very beginning to me that there was a huge amount of potential available in this place and it was not being tapped into lack of experience of the dentists that were working there, lack of experience with the staff that are working there. And it was an overall just lack of management of being able to run the place. It wasn’t anything to do with the quality of the patients because when I spoke to or treatment planned, any of the the work that the patients needed and quoted them the right prices that I would feel comfortable with, etcetera, not a single patient batted an eyelid.

And remember the management approaching me quite early on actually after about two months and basically saying to me the other dentists in the practice are complaining your prices are too high. And I said, Well, I can see where they’re coming from because their prices are probably a third of what I’m charging. But at the same time, I’ve brought in all my own materials. I brought in all the things that I want to do. So I am justified in charging the prices that I’m doing because the quality of the work that I’m doing is still to a very high standard. Has a single patient complained about any of the prices? And they said no. And I said, well, why are we why are we having this conversation? I’m literally tripling your income from a from a dentist. And the patients are all super happy about it. If anything, it’s starting to generate a lot more patients coming through the door and a lot more inquiries. So that was a bit of an eye opener for them as a business model because it didn’t work with their business model.

Their business model relied on every single one of the practices. It was 25 branches all over the country being the same price, whether they were in Scunthorpe, Doncaster, Fulham in Central London or Bristol. And to me, I mean, I’m not running a corporate, but to me that didn’t make any sense because the rental prices in Doncaster would be extremely different to the practice in Fulham. Of course, surely the running costs will be different, the staffing costs will be different. You can’t price things up in the same way. It just wouldn’t work. But I like the ethos of the model. But if you’re going to do that, you need to charge a lot more to try and attract the right type of patients in there. The patients that were coming into the Bristol branch lived locally around the area and it’s a fairly affluent area. So they’ve got the finances, the funds to be able to spend on decent dentistry. So that was the the the first sort of initial red flags for me. And as Covid approached, they did approach me at that time and basically they were very honest. They said to me about three months before Covid, they they said, look, we’re going to be closing. We’re only keeping open ten branches around the country that are the ones that are actually doing quite well.

We’re going to close all the other branches. Bristol is one of the branches that we’re looking to close. Do you want to? Office. And it was at that point that I sort of said, I’m not really in a position to. This wasn’t my intention of coming here. I mean, I wasn’t here to buy the business. I was here to get an insight into what running a future private corporate might be like. So at that point, I said, I don’t think I can actually afford it. I’m really sorry. I don’t have the finances and the funds. And just out of interest, how much would you be looking to sell it for? And I think it was at that point that it changed everything for me because there was I mean, the figure they quoted me was just was was ridiculous. I mean, it was it was a steal. It was an absolute bargain. And I think at that point, that’s when I thought, hang on a minute, this mean I can’t really say no to this. I need to find a way to structure this to actually make it work without relying on me being the main dentist in the practice. But you can quite easily turn this business around.

I’m seeing a pattern here where you’re coming into distressed businesses. If one day we have a problem in and I’ll be giving you a call back, so go on. Yeah. And did you turn it around? What happened?

Yeah. I mean.

Well, you were lucky because it was the Covid bump that happened after that, right?

It was to a certain extent. There were still patients in the practice. So it wasn’t it wasn’t a total loss. But yes, it was. I got another one of my friends who to come in as a business partner, younger associates at the time, great dentists, very good quality dentists. The one.

You didn’t get on with.

In the end.

The one that we are still very good friends. We have.

Not fallen. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But he, he came to the decision that two years in business ownership was not for him. He didn’t like the stresses. He didn’t like the it was becoming pretty obvious that it was a lot quicker for me to take the decisions and make the moves and hires and everything else than it was to constantly have meetings to. And that would intrude in both of our lives and think it was. That was one of the turning points really. When we sat down together, we were very honest and we drew up an exit strategy for him that worked for both of us. But yes, we have turned it around. So when I inherited when I bought when we took over that practice, that practice was no dentists had all left nurses. We had one part time nurse, one part time receptionist and the practice manager and that was it. That was literally the staffing at that practice. Every single member of staff had been at that practice for just under two years. The manager had been there for a slightly bit longer than that. So it was a case of literally bringing in the team immediately. Hygienist 1 or 2 nurses. Receptionist Another dentist, potentially. And yeah, all before Covid sort of really took took shape. So this, all these conversations were taking place. So the practice itself had shut its doors just before it basically march when when Covid lockdowns all started.

Wow what time and.

We the deal for buying I mean, the negotiations were going on throughout throughout Covid. We bought the practice and signed the forms on the 5th of June. And obviously we were allowed to go back to work on the 8th of June. So it didn’t give us a huge amount of time, so we couldn’t actually open till the 10th of June. Realistically, with the and everything else that we had to try and sort out to begin with. But but yeah, it was it was a very strange scenario to sort of bring in staff very, very quickly to try and settle everyone, buy all the materials that needed to be bought immediately and and really just try and get it working. And I mean, we started off obviously with all the furlough and everything else. It had to be on a on a reduced scale to begin with. Take the hit for the first month or two. But but yeah, I mean, it’s grown now. We’ve got five dentists at that practice. We’ve got two hygienists. We’re working. It’s a two surgery practice. It’s working two surgeries pretty much nearly six days a week now, including Saturdays with late nights, etcetera as well. We’ve got a very rising team and that’s that was three years that it took to get that position.

With the massive enlightened advert on the outside.

A massive on the ad? Absolutely.

Thank you so much, buddy. Very nice to see that. What’s the positioning of these two practices? I mean, it’s not position the same as your black swan, surely?

No. So this I would classify this one as a more middle of the range, good quality, family oriented private practice, which actually I mean, again, eye opener for me, there’s a lot of money in it. It’s a very profitable way to run a business. You don’t have to do the high end implants, the cosmetics and everything else to actually be able to turn a decent profit and make some good money out of normal bread and butter dentistry practice. So yeah, it’s a different prospect, but still very profitable in its own right. I mean, we’re not we’re not a million miles off a sort of a 1 million practice at the Bristol practice in three years and starting pretty much from zero. So it’s.

Associate.

Associate lead has got its own challenges, right? I mean are you did you put in some of your existing team from Somerset there or is it too far?

Not at all. No.

No, it’s too far. It’s an hour and a half drive between the two. It’s not it’s not practical. It’s not viable. So, yes, associate led is very difficult. And it’s still I mean no team is. Perfect. We will continue to improve, but it’s trying to bring in dentists from different backgrounds and different settings and trying to get them to work in an environment where the patients are going to be a bit more challenging simply because the type of patients we attract at that particular practice are patients that are disgruntled with the NHS, that are trying to look for alternatives. So as a result of that, unless you give them a really good customer service experience, they’re not going to really. And the clinical care needs to be obviously a higher standard. They’re not really going to see the difference of what they used to pay at the NHS and what they’re paying at the private practice. You can’t give them the same experience, otherwise they will be unhappy. You can’t charge them the same. You can’t charge £50 for an examination or £45 for an examination, even though they don’t know what the charges are now. But back in my day, it was, what, £19 or £25 or whatever it was, And then expect the patients to still be okay with it because they are clearly judging you. They’re coming to you because they’ve come from an background. They’re not getting continuity of care. They’re not getting the same clinicians, they’re not getting a great service experience. When they phone up the practice, they don’t answer the phone first time round. They they won’t get you in as soon as you as you need to come in.

All of these things are what’s driven that patient to contact you to come in. And unless you tick the boxes for what they’re really looking for, get them in fairly quickly When they’ve got a problem, get them in, not keep them waiting for a couple of more than a couple of weeks in terms of coming in for their first appointment. Treat them really well and give them a lot more information than they’ve ever received before at their clinical examination. Have some good follow ups, be able to discuss sort of plan things with them. Unless you’re giving them all of that experience, there’s no value in it for them. And that’s difficult to give to dentists that have not been used to that environment either, because you can’t just pluck a dentist out of a sort of, let’s use an example, an NHS practice, stick them in a private practice and go, yep, carry on doing exactly what you were doing before because the patient will not see the value in that. You need to change the way you’re doing things. Otherwise you will get complaints, you will get disgruntled patients and that’s that’s the learning curve and you won’t have that team ready, especially in an environment like that where you’ve got to source the team quickly to get them in. I mean, they might be clinically excellent. And I’m not using Bristol as an example specifically for this. I’m being more general. The dentist may be exceptionally skilled clinically, but if he hasn’t got the customer service aspect that comes with it too, the patient won’t realise that and they won’t. They won’t really appreciate the quality of the care they’re receiving.

Yeah, absolutely, man. Look, man, I feel like I’m selling you short because there’s so many things you do. You’re an accomplished clinician. You’re doing the BDA thing, and yet we’ve totally focussed on customer service and patient experience and so forth. So we should talk about the other stuff a little bit. Let’s, let’s, let’s talk about the whole event side of things that you did. I mean, you were pretty much one of the key people in organising that event in the Southwest, right? What was it called?

Yeah, the Young Dancers conference.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Absolutely. And that’s I mean, I’ve been chair of the dentist committee for Young Dental Group in the Southwest for the past eight years now. I think I launched it and founded it. And, and the main reason for that was purely I tried to join I was considered a young dentist at the time still. And I tried to join the National Young Dentist Committee for the BDA and was sort of rebuffed at the time and said, Oh, well, we haven’t got any spaces. You can’t really get involved in that side of it. The next allocation won’t be for another couple of years. And I thought, actually I can’t really just hang around for a couple of years waiting for a committee position to come available. So we so I decided I went to the Western counties branch of the BDA, which is the Southwest branch, and basically said, Look, I want to start a young dentist group in the Southwest. I want to give that sort of link between dentists graduating and then becoming a bit more experienced and finding the right places and settling in this area. It doesn’t exist at the moment and I got the support I needed. We set it off. We launched the first event and it’s been it’s been a success ever since up until Covid happened. In fact, the last conference was literally a couple of weeks before Covid, which was in the middle of Feb, actually, and it grew from strength to strength. I think we had 140 people turn up at that particular one, 150. We even hit Jason Smithson was the main speaker. Obviously a couple of years before that we had Dépeches as the main speaker at the Exeter one. So we’ve had we’ve attracted some really good names. And one of the main things or main reasons I wanted to set that up was because to inspire the younger dentists and the younger generations to give them access to things that I didn’t have access to when I qualified.

Because there’s a lot in dentistry that needs to be discussed, whether it’s the business side, the clinical side. But unless you look into it and realise what it is that you don’t know, you’re not necessarily going to go looking for it. So that entire scenario was created, the entire campaigns were created for that that first year generation of foundation dentists as they graduate and for those students and final year to attend something like this and really inspire them to something great in terms of dentistry. And my main inspiration actually was during my PhD year, one of the things that inspired. Nearby events was going to the conference in Liverpool that particular year because that was when the conference used to be organised by the BDA properly. And what I loved about that is there were so many seminars, lectures, literally everything you could imagine under the sun was available and you could go to it, you could choose where you wanted to go. There was multiple things all being organised as well as the massive trade show, which was a huge, huge inspiration for someone very early on to go to. And that’s that’s one of the things that stuck with me and I wanted to bring some of that to the Southwest, which is why obviously we brought in trade exhibitions and things afterwards. And actually that’s what led me afterwards to start going down the route of as well. And that’s what’s more recently created Private Dental mentor. It’s off the back of the young dentist conferences.

Yeah. Tell me about private dental mental.

So one of the I’m glad you asked one of the one of the things that I would have liked and looking back at my career now is a structured learning programme to give me what I needed in my first year there. There’s so many courses and so many people that I’ve been I’ve been on and been with over the last ten years, 12 years, 15 years of my career that have really inspired certain aspects of my clinical dentistry and non-clinical, but they weren’t done in the right order. For example, mean just as a throwaway Janos Mako’s posterior occlusion course that did a posterior sorry morphology course that did think it was about 6 or 7 years ago. And I remember walking out of that after three days of sort of solid plasticine induced sort of carving in dingy basement of a London hotel, three very late nights carving the four, five, 6 or 7 uppers lowers again and again and again and again.

That’s a marathon course, isn’t it?

It is.

And I remember walking out of it at the end and just thought, why didn’t I do something like this in my first year of graduating? I’m doing this seven years too late. I mean, if this was instilled in me right from the very beginning, the quality of my composite work and direct work would have completely shot through the roof quite early on because actually this answers a lot of the questions that you get to so many different composite courses and and rightly say you learn a lot of the basics that you need, but you never really go into the depth of morphology. There’s no time. You don’t have the time to do that. And that’s not something that’s specific for a lot of these courses. You cover the basics of it to a certain extent, but you’re not going to cover it in that sort of intensity. And there isn’t really anything in the UK that exists that does it to that sort of intensity the way those courses were. So that was quite an eye opener for me, as well as many other courses that that I’ve done over the years. And that’s what inspired was, is really what is the once you’ve done your your foundation year, what next? If you want to stay in practice, if you want a transition to private practice, what can you do next that will actually help you with that transition? And at the moment, it doesn’t exist.

Yeah. So explain it. What is it?

So it is a one year mentored program with structured face to face sessions once a month. That will and every single month is a theme topic. So over the 12 months you have 12 theme topics that you would concentrate on for that one month. Thursday is your study day or is the day And at the start of the Thursday of every single month, that is when the speaker for that month will come in. They will give their their lecture, their learning experience, etcetera, and the rest of that month will continue to concentrate on everything you’re learning. So, for example, one of the earliest things wanted to start, which is month one in September, is a detailed look at dental examinations, detailed dental examinations, as well as pain management and pain free dentistry, because that is the key to any private practitioner trying to break out of my practice. It’s a three key things that you kind of need. You need to be able to analyse the patient well, you need to be able to treat that patient well and give them a pain free experience and pain management. It’s the one thing that should set us apart in private dentistry. You’ve got more time when a patient comes in in pain, you’ve got more time to be able to spend with that patient to try and figure it out. So the whole month in September will be spent on those three things. Work will be set on Thursday mornings, every single week, where they will they will be the delegates will be asked to complete that work. And then the Thursday afternoons of every single one of the Thursdays, then we will have some clinical case discussions on Zoom as a group to discuss scenarios based on that month’s theme and topic. And people are then they are allowed to bring in their own cases to discuss as well. And the idea behind.

It is it’s.

One day a month, right? Not one day a week. One day. No, no.

It’s the one day a week in terms of the structured mentor sessions. But the the face to face actual speaker session is one is once a month. Okay. So moving on a couple of months, for example, when we’re talking about the the Yanos one, which you’ll be doing his entire three days course as part of this, that’s at the start of December, the rest of December sessions will concentrate on you being given your models and you’re basically being asked to tasked with carving and doing the work and taking photographs with them as you go through it for the rest of that month.

Dude, how.

Long have you been how long have you been cooking this up? Because I know Janos. I was with him in Vilnius a couple of weeks ago. He’s booked, like, two years ahead.

Yeah. No.

Have you been cooking this up for a couple of years? Longer than that?

No. This started we. We started this last year, so that’s when I started doing the planning for it. It was about a year ago that we started doing the planning and I’ve booked him for the next couple of years for exactly that reason. So yes, he is very booked up. Absolutely. He’s very difficult to pin down. And a lot of these speakers are mean Cavenders obviously quite busy as well. And and a lot of the other household names, Ian, Dan, Nadeem Yunus, they’re all very busy people that you can’t get into their diaries that easily. You’ve got to do it in advance. I have always had this. I mean, I’ve trialled the idea of this in my own practice with my associate a few years ago. I got him to do all of these courses. The difference was I was sending him to do these courses all over the world and all over the UK. The difference is now we’ve brought all these courses here in house to actually do them and run them at a reasonable price, which will be a lot cheaper than if you were actually doing these courses all separately yourself.

But is it Bristol based? It will be.

In Somerset, so it’ll be at the Black Swan Training Training Institute.

Aurora. The New Black Swan has training facilities.

Absolutely.

What a beautiful practice, by the way. I take my hat off to you. So what? Isn’t that a bit difficult to get to? Or is it you’re super focusing on people in that area?

It is. I mean, we’ve only got spaces for for sort of 20 delegates per year. So we’re not we’re keeping it very, very small and intimate simply because to get that hands on experience and that level, especially if you’re doing an entire year course, it’s a lot. It’s full on. If you start having a too big a group, you’re not going to get the benefits out of mentoring people quite, quite close knit. So it’s not about the numbers per se. It’s about getting the right people that are willing to either be close to the area or willing to travel. You’ll be surprised. I mean, we’ve had dentists enquiring some sort of London had practices. I’ve had one practice in Leeds that’s actually inquired already about joining the program. So people are prepared to travel for the right courses.

But this isn’t this isn’t particularly scalable, is it? I mean, you can’t have several cohorts because Janos is, you know.

Not yet. Not yet, but it could be. Yeah. Yeah.

So is there some sort of selfishness in this that you’re trying to find associates for your own businesses? Is that what.

No. If anything.

Undercurrent. There’s nothing wrong with that, if that’s the case.

No.

It isn’t. I mean, it’s funny you say that, but no, it’s not, actually, because I don’t have any space for associates currently either. Practice. It’s purely down to two factors that drove this. Number one is the way the is going think dentistry is going in a very unique way over the next couple of years where we are all being pushed into the private sector. We as we as a profession have a huge opportunity here to showcase what private dentistry can really do for the profession and and actually give them a real good experience to make them realise this is what private dentistry gives you. And if we do that well and we play our role well, we will change the background of dentistry in the UK forever because yes, they will eventually source more dentists. Yes, we will get more coming through the doors in the next couple of years. I’m sure of it. But actually if patients realise the experience they’ve just received, they’ve paid a bit extra, they’ve had to leave the NHS for a while and they realise that actually the experience they’ve just received, the practices in their area that they’ve just gone and experienced treatment with are so far advanced in terms of the care that they’ve gotten. They don’t want to go back and that’s I’m not knocking the NHS if it provided a service that actually could cater realistically for everyone the way we need it to with proper holistic dentistry, comprehensive dentistry by all means I would be a massive advocate, but unfortunately in its current form it cannot do that. And that’s that’s for me is one of the big driving factors. It’s training the next the new cohort of dentists coming through to get them that experience.

So they are very confident in their dentistry. But it’s not just confidence. Confidence is great, but you need to have substance. You need to actually be good at what you do when you sell something to patients, when you’re doing something as basic as direct composites, actually being proud of your work and doing it to a level where you really take pride in that work and you know you’re doing a good job for that patient, not just doing it for a photo, but doing it for functional clinical reasons. And that that’s the type of delegates I want to inspire moving forward. The other side of this as well is you’re funny you say that because it’s kind of it’s not for me to try and sort of pinch associates and create them. It was more realising the associates that I was attracting at my practice didn’t have the skills and experience, and when it was the one associate pre-COVID, it was easy. I could dedicate my time and attention to one person. When you’ve got 2 or 3 each practice, you can’t do that anymore. It doesn’t. It’s they require too much time and too much effort and sort of training to be able to do the things that you want them to do and for them to learn quicker on the job as they go through. Because ultimately it’s discussions of cases and things that actually give them that experience to be able to not make all the same mistakes that I would have done and not take as long to learn and pick things up, which ultimately will benefit their own careers but also benefit my businesses as well.

But how does your wife.

Put up with you? I’m actually very surprised. I’m still married. To be completely honest. Four kids here and the amount of stuff you’re doing. You must be coming home late once they’ve gone to bed. Leaving before they’ve woken up, that sort of stuff. That must be going on, right? It is, Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, absolutely. So the Monday, Tuesdays and Wednesdays are pretty much a write off. I will. I will get home late. They are my late nights, my Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays are a bit more chilled. They are like that. I like that. So do you have that arrangement with her that, you know, Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, you’re going to do whatever you want. And yeah, I like that. I like, you know, I think Sandeep has some sort of arrangement like that for Sandeep from my smile as well. It’s actually a good arrangement, but it’s been such an eye opener, you know, you know someone for years and then. And then you see that it’s even more drive than you thought. Oh, my goodness, man, our time’s coming to an end. I want to kind of quickly go through an error, clinical error.

Any particular one.

There’s loads of examples I can give you. Any particular type?

Tasty one. Tasty one.

Well, I don’t want the. I dropped something down someone’s throat type. Okay. I want one. I want one. You can learn from kind of patient management error kind of something. One of those.

Oh, okay. I’ll keep it as simple as I can. So actually, one of the ones that we will probably be discussing on because it’s so basic, yet all of us will experience this at the start of our careers patients. And this this for me was a massive eye opener. It’s changed the way I do dentistry since patient comes in cavity in their tooth. Very big, whole food getting packed in there. They have no pain from that cavity yet they’ve not experienced a single ounce of pain. As a dentist, it’s very easy for us. And then this is exactly what did. This was in my second year of your first year at Black Swan, but second year of being a dentist. And it was it’s very easy to go, That’s fine, no problem at all. We will fix it. No problem at all. Let’s log you back. Let’s let’s get the filling done, etcetera, etcetera. Let’s seal it all up and and finish the job and off you go. Patient comes and then leave it at that patient, then comes back in a week later. Absolute raging toothache. I had no pain whatsoever. Until you touched me. Until you did this filling. I was absolutely fine. Now I can’t sleep. This is all your fault. You have caused this. You need to rectify this. Okay, no problem. The discussion then is around root canal treatment extractions. I’m not paying a penny.

This is not my problem. I didn’t cause this. I’m not paying for root canal treatment. I’m not paying for the removal of the teeth. I want to save this tooth. But you. But you have to pay for this. It’s a really difficult scenario. And I will admit, at that particular time, I took the hit and I sorted the patient out and and I let that go. But I learnt from it because actually what it taught me is that consent is very different and very difficult for different patients. It doesn’t matter what you get them to sign, it doesn’t matter what you say to them at the beginning, you need to figure out that they actually understand what you’re saying and also can can afford the consequences of what you’re going to do for them if they can barely. And this comes down to doing favours for people as well. It’s horrible that the world has moved on to this because if you’re doing somebody a favour, which is a great gesture, it’s very, very nice. But if that favour turns into something unplanned as a result of you doing that favour and they cannot actually cope with the consequences of that favour, you’ve actually done them an injustice because you’ve put them in a difficult position that they can’t actually deal with, and then you’ve taken ownership of that problem and you have to find a solution to it.

And this is a very simple example, but actually a really important one because had actually discussed in detail, in detail, I’ve mentioned it in passing, but have I sat the patient and said, you have an extremely deep hole in this tooth. This is going to be root canal treatment If this this tooth is not it’s going to end up like this. This will cost you X, Y, and Z. If we proceed with this, you need to be fully aware that this is going 99% likely to happen. So you need to be prepared for the consequences. Either that or the extraction. Do you still want me to go ahead and fix this problem or what do you want to do? And then the onus is on the patient to take that decision without me really taking ownership of that situation. And I think that’s one thing I’ve learnt heavily over the years, is to realise that actually it’s not to take the patient’s problems home with you. These are not your issues and problems. You need to give them, need to learn how to direct those issues to the person, give them options and get them to choose the most appropriate option, not always the most expensive, and it’s not always the cheapest. The one they believe will be the most suitable one for them because then they’re responsible for the consequences of the situation that happened afterwards.

Although I kind of I feel like it’s a young dentist error to give all the options and not give a recommendation.

I’m not saying don’t give a recommendation if they ask you for a recommendation. Absolutely. By all means. We are trained to save teeth. I want to fill this tooth and I want to do the restoration.

I’ve come across it yourself. You’ve come across it yourself with a lawyer or something. A lawyer says, here’s option A, B or C, and you go to the lawyer, Which one would you do? And you go, Well, that’s not my position. That’s not my decision, it’s your decision. Or then you get a really great lawyer who will say, Here’s option A, B, or C, I would go for B, Yeah, you know, like that. It makes such a big difference, right? And you’re not necessarily going to go for B? Yeah, you just want to know what’s his his position on it. I hear what you’re saying. That’s something.

But yeah.

It’s nuance. It’s nuance. I hear you. I hear what you’re saying.

We get asked this question all the time anyway, don’t we? So in surgery, it’s something that we get asked consistently. What option would you take? And it’s being able to answer that question in the right way and be honest with the patients. And I think that’s one of the things. Again, it’s a big team built a big practice builder is honesty and pricing your treatments up so that regardless of what option the patient takes, you don’t have an option that makes you much more money than the other options because then it’s not fair. You may end up pushing down a particular route where it’s not necessary. Whereas if you’re making a decent profit on every single option, regardless of what that patient is doing, you can give an honest opinion. Attention may actually be your best option in this case. Go for the denture.

By the way, in that example, the fact that you picked up the bill for that, what was it? Private Endo? It speaks to the fact that you do not want one star review man.

You’ve got to.

Speak to that.

Fact.

You’ve got to chalk it up to a learning experience.

Well, you you did. Yeah. Not everyone would have made that decision, dude.

No.

Loads of people wouldn’t have made that. Loads of people would have told them where to go or or whatever. Yeah, but. But you weighed up your options and and took the blame, which is beautiful. Yeah. Like in your own head. Took the blame and then made sure that patient was delighted. Yeah. Made sure that, you know, that you handled that situation. That’s what I mean by the how one defines one’s business. Yeah. It comes down to those final base principles because loads of people would have handled that differently.

But then when would that have gone? But when would that have gone?

It would have resulted in a very disgruntled patient who would have gone and badmouthed your business, probably. I mean, I’m not I don’t think about it in terms of Google reviews. So you’ve got to sometimes weigh up the options and go right. Well, actually, in in this scenario, this is the better of the options to be able to deal with this and need to learn from it and make sure this doesn’t happen again.

I get it, man. I get it. The thing is that. You know that what I’m saying. What defines you? Somewhat. Someone will say that was not my fault. Do what you want with that. Yeah. And know that it’s not going to get very far. Yeah. Some people sometimes, By the way, dude, the dentist will be convinced that the patient is lying about it and having a go. Yeah, and that’s where the real strength of character comes out. Yeah, That when, you know, when you think in this case, you kind of took the blame and thought this patient just wasn’t the communication was incorrect. This patient was kind of mal informed. Yeah, yeah. Whereas sometimes you’ve got a patient in front of you who you’re convinced is having a go then handling that situation. And I bet you dude, I bet you you still would have taken the hit. Yeah. Because that’s, that’s, that’s what you’re saying.

It’s realising.

Think it’s reading the situation and trying to take the and one thing I’ve learned over the years is to take the money aspect out of the equation and treat it from an emotional point of view and give and share that patient that you genuinely care when they come in. And they have. I mean, thankfully it doesn’t happen often, but just money disgruntlement happens the majority of the time. That’s what they’re really complaining or arguing about. And it’s taking that aspect out of the equation and sitting down with them and just going, What do you actually want to resolve this scenario? Forget the money. What do you actually want to solve this scenario? And if they say, well, actually, I’d like I’d like my tooth to stop hurting, that’s fine. We can so we can sort that that’s not a problem. Whereas if they say, well, I want my money back for X, Y and Z, No, no, no, it’s not a question. We’re not talking about money. What outcome do you actually want? And that’s where it comes down to it, because then they realise that you genuinely care. It’s not a case of you arguing about the finances. That’s where issues really crop up. When dentists don’t want to pay for this and don’t want to pay and get it, I can see their point of view and I agree with them. But it’s it’s also realising that actually you need to show this patient you genuinely care about them, their feelings, their pain, etcetera. And that’s when it sort of reverses the situation because they realise that actually you’re not a total arsehole, you haven’t just stolen their money, you actually do want to help them.

Yeah, absolutely, man. What about a business mistake?

Our business mistake. Business mistake or mean? We haven’t got very long. So I’m not going to run into a very long list here. Well, actually, one of the things that opened my eyes up was actually post-COVID. I’ll use this as an example, and I’m not going to mention any names because it would be unfair to. But we took on we wanted to enhance our social media profile. So we started looking at various and it gave me the opportunity to do my research on this. During Covid, we started looking at various different companies that manage Dental social media profiles, and one of the things I learned very quickly and lost a lot of money on is that just because companies say they do something, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they do do it or they know how to do it. They may have done it for one particular company, but it doesn’t mean they can do it and replicate it for other companies. And that was a painful lesson because I think I got through about three different companies in about six months learning from each experience to realise that actually I am literally throwing my money away here and not really getting what I want to get as an outcome. And that then inspired me to then try and bring that in-house, which is what led to our media team being created at the time and actually bringing in the social media coordinators, the, the, the videographers, etcetera, and building our own sort of mini in-house studio to be able to to cater for all of that, but wouldn’t have considered doing that because to me that was too much hard work at the start for me to then bring people in, train them and implement all of that. It wasn’t until I had gone through the other experience and the other side of it that I realised after losing it was a fair bit of money to be honest, that actually it wasn’t really possible to do what I wanted by using what’s out there already. I need to actually create this myself.

Yeah. I’m not totally convinced by that mistake. I get it. I get it as a mistake. But, you know, if you couldn’t find the right supplier, great. No, man. A mistake. An error.

Oh.

I think your clinical one was good.

It was a good one.

But your business one was a bit poor.

Business mistake.

Yeah. Business, man. What kind of business, Sarah? Can you think of?

Plenty, I’m sure. But if I was to think of one straight off the cuff, I’d say recruitment, actually, because this is something that’s probably the thorn in the side of many, many businesses. And I’ve learnt over the years that it’s very difficult to get it right. You need to have a robust system to be able to figure it out. Otherwise you end up going through multiple members of staff and it’s not fair on the staff who’ve been brought in if they’re not necessarily suitable for the job. And I’m not talking just in terms of non-clinical staff, I’m talking clinical as well. So it’s learning to try and attract the right number, the right members of staff to the team. So for example, we went through a period of at the Bristol practice of recruiting about, I would say the team that we have there now are not the team that we had there two years ago because in that first year and a bit, we probably turned around the staff a number of times in terms of we were getting a new nurse practically every 6 to 12 weeks and a new receptionist probably every couple of months as well.

And it was purely down to how we were recruiting at the time. We were getting the a lot of candidates applying, we were getting them in, we were interviewing them and we were being blown away by themselves, by them at interview in terms of their saying all the right things, they’re taking all the right boxes. But what we weren’t getting into the nitty gritty of is getting practical applications of why they’d be good for the job, actually putting them in a scenario which actually shows us what their work ethic is really like, judging whether they’d be suitable mentally for this job or not. And I think that’s that’s what stung us a few times because we had a couple of a couple of candidates all in a row that just weren’t they weren’t cut out for the vacancy. And it wasn’t because they weren’t very good. It was the circumstances at the time of Covid required a certain individual who was hardworking, mentally resilient to walk into the job and be able to actually handle the stress and the pressures. It was the most stressful time to work in a dental practice.

You mean with the masks and the fallow time and.

The.

Just and just the timings? It’s also that as well as all the timings and everything else that were going on, it was crazy. Things were going out of hand on a daily basis and you needed a strong team to be able to adjust to the.

By the way, at that time it was a massive shortage of, of.

It was.

I mean the shortage of people now. But at that time, yeah, it was so it.

Wasn’t.

Surprising. It was hard to find good people at that time.

Exactly. That. You’ve literally just said what I was about to say. It was even harder to try and find the right people, let alone find any staff at all. And that was the real trick and a challenge for us at the time because we ended up on many occasions having to bring somebody in and then lose them within two months, bring somebody else in and then lose them within 2 or 3 months. And it would be for various different reasons. And it wasn’t always their fault. They just weren’t suitable enough for the job. And it took us a while to to get through the chaos of Covid things to settle down a bit. Yes, we had to rely on locums for a bit as a lot of practices did, and then after that, slowly try and find and those those small, suitable staff started coming out of the woodworks, we started to spend a bit more time interviewing them to try and attract the right ones at that point, and it made it a lot easier. But it changed the way I interviewed at both sites actually, because it made me realise that actually the normal traditional way of interviewing just doesn’t work in those types of scenarios.

What are you actually specifically looking for in this job? It’s not just the case. So we’re getting a nurse in. Let’s get a bit more specific than that. What what do we actually what skills do we need from this specific nurse based on where they’re going to work, what surgery they’re going to be in and who they’re going to work with, what specific skills do they need to have? That was something I didn’t used to do to that much detail. We’d look for generic skills that were suited to a generic person doing that job, but it wasn’t specific. And I think that taught me a really valuable lesson. Obviously, every single time you recruit and bring someone in, it costs you a certain amount of money. You lose that chunk of money. The moment that process kick starts and starts again and it’s all costing the business more. The locum agencies you need to bring in will cost you an arm and a leg and all of that. I mean, I’m fairly sure we lost about 10 or £15,000 over the year and a half on that alone in terms of recruitment, if not more than that, to be completely honest.

But it was a valuable lesson because we needed to go through that to realise that actually when you recruit, you’ve got to actually understand the exact profile of this person. You want to get in and it doesn’t matter if somebody impresses you in an interview, if they don’t suit that character, don’t employ them because you will regret it and you will have problems later on down the line. Even if they’re a great talker, even if they they sell themselves extremely well, but they don’t have the characteristics you actually need for that receptionist to work with the other receptionist on on the desk or that that marketer or that nurse, she’s going to be working with a specific person. That’s the person we’re recruiting for and that person won’t get on with that particular personality. So it might be a great nurse, but it won’t fit into the team. And that was a real valuable eye opener for me because actually it really did. Change the way we recruited afterwards. And we’ve got it right a lot more times since then. So it’s been a it was a big eye opener, but it certainly was a big change that was needed as the business.

Of being more.

Specific and digging deeper in the specific areas that you’re looking for. Yeah, but listen, you’ve clearly got a talent in marketing. I can see that as a as a fellow enthusiast of the of the dark art. But you also it’s clear you’ve got a really good understanding of the numbers and the business like that sort of CFO kind of role. Generally, those two people aren’t the same person, not to mention, you know, clinical director, not to mention, you know, CEO, which is a different skill to, to CFO. Yeah. Often in often in tension. Right. That where there’s a there’s a in our business right I want to spend money so I’m just always trying to pull me back you know, and, and the tension helps, the tension works. You know, I want a dream and he wants to run things, you know, and looking forward and, and looking at what’s going on today or he’s amazing with computers and I hate computers, you know? And so how do you manage all of these tasks And forget, forget, forget, forget that question. What’s what are you bad at?

I’m bad at both of those things that you’ve literally just mentioned. So let’s relate the spending. There are various different types. Oh, I mean, you’ve asked about big mistakes I’ve made. It’s buying. The classic one is buying things that I really shouldn’t have bought at that particular time because I genuinely can’t afford it. But I believe or something. Well, the thankfully we needed with the new build but the Treos for example, we bought an Itero scanner. Then within six months we bought a trio scanner and we needed to pay for these things. But I convinced myself that we needed them and we did. And we were using them all the time now. But at that particular time, it probably could have waited another six months until the finances eased slightly from the first purchase. But it didn’t. And it’s because I like the scanner. I can see the limitations of the first one, but I desperately want the second one because I just want it. It needs to be in practice. And it’s that said that that type of relationship. Thankfully both practices I am trying to still instil that relationship between myself and my managers because they are opposite personalities to me. I am not the most organised person in the world. I will happily.

No I’m not as Mr. Organised.

No. I like everyone to do the organising for me.

Me too. Me too.

But I’m not always the most organised with things, hence why I had to bring a PR in because it’s getting too chaotic to live in my head now. So the and that’s that works really well. My manager at Black Swan, Zoe, is one of the most super organised people I’ve ever met. She’s meticulous with lots and lots of different things and that works. But at the same time my one of my greatest skills is being able to look forward at things I’ve got. Obviously I’d want the vision, I always want to drive forward, etcetera, but look forward at certain situations and analyse the situation without and take the emotion out of it and be able to see what it is. And for example, if when we’re going through a financial difficulty phase, for example, and we’ve got various different things that need to that need to happen. And the prime example of that is right now we’ve just literally spent 1.2mm on a brand new build for, for the new build. I’ll be completely honest about how much it costs.

What did you build the building from the ground up?

It was an existing it was an old co-op building that was given to us. And you can imagine the size of a co-op that was given to us as a shell unit, which is what I’d asked for. So we can literally build everything.

From the ground.

The way.

You want it, the.

Way we want it. And that’s what allowed us to make it look like the way it did. But it was always going to cost an arm and a leg. Everything in this place in terms of the technology, the detail, the the heating, the air con, I mean, even the surgeries have ten air change filters and our plumbed into all of them automatically. Just so if anything like Covid ever happened again, it’s already in there. But yeah, it wasn’t going to be cheap to do and did the numbers and did everything with the accountants at the very beginning, but my vision wasn’t going to detract me from doing it, even though I knew the next two years were going to be bloody hard work to try and do that. But it was worth it because I’ve wanted to make a practice look like this for years and years and years. And even though the accountants may say, well, actually another year of saving will make it a bit easier and maybe another two years of saving would probably make it a bit easier. But no, the opportunity is here. It’s now the building isn’t going to be available forever. It’s become available for a lot cheaper because of Covid. It’s now it’s now at a point where it’s the rent is more achievable for us. This isn’t an opportunity that may come around. Again, the location is fantastic. It’s on the edge of the Waitrose car park in prime central location in the middle of the town.

How close is it.

To your previous practice?

It’s round the corner. It’s about a two minute walk.

Oh, lovely, lovely.

So it’s literally around the corner.

If anything, What’s happened.

To the previous one?

Unfortunately, it’s still derelict as it stands. I imagine they’re going to change it into flats so the top two floors will change into flats or apartments.

Are you renting.

That? Yeah, as well. Yeah. Okay. So. So you know what I think? I think that sort of blank canvas approach that you’re taking in co-op I, I saw the best example of that is I don’t know if you’ve seen Robbie Hughes. Have you been there?

I haven’t been.

There, but I’ve seen it.

Yeah.

It’s the best example I’ve seen of that, where it’s a blank canvas, man, And then you can put the walls wherever the hell you want to put the walls. And I think that’s going to be the future, you know. And he says it in a funny way. He says, We’re trying to do 21st century dentistry in 19th century houses. Right. And it’s very true. You know, when you see his place, his surgery has got these I mean, it’s bigger than one of my flats that is like gigantic surgery. But really, see, the future is that I really do. And the pictures I’ve seen of your place. Beautiful, man. Beautiful.

Well, you’re going to see them all over because we are. We’ve got a number of very, very big campaigns going on over the next year and stuff. We’re entering quite a few of the awards later on this year as well. So we’ve been quiet for a while, but we’re coming back with a bang. So yeah.

Awards.

You won an award once, didn’t you.

All those years ago when I was a young dentist.

Yeah. Is that what it was?

What was it? South west, young dentist, that one.

Something like that. Yeah.

So I’ve got a real love hate relationship with the awards. All right, man, let’s finish it off and let’s finish it off with the usual questions. Fancy dinner party. Three guests. Dead or alive? Who do you have?

Oh.

I would have I would mix it up so I would want to have, um. Robert Downey Junior.

Oh, yeah.

Massive Marvel fan. So I can’t help myself. I’d want to see what he’s really like and whether he really is like Iron Man in real life. Is he.

Really? I don’t think he is.

But he’s an actor.

Well, I don’t know. I want to find that out for myself.

Well, do you want Iron Man? You can have Iron Man.

Dude, No, no, no.

No, no. Want to see.

If.

Tony Stark actually exists in Robert Downey.

Junior as a person?

Because he pulls it off so seamlessly and so effortlessly.

I should.

I shouldn’t just say dead or alive. I should say fact or fiction as well. Like it could be a character. You could use some guy’s going to have like, Superman. Go ahead. Who’s next?

Um, next, it would be Martin Luther King.

Oh.

Yeah, I’d like to. It would be. It would be amazing to actually get get the stories from the horse’s mouth. I’d like to really hear what what he really went through and what it was really like at the time of all of that and what drove him more so than anything else to and inspired him to do what what he did at the time.

Have you heard have you heard that there’s a there’s a guy who connects Gandhi to him?

No.

There’s there’s someone. A book. Or is it basically, you know, that sort of non-violent resistance? He he got it from Gandhi via one person who knew them both or something. You know, I’m butchering the story, but it’s something like that. Go ahead. Sorry.

As in they were they knew each.

Other or.

The Gandhi and Martin Luther didn’t know each other. But there was this connector. There was this one person who knew them both. Something like that. I’ll have to look it up. I butchered it. Go ahead. Who’s the third?

Third person would be tricky. Um, just because ideally I’d want it to be a sports person. But at the same time, I would probably want to have a conversation with Dr. APA just because Mike.

And Mike are.

Your fantasy dinner party. Okay, go.

Ahead. It would be at.

Sports betting, so we’ll come back to that. Said he’s getting an honourable mention because he’s not going to make the dinner party, but he’s getting an honourable mention. Oh, I see.

I see. I see. I see.

Well, tell me, is he. Is he your Dental hero? Is that.

Is that think at the moment in terms of veneers and working assets, he’s very inspirational. There’s no doubt about it. The way he’s set himself up out there. The brand strength for me is the biggie. What I really, really love is the consistency and the brand strength. They’ve chosen a niche. They’ve chosen a particular product to go with, and they’ve literally bombarded the the brand with that particular product. They don’t do anything else. They don’t advertise anything else. They talk about obviously full mouth restorative dentistry, etcetera. But it’s it’s concentrated to a specific skill set and I like that. I don’t think I can do it myself. I think I’d be limiting myself if I concentrated, concentrated on one specific skill set. But I really do admire that because it is a major achievement. What I find a major achievement is being able to pull that off in multiple sites as well across the world. I mean that. How do you do that?

How do three sites, Right? Three sites?

Yeah. Well, they open a fourth now as well. Oh, where’s.

That?

Miami. Miami. Yeah. And so again, how do you be the main lead clinician that everybody wants to see but also keep the patients happy? Seeing other associates that work at your practices as well? That is the ultimate question that I’d love to know the answer to.

I mean, I think what’s beautiful about Mike is he took Larry’s practice that was already the most successful practice in America and didn’t just sit back on that so that it is beautiful what he’s done in that sense. So who’s the sportsperson.

The final person would be either I’m going to go for Ronaldo. The other one I would have said would have been probably Rafa Nadal just because he’s always been my favourite tennis player. Just the resilience and the grit that thrive off that. I really like people that just have the determination, their own internal determination to be the best and literally spend their entire life like dedicating their craft to that and getting as good as they can. But it will be Ronaldo I think it will be Cristiano Portuguese.

Ronaldo Yeah.

Yeah. Cristiano I mean, he’s been at the top of the game for, for many, many, many, many years. And he’s, he’s not, I wouldn’t classify him as gifted as Messi, naturally, but I would say that he’s made himself in that position with his sheer determination to literally be the best at what he does for years and years and years. And that that takes some doing. I mean, that is a real, real mental strength to be at the top of your game for for that many years. For forever. And that’s something that I would really find very fascinating in terms of getting an insight into that person’s mindset. And you can see, hear it in interviews and things, but until you actually sit next to someone and ask them the truth, tell me the truth, don’t tell me what you tell them. Cameras I want to know.

Yeah, that’s that’s the point of the dinner party, isn’t it? Final question. It’s the deathbed. Surrounded by your loved ones. Three pieces of advice you’d give to them and to the world.

Uh, the first thing I would say is that hopefully I’ve given them enough opportunities to use those opportunities to grow their own lives and use the opportunities that I’ve given you to grow your own lives. Do not copy what I’ve done. Do not do what I’ve done. Learn from it. Do not make the same mistakes that I’ve done. It would be. And obviously that’s aimed purely at my kids, more so than anything else. Secondly, it would be to understand that money is not everything. It does not bring you happiness. It helps slightly paper over the cracks in some situations, but ultimately it’s about learning what it is that gets you out of bed and makes you and gives you that drive to succeed. Find something in your life that makes you happy, that gives you that drive, whether it’s bringing up your own children, whether it’s a particular profession, a craft, something that you can get quite good at that will give you happiness whenever you need it and whenever you want to do it and become good and accomplished at it. And thirdly is just be a good person. Just be a good person in terms of your own personality. Be a wish, kindness on and everyone around you and the rest of life will follow because you will never please everyone. You will always have haters. But if you can have touched people’s lives positively more than you have negatively overall, and you’ve genuinely done your best in life to make other people feel happy, then you can’t. You won’t have any regrets.

That’s nice, man. Two hours and 27 minutes.

Don’t spend any less. I’ll be honest.

We’ll see if it comes out as one episode or two. We’ll see what Prav decides on that. Brilliant, man. Thank you so much for doing that. Really, really enjoyed that. Really enjoyed that.

Thank you so much for your time.

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.

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

Hello everyone. Welcome back to Mind Movers. And today we have a very special guest, Dr. Tijion Esho, who is a celebrity doctor. You might know him from E4 Body Fixers, which was a television show of how actually met Dr. Esho, which I’ll go into the story of how I’ve met him. But he is also a world renowned cosmetic doctor who has clinics all over the UK and also in Dubai and continues to expand. He is my friend and my mentor as well, and we’ve known each other now for about almost eight, seven, eight years I think. Yeah, definitely. Uh, Dr. Esho is a pioneer in a lot of different things with facial aesthetics, but he’s most famously known for the lips that he does, um, the evolution of my face. And we are really, really thrilled to have him on the show today. Extremely busy man. So welcome. Dr. Esho.

Thank you for having me. Thanks for coming in. I don’t know how to live up to that entrance now. There we go.

I can see you blushing. I’m going to tell the story of how we met because I think it’s quite interesting and I’m going to show it because a lot of people have always asked me how I’ve cultivated my own clinic and how I have created the opportunities that I have. One of the things you don’t even know this Payman actually, Dr. Esho was active on Twitter. He was part of the show Body Fixers on E4. Anna Middleton, my hygienist, she contacted him because he did a post to say that he wanted to get his teeth done and I think he’d been offered an invasive option by another dentist and said that he wanted to chat. So Anna said, You should come and see my homegirl Rhona. I was working in this like dingy clinic in High Street, Kensington, like super, like NHS, like not sort of premium at all. And he said, okay, why not? You know? So he came to see me for an initial consultation and I remember I did the consultation. He goes, I like the fire in your eyes. And because of that I’m going to give you an opportunity. So we decided to do a collaboration and I did his teeth. We filmed the whole process. Instagram was the kind of embryonic stages, so the engagement was unbelievable. And through Dr. Esho, I got a flurry of patients. A lot of people came and we talked about potentially working together. And he basically took a risk, took the leap of faith, believed in me, gave me an opportunity. And he was one of the big reasons why I gained the exposure that I did online.

Well, But I don’t think it was a risk, though. I think you’re being humble in that way, because what I saw was you at a stage that was like me at a point in my career that you were hungry. You were just so wanting to push ahead and break through and what you were doing. I had been there and I was like, Right, let me help you in that opportunity. Because I remember when I was there, I was like looking for someone to be like, Look, help me move to this next stage. It was so frustrating being stuck in that point knowing I could do more. So yeah, no, it was down to you.

Amazing. So let’s start from the very beginning. You told me that you grew up in North London. Yeah, I grew up in North London too, but I think the more posh part.

But anyway, yeah, yeah, we were two different parts of North London. Um, I grew up in Tottenham first initially, which was near the retail park in Tottenham. Hale So anyone knows that area knows it’s not the best. Um, and then my parents moved to Edmonton again, an area near Edmonton Green where there was a lot of crime, there was a lot of drug use, but my parents had come over from Nigeria in their like 20s, so they didn’t have much money. My dad wasn’t a qualified accountant, but when you come across into the UK, the qualifications aren’t recognised. So they both ended up working in a tiling factory really to get us through taking donations from the church. And we lived in council housing all during that time. So I’ve seen everything from that end of the spectrum to where I live now and the two polar opposites. But you know, I’m always grateful for it because I feel like one, it’s grounded me. Two, it’s giving me street smarts, which I think is very, very important in business. But at the same time, I think it’s given me ability to what it’s called code switching, which is I can be in any room and appeal to that particular room so I can be with my boys in North London. It could be in a corner in a chicken shop chilling out and it’d be completely fine. Or I can be in a Langham in London with a board of directors and be able to pitch an idea then. So I think if I didn’t have that exposure, I think I would have been naive to one of each party’s in it.

Do you? What inspired you to be a doctor?

So that wasn’t really a choice. You come.

From a Nigerian family, a Nigerian.

Family. So those four, you know, I think a lot of people sometimes judge it, but I understand it now getting older, I think, when parents come over. To the UK. What they’re looking for is a better opportunity. Opportunity of education to forward the family through. And when that happens, they look at set jobs that are secure. Okay. And when those jobs are secure, you know, you look at things like accountancy, lawyer, dentist, doctor, engineer, these are vocations that they see as, look, these are secure regardless of your race, regardless of where you’re from, regardless of the economic climate. So this is what we want to push you into. So I wasn’t that way at first. I loved sketching and drawing. I still do today. You good.

At it? Yeah. Yeah. I did not know that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I sketch all the time, even for my little kids now, drawing cartoons and stuff. And that’s all I would love to do. So I wanted to be a graphic designer or artist, you know, that’s what I really wanted to do, you know? What did your dad say when I told my dad that he was like, a what? He said no in my house. And then he told me around and I thought he was joking. And I said to my mom, like, you know, surely I should be able to do what I want. You know? He was like, No, like your dad says, pick doctor, dentist, lawyer, accountant or engineer. And I had to pick failure or failure. Yeah, basically, I think I think both.

We can all three relate to that because, you know, being Middle Eastern, I’ll never forget my sister. She was amazing at art as well. And my dad tried to force like, first of all, he made her do work experience. He’s a gynaecologist. And that put her off because she was like, I’m not doing this. And then she was like And then he was like, Go do dentistry. And then she applied to dental school where I was. And then she started showing all these beautiful drawings of like teeth, like art drawings. And they were like, What is this? She didn’t get in. And then she was like, Dad, I really want to do art. And he goes, For what? To go sell paintings in Green Park and Piccadilly, you know, like you’re not going to survive off that. So I think we kind of are given that ultimate.

T.j., your your kids aren’t in the same situation as you were in. So now, are you? I know they’re a bit young. Yeah. You said five. Yeah. Is that the oldest?

So oldest. I’ve got two. One’s going to be five in December, the other seven months. So I’ve got a boy and a girl.

So now going forward you’d imagine right, that the evolution of an immigrant could be the next generation rights, you know, film or something that does something more than the the professional. And when I say more, I don’t mean to say professionalism as at one level, yeah, they could be at a higher level, but.

They’ve got more freedom, more freedom. They’ve got more freedom because in that sense, the struggle isn’t there. And I was speaking because I do a lot of TV work. I’m speaking to a colleague of mine and he was doing documentary on the third generation drop off. Yeah, exactly. Because he was saying we were talking about this. I was saying like, look, you know, I saw my parents struggle and they put on into a position to have this education and do and provide what we’ve got amazingly for our family. Now, by look at now them, my kids and go, well, what’s the reason for them to push on now They’ve got everything. They’re in this big house. They see these cars, they’ve got all this lifestyle. What makes them hungry? You know, when I was there living in North London with my parents, I was looking at all of those things I’ve got now going. I want that one day. I want that one day my dad would be like, You work hard, you can get this, you can do this. But for them, you know where that stimulus becomes. And as you said, they’ve got more flexibility because there’s not an onus on them to do well to take things forward. But then at the same time, also they’ve got the worry that, you know, they’ve got the pressure that they have to live up to a set standard that’s already been in there as well. So I am very strict on them. I think.

It’s values. Yeah, I think I have to say, like values is the one one of the most important things that we need to instil. And you know, my father came as an immigrant to the UK with £20 in his pocket, put himself through medical school by washing dishes at Spaghetti House and worked really hard. And then he left the UK, met my mum, and then when we came back he struggled. Like we didn’t grow up with money because he was actually working on the NHS and basically my mum couldn’t work because her degree wasn’t valid. But seeing that struggle made me realise that you said that I needed to work really hard to get things, but also there was a lot of value instilled because even when we got to a point where we could do nice things, my parents very much were like, Work is needed, hard work is needed for that. So I think it’s I think it’s a fine balance, you know, with your children to make sure that they really understand that they’re in a place of privilege.

It’s definitely values. But then also there’s you know, for me, there’s the way the uncontrollable factors, because no matter what you do in your own house, there are things that are happening outside of it. You know, like when I go to the private nursery he’s at he’s going now into reception. You know, he’s there with princes of different countries and bits. You know, they’re flying in on golf jets. You know that that’s not normal. You know, I remember when I went and I was like, there’s a swimming pool in this school. I was like, what do you mean? Like, we just about had a Bunsen burner. So, you know, him having that now as a reality? No much how in the own household that can sometimes have an influence and what I. Try and do is I do what my parents did, which is try to create his friends that immediately allowed to come over to the house. So that’s what my parents did. So we were in a very dangerous area of North London and they weren’t good people at our school. Some of them were doing really bad things and my parents were very good in the sense that they spotted those kids and they wouldn’t let them over. But the ones that they could see were good and came from good families and parents they let over. So by natural selection, we became closer friends. And to this day, three of us, you’ve met them. Fabian and Roderick, like we’ve known each other for over 30 years. You know, it was because those parents came together and were like, Right, we’ll keep these kids together away from everything else. We’ll let them in the house. We won’t let them, but we’ll let this take them forward. So it is a hard job as a parent because you know that.

The the the thing I mean, I’m thinking of friends of mine where they had way more than any of us have got. Yeah. And still, even within the family, one of the brothers is massively ambitious and and and trying to grow this massive global conglomerate even more. And one of the other ones isn’t like that at all. And so it makes you realise that, you know even and they’re two years apart. So even whatever you do, you know, will have different effects on different kids and kids intrinsically will be different. And the fact that you are hungry for, let’s say, a car when you got your driving license and this guy is hungry for a private jet. Yeah, yeah. It comes down to it doesn’t mean that because you’ve given your kids this comfortable life, they’re not going to be hungry in some ways, as you kind of alluded to, they’re going to have to work even harder to prove themselves because people will be saying, Well, dad, we see this in dentistry. We say Mum and dad, mum and dad’s money did that for you or something.

And there’s I mean there’s a term now, I don’t know, I’m sure you guys have seen it. The Nepo babies, nepotism. What does that mean, Nepotism? So, um, you’re just not in the know, are you? Um, so the nepo baby is basically are the ones that are whenever they’re successful, it’s again saying, well, they’re so privileged that, for example, let’s say Johnny Depp’s daughter, Lily Rose-depp, if she does a film or she does a TV series or becomes a model, they say that like they’re nepo babies because they’ve come from a certain background and family. Their success is attributed to that. It’s exactly. But there are successes attributed to that. And I do think that’s unfair because you can’t control the circumstances. And actually there’s a lot of people that are born into those circumstances that go on to do nothing. Do you see what I mean? So I think that like and I think one thing that I don’t agree with is that people always want to celebrate the person that has nothing and came from nothing. I understand that there is more of a struggle, but I think it’s also unfair because it’s very individual. And like you said, people that come from that certain background come with their own plethora of issues. It’s not just the issues of like, well, they’ve got everything. You know, money comes with problems as well. Do you know what I mean? Like you said, in a massive sense of imposter syndrome, because if your father did something, you’re going to feel a lot of pressure to do something that has meaning.

I think it’s nature versus nurture as well, because even though, as you were saying, I was hungry, I never was that way at the beginning, you know, I was pretty much probably like the other brother you were talking about. Very chill. You know, I wasn’t really bothered. It was my dad that kept pushing me until it became an automatic thing. And actually, when I was quite young, I was almost written off as a naughty kid. You know, in school, I was always the one sitting outside in the chair with the seat outside. I wasn’t allowed in the classroom. You know, my dad’s frustration, my mum’s frustration, they were just all upset. And, you know, I was in this big school system, you know, inner city school. So, you know, you can get lost in that. But there was one teacher and I still try and find her to this day, Miss Eitel. She kind of sat with my parents and she said, Look, I just think your son is bored. I don’t think he’s a naughty kid. I think he’s just bored. And I said, I want to try some things if you let me. My parents were like, Look, cool, you know, let’s see. So they started putting me in kind of after classes after school, and I started to calm down and I was excelling at those. And then she was like, Actually, you know what I want to do? I want to put my year ahead. Let’s see what that does. And I completely calmed down and I started smashing it in school. And for me, that was a change because I could have been written off even no matter how hard my parents were doing, you know, in that whole school system, I could have been just wiped out.

Okay. He’s a naughty kid, written off. That’s it. That would be my pathway. So were you acting? It would have been wasted. Yeah, because I was bored. I was essentially. I didn’t know this as a kid, you know? But what was happening was I was understanding. Everything was said. But I was five steps ahead. You know, I had a photographic memory, so I have a bit of it now. So I was absorbing things very quickly and then make acting up to the rest of the class, you know. And I didn’t know that. But she spotted that, you know, and I was very lucky. So even now in the school, my son is there’s two big private schools in our area, but I pick the smaller one because I was like, you know, to my missus. I said, you know, I. Don’t want him lost in the system. I think at this small age it’s so important. There’s all these influences. We’re talking about our parents, but then in the teachers and the things around it. So I said, if you have them, they’re understanding who he is as a child and working with us, that’s going to be the best thing for them. And that was the best thing for me because like I said, no matter how hard my parents would have tried, I probably would have got written off onto a different path.

Tell us tell us about going through medical school, going through surgical training, and then a moment when you decide you’re going to go for this sort of aesthetics industry. Yeah, and I notice a lot of when I’m reading all of your material, a lot of it says the first black doctor to do that. And and sort of the, the being a man of colour. What was, what’s been your experience?

You know, it’s been a lot of pressure and you know, I sometimes I don’t talk about it as much. I kind of just take it as it is, but, you know, it I felt a weight on me for a long period of time and it gets harder each time as I go forward because when that thing happens and it’s the first, I never actually realised I’m the first. I get told it and I get confused about it, you know? So one of the first things was being the first black doctor on the cover of Times magazine. You know, when the photo people told me that, I was like, Well, no, there’s got to have been other black doctors. There must have been like, no, you know. And I mean, you don’t realise the impact. You’re in your area, you’re kind of in your own microcosm thinking about it. But then my mom’s showing it to people on the street. I’m getting messages from neighbours going, My son’s got this on his wall because he wants to be a doctor like you now because he didn’t think it was possible. But now he’s seen someone like him doing it, so he feels now he can achieve that. So that feels great. But then also there’s a weight because you’re human and you’re going to make mistakes. You’re going to fail, you’re going to trip up. And now it’s on this public platform. You know, you don’t get the benefit of doing it in private. So that does help. You know, and when I first went to medical school, I remember at that time I still wasn’t into being there. I wanted to be this graphic designer.

I kind of was appeasing my dad at that point. And I remember when I arrived again, this boy from North London, I was in this place where basically there was doctors, family doctors, you know, kids of doctors, family, generational, everything in there. And I’m just this kid. I didn’t see anyone that looked like me there. So I already felt out of place. You know, then when parents were hugging their kids, the guy and go, my dad was shaking my hand like I was off to war. So, you know, it was one of those things I was already like, Man, I shouldn’t be here. But I found a guy who is still good friends today. I remember we looked across the room and I saw another guy who was another black guy with only two, and I saw him. He saw me and we kind of naturally gravitated towards each other. And we walked across the corridor, which showed all the years of graduation. And like in each year there was like either none or one black person. So we made a joke. That man, that’s why it’s only one of us is going to make it, you know? And we were both Nigerian. We ain’t got no choice. We both got to make through this. But we did. And then when I went forward, I think then the specific then speciality is your parents want you to do when you’re of someone of colour, like particularly with Nigerian parents, I don’t know what it is about OBS and gynae and paediatric paediatrics. They literally want you to be those things. Yeah, like surgeon or.

Surgeon in general.

This is it. So it was like, okay, this way. So for me, surgery was a natural way because I was good with my hands. And then in a way, plastics became the most a feasible thing because it was like, Wow, this is artistic in a way. You know, my canvas is now the face, the body rather than this piece of paper or computer screen, which are sketching on.

But it’s also the most competitive. It’s the most competitive speciality surgery.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. One of the most. Yeah. That and neurosurgery and cardiothoracics, you know, that at the time were the very competitive ones. So what about.

The blowback you get from the profession itself? I mean, do you get doctors saying, Oh, you’re not a proper doctor anymore?

Yeah, no, but tell us first of all, tell us then why the plastic surgery didn’t continue.

Yeah. So I was going through that route and I thought this was, you know, I think there was a show at the time, Nip Tuck, that that was on TV. You know, it was very sexy, like what it looked like at the time. And I thought that’s what the job would be like. And I think a lot of doctors even will tell you when they get into the actual job, sometimes what they think it’s going to be. Isn’t that all we have? Yeah, they have this romantic idea of, you know, you’re going to be sworn in and doing this. I felt like I was an honorary scribe for the like first like things as a senior going into registrar for this is a time I should be doing the big, big bits, you know, now. And because the system is not about you, it’s about the system, right? It’s about the patient, which is the right thing. But you’re trying to also develop yourself and go forward. Now, what happened during that time was my bosses at the time had non surgical clinics, private clinics outside. So I was going to those as well to shadow him and see. And what I found was there was a disproportionate part when I was in hospital, I felt like this understudy described it didn’t really have that much power. Whilst when I was in these clinics, I felt autonomy.

I didn’t have this pressure from beds to be moving patients or doing these decisions, and I was handling my own caseload, making my own decisions, and I felt my own person. And in the biggest point to me was when I was more busier than my own boss in his clinic. At that point, I was like, okay, this is time to make some sense here. And I was in fear. To the turning point was I was in fear too, with a boss. And we were doing a case together. And I said to him, Look, I don’t think I like being in the hospital. I said, I love it in clinic, in the non-surgical clinic with the lasers and everything and gadgets and everything else. And I said. Is it is there a career in that? You know, because remember back then, I’ve been doing it for about ten years. It wasn’t as big as it was now, you know. And my boss said that such a simple thing that kind of made me tilt forward. It was like he said, Well, look, if it fails, you can always come back. And you don’t realise that it’s such a simple thing. You’re thinking life decisions that you make. You have to go down that road and follow that road to your death. But he was like, doesn’t work out.

I had the exact same thing when I left dentistry. Someone somewhere said, You can come back. And it was like such a freeing, freeing thing. But you.

Know what? I think there’s a lot of shame in our industry, in medicine and dentistry with first of all, the perception that you are giving something off, giving something up, and also with hospital culture, like I’ll never forget my father, he worked on the NHS for so many years and in a way he was really, really put down by consultants and the kind of conversations were, if you go private, you’re selfish. If you want to leave the hospital, you’re not doing what you were meant to do. You’re brought into this world to serve, you know? And I think the narrative is extremely toxic and can really affect your mental health. And I remember as well, even in dental school, my tutor said to me, Whatever you do, Rhona, don’t become a general dentist. Like there was such shame in wanting to be a general dentist. And I think, you know, the years that you spend committing yourself to hospital work, it can be soul destroying. I have friends that did it. One of my friends that became an orthodontist, she really struggled with her mental health because she had to do the max FACs training, the bullying that was going on the work as a junior dentist, you know, kind of like sleeping through 2 to 3 hours a night for months on end. The burnout, but also the shame associated with even talking about it. And I think that it’s such an old school way of thinking. And as we know, the junior doctors striking now, you know, we’re living in a generation where people are like, hang on a second, I can’t sacrifice my health and mental health. So I think, you know, these are important conversations. And there is no shame in saying I can’t actually cope with this.

Yeah, completely. You know, when I then made that decision, you know, I was met with that in two separate ways. One for my parents and then one for some colleagues as well. My dad at first was like, Well, what do you mean? Yeah, like, what is Botox? What is Phyllis? First of all, you’ve got a secure job, NHS pension. We’ve been doing this. My dad too. Yeah. He’s like, No, this is not in the plan, you know? So that was difficult. And then I had colleagues exactly as you say that, you know, senior colleagues were like, Oh, you’re after the money. I see. You know, and it is interesting that for some not all in that culture, they feel you have to be self-deprecating, You have to suffer to serve. You don’t have to. So true. You can find a way to serve in your own way and also as well, build the life you want for your family and your friends. You can, you know. But I don’t know why it should be felt. There is this old school mentality sometimes that it has to be exclusive.

I think the NHS thing is, is number one, a lot of NHS work was done on Goodwill. My brother’s an NHS consultant and he was working many, many hours not paid and almost the people in it have now said, We’re not going to do that anymore. Yeah, and it’s like they’ve been squeezed and squeezed and squeezed and squeezed and squeezed and. And got no thank you. Apart from those claps. Yeah. No, no, no. Thank you. Really, for it. Yeah. And so now you get both the juniors and the seniors saying we’re going to do. Exactly. And my brother says now some of his juniors won’t even turn up for training unless they’re being paid for it. Yeah. Yeah. And he’s saying in his day training was this amazing thing that you would turn up for, for free. Yeah. And the NHS is, is this wonderful thing, but it’s also this terrible thing.

Yeah. I think that’s an open and honest conversation, right? Because that is the reality. I think it does such great work and you know, I’ve had the NHS helped me in so many times my family’s life when my mum was diagnosed with cancer, when my dad was diagnosed with cancer, when my son almost died during Covid and was in ICU on a ventilator for ten days, you know, So I’ve been in the NHS on that part. I went back to there during the pandemic as well. But I do think there’s a hierarchy. I don’t think it’s within the people in the NHS itself. It’s in that hierarchical bit that stands on top that is kind of saying, well, no, you must do this because of the love of it. And actually it must be to the disadvantage of yourself. And that’s what’s wrong. And I think that’s what’s breaking down morale, not just from doctors to nurses to even more. And, you know, in my job now, my private practice, you know, during the pandemic, I gave up my practices so people could use those for Covid centres and testing. I went back in and helped during Covid. I have a charity initiative called the Esho Initiative, where we do. Treatment for free, which I get referral from my colleagues in the NHS. So I find ways within what I do to give back, but it’s a different way and that’s where sometimes it’s not as seen. And I think sometimes people want you to shout about it more, but I think if you truly doing it, you’re just going to do it and that’s it.

So I think this is this is actually an interesting conversation for you both. I think, you know, we have all agreed that we’ve been there as training doctors and dentists and, you know, the difficulties in that we know now that we’re really going through a crisis more so in dentistry. So I don’t know if you know this, but you know that dentistry has been in the news more than ever in the last year or so. Things really escalated after the pandemic with the restrictions and people are basically leaving the NHS. I tried to have the conversation with people online or, you know, try to empower the public with what to do, etcetera, you know, through media outlets. But a lot of people are angry and they blame it on greed. They basically say patients, patients, correct. So a lot of people have said and as you probably know, Rishi Sunak came out recently and said that NHS dentists will be forced to work a period on the NHS once they qualify. And obviously the BDA, our British Dental Association, then went out and said you can’t tie people to a sinking ship, which I think is really important to understand. It’s a system that’s flawed. The junior doctors as well, a lot of them are actually even resorting to doing careers online. They want to become medical doctors that talk on YouTube or TikTok because they don’t enjoy being in the hospital environment. Now, my question is, I think we can both agree that our degrees are professions are about giving back and helping people. Right? We are so incredibly lucky to have the skills to heal people, you know, in both of our professions. But what does that look like? As in, you know, aesthetic dentistry is one part of medicine and aesthetic medicine. We both give back. As we’ve discussed, I do my refugee work all the time, etcetera. But how much should we be giving back? And this is an open question how much is expected of us realistically, and how much should we be doing?

I think it’s something within you that you just know when you feel. I think within yourself, you know, if you want to do more, have the capability to do more, you know, And I enjoy it because not just because of giving back, but also sometimes it does find a balance because I agree with some members of the public part of what we do and we know this we’ve got people sometimes that are very superficial, very vain, and maybe not as nice people. And so when you have to deal with that and then you go and I’ve got an acid attack victim and I’ve been working on this, guys, and they’re so happy, you know, you get that balance of, okay, yeah, this is the real part of my work. Yes, this part might factor, but this also gives me balance and I think that will just evolve. I think it never should be what someone else says to you do. I think it’s got to be internal. So, you know, we just recently decided to combine with Operation Smiles. You go back. So from the product line, a pound of every product goes to Operation Smile.

A pound of every lip treatment we do goes to Operation Smile, and we’ll be going out as well and doing corrective work there too. But that’s because we have the capacity to do it. You know, if I didn’t have the capacity to do it, I wouldn’t. So I think and that’s not because someone else is telling me to it. So I think it’s really important that it’s an internal job. And I think this is, again, another topic going on to this kind of external validation. I think that is a poisonous cycle. You know, I think we constantly are looking for an external validation. We were just talking about this before we got on podcast, but does it come from parental bit of this where we’ve been pushed and we’re wanting to get someone to say, Well done, they’re proud of you. We go on this circle of trying to push that through success. You know, we’re pushing forward, trying to get this feeling, but you never get it. I don’t know about you. You know, I have it fleetingly. You know, I remember when you.

Get it in moments of acceleration, in.

Moments of acceleration.

But after that, it becomes normal again, you know, So that’s that’s.

The thing I found. Yeah. I honestly, for me, I’m glad I had those experiences early because I think my life would be so different if I achieved them later in life. I would have been so laser focussed on that, not realising that’s not important. You know, for me at that point it was right. I want to be on the cover of a magazine. And the reason why I wanted to be on that was because I was told I couldn’t by one of our peers. So like, you know, quotes are good, you know, being on a cover that’s too much to ask, you know, things like that, you know, things. So I was so determined at that point. I was so stubborn. I was like, Right, you know what? I’m going to prove you wrong.

Do you think achievements are a bit like possessions? Like, I mean, I think we all know, like, you might aim for that watch. Yeah. And you buy the watch and you feel good for about three minutes. Three minutes. Call it three days. Yeah. Someone somewhere says something about it and. All right, I might give you another bit of dopamine and you quickly realise that watch isn’t making me happy. He goes, Yeah, but then. And yet you’re still going to look at other watches if you’re a watch guy. Yes. Thank God I’m not I’m not a watch guy but I but I know the I know the feeling. Right. Do you think achievements are similar? Yes.

Yeah, 100%.

Yes. So. So. So then. So then, you know, I know we shouldn’t get ourselves into that sort of wormhole of is it a good thing or is it a bad thing because everything is a good thing and a bad thing. Yeah, but what I’m saying is if if you’ve got an a an achievement in your head of clinics all over the world, let’s say on one side, you know, as business people, all of us will say, well done, amazing. But on the other side, that could just be another bit of emptiness that you’re trying to fill 100%. It does. At what point in your in your career now, when you’re thinking about the next thing, obviously we were talking about this lovely place you’ve got in Cobham and you’re travelling the world and all that. At what point is that enough and or is there an element of it actually feeds you to grow this?

Is it. So because of those experiences I’ve had early, it’s made me answer those questions early. I would have I don’t think I would have answered those questions earlier and actually, I was told this by a guy there called Hucun Young. They got famous hairdressers in the north, multi millionaire couple. And I remember when I was doing the aesthetics and I was quite young then just starting out and he said, he said, You’re going to do well. I can see it in your eyes. But he says, I want you to know when enough is enough. And I said, What do you mean? I didn’t understand it then? And he said that, you know, my husband and I, he goes, I thought I was going to be retired in my 50s because now I’m working more than I ever did. My husband, you know, gets anxiety if one of the stores doesn’t do as well because he’s worried we’re going to lose all of this. So they were trapped almost in their own success. And he was telling me, look, remember to know when enough is enough. And I left that conversation thinking, no, no, no, I was fine, fine. But I only came back to that conversation after the experiences. Did the cover, did the clinic in flannels, you know, bought things that I never would have been able to buy. But it was always fleeting, always going. And I realised that the. Point when my dad died. You know, when my dad died of prostate cancer. I watched a man that is my hero. You know, he had sacrificed so much in his life and was always focusing on retirement that that’s when he would rest.

Okay. And he didn’t get to retirement. So I was like, he’s done all this. And I know he wouldn’t regret what he position he’s put me in my sister in, but I know he probably has regrets with the time he did have with my mom and the things they didn’t do together because he always thought he had time. And when I look on that now, I look at the things I’m doing and I go, okay, yes, I can build this new clinic. Yes, I can build this new product, but at what cost? And is it is it is that cost worth it? Is that time away from my kids that I have now and their impact in their life? You know, the time away from my misses, the time away from my friends, those things that fill those holes, you know, that we don’t think you know, we think those things that we’re going to success in the material things are going to do it. Actually, it’s the things that are so close to us that we don’t understand. And we take for granted that if we just take in those moments, we realise that. And that’s why I’m so grateful now, because that’s how I live my life. Slightly different. I enjoy the journey, you know, but I’m very protective over those elements in my life and any discussion or any new thing. I sit down with the missus, I sit down with the kid, I sit down with my family and say, Is this the right thing for us? Not just for me? And we take it from there.

I think I think it’s really important to also be in check of your ego, as in like everybody has an ego. You have an ego, even when it comes to enlighten him and his brand, me and my brand. And I think like what I’ve realised as well, just like listening to you speak, is that it’s so important to keep that in check because now I ask myself, but I get it. And then I get over it. And then what? Do you know what I mean? As in like there is more fulfilling things in life. And I recently read a book. I don’t know if either one of you have read it called The Body Keeps the Score. Have you read it? Amazing. I really recommend it. It’s written by a psychiatrist and it talks about how all of our experiences and everything that we do is, you know, it harnesses physically. So when you have certain things that happen to you. And what I found is, is that my dopamine is from validation. We’ve talked a lot about these these conversations. Like I need the validation to feel like I’m good enough because my deepest insecurity in every element is that I’m not good enough at anything or deserving of anything. So if I don’t get a continuous surge of people telling me I’m good or celebration, and that’s why I’ve actually aimed for certain things. So like you were saying, like front covers TV shows because someone will tell me I’m good enough. But the irony is that actually that faded too, because the more I did it, the more people didn’t care. Do you know what I mean? The first couple of times, like, Amazing. You’re on ITV this morning and then after that, no one cares. Do you know what I mean? And then I was like, Oh, I’m not getting my validation.

You’re not getting the same dopamine effect.

Correct. And then I was like.

Well, now you’ve done all this therapy. Where’s the validation deficit coming from?

My therapist and I are still working on that. And I think that, you know, because every time now I call, we have our calls or, you know, do our sessions. I’m like having a panic attack or a meltdown about whatever situation. She’s always like, it all boils down to you not feeling like you’re good enough because you’re questioning yourself about this situation, You know? And I think I have massive awareness. Have I been able to get over it? No. And, you know, we’ve had these conversations as well where I’ve you know, I’ve called up Dr. Rush and been like, I don’t know what to do this. And I have to go over about 700 times with him for him to tell me that it’s going to be okay. And I have those people in my life. But now I’ve come really kind of head to head with it at this moment in my life, you know, um, you know, mid 30s, like really questioning a lot of things as a female as well, you know, really thinking carefully about my next steps. So I don’t really have the answers. But as you were speaking there, I just, you know, a lot of things resonated, especially when it comes to my father. I’m incredibly close to my father, and I really recognise the importance of, you know, spending time really understanding. But also I recognise as well a lot of what I do is for my dad. So a lot of the things that I wanted to achieve is for my dad on a subconscious level, you know, because I love him and I want the validation from him.

But that’s what I was going to come to and say probably it is from some point in childhood because I look at mine and it’s not that it’s done on purpose. You know, my parents kept me away from a whole load of trouble that I could have got into when I was younger. But I learned validation came from certain level of success, whether that was in achievement or achievements. And then I saw then the response that that had. So for me, that then was in a mentor, Well, this is what you do, you have to achieve, which again is validation and that moves forward when actually there were other things that were subconsciously happening maybe that were the more things you should lean into. And that is why I am now. You know, I lean into the fact that when my son walk through the door, my son runs up to me and he’s like, Dad, you know that for me, no matter how bad or stressful my day is, that can erase everything. You know? So I think success is not bad and it’s going to try and achieve. Success is not bad. But I think looking for it to be the reason that it gives you that validation internally is going to be a vicious cycle because that’s an inside job, whether that’s with therapy, whether that’s with speaking with your friends, that’s an inside job that you have to do.

I think the flip side of it is and you guys probably not old enough to have this question yet, it’s the regret of not living up to your potential risks. Potential, you know, like the I speak to someone, you know, the very, very Robbie who’s massively motivated. Right. He’s in our industry.

Just.

You know. Robbie. Yeah. Oh, excellent. Yeah, massively motor. I’ve never come across someone as motivated as him and. All right, he was. He was brought up as a pro kickboxer or something. And that, you know, puts you in a particular way of doing it. But he talks about potential here, about seeing his potential. And as you get older, you get to this point of looking back and saying, should I have tried that thing? You know, because because.

You know, I feel that.

Now. Right. Regrets because you’re getting older, right? Regrets about the things you should have done and didn’t do. And so then we’ve got this balance between doing the thing like, I could take this gigantic risk right now, right. And then and spend no time with my family. Yeah. And one side of it, we’re talking about this validation question. And then on the other side, we’re talking about this potential question. And it’s a balance, isn’t it? You’re right.

And I think the time I got to answer that question was when my dad died. Because if you don’t have it on ageing yourself, sometimes it takes an external situation to happen for you to reflect on it. Yeah, because when I look at my dad, I know how you say when you get older you become your parents, right? I look at before how I was becoming my dad, right? And my mum would always say, You’re both workaholics, you know. So when he passed and I reflected upon how he passed and what happened, you know, I always the same like him, I was always like, I sacrificed now. You know, I’ll rest later. You know, Sleep. Don’t sleep now. Sleep later. You know, do assuming that this later is given. It’s not So. When that happened with my dad, it was the first time I looked at in the face. You know, I probably, as you said, only with age at time. If I was lucky and blessed to get lucky to do that, would I probably looked back and done that. But with my dad doing it, I could have either taken it two ways. I could have ignored it or faced it, and I’ve been facing that ever since, and that’s made me look and go, okay, what is worth it? You know, what is, you know, as we’re talking about, you know, you can get the bigger car, the bigger house, the bigger watch, all of these things and you can do it. But they’re going to go.

Yeah, none of that matters. Doesn’t matter. It’s the enjoying the process itself and it’s enjoying the journey.

The most important thing where it’s come down and we come.

We come across this a lot, right? Where people sell their business. And we can imagine let’s imagine you do really well for the next five years. And then some LVMH comes in and says it gives you an amount of money that you’d never dreamt of and you have to walk away. A lot of times that person goes into a depression after that happens because now their baby’s gone, their life’s gone. What they used to do is gone. And, you know, enjoying the process is a key, key, key thing. Yeah, It’s one of those things, though. We should go into it, right? You’re running this big business now. How many employees have you got?

25 now. Oh, that’s right. That’s right. Spread. Spread across. Spread across. Spread across. It’s still crazy to me. I still see it as, you know, a niece who she knows, you know, it was myself and niece and Matthew for a long period of time, just three of us. You know, the three amigos. I was cool. We were going through. And now, even when there’s a new member of staff, I’m like, Who’s that? And they’re like, Oh, I.

Feel that way too. I’ve got 25.

Now. Yeah. And you’re like, Oh, okay. And that actually is because I controlled that. Yeah, we could have grown a lot quicker and a lot bigger. But because of the questions that had been asked, because of what we’ve seen, I’ve said, well, no, because if I do that, I’ve got less time with the kids. I’m not going to see them grow up.

Would have been the biggest highs and lows of this business journey.

I would say the biggest low was when I had my first public failure. So I joined the company in 2017 called Abnormal Beauty Company. Deciem biggest, the ordinary, biggest, biggest company is sold to LVMH for.

Yeah, listen to this story.

Got they got, um, sold recently for 2 billion. Yeah. So I got headhunted by Brandon, then the CEO who has passed now. He found me on social media. I was just really starting to get known in aesthetics industry. He contacted me through social media and was like, You’re very interesting guy. Can I come and see you in London? And I thought, What? Like, I thought it was a prank because I was like, How do you even know who I am? You’re this huge company. But it was genuine. They came and they met him and Nicola, who’s the CEO now, and Dion, who’s the head of comms now, and we just chopped it up. And he was the he is still, to this day, the smartest guy I’ve ever met. His brain works at 1,000,000mph genius level. And he was just talking, talking, talking. And we got on like a house on fire. I felt like I haven’t got brother. So it felt like I had this big brother to look up to. And he was just like, Look, I love what you stand for. I want to do a product with you. We’ve not done lip products. You’re the lip doctor. Everywhere I Google lips, I see your name. I think it will bring some authority. Let’s do this. And I didn’t think it was going on. I thought it’s just words, you know? And they went away back to Canada. And before I knew it, his contract was here in front of me. I signed that contract without consulting my dad. And I remember that. And we’ll go back to that because that was a bit of a mistake then. But I was like this little kid in a candy shop like this, Goliath will come. Of course I want to do this. I’m going to have a product line. Almost every doctor or dentist dreams of that. You know, in that way, you know, with one of the biggest beauty brands in the world. So I get flown over. It’s like fairy tale. Was it going to.

Be a doctor brand?

Yeah, yeah. Your name. Your name.

On it.

Oh, amazing. So I get flown to the ordering HQ. It’s all in one building, the factories at the bottom with the distribution. All social media is on the next floor. Then on the higher floor, you’ve got Brandon with the rest of the team. I walk into this room, there’s screens up everywhere. There’s a show on the screens. There’s looks of what this brand is going to look like. Is this in Canada? Yeah, in Canada. And I’m like, Wow, you know, I’m taken back. I meet Prudhvi, who’s the chemist there now. He’s like, you know, this is my ideas. So these actors, what do you ever thought of? It was the most intense 24 hours of my life. And then we leave with this idea of it was going to be Doctor Esho. And I see a lot of people don’t know this. So it was going to be Dr. Esho. My clinic at the time was called Le Beau Ideal, which is your beautiful ideal. And Brandon was like with a name like Esho, why is it not in your own name? And I went, Well, I heard that brands have your name, put your name on it. It’s it’s hard if you want to exit. So he went, No he goes your whole brand should be esho not Dr. Esho esho because everybody’s going to know your doctor. But Esho in itself is strong. So he says clinics are. Your clinic, your products. And literally when I flew back that day, I changed the name of my clinic from La Bayadere to Esho because of him. So I don’t know that. So yeah, we launched it. We went to development of this product and it was like a fairy tale.

Was it similar to the products you have now or different?

Yeah, similar. So the full first lip products, coat, paws, drench and sculpt were designed with them, you know, and then we sat down and then there was a period. Then that’s when Brandon went downhill in his mental health. It was like out of the blue, you know, I remember I was getting erratic messages from him, erratic emails, and it was getting into the press because he was see seeing journalists from around the world, everything. So it became this public fallout of mental health. But what was his issue?

What what kind of stuff?

So, you know, back at the time, he had started to experiment with mushrooms. And he he he was so smart. You know, we see it now. We talk about biohacking and how different chemicals can, you know, activate different parts of the mind. That’s what he was so super interested in. So he wasn’t kind of having the mushrooms to be an addict or anything. He was trying to see what he could delve into, into this genius brain of his, but just went too far, I think. And, you know, we just started having erratic behaviour, would leave fly out to different country, cancel meetings, cancel product lines. And one day I remember being in, I think it was pharmacy in Marylebone, this vegan restaurant. And I was with my friends and I just saw on social media that it said, Sorry, TJ, we have to say goodbye on social. Yeah. And I’m looking at my screen and you know, when you’re looking and you’re disbelieving and go, Oh, no one’s going to be speaking to me on Instagram like that. Like as in just a story post.

It was a post. It was a post. It just said on the Post a picture saying, you know, Goodbye. I’m sorry. And so I start reading it, my heart’s beating and my friends are like, What’s wrong? And I said, I think they’ve just cancelled my line. So I’m calling Nicola, the co CEO then who’s now head CEO. She’s in tears. She was upset. It wasn’t anything she planned. She was trying to apologise and I didn’t know what to do. I’m trying to call him. I can’t get through to him and it just spirals out of control. Brandon starts posting quite thing pictures on social media of your stuff. No, no, no. Him and cancelling other lines and you know it got so much that as the Lord, Lord himself had to step in because they’re like they were already minority investing in DCM so they wanted to protect their investment. So in the end it came into a legal battle where they had to oust Brandon from the brand, you know, so they they ousted him and he committed suicide.

Oh, my goodness.

And yeah, it was, it was so hard because I don’t talk about it much. I only talk about it recently with Nika because there’s going to be a documentary on it. And we did a recent filming for it. And that was very hard for me because, as I said, it was like a big brother to me. And I think on the outside people thought, Oh, well, you should just be angry and hate them. And I didn’t because I was like, This is my brother and he’s not Well, this is not him. He wouldn’t have wanted this.

So did they asked Lord Order thing. Was that the.

Catalyst in terms of them taking up? I don’t know. I don’t think we will ever know, you know. But all I know is that, you know, there was so much that was left unsaid, you know, because he was he messaged me out of the blue and was coming to London and he said, look, I want to come and see you. I want to explain everything. I did this to protect you. And I still to this day, don’t understand what he meant. And, you know, Nick and I talk about it. We were in tears talking about it because it was losing. It wasn’t it wasn’t a break falling apart of a product that I really cared about. I think people may have thought, oh, you know, this brand’s been cancelled. I lost my friend like my brother, you know, and this person who I looked up to and gave me this opportunity, you know. And so when it went apart, Nicola, who was then the CEO, told me, Look, we’ve got a situation, you know, the contract DCM own your trademarks, your name, your formulations, everything you know, which is why I hadn’t listened to my dad at that time. I’d signed blindly. You know, I’d say to kids, you know, read the contracts. It’s so important. But I was very lucky. Nicola was there because she fought for me and said, Look, no, these are yours. Brandon would have wanted this, these are yours. So I kind of had that. And so that’s why you weren’t.

Able to have your.

Line. Yeah. So I went away. I didn’t do anything. I just parked it. I was just so hurt. I was really hurt just about what had happened and having to deal with it so publicly, you know, press were everywhere, asking questions, wanting to bring wanting a quote, wanting everything else. And I just wanted to go into the silence and bury my head, you know, And then it was only until the pandemic happened, which was like, you know, that was 2017, pandemic was years later that I got to stop because I threw myself into my clinic. Work was building the brand, processing the clinics, processing it, trying to block. The out. But just doing that. And when the pandemic hit, I got time to think and I said, what do I do want to do this product line? I’ve got this stuff. And I said to him, missus. And we sat there and she says, Look, if you want to do it, do it. It might be closure for you. If not, leave it alone. You’ve got so much going on. And so I decided to work on it. I reformulated, I took out the bits that I didn’t like because a lot of people didn’t realise when he was going through his mental health thing, they launched the products without telling me. So that’s how so far it was. I remember being in my room in Harley Street and getting tagged into all these people going, I’ve got the Astroscope, I’ve got this. And I said, I have even got it. And I was calling up Brian and going, Where’s where’s my I don’t even know. We got final product, you know. And then he was like, Don’t worry, it’ll be fine, fine. It was in this erratic behaviour part that then I had to order my own product. I had to order of Victoria Health, so I had to order them by my first product before anyone else to actually get it and see what it was like. And you know, it was great in some ways, but the flavour, guava, all these different things I had to agree to. I, you know, were.

There pretty difficult, right? Because your name.

Is on it and your name is.

On it. Yeah, but, but then your level of experience in products is zero, right?

Compared to them. So, you know, any decision and anything that happened at that time, there was just this trust there because I was like, Well, who am I? You know, even when I was questioning compared to them, when I questioned all the flavour or this particular thing, you know, Brandon would have an answer. And I’m like, Well, who am I? I’m, you know, I’m a junior. You’re the DCM. You know, you’re ordinary. So of course, you know even more.

Look, our brand is there, right? It’s called Enlightened. He used it when it’s when your own name is on it, it’s even more important that you’re behind.

I had said it to him, and that’s why I know it was the mental health side, because I remember conversation in the car specifically where we sat down and I said, Look, if we’re going to do a show, this is really important because this is a big name. It’s the family name. My dad has so much pride in.

This African.

Thing. And I said, it has to be right. And at that time when things were well, it was understood. But when that breakdown happened, that went out of the window. And so it was up to me to kind of get that together again. So when in the pandemic it stopped and I was reformulating QVC, who we had launched part of the product range, we’ve came back to me, they said, Look, we heard on the grapevine, this is what you’re doing. We’d love you to launch with us. You know, So I’d reformulated that. All of that tested it was happy, but I was scared. You know, I was actually super scared, of course, because I was like, was the success that the brand had initially because of them or because of me? And I didn’t know the answer to that, honestly. You know, I actually leaned more into the fact that it probably was them because they’re same.

I’ve got a couple of questions for you, and they’re two totally separate things. So, number one, when when someone dies, always everyone blames themselves, everyone around them, whoever’s closest to them blames them. And that’s when someone dies. When someone commits suicide, that becomes comes to the fore, isn’t it? Because you think maybe I should have called him or maybe I could have done something? How did you deal with that natural thing, number one? Number one. And number two is it’s an unrelated question. Was your best day ever the day that it first came out? Yeah, like two weeks before or whatever. Yeah.

Yeah. So, um, the dealing with it, I’ve not dealt with it, have you not? No. Um, I think in ways you learn to compartmentalise certain things because so much is going on. I know both Nick and and I, when we delve into it, just break down and that’s me protecting myself. Because even when I’m speaking to you, I can feel it. Um, and there’s certain parts I won’t let my mind go to because I’m like scared to. And, you know, we both questioned because we saw the changes in behaviour, what we could have done, how much we could have done. I think the answer is probably always nothing, but you always feel like you should have. But hindsight is a is a great thing to go back to. But in terms of saying then, you know, one of the greatest time before for having my kids. Yeah, that was my moment. You know when you saw your name on that see it on the product to be on QVC, to see in stores, to see people tweeting and posting with this product. That was a high moment in my life. I think the only comparable moment at that time was the Times magazine cover. Like those were up there, like so mad, isn’t it.

Your highest and lowest moment around the same bit. Same bit.

But then this is what my dad always says is like, you know, for much is given can be taken. And I think that’s where I’m aware of that now. You know, I’m aware of that. No matter how good things are, bad things can come. I think someone said it. A patient said, life is like diarrhoea. It’s the shit just keeps coming. And he was so right because it is, you know, in life when you’re just doing things you. Things will just come out of the blue, but you just kind of roll with the punches and appreciate where you are.

One thing that I said is that we’ve become a society that is obsessed with self soothing and not feeling. And because we want to be on these constant highs, because everything’s at our fingertips, you know, even when I was growing up, I remember it was such a treat to get a takeaway because, you know, not many people did it. You couldn’t get it. And now, like Deliveroo, is just easy. It was such a treat to go to Blockbuster and find a film that you’d been waiting for. Now you can get it on Netflix. You know, like all these things that we used to feel, you know, almost had to be waited for. We now have it. So now the adverse effect is, is that we don’t want to feel the pain, so we just numb it. And then we constantly seek being in a high in a constant state. I think recently one of the things I’ve done, I’ve been going through a lot the last few months and as you know, and I’m actually like, okay, I really need to just cry today and feel a bit sad and feel a bit crap and just realise this too shall pass because this is life and you know, I can’t be on this constant state of like happiness all the time. And I think that’s something that we have to understand and accept. And like you said, you know, we talk a lot. This is a mental health conversation. We talk a lot about removing stigmas. Payman has been incredible because I’d approached a lot of people in the industry. Dentistry has one of the highest suicide rates of any profession, and a lot of people didn’t want to talk about it because there’s so much shame, there’s so much shame around being like, I’m not okay and there’s so much shame around like, Well, if you’re privileged and you have everything, you don’t have any reason to get upset. And I think, you know, recognising that actually having these moments, like you said, with Brandon, who seem to have it all, you know, can happens to everyone.

Yeah. Brandon’s very good friend, almost like a brother to him that we never met. We only met during filming this documentary. Now he was surprised about how I had felt. And it just shows you what you’re talking about. Because he said he just saw me as this celebrity doctor that had all these clinics. But this was just a side thing to me. So he never knew the impact, how much impact that had until he was watching me say it on camera. And he was like, I just had no idea. And it comes down to exactly as you’re saying, when you’re in this realm of people like, Oh, you’ve got this going for you, you’ve got this going for you, they assume you’re one scared to react because you’re almost kind of going, Well, I’m not grateful for the other things. But then at the same time, people don’t appreciate that because, well, you’ve got all these other things, so it probably doesn’t really matter to you when at the end of the day you’re still human and it really can affect you in that way. And that’s what I did. You know, I cried a lot about that personally, you know, and shut down and became even now to this day, I’m very careful about using the word friend and who I associate myself with to protect myself, you know, And it’s always been like that, too. But no, but that’s since, you know, I think it amplified it, you know. You know, I was always a bit that way because I saw sometimes how different circles and different people moved and talked about people when they weren’t there. And I didn’t like that. I didn’t like that energy, so I didn’t want to be that. But when I got that pain and that level, I was like, okay, these people here, I know you and I know what you’re like. In each situation. I can predict that these new people coming, I don’t know that. And so I need to control this. So by controlling it.

You know, it’s the thing about that’s why you’re so close to your childhood friends, because you really know who they are. And my wife has a real problem with me not jumping into the friends of my kids parents as much as I do my own friends. But there is that that protected thing. Whereas when you’ve known someone for 30 years, you just really know who they are. Yeah.

But I’d say with dentistry, like you’re very trusting and you open your arms to a lot of dentists within the profession and I think that, you know, that surprises me that you say that, whereas I think that I’ve in the last couple of years, oh no, even probably in the last year, I finally understand why people say protect your own energy, because I’ve trusted everyone and I’ve assumed that everybody thinks in the way that I do. And they have empathy and loyalty. But I’ve sadly learned the truth that like, there’s not people with the same, you know, values and the same ethics as you. And I’ve been hurt and I’ve been burnt. And I’m like, okay, this is funny. But now I understand why people say like, keep your clothes, your circle closed. Don’t trust everyone you know. Don’t just, you know, wear your heart on your sleeve. And I think that there is something to be said for that. And maybe it is something about also growing old. But I used to be like, oh my gosh, like everyone’s amazing. Everyone has something to give. Everyone’s a good person, you know, They’re probably.

Just like TJ saying, your experiences end up forming you, you know, so. What happened with Brandon here. He’s saying now going forward, that’s even made him slightly more defensive than before. But there is a downside to that is you is the loss of the purity of the person. It is the person you were? Yeah, it.

Is. And it is sad because I do know it’s that difference in me. I think when people are in that circle with me, they’re like, Yeah, people don’t know that side as much because you’re your clothes, because you protect the people around you and you don’t want them to suffer that type of pain. I always say, like, all of us are scarred and you either then become a hero or villain in your own story. You know, you see it in comics, right? The the hero scarred, you know, But he’s like, I’ve been hurt this bad. I don’t want anyone else to feel this, so I’m going to protect you and everyone else. Well, the villains like I’ve been hurt so bad. I want everybody to feel this pain. And, you know, you kind of either go each way, you know, depending on how you deal with that pain, you know? And and for me, it’s been like, right, I’m I want to protect the people around me. I don’t want them to have that pain. But then I’m also going to be be careful of who I bring into that space, which is boundaries, boundaries, you know, which can, for some people that know me, know that, okay, that’s just me. But other people that don’t know you can initially think, oh, well, maybe he’s a bit African, maybe he’s a bit this. But actually it’s not.

It’s just it’s amazing the way, you know, you guys are both huge on social. Yeah. So that has this massive problem side to it. I think both of you must accept that that’s just a necessary evil compared to the up that it gives you. Let’s not go into it yet. The the thing is, I didn’t know you before today. I looked at your social and I, you know, I thought, yeah, this guy is probably very good at what he does. He’s a bit obsessed with his own name. Yeah. Yeah. Like I. I thought of, like, Trump. Yeah.

Oh, my God. Oh, my God. No, no, no.

You’re telling me this branding expert told you to put your name on everything, And before this was one of the world’s top branding, people told you to put your name on everything. You didn’t have your name on everything. And so here I’ve made a judgement, right, that this is a guy who loves his own name. Yeah. And actually that was just advice. That was one of the world’s top branding. People gave him the name. I’ve judged you on it. This is it. It’s an amazing thing, you know? So. So what we get from a profile is just a subjective, subjective.

Thing, subjective.

Of what people take. And I think you’re right. It’s it’s the devil is in the details that you get the benefit of how social media can grow your business. But then there is a downside. And I’ve always said this to like Rona, I’ve gone. If I could have had and have the same level of success I had without anyone knowing me, I would trade it for that tomorrow, of course, because I think No one, when you wish for a level of success, wants the baggage that comes with it. So whether it’s any jealousy or envy or anything, you don’t want any of that to come to.

Expand on it. What are the things that have happened to you on social? The Bad bits?

The worst for me is racism.

Oh really?

You know, I think the problem with social media is too easy to say. Something behind a blank. Yeah. Thing. You know, people say stuff that they wouldn’t say to your own face, you know, behind the keyboard warriors and stuff. You know, the worst I had was when my son was born and I had a message and it was basically saying, Oh, just because he’s half white, he’s still a monkey. Both of you guys need to go back to Africa, you know? And I remember thinking, how could you be so triggered by a picture of this innocent child to have that level of anger, to message me that and send me that, you know, this innocent child? You know, I’ve got to a point where almost which is sad. I accept racism to myself, but I’m like this child who has done nothing in this world, just been born and just been born. And you would have that view. That really cut to me. And I just at that point I was very close to just deleting social media because I just thought, I don’t want this energy in here, you know, from that point and coming back to what you said about Escher. Yeah, again, that was partly protective initially because I was proud of my name, because my dad carries so much pride in the name. It was like the surname means jewels more worth than gold, you know, It was like, you know, someone would say Esho. He would correct them, say, No, it’s Esho. He would have such pride in the name. So I never wanted to put anything because I didn’t know if I could live up to that. You know, it was branding. And when he heard it, he says, No, you need to lean into it. And for me, that’s the reason why it’s on everything. Not for me to kind of go, It’s strong.

It’s strong anyway.

But yeah, but it’s not even that. It’s not even the marketing bit of it. It’s now what it represents, you know? So my dad is not here, so any time that’s on something I feel he touches that now keeps.

Keeps his memory.

Alive, keeps his memory. Also the other thing which I didn’t even know it had an impact. So when I opened the recent clinic in Flannels and it’s got Escher in there, I had a journalist. Come to see me as a black journalist. And she was in tears and but smiling and hugged me. And I was like, Are you okay? And she goes, You don’t know what you’ve done. And I said, What do you mean? And she said, To see the name Esho, she was a Nigerian lady in a prominent store like There in the open, like it’s making it acceptable that it should be there, you know, she says. You don’t see that. She goes, You know, I don’t walk in and see a big African name there, right? Bang in the middle of a luxury. I don’t see those things. And to see that makes anyone else that’s looking to do that go, I can do that. And I didn’t. I never knew that. So then from the day she said that on top of the helping my dad and what he’s given me touched things.

That.

This racism thing though. Yeah. Do you not feel this next generation on it’s completely gone for them like I know.

I know No I.

Think that’s no completely.

It’s a massive word but but but I.

Think they tolerate.

It less.

Listen to this isn’t it. I know people who are racist. Yeah, Iranians. Iranians are racist bunch. We think we’re better than everyone. Anyone darker or lighter than us is wrong. This is correct. Yeah. It’s a normal.

Thing for Persian.

Empire.

It’s a normal thing for Iranians to sit around with saying how brilliant they are. Yeah. And being racist about other people. Then I see the children of the same person who might say that being completely the opposite. And, you know, it makes you realise that, you know, the, well, the flip side of this woke bullshit, you know, the bullshit part, which is what everyone keeps focusing in on, right? The flip side, the right side of that is that we’re seeing a new generation come in who are much more accepting of not only, you know, transsexuals, of every type of diverse situation, you know, now there’s not there’s always going to be a chemical reaction when you see someone who’s different to you in your head, just like an animal sees a different species or different, there’s going to be a chemical reaction. But that generation, they’ve been my children, they’ve been trained to understand that that is wrong. You know, that that’s the highest wrong. And even though I think about today’s society and this whole my pronouns crap, right, I.

Get cancelled for saying that. Be careful.

I know. But that, you know, that’s the whole point of a podcast, right? You can you can say as you, as you see what I’m saying is the flip side of all of that is that we’re getting a society that’s much, much more accepting of all the different people.

I think I agree with you partly on that because I do think part of it comes to exposure. So now, you know, these kids that are born, they’re born like it’s the treatment effect, right? They’re living on social media, living on platforms. They don’t just see the world that you give them in the house. They see what’s happening out more readily available. I remember when I went to medical school, there was an Asian girl and I was the first black person she had seen in real life. In real life, because her village in Wales did not have a single black person. And when she moved, it was the first person like, Now that’s different. That’s very hard for that to happen. But that’s because social media, TV, everything that interactions that drive. So I do think now there is, but I also do think at the same time social media isn’t a true representation of what’s fully going on.

Correct?

Because I think there’s a lot of angry people on social media and angry for the wrong reasons. So, as you know, you talked about you expressed your view, how you felt about pronouns. People aren’t allowed to almost express anything Now if it doesn’t fall into a line of whatever you think you’re cancelled, you know, and actually saying social media has the power to do, that feels crazy to me because it’s giving that too much power than it should have. Actually.

I think it’s inciting hate as well into the minorities. Um, you know, that believe of certain things. Like for example, I do a podcast with Shivani who’s one of my really good friends, and we talked about discussions because I think like on the flip side, sorry, I’m going to be one of those women. But you know, I do think that like, you know, I never realised and I think a lot of people have said to me the difficulties of being a female, especially a female in business, I never really understood. And I was like, That’s not a thing. Like, we don’t have that much like adversity in business. And I think as I’ve grown in the last ten years and created things, I’m like, There’s actually a lot of BS. Like, I couldn’t believe it. Now, part of the generation. So we’ve got the Woke brigade that talk about the fact that like men and women are equal and women this and women that, and me and Shivani had these discussions online. And the thing is, is that you do have like a sect of people that are really angry. And I think that I’m a very fair, balanced person in my conversations. And I’m always like very nuanced in the views that I give. But for example, we were talking about like the expectations of a woman by the time you’re 30.

And if you go into the comments, it had a massive impact on both of our mental health. By the way, there’s men being there, being like. Are you deluded? Of course. Women are on the shelf at 30. Of course, men desire like younger, more fertile women. Of course, women who put their careers at the forefront are going to fail in life. Of course, all these comments and obviously I know that a lot of that is crap because, you know, the reality that I’m living in is I have an amazing supportive partner who is, you know, high value, as they put it. I am coping in my career. Sure, I have the pressures of like, fertility. Et cetera. But I’m very aware of that. Et cetera. But the point is, is that when I see how angry these group of people are about these subjects, I think to myself, you know, yeah, we do have all the woke conversations, but there is still a lot of very angry people. And silencing angry people makes things worse in a way. And then they’re going to find some cult leader or, you know, someone online that basically fuels their hatred.

So it’s a difficult.

Hatred out to be a sort of a you know, there are good and evil thing, but really it’s about winners and losers in society. Yeah. If you’re if you’re losing right now, Yeah. You’ll start to feel hatred. Of course. Yeah. You’re winning. Yeah. So it’s hard to imagine what it feels like to be losing. Yeah, but if you’re losing, you start to find reasons why you’re losing. And one of the reasons why is because you’re doing this, you know, and you put it out has to come out of you somewhere, project you project it onto someone else’s situation.

You know, I.

Really agree with you on that. I think when you look at people that are very angry, it’s because it’s it’s not you. It’s them, It’s them. It’s what’s happening in their lives. It doesn’t make it right that they’re putting it towards you, but it isn’t about you. And that’s how I’ve dealt with it. Sometimes I’ve gone, This isn’t about me. It could be anyone that’s like me in this situation right now. But because how? Wherever what I might be achieving or whatever doing is making them feel in that moment in time. I’m the outlet and it’s in protecting yourself from that part.

But I.

Reckon it’s a nice exercise to find that in yourself.

To.

Anger.

Hatred where.

You’re losing.

Yeah.

I mean, I remind myself every day where I’m.

No, no, but.

But, but no, but how that makes you angry towards something like. I don’t know.

I get it.

I get it. Justin Trudeau is younger than me. Yeah.

Who?

The Prime minister.

Prime minister Canada. Yeah. Yeah.

Younger than me. Yeah. Did my head in for a while, though. Is it running Canada? Yeah. I can’t run this 40 person company.

You know what’s so funny? I’m angry.

But you’re not going to go online and.

Just start trolling him and his.

Family, are you? No.

No, but I might sit with someone. I mean, I actually quite like Trudeau, but I might sit with someone and.

Stop bitching about.

It. Trudeau is a bitch, you know. I don’t like what he said about something. Yeah, I know. He’s a bit.

Worried. You know, my.

Therapist told me also, when you feel really angry, you shouldn’t suppress it because it’s a normal emotion. And what you can do is literally go into your room, put the pillow and start screaming into it, or even things like boxing, boxing, like rich, literally people again, like actually releasing anger is actually a really healthy thing to do. Now, I want to ask you as well, because importantly, we work in an aesthetic industry, mental health with patients. Are you good at spotting it, number one? Number two, do you think that has got worse over the last decade with people’s perception of beauty, the ideologies around what they should look like and the reality of what they can achieve?

Yeah, that’s a good question. So mental health has always been prevalent within aesthetics because I do think by a subsection of people that go into it, it does attract a particular person sometimes. So you have to expect if you look at just a whole population as a whole and then you grab the aesthetic patient group, that type of person is going to be skewed more within this group. So you have to be, as a practitioner aware of that and skilled in the consultation to look at flags, you know, and flags used to be very obvious. You know, someone used to go to many clinics and it was always the clinic’s fault. They never got the right result that they wanted, you know, cancelling consultations, rebooking, you know, all of these little flags wouldn’t look in the mirror. You know, you do the treatment, finish it. No, I don’t want to see the result. Can’t look in the mirror. You know, all these different things with flags that you picked up through time. But I definitely even for the experience I’ve had now, I’ve been doing this about ten years. I’ve not seen them out. I’ve seen since the pandemic itself. I keep saying this to like my team, you know, post pandemic. When we sat down, I said, We really need to scrutinise this more because I said the anxieties now I’m seeing in patients, the body dysmorphia, the changes that I’m seeing have been so heightened that, you know, this is going to become a problem.

You know, and you’ve seen it in the rise in medical negligence cases, claims, different things. What are the stimulus for the reasons? Is it that practitioners are getting worse? Is it that there are worse results or is it the reality that it’s becoming defensive medicine? That people now are not winning, they’re not getting the money they want. They have the pressures and someone becomes an easy target. You know, and I and I do think a lot of practitioners do feel that in that space are scared to have that conversation, you know, But it is there and I see it and I see it happen to our colleagues. I see it happening in my own practice. And it does sometimes when you get a situation like that, sometimes questioning why you want to do it, like it leaves you sitting there because when you are genuinely good at it and you generally have it as a passion, which I hope I do, you pour everything into it every day, you know, part of you is left in it, you know. So when something like that comes back at you and you know, you’ve done everything like it hurts you, it really does. And I think people sometimes, you know, they might like I said, see you on social media, see me on social media, think, well, no, they’ll be fine if that doesn’t. No, it cuts cuts.

Deep and so.

Deep, you know, you carry it with you. And so the answer to it, I think, comes into a couple of things. I think better regulation, particularly in my industry, you know, dentistry is more regulated than aesthetics.

So you guys are under regulated, we’re overregulated.

We’re over say so like, you know, you’re almost imprisoned into what you’re doing where there’s so much open parts. You know, we’ve got things happening everywhere.

If you were king of the world, what regulations would you put in place?

You know what? I look at the Dubai system and think, that is a great system. What is it? So even though I’m registered with the GMC, when I went to Dubai, I had to get a license by the DHA first to say I could practice and do as aesthetics as a doctor. Doctor Not no, no. Yeah. And and I had to have, you know, prove so many things, send all these things, get all these references, all these certificates before I could even touch anything. And the things were severe. The, you know, the punishments were severe. If I got caught and I didn’t have a license and I was practising, now I’m in prison. So you had. Yes. You still have people sometimes skirting that, but nothing like you did.

Had people in Dubai no one can inject who isn’t.

A doctor? No.

You you you wouldn’t be able to if the DHA found out. Dentists. Yeah, dentists now are allowed. So it evolved. So I think what happened is they went very blanket hard. So at first you were a doctor. At the beginning it was plastic surgeon or dermatologist.

Wow, I remember.

This. Then it was plastic surgeon, dermatologist, subsections of doctor. You know, dentists was bad. That’s been recent with the dentists and nurses as well, just evolving parts. But then they only also say certain parts of aesthetics they’re allowed to do. How they come up with that.

Is that what you’d like to happen here? Only only doctors and dentists are allowed to inject?

I think so. You know, I know there’s probably no medical.

Doctors that will.

Get on there. No nurses? No, I definitely think so. When I’m talking about sorry, I should be saying medical practitioners and when I include medical practitioners, I say doctor, dentist, pharmacologists, pharmacology is slightly different and I know there’s going to be pharmacists. I’ve had open conversations with pharmacists where I speak now when we’re talking about injectables, I think there’s a core understanding of anatomy that you need to have that makes you safe. Also a core understanding of conditions that relate to what you’re doing and need to make you safe, right? So when I look at specialities that don’t have those things, I worry because I go, okay, what are you actually going to do when those things go wrong? You’re going to have a call, a doctor. You know, this is an independent private sector, so these people should be able to treat these things independently and responsible, not treat it and then go if it goes wrong. Right. I’ll just go and get someone else and hope that every procedure goes right because it’s not going to happen that way. So that’s where I feel in that the training is different now. I think the biggest problem is that it’s not a subsection on its own. So I think there would be a big solving of the issue if at the point of entry at university and you go there, you can practice to be an aesthetic practitioner on a long term.

Like 50 or whatever.

Like that or thinking that way. That I think would clear all the issue because I think everybody would be happy. One, that person’s had the relevant training for all of those years. Two, there wouldn’t be the whole, well, you’ve trained to be in the NHS, you should be in the NHS. You shouldn’t have gone in there. No, your pathway was always there. So there’s none. Okay. How many years do you have to stay in? How many years do you have to give back before you go? You go, right? This is where I wanted to be and go and do. And I think that a time there was conversations for that to happen where a lot of doctors and people talk together about maybe having that happen. But then the door, you know, the horse bolted from the it was too late. There were so many different people doing it, different specialities, different areas that people were like, Well, how do we close the door now when it’s been opened? How do we close the door? You know, if you look at the government point of view, yeah, you would think, okay, the. Interest in safety, but also the interest of making money. That’s a lot of tax. That’s a lot of income for the country. You know, it’s £1 billion industry. You know, so to cut off and go. Right. A third of those people, you know, can’t do it anymore. The economy is going to go, well, where’s where are we getting that money from? Forget the safety. That’s what they’re going to, you know, whereas as a practitioner, we’re like, well, we want it to be safe. We don’t really care about that side. So that’s where Dubai with their side because they get the extra income from the licensing, they get the extra income from the indemnity you have to get from the DA. So it would be supplemented by that. So each doctor would have to spend on an extra license and extra indemnity, which I think would subsidise.

Now, now that we discussed complications. There’s a couple of things I want to ask you on our on our other podcast, we have the big piece from Black Box Thinking, okay, do you know, do you know? No, no. Black Boxing is a book where he talks about plane crashes. Okay. When a plane crashes, they get all the information out. They don’t blame anyone. They get all the information out and they share the information with all the pilots around the world so that that mistake never happens again. Yeah. And then he moves it, segways it into medical because when a disaster happens in medical, it everyone hides the information because it’s all about whose fault was it? And for that reason, we never learn from each other’s mistakes. Yeah. So I want to ask you a couple of questions. What’s the biggest clinical error that you’ve made? And also what’s the biggest, you know, botched job that you’ve had to fix?

So I would say I would say they were both the same thing. So it was tissue necrosis. So regularly as a practitioner, I’ve had to see cases of tissue necrosis and help in those situations. But in my time as a practitioner over ten years, I’ve had two cases myself, you know, And so the one I remember because one was really at the beginning, but I’ll talk about each the each case was a delayed presentation and I’m my self’s worst critic, so no one can criticise me more than I can criticise myself anyway. And I went over and that patient is still a patient of mine today. So it shows you that in a situation you can continue and do the same and the right correct treatment, that person feels they were treated correct and it go wrong. And that’s what people don’t understand. And I think that’s where the fear, that culture, fear of blaming comes, because you should be open about that. I tell younger I feel like old now because the younger guys go, you’re the OG now. I’m like, I’m not that old, you know, But I try and tell them because they go, Oh, I haven’t had any complications. And I was like, Yeah, well, you will. No, no, no. I said, You will. It’s the numbers.

Game. It’s a numbers.

Game.

It’s a numbers game of dentistry.

So you did some lips.

And a piece, literally a piece of.

Necrosis. Yeah. So I did some lips and injected filler. This is a patient I’ve been seeing for three years. Very trusted. Did the lips the same way I did it. Normally, no signs of distress, everything fine. She went home and I always still as pattern recognition because in my system and again probably be at medical defensive we have it sent out the email about, you know, aftercare. We say it, you know, it gets ticked off by the front desk. You know, they get 24 hour emergency number to call. So it’s all around the clock to make sure it’s fine. And what had happened was that patient basically, because she’s been fine all the time, she dismissed that stuff and it was day two. She started getting pain in the right side of her lip, excruciating pain. But she was like, Oh, don’t bother. Doctor Escher, take some painkillers. Woke up in the night, loads of pain, took some stronger painkillers. This time. Hasn’t contacted her at all yet. Okay. And then it got to day three. She woke up, vesicles started appearing above the lip, and that’s when she contacted. So I get a call and I remember this. I was in Miami, my new Newcastle clinic. This patient comes to see me in London, but lives in Manchester and since been a photo and I’m like, Oh my God. Then I’m like remembering because I’ve seen so many patients. I’m like, I saw you like four days ago, like, what’s been going on? And so I get that history and I’m going, Oh my God, why didn’t you call me from the time when you had the pain? This I didn’t want to bother you.

So she come to.

Newcastle and things like that. So what I had to do was act. I had to act. You know, in that time you’re worrying about how much is already necrosis, saying because we know this, there’s arguments about treating in this space of time. Most of the infarctions happen within the first 24 to 48 hours. So really anything you do may not be that good. But then there’s an evidence now that’s showing if you still continue and flush with hyaluronidase in these situations and treat that, you can recover tissue too, right? So I’m like, right, you’re in Manchester and this is an importance of network. So I call my colleague Tim Pierce, who’s in Manchester, and I call him and bless him because I’m working on a Sunday and I’m still in that mode like my dad is working every day. He’s out with his kids and I’m like, Look, I’m sorry to put this on you, but I’ve got a lady in Manchester and I need her tree Now if she’s going to travel from thing, it’s going to take her hours to get here. I need it.

I want you now. I’m happy to come over and meet you or whatever, but can you get her in a clinic? And he was like no doubt got her into clinic straight away. And so treating her and what happened was he was like, Look, don’t come. We’ll just be on FaceTime, you know, so we can be talking and discussing that. And that’s what we did. It was in and out FaceTime in that period of time. She was reassured because she had two doctors talking about it. There was no blame, there was no nothing. It was just two doctors working together to get it sorted. It was funny because we had different approaches to treating necrosis as well because I was like, I want her to go into a hyperbaric chamber. He was like, he didn’t believe in hyperbaric was enough in that way, but it changed his practice because when we saw her afterwards and the way she healed and she repaired, he started bringing hyperbaric more into what he did. And because of that. But she came out she did well.

She injected the.

The hyaluronic acids. He was doing that on the hour in pulses, pulses, trying to make sure that there was reperfusion to the tissue continuously, You know, and when you do that, it’s an irritant. So it’s painful. There’s a lot of swelling. It’s quite distressing for the patient. The patient has to trust what is happening is going okay, because sometimes in that situation, trust can be lost and.

Then straight into a hyperbaric.

Straight into. So I called. I found there was a place in Manchester for her to go. So the next day she went straight there and she was basically having daily hyperbaric sessions whilst being reviewed by Dr. Tim. And we were seeing the photos together and we were seeing that tissue heals and healed, healed perfectly.

So what would have happened if you hadn’t have done all this? You’d have had to cut the bit out.

It depends how much of the tissue is affected because sometimes when you get necrosis, because there’s so many collaterals and there’s so many other blood vessels, the body does compensate. So you might have this transitional part where you have the appearance of vesicles and everything else looking like the tissue is about to die. But what will happen is that then the collaterals give a collateral blood flow. That blockage is transient and goes and actually they reperfused and they heal. So that’s why you see a lot of cases actually don’t end up going that way. But for some it’s where you’ve got end arteries where there’s no collaterals and then.

You’re really in a situation.

That’s why the nose. Yeah, exactly. Or the eye. So in those areas become. But yeah, no, she was very lucky, you know, she was great. But when I look back at it, there was nothing I could have done differently because when I injected her, I did everything that I would do normally, you know, I felt those lips. I looked at the capillary refill. I saw how she was.

You could. You could have you could have.

Called her the day.

After.

Well, no, You see this? So we have a call where we call patients now on the third day. But we used to try and call everyone on the day after. And actually it became more of a irritant to patients. Patients were like, you know, they felt it almost was like a bit like a hard.

Sell where they had a friend.

That was like, It’s overkill.

They call me. Yeah, they.

Call some patients don’t actually like are we always call like big veneer cases where they’ve been in the chair for like five hours. Yeah. Um.

But with routine cases where what we’ve done is we’ve patterned out everything, you know, So we did in that case, like I said, she had everything of the flags when to contact. You have a mobile number which.

Hadn’t had any, any, any adverse effect before.

Before.

You know, it was in that way, you know, whereas actually an anxious first patient probably would have messaged and went, okay, what’s this? And immediately what would have happened was we would have said, okay, come in, let’s see what’s been seen, assess. But we had that situation and that’s how that happened.

I get it. Yeah, Yeah.

Okay. So we could talk for hours and hours because Dr. Esho and I know that, um, but I just wanted to thank you so much as always. It’s been so amazing and so inspiring. Um, we always try to end with a question before you go.

Okay.

My question.

Is.

What does the ultimate form of happiness look like for you?

Family man like it Honestly, for me being at home with and when I mean family, I don’t just mean family blood, family. I mean like the people around you that matter most, being around those peoples when I’m on my most biggest high and I really try to lean that into that as much as possible because, you know, we’re all going to die. You know, when you go on people’s death beds, you know, when they talk to people at that thing, they always say, I wish I had more time and say, I wish I had more time to make more money or wish I had more time to have more success. They wish they had more time to be with their loved ones, with their family. So that’s what I try and lean into now as much as possible.

Amazing.

Thank you so much. You can find Dr. Esho on all social outlets, Google, Wikipedia, whatever you want to do. We really appreciate you being here.

Thank you so much for doing this.

Thank you, buddy.

I said to Dad, I want a computer. And he was like, What do you need a computer for? I was like, I want to play games. And dad was like, okay. He was like, Well, which one do you want? He looked at it and he was shocked at the price. Yeah. And he turned around and he said to me, he said, Listen, he said, I’ll do you a deal. He said, You’ll learn to read Punjabi and you read two pages of Punjabi to me from my paper. He said, that weekend I’ll go out and I’ll buy, I’ll buy you a computer. And the mistake that my dad made is he thought it was going to take me about 6 or 7 months for me to do this. It took me a week. So literally, he made that promise on a Sunday. The following week on the Saturday, I sat down and I read two pages from it from his paper to him. My mom actually said to me, she goes, she goes, We were. She goes, We were a really tight for money. But for two months after that. But she goes, Your dad made a promise. She goes, He wasn’t expecting you to do it in a week. It’s all these little things that that you know, over time you build up a memory of and these unshakeable memories from when you were a kid. You know, they do shape you as you get older now, you know, like the time when I learned to read Punjabi. Even now I love learning Prav You know, I’m. I’m obsessive about it. I will sit down and I will read articles. I was critically praised them. I’ll try to get new information because it’s a never ending game in any aspect of life. As soon as we think to ourselves, that’s it. I know enough. We do ourselves a disservice and we do those around us a disservice. That’s it. Just stay curious.

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 introduce Parth Kaira onto the podcast. We probably go back 15 years or so in terms of when we first met. It was probably around the time of when you’d launched or around the time you were considering launching Red Sky Dental Spa. That was my earliest memory of you Prav and I have witnessed I have seen your entire journey from those early days successes, failures, ups, downs, pitch black, dark holes that you’ve had to pull yourself out of. And I think I can confidently say that there’s definitely lots of light in your life right now, and I can see the positivity oozing out of you. Prav Welcome to the show. And I’d like to start by, as I always do, asking you about your backstory, where you grew up and what your upbringing was like.

Yeah. Prav Thank you for having me on. And you’re absolutely right. We go back a very, very long time. And it was just just as I’d started Red Sky Dental Spa, all those all those very, very many years ago. So, I mean, growing up, I had the typical Indian upbringing. You know, I remember even from a very early age, my dad turned around and said to me, Son, you’ve got one of three options of a career where you can grow up. He was like, You can be a dentist, you can be a doctor, or you can work in the shop with me. And I’ll tell you what Prav he was hell bent on proving to me that I did not want to work in the shop with him. So, you know, a lot of my youth was spent in Dad’s shop helping him stack the shelves, going to cash and carry, lugging the trolleys around. And he made sure that I hated it.

How interesting. Prav I’ve known you for 15 years. We both grew up in the shop. We both did cash and carry, and this is the first time I’m hearing it. Yep. That’s amazing. And where did you grow up? Have.

I grew up predominantly in East Yorkshire, in and around Hull. I wasn’t overly keen on it at the time. I felt isolated from a lot of my family, although I did have some close cousins there, but most of my family were elsewhere. So growing up it was quite insular for me. And in fact when I went to university, that was the first time that I was living away outside of Yorkshire and I loved it. Doing the typical thing racked up too many student debts and ended up having to move back home with mum and Dad and then ended up staying there for a lot longer as well. Yeah.

Tell me about the shop and how that shaped you as long as you remember. Did you grow up in the shop? Did you live in the shop? Did you commute to the shop? What? Just describe the setup for me and I’ll tell you a little bit about mine.

Yeah, so it was all aspects really Prav You know, there was there were certain times where Dad ran certain businesses such as a newsagents and we lived above the shop. If we weren’t living above the shop any half term holidays, any Easter holidays or summer holidays, it was like, you know, go help your dad in the shop. And I hated it. You know, It was so it was so mundane for me. And again, I think dad was deliberately doing that to prove to me that, you know, this is not the type of life that you want. You know, it was it was his way of showing love that, you know, I want you to to to do better in your life than than to do this, really. And even when I was older and, you know, we’d go to the cash and carry, I remember there was one shop that dad had was it was really, really busy, mate. And I remember this summer holidays, I think it was just before I started university. So it was a long summer holiday as well. Every single day Dad and I would go to the cash and carry.

He would load up 15, 16 trolleys worth of of goods. And he was like, Right, I’m going to pay for it. Put it all through the tills you stack, you stack the van up and every single day I’d have to stack up a pallet of beer and this, that and the other. And dad would ironically come back with the last trolley, all the light stuff that didn’t want to get squashed. It was like crisp boxes. That’s the Chris boxes, the sweets, the ones that go right in the corner. It was like, I’ll load this up. You can sit, you can sit in the van. It was like, okay, thanks for that, Dad. So that was that was a lot of my time bringing up. So from an early age, my mum and my dad pushed very much on the you have to educate yourself. You need to get yourself into a profession. And as I said, it was very much a case of we want you to be a doctor, but a dentist is acceptable as well. So that was that was kind of like that was my upbringing effectively.

Any siblings?

Prav Yeah, I have one sister and in fact, some of the earliest memories that I have from the shop is when my when my sister would come home from nursery and my dad had made a little bed for her where she could sleep in the stock room. And I remember the smell and it was smell of tobacco because it was literally where he kept the cigarettes, cigs.

Yeah.

Stacks, stacks and stacks of cigs. And then he’d, he’d made like a little bed there for her. And I used to sit there reading comic books thinking what’s that smell. Because you know, when you’re five years old you don’t know any better. What’s that smell? What’s that? My sister would be asleep. So my sister is about three years younger than I am, so. Yeah, close. Close family.

Was she a partner in crime in the shop? Did she help you in the shop or was it was it just you that was roped into that?

Not not as much. She helped out on the till more than anything else. I was roped into the heavy duty stuff. And to be fair, when I went to university, she helped out in the shop more than what I did, and I think a big part of that was just because she didn’t for a little bit. She didn’t quite know what she wanted. To do. Some of them died like, cool, you can help us out in the shop. So she then got roped into it and she hated it as much as I did.

You know what? I loved it and I hated it at the same time. And I’ve got so many fond memories of the shop like you. We grew up my my bedroom was above the shop. Our living room was behind the shop. Yeah. And, you know, our garden was right at the back. And we had a stock room next to our living room. And I remember the cash and carry trips, loading the stuff up. I remember the really, like, crisp boxes. I remember. I mean, this this takes me back a long time, right? But I remember, like, a business move my dad made, right? What I consider to be a business move now is that when you got the announcement that cigarettes were going up by £0.07, he would go to the cash and carry take all the money he had physically had and just stock up on as many cigarettes as he could because he knew he’d make an extra £0.07 profit per pack of fags and he knew that it would shift quickly, right? So it was a very easy investment for him. Didn’t realise it at the time. But but, but looking back now. But my memories very much are behind the till. Speaking to lots of customers, learning communication, not knowing I was learning communication and bagging £55 bags of spuds into £5 bags in any moment of spare time. And in between that, have you got any memories that you can share? Prav of things that sort of stick out from when you were in the shop and perhaps how that shaped you today?

Yeah. So I mean, there was there was a transition from when you’re really young that when you go to the cash and carry with dad, you know, before you’re big enough to pull a trolley, it’s, you know, you get to sit on the trolley, you know, there’s trolleys with the springs on it and you sit there, you’re like, Oh, I’m having a ride. And every time you go out, it’s like, Dad, I want a toy. And I’d always get it. So one thing about my dad, Prav, is that my my mum and dad struggle at that point financially when they were growing up. But if my dad had made a promise to me, he kept it no matter what. And I remember once, I can’t remember how old I was, but I wasn’t very old. It must have been like 8 or 9 at the at the most, maybe ten. This is when computers were becoming much more mainstream. It’s when Amstrad and Atari and stuff like that were out. And I said to Dad, I want a computer and he was like, what do you need a computer for? I was like, I want to play games. And dad was like, okay.

And he was like, Well, which one do you want? He looked at it and he he was shocked at the price. Yeah. And he turned around and he said to me, he said, Listen, he said, I’ll do you a deal. He said, You’ll learn to read Punjabi and you read two pages of Punjabi to me from my paper. He said, that weekend I’ll go out and I’ll buy, I’ll buy you a computer. And the mistake that my dad made is he thought it was going to take me about 6 or 7 months for me to do this. It took me a week. So I literally made that promise on a Sunday. The following week on the Saturday, I sat down and I read two pages from it from his paper to him, and my mum was in hysterics and at the time it didn’t register why? But she told me afterwards, like when? When, when I got older, she was like I was in hysterics because your dad was panicking, thinking I can’t afford to get him this computer, but I’m going to get it for him somehow because that’s the love that that that my parents had for me.

And he made that promise, right?

He made he made that promise. And you know what? To be fair, mate, he’s he stuck with it. Mum, mum actually said to me, she goes, she goes, we were. She goes, we were really tight for money but for two months after that. But she goes your dad made a promise. She goes, he wasn’t expecting you to do it in a week and, and she goes, Here he is. And then another time when that kind of worked in my favour as well is when I was 17 and I passed my licence and it was a bank holiday. I turned round and said to Dad, I want a car. And dad goes, Tell you what. He goes, You open up the shop. It’s a bank holiday. I don’t want to go in. He said, Whatever money you make, you can put in towards the cost of a car. He doesn’t. He didn’t know it was going to be like the one of one of the busiest days we’d ever had. We took nearly £2,000 that day. So again, afterwards, I came home and I was like, Dad, we take in £2,000 today. And my dad’s face just dropped. And my mum was in hysterics again. So it’s all these little things that that, you know, over time you, you build up a memory of and these unshakeable memories from when you were a kid, you know, they do shape you as you get older now, you know like the time when I learnt to read Punjabi.

Even now I love learning Prav you know, I’m, I’m obsessive about it. I mean, you know, part of my story that, of course it’s, it’s that got me through some very dark times as well. But even now that, you know, I will sit down and I will read articles, I was critically praised them. I’ll try to get new information because it’s a never ending game. As soon as we think to ourselves, not just in implants, but in any in any aspect of dentistry, in any aspect of life. As soon as we think to ourselves, that’s it. I know enough. We do ourselves a disservice and we do those around us a disservice. So the game is really, really simple. Stay curious. That’s it. Just stay curious. And if you remain curious and keep asking the right questions, sometimes the wrong questions can lead you to the right questions. If you keep in that habit and just stay curious, magical things can end up opening up. And that’s that’s what I love about, well, everything about life, about dentistry, about, you know, family, about learning, and just. Just apply that principle to everything. Stay curious.

So any lessons from from dad? Right. I’m hearing the same lessons from both of our fathers. Right. And one thing that my dad always said to me, and it was almost like a mantra by the time, you know, I took my path that I took. But it was these words, son. I am working so hard doing a job that I don’t want to do. So that you don’t ever have to do this. Yeah. And that was that was a consistent mantra for me. Is that the reason I’m doing the shop? You better not end up a shopkeeper. Yeah, that was my. That was the overriding message from. From Dad. What about you?

It was. I’d say it was exactly the same, you know? So Dad used to turn around and said, Say to me. He was like, I don’t want you doing this. He said, You don’t have to do this. He said, I came over from India. I had no choice but to do this. He said, I’m giving you the option that you don’t have to do this. But that means that you’ve got to do your part and you’ve got to study hard. And he was like, If you study hard and get a good business, you can have a better life than than than what I have. And I think as well Prav is, you know, when you hear parents talk about kids and they turn around and say, we always want our kids to be better than than what we are. And because I didn’t have my daughter until later on in life, I was in my 40s. So, you know, I’ve got people that I graduated with, You know, their kids are like 17, 18 now. Yeah. Whereas I feel like my life started at 40 and I never understood that principle until I had my daughter. And then now everything’s like, you know, I just want Suhani to have a better life than what I do. And any way that I can sacrifice of my own on whatever level to achieve that, that’s what I’m going to do. So actually, those those lessons that Dad taught me, which stuck with me, but probably didn’t fully understand until I had my daughter and when I had my daughter, it just helped me appreciate more how much my parents sacrificed for me to be in the position that I am now.

What do you what do you take away? Really interesting here. So what is it that you want for Suhani that let’s say you don’t have now or you didn’t have? What? What is that thing? Is it is it a different type of career? Is it materialistic? Is it opportunities? What Like what’s your dream for? Suhani?

I think the opportunities that I had in terms of education and schooling were very, very good. But what’s come to be quite obvious more recently is that getting a high paying job, being in a profession and having straight A’s at GCSE and A-levels or whatever they’re called nowadays, that’s not necessarily the best way to generate wealth and income. So whilst I had that whole academic background, I want Suhani from a much younger age to learn about how money actually works, how investing works, you know, the more worldly stuff. I want her to understand communication, persuasion and influence from a much younger age because I think those soft skills play a massive role and it doesn’t matter in what aspect, whether it’s work or personal life. If I can get her to become a very, very, very good communicator and to understand how money works, then I think there will be even more opportunities for her than what I had. And I think the other passion that I have for her as well is. For myself, it was very much you have to get into a profession. You have to be you have to be a doctor, you have to be a dentist because they earn the highest. And it goes back to that whole we want we want my parents being like, we want you to have a better life than what? Than what we did. Sure. My approach for Suhani is whatever your passion is, chase it, but aim to be world class in it. You know, it doesn’t matter what it is. If she’s got a passion for languages, be a world class communicator in multiple different languages. You know, whatever it is that she wants to do, I don’t think it’s necessary. You have to have you have to have a specific professional job. But whatever your passion is and you have to find that passion, the aim is to become world class at that. And how do you become become world class at something? You stay curious. You keep asking the right questions. So that’s what I want for her.

Amazing. Amazing. See, for me, growing up the way I did. Right? It’s probably similar to you, right? It wasn’t easy. Probably pressurised into the career choice, but at the same time, you know, for the right reasons from our parents, right? At least, you know, they did what they thought was best. And so I look at my kids, I look at my upbringing, my childhood and how all that went and what do I want for my kids. It’s not financial. It’s definitely not financial because, A, I think it will come. And B, I look at I look at money differently from the point of view that, look, you can either earn more or adjust your lifestyle or a combination of the two. Right? And and I know very well that it’s not the derivative of what I’d consider to be happiness. Right? And so, look, if I get to the age of 65 and my daughter still wants to hold my hand and still wants to hang out with me because she wants to hang out with me. A fucking smashed it, mate. Yeah. Yeah. And that that that is what I’m aiming for. Right. And the other stuff, it’ll figure itself out. That’s, that’s just sort of my. And that’s changed over time. It has changed. And at the moment my, you know, six and seven year old, they can’t get enough hugs from daddy. They can’t squeeze my hand hard enough. And my God, I’m going to cash in on that time of all those hugs and holding my hand and squeezing my hand as long as I can get it, because I know one day they’ll be embarrassed. And hopefully that’ll come full circle. And that’s that’s, you know, that’s that’s sort of my take on it. But but listen, moving on from there, Let’s let’s let’s talk about obviously your dad wanted you to be a doctor stroke dentist. Just give us a whistle stop tour of school right through to university.

So whistle stop, tour of school. In fact, I remember. I remember even at. Nursery pre-school. But I had a habit of being disruptive because I got bored very, very quickly. So I would do whatever I needed to do and then I’d just disrupt the rest of the class. And this is a conversation I was having with my mom a few months ago. She was like, How do you remember this? And I said to her, I said, In fact, I remember at nursery that I was put in an inverted commas special class where like, I think there was ten, 12 of us with the headmistress and it was just basically an advanced class. But I used to finish the work so quickly, I used to disrupt everybody there as well. And the head teacher used to say to me, she goes, Look, just walk up and down the school. Just don’t go into any classes. Don’t go off to school. And I just used to look into appear into classrooms and stuff like that. And so I’ve always learnt fairly quickly. And then once I picked it up, I just when I was younger, I just used to disrupt. I had a natural infinity for sciences at secondary school.

I wasn’t strong in the humanities or arts or anything like that. And I’m wondering now on reflection, whether I had this natural affinity for sciences, because I knew that my dad wanted me to be a doctor and I was like, okay, to be a doctor, got to do you got to do the sciences and all the way up till GCSEs, I wanted to be a doctor, medical doctor. And then I did work experience in a hospital and it was the most boring thing I’ve ever done in my life. And then I entered A-levels and A-levels were way, way, way harder than what I originally anticipated because I walked through my GCSEs and A-levels hit me like a ton of bricks. And that first year, I think I think my highest grade in that first year was an E or a D minus because I just didn’t do any work because I’d lost that direction. And then in the in the summer holidays of that first year, because this wasn’t modular A-levels, this is you sit exams at the end of the end of the two years I did work experience in a dental practice and I loved it because I was like, hang on, Not only is this like medical stuff, but you get to do cool shit with your hands as well.

I was like, You know, you actually get to do some some really cool stuff. And there was actual, like diagnosis, treatment, planning and execution. So I went back to school and I said to my teachers, I was doing A-level physics, chemistry, biology. I said to them, You need to predict me, three B’s for me to get into dental school. And they turned around and said to me, Not even you can do it. They said, You left it too late. Not even you could do it. But my chemistry teacher knew that because I just lacked direction. That’s all that it was. And he was like, Let me speak to the other teachers. He said, I will get them to predict your three B’s, but whatever you do, do not let me down because they’re going to kill me. So he he bent their arms, twisted their arms, and in the end I got an A in physics and a B in chemistry and biology. And that’s what led me to go to the only university that actually gave me an offer, which was Guy’s Hospital.

Wow.

Yeah. Yeah. And it was one of those ones. You had six spots on the form to apply, but you can’t apply to six. They’re like, you know, when you do medicine dentistry, you can only apply to five. So I applied to five all in London because I wanted to get out of Yorkshire. Yeah. And the rest of them didn’t even have interviews. I just had an outright rejection. But I got in that guy’s and I went there. There were good times, there were bad times, but I failed my finals first time around and on retrospection it’s probably because my ego wasn’t big enough to graduate from guys because this is back in the days it was just like, Oh God, graduating from Guy’s ego has got to be like this. And even back then I was just like, I’ve had enough, I can’t do this. And I went to one of my professors that I was quite close to, quite pally with, and I just turned around and said to him, I said, Mr. Cab, I said, I can’t do this anymore. He said, What do you mean? I said, I’ve given it five years. I said, I’ve failed. I said, I’ve, you know, I hate this. I don’t want to do this anymore. And he just turned around and said to me, You’re not the man I fucking thought you were.

And I was like, What do you mean by that? He said, You’re giving up now. After you put in five years of effort, He said, You’ve got another three months. You’ve got to hang out around here. It’ll be the easiest three, three months of your life. And he goes after that. He said, a year, two years down the line. He says, it’s not even going to matter that you were here for an extra three years. And you know what? He was right. So, again, you know, I owe him a thank of gratitude as well that, you know, he he had that reality check conversation with me. And then what ended up happening, Prav, is when I was younger, I was really close to my grandfather as I was growing up. My dad’s the youngest in his family. He’s the baby in his family and he’s quite a big family. So my oldest uncles actually old enough to be my grandfather, so my grandfather’s quite a lot older still. And. In fact, I remember a trip when he came over to the to the UK for my cousin’s wedding. It must have been about summer of 94, 95. And he was just sat minding his business, laying on the floor, watching TV, and he was watching the news and I was bored. So I sat next to him. I gave him a little poke, a little prod, and he didn’t say a word, but he glanced over at me and then looked back and I knew what it meant.

It meant pack it in. But I was like, Yeah, whatever. So I gave him another little nudge and a poke. And without breaking his gaze off the TV, he just grabbed me and he put me into a headlock. And I laughed because I was like, You know, this old man’s got. I was like, I’m going to break this in a second. He just laughed back at me and he just turned round and said, he said, If you can break my. Break my grip. He said, Feel free to try Prav for 20 minutes. I tried to break this one for 20 minutes. I was sweating. The only sweat on my grandfather is was what I’d left on him. Other than that, he hadn’t broken a sweat. And that’s when my dad turned around. So my grandfather said to me, he said, All you have to do is admit defeat and I’ll let you go. And I was like, okay, cool. You win, you win. And my dad turned around to me afterwards and he turned around and said, You’ve got to remember, your grandfather’s a farmer, right? He’s got like manual labour strength. He’s doing 75 years. You know, he’s, he’s, he doesn’t look big, but he’s, he’s like, he’s like Iron Man.

So for me, that closeness with my grandfather and I had so much respect for, for, for him. He was like my Superman growing up and when I graduated. It was about a year or two after I graduated. My grandfather was in his twilight years. And I was speaking to him on the phone. And this is going to sound really selfish, but my dad was saying to me, You need to go see your grandfather. And I couldn’t handle it Prav because I knew he was working with walking with a Zimmer frame. And in my mind, this is the same guy who had me in a headlock. And if I’d just seen him in that Zimmer frame, there would have been that real disconnect. And psychologically, I couldn’t get around it. And when I was speaking to him on the phone, that’s when he said to me after a few minutes, he said, If I come to see you, he said, Can you fix my teeth? And I was like, What do you mean? He said, My teeth are loose. Can you can you fix them? I knew he wore dentures, but this was before I was placing implants. And I turned around and said to him, No, I don’t know how to do that. And he just went quiet. Which was only for a few seconds, but when he spoke.

The hope had gone from his body and from his voice. And that’s when he turned around and he said to me, he said, Listen. He said, I’ve had a long and blessed life. He said, But I can’t eat with these with these teeth. He said, when the rest of the family eats at the table, I’ve got to go into my own room, take take my dentures out because I’m so embarrassed to anybody, see me, see me eat with them. And I never got to help him. Prav And that hit me like a ton of bricks that I was in a profession where I had the potential to impact people and I wasn’t. I was just doing fillings and and fissure sealants and all this other stuff. And that’s what started me down my implant route because in my mind, the promise that I made to myself is I will help as many people as I can have fixed teeth in his memory. That’s the reason I’m so passionate about implants. That’s the reason I’ve you know, I study so much because for me, it’s it reminds me of that fondness that I had with my grandfather. And it reminds me how I wasn’t able to help him. So, you know, I’m in a profession where I had to learn to help as many people as I possibly could.

But Prav, even if you could press a button and go back in time, right, in a time machine or whatever. What what have you done differently? When he asked you that question.

There’s no point reminiscing about that Prav, because it’s not going to happen. I couldn’t have done anything. No. You know, and even, you know, I’ve I’m at peace with the fact that I never went back to see him because again. You know, these the life lessons have taught me that, you know, holding on to the past too much. It’s like it’s like holding on to a red hot iron poker. And going, why is this hurting? Why is this hurting? Well, all you have to do is let it go. So, you know, it’s the the past is the past. You know, there’s no point. We learn our lessons and move on, you know. So although I regret it, it’s I’m at peace with it as well. So.

Yeah. So talk to me how how things moved on from there. You qualified. You became a dentist. Take me from first job. Through to Red Sky Dental.

So first job. My. I didn’t particularly like it, to be honest with you. My trainer wasn’t particularly supportive and most of the training I had were because there was a practice with five dentists in there. Most of the support and training I had was from the other practice instead of my actual trainer. And. At the end of that year. I remember it clearly turning around and said to me, he said, You’re never going to earn money. He said, You’re too slow. And in my mind, I immediately thought to myself, because you’ve not taught me anything all year. And I decided at that point I was close to giving up dentistry. But I thought to myself, you know what? What am I going to do is I’m going to give it another year. I’m going to do a year long course and I’m going to see if I find my passion again. And that’s when, as everybody does, do Chris Orr’s course, right? Course it’s like you graduate, you do your bit or whatever it is there, and then you do. Chris. So yeah, I was.

If you can get on it.

If you can get on it, yeah. This was back when it wasn’t as busy so and I just fell in love with dentistry again. And after that it was just once I did Chris Hall’s course, then I did. I was fortunate to have done Mike Wise’s course as well before he retired because he went through a spell of bad health. And then after that Prav it’s, you know, I worked in a couple of different practices, and once I found out that the contract was coming, I went to my primary care trust, as it was called at the time, and I said to him, I’m still because it was it was done on a historic list. So I said, I’m still building my list. And I said, I know I’m capable of doing the work, but I need this contract. And they basically said, Fuck off. And I was like, Cool, I’ve got no other choice other than to either find another position or go private. And that’s when Red Sky Dental Spa came up. So it was an established practice. The guy had been there 20, 25 years and he lived above there as well. And I was young, naive, had no clue about business. And this was back in the bank. This was back when the banks were just like, Oh, you’re a dentist. How much money do you want to do? You want to borrow? So I borrowed the valuation of the building and the goodwill and another 20% on top of that as well to do some renovations and stuff like that. So I was leveraged up to here.

So just just before we talk about that, right. You saw this practice was for sale. Did you know anything about buying a practice? Did you have anyone advise you on the valuation negotiations, any of that? And why this practice in Doncaster? What was it what was it about this practice that you thought it’s the one?

Uh, so firstly, no, I didn’t receive any advice. I didn’t look into it. I didn’t know how to run a business. Prav in my mind, I’d done Chris Hall’s course and for me it was just like, as you know, the old saying, if you build it, they will come. And in my mind, if I just execute the very best quality dentistry, I’ll have a line around the corner and people will pay whatever I want them to pay. That was my mentality moving towards it. And the reason why we looked at this practice is it was commutable distance from from home. That’s it. That’s all that I knew about it. And when we took it over because it was an established practice, the guy had been there for for a long, long time. I’d say between 25 and 30% of the patient list just disappeared because they were just like, we were coming here for the old guy. Now that he’s not here, we’re going to move somewhere closer. So I took a kicking in the shins right from the start. This is before I had any type of communication training. This was back when my ego was still high and I thought I was the best at everything. You know, I saw Mike Wise do a case and I was like, Yeah, I can do that.

I can copy that, you know, because you don’t know what you don’t know. You don’t understand what your skill levels are. You just you can do these things having done a course. And that is one of the things that started me down this route of learning so many different things, mate, because I had this practice which was failing and I was propping it up with my money, my parents money, credit cards, all sorts of stuff like that. And in my mind, the more that I studied, the more things I could bring into the practice that the more strings in the bow that I could have, that it’s just going to bring in more revenue stream for the practice. And by this time you were already engaged with me, you know, and if you’re a member, I was one of the one of the first in the UK to be doing six month smiles. And in fact, what was it? It was it was Carl, wasn’t it? Carl Barrow who said, yeah, he was on the he was the first to do the six month smiles course. No, he was the first to put it on his website because I was on that course with him.

Yeah, I remember that. I remember that course because, um, I invited Ryan Swain from the States. Yeah. To deliver the first course here in the UK. Right, but. But put all that to one side. Forget about six months miles. Prav. When I first saw your practice course. It was almost like you were trying to. Create an environment that didn’t exist in dentistry. And so I remember the couches. I remember the lounge. Yes. Yeah. And I just remember looking at this and thinking, Fucking hell, this guy. Yeah, he’s thinking differently, right? And I think it was back then where, you know, things like offering teas and coffees and a drinks menu to patients and stuff like that wasn’t the norm. Right. And, and you were bringing that to the table in Doncaster? Yeah. And I was just blown away with, with what your vision was at the time. Yeah. Like you say, you were one of the first guys to be doing, you know, a particular, you know, fixed brace treatment. And to ask you a very blunt question now.

Go for it.

What went wrong?

I think it was a multiple of different things. I think firstly I was over leveraged. Secondly, I had no clue about business. And thirdly, I was I was trying to do the right thing. In the wrong town at the wrong time. Because, you know, we talk about these drinks menu. I don’t know if you ever saw, but I had whisky and wine on the back as well for anybody who wanted that. You know, we had the we had these 50 inch TV playing. Yeah. It was it wasn’t playing these loop adverts. It was playing Fawlty Towers and you know, like TV. And I remember one one, one patient came in and said, oh he said as a joke, all I need is some ice cream and it’ll be like I was in a cinema. So when he came back the next week, you know, we had a little tub of Haagen-Dazs for him and he was like, blown away, you know? So I think I still think the concept was right because other people were kind of like starting to do it, like these spas, these boutique type things. But I think it was the wrong type. It was it was the wrong time. And I didn’t understand the population of the time who couldn’t necessarily afford that type of stuff. Back then, Prav was charging £800 for a crown, you know, in the middle of Doncaster.

In the middle of Doncaster?

Yeah. And don’t get me wrong, I’m not having got Doncaster. It was, it was some of the greatest times of my professional career. There was, you know, it was a lot of fun, but I didn’t respect the disposable cash that people had in that area. And effectively what ended up happening is I was just treading water for for eight years. And after eight years, it got to the point where I had to go into an I.V. because I had all these bad debts chasing me. And then it was about a year after that that things completely folded. And we ended up folding them deliberately because I ended up with a patient. I can’t remember how she found out about my I.V., but I think we were just talking. And, you know, one of these patients I was, you know, comfortable with and stuff like that told her I was in an I.V. And she goes, Why? And she goes, You got this. She goes, How are you not making money hand over fist? And I said to her, Look, I said, I’ve got a handful of patients. You know, they’re very, very happy for me to do treatment. I said, But you know, my overheads are very high. And on top of that I haven’t got enough patients. So she was like, Let me look at your books. And she looked at everything and a week later she came back in to see me and she goes, You’re not going to like what I’ve got to say. But she said, I have to tell you, she goes, You’re you are trading Insolvently.

And whether you want to admit it or not, this place is going to go. And she said to me, Why have you not bankrupted yourself? I said, Because the practice is secured on our home. So if you lose the practice, we’ll lose the house as well. And because we were in the middle of a recession back then, as we were, we were in so much negative equity. I was just trying to tread water. And, you know, the practice had been on on for sale for 2 or 3 years, but it just wasn’t because I wanted too much more than what it was worth to try and break it. And she turned around and she said to me, she said, look, she goes, What’s going to happen? She said, You can either bankrupt yourself. And have some sliver of control or the banks going to do it for you. She goes, I promise you they’re going to do it within the next six months. Then she goes, They’re all really kind of like sniffing around the edges. They know that something was wrong because they had me on like this special support where they were charging me like £500 a month for. And I was just like, Hang on, are you charging me £500 a month? You know that my business isn’t doing particularly well. And she was like, They know they’re just trying to get as much money from you as what they possibly can.

And under her advice, because I was I was I was separated at this time under her advice, I decided to pull the plug. And it was it was really difficult. So I paid somebody to come in and speak to them, to speak to my staff because it was too traumatic for me to do it. And effectively, they, you know, they we closed the practice. Now, what I had is I had a guy who was a couple of miles down the road. It was a big thing for me is that I didn’t want my patients to be out of pocket or anything. And I had a lot of patients who had paid up front for their treatment. So I negotiated with him that for £1 he took over my list. And for him it was a bargain because he just got all of my list. And I said, The only thing that you have to promise is those patients who are in credit remain in credit. And and he was like, Yeah, cool. Not a problem. So that’s that’s that’s effectively what what happened. And I’d been chased for a long long time by so many different creditors by you got to the point where you know, when you get letters coming in and you get phone calls on a daily basis and you just ignore it and you have to ignore it for your mental health. And it did play on me psychologically very, very, very significantly. And then what ended up happening was even when I went to I remember because I bankrupted myself, I borrowed money from my dad to do it because it’s like £700 to do a bankruptcy.

And I went down and booked a date with my local court and they say, right, you’ve got to you’ve got to fill out all of these. You’ve got to fill out all of these papers. And it’s basically, what’s your situation? How much do you owe? How much do you earn? And filled out the papers. And I went to the court and the bailiff came, took my papers to the judge, and they said the judge may or may not need to see you. Let’s take a look. So he comes back out and he said the judge is happy with this. He’s about to rubber stamp it. But he’s just got one question for you. This £700 for the bankruptcy, where’s that come from? I said to him, My dad’s loaned it to me. My dad’s given it to me. And he was like, okay. So I went back to the judge, Judge rubber stamped it. And then what happened is. I didn’t. Then once that bankruptcy happened, what was really nice is I got a bankruptcy number and all of these 20, 30 phone calls a day, all of these, you know, 20, 30 letters a day, you know, we’re going to take you we’re going to send bailiffs. We’re going to do this that, you know, we’re going to repossess this. We’re going to repossess that. They just went silent. And it’s it’s really weird Prav that when you’re under that much pressure to have that silence.

After years of pressure was. It was. It was almost unnerving because what had happened is whenever these creditors would call or I got a letter, I’d just call them back and turn around and say and they’d turn around and say, Are you ready to pay? Can we take your card number? And he just said and I said, Him, I’ve gone bankrupt. Here’s the bankruptcy number. They’re legally they’re not allowed to chase you after that. Yeah. And then what happened was I had a review with the court every three months. What’s your financial situation? Just because you’ve got bankruptcy, if you earn a lot of money, they can make you pay it back. I still wasn’t earning a lot just because of my situation. So I was cleared from the bankruptcy after a year. And during this time as well, that’s kind of when my separation and divorce happened as well. So mentally, I wasn’t I wasn’t in a fit state. And all of a sudden I’d had this pressure for eight years and the pressure valves had just been released entirely. And so because I was back with mom and dad, I wasn’t under any pressure to earn because I didn’t have any loans, no credit cards, nothing. It all just fell silent. So for my own peace of mind, my own mental well-being, I had to take some time out and take my foot off the gas because I needed that silence and just.

Just take us back to that dark place. You know, I’ve known you all of these years, both personally and professionally, as a client and a friend. And I remember speaking to you around that time, and you’re in a fucking hole, mate. Yeah. You know, you were either going through a separation or a divorce at the time, certain details of which you shared with me. Yeah. And if I’ve ever known anyone to hit rock bottom, mentally, I would say it was then for you. I don’t know how comfortable you feel sort of sharing what happened around that time and how you felt. Um, but. But certainly just, just just share what you feel comfortable sharing and just talk me through how the hell you crawled back out of it.

Yeah. So I, I am comfortable with this again because I’ve made peace with my past. And the reason why I speak openly about this and I don’t try to hide anything just in case there’s anybody listening who’s kind of like in a similar situation. I want them to hear that, Holy shit, this guy’s been through some really, really dark, dark, dark stuff.

Really dark.

And you know what? He’s in a really happy place at the moment. So if he gives a little bit of hope to somebody that that that’s. That’s the only reason why I’m open and honest with this type of stuff. So within the space of about 18 months, I went through the separation, losing the practice and going bankrupt as well. And then and then and then getting my divorce finalised as well.

I’m moving back in with Mum and Dad.

I’m moving back in with Mum and Dad. If it wasn’t for my parents, I would have been homeless. And then God knows where would have been now. So, you know, because my parents had loaned me a lot of money to prop up the practice. Well, they lost a lot because. Because, because I said to the judge said, Can I pay my mum and dad back? They said, no. Said legally they’re creditors. He said, if I catch you paying them back, he said, you’re bankruptcy is null and void, then you’ve got to pay everybody back. And, you know, so Mum and Dad was like, I’m sorry. All that money that you loaned me is gone. It’s just gone. And. That led me to a point where I was suffering from. I want to. It wasn’t quite depression Prav. Okay? It was despair. Okay. And the difference between the two is really simple. With despair, you feel like there’s nothing left worth living for. Okay. It feels like you’re waking up every single day and it’s just like it’s never going to get better. Despairs. It’s just like this empty feeling. It’s like you’re. You stood on the edge of an abyss and you’re just looking down and it’s almost like there’s no need for tomorrow. And I couldn’t deal with trying to think about a day at a time because it had become overwhelming. So I just focussed on the next half an hour or next hour and next half an hour, next hour. One of the ways that I do that is because of this promise that I made to myself in my grandfather’s name that I’d learned to place implants. So I just immersed myself in implants so I’d get books, I’d get textbooks from the library, and I’d read a 1000 page textbook over a weekend. Next weekend, next textbook. Then I’d get papers, then I’d be researching on the Internet. It was just study, study, study. And that. That. That immersion helps the time pass. Effectively, what I was doing is I was hitting flow state studying so that the time would pass, that I wasn’t thinking about the rest of the stuff.

You were reading your two pages of Punjabi so you could get your computer?

Pretty much. Pretty much. And what ended up happening is there were the worst point was I was suicidal.

Yeah. Remember?

Yeah. And the doctor, because I went to him and said, I can’t cope, you know, I’ve got all this going on. It was like, Oh, take these pills. Oh, by the way, have you ever had thoughts of killing yourself? Yeah. He’s like, okay, cool. What we’ll do is we’ll call you every 48 hours to make sure you’re not killed yourself. I was like, I thought that would be a bit more to this, but literally that’s what it was, is call every 48 hours. And it was a sequence of questions. And, you know, there weren’t flippant about it, but it wasn’t as much support as what you’d think you’d need for somebody going through that effectively. And the worst point it got to is when. I was sat at my desk with multiple bottles of paracetamol open in front of me and two bottles of whisky, and I was like, This is it. And I looked down and I saw my dog Archie, who sat by me, his still now he’s an old boy now, but he’s still here with me. And. He hit me and I was just like. If I do this, Mum and Dad are going to give Archie away. Who’s going to look after him? That’s why I say that my dog saved my life. That’s why. That’s why she saved my life. Because I was. I was on the abyss. I was right at the edge. And. Um, I’ll look down and I was just like, I made this commitment to Archie that I would look after him throughout all of his life. And I had to see that commitment through and. That snapped me out of it. And by this time my divorce was being finalised.

And I was I was I was moving on quite quickly. And what I would say to. Anybody who’s in that dark position now, having these bad thoughts, it feels like there’s no sunshine tomorrow, but the sunshine will come. You just need to find the right support and hang on. That’s it. That’s all that you have to do. You know, Daylight for Daytime follows Night-Time. And you know what follows? Daytime Night-Time again. You know, that’s that’s just part of life. And as I said, the reason why I’m open and honest about this is in case there’s anybody listening, I just want them to understand, Don’t do it. There’s no need because. I’m now the happiest that I’ve ever been from that really dark place, that despair, that depression, that anxiety a few years ago. So the place where I’m now just loving life loving, you know, I’ve got. Well, my wife and my daughter, they are everything to me. You know, it’s I’m not the easiest of people to get on with. I can be quite abrasive because one of the things that happened is after my previous marriage is I just got to the point where it’s just like, I don’t have time for shit in my life. I’m just straight talking and to the point. And that’s with my wife as well. And she knows that. But she’s the type of person where she can turn around and say to me, You can’t speak to me like that. You know, And she’s just incredible from from the moment that we spoke to everything. She’s just you know, when people say when you meet the right person, you’ll just know that’s exactly was with her, you know. Yeah.

Yeah. And funnily enough, when it when it happened to you, I knew. And it’s not because I was there, but I could see it on your face. I could hear it in your voice. Yeah. You completely changed, right? And I’ve seen you. I’ve seen you go to hell and back. And it’s just so lovely now to see how fulfilled you are, not only in your personal life, you know, but also I see you thriving in your career now. Yeah, it’s just taken a bloody long time to get there, right? Yeah, it really has. But I see you now sort of thriving at the top of your game, teaching others is passing on that knowledge, you know, And it’s great to see. Right. So look, you sort of were in that whole what, what? Just. Just talk me through then. Then Archie saves your life. Yeah. And then take us to today.

And then effectively what ended up happening is. After that point, that’s when I started to, like, get back into the dating scene. I was dating for about 18 months before I met Gus. Yeah. And, you know, I was. I was. I was happy. I was, like, quite comfortable being by myself again. And I was just like, you know what? If I don’t find anybody, that’s cool. If I find somebody, that’s cool as well, but I want it to be in a relationship. There were some girls that, as always, it just it was just wrong. There were others that it fizzled out with and others where we just couldn’t get it to work. And even all those times, it’s just kind of like, you think he’s just hot for you. You know, it’s, you know, am I going to find the right person? Am I going to find the right person? And then so what happened is because I was on these on these dating apps. Shaadi.com. Right. That type of stuff. It was the same handful of girls that you were attracted to and all of them. My dad said to me one day he goes, he goes, he goes, I’m fed up with you. So what do you mean? He goes, You’re always on these stupid apps. He goes, You can’t. He said, You know, you date these girls for a few months or several months and then, you know, nothing happens.

He goes, he goes, I’m going to. He goes, there’s a temple where they’ve got like they do like a matrimonial type service because I’m going to put your name in there. And I was like, No, don’t do that because this is one of these ones. Prav You know, when you go to gurdwara, you open it up and it’s a list like, like my line in there would be, you know, male dentist, 510 divorced. It was like, how can you build it? So the, the deal that I brokered with with my mom and my dad is like, okay, cool. This is the route that we’re going to go down. I’m not speaking to these girls until you get me a photo of them. My mom was like, okay, that’s fine. Uh, deal. And so about a week later, my mom comes to me and she goes, Oh, she goes, I think I’ve found a nice girl for you. I was like, Where’s the photo? She goes, Here’s the photo. And I was like, Yeah, can you get me her number, please? I’m proud of it. So when I first spoke, it was a it was a Tuesday. It was a Tuesday. Yeah. And in fact, the five year anniversary of us first speaking was yesterday. Congrats, man. Thank you. So it was. It was a Tuesday and we just hit it off.

We spoke for an hour and a half, two hours, and we decided to meet that that Sunday. And groups like Let’s Go out for a coffee. And I was just like, I’m not coming all the way to London just to go out for a coffee. I was like, Let’s, let’s do a full day. She was like, okay, cool, let’s do that. And we started off with brunch at Ivy Brasserie. We went to Natural History Museum, walked around for a bit, and then and then we ended up having dinner at Dishoom. And then it was, it was like a perfect day. It was fantastic. It was a really hot summer and I was sweating like a pig underneath. It was so bad, but fortunately I was wearing black, so you couldn’t really see too much of it. And it got time where it was like, you know, time to go home. And but there was a problem with the trains. There was like train strikes and stuff and got so like, oh, you know, I’m going to go it’s going to take me a couple of hours to get home. I was like, Why don’t I drive you? And she was like, No, no, no, it’s okay. You know, typical polite thing to do. Plus, you know, I don’t know this guy. Is he a stalker or is he this that?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I said to her, Listen, I said, it’s going to take two hours to get home or it’s or it’s half an hour, 40 minutes in the car. She can’t make this look. It was just like I could see her thinking, should I, shouldn’t I? You know? And she goes, Yeah, okay. Then I ended up driving her home and we got around the corner from her house and she went, Oh, my God. And I was like, What? And I was like. And she said, she said to me, That’s my dad in the car in front of us. And I said, Are you joking? She goes, No. And he clocked us. By this point, he was waving like this. And she was like, Oh, she was like, Do you want to meet him? And I was like, Do you want me to meet him? And what I didn’t know about her at the time, she’s useless at making a decision. We still joke about it now. She’s really bad at making decisions. And she was like, I don’t know. And we were literally two minutes around the corner from my house. I said, Listen. I said, If you want me to drop you off at the drop top of your road, that’s fine. If you want me to meet your dad, that’s fine as well. And she was just like, I don’t know.

I don’t know. She goes, Well, he’s seen you now. You may as well meet him. So dropped her off outside of her house and I met him and she asked me politely, which I later found out wasn’t a genuine invitation. It was just a polite conversation. She was like, Do you want to come in for a drink? And I just said, Yeah, cool. All right. And so I went in, opened the door and met her mum as well. So on the first date, I met both of her parents. Wow. And, you know, it was second date. We went to see Aladdin. You know, we just we just met up every single week and Prav. You know what? To be honest, on that first day, I was like, I remember driving home thinking to myself, in fact, I said this to my mum on the drive home. Mum calls me up. She goes, How did it go? I said, There’s something special about this one. The radius. And I knew. I knew by day 2 or 3. Know, by day two, I knew. I knew that I wanted to marry her. By day three, I was like, I know that I want to marry this girl. I just. I just knew. Wow. But because she doesn’t make up decisions quickly, she needed a bit more time.

Kept you waiting?

Yeah. And then she’d never been to Italy. She always wanted to go to Italy, and she was just like, Oh, well, you know, I want to be proposed to in Italy. And I thought at first it was just kind of banter because I was like, You know what? Indian parents can let their daughter go to Italy and kind of like started, you know, hinting at, at at, at, at at an engagement and stuff like that. And she was like, ha ha. Have you booked tickets to Italy then? I was like, You really want to be proposed to in Italy? And she goes, Yeah, of course I do. And so I asked her parents. I turned around and said to her that I said to her parents, Um, you know, is it okay if I take her and propose to her in Florence? And they gave me a blessings and that’s effectively what we did. So on the day we were going to the airport, I got her parents to meet me at the airport and bring brought all of her stuff and my stuff as well. And I told her that we were going to the airport to pick up Prem. You know, everybody knows Prem, right? Prem So he said he’s a good mate of mine.

He’s flying down from and he wants to take us out to dinner. He wants to meet you. And we got to. And I could see her eyeing me up like this, like she knew something was something was up. But also it was just like, well, we haven’t got any clothes or anything. And then when she saw her parents at at Gatwick waiting for us, that’s when, like, the penny clicked and yeah. Flew to Florence and proposed there. And it’s just the whole, the whole time it’s just been a dream. And then we both wanted kids and now we have Sahani who is she’s coming up to three years old, mate. And she is. She’s incredible. You know what I do in terms of business? What I do in terms of work is in their service. I don’t need much. You know, I don’t back in the day, I needed to have a big sound system. I needed a TV, I needed this, that and the other. Whereas now I don’t need much. I just need I just need them. That’s it, you know? And so as long as they’re happy, as long as they’re provided for, I don’t need much above and beyond that. And then.

So happy for you, buddy. So, so happy for you. And having seen that over the last, you know, decade and a half, it’s it’s just so lovely to see. Right. And then from there onwards, you’re today. I know, I know. We’re running short on time and path, but I just want you to talk about your teaching, right? Because, um, I guess I’ve popped into your life at various moments, right in and out of when you had the practice and and then at other stages. And then. And then more recently, you know, we’ve. We’ve been talking about your academy, right? And, you know, when people come to me and say. I’ve got the best course on the planet. Yeah. Yeah. This course is unbelievable. Prav and delegates love it. And I just need you to help me market the shit out of it. Yeah. Yeah, that happens on a regular basis. But let me tell you, there’s a couple of occasions. Yeah, there’s a few occasions where that’s been true. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and I will say the very, very first time that happened that this person didn’t come up to me and say, I’ve got the best course on the planet, you need to help me market the shit out of it.

It was when I met Tiff Qureshi and we got into business together, shall we say. Yeah. And and I actually saw Tiff speak in front of a lot of people. And when I saw the impact of the jaws dropping and all the rest of it, I thought, fucking this guy is changing the game for a lot of people, right? So I saw that. Then along comes Jaz Gulati. Yeah, with his occlusion course, and he says it’s the best occlusion course on the planet. Yeah. And I’m like, Yeah, yeah, pull the other one. So then I. Then I, then I pull my ace out of the sleeve and I say, Hey, Tiff, check this guy out. And Tiff comes to me and goes, Guy’s the real deal, right? And then you come along and tell me you’ve got the most comprehensive implant course there is. Yeah, Yeah. And I think, Fucking hell, here we go again. Right?

I remember this conversation.

Yeah. Um, but then I see the curriculum and you just send me, like, loads of bullet points, right? Of the curriculum and thinking, All right, so he covers all of these things over thing, and you’re like. And then we get to the point and you tell me every bullet point I’ve sent you. Prav is a whole module.

Yes.

And that’s when I realised the enormity of this curriculum that you’ve put together, right? Yeah. Then I’ve heard. From your delegates and what they’ve had to say about it. The way you teach, the way you explain, the way you bring stuff across. And then more recently, I’ve seen you on social media doing videos and that is just so not you, Prav. Yeah, because you’re. That you’re a natural introvert. Yeah. Yeah. And you’re coming out your comfort zone doing all of that. So I’d just like to learn a little bit more about what are you trying to do with this academy? What’s your goal? Where are you now in your career in terms of delivering clinical dentistry versus delivering teaching? Which ones you like more? I mean, the last conversation we had, you were going to take a bunch of people to Brazil and was it Brazil.

Cuba, Cuba, Cuba.

That’s what we’re.

Doing. Oh, we’re going October.

Are you taking people to place implants in Cuba in October? Right. And yeah, and that was I think you sent me a WhatsApp message and said, Hey, Prav, what do you think about me taking people to Cuba and us placing like 15, 20 implants over the thing? I was like, Yeah, cool idea. And then the next thing you say, I need a page on my website. We’re doing this. Yeah, yeah. So I can see everything coming together. Prav But, but just tell me what’s what’s going on career wise for you now? Are you. How’s your time split? Delivering dentistry to patients. Teaching dentists on. Where’s this all going?

So I do two days a week in clinical practice placing implants and the other three days a week I dedicate towards the Academy and mentoring. And the reason why I do that is I see a lot of people, whether they’ve done other courses and they’re like, we can’t get a mentor in because their mentor is in surgery five days a week. So to get a clinical day with them booked out where they can come to the practice, it’s like six, seven, eight months ahead. And for me, I’m just magnifying that promise that I made to myself and my grandfather’s name. Hang on. It’s one thing if I place the implants, if I teach ten other dentists how to place implants, all of a sudden I’ve magnified it by a factor of ten. I’m impacting more patients, albeit indirectly, but I’m impacting more patients. Yeah. The other thing, the other reason why I wanted to start the Academy was because I’d had my fingers burnt several times and I see other people where they have this issue where they don’t have enough information. So even if you start as a very even if you start as a beginner, you don’t know what you don’t know, right? So even if you’re not capable of doing that complex level stuff, you should be able to identify the patients which are complex. Otherwise what you’re going to have, what’s going to happen is you’re going to end up thinking it’s a straightforward case. Execute straightforward treatment in what is actually a complicated case, and then when it goes wrong, that’s when the solicitors get involved or that’s when complaints happen.

And for those who start to run with implants, you find that you hit a clinical ceiling very, very quickly because it’s just like, okay, well, I’m doing the basics, but now I’m limited by the sinus, Now I’m limited by this, now I’m limited by that. So the whole theory aspect, everything that I wanted to do with the Academy was take all of my knowledge and put it and put it all into one course. It’s modular. So there’s three modules the Sensor essentials, advanced and mastery, and we cover everything from what is an implant all the way up to this is how you do full arch, this is how you do sinuses, this is how you do immediates, this is how you do query plating, this is how you do everything. So I wanted it to be as comprehensive as what I could make it. And then on top of that, because of that, studying that got me out of these really bad places. I’ve got a lot of knowledge to give, and I like teaching other people, particularly people when they’ve done a diploma or a master’s degree already, or they’ve been placing implants for 20 years and they want a challenge and then they enrol into the academy and within about 3 or 4 lessons they’re just like, Why is it that we’ve learned more from you in 3 or 4 lessons than what we had done on the entirety of this course or that course? I was like, Because I’m not holding back. I’m dumping all of my knowledge out there. So from my perspective, all I’m all I’m doing is all of these courses that I’ve learned from, and I’ve put about 250 K of my own money into learning how to place implants.

I’m just distilling it and saying, Hey, this is the way that I do it. There’s loads of phenomenal people out there that I’ve learned from. There’s loads of phenomenal people that you can learn from, but effectively this is all of my knowledge distilled, and the reason why I put it online Prav is for a couple of reasons. Firstly, you can revisit it time and time again because if you do a live course, once it’s done, you’ve just got your notes, that’s it. Whereas if it’s online, cool, go back to it time again. And the other thing as well is to gain my knowledge, you don’t have to be taught by me. You don’t have to go on any course. You just need to know which textbooks to read and which papers to read. That’s going to take you a long time. And if you want to learn the theory of it, well, you can do that in person or you can do it online. And you know, when you do it online, you can sit there in your PJs at home and think. It changed everything. You know, every everybody now is used to learning online, doing it comfortably at home. When I did it, I had to take three days out from surgery because I had to travel to London the day before, do the course, and then get back as well, you know, Whereas now it’s just kind of like, yeah, do it online.

But you are mixing it up with hands on experience, right? Like the days in Cuba, the bone grafting days and things like that. Right? So there’s components of online mixed in with, with, with hands on.

Yeah. So, so there’s two aspects of it. There’s the theory aspect of it and there’s the hands on. So the hands on everybody’s different because I’ve got some delegates who are implant surgeons, so they’re like, We just need the theory, we’ll implement it ourselves. Other dentists, they’ve got mentors already and other delegates are just like, I haven’t got a mentor, can you come to my practice? So that’s the reason why I’ve not lumped the the practical all in all in with the theory because everybody’s in a different stage in their career. Everybody needs a different level of support. So I’ve kept that aspect as flexible as what I possibly can. But yes, it’s two sides to the same coin. There’s a theory, there’s the hands on, you know, if all you do is hands on, you don’t understand the theory. You’re not going to get great results if all you do is theory and you don’t do the hands on, well, you’re not going to be placing implants. You need to do both.

Sir Path. How do people find out about your offering, your mentoring? Let’s say somebody wants you in their practice to do a complex full zygomatic case, whatever that may be, or somebody just wants some advice, mentoring one on one or wants to jump on your course. How do they find out about it? Path.

So very simply, you can go to the Academy of Implant excellence.com, get in contact with me there. I’m on Instagram a lot as well, because as you said, I’m doing a lot of social work and a lot of that is just, you know, taste as to the course, you know, what type of stuff am I putting out there? Send me a message. I’m quite responsive because, you know, that’s what I do now. And, you know, even if you want hands on mentoring, even if you’re not a delegate of the academy, I can still help you because that still falls in line with the promise that I made to myself to help as many patients as what I possibly can. So, you know, I just I just love seeing dentists where light bulbs go on. You know, I’ve got one guy at the moment where I’ve done several days worth of mentoring and he’s been placing implants for 20 years. And all of a sudden he’s just like, Prav, I’m really busy with implants. I don’t know what’s happening. I said, That’s because your skill levels increased and you’re diagnosing things differently and he’s loving it and he’s just like, I can spend more time with my family now because the amount that I’m generating from implants, I don’t have to do as much general dentistry. And you know, hearing that you can have impacts like that for people’s lives is it’s priceless.

Amazing. And you know, you know, one thing I know very little about clinical dentistry, but one thing I do know, right, is if all you know how to do is place a bridge, all you’ll see is bridges. Yeah. And if you know how to identify and diagnose, then you place implants, right? And then, you know, funnily enough, in our clinic, the clinicians got better at identifying those patients who were zygomatic cases. Right? So we do a lot more zygomatic cases now, but prior to knowing how to identify them rather than saying, Hey, I’m sorry, you’re beyond help. Yeah, we didn’t do any right. And then you get the surgeons in who can do the zygomatic piece and you can help more people. Right? And, you know, I think one of the strongest messages that you’ve got across today, Ross Hobson, says it a lot. You don’t know what you don’t know. And it’s so true. It’s so, so true. Prav Um, I’ve got a couple of final questions for you before I can let you go. And the first one is, um. Look, let’s imagine it’s your last day on the planet, and you’ve got Suhani by your side, and you’ve got to impart her with three pieces of wisdom or life advice. What would you say to her?

Always find. Enjoyment in whatever it is that you’re doing. Be present in the moment. The next thing that I would say is. It doesn’t matter. How hard life gets. There’s bright days ahead. You just have to weather the storm. And the final thing that I would say to her is. Follow your passion with passion. Now, whatever it is that you’re passionate about, doesn’t matter what people say. It’s, you know, imagine if. Imagine if Michael Jordan had, you know, imagine if his dad turned around and said to him or his mom, turn around. I said to him, stop playing basketball, You know, go do your homework. You’re out in the you’re out playing basketball too much. Go do your homework instead, you know? Or what if you know what if you know, Christopher Nolan was told by his parents, you know, you’re never going to be a Hollywood director. It’s not going to happen. Or Hans Zimmer was told, Why are you into music? You’re never going to earn any any money playing music. You know, it’s just following the passion, staying curious and and and trying to be world class. You’re not competing with anybody else other than yourself.

Beautiful.

You’re going to be a little bit better than what you were yesterday. That’s it. That’s what the game is.

Fantasy dinner party. Three people, dead or alive, who would they be?

Oh.

Oh, nah.

I wasn’t expecting that. That’s a good one. Uh.

Bruce Lee.

Nice one.

Number two. Marcus Aurelius. Assuming that I could either speak Latin or understand English, whichever way you want to do it. Um, and the last one. Last one in my grandfather Moon. That’s what will be my grandfather. For sure. Just so I could see him that last time and say to him. You know what? I’m doing the best that I can.

I knew you’d say that.

Yeah.

Yeah. Thanks.

Thank you, mate.

Thanks for being so open.

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.

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Trauma is not always what happens to you. It’s what doesn’t happen that should have happened. Really? Like what? Like, for example, a child that didn’t receive the needs it should have received, didn’t didn’t receive enough love or didn’t have a caring parent.

So neglect in a way.

Neglect, Yeah. Things that should have happened that you should have received as a human being. And that didn’t happen. That can also cause trauma. So there’s different ways that can happen and different ways that it can be shaped. It’s not just some, you know, horrific events that could have happened to us. It could be like very small things. But, you know, for example, you could respond to it or Payman could respond to that, but I could not because for whatever reason, I’m very secure in that sense and it doesn’t affect me.

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 my best friend and an incredible psychotherapist in the making, Nino Supremacy. Now, Nino and I have known each other for almost ten years now. No.

Yes, I was just telling Payman over ten years, I think.

Yeah. So it was because there was a dude and I was friends with the dude and he was into her. But we ditched the dude and became best friends. Like, literally that’s what happened. And Nino has been one of the most inspiring people in my life and also a massive support to me. But what I found very interesting is over the last couple of years, whilst I’ve been navigating my own mental health, we’ve been able to delve deeper on the impact of childhood, on the way that we developed the processing of information and the way that we hear it. And most importantly, I think that, you know, you went to back to university to study and ultimately understand yourself, but to be able to provide and help for people. So Nino has also got a she’s also an entrepreneur, so she has been in the hospitality industry for over ten years. She had a restaurant before and now she has co-founded a chain called Waka, not Wahaca, because everyone thinks it’s waka waka. And through a really difficult time, as we know, when the pandemic hit, the business suffered, as many businesses did, and navigating through that was a really difficult thing. And she continues to do that. And so I think that Nino could provide a lot of value. Ultimately, she’s helped me a lot. So yeah, that’s my introduction for Nino.

Wow, Lovely to have you, Nina.

Thank you so much. I’m happy to be here.

And so you were telling me before you grew up in the Soviet Union.

Yeah. So I grew up in USSR. I was born in USSR and I was still a baby when I broke up. But as I was telling you, it’s, you know, you still have a good decade of it still operating under those rules. You know, it’s like storming period where nobody knows what they’re doing. So it wasn’t a very safe place. And it operates under very different set of rules than Europe or well, my life right now. So yeah, it was a very interesting time to be growing up and I guess until I moved to the UK obviously.

So I’m quite interested in, you know, the advantage. Gary Vaynerchuk talks about it, the advantage of the immigrant situation. So you look at Russians who’ve who’ve really made it big, I guess Gary Vaynerchuk is one of them, right? Or Lex Friedman or Vitaly from the crypto space. Do you think do you think you’ve had an advantage by being an immigrant?

You mean coming into the UK? Yeah.

Because you know, the disadvantage of it is kind of obvious. We kind of know that you come into a new country, you don’t know the language, you know, you don’t know the system, all of that. But but Garyvee always talks about the advantage of being an immigrant. Do you feel that or no?

Well, it’s funny you should ask that. So I was already a migrant in Russia because I’m Georgian. Okay? So I’m not Russian myself by blood. But I was born in Russia, so I was already a migrant then. Then, you know, I migrated here. But it’s something that I was actually talking to someone in terms of language as an advantage. I think when you’re bilingual or trilingual, which is what I am, language gives you a huge access to perception of the world. So when you because there are certain words in languages that describe certain emotions or feelings that you potentially don’t have in another language. So when you have that ability to see the world perceive it and describe it through different languages, your world dimension goes from 2D to 3D, potentially five and six. And, you know, so I guess that’s one of the advantages of the language. Um.

I’m going to take it a little bit step, step further though, Payman, because I think I’m really interested in this coming from a place because you described that you came from Georgia to Russia, and people often say that there’s a difference between sort of cultural and generational trauma, particularly for people that had to continuously emigrate. So, for example, somebody, let’s say in the UK, which has been a pretty stable country for many years, they say you might have your internal traumas within family school. We’ve discussed this before, you know, but really when you talk about certain nations, particularly if they’ve been in war, they experience things like genocide. There’s more a generational trauma that’s carried. Would you agree with that?

I. Well, Gabor Maté talks a lot about that. I personally cannot claim generational trauma because I haven’t had that experience, but he definitely does. And there is truth in that. I think we do. There is a generational trauma that does happen. He actually says, What does he say? He says, trauma is not what happens to us. It’s our response to what happens. And I find that very interesting. And there is he talks a lot. I mean, I don’t want to butcher his words, but he’s someone who advocates a lot for that. And there’s definitely truth in that. I do agree. Yes.

But I was I was thinking more about, you know, I know you were you were young when you were in Russia. Right. But but I see it now when people come over from Lebanon or from Iran. I came. Friends, friends and family. Yeah.

Yeah. I’m an immigrant, too, you know.

Yeah, I know, I know. But that’s what I was looking at. You. But. But they, for instance, in Lebanon, as a company, you give a price to someone. It’s valid for about, for 24 hours. After that, it depends on where the dollar has gone and so on. And so when that guy comes here and experiences stability over here for them, it’s kind of child’s play to then do business because business was so hard back home and no one pays anyone. You know, there’s all this. So I was thinking of that, you know, the sort of the street smarts of of growing up in Georgia and Russia and then coming to London. And, you know, you’ve set up your own business. Now you’re doing it. That’s what I was thinking of. Does that resonate or no?

Yes. So what you’re saying is when you come from essentially Wild West into a civilised environment, I tell you what I actually think, and this is what I’ve experienced, that when it comes to setting up business and I’ve started a few businesses here, there is still a lot of stuff and a lot of deals that happen in a similar way. Not necessarily corruption, but in a similar way that they would operate to what I was exposed to in Russia. But it’s done at a very different level. So there is no access to it. Whereas, for example, in other countries where there is like more street way of working, it’s accessible to everyone. So everyone is on par, everyone’s on equal footing. Whereas here I find it’s a little bit more niche and it’s still there, but only available to some. So in a way, you know, it’s masked under this.

Give an example of that.

Do you know what I’m going to interject there and you know why I’m going to interject? Because I just came back from a refugee camp. As you know, I work in Lesvos. I’m working there for many years. And the main thing is, is that people are escaping such tyranny war, famine, all these things. And they come in hopes of just like living a normal life. And in a way, you know, there’s a difference between a refugee and an immigrant, right? But in a way, they want to live lives. And some of these refugees that you meet, their doctors in their countries, their lawyers, you know, they’re not leaving because I don’t know, like they don’t have a job, etcetera. They’re leaving because they are forcibly you know, they have to they’re forced out of their homes. But what I have heard is anecdotally and some people that have been in these camps for like five years, they aren’t given the fair opportunities. Because what I’m hearing you say is that it’s a fair kind of playing field, as it were, coming into one of these countries. And I just don’t think it works like that at all. And a lot of them find it really hard to actually create the opportunities they had once they left.

Yeah, I’m what I’m saying is that it’s obvious that it’s hard. Yeah, but are there advantages? But I’m interested in what you’re saying. So you’ve experienced a situation where I don’t know who you know is more important than what you know or access at the top. So give me an example.

Oh.

If you want to. If you want to talk about it.

Well, I don’t know if I can give you a specific example without exposing because I still have a duty of care to my businesses, but I’ll try and speak to it in broader terms. Is it like.

Is it, for instance, is it something like you want to open a shop on King’s Road and the landlord won’t give it to you because you haven’t got the background of some big chain that can. Is there something like that?

Yes, but that’s that’s in general, like that’s not a subtext or a hidden thing. That’s an obvious. Yeah, there is a history, but it’ll be in like little things. It’ll be like when once you already running a business when it comes to rent reviews and independent surveying and things like that. Okay. Without exposing too much. Fair enough. Hoping you’ll read between the lines.

So I’m going to.

Move along the timeline now because because we have a sort of explored childhood. But I understand that you were also sent to boarding school. Yes. When you were younger. How old were you when you went to boarding school?

So I was I just turned 13.

How was that experience? Because your parents were still in Russia right at the time. So how do you think what do you think a child goes through when they’re sent to something like boarding school and they’re not with their parents? Do you think that has an impact on the way that you grow up? And how did you specifically feel?

Um, that’s a good question. I think there’s definitely pros and cons. I think perhaps it was a bit different for me because I wasn’t just sent to boarding school. I was also sent to a different environment, different language, different country, different culture that I wasn’t part of. So I was learning a lot in the first year of being abroad. So you learn very fast. You definitely learn some key human survival life skills. So I’m super grateful for that. Um, is it hard? Yes, it is very difficult. It was for me personally, I found it very difficult. Maybe, you know, some people have thicker skin than I am, but, I mean, I’m here now. This is, you know, another thing that all the things that happened to us in life, they shape us. And perhaps some experiences are less favourable than others. But it’s really how you turn your life experiences. And I don’t regret it. Was it difficult at times? Yes.

Question is, though, with now, with what you know, with your studies, etcetera, you know, childhood is something that really shapes the way we are in adulthood. And from what I understand, I don’t know if you know this as well, is that two people can experience exactly the same thing. So, for example, say you have siblings, right? And the parents treated them in, say, both badly. But one person, the way that they process information, one sibling can be completely different to the other. And it’s really interesting. That really, really interests me. Why do you think that is? Or can you explain from kind of your own training and your own studies, like why do people process information in a different way?

So I tell you what, it’s not when two siblings are growing up in the same family. It’s not that they have the same upbringing because they have the same parents. When the parents were bringing them up, they would have been at different stages in their personal life. We’re all human, right? We’re experiencing different things. So they could have been at different stages, bringing up different siblings. So the upbringing of two siblings in the same family will be very different experiences. Yeah, just because they come from same parents does not mean that the parenting style was the same. Yeah.

Interesting. It’s very interesting and I personally found it really hard. Payman Did you study in London at school? Yeah. No.

Dental No.

Cardiff I found my dental school experience, my whole university experience, really quite traumatic if I think about it, because damage was like so funny. Payman jokes. I mean, he’s like, You’re damaged goods. I’m like, I’m not damaged goods. I’ve been through a lot. You know.

You are damaged. So what? So isn’t isn’t this precious cargo?

Can we use that term?

Isn’t this whole series about talking about.

Damaged goods.

Your damaged.

Goods?

I thought that’s what it was all about.

I mean, just calm down.

You’re acting like I’m just, like, having a therapy session for myself. The point is, for me, I think it’s all about opening up that narrative. I am more sensitive. I’m actually going to ask you that later on. You know, sensitivity is a really weird one because I feel like some people, again, it’s about that process saving information. Are they better at hiding it or are they better at suppressing it or are they just not feeling as much as me because I feel so much around me and I absorb so much around me? And I think that’s what makes me so sensitive to things that go on, you know, And I’ve talked to you about things. You’re like, Why have you got carrying the weight on your shoulders? I’m like, Oh, this has happened. You’re like, Don’t worry about it, you know? But I just take it on.

We talked about this, but the problem is, if I could give you a pill that would make you less sensitive, that pill would also make you less empathetic. Empathetic?

I think they’re called antidepressants.

Yeah, well, for the sake, if I could push a button and make you less sensitive, you would. You would lose your biggest strength as well as your biggest weakness. Now, now, if sensitivity is disabling you. Yeah. Twice a week, then you talk to your therapist and work out how to handle that situation, right?

Totally. Yeah. No, I totally understand what you’re saying. I’ve lost my train of thought. Now, what was I saying before.

That you were saying, How can I be less.

Sensitive? So, yeah, that was.

There was there was something before.

That.

Tell us about the business. So. So I’m interested in one minute you weren’t a business owner and then you said you want to become a business owner.

Oh, I remember. No, let me interject. He can edit this university. That was it. This is the question. So with university, I found that whole experience really difficult because it was the first time in my life that I was thrown into an environment where people weren’t from different backgrounds and different countries. So in school I grew up in a really multicultural society. You know, everyone like London School, West End, you know, And I was like, This is amazing. And then I went and everyone was, you know, English went to boarding school. They were like, You’re so exotic. Like, they literally look at me like that. And I felt at the time I was like, okay, this is a bit weird, but I spent a lot of time trying to fit in. And I think that I really like struggled. And, you know, a lot of dentists relate to me, by the way, when I talk about my university experience because I feel like I’ve always sort of stuck out. But also I want to know because obviously, as I said, you went through boarding school, etcetera, and we’ve talked about how sometimes there’s times where you were like, I’m a bit different, but what are the pivotal ages where your mind sort of develops and it shapes and affects who you become and adulthood? And can I say that, you know, even though I was within within kind of my late teens and 20s, that that has really shaped who I am now?

Well, there’s different schools of therapy and psychotherapy and belief. And if you ask Freud, he’ll tell you everything happens in the first five years, 3 to 5 years of your life. I personally think that we’re much more complex beings and we’re learning consistently through our lives. And I think it’s not. Yes, there is shaping years for sure. Pre-birth actually, when you’re still in the womb, you’re already like, there’s consciousness, right? So you get.

Did you know that?

I kind of thought maybe play music to the foetus kind of thing for the hell of it. But, but.

And also obviously if you’re a stressed out mum.

Yeah. Oh definitely. Yeah. I definitely think that.

In the womb.

You put stress chemicals into the baby, right? Yeah, for.

Sure.

That’s super.

Interesting. I’ve always thought that, but go ahead. Yeah.

So it’s so pre birth and then you know, there’s the first pivotal ages of your life that you do develop. But then I do think this also happens in your teens. I do think it happens later on in life as well. I do think people go through transformations or people completely change their careers and change their lives. And that’s also like part of, you know, there’s this idea that trauma is something like a really bad event that happens to us, but it doesn’t need to be. Also, trauma is not always what happens to you. It’s what doesn’t happen that should have happened. Really?

Like what?

Like, for example, a child that didn’t receive the needs it should have received, didn’t didn’t receive enough love or didn’t have a caring parent.

So neglect in a way.

Neglect, Yeah. Things that should have happened that you should have received as a human being. And that didn’t happen. That can also cause trauma. So there’s different ways that can happen and different ways that it can be shaped. It’s not just some, you know, horrific events that could have happened to us. It could be like very small things. But, you know, for example, you could respond to it or Payman could respond to that, but I could not because for whatever reason, I’m very secure in that sense and it doesn’t affect me, but for whatever reason it affects you, for example. So our response to an outside factor will be different. Yours could come out in a trauma and mine could not.

Yeah, you know what? I’m thinking about it as well. Dentistry has a lot of ethnic minorities. It’s a profession that’s actually dominated by ethnic minorities. And a lot of the first generation that came here to give their children opportunities also didn’t have like the access and knowledge to the things that you’re talking about. And I think that obviously this is just me making a massive assumption that also affects the way that they respond to things like, you know, complaints, the way they respond to stress, to all this kind of stuff. Like they they have that exaggerated response. It could be it could well be. I mean, that’s just a sort of random.

Are you are now over your university issue or.

Are you not? No, no, no.

Because you bring it up. You bring it up quite often. Right.

Let’s talk about that. I think that would be quite interesting. What Let me take a listen.

Listen, I get it as well. I was a London guy. I went to Cardiff. Cardiff is all about rugby. Yeah, I didn’t I didn’t feel like anyone judged me or hassled me or I didn’t fit in or whatever because I found my friends there. But with you, you got through that. Now you’re super successful. You’ve got access to all this mental health stuff. Have you gotten over it or haven’t you?

Like I think that I think it goes a little bit further. And again, Nina can give you the diagnosis. We all talk about this. I think that the judgement is always there. I spent so long trying to fit in and I you know, I have to tell you guys, I was actually really embarrassed of my ethnicity and background, so I was really embarrassed that my parents were foreign. I was really embarrassed. I didn’t have a house in the countryside. I was really embarrassed. I’d never been shooting. Things like that. They made me feel really shamed. There was a lot of shame around my own upbringing, and particularly I felt like I was also falling into like narrative about like there’s too many immigrants in the country, etcetera, which is like disgusting because obviously, like right now, like, you know, I’m helping refugees all the time. But I was so brainwashed and so eager to fit in. Now, I think, yes, I’m over it, but I still that need to prove that I’m good enough and worthy enough is still there. But it also goes pre to childhood as well. Because during my school years, my parents, who came as immigrants, struggled when they came to the UK.

But my mum was adamant she wanted to send me to a good school because education was always at the forefront of my parents mind. It was just always education. So my parents were working 24 over seven to make sure they could afford to put us in a private school. But also they were shame we couldn’t afford new uniforms. We had to buy the like, third hand uniform that had like holes in it. My parents couldn’t pick me up from school because they were working, so the parents also shamed me in the school. So I think that there’s been a lot of shame and guilt around me and like Nino knows that as well, and it’s sometimes still cripples me in my adulthood. I feel that when I’m whenever I’m in a situation with a group of people, am I good enough? Can I prove I’m good enough? And if I get a little bit of criticism or someone makes a little joke about me the way that I look, my partner, my family, anything I go into, like shame and guilt, almost like a little child.

So it’s you’re having a response that you would have had back then. So what happens is it’s.

Like a PTSD.

Kind of. Exactly. Yeah. It’s a sort of like a wound that hasn’t completely healed. And I know you are you’re working a lot with your mental health and you’re constantly bettering yourself.

I have a therapist. Everyone knows. Everyone knows. I’m literally like, I.

I think your therapist has a therapist. I really admire that. By the way. I think it’s so beautiful and you’re actually being a huge inspiration to me personally on my personal journey because you’ve always been so open and so vulnerable about your mental health, about struggles that you’ve dealt with. You know, I’ve come from a school of don’t show emotion, just be strong because strength is the Russian way. You know, it’s more tough, like, yeah, don’t like, what are you crying about? There’s people.

Dying.

People dying. Yeah. Like there’s things going on, like get your shit together. Sorry.

No, it’s okay. And Payman is all aspiring.

It’s fine.

And, you know, like, pick.

Yourself up and go. Like, we don’t have time to, like, worry about things. So I. You know, I’ve come from a place where, like, don’t show emotion. And then, you know, I met you and you were just crying.

All the time.

No, you were just so open and vulnerable. And you’ve taught me a lot. And you’ve taught me how to, like, be in touch with myself and my emotions. So I love that about you. That’s one of your biggest strengths, I think. And never lose that. Never, never lose that. But sorry, going back to what you were saying. Yes. What happens is with the wounds that haven’t healed, for example, whenever we get little reminders and our reaction feels disproportionate to the outside factor, it’s usually an internal reaction to the years before. Right. That haven’t healed. And it’s just it’s like a wound that is still open and like a bit of salt being put on it and then it just flames it. That’s what happens.

It’s really interesting. Payman Tell me now because you’re never vulnerable. So I’m just going to ask you straight up, do you think you’ve ever experienced mental health problems?

I’ve been bullied. I’ve been bullied as a kid.

Does that impact your adulthood?

Uh, kind of. I’m kind of. I don’t. You know, it’s a bit like spirituality in a way for me. I don’t have the vocab of it. And, you know, I’ve only just realised aged 50 that the reason why I can’t put my finger on spirituality is that you can’t put your finger on. That’s the whole point. You can’t put your finger. And it’s a bit like that. I don’t know, it might come up and get me at some point. The fitting in piece, you know, I was the same. I came from Iran and didn’t speak the language and and all of that. But has it disabled me? I think there was one moment at the beginning of Enlightened when everything was was was coming down on us. I was being sued by my ex principal. We were losing hundreds of thousands a year at the same time as working our butt off. And I remember feeling, oh, you know, um, but no, it’s a short answer. But do you think do you think.

Do you think that an element of that because there’s a slight discomfort when I ask you that question, which is typical when I ask men or boys, do you think that’s because do you think toxic masculinity is a thing? And do you think that’s why as well, like men in some way have suppressed because they can’t be maybe vulnerable?

Maybe. Look, when you first. Suggested to do this series. Yeah, he was.

Like, No one is going to care. No, no, no, no, no, no.

Not quite. Not quite that. But. But what I said to you was talking about it is all well and good, but is there is there something we can get out of it? Because I know your generation likes to talk about this a lot. Yeah. And maybe because my generation didn’t like to talk about this, but, you know, just talking about it, you know, doing my head in. Yeah. I think these actionable things and but you’re right. Insomuch as if we listen to a story, your story and your story says people I didn’t fit in in university and it still affects me today. And then we listen to your story and you didn’t fit in in school, but it doesn’t affect you today. It’s it’s interesting to.

Say that for the sake.

Of the argument she.

Was being Russian and taking.

So do you do.

You feel like an outsider still in in the UK? Because Because I do.

Do you know what’s interesting to me? That you’re trying to avoid a subject of toxic masculinity?

I don’t know what it means.

Yeah. Okay. Well, this is great because a lot of people won’t know. And again, we’ve talked about Andrew Tate, who’s literally always, like, creeping in. Is that what. No, no, no. So, Nino, please give the definition of toxic masculinity.

Well, I think yeah, let’s define it first. I mean, I’m no expert, and I think we should go straight to the source. And I’ll ask you, because you’re the man on this table. But I think it’s a term that gets thrown around a lot. I find nowadays our generation is we’re educated in therapy and psychotherapy. So there’s all these terms that we’re throwing around and we don’t necessarily know the right definition. So sometimes they get misused. I am no expert on toxic masculinity, but masculinity becomes toxic when men feel like they have to conform to gender roles in a way that, you know, the idea of an alpha male is we don’t show emotions. Aggression and dominance is what gets you power dominance over men and women. And there’s all this testosterone. So that’s when masculinity turns toxic, when those attributes that men have, which could be good, actually, because all those things we needed, men needed for survival. I mean, if I take it back to caveman times, we probably that was developed for survival instincts because we needed to protect. But nowadays men need those less. But there is still we’re only five minutes away evolution wise from caveman. So, you know, there’s we still have these emotions and feelings and they come out perhaps in a toxic way. And that’s what masks masculinity, toxic masculinity is.

And that’s why someone like Andrew Tate, because he’s basically like saying like, man up, do this, do that. Jemmy, Don’t show emotion. Don’t cry, don’t be a pussy. You know, like, that’s all stuff that could be perceived as toxic masculinity, but in a way, in a way, I do agree with you and I’m going to be a little bit controversial. The new generation has become a little bit too fragile in a way, because it’s like we run away from any kind of pain or any kind of like, no, I don’t want to put myself through this. And like, no, I want to cry all the time. Like I’m all up for being vulnerable, as you know, and really addressing the issues. But also, I think that we have to understand that, like, for me, I like some displays of masculinity in my partner, for example, you know, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. But that’s me being controversial.

I mean, Andrew Tate is an extreme example, right? Is that it’s not I mean, you don’t see that in most men today. But but the reason for toxic masculinity, now that I know what it means for me is that men haven’t had a voice. Right. So the reason the reason why Andrew Tate is, is trending, if you like, is that no one saying the stuff that he’s saying and men haven’t had a voice for a long time. It’s the reason why Trump wins in America. It’s the reason why, you know, the the white man here has Brexit was caused by that. The working man up north seeing, not getting any any of the benefits of being in the European Union, seeing these other men coming in. And so, you know, it is kind of the elephant in the room. Men are men aren’t talked about. Men are the ones committing suicide more than much, more than much more than women. And so for that reason, I see why if there’s an Andrew Tate out there, he gets more attention because he’s kind of speaking for men, whereas men were the only ones being listened to 20 years ago. Now it’s almost like men are the last ones being listened to. You’ve got all the you know, of course, women, the minorities, the the by issue, the transsexual issue, and then finally men. But in my in my friend group. Do I know people who are overly masculine? Yeah, a couple. But I would definitely wouldn’t say it’s the.

Name.

Loads in your generation of dentistry.

Can you?

Yeah.

The Facebook groups where they literally hate on everyone and.

Just like you know.

But that’s maybe we should explain it to to Nina right in dentistry there’s arguments right So they say, oh here’s a tooth, this is what I did. And then the other guy will come in really solidly saying, you did that completely wrong. And it gets nasty quite quickly in a way. In a way, it’s because you’ve got that cover of the patient. Yeah, I’m doing the best thing for the patient and people use that cover.

For their egos.

For their egos and and some of that toxic masculinity then comes out because it’s kind of repressed.

Let me ask you something. Do you think and it’s something that I was wondering about just as we’re talking now, do you think it’s a cultural thing? Because not cultural thing, because different cultures, what they deem as masculinity, will be different, Right. So you said you’ve come from Iran. You know, I’m Georgian, Russian, you’re Lebanese, Egyptian. So, you know, will that idea of what a man should be differ So therefore toxic masculinity is different.

I’ve got a friend. I’ve got a friend who from the get go said to his wife or his wife to be that I will not change nappies. Yeah, I found it weird. I found it strange for a father to say I will not change nappies. Yeah, but that was his thing, right? That was his toxic Iranian masculinity, if you want.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. He also said he doesn’t want his wife to work. Yeah, he wants his wife to stay at home. And again, I found that wrong because. Because work, I think, completes a woman, you know, like, it’s a it’s a nightmare just having to be stay at home 100%. And obviously. But he said this to all the women he was he was with before he was going to ask them to marry them. And I found it a bit wrong. But you know.

What? But again, again, the voice we’ve touched a little bit on Cancel Culture, you know, definitely has some interesting views on this. I know Payman as well, But this friend of yours, if he went online or went public or went anything to say that.

He’d be destroyed.

He’d be destroyed. And the thing is, I don’t agree with him, but that’s his narrative. Recently, Steven Bartlett had a couple of guests on who were really assassinated. Do you follow his podcasts? Quite so. I think a guy called Chris Wills or something like that, I don’t know. But ultimately he’s considered to be sort of a lesser version of Andrew Tate, as it were. And he basically went on to say that there was like a tall girl problem in the world at the moment. It’s an.

Analogy. I don’t have that problem.

It’s an analogy. But basically what he’s saying is because women have more in the sense that, you know, like the way that they they look a certain way, but they’re very career driven. They can make their own money, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. And then there’s this this expectation of men. But ultimately, you should be looking for other attributes of men because like, let’s just talk about like, I don’t know, someone that works, a woman that works at JP Morgan, right? And she’ll only date a certain type of guy because of what she believes she deserves, right? Which is fair enough. But he’s basically saying that the way that society is going and more and more women are single, they don’t know why they’re single, is that they should be opening their eyes and accepting men for other attributes. So you might not have somebody that’s making loads of money, but they might be really kind or they might be really good looking or etcetera, etcetera. So it’s a compromise in a way. Anyways, there was a huge uproar because a lot of women got offended. They were like, How dare you? Like women for many years have put themselves down and now you’re saying it’s our fault that we’re single? Instead of saying men should level up to meet us at our level?

Go on.

Hang on. What’s your question?

What’s the question? Yeah. Whose fault is it that women are single?

But the thing is, is that these views, I think well, first of all, what do you think? Do you agree with what he’s saying? What do you agree with that sort of narrative? Number two, for him expressing that narrative and people trying to sort of cancel him and they were saying to Steven Bartlett, how dare you have him on your podcast, etcetera. Is that fair? And as a society, as we’re moving more and more towards silencing people online, what does that impose suggest for the future?

So I think I don’t know. I mean, you know, me and you have discussed this before. It’s a very thin line, right? You can’t just shut up someone whose views you don’t agree with because then that goes into the territory of do you then stop anyone’s opinion because you don’t agree with it? Yes. And you’re right. Like there are so many opinions that we do not share and that could be very controversial, could be offensive, rude, racist, all those things. However, is it right to silence these people? I don’t have the answer. I think. I don’t.

Think. What if they’re dangerous?

I we talked about this before. I think it’s worth it.

Do you think it’s worth it? Worth them?

Speaking out.

Yeah, like. Like we were saying before, if you can drive a car, you can crash it. You can kill a family, right? We don’t all stop driving cars because of that. Yeah, we continue to drive cars. So. So there are there are side effects to free speech. Yes.

Do you think Elon Musk then was correct in his recent changes with Twitter and just letting everyone on?

100%. 100%. I mean, you know, you can’t be black and white in this area because obviously, if someone’s saying something illegal, you know, then that needs if someone if someone’s, you know, clearly, you know, making loads of people and putting them in danger. I get it. But in general, in general, if there’s no free speech, there’s no freedom at all. There’s no there’s no like to your point, there’s no evolution of thought. Yeah. And to constantly worry about what you’re going to say, I mean, these questions you’re asking right now, my number one thing I’ve got in my head is I don’t want to be that guy that had the uproar. Yeah, Yeah. Because, you know, I got three things to say about whether women are is. Is it women’s fault that they’re single? Sure. Everything is everyone’s own fault. Oh, I.

See what you do. There it.

Is. You know, you take take responsibility for. For. For your own situation. Yeah, but I’m scared to say that, man, because if.

You said it now it’s on. It’s on my. Yeah, it’s on the net. Yeah.

You see what I mean though. The fact that the number one thing in my head is can I or can I not say the thing that’s in my head.

Which is the same with.

Me? It’s sad.

It’s the same with all of us. And I actually think this is why.

Podcasts are working. This is why people are interested in podcasts because people are saying what they think on.

Podcasts before they.

Get cancelled.

Yeah, this will probably be the last podcast by Payman Nina.

Want to Steinbach mind movies?

That’s it now.

No, I hear you and I think yeah it’s it’s scary to say what you think because if it gets misconstrued then it could like you could kill your career completely. Yeah, but as a society for evolution of thought, I think you learn more from ideas that you disagree with for sure. Because agreeing with something is a lot easier. You’re like, Yeah, I agree with that. That’s cool. That’s where you’re, you know, you’ll stop mulling it over. But then if you say something that really triggers me and bothers me, I’m going to think about that and I’m going to think about that more. And then thinking about it, I’m going to come up with my counter arguments of why I disagree and evolve that thought. You know, I think it was Nietzsche who said, Don’t be afraid of enemies. Actually wish for strong enemies so you can become stronger. Yeah, and it’s.

So true because it’s.

All the it’s.

The pain, the grief and the struggle that’s made me who I am today, to be honest. And the people that disagree with me like, you can’t do this.

You can’t.

But let’s let’s talk about these single women.

Oh, okay, fine.

Number one, I didn’t know there were so many single women out there. Yeah, but what’s the issue? Open it up.

For me a little bit, I.

Think. I mean, obviously, um, I think, you know, again, I think, like, situations are complex. Like I’m somebody, like people would have expected to kind of get married a long time ago, number one, because of the cultural things. And number two, even when I was single, Payman, you were like, you’re such a catch. You’re such a catch phrase, still single. And I was just like, Can you calm down?

Like, literally, I’m trying.

So the thing is, is like obviously with me, like I had a Break-Up when I was 27. I didn’t expect it was my first love. I thought it was going to marry him. He was a trust fund kid that wanted to become a DJ. And, you know, like our lives just went in different directions. But I definitely felt the pressure as a woman to be like, Oh my God, that whole narrative. Like, I’m about to turn 30 and I’ve got three years to find my husband and women are on the shelf. And this was also a narrative that my parents instilled in me. My dad being a gynaecologist was like past 35 geriatric mother.

It’s diabetes, you know.

Like all that kind of stuff. So I grew up with like a lot of like, oh my gosh, conditioning, conditioning, conditioning. And Nina will express her view now. But I think that like, I was always very career focussed and I don’t think being career focussed is a bad thing because I really feel like it gives me purpose and drive. Like I genuinely love doing dentistry. Like I was doing a veneer prep yesterday. I was like, I love doing it. I just love it. I do think my career ambitions have hindered finding the right partner. The most important word, right partner. Has it put men off in the past? Yes. A big mistake that I made was is that I thought that as an alpha female and I assume myself to be alpha because of the way that I am in business and my career, I would need a man stronger than me. But what did that look like? That looked like someone that massively like dominated and toys lol. He doesn’t date anyone that’s like older than 25. But anyway, I thought that looked like somebody that was like just as successful or more successful than me in the business sense and could definitely take up that archetypal masculine role of like looking after me, looking after family. What I found, which was interesting, those men don’t like women like me and what I found. Even if I dated them, they ended up with a girl that was much more quiet, much more homely, much more. And when I went through it in therapy, they were like, You actually need someone that complements you.

And actually somebody can be an alpha male without shouting. It doesn’t mean to be your kind of like gorilla type character that walks into the room like this, kind of tapping his chest. And I did work. So in answer to your question, I did work. I looked in the mirror and I said, I’m the common denominator. I’m choosing this. These men, I can’t say to me, oh my God, they’ve all like, they’re not dating me for this reason, or they’ve left me for this 21 year old model or whatever it was. I looked in the mirror and I was like, You’re the common denominator. So you need to change who you choose and what you can do. And thankfully, I’m now in a loving relationship with a man who is masculine in many senses, but is also very supportive and chilled. You know, I’ve got that balance and he really accepts what I want and so forth. But I think that I don’t know because I can’t speak for a lot of women. And again, I’m trying to be diplomatic because that’s what can I do. So I want Nina to kind of come in here. I do think women want more from their lives, and I do think their standards have increased and that’s not a bad thing. And I also think that less and more and more women don’t want children. From the conversations I’ve been having. Yeah. Which is okay as well. But I don’t know really. I don’t know. I don’t know what it is about the whole men and women dynamic.

You just got me thinking and I think I agree and disagree with you. I yeah, I disagree that a man doesn’t want a woman like you because you’re alpha and dominant and high achiever and successful and beautiful and all those things. And it scares men off. I used to think that. But actually, I think if a man is confident and secure in himself, he’s not really going to care about whether you’re a CEO of a company or you’re doing whatever you’re doing. You know, like he’s not really going to care about the status that you have. He’s going to care about you and your ambition because ambition is always attractive no matter what you do, right? You can be ambitious in any field, but I don’t think it’s going to scare the right man off. The man who’s going to be concerned about that is probably someone who doesn’t feel confident in himself. And that’s projecting onto you.

Yeah, but but but I have seen situations in my friend groups where the woman was earning a lot more than the man and the the woman using that in arguments in situations. Now, why shouldn’t she why shouldn’t she use the man against the man? Right. Why shouldn’t she?

I’ve seen it.

I’ve seen I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it the other way around many times. Yeah. Men using money to control their partners or wives.

I’ve seen it with a female friend of mine.

Yeah, but my point is, somehow, in the. In the way that we grow up, when a man does that to a woman, it’s actually something that’s been going on for thousands of years. Conditioning, conditioning. But when a woman does that to a man, there’s an emasculation that happens.

Like a taboo.

Yeah. And, and so I’ve seen and I don’t know if this is, you know, true of lots of relationships or not, but in my friend groups, in the situations where the women are earning a lot more than the man, often it hasn’t worked. Doesn’t mean it hasn’t always. I know my.

Mom feels very strongly about this as well.

I know several where it has worked. I know several where it has worked, but often it hasn’t worked. And, you know, we can we can comment on I think it’s a combination of the conditioning and then suddenly new rules, new rules of engagement. Women are much more independent than they used to be. And, you know, things like swiping to the right man. I mean.

You mean tinder.

Tinder.

I think the disposability, the the disposability. Because you’ve met my parents, right? I think you’ve met my parents. And everyone’s always like, my God, like Rona’s parents. And then, like, Nina’s got the same with her parents and dynamic and we find like more and more and our friendship groups, we’re like, Oh my God, our parents are amazing. But like you said, it’s so funny. I was talking to Dr. Arum, who I went to the refugee camp with. He was like, literally my mom fell in love because she saw the neighbour from the window and then asked her friend to introduce. And that was it. I mean, in Iran, you know what I mean? And I think that the way that we are now as a society, as number one, very self-entitled. So I deserve better. Is there something better out there? Number two is the disposability. Number three, studies show as well that actually if you go to a supermarket and you’re given ten options, you’re more likely not to make a decision than if you were given 2 or 3 options. So the more options you have, the less likely you are to stick to something. And I think that’s the difficulty. We know that we can just give up. We know that we can walk away. And again, as I’ve talked about before, it’s the avoidance of pain as well.

Yeah, but.

You know, I’ll take this a step further. And I also think it’s to do with the way that Western society is very individual based. So the way we lead it, it’s it’s like community and society. It’s more about. But would you want live your life how you want? If you want to say something, say it. But sometimes and it’s a good thing because you’re concentrating on bettering yourself. But sometimes it can also be a bit selfish and narcissistic way of being because it’s all about you and your needs being met, and sometimes your needs being met could also mean you’re cutting off somebody else’s needs and there is less consideration for that. And that’s very prevalent in Western cultures. In eastern cultures, it’s less about that. It’s more about the society and community that you live in and not just the East. And there’s plenty of others. But I find that, you know to what you’re saying, so that disposability, all those things come also with that sort of I, I get to choose. I care less about someone else. It’s about me and my needs and me, me, me, me, me. That’s kind of how we’re driving. The society again has pros and cons.

It’s a common problem with women dentists here because dentists earn quite a lot quite early. Yeah, it’s a very common issue where you see the woman is the health care professionals.

Women struggle so much because they don’t necessarily date also within their pool.

No, no, but but what I’m saying is a 30 year old woman dentist generally is going to be earning a lot more than her than her partner generally. Yeah. The 30 year old man accountant is not going to because we earn a lot early. Yeah. Yeah. So it’s a common problem with women, dentists, the problem it’s a common situation with women, dentists that they’re they’re the primary breadwinner in the family. And then that primary breadwinner is now going to have kids and stop earning for that period of time. And the number of women that I’ve had in here talking to me saying, yeah, I basically carried on working till the last moment, went to the hospital, had the baby came back, and as soon as they possibly could, got.

Back to Boss was.

Back at work, I think after a month after giving birth like literally. But you know, and that’s the really funny thing. And again, conditioning my mum taught me literally since I was about ten years old, always pick a partner that’s on par with you financially. And I’ve actually subconsciously always chosen that like I was. I was like, I’m not going to date this person because of X, Y, and Z, and you might that might be incorrect and actually narrowed my pool a lot more because I was like, it wasn’t me being money grabbing. It was like you said, like I want to feel that the dynamic financially is always fair. And also if I do go off and have a baby, you know that I’m going to feel looked after, you know? So I think that that’s interesting.

You say that I had a conversation with a girlfriend of mine and she is she was expressing that view. She’s like, so when I’m looking for a partner, she’s like, you know, as well as other qualities, she’s like, I want him to be financially stable. I want him to have a good job. And she’s like, And it’s not me being money grabbing. She’s like, Listen, if I was dating in my early 20s, yeah, it’s less important, just like because, you know, we all there’s this whole life ahead of you. So, you know, experiencing, experiencing and then as long as you have ambition, great. But she’s like, but now she’s like, when I’m dating and she is in her late 30s. So now when I’m dating men, she’s like, I want to see that they’ve achieved something in their life. And it’s not to do with money. It’s just it’s a sign of.

When I’ve spoken to Russian women about.

This, they’re very there we go. They’re very.

Very open about this subject.

Oh, yeah.

Transaction. Yeah.

It’s very transactional. They want their.

You know, Nina, Nina was we’re a part of a new members club and she was there and they were like some really young Russian girls like in their 20s. And they had a list of the guys they were dating and what they’d expect from them when. So there were things on there like Hermes handbags and stuff like that.

Yeah, we ever had that conversation. Yeah.

And you know, but you know, again, it’s like also the cultural thing, but they’re also open about it. And I think that there’s you can’t have again one of my male friends he’s naturally very attracted to Eastern European women. Nino knows him and he gets really frustrated because when they start making sort of like demands on the things that they need, like handbags, jewellery, etcetera, he gets really angry. But I’m like, but they’ve caveated that and you can’t change that. And fundamentally that’s their values. It’s fine, you know.

Can I ask you something?

Do you think Payman And you also I mean, you know, we’re talking about like, oh, but these women are having these demands. But is it just, you know, supply and demand, other men creating that platform and giving that. So women then like, okay, cool, then I’m learning to adapt to you. So if you want to buy my love, fine, here is how to do it. So what came first? You know, it’s the chicken and egg. Like, is it because there are men out there?

There’s definitely men do that. There’s definitely men out there.

There’s actually a website.

Called Seeking Arrangements. Do you know about this? No. So they’re actually going to do a documentary about it. I found this out. So a lot of Instagram girls and a lot of like the very attractive girls in London, they go on this website. There’s different tiers. It’s pretty much run by a guy in Dubai. So you get paid for either your company like. Should be like going for a walk with someone being seen with them in a club dinner. Et cetera. Et cetera. Things can go further depending on what pictures, Nudes. La la la la la. But depending on which one you want, you get paid. And obviously, a lot of these guys have a lot of cash, you know, in that part of the Middle East. And, you know, there was one girl that was on it and she was like, look, I get paid for my company. I’m paying off my student loans, student loans going to be done. And she very much sees it as a transaction. Do you see? I mean, I hang out with him. I don’t want anything more. My student loans going to get paid off, so I’m winning. Do you know what I mean? So it’s like it’s quite interesting, but I do think that that is ruining that sort of thing. Yes, it might be supply and demand, but that’s why I think people are finding it more and more difficult to have these connections. Anyway. We could go on about this forever. I want to cover Waka before we go as well. So tell us a little bit about Waka.

So do you want to start do you want to know why I started it? Yes. So I had before work, I had a fine dining restaurant. And so my my business partner is my brother. And he was actually the one who brought me on board with hospitality, hospitality, with hospitality and restaurants. And we had a fine dining restaurant. We had a catering company, we had an events company. And I just found myself being with fine dining, being so in the business that I was living and breathing. And I just, to be honest, wanted to do something that was a bit more.

You pivoted.

I just wanted to change my life a bit and be less, you know, hands on, hands on and run it more as a, you know, as a business rather than like living and breathing it as a retail, you know, But also, like a lot of things happen at the same time. You know, we had a rent review and, you know, the rent review was increased by like ridiculous amount, you know, London pricing, that’s what you get. So on top.

Of the criterion.

Do you know the criterion.

The criterion in.

Trafalgar Square?

Oh.

That was it. Yeah.

So, you know, a lot of factors came in at the same time. So we then were looking for a new project and then there was different ideas that we were playing around with and I think I wanted to stay more on the retail side of things. So we took hospitality there. So we looked into different chains, developing chains, what’s working, what’s not working, what is missing. So we started with Japanese, Peruvian fast food chain grab and go, I don’t like calling it fast food because they’re entitled something unhealthy. So grab and go Japanese, Peruvian food, you know, for amazing quick lunch. You know, you’re.

Because that’s.

Usually a very expensive fine dining thing, isn’t it? Exactly nice to have.

That as I think this is our fine dining experience coming in. Yeah, we’re like restaurateurs who started in fast food, so yeah, exactly. We wanted to bring that in and simplify the menu and make it available to everyone for a quick lunch. You know, you have five minutes to come and grab your lunch, you’re in the office, you’re working, bam, you come in. The cold food is freshly prepared in the morning and there it is in the fridges. The hot food is over, The counter waiting tab is super low because no one has time to wait around a bit.

I mean, it’s not quite itsu, but a bit like Itsu, right?

It’s the same.

Model. I really admire it. So, you know, because the quality compared to the price compared to the speed, it’s marvellous. Good. The combination.

Value for.

Money. Yeah, but, but all of it together, you know. You know, it’s. It’s all so good you feel like you can’t have all three at the same time, but they’ve managed to pull it off.

Exactly.

I know as well because obviously we pretty much live together during lockdown, you know, and I and I just bought the clinic, as you know. So that was really scary. Bought complete three weeks. We go into lockdown you know later Nino similarly with Waka had lots of sighs. Is there.

One branch or.

Three. Three.

You opened three at once.

Open three. Yeah. Wow.

And, and the one that I opened.

In the city as well.

The city, I think we went.

Into thinking about.

Opening three at one. Go in one.

Go. It wasn’t that once. Oh I see. So I opened one then like, you know, it was doing very well soon after I opened the second and then we opened a third site and then I think a month later or not even bam, like lockdown Covid.

And I was just like.

What was going through your.

Mind? Yeah, Yeah. What was going through your mind? Did you panic?

I.

I mean, I think yes, definitely. I was like, I mean, I, I rely on people being in the offices. I rely on people being on the streets. That’s my bread and butter. That’s my business. And then, you know, suddenly, from one day to the next, we’re like, okay, that’s it. People are not going to be on the streets. So I was like, okay, what am I doing now? I have three sites. I have I have to say, the UK government has been amazing for hospitality businesses for. Restaurants. I cannot talk about other ones because I do not know. But there was a lot of things put in place for me to be able to maintain my business and survive. You know, the rents were waived. There was a lot of things and it allowed me to, you know, keep operating. And then I was doing deliveries and online and all the rest of it. But yes, for sure I was shocked and I did not know what to do. And, you know, there was.

Is it still free now? Yes.

So I am very happy that. So I was going to grow them, me and my partner, who is my brother, we were going to grow them much faster. And the idea was to have a lot more now. But the lockdown and Covid, they’ve held us back. So now we are three.

Yeah.

This is a question for both of you. Actually. A lot of people, and including dentists, they like to follow follow what they would think of as a more entrepreneurial route. So within our industry, it could be like opening chains, as you know, of practices or like Payman, leaving dentistry altogether and working within dentistry that doesn’t involve kind of seeing patients. I think we’ve all been in a position where we’re like, the business is going to go under like literally I think all of us at some point. Uh, what advice would you give to somebody that wants to start their own business and what should they kind of prepare for in terms of like with regards to mental kind of proof and when those breakdown moments happen with regards to business, how can they what tools have they got to help overcome, you know, the adversity they’re going through?

It’s a tough question because there is so much, you know, like it’s what would I advise? I have to think about it. I think I think there is definitely I mean, from my point of view, there is definitely I thought like not knowing and there is a naivety about things and I thought things were going to run much smoother and it’s going to be, you know, but then once you’re faced with decision making and then you’re like secure a site and then there is like little problems arising, then there is problems coming in that you weren’t even aware of. And then you just like in the deep waters and you’re like, okay, I need to learn how to swim or I’m drowning. So I find with entrepreneurial, you can’t really learn from anyone else. And I don’t know how you feel because obviously you’re an entrepreneur and so are you and I. In my personal experience, no matter, I can admire what you do and I can, you know, follow it step by step. But in my personal career, when I’m faced with things, it never kind of translates. I feel like you learn on your experience solely. Yeah, because it’s so difficult.

Some things you can’t teach. You’re right. Yeah. And I actually.

Think messing up is one of the best ways to learn. I mean, you don’t want to.

But that’s how you learn. Yeah, I agree with you.

That’s kind of the point that was making. But it’s a funny thing because you have to be very optimistic to want to start your own business, but at the same.

Naive.

Well, naive, naive and optimistic. But also, if you want to survive, you have to have a huge capacity for pain. Yes. And the two don’t sit very comfortably with each. That’s what I’m.

Finding at the moment.

Yeah.

Just sorry, just to add to what you saying, there is something I think it was in Plato’s Republic that I was reading and it says, definition of success is not all the everything that went well. The definition of success is getting knocked down and being able to stand up again. And yes.

And we hear that time and time again. It’s about how.

Things I would warn against if someone wants to start a business is jumping on the latest bandwagon. True? Because by the time you get yourself organised, that bandwagon will have gone past you. You know, like, I don’t know, we could easily jump into a charcoal toothpaste. Number one, you’ve got to believe in the man. But you know, people are doing it right now. People are jumping into these teeth whitening lights and all that and bandwagons come and go trying to jump onto it. You have to be extremely quick and extremely well funded to to actually catch that wave. Normally, by the time you do the thing, the wave passes you by and there’s someone else has caught the wave.

But I find that is a bit anxious. That’s that.

Comes positive.

Well, it comes from like more of an anxious type of place where you’re like, Oh, I have to do something. What’s happening right now? Let me jump onto that. Rather than it being like, okay, I believe in this product. Let me like or this is something I’m working, but you.

Really see like, I mean, if you watch The Apprentice and Dragons Den, it’s unbelievable how many entrepreneurs going on having zero idea about a business idea or like what they’ve created. There’s so many on there. They don’t know their financials. They don’t the.

First time we’re all.

Like, Yeah, I kind of know you.

Say that, but as well, like I’m really lucky, obviously, because I’ve had ads and Simon who are so clued up and again. I think the perfectionism, like the Dental perfectionism.

That’s not your.

First thing, though. You know, Your first thing was your business, your practice. Yeah. And and if you look, I don’t know, but if we asked you, did you understand that the balance sheet and the cash flows and did you understand all that?

I’m still trying to get a hold of it. Grew up a bit. I mean, but I know. I just know how to do it, you know, the first time.

It’s very difficult with all of those things.

That’s what I mean. You learn as you do it. Nobody really like again, like we can learn how to like do an Excel sheet and then you’re like there with your own balance sheet and you’re like, What? It’s very different.

And persistence, I say persistence probably more important.

Than and.

Consistency. You always say consistency, consistency.

But also consistently doing the right thing and knowing when to pivot. That’s my most important thing because you can’t consistently be doing the wrong thing and then expecting a different outcome. Definition of insanity, by the way. But it’s about being consistent, persistent, but knowing when to pivot. Now, we’ve run out of time. So thank you so much, Nina. It was incredible to have you today. Nino is, as I said, a psychotherapy and training. So watch this space as she becomes one of the most famous ones in the country.

Too much pressure. And I think I’d.

Rather stick with entrepreneurial.

Things.

And Payman and I always ask our guests a question. Yeah. Um, so and I never plan people, um, with this. So let me get this. Da da da.

Nina, what was your worst day in business?

Oh, God, I had so many. I’m so open about it. There is so much money I’ve lost. There’s money I’ve made. There’s been like roller coaster. There’s been days when I was like, okay, I want to shut it all down. I just don’t know how to. And there’s been days when I was like, Oh my God, this is amazing. Why would I ever want to shut.

This agony and.

Ecstasy, right? I mean, I’m sure you know it, right?

Absolutely.

So, Nino, if you could be remembered for one thing, what would it be?

Oh, my God. This podcast. Yeah.

Okay. There we go. No, go on, go on.

Um, if I could remembered, for one thing.

Like people like Nino’s past, this is it, like, definitely.

Um. I don’t know. It’s a tough one.

I can ask you another one if you want. Hold on a second. What are you most proud of?

I’m I trying to be a good person. So I guess I’m proud of just being empathetic to people, I guess. Yeah, I think that’s what it is. I’m I whenever something happens, I always try and see why did the person do what they did. I try and understand it from their perspective and have an empathetic approach. And that way, you know, you don’t get yourself into all sorts of trouble. So I guess, yeah, I would say yeah.

Amazing. Well, she is a thing. Empathy. That’s what I’m going to remember her for. Thank you so much, Nino, and please follow like and subscribe. Our channel Payman and I are on a mission to make sure that people get the access and tools to mental health support. So please, please, it’s so important to us.

Thank you so.

Much. So much.

Thank you so much for having me. I mean, you’re a huge inspiration, both of you, and I’m happy that you’ve asked me to be on here.

Thank you. Bye.

 

We sat and we wrote down systems before we even opened and we thought, okay, this is how we would want to be treated if we went to like a high end five star hotel. So we kind of just dragged that kind of service into dentistry because patients want to feel special. They don’t want to feel like a conveyor belt when they come in. They want to feel like they’re the only people there. From day one, when we hired people, we would train them and say, Look, when someone comes in, greet them, call them by the first name is say anything You can remember. They said to you last time, jot it down. Talk about the next time. So little things can go a big way. And you know, if you go to a lovely hotel, everything can be amazing. You’re not going to remember the 99% of things that are good. You’re going to remember that 1% like someone didn’t say hi to you or someone didn’t pay attention to you quick enough. That’s what patients will go tell their friends about. Yes. Obviously it’s important. That clinic looks good. It’s important the results are great. But the experience, I think, is the most important part of the pathway for the patient and for us. That’s what’s been our biggest success, is that word of mouth. And I think that’s got a big part to play in it.

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 doctors Ramtin and Damon Tahiri to the podcast. A couple of orthodontists are a bit different to to the norm when it comes to orthodontists. I’ve had the privilege of visiting their extraordinary practice near Sandbanks for Dental on the banks, one of the most beautiful practices I’ve ever been to. Really stunning and sort of aimed more at direct to consumer, not aimed at getting ortho referrals. But they’ve been incredibly successful there. I mean, just by looking at your enlightened numbers, you’re you’re busy doing all sorts of work, not just orthodontics. They also run a very successful course. Some of the feedback I’ve had from delegates who’ve come on to your complete aligner programme and people have been completely blown away by the amount of content, number one, and the quality of the content. Number two And so we’ll definitely get into that. So it’s a massive pleasure to have you on the podcast, guys.

Thank you, Payman Thank you so much for having us on. It’s we always listen to Leaders podcasts and we’re so happy to be on. It’s it’s a real pleasure.

So guys, I met I met your mum as well. Your mum’s a dentist. Were you two always going to be dentists? I mean, was that was that I mean, it’s funny because I can’t get my kids to say they want to do dentistry. Was that was that always going to happen or was it something that happened later in the day? It Rampton You’re older, right?

Yeah, I’m three years older than Damon, so I’m yeah, three years older. And yeah, for me it was, uh, I can’t remember. I can’t remember anything else. You know, I remember, like, going to Mom’s practice when I was young, when I was, you know, going to school. I would come into the practice after school. And it was there was always classical music playing, and it just seemed really calm and relaxed. And I was like, you know, this is something that, you know, and I wrongly thought that this is the way that dentistry is. You know, Mom wouldn’t tell me the bad things about it. It was all, you know, good and fun and everything else. So I was always sort of influenced into it.

And where was Mom’s practice?

Where was this in Bournemouth. So it’s like five. Yeah, ten minutes from our current practice. Yeah.

Okay. So you guys grew up in Bournemouth?

We have a long story Payman. So we. I was born in Iran. Yeah, moved to Sweden when I was a year old. So Damon was born in, in Sweden. Okay. We lived there for the first 12 years of my life, the first nine years of Damon’s life. And then my mom, you know, had a lot of difficulties. You know, my my mom was doing dentistry in Iran, had to leave Iran, you know, the circumstances there and got to Sweden. Redid all of her exams. She did everything, got back into dental school, you know, with two kids. And, you know, she would travel an hour and a half on the train every day to go and study, go to the University of Stockholm, come back to our town in the south, which is a little town called Uppsala. And yeah, and then she became a dentist, so she became a dentist when I was 12 years old. And then there weren’t that many jobs in Sweden for dentists. There was a lot of jobs in the UK. This was around 98, 99. So she got a job here and we all moved here. So that’s that was our story.

So then, Damon, you saw Rampton going to dentistry and what were you always going to become a dentist or how did it play out in your head?

I wanted to be well, I wanted to go down the law route initially and then did I remember? I did two weeks of work experience in a solicitor’s firm and I hated it. It was so much paperwork. It was all reading, writing, and I was like, I quite like being hands on. I hate reading and writing. So I was like, This is not right for me. And then Mum was quite clever. She always, like Rampton said, she always brought us in the days look really calm. I was like, you know, sit on a chair, drill a few tea, everyone’s happy, Listen, some nice chilled music. So this sounds pretty good. And there was nothing. I wanted to be a tennis player, but apart from that, there was nothing I really wanted to do. So I thought, you know, this. This looks pretty good. Mum can always help us when we when we go down that route. So why not? Rampton was already in. He was enjoying it, so I thought may as well do the same. And yeah. Haven’t lived to regret it yet. Which. Which is good.

So you studied in Bristol?

Yeah. Correct.

And Rampton. You were in Czech Republic. Yeah.

In a town called Pilsen, which is like an hour south of Prague, I think.

And what a massive experience you’ve had, man. It’s Iran, Sweden, Czech Republic. Yeah. Back to Bournemouth. You know, I’m quite interested in this question of let’s start with Sweden versus the UK as a, as a firstly, as a society. And then secondly, Dental training. What’s, what’s your reflections?

Yeah. I mean, Sweden. Sweden is. Have you ever been to Sweden?

Yeah, have.

It’s a very unique culture, I don’t think. I don’t think there’s anyone in the world that has that specific culture like Sweden. It’s really hard to explain unless you live in there. But I think anyone that goes there can. The one word you would use to describe Sweden, I think, is calm. There’s there’s no one honking. The horn could literally park the car in the middle of the road, cause heavy traffic and no one would honk the horn. It’s that it’s that kind of place. So it’s a very calm way of life, which, you know, we had a great upbringing. I can’t remember anything negative about my upbringing. And yeah, considering if I have a kid to go back to Sweden and bring him up there because it’s such a good quality of life. When you growing up for the first ten years, I would say. But then there’s a lot of issues. I think 10 to 20, I think, you know, very dark quite a lot of the year and very cold depending on where you live as well. So that’s kind of the downside of it. And also. Sweden has not not direct racism, but there’s a bit of indirect racism that you don’t. I never I never really picked up on it when I was there, when I was younger, because I think when you’re when you’re ten, you don’t really realise it.

But when I went back to specialise, I really saw that kind of undertone where it’s not like they would say anything to you, but it’s very hard to integrate into Swedish society. Not because they don’t like you, because you’re from a different country. It’s just they have such a specific culture. They only get on with their own kind of culture, so it’s really hard to integrate. So for that reason, I think England always feels more home than Sweden to us now, because here I don’t think anyone looks at you and say, When I first came, when I came out of Sweden, everyone’s like, Where are you from? And I was like, I’m Swedish. And they’re like, Oh no, where you’re actually from, you don’t you don’t look Swedish. Whereas here if I say if, anywhere I go, if I say I’m English, okay, great. And so I feel this is more home for us. And yeah, England has its positives and negatives like any country, right? But yeah, Sweden is a great quality of life, but as long as you like it really calm and yeah casual Friday get get some sweets, get some drinks, relax watch a movie. That’s pretty much it. England I think there’s a lot more. It’s a lot more alive.

Crampton What do you think?

Um, I would, I would agree with Damien Payman. I think generally like the way of life there is much calmer. It’s, you know, our days where, like, our work days at uni were, you know, you start at eight, you have, we call it a fika, which is like a break at like 930. We all sit together and have a coffee. We did another hour of, you know, clinics of theory and then hour and a half, then lunch and then another break an hour after. Then we had clinics up until, yeah, about 330, 4:00 and then, you know, everything’s relaxed after that. There’s no one’s really chasing here. It’s a bit of it almost feels like everyone’s competing a bit. Everyone’s trying to get like to the next step, to the next step. Whereas in Sweden everyone’s very content with being at, you know, the, you know, the level that they’re at living, living life, you know, the simple pleasures, one holiday a year, you know, going to the woods and stuff like that. So the way of life is a lot simpler. In Sweden, it’s a lot more calmer. You know, I’m more relaxed in Sweden, but I also like the grind and the and the murkiness of, of, of, you know, of, of of trying to, you know, get to that next level as well. So I guess I’m a fan of fan of both. But when you look at the Dental side of things like maybe it’s better if you answer the Dental side because I didn’t study in England. But let’s let’s.

Let’s let’s stick to the country, though, because, you know, it’s such an interesting country. I guess the reason you guys were in Sweden was because Sweden was the only country letting people in at that time. That’s that’s why so many Iranians ended up in Sweden. I know that for a fact, right? Yeah. War in Iran or whatever it was. They did the same thing with the Syrians. Yes. And then, you know, you think that’s a really sort of liberal culture that does that and accepting culture. And at the same time, you can understand that, you know, the people, the Swedish people themselves, they’re trying to protect kind of their way of life. And then you get this constant influx of of foreigners. And you’re telling me the indirect racism question that you’re bringing up. It’s a really interesting society to me. And then also you’re saying relaxed and at the same time super successful in business. You know, like some of the biggest companies in Europe are coming out of Sweden. Who is it, Spotify or whatever. It’s a really super interesting country. Yeah, but let’s let’s go, let’s get on to Dental. They do have a reputation for teaching sort of prevention. I’d say they’re a little bit, a little bit better teaching than than we get here. Would you agree with that or not?

Depends. I don’t want to upset anyone.

We’ll just say it how.

You see it, though. I mean. I mean, compare my undergrad and my grad. My undergrad in Bristol was amazing. I had a great time. I think the teaching was very good. And then obviously I know Mom did her undergrad in Sweden and when I compare, they’re both excellent, I would say. But I think Sweden is a little is a couple of steps ahead. A lot of Swedish based teaching is not expert opinion. It’s very literature based, which it is in England as well to a big extent, but they’re very, very literature based there and so they do things by the book. So I find that’s probably the biggest difference. And when I now compare my colleagues that studied orthodontics in England compared to kind of what we studied in Sweden, again, we’re quite blessed and privileged to be able to study in that university. It’s it’s a pretty decent one we can say. And some of the stuff like for example, using mini screws, like I know my friends have studied, I think it was in UCL, they never were allowed to use mini screws for, for their orthodontic treatments.

So we had access to pretty much whatever we wanted. We were allowed to do aligners post-grad. We’re allowed to do a lot of lingual braces and it wasn’t like one professor telling us what to do. We would have, you know, weekly literature meetings critically appraise all the literature that’s out there to see what they recommend, and then they would actually teach you based on that. And all the all the treatment plans would be based on that as well. So I quite like that side of it and it’s very. Is now hierarchy in Sweden. There is no Mr. or Mrs. to go in and the Dean of the university will be sitting there, you know, having having coffee with us. And then he would clean up the dishes afterwards. That’s one thing I really like about Sweden. There’s no. You don’t feel like you’re you have to suck up to anyone which is which. Sometimes there is a bit of hierarchy in medical and the dental profession in England and that’s that was the big positive for me. I felt really comfortable to learn in that environment.

Do you think the NHS has something to do with the quality of teaching? I mean, does does the UK health system, does it produce NHS orthodontists? Is that or am I wrong about that?

Yeah, I mean, it’s hard for us to comment because we.

Haven’t done.

The ins and outs of how the teaching is here. But of course it’s very you know, me and Ramzan have both worked in the NHS as orthodontists and it’s stressful, you know, lots of patients. It almost feels like a conveyor belt, so. It’s very hard. No ransom when he when he graduated, all the stuff that he was excited to do when he finished in Sweden. I remember you telling me when he came back and you started working in England, all of that kind of passion and flair kind of got dulled away. And then he was doing that same treatment, you know, extraction, all fours, fives, no mini screws, no medialization, no cool stuff. It was very much, you know, one size fits all, mostly. So I think that’s it’s hard to avoid that with the NHS and that’s one of the reasons why we quickly tried to get out of that so we can do things the way we want it. And that’s when I saw, well, especially Rampton, I saw his kind of flair and excitement for for orthodontics come back.

And when you guys decided to specialise, did you decide on purpose to go to Sweden because you thought it was a better course? Or why didn’t you specialise here? Why did you specialise in Sweden?

And it was it was it was just it was like the timing of it. So I was working. I just finished. I just got into my third year of working after graduating as a dentist. And one of my friends who’s an orthodontist and I knew I wanted to do Ortho since since the day I graduated as a dentist, I would be doing I would do half a day a week in an ortho practice, you know, it wasn’t really a lot of work. It was mostly theoretical. I was going through some of the basic books that we use in Ortho, so, you know, I would go to school. He graduated from Sweden and he was, yeah, someone that we knew from before. And he messaged me one day and said, Brampton, they’re, they’re doing an intake at Gothenburg University. I don’t know like what you’re thinking. And for me it was a, it was a way out of dentistry, to be completely honest with you. Payman wasn’t it was very hard for me. You know, the, you know, constant, you know, full days of, you know, different types of treatments that wasn’t particularly efficient or good at, you know, like I wasn’t good at root canal treatments. I wasn’t great extractions. I didn’t enjoy it. So for me, it was a place where I was really just enough. I had enough for dentistry. I really liked orthodontics. This came up and I was like, you know, I don’t even know how the process works. I was doing my clinical attachment one day a week at the hospital, so I kept all my options open, you know, like Max fax and everything else. But it was just the right time. It was a cold winter day. I remember he messaged me. He was as an intake. I sent the message, you know, I got the message. I sent an email and then everything just cascaded from there.

Is it competitive like it is here to get in?

Yeah, very competitive and very, very competitive. I think they they take on they took on two people that year when I applied and there was a lot a lot of people remember they were applying from all over the world. So it was very competitive multiple we had multiple exams, written exams. We had, you know, wire bending exercises. We had psychological testing. It was a full on two days before.

You got in.

Before we got in. Yeah, just just the interview. Yeah. So we went down and then not only that, they were in Sweden, they’re very much about like, will you fit in? Like, will you be nice to staff, will you be nice to other people? So it was two days of the nurses and other clinicians seeing what you’re like, are you a nice person? Do you get on with people? So it was it was very hard, very hard, but it was well worth it. Well worth it.

So did you did you prepare? I mean, how is it that both of you managed to get in if it’s so, so difficult? I mean, okay, your your top your top notch or whatever? No, no, no, no. What did you do? Did you know that it was going to be.

No, it was just practice Payman. So we. So do you remember I said I was doing the, you know, one day, half a day to one day a week since three years. So I already knew how to bend wires because we used to practice it.

You had a basic idea.

The basic idea I’d read like the MBti, which is like the, the basic book of orthodontics in terms of, you know, the bracket types, wired sequences we use. So for me it was a case of I was already really well into it. And then for Damon, he you wanna explain how you sort of, uh, yeah.

I mean, yeah, Rampton was definitely it was definitely a positive having Ramzan there because they love Ramzan when he left, they were, I think they were all, um, I think they were depressed for a few months. And they call me Ramzan for the first six months, and I was there as well. I just, I just took it on the chin. But it was, yeah, a great help having Ramzan go through because they knew he was capable and what he could do helps. He’s a nice guy as well. Very polite. So they all got on with him really well. So that was a good starting point for me. And then obviously had a lot of experience because when Ramzan was studying and he was coming back, he was seeing patients in the weekends. So his whole first year he was flying back every weekend and working on Saturdays in Mum’s clinic. Back then, not sure how he managed it because first year was intense and then when he was there would come in and basically I was his therapist when he was coming in, I was changing wise. I was getting used to working with that stuff already.

And then sometimes he would forget to wake up so I would see half the patients that day. Um, so I got a lot of experience that way. So then when I went and did my interview, obviously it had some indication because Ramzan had done it once already. But yeah, I had a few. There was a few steps ahead compared to the other people that are there getting interviewed. So for me it was probably easier than most. Ramzan But again, we had wire bending. We had, yeah, they gave us a whole, a whole research paper, yeah, a couple of case presentations where like we had a psychologist that was with us the whole two days just watching how we interact because it was strange. It’s very important for them how you get on with the team, how you work with your nurses, how you talk to your friends. So yeah, guess they liked us and then they, they liked our wire bending as well. And that’s, that’s how I got in. But yeah, it definitely helped that Ramzan pave the way and I slotted myself in there as well. I think.

I think I think that he’s been a little bit like too positive on that aspect. I think he knew a lot. Because he was we were seeing patients every week and he was doing most of the work. And I think, you know, a testament to that was he really took me Payman. I know. You know, this comes down to, you know, the way like authors taught, but it took me about a year and a half at university, up to two years even until I understood it was one day because in the beginning they just tell you what to do. They change the link, change this wire, you know, okay, it’s a quarter class two and class two elastics. You sort of just do it. It took me about close to two years for it to finally one day just go. Okay, That all clicks in. I understand. Now we need the class clicked. It clicked. But for Damon, I remember it was nine, ten months into the first year where all sudden he was telling me this stuff that I learned at the end of the second year. So I think. Is it a.

Two year course?

Three years?

Three years? Full time? Three years?

Full time?

Bloody hell.

Yeah.

But it was it was a good three years wasn’t it. We missed.

It. Yeah. It was fun.

And did you have to pay as well. Where? How much? Ballpark. Uh.

I think it’s around. I think it’s slightly more around 30,000 a year. Euros. €30,000.

Did you get a loan? What did you do to pay that?

I worked every Saturday. So every every Saturday I worked. We got some loans as well. Mom helped out a little bit as well. And then. Yeah, and then when I came back, I sort of supported Damon as well. You know, loans. It was a mix of everything. Everyone sort of just helping each other to get there.

Mum has always been very big on. She doesn’t care if you spend, but it involves your getting a degree or education. Education then we’ve never really held back with that. You know, that always pays itself tenfold down the line. So it’s kind of whatever it takes to get through the few years and then just, you know, make up for it later on in life. And it worked out pretty well in the end. But Payman, do you want to hear.

You want to hear a funny story? Yeah. Sorry. Sorry. Do you want to hear, you know, the reason? When I decided to become an orthodontist, You have something to do with it. You don’t even know this stuff. But yeah, so we were. We. I was in a course. I was not a course. It was a it was like a dental aesthetic. Dental, you know, there was like a yearly course.

World aesthetic Congress.

Something like that. Payman And you and you organised the course with it was like a posterior composite or something like that. And. Jason Smithson And yeah, and, and I sat and I, I knew you because I knew you were the guy that, you know, ran enlightened, owned, enlightened. I was sort of in awe. Anyway. But I remember Jason came and everyone was doing composites and I was so like, I had no talent when it came to like composites and stuff like this. And I remember he was like walking along and he was like, Great work, great work. And he came to me. He looked at me and he just smiled and just walked to the next one. And for a second I was like, Yeah, this isn’t for me. Like, I don’t know what I’m doing. Like, I need to find some other avenue. So yeah, Thanks, man.

That’s funny. That’s funny, man. So tell me this. How long after you qualified as an orthodontist? Both of you did. Did you open dental? The banks?

I think I was I was just I had just graduated. And then obviously you were. How long for you? Three, four years.

It was 2019. We opened it. It was end of 2019. It was it was the year before Covid 19. So yeah.

So, yeah, pretty for me, it was quite good. I went pretty much straight into it. We did, I did a bit of locum with the NHS, but Rampton did a good two three years.

In three years? Yeah.

So tell me. Take me through the thought process and the process, the process itself of opening that clinic, because it’s definitely different. And, you know, the I mean, I’ve been to a lot of clinics, man. I must I must have been to a thousand clinics, maybe more. I don’t know. I don’t know. I’ve been to loads and loads and it definitely it’s up in the top, top 3 or 4 that I’ve ever been to. Thank you. Um, what was it, What was, what was the thought process? Were you always going to do something different? The architecture, the way, the way that people the training of the people, just extraordinary. And then the marketing and then the way you went sort of more direct to to patients rather than looking for referrals. Who was what were you thinking? I mean, take me through some of the thought process and the process itself.

The whole process was very, very organic from our side. Mum had just sold the clinic or Mum Rampton.

No clinic was sold for four years before them, four years before we sold it.

Yeah. So the money was there. We didn’t we didn’t know what to do with it. We don’t like working for people either. So that’s a that’s a Persian trait. Yeah. Um, so we thought, you know, three of us in the family have some sort of Dental degree, so we needed to do something with that. And then, um, yeah, the space camp we came across, it was a bank. It was. They were closing it down as a pretty nice street and we thought, let’s go see it. And then saw it. There was about 20, 30 people trying, trying to get this one place. Somehow we managed to get it. I don’t know what the word in English in Persian, we say it was it was meant to be for us to have that fate.

Fate?

Yeah, exactly. And it’s never felt from day one. It’s never felt a struggle. Everything’s kind of just clicked into place organically. You know, we saw the space and then actually the whole thing started from we all had a vision of kind of what we wanted to create. There was nothing in our area where there was that kind of high end look with also high end dentistry and orthodontics. So we thought, okay, this this could work. And then it.

Doesn’t feel like the inspiration is another dental practice, though It feels like the inspiration is a, I don’t know, a nightclub or a hotel hotel or something.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, we’ve travelled a lot. Yeah. We’re blessed to travel a lot with with mom and dad. So we’ve seen some nice places around the world. So we definitely took some of that when we used our inspiration to create Dental on the banks. But it all started from the logo actually. And I would, I would recommend that to anyone opening up a squat or their own clinic. Start from the logo because everything goes for that. The colour, the branding, the kind of feel of the logo kind of already could then envision. What? Because I designed most of what the clinic would look like with ramped up obviously in the family as well. But we we threw the ideas to the interior designer and then they kind of made that come into life. But yeah, it all started from the logo, then the website, and then it kind of just snowballed every year into this bigger and bigger thing.

But the, the process itself, by the way, in marketing terms, probably the logo, they say the last thing you should design, not the first thing. But but, but. Great. It worked. It worked for you. It worked for you. I mean, where did you find the architect? Whose idea was the lighting? The way you did it? The. It’s just a stunner, man. It’s one of those, like, take your breath away kind of practices.

Yeah. And I think I think there was a big part of it was we were in, we were in Los Angeles and it was, you know, we were in a hotel as this Waldorf Astoria, which is stunning. Payman And and we went in there and just the smells and the and the the, you know, the flowers and the lights and everything. And and we sort of went in there and we’re like, this would be beautiful. Like, this is exactly, you know, we need to have this feel and, and you know, it honestly, it was Damian like, he took some inspiration from that. Like, if you ever go to that, you’ll see it looks nothing like a practice, but just, you know, the feeling. Yeah, the feeling. Like the, you know what colour things are supposed to be. The lights. It was like a evolution. We started off with like, like glass. Like it was going to be like layers of glass that were, like, lit up. And then that would cost us like £50,000. So, okay, what’s the what’s like a more efficient way of doing this? And okay, let’s do like strips of lights instead on the wall. So there were a lot of adjustments along the way. And and, you know, I think it just came, you know, everything was right. It was never a struggle for this one. You know, we have, you know, other practices that we we’ve opened and it’s never been that natural. Whereas with this, it just felt like, you know, it was just everything just worked the way we wanted it to. But it was Damian that was responsible for 95% of the the way that practice looks.

And then, okay, so you know, the way it looks and actually getting the work done and I’m sure you had your own issues with builders and in the UK we have that problem right So then day one it’s done. I’m sure you were, I don’t know, a bit over budget. Everyone always is, right? No patience. Yeah. And then by the time I came to see it was maybe, I don’t know, one year or half a year after that. It can’t have been that long after because we had pandemic soon after that. So you were packed, busy, like within within months. You were you were you were completely busy. What did you do? What does one do? I mean, all of us have a dream of opening a squad. Even I haven’t I’m no longer haven’t been a dentist for 12 years. I still got this feeling of, hey, great to do a squat. You know, we’ve all got a thing in our head. But that. But that idea that, okay, go spend the money, do the work. And then on day one there are no patients. How did you know what to do next?

It wasn’t, you know, it was a scary time. It wasn’t, you know, you know, I said everything came naturally. It wasn’t like we finished. We sat down. It was great. We spent like this much money, this much above budget, like life is good. It was a stressful time payment. And the the advantages that we had, I believe and I always say this, is that we lived in this town since we were very young. We knew where people went. We knew where people go to do this. We know where people go to party. We know where who does this, who does the beach parties, you know, So we we use that, you know, from from our earlier years in our life where we used to go clubbing every every weekend, you know, like we spoke to that guy and he now has an events thing. So we spoke to all the right people and got Dental on the banks in the like environments where, you know, those types of patients at 20 to 40 year old women, you know, that, you know, do care about the way they look. Et cetera. Et cetera. So that was a big one for us.

So that’s amazing advice, man. That’s amazing advice because some people some some, you know, it’s a whole industry now about start up practices, you know, and some people will give the advice of, you know, go find the area that hasn’t got any dentists in it or something and go put it there. But what you just said there, like local knowledge, really knowing the area, I’d say, you know, like opening in the in the town that you grew up might be the most important thing because you know you even know the when a patient I remember I used to I used to work in a practice in Kent and the guy the guy used to say stuff some stuff to his patients and say, Can’t believe you just said that. But he knew. He knew. He knew what to say. Yeah. Better than I mean, it would be the equivalent of me opening a practice in, I don’t know, Saint John’s Wood or Highgate, where I went to school or whatever, where I knew the people. Yeah, So that’s a great point. So. So you went and spoke to to the movers and shakers?

Yeah, that was it. Payman Then we the area that we’re in is like, we’re all the like footballers live and everything else. So it’s kind of.

Well-to-do, right? Sandbags is kind of a well-to-do area.

It’s a really affluent area. And, you know, they started the footballers started coming in, then the other players started coming in. Patients saw these players coming into the practice. And then we.

Didn’t just walk in, though, did they? You must have done something to get footballers in. Not talking to your. No, it was club promoters.

No, no, no. It was literally Damon walking outside going, Josh, how are you? I’m Damon. I’m the only come in. Like, come in, let’s have a chat. That was literally yeah, that’s literally how we got the first 1 or 2. And then, you know, we started heavily, you know, investing into Facebook ads. We got, you know, Derek that, that everyone knows. And Derek was, you know, he was a big part of our success, big part of his success. You know, he has been running our ads ever since. And we started seeing this flow of patients into the practice and word of mouth Payman once once we started and we bonded and our experience, you know, the experience was so refined, like the whole thing was, you know, someone comes in for Invisalign, we’re not going to put suctions in and polish and, and have them, you know, operate optic, whatever it’s called mouth thing to keep the lips out of the way to cotton rolls, lips out of the way. 15, 20 minute fits, you know, gorgeous experience. You know, first investment was like a machine that prints your face on a coffee. You know, we got that from Simon Orient in Los Angeles. You know, just all those little small things. We’re talking points between people. So word of mouth took over and. And, yeah, off we went.

Damon Tell me, tell me about the whole patient experience piece, because it was that was a real standout thing for me, the way, you know, dude, sometimes I walk into a dental practice and no one even looks up, you know, it happens and and often it’s not. It’s not even the staff’s fault sometimes. Yeah, sometimes it’s actually always it’s the. It’s the principal’s fault. It’s the lack of training. Right. Lack of training, lack of lack of hiring. Enough people, man. Sometimes you’ve got, you know, this practice thousands of patients and one poor receptionist typing away hasn’t got time to even look up. But so tell me, tell me, dude, when I walked into your practice, someone, someone jumped up, opened the door for me. Dr. Langroudi, we’ve been expecting you. How are you doing? The, you know, cappuccino or latte? You know, I was like, hello? Tell me. Tell me more about it. That didn’t happen by mistake.

No, I mean, from day one, for us, the most important thing was not the clinic can look good, but that’s just to get people engaged, Right? But once they actually step inside it or even from lifting the phone, I think that’s kind of like step one. Every single kind of avenue of contact and the whole journey for the patient. We kind of we sat and we wrote down systems before we even opened and we thought, okay, this is how we would want to be treated if we went to like a high end five star hotel. So we kind of just dragged that kind of service into dentistry because patients want to feel special. They don’t want to feel like a conveyor belt when they come in. They want to feel like they’re the only people there. So we were very big on that and we still are. It’s the. Little bit harder as the business has grown to have that kind of personal, personal touch. But we still do our best to give them that experience. But from day one, when we hired people, we would train them and say, Look, when someone comes in, greet them, call them by the first name, say anything you can remember they said to you last time, jot it down. Talk about the next time.

So little things can go a big way. And unfortunately, we’re only as strong as our weakest link. So we always had to work hard in every avenue of the clinic, not just the receptionist, but the nurses, everyone, the dentist, to make sure that they have that kind of five star experience throughout. Because all it takes, you know, if you go to a lovely hotel, everything can be amazing. You’re not going to remember the 99% of things that are good. You’re going to remember that 1% like someone didn’t say hi to you or someone didn’t pay attention to you quick enough. So we still are very strict on it. That’s probably the only time me and Ram to lose a temper is when that patient experience has been affected. Because I think that’s what that’s what patients will go tell their friends about, you know, Yes, obviously it’s important. That clinic looks good. It’s important the results are great. But the experience is, I think is the most, most important part of the pathway for the patient. And for us. That’s what’s been our biggest success, is that word of mouth. We don’t get any direct referrals, so all of ours is from word of mouth. And um, and I think that’s got a big part to play in it.

Come on, give me a couple of tips here on number one, on recruitment of the right kind of staff member, because it needs to be the right kind of staff member to deliver that. And number two on training. I mean, it’s not a one time event to train people. It’s a constant thing. Give me some tips. What did you do regarding recruitment? Did you actively recruit from outside dentistry? What did you do?

So our core team had kind of been with us from from the previous clinic. So the manager at the time was Mom’s best friend and she used to be the manager in the old clinic.

Was the old clinic anything like this one?

No, no, no. It was okay. It was it looked like. Like someone’s living room, but like, a warm, fuzzy feeling. But it wasn’t the way we wanted it because we Mom and Ransom bought it from someone else. So it was quite an old clinic, slightly, slightly renovated. But yeah, no, nothing like this. But yeah, no. Recruitment has always been difficult. You know, it’s hard to find the right people and no one’s going to start with all the skills straight away. You have to really be patient. You have to give them the guidance, you have to give them the tools so they can learn and be able to. There’s no point saying be give them a better experience. You have to break that down for them every single bit. Almost need to spoon feed them, say this is what you need to say and then you just need to be patient with them and see, I wouldn’t be so quick to fire anyone. I mean, I always want to give people at least three, four months and then you can see if the potential is there, if they’re showing that spark and especially like reception, we want them to be quite chatty. They want they need to be more extroverted. So when you start seeing that and you see the potential, then you can you can build on that. And a lot of staff now, I mean, the staff we have now are fantastic, but they didn’t always start fantastic and we had a lot of ups and downs and normally if they stick with us, which most do, then by the end of it they’re fantastic. And yeah, our team now is, yeah, we’re blessed to have them.

So what about the training?

Well, I mean, there’s no specific training, is there? Emptiness more.

And we have on the job. Yes. Yeah. We also have we have. So me and Damon aren’t really involved as much into the daily running of things. You know, we we focus more on like the clinical side and the and the other stuff around it. But we have a business manager who’s great and generally what we tend to do, she tends to do is we, we, we listen back to calls. That’s a big part of each week is listening back to phone calls and you know don’t think that the you know experience is always perfect. There’s a lot of hiccups. There’s a lot of, you know, issues with things on, you know, the standards aren’t kept, but we pick up on it almost weekly if there’s problems. And then business manager Rachel will then spend an hour or two hours a week with that specific person and go, this is how we’re going to do it different. And then the next week it’ll be someone else. So we’re constantly, week by week, analysing everything that’s going on. Or if I see, for example, that my nurse, when the patient gets up to leave my nurse doesn’t turn around because she’s writing a notes, write her backs, turn against the patient.

She doesn’t turn around and say goodbye. Then that’s something that I will either say straight away there, and then once the patient leaves, I go like, could you, you know, pass an X? Could you, you know, next time when they say goodbye, it’s important that we turn around and we say goodbye. You know, it doesn’t look good if you don’t turn around. Or I will then delegate that to Rachel, who then will have, like, a joint training thing on a lunch break with the nurses talking about, you know, not just that, but there’ll be a point. So every little small thing that we see, we don’t let it slide. That’s the thing. Every single thing that we see, we pick up on immediately and is brought up and we check back to make sure that that stand is being kept. But even so, you know, things don’t always go to plan. But that’s the way I think that we’re that we’re maintaining the standard somewhat.

Look, it’s a funny thing because we try really hard at Enlightened with this as well. Yeah, but you can’t. You can’t sort of force someone to be happy. You, you can’t. You can’t for the sake of the argument. If someone calls up Enlightened now. Yeah. Someone will pick up the phone. If that person who’s picking up the phone five minutes ago was shouted at. Yeah, they’re not going to now be super happy picking up the phone. Yeah. And so it’s a weird tension isn’t it, between sort of almost I find the best way to address this issue is to give the final goal. The final goal is we want delighted, delighted patients, let’s say. Yeah. And then let each person work out their way of doing it. And and almost I find it’s almost like, you know, they call it culture, don’t they? After a while culture builds so that if you’re not doing that, everyone else kind of calls you out on it. Yeah, you know, that’s not how we do things here, You know that. But it takes a bit of time. I’ve noticed. It’s not as simple thing. No, it’s an.

Excellent point, Payman. That’s the way it has been for us. You know, it’s sort of like, you know, we know what we want the culture to be, but it’s taken us time where the people that haven’t been yeah, the way that, you know, the practice needs it to be have sort of left new people have come in and eventually it’s got to a point where everyone’s on the same wavelength, you know. So I agree with you. It does take time. It does take time. It’s not.

Something. So how do you how do you split the responsibilities between the three of you? And you said you’ve got a business manager as well. So is there a practice manager as well? Is that different person or is that same person?

No, it’s a different person. Payman So we have a we have a practice manager that does all the stuff and all the, you know, stuff to do with the practice, like rotas, whatever. And then we have a business manager who deals with, you know, staff training things that affects the business, right? Sort of what the income of the practice is like, what we need to do to adjust and things like that.

And the social media, Lee was kind of working for you guys for a lot of time, wasn’t he?

He still is, yeah. So Lee Meta does our social media, so Instagram and then we have we had so we have all the like all the guys, everyone know. So Shaz and his team do our SEO and website. Derek and his team do our Facebook ads and Google ads as well. But we’ve, we’ve delegated Payman, so anything that like we like our mom does, like the, does the, you know, does the wages and she does little things here and there like double checks. Everything me and Damian are mostly on the, you know, working with our business manager you know. Yes. And clinical So we’ll be clinical. They’ll also be like these numbers we need to look at you know why you know these leads we need to nurture this way. So it’s a constant discussion between us, but we’re more the clinical side and the income side as it was.

And how many days a week are you dentists, orthodontists and how many days a week are you not?

Yeah, I mean, it’s a bit like Monday’s a half day for us. Tuesday we kind of mix and match a it’s a Tuesday for example. I start late, I finish late. So I start at like 12, I finish at seven ramp Ramp2 starts and nine finishes at five. Wednesday we swap that around every other Friday. One of us is off. Thursdays is half day. But that’s not how we always was. We obviously recently expanded, so we’ve got two more surgeries, but prior to that we had two surgeries and we had me and doing quite a lot of numbers with Invisalign. And then we had dentists, we had hygienists, we had laser hair removal at one point as well. So we had to really saturate every minute of every day. We’re working Saturdays, working Sundays at one point every day we’re working 830 to 7, no lunch. We’re doing virtual consultations as well. At that point, we pass that on to Rachel now. But at one point, yeah, whilst one of us is working because we only had one room between us, the other one will be doing virtual consults and as soon as we finish we swap over. So that just wasn’t sustainable. We we knew we needed to do it and it probably went on for about a year, year and a half.

Probably took about five years off our life. But now we’re in a situation where, you know, we have a therapist working for us now. Obviously we have someone else doing the virtual consultations and also the In-clinic consultations. So me and Ramsden have managed to really take a step back and we love delegating. So our nurses bless them, they’re amazing to do everything for us. They do the scans, photos, all the chatting and we come in and do our bit and then we bugger off again. But yeah, I think the delegation’s been been key for us to be able to cut down our hours whilst still growing the numbers, which is took a while to get a head around that. We always felt you know, it’s directly correlated so the more you work, the better you’re going to do. But it’s actually the more time we’ve taken away, the better the better we do with other stuff. So yeah, we’re gradually stepping down, better quality of life. I think that’s quite important for us now as well, but also so we can focus on, for example, the complete Aligner program. Obviously we have a clinics in the north and we’re planning a couple of new things as well.

And tell me, tell me about the for the positioning perspective. So when when, for instance, you said Derek Otterburn does your ads are the ads are you guys positioning yourselves as more expensive than the practice down the road because you are specialists? Or are you just saying we do Invisalign or how are you how are you making that distinction between being an expert and just an Invisalign provider when you’ve got such a strong brand like Invisalign where people think it’s the same wherever you go?

Yeah, we’re, um, so we, um, it’s a great question, by the way, and it’s one of those things that, you know, a lot of people actually, you know, discuss all the time about how, how you should present these. But for us, I think we, we don’t charge huge amounts more than our competitors. I think we’re just above everyone else cost wise. But we do push the fact that it’s done by, you know, two specialist orthodontists. We are we recently, you know, because of the number of cases that we do, we were invited to this thing where the top 300 Invisalign orthodontists in the world go to this meeting. It was like a, you know, like a masterclass thing where we all sit down and discuss with each other. So, you know, being recognised as one of the top providers in the world is something that, you know, we always say that we want to top users of it.

Are you mentioned that in the, in the, in the blurb.

Yeah we do. Yeah we do. Yeah. Um, but it’s mostly the fact that, you know, it’s like the things that we offer, like bonded retainers for example, where a lot of other people don’t. But honestly, I think people have heard about us by now, and when they see the ad, they just press the ad because they know of us. So I think, yeah, you know.

And how how wide do you cast your net regarding marketing? Do you mark it way out of Bournemouth and Sandbanks or just in that local area?

Yeah, we’re like Bournemouth and Poole. We don’t, we don’t, you know, go all the way out. We don’t go like all the way to Southampton, anything. We’re, we’re within probably about eight miles, nine miles from where we are, something like that really.

Okay. Yeah. That’s interesting. Okay, man. Now let’s let’s move on to you’re going to you’re going to gather very quickly. I’m no expert at orthodontics. But but but, you know, I run courses. I run courses. And as I say, I had amazing feedback from from people who’d been on your course. Tell me this. Let’s just start from the very, very beginning of it, right? My first my wife is, is a is a dentist. She she does quite a lot of Invisalign. Yeah, but when it came to treating my kids, she said, Oh, no, no, no, no, no. I’m going to take them to a proper orthodontist. And the proper orthodontist charged double what my wife charges for Invisalign. And it suddenly made me realise, yeah, that of course there’s a market for more expensive Invisalign. You know, there’s, you know, there is. Now, what are some of the things that most GDPs get wrong about clear aligner treatment that, you know, you wish they didn’t. But, you know, just just what comes to mind. I know that that’s saying, hey, give me the whole of orthodontics in one. Say what comes to mind. I mean, is it is it that they think clincheck is going to happen for real? But Clincheck isn’t going to happen for real? Is that is that part of it?

I think yeah. I mean, you can add it to it as well, but I think sometimes what what you don’t know, you don’t know. So kind of ignorance is bliss. So you the more you know and that’s one thing we talk about in the course is the more you know, the less you realise, you know. And it’s almost you’re starting cases and like you said, the clincheck comes back or whichever system you’re using, and then you take that as the Bible, you think, okay, that’s, that’s exactly how it’s going to turn out. And then, you know, everyone starts off really excited, as we did when we first started with Busline back in the day. And then and then your results starts coming back and, you know, every case gets better, but it’s very hard to get things. It’s easy to get it to like 60 or 70%, but it’s that last 30%, which is the hardest and the most important. So I think that’s where then people are like, Oh crap, I don’t know this enough. And then they maybe stop using Invisalign. They’re like, The system’s not very good. So I think that’s the biggest pitfall for a lot of not just GDPs, but also specialists. I mean, it’s yes, once you understand the biomechanics are both very, very closely related, but it’s very different to what orthodontists are used to with their training. I mean, a lot of our training was with fixed braces, so it was quite a big gap to to bridge. So I think the biggest pitfall is definitely that you take you know, you simplify it too much because it’s it’s only simple when you when you understand it, but before that it’s very easy to go wrong.

Yeah, I’ve noticed that talking to orthodontists, talking to very seasoned orthodontics orthodontists that the we were we were going to distribute that product. Do you remember? What the hell was it called? It was like this thing that vibrated makes makes ortho quicker. What was that called?

The question.

Acceledent Acceledent. We were looking at that. We were looking at. Oh, should we do that? Is that like the zoom of orthodontics or something? You know? And thank God we didn’t. But, but, but when when I started talking to a bunch of orthodontists and I noticed the more senior the orthodontist was, the more they were talking about things that could go wrong. Yeah. And it was such a strange thing because, you know, you think someone’s a senior orthodontist, you could do it with eyes closed here and they tell you these stories. And I remember one in particular, proper old timer, one of the top guys who’s ever come out of the UK. I don’t want I don’t want to tell you, but he said to me, look, even if he wasn’t even arguing with whether it works or it doesn’t work, he said, even if it speeds things up, that means you get into trouble much quicker. Yeah.

I couldn’t believe it.

Yeah, I couldn’t believe it, man, because I thought, Hey, he’s the top orthodontist in the country, right? He never gets into trouble. Yeah, but. But trouble happens, right? I guess sometimes you guys tell me, right? I guess sometimes you push. Push the tooth too near to the outside of the bone and, you know, you get fenestration or whatever. All right, so your course. Complete aligner program. Two days? Yeah. And is that it? Or is there a continuum? Because, you know, Rampton, you said to me it took you two years before it clicked. Damon It took nine months before it clicked. You reckon you get these guys to click in two days? Is their follow up? What is their.

Yeah. So, yeah, so it’s two days Payman like you said. And then we have a Facebook group that we have that we add everyone to that comes on the course and then we do monthly, you know, sometimes five weeks we do webinars which go on as long as needed. You know, it’s pretty cool that we start like seven. Sometimes they finish at 830, sometimes they finish at 1030. Depends on what people want to ask. But it’s a case of, you know, learning by doing. And the way that we’ve made this course very different is that we provide very like step by step protocols. It’s not a case of, you know, in a deep bite case, you need to be looking at the inclination of the teeth. You need to be looking at the curve of spee, which is like the arc of the lower jaw, the cover. Wilson Which is like the transversal in the lower and upper. We don’t say, do these, and then we tell you, listen, if you want to set it up, if it’s a deep bite in an adult case, for example, with spacing, these are the things, four things you need to look at. This is how you set up your to correct your cover speed. So correct your cover. Wilson ET cetera. Et cetera. So that’s the way that we feel like that’s what we feel like. We’ve broken.

It down.

100%, and that’s what we can get a specialist to come on the course. Because when a special we get a lot of specialists that come as well, but when they come, they will understand like the theory of a lot better. So they will understand it from that. Whereas the dentist might not get the exact understanding of why are you correcting the curve of spee, but they just go step by step, setting it up and then it ends up exactly where it needs to be. And then, you know, 98% of our cases, that’s the way there needs to be set up. And then we’re giving generalised rules. You know, of course there’s exceptions and there’s certain bigger movements that need to be done sometimes, but it gives them a really good starting point as it was.

When one guy I spoke to, he told me, he said, Look, they taught me to do stuff with Invisalign that I didn’t think was possible to do with Invisalign. So what are the boundaries of Invisalign? Are you guys now saying you can do anything with it or what’s the story?

I think it depends who does the Payman I think. I think you guys.

You guys. Yeah.

Anything we can do with fixed braces? We can do with Invisalign in our hands. Really? Yeah.

So that’s certainly new, isn’t it? When I. When I studied, I didn’t study when I, when I did the Invisalign two day course, they thought you had to use the software. Yeah. There was, there was all these situations that Invisalign couldn’t do all this stuff it couldn’t do. So now you’ve kind of it, it’s not only you, right? It is the, the system has evolved as well, right?

The system is great. The system is great. It’s a great appliance. It you know, it doesn’t have to be Invisalign. You could use Spark to do this. You could use, you know, other companies to do this. But if you have a if it’s not even about the Invisalign is a brace, that’s all it is. It’s not a it’s not you know, it’s a a type of brace that we use. I always say to the basis like, I’m an orthodontist, I specialise in braces. Invisalign is a type of brace and it’s more about understanding orthodontic principles. That’s one. And then understanding how you translate that from fixed braces, where there are certain strengths and weaknesses into what you do with aligners to compensate for. So anything you do with Aligners, you have to account for the side effects and work on those into your clench checks as well. So as long as you understand the concept, it doesn’t matter what you’re using, it will work. So that’s the way that we’ve got it to work. But more importantly, we’re you know, the nice thing is that I’m confident because if something goes wrong, let’s say I promise that I’m going to do something that I’m not able to do. Let’s say I’m going to close a space on an extraction, and for whatever reason it doesn’t quite go to plan. I can put a sectional brace on and fix that problem. Do you know what I mean? I have the backup to get myself out of any problems that might happen. So that’s the luck that we have. Being orthodontics is that we understand these things. I would say probably a little bit quicker. But the GDPs, I mean, some of the GDPs that come on our course are exceptional. They really are.

And so take me through it. I mean, are you are you completely doing a different thing to what the planners give you from Mexico, wherever it is? Is it a completely different plan? Are you changing the shape of the attachments and different eyepieces? And I’m being very basic here. Like, tell me, tell me, tell me what you’re doing differently. What are you doing differently?

Yeah, I mean, the whole thing is pretty much top to bottom is quite different. We take we have what’s called clinical preferences, so you can get a decent baseline now based on your preferences. But when it comes back, we go through that same methodological step by step. Look at the arch, the, you know, the transverse. Then you look at there’s a lot of 14 different steps that we give our delegates as well. So you go through those steps and yeah, like you said, you change, you change the level of expansion, You, you change the level of overbite correction, attachment choice, attachment shape, attachment thickness, attachment. Bevel Oh, really? Where to do when to do it.

How to do.

That’s that’s a big thing that unfortunately is not taught. Like if you go on Invisalign certification course, they’ll they’ll say you add on the software. But what about when it comes to real life? And I think there’s just a lot of confusion out there. There’s a lot of there’s a lack of resource when it comes to understanding Invisalign. Everyone’s kind of learning how to get more Invisalign cases in. They’re learning how to submit it, but then it kind of stops there. And that’s that’s kind of where this all started from because it was a long journey for us to get to where we are now. You know, when we initially started, it was I thought Invisalign was rubbish the first year when using it because all my results were coming out subpar. And that’s the difficult thing for an orthodontist trying to go into Invisalign because we have I’m not saying dentists don’t, but as a specialist you need to have a perfect standard, right? You can’t go for something that’s not going to give you a perfect result. So that’s quite hard bridge to kind of go across. And I’m not sure how we’ve managed it, but we have managed to squeeze it all into literally two days. But it covers not just the theory side of it, it’s not just how to manipulate your clench, it’s also the clinical side. So how to do how to fit attachments quickly and efficiently.

The guys I spoke to said you could have it could have been a one week course. The amount of material you put into that two days. Yeah. No. And we made that mistake too, dude. Yeah. Like, sometimes it’s better for it to be a longer course, you know? I know why you do it, right? You want to just get as much, get it all out there as quickly as you can. I know the reasoning. What other things? What? I’m quite interested in this question of what are the other things that people get wrong. So let’s talk about yeah, people. People create sort of black triangles with their don’t they.

That’s that’s the lack of that normally causes a black triangle. So it’s. Yeah. Again I won’t bore you with it too much we know do do we’re talking about IPR and its uses but we.

Want it to be I want it to be a bit of a bit of value for, for someone who does Invisalign. I mean I know I don’t, but someone who does might be interested. Exactly what we’re talking about.

Black triangles is a huge thing and it’s something that’s not always treated, which I think is a shame because it makes a huge difference to the final result. And it’s a lot of cause of black triangles. One could just be the shape of the teeth. If you’ve got triangular teeth, then obviously your contact points are more incisal and the further away you are from the alveolar bone with a contact point, you get a bigger chance of a black triangle. So when you’re using using it to actually improve the shape of the tooth, but also you improve the contact points, for example. But then you’ve got, you know, angulated teeth that causes a more incisal contact point. You’ve got that crossed over the propeller’s never formed. And then when you align those teeth, you find you get black triangles. Hereoh That’s one of the biggest causes. Obviously the bone receded. So again, that distance increases to the alveolar bone. So it’s very hard to sometimes avoid black triangles in those cases. So we go through these kind of step by step what can cause black triangles and then obviously how to fix it as well. And you can’t always fix it. There’s only so much you can do. And again, obviously you can do more than you actually realise. Sometimes people think that 0.5mm is the limit. It’s, it’s not. Obviously there’s a lot more to it. Yeah. But yeah, no it is, it’s the biggest tool that you can use in Invisalign. I would say without IPR we wouldn’t be able to do probably 50% of stuff that we do.

And Anchorage is, you know, Anchorage is a big issue in ortho anyway, right? But with Invisalign, it must be a bigger issue, right?

Think Anchorage comes into play. You can talk about it as well. But Anchorage comes into play when you when you go down the extraction route a little bit in sequential distalization as well. But I find my extraction rates have definitely reduced compared to what was in university. Yeah, but then again, university you get a lot more complicated cases, right? I find a lot of the cases we treat now are, you know, adults with mild to moderate crowding. Some people are severe, obviously. Then we need to extract. But definitely, I would say our extraction rates are extremely low. I would say probably 5%, 10%. Is that right? Ramsey Would you say.

Down down from down from about 35%? I would say before, yeah, before. And a lot of that is.

Yeah, a lot of that is just due to how how we can stage the movements. It’s very important. A lot of people are, for example, scared of round tripping. You know, that’s the big, big no, no. You hear a lot, a lot of people talk about. But actually round tripping is probably the most important part of any clear aligner is actually round tripping but in the correct way. So you don’t end up getting, you know, gum recession and all the things that come with that. So I think there’s a lot of bits and bobs you got to understand to avoid the pitfalls. But that’s what we try to give to our delegates. So when they leave, they feel confident from day one when they go into the clinic, as long as they follow the protocols, they’re going to be safe and they’re going to get more predictable results.

And I guess because your practice isn’t only orthodontics, you get to see the restorative side of it as well, Right? Because because it was it was quite siloed, wasn’t it? Orthodontists. And then you’ve got restorative dentists. And the ideal treatment is both, isn’t it? It’s both together.

Yeah. Yeah. We’re quite blessed when we have two soon to be three prosthodontic specialists in the clinic. So the guys are three specialists. Yeah. Well, one is like a double specialist or triple specialist. I’m sure it is. Yeah. But very talented clinicians. We were lucky to work with them. So it is a multidisciplinary clinic, so if there’s any gum issues we we send to our chap who specialises in gums, get that all kind of stabilised and then back to us and then the implant then is placed in, there’s another chapter does that so we can all work together and create the plan together. We’re quite lucky on that side of things. And like you said, it’s really important that you plan it from all approaches, you know, not just alignment, but the occlusion, the space you need, the route diversions you need for the implant, for example, the occlusal clearance. We do a lot of tooth wear cases where we have to, you know, build up space anteriorly so we can do the composite work or whatever needs to be done. So yeah, we we love that part of it. And the guys that were quite young and quite driven as well. So we work together in a lot of cases to kind of get the results that we that we are achieving at the moment.

Where did you guys meet? Elias Marinopoulos. Was it on your ortho course?

No. So? So, Elias, I met I was at the American Association of Orthodontics meeting in Philadelphia, and I was there with one of my supervisors. So from Sweden, every year they would send us on one course we could choose, they would send us and A0 is where I went. The American Association of Ortho and I met Elias there he was, he was a past student of the same university. He finished 2009, I think. So he, you know, and he, I met him in Philadelphia. We clicked straight away. Similar, you know, way of thinking, of doing things. And, you know, he’s he’s someone that’s really, you know, taught us a lot about orthodontics as well. It’s been a real good mentor to us. And he’s a fantastic clinician. The guy’s brain ortho brain is something I’ve never seen before. He knows everything about everything. You know, if I’m not sure about something, he’s the guy that I’m asking to go like Elias. Can you explain this, like, biomechanics to me? I don’t understand what happened when this tooth does this, and he will. He knows everything about it. So we’re very close. Me and him. We did a lot of lingual as well. We did a university. We did afterwards. We were doing some lecturing for three M, We were doing some in Sweden and some here. And Elias always does huge numbers of Aligners. He does huge numbers of.

Because he’s one of the biggest aligner providers in Europe, right?

He’s the biggest provider of Invisalign in Europe. Yeah. Africa and Middle East. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s the number one in the whole world, actually, to be completely honest. Really? Yeah. So, yeah. So the guy is a fountain of knowledge and we. Yeah, it was just before it was, it was beginning of 2020 and we sat together and honestly, the, the thing for me was the fact that I just, you know, I see certain things on social media and the cases that people were showing thinking these are great results. And I was looking and I was seeing so many faults with it. You know, the explanation, I would listen to some podcasts where, you know, they were giving advice and I was saying, God, like, this is completely wrong. You know, you know, this is not correct. And I was getting a little bit agitated by it. So I sat with the guys and said, Guys, why don’t we do something where we can? And this was honestly the reason initially was why don’t we just raise the standards? Like, why let’s let’s not just sit in all practices. Let’s have something where we can meet up a couple of times a year together. We can, you know, we can. You go somewhere like, let’s do it in London.

We’ll have, you know, a couple of days together. We’ll teach. We’ll go for dinner together the first night. Like, you know, let’s sit down and do something. And then it sort of it lost its way. We sort of you know how it is. You go back to your work and you’re focusing on cases. And then Covid happened. So we sat down together, guys, just sit down and do it now. And then literally for the next like six months, we started creating this course like, okay, let’s what do we want to talk about here? How do we do this case? And the nice thing for us is that we record every one of our cases up to a really high standard. So all our cases have really good starting photos, progress photos, end photos, so everything’s meticulously recorded. So we had all the we had, you know, 500 class twos, we had 500 class threes, we had 200 extractions. We had this for expansion. So everything was ready. We sat down together, put it together, Payman And then, yeah, you know, it’s a constant work, but it’s, you know, we’re constantly updating and changing and putting new evidence in and everything else. But it’s based on all together, probably about thousands of cases. Thousands of cases. And, um.

And who teaches what on the course the three of you teach on the course?

Yeah. All three of us. All three of us. So it’s just divided like what we like and what we what we’re passionate about and what bits we prepared. So like I will do bits about like attachments. That’s my subspecialty, which is a whole like two hour lecture. You know, you talked about attachments. Yeah. But actually there’s like, there’s optimised as conventional attachments. Conventional attachments are at a certain degree angulation like Damon said, Bevel there there’s specific time you shouldn’t have the optimised attachments specific times we have the conventional it’s a two hour thing. And then I talk about open bites. Damon goes more into deep bites. Elias goes through the open. Everything’s covered based on our interests and what we have a lot of knowledge in. But all three are working through the two days.

And is the course agnostic or is it Invisalign? I mean, do you talk about Clearcorrect and. Sure, Smile and Spark and Reveal and 32 and all 100 other things.

Um, Damien, do you want to maybe take this?

Yeah. I mean, it’s called the. The complete alignment program, because it’s not. It can be used on any system that has a system like Clincheck where you can basically you can adjust your attachments, you can adjust, adjust the tooth positions. So as long as you can do that, you can ask for specific movements, then you can use it whichever system is out there. It just happens that we we use Invisalign and it’s very easy to use. We’ve never used anything else. Well, we tried a couple of them, but Invisalign seemed a bit easier and a little bit ahead when it comes to the software and they’re always kind of taking steps forward. So for us, that’s where we put most of our eggs in. But it can be used for any system as long as you’ve got a way to manipulate your clincheck or whatever system that is. But yeah.

It’s a funny thing here because the way the way it works out from one from one point of view, you’d say, look, you’re an expert and people come to you. You have to know about all the different systems. You know, like you should know. What is it about spark that’s worse than clearcorrect? Or what is it about? Whatever. That’s better than whatever. But. But listen, the thing the way it works out, though, is you become an expert at the thing you go most deeply into. And, you know, it’s like it’s like a composite course. You know, there isn’t a composite course that talks about all different composites because the guy ends up learning one of them and going into that one. But, you know, the market cap of Invisalign is so gigantic that there’s going to be so many different, different copycats coming along. But tell me, what were you saying, Ramtane?

No, I agree with you completely. And I think there are there are products in the market. Remember, for us, it’s not just from the material itself. I mean, Invisalign. I would say spark is probably right up there with it. There’s three Em has their own aligners now in the US, which hasn’t come across yet, but it will, so that’s all pretty safe for us. The extra things that we get from Invisalign is things like the, the brand, the brand name, right? Like, you know, everyone knows Invisalign. They come in and they go, I want don’t go, don’t want clear aligners they go, I want Invisalign, we’re on there you know doctor site. If someone searches, we’re right at the top of it. You know, we had a huge influx of teens coming in and kids coming in because they were doing they’re spending a lot of money doing ads on Facebook for teen and child. And then when they find a doctor, we’re at the top. So there’s this whole we almost digging into their marketing side and using their budget to sort of, you know, for our benefit. So it’s more than just a material. I think for us, it’s and listen, we’re not sponsored by anyone. We don’t get paid a penny by Invisalign. We don’t have any. I remember, you know, three years ago I messaged you remember Payman, I messaged you and said, Hey, we’re doing a course.

Everyone was doing sponsorship at the moment. At that time, do you remember? Everyone’s doing course. We’re getting like and then whitening brand and you know, I said to you and you said, Yeah, we’re interested. And we had, we had probably about 10 or 15 different people that wanted to be involved. And at one point we said, You know what, Invisalign wanted to bring their scanners in. And we said, you know what? No, let’s let’s do a course where we’re actually use Invisalign using lighten for the whitening. Let’s be genuine about it. Like if we’re using this, we’re going to talk about just that. I’m not going to talk about something that I’m not using just for the sake of whatever money is being paid to being sponsored. It’s fine. You know, a lot of people do, and it’s absolutely fine for us. We like we don’t want any sort of influence outside of what we’re actually doing ourselves. So we don’t have any connections to Invisalign we could use. You could use Spark. It really doesn’t matter for us. It just works because of the fact that we’re familiar with the software now, super familiar with it, you know, the advertising side. But I could achieve exactly the same results exactly with Spark. You know, if I if I if I were to. If only.

You’d figured out the software.

Software. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.

I’ve downloaded stuff. Yeah, definitely.

So tell me this, guys. You do this other service where you actually plan out the clincheck for dentists is that if I if I’m if I’m that dentist who wants that service, does that mean I no longer need to come on the course? Because you’re just doing everything for me and I just pay you per case. Is that how it works?

I mean, yeah, we don’t really advertise that so much because we have so many of our own clinics to do that. Whatever one pops up at us, we got to do this one. It’s just there as an aid. If anyone needs that kind of helping hand. But it’s not such a big part of what we do, I would say it’s probably a few percent of what we do, but it’s just an extra thing that we initially when we start out, we had both. What normally happens is dentists will start using the Clincheck assistance service and then they start seeing the clinics coming back and they’re like, What the hell is this? Like, I need to understand how this works. We give a little explanation as well about what we’re doing, and then when they start seeing the results, like, okay, cool, this works. It’s weird, but it works. And then they want to find out more about it and then they normally come on the course. So hopefully someone comes on the course. Should have need to use it afterwards. Some people still want to see what we talk about in action, so some of them do for the first few months.

And then the amazing thing is then everyone starts doing their own thing and we got the Facebook group as well. So once you’ve come on the course, people put the clinics on there. I mean, probably today it’s been about 4 or 5 posts with clinics where me or Ramtin or Elias will will give a feedback. The other delegates, the, you know, the ones that have come from from day one, they’re given the input because they’re, they’re all pros now as well. So it’s an amazing kind of support. And I think that’s the most important thing. Probably the most important thing about the course is actually not during the course. It’s to support afterwards because there’s so many courses I’ve been on and then it makes sense on the day you leave and then a week later it’s gone. Yeah. And that’s why obviously we have this big handbook with all the protocols in it for them and they’ve got the support afterwards so they can ask even a simple question and they can answer on there. We’ve got, you know, the webinars where they can ask questions on there. So it’s a good, good kind of 360 support system I feel.

What about the mix between being a clinician and being a teacher? You if you could have it your way, would you do less treatment and more teaching?

Personally, I’m not a natural speaker. So for me, it’s it’s quite a tiring two days. I’m a little bit on the I would say I’m an extroverted introvert. So for me, it’s quite tough two days and it’s very intense. Not because we need to spread across more days. It’s just there’s a lot of new information and it’s very important for us to bring that cross in the easiest way possible. And that takes time to teach.

It’s tiring for sure.

It takes a lot. You have to give out a lot of energy to to make sure it comes across. And we want it to be amazing for everyone. So everything has to go well for us to be kind of happy with it. So yeah, it is tiring, you know, we’re kind of drained for a few days afterwards. So we said this Do we want to teach more? Yeah, we can probably do a little bit more, but I really enjoy the clinical side, so for me it’s a good mix. I don’t think I would do much more teaching, but think, Rampton, maybe you’re a bit different. You prefer more the teaching side than the clinical? No.

No, I agree with Daemon. I think for me as well, I think those two days are super. Even those three of us Payman and we divide everything up those two days. It’s still hours of work and, and you know, for us it’s like on the breaks and in between, people are bringing their own checks up. So for us, it’s really a, you know, we get there seven, we leave probably about 7 p.m. after answering all the questions. And throughout, like we generally tend not to eat anything during those two days. It’s just constant, non-stop. And so it’s very tiring. It takes me it probably takes me. I’m not as young as Damien, as fit as Damien. It probably takes me about a week to recover. That’s what we’ve kept. We have three, sometimes four a year, and we’re thinking of maybe even reducing that by one next year, maybe just because it might be just a little bit too much, I feel. But I think we.

Like have helpers as well. Or is it just the three of you? Do you have other people helping?

Yeah.

Yeah. So there’s us three and then we have we have one of our treatment coordinators at the practice too, that comes from the practice. And so she, you know, you know, a business manager that was talking about from the beginning. So she’s the one that deals with all the cool stuff as well. So she does all the organising, she does all the like sending the welcome packs out, doing all the stuff, everything. So yeah, we literally just come in like she books everything for us. We literally just come in and we focus on the author and she’ll be like, you know, ten minutes to break or whatever. So she’s on top of everything else. It wouldn’t be possible.

Is there is there a dinner as well or no?

Um. No, there’s no. Everyone asks about this. Everyone asks about this, you know, thing for us. Payman. We’re like, we’re introverts. We really are. And it’s.

Yeah.

Am I am. I know. I’m on seem like it right now talking a lot, but it’s one of those things in a group like I’ll be very quiet and on the side and it’s hard, you know, like it’s a whole day of being under scrutiny. So we’re very tired generally the first day. And then we generally we generally tend to get together over dinner and be like, okay, this went this went well, we need to improve on this. You were speaking a bit too quick. Let’s slow this bit down so we change things even the night before. So it just gives us time to deload and to plan for the next day and take on some feedback as well.

Let’s move on to darker areas. My favourite piece. Let’s talk about mistakes. Tell me, each of you. Give me a clinical error you made. You said you listened to this podcast before. So we try and we try and share our mistakes so that we don’t all have to make them ourselves. Yeah.

I do my cases, too. Well, no, I’m kidding. That’s. Yeah, that’s not the case.

Yeah. So.

Yeah, so I had a, I had, I had a situation where I was in my last year of university and in the last year you tend to do things unsupervised unless you need specific help. And it was a, we used a lot of tags and we still use a lot of tags for temporary Anchorage devices like little mini screws, seven millimetre six or.

Like a little implant thing.

Like an implant. Yeah. So we place it to provide this Anchorage that we were talking about. So if we have, for example, a case where I need to, let’s say nasalised back segments for, let’s say the lateral size is missing, it’s a 12 year old kid. I can’t open up a space for a lateral because from the age of 12 to 18, those roots might converge again. It happens in about 10% of cases. So I want to do something where I can close the gaps, but I don’t have an Overjet so I can’t afford to have reciprocal space closure where the uppers go back and the back come forward. I need the front to stay with it. I need the back teeth to move forward fully. So I was using an electric handpiece with the tag on it, a palatal placement. So it goes on the sort of in the palate next to the premolar, but sort of on the palate, on the rouge, on the number three. And, and I place the first screw. Absolutely. I placed two one on either side of the midline. So you can then place like a superstructure on it. And as I came to place the second implant, I sort of went up to the I was holding the handpiece. I went up and then the screw wasn’t fully I wasn’t fully in the bone, but the instrument hit because the palatal vault is very deep. The my the handpiece hit the teeth and it sort of angled just a bit like that. Oh, and that was all it took for the screw just to break. So the screw fractured in the palate. It was the first one to ever happen at the university, the first one to ever happen. So I was panicking. I had I had a great supervisor. You know, we she came in, we discussed it. We went up to the Brunnermeier Clinic, you know, the, you know, the inventor of implants. They have a clinic there named after him. That’s where he worked. And. Oh.

Yeah, you said that in Swedish.

Yeah. Sorry. Yeah.

Yeah. And, uh.

And that’s pretty much the only thing I can say. Swedish. And then we went upstairs, you know, and they looked at it and they said, okay, you know, we found out the material. It’s. I can’t remember the details like a grade four titanium or something, which means you can theoretically keep it in and just leave it. But the patient was adamant and the parents that they wanted it removed. So, you know, the supervisor was was, you know, I didn’t have a lot of experience. You know, I was three years in, but I was still a newbie. So we went to the surgery. I was there for the surgery to take photos and like, you know, take pictures of all the procedures so that we had that at the university. And, you know, they they made they cut parts of the palate. They, you know, opened a opened a flap.

There and there. And then or another day, it was.

Like two days after I think two days after. And they opened up a flap. They, you know, they looked for the screws. A tiny they removed a lot of bone to get to the screw, found the screw, removed it, sutured it together. And then two days later, she comes back and there’s a massive hole in her palate, big infection, massive hole in the palate. And, um, yeah, so had to heal. It took, you know, two, three months for it to heal. But, you know, they were lovely patients. We had a lovely patient. We had a good relationship with a family. Anyway, you know, the supervisors were supporting me, you know, fully. And we finished a case. It went well. We changed the plan. We decided to to teeth out instead and do a know different plan. It went well. But that was a that was something that stopped me from placing tats for about, I would say for about a year. I didn’t place another tag, you know, anything that needed doing, I would get a demon to do until I finally got over that fear of, you know, it’s fine, I do it. And then I just went for it.

On reflection, was there anything you would have done differently?

Um. Yeah. My planning should have been a bit different. I think I should have. I should have accounted for the fact that there was going to be a little, you know, movement where it was. I could have used a bigger light, like head on the electric handpiece. My planning could have been more accurate. It was one of those things where up until that point we’d been supervised up until 2 or 3 months before that on everything we did. And it was a point to almost trying to prove that I could do it. Like I don’t need, you know, someone to tell me what to do and I’m going to, like, show them. And, and I was doing a lot of tabs at that point. So even to the point where I’d supervisor like to the, to the younger students, the ones that were like year 1 or 2 like go and see Rampton does it. So I had that little point to prove and I sort of did a little bit quicker than I should have. So it was a big it was a big learning experience for me and it definitely sort of scared me away from doing them. It became a big thing for me where I just wouldn’t do them. I would literally get Damon to come in and do them for me and um, yeah, but then after a year, I was like, You know what? I’ve got to do it. At some point you go, I’m not. I’m going to plan properly. It won’t happen again. Never happen again.

And do you think in the management of it, like if it was your kid or whatever, would you would you think it would have been the right thing to leave it in?

It’s a great question. I would have probably left it in in in hindsight, I would have left it in. But if I was there and it was, you know, a small bit of screw and theoretically should be an easy procedure to remove it, I might have probably removed it, but I don’t know. The answer is the question is difficult because knowing what I know now, no, I wouldn’t with all the things that happened. But if I if I didn’t know, you know, everything that could go wrong and everything, I would have probably just, yeah. Asked for it to be removed. So this time, if it happened, I would say don’t remove it, just leave it in and just accept it where it is.

That’s a great story, man. Thanks for sharing that, buddy.

Sure.

Time and you’ve got a lot to live up to now.

Yeah. I haven’t had anything.

Up to the family.

Yeah, no, it usually makes the mistake, so don’t need to. So I’m quite lucky in that. And I haven’t had really anything crazy go wrong. Obviously. Back in back in Dental school days, you know, creating an extra canal when you’re doing root canal treatment. We’ve all been there and I’ve done some silly things. For example, I remember I did Invisalign and a patient completely didn’t even see it, had a bonded retainer on and they came back after four months. Patient was super happy. She was like, my teeth were looking a lot better. Death hasn’t moved at all. Lovely patient, thankfully. But yeah, I mean, that’s happened once. Never happened again.

Then the number of invisaligns you guys have done, you must have had the odd patient who just became ultra picky and just would not be made happy.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, that’s, that’s a struggle. It’s take, it’s taken a while for us to know how to handle every patient. I think we pretty much have that covered now. We’re also good at kind of weeding them out from the start. You know, when you get that that kind of alarm.

Spider sense. Yeah.

And we send in the clincheck if they start sending back emails with like drawings and you know, this upper left six.

Is they get more.

And more picky as they go, don’t they.

As.

You just got to expect that to happen.

Exactly.

Exactly. And that’s the problem because we’re quite OCD ourselves and we set high standards and that’s why a lot of our results look really nice on Instagram. And that’s what brings in these kind of patients as well. So it’s tricky. We kind of victim of our own success because if we create really good results, that’s what they all expect and that’s what we expect ourselves as well. But rather me tell them, this is what you need to do, rather than them telling me, you know, Oh, this one needs a bit more rotation. But yeah, they do become very picky and that’s why it’s very rare for us to do one jaw because I’ve treated, for example, one jaw before and then halfway through the treatment, the lower jaw, for example, that didn’t bother them suddenly becomes a big problem and then they have to pay the whole fee again. So yeah, picky patience is definitely a tricky one. Fortunately, we we get good results. So it’s not a big thing. But we’ve had actually there’s one patient that springs to mind and we did for her and I think I did about 0.2mm more on one side compared to the other. And then I don’t think our result was a problem and I think there was other issues at hand. But yeah. And then she started sending emails every day saying I can’t sleep at night.

I’m crying myself to sleep because this tooth is a little bit bigger than the other tooth. And to this day, that’s the only patient we’re given the money back for Invisalign to this day, and that’s because it just wasn’t worth the headache. So we said, you know, here’s your money back, Go somewhere. She was asking whether we could put fixed braces on, open the space up, put composite bonding on. You couldn’t tell the difference. Okay. I’ll show you the pictures after this chat. Perfect results if anyone looks at it. And then she went somewhere else and then they fixed braces for her. I don’t know why, because her result was finished. And then she complained to them as well, saying her head had got bigger after the fixed braces. So you’ve got to be careful. I think patient selection is probably the most important thing for us now if we feel that they’re going to be picky or if the teeth look really good, there’s not a lot to improve on. Like very little. We don’t take it on because those people, the expectation is already so high that there’s not a lot of improvement you can gain for them to make them happy. So yeah, we’ve had a fair few of those, but touchwood a lot less now. All right.

Guys. So it’s been a wonderful conversation. I’ve really enjoyed it and I knew I’d be out of my depth when it came to Invisalign and Alina, she was at one point I was going to ask you about, uh, what’s it called? Bolton discrepancy. But I don’t know what that means. Don’t want don’t want to talk about it. Don’t want to talk about it.

But not in the way. So it’s all good.

So we always end it with the same two questions and I want both of you to give me the answers. Number one fantasy dinner party. Three guests, dead or alive? Who would you have? Damon?

Um, well, I’m a huge Formula One fan, so I think Lewis Hamilton was the first name that popped into my head. It’s probably not the most inspirational one out of everyone that you can choose from, but I just think it’d be really cool to see, yeah. How his life is here. Some stories get some inside gossip with Formula One. Not sure how much I would learn from it, but just a cool, selfish guess I would say. Second, I’m a huge Harry Potter fan, so J.K. Rowling would be my number two.

Who’d a thunk it? Who woulda thunk it?

I mean, me and Madison are a bit obsessed with it. I grew up with the books. And whenever the book when he was like 12 in the book, I was 12 in the book, and I went to school with their houses. They had house competitions. So, yeah, pretty much felt like I was in their world. In a sad way, I still still watch the movies and read the books. So yeah, definitely a good number two. Just to see She’s cool, though.

I like J.K..

Rowling. She’s cool. She is.

Just want to see how how it all came to be. And number three is a tricky one. But I like music. I like a lot of modern music, old music. And I’m a big fan of the 50s 60s. So it’d be nice to have Frank Sinatra there to kind of hear his stories. I’m sure he has a lot of.

He’d be he’d be a fun guest.

He’d be a fun guest.

A fun guess.

I don’t know if it’s good or.

Bad, but yeah, that’d be pretty awesome to hear.

Last year, Lewis.

Hamilton would have much to say in that dinner party, but.

Yeah.

What you got, Rampton?

Um.

Yeah, I, um. I had. I had a few that I sort of. I thought, no, actually, not those guys, because, yeah, we’re going to keep it non-political. So I thought for me, Neil Armstrong I’m a huge fan of SpaceX, huge fan of SpaceX. Like, it’s my thing and and I’m a massive geek when it comes to it. I was at the I went to literally went to Houston just for the space centre. So um, Neil Armstrong, I think, yeah, just to hear the stories and you know, you know what, how do they, you know, how do they feel? Were they, were they nervous? Like, you know, all the different steps? There was an Iranian guy who was the head of Mars exploration for NASA who just died. Yeah. Firouz. Naderi Yeah, exactly. And he, um, he was, I listened to one of his lectures once. He did it for the, you know, the British Iranian Dental Association. And it was just, it was such a fantastic lecture about like, our place in the universe and how small we are and, you know, how insignificant we are, whereas we think we’re super important. So he was just that lecture was 45 minutes long, but it’s still with me now, so I would love to just sit down and talk to him because I think the stuff that he could talk about and you know what he did and you know what NASA does and everything would be amazing.

Yeah. When he when he passed away, I actually looked and looked up a YouTube lecture. He brilliant, brilliant speaker.

Amazing man. He was he was he was fantastic. He was fantastic. And I haven’t thought about a third one. I think I’m a huge, huge fan of Cristiano Ronaldo, so that would be a cool third person, just someone to sit down with and, you know, just just, you know, his motivation and his, you know, wins and losses and hear about his story, that’d be cool.

So before we move on to the final, final questions, who are your heroes in dentistry who, like the question would be who? Who would be your dream guest on this show?

I think mine would be again. All our teaching was literature based on orthodontics. So the king of literature really is Kevin O’Brien, and we’ve had him on. Have you had him on?

How have I missed that?

I need to go back and listen to that. And he’s just an amazing guy. Like he’s so chill but so witty, so comical and so knowledgeable and knows his stuff. He would be amazing. He would be amazing. Yeah. That’s Martin who you got?

I was going to say Professor Ryan as well, but Damon took.

I.

Like Simon Littlewood. He’s a he’s an orthodontist, a really good lecturer. He’s he talks a lot about retention and, you know, things that happens after the orthodontic treatment. Very knowledgeable guy really knows his stuff. You know, everything he does is literature based. So that’s someone that I would love to hear, you know, his his thoughts on on, you know, the current situation in in ortho as it was.

Amazing. Let’s end with the final question. It’s a deathbed. Surrounded by your nearest and dearest. What a three piece of advice you’d give them for life.

Am. I think I’m a big believer in saying yes. So. There’s a lot of know people in life. And I think the more you say no, the more doors you’re closing. You might say, yes, it might turn out bad, but it might turn out good. So, yeah, life is a bit of an adventure. So the more you say yes, the more the more experiences you’re going to have. So I think. If I can give any advice to my kids in the future is. Yeah, live a little bit. You know, don’t. Life is not linear. You can take think when you’re 18. You think I’ve got to go on to the next step. I’ve got to do the next step. In retrospect, if I could go back in time, I would have taken a year out. I would have gone travelled. Very difficult to do now. But yeah, enjoy life. Say yes. That’s definitely point number one for me. And point number two is. Always be yourself. Don’t ever compromise your integrity for whatever reason, just to get ahead and get an opportunity. I think if you will stay true to yourself, then things will work out a lot better in my experience. And lastly, just just be a good person, you know, treat others the way you want to be treated. I think from day one, mum always mom and dad always brought us up to be very polite. Treat others nicely because it always comes around. If you give out positive energy, positive energy will come back, right? Yeah, Those are my three.

Hampton Um, I think for me, I think empathy and kindness, I think, you know, I think I’m a real believer in the fact that, you know, you don’t know what people are going through. I think showing kindness to everyone is the way forward. What else? Um. Don’t shrink to make other people more comfortable. Don’t know if that makes sense or not. Don’t make yourself like if you’ve achieved if you achieve certain things in life, don’t belittle those things just to make people around you comfortable. You know, keep your head up. Be confident with what you’ve done and think lifelong learning for me, like, you know, always keep learning and always keep, you know, improving and better yourself because I really think a sort of growth mindset in that way will lead to like a long and and fulfilled life.

Because, you know, the kind of the thread that that’s gone through this podcast and, you know, would look at you two. There’s a there’s an element of doing things differently. And there’s an element of doing things better, you know, like the excellence sort of mindset. Where does it come from? You can you can fall into that danger of thinking, Hey, you two are the same. And I know my brother and I are nothing like each other but you because you’ve got the same beard and you do the same course and the same in the same practice, you know, you could you could fall into the trap of saying that. But where does it come from that that, you know, excellence being the thing and doing things in a sort of looking at things in a different way, looking outside the box.

Think Rampton is probably the source. I mean, we’re both very ambitious. Rampton is just on a whole different universe when it comes to kind of hard work and ambition and kind of just get dragged along with it, whether I like it or not. But we complement each other well. I think sometimes I, I bring us back down to Earth and then Rampton takes us back up again. But yeah, we’ve always, I think, pride. We take pride in what we do. And Persians are very proud people. So maybe that’s kind of spilled into, into our work. And yeah, we’ve always wanted to kind of, you know, what’s next. What can we improve on? What can we do? You know, we’ve done the clinic, let’s open another one. We’ve done clinics, now let’s go into teaching. So I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but we do get not bored, but we get we don’t like getting complacent. We always feel, you know, life is short. Make the most of it. Push yourself, get uncomfortable. Like this podcast. We’ve been dreading it for a week and but yeah, glad we’ve done it. Yeah. And.

Sideman can add something to that as well. I think for our source band, I think the main thing for us is that we’ve always, you know, like from, you know, the way that we’ve been brought up. Like, you know, we, we had parents that came to another country when they were, you know, you know, as adults. And there’s always been this feeling that maybe, you know, we need to do really well to be seen as equals, maybe something like that. I don’t know if that that tends to be something that, you know, you know, people that, you know, come into other countries feel like you need to you can’t just be, you know, doing things the standard way. You have to do better so that people see you. So for us, it’s one of those mindset where we’re like, you know, we can’t be just someone that does, you know, dentistry, okay, We need to be someone that does orthodontics to a standard where really we’re we’re no one can come to you and, you know, say, no, you’re not doing this right. You know you’re doing this wrong because we’re like our harshest critics. We really are. So it’s just one of those I think, you know, some things that we picked up on growing up, you know, just needing to just be that one step above just so that we’re seen in these environments from what we’re seeing. Our parents maybe I don’t know. I don’t know. Does that make sense?

Yeah, of.

Course, of course. But, you know, it’s a funny thing that we set ourselves these sort of targets, right? I mean, someone could say, Hey, by becoming a dentist, you did that in the first. Someone else, you know, might say that. The next guy might say, Oh, by becoming an orthodontist, you next guy said, Oh, by becoming a teacher. The next guy wants to become the Nobel Prize winner. You know, like it’s we we end up. Yeah, everyone sets a standard and they of what? But I can just see you guys are always trying to do things like to the top even even just looking at the hotels you pick for your course you know I know what it costs and takes to do that. I know what it does. You know, you can see you’ve covered every aspect. The AV is good, the the food’s good, let alone the teaching, you know, let alone the teaching. So that’s a pleasure to have had you guys really proud of what you’ve achieved. I’m sure you’re going to go much, much further. Thank you so much for taking the time to do this. If people want to get to you, what’s the best way?

Email info at aligners. Without a.

Aligners. Without a g.

Confusingly yeah. Info aligners.co.uk or just go on our Instagram complete aligner program and you can message us on there as well to get a hold of us.

But that’s with a G. That one.

That’s with a G. Yeah. We got a real problem, man.

Oh yeah. We’re not helping ourselves completely.

Like, go, go ahead. Any other way to get.

To, you know, that’s pretty much.

It. I think our brand is not on point when it comes to the complete Aligner program.

But of.

Course it’s pretty okay though the course.

Is pretty okay.

Aligners Aligners. Without the complete aligner program with the G.

Brilliant.

Exactly brilliant. Thank you so much for doing this, guys.

Thank you so much.

Really appreciate it.

Thank you so much. Everyone.

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 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.

So if you’re not campaigning for yourself, you’re never going to win.

And were you in the public eye as you are now as much? I don’t know.

Yeah, you.

Were. I mean.

I don’t know if I’m in the public eye now.

Yes, he is. He’s going to be he’s going to be coy about this, but was also dated.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

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

Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Mind Movers. I’m so excited here today because I’ve got not only one of my patients, but also really, really good friends. Was Asher. Am I saying it right? The surname, by the way. Yeah.

Asher.

Asher. Cool. We’ll go with that. We’ll go with that. We’ll go with that. He is still a really good friend, guys. I knew that. And actually, I have to say, someone called me Rhonda the other day and I was like, Drop the D, Just drop the D. Rhonda. Rhonda, you remember.

How you introduced yourself to me?

Oh, what did I say?

He said, it’s like Corona, but with an R, Yes.

That’s the pretty unforgettable. So was is a really impressive person. I actually first came across him many years ago. He wouldn’t have known who I was, and I then got reintroduced to him last year by one of my very good friends, Sana, aka Sweat with Sana. I think she lost the sweat with, didn’t she? And she introduced me to was because he wanted to get his teeth done. And at the moment that we met we actually really clicked. But I’d actually heard of was story a long time before. And I say story because I believe everyone has a story and was had worked in nightlife for a long period of his life. He was heavily involved in doing bookings for celebrities and was really exposed to things in nightlife that people don’t necessarily talk about, but happens a lot. And one day he came out on a post on Instagram and I actually saw the Post and you talked about how you wanted to give that whole life up because you recognised that you had a problem with substances and you were, you know, you were an addict essentially. I know that word. A lot of people have negative connotations, but we shouldn’t because actually I think it’s a really brave thing to say and I think that most of us are addicts in something was then went on to change his life and became one of the biggest fitness influencers in his industry. Not only did he smash it, but he also became, I would say, head of Equinox. Is that your role? Head of Equinox? Can I say that?

I manage group.

Fitness Group Fitness.

Group Fitness for Equinox or Equinox. Equinox Equinox in America.

And really was has created a community which I think is one of the hardest things to do for a brand. And I would say if anyone wants to argue with me, they can. That one of the greatest successes of the business can be attributed to you because you’ve done such an amazing job at getting people to come in love fitness, and you’ve gone beyond that, created really amazing brand partnerships, deals, including Gymshark, and you continue to do that. You currently live in York now where you have been also building the brand out there. Had an amazing summer in the Hamptons. We’re going to ask you all these questions as well. And lastly, you are about to be featured on a BBC show, which is super exciting. I can’t wait to tune in. So that is my introduction for the lovely Wires, which is short for Waseem. Waseem, Waseem, fellow fellow Arab brethren. Yeah.

Welcome. Half, half Palestinian, half Irish.

A full terrorist.

There you go.

Lovely to have you. Us. I think the way we were thinking about you was it’s not often talked about, but addiction is actually quite huge in dentistry and medicine. But in sort of high stress jobs, we find that people get themselves into those sort of holes and there are functional addicts and, you know, many dentists are functional addicts, too. Maybe, maybe they’re drinking. I don’t know what the definition is of an alcoholic for the for the sake of the argument, but maybe you can help us. But maybe. Maybe the guy’s drinking a bottle, bottle of wine a night or something. Yeah.

What is an addict?

Yeah.

I think there’s there’s. When you when you say the word addict, you think of somebody that’s, you know, so, so visually off the scale. So you would see somebody, oh, they’re drunk, they’re an addict or oh, they’re, you know, they’re high. They’re, they’re an addict. But, um, you know, addiction can have, like, silent forms. And, and I think that’s the, the most deadliest form in the sense that if we look at it from an accumulative effect, you know, if you were to let’s just take let’s take it out of dentistry, let’s take it out of fitness. If you were just to have a drink on Monday, drink on Tuesday, say you rest Wednesday, two more drinks on the Thursday weekend comes, you know, five, five more drinks on the weekend, five more drinks on Sunday. If you add up how many drinks you’re having a week, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, up to Thursday. Doesn’t really seem like a problem. Right? People would think, oh, they go out on the weekend. But actually, if you look at the week as a cumulatively, you’re drinking all the time. Yeah. So it’s it’s adding up and what you know, I think that’s where my problem started is I worked in nightlife. I you know, in London every night it’s a night out. So I’d be going out is a big night in London Tuesdays. A big night. So, you know, it wouldn’t be as crazy as the weekends, but you’d still indulge. You’d indulge on Monday, you’d indulge on Tuesday, you’d indulge. So it probably is quite relevant to dentists, right? You’d you’d do a working week. You’d. Ramp-up to the weekend, but you’d still be indulging in like midweek or early week, I think. That’s like red flag number one is, you know, we’ve all heard of that person that’s clean during the week parties on the weekend. And I think that’s a bit more obvious and that’s the problem is a bit more local and central and we can sort that out. But I think the danger is when you’ve got somebody who just has no problem with it but is doing it cumulatively throughout the week because then it’s habitual.

Do you think it’s dependency as well, though? Like you’re depending on a substance to get you out of your feelings and your emotions and, you know, what do you think it’s that the addiction somehow entails you being dependent on something?

Yeah, I think, you know, you have to have an honest conversation with yourself. And I just I don’t think the body differentiates between good or bad habits. The body just knows habits. Right? So society determines peer groups determ determine, you know, if it’s good or bad. If I say I go to the gym all the time, oh, he’s really healthy. He goes to the gym all the time. If I smoke, you say, that’s bad. You just got a bad habit. He smokes. You know, really and truly, it’s you know, the gym could also be a bad habit, you know, if you could be overly obsessive. So my point is, take away, like good or bad, your body just knows habits. Yeah. So if you take. A habit away. So say if you stop smoking, your body is going to want to pick up something else because you’ve got all this unused time or all this. You know, quite a lot of people contributed to putting on weight or eating more because people are they just eat more. They don’t it’s not your body is just looking for something else to habitually do. And that might be eating, you know, it might be instead of bringing a cigarette to your mouth. So I just think you need to understand what habits you have and what you’re putting your actively, you know, consciously and subconsciously putting your time into and then trying to decipher, okay, what you know what? Where do where do I need to move the needle?

So as you said, an early red flag is when it’s spilling over into the week rather than just the weekend in your journey when, you know, it was. I guess it’s difficult, isn’t it, because it was work and you felt like you were going to work and you were being a good guy because you’re doing more work. But actually your work was in nightclubs and in that environment, what were the next sort of flags that started showing up?

I just I say like quality of environment. Like if if hindsight is a wonderful thing. Yeah. You know, but I think quality of environment and then that trickles into quality of people right around you. And I think once that starts to deteriorate, you may not see it immediately, but I can only talk from my own experience, but I would take the people that loved me for granted. I would, um, not really sort of have any care or thought to it because I just knew at the back of the head, they love me, you know, my parents, my brother, my, you know, etcetera, etcetera, even my best friends, you know. And then I would run around after people and try and seek sort of popularity validation. I just think whenever you’re taking any substance, drink, you know, drugs, anything in excess, it’s it’s it comes from a position of, you know, that you, you, you basically it’s a vulnerability, isn’t it? You take you’re taking so much of it. You’re you want to you’re not happy and you want to you want to escape. Escape. It’s an escapism.

Do you know what? It’s so interesting because actually addiction is something that really fascinates me as a topic. And I think I really hate the fact that as well as society, we stigmatise it. So I was reading this book called Dopamine, which I really recommend to anyone listening, and it’s written by a psychotherapist, and she talks about how we were heavily addicted society. So like you said, maybe like our parents generation or the older generation, do you think of somebody that’s like, I don’t know, living on the corner of a street or like addicted to heroin or alcohol? Like we have those connotations of people that don’t have their shit together, dare I say, okay. But now we recognise that pretty much some of us are addicted to things like we could be addicted to social media, right? We could be addicted to our phones.

I think that’s the most deadly one.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. You know, I think that’s I think that’s that should be a be a conversation, a more vocal conversation because it ruins everything, you know. And it goes back to my original comment of a silent addiction. You know, gambling is another one. You know, gambling. I could be sat here with you now and everything’s accessible on a smartphone. I could be putting bets in losing all my money, you know, and and and ruining my life and ruining going back to that conversation, that quality of your environment. So the second flag, to answer your question is. Yeah. Your weekly your weekly, um, I don’t know schedule and then the second flag will be like the quality of your of your life or your environment and, and, and the downfall of that and, and recognising.

Where the addiction takes priority over other things and other things start spilling.

Away. Yeah. Like you might, you might start cancelling. I don’t know. It was something that you’ve, you’ve organised with your best friends you might and then you find yourself out until 4:00 in the morning somewhere or and it’s these if it’s done repetitively that’s that’s an issue if it’s done once in a blue moon once a month okay it’s you know it’s doable. But I just think when I was extremely unreliable, um, and for anyone listening out there that is in this position and you know, they they want any sort of advice on it, I really thought it was irreversible at the time. I thought, no one’s ever going to take me seriously. No one’s going to look at me and be like, But I tell you one thing that is so true is that you can change people’s opinion a lot quicker than you think. You know, when you’re talking about like, my rise to success or whatever success I’ve had in my given industry. But it you, you can’t be paralysed, you know, by the fear of of what somebody else thinks. And it’s like in that moment I was like, I get it. I know how it feels. In that moment, I was like, No one’s going to. They’re just going to look. Me as a as somebody who parties and drinks. And, you know, if I try and get straight, you know, they’re not going to take me seriously. You know, this this is what I’m this is what I’m dealing with. This is my reality. And I couldn’t be so far away from the truth.

So what was your turning point? Because as I said to you, I think it was extremely brave. I remember seeing that post. Yeah, I knew who he was. He didn’t know who I was just pointing pointing that out. And he and I saw the post and it was extremely, extremely brave. And I think that, you know, I’m very passionate about sharing your story online because I think you can reach a lot more people. And there’s something comforting as well, that when you put something so vulnerable and everyone comments on it or people give you support, you’re like, Wow, people understand what I’m going through because you keep it as a secret inside you for so long. So I think there is something really, you know, self-empowering in that. But what was your turning point and what pushed you then as well to kind of like go online and talk about it?

Maybe, maybe. What was your rock bottom? I mean, how bad did it get? So what were you.

So I’ll answer both the rock bottom bit was physically not wanting to be here. And I think like I’ll define that in the sense that. I didn’t want to people bracket that as suicide. Right. And it’s yeah, whilst there may have been suicide, I didn’t have the guts to commit suicide. So I think that’s that’s something that is, is you know, I want to be true about from the start it was more that I understood if I carried on, you know taking drugs in excess, I would, you know, my heart would stop beating and I wouldn’t be here anymore. So I think that was that was the goal, sadly. But that was the goal, um, in 2016. So I quit. In August 11th, 2016. That was the day I woke up and I decided to quit. I had tried to quit before and it was like, and then you’re tied to like social commitments, like something as stupid as like, how do you make an excuse, like, Oh, I’m seeing my twin brother or, you know, I’m going to somebody’s birthday? Birthdays were always, you know, it’s so-and-so’s birthday, you know, I’ll so I did like a hundred days before quit 50 days quit. I used to announce on social media platforms. Facebook was a bit more.

Of a thing, a bit.

More banging an Instagram at the time. Um, so you’d put your status up 50 days teetotal cheese. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you’d wait for the comments to come in. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and I was doing it all for the wrong reasons, you know, you mentioned the comments and stuff. I never, I never posted. The post that you’re talking about still sits on my Instagram and I believe. It’s one that says I’m like 4 or 5 years sober. I’m now six years sober, and in August it will be seven. Um.

What was different that time where you stuck to it? What was it? You were doing it for the right reasons.

Well, so. So going back to that moment, I had gone out, I was. It was so low talking about that rock bottom bit. I’ve still got videos on my phone. Um. Well, I was videoing a message to my mum, my dad and my brother saying, I’m really sorry, you know, that I’m not here anymore. I just didn’t like my life, like crying my eyes out. And I still have that on my phone. Um, and it was so true. It was just such a horrible time. Like, I just. I literally wanted to not wake up and I just wanted to go to sleep. I felt like I had, like, a world of problems. Like, financially, I wasn’t okay, Um, because it’s expensive. Um, but, you know, and just again, going back to that quality of environment, I had crap people around me and you attract your vibe, right? And my vibe was low vibration. My, my vibe was low, my energy was low, and I was and I just wasn’t a decent human being. And I just was living a lie. And I just think that that, you know, I think people forget that you put so much pressure on the people that you love or people that love you. It’s not really about you. And people try to internalise it and they’re like, Oh, you know, my life’s so bad. And just think about it for one second. You take your life away. What what does that affect, you know, and what does that. So it was I think I was just sad. I was so sad that I just didn’t want to face anything. And I was just like, I just don’t want to be here anymore. And, you know, and I just I was just ill and I just needed help. So I tried to do it. I took, I think in total, like copious amounts of drugs. I didn’t actually wake up for about 2 to 3 days. Wow. So when I woke up, it was August 11th, 2016. Um, and I remember at the time I was living in this tiny, like one bedroom, like in Acton. Like, um.

You lived in the hood?

Yeah, man. No offence to anyone who lives in Acton, but it was not. It was not it was not.

Bougie now, but Mala.

Mala.

Mala babe. Yeah, it was not.

It was not popping in Acton back then. Um, and my room was a tip and just like, it just, it was, yeah, it was just, it was just filthy. I remember waking up, um, and I just. I was just so upset. I must have cried my eyes out and just sat. Sat there just like, sort of. And, and just sort of like, where do I go from here? And then at the time, there was a girl that was like, really important to me in my life. Um. And she said that she she was so concerned, she thought I was you know, I was going to I was obviously the next time I, I wasn’t going to be so lucky. So I think she. She actually threatened to tell my mum. Yeah. You know, cause my mum, I didn’t. I hadn’t told my mum anything. I sort of and I think, I think that’s the thing. I think people that are out there and again if you are listening, you feel like you’re on your own and you’re dealing with it on your own. And that is probably the case in the in the worst cases because you’re element of embarrassment as an element of, you know, like how do you even navigate that conversation with a parent or how do you navigate that conversation with a loved one? Um, I think just the threat in its own of telling my mum, my mum, just like.

So did your parents have no idea? Did your family.

Did your dad. My dad’s a bit street like my dad’s like, he’s very astute.

Pick up the Palestinians.

He’s probably doing it himself. Yeah, but but my mum is like my mum is just such a beautiful woman and she’s just like she’s so prim and proper and just, just she’s just amazing. And I just like, I just the thought of telling my mum was like.

So do you feel you were good at hiding it from people?

I think towards the end, everyone knew. Yeah, everyone knew internally within the industry. And I think going back to like dentistry and stuff, um. People know. I think that’s the other thing as well. I think you kid yourself and you’re like, Oh, I’ll run off to the toilet or I’ll do this or I’ll go outside and have a cigarette or I’ll go do it. It’s you’re not ahead. It’s all I’m going to tell you is you’re not ahead. You may think you’re cheating the system. You’re ahead of the system. You’re not ahead. I’ve got a saying like oil always rises above water, like the truth always comes out. So I just think that, like, if your moral compass is off and you think you can, you’re getting away with it and you get your kicks and your highs out of arm at work and I’ll do a, you know, I’ll do a do this to, you know, keep going or I’ll do I it’s like, just stop it.

Do you know, it’s it’s, you know, but no, but you know what I think is interesting? So obviously, like, I’ve been teetotal my whole life. For me, it wasn’t a big deal. I tried a little bit of alcohol when I was like 14. I was like, I don’t like it. Everyone was drinking around me then. Obviously as we got older, people started dabbling and stuff and I just didn’t like it. But it was weird words that I had this real understanding of myself. I was like, I have an addictive personality, and I saw that as my choice. I was like, So I actually don’t want to try anything because for me, I’m worried that I’m actually going to be an addict. And in some ways it’s been really good for me because I’m like really militant about getting stuff done. So I get really addicted to like my morning rituals or like things I do at work or a certain way that I am. But I just knew, like I was like, if I ever go down that route, there might not be any turning back. Now during uni, that was really hard because people were like, Oh, like they wanted to get drunk, you know, uni life, especially back then, like ten years ago, people like it was cool, Like everyone just wanted to get like, do not.

Drink at all.

At all. At all. And that was Leeds. Leeds up north. Sorry. Love you. Everyone up north. But you know, Leeds was a tough times for me, so people thought I was weird. And actually it would put people off talking to me. So, for example, like guys wouldn’t approach me because they knew I wasn’t drinking. So it was like that conversation breaker that they rely on. And so I started to like God. Is it really weird that I’m not doing anything? But I still stuck to it. Fast forward on ten years. Everyone’s now talking about sobriety and celebrating it. Last week I went to an event, Spencer Matthews So he’s also like spoken openly about the fact that he’s been teetotal for a while. He’s got clean co, you know, his new brand, and he stopped drinking as well because he just felt it made him make bad decisions. And it’s so funny because when I go to these events or when I’m out, I don’t drink. Like, how was I a I was like, I never went like, I just don’t drink.

So people ask me that all the time. They’re like, you know, did you do AA or CA or. Yeah. You know, Um, and I just first of all, I think it’s great that avenues like that exist and there is so much, there’s so much out there for people to get help. So I just think that that’s like just because I didn’t go down that path and I didn’t choose that that route, you know, to to my success doesn’t mean that that isn’t somebody else’s route. So I just think that, again, if you are listening, there is so many ways to do it. So I think that’s that’s point number one, is that there isn’t like there isn’t like this like this blueprint. It goes, if you do this, you’re going to be fine. You know, it’s so circumstantial. Some people need AA, some people need a sponsor. Other people need to dig deep and find some willpower. You know, other people need a peer group around them, like a blanket until they’re ready to be, you know, to be built up and have the confidence to go out on their own. Some people can never go out, you know. So it’s it’s it’s it’s like you got to look at your deck of cards and see what’s best for you.

What was best for you.

I probably got the strongest willpower. Like I if once I decide to do something and I decide and promise to do something to myself, that’s it. I just it’s non-negotiable. Like there’s no looking back. There’s no like, oh, can we. And that’s in every and I suppose that’s why I’m successful in what I do with fitness and in my own personal training and in my own, you know, I just there’s, there’s just this, there’s this deal that I make with myself, and it’s like, I’m not going to break that deal. So I just, you know, I’m resilient. And I just I always say for every excuse, there’s always like there’s always a reason. So for every single excuse, like, I mean, I did it yesterday. I know it sounds really stupid. I came, you know, and using my addictiveness to actually help my life. But I just I was on a train back from Liverpool. Um, and the train, the train train got in at, I don’t know, say, 7 p.m.. Right. I know the gym closed at nine. I was like mapping out how I could still get my workout in. And some people say that’s obsessive and stuff, but it’s not. It’s for me, it was just I made a deal that I was going to train that day. And it’s it’s I could have I could have come up with every excuse under the planet. It could have been like, oh, I’m tired. You know, I need to rest. You know, I could go and get some food. And I just there’s always going to be an excuse. So bringing it back to going sober, I just think that you’re always going to have.

A reason not.

To be sober. 100. But but for that, there will always be a reason to be sober. So I think. Did you have.

No peer group? No. No group? Nothing? No, no.

I actually worked in nightlife for two years sober.

Yeah. Yeah.

But so. So how did you.

Know other than just, like, blind? Sort of. So.

Well. So once I decided to quit. Yeah. My job was still. I didn’t quit my job. Yeah. So, you know, I still needed money, so. So I didn’t. I didn’t quit my job. I quit. I quit my, you know, my recreational behaviour. I, I think there’s an old, like, kind of Buddhist philosophy, like, to, to solve the problem. You must go into it. You can’t turn away from it. And that’s exactly what I did. Like, I would go to every after party, you know, sort out everybody’s drugs, give people cigarettes, give people drink, sit back, watch what effect it had on them. It’s really hard not to get involved. Okay. I do that again. I just I just put myself around the problem so many times that it just built immunity. It built immunity. But also there was a bit of like I saw what was going on. And then and then I was like, whoa. I was like, this is disgusting. This is this is who I am. Or I was more to the point.

But that was the thing about me going out, going out sober, as I was trying to say, is that I’ve always been around non sober people. So my awareness and I hate to use the word, but, you know, woo woo stuff, you know, I like my woo woo stuff. Energy doesn’t lie. And when I used to see certain energy, like you say, turn because I saw some I had there was no judgement, by the way, because I love going out all the time. And people around me, you know, they are on something, whether it’s alcohol or drugs, and it’s never bothered me. But you can see people turn in a certain way and like you said, you just you can tell like people might think they’re hiding it or that they’re not. But it doesn’t lie. However, carrying on from what you said, I’ve got a little bit of a challenging question. Would you say that you’ve replaced one addiction with another going into fitness?

Yeah, I think everybody I mean, yeah, is a great question. Not yeah I have but I just I think I think. A lot of people have said that because now I sit on the extreme end. Like if you look at anybody within the fitness industry, you know, I’m out training all the time. I can’t get enough of it. You know, I should probably rest sometimes when I’m training and I’m just I’m now on that end of the spectrum. Um, I think I think I answered it when I said, your body finds stuff to do when you get rid of one thing. I got rid of three things. You know, I got rid of drinking. I got rid of doing drugs. I got rid of smoking. I used to smoke 20 cigarettes a day. You know.

You go all on the same day.

You just just all on one day cold turkey, you know? And again, it’s like I had loads of I had loads of shots at doing it. You know, I said to you before I did 100 days, failed 150 days failed, you know. And my biggest problem with the previous attempts was I was doing it to tell people are day 150 talking about social media and comments and and it was like, yeah, you know, and I was expecting I wasn’t doing it for me. I mean, at the time I thought I was, but I wasn’t doing it for me. And it’s like, you, you, you have to have a real conversation with yourself. Like, you want the best for me, you want the best for me. But when you’re away from me, it’s like, that’s that’s when you’re susceptible to. Yeah. To do something right, wrong. So it’s you. You need to become stronger and you need to be like, you need to take accountability. Like everybody wants people to be, you know, to, to get to get off it and do well or everyone’s loved ones do. But you need to want it like you need to be the person that is like the lead charger on it. That is somebody that’s going to be like, you know, I’m campaigning for this. If you’re not campaigning for yourself, you’re never going to win.

Was there shame in it because you were in the public eye? Did you feel like.

I don’t I’ve never seen myself in the public eye. I’ve just. Have you not? No. No, I don’t think I am. I just think I’m just. I’m on that fitness guy.

Lies.

Lies.

He’s not your usual life fitness person.

No, I just. I think I’ve had a life of. I’ve worn many hats. I’ve done the nightlife stuff. I actually started doing modelling. So I did a modelling TV show in 2006 called Make Me a Supermodel. Lived. All right. Did you do well? Obviously not. I’m sat here I got. How far did you get? I was like a competition to win a contract with select models. So I ended up I didn’t win the show, but I got a contract with Select, um, modelled for years. Lived all around the world Paris and and and all, most of Europe and stuff. Greece and all those modelling cities basically did that for a while. Um, went into nightlife. Ran all the like the top bougie bars like PR stuff. Ended up doing whisky mist.

Do you remember.

That? He was the guy.

He was like the front of whisky mist.

And.

I’m going to get his number.

He’s going to be.

A useful number.

Just if anyone’s going to ask me. I don’t know anywhere to go. I still get a phone calls and messages from people really long, like, Hey, I’m in town and I’m like, Equinox banging party with bench presses. So, yeah, and then I did, um, I set up nightclubs abroad, you know, like I’ve done loads, I’ve done loads of stuff. And then I did, I sort of set up my own consultancy PR, um, with nightlife and celebrity hospitality. And I worked for Ciroc Vodka and did sort of, um, placement with artists and stuff at different venues. And, and then I qualified as a PC when I was 17 because I just loved fitness.

The stuff, the stuff you’ve done sounds like really fun stuff to do.

He loves that stuff. No, no.

But the question that we just did a shoot with with models and things and it’s a hard job. It’s not an easy job at all. Being. Being a model. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, of, of the stuff that you just mentioned, which which ones are things that you would think are, are, are as cool as they sound and which ones aren’t. None of it. Cuz it all sounds. It sounds pretty cool, doesn’t it? Live all over the world being a model. Nightclubs sounds pretty damn good I think.

I think here’s here’s a here’s a here’s a deal with modelling unless you’re like in the top 0.2%.

Bella Hadid.

David Gandy Yeah, yeah. Who’s such a good looking guy. Um, no. And a nice guy as well. But I just, um, it’s, it’s it’s peaks and troughs. Like you don’t get paid for, like, three months. You’re like, you’re going to castings constantly doing rejection, moving around. I wasn’t super successful in it.

How did you take the rejection, for instance?

Well, you just don’t hear about it. You just go to castings and they just won’t pick you. So it’s just like you’re constantly putting yourself up. Um. And I just. Yeah, I just I was never super successful. I did a lot of I did a lot of commercial stuff in there. I mean, I was successful, but I wasn’t like, I didn’t it didn’t it wasn’t I wasn’t a phenomena in it.

Yeah. Did that bother you?

I was 17 at the time.

But did it still bother.

You?

No, I think at the time it bothered me because it was like I always say, desperation, smells. And I believe that in anything, in any work or line of work, if you’re desperate, people don’t tend to warm to you. Yeah, that’s true. You know, and I think, you know, you you never get desperate if you can stay hungry but never get desperate. And I think that’s something that that I learnt from that because I, I always want to be the best. I always want to do the best I can. Um, and I think that that, that hunger is innately is within you or not. And I am that person. I want to, I want to perform to the maximum or otherwise I just don’t perform. And I think desperation smells and I think do not ever move like you’re starving, never move like you need this so bad. It’s like, what is this going to do for me? You know, and then align with it and then and then and go after it. If you don’t get it cool, go again. But you. You can’t be begging people and you can’t be moving around.

I mean, it’s a cliche, but if you did meet your 17 year old self, what advice would you have given to yourself?

Oh my God, I had the worst fashion. I mean, I still do. I’ve got the worst fashion sense in the world. That’s probably why I wasn’t successful. All like when it comes to gym, it’s like, you know, black on black on black like was black tops. I mean, I can barely put together a t shirt and jeans. I’m like the worst person on the planet. So I think what I thought was cool was not cool. Like I just straighten my hair. I used to have like coloured contacts. I used to have see through Air Force. Like, I mean, I was a mess.

But what.

Life advice would you give yourself if you were.

Like.

If you were meeting your like 17 year old self, apart from telling them you can’t dress?

Um, like I thought you meant it was to do with modelling. No, no.

But what would you tell them? Like in hindsight, would the stuff that you’ve learnt because you’ve obviously learnt a lot more than most people our age. Let’s be honest.

Um, what would I say? Just just like, stop trying to please other people, you know, like I think. And if you look at the things I did, hospitality and all that sort of stuff is catering for other people. I had this burning sensation to be loved and liked.

Do you think that’s gone away?

Don’t think it ever goes away. I think it’s your you need to you need to manage that and you need to get to a level where you don’t care. That’s like the Holy Grail, right? It’s getting to a position where you move without thought of others in in the nicest way possible. So you, you, you put yourself first and you, you, you’re not malleable to your environment and I think I was super malleable.

Do you think Rhona the you’ve got dentists right who who are in a way you are the ways of dentists. Right. I love that. And you are in a way. Right. You’re well known. You’re out there. You know, we were talking about judgement before and we’ve discussed the thing about your biggest strength being your biggest weakness as well, right? So you’re highly ambitious. So that’s a great thing. But sometimes that can lead to like competitive stress or whatever. Yeah, but do you think that there’s something about the two of you that’s different to the average person who, you know, doesn’t even want to put a post up on Instagram in case their auntie thinks it’s not?

The thing is, I’ve had those thoughts before. I mean, I love it. I love the fact that you think memoirs are special, but we’re not. Um, the other thing. The thing is, I think there is something to be said for people that want to put themselves out there. I think there are some people that are like inherently quite introverted, like my sister is a confident person, but she doesn’t necessarily like like eyes on her. Does that make sense by character? As a child, you would find me like pushing her out the way, being like, Dad, take a video of me. I didn’t mind the camera on me. And I think that was something about like being a performer in a way, or being like in the creative. And I’d argue as is the same like I’ve seen him in his work environment. But for me personally, the validation thing doesn’t go away. I do still care what people thinks. The place that he may have got out because of what he’s been through, he said, You know, it’s about a place where you feel like you’re almost bullet-proof essentially, is what you’re saying. I’m not there yet.

I’m definitely not there. You know, I’m I’m definitely not there. I think I think, you know, to to sort of go back over that is that that’s to me, that’s like the Holy Grail, right? So to get to that position and I think you you have to believe like you have to believe in numero uno. You have to believe in yourself. Right? Any time. Had any short fallings like you’re talking about not posting or something stopping you from doing something, you know, and I know social media is a massive thing for dentists now, and that’s how they accumulate a lot of their work. If when you believe anything is possible, anything you have to believe. No. One, you got you know, if you’ve got two hands, you’ve got two legs, you’ve got you’re, you’re like you’re like me. You’re no different. We’re all the same.

You know.

You’re able to get up there, work, do everything that no one no one is special. Right. And I just want to I just want to make that really clear. It’s like it’s hard work. And there has to be a mirrored sacrifice. People always look at like, Oh yeah, this person is so successful. I want to do that. But it’s like they don’t look at like what that person has done leading up to that moment. And I think that is the problem with the generation now, is that people will look at people that have achieved success and they’ll go, Well, I want that. That’s great. It’s great. That person inspires you. It’s great that you aspire to be like that. Go and find out how that person got there. And that’s what people aren’t doing. People aren’t going back to their bad, you know? Where did you start off with your dentist dentist career? You know, you were you were renting a room, probably.

Yeah.

But I mean, it’s so much more than that. Like, we don’t even have time to go on my story. That’s a whole podcast on its own. Um, but the thing is that what I will say is there are a lot of young dentists out there and they do look up to the social media, dentists or the ones and they don’t understand the story and they don’t want to do the grit and the grime. Do you know what I mean? Like, I worked really hard, horrible working life for eight years on the NHS. I went through periods of barely earning any money. I sacrificed, I spent money on courses I built. I had sweat, blood and tears. But they don’t know that and they don’t even want to learn the stuff, the basics. They’re like, Oh, I want to do the veneers and the bonding straight out of uni, you know? So I think that’s things to be said for that. So for me, it’s really important that people understand. Like you said, the story now was tell us a little bit as much as you can about the show that you’re about to be on. How did you get approached to it? How do you feel about it coming out?

Um, the show is on BBC three. It’ll be on BBC iPlayer. It comes out February 19th. Um, what’s it called? It is called Go Hard or Go Hard. No, no, no, no. It’s called Go Go Hard or Go Home.

So fitting for me. Um.

So, yeah, it’s. It’s. They’ve taken eight sort of athletes or warriors, um, that all have a nice background story. Um, I’m one of them. So there’s four guys. Four girls. Um, you’ve got Olympic athletes on their medal winning Olympic athletes. You’ve got like MMA fighter, you’ve got some like professional footballers and you’ve got all, all sorts mix mix of people, celebrity, personal trainer. Um, and each of us have got a story. So you guys obviously know my story or some of it. Um, and then they’ve got trainees that we’re on the island, trainees come to the island. We filmed it in the Dominican Republic, which was quite nice. And then the trainees are out there and these are young sort of adolescent kids or like teenagers that have like really had some big issues in their life. And we use fitness and pioneer fitness to like change their life. And we train them. We get given a trainee, we train them and get them to compete against each other on the island, um, without giving too much away. So it’s like a competition for them. Um, and I would just say one thing, it does change their lives and it’s like it’s powerful to be a part of that. Um, it was an honour to be part of the team as well, like part of the Warrior team. Some really, really interesting people there. And just like I’m all about learning and I just think that like, I’m sure it’s like when great dentists get together and they, they chat and, and and there you go. And they and they but it’s true. And then you create stuff which you’re creating now.

But I think one of the most beautiful things in the world I think is giving or passing on your knowledge to help shape. And we have that a lot in dentistry where like an older mentor sees like someone that they helped, like kind of like harness their skills and then they watch them, like you said, change someone’s life. Someone taught me how to do what I’m doing, you know, like the impact that it has. And it’s a beautiful thing. So it really is.

Yeah. Well, you know, exercise can get you dopamine highs and serotonin highs and all that. Were you doing any exercise while while you were also partying or were they too all the time?

Oh, were you? All the time? Yeah, I was. I just like and that’s what I’m saying. People always. So I know you ask that question to me earlier. Did you replace one for the other? It was already in existence. I loved working out. Working out for me was like, I didn’t know what day it is. I don’t know what time it is. It’s like meditation. It was like, yeah. And I just like, I just love it. Like, I just love being in that position. And it’s a gift. It’s like it’s, it’s, it’s. You’re blessed to be able to move your body, you know, like movement. If everyone says this, but movement is medicine for your body and it’s it doesn’t have to be in a gym. You know.

People dancing.

People people are like gym gym they think they think as soon as you say, you know, exercise, people like gym. It’s like, I love the gym. Right? But there’s so many forms of exercise walking, getting up and walking in the morning. You’d be surprised what it can do for you. And I just think that, like, there’s so many, so much available for you and you might discover this is what I love about fitness is you might discover something that you love. Something be that you’re really good at and you just wouldn’t know unless you put yourself in that position. So I just think that that for me is the beauty of fitness. But the.

Motivation. Have you heard Gary V what he says about love? Gary V Yeah, but what he says about this that, you know, to have a private trainer, what they call it, a personal trainer, personal trainer, um, part of it the motivation wise is to, to go and make sure you turn up for them.

I love my personal.

Trainer, you say, but the accountability piece, like some people like me, for instance.

Yeah, yeah, you’re lazy.

It’s not that I will do anything for someone else, not for myself. Yeah. Yeah. So for me, that would be the way to do it. To be.

But, but, but that may be how you get into it. But you need to flip the script. Yeah. Because no one’s got you. Like you. Yeah.

Yeah. It’s what. It’s what you were saying.

And self care is self love.

Self care is self.

Everyone goes away at the end of the day and you’re left with your own thoughts and it’s like I just, you you have to put yourself first. I mean, I.

Sometimes think about it. Yeah. Sometimes go, you know, get on a plane, go to the, you know, somewhere six hours away for a for a party. Yeah. So for the right, for the right thing, I will do difficult stuff. He would have.

Been there back in your Ciroc.

Days. He would have been there. So we have loved having was here today.

Yeah. Thank you so.

Much for such.

An inspiring, wonderful human being. I like to ask each guest guest a question, so I’m going to leave it on that note. Who was the biggest influence in your life and why?

Who was not prepared for that on purpose? Um, in my that I’ve met as in like a real.

Anyone you want.

Anyone you want biggest influence can be Elvis Presley if you want anyone.

The biggest influence.

I just.

I’m like.

When you’re a.

Twin. I think there’s there’s something really special about that. And I and my brother lives in LA, but up until the age of trying to think of what time we separated up until the age.

Of.

I don’t want to say teens you we were in bunk beds together we like and it’s like he’s super successful and he’s like the opposite of me. I’m like extrovert. He’s introvert. He like, he played rugby for Ireland. I played hockey for England. Like.

Like.

Like he. Are you.

Identical? He’s.

No, no, no, no, no.

He’s Ginger. He’s Ginger.

Um, and then that’s the half Irish.

He’s the Irish. You’re the Palestinian. Yeah.

Yeah.

And it’s like he drank Stella. I used to drink mojitos. He had a shaved head I used straighteners. So it was like he, he’s not on social media. I am like, he’s just we’re just so different and I just my, he’s always been like my anchor. Like my, my, my grounding. Like, I always think that you can go back to that person and they’re they they I don’t know they just get rid of all the noise and the fluff and you can have real conversation with somebody. And he he’s always been when you’re a twin, you always have that and I’m so grateful for that. So like and in terms of inspiring me and most inspirational person, he is so successful and you wouldn’t even know and unless I told you so, I’m going to tell you. But he is first assistant director on on massive Hollywood films. Amazing. Um, and he but he’s just he’s so under the radar and what he cares about in life. I just. I could learn so much from him. Um, and he’s just so interpersonal. He gets on with everybody from the age of like four all the way up to 90. And I think when you’re in industries like fitness or dentistry, you’re so switched on to your target market and interacting with just those people. And he is just such a people person and he will he’s the type of person that will cross the old lady across the road. He’d talk to the little kids. He’s just he’s just had a had a baby as well. But he his priorities are so right in life. Um, he’s just had a baby, like I said, and his and his partner and stuff. And I just, I look at who he is as a person and I just think he’s very wholesome. And I just think he’s, he’s just someone that I look up to.

Amazing.

That’s beautiful.

That is beautiful. Thank you so much. Was and thank you for being so open because I remember us discussing and we, you know, we both agree this is something that doesn’t define you anymore. But I know it’s going to reach a lot of people and help them. So thank you so much. Thank you.

And also inspiration. And we’ve not done this before, but it is the only way I can see for us to get around this problem and if nothing else will have a plan B and then we’ll have a plan C and that tends to be enough for them. But as said before, you know, to do that, you need to be bold sometimes. And the current climate in clinical dentistry doesn’t allow for that. It doesn’t allow for people to just I don’t like to use the phrase have a go dentistry because having a go suggests a bit of recklessness. But you need to be bold and you need to be able to say, okay, I’m going to give myself the kit. I’m going to give myself the time. I’m going to choose the right patient and I’m going to just go beyond that comfort zone, because the alternative is you’re going to be practising the same way in your 25th year as you were in your in your in your first year. And that’s a real shame.

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 Amin Aminian onto the podcast, one of my heroes in dentistry for lots of reasons. The main one is that lots of people don’t know Amin Armenian and the people who do know him think he’s the best. He’s amazing. And I often think what would have happened if you had a big Instagram presence and you were out there, but but one of the reasons I was so so look up to you is a very modest person who’s one of the nicest guys I’ve come across in dentistry. And yet his reputation precedes him. Like people really, really around the Manchester area. People really, really do respect your work. So it’s a pleasure to have you. Amin Payman.

Thank you so much. I appreciate the invite. Now we met. Whatever I tell you, when it was, it was about 12 years ago, I think we’d been in our practice a year when you when we worked together at the composite course for the Masters. Manchester? Yeah. 70 odd people in the room. It was. It was bonkers. But thank you so much. Thank you. I really do appreciate this invite.

So, I mean, you’ve you’re the principal and the founder of Clinic 334, which is a purely referral based practice. Is that right? What percentage of your work is referral based?

Oh, man. Nowadays I think we’ve whittled it down to about 99.9% now. The I inherited a very small group from one of my predecessors who I’ll probably mention at some point over our chat, David Eldridge, and there were probably a handful that followed me from other practices, but it’s all pretty much referral now. The systems, believe it or not, are quite different between a referral setup and a general setup. In a general setup, we need the recall program. We need the on call service. That’s quite different to a referral setup. So the two I find don’t mix particularly well. So over time we’ve asked our general patients to join local practices that we’ve been able to recommend and focus more on the referral cases.

So look, this show we tend to talk about sort of from the beginning to the end, where did you grow up and all of that? But sometimes I find I don’t end up asking the key question I want to ask. So I tend to now start with a key question I want to ask. And it really is around that question of why are you so low profile? Is it on purpose or by mistake? I mean.

Do you know what? It’s funny. I think you’ll probably find that as we chat, I’m so contradicted over so many, contradict myself in so many things. And one of those things is my approach to social media. And I honestly think if we were setting up now, I’d have to we’d have to embrace it. There’s no way of developing any kind of referral base. But, you know, we were lucky. We’re low profile because we appeal to local practitioners. We do it through the courses. We run through study clubs of the practice, through word of mouth. So we’ve not spent a penny on marketing over the 15 years. And, you know, I can’t say to you and say our model works. All I look at is not not don’t look at turnover. All I look at is, is number of referrals. And if they are increasing, that’s a good sign. If they are decreasing, then obviously that’s something to look at whether take patients, take up treatments or not. You can’t control that. You can’t control what’s happening in the wider economy. But for me, the marker is referrals and as we’ve included more colleagues and more specialities and, you know, none of us have any kind of presence. I mean, James D’Arcy, a brilliant guy at our place, I think he does a bit on Instagram, but we rely on word of mouth. For me, there’s nothing better than a patient who’s had treatments, who will then talk to one of their friends and their friends will want to be seen by us and we won’t see anyone unless they’ve been referred. And that friend will have to go to their dentist and ask for a referral. Well, get referred in. We hopefully do the treatment to a really good standard. And then if we’ve kind of every step really looked after that patient, then we’ll hopefully get another referral. So it’s slow, man, It’s slow. And you know, there are times where we drop the ball, but on the whole I think we’re, we’re pretty good at it.

Yeah. As I say, your, your reputation is really beautiful. I mean, it’s golden and I spend quite a lot of time in that way with the course. The mini spa maker and I obviously meet dentists from there and yeah, it sounds like it sounds like. Sounds like you’re doing something right.

That’s very kind. But I’m also hoping the reputation is of the practice. You know, it’s not just just of myself. And and if it’s the practice, it’s one of the reasons I was keen to have this kind of chat with you is that I don’t often get the chance to talk about the team that we have at our place. They are just incredible across the board, clinical, non-clinical, but I’d like to think we all, we all try and do the same thing. We all try and look after our patients to the to the nth degree. Sometimes it works. Occasionally it doesn’t. But I’d like to think that if anyone is talking about our setup, it’s because they know their patients are going to be well looked after. And if that means, you know, if that’s the the bar that I set at the beginning, then yeah, I’ll take credit for that. But then everyone else has to kind of work to maintain that.

Amazing. Take me back. Take me back to the first time you thought I want to be a dentist.

Oh, man. I was 14, 15 and a family friend. So similar to a group of my group of friends that I hung around with at dental school. You know, we didn’t follow the the family line. We didn’t, you know, there was no one in our family that had done dentistry. I was kind of clueless, went and spent some time observing at a local practice and thought, this is Ace, this is good. Where were you?

Which town were you in as a kid? Sheffield.

Sheffield, Yeah. Yeah. Went to school in Sheffield at the time. Still would have given anything up until a couple of years ago. Would have given anything to play football. But yeah, so it was it was a it was an aim. I didn’t know much about it. It was only a week that I spent there and didn’t really pay. You know, you don’t realise that at that time, you know, as much as you’re observing. I wasn’t particularly looking into how that that practice was working, how what dentistry really involved was. I was sat there observing and just loved, loved the dynamic in the, in the practice, in the surgery between the dentist, the patient and the dental nurse. And then that was it. They did the we were the very last year of the O-levels. So did that and did pretty well, went to did my A-levels and failed abysmally. And you know, you talk about kind of moments in your life that you learn lessons. Try going with your dad to pick up your A-level results when he’s kind of paid for you to go through independent schools and had to kind of make some unbelievable sacrifices. It’s going to pick up your A-level results and find that you’ve got a C, D and an N, you know, an N an year passed and you can’t get any more humiliating, really. Um, but, you know, and so obviously that was I wasn’t going to get into anything with those results. And you look back and, you know, in the lead up to our chat today, it has made me kind of look back and reflect and, and at that stage I could have gone for recess or gone for I think it was biological sciences or biomedical sciences. And for whatever reason, I thought I’d do a reset and did the resets. Really lucky in that, got the grades, get into Liverpool and then moved on from there.

So Sheffield of late 80s, early 90s I guess, right. Is that what it was. Yeah. Different place to what it is today. What was the reason. Were you were you were you like an early early party animal like what was the reason that you didn’t study and I guess you learnt your lesson and then going forward in dental school, did you end up being the serious student or what were you like?

So I think as with a lot of kids experience more perhaps with GCSEs where you don’t have to work particularly hard. I didn’t feel I mean, it’s different now, I know, but for, for O-levels, you know, I had a particular work ethic that obviously got me through and that work ethic is nowhere near what you need for A-levels. You know, just sitting in a library for six hours staring at a book doesn’t mean you’re revising, you know? So my my revision method was poor at best. And I look back and I actually think I probably went into those exams confident. But how misplaced must that confidence have been just because you’ve sat there looking at the book, you know, and you transfer that forward, you know, a couple of months and would have been going to those pick those results up, hoping that I’d got decent grades. So you can imagine, you know, the world falls from under you. You’ve got, you know, with my dad, we’ve gone to get the results and I take my hat off to him. How he didn’t wipe the floor with me on that day, you know? Um, but is the testament to the man is incredibly patient man in him. And he said, that’s fine you know we’ll we’ll find a way around it. But it was, it was that it was it was a bit of parting and it was a bit of just lack of focus, lack of focus as a city. It was a, you know, it was a fantastic city. And I’d recommend anyone who’s not been there to go there. But it’s it was it was more down to me being, yeah, losing focus.

Tell me about dental school then. So you got to Liverpool was it Got Liverpool?

Yeah. A year older than a year later than I should have done. Expecting to be the. Lived on my own there for a year, expecting to turn up for Liverpool and and be the mature head. But you know most guys I spoke to had had had resat or taken a year out and yeah I was, I was lucky it just fell in with just what I consider still a good group of mates. I didn’t live in halls because I’d lived on my own for a year and I’d kind of lived independently, so I was basically skint. So I was living on. On the grants you had at the time. So lived in a house share in Toxteth and if you want a kind of a baptism of fire. So the I lived in a, in a, in a house next to a Jamaica house, which was a nightclub next door. And on the day that I moved in, there was a police cordon outside with a white chalk mark of someone who’d been stabbed outside the night before. So it was like, welcome to to Liverpool. But it was it was the most fabulous four and a half years.

Such a great city for university. Right. It’s just the just the right size for a university.

It is just the right size. And it’s and it’s.

And the people are just amazing. It must I don’t know. I’ve obviously never been a student there, but I’ve spent a lot of time in Liverpool and I’m actually trying to persuade my son to go to Liverpool now because there’s a size of town, isn’t there, where it’s just big enough that there’s enough going on, you know, whatever you’re into, whether it’s sports or music or whatever. But then it’s just small enough that you’re going to bump into people, you know, like in London, if we ever bump into someone, you know, you’re never going to bump into them again.

That’s exactly it. And I’m not sure what’s happened. You know, I’ve not been to Liverpool for for a few years, but I know it’s obviously kind of blossomed and grown. But, you know, but that it’s also the pulse of the place is quite unique. And I think that is something that anyone who goes there will pick up on in it. And the people are amazing and it was a wonderful place to be a student. For me, it was quite a cheap place to be a student. That was great and we had the most amazing time and not and it’s not necessarily just going to, you know, the typical student places. You know, we we also used to work in a bar in Liverpool. Kirkland’s some people might know. So there was a social circle that came with that as well. That was on a Friday, Saturday night, all through the holidays, I’d work in the bar and manage the bar occasionally, and that in itself was just added another sphere in social life. Yeah, it was amazing. It was amazing. It was amazing. I learnt a lot. So were you.

Top of your class in dental school?

No, no, no, not at all. Oh, man. No, no, not at all. I was just that bang average guy in the middle. And then the came to finals and I had a pass fail Viva in Pedes. And was it Paediatrics and Orthodontics? So, yes, again, on the day of the results coming in, my brother came up with his wife Sarah, expecting me to pass. And obviously if you remember when they put the names on the notice board and if your name’s not on the list you’ve passed, if it’s on the list, you’ve got a viva. So they’re there expecting to celebrate. But I had to go for a viva, so.

I don’t know why. It makes me happy to hear that. You know, it’s interesting. Yeah, because we had Basil Mizrahi. He was saying he was, you know, middle middle of the road. Dental student Andrew Darwood, one of my heroes, He was saying he was almost didn’t get through dental school either. And it goes to show, doesn’t it, that you can you can get serious at any point in dentistry or, you know, it’s not necessarily dental school. That’s what can define your career.

Absolutely. You know, and it kind of and it’s I was talking to we often have young graduates who sit in and observe. And that’s one thing that I’m going to try and push more and more over the next few years is trying to get young graduates in. And we had one in last week. And she was saying, you know, there were being asked to choose a career or choose their specialities as quickly as possible because they’ve been told that time is of the essence and just don’t get that. I honestly don’t get that because if you’d asked me within a year or two of qualifying, what would I have wanted to do? I’d be been on a completely different trajectory to what followed because it did take me three, 4 or 5 years to work out. So yeah, middle, middle of the road.

That’s funny because the I give that advice to young dentists, pick something and go for it, which is opposite to what you’re saying. Don’t you think? If you had done that, if, let’s say you’d by chance picked Endo and gone for it, don’t you think you’d now be one of the top end of dentists in the country as well?

Um, I just can’t imagine I’d get I’d find another specialities fulfilling. I honestly can’t. The variety that I get from my working day in Prosthodontics is just insane. And again, that’s the other reason I try and encourage young graduates to come and observe, because unless you’ve seen it, you’ll assume it’s all tooth wear or you’ll assume it’s all implants and it isn’t. You know, there is so much to prosthodontics and I’m more than happy to bang that drum. From what I’ve seen of Andover, it’s the one thing that I couldn’t I couldn’t do. I don’t think maybe, you know, you can’t maybe I can’t be accurate in saying that now. But in my choice that I made in Prosthodontics, I think I made it at the right time. And that was kind of a good three, four years after qualifying. And I think if I’d made a choice any earlier, I’m not convinced it would have been the right one.

Fair enough. So what did you do after you qualified? What was your first job?

Oh, man. So, you know, I always think kind of blessings are either the people you come across or the circumstances that happen. And so you know, I’m going to go back a stage. So, you know, just before we sat finals, I need to Eileen Thiele, lovely lady, head of perio and she said, you know, if you carry on the way you’re doing, you’re going to fail. There’s no chance. So you come in. Coming to sit in one of my consult sessions for Over your Christmas, I think it must have been summer holidays, actually, because we sat our finals in December just as you come in and went to all the consult clinics throughout the whole of the summer and that was a massive game changer. And then when it came to at the time, it was it was again late for applying for positions and didn’t have anything lined up at all. But a good one of my best mates, Hugh, he found he got a job in North Wales thinking that he wouldn’t get a house officer’s job. He’d signed the contract for the position and then found he had a house officer job. So he then he tried to he wanted to do the house officer job, but he already signed the contract. So Tim, who was who was going to be his trainer, was obviously not happy because he was going to lose out on a trainee.

So obviously Hugh and myself see it differently. He sees it as he gifted me a job. I see it as me saving his ass by taking the job. But either way, it was a match made in heaven. He he did his job and now was a successful consultant. In fact, I had the most amazing year and a half. And that first year in in North Wales was amazing. You know, we said to you, we talked about Liverpool being a brilliant place and everyone wanted to stay there when they qualified. You know, everyone was trying to get to the practices that were within Liverpool. We myself, Greg and Indi ended up in North Wales and in hindsight it was the best thing to get away from Liverpool to to fresh surroundings. And, and Tim was my trainer and between him and Rob Shaw, who was the course organiser for the North North Wales scheme and I know everyone on that scheme had had an amazing program. I myself had a brilliant introduction to dentistry. So at the end of that year you’re kind of going into to your associateship, you know, flying because you’ve had you’re going in with optimism and having had a good laugh and having having had a good grounding, did that for a year, year and a half.

It’s like a launch the launch pad, isn’t it? Like your early jobs, particularly your first job, I find your first boss can really set a trajectory in terms of mindset for you.

There’s there’s so many aspects to that first job and and it really saddens me when I speak to the foundation trainees and they’ll talk about how they don’t get on with their trainer, how, you know, even if you don’t learn a lot, just finish that year. Enthusiastic, feel enthused where the moment you’re thinking you’ve chosen the wrong career. It’s just so sad because to try and turn that around on your own terms or in your associate is, you know, of course all you need is one poor job choice as an associate. And then that’s that’s, that’s you, you know, you’re, you’re spiralling and, and I hope and I do hope that trainers do do kind of spend as much time not just in the clinic but outside the clinic just trying to remind these young graduates, you know, they made a great choice. It’s a brilliant career. It’s got lots of avenues where they can they can follow, but it may not be general practice, but there’s so many other things they can do. It’s and Tim and Rob were really supportive in that. And I remember when I said to Tim, you know, Tim, you know, Tim, I’m going to leave. It was gutted, but it was it was incredibly supportive at the same time.

Did you leave straight after the first year?

That one year did an extra six months. And then I we moved to Manchester. Greg and I shared a house and and then went to the Falklands for a year. That was always interesting.

Yeah. So I read, I read you became the clinical director of the fork. The, what was it? The head of the head of the. History at the.

Sioux people there. So the first one there is the head of the clinic. Yeah. So so.

The actual the job role called.

Clinic. What was it?

Chief Dental Officer. Chief Dental.

Officer. Yeah. Dental office Officer. Yeah. So to apply for their masters. So realised that, you know, straight away there was, there was, there was a hole in my kind of understanding of bridgework and fixed pros. So applied for the MSC Sir Manchester met Prof now Sir Nathan Wilson again another blessing. Great. And he and he said, you know, you’ve just missed your cut off so we can’t take you on for this year, but you know, you’re in for next year. So add a year to kill. So I thought, you know, what do I do in this advert came with for the Falkland Islands. And I remember thinking, oh, you know, apply just to see what it’s about. Went down for interview, did the questions and, you know, came to the end of the interview and they asked me, you know, what do you have any questions? And I said, Yeah, yeah, I’m intrigued. Why? Why do you want someone just for three months? Because I thought it was a short term locum. And they said, Well, no, no, this interview is for the two year post. Sorry, I can’t, I can’t. I can’t commit to that. I’ve got I’ve got a programme lined up in 12 months time. So we called it an end. And a week later they rang up and said, you know, we’d still like to offer it to you for a year if you fancy it. And there’s me thinking, obviously there’s not many. There’s not been many applicants. That’s the reason why. So but yeah, that’s fine. You know, it’s a year to save some money expecting not to spend anything and, you know, just so naive about it, about where it was and what the job would entail. Took the job. I remember just, you know, getting on the Tristar, Brize Norton, stopping at Ascension, getting off to stretch your legs, getting back on again, flying into Stanley and, you know, being escorted by the tornados. They always do that when you get into the Falkland airspace and then just getting on the drive into Stanley itself and just thinking, what have I done? What have I done?

Was it a military role?

No, no, no. That’s the thing. So the nothing to do with the dentist? No. No. So you’re employed by the government?

Employed.

So you’re purely looking after the inhabitants of the island. So the military.

Like if let’s say let’s say someone touched me down in the Falkland Islands or dropped me in the Falkland Islands, would I think I’m in North Wales or something or is it completely different?

It’s quite nothing. Nothing like it. I remember on the way down there I’m going to show how borderline idiotic I am. So on the way down there, we we popped into Costco to pick up some things, you know, things like thick winter socks and things. And I thought, you know, just there was a massive, you know, Costco have everything on the mega scale. They had this massive atlas. So I opened the atlas to find out exactly where it was. And I kept turning the page to go further and further south. And in the end, you can see this very you know, it’s on the same page of Antarctica, south Georgia, on the same page. And and what you have.

Is freezing.

It. You know, the winters were cold but crisp. You know, it’s for me it was reminded me of Sheffield. Cold, crisp winters, beautiful, warm but windy summers. The landscape is barren, but in a beautiful way. When the when the gorse is blossoming, you know, it’s this amazing, vibrant yellow. Yeah. It’s, you know, it’s got mountains. It’s got, you know, for me as a kid who, you know, I was 12 in the Falklands War, so I remember, you know, there was a lot of those a lot of that geography was imprinted on your mind and you were seeing it in real life. You know, you you’d go on on little treks across the mountains and you’d see this these plastic carrier bags that were dug into the mud that had Spanish writing on, you know, this is what was left by the Argentinians. This is the kind of real life. But it was as far as you know, it was it was a year that you dropped into the deep end, you know, on every level. You had developed social skills Clinically. It made a massive difference for me because, you know, there was no lab on site. So your lab is in was near Oxford, so he would get picked up once a week. The lamp still insisted on the two week turnaround. So it was, you know, you were getting back on the third week and I think back back now and just think, why didn’t I not just ring him up and say, do you mind just doing this on a week turnaround? Because, you know, and he had to make sure the impression was good because if it came back and it didn’t fit, then you’d have to do the whole thing again. But what you did, have you had the time? If you wanted to spend three hours on a prep, you spend three hours on a prep, you want to spend half a day on a case, you spend half a day. So it was a it was a time where you kind of hone your skills. I think clinically.

Was there no question of sending it to a lab in Argentina or something that was that completely out of the question?

No, no, no, no, no. How about.

Visiting? Did you did you think about visiting South America at that point?

So it is so yeah. So I’ve not been back since, but the, the they still had the sentiments toward towards Argentina was still very raw. So, you know, at the time they were trying the Argentinians were trying to send their family over to visit the war graves in the Falklands. And there was a lot of resistance in the Falklands still because of of it’s it’s an amazingly unique place. It is the most British place I’ve I’ve ever been to. You know, they will take they will take a holiday for the queens at the time the queen’s birthday. They will celebrate every British event to the nth degree. And it is beautiful, beautiful for that. But the negative of that was that there was a there was a definite reaction to anything Argentinian. So yeah, if you if I mentioned that I was going to go and visit Argentina on my way back, you know, that was my card marked. But I’ve visited Chile. Chile was amazing. We represented the Falkland Islands in football. That was amazing. We went on a tour to South to Chile. Yeah, it was. We made the, the local press there. Mr. Penalty So yeah, so it was so you look, you know, you look back and it was an amazing 12 months.

And the work, the work was, you know, were you up to the work at the time or did you feel like you didn’t you didn’t know what you were up to? You didn’t you didn’t know.

What they asked for on the way out is, you know, as part of the job description, was to have someone who had good experience in everything. And that included or included oral surgery. That’s the one thing I hadn’t done. I hadn’t done a hospital job. So, you know, management of acute surgical cases, trauma, I hadn’t done it at all, but I kind of winged it, got there and expecting to hopefully as you do, as you do, and, you know, you look back and just so lucky and there’s a lot of fishing on big, big trawler ships in the Falkland Islands waters. And these huge, huge ships do everything from the fishing to the processing to the canning of the fish. So these are and these these guys are away from home. These they were mostly Koreans and Vietnamese guys were away from home for months and months on end. But, you know, health and safety isn’t wasn’t a big thing. And when you had an accident, it was a big accident. So they had you know, they had guys coming on with these, you know, quite serious injuries. And the one thing I could call on was the guys from Mount Pleasant, the Army base. So there was always a military surgeon, whether it be a dentally qualified or ENT. And there was one case that we we treated jointly where I was way out of my depth and they had thankfully helped me through. But it could have been a lot worse.

And it was soon after you got back that you decided you weren’t to specialise because I know you’d already had your place. You had your place, right? So, so, yeah.

So I came back to this. Yeah, came back and did the two year. So it was a two year part time program. Yeah. And so. Prof. Wilson And again, it was a time when we had. Paul Brunton He wasn’t a professor at that time who, who took on the program. And then the second year it was taken over by Fraser McCord and you know, it was an introduction to a team that included David Eldridge and Gordon Smith on the side, just the most generous individuals, both in personality and in their kind of willingness to share their knowledge. These these are guys who have been doing implants from the right of their very inception they brought into the northwest. And I, I promise you, I still see cases now that these guys treated in the 80s that are working beautifully. Well, amazing. And, you know, it amazes me, you know, they were doing this with five years knowledge, full arch cases that are still working. And it’s down to the testament of these guys who just knew their stuff, you know. And so we did the two years MSC program and Fraser, he realised that there was perhaps a demand for a specialist training program. And then myself and Neil, Neil Wilson and Anthony McCullough, we signed up for them for the four years part time program.

So, you know, you’re talking about six years, part time self-funded training. You know, it ain’t cheap. It ain’t cheap. But that’s why, you know, most of us kind of had to park the personal life. You know, we didn’t get married until quite late on because your commitments were towards your training. So it was, yeah, six years of part time, self-funded. And then at the end that’s when we got the specialist training post completed. I was working then with Robin Grey, who sadly passed, but again, another amazing mentor. And then these things, the difference now is that at that time it was it was a complete unknown. You know, there weren’t many, if any, specialist referral practices. So it could have worked. It could have thankfully worked out well, but it could have been. A complete duff where you kind of you’re still working it as a very experienced general practitioner, having, you know, spent a fortune putting yourself through these training programs. So it’s quite lucky to be at the right place at the right time. You know, it was different, different in London at the time. I think the referral practices were thriving there. But I think in the north west there was probably 1 or 2. Poor Tipton’s was probably the only one at the time. Yeah.

And so how long after you finished the six years did you open your own place?

As that was 2009, 2010.

And which year did you finish?

So I finished in 2004, worked with Robin Grey for probably about four years. Then Robin sold up. So myself and a couple of other guys, we kind of decided to go our separate ways. And then it was the same time that David David Eldridge asked me to step in and help him his place. And then we kind of inherited his referral base and then extended that into the clinic. And then at the beginning we rented premises, you know, again, because you couldn’t really commit. And then it was we were just renting on a sessional basis. As And when we were there before, you know, we were there Saturdays and Sundays. And that’s when the accountant said, you know, have you kind of thought about buying somewhere, you know, and when he puts the numbers in front of you, you’re thinking, well, this completely makes sense. And then we moved into the building that you’ve been to in 2011. Yeah. Yeah.

So those early years must have been quite hard in terms of getting the business on its feet. And, you know, you kind of had a huge referral base already at that point.

No, there weren’t, you know, there weren’t. It wasn’t. But that was the time where I’d work. You know, I was still working partly in the hospital. If anyone wanted sessions, you’d say yes. I worked at the Blackburn Royal as a locum consultant there for a couple of days, a week or a day. A week. The practice in Blackburn, I’d worked there probably an evening, if not a day a week. So you’d go anywhere and everywhere because you’d have to do the hard miles, you know, And it’s not about kind of making your week busy. It’s about doing the complex cases, doing the, you know, the only way you’re going to learn. But we had a good leg up with the MSC. You know, we did lots of treatments on the MSC were again, as I said, you know, the guys were really generous in giving us really nice cases. We and the specialist training programme hit the ground running from the first moment you’re doing a really nice big cases, so you’re going into practice with with a bit of confidence. And because we hadn’t committed to a property, you know, you’re only paying for the sessions that you’re there. It was, it was I couldn’t really lose.

Yeah. But you know, back then there wasn’t much in the way of education. I remember saying, I want to be a cosmetic dentist and looking and finding those one course in in London. I don’t know if you remember Howard Steen. Yeah, it was. He used to have this thing. He used to test test products adapt it was called or something and that was it. That was there was, you know, with the name aesthetic or cosmetic on it. That was the one course there was. Now today there’s almost the opposite situation, right? There’s courses on every single aspect of dentistry. I mean, even sometimes it becomes very, very specialised, you know, injection moulded composite course, you know, what’s your advice? And I know to become you a purely specialist referral based practice, it makes sense just from the marketing perspective to to be called the specialist and, and so forth. But but what’s your what’s your advice to a young gun who wants to get really good at fixed? Is it to do a specialist program? Is it to do both? Do you do lots of, you know, go away somewhere across the world and do a, I don’t know, spear or choice or whatever? What’s your advice?

Well, you know, it’s one of it gives you the theoretical background and the ability to kind of apply it practically. And unfortunately, there aren’t that many courses that do that. I’m not a massive fan of the specialist title. You know, there are lots of specialists. I wouldn’t go anywhere near. There are lots of general dentists out there that are amazing. And to see that work all the time. Depeche, you know, these guys there, but go to them before I’d go to a lot of other colleagues for for a lot of work. So the specialist title was was useful at the time from a marketing point of view. But if you look at our practice, you know, we’re not all specialists because we’ve got two guys there who just do surgical dentistry and they’re very good at that. So if I if I had the chance to run a course and and I think this is where dental education should hopefully move towards and it is kind of going that way with implant dentistry, but also it should be doing it with other aspects of dentistry as this kind of theory, then practical, practical on Phantom head and then move on to the practical onto patients. So I mean, what, what we’re, we’re trying to what we’re going to try and do at our at our place is, is do this blended learning, whatever you want to call it, where we do the theory, then we do the hands on on phantom heads. Then you come and observe. When you’ve done that a few times, you come and bring your patients to our practice.

Treat them there because we’ve got the kit. You don’t have to invest in the kit and then you’ll be mentored on site. Do that 2 or 3 times and then you’ve got the chance to you’ve got the confidence of taking it back to your own practice and taking it from there. But you know, that that ain’t that ain’t a quick fix That takes time that. Kind of commitment from the person who wants to join that pathway. But that’s the only way I see where we can provide that structure. And I think to be able to get better at something, you need to be bold. You need to kind of but not arrogant, not not complacent. Yeah, you need to be bold in taking these cases on. And unfortunately, I think the courses maybe make you a little bit overconfident sometimes. And patients don’t allow for that boldness. They expect everything, whether it’s the first time we’ve done that treatment or the hundredth time. And I think this is where we need to kind of just maybe go for this phased learning and do it bit by bit. And and you know, I think anyone can do a big complex case. If you’ve done it 20 times, it’s a lot easier than if you’re doing it for the first time. So that’s what we’re going to try. And I think that’s that’s and I hear implant courses where you can treat patients on the course. I think that’s that’s the way to go.

So what’s your own scope of practice? Do you do implants and do the complicated implants or or are you purely. Yeah.

It’s.

You know, it’s funny, years ago it was 20 years ago it was mostly a lot of implants failing dentitions Now it’s a implants failing Dentitions But say it’s 2,030% of the working week is tooth wear. And I do think, you know, that can’t just be by chance that we’re seeing that. And that’s why I’m I’m really keen on getting the treatment to these cases done in practice by by the referring dentists because you know man alive, you’re using that material day in, day out. You know, you’re using this direct composite day in and day out. It’s just applying it in a different kind of way with a tooth wear case. And the guys who’ve kind of followed our structure and been and see now be observed at the practice. I’ve now seen them do wear cases in the practice at their own practices and it works. And you know, and you’re adding a real benefit to your treatment profile if you can manage these cases in house. And it’s brilliant. The kind of really the financially rewarding, the professional rewarding, you’re making a huge difference to that without prepping teeth at all.

So I mean with with a tooth wear scenario, right? The there’s one aspect of it nowadays where we are more aware of it than we were as a general dentist, right? I think as a general dentist, you can see a tooth wear case and say nothing or, you know, you could be reactive to a patient comes in and says, Now I can’t see my teeth or whatever. Do you have a process you teach or that you use yourself for? You know, breaking it to a patient that, you know, although nothing’s hurting, although you haven’t come and told me I’m unhappy with the way I look, now’s the time to act. And then sometimes acting can be quite a massive plan. And how do you how do you manage that process?

Well, I’m going to go back a stage because I think it’s still surprising how many patients who are regular attenders are referred in to later stage. And I do think there’s an age thing. I think I think, you know, I’m trying to see if there is a pattern where the younger graduates are looking at six year olds and seeing them as being written off. You know, are you of course, you’ve got warm teeth. You’re six year old, you’re 60 years old. You know, you’re bound to have warranty. But actually, that level of wear is significant and you’re not seeing the fact that that patient is going to hopefully live on for another 20, 30 years. Yeah, and that’s so moving, moving on, you know, what’s what’s the process? And we cover it in our courses and and it’s a typical kind of speech I come out with you know tooth wear is teeth becoming thinner and shorter. But really that isn’t enough to explain to you what’s going on in your mouth. I need to explain to you with regards to what’s caused it, which teeth have been affected and how severe it is. And then I try and use that severe category as the as the is the most important aspect of that classification. Because if you if they fall into the mild category, we monitor it, we put in some preventative regime.

If it’s severe, we recommend treatments. And if it’s moderate, we treat someone, we treat and we monitor others. And it’s very arbitrary. You know, I say to patients, this is nothing scientific about this. This is very subjective, but I will put you into a severe category. If teeth were in a 70 year old, you might be moderate and you kind of every single time you see the penny drop. Right. I get it. I get it. You know, I’m even if I’m a healthy six year old, you can have severe tooth wear. If you’re fit and healthy, you’re going to be around for another 20, 30 years. And also follow that up with. But please, please, please don’t lose sleep over this. You know, this is not happened overnight, but just be aware. And it’s about making them walk out. One, being aware of what’s going on in their mouth and also being aware of the consequences of carrying on with a non interceptive approach, whether it be that that that’s been something that’s suggested by their dentist or by them. But they need to kind of. Often take ownership of what’s going on. And, you know, and I think that process works because the treatments uptake for our tooth wear cases is really, really good.

Although with you, they’ve been.

Already referred to you. So already the dentist has said something. What about the dentist themselves? Are dentists referring to late when you said you said that, right? You said they’re referring to. Is it because you haven’t got enough tooth to play with now?

Yeah. Yeah. I think it’s got to the point where and you’ll never know whether, you know, we’ll have patients who came in and said, Yeah, I was given a mouth guard ten years ago. Well, you know, straight away if someone’s had that conversation with them ten years ago to say you’re grinding your teeth, perhaps wasn’t explained to them at that time was that if you don’t wear this mouth guard, it will have a significant effect on your teeth. And I’m going to make a presumption and it might be wrong, but I’ll assume that most patients who are fully or mostly dentate in their 60s do not want to be wearing dentures in their 70s, 80s and 90s. And what you’re saying to them is that if you don’t do anything, as long as you’re aware of the probability of the fact that you will lose more teeth and you’re going to have to wear a denture. If you’re if you’re fine with that, great. You know, you can you can be more passive about it. But if you want to avoid that happening, we need to do something. And thankfully there is a treatment in most cases. We had one last week where we couldn’t treat because it was too advanced. But in most cases there is a treatment that’s really conservative and involves no drilling where we can build the teeth up.

Well, what you’re not saying you’re not telling me in every case you can do additive or are you?

Unless it’s really. Really. I mean, there was one case last week that was so advanced that there was very little to work with, you know, pretty much route faces. But we’ve, you know, we’ve we’ve pushed the boundaries so much where I’ve expected expected things to fall apart and they’ve come back and they’ve behaved you know the build ups they they will they may chip they’ll wear. But it’s very rare for them to just fall apart.

So then but then is it a transitional thing? And then eventually you’re going to go into indirect.

So, yeah. So what we say to them is we’ll do this build ups. And historically what we also did was give them a mouth guard at the end and the patients would come back at a review at six months with this pristine, fresh mouth guard that had never been worn one night. And and you’d say to them, you know, you’re not worn this, have you? And they said, No. And you’re looking at the mouth and the composites were wearing really well. So rather than charging them for the mouth guard, for most cases, what we tend to do is is not give them a mouth guard. And then if we get unexpected chipping or breaking in that first 12 to 18 months, then we’ll suggest a mouth guard. But I’ve not you know, you talk about transitionals. I can’t think of a case where we’ve gone from composites to indirects. We’ve got one lined up because the teeth are so heavily restored that we’ll need indirects. But if you’re talking about largely virgin unrestored teeth, we will go with a direct approach. And as long as there’s something to bond onto that will be hopefully predictable for years.

Well, but. Okay. So when when are you doing the full mouth rehabs then? When? When there’s lots of fillings.

Yeah. So full mouth rehabs, it tends to be lots of failing dentitions where lots of failing teeth, teeth that are heavily restored. So teeth with failing crown and bridgework teeth with failing direct restorations. If we’re looking to reorganise and change the occlusion in the tooth’s got a large amalgam or a large composite can bond onto but large amalgam or a failing crown that tends to be and that’s the messy work, that’s the, you know, dismantling old dentistry, you know, is is time intensive and that, you know, that’s that’s the that’s the kind of stuff that takes two three hours of your of your week. So the the direct composite cases are are relatively straightforward.

I mean how do you charge for that? I mean hopefully.

I’m.

Sure you’ve got an hourly hourly rate sort of story going on. Right. But you know, somehow we end up charging less for direct than we do for indirect. Even once you take into account the lab work element and we all know direct is a lot harder.

Yeah, absolutely. So it becomes, you know, I’m still, believe it or not, still feeling my way with it and I’ll look I think I’ve got on top of it now where where with localised where if it’s lowers there’ll be a particular fee uppers and lowers and additional increments. And then if it’s an aesthetic component where at the end of it all, if, if the patient is lost and incisal third where the composite that you’ve added on might be an aesthetic compromise, then you may have to then plan a third phase of layering the facial aspect with composite then, and if it’s the highest that’s at risk, then that adds another tier. So it tends to be and it is it sounds, you know, the guys who come and observe there must be walking away thinking he’s made a number up.

But it’s not.

But it’s not far off that as long and it is a significant number. But there’s a lot of time in Chairside and also reviews, you know, and you’re factoring in any kind of repairs for the first 12 months.

So what are we talking.

Yeah, I don’t mind sharing that with you if we’re talking kind of a very localised wear case, lower 3 to 3, upper 3 to 3. Um, typical dowel pro about 2000. If you’re doing both arches upper and lower anteriors, then you’re probably going about 3 to 3 and a half. And then if you’re talking about the facial aspects of teeth as well, you know, the high end aesthetic, talking about four, four and a half.

Doesn’t seem high enough.

I completely agree with you. I agree with you. And I think.

It doesn’t.

It doesn’t bearing in mind the time it takes and the time it’s going to take in any chips or whatever, you know, I’m sure you’re not going to charge them straight away. And the experience doesn’t seem high enough.

Yeah, but, you know, I think the reason I’m comfortable with that figure and I think I look at our kind of our implant fees, I would argue a less than a lot of practices in our area. General and referral is I’d like to think we’re quite slick in that, you know, we’re, I’m hoping we’re quite efficient. There’s no downtime in the things. The clinical time is pretty quick. So the wear cases they’re being done, you know in 2.5 hours, maybe in one arch. Yeah. So we’re not talking kind of 4 or 5, 4 or 5 hours, maybe 4 or 5 hours if, if in both arches over two visits. But it’s, it’s not we’re not talking about, you know, eight, ten hours it’s efficient workflow.

Yeah. But is that have you done this on purpose as in you’ve worked on the efficiency rather than on the price. No, it’s just the way it’s evolved.

It’s just the way it’s evolved. And it is just it got to the point where I was thinking what we’re charging is not enough based on what we’re providing. Yeah. So a couple, you know, a couple of years, I look back on some of our reports on the tooth wear cases we were doing kind of eight, ten years ago and you know, we were giving it away, you know, it was £1,500 for and I’m looking in those cases I’m seeing now, you know, the things are still behaving really, really well, performing really well. We had a patient who came in last week who should bust a screw in an implant crown that we fitted eight years ago, and our fees have gone up for for our implant crowns by £300.

Wow.

You know. Yeah.

You know, you haven’t done.

You haven’t done the annual increase that you should have done. Basically.

You know.

If you come to ours, you’ll hopefully pick up some clinical stuff. But don’t expect anything on the business side of things. You know, we’ve, we’ve, we’ve winged it so much because yeah, it’s the way we’ve operated. You know, as long as everyone gets paid and patients are happy and bills get paid and, you know, get paid what I do, I’m quite happy with it. I’ve never looked at hourly rates. We’ve never looked at any of that productivity. It’s yeah. Didn’t didn’t have the headspace for that.

A couple of questions for you. I mean if you’re at the tip of the spear like you are. I mean, you alluded to it before. Sometimes you’re pushing the envelope, like you were saying about the bondage bit piece, that you’ve done things that are slightly outside of let’s call it the evidence base for the sake of the argument. Yeah, I see that as your duty as people who are really at the top of their game have to do that. And also the evidence base is always years behind anyway, right? What’s actually going on? But how do you square that with the worry that something’s going to go wrong and then someone someone’s going to say, hey, this isn’t you know, people are acting a lot more defensively now. And I worry about it. I worry about, you know, we’re not going to get any movement forward because all of us are so defensive.

Well, you know, this is where, you know, I’m in that ivory tower, I’m afraid, because you come at things from a slightly different angle. You know, patients are more willing, I think, to take on treatments. And I think a lot of that is in the communication. If you’re if you’re you know, again, I say it’s guys who sit and observe. Don’t just come in and watch the treatments, come in and observe one of our first appointments because you’ve got 45 minutes to take your information, do your examination, present it to a patient. Patients in a really concise, clear way. And for them to walk out thinking this guy knows what he’s doing and with a bit of confidence, but also with a realistic expectation of what’s going to happen. It was really nice. Last week we had a patient who came in and I was saying to him how difficult it was and he said, Will you just do your best? And it’s been such a long time because patients often their expectations are so way off. What might be possible. It was just really heartening to hear someone say, Well, as long as you just do your best, I’m going to be happy. And that should be the starting point, you know, and and we we will say to patients, you know, there’d be a lot of stuff we’ll do now that we’ve not done before.

And I’ll say to patients, we’ve not done this before, but it is the only way I can see for us to get around this problem. And if nothing else, we’ll have a plan B and then we’ll have a plan C and that tends to be enough for them. But I’ve said before, you know, to do that you need to be bold sometimes. And the current climate in clinical dentistry doesn’t allow for that, doesn’t allow for people to just I don’t like to use the phrase have a go dentistry because having a go suggests a bit of recklessness. But you need to be bold and you need to be able to say, okay, I’m going to give myself the kit, I’m going to give myself the time. I’m going to choose the right patient and I’m going to just go beyond that comfort zone, because the alternative is you’re going to be practising the same way in your 25th year as you were in your in your in your first year. And that’s a real shame.

But do you see that with younger colleagues? They’re more worried than than, let’s say, our generation regarding this issue.

What I see with the younger colleagues, we had a young undergraduate in not that long ago and he’s doing a facial aesthetic clinics nice you know as an undergraduate to make money like I never even thought of that you know and I actually don’t you know you look at restorative dentistry when when we qualified you did amalgams you prepped teeth for crowns or veneers, bridges. There wasn’t a whole lot else. Perio, obviously. And even then we didn’t do that particularly well. We didn’t move teeth. We didn’t bond onto teeth, particularly apart from unless there was a filling. Nowadays, you know, the difficulty or the the massive bonus for these guys is they can take it anywhere, anywhere they want. Unfortunately, I think too often they’re going I would argue they’re going down the wrong path first. You know, they’re going for the Invisalign courses within the first year of qualifying rather than looking at an occlusion course rather than looking at a restorative course, looking at perio course, looking at the endo course. Because I think if you’re going to have a hierarchy of what you need to be good at to be successful, diagnosis of endo or perio, I think is more important than diagnosis of crowded teeth. Yeah.

For sure. I mean, your humility is what’s amazing to me. You you turn up to Mini Smile Makeover. You paid for the course. You didn’t contact me or anything. You just turned up as a delegate. And at the time when you came twice. But the first time you came pitch was 26 or something and you were a consultant. Restorative referral only fixed price guy. And the humility to do that, to turn up and be taught by a 26 year old. I found it amazing. I found it. And look Dipesh he’s extraordinary and all that. But you weren’t to know that for sure before you turned up. Are you. Are you that cat? Are you. Do you. Do you go on loads and loads of courses? And what do you do? What’s what’s your story.

I’d go I think people need to park that you know there’s as I said before, there will be people out there doing way better implant work. We’re so primitive with our approach to digital dentistry. Why wouldn’t I go to someone who’s maybe two years qualified, who can teach me on how to work on scanners, who can work on how to embrace digital dentistry? So you’re going to learn from anyone and everyone and, you know, depression, great guy, brilliant at what he does. The fact that he was, you know, whatever number of years younger than me is is irrelevant. I think it’s nothing to do with humility. I think it’s just recognising the fact that there are better people out there that you can learn from. If you’re if you’re not prepared to do that, then it’s your loss.

But back then, we used to get a fair amount of stress from people saying, Hey, who’s this kid you’re trying to get to teach us? And now I get it. I do get it. And I understand why someone might think that. But, you know, a few times and you’re definitely one of them where people have turned up who you wouldn’t expect to want to be taught by a younger person. What is it about you that you know that you’re that cat? I mean.

I’ll tell you what it is. Part of it is because you’re constantly full of self doubt. That’s probably a good start. You know, it’s always nice when someone says, you know, your introduction was really quite lovely, really nice to hear, but we’ll get the odd locum nursing or we’ll get the odd young graduate in. He’ll come in and be very complimentary about the practice or what would I do in it. And it’s kind of it’s at a complete conflict with with what’s going on in my mind because again, you know, what do you want to call it? Imposter syndrome or what? There is always self doubt there, but I think you need that. You need that self doubt to have that comfort zone because then you need to be working just beyond that comfort zone. You don’t want that self doubt to paralyse you to the point where you don’t do anything. So your whole career is spent about defining where that line is and just hopping just either side of it. And if that means going to listen to someone who can, who, you know, is going to, you know, and you might walk away from a course thinking didn’t pick up much from that. But there’s always something someone’s doing better somewhere, you know?

Yeah, I get that. So then tell me about your sort of pursuit of excellence now, because, you know, it’s a funny thing, the way one positions oneself. I mean, I don’t know. When I was a young dentist, I didn’t think to study any further until then. We started Enlightened and that was that. And then some people do what you do and go and study and. And have you found a sort of an ikigai kind of idea of, you know, you found your zone and you’re now just following excellence, trying to get better and better and better at that at that thing. And does that is that what gives you the pleasure in, in the job?

Um, it is one aspect of what gives them the pleasure. I’ve got to say the, the pursuit of excellence is, is in the effort that we all put in as a team. It’s not just clinical, you know, I think there are other people in the Northwest, definitely in the country who are doing better clinical work outcomes than we are, I’m sure of it, but I think we are brilliant at what we do as a practice. On the caring side, I can’t imagine there is another team that puts as much effort into the care of their patients as much as we do with brilliant of that.

Explain it to me. What’s what is it? What is it? When you say care of your patients, do you mean the patient journey?

Yeah, the patient journey. Yeah. You know, from the moment we’ve got a team that, you know, if you’re talking about kind of what I’m so most proud of, it’s where we are at now, at the practice where we’ve got and it’s on the back of lots of other colleagues that have helped us get to this point, you know, from back 12, 13 years ago. But we’ve got a team that are just so committed to everything that is the practice is about getting this patient on a journey where they will invariably start in a compromised, challenged, really potentially awful place. And you take them to a to an end point where they walk out and. They will sing your praises. They will bring you know, they’re paying for their treatment, but they’ll bring gifts and there’s thank yous. The the everything about it is is about that patient journey. You know, we’ll go back to the fact that, you know, the pandemic, you know, you’re asking guys to go back into the firing line of practice and not one of our members of staff who every one of them would have lost a member of either a family or someone they knew. They got back into it without any hesitation. You know, they they embraced everything we were about. They were confident in the systems that we had set up. And I think that takes a huge amount of respect. So the driving force behind everything we do is is respect for each other, respect for our patients. And we get we expect respect back from our patients. So, you know, if you want to get my goat, you can have a winter reception, be nice, be nice in the surgery, but have a whinge in reception and I’ll be the first to kind of call the patient up afterwards and and just call them up on it because it’s not acceptable.

Really? You’ve done that.

Before. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. What do you say?

Talk me through that conversation.

Well, you know, you’ve got to be real.

Idiot to want to cause offence. So invariably patients who cause offence don’t want to cause offence, but if they’ve caused offence then you need to be called up on it because if you, if you let that run they’ll potentially cause offence again. They just need to know that within our four walls, that thing that you said before is not acceptable. So giving an example, we had a saw a patient for a new console on his way out when he went to pay his his fee, he just made a passing comment about I bet he pays better. He pays you less than that per day or per week, referring to our console fee. And he left and I forget who was on the on the desk and said, you know, he just said that that’s quite offensive. So he either let that ride or give it a couple of days and ring the gentleman up and he’s and he’s lovely. And and it was and it’s just a quip. I’m sure he was trying to be funny. But I’d say I hope you don’t mind me saying, but you know, our staff took offence to that and if it was me that had said something that was cause that caused offence, I’d like to know about it. So just to let you know and if you feel that that makes you too uncomfortable to come back. I completely accept that but would be delighted to see you and carry on where we left off. And he was so apologetic and he came back and a lot of it is anxiety. You know, patients are anxious about being there. So they’ll they’ll they may say things that they might think are offensive, but it just means that you need to moderate your you need to moderate what you say when you’re in our four walls. You know, you can’t be rude, you know. And so, yeah, it happens every now and again. It’s about having having each other’s backs, you know, and can have the other dentist back. But you also have to have the receptionist back and the nurses back and they’ll have mine.

I’d like to talk about the practice and you know, it’s not by mistake that a practice does well or that people people respect each other. So how much of that is you and how much of that is someone else who’s who’s like, have you got a practice manager who’s really taking care of the staff side or are you setting the tone to expand a bit on the side? So how many people are we talking?

So we’ve got.

About nine clinicians now. Nine clinicians all do different numbers of numbers of sessions, but it all starts off with kind of myself and Neil, Neil Wilson, a really good friend who again put a lot of time and effort in setting up when we first started and you know, it was just a one surgery setup pretty much. But once you have that core is one of respect and being civil to each other and, you know, just looking after that caring process, it means like attracts like, you know, we start off with with the Louisa practice manager, then Nikki, who was with us for over 11, 12, 13 years. And I can honestly say bar bar, a couple of appointments, all our clinicians, all our nursing staff have bought in, into this, into this. And because if, if you don’t, you’re very quickly get found out because it’s reflected in your work ethic. If you don’t respect your people you work with, invariably it’ll affect the work you’re doing, whether it be on the nursing side, on the admin side or on the as a as a clinician. So I think if we want to take credit for anything, it’s perhaps that bit at the very beginning is that you treat people how you like to be treated. You know, you’re no one’s precious in our place. No one’s no one is above how to make a cup of tea for someone else, you know, to washing up. Lovely. It’s the little things, isn’t it? You know.

I noticed that with you, with our hands on. You came and helped us clear up at the end. You were the teacher. You were the teacher at it. And I remember I’d never seen a teacher do that before.

Yeah.

But, you know, it’s kind of. You know, you see you see your staff and on any given day running around really, really busy. And let’s say, you know, I’ve got a 20 minute gap. It’s either I go up and look at Facebook or read the football or just put the kettle on and just or just wash up. You know, it’s just the right thing to do, isn’t it? And I think it does send out a message. Now, if it means that I keep having to wash up, it means someone else isn’t washing up. And we need to we need to bring that up. But I think it’s you. And, you know, I think words are really, really important. If you if you want me to bring a bit of vomit into my mouth and start referring to your practice manager, you know, my practice manager, my nurse, my treatment plan coordinator, my accountant, that I just find that so offensive. You know, it’s our practice manager. It’s, you know, our training plan coordinator is everything. Because if you use that other possessive, if you’re in the room and you hear that, I think it just it means there’s a hierarchy and there really shouldn’t be one.

I mean, what kind of leader are you? I mean, sometimes, you know, one errs too much on the overfriendly side. Some some people are too much on the, I don’t know, bit strict. Are you strict? Are you friendly? Who are.

You? You know.

I try and be supportive. You lead from the middle, not from the front. Because if you’re in the middle, you’ve surrounded yourself with leaders. So I think the every one of us at the practice has got responsibility that they carry. If you’re in the middle, then the newest additions, you can keep an eye out for them because they’re the ones at the back. I don’t tend to shout and rave too much, but I think when I do, I think the staff know that there’s a reason for it or there’s a reason behind it. But it’s really rare, you know? And the days have gone where I used to kind of throw stuff, you just know it’s completely ineffective and you just come across as a complete fool, you know? So most, most a lot, a lot more can be achieved by just quiet conversations. And that’s the one thing I think I’ve got better at over the last 3 or 4 years is just, you know, just letting it settle and then just having that quiet conversation.

So, I mean, you’ve got this amazing reputation for, you know, knowing your stuff, but also for making patients happy. If you had to distil it down for a young dentist or someone who’s sort of just wants to get into this area, 2 or 3 key things that that you need to look out for to get, you know, patient satisfaction. People, people, people happy at the end of treatment. What comes to mind when I say that?

I think looking it looking at it from the other side, it’s about trying to protect yourself from patients who may have a reason to take it. Anything from a friend to a complaint to the practice or even higher up the ladder. So, you know, in my mind, I think there’s we’re trying to there’s three things you’re looking at. One is getting a successful outcome in your treatments. And obviously that’s the subjective thing. That’s largely down to what the patient perceives as as as successful based on their expectations. The second issue is choosing the right treatment plan. And again, we can discuss that at length. It can be subjective. We can have differences between clinicians as to what is the right treatment and what’s the wrong treatment. One person would do what bonding, One person might veneer a bunch of teeth, but it’s ultimately what is the right treatment for that patient. And the third thing is carrying out that treatment with with an element of care. And I think if you if you can do two out of those three, I feel you’re pretty much protected. You’re protected yourself from a patient having a grievance that may spiral into something that can be really quite stressful in your career. So you can’t you know, a successful outcome isn’t always predictable. There’s variations between what we might choose as a correct treatment choice, but if at least if we can provide a level of care, if that patient feels that they’re being well looked after through that journey, you’ve ticked off one of the three. And if you do tick off two of the three.

You’re safe.

I think you’re safe. I think you’re safe. So so even though we’ve spoken about when, you know it’s exhausting, you’ve got things going in your life and the patient comes and they’re demanding and you’ve really been pushed to your limits. And that’s when you’ve really got to pull it out the bag and show that empathy and that care and that understanding. And if you can do that, and if it’s a lengthy treatment process, it’s multiple appointments, it might be a patient that you may not particularly like as a personality, but you’ve still got to face up. But if you can do that consistently and then either provide a successful outcome or make sure you choose the right treatment in their eyes, I think you can be relaxed and comfortable.

So in a way, you’re saying if if your rapport with the patient is good. And on paper you chose the right treatment plan. If things go wrong, if you don’t get that third one, it’s not going to spiral out of control.

And you look at it the other way, you know, you’ll have patients who’ll go to dentists who can be really prickly characters who who, who are, you know, snappy, short, you know, rude to their staff, but they provide really good treatment with a successful outcome. So they’ll put up with it.

Yeah. Yeah. And what about when you say if you haven’t got that natural rapport with a patient, have you got any tactics that you use in order to, you know, at least make him feel that you’ve got some rapport?

Yeah. You know.

It’s about kind of making that connection and it is different. It is different in a in a referral practice setting because, you know, in a general practice, you’ll see the patient once every six months. And over the course of years you’ll get to know them and their circumstances and their family referral setup. Often you’ll see them over a short period of time, but you’ll see a lot of them. Yeah, yeah, you’ll see. And you’ll get to know them really well. And I think that is the difference. So it’s about trying to get that relationship built up in a, in a, in a general practice setting. And it’s, it’s, it’s a, it’s a soft skill isn’t it. It’s a soft skill that you need to develop. I think unfortunately, I think there was a study that shows that our level of empathy actually decreases the more patient exposure we get. Yeah. So you’ve got to kind of it’s something you work at because it’s human nature. You know, you’re tired, you’re you’re running late and you’ve got to just face up and, and work with that patient as if they are the only patient you’re seeing that day. And they’ve got their full, undivided attention.

I mean, have you had moments where your spidey sense has kicked in and you’ve thought, you know, for whatever sort of sixth sense feeling, I don’t want to treat this patient. How do you break that to them?

Yeah. And and it.

Is what.

Are those times? Are those times where you can’t see what the patient sees when he’s saying, I’m not happy with the way these look and you can’t see it or.

It’s it’s it’s it’s often a non-clinical issue and it’s often it is a spider sense where you you’ve got to have an element of compatibility. You’ve got to you’ve got to they’ve got to have an element of trust. You’ve got to have an element of respect. I’ve got to see I’ve got to say, more often than not, it’s it’s not the expectations that set off his senses. It’s the fact that the patient as a personality you think is not suited to working, to fitting in your environment. And it does then get to the point where you’ll never get a day list where every patient that’s coming in is going to be like your best friend. But you’ve definitely whittled it down to just the odd patient, and that’s okay in an ideal. So what do you say?

What do you say if a young, young dentist is faced with that situation? What’s a nice way of saying.

Well, the first and thanks.

You know, the warning signs are someone who’s been to see lots of dentists in a short period of time. They’ll often present and they’re looking for another opinion or asking to offer an opinion on someone else’s work once they’re in you know, once the moment you’ve picked up that handpiece or you’ve done anything remotely invasive, they are your patient. So it’s about making that call early and just it is awkward conversations, You know, I really don’t feel that what you’re what you’re what you need and what you’re trying to get fits into. What we can provide here as a team, we can recommend practices for you.

Simple as that.

Simple as that. And it’s not a conversation you have too often, but once you’ve had it, you know, through the sense of relief that you get, that you’ve done the right thing.

And how about the fact that you’re probably the lowest ego high level dentist I’ve ever come across, but there are times where your ego kind of gets the better of you insomuch as you know, You know you’re good. You know, you’ve done things well in the past and the patient might be picking you up and that can get you into trouble, right? Yeah. Where you think I can do this? Right. And then. And then you’re. You’re halfway through and you realise that this patient’s not. Not a reasonable person. That must have happened.

Yeah, but.

It’s also every. Every time I’ve kind of genuinely, every time I’ve either got carried away with myself, any time I’ve taken a shortcut, any time I’ve thought, this will do, I’m sure it’ll be fine. I’ve got caught out every time.

It’s the stone in the shoe, isn’t it?

It it is. And you kind of. And it does happen where you think. I’m sure it’ll be fine this time. And the patient comes in six months later with a broken crown. And then you. And that’s, you know, after that initial moment of that, you’re so disheartened, you remind yourself, well, actually, that’s a lesson. I’m not going to make that mistake again for the next two, three years, because it’s human nature that mistakes and, you know, shortcuts and things crawl in. You can’t you can’t be in a spotless for the whole for your whole career. So you’ve got to accept it when when things do happen and you just, you know, and if if you’re a young clinician and you’ve taken on a case that’s out of your depth, just call in more senior colleagues to offer advice. It’s I think too often I think there’s that tendency to try and go through the whole journey on your own when you shouldn’t be on your own, you know, And sometimes it’s just calling on on advice of of someone within the practice or in that area to, to offer an opinion.

I must say it’s comforting to know that even you have that problem.

It’s inevitable.

It’s inevitable, isn’t it? It’s part of our work. And it’s it’s I think by working on a referral system, it’s easier. But it’s. Yeah, everyone wants to be busy, don’t they? You know, we do rather busy with difficult cases or have an empty diary. You want to be again nature is that you want to be busy. It’s it’s a tough one. It’s a lesson you’ll keep learning. And I think and that thing I said to you before, you know girls coming to to observe, I think they get as much out of a consult session as they do a treatment session just for how we set our stall out. You know, You know, you set your stall out first off, and the patient doesn’t like the way we act and behave. Then they also have the option of saying they don’t want to come back. And we have patients who who had one, you know, recently had a report who said that they don’t like the report. They’re going to go elsewhere. That’s completely fine. I’m completely happy with that.

I mean, what about the treatment? Acceptance rate must be quite high. But then inevitably, all of us have some patients who don’t go ahead, but maybe not with, you know, someone might not be as direct as that. I’m going somewhere else. You just. Someone might just not get back to you. Do you guys then chase that patient or not at all?

Yeah. So we have a referral log.

Which it requires manpower to run, you know, so you’ll have a new patient referred there would have been contacted for an initial meeting. They might have not answered the phone or they may have decided to defer it for a while. We’ll put the reason in, then we’ll contact them. Once they’ve had that initial assessment and the report, we’ll contact them. Maybe we should be contacting them within a few weeks. Often once they’ve received the report, it’s all by email. Now they’ll often reply and say, Yeah, please kind of go ahead. How do I proceed? And that makes it a little bit easier. Nice.

Let’s get on to the darker part of the interview. We like to talk about mistakes.

Yeah.

From that sort of black box, thinking that, you know, the guy says that, you know, when a plane goes down, they share the mistakes. And so the mistakes never happen again. But in medical, we tend to hide them and we tend to blame people. And so, you know, the it’s not the system isn’t isn’t ever exercised and people get blamed and we don’t learn from each other’s mistakes. I’d like you to give me a couple of clinical one clinical error, one management error, patient management error, and then one business error.

A clinical.

Error. That’s the beauty of composites, is that I’m going to look at it from a different level angle is that, you know, with with direct composites and tooth wear cases, you can very rarely make it look worse. And that’s the other reason why I’m a big advocate of composites. So for me, the clinical areas tend to be the implant cases. And we’ve got a couple where and it tends to be under treatment where you’ve not been as radical as you should have been. So you’ve kept teeth that should have come out and it’s come back and bitten you. And with all these cases, you look back and think, you know, in hindsight we should have included that tooth or those teeth or gone full arch. But got to say, every single time you also put yourself back in and think, if I had to see that case again, would I do it again? You probably would do you still would. Probably. I would like to think would practice more conservatively and give teeth the benefit of the doubt. And if it means I’m the odd case, you get caught out, you’ve got to you’ve just got to roll with the punches on that. So it tends to be the not being as as aggressive with the treatment planning. Sometimes that’s caught me out and invariably it’s always occlusion. It’s always something that’s occlusal that will smash something or break something that I didn’t expect. So we’ve got a case at the moment where a lady’s broken her implant because we assumed that she would wear a splint and she didn’t, and the thing snapped and trying to unravel that. And we have no.

The fixture itself.

Yeah, very much so. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, and you know, Corey is really good at kind of giving that structure to his, to his fees as to, you know, how much they, how much the practice will cover with failures year 135I think. And we need to implement that. We don’t get many of them. So it is very much, you know, like anything you’re putting up in the air and just making it fair. But as long as it’s it’s a fair arrangement, we go with it, really. So that’s, that’s the clinical one. Um, patient management. Um, my biggest mistake is reports I’m not quick enough in getting the reports out. It sounds very pathetic, but I think if I could give any advice to anyone who’s starting out, whether it be general practice, specialist practice, get your reports out and get the reports out quickly. I will guarantee you treatment uptake will be way much better than if you leave it a week or two for lots of reasons. But for from a patient management point of view, it would be great if I could get my reports out. And I’ve got I’ve got probably about 15 to do after we finish here. Um, 55 zero no, 1515 from the last couple. Yeah, 15 for the last couple of weeks and you know, I still dictate them and check them. So it takes, it takes forever from a business point of view.

I’ve had with.

Being so clueless. I’ve probably made so many that I’m just unaware of that. I’m just going to live in blissful ignorance. Pay honestly, because if someone kind of scratched the surface of how the place is run and he spoke earlier before about me kind of selling the practice in October last year and it was with a full knowledge that whoever took over it, all they had to do was look at the finances and would realise that with a tiny bit of tweaking, this place could be so much more productive because this, this buffoon has been running it for so long without even looking at the numbers. So I’m sure there’s been plenty of plenty of mistakes on the business side.

But you never, like, I don’t know, lost someone where you didn’t realise that that person was unhappy or.

No, I think.

We’ve had staff leave. Then I’ve got to say.

And.

You might look at this in a kind of a negative way, but whenever someone leaves, there’s always a drive in me to push the practice to a point where they regret leaving.

Yeah, I know what you mean. I know exactly.

It gives me a bit of a push to think. Right. And we’ve lost some amazing staff. You know, I can namecheck them in. Done. You know we can. Nikki. Our practice manageress, who was with us for 12 years. Amazing individuals, brilliant, amazing friends. But you know, there’s part of me that thinks, right you know, let’s use this now as a kind of an impetus to get this place, get this practice. Not that they’re going to come back where they think, you know, Crikey, that place has got better. Maybe I shouldn’t have.

Left.

Like that. I know exactly what you’re talking about.

But when I say when I come out with it, it just sounds a bit sinister. It doesn’t mean.

To.

In a positive way.

Tell me about digital, for instance. I had the same conversation with Basil, right? We said, you know the guy the guy knows his stuff, right? When it comes to analogue dentistry and then digital, it presents a bunch of new sort of unpredictabilities, if you like. And for someone, you know, I can understand if someone like you, sometimes the patients coming in as sort of last chance saloon. And so you know what you know and you know you know that you can sort them out in the in the traditional way and yet you wouldn’t be I mean Armenian if you hadn’t have jumped onto all the all the developments. How do you how do you how do you time it? How do you square the circle? I mean, classically. Okay. You’re not the first person to get it. You’re not the last person. But but tell me tell me about it.

Well, this is this is where I feel a.

Bit dirty before I’ll kind of feel conflicted sometimes. And I do sometimes see myself now, as I saw my previous mentors, you know, 20 years ago, where you looked at them, think we shouldn’t be doing that. We do things differently. I’ve been to this conference where you can do this, this way or that way and remember bringing it to them and them looking at me thinking, But yeah, but what you’re doing now has worked and worked really, really well. Yeah. So, you know, there’s a reason why we I personally haven’t embraced digital because a lot of the case we do our bigger case with lots of implants and think it’s one of those aspects of dentistry that’s very much technical driven, technician driven. That’s what’s been the driving force. It’s giving an example. One of the labs we use is thinking of going digital only. Yeah, well you’re going, you’re going to force the hand of clinical dentistry, you’re going to force you’re at a major crossroads in clinical dentistry. Then if you can only then just do digital honestly on a day to day basis, I’m taking analogue impressions and I’m thinking, could I have done this digitally? And it’s not just the fact that I don’t have the experience with it, but with my knowledge, with what I know of, of scanning, I look at very few cases and think, yes, I think I would have been as confident about as doing this with an analogue, as digital, as with an analogue.

And until I lose that, that’s that comfort zone and I need to step over that line and put my toe on the on the out of my comfort zone because it shouldn’t be the learning curve. They should put you off. It’s the end result. But, you know, we’ve gone for, you know, we’re doing the digital you know, we’re doing digital stuff on the lab side. We’re getting kind of, you know, the models and, and the, the, the frame checks and stuff. And I don’t think is as good as the old technique, you know, for, for accuracy of fit. I honestly think the gold standard is still a custom abutments With a cast framework you don’t get any better. But also no insane that I’m going to come across as a complete dinosaur.

Which is fine. I don’t mind it. I don’t mind it.

What about. Okay, so the other aspects of digital, I mean, there’s there’s the communication side, which is a lot easier with digital. There’s some people some people even say that they use it for diagnosis. For instance, tooth wear. Right? You can you can take a scan with the old trios and then in three years time, take another scan and see the exact amount of tooth loss between the two.

So. So something like Beautiful things.

Yeah. Yeah. No, for something like that. And that’s the shame of it is that, you know, that’s becoming so, you know scanners are so became so much more prevalent now. Yeah. But the thing they should be used for is something like that. They’re not being useful. Someone will, will do more Invisalign cases than they’ll do wear monitoring cases, you know. So for management of tooth wear, quantifying the amount of tooth structure lost over a period of time, it is going to be brilliant and it should be it should be feeding into research now because it’s been around for long enough for people in practice, for colleagues in practice to be able to put forward cases where they show the rate of. Where on fully dentate, partially dentate cases, different occlusions, different aetiologies and get a body of work that can be can be really useful. Taking it on. But again, you know from on a digital side, I’m just I come from a very naive. We’ve had a scanner for 12 months.

Have you.

Have you not used it? Yeah, I’ve not used it. Did you get.

I’m embarrassed to say that, you know.

Well, you know, it is what it is. It is what it is. What about your younger colleagues? Do they not want to?

Well, that’s the thing. That’s the beauty. So we’ve kind of asked the team that we’ve got. It is, you know, there is some thought that’s put into it. So we’re getting gutted. The guys who have joined us, Calum, James, Gavin, these guys are all the guys who have shown an interest in the digital side who can now and I’m going to ride on their coattails if there’s going to be any if there’s going to be any benefit of being at this stage of your career is that you get the younger guys in who’ve got the the, the nous, the the the dedication to be able to take this. And this is where, you know, our practice has got a there’s a there’s a journey still left. You know, we’ve still got areas where we can progress clinically, non, clinically. And I think the the guys who are going to take it on the digital side are going to be the other guys. And I’ll just hang on and and pick up what I can.

So you said we talked about you sold it last year. What was the sort of decision making process that led to that and when did you think I’ve had enough or what was it?

Oh, you.

Know, I’ll go back probably, probably about five years ago where I thought, well, at some point I’m going to have to sell it. So let’s get a value in, get it valued, and if nothing else, use it as a way of somebody else independently going through the forensics of the of the practice and seeing where I can then spend the next ten years trying to look at some of the figures and look at how we can improve things and make it a more sellable project. And offer came in just and just before the pandemic. And then for lots of reasons, it fell apart. And then straight after the pandemic, we bounced back really quickly because I think the nature of the work that we would do had lots of cases that we that were ready for restoration, lots of cases that were ready for placements than we had the backlog of cases that obviously built up over the pandemic together.

With the fact that we had.

Private entity went through the roof. Right. At that point.

You didn’t plan it.

Did you know everything about it? Whether and I think it goes beyond, you know, everyone talking about kind of patients were looking at their teeth and zooms or they were sat on furlough money. I think I think it was people were more available, you know, working from home. You weren’t you couldn’t use a distraction of a business trip or a holiday. You were around so you could come in any time of the day to have your treatment. So you weren’t waiting and, you know, go back. You know, we had a workforce that were willing to put the shift in, put the put the hours in. And we we caught up quickly and we so the rebound was was really good. So they came back and said, you know, we’re still interested did the numbers again and you know a few things both clinical and both family wages thinking now is the right time, now is the right time. In hindsight, I think it was the right time because the only thing, the only advice I’d give to anyone who’s looking to to to sell up is don’t do it when you’re looking to retire. Do it when you when you feel your journey is not quite finished because you want to be there. You want to be there. You want, you know, you’ve trusted your staff to take it to that endpoint. You want to you want to be with them while the practice then goes through the next phase of of getting better. And if you just sell up and disappear, I think it’s a real shame.

And you sold to Dentex, which is a unique kind of model. It’s less unique now, but they kind of introduced this model of kind of a partnership process where you they don’t pay you the full price and then they get you to stay for four years or something. Is it four years?

You say three and a half? Yeah, three and a half.

Three and a half, yeah. So did you did you have other offers on the table and you decided to go with Dentex or what was it, what was the story with the sale?

Um, you know, the thing with Dentex it was, it was I go with gut feeling. You know, for me, it’s a lot to do with gut feeling. It’s a lot to do with the people you’re dealing with. And, you know, one of the nice things about dentistry is kind of meeting, you know, 12 years ago, lovely guy, get on really well, don’t see enough of you. And it was the same with, you know Chris who represented Dentex. He was just you want someone who gets your practice, who gets the people who work there who who you have confidence will look after your set up in that incredibly turbulent period from where before, during and after a sale? You know, if you have if I had any doubts that the staff weren’t going to get looked after or that the new buyers didn’t get what the practice was about, it would have been horrendous. But did that happen?

Did you have other buyers? Did you have other buyers that you felt didn’t?

No, no, no.

There was just the one. There were the there was another buyer who I think was going to come back to us. But then we went with just the dentex.

Do you envisage that in three and a half years time you are going to leave or you don’t know?

Um.

No, I don’t know. Don’t know. The work life balance has been so bad for so long and I’m going to try and get the next three years to correct that where you can kind of truly, you know, not do your too late nights a week and you’re, you know, historically we’ve done Saturdays and Sundays and, you know, you look back and think that’s that’s ridiculous. But you know things like that digital journey. Yeah that should enthuse that should enthuse me and that should kind of add some energy and so things like that. I look forward to embracing and spending and it’s such a weak excuse the reason it’s just time you know, these these learning curves take time to you to invest. And if you’re working five days a week and you’re doing reports in the evenings, you haven’t got the time to be doing these things.

So dentistry is.

Tiring. Look, dentistry is tiring at any level here, but but at your level, it’s going to be double tiring, right? Because you can’t make a small mistake in the report or whatever. It’s a it’s a tiring thing. I’m surprised you worked five days a week all this time. Did you not think of dropping a day earlier?

No. You know, I blamed Robin Grey for this. You know, he built this work ethic in us where I don’t ever leave people waiting. You know, if someone if someone is agreed to have their treatment, it’s criminal to leave them. So the drive for us has always been get them, get them seen quickly for their first consult. Try not to let them wait more than kind of six weeks. And then, you know, you get someone coming in who’s kind of front teeth have fallen out. You have to be pretty heartless to say, well, our next appointment is going to be three months down the line. You’re going to find a window. So we’ve got kind of the group that we’ve got, you know, the guys we’re working with now, they’re all the same mindset. You know, if it means coming in an extra session just to get that person out of pain, to get that person out of trouble, then they’ll go through it. But so because of that and because, you know, my time was always I think was best spent. Chair Side wrap ports were always done on an evening lectures were always written late evening you know, emails were always reply to after a working day. So it wasn’t that unusual to finish really, really late, really late clinically and then have to do two, three hours. That will take you into the early hours and then you drive home and then be back again. And that was like two a couple of nights a week, you know? So I think I think, you know, I’ve done my time with that. Now is the time to try and get a balance and do things like this.

You know, it’s a massive sacrifice. Right. What you’ve just described there, a massive sacrifice. I mean, you’ve got kids, right? Young kids. I saw the picture on your on your WhatsApp. Yeah. Do you wish do you wish you’d done it differently now in retrospect or not?

Um. I.

It was out of my control. You know, I honestly couldn’t have done. The only thing I could have done is maybe have got someone else in that did the kind of work that I do earlier. And, you know, I’m trying to find someone now. And it’s difficult because it’s not about the clinical skill set. It’s the personality that needs to fit in. And, you know, we’re incredibly lucky with the the group that we we are. I’d like, again, I would argue the most conscientious group clinicians. And it’s getting someone else that fits into that profile. So the choice was taken away from me, an unbelievably kind of supportive and understanding wife who put up with it an amazing support team with the practice, the kids, you know, the time that are dedicated to them was was at the weekends. And I try and be home a couple of times a week before bedtime. Of course, you know, if I could turn back time, you know, you’d be you’d be at home for 5:00. You’d be you’d be at a dinner every night. You’d be. But it’s just what the you know, the kids realise that, you know, that the reason they can go on nice holidays and what they have is down to dad working. Would I ask them to do it? Would I encourage them to put that work ethic in? No, no. You do this to stop them having to do to make the same sacrifices, is that right?

Because I think I think it kind of works out that if they see that that’s the way their dad’s acted, they’re more likely to act that way. Like you learn that work ethic by osmosis.

Yeah, the work ethic is really important.

I mean.

Where did you get it from? Where did you get it from?

Is your dad was.

Your dad that that guy to.

You know, our culture is is similar. I think the Iranian culture is is one that works. Guilt is a big part of it. You know, guilt is a big part of it. And and the again, we’re we’re I’m a few years older than you.

But.

But I think going back to kind of childhoods and when you’re of our age you know when Iran that went through a revolution and a war you got a period of time where everyone every single person would have been affected by it to some level, whether they lived in Iran or outside of Iran. It affected people in different ways, the way it fed to them. My my family is that, you know, my brother and I left Iran when I was seven. He was 11 to move away to a foreign country where, you know, the only words in the year were, yes, no fork, spoon and knife. And and you kind of you’ve got to work to make openings. And then you find that, as I think I said to you before, you know, your blessings come from the people you come across or the opportunities that come across that you come across. And the the what makes the opportunities a certainty is the hard work, you know, And it didn’t take long before you realise that actually the more work I put into something, the more chance it has of, of being something that’s going to work in my favour. And it didn’t work for me for A-levels, it didn’t work for me for the, you know, finals, Pedes and Ortho exam. But you know, those are the things you pick up. But, but yeah, you know, work ethic. Absolutely. I think, I think they’ve got it. But I wouldn’t want them to miss out on the, you know, younger years of their kids the way the.

Way I did. Well, they’re young enough.

They’re young enough from the picture. I don’t know if that picture is a current picture that I’m looking at, but. But looking at the picture. Yeah. They’re young enough that you’ve still got some time.

Yeah.

13 and 13 and 11 and, you know, but I spent, you know, we spend all we, you know, wherever, whenever I’m not working it is we, we spend the four of us, you know, they, they can’t get rid of me basically, you know. You know, if they want to play football in the park, I’ll go and play football with them. We’ll spend time doing everything together. So, you know, maybe an absent for parts of it, but when you’re present, you’re present 100%, you know.

Are you dialling it down now with with the sale? Are you doing fewer hours?

Yeah. So, you know, Mondays I don’t work Mondays. Not because of the sale because I’ve had to give up my surgery to Martin Periodontist, who has recently joined us. And there’s only three surgeries. So Martin’s there now. So Mondays I tend to have off. So, you know, I can pick our boy up from school, which I’ve not been able to do for for a long, long time. So yeah, I’m dialling it down a little bit and it’s, it’s, it’s great. I love it.

I mean, what if I know this is going to sound like an alien concept to you? What if you had half a day to yourself? No practice, no kids, no wife, no just yourself. What would you do.

That you know.

Hasn’t happened in 40.

Years?

Generally it doesn’t have happen.

You know, I find the only time you have to yourself now is that, you know, there are times where I’ll take the longer drive home. Yeah. Not but I’m talking about like 3 or 4 minutes just to give yourself that kind of extra few minutes before you kind of get.

Get up super early.

Or go to bed super late. Well, you must have some me time somewhere.

It gets better.

Super late. Yeah, super, super late. But yeah, no, honestly, if someone could give me that. The one. Think I’ve missed out on is reading books. So, you know, you’ll find that I’ll have no opinion on so many things that are so important because I think to have an opinion on something, you need to you need to you need to be well, read about it. Whether it be AI, Brexit, whatever. And unless you read up about it, it’s pointless having an opinion. So all these things have kind of gone, gone by me because I’ve just not had the chance to kind of read a book and listen to music.

How long is your drive?

It’s 20 minutes. It’s 20 minutes. Not long at all.

Yeah, I was going to say podcast. Podcast. There’s so much on AI in podcasts, you know, I can recommend.

Well, that’s the thing.

But you know, but, but that’s that stuff you still have to zone into, you know. So, so for me, it’s the kind of zone out listen to some music and just zone out and do that 2020 five minutes and then you can kind of phase.

So what was the answer to the question?

If you had half a day, what would you do? What would you do?

I would read and listen to music all the all the. Yeah, so many things. I want to listen to. So many things I want to read that, you know, it’ll take a long, long time to retirement before I’ve had my fill.

So you wouldn’t you’re not a golf guy. You’re not a like a call up Marius and go and party in Liverpool guy.

And that’s of the order actually that’s probably the the order I’ve taken up the golf.

I’ve got the golf lessons but it’s the same thing. I think if I had that half a day, if, if I had that half a day it’d be, you know, in a cafe with a book and the earphones in and just it’s, it’s just the simplest of luxuries that that are amazing. It’s amazing.

So then tell me, what time do you go to bed and what time do you wake up?

Oh, man. You know, you won’t believe this, but you know, when when not it wasn’t that long ago that we would do our long sessions in the clinic. So we’d finish at nine with the last patient, maybe even later. And then we’d catch up with paperwork. So I’d be getting home for maybe two in the morning and then get up at six, 630. Wow. Yeah, 2 to 3 times a week. So, yeah. Yeah. So I tend to kind of go to bed probably about one one ish and then get up. It’s half six to be ready for the kids.

God, you’re like in max fax kind of time. Timing. That’s proper. That’s proper. My goodness. Slow down. Slow down for sure.

Well.

But you know, it’s but you look at look back at it now and just think, you know, there is no way I could have gone back. I could go back and do that now, not not the five days a week with two late nights that we were doing there. It’s and that’s what I’d say. You know, you wouldn’t do it again. And I wouldn’t encourage anyone when we have the the young graduates coming around now and say know if I could give myself some advice. Give yourself that half a day and protect it. If you can protect it. If you can, you know, don’t do admin, don’t do, just do.

I’d say a whole day.

I’d say a whole day. You know, there would be no enlighten if I was a five day a week guy I would, I was a four day a week guy. And on the, on the fifth day you’re right, it wasn’t a weekend. So I wasn’t I didn’t have to do anything with at the time. I wasn’t married, but kids. Sorry. Family? Yeah. And it wasn’t a work day. So, you know, I always encourage people, but you’re right. You need something. Dentistry’s hard. Dentistry’s hard. That’s the thing about it. It’s hard mentally and it’s hard physically.

It’s hard mentally, you know, because and it doesn’t matter what realm of practice you work in, you know, that patient that’s there in your chair at that time assumes they’re the only person you’re treating that day. And, you know, if it’s 8:00 at night, if it’s a nine in the morning, if you’ve had a child that’s hardly slept the night before, if you’re going through kind of personal issues, it that’s the hard part. And you know, for it doesn’t necessarily affect your treatment. It affects your empathy. And I think the one thing you need to have in if if if you’re asking me kind.

Of.

What’s the you know, the respect is one thing that we have running through us. And I think we we all in our practice are very empathetic of what’s coming through our through our door. And that’s that’s the one thing you can go into autopilot with your impressions, with your composite build-ups. But it’s really difficult to be empathetic if you are angry, if you’re exhausted, if you are in emotional distress, if you’ve got stuff going on. But you’ve got to you know, you’ve got to put the face on and and deliver. And that’s that’s that’s that’s what’s tiring. You know.

What would you say.

If I say, what was your darkest day? What would you say? What comes to mind?

In practice. Your talk.

Your talk is staying dentistry. Outside of dentistry, it’s another thing.

Darkest day in dentistry. I. Uh, let me think. There’s a period where I didn’t know what I wanted to do, and there was the option of either the the MSC or going to going to America. And I was I was just absolutely clueless. And and then just opted for the MSC. And it was either the choice of being with family or just being carrying on, being this kind of working solo with no very little family around and and chose that. That was a stressful time. There was a time when, you know, finished specialist training and there was no practice, there was nothing you’re finishing and you had given up my job at the university. So you, you, yeah, you have a mortgage. You have no idea where you’re going to work, but you hope that something is going to come around the corner. And it did. Um, they tend to be the darkest times. Yeah.

What about if I say happiest day? What comes to mind?

Um, happiest day in dentistry. Let me think. Let me think.

Dear. You know, I spent.

I spent most of the time being really happy in work. I honestly do.

And happiest.

Happiest day in dentistry. Um, probably getting the specialist training mid exam.

Getting that in Edinburgh.

Getting that exam. Bear in mind, at that time we had no idea, but it was the one time where it was, it was a culmination of four years of the one time where you’d actually the exam that worked hardest for that you made the biggest sacrifices for. You had no idea it was going to be a ticket to anything else. It was you know, it was it was a bit of a gamble, but it was it was the one time we thought, yeah, you know, this is something I’ve worked hard for and deserve.

Nice. I want to I want to ask you about courses abroad. If you what comes to mind? Like if a young guy wants to look outside the UK for a course. What have you done that that, you know, you say to people. Yeah, go see him. He’s great.

So quintessence do a course every 2 or 3 years and it was on this year and it’s a ceramics symposium and um a zing. I kid you not it is I went to it in the US just yeah. San Francisco. Los Angeles was the one I went to, I think six years ago. And we just look at the timetable, look at the programme, look at the speakers. There’s a reason why it’s not on every year because to get that quality is, you know, you need that kind of course. And it’s I think they do themselves a disservice by calling it ceramic symposium because it’s so much more than that. But yeah, and it was only because we had other things going on this year that I couldn’t go and I just found out about it too late. But it’s something if I had to kind of put something in the diary, I would suggest you go to that. It’s it’s brilliant. It’s one of those things where when you’re there, you know, you know, it goes to these things and you think, well, okay, I’ll find a little window where I can go out for a coffee and explore the local area. None of that happening. You’re there from nine till five, three, four days because because it is that good. You know, the European Academy of Aesthetic Dentistry, they’re doing an amazing programme every couple of years. That’s that’s also similar. Very good.

If if you were giving me some advice regarding guests for this podcast, who would you like to see? Whose story would you most like to hear?

Oh wow.

People in dentistry.

Yeah. Bearing in mind it’s called Dental. Leaders.

Yeah, yeah.

That’s good. You know, honestly now, Wilson.

I’ve had him on. I’ve had him on.

Amazing, right? Amazing. Amazing. Just amazing.

Guy.

Just one of my favourites. One of my favourite interviews.

Just, you know, think again. Look back and think, you know, we’re talking about this giant of dentistry that has got this amazing ability to keep in touch with, you know, this idiot of an MSC student that started in 1997. And, you know, he’s been able to kind of drag people like myself and obviously hundreds of other people, never mind the profession along with him. I think it’s just amazing. Who else, who else I’m going to speak to this person experiencing Stephen Davis, who works at our place. Lovely guy. He’s got so many good stories and he’s been doing it long enough to give you a true sense of what dentistry is like and both in general and and referral practice and is is is a very charismatic guy. I’m going to bang the drum of guys at our place. James D’Arcy. He is way more articulate and eloquent than I would ever be. I spend most of my time just jealous of that man he is.

Let’s get him on.

Let’s get him on sounds. Get him on. Anyone? Anyone you say, Will.

James.

D’arcy get him on? You know, and he. He is an old head on relatively young shoulders. He won’t mind me saying that.

It’s amazing. We’ve come to the end of our time. We’re going to end it with the usual questions. So the the fantasy dinner party, three guests, dead or alive? Who would you have?

I said to you before we started that intentionally, I didn’t look at these because I wanted to think of them off the hoof. Um, I will go for my mum who passed when I was very young. My dad and my brother.

Oh, amazing. Amazing. I mean, how old were you when your mom passed?

Six months.

Oh, my goodness. Yeah. Oh, my goodness. So then was there someone else that you call mom or not?

Well, no. You know.

If you could extend that invitation to other people, it would be my aunties and my grandma and granddad. They were kind of. They were massive. So ideally, it’d be like 6 or 7, eight people.

Okay. And just for you.

Just for you. This. This fancy dinner party can be.

Bless you. Bless you.

It could be three pieces of advice mean that you would leave for your friends and and loved ones on your deathbed. What would you what would you give?

I think friends and loved ones if you if you’re if you’re old enough, you’ve kind of learnt your life lessons. You don’t need advice. I think it’s more for the kids. Spend as much time in flip flops as you can. Invariably, you get as long as you kind of got a roof over your head, I think. Life just is generally more relaxed when you got flip flops on. So if you can find a job that they can do that, that’s great.

It’s the first time I’ve heard that one. Excellent.

Yeah.

Treat people with the respect they deserve. And some people deserve more respect than others. I think that’s probably the other one. And it’s something I did hear on a podcast not that long ago, which is kind of it was a psychologist who was saying that, you know, we’re teaching kids all these all this academic stuff at schools, but important life lessons we’re just missing out on. And one of the most important life lessons is that actually what you what you think about an issue, what you think might happen, what your thoughts are, what your feelings are about an issue, are very rarely the same as the reality of it.

Yeah.

So, you know, just just things are very rarely as bad as you might think, you know.

Absolutely. Absolutely. It’s been such a massive pleasure to have you, buddy. And, you know, knowing you this long and not knowing your story goes to show you that like how much how much people people should sit and talk to each other more. You know, we do it. We do it on this podcast. Right. But, you know, I know we don’t see each other enough, but such a massive inspiration. And, you know, it’s one of the privileges of my job, right, is where I get to hang out with some of my Dental heroes. So really, really lovely to have you, buddy. Thank you so much for doing this today.

Hey, thank you so much for this because it’s giving me a chance to kind of reflect on on kind of life and and what’s kind of brought you here. And, you know, I’m kind of name dropped just a few people but it’s it’s been lovely and and you know the reason I’ve done this is you know as I said I didn’t want to do it. Vanessa, my wife said, do you think you should? But it’s that comfort zone thing I said to you before, you know, sometimes you’ve got to dip your toe on the other side of the line and it’s because of that that that I thought was a good idea. And it’s been lovely getting in touch with, you know, being in touch with you and chatting, chatting away has been really enjoyed it. Thanks very much.

Thank you so much. Philly.

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.

I think giving them a plan and direction and letting them understand your journey and making sure they believe in that journey as well is really important in making sure that people you’re attracting the right kind of people to come and work for you. I mean, there’s still politics that you have to deal with all the time. And, you know, getting people to understand that, you know, we don’t all have to be friends, but we have to like each other, but we all have to learn to work together in order for this to work.

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

Hello. Hello. So I am super excited because we are going to be talking to an incredible guest today. Maria. Maria is somebody that I had the pleasure of meeting when I got really interested in cryotherapy. So we all know that ice baths have been the hype. Everyone has to post it on social media, but I’m going to give you a little bit of background about Maria. Maria is one of the UK’s leading wellness practitioners who has pioneered a range of treatments and therapies in London since 2016. She’s a mother of two, as well as a health and fitness enthusiast who has completed five marathons and is training for her sixth, seventh, eighth. I’ve done six looking at number seven. Okay, amazing. And she’s also trying to keep up her fitness routine. However, she noticed that she wasn’t recovering as quickly as before and was more susceptible to her injury as she waved her goodbyes to her 30s. You look fantastic, Maria. I have to say. So whilst Maria was visiting New York City, she gave whole body cryotherapy a try and found it to have a number of physical benefits, including quick recovery from training. And it made her feel clear-headed and happy. And that is when London Cryo was born. So she created an amazing what I call a clinic, or would I call it a faculty or what would you call it? Would you call sort of the cryotherapy branches?

We call them wellness centres.

Wellness centres. I love that. And you also were in a corporate job which you left and dedicated your full time to health and wellness. And one of the big reasons why I wanted you to come on is because you took that massive leap into something that was unpredictable, almost, you know, going down that whole entrepreneurial route, but dedicating time to your mental health and giving that to others. So welcome, Maria.

Thank you very much. That’s a wonderful introduction. Thank you.

Perfect. So, Maria, tell us a little bit about your background. What job were you doing before you embarked on London Cryo? Sure.

So I was an accountant and I was always passionate about health and wellness and just saw when I was training, as you had mentioned, that as I was getting older, I was getting more susceptible to injuries and just thought it was time to step into the wellness space.

Maria, I wanted to ask you, though, do you think I mean, you talk about your physical injuries that were happening, but do you think that also subconsciously there was something going on with your mental health and your mind that also pushed you into this trajectory, wanting to leave the corporate world?

Of course, I was trying to juggle being an accountant as well as being a mother of two, and it was quite a stressful time trying to juggle both. I mean, I live in the UK without my family who are all back in Australia, so trying to juggle everything was actually did take a strain on me mentally. So when there was an opportunity to go into the wellness space and create something that would also I would benefit from mentally, then it was just a no brainer to take that that risk.

Maria, tell me tell me about the, you know, the difference between when you’ve got a job, the paycheque comes in every month. Yes. You know what’s expected of you. It’s similar every month. And then the leap into owning your own business. What was the the thing that made you finally decide to take the plunge and not stay in your sort of comfort zone of your job?

I believe so much greatness can come from stepping out of your comfort zone, but you have to have a belief in yourself and be passionate about what you’re going to do next. So I believe that as long as you have that passion, then it’s worth taking the risk. And my journey over the last six years has just been phenomenal and a testament to that. So it was well worth taking the risk to step into to the place I am now. And this do a lot of times where I think, Oh God, did I do the right thing? You’re always worrying about tomorrow. But, but because I believe in what I’m doing and I see the benefit not only on myself, but to to Londoners, it’s just it’s worth, you know, continuing to hustle every day to keep achieving what we’re achieving.

And so as an as an accountant, you sort of understood the sort of cash flow situation a bit better than most, right? Of course. So did you start then saving for the project? Were you thinking that way? Did it take time, like between the time that you decided to do it and the time that you actually jumped in and opened your first centre? Yeah. Were you preparing properly for that? Because most of us.

Yeah, no, I know.

Tell us your secret.

It was, it was.

Having amazing support behind me. So I do have a partner who is unbelievable and also believed in the project. So we had some savings and thought, actually, let’s take this risk. You know, you’ve got a certain amount of money when you work hard and then you save, save your money, then you can afford to take this opportunity. So we did have a little bit of backing behind us to take this risk and get us through at least the first 12 months.

And then did did you stick to the business plan as far as the income and expenditure?

Important to do that. So and as an accountant, you understand that that’s what you have to do. You’ve got a budget and you have to stick to it.

I don’t know about you.

Well.

Let’s let’s delve into that a little bit easier. So tell me, what did your what would you say if you could speak broadly speaking, a business plan should consist of maybe five points important things.

It definitely needs to include your vision and then the steps on how to get through the first 12 months. You need to have a cash flow projection for the first 12 months. That’s really important. Have an understanding of what your outgoings are going to be and how you’re going to cover those for the first for the first 12 months. I think that’s the first place where you how.

Do you decide how many treatments a week you’re going to be doing? Because you need to project that.

I know, I know.

So you had no idea was it going to be five treatments a day or one treatment a day? You had to. Are you ultra pessimistic at that point?

We were a little bit optimistic, to be honest. And we thought, especially when you’re pricing your first session of cryo at £90 a session and you’re thinking, okay, I need to at least have like 2 or 300 people coming in in the, you know, in the first month. Mind you, we didn’t have that in the first month. It was it was a lot of days of having no one come in because we were still trying to establish the brand and as well the awareness of the treatment of cryotherapy because it was still unknown in the UK market. And I think we’ve made amazing inroads in the last six years. But you know, having we were a bit optimistic with our projections and thought, okay, we’re going to charge £90 a session, we’re going to have X amount of people coming in, so we’ll be okay to get us through. It didn’t work out that way. So it’s like you have the savings and the plan to get you through that period.

And how about from the sort of awareness marketing perspective? Because as the first. Yeah. What did you do? Did you, did you start spending on marketing? Was it social media? Did you get famous influencers or whatever?

How did you do it?

So, so.

I’m a big fan of Instagram. So, so we did have a bit of a social media plan. I come from accounting, not from marketing, so I didn’t understand how important marketing was, didn’t put much into the website and stuff. So it didn’t understand like, I mean, it’s improved since then because you understand so much was missing. In order for people to understand what we were doing, they were landing on a page, for example, with a picture of London at first, and it’s like, actually that doesn’t tell people what we’re doing about cryotherapy. So obviously you learn as you go. But at the beginning of the journey it was a lot of trying to get into corporates to try and promote our services and get to educate people about cryotherapy and who we can help and our vision as well. So there was a lot of, you know, road, you know, road shows at the beginning of our journey. And then from that, from that we also had a few influencers, not many. So but the people that we did have were enough to help us start creating a social media presence.

Did you go after them or did they happen to come to you?

Can I be totally honest? I sat in my hairdresser’s chair the day before we opened and I thought, How is anyone even going to know? I opened up this business. I didn’t understand all the marketing that should have been done prior to opening. And he said, I’m going to give you these my five contacts. You contact them and say, I’ve sent you, get them in, and then they’ll post and you post. And that’s how that journey started. And then I think because I might have had the right few people, they all didn’t say yes, only a few did. But then because it was starting to become a bit active on our social media page and what we were doing was niche in the UK market, we was getting into the right feeds of the right people. So then, you know, we were we were lucky enough that people were contacting us saying, Hey, could we come in, could we use the services, can we collaborate? And that’s what started that journey. And even with regards to to, you know, magazines and other publications, they were saying, hey, you know, you’re doing something that no one else is doing. Can we come in and do a feature? So I was very lucky with that respect.

And did you hire a PR company?

No.

No. It’s really.

Interesting. She had was.

Was was one of her original.

Well, that’s how I actually met Maria. We had we we interviewed was as well, but also was about the kind of like fitness space. Um, but.

It’s really interesting the question of what would have happened if Maria didn’t have that conversation with that hairdresser. I know there’s one aspect of it that says a successful person will always have those conversations.

But you don’t.

Ask, you don’t get that’s my that’s my life.

Motto.

But you’re very sort of that way driven. You’re marketing person, you know, loads of people as an accountant, as an accountant. And this applies to dental practices, right? You open a squat, we call it a squat, which is a dental.

Practice, which I pretty.

Much did with Chelsea Dental. You remember this?

A practice there, but yeah, yeah, yeah. But it was, it wasn’t, it wasn’t what it is now.

No, but it was seeing one patient a month and I literally Payman was one of the first people I called and I said, Do you think I should work here? He goes, You’ve lost your bloody mind. Why would you go there? There’s not a single patient.

I look at you now. Yeah, but.

I said to him. But to me it’s less of a risk because if I open up a squat and it doesn’t work, I’ve spent money on squat. If I make a practice work as an associate, I don’t have the overhead. So it’s not really a loss, you know? Fine. It was a loss of income, but it was like you. I say it was the three I’s for me. Instagram influencers. And there was an inside.

No, no.

It was Instagram influencers and Invisalign. The three I’s that made me successful. It’s amazing. And that’s what kind of, you know, created that.

That was a dental practice because it was a brand new idea in London. Yeah, It takes me back to when we started Enlighten. Light activated teeth whitening didn’t exist and it was a brand new idea. There’s some novelty in it, so you get some of those early adopter types. But I can imagine if it was myself, you know, I’m not like Rona, I’m not I’m not out there. And no loads of people. I’d sort of set up this place, probably do what you did and don’t pre-market. You’re sitting in this beautiful shop thinking, What now? Yeah.

That’s what it.

Was. So did you leaflet drop or something?

Well, of course we’ve done all that now. So, you know, I had some of my team, I only had two of us that were working at the time and and we would go out to Liverpool Street Station and hand out the brochures and stuff. Brochures? Yeah.

Remember the days of brochures?

Oh, I’m still a big believer in brochures, right? So I still think we need to have brochures and people still need to get out and do local marketing. I think that’s really important. I still believe in leaflet drops and stuff because if people are not searching cryotherapy, they’re not going to find me. So yeah, yeah. So it’s all about the awareness and dropping leaflets off and being, you know, in magazines and stuff. So and like I said, I was lucky enough I didn’t need to pay for PR initially. We didn’t have the budget for it and I didn’t know I needed to put that in the budget, to be honest. So I didn’t need that. But because it was so niche that, you know, these people were coming to me. And then I was lucky enough to, you know, you know, there was a big football show that was on and they came in and they recorded and got amazing exposure through that. The Russell Howard Show. He came in and did a segment.

All these people.

They contacted me. Right. So so you.

Said you got into it. You told me before you got into it because you listened to a podcast, correct. So I guess others had listened to podcasts as well. Yes. And so there was that element.

There was, of course, it definitely inspired, you know, cryotherapy, I need to try this. I’m training for a marathon. So, you know, going over to New York where I did the marathon, there’s thousands of cryotherapy wellness centres. So I went along and tried it, fell in love with it, understood the benefits. And so that also plays a part in, you know, having belief in what you’re doing and the passion. So you can come back and then say, Hey, there’s an opportunity here, let’s try and create something. And here we are almost 30 years later.

Now that you’ve got loads of competitors. Yes, it’s a slightly different thing, isn’t it? Because before it was this is where you come for cryotherapy. There isn’t anyone else now. There’s many different brands. You see them.

They’re still not London Cryo, though.

I know. So. So now it becomes like a differentiation story.

Yes.

So what would you say is the sort of the USP of London cryo compared to another cryo place?

I think our customer service, our our knowledge and expertise in what we do doesn’t compare to anyone. So and I’m all for the competition. I think it’s healthy. There’s enough of us in the market and the more people that are doing it, even if it’s elsewhere, the more the market knows about cryotherapy. I still think I always say this, I still think not enough people know about what we’re doing. And it’s not just about establishing the brand of London cryo. It’s also about, you know, cryotherapy itself. A lot of people still say, Oh, what is that?

Well, this is the thing I was going to say because I don’t think everyone knows about cryotherapy, Correct? I know that. So let’s talk a little bit about that, because it’s very much linked to mental health. Have you done an ice bath before? I feel like you’d never do that.

Yes. Cold shower.

Do you actually do it? Okay. So what is the science, the thinking behind ice therapy, cold therapy, etcetera, and how does it improve your mental health and physical health?

Okay. So with being exposed to the cold, especially when you’re doing cryotherapy, it triggers a thing called fight or flight mode. Okay. So you’re in the cryo cabin, you’re in there for a really cold 2 to 3 minutes. And what happens is the brain sends a message to your internal organs saying, oh my God, it’s freezing. So all the blood rushes to your core to go into protective mode. And so you’re freezing in there for a couple of minutes. Whilst it’s in there, the blood gets oxygenated, you replenish nutrients, flush out toxins. And so then when you step out of the cabin because you think, okay, I’ve survived this or that, oxygenated blood goes to areas where you’ve got muscle soreness or any inflammation. And what it also does is it can boost collagen cryotherapy. Benefits are cumulative. So you need to do like we recommend ten sessions and then your body starts to, you know, the internal doctor in us awakens and you start to get the benefits. It lowers your cortisol levels so people feel less stressed. But. People who are training for events, it helps to speed up their, you know, their recovery and they get out and do better performance and performances as well.

So question though, what is better, a cold ice bath or plunging in cold water or cryotherapy and why?

I’m always.

Going to say.

Cryotherapy because it’s a quick.

Two minute. It’s the alternative to a to an ice bath. And to get the benefits with an ice bath, it’s more about, you know, if you’ve got an injury. So you’re trying to, you know, to heal the area. It doesn’t do the internal benefits of what Cryotherapy does because, you know, the research inside and science shows you need to heat -110 or colder to trigger the fight or flight mode to get the cryotherapy benefits. You’re not going to get that in an ice bath. You’re going to feel amazing, feel awaken, which is all beneficial, but you’re not going to get the benefits of cryotherapy doing it that way. You need to describe it.

For someone who’s never seen it before. Describe what is it? How does it.

So what it is, is like, you know how you’ve got the sauna bed’s not a good example, right? So it’s one of those tubes and it’s standing up. This is the way London Cryo does it. You step onto the platform, Your head is outside the cabin with us. Yes. Because that way you can communicate and you.

Can communicate with the client.

Where you’re fully encased. Right. Where your head’s in it as well.

Correct? Right. And that’s called a chamber. So you can step into that. But but I feel like the way we do it, it’s really important, especially because a lot of people are scared to try cryotherapy for the first time because, oh, my God, it’s freezing. But we’re with you the whole time. So when you’re standing in there and you can communicate with us and we can just gauge how you’re feeling and get you through your first two minutes.

So what’s the initial initial challenge? Because with a cold shower, I found the initial challenge is almost like a breathing thing. Yeah, it is. But but also with the cold shower, I always thought your head was quite an important place to get cold. Is that not.

Correct?

Your cold receptors are all above the on the top half of your body. Right. So as long as you’re exposing the top part of your body, then then you’re going to get the benefits of the cold.

Go through it. What happens? Someone goes in, so you go in the ones who hate it, what is it they hate and how soon do they come out?

I think it’s more mind over matter, if I’m totally honest. Right? So once you’re in the cabin and I have an amazing team that talk you through the experience, you get onto the platform, we press the button and all that cold vapour comes out. But because you’re in there for such a short period of time and we’re quite engaging, we have great music playing, then you get through your 2 to 3 minutes of cryotherapy.

So everyone manages 2 to 3 minutes. Every time they try it.

Two minutes everybody manages and the door’s not locked. So if anyone ever says to me, you know, Oh, this is too much, we just open the door and get you out, It’s like it’s not a problem, Right?

So but also, I think that’s an important point to note. So what I found is with mental health, because this is something that I practice frequently, going to London Cryo, it’s kind of my little safe haven. When I was really good, I was going twice a week, but I tried to go once a week and I tell you what I do is, which again, I’m going to talk to Marie about. I do hot and cold. So there’s now science with hot and cold therapy. So that would be a red light therapy sauna. Then you go into the cryo, not the other way around. Not the other way around. Not, I know, but not the other way around. And Maria can explain the science behind that.

Doubly difficult, right, Because you’re hot now.

But you.

Know what? It’s amazing because I treat my sessions as London cryo because what I do is I don’t tend to just go into the cryo chamber because that’s only three minutes, spend like a good hour there or longer. So for example, they have the oxygen chambers as well. So I don’t know. There’s massive benefits to that. I don’t know if you know that as well, which again, we’ll talk to Maria about and I will spend time there. So it’s almost like that whole self love thing that we’re talking about, dedicating time to just doing something for your mind and your body. But for me, I just think it is the whole mind over matter because it’s that whole thing. If I put myself in discomfort on purpose, I become resilient and I feel a sense of achievement. And as we’ve talked several times, people in this world are continuously avoiding discomfort because we don’t want to feel we’re numbing it. Go away. So if we’re on purpose, making ourselves uncomfortable, that builds up that resilience.

You find at some point later on in the week you’re having a stressful Dental situation. Yeah. That you’re more resilient to even that because you’ve been through this?

I don’t think so, but I think it helps me de-stress because I naturally have anxiety. So if I feel anxious sometimes I’ll text the girls at London, cry and say, Can you just quickly book me in for a session? Because then that will de-stress me. It’s almost like it just alleviates the sort of yeah, yeah, yeah. So for me, it’s been really amazing. But let’s go to the science as well because I’m really interested in that. So what is the benefit of hot cold therapy and what why do you have to do it that way round?

Well, you have to.

We recommend that you do it that way round. Fine. As long as you’re not intending to go to bed after you’ve done the two sessions. Because if you. You cry, then you’re obviously going to stay awake and alert. But it’s important to do the hot treatment first, and that helps you to detox the body. And that’s what the great thing is about the infrared sauna and also doing the red light treatment. So, yes, if you do that, that’s a different treatment. And that’s just all about the red light penetrating the skin and recharging all the mitochondria in our cells. So that’s an amazing treatment as well to do just before you do cryotherapy. But the infrared sauna is all about detoxing, but that’s also very challenging for people as well. So I find.

That more challenging. I find I find my sauna is quite stressful.

Yeah.

The breathing part.

Of it, it’s just a lot.

Different. No, this is different. So this is the solar panels, that’s what. Yeah. Yeah. The solar panels do do all the heating. And so you start sweating it out. It’s not a breathing. It’s different to the traditional. It’s a different to the traditional sauna. Normally it’s.

A burns your nose and you’re.

No different. It’s different. Yeah.

You’ve got to try it. It’s in Saint John’s Wood.

Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yes.

Yeah. He knows that.

My parents live on the same street.

Oh, you’re saying amazing.

And then it’s important to do cryo afterwards. Like you have a little bit of a break, make sure you’re completely dry, and then you do cryo. And it’s important to do it that way around because the benefits of to to you physically last for the next three hours after doing a cryotherapy session. So you don’t want to be doing cryo first and yeah. And then going to you know, being have a negative effect by doing the sauna. So that’s why you finish on cryo. It also gives you a burst of energy so that you can continue on with your day. So we do recommend doing, you know, the hot first and then going into the cold.

So talk to us about the oxygen because oxygen. Have you ever done this? No.

So so go on.

Go into a one of our hyperbaric oxygen chambers. And whilst you’re in there, you breathe in. You have a mask that’s attached to our oxygen unit. Yeah. Tank And. And you breathe in 550% more oxygen in a one hour session. And what that helps to do is accelerate any recovery and repairs. So if you’re injured or, you know, a lot of people who are still suffering from long Covid will come in and they’ll get fresh, fresh oxygen into their lungs and it will help them to become better because it goes into your plasma and then all the benefits come from.

Do you also feel better or.

No, You don’t feel.

Any You don’t.

Feel anything. Instantly.

It’s like that.

It happens at a cellular level. So you can’t come out thinking, okay, I feel great. But we do know we’re getting feedback from clients who are now doing up to their 2030 sessions and they can find they’ve got mental clarity now and having a bit more energy. So it does take doing it quite a few times to get the benefit right.

There’s a risk isn’t there, in, in when you’ve got a wellness centre. Yes. There’s a risk of taking on the next sort of fashionable thing.

Yes.

What do you do as far as you know understanding whether the next thing.

Investing.

Well the next the next thing really is beneficial. You know I’m in business, right? So businesses will come to you and say, look, we’ve got this purple light therapy that helps with whatever. Yeah. How much research do you do? Or do you have a medical director or how do you handle this?

No, we stick to being just a wellness centre. We don’t go the medical route. So for me, I’m inspired a lot by what happens in the US. So I find that if they’re doing something like our original vision was just going to be three cryo chambers and people just coming in and out and stuff. But then we realised after being in business for a little while, actually people just don’t want to be in and out, they want more than that. And that’s where we started adding was saying, Yeah, that’s why we started adding the other treatments, you know, And people found it as, as a place where they could come and just be, you know, like, like a safe place that they could come and spend time, look after themselves, recharge, have some self-love. So so we added all these complimentary treatments. And because I’m inspired by the US, we would try what they were doing first. And if I felt the benefits, then we would introduce it into London cryo because you have to believe in it in order to be able to, you know, to allow anyone else to be part of that treatment.

So do you know what’s.

Interesting, though, as well? So I actually have a friend who Payman knows who created a dental clinic that basically integrates some of the therapies that you have, Miguel, Stanley, Miguel, the White Clinic. And it was very innovative for its time. But they even go as far as to do kind of genetic testing and blood tests. And I think it’s really interesting because there’s such a holistic approach to dentistry, which is completely undervalued or it’s an oversight really, you know, because a lot of our oral microbiome, they found as well as as complex as the gut microbiome. And if you go to looking at treating the oral microbiome, you can actually help lots of diseases. So it’s quite an interesting approach. And they do the hyperbaric oxygen as well. And I’m sure that you know this as well. So a lot of medical professionals do a lot of Botox and fillers, etcetera. And fillers are known complication as vascular occlusion. And did you know that one of the treatment modalities is hyperbaric oxygen? So it’s something that if you have an occlusion, so i.e. know a blood. Arsehole gets blocked. The treatment is they’d have to find a place where someone does the hyperbaric oxygen to the patient can be treated to get the blood flowing again.

Serena, we were talking before you got here about IV treatments, but they also this is and I’d like your opinion. Maria was saying that in the US, it’s very, very popular.

Of course it is.

And Dubai And.

Dubai. Yeah, but. But she was saying that in the UK or we we were postulating is it that we don’t like sticking needles. I mean how come you’ve had all the other treatments and you haven’t had.

Well I think it’s because to be honest the.

Pain, what it is.

The dent. So with the IV drips as we know, where whenever someone has a deficiency or wants to feel sort of more energised or, you know, feels they’re lacking in something, they can have a vitamin infusion of a sort, a cocktail, a mixture of drugs. But the idea is, is because it’s given intravenously, it travels to the blood quicker. Correct. Now, I have to say, I am so all for holistic treatment. I need to do some more research. But there have been some medical professionals that have claimed it’s pseudoscience, including a nutritionist, that I follow on Instagram. And I think the idea is, is that you really should be able to get most of the stuff from your food and nutrients. But the reality is a lot of people don’t. And also it’s that the way that the the amount is delivered, your body can’t absorb it all anyway. Does that make sense? And this was particularly for vitamin C because everyone got obsessed with vitamin C drips during Covid. I don’t know if you remember this. Yeah. And then my dad, who’s a doctor, was like, It’s impossible for your body to absorb more than X amount of vitamin C in one go anyway. So you’re just going to basically we’re out, you know, like it’s going to be in your urine. So I think I need to do a little bit more research. I supplement loads, but I see an endocrinologist, so my endocrinologist, I’ve had a lot of hormonal problems and he’s put me on a lot of supplements.

He’s also a functional doctor as well as being an endocrinology list. And it’s amazing because a lot of my problems are being resolved now through his functional treatment and that’s through what the tests that he did. And they found a lot going on with my gut. And so so it was it’s been really interesting. And I’m like, of course there’s something there. But I think that’s the problem is that we have and this is my problem with Western and Eastern medicine as a whole. And again, this is why I think it affects mental health, because in Western medicine and the way that me and Payman were taught as dentists, you have a problem. This is your diagnosis. And then you give medication or treatment. But so often we’re treating the symptom, not the cause. And that’s particularly imminent in the NHS, which is why we end up fire fighting all the time with mental health. I have depression, take antidepressants, I have anxiety, take anti-anxiety attacks, I have bipolar, take medication for bipolar. But they don’t understand what the courts cause the diseases. And it’s funny because when I speak to my father about meditation, yoga, advancements and psychedelic medicine, all these different things, my dad’s a little bit, oh.

It’s rubbish.

You know, because he’s old school, you know. But actually if we integrate the two, the Western and the Eastern and we can see the way the Eastern world live, I think they have a high higher level of depression, anxiety. It’s because of those things that they do that lower level. So lower level. But I think it’s because as well they integrate those things into their life and nutrition matters, sleep matters, doing these things like meditation matters because that all heals us on some level.

I agree. If I can just say like that’s a really good example. What we say is like people will go to their GP once or twice a year. For example, they’ll come in to see us for their cryotherapy sessions three, four times a week, right? Because they know they’re getting the benefits. They know they’re going to be sleeping better. They know they know if they’re having their IVs, they feel like they’re going to be, you know, get their nutrition that way. So there there is that’s one of the big benefits we get of people that come into London because they’re going to.

Get those benefits.

Medical complaints that cryo really helps.

Autoimmune.

Diseases, autoimmune.

Diseases, which I have, by the way.

Yep, Yep. So it definitely helps with that. It helps insomniacs with their sleeping. So there are a lot of, you know, especially arthritis is a big one that we help people with because it comes as an analgesic. So they’re feeling less pain over a period of time.

So and what about what about the technology? The machines? Are there better ones and worse ones? And you said your ones are the head out ones.

They are.

That’s right.

So what are the what are the categories of of machines that you should look out for? If you go to a cryo centre, how do you know you’re getting in?

I would say.

As long as it’s the it’s more about as long as the team are qualified and you feel like you’re in a safe environment rather than how we’re doing it. I mean, that’s in the industry. We have a big issue about whether people do an electric or a nitrogen. I stay away from that argument. I’m a big believer in as long as you’re doing cryo, that’s all that matters, right? So you’re getting the. Benefits rather than. So as long as you feel like you’re in a clean, safe environment with qualified people carrying out the treatments, that’s what you need to look out for more than anything else.

Do you know how many crisis centres there are in the UK?

There must be at least 15 now.

That’s nothing. That’s nothing compared to the US.

They before Covid, they had like 5000. I think they’re down to about 3000. But there are a few companies that are just absolutely just exploding over in the US. But I think the English culture is a little bit different and that’s why it’s taking us a bit longer to catch up to anyone else.

So we’re very early, still.

Still very. We are.

Maria, I wanted to ask you, though, as well, the reason why that you embarked on this journey, as we said, is to leave a job that was incredibly stressful, to focus on a job that integrated mental health, wellness and physical health. However, you’re a business owner and you have many locations. Do you feel that sometimes your primary purpose, which was sought out wellness, is forgotten because the stresses of being a business owner and running a business take over?

This is so true.

Rona So yeah, no, it’s.

Very valid what you say. So, you know, people do say, you know, you want to get away from the 9 to 5 and stuff, but when you do go into business, it becomes 24 divided by seven. And not that I’m complaining because I actually love the journey that I’m on, but it is far more stressful now than it ever was when I was back doing a corporate job. But I know this is for me and I know what I’m creating for the London market. I know the people that we’re helping feel better every day. So it just keeps us going regardless of the stress that it does, you know, does play on me.

What do you what do you find the biggest challenge is? I mean, how many members of staff have you got now?

We’ve probably got 15 people that work for us now. Is that the.

Biggest challenge.

Or. Yeah, definitely staff.

But we’re just talking about that before you came.

In. But, but staffing going into business I knew was going to be my biggest issue. And, you know, we were saying putting things out into the universe, I feel like, you know, that’s come to fruition because staffing, I have an amazing team, but just not enough people. So I do, you know, constantly looking for more.

Sort of corporate structure wise. What have you got a manager at each site?

Yes, we do have.

A manager at each site and.

Operation.

Go to each site. Do you see each each shop every week? Do you go to every. I’m very.

Hands on. Still, I haven’t learned to let go.

So you can’t be like. I mean.

It’s early days. It’s early days. But we were talking about expansion, you know. You know.

How many sites do you have? Three.

We have three and we’re looking at another three now.

So so we were saying, you know, Maria comes from a finance background, as does her business partner and life partner. Yes. And when you come from a finance background, number one, you don’t make the massive mistakes that we made right at the beginning, overspending and under earning thing. You’re more cautious about that. Yes. But number two, they’re going for investment. Yeah.

And so you’re raising for this for these.

Next three, but.

Not traditionally. Like we just want like a white angel to come into the business rather than going venture capitalist.

Yeah, fine.

So so I was saying as as a business owner myself, right, we never raised any money. We got an initial bank loan of 60,000.

Yeah. That’s what we did with, with Paula was the same. Right. Like and now for our second round. But I think this might be useful because I often get asked, what is it? How do you go about raising money? You want to start a business, whether it’s even a dental practice.

Go ahead. Yeah, but like.

We were saying, like I was brought up different. We didn’t go out and do this seed capital raising. And so we don’t go that the new way, new age of doing it by going out to the market, trying to do crowdfunding. I’m still old school and you know, you go to the bank and you get a loan or, you know, you use your savings in order to start your business. It’s very different now.

I’m still old.

School Yesterday there one year old and they’ve got 52 employees, you know, venture backed. Yeah.

32. What is.

That? It’s a liner disruptor.

Okay.

Yeah. So and we were talking about the difference between being a venture backed company and a traditional company.

And what were the findings?

Well, you know, it’s just a different way of living, right? I don’t think they’re profitable yet. So for them, that’s the. The nightmare. Yeah. Yeah. But then at the same time, we’re now getting to 44 employees. 23 years later. Yeah. And on day one, she’s gone. Yeah. So, you know, to be a bigger, a bigger to play a bigger ticket sort of games. But do you think that becomes a part of it.

Do you think, though, when you do it the way that people are doing it now, you’re using other people’s money so you don’t have sometimes you don’t care as much as like if it’s.

Your own business?

I think they do care. But but there’s a there’s a difference in so much as Because money is plentiful. Yeah, you can you can.

Make those.

Decisions. You can throw money at problems instead of throwing solutions at the problem. And once you throw money at problems, you actually hide the problem and then the business. But then at the same time, I mean if you. To Sonia. She’s a Oxford graduate doctor who then went into consulting and superbrain in a clever person who’s aware of all of this. Yes. So, you know, of course there are pros and cons, but what my point to Maria was growing up in London, living in London, it’s incumbent on us to be fully aware of the investment situation. If we were sitting in, I don’t know Malaga, if that’s where we were born and raised, then okay, you’re not aware of finance and business. You could do it the way that I did it. But growing up in London, I’ve got friends in the city. I’ve got, you know, I’ve got all sorts of links to finance. And yet because I’m a dentist, dentist, I wasn’t even thinking that way. Now, dentists are thinking that way. Yes, of course. To open 300 practices, that sort of thing. Yeah. But back then I didn’t get.

The funding and just, you know, explode from day one.

Yeah. Yeah. But then, you know, sometimes you see the quality drop when that happens.

Well, that’s the thing.

I think like the thing is, is that I’m really happy with the brand that I’ve created and but for me it’s also about.

Maintaining were 30.

Yeah, exactly.

30 of them. Would it be. Yeah.

The thing is you know I might open up another but it’s about the like I think I’m more but again it’s all about what your value is and what you perceive like. I think reputational success matters more to me in a way. Like if I’m a very face fronting person. So I want people to associate quality and care. And I think when you start going, like when you become the Starbucks or the McDonald’s and stuff like that, yeah, sure, you’re into the huge bucks, you know, but also the quality can dip and I don’t.

Well, it can, but if you walk into Louis Vuitton in.

Sydney, of course.

It’s the same experience as if you walk into Louis Vuitton in Bond Street. Yeah. So, so it doesn’t have to the quality doesn’t have to drop. No. Yeah. It’s not necessarily that the quality will drop, but then you do see it sometimes, you know.

But Payman but on that argument. Right but you know, you know the numbers and the stats that all of these big fashion companies, some of them are living in a constant debt and also they make much less money than Primark and the cheaper ones. Do you see what I mean?

That problem. But but.

Look, there are schnell, schnell.

Schnell, Schnell has that problem.

So so perfume do they.

But the thing is, Chanel. Chanel makes much less than Primark, something like that. You know, there’s a crazy. Yeah, exactly. So actually what you’re trying to say is. But Chanel is a luxury brand that wants to be luxury. They’re not going to be Primark. So again, and as you know, Ryanair versus the more expensive airlines, you know.

That’s called positioning. Yeah, Yeah. So you can position yourself as £90 per per session. And I’m sure don’t worry, you’re going to get a disruptor that comes in saying £24.

Per session, of.

Course. And they’ll be you know, they won’t have the whole experience side. Correct. That you’ve got. And that will be a different thing. Exactly. So positioning is positioning. But but this question of growth and keeping the quality, I think of it as gales and do you know or.

Yeah, of course I do.

Or was this amazing?

I know you’re bougie array is still around. It’s in Saint John’s Wood.

But now it’s no good anymore now that they’ve got venture capital and it’s everywhere. But it’s not what it was.

Do you know, what do you remember when the first Lappin opened up? Lappin Yeah. So I knew.

A big deal.

I know the guy that opened it up and started it. And it was it was it was a disruptor. It was a disruptor. No one had experienced that. And now Lappin is so.

You know, I mean.

Gales You walked into Gaels in Aberdeen.

Yeah.

And it’s just as good. Just as good.

But do you not.

Think some of that has come down to what we’ve experienced and because of the staff and issues that they have and stuff? So I just think, you know, you can’t keep it up because we don’t have the same kind of workforce that we did. So that’s now playing a part played into that.

And I think the work attitude really interesting. I’m going to tell you a story, actually. So there was this amazing company online called Restore. Have you heard of them? Yeah. Amazing. So what they did was it was really, really niche because it was needed. So you say you’d had a handbag that was a Chanel Louis Vuitton or whatever or shoes. So they, they reconditioned it. So it was like brand new and the value would maintain and the service was impeccable. Like you’d go online, you’d book your slot, they’d pick it up, they’d turn it around. If you ever needed to speak to them, they’d speak to their Italia if you needed things tailored. It was amazing and it wasn’t cheap at all. Like I would spend a lot of money getting a bag restored and they’d even, oh, maybe like £200, you know. So that’s, you know, so their margins were pretty good. Anyways, they developed an incredible online reputation and presence. So about two months ago I thought I’d heard they resized shoes. So I had my shoes and I thought there needs to be a little bit bigger. So I sent them off and two weeks later they sent me a quote for it because you have to approve of the quote. And I kept clicking and it wouldn’t accept the payment.

And I tried to call. No one picked up and I tried to email. And no one answered. And I thought, this is really weird. And I got about ten emails saying you have not accepted the quote, so therefore we’re going to send your shoes back. And I was like, No, no, no, please don’t send them back. I’m trying to click. Eventually one of those like email companies messaged me back, What’s the one, you know, when they become a big company? And then they’re like, You get an email marketer? Yeah, something like that. So then I said, I can’t approve of the link. And then they said, Oh yeah, we’re having a glitch in the system. And I was like, Well, no one’s ever emailed me from this place anyway. But a month passes and my shoes come back and they’re not fixed. And I was like, This is bizarre. So I went on the Instagram and I said, Hi guys, you returned my shoes. Can’t get hold of anyone. Will anyone ever reply? Then I looked and there was thousands of messages of of patience. That’s the default clients saying, This is awful. You’ve not returned my shoes, my bags, etcetera. And then someone replied to me saying, Look what has happened. And they sent me a link to Vogue business and.

They got bought.

They got bought.

And the.

Business fell apart. It fell apart. And I was just like, This is just horrendous.

Imagine if someone buys you. Yeah. And then there’s something about Chelsea that’s special. Yeah. And I’m sure there’s plenty about Chelsea that isn’t special. Right? Bits that you could improve on. If someone buys you and focuses on the bits that aren’t special, but in the process.

Messes.

Messes up with the core, the thing that makes it. Chelsea Yeah, that’s where it.

Can all go wrong. Exactly.

And this is where you need.

To have your vision, your passion, so you’ll never be the same.

Yeah.

So I think, you know, from also from the mental health point of view, how do you think that you keep your mental health in check whilst managing so many businesses?

To be totally honest, I’m in doing my treatments all the time.

Yeah.

So. So I love cryo. I probably do it every day. The infrared sauna 4 or 5 times a week. I also still love to exercise, so I find that if I go for a run after I’ve had that one hour to myself, I can take on the world. So I think it’s important to find out what makes you feel good and make sure you’re including that in your daily routine so that you can stay balanced.

What’s the biggest mistake you’ve made in this business?

Oh, that’s a really good question.

And be honest.

Yeah.

Not having not having a marketing plan that I started with is probably my biggest mistake.

Yeah, but pre marketing plan.

Yeah, pre marketing. I think I didn’t understand like having a website, having my blogs prepared, not understanding how important all that was going into business. I just thought you got the numbers right. You’ll be okay. It’s more than that. It’s understanding, you know, the marketing side.

I think dentists make that mistake.

You’ve got the numbers right. But when you make both mistakes, right, you make the marketing mistake and you haven’t got the head for numbers. Yeah. That’s when things can definitely go wrong. Can go wrong.

Yeah.

Maria We discussed the difficulty of managing staff and I think that being a business owner as well, I think that’s been my biggest challenge and I’m sure for you Payman as well, is just managing personalities, understanding people. It can be. What do you think is the most important thing when it comes to managing staff and retaining staff?

I think giving them a plan and, you know, direction and letting them understand your journey and making sure they believe in that journey as well is really important in making sure that people you’re attracting the right kind of people to come and work for you. I mean, there’s still politics that you have to deal with all the time. And, you know, getting people to understand that, you know, we don’t all have to be friends, but we have to like each other, but we all have to learn to work together in order for this to work. So, you know, and just being I’m very hands on still. So being available and being seen by my team I think is really important.

I found, you know, one of the big issues in dental practice and you might have the similar issue is career progression is quite difficult. It is. So when you hire a yes, call them therapists. Yes.

When you we call them you front of house because because the therapist is mainly the beauty team. But we also have front of house team.

So when you hire one of those.

Yes.

Yeah. The you know, you can say to someone this is your pay and but this is this is the progression. Yeah. In most jobs but in a dental practice situation you hire a nurse or in this front of house person, you can say stuff, right? You can say you can go and train and you can become an oral health educator. But the reality is there isn’t much movement in career. Yeah. And so the problem with it is two things. One, you can’t make those promises and you can’t help people. And we all know that at work, you know, progression is what keeps people going more than even pay. Yeah, but the second one is that, you know, you end up attracting the kind of person who’s not interested in progression, who then ends up being a time serving employee. By the way, of course there are people who are time serving employees and are great employees, correct? Yeah, because they want to do a job well and go home and help their kids or whatever. But do you do you does that resonate?

Of course it does very strongly. So. You know, and for me, having mapped out a career plan for people who do step into this space because it was new, I didn’t have anyone here doing it that I could copy exactly. There was no template. So I had to create that. And I’m still learning and and that’s still being refined as we go now. Right? So, you know, coming up with all new titles and all new positions within the company is something that’s very, very much, you know, on my priority list at the moment. But the fact.

That you’re growing it, though, that kind of I guess you can say if you want to go from three to 6 to 15, you can kind of say to one of those front of house people, you can be an area manager one.

Day. Exactly. Yeah.

And that’s the one thing we did. Well, actually, I’m having being completely transparent. Staff at the moment have been an absolute nightmare in terms of we’ve got some amazing ones, but the the sort of long term vision is difficult to instil and I think more, as you said, with the auxiliary staff. And we found as well that there’s been a lot of people leaving dentistry as a profession as a whole. Covid really had an effect.

It’s turning up.

Is so hard.

Turning up, is.

It? But also I do.

Think that my team don’t one day a week they come in really that that difference. Right But your staff have to turn up. They do.

That’s right.

Yeah. And you’re not paying them any more than I’m paying them. No, that’s right. Similar situations turning up such a nightmare that loads of people.

Don’t want.

To. They’re finding jobs that they can do from home and not applying.

Yeah, Yeah.

And we get lots of dental teams applying for jobs here really for that reason.

But you know, I’ll tell you one thing, though. But I was thinking about this and I wondered if either one of you had ever done it. I think, again, in terms of because I’m so I do think in terms of like mental health, etcetera, it’s hard work. It’s hard to understand your mind. It’s also hard if you’re somebody that gets frustrated, angry, etcetera. It’s about doing that internal work and finding out why you’re act in those certain ways. You know, doing workshops where you have a speaker come, Do you see what I mean? And really taps into that emotive side of work? It’s not just about the physical side.

Sonia was saying.

That. Yes, exactly. And I do think, you know, I think I’m in the process of trying to source that where people are really inspired about the long term vision, almost like the secret. But if everyone understands the secret and the abundance mindset, then. Everyone does well and it’s hard to get everyone on that page.

Of it is you have to have the vision to close the practice during those periods. Yeah, of course. Of course. Or pay people to stay to stay longer or work over lunch or whatever. Yeah, because, you know, being in the dental practice is hard. Yeah. Whether you’re the dentist or the nurse. Yeah. It’s hard. And then to say, okay, I’ve got this inspirational speaker coming in, you can say, Maria, come in and have a little chat. You know, they want their lunch times and they want their they do their home time.

That’s right.

But then closing a dental practice is very expensive. Way more expensive than you’d imagine.

Yeah, right. A lot.

And people can’t believe the overheads. I mean, my dad came in yesterday. You’re going to laugh so much at this because my dad’s helping me make some decisions with the refurb because it’s made me really stressful. And he said to me, So Amy, my practice manager, said, You know, like a new dental chair can be like £20,000. And my dad goes.

Terrible.

He goes, This is dentistry, mine 1500 because he’s a.

Gynaecologist, you know?

And I was like, okay, Dad. But he is always like, because it blows his mind that dentistry, dentistry, like it’s exponential compared to medicine. The crop prices we pay for stuff, you know? So it’s kind of crazy. But I think it’s been it’s really inspiring speaking to you because I think that at some point in my life as well, I really want to integrate wellness into the practice that I create. Maybe it’s integrating it into dentistry as well in the same way that some other dentists have. And I think also the the fact that you’ve managed to keep that delicate balance between, you know, being a businesswoman and, you know, having your mental health, you know, still great is really, really important. Have you ever had I know Payman said, what’s your what was your biggest mistake or your big what’s your biggest struggle been? Have you ever had really low moments, let’s say, in the last five years?

Oh, definitely.

Can I? Yeah.

Shall I share? Like last night I had a breakdown just thinking this is all just really overwhelming. Like the amount of work. And because we are short staffed not to touch on that again, it’s like the people that I do rely on to get things, you know, that I delegate to them done. They’re not. That’s not getting done. So it comes back to me to do it. And then so my list is just huge at the moment. And so, you know, so even last night and then my kids and like my son, you know, needed to go to A&E yesterday because he had a football injury. And it’s like that’s the last thing I needed. But it’s like but his priority. So it’s like I have to put my work behind and and then like by the time we get home and I’m thinking and how am I going to deal with catching up with what I haven’t done And you know what people aren’t doing for me. So, so like even up until last night, you still have those moments, you know? But then I’m, you know, I try and be really positive. I’m grateful for my lifestyle and, you know, and everything I have. So like, you wake up and you show up the next day again, Right? And because you’ve got children, is it looking right?

Is it possible to have it all?

No.

And so what have you decided to sacrifice from having it all?

Oh, I don’t know. People will say I don’t sacrifice anything to be honest. Like, I still think I’ve got it all. Well, I don’t know. That’s. That’s really tricky, right? So, no, because I feel like I’m not there enough for my children, so you can’t have it all. So it’s a sad of sacrifice. Time. Time. Yeah, it’s always time. It’s always time. Yeah.

You know, you two are talking about stress of being a business owner, but both of you have got pretty successful businesses. There’s the real stress comes as the business starts to fail. Yeah. So now I want to know. Now your kid at the beginning, right? It’s like you haven’t given time to your kids. Or maybe you’ve delayed having a kid. I don’t know. Yeah, let’s say that’s the case. Yeah. At the same time, you’re losing money. Yeah. That’s when the real nightmare starts happening. And, you know, I don’t want to manifest it.

No, no.

We’re talking about manifesting.

Putting things out in the universe. We’re not. We’re not manifesting that one.

But the thing is, is that, you know, it’s just it’s a really funny one. And I think the whole failure thing is something I’m still really trying to understand. And I do get I’m better at it with, you know, with dentistry. But you’ve got to think like the most successful business moguls failed and failed again. But what makes them successful? They get back up again.

Yeah, that’s what that’s it.

That’s the secret. The secret is not just failing and just. And also it’s also knowing when to walk away. Correct. I think that’s one of the most important things that people don’t recognise.

It is because it is.

But it’s knowing.

But knowing is a massive superpower. Yeah, because one of the most important things is resilience and continuing and fighting through problems. And then you’re saying knowing when to stop is difficult. It’s difficult, you know, because it’s one of your skills is not giving up.

True. But then that is true. But if you’re not getting it or pivoting, you know, I think pivoting is a skill as well. The Lean Start-Up is also one of my favourite books. I’m sure you’ve read it. Yeah. And they talk about that real importance with pivoting and, you know, we. Learnt that with my start up parlour where, you know, there was a certain thing that the initial message that we wanted to deliver was like, you know, this is it, this is it. This has to be the only message. This is our biggest USP. And I was like, No time to pivot. Everyone is eco and sustainable now. That was the reason we started. But it’s not the only reason. It’s going to keep working. And you know that for me, like I learned that from The Lean Start-Up because I started looking at other brands and their messaging and what they were doing. And I think that’s a really important skill to have in any profession that you have. Is the pivot Absolutely right.

Of course. I totally agree. Yeah. Yeah.

And I’m sure you’ve seen that with the Nitin because as competitors came about, you thought we have to do something different now, you.

Know, So there was.

Even like us, we wanted to just to be a wellness recovery centre. But then we realised that actually, you know, we needed the beauty side of things, so we had to pivot and introduce those services together to keep up with everybody else, even the slimming, you know, And because there was a cold treatment, then I thought, okay, we can, we can incorporate in that in what we’re doing. So, you know, pivoting and knowing when to pivot is really important.

So, Maria, thank you so much for being with us today. It’s been an absolute pleasure. We’ve really enjoyed having you. I always end our podcasts with a question, which I’m finding because I wrote down that each guest has to answer.

Do I get to think about this before I have to answer?

Well, no, it has to be on the spot. This is the.

Thing. Okay.

I didn’t do on the spot right now.

Uh.

You’ve just.

Answered.

40 questions on the spot.

But we got.

Off to a bad start.

Right? So I couldn’t get. For me, it was a bad start.

If you could go back in time, where would you go and why? And it could be in your life. Or it could be like in the 50s or whatever you want.

Oh, okay.

If I can go back in time.

What’s your answer?

I’d love to go to the 1950s.

Would you? Yeah.

I just think it would be a really interesting time. I love that whole Mad Men era, Just like living through all of that Stepford Housewives.

I was.

Thinking dinosaurs.

But to just chill out.

With them, I’d be quite scared.

Um.

I would go back to when I turned 40, to be honest. Really good. Ten years ago now.

Why?

Oh, I was just at the peak of everything. Like I just had my children. We had just established the business. We had it all. I had it all. That’s when I had it all right. Gone downhill since then. But I had it all back, you know when? Ten years ago, when I turned 40, I felt like I was at the peak.

Of that idea that I find. I find it so inspirational now that you would give a lot to go back 20 years, like almost everything. To go back 20 years.

I wouldn’t.

Go. I wouldn’t go 20.

15.

20 years. I was not having the time of my life.

Ten years.

I was 30.

Most hated it.

Then. Okay.

You’re Peking duck. Okay. But. But I would and Maria would. Right. To go back ten years.

You would give a lot. Why? Why?

Because. Because as you get older, things. Yeah. You’re not as exciting as you were right now. In ten years time, you will give even more to come back to.

Exactly.

So appreciate today.

Exactly the question.

Why? Because I’m going to tell you because obviously I’m the younger one in the group here. I feel personally as a woman and I know that we’ve touched on this before. In my 20s, I was really insecure, didn’t know who I was, and I didn’t have a great time, as in like I had an okay time. I was really insecure as a woman and I was really worried about things that I shouldn’t have been worried about because society instilled in me that I should, like, be worried about having kids and getting married. So the whole time I was looking for a husband and that was kind of my 20s and it was a really like sad time. And then in my 30s I felt way more comfortable in my skin and I felt like I knew who I was as a woman. So I feel that despite the narrative society have created, like being in your 30s is great. Yeah.

Wait till you hit 50. You’ll see. Yeah.

Wait till you hit. Exactly. Because I’m just about to hit 50. And for me, when I was 40, I just felt like I still had youth on my side. I had like the ten years was next. Ten years was still going to be fun, you know, not as don’t look as old and you have more energy. I just had the kids, so it was all a brilliant time.

But you know, I think.

Wisdom is on your side. Do you not feel that your mind has developed in a different way as the years have gone on?

A little. But maybe you were more more damaged as a 20 year old than I was.

Okay, fine.

Payments like I still want to get on it and like Burning Man or something like that.

But I’m the same.

Burning Man is on my bucket.

List for sure. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, it’s great fun. I had a great time, actually. I just got back from Africa burn and I was going to say the.

Thing, whether she’s happy, right?

But the thing that makes that whole experience really beautiful, really sadly, is taking things to basics, which is so hard. As soon as you enter the desert, you don’t have a phone. As soon as you enter the desert, you don’t have money. So what are the two? Those two things mean you work as a community because you have to look out for each other. It’s a group effort to cook for each other, clean for each other, look after each other. You have to be present because you’re just in that moment and guess. What that equals everybody being happier. And it’s really sad because as a society and as if we’ve developed as humans, we’ve disconnected from each other even more and we’re becoming less and less happier. And I think that’s really sad because you’re literally fending for yourself in this desert in each other, and it makes people happier to look after each other.

That’s a lovely place to be, right?

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

So on that note, thank you again, Maria, It was a pleasure to have you, and I’ll see you soon at London. Crier You.

Will? Thank you very much. Yeah.

Hopefully.

I didn’t want to say I still need to come and get that tooth pulled out.

Yeah, come in.

So thank you so much.

Thank you for having me. Thanks for coming.

Maria’s details can be found at London. Crier London. London Crier Cry just at London. Crier on Instagram.