Category: Podcast

Prav Solanki
Welcome to the Dental Leaders podcast. Today’s episode, it’s just me, Prav, and I’m just going to cover a few topics that are current amongst my clients, questions that have come up, especially with navigating the current climate that we’re in at the moment. So the topics I’m gonna cover, I’m gonna talk about the new patient consultation.

Prav Solanki
my thoughts around it, how it should be structured, whether it should be dentist or TCO, is there a right or wrong way of doing it? A lot of people have very strong views on, you know, whether dentists should give free consultations or it should be all TCO driven, don’t waste clinical time, blah, blah. My answer to that question, and pretty much every question anyone asks me, is it depends.

Prav Solanki
Every practice is different. Every clinic is different. You know, some have got TCOs, some have not. Some have got dentists sat there twiddling their thumbs. Would they rather be spending that time maybe exploring a sales opportunity with a patient or would they like to carry on twiddling their thumbs? Does that dentist have the ability to convert and strike rapport with the patient? What’s the difference between a free consultation and a free assessment?

Prav Solanki
And a lot of practitioners don’t know the difference between that. So some dentists really struggle with offering a patient a free consultation, which in my mind, sit down, have a chit chat. You’re not really going to do an oral examination. You may take some photographs, blow them up on the screen, take the patient through a, almost like a, what do they call it, co-diagnosis discovery where they essentially write their own treatment plan on the screen.

Prav Solanki
and talk to them about costs, rough indications, are you the right person for them? Do they feel close enough? Are they connected? Have you built enough rapport for this patient to trust you so that you can make a recommendation, sell them a treatment and book them in for the assessment? And then the old topic of leads, generating leads and lead generation, you might be running open days, Facebook campaigns, Google campaigns, and when you try and contact these patients, can you get through to them?

Prav Solanki
often and the narrative I’m hearing at the moment is you just can’t bloody get hold of patients and you know you follow them up you chase them you chase them you chase them you ring them you email them and you can’t get through to them. So these are the general topics I’m going to navigate my way around today in no particular order but these are the topics that are that are coming up at the moment with

Prav Solanki
conversations that I’m having with clients, or just potential clients or new customers who are looking to sort of either switch agencies or looking for a bit of coaching and consultancy advice. So I thought I’d just dish out this advice on the podcast so that you can all benefit from it. So let’s talk about consultations, okay? To free or not to free is the question. And…

Prav Solanki
If you ask me, should you do a free consultation? And, you know, often the rebuttal to that is, well, you know, does the dentist want to waste their clinical time? They could be drilling in that time. They could be doing something else. The TCO can deal with the tire kickers, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, right? What’s really important is that how that free consultation has landed in that dentist’s lap.

Prav Solanki
So before I answer that question, free consultations come in different flavors. So you could have an offer, an advert that says free consultation with a dentist, usually 75 pounds or something like that, right? And anyone who’s willing to put down, let’s say a 30 pound fully refundable deposit, you will happily give them a free consultation.

Prav Solanki
And that’s where the trouble starts. Because unless you’ve got a series of filters that means that patient has to earn that free consultation, you are going to get the equivalent of what a lot of people refer to as tire kickers. But for me, it’s just a mismatch, right? I think it’s, I’ve probably used the term myself, right? But I think it’s derogatory in the sense that, do you know what? These are just human beings who’ve got a problem.

Prav Solanki
a dental problem that needs fixing. And there’s a mismatch between what they believe, the price and the service, the cost is, and what it actually is. And so if you allow those patients to walk into your practice without knowing enough about the practice, without having a very clear indication of pricing, and you sit them in front of the dentist, you’re going to have a poor experience. Out of 20 consultations, you might have 15 patients.

Prav Solanki
who are either not clinically suitable or simply just miles off on the price point, right? And you’re not doing any favors to anyone. So what’s really important is what happens prior to booking that free consultation. So let’s say it is with the dentist and even if it’s with a TCO, I think this discovery process should be going on. And find out what the patient knows. What do they know about the treatment?

Prav Solanki
What do they know about Invisalign? Have they had any previous consultations? What was the outcome of those consultations? Why didn’t they go ahead with those consultations? What was it? Was it an information? Was it confusion? Was it price? If it was price, did they perceive it to be too expensive? If they thought it was too expensive, what does too expensive mean? And how does that lie in terms of your price point? Because if they thought two and a half grand was too expensive for Invisalign, for example,

Prav Solanki
then what is the point of that patient walking through your door? Okay, let’s be upfront about prices. Perhaps they’ve been given a treatment plan. Always say that when a patient comes into my practice for a free consultation, I want to be armed with as much information as I can. And more importantly, I want to understand what those patients’ expectations are. And I want to know, I want that patient to know exactly.

Prav Solanki
what they’re going to get in their consultation, whether it’s a free consultation or a paid assessment. So what we always say is before a patient books a free consultation, I want to find out what they know about the treatment. I want to find out what they know about the costs and the range of costs. And I want to inform them of the costs, the range of costs.

Prav Solanki
and payment options. I definitely want to find out what that patient’s funding sources are. So we will ask the patient, so have you thought about how you’re going to fund the treatment? Is this something that you’re just gonna pay for upfront? Have you got the funds to pay for this? Or would you need to apply for one of our affordable finance options or pay as you go choices? So you get an idea of, you know.

Prav Solanki
what it is that this patient is going to pay with, right? How they’re gonna fund this. And you have an open conversation with them about it. The patient will appreciate that, right? Because often, especially in today’s age, right? Interest rates have gone up, people’s mortgages have gone up by a phenomenal amount, cost of living’s going up, prices at the forefront. So we should be very upfront about this.

Prav Solanki
So I want to know what does the patient know about it? Have they had any previous consultations? What were they like? Why didn’t they go ahead? What do they understand about the possible costs and what are their funding sources? And then the final thing I want this patient to have a very clear understanding of is what is it that is different about us, right? What is it that’s our USP? Whether it’s the clinician’s experience, whether it’s about the patient journey, whether it’s about your all-inclusive.

Prav Solanki
whether it’s about remote check-ins and all the rest of it, right? Whether it’s about the volume of cases that you’ve done, the variety of cases you’ve done, or your communication journey or what’s included in the package, right? Make sure that patient understands what your, we call it, unique selling proposition or unique selling points are. And your team should be very, very clear in being able to articulate that.

Prav Solanki
I think you also need to bear in mind that you shouldn’t be disillusioned that this patient is not only gonna call your practice, they’re gonna call half a dozen. And when they do, you better make sure that the phone calls at your practice are memorable. Let me say to my team, whether the patient books or not, I want you to leave them with a lasting impression and I want you to make sure that the phone call is incredibly

Prav Solanki
memorable. So when they ring the four or five practices, they realize, ah, I’m going to book in with Kerry. She was excellent. She mentioned X, Y, and Z and so on and so forth. Right. So it’s really important is we talk about free consultations and not what’s the quality of that free consultation. How much filtering have you done before they have earned the right to book a free consultation in your practice. Right. And not only that,

Prav Solanki
All that information that you’ve taken from the patient about the funding sources and what their expectations are, whether they’ve had a consultation elsewhere, whether they can send you a treatment plan that had been sent by another clinic, that information should all make it through to the TCO or the dentist before their consultation. And they should take five, 10 minutes out before that consultation to consider that.

Prav Solanki
If you’re running consultations back to back to back to back, you’re not going to have that time to just take that data in that’s really, really important and then plan and prepare for that consultation, which is essentially that sales appointment. So now when you ask me the question, should dentists offer free consultations, the answer it depends, really depends on what’s happening upstream.

Prav Solanki
Are we taking a refundable deposit, even though it’s a free consultation? Are we putting these filters in place? And is that patient attending well-informed and well-educated about what our process is? In our practice, when a patient rings up and they want a free consultation, we actually offer two appointments. We say you can come in and have a free consultation. And during that appointment, you get 20, 25 minutes with the dentist.

Prav Solanki
You’ll have the opportunity to get all your questions answered. We’ll show you examples of cases that are similar to yours and we’ll give you approximate indication of costs. The alternative is you’re booking for a comprehensive assessment because even if you have the free consultation, you will need a comprehensive assessment and the cost of that assessment is £95. Now what some patients do,

Prav Solanki
is they decide to skip the queue and upgrade straight for the comprehensive assessment because they are more serious about getting treatment done. Which one would you like to do?

Prav Solanki
And what we invariably find is that approximately 40% of our patients who inquire about a free consultation actually say, well, what’s the point of the free consultation? I’ll just book in for the comprehensive assessment. I wanna get started sooner rather than later. And so, it depends on whether a dentist should offer a free consultation or not.

Prav Solanki
How good are they? What are their sales skills like? What are their report building skills like? What are their communication skills like? Can they convert at an exceptional rate? Do they have the time in their diary to be able to be offering these free consultations? Or are they so clinically busy that they can’t? I’ll go back to the case study of my brother, Kalish. He’s been in the business of dentistry.

Prav Solanki
for what he opened his practice back in 2005. He’s gone through that point where he’s grown it multiple practices and sold it for an unbelievable sum to a corporate. And still to present day, he offers free consultations. And I’ve yet to meet practitioners who can convert like him. And if I was to bottle up what…

Prav Solanki
Kailish does in his consultations and the secret source is just his people skills, his rapport building skills, his chameleon type communication skills and his level of emotional intelligence. And that is all something that you can train, right? That is all something you can get better at. But that’s the difference. Now, Kailish can consistently…

Prav Solanki
And I’m not putting these numbers out here to brag or anything, right? But just to sort of say, even as a dentist who picks up the drill and works, but also spends a significant amount of his time talking and selling and does all his own talking and selling, can comfortably in a decent month, gross in excess of £300,000.

Prav Solanki
And I’m well aware of a lot of other dentists and clients who operate at a similar level. They sell all their own work, but they’re exceptional sales individuals. They follow a specific formula, structure and strategy, and it works incredibly well. There are some dentists, they can go on every sales training course on the planet. They can practice, practice and practice, and they will never be that good. And in that particular case, perhaps.

Prav Solanki
a TCO may be the right person for them to be that filter.

Prav Solanki
The other question, I’m gonna come back to consultation structure in a minute, and I think this conversation is gonna just wax and wane as my thoughts just do that, because it’s the way my brain works. But let’s think about what the role of a TCO is. Because what I described earlier, the data collection, the finding out what the patient’s funding sources are, what they know about it.

Prav Solanki
And obviously on the call, you’re going to try and connect emotionally with the patient, understand their why, understand the why now, understand what their pain points are and what their smile is holding them back from doing and all that, razzmatazz, right? All of that is a TCO’s role, right? Or you could call it a TCO’s role or you could call it an emotionally intelligent receptionist. And I find today

Prav Solanki
that the role of TCO or the title of TCO gets bandied about a lot and it means different things and different practices. Later on this year, I think around September time, I am running a sales mastery course for TCOs. And one of the issues that I really want to address is what is a TCO in your practice? What is their role?

Prav Solanki
and how that role can be completely different in every practice, yet be completely correct for that practice. And I guess I’m fed up of hearing that a TCO should take photographs, a TCO should scan, a TCO should do this, a TCO should follow the treatment plan. You create your own patient journey. You map out what your patient journey needs to look like, the whole communication journey, and you decide where the TCO slots in.

Prav Solanki
to deliver that perfect journey. So in some of my practices, our TCOs are actually dental nurses, but they’re dental nurses with TCO superpowers, that’s all. We don’t call them TCOs. And the way the consultation works is the patient comes in for a free consultation. The nurse is sat in on that free consultation. The nurse contributes to that conversation with the dentist.

Prav Solanki
The nurse then takes that patient out of the dental room into a separate room, sits down in that room, and asks the patient the following question. So do you know all that stuff that dentist went over with you just now? Any of it you didn’t understand? Any of it didn’t make sense? You got any questions for me? And sometimes the patients really open up. And why is that? It’s because there’s a natural power dynamic between

Prav Solanki
the dentist and the patient and the power dynamic is completely reduced between the nurse and the patient. And so some patients may feel more comfortable speaking to the nurse, opening up about pricing and asking more probing questions. Following that, the nurse stroke super TCO will go through pricing. They’ll show them examples of testimonials, play some videos.

Prav Solanki
make them read some Google reviews, and just add a little bit of color to that consultation, and eventually close the deal. So that’s what our TCOs do. They’re essentially dental nurses. Some TCOs are just on the front line. They’re super receptionists. They take all the details I’ve described above. They make sure that it’s all passed to the dentist. Then the dentist takes over. They hand the baton over to the dentist.

Prav Solanki
And then once the consultation’s done, that TCO may take over the communication journey and take the patient all the way through to completion of treatment. Some TCOs start from the phone call, frontline, get the patient in, meet with the patient, either in person or over Zoom. In person, they may scan the patient, they may take some photographs, they may give some indication of costs before they sell them a comprehensive assessment.

Prav Solanki
What’s right, what’s wrong? What’s the perfect way to do it and what’s the right way to do it? There is no right or wrong way to do it. From working with lots of practices over the last 15 years, many of them super successful. I can tell you one thing, they’ve all got a completely different approach, but it is the right approach for them. So going back to the consultation, right? So we’ve spoken about…

Prav Solanki
TCOs and their role and their role can be wide and varied. What’s really important, you know, if you want to ask me, you know, what are the key qualities of a TCO? I will tell you, probably the most important quality for me is a high level of emotional intelligence or what we may refer to as people skills or being able to connect with different people from.

Prav Solanki
different demographics at their level and find common ground really, really quickly. Obviously listening skills, well presented, great telephone manner, be able to use technology such as CRM systems to manage the flow of patients, be able to operate and manage things like Zoom and video platforms and all that sort of stuff.

Prav Solanki
And so I’d say that’s really, really important in terms of skill sets for TCOs. But let’s move on to the consultation process, right? And what that is, what it could be, but not necessarily what it should be. Because having sat in on over, I would say over a hundred dentist patient consultations as the observer.

Prav Solanki
I’ve seen lots of different styles, I’ve seen lots of different approaches, and I’ve seen different styles and approaches be equally successful. But there’s definitely some commonalities in the ones that have really, really high treatment uptake.

Prav Solanki
So let’s think about the consultation, okay? So you’re armed with all the information, right? So that’s really important. As the dentist, do you go out to reception or your waiting area and collect the patient? Or do you allow the patient to be escorted by your nurse or walk into door number two? Let me tell you, if you’ve got a nervous patient,

Prav Solanki
Even if you’ve not got a nervous patient, right? There’s a level of hierarchy that sits between you and the patient. Okay. Referred to as the power dynamic. Now there are ways in which you can make that patient feel more comfortable and that’s by reducing the power dynamic, right? So you could go and collect the patient. You could use your first name rather than Dr. Salanke when introducing yourself to the patient. Hi.

Prav Solanki
Dr. Prav Selanki here, lovely to meet you. Follow me into surgery one. Or it could be, hey, it’s Prav, lovely to meet you. Been looking forward to meeting you. I know you’re really nervous, but I promise you got nothing to worry about. Come with me and step into my room and we’ll have a little chat. So you get into the room, where’s your eye level? Is your eye level above the patient? Is it below the patient? Are you knee to knee, eye to eye? Or are you…

Prav Solanki
sitting further up and is the patient lying down? Have you swung around to the side and tried to talk to the patient from the side or even worse, behind them? Or are you looking the patient straight in the eye with a friendly smile? All of these things impact the power dynamic between you and the patient. What’s the interaction like between you and your nurse? Is it friendly? Is it informal?

Prav Solanki
Is the nurse contributing in that conversation? Or is it quite formal and rigid? You’ll know that, but the less formal it is, the more inviting that relationship between you is the more comfortable that patient will be, and the lower the power dynamic will be, okay? But the first part of your consultation, the first part of that process, is really about trying to…

Prav Solanki
Connect, trying to connect with that patient on a completely non-dental level, on a human level, right? So, you know, every sales training course will tell you this. What you want to do is you want to try and find some common ground. You want to ask the patient, how did you get here? Did you get here all right? Did you drive? Did you walk? Where did you come from? Are you off work today? Are you working at the moment? You got any kids?

Prav Solanki
going on holiday, whatever it is, just try and find something in common with the patient so that you can share similar experiences. Maybe talk about their job, tell them how interesting it is, perhaps your son, daughter, friend, family member’s got a similar job, they find it challenging. But try and strike some rapport where that patient essentially connects with you and people buy from people like them.

Prav Solanki
people buy from people that they like. So you’ve got to try and make those two things happen before you go in with your sales pitch. Once you’ve nailed that, that’s the point to try and figure out what that patient’s problem is, right? Whether you ask them a bunch of questions that revolve around you finding out the why now. Yeah, what is it that happened? People don’t wake up in the morning and think, holy crap, I’ve got crooked teeth today. Where did they come from?

Prav Solanki
There’s usually a moment, an event or a time or a point where that particular patient woke up and thought I’m gonna do something about it today. What’s triggered that? Find out. What does that patient struggle with? What is it that their smile holds them back from? Maybe try and paint some scenarios for that patient, such as if I was to get a camera out, Prav, and you were at a party, what would you do?

Prav Solanki
Some patients would run to the back. Some patients would smile with closed lips. Some patients would just do a run a full stop and make up an excuse, go to the toilet. Let those patients open up about those situations. Maybe it’s a functional issue and because of failing teeth and gum disease, they can’t eat the foods they want to eat. So give them some scenarios, ask them to talk to you and share with you what sort of foods they’d love to eat if things were better, yeah.

Prav Solanki
just understand the what’s and the why’s. But then when it comes to, and look, I’m not gonna go through the entire consultation masterclass process here, but just really see this as a bit of a discussion and just some thoughts that have been flying around in my head recently. And so if we get to the point where, okay, patients shared information with you, they’ve opened up with you, you understand the what’s, the why’s, the where’s, and you’ve built some rapport.

Prav Solanki
there will come a point in the consultation where you need to present options to the patient. And I think this is on observing more than 100 consultations, right? On observing those, what I will tell you is this is where a lot of dentists will mess it up. They’ll present too many options. They’ll say, well, this crown, you can have it in this material, that material, and that material, and this, and this, it costs this, but if you didn’t go for a crown and you went for a bridge, or if you did this, you went for a partial denture, and so on and so forth.

Prav Solanki
And this is this option, this is that option. You get to the end of it. I understand dentistry. I understand the type of dental work that gets done. I’m not a dentist, but let me tell you, if I’m getting bamboozled, your patient’s getting bamboozled. There’s absolutely no two ways about it. When I sit there and break it down, the one thing that’s really important when you’re presenting options and a plan is the art of concise communication.

Prav Solanki
You need to be really clear about the options. And I advise never present more than three. Even if your treatment plans offers more than three, tell them, look, these are my top three recommendations for you and option one is this, and this is the investment. Option two is this, and this is the investment. And option three is this, and this is the investment. How does that sound to you?

Prav Solanki
Okay, try and get some feedback on the options and the costs and what their preferences are. You know, you may have to give a load of other options, but incorporate them in your treatment plan. You don’t have to talk about them all.

Prav Solanki
You know, there was a famous experiment, it was called the famous jam experiment by I think it was Lenger and Leper. I’ve written about this on my personal blog. So if you go to prav.com and look at the personal blog and it’s about analysis paralysis, and it’s how too much choice can really discourage us from making a buying decision.

Prav Solanki
I think that’s the easiest way to describe that analysis paralysis situation. And it’s a phenomenon called choice overload. If you present your patients with too many options, research is pretty clear. It’ll put them off buying. And so if I go back to the JAM experiment, what these researchers did is in a particular shopping mall center, you name whatever, day one.

Prav Solanki
They put out a whole display of jams, 24 different flavors and varieties. And the following day, they only put out six different flavors and varieties. What was really interesting is loads and loads and loads of choice attracted more people. Oh, look at all them different jam flavors. So more shoppers actually went to sample and taste the jam.

Prav Solanki
but only 3% of people who tasted bought. Compare that to when we had six choices, 30% of shoppers bought. So when the choice is reduced, certainly in that particular experiment, they had a 10 times increase in sales. Moral of the story, try and reduce your choices. If it’s just one or two choices, present one or two choices.

Prav Solanki
Don’t sit there and rattle through all of them because you will get paralysis. Another thing that I’ve seen in a lot of consultations that I think is incredibly valuable is when you take just three smile photographs of the patient, get them to give you your biggest cheesy smile, take a shot from the front, a shot from the left and a shot from the right.

Prav Solanki
use some kind of wireless tech to beam it up via Apple TV to a massive screen in front of them and let them look at that screen. When they see their teeth on a huge screen, they’ll tell you what they need to do, right? And I’ve seen it done really, really slickly where a dentist has taken a picture and literally within seconds, it’s on the screen, right? Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, don’t put whatever, right? And…

Prav Solanki
You know, all you’ve got to say to the patient is this, looking at that picture of your teeth there, how does that make you feel? And what would you like to change? And that is your invitation to just zip it and listen to the patient and hear what they’ve got to say. Tooth by tooth, they’ll write their own treatment plan for you and it works really well. Going back to price and I know this conversation is waxing and waning between different elements of the consultation, but let’s go to money.

Prav Solanki
A lot of practitioners, I have seen this, when they think about quoting a price, they apply some taxes to the price somewhere in their head. We call this concept fiscal drag, right? So in their head, they’re gonna charge a thousand pound for that crown, but they apply a 300 pound tax before it works its way from the brain right through to their mouth.

Prav Solanki
and they say that crown’s gonna be 700 pound. And it’s this concept of, the main issue there really is lack of confidence and lack of self-worth and valuing your own work, right? It is a confidence issue, but there’s certain things you can do. You can have a price list there and it’s as bold as day there. This is what it is, right? So you’re confident talking about the prices. So that’s one element, fiscal drag, just don’t do it.

Prav Solanki
The next thing is, if you do offer finance, if you do offer flexible payment plans, every time you mention price, do bring that up. Make sure you have a little cheat sheet in front of you that says, okay, this is going to cost 4,000 pounds and on our flexible monthly payment plan, that’s going to cost you, I don’t know, 44 pounds a month for X number of months. And you know that off the top of your head. You’re not having to get a calculator out or work it out on a screen. You just know it.

Prav Solanki
becomes the habit that you consistently drill for these consultations. So, you know, that would be what I would consider to be my general advice when it comes to the core elements of what makes a really good consultation versus one that’s just average.

Prav Solanki
There’s one other thing I think that’s really important during a consultation, and that is evidence. Patients make decisions and make buying choices based on evidence, right? And so I think what’s really important is that you show patients evidence of what you can deliver. This may be in the form of

Prav Solanki
before and after images. But if you’re gonna show a patient a before and after image, do pull a little bit more effort in and show them a case that’s very, very similar to their central diastema. Here’s four central diastema cases. You know, sticking out whatever tooth, show them a sticking out whatever tooth case, yeah.

Prav Solanki
loose denture, whatever it is, you know, show them something similar to what you’ve done. So you can say to them, I have done this before and I’ve done this before plenty of times. All these before and afters you take and put them into some kind of a PowerPoint or keynote presentation and be able to beam that from an iPad straight to your screen and take them through cases. If you’ve got video testimonials, don’t let them rot on your website. Bring them into your surgery.

Prav Solanki
and let the patient watch a video testimonial of a patient who’s been in the same position as they are right now, had the same objections and dealt with those objections. We find that that’s an amazing conversion tool. And one last thing that we use in consultations is reviews. So Google reviews, Facebook reviews, we screenshot them.

Prav Solanki
put them into a presentation and we say, oh, by the way, Linda here was in the same position as you, absolutely terrified of the dentist and look at what she had to say about us. You know, it was amazing. And so those are what I’d consider to be sort of the key elements of a consultation. But there’s one thing I’ll tell you now that a lot of…

Prav Solanki
Practitioners won’t do the keep going through the motions. They do consultation after consultation after consultation. They don’t get any better. But you’ll get better if you stop to think about it. And one piece of advice I can give any clinician really is after you have, after you’ve delivered that consultation and the patient’s walked out of the room, sit and reflect. Think about what’s

Prav Solanki
could have gone better. What you could have said, what tools you could have used that you didn’t use, or forgot to get those type of dots out of the cupboard to show them the difference between a fixed ceramic brace and Invisalign or something like that, right? And just jot down in a pad, piece of paper, whatever it is, three things that could have gone better. If you get into that habit of doing that, you will naturally get better.

Prav Solanki
You’ll keep drilling that process. You’ll find you keep writing the same thing down That leads me back to the beginning of the story which is

Prav Solanki
lead generation and converting patients and getting hold of patients. Now, what I’m hearing a lot, we’re generating loads of inquiries, but we just can’t get hold of the patients. We call them, we text them, we ring them, we call them, we text them and ring them. We can’t get hold of them, we email them. How many times do you try? Twice, three times. What times a day do you try? Or always in the morning? And

Prav Solanki
What I have seen in the landscape is the landscape has changed. Before a patient would just pick up the phone or you’d pick up the phone and speak to them. You’d sell, you’d essentially sell them a consultation over the phone, whether it was a free one or a paid one, and they either book in or they don’t. What we’re hearing and seeing a lot of now is patients are now attending multiple consultations before deciding where to go.

Prav Solanki
Some of them are looking for the cheapest deal. Some of them are looking for the best deal, which may not necessarily be the cheapest deal, right? But it’s the right deal for them. And patients are generally a lot harder to get hold of. Let’s layer this on a background of higher cost of living, mortgages going up 500 to a thousand pound a month, heating bills going up, okay.

Prav Solanki
There’s not as much money sloshing around as there was when we were all paid to sit at home and do nothing and get money every month and then not have anywhere to go to spend it and then when they let us out on the streets

Prav Solanki
decided to treat ourselves and spend it on dentistry. And we had the post-COVID dental explosion, where we could drop our marketing budgets and patients were falling over after themselves to try and get into a practice and get the work done. Landscape is completely different from that now. So yeah, patients inquire. They don’t pick up the phone. They don’t respond. And then we have the conversation

Prav Solanki
Well, these inquiries are a waste of time. What you’ve really got to do is you’ve got to try and put yourself in that patient’s shoes and think, why on earth would a patient hand over their name, their phone number, their email address, and tell you their story if they weren’t even remotely interested in attending a consultation, having a conversation or exploring dental treatment?

Prav Solanki
Why on earth would they do it? I mean, is it some kind of a crazy fad or something, or are they actually interested? What we found when looking at the data within our Lead Flow CRM system is this. The time between those patients sending the inquiry and getting communication from you, the smaller that time, the more likely you are to succeed.

Prav Solanki
So are those patients interested in talking with us? I believe so. And do you know when they’re more likely to speak to us than any other time? The exact moment they send that inquiry. So if we’ve got our team literally sat there, get an alert, ping, inquiry’s gone through, and they pick up the phone there and then, their hit rate on getting through to that patient goes through the roof.

Prav Solanki
Leave it till the following morning and the following afternoon you’re playing cat and mouse, you’re playing chase. You’re trying to get hold of that patient and maybe you try and ring that patient from a landline they don’t recognise on their mobile so they think, well I’m picking that up. Maybe you try and ring them from a practice mobile and don’t recognise that and they say, I ain’t picking that up.

Prav Solanki
Maybe you try and pick them when they’re on the, call them when they’re on the school run. They’re busy, missed call, another call comes through. Ain’t answering that. So what we need to do is we need to try and increase the probability of getting hold of these patients. And the number one way in which you can do that is strike while the iron’s hot. As soon as that inquiry lands, you’re on the phone, you get through to the patient, you book them in. Failing that, your attempts should be as follows. Try them in the morning.

Prav Solanki
Try them at lunchtime. Try them after work and try them on a Saturday morning. Certainly in my clinic, we book 50% of our patients in on a Saturday morning. Not into the diary on a Saturday morning, but that’s when we have the conversations with them on a Saturday morning or after work. If your team, your infrastructure doesn’t allow you to call patients during these times, you’re missing a huge trick.

Prav Solanki
So, you know, and have some kind of robust system to automatically follow up with patients, to send them the odd text message here and there, after they’ve inquired, if they’ve not sort of proceeded to a consultation, send some automated emails to these patients, sharing things like case studies, video testimonials, screenshots of your Google reviews, for example, those sort of things. So,

Prav Solanki
Yes, is the market a tougher place today? 100%. We have just come out of what was the COVID explosion. Are patients finding it more and more difficult to get accepted for finance? 100%. We’re seeing a lot more declines at the moment. So then we’ve got to adapt, right? And I think the practices that are gonna survive are those who are capable of adapting.

Prav Solanki
to the environment, right? So what have we done to adapt? We have done for a while, but offering our own in-house finance for longer treatment plans. Thinking about the fact that even for bigger treatment plans, why don’t we just take a bit of a risk and offer our own finance plans and take a bigger deposit? Because if the naught percent subsidy is 10%, then if one in 10 patients default, I mean completely default and don’t pay anything.

Prav Solanki
you’re still in the same position. But if you’re taking a deposit, you’re way ahead of that. And you’ll find that your default rate is much, much lower than that. And by the time they finish treatment, maybe they’ve done four or five appointments plus the big deposit and there’s not a lot left. You’d have lost more with a finance company. So just some food for thought there really in sort of navigating what is the current situation that I see a lot at the moment, which is first of all, quality of inquiries.

Prav Solanki
People call them tire kickers or whatever and we’ve got to find a way to filter them and we’ve spoke about that. And I think that’s all I’ve got to rant on about today. There’s probably a lot more I could talk about, but I think I’ve said enough. That leads me to introduce the next series of episodes of Dental Leaders. So a few months ago, Payman Langroody and Rona Eskandar

Prav Solanki
connected on a new series of podcast episodes, which are called, which is called Mind Movers. And they’ve got some amazing guests that they’ve interviewed who have been recorded all in and around mental health and optimization of that. And there’s some really, really exciting interviews coming up. These are gonna be launched every Friday.

Prav Solanki
So it won’t be midweek like the usual dental leaders episode, you’ll still be getting that. But every Friday for a few weeks the Mind Movers episode is going to be live and you’ll get to hear from guests who are essentially outside the dentistry and how they overcame their…

Prav Solanki
mental health challenges or what advice they’ve got for optimizing them. So, so just a slight twist to the Dental Leaders program. But I’m sure you’ll all enjoy it.

 

Over a 70 year lifespan. There have been innumerable mountain moments where I’ve just been so glad to be me, glad to be alive, glad to be in the world, so grateful. And just like everybody else. You know, a lot of those moments are around family and children and grandchildren and relationships. Some of those moments are about having the opportunity to visit some amazing places in the world. Some of those moments are about meeting some amazing people in the world. And then you look at the valleys and you say, Well, actually it’s the same thing. It’s places that you went to that were shitholes, but it’s places that you’ve been to and it’s people that you’ve met and it’s situations that you’ve found yourself in that have left you feeling very dark or isolated or let down.

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 Chris Barrow onto the podcast. Chris could be probably the first business coach in dentistry in the UK. Definitely the first one I ever came across. One of the guys who I remember as a young dentist thinking, God, is this. Is this what dentistry is all about? You know, badly run practices that didn’t look great and poor customer service. And I remember the first time I saw Chris lecture, it almost was like a glimmer of hope. There was. There was. There was. There were new words mentioned, words that we now take for granted. Things like patient journey, things like ethical selling, words that loads and loads of people use now without even thinking about them. But Chris was definitely the the first one to bring a lot of those words to the vernacular, the sort of the the day to day of dentistry. And I don’t think enough young, young dentists know that Chris has spent most of his career helping dentists in one shape or another. And we’ll get to all the different things that you’ve done. Chris. Massive pleasure to have you.

Thank you. Thank you for asking me. I really appreciate it.

Chris. Normally we start with where were you born and how did you grow up and all that. But sometimes the question I want to ask actually gets lost before we get to it. And I’ve got this new way of now go straight to the question I want to ask and then and then we’ll get to the rest as well. So you used to call yourself Marmite. I remember. And I remember even at the time thinking, you know, why, why, why, why is why is he describing himself as Marmite? But at the time, marketing was sort of a dirty word in dentistry. So there was a group of people who, you know, as soon as the word marketing or sales or anything like that was mentioned would immediately be turned off. Would you say that’s changed now for you or are you more peanut butter now?

No. Do you know what?

I didn’t start calling myself Mr. Marmite. It was somebody else out there in dentistry that coined that phrase, first of all. And and I don’t know whether my memory is playing tricks with me, but I’ve got a sneaking suspicion it might have been Nigel Jones at practice plan who may have been the first person to actually use that terminology. And we’re going back about 20 years now. And the interesting thing about that was, was that the very, very first time I heard that expression used about me, I actually took it as a form of flattery. And and I adopted it straight away because what I was trying to find out was a way that I could actually make sure that the clients that I was working with were the clients that I would enjoy working with and also the clients that would get the best benefit from the type of work that I do, but also the style with which I do it. And so having this Marmite tag was actually fantastic. It was a great way of triaging people. Um, because this accolade badge, call it what you will, has got everything to do with the fact that I’m a bit like Jim Carrey in the movie Liar, Liar. Which is that I just can’t help myself.

But telling what I perceive to be the truth about a situation that presents itself to me, or for that matter, tell him what I perceive to be the truth about the way that people perform and behave. And I would like to think that that hasn’t changed, that I’m still very, very, you might say, transparent and honest in the feedback that I give. I think that the only thing that has changed is that I look at recordings of myself 20 years ago and cringe with embarrassment because I was an arrogant, egotistical prick. 20 years ago. And nowadays I would like to think that I have mellowed. And I don’t believe that I’m as arrogant as I used to do, although I may have disproved that in the last 60s. Um, I’d like to think that I’m not as arrogant as I used to be. I certainly like to think that I’m not as egotistical as I used to be, and I would hope to say that I’m not as much of a prick as I used to be all those years ago. And I would like to apologise to everybody that knew me 20 years ago and and also say a huge thank you for having tolerated that guy.

Chris, can you just add some colour to that, please? So why do so? It’s very easy to say, well that was a bit of a knob back in the day. I can definitely hold my hands up to that. Um, and I’d be happy to talk about that, but. But what is it? You look back at yourself, you look back at your former self 20 years ago. Maybe there’s videos of you speaking or interactions that you had. What is it? Why do you look back at yourself and say, I was a bit of an arrogant prick back then? How did the ego manifest itself externally that makes you make that statement today?

Well, I suppose that I might be talking here about a journey that many, many human beings go on. And, you know, we go through various stages of life and one of the stages of life that we go through, I think, is that we become very committed to material gain. When you build a young family in a capitalist environment, then there’s a whole thing going on there about keeping up with the Joneses. I’ve always lived or I’ve spent most of my life living in the postcode where they film the real Cheshire housewives. And anybody who knows that part of the world kind of southeast Manchester, Northeast Cheshire will know that it’s a very, very materialistic postcode. And I’m a working class lad who was raised by relatively simple parents in a very simple postcode, and I managed to escape from the council estate that we lived on and managed to carve out a bit of a life for myself. So I suppose I’ve always had a bit of a chip on my shoulder about growing up as a working class Manchester lad, and funny enough, somebody asked me a question the other day. I was down at the Dentistry show the other day and I was having a cup of coffee with somebody who said, What’s the what’s the driver? What is it that has kept you going and keeps you going all of these years? And I told a little bit of a story, which is unfortunately a long time ago now, which is when I took my GCSEs and before that, when I took my what used to be called the 11 plus exam.

Do you remember that from the 1960s? Yeah. And when you took your 11 plus, they decided whether you were going to go into a grammar school stream or whether you were going to go into a secondary school stream that was the one below the grammar school stream. I can’t remember what they used to call it in the 60s. And this is before comprehensive education was launched by the Harold Wilson Labour Government. So as a ten year old, I took my 11 plus exam and what I didn’t know at the time and, and my parents subsequently discovered later was that the grades I got as an 11 plus candidate were high enough for of me to have got a scholarship at Manchester Grammar School. And anybody in the north west of England knows that Manchester Grammar School is the premier grammar school in the north west of England. So I got the grades and my teacher didn’t put me through and my parents found out about this and I’ve got vague memories of being dragged along to a meeting by an irate father who sat down in front of my teacher and said, Why didn’t you put through my son for Manchester Grammar? And the teacher basically saying, I didn’t think that you were the right class of family to be going to Manchester Grammar because of where you lived and where you came from.

Now, probably not in so many words, but that was the message. And my dad was Apapa hectic with rage at the fact that this had happened and gave that teacher, who has long since drifted into the mists of time, a piece of his mind. And I have to say that I was very, very fortunate to be able to get a scholarship to go to Burnage Grammar School. Now, Prav all know that. But nobody else outside of Manchester, well, it doesn’t even exist anymore. But I got I got a scholarship to go to Burnage Grammar School, which was kind of second division grammar in the day. And thankfully I have to say credit where it’s due to those teachers who gave me a bloody good grammar school education, which kind of got me out of the stereotypical postcode that I’d been posted into. And it might well be that the whole of the rest of my life has been driven inadvertently by that teacher who didn’t put me forward to Manchester Grammar. And I’m still trying to. When to get it back. But also and I’m going to go off on a tangent here. I also know that my father spent the whole of his life feeling that he’d never escape from that trap. And I know that my father, who sadly passed away in 1998, but my father lived his life vicariously through my achievements as a teenager. He lived his life vicariously through my exam results as a 20 year old or as somebody in my 20s.

He was living his life vicariously through the fun that I was getting up to. And in my 30s he was living his life vicariously through me, getting married and starting to raise a family. And so a lot of what I was doing was trying to achieve material success. So that could prove to that teacher that I was better than he thought, but also so that I could prove to my dad that his faith in me, bearing in mind I was an only child, that his faith in me was justified and that I could actually achieve the things that he wasn’t able to achieve in his own life. So let’s get back to the arrogant prick. As a child of the 50s a baby boomer, as a teenager of the 60s, as a young man of the of the 70s and as a young family man of the 80s, I was all about the house. I was all about the car. I was all about the suit. I was all about living in Hale. I was all about putting my kids into Hale schools. I was all about having a Cheshire housewife and I was all about doing all the things, all the badges of materialism and capitalism of the 80s and the 90s that were the way of proving yourself to the world that you’ve made it. And that was the arrogant prick.

So, Chris, just really interesting. I’d like to pick up on on what you said about your dad actually buy.

Can I just say very quickly one thing, by the way. Go for it. Had it existed, I probably would have had an amazing Instagram account.

Brilliant. Chris. So you mentioned earlier on sort of your relationship with your father and him sort of living his life through your achievements or at least sort of being, shall we say, proud. And you mentioned that you wanted to prove to him that I guess he was he was right in his, um, you know, in what he was saying. Maybe he was telling his mates or, you know, my son Chris has done this, that and the other and whatnot. Was it to prove to him or was it more of a you wanted to make him proud, You wanted to do dad proud and that was driving you. And just the second part of that question, Chris, was there ever an overarching message from your dad that, look, I want you to do what I couldn’t do. I want you to whether it’s educated or anything, nothing like that.

There No.

My father never said anything.

Remotely like that to me, ever. And I think it’s important, perhaps, to make the point that there was never a moment where I ever felt that my father was putting any demands or pressure on me to achieve vicariously for him. That wasn’t the conversation. I was doing this all off my absolute own back. And you know what? It’s not as if I woke up every morning thinking, Oh my God, what can I do today to make my dad, you know, these these were thoughts that occasionally popped into your mind when you suddenly thought, Why am I doing this? You know? But there weren’t thoughts that were there all day, every day, all day, every day. You were just getting on. And, you know, as a child of those decades, you’ve got to put this in context. You know, I’m a baby boomer, but born between 1947 and 1957, and that’s the biggest explosion in the birth rate that’s ever been seen in the modern world. And US baby boomers have had a disproportionate effect on every decade that we’ve lived through. So in the 60s, we created a youth culture movement. We created rock music, we created the Beatles and the Stones, and we created the Beach Boys. We created Flower Power because there were more of us in the 70s. We created house price inflation because we were told that we could go out and buy a house for the first time. You know, as a working class lad, I bought my first house in 1975. It was almost incredible that somebody from my background could do that, but so was everybody else.

In the 80s, Margaret Thatcher told us that we could go out and spend money on credit cards and pay it back later. And so Thatcher was one of the principal driving forces between the rise of consumer, behind the rise of consumerism in the 80s and and behind the rise of consumer debt in the 80s, and then in the 90s realising that the materialism on which we’d built our lives wasn’t actually making us happy. We started looking for alternative ways of becoming happy. And in the 90s, US baby boomers, some of us started dropping materialism and looking for other ways to self-actualize. Abraham Maslow and others of us just decided that because we weren’t happy with our materialism, we were going to become alcoholics or we were going to become sex addicts, or we were going to drive even bigger cars even faster and so on and so forth. And a lot of baby boomers, a lot of people like me, burned ourselves out in the 90s. And when we entered the early 2000, we really realised that actually our lives, our materialistic lives were very, very shallow and that we had to start a search. And, and we, we started searching for the real meaning of life. And when I look back at the first decade of this century, it was a period where I was building my Dental business. It was going from strength to strength, but I was kind of weaning myself off materialism and I was starting to look for different qualities in my life, raising a family, taking on exercise, taking on activities outside of work, and looking for a more holistic existence.

And, you know, I’m looking from the perspective of being 70 years old in a few months time and I’m now looking back over those decades. And and I do look back with a with a cringing embarrassment at the of the versions of Chris Barrow that have turned up in those previous decades. But it’s been a journey and it’s been a journey of understanding where as life has gone on. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy my work hugely. And don’t get me wrong, I enjoy making a good living at the work that I do. But what I’m doing now is I’ve found a lot more meaning in the last 10 or 15 years than I ever did before. And I actually, with the benefit of hindsight, I actually grew up when I was about 60. Mm. And it was, and it was Chris Barrow aged 60 onwards. That was there’s a wonderful poem that’s written by a Canadian lady called Ariah Mountain Dreamer, and she’s written a poem in a book called The Invitation, which is one of my favourites. And I’m going to paraphrase Spoiler alert, I’m going to paraphrase a couple of lines right at the very end of the poem and the lines read. Are you happy with the company that you keep when you’re alone? And I had to reach the age of 60 before I was happy with the company that I kept when I was alone. And I’ve really enjoyed that guy’s company for the last ten years. But I wasn’t overly keen on that guy’s company in the first 60.

What does that actually mean? So happy with yourself as a human being and what you achieve or what or when you were sat in silence doing nothing. Chris By himself in isolation. You weren’t content and happy. Your brain was always buzzing away. Whereas now you can go and do a solo retreat or something and be What does that actually mean translating in your world?

Well, I think Prav you sum that up quite well, which is, which is that I look at the guy before age 60 and I think that I was always in some way kind of tormented by the need to achieve and tormented by the need to be a man tormented by the need to be a successful business person, tormented by the need to get the applause of the audience, tormented in the way that clearly some people are now tormented by the need to get likes and followers. And long before social media came along, I was searching for likes and followers, and sometimes it was the applause of an audience or, you know, the the the acknowledgement of an individual client. So I think that was it. Henry Thoreau, who said Most men lead lives of quiet desperation.

And that was me.

I was leading a life of quiet desperation on the outside, super successful businessman on the outside, successful family, five kids doing all the things that you need to do, running marathons, giving great talks at shows, building businesses, doing everything that we’re supposed to do in modern life. But on the inside, living a life of quiet desperation going, Is this it? What am I. Am I some kind of performing horse that’s supposed to get out there and prance around the ring every day for everybody’s benefit so that I can pay the school fees so that I can pay the mortgage so that I can change my car every now and then so that I can get the applause of the audience at the show. And you know what? If if everybody listening to this podcast is thinking what a plonker. Well, good luck to them. If anybody’s listening to this podcast thinking that sounds a bit like me and then I want you to know that you’re not alone. And I also want you to know that there comes a point in your life where you realise all this. You do realise that you’ve been tormented by this need to be the artist formerly known as Chris Barrow or whatever, and there comes a point in time where you can actually get to a stage where you say, Okay, I’ve got nothing to prove anymore. And a bit like that’s a bit like where the Marmite comes from, which is that, you know, if you like me and if you like my style and if you like the stuff that I do, I’m hugely, hugely appreciative that I can make a positive difference in your life. But if you don’t like me and if you think that my opinions are shit, and if you think that my ideas are shit and you think the way I communicate is shit, well, that’s fine. There’s plenty of room.

But Chris, I mean, it’s a brilliant story, right? I mean, this this sort of social mobility thing that you went through, which a lot of people didn’t go through. Yeah. I mean, back then there was there was a lot of, you know, do what my dad does kind of stuff going on. And Manchester was a totally different place in the 50s and 60s than it is than it is now. Yeah. But I think it comes down to a lot of times your biggest strength is your biggest weakness, you know, because, you know, you might say, Oh, you were on the stage for the for the adoration of the crowd or whatever, but you’re gifted on the stage. Gifted. Like, you really are very, very good at it. And so when you say I don’t mind when people don’t don’t like me, do you really mean that? Because that doesn’t that doesn’t tally with with what you just said before, that, you know, you were doing it all for the adoration.

What you what you learn is to turn the daggers into icicles and and in early life, when the daggers go in, whether it’s front or back, it hurts and it leaves a scar and it hurts for for ages. And then as you get a little bit older and a little bit wiser, you realise that it’s not a dagger, it’s an icicle and it still hurts like fuck when it goes in. But you go to bed, you have a good night’s sleep, you wake up the next morning and it’s melted and you get on with it and the Native Americans have a wonderful phrase that wisdom enters through the wound. And, you know, there are people I’m going to say like us, because I think I could say this about all three of us on this conversation that have got the scars to show that there have been plenty of daggers and icicles over the years and that that makes us really useful to other people. And I think, you know, that I get some really kind comments that people suggesting that I might be kind of at the top of my game at the moment after all these years. And and the reason for that is because of all of the scars. You know, I’ve had businesses that have gone under.

I’ve been bankrupt. I’ve had to give my house back to the mortgage company. I’ve had to walk around the supermarket with my wife counting backwards on an an old fashioned electronic calculator from the cash that we had in her purse to zero, knowing that when we got to zero, we had to go to the checkout. I’ve seen my car lifted onto the back of a truck and driven away because it’s been repossessed. I’ve been involved in business with villains who have stolen money and have lied and cheated. And I’ve done it all. And I’ve seen it all. And above all, I’ve survived. And you know what? The fact that I’ve lost businesses and lost my shirt and the fact that I’ve ended up in business with villains is probably an indicator of my own naivete that I’ve been taken in by people. I’ve been I’ve been seduced by serpents over the years who have promised me riches that have not materialised. And and I’ve been so desperate to get on and so desperate to win that sometimes I’ve been beguiled by serpents into businesses that have that have just been rubbish. And it’s cost me, you know, a lot of pain and suffering and money to learn from my own mistakes.

Chris During that those years of torment, the, shall we say the first 60 years and, and sounds really crappy.

Doesn’t it?

Um, what were your really, really deepest, darkest, melting down moments, would you say? You’ve just described a whole lot of situations where bankruptcy car being lifted off, walking round, whatever supermarket it was just counting the change down and whatnot. But, but if we were to just take all of those, there’s often one moment that just sort of strikes out as what was Chris’s darkest moment over those years, whether it was business, whether it was life, whether it was. Narration Whatever happened in your life, what would you say was the the darkest moment for Chris?

Gosh, that is such a tough question. Um. And we might have to kind of pause while I kind of think of an answer to that, because there are two things that I want to say. The first reason I’m finding it difficult to answer that question is because of the bewildering choices I’ve got. It’s like, you know, which one of these 101 moments would you would you would you choose? I’ve always had a bit of a catchphrase that I’ve used over the years, which is that life is a series of mountains, valleys and missiles. And the mountains are the moments when you feel on top of the world and the valleys are the moments when you feel that it’s black and it’s never going to get light again. And the missiles are the unexpected things that just when you’re either at the top of a mountain or in the bottom of a valley, another missile comes along that you weren’t expecting and it knocks you right off your feet. Now, over the years I’ve come to realise actually that that is the human condition and that if you’re not experiencing mountains and valleys and missiles, you probably need to ring for an ambulance because there’s something seriously wrong. So the first way that I want to respond to that question is by saying that over a 70 year lifespan, there have been innumerable mountain moments where I’ve just been so glad to be me, glad to be alive, glad to be in the world, so grateful.

And just like everybody else. You know, a lot of those moments are around family and children and grandchildren and relationships. Some of those moments about are about having the opportunity to visit some amazing places in the world. Some of those moments are about meeting some amazing people in the world. And then you look at the valleys and you say, well, actually it’s the same thing. It’s places that you went to that were shitholes, and some of them might have been holiday destinations, you know, but it’s places that you’ve been to and it’s people that you’ve met and it’s situations that you’ve found yourself in that have that have left you feeling very dark or isolated or let down. And there are so many of them I can’t actually pick. But but if I had to, I would go. And it’s very interesting how this is going to Segway. If you really, really forced me on the dark moments, I can tell you what it is. I can tell you, being on holiday in Barcelona with my wife and five children in 1998, having been given clearance by a doctor to say, I know your dad’s in hospital with cancer, but you’re going to take your holiday because you need it.

He’s going to be fine for another six months at least. And then talking to my dad and saying, is it okay if we go and my dad saying yes and then getting a phone call in Barcelona from my mum to say, you need to get home, he’s going. And I remember that getting that phone call at 2:00 in the afternoon and piling pizza into my kids and then piling the five kids and my wife into a car and leaving Barcelona at about 4:00 in the afternoon to drive to Calais in a Warner arriving at Calais at about five in the morning and driving up to a ferry terminal and saying, I don’t have a ticket, but I’ve got to get back to Manchester because my dad’s dying. And the girl on the booth saying, Drive onto the boat and I’ll never forget that. And then parking the car, getting out and walking up on deck. And as we pulled out of Calais, getting a phone call from my mum to say my dad had died. That was the darkest moment. And I will never forget driving the car from Dover to Manchester. I’ll never forget that. And getting back too late. So that will probably do.

Yeah, that works, mate. Yeah. Jeez.

But let me tell you another.

Story about that. Which is that precisely one year before that and before we knew that my dad had cancer, before he was hospitalised, I was working with my then business coach, a lady called Marlene Elliott. And she asked me a question which anybody who’s ever done any personal coaching will know is kind of a it’s out there, which is that if you had 12 months to live, how would you live your life? And if you had one month to live, how would you live that month? But if you had one day to live. Who would you call and what would you say? And I was asked that question in a coaching session in 1997 with Molly and Elliott. And my answer is was.

I would ring my dad and I would tell him that I loved him. And she said, Why did you choose that? And I said, Because I’ve never told him. And she said, make the call. And I said, What? And she said, make the call now. So I picked up the phone and I called home. And as had happened every day for the last 25 years, my mom answered the phone. Because my dad was a man of very few words and my mum said, I love. What you want. And I said, Can I speak to my dad? And she said, Why? What’s wrong? And I said nothing. And I heard her put a hand.

Over the mouthpiece of the phone, but she didn’t quite cover it.

And I heard her saying, It’s our Chris, he wants to talk to you. And I heard my dad’s saying, What about? And my mom saying, I don’t know. And my dad said, You better put him on.

And then I heard this rustling.

And this voice said. Hello. And I said. I need you to know I’m not drunk. And I need you to know. I’m not ill. But I also need you to know that I love you. And I’ve never told you before. And I thought I ought to. And he said. Well, I love you, too. And that’s very nice. And I said. Can you put my mum back on? And he said, okay. And she picked the phone up and went, What’s wrong? What’s wrong? What’s wrong? And I said, There’s nothing wrong.

I’ve just told my dad I loved him.

Why? What’s wrong?

I said, I just wanted to tell him.

And she went, Oh. Now, I wish I could tell you that the next time he came.

Round to our house, we kind of.

Ran in slow.

Motion down the garden towards.

Each other. But we didn’t.

Because when all them blokes.

And so say, all right. I said, Yeah, I’m all right. And not a word was spoken about that conversation. But I made the call. And a year later, he was dead and I missed it. So it leads me to a very important conclusion, and it’s one that I quite often share with people. Which is that if there’s any calls you need to make, get them made. For sure.

Thanks, Chris. Thanks for sharing. Thanks for sharing that one. Chris, do you end up overcompensating with your own kids and telling them you love them every day? And, um.

Quite the opposite.

My my kids.

Would tell you that I don’t see enough.

Of them.

And I’ve now actually.

I’m learning a new job at the moment, which is that I’m replacing guilty parent with guilty grandparent.

And, you know, the reason for.

That is that I am and always have been married to the job. I absolutely love it. I’m not a workaholic. I take 12 weeks vacation every year without fail. I have plenty of time off, but I’m absolutely shit at keeping in touch with my family. And you know, part of the reason for that is that when I when I get to the end of a day looking after my clients, to be honest, I’m usually pretty spent. And you know, the idea of finishing a day sat at my desk at home or the idea of finishing a day of delivering a workshop in a hotel somewhere and then getting back to my hotel room and 7:00 at night, 8:00 at night, jumping on FaceTime and talking about how the day went. I’m really rubbish at that.

And.

Do I feel guilty about it? Yes, I.

Do. Is that the complete.

Contradiction of everything I’ve just told you about me and my dad?

Yes, it is.

Does it mean that I’m a gigantic hypocrite and I don’t take my own advice? Yes, it does.

You know, there’s a great thing about coaches were.

Brilliant at giving everybody else advice and pretty.

Crap at taking it.

And that’s why, you know, I see all these wannabe coaches and consultants who are up there on the Internet telling you that if we could all if you could all just be more like me, the world would be a better place. You know, get up at 4:00 and bake bread for the poor and then run a half marathon before I go to mass. And and I look at that stuff and I think, what a load of bullshit. We’re all in. We’re all dealing with the same challenges. And my particular style of coaching is to be very, very transparent about my.

Own strengths and weaknesses.

And hope that that in some way can help my clients to focus on their strengths and to actually accept and try and eliminate their weaknesses as well.

Wait. It’s amazing. With 39 minutes in and nobody said.

The word.

Dentist. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

We’re just getting warmed up.

Let’s go there. When was the first time you heard, you know, you thought you’re going to work with dentists? Up to that point, you were in financial services, weren’t you?

Yeah, I a couple of observations, by.

The way, about the introduction credit, where it’s due that I wasn’t the first Dental business coach in the UK. And when I arrived in the marketplace, Kevin Lewis was doing a lot of.

Of coaching.

But it might not have been called that, but it was. And I am also acknowledging or should acknowledge the fact that one of my best friends, Sheila Scott, was already doing plenty of coaching for dentists when I arrived, and Sheila and I have become very, very close, lifelong friends. But back in the day I was the new kid on the block. I was Luke Skywalker, Sheila Scott was Obi-Wan Kenobi and Kevin Lewis was Yoda. And I was definitely the new kid on the block. But to answer your question, as a financial planner, what nowadays would be called an independent financial adviser? And if I had clients in the business sector who were butchers, bakers and candlestick makers and in amongst them, I actually had a few dental laboratories. And because I’ve always grown business through word of mouth, whether it’s been financial services or Dental business coaching, one dental laboratory owner had led to another. And by the end of the 1980s, I had quite a lot of lab owners as clients, but no dentists. And in the early 90s, my very, very, very first dentist and I will not name names for reasons that will quickly become obvious is that I had a lab owner as a client who said, and this conversation is 1993.

And my client, my lab.

Owner said, I’ve got a dentist who owes me £30,000 in unpaid lab bills. 1993. And if he goes down, I go down as well. And I’ve told him that he’s got two choices. I’m either going to put the debt collectors in or he’s got to see you. And want you to go in and reorganise his finances so that I get paid and he survives. So the first time I stood on the doorstep of a dental practice in 1993 was as a pseudo debt collector. And I walked into this guy who was old school, white, middle class professional, and I quickly realised that not only did he owe the lab fees, I owe tax. He hadn’t paid his kids school fees and he owed everybody else in town. And he was one of those stereotypical English middle class professionals that thought that tradespeople should be should speak when they were spoken to and be paid when he thought it was appropriate. Perfect victim for a working class lad with a chip on his shoulder.

Well, as it happened.

I did help him to restructure his finances. I did help him to improve his business and I did help him not only to pay my lab honoree’s fees, but also helped him to pay the revenue and the school and all the other people that he owned. And I well remember getting no thanks for it from him whatsoever, because that was the type of person he was. There we go. But a few more lab owners started asking me to deal with a few more dentists who weren’t in as much trouble. And slowly and surely, between about 1993 and 1996, one became two, became four, became eight. It was it just grew organically. And then there were two turning points, one of them and credit where it’s due in 1996. On a Saturday morning, I got a call at home from a fella who said, You don’t know me, but my name is Paul Tipton and my lab owner has told me that you would be a good guy to meet. And I went over to Paul’s house, who lived literally less than a mile away from me, and we had a bit of a chat. And Paul, God bless him, hired me as a business coach. And I started working with Paul in those days, helping him with the clinic that he used to have in Saint Ann’s Square in Manchester, and also helping him on what was the early prototype version of the Tipton Training Academy, because back in the day he was he was doing his restorative courses and that was the big break.

Because Tipton said to me, Will you come in and do the Friday afternoon session on my restorative course? And I think it might have been so he could piss off home early on a Friday. But nonetheless, it gave me a platform and over a period of about two years I lectured to Paul’s courses and that was a turning turning point number one. Turning point number two. One of the attendees at that course said, We’re running a faculty meeting down in Birmingham. Will you come and do a Friday afternoon session? We’ve got David Cohen on Endo in the morning and Phil Green on Perio. And so we need you to come in in the afternoon and liven it up a bit. And I said, fine. And little did I know I was driving down to the motorcycle museum to walk in a room with 750 people in it because they’d not told me it was a regional faculty meeting for the whole of the Midlands. And so there’s every man, it’s every man’s 15 minutes of fame because I wasn’t fazed by the audience. And so I just walked out and did what I do and that and Typekit was the turning point. That’s what got me started. And the only other one I’ll I’ll make mention to because I wouldn’t want to miss him was the late, great Roy Morris, who used to sorry, Roy Higson, I should say the late great Roy Higson, who used to run talking points in dentistry.

If you remember in the late 90s, early 2000. And I remember Roy coming to a talk of mine and standing at the back of the room and anybody who knows Roy or knew Roy Higson knew that he was a he was a sardonic bugger. And I remember him coming over to me at the end of a talk about 1998, 99, and he said, very good talk that if you still here in four years I’ll have you on talking points. And to his word, he turned up four years later and he said, you’re on talking points now. Of course. Isn’t it sad in a way that talking points in dentistry is now history? Yeah, but those of us that are old enough to remember will remember that it was a huge gig. It was. And I think we had about 11 dates around the country. We had absolutely full houses and I think I did talking points. It was either zero 3 or 4, something like that. And and as if I’d needed another platform and another catapult, that was it. That was it. That really took off in a big way. So there you go.

That’s how tallies that tallies with what I said because I qualified in 95. And I think I must have seen you in 97, around around that time when you used to go into a practice back then, Was it different to now? I mean, I know the basics are the same in in all businesses, in human relations, but my sense of it was totally unprofessional back then. From the business perspective, is it better now or is that not the case?

Obviously, the business of dentistry has become far more complex than it was in the mid 90s. In the mid 90s. You qualified, you did some years as a whatever it was in those days, I can’t remember now. And if you had the entrepreneurial itch, then maybe you went along to the bank. The bank gave you 100% unsecured finance because you were a dentist and you went off and bought a practice and probably from a retiree. And can we just make a point, by the way, that when I arrived in, dentistry practices were changing hands at one times EBITDA? Or to put it another way, because we didn’t even know what EBITDA was in those days, the asking price for a dental practice in 19. 1996, 97 was 35% of turnover. Wow. So so £1 million practice make in 200 grand profit. In those days, you could buy it for £350,000. That same practice now would be valued at 1.6 million. And we haven’t got the time or the inclination to explain why the prices have gone up so much. But it isn’t that an incredible differential. Yeah. So a lot of young dentists could afford to buy £1 million practice for 350 grand and the banks will lend in a 100% unsecured to do it. So there was a lot of ownership, but when you bought it in 96, 97, you put your brass plaque on the wall. You took your box advert in the Yellow Pages. And you printed your trifold information leaflet and that was it. And then what happened.

Is you showed up.

At 9:00 on the first Monday and the and the great unwashed beat a path to your door for the rest of your career.

We didn’t have any websites.

We didn’t have any external marketing other than the Yellow Pages advert. And by the way, the number of procedures that you are delivering in an average day was very, very limited. We didn’t have any clear aligners We didn’t you know, there was only the hoi polloi were doing implants in those days. And of course your average patient was coming in for preventative maintenance and occasional filling. And once in a blue moon, a crown or a bridge.

And that was it.

Now, the interesting thing is.

That.

20% of dental practice owners way back then got it absolutely right and made a bloody good living at it and 80% of them fucked it up.

And that’s what’s not changed. The only thing that has changed.

Is that is that it’s just become ridiculously more complex. But actually the same 80 over 20 rule is still in operation, which is that 20% of Dental practice owners out there would even ever consider using a coach, whether it would be me or Ashley or Laura Horton or any of the other coaches or consultants out there. That and for that matter, you know, Prav only 20% would would consider using the kind of marketing support services that you provide. Payman only 20% would get involved with your businesses because they’re the enlightened ones and 80% of them just want to bitch and moan on GDP UK all day and then go and sit in the shed with a bottle of beer watching YouTube videos of Dental procedures. So nothing’s changed in terms of the 8020 rule. The only thing that’s changed is that is that the business has become more complex, but hasn’t life become more complex than it was in 1997?

Yeah. Yeah, bit a bit. So, so, Chris, look, as a consultant, so I know a lot of management consultants, right? And they have to go into businesses and effect change. And when I speak to them, they say the biggest challenge in that is the personalities and, you know, trying to trying to work out the politics of a of a of a particular business. And, you know, you’ve got the actual, you know, the organisational structure and then they’re trying to find out what’s where’s the actual power in, in the practice. And it resonates with me. When I go into a practice. I’m often thinking that too, you know, And it’s almost like it’s a very simple thing of practice, isn’t it? Your principle, the associates and then those other key people. I’m very focussed on the receptionist myself for, for my purposes. And often, you know, you get, you you can’t within a day, you can’t tell exactly what’s going on. But as a coach who’s having to go in and actually change things, how do you handle the politics of it? I mean, you know, Prav has similar similar, but I should actually ask the same question from both of you because both of you have had these similar issues to get through.

Well, I’m in the very fortunate position of not having to play politics because Mr. Marmite doesn’t have to. And so, you know, quite honestly, please, please understand that it is never my intention to be ignorant or rude or intimidating with people. And and I will, as it were. You know, I’ve got a kind of an accelerator pedal and a brake pedal in life. And what I’m doing is I’m constantly working the pedals in order to make sure that the message and the messenger don’t offend anybody. It is not my intention to get up in the morning and go out and offend people or intimidate people. I really try hard not to do those things, but but it is my intention to get up in the morning and to be a catalyst for change, given that that change is going to be for the benefit of the people that are hiring me. And given that change is also going to be for the benefit of the people that they employ and ultimately, of course, for the benefit of the people they serve as patients. So I’m trying to do no harm in a Hippocratic way, but I’m also trying to be very, very direct in the way that I communicate. So with that in mind, I will drive a coach and horses through the politics that you’ve just described, the power politics that you’ve just described. If I see it within a practice and if I see somebody in a practice who is a terrorist or if I see somebody in a practice who is a saboteur, then I will use every weapon in my armoury in order to deal with the threat that those people represent.

Let’s give some examples. So, Chris. Uh, well, let me give you an example. Young guy. Young guy buys a practice. The team are still from the old guy. And, you know, the young guys are too impatient to get things changed. And, you know, there’s there’s a few people, the manager and the receptionist who not on side yet. What do you do?

What I will do in the first instance is that I will paint a very, very, very clear picture of the benefits to everybody of change. All right. So even if I’ve got somebody who is resistant to change and of course, a lot of human beings.

Have everybody and.

Our default position is resistance to change. We are creatures of habit. We’re hunter gatherers. We don’t like innovation. We like to know that we can go out, kill the bear, drag the bear back to the cave, skin it, cook it, eat it, and wrap it around us. We like that certainty. So any, any agent for change is is pushing against evolution in many ways. But nonetheless, when I’m presented with that situation, I’m going into a team. Their practice has decided they’re going to convert from NHS to private practice, has decided they’re going to implement a plan. Practice has decided that they’re going to change from an associate led maintenance model to a therapy led maintenance model. Practice decides that they’re going to bring in digital workflow for the first time. Practice decides they’re going to put the prices up 25%, anything like that. I’m going to go in there. And what I want to do, first of all, is to be very, very, very clear that the only.

Change.

That is sustainable in business is one which involves the formula win, win, win. Actually, I’m going to say win, win, win, win. So what do I mean by that? Win number one is for the owner. Win number two is for the self-employed. Clinicians win. Number three is for the employees and win number four is for the patients. So when I’m looking at anything, whether it’s a conversion, whether it’s implementation of new workflows, whether it’s embracing digital technology, whatever it is, whether it’s putting the prices up.

I’m asking myself.

The question is, is it a win for ways and putting your prices up by an appropriate amount in order to maintain the solvency and success of the business is still a win for ways because the patients don’t win. If the practice doesn’t put the prices up and goes bust, as some BUPA patients now realise. So provided we’ve got the four wins in place.

I believe that what.

I’m saying is right for everybody. I will explain that in the clearest possible terms. And I will then ask people to get on the bus.

Individually or do you make you do a little performance for the whole team?

It would normally be a performance for the team, and at that stage, people then have a choice to make. The self-employed. First of all, the owners got to make a choice, which is, do I want to follow Chris Barrows advice? Not every owner does.

And, you know, people fire me.

Because they don’t want to take my advice, and that’s okay. The self-employed clinicians have got to be the winners in all of this. They’ve got to have better remuneration and better working conditions. And I have never and will never suggest that a pay cut for self employed clinicians is a good business idea. It’s nonsense. The team have got to be winners because they’ve got to have better remuneration and they’ve got to have a better career pathway and they’ve got to have a better working environment. And ultimately the patients have got to be winners. They’ve got to get the best possible clinical care and the best possible customer service. So we’ve got all those wins in place. And then I’ve got somebody at the back saying, I’m not on this bus, so get off the bus. And I’m not in negotiation mode at that stage. I’m just asking the person politely to leave the bus. Because there is no other answer, is there? And as you know, as my friend Neil Harris famously says, it’s better to have a gap in your team than tolerate the continued performance and behaviour of somebody who is not on the bus. Lucy Simich has got that great pneumonic f i f o which is fit in. Or you can work the rest out for yourself.

But okay. I mean, practically. You say you talk for an hour, let’s say some, some, some. Someone’s just looking down and pissed off. The principal says, I don’t think she’s on the bus. And then you advise advise the principal to lose that person, right? Is that right?

That’s exactly right. And what I would advise that what I advise my client to do is to get the best possible HR advice in order to facilitate a legal, timely exit of that person from the business. Yeah.

Prav You’ve been in this situation.

Plenty of times, mate. Um, and I think would you, would you do.

The same approach?

Similar. So if I go into a practice, the first thing is my priority is the people who’ve hired me, right. And what they want. And if we come to a mutual understanding of, you know, this is the way we all want to grow together, whether it’s a new practice takeover, whether it’s an existing practice, where there’s a bit of cancer in there and whatnot, the first thing that I do is and this you’ve got to bear in mind, this is quite recent and I think I’ll I’ll reflect back on what Chris was saying earlier, which is he’s done a lot of growing up in the last proportion of his life. And for me, I would say the evolution of Prav as a business person has happened like that, which is which is, you know, really steep post COVID. And it’s one we flipped over to Zoom and it was possible for me. Now as I go into a practice to say to the say to the practice owners, right, I’m going to do a 1 to 1 with every team member and I’m going to talk to them about change. I’m going to talk to them about the exciting opportunity that lies ahead. And we’re going to talk to them about what, you know, either the partners or the business owners want to do and ask them how they feel about that. Ask them how they feel about the role now, where they’d like to go in the future, what they love about their boss, what they hate about their boss and their job.

So I get a real understanding of, I think in Chris’s terms, who’s on or off the bus. I get a really clear idea and then I will have a catch up with the practice owners and I will pretty much tell them, in my opinion, this one’s a keeper. These ones are the other ones we need to tell them to F0, so to speak. I will never dish out HR advice though. I will tell them, you know, have a good, you know, most most have some kind of HR company on some kind of retainer, whether it’s your peninsulas or your citations and so on and so forth. And then then we’ll put a plan in place. And the number one goal is whatever that is, the growth objective, whether it’s the patient journey and creating that experience, embracing technology. And, you know, some team members may be resistant to, you know, speaking to patients in a certain way or embracing new treatments or whatever it is, we just push forward in that direction. And so I don’t tend to go in and do the thing that Chris does, which is in front of the whole team and say, you know, this is it. If you’re on, you’re on, if you’re off, you’re off sort of thing, but tend to be more one on one, I will address the team, but then I’ll put a plan in place with the with the principals. But you know, different but similar approach.

Yeah. And I think.

Just to clarify, I’m never going to stand in front of a team and say you’re either on the bus or off the bus. Make your mind up. I’m never going to do that on the team.

Yeah.

You’d love to sometimes, but. But I don’t think the owner would want you to know. But what I will do is that I won’t want to leave until I’ve made it 100% abundantly clear of the benefit of the change that we are proposing so that there’s nobody left in any doubt that it is. As I’ve said, it’s it’s a four times win.

Um, and.

Then leave people remember I’m not press ganging people onto the bus. I’m saying this is where we need to go in order to get the four wins and, and therefore.

I’m then.

Going to leave it hanging out there because it’s blatantly obvious at that stage that this is the way the business is going and we’re looking for I was going to use the word passengers for the bus. Well, of course, the last thing we need is passengers. But we need a crew. We need a crew for the bus because this is where we’re going. Now, of course, people don’t at that point put their hands up and say, I don’t agree with anything you said, because the saboteurs and the terrorists don’t do their work in team meetings. They do their work in the staff room at 5:10 when the owner’s gone home. They do their work on WhatsApp that evening. They do their work in the wine bar after work and so on and so forth. And so that’s when you then need to warn, as it were, the owners and the managers that that saboteur work will take place off the radar and out of office hours and you’ve got to be ready for it the next morning when you come back in.

So Chris, then the follow up process from that. I’ve just hired you. You’ve had a conversation with me, I guess one on one, and then you’ve had the conversation with the team. You’ve now got to follow up on all that to to make sure this change happening. Right.

So, no. Do you know? No, I’m a coach.

It’s not my responsibility to do the homework, you know. I was taught to be a coach by the late, great Thomas Leonard, who is considered by many to be the founder of modern day coaching. And there was one absolute key phrase that Thomas Leonard drilled into us in the early 90s, and that is that the client does the work. The coach doesn’t do the work. And if you as a coach, go home at night with homework, it’s a sure sign of the fact that you’ve got it horribly wrong.

Okay.

So when I drive away from a client’s premises, I do so with no homework.

Okay, perfect. So then then that leads me nicely to the next question of how much is like how much difference does it make when the client is on message, on on it. You know, you put in processes and systems, right?

Well.

It’s more it’s it’s it’s mission critical. It’s not about making a difference. You can’t work. Well, I can’t work with a client who isn’t totally and utterly committed to the change process. Somebody once described the difference between a good client and a bad client being best illustrated by a plate of egg and bacon because the chicken is involved, but the pig is totally committed. And I need to work with the pigs who are totally committed. I don’t need to work with the chickens that are laying eggs.

But you know what I’m what I’m alluding to, Prav, is, you know, in your business, right, you have to bring leads to the practice. Then they have to convert those leads. And it’s a weird sort of tension between, you know, good leads and bad leads. And, you know, someone saying to you, oh, the leads are weak. And, you know, we’ve talked about it a million times on this pod that some practices follow up properly, some practices don’t. You know, all of that. And so in your world, it’s very clear that that you get blamed for the practices problems sometimes.

Sometimes we used to and we still do. And I think the thing is this me and Chris spoke about this at length on a on a trip to on a train journey. Yeah. We were on our way to central London and it was serendipity that brought us together because my seat was opposite Chris’s and I never travelled first class, but I just happened to be that day because apparently, according to my PR it was cheaper, so there’s no way I’d have been sat in the same carriage as Chris. Right. So anyway, anyway, we were sat opposite each other and we both flipped our laptops open and we knew we had a we knew we both had a plan when we got on that train and it wasn’t talking to each other, it was to blast through a shitload of admin before we got to London. And that’s what me and Chris would do when we’re on the train. But it did buddy up and did it because we just gasped all the way. Um, anyway, one one of the, one of the conversations, one of the talking points was about lead generation and sort of blame or shit leads, good leads, whatever. Right? And you know, I mentioned to Chris at that point was that we’ve evolved in that sense that I feel as agencies and look, this doesn’t necessarily have to be the way that every agency runs their business is that we need to take a degree of responsibility. 80 of what happens to that lead. And so I would say our values and our approach changed where we say to the client, if you’re not willing to invest in the follow up and if you’re not willing to invest in that process, then we will not help you.

And the reason for that is that I’m all about building longer term relationships with our marketing clients. Otherwise we become like a lot of agencies that will take a retainer to for 6 to 9 months and they’ll be having the same conversation with the next agency because something didn’t work. And so we like to figure out, you know, what is working, what’s not, who’s having the conversations? Are we recording the calls? Can we tap into 3 or 4 of those calls? Oh, shit. Right. Okay. This is why some somebody offered composite bonding instead of all on four implants. As an alternative, somebody needs some education and so, yes, payment. What used to happen as a marketing agency, we used to say you stuck a grand in the pot. We generated inquiries at £20 a conversion. What’s the conversion? It’s a name, email address, a phone number. And what the hell is wrong with you? Or It’s a phone call that lasted longer than X number of seconds. Right? There’s our stats We generated you. An ROI isn’t really an ROI. It’s just it’s not translated to money into your into your practice. And that changed for us. And it was only because I just wanted to sleep at night and, and, and I wanted to have a measurable impact on, on the clients that we worked with. So we do take responsibility for that now payment and obviously, as you know, we developed a piece of software that drives that whole process and makes that life sort of easier for our clients. But yeah, I think there comes a point where you’ve just got to at whatever point take some kind of responsibility for for what does.

It happen to you? Does it happen to you where you get blamed or I don’t know, you worry about someone says, Oh yeah, I got Chris Barrow in and my practice didn’t do what it was supposed to do. And it was, you know, their fault. They didn’t do the work. Is it? I think it must come up.

It Oh God, it’s going to sound really false when.

I say it doesn’t.

Come up. But now, but but it just doesn’t come up. And and, you.

Know, I think I’m in I’m in a very.

Fortunate position.

That that.

Coaching is about giving.

The clients the tools to get on with the job and then asking the client to get on with the job. It’s not my job to take the client from 3 million to 5 million in sales or from half 1 million to 1 million in profitability. It’s not my job. It’s it’s my job to explain to the client how to do that. And so I’m not delivering a commodity. What I’m doing is I’m delivering a system and it’s up to the client to use the system. So I don’t have that same degree of black and white accountability that Prav is talking about in the work that he’s involved in here, where the client’s turning round and say, I paid you for x Leaders I got X leads, but I haven’t got Y sales. And of course what Prav has done is he said, Well, actually if the client buys X leads and gets zero sales, I’m going to get fired. So I’ve got to give. If the client buys X leads, I’ve got to give them X leads and then miraculously turn into a coach and turn them. How to turn X leads into Y sales.

So do you see what’s happening? Is that at the front end of his business, Prav is being a commodity salesman, but at the back end of his business he’s learned that he needs to become a coach in order to teach the client how to turn the X leads into the Y sales. Now I don’t do the front end. I don’t deliver a commodity. What I do is I say I’m going to turn up and I’m going to work with you and your team to show you the systems and tactics and procedures and habits that you need to have in place in order to get the result. But getting the result, Mr. Client or Mrs. client is your responsibility, not mine. The coach doesn’t do the work. The client does the work. You could say that’s a get out clause. It’s not a get out clause because I’m very transparent about that. At the beginning of the relationship, I will show you what to do and how to do it. Whether or not you do it, I cannot influence or control. Now, getting back to the clients. People tend not to hire.

Me.

Unless they are ready to do the work.

But the interesting.

Thing is that sometimes people hire me in the expectation that I’m going to do the work for them and then get a nasty surprise and they leave within three months.

Yeah, Yeah. And I’m really I’m dead happy when that happens.

Because the client thought that Chris Barrow was going to be the next system. The client thought that Chris Barrow was going to be the next lead generation system or the next employee happiness system or the next associate development system. And all that they needed to do was to buy Chris Barrow. Chris Barrow was going to become their bitch. They could go home and watch the telly and Chris Barrow was going to make everything work. And they suddenly.

Realised.

That that.

Isn’t going to happen. Yeah, and.

They’re the ones that leave and.

They always leave really, really quickly.

If they ever sign up in the first place, because you only have to go and have a look at my website or whatever else to realise that I am. The only thing I’m promising you is is a lot of hard work, but you’ll be doing the right work with me.

So, of course, we’ve had several of our guests mention you and the changes that they made with you helping them recently. James Hamill was one. And for instance, I remember him saying, you know, you used to come and listen to the two of them, husband and wife, fighting about, you know, fighting about their day. There’s a lot of husband and wife teams in in dentistry. And, you know, it’s an interesting question, right, that you’ve you’ve worked with corporates as well. Right. I remember when Boots were setting up, you were you were very involved in that. And you’re very involved in with practice plans. Is that right? Or were you?

I am still.

A practice planner, is still my number one strategic alliance partner. I do lots and lots of lecturing for them. Yeah.

Yeah. So. So the combination of skills that you need to to talk to a husband and wife who are fighting and, and then deal with a, you know, like a behemoth, like boots and, you know, the management structures and how, how slow they are sometimes to move in those big companies. Yeah. If someone wants to get into your area, what would you say is your key skill?

You mean get into my area as a coach?

Yeah. What? What is your key skill as a coach? What is your key skill?

Well, first things first.

Boots is the only significant corporate that I’ve ever worked with. And that was over 20 years ago now.

Have you not.

Worked with any other.

And I don’t I don’t work with corporates anymore, thank God, because even the boots experience, it was it was huge fun and it paid the deposit on a holiday home in Florida. I was at one stage considering having the Boots logo in the bottom of the swimming pool in ceramic tiles, but we never got around to it.

Um, but I.

Also realised that that experience working with Boots Dental Care was, was a great wake up call to the frustration of dealing with corporate clients and the bureaucracy and middle management and job preservation and inability to make decisions and aversion to entrepreneurial entrepreneurial ism that exists within those organisations. I’ve had ditched the corporates there. Um, so let’s move on. So, you know, the, the, all of my clients are owner managed businesses and many of them are family run owner managed businesses. Quite a few of them are man and wife teams as well. And sounding a bit like Bruce Forsyth, when I say that working with the man and wife teams might be my favourites because the the such great fun to work with.

And I have.

To say that James and Sonya Hamel, who I love dearly, are not the only married couple who have sat at either end of the dining table shouting at each other while I’ve been in the middle with my fingers. Um, you know, that’s a fairly common.

Scenario, really. Um, but I love it.

I love it because I’m working with decision makers and because there isn’t the bureaucracy of middle management and chain of command and, and all of that type of thing as well. I forgot what your question was.

You know, the key skills for for a coach.

Oh, thank you. Yes. So, um.

These are skills which I have developed over the years and may not have been apparent at the start of my career. Just want to put that marker in. The coach listens first and I have a golden rule, which is that whenever I’m talking to either a potential new client or an existing client, and whether it’s a Zoom call or a face to face, I always begin the conversation exactly the same way. In fact, I’m famous for it.

I’ve had today.

I’ve spoken to about 3 or 4 clients on Zoom, and every conversation has started exactly the same way. How can I help? And once you’ve once you’ve asked that question, you then need to remember the mnemonic STFU. Shut the fuck up.

And say absolutely.

Nothing about what you do.

How you do it.

Where you.

Do it, when you do it.

How much it’s going to cost, all the technology that you’ve got. Forget it. Ask the question, How can I help you? And then let the client start talking and do not interrupt until the client has stopped talking. And I actually call it the an another thing section of the conversation because the client you say, how can I help? And the client.

Goes blah.

And vomits all over you. And when they.

Finished.

You then say, Is there anything else? And most people will then.

Back again.

And give you the secondary vomit about an another thing you’ll never guess. And another thing you’ll never guess what happened next. And another thing you’ll never guess what they’ve done to me now. And another thing. You’ll never guess what’s happened and then say, Is there anything else? Is there anything else? Is there anything else? And when the client has finally stopped talking and on average for me, that would be between 20 to 40 minutes into the conversation.

At that point.

Having perhaps made notes of the things that the client have said, you then respond with the following phrase and here’s me giving my trade secrets away. I’ve listened very carefully to what you’ve told me, and I’m very confident that I’m going to be able to help. And then start telling them how you’re going to help them. There you have it.

The key skill is listening.

The key skill is listening.

Interesting.

And by the way, by the way, any.

Rational, intelligent, reasonably well educated, numerate, literate human being with the power of reasoning can be a coach.

I like that. I mean, you know, Chris, you’ve done a few different businesses, right? You did that thing with the practices you were going to do and you did the thing with boots and all that. But I think, you know that your ikigai is it is that turnaround sort of going into a practice listening to people and and putting some common sense and, you know, things that come naturally to you might not come naturally to the next man here. Like when James Hamill said when he was selling the practice, you told him it would be like a triathlon. Yeah. And he was a triathlon runner as well. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know. You know what I mean? That to you, that might seem like like a very obvious thing. Um, but then you’ve been around a long time, and I think you’re sort of to you, you’re not. You don’t realise what you’re actually doing. It’s so natural for you, you know, it’s your ikigai.

One of the things.

That I realised, I think possibly quite early on I realised I’m not a particularly religious person. I do regard myself as a spiritual person. I don’t regard myself as a as a religious person, but I was brought up Church of England and I’ve had the wonderful opportunity I would regard myself if somebody said, What religion are you? I would say stoic, recognising the fact that stoicism is actually a philosophy. But but you know, if any anything to do with stoicism I regard as being a complete description of the person I want to be at this stage in my life. Nonetheless, I have spent hours and hours and hours in conversation with clients and friends over the years about comparative religions because it’s a subject that absolutely fascinates me. And whether it’s Islam or whether it’s Hinduism or Buddhism or anything else. I’ve talked to people in in East Africa about religion. I’ve talked to people all over the world about religion. And what I’ve discovered is that there is there are some common themes in religion. And one of one common theme in religion is that prophets use parables. Simple as.

Stories.

Stories.

Okay.

You know, and.

Moses wasn’t.

Overly popular because he came down with Ten Commandments and it’s like, who.

The fuck are you.

Giving us? Ten commandments. Who do you think you are?

And how many more rules do we need? All right. But actually other.

Prophets and of course, I’m very familiar with Jesus Christ because I grew up in the church that revolves around him or one of the churches, I should say, that revolves around him. And what I realised earlier on was that Jesus Christ didn’t say, Well, here’s commandments 11 through 23 to add to the first ten. What Jesus Christ did was say.

I’m going to tell you a story.

And what I’m going to do is I’m going to use a parable to make a point. And hopefully if you enjoy.

The parable.

You might get the point. So when James Hamill says, I’m going to sell my practice and I’m going to have the money in the bank in three months, I sit down with him and I say, James, you’re a triathlete. You know what goes into training for a triathlete? And even more than that, you know what goes into delivering a triathlon? And what I need you to know is that this experience is going to leave you as tired, exhausted and knackered as a triathlon does. It was just a parable. And then the client goes right, because they get it. So whether it was deliberate or inadvertent, I’m not quite sure. But I’ve always been a storyteller, and that’s something that I’ve been since a relatively young age. And what that means is that I’ve always found it very easy to do public speaking because public speaking for me has just been about telling stories. Yeah. And actually, you.

Know, when.

I get to the bit in the talk where I have to talk about the practice and the system and all the rest of it, I don’t enjoy that as much as saying I work with a client in Glasgow and he was in this situation and this is what we did and this is how we solved it. And you know, it’s joyful to be able to do that. And of course, the great thing about parable tellers is that the older they get, the more useful they become because they’ve got more stories. Yeah.

We talked about some dark days before Croatia, but I’d like to know what you would consider your biggest mistakes because we ask all the all the guests, their biggest clinical errors because, you know, dentists don’t tend to talk about that. What comes to mind when I say that? What were your what were your errors?

My first and.

Biggest mistake was was failing my GCSEs when I was 16 years old because I’d discovered Player’s number six Bulmers Woodpecker, Cider and Girls and I flunked my GCSEs. And what that meant was that I wasn’t able to submit my application form to become a helicopter pilot in the Fleet Air Arm and to follow my dad’s early career in the Royal Navy. That was a massive mistake. But then again, I could have been shot down in the Falklands.

My second.

The second mistake or let me say my second of a million mistakes know if I was going to pick out another major mistake. It’s one that I’ve repeated three times in my career.

Now, many.

People say that making a mistake once is a mistake. Making a mistake twice is an unfortunate series of events. Making the same mistake three times means you’re an idiot.

So I’m clearly an.

Idiot because three times I have gone into business as a robin to somebody else’s Batman. And the reason I’ve done that is because the Batman has been rich and powerful and successful. And I thought that by becoming their Robin, I was going to become a little bit rich and a little bit powerful and a little bit successful. And each time those Batman shat upon me.

And yet.

I didn’t learn the first two times and I went ahead and did it a third time. But fortunately, I’m now cured.

So you wouldn’t. So if if if an opportunity came along now, you and the guy seemed okay and was powerful and rich and had an idea you wouldn’t do it again.

Not a bloody chance.

And when you say Batman and Robin, you literally mean, you know, a senior partner. Basically someone who’s calling the shots. Yeah.

And I thought that that would be my way to riches and power and glory.

Yeah.

And what I’ve discovered about that.

Man.

Is that the reason that they get to be Batman is that quite often they just shit on everybody else.

Chris When you went through those, those episodes and I’m pretty sure I know what they were and I don’t know whether you want to talk about them or not. What impact do you think that had on your reputation? And did you was there anything that you had to do after the event or time period to sort of, shall we say, redeem yourself or gain that reputation back?

One of the greatest.

Joys of my life is that even though that’s happened to me three times and it happened once in financial services back in the 80s and it happened twice in dentistry.

Oh, okay.

Even though that’s happened every single time, my reputation has bounced back within a nanosecond. And I’ve got nothing but gratitude for the people that reached out and said, We know you. We know who you are. We know what you are. We know you’ve made a bad choice. But we also know that you’ve got a heart of gold and that you’ll be back. And it’s been one of the most uplifting experiences of my life to have that feedback. Probably. I like to think that in some respects that’s payback for never doing harm. Yeah.

Absolutely right, man. Chris You know, when when you’ve got people who really believe in you and they you affected change in their business and now the business is doing really well. Yeah, there’s there’s one one branch of coaching that kind of is like a funnel that ends up now now trying to get more money out of them. And I’ve noticed you’ve never been that guy. Yeah. Um, look, I don’t. I don’t know. I’m not saying it’s necessarily the wrong way to go because, you know, someone else will sit here and say it’s the wrong way to go in the first place to pay a coach at all. Yeah. So, you know, who am I to judge what’s what? But coaching has that sort of reputation in itself, hasn’t it? You know, so I don’t want to call it like cult. I don’t mean cult. Cult is the wrong word. Yeah, but but that that notion where you’ve got the coach at the top and then the guys below and everyone’s kind of feeding into this, what are your reflections on on, on that? Do you, do you recognise what I’m, what I’m talking about?

I think that there are people in life who game the system and some of those people are dentists. Some of those people are accountants, lawyers. Some of those people are coaches. They’re just gaming the system and the gaming people. And and you know, there are plenty of people on this call that will know how a dentist can game the system and can take advantage either of the government or can take advantage of the patient. And those those people who game the system.

Where it’s a win.

Lose. Yeah, sometimes it’s a win, lose, lose, lose. Um.

That I just.

Believe in karma. I believe that those people end up sat on a pile of gold coins with no friends. Um, and I do genuinely believe in, in the power of karma to, to, to find a way of ensuring that those people meet their just deserts.

In a supernatural way. You believe in karma.

Well, can’t think of any other way.

Well, no, practically.

There’s a version of karma that is supernatural, and that’s the one I believe in. There’s another version of karma which is getting a few blokes from Salford and giving them £250 and saying.

Go and beat his brains out.

That’s not very supernatural.

But look, there’s being a good guy is practical. Sometimes. Yeah. You’re not always. Yeah. You put your trust in this, Batman, and sometimes that can mess it up, right? But being being a good person is a practical thing, right? Me and you’ve known each other 25 years. We’ve. You’ve always been a good guy to me. And, you know, somewhere along the line that might come back to you because you’re a good guy. I might tell someone, Hey, go see Chris. So what I’m saying is that it’s practical, but but the super sort of supernatural idea is like, you know, the world is conspiring to. And I don’t know that that’s real. I don’t know. I don’t know. Do you believe that? Is that the spiritual part of you think that?

Well, no. You know.

I’ve always my top subject at school is mathematics. And and, you know, I did recover from my exam failure in order to achieve some degree of academic success. And and and my core subject was maths. And again, in another life, I might have ended up as an actuary. You never know. But perhaps what I should say to you is that there is a statistical inevitability that somebody who is consistently bad is going to end up experiencing bad themselves. And I also believe that there’s a statistical inevitability that somebody who is consistently good will end up experiencing good themselves.

Now, I said statistical.

Okay, so a good person can get struck by lightning and a bad person can win the lottery. But statistically the balance of probabilities is that the bad people will end up having a bad life. That’s my karma. And it’s nothing other than mathematics.

Yeah, I’ve got two more things I definitely want to discuss. Your podcast. Again, one of the earliest podcasts, a bit of an early adopter. Chris I remember when Facebook first came out, you were definitely the big guy, like you were one of the biggest voices on on social media at the beginning. Yeah, coaching itself, you might say you weren’t the first, but you’re definitely very early on that. A bit of an early adopter. But tell me, number one, I want to talk about the pod and then later on I do want to also talk about the pandemic where I thought you really sort of came into your own at that point with those daily briefings and like something around when the going gets tough, the tough get going kind of feeling about you. Chris Am I getting that right?

Well well.

I am probably one of the most resilient people that I’ve ever met. And, you know, some some people call me Mr. Weeble because I just I don’t fall down. I just keep bouncing back up again. And when the history books are written.

About.

About Chris Barrow, not that I think they will be, but if a history book was ever written about Chris Barrow, I think that that I would certainly be able to claim a title as a bounce back kid and forgive the pun, given we’re going to talk about COVID in a minute. But you understand bounce back in the sense that you can’t knock me down or just bounce back up again. So that that’s certainly true. And this business of being of being an innovator or what we’re going to reference is, is the lockdown lunchtime briefings. I’m going to go back to the question that I ask every human being that I ever meet in a professional context, and that is, how can I help? And the lockdown lunchtime briefings came out of me waking up on the morning of Tuesday after Boris did his stay at home speech. On the Monday night, I came down and I sat exactly where I am now, in the same office, in front of the same computer at the same desk. And let’s bear in mind that that night before my business had driven off a cliff like everybody else’s because I was all over the bloody map. I was doing workshops in the UK, Ireland, South Africa, Australia, India and was starting to get invites to go to all the places in the world as well. I had a global, potentially global coaching business, COVID stay at home, so and my business was predominantly based upon either delivering workshops or in practice physics. So I came down here the Tuesday morning and I sat here with a cup of coffee and asked myself a question How can I help? And that was all there was to it. And people frequently say to me, Oh my God, you were the guy.

You got the Facebook lunchtime.

You got lunchtime. Facebook Live broadcast. You got the business confidence forum going on the Thursday night. You were there. You were all over bloody Zoom. My kids were saying his Uncle Chris coming on the telly tonight, blah.

Blah, blah and and and and I.

Have absolutely no compulsion in saying that that 12 week period catapulted my business. Catapulted my business by an order of about 300% in terms of reach, turnover, profitability, purely that one event. And please God and thank God I haven’t come back down from that level.

But all I did.

Was the same thing that I do every day, which was to ask a question, How can I help? I just asked the question to the mirror in the bathroom.

That’s all there was to it. And it was, to me, total.

Utter, bloody crushing logic that everybody in dentistry was sat at home with fuck all to do. So why wouldn’t you jump onto Facebook, live at lunchtime and reach out to every other key opinion leader in dentistry who was sat at home doing fuck all and say to Jason Smithson or say to Martin Woodrow or say to my clients or say to Laura or Ash or anybody else, Come and join my lunchtime broadcast and let’s talk to people about what the hell’s going on and give them a bit of solace.

Yeah, it was a brilliant execution, though. A brilliant execution, because every day is not a joking matter. And it also at the time made me realise how connected you are to so many different people, you know?

Well, yeah. And that, you.

Know, that’s nothing other than, as I was remarking down in Birmingham over the weekend, you know, my first Dental trade show was.

1996.

And I turned up a bit like you turned up at every bloody show. And so you end up and so you end up knowing everybody. Yeah. So it was the easiest thing in the world to reach out to those people and say, Do you fancy coming on the live broadcast? They had nothing else to do. And and I will again, I’ve used go to my grave too many times tonight. I hope this isn’t kind of like, you know, John Lennon’s last interview.

But it was shot by an NHS dentist the day after.

But to my grave, I will. The thing that perplexes me. Why wasn’t every other consultant, why wasn’t every other trainer? Why wasn’t every dental supply company? Why wasn’t the acquisitions manager of every dental corporate? Why weren’t they all doing Facebook Live broadcasts and me having to compete with them? Everybody else sat on their arse and did nothing?

No, there was. There was some stuff, dude. Yeah, but yours was just strong. It was strong, that’s why. Because it’s difficult. But it’s difficult Things you take for granted, man.

So, you know, maybe the moral of the.

Story is, is that what you. What we all need to be doing.

More of.

Is asking ourselves a very simple question, which is, how best can I help?

And that is the secret.

Of the success that I’ve enjoyed.

And every time I talk.

Consistently.

I’ve replaced the question, How can I help.

With the question? How can I make a shitload of money?

And every time I’ve asked.

Myself that.

Question.

It’s gone so bloody. Pete Tong. You wouldn’t believe it.

Do you know what it’s. I know the answer to this question, but I want Chris to I want Chris to say it, which is your first gig with Paul Tipton. He asked you to turn up and give a talk and you probably knew very little in comparison to today. What on earth did you talk about? What did you say and what did you deliver on that day?

All right. Well, the.

First answer to the question is a fabulous quotation from Rudyard Kipling, who said that in the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king. And in 1996, I was the one eyed man. Perhaps to some extent, still am. But the second part of your question is that with back in those very first talks, I systematically said with the appropriate attribution, this is what Steve Covey says about the seven Habits of Highly Effective people. I wonder how much of that applies in dentistry. This is what Dave Allen said about getting things done. I wonder how much of this applies in dentistry. This is what Robert Kiyosaki said about rich dads.

And poor dads.

I wonder how much of this applies in dentistry. This is what Dan Sullivan at Strategic Coach in Toronto says about the entrepreneurial time system. I wonder how much this. So basically my speaking career in dentistry began by repurposing other you know, the Isaac Newton shoulders of giants comment. I sat on the shoulders of those giants. I repurposed that material into dentistry with the appropriate attribution. I never said this is my idea. I said, This is these ideas from giants that got me through about the first 2 or 3 years. And still until I started picking up some of the rackets that go on in dentistry on a day by day basis. And now what I do is I’m still talking about the Giants, I’m still repurposing that material. But I’m also saying and this is what Chris Barrow has observed over his 26 years.

Chris, what are the trends? What are what are you seeing out there now that’s new and what’s surprising you?

Well, that’s a different question. Let me answer the first question first. What’s trending? What’s trending on the 15th of May 2023 is that the corporates are tanking because the private equity boys are running scared. What’s happening is that the BBC are doing the best marketing job for private dentists. That’s been done in my lifetime by talking about dental deserts. What’s happening is that digital workflow is revolutionising not only the delivery of dentistry, but it’s also revolutionising the financial model for dentistry as well. What’s happening is a is a welcome return of the young dentist who wants to open their own private squat and doesn’t want to buy something off a retiree. And I predict a proliferation of private squats over the over the months and years ahead. What’s happening is that dental therapists have slowly been given access to their full scope of practice as defined by the GDC, and a few dentists are getting out of their own way and realising that BDS doesn’t actually spell God and that if they can train therapists to do the work properly, it’s a fabulous business model for them. I think that’ll do for a few trends. Yeah, that’ll that’ll do for now. What surprises me fuck all, mate.

Seen it all.

There is nothing that could surprise me.

Okay. Because it’s a bit unfair. I’m going to have to reference Stuart Campbell, but I’m going to say it because you were the one who who told him to do his podcast. Yeah. If if his famous Rishi Sunak. If you were Rishi Sunak, do you think what do you think the NHS is fixable? If so, what would you do to fix the NHS?

The the NHS.

Is eminently fixable and it’s about to be fixed and it’s about to be fixed by importing dentists from Kerala in southern India. And it’s about to be fixed by increasing the scope of practice for dental care professionals. And that’s entirely the right way to fix it. So all this dead language is is complete and utter bloody nonsense.

So you would keep it the same, keep the system as it is. As far as payments, for instance, I would means test access to NHS dentistry.

Well, you know, people have been talking.

About means testing access to dentistry as long as they’ve been talking about IR35 investigations of associates. And it’s all bollocks. You know, the revenue are never going to get round to testing associate tax status. There’s not enough revenue in it and there’s not enough people working at HMRC to have the time to do it. And similarly, I have to say that I think that the system needs to be replaced. I think that’s fundamentally broken. We need to run to we need to revert back probably to the system that was in place back in 1996 when I turned up.

But, you know, having.

Said that, there’s no reason why the system shouldn’t carry on in a similar format to that which it does, and means testing. Health care is is a political football that no party is ever going to take on board.

You’re not playing the game. The game is you’re the you’re the emperor of the world. So you can just do whatever you want.

Envisage this. You have a building. It has got four floors. The top floor is the lab where the magic happens or the ceramics happens. Then the third floor is the teaching centre, full of delegates learning morphology, probably. The second floor is the facial surgery and facial aesthetics. And the facial surgical aesthetics. And the ground floor would be the Dental Dental practice. How about that? So now found me that Find me that millionaire. Please.

No, no, no. Gym and hot tub.

Maybe it’s in the basement. If we do. Well.

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. Yogita Sebata to the podcast. One of the nicest things about my job is I sometimes get to meet my heroes and Yogita definitely is one of them. Someone I’ve been following for years now and she doesn’t believe it when I tell her that one of one of the nicest things about you Yogita is that you don’t realise how interesting you are. Massive. Pleasure to have you here.

Thank you very much for inviting me. It’s a great pleasure to be here. And I must say that I was a tad nervous to come to the podcast because I thought, Oh my God, this is going to be Payman and he’s going to ask me all these questions about my personal life, about my upbringing, about my parents, where I come from. And and I think you know that and everyone who knows me a little bit, they do know that I’m quite a private person. Yeah. Because to answer these questions, it does require quite a lot of openness and vulnerability. And I’m an Eastern European. I do not do well with vulnerability.

Have you brought your vulnerable side? Today?

I did. I did, Actually, I did. So you’re going to be one of the very first people who’s going to probably hear the full story. Oh, amazing. So you’re going to get a very raw and very authentic yogita today. So treat me gently.

Absolutely. So Yogita you train other dentists now, It’s a big part of your your day, your week education. But you studied in Vilnius. You grew up in Lithuania. Do you remember the first time you thought, I want to be a dentist?

That is a good question. I do not remember the first time that I thought that I want to be a dentist the way I chose dentistry. It was very pragmatic and very practical decision. I do remember when I was thinking that I definitely want to be a doctor from a very early age, but when I passed my exams I realised that, well, I can’t really afford to spend 10 or 15 years in training to be a doctor. So I decided to become a dentist and I applied and here I am. So I guess it was not something that I really kind of planned out or it was my my dream. But this is a strange thing about some decisions in life that you make a decision and it turns out to be the best thing you’ve done. And I think that decision that I actually chose dentistry instead of medicine, it was one of the best ones that I’ve done.

Why medicine? Why were you even thinking medicine? Do you have doctors?

I don’t know. I really cannot recall why exactly. I wanted to be a doctor. Maybe it was the influence on all the, you know, TV programs like E.R. and everything. I really do not don’t know. But I kind of felt that I want to work with people. I want to help people. And I wanted a well-paid job. And I thought medicine would be kind of it. But exactly why? I don’t know. None of my family members are. They have nothing to do with that. None of them are doctors. I just decided, I think, that myself by by myself.

But you know how you you know, clearly when when I look at you these days, there’s a massive artistic influence on everything you do and teach. Were you an artist? Were you that way inclined as well? As a child.

Yes and no. Again, I think I will keep repeating that throughout our podcast and throughout our talk that a lot of the things that happen to me in the life happened because of a complete randomness and the complete accident and somehow things that are completely random things they happen to you in life, they somehow echo in later in life. Yeah. So when I was growing up, I was growing up in a very small town and a very small town in the north of Lithuania. And I was going to like a local school. My parents never, you know, forced me or guided me to be become anybody. I was really I had the full choice of full freedom to choose whatever I wanted to do. And I was going to a local school, which wasn’t really strong in the sciences, but it had a really strong arts curriculum. So every week for one day a week, we would have a full day dedicated to arts only and we would have like artists, painters, graphic designers, sculptors coming to the school, and we would spend time with them, you know, playing with clay or going to the nature and, you know, drawing bees and painting trees. And it was a lot of fun.

And I didn’t really think much of it at the time. So I spent I was going to that school up until the age of 14. And again, I was quite a mature, mature. I actually had, you know, I grew up with ten and 11 years older sisters, so I was quite mature for my age. And at the age of 14, I decided that, well, okay, so really, you know, if I want to do well in life, arts is not going to, you know, it’s not going to do that for me. So I need to go and to a better school and pick sciences. And that’s what I did. I applied to the school and and this is how art really ended in my life. And I think. I never thought about that a lot until I graduated from dental school and I started really working on teeth and I realised that, oh, actually everything that I’ve been doing before, I have this manual dexterity now. I have the visual perception and it really, really helps and I really enjoy what I do. So it was just a coincidence. The hands. I believe I have this artistic touch and feel to, to whatever I do.

So I mean, your parents, what did they do?

Um, my parents. Well, I come from a very humble background. My upbringing, I must say that it wasn’t very conventional. It was probably far from that. I was born in a family. My both parents are Lithuanians, and I cannot tell that my upbringing was full of love or support or my my my parents were educated. They were good people, but they didn’t really, you know, give me any directions at all. But one thing that they did really, really well is that they allowed me to do whatever I want to do. They taught me the accountability. If I chose to go to another school by myself, they would say, okay, fine, this is not very convenient. But you know, if you want to do that, you have to make sure that you will be able to get yourself to the school and you will be able to, you know, come back to the school on your own because you know, it’s your own thing. So I think what I’ve learned from my parents the most is it gave me a really good notion of how I don’t want to live my life. I understood that if I want more meaningful relationships, if I want to do better in life and they must be better than that, whatever I was experiencing, I have to go and get it myself. Nobody is going to give that to me. Nobody is going to present it to me on a silver plate. So if I want something, I have to go and get it. And I think this is what I understood very early in my life, and that’s how I live up until this day. And the greatest gift that my parents gave is that they never stopped me.

So a lot a lot of times people say you’re formed by your hardships. And, you know, I think we talk about this quite a lot on the podcast. We have these dentists, they’re doing very well, and then the children end up being quite soft. I’ve got, you know, the similar problem with my kids wondering, am I making them too soft? I can’t even bribe my kids to do anything. It’s like they don’t want anything.

Don’t bribe. It’s not going to work out.

But they don’t want anything. So but but I understand what you’re saying about the sort of the independence side of that, but that doesn’t necessarily lead to ambition. And yet you’re quite an ambitious person. It’s obvious talking to you and seeing what you’ve achieved. Where do you think that came from? I mean, was it from similar from from that fact that you wanted to break out of this situation?

And I think a lot a lot of that contributed to me not wanting to live in the circumstances that I was born to. But you know how we always say that, you know, how we achieve things. We achieve things because we set a goal and we actively pursue the goal. And in my opinion and in my experience, the reason why am I am ambitious and why I achieve things is because is of not having something. So I realised that this is what I don’t have. So do I want it? I do want it. So this is where the ambition comes from, comes from. Because if I want it and I don’t have it, it’s the mathematics is very simple. You have to go and get it. And also it’s a great what is it?

Security or a thing or a house or a car or a what is it?

There is no one thing. Yeah, there is no house security. Yes, there are many, many attributes, I guess, to what? Why the life is meaningful. So I do want to have meaningful relationships. I do want to have the variety of the experiences in life. I do want to have a fulfilling career. I do want to have a relatively comfortable life. I want to stay curious. I want to experience and get to know people. I am you know, I come across as quite a shy person, but I really do love people. I love listening to the stories and I love learning from the people because this is one of the things that also brought me forward a lot is I was listening to people and learning from people and I was thinking, Oh, this is a great mindset or This is how I would want to to be like when I grow up. I still think that to this day, sometimes when I meet somebody, okay, I want to I want to be this person or like this person when I grow up. So that’s, I think what is the meaningful thing for me. This is this is it for me. The experiences are not material. Things.

Okay, So you, you you said that you come across as a shy person and you do. You do. I mean, we’ve met maybe twice before, and both times I thought, you know what? Why? Why isn’t she acknowledging me or something? Yeah, that’s.

Not being shy.

But you you do come across as a shy person. You. You in a way, you almost speak when you’re spoken to in a like a social, social setting. And I’ve noticed as well, you’re good at throwing out a joke to, to sort of, I don’t know, to give yourself time to think about the answer to the question. Something.

Something like that. Oh, Eastern.

Europeans are known for their jokes. That is.

Nothing new.

But but where I’m going with it is that, you know, we all want to be something, right? I want to be my best friend. I’ll never be him, you know, because he’s just different. Totally different to me. Now, now that you’ve gone past the point of security and and ambition wise, I mean, you’ve achieved so much in your career already. No, I haven’t. You have? You have. In my world you have. Um. What? The question I’m getting to is, have you found something that is truly you, that you feel like, Oh, this is actually who I am?

Absolutely. And this is, I think, why I am absolutely comfortable in my own way of being. It might come across as shy. It might come across sometimes as rude, maybe.

Oh, well, I wouldn’t go that far.

I’m an Eastern European, so I’m really, like straightforward and direct. So it does come across as rude sometimes. So I know how I am. And I my philosophy is that, you know, I’ve spent years in self-development and self-growth reading about it and building myself up, and I still do. And it’s not a completed work and it’s not a completed task. And I am absolutely comfortable to be my authentic self if it comes across as shy. Yes, I do not. I am not loud. I do not you know, I speak up for myself when I have to. You know, I am a tough person. You know, you you mess with me. I will. I will speak up for myself. But I don’t need to be loud to be heard. I don’t need to be out there all the time. I really I am an introvert. And I also this is a great discovery that I found that, you know, the introvert doesn’t mean that I do not like people, that I don’t want to be with people. It’s just people drain me and I need to recharge the energy by being on myself and working on myself and building myself. And I’m absolutely comfortable with that. So, yes, maybe, perhaps I’m not I’m not a very loud person, but I’m happy with that.

On this question of introvert and extrovert, I know that basic thing that says, okay, extroverts are fed by people and introverts are drained by people. For me, I find I’m fed by seeing old friends and drained by meeting new friends, you know? And I think it’s more complex than that. Simple binary. No, of course, binary thing.

There are so.

Many types and the subtypes of the personalities, it’s just, you know, just a very generic, you know, two pods. So then how.

So Then on the recharging point, what do you do? Do you go away on holiday by yourself? Do you meditate? Do you?

I would love to.

Sometimes attempt to go on holiday by myself, but it never works out. I, I spend a lot of time on like being by myself. I would go back home. My my best companion is my cat. He doesn’t talk. He doesn’t ask things. I would read, I would paint, I would go for walks. I actually do like doing a lot of activities by myself. You know, if I decide that I want to learn, you know, scuba diving, scuba diving, I would do and go out and do that by myself. If I want to do the skydiving, I’m absolutely fine of, you know, not having people around me. And and I do enjoy my own company.

I really admire that, you know, because not enough of that. There are too many people want to be surrounded by loads of people all the time.

And and it’s good.

It’s, you know, listen, in my in my world is whatever works for people, I really do not judge. And if they need that and some people do really need that I’m not one of those. So my friends know me that, you know, I’m doing my own thing. And when I really need them, I will call out and I will. I will I will go out with them. But, you know, I go out with them. And there’s a point in the night at the time when I say that I disappear, I need to go. I said, I need to go. Don’t ask me. I just need to go. I will go and I will go actually, and I will not pick up the phone tomorrow because I need my time. I like that.

So tell me about your Dental school experience, because I’m about to go lecture in Vilnius and good luck. Yeah, I’ve noticed that. That Lithuanian dentists are all women. Yes.

What’s that about?

This is quite unique. Medicine. I think, again, my country, as you know, Lithuania, it got back its independence in the in the 90 seconds. So it was under the occupation of Russia. Right. So it was a completely different different culture, different mentality. And health care generally, including dentistry, was regarded as something that is a very feminine profession. So majority of dentists, majority of medics, they used to be women. Even in my dental school it was I guess it was 20 of us. It was a very small university university. And I guess from what I remember from I recall we only had like maybe four guys and the remaining were where where girls.

But why is that? Are you saying it’s a Russian thing?

Um.

That’s a good question. Not sure. Not sure. Really? Yeah, I don’t know. But it used to be like that. I know that the things are changing now. It’s becoming a bit more like 50 over 50, but, um, health care care of people, I suppose it was regarded as more of nursing. Yes, it was more regarded like. Like not.

Man’s work. Not man’s work. Yeah. Man’s work.

And how were you? How were you in dental school? Were you top of your class?

Not at all. Really?

Makes me so happy to hear that. Why is that? Because I wasn’t nowhere near.

No. It’s a very interesting experience. Now, having experienced Eastern European educational system and is Western Europe’s educational system now, I realise how different they are and the Lithuanian educational system in my undergrad years it completely demotivated me from dentistry. I really did not enjoy dentistry at all. And there were times that where I was thinking to drop out, in fact, seriously considering that because the educational system was based on authority and unquestionable authority, almost like dictatorship. So you are not allowed to ask questions. Well, you are allowed to ask questions, but the minute you ask the question, you, you, you regret that. So I kind of surfaced through the five years of dental school in the undergrad, and I thought, you know, the only thing that I want to do now, once I graduated, I want to graduate and forget about it. And I will never want to specialise. I don’t want to have this experience again. It was only in the UK when I moved to London when I had no choice also but to go and specialise where my experience changed completely. I went into I did my post-grad training at Eastman Dental Institute. I was studying restorative dentistry and I went in and that was something completely mind blowing because I met people and all the tutors and all the lecturers and the teachers who were genuinely interested for you to grow. And as long as you show a little bit of effort, they would support you 100%. And I remember those, you know, times I was completely clueless about, you know, what I was doing. But they would allow me to bring the cases and discuss the cases. So I would bring my case. And actually several tutors would stay after working hours. They would, you know, look at my case. They would write down the papers that I need to read to do this case. They would actually help me to wax up. And I was thinking like, Wow, this is such a different mindset. And I think this is where my passion for dentistry really was reignited. And I started enjoying going a little bit more in depth. And I thought, Well.

I mean, you.

Recognise it yourself now, right? Because you’re a teacher and you can see different students coming to the classes and you recognise that, don’t you? Sometimes you see 1 or 2 delegates who just really want to know more.

Yes, I always say that, you know, in any group of people that you take, there’s always this a standard bell curve distribution. You know, you got the group that majority of them, they are more or less okay. They they they’re not brilliant. They’re not too bad either. You always get like 1 or 2 that are well challenged, challenged, challenging for you as well. And you always get like 1 or 2 that get really, really bright people who are so interested and you want to support them. And this is actually the biggest pleasure that I get from the teaching is not so much, you know, standing in front of the audience and, you know, being there, shining, you know, light. But it’s seeing the difference that you make for people who maybe, you know, finished your course a year ago, but they still kind of ask you questions and you watch their cases and you see how how much they’ve grown. This is the biggest this is the biggest reward. Your reward for me.

And your teaching. You know, I always think about dentistry. It’s like concentric circles. You’ve got your eyes right, seeing what’s there. And I know that’s definitely the way you’ve chosen to be this specialised at pushing that piece. You’ve got the brain that the evidence base, the treatment, planning, all of that. Then you’ve got the hands piece, right, which I’ve seen in some of your writing. You’ve said that, look, the hands part’s easy. That’s the most people can do that. But it’s the seeing and the knowing what to do part. And then you’ve got the sort of the heart, you know, the talking to patients and making people feel comfortable and doing the right thing. And all of the all of those things you’ve chosen. I mean, I’m sure you’re very good at all of them. I’m sure you’re very good at all. But you’ve chosen to really zoom in on that, the eyes, seeing what’s there, drawing the teeth and so forth. Do you think that’s a deficiency in most dentists outlook? I know it’s the first step, isn’t it, Seeing Do you see it?

It’s interesting that you kind of excluded the eyesight as the thing that I’ve chosen. I don’t think.

You don’t believe that.

I don’t think this is my sole focus. There is no one particular skin that can excel. You propel you in your profession. I think everything needs to be connected and everything needs to be linked together. I perhaps is the very first step where everything begins. You know what you see, You can no longer unsee and if you cannot unsee it, you know you everything that kind of switches on your brain, your hand and you read and you try to repeat and you try to to work on that. So it’s perhaps the very first step, but it’s not the only one.

No, no, of course not.

Of course. But maybe I’m just being confused by seeing those pictures of people drawing teeth on your course. Maybe. Maybe that’s why I’m thinking that you need all four of them to be. Exactly. By the way, throw in another one business, which itself has another 5 or 6 concentric circles to to look at. But but you know, that question of seeing we see it on our composite course with Depeche that some people can see and some people can’t see what we’re looking at. And it’s difficult, isn’t it? We have quite a large class of 30 people in the class. And to make sure that everyone can see in the first instance and then but then where where I worry about your approach compared to Depeche, for instance, is that we get a lot of we ask at the beginning, what do they want to get out of the course? And often the thing that people want to get out of it or the thing they’re worried about isn’t the main problem with dentists. So for instance, they talk about secondary anatomy or colour or layering, whereas we find primary anatomy is often absolutely often the problem, you know? Absolutely. And then the number of people who come out of dental school not knowing what a line angle is, how.

Does that and I was one of those people was everyone is actually.

Why is that? I mean, you know, I was thinking about this. I was thinking, well when we discuss tooth morphology, we hadn’t even seen a tooth. It was in our course. It was in the first year before we’d even seen a patient. They started saying, Oh, these are tooth morphology. It was all gobbledegook. And, you know, maybe you need to have seen some teeth and done a few composites and then start talking about tooth morphology after that.

Isn’t that funny that, you know, we are dentists. Yeah. What it means that day in and day out, we are restoring the teeth. We are recreating teeth. Yeah. And isn’t that funny that we don’t even know how the tooth looks like? Yeah. And I do remember that we have been taught morphology in the dental school somewhere in the very first years where you have no clue, you know, and to from what I remember from my teaching, you know, for me the most important thing that if I knew how to, you know, distinguish between the upper premolar and the lower premolar, that was already good, right? That was massive. That’s it. Right. And I guess, you know, there are so many things that needs to be covered in a dental school that it kind of falls in the background. And and people graduate the dental school thinking about evidence based dentistry, about the bonding and the best bonding system. And they really don’t know the foundation. So they know a lot of details about it. But the big picture disappears. And this is what I found. This is how I was myself and this is what I found, that it’s quite a paradoxical thing. And at least in my world, you know, I was always very focussed on the aesthetic dentistry again, by accident, you know, since I graduated and the practices that I worked, I also did a lot of studying and you know, the feeling when you go to the courses, you do the studies, you read the papers, you buy expensive kits and you buy expensive, you know, all the materials and you go to the practice and your dentist really doesn’t elevate that much.

Yeah. And I think for me, the penny dropped when I realised that. Okay, so it doesn’t look good. How about I learn how to actually shape the teeth? And I started looking into the morphology again by accident. I went to Pascal Magnet schools and he started talking about drawing the teeth and how it really changes your perception and mindset. And it resonated with me just because I was going into that art school and I thought, Well, actually, let me try that. You know, I have all the equipment, I have the skills. So I started doing that. And slowly, slowly things started shifting and it made the world of the difference. So now you give me any material, any material, you give me any treatment to plan the treatment to execute the treatment. I’m comfortable because I know what I need to shape. I know the basic concepts. I know you know how it needs to look like. So for me, I really don’t like to be called like the aesthetic dentist. Aesthetic dentistry as opposed to what? An aesthetic dentistry. Like what is the other alternative? Right? To me, you know, aesthetics is a by-product of doing things properly. Yeah. And that’s why I think the morphology, why I’m so passionate about it, because to me it just changes absolutely every discipline, not only direct restorations like composites, not only interior composites, not only posterior, but everything the occlusion, the crowns, the planning, the communication with your patients, everything.

And, you know, form follows function, you know. Absolutely. Of course. So you say you went on Pascal’s course by mistake?

Well, not by mistake. By accident, by.

Accident, by accident, but.

Oh, you trained at the Eastman? No, no, that happens by accident. Does it? I mean, you know, you arrive in London as a foreign speaking. You know, you didn’t grow up here, so you don’t necessarily have to be that person who goes to the Eastman or goes on courses or.

I knew about Pascal Magnier before I went to Eastman because I was one of the those people, you know, Pascal, he published his book, Bonded Restorations in 2007. And I had those and I had that book and I read that book. And, you know, it happened way before I went to Eastman. And I think, okay, so it happened by accident, as I said. But nothing truly is an accident when you think about that. Like when I was doing my Eastman course and I had this, you know, passion about dentistry reignited. Yeah, I was called, you know, all my tutors and my classmates. They used to call me the course junkie because not only I was doing the Eastman course every week, but I also used to book, you know, I’m going to do this, I’m going to do this. And I went to see Newton fall, and then I went to see Daddy Dadhichi, and then I went to see Pascal Magny and so on and so on. Actually, my accountant, he once said, Oh my God, you work, you study and you are the poorest dentist that I know because I used to spend a lot of money. Everything that I earned, it went for my for my education. And I think this is how I ended up, you know, going to Pascal’s because coming from where I come from in Lithuania, you know, people like that, they do not come and visit your country very, very often, right? So now I’m in London. I’m surrounded by all these opportunities and I can travel and I can go and listen to people that actually travel to where you live. So it was quite unique experience and I actually grabbed it and I enjoyed it for some time.

Perfect. Although, I mean, now you’re being paid to be alongside Basil Mizrahi, who I mean, I don’t know. The people would pay hundreds of thousands of pounds to get the education you were getting daily with the great man as his associate as his case. And I remember him when I when I had him on this podcast saying, you know, one of the future stars is going to be your G2 and so forth. What would you say the difference is between someone who goes on the Basil Mizrahi course and someone who spends day by day by day next to him? You’re the insights you must be giving you. Tell me about what it’s like to work in that practice. You know.

I have been working with him for quite some time. He was actually one of the first people who grabbed me from, as he likes to say, cherry picked you from from Eastman. He was my tutor. He was one.

Of the teachers.

Yeah, he was one of the teachers, Yes. So he was the first one to ask me to actually come and lecture at his course. And I didn’t start as an associate first. I went to teach on his course first, and only after he invited me to join his practice after his previous associate, Mehul Patel, left. And so we’ve been together for quite a long time and I have grown a lot and I’ve learnt from him a lot and it was an absolutely amazing opportunity to to do that. And I’m so grateful. Now we’re at the stage where and I’m so grateful for him and I admire him a lot. A lot of people warned me, you know, you’re going to go to work with him. It’s going to be very difficult and you’re going to be so nervous. And the patients are this and the patients are that. But one thing about me in life is that I do enjoy, not I do enjoy, but I really embrace the difficult situations easily. I do not crumble under the stress easily. So I you know, I thought, okay, fine, if it’s going to be difficult, I’m there for a reason. I’m going to learn from the man, right? And I go in there and I never you know, my hands do not shake.

It’s not that I’m super nervous. So I was, you know, given this opportunity to learn from him and where we are now is, um. Well, he allowed me to thrive, really, in this practice. He gave me, you know, he taught me what he could, and. And he allowed me again to choose my own path. So, yes, we do work together. We. But we have developed our niches, separate niches. So, you know, I call him your like, traditional prosthodontist. And he calls me your a traditional bonded dentist. Right. And so we are good at very different things. And and I’m very grateful for him because usually now your people that, you know, that take you under their wing, they kind of want you to follow their footsteps. Yeah, but he’s given me a complete freedom to choose. You know what I really want to do? And he supports me to that. And in fact, he sees he sees that as a strength. And I see that as a strength that he does one thing that I don’t like doing and whatever he doesn’t like to be doing, I am really loving this thing. So it’s a really good, I think, symbiosis between the two of us.

So I remember when I spoke to him, he said on the digital side, that’s really you leading all of that. And he himself is he’s wondering whether he’ll really ever get into the digital properly.

Yeah, I’ve pushed him to get a scanner a lot. Yeah.

But, you know, I.

Get it as well, because if you’re Basil Mizrahi and you know what you’re doing to to completely take something super predictable and then take something else, a new thing, which is, you know, a little bit unpredictable, it’s going to be difficult change, but that’s always the challenge, isn’t it? Because he was saying, telling me himself that he’s worried he’s becoming a dinosaur and he can’t believe it because when he was that young guy, you know, he used to think others were dinosaurs. But, you know, I know this doesn’t the comparison isn’t real, right? You had Larry Rosenthal sold his practice to Mike APA, and then Mike went on and, you know, expanded this thing and grew it. And Larry was already the top cosmetic dentist in America. And then Mike’s gone on that. So if on a, on a if we just put ourselves in that situation that let’s say Basil comes to you and says, listen, I’ve had enough, I’m out and you can have this practice for free, give me, you know, where would you take it? What would you dream? Dream big. Tell me and tell me how would you develop that?

I don’t think I.

Would take it really, because, you know, his practice is his baby. It’s he was always a man of of one of a man of one band.

One man, man.

Yeah. One band. Man. Yeah. And he built it, you know, around.

He built it.

Around his name and around how he does things and what he does as well. And as I said, it’s not necessarily what I do and where I do not envision envisage myself maybe growing. So the question about, you know, taking the practice and, you know, turning how I would turn it, I it would be completely different, completely different. It would not be like traditional, you know, prosthodontics I would not be doing, you know, the cases that he does just because I don’t really enjoy that. So it’s not really beneficial, neither for him or for me to take a practice as such.

Okay, then. So I wouldn’t.

Take I bounce back. Your question wouldn’t.

Wouldn’t, wouldn’t take Basil Missouri’s practice. I never thought I’d hear that.

But he knows that.

Yeah, okay. I mean, you’re right. It’s a very it’s a very specific kind of dentistry. Is it sort of full mouth dentistry, a lot of prepping and all that. How about yourself? If. Billionaire came along and said, listen, I want to back you. I want to I want to give you backing to open your dream business. What do you envisage it as? I mean, in a way, I’m talking about if you had a magic wand and you could set a place up and what would it what would it look like?

For a very long time, actually, I was absolutely certain that I don’t want to have a practice or a business. I thought, you know, I just want to be really good that it gives me freedom to go and work in any country that I want in any practice. I just want to be really highly paid. And I do not want to have the headache of, you know, running a practice which is a completely different, you know, side of, of, of the business. But now I’m thinking that, well, it cannot really be that I will end my career without having tried that. I probably would regret that very quickly, but I probably want to try that. So if you really, you know, ask me, you know, if I had a magic wand, what it would be like. And, you know, I like to dream big sometimes. So envisage this. You have a building, it has got four floors. The top floor is the lab where the magic happens. All the ceramics happens. Then the third floor is the teaching centre, so full of delegates learning morphology. Probably the second floor is the facial surgery and facial aesthetics and the facial surgical aesthetics. And the ground floor would be the Dental Dental practice. How about that? So now found me that Find me that millionaire.

Please.

No, no, no. Gym and hot tub.

Maybe it’s in the basement if we do. Well.

No. But then to be serious, are you thinking of opening your own practice someday then? Now? Probably, yes. Good. I think. I think a lot of times it’s about control rather than anything else. You know, if you’ve got a particular thing in your head, the only way to realise that is to create it. On the other hand, I come across a fair number of people where education is their focus, who don’t want to open practice, you know, people like Jaz Gulati. Yeah, he’s 100% sure he doesn’t want to open a practice. He wants to do the podcast and the shoot offs that come from that. The courses that he’s just done that whatever it is, the occlusion course and all that. I had Millie Morrison last week saying 100% doesn’t want to open a practice and I feel like it’s a shame, you know, someone who’s so good with patience doesn’t want to open a practice. So so, you know, it doesn’t necessarily have to be.

Exactly as you said, you know, we all have to live our own authentic life. And if be true to yourself, if you really want to do that, do whatever comes, you know, the easiest for you and whatever you want to do.

Kind of a boss. Do you think you’d be Eastern European?

Strict? You know, there is a really good saying about, you know, what is the difference between Eastern Europeans and Westerners. Yeah. So Westerners, they could be compared to the peaches. So you take a fruit, the peach is soft. It smells nice, right? It’s so juicy. You bite into that and it’s so easy to bite into that until you hit the, you know, the pit.

The hard bit.

Right? The hard bit. And you break your tooth. Come to the Dental your visa. So these are the Westerners. The Eastern Europeans are a bit like an egg, right? Really hard shell, really not attractive. But once you break through, they’re so gooey, so nice and so runny and so soft. So this, this is how I am. And I know that a lot of my colleagues as well, you know, the first time they meet me, my nurses or other associates, they always think that I’m quite tough and I’m quite strict and I am in certain situations that require that. But I’m quite a nice person. I do get all get along with people. So somebody who thought that I’m too strict and I’m definitely not going to, you know, hang around with her, they end up, you know, being my really good friends. And we have a good laughter and we have a good, good banter.

So what What’s the answer to the question? You be.

Strict when you need both a.

Bit, probably towards the stricter side. But there is a time and the place for everything. There are times where you need to be focussed and I absolutely would not accept anything less than that. And there are times where you are just a human being. Yeah, and you can talk to people and I really admire, you know, one of the reasons, you know, why I really, really like working with, with the, with my principle. One of the practices that I worked for a very long for many, many years, Ahmed Patel is because I think you really mastered this art and I really admire him for that because he’s he’s really forward thinking. He’s a really good boss. He runs a super, you know, good business and he’s quite successful and he is really good with people.

As well.

Yeah, he’s super good with people. Not in a way that, you know, people are so relaxed and chilled around him and that they don’t end up being, you know, doing the job that they need to do. But he somehow manages to get the maximum out of them and makes them feel proud to do that and makes them feel, you know, appreciated. And he values for those people. So I think I would like to be that kind of boss.

He’s strong. He’s strong. Amateur Sardinia.

Sardinia. Dental. Yes. Yeah, for.

Sure. And it’s a funny thing because, you know, there’s of course, there might be a sort of a basic middle point, but you can be double strict and not get the most out of people or you can be too soft. I’m more on the too soft side. Don’t fire people.

That’s why you need a business partner who’s a complete, complete opposite.

I’ve got a business partner who is the complete opposite. Yes, but. But you know, I almost treat my team like. Like best friends. And then when it comes to telling someone off, I’m not really into that. I don’t like doing that.

But you don’t like to be.

A bad policeman?

Yeah. Yeah, I’m a people pleaser. But on the other side of it, then I get a lot out of people as well because we feel like we’re all in it together and so forth. People stay for years and years and and so forth. So there’s no perfect answer to this question. I think one thing, too, in in work in general, one thing to look out for is that to have a partner, if you’re too much on one way or the other and, you know, business is very lonely sometimes. I know you like being by yourself. I like being by myself. By the way, I adore going to a restaurant by myself. I cannot believe that my favourite thing and I end up doing it all the time because I travel the country a little bit, seeing dentists and all that. I love going to a restaurant by myself and ordering. It’s amazing.

It’s the best. Yeah. And people feel.

Sorry for you and you’re like, What you’re on about is, I mean.

It’s a really good time. I do need.

Headphones. Yeah, I do. I do need headphones. I can listen to a podcast or play with the Internet or whatever, but I prefer going by myself than going with anyone else. Um, nonetheless, my point is that if you’re one way or the other, it’s sometimes makes sense to have a partner which is the other way. True at work? True. What would you say is your biggest weakness? Um, it’s an interview question.

It’s an interview question.

You’re a perfectionist, that one.

No, it’s not my weakness. You are a perfectionist, aren’t you?

I am a perfectionist. Yes. Again, in certain areas, you know, at work. I am a perfectionist. At my house, maybe not so much. Uh huh. Um. So there is a time and a place for everything, right? My biggest weakness. I do get complacent. If I’m comfortable in my life, in my career, my personal life, if things are easy. Why changing them? Right. And this is where complacency really does. It stops propelling you and and you stop progressing and you find yourself, Oh, I’m a bit behind. Oh, I need to I need to really start moving now and I need to really doing this and that. And I do end up doing this and that, but it becomes really stressful and a bit erratic at times. So I think that’s my biggest weakness so far.

So you don’t like to get out of the comfort zone?

No, I do. I.

Well, you just.

Have to look at what you’ve done, though. You must. Have you changed countries a couple of times? You.

That’s true. Yeah, I do. I do.

Get out eventually out of my comfort zone. But these are really, you know, the comfort zone is a rare moment. And when you are in it, it’s so nice sometimes to be to be there. But then again, you have a wake up call. Okay. It’s not good. I need to do something. I need to do something else.

So complacency.

Complacency. What else? Oh, only one. I’m perfect.

I don’t like those little jokes we were talking about. You were right. Actually.

Um. No, There are many, many things. You know, we all try to work around our weaknesses.

I feel like. I feel. I feel like around is the right word. You know, I’m disorganised. Yeah. Really disorganised. Um, now you can buy me the best diary in the world. I’ll still be disorganised. Yeah. So for me, I need people around me who are organised. That’s, that’s the correct thing. But if I try and change, I’ve realised if I try and try and become more organised, I’ll waste quite a lot of time. You know, I definitely with my kids as well. I believe in like working on their strengths, not their weaknesses, you know, And this working around the things that you’re bad at is a nice way of putting it for sure. Um, let’s, let’s move on to darker questions. Um, we like, we like to talk about mistakes.

Yes. On this.

Podcast, you know.

About this, you reiterated that a few times. I quite enjoyed this bit.

Yes. We like to talk about mistakes because in, in dentistry, in medicine, we don’t tend to share our mistakes enough. And so we all have to end up learning from our own mistakes instead of learning from other people’s mistakes. When, when, when I say that, what comes to mind? What kind of clinical errors, management errors come to mind that hurt when you think about.

Oh my God.

Payman So many, So many. Um, I was thinking about that. And I think when I think about my mistakes retrospectively, which I always do anyways, there are three categories of my mistakes. Oh, nice. So these are, you know, there’s the first category. These are the mistakes, clinical mistakes that happened quite early on in my career where I was absolutely clueless of what I was doing, where I really bit more that that than I could chew and I shouldn’t have been doing it. So, you know, and those mistakes they when I look back, they are relatively small mistakes but they gave me a lot of headache because I completely did not know what was happening and how to manage that, such as like, you know, you don’t breach the teeth with, you know, heavy posts and you don’t do the distal cantilever. And, you know, if you have a really big core, maybe check the vitality before you crown that you things like that.

Stuff that feels very obvious to you. Yeah.

Now you know, like, what was I thinking? Why? Why I was doing that? It’s just because I didn’t know better, you know? But I think now where I am now, I am a bit more clever because I’ve learned these things. I’ve trained myself, You know, I did the courses, I did the postgraduate training. And I’m I’m a bit better with that. The second category of mistakes happened. In the NHS practice at my very first job in United. Did you work in the NHS? I did work in the in the NHS.

How did that feel? Did you like did you did you think.

Did you think I’ve come from from Lithuania where people don’t think of it as a, you know, first world country. I’ve come to this supposed first world country and I feel like I’m in a third world surgery.

It was the second time.

In my life, the second time after my university where I didn’t have a lot of passion for dentistry. It was the second time where I was thinking like, if this is how my life is going to look like, if I’m going to have to do that for the rest of my life, I really don’t want to be a dentist. And I was thinking I will become a florist, you know, introvert, florist. They don’t talk, you know, flowers don’t talk. I’m just going to be, you know, surrounded by flowers. So these were quite dark and gloomy days. And I’m glad I did it because everything you do in life, it.

How long did you do it for?

Uh, 2 to 3 years.

Oh, really?

Two. Three years? Yes. After the first year of doing that, I decided that, well, I either quit or I need to change something. And this is where decision came to. To go and study, get better, get better and get better, to create, you know, the social connections networks. You know, again, I moved to the UK and and I was pretty much in Hireable. Nobody really wanted to hire me because I come from Lithuania, Lithuania. Most people can’t even show where Lithuania is on the map. And then before coming to UK, I had a sabbatical year, so I wasn’t even working at all. I was travelling around the world, right? So I was really on my CV, did not really look well at all. So I didn’t even, you know, I couldn’t even land a job in London. So my first position that I managed to secure was in Somerset in a town called Taunton. So I was working for a year and a half there in Taunton because that was the only, you know, beautiful place.

Beautiful place.

Yes, a really good cider. Um, so, yeah, these were the very gloomy days. And I it was a really, really stressful time. And that is where my second category of my mistakes happened is because I was doing the dentistry that I did not do before because I was coming from, you know, after graduation in Lithuania, I was working in a in quite a high end private practice. Then I moved to France and I was working in France in a private practice. So I was doing I never did, you know, very complicated, complex dentistry. It was single tooth dentistry. But whatever I did, I did it well, yeah, right. And then I moved to UK and then there was this NHS environment.

And as the third.

Party telling you what you can and can’t do.

Right, Exactly.

And I was all of a sudden supposed to be doing everything and very quickly. So that pressure and you know, I did so many mistakes and I had all the complaints that I had, all the complications that I did happened in those early days in the NHS practice because you’re constantly are rushed. You have.

Terrible.

Materials, not enough time.

Not even that, I would say terrible materials. You know, as I said, you give me any material, you know, you can do, you know, a good, a a very decent clinical job, maybe not necessarily aesthetic with any material, but I was not given a chance, you know, to establish a relationship with people. I was not being I was not given the chance to I couldn’t have a choice, you know, to spend time to talk to them, what they really want, what they really need to actually listen to people to explain what is going to happen now, what we’re going to do and why we’re going to do this and not the other way. So it was constantly rushed. And of course, mistakes happen. You know, all of a sudden, you know, I used to take like an hour to do like an occlusal composite, you know, previously. And now I have like 20 minutes to do that. It was absolutely crazy. And of course, you get complaints and of course, you know, you sometimes you hurt even people, you know, by rushing. And this is where where I, I wasn’t happy in my professional life at and the last I think category of my mistakes these are the current mistakes. They are much more serious now. But I’m so much more relaxed about it because I think the the main factor is because now I know my my patients and I know myself.

I really know what I’m good at and I know what I’m not good at. So things that I’m not good at, I’m not comfortable with, I would not do it if I. Now I know, you know, I spend time with people and if I know that that person is a red flag, I know how to politely and gently, in a subtle way to say no to this and not to take the case. If I take the challenging case or the challenging patient, I know that I will be able to manage that patient. So a lot of, you know, patients nowadays, they, you know, I guess you could call them very demanding patients, you know, very. Aesthetically oriented, really picky patients, and I don’t mind that at all. I actually do enjoy working. I enjoy that challenge. I do enjoy that challenge because I believe that, you know, I like growing myself. I grow with the patient and the patient grows with me and then we end up creating, you know, something perhaps you refer to as artistic because it, it takes it takes that and it, it takes two people. And there is one case that I always show in my teaching. It’s the aesthetic case and the complication case. And majority of the delegates when they listen, you know, to that lecture and I can I can see them sweating, you know.

Like like why do you do these cases? Why do you.

Have these patients to begin with? Why didn’t you say no to those patients? And and one of those complications was that, you know, I had a lady very, very picky, demanding lady who came in to change her old veneers. So ten upper veneers. And she was quite specific and prescriptive of what she wanted. And she came to see Basil first. Now get that Basil said, I can’t do better. Your veneers are good. And he turned her down. He turned her away, so she went away. A year later, she comes back and she says, I still want those veneers changed. And Basil says, I still can’t see, you know, what’s wrong with those veneers? So you need to go and see your guitar. So this is well, this is how we work now with Basil. He knows that, you know, the aesthetics and, you know, visual perception is my forte. And he said, Well, go and see her and speak to her. And, you know, the way now I work with people is that I know that they all want something and I need to really listen and to be able to see whether whatever they are saying, it makes sense. Can I see what they’re describing to me? If I can see, you know, what they’re describing to me and what they want. And it is realistic and it’s safe and I can deliver that, I will take the case.

So at the risk of a body dysmorphic situation, right.

No, but this is body dysmorphia is a different different thing.

So it’s a thin line, right?

It’s a very thin line.

That’s what you’re saying, if you can see it.

If I. Yes, exactly.

You can discuss it with a patient and understand what it is they’re after. If that makes if you can’t, then you class that as a body dysmorphia situation or a psychological.

I’m not the person, you.

Know, to put the labels, I suppose dysmorphia. I would say that I’m not the best person for you, you know, for you. And I will not, you know, offer.

Any other time.

So let’s get to the mistake. There’s been times where you’ve made an error in this judgement.

Oh, yes. Many, many. You know, you just.

Let’s talk through one of.

Them.

Which.

Which one? Which one? I’m thinking.

Um, you know, the, the good thing about those mistakes is, as I said, you know, it didn’t really happen on major scale. Like, you know, not like the full mouth, you know, the ten veneers. It was maybe one tooth, maybe one crown. And yes, I did the crown, you know, I took up the patient where, you know, she was extremely picky. I needed to replace the crown. And, you know, I was quite good. It didn’t happen that long ago. It probably like six, seven years ago. And, you know, I replaced the crown. And in my opinion, it was a good crown. And she said, no, I still can see the difference. And she’s right. You know, I’m using a completely different material to the tooth. And there will be this effect called metamerism that, you know, whatever lighting you’re going to, there will be times that it will be visible. Right? So she said, and I do not accept that and I missed this, that she’s going to be this person, you know. So we ended up very kind of amicably. I returned the money. I have no problem. You know, if if the person is not happy, whatever it is, I it’s my mistake that I didn’t really realise that she’s going to be one of those. And I didn’t manage her expectations that well. So I returned the money and that’s it, Right.

And is that the one you’re giving me? That? That’s the mistake.

That’s the mistake.

I was hoping for a more juicy one than that. I would like the patient didn’t didn’t accept the money and said, you know, I want it, I want it fixed. I want something more than the money or.

Lost lost lost.

Confidence or some something.

More than confidence.

Yeah, confidence. You know, obviously she never came back to not only to see me, but she never came back to the practice. But I.

Okay, okay, let’s.

Let’s talk about this sometime. You’ve got this wonderful eye. You’ve got this amazing hands and brain, right? So sometimes you get a patient who’s who says, you know, the last dentist couldn’t see it and you can and picks you up and you think, well, you know, I’m pretty good. And you take something on. And then when you’re when you’re in the middle of that thing, you realise, oh, this is why the last dentist couldn’t do it or see it, you know, I don’t know. The patient couldn’t open their mouth enough or, or they were ultra picky or something about the bite or something. Surely it’s happened because the kind of patient who gets referred to Basil, who often ends up with you a lot of times the reason why the dentist is referring is that there is this thing that’s in the way, and that’s why they just go and see the best guy. He will take care of you. So you must have come across that where some some things you’ve misjudged the situation and it’s gone wrong.

So this was, you know, that same lady that I started talking about, You know, we’re kind of, you know, misjudge how picky she was and how actually she you know, you say, I have a good eye. I think you need to take her.

To you had even a better she had a better eye.

She had a better eye. So, you know, I took I took her case and I thought, well, okay, whatever she’s describing, I can actually, you know, I can see and I can do better. So we go through all these ordeal, you know, of planning the case and mock ups and whatever. And she writes me emails and she sends me the pictures of celebrities of how her teeth are looking. And I, you know, I’m thinking, oh, my God. And go, go and get the different head then, you know? So nevertheless, we finally, finally agree on on, on, on what where we want to end up with. And we proceed with the case. And I take the veneers off and I do the temporaries, you know, the complete exact copy of what we agreed to do. She goes away. She thinks about that. She’s one of those that she needs the approval of all the families and, you know, and the husband and everything. And she sends me finally an email saying it’s absolutely perfect. If the technician can copy that, let’s copy that. So I send everything to the technician and I say, This is what you need to copy. And I receive, you know, the case back. I kind of look at it and look, Yeah, well, look looks really nice. It looks really good. You know, I do the tri in and I take the pictures. We both look at the pictures and I think, yeah, it looks looks really good. Are you happy? Yeah, I’m happy. So I cemented everything permanently.

Permanently.

You know, it was her wedding as well after a couple of weeks. And, uh, you know, she’s very happy. She goes, she goes away. And then I see her name in my books, you know, the consultation.

I’m like.

Okay, what’s. What’s going to happen now? And then she comes back and and again she comes back and she by, by then, you know, with all these appointments and back and forth, we are in really good terms. I do establish really close relationships with my friends, with my patients. So she comes back and she says, You probably are going to think that I am crazy. My family thinks that I’m crazy, but there is something wrong with those veneers. I cannot really tell you what exactly, but there is something wrong with those veneers. And I look at those veneers, they look perfect to me. There’s nothing wrong with those veneers. Go away. And she says, No, I think my smile has changed. So I take a picture again and I compare the temporaries and the veneers and I look and I compare. And I look and I compare. And then she says, Look, there’s something wrong on the sides, on on my premolars. There’s something not right on the premolars. And I do compare and I see that, you know what my technician did? He made them made them a little bit thinner than what the temporaries where. I didn’t pick that up. I didn’t notice that.

You know, it was right in a way. She was right.

Yeah, she was right. And then she, you know, and I’m like, okay, ten years reading, ten years, you know what’s going to happen now? So we have a conversation that I and I have to admit, you know, she’s right. You know, I said, well, yeah, the technician did make them a little bit thinner. And that’s why it looks like your your smile is a bit narrower to what we planned. And so the question comes, so what we can do about that And I am saying, well, there’s no easy way to, you know, to to go around that and we need to redo all of all of that.

Why couldn’t you just redo those two?

It’s not two. It’s four premolars. And also, you know, you need to.

Have a nice transition.

From the canine. So it’s kind of all or nothing.

Yeah. Yeah.

And she is really to redo all of that. Um, yes, that’s the only way. So basically how we left at that time was that she I really had a very honest conversation with her. I said, I agree that there is this discrepancy from from your provisional restorations, but to redo that, it’s quite, quite a difficult job. It’s aggressive. And we and, you know, your veneers were quite aggressive to begin with. Are you really that unhappy with them? And she says, I think I am because you know me, I once I’ve seen it, I cannot unsee it. And I know that are really beautiful veneers and I know that my smile looks so much, but much better. But I think I will redo that. And she goes, But I’m happy to pay for this again.

Wow.

And this is, I think, where, you know, the benefit of establishing a good communication comes from. Yeah, I don’t think I would be charging her, you know, if she decided, you know, to do those veneers. Yeah, I don’t think I would be. But she was, you know, we were on that on those terms. So where we left it and it was last year I took the impressions and I said, well, I’m going to, you know, if you. Really show that you want to redo them. I’m going to do the wax up again to copy your, you know, first set of temporaries and we’re going to go ahead. In the meantime, I said, I want you I just want to ask you, you know, can you actually have a think about it again?

Do you really live with them for a few months? Yeah, Yeah.

Not even for a few months, because she was living with them for like a couple of months before she came back. But just think about whether you really want to redo that. And she says, I’m pretty certain, but okay, I’ll think about that. So that was last year and she hasn’t come back. I still haven’t got that, got that wax up. And I’m pretty sure that at some point she will return. Oh, you think so? I think so. That she will return, but she hasn’t come back yet. So we’ll see where that will go. So it to me, you know, it was.

Again, it.

Seems like a success, not a failure to me.

Turn every failure into success.

That seems like I want to hear about failure. That seems that seems like a successful outcome.

Okay. Let me tell you know, one of those categories that I said you shouldn’t be doing things that you’re not really comfortable with. Yeah. Good. Yeah. So once. Oh, actually, no. So one thing I’m really good at restorative, but I really suck at surgical. You know, I really don’t like surgical anything. Don’t like blood. And I haven’t taken the tooth out for many, many years. And I was doing some restorations. I was doing a quadrant dentistry, I think on the top left or whatever. And I, you know was polishing the distal of seven. Yeah. With the.

Disc.

Oh right. And I was so focussed on polishing that like really, really well that, you know, I don’t know, where’s that blood coming from? Okay, so I did a bit of a cut, right? So I did cut and I. Oh, hang on. It’s not blood. What is this yellow thing that’s coming from? So basically I cut the buccal pad open that it really started like, pouring into the mouth.

And I’m like, oh, my goodness.

First of all, what is this? I have no idea. What is this? So I said to my nurse, will bring the sutures. I don’t know what to do. I’ll bring the sutures. So I tried to stay cool and I somehow sutured. I remembered how to suture it, and it took ages, but I did that. Well. I sutured. She healed after that. I said, What happened? And she wasn’t particularly happy, of course. Right. But it didn’t really escalate or, you know, when I gave a call for the next four days every day to see how she’s doing and she was okay, She, you know, so I think that was the most recent stressful thing that was that threw me off completely off, you know, my comfort zone.

That qualifies somewhat.

Finally, somewhat, finally, finally.

I’ll accept it. I’ll accept that. But let’s stay dark for a little bit longer. Would you regret in your career?

I regret not finding mentors. Earlier in my career, I think I wasted about eight years of really just thinking that dentistry is the source of income, and I’m just going to go into the practice and I’m just going to, you know, do simple dentistry. I’m going to take money at the end of the month and then I’m going to just go away. And I didn’t have that passion. So and I think mentors, having mentors, people who support you, people who help you and who enlighten you, it’s super important. So you can’t choose the family, but you can’t choose the mentors. And I wish I had this wisdom to find a mentor earlier or to look for one.

I think, you know, the vast majority of dentists are in that category of doing it for the day job. Probably not people listening to this because if you’re in that category, you probably won’t even bother listening to a dental podcast. Right? But, you know, life is a funny thing because, you know, at which point do we get to our potential, you know? Now you said mentors. I’m thinking I don’t have enough mentors in business. You know, I haven’t got a guy to call about, I don’t know, Amazon sales of toothpaste, you know, I should have someone for that. And, you know, it gets back to that comfort zone kind of question. But you did it right. You broke out of that. Not only you broke out of that, you went on and you went on and did everything that you’ve done and then become a teacher. What do you think was that inflection point? But what pushed you was it was it was it as random as you bumped into Pascal at that at that course and thought, this is it, I want to be good at something? Or what was it like? Was it a time in your life that, I don’t know, boyfriend left you or whatever? Like, what was it?

As I say, you know, we like to attribute ourselves, you know, all the success because of our hard work, Most of the things that happened in my life, 60% of those events, significant events happened by accident. I was just being in the right place at the right time. The remaining 20% happened because of the right choices. So if you’re given that opportunity, if you recognise that, okay, this is the chance you grab it, Yeah. So you make the right choice and the remaining 20% is because of hard work and determination. So yes, you know, the fact how I left my country and I moved to France, it was again, nothing that I’ve planned before or wanted. It just happened by accident. I ended up in London by complete accident. I didn’t want to move to London, but I just happened so that I moved to London. But I realised that once I’m in here and this is how my life is like now, I need to make it work. So this is where you make the right choice. And then you put the hard work and you get where where you get.

Okay. But I mean, I get that. I understand that. I understand that. But something inside me telling me that you don’t become yogita CBT by accident. You just don’t.

Do you think I’m that unique? Yeah. This is an absolute nonsense.

Okay, so there is very modest.

You’re very modest. You’re very.

Modest. There is a thing.

You know, that we all say about, you know, 10,000.

Lithuanians.

Are very modest from what I’ve noticed.

Because so many Lithuanians that are good.

Right. Agreed with that. So we have.

A very high competition. But okay, so we have this rule about 10,000 hours and everyone keeps keeps, you know, keeps saying that. And I agree to the vast majority. But there is such a thing as talent, you know, you can’t really disregard that. And I’m sure you know that if you give the 10,000 hours for the talented person versus the untalented person, it will make a world of a difference. So, yes, you know, I do. I guess I do have certain strengths and some talent that allowed me just to get where I got a little bit quicker. So, yes, you know, again, talent or maybe this very irrelevant training of the art school that I went to. And, you know, the fact that, you.

Know, it resonated at the right place.

Resonated at the right time. So the penny just just dropped at the right time. And I am what I am. So how do you call that? Is that the determination is that the success Was I born like that? I doubt so maybe there are certain traits that I have that, you know, I was born with and is given for me and then certain traits that I picked up somewhere randomly that helps me.

Now, I take your point.

You know, I work a lot with Depeche Palmer and he one of the few people he really reveres is you from the work perspective. And I look at your work and the thing, the thing that gets me about your work is it doesn’t look like work. It looks like it looks like teeth. And it’s so rare to see, especially under photography conditions where it really exposes the you know, like like you said, porcelain is not enamel. So when a camera flash and everything is involved, then it really exposes it. And yet your work is so subtly natural. What do you do when a patient comes up and says, I don’t want it to look natural? Do you then change to unnatural looking teeth? Or or do you do you pass them along to someone else or.

No.

I’m not in the position to, you know, to pass along the patient that pays me money. No, I think this is what I always say to my delegates that once you find that what you love doing and what you’re good at and you keep doing that, it the dentistry that you do, it starts attracting the patients for that day for for that dentistry. So I’m quite lucky, you know, that the more I’m like, you know, posting or teaching, I get the patients who come in for this. However, it does happen that, you know, I have patients who walk in through the door and they said, you know, I, I want extra, extra, extra bleach white, you know, forget the translucency. I want like really, really, you know, bland, really scream ing, unnatural restorations. And of course, I will try to have this conversation. And this is again, it comes down to communicating to the patient. And to me, you know, I try to understand, you know, do they want that? Why do they want that? Because they are uneducated. They don’t know that this isn’t really a sign of a good taste. Or perhaps, you know, sometimes you get the patients that, you know, they come in like bleached hair, for example, super tanned, right?

Orange, orange skin, orange.

Skin, super big lips, you know, And you try to put the very naturally looking teeth into into that personality. Of course, it’s not going to look right because they are not like that. So I kind of try to find, you know, whether why they want that and whether I’m comfortable to deliver that and whether they do understand the consequences of that. And if they do understand that, I have no reason whatsoever to reject them. And I will do that. But I will never post it.

On my social media.

That’s what I was going to ask next.

Yeah, no, because I don’t want to have many of those patients coming through the door because I don’t enjoy that dentistry and I want to keep doing what I enjoy doing.

You don’t find.

Patients don’t really appreciate secondary anatomy or do you do you educate them on.

That? I do.

Educate them.

On secondary anatomy, on.

Secondary anatomy. Yes. And there would be, you know, some people who are quite specific, they say, yeah, I get that. You know, I get what you’re saying. Maybe. Okay, let’s do a little bit, but maybe not too much. And I would agree with that. You know, you know, at the end of the day, you know, the beauty perception of beauty is very different. Yeah, How I see things is not necessarily the same how my patients see things. And if we are able to find some middle ground where we both happy, I think this is the best thing because this is how it happens with patients, right? When they come in for the treatment, they always try to push you to and pull you towards their side to what they imagine as as was is ideal. And the dentists are always trying to push the patients to their side, thinking, you know what, this is the ideal. And I think in real life it does. It rarely happens that, you know, one gets. Everything and the other gets nothing. Most of the times you have to meet somewhere in the middle. And, you know, I’m quite a flexible person. So if I can see the reason why they want that or they don’t want that, I will. I don’t have a very big ego, so I will not be pushing them, you know, to necessarily accept the my perception and my vision and my understanding of the beauty.

Let’s talk about beauty. What was your sort of aha moment regarding cosmetic dentistry? You know what? If I come to you, I’ve just chipped my knee. If I come to you and ask for a smile makeover, what is it about the way you’re going to look at it? Or what was it about a particular insight? And that’s really unfair question because it’s a bunch of things, right? We could sit here and talk about it for, you know, one year. Course. Yeah. But just just to give you an example, I asked Sam Jethwa, who does a lot of veneers, what was his aha moment, and he said something about the occlusion being from the outside in instead of the inside out for him was an aha moment for for the sake of the argument, can you what comes to mind when I say that to you.

That.

Aesthetics is a by-product of a good function? That was my aha moment. And actually I did realise that very early, you know. So when I was like after like dental school I was working in a practice and it was like practice of two chairs. And I didn’t have like any specialist or anyone to really consult. But I had a colleague who was doing a lot of composite bonding and we’re talking like 20 plus years ago now. And because composite bonding was very, very big in Lithuania. And so I was exposed to that quite early on. And, you know, there were two moments, not the aha moments, but where you start thinking about, you know, that something might be related to that, right? So you do a really beautiful restoration that you’ve been taught and it starts chipping and the same happens to porcelain crown that you’ve placed and the same happens to the bridge that you’ve done or even the denture right? And same thing happens and you can’t really, you know, understand why. And then I was thinking it must be something to do with the bite. I used to call it the bite. The occlusion came a little bit later. So that was, I think, my moment when I started, you know, thinking about that and when I’ve learned the occlusion and I started doing aesthetic cases, that was where it was the light bulb. So the patients that come to the and I have them so many, they come and do the practice and they say, I just want those veneers changed or I just want to have the veneers or I just want to have the crowns. And you look at their teeth and you think that, well, you actually can’t have that. You need a full mouth rehabilitation because you know, you can’t you don’t put the roof on the burning, burning house. So to me, this is, I think, what gave me a really in-depth understanding of what the aesthetics is and how to deliver and how to deliver that safely and how to sleep at night well.

So just to explain it to me, they’re kind of collapsed bites and you need the extra space, so you have to open them up first.

Yeah. So, you know, the war on dentition, which is like the disease of the century and the upcoming centuries and majority of people, you know, why do they want those veneers to begin with is because they are some they have something collapsing. But it’s very rare that it’s only No. Two teeth or six teeth are collapsing, collapsing. It’s usually all or nothing. And it’s a very difficult conversation to have with those patients because they come in again with a very clear mindset. I want six veneers to be done or the six composites to be done, and all of a sudden you’re saying, well, instead of six, not only you need 12, but actually you need a full mouth rehabilitation because this, this, this and that X, Y and Z. And that’s what I think gives me most of the comfort, you know, why I would be comfortable to say no if we can’t agree on that and and why I would be comfortable to send the patient away. If we cannot find like a middle ground, it will not go ahead.

So if I remember correctly, Basil told me that one of his treatment plans ran to £200,000. I guess your prices aren’t quite.

As I wish, but no, they’re not that expensive. No, but.

But you still have to for that patient. You have to break it to them that rather than 20,000, it’s going to be 40,000 or something. Yes, exactly. And so do you take several appointments to do that like he does?

Yeah. What’s your process?

His student. And I think the way he taught me and this is one of the biggest things that I think the most important things that he taught me, you know, the way to to talk to the patient and how to kind of gauge whether you whether the patient is willing to engage into that further conversation, whether this, you know, some that all of a sudden triples or quadruples sometimes, whether it’s within the scope of the. What he’s willing to spend. It’s a tough conversation. So, yes, I do approach it the same way as as Basil does. I do not like also Zoom calls like what is very.

Popular now, Zoom consultations.

I don’t really like them because I find that you can’t.

Connect to the person.

You can’t connect to the person. There’s a body language. There’s there are so many other things that you can read within the person. I think Zoom doesn’t really do that. Yes, I would do occasionally like a Zoom consultation. I’m going to have one next week just because the patient is away and we need to make a decision now. But it would be the exception and not the rule. So I think, yes, I do approach it quite a similar way.

Very interesting. Right. The the latest version of the Oculus, you know, the virtual reality glasses, they can. They’ve they’ve managed to make it so that you can look into someone’s eyes. Whereas with Zoom you can’t you know you’re in Zoom. If you want to look at someone’s eyes, you have to look into the camera. Yes. And I heard Mark Zuckerberg talking about what is it that that’s missing on Zoom that they’re trying to get on the virtual reality thing. It turns out that’s a massive one. And the other one is hands. But they they realise that it’s only from here to here, only the hand, not the arm. And getting the arm right is a disaster. It’s very difficult to do so they just have hands instead of instead of arms. And, and he was saying those two things make the virtual reality. Now we know that there’s a whole lot more to it than that, right? It’s like that said, though, it’s always been my ambition to go to Jerusalem. And then I went on virtual and I don’t really want to go there anymore.

Really.

Like like I.

Still I wonder.

Whether you would feel the same if you actually went now. Yeah, of.

Course, of course.

And I think you probably would change the mind.

I mean, I do want to.

Go there, but. But in a way, I feel like I can’t. I can’t. I can’t with my passport. I can’t go. Yeah. Yeah. But it’s it’s an interesting thing that you bring up. Now, tell me this. So patients come to see Basil sometimes. Is it that cost drives them to you from Basil?

Does that ever happen? Could be, yes. Yes, of course.

And sometimes it’s treatment modality that he ends up. And do you get referrals now in his practice? Is that how it.

Works at all? Yeah.

So I would say, you know, looking at, you know, just doing the assessment of, you know, how the year was, I would say this interestingly, I don’t know for what reason, but I get a lot of patients from my Instagram. Do you? I do. And I don’t know why because I don’t.

I don’t.

Really do anything so active. A lot of like Lithuanian community patients.

Yeah.

So it’s more probably like word of mouth and then the Instagram and then they come to see me. I do get because I teach also at Eastman.

Which course do you teach?

It’s a restorative Dental practice.

Which is a what? How long is that course?

Is it a year course. So this is.

A part time program. So you can do, you know, you can do the full masters in three years. Now, when I did it, it was used to be four years, but now they condensed it into three years. So it’s three years, but you are free to exit after every year. So if you exit after the first year, you do get the certificate. If you exit after the second year, do you do you do get the diploma? If you stay for the third year and you write your thesis, you will get the the Masters, the MSC.

And on the Mizrahi Dental courses, which bit do you do?

So we’re always.

There, both.

Of us.

Oh, the whole time. The whole time. So we both are there. Well, it allows us to have more, you know, delegates and and also we kind of you know, we do have our own topics what we teach. And I would be, you know, running my day and then he would be running the next day or we would be splitting the day where, you know, he does.

So which are your bits? My bits is morphology, of course.

So I do morphology. I do everything related to adhesive dentistry, like adhesive posts. I do the composites, I do the occlusion days, I do, you know, adhesive like kind of crowns. They do the veneers. They do veneer temporaries. Um, but it’s the process in the making.

That’s a lot of.

The course you teach.

Um, I will say.

That, you know, 70% of what he’s teaching is, you know, it’s his, it’s just, you know, I’m trying to bring what I really strongly about about and what I can stand for. And it’s, you know, the process in the making, you know, so, you know, none of our courses, you know, we ran like the previous six months. It’s not going to be the same of what we ran. We will run in the next month, in the next six months because we are changing. The trends are changing. I am growing a lot. I discover new things. I decided, okay, now I don’t want I want to do these things. I don’t want to do this way. So it’s yeah, it’s it’s it’s process in the making.

Tell me, tell me what you think about this idea that if you’re at the tip of the spear. In something In your case, let’s. Let’s just call it. Adhesive dentistry. Yeah.

Bonded.

Bonded.

Bonded system. So if you’re at the tip of the spear, then sometimes you do things that are not. Evidence based?

Yes, absolutely.

Because because if you wait for the evidence, you’re going to be five years.

Behind the thing.

Called common sense. Yeah. Yeah. Experience and practice. Yeah.

Yeah. And by the way, you know, the guys I think about this with with the products, right? The way we’ve we’ve done these products if we stuck to the evidence. Yeah. The evidence is you know in fact I.

Quite evidence is always too.

Late to the party. Yeah exactly.

Always exactly.

But there’s an element of risk there isn’t there? So you’re doing something that’s I mean, on one side from the from the patient side, you know, you’re doing it with the full knowledge of what you’re doing. But sometimes, especially in adhesive, you might think to yourself, Well, I wonder if it’ll stick or not. You know, sometimes you do this flat person. Tell me about that. Do you do you, do you get there? I mean, it’s for me, it’s it’s your responsibility to do things outside of the evidence. You know, if you’re at the tip of the spear, you know, you might say, okay, Pascal’s at the tip of that spear, right? Quite right. Quite right. But nonetheless, you know, on on the practice side, you’re there.

And I do try that. But, you know, what is the beauty of the adhesive dentistry and trying these things that the first rule that everyone I think should follow is that do no harm. Yeah, do not harm anyone. Sure. And this is where, you know, the freedom and the liberty to do mistakes in adhesive dentistry is really like wide and big because how you will harm if you’re doing additive approach. Yeah, you’re not really releasing the tooth. Right? So you’re the whole point why you’re doing adhesive dentistry because you’re trying to preserve. Well, to a certain extent, of course, you know, but you’re trying to preserve. So even if it’s going to fail, what’s going to fail is not the tooth, it’s your restoration. And I’m completely happy with that. So I will go, you know, and I would bond things maybe in the protocols that I would, you know, wouldn’t necessarily do that every day to everyone. But I would try things not very often, but I would try them.

And then, you know, it’s you’re imperfectly placed, aren’t you, for, you know, the difference between the fully minimally invasive dentist and the traditional dentist. But what Basel does a lot of and so and you know there’s that moment right where you know maybe you should prep.

And I do prep.

Yeah but but but that moment you know at what point is it right to do some sort of circumferential prep at what time isn’t it right to do that. And what is the is that is that changing for me?

I don’t think the rules when you should prep or shouldn’t prep, that’s strict to be fair. A lot depends to me is the patient the age of the patient and what I am able to achieve if I am prepping something a little bit more aggressively to the older person, for example, and I know that, you know, my restoration, the traditional crown maybe will hold for 20 years, I will be happy to prep that. But if I will be doing the same for like 22 year old, that in my opinion would be a mistake and I would never do that. So it really it really depends on the case. It really depends on on on on the patient itself and so many other factors.

True. But but nonetheless, there comes a there comes a moment where my my point is, is that is that changing or not that that moment when you think I should prep or not because of the technology, because of the bonding systems, because of whatever your understanding of occlusion.

But of course it’s.

Changing for you.

Yeah, of course. Yeah. The the target is always moving. Is moving. Yes. And and you know how sometimes you fall into your own beliefs, you know, the fact that you are completely unbiased, it just doesn’t exist. It doesn’t exist. Right. And you, you read a certain paper and you think like, right, I this is what I should be doing. And all of a sudden, you know, you, you start doing more cases like, like those cases and then you learn maybe that something else or you’ve learned that actually it doesn’t work the way I expected. And you come back to the old one or you start looking for the for the other evidence or the other new technique or other new material. So the target is always moving. But again, in my in my views, you know, I’m I’m comfortable to try whatever as long as I know I’m not doing harm. And you will never know whether it will work 100%.

Yeah. Because you never know what would have happened if you went in a different direction.

Yeah, exactly.

Because, you know, you always believe that you do the best to the patient. You to to the best of your ability at the time.

Tell me about your week. How many days, How many days are your dentist? How many days are you a teacher? How many days are you a, you know, meditator?

I do not meditate. I am aspiring to meditate.

I do.

Not meditate.

I mean, do you work five days a week? What do you do?

I did for many, many years. And. I was really focussed on dentistry and the teeth and all I ever did was was teeth. So I used to do five days a week and then one of those five days might be, you know, let’s say on average one of those days would be for dedicated for teaching. And then you know that you have a teaching the next day. So what do you do on your weekend? You prepare for the next week and you do your lectures and you come up, you know, with all the presentations. So I did that for many, many years. And now I think that I’ve learned my lesson that I’m not really productive when I do this. I do not really enjoy that. And life is so much bigger than that than just teeth. So I am cutting it down. So my goal now is to work, you know, three maybe clinical days and one teaching, and that would be, I think, ideal.

Yeah, four days is about right, I think. Yeah. And three clinical days is about right. I always think three is kind of your job, whereas two is kind of your hobby, you know? And there’s nothing wrong with that. Right? You know, you can do that too. Um, what about mental health? Do you? So when when you tell me, you know, you were pushing too hard in those times, did you suffer with sort of the stress, the mental health questions that people suffer with? I mean.

I didn’t I didn’t really suffer from mental health, but I really suffered from the lack of social connections. Oh, you know, I didn’t really I didn’t really see friends, you know, as often as I should have. So that means that, you know, my relationships were not maybe as close and I didn’t have that many friends. People do forget about you if you’re not around, right? You really do need to invest in your in your friendships. So I know, you know, because I probably I do enjoy my own company. As I said, I never suffered from like lonely loneliness or anxiety or things like that. But my social life did did suffer at some point. And and then I decided that, okay, I need to change that. But then again, I’m a person of the extremes sometimes, right? So if I am on to something, I will give everything I have until I get what I want. And then you realise, okay, time to leave that. And now, now it’s time to focus on something else. And then it was last year where I, you know, probably turned the table a bit too swiftly and I focussed on my social life quite a lot. So, you know, my profession, I started realising it towards the end of the year that actually I didn’t really progress that much during the year just because, you know, I lived a very fulfilled life. I had so many experiences and I was enjoying myself a lot. But life is all about balance, right? Yeah, I really hate that saying.

But it’s so true.

I mean, balance can be, you know, the traditional thing that people think or it could be the balance of two extremes. You know, if you’re an extremist, then why not balance it with extremes? Go, go berserk sometimes.

Yeah. It’s just not.

The thing about me is that it’s only two extremes that I’m interested at the same time is everything. And I want to do this and I want to do that. And I want I want to have everything. And, you know, you can’t. Master of all Jack of all trades is a master of none. But the full sentence. I think that the jack of all trades sometimes is better than the master. Yeah, there is a full sentence, actually.

Do you want.

Kids?

Such a tough question. You’re not sure?

I’m not sure. I’m not sure.

I’m not sure.

Nothing wrong with that.

Probably I do at some point. And again, you know, it’s a bit irrelevant in my mind whether I want kids or not. It all depends on the relationship that you have. Yeah, right. So I only want kids in a right relationship.

Yeah, of.

Course. So up until recently, that didn’t happen. And I never was, you know, feeling bad about it and or left out or anything. I was living a very, you know, life that I really wanted to live. Now I’m thinking that, well, perhaps there is a maybe that door is not completely closed just yet, so I don’t know.

I mean, I don’t know if it’s an unfair question in so much as if there was a man sitting in front of me, would I have asked him the same question? But for someone who says they want everything, number one, kids tends to be for women part of everything. But number two, kids tend to be the thing that stops you having everything.

Oh, yes, absolutely.

And I think when you’re a woman.

But it’s true.

That I think, you know, it’s such a big myth that, you know, that if you’re a woman, you can have it all. You cannot write, you cannot have it all. So when I think a lot to a lot that I’ve achieved is also because of the fact that I don’t have kids. Yeah. Because I had all the time and I had all the freedom to choose whatever I felt like choosing, and I did that. So it’s it’s a reality.

What would you do if you had. I don’t know. Let’s let’s, let’s call it a day. Because if I say if I say two weeks, you’ll say, I’ll go off to Vietnam or something. But if you had a day where nothing is expected of you from anyone, what would be your ideal? What would be the ingredients of a happy day for Yogeeta? Mm I was thinking about this a lot because we spoke to someone here and he said once you’ve got that clear at the end of every day, you can say, Well, did I get those ingredients in my day? And, and I had about four days. My wife and kids went off and I was really trying to think of it.

What did you end up doing?

Well, you know, crazily, I cooked every day.

Oh, yeah. For yourself.

For myself and for other people. But. But a cooking. The actual act of cooking. I really wanted to do that every day. And I quite liked the, you know, the e-bikes that that little, that little push you get from the electricity as it kicks in.

So lazy.

It’s all about, well, I am lazy, but, but I like the I like it gives me that feeling that when I was six years old, the first time I got on a bicycle where it’s you’re a bit out of control with it. So I was riding the line bikes every day and then I wanted to see my friends. I wanted to see my family, my my parents. They’re getting old. And what would it be for you? What would be the constituency ingredients of that?

So one thing for sure that I would be doing a and I stick to that. I still am doing that every day. So I wake up very early and I have coffee in bed. What time I wake up at 6:00 in the morning, Um, I do the tasks that I need to do that morning and I have a peace and quiet. I cuddle with my cat and after an hour and a half or two hours, I’m ready to start the day. So I think this is definitely, you know, it’s so important to me, this ritual of mine. I would stick to that.

That’s your me.

Time.

That’s my me time. That’s my me time. Me and my cat time.

Yeah. Um.

Um. Then if I had no pressures, I would go out in the morning to absorb the sunlight, to walk in the nature. I really. It’s so paradoxical that I live in one of the biggest cities in the world, but I really like nature and I like tranquillity and the peace and.

The quiet.

Lithuanian, very Lithuanian thing. Very Lithuanian thing, yes. So I would go out, you know, that’s the reason why I live very close to the parks and any green area and the greenery, because I can do that. I could do.

That. So the Japanese.

They say bathe, bathe in the forest.

Yes.

Yes. That kind of resonates with me. Yes, that’s true. So this is what I would do. I would go out, absorb the sun.

By yourself?

By myself? Yeah, by myself. Then I would not cook. I definitely would not cook. I don’t like really cooking.

Cooking to me is dentistry to you, you know that that creative and, you know, going going above and beyond like for you for you you might you might make six veneers or some prep where I could imagine basil style. You just keep on going, keep on going until it’s perfect. Yeah. Whereas for me that might be a Bolognese sauce.

Well, good for you. As long as you know.

What you like doing.

Right.

Your perfect day. You wake up, cats.

Go for a walk.

Go for. Yeah, go for a walk. I definitely would need to go and exercise. I would definitely need to go to the gym. Oh, really? Something. Yeah, something for myself that I would be doing if nothing really pushed me. And then I would probably go. Invite my friends. Not many. A couple of friends for lunch and then come back to my house.

Not to.

Cook. Obviously in a.

Restaurant? No.

In a restaurant? Yeah. In a restaurant? Yeah. I would never cook for myself. I would cook for people, but not for myself. And I would go to bed early. I am one of those boring people that goes to bed early. Oh, God.

I know, I know.

It shows my age.

Have you always gone to bed early? You just.

Love. You love sleep. This is.

Something. Yes. I always say that, you know, I can go hungry for hours and days. That’s not a problem at all. But I need to have a good night’s sleep. But nevertheless, I was not going to bed very early up until probably like two years ago. And I decided that, you know, it makes a massive difference. Now, the fact that I had a good night’s sleep, I function differently. I think differently. My emotional status is completely different if I have a good night’s sleep. So this is something that I try to prioritise now.

So what gives? Let’s say you’re under massive pressure. What gives? Do you end up not sleeping? Not eating? What do you end up?

Probably not eating. I would sleep. I still sleep well. Yeah. But yeah, I then forget probably to eat. I don’t feel like hungry.

Um, so if I’m. If I’m massively.

Stressed, I.

Eat.

Oh, really? No, never. It’s the complete opposite for me. If I’m stressed, I’m so lucky.

I’m very stressed. I need to be more stressed before summer. Maybe I need to screw.

Up some more of. In your.

Cases. Yeah.

Few more of those challenging patients. So what’s your. You said you talked quite a lot about travel. What’s your favourite place to travel?

One single place.

Well.

Before there was only one. There is only one country that I went twice to and it is Iceland.

Oh, do you like it? Oh, actually, I’m lying.

There’s two countries now that I went twice with Iceland and Mexico. Mexico. More for like a company and the friends. But. But Iceland was because of the nature and it was so outstanding. And I would definitely go there again.

It does look.

Beautiful, actually, in from our office.

Just came back from Iceland. Oh, really? Yeah.

It’s such a beautiful place. This is so unique. And there’s nothing like it. Nothing that I’ve seen in the world.

Did you take one of those 4×4?

I did.

I did that. And I also did the, um. I like trekking trips as well. So I did the tracking trip in Iceland. So you just being dropped off like in the middle of the island, Really harsh conditions to go through, really harsh weather. But then you see things that are so spectacular.

Waterfalls and things.

Waterfall, ice, snow. The, uh, volcanoes, the black volcano, ash on the ice, the gore. It’s just so fantastic you can’t get to these places with a car.

Yeah, definitely.

And the lights. Quite interesting, though.

Yeah, the light is quite interesting.

So I went to Iceland. It was very, very funny. So I went in Iceland in July and we were landing in Reykjavik in the in the capital city. And the pilot, he had a really good sense of humour. He said, Well, you’re so lucky because you are landing to Reykjavik and the Reykjavik is experiencing the heatwave. It’s 13 degrees. It’s as hot as it could get, probably. So I went there in the summertime, so there was barely any darkness. So you sleep in the constant daylight? It’s quite, quite weird. Quite weird.

Yeah.

So do you like skiing as well?

No. This is something that I don’t like. I’m more into water sports and scuba dive, but I don’t ski.

Oh, that’s interesting. So you wouldn’t expect Iceland to be your. It must be a super beautiful place.

It is a very.

Very, very beautiful place. Yes.

Amazing. Um, I think we’re coming near the end of the podcast, so I’m going to ask you the traditional final questions that we asked.

Oh, the depressing one.

I don’t know why you find that depressing.

It makes me feel.

So old when you ask. Deathbed Yeah, the deathbed and you know, the advice that you would give.

Like, okay, I’m.

Not dying yet.

You know.

It’s funny you should say that because I’ve got a few messages from people saying, Hey, why do you ask that question? And so on. But I don’t know. Number one, I think we should talk more about death, not less. But But number two, hey, imagine it wasn’t deathbed. All right? Just advice.

No, I’m happy, actually. You know, I will bring something quite personal since you’re going to get me all raw and everything. Um, I probably wouldn’t be comfortable to give the advice to anyone because, you know, my living is a constantly learn. But I did experience. I did have that experience of a deathbed and it was my father that passed away. And, um, it was quite a profound experience that did change my perspective quite significantly. And I think this is where my advice, you know, what I would be telling to other people. It came from that moment at that very moment or that that time. Um, so the first one I would. Say that cherish your relationships. There is nothing more important than it was that moment where I realised, you know, how we chase our goals. We want to have successful careers, we want to have a certain house, a certain car. We want to, you know, to experience, to travel a lot, to own things or to achieve something to be acknowledged. None of that really matters in that moment of death.

And were you thinking were you thinking.

About about him or were you thinking that about your relationship with him?

Both.

Both ways. It was it was the experience that, you know, I was thinking that, you know, I’m glad that he has got me besides him. And it really, truly probably means a lot to him. But it also it meant a lot to me. It you know, it taught me many, many lessons. And I think that’s why, you know, probably in my in my experience, death exists for the living people. That experience teaches the lesson for the living people, not so much for the person who’s, you know, dying. And that’s I thought, you know, that the cherish the relationships spend time with your loved ones and build a relationships with your friends, have significant people in your life and really make time to to to your friends and for your loved ones.

How do you manage relationships with people back home? I mean, do you manage to get home a lot or not?

I do not. As I say, you know, I’m not very close with my with my mom. I’m very close with my sisters. And one of my sisters lives back in Lithuania and the other one lives in France. So I do see my sisters quite a lot.

And are you just three girls?

Yeah, we’re just three. Three girls? Yes. Um, so I do see them a lot, but other than that, I do not really travel to Lithuania that often. Maybe as I should.

Do you not have friends?

I do. But again, you know, my childhood friends and my uni friends were all so scattered all over the world that, you know, some people live abroad and some people live in the islands and people live in in Europe and people live in South America. So we tend to organise, you know, trips or meetups that not necessarily happens in Lithuania.

So the relationships you’re referring to when you say, you know, cherish them and nurture them, who are you thinking of when you when you say that? Friends.

My sisters, my.

My other half, um, my friends. Friends that I created here in London. Friends that I have since very young early days since childhood, um, people that I work with. This is very important as well. You know, we spend ten hours, sometimes more. It’s massive. Yeah, It’s so we, we spend so much time at work, and to me, it’s really silly not to have good relationship with your co-workers and your colleagues. Mhm. So I am that kind of person that, you know, after this experience I did change my, my point of view and I stopped being, you know, overly focussed on teeth like Depeche. I know he always says that, you know, the teeth come first, you know, no matter what, teeth come first. And I used to be like that. But then I changed and I realised, you know, at that moment when I’m dying is the fact that, you know, I did teeth and I was solely focussed on teeth. Is that important? It meant nothing at that point. So I thought, life is just more than that.

And were you.

Closer to your dad.

Then?

Yes, I was close to my dad. Yes.

Yes.

Okay. That’s the first piece of advice.

The first piece of what is the second piece of advice? Be true to yourself. Live the life on your own terms. Do not ever compare like, well, it’s a piece of the same. It feels like I’m giving the same advice, same advice again, or multiple advices in the same. But be true to yourself and live your authentic life. Do not compare you know to everybody else. Do not feel like you need to do that and you need to be successful or you need to be achieving these things because other people are doing that. If you want to live in a countryside, go live in a countryside. If you don’t want to do dentistry, don’t do dentistry. If you really want to have a successful career, go and do the successful career. If you don’t want to have kids, don’t have kids. If you want to have five of them, have five of them, and don’t compare yourself to anybody else. So just be your authentic self.

Live on your own terms.

Yeah, live on your.

Own terms, which I think.

You know, I don’t know if you ever saw that article. When they talk to people on their deathbeds, did you ever see that? No, I don’t think I did it did the rounds to she was working in a nursing home or an end of life place. And she asked. She was asking. And that was the thing that most people said that really they regretted that they were living on other people’s terms rather than their own.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Amazing. So what’s the third?

Um.

The third one. And I have to stop after that.

No, no, keep going.

I know you have to be at work day after tomorrow so we can keep going.

What’s the third? I’d say.

Practice. Gratitude. We very often forget, and I am very guilty of that. To appreciate what you have achieved in life and what you are surrounded with and by whom you are surrounded. So practice that every day because you will be surprised how rich your life is already. And you there’s so much, you know, discomfort and so much unhappiness and suffering coming from chasing something that you already have that is at your doorstep already.

Give me an example of that. I mean, it’s beautiful. I get it. But give me an example of how that resonated with you.

Wanting to have a better family, better partner, better job, better paid work, better car. You already have it. It’s. It’s given for you. Yeah. Just be grateful for this. That doesn’t mean stop, you know.

Achieving it. You know.

How much you have to earn to be in the top 1%.

Of.

In the UK? The top 1% of earners? No, I think it’s £250,000 to be in the top 1%.

Yeah. So what are you chasing?

And you know that that that’s the UK. Yeah. To be in the 1% of the world. It’s like £28,000 or something ridiculous like that. And it makes you realise that the chasing point that you’re making. Um, absolutely right. Absolutely right. I’m happy to take a fourth if you’re willing to.

Really? Okay. We can carry on like that. You know, the whole that.

You follow your passions.

Yeah.

Follow your passions. Do what you really like to do.

Do not look.

So maybe look from the outside. I think of you as very much in that sort of ikigai. You know what I mean by that? Oh, it’s this, like, Japanese thing. Like it’s the four circles. It’s like what you love doing, what you’re good at, doing, what the world needs and what the world will pay for or something. And right in the middle of that is the, is the sort of that perfect. And I’ve always thought about you like that because you seem to love your job a lot.

I do. Honestly, I.

Do. Yes.

Yeah. And now, having talked to you, it’s not only the teeth, it’s it’s the relationships you enjoy. It’s, as I said, dentistry seems to be there’s more than the teeth to dentistry is absolutely. If, if, if you put it in my way, the head, the hand, the heart, the whatever. Yeah.

People don’t think that about myself when they meet. But I am quite a spiritual person. Are you?

I am. Do you believe in God?

No, I am not religious, but I’m. I’m very spiritual.

What do you mean by that?

It means that there is. I am quite interested in human consciousness and human experiences. So it’s not about, you know, the God, but the principles of life, how we people are, how we interact. But it is a meaning of. Of everything, I suppose.

Okay. But spirituals are such a funny word, isn’t it? Because you see it by its very nature, it’s difficult to pin it down. But do you mean philosophical and sort of. Why are we here? Why are we here?

No, not so much in a philosophical sense, but it’s more about, you know, human human relationships. You know, what what is what is the point of living this life and how to live this life?

Well, do you believe in karma?

I don’t know. Maybe in some ways.

But I think.

It’s I think karma is practical. There’s a practicality to it, right? If I. If I’m nice to you, eventually you’ll be back. Nice to me.

Yeah. To me, it seems very transactional.

Yeah. No, but the people who really believe in karma, they believe that the universe is doing that. Which I don’t believe that. So then tell me, do you mean. Do you mean in a in a like a self-development way?

Yeah.

Self self-development. It’s all about, you know, the human relationships and how we should live the life and what is important and what makes it meaningful to to live the life and what is worthwhile. Um, so that’s to me is the spirituality, how we connect to people.

And so how should.

We live life and what is worthwhile.

And the good.

Question when I will no, invite me to the podcast on my deathbed.

Okay, let’s move on to the fantasy dinner party.

I hate this question. Thank you, Mike.

My question. Thanks a lot.

Oh, three guests.

Yeah.

Dead or alive?

I have to.

Okay, maybe I’ll think of a third one. Well, let’s see. Let’s go. Let’s start with the first one. So I’m a very big fan of Renee Brown. Renee Brown. She is a research professor in in states in Houston, I believe. And she spent probably like last 12, 20, 20 years researching vulnerability and. Courageousness and shame and, you know, vulnerability. As I said, you know, I’m not a very good, you know, person to open up and be vulnerable. And I’ve listened to, you know, if you’re ever interested. It’s a great, great talk. Ted Talk. And you can watch it on the YouTube. It’s called Daring Greatly. So I believe that, you know, and she’s a very, very funny person as well to the way she presents herself and the way she presents the very subtle, what’s it called? Subtle. Subtle topic. Daring. Daring. Greatly. Oh, nice. So I’m daring greatly here with your podcast.

Now, you’ve done well. You’ve been very open.

You’re in your element.

I told you. Yeah.

So I would like to have her as a guest. The second guest would be. I’m a big fan of a complete nerd called Sam Harris. I know Sam Harris. You know Sam Harris, right? So he’s a philosopher and a neuroscientist, and I really admire his way and his podcasts and the way he sees the world and the way he looks into consciousness and human experiences and the relationships and how versatile he is and political. Sometimes politics is not my thing, but, you know, I admire how versatile he is, so that would be quite a geeky dinner, right? That would.

Be quite.

That’d be interesting.

That’d be interesting.

I know, I know. Actually, who I invite the third one to break this, you know, geeky dinner party. I would invite Ricky Gervais.

Ricky Gervais. Ricky Gervais. Yeah. Ricky Gervais.

I would invite him. Funny. Why it popped into my head is because. Well, Ricky Gervais is known for being a comedian. Right? But he’s a really smart person.

He’s a serious guy. He’s a serious.

Animal. Issues.

That sort of thing.

Not only that, he’s a really conscious person. Yeah, he he, you know, he graduated, he went to uni and he graduated from philosophy. You know, he got the philosophy degree with honours. So he actually runs the podcast with Sam Harris called absolutely Mental. It’s so funny because I was really fascinated. You know, there’s a comedian and a real geek and they run a podcast and they, you know, Ricky Gervais is able to kind of keep up with Sam Harris and he kind of breaks this like, really dull conversation. So and he’s really funny as well. He makes really good jokes. So yeah, probably if I would invite him as a third person, I would be quiet. I would just be listening to, you know, how they geeking out, but probably laughing at the jokes.

I like that. I like that. But maybe I should introduce a new question that’s that you have that they’re all alive. What about three dead people?

Oh, gosh. You really are morbid, huh?

No, but.

But, you know, like you can say Einstein. And, you know, in history, there’s been more interesting people than Ricky Gervais for the sake of the.

Oh, thanks. Thanks. No, no demolishing. No, no, no, no.

It’s beautiful. Your choice was beautiful. But what if what if, like, historically, who would you who would you want to talk to?

Like, if the first person that came to my head is still not going to answer your questions, I probably would want to talk to my dad. Yeah. You know, very personal, obvious reasons. Um, who else would I bring alive?

I think I would bring.

Yeah, you mentioned the Einstein, but I would like to actually look into his eyes and to see what is wrong with you. I mean, how. How did you come up with all of that?

Yeah.

Um. Whom else? Huh? What is it? Another great invention that I don’t understand to this day.

Who invented.

The telephone?

No, actually, who.

Invented the iCloud? I still don’t understand how iCloud works.

I think of. I think of. I’m quite. It’s in politics. I think of JFK. Like. Like I’d like to know, you know, what is it like to be the president of the United States? You know, like, who killed you?

Yeah, that too. Who killed you?

Who gave that order? You know that. You know that those sorts of things. But unfair. Unfair of me to ask you on the spot a second set of guests. So it’s been a massive, massive pleasure to have you. And I do want to have you again. Maybe like maybe.

Don’t wait until the deathbed, as I said.

No, no, no, no, no.

Like like I feel like you’re going to be doing a lot in in dentistry and in your career. And so I feel like it’s one of those podcasts that if we come back to it in two years time, a whole lot of stuff would have changed in two years time for you. You’re that kind of person, so maybe we’ll.

Have three kids by then. Yeah, yeah.

In two years. Yeah, triplets. But thank you so much for agreeing to do it and actually coming here to do it. That’s a massive honour. It’s been a great pleasure. Looking forward to this for such a long time. Thanks.

Thank you. Thanks again.

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 I always leave my Uber driver.

Thanks a lot, guys.

Bye.

You could be the best dentist in the world with your hands. But if you can’t communicate effectively with confidence to your patient, if your patient can’t sense that you as a clinician are confident to carry out whichever plan you’re advising, then guess what? The patient will not go ahead. And that’s a disservice to the patient because you you have your heart in the right place. You’ve trained for this. You’ve been on additional courses. But if you can’t convey that to the patient, then it’s an absolute waste.

In today’s episode of the Dental Leaders podcast, I will be the guest Jaz Gulati, the host. This was a podcast recorded for the Protrusive Dental podcast where me and Jaz spoke about essentially how you can increase treatment acceptance. We talked about sales and how to elevate sales and utilising some unique tools that are working really well in our own clinics. And to elevate, I would say, the patient communication experience. I’m not going to ruin it for the intro and in the intro, listen to the rest of this podcast. There’s tons of value that anyone involved in the patient consultation process or sales will get out of this episode.

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.

I’m joined today by Prav. Solanki is now a good friend of mine. He helped us to put together the occlusion course. Occlusion Basics and Beyond. We’ll talk about that a little bit later. So I’ve got to know him a lot more in the last year. And I can say this guy is an absolute genius now. He’s come on the podcast before on 23 where we talk about non-clinical growth, your relationships, time management, all these wonderful things. So if you haven’t listened to that, do check it out. But today is about you as a clinician, how you can become more confident in communicating with your patients about what is the best plan for them. And what I love about this episode and some key takeaways shared and you put together a one page summary for all premium members of the podcast. So Protrusive app his website or download the app on the play store or app store become a premium member for the cost of a Nando’s per month and you get access to all these premium summaries and questions. Et cetera. Et cetera. But Prav talks about trust, right? Like we make a recommendation. We’ve earned that right. And it’s based on a relationship of trust between you and the patient. Now, when I listen to this episode again, to come up with this intro outro and guide the team on how we can deliver a really educational experience for you guys, listening and watching.

Thank you so much. Now, when it comes to trust, Prav was referring to a trust between you and the patient, but I want to introduce one more facet into this. Right? I want to introduce the concept of trusting yourself. I feel like a lot of young dentists, they doubt themselves and therefore they don’t trust themselves to give the best treatment plan available. So I want to extend this definition. So yes, sales, we’ll talk about dirty word sales and whatnot and why we need to embrace it when we’re recommending treatment plans. But it’s not just the patient trusting you, but it’s you trusting yourself that with the information that you had available at the time, with the training and knowledge that you have, that you really genuinely chose the best plan for the patient that you could and recommended their options. But ultimately you want to make a recommendation. I cannot stress this enough. And so a big part of this episode about making recommendations, if you just literally start making recommendations, if you’re not already making explicit recommendations to patients, you will see your treatment plans skyrocket in terms of acceptance. And this podcast will be worth this, you know, 4 or 5 minutes.

So you’re in already. Just the whole five minutes of this podcast will be worth everything and more. And maybe this introduction will be all you need from this podcast to really thrive and grow as a clinician. Now the other themes that we cover in this episode are you need to write letters to your patients and if so, what should that look like? There’s a specific format. Those who like to do letters, you know, Prav is very clear on, okay, if you’re going to do letters and make sure you do this one specific step. So we talk a lot about that, as I’ve already touched on, how can you give the patients all their options without choice, fatigue, without overwhelming your patient and just confusing them? We discussed the choreography of the ideal consultation and the treatment plan delivery and lastly, how we utilise something called loom. Loom is a software that we use that me and Prav are both passionate about and how I use it a lot in my communication with my patients. And it’s almost replaced letters or is the precursor to letter. Because think of it this way write letters take a long time to do if you can do it properly. They do take a long time to do but a video for me, I just hit record. I go through my patients photos and whatnot, and then once they’ve seen that video and they want to definitely go ahead, then I can send them their letter.

I haven’t wasted my time creating this beautiful letter. And then the patients are, yeah, I’ll think about it kind of thing, right? So by making this video, it’s a wow factor. Patients like, Wow, this dentist sent me a video and this dentist was highlighting all these things and this is amazing service. And then when they go ahead with the plan, it gives you the reassurance that, okay, you’re going to spend a bit more time now to put their letter together, but it’s worth it because now they’ve accepted the treatment plan because you’ve covered everything so beautifully in your loom video. So in the last part of the podcast, we talk about that as well. Now just before we join Prav Solanki in this killer episode, I just want to make an announcement that me and my wife have had baby number two. We’ve introduced to the world Cihan Singh Gulati, and we’re just so, so made up, so happy. You know, I always worried that will I be able to love my second child as much as I love my first child? Right? But the moment I saw him, the moment I met him, the moment I held him in my arms, it was just so euphoric and like it’s like your heart gets split into two, so each child gets a piece of you.

And so it’s a very, very happy time. And the Gulati family and thank you so much for your well wishes. I just want to share this news as a as a personal thing, but I just want to share it with you guys because I know many of you were with me over three years ago, almost four years ago now, when my firstborn was born. I talked about him on my podcast in the early days, and now there we are. Baby number two has come along. So Sujan Singh Gulati is entered the world and I’m just so happy that I just want to share that with you. Anyway, let’s join the main episode with Prav Solanki Prav Solanki. Welcome back to the Protrusive Dental podcast. We last had you on non-clinical growth for dentists, and I tell you Prav, I’ve had so many messages saying that this was. A brilliant it’s really opened their minds to all those things. And you actually influence me so much. I get now quarterly blood tests done to check my own personal dashboard of my health. So welcome back, my friend. How are you? I’m great and thanks for having me.

Jazz, It’s always a pleasure to come back and talk to you. And yeah, it’s always a two way learning experience whenever I speak with you, whether it’s about this or something else, right? Whether, you know, we’re talking about the best occlusion course on the planet or we’re just talking about patient communication, right? There’s always learning points, but today is going to be a topic I think is very, very close to my heart. And it’s how we can influence the decision making that patients make in a we’ve got to preface it with this right in an ethical way. I don’t think anyone listening to this would ever do it in an unethical way, but it’s how we can feel ethical from a from a mindset perspective which is important.

Prav I get messages from young dentists all the time, and when I cast back myself, you know, six, seven years ago and I was like 2 or 3 years out and the biggest dilemma I had was entering private practice and just not feeling confident enough in my own skill sets or my mindset to to charge patients. And I often I went through all these dilemmas that young dentists go through, which is a lack of confidence because of lack of experience. And that feeds into it. And also which I think would be great actually literally had a message yesterday from an Australian dentist asking about how to tackle that. So at the end, maybe we can get your advice, but if you’re not very experienced, how can you actually then be confident enough to, you know, in inverted commas, sell a treatment plan? So we’ll talk about that. But I also fell into the the really bad habit or just really bad zone of diagnosing someone’s wallet. Right. You never want to do that. So and I know dentists do it all the time. I speak to dentists all the time and say, well, yeah, I didn’t want to give this more expensive plan because I didn’t think the patient might be able to afford it. That’s I think we can agree. Everyone’s probably nodding their head, right? Yeah. That’s the worst thing you could do. Every patient deserves the best. So we have so much to talk about because you could be the best dentist in the world. But if you can’t communicate your ideas, you can’t make a recommendation. Key word there, which we’ll talk about. We were just talking before we hit record. You know, you won’t do that beautiful dentistry if you’ve got the best hands ever. So there’s a there’s a lot to be said about this. So I guess where to start Prav is we were talking before we hit record is sales is a dirty word and I think we’ve covered the theme, but filthy, filthy, disgusting. So how, you know, should we are we selling to our patients or you know, in health care is selling allowed jazz.

I think it comes down to what you believe selling is right in your head, in your mind. If you believe that selling is a dirty word, if you believe talking about money is one of those things that perhaps you know, you’ve got an idea in your mind what the value of what you’re going to deliver is, but you’re making preconceptions about that patient that, Crikey, if I recommend this and I recommend that, what’s it are they going to be able to afford it? And you’re making judgements on their behalf, right? And I think as health care providers, as professionals, as we’ve got a duty of of care, but also clarity of communication to be able to explain all the options to the patients, all the price points to the patient and guide them on where we think the best solution is for them. You know, the old, you know, if you were my daughter, if you were my son, all that sort of stuff. And because they’re looking for a recommendation. Right. And so Jazz, we were talking earlier and I talked about a mini course I delivered for for a group of full mouth reconstruction dentists, Right. And they all came to this course. And then one of the delegates from the course went away. And it was very clear in his mind that he was he was going to go away and execute. Right. I met him two days later, a near-death event, and he said, Prav, I’ve sold two cases north of £15,000. Right? I’m scratching my head thinking, W.t.f, Right. What? What happened? Yeah, because I’m trying.

But this is someone this is someone who has never sold treatment plant. I mean, let’s just use that term. It’s a dirty word. Selling and treatment plan. But let’s just accept once you change your mindset that it’s okay to say that. But he’d never done that before.

Predominantly NHS dentist who was up selling to a patient who’d come in for essentially an NHS check-up He’d done a discovery process in this patient’s mouth, presented what the options are, and sold to plans north of £15,000 inside a week of us having that little course together. Right. So I was intrigued, right? I was like, What the hell went on here? What did you take away? I really wanted to know what he walked away with and he said, Prav, it was really easy. Your definition of sales changed my mind about everything. Gave me the confidence, he said The other 7.5 hours of the day. Yeah, it was good. But it was just that one pivotal moment when you said to me, It’s what your definition of sales is, right? And we all know that. Like we go to a course and we have one take away moment or one thing we want to take away, implement and go and execute. And he did that beautifully. And so the definition of sales. Let’s hear it.

Let’s hear it.

Drum roll say to us is the definition of sales is earning the right to make a recommendation. Okay. So when you’re selling to a patient, you’re earning the right to make a recommendation to that patient and that recommendation and that right to the right that you’ve earned is based on a relationship of trust. That is all sales is. So if you sit back and tell yourself that mantra now that sales is earning the right to make a recommendation to this patient and that recommendation is based on a relationship of trust, and there happens to be an exchange of money that happens when you take my services off. Right? Okay. But you trust me. We’ve built some trust. I’m making a recommendation. And by building this trust, I have a right to give you this recommendation and give you my opinion. That is it.

Can we break it down? Because I love that. And I think my enthusiasm, when you first shared it to me was like, yes, I love this, I love this. We need to get this out to everyone. But one thing we didn’t do is let’s break the different components of this, right? So earning the right is that are you earning the right by just doing that examination? You’ve you’re the dentist, you’ve got your BDS, right. Or, you know, whatever you’ve done, the Check-up, you’ve got the expertise, you are the one with the expertise, you are the one with the expertise of their mouth because you’ve done a thorough examination and you’ve diagnosed. So is that what you mean by earning the right?

It’s a really interesting question. You know, I’m going to digress and I’m going to come back to it. I’m I do this a lot. You know, I always say my own practice patients have to earn the right to get a free consultation. In my practice. You can’t just walk into my practice and earn a free consultation. You have to earn you have to earn the right to walk into my practice for a free appointment. Right? I know a lot of people don’t even do free consultations, whatever, right? You know, it works for some, doesn’t for others. And. But what is that? Right? How do you earn that? Right. And there’s certain criteria that you need to meet.

Okay. I’m thinking I’m going to second guess you. They need to send you the photos. They need to fill in some forms. They need to give you their email. They need to follow you. I don’t know, something like that to, to make it, you know, some sort of return for us.

It’s really simple, right? Patient comes in for a free consultation. We have a conversation. They walk out and they thought they could get their teeth straightened for £1,000. You doing nobody any favours. Nobody any favours. Right? Because my time as a clinician, I’ve just given it for you when there was definitely a mismatch of where the value is. Right. It’s not the patient’s fault that they thought they could get the strain for £1,000. Don’t don’t blame them. So whoever’s passing that information in between so somebody gets to book into my clinic, they need to hit minimum criteria. Number one, they need to know the price really, really important. They need to know the price and they need to know the range. Okay. So we always say, look, if you’re coming in for Invisalign treatment, our prices range from 3 to £5000. Most patients sit slap bang in the middle. But that’s what you’re looking at. Okay. Then they need to get an idea of who they’re dealing with. So maybe 1 or 2 little usp’s about the dentist, right? With Invisalign is becoming a commodity now, right? What is different about having Invisalign our practice or price point? A little bit about us. A deposit? Yeah. So even though it’s a free consultation, I’ll take £30 off you and the first thing that’ll happen, I’ll lock it straight back on your card when you walk through the door.

Right. So if they’re willing to put you want to up the state to of quality, just increase the value of that deposit. You know, if you want to take £30, take £100, £50, whatever. Right. And you’ll increase that filter of quality coming through your door. And then finally, you want to understand what they know about that treatment. Okay? Now the whole other stuff about, you know, building rapport, learning about learning about their why now, what’s the pain points, What could they do before? What couldn’t they do? What would they like to do, wave a magic wand and all that razzmatazz. Right. But what do they know about this treatment? And often when you ask them that, you will get an idea of have they been through the consultation somewhere, if they have a bit of a red flag, but also an opportunity for you to say, so what is it that Doctor Smith didn’t deliver to you that you want from me? Okay. Why didn’t you proceed with treatment there? And by the way, that’s a.

Very fair question, which I think many dentists might shy away from, but they come this far now, you know, it’s worth asking, but all this while you’re saying all these wonderful things Prav and everything, every piece of information you get from that patient serves a purpose and a value. And especially, you know, them knowing the fees is so, so important before they come on. But what does this look like? Is this from a email questionnaire? Is this your treatment coordinator going on Zoom? How? A phone call. Okay. Right. So making the phone sign, the universal sign for the phone. First phone call me telephone conversation.

You know, often and it’s not always the first point of communication, right? Because in today’s day and age, sometimes we’re having conversations over voice notes. Sometimes we’re having conversations over. Social messages, this, that and the other. Right. What’s really important, depending on who you’re communicating with. I think it’s important for us as businesses today because, you know, as well as health care professionals, we are running businesses. If you’re an associate, you’re running your own business within a business. I truly believe that. But we need to adjust our communication style and methods of communication in line with what your patient or your client wants in terms of their communication preferences. So if I let’s say I get someone who gets in touch with me and they message me on Facebook, I will message them back on Facebook. We’ll have a little bit of it, but then I’ll bring them into the fold of what our onboarding process is, right? Whether it’s email or whatever, they’ll share email. If someone sends me a voice note, I’ll voice note them back. Yeah, if someone says me a voice note and I want the detail of that voice note to sit on the screen, Yeah, I’ll request that and I’ll tell them why I need it on the screen. Yeah, because sometimes I might be going back and referring to that. Yeah, but our patients. So this is receptionist.

Or treatment coordinators who are doing the phone because essentially this is prequalifying someone. Yeah.

So we have a given, given whatever title you want, every practice. Once again, different business structure, but I’m not going to dictate here. It needs to be a receptionist, it needs to be a TCO. Some practices don’t have tkos and the definition of a TKO is far and wide as far as I’m concerned as well. But in my practice it’s carry a lead ninja. And so her responsibility is overall patient communication to get somebody to come in and attend a consultation or an assessment, whether that’s a paid assessment or a complimentary consultation. Her job is to get someone through the door that hits a certain level of criteria, all those different points that we discussed. And so earning the right to make a recommendation based on trust that we went on earlier. Kerry starts that relationship. It’s not just the dentist, right? And so part of that course that we spoke that we that I delivered that day and one of the questions I asked the associates is how many of you have had a conversation with, I call it receptionist lead Ninja or whatever, right? How many of you have had a 1 to 1 with the person that answers the phone on your behalf, speaks to your potential patients about you and your services and what instructions have you given them about what you want delivered when that patient lands in your chair? And it was at that point, you know, that was a real rabbit in the headlights moment. Okay.

Huge Prav I think most dentists are completely guilty of this, especially when they go in the course, right? And we do it to our nurses as well. We go on a course, right? We’ve learned all these techniques, which is completely fundamentally, you know, switches everything on its head compared to what you used to do. And we start doing it. And then the nurse is like looking at us like, wait, this is completely different to how he’s been doing it the last five years. When did this happen? Why did this happen? Because nurses, they they crave consistency. And so we owe it to our nurse to say, actually, I’m doing it this way, because some studies have shown that this is a better way to do it or this is more efficient way to do it and get them involved. But yes, reception if you’re starting to offer, you know, orthodontic solutions, which you weren’t before, you need to really owe it to your front of house team. Let’s call them to to to have that sort of, you know, enthusiasm that you have basically that that needs to be passed on to the front of house team. And I feel embarrassed that I’ve been treating TMD for a while. I get referrals from all over the country to treat it. And because we have we’ve got a morning team and an evening team, right, Because there’s a shift pattern. Yeah. Next week is our first ever joint meeting. Every single receptionist, even who’s not supposed to be usually be there is going to be there. So we can just talk about how to handle these queries and what actually happens in a console. And they’re desperate for this.

Don’t wait for the meeting. Right? So this is this is the one have the same thing, right? So the next rebuttal I get when I when I when I release that statement is, oh, senior management, we don’t have meetings, we don’t all get together, blah, blah, blah, all the rest of it. Right. Is there a moment during the during the week where that team member and you are on the same lunch, could you take that person out for a coffee? Do you have to wait for that official sort of meeting box block whatever to to appear? That’s never going to happen. Hasn’t happened in the last three months. Isn’t going to happen in the next three months. Or do you do you create that? Yeah, absolutely. And and so there are pockets of time and opportunities in which and they will get so much value out of that that the other thing if there’s four other dentists in that practice and you’re the one giving the time to that person. Yeah, preferentially you’re going to get the patients.

That is so true.

That will have it will happen. I’m not saying that that’s, you know, an ethical way to influence things or whatever, but but it will happen, right? They will have their favourites and whatnot. But what’s really important is that, you know, if you approach your your receptionist person answering the phone and you say, Right, okay, so there are three things I’d like every patient who potentially wants to book with. Me to know about Jaz Gulati. Yeah, He runs the most educational world’s best podcast in dentistry. Okay. That’s listened to by several thousand or tens of thousands of dental professionals, whatever that number is. Right. He also teaches other dentists. Right? So this thing, what you’re coming in for. Yeah. Hundreds of dentists have learned these techniques from jazz. The great news is you’re coming straight to the teacher himself. Right? And then whatever the third thing is, right? He’s really gentle, caring, And you don’t you don’t need to be nervous about anything. Everything’s going to be just. All right when you meet jazz. Yeah.

And what was the response like from the delegates? Because you taught this on the course. Listen, you train your reception team to give some information about you. Yeah. So, look.

I hate to say you get two different types of delegates, right? But you get you get those who just sort of like, that ain’t going to happen. And you get those who are furiously scribbling notes and saying, I am going to there’s a there’s a lady called Sonia on, on, on the course. And she was very clear about what she was going to do and go and execute that part. Remember, we spoke about people choose what they’re going to execute and some chose that they were going to go and do that. Right. But the other thing is that that boils down to the next element when we talk about sales, right, which is concise communication. If you’re if you teach your receptionist how to speak about you in three points, okay, you are delivering and you are learning the art of concise communication, without question. You’ll you’ll have to think about that and you’ll have to think about how you articulate it. And you have to think about how he or she will articulate that back to you before they go and articulate it to a patient. Right. And then that comes down to if we if we think about sales, I think one of the biggest areas of failure that I see amongst dentists health care professionals is the waffle. It’s literally falling over your feet talking about the detail, the material, the tooth’s made out of justifying which lab you use when they don’t even really need to know.

The process for teeth whitening Payman bangs on about. It’s like you don’t go through the entire sequence of teeth whitening. They don’t need to know the name of the technician making it what the trays made out of.

I do a little bit of business coaching for for some clients for their practices, right? And I talk about front stage and backstage. Okay. So in business we have front stage processes and backstage processes. There are backstage processes that that patient should never, ever learn about. Yeah. And backstage and front stage processes and stuff that you need to shout about, Right? So just, just take, take one example, right? Is that jazz only works in this practice on a Tuesday and Thursday, so you can only book him on a Tuesday and a Thursday. So do you want this Tuesday or that Thursday. Oh, and he’s getting he’s getting married next week and he’s going to be off for for a few weeks. And so that’s the reason he can’t see you. Right. Nobody needs to know that. And there’s loads of examples of backstage conversations that I’ve heard that do not need to be delivered to that patient. Right? Yeah. Jazz is incredibly busy. And over the next couple of months, I’ve got these couple of dates available. Which one would you like so much more?

Powerful and concise and yeah, absolutely.

And we’re cutting out the waffle and that happens on the phone. That happens in consultations. We want to make the communication concise. So one of the ways in which you can do that is to remove all the backstage processes, how the tooth is made, what the whitening process is, all the rest of it, right? You’ll get those patients who want to know, but they’ll let you know. They want to know or you’ll figure it out in your people skills. I’ve got an engineer in the room. Yeah. They want to know how the springs and the cogs and all the sprockets fit together. Right. And you can you can deliver that, but get the essence of, look, this is your problem. These are the three ways I can fix it. This is the way I would recommend that would work best for you. And this is the investment level involved. Okay. And you build the trust and everything and then go into the detail if you want, afterwards. Right. And then reiterate that. But but just your thoughts.

Hey, guys. A few weeks ago, you may remember we launched OB Occlusion Basics and beyond the online course, and I’ve just been blown away by the feedback we’re getting. I’m just going to read a recent one out to you on April 23rd, 10:39 a.m.. One of the reasons that I worked with Prav Solanki and the IAS Academy is I wanted to work with the best in the business in delivering an educational experience for delegates. So what I love about is they already have mentorship forums already built up because what we don’t want is to put on a course and not have anywhere a safe place, encrypted place, and just generally a safe environment to discuss cases, Right? So is have this infrastructure set up already for all their orthodontic courses And so now they’ve got the occlusion board. So when you join the course and you have a case to submit, you can submit it and we can mentor you throughout. So mentorship was really important to us and the way that now underneath each lesson there is a comment section so you can actually comment and interact. Me and Mahmoud daily are applying to the comments as we all learn together. But just want to share this one comment by Dr. Casey. This is brilliant, right? She said, This is so great and why I’ve been craving for a long time. How weird am I? Back in dental school in the early 90 seconds, occlusion was shrouded. Shrouded. Gosh, didn’t know how to say this word shrouded in mystery. Everything went quiet and cons when a face bow came out in a special cushion. It’s just brilliant to have things explained to us as a dentist rather than engineers or physicists.

For me, envelope function was always mysterious, as was guidance, but I feel really excited to get to work tomorrow and start seeing all this. Thank you guys. Fantastic. So that’s the feedback we had at the last lecture of module one. So module one is our introductory module. We have five modules of OB, so it’s just amazing. So thank you so much, Dr. Casey And there’s loads of feedback and comments that we’re getting, so I just want to share that with you guys. So if you guys are ready to learn occlusion online with me and Mahmood and the Academy, head over to Occlusion online, I think it’s spot on because we don’t make a recommendation enough or a classic example that a young dentist or lots of dentists doesn’t have to be young dentists. It’s just the ones I speak to on Instagram nowadays. They say my patient needs a crown. They actually say to me, you know, patient really needs a crown here because it’s all all the textbook features of thin cusps and it’s broken down. There’s only, you know, there’s only a certain size of filling A restoration can be before it’s really not appropriate for that tooth anymore. It’s a simple thing to grasp. Most dentists know this, but when they’re communicating, okay, we can do a crown which can cost X, or we can do a filling which can cost X. The filling involves this this process. The crown involves that process. Which one would you like? And really what you’ve skipped out, what you missed is a good comparison would be if someone’s got caries in their teeth decay, tooth decay.

And so most dentists are very confident to say that, okay, you need a filling, right? And then you’re not going to say, well, you need a filling or we can just, you know, put some fluoride varnish and see you in six months. Right. We don’t say that because we know that’s not appropriate for that tooth. It is technically an option, right? Very minimally invasive, negligent kind of option, maybe, but you don’t say it. So in the same way dentists lack confidence. Actually, this is my recommendation. You need this because X, Y, Z. And a great tip that Lincoln Harris gave me, which really echoes what you said as Prav in terms of being concise, is the three sentence treatment plan like you need. Okay, first we’re going to whiten your teeth, then we’re going to lengthen them using invisible filling material, and then we’re going to protect it with a splint. This is the way we’re going to treat you. It will take four appointments and the total fee will be this and that covers everything. Pause. Okay. And then suss out the patient in terms of how much detail. Obviously, you’re going to back it up with your written estimate because you know, anything over a certain amount, you need to really give them more information. Patients deserve more information, but that doesn’t have to happen in the surgery. So that’s what I’m thinking. Make a recommendation. In fact, the GDC, no matter of which country you’re in, your regulatory body says make a recommendation. People skim over that. But we can and should be making a recommendation. Yeah, it says it in the GDC. You should make a recommendation.

And it is. And we go back to, well, how do you earn the right to make that recommendation? You earn it by building trust with that patient. Okay. And lots of us, lots of practitioners have been building trust over many years and months and decades for some some dentists, because they’ve been seeing the patient every six months, every 12 months. And so the level of trust is way up there. However, a patient that walks in off an Instagram inquiry, the level of trust is way down there. And you’ve got to build that trust before you make that recommendation. And then how do you build that trust? Right? It’s that rapport building. It’s understanding their situation. It’s what Kerry did for me beforehand. It’s me articulating to the patient that Kerry’s passed on this information for me and I. Understand that you’ve been for a consultation here, and one of the things that you didn’t like is whatever, right? And I’m going to make sure that that isn’t an issue here for you and so on and so forth. Right? You build that trust. There’s usually a human connection on that in that point there. Social Proof. In the last podcast we talked about inviting our previous patients into the consultation. Right? Be that before and after, be that a Google review that you’ve printed out or be that a video testimonial that you print out and say, Hey, you know, John, I’d love you to meet Mike. Now, Mike was one of my patients who same situation like you, years of unfortunately not looking after his teeth, lost him.

They become loose. He ended up wearing these these partial dentures and he wouldn’t go out, he wouldn’t socialise, you know, And, you know, he felt very, very, very upset about his situation. He was in pain. He couldn’t eat the foods he wanted. And just just just watch his video and see what you think and let me know if there’s any similarities with you. Boom. That video is dealt with. The objections it’s built the trust that there’s a connection between me and that patient because I treated that patient. I can do the same for you. So we’ve built that trust. Now it’s time for me to come in and make a recommendation for you. And I’m in your situation. Look, there’s very little we can salvage here. And, you know, all things being being equal, you know, I recommend that you go for this option. And that’s what the level of investment that you’re looking for is. And yet, you know, with different patient groups or jazz, you spoke about values. There’s a certain value you need to go up above, and then they need a written treatment plan and they need this letter and all the rest of it. There’s probably a regulatory reason as well that you need to document everything and put everything in writing, right? Absolutely. But once again, you know, the way I’ve spoken about how do you deliver the communication now? Right. It’s the same thing in the written word. Okay. How do you deliver a letter? Does your letter go into so much detail? I’ve seen treatment plans this thick.

But you know why that is. Write the letter. And this is something for an taught me he’s prolific for doing like the best letters ever like you know he’s the best. Very detailed, very thick wads, basically. And I don’t know if he’s changed his process and hat tip to to care for for all he does in dentistry but he says that look this letter the patient I want them to read it and understand it. But really it’s for the lawyers, it’s for the patient, but it’s also written for the lawyers as well. So everything is foolproof. So that’s an element of, you know, the regulatory body being satisfied. And then you leave no stone unturned by listing all the risks and benefits, because technically, you know, we see the charge sheets of dentists in trouble. You did not say all the risks and benefits. So we feel dentists like, okay, it will take five hours in the chair to do it. But if you just print off this 25 page booklet that that covers to some degree of it. And you know, we know consent is very complicated. Consent has layers like an onion. You know, we talked about that in a previous episode. But but but I think that’s why we’re satisfying the regulatory body as well.

But okay. Have you what? Okay. But the first two pages. Yes. The executive summary should be a thing of beauty.

Yes, agreed.

That’s lovely. Conciseness, bulleted information, whatever that is. And look, I’ve spoken to one of the things that I’ll speak to a new client about is take me through your patient journey. Right. And part of that patient journey. Let’s let’s get to the point where you’re delivering the consultation, right? So everything’s happened before that, the patient journey, you’ve delivered the consultation and now that patient needs a treatment plan. Can you explain to me how you deliver the treatment plan to the patient, the differences between how dentists deliver treatment plans? And I’m not just talking about their verbal skills or their sales skills, but actually the methodology of delivery, the means of whether it’s a FedEx or a DPD or an email or whatever. Right? The method of delivery is very different.

Inconsistent even amongst the practice. Every associate will do it differently. Right?

And even that dentist himself or herself will do it inconsistently.

Right? Guilty as charged.

Yeah. So. So. So then we then we look at, okay, well, let’s just forget about inconsistency within and think about inconsistency across the industry. Right? Some dentists will do a PDF and email it to the patient and cross their fingers and toes. Some dentists will get the patient back and present the treatment plan to the patient and book in what’s called a letter chat or a treatment plan.

That’s something that I do quite a bit with my bigger cases. Yes, some.

Will ask another team member to just, you know, just just just get this over to the patient some. It will go out by, you know, Royal Mail or whatever in the post. Yeah.

To the in a gold envelope with the perfume on it.

Wax seal, whatever. Right. And so there are numerous different ways in which treatment plans can be delivered. But the interesting thing is when I sit down and ask that dentist and say, So you’ve emailed that treatment plan, what if it went into spam? What’s your contingency for that plan? And then that same rabbit in the headlights moment, right? And some will say, Oh, but. We phoned the patients afterwards to see if they’ve got it. Okay, cool. We’ll see if it went to voicemail. How many times would you phone that patient? Would you text that patient? Would you email that patient? Have you told the patient you’re expecting? I’m going to write to you and it will be on this day. No, because your life is so busy that you actually don’t even know when you’re going to get that treatment plan out. That’s a common, common problem for for dentists That I see is that on Tuesday nights, I’m doing my treatment plans, doing my treatment. I haven’t quite got round to this. Right. I’m going to get this treatment plan out tomorrow. I’m going to do it the next right. I’ll do it next Tuesday. Now and time passes, right? You’ve done all the hard work in building the trust and everything. You just need to get this out. Patient gets cold. And then. And then. Where do you go with that? One of the most successful ways I think of delivering treatment plans in the easiest way to explain this is is maximising your output but minimising your time. So I’m.

Going.

I think the goal I think I’ll tell you where I’m going. The gold standard is you get the patient in and you block out time in your diary. Okay? Yeah. And you get the paperwork. But that requires a lot of time and energy. Right? But recording jazz, I know you’re a you’re a lume fanatic. As I. As a man. Yeah. You know, I record probably about 20 to 40 lume videos a day. And I know you do it. You do a lot as well, Jazz. And I find it an amazing way of communication. And for those of you who don’t know what Lume is, it is a piece of software that is essentially either free or if you want the premium version, it’s £10 or something like that. It’s so.

Cheap. You know, the the website, I love it so much. I actually bought Lume Dental and basically it’s my affiliate code basically because I recommend everyone. Let’s go to Lume Dental. You know, I think every dentists use it.

Lume Dental There you go. Right. And, and buy it and try it out for free first. Right? Try it out for free. I don’t think there’s a single reason why you wouldn’t buy it, but but you’ve got to execute, right? So just explain.

For those dentists who. Yeah. You’re going to explain what it is, right? How it’s actually used. Yeah. Yeah.

So what Lume is, is a piece of software. You press a button on, on, on your browser, chrome or whatever it is, and it records your screen at the same time. It records your voice. And if you’ve got a webcam, it can record your face and you can put your face anywhere on that page you want. Yeah, you can stick it in the corner here, there, wherever you can make it big or small or whatever. Right? And I think when you’re delivering a treatment plan now picture this, your treatment plans there, you can wave your mouse around on the screen. You could annotate the screen and you are there in your just sort of your personality. Right? And you’re saying to that patient, okay, Prav, it was an absolute pleasure to meet you a couple of days ago. So from, you know, the conversation that we had and the problems that you’re experiencing, the key problems being A, B and C, and I’ve got three key ways in which I can help you. And here’s option one. And you’ve got a picture of their teeth on the screen. You wave your mouse around and go, Oh, well, this is what we can do with this and this is what we can do with that. And you say, for this solution, this is how many appointments and this is what it’s going to cost for this solution. Now, I’m going to send you the rest of this document as well, which has got all the detail about the risks and the blah, blah, blah and all the rest of it. Right. And I’m going to send you a PDF of that. Once you’ve received this video and watched it, just tell me that you want the PDF. So I know you’ve, you’ve received this video and I will email the PDF to you.

It creates a touch point, it creates an interaction, creates an interaction.

And why am I not sending the PDF directly? A I want engagement B I want to know. They’ve watched the video. The lume will tell me that.

So that saved me before. You know, I love the fact that, you know, when someone, when a patient watches my lume I’ll get an email saying you know Mr. Smith has opened has watched your video and for imagine if you start doing it in the way that I do it, you know by consent process is like you know you need to know this really important for consent. And I’ll talk a little bit more about consent in a moment. But like if they haven’t seen that for me, they haven’t consented because sometimes I go a compromise option. Okay? What we’re doing is very fringe, very compromised, and therefore you need to understand everything. So if they haven’t seen that video, I know that that doesn’t satisfy my consent level. So I like the medical legal, so aspect of it. And just like you mentioned, Prav with with consent, how you said in your lume you to pretend lume to the patient as you were describing it, saying, I’m going to send you this pdf. I think consent has to be individual right for that patient. Okay? Your individual risk. So so there might be 50 different risks of a line of treatment, but there’s 1 or 2 which is really significant for that patient.

And the lume allows me to go, okay, there’s about 50 risks, but number 24 and number 48 are really relevant to you because you’ve bashed your tooth before. There’s something called resorption which can happen. And so that’s really important. And your tooth could discolour, blah blah, blah. And you really, really now individualised consent. So you’ve got to bear that in mind. So that’s why I love Lume. Hey guys, if you want to see an example Lume video that I’ve sent to one of my patients if you’re protrusive premium member. You can find it in the premium clinical video section, because when I was editing this episode, I was thinking, Hey, wouldn’t it be useful for you guys to see an example loom video discussing the patient’s treatment, suggestions, recommendations. So I’ve got that available to you. I know some of you asked for it on Instagram as well, so it will be available for you in the premium clinical video section of the Protrusive app. Obviously you can access it by web, by Protrusive app or the App Store however you like, but it’s all there for you. So if you want to check out an example, go ahead.

Some of the features that we’ve probably not dug into that I love about Loom, right, is that when you send that link to the patient, they click on it and out pops a video and it plays your recording. The moment they play that recording and they stop playing that recording for whatever reason, you get an email saying your loom video has just been watched by such a body, right? If they’ve got a Google account or they’re logged into it, you get the details of who’s watched it. The other important thing that you get is you get details on how much of it they’ve watched. Have they watched? Didn’t know that 100% of the video or if they watched 60% of the video. A habit that I’ve got into is I label or rename all my loom videos.

You’re so.

Anal so that so that I know when I get that email notification. So if I send you a loom, I’ll put Jaz Gulati Dash o Bab Course landing page Right. So as soon as I get a notification pop up, I don’t even need to know, right? I know straight away with a notification to get Jaz has just watched that video about this that I sent him Bosch done because I’ve labelled all my video the moment I the moment I record the video, I retitle it. So the notification I get back tells me a story. Right? Really simple. The other thing with loom videos is if they watch it a second time, a third time or fourth time or a fifth time, you get that data. If somebody else watches it, it will tell you this Loom video has been watched by two people. Three people, Four people. What are they doing now? They’re sharing it with their friends and family members, getting an opinion, whatever that is, which is.

Key because you’ve essentially, you know, one of the things that was taught is that, you know, if you if you see a lady and you present a treatment plan and the lady happens to then bring her husband to the next consultation is a 99% acceptance rate. When the partner is there, it’s just going to happen because there’s a they’re serious. The partner is giving up their time. There’s two people’s time now and they’re dead serious. They just want to iron out the details. Right. So you’re now inviting that other significant other or their family member or a friend to that consultation. And I think it’s powerful. The Shareability, you’re totally right.

And then once again, I think we could run an entire course on on the Art of loom presentations. Right? But but another little sort of hack or a trick or call it whatever you want, right? You know, all of my I call it treatment plans, right? But marketing proposals that I send out, they’re done via loom. Okay. Now, if I’m speaking to one of the stakeholders and there’s another business partner who couldn’t make the initial sales call. Yeah, do you know what I mean? And by the way, please do share this with jazz. I know he wasn’t here, but what’s really important that he understands the other things that we discussed so you can add colour to your treatment plan. You can add colour to the words by voice, right? Yes, but. But just talk about them. Invite them. And by the way, Jazz, you know, if you want to jump on a separate call with me, if anything’s not clear in what I’ve described today because you didn’t have the context, I’d be delighted to jump on a separate call with you. Right. And so in the same respect, look, I know you’re going to be sharing this with your with your other half your husband, Mr.

Smith, if you’ve been smart enough, you’ve got the name or whatever. Jack, Bob, whatever. Yeah. And Bob, look, if anything here doesn’t make a sense or you want a little bit more detail, why don’t you come back in with Brenda and we’ll sit down and we’ll go through it, right? So that’s sort of little nuances and how you can tweak and optimise the use of language in loom. But I think it’s a it’s a wonderful tool if you’re worried about secure authority, you can password protect every loom video with a separate password. Okay. So all my proposals I send out, I password protect them. I tell them what the password is. And so why do I do that? First of all, they’ve got to jump through another hoop to access that loom video. Okay. And the other thing I think about is if somebody accidentally just clicks on the video, starts playing it, but they’re not in the mind frame or the the head space to watch the whole video. They’ll watch 60% of it. Right. But if I put a password in there and one one last bit of advice is I tell them how long the loom video is in the message.

Here’s a four minute video I made for you. Mrs.. Smith Yeah.

Link So they know how much time they need to invest in watching it. Find the headspace, put the password in, or if they go and you know who’s watched it.

This is a very personalised way to do a letter. It’s a video letter. It’s very. Personal. It’s very shareable, it’s very unique. And every single patient I’ve sent this to have always commented like, Wow, you know, thank you for your thorough explanation. I really understand. No one’s ever communicated with me in this way. That’s why I’ve been I’ve been hooked on Lume. It’s brilliant. Before we summarise this episode because I want to Petrus Sarathi messaged me saying we like it jazz. We just go with the bullet points because because sometimes there’s so much information overload. So we’ll do that in just a moment. But is there any other point you want to make on the follow up conversation? Because you mentioned, okay, things get lost. They don’t listen to voicemails and stuff. And and that element is important no matter how you communicate that follow up sequence. Any other comments you want to make on that?

We’re talking specifically about treatment plans. Right. And how how how we can be following up with that or how we should be following up with that. Right.

So once we’ve earned the right and the trust to make a recommendation, we’ve made a recommendation, that recommendation is going to be concise. And it’s also a treatment plan that the nurse and the nurse and the reception team are very familiar with. You are known in your practice for delivering that treatment plan because you’ve had those conversations with the front of House and now you send that treatment plan out via, let’s say, a Lume Dental or any other way that you want your written one, any way you like, basically. And then so what other tips and advice perhaps I haven’t mentioned here just now that we’ve glossed over or the microphone is yours, my friend. Well, I.

Think, you know, we could we could talk at length. We could do a whole another episode about the nuances of the conversation that happen when you’re delivering that treatment plan, how to talk money, how to break money down into lowest common denominators, how to talk to them about access, accessing funds. Right. Really important. I’m going to mention this and I might get a bit of stick for it. Right. But my colleague Mark Northover is probably one of the most emotionally intelligent human beings I have ever come across in my life. Right. And he’ll be embarrassed about me saying this. Most of the communication stuff, I learn a lot of the communication stuff I learn is eavesdropping on him speaking to patients in our clinic. Wow. And the words that come out of his mouth are a thing of beauty. And it’s not through any sales training.

It’s nothing like NLP, nothing like that. It’s none of that crap.

I’m sorry. I shouldn’t say that, but. But. But none. None of that stuff, right? Yeah. It’s none of this contrived. I need to do this. They’re locked up to the right. They scratch their nose. They did none of that nonsense. Right? It really does come down to the fact that he is just a people person. He communicates concisely and he connects with patients in a way that I have not seen other health care professionals connect with patients. Right? It’s just purely that. And in our clinic, we do a lot of same day teeth, full arch implant, dentistry, call it, that’s placed on the same day and it’s very high value stuff. And so I listen to him talk to patients and we had this patient who had failed finance and we had another one who had a deposit and they had the means to pay the finance, but they had failed or whatever. Right. Max, a problem solver, He really is. So you think at this point I’m going to give you the solution now and then then you’re going to think flipping eck But then then we’ll go back to the definition of what sales is, right?

And now you can say, you told me a story before, so everyone get your mandibles ready because we’re going to drop.

Mark asked this patient to remortgage their house to pay for their implants. Okay, but that’s the shock statement, right? Yep, yep. But actually, when I asked Mark, I said, Mark, I’ve never, ever heard anyone ask a patient to remortgage their house to pay for their teeth. What, like, where did that come from? And he said, Prav, this patient really wanted this treatment. They just needed to understand where their possible sources of funding are. Yeah, so we have finance. We have money in the bank. I asked, Are you a home owner? Have you got equity in that house? I think the cheapest access to money maybe you need to speak to your broker would be to perhaps just take some money, some equity out of your house and that could be a way. And should what? The patient was absolutely delighted and over the moon that he’d made that suggestion because neither another dentist nor that patient would have ever thought about that solution. And that patient is super happy eating their steak, smiling, integrate.

They’ve seen the video testimonial of this patient. He looks great and he’s so happy. You could tell.

So look, you know, access to funding. I think that’s where we’re going. But we spoke about follow up and what’s really what’s really important about follow up. Right, is that the patient who comes in and has a treatment plan from you today, Jazz may be ready to proceed with treatment tomorrow, may be ready to proceed with treatment in three months, may be ready to proceed with treatment in 12 months or two years time. And that’s the long and short of it, right? We have slow, middle and fast lane buyers in my dictionary, right? And so those patients who are ready to transact in two years, but not today, we can either view them as. Time wasters or we can see them as patients that are not quite ready to transact yet. But let’s stay in touch. Right. And so there’s numerous different ways in which you can do that through emails, newsletters, sharing case studies and success stories every couple of months, giving them a quick call and saying, Hey, Prav, I know now’s not the right time. Do you know what level with that patient? Right? Because if you have built that trust and you have made that recommendation and that patient feels comfortable enough to tell you Prav not now, but when the time is right, I ain’t going anywhere else. I ain’t going anywhere else. Right. And then you turn around to that patient and say, Is it okay if I just give you a call every couple of months, see how you’re doing, share a few case studies with you that we’ve completed that we’re proud of. Would that be okay? Yeah, absolutely. So we’ve got our follow up sequence and then you can either do that through some kind of CRM system, you can have a spreadsheet, a Google sheet, whatever, right? You may be asked Chatgpt to tell you the best way to do it, but yeah.

I’ll tell you something I do actually, which is very on that same vein, is patients who have made a treatment plan for that. In my heart of hearts, I think they’d really benefit from, but it’s a lot more than what they expected and they’re interested. But maybe this is not the best year for them. I you know, I see them for the check up six months later. And I said, oh, remember we had that conversation. Is that something that you’re still interested in? And they say, yes, but, you know, maybe now’s not the time and say, Listen, when you’re ready, I’ll be ready. And then this one sentence, which I think dentists should be saying we don’t say enough, is that I love doing this kind of work. I let them know I love doing this kind of work, that one sentence. And I know that’s not a tactic. That’s not a thing. No, no, no. I genuinely do love that work. And, you know, when they are ready, then, hey, I’ve been sympathetic to the scenario. Empathetic. Okay, when you’re ready, I’ll be ready. But also, you know what I bloody love? And they want to go to someone who who loves doing that kind of work.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think we’ve covered all the all the key elements that we wanted to. I’m sure there’s a few missing pieces to the puzzle that we we.

Obviously need to learn more from you. You did a one day thing for these reconstruction dentists. You also did a one day just, you know, the elevator pitch for the dentists and how to get the change their mindset, because ultimately everything we talked about is underpinned by mindset, right? And so the way we think about sales, the the workflows in your practice, are you doing any more of these training days?

I do have some coming up. So with with in collaboration with the Ice Academy, I’ve got two courses coming up this year. I think the dates for one of them has been set, but they’ve not gone live yet. So one of them is a TCO course. And I think, you know, what I wanted to put together is a course that’s non clinical. I ain’t going to teach you how to take photographs. I’m going to teach you how to scan and I’m going to teach you how to look in a patient’s mouth. But I’ll teach you how to communicate in the best possible way to get that patient over the line. Right. And call that, you know, let’s just call that sales. And then another course that we were speaking about at the academy that will go live this year is one called phone school. And phone school is is the name. It’s a ronseal statement, right? It does what it says on the tin. And it’s the art of conversations on the phone, what the ideal sales call looks like, what the ideal customer service call looks like, what the objections sound like on the phone. And then we’re just designing now sort of the workflow of the course. But one of the things we’re talking about is the delegates that register. Some of them will have the opportunity to allow us to record calls coming into their practice library. And but instead of a mystery shopper, we’re going to play those calls back in front of the whole audience and coach them on them. And and and we will also probably do a couple of live calls to some of the delegates practices during the course to get some instant sort of feedback.

Instant red faces and.

Yeah, but do you know what those that this is the way I look at it, those that volunteer to have their practices call it exposed. Right? Because look, if you call my practice today, I guarantee you that will make some mistakes as well. Yeah, we’re all always improving, right? They’ll get the most out of the course. They’ll get their personalised direct advice. Right. And you know, what I like to say is that the environment in which I do this will be a safe environment, you know, where everyone would be encouraged to share and learn and whatnot, you know, and like minded people in a room for one purpose, which is, you know, to get better at communicating. Right. I think that is, you know, it it certainly communication, you know, as well as having the skills to, you know, stick the drill in the right place and all the other bits and pieces is, you know, it’s the thing that’s going to get you out of trouble is the thing that’s going to get you the patient to say, yes, it’s the thing that’s going to get. Our patient to bring the friends and family members and and all the rest of it. So, Well.

I’ll put the links and the dates in the show notes, but you need to do something again for dentists. I don’t think you do that enough. I know you’re a super busy guy, but if you’re up for it, let’s let’s get something organised for for dentists loom school. I love that. Actually people will actually find that really valuable. We should consider that.

I think I’m evangelical about loom because I think it’s it’s one of the tools that has in my even my agency has saved me days every month because when you’re recording a screen and you’re pointing at something and you’re saying move this here, do that there, or even communicating via voice rather than typing saves me a ton of time. I also have accountability because I know that person’s watched it.

Prav I said, No, no, no. We all love loom here. So for those of you who haven’t discovered Loom before, now’s your time to check it out. We covered a lot of ground here. Thank you so much. Prav We talked about being concise. We talked about doing it in a way that the patient will understand. Do do it in a way that that your team are on board, different ways of communicating and just changing your mindset about the definition of sales. So I will reach out to you, try and twist your arm to actually do some live training for dentists. Again, I will get you get you back on that. I know you’re busy, but man, thank you so much for for making time. I really appreciate it.

Pleasure Jess. Thanks for having me. Really enjoyed it today.

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.

Know, dentistry is expensive to deliver. There’s there’s no two ways about it. And equally, I think the one the one thing a dentist can do, the probably the most important thing any dentist can do is the relief of pain. And I think that’s probably our most important skill we have, is to be able to relieve somebody of pain. And I don’t think that should be denied to people that people must be able to access that. So I do think there has to be an NHS dentistry for that reason. Now does it need to extend to things like cosmetic dentistry and, you know, different types of cast materials? I think it probably doesn’t, but equally in terms of those things might be appropriate for somebody to prevent a problem.

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 Stuart Campbell onto the podcast. Stuart is a practice principal at Loanhead Dental Practice in Edinburgh. He teaches on the MSC in Edinburgh University. He’s a specialist in Prosthodontics, someone who came to specialising a bit later and fixed brows and an avid collector of football shirts. Stuart lovely to have you, mate.

Great pleasure, Payman. Thank you very much for having me on. I’m thoroughly looking forward to this. You and I have had a recent conversation on my podcast and I’m thoroughly looking forward to another long Ramble chat with you. So I’m excited to see where this might go.

Yeah, I should. I should have mentioned the co-host of One in the Chair and two Waiting podcast. I’ve just been on and we’re going to do a simulcast of that podcast with ours. Go ahead, Stuart. So welcome to the to the show. Tell me about your hobby, your your football hobby.

Well, yeah, you probably see here I’m wearing one of my my football shirts. This is a Bayern Munich shirt from 1999 I’m wearing. So, yeah, I’m an avid collector of vintage football shirts. So one of the many things that brings me enormous pleasure in life, and I’ve been collecting them probably, you know, since I was probably a teenager. I used to get them when I went on holidays with my parents and things, and they were probably the naff ones that were all fake, you know, the ones you get that, that look like they’re made out of polystyrene bag. And then it went. When I went on holidays myself, I would whatever I was, it might be, let’s say a weekend in Munich. I’d buy the Bayern Munich shirt. Weekend in Amsterdam. I would buy the Ajax shirt, that type of thing. And then I just started getting more interested in buying more obscure shirts and an older shirts. And this became a thing. And this is now, you know, because of e-commerce, this has become quite easy to do. Whereas maybe 10 or 15 years ago you couldn’t do that. Know, you were limited to what was in the shop. And it’s I suppose it’s a way of of recapturing those fond childhood memories about things. It’s not the shirt so much as the memory that almost brings and probably up to about 300 shirts. Now, if my wife’s listening, sorry, I’m up to three shirts now. Um, but it’s very addictive, but equally very satisfying. It’s the thrill of the chase as well when you think what I want to do is get the Fiorentina 1999 shirt with a Nintendo sponsor and the Batistuta name set and trying to find that in mint condition in your size at a price that’s reasonable.

Is it important that it’s in your size? Do you have to be able to wear it for.

Me, I have to wear it, Yeah. Yeah. A lot of people say they don’t wear them, so I’m now I’m now involved in the football shirt community. Yeah. And a few of my football shirt co collectors. Some of them would never wear them. They say no, absolutely no, you should never wear it. You should keep it pristine, hang it up, put it in a frame, whatever. I don’t agree with that. I think they’re meant for wearing and I enjoy wearing them. You know, my wife says all our holiday photos are ruined because I’m standing there in a, you know, a fluorescent yellow Borussia Dortmund shirt or something like that or or a or a bright orange Dundee United shirt. And but, you know, I enjoy wearing them. And it’s a little bit like in the States when you go to Hawaii, the minute the plane lands, you see all these guys. I don’t if you’ve been to Hawaii, I was there on honeymoon. And you almost see as the plane lands, it’s almost like the entire plane throws off their clothes and puts a Hawaiian shirt on. And that’s the mentally that’s them. I’m on on vacation. And for me, it’s a football shirt. As soon as I get on holiday, I put a football shirt on. That’s me. That’s my Hawaiian shirt.

I bet you get I bet you get quite a lot of love, right? Like you probably get some Galatasaray fan coming over to you and shaking your hand if you’re wearing that shirt in some way.

It drives my family mad. I’ll tell you, we were just in the States last week. It was in Chicago, which is a favourite place of mine. And I was wearing a Roma shirt from 2019. And it’s a it’s a quite a some of these shirts, even the recent ones can can become what we call in the community Grail shirts. So Holy Grail shirts. And you would think that that’s going to be limited to say, for example, a 1986 Maradona shirt. But no, no, it depends on on demand and scarcity and things like that. And there is a Roma shirt was produced by Nike, which is a beautiful shirt, Navy blue, almost looks like a polo shirt. I convinced myself you could wear it out. My wife says you couldn’t, but I convinced myself you can. And it was wearing this in Chicago, and I got about three compliments. Guys, love your shirt. That’s amazing. My wife just said, Look, I didn’t say anything. She was looking at me as if to say, you set that up. You encouraged him to. To to give you a compliment. But no. And it is a conversation starter and you get the knowing nod from people and, you know. But that’s what makes it all worthwhile. That and the thrill of finding one to the specifications I’ve made mentioned.

And if there was a if there were, God forbid, a fire in your shirt cabinet, which is the one you would jump to first to save like the one you’re most. When I say valuable, it doesn’t mean price value, but you’re the one that you value the most.

Only 100. Only one. The one. Two. Oh, right. I would say then I’ve got a Bayern Munich 1999 shirt that they wore in the Champions League final where they were cruelly robbed by Manchester United and it’s a silver colour and it was only worn in the Champions League. And this particular one I have has is a player issue one and it has the felt Lothar Matthaeus number ten name set on the back and that’s a I would struggle to get that ever again. I think so that’s a real favourite. The other one, the Roma one I mentioned, is certainly up there, but I think the other one would probably have to be a USA one from 1988, which uses what we call in the shirt community the Ipswich template. Now I don’t know if you know this, but football shirts, designers, they all use templates. So there’s a number of designs per season and they just alter the colours. If you happen to be an elite team, you know, In other words, if you’re likely to sell lots of football shirts, say like Bayern Munich or Real Madrid, they’ll design, you’ll have your own template.

But if you’re a team, let’s say like, I don’t know, let’s say like Crystal Palace or Norwich, you’ll be given a template that’ll be similar to another team’s template. Just the colours will be different. So the Ipswich template was a famous template that was created in the 80 seconds for Ipswich football team, but it was never used by them because they changed their sponsorship. They were with Adidas who designed it and Adidas had designed this template for Ipswich, and Ipswich then decided they didn’t want to use Adidas anymore. So Adidas gave the Ipswich template to Holland. So if you can imagine 1988 Holland won the European Championships. They beat the USSR in the final and they had Hewlett Van Basten right guard. That shirt was actually designed for Ipswich and they just changed the colour and gave it to Holland. And so the USA actually used the same template that you could imagine that template but in blue and it’s a beautiful shirt and you know, I’ve worn it in the USA twice and I’ve received zero compliments, zero. Very disappointing, very disappointing. But that would be the second one. I would say.

It’s getting in America. Soccer is getting quite big, but nowhere near as big as their own sports. Right. You just came back from Chicago. Did you go on business or pleasure?

Pleasure. Pleasure. So Chicago is a is a one of my favourite places. The reason I originally went to Chicago was that a friend of mine growing up in Dundee, his dad was a lawyer and he ran a fairly big law practice. He was a great guy, larger than life, and he was involved in the Law society, and the Law Society had said to him, Look, we’re looking for hosts for law students from the United States. Would you like to be a host? This guy is going to come over and just observe our practices and whatnot for for eight weeks. Would you put him up? Would you would you have on your practice? I’ll do better than that. I’ll put him up in my house. So he had this guy who was a Harvard Law student who came across a lovely guy, met a number of times because my friends and friend’s dad, we went out with them. He was a great guy and this guy had a great story. His story was that while he was in his latter stages of law, Tom Cruise was in their dorm because he was filming the firm. Tom Cruise is a method actor, and he wanted to spend time seeing what a Harvard lawyer would do. So they met Tom Cruise and all the rest of it. There’s some great stories. But anyway, this guy was from Chicago and he he really should have been the tourist officer for Chicago because he really painted a great picture.

And I kind of thought Chicago is a bit rough. Is it not A bit. Kind of. I don’t know. Um, I don’t know if a fancy kind of anyone going there and and when my friend Gordon then in 1994 he went to the World Cup with his dad and Scotland didn’t qualify, but they went anyway and they booked the trip and they were going to New York. All the greatest hits, New York, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Miami. And this guy said, You’ve got to come to Chicago and visit me. All right. Okay. We’ll go to Chicago. So they went to Chicago and when he came back was saying, how was your trip? You know, it must have been amazing. And the place he just couldn’t stop talking about was Chicago. So have you been to New York? You’ve been to Miami, Chicago, Chicago, Chicago. So anyway, when I went to do I did my elective at Dental School. We arranged to do it in the States. We did a bit of travelling around and we arranged to and Gordon, my friend, was saying, You’ve got to go to Chicago. I said, We’ll go in December. It’s freezing. So I’m telling you, you got to go. So we went and I absolutely loved it and I’ve been back. This is the. Visit number four. 4 or 5 now. Absolutely. Love it. Great city. So friendly. It can get.

Brutally cold, can’t it? That’s the thing. Have you been during mid-winter, Chicago? Mid-winter. You’ve always been on pleasure.

I’ve always been on pleasure. I’ve been there in December. And I’ll tell you, the cold freezing. It doesn’t mess about, is it that wind? Yeah. But yeah, it’s interesting, though.

Because I’ve been that’s the city I’ve been to the most in America as well. Why? Because two of my suppliers are based there and and the Chicago midwinter as well. And in summer it’s lovely. Beautiful. It’s the weather weather wise. And then I don’t know if you’ve ever been outside. I used to go to a place called Naperville quite a lot. Really, really beautiful. Totally different to to the feeling of Chicago. But you’re right. There’s something special about that town of the US cities. Each of them has their own little twist. Right? But I find it one of the easier ones to like in America. Yeah. So tell me about childhood and, you know, in Dundee and why you decided to become a dentist.

Yeah, it’s. Yeah. So Dundee’s, if you don’t know Dundee, it’s a small city. It’s about an hour north of Edinburgh. It’s on the East Coast and it is about ten miles from Saint Andrews and about five miles from Carnoustie. Two world famous golf courses. It’s big university town in the sense that they have a large student population and, you know, small city with a large student population, essentially two universities there. So growing up, there was, you know, as a kid, absolutely fantastic. We had a great lifestyle and great, you know, safe place to grow up, lovely part of the world. My parents lived in Dundee, beautiful views over the river and my dad saying, this is as good as it gets. You know, we’d be saying Dundee, as good as it gets. Geez. But it just doesn’t have. What it doesn’t have is a young professional population, You know, it doesn’t have that wealth from disposable income because the young professionals finish university, then they go to another city, you know, so it doesn’t have that. So it doesn’t have your restaurant culture and your cafe culture. It has a pub culture, which is great when you’re a student. But in terms of growing up there, yeah, it was great to go to school there, but it tends to be a dentist and things. To answer your question, I probably came to that fairly late about maybe about 15, before I decided I wanted to do that. My wife is a dentist and she knew from the from primary school that’s what she wanted to do.

I wanted to be a journalist and my school in Dundee was right opposite DC Thomson and you’ll know DC Thomson because they published the Beano and The Dandy, but they also published some some newspapers, some local newspapers. And that’s what I wanted to do. But I was given very little encouragement to do it. Teachers at the time had said, There’s only so many jobs there. These are life or jobs. You’re not going to get in very easily unless you know somebody or, you know, obviously they didn’t predict the Internet coming along and it was kind of pooh poohed was, you know, at school, I was good at writing essays. It was good at English, it was good at history. It was good at, you know, those kind of documentation style subjects. So I was kind of put off that. And my parents are both medical. My dad’s are he’s still working actually. He’s a professor of surgery. He doesn’t operate anymore, but he’s still actively involved in research. My mother was a was a nurse, a sister in a ward. And they were dad was very pro medicine. You should, you know, great job. He loved it. Getting paid for him is a bonus. You know, he would done it for free and quite often did you know in terms of number of hours he put in quite often did but loved it. It’s like a duty a calling for him, you know.

And I just thought there just he doesn’t he just has no balance. You know, There is no balance. It’s all one way and not the other. And I just don’t want I want to balance and I didn’t see medicine through the prism of looking at what he did as having that balance. So it didn’t appeal to me. So my mum set up by this time she was working at local GP’s practice. She set up a, you know, a work experience there. I just didn’t find it very exciting, you know. And then she set up one with the local dentist and local dentists seemed to have the balance. You know, his practice was essentially separated by his house, from his house, by his back garden. And, you know, he was popular in the community. And his waiting room had loads of pictures of various exotic locations he’d been to, and he seemed to have a 9 to 5 job, seemed to probably didn’t behind the scenes, but it seemed to and seemed to run a successful business. And you know, as well as doing the clinical aspect, I quite like the fact you had some involvement in the the business aspects that then appealed to me. So that was about 15 going on 16 when I thought, yeah, this, this kind of seems like quite a good option. And that was really when I decided I wanted to, to be a dentist. So quite late, really.

How did you find Dental?

Loved it. It’s fantastic. I went to school, which was pretty strict, actually. Private school. Private high school. Went to state primary, private, high school. Pretty strict. There were, you know, I was pretty cheeky. I, you know, like to make, you know, jibes and jokes and have a laugh. And it just it just didn’t didn’t appreciate that really at the school I was at it was not encouraged but it that way at Dental school it was just so you were very much not so much pigeonholed, but you were you were your wings were clipped a bit in school whereas university you it was the complete opposite. So absolutely loved it. Absolutely loved it. And at Dental School in Dundee, it’s a bit like just being in school again with small class sizes. 40 I think we had and the Dental school is kind of skyscraper building. It’s in the university campus. But all your all your lectures are in that building. You don’t leave that building. So it’s almost like being in high school again. You don’t really see an awful lot of other students. You don’t have the free time the other students have, so you’re always together. So yeah, I thought it was great, loved it.

But did you love it as well as from the social side? Did you love it from the, you know, learning the clinical side? Did did you find it easy? Were you one of those types who passed everything with flying colours or did you struggle with like me with pass fail? Vivas And how about the technical aspect? Did you take to that quickly or No.

No, I found it very difficult, I think in pre. So we did six years. I did pre Dental, which was essentially a repeat of the end of school exams you just done. So that was, that was, you know just rocking up to sit the exam, basically a year of a year of partying. So that was fantastic. First, and I still maintain this. All the exams I’ve done in my life, I don’t know how many it must be well into God knows how many, but the hardest exam I have ever sat is physiology for speeds. It doesn’t get any harder than that. And you come to that as a teenager and they’re talking about starlings curves and all that. You know, what the hell is this? And the textbook is bigger than a Yellow Pages. You know, I’d have to probably explain to to younger listeners what Yellow Pages is. But, you know, isn’t it? And you’re like, this is just how can you you’re starting in September and you’re thinking, how am I ever going to learn this? And you know that I found very difficult. I had a reset in that, and I still don’t know how I passed that reset, to be quite honest with you. Payman But I got through it. And then second was, okay, I worked I worked a little harder on that because I was so scared by having the reset and actually got a bollocking day one back by one of the the she was the year the head of the year called me in for a meeting day one and a bollocking you got a reset last year you know and and that that kind of gave me a kick up the arse and yeah.

Past that no problem. The second year you know I wouldn’t say no problem but I passed it, you know, I got through it there was no resets involved and the clinical stuff I found difficult, you know, I found it difficult. I think it’s hard to explain it clinical concepts to people who know what they’re doing. You know, I think what you’re trying to explain clinical concepts to people who have never done it before is it’s difficult for the educator, but for the person trying to grasp it, you just don’t you don’t have the experience to allow you to say, well, that’s what this is. You can’t relate it to anything else. In dentistry, you haven’t done any dentistry. And there is, you know, from some clinical, you know, guess the way it’s taught. They are some assumed knowledge and rightly or wrongly, I think, well, no, you must assume no knowledge. So I found it very difficult, actually. And I think, you know, I became a trainer after dental school and I don’t think it was just me. You know, I think a lot of the young graduates do come out and think, I just never got that. I never understood this. I never understood occlusion. How many people have said that I never understood dentures? How many people have said that, you know.

Boring, boring. From your podcast, you asked me the question about Rishi Sunak and how you would change the NHS. Let’s let’s ask the question of how would you change the Dental course, the undergrad course? What would you do? Because I’ve got a few ideas. You know, I think the number of hours we spent doing things that didn’t end up being important in at least in general practice. What do you think? Yeah.

I think at the end of the day it is a practical job. It’s a skills based job, isn’t it? There’s no doubt about that. And I think there are various things you can do in dentistry, and there’s no doubt about that as well. You can become a teacher, you can become a writer, you can become, you know, in a non-clinical managerial type position. But I think fundamentally most people go into clinical dentistry and that is a skills based job. Therefore, I would say it has to be skills based from from day one. Now, maybe some dental schools are doing that, but in my time it was non clinical, non clinical. Non-clinical at a pre Dental. So three years of non-clinical then clinical, you know, and I think it has to be clinical from the outset. Me Why not get people doing phantom head work from day one? You know, you’re not going to do any harm in a phantom head. So I think that’s what I would change. That’s the fundamental thing. I would change, number one. Number two, what I would do is I’d have younger students on the clinic from day one as well. Why not have them assist Dental students who are clinical? You know, why not have that? Let them look at you know, let them see how things work. Let them see how our fillings done. Let them see how people interact with patients and so on. So those are the two things.

But then obviously, you know, it was a busy course. Something is going to have to give. What would you not do to make those time for the things you just said?

Yeah, I.

Don’t think we any longer have to make full dentures out of wax. Or do we? I mean, it’s a skill that needs, um. What do you think?

I think I think of all those things, I think. Yeah, I see your point. Feel dangerous. But in reality, you know, I understand that the pre-clinical stuff is quite important, but do we really need a full year on physiology and biochemistry? Do we need that? You know, how many times have you used physiology and biochemistry? You know, probably never a sense I’m making that assumption, but I can tell you I’ve used it in some exams. You know, I’ve had to relook at some of the stuff, but not in great depth. And I just wonder a full year of that. And you think, is that just because it’s easier to house the students that you need to house in a non-clinical lecture room than it is to accommodate them in a Dental school? So I think those subjects can be trimmed. I think, you know, I can understand their importance and certainly they they they become important if you’re going to become a Dental scientist, but maybe become a Dental scientist after your dentist.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, funny you you say that. Yeah, I’ve been thinking. I was talking to my son about this. He’s just doing his GCSEs, and I was telling him I wish I paid more attention in chemistry, chemistry, A-level. It would have helped me a lot. It would have saved me a lot of money. It would have helped me a lot in my job, right? In my job, I did Chemistry A-level. And it’s just interesting, isn’t it, that if we took out that stuff about, I don’t know, those experiments in biochem that we used to do. Yeah. What would be the, the push on effects of that? Are they going to be some, some cat who doesn’t become an or a maxillofacial surgeon because he didn’t have that. I mean I think I think you’re right. I think you’re absolutely right. I mean, we only have to look at therapists, right? They teach them quite quickly, quite quickly how to do some, you know, operative dentistry that that could be taught to first years and second years.

Well yeah, I suppose. Yeah, absolutely. And statistically I suppose the numbers how many people will go into clinical practice after they finish. It’s 100% you have to do at and if you want to become, you know as I say a researcher and that’s, you know, fair play to you, you need to know statistics and things. But I’ll tell you, you know, when I was doing Mscs and Specialist, I never looked at the statistics. I was taught at Dental school. I didn’t remember any of it, you know, to go and relook at it all again. And it still didn’t make any sense. So you kind of wonder, is that absolutely necessary? Is it just box ticking and. Yeah, okay, I understand you need to know a bit so you can make decisions on articles and things that you read. But yeah, I think sacrificing clinical practice for those things is, is a difficult one. I think it should be heavier on the skills base.

And then you eventually went on to do MSC specialist training, but not in the, in the usual way where people do that sort of sort of soon after qualifying, you bought a practice and was there a moment where you suddenly decided, No, I’m going to get really, really good at something after being in general practice for a bunch of time, or was that something that you were always going to do? What switched that on for you?

Well, when we bought the practice, very busy practice. It was actually my wife’s wife was a patient at the practice. It was her own dentist and they were a really huge number of patients. And the dentist, lovely guy, was kind of NHS dentist, you know, good guy, did his best for the patient, just kept things going. And then we took over and you started to see things. At the point I actually thought, I just don’t know how to fix this. I just don’t know how to do it. I can see what needs done, but I don’t know how to approach it. Don’t know what sequence to do it in. I just don’t know. So I thought I’d go in some courses and from there just sparked an interest and I went on Paul Tipton’s courses. That was the first kind of cluster of courses I went on and I just thought he was a brilliant speaker, you know, brilliant, brilliant speaker, and could explain things that I thought, Wow, I’ve just never been explained in that way before, you know, I get it. And he often referenced the guy called Mike Wise. He talked about Mike Wise being an influence on him. So I thought, I’m going to go and do as Mike Wise still around.

So did you do the Mike? Wise Course.

I did. Mike for it was with Mike for about 3 or 4 years. Oh, wow. And he was just absolutely brilliant. Really enlightening guy. Inspiring guy. Yeah. And I got chatting to Mike said, you know, I’d love to have done Prosthodontics. And he was like, Well, why don’t you? I said, I’ve got a practice. He was like, So go and do it. I said, I don’t know. I’m not you know, I’ve been out of it a while now. And he was very supportive, you know, you know, big, well-known guy like that. And he took time and he made I spoke to him on the phone and he sent me a couple of emails and he said, I really think you should do it. And he kind of, you know, was that encouragement from someone like him thought, well, you know what? I’m going to go for it. And yeah, that then led to me to start looking into it and start applying and getting rejected and applying again and eventually getting in.

And when you got in, were you older than everyone else in the class? Yeah.

Yeah. So I was funnily enough, I would say I was older. It was quite, quite bizarre. I was older than a couple of the consultants that were on the team on, on air. So that was a bit difficult. But yeah, it was fine. It was good. I did it in Edinburgh. Great bunch of people there, you know, all of whom have become friends. And you know, it was, it was. And you know what? They didn’t make anything of it. It was just you were treated, you know, as a peer. As a peer. Yeah. Yeah. So it was great.

And did you do it full time?

I did it full time. Yeah. Yeah. Wow.

Full time.

Yeah. There wasn’t the option to do it part time. So three years, full time, and you kind of look back and think, how on earth. But yeah, we had. How did you fund.

It and all that? Like, you know, obviously the loss of earnings beat your wife wasn’t too pleased about you deserting her at that moment.

She was pretty supportive, actually. Was she? She kind of initially was, because I think because I was chatting, because I was chatting to Mike and Mike was like, just go and do it in the Eastman. He’s the Eastman. Would you go and do the Eastman? And I was like, Yeah, I’ll do the Eastman. And I say to her, If we could just rent a flat, you know, above a shop or something. And she was like, What? And then got, got an offer for Edinburgh. So that was an upgrade on, on renting a flat above a shop and, you know, middle of nowhere in London. So she was actually you know, when you paint the picture of how bad it could be, you know, when it’s not quite as bad as that, it’s an upgrade.

So that’s called anchoring.

Correct? Yeah. So she was she was pretty supportive, actually. So we had the practice. I worked in it year one, I worked in it and I went Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday night after I finished in the hospital. And then a Saturday morning. And you look back and think, what the how the hell did I do that? And as the as time went by, we managed to I managed to negotiate a little bit of compressed time in the final year so I could go and work a day in the practice. But it was tough. It was.

Tough. But is there an aspect of, you know, your dad’s a professor, so you wanted this sort of these these letters after your name because, you know, three, four years of Mike Wise to me seems like more. Complicated. More, more, more learning than than an MSC or a or specialist training. Am I wrong about that? Am I?

No, no, I think I think Mike is is is and was absolutely superb. And, you know, his textbook, which I remember, failures. I feel you’re in the restored dentition. Um, brilliant. Brilliant. What a great textbook. I think I spent about a month salary buying that when I was when I was going through the training. And it was worth every penny, I’ll tell you. Yeah. And I used that and everything he had taught I used in the specialist training. And you’re quite correct. You said, you know what, you know people who’ve done Mike for 3 or 4 years and do a good standard of work would sail through it. They would sail through it. And no, there wasn’t really an aspect of of kind of becoming a professor or, you know, doing what my dad did because I just always thought I would I would it would just allow me to do clinical work as well as I could possibly do it in in a practice setting. That’s what I wanted to do. And just do a high standard of care for people. And knowing you’re doing the best thing, knowing you’re doing the right thing. Yeah, that was really the reason for doing it. And it was Mike. My dad didn’t really have, you know, he was encouraging. He’s great. If you want to do it will help you. But, you know, he wasn’t like you Think about it, you know, it’s not, you know, you’ve got to practice. Do you really want to? My dad was pretty much. You’ve got to practice. That’s great. You, you know, fair play. But you know, coming out to that to do this, he was like, you know, not sure. But then when he was maybe he could be a hospital consultant. That’d be good, you know, like me. But I didn’t I didn’t really want to do that.

And what’s one thing that stuck with me when I saw Mike Weiss lecture was this notion of excellence not being a technique or a product, but a but a state of mind. Yeah, And so very true. You know, so very true. Especially these days with digital. We all jump at, you know, a new way of doing something, you know, a brand name or a protocol or a course you’ve been on. And I was lucky to see him when I was just one year out of dental school, I think. And it always stuck with me that that notion, especially in dentistry, where most of the time no one’s looking over your shoulder, right? Yeah. And that doesn’t mean that, you know, we’re going to do something we’re not supposed to do. But, you know, since we know about failure and we know it’s I think we’ve been we’ve been doing this series on mental health with dentists. I think it’s actually one of the reasons why dentists suffer with mental health issues and have always suffered. You know, people say, oh, it’s the GDC. But, you know, dentists 50 years ago in Kansas were having trouble with mental health is because of this sort of failure of the work and having to keep on thinking In 15 years time when this fails, how will it fail? Yeah, it’s a stressor. You know, it’s a stressor. I don’t think surgeons have that same mindset. You know, you do better.

No, I think you’re right. Um, yeah, My dad’s a professor of surgery, and.

You know.

Everything has to comes across. Certainly everything has to be perfect. No corners should be ever cut and everything has to be absolutely just so. But, you know, he does kind of think, you know, I’ve done my best here. I’ve done my best. There’s nothing else we could do. That’s I’m satisfied with that. Whereas at a case today, Phil Arch case five implants in the maxilla, two of them didn’t get the talk, wanted to load so didn’t load them. And I gave the lady a denture and it’s about the lowest I’ve been for about, you know, I don’t know. Just couldn’t believe it. I just, I just was so upset that I couldn’t let her walk out with a fixed bridge. And she was okay about it. But you just think, you know. And looking back, is there anything I would have done differently? No, Just, you know, we just didn’t get insertion talk into the implants and it wasn’t really scoped to to to change the size particularly and thought. And my dad would be we’ve done everything. Nothing has gone wrong here. We’ve done everything right. Um, why beat yourself up and you do beat yourself up. I don’t know what it is. I think it’s because. Is it because it’s a small team? Because you’re in one room, you kind of feel you’re solely responsible because, you know, I guess with a surgeon is a bigger team involved. Sometimes the surgeon doesn’t have that close connection with the patient because they’re rocking up for the procedure. They haven’t maybe done the consult or someone else has done the consult. You know, dentistry, you’re you become more connected to the patient? I think so, yeah. It’s you’re absolutely right, though. And you tend to, you know, these these these little hiccups tend to, you know, you dwell on them and you overthink them.

Yeah. And here we’ve got a situation where no one complained. Yeah. Then you compound on it. Let’s, let’s compound a complaint just to make things really uncomfortable and then a breakdown in relationship and the patient sort of when you were doing your utmost right, you were you you were working so hard to get it right that you’re depressed that something hasn’t gone 100% perfectly. And then someone implies that you were doing something wrong. Yeah. And you can you can see how the stress is compound on each other. And it’s actually giving me PTSD thinking about this stuff because I haven’t I haven’t treated a patient for a long time. Let’s move on to teaching. Yeah. Tell me about teaching and the buzz you get. And, you know, is it is there an element of paying it forward? You know, what people taught you and, you know, that sort of thing.

I think absolutely. Yeah. I think I think you take a little bit from everybody who you’ve you’ve influenced you. Certainly. Certainly I do. And the way that Mike Wise will go back to him again, what a brilliant teacher he was. And I remember amazing, you know, Dental school, you might ask a question and it would some ways you might be ridiculed for asking it, you know, why are you asking that? Come on. Everybody else knows or Mike would never do that. And if somebody he wouldn’t stop until you understood and he would say, look, I’m going to explain that a different way. Do you need me to explain it a third way? Because I’ll explain it a third way. And you’d say, you know, but you wouldn’t be doing that in a in a derogatory sense. You’d be like, you know, you need to understand this concept. And does everybody understand? Because it can’t just be one person here. He’s obviously the bravest one that’s asked, but everyone else, you know, is anyone else on? Sure. So he was very inclusive and I thought that was a great way to teach. So certainly taking those things from him and, you know, the terms of teaching. Yeah, I do. I do really enjoy it, you know, really enjoy it because it’s interacting with people. It’s, I suppose it’s being a wee bit of a showman as well, isn’t it? And it’s testing you, you know, you’re testing yourself as to what do you, you know, so real measure of what you know, your knowledge and your, you know, clinical skills and hands on course. And some of the courses we run, we have a live implant patients.

I’m placing the implant in front of 10 or 12 dentists. So you kind of think in my head could be in my hands in about five minutes time here, you know, But it is a good way of testing yourself, I think, you know, not, you know, showing that you don’t cut corners, showing what you know and explaining it in a in an environment that is conducive to learning. You’re not one that’s conducive to speaking at people, learning you want everyone to because you might learn from the people you’re teaching. You know what they must know. You know, there are things that they will know that you don’t that they can bring to the table. If you have that that that environment in place and a lot of courses we’ve run, people have come up with things or said things or given you tidbits. So that’s a good point. Yeah. And Mike was like that as well. You know, people would ask questions or they would challenge him on things. You’d have to know your stuff. Are you going to challenge Mike Wise? But sometimes they would challenge him and they’d be absolutely right. And he would then change his viewpoint and said, You made a good point there. Have you got some evidence to back that up? And they would and he’d say, Right, okay, I’m going to look at this. And then he’d come back to the next meeting and say, You know, I’ve looked at that. You’re absolutely right. Now, that’s very interesting, You know, and that’s you have to do that as a teacher. You have to, you know, you know, your students can teach you as well.

100%. I think a large part of being a teacher is that you’ve been asked so many different questions and, you know, you’ve learned yourself from answering so many different questions. That ends up being an expert, right? So it’s one of the ways you get expertise. Yeah. So you teach both highly sort of clinical subjects and then some of the sort of more soft skill subjects as well. Yeah. Which do you prefer teaching?

Um, I think the, the clinical stuff I think is, is probably easier to develop a framework for. Yeah. Because you know, it’s a well tested framework isn’t it. It’s a little bit of theoretical knowledge, hands on, supervised hands on feedback, you know that that works very well. So the framework for that is tried and tested and it works well and, and I enjoy doing that. The communication skills stuff that I teach is I think can be more difficult because it doesn’t have the same type of framework. If to create that framework, you’re right in a in a soft skills in that type of if you want to call it soft skill, it can go off at tangents. And the communications course that we do. I have an actor that comes along and we do mock consultations and things. Sometimes the actor will go off on a tangent and sharp and and you really have to be on your toes for that. So yes, I find that I enjoy them both, but I think that, you know, both have different challenges. But I think the soft skills and particular communication, one can put you a little bit more out of your comfort zone, but and you try to develop a framework for that as much as is possible and I think have that down now. But it is a good one as well.

What’s the basis of your communications course? Give me some some highlights, because we all we all suffer with not all of us. But but, you know, as a profession, we tend to have trouble on the communication side. I find my personal bugbear is the dentist speaking out loud. Everything that’s in his head. Yes. Yes. Yeah. And you know, your patient’s not interested or needs to know everything in your head. They need to know another thing, which is, you know, the bit for them.

Yeah. So a lot of the that you illustrated that as a fairly common thing that we see. And when I was a trainer, you would you would sit in on the consultations or, you know, doing these assessments for your vet. And that’s exactly what they would do. They would almost exactly just splurge at the thought process like they were splurging at an exam answer and you’d see the patient becoming confused and the basis for it really is something called patient related outcome measures. And of course, to make that’s an important thing. And we know it’s important because it has its own acronym, and everything with an acronym must be important. So it’s proms and proms are the way the way I would approach proms is I might say to the patient, Payman, nice to see you today. Um, are you in? You’re in to see me for an oral health assessment. Is there anything you’d like me to look at in particular? And if you said, Well, yeah, you know, I’ve think I’ve got broken tooth rather than launching into any options, I’d say, okay, you know, examine your mouth. I might say, look, can I just ask you out of ten we’ll come to deal with that. Can you just give me a list of your priorities? I’m going to ask you to score this out of ten for me, if you don’t mind. Longevity of what we do, you know, invasiveness of what we do, cost of what we do, the time and how good it looks, something like that. And you might then give me some scores out of ten. That’s okay. Based on what you’ve told me. Sounds like the appearance and longevity are important to you. If I got that right and you say, Yeah, that’s exactly right.

Cost is less of an issue, you might say, Well, cost is always an issue. Okay, well, but it’s not as high as those priorities. Am I right in thinking and scoring out of ten and getting a priority list, I think are really important ways to to essentially create a shared treatment plan with your patients. And when we were doing a specialist training, they brought up a consultant from London called Peter Briggs, who came to speak to us over over a couple of days and he was absolutely fantastic. Speaker Have you ever heard him speak? Be really first rate speaker And he was talking about just this, the communication. He spent about half a day talking about proms and how we communicate to patients. And really it’s a combination of things, like I’ve just said, but also having a database in your head of survival data. So if someone says, I want to last as long as possible, okay, well, you know, you don’t have to quote the paper, but you might say these you know, given the condition of this tooth, you might expect this. The last X amount of time given the condition of this too. So given the condition of the environment in your mouth for a resin bonded bridge, you might expect this to last, you know, 80% of these last five years. So there’s a four out of five chance this will last for five years, you know, and so on. That’s the way they want it explained rather than, you know, getting really boiled down to nitty gritty. And, you know, that’s what we try to instil on these communication courses and it works well.

So when you ask for these out of ten scores, do you not kind of get the same scores from everyone?

Not, not, not always, no. Or some people might be hesitant. They might say, oh, I don’t know, but you just use.

It as a framework to get that feeling of both parties being involved right.

Out of ten is an easy thing because you don’t have to say how is important? Is this to you? I don’t know. I’m not sure. Give me out of ten how important. And they might say, look, most people will actually will will play. We’ll play along. They’ll say seven, nine, whatever. Um, or they might say, look, I don’t know but that’s important. That’s see, So you then stratify it for them and say, look what you’ve told me. The hierarchy appears to be this. Have I got that right? And based on what you’ve told me, the important things to you, this is what This is how I plan your treatment. Because you’ve told told me these things are important to you and I’m giving you a solution to make sure you get those important things that are important to you. And that then means they’re like, Well, yeah, that’s reasonable. That’s not like you’re trying to convince me to have this treatment done that I don’t need done.

The other thing, dude, I think gets ignored quite a lot is that an expert talks about things in a different way to someone who’s not an expert. And by the way, an expert doesn’t have to mean, you know, Mike White. You could be an expert at Invisalign. Yeah. When you when you talk to the patient about that because, you know, you can deliver you talk to them with authority in a relaxed way, in an in an educational way. And the link between clinical expertise and communication expertise, we haven’t really we see them as almost two separate things. I mean, the way I framed the question was exactly that, wasn’t it? Do you prefer the clinical or do you prefer? But actually, when you know you really can deliver, you can relax in the communication piece? Yeah, for sure. And it’s a good point because, you know, when when I was thinking about what you do, it sort of felt like they were opposites. But in many ways it’s one in the same thing, isn’t it?

Absolutely. I think you make the point very eloquently there. Yeah. And of course, you’ll you’ll communicate confidence when you’re confident in what you do. You know, you will. That happens at any walk of life isn’t it? You know you will and you’ll have doubts and things like that. Everyone has doubts. I was listening to if you’ve seen that Boris Becker documentary, it’s on Apple TV right now.

I’ve heard about it. No, haven’t seen superb.

Yeah, but Novak Djokovic is interviewed on it. He was coached by Boris Becker. And, you know, Novak Djokovic looks like this kind of tennis cyborg. Completely unstoppable, isn’t he? But he basically talks about having doubts and he says basically, you have as long as you’ve done something enough and you’ve got the expertise, your self-belief overcomes the doubts. And that’s kind of what you’re describing. And you’ve done things enough, you know, the ins and outs, you know the pitfalls, you know what can happen. That then comes across as confidence and in your communication. So yeah, you’re right. It does go hand in hand.

How much of your work is by referral now? Fixed pros is a funny it’s a funny thing. You don’t get enough referrals because everyone thinks they can do it themselves.

Yeah, it’s. Yeah, I know you should have gone into Endo or you know, probably the vast majority of it is referral. Is it? Is it? We do, you know, work hard with local practices to support them. And you know, we put on various courses and educational events and and whatnot in an effort to do that and that, you know, they don’t send us everything, but they’ll send us some things. And that’s that’s usually enough. And then those patients that come through word of mouth, you’ll get other patients. So in a referral you get and it might be safer, let’s say make a michigan splint. You’re like, Oh God. But actually, you know that Michigan splint, you deliver that well, you know, communicate well. Patient has a good experience. They’ll tell somebody and someone else will come to you for something else. And we’ve seen that time and time again. So, yeah, we do work hard. You’re right, it’s harder to get the fixed prosthodontic referrals because as you quietly say, you know, Prosthodontics is probably a little bit like it’s like a it’s like a like a general practitioner on steroids a little bit, isn’t it? You know, it’s like it’s probably the speciality most connected to everyday dentistry in a way. That’s probably why I went into it, because it felt like, you know, the problems I was seeing the. I wanted to be able to solve in my own clinical practice.

And do you do you sometimes I bet you sometimes get sent patients who are just difficult to manage from the psychological perspective.

Yeah, without a doubt. Yeah, you do get those. And they’re challenging. There’s no easy answer to those patients. And sometimes you you think, Oh, I don’t know what the problem is here before and you’re halfway through the treatment before, you know, flags are the flags are hoisted and you think, oh, God. But yeah, you do get the challenging patients and all you can do is, you know, communicate well and offer solutions. And if they want the solutions, do the best you can. And if you don’t feel you can help the patient, then I think it’s important to say that I think a lot of people are guilty of that. You say, look, I don’t think I’m the best person for this because of X, Y, or Z. And, you know, people might get upset with you better getting upset at that time than than, you know, once you’re you’re in there in the midst of treatment, you know, and often yeah, we’ll have that conversation. So like you know your particular problem is this and I just don’t think I’m the best person for this and the best person for this would be Payman a great job.

You know, and you’ve got guess you’ve got a couple of guys who you can send those to. Yeah, the hierarchy of body dysmorphic syndrome.

We have a local, a local network where we helpfully, you know, send a pre-warning text. Listen, I’m sorry apology first, but I’ve just let you know I’ve sent you this patient. Um, but yeah, yeah, we have a little, a little a local group who could probably, you know, probably call my colleague up and say, Would you help me out with this or would you be keen to see this person and go from there? Yeah.

So you seem like a bit of a super dentist, dude. You know, you’ve got the clinical side all sewn up, but all sewn up. You’ve got a lot of a lot of experience and qualifications in that area. You’ve got the communication side. Tell me, tell me what you’re really bad at. Are you bad at running a practice? Are you bad with people? Tell me. Tell me you’re bad at something, right?

Yeah. No, I’m well and I’m about to end. You would not want to see me, Fernando, The.

How do you how do you like employing people that whole running a business?

I find it difficult. I don’t think it’s an easy thing. I think it’s a very challenging thing. We do some work with Chris Barrow and he’s he’s helped us out enormously. And the reason that we need Chris Bowers, we needed help. And it is difficult because, you know, it’s a busy job and you’ve got to spend, you know, running the practice’s a busy job and working working. The clinic’s a busy job. How do you do both? How do you do them both? Well, So it is it is a challenge running a practice. I would say we we do our best. We try to follow Chris’s guidance. We implement his things. But, you know, it’s not it’s not it’s not plain sailing. Anyone will tell you who runs a practice, runs a business. You all know yourself, you know, managing people, you know, managing everything. Seems like it’s going smoothly. And some, you know, suddenly, you know, you get a unexpected blip on the horizon occurs and that’s you could be it’s like the Baz Luhrmann song you could be sitting on set. You’re worrying about what’s going to happen. And then on a Tuesday, I don’t know where you get blindsided by somebody crashes into you. You know, that’s that’s kind of what it’s like, isn’t it?

But you’re right. You’re right about the question of working in the business and working on the business question, because it’s very skewed in the industry. You’re very much not working on the business. If I think about my day, it’s very much the opposite way around that I’m working in the business for a very minority part of it, but on the business much more. It’s problematic in the industry, but it’s not the first time Chris Barrows come up, did you did you find yourself thinking, We’re in trouble, we need help? But what was it like that, or was it an optimisation story? Like was there something that was really culturally wrong or, you know, can you do you want to tell me about that or no? Was it like trying to make yourself the best you can be like you’re doing with your pros?

Well, it was actually just after after we finished Pros, I kind of thought, well. Just on this training, I think we’ve got a decision to make. We’ve had a practice that, you know, as I’ve been working in bits and pieces while I’ve been doing my training, and if I want to make it a specialist practice, I’m going to spend a lot of money on it, you know, buying the equipment that I’ll need, refurbishing it because it would need a refurb at that time. Or I could just sell it and I could just go and work in a referral clinic. And that’s kind of what I wanted to do. So we brought Chris on board with a view to doing that, and I did work in a referral clinic and had a great time there, fantastic bunch of people. And Chris just kind of said, okay, here your brief, your brief is you want to sell this, you want to go and work in the field, that’s fine, you said, but have you totally lost interest in having a practice? Well, no, no, I quite like the idea. Well, why not grow the practice, you know? And then his his advice to me was, you know, the best thing you can probably do is grow this practice yourself. And then, you know, the, the remit we gave him was, you know, something he said he wouldn’t recommend. So we kind of changed that and we decided to, you know, develop the practice and go from there.

And so that’s kind of how it how it went. And, um, yeah, running the practice, having Chris on board. Yeah, it’s you just don’t really, you just don’t know what you don’t know. It’s one of those isn’t it? And he comes out, you know, he’s got all these frameworks and he’s probably the market Leaders and he for Dental business coaching and you just think, my God, you know, this, this is just, you know, we haven’t been doing any of this. This is horrendous. No one teaches you any of this. And then when we started implement it initially, we implemented it with a view to saying we are going to sell this, but then we start implementing it and putting sweat and energy and, you know, money into it. You think, well, actually I don’t want to sell it now. Um, and Chris’s advice was, No, I don’t think you should. And my wife still wanted to and was still really keen to have this job at the other clinic. And it was a good job and a great team there. And um, but then you start putting all the effort into that, your, your original practice, you’re to get it into a position where you think we could sell this now and then you think, well, I don’t know now. And I’ve spent all this energy and time.

Now. It’s a much better business than the one you wanted to get rid of.

Yeah, absolutely. And you really enjoy working there. We’ve got a great team, lovely people.

Is it no longer a mixed practice or is it still.

It’s a little bit of a mixed bag. So we’ve got we’ve got meself we’ve got a clinical dental technician. We’ve got one of my associates who’s does a lot of implant work, and we’ve got two general dentists and a hygienist. So you have a busy little team.

Are you doing all on floor as well?

Yeah, Yeah, we do.

Oh, nice.

So, yeah, it’s a it’s a busy little team and it’s a it’s a good team. And we do, you know the approach we want to we hope we have is open door. You know we work as a team. You know, like today, for example, this case myself and my associate both working together as a pair. And we do that a lot and it’s a nice way to work. It feels a bit more like a hospital, you know? Kind of. Yeah. You’re not stuck in one room with one person, so we’re kind of in and out of each other’s rooms. One of our new dentists that’s joined us semi recently, she was actually a delegate, one of my courses and she does she’s a general dentist, but two days a week she just comes and sits with me nurses or carries out some some stuff under my supervision sheet. And that’s you know, she’s enjoying that I think. I hope. And but it’s a nice way, you know, you kind of working you’re doing a bit of teaching as well then, you know, so you can have it. I guess you can create the practice you want. And that’s kind of the environment I want.

And do you bother with marketing or not?

Do we don’t we don’t spend a lot of money on it.

Consumer marketing. I’m not talking about professional.

We don’t spend an awful lot of money on it. Chris Barrow’s approach is that he’s he’s a big advocate of low cost marketing, you know, market to your existing client base market to your, you know, social media. Yes. Newsletters. Yes. You know, business cards. Yes. Ask for referrals. So we do all that, of course, in terms of like a marketing campaign on the side of a bus. No, in terms of TV adverts, radio adverts. No, we don’t do that. We’ve never done that. Chris You know, as I say, you have to take you know, you’re paying an expert to listen to the experts advice. His advice is it won’t give you a return in his experience. So we don’t do it. And his view is very much you market to your services to referring dentists and you do those things that we’ve previously described study clubs and engage with them and newsletters and help them out with things that they don’t want to do, do those horrible stuff that you don’t want to do either but do to help them. And we do that and we do the other things. I mentioned the low cost marketing, but we don’t do big campaigns.

What about the podcast? How did that come about? You seemed like a busy guy.

I tell you, it came it came about because of this low cost marketing. I read a book called Dental Practice Hero by an American guy actually from Chicago called Paul Aitchison. And it’s, I don’t know, Paul Aitchison. I’ve never met him. I like the fact he’s from Chicago because I love Chicago, but he’s a what a brilliant book that is. And he has a podcast as well. And he has struck home with me, was doing these little talks. And actually I would encourage people to do this. I did a talk to the local Rotary Club, okay, but 25 people and just went talked about implants and some of the digital stuff we were doing and they’re all kind of sitting there. I thought, God, I’ve bored the you know, they’re really bored with this. And it was just kind of open mouth. Any questions? They were like, Yeah, it was all about cost, you know how much it cost, how much. Out of that meeting, we probably got about 4 or 5 full arch cases. And then from that, the friends and family of those patients 100% worthwhile. So I kind of thought, yeah, this is a great idea. And I was reading Paul Aitchison’s book and he said, You know, one of the biggest things you can do is public speaking to boost your business. He said, Just think about it. You give a good public speech or you do a good lecture. What does everyone want to do at the end? They want to come and speak to you and chat to you, you know, in private say, Oh, that was great, thanks. You know, exchange details, that kind of stuff.

Yeah. And he was saying the best way to do that today to a large audience is a podcast. So from there I thought podcast, I’m going to do a podcast and Chris Bauer did one. So I asked Chris and said, You know, you do two reds and how do I how do I start this? He’s like, You got a laptop? Said, Yeah, you got a microphone? Yeah, that’s it. It’s all you need. I said, Well, how do I even edit it? Is it just, my daughter will do it for you? So Rachel did it for us and yeah, we just started from there and it was basically we just thought, you know, and Paul Aitchison was chatting about what do you want to do your podcast on, you know, and his view was do it on anything, just do it on something Dental But don’t you know it doesn’t need to be groundbreaking, just be a chat. But it’s, it’s, it’s you being a good speaker and getting your, you know and, and. Hopefully entertaining people that they might then think, yeah, quite like that. Wouldn’t mind chatting to this guy or whatever, you know. So that’s how it came about. And I found a good friend, Michael Tang and I were actually at Hattem. We were at Chatham’s Perry Academy. Course we all started chatting about it. I said, Gonna do a podcast? I need a co-host. Michael’s our co-host. And we’re like, Who? Who gets guest one atom? So, yeah, that’s how it all came about. Yeah. So now, so. So Michael is currently taking a bit of a sabbatical from it, so Hatem is now my co-host.

Yeah. So how many episodes do you do with Michael before you start?

We we did about 25. And then with Hatem, we’ve done about five now. I think so, yeah. We took a break and the reason for that break was, um, I did a big, big running challenge so that, that kind of, that, that resulted in me taking a bit of a sabbatical off the podcast by the time I was ready to redo it. And Michael was, was, was up to his eyes in various ventures he was in. So he’s going to come back. But um, yeah, we’ll get that sorted out at some point soon.

And so now, okay, I understood the reasons why you started the podcast, but has it evolved from that now? Because my, this, this podcast certainly has. I mean, yeah, I started with similar, you know, selfish intent. Yeah. And, and now it’s the closest thing I’d put it to is like a hobby. Yeah. You know, like. And what is a hobby? You know, something you enjoy doing. Yeah. Something you’re trying to kind of get better at, you know? Um, and whatever comes from it after that, it’s almost like saying, Hey, let’s, let’s play. I played tennis for a hobby. Nothing needs nothing else needs to come from that. I can just enjoy playing tennis. So, you know, I’ve always thought that, you know, you mustn’t even think that the audience I’m talking to the audience at all. Me and you are having a chat. It happens to be recorded. Yeah. And of, you know, simple. Simple as that. It doesn’t always turn out that way, right? Because, you know, sometimes you have chemistry with with a guest and sometimes it’s harder. It’s harder. I find the situations where I’m absolutely sort of love stories of people who get up and leave one country and go to another country and set up practices in those countries. But talking to those people on Zoom is not necessarily as easy because often English isn’t their first language. And so, you know, even though I can connect with someone like that really well, I found on Zoom where you lose that slight, you know, you know yourself, they’re never as good remotely as they are in real life, right? No, that’s a challenge.

Yeah. We our first cluster were all done live. Actually we, we got some, some really decent, some nice equipment actually kind of mixing deck and all this kind of stuff that I have no idea how it works. Michael sort it all, kind of plugged it in and set it up, just spoke into it and it was great because you had the person in the room and as you say, you forget you’re doing a podcast because you’re just having a chat with someone in the same room as you, and then someone will say, Listen to your podcast with with Payman. Did you? Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Um, so we’ve never done it for any commercial interest. It probably would never be any commercial interest in it anyway. Although I did get a message from Buzzsprout, our hosting site, to say you now qualify for advertisements paid. Would you like to? But I don’t think that’s for us. But yeah, you’re right. It’s just part of the attraction. It is a hobby and part of the attraction is you’re chatting to people real. I love chatting to people and getting to know people and just, you know, chatting to anyone. And, you know, I that’s probably why I love America so much because there’s so yeah, people are so willing to talk, aren’t they? You know? Yeah. Everybody is happy to have a conversation so it seems and there’s I love that forward aspect to the states. You know you can just start someone will like you were asking earlier about football start telling you a bit of football shirt here you’ll get a knowing nod which is good as well. Yeah but they’re they’ll say nice shirt is that the and you’ll have a chat and it opens up a conversation which I just love that and that’s really the attraction to the podcast for me is chatting to people, getting to know them, having some banter and, you know, get to hearing their story because you think, Oh, that’s interesting. That’s kind of inspiring what they’ve done. I might steal a bit of that for myself, but, but like your teachers, isn’t it? You know?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, we’re on the subject. I need to ask you the questions you ask everyone. Oh, yeah. On on your podcast because I’m sure everyone wants to know your answers, the classic questions. Let’s. Let’s start with your favourite movie.

Yeah, that’s.

Hold on. Hold on, hold on, hold on. We’ll leave that to the end. We’ll leave that to the end. Let’s let’s ask about your best and worst day in dentistry.

Best and worst day in dentistry. Um. Yeah. I think my best day in dentistry was probably when did the exam finished it, and I met one of the examiners in the hallway who was actually a local specialist exams all finished at this point and she said. I don’t know if I can I’m not going to say anything. But you absolutely nailed That was brilliant. Thank you so much. It just felt good. You know, just it was a culmination of all that, you know, meandering path I took towards specialist training and, you know, the apogee of of all of that and what it involved. And then I felt I did well. But sometimes you always have a little bit of doubt, don’t you? But when somebody else and this person I really respected when they came out and said that it was on top of the world. So that was that was a great day in dentistry, lowest day in dentistry. I’ll tell you, it was probably not long after I qualified being in vet and just feeling totally out of my depth, just thinking. I’ve just spent six years in dental school and actually came out in final year with distinctions in my final kind of thought, yeah, I must, I must know all because I got distinctions in my finals and got into practice was just out of my depth. And I just thought, this is this is when you’re out your depth, you.

Weren’t comfortable with that feeling really.

Painful. It’s miserable and you’re also lonely because it was a, you know, you’re in one room with a nurse who probably hates you because you’re running late all the time and you think, I’ve got there’s nobody around me here and I’m out my depth that that was my worst day in dentistry. And yeah, that was it was a fairly shortly after I think I had. A relative of Sean Connery. Happened to be a patient at the practice, and he came in with a lost post crown, and he asked me if I’d re cement it. And it was obviously a root fracture or something, and I put it back in for him. And, um, but 30 seconds later, he came back with it out again. People waiting like, Oh, my God. And this guy is probably VIP and what have I done? And you know, Truman wasn’t there and it was just a two surgery practice. I just actually thought at that point, this is I’ve had enough. This is not for me. So that was that was my lowest day.

It’s a very difficult year. That first year after or I suppose you were in. But when as you say, you’re very inexperienced and you’re you’re thinking to yourself when things like that go wrong or something happens with the nurse, you keep on questioning whether this was the right career or not because you’re just there. You just got there. And people, people you know, they underestimate that pain. Every I’ve spoken to says it to You were a boss for years, haven’t you? How long how many vets did you have for?

I did. We had a scheme locally called LDF. I’m not sure if that’s across the UK or not. Probably is or something similar will be where I had two trainees at the same time and they both shared the week. And there are other they did half the week with me and half the week in the hospital and we had some exceptional people. We had four of them. There was one girl. She was exceptional, her dad was a dentist and she had done lots of, you know, kind of work shadowing with him and worked in the practice. And she was just brilliant. And it gave her a real head start, I would say, really, because she she knew things. She could visualise things. And that’s probably going back to what we were saying about dental school, how you can’t visualise those concepts and you’ll be asked to understand really complex, complex concepts without any prior knowledge of them. And I think because she was in a dental practice from probably God pro from a toddler, she really got it. And she was really ahead of the game and she was fantastic. And another chap from Northern Ireland, equally brilliant, really good guy. He’s now an oral surgeon down in Bristol. He was brilliant, great guy, really good laugh. Go for a beer with him.

Really got it as well. Just just got it. And the other two I had were, you know, I would say were also very good, not nice people in different ways and have different skill sets and so on. But I enjoyed it, you know, I quite enjoyed it. And they were they would push you, you know, these I would always try and go for the best people, you know, who I thought would get on with, but equally who I thought, this person is going to be pushy. And I thought a lot of people say, why are you taking them? They’re a nightmare. They’re going to be a nightmare. I said, Actually, I kind of want them to push me a bit. I kind of want that challenge. And, you know, they did push. It actually does make you better, you know, for sure. So yeah, I usually went for the ones who the other trainers would say, I’m not taking that one. They’re going to be you’re never going to be at your room and never going to be out. So that’s kind of what I want. And maybe, maybe not, you know, But three months in, you think maybe not. But actually, no, it was the right decision and it was good to do that.

And the there’s a pattern emerging here for me of sort of pigheaded determination coming out of you. We haven’t discussed ultramarathons yet, but when I first heard that, I thought this is a special kind of person whose hobby is ultramarathons. And then I ask you, what’s your favourite day in dentistry? And, you know, qualifying, getting, doing an exam well is good, but you know, it’s that pigheaded determination to get that done and get that guy to say and now this, this that you’re telling me.

Yeah. No yeah the, the old I suppose there is a bit of that bit of self-flagellation, you know, make it difficult, you know. Um, I don’t know. It’s actually funny. Again, we spoke about it earlier, that Boris Becker documentary, he was talking about the same thing. He was almost saying that, you know, he would be playing a match and he’d be playing an opponent who was probably ranked significantly below him, and he wouldn’t kick into life until things got difficult. And you’d be two sets down or you’d make life hard for himself almost to spur himself on. He couldn’t get the adrenaline rush until it was difficult. Yeah. And yeah, that kind of chimed with me a little bit. Sometimes you need that push or that challenge because I just go for an easy life and I just I’ve tried it. I just can’t do it. I can’t sit by a pool for two weeks. It’s just I just can’t do it. It just get annoyed or bored or just irritable, you know? It’s got to be challenging. Then when it’s challenging, you think, Oh, God, if I could only just sit by a pool, love it, you know, can’t win. Um, but that’s probably where the ultramarathon thing came from.

Were you running a lot before you started doing your first ultramarathon, or did you suddenly decide I am going to do ultramarathons?

No. Um, I didn’t really know about ultramarathons. I started doing it was 2008. I taken over a practice in 2006. I was not a fit person. I would probably struggle to run a mile and my dad had taken up marathon running some marathon running about five years previously and he was looking really fit and he’s, you know, 25, 26 years older than me. On November. Obviously I’m going to be staying with me came across for a weekend or something, he said. He said, I’m going to go for a run. I said, All right, I’ll come with you. He’s like, you, you won’t manager. So that was it. I said, Really? Um, and I said, Right, okay. So I went out for a run. He was right. Didn’t manage it. And then I said, Look, when’s the marathon? He’s like, It’s me. I said, I’m going to sign up to that marathon. He said, No, I’m not joking. You won’t manage it. So I then just got myself in shape and did the marathon and beat him, which was great. Um, and people say I met my nurse at the time. She was from Berlin and her brother had just done the Berlin Marathon and she said, Oh, my brother did the marathon. And as soon as he crossed the finish line, he said, Never again. She said, she’ll do it, do it and that’ll be it. And I crossed the finish line and I thought.

Is. I am not seeing that to be big headed here. I just thought I need, you know, enjoyed it, but want to do another one now? I want more. And it was people kind of running around with their medals on and stuff. I don’t know. I just thought I’d put them. I just put the medal in a drawer and I don’t know. I’m not saying that in any way. It’s just what I did. I’m not saying it. I don’t know if it means anything or whatever. I just put it away in a drawer and I want to do the next one. Now I want to sign up to another one. And it’s probably a fear. I think it’s probably a fear of going back to being unfit. That spurred me on. I thought, I’ve done that now. Feel good being fit. It’s not so much the marathon. I don’t want to go back to being unfit, so I’m going to sign up for another one and then another one and have them in the diary and keep doing them. But how often? At least twice a year to like big city ones. And I kind of thought that was the distance. That was it, you know, that was the that was the benchmark until I started hearing about these ultra marathons. I was like, well, that’s that’s madness. That’s not really, you know, which is how.

Many miles.

Technically, it’s anything over a marathon. But in reality they tend to the entry level ones. 50km would be if you’re going to an organised event, 50 k’s would be an entry level and you’ll go 75 k’s will be quite common, 100 k’s, 100 miles, that type of thing. 100 K Yeah. And you think it’s you actually think what you say out loud. That is insanity. You know, how can people do that? Is it even possible? It is possible.

So what’s the longest you’ve done 100 K one?

Oh, I’ve done 100 K one. Yeah. And that was it wasn’t supposed to quite be a hundred K, but I took a wrong turn. And this kind of happens in ultra marathons because a very niche events, there’s sometimes nobody around and it’s not like the London Marathon, you know, the guy putting all the signposts out. And one of the ones we did, I overtook him. This is a guy who’s putting the markers out. So I’m like, where do I go? You know? And you’re asking people, Oh, go left. So he took a left. And then of course, you’re like, Wait a minute, I’ve seen that hill before. They’re like, No, you must go to go, right? Oh, my God. So yeah, it’s full of pitfalls like that. But it’s, um. How long does it take? 100 K one took me about. Oh, I think it’s about ten hours, something like that. Oh, my.

Goodness. Yeah. And what do you do? You stop.

Well, you’ve got to. Yeah, you have to. You have to. Yeah. I mean people have said it’s like an eating contest as much as a running contest. So there are food stations and you have a meal I you properly pasta, lasagne, pan of chocolates I love. I stuffed them down my face as I’m doing ultramarathons. Um, so I did three events like that after COVID and I’ve got chatting to a couple of dentists who kind of did a couple of things with me and I said, Why don’t we? I said, I’ve been watching this documentary on Amazon Prime. This guy called I forgot his name. Sean. Sean Conway. Sean Conway is a guy I think he was a comedian or something, but he became a kind of endurance athlete. And he did this run across Britain and it was Amazon filmed it. It looked like it was good fun, but the Scottish bit looked amazing. I said, I’d love to do that, run across Scotland. So I set up a zoom call with these guys that run with and I said it was this was during lockdown. I said, Who are you? Fancy? And I was actually half hoping they would say, You’re off your head. So I said, Guys, what I’d like to do, who would like to run the length of Scotland? And then the I’ll give you a minute.

So we did a few of these ultra runs, a couple of other dentists. I’ll give a shout out to them. Derek Marner. Ryan Stewart, my associate, and Patty Watson, good friends of mine. And we set up a Zoom call and I said, Guys, do you fancy doing something a bit different? They’re like, And I’d watched this documentary with this guy called Sean Conway, and he’d done a run the length of Britain, John O’Groats to Land’s End and Amazon had filmed it, and it was over two episodes and actually looked actually the Scottish part. Episode one was Scotland and it looked amazing. The English part is probably the route, just didn’t look that good. He was running on motorways and past service stations would look terrible. But the Scottish part, the bit they captured anyway in the film, I thought, that looks immense. So I said to the guys, Look, I’ve been watching this. Who fancies running the length of Scotland? And I expect them all to say, beat it. But surprisingly, nobody said anything. So I thought, Well, that’s a good sign. And before we knew it, we did it. We announced it on social media, we got sponsorship and we we did it. We got coach and we got these guys who supported us, a company called Sandbaggers.

And these are guys are survival experts. And just by luck, they happened to be available because normally these guys are involved with high profile things. For example, the comic relief did the trek across the Gobi Desert. They they organised that. So that’s the kind of level these guys are at. And because COVID had happened, they were available and because COVID had happened, they were also cheap. They were like, Yeah, we’ll do it. We’re free, we’ll do it for you. And they’ve become lifelong friends. And so we did this run from John O’Groats to Gretna Green over ten days, and that is the toughest challenge I’ve ever done. And it was the best challenge I’ve ever done as well. Just, you know, the funny thing was actually when were the times I tell you when the times were getting difficult, when we were really under the cosh, you know, legs falling off, knees exploding. I had to go up two sizes of shoe. You know, I’m a size nine. I had to go up to a size 11 to fit my feet in. And so to buy new trainers size 11 and despite swollen it was so swollen it was the swelling was incredible.

You just carry on running, huh?

It’s funny. Your body is a remarkable machine. You know, you kind of think there’s a threshold, but actually the threshold you think there is, you can go way beyond that, you know, way beyond it. And there were many times we wanted to quit. Many times we thought, this is it. We’re done, all of us individually. And, you know, the rain chucking down on you and then you suddenly get a second wind, You get this kind of endorphin rush. And the last day, which you probably thought would think would be the worst day was the best. We all ran. Well, you know, I think it was our quickest time. And we were all strapped up with tape and bandages and knees all taped up and ice packs. And we we were like greased lightning in the last I don’t know quite what happened, but it was funny. And I’m not saying this to be negative in any way, but when it got really tough, all of us said, You know what? It could be worse. You could be working in a dental practice. But you know what? That that did get us through because it is a tough job. It is a tough job. And doing that run actually, when you come, it teaches you so much about adversity because when you come across a tough time, tough challenge, be it in life, in your clinical practice, whatever, you can draw on those experiences and use them. And that was really why it was hugely worthwhile for for me. But yeah, it was a it was a fantastic thing. I’d love to do something like that again. So if any of the guys are listening to this, I would suggest running Holland next because it’s nice and flat. So we’ll do that next running.

Holland But you are. Nutter You are Nutter Like, I get that from my two minute cold shower. Yeah. Honestly, it’s been difficult to build up to two minutes in a cold shower, but get some sort of resilience out of that. Yeah.

Yeah.

You’re running How many miles? How many miles? I’m sure you’re more resilient than I am, but how many miles did that come to? Ten days, more or less.

500 miles. Oh, my God. So, yeah, more or less. 500 now. But it introduces you to people who are I mean, these guys sandbaggers. Just these guys are unbelievable survival experts. Some of the stories they had, you know, digging out snow holes in the Antarctic, you know, they were both ex-military. And you think these guys have really seen some some action in life. And we were also coached by a guy called Donnie Campbell. He’s no relation to me, but we were put in touch with him. He was in the mainstream media because during lockdown, I don’t know if you know, in Scotland there are hills called Munros. Monroe is a there’s about 4 or 500 hills in Scotland, and they’re measured to a certain height. And if you reach that height, you become a monroe. And people make a lifetime’s ambition to try and climb all the munros. There’s there’s hundreds of them anyway. Tony did every single Munro up and down and he got between them on his own steam, either by bike, by running or by kayaking. He did it in 30 days. Wow. Unbelievable. This man is a. So you’re trying to talk to him about your running across Scotland? And he’s like, Yeah, come on, guys. This is a, you know, a piece of piss, you know? And that’s kind of what you needed someone like that to say, This is a piece of piss. Get your ass in gear, you know, and would say, I can’t fit into my shoes here. I’m going to get you a bigger size. Shut up. Put the bigger size on. Just get going. Yeah, he was it was great. Great to be around these kind of people, you know, just. Yeah, totally different, you know, into what the type of people you encounter in your day job, you know. And it was a great, great, great adventure. I’d love to do it again and probably will do it again, but I’d like to do it with a group again. The same guys would be great if I can convince them.

I think the closest I’ve come to anything like that is, you know, skiing when you go off piste and all that. And there are moments where it’s dangerous. There are moments where you’ve hurt yourself and all that, but at the end of it, it just feels so great. Absolutely. It just you feel alive.

You feel alive. You a sense of danger. You need that to make you feel alive.

Yeah, I ride the electric bikes in London for that reason. Because it’s funny. You risk your life quite a lot. Yeah. Yeah. And. And it’s the only time I’m fully alert is when I’m on an electric bike. During a normal day. You know, a normal day. I’ll take an electric bike anywhere or sometimes in a circle. Just that feeling. Yeah. There’s a bus coming, there’s taxis going, and then the acceleration you get from it. I don’t know if you must have ridden them when you, when you the little bit of acceleration you get from it just reminds you of when you were six, when you know a normal bike was exciting.

This could go anywhere here. Yeah.

Let’s get back to the let’s get back to the Rishi Sunak question then, which we should give. We should we should give a history of what that means. Go on, mate. Explain to the listener what that means.

Yeah. One of the questions that Hatem and I ask in our podcast is that we are not blowing our own trumpet, but Rishi Sunak is a is a huge fan of my podcast. And he often he often calls me up and says, Listen, can you ask your guest, you know, payments coming on? Can you ask Payman how he would fix NHS dentistry? So that’s that’s the Rishi Sunak question on our podcast.

How do you do it? What I do to.

Fix NHS.

Dentistry.

So my answer on your podcast was give everyone a money voucher that they can use at any dentist. Not everyone means test that.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

I think it has to be means tested. You’re right. It does have to be means tested because dentistry is expensive to deliver. There’s no two ways about it. And equally I think the one the one thing a dentist can do, the probably the most important thing any dentist can do is the relief of pain. And I think that’s probably our most important skill we have, is to be able to relieve somebody of pain. And I don’t think that should be denied to people that people must be able to access that. So I do think there has to be an NHS dentistry for that reason. Now does it need to extend to things like cosmetic dentistry and, you know, different types of cast materials? I think it probably doesn’t, but equally in terms of those things might be appropriate for somebody to prevent a problem such as, you know, it could become a more expensive problem. So I think you’re right. I think a means testing thing is certainly going to be important. I think having the relief of pain and the prevention of disease as the two core principles are also things that should be the pillars of it. But I do think it needs to be stripped back, and I think it’s going to be very difficult to keep pace with the technology. I mean, you look at the way the industry is going, you know, who’s the biggest player in the dental industry? Is it struggle? Is it is it reshape? Is it Invisalign? It’s probably one of those, isn’t it? It is.

None of that. None of them. Yeah. And none of them are going to be involved in the NHS any time soon. And if they’re the biggest players they’re going to drive the technology. And if they’re driving the technology, that’s what people are going to use to deliver the care. So how do you then, you know, provide care using technology that’s been driven by the private sector? In a state sector, it’s very, very difficult unless, as you say, you means test it and unless you stratify it to to being principle based, it’s relief of pain, it’s prevention of disease. Anything up and above that? Well, you know, it’s either, you know, apply on the basis of exemption or, you know, it’s not available. And in Germany, you know, they have to have their check up passport signed. So I had a number of German patients and also Japanese patients and they would have to get a little book signed like a little passport. And I said, Why do you need this signed? You need to sign this to say that I’ve come for my check-up and I’ve had my teeth checked and you say it’s okay and it’s because if I need to make a claim, I can show that I have done all my everything I can to prevent disease, not just rocked up when I have a problem. And I think that’s also something we should implement.

What do you think, though, Stuart? I mean, maybe, maybe I’ve got this wrong, but you tell me. Scotland people are more sort of socialist is the wrong word. The sort of more aware of their social benefits, more more up for preserving their social benefits than we are down here. Yeah. How do you think culturally this country, Scotland, the UK people are going to be persuaded to save up for their teeth? The ones who are not not going to get the means tested? Benefits of your Rishi Sunak NHS system. You know, like how dear do do people hold their rights and how easy is it to explain to people that it’s actually doing harm?

Yeah, yeah, it’s very difficult. And you’re right, it’s it’s.

It’s a belief. And when something’s a belief, it’s very hard to change that. And yeah, you’re also right. Scotland does have a fairly strong socialist kind of background and there is that.

Good too, right? Good. You get your good university for free or whatever it is.

Yeah, you do. If you’re Scottish and you go to Scottish University, you don’t pay anything. But equally that’s harmful as well. Because where I live in Edinburgh, we’ve got a world class university here, the University of Edinburgh and the University of Edinburgh doesn’t admit it emits significantly fewer Scots than the other ones, the other universities in this country. And why is that? And it’s because you want to get paid. They want to get paid. Yeah. You know, you’re not, you know, and that’s the danger, the situation, if that’s what the universities are doing. And then you then can’t get the education. You have to go somewhere else to get it. England or and you have to pay. How can you then once you’ve paid into it, how can you then come back and provide this, provide a service for, you know, government issue fees if you’re out of pocket significantly by carrying out your training, it’s going to be quite difficult to reconcile that, I think. But yeah, I mean, I think explicitly, if the University of Edinburgh said we’re no longer going to accept Scottish students, there would be uproar, of course, but.

They’ve just you know, it’s.

My daughters go to a school right opposite. And we see the figures. We see the statistics. How many people get to the university across the road from you. And it’s in the it’s less than double digits, you know, from that school is across the road from the university. It’s a good school. To be fair.

We have that problem with any university that’s got a global name ends up going a little bit in that direction. My friend works at LSC. It’s more than half foreign students now, so I hear you. Can we stay on the Scotland point for I don’t want to get political.

Yeah but.

Brexit. Yeah. And Scottish people and the latest thing that’s happened with the with the whole SNP thing.

Yeah.

Do you see Appetite for Scotland that’s actually an independent and do you see it as as I mean I see appetite for it and listen listen to people but do you see it as something that could actually happen or is it more like a historical sabre rattling I think.

I think it was pretty close.

The last time. Pretty close. Personally, I wouldn’t have been surprised. I actually thought it would have happened personally. I just think it’s, you know, the credibility has been undermined by the fact that we’ve had a number of scandals now associated with the the the SNP who.

Are the ruling party.

And that certainly, you know, from my point of view, that’s that’s tarnished the credibility of them. I’m not a supporter of Scottish independence at all. I think far better being part of the UK, far better being part of the EU as well. But is it close to happening? I think no, I think is the answer. I think it will. You’ll still get there’ll still be a significant minority that will vote for it. But you might be looking at I think last time it was 46% or something that said yes. And I think it’s going to be less than that this time around. I think Nicola Sturgeon is was a very good politician, you know, spoke very well, you know, presented herself on camera very well. But things that put me off a little bit were it was Andrew Marr she was talking to and she said, I despise the Tories. Well, wait a minute, don’t you despise them? You just do. You despise, you know, Rishi Sunak, who gave us furlough payments, You know, that was pretty helpful, actually. Do you despise Winston Churchill, who guided us through a world? You know, you can’t say you despise them. And equally, if you say that your job is to negotiate with them, you know, as the as as the leader of Scotland, you’ve just come out and say in a public forum, you despise the people you’re supposed to negotiate with. So I thought that was poor.

Were you alive? Were you were you awake and alive to the Thatcher years?

Yeah. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, I was. Yeah.

That’s really when the Scottish and the Tory party ended up having their sort of massive rift where it felt, it felt like or think the charge was that Scotland was being used as a sort of a testing ground for, for, for policy.

Yeah, I think.

But I’m interested in the conversation that happens in Scotland. In Scotland. Do you do you guys is the conversation saying that I mean there’s £600,000 thing that they’re talking about, right? It’s nothing compared to some of these scandals that’s being I mean, government is about corruption in the end.

Yeah, that’s that’s.

True. Yeah. I mean, compared to me But I suppose it’s it’s been that’s one aspect. But then you had Alex Salmond who also a great politician and a good public speaker and probably very entertaining on something like Have I got news for you that’s kind of what I see him but you know some you know some fairly strong accusations against him which tarnished his credibility and then their fallout. The trouble is, I just don’t think they have anybody credible beyond those two. You know, you look to the wider parts of the SNP and I just don’t see any real statesman there, I have to say. So the other arguments that you often had were, you know, this this stats that got bandied about that we should be the same as Norway, you know, or we should the same as Denmark or Denmark just across the North Sea. We should be Denmark. And the reason we’re not Denmark is because of England. The reason we’re not Denmark is we don’t actually manufacture anything. Have you seen all the things Denmark manufacture? You know, and it seems that the economy here is based on you work for the state, it’s service provision. And if you’re going to be a successful small country, I think you need to manufacture or have some form of investment coming in, not be you know, the economy can’t be state, you know, state services, which it is largely. And the other aspect is my mum’s Irish. And if you look at Ireland, I think there was a similar situation with the history of Ireland whereby they wanted to remain.

And despite the fact they.

Are independent, they wanted to have some connection to the crown. You know, in a union of sorts. And they would they were they were essentially denied that the ruling powers didn’t want them, so they had to go off on their own. And now Ireland is a pretty successful small country now, but it’s taken a hundred years from the time they were cut off. Really 100 years and 100 years is quite a long time.

But dude, how how does it break down? Does it break down in families? You get one brother who does want independence and one brother doesn’t. Or does it break down along political lines or social lines or like how like, what’s the inside track and what’s the conversation going on? Is it like Brexit was here where you literally get arguments over the dinner table? Because I’ve never met a prouder nation, you know, of people than the Scots. The Scots are proud. And so in my head I would have thought, you know, that they would be going for independence. But but it’s such a it’s such a the thing is, it’s such a a bond that breaking the bond is going to be so painful.

Yeah, Yeah.

That’s the narrative that’s portrayed. I mean, the SNP, to my mind, have used some fairly aggressive tactics, these kind of rallies they host. And if you’re not an SNP voter then you’re not, you’re not real Scots.

You’re is that is that is that is that like a subtext?

Yeah, it is a subtext.

You know, and people carrying signs to, you know, I don’t know probably blown out proportion a little bit but the media was covering these these SNP voters who were standing at the border and telling people to go back to England, all this kind of stuff. You think that’s almost Trumpian? You know, I don’t want to be part of that. That’s not acceptable. And, you know, I’m Scottish. Like Scotland, patriotic, you know, ran the length of the country. Love it. But you kind of want what’s best for it. And I just don’t think that being governed by the SNP is a separate country is best. I just don’t think that. But yeah, to answer your question, there are arguments over dinner tables. I mean my uncle is a believes we should be independent. You know I’m very close to my uncle. Good guy. We meet up a lot. I can’t talk to him about it. He’ll just argue with me. So we don’t we don’t talk about it. And he knows I’m totally opposed to it. And, you know, equally, you know, he’s a bit like that. There is a bit of a division, but I think now it’s it’s probably getting to the stage where it’s it’s in favour more of of union I hope. But I think the thing is the union, the people who are in favour of the union don’t shout and scream about it. The people who are in favour of as much as loud.

Correct.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We should bring it to a close. I still got some questions. Your questions that need answering. Oh, we have. So who’s your biggest influence in the industry?

Mhm.

Yeah. Um, I probably have to say in terms of. Yeah, we’ve talked about Mike Wise, I think Mike was a huge influence because the, you know, I mean, I was just, you know, I went to, to do Mike’s courses really, I was just a. Gdp from from from nowhere, really. And, you know, I was saying I’d love to have done specialist trainings first thing in the past and. He was like, You should do it and you could do it and it’d be very encouraging and just give you a belief and was gave up his own time. He wrote me a letter of recommendation, had a couple of phone calls and a couple of emails with him. Hugely helpful guy. And you kind of think when somebody as influential as that tells you you could totally do this, you believe it. You know, before that you think times past, I can’t do that. It’s not, not for me. So he Mike was a real huge for younger for.

Younger dentists who might not have heard of him. You know, arguably the best dentist this country has ever produced.

Credible, credible. Some of the work he.

Was doing, just the attention to detail. And, you know, the fact that, you know, just, you know, everything, he just he just everything was connected and you had to do it all. And he was a specialist in restorative and a specialist in oral surgery, for goodness sake. I mean, to.

I didn’t know that. Yeah. Yeah.

And, you know, the work he was carrying out was just ahead of its time, wasn’t it? It was mind blowing stuff. But equally he would put the same effort into doing a simple filling. Yeah. You know, and he would talk to you about how to do this properly and you’re not, you know, because I’m doing an occlusal composite, I’m still going to do it properly. I’m still going to understand the bonding. I’m still going to research it. I’m still you know, he was unbelievable, really. And his knowledge of all the studies, his knowledge of the, you know, up to date stuff, the classic stuff, really phenomenal. So, yeah, he was he was a big, big influence. And during the specialist training, yeah. A lot of the guys have mentioned there, you know hugely helpful to me, big influences and chuckle Graham Lillywhite, who was a consultant that supervised our training, again, hugely knowledgeable, hugely skilful, but took the work seriously but didn’t take himself seriously. And that was, you know, great guy. Yeah, brilliant. Um, so yeah, they were, they were big influences on me.

Your favourite movie.

Favourite movie. I’ll tell you what it is. Would just come back from Chicago. So I’m going to give you this. This is probably my favourite movie. Changes a lot, but always come back to this one. It’s called Hoop Dreams. It is a phenomenal film, great film. It’s a documentary and it’s incredible how they made it set in Chicago. And it follows two young high school students from fairly rough neighbourhoods in Chicago. One’s called Arthur Agee and the other chap, I forgot his name now, but they are budding basketball stars and they’re their documentary filmmaker follows them from at the age of 9 or 10 up until they’re about 20. And, you know, they both have the talent to become basketball players professionally or at least get to college on a basketball scholarship. And essentially, it’s about that journey. And despite the talent, despite everything, if the environment is not there to support you, you can become, you know, chopped down to nothing. It’s a great movie. As I say. It’s incredible how they managed to have the, you know, I guess persistence and discipline to follow those guys over over almost a decade and make this film, which is it’s a great movie. Hoop Dreams.

A beautiful movie. Last time we spoke, you were talking about the Muhammad Ali one I forget the name.

Yes, I do like documentary films. I do like sports. Sports documentaries? Yeah.

When We Were Kings was Muhammad Ali. One When we were kings.

When we were.

Kings. Again, just could watch that every day. Great film. It’s essentially about Muhammad Ali in the lead up to his famous world title fight against George Foreman. And if, you know, people wonder about other people having doubts and they wonder about the best people having doubts, I mean, this guy was called the greatest, Right? And this captures the doubts and almost how he talked himself out of the doubts to achieve probably to my mind, what’s the greatest sporting achievement of all time? Because George Foreman was unstoppable and Muhammad Ali was past his best and he just spent three years in jail, you know, because of his you know, he wasn’t he didn’t he didn’t want to go to to Vietnam, quite rightly. And he was jailed for it. And he came out of jail having not fought a fight. And this is not the same fighter. And he was beaten up by, you know, the guys who George Foreman had eviscerated. And it was, you know, just the magnetism of Muhammad Ali, the lead up to it. You thought you could see his camp. They thought this guy is just the most magnetic personality and we’re actually sending him to his death here. They feared for his life. Yeah. And he had the belief and the you know, what he calls the repetition of positive affirmations to believe that it doesn’t matter, I’m going to beat this guy. And equally in the ring, his tactics went out the window because he tried to go for a quick knockout. And George Foreman just kind of looked at him to say, is that all you got? And he said, right, I’m going to have to just get this. This guy’s gonna have to punch me now. I mean, he must have taken some punishment in that fight. My God. But what a great film that was. So, yeah, when we were kings, Fantastic.

The favourite album.

Favourite album.

Yeah. Should have the answers to these on the tip of my finger. Shouldn’t I tip my tongue? Right. And probably the first album I bought, which I convinced my mum to buy me, which was Appetite for Destruction by Guns N Roses. And I still listen to that and I can still play it all the way through. And it’s one of those ones that you just think brilliant. And I remember playing at the primary seven disco and the teacher sort of agreed because Welcome to The Jungle was in the charts and that was okay. And then the second song came on, which is called It’s So Easy, and it has an F word in the in the in the chorus. And everybody in the class is like inanely giggling. Mrs. McIntosh, my teacher confiscated the tape. Oh, got it. Um, but yeah, that’s certainly still a favourite album. But alongside that, I do like, um, Rolling Stones, Exile on Main Street. I could play that start to finish, um, quite like a bit of bluesy music. And also Ice Cube, the Predator is another one could play Start to finish. Got into a bit of Ice Cube when I was in high school and I do like him. Um, that’s a good album, that one.

Very nice man. That eclectic choice. Our final questions. Fantasy dinner party.

Oh, free game. Yeah.

Dead or alive?

Dead or alive? Yeah. No, I kind of thought you might ask me this, so I decided I would. I did think about it, so.

So I’ll tell you.

I’ve just come back from Chicago, so I would have Michael Jordan there and I’d have Michael Jordan there. Just because you’ve probably seen The Last Dance, which is the documentary on Netflix about Michael Jordan’s last season.

I’ve heard. I’ve heard.

Phenomenal. But I just love to ask him just to chat to him about his essentially discipline. You know, this guy was he just he never let up, even when he was so far ahead. He just didn’t let up and practice games. His team-mates kind of hated him because he was so tough on them in practice. And as well as that, just the foresight of the guy. I mean, Nike, Air Jordans for a start. I mean, he negotiated that. And you know, if you read about how he negotiated the Air Jordan thing, he knew what he was doing, you know, and he knew that was going to be successful. And equally, the other thing I’d love to ask him about is at the height of his fame, at the height of his success, he took two years out to go and try and play baseball.

You know, I wasn’t aware of that. He sacked it off. He went to play for the Chicago White Sox and.

He he wasn’t Michael Jordan in basketball. He was not the Michael Jordan of baseball.

I’ll tell you. So, yeah, to have the.

You know, the, I guess.

The.

The determination.

Or humility.

Humility. Right. Humility to start again in another sport.

And he was playing in what they call the farm leagues at the time. And I remember it because I was into basketball and I would read we had actually basketball on Channel four, if you remember that NBA stuff we had on Channel four. And as a result, you get a bit of coverage in the paper. And remember, Michael Jordan quit the Chicago Bulls after they won what they call the three peat. They won three NBA titles in a row. And they said, oh, Jordan, just unstoppable. And he quit to go and play baseball and was what? It’s insane. And because he thought he could be a he at one time, he thought he could be a professional baseball player or basketball player. I wasn’t sure which. And as you say, to go from the heights and the fame to essentially taking the Chicago Bulls actually kept his contract going. So they still paid him. So he was still getting paid. They paid him in the hope he would come back, but he said he wasn’t going to come back, but he was playing for a farm league, you know, with guys who were, you know, part timers who were actually quite keen to injure him and show this guy, you know, and as you say, interesting just to know about that that that get a bit of chat about that and I’d love to ask him about all that And then the comeback after a bit like Ali after two years he was out you know the bulls had been overtaken, other teams had won. And he came back and said, we’re going to win again. And it was a bit motivating himself and the team to do the same thing again. So, yeah, Michael Jordan would be in their second, I’d have to say Barack Obama. Yeah. Chicago guy again, my cousin. Hello, Ollie, if you’re listening, is my cousin’s American. He lives in Seattle and he worked for the Obama administration.

Oh, really? Yeah, he’s got some fantastic photos.

Yeah, my aunt has a great.

Our Facebook profile is her meeting Obama.

It’s brilliant and all. He just tells me what a guy you know, he’s he also has done some work for the Biden administration currently and he worked a bit for Gore. But some of the things he says about Obama, he’s just, you know, just a great, great guy. And I just love to love to chat to him. No, you’re right. So I think I think he’d be a good dinner guest.

What an orator. Have you heard the podcast of Obama and Bruce Springsteen?

No, I have not.

Oh, excellent. Dude, it’s Spotify only. It’s called. It’s called Born in the USA. It’s like seven episodes. Yeah. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. Obama just talks the best. I think he talks better than anyone else in the world.

Yeah, he’s amazing. Amazing. And, you know.

His knowledge of history.

And.

I know he obviously history.

And you would.

Think the knowledge of history and geopolitics has probably comes with the territory, but probably doesn’t, you know, we’ve seen that. So yeah, he just came across as so knowledgeable and love love to chat to him. So he’d be number two. Number three, if we chatted about Muhammad Ali and what an enigmatic personality. And I think, you know, we’d love to have Muhammad Ali there, but the problem is I’d never get a word in edgeways. And so instead of Muhammad Ali, I would say Larry David kerb your enthusiasm.

Oh, he’s.

Emma’s number three.

Amazing.

Because don’t you don’t you find yourself.

Nodding in agreement with Larry?

All the scrapes he gets into, You kind of can’t help but think he’s quite correct.

Um, so I’d love to actually be the guy that says, You know what?

You’re quite right, Larry. I agree with everything you say.

So, yeah, I’d love to get Larry David.

On and.

He’d probably fall.

Out with Obama and.

Fall out with Michael.

Jordan in quick succession.

But yeah, so I’ve just realised all the guys have given you a live. So maybe that dinner party could even happen.

You’re a massive fan of Americana, it seems, huh?

Yeah. Love it. That’s my favourite country. It’s just, I suppose.

Growing up in the 80 seconds, America just seemed like the epicentre of everything. And my cousin, who I’ve mentioned, grew up in Southern California in the 80 seconds, and he said to me, It was as good as it sounds.

Um, and you know, you grew up with.

All the movies and all the culture was American and, you know, all the things you coveted, like, you know, Nike, Air Jordans and, you know, Eddie Van Halen’s guitar.

Chicago Pizza Pie. Exactly.

It was all from the States. So, yeah.

Absolutely Love America. And I’ve got some good friends now who are American that I visit regularly. And I just never had a bad time there. It’s such a great place to be. And probably, as you can probably gather, because we’ve been chatting for ages. I love chat to people and.

Yeah, they’re good at that. They love it. Yeah, and it’s great. You know, my.

Understanding, my understanding of that, talking to my American cousins is that they’re very quick to get to a certain point, but then very slow to get past that point, whereas we’re the opposite. We’re very slow to get to that point. But once we decide he’s all right, we’ll talk. We’ll throw everything at it. That’s the way she was explained to me. And that’s a good.

That’s a good.

Explanation. I like that you think you’re quite spot on with that. Yeah.

And I’ve sometimes I’ve been sat on a plane and talked to some guy sitting next to me and. And like, you know, in America it could be a 6 or 7 hour flight. And I think I’ve broken new ground, found a new friend for life because, you know, we just spoke for seven hours here. And then the guy will say, okay, see you later. Bye. Just walk off. You’re like, what happened then? Because we’re so not used to having those conversations so quickly with a stranger, you know? Yeah.

That’s fine. Yeah.

Let’s get to Prav final deep question. Deathbed. Surrounded by your loved ones. Okay. Three pieces of.

Advice. Three pieces of advice I’d give to my loved ones.

On my deathbed. Okay. I think when it comes to a challenge and I think this is the greatest.

Slogan in marketing.

It’s just do it. You know, think Nikes. Just do it. When it comes to anything that you.

Find a challenge.

Or you think is going to be a challenge. I think just.

That’s what I would say. Just do it. Jump.

Go for it. Yeah. The number of times.

The things I’ve done that have been most.

Worthwhile have been, you know, things I could.

Have quite easily.

Avoided and no one would have criticised me for.

It.

But because I’ve done them, you know, I think the hardest part is doing it is is just doing it. Once you do it, you’ll do it. I think generally you’re right.

I find that the cold shower, the longer you think about it, the less you’re going to do. You just jump in. You just do it. You’re quite right.

And it’s like going for a run. The number of times I walk past my trainers in the morning for, I physically have to actually put them on myself and push myself out the door and lock the door behind me with no key. And then once you do it, you’re like, you know, you never come back and say, that was a bad idea. I’m glad I did that, you know? Um, yeah. So just do it would be that would be one.

And I think the second thing I would say is I think you have to practice.

Practice and practice some more. And I think the.

Reason for that is that, like we alluded to earlier, everybody has self-doubt. And to make sure that your self-belief.

Outweighs your self-doubt, you can only do that by practice and practice and practice and practice.

So there can never be.

Enough practice or whatever you choose to do.

And that can be an.

Expert for sure. For sure.

Yeah. In anything, if you want to get good at anything.

Whatever it might be.

Practice. And I suppose the last thing would be.

And I wish I would do this myself, is. In the good moments that you have not only enjoy them, but be present in them. Don’t think about the next thing you’re got to do. Don’t think about once I’ve got this, I don’t want to think about the next thing. Just enjoy the moment which I’m guilty of not doing.

So yeah.

That would be my three bits of advice.

Have you read The Power of Now or listened to it or anything?

I have not. No. No. Very good. Very good.

Very good. Very good for that. Really. But I know what you mean. I know what you mean. I mean, I don’t really suffer with looking backwards, but I just can’t stop myself from looking forward. Yeah, that’s my problem. And you’re right. It does ruin now.

Yeah. Yeah, it does. I think I’ve just got myself this 1999 Bayern Munich shirt and I’m already looking for the.

Next thing I can.

Buy. Then I’ll be happy. No, you won’t. That’s.

That’s the nature of dopamine.

Yeah, very true.

Buddy. Thank you so much. It’s been a massive pleasure. Really, really enjoyed it and enjoyed it. Great considering we had a two hour conversation a week ago. Yeah, it was. It was refreshing. It was refreshing being on this side of it. Really, really very much enjoyed it. Yeah.

Next time you book a transatlantic flight, I’ll.

I’ll book the seat beside you. And we.

Can. We can. Yeah. We can get a seven hour one.

Thank you so much for doing this, man. Pleasure. Pleasure. Inspiration. Thank you. My pleasure.

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.

It was like end of December coming back. We were just shopping for for the New Year’s Eve and coming back from the city on the Boulevard Avenue Kennedy, which is the main road to the centre. And I look at the left and I see a very nice restaurant. The name was The Last Supper, and I was with a friend and I said, Wow, look at that. It looks so fancy. Look at the lights. And people sit there in the lounge and drink champagne. Let’s go. Let’s go and have some champagne. And really, she said, come on, we have to go home to to prepare for tomorrow. And said, No, no, no, Let’s let’s go for a champagne. So and we went there and sit in this lounge, which was super modern. I think the architect, the interior designer was a designing opium in Barcelona or something like that. So really, really fancy. I look at there and I see the menu of the restaurant say, Well, what do you think if you go eat here for tonight because maybe tomorrow we don’t have a big, big party. So let’s go. It’s the 30th of December. Let’s celebrate the year and said, okay, let’s go have a menu. And sitting there drinking some champagne, eating fantastic food, seeing the people there, I told her, you know what? In this place here, I would really like to have a clinic. Like two, three weeks later, we go there and I sit at the first floor. It was something to rent. And in February I just signed a contract and it was in the same building. And I can tell you many things in my life happened. Like something from above came. You just have to wish.

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. Violetta Klaus onto the podcast. Violeta I see as a social butterfly on the international lecture circuit who she absolutely knows. Everybody, When I see you, Violeta, you’re talking talking with all of the big guns and the fully connected in, you know, this podcast, we tend to start with a whole life story, but I’d like to start there. Violeta is also principal of the Violife Smile Design. Amazing practice in Luxembourg and The View Lifestyle brand, which I’d love to get into if you let, let’s welcome you. And are you a social butterfly in Luxembourg as well? Are you are you sort of part of the social scene in in touch with everyone or is it just in dentistry that you’re like that?

So first of all. Hi. Hi everybody. I’m really honoured to be here. I don’t know if in Luxembourg it’s starting now after 13 years maybe to get more known in the Social Network, but I think I can connect very fast. It’s a magnetic thing. So you attract people which are alike and sometimes same visions. And this is why everywhere I go I find people which I can talk to and get inspired and bring inspiration, of course, as well. What can I say? It’s just my nature.

Do you sort of take it back to something in your childhood or in your youth? Where did you talk to Loads of people And, you know, you couldn’t. You couldn’t. You couldn’t read the room.

Oh, no, no, no. As as a teenager, I was really very shy. Really? Yeah. Coming. I grew up in Romania, so I came from a little city, had a few friends. I was coming to Bucharest, which is the capital of Romania with 14, and I felt like, Oh my God, you’re in the big city. It’s terrifying. Everybody was, yeah, really very social, very everywhere. Dance parties. I was not really allowed to go out. So probably at one point I started to do it on my own as I came to Germany with 24 and in Luxembourg, I really started to enjoy that because here is a multicultural, multinational, very small country, a lot of languages, a lot of people from everywhere. And it’s really fascinating to communicate.

When did you know you were going to move from Romania?

Well, actually, I had an aunt in California. And my dream and my plan, the plan of my family was to go there when I finished dental school or when I finished university. But what happened was that I met a guy from Germany, so never wanted to go to Germany, never wanted to to speak German, but it happened. So we married 88 and 89. The first child came. Then I came to Germany. I was working there in a family practice.

And which town in Germany were you.

In three years? Three years is at the border to Luxembourg. So we had a lot of connection with Luxembourg. And I found this part of Europe very, very interesting. So after 20 years of dentistry in Germany, I decided to move to Luxembourg. This was 2009 and I never regretted that. Mm.

So when you look back as a child in Romania, your outlook was you were going to do dentistry in Romania and move. Did you know that you wanted to do that from the beginning? We’ve got loads of Romanians working in our company and massive asset they are to us too. But was it that time in the sort of political era that you thought you were going to move out or not?

Well, from one point moving out, it was just going with my whole family to to America. This was like, oh, that was the original. Yes. The three sisters, that that means my mum and her sisters. One sister was there. She moved in 72. The other one moved in 80. And the third sister. That means my mother, she just waited for me to finish school and to go there. The second part of the decision. So Dental school. It was not from the beginning, but it has a very interesting story because I was like nine years old. I was in primary school and I had an accident. So a colleague hunted me in the break and I felt on my central incisor and well, dentistry in Romania in the in the 80 seconds was super bad. I got a root canal very early. I lost my central incisor very early, and I spent a lot of time in the university for braces for really fixing my problem. And that time my stepmother, she was a dentist, my mother was a general. How do you say a family doctor? And I was very attracted to dentistry and I was there like days and days and years. I was in treatment. I was smelling that that smell of dentistry. And I hated that. I was really frightened and at that time I suffered a lot because losing a central incisor in your teenage time was traumatising.

And my biggest wish and vision was to develop a kind of dentistry which is focussed on aesthetics, on painless dentistry and dentistry, where you feel, where patient feel good and safe and to take care of. So this was the story behind dentistry. Of course, the idea of doing dentistry somewhere else was clear because at that time in the communist Romania, there was not a big chance to do aesthetic dentistry or to specialise in any way or in a in a short time. And this is why it happened to come to Germany. And I started directly, like 1991. I came to I started to work as a dentist and I started directly to make a lot of continuous education regarding veneers, adhesive dentistry, minimally invasive dentistry. And I think that until 97, I did many, many courses. I wanted to level up and to be better. Let’s say in Romania, dentistry was very good. We we learned diagnosis and we had practical exercises. So we started to work on patients in the sixth semester. But I felt that I’m missing the modern digital dentistry, the digital dentistry and everything. What would help me as well? Let’s say from my point of view, I wanted to find a solution and I found it for me and I found it for my patients as well.

And so at what point in that journey did you go from, say, working for other people to say, I want to run my own practice?

As I came to Germany. My husband’s father was the second generation of dentists and they already had a family practice. And a very funny thing is that his brother was studying in Romania as well. You know, both are Germans, but it was for them impossible to study in Germany because they didn’t have a very good note at the Abbey. How do you say when you finalised a school you need to be levelled to dentistry when you are very good in in in the last exams. So they found Romania as a very good way to study dentistry and they had to learn both of them Romanian, which was very hard. And so we met. That means that my future husband, his brother and his girlfriend were dentists. So as I came to Trier, it was like a family clinic with three chairs. It was five dentists. And for me it was very clear that we will not work together. And my husband opened a clinic in 1990. I came in 91. We already have had our first child. It was my son. And this first clinic was very, very small. It was 84 square metre and only two chairs, a little waiting room. And this was like the idea of his father that, well, she will come to Germany and she will just take care of kids cooking for you, doing like home.

You can’t imagine now seeing me. Well, and of course, 91 came and in 92, my second child came. It was the daughter. After three months of staying with her, I restarted work and we developed very, very fast. Three years later, we expanded the clinic from 84m² to 240 square metre. That means five treatment rooms and it went very well. So at the end I was never employed. I started as a self-employed with my husband in the clinic, but definitely both of us are very different, very different characters, personalities and it was a very difficult way to lead a team because if you do not have the same vision and the same way of thinking about dentistry, this leads to many issues. So patients said, Oh, we want to go to him because he’s just very, very conservative and he is able to compromise. I was a little bit more strict in my treatment planning and in discussing with them about long term solutions and most of them full mouth rehabilitations if was needed. That’s why at one point I decided I want to go my way and I left him with a clinic in Trier and I moved to 2009 in Luxembourg.

Wow, what a story. Wow.

That was the first going out of the country.

It’s the third country to be a dentist with.

How does it feel turning up in a country to be a dentist when you don’t speak the language? Or did you speak German?

Well, I learned German as I was six. I think my mother had a private teacher for me and I really hated the language that was so hard for me. I always had headaches or I didn’t feel well as the teacher had to come. Then I had it in the primary school like four years probably. My brain saved a few information from that language so that as I came to Germany and the family was German, and not only the family, but everything. I came from Romania and I found a new kind of living and a new mentality which I had to adapt to. And it was not easy, but I did. And I started to work as a dentist. And I felt that if I do not speak the language perfectly, I will have really problems to to do a consultation and a treatment options discussion with the patient. So I used the time being with the kids, with the babies at home. I used the time to learn German, not from a course. I learned it from television, reading books, reading magazines, watching movies so very fast. I can say I’m a very fast learner and I could speak German almost without flaw, and this was very good for me. So definitely the best decision to communicate is the language. The best tool to communicate is the language. So this was important for me. But coming down to Luxembourg, imagine that it was not only German and English.

I could speak Romanian because we have 2000 Romanians in Luxembourg and my first patients were British, so this was a different kind of treatment, I may say very challenging because. I noticed. Oh, they are totally different than the Germans, so they don’t look at me and wait that I say something and they are very communicative. And they were like, Oh, come on, Violetta, stop apologising. Apologising that my headpiece is not really correct. And if I’m okay, just do it. Yeah, you’re doing fine. You’re doing great. And this motivated me a lot. And at one point we were speaking four languages in the in the clinic because then the French people came and of course, they tried to speak English, but, well, I had to use a few words of French just to make them feel comfortable. And even Italians, I tried to speak Italian. You don’t need to be perfect, but I noticed that people were so happy just to hear you say something in another language in their mother tongue. And I was really tired in the evening switching languages because my team was combined English, German, our software was German. And so now, after 13, 14 years, we have a team where we speak 11 languages. Wow. And this is something outstanding. I think the biggest challenge in communication team development and yes, even patient communication or written patient communication in three languages is really challenging. But I love it.

It. These practices were your practice, the way it looks now. And I encourage anyone to go and have a look at how it looks because it looks amazing. Did it look like that from the beginning, or is that something that you did recently?

No, it’s like 2009. What we did recently, we just bought three new chairs. So this month we got three aksana from from Sirona, which are super beautiful and we just painted the walls now in another colour, this is everything but all the furniture. And the planning was like this from the beginning.

I mean, it’s such a beautiful practice. And now, now that you’re telling me you did that in 2009 when hardly anyone was doing anything cool in dentistry? Well, over here it might have been different in Luxembourg, but you’ve got like a I mean, another way of looking at things. It’s clear. I mean, me and Prav know how difficult it is to do good content. So look at your page and it’s just full of great content. And there must be like, what a team of people, you know, filming the whole time or how do you manage that? Are you the creative lead on that or is there someone else who’s directing all of that?

Yes, I have two accounts. What in on Instagram. One is Doctor Violetta account. This is my personal brand. Yeah. And just for your life, small design, which is our clinic, our team and I have two content creators and digital designers who are preparing the posts. But the videos which we are doing, it’s iPhone. So really iPhone really. And sometimes we have somebody to film like my my. Some movies are done by a film director from Hamburg, which is a friend of mine and the photos we the patient cases and the photos, they are done in our photo studio. My team is really trained to do perfect photos, the smiles and I like to show our cases. I do not like to show any any stock photos and something which doesn’t belong to us. And yeah, we love doing photos. We love doing videos. Sometimes just when we are in the mood in the clinic, we take our iPhone and we just. Yeah, take some.

When did you switch on to social media? Was it like, you know, because you’re like like me, you’re not digitally native, you know, you didn’t grow up with it. Do you remember a point when you realised that’s where I’m, I’m going to focus on that? When was that? Who influenced you?

Well, UK.

Really.

Uk dentist. Well, let’s say I was a little bit careful with that because as I came to Luxembourg in 2009, we are not even allowed to have a website which was looking somehow different and it was totally different than everywhere, even in Germany. And I started creating a website with, of course, a company and I was invited by our like your GDC person. So like the college medical, because they were really all the colleagues were really angry that I am doing marketing. The website was just about informing patient about our working hours, about our treatments and the benefits of the treatments. And we had like two, three years, a little bit of discussions here, but they stopped mocking me and it was a time I don’t remember now exactly. When I met Chris Barrow, it was Internet, it was YouTube. It was I was blown away seeing so many things about and watching his videos about marketing, about social media, about treatment, coordination and everything was was happening in the UK. I felt it’s totally different than Germany and it’s absolutely important and necessary at a certain level, of course. But I was starting doing coaching with Chris Barrow and with Laura Horton, so I am very influenced by the UK dentistry and I visited management courses in London. I was always in touch with, with London, with UK and as well learning a lot about entrepreneurship, about leading a clinic being, yes, a owner. And a principal dentist and trying to get associates and to teach them these kind of treating patients the new patient journey and all all I developed was based on my knowledge but as well a lot, which I’ve learned from Chris Barrow and Laura Horton.

Amazing. I’ve got a couple of questions for you, Violeta, and one of them comes through. We seem to have skipped a huge amount of detail from leaving Germany to landing in Luxembourg and then creating this super clinic as somebody who. Took that journey solo and created what you created, let alone, you know, doing it with a business partner or a team of people. You’ve done this by yourself. Just talk me through the steps of that process. What you went through the ups and there must have been some downs as well. What what were the really tough times during that journey? And were there ever any moments where you thought, What have I done?

Well, it’s a very, very good point because this is let’s say at the moment in my life when I knew I have a tough decision and I didn’t imagine it will be like that in three years. I already was working with patients from Luxembourg, patients who were working in Luxembourg, you know, the Frontaliers, which were earning a lot of money in Luxembourg, living in Germany, because it was more interesting and definitely cheaper. And I thought, Wow, I have these patients. They’re coming from Luxembourg here to to Germany. They are my patients. I’ll go there. They work all there in the banks and all the financial centre and it would be easier for them to come to me like in their break or so to have a cleaning or to have the work done instead of driving through the rush hour to Trier at at six, 630 in the evening, coming for a cleaning and sometimes being late. And my team was waiting, waiting, waiting. Yeah. The Luxembourgish guys are coming. They are in you know, and they have a traffic jam and. In my mind. I said, okay, I will search something, but it has to be in a place where I like. And it was very, very interesting because we were shopping in Luxembourg. I’m coming to Luxembourg City. It’s a beautiful city. You can go out, you can eat. There is a really fancy style. And it was like end of December coming back. We were just shopping for for the New Year’s Eve and coming back from the city on the Boulevard Avenue Kennedy, which is the main road to the centre.

And I look at the left and I see a very nice restaurant. The name was The Last Supper, and I was with a friend and I said, Wow, look at that. It looks so fancy. Look at the lights. And people sit there in the lounge and drink champagne. Let’s go. Let’s go and have some champagne. And really, she said, come on, we have to go home to to prepare for tomorrow. And said, No, no, no, Let’s let’s go for a champagne. And we went there and sit in this lounge, which was super modern. I think the architect, the interior designer, was a designing opium in Barcelona or something like that. So really, really fancy. I look at there and I see the menu of the restaurant say, Well, what do you think if you go eat here for tonight because maybe tomorrow we don’t have a big, big party. So let’s go. It’s the 30th of December. Let’s celebrate the year and said, okay, let’s go have a menu. And sitting there drinking some champagne, eating fantastic food, seeing the people there, I told her, you know what? In this place here, I would really like to have a clinic. And can you imagine that in January, like 2 or 3 weeks later, we go there and I sit at the first floor. It was something to rent. And in February I just signed a contract and it was in the same building. And I can tell you many things in my life happened. Like something from above came.

You just have to wish and it’s coming. And of course, you ask me about the difficult things. And that was the point I wanted to have that I went there, I saw this office, I saw the The view and I said, this will be my clinic. And of course, I was very new in Luxembourg. I was alone, as you say, and I didn’t know many, many things which are regulations or problems with the as a tenant building things. So that means that we just starting construction and we noticed there was no air conditioned and no heating in there so that at one point like 50 K additionally investment to build the air conditioned and then my not the landlord, I was a sub tenant and so he was bankrupt and he wanted from me 160 K because he said, well I built here everything and now you have to pay to me if you want to be there. And it was a lawyers and everything. What you cannot imagine what you go through without planning. And all my business plans and calculations were really in the first three months was disaster. And of course these patients who were supposed to come because they were working in Luxembourg could come to have the cleanings, have something done there, said, well you know, I rather be in traffic jam, but the cleaning in three years is like €20 cheaper. Okay so I couldn’t have the same price as in Germany. You can imagine the wages in Luxembourg are way higher. The rent and everything was way higher.

I had a new investment and my first two years in Luxembourg I stopped doing full mouth restorations once per month and I started with fillings. I was doing composite restorations like 80% of my time and it was super hard in the first two years to get to the level I had in three years. That means from the utilisation and the treatments, which really were good for the revenue. Yeah. And as well satisfying. This was a hard, hard part. And the second, let’s say the hardest part was the team building, because you needed to have somebody to understand English perfectly. I brought a dental assistants from Germany. They were as well now in traffic jam the other side, so they had to travel to to Luxembourg. They were one hour in a bus or in their car. They didn’t find a parking. They were tired. They wanted to go home. They didn’t want to have a break because otherwise they would be there 12 hours. And at 6:00 patient came. So now I would like to have a filling. And my assistant said, No, I’m sorry, but I have to go home, you know? And I was happy that was the first patient to do something in the day. So yeah. And yes, then teaching them the English way, the all the English content and how to talk to patients, which were totally different than in Germany. Team building was the hardest and it’s still the hardest part when you have a clinic with so many languages and yes, a high standard of dentistry as well.

Violetta As a as a leader, you know, somebody who’s leading your practice and your team having been through it, the difficulties and leading your team right now, what’s the one piece of advice you’d give to someone, a prospective practice owner in terms of how to build a team or leadership advice? What would be your top three bits of advice? Managing people, Handling people.

Well, yeah, that’s the most important. I take first communication and of course for me it’s the language, but the language is not the most important. The most important is the attitude. If they do not understand my vision and they do not understand what we are doing there, they are not able to be in the team to find who is a team player. Sometimes it takes longer, but as a owner of a clinic you need to understand each person, the associate or the treatment coordinator or the. Untold numbers, but most of all the receptionist because they translate you to the patient and you can be the best in the room and can explain everything so they can really crash it and have a lot of time to discuss and to ask what they really want and have a test time. When you see maybe you you hire them to be a treatment coordinator, but at the end you see, well, they are a better dental assistant, dental nurse or maybe better in the reception. And then it’s better to ask if they are okay to change. And if they are not okay to change, they need to go.

What kind of a boss are you? Are you a strict boss?

I’m a very strict boss, yes. My people. So I have my my team. I have really people who who were in my team who left and came back. This is a good point. And they came back and they said, we know what we have here. You are really a bitch. So but you are one with a heart. So this is a bit different. They know that I really am very strict and consequent because I want a treatment to be smooth for the patient. I want them to learn. I want them to ask me when they need something. But when we are in the treatment room and they are doing the same mistake three, 4 or 5 times and I need to repeat that. And they know I’m not kind.

You say, because you want the best for the patient, but that could be delivered in a strict way or it could be delivered in a quite the opposite, right? I mean, you know what I mean. I want the best for my patient. I’m not a strict dentist at all. Quite the opposite. We all want.

That. We all want the best.

Yeah. Yeah. So what I’m saying is being being a strict boss is kind of. It’s in you somehow. Like, it’s not in me at all. Yeah, but. But it is. It’s in some people. Prav is a bit of a strict but Prav.

Yeah. Maybe. Maybe the word strict is has a different meaning.

Right now for me, strict is working with a protocol and checklists. This is a consequence. So having everything we need for the treatment, having the checklist and I really wanted to be prepared like that in the clinic is organised like that, but that doesn’t mean that they get.

Like.

We get a big discussion in front of the patient, but they feel exactly when something is missing or is not prepared.

You let them know properly. They know that I’m not.

Happy and they change it. If they don’t change it a few times, then I have to reconsider.

I think. I think when you said that if they and I kind of agree with what you said there in any any in any sort of role. Right. If they make the same mistake five, six, seven times, then you’re not kind. Yeah. And I think that comes to me it sounds like you’re you’re a take no shit kind of boss, right? That you have your thresholds and your limits. They’ve made the same mistake again, again and again. And enough is enough now, right?

Exactly.

When it gets to that point, Violeta and you, for me, I kind of make that decision instantly, right? So I’ve hired someone and there’s, there’s, there’s almost like that threshold. I can’t, I can’t put it into words, but that moment in time and it is literally a moment, I don’t want that person to work for me again. Okay. I know they’re out. Everyone has that. Do you. Do you have that? Do you have that? And then what’s what’s your when that happens, What’s your process? How long do you leave it? How long does it take? Do you have that conversation over and over again in your head? Or do you just go in like a bull in a china shop and say.

Oh, no, no, no, no. How would you do that.

To to yes.

There are two things. So I had people leaving, but they didn’t leave because I fired them. It was 1 or 2 who really decided at that point that they could go somewhere else because it was stressful or they didn’t feel really okay. And they told me that. And they said, You know, I really.

Need to try that, but please, I.

Love it here.

Anyway, if I would like to come back, would you take me back? So but I do not say that to everybody. It was.

Some employees which I.

Really.

Knew. They are very.

Good, but I felt they they are not. Not happy. And if they decide to go, they go. And if they decide to come back, we discuss and we see what are the conditions. And it happened two times for the others. Let’s say the new employees, they have a probation time of six months in Luxembourg. That means in the first five months we need to decide if they really are good for the for the job or not. And this is a discussion which is not.

It’s just, you know, would you like to.

Have something else? Would you like to do like.

You are not.

Trained or.

The role.

Of treatment coordinator, for example, we we we don’t think that you really fit in that position which you apply to.

But we, we appreciate you.

We see that you can do many, many other things. Would you like to do maybe reception or maybe to be a dental nurse? An assistant here is like that. They are trained for everything so they can choose. And if they say no, I don’t, then they have to go. But it has to do as well with the kind of attitude which we are observing. And, you know, this is not only my decision, I may say I always decide with the team, I always decide with the team, which is with me for years, and I can trust them because they feel if that person is really a team player, I cannot see it directly. Yeah, and I know that I can trust him as well because they really want help. They wouldn’t say, Oh no, we don’t like her, let her go. No, that’s not like that. We have a discussion about what are the plus, what is the.

What is the.

The pros and cons. Yeah.

In hiring, do you think you’re strong at seeing potential in someone when when you’re hiring? Yeah.

Yeah. Many times. Didn’t have a choice. Yeah.

Sometimes I had to hire somebody because there was nobody so many times I was applying in in the.

Uk because we really didn’t have anybody to for.

For a while. And the workforce problem in Germany and as well in Luxembourg.

Is, is very big. Yeah. At the end they have to have a.

Very high qualification imagine to to speak two three languages to come along with the software which we are working because it’s a complex software. I took this software with me from Germany. I changed, adapted this to the Luxembourg system. I translated letters and.

Everything in in.

2 or 3 languages in order to be able to print an invoice in English or in French.

So it was a bunch of work at the beginning.

And it’s as well a lot of.

Learning.

I am.

Absolutely aware you cannot learn.

In five months. Definitely. But you see the rate of learning, You see the progress in in five months, definitely.

And you can say, okay.

How long.

Will it take? I am I do I want to.

Pay somebody for two years until they really are there?

And mostly.

It.

Happens that they are there one year or two years and then, okay, the.

Babies are coming and they go and they are gone.

You spent I spent many, many months and years for.

People who left.

For maternity leave.

And some came back, some.

Didn’t.

They as well move. You can imagine Luxembourg is a country. People as well move out of Luxembourg.

So it’s a bit difficult. But by now.

I have a very good team and some are in. I think we got.

Three babies in.

The last two years and our.

Hyginus is coming back now.

After the second baby end of April. And it’s.

Ezra Ralph.

She was a dental hygienist in London. She was working in some known clinics, and she’s with her husband now in Luxembourg. And she’s lovely and we’re happy to have her back.

So I’m happy with the core.

Of my team because I know I can rely on. And when we expand, we are a little bit careful that it’s somebody fitting in the team, completing the team and not bringing it apart.

My other question V letter that I had was I’ve been asked both in Germany and also more recently in France to either speak or assist with marketing and stuff like that. But while differences between the UK and Germany, I’m not so sure about Luxembourg. I wouldn’t know in terms of what you’re allowed to say. And you touched upon that earlier that you come here and you try and bring the UK way and you’ve had some some conversations with the equivalent of the GDC, with your with your advertising. I think I think I heard that correctly Anyway. Exactly. And I’m just really interested to learn what actually happened there because like, for example, I’m speaking later on this year in Paris for Clearcorrect. I had to send them my entire presentation and there were certain things that I weren’t wasn’t even allowed to mention or talk about. And it related to advertising, marketing, incentivisation offers, all of that. And I had to really get creative with my presentation to try and get the same same points across. Right? And I’m really interested to learn how, first of all, the challenges that you’ve faced, both both in Luxembourg and Germany and how you overcame them because because it sounds like to me you kind of and I might be wrong that you kind of broke the rules a little bit and so what happened? And tested the water and then and then see see how far you can push the envelope. And I can see you laughing and smiling now. So. So I’m hoping I’ve guessed right. I just want to learn about what you’re what challenges you faced.

Yes, of course.

I think there’s always.

Somebody who is, let’s say, breaking the rules.

Or trying something new because.

We think we.

Are in. Right. To inform the patient. And in Germany, it was easier.

And I remember many, many years ago, it was like probably 25 years ago, one colleague from Trier, exactly the city where I was, was the first to go on Internet.

To have a website to sell toothpaste.

And he got real problems. He was many, many trials and he ended up really broken. And I think as well for him was the end of the career at the at one point. But he opened our doors. That means from that point we could have a website and we said, Oh my God, look at his website. Everything what you read.

On each page is because.

Of the trial number, blah blah. I am not.

Allowed to say anything.

So we are not allowed to say anything because he lost. But then.

He won.

It was too late for him.

But it was for us. Good. So this I’ve learned.

I never.

Discussed about fees.

Or selling.

Things in Luxembourg because of course this is still forbidden. The social media and Instagram is something coming up probably.

I was.

One of the first.

Here and now I.

See so many colleagues.

Having amazing.

Instagram profiles.

And clinic.

Presentations.

And I think there is one who can who is courageous.

Enough to make the move.

And then the others are waiting, watching, you know, how do you say stalking you? And that’s that one point I noticed. Nothing happens. And they start like very, very a little bit to put something on their Instagram. And then more and more and more. And so in the last one year I saw definitely very good Instagram and social media.

Presence as well.

In Luxembourg YouTube website. It is definitely different than 13 years ago as I as I did my first, and I’m very proud of that because what is the point? We are specialised, we are doing good dentistry, we want our patients to come into the door and know exactly what they what are they expecting. And if I am the.

One who.

They like. Maybe, you know, they.

Wait two months for.

An appointment. They come say, Oh, God, I don’t even like her, you know, But so they have the chance.

To meet me before they come.

They have the.

Chance to be interested in what I’m doing.

And to ask for it. This is for us as well in the patient consultation, big time gain, because.

We.

Don’t do 1 to 1.

Consultation on.

Veneers and explain from the beginning what is a veneer. They know already, what is Invisalign, what are veneers? And this.

Is.

Each of us. They have very high costs. So we want to to save the time.

And to inform the patient as much as possible so.

That they come and have the wish list.

And of course, they need consultation explanation, definitely.

But it’s so important and nobody can say this is forbidden because now we read about everything in Internet, about all all the reviews for something we buy or want to go in vacation, hotels, restaurants.

Why not for dentists.

Let’s say, you know.

Francis Sorry. And just to finish for Prav. Yes.

In France.

Let’s say they are the Leaders.

So Luxembourgish was always a bit French system.

And I think there is a little bit more difficult because it’s a bigger country and here it’s easier to to go near to the border.

But Violetta, what I was going to say, you know what comes to mind when you say that? Of course, I remember back just before I qualified, you couldn’t advertise in the UK either, and it felt arcane and it felt wrong and all that. On the other hand, sometimes the pendulum swings too far the other way. And one of the nice things about, let’s say not having Instagram dentistry is that you have to really focus on good old traditional blowing the socks off your patient, you know, like word of mouth, good old word of mouth. And and I know, I know Prav is going to tell me, Look, you can’t have a successful clinic without both. I get that. Yeah, but the purity of word of mouth means that you’ve got to make a patient journey in your practice. That’s guess, you know, memorable. It’s got to be something that people feel. You know, if you’re doing big cases, people feel like they’re finally jumping in. It’s a big, big step, you know, going for a full mouth rehabilitation or even Invisalign or whatever it is. What are your just like he asked you about your three big tips on managing staff. What are your big tips on patient journey? Um, you know, is it do you have tactics or is it are you just yourself and you’re listening and, you know, the whole thing. Patient journey. Give us some tips. Okay?

Okay. Yes. Um, patient journey.

Um, I do not know. I have the the feeling that everybody should do the same. I always thought I’m doing what others are doing. So for.

Me.

In Luxembourg.

And for for our team.

Word of mouth is very important. Think about the 600,000 people living here. And I can tell you the Luxembourgish, it’s not a I think it’s.

45%.

Is.

Is Luxembourgish, the rest are foreigners.

And word of mouth is I think more more important than than everywhere because people know each other, they live together, they go eat together. So if you are really doing something good, they hear and they want to come. But if you do something bad or if.

If you have.

A.

Failure, this is very bad for you. And even if it’s not a failure from.

The medical.

Point of view, from the clinical point.

Of view. So I was from the beginning aware that here I have to be good, I have to be transparent, I.

Have to.

Explain what I’m doing to.

Explain.

What is necessary to hear what they.

Want from me, but.

As well to notice that it is a lot. They were not educated about like for example, a gum.

Disease that was that is something.

Which was.

Not.

Really.

Something. They knew what that means. So we started at a at a.

Basic level of communication.

Explanation before starting to discuss about.

Implants or veneers or Invisalign.

So that’s why I developed the new patient journey. In that way, we are sending a questionnaire where we find out.

What.

Is their main concern.

So before they they enter the office, they fill out a questionnaire. There. And when they come in, I know a little bit about them. We have a little telephone interview. Of course, when we get them at the phone.

Sometimes we don’t.

And most they come. Yeah.

Yes. Before they.

Come. So to.

Explain how to find.

A clinic, to ask again, what are the main concerns and what how are they recommended and so on.

Then.

As well, this is a filter for the patient.

So they know.

My, my, my front desk team knows if it’s a patient interested in aesthetics or wanting to come to.

Me or is a patient who is.

Interested in implants and needs to see the implantologists or it’s just an.

Emergency patient. Yeah. Then we know how much time we.

We plan for this.

Appointment.

We send a letter where they know exactly what we’ll do in the first.

Session and.

How long time it takes, because most.

Of the patients were used to go.

To the dentist like ten, 15 minutes, check it a little bit and then say goodbye. And when they come to us and we do an intraoral scan, we do interior, we do extra photos, we do probably an x ray as well if it’s needed, if they don’t have a new one. And we take our time to.

Sit down with.

The with Itero scanner.

And to explain.

And to have a risk assessment, we cannot say in the first session directly the.

Whole treatment.

Plan and give.

An estimate.

But they have an idea.

About treatment steps.

And 99% start with the with the dental cleaning.

Program.

They are informed that we are taking photos because we had many.

Times.

As I thought, yeah.

It’s normal. We do photos and patient.

Comes please go do photos through x ray. And so they were sitting there and the photos say, No, I’m not here.

For the magazine, I’m not at the.

Vogue, what are you doing with me? So they were really uninformed, was very bad. So we.

Informed, I think, the information about what’s going on and as well.

The let’s say the option that they choose a very normal short check-up or a comprehensive check-up is very important. So and the second is.

Really to sit down because before.

Entering the.

Mouth with any scanner or.

Dental mirror.

Is just to sit down for five minutes.

And ask them how they come to me and.

How do they know the clinic and just have a.

Chat.

Just a normal chat.

Not where are you coming from? Oh yeah, I’m coming from.

Greece and oh yeah, that’s so nice there. And so a little bit of chat. I think this time is very, very important.

And what are you doing? You’re building rapport at that point, right? You’re trying to see if you like them and if they like you sort of thing.

Yeah. You feel if it’s a patient, I of course you need to be as well to take your time, be empathic in the moment. You’re not a machine to do the same all the time. I cannot give a recipe for that.

But I am there.

I’m communicating and I feel okay. I know how much information the patient needs, how much information they don’t.

Want to hear. And I feel directly.

If they.

Are anxious, not.

Interested or even don’t getting it. So it happens as well.

So you’re gauging all of that. Yeah. And so. So then keep going. Keep going. Yes.

And then you’ve done the.

Preamble, you’ve called them, they’ve come, you’ve told them what to expect. All of that is very different. Right. Very few practices do that. Did you learn that from Laura Horton or did you just make it up yourself?

I think as well From Chris Barrow. Chris Barrow Yes. Yes. But I did in Germany the same.

It was like my feeling that I need to know the patient who’s coming into my chair and I don’t want to enter his private sphere. So going in.

This.

Mouth without.

Seeing his eyes and knowing who he is and.

Who she is, all this.

That was important.

For me to to to get the feeling of who are you? Who are you? That’s important and for sure as well to see who am I?

And before giving to my treatment coordinator or my dental assistant.

To start with the photos. Well, sometimes.

I do myself the extra photos because the studio are so my my office in photo studio are the same room. So we sit there at the at a nice table.

Maybe you see it on social media as like the white table with the big screen.

And on my screen is I have a photo.

Gallery with nice smiles. So they say it somehow.

It’s a kind of of subliminal getting used to what is going on here. And I am watching their.

Reaction when they see very weighty. So. You know, it’s just very interesting when they look at that way. No, no. This is no Hollywood patient and no Hollywood smile here. And then we do the the extra photos first.

So they get used to that.

We talk, we chat in the meanwhile, and the treatment coordinator is there with us and takes them in the room and is doing the the scan. Sometimes we do internal photos as well.

When there is directly clear.

What are we having going to do? But the INTRAORAL scan is enough for the first comprehensive consultation.

And we don’t want to.

To bug them too much with the with the mirrors, with the retractors.

And and anything.

But when they.

Come with a specific wish of.

Dental aesthetics or Invisalign, then we do some close ups.

Violeta how do you handle it when a patient in the preamble tells you, Yeah, I’m just here for a Check-up But then when, when you, when you do the exam you realise, look, this guy could or this, this patient could really benefit from much more involved treatment. Do you, do you bring that in after you’ve done the initial cleaning phase and all of that stuff? Do you do you hint at it? How do you manage that situation?

Well, we we are not taking patients.

Who are not going.

Through a prevention treatment and going only for repair and.

Emergency.

That that’s we that’s not our.

But let’s let’s say they want they tell you on the phone, look, I want to come I want I want to have the hygiene. I want to have a general check-up. I’ve got no no ambitions for a beautiful smile or or whatever. You know, they’re not they don’t want to get involved in big treatment. But then you see you see that they would really benefit from either aesthetics or functional work. How do you introduce it in?

So it’s like that.

When the patient is coming for a general normal check-up and cleaning, then.

Definitely they get that. They get the check-up, they get a cleaning and our dental hygienist is doing a scan. Very easy. Has an internal camera. Very easy. And then it is their work to sensitise the.

Patient to come.

To me for a comprehensive consultation.

With errors and clinical mistakes. I always want to reframe it and say, you know, a failure is just is not a success yet. It’s a success in pending because actually, how much more do we learn when we make a mistake? Yeah. Then when everything goes smoothly because we look back and I, you know, I reflect a lot of my cases and sometimes I see something in the photos and I’m like, Oh my God, I didn’t even realise that happened. And then it’s only when you look at the photos and, you know, typical one for ortho is you lose anchorage and you get a little bit of medial tipping of the 60s and you’re like, Damn 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 gives me great pleasure to welcome Millie Morrison onto the podcast. Millie is a dentist I’ve known since just after she qualified. Actually, I think one of the crop of super talented dentists that came out of Birmingham University under the stewardship of Lewis Mackenzie and Lewis contacted me after he’d introduced me. Well, after we talked about Depeche, I’d met Depeche sort of separately, and then he contacted me and said, There’s another. There is another who’s who’s very talented at composite. And we met and really hit it off straight away. And Millie’s been helping us with Mini Smile Makeover. We’ve been to the US several times together at Aacd. And latterly Millie’s really gone into Ortho and Invisalign in a massive way and much to mine and Lewis Mackenzie. I wouldn’t call it disgust, but. But it’s a shame. It’s a shame you’re no longer interested in resins. Millie is now really focusing fully on Invisalign treatment and teaching. Thanks so much for for coming on the podcast. Mills How are you?

Thank you for having me. Yeah, yeah, I’m really good, Thank you. Um, sorry that I’ve disappointed you.

To get that far. So really, this, this, this part, right? We used to want to sort of start from the beginning and end at the end. Where were you born and how do you want to be remembered? But then what I’ve noticed is, as I as I do them, sometimes the key question I want to ask someone doesn’t find its way into the conversation. And so now I’ve kind of gone this other way of asking that question early. And it’s a little bit unfair because, you know, we’re not in the rhythm of it yet and so forth, but it goes around sort of success for me when I think about you, you seem like such a like a contradiction in terms in terms of your success is as a human being. You know, I spoke to people in your year. They said you were top of your class. And yet when I met you, you were a proper party animal. One of those rare individuals, those rare individuals who who who manages to carry it all off at the same time. I mean, you’re amazing with patience and at the same time amazing at the work itself. You look stuff up and all of that. And you find with with most dentists, you know, skewed in one direction or another. But you seem to be very good at a lot of things. Have you always been like that or do you remember as a child or something deciding to be that person or what led to this?

Oh, gosh, that is a what a question to start with. Um, so yeah, I suppose I have always done it all and, and even when I was at school, I was very academic. I did a lot of extracurricular activities and I started working really young. I guess the main thing for me is I’m quite stubborn, so if I really want to do something, I’ll get it done and I’ll find a way. Um, and yeah, so yeah, I have really always done it all. My dad used to tell me that I was burning the candle at both ends and they were, they, as parents do, always concerned that I was taking on too much and too much and too much. And at times it has been too much and I’ve had to slow down a little bit. So, for instance, now I have less of my party animal ways for sure, more like ten. But then, you know, the other side of it is working in bars and I’ve worked in bars from a very, very early age. Um, working in bars really gave me a different window into communication and, you know, communication skills because, you know, I dealt with very lovely patient, lovely customers and dealt with, you know, more difficult customers who had maybe taken that one too many drinks, etcetera, etcetera. So you really get this range. And actually, I remember one of my very first jobs was working in a bar in a restaurant in my village, and it must have been maybe my first or second shift and I was probably 16 at this point, so I wasn’t allowed to work behind the bar.

But this young guy who was well known, I grew up in a village, so everyone knows everyone. It’s a well known guy walked in and asked to look at the dessert menu and I was a bit flustered and I was like, Oh, yeah, let me get get it. So I gave it to him. He was like, Oh, I don’t. And then he said something along the lines of, Oh, I don’t see you on it. And I just remember going. Right read because I was like, Oh my God, what do you say? I was 16 and I just remember going bright red and sort of running in the other direction out the back. But now, you know, instead of, you know, quitting the job and not wanting to work in that environment, I really pushed forward. And now if someone came up to me and said that, I would react completely differently. So I think it was quite helpful for me to be in those sorts of environments and pushing myself in different directions because it definitely gives you this, I suppose, elasticity in dealing with different types of people.

Yeah. So Prav puts a lot of his success down to working in the corner shop as well. And he says a similar thing about different types of people. And you know, he’s got the gift of the gab, if you like, as well. But why were you working in bars? Because your dad was in that business.

No, no, no. So I am. I mean, me and my sister started working really early, so my first job actually was training dogs. And then I moved into working in, in a in the local restaurant. I don’t really know why I was working there, probably for some extra pocket money, pocket money. And so I could go out and do what I wanted to do because again, quite strong willed. If I wanted to go buy something, I probably did want to go and buy it and I’d find a way to go and do it. Um, and then to be honest with you, I really, really enjoyed it. I enjoyed the, the busyness of it. And I remember be running around and there would be this great team, this great work ethic. And at the end of the night, you know, we’d all have a drink together, obviously when I was over 18 and, and, and we’d, um, you know, I just really enjoyed that sort of family feel, but that really hard work. And then I carried that on after school. So when I was after school, I really instantly decided I was going to take a year out. I actually had my place at Birmingham and realised I’m just not ready to go.

So decided to take a year out, had no money saved. Then I went and took on four jobs and I was really working from 6 a.m. till 11 p.m. most days within these four jobs to save up to go away. Then I went away. And really that’s the only time in my life I haven’t worked was when I was was travelling. And then I came back and I worked in bars the whole way through university as well to again fund the lifestyle I wanted to have whilst I was at university. And it was really that, you know, obviously we had that family with the dentists, but I really loved having family outside of dentistry, and the girls that I worked with in the bars at Birmingham were still very, very good friends with Now, like they they were a really important part of my life. And, you know, we had I remember, gosh, at university I’d go out drinking till 4:00 in the morning and then literally drag myself, dragged myself to university to sit in lectures all day and then in some ways miserable.

Be top of your class as well with it. I mean, what’s the secret to that? Do you really, really listen the first time? Is that what it is?

I was really disciplined. I came home after every lecture and I wrote up my notes. Like every lecture, every day I would come up and you should. I’ve still got them, actually. I’ve got everything in word documents from those lectures. So I learned by doing. But I also learned by writing and rewriting and rewriting and rewriting. So, you know, those lectures in the good old days when they used to print out handouts, I’m not sure if they’d do that anymore, but you sit there furiously scribbling your notes as the lecturer was teaching. And, you know, it doesn’t it’s not that easy to read. So I’d go home and I would write those up into legible notes in word documents that when it came to revision, everything was neatly organised. I knew exactly where everything was, and my brain works that if I’ve written it out in different colours, I will I will remember roughly well, not roughly. I remember exactly on the page in what colour though that bit of information was. So I still remember A-level when I used to do, I used to do it by hand for A-levels in the exercise books. I can still tell you where you know photosynthesis is and my biology and what colour it is and all those colour codes. It’s just how my brain works and keeps those synapses, you know, going together.

Okay, so I’m interested in two things. What did, what did your parents do to make you that person? Number one and number two, number two. What did your parents do to make you the person that you always going out getting a job? I mean, I didn’t have a job. How come you did?

So.

One might. So my parents were both very, very successful. My mum worked in HR and was very high up in BP. Very, very high up. Very, very senior, very well respected. And she really was very focussed on women in industries being successful and how, you know, women can be successful. And she was a really you know, she really is an inspirational person. Um, and you know, seeing her, I suppose, fight those battles and win those battles and really overcome them, it’s something that was very special growing up. And also, you know, my mum used to tell me when she was younger, when I was younger, that she in the village where I grew up, all the mums and that’s a generalisation, but a lot of the mums didn’t work and she would have more in common with the men than she did with the women. And she found and you know, the women in the village didn’t necessarily like that. And I always thought that was really sad and that my mum had these dreams. My mum was very inspirational and people would judge her for that. And I would most people would say I look quite like my mum and I’m almost a carbon copy of my mum in terms of personality. We’re quite driven and we quite want what we want and we’re probably, you know, more Type A entrepreneur too. Yes, and my dad is an entrepreneur and he’s less he’s in some ways quite opposite to my mum.

But, you know, he has the same work ethic. You work hard. He he always taught me never chase money. He was like, Chase what you want to do, chase what you love, because the money will always come. And also there’s more important things in life than money. And he is he again, he would he was very successful in what he did. He does branding and marketing. And he went from Heinz to Mars, very high up in Mars, and then all of a sudden decided to open his own branding company called Elephants Can’t Jump. I mean, I think that name just really tells you everything you need to know about my dad. And then, you know, 12 years after that, he was getting, you know, getting a bit bored and he decided to open up a brewery with with my uncle. And again, it’s been very successful. And he just you know, I watched my dad to this day and we talk about beer labels and and, you know, the designs. My dad’s eyes just light up when he talks about them. And my dad’s close to retirement. And I said to him, I said, Dad, I just don’t think you should give that part of it up because you come alive when you talk about it like he really does. Exactly. So, you know, I feel like he always gave that that level of passion to to me and my sister as well.

And so somehow, somehow, they kept it real. I mean, I’m presuming, you know, you’ve got two successful parents in the industry. You didn’t have to work, but somehow they kept it real for you and sort of, you know, the environment was that you and your sister used to work all the time.

Yeah, I think well, they definitely well, they definitely encourage us to work. And you know my mum in typical my mum fashion, she, she when we were doing a, an allowance, she, we had to make a spreadsheet of everything we’d spend, we thought we would spend in a year in categories. So clothing, CDs because they were CDs in back in the back then um shoes, stationery for school, you know, if we’d spend any money on Apple Music, you know, iPods were just coming out. But all these things we had to categorise put into a spreadsheet. And she would then say, right. She would tell us if she thought we were being ridiculous. So we’re like, you know, say if we put £100 for clothes for the year, she would like, No, I think you probably spend more like 50. And then she would total that up and she would divide that by 12. And that would be our allowance for for the for the month. And, you know, that really taught us budgeting. So if we wanted to do anything, make anything else or buy anything else, we had to go out and work for it. And I think that was a really nice way of doing it because, you know, we weren’t told, no, you can’t have an allowance. But if that’s that’s all you’re going to have from us, you can’t come and ask us for more. And if you want more, then you’re going to need to fund that that lifestyle because this is what we think is fair. So it worked very well and I’m really, really grateful that they made us that they made us do that or didn’t make us do that. They gave us the that environment where we made that decision ourselves. Yeah.

And tell me about your year off. So once you’ve done the work, where did you go? What was the vacation like?

Oh, gosh, it was. It was fantastic. So we. Well, I went to l.a. I did. It was a very typical UK backpacker backpacker trek. Did you get one of those round the world tickets? Yeah. Yes. By travel, I think it was like really difficult. Really? On the beaten track. Nothing. Nothing crazy. Which probably my parents were quite happy about given that I had. I literally I decided that I wasn’t going. I actually went on a girls holiday to Kavos in Greece, and I had such a good time that I decided I really not ready to go back to uni. I want to go back there and work. So I landed, went on a family holiday and told my parents. Then I was like, I’m going to defer my place. And just so you know, I’m going to go back to Greece next week when we land and I’m going to go work out there for a few months. So that’s what I did. And then I came back from Kavos in October, and then I picked up back up my job, my various jobs. I was childminding. I was working in two, two, two bars in the village and a deli. And then in January, I think I left and then I did Fiji, New Zealand, Australia and then Southeast Asia. Which was amazing. Wow. Wow.

So I never knew all that about you. I never knew you did all those jobs. But it makes a lot of sense now. Yeah, because when me and you used to sit around at 2 a.m. in Toronto talking about how dentistry should be, and you’d say you’d say things way beyond your years about patience and patient care and people. And now, now that you put it in that context, it all makes a lot more sense, you know? All right. So why dentistry? I mean, I’m imagining you were academic enough to do whatever the hell you wanted.

So funny enough, I actually decided I wanted to be a dentist when I was four because I liked how fluoride tasted the fluoride. Yeah. What a terrible, terrible reason to be a dentist. And I remember. So, you know, when it came to writing your personal statements for university. Yeah, I wanted to put that on my personal statement. And my mom was like, No. I was like, But that’s the truth. And she was like, No, like, you can’t say that people will think you’re stupid. And I was like, Oh, but actually, yeah. So I decided I did want it was because of the fluoride varnish. That is what I wanted, you know, from a very young age, like really stuck with me that I wanted to be a dentist. And then, you know, as my personality, I guess developed and, you know, I was doing well at school, it became clear that actually a job in health care would become would probably be suit me the best. And I was deciding between medicine and dentistry. And ultimately I and this might sound a bit crass, but I didn’t want to see sick people every day. I wanted to have some really happy experiences with my patients and I wanted to really be able to see people more than once every five years when they’re unwell. This was, you know, from a 17 year old, 16, 17 year old’s perspective where I was thinking like, I don’t like hospitals and anything else.

You know, they’re not happy, happy feeling places for me. I get it.

Well, exactly. And I just in the end, dentistry felt like a really good fit. It had that flexibility. Um, I have to say, I didn’t really appreciate that there were all these different aspects of dentistry that you could go into. I mean, I knew about them, but I hadn’t really.

Did you shadow a dentist? Did you did your parents not did your parents not sort of say, hey, why don’t you go and spend a week in Shell or, you know, Mars or industry? It was industry. Never an option. Were you never thinking of that?

No, no, no. My I think my parents knew very you know, when I said I want to be a dentist or a doctor, they were like, okay, well, off you go, then. Sounds good to me. Headstrong And I actually went and did work experience with my dentist in the village. Along from where? From the village I grew up in. And I remember I used to get the bus and I used to go every Monday morning because I had that as a free period from school. So I’d go every Monday morning and then I’d get the bus back up to school because that was in another village. So I was there for a long time and it was when the rules were slightly, slightly more relaxed. So I was allowed to hold the suction. And, you know, I was there as like a clean nurse. And it was all very exciting. And actually he was a fantastic dentist. And you don’t really realise it when you’re just watching someone because you’re quite young, young, I think did that from when I was 15 to when I was 18. So I did it for about three years. And then it was only when I went to university and you know, they talk to you about what makes a good dentist or a better dentist or a great dentist. And he did a lot of the things, you know, in terms of the communication, the type of treatments he was doing. So I think I was quite lucky that I had that opportunity. And he was literally, you know, a tiny little village and you wouldn’t really know that he would be so good until you really know how good he was, if that makes sense.

So then in your time in Birmingham, were you what stands out as the best and worst of that period? Because I remember going into clinical like the bit with the phantom heads at the beginning. I was just I just hated it so much. You know? I hated it. I did not like it. Then when I got it, I got it. It was. It was the slow learner. Slow learner. What stands out for you as far as what you loved and what you didn’t love?

God, do you know what I really. I really. I loved. I really loved learning. I really, really loved pushing myself. And I guess I’m quite detail oriented and that and luckily I ended up at Birmingham because Birmingham was quite academic, you know, Dental University. So they quite liked the detail as well. I really loved the the Phantom Heads. I loved the phantom heads. I would have spent hours in the phantom heads. I loved being on clinic. I suppose the things that used to irritate me the most is how long I’d have to wait for feedback from tutors. You know, you’ve got to line up and I’m such an impatient person. I was like, Come on, come on. And. And I loved that. I mean, I loved the support. I remember my first tooth I ever took out was a low right to and my patient was diabetic and was on blood thinners. And I really like quite a lot of bonus, really easy extraction. But this guy would not stop bleeding. So my tutor was like, Well, look, you’re going to have to put Stitch in. I mean, this is my first extraction I’ve ever done, and now I’m having to put a stitch in my hands. You should have seen me. I was shaking so badly. And then we did it. We went fine. And I came out and I just burst into tears because of the like, nothing had gone wrong. In fact, it had gone really right.

But I was so like, there was so much adrenaline going through my system. Like I was shaking and I cried and bless him, he just came over and gave me a massive cuddle and he was like, It’s absolutely fine. So we really had that lovely support from from the tutors. And, you know, Lewis Mackenzie has been instrumental in my, in my confidence, in my abilities and in my career because he introduced me to you. He introduced me to ads who I still work with. And he’s been he’s been fantastic. And I was so lucky that I had him for my second year all the way up to my fifth year. I suppose the things I didn’t like is I actually found working in a hospital quite challenging for like a few different reasons, but I did find it quite challenging, like the actual hospital setting. And when I came out of university I was applying to go to the Army because I thought that if this was what dentistry was like in a hospital, it’s just not going to be for me. So I was applying to go to the Army and then when I got to vet and worked in a practice, then I really loved working in a practice and withdrew my application. But I found the hospital setting quite challenging and I think it was to do with sort of the it was quite slow paced, but also the different areas were quite cliquey.

So you had, you know, it was they didn’t really gel together. Everyone was very separated. And I don’t know if that’s the case now, obviously, but it felt quite cliquey and I didn’t really appreciate that. So I was going to go off and go to the Army again. My parents weren’t greatly happy about it, but they did say, You know, if this is something you feel you have to do or if you go, we want you. You know, in the end, I enjoyed practice. And the other thing is, is that I saw I think it was my medical exam. It was one of one of one of the hurdles you have to go through. And I was sat at the back of the hallway and I was watching the back of the hall, sorry. And at the front there are all these kids, 16, 17 year olds being told that they’d been accepted. And they were so happy, like, they like jumped up and they were like, Yeah, I remember looking at them and like, God, I really, really don’t feel like that. Like, I really don’t feel like that. And I was like, I’m doing this for the wrong reasons. I’m doing this to escape something rather than because I really want to do it. And so, you know, that really compounded and the fact that I was now enjoying dentistry and practice to withdraw the to withdraw the application.

And the city of Birmingham itself. Were you were you like aware of it? Of course you were aware of it. But had you been there a lot? Did you know it? Were you aware of it? So did you know it?

Did it shock you particularly well? Um. Well, do you know what I’ve always found really strange is that people were like. Birmingham is the second biggest city in in the country, but it doesn’t feel that big. I feel like a lot of that is to do with the suburbs around it. Um, but I wasn’t that aware of it. My mum went to Birmingham actually, and my granny was a nurse in Birmingham Hospital and she lived in Droitwich, which I believe is just around the corner. My geography is terrible by the way, so even though I have lived, I grew up just outside London. I’ve lived in London for many years. I still struggle with where things are.

Because you’re not, um.

It’s. It’s my. It’s my weakest, weakest point. Like sense of direction, geography. Terrible. So my mum lives in the States. She lives in Florida. And I remember we were around the dinner table and I had somehow got Florida confused with, you know, that little, um, I think it’s like a the outfit of LA or California. And I honestly, I was so confused as to where we were. And I’ve just got my mum. Oh, I know what you’re talking about.

You’re talking about my.

Sister.

Baja, Mexico or something. That peninsula that sticks out the other side. Yeah.

Yeah. I just got it confused in my mind. Like, it was like my sister’s really intelligent. My mum’s really intelligent. Bill, my mum’s husband is really intelligent. They were looking at me like, You’re an idiot. I was like, I’m so sorry.

So what was your.

I was just sort of aware of Birmingham.

Where was your where was your job?

South west London in Enfield. It’s a really, really good shooters. So I was lucky. I had two. One was a prosthodontist, one was an oral surgeon. Very different personalities, one, you know, quite energetic, quite loud, like me, quite extroverted, and the other was quite introverted. And it was a nice mix because, you know, I got to see different points of view and different techniques and different ideas on the treatment planning side of things. And I mean, we had so much fun, like our lectures on a Friday and the, the group of people that we had just gelled really, really well. And I’m still very good friends with a lot of them. And um, we would finish lectures or that the lectures for the day and we would go to the same bar every week. I’ve probably spent all of my wages that year. My annual income at this particular particular pub, the castle in Tooting. Um, and we just had an absolute, a fantastic time. So, you know, we were having a great time in practice because of the support. And I was, you know, it was a really, really nice practice. And then we were just having great fun at the weekend, creating all these new friendships, lifelong friendships. So I was very, very lucky. I was very, very lucky to be end up where I was.

I think. I think, you know what? It’s a brilliant year. If you’ve got a good practice and it can be the opposite if you haven’t. But, you know, when I when I’m talking to young dentists now, I always worry or I always warn them about the year after vet because the year after vet is very sort of isolating you suddenly a normal person, Aren’t you going to work every day in that one room with your nurse? Whereas just it just seems like an extension of union and weird way, like a fun little way. Like you say, you’re meeting new people, you’re learning things all the time. But I think that initial launch pad, I was very, very lucky with my I mean, I put my boss, I put that down to like almost everything I’ve done with Enlighten down to him because he was just one of these guys who wanted to to find out more about stuff. But it sounds like you had a similar thing. They had like a like a good launch pad. Do you remember others who didn’t? Because I do. You know, my partner had a terrible first job. Terrible because I hated dentistry after that. It’s difficult, isn’t it? Some people have. I think that first year is so important that it can, like, make or break the direction of flow, you know?

It’s yeah, it’s definitely really important. And, you know, we were quite we I don’t know how I don’t know if it’s still the same but we, we got ranked and then we went and we, we interviewed so each tutor would have like 15 minutes with each prospective student of, of the, of that region. So it was quite nice because then you ranked them on who you liked the best and who you got on with. So I think that was quite important because it wasn’t just done on your grades, it was done by a personality match as well. And I don’t think that’s the same now. I think it’s now really just on your ranking, isn’t it? I think they might have changed it.

Yeah, I think it is. I think you’re right. Yeah.

But that that getting on personality is really important. I mean, I speak to a lot of young dentists and there’s a massive mix bag, and I genuinely believe that all the tutors want to be able to pass on their knowledge, otherwise they wouldn’t be a tutor. And I believe or would hope that the students want to you know, they’re just newly qualified dentists would want to, you know, get as much information out. But there has, you know, different people work well with different people. So I do believe that like that personality point where you get to meet them first was a crucial part to why we you know, I had such a great year.

Let’s talk about Emily. Do you get do you get contacted by a lot of young dentists asking for advice?

So, yeah. So I speak to a lot of young dentists, I think naturally, because I’ve been, you know, sort of teaching Invisalign go for the last sort of five years. I speak, you know, I see a lot of dentists see me. Yeah. And I, you know, I always say like, please reach out. I’m always happy to help. And they do, which is fantastic about range of things. Sometimes it’s about Invisalign, sometimes it’s about, you know, career progression or, um, what courses they should be looking at. Or they might have had a difficult situation with the boss or they’re trying, you know, they want to leave and they’re looking for the next step. Um, not, not necessarily just young dentists, some older dentists as well, mainly younger dentists. Um, which is nice.

I love helping. I’m going, Yeah, yeah. Where I’m going with it, though, is I get contacted by a bunch of people. I get contacted by a bunch of people who think I’m like super successful at business and so I can help them be, you know, I’m not. And they’re you know what what, what, what the funny thing is, this is this is my question, right? It’s a massive responsibility to answer those questions. And both of us, I think, are kind of people pleasers. Yeah. Like I want to please whoever, whoever it is, it could be a first. It could be a fourth year dental student or it could be, you know, I’ve had a guy contact me about he’s got an invention and he wants to put it to market. It’s a massive responsibility to give an answer. I think the important part of giving that answer is to sort of. In a gift of sort of health warning with it that, you know, this is just like my opinion is, you know, it’s difficult because because, you know, you know, the guy was asking me about patents. You know, I don’t really believe in patents personally, but that might be completely the wrong advice for him. Or I’m telling young dentists not to do not to do a bit of everything and then decide, you know, I’m telling them, pick something early, very early and run with it. And I have I find myself now thinking, well, you know, this is just my my particular slant. And same question to you might give a completely different answer. And it’s important someone gets, you know, understands that just because you’re you or I’m me, we haven’t got the answers to all the questions. Yeah.

That’s true. And, you know, our own experiences will greatly warp our view of the world. You know, there’s always that great saying, you ask ten dentists for a treatment plan, you get 15 treatment plans. And it’s not just the treatment planning side of it, the clinical side of it, it’s the non clinical side of it as well. Like what’s important, how you should, you know, in inverted commas, sell or communicate with patients. Like everyone has their own tips and tricks, but really. The important bit is that, you know, yes, they’re asking maybe your advice, but maybe not only your advice and also having a little bit of common sense. Sometimes people have advised me to do something. In my mind, I’m like, Mm, I don’t want to do that. So no, and I’ll go do something else and it’s not. But actually having that different opinion doesn’t mean that you don’t do it. It just means it’s a difference of opinion and it might make you feel stronger about what you want to do or it might change your mind. You know, just because you’ve had a certain opinion doesn’t mean that that’s what you’re necessarily going to go and go. And do you know, for instance, you know, if you think about me in composites like Lewis Mackenzie was like, oh, you’re going to be fantastic at composite. And and you know, let’s not lie. It’s really nice to be told you’re good at something. It gives you a lot of confidence and you want to go and do it. Do you know what my first report card from Ortho was at university? Disinterested. Do you know why? I was just interested? Because it was 9 a.m. on a Thursday and Wednesday nights were meet you. So I was always tired and I was disinterested in the subject and it wasn’t really taught. So I.

Found undergrad. Also teaching was very poor anyway, in Cardiff, I don’t know about in Birmingham, but it just wasn’t they, they, they didn’t really explain anything to us man did they. How was it in Birmingham. Did they. Was it a good, good grounding.

Well I wouldn’t want to say anything too negative, but I found watching teeth move around, wax in hot water, really quite soul destroying. So and you know, it wasn’t as hands on or there wasn’t as many opportunities, you know, as it were in other disciplines. But, you know, I was always told you’d be very good at composite. You love composites. And I really could have run with that. But, you know, the more I did them and the more I tried to do, you know, did all the layering and this I did enjoy it, but I wasn’t I wasn’t really passionate about it. I didn’t go home and read about it. And I remember speaking to Dipesh and he was like, Yeah, I lie in bed looking at teeth. I was like, really? Like God was like, I couldn’t think of anything bloody worse. When I’m in bed. I wanted to be like, you know, cuddling the dogs or watching Netflix. And so and then and honestly, then I started doing ortho and I found this, like, massive passion. And I was like, I love it. Like, I really love it. And not only do I like it, but I want to be the best I can possibly be at this. And, you know, now I go home and I read books and I read journals and I read papers and I, you know, spent masses on postgraduate education because I want to know as much as I can. So, you know, when I was asking advice from from people what, you know, for instance, Lewis Mackenzie or you probably said, you know, do compost because you’re good at it, but actually that in some ways made my mind even stronger that just because I was good at it doesn’t mean that I want to do it. And actually, I want to go do something that I really love and I want to learn about and I want to become really good at it.

So I was listening to the your podcast with Qadhi, and you said, I can’t remember exactly, but you said like it was it was a very short amount of time before between your first Invisalign case and your first course that you taught on Invisalign like a year or something like this. Yeah. So, so, so you must immediately realised I love this. And then did you go off and start like researching like hell to, I mean how did you become a teacher of it within a year of doing your first case?

So was it a year? Actually, I was. I was actually I was not I was not a quick starter, and I’ll tell you why. So I like to understand things. I really like to understand things. I really want to understand something. You know, to go to the wide, the wide, the wide, the wide, the wide, to feel like I understand the very first why. And oh my gosh, revising was a nightmare because it would take me so long to get through a topic because I’d be like googling and searching for the last wide find. Yeah, just to understand the first concept. And but when I first started doing Invisalign, I was actually one of the first cohorts through Invisalign, you know, Invisalign go actually. And I went, I was working in a practice and all the treatment planning was done off site. And I mean, I think that’s a great service service, but for me. I for me, for my personality didn’t work, like it really didn’t work because I didn’t understand what was happening. And ultimately I was doing PR and putting attachments and I had no really true understanding of what was happening within the plastic or within the tooth. Aligners And I actually left that practice because I moved house and, um, and it was just, you know, it was just a nice. Was that a.

Practice?

Yeah. Yeah, it was fantastic practice. Practice, like really, you know, advanced in terms of this level of care and everything, but Dental Dental in the end, Yeah. And I really, really love working there with Avi and the team, but it was two hours of practice, three different buses. Yeah. Really gorgeous practice. Yeah. And I did try, but two hours on three different buses and nearly killed me. And in the end I went and, and moved to the other practice. I was working at part time, full time, but I had no understanding of the system. So I stopped doing Invisalign and I started doing fixed because I understood, fixed. You know, I could really understand the biomechanics. Um, and I could see it, I suppose it was, it was, I felt like I could feel it with my hands. And I’m quite, you know, touchy feely. I could feel it with my hands instead of it being on a screen. And I was doing loads of fixed and then all of a sudden, um, you know, my Invisalign, Invisalign territory manager popped up who got really, really well with and she was like, Why are you doing so much fixed and you’re not doing Invisalign? And I was like, Well, I feel like I can understand it and I’ve got more control. And she said, okay, I understand that, but let’s take it back. Let’s, let’s do some like do some really simple cases. Here’s the help, here’s the support and, and see how you like it. And then honestly, all the issues I had with fixing because, you know, fixed I do fixed for me when you put the wire on, sometimes you feel like you’re firefighting because you put the wire in and then you see them four, six weeks later, you’re like, Are the teeth exactly where I wanted them to be? Or am I going to have to now tweak this and tweak that, etcetera, etcetera.

Um, whereas, you know, when you’re, you’re planning things digitally, actually you’ve got lots of control, not just over where the teeth finish, but how the teeth get there. So like round tripping thin biotype things like this. Um, and I just started building up really slowly with really simple cases. Um, and it was massively successful and I really, really loved it. And I was asking for help and I was asking for support, um, and getting some really fantastic results. And I was always sharing that with my team. She was, you know, when we got on really well, we’d go out for dinner and drinks and she would come to the practice and she actually started bringing round these random people from Invisalign who just happened to be with her for the day. And they’d come in my lunch hour. And let’s be honest, I was working the NHS at this point. I had my hair in like the messiest bun on top of my head. My makeup had probably sweated off by that point. I looked a bit bedraggled and I’m not like the neatest person ever anyway. And um, in terms of looks.

This is Kentish Town, right?

Yeah. Um, and most of the time, because I was balancing the NHS and really driving through with this author, I was working early, I was working through lunch and I was working late to try and balance it all, hitting targets.

You were working hard. I remember when I came to see you. Even even when I came to see you, I remember you running around, jumping between patients and opgs and whatever it was.

Oh, of course. Yeah. I worked. Really. I was working really, really hard, actually. Anyway, she was bringing all these people and they weren’t random people. They. They end up end up being like head of marketing for a mere for Invisalign and all the, you know, all these big shots of aligning technology and they liked the cases. She was like, oh, show them some of your outcomes. Show them what you’re thinking is show them this. And you know, in my way, chit chat, chat away, not really thinking anything of it. I honestly thought that some of them were TMS in training, and these are people who are like the driving force of Invisalign through EMEA.

And.

Oh, so naive. Um, and anyway, they were interviewing me, but she hadn’t told me because she didn’t want me to be, you know, overwhelmed I guess would be. Yeah. So then they liked my personality. And, you know, let’s be honest, I was a young female dentist who who was being, you know, having lots of success with the Invisalign product and getting good results, you know, not just going doolally with it, but taking my time in terms of, you know, planning and everything. And so yeah, so they onboarded me really quickly and gosh, I always say that Invisalign changed my life. And always sounds such a corny line. I do know that, but it did because I made that conscious decision to do more Invisalign. I remember, you know, when you do the enlightened training and you said Whitening Wednesdays. So I talk about you and Whitening Wednesdays when I’m when I’m talking to my sort of delegates. Because if you talk, you know, you said if you talk about whitening to everybody, you will do more whitening. I remember I got to talk to everybody about Invisalign and I will do more Invisalign. And that’s what happened. And it really changed my life because not only did I move out of the practice, you know, the practice into into private practice, but I also got this opportunity to speak and to educate. And I found my second passion through that. And bearing in mind that when I went to the social sector in Birmingham University, when I had I remember it so clearly Payman it was awful. You had to give a speech and I was shaking. I was bright red and I barely made it back to my seat because my legs were shaking. I can’t imagine. So to go.

From.

Oh, was I was so nervous. But to go from that to to, you know, going all over the world like it’s been such, such an amazing journey.

Yeah, Yeah. So. So listen, a lot of that kind of stuff is to do with getting out of your comfort zone, isn’t it? You know, and, and growth growth comes from getting out of your comfort zone. And yet in the moment, in the moment that you do something that’s out of your comfort zone, especially someone like you, who likes to be in control, must be really difficult for you. Like, you know, like you were saying, when that when you had to put that suture into that tooth. Yeah. That first time where you’re not in control of what’s happening. And by its very nature, the first time you gave a lecture, the first time you did Invisalign, the first time or the many times that you do things slightly differently, they must all cause you like massive internal anxiety because you’re the kind of person who, like you said, wants the full detail on everything, wants to know exactly how things are going to turn out, How do you square that circle?

So that’s actually it’s really interesting. I suppose I’m slightly addicted to the like to the high of learning something new. Like I really I love it. Like that’s it’s quite an addictive thing to be, to learn and then to learn something else. And you know, when you reflect on the case, you’re like, Oh gosh, like, I didn’t do that and I should have done that. And now I know I need to do that. And you get better and better and better, and I find that quite addictive. And also one of the things I’ve learnt and I’ve been taught by my own sort of mentors is that when you feel uncomfortable, when you feel that fear, instead of trying to lean away from it, which is our natural reaction, is to lean into it. Yeah. And really lean into it. And it’s tough because you’re naturally wanting to run the other way, but you’ve got to lean into it, lean into those difficult, difficult scenarios, the things that you find most challenging, and then you grow. And sometimes I have like these butterflies in my stomach. I’m shaking. I feel so nervous and like the other week I did a TED Talk where a TED type talk and, you know, normally when I lecture, I have my screen, my presentation, I’ve got my slides and I’ve got my clicker in my hand, and that’s comfort. And this TED talk talk was 20 minutes. No, no slides, no clicker to a room of dentists who had done the diploma in clear aligner therapy. So, you know, the challenge there was to also find something to make them think and to, you know, to not just, you know, something different and slightly different point to point in the view. And oh, my gosh, even though I will go up on stage in front of hundreds of dentists in different countries and talk with my slides and my clicker, that was not that was the barrier. I was really, really nervous and I was shaking. And before I was stood there at the back of the auditorium doing my power poses from Amy Cuddy.

Like literally just to make yourself feel better. Oh, gosh, yeah. I was there. My hands in the air, my hands on the hip. I was deep breathing and I was doing these items.

I was like, I am confident. I am capable.

I am going to nail this. I was like, I had.

This mantra going through my in my head because it was so out of my comfort zone. And and the whole time my legs were shaking. At one point I was like, I can’t feel my face. Like my face had gone numb.

Everyone enjoyed the talk. Like, you know, I got great feedback from it.

So it came across well. But internally, you know, just because someone.

Looks like everything’s.

Fine and smooth.

Doesn’t necessarily.

Mean everything.

Is like we’re, you know, we’re.

All growing. And Ramon, who asked me to do that, he said, I’ve asked you to do it because I know it’s going to be difficult for you, but I want you to grow.

I mean, I’ve obviously done a bunch of events with a bunch of speakers, and what I always tell them is if you’re not nervous, something’s wrong. You know, before a big you know, if you’re stepping out on stage, it doesn’t matter how many times you’ve done it at that moment, you you know, it’s just I mean, we all know that the Simon Sinek thing about nervous and excited being the same chemical translated in different ways, and I understand all of that. But being a bit nervous before a talk is sort of normal. You know, there’s a, there’s, there’s nothing to be worried about there. I’m quite interested in. You work at Chris Hall’s practice to be asked by Chris or to apply for a job. Is that how it worked? Did he. Did he. Did he did he ask you? Yeah. Given to be given that job when there’s hundreds of dentists going through, you know, that course. So did he tell you what did he see in you that made him sort of ask you and the handful of others who’ve worked at that practice?

He said he does say he knows I did the reading every week because he’s a stickler.

He’s a stickler for that.

And, you know, actually, funny enough.

You’re the one that told me to go for the course because if you remember back then, they wanted two years experience out of out of dental school and I only had one. And you were like, you need to do it. And I was like, Really? But and, you know, rule following me, I was like, The rules say that I shouldn’t. And I emailed Zenith and I was like, Is it.

Is it okay if I apply? And she and she was like, Yes, we do want we do like to, but if you want to apply, then you think.

You can do the work then? Absolutely. Because it’s not necessarily the two years experience. But I think they really want to make sure is that you have the ability to put into practice what they’re teaching you straight away. And, you know, sometimes your first year out of dental school, that’s like, that’s just not going to happen. But it was I mean, it was a great opportunity. And I remember I was so honoured.

Yeah. I mean, look, it’s an extraordinary course, which is why I advise you to go on it. But how soon was it straight after the course that they said, Hey, come work?

No, no. It was a couple of years later. So I did the course. I did the course 2016, 2017, and then I joined the team in March 2018, I believe. Or maybe maybe it was March 2018 or March 2019. I think it was 2018, but don’t hold me to that. But he he was Chris. He Chris was coming to do a talk at one at the end of the Invisalign days and I was co-presenting as sort of a lead in to the into teaching. So actually it must have been March 19th and he sat at the back and we were looking at a case together because I just asked him if he wouldn’t mind having a look at a case. And then he did his thing and we were walking out together and he was like, you know, do you do you have 1 or 2 days you can give me? And I was like, Yeah, Again, I was like, Oh my gosh, I’m so nervous. But okay. Yes.

And then eventually I had a.

Presentation together with my cases and sit there with him and going through on this massive screen. Um.

But what an honour, What an honour.

Did you, did you feel, did you feel the way you would expect someone to feel in that moment when Crystal says, Come work at my practice?

Oh, yeah, absolutely. I think the first thing I did is I came like ran home and called everyone called. I called everyone. I was like, Oh my God.

You’ll never actually actually know. Do you know what? I’ve just realised what happened. So I we actually went to the theatre that night round the.

Corner and.

I remember.

I can’t remember what we saw, but I remember meeting my family and everyone there and us getting, you know, the little bottles of prosecco.

You can get. I’ve got one of those each. And we did a cheers and.

And no one, none of my family, no one knew who.

I was like Chris Chris always just asked me to go to like go for an interview and go for a job. And they’re like, He was Chris Oh. And I was trying to explain. I don’t get it. They had no idea. But anyway, they still got like, we still got a little thing of bubbles.

You know, for what it’s worth, for what it’s worth, I’ve been proud of you many times in your career, but when I heard that, I don’t know why, I. I was very, very. I was probably more proud of you that day than than any other day, because I’ve known Chris and Zayn for a long time and they’ve got very high standard. Let’s talk about that. Let’s talk about the difference between working I mean, adarsh mega entrepreneur, maybe the least sort of emotional person I’ve come across when it comes to, you know, I’m sure he just wants you to make people happy, end of story. Do whatever you like, make people happy. Um. Chris or, you know, I’m sure his practice is full of systems and processes and everything has to be exactly done his way. And then, and then the family business, which was, you know, gentle Dental with so many different branches and so many different people inputting, you must have learned something different from each of these, right?

Yeah, I mean, absolutely very different places.

So it’s such a pleasure.

To work in different in different practices under different bosses who have different approaches to things. And it you, I mean, you just get introduced to different ways of working. So you know, yeah, ads is like super, super laid back. And when I went to Chris, you know, it was a bit more of a shock because they, they wanted to like check, check the letters and, you know, look at, look at our treatment plans and a lot more detail. And at first I was a bit I was a bit like, oh, so you don’t trust us?

But actually how stupid was I to think that?

And also kind of egotistical isn’t the right word, but, you know, that sort of thing. Like how I mean, the reason they wanted to look at the treatment plan isn’t so that they were checking up on us, but it was to give us this opportunity where they would look at our plan and say, Yeah, okay, well, this is a really good idea, but have you thought about it this way and have you thought about it that way? And what about if you did this and did this and did this and again, they just instead of you following the same protocol for every patient, they would bring in different you know, Chris and Dana saying it’s less clinical. But, you know, they’re both pull in different ways of looking at the case ten times better. And, you know, you just learn so much that way. So yeah, systems and those processes in place, but it’s still both approaches are there to support and to guide you and to and to make you better. And it’s just different ways. But then I remember doing my first full mouth rehabs adds his practice and him helping me, talking me through, going through everything. So, you know, again, I’ve been very lucky in terms of in terms of my principles, in terms of my therefore mentors and the different approaches, because it’s given me the opportunity in the space to try different things and to really work out what I like to do and how I like to do things.

Yeah, to have to have someone like Chris or on hand to ask questions must be a massive learning thing. I mean, to have your cases all sequentially going through him, you must you must learn so much from that dictionary encyclopaedia. I should say.

Honestly, his mind works in a completely different way. I mean, to anybody else’s I’ve met and the way he puts things together and you know, sometimes I feel really, really, really stupid because I ask him the same question about five times. But, you know, he’s really patient. He’ll explain it and he’ll explain it and he’ll explain it and he’ll sit down. And I remember, you know, I had someone come in and they’d had direct to consumer aligners and their occlusion was a mess. And so we were setting it up the articulators and we were, you know, looking at whether we were going to add take away or realign. And he sat with me doing sort of looking at where the contact was. We’d set it up and looking where the contact was taking that away. Then what happened to the occlusion? Then what happened? And then what happened? It was hours that he gave me sitting there doing that. And when I wanted to understand more about Bimanual manipulation, he sat with me and, you know, he did it to me. And then I did it to him. And then we did it on my nurse. And, you know, he’s very he’s so willing to share his his knowledge and his time. It’s just fantastic.

But tell me this, you know, with with the work that you’ve done with Invisalign, have you have you done anything else with other Aligners or have you only exclusively worked with Invisalign?

Because there’s so many right at the beginning.

I know. I know. So right at the beginning I did try a few different aligner systems and I found I personally found the Invisalign system the most reliable in my hands and the easiest to understand from the interface. So I always say to my patients, you know, you’ve got the option of having clear aligners The brand I use is Invisalign. At the moment it’s the market leader because of X, Y and Z. But there are some new aligner systems coming on to the scene which are exciting, you know, and there’s a massive sort of upturn of people doing their own aligners because once you understand the biomechanics, you know, you can manipulate the different systems. I like, you know, when you when you’ve used one system for so long, it’s difficult to move because you know the system, you trust the system. And I guess, you know, the cases I’m doing now are the cases where they’ve been rejected to have aligners, you know, they’re being told, no, you can’t have aligners you have to have fixed. And then they land at my doorstep going, please, I really don’t want to have fixed appliances. Can you do this with Aligners? Because I’m doing those more complex cases. I really want to use a system that I know like the back of my hand. So it’s almost like a catch 22. But yeah, I did use other systems in the past for a couple of cases and I just found that with Invisalign I got what I needed and what I wanted.

Well, look, I understand why Invisalign invested in you early and they’re the market leading. They’re the biggest Dental company. Not not the biggest clear aligner company. They’re the biggest Dental company. And so it makes sense, right? And at the same time, though, you know, Dipesh, for instance, he teaches for for us with enamel, but he insists on on staying on top of every other material that’s that’s out there. He’s doing work with doing cases with all the other materials at the same time to make sure that his teaching is, is, is correct teaching. Yeah. Yeah. I’m not saying I’m not saying, you know, you’re doing something right or wrong, but there’s so many new ones coming out that it’s important for your for your students, for you to be able to answer the question. Right. Because you’re now a teacher of it. You know, what is it? What are the advantages of Suresmile over Invisalign? I’ve got no idea, by the way. Yeah, but but there may be 1 or 2, right? I mean, you’d be crazy. And I know it’s a strange thing because each one of those, you know, dense ply, if they can get 1/20 of the valuation of Invisalign with suresmile, that would be well worth it. That would be a $2 billion company or something. Or Spark or Philips are bringing one out candid or there’s 100, isn’t there? Or making them yourself like you said.

Well there’s there’s angel coming from there’s Angel coming over as well which is going to be quite interesting. I mean, absolutely. I think I think for me, if I can, it’s all about case selection, right? I need to I need to be able to to to do that with the right patient, with the right aligner or the aligner system. So and there are dentists that I mentor and might help who who use slightly different systems and we can, you know, talk about it and manipulate it and get it to where where we want it to be using the principle of biomechanical principles. So I guess vicariously, yeah, I’m using some of the other systems, but it’s that case selection and I guess, you know, when you and I was approached to use some different systems and etcetera, but it’s about choosing the exact right case where I think it’s going to be possible. And because of the type of cases I do, I need the route talk or I need the, you know, the intrusiveness I need I need to know that I can get those more difficult movements and I know I can get them with Invisalign. So it’s waiting for those maybe slightly easier cases to come through the door, which I really wish would come through the door more often.

Because I spend less time planning them. But then I can.

See and then I can experiment with the with, with the other systems, because also I’ve got a responsibility to my patients that if we’re going, you know, I don’t want to have to abandon treatment. Exactly. So it’s a and you’re right. That’s that’s something I need to I need to work on.

It’s How about, you know the difference between you who’s doing advanced cases and an orthodontist? What is the difference?

Uh, I mean, there’s a lot there. I think it’s different.

To have a general practitioner, um, to do orthodontic treatment than an ortho. Obviously they’ve got the extra training, they’ve got sort of that understanding of growth potential. So I really treat adult patients. I’m treating my first child patient at the moment, which is my it’s actually my cousin.

Again, I know.

It’s always nerve wracking. But again, I haven’t done it by myself. I’m I’m I’m working with a specialist orthodontist who does a lot, who spends all his time doing clear aligners for children. And we’re going through the case together step by step, looking at it. So, you know, I like I’ll do things that are slightly more challenging as long as I’ve got the right people around me to understand and to one, explain everything and to look at things because you can read a textbook, but when you put it in practice, it’s very different. And also, if I hit a hit an issue or hit a problem, I can go and ask them. So it’s twofold. Ortho and general dentists will always look at things slightly differently, but I honestly think that it’s we’ve got a wonderful opportunity where actually we can work more closely together for the overall benefit of the profession and and of the patients, because, you know, general dentistry maybe shouldn’t be doing, you know, really, really crazy stuff all the time. But then also some of the authors are more trained in fixed appliances. So perhaps there’s something they can learn from a general practitioner who’s doing more complex stuff in terms of biomechanics and clear aligners. So I think there can be that bidirectional relationship rather than us, you know, knocking heads and going against each other.

That could answer a difficult question.

It’s a difficult question.

Do you come across the 32 CO?

Yes, I have, actually.

And I am I think I’m 329th in the list to be to be contacted.

So. Right. Yeah.

I’m waiting I’m waiting patiently.

For for people. I’m going to have Sonya on the podcast soon. But the idea is that they firstly mentor with orthodontists. They’ve got a bunch of free education and then orthodontists plan the case. But then there’s the really funky piece, which is once the case is planned, then they put it onto a marketplace of all the different aligner labs around the world that make aligners. And then those labs bid for the case. And I guess, you know, some of them are in China and some of them are in Europe and some are quicker and some or whatever. But it’s an interesting idea. And, you know, she’s she’s trying to disrupt Invisalign. Everyone’s trying to disrupt the line. Are they because of the value of that of that product? And let’s get on to darker days.

Yeah. So no, I’m waiting. I’m waiting for my callback.

So I can trial it.

I’ll put you in touch. She’s. She’s very busy.

I actually met her at the bar. She’s.

She’s a friend of a friend. But I didn’t take her. Didn’t take her contact details. And also, I don’t want to be pushy, so I’m just patiently waiting, you know?

I’m sure. I’m sure she’ll be in touch. Let’s let’s talk about darker days. This kind of my favourite part of the podcast. It’s weird why I enjoy this bit the most errors. Let’s talk about errors in general. I really want to talk about clinical errors because of that whole black box thinking and learning from each other’s mistakes. What comes to mind when I say clinical error?

Gosh. Um.

Well.

I think, well, gosh, with errors and clinical and, you know, mistakes, I always want to reframe it and say, you know, it’s a failure is just it’s not a success yet.

It’s a success in pending because actually, how much more do we learn when we make a mistake? Yeah. Then when.

Everything goes smoothly because we look back and I, you know, I reflect a lot of my cases and sometimes I see something in the photos and I’m like, Oh my God, I didn’t even realise that.

Happened. And then it’s only when you look at.

The photos and, you know, typical one for ortho is you lose Anchorage and you get a little bit of medial tipping of the 60s and you’re like, Damn.

It. Like you’ve checked the.

Occlusion and I go around the shim stock. I’ve got, you know, the occlusal grind on the itero and da da da da da. But that little means little tip that she didn’t see until you reflect back on the on the photos. And then, you know, you need to get better. I mean, my gosh, I’ve had cases where I have done way too much buccal movement, buckle proclamation recession. That’s never fun, especially because it doesn’t always look as that bad when you finish the case. But when you review it a year later, you’re like, Oh my God. And then you got to get, you know, refer to the periodontist, you know, mistakes. A lot of my mistakes have to be honest with you, are poor communication. So I know you said earlier that I’m a good I get on well with patients and it’s true. I get on well with patients, but I really don’t like difficult conversations. And I, I used to really, really struggle with it. And I would feel bad for having to tell patients they were going to lose a.

Tooth or they had to or they had periodontal disease. So I’d really try and not tell them. And honestly, I’d always try.

And sugarcoat it or make it seem in the best possible way I.

Could.

And that led to more problems than anything. Because ultimately, whilst I thought I was being nice to the patient, actually I wasn’t. I was I thought I was being nice, but I wasn’t because I should have just been much more upfront and direct. But let’s get specific.

Let’s get specific about a real, real painful episode in your past. Oh.

One really painful episode. Really, really painful episode. I had a patient who. Had and this is this is my most painful episode ever. He had a upper left, too, with a big crown on it. A little bit of spacing in the upper arch, a little bit of crowding in the lower arch, really simple alignment. And then we’re going to change the crown or the veneers three quarter crown on the upper left to anyway. He we changed the crown. We went through, we did the Invisalign was fine. Did did all the ortho came to the crown. Honestly he didn’t want to whiten.

It.

Because he didn’t want to maintain the whitening. And even though he went through that, he didn’t want to whiten and he had quite quite discoloured teeth with lots of character in even though he’s quite a young guy. And we went through one crown which she didn’t like the colour of and I agreed. We went through another one. He didn’t like the colour as I agreed. And then the third one he was happy with, we cemented it, but when he walked outside he wasn’t happy with it. So now all my patients, when we’re doing a single tooth, they go outside.

The light is too light, right? Yeah.

The light was different, so he didn’t like it. So anyway, we cemented it and I say, Right, fine, that’s okay. But I have to say the previous prep was, was quite heavy and I was talking to him. I was like, I’m really nervous about, you know, not nervous, but I really want to avoid taking this on, off, on, off, on, off again. So let’s try and get as close as we possibly can without removing the veneer. So even though it’s slightly grey and he was like, Yeah, no, I agree, but I think I gave him a slight complex because then we were going through different, different veneers with the lab and the lab was sending two three back sometimes because we just couldn’t get it right. And unfortunately, halfway through, not only did we have this difficulty getting the shade, but he started he got this pain.

And we looked needed.

Vitality testing. It’s coming back fine. There was no apical area. Everything looked normal. And then the pain went away. And then he came back a little bit later and later and he was like, Oh, it’s back. And I looked at the back of the tooth and the tooth was pink. So he had internal internal resorption. And I was like, No, Oh, I’m the worst. You know, the thing is, is like I had a really good from the start of treatment and the alignment had taken two months. It really hadn’t been long and I hadn’t taken a PR because I had a good quality view of the tooth on the OPG. But that was a mistake. I should have taken another PR, even though when I took the PR, when he first got pain, there was no changes. But from a medical legal point of view, I should have taken another PR, So then I sent him off to my endodontist who I use, and he had a CT scan. He was like, Yeah, it’s internal resorption. I think I can fix it, so I’m going to go in and fix it. So he went in and and repaired it. Obviously there’s a risk that it’s not going to work. And of course it didn’t work and it continued, but it continued silently. So there was nothing, you know, nothing going on outside. And we just managed to fit a veneer that.

Was finally the right colour after it had this root canal treatment. And then he comes back a.

Week later and he goes, I’ve got some pus. And I was like, No. And then honestly, I took another PR and this point was swimming, swimming in in space.

And I was like, Oh.

I’m going to cry. I was like, I’m literally I’m going to cry in this moment. So he sent him back to the endodontist. He had another CT scan. And it’s, you know, it’s it’s much larger now at the same time. Okay. This this patient was really lovely, quite demanding in terms of his his aesthetics in the aesthetics that he wants, which is fine. What I deal with that a lot, but he was becoming progressively, progressively more and more anxious, which I completely, completely understand. And like, let’s not lie. My anxiety levels are rising by this point. And, you know, every time I saw him in the diary, I was like, Oh God, I just want to go home.

My anxiety is rising.

Listening to the story. Come on, come on, come on.

Honestly, it was so bad.

Anyway in the end. And but the problem is, is because his anxiety was, was was increasing and we had this like, opportunity that we thought we could repair the tooth again and get on control of it. And you know, I don’t I’m. Anyway, he was so anxious that he didn’t want to go ahead and he was umming and ahhing, umming and umming and ahhing umming and ahhing. And then when he decided he did want to go ahead, it was too late. So then now we’re talking about extraction and implant. So what should have been a really simple case and you know, it was one of those, one of those things and I reflect on it loads and gosh, I had so many sleepless nights. It was awful. Um, and in the end.

What was the.

What was the feeling was, was the feeling that he was blaming you or was he blaming himself or. But you know, the feeling between us, the confidence slipping in the relationship.

The the confidence the relationship was was definitely slipping, of course. And he kept saying he was in contact with my daily he was in contact with me weekly via WhatsApp. All my patients have my WhatsApp number. It’s a business WhatsApp number so I can put an out of office on.

Yeah, but it.

Was slipping. And he kept saying, you know, I don’t I don’t blame you, but this isn’t what I thought would happen with treatment. And I was like such a low risk. Like, I literally, like I got, you know, and you get to a point, you’re like, I have nothing else I can say. And I spoke to different people and funnily enough, they were like, right, refund him for the veneer, but don’t refund him for the Invisalign. This isn’t your fault. But I actually I refunded him everything so he could go and, and you know, they were saying if you do the implant here then it’s going to, you know, we’ll obviously do it for free and then you’re only going to pay the cost. But he had lost confidence. He had lost confidence at that point. And he had found something he was really confident in. And this was the cost of the implant and that’s where he wanted to go. And in the end, I was like, Yeah, fine, you like, I’ll I’ll give you that refund. And I know there are going to be people who disagree with that approach and that’s completely fine. But that’s what I felt was the best thing to do in the moment. And I’d do the same. You know, everything has gone half everything’s gone well afterwards. So it was who paid, Who.

Paid, paid.

For all the Endodontics Was that himself or did you refund that as well.

He, he paid. He paid. He paid for the endodontics.

That’s okay.

You paid for the endodontics.

So now. So now reflecting. Reflecting outside of outside of that that you think you could have taken if you were being a proper defensive dentist. Anything else that you think you could have done better?

I feel that we could have.

Taken the first initial episode of Pain a little bit more seriously, but because it went away and there was really nothing to see. And I remember and and honestly, something niggled me. And it did niggle me and I know it niggled me. And, you know, sometimes you have a gut feeling about things and I really wish I’d followed my gut more and sent him to the endodontist earlier because even though I couldn’t see it, you know, this is what I think is amazing about dentistry is we’ve got so many people who specialise or have special interest in different things. You don’t have to rely on your own judgement. You can you can send people. And if I’d sent him, then when I was having that gut feeling that could possibly could have been avoided, possibly could have been saved. That’s not for sure.

Was it a while ago? Was it recently also?

Were you younger?

Less experienced Few a few years ago. A few years.

Ago. But not, you know, crazy long ago. Not right at the beginning of my career. Probably about midway.

As far as I’m concerned. You’re still at the beginning of your career. You know, I mean it. I mean it. I mean it. Yeah. Because. Because these. These spidey sense things. Yeah. Having, having the, the, the sort of the conviction of your feeling and, and when, when something feels wrong not doing it. But you don’t know why something just feels wrong. Yeah. That, that takes years and years and years to develop and you know even with your accelerated rate of, you know, getting, getting on with all of this, if it was two, three years ago, that was really at the beginning of your career. You know, it takes time for that spidey sense. It’s not the Spidey sense itself. It’s acting on the spidey sense. That’s the point. Yeah. Yeah. That, you know, it’s yeah, it’s it was. You can’t really blame yourself for that one though.

Well, I don’t know.

The other thing that I really wish I had done is I wish I had taken a photo of when I had sectioned the old veneer off the old three quarter crown off and I didn’t have that photo. And so I wasn’t sure if I had gone more subgingival and nicked the cementum somewhere. Like I. I couldn’t say for certain. I didn’t think I did because generally I really hate taking off ceramics. It takes me ages because.

I’m like, Oh, have I gone too far? Oh, have I gone too far?

But so I don’t think I did. But you know, and I quite like answers. And so there were, you know, I should have taken should have taken photos or more photos. But then again, I only know I now want to take that photo because I went through that experience. But if I hadn’t gone through that experience, I probably still wouldn’t be taking those photos today. True. True. Yeah, it was terrible. Honestly, I.

Felt so sick. I felt I felt the pain there a little bit.

Yeah.

And and, you know, even the financial implication of handling handling that back because you’ve already paid for it, right? You paid 50% of the lab bill.

With.

The principal, and now you’re handing 100% back all the honestly pay the hours and hours I spent in clinic. So, you know, it hit hard from from multiple different angles. Have you ever.

Had have you had a situation where a patient comes in and it looks like a tough case or they seem like they’re a tough patient? And then there’s one side of you is sort of the ego side of you saying, I can do this. And there’s the spidey sense side of you saying avoid. And you know.

Yeah.

So we used to. We used to, we used to, we used to trying to make our patients happy. Are we in any way that we can? And then you’re good at what you do, right? So there’s always the, you know, niggling sense sense that whoever tried it last time didn’t know what I know. And, you know, there’s that that piece. And often that’s the case, right? I mean, that’s often the case. Have you have you ever had that situation bite you?

Oh, my gosh.

So there’s always you know, you.

Really have to step back from your ego. Like I want to do like, I want the challenge and I want unless, you know, if there’s something really challenging, then I go and speak to mentors all the time. I have lots of different mentors in different walks of dentistry that I have no qualms about going to ask and going to ask for help or going to ask for guidance. And, you know, I actually really like it because we get to geek out a little bit, but oh gosh, like so many times you look at something, you’re like, that’s a really terrible margin. Why have they done that?

I can do that better.

You do? And you’re like, Ah, this is why it’s a terrible model.

Yeah, you’re there and you’re.

Like, Patient can’t open their mouth.

I know. And you look at it and you’re like, Why did I do it? And you just you’re there, you’re slightly sweating. Your nurse is like, Oh my God, now we’re going to run late.

And just you’re like, Why? Why, why, why? But, you know.

Yeah.

Does a case come to mind that that happened?

No, not one in particular, to be honest with you.

It’s not one that went wrong badly. No, I mean, to be.

Honest with you, I’ve been quite, quite fortunate that I’ve hit bumps. But most of the bumps, apart from that one big case I just told you about. Most of the bumps have been really easy to fix. Like, you know, created an anterior open bite because I forgot to cover the apex and I put a liners in. So the apex over erupted. That was shocking when that walked in the door.

I can tell you, God. But then. Oh, gosh, yes, honestly. And but in what timeframe.

Did that happen?

Oh, my gosh. Payman. I had just been asked to be a.

Speaker for a line and my first text.

The next.

Week to Ramon, who is.

He’s the founder of a line of consulting who does all the training, who was actually going to start working with. That was my first message. After he.

Had just hired me.

I was like.

I’m really sorry to be asking you this.

But bless him, he was really lovely. He was like, No, you’ve really owned up to what you did.

You know what you’ve done wrong. This is how we’re going to fix it. And he walked me through it and really see my blood pressure then came down because I had a plan and it was fine. But.

You know.

Teaching and teaching as well. The situation comes up where someone asks a question and if you don’t know the answer to that question, I don’t know is the best answer. And yet we find that. But but we find that, you know, as the teacher, you know, you’re there to answer those questions. So there’s again, one part of you saying, you know, thinking, I don’t know the answer to this question. And there’s another part of you saying, well, let me just say something to to make this right. And it’s I think it’s a massive responsibility, not only in teaching in all the people I deal with, the ones who say, I don’t know, I end up respecting the most, you know, suppliers, lawyers, whoever the hell it is. You ask them a question, they say, I don’t know the answer to that, but it’s so difficult as the teacher. It’s difficult to admit to that, you know. But I think it’s.

A great response. The only answer they give I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.

All day.

I don’t know. Sorry. I think so. Normally, if I don’t know something, I’ll say I don’t know. But also I’ll be like, but if I’m going to really apply some logic to it, this is what I think. But I can go.

And I can go and find out.

And normally you’re in the right.

Rooms and I do sort of have this like what I’m doing now, this like snake back and forth, which I do when I’m tend to be tend to be thinking and thinking around, you know, what’s what’s the logical explanation or where would the logic be taking as I’m thinking of an answer, because sometimes, you know, you do get a question you’ve never had before, and maybe it’s just a different way of thinking about something, you know? But then if you don’t know, I’m always like, Oh, I’ll go and find out and I’ll and I’ll email you or I’ll text you. I like to WhatsApp. I really I’m not a big fan of emails. I’d much prefer to WhatsApp people than anything else.

Me too.

So now, now you’ve got this mentoring and online course that you’ve started and remind me if I’m about this. I said to you, Are you going to open a practice? And you said, Absolutely not. This is what I’m doing. Is that right? Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. No, I have no interest in owning a practice.

Though, right? I wouldn’t write it off right now because I think you’d be an amazing you know, you’d have an amazing practice. But. But, but I get it. I get it. You know, in the same way as Jaz Gulati said, he definitely doesn’t want to practice because he’s gone into, you know, protrusive and all the things that he does. Yeah, but but go through. What is it? What is it? Is there, is there an element because I saw you actually visited a dentist a couple of days ago in Devon or whatever it was. Yeah. Yeah. So, so there’s an element of face to face and there’s an element of online. Is that right?

Yeah. So I guess one of the.

Things I found incredibly valuable throughout my whole career is having mentors and having someone that can go and ask and go and talk to so and so I developed this program and it combines 1 to 1. And mentorship. So for treatment, planning for general questions with me, but also my treatment coordinator for the team because it’s not just the dentist. If you only focus on the dentist, then, um, then you know, I feel like you miss a massive part. Like the team is so important. So we’ll do, you know, Zoom calls and chat to the team as well. And my, my treatment coordinator is fantastic. And she comes on and, you know, she chats. She chats the team and we we help them, you know, look at their patient journey and really go through that. And then as well as all the clinical treatment planning. And then we have sort of a lecture element to it. So we have that level of knowledge. Um, and it sounds like it’s going to sound like a massive commitment, but then there’s group mentoring. So you’re part of this safe community where you know everyone and it really is a community, so it won’t be for everyone.

But that’s okay because we, we want we want people who have that like mindedness and want everyone else to do well and want to grow. And we celebrate our wins. We we we look at our hurdles and we dissect them as a group because you, you know, as you said, dentistry can be really isolating. And this is a way to get out of the four white walls. And then there’s the live, you know, going to practice. They come to my not my practice, but ace in Wimpole Street and with ads and they’ll come there. I go to go to their practice and then we have a we you know, we’ve organised a couple of dinners. We’ve got a live day at the end with live patients. So it’s trying to create a blended learning environment that’s not just a one day course where you may or may not put it into practice afterwards, but where you have that mentorship sort of six months and you know, I can help you. And our our aim is to get you getting you to do many more cases.

But in a safe.

And predictable way. So you.

Are.

You’re you’re really serving your patients in the best way. And also that growth, because I find so many people want to do clear aligners, but perhaps they’ve never spoken to patients about that value of treatment or, you know, they they don’t feel confident in planning with the software or, you know, whatever the barrier is. But actually having someone to hold your hand and say, it’s okay, let’s go forward together makes then changes. And, you know, even just having the confidence of, you know, to say yes to patients because you know that I’ll be there behind you or over your shoulder helping you get get to the right result is great. And it’s different from a treatment planning service because whilst I’m helping them treatment plan, I’m not just saying we’re going to do X, Y, Z. I’m saying we’re going to do X, Y, z because of A, B, C, So it’s that next level. So, you know, they they can go and they can. Everything I tell them they can and give them they can ten x it, you know they can grow and grow and grow.

Let me ask you a couple of unfair questions. Oh, good. Look, I’m looking for an aha moment. Yeah. Yeah. Around Invisalign. So, look, of course, it’s a massive question. We could. We could talk about it for four hours longer. Yeah. Yeah, I’m sure your course is a few more hours than that. But. But, but, but the bigger heart in your, in your mind that clicked. Something that clicked. I asked Sam Jethwa this about veneers and and he said to me really interesting about the occlusion, not just being inside out, but being outside in. And, and yeah, it was a Southerner half for me because I hadn’t never thought of outside in. Yeah, I’d always thought of it inside. Inside out. Yeah. Around Invisalign. Let’s start with I’m not looking for a sales one. I’m looking for a clinical one. Treatment. Planning one. What, What comes to mind when I say that?

Gosh. Um.

It’s unfair. So in.

Terms of.

A.

No, it’s not unfair. So actually, it’s it’s.

So I guess for me, what I.

Really used to think is I used to think that it was a displacement system. So where you’re just moving the crown from place to place and when you realise actually that’s not true, it’s a force.

Driven, it’s.

A force driven system. So now when I’m treatment planning, I plan where I want the teeth to finish and then I plan how I want the teeth, like the teeth. I’m looking at how the teeth are going to get there and like I’m looking at the forces that are going to be needed and I will overcome. I mean, honestly, I have one clincheck for the patient and I have one clincheck for me.

And clincheck for me is, you know, the teeth don’t look like they, like.

They’re in a straight line, in a straight position because I’ve over treated in some areas, not all areas, but it depends on the predictability of the movement, the correct movements appearing with it. Yeah. So, you know, most of my everything looks slightly torqued the wrong way because I know the line is going to struggle doing maybe doing, you know, expansion with proclamation. The two moves don’t work. So that staging and that that looking at it not just as a clincheck but that force like dissecting the forces behind it that has like changed complete approach and now I’m getting much much better results much more quickly and the patients are so much happier. I mean and a lot of my patients on five day changes and we’re finishing in one set of aligners, which is awesome. Like it’s awesome, but it’s because, you know, and I was blaming the patient, I was blaming the system and actually it was all my fault.

Because I wasn’t looking at the forces behind the system.

Properly. I mean, the biggest variable is that the plan, isn’t it? That is the biggest variable. Yeah.

Well, yeah, I mean, but you can.

Plan and plan and plan. But if the patient doesn’t have them in the mouth, it’s not going to work. True.

True.

So yeah, so it’s like it’s half done, half of one, six, a dozen or the other. I think that’s the saying.

Yeah.

But you know, but that.

That’s that’s interesting. So the forces, you know, you’re saying to start with the end in mind and the particular forces on the particular teeth and the full understanding of that and the overcorrection piece where you’re asking it to do something, you know, rotation or extrusion or whatever it is, that’s difficult to overcorrect on the clincheck so that it manages to get aim for the stars. And yeah, so that yeah, that’s interesting. And what about on the, the selling side? Because I know when you’re super confident about something, it’s much easier to sell it because you’re just super confident about it. But, but how do you teach your, you know, your students. Do you ask them to go after the health benefits of straight teeth or do you assess the patient based on what you think is important to that patient and then hit them with those benefits, or how do you do it?

So there are two things I think are really crucial. One is to listen to the patient and actually listen to the patient and find out their why and chase that why a little bit. So why is this important and why and why and why? And I think it’s more important to find out the why than to chase the. Yes, I know. You know, I don’t I don’t like chasing lots of yeses. I like chasing the why. And then the other thing that ruins it is if you don’t look confident. So my biggest piece of advice.

Is for for.

Dentists is to take the photos, take the scan. If you’ve got one, put the photos on the screen and talk your talk to your patient through it and say, look, I’m seeing this. Are you seeing that? And think about it as a whole. And but but give yourself the space. Most of my patients don’t get a treatment plan when they’re in the chair. I say, look, I’m going to go away and think about everything we’ve said and I’m going to I’m going to come up with the ideal treatment plan for you. And then we have a zoom call a week or two weeks later, depending on how many other disciplines I’ve got to get a hold of and get an answer from. And when I come back to present the plan, I know exactly what I’m saying. I’ve thought it through. If I’ve needed to speak to mentors, I’ve spoken to mentors. So then when I’m talking to the patient about it, I’m not only in my super confident, but I’m super excited because I can already envision what’s going to happen at the end and the patient then picks up on that and they’re like, Yes, okay, Right. No, this is going to be good. And because I know their why, I’m tailoring the why into that treatment plan and only then am I bringing in my why. So your why is that? You want a nice smile for your wedding. That’s great. My why is, you know, your teeth are falling to pieces because your class to div two and you’ve got a restricted envelope of function. So you know you bring you then you focus on their why and then bring in your why. So you’re coming at it from both angles, but you separate it from that initial conversation later on. And I tell my patients when they come through the door that I might not be able to give them the answers that they want today, because if it’s complex, I want to go away and think about it so I can come up with the absolute best plan for them.

I bet you get massive word of mouth from your patients though, because they can feel that you care. You know, that’s much better than spending money on marketing, right?

Yeah. We have a lot of friends, family.

Mothers and daughters are.

Another one. Like, you know what I love? I love it when you’re.

Treating like husband and wife or, you know, any partners because and actually brothers and sisters as well. I have to say, siblings are another great one to treat at the same time because there’s this like level of competition between them. Yeah, Yeah. Oh, my gosh. And they’re like, I want to finish first. I want the best result. I want this, I want that. And you can really leverage it, Um.

Because, you.

Know, then they’re like, they’re so driven and each one is like keeping on top of the other one. It’s great. Like I’ve, it’s like a little bit bad playing.

One off the other, but it does work really, really well. I’ve been there.

I’ve been there with the same thing. Our times come nearly to an end. Um, we’re going to finish off with our usual questions that we ask all the guests. So. My one first fantasy dinner party. Three guests, dead or alive.

You know, this has actually been playing on my mind like the last three weeks because I hate this question. I was like, oh, it’s such a good question.

Matty did not want this answer to this question. He wouldn’t answer it.

I really feel him. I really, really feel that.

So did come up with an answer for you.

So the first person who I.

Would want is is J.D. Gleason or Jackie Gleason, who’s not not the actor, but he actually was.

The first guy.

In Australia to breed an Australian kelpie. And anyone who knows me knows I’ve got two dogs, Luna and Frank, who are Australian kelpies, and they are my absolute world.

But my God, are they challenging dogs?

They’re like border collies, but they’re sassy with it.

So I just think, you know.

Like going back to their roots and really understanding where they came from and what the thinking was about it and like how that then breeding went on would be one. It’s just so awesome to know and two would really just help me do better for the dogs because knowing, you know, just the, you know, the inside out and I’m really obsessed with my dogs, like really obsessed with him. At the weekend, we went to see some friends and they’re like.

Are you.

Dog owners? Are you dog parents? I was like.

Obviously we’re dog parents. They are my children.

So you got two of them? Two of the same breed?

Yeah. So they’re. Yeah, they’re two.

We’ve had Luna since she was a baby. And then we adopted Frank literally a year ago, a year and a month ago. And they are. They are a handful. A lovable handful.

But they’re very, very funny. Dog. Luna is like the sassiest.

Of just Googling it while you’re talking. Is it chocolate brown? The ones I’m looking at.

Yeah.

So Luna’s chocolate brown.

And then Frank is black.

And tan. So Luna is, like, really sassy. She’s really judgemental. So we were hiking at the weekend in Devon, and there’s a there’s a steep, really steep and the switchbacks and Luna would run up, run down, run up and then wait for you at the corner. And you knew she was like, Come on. I was like, I am walking as fast as I can.

I cannot walk any faster up this hill. Stop judging me. And then Frank’s just a complete goofball, like, complete goofball. He’s the funniest. Like, he’s just such a funny dog.

But anyway, so that’s why I’d want Jack.

Gleeson, because he is the person.

Who first decided.

To breed.

Kelpies and the second person is actually a mentor of mine who I speak to all the time. So Romano Clarke, He just because like, as I said, I love to geek out and him like when we’re together, we just really, really geek out. And I find it so fun just to really, really geek out on the biomechanics and the materials, everything. And it’s this really nice relationship we’ve got where we really bounce off each other. So I just and I really enjoy that. And then the third person would be my grandma who passed away when we were really young. But I have such wonderful memories of her. Me and my sister skipping down.

To the.

Newsagents in the village because she’d buy us a £0.10 packet of penny. The penny sweets. Do you remember those?

Is that your mum’s mum?

My dad’s mum.

And she, you know.

She had this really interesting history where she was born in Angola, grew up in Egypt, met my grandpa who was Scottish originally from Malta, however, and then moved to England. And, you know, I don’t she died when I was young and I don’t I never really got to talk to her about it or appreciate our heritage. And, you know, it’s something that’s sort of been lost within the family. So and and I just she was such a wonderful person. And I remember her being a wonderful person. But I don’t I feel now I could appreciate her being a wonderful person so much more because I’m older and I can remember and I can ask other questions I really want to ask.

It sounds like you’ve got like feelings but not details. And that’s what you want to get from her.

Yes, yes.

Yes, exactly. I need the detail.

That’s lovely. Yeah, you too. All right, let’s move let’s move on to Prav deathbed question. On your deathbed, got your friends and family around you.

Is this is this.

Three pieces of advice? Again.

This is the other one I’ve been really worried about.

The perfectionist is coming out now. Finally, one hour 44 into the podcast.

If you want to make Milly not sleep for a week, ask ask questions like these. Don’t tell my patients. So so one So.

I really, really suffered from imposter syndrome. So, you know, I was very I was really young when I started like educating. I was, you know, especially.

With you guys.

On Mini Smile Makeover. I was really young and, you know.

It was quite.

Daunting. But like you helping out the students and and you were a baby used one year out of university, but you’re still good at it. You were still good at it back then. You’ve got a real, real talent for teaching. I got to. I got to save that money. You really do.

But go on. Thank you. Thank you.

But gosh, But you know that imposter syndrome.

Makes you feel like the smallest.

Smallest person and you feel like a fraud and you feel like you’re lying to everyone. And actually you’re not lying to everyone. It’s just that you know how mentors can see something in you that perhaps you can’t see in yourself or a coach can see something in you that you can’t see in yourself. You know, trust other people when they say you’re good and that you can do it and you are meant to be here. So, you know, that would be my first piece of advice. The second piece of advice would be to take, to lead in and take on the challenges. So don’t be comfortable. And obviously you can have a comfort, a comfort Saturday every now and then.

But most of the time you want to be.

Uncomfortable, you want to be challenged. And you you know. So last year I actually reached out to a new coach because I wanted to to leave dentistry because I didn’t know why I wanted to leave dentistry.

But I was so fed up of going.

In to the practice. And I honestly thought that that that was my career in dentistry over. And what I wanted to do is I wanted to start. It’s going to sound so silly.

I wanted to start a pub, but instead of the.

Owners bringing the dogs, the dogs.

Brought the owners and so.

All the dogs would be off lead. They’d all be having fun and playing together. And, you know, the owners.

Is just sort of there.

But you can go interact with other dogs like that. I was so close to leaving and, you know, my dad owns a brewery, so I was like, Excellent, it’s going to work so well. Anyway, going through that coaching, what I realised is that I was really like bored. I had stopped pushing myself. Yeah, I was doing some more complex cases here and there, but and I was actually the funny thing is I was doing my masters at the time. I’m still doing my master’s, but I really, really felt I had stopped growing. And one of the one of the areas I’d stopped pushing myself in is that that education and mentoring other dentists. So now that’s why this year I’m really pushing, pushing that because I really lights my fire. I love it. It’s like the most rewarding thing, you know, ever. Um, apart from when Frank learned to sit for the first time, that was pretty.

Rewarding as well.

No, you know what I mean.

But so.

You know, and. And one of the things my coach told me was to push and lean into the things you find difficult because then you’re going to grow. And it was having the confidence to step out and do something by myself instead of, you know, always hiding behind, you know, a company. So that was what I found really difficult. And now that’s what I’m doing and I’m having a blast. I love it. Like I come, I work most nights and I come off and I’m like beaming. And so, you know, lean into the things that you find difficult. And then my third piece of advice is to have fun whilst doing it.

Because you can work and work and work and work. And if you’re not, you.

Know, we’re only here once. Like, I really don’t believe there’s something coming after. And that’s just my that’s my personal belief. But if we’re, you know, we’re only here once and you have to have fun. And so, you know, like with the burning the candle at both ends, like I wanted to study, but I wanted to party. So I’m going to do both. And, you know, I want to work, but I also want to go to Devon. So we’re going we’re going to drive late at night. We’re going to get there at like midnight and we’re going to do both.

Um, you know.

All these.

All these things that you that we.

Have to balance. And it’s hard. And I think the other thing is, is that it’s not always, you know, 5050 in relationships or fun and, and, and work etcetera, etcetera. Some weeks it’s going to be 1090, other weeks it’s going to be 6040, other weeks it’s going to be 7030. But on balance, you’re going to find that balance. And you know, I now go, well, I always quite a happy person, but I do feel like a lot of the time I’m almost like playing and just chatting.

And having fun.

So it doesn’t always feel like work. And sometimes it does, of course. Um, but, but, you know, I’m genuinely happy doing what I do and I’m genuinely happy with the balance I have. So that’s so, so important.

I love that. I love that. For someone who doesn’t like these questions, you had some pretty good answers there.

Honestly, that’s the 3 a.m.. 3 a.m. thinking. I’m joking.

Really? When did you qualify? 2015. 16?

Something like that. 2015?

Yeah. So I’ve been watching you since then, and it’s been a pleasure to watch. And and you’re right that that thing you said about when when someone can see something in you that you can’t see in yourself, I come across that problem sometimes, you know, talk, talk to someone and say something. And they don’t they haven’t got the confidence to to acknowledge it to themselves that they might be the right person for something. But I really look forward to seeing, you know, where where all of this takes you. And, you know, I know you’re going to cover for me at many Smile maker, but I can’t I can’t think of any one better to do that. You know, anyone would trust more to do that And and you know, considering that but really considering you’re only qualified. I know you feel like you’ve been bit you’re only qualified since then. It’s a massive achievement. So maybe one day you will get that doggy pub thing going as well. Why not? Well, we’ll see. It’s been a massive pleasure. It’s been a massive, massive pleasure. Thank you so much for doing this. It’s been a long time coming as well. We were thinking of doing this for a while, but it’s been a long time coming and best of luck with the the author thing. If someone wants to check it out, what’s the website called?

So a line of confidence.co.uk or pop me a message on Instagram and we can set up a call because you know, we want to make sure I want to make sure it’s right for you as well and make sure that I can I can help and I can serve you and you know, and we can work well together. So having that having that call is sort of it’s sort of really, really nice because we get to introduce each other and really important. But yeah, through, through Instagram. What is your Instagram?

Morrison or Dr. Miller? Dr. Millie Morrison.

Yeah. I came.

Across a couple of a.

Couple of people on the team.

A couple of people on Mini Smile Makeover who’d signed up for, for your thing. And yeah, it was, it was cool. It was cool. Cool to hear what they had to say about it. Really, really proud of you, sweetheart. Well done.

Thank you.

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

Thanks for listening, guys. 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.

We thought, well, what if it’s the back of. It’s the back that always moves, isn’t it? When you put a bleaching, when you put any appliance in the mouth, the front is very stable because the teeth are quite long. But it’s the back where you know, where you’ve sometimes got the teeth that are leaning in or you’ve got the short clinical crowns. That’s where and the back moving just lets saliva in. So thought. All right, well, what about an attachment to stop the back from moving? It was simple as that. Like no, no, no, no. Nothing deeper than that.

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

He is co owner of one of the biggest whitening systems on the market. He is the course coordinator of Mini Smiles with Dipesh Palmer and he is a fellow podcaster being the co-host of the wonderful Dental Leaders podcast. Yes, listeners, it’s Payman. Langroudi. Payman.

Well, it’s an absolute honour to have you guys.

To be here, man.

I call you The Godfather, the Godfather of Whitening and of podcasts. Oh really? I hate the word legend, but you are a legend. Truly a legend. Uh, probably some of my viewers are too young, You know, being a Parkinson who used to hockey. Yeah, literally. You are. I think the Parkinson just smooth elegance in how you do things. And it’s interesting.

You say that because I always think Stewart is the most verbose guys I’ve ever come across. Man, when I listen to. I’m a fan of your podcast, by the way, dude.

Payman You are a gentleman and a scholar. You are the listener, then? Payman I’m the one.

I’m the one from London.

But all this time I thought it was Hatton that was downloading the London.

He’s not in London anymore. That’s the problem. Yeah.

I’m always double clicking. Clicking everything. But no, it’s the absolute, absolute gentleman. You are. And I’m really, really grateful because I know you’re busy, busy, busy, busy man.

But podcasting, I mean, we’re always looking for tips, as you can probably imagine. Having listened to our podcast, you probably you can probably think of a few tips you could give us. But how did you how did you get into it? And and what tips would you have for budding Dental podcasters out there?

So yeah, we got, you know, Prav and I were both talking about starting a podcast together, like we’re separately. So he was going to do one for his for himself and I was going to do one. I was just a big fan of podcasts myself. And then because Prav does some marketing for for us, you know, we talk a lot. He’s one of my best friends anyway. I’ve known him for since 15 years. And we said, Oh, maybe we do one together. And, you know, for me, I’m, I’m quite good with some things, but I’m really bad with other things. So I am quite good with, with, with creative stuff. I’m quite good with, you know, vision and all that, but I’m not really good at like execution and Prav. He’s the opposite. He’s really super, super good at getting things done. And obviously because he’s got a marketing background and understood the basics of you’ve got the product itself, which is the podcast, and then you’ve got the distribution of the product. And I knew he would be really good at that. I knew any time we didn’t have a guest, the two of us could just talk and we went for it. And you know, he’s one of those guys. If he wants to do something, he finds the best person in the world to ask about how to do that thing. And he he he said, look, I’m going to find the world’s best podcast coach. I said, is there such a thing? And he found a guy. We paid him $1,000 for a phone call. It was like a it was a half an hour phone call where he basically said, Look, just do one. That’s all He said, honestly, That’s all he said. He said, listen, go away.

Record One voice could give. I give. Yeah, basically just do one Stuart’s eyes.

But hang on. He’s a medic. And you’re a dentist.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, that’s correct. Because he’s a medic, isn’t he?

He did. He qualified as a doctor. He never really worked as a doctor, but, yeah, so we found this guy and the guy said, Look, do one and then come back and we’ll have another phone call, another $1,000, and I’ll tell you what to do after that. And then so we did one, and then we went back and then he said, look, this is the way to launch it. This is the way to these are the people you need. And, you know, again, neither of us wanted to spend too much time on it. And we said, look, we want to just do the podcast and let other people handle other bits. And so, you know, there’s an editor, there’s a guy who uploads it onto libsyn for the all the platforms. I personally handle the social media because I wanted to I wanted to try that so that I could then boss around my other social media managers for enlightened and Mini Smile Makeover. Um, but you know, we have conversations. The biggest tip I’d give, dude, is consistency. Consistency in all of content. Yeah. You know whether whether you do it once a week, once a fortnight, whether you post once a day or six times a day, they say on, on you know tick. Talk or whatever. Consistency is the key. The audience likes the rhythm. And then once you could do consistency, then you find, you know, your audience finds you.

If you can, you be consistently inconsistent. Payman Is that an approach that you could take? Yeah.

That’s an approach that won’t work very well.

If it works very well. But it’s certainly an approach we’ve employed. But whether it’s worked well or not, I think the listening figures of you are a testament to that. So Payman mean, we would love to indulge ourselves in a meandering chat through Dental podcasting for the rest of the evening, but I suppose we should ask you a little bit about your career in dentistry. Can I ask you a little bit about your, your journey in dentistry, really how your career started and briefly up until where you are now and you’ve now become essentially the major tooth whitening provider and also a major dental podcaster. So how did you go from, you know, to to that?

So I qualified from Cardiff with three well, two other guys and my wife who The Who later became my wife. Um, I live. I lived with those other two guys for five years in university and they became my partners in Enlightened. Um, but we, we were dentists, right? So we did. We made sure we did in the same town back then you could, um, and then we were associates. And then I was involved. My, my boss was a guy called Nick Mahindra. I don’t know if you’ve ever come across him. He, he certainly had. He had this thing where he would, he would jack open people’s bites like by a lot edentulous patients. Back then it was, it was thought of as very dangerous to open the bite by more than, you know, two millimetres. But he was like he was just totally opening them up, you know, he was he was getting these amazing results, like facial results. These people were completely constricted, you know, completely collapsed. And he’d be opening them up and then you’d wait another sort of two weeks, and suddenly their faces would relax. And he called this thing the Dental facelift. And so I was his vet when he was going through this process, and he had the insight to hire a PR company. Um, and they got this story into the Daily Mail of this woman who’d been to him and the before and after. It was just a really profound before and after, like really weird totally changed her face. And it this one article in the Daily Mail completely changed the guy’s life like the phone didn’t stop ringing for six months continuously just you put it down and it would ring again, put it down, it would ring again.

And he ended up selling that practice and going to Harley Street and then only doing that treatment and then doing it on Dental patients and all of this. But it had a real effect on me. And he was he was a really good guy. He sort of involved me in every part of his business, you know, wherever I wanted to go, he would let me go into the numbers, everything. And I just noticed, man, you know, the press, you know, like it’s a it’s a massive thing. And so when it came to starting our own business, you know, we’d been associates. We were associates, all of us were associates. And we were skiing somewhere. And we said, Hey, why don’t we do like a practice that only does teeth whitening and, you know, it’s a teeth whitening centre, you know, that was the idea. And I thought maybe these city guys would, would, would come and have their teeth flossed by a hygienist and scale and polish and, and bleaching only that, nothing else. Those are the only treatments we were going to offer. And we said we were on this chairlift in Canada and that’s where we said, Well, should we call it or we call it enlighten, you know, enlighten me or whatever, all these sort of ideas. So then we got back and there was four of us. So these two guys who used to live with and my wife who was, you know, going to become my wife soon, and we said, Look, we’re four dentists.

Let’s open four practices all with the same brand. And back then it was quite, you know, even then branding wasn’t a thing, especially branded dental practices wasn’t a thing at all. Um, and we said, All right, we’ll open 1 in 1 in the middle, one in the West end, one in West London, one in North London, whatever. And we’ll call all of them enlightened. And the thing that the sort of the thought in my head was, what is the story? Because I remember being in on those PR meetings with those PR people and they kept on saying, all right, so Nick, what’s the story? What are we what’s going to be the headline of the story? And I kept on thinking, you know, what’s the story? What’s the story? And and so I decided, look, the story has to be some amazing new technology comes from the US for the first time to the UK in these and it’s in London and there it is. You know, it’s enlightened practices that do it. So we thought, all right, well, let’s go and find the best teeth whitening product in the world and see, you know, where is it and find it. The Internet just about started, so we Googled it. I don’t think we Googled it. I think we Yahoo! Did it. And this company came up called Bright Smile. Yes. Do you remember them? Yeah, with.

White.

With white. It was a beautiful light. It was. It was it was about five years before Zoom existed and they were making all sorts of claims. And it was funny because it turned out they they owned a duty free shops all over the world. They were the world’s biggest owner of duty free shops. And the guy had decided he was going to go into teeth whitening now and they’d raised like £25 million or something. And so anyway, we went we went over and said, Yeah, we want to buy four of your machines for four of our centres, you know, for practices. And the guy, you know, he was one of those proper American businessmen. You know, I remember being very uncomfortable in the meeting, 27 year old kid, and the guy said, look, you know, your your timing is excellent because, you know, you’re really early on this, but in a way, you’re way too early because we haven’t even got an office in New York yet, let alone an office in Europe anywhere, let alone an office in London. And he actually said he his parting shots were, you know, you guys, you’re great. You’re dentists, which is great. But we don’t need dentists. Right now. Right now we need distributors. And I don’t know what the hell he meant. I don’t know what that meant at all. So I went back to my wife’s brother, who was one of these McKinsey Hotshots, and I and I said to him, he said this thing about distributor. And he went, he went, Look, you know, in the end it’s just a different business plan. He’d written the original business plan. Anyway, he went, Yeah, listen, go back with this one, which is like, you want to be their distributor, right? So we went back and said, Yeah, yeah, guess what? We’ve changed our plan.

Now we want to sell the machine. We want to sell it all over the UK. And anyway, we’d never got that deal. Someone else got the deal, but we were so invested in it psychologically that we went and found the competitor of theirs, which was this ugly looking. It looked like a vacuum cleaner with a tube coming out of it with a crappy lights on it. Like, you know, the bright smile light was this amazing thing. They’d gone to idea. Do you know about idea that like these product design like the best product design house in the world you go there and you say look hard time. I bet you’ve had an idea for this, like interdental brush that comes in from every angle. Like if you ever want to get that product out there, go to idea. Yeah, give them like 250 grand and say, look, draw some pretty pictures. And they’d gone to idea and made the bright smile light. I don’t know Stuart if you’ve come across it, but it was like this robot thing that the head kind of came out and it was blue light. And then they had all this research that said, Yeah, the light makes a big difference. And then they opened on day one. They opened like 11 huge teeth whitening centres all over America, like in the major cities. And so anyway, we didn’t get the deal. Someone else got the deal. Um, this guy called Malcolm and he started on day one with like London cabs or with small signs on them. And we were like this other player, man, you know, this number two. And it was, it was interesting, man, because if you remember, teeth whitening was completely illegal at that point. Yeah, it must have.

Been so many people that told you it could never work.

Yeah, my parents, my parents were the main nightmare because my dad’s an accountant. Right? Very risk averse. And he read the business plan. He got to the page and said legality. And he said, I think that you’ve made a mistake on the business plan. It says your product is illegal. I said, Yeah, yeah, yeah, it happens to be. And he said, You’re going to give up dentistry to do something illegal. I said, Yeah, man. He was like, I can’t support this. He was he was really against it. He was properly and my mum, the fact she’d like struggled to get me into dental school, the fact that I was going to stop doing dentistry and, you know, to do this was was a big deal too. But anyway, what we had to do was we had to find carrier gel that didn’t have peroxide in it and then get the dentist to call up the local chemist and get peroxide, you know, chemical, mix it in with the carrier gel you could buy. Dental was allowed to buy peroxide chemical for whatever he wanted. Mix it up with this carrier gel, put it on the tooth, and then we were directly copying bright smiles model. The model was a Xerox model where they give you the machine for free and then charge you to turn it on. But we didn’t have the technology to do that, so I had to find someone to stick these card readers into the machines. And we were giving the machine for free and selling these cards for £190. And interestingly, the price of Enlightened has never changed since that date, always been that price has never gone up in the last 22 years.

The dentist would have to go to the pharmacy and have the gel made up some kind of almost like, well.

Like the peroxide liquid peroxide liquid. We’d send them this powdery stuff that was like a carrier and they’d mix the peroxide liquid with the powder and put it on the teeth and, you know, gingival protection. Lots of burns everywhere. That’s exactly.

As topical. Topical is exactly the same. But I remember a bright smile. There was a lot of relapse. It was fantastic packaging. It was the machine was great. I do remember a lot of relapse when it first came out.

It was just dehydration.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Fantastic. Packaging goes a long way, you know.

Just I know that packaging.

Right? And you can.

Put my glasses back on it. But so it was actually so it was in Dental Dental school days where you actually the passion was, you know, ignited then, would you say?

Or we used to joke about it in dental school that we were going to go into business together and we’re going to have a brilliant business and all that and.

We still together, obviously you and your wife, all four of you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you share the workload or who’s. No. Can I ask who, who does what? Or is there a silent partner or. Yeah.

My my wife and indie are silent partners now. And myself and Sanjay. So.

So what was the ultimate what was the goal? The goal was, was to give up dentistry and do this full time. And I know obviously that’s the outcome now, but are you working at the same time? No, no.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The goal wasn’t to give up dentistry. I mean, I was I was very happy being a dentist. I used to enjoy being a dentist a lot, but the workload took over. It became very clear that I had to give up dentistry. That was the problem. And, you know, one of us had to it ended up being me. And then, you know, I talked to these start ups now and they’re talking about know on day one they raised £3 million. I mean, it.

Took the first few years were the toughest years.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The first few years were terrible, man. Really terrible. We had, you know, constant cash crises, constantly having to go to my parents and beg for, you know, I need £3,000 by tomorrow. So it was a really tough time. And look, these machines that we were putting out at the time, I think we were they were retailing for 6500 pounds, but we were getting them for 4500 because we were buying so many of them. And I remember when we got to 60, 70 machines and I remember looking at the how much we owed and the amount we owed to these machines was way more than the value of my flat at the time. And and the mortgage for the machines at the time was like it was like £17,000 a month. We were spending on on the machines on their own. And one day, Sanjay, my partner, Sanjay, he’s he’s the sort of real driver of the the business. He turned around to me and said, look, you know, he’s a Patel, Right. Good with numbers. He said, look, the more machines we’re putting out, the more trouble we’re getting in. Right. And up to that point, I was like, all we need is like another 50 machines and everything’s going to be all right. And he said that we’re just getting deeper and deeper into into crisis. Every time you put a machine out, it’s costing us. It’s not making us money because we weren’t contracting the dentist to any number of treatments. It was just like, take this machine, do what you can with it. And so, you know.

How close were you to that? We’re going to give up. How close were you?

Oh, no. Many times we were we were on the brink. I mean, once the bank we missed the bank payment and the bank sent in these turnaround accountant types who you were paying, who were charging you like another ten grand for these guys, you’re like, You’ll pay us later. Um, and I remember them telling us, Look, if something big doesn’t happen in the next month, we’re going to shut you down, The bank’s going to shut you down. And I remember that was the day before Dental showcase. And we, you know, Dental showcase. It’s funny thing. Now you go to one of these shows, you look around and many. Any of the companies at Dental Showcase are staking a huge amount on that show because, you know, like this, it’s coming up in two weeks time. Yeah. Okay, now. Now we can afford it a little bit, right? We’re spending about 60, £70,000, six figures.

Some of them six figures.

Oh, yeah, some of them, Yeah. I’m going to Cologne on on Wednesday. The stands in Cologne. I’ve spoken to the people from Nobel Biocare and from the the German companies go really huge in Cologne. The the classics. They’ve spent €1 million sometimes on a on a four day show. You know, it’s a double double floored and all of that. But they’ve got money. Some of them have got money. We didn’t have money, right? So we were staking everything on this show. And I remember I remember fighting for our lives at the show. Like if people didn’t buy these, we were at this point we were selling machines or these other they were like sort of like cure machines that doubled up as teeth whitening with these little sort of stupid microphone stand thing. It was. I remember Sanj telling me he said, Dude, if we don’t sell like 12 machines at this show, that’s the end. We’re finished. Okay? And then we had an amazing we had like a, like a record breaking show. We sold like 35 machines at that show. And, you know, like the Agony and Ecstasy was just it was massive. The what it taught me was the line between success and failure is very, very, very thin. You know, that.

Was a turning point. That was after that you were saying, I presume?

No, it only started turning around when we did the evolution system, which is the one we just launched the fourth version of it. And that was really because we were in light activated, right? And we were in light activated for years before Zoom existed. And then what happened was that bright smile company went bust. Zoom basically bought all of their assets and all of their patents and everything. And then Zoom came from nowhere, like as a as the big thing. And the marketing strength of discus Dental at the time was amazing. They’d already had $200 million of sales in the US before they even landed in the UK. And so we had by that point a few customers. But then Zoom came along and we realised, look, the light does nothing. At that point we realised the light does nothing. For the first three four years we were convinced the light was the key, but someone convinced me to put, you know, a bit of cover half the light over with some aluminium foil and I realised oh shit, the light does nothing. And, and so then when we came to.

Like cannabis growing guess, Yeah.

I mean the number of times in period you’ve had something like that right. Yeah. So it came to, it came to pivoting right out of the light and Sanj was my partner. He’s one of these guys. He just wants everything to be perfect, you know, He doesn’t care how much it costs or what we have to go through. It’s got to be perfect. And he turned around to me and said, Look, dude, I didn’t enjoy being number two at all this time. It doesn’t matter whether we make money or not, whether we go bust or not, let’s be the best home whitening system around. And, you know, tray whitening. We hadn’t done tray whitening at that point, so we’re now going to do tray whitening. And so we looked at it for about a year and we said, Look, what is tray whitening? It’s. It’s the tray, right? It’s the gel. It’s the impression. And it’s desensitises. At the end of the day, those are the those are the four areas that you have to really look at.

Why? Why your trays so good? Every talks about your trays. He even did a few before. You know, moving away from John. Why? Is it because you do everything in house or you.

Do everything in house?

Yeah, but is that the secret?

That’s not the reason. No, no. What happened was we. We met a guy called Guy Rod Kirthi in the US who said, look, I’ve got this new tray that that that really is a better tray that you can do tetracycline cases with. Up to that point, you can do tetracycline. And all he was doing is he was increasing the pressure on vacuum formers by covering over the holes. And we said, look that’s that’s not sustainable. He was he was selling a book on how to do this. That was his interest selling that book. And we told him, look, the thing that’s going to work well is if we can just make these trays for dentists rather than teaching them how to make the trade themselves. And so we we. It was the first time, really, that a bleaching product was sold with the tray as well as part of it. And the results were just sort of were mind blowing to us at the time. It was just like it was just the first time you could see really white teeth, although sensitivity was also through the roof. I mean, we used to have to give patients painkillers throughout treatment, you know, from sometimes one week before treatment and one week after treatment and throughout the whole treatment because the sensitivity was so, so, so high. You know, back then, we really didn’t understand bleaching gels at all.

Everyone talks about digital flow and all this. You basically mastered the flow of whitening, haven’t you? Now, you know, would you say or know in terms of I’ve seen the Evo four, is it called Evo four? Yeah. And you’ve seen to that that pathway both for you, for the clinician and for the patient seems to be really quite perfect or. No.

Perfect is a big word.

We’re easy. Simple. That’s what everybody wants.

Yeah. Although, although our focus is the patient, not not the dentist, you know, the dentists complain to us all the time about the bits of the treatment. Our focus is the patient. You know, what we realised is realise is a big word as well, because I don’t think it’s necessarily true for everyone. When you look at Prem Boutique, he managed to go on price against the big guys and win. Yeah. Um, whereas we what we thought was there’s no way we can take on the big guys on price. So the only thing we can do is go on quality. And so we just obsessively trying to make each bit better all the time, every time we do a new evolution. So this is either towards the fourth evolution. It’s when we make a big break from what we’ve done before. So we were constantly changing all the time. Everything. I mean, my my partner, Sanjay, is just he’s just that he’s wired that way, constantly trying to improve everything.

Um, but basically you just get people, you know, to try it out, give us the answer. How do you do that? How do you go do.

A lot of split arch testing? So one thing on the left, one thing on the right, sometimes you can’t do that because either you haven’t got the patience or, you know, you just can’t. I mean, we now we’ve got attachments in the trays and you can’t you can’t split arch test attachments on the tray. It just doesn’t doesn’t work. But yeah, we’ve got we’ve got 6 or 7 sort of very close dentists who help us and show us sequential photos. And then every time a new gel comes, I mean, we get contacted a lot by every single manufacturer and try my gel. Every time a new gel comes along, we try it. And to be very frank with you guys, you know, I try it myself one night and I’d say 80% of them I reject after that first night because either it hurt too much. The teeth didn’t change colour at all or white spots came up. And I know with enlightened gel, none of those three things happen, you know, regularly. So if it happens on the first night with the first gel, that gel just gets thrown out. So then so then the other 20% that passed that test, then we try it with patients. We try it left and right with our existing gels.

Let me just come back to that every second. So that’s quite a big advantage in the gel that you’re you’re you supply. What do you think it is about those other gels that caused those issues you described?

So one big thing with peroxide gel is that it’s volatile. Yeah. So it’s the reason why it makes teeth white is because it’s constantly breaking down. It turns out the secret is to have a gel that’s very stable before it comes out of the syringe, a very stable in the syringe and then very unstable when it comes out of the syringe. And that’s quite a tightrope. Um, and then, you know, you know, when you’ve got no control over how long ago the gel was made, what, what, what sort of conditions it were stored in. As, as the gel breaks down, it becomes acidic and acidic. Gels. They end up causing all the complications of teeth whitening. So. So sensitivity, white spots, chalkiness, opacities. All of that stuff comes from acidic gel. So, you know, we’ve all come across that situation, right? You put the the, you give the patient the gel, they come back massive sensitivity, no whitening. And that’s because I mean, yeah, they could be predisposed because of their bruxism or whatever but generally it’s because that gel severely broken down, it’s become very acidic, the concentration has gone right down, but also the PH has gone right down. So some gels break down in the syringe very quickly, others don’t. And so we’re after the ones that don’t break down the syringe. And then you’ve got the viscosity solubility kind of equation. So you want it to be viscous enough so that when saliva gets in, it doesn’t, you know, immediately denature it. But also you want it to be not viscous enough, sort of watery enough that oxygen can get out of it and the radicals can get out of it and it can penetrate, you know, get. Into the nooks and crannies, if you like, of the two. So those are two variables. And then you’ve got the desensitises. We try and put the minimum amount of desensitises into our jails and have external desensitises.

What would you recommend? What’s your go to external desensitiser?

We have one which is a HEMA based Desensitises HEMA fluoride and benzalkonium chloride as the main desensitiser we use. And then we have a hydroxyapatite toothpaste that we use two weeks before bleaching. So from impression day, the patient brushes with that toothpaste. It’s a fluoride fluoride hydroxy apatite and potassium nitrate to.

Dumb it down for anatomy. What’s the name of the product? Those were some big chemicals you mentioned there. What’s the name of the product? Is it a what’s it called? The HEMA based Desensitiser you recommend?

We call it Enlightened Seal.

Enlightened seal. That’s that trips off the tongue better than It’s quite nice. Yeah.

And the hydroxy appetite toothpaste, we call it enlightened serum.

Enlightened serum.

And how long is that? This two week program before you start whitening. When did that start? Is that is that recent or is that always been the case? I out of touch her?

Yeah, that started in 2009. Wow. Yeah. So so the evolution system we started in 2006. Yeah. Evolution two was 2009. Evolution three was 2012. And now this is Evo four, which is, Wow, it’s been 11 years since we changed it properly. Changed it. And what the big change that’s happened in that time is digital and it’s a nightmare right now. Now our lab is in house and it’s difficult because you can see digital, the wave of digital coming through like it was. It was about a third of our impressions were scans, and now it’s become half of our hands, half scans, half impressions. And that means you need to separate, you know, entities in your lab to handle the physical and digital. And the digital ones are a lot easier to handle because you don’t have to pull them up and all that. But we make tighter fitting bleaching trays on stone models and we do on printed models. And the reason is the stone models gas permeable. So, you know, we’re dealing with gas, we’re dealing with pressure and suction. And when the model itself is gas permeable, that helps a lot to get the the blank to really adapt properly to it. So with the digital, we’re trying everything. We’ve tried to print holes into the models. We’ve tried maybe 25 different resins, we’ve had three different types of printers in the lab. We’ve certainly improved it a lot. We’re doing manipulations on the on the the, you know, the scans themselves make it 5% smaller, 5% bigger. We’re doing something with the bell effect. Do you know what I mean by that? No. See, you got your tooth, and then you’ve got your. The gums and the alveoli. Right. And what tends to happen is as as the blank comes onto the tooth and then you’ve got the gums, it pulls it away from the gingival margin as the more pressure you put pulls it away. So we’ve been trying to sort of undercut under the teeth so that it pulls it towards the gingival margin.

It’s amazing. I mean, you have a phenomenal product and the amazing thing, you’re constantly, constantly developing and and it’s good for us to know because, you know, it’s it’s the ignorance that we all have as dentists is like, oh, this is just a product. Nobody knows the amount of hard work, dedication, innovation that you. You know, it’s it’s it’s same thing as a dental practice. You know, why am I paying all this money? Because, you know, we’re providing all this service products, and sometimes you just need somebody to say, hang on, this is like the eureka moment for saying, hang on, there’s more to this than just a box.

Yeah. And especially outside of a, you know, breakthrough. Yeah. There’s been no breakthrough in teeth whitening since its inception, right? Since since it started. No real breakthrough. I mean, okay, we got to the point of being able to guarantee results in 2006 that that was that was a massive breakthrough that you could you could say we could say that if your patients don’t get to be one or whiter, we’ll give you a free kit. You know, that was that was amazing. But the technology itself, there’s been no change at all, real change. Um, our understanding of the technology has got more but no quantum leap, you know, And in a way that’s what keeps me up at night, right?

Because that’s what we do every morning. Yeah.

No, but keeps me up at night like it’s some, there’s some genius sitting in in Korea right now. Yeah. Working on some sort of nanotechnology thing. Yeah. That looking at a way of doing it, that that could be, you know, twice as fast. Half the price, you know, half the sensitivity. It hasn’t happened yet, but it could happen while it hasn’t happened. We’re working on marginal gains on the current technology and the current technology is gels, trays, desensitises impressions. You know, um, it’d be amazed that the standard of the impressions that come in that we get a lot of amazing ones and then we get some really bad ones too. Yeah.

Did you do that? What’d you do?

Welcome to retake. We also I mean, right now the lab is, is is asking 5% of all the impressions to retake. That’s not bad. But it’s a nightmare for everyone. It’s pain for you guys.

But 5%.

Yeah, but it’s a nightmare for everyone right now. The dentist gets very annoyed. Yeah, yeah, we’ve done that. And then he has to call up his patient and say, come back for another impression. Makes him look bad. I think it’s got something to do with alginate, dude. You know, because. Because we recommend alginate. We supply the alginate. It’s a very stable alginate. It’s a five day stable alginate. Yeah, but because it’s alginate, people get their head into alginate mode where they’re not really worried about it so much. Maybe it’s that obviously people are running late. There’s all sorts of reasons why, right?

You Stuart, this is Stuart’s speciality first day.

When did Prosthodontic training? Um, that’s what we spent. We spent the first two days learning how to take a proper alginate. And you, like you say, it’s kind of we were talking about, you know, does it matter? It’s an algebra. I remember the consultant saying to me, the punches you miss are the ones that wear you out. And he was kind of saying that these little simple things that you think you’ve got, right, you don’t. That’s the stone in your shoe that will ultimately wear you down. So get it right. Learn how to get it right. Nothing is frustrating, as you know, being asked to get the patient back, as you say, for another impression. And one of the good tips for a lower offer you get the air blows in the lower is to get a big wedge of it on a little, take a dollop of alginate on your gloved finger, hold the lower lip back and rub it into the gum before you see the tray, the gum around, the lower incisors and the alginate binds to the alginate, doesn’t it? And that gives you a nice little labial sulcus rather than the big classic air blow you get around. The lower lip is often a site for that and obviously rubbing it into the fissures as well. It’s quite handy.

With with either for we’ve shortened the tray so the tray no longer goes to the sevens, it stops at the sixes. And the reason was we were getting so many drags in, the sixes in the sevens, sorry, both in impressions and in scans. The sevens obviously difficult to get to. And and also, you know, the back of the tray, you know, the longer it is, the more likely it is to move. So we’ve the tray just to avoid that, you know, because like 10%. Yeah.

What do you think of these, um, thermoplastic trays? Payman Are you a fan of those, the ones that you kind of, you warm, you dunk them a bit hot water and you kind of mould them to the, the shape of the mouth? Is that something you recommend or do you prefer a bit of space around your, your alginate to capture. A bit of land space around the teeth, more like the thumb.

I think the thermoplastic states have have trays, have a place, but not in dental practices over, over over the counter applications of that. And we’re certainly looking at that because, you know, outside of Europe, it’s legal to go with, you know, up to 6% hydrogen peroxide. I mean, as it turned out, thermoplastic trays themselves, the ones you heat up, boil and bite didn’t turn out to be the best ones that we found. We found we found ones that you don’t have to boil that form a lot better. They’re just sort of a rubbery material that you really can put into the teeth. And I know right now, because of Brexit, Procter and Gamble are doing kind of a push to make it legal in the UK to sell 6% over the counter. Um, I guess it’s a way of getting into Europe with the crest strips and all of that. So we’re certainly, we’re working very hard on, on, on finding an over-the-counter system that makes teeth very white or as white as possible in case that happens in Europe. But also for us to be able to sell in the US and abroad.

Can pick you up on two things. Payman Just two things I just wanted to ask you about there. And first thing is we’ll come back to crest strips because I have a number of patients that go out to the States and they come back with crest strips and say what great results they get with these and they’re only $40 or something and you can’t get them in the UK. But they’re, you know, patients are finding ways to get them sent across. But when we come back to that but what what was interesting what you were saying is you would you guarantee the results and now what is your protocol, your whitening protocol that you recommend to dentists to use to get the guaranteed results that you describe?

So it’s about the the impression, the trade, the gel and the desensitises. We optimise all of those. And right now with the zero four, it’s a it’s a three week at home treatment. So we do we supply the impression material, we ask for that impression or the scan we make the tray while the patient waits for the tray. They use the hydroxy appetite that the enlightened serum to desensitise. And that also reduces things like white spots as well, because it’s a hydroxy appetite toothpaste. And then the new protocol is the first week, night time at the lower concentration, which is the 10%, the second week, night time at the higher concentration. So we call the first week condition, the second week whiten, and then the third week day time, one hour a day. And we call that blast. That’s the hydrogen peroxide. And we’ve been really careful this time to make it more patient friendly so that you don’t have to bother with the concentrations with the patient. You know, they’re labelled the biggest thing on the on the syringe is one, two and three, you know, week one, week to week three. And for some reason, I don’t know, it’s probably a historical thing. Most other systems that one syringe lasts like three days for some reason.

Whereas we’ve always from the beginning we said, look, one syringe, one week, it’s sort of obvious, right? So, so once it’s three, three weeks, three syringes and they’re called week one, week to week three. And the only thing the patient has to remember is week one and two is night time. Week three is one hour a day. And then we have attachments on the trays. So on the sixes we build in attachments, the little composite attachments, just like Invisalign and and the dentist makes, you know, puts Flowable composite into there. And then when the patient uses, it clicks into place. It’s like bond composite, just like you would with Invisalign. The tray clicks into place. And what we find is when the attachments are used, you get you get much more predictable whitening at the GINGIVAL margin. And also the patients and I’ve treated them myself, the patients who started out without attachments and then it didn’t work out very well. Then we stuck the attachments on and we talked to those patients. The patients say they’re much more comfortable with the attachments because, you know, the biggest thing with whitening, the biggest problem with whitening is para function and bruxism. Definitely the biggest issue by a long, long shot. So, you know, I’ve looked at 3000 failures and I’d say three quarters of those were due to parafunctional bruxism.

And the, you know, the patient grinds their teeth, saliva gets in gel escapes, they tend to have more sensitivity than everyone else. They tend to have thinner enamel as well. And so, you know, one, one realisation I’ve come to you guys, you guys probably understood this instinctively, right? It’s not that the patient is a bruxism or isn’t like in a binary way. You know, we all, we all at times grind our teeth within a night’s sleep. We grind our teeth. And so the other thing is, you know, how can you tell if the patient is a cyst or not? For me, looking at the teeth is kind of a bit historical. Yeah, like if it’s some 26 year old who just had a kid and now she’s bruxing, the teeth will still look amazing. They. Teeth don’t look worn yet. So I’d say a muscle examination and a tongue examination is the best sort of indication of current bruxism. And so bruxism are the big problem with bruxism. We sort of try and train from the beginning, notice the patients of bruxism and tell them, look, it might take a bit longer, we do a bit more daytime whitening with the bruxism rather than Night-Time.

The idea is. And whose idea was that? You know, the composite. Whose idea?

It was mine. It was mine. But. But, you know, they’re not. All the good ideas are mine. That one happened to be mine.

And literally, based on trying our guess.

As you said, it was, where it started was the scans. We couldn’t make the trays as tight on the printed models. And we said, What’s the way of doing it? We’ve tried so many things. We’ve tried manipulating the model, scoring the models, changing everything, changing up our pressure formers, increasing the pressure in the pressure formers, printing holes into the models, trying everything to make the printed model as good as the stone. And then we thought, Well, what if it’s the back of it’s the back that always moves, doesn’t it? When you put a bleaching, when you put any appliance in the mouth, the front is very stable because the teeth are quite long. But it’s the back where you know, where you’ve sometimes got the teeth that are leaning in or you’ve got the short clinical crowns. That’s where and the back moving just let saliva in. So we thought, All right, well, what about an attachment to stop the back from moving? It was simple as that. Like, no, no, no, no. Nothing deeper than that. That’s a good.

Idea. I’ve previously used situations where you’ve got very discoloured teeth in certain spots. Say, for example, there’s a little, you know, brown spot or something like that. Maybe Icon has diminished the need for this, but I would tend to take bond on a little bit of composite to the brown spot, then take my impression so that the the reservoir would be a bit deeper in that area with a view to some gel sitting on there a bit longer. That’s interesting my my theory but it seemed to seem to work I think in a sample size of about six. But yeah, it seemed to work. But it sounds a bit like, you know, it sounds like you’ve taken that idea to to a degree. And and you know what.

I find interesting, Stuart, is that that every dentist has a couple of hacks, right? Yeah. And then you’ve got some dentists who’ve got loads of hacks and they become teachers like, you know, like Artem, you know, or Depeche, you know. You know, if you ask Depeche, he’s got like 30, 40, super duper original hacks. Yeah, but every dentist has a couple of hacks. And, and it’s interesting when asked the younger ones and obviously they haven’t been around long enough to develop hacks, they almost find it like a dangerous question to ask. You know, like. Like, you know, no, you know, don’t do anything outside of the the the the research what’s available out there. But we all have something don’t we. We all have a way of doing it.

Well, you’re right. There was a a textbook that was produced as a German guy and I’ve forgotten his name, which is and I’ve just remembered it. Listeners, it’s Dr. Wolfram bucking rhymes with a. Plucking. So, yeah, he has written a textbook called the Dental Treasure Chest. Tips and Tricks. Tips and Tricks for Daily Practice. And yeah, it was written about in the 90 seconds, but loads of good tips still relevant from everything from the way you sit. How to make your posture better to easy removal of crowns and troubleshooting with implants, patio, etcetera. Great book, well worth a look.

I think there would be no enlighten but.

That’s that’s that’s the worry because everyone’s worried that worried about you know procedure being sued or whatever the case may be and innovation is you know, it’s being stifled because of that. Absolutely. No doubt about that. You know, certain people, you know, including ourselves, really will say, well, do I want to do this procedure on this person? Well, you know, is it worth it? You know, do I want to challenge certain people? And even people we teach to say, look, please challenge what I tell you, Try different things. Oh, we don’t want to try anything because the implications are a bit worrying. But it’s amazing because the innovation that you’ve done, has that been because you’ve been away from dentistry or because you’ve been a dentist? You know what is mean.

We just tried everything to do it. It was a matter of survival to start with. You know, we had to try and make it better and then and then you end up becoming that person. Then you, you know, you end up being good at 1 or 2 things. You know, I was talking to a guy who was saying that he was working in Henry Schein when they were buying companies and he was saying, Yeah, they’d buy companies. And then and then they’d realise this entrepreneur was good at 1 or 2 things they shouldn’t try and mess him about and make him do other things well, they just let him carry on doing the 1 or 2 things that he knows how to do and and work out. Don’t bother him on those 1 or 2. Um, and I feel like that as well. You know, we got addicted to improvement because we had to to start with and then we realised oh well that’s, that’s, that’s what we’re good at and I’m really bad at making things cheaply, you know, like I just can’t do it.

So I think whatever you do, you can’t sit still. But in saying that if we, if we, you know, I don’t know why I got this right or wrong and I’m a bit scary if, if it’s true. Um, you know, the biggest problem being a, you know, a boss, an employer is obviously employing people. It was. I’m saying that you employ 100 people. What did you say that.

No, no, no. About 44 we have now. Okay.

44. And is that the hardest challenge or no? Do you find that easy? Do you do you to pass it off to somebody else?

It’s it can be. It can be when when there’s a disagreement and when the team gets bigger, you end up having problems you never thought you would have, you know, cultural issues. There was some bullying going on. We had no idea about it until, you know, 6 or 8 of them came to us and said, look, this person is doing this. We had no idea. And because we grew quite quickly, we thought everything was fine. And, you know, it’s difficult keeping the culture going with so many people. Um, it’s difficult taking the risk of hiring loads of people as well because, you know, your wage bill goes through the roof and you know, the business becomes a very serious thing. You know, you’ve got to make loads of money just to break even. Um, and you know, the, you know, the latest thing is the sort of Elon Musk thing about, you know, what he did at Twitter, which is he said, all right, who here is essential.

And who.

He is and who here is exceptional? And then he fired everyone else and he ended up firing 70% of the workforce. Um, and that’s become a thing now. That’s become a trend and we’re certainly looking at the business in that sense as well. And in the good, good days you hire, you know, just like we at one point we had an in-house videographer, in-house, uh, copywriter. We do, we already have two in-house social media, you know, full time social media people, a marketing manager, um, her assistant, you know, just just in marketing, just in that one area of marketing, there’s like six people. Um, you know, it’s a, it’s a big commitment. Yeah. Which, which you can always outsource as well. Yeah. Um, but what I’ve found is that, you know, let’s talk about marketing, right? You, you’ve got to make things right. Right? You got to. It’s difficult to make things right. Just a simple photograph, like a photograph of a smiling woman. Yeah. Is really difficult to make that right because it’s cheesy and it’s shit, you know, like, so. And to make that better. Yeah, you’ve got to take that photo now.

Okay, Now we’ve got to take the photo. So who’s it going to be? Is it going to be a white woman? A black woman? You know, is it going to be a man? As well. Yeah. And you know, the creative comes out and says, Yeah, no, we need a white woman, a black woman and a man, right? That’s three models. Now we need, um, in London. Yeah. All the models are Eastern European and all the Eastern Europeans have terrible teeth. Yeah. Um, they haven’t, they haven’t been to the orthodontist or anything, so we had to look outside of London. After a long search in London, we found similar problems in lots of European cities, but not not for instance, in Amsterdam. So we went to the Amsterdam modelling agencies. In the end, our our hero model is a girl from Dallas. Yeah. Which we had to fly over for the shoot. And then to use her pictures, we can only use them for two years. Yeah, we spent a huge amount. The photographer is one of the world’s top fashion photographers. Um, the music we composed.

I’m panicking with this. Yeah.

And. And so, look, we get you get to this point of all we’re talking about is a picture of a model or a video of a model turning around and smiling. Yeah. And I’ve involved one of the world’s top fashion photographers. A huge search around the world for a beautiful girl who’s got a nice smile that, believe me, was a nightmare. Yeah. Because we couldn’t Photoshop, you know that you couldn’t Photoshop pictures. But dentists will see through that. So. So. So you can Photoshop for the public, but not for dentists. Um, just that. Just getting that picture. Yeah. Nightmare. Now, you can go and buy that picture tomorrow. You guys could go in one hour and buy a picture. Yeah, but they’re all a bit cheesy. A bit crap, you know.

Yeah, but do you think Payman Dental school really did not equip us for high glamour fashion shoots with texts and models? Did it just. There wasn’t enough teaching on that subject?

That was. The funny thing is that it taught you a lot about looking down the microscope and stuff.

Being, you know, being really sort of perfectionist. Want this repeating or is it your partner or is a combination of like, if we do things properly, we’re going to go to the extreme and make it right.

You know, dude, what happens is that there’s the time that that takes and the cost you the time is the time, right? But the cost it tends for me, this is the way I think about it, is the cost of design tends towards zero the longer that product is out. So if we did the exact same thing with Evo three and Evo three was in the market for 11 years, we treated a quarter of a million patients with it. And you know the you know how much I spent on the photoshoot back in 2011. Um, I spent a lot by 2011 standards. Yeah. But it per kit it tends to zero is my point. Yeah. Um, now that’s not for everyone, you know, It’s a big risk. Yeah. Doing that. It’s a big risk. We’ve got the paper that we’ve got the products made of. We’ve, we’ve put the data recorders, you know, you can get these things that that record temperature every ten minutes over a period of a week. And we put the data recorders inside the package to see how temperature stable the package is. And you should see the detail that the packaging specialist, I mean, he’s like almost like a physicist like detail he goes to to get the two sides of the package to come together. Exactly right. So that there’s no air exchange there. And then we’ve got a bubble envelope that’s plastic. And we have to you know, we don’t want to put plastic into the environment. So we’re paying another company to take out twice as much plastic as we put in and all of that.

Now, all of this, you know, I don’t talk about it in the marketing because it’s difficult to talk about this stuff. Right. But the reason for it is if you could see what I saw or what I see that when when a shipment comes in from the factory, the first few treatments are magical, like magical, magical. The teeth go super white, zero sensitivity. Then the following month they’re good, but not quite as good in the final month. And this was back in the day, you know, ten years ago when we used to keep the gel just we used to make big orders to get the biggest discount and keep the gel for six months. Sometimes the final few would get complaints, complaints coming in. So then we realised that you shouldn’t keep gel any period of time at all, keep gel for the minimum amount of time, and then convincing our partners, our our manufacturing partners to make it in small amounts because they don’t want to do that, right? They want to make it in big amounts. It makes it easier for them to make it in small amounts and ship it to us cold every month during the pandemic. You know, it was tough, but but if you saw the results that I saw from those first and we’re not quite there, we’re at the point of going from factory to patient in two months Right now, I’d like to get that down to one month because I saw the results.

I’ve seen the results. Um, the big issue with it is either you end up with, um, you know, supply issues because you haven’t got enough or you end up with wastage issues. And by the way, I’m not worried about throwing gels in the bin. Oh, shit, That’s. That’s my red wine. I’m not worried about throwing gels in the bin from the cost perspective as long as I can get a really good result. But you know, from the plastic, we’re now measuring every bit of plastic that we throw away and every bit of plastic we put into the environment from the plastic perspective obviously doesn’t work. So that’s kind of a balancing act. Interestingly, to reduce the plastic in our kits, we end up doubling our carbon footprint. So so now we have to work work out a way of reducing our carbon footprint at the same time. And, you know, I didn’t use to take this stuff seriously before until, you know, we’re now a little bit partnered with Pala, with Simon and Rona and Adarsh with their with their toothpaste apps. And I’m talking to them. I realised that these guys aren’t doing it for some sort of marketing thing. You know, they, they literally give a damn so much about the plastic and the environment and looking into it realised, oh god, yeah, all of us have to completely take care of this, you know, Dental practices included, you know, chucking away.

Still goes on. Yeah, yeah. It’s scary what goes into especially this, all this, you know, HDMI or what do you have to do? Oh, that’s. Yeah.

Right.

It’s just crazy. Absolutely. What goes, what goes into clinical waste.

It’s it’s mad.

And then and then you find out that the local councils won’t, won’t recycle. They don’t know about Scotland Stuart but you know the local councils won’t recycle because this is a business. But if it was, if it was a residential like in Kent, you know, when is it residential road? You can’t recycle because you’re a business. But the next door neighbours who are residential, they can recycle. It just doesn’t make any sense. But anyway, we. We digress. Sorry.

Sorry. Had to recycling. No, sorry. I was just distracted there by Payman spilling his large goblet of red wine. And I’m just so impressed that a man with such a snazzy smile is an avid red wine drinker that says a lot about the quality of enlightened tooth whitening products. They must be the business. I digress. I better get back on to asking some questions. Do you miss clinical dentistry? I told you miss the day to day. Do you miss doing other things like operative dentistry?

I don’t know about operative dentistry. I miss people, human beings, not dentists. I know a lot of dentists, but. But I don’t know many regular people and I miss them. You know that when you see a patient every six months you have that chat. And and I used to have some very interesting patients, You know, I was working in the city at one point, and then I was working in Hampstead after that. And really interesting conversations I used to have. And you see the kids grow up and all of that. Um, they particularly miss the teeth, although once in a while I go to a lecture at Depeche was like that for me. Jason Smithson was the same. Ended up working with him. Um, Gallup Grill was the same. Um, uh, some, some of the, obviously the guys from USC at McLaren. Um, just, there’s a few people that you see the lecture and you think, God, I want to try that. Um, and when, whenever I get that feeling, I realise, oh, that’s a brilliant lecturer, you know, whereas the actual meccano bit sticking things together and I definitely didn’t like surge surgery, so, you know, what does I take my hat off?

You’re very sociable.

It’s obvious you do podcasts. I think when you do the courses, I don’t know whether you like, you know, just move into that because you miss the social aspect. I mean. Yeah, definitely. This is another rumour I’ve heard. I heard that if there’s a squat opening your first at the front door. Yeah. Is that true? I’ve heard Payman there before. Before patients there literally just says you’re so sociable, You like. You know.

I like people. For sure. Like people for sure. And you know that that translates to, obviously, our team. Yeah. Although our team, my two teams, I’m in charge of two teams Enlightened and both of them are remote now. So they come in one day a week. So I go in that one day a week or for me it ends up being sometimes two days a week because they go on, on different, different, different days. But the social aspect of work was a big thing for me. I used to enjoy that. Um, and you’re right. Many Smile Makeover. As much as I enjoy watching the dentist, um, you know, that light bulb moment, which is, which is important and enjoyable, the meeting of the people, the conversations for me are even more important. And so your question, Stuart I definitely miss people. Um, I did up a flat, um, when I was a dentist and my patient supplied everything, you know, the kitchen, the floor, the plumber, the electrician. There were all my patients. Then I did that. This, this, this house. I’m sitting. I’m not sitting in the Seychelles like it looks like in the background. This house I’m sitting in, I did this up just pre-COVID, and I knew no one. I had no contacts apart from dentists. I knew a lot of dentists. Yes. So I called up dentists. I said, Hey, the only one who could do a house.

Can you bring some cement? Yeah, yeah, the cement is there. But, you know, dentists complain of stress. You know, we all do. It can be stressful. There’s no doubt. Clinical dentistry is stress. It’s rewarding, but stressful. Do you? You obviously have your own day to day stress. If you were to compare, you know, how you know your day to day work comparison to dentistry.

Yeah. No. Day to day. I’d say it’s less stressful than dentistry day to day. And I remember there were periods where I was doing dentistry two days a week and I was doing Enlightened the other five days a week. Um, and, you know, dentistry, the problem with dentistry is, number one, you got to turn up. That hate.

That helps.

That helps.

It’s horrible that you have to turn up. Yeah, you take it for granted when you’re like you have to turn up, right?

There’s that same ethos applied to your courses.

But the courses course courses are kind of fun. It’s like a holiday for me. It’s a bit of a holiday, especially when we do it outside London. In Manchester we go get the best hotel. We go the party and the best rooftop and meeting people. Depeche is a great teacher. I get the best projector, the best everything. You know, to try and make it just fun for us as well. Yeah, but dentistry, it’s relentless in that you have to keep turning up. And I’ve found that hard, man. Honestly, honestly. And one of the best things about not being a dentist is that if you want to not turn up, you can not turn up. Now, I’ve got a meeting with the head of operations, the operation director of one of the massive, you know, corporates with 400 practices. Yeah. I got turned up to them. I do have to turn up to that meeting. Yeah, I’ve got to go to some dentist. We do a thing called Regional Centre of Excellence where it’s our big partner in each area and I’ve said I want to be the one who turns up to those meetings. So I do have to do sometimes that guy’s in Aberdeen, right? So I have to get on a plane and go to Aberdeen to see that guy. Yeah.

How many centres do you have?

200 of those. I’ve been to every single one. Yeah. Um, now the thing is, so I’m busy and I’m turning up and I have to turn up to Cologne next week and I have to turn up to showcase. But it’s that daily, day in and day out having to be there for your patients that don’t have. That’s my best thing about not doing dentistry. And the worst thing is you don’t meet people and dentistry, even though it’s high stress, it is high stress. Yeah, there’s no doubt about that. But it’s you’re going to find it’s easy money. Yeah, but there’s some the trust the patient by sitting in your chair they’re implicitly saying I trust you. Whereas you know something to dentists is a whole different matter. You know, as dentists, we’re trained to be distrusting. Yeah. And the next time, let’s say Enlightened comes up to you and says, I’ve found this breakthrough Perio product. Yeah, yeah. No premier product. There’s a premier product that’s based on a bleaching trays that. Yeah, yeah, they do, They do, they do pocket charting and then they extend the tray up into the pocket, Right? And they use peroxide. Yeah. I could, I could, I could go and get that and make that and do that and even improve on it. Right now let’s say I come to you and say, Hey, I’ve got this new period product. It’s a breakthrough. Implicit norm. You’ve seen so much crap come in front of you before making these promises that your first thing is going to be, Well, here’s another bullshit, right? Another another marketing angle.

I’m hoping you’d turn up first.

And so it’s the same with all dentists. Yeah. They’re trained to be trained to be distrusting. It’s correct. You want your dentist to be distrusting of these dodgy companies. Coming up with all these new ideas. It’s difficult. Makes it difficult in.

This course thing because, you know, I love social media and I see. I see your courses. Depression. It’s like, wow, this is A it’s entertaining. B, it has that. Wow. You know, isn’t that like that? But you see the wow factor and it’s like, you know, I presume based on, you know, you’re so passionate about things, you go all out.

Dude. The thing is the thing is he’s, he is exceptional. He really is exceptional As a teacher. As a clinician. I mean. Yes, yes, definitely. I met him when he was one year out of dental school, and even then he was exceptional. Lewis Mackenzie contacted me, who was his big his his mentor, and he said, Oh, you met Depeche? I was like, Yeah. He said, Oh, he’s the best student I’ve had in the last 20 years. And and all he is exceptional at the teeth, he really is. And then we’ve been distributing Renamo for 12 years now, 40 and it’s an exceptional composite. It really is the best composite. Yes, it’s expensive as well, but it’s the best composite. So. So you’ve got these two things, the best teacher and the best composite. And I thought, look, it’s a case of sort of if I don’t do my bit, my bit would be, you know, put on the best hotel, the best food, the best entertainment, the best projector. And, you know, I went to this show at the weekend, the north of England one, and I grabbed the guys from FMC and said, look, we have 30 delegates and we have a screen six times the size of the one that you’ve produced for 1000 delegates. Yeah. You know, we really take it seriously. We spend £3,000 per event on AV, just on AV. Um, with the hotel, we constantly upgrade. We’re constantly telling them, how can you make the food better, the coffee better, you know, everything better. And like hotels, they find that a difficult question. Like better coffee. You know, the coffee’s crap. Can you organise better coffee? And they’re like, no, they can’t.

Honestly changed since COVID, things have changed a lot. But that’s a different story.

But that you know, you know how everything’s a bit rubbish, isn’t it? You go to a hotel, everything’s a bit rubbish isn’t it? Everything’s a bit rubbish, man. Everything’s a bit rubbish. We found one hotel in Manchester where the people are just extraordinary. The Edwardian, the Manchester, the staff, they just. They.

That’s a good hotel, but a great hotel. That is a good one.

The Ave is of a standard that we don’t have to bring external Ave in, which is amazing for a hotel. It’s like, you know, it’s brand new and the food’s good. Yeah. So in Manchester, we good in London? Haven’t found a hotel. That’s. That’s of that standard. Yeah. And you know, we’ve been trying, we’ve been, we’ve been switching hotels every single mini smile makeover to try and find one that’s at the right standard and there isn’t we have to bring in separately. Sometimes we have to bring food in separately. Bring it from. Really?

Oh wow. That’s that’s a the food.

So rubbish in this chicken and beige. Right.

The food is. Yeah it is what it used to be but that’s a side thing.

So and actually doing these courses, how often are you doing these courses. Every three months.

Four months? No, once a month. Once a month.

Wow. And that rotates from city to city. Or you?

Well, we used to. I used to I used to want to see other cities. Right. So we used to do London, Manchester, Newcastle, Bristol, Cardiff. We never came to Scotland. We tried once and then the pandemic got in our way. By the way, dude, is it true in Scotland your your GDC or something pays for your courses, is that right?

Nhs Yes. If you apply to be a, you got to have a is that right? Cpd And then the dentist can apply to get the cost of the course back based on their level of commitment. So it’ll be capped. It might be say £400 a day and if you do 50% NHS you’ll get £200 back. And if you do 75%, £300 back, that type of thing.

That’s amazing, man.

I suppose. Is that not a thing in England? You don’t get that at all.

Payman I’d encourage you, it’s different. The education in Scotland is different. I mean, we do when we do the course, I’m there in two weeks. I can tell you it’s a different Everybody arrives on time. Unbelievably polite. That doesn’t apply to you when you turn up on time. Polite. Courteous. A feedback is always exceptional, but it’s a different market.

We did a lot in Belfast and noticed a totally different outlook from the Belfast dentist and.

No.

Scottish person. The Dental will say, Can I leave early? You know, it’s, you know, down south it’s like, but I’d recommend it go in Scotland is where.

Do you go? Glasgow, Edinburgh, Glasgow. It’s, that’s where the population is, right. Glasgow. Yeah.

Yeah. She was, she was based in Edinburgh.

I love Edinburgh man.

Well, you could go to Glasgow if you wish, but. Oh, I’ll just stop myself there. And what I was going to say is everybody knows that Glasgow and Edinburgh are centres of both culture and hospitality renowned throughout the world. So either city would be a superb choice for a visit or to put on a Dental course we should bring you up and do a course on Edinburgh. I think that would for sure, for sure.

If Edinburgh is where we plan to do it. And then pandemic stopped us.

Edinburgh Castle. You know, I think you’d fit in well there.

We were in Edinburgh for the BCD and we had a big party there. Oh, the museum? Yes. Well, BCD had their part, the museum. But we went to a place on George Street. It was like a nightclub thing.

Some good venues.

You know what I’ve found about Edinburgh? There’s lots of cities with one little tiny pretty bit. But Edinburgh is like the whole town. The whole city is beautiful. It’s like it’s unprecedented. I love Glasgow people too. I love Glasgow. People are.

Unbelievably.

Friendly. I mean. Yeah.

Are you finding are you finding in Edinburgh you’ve got now more of the sort of the cosmetically orientated patient as well.

It’s a really good question. Edinburgh is a I would say that it’s quite traditional. So people will invest in education. There’s a high number of private schools here, but based on the size of the population buying that, you know, people tend to drive nice cars here and people tend to go on lots of holidays. When it comes to aesthetic dentistry, implants are big business, but we don’t tend to see the kind of Instagram style practices here as much as you would. Let’s say if I go down to Manchester, I’ll see quite a few of those and I’ll go to Birmingham. Go to London. Certainly you’ll become conscious of choosing Glasgow. Yes, you’re right, it is in Glasgow.

It’s amazing how different those two cities are with one hour between them, right?

40 miles.

Payman 40. It’s mad. Like totally different accent. Totally different people. Totally different people. Totally different. Yeah.

In Glaswegian, I think.

Yeah. You have. Do you have trouble with the accent?

Hutton Wow. Yes. The we.

Have a few.

Uh.

Northern Ireland and, um, and a few Glaswegians. We have to, I have to really concentrate and you ask them to.

Repeat, right?

There’s one chap who who we’ve been mentoring for a few years. I won’t mention his name. He’s a lovely, lovely guy. And, um, he recommended a colleague of his Northern Ireland colleague. And I find it difficult to understand him. And he was telling me my children can’t understand my Glaswegian body. And I thought, God, how does that work? But unbelievably friendly. It just takes over everything. Polite. Nice. But yeah, there’s a I love.

That, though. I love that. That there are accents that, you know, we find difficult because in our part of the world that’s massive. Right. In Iran and where, you know Yemen and all that, you know literally two, two two villages next to each other, two different accents. Right. Um, and I love that that’s true here as well. You know, that’s but yeah, I find Dipesh he’s, he’s in Belfast a lot of times he’s like, come again? And you can’t ask that more than once, right? You can’t say come again again because.

They speak.

Really, really fast. The Northern Ireland and also some of these gloves you’re okay case you you speak very slowly. I think it’s probably because the.

Edinburgh Edinburgh is different.

Hello Dundee. Actually, boys, what do they call you in Glasgow? Hatem do not call you Haytham.

We hate him.

Hate him.

So aggressive on there. But Payman Let me ask you two quick questions. Two quick fire questions, and I’m going to ask you what your best day in dentistry was and your worst day in dentistry was. So let’s start with the best day.

I mean, it’s a little bit shallow. It was it was the model day. The model Day. Evo three. Model day. When we first time when we when we really like I called up my buddy he’s he’s in fashion and all that, I said, listen, what do I do? I need to I need to find some models. He said, just call up. He said, you know the names, the big names, the storm and all of these you just call them up, say you just want to find the model and don’t worry, everything else will be all right. And he was absolutely right. I called I called up the biggest names I could think of. And one day, maybe, I don’t know, 100, like super beautiful girls came one after the other to be to to be interviewed by me. I really enjoyed I enjoyed that day very, very much. No.

No comment. I’m not going to comment on that.

I’m joking. I’m joking. No, the best day, enlightened was the day that we sort of, you know, when when, when when patients when when dentists tell us. Yeah. That we made a massive change in the same way as when you treat a patient. Yeah. That. Thank you. Right. That you get from a patient who’s truly, truly thankful makes your day. And it doesn’t make any sense on paper. That one thank you. Makes your day. But you know, it happens sometimes, you know, when when we bring in a new process or we bring in a new product, often we get lots of people saying, Oh, I’m not happy about changes. And then we get a bunch of other people telling us how brilliant it was or, you know, the same thing. You must see this all the time, right? You do a course and the the delegate starts producing amazing work.

But it’s interesting because you I think you just nailed it. Exactly. You target patients and we know this. Patients are happy. They go back to their dentist and say, and you do the reverse bit, don’t you? You target the patient because you know the patient’s happy. You produce the product. You get the result that passes on to the dentist, passes it back on to you. Yeah.

What comes to mind, though? We did a we did a conference called the Minimalist Conference in 2017, the conference for Minimally invasive Dentistry and just, just really enjoyed that one. It was like 200 people turned up and big speakers and everything really enjoyed that one. The worst day. I mean, we’ve seen so many bad days.

I’m going to say this podcast, isn’t it?

No, no, no, no. Just in those early days, you know, those early days, the cash crises and those. Oh, I know, I know. I know. We had a product called Smile X. It was. It was. It was a it was a it was a direct application thing. And I honestly thought this was the product. It was going to make me rich. Right. Because it was it was a breakthrough. You you applied it on the teeth and your teeth after two applications a day would just go super beautifully. Lovely white. And it was because we were able to keep the in this, in this, in this um, it was like a glass container with a plastic around the glass and you squeeze the thing and break the glass and then the peroxide would come out onto this applicator and you’d apply it onto the the teeth. And we spent a whole year trying to find the right supplier, the right gel, everything right to try and make this thing work. And it was working. It was like making teeth white because we’re trying to be able to keep it fully stable in that glass container. But then we sold some, we sold some in the market. But then the supplier, the the factory in New Orleans called up and the guy said, we got a problem. And they were exploding. They were exploding by themselves. And glass was coming out of them. And and we put these in the market. We’d sold a number. And, you know, you’re thinking some patients are going to push this and it’s going to explode because they’re exploding on the shelf. You know, they were just pushing.

Um oh, spooky.

We managed to get them back. We did a recall. We managed to get them back. The ones that we could. I don’t know. There was no terrible stories. Yeah, but I was thinking, Oh, someone’s going to blind themselves with this glass that’s going to smash up. But the pain of two years, like I think it was two years of work really, Um, and thinking you’re on the edge of a breakthrough and then you’re on the edge of a disaster. Um, it was hard, man. It was hard at the time. I think we’d invested every penny we had into the project.

And what about you Got two young children. Would you encourage, discourage them dentistry or just say whatever you want to do? What would you do with the kids?

You know what? I want them to want to be dentists. Yeah, not necessarily to become dentists, but want them to want to be. It is a neither of them shown much interest. In fact, they’re saying, I don’t know what I want to do, but I know I don’t want to be a dentist.

Your wife’s a.

Practising.

She’s a real dentist. She does. She does. One day a week. A real dentist. She. She does one day a week of dentistry, sometimes two days a week. But yeah, it’s. I feel like a bit of a failure. Both of us are dentists and our kids could could get massive advantage from going into dentistry. And yet neither of them are really that interested. Both of them say they want to run Enlighten.

Well, there you go. That’s that’s the.

That’s their path. They think it’s a failure. I just think that, you know, if my kids want to come, you know, I’d say, you know, if you wanted to, but I wouldn’t encourage them. But, you know, No, you should. You got to get your two girls.

Um, interestingly, I kind of my, my, my philosophy for a couple of years was what you’re thinking. Payman thought it’s almost the advantage is that you could provide them knowing the inside track, knowing the hacks, as you say. Yeah. Would would be a huge advantage but don’t know there’s it’s, it’s a stressful job isn’t it. And you just don’t know. Um, I think the best answer I had was was last episode we recorded with Grant Macari. He said, Yeah, I wouldn’t encourage it, but I wouldn’t discourage it. Yeah, that’s listen to that as well.

Good episode, that one.

I think that’s probably my feeling. That’s where I probably sit at as well. I know a number of friends and colleagues, incidentally, said they would never encourage their kids to do it, but I don’t know, you know, Do you.

Guys know about Revere?

Which is that it’s.

The the fund that Mark Zuckerberg’s dad has opened up. Mark Zuckerberg’s dad is a dentist. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Yes, yes, yes.

This is recent. This came out recently. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So he’s he’s done obviously, very well. Yeah. He sold.

His dad. Must be gutted. He didn’t follow in his footsteps.

Well so, so, so he, he sold his Facebook shares and has a lot of money because of it. The dad I’m talking about. And now he’s investing in Dental Start-ups. And some of the ideas, I think they’re investing in one a week right now, but some of the ideas are super duper man. And like, you know, what’s going to be the future of dentistry. It’s it’s so like interesting. They were talking about nanorobots, you know that go into the periodontal pockets with the with the hygienist sitting with the virtual reality glasses driving the thing in there talking about we talked about we we talked about the link with dementia and he’s on this whole mission to get rid of that bacterial what’s it called.

Oh that would be a.

It’s lovely to see that thing. Yeah, right. You and you know, we were talking about this before, about being at the edge of a breakthrough and whether or not you can you can do it when you haven’t got the evidence. Every single move forward in dentistry or medicine has happened because someone said hey, what if I try this? You know, we wouldn’t have gotten anywhere without those those moves.

All on for Champ. What was his name now? What’s his name?

Marleau.

Yeah. You know, he was in deep trouble, you know, they went to strike. Strike. You know, there’s a lot of issues there. And look at look at that. Now there’s people just, you know, have innovations. And they just said we said earlier, it’s it’s it’s something like we should be encouraging, not stifling. It’s a, you.

Know, the guy who invented Invisalign was a banker and he he he had his retainers and he’d forget to put them in and then he’d put them in and he’d, he’d say once he’d put them in for a few days the teeth would go back to where they were before. And then it was easy to put them in. It was to start with, it was hard to put them in, and then it became easy to put them in and he realised retainers can move teeth because he was a banker. He went and raised $1 billion and they were doing it all by hand. You know, they’re cutting the teeth and moving it by one step and suction, you know, vacuum forming onto the that they were the first Invisalign cases. But, you know, the fact that a banker had to do it, you know, some sometimes a Nick Mahindra used to talk about this all the time. Yeah. That you know, you’re lost in your in your knowledge. Yes. You know people talk about, you know, the curiosity of a child or an outsider looking at something. Can come out with something, a breakthrough that the people who are in it can’t. And if you’ve ever driven a Tesla, you know, you know that guy, he’s the fastest car like by far the best, you know, thing screen thing you know interface. He’s got the best stereo in it you know like, you know, the cars have been all these companies all these years and this dude comes along and just reimagines the whole thing drives itself, you know.

It has the.

President I’ve got one. So it has its pros and cons, let’s put it that way.

Ugly.

It’s ugly.

Okay. Lawsuit, lawsuit.

But, you know, it’s right now we I’m hoping we have a lot of young listeners. Um, and you’re and you’re obviously very influential, you know, when it comes to your podcast because a lot of people listen to it. Um, you know, you mentioned their reluctance to, to sort of have a bigger challenge. You know, a lot of the youngsters have bigger challenges. They’re sort of a bit too scared, a bit too worried. They overanalyze things. Exactly what you just said. Now, you know, as dentists, we critical overanalyze things. Probably risk averse. Yeah. Risk averse. Uh, what advice would you give, uh, you know, young dentists, both in terms of being entrepreneur and also a course provider and also obviously a dentist.

I mean, number one, by the way, I’m in touch with a lot of younger dentists. Yeah. I don’t know. Somehow it gives me energy to to help younger dentists. And I know I can help. You know, it’s an interesting time. Like if a dentist is, I don’t know, one to 1 to 5 years out of dental school, I can help massively propel their careers in that time. But I’m a bit you know, for me, it bothers me sometimes when they say they want to be teachers straight away, like everyone wants to be a teacher. You know, in a way, it’s like in our day, not everyone wanted to be a teacher, right? In a way, it gets to me like, why? Why do you want to be a teacher? You know, what’s the reason? And the thing with these youngsters I found is they’re so good at timing, you know, they’re so good at making you think like the way they answer questions, the way they. They’ve got all the words right already, you know? And so, you know, whatever you challenge them with, they end up giving you this answer that you could sort of think, Oh, God, right. Guess he’s thought about that even if he hasn’t.

If you think about it.

All clinicians want to be liked. And we’re not in a profession where we’re liked, so we all like to be liked. Let’s be honest. You want to satisfy whether it’s a course patient or whatever. So I just think the youngsters probably just want to be, you know, liked, admired. I presume that’s the case where that’s the issue.

I find a.

Disproportionate number of them saying they want to teach, which is fine. Okay, fine. Okay. Maybe they do. Maybe that’s the way it is. But my my advice my advice is opposite to what most people say. Most people say, oh, get out there, do a bit of everything. And then after that, decide if you want to go into one thing or. My advice is figure out the one thing very quickly. Almost pick it out of a hat. Yeah. It doesn’t matter what the one thing is. It could be perio, endo. It could be bleaching, minimally invasive. You could be whatever you want it to be. You say, I want to be a restorative guy. I want to be an orthodontist. Whichever way you want to go, you want to open 100 practices, whichever way you want to go. I’d say the earlier the better. So I’m fully, fully happy for someone to go straight into endo without doing any general practice at all. I’m fully happy for someone to to start in dental school, getting their head into endo and going on endo courses and Dental Dental School and coming out of the other end of that being way ahead. Um, it’s opposite to what most people say. Most people say, oh, you know, go spend a bit of time on the NHS and treat a bunch of general patients, see what you like, what you don’t like, and then decide, Um, I just think pick something and run.

Yeah, but.

Controversial.

Yeah.

We spent five years in dental school. And by the time you come out of it and I see this. The young graduates are desperate to learn, and they’re doing so many courses because they didn’t learn any of these things.

In dental school. Yeah.

What does that tell you? They didn’t learn the occlusion. They didn’t learn the Perrier, they didn’t learn the alignment. They didn’t learn the endo. And that is scary. That’s what scares me. Maybe. Maybe you’re right. And so so maybe we should encourage them to sort of say, Right, you can’t be good at everything. Just go for one particular thing because it’s going to be impossible for you to be good.

Dental school is flawed. What do you think? I think Dental school’s flawed in the same way as school. School is flawed. You know, the stuff that making my kids do every day is not going to help them in their life very much.

No, I think you’re right. I think there’s there’s obviously it probably comes down to, in some ways box ticking, isn’t it? You’ve got to you’ve got to cover a certain number of things. Tick that to say that, you know, to to satisfy the requirements that it’s been covered. But you know, it’s interesting what you say about, you know, should should students be encouraged to go on postgraduate courses as undergraduates to develop an interest. And and I’ve actually come I’ve encountered somebody who did that who whose father was a dentist. We talk about hacks. And she was on a course and was in fourth year at the time. I couldn’t believe this. What you do in this course, you know, my dad’s paid for it because I’m interested in this and he thinks it’s a good thing to do and I’m going to go work for him. And he he wants this service in his practice. But wow, that’s that’s ahead of the curve. And it’s like you’re saying, what an advantage this had over over somebody who who perhaps wasn’t pushed in that way. Um, but yeah, I think most students that you talk to, I did training for a while.

I As the trainer.

As the trainer, yeah, yeah. Before I went back to, to do specialist training. And you know, you come across dentists and the, the feedback you get from dentists is you we didn’t cover this or we didn’t cover that. And as Hattam says, it’s, you know but just chatting today about running a course on Crown and bridgework and it’s it’s going to be for 22 dentists signed up to it they’re all within the first five years of qualification and it’s been um it’s linked in with a corporate body. It’s their dentists and they were saying on when I was chatting to them that they’ve looked at the numbers of this cohort and they said that, you know, very low percentages of them doing any, any invasive treatment, you know, with things like crowns and onlays and endos even and extractions, things like that, they’re really hesitant to do them. So really, it’s the comfort zone, isn’t there? They’re just not comfortable doing these things. So there clearly must be a disconnect if if the graduates are not comfortable doing some of these treatments.

I mean, just just in my little world of, you know, bleaching. And I know it’s not the big priority, right? But they still don’t teach bleaching at all in Dental school. No, they do not teach bleaching. You know, your patients more interested in the colour of their teeth than all this other stuff we talk about. It’s completely safe. It’s complete now. It’s it’s been legal for 11 years now. Like fully legal for 11 years. But no dental school teaches bleaching. They have one little chat about internal, um, you know, and that’s just bleaching, which is like on the edge. I mean, but you know, there’s so many things they don’t teach and it would be, it would be good to know, like, you know, they don’t, they don’t. When I talk to people who’ve been out like two, three years, there was no discussion of digital at all. Yeah. Um, and yet, you know, we used to sit there. I don’t know about you guys, but when I qualified, we to sit there and make dentures ourselves, right? Yeah.

Think about the. You know, you’re right. I mean, you think about the kind of the pillars of of practice today, the kind of modern, modern practice, the things that prop it up and keep it going. You’ve got digital, you’ve got alignment, you know, orthodontic alignment, dental implants and aesthetic dentistry. Yeah, those are the four things, aren’t they, really? And as you say, you’re not really taught any of them, any of them into practice. Patients are probably expecting some of those services to be discussed at the very least. And you must be you must feel quite ill equipped if those things are. It’s different for us. Three, because I think, you know, implants were emerging when I qualified. They were there, but it wasn’t it wasn’t everywhere and alignment wasn’t a thing. And aesthetics were basically veneers and whitening was coming in a little bit. Um, but you know, um, and digital wasn’t a thing. So, you know, our training was pretty close to what you would get when you walked out to practice. But now, if they’re not covering those things that you could find yourself in a practice where you really you have to train all over again, you’re on the job.

And then we’ve got the disconnect between the NHS. No one wants to work in the NHS anymore, the young ones, and and I fully agree with them. Yeah, I fully agree with them. Yeah. It would be good if if the NHS was was was somewhere where you could provide good treatment and, you know, solve problems, then fine. But when you can’t, I fully agree with them not to want to work in the NHS. If you think.

They’re spending all this.

Money on these courses and rightly so, and they want to apply that and they can’t in the NHS.

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

They have no choice but to say, well, I need to apply it. So where do I what do I do? I have to. I have to go down the private avenue.

It’s in Scotland is is different. It’s still fee per item.

Yeah, it’s still fee per item.

So do people consider the NHS as a viable place to work? Young dentists.

Probably the ones I speak to would I would say no. I think you’re quite right. It’s it’s it’s getting the nobody wants to work in NHS dentistry any young dentists you know you just either they’re looking for an avenue out of it or they’re looking actually not to see general patients. I was chatting to a younger associate recently, a guy who do a bit mentoring with and a really talented guy, and I was saying to him, he was saying he’s just giving up his practice job. Nice private practice. He works in as an associate. Big list of private patients. I kind of said to him, You landed on your feet there only a few years out. He’s like, Yeah, I’ve given it up. So why is that? So I don’t want to see general patients. I just want to come in and do the stuff I like to do and go again. And he’s carved this niche for himself where he goes around 4 or 5 practices. He does a day in each one, and he’s doing just the type of work he likes to do. And he’s he said, What type of work is it? Composite build-ups, crown bridgework, veneers. And he said, That’s it. So I want to do. And if that’s, you know, I’m not not seeing patients for check-ups or broken fillings, that kind of stuff. And you think your.

Principal, right? Yeah. Yeah. So I get a lot of principals complaining to me of, oh, these young dentists, they, they come in and they say, I just want to do three days a week and I want private. Yeah, yeah. And you know, they haven’t put in their time and all that and I think, you know, that’s a good thing man. It’s a good thing that people know what they want. They want to work, you know, the work life balance and and they want to do the kind of dentistry they want to do. It’s actually a good thing. And, you know, we don’t all have to go like, you know, hard time. You did some hospital jobs, right? I did. You know, oral surgery where you got decimated by that system. Right. And and it was almost like this sort of the abused becomes the abuser kind of thing. Yeah. With your. It was, wasn’t it like, like the the consultant would make me wake up at 3 a.m. to go and push that flap to make sure it’s still, you know, perfused or whatever. And it was the system. It’s like boarding school or something, you know, Why does it have to be like that? Why can’t a dentist say, I want to do three days a week?

I think. Right.

I think it’s really assertive to say, this is what I want to do, this is what I’m going to have. I’m going to do it. And they do it. You know, it’s and yeah.

And going back to that, you know, telling my kids, you know, I really want it more for my daughter than my son because I just think it’s such an amazing career for a woman, you know, because you can you can dictate the number of days you want to do. Which job can you do that man? Which job is there that you can earn really well and dictate? I want to do work one day a week, two days a week, three days a week. You can say however many number of days a week you want and change those as you go. So as kids come along and and all of that very, very few jobs that you can do that unless you work for yourself. Right.

The flexibility of.

Dentistry is amazing.

It’s amazing. It’s amazing.

I’ll go in this field going going to research, teaching innovation like.

I went from five days a week, four days a week, three days a week, two days a week. And I did one day a week for years before I had a bad day and said, forget that. But but what I’m saying is it served me perfectly as enlightened, you know, took over it served me to, you know, pay for my life and whatever, while Enlightened wasn’t making money. And then to do less and less and less. And you can basically you can you can do exactly what you want in dentistry, which is beautiful. I love that about it.

We had discussion.

Previously, Now you’ve got dentists writing books, manufacturing thing, making things, designing things. Yeah, that was unheard of ten years ago, you know, now. Yeah.

I’m going to just rewind you a bit there, guys. Payman What I’d like to ask you Payman is we just touched on the NHS there, but we were asking this question last week that as you all know, as a regular, as the regular listener to this podcast, the other regular listener is Rishi. Rishi Sunak Yeah. And Rishi Sunak, if he comes on the phone tonight and says, Listen, I like the sound of that guy Payman I want him to fix NHS dentistry. Do you think it can be fixed? Yeah, yeah, yeah. How would you fix it?

Look, let me let me tell you what you annoy me the most was that there was a third party involved in in clinical decision making. Yeah. Me, the patient and then third parties. And you can and can’t do this. What I would say for the NHS is it’s a fun it should be a fund of money that people who are means tested have access to. Yeah. And it could be, you know, if you earn below x, you could have this much a year towards paying a dentist from the government full stop. No, what you can spend you can spend it on bleaching implants, scaling polishes or not spend it at all. Yeah, it’s up to you. You can go to any dentist and use these credits and it’s and that that to me would be the only way that would work. And it should be means tested. It should be for the poor people who can’t afford it. Everyone else, I think, should start to get into that mode of saving up for your teeth like they do in most countries, Right?

Or insurance based.

Yeah. Same thing. Right? Same, same, same story.

Who’s inspired you the most in dentistry?

Let’s let’s before we go on to that question, let’s just explain to Payman. This is the drum roll, the dry ice and, you know, the pizzazz associated with this question. Hatem, that this is the this is the Richard Thiel Prize in dentistry. You’re Richard Kiel Prize. And you know who Richard Kiel is. Don’t you Payman know.

Who’s Richard.

Kiel? Richard Kiel is the actor who portrayed Jaws in James Bond. So he had the oh, yeah, the best set of teeth in the movie and television history. And we’re going to ask you to give the Richard Kiel Prize to the person in dentistry that inspired you the most and why.

It was Nick Nick Mahendra, my first boss. He had this he used to say, he always used to say, Why not? Whatever, whatever the question was, his answer was why not? And I just seeing this one guy in a little practice in Ashford Kent come up with this new way of doing something and then put it into the newspaper and it’s life changing because of it. And actually, like chasing that little dream of of making a difference from one little dental practice. It really changed what I thought was possible. And that, you know, that idea, they say like make a dent in the world. And I think your first boss is a massive influence anyway. Right. Which which way you end up going, your first boss really sets that agenda. And I couldn’t have hoped for a better first boss. I mean, he was just brilliant, man. He really I still see him all the time. Just a brilliant mind. Brilliant mind.

Retired. Retired.

Not quite. Not quite. But he’s. He’s. He’s getting there. He’s getting there. Um, a brilliant mind, man. It just, you know, and up to that point, I was like, well, research is done in laboratories by massive corporations and scientists. And, and this guy was just in his practice in lunchtime trying things out. It was it really inspired me to try and do stuff myself.

That’s great. Nick Mahendra The Richard Kiel Prize is on its way to you. And finally, we will finish the podcast with the question we ask all guests Payman. And that is what is your favourite movie and favourite album and why?

So my favourite album is a Prince album. I was a massive Prince fan, brilliant back in the day. Um, and I just can’t get away from him and um, I don’t know, one of one of the Prince albums. I loved them all, but Sign of the Times or something. Great. Um.

Did you see Prince live?

I did, yeah.

Several. Yeah. I went to the O2 to see him. Yeah, we do.

Dodgy sound, wasn’t it? I don’t know where I was standing. It was, like, amazing. It was good Live, though.

Unbelievable. Just. I didn’t quite appreciate that he played all the instruments, wrote all the music performed. You think this guy is a musical genius, isn’t he? Yeah. Tremendous. And the artist as a guitarist, you underrated. I mean, amazing guitarist. And at the.

Time, do you remember at the time it was Michael Jackson or Prince sort of thing. And and I was I used to, you know, Michael Jackson at the time. You could even then it was like a cartoon character, right? So like, you just knew there was no Billie Jean. There was no kid. There was no person. He said, beat it to. Like none of that existed. He was like a comic book. But whereas with Prince, Right, all the songs, you just felt like he’d he’d actually been in those situations. He felt so much more authentic to me. So I liked it movie wise. I’m not a big movie guy now, but, um, I love Darren Aronofsky. Do you know him? The director? Yeah, The Wrestler movie. The Wrestler. Yeah. Not his best, but. But. But yeah, he did. He did one called Pi. Did one called Requiem for a Dream.

I’ve seen pie. Yeah. Pie is a crazy man. That’s a niche film.

Yeah. I liked it, though. I liked it. The obsession. Part of it. I liked a lot. Yeah. Um, he did one recently called Mother, which was like, a about the earth. Crazy thing. He did Black Swan. So I, like. I like all of his films and I like Kubrick a lot as well. I like I like all of all of Stanley Kubrick’s films. Kubrick.

Yeah, like Kubrick, because every film is slightly different. Different? Yeah. Yeah. Um. Favourite Kubrick.

Oh, man, that’s so difficult. That’s so hard. I mean, I think Clockwork Orange in the end, I think in the end, I was thinking of making my stand at Dental showcase that, you know, the milk bar.

The molecule. They call it Molecule. Yeah.

Molecule milk. Do you. Do you do it? These these cats, they go. They have, they drink this milk, which is like, I don’t know, you never he never tells you what’s in the milk. Right. But they drink this milk, then they go berserk. It’s drugs. They go berserk and they stop committing crimes. But I don’t know when it came out because I must have watched it years later. But it probably came out in 68 or 60 something. And this molecule milk bar. Yeah. Like if you if you see an image of what it is, it’s just all white and the tables are made of like parts of humans like women or whatever. And these guys are sitting there looking just like, like crazy psychopaths, right? Drinking their milk. I was going to do that. I was I was thinking of doing that at Dental showcase, making the molecule milk bar and and just just just having people come in and have a good time.

You could do a follow up where you make the maze at the end of The Shining as well, with the Jack Nicholson full on rage Eyes. Um, what’s your favourite.

Film, dude?

Wow, that’s a good question. What is my favourite film? It kind of changes. Do you like it? Changes it. For a long time, it was One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

Oh, great, too.

You can’t. You’re just brilliant, isn’t it? And yeah, in. I went through a phase of really liking documentary films, so. Yeah, me too. When we were Kings. Muhammad Ali one. Great. Yeah. Watch that every day. Just so good. Have you seen.

The one where it’s about the South African Sugar Man searching for Sugar Man?

Searching for sugar man. Yeah.

Yeah. So love that.

What a great story that is, isn’t it?

Have you seen that hotel?

No, I haven’t seen it.

Check it out. Searching for Sugar Man.

Will never happen again. That. That particular chain of events.

Not anymore.

Amazing. We’ll tell listeners the premise. If we’re known for one thing on this podcast, it is meandering and lengthy, self-indulgent chats. So let’s let’s do that. So Searching for Sugar Man was about an American blues musician, bluesy kind of rock and roll musician in the late 60 seconds. Him and he released two albums and they didn’t really make an impact in America at all. You know, a little Ripple, but nothing. And he was working in construction, so he essentially was was working in construction. Then he kind of was unemployed and he was living really a you know, he was, you know, in Skid Row, basically. Meanwhile, in South Africa, he was an absolute megastar. His because of apartheid in South Africa, there was an embargo on trade from the United States. So music that got in there and pre-apartheid became very popular because they couldn’t.

Scrape music as well. Really brilliant music.

You listen to it. Why is this? Why did he not make an impact in the States? But yeah, but because the apartheid restricted what they could import and what they were given access to this this stuff had gotten just before and it became very popular. It was on radio stations and he was a superstar in South Africa, but he did not know this. He was living in a kind of Skid Row lifestyle. And when apartheid ended, essentially, you know, people were he was still popular. But this guy then made it his kind of wonder what ever happened to him. He must be a big star in America. I’m going to go and find him. And he was astonished to find this guy basically living almost like a homeless existence.

There was some legend about he’d killed himself on stage, wasn’t it? They weren’t sure about it. So he goes and looks for him and finds him. He finds.

Him. And then he brings him to South Africa. When he puts he puts on a concert.

Huge concert.

100,000 stadium like Wembley Stadium, packed. And they said at the start, Elvis Presley and Rodriguez is I don’t know who’s bigger in South Africa. It’s between the two of them. You know, the guy himself did not know any of this, you know, because of no social media, no Internet. You know, this news didn’t travel over there. And it’s such a great story. Such a great story. But as you say, Payman great music as well. Brilliant music.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Me and my kids love that music now. Brilliant. How about you? What’s your favourite.

Song You guys are? Leon.

Oh, on. Ready? That’s good.

That’s good.

That’s a bizarrely though, Leon table. When we’re off air, it’s just.

You aren’t from.

London. You’re from Cardiff, weren’t you?

Cardiff City. Yeah.

So I’ll tell you the story about that another time.

But you know, we’re going onto two hours now. This has been amazing. Two hours past my bedtime now.

But sometimes these things feed you, man. They wake you up.

It’s been a quick one by our standards.

We wanted you on board. Honestly, it’s been a phenomenal, honestly eye opener. And it’s covered just about everything in terms of your journey.

Enjoyed it, man.

How passionate you are. You know, the love for dentures that you have, the youngsters you’re hopefully mentoring and also, you know, the perfection that you always want to strive for. You really are honestly, as they say, a legend. Thank you so much. Stuart.

Yeah. Payman Yeah. Absolute pleasure to chat to you and you can tell you’re just all upright elegance. Isn’t he just kind of easy to talk to? But as you said, the Parkinson of dentistry, I think you’re absolutely right with that assessment and brilliant.

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 know why I did mini smile because I knew that my composite bonding wasn’t at the level it could be from what I was seeing out in social media and stuff.

But the fact that you’re even looking and you’re paying attention and you’re trying to improve at this point in your career where you just told me you’re looking at winding down. Yeah, but you know what I mean, that that curiosity to continuously improve. I mean, to go to Pankey, to learn ortho, to the level that you’ve learned it. Where does it come from?

I just love making a difference to the patients. See, I’ve always mixed with people at quite a good level, like Bard. And, you know, I’m blessed at having colleagues and friends who are some of the best dentists in the country. You know, I’m really, really lucky. Always look at anything I’m doing that. Could that go on a screen? Could you show that at Bard? You know, could I show a colleague that and be proud of it? You know, And no, I saw that composites had gone to another level. I wasn’t doing these beautiful, layered composites with all the halo. And I needed to learn that if you could do that, then why wasn’t I doing that?

No, But why?

Because you want to give the patient the best.

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 Yasmin George onto the podcast. Yasmin is a dentist of over 30 years experience who I still see on the lecture circuit. It’s a great thing that there are people you qualify with that you never, ever see on the lecture circuit. And then there are people like Yasmin, who I’ve been seeing for the last 20 years on different events. Dentists with an interest in orthodontics has been a principal, has been a teacher. The Pankey Institute. It’s a massive pleasure to have you, Yasmin.

Thank you. This is an honour to be to be here.

So, Yasmin, we tend to start with sort of where did you grow up? Why did you become a dentist? When did you first have dentistry on your radar?

So I was born in Kent, in Chatham, in the Medway towns, which isn’t a terribly exciting place. And still isn’t. I went to the local grammar school. Girls, girls, grammar school. And okay, we’re going back to, you know, born in 1965. So there weren’t many brown people in Kent then, and there certainly weren’t any Indian restaurants. And we were the only me and my sister were the only brown kids in school. So it was all rather interesting. But mean, you just accepted this, this was life and you got on with it. And my father was a chartered civil engineer and he worked abroad in the 70 seconds because there was, you know, economically Britain wasn’t investing in the same way that, say, the Middle East was. And there was very interesting, exciting work abroad. And he took an overseas contract or he took a number of them. Actually, he was in Iran and then he was in Saudi Arabia. And my sister and I went to boarding school. So I was in the girls grammar school, got my what were O-levels in those days? And I got my eye on the King’s School, Canterbury, because I was really into music. I was obsessed with music. I was going to be a professional musician. I played the flute, the piano, the piccolo. I was also singing. But in the girls grammar school I felt a bit limited and I couldn’t wait to get to another school. My sister also went to boarding school. She went to Benenden School and she went a bit earlier than I did and parents lived abroad.

And as I say, we we boarded and I went to King’s Canterbury in those days, didn’t have girls until 1982, which was the year I went there. And they took 24 girls in the sixth form. Competitive entry, 300 girls applied. And it was very interesting. They certainly weren’t coming from the local Kent Grammar School sort of thing. There were girls there. We all had a stunning set of O-levels. We all had 910 A’s type thing. And the boys that we were mixing with certainly didn’t have those grades. So that was very interesting. And the girls came from Cheltenham Ladies College, they came from James Lane’s in Dulwich. And you know, I mean. Top schools, but places I’d never heard of, you know. And I was from a state school and there were a few other girls from state schools as well. But, you know, there’s 500 and something boys and 24 girls in the school. I mean, now it’s co-ed and now it runs very, very differently. But some of the experiences we had. Oh, they they’re just off the scale in terms of political incorrectness or, um, I mean, the things that happen would make your hair stand on end now. And I look back on it, especially in this world that we’re now in, where, you know, you can’t say anything to anybody. Yeah. So, yeah, very interesting experience, quite bruising at times, but quite a sheltered, sheltered home Indian background. You know, two sisters. You know, I hadn’t been exposed to some of what I did get exposed to.

So I went to a boarding. I went to a school that had boarding. I didn’t I didn’t I wasn’t a boarder. But that experience that you had in boarding school and I know it’s very different now, did that affect whether you were going to send your own kids to a school like that?

Yeah, it absolutely did. And both my boys have been to the most fantastic boarding school from the age of 13. Um.

So you wanted that for them even though you’d been through this?

Yeah. I mean, it’s it’s really interesting. I mean, it wasn’t great to be a girl at this boys school. Yeah. You know what I mean? But it showed me that private education was better than state in my mind. There was no doubt the teaching was of much better quality, all of that side of things. So the academic side. Yeah, the music, the drama. I mean, I was in productions, I was in choirs, orchestras. I was busy, busy, busy doing all the things I wanted to do. Yeah. So it opened my eyes that there was a difference between state and private, which some people would dispute. But my lived experience was that I don’t think I’d have got two guys to read dentistry unless I’d been at King’s. If I’d been at my grammar school with the fairly mediocre science teaching. You know, I got good grades at A-level, but I don’t think I would have done an A-level.

Yeah, but specifically with regards to boarding, I mean, you could have put them in a private day school. Was it? Was it were there loads of benefits to being a boarder that you now you wanted for your kids?

If you’re doing sport music, drama, if you’re busy, busy, busy, yeah, the schools run a certain way. So some run on a boarding school timetable where they do all the sport in the afternoon and they do all, you know. So then other schools run on on a day by day thing. And then I, I marry a man who who went to private school from the age of seven and boarded from the age of seven. Now, that isn’t something I would recommend. And and I think he wouldn’t recommend it either. But in the 1950s, 60 seconds, when he was going to school, that is what you did. Yeah. So, you know, it’s times have changed. But he was fairly adamant that that with the incomes that we both had as two professional people, we needed, we both wanted our children to have the best. So it’s then a question of what do you think is the best? And he was adamant that he wanted his children to go to the type of school he’d been to in terms of facilities and teaching and at prep school level. That’s what we looked for locally. And the best school, in our opinion at the time was ten miles away. Well, our friends in the village weren’t sending their children ten miles away, but we decided to and we had a full time nanny and she drove 40 miles a day, you know, taking them to and from school and picking them up. And then from there, we then went round a lot of boarding schools, all the top schools, Winchester, Tunbridge, Seven Oaks, Charterhouse, you name it, all the ones around here. And we were looking particularly for weekly boarding where they come home at the weekends or you’ve got the flexibility to do that. And Tunbridge ticked the box for us and.

Is it co-ed or is it.

Boys only? No, it’s all boys. And again, we debated this long and hard and I read up a lot about, you know, what’s the best for boys, what’s the best for girls and all the rest of it. And and they obviously we only have two boys. They don’t have any sisters, but the school does a lot with all the local schools in terms of drama and, you know, productions. And suffice to say, my son had a steady girlfriend by the age of 15, so I really don’t think it mattered.

Well done. Well done. You know, because because I went to I went.

To a boys.

About it. I went to a boys school. And it’s made me adamant for my kids not to go to a single sex school. But then but then I didn’t have that level of success that your son seems to have.

Well, we you know, no, we honestly we debated it long and hard. And I cross-examined.

The headmaster at Tunbridge.

Who isn’t there.

Anymore. But he was a lovely, lovely man. And I said, Well, I said, you know, what about girls? I mean, it’s not very progressive, these in this day and age. And he gave me some sort of answer. Now we looked at this school when our son was two years old, so we didn’t even know what sort of child we’d got. But in those days, you needed to put their names down. You know, things have changed a lot, but 26 years ago, you needed to get names down at schools. So that’s what we did. And I can I can remember, you know, in 2002 going round Tunbridge, but we, we looked at lots of schools and, you know, yeah, we looked at schools that took girls in the sixth form, the same sort of, you know, model that I’d been to. But in the final analysis, we eventually let Harry choose when he was, because obviously we went back to the school when he was a bit older and stuff like that and let him look round the schools and we got it down to two. And then we said, Which one would you prefer? And he chose Tunbridge.

Fair enough.

And it was fantastic choice. Fantastic decision.

And your husband, what does he do?

He was an investment banker.

He is a chartered accountant by training. But when I met him in 1987, he’d come out of a sort of he’d left accountancy, as it were, and he’d worked for Coopers and Lybrand, and then he worked for Nabisco, and he’d moved into investment banking with a French bank, Banque Paribas, and he was an investment analyst. And when I met him in 1987, he’d been in London six months.

As in where was he before that?

Well, he was based in Birmingham and and just around the world, really. He’s literally travelled the world before. He met me on audit in all sorts of places that Coopers sent him to.

So I’m interested, you know, we’re having these conversations about sort of private school boarding school and dentists do well, don’t they? And I guess they can most dentists can can afford to send their kids to to schools that are paying schools, although the cost is the cost is so high that it’s eyewatering. Yeah. Yeah, but I’ve got, I’ve got a friend who, you know, he’s, he’s got perfectly good means, financial means and, and he, he doesn’t believe in, in paying. He says it’s more to do with the kid than the school. I kind of disagree. I disagree with it. But what I’m interested in it in is, you know how much in Britain your your social standing is very dependent on the school you went to. More dependent on the school you went to than the university or. Everything else.

Somehow I think that is the case with some schools.

It’s surprising somehow.

Well, yeah, I mean, it is quite a sort of controversial subject. It’s always great fun at a dinner party when this comes up because.

You know, like you say, there are people.

That can well afford private education, but they don’t agree with it. And I sort of respect that, but I respect it.

I don’t agree with it myself.

But, you know, at the end of the day, I don’t know.

It’s all about what you think is the best. Everybody wants the best for their children. But we don’t all agree on what the best is. And there are schools, I think, that are more sort of famous, if you like, or whatever. But you see Tunbridge 26 years ago, Tunbridge wasn’t one of those schools. It was flying under the radar a little bit. It was getting really good results. I mean excellent Oxford and Cambridge entry, if that’s what you were after and all of this type of thing. But we didn’t we didn’t choose it for connections or name. We you see, I was very worried about letting someone else look after my children. You know, these are my children. And what if, you know, you were you were you were going to work, somebody was going to be in loco parentis. The housemaster was going to be an absolute key figure. Absolutely. And what happened was I, I met the housemaster that was going to be my son’s housemaster. But of course, stupid me didn’t realise. Time goes by, they get promoted and somebody else is going to be there by the time your son gets there.

So, so, so my son.

Wins all these scholarships to go there as well because, you know, he was he did quite well to get in. But all of that. But two years before he’s going there, we get told that the housemaster that I had chosen in inverted commas, isn’t going to be there anymore. He’s now deputy head, but there’s this other nice person coming in and would you like to come to a drinks party and meet him? I was beside myself.

I was like, Oh my God, what am I going to do?

And my husband was much more sort of sanguine about it. And I met this lovely man called Andy Whittle, who was a blue. He’d read maths at Cambridge. He was a Cambridge blue in cricket and he had played for the, I think the Zimbabwean cricket team. I’m going to get this wrong. But it was like he’s really famous in cricket and of course I hate cricket. So like that didn’t mean anything to me.

And I remember.

Meeting him and I’ve just sort of said to him, I didn’t choose you, you know, how dare you sort of thing. And we laugh about it because he turned out to be the most fantastic housemaster. He’s a lovely, lovely man. And for us, we shared the same values. And if you share the values with somebody, whether it’s your partner or your, you know, who you work with. But this was a man who was had day to day care of my son, sort of Sunday night to Saturday lunchtime, you know.

Very important job.

Yeah. And he was he was fantastic.

So let’s finish. Let’s finish the story. What did your sons end up doing?

Oh, so Harry.

Went well, He went to Tonbridge. He then went to Oxford, read history. Wow.

And then. Yeah.

And then. Oh, he was a choral scholar at Oxford as well. Sang in the Merton Choir for three years, which was incredible experience. Then he got a place at UI to train as a chartered accountant, and he’s a qualified chartered accountant.

Followed his dad’s footsteps.

And he’s still with the same girlfriend.

That he met when he was 15.

You’re kidding. How cute.

And they’ve just bought a house. Well.

So. And did you not want any of your kids to be dentists?

And I got told by my kids fairly early.

On, Forget that, Mum. We don’t like sciences.

They’ve got they’ve.

Got A’s at everything they could have done either. Yeah. Neither of them had any. And they just said mum going to tell you now. Not going to do anything like what you do.

Yeah. So both of mine are telling me that but both of them like science. I was, I was talking to Jack Basra. I don’t know if you’ve come across him, but. Yes, yes. His wife was telling me both their kids are in dental school. One just qualified and one’s in dental school. His wife was telling me, the secret is for you not to be the one to recommend it. The other other people need to do that.

So I don’t know. I think it’s I think.

It’s an Indian Asian thing.

I think we pressurise I mean, I.

Don’t particularly want them to be dentists, but I want them to want to be dentists.

Well, mine I think from what mine.

Have seen about.

How hard you have to work.

They think I think they think that they can earn their money easier, although I don’t think they are because my son is working very, very. Heart. And my my baby son has just started. Teach first. And he’s teaching in a school in South London, and he’s just finished his first term and he’s worked incredibly hard.

So I bet he has.

So when did you think of dentistry? Why dentistry? What age?

And so I liked sciences.

Okay. Asian upbringing. You’ve got to factor that in in the sense that it’s not really on your radar not to be professional. Yeah, it’s the professions, isn’t it? Doctor. Dentist. Lawyer. Accountant. Mum and dad were immigrants into the UK in the 1950s. What the culture is and it still is. And I told my kids, doctor, dentist, lawyer or accountant, sort of half joking, but not half joking, you know, but not, but half joking, you know.

So that was that. So, you know, I was, I was looking.

At those four things. I didn’t really wasn’t that interested in medicine. I was a bit scared about medicine. I thought it was too broad. And how would I. I could I couldn’t be a doctor, I decided. But I did have we had some close family friends who was a dentist, and I got on really well with him. Now I just got on with him as a personality, so I wasn’t that interested in the actual technical side of dentistry. But because I liked him, I sort of thought, you know, maybe dentistry might be good. And I liked the idea of being self-employed. I was mindful that I wanted to work. I was I was quite career minded. So I wanted something that would be flexible with motherhood if that was what I wanted to do. But I wasn’t really bothered about having a family mean. I didn’t really want children at the time. When we did have children, it was my husband was keener than I was, so it wasn’t really that. But I just my dad always said to me, If you can work for yourself, it’s better than working for somebody. So there was. There was that. There was. I like the idea of being self-employed, and I like the idea that dentistry was quite focussed and targeted. You were just going to learn about one bit of the body. Yeah. And yeah, so I think and then just, you know, compared it with different things.

And when you got, when you got to guys, when you got to guys, what was your initial reaction? Because if I’ve done my calculations right, 83, 84 around that time I was there.

84. 88.

84. Yeah. So 84 guys was a, I guess quite a lot like your school, like a rugby dominated.

A little bit. 20% Asian. Yeah, 20% Indian. Asian, which shocked me. Yeah. Yeah. Was it the first time.

You were meeting lots of Asians? Yeah.

All of a sudden I said, Mummy, there’s so many Indian people here. My mum’s like, Really, darling, you know? But that hadn’t been my experience of life. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I was fascinated by all of that, but I didn’t.

Really hang out with that.

Crowd.

Were you a rugby girl?

No, definitely not.

No, definitely.

Not. No. I was up for the all the socialising, dancing. Drinking. London Bridge.

London Bridge at that point was wasn’t what it is today. London bridge right now is this amazing area, right? It was a dump. It was it was proper dangerous wasn’t it. It was like a dodgy it was dangerous.

And also I got.

I went from glasses to contact lenses.

When I became a dental student. That changed my life.

Uh huh. As in. As in you reinvented yourself?

Mhm. Definitely.

Boys don’t make passes at girls who wear glasses.

So whoever said that, that was my experience. So that was quite interesting.

Um, sadly, I dropped all the music. Sadly, I think I found the whole experience of being doing dentistry actually quite overwhelming.

And it is. And yeah, I mean I.

Found the first year okay, because that was fairly academic and it was a move on from A-levels and won a prize and, you know, all that stuff. But when we got into the practical side of things, I, I didn’t enjoy it. I found that really hard.

Yeah, me too.

You know, And other people.

Did you stay.

At Wolfson house? Sorry. Wolfson House.

Did you stay? I remember it well. Yeah.

We we’ve stayed in Saint George’s.

So I was they.

Had they put 20 of us in a medical school like housing accommodation place at George’s. So we used to commute in from Tooting.

So.

We had a little sort of sub community there for the first year. And then after that you were on your own.

And were your parents still abroad when you went? Yeah. So, you know, I guess I guess you were already quite an independent person because boarding school does that to people. It makes you makes you quite self-reliant and all that.

Yeah. You learn to be. Yeah. Cried a lot. Cried a lot. Listen to a lot of.

Slush.

Tapes they were called in those days. You know, every sad.

Heartbreak song that you could.

And I fell in love.

In.

At King’s.

With someone I shouldn’t have fallen in love with. And.

You know, that ended badly.

But, you know, you’ve got to have your heart broken. So I did have my heart broken.

Did all of that.

Yeah. Well, haven’t we all? And then. And then. And then at what point did you or did you have any idea during Dental school of the kind of dentist you wanted to be? Or was that you were just just having a great time and learning? And, you know, some people have got like very early on ambitions about what they want to do. Maybe it’s more these days.

Back then I just wanted to qualify.

Yeah, All I cared about was getting qualified. Yeah, I was. I was so I was a real girly swot. I always worried that I hadn’t done enough work parenting to boys. And I’ve tried to parent them really differently and let and, and going back to the boarding school, one of the reasons I sent my boys to boarding school is I did not want to micromanage them on a day by day basis. Yeah. And I am that sort of person. I would be freaking out about whether they’ve done their homework. I’d be worrying about this, worrying about that. And so I just decided that it would be better if they were managed by somebody with a different style. And that’s worked well. This this blended approach to bringing up your children for me has worked really well. And my boys, they don’t overwork, they don’t swot, they do what they need to do. But and they get where they need to get, but they don’t make heavy weather of it. I made heavy weather of the whole thing.

Yeah I think I think this Gen Y, Gen Z, they’re just much more rounded anyway. You know, they seem to just understand the love of living more than, let’s say, our generation. That’s, that’s my feeling from them, you know, seeing them, they then we.

Were, we were brought up in a more.

Insecure environment, weren’t we?

True. You see.

We’ve given these kids unbelievable security. They’ve never worried. I mean. I mean, my parents, they. They. They struggled to give us what they gave us.

No, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t say that for me. I wouldn’t say that for me. Quite the opposite. So sometimes sometimes I wonder, you know, I’m not giving my kids as much as my parents gave me. Right. No.

I. I mean, I can remember when.

I wanted to play the flute. It it it wasn’t easy for my parents to afford a flute so that I could go and have lessons. And. And yet when my son decided he wanted to play the trumpet, I went out and bought him a £2,000 instrument immediately. Yeah. But I said to him, You better now. Make some progress. But. But he did. But you know, we’ve been way more comfortable in being able to facilitate things.

I’m not sure, but I’m not sure that’s the reason. I mean, I think even even even poor Gen Z’s today, people who didn’t have much, they’re just more rounded, you know, I guess people you know, there’s an evolution just in the same way as you’re more rounded than your mother. You know, it’s one of those things as as sort of information goes out, people, people, people understand more about. And it’s just my it’s just my sense of the youngsters these days. It just seem to have a lot of different strings to their bow. And this thing, what you said, what resonated was what you said. You know, they do they do what they do to get to where they want to get to. You know, there’s a balance about them, even even some of this politically correct stuff that one side of me just wants to just, you know, hate it on the other, on the other end of that, there’s a kindness to them that that wasn’t, you know, the kind of things that happened to you at boarding school and the things that were said. And just you’re just in this this current generation. You just can’t imagine some of those things. Now, you know, there’s the two sides to it, isn’t there? There’s the apparently these days you’re not allowed to ask people where they’re from, which is just just it’s making my life a hell because it’s it’s the first thing I ask everyone, every single person I meet. Yeah, but but but it but you know, some my kids, 13 year old cousin was telling me it’s very rude to say that. And I was I was saying, you know, come on, don’t be silly. And then she explained it to me. And once she explained it to me, the way that she explained to me was, you know, her her best friend’s mom’s black, and she went to a dinner party and it was the only question anyone asked her. And they asked her 30 times that night and no one asked her any other question. And, you know, the 13 year old was explaining something to me that.

I’ve been asked that so many.

Times. Where are you really from? They want to know why you’re brown and you were born in Chatham, in Kent.

That’s what they’re asking you.

If I ask you where are you from? And you say East Africa. Yeah, then then we can discuss East Africa. And that’s interesting. Yeah. For me, but, but the point, the point the 13 year old made me understand was that you asked that question based on the way the person looked. And if they were a white person, you might not have asked that, Although I do, I ask Polish people and Lithuanians, they’re white people. But but I get it. I do get it. And what I mean is this generation, they seem to have that side really clear in their head more. They seem they seem to be more rounded. It’s the best way I can put it. Okay. What was your first job?

Uh, the house jobs at guys to house jobs.

Oh, really? Which ones? Medicine and oral.

Surgery.

Professor Challacombe Scully. Professor Challacombe. But all was Crispian Scully.

Was he there?

Uh, no. No, I can’t remember.

But he came to Guy’s later.

No. So did all surgery. Dan, Mr. Haskell and I did oral medicine Professor Challacombe, and then I went out into general practice.

Did you enjoy the house job? Did you enjoy on calls and all of that?

Um, oral.

Medicine. There wasn’t any on call. Um, oral surgery. Yeah, that was entertaining. It was very good experience. Yeah. Very, very good experience. I’ll never forget the day I somehow messed up taking blood on this oral med patient, and I had a bright yellow skirt on. And before I know what’s happened, we’ve got half a pint of blood all over my yellow skirt, and I just don’t know what to do with myself. You know, I haven’t come to work with two skirts and.

And I remember going on the back stairs at Guy’s. You couldn’t go in the lift looking like that, right? And I’m on the back stairs and I run into Professor Challacombe and I just want to die.

And I think he just said nothing. He just raised his eyebrows and walked past me.

You know, I just felt like that big.

So then you went to practice. How was practice for you?

The first in an NHS practice in Sussex in Horsham. Lovely, lovely market town. And the owner.

He owned he owned.

Nursing homes and dental practices and he did practice, but he was in a he had two practices in the same town opposite each other, you know, literally 500 yards apart. And I was in one and he was in the other. So I didn’t really see much of him. But in my building there was a senior associate called Tony Lawley, and he was really my my mentor. You know, he I turn up on the first day and don’t really know what to do. And he taught me how to work in the NHS and, you know, the forms and all. What you had to do in, in 1990, 89, 90, you know, when I started and I learnt a lot from him and he was very ethical, very proper, lovely, lovely man. And he then became a trainer so didn’t exist, then came in afterwards and we became a practice and he was the trainer and then and then associates came in under me, if you like, but he gave me a experience, if you like.

And so how many years of that practice did you do or not? That practice, but NHS practice in general.

Yeah.

Was there. That was the only NHS practice I worked in and I was there until 93. And I was working five and a half days a week. We then got the sort of pay cuts which basically, you know, you know, they had that contract where we all did too much treatment and they had to claw it all back. So the following year they gave you an 8% pay cut. And I was like, What? I was scandalised by the idea that I would work harder. I was getting better as a dentist and I was going to earn less or I was going to have to do 8% more hours or whatever. And I used to be quite tired after five and a half days a week. So I used to go, go get into bed on a Saturday afternoon in order to recover from working Saturday morning, especially if we were going out Saturday evening.

And it’s a lot. It’s a lot of five and a half days. It’s too much. Five and a half days. Oh.

Absolutely. I’ve never, never done it since. But I did then. I didn’t I didn’t know any different. Yeah. And we were young and we’d got 99% mortgage on the house.

And, you know, you know, interest rates were 15%, you know.

And also that day I’d heard the receptionist be quite rude to a patient.

I, I thought, I really don’t like.

This way that we have to treat people or whatever. I was quite upset by it and I started looking through the job pages in the bdj because that’s what you used to do.

Yeah.

Sitting in bed with my because I was a girly swot and, you know, God knows why I’d be reading that on a Saturday afternoon. And anyway, I looked through the jobs and I saw this job in Reigate and I couldn’t work out what which practice it was. And I thought I knew quite a few of the practices, but I obviously didn’t. So I went for an interview at Ringley Park and they were looking for an associate. They only had two days a week work. It was an all private practice which was quite revolutionary in 93 and long and the short got the job was an associate there and then became a partner.

What’s your advice to, you know, there’s a lot of young dentists now who just don’t want to do NHS and it’s a different NHS now to the one that you grew up in. I speak to people and it’s actually surprises me that people think that, you know, they can’t pull off a private job. Sometimes they, they, you know, they haven’t got the confidence to do a private job. What’s what’s your advice to a young associate now who is thinking, I don’t want to be an NHS, I want to get into private dentistry? What moves should they make? What should they be? What should their mindset be?

Mm Okay. So there’s, there’s two angles, isn’t there. You look at it from the dentist angle and you look at it from the, the, the principle, you know, employing. Yeah. So I would have said ten years ago I’d have said you should start in the NHS. It’s a good like training ground, you get experience, you get to work out what you don’t want to do, but it’s a good way to start. I don’t think I would say that now. And part of my reason for saying that is when I teach at Pankey, we have got very, very young dentists now coming on the entry level course, and I teach the entry level. So the institute is is a series of four levels, E one to E four, and there’s 200, 250 faculty. And we’re all divided up into teaching which of those levels we feel most comfortable in. And I teach in E one and we always used to have people coming to E one with like five years experience, six years experience, three years, ten years, 15 years. But more recently we have people coming with 18 months experience, 12 months, you know, or, you know, fresh out of dental school now what they’re saying there is I want to I don’t want to learn the wrong way. I want to start off the right way. And because that’s what we teach is how to do a complete exam, how to take good records, how to talk to the patient about comprehensive care and implement the good stuff you’ve learnt in dental school. And and obviously you don’t learn everything. But but so many people throw away a lot of the principles of treatment, planning and all of these types of things when they get into a busy practice because they sort of feel that they can’t they can’t work that way. And guess what we teach at Pankey is that you can there is a way there’s also a in America, there’s a bigger network of Pankey practices looking for these young dentists that want to work that way.

Oh, wow. In that. Right.

Yeah. And that is fantastic. And that’s what I’ve seen over the 30. Well, how long have I been associated with Pankey coming up? 30 years. Because I went there as a student, but as a dentist. But, you know.

Speak a bit more to Pankey because, you know, out of those I guess correct me if I’m wrong, but if we’re talking sort of Spear Khoy, Dawson Pankey, those are sort of the four comparable sort of angles there was that Las Vegas, but that became Speer, didn’t it? So the question of Pankey is different to those, right? Is it a non for profit, not for profit. Is that right?

Yeah, it is. It is. Having said that, you.

Know, all of the.

People you’ve.

Mentioned, they’ve all taught at Pankey or been students at Pankey at some point, have they? So it’s an incredibly kind of like an overlapping sort of world. But yes, Pankey is the only not for profit out of all of them. And all of us visiting faculty teach for free. We even pay our own airfares to to get there. The students, what the students pay runs the facility, which is a state of the art teaching facility. And obviously there’s core staff that are there. But the the visiting faculty, there’ll be 3 or 4 and every course there will be anything between 15 and 24 students being taught. So it’s a very high ratio of faculty to student and it’s an all encompassing experience because it covers every aspect related to dentistry and even your personal life. It’s not just teaching you to how to do a full mouth rehab or how to prep veneers or, you know, it’s not just technical, it’s it’s personal development. It’s development of your team, it’s practice finances. It’s it’s planning your, your pension and your, you know, right at the beginning in E-1 when we’ve got 23, 25 year olds there, we talk to them about their pension planning and how are you going to save for your retirement, How are you going to structure it? And we show them all these graphs that show how much more money you would have if you start saving before you’re 30 and all those types of things which all young professionals should know about, not just dentists, but made sure my son knows all that stuff because. But, but we talk about communication. That’s my thing. I do the communication styles lecture on the on the first or second night where, you know, we talk about personality and styles and how people come across or how to communicate effectively within your team, but also with your patients. So yeah, I mean, going to Pankey has changed my life, changed my life personally, professionally, and I’m very, very grateful, very lucky.

And if you wanted to go to that, I mean, how long does it take? How many different classes you said ABCD.

Well, well this.

The the core program is is for courses that are about five days each. And they it’s it’s it’s they take you through a progression of of how to do big cases and and all the other stuffs built in. But Pankey run loads of courses to do with occlusion sleep apnoea you know anterior aesthetics you know there’s there’s a number but I would probably say to someone coming to it fresh, if you go in at E one, you know, we’re catering for people that have no.

Clue what they’re coming into.

You know, But if you know a bit about it already or you’ve been on 1 or 2 courses and.

Something else takes your fancy, the quality.

Is is excellent. But I don’t touch on those satellite courses.

Who are some of you know, guys who’ve been I know Mark Hughes has done a lot there that you were talking about before.

Yes. Um, Hap Gill. Andy Toye There’s quite a few open.

Vilani More recently, there’s another.

Um.

There’s, there’s, there’s so few youngsters that have been through like more recently and they’ve done like 1 or 2 levels. And then there’s like us older ones who’ve done done the whole sort of program.

So you’re teaching you said is on communication. Okay. Yeah. Communication with your, with your patients. Let’s start there. Give me, give me, give me your, your nuggets regarding that. Are we talking about different treatment plans recommending different treatment plans, the pros and the cons putting people at ease.

It’s it’s communication.

Style.

Social styles is.

What is what I sort of hang it around and there’s a couple of books written on it and it’s it’s really like perceiving or working out how your patient is going to receive the information the best. Are they an analytical type? They may well be engineers or that type of or those type of jobs, but they want a lot of data. An information. And until they’ve got data and information, they aren’t making any decisions. So give them all the data, all the information in whichever way you feel is appropriate. But probably, you know, I always do a if I’m doing a big treatment plan for a patient, I’ll always sit them down with all the records and the computer. It’s a no fee visit. It’s 30 minutes and we go through everything together and then they take everything in writing home. And again, this is something I learned at Pankey back in the 90 seconds, and it stood me in very good stead to give them a bespoke document, not something out of so that I’ve spent quite a lot of time on. But I have no bad debts and I have no misunderstandings with treatment because it’s all laid out and all my treatment planning is there and you just put it in a version, you must put it in a version that they can understand. But so that’s your analyticals They want that your your driver type personalities. They’ve, they’ve probably already decided when they came to the consult that they’re doing the treatment anyway because they wouldn’t waste their time coming to see you unless they weren’t already fairly confident that they have confidence in you and they want. So they’re going to say, okay, that looks fine. Boop, boop, boop. Yeah. Okay. When can we start? So you need to have next step ready. Yep. Yes, we’ve got some appointments next week or next month or you know, and they’re going to ask you maybe, how do you want this paid? And that’s your driver.

And they’ve got to be somewhere else quite soon. So don’t run late.

You know, then you’ve got an expressive and I’m an I’m an expressive and I flex into being a driver at work, but I’m a natural expressive. I want to talk about the outcome and, oh, see somebody else’s pictures.

And oh, I want that. And you know, and more of a.

Chatty sort of.

Thing.

So that’s an expressive. Now, if I get together with an expressive, I’m probably going to run late if I like them.

Because we just get talking.

And then you’re amiable. All your amiable is wanting to want sometimes wanting to please other people, but not always themselves. And your amiable may often have a significant person that they want to be involved in the decision. So they might want to bring somebody with them. They may or may not like want to, you know, take the information away with them. I mean, everybody gets the same documentation regardless, but it’s just how you handle the different.

They want to corroborate that with someone else, with a with another.

They might do, but they also might flex more because it’s a grid. They might flex.

More onto the analytical.

Side as.

Well that that they they, they might not want to give you their their decision straight away. They want to go away and think about it. And so if you know what you’re dealing with, you can kind of then not be too concerned. If you don’t get any commitment.

How long will it take you to work out which which one of those for your patient is? Can you tell after the initial exam?

Um, well, by the time I’m.

Presenting something comprehensive, I will have met with them 2 or 3 times because they’ll have had their initial exam. I then will have maybe got them back for more comprehensive records, models, photographs, maybe we’ve got a wax up. We’ll have had some sort of dialogue, but I also spend a bit of time in the first appointment, not actually talking about I don’t put them in the chair and start looking at them. I have what’s called a pre clinical conversation, and I always used to like to do that in another room, go and meet them in another room and then take them into the clinical environment. Haven’t been able to do that more recently.

Space Yes, and but.

Now all the patients that come to me come to me on referral and pretty much I also do a lot of ortho, So that’s kind of changed the slant a bit as well. I would say my practice is 60 to 65% ortho, and so then I will always have an initial consult with the patient. And if it’s a teenager or a child, then with the parent. And then I’m really looking at do I get on with the parent? Because it’s very difficult if you don’t get on with the parent treating the child. So I sort of interview them both really. Um, so I don’t hang everything on this social style thing. I just.

Use it as what you.

Teach.

But that, yeah, that’s what I teach and you can use it in the team as well. How to get the best out of your team and how to, you know, understand your team better.

It’s a fun session.

I bet. And is it the same for is it the same classification for your team members?

Yeah. Yeah. So we when.

We do it as a as a staff training sort of thing, there’s a questionnaire you fill out, first of all. So the questionnaire is a social style questionnaire. It’s something like 40 questions or whatever, and then depending. On the answers that that you give. You get a score and then from your score you work out where you are on the grid.

So did you go to Pankey saying, I’ve got this content that I want to teach, or is this kind of their their content that you’re delivering? No, no, no.

No, not at all. I went there in.

The 90 seconds as a student.

No, no, no.

But when it came to teaching.

Oh, no.

They invited me to join the faculty.

Yeah, and.

But specifically the content. Is this your own?

No, no, no. Then.

So basically, you.

Then they. They.

I basically tried.

Out teaching.

In different eyes, as it were. So in different levels. And then.

I, I, I found that.

I was most comfortable in e one, probably partly due to the other people I was teaching with. And there were some phenomenal, phenomenal people I’ve had the privilege of, of being on their teaching team, as it were. And then.

I used to watch this.

Presentation being done by other people. And then it sort of came up that I would quite like to have a go at it and in fact, it used to be done by the CEO, Ricky Braswell. She left a few years back and so she always did it.

And I.

Used to sort of do it.

With her.

And then when she moved on to pastures new and whatever, I kind of then sort of put my hand up and said, Oh, you know, if there’s a chance of me doing this, but you have a lead faculty on every course and the lead faculty person decides who gets to teach what. So we liaise a few months prior to a course and we all talk about who’d like to teach which bit. And if I put my hand up for that bit because I quite like that bit.

But it’s very interesting that they convince people to take time off from their own practice. Fly over on your own, back on your own.

They don’t convince you when they when they when they ask you to teach. It’s it’s an honour. The biggest honour was. I couldn’t believe it. I was like me. Yeah.

But. But what I mean is that the atmosphere, the culture of the place, I’d like to kind of get, get to know it a bit better. Where is it? In Miami.

South of.

Miami. Key Biscayne.

Oh, that’s a fun place to go.

Oh, it’s.

Lovely. Yeah.

Go in the winter. Go this time of year. It’s good. Wonderful. Wonderful. Yeah. No, it’s.

It’s an incredible sort of place with incredible people who, you know, when we’re there as faculty, it’s all about the students. It’s all about we work unbelievably hard to try and ensure they get what they came for. They get what they came for and more sort of thing. And someone did that for me nearly 30 years ago and supported me. I mean, I, I did the courses between 93 and 2006. So I was very slow progressing through the courses and there were 6 or 7 at that point because the curriculum has changed and whatever. So but every time I went, I came back feeling happier, more confident, a better dentist, a better wife.

Really? Yeah. Oh, loads of I mean, you really you.

Do some personal development there as well, which is not always it’s sometimes that’s a bit painful too, but yeah.

So if you were to sort of you understand what I mean when I don’t know if I’m saying it in the right way, but the straw man panky as in as in make the case against panky. What would that be?

What do you mean, make the case again?

So I don’t know enough about it. So. But if I were to make the case against it, I would say that by by British standards, there’d be an element of overtreatment. Is that.

All?

Oh, is that true or not?

Oh, no, it’s not like that at all.

No, but if you had to make a case against it, what would be the the thing you would say? Mhm.

I mean, what’s bad about it is what you’re asking me.

Yeah.

What’s bad about it?

I like that long silence.

Oh, really?

Because I know people think it’s all full.

Mouth rehab.

Sort of thing. Yeah, but.

It absolutely isn’t, you see. So people do go there to learn more complex dentistry and.

As well.

Teach that. But we teach diagnosis. So you could get a patient that just needs a splint and a bite adjustment, a minor equilibration.

I mean, there’s some UK dentists who would say that about the whole of US dentistry, right?

Oh no, they’re so mistaken.

They are more interventionalists than we are. But, you know, in a way, I guess, you know, it’s the right thing to do sometimes, right? Well, I.

Don’t. I don’t know. Yes, I suppose. Okay.

So certainly one thing that I came back with right from the beginning is what is the best for the patient in the longer term? Yeah, right. And I’ve always said this to my patients, but I’ve always had it in my head when I’m treatment planning. And I think. Some of my training here. Fear of telling the patient they needed to spend some money. Yeah. Fear of of telling an adult they need ortho before they need restorative. Now, I know we’re doing it a lot, a lot more now, but.

25.

Years ago, we weren’t right. So I think we went for a short or medium term solution. It was more palatable to the patient at Pankey. They don’t do that. Comprehensive implemented a lot of that 25 years ago. Bit by bit, those patients are still with me. Those patients have still got those crowns that I did 20, 25 years ago. So that investment they made has made their dentistry the most cost effective and best value for money ever. And they’ve had very little intervention because the work was done well and it was done properly at the right time.

Yeah.

So when we say at the right time, is there an element of treat that tooth early before it breaks?

There is an element of that.

If you’ve got a rare case, but you’ve see where is a really big issue and occlusal disease or.

Where is.

What I learnt about there. We didn’t really learn that in the UK at that time, but then those cases are unbelievably challenging to treat because they do look like they might end up as 20 crowns type thing. But of course nowadays things have changed and some of my heavily restored, heavily, heavily restored patients did end up with, you know, a lot of crowns. But like I say, 20 years later, they’re sitting pretty and I’m not you know, I’m getting very few problems, very few patients needing endo, all of this type of thing. But nowadays, with the way composites have come on and the you got Francesca Velluti and that whole philosophy of sort of composite work and it’s still full mouth dentistry, but it’s with different materials. So I’m terribly excited that you, you merge this diagnosis and this full mouth planning, working from wax ups and, you know, designing everything like that. But then you’re using materials like composites. You literally are just bonding to the teeth. And the teeth with their wear are just underneath. And I’m doing more and more work like that.

So have you.

Done some of Francesca’s.

Style of stuff? Yeah, and I love the way she explains it.

She talks about.

You know, this is like putting new.

Tires on your car, and depending how you drive, you will wear these tires down at a varying rate. And the patient has to understand this idea that we do dentistry that has to last forever. People go out and buy 40, 50, £60,000.

Cars.

The whole time and they buy another one five, ten years later.

Even £10,000 car, 15,000 car. But the idea that you might have some dentistry done and then it might have to be done.

Again 20 years later, patients go.

Get all upset. I just don’t get that.

Have you followed up? I mean, you’ve worked in so many different places over a career of 30 years. The patients that you treated 20 years ago, are they still did they follow you around?

They followed me. I’ve only been in four practices in 30 years.

So they followed you? Yeah. Yeah.

Nice.

Yeah. I haven’t got.

Anybody from the practice in Horsham. Yeah, I’ve got loads from Reigate. Loads and loads from Chertsey Courtyard and then am.

Where I am now. I haven’t, I’ve and.

I’ve stayed in Surrey. If you want to come and find me.

You can find me. You know, I haven’t run away anywhere. Now I’ve been in the same place.

I noticed you also. It’s quite, quite good with nervous patients. And it’s kind of a thing, a bugbear of mine that I want to get it more out there that, you know, be gentle, be gentle, give painless injections. It’s such a massive practice builder. The reason why people follow you again, it’s these days it’s quite common to understand all this. But it seems that you understood this a long time ago.

I’m a nervous patient myself. I had terrible treatment as a child. Really? Yeah. Yeah.

My parents didn’t know that the dentist was rubbish, and he didn’t give preventive advice either. So we used to go to Kenya because my grandparents were in Kenya and that’s where my mum and dad were born. And the water wasn’t safe to drink out there. So when we went out there for six weeks in the summer holidays, we lived on fizzy pop with sugar in it. There were no diet drinks. We’d come back to England and I would cop a load of fillings and the dentist didn’t use local.

It was.

Awful.

It was awful. So I have.

Horrific memories of this practice in Gillingham that we went to, and I think that is a lot of where I want to help these other people. I also have had the been fortunate enough to work with the most fantastic sedation team and sedation Solutions, and I met Joe Omar back in the late 90s. I think it must have been. And he came to work with us with with his team so we could treat really, really nervous people with IV sedation and do comprehensive work. But it’s that initial consult when you meet them, they’re really nervous. They cry, they feel you’re judging them. You. That’s where the real I think the you’ve got to be patient and you’ve got to kind of like try and get over to them that you’re not judging them. You’re here to help them.

And oh, we together.

As a team. And I say, you know, we’ve got tender loving care, which is, you know, the wand and just taking your time and not rushing and and all of that. And then we move up into, you know, IV sedation and we talk about what’s going to be appropriate. But but yeah, I mean, I’m I am I’m very proud of some of the cases that we’ve we’ve been able to sort of help. And and yeah, those patients follow you. They follow you.

I think, you know what it is that we’re taught about the breadth of the problem. So in dental school, they talk about 50% of the population or whatever it is, a large percentage of the population is anxious about dentistry that we’re taught. We tend to forget it quite quickly. But what we’re not particularly taught is the depth of the problem, that if you can if you can solve anxiety for an anxious patient, it’s such a massive thing for them that they will literally stick to you for the next 30 years until everyone they know to come and see you. And that’s the competitive sort of advantage piece of it. You know that. Yeah. Okay. Be human, be kind, be do do the right thing. But it’s so huge as far as just just that a word of mouth thing. If you’re known as the gentle dentist or someone who’s aware of these things and the number of times, you know, Prav, she records phone calls and things, the number of times it’s missed by reception, You know, a patient might say, Oh, I want to have some implants or whatever, and then throw in, I’m terrified. And the receptionist just misses that completely and goes straight to the cost of implants or whatever it is. It’s such a big thing.

Understanding how people make decisions and the emotional side of things is really, really. And I think maybe women have a little bit of an advantage there, maybe for sure. I certainly seem to see that around me. And I don’t know, I’ve never really been that bothered about production, so I’m not bothered about being the fastest dentist. So I’m willing to give people time. I think I want to be given time as a patient and I always think that if you treat people how you’d like to be treated, that’s always been my motto, right? And again, like the the other thing was, was what’s best in the long term. So those two sort of things I think have been my guiding lights, if you like, for for how I decided I was going to work. And then I.

The.

Money just came.

The money. Yeah. It tends to work out.

I mean, you.

Do have to structure your fees properly and you.

Can’t.

You know, treat people for hours and hours and not charge them an appropriate fee. But but that isn’t the most important thing. That’s not what gives me It’s.

Not the focus.

Yeah, that’s not what gives me a buzz.

Tell me about your ortho journey. When did that start? And you know, you’ve gone to all different aspects of it. You’re doing lingual, you’re doing Damon, You’re doing Invisalign.

Yeah. Um.

When did it start?

So it, it started when I joined Ringley Park. And the one of the, the partners who was a real visionary and in fact had been part of the team that built that lovely practice because it was purpose built just a few years before Tom Heesom, who unfortunately passed away a good many years ago, probably about 15 years ago now, it must be. He introduced me to what we called orthopaedic orthodontics, and this was the ability to widen the dental arch and reduce the number of adult teeth extracted. Now, before that, obviously I’d worked in practice and I’d been sent letters from the local orthodontist asking me to take teeth out for some of my patients. And as you know, a newly qualified dentist I respected what was told to do sort of thing. But I do remember a couple of mums sitting there watching their children have these pre-molars pulled out asking me if there were any other options. And I said No, you know, because that was where my knowledge went. We’d had no inkling from the training as an undergraduate that there were other ways of doing things. Yeah. And so, so that, so then I go to this practice and I see this other type of work being done by a non-specialist. He was a general dentist.

And I was fascinated by it.

And because he was there in the practice doing it, that was a fantastic sort of place for me to sort of dip my toe in. And I started doing all the skip through IT courses. And he at the time was teaching a lot in the UK and the courses were criticised, you know. Oh it’s a. And course in a hotel. But but the people who criticised it never went on one of the courses and the amount of information and content that you got in three days, Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

It was.

Unbelievable. It was exhausting. It was you had to repeat the course at least twice to get everything because there was just so much information there. It was unreal. So that’s where I started. But that then led me into training with with with other people. And but you couldn’t get a lot of that training in the UK back in the in the 90 seconds, there weren’t people willing to teach general dentists. It was difficult to get any training. So I went abroad, you know, if.

I heard of a good speaker.

Like, say, Dr. Derek Mahoney, he was lecturing in America. I went to one of his courses and there I am in this room with 98 American general dentists all learning this fantastic also. And he was going out there fairly regularly and he was their their teacher, as it were. I was blown away, you know.

Wow. And then you go to a Damon conference and you’ve got.

A thousand.

Dentists there, and some are specialists and some are not. And you all have a way.

Of looking at a case.

You know, there’s a.

Philosophy that.

Goes with it.

And it was yeah, it was incredible.

I’ve been I’ve been very, very lucky.

So, I mean, for people who don’t know, what’s the difference between orthopaedic orthodontics and sort of the traditional I mean, things have changed again. Now, now, now, now you do you do get more, more dentists that way inclined. But but what would you say is the key difference? Is it the facial orientation?

I think well, we.

Look at the face, look at the teeth. It’s our diagnosis. We take, you know, a care for a full records and then it’s it’s you do a space analysis.

And.

My understanding and I’ve I’ve, I’ve trained at master’s level so I have I have looked at looked at all of this. And my understanding is that traditionally a lot of the planning is around the lower incisors. And there are certain sort of criteria that you stick to that you believe you can’t.

Change.

Like the crowding in the lower arch or something like that. I’m not 100% sure because I’ve never done a case this way. But this is my understanding was we look at things differently. We look at the upper Arch, we do a space analysis, a Schwartz courthouse, measurements to do with the size of the teeth and the width of the arch. And you can have situations where the teeth are really, really big and you’re going to have to extract. You can also have a situation where the teeth are really far forward and the patient can’t get their lips together. And in those cases you need to extract and pull things back. But those are different racial groups and you don’t tend to see so much of that in the UK. You know, your typical Caucasian European facial structure and everything is that that they might have very tight musculature and they might have crowding, but you can widen the arch and that’s that is the basis of where we start. And then what you find is when you start widening the upper arch, the lower arch, the crowding resolves because.

The lower crowded because it was trapped so free it and then.

And similarly, class twos become class ones because the lower jaw can come forward and you have natural growth at puberty where the lower the mandible comes forward anyway. So you quite often don’t need to treat a class two because it’s going to sort itself out if you expand the upper arch impacted canines. Similarly, you.

Know, I’m passionate about.

The fact that you that we should be taking appgs around the ages of eight, nine, ten, assessing the position of the adult canines. And if we’ve got them overlapping the incisors, you need to expand. You need to, you know.

Stop.

Canines getting impacted.

So so yeah, I mean, I’m I’m, I’m really passionate about this. Probably, you know, more than I should be. But we can.

Make such a difference to young kids, you know, Such a difference.

Yes. But, you know, I’ve met you a long time ago in Courtyard Clinic, I remember. And in courses before then. But then I met you recently on Mini Smile Makeover. And, you know, you and I were the oldest people in the room. You know, we were. We were.

We were. You’re right. I hadn’t thought about it. But you are right. Yes.

The the you know, there’s a reason why there’s there’s associate young associates come to Mini Suamico. But, you know, it helps them get jobs or whatever. And then, of course, you get principles, but it’s more young people. And yet. Ever find you again on a composite bonding course. You seem to have, like, an insatiable curiosity for dentistry. What is it? Is it. Is it? Do you love it? Or are you just that sort of super perfectionist who wants to always improve in your life?

No, I don’t think I’m super perfectionist. No.

You come across as a perfectionist. You do?

Do I really? Oh, gosh. Yeah. Maybe. Maybe am with my work.

Maybe I’m with my work. I’m not with my Christmas preparations.

All the state of my study. You should see it. You think it’s, like, tidy? From what you can see, it’s horrendous down here. Um, I know why I did mini smile.

Because I knew that my composite bonding wasn’t at the level it could be from what I was seeing out in social media and stuff.

But the fact that you’re even looking and you’re paying attention and you’re trying to improve at this point in your career where you just told me you’re looking at winding down.

Yeah, but that’s now.

And Mini Smile Maker was a.

Few years ago wasn’t.

It? It was.

It was. It was pre-COVID. It was pre-COVID. Yeah. But you know what I mean. That question, that curiosity to continuously improve. I mean, to go to bank, to learn ortho to the level that you’ve learnt it. Where does it come from?

I just love making a difference to the patients. I just. I just. And I do. I want, I.

Want.

I see. I’ve always mixed.

With people at quite a.

Good level like.

Bard and you know, I’m blessed at.

Having colleagues and friends who are some of the best dentists in the country. You know, I’m really, really lucky. So I suppose I like. I’ll always look at anything I’m doing that. Could that go on a screen? Could you show that at Bard?

You know, could you.

Could I show a colleague that and be proud of.

It? You know.

And no, I saw that composites had gone to another level.

I wasn’t doing these beautiful.

Layered composites with all the halo.

And I needed to learn that if you could do that, then why wasn’t I doing that?

No, but why? Why?

Because you want to give the patient the best.

Yeah, but.

Lots of dentists want to give the patient the best. Yeah, but to keep that level of learning and curiosity going for as long as you have. You know, look, I know a lot of dentists, don’t I? I know a lot of dentists. Yeah.

You know what? It’s.

It’s. I don’t know, really. I mean, I know what you’re saying, because people say to me, Yasmin, you’re never going to quit. We can’t imagine you not being a dentist.

But I do want to quit. I really, really do.

But, but but you know what I mean.

There’s not many over 50 in many small makeover. Why? Why haven’t all the other. They all care about their patients, too, don’t they? But why aren’t they coming?

Do they say they do? No, they do. They do.

Come on. They do. You know they care about their patients. But, you know, people kind of wind down. They know what they know and they they kind of. But that’s not you. You seem to keep building on it.

Yeah. I mean. Yeah. I mean, I’m incredibly.

I’m overawed by Depeche as well. Okay, so I did choose it because of him.

He is great.

He is absolutely fantastic. And he does not have an ego. He’s not up himself. He doesn’t make you feel small, you know?

I mean, there.

Were so many factors that made me choose him as opposed to many, many other excellent composite courses that are available. And I’m really glad I made that decision. And I’ve sent loads of colleagues to him. You as a result, which you know, which you know about. And but I say it as it is, you know what I mean? And I think shortly after I did the course as.

Well, I.

Reached out to him with a question or a query or something. And, you know, he was really, really nice in how.

He dealt with that.

And not everyone is like that when you’ve attended one of their courses.

Yeah, you know, um, yeah, no, I just. I don’t know. I mean, it’s my since.

Covid, there’s been a dramatic change since COVID and the level of I was doing, I have not returned to that.

At all. Go on.

Tell me about that. Did COVID sort of was it like a wake up call about, hey, live your life a bit more rather than being a worker bee? And did you have the three months off like some of us did?

Some absolute agony the whole time.

Agony? How?

Well, I couldn’t look after my patients.

Yeah, but didn’t.

You barbecue and chill?

And I think I stressed too much.

Yeah, well, none of us knew what was going to happen next, did we?

I hated that.

That was a big worry. You know, I’ve talked to lots of people who say that it changed their outlook a little bit.

Yeah, it did a bit.

Because I got to exercise every day. I got to look after myself. I got to sleep a lot more. And it did show me that actually I quite liked all of that.

Yeah.

So when I went back, I went back three days a week. I think I was already three days. I used to do Saturdays. Saturdays went out the window. I used to do one Saturday morning in for that went for me. That was a big thing. I went to three days, but my husband’s been wanting me to retire for a long time. He’s been retired five years.

But he also knows.

That you can’t force retirement on people no matter who they are. But certainly not your wife, because you’re not going to have a very happy.

Life otherwise, are you?

And it’s taken me.

Covid was part of.

It in that I haven’t gone back to the same level of See, I don’t go on many courses and conferences like I used to. I used to travel the world the whole time.

I’m not going to complete my master’s.

Which was a big decision, but I’ve just decided it’s not a priority for me anymore. So I did most of my masters, but I won’t get my won’t get it because I didn’t finish my dissertation and I’m not going to finish it now because I’ve decided that I just don’t want to spend the free time that I’ve got doing that.

So was it.

Author?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, it’s a funny thing, isn’t it? Because it affects nobody. I mean, there’s one part of me that says, Hey, it’s just a dissertation, do it. But there’s a, there’s a definite other part of me that says, Hey, do what makes you happy, right?

If I tell my husband that I’m going to spend the weekend six hours at the weekend working on my dissertation, he’ll say what?

You know, you’ve got all these.

Commitments with your patients, your treatment plans, your you’re.

This, you’re that. I mean, I do so much for.

My patients anyway. And he gets that.

He gets.

That. That’s that’s my job, you know. But he says you don’t need the masters even paid for it. Paid for the whole thing.

But so look the question of, you know, we haven’t it’s quite late in the day to get to my darker part of the podcast, which which I so enjoy, but I want to sort of wrap it into the fact that you’ve been an associate, you’ve been a principal. Those journeys come with all sorts of, you know, in a 30 year career you would have had massive highs and massive lows. Tell me. Tell me about some of the darkest days that you’ve had in dentistry. And.

I think probably.

My worst.

Time. Well, it would probably be both would be at the transition of when you move from one practice to another. You know, why? Why did I stop being an owner? In 2005, I stopped being an owner because I was part of a partnership. We were six. We were six individuals running a ten surgery practice with 27 staff, big overheads. I’ve got younger children. I’ve got a husband whose career is is off the scale, so he’s out the door at 530 every morning. He’s back home around 730. Well, the body comes home, but the the man doesn’t really come home. You know, it. He’s he’s busy. He’s busy and he’s he’s doing very well. So. So he isn’t interested in, you know, what’s going on with me, but not in a disrespectful way.

But there’s only a certain amount. You’ve only got brain power so much.

And I’ve got five partners who I’m really not getting on with all of them that well. And dentistry is changing. We’ve got whitening coming, we’ve got cosmetic dentistry coming. And I’m seeing all this and I’m wanting to drive forward in this to the point that I develop my own brand. So I am part of Wrigley Park dental practice. I am a partner. I am a, you know, a full owner, whatever. I’ve got two kids and I decide.

To start confidence, Miles.

With one of the other partners.

Well, looking back on it, I’m like, You did what?

So internally.

Within within that.

Practice, we go.

Off on a photo shoot, we develop a brand. So of course it was the nail in the coffin, wasn’t it? And of course, with two different personalities and I’m the one with the big mouth. I’m the big gob that can’t can’t has to think.

Out loud instead of thinking and then opening your mouth.

And I learnt this about myself at panky. I, i, i, I speak think if you like you.

Process by talking. Yeah.

Not a good thing to do, especially with some of those individuals.

So. So go on the darkness. What was the.

Darkness. What happened.

So we fell out. We fell out to the point where.

Partners meetings became screaming.

Matches.

The practice manager started playing the politics. It got really difficult and I decided to sell. It was sell the practice or lose my marriage. I was that stressed so.

I probably could move.

The market was really good. I sold above the asking price. I thought everything was great and I took a year off. Then I joined a courtyard and I was clinical director and I thought this was great. No financial investment at all. I would be paid as an associate and but I was in control. I was clinical director.

And, and this is described what.

That practice was because I came there and it was maybe the most state of the art practice I’d been to at the time, because your partner was someone who was supplying Sirona stuff, is that.

Right? Yeah.

So?

So the so he wasn’t really my partner. But, but, but, but.

Basically, yeah.

There were two individuals that owned the business that supplied all the well owned a business that supplied sirona equipment. So they had this grade two listed building kitted out in three surgeries with all state of the art sirona everything. And it was used as a showroom. And then behind that building they had the company that supplied CEREC and all the equipment and the engineers and everything, and then they decided that they would make the dental practice into a going concern rather than have it as a showroom, make it into a dental practice. Yeah. So there were no patients at all. And it’s 2007 and we’ve got a recession coming. But we didn’t know. And I went out to lunch. I was introduced by George MANOLESCU, who was.

I know George. Yeah, yeah.

So I’d known George a long, long time. Good friend, lovely man.

You know, lovely guy. I think the world of him.

He introduced me and we all had lunch together and they said to me, you know, what do you think? And I went, okay. Shook hands and went to work. And building a practice from scratch is unbelievably difficult and it takes a lot of hard work. But after two, three years, you know, we were really doing quite well. And we got associates in and and I was clinical director and I did all my dentistry as well. And I was paid an associate and everything was great and I’d been promised a third of the goodwill and the plan was. They’ve got a plan to sell the practice. They were similar age to my husband and they’d got a similar sort of plan sort of thing, and everything was done on trust. I didn’t have a contract. I didn’t have any paperwork. I had nothing. And looking back, I think there was probably a plan.

All the way along.

Never to consolidate things in writing. I employed somebody to negotiate for me to to get everything in writing and get a contract because I couldn’t do it. It was too personal. So I employed somebody to do that. They failed. It didn’t work. Long and short of it is after eight years. I was driven out of the practice. I was on the edge of a nervous breakdown. I weighed seven and a half stone. I had all these patients to care for people in treatment who’d paid in advance. I was terrified of what the GDC would or wouldn’t do because the GDC are only interested in patient care. They’re not interested in the business side of things. Yeah, got support from MPs. I had to employ lawyers. I was on holiday and they wrote to all my patients and said that I was leaving the practice and I wouldn’t be working anymore. Now I was leaving the practice. I had handed my notice in and given six months notice. But I was going to be working.

But that’s the sort of thing.

They turned all the staff against me.

It was.

It was the worst time of my life.

Do you think being a woman made that more likely? More possible?

Yes.

And I handled it like a.

Woman instead of.

Handling it like a man.

That’s a funny thing to say. Go on, tell me. Tell me. Tell me what you mean. Why? Why? Why? Why?

Women? I mean, I would.

Write emails to them, like trying to sort things out, you.

Know, it wouldn’t take you.

Seriously.

Oh. And then my husband would.

Say, the email is too long. Then, you know, you’ve got to be much more, you know, to the point and much more matter of fact and in my opinion, much more male.

And and I think my.

Husband’s right, but that’s not my style.

And I, you know, I trusted them.

I gave them eight and a half years.

Between 40 and 58.5 years, best years of my life. I should have built my own practice.

Yeah.

I mean, I would have the most fabulous practice now. Yeah. But, you know.

Thing, you know, things happen.

But it was very.

Hard.

Very you’re learning point from that is that next time if something like that came up you what you would do differently is you would have contracts signed watertight or you wouldn’t trust people as much as did it. Has that affected how much you trust people?

Well, I will only work as an associate now.

No, but in general. In general, have you become a less trusting person because you feel like these people took advantage of you that way?

Now. I don’t think I’ve.

Become less trusting.

I think that’s nice.

Now I think. I think what I’ve done is, is look at all the good stuff in my life and whilst that.

That was awful and horrible.

All my patients followed me. They all left that practice. Not all, but, you know, really loads and loads and loads. So that was a bit sort of satisfying in a way. Maybe, maybe not. I don’t know. But my boys are fine. My husband is fine.

You know, those.

Are the important things. And I’m still a dentist. And I.

You know, I still.

Enjoy my patients enormously. And we can all look back and say, oh, I should have done this. I should have done that. You know, I look back at why I left Wrigley Park and if I’d handled those personalities better and those interactions better, maybe.

I would still be there. But then how would I have.

Felt during COVID with those massive overheads and not knowing what the future held?

Yeah, we’ll never know what the other side of the decision is, do we?

Yeah.

So, you know, when you when you think back, we do a thing on this show about blackbox, thinking about errors in clinical errors. Do you know about blackbox thinking is every plane’s got a black box. So when the plane crashes, they share with the whole industry the mistake that was made so that that mistake isn’t made again, for, you know, for flight safety and all that. But in in medicine, dentistry, we we tend to hide our mistakes a little bit because what tends to happen is rather than all of us learning from everyone’s mistake, it ends up pinning down on one clinician and that person takes the rap for it somehow. The culturally, that’s the way it is. So we tend not to talk about our mistakes enough. So if you had to talk about clinically an error that someone could learn from so that they don’t have to make that mistake that you made, what comes to mind?

Oh, gosh.

I think there is something. And that is a case where I had done 6 or 8 veneers. I had. I’m at the fit appointment. I’m taking off the temporaries.

And.

This has actually happened to me twice in 30 years, but the first time it wasn’t a disaster. But the second time it was in that these old these are older patients. I do veneers on older patients.

And I think.

You have to be really careful about how brittle the actual tooth structure is. And our temporary materials are getting stronger and stronger. And I damaged an incisor. I find this really hard to actually admit.

This is going out on a broadcast.

There’s nothing wrong with. There’s nothing wrong. We’ve all done things right. There’s nothing wrong with. Especially when you’ve done things like something like that. Are you saying you took the temporary off in a bit of the tooth?

I took the temporary off and I perhaps. Well, I wasn’t careful enough as I took it off the incisor tooth underneath that only had a veneer prep split or cracked. Yeah. You know, and basically we ended up the patient ended up not immediately, but ended up losing the tooth and needing an implant. And it was a really nervous patient. I’d got his trust, I’d got his partner’s trust. This was this was a really, really big thing. And I thought I’d sorted the problem. He needed to have a veneer, an implant. I thought everything was all right. But then he sued me.

So did you. When you say you sorted the problem, did you? What? Pay for the implant?

Um, I don’t.

You referred it.

You referred him for an implant?

Yes.

Yes.

In fact, No, What happened was. So he. I referred him for an implant and he didn’t want to see my colleague, so, you know, And then we could have worked something out.

Yeah, I just.

He. He just cut off all.

Contact, went.

To a third party.

And then sued.

You went somewhere.

Else and then. Then eventually heard about it. Now, he then didn’t ask me to pay for the implant, which I would have probably been happy to do. He decided to go to lawyers, so it then went to.

And. And they they dealt with it.

Oh, so was it quite quick? I said you didn’t have problems with it.

No. No, because nothing like that.

No, no.

He said, Do everything that you do. Not with greed, not with ego, not with envy, but with compassion, with humility, with love and devotion. That sentence that I read really resonated with me because it’s so wholesome. And I think if you lead that life that’s both hedonistic and holistic, you know, we all want to have fun. We all want to pursue pleasure. But if you’re able to have that kind of really holistic world around you to create that happiness, not to be on that hedonistic treadmill where you’re constantly after that nice watch and the nice car and then this and that and that, the next high, the next high. Because we know, we know that the reason why it’s called that treadmill is that we know that everybody that that short surge of happiness that you get we know everybody ends up coming back to that same level. And these are all things I think we should teach them in Dental school even. But to be able to really sit and when you talk to someone to lean forward, to show them that you’re engaged, be interested in people. I think just all of those things as a whole, that is the secret to happiness.

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 gives me great pleasure to welcome Lala Sharifian onto the podcast. Lala’s got a pretty interesting niche area interest in dentistry, and she was just telling me he’s the only one she knows who’s a full time dental seditionist who works in primary care. She works in loads and loads of practices. Is one of those names that if you Google her, 40 different practices will come up with her with her name. And you know, it’s either, you know, what is sedation. You’ve got a seriously difficult case I guess is one way or where you’ve got a seriously difficult patient, I guess, and where those two things intersect. Lala, lovely to have you.

I’m hugely humbled. Thank you so much. Yes, it’s a pleasure.

It’s my pleasure. Look, we normally go early life and backstory and all of that, but these days I like to mix it up a little bit. Start with the one question I want the answer to more than any other question. And interestingly, it’s not to do with sedation itself. It’s to do with the fact that you see loads of dentists work. Yes. And you see loads of practices. Work or not work. That’s right. And you see the way they handle their staff and you see the way they handle their patients and you see the way they handle their businesses. Give me give me some insights into the differences you’ve seen and, you know, the good stuff and the bad stuff and and how different is it just from the. Let’s start with patient management. I bet there’s 100 different types of dentists that.

You know what? You’re so absolutely right. That’s what I love about it. And it’s so fascinating because you are a witness. You’re kind of this extra person in the room witnessing everything around you. And but I genuinely have a few spinning plates, right? So I have I have the patient, the patient management, the patient that I need to connect with and manage. I have the dentist because that’s also itself. Yeah, I need to be able to be comfortable with them to know how they work. I’m there to make their life easier. And then we’ve got the staff. I need the connect with the reception with the practice manager before, after the notes. So yeah, there’s a lot of those spinning plates. You’re absolutely right. Yeah, But tell.

Me about the way different dentists handle their patients. I bet you get the type. I bet you get the really, really cool, comfortable, sort of, you know, gentle types. And then I bet you get the real sort of people put themselves on a pedestal or whatever. Do you see you must see different ways of handling patients.

I do. I mean, overall, I actually work with people I really like. So, you know, 99% of my dentists are all kind of quite similar, right? Because you tend to generally people like people, so you tend to work with like minded people. But but yes. And I’m really I love communication and, you know, ultimately the best way to communicate with people is to listen to them. And so you do watch some dentists and you kind of do think, oh, you know, maybe that that’s not that message isn’t going across to the patient. And you feel like, should I butt in? Should I say? But that’s really hard. You know, you kind of and anyone that knows me knows that I’m. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like to talk. And so. And a little controlling. But you never.

Do, right? You never butt in do you?

I just know when I should and when I shouldn’t. And I know my dentist very well. I’m friends with my dentists, so I know when I can be of help and I know when to. But also, don’t forget, you know, how they this whole rule of the seven 3855 rule. So sometimes my body language, my nodding me saying, you know nothing but that can give a lot of reassurances when the dentist is talking to the patients. Me just being there, just being an extra person, someone that has connected with the patient before they they. And then when the dentist leaves the room, they ask me those questions, which I think is the great thing about being a dentist and doing sedation is that you’re able to understand, you’re able to give some information without giving too much. It’s a real fine balance.

Yeah, I’m not aware of the. 738. What’s that?

Oh, so, you know, the, the whole 7% of what.

Body language gives.

Actually is the words and 55% is the body language. And Yeah.

What about what? Okay, so that’s patient talking to there. That’s the dentist talking to their patient. What about the way that people handle their nurses? Have you noticed big differences there?

Yes. You you notice when there is a great symbiotic relationship, which there should be. I mean, the nurses are the backbone to everything we do. I personally have connected with the nurses immediately because they’re going to be extremely important for me in the room in many ways from setup to watching the patients to managing the airway, to making sure, you know, they’ve got all their equipment set up. But the relationship between the dentists and the nurses. Yes. So a lot of times surgeons come in and it’s the they’re not often in that practice, so they don’t know anybody either. Oh, God. You know, they they’re kind of all on four type surgeons that turn up and nobody knows anybody really. And so I kind of and I have I kind of I’m the person in that middle that does a bit of showmanship to try to blend it all together. And whenever I go to a practice, the patient thinks I am part of that practice. I want them to think I’m part of that practice as opposed to someone external coming in. So you kind of just, you know, the back try to have this performance so that they’re able to get on with it and you can kind of fill in the space. You know, they have those comedians that come in in between the acts. Yeah, yeah. I feel a bit like a co-pilot.

And what about the businesses? Do you have some some businesses? Very disorganised, last minute. Can you come the day after tomorrow? Some businesses I mean, we deal with I deal with, you know, thousands of dentists and some some of them, some of them, you know, the the nurse is empowered to call up, buy the stuff up, sell, you know, we say, oh, you know, double the purchase and get a discount, whatever it is, you know, empowered to immediately say yes or no to that. When the bill when the bill gets sent out the next day, it gets paid. Interestingly, the same practices are the ones who have those nurses and the bill gets paid. Yeah. And, you know, and the whole gamut and everything and everything in between. You must have seen some brilliant businesses because, you know the kind of businesses that are bringing you in are doing high value treatments and all of that. So they’ve gotten to that point. Yes, but you must have seen some.

Well, the other day I actually turned up to a practice and they said, oh, a patient cancelled. And nobody tell you. And I just driven two hours to get to this practice. So there is that. But I think what I notice is practice principles that are just emotionally intelligent, right? They’re great Leaders So they are the ones that you kind of they inspire their team for the kind of to collaborate for one goal. And so they’re really good at delegating. Their staff have power, like you said, and they have trust and they always, you know, what is it They say that people great Leaders don’t have businesses, they don’t have jobs as such. So if you there is a famous saying like that and also you I notice sometimes some practice principles or Leaders that come in and everyone’s a bit nervous around them. Yeah. And so I always think a great leader again someone that is open to, to disagreement, right? So that if your staff feel comfortable enough to have a different opinion to you, that shows a great leader where you don’t have that kind of presence or a power over your staff. So I think those sort of functional practices are the ones that everybody is great at their job. They employ great people, they surround themselves with great people. And in fact, that leader is maybe, you know, not as as colourful as as maybe in other places. But they, you know, that team is great. And actually, you’re right, I work with mostly those sort of practices.

So go on then. And then finally, as a as like a building geek, what’s the coolest, best looking, whatever funkiest practice you’ve ever been to? Because obviously I’ve been to thousands. So I know I can tell you a good like a list of 2 or 3, actually. I should do a whole podcast on that. Yeah. What about you?

Aesthetics kind of thing? Yeah, well, funnily enough, you know that. You know, it’s interesting because I go to a practice that aesthetically is, you know, it’s not great. In fact, they still have, they still put their x rays in the, you know. Yeah, yeah. Machine and the developer and they’ve still got Chesterfield type sofas and that sort of thing. But actually incredible clinicians, incredible work being done, incredible staff.

So yeah, and by the way, much better that way, right, than the other way. Some beautiful building with terrible dentistry like Exactly. You see in restaurants, don’t you, Where the food doesn’t live up to the decor.

No, but you know what you always do? You judge like a restaurant. By the bathrooms or do you ever you know, do you ever go to people’s homes and then you go to the bathroom when you open the cupboards?

That’s pretty funny. I always I always go to to the toilet where in every house that I’m in, just for that, just for that little bit of nosiness. I know. I know every house I’m going to go in from now people are going to be like, I know, me too.

This is going to. But you know what? I interestingly.

I chose the practices based on the staff bathroom. If there is a massive difference between their staff bathroom and their patient bathroom.

Oh, very interesting point, isn’t it?

You know, that’s an interesting point, huh? Or the staff room is, like, shocking.

And then suddenly the waiting room is amazing. But. But I work out. I work out great. I mean, 38 Devonshire Street. Gaynor is such a leader. It’s just. It’s just one of those emotionally intelligent Leaders. The practice is great. It’s beautiful, but great clinicians. Costus is one of my ultimate dentists. It’s a great, great guy. Wimpole Street 2021. Wimpole Street. Um. Kia. Kia Vandi’s Practice again. A whole bunch of really, really great clinicians. I work out with Mark Corvus in Whitstable. That’s a really purpose built practice. Again, it’s a great dentist. I mean, you know. Yeah, quite a few, but those are the things.

How many active practices, how many practices actively refer to you, or is that the word refer to you bringing in?

Yes. I mean, I did my.

Audit for last year and I had.

About 35 practices. Wow.

But you’re right, because you kind of end up doing, you know, 75% of the work for maybe a handful of practices, 5 or 6 practices. So I yeah, so.

In those space. So there are places you’re going once a week where you do kind of feel more like a team member because you know that staff and all that.

That’s right. And usually with those practices I do lunch and learns and we actually I’m lucky because with any practice that does sedation has to be trained, immediate life supports. And Anish, my husband, is a life support trainer and so we do courses for the practices that I work at. And with that we do CPD. So we go through sedation. I go through kind of some lunch and learns and things like that. So I get to know the practices really, really well. They know my consent process, they know me. So it’s just lovely. You know, you turn up and it’s just nice and I love it. I think like I said to you.

Mastery is is lovely. So you’ve been doing it a long time. I bet at the beginning it didn’t feel so rosy.

Well, it sort of started slowly, right?

Because I did.

I mean, I trained that guys because they were the only dental school that taught sedation to undergrads. So it was something I was already thinking about. And so I’d kind of been sedating my own patients from, you know, 99. Um, but this going into other practices, the peripatetic work started, um, well, actually, you know what I can tell you because I’ve ended up balancing my microphone on my diaries and I have to have a paper diary. And so, and so I kind of pulled my diaries.

And I have five diaries here. So. And the sixth one that’s not so six.

Well, five years ago. Six diaries. Yeah. So initially, of course, you’re a little bit more nervous because you just want to. I just want to do well, I’m one of these people. I just I’m a people pleaser, so I just want to do well. I want everyone to be happy. So, yeah, you’re right. It takes a while.

I see. Yeah, I see how you bought the microphone that I asked you to buy.

Yes, I did. Exactly. You know, I Listen.

So how many years of dentistry did you do before you stopped the teeth? Like before the drilling and only doing this.

So I put my tools down exactly about a year ago.

Oh, really?

So quite new because I did this on the side as lots of maybe dentists do. I did it on the side for quite a while and it was actually COVID because I think during COVID, a lot of people made decisions, a lot of decisions about their careers, you know, that sort of thing. And at that point I realised I really enjoyed it. And but at the same token, I wasn’t being able to give enough to dentistry to my patients. I was working two days a week and I had thousands of patients. I’d been in the same practice for 15 years, so two days wasn’t enough. And then the sedation work, which I was doing the other three days, wasn’t enough, you know. It was saying, so you don’t do Mondays, you know, And so something had to give. And then I made the decision during COVID that I’m going to just give it a go and and quit. And it was difficult. I wrote an email to my patients and yeah, the computers crashed because I got so many replies back. Of course, you know, you lose your dentist you’ve had for 15 years.

So when you were going to take that step, did you feel sort of a bit of a outside of the way the patients were going to take it? Did you feel nervous yourself?

I was excited. I’m excited about the you know, what this will bring. I really felt like I would miss the patients. I mean, I’ve been friends with these people for such a long time. But at the same token, everybody was so supportive. Everyone said, you know, they wish me luck. And, you know, it was that sort of thing. And and I people would email me and say, Would you still be like a little mole dentist? So that when we get our next dentist, could we just sort of send you through X-ray so you could.

Tell us that if everything is okay or are they any good or, you know, you can imagine how many people ask me for recommendations, right? Yeah.

And just tell me this. What? What? When you when you’re turning up somewhere, are you turning up with, you know, a bunch of equipment? Yes. So you have.

To drive the elephant.

Packed a trunk? Yes. So I have a really nice little case and I take everything with me that I would need so the practice doesn’t have to provide anything but pulse.

Pulse oximeter, that sort of thing.

Of course. Yes. I mean, all the those things goes without saying. But yeah, all of the monitoring equipment and have some medical emergency things that I keep, but I also know my practices so I know what stuff they have, where it is who does what because we do the life support training for them.

Oh, of course.

Yeah. So it’s kind of nice.

Because I’m.

Well versed with.

But you’re basically driving a lot, right? Is that is that right?

Yes, I.

Do. So I listen to incredible podcasts, you see.

Like.

Not this one. Yeah.

So now I’m too old to do music so well. So I started to learn Italian.

On a podcast. You kind of end up doing things like this. I take.

The train for London.

Quite a bit. I have an electric car, so I do drive to London as well. But if you.

Take the train, how do you carry all the stuff? Is it possible it’s not?

No, it’s actually I’ve kind of a wheelie. Wheelie? I’m a girl, so I’ve kind of fine tuned this art. So yeah, I have a little.

Case and it’s quite easy. I mean, I’m little anyway myself, so I can’t carry heavy stuff. So it’s wheels, it’s on wheels and it’s lovely. It has everything I need and yeah.

Okay, let’s get.

Let’s get to sedation itself. Do you only do IV or do you do inhalation as well.

I don’t. I only do IV. Yes.

Yeah. So what percentage of your work would you class as It’s a heavy duty operation that’s going to go on. It’s heavy, heavy duty treatment and you’re just going to give some sedation to make it easier for everyone for them compared to super anxious Patient wants sedation over and above where you wouldn’t normally be giving sedation to a regular patient.

So most of my work would probably be shorter treatments, maybe up to two hours and occasionally. So maybe every two weeks or so, every three weeks I would do then a longer case, something like all day or 4 or 5 hours you start at 7:00 and finish at three and that sort of thing. And for those patients, yeah, I mean, I think the problem we have in the UK is that most people think sedation is for nervous patients. But you quite rightly said there’s two types of patients, there is the anxious patients and there’s the non anxious patients and that’s the area I think that we are. I think it’s a really well kept secret sedation is because that’s the area we do need to be able to offer to patients. And in fact, conscious sedation is considered by the Department of Health and the GDC as an integral element. And these are their words, an integral element for the control of pain and anxiety. And the GDC actually says that this is something that is a duty placed on the dentists and a right for a patient. So it is something that’s been supported for us. But it’s not often that you when I do the KPD, it’s not often that dentists kind of even think about offering it and in medicine, yet we offer it all the time. I mean, we don’t even offer it. We say you have to be sedated for this colonoscopy, you know.

I found in the US they’re much more, much more station going on. Right? When when I was there for my elective, they were, they were doing this deep sedation and then for wisdom teeth out at once, you know, that sort of thing.

Yes. Yeah. So it’s a whole different system in the in the US. But it’s I mean, it’s worth mentioning that in the UK we’re a streets ahead of the medics in this field and we’re more highly regulated than any other medical speciality and we’ve got the safest record for sedation. And that is something that we have in the UK, which, you know, I mean, I don’t want to talk about the US, but you know, they do have some cases, but here it’s because we are, you know, we do conscious, we do conscious sedation. And let’s face it, in dentistry we have something amazing called local anaesthetic. You know, no one needs to be that uncomfortable, unconscious or no one. You know, we need to have something that has a massively wide margin of safety. And we have local. And actually, I find also being a dentist that dentists don’t really want their patients to be knock outs and snoring. It’s quite difficult to work or do good dentistry when your patient isn’t really responsive. So that’s I’m really proud of us because we able to do that here. But you’re right, the US generally are. It’s, you know, it’s it’s very normal thing for them.

So so getting back getting back to the the nervous patient, whose job is it to say, you know, have you tried everything else before sedation? Is that you or is that the their dentist?

So dentists, when they discuss a treatment plan and consent, the patient for the treatment, that’s when you would go through the options, right? Yeah. So you should be able to at that point say, you know, for your comfort, we do have some options if you know, or if they’re nervous to say here are the options and dentists should know they should be well versed with all the modalities and from behavioural management. And nowadays we’ve got great in fact, often for kind of patients who are anxious, you know, they’ve actually got that sort of trait kind of anxiety. Some behavioural management is, is great before and so that’s an area that needs to be explored more. And then of course when I do the consultation, I could judge the situation a little bit too, and I’ll usually say, have you, you know, have you had sedation before? Tell me what the back story to this is and that sort of thing.

So, so, so but where I’m going with it, though, is, you know, if you do try behaviour management, then you know, people, if they’ve had a couple of good experiences, they, they, they improve a little bit whereas you reckon with sedation they get that sort of retrograde amnesia or whatever and they forget. So you don’t actually solve the nervousness, you just it’s just because they never, they never remember the experience. So they just still stay nervous.

That’s right. Yeah. So I think probably one of the one of the things about I.V. sedation is that you don’t you know, you don’t remember that you were really good and everything was really easy and that nothing hurt. So you’re absolutely right. But then we’re able to fine tune that. So I think if we’re trying to work for the patient to be able to wean them off it, which is a great idea, then we should involve the psychologists, especially, like.

I said, if it’s.

More trait.

Anxiety.

So it’s within their personality as opposed to a state anxiety, which is how they feel at that moment. So yeah, I think we have to think of it.

As a whole.

Patient. I feel like I feel like modality best practice might be okay for every two sedations you have now should we reassess whether you really sedation is right for you or not? But I can see how that’s not your job, right? Your job is to come in and do the sedation at the same time. I can see how the dentist and the patient kind of the patient, particularly pushed by the patient. The dentist will just say, okay, you want sedation, have sedation. So in a way, it kind of needs to be someone’s role, right, to say, hey, what about not sedation for the for the nervous ones I’m talking about not obviously not difficult.

For example, on Friday, I’m sedating.

A lady that sedated before and she had quite big surgery, sinus implants grafts and that sort of thing and super nervous. And I’m seeing her again. I talk to her. In fact, today she said she’s really excited to see me and we work with this, but this time she’s having a little bit more restorative work. So I said to her, Your sedation will be a little bit different because also people people kind of always think it’s going to be exactly the same and they don’t remember that. They don’t remember that. They don’t.

Remember.

So that’s also another challenge.

I have to.

Deal with. So I kind of said, so at this time, it’s going to be a little bit different because the dentistry is going to be a little bit different. You’re going to be able to, you know, need to turn left and bite together and left and right. So don’t worry, you know, because people worry. They think, I’m awake, I’m awake, I’m awake. And so it’s that kind.

Of.

Education as well, so that they know. And in fact, hopefully she will maybe have a more memory of it. And so, yeah, that way you’re able to fine tune it. But I mean, if someone’s having a horrible procedure, then less is more, right?

So yeah, absolutely. So do you use midazolam all the time or do you use other things? What’s your story with the drugs themselves?

So I use midazolam, single drug, just.

Because it’s just so easy to tighter. It’s safer than, you know, sequential administration of two more drugs, the multi drug. So single drug midazolam is is a simple technique. Multi drug is known as an advanced technique. And the guidelines, the standards tell us that we have to have really good justification in order to be able to use multi drugs. And it has to also it actually specifies that it has to be after having excluded a single drug or having a great justification. And I think that’s really important. And I think maybe a lot of dentists don’t know that they’re responsible for that, even though they are the clinician, they’re actually responsible, after all, for the sedated patients. And interestingly, now the guy the the one standard of care. So it’s the first time it’s ever happened that we have one standard of care, the.

Guidelines, 2015.

And by that I mean that before then, you know, maybe the medics thought they were not bound by dentistry. But with this standard of care, whether you’re a hygienist, you’re a dentist, you’re an anaesthetist, you’re a doctor, everybody has to abide.

By this one.

Standard of care if they are sedating for the purpose of dentistry. So yeah, multi Drug has definitely got a place in sedation. I don’t do it myself, but there is definitely a place for it. But it has to be with justification just because there is a more narrow margin of safety.

So, so just just expand on that question of if something goes wrong. Are you saying the dentist has has more to answer than you do.

And not more.

To answer?

But I think but I think what maybe comes as a surprise is that dentists think just because they have a sedation is coming in.

It’s not their responsibility anymore. You do your job. I do mine. Yeah, that’s right.

And unfortunately, it’s unfortunately it’s not true. And if you are recommending if you’re treating a patient for the purpose of dentistry. As a clinician, you are responsible and there is maybe even a school of thought to say that when you have a sedation is coming in, your practice manager should perhaps you know the first before you choose a sedation is should perhaps ask them to sign something to say that they are going to follow the guidelines so that at least you’ve kind of said, look, that’s what I would like you to do, because, you know, when you’re a dentist, you also don’t want to be staring at somebody to see what they’re taking out, you know, and what the and it’s difficult because a lot of dentists say, well, you know, how do I know? Because I turn around and there’s these colourless liquids, Right. I don’t know what they’re giving. I’m you trust them. And my point is that you just should just be a little bit more aware. Also, age group, I think you need to be a little aware of what age groups can have what drugs. So because we are essentially answerable to the CDC, but maybe the sedation is you may have may not be answerable to the CDC, you see. So that’s.

Where they’re kind of.

Maybe a slight conflict can come in. So overall, my advice would be to just to know some information about.

Sedation and.

Put it involves all really kind of simple, simple things. But before you so that you understand what is what is required and what does the CDC.

Want from you?

And can kids have sedation?

Yes. So under 12 age of puberty, which if you want to call it, have a number under 12, cannot be sedated in primary care. 12 to 16 is considered a young person in sedation and you can sedate in primary care, but with a single drug midazolam only. And that’s quite important. There are exceptions to this. If there is a consultant, a paediatric specialist or consultant anaesthetist, you know, you can mix it up a bit. But for your average kind of dentist, 12 to 16 year olds. So that kind of 14 year old may be having some pre molars taken out. You can sedate but with single drug. And so as a dentist, it’s good for you to know that so that when you are asking your receptionist or your practice manager to, you know, bring a sedation in, you’d say, you know, we have a 14 year old, we’d like somebody that does single drug over 16. Then that’s considered as a, you know, an adult. And whatever is justifiable is possible with. Yeah, absolutely with whoever. So that’s the age group and there’s no kind of upper limit. I sedated somebody that was 92 which is and.

It was like.

Oh but actually you’ve just got to be really cautious and you’ve got to do your routine, normal assessments with, you know, their airways and medical comorbidities escort often is a.

Bit of a problem.

Right? Because, you know, the 92 year old might also have a 95 year old husband in a wheelchair.

So I’ve been caught out a little bit before with escorts because sometimes, you know, you have a child turn up sometimes. I mean, I’m very specific, but I’ve learned this the hard way as well. Well, the other day the other day.

Actually, this lady came just on Friday. This lady came in and and then this what looked to me like a child came in with her.

And kind of had that small, you know, a smile or you.

Talk or your.

Mouth is still like this, you know, thinking.

I don’t know. How do you ask somebody, you an adult, you know?

And then she said and then she said, Oh, this is my husband.

And I was like, Oh, what’s up with that?

But she looked 12. I was like, Oh, you look 12. But then I thought.

I sometimes look a little bit like a 12 year old, so.

You must have to be right up there with your sort of medical histories and complication, drug complications and people with co-morbidities. Do you have is that what the training is when they teach you to do this? Is that where most of it is?

Well, yeah, I get a I get a medical history from the practices. And then I when I phoned the patients, I have two jobs. One is to assess them medically and whether they’re suitable for sedation. And my second, probably more important job is to connect with the patients. So medical wise, though, overall one and two patients are mostly suitable. Actually, a lot of people are suitable. There’s only a few things that are contraindicated. They’re usually things that disturb the brain or the airway. So, you know, COPD, major COPD, sleep apnoea, recreational drugs, that’s usually the bane of my life.

Um.

Wife sort of co-morbidities.

Um, but overall, most, you know, a lot of yeah, a lot of patients are suitable for sedation. Actually. There isn’t massive drug interactions. Oh nice. Normal things. Yeah.

So.

So y y y recreational drugs. What’s, what’s the story with them?

Recreational drugs is the bane of.

My life.

Because. So sedation. Actually, this is. This is one of the one of the things I had to.

Learn the hard way, you know, one of the.

Kind of maybe things that didn’t quite go right. You know, there’s always those.

We’ll get to that part.

Of the show. Yes. Go, go, go.

Sorry, Sorry. Then I’ll tell you then. I’ll tell you about that when we get to that part of the show. And then.

And sorry to interrupt. No, go ahead. Go ahead. Yes.

No, go ahead. Um, yeah. So that so sedation is is is sort of.

Midazolam is meant to be both an anxiolytic and a sedative. And the difference between that is one reduces your anxiety and the other gives you that kind of sort of.

Droopy eye, slow sedative.

Kind of feel. They usually go together, but sometimes they don’t go together. You can get.

Anxiolysis.

Without the sedative sort of effect, but sometimes very, very rarely. Maybe. I think the stats is less than 1%. You get something called a paradoxical effect, which is essentially a big increase in emotional release. You get the patients get excessive movements, especially limb movement, limb movements, and you become really agitated. And essentially you have to peel the patient off the ceiling. And that is it can be idiosyncratic, but there is evidence that it has a link to recreational drug use.

And and.

It has happened to me maybe.

Three times in the.

Past 25 years. 20 years.

Okay. And when it first. Yeah. And when it first happened.

It’s difficult because you think maybe you haven’t sedated them enough, right? So the temptation is to sedate patients more.

And so I ended up so I have had this situation where I kind of sedated the patient a bit more and a bit more and it got worse and they got worse. And I thought, right.

Sumo wrestling was definitely not part of.

This. It’s not going very well. And then I immediately realised and it was a young guy, it was like a 19.

Year old and.

I immediately.

Kind of clocked on and I actually reversed the drug. And then it was much better. And so the dentist was able to finish.

And then at the end he said, Oh, this.

Was great. And I was like, Really?

It might have been.

Great for you. It was not great for me.

And I said to him, What have you been taking?

I asked you, you know, I always ask these questions.

And he and he said, What? And I said, Just tell me. And he went, Well, just cocaine.

And I was like, Why didn’t you tell me this before? And he said, Oh, my dad’s best friend with the dentist. Don’t tell him I don’t want anyone to know. And I was like, Oh, God. So, um, so yeah, that was probably.

One of those events where I had to learn things.

The hard way. It doesn’t always happen, of course, but it can do.

And nowadays everybody is.

On something, especially in London. Everyone’s taking something. I have to.

In fact I’ve got this talk to Frank on minimise on my computer because I’ve got to understand the lingo as well. People tell me.

What they take, you know, suddenly they say, I take Calvin.

Klein and you have to know what that is.

What is that? What is that street name? Yeah. What is it? Which. Which drug is Calvin?

Calvin Klein. It’s sort of cocaine and ketamine.

Cocaine and ketamine.

So Cocaine. Ketamine to get mean and ketamine. It must be.

Exciting.

Exciting. Okay.

And there’s me. Wow. This is.

Enough. I swear. There’s all sorts of things. Yeah. Why can’t people just, you know, have a pornstar martini or something like that? You know, like the rest of us on a Friday night?

Just.

Just as bad, though. Yeah. Tell me this. When. When you’re sedating a patient, what’s the thing that keeps you? Keeps you up? Like, you know, like a nightmare scenario that can happen? Is it like a cardiac, like something unrelated to it, or is it something related to it?

So those sort of things are never events.

So over sedation or respiratory depression, that sort of thing is a never event. And it doesn’t.

Happen.

It hasn’t happened to me. It shouldn’t happen. And these things don’t happen, especially with. As you know, we tighter it slowly so it’s something that doesn’t happen. So I haven’t had any medical situations. And also the beauty of midazolam is we have flumazenil, so we can reverse it very quickly. So medical stuff. No doesn’t happen. You know what? I guess for me, the sort of difficult thing that happens, it might surprise you, but the sedation is only as good as.

The local anaesthetic. Oh, yeah. So the thing that’s kind of can happen is when the patient.

Is in pain.

Actual pain.

Because no amount of sedation.

Gets rid of that.

And then and then it’s kind of interesting because.

Sometimes the dentist looks at you thinking.

Should they be a bit more sedated? And you’re kind of thinking.

Oh, but maybe if they weren’t hurting, we won’t have that problem. You know.

Sometimes pain is good because, you know, you want sometimes, you know, with.

The whole idea canal, you know, sometimes actually have an endodontist that has referred me a couple patients because of a hot pulp. Right. You know, some things are going to hurt. That’s fine. And that’s why we sedate the patient so they don’t have that bad resentment for us. But overall, it’s the challenge of making sure the patient’s not in pain for me, I think. And that’s when working with, you know, great dentists or conscientious dentists works. And that’s pretty much everyone I work with, really. And then you’ve got to trust the drug. The drug does its thing.

And but you sometimes.

Gently say, hey, put in, put some more in.

So so sometimes I kind of I mean, thankfully I’m good friends with my dentist.

So sometimes I say, oh, it might be worth topping that up a wee bit because it’s, you know, it’s been a couple of hours or it might be worth, you know, just just a little nudge in a kind of way that is nice. But yeah, that’s probably. But then most dentists know, you know themselves, so those things are fine. And also another thing, actually, one of the most difficult things to sedate for surprisingly, is a scale and Polish hygienist work kind of or perio work or more hygienist work because with perio work or hygienists doing perio work, often there’s local anaesthetic. But when you don’t have local anaesthetic and you’ve got sensitive teeth and it’s the whole.

Mouth and there’s water everywhere and there isn’t.

You know, that sort of scenario is quite tricky for me. I have to kind of be there and but I tend to connect. I mean, my biggest task for me and I think I love people and I love connecting with people and my biggest task is to connect with patients. And I think once they trust me and they know I’m there for them, then half the battle is done and my job is just much, much easier because I always say that people don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care. And so when you care, you really care. I mean, this is where that whole, you know, humanity, empathy and all these words that we use, this is where it becomes really paramount when you’ve got that connection with the patient. And I try to get it’s hard, you know, doing that over the phone often, but you need to be able to recognise personality types, You need to be able to recognise how to connect. And then when I’m.

There, then.

I once they trust me and they trust the dentist, then the rest actually is really easy. I mean the whole my job, honestly, Payman it’s the easiest job. I absolutely love it. Nothing goes wrong. It’s just such a wonderful thing. It’s a great service. I really recommend for dentists to do it. I have this feather in their cap. It is just especially in modern day dentistry where treatments are getting more intricate, they’re getting treatments are getting longer. Also, patients now want comfort not just in dentistry, but I think people want to be more comfortable whether they’re flying, whether they’re dining. Everyone wants to have a nicer time and an easier time. So there was this whole thing about making dentistry pain free. I think we’ve done that.

You know, we’ve really come a long way.

With our local. I think we need to now really move towards making dentistry comfortable so that we don’t have.

Those results of the Adult Dental Health Survey where.

50% of the UK population said that they had a fear of dentistry and 12% had extreme anxiety. I mean, that’s terrible. And I really hope that with this kind of not just I.V. sedation, but just conscious sedation and all the modalities of it, we can all kind of come together to be able to make dentistry more comfortable for. For everyone.

And for the dentists, too.

Sure seems to me that the bit of the job that you love is that connection with the patient. Yes. Reassuring them and all of that. Because on the surface of it, you know.

First time with the.

Dentist, too.

Yeah, the dentist, too. The first time when I heard there’s a person who’s a dental seditionist, I I’m being totally honest with you, I thought, what a boring job that must be. But it’s not. It’s interesting, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I.

Aside from that, I always really, at the end of the day, like I said, I’m there to.

Make the dentists job easier. I’m there for the patient to have a great experience. In fact, when I phoned the patients, the first thing I say is I introduce myself and I say, You know, my name is Lolly.

And I am.

Going to take care of you alongside Dr. So-and-so and I’m going to make sure that you.

Have a wonderful experience on Friday.

But it’s interesting.

Because my connection with the dentist is also.

Really important to me because what I would like my aim for the end of that appointment is for the patient to be really happy with the dentist, not with me necessarily. I’m a little bit of a catalyst or an adjunct here, but what I want is for the patient to be happy with the dentist and happy about dentistry. I love that to happen. And so when the patients write a review on the practice website about the dentist and the practice, that is my job well done because that’s what I’m there for. I’m there for the dentist. And and in fact, you know, you said.

About.

Some of the things that have gone wrong. A few months ago I was working with a dentist who I love and is somebody I would go to myself like a great, great clinician. And and actually, I was doing some implant and the driver fell down the patient’s mouth. Quite a big implant driver. And then sort of there was like a little bit of a devastation type of movement on the patient. But the patient was sedated, of course, and it went down. We don’t know where it went.

You know, and and.

There was this sort of massive, I guess, bit of panic naturally. Right? So it was really interesting because I was this extra person, a bit like an outsider, but in there. And so I was able to sort of say, right, we can put the patient up, see if they’re going to cough or not. And, you know, what we’re going to do is finish the treatment. There was no distress. The SATs were normal. The patient seemed fine. So it was the end of the treatment as finished, the treatment that’s organised for them to have a chest x ray? I asked, you know, I sent a message through to reception to organise that. I said, Let’s find another implant driver, let’s take it with the patient. I will go with the patient myself, bring the patient back. You know, all of those things that went around. And then the dentist said to me, You know what? I don’t know whether I would have done all of these.

Things if you weren’t.

There just to just to have somebody else that’s maybe not in the middle of it all or maybe.

A bit more calm and able to.

Think.

So sometimes I think it is there. You’re there for.

The dentist, you’re there for.

The patient, you’re there for.

The nurses, for.

Everybody, really. So it is fun. It’s super fun. Not at all.

Boring.

And you seem like such a positive person yet. And I keep driving this thing about what what went wrong. But that story you just told that’s from from your perspective is a success, massive success story. Tell me tell me about something that went wrong.

Well, you know, like I said, in.

Sedation, things that go really wrong are never events.

So.

No, no. But something, something.

Something to do with the patient trusting the dentist, something, you know, something that went wrong. Come on. There must have been, um.

Well, do you know what? It’s difficult. I guess there’s been. There’s been times where.

I’ve lost my.

Trust in the dentist. Um, at all times. The patient is sedated. Right. So the patient is generally kind of happy. And at the end of the treatment, they’re always happy and they think they’ve had a great time.

I mean, that’s the wonderful. So sometimes I say, sometimes I say.

When when I have a.

Periodontist or.

Hygienist working with a really sensitive.

Mouth that maybe is not numbed up. They said, oh, you know.

What are we going to happen? And I said, Well, the patient’s going to have a great time. It’s whether you’re going to have be mentally disturbed by.

The end of it or not. Well, gag reflex, your gag reflex is is always really difficult.

And I’m.

Always enjoying my seat, going, please, please, please, and trying to come up with like, you know, ear.

Lobe pressure points and whatever I can.

Because gag is one of those that’s.

A bit unpredictable.

And it can, you know, it can go really well or.

It doesn’t go well at all.

And I’ll say.

To the patient, I’ll say to the dentist, you know, you can just do it, get the tooth out.

And you may not have a good time, but don’t worry.

The patients are in pain, patients won’t remember it.

They would have a pleasant experience.

And they don’t have resentment of us. That’s the best we can do. But there hasn’t been anything. I mean, these are all these are all things that constitute sort of not a bad day, but a more challenging day. Right. But I don’t.

Know. I think there’s those imperfections is.

What makes us kind of stronger. Right. You know, I think what is it that the.

Japanese concept, something.

Like Kintsugi, where, you know, the golden joinery, have you ever seen.

That in plates where plates that are broken? And I always think, you.

Know, Ernest Hemingway said that the world breaks us, breaks everybody, right. The world breaks everybody. And afterwards, some people are stronger in.

All those broken places. So all of those days, I think, are just.

Probably what makes you.

Realise and get that.

Experience. I mean, you know, I’ve got a.

Lot to learn. So yeah.

I mean, the reason why I harp on it is from that book Black Box thinking, I don’t know if you’ve seen it. Yes.

I haven’t seen it, but my nephew is training to be a pilot, so I kind.

Of know a little bit about.

Yeah. So but it.

Actually it actually draws a parallel between pilots and doctors.

And and says, that’s right.

That we never learned in medicine. We don’t learn from each other’s mistakes.

Because we hide it. We hide it.

Exactly.

And that black box is.

Thinking is.

Important for two reasons. That plus.

I always.

Think.

Also with sedation.

Oh, so this is interesting because some dentists sort of think that, okay, so the patient’s not going to remember. So they have this sort of banter that maybe isn’t.

So.

Appropriate really, that. Yes, not a bad I mean, nothing bad or anything like that, but just about, you know.

Last night they were out or, you know, something, you know.

And I’m.

A little bit I’m a bit sort of sterile.

Cockpit.

Kind of situation.

And when I’ve always been like that, even.

As a dentist, I never had personal conversations over the.

Patient’s head and that sort of thing. I like talking in case you don’t notice. But I.

Always I.

Always think when the patient’s there, you know, we have to have a performance. But also these in this day and age, you know, people record things. Yeah. So and I have this sort of personality type that is always really worried about, you know. So eventually they managed to get really nervous about the sedation as well as being nervous.

About, you know, they kind of go, what if, you know, what if you say something and I can’t hear.

You, you know, or.

And then I think a.

Lot of, you know, we have to understand that there might be also a black.

Box. They might put their phone on and record everything that’s happening.

We all have to be really, I think, wary of that. So I you know, I’m pretty good with I don’t like to I always like to keep things nice and light. And, you know, I love people anyway. There’s never any patients that I’d never like. I was always that dentist. They always booked those really awkward patients with because I always think Abraham Lincoln said, I don’t like that man. I must get to know him better.

And that’s a theory I have.

I always I always.

Like my patients. However, nobody else likes them, but I like I connect with them because there is a reason, right?

Why people are the way they are.

And and I think if you cultivate enough curiosity.

In people and you connect with people, you’ll know why people are the way they are. I love those people. Those are the great challenges.

Yeah. So I gave up clinical dentistry ten, 12 years ago, and the thing I miss the most is those conversations with patients. You know, I’m convinced it’s the best part of the job. Of course, you know, the different dentists, you know, into different bits of the job, but for me that was definitely the best bit. Yeah. Let’s go back.

Into your sort of.

Yeah. Let’s get to your back story. A fellow fellow, Iranian. Were you born here or were you born in Iran or.

So, yes. No, I was born in Iran, in Tehran. And really, I’m kind of a self-confessed bonafide.

Privileged.

Girl, really. I grew up in a great, great family. You know, one of those where your mom and dad actually loved each other.

So that, I think, has been really important. I remember my dad telling us, telling me, don’t.

Forget, your mom is more important than any of you guys. For me, she comes first and then all of you.

And you know what? Father says that to their children. So, yeah, I’m one of three, but I have older, much older sisters, 12 years older.

So it was really lovely because I have older sisters.

But kind of was a bit of an only child as well because my sisters.

Came to the UK to go to boarding school. So I was, um, you know, with my parents. So really great.

So when did you come here? How old were you?

So I came with mom. We moved here in 86, so I was ten.

Quite young because my.

Sisters came over after their studies, but I came a bit earlier. There was a war in 86, 85, so I and it was interesting because I went to school well, I couldn’t do any entrance exams because I couldn’t speak any English. So eventually Dad found a small private school in Wimbledon that would take basically well, I thought would take me. But evidently they just wanted to take his money and I kind of parked myself in in there.

And and.

I remember that first day because we don’t have assembly.

And hymns and things like that. So it was the first time that, you know.

I was.

In a class and then everybody goes to assembly in the morning.

With this hymn book. And I thought, Oh, what’s this?

I just sort of took a little.

Notebook with me. I thought, well, I’m you know, I thought it was a little notebook. I thought, that’s what we’re going to start studying. I mean, we don’t have these things. And then everyone starts singing.

And it was all a bit dramatic.

And I thought, Oh, what’s going on here? You know, it was a really bizarre.

Time, actually. I even went to school at half term because I didn’t know school was closed. They must have told us, but I still went. We don’t have half term in Iran, really. So, you know, and I was wondering what’s happening by about nine, 10:00 when no one had rocked up in the.

Whole school.

Was, you know. Yeah. So that was, uh.

That was interesting.

And that was 86. Yeah.

Well, you were saying your first assembly in hymns and I was recalling my first assembly as well when I came here and hymns. It was a very strict Catholic school, very strict, and half way through the year. It’s during the revolution it was 79. Okay. So I didn’t luckily didn’t get the war issues that you had. But then the headmaster shouting at people and he was yelling, Silence, silence. And I thought silence was a person. And I kept on thinking this silence. Such a naughty kid keeps on getting shouted out.

Yeah.

Exactly. Why?

So you remember it?

Well, obviously, because you were ten years old.

Oh, yeah, I remember it well. And. Oh yeah, I was ten, but actually.

The school had a lot of international students. I mean, I wasn’t the only person in this sort of situation, but actually the sort of Japanese people stuck together. A lot of the Asians stuck together.

And I.

Was the only sort of Iranian. So I did sort of spend a few little break times just in the bathroom.

Just sort of sitting on the floor thinking, Wow, I haven’t got any friends sort of thing. Oh, let’s just see how this goes. But um, but actually being.

Chatty and things, you pick up the language very quickly and it ended up being really well for me because I integrated beautifully. And, and also coming from that.

Kind of background in Iran, you were inherently.

Just.

You know, your science and maths and all those subjects.

You were already hitting the grades anyway. So then that side of it at least was okay. So it all had to struggle with was, you know, history and.

Geography and Latin.

We don’t really, you know, the complicated things that you really need the language.

So thankfully we didn’t do Latin. We got stuck with French, which is good. But we could we got a lot of similar words, so managed that quite nicely.

And did you live around Wimbledon? Did you grow up around there?

Yes. So I lived in Wimbledon pretty much.

A lot of that time. I went to Wimbledon high.

Eventually for my A-levels.

And Wimbledon is one of those places I feel really nostalgic about.

I love it still do I generally have nostalgia about my, you know, my schools, my university, and just I love my surroundings generally. So but it was a.

Yeah, it was a great time.

I even won some form prizes, but we didn’t go to Prizegiving because again, we don’t have this in Iran. So they called my dad and said, Can you pick.

Up some things out here? And my dad.

Came home with these.

Like mats, plates and books.

And form prize and this and that. And he said, I think.

These you did, you won these. And I was.

Like, what are they? We just put them aside. I was like, What is this? And then I went back to school at the New Year and I had different there was a different people in the year and they called my parents and said.

Leila had done so well. We’ve moved her up two years.

Instead of one, which never happened. So now was in a I thought, bloody hell, I have to start again with this. Only just I only just got to know who was in my year and so and that was kind of interesting. I ended up going to Guy’s when I was 17. Wow. So younger than everybody else.

Wow. Yeah. It’s a bit of a child genius. How did you not.

Find did you not find being pushed up a year meant you were the most junior one in the in that new year. And I know I know someone else told me it was the worst thing that ever happened to him.

Really? Well, it’s a bit of a it’s a bit of a thing people now.

Talk about.

In terms of do you put your child in a year earlier.

Or do you hold them back a year.

And and that sort of thing.

I mean.

I don’t know. I didn’t know what was going on.

Right. I only realised I was young when I went to Guy’s.

I couldn’t drink. That’s when I realised otherwise.

To you, you know, you just in the wave and you’re going forward and managing everything around you. So I had a lot of support.

From family.

And my sisters. Why?

Dentistry?

Um, dentistry. Surprisingly.

I’d like to have something amazing to tell you.

Payman but actually I.

Don’t because dentistry.

Is been the only job I’ve.

Ever wanted to do.

Well, that is amazing. That’s actually amazing.

That I suppose. Actually, you’re right. It is amazing. I have no idea how it started. And I even have I even have it right now on the desk somewhere here. Um, an essay. So when I came.

To the UK, you know, you write that What what do you want to do when you grow.

Up? Everyone had their, you know, want to.

Be a.

Transponster or whatever, you know, and, and with my very broken English who at the time I thought it was just perfect English. But now reading back, it’s hilarious. I’ve actually written When I Grow Up, I was want to be dentist. Uh huh. And so it’s been something I’ve always only the only job I’ve ever, ever wanted to do. And we actually had a I remember going to the dentist in Iran and I was young.

I must have.

Been maybe.

Seven.

Eight. And I remember kind of, you know, having my hand over the spittoon kind of on my tippy toes, which nothing has changed much. I still probably my height probably hasn’t actually changed too much. But I remember looking over the dentist and I was thinking and I said to him, Can I nurse for you? Can I do anything? And I was literally in his face. I’m sure he absolutely hated me. And then eventually he sort of stopped.

He gave some local anaesthetic on my.

To my sister.

He went.

To the corner of the room and I.

Kid you.

Not. Do you know what he did? Can you guess?

He actually lit a.

Cigarette and started smoking in the room. I mean, it was like a total fag in hand. It wasn’t even like, you know, an elegant, like, you know, in the room. He started to light a cigarette. I mean, to be fair, at least he waited for the locals to work, right? And he’s probably got idle thumbs. So he thought, right, you know, just go and smoke. So he actually lit a cigarette and he turned around to me and.

He said, Lala.

Never, ever think about dentistry. It is the most stressful, awful profession anybody could do. And there’s me and my big excited eyes over the spittoon going, What? Um, so I did have that incident as well. And, um. But did you.

Have any dentists.

In the family?

Nothing.

No. No dentists? No medics.

And my parents were just one of those parents.

Unlike kind of the East that never, ever pushed us to do, you know, anything my dad always said? He said, Ideally, I’d like you to be skilled. Uh, he was. He just wanted us to go to university and be educated for him. You know, education was was wealth.

And so he did not.

Mind at all. And so I.

Just.

Always wanted to do it. And so it was so easy for me.

What do your parents do?

Um, so my mom was a teacher, as are both my sisters.

And my dad. Well, before the revolution, he.

Worked for the Ministry of Information. He dealt with foreign press, mainly with the country and then post-revolution. It was interesting because.

I was born in.

76, so that whole period was a difficult time, of course. So my dad kind of changed roles. And so there was this in-between job situation.

Where my dad.

Was taking care of me.

As I was, you know, a.

Bit of an accident child, let’s face it. And I had a working mom. My mom was at school and so my dad.

Just took care of me. Basically. He was a househusband.

Until everything settled down in the country. And then he worked for an international company which still exists called If They Do Flavours and Fragrances.

And he was a managing.

Director, so a business really. So we travelled a lot and that sort of thing.

So wow, what an interesting career. To this day I’m obsessed about. I’m obsessed about flavours and fragrances. I remember going to his office in Iran and I’m so I’ve always been so curious about everything.

Whether it’s people or things.

And he had these, um.

These, you know, you get like those cheesy wotsit type things and at the bottom of the packet you get the blue powder. So he had, he had, you know, tubes of these in different colours.

I mean now that sort of stuff is carcinogenic, right? It’s that sunset yellow colour they put in. And I remember going into his office and opening everything and putting my hand in all of this. It was like all over my face and smelling all of the perfumes and. And even now I’m.

Still obsessed.

With.

Food and tasting and perfume.

I mean, flavours.

Flavours and fragrance is very interesting because I’m I’m involved in it with, you know, with toothpaste and. Oh, yes. I mean, number one, we’ve got some very expensive toothpaste. Expensive what we think is great value, ten, £10 a tube. Um, but I love it. Have you used it? So.

Yes. Well, I mean, I was one of the one of the first enlightened fans and yes, absolutely love it. And also I’m a bit of a I’m one of these, like, nerdy critiques.

Right? So at first I was like, well, let’s see, you know, like, let’s see what this is. I didn’t have.

The accent, but, you know, kind of wanted to see what it was about. And so and then but first of all, I loved Georgiana.

She works with you.

Did she still work ten years?

She’s so she’s a big connector. Yeah, right. She’s a big connector. Right.

So, yeah.

She has personal, you know, public relations skills. Excellent.

So, um, yeah, so. And then I said, you know, let’s try this. And I realised, you know, what a.

Beautiful, beautiful product it was.

Because.

You know, you literally took out all those, um, all of those.

Things that were.

Unpredictable made this system unpredictable. And you made them predictable. I mean, and that’s genius, right? So I. And the toothpaste and, you know, the the tooth. The the, the tooth. The tooth Sensitiser for two weeks.

Oh, I love it. I loved it.

Yeah.

Tooth serum. That’s right. So tell me about the flavours because lots of patients say about the mints and they don’t like the mint and. Yeah, well.

The thing is, number one, you know, you want your toothpaste to be, you know, nicer tasting than other toothpaste. Right? And it turns out that it’s as much to do with the sort of the. Viscosity, the mouthfeel as it has to do with the flavour. But then flavour and aroma are two different things. And the number of mints that there are is mind boggling. You know. You know this. Yeah. You know this. Yeah.

I do. Because I remember my dad’s office. Spearmint.

Yeah. There’s a whole.

Lot and there’s different manufacturers so your dad’s would be one of them. And then there’s others, right? And then, and then the other thing is, I feel we thought, why mint? You know, why does it have to be mint? Okay, so the freshness thing. Yeah, but why can’t toothpaste be just delicious? Like, you know, like, fantastic. Like, look forward to having it because it’s so tasty kind of thing. And my my business partners never approved me going after that angle. Yeah, but, but a couple of other companies have and I had I had Andrew Dorward on this podcast and they did it. Him and his wife did it brilliantly. Wonderful execution. If you ever tried their lime flavour, they they’ve really done it well as well. Chilli and lime or something. They’ve they’ve, they’ve copied the names of the sorbets sorbets in Marks and Spencer.

Yeah.

It’s like a cocktail. It’s well I mean we could call it, we could call it a mojito.

So someone else has done that.

Someone else has done that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Got the mojitos and the gin and tonics. And I thought. I thought I thought the execution on that one wasn’t as good. But it turns out this is the thing that it turns out, whatever flavour you do, there has to be an element of mint in it. For when, when. When you test it out on people. Yes. If there isn’t an element of mint in it, people just really put off. So even if it’s lime, it’s kind of like minty lime. And that brings in in all these new complications. It’s a fascinating field, the whole flavour and fragrance field, the.

Whole.

Yeah, the whole.

Toothpaste.

I was sedated for Simon Chard.

And he’s got the.

He’s got the parlour tablet. So he was like, Lolly, can you taste some of these, take some of these and test them out. And I don’t know whether that’s I.

Didn’t end up putting one in my mouth, but I don’t know whether that’s minty. But that’s a.

Great that’s minty.

Yeah. A great concept isn’t it. So it’s all new, but.

So that’s pretty much what I never had dentists in the family.

So tell me about.

Guys, when you first got to guys when you first got to guys, what was your.

Impression?

I love guys. Love it. I absolutely love.

I really wanted to go to guys Umds It was at the time because it was 94.

United.

Medical and Dental School. I mean.

The United Medical. And, you know, in my head it was the best.

Dental school in.

The world. Of course, you guys people think the guys would tell you that.

Yeah.

What is it? What do they do on day one? Do they on day one, do they announce it? Do they say you are the best, the best, that top gun? Do they do that? And then they just keep on telling you that again and again.

But I think I think I mean, I think when you.

When you first.

In your.

First you know, when you first go to guys.

And and you have.

Harold Ellis, Ian Hutchinson and Lawrence Bannister teaching you anatomy in the Gordon Museum, you immediately know you’re.

In a special place, right? I mean, that’s.

The editor of.

Grey’s Anatomy.

So I.

Just felt very I mean, don’t get me wrong.

Every Dental.

University is.

Amazing.

And I you know, of course, now I. I know.

That.

But you and I really.

Hope that.

Everybody, wherever they go, they feel how special it is. I mean, you know, King’s had. They all do.

But I loved it. And I loved the.

Location because, you know, let’s face it, it’s not Denmark Hill, You know, it’s Tower Bridge. And so, you.

Know, it’s.

A great, great location. And we were all.

Living in Wolfson house and, you know, all medics and dentists.

Together.

Back then, London Bridge was not this cool area that it is now. London. London Bridge was right dodgy back then. I remember. I remember I remember dropping my brother off there. Wolfson House was in a proper dodgy place. Yeah. And compared to compared to where I was living in in Cardiff. In Cardiff? Yeah. It was a ghetto. Yeah. Oh, yeah. The place, the place I was living in Cardiff was.

Was much outside of London.

I’m not talking out of London. Out of London. I mean, you can’t beat that campus. We didn’t even have a campus, really. But in London, because I wanted to stay in London. In London, it definitely beat Whitechapel and Denmark. Hill And.

Yeah, everywhere else. Did you not consider leaving London?

Why didn’t you consider leaving London?

No. Why?

I wanted to go to guys and I wanted to. Well, I wanted to go to guys because I did want. I did.

I wanted to do sedation, and I. They were the only dental school that did teach sedation as undergrads. And I wanted to be a part of that. And I wanted to stay in London because I wanted to stay at home. Um, yeah, I loved.

Being at home.

And, um.

With I just, I loved it. And I wanted to live by being at home.

I mean, you know, I still lived in Wolfson house and lived out, but to go back.

Home and I think at the time I didn’t even.

Really I mean, I applied to go to for Birmingham and Bristol and all those great places, but I wanted to go to guys. That was my first choice.

It’s so funny.

That’s how I ended up there.

I’m having this conversation.

I’m having this conversation with my son right now. He’s doing GCSEs and he’s saying, Yeah, he wanted.

Industry.

No, he doesn’t want to dentistry. Um, but he’s saying he wants to stay in London. Yeah. And, and I’m talking to.

Interesting.

Well every 16 year old who’s just about just figuring out their their lives and girls and and you know, whatever going out and being independent and soon it’ll be driving. These guys aren’t so interested in driving as we were of course at that age you’re going to think, I’ll just stay where I am because I know people. But it’s an error of sorts. I’m not saying everyone you know, obviously it worked out for you, but I would have.

Thought every 16.

Year old would want to get as far away from their parents.

As possible, actually.

Well, not you. Not you.

It means what it means. It means you’re a great.

Parent and you provide a wonderful home.

For free.

So he’s very clever man. Do you want to stay? I mean, I think this is a bit more calculated than we think. Yeah.

I mean, look, I ended up in Cardiff by mistake, not on purpose. I didn’t get in. I wanted to go to London Hospital. I didn’t get in. I failed my grades by one point or whatever it was. And Cardiff said, Fine, yeah, but it was the best thing that ever happened. Yeah, because.

What a great choice. What a great choice.

That whole part of my life, which was a whole different chapters that you and my son will never have. Yeah. If you don’t, if you don’t have another angle to your life.

You’re absolutely right. I mean, I think now.

I mean, if I had to give advice, I would say, you know, just go to.

You know, Glasgow or like just go somewhere like Bristol, Bristol, Cardiff, like all of Bristol. Bristol is one of my favourite cities in this whole country.

I mean, it’s absolutely amazing. So yeah, now I would say that, but and I.

Think at the time campus feel and also all my friends are dentists and doctors, whereas everyone else is normal friends. And you know, so I completely agree with you, but that’s how I felt at the time. But, you know, you’re absolutely right, to be.

Honest. How were you how were you as.

A dental student? Were you like top of your class? Were you struggling at the clinical aspects? Were you party animal or were you president of the Student Society? Who are you? Who were you in university?

I loved it. I absolutely loved it.

And I found it quite easy.

Did you?

So, um.

Yeah, I found the whole thing really easy.

I went to all my lectures.

I got did really well.

In all my exams, and I was, you know.

I was, I mean, you know, I was in that top few, you know, ten people or whatever.

But I really enjoyed it.

And I partied enough, probably not at the time enough. But now, looking back, I should have partied maybe a lot more. But but enough of all.

Of those.

Things. I had a great.

Time and I really.

Got to know my tutors. I still.

You know, I still when I. So in fact, I’m seeing my Cascaria.

Do you know my escudier on on Wednesday.

He taught us and he said, Gosh, I remember you as a student. So, you.

Know, I turned up to.

Everything. I did my quotas. Yeah, all in time or maybe.

A little early, but.

I was there to learn and I found it.

A privilege. I felt privileged to be there. I respected those people that taught us.

And I.

Wanted to.

Learn. And also I have being Iranian, you’re kind of inherently.

Maybe a little competitive, so you always want to do really well. You want to impress and just be do well. And so.

Yeah, which is. Because now when you talk to people or the great great achievers and all the famous dentists, it’s sort of inversely proportional to how well they did at university.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, because really a lot.

With a lot of people, their, their passion for dentistry and their knowledge started after they qualified, which is actually great because that’s when you really learn and when you’re older and wiser, right. To really know what you want.

But I.

Just.

Happened. I think I was one.

Of the very few people that really wanted to be there. Let’s face it, it’s a lot of people were there.

For many.

Other reasons than the fact that they wanted to be a dentist. So, you know.

You.

You know, you sailed through school, got pushed up a class, then you sail through through dental school. You obviously find that sort of study side very simple. And I take it you didn’t you didn’t suffer with the anxieties that some people suffer with when they start with patients. You took that in your stride. Did you not consider like specialising?

Yeah, this is a good question. I didn’t. And also.

At the time, it.

Wasn’t something that lots of people did. I don’t know whether you had that experience. It wasn’t.

Now everyone’s everyone wants to.

Do as little as possible.

You know.

But at the.

Time it wasn’t such a thing. And I. I loved it all so.

Much that I couldn’t think of.

Doing one thing.

But what I did do fairly quickly, well, immediately was.

I did my house jobs.

Purely because.

At the time.

It was only you could only.

Do house jobs at Guy’s if.

You were at Guy’s. And so it was one of those things that if you did well, we had a we had an exam called the Oski, you know, the Husky. And then you were ranked you were ranked on that oski and then your house jobs were ranked on.

What you scored.

In your oski And somehow I came.

First in the.

Year in that oski, which, you know, and my academic academically, I wasn’t the best, you know, I wasn’t first, but somehow I did in that exam, God knows. Fluke. And so it.

Was inevitable that I kind of do those house jobs. And so I did do the Max House job, and I did do my restorative. But what I wanted to do.

Learn a bit more about was radiology. Eric Waite, who is just.

Great, the great incredible.

So I did radiology and.

The great Eric Coates, Indeed. So blessed. And and in fact.

He asked me to do the.

Training in radiology because that had just.

Opened up.

And I thought about it because I loved radio. And in fact.

Even to this day, I take some.

X-rays for my dentists.

So those roots, you know, for AIDS and that sort of thing. And I.

See them struggling and I kind of say, well.

Do you want me to take the X-ray for you? You know, if you want to, I don’t mind doing that. So you don’t have to, you know, take gloves off this, that and the other.

Scrub and all this. So I, I love it. But I said no. And then Jemmy Magnus.

Took that role, took that job.

And I said no because I thought, yeah, he’s great.

Um, and.

And Jackie Brown, right. Jackie Brown Incredible. Because I thought, well, I’ve.

Done dentistry.

You know, I love this, but what am I going to do with that? And so.

I.

Yeah, I didn’t do it. And, um, and then I went and did my vet and, and then went into practice. Yeah.

And did you, did you take to practice Quite easily.

I did my vet and it wasn’t a great practice unfortunately. So it put me off practice and a little bit of dentistry because I ended up with a trainer who was not that great and not a great leader, although.

The practice.

The nurses were amazing and I’m.

Still in touch.

With the same nurses from the year 2000. In fact, I’m in touch with almost all of my nurses.

Over the years.

So it was a good practice but not a great leader. And so I.

Kind of was a bit put off it. So then I ended up going back to guys and just teaching a little bit.

And I those were the days where you got jobs.

You know, like in.

The corridor and you didn’t have to apply for things you remember. So I worked there for a couple of.

Years with the incredible Mark McGurk, who is just.

Sending great waves.

Even now. And yeah, and so I and then it was there that I did my diploma in sedation. So whilst I was.

Teaching a bit and doing a.

Bit of A&E and that sort of thing.

I did my post-grad in sedation, um, at Guy’s, which came in really. Sort of handy there. And that was incredible because I was then.

Taught by David Craig, who is my.

Ultimate.

Sedation.

Hero.

Even the queen thinks so because she gave him.

An MBA and Meg.

Skelly Derek debuts.

And now Carol Boyle, who’s fronting Saad who I’m a faculty member for, and I feel very lucky to be there. So there were all my teachers and that was kind of 2002. And then after that.

I braved it and went back to practice. And then I.

Stayed in the same practice for years and years and years.

Yeah. Did you not.

Consider ever buying a practice?

I did. I bought I bought the practice I was working at.

Of course. It’s your practice, right? Yeah. In Docklands. It was.

Well.

In the Docklands. That’s right, Yeah. In Canary Wharf.

Um, so same practice.

I, I bought the partnership because, you know, I mean, it was a.

Great practice and I had a great partner in Nagpaul who was just so different to me in every sense of the way that it just made so much sense. I did that for.

But, but I.

Sold it fairly quickly, maybe three, four years. And it didn’t, you know.

It wasn’t really my style.

Kind of being a being a worker bee and a queen bee at the.

Same time.

Did you not enjoy being the boss?

Uh, well.

I really enjoyed I really enjoyed.

Being a leader and having all of.

Those. I loved my staff. They loved.

Work.

They we were like a family and I really, really enjoyed all of those leaderships.

But often that doesn’t really match well with the business. So I wasn’t very business.

Savvy, but then my.

Partner.

Kind of was. So I kind of had the shop floor.

And the peep dealt with the people and he dealt with the more of the business side of things, which I was probably shocking at. So I really enjoyed that. But then.

I tend.

To I had that even.

Without being the boss. So, you know.

I don’t I don’t have this power issue, You know, I don’t need to, you know, I was thankfully as a dentist.

You’re always a leader, right? You’re a leader for your staff.

Your leader, for your nurse, for your room, for your patients, for the technician. You know, I didn’t necessarily need to own the practice for that, for me to feel that way. I felt it anyway.

I get that. I get that. Yeah, I get that. I find leadership is a really funny thing because it’s there is a difference between being friends with your staff and being their boss. There is a difference. Yeah, and I’m very bad at that. I’m very, very, very poor.

Me too.

But my partner was My partner is very good at that. He’s very strong on that angle. And he’s just an extraordinary human being. You know, he he manages to keep it professional and tell people off when it’s the right time to tell them off and tell them, you know, give them praise when it’s the right time. And whereas with me, it’s literally like I’m talking to a family member and it’s like anything goes. But the combination is actually very strong. You know, it becomes like a head, heart kind of combination where you’ve got both in the same bad cop.

Good cop.

Type.

Situation.

There’s some there’s some of that. But it’s funny because our staff sometimes think we’re doing it on purpose, but we’re not. I always think like like, you know, something like, I don’t know, should they take between Christmas and New Years off?

Should we should they have to be off? I’ll say yes.

And I’m well, no have to be off. They have to take the holidays. Oh, they.

Have to be off. Oh, yeah, yeah.

So I’m like, that’s ridiculous. It’s building in pain and resentment for. For what reason? Yeah. And then. But. But they’ll be the other way around. He’ll be the other way around sometimes. And what I’m saying is, my staff, our staff think that we’re doing it on purpose to mess them up or something, but it’s not actually sometimes the way it ends up. Um. Yeah.

Anyway.

But that’s great, isn’t it?

I mean, I kind of ended up.

Being the same. I ended up just.

Paying everyone.

Everything they.

Wanted and.

You know, like, everything. But. But at the end of the day, we never had one day sick leave from any member of my staff. Everyone kind of bounced into work.

It was one of those cliche cartoon type.

Practices where even the patients were like, Gosh, this is really like a.

Happy, you know, it was like literally Lala from the Teletubbies.

But it seems like.

It seems like something you wouldn’t exit because it seems like it was fun and it was, you know, something. Why did you have why.

Did you exit?

Um, you know what? Truthfully, I lost my dad. Um, and I think it.

Was an interesting time because you start to kind. I think anyone that has a shock, whether it’s losing someone very special to you or anything, accident, health, whatever you do, end up re-evaluating. Right? Everything about your life. And I thought, I don’t know whether this responsibility, which I really took personally, you know, I wanted to be the best person as a dentist. I wanted to be the best person, the best dentist that nurses worked with. I wanted to be the best person. You know, I wanted the soap in the bathroom. And in fact, you know what? Something that’s a bit tragic but also funny. After my dad died, my mom had cancer very quickly after.

And I remember being I remember being at the Royal Marsden whilst she was having.

Her treatment and.

The phone rang and it was the practice and I thought, I better take it. And I put the phone sort of quietly into my ear and it was my nurse saying.

All the soap is.

Finished in the bathroom.

And we were just wanting to know, you know, where do you want us to get this?

And and that moment I thought, right, I’m this is bad, You know, this is bad. Like, if I’m stressed, if I’m that kind of person that has to stress I am was really bad.

At actually delegating. Maybe, you.

Know, that wasn’t a good leader. Right. And and I thought, right. I’m sitting here in the Royal Marsden and someone else is worrying about the soap in the bathroom. And I thought, right, this.

Is not good.

And that’s when I thought, maybe this isn’t.

Really for you.

And in fact, I did this really.

Interesting.

Psychology of happiness type thing online. I don’t know.

Whether from a Yale University, it was quite famous. One of my really good friends, Saravi.

Who’s a dentist and.

Reads a lot.

She recommended it and I did it.

And and it shows you your strengths.

And your what they call.

Lesser strengths, but things you’re probably pretty bad at. And three of.

My lesser.

Strengths was.

Perseverance, teamwork and prudence in terms of discipline. And and I thought, you know, and then at that point, honest, she was just the most incredible.

Man, soul mate, just.

Human in the whole world. My husband said to me, Lolly, I love you so much, but I’m.

Starting to not like you that much sometimes.

You know, because you have to let go of some of these. So when I lost my dad, I thought.

Maybe this isn’t.

Really.

And. And also, in a weird sort of.

Way, I’m I.

It doesn’t.

Motivate.

Me. Dentistry actually really doesn’t make any money unless you’re really a good businessman or you’re really getting in, you know, a few practices and all that. I mean, that’s.

Not my style, so why am I doing that? So and actually, one of our associates.

Really wanted to buy into the practice, so it worked out really well. Nobody came, nobody left.

I stayed on. He you know, nothing.

Changed hands like.

So.

I mean, it sounds.

Sounds like a really difficult time with your with your parents. But outside of that terrible thing, did you feel like this was your first failure or did you not feel like a failure? You felt like empowered, empowered by getting out of it?

I thought.

I was such a success.

Actually, because you managed to get out. It was a huge figured it out.

Well well.

The practice when I was a part of being kind of a leader in it, a principal was incredible. And my staff, I’m still friends with my receptionist who.

Says it was the best time of her.

Life working there.

And people, like I said, people like people. So if for me that is a success, if you’ve made a difference in somebody else’s career, somebody else’s life, somebody else, that is amazing. And I’m mean. It was a great period of my time. I didn’t leave it as such. I continued it. In some ways, not much changed and I still interfered with as much as possible within it.

So, you know, so.

And you were.

Doing you were doing quite a, quite an obscene amount of enlightened. I remember at the time it was a successful practice And you were selling lots of dentistry. Do you remember?

Yes.

I was doing.

An obscene amount of enlightening because I because if I really.

Believe in something, I never sell anything I don’t want to have done myself. But God help you if I really believe in your product because I am there.

You’re an all or nothing kind of person.

I am there. And and actually, the patients absolutely loved it. And so, yes, I had I had my logo on your product.

It was amazing. And and yeah, great service. Great.

Yeah. So I did do a lot of.

What did you would you consider what do you consider your biggest failure?

My biggest failure. Um. I mean, all of those things are my kind of lesser strengths, but, um.

As no, I don’t.

I.

Don’t think I’ve, I don’t consider any of my life as a failure because everything is. You learn from everything. I mean, I know that sounds really cliche, and I wish I could have some more interesting things to say, but I do feel a bit sort of humbled by it all. I’m I don’t think I’ve. Have had anything, um, regret sort of shaped regrets? I mean, I think regret wise, it would have been good to do some dentistry abroad.

To do some.

Postgrad abroad.

I think I would have liked to have done my American exams maybe.

At the time because my one of my sisters is American, lives.

In Florida.

My nephew, one.

Of my nephews is a dentist in in Florida. And I think, wouldn’t it be.

Nice to be able to have had some experience abroad and.

Just generally abroad? And and because I was kind of such a.

Sort of a perfect.

Daughter student and all of those things, I.

Think maybe it.

Would have been lovely to have a year out.

And do something else I’d like to have done.

You know, I like to have worked in a.

Bar or something, you.

Know, like I like to have done something. I’ve never done any other job. And, you know, I talk to people and everyone’s done some sort of paper round or something. I never worked.

Dentistry was my first job.

So and I think, you know, something.

Like working in a restaurant makes or breaks you. I mean, you know, and.

Graham Norton, Right.

Said that it was in.

Fact in the podcast of failures, the it’s a great one. He said everybody should work.

In a restaurant because you have so much power in a weird sort of way to make or break somebody else’s night. You understand how people talk to you. You understand about.

Those.

Personalities. You can really change the night for somebody else, and that power is dangerous. You need to be able to know how to control it.

And so I think, gosh, isn’t that yeah, I would like to have done something else. And now, I mean, I’ve changed my career now.

So, um, in.

A weird sort of.

Way and.

It’s such a niche.

Thing that even the patients say.

How did you, you.

Know, are you a dentist or an anaesthetist?

And, you know, how did.

You get into this? So, you know, I’m doing something different, not quite working in a bar, but still.

Well, we’ve got.

You’ve got your, your other interests, which I found out tonight about, which is your Instagram page. Is it is it only an Instagram page or is it more than that. Um, what’s it called?

Spirits. I mean, it’s like the high spirits. It’s the most remind me the name, It’s the most.

Amateur Instagram page. I’m so bad at tech, but it’s called Spirits Run High, which I think is genius. Right? It’s almost as good as my business name of I.V. sedation. And I did. I’ve always want to say, I always like drinking.

I know I’ve always I’ve always been.

Fascinated by flavours and fragrances and mixology, molecular mixology.

Mixology of putting a few things together and creating something beautiful to the eye, to the taste.

I have this picture in my bar of my dad drinking, you know, holding a glass. And he’s.

Got that face of somebody that has just savoured a taste, you know, that lip and the eyes whilst.

Holding a drink.

Because he always said, you know, taste, taste. If you’re drinking something, taste it. Really taste it, live it.

And now we know, you know, savouring everything, every moment.

Everything is one of the biggest one of the six steps to happiness, really.

And so.

Having that mixology.

And have.

Creating something.

It’s been really.

Interesting to.

Me. And like everyone that has a little side hustle during COVID, I ended up doing a.

Mixology.

Certificate online.

Everyone else was doing Cpds.

And I did a.

Mixology.

Certificate online and.

I then set up this page because some friends wanted to know a few mixes and whatnot and then it just.

Sort of, yeah, grew from there. I mean, it’s literally like nothing. I have like, you know, a hundred followers or something. But, but I love it. And, and actually I am one of those people that comes home punished and I will come home and we would make a cocktail and we would sit.

And talk to each other. And we are blessed with the fact that we don’t have children to worry about. So I really.

Savour those moments.

I savour it for my.

Guests and.

Anish and I do this routinely, you know? So yeah, it’s one of my favourite things to do. Dine and wine.

Nice.

Well that we’re getting to the end of our time. Let’s. Let’s finish it in the usual way. You said you said you listened to this podcast sometimes. So hopefully you’re ready for these questions. Fantasy dinner party.

I never prepare. So three guests. But. But yes.

Yes.

Three guests. Dead or alive, who would you have?

Well, you.

Know, I start every dinner party.

With champagne.

Um, and I kind.

Of expect every dinner party that I attend to start with champagne. So my first guess, who better than the grand dame of. That the condom of champagne, Veuve Clicquot.

Arguably probably the first business.

Woman in the world. I think so. Barbe-nicole. Her surname was Ponsardin. She became a widow at 27 with a young daughter.

And a failing wine business. And at the time.

In.

France, I think.

Many places, the only women that had financial independence.

Were.

Widows.

The word verb meaning widow.

And and so she really gave up all of her independence, her inheritance, and she kept persevering. She learned I mean, this was a failing business. She went back to.

Learn more and more and more. And she was really courageous because in.

This is what I want to know more.

From her.

Because.

The.

Napoleonic.

War.

Was coming to an end and trade was poised to sort of start again. And she actually smuggled 10,000 bottles of her famous 1811 vintage in a ship and parked it in Amsterdam ready for that treaty to be signed. And so the day it was signed, she beat every other.

House.

To infiltrate Russia with champagne.

And truth. Behold, the first glass that Tsar Alexander held and drank.

Was Veuve Clicquot. And he said he won’t drink anything else.

And really, after.

That, many widows in champagne like Louise Pommery, Lily.

Bollinger, Laurent Perrier, more recently, Taittinger are all kind of really from that backbone of Veuve Clicquot. So I think she’d probably.

Be my first guest and I would serve her her a grand vintage.

A grande dame.

Wow.

Did you learn all this on your mixology course?

Do you know what I love? Yeah.

I don’t watch TV, which is very interesting.

So I’m kind of.

Always reading things. Not book, not books.

But on the internet and computers.

And that sort of thing.

But I love stories.

I mean, these are great stories, right? Yeah.

So I savour it and yeah.

So this is. That will be my beautiful.

Yes.

Beautiful. Never had her before. Who’s your second guest? No.

So my second guest would probably be.

So somebody like.

Sigmund Freud and not well.

For two reasons. Firstly, I don’t know much about him. Actually. My sister’s a psychologist, so she sort of fills in the blanks for me. But I have realised that I’m.

Definitely interested in in people’s personalities and their whys and their past.

And how that.

Infiltrates in them.

And so I kind of really like to know a.

Bit more about him. I mean, he was very avant garde.

And so I would like to know it from him. Plus, secretly, I’m hoping.

He’s going to bring Dolly with.

Him so.

I can just invite Dolly, make the.

Whole thing. Yeah, well, I don’t want.

To waste a space. No disrespect to Dolly, because he’s. Because.

But Dolly is one of those people that he’s just such a.

Crazy guy, right? Like, I don’t. Not really sure he’s going to sit down at the dinner table. He’ll probably probably mean upside down like that.

He’ll probably be like that paradoxical.

Guy right on the ceiling have to peel.

Off. And so but but you know, but quite like to have a bit of surrealism.

In this and so and then my my second reason.

For inviting him is that let’s face it, I mean we both deal with the conscious and the subconscious.

And avoiding the unconscious.

Right?

So I think we have a lot in common. So I would.

I’m suddenly I’m suddenly realising why you were top of your class. Fully prepared. Answer man.

I just thought.

I just thought, God, he keeps going on about the conscious and I keep going on about.

The conscious and the subconscious and yeah, probably.

I’d probably serve him. I wouldn’t serve him champagne, I’d probably serve him something a bit more grounded, like.

Something that.

I mean my favourite classic cocktail. Not that you asked, but what would be.

Would be something that something that.

Grounds you, that you kind of there’s some cocktails that you can hold in your.

Hand and.

You’re always going to have great.

Conversation with the person in front of you. And so for him, it’ll it’s going to have to be a Negroni.

No, I think this.

Is this is something where.

You you’re always going to you know, you’re going to have a great conversation. No one drinks a Negroni unless.

They’re prepared to have.

A great conversation. So yeah, that’s, that’s my second guess.

And guess my.

I guess my last guess.

Which which is which. I think every, every person, every.

Person that has lost.

A parent would tell you that they would give absolutely anything, anything to have one more dinner Right. With their parent. So I’m no different.

And so my last guess would be.

Howdy, Sheriff. Yeah.

Um, my dad and he would fit right in because he was a master of, you know, he was a giant amongst.

Men anyway, but he was a master of public relations and just so incredible in a crowd. So the kind of person that, you know, people really listen to. So and.

You know, sometimes you have one of those guests where you ask.

Them to come a little bit earlier. Have you done that in a dinner party where you ask one couple to.

Come half an hour earlier? Yeah. So I would secretly want my dad to come a little bit earlier just so that I can just hug him for half an hour and not let go of him.

So. Oh.

So that’s what I would, um, and probably serve him something like a vodka martini because he was so distilled in every way, you know, that it needs to be.

Like it has such a zest.

For life that it needs to.

Be a vodka more. I mean, he was a bit of a James Bond. Anyway, it needs to be a vodka martini with a nice little lemon twist. Yeah.

So that would be the beautiful dinner party. I mean, I’d love I’d love my you know, I love Anish. You know.

Anish is.

Anish and I are one.

Person. You know, we’re always attached. I’m surprised, you know, if you move the camera a little bit to the left, you probably see him. So, I mean, obviously you want your family, but those are the three kind of, you know.

I’m Iranian now, so now.

There’s going to be like 80 and.

Plus Anish is.

Indian. So if we invite his family, there’ll be about 700 people there.

So amazing, amazing answers, though. Amazing answers, though. I’m struck by how positive you are. Maybe it’s your it’s your delivery. Even when you’re talking about something quite sad, you’re laughing and and smiling. It’s a very unique way of being. It’s very nice.

Um, thank you. I’m very humbled. I think that’s important. And I always used to tell the receptionist, Just smile when you’re on the phone.

Um, because people know, right?

They know how you feel.

I even put on some perfume today for.

You, actually.

Because you know you want to.

Feel good, so.

But thank.

You. Yes.

Let’s get on to two, perhaps. Favourite question. The deathbed. You’ve got your friends, family or your loved ones around you. Three pieces of advice you’d leave for them.

And this is a very.

Good this is a.

Mean it’s a great question because it is it is.

Just giving those.

Advice as a 46 year old, you.

Know, things you wish you knew, right. When you really, for your younger self, think something that I’ve invested in that has been really.

Quite a centrepiece for my happiness. And I think, um, is that I would advise.

You to invest in being time affluent and not. Wealth affluent. And that I think it’s really important. I mean, this is not just me being little Miss Chatterbox. This is very well researched and the actual the happiness of people that value time over money is huge. It’s huge difference. A big difference. So having just having that time to do nothing or to go and see a chum for a boozy lunch or just just have time. So I.

Think investing in.

In having time is my first piece of advice.

Beautiful.

Um, I would say the second thing would be to always raise your words and not your voice. It is just something that respects people when they deserve it the least.

And I think when.

We’re sometimes in that low or in that moment, it is so easy to forget about humanity and people.

But I think the more.

You are able to communicate, you can use the words this is really important so that it’s rain that grows.

Flowers, not thunder. So that would probably be my second.

That’s beautiful advice. I’ve never heard that before.

Respect people when they deserve it the least. It’s a beautiful idea.

And, you know, interestingly enough, when I when we go out with people, I notice how they treat people they don’t need to treat well. So I notice.

How they.

Are treating the waiter or how they are treating, you know, like I always say to my nephew, when you go out on a date.

Watch how that person is treating others.

Because they’re going to treat you well. You’re sitting in front of them about to pay for their bill, you know, But.

What about everyone else? And, you know, this is when the.

Patients notice when you treat your nurse really well.

Yeah. Agreed. And vice versa.

So I these things for me.

Are really.

Important. So. Yeah, that’s where that. Back story of that is really.

Agree with that. I really agree with that what you said about the nurse thing because specifically so so so true. How much your patient’s respect goes up for you when you’re respect for your nurses?

Absolutely.

What there was was there was there three bits of advice? Okay. So my last bit of advice.

I mean, I’m I’m Persian.

So every Persian is going to be talking about poetry and the epic books.

And this is what we’re that’s been woven into every cell of our body. You know that Payman We’re very proud of it.

We’re proud of this 2000 history. But interestingly, my mom and my dad always said to me, the.

Fact that, you know about your own culture is fantastic.

Everyone should know about their own culture. But my dad said, don’t forget.

What’s impressive is.

When you understand and you learn about other people, about other epic books, about other people’s cultures, That’s what’s impressive. Not really reeling off things you know about yourself. That’s your responsibility. You should know. So for for my.

Last piece of advice, I think is what Lord Krishna said in the mahabharat, the great epic.

Book, The.

Longest Love poem or love? Yeah, in the world. We have the Shahnameh and the Indians have the Mahabharat. But I really love this.

He said.

Do everything that you do. Not with.

Greed, not with ego, not with envy.

But with compassion, with humility, with love and.

Devotion. And each of these, each of these words, if you really savour, savour each of these words. So, you know, when I say humility, I don’t mean just be modest. I mean look inwards, you know, look inwards and and and improve and be better and learn from others.

And I think all of those that’s that.

Sentence that I read really resonated with me because it’s.

So.

Wholesome. And I think if you lead that life that’s both hedonistic and.

Holistic, you know, we all want to have.

Fun. We all want to pursue pleasure. But if you’re able to have that kind of really, um, holistic.

World around you to.

Create that happiness, not to be on that hedonistic treadmill where you’re constantly after that nice watch and the nice car and then this and that and.

That, the next high.

The next high.

Because we know, we know that the reason why.

It’s called.

That treadmill is that.

We know that.

Everybody that that that short surge of surge of happiness that you get we know everybody ends up coming back to that same level. I mean, this is what happens with lottery winners.

This is what.

Happens. This is this is not just me going off piece. This is this is a fact. Right. And I.

Think if you’re.

Able to savour if you’re able to follow what what.

Krishna.

Said, if you’re able to savour those moments that drink that moment, to have gratitude, to have gratitude for where you study, to have respect for the people that teach you to want to learn, to cultivate curiosity. And these are all things I think we should teach them in Dental school even. But to be able to really sit and when you talk to someone to lean forward, to show them that you’re engaged, be interested in people. I think just all of those things as a whole, that is the secret to happiness.

So nice, man. I feel like. I feel like you’re one of the most successful humans I’ve come across. I really do. It’s a lovely to hear that. Um, it’s been a massive pleasure having you. And thank you so much. If people want to get in touch with you, it’s called IV sedation, but IV spelt different, isn’t it? Iv. Like the plant. I.v. Sedation.

Is that right? That’s right. Yes. Yes.

That’s right. That’s right.

And and the boozy.

The boozy one was what was that called? The boozy Internet site. Oh, God, no.

No, Instagram. You should. You’re not interested in pushing that one to that? No, no, not that one. Push it. Push it.

Through. It’s run high.

It’s run high.

I mean, I don’t know.

How high they run over there, but, you know, they could run a little higher, I think. But that’s.

Okay.

It’s been a progress.

It’s been a massive, massive pleasure. It’s such, such a unique story and such a unique person. Really, really lovely to to connect with you like this.

Thanks, lady.

I really, really enjoyed it. Thank you so much.

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.