Audio

Transcript

Prav Solanki: Hey guys, and welcome to the Dental Leaders Podcast. Thanks for tuning in, and today we had the pleasure of interviewing Daz Singh, or Ollie from Ollie and Darsh, as he’s otherwise known, guy who set up retail dentistry in the heart of Liverpool. Way before it was on anyone else’s radar, whose then gone on to teach at an international level, but certainly from close conversations with Daz, it’s very clear that he’s massively passionate about delivering an amazing patient experience, but also helping and mentoring younger dentists to do the right thing. Biggest take away for me was when Daz revealed what an associate needs to do to stand out and work for him.

Payman: One of my favourite people in the profession. Really honest, open, fun guy and if I was a young dentist who wanted to find out the inside track on high streak practise, I would be straight down to Daz because he’s just, I’ve never asked him a question that he didn’t over answer, you know? Unlike some people who hold stuff back, the guy’s just totally open about everything and the super interesting hearing about his early life in Saudi as well.

Prav Solanki: Hmm, very interesting conversation. You’re going to enjoy this guys.

Payman: Enjoy.

Prav Solanki: So between the three of you, what would you say your key strengths are? Ollie you should pick your unique abilities, Sudarsh’s and then naturally Suzy’s.

Daz Singh: My unique ability is being able to delegate things to Suzy. That’s easy, that’s my unique ability.

Speaker 4: This is Dental Leaders. The podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts Payman Langroudi and Prav Solanki.

Prav Solanki: Daz it’s really good to have you here. Thanks for joining us and taking out the time in your day to come and spend with us and join us on this podcast.

Daz Singh: I appreciate you inviting me over to be honest, Prav. It’s very kind of you guys.

Prav Solanki: Daz can you just sort of give everyone a background of just your upbringing, your backstory, and just what it was like growing up.

Daz Singh: Yeah sure. I was born, my parents were 1st generation out of India and my dad came over to the UK to become a surgeon and part of that process ended up having me in a place called West Bromwich, and when I was about 3 my dad got offered a job in Saudi, so there was a new hospital being built in Riyadh and dad had an opportunity to do some teaching and to do some clinical work there. So when I was about 3 we moved to Riyhadh and then yeah, we spent the next 7 years there. I went to an American school, got a really nice thick American accent, which is a bit weird when we move back in about ’91 after the first Gulf War. Yeah so lived in Yorkshire for a few years then we settled in Darby, and then I came up to Liverpool to study, and then just been there ever since to be honest.

Prav Solanki: Wow. And what was it like moving around as a kid from school to school? I remember, gosh I reckon I certainly primary school I must have changed 4 times, and for me there were times when it was quite upsetting. You know you’ve got some friends like, I was part of the football team or whatever and then you just gotta say goodbye and move on to your next group.

Prav Solanki: Do you have any memories like that?

Daz Singh: Yeah, I mean of the international school, because it was an international school I went to in Saudi, and part of when dad was working there, he was quite fortunate in terms of our school fees get paid by the hospital, so we were part of the American school at the time and yeah, it was you know we were there, I mean, the time I spent in Saudi I just remember being at that school to be honest and then we understood though you know, dad wanted us to move to the UK because he actually wanted us to have an education. Which was interesting because when we moved back to Yorkshire I realised how uneducated I really was to be honest. But when we moved back to Yorkshire my dad’s closest friends were in Yorkshire at the time, so we went to the same school that they did. And then dad would sort of, kind of go from, would kind of go from one job to another, but we were fairly settled there to be honest.

Daz Singh: And then it was when dad finally got his GP posting in Darby to do his, to build a practise there. Then we moved down there. And I actually – what ended up happening – was that we had a really happy coincidence. Moving close to some really really close family friends of ours back from Saudi as well, so they were going to a local school so yeah they just made it all really easy for us. For me I just found it as like part of the process. It wasn’t sort of a major issue. It’s sad that I lost a lot of touch with a lot of friends from like, probably back in Yorkshire, but yeah. Things like Facebook and Instagram and things like that it’s great for keeping in touch.

Payman: Where you good in school?

Daz Singh: I wouldn’t say, I mean I probably be classed as probably a hard worker. I don’t think I was like, I don’t think I was like the most academically gifted person at school. I don’t think that that would be the way I’d probably describe myself. It was, I used to just put the graft in to be honest. What was really interesting was going from one curriculum to another, so when we were at the American school in Saudi, I had no concept of what an exam was or anything.

Payman: It was very different.

Daz Singh: It was. They just didn’t have any so, you know, it came back. When we moved here to the UK as 11 year old I was this fat asian, pudgy, sort of kid in like this broad town in Wakefield. And so they’ve just given this exam. I had no idea what was going on here.

Payman: That was a big culture shock to go from Saudi to Wakefield. 2 of the worlds nicest places.

Daz Singh: From you know heat, and so you know, desert to sunny, snow. I remember the first time I saw frost and I thought it was snow. I thought it was the most amazing thing on Earth. It was great. I’d never seen it before. So.

Payman: What are your memories of Saudi? Is it as people imagine?

Daz Singh: The time when we were there was during the 80s, sorry. It was a really nice time. I really enjoyed it while we were there. There was none of this, I mean, the idea of having a Middle East in conflict didn’t exist at that point in time.

Payman: Yeah, yeah.

Daz Singh: We were there during the, the fir-. I mean we were there during the Gulf, the First Gulf War. That was an interesting point in time. And as a kid trying to experience all of that was quite interesting. It was just, it’s something I reflect on now that I’m older, but at the time you just, you know what. You’re 10 years old.

Payman: Was your dad the doctor of a oil field or something?

Daz Singh: No no no. He was a general surgeon and he was working one of the university hospitals. And then he went to work for military hospital towards the end before we left, before we came over here.

Prav Solanki: When was the first time you decided you wanted to be a dentist?

Daz Singh: It’s a good question Prav. There was a time when I was at school and you’re having to make decisions about sort of, what type of career path you wanted to go down. And I’ll be honest with you, you know I wanted, I thought that medicine was probably the best way to go down. And initially I had applied. It wasn’t, it didn’t have the greatest amount of success for it. When it came to sort of rethinking an reevaluating I was everything, you know I’ve got a lot of friends who are medics, my par- y dad’s a medic, you know, my brother who is now a medic. And you know what, I just, I would- I didn’t really find that anyone was really enjoying the career as much and getting the same satisfaction and then I thought that, you know. I just wanted to have a career that I thought, you know, ironically that I thought you know, between 9 to half 5 and have a life afterwards.

Daz Singh: And you know, I used to dad having to do these massive on calls and sort of you know, being called out in the middle of the night to do some surgery and I’m like, you know I don’t think that’s going to fit for me. So I had a little look and I thought you know dentistry seemed the best fit for me. So, I had a friend over in Darby who I went to over to shadow for a few days and I thought, you know this sounds about right. So I thought, you know, let’s reapply and let’s do it for dentistry this time around.

Prav Solanki: Growing up in an Asian-Indian cultural environment with parents who, well every parent wants the best for their kids, right?- but I certainly had the pressure that you know, doctor, dentist, accountant, lawyer, was any of that sort of influenced? You mentioned medicine earlier obviously, your dad. Just talk us through that in terms of your, the values and the cultures growing up and what it was all like.

Daz Singh: I think that’s really interesting. I think that you know, from a very early age, you kind of, it’s kind of instilled, well it was certainly instilled into me that you know, there’s this idea of success. There’s an idea of sort of having a career. There’s a reason why you should go to school. There’s a reason why you need to university, and this idea of sort of you know, building yourself up and being able to become successful, so to speak. And our parents ideas is my will to do something sort of around that sort of medical, dental sort of field because at that sort of time it was quite given that you know, it’s a straightforward career, it’s a straightforward education path and you know if you work hard you will earn well, you’ll have a good life, and you’ll have good money. Which is probably what sort of I’d imagine any parent would instil into their kids anyways, so it’s not, it’s something I’ve always had more of an interest in.

Daz Singh: I’m never really, I don’t really have an artistic mindset. There are things that you know, I’d just, I wish I did. I can’t play a musical instrument or anything like that, but it’s something that, it’s something where I think both of our values kind of lined up well towards. It’s something I felt that naturally that’s a trajectory I wanted to go down. I don’t really go down to experience other things. I don’t think I was gifted enough to do something like law or some, or any other career. I think it was always gonna be around this sort of, sort of this medical dental mind. Sort of career path for me to be honest.

Payman: Did you study in Liverpool?

Daz Singh: Yes.

Payman: And wha- how was undergrad for you?

Daz Singh: Loved it. Loved every minute of it, yeah. It was just great. Absolutely loved it. Yeah, it was great. I just really really enjoyed it. I went to, I was a day pupil at boarding school before and it was ironic.

Payman: Where was that?

Daz Singh: It was a school called Repton. In the Midlands. Yeah it was really interesting. That was a really interesting experience. But yeah.

Payman: Why why why?

Daz Singh: It just well, I mean, I was going from like a, sort of… different schools I was at was you know, there was an international-American school in Saudi, which is interesting because you meet characters and people from all different environments, so all different sort of fields. I remember, I think it was the Ecuadorian ambassador’s son who was in my class, to somebody, just like a maid from around the corner, whose dad was a medic as well.

Daz Singh: And then we went to Yorkshire, I mean we went to a place called… When we moved back to like Yorkshire, went to a school called Queenswood with grammar school and that was a proper grammar school, Yorkshire grammar school. So, that I got taught a lot more about British education system, values of the British education systems, and learned some instant truths, shall we say. And then, when we moved to Darby, we had some -I had some- one of my best mates was going to a school called Rapton, and dad thought it’d be best for me to go there as well. And that was a really interesting thing because this is where you go to school. It’s like 6 days a week, and you have 3 half days during the week. And you’re meant to be in school from 10 to 8 or 9 o’clock at night. And as a day people and so we went to university we actually ended up doing less hours, I loved it.

Payman: Lots of sport?

Daz Singh: Yeah, there was lots of sport. Very very sports orientated.

Prav Solanki: Are you still buddies with your friends from Saudi?

Daz Singh: Do you know, recently I’ve come to, I’ve come to meet people who I haven’t seen in like 15-20 odd years, but that being said, we just chat over Facebook because you know, life gets in the way of everything else. But if the opportunity ever came, then yeah, there’s the odd person that we try to keep in touch with.

Daz Singh: My dad has a close group of friends who obviously, they kind of developed a relationship while they were working over there and they get to see each other talking about once or twice a year.

Payman: So would you say you were in the top of your class in dentist school, or near the top, or no? Middle?

Daz Singh: Nowhere close, man. Not close. Yeah, no. I was – there were more people who are by far in a way more gifted academically then I was. I am not at that mindset at all you know, I’m more of a grafter than I am more academic. I can definitely put the hours in library and things like that.

Payman: Prav was top of his class.

Daz Singh: Was he? That’s no surprise. But no, that wasn’t me though.

Payman: So then ok, you got out of dental school VT?

Daz Singh: Yeah. VT was I mean.

Payman: Do you have the same, I thought when I got out of dental school I actually preferred work to education. I mean, I know, by the way, it’s not easy leaving university because you’ve got your friends, you’ve got your thing and then first day of work is weird. But overall I think I do prefer working to studying.

Daz Singh: Yeah. With paycheck.

Payman: Well Prav might not.

Prav Solanki: Well, when I finally sat my PhD viva, I swore that that was the last exam I was ever gonna do because for 10 years previous to that I was doing an exam every 8 weeks. And then, just happened to be that I got the bug that I wanted to ride a motor bike. So I sat my theory, because I’d have my driving licence but you have to do the theory -whatever- driving licence, the flipping driving theory thing? Anyone could do this. Didn’t look at the book, didn’t revise, failed the damn thing didn’t I. So that was my last exam. But I preferred university life to working. Best years of my life for sure. Even, with the study included right to the working.

Payman: Yeah, of course.

Prav Solanki: Freedom, the flexibility, the lack of responsibility, the health. You’ve got everything at that point, right? But you’re, compared to now.

Payman: Because you’re young.

Prav Solanki: ‘Cause you’re young, you can just do more stuff, right? You can get away with drinking 4, 5, nights on the trot. You know?

Payman: I’m sure Oxford was a quite different experience. But it is a different experience.

Daz Singh: It is, no I know, I’m pretty sure it is. My best mate was a medic at Cambridge and you know, some stories he tells me about like, I mean, we might have a party or something like that. At like a house, I mean the parties that the colleges would throw would just be a mess.

Prav Solanki: Yeah, just hot air balloons and all sorts of crazy stuff.

Daz Singh: I love the sense of, I love that sense of history that those colleges have, the traditions, traditions the word I’m looking for. That you know, you kind of buy into.

Prav Solanki: It’s nice.

Daz Singh: And I love that. Yeah, it’s really really quite cool.

Payman: So Daz, what was your first job then?

Daz Singh: So after I finished uni, did VT, got a, it was ironic actually, it was probably, I was quite kind of late to getting the job but it was a place called Colby Dental Practise. It was up in north Liverpool. It was social economically probably quite depressed area, Colby, but you know it was a great place to learn. Amazing place. And you know, I was very fortunate that people I was working with were great people as well, people I kind of, I’d already got to know through university so guys who I’d play football with and stuff like that as well, so there were some great guys who were already there.

Payman: What about the influence of that first boss VT trainer of yours?

Daz Singh: Yeah, so I mean I worked with a guy called [inaudible] who was my VT trainer.

Payman: Oh was he your VT trainer?

Daz Singh: Yeah, he was my VT trainer and it was, yeah, and do you know what, we did some really really great stuff, and one of the things though, one of the things I particularly remember was, I think I was, I’d only been there for a few months. And you kind of leave university with this kind of insipid idea what dentistry’s all about. You have this idea that you know, you’ve seen a composite, you’ve seen like what a crown prep is, you’ve seen and a… And then I remember that he took me down to a bard meeting in London. And I’d, and then [inaudible] was the keynote speaker there. And this was like me being a fresh eyed sort of dentist and I’m like what is this guy on? He’s like, what a presentation. To this day I think it’s the best presentation. It’s just unbelievable presentation and I had no idea grasp this sort of, this is how people can do dentistry. I had a mindset of sort of you know, is like you know, you have 2 up 2 down kind of practise in like a suburban area, and then you’re gonna be sort of dummy dentistry for the rest of your life, and then this idea that there’s this gentlemen who was doing some phenomenal dentistry and-

Payman: So that kind of inspired you?

Daz Singh: Yeah.

Payman: To go that-

Daz Singh: Well it’s certainly opened my eyes in terms of what was really possible there. You know, again my rents had organised for like Ash and Rahul to come up and do a small design course up in Liverpool. And I was very lucky to be able to go and become a participant in that as well, so.

Payman: Early on, huh?

Daz Singh: Yeah, so I’d had a lot of experience from all of that sort of stuff. From very early on and I managed to catch the boat from there on in. At the time there was a company called independent seminars who I think were part of FMC at the time.

Payman: Still, are?

Daz Singh: Yeah, under a different name. Again, they were bringing in a lot of guys in from around Europe. Who would be classes probably be influences now, but these are the guys who were doing lots of the solid dentistry from around the globe. And whether they’re coming from the US or from Europe and just fascinating listening to a lot of those people. And you know, again to meet and sort of network people in that sort of, in that environment that I’m kind of still quite close to now, to be honest. It was quite phenomenal sort of experience to be able to do so.

Daz Singh: For sure I mean during VT its was like for me a lot about VT was this, was that I felt that I needed to put the hours in so I can actually do the simple dentistry well. Should be able to sort of you know, how to do an MOD amalgam or how to sort of spot caries or how to sort of do a root canal too. I felt that you know, part of being a dentist is that you need to be able to do those simple things really well, and often being an environment [inaudible] you know, there was no pressure to sort of produce, there was no pressure saying you have to do this, this and this. It was much more self. I had a lot more pressure on myself just to make sure that, I felt the need to be a natural graduation in terms of how I produced.

Prav Solanki: Was it high volume dentistry that were doing in that, say, first year or two?

Payman: I remember that practise, I think. Like examining patients and things?

Daz Singh: Yeah. It’s a lot of exam patients and yeah, volume, I think is one way to put it.

Payman: Yeah.

Daz Singh: Lot of high volume.

Prav Solanki: So, you can now just not do a VT, right, and go straight into practise?

Daz Singh: Yeah.

Prav Solanki: So straight into a private practise?

Payman: Didn’t know that.

Daz Singh: Yeah it just means that I think you can’t work in the NHS if you go away from-

Prav Solanki: You provide a number or something like that?

Prav Solanki: What’s your take on that in terms of your experience and the grounding that’s giving you to be able to perform the type of dentistry you do now? What’s your take on not doing VT and just going straight into it and just learning on the job so to speak?

Daz Singh: I think there’s an element to that but I think that for me when I have conversations with young dentists, especially this sort of time and place, I think that there’s an element where I don’t think people do the simple things well enough to be able to go away and then to do the more complicated issues. And it’s that sort of all at it, you don’t know what you don’t know. And I think VT’s a great place to sort of learn the stuff you don’t already know. Or the stuff you need to understand that I need to work harder on this. And you know what, it’s that aspect of it.

Payman: I love it an enjoyable year of VT for me. I loved that year.

Daz Singh: Yeah, I loved it too.

Payman: I was with Zaki.

Daz Singh: Oh really?

Payman: Yeah, a guy called, I don’t know if came up with a Majid Shahab.

Daz Singh: The name rings a bell for sure.

Payman: But yeah VT’s great because you’re protected, you’re in the real world but not really, and then you’ve got that 1 day a week where you see your peers.

Daz Singh: Yeah.

Payman: I enjoyed that year. It’d be a shame not to do it to tell you the truth.

Daz Singh: I’ll tell you what I did. I made, I probably in hindsight, I probably made a mistake. I was like, I was adamant that after I left uni I was not gonna rent anymore. So I made the mistake of buying a flat probably about 3 months after I finished uni.

Prav Solanki: Wow.

Daz Singh: So I think we finished in July and I was bumming around on people’s floors until I actually managed to get this flat over the line. In like, I think it was November I finally moved in. I lived there for about 10 years, but it was just one of those where buying a place, everything I had could fit in like one corner of my living room at that point in time. So all I, so it’s just like slowly but steadily buying a sofa, buying a TV, and buying all of those other things as well .

Payman: So what was that you would literally wanted to accumulate wealth?

Daz Singh: No, it wasn’t about accumulating wealth I just felt that you know.

Payman: You’ve rented long enough.

Daz Singh: It was, you know, going back to it, one of the things we were talking about was this. Was that you know, for me it was, well we’re talking about success and we’re talking about sort of you know family sort of things, you know? For us it was all about you know, make sure you pass your exams, make sure you pass exams, and I was always adamant that you know, dentistry finals was going to be the last exam that I ever wanted to take. I’m just battered that’s the only way I can really put it.

Daz Singh: And after that, I was kind of quite liberating because you know, your whole sort of as you grow up, you start thinking that you know, what’s the next stage, what’s the next step. And once I had my dental degree, it was like well the rest of the career is mine now. I don’t really have anything. There’s no sort of presets, sort of pathway that you need to go down.

Payman: You didn’t have to do anything.

Daz Singh: Yeah in medicine you have your junior, you have your junior house officer years, then you go into your reg positions and ultimately becoming a consultant. So that kind of pathway is all kind of led out in dentistry. We didn’t really have that, so when I left, when I finished uni the only thing I was really about was that I was not gonna go back to Darby because if I did then I knew that’s where I was going to be living for the next 20-30 years of my life. I loved it in Liverpool, I wanted to stay there as much as I possibly could, so one of the things was that I thought “You know I’ll buy a flat.”

Daz Singh: It was just interesting trying to do that from VT wages while at the same time. But yeah, it was good, it was good fun. But it just meant there was some things I kind of missed out on which I kind of regret. Things like a lot of the guys all went off to Chicago midwinter meeting because you know, they could go off. I just couldn’t afford to do it at the time, so it was just one of those.

Daz Singh: But, yeah.

Payman: And then you stayed on in the same practise as an associate?

Daz Singh: Yeah, we stayed there for about, I stayed there for about 2 and a half years or so.

Payman: And then you set up Ollie and Darsh?

Daz Singh: Yeah and then…

Payman: Is that all it was, 2 and a half years?

Daz Singh: Yeah, so I was about 27 when we set up Ollie and Darsh.

Payman: Bloody hell.

Daz Singh: Yeah it was just, I mean at the time we just seemed like the absolutely right thing to do. Between sort of finishing VT and going off and opening the clinic, it was just you know, going from all these forces and then you know. There was some guys who particularly made a massive influence in terms of what I – in terms of how I do things – clinically. Just listening to people like John Hammond and Ian Buckle. From the Dawson Academy. Suddenly started realising that actually, you know what. They exposed me to sort of saying well you know this is how you can look and try to formulate how you should go about trying to sort of set up and how you go about trying to do dentistry.

Daz Singh: And then it came to a point where I was like, you know, there was a situation where somebody became that I had to go in and I was doing a lot more NHS then I would’ve done privately. Just a career decision in terms of you know you spend so much money investing in yourself, if you don’t go away and create your own environment to be able to go and do that kind of thing, then you know what, how much is that investment going to then sort of tail off year after year after year.

Daz Singh: We become habitual in terms of how we sort of do things and I find it far better to be my own boss then to be told what to do.

Payman: Yeah okay. But, and Ollie and Darsh really is one of those very branded iconic high service. I would actually go there. It’s funny because every time they make an announcement of our 6th birthday or something, it feels like it’s been much much longer. Is it 10?

Daz Singh: Yeah, we’re into our 11th year now.

Payman: Yeah it always feels like they’ve been there much longer than they’ve- the year of their birthday that they announce. But, what is it about you that made you wanna open that sort of shop front branded. Was that what- I mean from my own experience, when I first did my first VT job, I was a bit shocked. Wow, is this what dentistry is? Like, is this the kind of place you work in and the way that people are and all that? And my boss was a great guy, but it just, the surroundings I mean. Look at Ollie and Darsh I mean there’s a lot of them around now. But back then it wasn’t as common.

Daz Singh: Yeah I mean I suppose, you know. There’s a lot of things that kind of led up to sort of how we set that up. It’s true to say that Ollie and Darsh is a vision of not just myself, but you know I have a business partner, Sudarsh Naidoo and you know a business manager Suzy Gorman as well, so it’s like as much as I want to try and take credit for all of it, it’s not really fair, but you know the 3 of us kind of came up with this idea that we should look at trying to do things and in some ways it’s the simplest thing to do.

Daz Singh: Because, when you have a blank piece of paper, and you sat there and think “I need to open up a dental practise, what do I need to do?” I’m kind of really glad I don’t live in this Facebook and Twitter environment right now because when it’s just 2 or 3 people and you sat thinking “Well what do we want to do?”, and we first focused on what experience our patients are going to have. What are they going to do. What are we going to do that’s going to be so different to people. And we say right.

Daz Singh: You know, every time someone comes in they’re gonna meet Suzy for a free consultation. We’re gonna show them around the clinic, we’re gonna show them exactly sort of what we are, what we do, how we go about trying to do it. That’s something we still do to this day, you know. All these patients come and they still see Suzy or they’ll see one of the members of our team to look at trying to come in and sort of see exactly sort of what we have to offer here in the clinic.

Daz Singh: And then from there on in it’s like we were then getting patients in for full clinical consultation. So there was an element where we felt that we had to be a little bit retail in terms of trying to trap patients in. And then there was going to be an element of clinical where we’re trying to be sort of where we need to sort of separate ourselves from the rest. It wasn’t just going to say “Yep, you can come in go yeah we kind kind of, you know, we can kind of do this, we can kind of do that. And then we can kinda”…

Payman: Remind me the street name?

Daz Singh: We’re on Dale St.

Payman: Dale Street, so must have been quite a big thing to take a shop on, on a major major street in Liverpool.

Daz Singh: Well it was one of those that we were looking around and…

Payman: Yeah tell us the process of it, how did you find the space?

Daz Singh: So, I mean, we were fortunate. We got in touch with a few different sort of agencies and stuff like that. And what, I mean, our clinic, I know you’ve down payment, and I think you have as well Prav, is that you know we’re based underground, so we’re…

Payman: Not anymore right?

Daz Singh: Well, kind of. We’re making our way up literally so to speak.

Payman: Had you decides it was going to be a high street shop front?

Daz Singh: I think we were just you know, going back to the original question about O and D was this, you know if we’re going to open up a dental practise, well you know, in Liverpool. At the time, there were maybe 1 or 2 sort of high street practises in the Liverpool city centre so to speak. I mean one of the things I was doing was that at the time I spent doing like the year long restoring course with Paul Tipton. And you get the, you go to Manchester about once a month every month and I forget the name of the square.

Prav Solanki: St Anne’s.

Daz Singh: That’s right and next to his practise was another practise and before him was 2 or 3 more practises. So I’m like, why is it? That in Manchester you can have 5 dental practises that are literally less than a stones throw from each other?

Daz Singh: But in Liverpool, we struggle with having dental clinics. So we’re having a little look to see, well what is it that people were doing or weren’t doing in Liverpool. And actually, for us I thought it was something as simple as they just wasn’t a dentist at the practise, every day of the week. I figured that you know if we’re gonna have a dental practise, we need to be, you know even if we couldn’t actually, if I couldn’t be there 5 days a week, we’re always going to have people there.

Daz Singh: We’re always going to have somebody to call up and say “Look I need to see a dentist.” “Okay, sure come on in.”

Daz Singh: And it’s not that we’re closed for this, this and this day, we’re gonna be sort of open Monday to Friday which is like normal business hours. Come in, come and see us and we can then go from there. And then that’s how I think we kind of built from there on in. It was just more about you know what people are still going, people are still wanting to have that solid dentistry done. It was just the mishonor of people thinking you have to go all the way up to Manchester or you know you have to go to places like ‘chester to do it.

Payman: So okay, you obviously spent a lot of money, the design element, setting this thing up. Did you set it up with 2 chairs to start with for you and Sudarsh?

Daz Singh: Yeah, the money thing is quite interesting point. People look at it from the point where we feel like we spent a lot of money. I look at it a bit differently. When I was looking how much valuation of practises were, I was looking at a practise that’s valued at like 1 million pounds, and I’m like but you’re just doing like 800,000 pounds of turnover. But you want me to spend a million pounds to do that. And I’m like I just don’t get that. Whereas if I spent a fraction of that and spent the time to build the practise, then I’d have a practise worth 4 times the investment.

Payman: But what I’m saying is you spent a lot of money, you found this place, spent a bunch of money, day 1 there are no patients.

Daz Singh: Yeah.

Payman: What did you do?

Daz Singh: You just call squeaky bum time isn’t it?

Payman: What?

Daz Singh: Squeaky bum time, mate, you just gotta.

Payman: Is that a Northern?

Daz Singh: Yeah, it’s like you know it’s just one of those mate.

Payman: So what did you do? There’s no patients, what did you do?

Daz Singh: Well you know, we had we- from the outside we knew that we needed to market the clinic out. We knew that we needed to be able to look at trying to have some sort of form of campaign to tell people about who we were, what we did.

Payman: And you started before you finished the building?

Daz Singh: So we did a little bit of that, yeah. So you know we, I mean this is, remember you, this is 2008 so this is pre- sort of- Facebook. Pre crash as well. So all of our ideas were formed pre crash. But, the interesting thing was is that when we were creating a budget for the clinic, we budgeted a marketing spend for it? So we still have that even though the crash happened and then some ways when the crash happened it worked well for us because what ended up happening was that all the other people who were advertising at the time just stopped. And we just and so we were able to get much more beneficial rates, much more beneficial sort of ad time that you could’ve-

Payman: You’re working somewhere else and doing 1 day a week or how?

Daz Singh: Yeah so I’m still working the Colby practise for a short period of time and then I got a great piece of advice by a guy called Barry Alton. I met him at a dentistry awards dinner. He was like “Look, this is your practise and this is where you’re going to be for the next sort of however many years. However much you’re earning from your other job, I mean what do you need to do to spoil yourself?” At that time I just had a car and a flat and that was about it. So then you know he was telling me “Look it’s your time not better invested in just spending your time in your own clinic? What else do you need to do?” I don’t have a family that I need to support or anything else like that. You know it’s literally just car and a mortgage. So, and he was right so shortly afterwards I just made the decision I was just going to go into the clinic full time and then you know what we’re just going to build things up…

Payman: Yeah, so what was the first thing you did marketing wise to get some first few patients through the door?

Daz Singh: So I think we did, we were looking at, I think we looked at radio ads as a great way to look at trying to bring people in.

Payman: At the get go?

Daz Singh: Yeah, from the get go. So, yeah it was some intro, we had interest conversation with various different people. Actually no sorry, let me lie, we didn’t do radio at the beginning, we did that a little bit later, and what we did do is we just did some simple stuff which was just basically create a little bit of brand awareness around where we worked, we just had a few purses lined up. We started doing stuff with the train stations and things like that around it as well. And ads yeah.

Prav Solanki: Leaflet drops, papers?

Daz Singh: Yeah, a few. We did a little bit of newspapers. Not as much as we hoped we would but then I think when we did our first Invisalign open day, back in January 2009, that’s when we used radio ads for the first time and that was what really kicked us off after that. We’d open in November 2008 and then we had a bit of a soft opening for 2-3 months leading up to that but then after that January it’s just kind of been, pretty much full on.

Payman: Which station was it?

Daz Singh: A station called Radio City.

Payman: The one with the tower?

Daz Singh: Yeah, the one with the tower.

Payman: And so what was the ad, was it just like as you would expect?

Daz Singh: No it was just when we did it, it was like very specific advert for Invisalign open day that we were going to Invisalign at a certain price and it was going to be on this day at this time. If they wanted to come in then they had to sort of call up and make an appointment to come in and see us on that day.

Payman: Do you still do radio advertising?

Daz Singh: Sporadically. Sporadically, I think that you know, there’s better ways to look at trying to spend that kind of capital.

Payman: What does it cost to advertise on the radio in Liverpool?

Daz Singh: To be honest it costs as much as low as you want.

Payman: Alright.

Daz Singh: It’s like if you had a budget for 5 and a pound a month, you can get ads for 5 and a pound a month. If you wanted to spend a million quid a month they’d give you – they’ll take that as well. So you know it comes down to sort of how much you really wanna look at trying to spend. It’s great for creating awareness, you know. Because we’ve been doing it for so long you know, people kind of do recognise us on the radio.

Payman: Have you got a jingle?

Daz Singh: Yes.

Payman: Go on, sing it.

Daz Singh: No I’m not, no chance.

Payman: Come on.

Daz Singh: No chance man.

Payman: Ollie and Darsh.

Daz Singh: Absolutely not. It’s not happening.

Payman: What’s your tagline? One smile at a time?

Daz Singh: Where individual smiles matter.

Payman: That’s the one.

Prav Solanki: So we just rewind a little bit, the name Ollie and Darsh, I only actually found out about this like 10 years later where it came-

Payman: At the minimalist. [crosstalk]

Prav Solanki: Yeah, I think it was then so I’m sure a lot of our listeners are in the same position as me. Would you just like to enlighten us?

Daz Singh: Yeah sure. Is there a tagline to follow?

Daz Singh: No, so the name Ollie and Darsh, so my real name is [inaudible] very few people can really say it properly first time round and it’s usually got this question “Hmm?” So I say it again. So what happens is when I first born, my sister couldn’t say my full name properly. I still blame my sisters to this day for this, but so she was reading Oliver Twist at the time and she started calling me Oliver. So, my entire family, all of her call me Ollie. And it’s just the name that stick.

Daz Singh: When I went to the school in Saudi, my name was Oliver Singh. It was just basically that’s what it was. My yearbooks all have Oliver Singh in them. It’s quite something. But then when we moved back to England, I was like you know.

Payman: Oliver Singh does have a ring to it.

Daz Singh: Yeah, you’d be surprised, right? But you know, when we moved back from Saudi and moved back to Yorkshire, it was made aware to us that maybe you should start using your real name now. And then I started using my real name and that eventually got shortened down year after year down to like 3 letters. Daz, so I went through sort of school and uni being known as Daz and that was fine. I had no problems with that. But, we were coming up with names at the clinic and Sudarsh is my business partner and naturally her nickname is Darsh, and-

Prav Solanki: Makes sense.

Daz Singh: Yeah, so that made sense.

Payman: How did you meet Sudarsh?

Daz Singh: Again we used to work in the same clinic together.

Payman: But she was-

Daz Singh: She was working in another clinic at the time. And it just came to ahead were we felt like we just needed to do our own thing. And it just, you know, we have a great business relationship and it works really really well. We’re business partners first and then we’re friends second, which I think works quite well for both of us to be honest.

Payman: You must’ve been asked this before, she does exist right?

Daz Singh: She does exist. She’s there on our website mate, she’s there.

Payman: Sorry Sudarsh.

Daz Singh: It is quite interesting when I get called Ollie and Darsh at the same time. It’s like some sort of Jekyll and Hyde thing that I have seen to happen.

Payman: You’re the Colonel Sanders of the brand somehow yeah? And listen, I’m the Colonel Sanders of Enlighten and Sanj does more than I do at Enlighten that the Prav will attest to that.

Prav Solanki: Without a doubt. You play more table tennis than me.

Payman: Yeah, but somehow, I didn’t do it on purpose.

Daz Singh: No, its the same. No it’s definitely you know, we both have different lives you know. Sudarsh is, she’s got a lovely husband and she’s got -at the time when we first opened up- she had 2 really young boys. Keiran, her youngest was probably less than a year old I think when we opened up.

Daz Singh: So her time, I mean, her time she wanted to maximise between the family and the clinic. So she had no time for any other opportunities that Ollie and Darsh might have looked to trying to afford. So basically it was just me, I don’t have any sort of dependence, I didn’t have any family. And it was just basically you know whenever one of these things kind of came about, when an opportunity came about, I’m like “Yes”. I’ll just say yes and we’ll work out how to do it later. Which is what kind of ended up happening.

Payman: And the model of Suzy, sorry but Suzy takes care of the staff?

Daz Singh: Yeah.

Payman: She takes care of a lot of the patient contacts as well. Are you involved with the staff matters? Or does she literally handle that?

Daz Singh: You know, one of the things that, one of the challenges we’ve had as a business as we’ve grown is that we’ve grown from an idea into an actual business and the process of being in a business is this, you need to be able to look at delegating things amongst yourselves and I realise that when I try to meddle myself into different things that I shouldn’t be meddling into, things end up going p tong. And so well for me it’s just a case of you know we have a brain trust between the three of us and we sit down regularly, we have meetings were we thrash a lot of these things out. But Suzy’s pretty much the day to day running that clinic.

Daz Singh: She’s definitely the point of contact for patients, for staff, pretty much everyone else. She’s pretty much the all round go to person in our clinic. If it’s a clinical issue it goes to either me or Sadursh. But otherwise it goes to Suzy.

Prav Solanki: So between the 3 of you, what would you say your key strengths are? Ollie you should pick your unique ability, Sudarsh’s, and then naturally Suzy’s.

Daz Singh: My unique ability is being able to delegate things to Suzy. That’s easy, that’s my unique ability. Suzy’s great ability is that she’s a very personable person. She’s extremely, you know, the way I describe her is that if you cut her in half she bleeds orange and blue. She like bleeds more of the brand then I do. And you know, for me it’s like the brand was never meant to be about me or Sudarsh or Suzy. The brand was just meant to be, it’s a clinic that we do some, we’re hoping to do some really exceptional stuff that people wanna get involved with. It’s not designed around me it’s not like this is the Daz Singh brand or the Ollie Singh brand.

Daz Singh: It’s just not that. It’s meant to be around Ollie and Darsh, that’s the way it was created. But, Suzy’s the one who sort of, you know we have, we might have ideas in the clinic and I call it the tip of the sword, where she’s like you know we could have great ideas but Suzy’s the one who just basically goes in and makes it reality. We can sit down, have an idea and then before I know I sat back at my desk and what we’ve talked about is you know, here’s some quotes, here’s this, here’s that. Which one are we going to do? And how do we get on with that.

Daz Singh: Sudarsh’s ability to deal with all my tantrums without a doubt. Sudarsh is a phenomenal clinician. And she’s great at what she does. And again it’s just our ability to be able to kind of bounce off each other, to kind of work from there.

Payman: You’ve got you know a super successful clinic. The numbers of treatments that you do, of course success comes more than number of treatments, but who’s responsible, who’s sort of the growth engine on that? Was that you?

Daz Singh: I think we sit back and we’re always looking at numbers and you know for us you know we’re always looking year on year to try and push and be better than we were the year before. That’s how I- that’s how we define success. We’ve kind of settled for the same as the year before then we’re looking like you know what this is fairly easy to do, this is like you know, this isn’t hard. And that’s what my challenge is. My challenge is to say right okay how do we look at trying to move things forward. How do we look at taking things plus x plus 20%. It might sound like I’m motivated by money, I’m not it’s that I’m motivated by looking trying to push the clinic to a place where it can’t – where we didn’t thing it could – go.

Daz Singh: You know, it’s not about, I’m not interested in sort of pushing a thousand veneers out of the clinic or a thousand in Invisalign. I’m motivating by doing things for the first time if that makes sense. I’m motivated by doing something a bit different. I’m motivated by looking trying to say well can we do this, can we do that, and how do we go about trying to do this.

Daz Singh: In amongst the way that we want to try and get things done.

Prav Solanki: What other key metrics that you look like when comparing year to year? I mean I speak to a lot of clinics who use lots of different metrics, whether it’s conversions, if their consultations or new patients, or turn over profits. Do you have a set key metrics that you guys look at?

Daz Singh: Yeah for me it’s kind of comes down to profit at the end of the day. The rest of its all [inaudible] Yeah it’s just you know, if we’re making more money than we did last year, then that’s great. And the question is that why are we making more money? And I try and work it backwards from that. There are things that are designed in a particular way so that we have certain things that are designed to bring more people in to see us, so not necessarily a loss leading product, but something, a product that doesn’t actually bring us a general amount of revenue, but actually gets people away talking about us so that they can then bring in more people who might then come in for other things as well.

Prav Solanki: For example?

Daz Singh: For example, like whitening. For us, it’s not the most, especially in a place like Liverpool, you know, there are many different ways of being able to go off and do whitening and you know I understand that why some clinicians and why some clinics price whitening the way that they do. But we do it very much like milk in a supermarket where we just, we need people to come in at the beginning and you know when they did, we kind of go from there.

Prav Solanki: You were the guys who started ‘Whitening Wednesdays’ is that right?

Daz Singh: Yeah that’s right.

Prav Solanki: Does that come from Orange Tuesdays by any chance?

Daz Singh: Well, do you know, it was when we first opened up, you know, it was, everyone was worried about credit crunch and everything else like that and people are starting to make these credit crunch offers. And that’s just the most savage way to try and market a clinic personally. I thought that you know, I would not. Could you imagine trying to go into Subway and thinking “Here’s a credit crunch sandwich.” Here’s half the bread and here’s everything else. Just didn’t make sense, so it was our challenge to say well you know how, what are we going to do, how are we going to market the clinic, what can we look at trying to have a tag. And yeah, just like you know, just like orange had orange Wednesdays, we suddenly came up, well I say we, Suzy came up with the idea for having whitening Wednesdays.

Prav Solanki: Cool.

Daz Singh: Yeah and what we did when we first started off was that if you wanted to come in on a Monday, Tuesday, Thursday or Friday, for whitening it was going to be double the price. So we could then, we basically led with this idea that all our whitening, whether it was gonna be, we did and we still do, zoom, sorry Payman. And enlighten and we still have our home whitening as well and when it was just me, Sudarsh, there at the time, we knew that on a Wednesday, we were gonna be pretty much full pump, just doing some whitening. That’s something that steadily grew overtime. The real archetype behind the idea was Suzy to be honest.

Prav Solanki: Suzy. Just talk me through how that ended up creating more work, because like you said it’s a loss leader. Milk or bread in a super market, and did that often lead to other treatments or discussions around different treatment plans?

Daz Singh: I think that what we try and do is this. When we look at patients who come in. Often I think that we sometimes have the wrong focus. We look at the patient, they’re coming in for a particular product. You know they’re usually a little bit sort of price sensitive about things like that and I get that. So we weren’t necessarily looking to try and market to them. What we wanted patients to do is this. Is that I wanted them to come in and see us. I wanted them to have the experience with us. I wanted them to go away talk about the experience they’ve had with us to their family and friends, so the knock on effect would be is that we then had their families and friends who have been told that you know this person’s had a good experience at the clinic.

Daz Singh: Why don’t you go see them about your teeth or you know the problems you’ve been having, so forth and so on. And that’s kind of how it went about. I think that for all the marketing we may ever do, Prav, is that the one thing that’s always consistent is that word of mouth marketing is by far in a way, the best thing that brings people in. So the more, if we were to have that the more people who come in and see us the more people who’re gonna go away ‘n talk about us.

Daz Singh: Hence, we would then get more follow through from things like that as well.

Prav Solanki: So, just talk to me about numbers here. I mean I’m huge on that. And I truly believe that the first marketing strategy that any practise should ever have is a word of mouth strategy. And not enough practises focus on that. It’s the cheapest form of marketing. Patients who come from friends and family. Know you’re pricing structure, know your service, and then know that you’re gonna deliver the goods, right?

Daz Singh: Yeah.

Prav Solanki: What strategy do you put behind your word of mouth to generate patients that way. You know you talked about putting a blueprint together for you know the experience, the service. Just talk me through your, what you would consider to be your word of mouth blueprint strategy.

Daz Singh: So, you know for us it was at the time, we probably didn’t realise this heavily, it was you know, we knew we just needed to get more people through our doors. That’s how we first started. After that, after we started building up a database, after we had people starting to come and see us, I read a book and it was about word of mouth marketing. I’m not- you know what? There was a line-

Prav Solanki: What was the book?

Daz Singh: I can’t remember. I really can’t remember the name of the book but it was, there was a line in the book that basically said that if you look through all your marketing, you’re going to find that however much you spend on all your other bits of marketing, you’ll get a certain return on investment. But then you look at the top and you’ll see word of mouth is probably the most number of patients. But then if you look how much you spent on it, you’ve spent probably almost nothing. Which then you know, for me it’s just one of those liable moments you have been practising.

Daz Singh: Well you know we’re spending x amount of money on trying to bring new patients in. Why don’t we just look at trying to do something for the patients who do something for us? For us it was just like you know let’s have a little bit of fun with this you know for us we’ve always been, you know we’ve always had chocolates out.

Daz Singh: So we used to use local, we used to use a local chocolatier who used to sort of hand to deliver some chocolates and then recently we started using Hotel Chocolat because it’s just become easier to do so.

Prav Solanki: Just talk me through that process so you decided to hand chocolates out to patients. At what stage in that patient journey did you decide to do that?

Daz Singh: So, anybody who basically, any referrals that came in from patients would then get a box of chocolates from us, as long as we knew where those patients come from, so you know it wasn’t sort of on the say that would then go ahead with treatment or anything like that, we just felt like, you know, we’re happy to send chocolates out and this sort of day and age with Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and things like that, it’s just nicer, you know. You can get like a box of chocolates and patients are quite happy to put a post up on Instagram and just say look what my dentist just sent me, my dentist just sent me some really nice chocolates.

Prav Solanki: And 9 times out of 10 it always comes across as a surprise, right?

Daz Singh: Yeah it does, and you know some people quite like it to be honest and for me it’s like you know we just want to say thank you to our patients for referring people on and you know if they’re referring people to us on then you know for me it’s our job to them to try and translate that into sort of hopefully looking, trying to bring business into the clinic, but you know, patients have done really great in terms of referring our name over anyway.

Payman: Daz, you know what I find interesting about your clinic that you manage to combine being a high end clinic as well as being an offer-led clinic. A lot of high end clinics can’t get their heads around offers. Is it a Liverpool thing?

Payman: That the people always looking for an offer? How have you managed to sort of square that circle?

Daz Singh: I suppose that the dynamic of how clinics sort of really comes about. I think that, you know, we don’t have offers on a tremendous amount of things. But I’m also keen on understanding where sort of patients are in terms of the dynamics of trying to go ahead and have treatment done, you know. Some people are sort of – some patients who wanna go off and have treatment aren’t necessarily offer-led. So, you know, some people will go away, will do all their research and then come and find us it’s like, you know it’s one of us being most experience Invisalign providers in the northwest. And they’ll come and see us because we want you to do it for us. And that’s fine.

Daz Singh: But then somebody will come to see us because you know, actually we’re one of the most economically right for that patient as well.

Payman: Yeah.

Daz Singh: So, the whitening Wednesdays, you know, has always worked well in terms of trying to bring patients and sort of, more whitening patients interests as well. And, you know, it’s for us I think that some people get bonked down by the simple bits of dentistry to start looking at so that slightly larger impact of certain things and you know, for us the way we look at it, we offer free consultations so that somebody could just go in and have a chat with us.

Daz Singh: There are more offers. I think that you know, I think that one of the things that people are doing at the moment which is like a package of everything else, which is kind of nice, and I can see how the appeal of it is, but then on a clinical level, I see where sometimes I can sort of fall down as well, so. It’s just about trying to combine everything together that works well for patients.

Payman: When you say package as in one cost for Invisalign, whitening, and bonding, that?

Daz Singh: Yeah so I mean one of the great things about doing something like that is that you can then resonate with the patients because then they understand what the fixed cost of are up front. And then they can relate that back into payment schedule that they can then kind of go from. X, Y, and Z. You know, I mean.

Daz Singh: But it’s one of those as well where you know, depending on where the clinics can be you know. I might be in Liverpool where we do tremendous amount of Invisalign, or you know, liners or something like that. Or you know, you meet other clinics who don’t have the same success but have that with implants. And we don’t have the same sort of impact with that.

Daz Singh: Predominantly because we’re not as price competitive as some of the other clinics around us as well. And so, it just really comes down to some people. I think, not necessarily just looking for sort of value in terms of what they’re having done, but just I think some people can work out what they thing is best for them.

Payman: With the Invisalign, well actually your – most of your work – how much of your work is done on finance? Liverpool is a big finance city.

Daz Singh: I mean.

Payman: Have you got a number? Like what percentage.

Daz Singh: Do you know the top of my head, I couldn’t say, no. I couldn’t say that I have a number, but it’s certainly a tremendous amount. It’s you know, it is one of those things where you know, it’s certainly finance driven. Especially a lot of our sort of liner market, fixed simple braces market, or sort of any…

Payman: Even whitening, no?

Daz Singh: Well, whitening is something that has to be fixed. It’s fixed fee so they generally tend to pay it on their card. But, you know, we don’t do it in terms of finance for that but you know. It becomes part of a bigger package so they’re just happy to go ahead and have it done.

Daz Singh: I think for us the magic number seems to be somewhere around about 3-6k. And they’re just you know, they’re just very happy to put it all in finance and just go from it. That’s not a problem.

Prav Solanki: And so when you do your open days, your off days and things like that, is the cost of finance factored in? Or do you add that on top when the patient comes in?

Daz Singh: No, no, no. Well, you kind of, yeah I mean, slightly. I don’t even sort of add it on top, but we’ve had it factored in from the start to be honest.

Prav Solanki: Okay.

Daz Singh: For us it just, you know, we… We’re very happy if something, if somebody wants to come in and have a dental finance piece predominantly that’s where a lot of our treatment comes from.

Prav Solanki: Yeah.

Daz Singh: If there’s a number, probably about around sort of 70-80% is probably where that really…

Prav Solanki: And so I guess there’s somebody comes along and pays cash, it’s just a bonus, right?

Daz Singh: Yeah, that’s right.

Payman: Your associates.

Daz Singh: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Payman: I know Chiggs. How many associates have you got?

Daz Singh: So in our clinic we have… There’s myself and Sudarsh who are both principal dentists and then Chiggs has been, Chiggs is our first associate who came to join us about 2 years ago.

Payman: Oh really?

Daz Singh: Yeah, and then we have now 2 therapists and a hygienist as well. To this day we just only have 1 associate. We’ve tried to be as therapist and hygienist led as we possibly can be. We had looked at the scope what some DCPs and you know, some of our clinical assistants can look at trying to do. And they can take a load of burden off us so that we can then try and focus around that and so, it’s much more in terms of a didactic model where you have a dentist and you have a patient. The dentist does everything for the patient. We look at factoring in what the other team members can really look at trying to do.

Daz Singh: A lot of the stuff is that actually I might see a patient once to do clinical consultation and then the plan gets executed out by the rest of the team. Which tends to work out really well for us.

Daz Singh: But yeah, Chiggs has been our one and only associate since he joined us a couple years back. He’s been great for us. Really really good for us. Just great to have a nice young lad with the right type of energy, the right type of attitude who wants to come in, who wants to learn. And just wants to try and do things as well.

Payman: He’s a good boy.

Daz Singh: He is.

Prav Solanki: If you’re looking for an associate in a practise like yours, right, there’s loads of dentists out there would give their- chop their right arm off to work in a practise like yours. What advice would you give them to set themselves up, just coming out of dental school and saying “Do you know what? My dream would be to work in a practise like yours?”

Daz Singh: Yeah, I find that I’m having these conversations a lot more with younger dentists and you know, one of the things we’ve looked at is this, is that we weren’t have a dentist who could have, had the right attitude had the right, good level of hands with a right sort of mental energy to really come into a practise like ours. So it’s like you know, one of the things about being a day pupil at a boarding school is you kind of grow up with that kind of mentality in terms of you are sort of, you’re given a job to do. You go off, you get it done. So you work out how to do those sort of things.

Daz Singh: And sometimes I find that, you know, you can get people to go off, and under pressure to do their own thing, but if they want to come in and work in a clinic like ours, I’m gonna need them to expect them to do other things that might go around what they think that they need to be doing.

Payman: Like what, like what?

Daz Singh: You know just like just trying-

Payman: Communication.

Daz Singh: Communication, just doing a lot of the simple stuff. Just doing a lot of the sort of nitty witty sort of stuff there as well. Just going through the same similar sort of journey that sort of myself and Sudarsh went on because I know that when there’s a lot of young dentists who seem to be coming out of university at the moment and they’re being blitzed. In the media by everything that’s going on about all this fancy dentistry that seems to be going on. And you’re starting to see some of the the things that some people are doing.

Daz Singh: Especially on things like Instagram. And you’re looking and going “I get where they’re coming from with all of this, but…” You know? And I get that when you have a patient who just says “Yes, I want to have this done.” And they go off and they do it. I understand that. But it’s about them looking, trying to lean on each others’ experience, look at trying to say what the right thing is.

Daz Singh: But, going back to your original point there Prav, it’s that, you know, what kind of advice I’d look at trying to give it’s about what kind of attitude do you have to look at trying to get something like this done.

Prav Solanki: Number one, right?

Daz Singh: Yeah, attitude for me is the most important thing. It’s about, you know, it’s like if you don’t have the right attitude, if it’s all about sort of, you know, my principle’s this or you know, the team are doing this and I can’t do this. It’s about how you’re gonna fit. There’s gonna be good days there’s gonna be bad days. And you know for me it’s just about if you have the right attitude to come work in my clinic because you know, one of the things I don’t wanna be hearing is “I don’t think this is for me.” And I’m like okay, well you know, I think this is not going to kind of work out.

Daz Singh: Which is what’s kind of feared me. I’ve had this sort of fear about taking an associate on for so long as it was. But, we still could like with chicks so I can’t really say.

Prav Solanki: I do want to steer this conversation direction of Daz’s teaching because as well as being a clinician, the clinic owner, he has lectured and talked. And, but I’ve got one more question about your clinic which is: What’s the lowest point you’ve ever reached in running your clinic where you’ve hit absolutely rock bottom, and how did you pick yourself up out of that ditch?

Daz Singh: Yeah, I mean, it’s an important point and so, you know, there are moments or times when you look at things and you know, for me it’s always almost been probably financial more than anything else. On a clinical level I can accept when things don’t go well and you know I can appreciate that that doesn’t happen, and I look at those moments and I think you know, there’s something to be learned from that and I think that you know, if I made a mistake on a clinical level I’ll put my hand up and I think you know, I want to make this right. That’s just, you know, that’s just on me.

Daz Singh: It’s probably come down probably on an economic level where sometimes you get like a perfect storm suddenly hits the practise like you know you might have an open day or you might look at trying to do a marketing plan that just doesn’t work. Or you know, suddenly you’re looking at the back end of you know, on a financial level in terms of where are we right now? How do we look at trying to move ourselves out of this? And sometimes you just you know, for me it’s just, I go home and I need to go away, have a shower, trying to think about things and think you know how do we look at trying to move forward with this? How do we look at you know, we can’t sort of, I have my pity party for about 20 minutes and think how did this happen to me or how could this have happened to us? And then you know, how do we look at trying to move forward?

Daz Singh: But almost always it’s almost been on an economic level where we’re looking once again…

Payman: Are you saying that a cash crisis?

Daz Singh: Yeah, so sometimes.

Payman: You owe more than you’re thinking early on when…

Daz Singh: Yeah. Still going to be earlier on, it’s so early on. In the first couple of years when you’re looking at this going “Wow. Where are we going to get the finances to do all of this stuff?” You suddenly, you know. A lot of this stuff that we’ve been talking about has been a slow burn. It’s like we’re in this for the long game. And, you’re looking at this and we’re thinking about you know how do we look at trying to make…Not how do we necessarily look at trying to make ends meet, but it’s just like what do we need to do to try and take things up to that level?

Prav Solanki: And the thing that’s important because people always see the glamour, the shop front, the retail, the ads.

Daz Singh: Yeah yeah.

Prav Solanki: The Instagram feed, the Facebook feed, but behind the scenes they don’t see the fact that you’re going home, your heads exploding, team members handed the notice in and say somebody’s turned up late. You know, something’s happened in the practise or a patients put a complaint in and all of that comes with the territory right?

Daz Singh: Yeah, I mean it is one of those. I mean because you know I remember I had, we were treating a PI lawyer in the clinic once and she said something to me which was quite interesting because she said to me goes “Look, you know” because for them it’s their job that’s what they do. And it’s quite interesting looking from their point, and they said to me they said that “Look, whenever we do this with a clinician or anything else like that you go, you guys take it really personally.” And I go “Well, yeah. Because, you know in its essense you’re saying that we’ve done something wrong and we’ve done it intentionally? In that sort of aspect?”

Daz Singh: And so it was kind of eye opening for me in terms of understanding where they’re coming from from that aspect and I’m like going you know it is just one of those moments. You know what you’ve you know, the anxiety builds over certain patients and you’re starting to look you know is this going right, is that going right, am I gonna make them really happy with what we’re trying to do here? And those are the things you take home with you.

Daz Singh: And you know, on a financial level you’re there going making sure you know, I wanna make sure that everyone there is looked after, everyone is well paid, everyone’s sort of making sure that you know for the next day that you know everything’s going to be fine. We’re still going to have a solve, a business and things are going to be going well.

Daz Singh: That’s my challenge. That’s the reason why we try and do things. For me it’d be really easy to have a free surgery practise and you know, just have me, Sudarsh, and a hygienist and we could just wandering off and just you know we can do everything else. But the challenge is that we want to have the fully functioning sick surgery practise. And then go from there.

Payman: What about, we’ve been sort of asking this sort of black box thinking question about what’s the biggest clinical mistake you’ve ever made? So, going back to that thing where in dentistry everyone or medicine dentistry no one likes to talk about their mistakes but then we never learn from each other’s mistakes then.

Daz Singh: I think that you know, I certainly think that when I first started using braces. As a general dentist, you know, there have been moments and there have certainly been 1 or 2 patients where I look at it and think, you know yeah we could have done this a lot better.

Daz Singh: You know, there are these sort of things that we look at and we go you know.

Payman: But did you have a situation, like a clinical situation did a tooth go out of the arch or something…

Daz Singh: No, it’s just you know, we had 1 case where you know the patient was, postures into a class 1 position. And then, this is again in my earlier days, and the patient came in and he’s like you know really low in confidence, really sort of you know, nobody’s prepared to help him out, no one’s prepared to treat him, no one’s really looking at trying to say you know let’s see how we can try and help you out. And we’re really low down on confidence and things, and you know, we say oh you know what, I’m sure we can look at trying to make some movements here and we can look at trying to, this looks a little bit more straight forward. With experience I look back on it thinking you know, I know where we made our mistakes.

Daz Singh: But basically what happened is we tried to give him aligners and he slipped into a class 3. So he started looking a whole lot worse. So his alignment had improved, but because now his mandible relaxed in the condyles. He’d slipped further into a class 3 position and to try and salvage that and bring that back was going to be a much, a really really tricky position.

Payman: So it was because he was posturing into the class 1? You weren’t aware of that?

Daz Singh: Just wasn’t aware if it. And it’s just one of those sort of things that when you take some initial photos, you’re having a look and you realise that you know, he’s looking fine, he’s looking edge to edge. I’m sure we can just try and improve the alignment, and then all of a sudden we put some aligners in I mean just slips into a class 3. And we’re like “Wow. What’s going on here?”

Daz Singh: I remember once we treated one patient and you know it was the very first time and the only time that this really happened to us where we gave some patients some of this set of aligners and patient had [inaudible] and we gave her some aligners. The condyles slipped into, I’m sorry, the mandible slipped. The mandible condyle slipped more into the eminence. And to some tissue. And it’s just piping hot, and she couldn’t bare with it literally.

Payman: The pain.

Daz Singh: Literally just yeah. Just massive massive massive pain, and this is like within the first month.

Payman: Feels like you caused that pain.

Daz Singh: Yeah, I mean the patient was really great about it.

Payman: What could you have done differently? Could you have known that?

Daz Singh: I think yeah, you know what? I think my examination process could have been a whole lot better. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. I think that you know, it’s just it could’ve without a doubt been a whole lot better.

Daz Singh: And you know, when I look at things we’re doing back, you know, 9-10 years ago compared to how we’re doing things now, you know our processes, our clinical processes have changed dramatically since then.

Payman: How do you feel about the, you must have cut quite a lot of porcelain veneers right?

Daz Singh: Yeah.

Payman: How do you feel about those, you must see those patients, your early ones. How are they looking?

Daz Singh: Yeah, it’s interesting. I think that you know, I think we have this, you know we have this ethos that you know, we understand now that porcelain veneers aren’t probably the best wear, the only way to look at trying to fix some patients problem.

Daz Singh: 10 years ago though? You know I didn’t really see very much other options that we could look at trying to do.

Payman: No no, I’m not saying that – how do they look?

Daz Singh: Well, they look like they could have had ortho. And some bonding, to be honest. But you know, it is, we’ve, I’ve been fortunate enough that we’ve been in the same place for 10 years and we will look after and maintain. Yes we have the odd factory, yes we’ve had some that you know we look at them staining, margins need to be replaced and sorry. There’s definitely some margins staining they’re just looking now that they need to be replaced and so forth and so on.

Daz Singh: But yeah.

Payman: Tif talks about this a lot about being in the same place for a long time and seeing… absolutely makes a lot of sense doesn’t it.

Daz Singh: Sure. Yeah yeah, I mean it’s quite humbling you know. One of the interesting things was when we first opened up people were talking about so what’s your exit strategy. And I’m like what’s one of them? I’m like what do you mean an exit strategy I’ve just opened the clinic up with my – why do you think I want to leave? And it was quite interesting that some people think you have a 3 year, 4 year exit strategy, you meet people who have opened up multiple squads and things like that.

Daz Singh: And I’m like that’s…

Payman: Have you thought about doing another one?

Daz Singh: Yeah. I have, I have. And then something happens in the clinic and I’m going “I’m glad I don’t have 2 of these now all of a sudden.” But you know the idea of opening up your squat is quite interesting. If only for the reason that I want to see if we can try and do it all over again. It’s a different market, it’s a different dynamic. I wanna see can we look at trying to do something differently, and how do we look at trying to go about it? I think that there’s things… the market is… the market for cosmetic dentistry 10 years on from 2008 is massively different to where it is, where it was back then.

Daz Singh: And you know, I think that there’s a lot more to go for we can look at trying to do. It wouldn’t be, it would be something completely different.

Payman: Oh really?

Daz Singh: Yeah, it’d be something that.

Payman: But you’re such a strong-

Daz Singh: It is but you know, I think that the market is just slightly different. I think that, you know, there are different things there we can look at trying to do. I think that if I opened up- I mean, there’s potential where we can look at trying to take Ollie and Darsh and use it as- and open up multiple clinics all the way around.

Daz Singh: But I’m also looking at them in terms of thinking you know, what if we just did something completely separate? What if we did something completely different? What if I just wanted to leave Ollie and Darsh the way that it is?

Daz Singh: The things that make, the things that I know that make Ollie and Darsh what it is now, I find are going to be hard to translate if I do it in a different business. If that makes sense, because a lot of the things that we do can be quite personable, can be sort of very boutique kind of feel.

Prav Solanki: You’d lose that.

Daz Singh: Yeah. You don’t wanna have- I mean the thing is about… You get to Hilton you know exactly what you’re going to expect, and you just really just wanna go, sort of a nice rest, you kind of, you want a good customer service, you want to go from there. And I’m like that’s fine. And I’d be kind of depressed if that’s what Ollie and Darsh really became, you know and use that as a sort of personal outcome, that sort of personal feel.

Daz Singh: If I wanted to open up a multiple clinic sort of squat clinic with a relative sort of boutique feel to it, it’d need to be completely different. And, you know there are things and processes out there that would just change completely

Payman: Liverpool’s such a great town for cosmetic dentistry.

Daz Singh: Yeah.

Payman: I mean, Enlighten’s top user was from Liverpool from 2001, why is that? What is it about Liverpool people? I mean it’s certainly not the biggest town, it’s not the richest town.

Daz Singh: No, I think that there’s now a way, you know. There’s a lot of people that who want to look good and feel good to be honest. I think that you know, I think that there’s definitely an element that, you know, people like to look after themselves. People like to sort of want to be able to sort of feel better about themselves as well and just like to have that element of extra confidence in themselves as well, to be able to do that.

Prav Solanki: You get that feels working around like Liverpool one or whatever. People make an effort. Real effort, and you know dress up and look – you see it.

Daz Singh: Certainly much more than me anyways for sure. I walk around in a baseball cap.

Payman: But what a good town it’s become, I mean I remember when the first few years when I used to go there, I still loved it by the way, sorry Prav, but I prefer it to Manchester personally.

Prav Solanki: For your own body.

Payman: Yeah, but what a different town its become now to what it was maybe 15 years ago.

Daz Singh: Yeah, I mean it’s definitely a sign of progress. I mean my dad did his, so if our family has a little bit of history in Liverpool. My dad did his VT training in Liverpool during the mid 90s, GP training, sorry. He did his GP training over in a place called Hunter Cross.

Payman: Oh so he’s a surgeon and then became GP after that.

Daz Singh: Yeah so when we moved back from Saudi, there were 1 or 2 issues that dad had with his surgical training and they weren’t gonna give him the same years that he had over in Saudi when he moved back to the UK.

Daz Singh: And so that became a bit difficult and at that time he just figured that it would make more sense for him in terms of the family if he decided to go off and do chief general practise. And so, yeah he’s like a overqualified GP at Darby at the moment but so he did his GP training in Liverpool then my sister went off and she did study pharmacy there and then bout a year after she did that then I went to the proper university to go study dentistry.

Daz Singh: And it’s interesting to see because you know there are areas that dad talks, that I drive dad through in Liverpool and he’s going you know when he was going around doing the rounds as a GP trainee going to his houses like in Toxteth or on Crown street or like in some of these areas that-

Payman: Toxteth riots I remember.

Daz Singh: Yeah well it’s just those areas where people just wouldn’t go into if they could, but I mean that’s all changed now.

Daz Singh: And Liverpool one is like you know, it’s really interesting to see what it’s become. But it’s a double edged sword because you know I took a walk around Liverpool one, just for the first time in a long time actually, around Liverpool and it’s sad to see you know with Liverpool one the way that it is, what it has done is taken a lot of business away from a lot of the other streets that really existed.

Payman: That happens. Same with Westfield in London, you can see that what it’s done to other streets.

Prav Solanki: Daz, tell us about your teaching career and where it all started, where you’ve been, and where you are now.

Daz Singh: Yeah, it’s really interesting for me because you know, it’s not something I really thought that I’d ever kind of get into to be honest. I thought it was for people far more clever than I am to be honest, but it was one of those where I got invited to do the odd little seminar and talk. I think stuff that we were doing with Invisalign very early on. They wanted to try and replicated that through different other various sort of places.

Prav Solanki: Just stop you right there Daz, public speaking. How did you feel at that point when you’re invited for your 1st talk to give a seminar in front of people. Does that bother you?

Daz Singh: I was scared. I was scared.

Payman: Yeah, few years ago you gave one for us, independent seminar. Years ago.

Daz Singh: Yeah yeah. I mean the very very 1st one I remember we did, the very 1st speech I did I think Chris had invited us to like the state at the fmc where he was doing, he did a day.

Payman: I was there in the audience.

Daz Singh: And it was just that was me that was my very 1st public speaking gig. And it was meant to be me, Sudarsh, and Suzy. Sudarsh bailed 1st, then Suzy bailed the day before, and then it just ended up being me so. You know, thanks Suzy and Sudarsh. But, it was just basically yeah just that was it. I just kind of talked and mumbled and droned on things like that.

Prav Solanki: Very nerve-wracking.

Daz Singh: Yeah it was really really nerve-wracking. At the same time, I was really quite glad to be there but, yeah. Just kind of from there I’ve just always taken it as an opportunity that you know, if somebody’s given me an opportunity like that, I’ll take it.

Prav Solanki: You’ll take it. Does the nervous go away?

Daz Singh: No, not really. I think there’s always in there there’s always a nervous energy that you know, I’ve been that guy in the crowd and you’re looking at it thinking you know you really hope you got to you know you paid some money to be there and you really hoping to get through enough moments out of that day.

Daz Singh: To be able to take away and think yeah that’s what we need and you know that’s what I’m always conscious of. I’m always conscious that whenever I go up and you realise people have spent money to go off and listen to you. But you’ve got to suddenly realise that actually not you need to give them something credible. You’ve got to give them some credible advice you can’t just – I’ve been to the worst worst worst meeting I’ve ever been to was when Tom Warrant came to do a talk.

Payman: I was there. 1,000 gems.

Daz Singh: 1,000 gems which I think he missing sort of 3,000 of them in the bank. But what was really interesting is that I remember I went there with Suzy and we were sat about 3 rows from the front. We were just listening to the guy. And I didn’t realise that there were like 20 rows behind us and they’d all been leaving 1 by 1 by 1 behind us through the day, yeah it was awful.

Daz Singh: One of the worst days. But what was really interesting is actually I picked up some of the, because I took the, I still have all of the FMC stuff. I still have all of the little booklets so I would refer back to them every now and again. Because you never find you know a gem that you didn’t realise about 10 years ago, something starts making sense now. But it was one of those sorts of things that you – there was still some good information in there- but yeah it was a shocking day.

Daz Singh: So I’m always worried that I really don’t wanna be that guy. Don’t really wanna be that guy who’s sort of you know he doesn’t really know what he’s talking about.

Daz Singh: For me it was just a happy accident to be honest and it’s just been kind of you know I’ve had someone like – I knew because kind of dragged me along by the scruff of the neck said “You’re coming to this, you’ve got to do this, you’ve gotta do that.” And you know, I used to be involved with some of the stuff that he used to do and then yeah.

Daz Singh: It was just kind of being able to be put up on a podium and do some teaching was really great.

Prav Solanki: So how did it evolve? So you did it, did a little bit of stuff through Invisalign some small seminars and then…”

Daz Singh: Yeah, so it started off by just doing the odd little study club and doing some little bits and pieces for Invisalign and then I started going of and doing some stuff with Six Month Smiles. And when we started doing some more of those cases and things and you know I remember Anoop asking me to come down and sort of help him out 1 or 2 courses.

Daz Singh: And then there was a natural progression to go from being helper to being instructor. And I did that for a couple of years and that was really really good for it, really really enjoyed that. And it was just you know, for me it was really eye opening in terms of seeing how that side of sort of being for the presenter and so being able to look at trying to make sure we being able to be, give some really good information to the dentists who are going on. You really want them to sort of take up on it.

Daz Singh: I’ve always been conscious that I don’t really wanna just teach something I don’t really kind of believe in. If that makes sense.

Prav Solanki: Sure.

Payman: Six Month Smiles, were you not giving their presentations?

Daz Singh: Yeah you’re giving their presentations but the focus is on me to make sure I deliver it in the right quality. You know, I’m not an Anoop, I’m not as energetic as that guy.

Daz Singh: You know, It’s just for me you know you have to be kind of believable as well to do it. You know you can’t you know somebody said to me you know go off and give that seminar. If I don’t believe it I just won’t do it. That just doesn’t make sense.

Daz Singh: You know if Payman, like you know if you asked me to come do a talk for enlighten, I’ve always been happy to do it because you know its something that you know we always have done and you know anyone could do and we could talk about that until Kingdom come. In 6ms you know I did that for a couple years and there things that were changing within that company that I wasn’t completely comfortable with and you know there were things there that they were asking us to do that I just, it was going against some of the values that I had. I really enjoyed the education side of it, the sales side of it was just becoming a little bit overbearing on me, should I say.

Daz Singh: So I was like you know, I think they need someone else to look at trying to do that for them.

Prav Solanki: Time to move on.

Daz Singh: Yeah. About a year after that I got a message from Invisalign to come and do some talking for them in terms of the eye ghost after they were doing. Which I thought, I still think is a really really good product and it was a really interesting insight in terms of how Invisalign wanted to look at trying to grow the line on this side of the market as well, and how that kind of carried on.

Daz Singh: But then, yeah it kind of came to a point where again it was just you know they had some great guys, great people involved in it, but then you know they don’t really need me to do that kind of stuff so I figured it was just time for me, it was the right time for me to sort of bow out at that sort of point as well.

Daz Singh: I need for – because I really wanted to spend time focusing on the clinic of the last 2 years and I figured that you know the energy I was giving to all this teaching, if I put into the clinic it was gonna be even better.

Payman: It’s clear you enjoyed the running side of the business, but hands on what’s your favourite kind of dentistry?

Daz Singh: Hands on what’s my favourite type of dentistry?

Payman: Is it Invisalign or that sort of thing? Or is it… Would you prefer other?

Daz Singh: Well, Invisalign’s great. Invisalign for me is about a bunch of stuff. If that makes sense you know.

Payman: Because you do so much.

Daz Singh: Yeah I mean. We just do so much of it. It’s just for me it’s… For me genuinely I enjoyed treatment planning. That’s where I really really enjoy. I really enjoy problem solving. I enjoy getting patients coming in, coming with complex issues and being able to see the pathway in terms of okay, I have now people in my clinic who can look at trying to do this, this, this and this, we’re gonna do stage 1 this, stage 2 that, stage 3 this, and stage 4 that. And you know that’s how it’s all gonna kind of revolve.

Daz Singh: Whether it’s like a mixture of a hygiene pro-dental therapy coming to just simple coms to sort of doing implant work with ortho and then just doing, finishing off with the aesthetics stuff. The stuff that I really like to do is where you know patients can come in and see us. And the idea is to leave them like they’ve not been touched by a dentist at all. That’s the stuff that I enjoy doing. I want patients coming in and saying to me they’ve had compliments on how nice their smile is not how much they’ve spent to have it done. That’s kind of the stuff that I like to do and for me a lot of that comes from the treatment planning side of things as well.

Prav Solanki: Your latest move to teaching. You’ve started working with the IS academy.

Daz Singh: That’s right.

Prav Solanki: And you’re now teaching in Dubai, is that right?

Daz Singh: Yeah, and so I was, I’d been invited to talk at the cap meeting I think that’s in April, so I’m really looking forward to that. So, I think it’s one of the first bits I’m going to be doing with the IS guys and its going to be quite a fascinating thing to be looking at trying to do to be honest. Yeah, I’m really looking forward to just giving a couple of talks out there and we’re running a seminar out there as well.

Prav Solanki: Excellent. Excellent stuff. If it came to the end of your career and time and you were sat there on your bed and you wanted to leave the world with your legacy, Daz was … Finish the sentence.

Daz Singh: Yeah. Daz was here probably, to be honest. But there you go.

Prav Solanki: With a W. UZ.

Daz Singh: But no, it’s you know I think that I’m not motivated by what I try and achieve, I’m motivated by well what kind of the things that I can look at trying to put my fingerprints on. If that makes sense. I’d be much happier you know, if you know I’m a much happier guy knowing that Ollie and Darsh has the recognition that it does. But not me necessarily. If that makes sense, you know? There’s a lot of, you know I think that for me it’s you know if we can have, if we can look at trying to put fingerprints on just being able to look at tryna get people to more the style of dentistry that I like to try and do and people get it then you know that’s gonna be a great thing as well so for me it’s just things are just up on that sort of level. I think that, I’m not the kind of guy who likes to sort of put my name up in bright lights and stuff like that.

Daz Singh: It’s not about that it’s like you know, looking and working with guys I like, I ask for example you know they’re people that are who are far smarter, far better dentistry then I am, it’s just… I like being in the organisation looking at trying to work with these people to see you know where can I push myself to go that I couldn’t go before.

Payman: The other thing Daz, the thing I know about you, your relationship with suppliers I mean at the end of the day I’m a supplier to you, it’s very unique. Very very unique, I mean I don’t know if you’ve ever had this from a customer, but you’ll say I don’t want the discount.

Daz Singh: No, I’ll have it from you mate.

Payman: Yeah yeah.

Daz Singh: I’ll have it from you.

Payman: He’s actually said that to me once. He said look you supply this thing we use it we make plenty out of it. I wanna pay the right price for… I’ve never heard that before.

Daz Singh: You know, for me it’s… you know I meet a lot of dentists and I see a lot of conversations go on Facebook and often when you have conversations on value and price dentists sit on both sides of the fence. They’re like well why does my patient not understand, why does my patient want to go off to Turkey and pay 40 quid when I can charge them 700 pounds. And then you get the same dentist complaining about sort of, how much their gels cost. Well, I mean I get that but I’m like you know either your sort of the sound business interest in terms of what you’re tryna go about and how you’re tryna go about getting things done and I can understand that people wanna keep the costs as low as possible to be able to look at trying to get things. To try and maximise their profits.

Daz Singh: But I’m like if you’re becoming a value, you’re either value based or price based clinic and if you’re a value based clinic then you’ve gotta work with people like yourself. I have a great relationship with the guys at [inaudible] as well. Less so now that I’ve started using a scanner rather than impression material, but you know it’s one of those that I know it’s better for us in the long term if I work with someone like yourself Payman.

Daz Singh: And then you know you build up a brand and my conversations I have with you Payman are not like how do I get this as cheapest, like how do we do more of this. What can you do to try and help me to do more of this?

Payman: I wish I had more conversations like that because its not about the price of that product its about talking, moving the conversation on from price.

Prav Solanki: You get more out of your supplies as well right, you know more for less but certainly a lot more in terms of that relationship value. I know, look I work with a lot of clients there’s those who just pay the going rate and there’s those that’ll negotiate. I know the ones that do try and negotiate if we ever do crack , which we used to back in the day less so now, it was a pain in the backside, yeah? And the ones that value you? You give them 10 times back.

Daz Singh: And I know that. Payman and I have known each other for years now to be honest.

Payman: It’s a unique way of thinking pattern, you actually explained it to me. I never heard a dentist explain it to me that way.

Daz Singh: Yeah and you know I think that probably comes down to the fact that you know I’m 27 I was naïve and you’re probably taking advantage of me at the time.

Payman: What’s that on the ground?

Daz Singh: It’s like you know it’s one of those sort of things where you know but if you come in and you have a piece of paper and I’m like you know my sole focus is not.. when you have an NHS, I get it when you have an NHS clinic and I get it when you have a sort of amount of funds that come into a clinic and you basically have this amount of money coming in and the you’re like well how do I reduce the amount going out to maximise my profits.

Daz Singh: Which is where traditions are, these conversations come from. I’m the other side where I’m looking at I need to get more patients in. So I’m like Pay, how do you help me get more of these patients coming on?

Daz Singh: That’s where we worked on people who looked at this centre of excellence that we do in Liverpool. Is that you know we do some PR-

Payman: It was our first [inaudible]

Daz Singh: Yeah the 1st one. Which is why I still have the whole of Liverpool right now.

Payman: We’ve got Robbie coming in next month.

Daz Singh: What?

Payman: Not to Enlighten, the podcast.

Daz Singh: Oh okay, but its one of those. My question to people is that how are you guys going to help me get more patients? Because then that’s a mutually beneficial thing. Because then that just works out better for us all.

Daz Singh: If I try and hammer you for like 5 pounds less or 50 pound less or-

Payman: The other thing I ask dentists lots of times about lots of things. I found your answers always very open you know no trying to hide anything and at the end of the day you’ve done a lot of interesting things and very interesting for me you know you set up the practise.

Payman: You know when you set it up 10 years ago it was leaflet drops and radio ads. Then you did that wonderful bit on SEO and the social came and you guys dominated social and its that open mindedness and that openness that makes you while you’re not trying to hide what you’re doing, you’re open you re asking people a lot of questions and I’m sure going forward whatever the next thing is, snapchat or whatever you’ll dominate that too. Its an important thing.

Daz Singh: Well it’s one of those you know there are certain things out there that I think people do that I think people do better than us out there than we do you know if you’ve got robby coming in next week or whenever he does this a whole lot better than we do and I get that.

Daz Singh: What’s interesting is that-

Prav Solanki: He does instagram better than anyone. He does instagram very well.

Daz Singh: Yeah and do you know fair play to the guy you know its one of those. The challenge for us is that you know we’ve had to sort of challenge and adapt what was right 10 years ago isn’t right to do now. its about how do you look at trying to move things forward and you know one of the things we’re kind of excited to do is we’re gonna be working a little bit with you Prav on some of the patient follow up marketing as well. Which I think is going to be a massive part of how you look at trying to… It’s just you know I see it more and more and more and I understand the power that something like that can have and you know its… Instagram’s great but what I’m learning vastly and quickly about all of these is that it will go away and something will take its place.

Prav Solanki: So true.

Daz Singh: And you know it’s we will see at some point within the next 2 or 3 years something else trying to dominate the market.

Prav Solanki: Word of mouth will always be there.

Daz Singh: But yeah, some you can’t change.

Payman: I really enjoyed that.

Daz Singh: It was a real pleasure.

Payman: Thanks for coming all the way from Liverpool for this.

Daz Singh: Nah it’s a pleasure. I haven’t been to London for a few weeks so I thought you know I needed an excuse to come back.

Payman: It’s a real honour. Thanks a lot.

Daz Singh: My pleasure.

Speaker 4: 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.

Payman: Well thank you for listening to the Dental Leaders Podcast. If you listened to the end then hopefully you got some value out of it. If you did please subscribe to the channel and share it with your friends. Maybe feedback, give us a 5 star review. Thanks so much for joining us.

Prav Solanki: Thanks guys massively appreciated and this is all about creating a community where we can share the depth of every individual we interview. So thank you for taking the time out to-

Transcript

Prav Solanki: Hello listeners, and thank you for tuning into the Dental Leaders podcast. Today’s episode, we are interviewing Dr. Adam Thorne. What an interesting conversation we had with this guy. So many lessons from business, life, the ups and downs, both personally, in business, and so much we took away from today’s conversation, Pay, wouldn’t you agree?

Payman: Yeah. So, going from an associate to principal at one of the biggest practises in Harley Street, and then the personal nightmare that he went through-

Prav Solanki: Wow.

Payman: …and came through. So, it’s a really interesting episode though. I think everyone’s going to enjoy it.

Prav Solanki: Yeah. I think it’s going to be a great episode, guys.

Payman: Enjoy it.

Prav Solanki: What is ‘Adam time’? If you’ve got an hour to yourself or a couple of hours to yourself, what is it that you like to do?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Emails.

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

Payman: Really good to have you, Adam.

Dr. Adam Thorne: Thank you.

Payman: Thanks for coming. It’s been a while we’ve been thinking about having you, and I’ve known you for years now. Prav, how long have you known him?

Prav Solanki: 10 years.

Dr. Adam Thorne: Something like that, yes.

Prav Solanki: About 10 years?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Yeah.

Prav Solanki: Yeah.

Payman: But for me, I’ve only ever known you as a Harley Street dentist, and so there probably was a bit before that too. So that’s what this conversation’s going to be about, the story behind you, so we all know sort of the basics of it. So I’m going to start with some quick fire questions, just to get to know you quickly-

Dr. Adam Thorne: Sure.

Payman: …for whoever’s interested in that. So it’s either-or.

Dr. Adam Thorne: Okay.

Payman: Google or Facebook?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Google.

Payman: Minimally invasive or traditional?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Minimally invasive.

Payman: Treatment plan or execution?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Execution.

Payman: Endo or perio?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Oh, tough one.

Payman: Hate them both.

Dr. Adam Thorne: Perio.

Payman: Do you hate them both?

Dr. Adam Thorne: I refer out.

Payman: Both?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Both. Yeah.

Payman: So, perio you prefer.

Dr. Adam Thorne: Perio, prefer. Gums are the foundations.

Payman: Here’s another good one, CQC or GDPR?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Whoa. I don’t really understand either.

Payman: Two loves.

Dr. Adam Thorne: They both benefit, but I’d say preference is CQC.

Payman: Prav, what’s your preference? CQC-

Prav Solanki: GDPR, just because I understand it more.

Payman: Because you’re an expert.

Prav Solanki: Yeah.

Dr. Adam Thorne: Yeah. It’s giving you more work.

Prav Solanki: Overnight expert.

Payman: Spiritual or practical?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Practical.

Payman: Trump or Farage?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Oh, good one. Trump.

Payman: Brexit or Remain?

Dr. Adam Thorne: I was a Remain, but now we’ve got Brexit. You’ve got to deal with it and do it.

Payman: I was going to say: Brexit or Ramone?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Right.

Payman: AI or VR?

Dr. Adam Thorne: AI.

Payman: Restaurants or cooking?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Restaurants.

Payman: What’s your favourite restaurant at the moment?

Dr. Adam Thorne: I went to Sabor last night.

Prav Solanki: Oh yeah?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Yeah, the Spanish place. It was good.

Prav Solanki: Yeah?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Very nice.

Prav Solanki: First time?

Dr. Adam Thorne: First time there, yeah.

Payman: So is Spanish-Mediterranean your favourite sort of cooking?

Dr. Adam Thorne: No, I like Asian fusion, you’d call it.

Payman: Yeah?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Yeah. That’s my favourite.

Payman: So Nobu in that lot?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Nobu in that lot. And there’s a nice one in Chicago called Japanese.

Payman: I don’t think anyone pays for their own meal in Nobu, do they?

Dr. Adam Thorne: No, no.

Payman: That’s the thing. Only Fools and Horses or Ali G?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Ali G.

Payman: Skiing or summer-

Prav Solanki: Is it because I is brown?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Yes.

Payman: Skiing or summer holidays?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Skiing.

Payman: Paralysed by perfection or minimal viable product?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Minimal viable product.

Payman: Rubber dam or rubber neck?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Rubber dam because I’m a dentist.

Payman: Flossing or TePe? By rubber neck… I mean some people, they want to see.

Dr. Adam Thorne: Yeah.

Payman: I know that those two things are opposite but… some people want to see everything. They sort of put their head back and-

Dr. Adam Thorne: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Payman: …see. Are you that [crosstalk 00:04:02], are you?

Dr. Adam Thorne: I mean now… I mean mostly… I don’t know if you know those OptraGate dams.

Payman: Yeah.

Dr. Adam Thorne: You can get some good isolation-

Payman: Without the-

Dr. Adam Thorne: …without getting the full rubber dam and tying it all around with floss.

Payman: Four-handed or lone wolf?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Four-handed.

Payman: Flossing or TePe?

Dr. Adam Thorne: TePe.

Payman: Oral-B or Sonicare?

Dr. Adam Thorne: I’m a Sonicare man.

Payman: Me too.

Dr. Adam Thorne: Yeah.

Payman: Me too. What are you, Prav? You don’t care?

Prav Solanki: Sonicare, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Payman: Yeah.

Prav Solanki: It’s sort of better [crosstalk 00:04:23].

Dr. Adam Thorne: Which end do you use?

Payman: I like that. Patient or customer?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Customer.

Payman: Cosmetic dentistry UK or US?

Dr. Adam Thorne: UK.

Payman: Scorsese or Tarantino?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Good one. Tarantino.

Payman: Authoritarian or touchy-feely?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Touchy-feely.

Payman: Prince or Michael Jackson?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Both legends. Prince.

Payman: Rolex or Apple Watch?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Go Rolex.

Payman: Dyson or Hoover?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Dyson.

Payman: Samsung or Apple?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Apple.

Payman: Yeah, I’ll end on that.

Dr. Adam Thorne: Okay.

Payman: I’ll end on that one. I’ll end on that one. So yeah, we got a little idea about who you are.

Dr. Adam Thorne: Okay.

Payman: Okay, let’s go back then. Lats talk about… all dentists have an idea that they’ll maybe own a practise.

Dr. Adam Thorne: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Payman: Did you always think you were going to be sort of a Harley Street dentist? Or when was the first time that came into the equation?

Dr. Adam Thorne: So, I qualified a few years back. You then do VT which had changed now, but it used to be sort of a year, and I think when you qualify it’s almost like passing a driving test. You’ve got all this knowledge but you haven’t really applied it just yet. Yes, you’ve been on clinic, but you don’t know a lot. And I was lucky to be placed in a VT practise which was mainly private, and that sort of set my focus on what I wanted to do.

Payman: Which town was that?

Dr. Adam Thorne: That was down just outside… well, between Poole and Bournemouth, a place called Ferndown. So, I did that for a year. The guy there I owe a lot to because he sort of set my mind straight and said, “Look, this is private dentistry,” and he knew guys who did a lot of NHS dentistry, had multiple practises but if you… He set my philosophy straight and set me on the right career pathway.

Dr. Adam Thorne: From then, I then spent some other time in some other practises, worked for big corporate, but what I really enjoy is I enjoy the treatment planning and seeing the different cases. And I think basing myself in Harley Street was… you attract a customer who wants to have a smart makeover or you’ve got a look… You take a step back as opposed to sort of… I don’t want to sound patronising, but suburban dentistry where it might be sort of a… you have your regular patient base and you just do a filling or two or a couple of crowns. And I prefer to actually sort of think, and take a step back, and do sort of the holistic treatment planning with a multi-disciplinary team.

Payman: And then even people who decide to go down that West End route, a lot of them are sort of single-handed.

Dr. Adam Thorne: Yeah.

Payman: And you guys were really were the sort of… for me, maybe I’m wrong about this, but the pioneers of the sort of associate led Harley Street practise.

Dr. Adam Thorne: Yeah.

Payman: So what was that? Well, did you guys start… did you start with you and Mark, Mark Hughes?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Yeah, so Mark originally was based in Harley Street and I joined him just over about sort of 10, 12 years ago, and we decided to sort of expand. But we both did a lot of work with Pankey Institute in the US and we worked in multi-disciplinary care, that’s what we sort of looking at.

Dr. Adam Thorne: And I think as you become time, you become more niche, that’s your sort of niche or your special interest, you can’t say ‘specialty’ but that’s what you tend to focus on. So you can’t do everything, and I think that’s where we sort of said, “All right. Well, we’re going to build up a team of multi-disciplinary associates that we can sort of then in-house refer,” and patients or customers do like that. They sort of like to go to one place.

Dr. Adam Thorne: So I might say, “Right, Payman, you need to get your gums sorted and a couple of endos.” And then they’re like, “Oh, can I do that here?”, and yes, and then they’re familiar and it’s a familiar environment, with a lot of great support team and they’re familiar. So although they might be seeing a different specialist to do the actual work, they feel more comfortable and relaxed because they know where they’re going and the patient flow.

Payman: So how many years with just the two of you, and then when did it become this huge building at number 52? You’ve got a beautiful place.

Dr. Adam Thorne: This tanker. Thank you very much.

Payman: Don’t get me wrong, a beautiful place, but how do they go from the two guys to such a giant thing? It was in stages, right?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Yeah. Oh, totally. So we had a sort of two surgery practise. So 10, 12 years ago we had a couple of specialists who worked for us, plus the dontist and the periodontist, Federico Tinti, who’s still with me.

Dr. Adam Thorne: And from there, we sort of were running out of space. And I don’t know how many people know the West End, but it’s all owned by one family, so the de Walden family. So we needed more space, so I ended up acquiring another practise over the road which is on the same sort of philosophy but not fully utilised. So from then we went from two to four chairs-

Payman: Was that the Umbrella-

Dr. Adam Thorne: Umbrella Smiles. Correct, yeah.

Payman: …Smiles. Yeah, okay, I remember that. Yeah.

Dr. Adam Thorne: So, we were at 42 and this was number 11. And then from there… But it was a bit inefficient because we were at two physical locations-

Payman: Two sides, right.

Dr. Adam Thorne: Yeah. I then took another lease on, on the building. We took another chair on, so we were five chairs, but again, at two physical locations. And then my lease was expiring on one of the premises, so that’s when I sort of approached the estate and said, “Look, come on…” And Mark and I had this vision to be able to control the front door, should we say. So, a lot of Harley Street and the old-school kind of practise has that sort of barrier almost with-

Payman: That first receptionist.

Dr. Adam Thorne: The first receptionist. So it’s not controlled by you, and it can be. That’s your first impression and it’s true, first impressions last. So we all needed to have something where we could control the front door, who came in, and then we moved to the new site, 52, in 2013.

Payman: Has it been that long already?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Yeah. So-

Payman: Wow.

Dr. Adam Thorne: …I only know that because the leases are coming to expiry.

Payman: What are the common myths? I mean, a lot of people think Harley Street’s the place you want to end up. What’s the best and the worst thing about being there?

Dr. Adam Thorne: So the best, as I say, is the… I mean the location, it’s a fantastic brand. It’s world renowned. As I say, we attract the patients or the customers who want to have the multi-disciplinary care and really, they may have done a bit of research, their dental IQ is quite good, so you’re already… you’re doing the dentistry you really love doing, and you can find your niche.

Dr. Adam Thorne: The downside is the competition. The competition is huge. Marketing, you have to market yourself very well. If you ever walk down Harley Street all you have on your front door effectively is a plaque with your name on. So you-

Payman: Yeah, and de Walden’s quite strict on that, I remember. Yeah.

Dr. Adam Thorne: De Walden’s very, very strict, yes. So you can’t put things up in the window, A-boards out, so it’s tricky. And with competition being fierce, you often get sort of price wars and various other things.

Payman: So we’re talking online competition, then?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Online competition, but… yeah.

Prav Solanki: So, Adam, in terms of your online strategy, what’s your big one thing that helps you drive the majority of patients through the door?

Dr. Adam Thorne: So it’s the website.

Prav Solanki: Okay.

Dr. Adam Thorne: Undoubtedly. I mean, I’d say having been established for sort of 12 years, we do get a lot of word-of-mouth, but still, 60-70% of our customers come through the website.

Prav Solanki: And what do you think it is about your website, or about a website, that makes you more attractive to say, customer A than your competitor’s website?

Dr. Adam Thorne: So, information. And that’s in two sorts. It’s the written information. So, it’s how they can find out about what certain procedures are, and then case studies or pictures. Pictures do tell what you can deliver.

Prav Solanki: Do you ever get patients coming into practise referencing or quoting specific case studies off your websites or sort of saying that they saw this case, it was similar to theirs and that was the reason they came in?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Yeah, we do. We do get a lot of that. So, “I like the case you produced or showed.” In fact, I’ve got a story of that. So, I mean I did an extension on my property at home a couple of years ago. Well, it’s still sort of on-going. But I live in a Georgian house in South West London, and when I wanted to do this I looked and I chose my architect for… in Google Images I sort of typed ‘the extension to Georgian houses’ and went thorough it and sort of said, “Oh, I like that one, like that one,” and sort of narrowed it down to three architects, one who’s with me now. But it’s… people do sort of reference and say, “Have I got spaced teeth or have I got sort of crooked teeth?”, try and find similar cases and then say, “Well, if Adam can deliver it, I’ll go and see him.”

Payman: Maybe you guys can both put me right on this, yeah, but is it not a vulnerability if your website is your brand that someone can just do a very similar website to you and… you know?

Prav Solanki: So, my take on this is the one thing that’s unique about everyone’s website is their ambassadors, and those are the patient stories, and the individual stories about your case studies. Everyone can say: look, a veneer is a wafer thin shell of whatever that goes over the front of your tooth that changes the shape and the colour of it. You can copy that. You can re-invent it. You can make it sound a different way.

Prav Solanki: But the unique thing about Harley Street Dental Studio when you go online is the depth and breadth of cases on there. You can see the quality of the work. You can see the transformations, the quality of the photography, the emotional videos, all of that’s your intellectual property, and that’s the difference between say, your website and your competitor’s websites.

Prav Solanki: So there’s always that balance of keeping that vehicle moving, right, and making sure that you’re consistently adding to it, that you’re always shooting new videos, you’re always creating new stories, and the great thing I think about the Harley Street Dental Studio website is that you were doing this way before people even had websites.

Dr. Adam Thorne: Yeah.

Prav Solanki: And you’ve continued that, and you’re building up this huge portfolio which I believe is the real reason why patients are saying, “I’ll go and see Adam. I’ll go and see Mark. I’ll come see your clinic and I’ll pay a little bit more than anyone else.”

Dr. Adam Thorne: Yeah.

Prav Solanki: Just on that note, does price ever become an issue at the practise? Is it less of an issue because you’re in Harley Street?

Dr. Adam Thorne: I think that’s a great question though. We look at prices and do a competitor’s price search quite regularly. There’s some products that… it’s a difficult situation. From the supplier they’re trying to push their name out, so for example Invisalign or even Enlighten. And then people compare those products, your price against my price. And that’s the problem.

Dr. Adam Thorne: So if I just take Enlighten, you want to put it out to consumers: the best whitening system, and I whole-heartedly believe that, but… So one may say: well, how can you justify charging X for Enlighten when the guy down the road charges Y? And Invisalign is a big, big thing right now as well.

Payman: Yeah, it’s a difficulty because the bigger the brand the more that’s likely to happen.

Dr. Adam Thorne: That’s certain.

Payman: And I guess for the dentist, trying to explain to a patient that there’s more to it than the brand and all of that, you can’t do that easily online.

Dr. Adam Thorne: Yeah.

Payman: So I do hear you on there.

Dr. Adam Thorne: Yeah.

Payman: Okay.

Dr. Adam Thorne: I mean, it’s sort of going around, so whether someone just throws out that specific treatment or when it’s sort of looking at the whole picture, so we sort of say, “Yes, Enlighten…”, then we sort of spend some time with them and we sort of say, “Well, look [inaudible] whiten then you’ll have some white-spots we can treat,” and so on.

Payman: Yeah.

Prav Solanki: So Adam, I’m a patient and I want to get my teeth straightened.

Dr. Adam Thorne: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Prav Solanki: I want to go from A to B.

Dr. Adam Thorne: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Prav Solanki: Why should I pay you two grand more than the guy down the road?

Dr. Adam Thorne: So, how I’d justify that is if you are in the chair, I mean we try and give immense value and I really do instal this in all my clinicians for that initial consultation. So, we show what you’re getting, so it’s not just the product of Invisalign or another type of brace. We’re seeing you through from A to B to deliver results you want. It’s a very hard conversation for my inquiry handlers initially, but we’re quite competitive in our pricing.

Prav Solanki: And do you come across that quite often, conversations with patients where they’re saying, “Look, there’s a practise down the road doing this same treatment for a thousand pound less than you.”? How do you deal with that conversation when you’re dealing with, well, it’s a product. When you’re dealing with big brands it almost becomes commoditized, doesn’t it?

Dr. Adam Thorne: It is. And-

Prav Solanki: Where it feels like a… How do you deal with that difficulty?

Dr. Adam Thorne: So we try and… building rapport is number one with the patient. So, we’ll try and engage and say, “Okay, look, you may have had that. Can we maybe have a look at the quote to sort of open it up?”, because often some practises, and I think we’re quite competitively priced, but some people then bolt on various bits on top of there, whereas we say, “Well, that’s included.” So it’s to make the patient aware of all of that.

Dr. Adam Thorne: And then it’s just showing the value that we’re going to give them. So it might be that, again, some practises tend to delegate to more junior members of staff. And we’re… so, well, no, you’re seeing your senior clinician or the clinician you’re seeing all the way through with the experience, and we will work until we get the results you’re after.

Prav Solanki: Cool. Do you mind if we take you a few years back? At one point you were a qualified dentist working as an associate in someone else’s practise.

Dr. Adam Thorne: Yeah.

Prav Solanki: At what point in your career did you sort of know, “I’m going to be a business man now.”? At what point did you make that transition between: I’m a clinician working for someone else; I want to run and own my own business?

Prav Solanki: Because running a practise is a bit more than being a good dentist, and so just talk to me a little bit about the thought process that went through it, where maybe you had a defining moment where you knew, “I’m going to be a dentist.”

Dr. Adam Thorne: Sure. So I suppose three or four years out of practise is you’re finding your feet for doing the dentistry, but then you obviously have some sort of frustrations because you’re in a practise which is designed by another guy who has their philosophy or goals. So that probably then harboured that, if I want to go and do dentistry in a specific way then I need to go off and do it on my own. I then worked for a corporate and-

Payman: Which one?

Dr. Adam Thorne: So I was [Dencare] originally, but then Dencare got purchased by Oasis.

Payman: Yeah.

Dr. Adam Thorne: But I was on the clinical and operating board for Dencare and then onto Oasis. So that was a really good experience in terms of I could see sort of how practises ran and different styles of practise, because sometimes the problem with dentistry, I think, is sometimes you’re in a room and you forget, you don’t really open your eyes and you guys might see this, going round to different practises there’s a whole range of practises, whereas working and going round to other practises, and I was sort of a mentor for young dentists, is I could then see that actually there’s a different way to do it, I learnt different management styles, how to read a PNL, how to sort of… [crosstalk]

Payman: Systemize stuff.

Dr. Adam Thorne: Systemize stuff, and that’s key, especially in the big practise we have now.

Payman: Would you say as a recruiter of dentists, would you say you’re a good judge of character? Do you think you’re good at recruiting dentists? I mean, when I think about the people who’ve worked at Harley Street Dental Studio it’s a long list of the famous… our things, don’t you?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Yeah.

Payman: You’ve kind of been there. So, go on, would you say you’re good at that? Or are you the one who does that, or is Mark, or perhaps the both of you?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Yeah. No, we both do it. So, I mean I think dentistry’s a sort of small world and there’s all the jokes there. And you tend to know who’s who in a lot of ways. We’ve, again, like any sort of thing, we’ve now systemized and we’ve got a… quite a methodical approach to our recruitment process and interview process and how we deal with the applicants in that way. But a lot of it is still through word-of-mouth.

Payman: Really? Okay.

Dr. Adam Thorne: Yeah.

Payman: So, let’s say there’s a young dentist who wants to work at your place.

Dr. Adam Thorne: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Payman: You’re telling me it would be better for him to get to know you than apply for your job?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Well, get to know us, but also-

Payman: I guess that goes without saying overall, doesn’t it? Yeah.

Dr. Adam Thorne: I mean, you have to work together at the end of the day as well, so it’s what do we look for is someone with sort of a friendly rapport-building ability, clinically very able, diagnosis is very good as well because that’s key, but obviously the clinical, that’s good [crosstalk 00:20:27]-

Payman: But do you test that in the interview process, any of that stuff, or what do you do?

Dr. Adam Thorne: So we tend to look, and again, with the small world of dentistry is you tend to know that if they’ve done this course with this person or that course then they’re probably got their mind in the right sort of frame, and then we do our sort of portfolio of work which nowadays I think every dentist needs to have.

Payman: Yeah.

Dr. Adam Thorne: And you can’t really justify not having that with sort of digital cameras and so on. So… But we tend to look at that in how we appraise it.

Payman: What’s your pet peeve? What’s your pet peeve about an associate? What the thing that drives you crazy about some associates?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Good question. With people who are just pure specialists is they tend to sometimes get a little bit blinkered on the whole picture. So nowadays patients are very discerning, they do a lot of research and they say, “Right, I need an implant,” or, “I need braces,” or some ones they go specific to the specialist and we have that.

Dr. Adam Thorne: But sometimes the specialist is so focused on the implant, but they’re not looking at the other side of the mouth which might have other bits going on. And I think that’s where Mark and I are in the same boat of how we treatment plan and plan it. And we have looked at maybe a triage system once where they could see us first then we could farm them out and say, “Go and see the gum guy,” or, “Go and see the endodontist,” and then-

Payman: But you didn’t do that?

Dr. Adam Thorne: We didn’t do that because, again, we also… we can deliver the dentistry.

Payman: Yeah. I know. Fair enough.

Prav Solanki: Going back to the question about owning a business.

Dr. Adam Thorne: Sure.

Prav Solanki: You worked in a few private practises, you were on a board. At what point did you think to yourself, “Right, I want to own my own business now.”? And when that happened how different was it from what you expected and in what way?

Dr. Adam Thorne: So I think the tipping point is you lack a bit of information so you sort of say, “Right, I’ve learned various skills and now I’m not really advancing myself.” So you need to be able to push yourself only, and I got to a certain point where I sort of said, “Right, I’ve done the board. I’ve done the young dentists. I’ve done the mentoring. I’ve looked after sort of other practises, and I’m not really going anywhere now. I’m almost sort of hit a bit of a ceiling. So now the next step is, let’s make the leap and actually own a practise.”

Dr. Adam Thorne: The difference from how I thought it would be to actually sort of running it is there’s always… being in the service industry there’s always little issues going on. So you try and sort of systemize it. You think, “Right, I’ve got great managers in place, I’ve got great support staff. This ship should just float easily and I can go and not have a week away, a holiday.” But there’s a thing, “Oh, what’s going on?”

Prav Solanki: Do you find yourself constantly fire-fighting?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Not necessarily fire-fighting but there’s always a little issue. “Prav Solanki’s on the phone and he’s bust us up with cuts. We’re really pissed. What are we going to do with it?”

Payman: I’ve got a friend, he’s looking at opening a nuclear power station and he was telling me that’s less complicated than dealing with people.

Dr. Adam Thorne: Yeah.

Payman: People in the end, there’s such a vast range of things that can happen, and that, we’re talking patients and staff.

Dr. Adam Thorne: Patients and staff.

Payman: How many staff have you got?

Dr. Adam Thorne: So there we’ve got about, well, 14 staff but then about the same number of clinicians and five or six hygienists. But-

Payman: That’s a lot of people.

Prav Solanki: A lot of people.

Dr. Adam Thorne: Yeah, it’s a lot of management. But again, this is being a service industry and you’re very focused on the patient. If, in another industry, if someone’s off sick you just leave the work on the desk and they can deal with it tomorrow. Whereas when you’re sort of hands-on and we need the nurse, you need the coordinator and someone’s off sick it stresses everyone out and then that’s when it all sort of… mini eruptions happen.

Payman: And 14 clinicians, not all there the whole time, right?

Dr. Adam Thorne: No, no.

Payman: They’re part-time?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Yeah.

Payman: How many dental chairs have you got?

Dr. Adam Thorne: So, eight dental chairs at the moment. We’re about to put a ninth.

Payman: Wow.

Dr. Adam Thorne: Yeah. So, over six floors.

Payman: For anyone who’s never been there I would definitely go visit if, I don’t know, if Adam’s cool with that.

Dr. Adam Thorne: Yeah. No, no, that’s… Just inviting people in, lining up at the door.

Payman: Just visit and have a look.

Dr. Adam Thorne: Like one of those NHS… I’ve just opened an NHS list and they’re queuing round the block.

Payman: Visit and have a look because it’s just-

Dr. Adam Thorne: Thank you.

Payman: …beautiful. I mean I stopped doing dentistry and every time I go there I feel like, “Oh, I want to be a dentist again.” It’s like one of those feelings. And you get all the clichés about Harley Street being an address instead of a qualification, but it’s nice. It’s nice to see someone who’s gone for it in such a big way. And whenever I go there I always think you’re obviously reinvesting hugely.

Dr. Adam Thorne: Yeah.

Payman: Have you got a five year, ten year plan, or did you have? Or… Tell us about that. Are you a big planner?

Dr. Adam Thorne: So, yes we are. I mean, we sort of tend to look at sort of three to five years of where we are. I mean, I’m early 40s now, so I’ve still got a few years left doing this. So I haven’t got necessarily an exit route. I mean obviously if someone came with a big check I might look at that. But-

Prav Solanki: Just for our listeners out there, if you have a big check and you want a lovely practise in Harley Street.

Payman: Any Russian billionaires.

Dr. Adam Thorne: No, we tend to look at that and obviously you have to keep up with where we are and where we position ourselves on the market, you have to keep ahead of the game, so we do have to have the latest technologies.

Dr. Adam Thorne: Again, consumers and patients are discerning with the internet. And the internet’s a double-edged sword because people research things so they have a… what we call a ‘high dental IQ’ which is good, but then sometimes they have the horror stories that go along with it. So you have to allay those fears. But people love new things as well and new ideas so as a clinician we have to juggle that it has the justification behind it that will deliver those results but have the new technology to go alongside it.

Payman: What was your answer to my question about touchy-feely or authoritarian? Did I ask that question?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Touchy-feely.

Payman: So, go on. How do you manage teams? How do you manage people? It is you, isn’t it? You’re kind of the person looking at your practise, you’re the person handling that side of things.

Dr. Adam Thorne: Yeah, so communication’s the key. And the problem I have with so many clinicians and someone may be in there for two days, someone may be in for four days, is how you roll out the information, whereas as a small practise, when I’ve had small practises it is you can sort of get the team together over a lunch time and say, “Right, this is our plan for Monday. We’re going to roll it out.” Whereas ours is a bit of a tanker, to use a cliché.

Dr. Adam Thorne: And then you have to sort of roll the information out and then there’s an email goes out to everyone, and then someone answers back to ‘reply all’ saying, “I don’t like it,” and then you’re batting against it. So… But that’s key.

Dr. Adam Thorne: The hardest thing I find also is time, being able to sort of support staff members. So you have to sort of be aware, be available to staff or team members. But they do value that. So if you give them support and you’re quite humble and you sort of say, “This is how I’d do it,” So, people make mistakes and I’m happy for people to make mistakes just as long as they admit to it and then they correct it. So I don’t mind if that happens, and then I can try and just train them and show them how they can learn from experience.

Prav Solanki: Adam, if you could turn back the clock and do Harley Street all over again what would be different?

Payman: That’s a great question.

Dr. Adam Thorne: Good question. I suppose I’d have probably gone bigger earlier, okay.

Prav Solanki: How?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Just I mean, we sort of expanded and we sort of waited for a lease to expire and just carried on and I think we lost some efficiency by having two sites, or definitely did that. So I’d have sort of jumped in. Obviously when you’re a bit younger you’ve got a bit more energy so you can do things and really drive it forward.

Prav Solanki: And just, did the reason you didn’t push big earlier, is it because you’re risk averse or Mark’s risk averse or you were being cautious?

Dr. Adam Thorne: I think it’s more just sort of… you get to a certain stage and then you sort of find your feet, and then you like to sort of have some stability and then you sort of grow on there.

Prav Solanki: Sure.

Dr. Adam Thorne: Especially managing a team and when you’re managing or treating people you need to have some stability, so you can’t be so reckless but also you have to have that growth in mind.

Prav Solanki: So you wanted to scale up faster, ideally, if you could turn the clock back, knowing what you know now you would have just gone for it big time?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Yeah.

Prav Solanki: What advice would you give to somebody who’s just bought their first practise, has got visions of growing, scaling, a little bit wet behind the ears when it comes to business systems, processes, what’s the best bit of advice you can give, not from a clinical but from a business perspective of growing a practise?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Sure. I’d say find yourself a mentor who’s done something very similar and that doesn’t necessarily have to be in the field of dentistry. Business is business and there’s a lot of sort of parallels with other…

Dr. Adam Thorne: I’ll tell you actually, correcting myself, service industry business because there are a lot of parallels and you can find that and people… we make mistakes on a daily basis but we correct them and learn from them. And experience is key.

Payman: Did you have a mentor?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Not a one that’s seen me through, but at different stages I had sort of-

Payman: That first guy in Poole.

Dr. Adam Thorne: First guy in Poole.

Payman: What was his name?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Kevin Durant.

Payman: Shout out.

Dr. Adam Thorne: Yeah. And then one of my business partners now, [Jacksy 00:29:27], has come on and he’s 10, 12 years ahead of me, and he’s very good on managing operations and cost control and he’s come from an NHS background and running practises, but that’s helped with nailing down sort of costs and so on and so forth. So, that helps and we now tend to have a set up where I tend to do the front end, some of the marketing, bringing the patients in and clinicians and he tends to do the sort of… shall we say the backend, and looking after the figures, and monitoring suppliers and so on.

Prav Solanki: So what would you… you’ve got obviously different team members, business partners, you’ve got yourself, you’ve got Jacksy, you’ve got Mark. What would you say each of your unique abilities are?

Prav Solanki: Because one of the things that I find especially being in business with different business partners in different businesses, I feel we’ve all got unique abilities that we excel at. Let’s start with what you feel your unique ability is and then onto your business partners and how you all contribute to the running of the business.

Dr. Adam Thorne: Sure. Yeah. So my skill or what I have, what I bring to that, is growth. Initially it was sort of acquiring other practises. We’ve had other practises alongside Harley Street, as you know, in London that we’ve bought and sold. And so it’s growth, bringing the team together, the marketing and the planning or sales of dentistry, as in our dental products and treatments, [inaudible] the team along.

Dr. Adam Thorne: I’d say Mark is a fantastic clinician and he is also very good at the sales, but he tends to focus a little bit more now on the clinical ability, his clinical work. And then Jacksy, who’s come in, tends to be a little bit more on the operational, handling suppliers and so on, and sometimes you need to be a bit tough with suppliers.

Prav Solanki: So would you say in summary you’re more of a nurture people type person who can help nurture all the relationships in the practise with a focus on marketing? Mark is more sort of clinical or clinical lead, would you say?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Yeah. Clinical lead, yeah.

Prav Solanki: Clinical lead. And Jacksy’s more sort of in the background, getting the cost down from various suppliers and stuff and running the financials of the business, almost like a CFO.

Dr. Adam Thorne: Correct, yeah. No.

Prav Solanki: Yeah, cool.

Payman: How about clinically, what kind of dentistry excites you and doesn’t?

Dr. Adam Thorne: I love treatment planning.

Payman: Oh.

Dr. Adam Thorne: I love… yeah, yeah, the initial consultation and being able to take a step back and saying, “Right, that’s happened because of this,” and then how we can sort of plan it and pull everything together. It’s almost like a conductor. Hands-on wise I like doing… I do a lot of Invisalign and do a lot of veneers and bonding.

Payman: How many days a week do you actually practise?

Dr. Adam Thorne: So I’m between three and four clinical at the moment and that sort of tends to vary with numbers of associates that are in or… and so on, or filling spaces. I mean with a large team you do get people away on holiday, so I can sometimes step up and step down.

Payman: How long ago did you go to three or four?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Well-

Payman: Ever worked six days a week?

Dr. Adam Thorne: No, no, no, no. So every time we take on a new premises or growth then you-

Payman: Then seven days a week?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Yeah, seven days a week, and then you try and scale it back a little bit.

Payman: Because as a dentist I remember when I cut down from five to four I actually became a much better dentist, enjoyed it much more and didn’t see any drop. I know it’s become a bit of a cliché to say this now, but I see a lot of people working long, long hours.

Dr. Adam Thorne: Yeah.

Payman: [inaudible 00:33:00].

Dr. Adam Thorne: Yeah.

Payman: 9:00 till 9:00 and so forth. But how do you feel? I mean because you’ve recently cut down so much or…

Dr. Adam Thorne: Yeah, I mean I’ve cut down sort of a couple of years ago, but I think it’s time and like you said, I think you were going to say that you didn’t necessarily see a drop in income-

Payman: No.

Dr. Adam Thorne: …and it gave you a time and you do need time to sort of sit back and think and that’s true from the initial patient consultation as well, and I think a lot of people try and rush and see as many patients and it’s almost like a badge, “Hey, I saw 40 patients today.”

Payman: Yeah.

Dr. Adam Thorne: But you’re actually more productive if you see maybe between five and eight, spend some time with them. People want to be understood, be heard, and they feel if you’re spending time with them then they’re more likely to invest in their teeth and take up the treatment.

Payman: What’s a mistake you made that you would give yourself… like if you were giving a talk to someone else who’s going into this process. I know he’d be your competitor, strictly, but what’s a mistake that you made that you wouldn’t make again?

Dr. Adam Thorne: I think sometimes we’ve been too ambitious and sort of take on a bit more and I think when we moved into… we had this great vision, and it was a vision, to move into this new site in 2013.

Dr. Adam Thorne: And we spent a lot of time planning it, but we were in sort of almost like you see, you try and work to a budget and then that sort of goes out the window. And I think we should have been a bit more focused and strict on nailing down the costs initially with that.

Payman: On the building costs?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Building costs and leases and squeeze suppliers a little bit more, because I think we overpaid on some things. It was almost like sort of when you get married you have a budget and then the last week you’re like, “Get out the check book, I don’t care, just get it done.”

Payman: Yeah.

Prav Solanki: Yeah.

Payman: I mean, the building’s such a pain, isn’t it?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Yeah.

Payman: I mean, there’s always something.

Dr. Adam Thorne: Yeah.

Payman: That’s whatever…. And okay, and what’s the best decision you ever made in your professional life?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Going out on my own and building a practise that I’m really, really proud of.

Payman: In the West End?

Dr. Adam Thorne: In the West End, yeah.

Payman: Yeah. So you’d really say that, would you, if someone was thinking about it now, would you say, “Yeah, the West End’s a good idea.”? Because I speak to people on both sides of that coin, people who say it’s actually one of the hardest places to make a success-

Dr. Adam Thorne: Yeah.

Payman: …and kind of what you’re saying.

Dr. Adam Thorne: I would just take a step back and say: what kind of dentistry do you like doing? And if you like doing the complex cases like we do and we get, then pitch yourself in the West End or in maybe a large city centre, say the centre of Manchester, or centre of Bristol, or Edinburgh. If you prefer to maybe just run the business and have your own business and that’s a sort of… almost a lifestyle business, shall we say, where you’ve got a nice three or four chair practise, maybe look at sort of a location you’re more familiar with outside of London.

Prav Solanki: Adam, let’s talk work-life balance-

Dr. Adam Thorne: Sure.

Prav Solanki: …and switch off. I’m a big believer that switching off both physically and mentally from work enables you to accelerate quicker, but how hard do you find it to switch off when you go back home at the end of the day? Or your emails are coming through to your phone or your Facebook messages from patients or associates, just talk to me about it. Do you find it hard to switch off and do you switch off?

Dr. Adam Thorne: It is very, very hard, especially and like you said, with the size of the practise and then being in the service industry there’s always something that’s going on. I find the easiest way to switch off is doing… I mean, one of your quick-fire questions was: skiing or summer? And I love a summer holiday, but skiing because you actually… you’re just-

Payman: You’re going to fall.

Dr. Adam Thorne: …there for skiing. Yeah.

Payman: You’re going to fall if you don’t pay attention. Yeah.

Dr. Adam Thorne: Because, yeah, but you’re focused on, “I’ve got to get down this mountain,” and you can just forget about everything, and it’s one of the best ways to switch off and that’s why I love it.

Dr. Adam Thorne: But otherwise some sort of sport or doing those, and as we get older it gets harder because recovery times are harder, but that’s the way to sort of almost just release it. But it’s totally true, if you can clear your head you think a lot more freely and then it gives you more opportunity.

Prav Solanki: Have you tried or looked into anything like meditation or something, any techniques for clearing your mind, just sort of switching off in the moment, so to speak?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Yeah, I mean I tend to… I try to run a couple of times a week and try and do that, and maybe one or two yoga sessions I try and do, to sort of just… which is like meditation-

Prav Solanki: Sure.

Dr. Adam Thorne: …but again, just focusing on something else so you can just try and put away things. But with a couple of young kids it’s quite hard.

Prav Solanki: Sure. Tell me about your kids. Just describe them to me, personalities.

Dr. Adam Thorne: Sure. So I’ve got two young boys aged now two and seven, so they’re great. I think boys are easier to handle than young girls, but you might correct me on that.

Payman: Hmm, yeah. Well, yeah, my boy is easier to handle than my girl, but I don’t know if it’s a rule.

Dr. Adam Thorne: I think boys, if they’re hungry or they’re tired, then they’re grumpy so you just… And it’s the same as we get older.

Payman: Yeah.

Dr. Adam Thorne: So no, they’re good but, no, I lost my wife just a couple of years ago to quite an aggressive cancer, so I’m looking after them, bringing them up on my own. But they’re doing well. They keep me focused, they keep me grounded. So, that’s quite hard.

Prav Solanki: Do they motivate you? Are they your reason for your ambition and your drive?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Yeah, I think so. I mean, at the moment it’s helping them sort of develop and grow but obviously I do want to sort of give them something that they’re proud of.

Payman: I think, I see you were pretty ambitious before they came along as well though-

Dr. Adam Thorne: Yeah.

Payman: …that’s from what I remember.

Dr. Adam Thorne: Yeah, yeah.

Payman: And I was laughing a bit when you said ‘risk averse’ because that’s the last thing I would describe you as, risk averse, but with Melissa a couple of years ago how did you handle it? Did you throw yourself into work? Or…

Dr. Adam Thorne: No, I tried to keep some normality going, and it is almost like an escape. So I tried to keep the schools going for the boys. I mean my youngest was only seven months when she passed away, but my oldest boy Jack, he was five at the time, so I kept that normality going.

Dr. Adam Thorne: And then for me it was almost some sort of… it was a focus, so there was a benefit to doing it. I mean things went through my head of, “Do I sell up and focus on the boys for a few years?”, and then I thought, “Well, actually, I’ve spent a lot of time building this thing and kids will grow up and then what do you do?” And you… Oh, I didn’t really want to start back from square one, but it gave me a good focus and helped keep my sanity almost, sometimes.

Payman: That’s interesting, isn’t it? That work, which is the thing you’re running away from sometimes, can actually keep your sanity.

Dr. Adam Thorne: Yeah.

Payman: And the kids, do you talk to them about Melissa or not?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Yeah, oh, regularly. I mean, my eldest, he has some sort of therapy sessions as well to try and… We all deal with things in different ways and being a bit older and a bit wiser, you can sort of handle maybe things, and I don’t know whether I’ve handled it correctly. I mean I feel I’ve stayed quite focused and quite positive, but I don’t want to put the way I deal with grief or other problems, expect my son to do the same. So I’m trying to explore all opportunities or options for him. But no, we regularly talk about it and keep up memories, and there’s a memory box that we have and we get out occasionally and talk about things and remember the good times.

Prav Solanki: What’s the toughest thing about being a single parent bringing up two young boys? Because I know if my wife goes away for the day, leaves me with the kids, [crosstalk] it’s a hell of a lot harder than going to work. It’s challenging. It’s so hard.

Prav Solanki: So I couldn’t possibly imagine being in your position and doing what you do, running a successful business, doing the best for your kids and balancing the two. I mean, what’s the hardest thing about bringing the boys up?

Dr. Adam Thorne: I think it’s the planning. Yeah, well two things actually. The planning, you have to be super slick with the planning, especially I mean we’ve just come off the back of summer holidays and it’s sort of like, wow, we’ve got through it and I feel like we survived. As any parent out there knows.

Prav Solanki: Yeah, any parent knows that.

Dr. Adam Thorne: So that was a logistical challenge, and then the second thing is to sort of… switching off and like you mentioned earlier, sort of I might finish and leave the office at sort of 5:30, 6 o’clock.

Prav Solanki: Sure.

Dr. Adam Thorne: Get back home. I have sort of a day nanny at the moment, but get back home at 7:00 and then the kids are sort of so pleased to see you but then you’ve got to sort of do all the story time and so on and spend… They take… and I love giving the energy to it, but then it’s 9 o’clock before you actually get any ‘Adam time’. And then you’re up again in the morning and dealing with it.

Prav Solanki: So what is ‘Adam time’ if you’ve got an hour to yourself or a couple of hours to yourself, what is it that you like to do?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Emails. No, joking. No, again, a bit of sport, I think.

Prav Solanki: Okay.

Dr. Adam Thorne: So, doing that. So just to sort of get out there and I think it’s the only time I can really switch off, is when you’re sort of on a run or something or doing some gym or something like that.

Prav Solanki: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Payman: What would you have been if you weren’t a dentist?

Dr. Adam Thorne: So, if I could be anything I think probably a professional footballer or professional sportsperson but-

Payman: Sure, but if you didn’t have that particular talent. I don’t know. I mean-

Dr. Adam Thorne: Very diplomatic.

Payman: …it’s a valid answer. It’s a valid answer.

Dr. Adam Thorne: Yeah. So, I’d run a service industry. You could run… you know what, there’s a lot of parallels to things like hairdressing.

Payman: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’ve always thought that.

Dr. Adam Thorne: And I think hairdressing’s almost dentistry without the equipment.

Payman: Yeah.

Dr. Adam Thorne: And our equipment is so cost heavy.

Payman: As dentists came from barbers-

Dr. Adam Thorne: Yeah.

Payman: …back in the day, really.

Dr. Adam Thorne: Exactly. So you could almost run a chain and I’ve, as you guys know, I had some practise in London, so Mark and I were looking at running a group of practises and then with my personal situation we scaled that back. But you could run a successful group of hair salons, I think, and without all the sort of expense of equipment.

Payman: I was listening to an interview with the guy from Zappos, you know the online shoe…

Dr. Adam Thorne: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Payman: They’re obviously famous for customer service and all that. And he was saying he doesn’t like shoes, he doesn’t know anything about shoes but he knows all about customer service. And it’s really interesting, isn’t it?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Yeah.

Payman: I mean the service industry, I find that one of the challenges of it is recruitment for it, because it’s hard to know for sure if people want to give service.

Dr. Adam Thorne: Yeah.

Payman: And it’s a state of mind that I’m not sure you can instil, like it’s and attitude.

Dr. Adam Thorne: Exactly, yeah.

Payman: But some people want to be of service and they’re happiest being of service and others aren’t.

Dr. Adam Thorne: Yeah.

Payman: And finding those people is the key thing, I’ve found, in the service industry.

Dr. Adam Thorne: I like people who are humble and they listen, and it’s the old cliché but you have two ears and one mouth and not try and sort of state their case and push it forward. And they tend to make, as long as they can deliver the dentistry, they make very, very good dentists because they get to know the patient, they build the rapport and then there’s a great relationship from there.

Payman: What was your hardest day in your professional life? I’m sure there have been a few.

Dr. Adam Thorne: I think sitting finals is not a great experience.

Payman: No, [inaudible 00:44:31]. But any stories where you’ve… practise stories, of course you had Melissa and all that, but I’m talking about when you’re building a business or something, something went wrong and… terrible moment-

Dr. Adam Thorne: I think when we moved into the new site and we were quite heavily geared up at that stage and then we had a flood and the whole sort of… everything goes out of action. You think, “God, I’ve just bought that server and I’ve just bought that [Telecom] system and now-”

Payman: It all got ruined by the flood?

Dr. Adam Thorne: All got ruined.

Payman: Oh!

Dr. Adam Thorne: And then you’re chasing it and then you’re fighting insurance companies and you think, “I’m up against it already and I’m now another 20K potentially in [crosstalk 00:45:08]-”

Payman: I haven’t even started yet.

Dr. Adam Thorne: Exactly.

Payman: Yeah, that would qualify. What are five things you wish you knew earlier? Forget five, just a few things you wish you knew earlier.

Dr. Adam Thorne: Sure. Slow down to be more productive.

Payman: Oh, yeah. Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Dr. Adam Thorne: When you’re treating people. So it’s not the numbers you get through it’s spending some time with them and building it. Occlusions obviously a big key. You’ve got to get your occlusion right and for longevity. Touch wood I haven’t had to-

Payman: Occlusion’s a funny thing, isn’t it? The more you go into it the more questions.

Dr. Adam Thorne: Yeah, yeah, I know. I think people make a sometimes a bit too much of a call on it.

Payman: Yeah.

Dr. Adam Thorne: And then maybe from experience you learn sort of what works and what doesn’t work.

Payman: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Dr. Adam Thorne: But that’s key to [crosstalk 00:45:55].

Payman: But yeah, you’re right, not knowing about it is a giant error. That’s the thing. Yeah.

Dr. Adam Thorne: Yeah. I’d say orthodontic approach, I wish I’d done a bit more orthodontics initially. I’ve done a lot now but-

Payman: You studied in Bristol?

Dr. Adam Thorne: I was in Bristol.

Payman: Was it strong on orthodontics?

Dr. Adam Thorne: It was strong on orthodontics but again, that may be the way the market’s changed now. So I mean, I, gosh, 10 or 15 years ago we used a prep tooth till the cows came home. And now there’s a lot more orthodontic and people are happier for conservative treatment even if it takes a bit longer, and wearing braces is much, much more acceptable among the adults.

Payman: Yeah. That’s about it?

Dr. Adam Thorne: That’s about it. I mean, my tips would be: make sure you have loops, a light, camera, photograph everything. Photographing is key, if you photograph it’s really… you can really sort of self-appraise. You can put it up on the screen. It’s a great education tool to the patient. It obviously helps you ethically sell things, you don’t need to sort of… I sometimes put some photographs up on the screen of an occlusal shot of their teeth and then they say, “Oh, I don’t like that. Can we change that? And I don’t like this. Can we change that?” And you’ve already sold some dentistry there. But yeah, but also photograph after and then you can sort of say, “Well, maybe I should have moved that a little bit more or polish that a little bit more, or maybe that veneer’s just a little bit too off.” You learn from that experience.

Payman: If you met your 23 year old self, the day after finals self, what would you tell yourself? What sort of…

Dr. Adam Thorne: I’d say go and do a year sort of learning the industry in the right practise like I was lucky to do, and then from there do a nice balance of courses, but again in the experience maybe for about three or four years and then look at where you really want to go, what kind of dentistry you want to do, and if it is in the West End treating complex cases then take the plunge and go for it because you’re young.

Payman: So what, you’d tell your younger self to do exactly what you did?

Dr. Adam Thorne: If he wanted to do that!

Payman: But I mean-

Dr. Adam Thorne: Train to be a footballer.

Payman: Yeah. No, with a bit of hindsight is there anything that-

Dr. Adam Thorne: I think obviously-

Payman: Would you just say, “Listen, go for it.”?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Yeah, it’s going to be all right and get yourself a mentor. Just go for it and build that big practise earlier on.

Prav Solanki: We’re all here for a short period of time, right?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Yeah.

Prav Solanki: Life is short.

Dr. Adam Thorne: Yeah.

Prav Solanki: What would you like to be remembered for?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Clinical, in terms of professional here, nationally famous for the clinic that we delivered fantastic care to the patient in terms of dentistry and fantastic sort of team environment.

Prav Solanki: So, you’re on your death bed and someone comes up to you and says, “Adam, you had a renowned nationally recognised clinic.” Is there anything else?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Me?

Prav Solanki: Yeah.

Dr. Adam Thorne: Personally?

Prav Solanki: Personally. How much does that mean to you in the whole-

Payman: Your legacy.

Prav Solanki: …picture?

Dr. Adam Thorne: The legacy.

Prav Solanki: Yeah, your legacy.

Dr. Adam Thorne: I mean that’s my professional… I’d like to mentor people as well. So, a great teacher, supporter and obviously just the boys, my kids have done well for themselves and, yeah, I think that’s it.

Prav Solanki: Cool.

Payman: How much of progress do you think is down to luck and how much is down to effort and intelligence and all of those?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Splitting the three. So, I mean I think you have to be switched on, especially in our field, you have to be able to multitask. So, and what I do, you’re treating patients and they’re demanding patients, and they’re quite rightly, but because of where we put ourselves, but then you have a sort of five minute space between them and someone comes and says, “Oh, Enlighten Smiles are on the line because he was less sore,” or something.

Dr. Adam Thorne: Yeah, to sort be able to switch and juggle between suppliers and pushing things forward. So, multitask is a big thing. So you have to be intelligent and we’re able to do that. But then hard work. It’s hard work, and there’s no short-cut.

Dr. Adam Thorne: A bit of luck, yeah, I mean I think you make your luck and it’s also finding the right people at the right time. If you sort of want to go and do something, you give yourself a goal, that person will come into your life. And that seems a bit sort of spiritual, but you do find that, I want to go and do stuff and you’re researching things or looking at different things and then someone pops up and then before you know it you’ve got a mentor or sort of a guide.

Payman: Let’s finish it off with like a Desert Island Disc type question type thing. If your house was on fire and you had your family and all that, what’s the one thing you would rescue?

Dr. Adam Thorne: Probably a laptop.

Prav Solanki: Yeah.

Payman: Not bad. Not bad. It’s been brilliant.

Prav Solanki: It’s been great.

Payman: I enjoyed it.

Prav Solanki: It’s been great. [crosstalk] Yeah, yeah, yeah, it has.

Dr. Adam Thorne: Thanks for inviting me.

Payman: Thanks a lot for coming in [inaudible 00:51:00].

Dr. Adam Thorne: Appreciate it.

Payman: Thanks, Adam.

Prav Solanki: Thanks, Adam.

Payman: It’s been brilliant. Thank you. Bye bye.

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

Prav Solanki: Thanks for listening, guys. Hope you enjoyed today’s episode. Make sure you tune in for future episodes. Subscribe in iTunes or Google Play or whatever platform it is. You know, we really, really appreciate it if you would-

Payman: Give us a six star rating.

Prav Solanki: Six star rating. That’s what I always leave my Uber driver.

Payman: Thanks-

 

Transcript

Prav Solanki: Hey guys, and welcome to the Dental Leaders Podcast. Thanks for tuning in. And today we have the pleasure of speaking to Mark Hughes, a guy who needs no introduction, a guy who founded Harley Street Dental Studio, probably one of the most famous practises in the UK. Interesting conversations with him of how he first started out in cosmetic dentistry in the early days, what it was like back then, getting married, a real family man, really resonates with me in terms of we … We’ve had conversations about the relationship he’s got with his kids and I’ve got with mine and they really ring some trees. I’ve been working with Mark for well over a decade now, so I know him really well. But I think as we’ve said before, you truly get to know and understand the inner values of somebody when you sit down and have an hour long conversation with them over a table like we did today Pay.

Payman: Yeah, for me, it just shows the power of the format. The free format. We go into these conversations without any agenda and so what comes out of it is lovely. Both of us have known Mark for 10 plus years and had dinners with him, had been to his practise and all of that. But when you just sit and just talk you find out all sorts of things. I had no idea by his history in Australia, so many things. Lovely guy, lovely conversation. Enjoy it guys.

Prav Solanki: You’re going to enjoy this one guys.

Mark Hughes: I have planned all weekend, I was carrying a little bottle of champagne in my pocket, it poured with rain the entire weekend. So all of my hotspots to go down on one knee were just totally ruined. The end of the weekend was coming. I was panicking more and more and eventually managed to get down to the river side to the side of the sand and she literally turned around and said, “Get on with it. Please.”

Speaker 4: 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.

Payman: Mark, thanks for doing this. We’ve known each other a while, long while. It’s good to have you. The conversations we’ve had so far have gone into motivations behind the things you’ve done and so on. But let’s just start with the backstory, where were you born? Where did you grow up? Where did you qualify? All of that.

Mark Hughes: So I was born in Derry in Northern Ireland, right at the turn of the decade, 1970 in the middle of all the troubles, and my parents at 10 years old decided enough was enough and off we went to Dublin. So I went to secondary school there and I went to Trinity College in Dublin and did my dental there.

Payman: It’s cool.

Mark Hughes: Yeah, it was. And a fantastic place for fun and games. So life at Trinity was wonderful, right in the heart of Dublin. After five and a half years I didn’t really want to leave, and in those days everybody went to the UK. So it was over to England for a job, work on the NHS, earn a bit of money, come back home at some point. That was the plan in 1992. It was before the Celtic Tiger, so there wasn’t even that incentive to come home based on economic welfare, but people still usually came home at some point. And a few stayed in the UK.

Prav Solanki: So just going back to your childhood Mark, just like your earliest memories being brought up, mom and dad, what was being a kid like? What were your memories of being brought up like if you can?

Mark Hughes: My first memory was my brother being born, I was two and a half. The very next one after that was literally avoiding an explosion in the supermarket by about 20 seconds. So we left our local supermarket, my brother was in a pram I was four, next thing we’re flat on our faces and we just left the building that the IRA put a bomb in.

Payman: Jeez.

Mark Hughes: Yeah. So I had an interesting childhood but surrounded by guns and the army.

Prav Solanki: Was that a constant theme growing up, did that become normality?

Mark Hughes: Until the age of 10, 11, yeah, absolutely. My primary school was located in no-man’s land between the British Army checkpoint in Derry and the Irish border checkpoint, a lovely little town called Muff. And we had to cross the British Army checkpoint every morning to go to school.

Payman: My dad studied in Belfast, in the 50s. And he became the president of the students’ union because he was neither Catholic no Protestant.

Mark Hughes: He fell between two stools.

Payman: Yeah.

Mark Hughes: Yeah. So that was an interesting upbringing. My grandfather was in the judiciary. So, while he was still in active service, he had police guards and police radios, and then the hunger strikes happened and all the violence reached a peak and my parents just said, “Look, this is too risky for your future and why would you want a teenage life surrounded by this where you couldn’t go anywhere or do anything or have any freedoms?” Cousins lived in Dublin. So off we went.

Prav Solanki: Oh, and just a one brother?

Mark Hughes: One little brother. He’s in Australia.

Prav Solanki: Okay.

Mark Hughes: Yeah, like you.

Prav Solanki: So you were Catholic?

Mark Hughes: Yeah. But my father was a Presbyterian. So my parents were mixed religion. And we were sort of raised Catholic, but we sort of were allowed to be a bit Protestant at the same time. One brother the question my father had contraception.

Payman: And were you a swotty kid.

Mark Hughes: I wasn’t so swotty. Certainly not in primary school. But I managed to get through quite well. I think when I ended up deciding I wanted to study for something like trying to get into dental school then I did become a bit swotty. Although, like most teenage boys in Ireland at the age of 14 and 15, you end up in your first pub. So there were distractions from 15 onwards, and I guess I didn’t study as hard as I should have done or could have done when I got into dental school at Trinity.

Prav Solanki: So what? At the age of 14, 15, were you pretty much clear in your career path that you wanted to be a dentist? What was the thought process? And the influence that-

Mark Hughes: The why dentistry?

Prav Solanki: -you had at that young age.

Mark Hughes: So again, it’s like everything in life, you’re a product of your upbringing and your environment to a certain extent. And in those days, the equivalent of a grammar school in Ireland, there were schools that were run by priests, nuns or religious orders, and they were in essence factories to get working and middle class boys into professional life. So you were either going to be a doctor, a dentist, a lawyer, an accountant, something professional. And if you were the younger brother or the youngest brother, you’re probably going to be pushed into the priesthood. I looked at all the options and in those days as well, I was young. I was a late June baby. I was very young for my year, especially when we transition from Northern Ireland to Southern Ireland, five years secondary school, I was doing my Leaving Cert which is the equivalent of the A levels at 16.

Mark Hughes: So I had to decide at 15 what my pathway was. I looked at the perspectives for Trinity for medicine and dentistry. I looked at the long term career pathway in medicine and I went, “No, way.” I liked the idea of being independent after undergrad, being able to go out into the working world and do something for yourself. So I chose dentistry.

Payman: Pretty young age to have to make these decisions.

Mark Hughes: Yeah, it was and I think there … I had a conversation with my mother at 19 where I decided I wanted to go down a different pathway. And that was an interesting conversation. Because in those days, going to Trinity you had to pay fees. My parents were paying thousands of pounds for my education, whereas in the UK, it would have been free.

Prav Solanki: How did that conversation go?

Mark Hughes: I told her at 19 and it was dental school, medical … Sorry, clinical started and it was all getting a bit much for me and I was only a child really.

Prav Solanki: Sure.

Mark Hughes: And I had fascinations to be a filmmaker and a screenwriter. So I came home, told her I wanted to quit. I’d had enough. And instead of me being the one upset, she completely burst into tears and said, “Look, this is something that we were very proud of you for and we’re more than halfway there and you’re really good at it, don’t throw it all away.” So I came to my senses. And the interesting thing about that was, I think, creative juices that weren’t developed at school, because like I said, we were on this professional factory pathway. My art teacher at school was a nun and art was a drawing, and if you weren’t any good at that, that was it. So there was no other real sort of creativity left side of the brain discussions. But dentistry, I figured out and there was one person that taught me who showed me the aesthetic aspect of dentistry and using composite and all that kind of stuff.

Prav Solanki: Who was that?

Mark Hughes: Her name is Ailbhe McDonald and she’s head of department of restorative for the Eastman now. So she opened my eyes up to possibilities and actually applauded or recognised my sensibilities and we spent time polishing and doing incisal edges and that kind of stuff and everybody else in the class was, “Do fillings, get paid, go home.” And then the entrepreneurial aspects and adding in creative touches like how you design your practise, your practise logo, how you do the interior. So the entrepreneurial business owner thing, I was aware of that quite young and every dental practise I went to I absolutely hated, but I had visions and ideas about how cool we could make them.

Prav Solanki: Sure.

Mark Hughes: So that satisfied some of the arty side, [inaudible] was satisfied, obviously by Cosmetic Dentistry and so on. I went from there, I decided to finish.

Prav Solanki: And so going through your dental career at university, did you have any like real low points where you thought, “You know what, I can’t do this anymore, there’s too-”

Payman: When you wanted to be Tarantino’s around that.

Mark Hughes: Well, that was in essence not really a low point, it was more an awakening. So that actually felt quite positive and then actually reassessing the situation and moving on. I guess, the low point for me, I mean, I never really struggled with the academic side of things. I guess I should have done better. I mean, I was late teens, early 20s, all the way through Trinity. And it was a great place to be. So I loved my university life I didn’t actually want to leave. So I contemplated doing post grad and staying on.

Prav Solanki: Sure.

Mark Hughes: I was only 22. And I qualified. I guess the low point at uni. I think it was just having no money. It was the early 90s. I had a large student loan and I was paying 19% interest. So the banks were prepared to keep funding that student loan because they knew what I was going to do afterwards. Yeah, you were just broke all the time, but enough. It was a great life. I was very, very happy there. The prospect of then moving to the UK actually filled me with somewhat with horror. And I wholly expected to last nine months and be home.

Payman: Where was the first place in the UK you touched down?

Mark Hughes: Whitford in Essex was my first practise.

Payman: Right.

Mark Hughes: And you know what, it wasn’t too bad at all. Back to low points. I played basketball for the university and we were league competing in those days. And I tore my cruciate ligament in my final year at the age of 20 … Just turned 22. So that was tough because the rehabilitation and the surgery had to be put off my exams. So actually I didn’t have the reconstruction done for about eight months. That stopped me short in terms of a lot of my sporting ambitions. Then I missed the boat. I was in hospital having an operation when everybody else was doing the first round of jobs on offer, flew over, met our representatives here and got offered positions as associates. So I kind of missed the boat a little bit and missed all the good London practises. So I ended up in Essex and I thought, “This isn’t for me.”

Payman: Was it mixed or?

Mark Hughes: Yeah, it was a mixed practise.

Payman: Back then there wasn’t much private going on anyway. Yeah.

Mark Hughes: It really was sort of NHS with a little bit of private. It was still in the pre ’92 contract.

Prav Solanki: Yeah.

Mark Hughes: Yeah. And it was just a slog. It was a slog, slog, slog, slog.

Payman: [inaudible] wasn’t it right.

Mark Hughes: Yeah, exactly. And I guess I miss … What I did every weekend was … Afternoon on a Friday, I’d jump in the car and I drive to see all my mates who lived in Ealing. And I’d spend the whole weekend in London and I hated getting back in that car and driving at the eight, I think it’s the 827 or something to Essex … Not that it was an awful place to live, but it just wasn’t for me.

Payman: It actually wasn’t in London.

Mark Hughes: I grew up in cities. I’m an urbanite and for me, London was the place to be. So I decided to quit that after six months, I got a job in a practise in Stratum with a really cool guy who knew everybody in town and had a cool associate I work with called Mamaly Rashad, some of you may know. And Mamaly introduced me to the nightlife and the wild life of London. So, I found myself and then I called my mother and said, “I’m not coming home after nine months.” I found a great flat through a connection that I had at Trinity on the Kings Road, really cheap rent, friend of a friend. Was a connection through our Boat Club. I’ll explain more in a minute if you want, but basically I had a flat on the Kings Road in Chelsea 1993 that’s paying 50 quid a week. So, happy days.

Prav Solanki: Wow.

Payman: And go on what were some of the places Mamaly was taking you?

Mark Hughes: Oh, you might remember [inaudible 00:13:41].

Payman: [inaudible 00:13:41].

Mark Hughes: Yeah. Let me see where else.

Payman: Followed by Maroush.

Mark Hughes: Followed by Maroush. And do you remember Po Na Na?

Payman: No.

Prav Solanki: I remember that.

Mark Hughes: Po Na Na was a little bar on the Kings Road basement bar and it was the hottest place.

Payman: We used to go to a place it was a few years after that, Crazy Larry’s it was called.

Mark Hughes: Yeah Crazy Larry’s was on Lutz road, so yeah, all of that stuff but the concept of going out to a nice restaurant and then going out for the night, Mamaly is like “Come on.” And he called me Dr. Irish.

Prav Solanki: Dr. Irish.

Payman: So then Okay, this job in the Stratum-

Mark Hughes: Yes.

Payman: -who was the boss?

Mark Hughes: The late Mark Spurway. Very interesting character. Again, knew everybody who was anybody in London and all of a sudden Art Gallery openings, cool restaurant openings, he knew everybody and he had a fleet of classic cars. And he was like one of the coolest guys in town. So, I would meet people like Simon Le Bon at dinner and all of his mates would come to the practise in Stratum. We were sort of, all the trendies of London. So, again, opened my eyes up to a world of possibility and introduced me to a lot of really cool people and I felt really at home and it was-

Payman: So interesting, that must have been a big sort of milestone in you ending up in the sort of a high end world that you’ve ended up in.

Mark Hughes: 100%. Because Mark had a … And Mark unfortunately passed away scuba diving, I think he was 36 at the time. So Mamaly and I were his two hot associates for about three years. And I think yes, it was Mark-

Payman: It was your working day when he passed away?

Mark Hughes: I just left. I took some time off and I got a call when I was in Australia to say that he hadn’t come back to work from the receptionist, “What do I do?” And I had left about a year before that. But Mark had a, I think he did one day a week in Devonshire Place, and the last time I’d been into Harley Street was to sign up with the GDC. And so would go up and check out his room that he rented one day we can always really cool patients on Devonshire Place and he take out the fancier cars and park them in Harley Street or in Devonshire Place. So, again, it was like, “All right, this feels like home. Not a practise in Stratum.”

Mark Hughes: But I decided having gone all the way it’s like from school at 16 turned 17 started uni, five and a half years at Trinity, straight over to work on the NHS. I needed a break. So I took nearly two years off. Worked really hard for a couple of years on the NHS, saved up a lot of money had bought a flat at that stage in Battersea. So I had an investment I was really proud of. It was the beginning of the turnaround in the property situation in the 90s. And all of my mates said, “You’re mad.” Because there had been a property crash. So bought that flat, rented it out, went off to Latin America for nine months.

Payman: Wow.

Mark Hughes: Yeah, so it did that, worked in Australia, worked for the Flying Doctors for four months, worked in Sydney, another six months in Southeast Asia and then was about to head to India for-

Payman: Working in each of these places?

Mark Hughes: No. Just having-

Prav Solanki: Having fun.

Mark Hughes: -having fun and pretty much everywhere, including Australia working because I was flying to Aboriginal communities in New York.

Prav Solanki: And were you like young, free and single at this point?

Mark Hughes: For some of it.

Prav Solanki: Yeah?

Mark Hughes: Yeah. No. I left with a partner and came back-

Payman: Alone.

Prav Solanki: With another one?

Mark Hughes: No. With the same partner, but we’d figured it out on the way that it wasn’t really going anywhere. And that was … My friends tease me about that. God hope she isn’t listening to this. But they said I had to take her around the world for two years to break up with her. And what happened was, when I worked in Sydney, I was exposed to a few practises that in 1996, 1997, had screens on the ceiling. They were really coolly designed. They had graphic designers work on their logos, their buildings, their colour schemes. There was one guy, he was known as the dub dentist, because he had a really great sound system and all his patients loved listening to the house … He would play all this soft house music, and Sydney was really cool at the time. And they were 90% private. So I was determined then to come home, find a practise, do great stuff to it. And that’s what brought me back.

Prav Solanki: So was it at that point, you realised, I am going to own my own practise, run my own business and create something special, that no one else has ever seen in the UK?

Mark Hughes: Hundred percent. Because I’ve been exposed to what it was like to work for somebody else. And you get frustrated when you want to do things and you can’t really do them. Then being exposed to some cool innovative stuff going on, that nobody had in the UK. And then I came back. And actually some people were starting to do it. There was one practise in particular, in Covent Garden.

Prav Solanki: Who was that?

Mark Hughes: James Green had a practise on Endell Street and he had this really cool coloured logo in the window. And I ended up working as an associate around the corner. And I ended up buying the practise. And it was on Drury Lane. And at the time-

Prav Solanki: I remember that.

Mark Hughes: Yeah.

Prav Solanki: I remember that clinic anyway. Not that time. But yeah.

Mark Hughes: Yeah. Well, it still has the same logo that my mates designed in 1997. The current owner still has it, hasn’t changed it.

Prav Solanki: Amazing.

Mark Hughes: Yeah. And these were guys that I played football with, played five aside with. They worked for companies like EMI and Euro sport. And they were starting out their own businesses, and they wanted to help and put their graphic design team together. And we just were mates just helping each other out and built a website, which was awful.

Prav Solanki: Well the fact that you had a website though right?

Payman: It would be like having an AR studio now.

Prav Solanki: You get to a point where you’ve been an associate for a period of time, and you say, “I know I’m going to own my own business and have a practise.” And I’ve experienced this before starting a business or before taking that leap. There’s a load of fear that kicks in, real load of fear that kicks in, and then you start doubting yourself. And so you have the ‘Yeah but’ conversations will do this, yeah but, what about that? Yeah, but what about this, and that? Can you just talk me through, like your fears that you had before starting your first business or buying that practise, or even going through that process of saying, “I’m now going to be my own boss.”

Mark Hughes: So I think the fears I had were not necessarily the traditional fears, like the level of investment, and the borrowed money, I was really keen to get the money and buy the cool equipment and have the eye track cameras and all that kind of stuff, location that I ended up buying was terrific. What I found out was that there was a huge gap in my learning. So we had very little of computer knowledge and skill training, certainly not through dental school, zero. And school, I was pretty poor. So, everybody was getting computerised to create nice letter heads. So I had to basically teach myself how to use Word. And that’s what I spent more time doing than anything else was trying to figure out how to use a computer. And it actually wore me down for a while. And the skill set to manage staff, to look after all the non-clinical aspects of the practise, that was the hardest bit. Because I had no training in whatsoever, no experience in it.

Prav Solanki: And it was a complete unknown, you went in blind?

Mark Hughes: Totally blind. I remember in the early days, and you recruit people, and you think you can trust people implicitly and I arrived at the practise, the patient was waiting outside, nobody had opened the practise.

Prav Solanki: Oh dear.

Mark Hughes: Yeah, and so those kind of things happen. And I think those kind of things, were the hardest part of it for me. But I wasn’t fearful of doing it. It was when we got into it. And I realised, “It was a bit more to this than just turning up everyday and doing nice dentistry.”

Prav Solanki: And having owned multiple practises now and starting up from scratch and going through that process several times with different business partners, et cetera. Someone listening to this podcast now. And if you could give them a bit of advice about how you just said you went into this business unknowns about managing staff, about computers, et cetera.

Mark Hughes: Yeah.

Prav Solanki: What three little tips would you give them about taking that first step and trying to avoid these situations that you’ve been in?

Mark Hughes: So number one on the list, absolutely clear my mind, find a mentor. Find somebody who’s done it and done it well before, who embraces you as their … Somebody that they want to help develop them. Because both on a clinical level, but even more, so managing staff, managing your team, training, your tax situation, your investment situation, all of that kind of stuff. If you have somebody that you can trust that is prepared to help you along that way, it’s saves so much time.

Prav Solanki: Sure.

Mark Hughes: People like me made enough … I made an awful lot of mistakes. I didn’t have anybody to guide me, well, virtually nobody to guide me. So I would have progressed far quicker, with far fewer bumps along the way had I had somebody like that. So that will be number one. And I think training programmes that develop those skills as well, and not just how to do a great copacetic would be number two. So the biggest thing that happened to me in dentistry, was being encouraged to go to the Pankey Institute. And I put it off for a number of years, not only because it was expensive, but it was far away. And I heard all sorts of weird rumours about these strange American courses and what was involved there. But the best thing hands down, I ever did in my career was go there and spend six trips at Pankey and invest the money in not only my dental skills, my knowledge of occlusion and function and high end dentistry.

Mark Hughes: But that place also taught me how to communicate better with patients, build a team better and it’s soft skills that came around that and that were embedded in that and they have people that come, give up a week of their time for free to help young dentists, that for me was absolutely crucial in my career. So go to the Pankey Institute, it’s the most unique, wonderful, fantastic Dental Training Institute in the world. And I would encourage anybody to go there. The third thing would be develop some of those soft skills. If you’re going to run a business, you have to learn how to manage your books. And the numbers are everything. You know this Prav.

Prav Solanki: Sure.

Mark Hughes: Not only stats, you’ve got to learn how to look at stats, but your numbers and your management. If your numbers in your business, allow you to reinvest, allow you to employ better people, allow you to take a week off and go to the course that you want to do and still be able to pay your bills. So I think that’s one of the major things that’s missing in dental education at an undergraduate level and definitely missing at a postgraduate level. Why does everybody want to go and learn how to do an implant when really what they should be doing, if they’re going to own their own practise is learn how to be a businessman. Now, in hindsight, what I would have done would have been an MBA.

Prav Solanki: Interested.

Mark Hughes: Yeah. I would have spent a couple of years if I’d had the cash somewhere like Harvard, London Business School and learned about economics, learned about businesses, how they run, and then apply that with the dental skills. So those would be the three things

Prav Solanki: Having done the MBA, let’s imagine that happened. Do you think you’d still be where you are today? Or do you think you’d be a little bit further ahead?

Mark Hughes: I think if I had, well exclude the middle one, because I went and did it. But if I’d done it earlier, and I’d had the other two things, I’d be way ahead of where I was.

Payman: Sure.

Mark Hughes: Because my ambitions in my mind were always held back by either my lack of knowledge of certain things, or I had to learn by making mistakes. I would have been way further on. Life teaches you so many things. And it’s easy to say in hindsight, “I wish I’d had that hold.”

Prav Solanki: Yeah.

Mark Hughes: But if I’d hold those three things early on, I would have been far further on I think.

Payman: And it’s also the question of do you work on your strengths? Or do you work on your weaknesses?

Mark Hughes: Yeah.

Payman: And for me, I think working on your strength is probably better than working on your weaknesses. Like, I don’t know, I’m disorganised, you could buy me the best diary in the world. Still, I not going to be a more organised person.

Mark Hughes: I tell you, the one thing I did learn though, was that, I thought I wanted to be a businessman. And a lot the things I’ve talked about are about learning business skills. But what I realised was, the further I got away from the clinical dentistry, which I ended up being quite good at, the more I realised that was the most comfortable place for me to be, because I was ok at it. And I could put my hand to it. And actually, when I refocused on actually trying to be as excellent as I can, I enjoyed my life so much more. What I would have needed, though, would have been support, people to defer to or to take over the management role of the business. Being the clinical lead of the business, and having the ideas were really where my strengths were.

Payman: So when did it go from that clinic to the Harley Street ones?

Mark Hughes: So I realised, and spent a lot of time re-educating myself on aesthetic restorative treatments because I wanted to do Cosmetic Dentistry and in the late 90s, that was when that boom was happening all over the world. And it was trickling into the UK. People like Mervyn Drury and invited Larry Rosenthal over and a lot of us flew off to the States to do courses. And that was exciting dentistry. I realised I wanted to do that. And I figured out that where I was, and the type of practise I had, wasn’t going to allow me to take it to the next level, or the level that I wanted to take it to. So the premises were wrong location wasn’t bad or was probably wrong. And the practise was so embedded with general dentistry, that it was mixing up my day.

Mark Hughes: So I decided, and was lucky enough to come across a great premises in Harley Street, and I thought, blank canvas, put in everything now that I would like to put in. Build it and design it in a way that I would like to, that I feel will be appropriate for me to start treating very … Doing very high end cases and very high end dentistry and attracting patients who wanted to invest in that. So the next step was Harley Street.

Payman: So the partnership with Adam, was that right then? Or was it a bit later?

Mark Hughes: No, a little bit later on. So that was 2003. And that came much later on.

Prav Solanki: And so Mark, I remember starting my business back in 2005, 2006. And when you start your business and you think, “Who would I love to work for or with?” Yeah, “Who would I aspire to work with?” Right? You were number one of my hit list.

Mark Hughes: Really?

Prav Solanki: Totally.

Mark Hughes: Tell me why.

Prav Solanki: Because the research that you do and the profiles that you see, there was only one guy who was pioneering in terms of the look, the aesthetics, the guys who were taking full face photographs, lifestyle photographs of their patients. Even today, I encourage my clients to do that. And say that telling stories through those pictures, are key to getting more patients through the door. You were still doing that 10 years ago, 12 years ago, right? So I saw that, and it was just inspirational. And then you see the education that this guy’s gone through, that he’s got this place on Harley Street and you were number one on my hit list.

Mark Hughes: That’s very kind of you.

Prav Solanki: And so what was going through your mind at the time when everyone else had these, what I would consider to be normal cosmetic private practises. But you sort of went above and beyond and said, “I’m going to create something on the most prestigious street when it comes to the Medical District in the whole world. And I’m going to do it different to everyone else on this street.” And ultimately, you ended up having an entire building, which is crazy, unheard of right? Like just talk me through those thought processes, because I speak to business people all the time looking to start their own practise. Well, their mindset is so far away from what yours was when you were setting that up. Some of the listeners here, I’m sure they’d be interested in hearing what your thoughts were.

Mark Hughes: So it’s 2003, you’re absolutely right. Nobody was doing it. Or they were doing it in still shop front practises. So I had a shopfront practise, I had a on the street practise. And that’s great. But for me, the things that I really like to do and I was prepared to spend a lot of money on were, when I went travelling, and I had stayed in really lovely, unusual, not necessarily expensive, but great hotels, because it was about the experience. And part of that experience was just being completely blown away when you walked in by the decor, and the space and the way it was laid out. Part of it was the greeting. Part of it were the services. But it was overall the whole experience how the team who greeted you looked after you, how people greeted you in the bar and the restaurant, and you went away a few grand lighter after two days, and you felt like a king. So it was immediately apparent to me that what dentistry needed at the high end was something like that.

Mark Hughes: So the first practise, the reason I took it on was because it was actually a flat. The Harley Street area had for over 150 years a special lease called a reside and practise lease from the 1800s. And it was where a country doctor or a doctor who might have had a home in the countryside could have a room or rooms in Harley Street, but had a place to live. So you basically had a little flat, a little bed set, and you had your rooms downstairs and you went home with the weekends. So this was one of those old leases. So it was basically a two and a half three bedroom flat had a dental chair in one of the rooms, and one of the rooms is very spacious, had a beautiful bay window. The dental chair that was in there had all the piping running across the floor and it just looked absolutely awful. But I saw the space and went, “This is going to be cool, what we can do here.”

Mark Hughes: And the artistic side came out. I was always into colour, design, going to stay in nice hotels, having an interest in that. So I put all the elements that I found in those places into the design of the dental suite. So it wasn’t blue and white and red and orange. They were really soft tones of colours. We spent a lot of time really carefully choosing all the corian and all the cabinet colours and we used a dark chocolate brown. I don’t if you remember, back in those days.

Prav Solanki: I do. What you’re describing there is the experience when stepping into a boutique hotel.

Mark Hughes: That’s right.

Prav Solanki: That is my first experience of walking into your practise.

Mark Hughes: Yeah.

Prav Solanki: And it’s still the experience today.

Mark Hughes: And in those days, the boutique hotel was where my mindset was, and I just done up my flat. The flat that I bought in Battersea all those years, I had a girlfriend who was an interior designer, she studied at Inchbald London, one of the most famous interior design schools in the world. She introduced me to two of her buddies, one of whom now I’m godfather to his kid, we’ve been friends for years. It was Christopher, everyone calls him Chip and they done up my flat and I was like, “Next, the practise.” And so Ninya was her name she helped me with the Covent Garden practise. We completely really redid that. Did up my flat and I thought, “Right, the next thing is now the new practise.”

Mark Hughes: So it was designed like a boutique hotel, you wouldn’t get away with some of the stuff that we did, these days CQC put an end to soft furnishings and in some places in the practise and you’re limited by all sorts of different things. But at the time, it had that really, welcoming, warm, I’m staying in a cool hotel feel, and then it was all about training the team, it was all about the customer service experience. So that was back in 2003, 2004. And ever since it’s been working on and developing versions of that and improving on that.

Prav Solanki: So Mark, you still got that amazing practise. People talk about Harley Street Dental studio, they know what that means. There’s a new chapter coming in your sort of business evolution development, called define clinic I believe.

Mark Hughes: That’s right.

Prav Solanki: Would you like to just tell the listeners a little bit more about that. And once again, innovating the market and being ahead of the game. So just tell us a little bit more about define.

Mark Hughes: So the concept of define is initially bringing together an expert in cosmetic dentistry, and an expert in the field of aesthetics and plastic surgery. And the reasoning behind it was, certainly from my own perspective, a smile is not teeth, it’s certainly not teeth and gums. And it’s actually not even teeth, gums and just lips. It’s a whole face and a whole persona. And facial aesthetics is becoming more and more prevalently mixed with dentistry, a lot of dentists are doing it. The procedures are becoming much more accepted by patients, they are becoming much more predictable, and they’re actually becoming much more natural. So I met my wonderful partner Benji Dhillon, who’s younger than me, far better looking to me too.

Payman: We’ve had him on the podcast already actually.

Mark Hughes: Have you?

Payman: Yeah.

Mark Hughes: Oh, he’s a great guy. And we were introduced by a mentor coach that we both share. In fact, I met Benji at school, what I mean by that is his youngest daughter and my daughter are in the same class at school together. So we met at a kids party. My wife-

Payman: As you do.

Mark Hughes: As you do. And when we got on and boom, we have the same mindset and philosophy. And we started referring patients to each other. And the more I referred patients to him and got his feedback, the more I started to look at the whole face of a patient. Even after 25 years of doing teeth and smiles and knowing a bit about aesthetics, and facial aesthetics and all of that kind of stuff. It just took on a whole new meaning. And then the possibilities, for example, patients with quite severe gummy smiles we were talking surgery, or two years of ortho plus surgery plus perio surgery. And nowadays, you can do lots of contouring and softening techniques that may not require the patient to get the result they want and have to go through all of that. And there’s more to it than that. And it’s about preservation.

Mark Hughes: The Fountain of Youth, for me is the next great thing in dentistry. And if not medicine, now, that might seem silly. Everybody’s been chasing the Fountain of Youth for millennia. But actually, I think we’re getting close to being able to provide that for people, or at least allowing longevity of the facial structures and of the teeth. I was at a lecture recently where somebody said that, “From a paleontological point of view, the teeth are only meant to last 30 years. They’re not designed to last 120 years and by 2050, some of us will be living to over 120 years old.”

Payman: Sure.

Mark Hughes: So Fountain of Youth, preserving youthfulness, for me, the two together absolutely go hand in hand. So define is all about enhancing the natural you, preserving the natural you with a smile in the face. And that’s the concept.

Prav Solanki: And your business partner, Benji, you were certainly at the top of your game when it comes to dentistry in terms of the education that you’ve had, that you’ve put yourself through, you’ve invested in, and the resource that you deliver to your patients. And equally, you’ve picked a business partner who is also … Just tell us a little bit about his credentials, and how they complement yours.

Mark Hughes: Well, so Benji, firstly, I mean, I’m touching again, on the fact that a lot of dentists do facial aesthetics. Now, I’ve never really got into it myself, I’ve dabbled in it. For me, I was never going to be good enough at it to call myself an expert. And I always think to myself, if my children, my mother, my wife wanted to have something done, would I do it myself or would I send them to somebody else? And this is a very clear thing I learned in Harley Street, why try and build a facial aesthetics business on Harley Street when you’ve got some of the top dermatologist in the world next door? And so Benji was clinical director of Allergan at the age of 30. He’s from a medical and plastic surgery background, there is nobody that I would want more to inject me in my face than somebody who’s gone through that level of training. So that’s why we’re doing it together.

Mark Hughes: Now, we truly believe in teaching dentists to be excellent at cosmetic dentistry and facial analysis and facial enhancement. But for me, the educator has to be the person who’s of the highest level of qualification and experience. He’s a dynamic, fun, friendly guy. And that to me goes hand in hand with the person I want to do business with.

Payman: Sure. Is teaching going to be part of it?

Mark Hughes: Most certainly. And mentoring as part of teaching, live patient teaching will be part of this. That’s something that very few actually do where the candidate, the mentee, the students will actually get a chance to do dentistry that they want to do with me sitting next to them, or Benji sitting next to them as part of their experience of learning.

Prav Solanki: Wow.

Mark Hughes: So hands on is great, but hands on a patient, million times better.

Prav Solanki: Different experience. And then going back to Benji injecting you.

Mark Hughes: Yes.

Prav Solanki: Has he done it yet?

Mark Hughes: No it’s coming soon.

Prav Solanki: You would have that done?

Mark Hughes: Well, I tell you why. Yes. And I put it off for a number of years. Because I thought I was getting away with it. To be honest, when we shot the latest round of videos, and I’ve got this Indian Cary Grant next to me and a young Cary Grant and we’re both on the video together, I could see that certainly, I should have done something about prevention many years ago. I’ve got a lot of sun damage to my skin. I like to laugh. And I’ve been very stressed in my time. So I got a lot of wrinkles. And what I saw was something that really should have been intervened in 20 years ago.

Prav Solanki: So just tell me what what can you do? There’s guys out there listening to this, ears are pricking up. What are the options out there? Because all I know is Botox and fillers, right? That’s all I know about skin and stuff. I don’t use moisturiser, I never have done it. And I’m sure that I probably shouldn’t do. Has Benji educated you on what the sort of-

Mark Hughes: To a certain extent, yes. But that whole world is opening up to me. And in fact, we are working very hard at the moment to build an educational programme for dentists. So I am the prime candidate for his side of the educational programme. But there’s lots of amazing stuff out there in medical aesthetics, there are amazing machines that can be used to actually deliver certain results. As a medic, he can use those. A lot of us even as dentist can’t have some of the stuff in their clinics that we’ll be able to have. I see a time coming when dentist will. Especially if they reach a certain level of qualification. And I do see that coming. I see more and more regulation coming. So I think there’s an awful lot for me to learn. And that’s actually part of why we’re doing it together. Because he has an awful lot to learn or has learned an awful lot from me because I did his teeth.

Payman: What made you decide to move away from the West End for this project?

Mark Hughes: Two things. I live very close to the area and children are now five and a half and nearly three. And some days I’d spend four hours commuting backwards and forwards. And that’s four hours, not with them. It’s four hours, not enjoying leisure. It’s four hours not with my wife, it’s four hours sitting on a train, walking in the rain. And I just wanted to do something closer to home. So that was the motivation. The second was to build the kind of clinic that we’re building, which is similar in size to my Harley Street clinic.

Payman: As big as that?

Mark Hughes: Yeah.

Payman: Really?

Mark Hughes: Yeah, it’s going to be over four and a half thousand square foot. Yeah. So again, it’s back to the experience. You can haven’t met a dentist doing aesthetics and maybe a dentist who brings in a doctor one day a week to do facial aesthetics in a high street practise. But for me, if we’re going to build something especially where we’re going to be teaching, it’s going to look the part and it’s really going to provide an experience.

Prav Solanki: Are we going boutique hotel again, or something different?

Mark Hughes: Well, I think the boutique hotel concept is almost died out. I think now it’s more about experiential stuff. It doesn’t have to be boutique. So yeah, it’s going to look fabulous, I hope. Why there? Why not the West End? it’s going to be easier for us to do it. Benji lives in the area, we see clientele travelling somewhere close to Heathrow. And the idea may well be that at some point, this concept could be replicated, could be taught how to be replicated. But I think primarily both of us wanted to be closer to home.

Prav Solanki: Sure.

Mark Hughes: I’m not leaving the West End. And so I’m going to see all my patients there and continue there. But I will spend a couple of days a week at the new practise and build a team like I have done before. We’ve already recruited a lot of the key elements, one of whom was a young dentist that I took on and have mentored. And that’s something I find really rewarding. I really enjoy. And it’s an opportunity for me to pass on the things that I missed or didn’t learn. Because I didn’t have one.

Payman: What do you looking for when a young associate is looking for a job in a high end places that you’ve had and they haven’t worked in the West End before? What are you looking for? Do you look at their CV much? Or is it about them, the way they come across? What are you’re a couple of hacks you can us?

Mark Hughes: So it’s definitely both. I think it’s all about the person and their willingness to learn. But they must have a certain skill set, as well. So, when I’ve done this very successfully before and the person is completely under qualified, but I don’t mean under qualified in terms of personality and desire. I mean unqualified on paper, is giving them a shopping list, and say, “Go away and come back to me in three years, four years when you’ve done this.” And the most successful of those thus far came back in nine months and had done the entire list. So I had to talk to her again. And then we together developed a log book, like a mentor, like a scorecard.

Payman: Was that [inaudible 00:45:27]?

Mark Hughes: Yes it was. And so it had to be supervised and in a big practise I was able to bring somebody else in and slowly but surely allow certain treatments to be passed on to her under my supervision and that in a way is something that’s going to be part of a new clinic is actually developing a programme of education that has that built into it. If they haven’t got the shopping list go and get the shopping list and for example top of the list for me it was Chris Orr course certain others I still want you to go to Pankey, will get round to that.

Payman: What others?

Mark Hughes: Look I think-

Payman: Or does it depend on the person?

Mark Hughes: No I think fundamentally if you want to be an aesthetic restorative dentist there are certain places you have to go and certain boxes you have to take especially if you want to do the full compendium of treatments. So Pankey or alternatively if the focus is occlusion somewhere like Spear or a course in the US, you’ve got to learn how to prep teeth properly. So either one of the courses at the Eastman Pankey teach fantastic prep courses. So the Spear, Chris Orr course in the UK, for me hands down is one of the best in the world for introducing dentists. Yeah.

Payman: Yeah it’s a great course. Did You do that course?

Mark Hughes: I didn’t actually. But you know what, I probably would go back, I’ve been tempted to go back and do it again, just to refresh everything. And because Chris is such a great educator, but Chris and I are contemporaries. So he was building that business as I was building my practise. And I was going to the State’s an awful lot and spend an awful lot of time at the AACD, and did all the hands on courses like possibly could. Great value for money if you’re a young dentist, and it sounds expensive going to America but the hands on experience at AACD is second to none. Started the accreditation programme at AACD, started at BACD. Managed to get that this year.

Payman: Yeah, congratulations.

Mark Hughes: Thank you. So the willingness of a student or a young dentist to do all of those things, or at least begin them and to follow through on them. So it’s not just about saying it’s about doing. And I think to be successful, you have to care about people in dentistry. And for me fundamentally, kindness and a desire to help people overrides everything else you can possibly do.

Payman: Very true.

Prav Solanki: Let’s talk about the real Mark Hughes.

Mark Hughes: Oh dear.

Prav Solanki: We’ve heard about dentistry, we’ve heard about the businessman, the innovator, pioneer more about the family man, just talk to me through like the first time you met your wife, can you take us back to that?

Mark Hughes: Yeah, very much so. I met her in a great pub in Wandsworth called the Ship. And I was nearly 40 at the time, if not 40. So I hadn’t come close to getting married at any stage before that.

Prav Solanki: Just not met the right person.

Mark Hughes: Just not met the right person. Absolutely. And I think within minutes of meeting her I thought, “Whoa, this is definitely somebody I’m interested in seeing again.” And then we went on our first day to the Connaught hotel. And she looked absolutely drop dead.

Prav Solanki: Can you just go back to the Ship?

Mark Hughes: Yeah.

Prav Solanki: First time you laid eyes on her.

Mark Hughes: Well, she was gorgeous.

Prav Solanki: Wait, when I first met my wife I was like, she’s super hot.

Mark Hughes: Yeah.

Prav Solanki: Is that what was going through your mind?

Mark Hughes: Exactly the same thing.

Prav Solanki: And then you spoke to her?

Mark Hughes: When you look at somebody and you think all the opposite of actually what they’re going to come out and say?

Prav Solanki: Yeah.

Mark Hughes: And she was a very successful musician, classical musician, highly skilled at that. And she’d had many different sort of variations in her career, was learning to become a jeweller. So I just found her absolutely fascinating, really interesting. And she was charming, and delightful and warm and friendly. And yeah, I think I pretty much decided on our first proper date that this could go somewhere.

Prav Solanki: Wow.

Mark Hughes: Yeah.

Prav Solanki: You had your first date, was it Connaught?

Mark Hughes: Connaught. Yeah. It’s a favourite of ours.

Prav Solanki: And then just obviously carried on meeting each other. And-

Mark Hughes: Yeah.

Prav Solanki: -what point did you pop the question?

Mark Hughes: In Paris about nine months later.

Prav Solanki: Wow.

Mark Hughes: Yeah.

Payman: That’s pretty quick.

Mark Hughes: Yeah. You’ll laugh at this. So I had planned all weekend, I was carrying a little bottle of champagne in my pocket. It poured with rain the entire weekend. So all of my hotspots to go down on one knee were just totally ruined. The end of the weekend was coming. I was panicking more and more and eventually managed to get down to the river side to the side of the sand. And she literally turned around and said, “Get on with it. Please.” So down on one knee popped the question. And the rest of the weekend could continue. But that’s her all over. And that’s why I actually really why I married her.

Prav Solanki: Yeah.

Mark Hughes: She’s strong willed and does not suffer fools gladly. And sometimes you just need somebody to support you in other ways. And yeah, so she certainly sorted me out, that’s for sure. Yeah. And then we got married quite soon after that, I have been married seven years now with two beautiful children.

Prav Solanki: Tell us about your kids.

Mark Hughes: Girl firstly, all right. She’s five and a half. And she’s an angel. I always thought growing up, “I want to boy, I need to have a boy.” My wife was, “I definitely don’t want to have a boy.” And this gorgeous little girl came along. And she’s total daddy’s girl and I’m a total daddy’s girl, daddy. And then we decided to have another one. And our son came screaming out, and he’s been full of laughs and a barrel of fun, but two totally different personalities, and both absolutely adorable. And now life has a completely different focus. You’ve been through that Prav, I’m sure.

Prav Solanki: Sure. And so let’s just talk about that, prior to kids. Like you go from prior to kids, and then you have kids and life takes a huge shift. It certainly did for me in terms of priorities, and just what I think about the future and everything, right, and they become my all important thing.

Mark Hughes: Yeah.

Prav Solanki: Just talk to me, how did Mark Hughes change?

Mark Hughes: In all of those ways. And I think the strangest thing about becoming a parent is that you have absolutely no idea what’s coming, you might have an idea about it. But you absolutely have no idea how unconditional your love for that little person, and how it brings you and your partner, your wife together, how that suddenly changes everything and every aspect of how you think. And it’s sort of reinvigorated me in a way and made me reassess a lot of other things that I had made decisions about and realised, actually, you know what, if I’d had this influence 10 years ago, things would have been a little bit different. And again, maybe even better, in some ways, or the focus would have been slightly different. That’s my be all and end all now.

Payman: But did you have that moment of first moment you held a child you felt there and then?

Mark Hughes: Yes. And my wife had a very difficult labour and ended up almost having caesarean section. We were touch and go for a while as to whether or not she was going to breathe when she was.

Payman: Your wife?

Mark Hughes: No. The baby when she was actually forceps delivered. And I think it was something like a day and a half we were in hospital. And she was tiny, she was only six pounds. And my wife had been anaesthetised, she was behind the screen as it were and daddy has to go over when they’re cleaning the baby up and put the little girl under the heat lamp. And she was not breathing. And there was a difficult labour and there was that risk. And it was our nearest NHS hospital. There wasn’t a specialist on board, our gynaecologist wasn’t there, our obstetrician wasn’t there, it was whoever was on call that night, and they were this junior doctor was 15 years younger than me. But they were amazing, actually. And the hospital was fantastic. God bless the NHS, it was absolutely wonderful.

Mark Hughes: And they did everything that they could to help us. And she breathed. And I wasn’t overcome with floods of tears, or that kind of Hollywood type emotion. I was incredibly relieved. And the relief passed instantaneously. And then there was this overriding sense of joy and love for this creature that looked a little bit like my wife and looked a little bit like me. And then it’s almost as if you can see your future. But you can’t see it. You know that all you have to do now is look after this little person. But as to what road you’re going down. And that’s an adventure greater than any educational adventure, any business adventure. You asked me earlier, why Beaconsfield, I want to be close to my kids and have them be part of the practise as well. And we are going to treat children and do orthodontics and all that kind of stuff. So yeah, it’s become everything in my life.

Prav Solanki: That’s great. And just quick question. Are you a celebrity dad? So you walk through the door and the kids come running and screaming and throw their arms around you?

Mark Hughes: Absolutely. Yeah, of course. Yeah. And that’s the best feeling in the world.

Prav Solanki: It is.

Mark Hughes: And my wife hates it. Especially when she’s been choring with them.

Prav Solanki: Yeah.

Mark Hughes: Yeah, totally. I know that they’re amazing. They’re fantastic. But yeah, so there’s some days I just can’t wait to get out of the practise, especially in the West End. And I’m like, “It’s time for me to get on the train, get home, catch them before bed, do bath time.”

Payman: Are there any days where you can’t wait to get back to the practise?

Mark Hughes: Yeah, Mondays? Two three days with the kids at home?

Payman: Yeah.

Mark Hughes: Oh, yeah. I’m up at six and off we go. Yeah.

Payman: Do you relate to this idea yet. At the weekend, you’re working for them?

Mark Hughes: Yeah, absolutely.

Payman: Whereas during the week, you’re working for you?

Mark Hughes: Yes. And it’s far easier working for you.

Payman: Yeah.

Mark Hughes: Yeah. Well, I’m in control of that situation.

Prav Solanki: Totally.

Mark Hughes: Mostly. For the most part. I’ve had 25 years experience of it. I can think I can handle most of the situations that are presented to me, whereas with children, no-

Payman: Yeah, but loads of people hate Monday morning as well, you know about them, too.

Mark Hughes: I love going to work because I love my work. Working for the accreditation and getting back into clinical dentistry made me fall in love with it again. And so yeah.

Payman: What’s the biggest clinical mistake you’ve ever made? We were asking everyone today.

Mark Hughes: I had to think about this for a while now. But I know what it is. I put two central incisor veneers on the wrong way around.

Payman: Cemented them?

Mark Hughes: Yeah. And had to immediately apologise to the patient. Re prep them, re temporise them, put all the others on. And got them remade.

Payman: They actually fit kind of?

Mark Hughes: Well, they sort of fitted in a mess of cement.

Payman: Yeah.

Mark Hughes: And then you realise on clean up when they’re being tacked in.

Payman: Yeah.

Mark Hughes: What can you do? When they are tacked in, you probably can’t get them off cleanly. And yeah, so it’s either go for it or not. Thankfully, I noticed. They were quite symmetrical teeth.

Payman: I mean, how about a clinical tip that you can share?

Prav Solanki: Like a hack.

Payman: A hack, your hack, you?

Mark Hughes: Okay.

Payman: You found it out?

Mark Hughes: It’s not necessarily directly clinical, what I would say to everybody is get in an hour before your first patient every single day.

Payman: An hour?

Mark Hughes: Yeah.

Payman: Oh nice.

Mark Hughes: Now because you need time to wind down, you need time to check what’s coming in through your door. In fact, you should have already done that days before. I’m constantly updating and talking to my nurse about what’s coming in the next week. And we always go through-

Prav Solanki: Oh wow. That far ahead?

Mark Hughes: Yeah. Because sometimes the patient that you wanted to have an hour and a half for has been given 30 minutes, if you find that out the minute they walk in, you’re either rushing, apologising, and somebody’s going to be upset, either you, the patient or your nurse. And for me, preparation is everything. So get in early, get ready for the day, plan start to finish the day. Make sure everything’s ready.

Payman: Do you guys have one of those daily huddles?

Mark Hughes: Absolutely. It’s one of those-

Payman: And you go through individually, each patient that’s going to come in?

Mark Hughes: Hundred percent. It’s the most important thing in all practise organisation and business organisation you can possibly do. There’s a great documentary about the Carriages hotel, and-

Payman: Yeah, I saw something on that.

Mark Hughes: Right.

Payman: Excellent.

Mark Hughes: Did you see their morning huddle?

Payman: Yeah.

Mark Hughes: So all the senior management team get together in a room, they’re all standing, nobody’s sitting down drinking coffee, papers out, plan for the day, who’s coming? What are we doing? Now when the Emperor of Japan, is due in your dental practise, you got to be ready. And sometimes we have royalty and leaders of industry and politicians that have ended up at the practise. We have to know if there’s five security guards coming. We also have to know if there’s a lady who’s coming who’s unwell and needs a wheelchair and we have to be ready. So I mean, those are obvious things. But for me getting in early, reviewing your day, not leaving the practise until you’ve at least reviewed your next day, if not your upcoming days. It’s so important to be ready for people and to be ahead of the game. I check my lab work if it arrives a day or two before the patient’s due for the seating. I’ll take it all out and have a look at it on the models. I can’t tell you how often we’ve had lab work that belongs to a different patient.

Payman: Yeah.

Mark Hughes: Now you don’t want to find that out when you’ve given them local and taken their temps off.

Prav Solanki: So, how far in advance do you check the lab work? As soon as it comes in?

Mark Hughes: Yeah.

Prav Solanki: Yeah.

Mark Hughes: So we have a system and especially when you work together with an assistant, a really good assistant who’s on board with that. We just have a routine and she chases me up and I chase her up. And that teamwork is absolutely crucial to getting fantastic results for people. So yeah, I mean, I did one today, there’s a guy coming on a Wednesday. I was coming to see you guys this afternoon. So I had to be ready, have all my stuff sent to the lab. So I’ll send PDFs and descriptions and photographs to the lab for wax ups and how I want the veneers to look all has to go out before I leave. Yeah, so I had a look at the crown, made sure it was the right … We had the right screwdriver ready on Monday for the type of abutment channel, for the implant crown, all of that kind of stuff’s really important. It’s more important than people get credit for.

Prav Solanki: Mark, you spend a lot of your time changing people lives, creating emotional stories, or that big, can you remember one particular patient that you’ve had the biggest impact on their life, what you did and what that impact was?

Mark Hughes: So yes, I can. So she’s a lady who came to me in her 60s, she sucked her own fingers for her entire life, not a thumb a couple of fingers. So she had managed to orthodontically extrude and procline all of her anterior teeth over a 50 year period, from the time that she had her incisors. And she basically had this gigantic overjet teeth splayed and her whole face had changed because of her lip contour, over 50 years of this changed. And she had been told in many practises that she needed to have orthodontic surgery, or extractions of all those teeth. And the placement of implants or all on fours and all of these sort of somewhat popularised treatments. And what I figured out having run a few diagnostics, she had healthy teeth, you could align them back into position. Yes, it wouldn’t be a perfect orthodontic result, and she would still have an overjet. But what you can do sometimes simply can have such a massive impact. She had no idea that this was possible.

Mark Hughes: So when I showed her her clinCheck simulation for Invisalign, for example, she was totally blown away, she cried, broke down, cried that she hadn’t done something about it 15, 20 years ago, because she thought that she didn’t have any options. And I think that’s a really important lesson for young dentist, is that some people are given misinformation, and they don’t know what’s out there, and what the possibilities are. And to find that something out 20 years later, that could have been dealt with, it must be heartbreaking for people. The plus side is then you go on and you do it and you deliver the result. But she has been given an idea of what it would look like and then you deliver a result that’s even better than what you had anticipated. You’ve changed somebody’s, not only their life, I mean, you change their confidence, you change their ability to eat, you change what they wear, you change how they dress themselves, how they put their makeup on, how they live their life.

Mark Hughes: So it’s not just about confidence about how they engage with other people. And if you can revolutionise or develop somebody’s confidence to such an extent they almost become a different person. The person that they are with their family that they’re not ashamed of, they can now present that to the rest of the world and that is an extremely wonderful gift for somebody like me and my colleagues to be able to do and that’s really the motivation that’s a very special experience.

Payman: Do you also get emotional?

Mark Hughes: Yeah. Occasionally when Liverpool lose.

Payman: How did you become a Liverpool fan?

Mark Hughes: Well, like I was a child of the 70s there were no other teams.

Payman: They were doing well.

Mark Hughes: There was no other team

Payman: Well, thanks a lot for doing this.

Mark Hughes: Pleasure. I really enjoyed it actually.

Payman: It’s been a lovely conversation.

Mark Hughes: Yeah. Interesting, I’ve known you guys for years and we’ve never really had this conversation.

Payman: Yeah, I was just thinking that.

Mark Hughes: It’s great. Thank you so much for the invitation. I really appreciate it.

Payman: And really good luck with the event. It sounds really exciting.

Mark Hughes: Thank you so much. Yeah, it should be good. It should be fun.

Prav Solanki: It will be great.

Mark Hughes: Cheers guys.

Speaker 4: 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.

Transcript

Payman: Hey, guys, welcome to the Dental Leaders podcast. Today’s guest is Mahmood Mawjee, who has given up dentistry to become a motivational speaker coach.

Prav Solanki: Yeah. Coach, speaker, motivator and-

Payman: And super interesting to hear his story on how and why he did that goes deep into his relationship with his parents and known him for a long time. I’m really happy to see his progress, and I can see he’s going from strength to strength in that coaching business of his that he’s in. But you could tell that he’s really passionate about it, is much more to him than business. It’s even when I was talking to him right after the thing he was coaching me. He just can’t help it. It’s like he’s bursting with that information.

Prav Solanki: I think the best way to describe it certainly my own words is aggressively passionate.

Payman: Yeah.

Prav Solanki: Yeah? The story of why he flipped and does what he does now but just follow him on social media, see the content, see the passion that he speaks and why in the purpose with it all. What an inspirational guy I mean there’s lots of lessons from here about life, family enjoy.

Prav Solanki: Enjoy it. Did you have that feeling of leaving dentistry or wasted your family say, “Hey why did you go and study all these years, and it’s a waste?” That thing.

Mahmood Mawjee: 100% right.

Prav Solanki: People must say.

Mahmood Mawjee: Asian community?

Prav Solanki: Yeah.

Mahmood Mawjee: You either doctor, a dentist, accountant, or failure. That’s it.

Payman: Taxi driver. Shopkeeper.

Mahmood Mawjee: That’s actually what it is.

Speaker 3: This is Dental Leaders, podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts Payman Langroudi and Prav Solanki.

Payman: So we’ve got Mahmood Mawjee with us today. And it’s an interesting story, having spoken to him a little bit, and I’ve got some history with you Mahmood. Give us a summary. Just to start with, just give us a summary of the quick 30 second roundup of where you came from, what you did.

Mahmood Mawjee: I was born in London. Nothing amazing after that. But I mean, the bit, which I guess you interested in, where am I right now? And where did I come from?

Payman: Yeah, what kind of a kid were you?

Mahmood Mawjee: Had a lot of fun. A lot of friends understood that, I had everything kind of I wanted to. Didn’t kind of miss out on anything. I looked at the people around me, and I saw a lot of people who didn’t have things. And a lot of people who did have more than I had. And it kind of grounded me. Well, I guess I didn’t have too much, I didn’t have too low. So yeah.

Prav Solanki: Any siblings?

Mahmood Mawjee: Yes. Two sisters.

Payman: You the older, younger?

Mahmood Mawjee: Middle.

Payman: You middle?

Mahmood Mawjee: Yeah. It was fun. It was crazy being the middle one, because obviously the little one doesn’t get in trouble. The older one doesn’t get in trouble. So kind of you get everything, which is cool. But yeah, no regrets was fun, got great relationship with them right now.

Payman: What did they say about middle kid syndrome? It’s like attention seeker? Is that what they say? I don’t know.

Mahmood Mawjee: I think some middle kids kind of miss out on things. Because they’re in the middle, at the top and the bottom get it.

Prav Solanki: Yeah, sure.

Mahmood Mawjee: I didn’t feel that, had a lot of fun. A lot of friends understood that, had everything kind of I wanted to. Didn’t kind of miss out on anything. I looked at the people around me, and I saw a lot of people didn’t have things. And a lot of people who did have more than I had. And it kind of grounded me. Well, I guess I didn’t have too much, I didn’t have too little. So I guess what you make of it.

Prav Solanki: Sure.

Mahmood Mawjee: Yeah.

Payman: What kind of school did you go to?

Mahmood Mawjee: Went to public school, just normal school. GCSE, A levels, during A levels that’s kind of when I met my wife. And so yeah didn’t do too well in my A levels then and then kind of added one year top up and then kind of got what I wanted to.

Prav Solanki: Did you fail your A levels or?

Mahmood Mawjee: No, I just didn’t get what I needed to … I didn’t even want to do dentistry initially. So I wanted to kind of I was thinking of doing business. And then when I kind of realised what I really want to do is either medicine or dentistry. Why? Because from early on in my life, I knew that my gift was built to help people. But when you’re so young, you don’t know how that’s going to play out. So for me, it was helping people in that way.

Prav Solanki: So an example of like, when you were younger, you said your gift was to help people. Example from your younger life, where you sort of realised that, hey, I’m good at this.

Mahmood Mawjee: I guess back then you kind of don’t realise is happening. But when friends come to you for some problems, and kind of they can’t see what you can see. And where you can make a really difficult situation quite easy that if you do this, this and this is going to work out. So that’s kind of where it was.

Prav Solanki: So I find that, certainly for me a lot of my … Especially when I was in the university a lot of my friends would come to me when they really hit rock bottom. And I just be a sounding board or near to listen to. And did find the same with yourself that people felt they could just gravitate towards you when they have problems?

Mahmood Mawjee: Later on? Yes, early on one thing I had is I’ve got a really bad starter, it doesn’t come up because obviously there’s ways in which I have dealt with it. And that’s the journey, which I’ve why I’m kind of where I am now. But early on there was like that part of me where you’re quite embarrassed because of that. And there was a little bit of bullying and now, which comes with that. But looking back on it. That was kind of my growth, that was a journey. So yes, there was that. But there also was the other part that once I managed-

Prav Solanki: And then just growing up, what sort of parents did you have? Me growing up I was brought up by my dad, he was very strict. There were certain things we weren’t allowed to do. I thought he was the biggest asshole going.

Mahmood Mawjee: Okay.

Prav Solanki: Until I realised when I grew up that he was the most amazing father in the world. And had he not steered me in the direction I wouldn’t have ended up where I was. So just tell me a little bit about what your parents were like.

Payman: By the way also did they have an influence on you doing medicine dentistry or not?

Mahmood Mawjee: No, my dad actually told me, “Yeah why the hell are you doing dentistry? Don’t do it. Why didn’t you come into business?” And my thing was this actually what I want to do. And so I went and followed what I wanted to do.

Payman: Was he businessman himself?

Mahmood Mawjee: He was, yeah. He was very successful at what he did. He was extremely driven, habits down to the tee. He wanted how he wanted and actually went out and got it. At that young age, you don’t realise how it’s influencing you. But now I can see a lot of his traits are in me. And I looked up to my dad a lot when I was younger, because he was doing exactly what he wanted to do. And on his terms, he had a lot of respect as a speaker as well. And yeah, so yes, my dad is usually driven-

Payman: The speaker?

Mahmood Mawjee: Yeah.

Payman: In where?

Mahmood Mawjee: On business and on religion.

Payman: Really?

Mahmood Mawjee: Yeah.

Payman: I didn’t know that.

Mahmood Mawjee: Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Payman: I guess that that’s a big influence. Because that’s kind of where you are.

Mahmood Mawjee: But I’m not there because of that. And so, two years ago, my father passed away, and my whole journey has come through his death. So that my whole story of why me right now, it’s all to do with kind of my father passing away. But I don’t think that I’m a speaker, because my father was a speaker. I’m a speaker, because I feel is right for me.

Mahmood Mawjee: But I feel when you’re younger, there’s so much you want to do that you don’t realise you can do it, you got those little voices in your head, know when you’re really young, because when you really young you see … We’re only born with two fears in life, falling down and loud noises, the only two fears was born with all other fears are put in us.

Mahmood Mawjee: But as you grow up, because of what people say to you, a lot of voices in your head, I’m not good enough. Why? These people better out there than you. So they were governing me a lot. That why should you be a speaker? Why should you do this? Why should you do that? And then later on, when you understand yourself and you can break that and then I think you fly.

Payman: Your dad passed away. What was it about that that made you change your course? Was it like you wanted to live out what is dreams for you? Or was it that life is too short and you want it? What was it about it?

Mahmood Mawjee: 2016 out of dental practise, which had gone for about seven years. And then it was actually on the tender, and I lost the tender. And I lost the practise had built up for seven years. And through that it was my father, who told me that don’t worry, things happen for a reason. And the dots will connect down the line. And I didn’t want to make of it at that time. But I kind of got into health and fitness to kind of allow … I got into running and that allowed me to cope with the loss of the business. About six months after my father passed away. And on the day my father passed away, he told me he was going to go that day.

Mahmood Mawjee: He knew he was going, but he had no regrets. He lived life on his terms. When my father passed away, that was the day when I said that I’m not going to let anything hold me back. And I’m going to guard and do what I want to. Not live life in anyone else’s terms. I started looking into the regrets other people have in their life. And the biggest regret in the world is that I wish I lead a life on my terms and life true to me. Life not governed by the people, and I realised on that day that I was totally governed by the people, what they thought about me, what they said.

Mahmood Mawjee: I didn’t like the sound of my voice, the way I look, I didn’t like my style. And on that day I said it’s going to change. In the first talk, I gave was in my dad’s funeral. And that was the day was changed all for me. And then looking back, my dad was right. Because the dots did connect. But if I didn’t lose my business, the coping mechanism to cope father’s death came through losing my business sort of never have got that.

Mahmood Mawjee: But if my father didn’t die, I wouldn’t be here right now having this interview doing what I’m doing. So life’s a gift and life’s a journey. And sometimes when you’re in it, you can’t see it. And for me, that was the biggest thing for me. Pain and suffering isn’t because of the event. It’s because of what we make of it. And like-

Prav Solanki: True believer in that.

Mahmood Mawjee: When my father passed away for about a year or so it was about his anger why he passed away so young, and there’s so much I need to do, and there’s so much unfinished business. And then when I shifted and realised that his death was a greatest gift he could give me because that allowed me to flourish. Had a great life with him. But maybe he realised that some … So I realised there’s a lot more to it than just that. And when that changed, when my focus changed and everything changed, because you’re not focused on what he gave me rather than what he took away. And that was the beginning of my journey.

Prav Solanki: So I remember I was at school at the time. And I was brought up primarily by my granddad, was my dad was driving taxis when I was younger. And I remember vividly the day my granddad passed away. And I could recall every single step of that day, what happened, how we arrived at the hospital. It was an hour too late, we didn’t get a chance to say goodbye, etc, etc. And it was really painful. I was young, it was hard to cope. Can you take us back to the day that your father passed away? And just explain to me what your … Because that to me is your point in life where you pivoted.

Mahmood Mawjee: Yeah, that was-

Prav Solanki: Just like to understand a bit more of the breakdown of that day. What happened on that day? The emotions, the conversation-

Payman: And the time leading up to it, was it sudden or was he ill?

Mahmood Mawjee: So as I mentioned, my father was a speaker. And so this is on May the 10th, my father was taken to hospital on May the 10th 2016. Three months before that my father started getting a really bad cough. No one knew what it was. And so we were with my dad at the consultant. The consultant said, “Look, there’s nothing we can do. We don’t know what it is. But it should be okay, come back in July.” So on the 10th of May 2016. I clearly remember because it was a Tuesday, my mom called me. My mom doesn’t normally call me on a Tuesday because she knows I’m at the clinic. My mom called me said my dad’s been taken to hospital.

Mahmood Mawjee: So I knew it couldn’t be that bad because I was just with my father a few weeks ago at the consultants. So I rushed to hospital, and my father is lying there on a stretcher with oxygen mask on. But he looked ok, so I wasn’t too worried. As the evening progressed, it was just me and my dad in the room, everyone else … My wife and my mom, my sister had gone home to actually get my dad’s clothes because he was going to stay the night. And the consultant comes up to me and I remember vividly, big guy, long hair.

Mahmood Mawjee: He looked like 194 years old, this guy. And he comes up to me, and he goes to me, “Mahmood what’s the pathway?” I’m like, “What you mean?” And he said, “You know, what’s the pathway? What are your thoughts?” And as I was saying that he interrupted me, and he pointed, and he goes, “Come outside with me.” And I took the journey to walk outside with him. And that journey from kind of where we were now to that door. That’s kind of how long the journey was, like just a few steps. We seemed like forever. And I got outside, I remember the consultant told me clearly.

Mahmood Mawjee: He said, “Mahmood your father is very sick man, things have changed. And you know that kind of there comes a point in your life when you go to have your near ones around you, those last conversations, go to have them.” And for me, it was like I kind of came out of my body. Have you ever felt that you’re kind of looking at yourself, and that’s how it felt. And I was like, “Wow!” I couldn’t believe this. So I got my mom, and I got my sister and got my wife, and I sat down and said to them, “We could be losing the rock of our lives.” Because my father was kind of the rock of our whole family. And that night when I went home I started running as my coping mechanism. So that night, I just ran and ran I didn’t know what to do.

Mahmood Mawjee: And the next five days after that, the running allowed me to focus on my dad rather than on me. And on the 15th of May 2016. I woke up in the morning and something didn’t feel right. Just knew something wasn’t right. Went for a run and I rushed to the hospital. And the nurse said to me, “Mahmood, happy you’ve come, I know it’s not visiting hours yet, but come in, because your father hasn’t had a great night.” So I went to see my father, and he had c-pack mask on him, it blows really crazy air on you so he can’t speak. It’s like sticking your head out of a car window. Get on the motorway. So my dad said to me, “Bring me a piece of paper and a pen.” So I’ve got him a paper and a pen. And I’ve got this page at home right now.

Mahmood Mawjee: And he writes on there that Mahmood is my time to go. He goes, “It’s my time to meet my Lord.” And I said, “No way.” I said, “There’s so much that we got to talk about, so much I got to tell you about me.” And he goes, “No, time’s over, there was time for that not anymore.” And my dad said to me that I give you to 4:00 then I’m out of here. 4:00 I’m out of here. Because he was in ICU, he had loads of pipes coming out of him. And so he didn’t want anyone see him. From that day he said, “Bring anyone you want, I’m out here at 4:00.”

Mahmood Mawjee: And he died that day at 6:00. And when he passed away, all of our family members are there holding his hand while he passed on this world to the next. But on the day he died, I realised is that my dad lived a life of no regrets. A life true to him. And I said, that’s what I want. Because up till then life was all about me. Without what I could get out of life. It was all, and I realised on that day that I could have anything in my life if I help enough people get what they wanted.

Prav Solanki: So when he was writing note on the piece of paper what was going through your mind?

Mahmood Mawjee: I just didn’t know what he was writing. I had no idea what it was going to be. And then when I looked at it, it was in the moment. And the emotions kind of come later.

Payman: Did you believe him? I mean, how would you know?

Mahmood Mawjee: I knew that wasn’t long. And everyday we knew from before, those five days, and we just happened that it was a downhill, but we still had hope. They still said if things turn around. But then the night before things started going really bad, his kidney started failing, things like that. So we knew that we’re on borrowed time. So it may have be Monday, may have been Tuesday, but he knew that day that it was going to be, and he said 4:00. And it was two hours later he passed away. And as I said for me, like normally is really emotional about that but talking right now I’m not because I realised the biggest gift that was to me.

Mahmood Mawjee: That through that, I realised that I’ve got to that … I remember coming home once from the graveyard, it was a work day morning, and I was just really upset. And I spoke to someone on that day they said, “Make a goal, which is bigger than your Dad, give yourself something.” And so that’s why I said that said, that’s it. So I decided I’m going to create this machine which is me. Which is going to be so big that is going to do anything in this world, I know that I’m going to go out there and impact people, thousands and hundreds of thousand people. I’ve got a goal before I die to be a billionaire.

Mahmood Mawjee: But it’s not to have a billion pounds it’s change a billion lives. And like being here right now, you’ve kind of give me two extra people to add on that. Thanks very much. So that’s actually my goal. That before I die, I want to impact a billion people. And that’s the day when I said I’m going to grow this mission called Mahmood, I’m not going to care about what people say about me, I’m not going to care about I think about myself. I’m just going to go out there. And I don’t really care. Because I never want to turn around on that day and go I wish, I wish, I wish. And that’s what most people are riddled with.

Payman: And now you’ve given up dentistry. How long was it after your dad passing, that you-

Mahmood Mawjee: Exactly two years.

Payman: Well that you decided you were going to stop? Was it two years? Or was it there and then and it took two years to watch.

Mahmood Mawjee: About five years ago, I wasn’t enjoying it much anymore. I’m very gifted as a dentist, I was very good at what I did. I made people look very good on the outside. But you know when people are lying on your chair they’re very vulnerable. They talk to you so much, tell you so much. You can see through their eyes, there’s so much more in a person than how they look. The last five, seven years of dentistry even when I was in dentist school I was fascinated by psychology and human behaviour, why people do what they do? What make someone angry? What make someone happy? Why is it that everyone says that money doesn’t buy happiness or money does buy happiness is not true.

Mahmood Mawjee: Because I’m sure you know people who have a lot of money and happy who have a lot of money and who are not happy, vice versa. A lot of people who don’t have much money and happy not much money and very happy. Thing is happiness has no link to money. The only way happiness is a link to money is when you spend on other people. Then that creates happiness. And as I realised that I wanted to be able to impact people more. So for about five years before that I realised density wasn’t for me, I was very good at it. But I couldn’t imagine living the same year 60 times, I wanted to live a different year for the next 60 years. And I used to trade a lot, very successful at that.

Mahmood Mawjee: I used to have a social media marketing company called Zigzi that was very good. I tried lots and lots of things, had my hand in a lot of affiliate marketing, did a lot. Just trying to find that thing was really clicks with me. And then it kind of came through here that on the day my father passed away, I stood up and gave a talk and realised, wow, I can impact people.

Prav Solanki: What did you say on that day? Give me the essence of what your talk, and the message was to everyone at the funeral.

Mahmood Mawjee: Mine was about regret, that the biggest regret in life, is I just mentioned, that living life on other people’s terms. And it’s I wish, and most people, no one regrets the things they did, they always regret things they never did. And that said, whoever you go and speak. Most people at 70 that all the bitter, they’re not happy. They’re always complaining, why? Because there was a time in their life when they could have done something they really wanted to do. But they didn’t, Why? Because society didn’t allow it.

Mahmood Mawjee: Because it wasn’t the right thing. Because, why would you leave dentistry? I was being paid six figures on three days, it was my own clinic, yes. And I was doing very well. And I always thought that I could leave dentistry when I had the money. But I realised I got to leave dentistry to have the money. And when you so believe in what you’re good at. And you put everything into that, like Steve Jobs said that you got to love what you do to make a success, why? Because to be able to win in life, you got to be working like crazy. And if you don’t love it, you give up. So this is a simple reason.

Payman: You’re a young man who’s bursting with information, bursting with life lessons that you’re giving, and I’ve seen some of your content is why there’s so many different stories and lessons that you’ve got inside you. When did you realise that … I mean, I can understand someone who’s got so much to say, isn’t going to say it to 12 patients a day. And wants more impact than that. But when did you realise that? Was that after your dad’s passing? Was that been something that’s been in you for longer?

Mahmood Mawjee: It’s been there for long. So as I said, when I was younger, I realised that there was a lot of people who used to come to me for help. Then when I was in university, more than anything was really intrigued by is human behaviour and psychology, why people do what they do?

Mahmood Mawjee: And I mean working with thousands of patients as we do along the way, I realised that a lot of my time was spent talking to people, a lot of time was spent talking to people about money, about divorce, about business, about fears they have, and a lot of my work was actually helping people with their mindset, and motivating them to do the things they love.

Mahmood Mawjee: Nothing about dentistry, yeah, I fixed their teeth, and had a better smile. And they were happy on the outside. But a lot of my dental is fixing people from the inside. And also you know what, that’s fine, but only a very small part of my life is spent doing that part, and I want to spend more of it doing that part.

Payman: I mean, I left dentistry, probably I left medicine, so it’s interesting, and the thing I miss most about dentistry is that people, not the teeth once in a while I go to a lecture and someone I see something amazing on the screen, and I feel like I wouldn’t mind trying that on teeth. And generally that’s when I think that’s a great lecturer. But Prav left very early on. One year in was it bro?

Prav Solanki: Yeah.

Mahmood Mawjee: Okay.

Payman: I left … Will listen to that story, I’m sure many times. I left I think five years in and people used to say to me the waste. You went to university, you had this education, what a waste. I think for me at one point for some reason. It’s switched from a waste to an opportunity in the thinking if we start this business, and it all goes pear shaped I can still feed my family as a dentist. I suddenly saw it as an opportunity. Did you have that feeling of leaving dentistry, ways did your family say hey, why did you go and study all these years, and it’s a waste that thing?

Mahmood Mawjee: 100%. Asian community, you either doctor, a dentist, accountant or failure. That’s it.

Prav Solanki: Taxi driver, shopkeeper.

Mahmood Mawjee: That’s actually what it is. And so yourself I’ve always admired what you’ve done, because you’ve created the business out of dentistry. So your journey, that if you didn’t go through dental school, you wouldn’t be here where you are right now. Okay, because your business is about dentistry. For me a lot of people, have met someone said, “10 years, five years, whatever is what a waste.” I said, “No, that was a journey for me.” And if it wasn’t through that journey, I wouldn’t have been here where I am right now, 100%.

Prav Solanki: It shaped you?

Mahmood Mawjee: 100% it shaped me. So no, I haven’t … Things happen at the right time. And I’m actually feeling goosebumps when I say this, because it’s so true things happen at the right time in your life, that this wasn’t meant to happen to me 10 years ago, I wasn’t the person I needed to be. But through the hard ache of dentistry, through actually … I’ll tell you the story. I hopefully, my practise principal ain’t going to hear this later. But anyway, there was a time few years ago when I … No, it was about one and a half years ago, where there was one day when I was going out. And I had a coaching client in the afternoon.

Mahmood Mawjee: And I had to go to the practise in the morning. And there were times when I really didn’t want to go in, and I used to feel sick and I just hated going in. And I’m not going to get to how horrible it felt. But can you imagine something you really didn’t want to do, and I was going in, and the times used to be really emotional actually going in, because I just didn’t like it. I didn’t like it at all. And I knew I was wasting my time. And all he was doing was putting money in the bank, which is important, but it’s not a life.

Mahmood Mawjee: And I remember one morning, I actually called up my practise manager and I told my practise manager, “You know what, I’m not well, I can’t come in, I’ll come in for half the day. But then we need to leave home at lunch time.” She said, “Okay, that’s cool.” So she cancels my clinic for the afternoon. And I went in the morning. And because I’d get everyone to believe I’m sick. I faked idle hands on most of all, really bad stomach. So my nurse really believes me. And I really believed I was sick. And when 12 o’clock came and left the practise, do you know happened, had a stomach ache, and I was sick. And I was in bed all day. And I realised that from that day that the mind is so flipping powerful that if I can fool myself into making myself sick, most people do.

Prav Solanki: I’ve done it a few times mate, trust me it’s possible.

Mahmood Mawjee: Imagine what else you could actually convince yourself you are successful, happy, healthy. And I said that’s it. There are these few click moments. That was a click moment when I said you know how powerful the mind is. And so no regrets about the journey of come on, it’s shaped me. Exactly, you’re in the right time where you need to be right now to be doing this thing you’ve got to do.

Payman: I mean, it’s a lovely story. Now tell me you can’t be without a bit of fear giving up this income, are you?

Mahmood Mawjee: I’m super fearful. Truthfully, I’m super, super fearful. I’m just telling you-

Payman: You stopped very recently.

Mahmood Mawjee: I stopped four weeks ago.

Payman: Four weeks?

Mahmood Mawjee: Yeah, four weeks ago.

Payman: Are you worried about the mortgage?

Mahmood Mawjee: Yes, 100%. I sold my clinic, which gave me enough to keep me going for about a year. And every day is one day less that year’s there. But I know that, and it’s flipping fearful. I’ve got three kids, a wife extended family, a lot of commitments. And yeah, I am. But I also know how good I am what I do. And there’s a fine line between being so fearful letting it paralyse you or using fear as your power. So yes, I have a network of people around me on days, which are bad I’ve coached I’ve got a mindset coach, a business coach, speaking coach, I’ve surrounded myself with people who can push me up on that level.

Mahmood Mawjee: And when I’m having a bad day, I can get someone to call and they can get my mindset right, just as I do to others. If I’m a coach, I would have coached myself on good walk the walk. So yet, a lot of days are really, really tough. We have no idea. But each and every day, which goes on. There’s more people know about me. There’s more people to listen to me. There’s more place I’m speaking up on my network grows and my coaching clients grow and my business grows. Where will I be in a year? I know where I’m going to be in five years time. I know I’m going to get I just don’t have no idea how I’m going to get there.

Prav Solanki: So just talk to me. The people out there listening, I know there’s a burning question on their mind, which is, you left a practise three days a week, six figures. You’ve now left all that, the time’s ticking. You’ve got a year’s worth of income, that you can rely on to feed your family, right?

Mahmood Mawjee: Yep.

Prav Solanki: What is the income look like as a coach and a speaker? And what stage are you going to get to where you were in practise?

Mahmood Mawjee: If I use my barometer of dentistry, the income as my barometer for this, I think I’m going to be thrown off path very quickly. Because we all know, dentists earn pretty well. And so say for example, you’re making 10 grand a month, if I’m looking for this to bring in 10 grand a month before I kind of wish happiness or whatever up, it’s never going to happen. So I know that I can make 10, 20, 50 hundred times more than I was doing in dentistry doing this. I just have no idea how I’m going to get there.

Prav Solanki: Okay.

Payman: Yeah, I mean, everything looks a lot easier than it is. And we lost money for three, four years, of course. And it wasn’t easy. It wasn’t easy giving up dentistry and losing money at the same time. So look, looking at you. I feel like you seem very happy doing this. And you’re talking obviously to the right teachers. Where were you lecturing in America recently?

Mahmood Mawjee: So last week, I was in New York, there was a fundraiser. And then I did a fundraiser here recently about two months ago, where we raised about half a million pounds. And that night was most I’ve ever raised. And so they asked me to come to the keynote. And so I didn’t even know I was in New York, I got a phone call while I was in a family holiday in Dubai. And they go, “We’ve got a fundraiser, we want you to come and give a 20 minute talk.” I’m like, “Okay, cool. Where’s it?” It’ll be in London, New York. I’m like, “Okay, wow, brilliant.” But the fact is, I got paid more for 20 minutes, than I get paid three days in dentistry for that one talk. But on that night, we raised $1.2 million.

Mahmood Mawjee: And they got to do what they needed to do. And being up there with like, 23400 people, we having to speak and touch the hearts and making them cry and making them realise the value of giving was amazing. And so I know every day is not going to be like that. And everyone even you said you had years worth of maybe when things were going down. Everyone looks at you and everyone looks at me now everyone looks at you now. And everyone says, “You know, I wish I could be where you are.” But not many people can. Because like Usain Bolt got this great interview where he says, “You know what, the race is the easy part.

Mahmood Mawjee: It’s the work behind the scenes. And the work behind the scenes is what’s going to kill you every day.” Imagine waking up every day not knowing where the mortgage payment’s going to come from next month or next year, not knowing if you’re going to make it wherever you go people saying you’ve left such a great job, why? Not knowing where things are going to go. And the way I kind of look at it is life’s up and down. Up and down, up and down, up and down. It’s like if you walked into a hospital here, and they put ECG lead on you, what would your heartbeat look like? Your heart rates would go up and down.

Mahmood Mawjee: Most people want a flat life, it’s dead. Most people want a flat life, and they do live the dead life. A lot of people can go through this, why? Because no one understands what it is behind the scenes. Yes, so it looks really nice flying around the world coaching, living life on your terms giving up which most people want to give. But the truth is behind closed doors, it’s tough. But sometimes it’s better people don’t find out how tough it is, because then they won’t appreciate.

Payman: I heard Jeff Bezos said that as well.

Mahmood Mawjee: Is that what he said as well?

Payman: He said if I knew how hard Amazon was going to be I would have never have done it.

Prav Solanki: What’s the hardest part about flying around the world delivering your message? What do you give up?

Mahmood Mawjee: Family. I sat down with my three kids yesterday, my oldest is turning 16. Then my next one’s turning 15. And the next one is turning 10. I sat down with them yesterday, actually. And next week, I’m away kind of teaching for a week election for weekend and the week off from lecturing in LA, it’s like for me to be away from my kids for two weeks is for me just finding the toughest thing ever. And I sat down and said, “For the next two weeks, I’m not going to be around, but when I come back from I’m yours again, for the next two weeks, I’m just not going to be here much.” And that was tough. Because for me, family’s everything. And right now this journey, I’m seeing a lot less of my family. But I’ve gone to the quality over quantity, but I’d rather spend half an hour and really give them me no phones or anything. Just half an hour of me. Then three hours of me while I’m distracted.

Prav Solanki: Do you check in on FaceTime and stuff like that while you’re away?

Mahmood Mawjee: Yeah, so I make sure that I speak to family once a day, especially. I do a lot of relationship counselling as well. And so one of the things which I tell everyone, which I kind of live by as well, that one of the biggest things you need to do is make sure that the biggest part of your life that thing you’re going to feel in life is your one main relationship. If there’s anything wrong with that, I’ve been married 20 years now. Okay, so I want year 20 to be like year one. Okay, but if it’s not, then something’s missing. And a lot of people as they go on their own journey to find what they love, that really gets messed up. And that’s one thing, which I said I could never ever want to compromise that to get this.

Payman: When you most in the zone? Would you say on stage?

Mahmood Mawjee: Yes.

Payman: Yeah?

Mahmood Mawjee: 100%. Yeah.

Payman: Have you ever bombed on stage?

Mahmood Mawjee: So last year, I got invited to business summit in Davos where the World Economic Forum was held at a net worth of about 15 billion in that room with a B. And that’s where I picked up my first billionaire coaching clients. I was great. But on that I got up on stage, I was giving four talks, I forgot my lines. Because back in the day, then I used to memorise everything. And I used to know exactly what I’m going to say because I obviously I never had paper. It’s all in my heart. Everything and I lost it.

Mahmood Mawjee: And that day, I realised I hold on. I know enough to just stand up and talk without having prep. And that was a big day for me. And since then, yeah, when I go up on stage, I’ve got a thesis, I’ve got something in my head. And if it doesn’t work out, if I forget something, that’s cool. I got more than enough in my head, I can talk for a day, you could probably say I can for a week. If I’m giving-

Payman: A lot more flexibility.

Mahmood Mawjee: If I’m giving a content presentation, then it’s easier because you kind of know one thing comes up and he’s asking a trigger one thing, but a lot of my talks like when I went last week to New York. So the only slide I had because I was playing music. It was a story which only to give it the right time with everyone’s eyes closed. And I don’t want anyone else to be able to press that. So I turn it on when the right word comes on the right music. Yeah, Eli Robbins does. Yeah, and so it was just a slide, but it was just a quote. And as you click it, then the music comes on. So now I don’t use any sort of presentation except when I’m doing like if I’m doing a dental talk, for example, I’m doing a health and wellness talk. And I’ve kind of got certain slides with certain trigger points, which I know what’s going to come out of what time. But otherwise, it’s just open.

Payman: Do you still get nervous?

Mahmood Mawjee: Yes, 100%. So like, I remember when I was in New York last week, my wife was on the table next to me. She was on my table because I was on the front, and I messaged her on WhatsApp saying I’m feeling so nervous today. Yeah, I don’t know why, but I think it’s great. Because a moment that goes away is the moment you become too comfortable.

Payman: When I’ve had speakers on and they’re nervous. I tell them, it would be unnatural not to be nervous.

Mahmood Mawjee: Yeah.

Payman: That I would be more worried if a speaker said to me, I’m on in five minutes time, and I’m not nervous. I’d be more worried if he was nervous, because it’s not the normal thing. And perhaps coded himself into speaking recently, and become a seasoned professional overnight.

Mahmood Mawjee: Awesome.

Prav Solanki: It was hard. Because before, like, the first talk I gave was at Payman’s event. And before I did that, I was quite literally shitting myself. And just like you did, I found a couple of speaking coaches. Because I thought if I’m going to do this and stand up in front of 100 people, no problem, I’ll make an idea myself. So I’m going to find someone who does this for a living, take advice from them, and do the best I can possibly do. And then continue on that just like you have on your journey.

Prav Solanki: And I truly believe that if you want to Excel or do something, go to someone who’s done it before. Naturally, that must be why people are coming to you, as a coach or consultant, like you just mentioned, your relationship coach, how do people learn about you? How do they find out that, hey, I can approach this guy, and he can coach me and whatever it is, whatever area of my life. So how is it that people would reach out to you for particular service? What would that service be?

Mahmood Mawjee: Most people find out about me through two ways, one way is social media. And then the other way is through my actual speaking events. So when I’m travelling, obviously, people hear me on stage, they know what I do. People and obviously-

Payman: Spell it out, what’s the deal they get if you’re their coach, what’s the deal?

Payman: Or do you tailor it for each person?

Mahmood Mawjee: There’s one thing initially was holding someone back. So you’ve got one thing in your life right now that if you could change your whole life will change. I change that for you, end of story. 100% guarantee that I change it for you, I will get you more results in six months than you’ve got in 20 years. I take you on a six month journey with me. And I break your life down. And I find out everything which is holding you back from getting to where you want to be.

Payman: Let’s say hey Mahmood I want to be coached by you. What happens? Do we meet first?

Mahmood Mawjee: Understand. Yeah, so I would normally speak with you for half an hour session on the phone to kind of understand your questionnaire, find out exactly what is it that you want to be? Where is it that you want to get to, where you are in certain parts of your life? I kind of break your life down into five, seven parts. Where are you there? What are your goals, dreams, ambitions? Where is it that you want to be and then I kind of see if you are … Most people are coachable and if they’re not, and I can break them down to become coachable. Some people a lot harder than others.

Prav Solanki: Do you get that all in that half hour call?

Mahmood Mawjee: Yes.

Prav Solanki: You do?

Mahmood Mawjee: Yeah. I can do an half an hour.

Prav Solanki: Amazing.

Mahmood Mawjee: Yeah.

Payman: Okay. Now you know who I am. Now you know what I want. What’s next?

Mahmood Mawjee: What’s the one thing in your life right now that if you could have, if you could do, if you could become life will be different. Yeah. What’s the one thing? So say for example, in your business right now. I don’t know, for example you in ten star. There’s something, we haven’t got that much time for me to go into that. But there’s one thing holding you back, is that because you are the captain of your ship. And if you are not at eight, nine out of 10 in five areas, for example, your mindset, your motivation, your relationship, your health, and the reason why when your business to be there, then you’re going to find it very tough to get there. I want to break down and see for example, what time you waking up in the mornings?

Payman: Late.

Mahmood Mawjee: Okay, what’s your first half an hour every day?

Payman: On the mobile.

Mahmood Mawjee: But Okay, fine. What if I could make sure that you’re awake at 5:30am every single morning with more energy than if you woke up at nine? What if your first half an hour every day was full of gratitude and exercise and you are pumped up by the time six o’clock came. You’re ready to fly. I am sure because I can see smiling right now, with that level of energy within a year, your business would have done double, triple, quadruple, whatever. And that 10 x journey starts there.

Prav Solanki: Amazing.

Payman: Amazing. Sounds a bit like Prav’s morning routine. But no, I mean, what’s interesting is you’re talking about mindset and motivation. You get people saying, “Hey, what makes you think you could 10 x my business? When you haven’t 10 x your own business?” Do you get that? Or is it just about me, mindset.

Mahmood Mawjee: Most people know what I can do. So I know that I’ve quadrupled the turnover in my business within one year, okay. I know that in a certain couple of the other businesses that I’ve led. I have 10 X. Say for example, you’re turning over a million-

Payman: Let’s say I was saying something that you hadn’t done before. You’re saying you have this billionaire coach?

Mahmood Mawjee: Yes.

Payman: He’s always done things you’ve got. And yet he is coming to you. So is it about that mindset thing? Can you switch someone’s mindset consistently? Not just for the five minutes after the coaching call?

Mahmood Mawjee: Yes. Let me-

Payman: What’s the key to that?

Mahmood Mawjee: Let me tell you about … You mentioned this billionaire coaching client, so when I sat down with this billionaire coaching client, is the first time I’d ever met billionaire. And when I thought a billionaire would kind of go in my head, that there would be like, suited booted, and all this and, and he wasn’t. And he just seemed like an average person, which is great, because he’s very humble. But I sat down with him. And he said, “I want you to come and speak to my company.” And I said, “Look, I think you need me more than your company needs me.” And I tell him where are you in life right now?

Mahmood Mawjee: Like I dream, a scale of one to 10 and I said life’s totally about energy level 10 and one is where most people live. And where are you on this level? I expected him to say nine 10 I’m a billionaire. He said, “Three.” I’m like, “Wow, three.” He goes, “Yeah, I’ve got no more drive. I’ve got the business. I’ve got the family. I’ve got everything I wanted to do.” And he was 52 and I’m like, “You’re a half time in your life. The second half is the best.” The game is won in the second half, the second half has to be the best. So I sat down with him and I tried to find his “why” I feel that everyone’s got a why? Or they should have why by what the things I don’t have why in this someone. When you can find it, when you can leverage that and everything changes.

Mahmood Mawjee: So this billionaire coaching client of mine he was a polo player, okay. And he used to spend a lot of money every year on horses. But he wasn’t able to as I spoke to him more and I kind of saw his body language his eyes, I realised there’s something wrong here. Why? Because he told me that he wasn’t able to play a full game of Polo for the last few years. Why? Lower back pain. He was getting out of breath. I told him what if I can get you back on a horse to play a full game of Polo within six months. Do you know what he said? I’ll pay you anything. He became a first billionaire coaching client, within six months, he was back on the horse playing a full game of Polo.

Mahmood Mawjee: After he won competition within two months was running more than he ever did, you see and then from there, he went on to launch another multi million dollar company. I think he’s launching in October in Europe. And why? Found his why. So his mindset I got him to realise. But it was because I found what was important to him, which was his Polo, it wasn’t health, it wasn’t wellness, the vehicle is health and wellness. But his why? His results, see people buy based on result, they don’t buy based on product.

Mahmood Mawjee: For example people buy white teeth, they don’t buy whitening, massive difference. So when you can sell the result, and you don’t sell the product and everything changes. So everyone even myself, we all need better minds every day. You need to grow. So yeah, everyone can be doing more becoming more, doing more.

Prav Solanki: So someone approaches you there the half hour call, you’ve got like assuming like a six month programme they initially enrol into, what’s the investment?

Mahmood Mawjee: The investment? It depends on who I’m seeing? What they’re doing? And actually, whether it’s one to one? So a lot of my clients are overseas. So I have some clients who actually fly in to actually meet me once every six weeks. But other than that, is if you’re meeting me, they’ll obviously be different fee scale. So if it’s over phone, WhatsApp, Zoom.

Prav Solanki: Give me a ballpark. What does it cost to work with you? There’s people out there listening. Maybe some of them, I’m certainly inspired by your story and I think to myself, can I afford him? Can’t I? What’s the minimum engagement to get involved with you?

Mahmood Mawjee: Let me turn the question back on you. If you’re making a million quid at the moment, your business making 10 x your business in one or two years, how much am I worth to you? How much would you pay for me? If I can get you in your life where you need to be? How much would you pay me?

Prav Solanki: I get where you’re coming from. But ultimately, there’s people out there. Who may think you know what, I wouldn’t mind six months with this guy. But I just want a straight answer. You go to a dentist, and-

Payman: How much is a beautiful smile worth?

Payman: Yeah. And they say, you’re going to get a new career, you’re going to get a new relationship, blah, blah, blah, how much is that worth to you?

Mahmood Mawjee: My fees range from about three and a half grand to about 10 grand over six months.

Payman: Okay.

Mahmood Mawjee: Okay, depending on how often I’m meeting you, what I’m doing, what your goals are, where you want to be.

Prav Solanki: So it’s really affordable. I mean, I see that as you start from what, 500 quid a month?

Payman: Yeah.

Mahmood Mawjee: Around that.

Prav Solanki: Which is affordable for most certainly the audience that we’re speaking to. And that’s all I wanted to get a gauge for is that and by the way, in three years time, it could be five times less, because if you’re the right cat, if you can move the right people in the right direction. Why not?

Mahmood Mawjee: And it will.

Payman: Yeah.

Mahmood Mawjee: And so right now, this is kind of where it is. But in the future. Just like anything, we’re all growing.

Prav Solanki: Going back to something that you said earlier, which really resonated with me is that you said your father passed from this world into … Was it another world you said?

Mahmood Mawjee: Yeah.

Prav Solanki: Just talk to me more about your belief system around that. Do you believe in reincarnation? Or he’s somewhere else in heaven? Or?

Mahmood Mawjee: So I’m a Muslim. Okay. So I believe that once you die, obviously, you’re two parts as your body and as your soul, your body goes away, your body disintegrates, but your soul is present. And then your soul enters another realm until a later day, when he gets pulled back up. And that’s kind of the Day of Judgement . So for me that I know my father is there. I know he’s around. But in that new world, there’s no concept of time, there’s no concept of anything. It’s totally different world. But I know he can see me.

Mahmood Mawjee: And when my father passed away, one thing he did is he left me a letter. My dad was a great organiser, okay, he left a letter for each and every one for me, my sisters, for my mom a separate letter, he didn’t know he was going to pass away. But obviously, and then he updated his letter every year. And the last thing he wrote in that letter is, wherever I am, whatever I’m doing, I will be looking over you and all the best. And I feel emotional now, that will kind of me in the next world. And so yeah.

Prav Solanki: What do you think your dad’s thinking looking down upon you right now? I don’t mean this podcast, whatever. But I mean, just generally. What do you think he’s looking down on you and how is he feeling?

Mahmood Mawjee: I think he’s super happy with me. Because I found me. I found what I love to do, and I’m having an impact. And I’m doing what I really wanted to do. So my dad never wanted me to do dentistry, because he was always into business. But my dad always realised, which is something I talk about a lot right now, that it’s unfair for any parent to push their agenda on their own kid, because most parents use their own insecurities on their children.

Mahmood Mawjee: So for example, it’s nice to go out and tell my friends and my son’s a doctor why? Because I feel good. Maybe he does want to be a doctor. And the way that plays out in the long run, I just put a video on Facebook about this, the way it plays out long term, is the kids not happy, and he wants to change. And he said yes to his parents initially, because he was young. And now he’s not happy. And what happens in relationships with parents and child breaks down, but what if we could have those conversations early on? So my dad told me what he felt I should do, but he didn’t tell me what to do.

Prav Solanki: Your dad was very forward thinking for someone from his generation, especially in Asian community, you find that a lot of people get pushed into, like you said earlier medicine, law, dentistry.

Payman: Do you find it easier to coach Muslims?

Mahmood Mawjee: Find easier? No.

Payman: Harder?

Mahmood Mawjee: Harder, no.

Payman: So is there a spiritual dimension to your coaching or not?

Mahmood Mawjee: There is, depending on who you are. So if it a-

Payman: It’s important to someone.

Mahmood Mawjee: Yeah, see, so those five things I mentioned. So for example, I saw our mindset, motivation, relationships, health, and business. Each and every person is different. There’s like this two things on there, which are probably the most important to someone, they have kind of two on there, it’s really important. The funny thing is what you think you need and what you actually need are two different things. So for example, you may come in thinking you need help to grow your business. And the truth is because your relationship suffering, that’s where you can’t grow your business.

Mahmood Mawjee: So my thing is to kind of bring you in on what you want, but then give you what I know you need. So do I prefer or do I? Yes, spirituality comes into it. But some people don’t have religion, and some people are interested, that’s fine. So then we’ll come up, in other ways, whereas some people feel that, so I was having a conversation with someone just a few days ago, they were like, well, I’m trying to grow my business right now. But I’ve got x amount already. And if I want any more, and I think I’m being greedy, and it’s because we’ve been conditioned, maybe through the people around us, religion, whatever that wanting more is not good. But that’s not true.

Mahmood Mawjee: Because the difference between gratitude and kind of what you want see, because gratitude, being thankful for what you have, but if you don’t do anything, if you don’t do it, because you think it’s wrong, and that’s wrong. Let me kind of explain what I mean. That maybe, I don’t know, again, maybe right now, your business times over a million argument’s sake, the say you have the potential to have a 50 million business. And you’re thinking, Well, you know, what I’ve got a million already, people out there don’t even have 100 grand.

Mahmood Mawjee: And have two months to survive. So by me wanting more, that means it’s wrong. But it’s not because life’s about growth, or maybe the next 49 million is there to help the world, it’s not about you. And we need to get out of that mindset. Sometimes religion plays a big thing in that and the people around us, that we think that we should be satisfied. Be grateful, but never be satisfied.

Payman: Yeah, I was looking at your content that gratitude is a big part of-

Mahmood Mawjee: Massive.

Payman: Value, certainly, I find it difficult times that certainly the best place to go for me.

Prav Solanki: Absolutely.

Payman: We’ve all been through difficult times in our lives, but I like your content. Tell me about the production value on it. Just talk us through that.

Mahmood Mawjee: What do you mean?

Payman: Well, perhaps putting out some content, personal brand type content. You’ve been doing it a little while I’ve noticed. What does it take? Was does it take if you got a guy filming you the whole time? What have you got?

Mahmood Mawjee: My son does-

Payman: Is it? Is that right?

Prav Solanki: Wow.

Mahmood Mawjee: Yes, he’s the guy behind the camera. But now he’s doing his GCSE’s. And I just advertised someone to actually … I want someone to be able to follow me for a few days a week with a camera everything I do-

Prav Solanki: Document.

Mahmood Mawjee: Yeah, like Gary V had a massive influence on my life, massive influence-

Payman: Does your son also edit and produce the music and all of that stuff on the videos or that’s you?

Mahmood Mawjee: Yes, he does all that for me. He doesn’t offer himself, he does it for me.

Payman: But those videos that we put out, he hasn’t just done the filming is he’s put the whole thing.

Prav Solanki: Amazing.

Payman: 16 year old?

Mahmood Mawjee: 15 turning 16. So he does all of that. But I want to put a hell of a lot more content out there. We’re living in a day and age right now, where attention is everything. That we’re so lucky to be in a time like we are right now, 20 years ago how did people find out about you? Right now people in the slums don’t have food, but have phones, and you know that you can touch someone’s life out there? And if you don’t, I honestly feel like … I mean, I really feel that when I die and I go into the grave, I’m going to be questioning certain things. I’m going to be questioned on, me as a person what I did, but also my potential that did I leave potential?

Prav Solanki: You spoke earlier about your father’s soul go into Judgement Day.

Mahmood Mawjee: Yeah.

Prav Solanki: What is that? What is Judgement Day? What does that mean?

Mahmood Mawjee: So there is a journey. So from the moment you die, that’s it. That’s the end of this life, you get questioned on how you are as a person, what you did, what value you brought into the world, whether you’re good or bad person, how much money you had, did you spend on the right stuff? Did you live your potential? I feel that if I stayed in dentistry, maybe I would have been, had a lot more questioning after because, the thing is that being in place I was, I was held back by myself by the voices in my head. And so then from there, then kind of Judgement Day is when you just kind of question about everything. And then there’s a eternal place you go to heaven or hell.

Prav Solanki: So your transition from-

Payman: Do you believe that?

Mahmood Mawjee: I do 100%.

Payman: Tell me about hell.

Mahmood Mawjee: Hell, is a place you probably wouldn’t want to be.

Payman: Fire and brimstone? Is that what you saying?

Mahmood Mawjee: Fire? Yes. What else is in that? Don’t know. Yeah. It is. And then this life? Is your testing place with the kind of person you are.

Prav Solanki: Do you believe other animals have souls? A donkey, a cow, pig. The fly I just killed?

Mahmood Mawjee: They don’t have intellect.

Prav Solanki: They have souls. So we talked about the body being a carcass.

Mahmood Mawjee: Yeah.

Prav Solanki: And then your soul existing within both separated death. And then you got Judgement Day? What’s a Judgement Day for a monkey or a cow? Or-

Mahmood Mawjee: Within the monkey’s remit, did he do the best? Did he look off his family the best? That’s it within your own-

Prav Solanki: Do they go to the same Judgement Day? Listen, I know. You don’t have the answers. But I’m trying to understand what your belief system is.

Payman: I didn’t think the conversation was going this way-

Mahmood Mawjee: I don’t know will there be-

Payman: Free will is a big factor here?

Mahmood Mawjee: We the only species have free and no other animal has free will. A tree has the ability to be a tree, a monkey commenting more than a monkey will because we have the ability to be anything.

Payman: I don’t know if you’ve heard any of Sam Harris. Other particular like everything he says, but this question of free will. He says there’s no free will in the humans either. And the question of even take it as far as, say the murderer, murdered because of the consequences of everything that came. And he’s by no means a bleeding heart liberal about it. So there’s a lot of conversations about that now. What would you like to be remembered for? We just said, the day you die regrets and all that. What would you like people to say about you? What are the three things that your legacy?

Mahmood Mawjee: Do you know that one thing which you said before about free will? See, the way I look at that is that if we didn’t have free will, then we wouldn’t be answerable for anything we did. Which then doesn’t make sense. Because then if your life is pre determined, then you can really just sit back and it’s going to go on that course. And then whether you do right or wrong isn’t about you, it’s about someone else. So the way I look at that is I think we’ve got total free will.

Payman: Well, let me explain it to the extreme example. And I don’t know extreme examples don’t always pay out here. But the extreme example is, there was a guy and he had a family, he had a wife, he had a mother, he had everything he needed. He loved all those people. One day, he starts feeling like he has to kill his mother and his wife. And that feeling is encompassing him so much. And he actually kills his mother and his wife. Then they go and find him. And he’s written a letter. And he says in this letter, he has written, I don’t understand what’s happening to me, I’m hearing voices in my head, I want you to look into this and look at my body and see what’s happened.

Payman: They take an X ray, and there’s a giant tumour in his head, that’s pushing on whatever that is. Dr Prav will tell us.

Prav Solanki: The brain. The brain.

Payman: Decision centre for his whatever brain. And it was that tumour that was causing him to think these things. And so now that’s an extreme example, we’re talking about tumour. But I see my kid and I love my kid, at the end of the day, that love is a chemical going through me and so forth. And so I’m not saying I have the answers, but that’s where this kind of question comes up. If that guy, let’s say we knew, let’s say he hadn’t killed himself or whatever. And let’s say, now he’s in front of a judge, not God, but judge, and should he go to prison? Or shouldn’t he?

Mahmood Mawjee: He should.

Payman: Medical complaint, tumour pushing on this.

Mahmood Mawjee: I see but the way I look at this, is that what I feel we all need, the two biggest gifts that you can have. Number one, health and number two, self awareness, understanding. Gary Vee talks a lot about self awareness, understanding yourself when you know that there’s something going wrong. So for example, that guy you had that that wasn’t him. At that point. He knew there’s something wrong, go and find out about it. Don’t just let it play out. He’s not the guy to normally have those kinds of thoughts, I want to kill someone.

Payman: I’m driving a car. I have a heart attack, swing by and hit someone, someone dies. I recover from the heart attack. Do I get done for dangerous driving?

Mahmood Mawjee: Well, no. Because you had heart attack.

Payman: Yes, you know what I mean?

Mahmood Mawjee: Yeah.

Payman: There are situations where it’s not free will. That’s what I’m trying to say.

Mahmood Mawjee: No, maybe there is free will still. Yeah. You didn’t choose to have thoughts that contact came because of kind of what you’ve done in the past. So what I’m saying is everything plays out. That maybe if you did any McDonald’s or you would have had a heart attack. The biggest killer we have within dentistry is cardiovascular disease. The amount of health issues we have as dentists, massive. I know, so are not familiar. I know, dentists are over 60. So many who’ve had heart attacks. Why? Because we’re in a place where we can’t look after ourselves, and what I want to do for dentistry I want to change that. I want people to be able to have a better quality of life. Do more, give more.

Payman: I’ve got a very good question for you. Sorry to interrupt you, Mahmood. But there’s plenty of dentists you can see for dentist by dentist group, for instance, there’re loads of dentist with the current situation with the litigation and all there who have had enough, let’s say they’re in a NHS practise, where it’s hard work, loads of patients, litigations, risk and all that. We’ve had enough. And every time it comes up, loads of dentists come up and say, “I’m feeling like giving up, but I don’t know what to do instead of dentistry.”

Payman: What’s your advice? I mean, you’ve got this coaching career, you’ve got this burning desire to push you. What’s your advice for regular dentist who’s maybe interested in whatever they’re interested in, it could be interested in sports or interested in cars or whatever. Should they think about the classic Gary V side hustle, start talking about cars and sports on the internet, make a business out of that and go into that? Or should they find a coach? Or what should they do? What’s your advice to that person who doesn’t really know what else they can do?

Mahmood Mawjee: I think the way I kind of look at in dentistry, there’s that one type of person who knows that they don’t do dentistry, and then they just went out. Okay, there’s the other type of person who’s within dentistry. But for example, they’re in the NHS right now. And they yet know they want to go into private practise, but they just don’t feel they’ve got the skill or a case, there’s that person, then there’s another person who kind of an associate who wants to be a principal, and they don’t have to make that journey. I think generally, it’s kind of around those three areas for the person-

Payman: Want to get out. I’m asking you, because you’ve got out recently.

Mahmood Mawjee: For the person who really wants to get out. What are they good? Find out about yourself? What is it that you love to do? How can you add value into this world? Because it’s all about value. That if I can add enough value into your life, okay, then I become very important in your life, how is it that you can add value. And the way if you reverse engineer that the way you can add value is by finding out what you love to do and what you’re good at. And if there’s a market for that, okay, like if you’re good at making paper aeroplanes , I don’t know, maybe there’s some sort of avenue you can pursue there.

Mahmood Mawjee: But generally, like most people will have something that they really would like to do that they’re good at, but they just don’t have the confidence to know that it’s possible. And what I would say is, I would say start it. And you’ve never lived in a day in an age when it’s easier to start a business. You’ve got YouTube, you got Instagram, you got Facebook, you’ve got Snapchat, you got Pinterest, you got LinkedIn, it never been a better time to start.

Mahmood Mawjee: Get someone to help you, see how it goes and then slowly tailor things off. But don’t just carry on in dentistry because you have to, because you feel is the only way, because it’s not the only way. Just because you think is the only way it’s not. Get someone out there. Get someone who can show you what’s possible. And go like I’ve done it and if honestly, I could do it and-

Payman: I’m an associate lets say. I’m the main breadwinner. So I’m paying the mortgage and all that, can’t sell out like you did and have a year’s buffer. I’m hating my job, I’m hating my nurse. I’m hating my patients, litigations on me all the time. What’s your advice? Your first bit of advice? What should I do next?

Mahmood Mawjee: If you really wanted to get out like so bad as me. Had two options like the summer practise or remortgage my house? I went to the practise, you know why? Find the way, because I had to burn bridges. Because I knew that if I’m still attached to practise, I’ll get calls and I’ll get this. I had to burn my bridges. Okay, so there was that option, or I could have tried to remortgage my house. Whoever owns a house right now they’re more than likely going to have enough equity that they can pull out for KV. Yeah, that was okay.

Mahmood Mawjee: And then you’ll find a way to make it back later. My thing is find a way. You’re an associate, you’re working. So I’ve always worked. I’ve never worked more than four days a week, why? Not because I spent one day chilling. Because I always knew that I need if I wanted to do something else, I got to be in a place where I’m able to receive that. If I’m in a clinic for five days, and then two days my family, where am I going to receive that? Where am I going to get it from? I use the extra one or two days in my week to try new things either social media agency, I was trading on trade, Forex, commodities options, I used to do a lot. And I still got loads of training courses, seminars, meeting people why?

Mahmood Mawjee: Because I realised that in order for me to find what I really wanted to do, I got to be out there being ready to receive. So the best advice I can give is knock a day off. Everyone can afford to knock a day off. Why? Because they can work an extra one hour, two hours on the other days, they can make it happen. If you had to slice part of your income of say, for example, you are take 20% haircut in income, you’d find a way to survive. So okay, yeah, so just imagine that.

Payman: And anyway, taking a day off doesn’t necessarily mean earning less.

Mahmood Mawjee: Exactly. It just means working more efficiently.

Payman: I have five, four, three, two and one, I’ve never done six days.

Mahmood Mawjee: Okay.

Payman: As a dentist, whenever I hear anyone who does do six days, I think it’s an error. But it’s right for some people I guess.

Mahmood Mawjee: But if you took a day out, and you solely use that day to just put yourself out there to think to listen, you go YouTube man. My parents came from Uganda when Amin chucked them out. They had no choice, exactly. And then my dad had something about I think 10 quid or quid something in his pocket. And he built up a massive business from that. I imagine if they had the gift of YouTube, imagine they had the gift of what we have. It’s laughable that our parents never had what we had, but yet they managed to do so much. We don’t have to work in a shop seven days a week to feed our family. There’s other ways we can do it. So I think there’s so many ways, cut a day out. And just start without-

Payman: I totally agree with you that now’s the best time to do something other-

Mahmood Mawjee: 100%.

Payman: With so much resources these days out there, whenever we were talking with Anil Shrestha and he was saying that it’s harder for new graduates now. At the same time new graduates have got the internet. When we qualified-

Mahmood Mawjee: It wasn’t there. And you got that side where it is tough in the dental market at the moment, because there’s so many graduates, so few jobs. There’s a lot of apathy in dentistry as well. But then on the other side, you have so much opportunity if you’re willing to go out and grab it. So both sides of it.

Prav Solanki: Mahmood? You’re on the same bed, you’re writing that letter, but this time you’re writing it to the world before you leaving, what would you like that letter to say, Mahmood was …

Mahmood Mawjee: I want people to remember me by someone who had an impact on their life, who gave a better life by listening to me. But I wouldn’t be the first person you listen to when you wake up in the morning. And I want to be able to start your day, I want to know that I made your life better. That I gave you see people who are looking for two things in life, hope and leadership on a provider. I want to create the best leaders and only give people hope to know that there’s a better future than the present. And that’s what I want to do.

Prav Solanki: Earlier you alluded to you want to be a billionaire, right? You want to impact a billion people in that way. That’s your mission. That’s the journey?

Mahmood Mawjee: Yep. 100%

Prav Solanki: Beautiful.

Payman: I do like that. I do like that.

Mahmood Mawjee: Yeah. Everywhere I go, people after that, so how many people listen to us right now. That number is got bigger.

Payman: Hope so anyway.

Mahmood Mawjee: I’m sure.

Payman: Who’s giving you the best advice in your life? Your dad? Someone else? Who’re your mentors?

Mahmood Mawjee: My mentors. I’ve got mentors who I don’t meet, people like Anthony Robbins people like Gary V people like that. Who I consume a lot of information from every single day. And then I’ve got my mentors who I actually meet. Okay. So what’s the best advice I’ve ever been given? I heard this thing once from the Navy SEALs, where they said, “When you think life’s over, when you think that’s it, you’ve only given 40% you’ve got another 60% left in you.” I use that every single day. Because when things are tough, I know there’s something waiting. Yeah, to actually go in there and grab the other 60%. And for me, that’s super, super important.

Prav Solanki: That’s powerful.

Payman: It’s been lovely to speaking to you.

Mahmood Mawjee: Thank you very much.

Payman: Inspirational.

Mahmood Mawjee: Thank you.

Prav Solanki: Very inspirational. Thank you so much for your time.

Payman: Thanks for sharing so much about especially talking about your dad that way. So openly.

Mahmood Mawjee: Thank you very much. Thanks for having me man. Thanks guys.

Speaker 3: This is Dental leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts Payman Langroudi and Prav Solanki.

Prav 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 for me and Pay for actually sticking through and listening to what we say and what our guest has had to say because I’m assuming you got some value out of it.

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

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

 

Transcript

Prav Solanki: Hey guys, welcome to the show and thank you for tuning into the Dental Leaders podcast. Today’s interview is with Anil Shrestha, another super cool guy, always immaculately presented and dressed but, so many stories from being a dentist to some very high profile individuals being at the top of his game and one amazing story about being invited to purchase his existing practise from the famous Mike Wise.

Payman L.: Yeah, so a story that goes from house officer to clinical director of a giant corporate to filling some of the biggest shoes possible in dentistry and again, a super cool dude as well with it.

Prav Solanki: And also a ninja.

Payman L.: Yeah, also martial artist and I think we asked him about that too.

Prav Solanki: Yeah.

Payman L.: Excellent.

Prav Solanki: All round. Super Cool Guy.

Payman L.: Enjoy it guys.

Prav Solanki: Enjoy.

Anil Shrestha: And then I became a Geordie. I remember my grandmother being aghast at the fact that I could speak English so well, or speak Nepalese with the English accent. And then she was aghast at the fact that I could actually speak Nepalese with the Geordie accent as well.

Speaker 4: This is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts, Payman Langroudi and Prav Solanki.

Prav Solanki: Ladies and gentlemen, today we have Anil Shrestha with us today. Anil, thank you so much for joining us today-

Anil Shrestha: Thank you.

Prav Solanki: … really appreciate that you’ve taken the time out of your busy schedule to spend some time telling us about your story.

Anil Shrestha: Thank you. I’m very flattered to be here.

Prav Solanki: Anil, I’d just like to go back in time and just tell us about your childhood, how you was brought up and what your story was before you came to the UK.

Anil Shrestha: Well, I came to the UK when I was about four just before I reached my fifth birthday and raised by my grandmother back in Nepal, had a relatively privileged existence. My father was away from us studying in the states. He was a doctor, he was at Johns Hopkins and then he came over to the UK on a sabbatical. They asked him to stay. My mother came over, my brother and I were raised by our grandparents back at home. I would have had a completely different upbringing and childhood if I had stayed in Nepal I have to say, and I don’t think I would have been in dentistry.

Anil Shrestha: I think it was, opportunity, especially with the family background to gone into a business and tourism, et cetera. But my mother persuaded my grandmother that we should come over. She had slightly different ideas and was slightly concerned because she didn’t really like Britain as she thought, it was a backward nation, which, I have to say now, I regard myself as a British and I love this place, but, I could understand much later on what she meant.

Payman L.: The first day you got to Britain.

Anil Shrestha: Yes, I literally arrived. It took me two days to fly over. My grandmother, for the first time I saw her cry. She had a very regal presence about her and everyone was afraid of her. She literally ran the household and all our servants and my uncles, they dropped me off at the airport. I was taken by an air hostess and it took me two days to fly over. I couldn’t speak English. I remember being on the plane, being uncomfortable. I remember stopping over somewhere in Europe and then flying over again. And then I arrived at Heathrow airport and there were a group of four men and I was pointed towards them and I realised that one of them was my father. That was the first time I met him that I can remember. And then I came back to be raised in [inaudible] Suburbia.

Prav Solanki: And you are how old when you first met your father Anil?

Anil Shrestha: Four maybe, I wasn’t five.

Prav Solanki: Wow.

Anil Shrestha: And then I went to school, I couldn’t speak English. I remember Mrs. White, my first foreign teacher wouldn’t let go of my mom’s hand back and she was upset. Anyway, I finally ended up there and they had concerns about me because I wasn’t speaking to anyone, et cetera. Now, six months later, express concern again. And I was brought in front of the headmistress with my mum and my dad and they were complaining that I was talking too much. And, I’ve just always been very gregarious and I’ve loved company and I got on very well, so I just adapted, I suppose. Had an interesting childhood.

Payman L.: How old were you, when you went to Newcastle then?

Anil Shrestha: I started Newcastle in 87, so I’d finished my first degree in Chemistry and Physiology in Sheffield and I didn’t know what I wanted to do to be quite honest.

Payman L.: Oh so you didn’t live in Newcastle? You weren’t brought up in Newcastle?

Anil Shrestha: I was brought up in Newcastle, I went to school there, I went to-

Payman L.: So how old were you when you went from [crosstalk]

Anil Shrestha: I think, 12 or 13.

Payman L.: 12 or 13.

Anil Shrestha: Yeah. And then I became a Geordie. I remember my grandmother being aghast at the fact that I could speak English so well or speak Nepalese with an English accent, and then she was aghast at the fact that I could actually speak Nepalese with Geordie accent as well. And it just came out, I love the northeast but, I live in London now and my regret always is that I couldn’t practise what I do in London. Sorry, what I practise in London up in the northeast anymore.

Payman L.: I love Newcastle.

Anil Shrestha: Yeah, I know you do.

Payman L.: I loved it a lot. I love how the people are so interesting there and the geography is interesting too.

Anil Shrestha: Oh it’s a lovely place.

Payman L.: Around the-

Anil Shrestha: I love just north of Newcastle in Northumberland. I love just south in the North Yorkshire as well, It’s just an amazing place, and I love the sea. I miss that.

Prav Solanki: Does your Geordie accent ever come back?

Anil Shrestha: Yeah, If I’ve had a drink, definitely [crosstalk]

Prav Solanki: I’m the one who stressed Geordie, this is going to be on me.

Anil Shrestha: Oh you should see when I meet all my Geordie friends, It’s amazing. You couldn’t tell the difference honestly. It’s fun. But London is my home now.

Payman L.: Do you remember the first time you decided you were going to look at studying dentistry? Do you remember that?

Anil Shrestha: Yeah, no, I was actually in Sheffield at the time and did well, I did Chemistry and Physiology just do an honours degree. There were only two of us on the programme and I realised that as much as I loved Chemistry and Physiology, I had all the grades to get into everything, but I just wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. So, then met a whole load of dental students and dentists over that three years and I thought, “You know what, this is actually really interesting.” So I went over to the Charles Clifford dental school.

Anil Shrestha: I was always very good with my hands, loved artwork. I loved making models, carving wax. I used to like painting, et cetera. All came from my mother, she was an artist and musician and everything and academic study, I just loved reading. So I applied to do dentistry and I got four offers and one of them was in Newcastle. So I decided to take the one in new castle, went back up there and the five years, like for all of us, it’s not easy. You think dentistry is easy. It’s not, it’s extremely arduous. And the course only.

Payman L.: But you know mature students tend to handle it much better. I think I was still such a child when I went into dental school, and I remember a couple of mature students in our year, definitely got the more out of it than I did, because I was just playing out my childhood.

Anil Shrestha: Absolutely. But in reality, the difficulty of the programme is actually the same for whether you’re relatively mature or not because-

Payman L.: It’s a tough course.

Anil Shrestha: … If you’ve been on the programme, then you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. And obviously most of the audience listening to this are probably dentists anyway. But mature students are the ones who’ve already decided what they want to do and they’re more probably focused on completing the programme and they know pretty much where they want to go to and aspire to even though, at the end of the five years you have so many opportunities, especially now.

Anil Shrestha: By the time we graduated over 20, 25 years ago. So, the options there were relatively limited. Specialist Dentistry hadn’t really developed, there was only Maxillofacial Surgery or Orthodontics or Hospital Service and most people went into general practise, and quite literally, we were all thrown out into general practise before VT. We didn’t know how to set up businesses, we didn’t know anything about what we need to know about now. Marketing, social media, et cetera, the things that you’re experts at. And we just learned as we went along.

Payman L.: So what was your first job?

Anil Shrestha: A house officer. So I did my house officer jobs in Newcastle. I had a real skill with my hands, so Conservative Dentistry just came very naturally to me. I won medals and things, but equally, it was a difficult academic programme for me and I failed exams as well. But it wasn’t till I actually qualified paying that suddenly light was like 1, 000 light bulbs came on at once and everything made sense and that’s what makes that passion really ignite for me.

Anil Shrestha: Seeing dentists who don’t quite get it yet and they don’t realise how to integrate everything from anatomy, to pathology, to operative dentistry, to understanding how [inaudible] work, to understanding how displays years occur, what try radiant nuclear actually mean, how they develop. These are things that you just read about in pathology books, but nothing makes sense until you’re actually in practise.

Prav Solanki: And do you think there was a moment in time, like a defining moment when that all just came together? I even in my own life talked about my own education, I draw the analogy to learning how to drive. At some point you’re putting the clutch down-

Anil Shrestha: And then it becomes so instinctive.

Prav Solanki: … then it just all falls into place and it happens. Was there a time during your career where you thought, well it’s all come together now, It all makes sense.

Anil Shrestha: Yeah, when I was pushed away from Conservative Dentistry and the dean said, because I always wanted to train to be a Restorative Consultant or go into academia, and he said you need to do maxillofacial surgery now. And I thought, I really just want to do conservative dentistry and cut teeth beautifully and make crowns bridges. I used to do all my own gold work and everything, it was amazing. I was doing gold work and casting, I’d cast all my ex-wife’s in laser non lays by third BDS when everyone was still finishing, learning how to do MOD amalgams and things.

Anil Shrestha: Because when you had an opportunity and you had people like professor Ian Bonds who would see that you wanted to see how cohesive gold work, when everyone else was playing with amalgam and you’re in the back of the cupboards there, getting out of the cohesive gold Kit, and he’d said, “Do you know what that is?” and I said, “No, but I’d really like to learn.” And then you tell them a bit about the history of lost wax technique, et cetera. He can see. And that’s really incumbent upon people like us to see that spark in somebody and then to give the opportunity for them to learn.

Anil Shrestha: And as I said to you earlier, people can open doors for you, but you’ve got to want to really go in or people can have a door that is there, and you can burst the door open or you can find another door, but you’ll get to where you want to be. And so I was doing all of these things and I thought that’s all I wanted to do, but I didn’t realise, going back to your original question, what dentistry really meant to to start my maxillofacial jobs. And then you started to see accident emergency traumas coming in, you were suturing things, you were seeing pathologies, you were doing radical neck dissections and everything started coming back.

Anil Shrestha: And then I started reading, and I started reading so prolifically. Things just flowed literally like learning how to ride a motorbike for the first time and then instinctively letting go the clutch and accelerating, pulling wheelies, getting your knee down. When you get to that level, you think, wow, even now I’m starting to learn. So at that time I decided I was going to start testing myself. So there were lots of different exams and I’d always been encouraged by some very good general practitioner tutors to sit the MTDS exam, which you may recall was regarded as the gold standard in general practise.

Anil Shrestha: My perception of it is that it’s, I’m a member, is that it’s an elitist organisation of self-selecting, exceptionally good dentists that understand dentistry really well. Now I see this in the younger generation. I see it in people who are teaching fantastic courses. Now I see it in people who are working in practise and producing the most amazing work from just simple fillings to doing block burn graphs, et cetera.

Anil Shrestha: You see this, and this is a way of testing to a level of knowledge and for this group to come together. And so I sat that exam, passed it first time, did very well, and at the same time I decided to do the MFDS. I decided to do GDP, et cetera, and I thought, well, why not sit them all at the same time because they can only ask you certain things. And the reality is, you know you’re going to be sitting in, I’m an examiner now for different royal college exams. You know that they can only ask you certain things.

Anil Shrestha: So when you’ve learned Sjogren’s syndrome, all the signs and symptoms and the pathology behind it. Then not unusually, you’ll find it asked in three exams in the same year or something in different exams and things. So it’s simple. And I just became very adept at doing this. But the reason I sat all these exams is because I wanted to test my understanding. It wasn’t to prove to anything, anyone anything about me other than I actually understood this.

Prav Solanki: Let me ask you a question, It might be a difficult one for you. You’re obviously an incredibly successful dentist as well as an academic.

Anil Shrestha: Well that’s what your perception is, yes thank you.

Prav Solanki: You love learning, you have a passion for learning.

Anil Shrestha: Absolutely. Definitely.

Prav Solanki: And, there’s a quote by a guy called James Dyson who is the guy who invented the Dyson hoovers and then the hand dryers and so on and so forth.

Anil Shrestha: Oh, I know.

Payman L.: Of course you do.

Prav Solanki: And his biggest thing is that we can all learn from failure. What’s the biggest mistake that you’ve made in dentistry so far?

Payman L.: The other thing is that he’s talking clinically.

Prav Solanki: It could be.

Payman L.: Could you be willing to discuss that?

Anil Shrestha: Probably not having started it earlier. But then again the course of our lives is such that you take different steps that it leads you to where you’re eventually going to end up. And my belief is that if you have a particular passion and you manage to find it, then you should do everything to excel in it, and like cream, you’ll always rise to the top. Opportunities will open for you.

Anil Shrestha: If I had an opportunity to do dentistry early and had found that calling earlier, than I would have at least another five or 10 years to give to the profession. I don’t think anything is a mistake. I think everything is a learning opportunity and it’s part of your life pathway. So I don’t think anything I’ve done is a mistake. There things that I may have thought, well I could’ve done that better at some point.

Payman L.: What was your lowest point in it, especially your lowest point?

Anil Shrestha: Probably going through divorce whilst I was still a dentist.

Payman L.: What stage was that dentistry wise, where were you?

Anil Shrestha: I’d qualified, I’d joined James Hull, basically just after I finished the Eastman. In fact, just before I went to the Eastman, I knew the relationship was breaking down with my ex wife Noelle, who I’m still very good friends with now. And it’s hard because every successful dentist that you ever meet in your life, you think, “Wow, they’re doing so well.” What you don’t realise is every single one of them, though unknown, have had a really difficult period in their lives. You don’t understand what they’ve gone through. You can never understand it. You can see it and you can maybe empathise, but we all have a story. That part for me was actually going through that divorce and still managing to stay focused.

Prav Solanki: Do you remember the day when it became a reality that you were going to be divorced or perhaps you were going through a time where you were trying to convince yourself things were going to work out and everything was going to be all right and there was a defining moment ways or actually, do you know what? This is all going to end, however that was. Can you take me back to that moment, what you were thinking, what you were emotionally going through and how you managed to keep your head above water at the same time?

Anil Shrestha: That was a very dark time for me. Say this is for anyone going through that sort of thing. It’s not something I would wish upon anyone and the relationship naturally was coming to an end. But it’s always emotional, especially when there’s a child involved. My daughter, Maya, who is 21 now was about two or three years old at the time. And used to remain focused through the day just making sure that I was focused on my patients. They were always the priority. My personal way of coping with it was after work, I would always train. Before work, I’d always train.

Anil Shrestha: I’ve been doing martial arts since I was five. I was a gymnast, the county level for teens. And then I went into martial arts which came relatively naturally for me. And it was a way of spending time focusing on not the bad things but actually managing to get through rather than falling into depression. And I would train all the time. I was not bad, I wasn’t great. I could have been a lot better, especially if I didn’t, I could spend more time doing a training. But it’s always been a focus for me. And the key thing for me, because everyone is slightly different. The key thing for me that’s taken me to the levels of success that you perceive is that I mastered the art of self-discipline from a very early age.

Anil Shrestha: And for me that was a natural revelation. So I defined self-discipline. When people ask me how you become successful, how you remain focused or how you get over difficult things, as being self-disciplined is the ability to get up and do what you need to do, when you need to do it, even when you don’t want to do it. Get up, do what you need to do when you need to do it, even when you don’t want to do it. And when you can do that, you remain focused on an end objective. The end objective is always to make everyone happy, to do the right thing, to be successful, to fulfil your potential.

Anil Shrestha: And that’s what I’d like to see, when I see people, other professionals, younger professionals, if I see a spark in them, it’s almost incumbent upon me. It’s like a duty for me to help them to fulfil that potential, whichever direction it may be.

Payman L.: I feel that way too. Do you feel like you are good at seeing that spark in-

Anil Shrestha: I think it comes through empathy and I see it, and when I do see it then, if my help is called upon, then I will always do whatever I can to help people.

Prav Solanki: It seems to me that, just from the short time I’ve spent with you that, a lot of what you’re about is getting your happiness by doing things for other people and fulfilling your happiness through that.

Anil Shrestha: It’s sharing passion, Prav. It’s sharing my passion, because having found it myself, and you read about it and there are a lot of things that you can see in self help books and things and I read them and I think, “Oh, I realised that myself a while ago.” If you’re going to be successful in life, you need to find a passion. There are certain things and certain rules in life that I’ve learned. One is that, find something you’re really good at, something that comes naturally. But when it comes naturally, you should, like I tell my daughter, just because she’s a gifted artist, she’s been selling her artwork online since she was a teenager. She’s in a college now where they’re at least half a dozen people that she thinks are better than her, but she’s now in the right peer group because she’s being pushed. So find something that you find that you’re very passionate about, but you must commit to excel in it. You must excel and you must push yourself. And when you do that, then it doesn’t become a job.

Anil Shrestha: Dentistry for me is not a job. I’ll tell you a story about when I went to my 25 year reunion a year or two so ago, and about 50 out of the class of 70 had turned up. It’s quite a tight group in Newcastle. And we’d booked this Boutique hotel in Jasmine Dune and the whole of the bar was overtaken by us, as you would imagine the whole hotel was in fact, and it was about maybe two, three o’clock in the morning and we’re all sitting in our small groups in the different sofas and things. And it just struck me that it was like the canteen at Newcastle, all the little cliques are sitting next to each other again.

Anil Shrestha: I was talking to a good friend of mine, and I noticed just sitting across was, two of my friends, Adrian O’Malley and one of the other guys, I forget his name now, but they’re just sitting there laughing at me. I said, “Damn, WTF, what are you laughing at?” And again, they were just looking at me saying, “Anil,” they said, “Every five years we come here, and you’re the only one that’s talking about what your passion in Dentistry,” because I was talking about my new scanning and cad cam milling technique.

Payman L.: Talking about T.

Anil Shrestha: We’re all sitting here talking about retiring, how tired we are and our kids and everything and you’re the only one that’s getting enthusiastic about it. And I said, “Well that’s because it’s just so exciting.” And that’s why I said if there is a regret, I wish I’d started this five years earlier. So when you see it in somebody else again, then it’s fantastic.

Payman L.: What I’ll say about that, about you, is firstly, you’ve got the humility at the level that you’re at, to show up at courses like [inaudible 00:20:37]-

Anil Shrestha: Oh, but you’ll lean so much there.

Payman L.: … student courses all over the place and often when people get to a certain level, they don’t want to be seen to be at courses. But that’s one point. But the other thing is, I was watching you during that course because I thought it was with one different-

Anil Shrestha: During the fresh commerce course?

Payman L.: … yeah.

Anil Shrestha: Oh my God. Amazing [crosstalk]

Payman L.: One of the first times I think we met each other as well. So I was excited to meet you. I was watching and you were just taking notes.

Anil Shrestha: Yeah, always-

Payman L.: Throughout the whole, taking solid notes.

Anil Shrestha: With my apple pen and my iPad.

Payman L.: With your iPad on the thing. And I was watching the notes you were taking and there was, it’s funny because I’ve told Depeche, there’s gotta be learning points on the slide and I think you took 60 pages of out of it. And I thought, this guy loves teeth. The room was full of dentists, but you’ve got to where you’ve got to and still fully engaged in it.

Anil Shrestha: Always. So, I remember Kanaan Elias who taught me at the Eastman and he’s still practising now. He’s one of the most gifted operators you’ll ever meet. And every year at the Eastman, there’s always an amazing gifted operator. You see them now teaching courses and things, but, a lot of them will just go off into academia, et cetera. And every year there’s a gold medal winner. In my year, had a class of six, four distinctions. And I was-

Payman L.: Wow.

Anil Shrestha: I felt great but, and it’s rare to be given, but, I was just like everyone else. And every year there’s somebody like that. And these are exceptional when it’s outside of places like the Eastman. But we’re actually quite common. You’ll see a lot of people like this and all of us have something to learn. And Kanaan Elias was one of the old guard at the Eastman. And he became my mentor and I would always see him at things like section 63 meetings or some postgraduate meetings. And he’d always be sitting in the back just nodding his head, maybe taking one or two notes.

Anil Shrestha: And I’d always go and see him pay my respects. And he would say, “Oh, you are Anil.” And he’d ask me about my family, et cetera. And I remember one of the first times I saw him at this relatively in a section 63 meeting and I thought, really learned much but at least I met that few people. And I said, “Why do you keep coming to these?” And he said, “Anil” He said, “You always learn something in a course like this, even if it’s how not to do it.” And this guy was the most humble most gifted operator and one of the most inspirational mentors I had and I thought, “Yes, you’re right.”

Anil Shrestha: And so when I do current courses, I’ll pick them and I see the work, I sought to pass your stuff on social media, you know the power of social media. I’d never met him before, but I knew about him from Louis McKenzie and a few other people in the West Midlands when I was there. And I thought, yeah, this guy’s supposed to be very good. And you start to hear about them. So when I started to see his work, immediately I could see that spark we’re talking about, I thought, “Whoa, this guy is passionate.” He has the hands, he has the eyes, he sees it and he knows how to teach it. And maybe it was because of some of the refinement from you, but those lectures were good. That lecture was-

Payman L.: I know, he’s brilliant. [crosstalk] I’m not taking credit for the lecture at all.

Anil Shrestha: But this isn’t just about the enlightened. There are other-

Payman L.: Of course.

Anil Shrestha: … very good operators and I see them. And so whenever I see an opportunity to go, especially when it’s somebody younger, then I’ll go. And the funny thing is I get the same reaction, you’re absolutely right. [crosstalk 00:23:56]. Yeah, I’m telling you, invariably people always say, “We’re really honoured.” I remember Ratik, I went on his position cutting programmes and he introduced me as being part of dental royalty, he was very humbled, et cetera. And I said Ratik, just get on with it mate, because I actually deserve it.

Payman L.: [inaudible 00:24:17]. Tell me about the day you eventually went on to become the clinical director at James Hull Group.

Anil Shrestha: I was clinical lead-

Payman L.: Clinical lead.

Anil Shrestha: And then there were four clinical directors and then after they [crosstalk]

Payman L.: And you set up those iced two nationals-

Anil Shrestha: There were two practises, one in Birmingham, one in Eastman, so.

Payman L.: Before you talk about that, let’s go back to the day you met James Hull.

Anil Shrestha: Oh that’s an interesting story, and then we’ll go onto that if you wish, because they’re quite interesting stories. So [inaudible] in Newcastle, did my house jobs and then I was told I needed to go and do maxillofacial surgery. It’d be somewhere rough where, you’re actually going to get a lot of experience.

Payman L.: [inaudible]

Anil Shrestha: So I ended up just near you, where you qualified mate. You know what Newport’s like, it was amazing. I was in there and he’s stitching out faces all the time and then I’d meet the same people at the nightclubs, working on the doors and things and they’d let you in and they’d had bandaged faces. I’ll fix you up, anyway, so I ended up there and you learn so much. In one year of residency in maxillofacial surgery, everything. Like I say, it all came together suddenly, all of the academic stuff, all of the clinical staff came together. You are responsible, you just got on with it and it just really just ignited my thirst for knowledge. And within about three months I was starting to miss holding a handpiece.

Anil Shrestha: So I remember sitting there clocking in patients and I’d just been speaking to the policeman who was trying to deter me from going to the local boxing gym down the pill, which is the roughest area there. So I said, “I need to learn how to box.” And he said, “Oh, don’t go down there dock,” because I’d just been doing a report for him and I thought, “Why not?” And he said, “Oh, it’s full of the roughest people here.” And I thought, “Yeah, that’s where I’m going to go.” I used to train there literally everyday, they used to love me. Anyway, next door, or just a few doors down was a practise that was owned by James Hull.

Anil Shrestha: And as I started misusing the hand piece, I thought, “Do you know what, I’m going to get myself a Saturday job.” So I started ringing on the yellow pages. Yellow pages was before google. I had a list of about 10 practises in and around the Rogue [inaudible] where I was resident, at the hospital. And I came up to number five and it was James Hull. And every time I picked up the phone in between seeing these patients, I’d say, “Listen, I’m the maxillofacial SHO up the road, just looking for a Saturday job or an evening job just doing routine conservative dentistry.” And they’d all say, “I’m sorry, no.”

Anil Shrestha: Picked up the phone to James Hull practise and, lo and behold, James Hull answered the phone. So I went through the same spiel expecting a no, I think, I’m the maxillofacial SHO up the road, I’m looking for a Saturday job or an evening job, wondering whether you’ve got an opportunity and I don’t have an NHS number, et cetera. I was expecting, no thank you. There was just the pregnant pause and he said, “Actually I don’t have a job, but I like your attitude.” He said, “Come down and see me, where are you now?” And I said, “I’m up the road.” He said, “Come see me, I’m here at the Practise and Pill, do you know it?” And I thought, “Yeah, it’s next to the boxing gym. I see all the people coming in and getting stopped or selling drugs.” And so I went there after work and I met him.

Payman L.: [inaudible] was it just that one practise?

Anil Shrestha: Oh, he had about three practises.

Payman L.: He had three.

Anil Shrestha: It was the smallest, just before he bought the Wolverhampton practise, which gave him the corporate licence.

Payman L.: And what was that thing called? The corporate body thing?

Prav Solanki: Corporate body. Yeah.

Payman L.: I remember there was a limited [inaudible 00:27:34]. If you didn’t have one, you couldn’t have a large number of practises. Anyway-

Payman L.: So he met you?

Anil Shrestha: Yeah. And we got on really well. He said, “I don’t have a Saturday job, I don’t have an evening job, but I’m going to open one for you.”

Payman L.: Wow.

Anil Shrestha: “Apply for your NHS number,” et cetera. So during that week, I made all the applications, literally bigs doing the sedations and extraction of wisdom teeth up the road on the NHS. Then I’d walk down, have a cup of tea with him, his nurses, et cetera. And I’ll be doing the same thing from six o’clock in the evening till nine o’clock except we’re charging, I think 175 pounds. Remember this is back in 93, 94 plus sedation fees. And I started making money and I was happy, I was doing fillings, et cetera. I was doing crowns, so they had a lab upstairs, I was doing my own gold work, waxing, et cetera. He just let me have free reign of the place, and it came up to Christmas and I said, “What’s the matter James?” And he said, “Bloody dentists, none of them will do the on call.”

Anil Shrestha: And I said, “Listen,: I said, “I’ve got the consultant’s bleep, I’ve got the hospital bleep, I’ve got a pager and I’m up the road and all I do is I just stitch up faces, go on a theatre or read for my FTS.” And I said, “I’ll do this for you.” And he said, “Great.” He gave me a phone, mobile phone. Very first one, a Nokia. He said, “This is yours.” He said, “Use this for your own calls, use it for anything else you like,” and I’m telling you, I didn’t give up that phone or that phone number. I had a new one every year from that year until I left James Hull in 2011.

Payman L.: Wow.

Anil Shrestha: And I remember that the new directors, they would come to me and maybe three, four years before everything sold. And they’d say, “How come you’re the only dentist with a director’s phone and who do you call with it? I said, listen, “I had a phone bill.” And I said, “I’ve been using this phone case since James gave it to me for all the on calls, et cetera. I ring my mum in Nepal, I ring people overseas, I ring whoever I want, I don’t abuse it, but I use it for all the on calls and I’ve always done the on call centre.” So, I did the on calls for him and then he gave me the keys to the other practises. So I’d either go to the Gare, which is a nicer part of Newport, or I’d go to Pill, which was the sort of place where you didn’t really want to be.

Anil Shrestha: I remember one afternoon in the summer, okay, in the spring, I was with a nurse and we were just standing outside the door and we heard all these police sirens. And then suddenly I saw this guy running down the road, the middle of the high street, legging, and then suddenly two policemen running down the road again. And then there were cars coming and the sirens and everything. And we just had a cup of tea and thought, “Yeah, normal life around here.” Anyways, so I used to get paid about 53 pounds, I think for every time I opened up. And then for emergency fees. And at the end of it, we were paid, I think as SHOs about 26, 27, 000 pounds a year. And I made more than that from doing all the jobs on the Saturdays and the on calls, et cetera when I came away, plus my FTS and everything. So it worked. And then I went to the Eastman. Before I went to the Eastman-

Payman L.: No, wait. At what point did it turn from being, It sounds like you were pretty energetic young house officer willing to work all the time. By the way, I did the house job. I was in for a minute consider working on top of that house job. So well done. But no, at what point did you realise that this James who is my boss has actually a lot more going on here than just, he’s got three practises within, when did the funding round start? Were you involved in any of that acquisition?

Anil Shrestha: Oh yeah, we were involved. We were entertaining all of the venture capitalists, we were entertaining the [inaudible] bank.

Payman L.: When did it go from being the guy who covers the phones or drink-

Anil Shrestha: When I saw him again next. So I left the job in South Wales, went back up to the northeast, spent six years in NHS and private practises, did all my exams, et cetera. I’d applied then to get to go and study in the states and I’d got an offer to go to Ohio to study prosthodontics. So I was in northeast and so during this period I lost contact with James and when I got the offer plus an offer for application for a scholarship from the dean in Ohio, I told my wife and I remember, and this is an important lesson in life actually, I remember saying, “Oh my God, we’re going to go to Ohio.” I’d saved up 60, 000 pounds and which is more than enough, back in the mid nights working, I was always very good at putting money away, et cetera, and I knew what I needed to plan for.

Anil Shrestha: I remember she was a bit upset. So I spoke to her about an hour later. I said, oh, she was happy, but I knew that something’s wrong, when you know somebody really well. And I said, “Listen, what’s the matter?” And she said, “I’m pregnant.” And it took me too long, one second. It took me one second to say to her, “Fantastic.” Because she said, sorry. I think just going back a step, she said, “I’m pregnant, but I don’t want to go to the states and have the baby.” And I knew that she’d be alone there, we had everything here, and that one second was that one second too long. And I said, “That’s fantastic, we’re not going to go to the states. Never mind.” Because I realised then family and babies and everything else are more important. And like I said to you, cream’s always gonna rise to the top. And I thought I’m going to have to another way. And I just literally gave up the idea of going to the states.

Payman L.: But there was a piece of you that was shattered there.

Anil Shrestha: For a split second. This was because what I realised, and I learned this a while ago when I went to Nepal, I trained with the Nepalese police forces and I spent several weeks out in the forest fighting ex Gurkhas, learning not how to fight, but learning to control anger and fear. What I mean by that is I learned to create a distance between an action and a reaction because that’s small space between an action and reaction is the time you need to think rationally. It’s a split second and it allows me to keep composure. So going back again to how you deal with problems in life, you mustn’t react. You must create a distance because that defines how you think.

Anil Shrestha: And so that’s what happened when I took too long to allay my wife’s fears, we had the baby and you just find another way. You don’t be despondent, you don’t think, “Oh, I’m shattered,” because that’s not the way to react in life. And, so I found a way into the Eastman, went to the Eastman, started a programme there under Derek [inaudible 00:33:52]. Did very well, and within the first few weeks, James Hull appeared back into my life because he was there sitting at Derek’s office, in the process of buying Eastman ICD one, two, three down the road.

Payman L.: Oh, I see. So you went with him throughout that process.

Anil Shrestha: So, that was when he first bought the Eastman ICD. This was before, then escalated and you’re talking about when it really paying big. And so I said, “Hi, how are you?” Et cetera. And I remember Derek was a bit suspicious of him. He said to me afterwards, he said, “listen.” And he said, “Well, if Anil thinks you’re a good guy, then there must be something about you.” He still thought you was not to be trusted. And James approached me and he said, “Listen,” he said, “I’m pleased to seeing you again.” He said, “I’m about to take over one, two, three.

Anil Shrestha: I want you to come and work for me there.” I said, “I haven’t finished my programme yet.” He said [inaudible 00:34:42], and do you know what he offered me? He said, “I want you to do the on-calls there, because we’ve just started [inaudible] probably, I’m not kidding you man. He gave me a mobile phone. He paid me 50 pounds a week I think it was. And actually it was more than that. Let’s not talk figures anyway. He paid me to hold on that phone, take emergency. Do you know how many emergencies I saw in my one year when I was doing my MSC?

Payman L.: Go on

Anil Shrestha: One, and that patient still comes to see me now. So I was paid to hold his phone. I was able to then use it to call anyone I wanted to, but I didn’t overuse it or abuse it. And I never let go of it-

Prav Solanki: We used to have [inaudible] phone back in the day.

Payman L.: [inaudible]

Prav Solanki: Remember those?

Payman L.: No.

Prav Solanki: No?

Anil Shrestha: The old Nokias.

Prav Solanki: It might be another thing. You basically, you go and pick, buy a phone off somebody, you’ll never get a phone bill, but you [inaudible] it.

Anil Shrestha: Yeah.

Prav Solanki: [crosstalk]

Payman L.: Right, fair enough.

Anil Shrestha: And then, the funny thing is that, I was in touch with him then and I watched this when ICD struggled to develop and before I qualified at the Eastman, Crispin Scalia called me into his office. I barely knew the bloke obviously, but he was an awesome figure. And he said, “Anil.” He said, because there are only few people in each programme. He said, “Have you thought about having an academic career here?” And I was very flattered and honoured and I had, I thought that’s what I wanted to do. He offered me, he said, “When you finish,” and this was before I even finished, he said, “Of course you’ll have to work as a lecturer, build up to senior lecturer within five years you could be a senior lecturer and then PHD et cetera. He was trying to accelerate me onto a PHD programme, get your chair. And I went back to James Hull because I saw him later on that week and I told him about this and he said, “No.”

Anil Shrestha: He said, “Listen,” he said, “I need you to look after the Eastman private practise.” He said, “I’m going to offer you substantially more, five times more. As a retainer and I’m going to offer you 45% of all your specialists fees and anything else that you need.” And he gave me some things which weren’t on offer to anyone else like removal fees, paid for rent for a flat for a year, offered to gite my wife [crosstalk]

Payman L.: Made you an offer you couldn’t refuse basically.

Prav Solanki: Really [inaudible]

Anil Shrestha: Absolutely, he did, because he knew how to look after his best guys. And there were a small group of us that he looked after very well and he was a difficult businessman, but he was also very generous and very, to the few of the people that he knew. And that’s the way that you needed to be. And I stayed with him from 2000 to 2011 until he sold. And during that time, within the next few years, he then opened up the specialist practise in Birmingham, which was supposed to be a mirror of the Eastman ICD in London, and he couldn’t find anyone to look after it. So, again, I said, “Well I’ll go up there.” I was going to be at Eastman ICD in London for two years. I was going through my divorce at this time.

Anil Shrestha: Now I see this, this is the [crosstalk 00:37:48]. And so, I ended up spending two, three days in Birmingham, two, three days in London. I had a place in both. I was going through a divorce. And within the first year we made the Birmingham and practise, which was his biggest concern because it was going to be a big white elephant. It literally was a bicycle shop before he converted it. We had no presence there. I knew no one in the West Midlands. But he thought, good, industrious, young Asian Guy, a cake gregarious, go out, go and meet everyone. And I did, I started writing to everyone, I started to meet loads of people. I’ve got so many friends in the West Midlands now and they started referring to me.

Anil Shrestha: They could see my work, and now that’s really the crux of a good referral practise. That you produce work, you communicate with your referring dentists, they see the work because it always has to go back here. And then, it just built up in the first year, it became the most successful practise in the James Hull Group. Because it went from zero to a profit. It really proved my worth in the company and I stayed there and it became part of my own character within the company. So I’ve always realised that even if you work for somebody else, whether it’s an associate like I did, whether it’s private or whether it’s NHS, the most successful people in practise are the ones that take responsibility.

Anil Shrestha: The most successful associates are the ones that treat the practise as if it was their own, as if they actually owned it. That doesn’t mean usurping whoever’s in charge, but actually taking ownership. I would clean toilets, I would dust, I would do the maintenance, take apart chairs, et cetera, whatever it needed, even if it wasn’t for my own patient. The associates that didn’t do well and the ones that we had difficulties with, because I used to troubleshoot for the group for, a few of us did but not just clinical cases but also, having mentors as well.

Payman L.: How many practises were there?

Anil Shrestha: I think ultimately there were about 86 at the peak, and there was a big process of acquisition. So I think really the group grew organically until about 20, 25 practises when I believe that the business direction probably changed and James was then ready to sell. And up to that point it was actually one of the best practises, best groups to work for. And James Hull Associates was always known at that point as being the corporate-

Prav Solanki: The private corporate-

Anil Shrestha: The private corporate that really pushed quality and comradery and everyone loved being there.

Prav Solanki: Going back to your divorce, it was one of the lowest points in your life.

Anil Shrestha: Protracted lowest points. It took years.

Prav Solanki: And you said, you mentioned earlier that it naturally came to an end. [crosstalk]

Anil Shrestha: I think the relationship, yeah.

Prav Solanki: And you both knew that at the time or?

Anil Shrestha: Yeah we did and we both tried to make things work but you see when a child’s involved, then that puts a completely different perspective on things.

Prav Solanki: And so I come from, my parents divorced from a young age, and I think certainly learning from that, I know that the biggest impact is on the kids. You really feel it. And for me, my parents weren’t amicable. That made things even harder. What was your thought process going through all of that and what have you learned about relationships since your divorce that you could maybe pass on to people like?

Payman L.: Yeah, how have you managed to stay amicable?

Anil Shrestha: It wasn’t amicable for a year or two.

Payman L.: Oh, It wasn’t.

Anil Shrestha: But, every divorce goes through that. No divorce is easy. Both our priorities were for Maya. Ask me to give you advice, then I can’t. And I never give advice, especially on relationships. The reason is that everyone has their own perspectives on, and their own emotions that no one else can understand-

Payman L.: Totally.

Anil Shrestha: … not even their closest people. But what I do do, is people know what my experiences were and how they interpret that is up to them. And there’s always a lesson that can be learned from things like that. So it was just a tough time Prav. It was difficult because, my daughter appears to be well balanced. I speak to her every day. I speak to my ex wife every few days or so. We get on, I keep a distance, a respectful distance obviously now because I’m remarried. But my daughter is still my primary concern as is my new daughter now who is only 10 months old.

Anil Shrestha: So you learn to prioritise and as in where they are in their different stages of life and you’re still there as a father, you’re still there supporting them. But for both of us, it was important that she was fine. And it’s just really that the relationship between us is ex husband, ex-wife, and finding a happy medium in between where we could both get on again, but with separate lives, that took a while to establish.

Prav Solanki: Did you ever have any period of time where perhaps you went without seeing your daughter when you wanted to or anything like that or was it always only amicable from that front?

Anil Shrestha: Maya was always accessible to us both. And the reason that… re married or got into any serious relationships over a period of 17 years while she was growing up and to the point where I met Ana, was because I felt a real sense of duty to her. And people that are very close to me know that because they’ve known me during that period. Even some of my referring dentists while I was in Birmingham, and I’m a private man. You’re asking me some very intimate questions today. I don’t mind relaying this to you and your listeners because I think there may be a lesson for people to take from there, what they interpret from it is up to them. But I don’t mind opening up to you because you know, this is my story.

Anil Shrestha: It was a time that, I’ve been through many times in my head now and I’m happy that my daughter is doing very well. She’s always kept a good relationship with both of us. There was never a time when she was pulled away from either us because we both had our priorities for her. So in that respect, I’m very grateful to my ex wife and I can only remain as a father that will always support my daughter and give the kind consideration to my ex wife.

Prav Solanki: Very admirable of you to shape your life around your daughter’s future and age because I don’t think many people would. A lot of people live lives for ourselves. And I think what you’ve done there is really special and I just want to say thank you for sharing that story with us. It really is.

Anil Shrestha: It has been my pleasure.

Prav Solanki: Yeah. Because having been through that myself as a child, I wasn’t exposed to that. And it does impact the way you grow up, your perception, your outlook of life.

Anil Shrestha: So you see this will resonate with you then, you’ll understand this. See I’m sure as a father you understand how I feel as well. But I’ve never let it deter me from my passion, which has always kept me focused. I’ve learned a lesson as I told you earlier on, on how to remain focused with my way of remaining [inaudible] which is self-discipline, I hope people pick up on that. And it will not stop me in the future because, I’m still passionate about dentistry, I still want to continue doing what I want to do. And, sharing this passion, and I love seeing people around me just share that same passion and develop and opening doors for them as I say.

Payman L.: So we can’t have an interview with an old Chester and not talk about Mike Wise’s practise. It’s amazing It’s taken this long to get to this point. But the undisputed top dentist Britain’s ever produced-

Anil Shrestha: Well I’ll tell you a story about-

Payman L.: How do you go about buying up, I’m guessing it wasn’t on the Frank Taylor.

Anil Shrestha: Absolutely not. People that knew Mike Wise, and I didn’t know him, I have to say came. I got to know him very well, to people that knew him knew that he wouldn’t sell to anyone. I know James Hull offered him a big seven figure sum and he laughed at him because he knew that he didn’t want to taken over by corporate. And what actually happened was in 2011 after James Hull had pretty much been out of the picture for a few years and we’d left the company taken over, I thought, well I thought I’d go back into academia. I thought I’d go either back to the Eastman or go abroad or go and study again because I just wanted to get back into teaching and research, which I had a real passion for.

Anil Shrestha: And about four months after leaving James Hull, and I was comfortable. I’d looked off for money and I’d made sure that everyone was well looked after and I thought, “Yeah, I’m happy.” I was always going to do okay. And then I’ve got a phone call representing Mike Wise, met up with them and they said, Dr. Wise wants to meet you. And I thought he’d had already retired. He was literally out of the picture. I remember he was ill for a number of years and his practise was literally folding because he was only there part time to meet him. I’d only ever seen him lecture once. I’d read his book obviously. His lecture showed some great but exotic dentistry and I thought, “Yeah, it’s interesting.” I liked the kind of work you did because it really reflects what I do, which is complex remedial rehabilitation work.

Anil Shrestha: Said my wife Anna tells me that I’m a troubleshooter in dentistry. I deal with complex remedial rehabilitations. I do all of the restorative, I do all of the surgery, all of the grafting, et cetera. And I work on really difficult patients who have emotional issues as well as complex written or restorative issues. So that I knew it was very similar. But other than that I didn’t know the guy. And within about half an hour of sitting with him in his office, So I really liked this bloke. I couldn’t figure out why immigrant from Nepali couldn’t speak the language and had studied dentistry and is passionate about it, could have anything in common with who I regarded as a god of dentistry. We spent a lot of time talking about family. We spent a lot of time talking about music, about lives in dentistry and very little talking about actual dentistry, and very in fact, almost nothing about buying and selling the practise.

Anil Shrestha: And I thought I liked this bloke, but you know, the interesting thing was I was thinking, “How does this guy know so much about me?” Because as you will know, I keep a low profile in dentistry, you find it very difficult to find out stuff about me. People in dentistry that know dentistry and know me, know me. This guy was asking me things about myself that you just couldn’t even google. And while he was sitting, he’s a tall guy, he had a thin file sitting on his lap and I realised that was on me. And that reflected the way that he was because he was so meticulous about everything. He researched everything. So we came to the point where he was discussing selling the practise and he basically asked me if I would consider taking over the practise and it wasn’t a thought that I’d had in my mind.

Anil Shrestha: I’d never really knew the west end apart from when James took over Lister House. I didn’t even know that Mike worked on the fifth floor and I had no intention of becoming a western practitioner. I literally intended to go into academia to find a place in the Eastman. I’d run a Master’s programme at University of Central Lancashire, developed and written arts certificate and diploma programme. Therefore, when they asked me, I had a bit of knowledge about these things and-

Payman L.: What’s it that made you flip your decision from becoming an academic to buying this practise? Did you think [crosstalk] this opportunity’s never going to come again?

Anil Shrestha: That’s a very good question but, as I was leaving the practise, he was at the lift and he asked me a question, which I knew that he’d definitely done research on me. He asked me what my experiences were in treating the Nepalese royal family, and I couldn’t talk about that because they’re not my patients anymore because they’d been deposed. And I thought, “Where did he learn this from?” And within about half an hour of me leaving Lister house, a phone call from one of my old tutors who I knew was one of his close friends, he said, “How did it go?” And I said, “How did you know I was here, Malcolm?” And, he said, “Oh.” It became obvious that he had obviously contacted people who had taught me, who knew me, et cetera. And he had done his background checks. And then I went away, thought about it and actually rang my ex wife who’d known me since before I was a dentist, and told her what had happened and said you can’t turn it down. Really can you? When God offers you his a practise, you shouldn’t say no.

Anil Shrestha: So, I went back, saw him again a few times and the interesting thing about him is he insisted when I agreed, that I spend three months with him. He did a proper handover. It wasn’t just a case of, yeah, take over and sign here and I’m off. He said, “I need you to see these patients care.” And he would call patients from all over the world. I met [inaudible] came from India, from Saudi, from parts of the country, et cetera, from Europe, Geneva. And he would call them over and we’d spend about half an hour talking a case. He would introduce me to the patients. I remember he introduced me to a patient that I don’t see, a young Saudi prince and the prince said, “But Dr. Wise I want to see you.” And Michael put his arm around me and in front of him and his entourage and said, “But this is the next Michael Wise.” And I thought that was a real honour and never looked back after that.

Payman L.: Good on him.

Anil Shrestha: You know he’s a real gentlemen, absolutely.

Prav Solanki: What I find amazing about that story is whenever you buy a business, you do the due diligence on the business. But Michael Wise was doing the due diligence on you. It was almost like a privilege-

Anil Shrestha: Oh it was absolutely a privilege, I was honoured.

Prav Solanki: Buying his business, unbelievable.

Anil Shrestha: That’s exactly what it was and-

Prav Solanki: Unbelievable.

Anil Shrestha: … I tell you, I met a few people who had been in negotiations with him and Michael, his primary concern was finding somebody who would look after his patients the way he wanted. He spent four years trying to find that person-

Prav Solanki: Amazing.

Anil Shrestha: … and he would quite literally have just folded up shop as my accountant said, because he deals with a lot of world-class doctors and dentists up and down the Holly Street area. And he says there are some people who they can’t find somebody to look after their patients the way they want to, just like Michael. And it’s literally a case of, “Okay, thank you. Elvis has left the building.” And they just shut up and they just think, “Great. I’ve had a wonderful career. I’m off now, and to let the patients fend for themselves. Michael’s main concern was always looking at finding somebody to look after his patients and he felt that I could, very honoured that I’m in that position-

Payman L.: Does the practise have regular patients like as we would think of them, six months, three core regular people or Is it all?

Anil Shrestha: Yes, but there are patients that have been there a long time or there are patients that have seen me from places and I see patients that have come, followed me from-

Payman L.: [crosstalk] people who have Mike Wise as their six month recall dentist that used to go for examinations from him.

Anil Shrestha: Many of them actually left with the [inaudible] because many of them used to see the [inaudible] more than they saw Michael. So Michael would only see them maybe to year or so. So when she left then many of them followed on. But, as I’ve always firmly believed, a good dentist is always busy. The patients recognise you, your peers recognise you. And so, I’ve attracted, I’ve always been busy there and many of his patients have left, a number of state, quite a significant number and prominent people as well. And the practise has grown through word of mouth. So, I’ve always been-

Payman L.: If you had to split your work in percentage terms, how much of it is, implantology, how much of it is straight aesthetic dentistry, how much of it is, restorative rehab type stuff or I know it’s all mixed together as well in some cases but-

Anil Shrestha: So that’s a good question as well. So last year, because I audit every week and at the end of every year, it’s [inaudible 00:53:36]. Last year I started 19 full mouth rehabs. That’s enough to keep me working for at least another, in fact you’ve been to the practise, you’ve seen my lists. I’ve actually, that’s enough to keep me working for another two, three years and I get new patients with stuff like that. I have to pick and choose very carefully. I teach at the Royal London, I teach in the prosthodontics specialist training programme as one of the clinical tutors. And I say to these guys, “Listen, you really need to learn all of the academic stuff as well as the clinical stuff in the clinics very well, but what you learn to be able to work, people like me being able to rebuild a whole mouth, reconstruct a whole mouth, not just anterior cases, not just beautiful preps, but rebuilding a whole mouth and reorganising inclusions, including doing the grafting and the implants, which is the majority of my work.”

Anil Shrestha: Restorative in implants, it’s only 50% of what you actually need to master. The other 50% is being able to be empathetic and looking after these patients because I have patients who have certified post-traumatic stress disorder, several of them. I have patients who are incredibly difficult to manage who you just have to understand them, you have to be empathetic, but you also have to be in command. I have patients who’ve walked out the door who’ve had so much trauma that they’ve become alcoholics from the previous traumas they’ve had. I’ve had a patient who I had to [inaudible] because she literally left and she was so emotional, revisited past traumas that police had to take her into their custody.

Anil Shrestha: 50% of that work is not actually clinical dentistry, It’s the management of the patients. And I think that reflects what Michael was saying. His patients were not easy. He used to pick and choose his patients. I’ve heard it said that he used to say, but he didn’t say it to me. His practise was based not on the patients he used to treat, the very famous ones, et cetera, but the patients he didn’t treat, because he knew how to select them.

Payman L.: Yeah, well I was gonna ask you that question. So in your position, you must come across a bunch of people who their problem is more, let’s call it psychological than dental.

Anil Shrestha: I’d say it forms a significant part.

Payman L.: Yeah, the question I was going to ask is how often do you refuse treatment based on those grounds, where you can tell this person’s thinking, the treatment you are going to provide is going to be the answer to all of their problems. Whereas their problems are actually nothing to do with their mouth over all, their problems are deeper. Do you have to refuse treatment, could you spot those patients or have you had the-

Anil Shrestha: Yes.

Payman L.: … one way you didn’t spot it and it came back to bite you?

Anil Shrestha: And yes. But-

Payman L.: Does it happen a lot?

Anil Shrestha: No.

Payman L.: No?

Anil Shrestha: No, you know to do the work I do, you actually have to have a particular character. This is what Anna says. My wife Anna has own practise in Holly Street and she is very astute, she has been in the west end for 13 years, 14 years now. And she says, you need to be very careful about who you take on. And she also says the work you do, you have to have a particular character because there are at least three, four people that I know very well who can do what I do technically. But we all have our own characters. And so we all attracted different types of patients. And again, another thing that I’ve learned is that you attract the patients that you deserve-

Payman L.: That’s true.

Anil Shrestha: … It reflects you.

Prav Solanki: Sure.

Payman L.: That’s very true. Yeah.

Anil Shrestha: And so, I’m very careful, but you still-

Payman L.: It’s something that you got to look out for-

Anil Shrestha: Absolutely.

Payman L.: … In your position particularly.

Anil Shrestha: Very much so.

Payman L.: A lot of people will gravitate to you thinking you’re the answer to their problems.

Anil Shrestha: Yeah. And you need to know what your limitations are. I work with people, when I need to refer, I refer, believe it or not. I’m not the answer-

Payman L.: That’s interesting. Go on.

Anil Shrestha: Oh no, I have people-

Payman L.: In the first year and then you refer on a bit of it that you know.

Anil Shrestha: As in part of the overall holistic specialist programme of treatments. So if there’s a case, one of my very good friends and mentors is Mr Stephen Dover, who if you’ll know, very famous craniofacial surgeon in the West Midlands. He handled some of my most difficult to grafting cases, he is maxfax surgeon, very famous. And if i feel that somebody will be better managed in his hands, then I will ask him to do that part of the treatment. I’ll be there with him and he does it. And he says to me quite often, he says, “Anil you could do this.” I said, “Yes, I know, but you’ll do it better, even if it’s only 15, 20, 30, 40% better, but you’ll also be able to manage it better.” It’s only sharing the responsibility. If I think that somebody can do better ortho-

Payman L.: Yes, you can’t be a master of everything and-

Anil Shrestha: Absolutely not. And it reflects back again to the point about, what I learned from going on other courses. I learned a lot, and I’ll see people and I think, “Yeah, great.” But I have a multidisciplinary approach to all my treatments, so I’ve got a great orthodontist, a few good endodontists-

Payman L.: What made you think you could fill Mike Wise’s shoes?

Anil Shrestha: I didn’t.

Payman L.: I don’t mean that, I’m not saying the audacity of it, but-

Anil Shrestha: No.

Payman L.: But a lot of people would be scared of-

Anil Shrestha: I got that a lot.

Payman L.: … I would worry myself. I’m by no means that doctor, but if I was that doctor, I would worry that the referring dentists who used to refer to Mike Wise, will now compare, and of course I’d worry that I’m not going to be the same as [crosstalk]

Anil Shrestha: After I tell you what my biggest worry was-

Payman L.: What is in your character that made you handle that?

Anil Shrestha: I’ll go back slightly. My biggest concern about taking over the Mike Wise practise was, not the fact that I couldn’t do the work. He didn’t worry about it, I didn’t worry about it. I wouldn’t have been there if he thought that I couldn’t clinically do the work. My biggest concern was could I run a single handed practise having spent almost all of my professional career working in hospitals or working as an associate, admittedly in one of the best corporates at the time. I’d never done that before-

Payman L.: Interesting that that was your worry.

Anil Shrestha: No, it was. And I told my accountant the same thing. I said, “Listen, I have a five year plan. If it doesn’t work, then I’ll have burnt this money and then it’s fine.” I’ve still got plan B et cetera, I can go off, I can pay the whole practise off through return of all of my income within three years. My accountant couldn’t believe he said in the first year he said, “I’ve very rarely seen a western practise turn a net profit in year one, let alone year three, four, five and six and seven.” And it’s always run well. I’ve always done well, but that was my biggest concern. Would it work or wouldn’t it work? And again, I planned for it, I thought, well, okay, maybe it won’t work.

Prav Solanki: Anil, you’ve gone from employee to business owner overnight and become a success. How? What’s your secret? Is it just pure graft like from your earlier days, James Hull gives you a phone, hands you a set of keys and between doing martial arts and running your day job, weekends and nights, you’re just grafting, grafting, grafting. What is it within you that enabled you to, there’s people out there who are seasoned business owners with multiple practise, couldn’t achieve what you’ve done. But how did you do it?

Anil Shrestha: I’m passionate about dentistry and I’m focused. There’s always a structured plan. If you ask James Hull’s wife, she always used to laugh and she said, “Anil, you’ve always got a plan A, B, and C.” I always do. And it’s like a matrix that keeps changing. So when something comes up, you need to change it. It’s like when I was very young when I first came to this country. I would see, and it wasn’t a pleasant time at the time, when you’d come from the background I had to suddenly being one of the only immigrants in the school or whatever. And basically, you knew where you wanted to go. You’d see glass ceilings or you’d see doors that were shut. So the glass ceiling, I’d either swim around it or I’d go through it.

Anil Shrestha: I’d always make sure that I was focused to go through it or find a way around. I knew where I wanted to be and I always knew that if an opportunity, if a door shot like Ohio, that I would not take it personally. I would just think, “Okay, what’s the way around it? What’s plan B?” And the self discipline that I mastered from a very early age allowed me to focus, like you Prav. I tell you why. I know a bit about you. A lot of people do. Every morning I get up at five o’clock, I’m out of bed by 5:15. I’ll meditate for half an hour. Then I work for about an hour or so. And then I go to the gym, I go to a boxing class, I go to Anthony Joshua’s gym, if you’re going to learn something, you’re going learn it from the best place. Admittedly, it’s the Marylebone gym, but these are already, it’s not for the fainthearted.

Anil Shrestha: And then I get to work. And then when I’m at work, I work. If somebody wants to have a chat with me, if somebody wants to waste my time, then don’t. When you’re at work, you work. Then I get home and I spend time with my baby, put her to sleep. Then I work, then I sleep and I’m usually trying to get to bed about 10 usually get, realistically, I’ll get about five or six hours sleep. And I need to make sure that I feed well, I sleep well and I’m focused-

Prav Solanki: Amazing.

Anil Shrestha: And so maybe that’s what it is.

Prav Solanki: Discipline, structure, yeah.

Anil Shrestha: But you see I’m passionate about it and that’s the key. There’s no point having discipline and structure unless you found something that you really like. So when I see it in younger dentists, then all I’m trying to do is just push them in slightly the right direction.

Payman L.: If your daughter was a dentist qualifying now, what advice would you give them about [crosstalk] which way to go?

Anil Shrestha: It’s a fantastic profession, especially for women. We talk about how dentistry has changed and it’s not the same as when we first qualified 20 or 25 years ago. We say it’s harder and these are the golden days. But the reality is 25 years ago, it was bloody hard then as well. And it always is, and that’s why you’ve got to keep a reality on, a reality check. Because everyone’s saying, “Oh, it’s so difficult now,” et cetera. We are regulated now beyond reason so we say. But it’s a natural evolution of the regulatory process and we say that social media has now become evolved to the point where everyone needs to Instagram, et cetera, cane. And you see people that do extremely well out of it. People like the lovely girls that you’ve had, that are instagraming all day-

Payman L.: Slay [inaudible 01:04:01].

Anil Shrestha: This [inaudible] is amazing. She’s literally got it, so she’s super bright. I remember speaking to [inaudible 01:04:10], another person I really admire, she came to see me just after she qualified. We were put in touch by somebody mutual and she was asking me for professional advice and it was a bit like talking to [inaudible] as well. Lovely meeting you and all. What advice can you give me? And you very quickly see through both of them that not only are they passionate, but they’re creating a pathway that I could never imagine. I said to both especially [inaudible] “Listen, you’re going to be doing things that I couldn’t even think were possible or have been given an opportunity to do.” She’s become an amazing superstar so is he. Who ever thought that, being able to sing as a dentist and rap et cetera would bring him to the kind of for that he was having-

Payman L.: Like what we’re doing right now.

Anil Shrestha: Podcasting, what’s this about-

Payman L.: Was this even possible when we qualified, was it?

Anil Shrestha: I’ve done so many interviews and everything else. I’m sitting here with you two guys and I know we’re having such a great time talking about, quite deep things actually. I’ve just realised that what you mentioned the gotten me, you guys, man.

Payman L.: Just, I’ve got a question for you. Your last day on this planet, there’s three things that people can take away about you. What three things do you want to leave behind as your legacy? Three pieces of advice, three things that you want people to remember you by. What are those?

Anil Shrestha: Okay, so two of them definitely relate to dentistry. One of the things as well, but find your passion. Commit to excel. Don’t ever let anything, this is all part of the same point. Don’t ever let anything hold you back. Nothing in your past should hold you back in life to be an up and down all the time. And find peers that will help bring you to a level that you want to be at. And if you ever see things like doors that shut or glass ceilings, find a way to break through or go around. The second thing is learn how to control yourself and remain focused. Learn the art of self discipline. Self discipline is the ability to get up and do what you need to do when you need to do it, even when you don’t want to do it. The third thing, last thing is, man just enjoy yourself. So short is life. And-

Payman L.: See for me this self discipline thing and the enjoy yourself thing don’t seem to work together.

Anil Shrestha: Oh, they do. There is so much about, no. [crosstalk] That’s a good point. You may get the impression that all I do is work and train. No. Again, especially since having found love again, and with my beautiful wife Anna and for her to say to me, “Look, let’s go and explore.” We travel all the time. We go to see different art galleries, we read history together, go to the ballet with the opera. She just shows me a different perspective in life. And now we have my beautiful baby Nika that’s 10 months now. She just brought another flower into my life. It’s just amazing.

Prav Solanki: How is it different second time round?

Anil Shrestha: So much more in control. So it’s so much more settled. Everything is, it’s not easier because having a child is never easy. But it’s almost like a having a gift again, it’s almost like somebody saying, practise is going to be left to you from Mike Wise’s. It’s just like being, “Wow, you just won the lottery” and it’s-

Prav Solanki: Amazing.

Anil Shrestha: And you create these opportunities. I’m telling you, this isn’t the case of me being lucky. I remember where I came from. I remember everything is taken away. You’ve recreated all of this. Nothing I’ve got up to this point in my life has been just handed to me. It’s all being created and you can create that.

Payman L.: What’s suppose the best advice anyone’s given you and who was that person?

Anil Shrestha: Very interesting. Astute question. I’ve always realised that I don’t actually have real mentors in my life. I’ve had people who I’ve admired certain facets from and everything that I am now is just a-

Payman L.: Amalgamation.

Anil Shrestha: … amalgamation of everything. I couldn’t answer that simply.

Payman L.: [inaudible]

Prav Solanki: So back to my last question, which was if today was your last day, something to remember you by, what would that be?

Anil Shrestha: Live by my motto or at least take a lesson from it and that’s it. You should squeeze the life out of life.

Prav Solanki: Beautiful.

Payman L.: I had to know if it is but [crosstalk 01:08:30].

Prav Solanki: That’s nice. Anil thank you so much, so much.

Anil Shrestha: It’s been a pleasure. Honestly, I’ve really enjoyed today, thank you.

Payman L.: Thanks for sharing with us what you did.

Speaker 4: 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.

 

Transcript

Payman: Hi Guys, welcome to the Dental Leaders Podcast. Today’s guest is Simon Chard, a real rising star. I’ve known him since he was undergrad, Prav.

Prav Solanki: Wow.

Payman: Yeah. Student Rep at PACD and even then, he had a presence, but so lovely to see him go from strength to strength and now becoming an international lecturer coming from a family of dentists and how he’s taking his practise to the next level. Just a super impressive guy.

Prav Solanki: Yeah, I mean, my takeaways from this was that you see Simon on Instagram and there’s this persona that’s built up about this guy-

Payman: You hadn’t met him before, had you?

Prav Solanki: I hadn’t met Simon before, no. So I really wasn’t sure what to expect, and I truly believe this in person, right? You have engagement on social media with somebody, when you meet them, it’s completely different to what you expect, right? And that was also the case with Simon. He’s very polished, he’s incredibly well presented, he’s always immaculately groomed, right? But, underneath the depth of that, what a lovely person and he let into some of the things that worry him before giving a presentation and how everything that he does is built out of practise, practise, practise and perfection, and the tweaks he makes to his presentations and the way that social media’s affected him as a person, right? The comments, the things like that.

Payman: With someone like Simon, just because of the way he comes across and the way he looks and dresses, you could be forgiven for thinking he’s an arrogant person.

Prav Solanki: Far from it. Far from it.

Payman: But he’s actually the opposite, really actually a really humble, down to earth guy you’d want to have a beer with, and that’s always lovely to see when you’ve got one view of what the guy’s going to be like, but as I say, I’ve known him for a while, so it was interesting to see your reflections on it first time you-

Prav Solanki: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. To be honest, I didn’t know what to expect, right? And you always build up these preconceptions. What a lovely, lovely guy. Guys, you’re going to really enjoy this interview.

Payman: Yeah, enjoy it guys.

Simon: I remember seeing her, she was in a blue shirt, black waistcoat, glasses and pigtails, and yeah, I spotted her out of the crowd and then actually we went out that night and we started chatting and the rest is history.

Payman: Wow.

Simon: And, I had a girlfriend at the time.

Payman: Oh!

Speaker 3: 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.

Payman: It’s good to have you, Simon. Thanks for coming down. Been looking forward to this one, and Prav’s been particularly looking forward to-

Prav Solanki: Absolutely.

Payman: … talking. You guys ever met before?

Prav Solanki: No, first time.

Simon: First Time.

Payman: It’s all right.

Simon: Yeah.

Payman: How have you managed that? You stopped coming to events, obviously.

Simon: I have, I have.

Payman: He was a regular, he used to be an absolute regular at-

Prav Solanki: Every event.

Payman: … of the ACD, AC.

Simon: Yeah, yeah. Then I got married and that was it, Game over.

Payman: I think we met at the ACD once.

Prav Solanki: I think we met at showcase.

Payman: RAD?

Prav Solanki: Showcase.

Payman: Yeah. So it’s actually really nice to have you here rather than that one of those events because, wanted to have more of an in depth conversation. Your persona, your status in Dentistry’s just going from strength to strength. Is that something that you’ve been working on actively or feels a little bit about that. I mean, you’re only, what, qualified?

Simon: Six years.

Payman: Six years, and I came to you and when was it? We talked recently and I said, “it’s interesting you won the generation.” I said. Not that it’s a competition, but it’s very impressive, very impressive where you’ve come. I mean, it feels like you’ve been around for ages and then that’s a compliment, I guess to it, but that’s an active process.

Simon: I guess it’s a bit of both. I think that I have a very Type A driven personality and that pushes me to just say yes to everything, and I think the more things you say yes to, the more opportunities come your way and that just will naturally, I guess increase your profile. I think I got lucky in a few things. I got lucky in the fact that I was thrown into Digital Dentistry as soon as I got out of VT, became my niche. I got lucky that I was exposed to Tif Qureshi on dentaltown.com when I was a third year undergraduate and I’ve got him into uni to do a lecture and then he pushed me into the BACD and that’s obviously been a big part of my career.

Simon: But yeah, I mean certainly it’s something that I worked very hard on and as the social media thing has become bigger and bigger and bigger, again, that’s something that has always been a part of my career for better or for worse. It’s certainly something that I think is a double edged sword, but it’d been a big part of my career to date and it’s something that I’m putting a lot of effort into now because I see that it’s going to continue to get bigger and bigger, whether it’s the platforms that we’re currently talking about or whether it moves into a different space, I don’t know, but I do know that it’s the modern arena, both within professionals and also with regards to how we communicate with our patients.

Payman: Yeah, but I mean, from my perspective, there’s people who qualified with you in your year who are busy being dentists, treating patient and you’re looking at teaching, you’re looking at influence the work, the keeping a leader work and so on. Is that something to do with the fact that your dad was a dentist and you try, and move it forward from there, or what is it about you that makes you look at that sort of stuff at such a young age?

Simon: Well, yes. I think my parents both being dentists means that I can’t, and I didn’t go into Dentistry to start with, I just did a degree before Dentistry, so a lot of people realise. I actually didn’t want to do what my parents did because someone told me when I was 16 that you should do with your parents do, and that stuck in my head. We can talk about that later, but I think since getting involved with industry, it’s become a complete obsession for me and I was chatting with Prav before, I’ve got quite an obsessive personality.

Simon: When I get into something, I get into it, I’m watching 18 YouTube videos a day on that specific topic and Dentistry is, luckily for me, one of those things that I am very obsessive about. I do love it and I know that’s really cliche by genuinely do love it and so that side of things, people have the misconception about me that I’m never in the clinic, I’m never doing any work, I’ve never seen my patients.

Simon: In general on a normal week, I’m in the clinic four days a week, but outside of that time, I like to diversify my career and just keep things fresh, I guess, and doing the lecturing is really fun, it’s something I love doing. I love sharing my passion with other dentists. It allows me to travel, it allows me to interact with other professionals and the influence of stuff is just something that’s just happened, really. It’s not something that I’ve actively engaged on. It’s just a product of the environment that I operate in, I think.

Payman: Yeah, I feel like you’ve carried off well, and I’m the first one to say that age isn’t a concern. We’ve been working with Depesh for five years now and only eight years out of university, but you carried off pretty well and it feels like you’ve thought of the I’s and crossed the T’s and it doesn’t feel like you’re still a young dentist, and sometimes I have to remind myself.

Simon: Yeah, I’m not that young anymore, mate.

Payman: Yeah, yeah. That’s because you did that, the degree.

Simon: I think the key thing for me, that the most important characteristic that I’ve tried to push out into the social environment is humility because I’m very aware of my inadequacies and the fact that I am young and the fact that I shouldn’t be out there saying I’m God’s gift to Dentistry or anything. So I think trying to be humble is the most important thing in the way that I carry myself, specifically online, and that’s why I never engage with anyone who wants to engage in a negative way on social media because there’s plenty of people wanting to engage with you negativity on social media. I’ve had people call me out for wearing too much Brylcreem and stuff like that. Dentists I’m talking about. Yeah. Not even just randomness, but-

Payman: I used to get that.

Simon: … but, yeah, I think that’s been the main pillar of, if you’re saying, how do I want other people to, I would like them to view me as humble because traditionally I’ve had a lot of people, for whatever reason, assume that I’m arrogant without actually giving me the opportunity to engage with them and interact with them.

Prav Solanki: I think you put yourself out there, no matter who you are, whether you come across as a Polish character, you’re obviously very successful at what you do, and people are going to take shots no matter you are or what you do and why the business you’re in. From your perspective, you say that what you want to get across is humility. What would you say your biggest weakness is, Simon?

Simon: Okay. My biggest weakness for myself is my thin skin. We talked about it before.

Prav Solanki: Sure.

Simon: My anxiety, for me, is my weakness and my inability to control that because I’m a complete control freak. I like everything to be exactly where it should be. I like every element of my life, whether it be family, work, how I dress, how my health is, I want everything to be perfect, which is completely unrealistic and that drives me to be better in everything that I do.

Payman: Sure.

Simon: But naturally failure is present in everything, and so that generates a lot of anxiety for me at the same time in the fact that when things don’t go right, I get very anxious about it.

Prav Solanki: And so, have you got a particular example that you can share with us that has made you feel particularly anxious, maybe a comment on Instagram or on your social media that fired you up, or like you said earlier, you don’t respond to negativity, you hold back and cope with that in a certain way?

Simon: Yeah. I think the main negativity that I receive on social media is very rarely from the general public, even though I’m quite present with regards to the general public with a number of followers I have an Instagram and that sort of thing. I try to target my posts and my communications both towards professionals but also to the general public to help with communication with dentists and patients, but the main negativity that I’ve experienced on social media is from all the dentists trying to cut me down, I guess, is the best way to say it, for whatever reason.

Simon: There’s been, I can’t remember an exact specific right now, but whether it be my treatment planning, doing lecturing from such a young age was a big one, when I first started, I started lecturing on CyraCom Digital Dentistry after using it for two years full time. That wasn’t enough for some people, at that point, I was teaching on it in a very basic level.

Payman: Sure.

Simon: Basically this is how you use the machine, but-

Payman: How many years did you do get it, because one worries about two years out teaching.

Simon: Absolutely. I mean… I’ve been offered so many opportunities to talk on stuff that I don’t have sufficient knowledge on and my anxiety would not let me do that because if someone was to call me out… my constant worry is I’m going to get called out for not knowing enough.

Payman: Yeah.

Simon: Which is why I put so much effort into every single lecture I do, that if you speak to Megan, even now, every morning, if I’m lecturing on the day, I mark at 4:30 in the morning, put in the finishing touches to my lecture because I don’t think it’s good enough. I don’t think any of my lectures are good enough.

Payman: Even if you’ve delivered the same lecture before.

Simon: Yeah, exactly. I mean, obviously the ones that I give more frequently, I’m much more comfortable with, but anything that is called advanced or, yeah, basically all the advanced stuff that I do because I now teach every single level to do with Digital Dentistry from non-user up to very, very experienced users.

Payman: Sure.

Simon: Especially when there’s an advanced element to it, even though I’ve given that exact lecture God knows how many times I will always be up adding a little bits, making sure everything is current, making sure everything’s fresh, because I’m constantly concerned that I’m going to get called out for not knowing enough.

Prav Solanki: Do you think you suffer from imposter syndrome where basically you feel that similarly, someone’s going to call you out and say, “Well, such a body does this better.” Or, “You’re inexperienced at this.” And so the typical example is you put a piece of content out then someone says, “Well, that’s not original, somebody else has said that, somebody else has done this.” And so you get up on stage and there’s that inbuilt fear that I’m actually a poster and somebody is going to catch me now.

Simon: Yeah, yeah. No, I definitely think like that from that. It’s not the way that I’ve looked at it before, but it’s definitely, that’s exactly how I feel.

Prav Solanki: Sure, and I guess that my take on that is certainly from your perspective as well, there is only one Simon Chard and there’s only one way that you deliver your content and there’s no one else who can deliver it the same way that you can, so.

Simon: Yeah.

Prav Solanki: I mean that’s my way of coping with it. When someone says, “Well, Prav I’ve heard such a body talk about customer journey or customer experience and this is my angle on it.” There’s only one way that this brown baldheaded Mancunian guy can deliver that, but there’s only one way that Simon Chard can deliver Digital Dentistry. No one else can deliver it like you.

Simon: Yeah, absolutely.

Prav Solanki: So that’s what I use as a coping mechanism, and I had the same fears and anxieties, right? Sometimes people say, “Oh, Prav, well, I’ve heard that before, or that’s not original and that’s not new, and that’s a way for me to cope with it.”

Payman: But we think about this a lot with Depesh’s course and Depesh has never been on a hands-on course himself.

Prav Solanki: Ever.

Payman: Yeah? And we’re now saying ever go on a hands-on course so all the content is his own.

Simon: Wow.

Payman: This is an interesting idea because often, even though you think it’s your own-

Prav Solanki: You’ll pick it up by osmosis, right?

Simon: Naturally.

Prav Solanki: Of course you will.

Payman: Not that it’s a problem, of course, but that’s the whole point of going, of course, and learning and everything.

Simon: But nothing is new, mate.

Payman: Of course.

Simon: That’s the concept that I always live by, it’s that.

Prav Solanki: Yeah.

Payman: Of course.

Simon: Yes. Anything that you see, you say, “Oh, wow, that’s awesome.” You can guarantee that person-

Payman: Of course.

Simon: … saw that somewhere else either directly, unlikely directly, copied it, but probably just put their little tweak on it and then redirected it and it might just be that last little 5% that makes it amazing, whereas before it was just average.

Prav Solanki: Or just people resonate with you as a human being, right?

Simon: Yeah, exactly.

Prav Solanki: You might deliver exactly the same content and you just connect with someone a little bit better and you may not be for some people and you may be for others.

Payman: You seem so comfortable on the stage. Did you do any drama, or?

Simon: No. Well actually I think I was a lead in a play at when I was about 11. I’ve got memories of me with actually similar hair to what I have now. I had curtains at the time because they were cool from Backstreet Boys, so I think I was the lead, I was the circus master or something like that. But no, I’ve never done any drama. I was petrified of public speaking. Now I absolutely love it.

Prav Solanki: Just to get nervous before you step on stage? Any butterflies, or?

Simon: Only about the same stuff that we’ve already talked about.

Prav Solanki: Okay.

Simon: Not about actually the delivery or what I’m going to say or anything like that. As long as I’m comfortable with the content that I’m delivering, which by that point I will be, because I would have been through it about four times the morning off. Whether it’s ten people, or a thousand people, I’m not fast as long as I am comfortable with the content I’m delivering. I think that’s the key thing.

Prav Solanki: True.

Simon: And I mean… Dentsply Sirona sent me on a public speaking course and naturally I was the one that went up to the front to do the training in front of everyone else, and that was really interesting actually because it made me realise a few things, a few little tells, almost, that I was giving out without thinking about it, and I try, and do those. It’s very hard though when you’re doing public speaking to get out of your old habits of how you deliver.

Prav Solanki: What are your top three tips for public speaking?

Simon: Number one is just blind confidence, and I don’t mean that like fake it till you make it, don’t know what you’re talking about.

Prav Solanki: Yeah.

Simon: I just mean just go up and just be as confident as you can be because one thing that I realised very early on was that if I stutter or stumble, I did a live news interview on Channel Five News, 6:00 PM news on kids’ teeth, on the epidemic of decay in kids, and it’s not my main topic. I’m not a paediatric dentists, I’m a cosmetic dentist, but they wanted me to do it, and because I’m a yes man, I said yes to it. So I was speeding off to the Channel Five News Centre and I was there doing it completely live, and I know they told me they were going to tell me the questions before, they didn’t. So I just went straight on national TV, no idea what they were going to ask me and I thought, when I came off, I was like, “Oh, that is just so embarrassing. I’ve completely embarrassed myself.” I was nervous, I was stuttering.

Simon: Then I watched it back, and I was like, “No, actually it looks all right.” And everyone, all my family were like, “Oh, you did so well. It was amazing, I can’t believe you didn’t know the questions.” So I think that you’re your worst critic when it come to public speaking would be my number one tip, and then the other ones are just basic ones really like try and avoid pacing around too much. That’s what I used to do a lot. Be Confident in your own skin and just hold your ground, and then obviously just eye contact if you can do and, I mean, there’s just obvious things, but I’m no expert. As I say, I do it really like most things just on the fly.

Prav Solanki: I’d like people to get an understanding of who Simon Chard is, right? They see this persona on social media, and just tell us just a little bit about your childhood and growing up and just what that was like.

Simon: So I had a great childhood in many ways. I’m one of three kids. I’m the oldest. Neither my brother or sister have gone into Dentistry but obviously both my parents were dentists, so I was surrounded by that from an early age, I had a mirror and probe in the cutlery drawer at home. I went to a private school, had a really good education, wasn’t really, I was not a high achiever at school anyway, I got ABC in my A levels, went to boarding school and yeah, I just had a great childhood, really, loved my sport, loved going out with my mates. The main negative through my childhood was my sister had cancer when she was seven. So luckily in many ways she tripped over at school, over a paving slab, landed on her knee.

Simon: They thought she’d broken it, took her to hospital, she had Osteosarcoma of the knee bone. So incredibly fortunate that she tripped over, otherwise she probably wouldn’t be here today, but that in essence meant that she had to go through radio, chemo and surgery to remove the knee. So she got a metal prosthesis in her knee even today, which she had to have extended. She had, I think, 25 operations from 7 up to 20 as she grew because obviously the thing had to grow with her. So that meant my mum was in hospital with her for six months up at Stanmore, the Orthopaedic Hospital, and my dad was like, “Hold it, they practised in stains, driving up BM 25 at 7:00 till, and then being there from 7:30 till 9:00 then driving back to Walton to see me and my brother. So yeah, that was rough-

Payman: That’s an incredible strain on the family.

Simon: Incredible. I mean, I don’t know how… being a parent now, I genuinely don’t understand how they did it, but it’s just a testament to their relationship and them as people that they just cracked on with it, they’re such grafters, the two of them.

Payman: One of my previous bosses, he had a sick child, and they were in Great Ormond Street all the time, and he said to me that the number of split families at Great Ormond Street because-

Simon: Of massive pressure.

Payman: … of stress, because of the stress of it.

Simon: Yeah. I think the thing for us, it went the other way. It actually pushed my family together and we’re such a tight knit family now, like me and my brother and my sister, my parents, all of us were so, so close and we still go on holiday couple of times a year together as a family.

Payman: Wow.

Simon: We’re all very, very emotional and my family is the most important thing in my life, Megan and Thea included. So that’s what everything is for, for me and then, yeah, I think that what my sister went through certainly posters together. Thankfully now she’s actually pregnant herself and so she’s going to have a little baby a year younger than my Thea, and so yeah, so a positive happy ending but could have been a lot worse.

Prav Solanki: And how old were you around that time?

Simon: I was nine.

Prav Solanki: Was nine. All right, okay.

Simon: Yeah.

Prav Solanki: So very young.

Simon: Yeah, but I had to be the mature older brother at nine and hold the family together at home with my dad, so.

Prav Solanki: Wow.

Simon: So yeah, how that’s impacted on me from the personal level-

Prav Solanki: Yeah.

Simon: … I still don’t really think I’ve unpacked all of that baggage. Not that I have any, I think I’m relatively well rounded as I say, apart from a little bit of anxiety now and again, but it’s, yeah, it was-

Prav Solanki: It’s a lot for a nine year old to take on.

Simon: It is, yeah.

Prav Solanki: It’s a lot for a nine year old to take on.

Simon: Yeah, exactly.

Prav Solanki: And so then moving on from there and growing up, at what point did you know you wanted to go into Dentistry? You said earlier on you didn’t want to do what your parents did and then at what point did you realise I want to be a dentist?

Simon: So I went to Bristol University to study Pharmacology and got there, absolutely love Bristol, amazing place to go to uni. Lots of partying.

Payman: Great town.

Simon: Yeah, really lovely place. My next door neighbour in my halls was, my mum spotted him actually when she was dropping us off at halls and she said, “Oh, what about that guy? He looks cool, why don’t you mates with him.” Turns out he was my next door neighbour in my hall block, a guy called Tom Crawford-Clarke who pay well know, and Tom trained to be a dentist, and I saw the community that Tom had, how much he was enjoying what he was doing, and I just thought, why not then Dentistry?

Simon: So at that point, I spoke to Bristol, said, “Can I transfer?” They said, “No, you have to either drop out and reapply or complete your degree and then come on the fast track course.” So basically it meant an extra year at Bristol and an actual qualification. So I thought I might as well complete with my colleagues, get that degree sorted and then go to do Dentistry, but decided in the end to go to Kings to do Dentistry because all of my mates were moving from Bristol to London, most of them working in the city and that sort of thing.

Simon: So it made sense for me to move into town and what that meant for me was, as I view it, very much as a positive because all of my colleagues at dental school were mainly on undergraduate, so they were on a jolly still but I was really there to work and was very, very grateful for the position that I’d been offered because getting a two-one in Pharmacology was probably the hardest thing I’m about to do, and getting an offer from Kings, again, I had a lot of tears when I got that offer through.

Prav Solanki: Can you just talk us through the day when you found out that you’d been accepted?

Simon: Yeah. I was at my parents’ villa in Cyprus as always, we’d been going to Cyprus for 25 years every single year, every summer we’d be in Cyprus. So I found out my GCSE results in Cyprus, I found out my A level results in Cyprus and coincidentally the application process for the dental schools or the notification process was at the same time that I was there as well.

Simon: So I was sitting in the living room on my laptop, everyone else’s outside and yeah, notification came through on email. I can’t remember exactly now, I think it was some portal or something that you logged into and it would just say accepted or declined or something like that, and yeah, when I saw that green accepted pop up.

Payman: Yeah.

Simon: I mean, yeah, there was a lot of tears. I’m quite a crier so it didn’t stack much for me to cry.

Payman: You’ll cry today buddy.

Simon: I cried on videotape before, but yeah, no, that was a very, very emotional day because as I say, the Pharmacology, Maths is my big weak point from a academic point of view and Pharmacology had a lot of Maths in it from a Chemistry point of view, and so I really had to graft hard to get that two-one. Game changing for me, life changing.

Prav Solanki: So then you went into Dentistry as-

Payman: What were the choices?

Prav Solanki: … to be a mature student? And I’ve got actually a very close friend of mine, Danny Watson.

Payman: Yeah. Yeah.

Prav Solanki: Not quite what you’d name, and he did the same thing. So I’ve seen him through that journey and what I noticed about him was he’d always comment to me, “The rest of the guys are turning up to lectures unprepared or they turn up to clinic half cut…

Payman: And children?

Simon: Pardon?

Payman: Because they’re children.

Prav Solanki: Because they’re kids, right?

Simon: I mean there was a bit of that for me as well, so yeah. I was in town and fabric was the colour of the day.

Payman: In Oxford, did you have any mature students on your course, probably matured students didn’t get Oxford?

Prav Solanki: I can’t remember. Not that I recall.

Payman: We did, we had one in particular and he was very serious about the course as well. Mark, he was just-

Prav Solanki: Post grad, we had a lot of mature.

Payman: Yeah. But it’s a bit like a year off or something. Then you grow up a little bit and then when you come to do the course, I remember asking, I was, asking my parents for a year off A Levels. Year off what? Year to do what? I didn’t get it at all. Yeah?

Prav Solanki: Yeah.

Payman: And I wanted a holiday to be fair, but if I’d had my holiday, I would’ve taken Dentistry much more seriously, I think, because I had a holiday doing Dentistry.

Prav Solanki: It depends on your upbringing, doesn’t it? Certainly for me growing up in the environment that me and my brother did with dad was a shopkeeper and everything that he did was driven towards getting us into university…and so there’s nowhere to run to so I can have a holiday. Well it wasn’t even in my head.

Payman: Yeah, you valued your life.

Prav Solanki: So there was that side of things, but also because he’d taken us to that point and put everything into our education. We did take it very, very seriously, but it was the first time that we were let loose.

Payman: Yeah.

Prav Solanki: We were not going out clubbing at 16, 17, anything like that. So we lost it a uni.

Payman: That’s what I’m saying, that’s my point. I was in a boys’ school.

Prav Solanki: Yeah, yeah.

Payman: Didn’t know anything about anything.

Prav Solanki: No, no. So that’s the time you go and enjoy yourself, if you did have the option of, you’ve done your three years of partying doing your-

Simon: I did a gap year as well. Yeah. I owe my parents a lot. Still paying them off now.

Payman: Let’s talk about that then. You’ve recently taken over their practise.

Simon: Yeah.

Payman: Did you pay for it? Did they give it?

Simon: No, I paid market value for it. My parents have always been very keen that me and my brother and my sister, everything is equal in the division of wealth, I guess and everything really, and love, and everything and that comes from money issues in the family before. So I think they were very keen that there was no undue preferential treatment to me because obviously they’ve given me this practise. It’s an incredibly successful practise that they’ve grown from a squat practise for over 35 years. It’s in essence their fourth child, and so for them, just to give that to me would have been very unfair on my brother and sister.

Payman: Sure.

Simon: So it was, don’t get me wrong, it was incredibly stressful to buy it off them because the moment you have to bring in accountants and solicitors and all of that sort of thing, I mean, until 18 months. Me and my dad were like, “Let’s just do this on a handshake.” And everyone who got involved seemed to want to add another layer of complexity to it. So by the time we got to the end of it, we were all at our wits end. We actually completed on the practise two weeks before Thea was born. So then me and Meg just dropped in like, “You’re the bosses now and you’ve just got your first baby.”

Simon: So yeah, 2018 was pretty intense, but I think me and Meg have come out the other side now and the practise is going really well, I mean, sorry, I forgot to say, at the same time as buying it off my parents, we’re extending it simultaneously. So we grew up from a five to a seven surgery practise, but yeah, so now all seven surgeries are running five days a week plus Saturdays. So it’s going really well.

Prav Solanki: And was it a transition, did you just buy him any walks or did your dad stay on and practise?

Simon: My Dad’s still working now.

Prav Solanki: He’s still working?

Simon: He’s a great associate.

Prav Solanki: Yeah? Did he negotiate his associate rate?

Simon: Well, I was his associate before and I don’t think I was a great associate, there’s a lot of holidays and a very good associate percentage. So yeah, no, he’s being well looked after, but no, it’s great to work with him.

Prav Solanki: What’s the dynamic of that role reversal like?

Payman: Has it changed?

Simon: Oh No. I mean me and my dad are very chilled in the fact that I’m not, although a lot of people might think I am, I’m not the big I am, I’m not my dad so, although in essence my dad is still the boss, really, I mean he’s not officially, but he’s not now, yeah, just dropped down to associate position. I mean, for example, the other day he was out the front sweeping up the leaves. I mean, I haven’t met any other associates sweeping the leaves, because he loves the practise and he loves his patients and he-

Prav Solanki: Well, you stood at the front door telling him how it was.

Simon: I mean he just, he loves what he does and he loves the relationship that he has with his patients.

Prav Solanki: Sure.

Simon: He loves the relationship with the staff… 75% of the staff have been there for 20 years so they’ve all grown up together and I would never want to take that away from him.

Prav Solanki: Of course.

Simon: My mum has retired, she works part-time already, two days a week doing a lot of the back room admin type stuff, doing all the staff wages and everything, which Megan’s not taken over but I think my mum wanted to get more into grandparent mode. So she’s now looking after Thea.

Payman: Do you feel the weight of following through on what your dad started. Do you feel that?

Simon: Yeah, it’s a very complex emotion taking over your parents’ business, I think, because there’s so many layers to it, you don’t want to mess it up. You don’t want to offend them in any way in anything that you change but at the same time you want to be your own person, you want to put your own stamp on it. Certainly for me, I mean, I’m so obsessive about being as up to date, as current as I can be in everything, whether it be the technology that I bring into the practise or the way in which we market ourselves.

Simon: I want to be cutting edge, leaning edge of everything, and so stuff like Instagram, how amazing that’s been for me with regards to new patients coming through because of that, my dad doesn’t really understand. He thinks that I’m just doing what I’ve always done, which is being lazy and just watching TV. I think that’s in essence what he thinks I’m doing and he’s like, “Why?” The cold face grafting and getting the job done because that’s what he did, and he’s done it very successfully and he’s built natural word of mouth, but I’m very keen not to be Toys R Us. I don’t want to just rest on the laurels of the business my parents have built.

Simon: I want to be one of the best practises in the world and one of the best dentists in the world, and so the way in which I do that, while still maintaining the tradition that my parents have built is something that I’m very delicate about, and that goes to how the patients perceive me as the boss or Megan and I as boss and also how the staff perceived me as well. All of those things, I would hate to sully anything that my parents have spent their whole lives building.

Payman: And when I think of friends who have gone into the family business, one thing they suffer with is that they maybe always thought of always having been put on, having an unfair advantage, and then also that the idea that you know their achievements are never their achievements. That’s what they’re going to be thought of. Society will always think that they had an advantage.

Simon: Well, I don’t really care. I did have an advantage, obviously, because both my parents had dentists, so if I had a dental question, I just ask my dad. He’s like a walking encyclopaedia.

Prav Solanki: Yeah.

Payman: Yeah.

Simon: But at the same time, that’s why I’m so aggressively competitive and driven because fair enough, both my parents are dentists, so I had an advantage in that regard, but I’m still going to smash in everything else and that’s got nothing to do with my parents being dentists, it’s just, that’s who I am, and if anything, it drives-

Payman: You’re going to apologise for it.

Simon: No, hell no, and if anything, it makes me want to be the best that I can be because I have to get away from that.

Prav Solanki: Sure.

Simon: I guess that’s what one of the things that drives me is that I feel I have to put my own stamp on things and so that pushes me to go a bit left field and that’s I guess why the currency of what I’m doing with regards to going into digital so heavily and going into social so heavily because I believe that they are the two futures of our profession.

Payman: Its interesting because Christian Coachman comes from a dynasty of-

Simon: Yeah, exactly.

Payman: … dentists and Linda Greenwall, she’s, the fourth generation-

Simon: Really?

Payman: … son is the fourth generation, so she’s third generation.

Simon: You see a lot of the people who I interact with internationally, online, in the dental profession-

Payman: It’s quite common abroad. Yeah. Yeah.

Simon: It’s very common to see that they come from a family of dentists. Whether, or not that’s just the competitive advantage that they’ve been given by having parents that are dentists or-

Payman: There we go.

Simon: … it’s the fact that it pushes them to go next level, I don’t know but I don’t care.

Payman: I like that.

Prav Solanki: What’s the most challenging aspects of running a business and being a business owner?

Simon: Staff. Staff every day and I have the best staff as well, so it’s nothing to do with how good my staff are but I mean we have a practise, our staff number now is 27 so there’s so many dynamics going on within that. I mean, a lot of these guys have been working together for 20 years and they have their own little dynamics, that’s the dynamics of me and Meg being the young upstarts, there’s the dynamics of being my parents son, and yeah, you take it really personally.

Simon: I mean, me and Megs have… we’re aware of wholly, we’ll get a message about something going wrong in the practise and you just have to deal with it, you have to fight those feelings, and that’s just part of being a business owner and they happen a lot. There’s always something going on and I mean, one of the big things that I’m working on is trying to get systems in place so that things run themselves efficiently, and that’s one of my big goals. Before I move into adding more practises to my portfolio, I want to make sure that our practise is running like the slickest machine that ever could be.

Simon: And so me and Megs are working really hard on that, just every little area, just systemizing, systemizing, systemizing, try, and improve on that but yeah, certainly that’s the thing that hit me in the face with the most impact over the last year is just, right, the Dentistry’s the easy part now, actually managing the staff is, and when people leave and when people don’t do what you’ve asked them to do and yeah-

Prav Solanki: It’s so frightening.

Simon: … it’s complicated.

Prav Solanki: And so, you talk about putting systems in place, so I guess you’ve put together workflows or whatever of patient journeys or how they answer the phone, et cetera, et cetera.

Simon: I’m trying.

Prav Solanki: Yeah, but then how do you, this is something that a lot of business owners struggle with is how do you get them to implement, execute, and follow through on that? Do you have a certain team member that oversees and it’s their responsibility or is that your responsibility or is it someone else?

Simon: Well, I think everything is my responsibility, number one, but I have certain team members that I can lean on more and I try to allocate specific roles to give responsibility to team members because I think that’s a net positive for everyone. It’s a net positive for them when they feel that they can be relied on and they are responsible and it’s a net positive for me because it means it takes something off my shoulders, but I think I’m guilty of wanting to control everything myself, which I’m sure is a very common trait for [crosstalk ] owners and I find relinquishing that control very difficult.

Simon: Perfect example is the fact that I replied to all of my own, so I have my professional email address on my Instagram and I get God knows how many DMs every day. I’m replying to all of those.

Prav Solanki: Personally?

Simon: Personally. And a lot of them, the majority of them are just the same question. How much is bonding? How much is whitening? Why do you recommend Enlighten?

Prav Solanki: I’m assuming you’ve got, have you got canned responses for quite a few of those, or?

Simon: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Obviously. I mean, as I say, the majority, I mean my prices are set. I mean it’s an easy discussion to have. I just, I’m yet to relinquish control of that act, which takes a lot of my time, but I feel that if I relinquish it, then I might lose that patient and so that’s the trade off.

Prav Solanki: Because they may not answer the question in the right way? What-

Payman: It’s perfection paralysis.

Simon: Correct.

Payman: That’s what it is. That’s what-

Simon: Correct. We’ve now got to two points of my personality that are incorrect, impostor and perfectionist. It’s like therapy for me, this-

Payman: Listen, everyone or a lot of people suffer with it. I’ve suffered with it and the funniest thing is sometimes you’ll find that person is actually better at it than you are. Believe it or not.

Simon: Agreed. Agreed. No, I do believe it.

Payman: I don’t think you do believe it, but-

Simon: Because you haven’t done it yet?

Payman: Yeah. Yeah. It’s only when you do it but look, I was doing Lara’s job.

Simon: Yeah.

Payman: That’s ridiculous. Yeah? Lara’s I’m marketing person, if anyone does know her, I talk to Depesh about this all the time regarding posting. I mean, how should it, how can it, is it possible to post every day the way you do and be a perfectionist at the same time?

Simon: Well, I try to. I post every day and I don’t let anything rubbish go through. So, I mean, it takes a lot of work though. I mean-

Payman: It’s a lot of energy, you know?

Simon: Yeah, but it’s worth, it’s free marketing. I mean, you can’t.

Payman: Yeah.

Simon: If you’ve got… I feel like I have a savvy enough knowledge of the platforms that I’m working on, well, mainly Instagram, and I have a creative eye that works enough that I can put those two skills together and output good content on a daily basis. I don’t know who I would outsource that to.

Payman: I don’t think it’s wise to, but it’s something that we’re running right now, four pages, yeah? There’s no way one person could run the four pages.

Simon: Yeah. Absolutely.

Payman: It’s one of those things.

Simon: I think a personal brand and a business are different.

Payman: Yeah. Yeah.

Simon: I’d happily let one of my team run my business account, but my personal brand I’m afraid.

Payman: The longer you keep that yourself, the better.

Simon: Yeah. Exactly.

Payman: Absolutely right.

Simon: I mean, Gary Vessel does his own personal account to a large extent, he’s still replying to DMs and stuff like that, just only about 1% of the ones he gets.

Payman: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Do you like the title of Instagram famous, Insta famous dentist? How do you feel about that? I mean this let’s talk about, there’s been a lot of talk on-

Simon: Facebook.

Payman: Yeah. Yeah, and isn’t that ironic? A lot of talk on one social platform about it in another social platform.

Simon: That’s because all the trolls are on Facebook. That’s why we’ve all moved to Instagram. I have no trolls listening to this.

Payman: Let’s talk about that. I mean the criticism, I guess, is that Instagram’s promoting a kind of Dentistry that’s bad for the patient, and a lot of these youngsters in the verticals are upstarts and I don’t agree with it. I think that every situation has good and bad in it.

Simon: Yeah.

Payman: But what’s your feeling on it? Because I’m not out there, I’m not posting everyday. I’m not building a personal brand. So a lot of times when people are talking about these things, you might think they’re talking about me.

Simon: Yeah. Well that’s always what I think, and any time I see Insta dentist or anyone slating dentist suppose cases on Instagram, on Facebook, I assume they’re talking about me and actually when they tend to follow, we’ve had some incidences in the past of people writing lists, actually, of dentists who you should follow to, in essence, troll, I think.

Payman: Wow.

Simon: And I was one of the people that was followed by that specific account, but anyway, I think my feeling on it is that, as you say, like with anything, there’s always practitioners who are going to be doing things correctly and doing things incorrectly. There’s obviously cowboys in every profession. I don’t think there’s any more cowboys on Instagram than there are on Facebook or just in general public but for me Instagram is just a way that I communicate with my generation. It’s as simple as that, that everyone who is 20 to 40 is on Instagram whether they be a dentist or a patient and so that’s where I hang out, and that for me has been incredibly instrumental in me building my business, in finding patients who are after the sort of work that I provide, which is minimally Invasive Aesthetic Dentistry.

Simon: Normally things like ABB, as Tiff taught me when I was undergrad, Align, Bleach and Bond, mainly small make-over stuff and that’s just, it just is what it is. I think the reason why some people have an issue with it is that there are certain individuals who are doing the same treatment on every patient or that’s what they’re posting. They may not be, but that’s how it comes across, and anyone who’s doing the same treatment on everyone must therefore be incorrectly prescribing that treatment, if they were doing it on everyone, which they probably aren’t, those are just the cases that they’re posting, because if they were, Dentistry’s not one size fits all. You can’t do the same treatment on everyone.

Payman: Well, or there are specialists. I don’t mean the actual meaning of the word special, but that’s the kind of work they do.

Simon: Yeah, exactly.

Payman: There’s nothing wrong with-

Simon: But, if that was to be the case, then they could only do that procedure on cases that were suitable, and I think that’s the concern from some people. I don’t know, it’s a weird environment. I think the most important thing for me is that the profession just needs to sort itself out with regards to the negativity because you can’t judge someone on a case they put up as to, that’s what they do for everything or that’s who they are as a person.

Simon: You don’t know the ins and outs of the situation, and I think everyone’s just so keen to slate each other and that’s why we’re so weak as a body against things like NHS Dentistry and that sort of thing, which has the potential to be such a positive for the general public and that we’ve allowed the government to just cut the budget to do that and now it’s in such a state of disrepair that it’s very difficult to work in.

Payman: So what? We need to be more united?

Simon: Absolutely, but there’s so much negativity. I mean, it’s horrible. The way in which individuals, dentists specifically I see speak to each other on the main dental forums on Facebook is just horrible. I mean, I’ve just stopped watching them altogether because it’s just atrocious the way that people treat each other. It’s so funny.

Simon: I mean, we have a WhatsApp group with some of my dentist mates and you can actually see when the trolls have broken up for Christmas because you could do all those forums where they were just slating other dentists, Instagram dentists, young dentists, whatever, whoever you take your fancy, Snapchat dentists, I don’t know who the next one’s going to be, but it was as soon as they broke up for Christmas, they obviously didn’t have anything else to do and so they just started, just keyboard warriors going ahead and I’m calling that negativity on social media.

Payman: Sad.

Simon: I don’t see what point it is to be honest.

Prav Solanki: I know, certainly with my brother Kailesh.

Payman: He gets an ear full

Prav Solanki: Oh, he gets a lot of shit, and I heard on the grapevine, there was a private closed Facebook group that is focused on him and a couple of individuals and they just let loose in there.

Prav Solanki: Well here’s the thing, you know how these people got the time to do what they do and put the energy and the negativity into something like this rather than improving their own Dentistry or-

Simon: Absolutely.

Prav Solanki: The people who are trolling people like yourselves or other people putting cases up, never put cases up themselves.

Payman: Indeed.

Prav Solanki: So…

Payman: But… I think understanding is more important than anything else. Yeah, and so if we were to understand it, I think what you said was very valuable. The thing that they don’t like is your example.

Simon: Yeah.

Payman: Doing one tool to treat all diseases but what are other things that they are-

Simon: No, the other thing they’re unhappy about is, the main problem that dentists have as far as I’m concerned, is they lack an abundance mentality. Dentists as a general rule, are so scared that their patient’s going to be taken away from them or they’re lecturing position’s going to be taken away from them by the young upstart or the Instagram dentist or whoever the flavour of the month is to be targeted. That they feel the need, they become so incensed, they have to vent on social media, and I think it just comes down to insecurities. I mean that’s what the majority of it is.

Payman: Screwed up.

Simon: I agree.

Payman: I think there’s an element of that, but I don’t think that’s the main driver. I don’t think that’s the main driver. One of the main drivers, I think, is to do with the… you know what? Tiff was saying, regarding seeing your own failures, and these younger dentists haven’t seen the failures. They don’t know what they don’t know, and yet they go out there and tell the public they are brilliant and that’s-

Simon: That’s fair, and that comes down to being humble and knowing your craft that you’re presenting but at the end of the day, you can’t buy experience. I mean, they can’t pull out of thin air. Would they rather they didn’t post anything until they had that experience? I guess that’s a fair point but I think-

Prav Solanki: Everyone’s got to start somewhere, right? And ultimately the way I look at this, I’ve experienced this because I’ve worked with, over the last 10, 11 years I’ve been in business, I’ve seen young dentists grow up and I’ve seen them at their time, either be whether it was back then at the top of Google, how does he deserve to be at the top of Google? I’ve been qualified 10 years. Yeah?

Payman: Yeah.

Prav Solanki: I’ve seen that with the guys in Newcastle, I work with, right? And then right through to yourself and younger people and I think, I truly believe there’s this high level of jealousy here and the fact of this fear of, they’re going to take my patients, and also I consult with all the dentists and the conversations that I have with them is, I am a specialist or I’ve got these qualifications, I’ve been doing this for so long, why is it that Joe Bloggs is getting more patients than me? Why is it that that person’s getting more patients? They don’t deserve the patients.

Prav Solanki: I have those conversations with more senior dentists, but I’ve also witnessed on the other end of the family side with my brother, and clients who I’ve seen grow up to become more senior dentists over the last 10, 11 years experience that people having a pop at them or referring practitioners, sending various emails that I’ve been privy to that are pretty nasty and a lot of it revolves around, I think personally jealousy.

Simon: I think at the end of the day, I agree with Tiff in some ways. No one wants young dentists and I’m sure the young dentists themselves don’t want to be promoting treatment that would not be to the benefit of their patients. I think that’s not the angle that anyone’s coming at it from. I think it’s a very multilayered debate, but I think that the key message at the end of it is, come at it from a positive angle. If you do feel that young dentists need… like tiff is one who will always come at it from a positive angle and he’ll work to try, and bring those young dentists on to improve their knowledge. I love the stuff that he puts out on social media.

Simon: He’s not coming at it just trolling the people who are doing the stuff that he doesn’t agree with. He’s just showing his work and saying here’s my 5, 10 15 year reviews and when I see that stuff I’m like, that’s just amazing. I mean he’s so talented but to show that sort of stuff in this arena is not seen enough because the majority of the dentists that are on there are young because they’re native to that platform.

Payman: But do you not think that just like you’re entitled to your voice on Instagram, talking to your patients and the profession, these guys are entitled their voice on Facebook talking about what we should all be worrying about sometimes?

Simon: Mayor, it’s freedom of speech at the end of the day. I personally don’t push negativity out into the world. Even if I don’t agree with something or I don’t like a case or I don’t like the way that someone’s handling themselves, I don’t think that having that discussion on social media or setting up groups to discuss it or having people who you want to actually troll. I mean, I just, I don’t think that’s the way that you should operate. If you have an issue with something, speak to someone about it. I mean, if you feel that you’re the person to be having that conversation. I just think that the way that people present is trolling. I just think it’s just pure negativity.

Payman: Yeah, look, it’s a nuance of the time we’re in, but in the long run, just like there was a discussion recently about some dentists buying some piece of equipment off of different dentists and are in the money or whatever it was and social media has brought it to a conclusion, all of this in the end, will be harder to lie, harder to hide in the end.

Simon: Well that’s a positive, sure.

Payman: Yeah. That’s the positive, and in the meantime while we get to that point, there’ll be nuances, which people worry about but when you compare it to back in our day when there was, no one was policing anything, no one could police anything anyone was saying or doing, that wasn’t any better, I mean, the net, net we’re in a much, much better place, and for me the fact that Dentistry resonates, photographs resonate is that the absolute win for the profession. I mean we could’ve been in a profession which didn’t have that sort of resonance on Instagram.

Simon: Yeah.

Payman: It’s only a few things, it’s fitness, cooking, beauty, that really resonated and what a giant opportunity that is for the profession and a bit of a risk. That’s-

Simon: Yeah. That’s why I said it’s a double edged sword-

Payman: Yeah. The nature of things. Where do you think you differ from your dad in your management?

Simon: Well, that’s tough, eh? Certainly, I’ve seen a lot of my parents patients and I’ve had a lot of dialogue. My patients and the staff themselves say that I am a 50-50 split of my mum and my dad. My dad is very much a scientist, very logical thinker, doesn’t understand when things aren’t done logically and is quite one dimensional in that regard sometimes, whereas my mum has more of the soft touch, amazing with kids, that sort of thing. Amazing with nervous patients. So, I guess I’ve got a bit more of that softly, softly approach from my mum. I think where that falls down for me is that I want to be everyone’s best friend and that doesn’t always work when you’re the boss. So I think I don’t know where I fit in the hierarchy, I guess, and going from an associate to the boss, you’re still at the associate level.

Payman: You’re going to end up good cop, bad cop and Megan being the bad cop. Is that-

Simon: Maybe, maybe.

Payman: Is that how it’s going to be?

Simon: Yeah. That would work nicely for me.

Payman: Thats how its going to be

Prav Solanki: So tell us a little bit about your family life, Simon. You’ve got a daughter Thea. Tell us a little bit about how you manage the work life balance of lecturing, running your own business and then being a father and a husband?

Simon: Probably badly. Well, my day to day is I wake up and go to the gym before work, so I’m up at 5:00. I actually started journaling this year, which has really helped with my mental state at the start of the day, then I go to the gym workout, which again helps with my mental status as I don’t get to see the family in the morning, which is a shame but my first patient’s 8:15 anyway, so I probably wouldn’t show. The main time on my work days I get to see Thea is when I bath and I want to get in work, which I love.

Simon: And then me and Megs, we’ll have dinner together and chat about those events. I mean, I’m very lucky with Meg. She’s honestly, she’s amazing person. We laugh so much together. We have a spectacular relationship I’m so grateful for, and so we’re very, very solid and she has taken to motherhood incredibly well. Thea has not been a great sleeper and Megs and I both really can’t asleep, so that’s been tough.

Simon: The difficulty I’m having at the moment is I’m getting so many opportunities with regards to international lecturing opportunities and that sort of thing, and learning how to balance that with my family life is something that I’m trying to keep under control, which is quite difficult because, again, I’m a yes man. So I like to say yes to everything, but what I’ve realised quite quickly is that saying yes to a lecturer in Germany means that I don’t get to see my family for four days and so that’s a bit of a negative for me.

Simon: So that’s something I’m learning at the moment but I’d probably say that I work too much, every evening after I had dinner and bath Thea, I’m there on my laptop planning cases, planning, marketing for the practise and Megs is the same to be fair because, I mean, last night she was doing staff wages and that sort of thing. So, being in a relationship with someone who understands you a professional basis as well as a personal basis is actually amazing. I love the fact that me and Megs are both dentists. We try to keep our dental chat to a minimum when we’re at home, but it’s definitely a net positive I think.

Prav Solanki: And so how long have you been with Meg? When did you meet?

Simon: First day of dental school. So that would be 10 years ago now.

Prav Solanki: First Day of dental school?

Simon: Yeah.

Payman: The same year? Yeah.

Simon: Yeah. So she was undergrad and I was a post grad, so, we did a little three week post grad thing and then the undergrads and the post grads were put together for the first time in the lecture hall, and Mark Wolford was giving a lecture about how, it was something very negative, and Megs, I remember seeing her, she was in a blue shirt, black waistcoat, glasses and pigtails and yeah, I spotted her out of the crowd, and then actually we went out that night and we started chatting and the rest is history.

Payman: Wow.

Simon: And I had a girlfriend at the time.

Payman: Oh!

Simon: But we were our last legs. We were on our last legs.

Prav Solanki: Great story.

Simon: Shouldn’t have said that.

Payman: So Tom Crawford-Clarke wasn’t even in that year.

Simon: No, Tom Crawford-Clarke was merrily continuing his degree at Bristol.

Payman: Oh, I see. I thought you were in the same year as well?

Simon: No. So Tom-

Payman: You and Tom-

Simon: … Tom qualified-

Payman: Pharmacology work.

Simon: Two or three years before me. Guy Lafan was in the same year.

Payman: That’s Tom?.

Simon: Yeah.

Payman: Oh.

Simon: So, me, Guy and Tom lived together and Bristol in our last year.

Payman: Nice.

Simon: Proudly.

Payman: Lakota.

Simon: Guy’s a big Lakota fan, yeah.

Prav Solanki: So then you went on to have Thea. Just talk to me about the day she was born, the feelings that went through, me and Pave spoke about this at depth, haven’t we? In just that instant feeling that you get when you see your child for the first time, and some people get it, some people don’t.

Simon: I mean it was amazing. Megs was induced, so we weren’t expecting, Thea came two weeks earlier, so we went to the hospital, just thinking it was a routine check and then didn’t leave basically, so we were there for, I think 36 hours, and yeah, I mean, from my point of view, 90% of it was amazing. The Term Centre was awful, well seeing Megs in so much pain but, again, she’s an absolute trooper, she did so well and yeah, when Thea came out, I mean obviously I cried, I mean that goes without saying. Yes. It’s definitely one of the best days of my life, it’s absolutely incredible feeling, and I mean even now it’s just a whole, it’s a whole new thing.

Simon: I mean my whole drive in life has been shifted away from purely selfish activities to, right, we’re going to just grind this out, grind this out, this is for Thea. It just completely changes your mindset on why you’re doing what you’re doing, and obviously I filmed the whole thing so, I mean, that’s the sound of me. We watched it back a few times. Yeah. Yeah. Not from the business end but from the whole set. I just stuck it on a tripod.

Payman: Oh, dear. What was I thinking?

Payman: It’s funny because you described very similar experience. I’m not just talking about the day about your whole mind-

Simon: Just the whole thing. Everything, right? Just from the moment she came out was-

Payman: But very different for me. Very different, and I love my kids. Can you guys love your kids more than I do? But very different. I didn’t get that feeling on the day. It didn’t shift my mind regarding, I’m doing all this for the kids for years, for years and years and so it is different for different people.

Prav Solanki: Yeah.

Payman: It’s those things.

Simon: It’s certainly, I mean it’s hard work man. I mean-

Payman: What do you miss most about not having kids?

Simon: Just freedom. Freedom to do whatever you want whenever you want. I mean, I love just booking around on holiday or just randomly decided to go out for dinner and everything now requires a lot more planning but the one thing that is great about me and Megs is, Megs mainly because it’s harder for the mum, I think is that we just said right from the start we’re just going to carry on living our lives not exactly the same but as much as we can do, so, I mean we were out for dinner with Thea the day after she was born.

Simon: We’ve taken her out to Duck and Waffle and Michelin Star Restaurants and she’s been on about six holidays since we’ve had her, so we’ve tried to continue living our lives as much as possible, which is, yeah, it certainly makes it harder, but doing that I think has been really positive for our relationship.

Prav Solanki: And just your perspective on light as whole, like you said you’re less selfish now, right? Is that how you described it?

Simon: Yeah. I think my central drive has always been to be successful.

Prav Solanki: Yeah.

Simon: I guess for me, for my own ego, I guess and now it’s very much building the future for Thea is at the epicentre of my drive, I guess.

Prav Solanki: Did you have any plans for any siblings?

Simon: Yeah, yeah. Well Megs is Irish, so she originally wanted four, I’ve now taper it down to three now, but yeah, we’ll probably at the next couple of years we’ll probably start trying it.

Prav Solanki: Cool.

Simon: But I’m using that to my advantage, I managed to squeeze a holiday to the Maldives because we can’t go next year, so.

Payman: I know it’s a bit early to ask but would you want your kids to be dentists?

Simon: I think there are easier ways to make money, especially in the modern Internet era. I mean, I personally love it, but as I say, it’s the source of a lot of my anxieties, so I wouldn’t wish that anxiety on my child, and when I say anxiety, I mean we’re all constantly have this looming negativity of when we’re going to get sued? When is the GDC going to come knocking at our door? When is the letter going to come through the door.

Payman: It’s the thing I don’t miss, since I stopped…

Simon: Yeah.

Payman: … all this stuff started.

Simon: If I didn’t have that looming over my head, then I would say 100% yes, because the ability to change someone’s life and generate, I mean, the classic mini smart maker everything, I put a video up on my Instagram recently of this lovely lady who I did just some cosmetic bonding, a bit of whitening. She turned the mirror around and just immediately burst into tears and the ability to have that in that positive impact on someone’s life, you don’t get that in the majority of jobs.

Payman: No.

Simon: And so, that feeling is why I would want for my child because it’s amazing and and I do genuinely love what I do, but the counter argument is that looming negativity which is stressful.

Payman: If I give you a billion dollars, would you still drill teeth?

Simon: Yeah, I’d like to say that I would do, it’s very difficult to know how you’d actually react. I wouldn’t be working four days a week. I’d probably be working two days a week and taking more holidays, but yeah, I think Dentistry is good in some ways because it grounds you and it keeps you in a strong relationship with other human beings, seeing the general public, which is a positive-negative flip depending on who comes through the door, but-

Payman: Which do you enjoy more? The practise side or the teaching side?

Simon: Treating my patients, I enjoy more.

Payman: Than the teaching?

Simon: Yeah.

Payman: Really? Okay. We’ve been asking everyone what would you want to be remembered as? Your legacy, what do you want that to be?

Prav Solanki: Last day on the planet. Imagine finishing the sentence of Simon was…

Simon: I mean, I’m just going to say exactly what came into my head, and the answer’s passionate. I don’t know why that’s come into my head, but I guess I try to be passionate about everything that I’m doing. The most, as I said to you before, the most important thing for me is my family and expressing that love that I have for them in whatever way I could do in that last moment would be what I would wish to do.

Payman: Mm-hmm (affirmative). It’s beautiful.

Simon: I think that’s all you can hope to do, really, but yeah, it’s a difficult one to answer. What would your answer be?

Prav Solanki: Oh Gosh. You got me with the complicated question. I think quite similar to yours, so a great father, husband and overall nice guy.

Simon: I thought were in one word.

Prav Solanki: When did I say one word? I said finish the sentence.

Simon: Oh, I missed the bait on that one.

Prav Solanki: You can have another go.

Simon: I’ll take mine.

Payman: That’s brilliant. Thanks a lot man.

Simon: Thank you.

Payman: It was a lovely conversation.

Simon: Thanks.

Payman: I enjoyed that. Thanks.

Speaker 3: 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.

Payman: Well, thank you for listening to the dental leaders podcast. If you listened to the end, then hopefully you got some value out of it. If you did, please subscribe to the channel and share it with your friends. Maybe think like, give me some five star review. Thanks so much for joining us.

Prav Solanki: Thanks guys. Massively appreciated and this is all about creating a community where we can share the depth of every individual interview. So thank you for taking the time out to-

 

Transcript

 

Prav Solanki:
Hey guys. And welcome to the Dental Leaders podcast, and today, we interviewed probably one of the most famous dentists in the world, making a huge movement in tooth preservation dentistry, the king of align, bleach and bond, Tif Qureshi. I’ve had the pleasure of working with, alongside, and knowing personally him for well over a decade. There’s one thing that he’s very, very clear about, Tif. He is aggressively passionate about the actions he takes in terms of treating his patients and doing the very best for them, but more importantly, creating a movement that educates dentists in doing the same, right?

Prav Solanki:
I’ve had the pleasure of being in a lecture room or a presentation or a board meeting presenting to corporates, and Tif gets up, and he does his thing. Jaws drop. Light bulb moments are created, and it’s just spectacular to see. You’re going to learn a lot from this thing. And we go into his personal life and how he grew up. So, it’s all very, very interesting. Lots to learn. Pay, what’d you take away?

Payman L:
I mean Tif’s one of those guys, he makes me proud to be a product of UK dentistry. He’s a private practise guy, and yet, if you had to point to one person who’s changed the future of UK dentistry the most, I’d have to say it’s Tif Qureshi. I mean the whole market, the whole every single dentist, young dentist, out there now is looking at minimally invasive dentistry because of Tif Qureshi. It probably would’ve happened eventually, but you can see the UK now is right at the top of that because of Tif really.

Payman L:
There’s of course a bunch of others before and after Tif, but what really impresses me about Tif is just the common sense approach to just the way he looks at things. With everything’s he achieved, you’d imagine he could be arrogant with it, but not at all. Just very simple, common sense answers, and it’s just great to see the approach of looking at patients long term from a practise perspective, and to me, it shows that there’s so much knowledge out there in practise. It’s not all with researchers and university teachers. In fact, most of the knowledge out there is in practise.

Prav Solanki:
With GDPs.

Payman L:
With GDPs. And when you see one like Tif, who can actually, from his base in Kent, make such a big impact on the world of minimally invasive dentistry, I think it’s inspirational. And I love the fact that he’s a product of UK dentistry, and he’s on the world stage. Super nice guy with it. Enjoy, guys.

Prav Solanki:
Enjoy.

Tif Qureshi:
I took them once in Norway, but they were only 6 and 10 or something, and this old dentist leaned over to them both. We were sitting on a bus going somewhere, I think from the airport to the hotel, the Solstrand. It was a Swedish Academy, which I mentioned. And this chap leaned over to my son and said, “You should be happy, proud of your dad. He saved a lot of tooth.”

Speaker 4:
This is Dental Leaders, podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts, Payman Langroudi and Prav Solanki.

Payman L:
It’s a real honour to have the great Tif Qureshi on the podcast. Thanks a lot for doing this, Tif.

Tif Qureshi:
Thank you.

Payman L:
We thought we were going to have some big hitters, but you’re the biggest one so far.

Tif Qureshi:
Oh, no.

Prav Solanki:
For sure. And I’ve probably known you for about 10 years, Tif.

Tif Qureshi:
Yeah, that’s right.

Prav Solanki:
And I’ve seen you create various movements in dentistry and pioneer techniques, and you’ve got this whole following behind you. And I think we’re going to go a little bit deeper on that and learn about how you came to discover these things and the story behind it. But before we do that, can we just go into your backstory, where you grew up, your childhood, parenting, and all that side of things? And just tell us a little bit more about that, Tif.

Tif Qureshi:
Yeah, I mean most of my life was spent growing up in Kent near a place called Rochester, where I went to school. My parents are both GPs, as many from my background are. And pretty much like many of us of that generation, we got told whether we were doing medicine or dentistry. Generally preferred to do medicine, and then if for any reason you weren’t quite there, you were doing dentistry. I had the grades to do medicine actually, but I chose dentistry fundamentally because of a cousin that I knew that was doing dentistry at the time who really, his name’s Mantu Qureshi, who people know, a lovely guy. And actually his influence on me really made me think, “This is something I want to do.” Looking at him, he felt a lot more free than my parents looked. And so, that’s one reason why I did it.

Prav Solanki:
And just in terms of your upbringing, was it quite a strict upbringing in a typical sort of Asian environment, similar to what I had really. When I was growing up, I wasn’t going out, mucking around with my mates and stuff like that. It was literally dad was working hard, and the whole focus was education, education, education, and folks know my dad’s message to me was, “I want you to be better than me.”

Tif Qureshi:
Yeah. Very much so. I mean my parents were… They may have been a little bit different to the norm at the time because I think they wanted me… I mean they sent me to, and my brother, to a quite a unique sort of public school down in Kent, which had an interesting reputation. I was literally one of one or two non-white faces in the year for many, many a year. But they just wanted me to go there to kind of integrate into this country I think. I could speak our language a little bit, but I have to say, now I can’t really speak much at all. I can understand a little bit, but they were more keen that I kind of integrated and worked well.

Tif Qureshi:
They came here, and my goal was to live here the rest of my life, not to then move away somewhere else. While I was still, you know, you’re still massively proud of your heritage and where you’re from and your cultural background, I think the goal, I always feel, if you’re going to move somewhere, you’ve got to be part of that country and contribute towards it. So, they had that attitude because where they grew up and where they came from, they had a, all those years ago, a love marriage, which was quite an odd thing as well. They met at university, and they kind of got together, and their parents were quite liberal. I mean my mother’s father was an ambassador for another country, so he’s kind of travelled around quite a lot. And so, one of my dad’s brothers was living here in the early ’60s and married an English woman back then. So again, you can kind of imagine what it’s been.

Tif Qureshi:
It’s been a bit like that, so they were quite happy for me to sort of integrate here. And they wanted me to sort of be here and be part of this country. So, it’s a bit of an odd thing to say, and I know there’s some people who actually look badly on that. And I’ve met people who don’t think that’s a good thing, but the reality is this is where I consider my home, and I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.

Prav Solanki:
So, go back to I went to a school. Me and my brother were at a school where we were the only two brown faces in that school. Just talk to me about your experience at that school, and I don’t know. Was it similar to mine, or just talk to me about what that was like.

Tif Qureshi:
It was called, it was King’s School, Rochester. And I think, quite oddly for a while, yeah for a while, it was what you’d expect, and every day was an interesting day. And every day somebody came up to you and gave you a dead arm and called you this and called you that. But then, actually there were a lot of great people there as well. So, I got on pretty well with everybody. A strange place in that it was very eccentric.

Tif Qureshi:
But what’s interesting is I left there 30 years ago, and yet, for my year of people that I spent 12, 13 years with that at that time, I still know at that year, at least 75% of the people extremely well. And we had our 30 year school reunion, and literally more than half the people in the year turned up. So, we have a very kind of strange really tight sort of friendship, and not a lot of people I know have that. They don’t really know many of their people from school.

Tif Qureshi:
So, there’s definitely something unique about our school, our year, I don’t know. I think we all went through a very interesting time in the ’80s. Interestingly, one thing that everyone was talking about recently when we had our reunion is what changed in the ’80s? And what’s quite topical is Live Aid changed people’s attitude. It was quite odd. I mean I remember, and one of my other friends who’s a sweet chap there, he’s one of my best friends, who’s now a doctor, both of us have often said, “After Live Aid, all of a sudden, it seemed like the racism stopped,” which is quite a strange thing, isn’t it? And talking to some of the guys I know now, they say, “Yeah, it was one of those things that made people kind of realise why we’re behaving in this way and what our life is actually about. I’m not saying Live Aid was a massive enormous international success. You can sort of see all the problems that still go on, but it was a massive exercise for conscience I think.

Prav Solanki:
You noticed a difference.

Tif Qureshi:
I noticed it literally. I literally walked into school on the Monday morning, and school was a different place. And that’s because all of the people at the time that we all kind of worshipped , be it David Bowie or it could be U2 or Queen and all those people suddenly made a statement that actually… I think it moved people on. I think Live Aid is not remembered for that, but it actually is one of the most important moments in the history of this country. I think a lot of people don’t appreciate that. A lot of people who also think this country is racist, and no country is perfect, should have tried living here before then because it was quite different at that point. It wasn’t perfect at all, and as I say, I think after then, things changed quite a lot. And why it’s topical because of course, that Queen movie came out recently.

Prav Solanki:
Of course, yeah.

Tif Qureshi:
And not just enjoying that film, but one of the bits that I found extremely kind of emotional was watching that whole section because it kind of took me back 30 years. And suddenly, you thought, “Wow, now I remember what was so great about that day that really I don’t think anything has come near since.”

Payman L:
It was a big day.

Tif Qureshi:
It was a big day.

Payman L:
Do you remember?

Prav Solanki:
Yeah.

Payman L:
How old were you?

Prav Solanki:
Child.

Tif Qureshi:
Child.

Prav Solanki:
You’re younger than us.

Tif Qureshi:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think I was-

Prav Solanki:
I ran the world, that one.

Tif Qureshi:
Yeah, we’re going to have to ask, Pay, how old are you?

Prav Solanki:
I think I’m a couple years younger than you. I’m ’72, I was born.

Tif Qureshi:
Yeah, I was-

Prav Solanki:
But it was who? Your mother?

Payman L:
At dental school, yeah.

Tif Qureshi:
Ah, yes. Yeah, yeah. I just met her the other day.

Payman L:
When did you qualify?

Tif Qureshi:
Well, I qualified in ’92. So, I-

Payman L:
With Anoop.

Tif Qureshi:
Yeah, so, I’m ’69. So, how old would I have been? 16. So, at 16, that was a time when I was discovering music and all that sort of stuff and realising what I wanted to listen to and what I wanted to hear.

Payman L:
And in dental school, were you one of the top kids in the class or not?

Tif Qureshi:
Absolutely not. I just kind of melted into the background, bit like Anup really. I was certainly not one of the standout people. I didn’t fail anything. I didn’t have to retake anything, so I kind of got through it. To be truthful, I can’t tell you I enjoyed dental school. I made a lot of friends there, had some good times, but I didn’t enjoy a lot of the components of learning dentistry. I loved the first year. That was brilliant, being on the Strand with all the medical students and everything.

Prav Solanki:
That was where you felt like a student.

Tif Qureshi:
Yeah, you felt like a student. But second year, for us, it was the second year, it was just like work, work, work.

Prav Solanki:
It’s a tough course.

Payman L:
It’s a tough, tough course for sure.

Tif Qureshi:
Yeah, yeah. There’s some great people, though, who taught me at King’s. And some of those have shaped my career, no doubt.

Prav Solanki:
Who are those people?

Tif Qureshi:
Well, yeah, people like Martin Kelleher, Brian Miller, Brett Robinson, Steve Dubb. Those guys, work I do now, when I’m working, I’ve still got them in my mind. So, that’s quite a powerful statement.

Payman L:
Yeah.

Tif Qureshi:
I’m still thinking about what they said and what they instilled in me. Equally, there’s probably some people I shouldn’t mention, who I probably didn’t learn anything from. So, it was kind of quite polarised there, but certainly I think that was also quite a special place actually, not that we see that many people from my year at reunions anymore. Certainly, I still know quite a lot of people from that year of course.

Prav Solanki:
Yeah, I mean, when you look around at all the people in dentistry now who are, whether you consider them to be the superstars of dentistry, who are teaching or inspiring other people or pioneering, there are a lot of people from your year who are part of the who’s who of dentistry today, right?

Tif Qureshi:
Yeah. I mean a who’s who is always a bit of a weird one, isn’t it? Because you can be who’s who by just having a huge amount of Instagram followers, which actually is a skill in itself, and not to disrespect anyone that does. You can have a bad reputation, you can have a good reputation, be an academic. But certainly, there was definitely a few people in my year who are high profile, use that term. And I think there was definitely an element of being in King’s in that year and just getting a slightly different sort of feeling perhaps that went on in other years. I don’t know. But yeah, there’s a few of us. There’s Anoop, James Goolnik and Nav Kharia. There’s actually a few guys years above and below who are quite well known, Asif Chatoo, Paul Baker. So, all these kind of guys are quite well known. And they’re all King’s. So, King’s is clearly the best university, obviously. I don’t want to finish off now.

Prav Solanki:
Was it known as a notoriously tough course at King’s? Clinically, were you expected to do more than other schools? Do you know anything about that?

Tif Qureshi:
Not that I remember. Back then, I think we didn’t really appreciate it. Now, I think we all look back from whatever university you’re at, and you sort of hear these common comments that a lot of the younger dentists aren’t doing anywhere near as much as we were doing back then, which does seem a shame. We’d done several hundred extractions and all these root canals and all these crowns and everything by the time we’d left, and you hear these anecdotal stories. I don’t know how true they are, but you hear these anecdotal stories of people could leave university without doing more than two or three root canals or a couple of crowns. And it seems strange.

Payman L:
I’ve got a question for you. I did VT in Kent, and in my VT year, there was three King’s people, three Guy’s people, three London people, and me. And interestingly, I found that my teaching, I was from Cardiff, my teaching was stronger than them on some aspects. But the area that was weaker from my course was ortho as it happens. We learned ortho class 1, 2, 3 was, and that was basically it. We didn’t do… Was there ortho in your undergrad? Is that where this comes from?

Tif Qureshi:
No, not at all.

Payman L:
Not at all.

Tif Qureshi:
But there was some. And yeah, to be fair, we made-

Payman L:
Did you do rotation?

Tif Qureshi:
Yeah, we did. We used removal appliance. We’d do anything other than removal appliances, and we made ortho appliances as well on a kind of ortho clinic type of technicians clinic as well. So, yeah, we did, I wouldn’t say we did a huge amount of it. I don’t think we were encouraged to do a huge amount of it, but it wasn’t excluded at all. I have to say I think the whole idea… I made a joke about King’s being the best. I think the whole idea about any university being the best is just bizarre because the reality is you learn everything as soon as you leave dentistry. It’s actually when you start treating patients you start to learn dentistry.

Tif Qureshi:
So, yes, a university can certainly guide you at the early stages, but fundamentally, it’s then what you do after in your post-graduate years. What course you take is one thing. But then as I commonly say is treating your own patients and staying in one place teaches you more than anything can teach you. So, that may be why a lot of the super high flyers at King’s are the people who kind of won all the awards and everything, you don’t really see much of them now. And people like myself perhaps, and neither of us were particularly fantastic at university, but we’re on the international circuit lecturing. So, I don’t think there’s any correlation between your university and how you then come out. It’s then what you do with yourself after, I think.

Payman L:
And so, did you have VT in your day?

Tif Qureshi:
Yeah, we did. I think I was one of the first years that did it. I think we didn’t have to do it. But I think we had the first options.

Payman L:
Yeah, I think we were the first year who absolutely had to do it.

Tif Qureshi:
Had to do it, yeah. I was very lucky. I mean younger people listening now probably would be quite sickened by the fact that I just picked the place nearest to where my parents lived, called them up, and got the job immediately.

Payman L:
Yeah, it was a different world.

Tif Qureshi:
Yeah, it was a different world.

Payman L:
But one of the biggest influences of my career was my first boss, my VT boss.

Tif Qureshi:
Yeah, my VT boss was a great guy actually. That was the only other practise I’ve ever worked in, so I did VT there.

Payman L:
Is that right?

Tif Qureshi:
Yeah, I did VT there for one year, but then I needed to move closer to London for kind of personal reasons. And so, then I picked a job in a practise that I’m now as a one year-

Prav Solanki:
Christ. You’ve been there more or less since you qualified.

Tif Qureshi:
Yeah, yeah. So, did my one year VT, and then I’ve been at that same practise ever since.

Payman L:
And it is gold, that thing that you sort of popularised the idea of you learn by looking at your own patients. It’s absolutely right. I mean I only practised for five, six years overall. But even within that five, six years, I saw some things that I should… Veneers, I’m sure we’ll be getting onto veneers, the staining of veneers at five, six years old. Five or six years, not much, and learning that oh, maybe that wasn’t the right thing to do. And the lessons you must have learned in 25, 26 years.

Tif Qureshi:
Definitely.

Payman L:
I mean there’s a very interesting point. And the other really interesting thing, I mean you’re a teacher, so you’re going to have 100 different things that you’ve learnt and you teach, but we were discussing this before. The amount of knowledge that there is out there from people who aren’t necessarily famous or teachers or on the international lecture circuit who’ve had that experience of treating the same patients.

Tif Qureshi:
Yeah, that’s absolutely right. I do make these statements, and I post them. And you have a bit of a following on whether it’s LinkedIn or Facebook, whatever. And if I make the statements, people will read them. But what’s interesting is that I get a lot of nice comments from other dentists, all been there, 25, 30 years, “Couldn’t agree any more. This needs saying, etc, etc.” Because I don’t think it is said enough. And I think one thing it’s concerning me over the last few years seems to be the kind of devaluation of what being a GDP is.

Tif Qureshi:
I actually think the GDP is the most important person in dentistry full stop, in the sense that we need specialists, and specialists do an incredibly important job obviously. But what a GDP can do is just incomparable because a specialist very rarely ever get to see their treatment again. Certainly don’t see it regularly. GDPs will carry out treatment, and then be able to monitor it and intercept and prevent and do whatever they need to do, and that’s far more valuable than perhaps anything else we ever imagine. Plus, you have the ability to build a relationship with a patient, which is over many years. And that’s again something I’m finding is quite devalued nowadays. People seem to be more bothered about getting new patients in through the door than necessarily treating the people that are sitting there already.

Payman L:
Yeah, I remember it was World Aesthetic Congress.

Prav Solanki:
Whack, whack.

Tif Qureshi:
Real good memory.

Payman L:
Yeah, if Ken’s listening, good on you, mate. But the World Aesthetic Congress of it was maybe 2003, 2004, you were very a very junior member of the BACD.

Tif Qureshi:
Yeah, yeah.

Payman L:
Nowhere near president of the BACD, and you came over to me, and you showed me this model. And on the lower, there was some sort of Inman device on it. And you said to me, “Hey, you know all these veneers we’re doing, the upper, of course we’re going to veneer those, but the lowers, the veneers on lowers are quite hard, aren’t they? I mean we shouldn’t really be doing that. So, what I’m thinking is, maybe you can just straighten the lowers with the…” So, when did that start? I mean when did you bump into, is it Mr. Inman?

Tif Qureshi:
Yeah, yeah.

Payman L:
How did that happen?

Tif Qureshi:
I would say probably even a couple of years before that, I was fiddling around with the little mini ortho appliances with Z springs on them.

Payman L:
How? Why?

Tif Qureshi:
Fundamentally why, because I felt wrong about doing what I was doing. Fundamentally.

Prav Solanki:
Can you remember that moment where you thought, “Shit, I shouldn’t be doing this?” Was there a defining moment?

Tif Qureshi:
Yeah, actually, on one of the veneer courses I went on. The first veneer course I sat and watched, I just thought, “Mm. I’m not totally comfortable with this.” Let’s not mention the name of that course, but certainly, I sat there and I thought, “Okay, there’s a lot of great stuff going on here. This is life changing. I’m learning how to do impressions, and I’m learning how to do preparations. I’m learning how to handle patients in a very professional way I’ve never learned before.” But the flip side of that, I was looking and thinking, “I wouldn’t have that done.”

Tif Qureshi:
So, it made me feel uncomfortable, and it didn’t mean that I didn’t do any of it. What I would commonly do is refer the patients to the orthodontist. And very typically, at that time, where when only really comprehensive ortho was offered, the patients would just say, “Forget that. I’m coming back and having this done.” So, you did it. And upper teeth, because you could kind of build them out a little bit, you could try and not to prep them heavily, you still occasionally had to do that, were easier to treat. But a lot of it, as you say, Pay, were almost a nightmare to do. And if you often didn’t treat the upper teeth and didn’t treat the lowers, you just treated the uppers, you actually created this kind of two tone syndrome, which looked bloody awful. Let’s face it.

Prav Solanki:
And bleaching back then wasn’t up to much.

Tif Qureshi:
Bleaching wasn’t good, and people take it for granted. And what’d tend to happen was you’d sort of watch these extreme makeover programmes on telly, and even my own patients would look at them and think, yeah, while you smile, it looks okay. But for the rest of the 99% of the day, let’s face it, England, that’s the way it’s going to be, when you’re not smiling, you’re actually going to be just seeing the lower teeth, which look worse and actually create this horrible contrast. And that made me feel quite uncomfortable. So, I started looking at other ways of just trying, and I was using a lot of composites as well. I have to say, a lot of composite to try and mask it as well. But then I started thinking about minor ortho, and Inman Aligner came along because it was in… The irony of the Inman Aligner was it was in the AACD journal, the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry journal, which I subscribe to-

Prav Solanki:
Is that where you came across it?

Tif Qureshi:
That’s where I came across it. And I open it up. I think I’d stumbled on it before once in something else, but I sort of read it there again. And I thought, “This is fascinating.” These teeth, one and a half, two millimetres of crowding being moved in what seemed like a short period of time. Of course, they’re just moving that small amount, but I thought, “Okay, if I only focused on the front teeth, so no moving everything. So, I wonder if my patients who are currently booked in for veneers over the next few weeks who went to the orthodontist and said no, I wonder if they’d have this done.” So, I actually got one of them back or two of them back, and literally, this is no joke, probably over the next several months, I’d had 10 to 15 patients scheduled for veneers. Every single one said I’ll have that done instead because they could see it was only going to be there for a few weeks. And they could see that it meant that we wouldn’t have to then prepare their teeth or prepare their teeth less. They wouldn’t need an endo etc.

Tif Qureshi:
So, that then made me realise there is a place for this. That was just the start because of course, then the whole concept of progressive smile design and bleaching and bonding, that came in later. But just as a beginning, it was that kind of moment where I read that. Now a couple of years on, and this is the sad part, Don Inman once said to me, I mean it may be an anecdotal comment, but he did say to me what was interesting about that article, he said, “I put it out, and I was so excited when it went out to 10,000 people.” But he said, “You were the only person in the whole world, as far as I know, that’s contacted me referencing that article.” And I don’t know why. It was probably because everyone else was too busy with the veneers at the time. I was in a practise where people didn’t have that much money, so it kind of always was making me think slightly alternative ways of doing things. Obviously, I’ve never been in central London, so that may have been a reason for it.

Payman L:
And then, how did it move on from okay, you started treating those lowers, then started treating the uppers?

Tif Qureshi:
Started treating the uppers. And actually, then what happened was, I started sending some cases that Don said to me I couldn’t do. And these were just like one and a half, two millimetre, three millimetre cases. And he kept saying you can’t do it, you can’t do it. But what I started to do was develop a kind of protocol of space evaluation and space planning, and where I was doing the IPR. And I kind of explained to him this is what I’m doing. Now, he’s a technician, so he kind of listened to me. And I also created this sort of attachment sequence protocol as well.

Prav Solanki:
Were you talking to some orthodontist at the-

Tif Qureshi:
Not really. I have to say not at that point. A little bit later I did.

Prav Solanki:
And it was probably the biggest advantage was that you weren’t talking to ortho, you know what I mean?

Tif Qureshi:
But I wanted to. I did want to early on, and I did. And actually, funnily enough once of the first people I consulted with this was Asif Chadi.

Prav Solanki:
Oh, right.

Tif Qureshi:
And the great thing about Asif was he looked at what I was doing totally, and I’m like maybe some others at the time, was totally open-minded to it in saying, “Look, I can see what you’re doing. You’re just moving the front teeth, and if those patients have come to see me already and have refused, this has surely got to be the best thing to do.” So, he was really quite instrumental in at least making me feel, “Okay, this is the right thing to do if we do it correctly.”

Tif Qureshi:
Another person a year or two later who I started to sort of bounce back some ideas from as well, and I was very lucky, and this is an amazing person to have mentoring me briefly, was someone called Bjorn Zachrisson, who’s one of the greatest orthodontists ever to have lived. Still around today.

Prav Solanki:
How did you come across him?

Tif Qureshi:
Again, this is thankfully through the BACD, and that’s one of the big things about BACD. You get to meet people like that, and he focus spoke many years ago. And then I stayed in touch with him after. And they came on the stage, spoke, and then afterwards I sort of talked to him about what I was doing. And again, he said it makes perfect sense. I was trying to learn a bit more about IPR and the limitations, and he’s obviously written tonnes on it.

Payman L:
Where do you have confidence to go up to the world’s top orthodontist as a GDP and say, “I’m doing this. What do you think?”

Tif Qureshi:
I mean that’s again, that’s where you got to thank people like BACD. You get the opportunity to, and that’s a lot of what of… You’ll always be grateful for that in reality. But the fact is I was thinking that way, and I was thinking that way in an environment where others weren’t. And so, yeah, to be fair, I’m not saying that it would’ve been exactly the same, but I was heading that way anyway. So, I would’ve spoken to one person or another. I just wanted to validate it and make sure that this was something that was I was doing as well as I could.

Payman L:
Have you ever thought, or maybe I’ve even heard you, write or read about you saying this. But today, it would be impossible because you’d be so scared of legal ramifications of being the only one doing something.

Tif Qureshi:
I think you’re totally right, Pay. And I think that’s actually quite a sad statement really. We’ve all being lucky to a certain degree for the times we’ve lived in. But nowadays, yeah, you’d probably would fear it. However, I’m getting to the point where I’m just turning that argument around, where I used to hear, and I still hear people say, “If a general dentist does ortho, it’s dangerous.” Well, actually I flip the argument around now and say that, “A general dentist who doesn’t do ortho is dangerous, okay?”

Tif Qureshi:
And I can justify that based on the fact that a lot of dentists don’t understand the concept of constricting envelopes. And why do envelopes constrict? Because teeth move. And how do you fix it? Not restoratively. Yeah, you can do some restorative, but you need ortho. And there are probably, I’d estimate, millions of patients around the world who have a repeatedly chipping front tooth. It keeps chipping. The dentist’s solutions is another composite, another composite, or a splint, and a lot of those patients end up with crowns. Actually, the dentist understood that they needed a little bit of ortho to get the right, overjet the right overbite, bit of bonding to improve the overbite. You’d probably find that actually a lot less people would have anterior veneers or crowns. I’ve seen that. It’s absolutely clear, and I think it’s a really strong part of the message now.

Tif Qureshi:
So, I think general dentists have got to… Here’s something I would say controversial, if you’re a general dentist, and you’re my general dentist, and you couldn’t do any ortho, I wouldn’t even sit in your chair. That’s just what I would say. I wouldn’t even sit in your chair. If you needed to do my endo, I’d be all right with that, but if there was some anterior, and your solution for my front tooth that kept chipping was a crown, no way am I sitting in your chair. So, I know it’s a powerful comment, but-

Payman L:
The thing is, saying it now with your record, then you can basically say what you like, and everyone will pay attention.

Tif Qureshi:
Back then of course.

Payman L:
Saying stuff like that as a GDP from Kent, I find it super interesting.

Tif Qureshi:
Well, I was saying stuff. And actually, we stuck our neck out, and we were showing what we were doing. And I’d say there were, you’d stick your head up, and again, you’d get people in wanna shoot you down. And I got a couple of invites to places where I was terrified, an audience of orthodontists and all sorts of stuff. But the reality was when they sat and watched what we were doing, many of them have come up to me after and said, “Actually, you’re doing just the front teeth. You’re looking at what’s actually going on.”

Tif Qureshi:
So, the key part here, and this is where people like Ross Hobson have actually made a huge difference is actually to validate the fact that what we’re trying to do is make sure the patients understand the difference between comprehensive treatment versus the compromise. That’s the key. As long as you can diagnose the case completely, and you’ve got to diagnose it, not somebody else. This is really important. And you can explain to the patient why doing just the front teeth is okay versus actually what the patient may really need, which is have the full mouth done. It really shouldn’t be a problem at all. And once we brought that message in, I think it’s made it clear that there’s nothing wrong with doing this. And that actually, you’ve got to start thinking about doing it if you’re not doing it already.

Prav Solanki:
So, we go from you found this appliance, you made it work, you started shifting teeth, doing less veneers. And fast forward, you assembled an academy.

Payman L:
Straight talk seminars, I seem to remember.

Tif Qureshi:
It was. And that’s a good time to bring in James Russell and Tim Bradstock-Smith because they were two of the first people who were part of the… They were actually at the first study club in inverted brackets, where it was just them and me. We had our own little study club, and one week we would talk about a different subject. And I think by the time we got to the fifth subject, which was just Inman Aligner, so I’d done composite, and Tim did occlusion, and James did temporary veneers. So, we were just lecturing to each other. A bit sad really when you think about it.

Tif Qureshi:
But when Inman Aligner came along, they were like, I don’t want to swear, but their jaws were on the floor, like, “What the hell is that? Wow.” And all of a sudden, they wanted to start to learn how to use it. And I kind of coached them on it a little bit. They didn’t need a lot. And then, before we knew it, we were just running a course as a bit of a experiment for a few of the people and a few of the BACD guys wanted to know, and then it just suddenly went from there. But it was very rough and very innocent. And we were trying to do the right thing, but equally, the way things have changed now, we really developed it to do everything in the right pathway.

Tif Qureshi:
The good thing about it you can’t really do that much with it. That was probably the best thing about it. It wasn’t a treatment that could treat a lot of teeth. So, you could see well, if the back teeth need treatment, it’s not treatment for it. Simple as that.

Payman L:
Do you remember the point where you thought rather than this being a treatment modality, this could be a business?

Tif Qureshi:
I think there was never a contrived pathway for that. And that’s probably a weakness in itself in that we could’ve been much further ahead than we are. But the truth is I think a good few years ago, maybe five or six years ago, I think once we started running courses… In fact, it’s longer than that. We’ve been running courses in Denmark for nearly eight or nine years now. But once we started going abroad, and of course, a lot of that was just you get an invite, and it’s a bit of fun and that sort of stuff. But once we started going abroad and you started to get a lot of feedback from dentists who were just saying, “This has completely changed the way I’m doing dentistry,” I think we realised that we kind of almost had a responsibility to do something and set something up more official. So, we set it up, set the forum up, the support forum, all that sort of stuff. And yeah, it just grew from there.

Tif Qureshi:
Now it’s a business. Yeah, I mean it is a business, and we have to make sure it runs and operates correctly. But there still is very much led by dentists, so we’ve got our ethical hats on the whole time. Sometimes, we probably do things which are hardcore Hard business would say, “Don’t do this, do this instead.” But we can’t. We just have to do things that might hold us back in the long run. But ultimately, I’ve got to stand up and look in the mirror, and I know the other guys need to as well. So, that’s kind of why we’ve taken it the way we have.

Prav Solanki:
So, ethics above profits.

Tif Qureshi:
I think that’s always been a good message, not just in what we’re doing, I think in dentistry generally, a lot of people believe that and want to believe it and want to say it louder. It’s the old cliché, if you do the right thing, the money will follow. And it does.

Prav Solanki:
Of course.

Tif Qureshi:
It does. I think we’ve got to be thinking about patients over a much longer period of time rather than a short ticket, a quick ticket to success. It’s a relationship. You look after them, and you do the right thing for them all the way through. That’s kind of our goal.

Prav Solanki:
So, now you’ve assembled a team as part of IAS Academy with different people, with different skillsets, doing different things. What is the overall validation of that message because, let’s be honest, there’s loads of other ortho companies, teaching institutes out there. What differentiates the academy? I look at it, and I’ve got friends who’ve just qualified. And they say to me, “Prav, what course should I do?” And the first thing I’ll tell them is, “You need to take ortho.” And I’d suggest they’d come onto the IAS Academy pathway. But why the IAS pathway instead of any other pathway?

Tif Qureshi:
Well, there’s lots of different things that I think we’re a little bit different in many ways. Firstly is the type of mentoring we do. So, what we want to do is just make sure that no one gets on board without having all the right images, the right records, and then they’re guided all the way through. So, that’s really important from one aspect.

Tif Qureshi:
Another thing that I think is different is that I don’t actually think of us as an ortho company. So, that’s different. So, there are people out there that teach ortho. That’s fine. We teach ortho, but it’s actually part of a whole restorative process of thinking. But also, it’s a lifetime view. So, there are a lot of people out there that teach ortho, and we teach ortho. We want to teach you how to move teeth correctly and sensibly. But we also want to teach you how to restore cosmetics and function, but the real kind of for me, the kicker, is we want to teach you how to communicate with the patient and maintain things and retain things for life. And I don’t think anyone is really doing that.

Tif Qureshi:
The whole concept of retention for life and what that means, I’m not just talking about having a retainer stuck on the teeth for life. It’s actually to observe the patient and see how their occlusion changes and the movement changes and the function, the guidance changes. Those things are actually immensely more valuable than one single kind of… To me, the kind of work I do is never just ortho. It’s always ortho restorative functional occlusion. That’s what it is. I think the only people that are just pure ortho really applies to is probably children in many ways. Once you get to an adult and your teeth have been around for a while, you need to make sure that you’re going to end up in a better situation, certainly not a worse situation after having some orthodontics done. And usually there can be some restorative element of that.

Tif Qureshi:
So, those are the things that are a bit different. I think we try and move on what we do. A lot of it is based on because the fact we’re all practising , and we look at stuff, and we change stuff. We’re never going to just sit there and do the same thing. But to me, I think where dentistry is going to move in the future is ortho restorative, and I think that is almost a new subject in itself. And it’s so powerful because it can really change the way people think about what they’re doing every day. And very importantly, the communications in your daily examinations are very different once you have that sort of thinking as well. I hope that answered your question.

Prav Solanki:
Yeah, it did kind of. So, what about if I’m a Invisalign Diamond practitioner, and I’m married to Invisalign? Can I still come on one of your courses? Is there a conflict there at all?

Tif Qureshi:
No, not at all. I mean what we’re trying to do is be system agnostic, and that’s the whole idea. I know I can help anyone doing anything, get a better result. That’s kind of the way because actually when you start applying those correct ortho principles and ortho restorative principles, and very importantly, you start thinking about a load of different things up front, you can put into any case. And it doesn’t matter what you… One thing I would say is I think too many dentists are sucked into brands, and they say, “Oh, well, the power of this system, the power of that system.” It’s just not true. It’s about what you’re doing as a dentist. I actually don’t want a patient to ever come into me and say to me, “I want you to give me that.” I want them to come in and say, “I want to see you.”

Tif Qureshi:
I appreciate that younger dentists kind of, or maybe some dentists, need a brand to work with. And I think established brands are always good things, but I think the more we allow brands to take over the value of dentistry, the more danger we’ve got of actually losing control. And so, that’s where all of a sudden, do it yourself style treatments come in because then, it’s the system that becomes more important than the actual dentists. That’s what I would worry about. And I certainly don’t want to mention any company names here because we know how litigious this whole area is, but I think it’s really important that as dentists, where we can, we make a stand to control our profession. And the minute companies start coming in and automating stuff so that patients can just literally get their own aligners to their door, or you know what I mean? I think we’re in danger.

Prav Solanki:
Which is huge, right?

Tif Qureshi:
Which is huge. If it could be done and delivered perfectly safely, which I just cannot imagine it can, great. But it’s not going to happen.

Prav Solanki:
In this case, we’re talking about orthodontics from a vending machine.

Tif Qureshi:
Potentially, or a scanning centre, or something. But see, the problem with all of this is even if there’s a dentist involved, doing the base creation or whatever, what I can see from virtually any orthodontic plan that’s put in front of me that a lot of guys talk about, I can say, “Well, you know what? If you’d done a couple of little bits and pieces up front, which I won’t go into, a couple bits and pieces up front, you could get a much better result.” And actually, the problem is people take the scan. They take the scan, and they think that’s it. Someone else is going to now sort me out. And actually, a lot of cases you could stop yourself getting in black triangles by just doing a couple little minor things first. And my eyes can see that, but the computer’s eyes can’t. And certainly, someone in a high street scanning your teeth won’t be able to. So, by allowing brands to take over, we devalue dentistry. It’s so important.

Prav Solanki:
So, am I correct in understanding you could teach dentists how to do Invisalign better? It’s not the system that matters, but it’s the approach.

Tif Qureshi:
I don’t know want to talk about one particular brand like that, but-

Prav Solanki:
I’m using that as an example.

Tif Qureshi:
I know anyone who’s got a kind of ortho restorative style case, I know that if I look at the case up front, there’s lots of little things that we can see and we can teach that actually would make the dentist think, “Yeah, you know what? I realise that tooth’s the right functional tooth. This tooth I’m going to start to change the shape of.” If you’re taking a scan and you haven’t looked at those things, you’ve already missed an opportunity. Do you see what I mean?

Prav Solanki:
Yeah.

Tif Qureshi:
The standard orthodontic assessment and diagnosis is extremely important that everyone should be able to do. And I think a lot of people, again, they get sucked in because a third party is designing the plan for them. They think somehow they’re safe. They’re not. You have to come up with that plan. It’s your plan. You’re responsible. So, you need to do the assessment, diagnosis, the plan. So therefore, you’ve got to spend that time, you can still take a scan, but what you put into that treatment plan beforehand could literally save your career later on. Plus on top of that, you get a better result. It’s simple as that.

Payman L:
But it must keep you guys up at night, that their AI or something will get to the point where-

Tif Qureshi:
Yeah, I’ve got no doubt that algorithms, things will go… The reality is I think there’s nothing that can ever replace a human brain, and maybe we’ll get-

Payman L:
But maybe there is.

Tif Qureshi:
Maybe there will be one day. I don’t know. But think of like-

Payman L:
My brother’s a radiologist. In their world, it’s one of the use cases for the IBM Watson thing was radiology. And they’re all very, very worried that they won’t be needed to-

Tif Qureshi:
But I mean, would you step on a plane? I mean planes can fly themselves completely automatic now. Would you step on a plane knowing there’s no pilot? It’s kind of that’s the way-

Payman L:
I would step in a car knowing there’s no driver.

Tif Qureshi:
I’m worried about that. I’m worried about that.

Payman L:
But the point I’m trying to make is I completely get it. We have it in whitening. I completely get it. But if the AI can be shown to be safer than an orthodontist in its treatment planning, of course you can’t do IPR and stuff. There are limitations.

Tif Qureshi:
Yeah, it may be robotically done.

Payman L:
It’s going to be the same thing as Uber, right?

Tif Qureshi:
Potentially.

Payman L:
At some point they’ll say, “The self driving car is safer than a human being.”

Tif Qureshi:
But the power is in the knowledge. It may not necessarily be in the gathering records and the execution of a procedure. It’s actually in the knowledge, and you still need to have somebody who could actually overview it and look is this going well? We may end up doing dentistry hands off completely, but I still, until the day I die, I’d still want a dentist looking at what I’m doing and not a robot. I mean in 100 years or 50 years, it might be completely different. I don’t know. But where we are today, I think you can show, but I would imagine that patients who certainly don’t have the correct orthodontic planning and assessment and diagnosis, I would imagine certainly those cases are far less likely to actually be satisfactory.

Payman L:
So, you coined the term ABB. Aligning existed, bleaching existed, bonding existed, but you kind of brought them together and sort of popularised that idea.

Tif Qureshi:
Yeah, yeah.

Payman L:
And certainly I would say you’re responsible for the fact that the UK went from being pretty much a second division player as far as minimally invasive dentistry was going, and to make us we’re really up there now. And you were definitely the key person behind that.

Tif Qureshi:
I wouldn’t say key. I was born of the people. I mean there’s a lot of guys out there who moves things on me, Jason Smithson and Dipesh now is just doing amazing things. I mean there’s lots of people. We could actually look at what’s coming out of the UK and be really proud, right?

Payman L:
Yeah.

Tif Qureshi:
When I go and travel abroad, people are talking about UK speakers now. There’s usually two or three on most international lectures, whereas in the days, it would always be full of Americans or Italians.

Payman L:
Yeah. It does feel good, doesn’t it?

Tif Qureshi:
Yeah.

Payman L:
But you were the first.

Tif Qureshi:
One of the first, yeah. One of the first, yeah.

Payman L:
Do you think about that?

Tif Qureshi:
It’s a nice thing. It’s a nice thing. I don’t think you can ever get… You sit there focusing on it too much. It’s there. It’s something you can be proud of I suppose.

Payman L:
Listen, I’ve come across young dentists who don’t realise.

Tif Qureshi:
Well, young dentists all listen to Instagram, don’t they? That’s probably a bit of a generalisation. But I think it’s easy to get an idea from Instagram of what everything is going on. Yeah, you can’t expect to be known for stuff. Look, put it this way. One of the greatest dentists ever to have lived died about five or six years. That was Ferker. His work still goes on now unappreciated, and it probably will carry on going unappreciated. So, people should be looking at that, I think, rather than swiping up. And they’ll probably learn a lot more about sort of the battle of trying to change thinking.

Prav Solanki:
But I think you’re using social to change thinking, right? I see posts that you do, Tif, and you post a 15 year follow up case on there, and that’s a game changer, right? Because there aren’t many people out there who have been in the same practise for 15 years.

Payman L:
You’re not saying you’d rather Instagram… Dentistry doesn’t resonate with Instagram.

Tif Qureshi:
No, no, no. I think Instagram is powerful and useful. It’s powerful and useful, but I think what we’ve got to do is we’ve got to be very careful about what we put out there. So, we’ve got to be very careful about what we put out there because it’s very easy to start to create this idea that you’ve got to be a certain way. You’ve got to have this many followers. You’ve got to post this regularly. And one thing I do find, I’ve made posts actually recently saying, “Don’t get sucked into the whole Instagram thing.” And I posted that on Instagram, but I’ve had a lot of private messages from young saying, “It’s so good that you said that about not having to get new patients all the time.” Because actually, I think there’s a lot of pressure to get new patients and distinguish yourself and get a brand and all this kind of stuff.

Prav Solanki:
This fear of missing out, right?

Tif Qureshi:
Yeah. People do seem like they’re in a big rush, and you don’t need to be in a big rush. You’ve got your whole career ahead of you. Just take your time. Just take your time.

Prav Solanki:
What advice would you give someone? You’ve come from a general dentist in Kent to being probably one of the most sought after international speakers. If somebody else wanted to follow in that sort of footstep or wanted to get involved in teaching, speaking, and that side of things, what advice would you give a young dentist?

Tif Qureshi:
I think I’d just say take your time. Don’t rush. I mean it goes back to what I said earlier. See the same patients. There’s people out there posting composite video cases who actually haven’t even seen their work a year later or two years later. Okay. And they may post it, may be proud of it. There’s people teaching it who actually haven’t seen their work three or four years later.

Prav Solanki:
You must get people approaching you saying, “I want to teach.” Why? That’s what I always ask someone who comes to me, saying, “I want to teach.”

Prav Solanki:
“You want to teach. Have you got something to say?”

Tif Qureshi:
I think you’re right.

Prav Solanki:
But wanting to teach for wanting to teach on its own, it’s a bit mad.

Tif Qureshi:
You’re right. But again, that’s what you said a bit earlier. I think people are actually a little scared of dentistry, and they’re kind of trying to find another thing to do, and teaching does look like… It looks glamorous. It looks like you might travel here or there or have another alternative income. But the reality is-

Prav Solanki:
There’s no money in it.

Tif Qureshi:
There is no, yeah. But the reality is you’d be better off spending six days a week just working your surgery. That’s the truth of it. I mean people build companies up and all sorts of stuff, and they’re very lucky. And I’ve been lucky.

Payman L:
If you’re the best, of course there’s money. If you’re the best pin maker in Europe, you’re richer than all of us, right? If you’re the best, of course. But there is this thing of I want to teach, and it’s interesting. I always ask those people to look at their motivations. On the other hand, there are people who really should be teaching, like you. And it’s a funny time we’re in from that perspective as well. But what do you think about this sort of… Do you not agree that there’s a bit of millennial bashing in terms of, look, I think they’re better than us?

Tif Qureshi:
Oh, do you know, this is a joke. There was actually a good post on it the other day, and I think actually the standard of work that you see from young dentists now is clearly higher.

Prav Solanki:
Much, much higher.

Tif Qureshi:
Oh, yeah, yeah. I think the fact is the courses are accessible.

Prav Solanki:
Yeah, there were no courses in our day.

Tif Qureshi:
No, there weren’t. The techniques, the materials are just on a different plane.

Prav Solanki:
And social too.

Tif Qureshi:
Social helps, absolutely.

Prav Solanki:
You get inspired early.

Tif Qureshi:
And a lot of people are buying cameras standardly. They’re picking up cameras and looking at… Picking up a camera and looking at your own work is not just about taking a nice photograph. I’ll tell you what, a little tip is take a close photograph of something that looks rubbish. You’ll learn more from that than you will from ones that look good. So, I try and take dry photographs of every single case I do. And yeah, sometimes they look rubbish, and I actually put those up in my lectures, okay? Because I say to people, “You need to look at it like that. You need to look at it, and that way you kind of learn.”

Tif Qureshi:
So, I think, going back to your point, I think they are. And I think there has been a bit of millennial bashing probably because you do see, as you get older, sometimes it is harder for dentists to swallow when they’ve been around for 25, 30 years. And suddenly, you see someone with two years experience posting stuff up that looks better than you. However, I still do think what’s extremely important is to look at what it looks like in a few years to come. Before and afters are all very interesting, but they’re not really that interesting until you can see it again. And even a year can actually give you so much information, and it might not look perfect.

Tif Qureshi:
But in a way, if it doesn’t look perfect, learn from it because it’s actually a valuable… I’ve always found there’s a bit of a thing in dentistry where you sort of stick something in a tooth and turn your head away immediately. That’s what it kind of used to be like when we were back in the old days. Now I’d say, “Look at it, analyse it, swallow the fact that it could look pretty bad. And actually, now you had to do it again better.”

Prav Solanki:
You touched upon the BACD earlier. You’re a ex-BACD president. Can you just talk to me about what influence that’s had on your career? And prior to being president, what it was like being president, and what influence you had then, and then since as well, the direction they’ve gone in?

Tif Qureshi:
I mean I’ve got a lot of friends in the BACD. I’ve had a lot of friends, and I’ve still got a lot of friends. And I will have friends to make there, and it was probably a really key part of my career. There’s no doubt about that. You get to meet. You get to stand up on a stage and lecture. You get to go to places that perhaps you never would’ve done before. I think for my own personal view, I probably realised at one point that what I was doing wasn’t necessarily the same thing that what they were aiming for. Now, it may well be that they absolutely are now.

Tif Qureshi:
But I think for a period of time, I just became a bit less interesting cosmetic dentistry, okay? Because I’m even saying it now, and I’m sort of saying it when I’m lecturing that when I look back on my own cases, and this has come from my own embarrassment of what I’ve done in certain cases where, I used to act like a typical cosmetic dentist, in that you would market to people. You’d bring them in. You’d smile design them up. You’d wax them up and take pictures, and we were doing a version of DSD 20 years ago quite frankly. It’s a bit different but-

Prav Solanki:
It’s DSD

Tif Qureshi:
Well, it was digital. Believe it or not, it was digital. 1999 piece of software called DICOM imaging.

Prav Solanki:
I remember that. You’re right, you’re right.

Tif Qureshi:
And actually, do you know what? It isn’t that different. The DSD now is something on a much higher level. But we were doing that sort of stuff, and I would see the patients, do the treatment, finish the case, good-bye to the patient. They’d go back to their dentist. And we all did that, and lots of people still do that today. I’ve actually now realised that’s completely irresponsible because I don’t see patients that come back 10 years on. And actually, I would look at the patients, and I once or twice came close to welling up with tears in my eyes, thinking, “What the hell have I done?” Okay, the patient’s not sitting there in pain and complaining, but I’m looking and seeing teeth that I veneered, and have now moved back to the position that they actually were originally. And so, what I kind of realised is lots of things can change. Lots of things can change, the occlusion, the function. Tooth position can change, and if you just palm a patient back off to a general practitioner who you don’t know very well, you have no idea how that patient is going to actually be managed.

Tif Qureshi:
There’s a few other things that really made me think very hard about the whole concept of cosmetic dentistry is that there’s this thing called the replacement event. I sort of use this term quite a bit. And the replacement event is something that when you go and watch a lecture on cosmetic… I’m not talking about the BACD here. Just generally, when you go and watch a lecture about cosmetic dentistry, very rarely does anyone ever stand up and talk about the replacement event, as in the three little fundamental factors that I’ll give you. There’s others.

Tif Qureshi:
Number one, will the patient be able to afford it again? So, we would take the money off the patient, and he could be their 30s, even 20s. I mean thankfully, I didn’t do many like that, 20s. But you don’t know, 15, 20 years on, the patient now needs something done, and they can’t afford it. And there’s no contingency for that. The minute you start doing that sort of work, you’re kind of responsible for it.

Tif Qureshi:
The second thing that I’ve found is that patients have got to the point where actually they could afford to do something again. But you know what? They can’t be bothered, and they literally cannot… For whatever psychological reason, they cannot be bothered to go through that process or even part of that process again.

Tif Qureshi:
The third thing, and this is the real killer, and anyone that does this sort of work, and it doesn’t get talked about a lot, is veneers don’t all fall off, I mean doing a one go. What usually happens is 10, 15 years on, one fails, okay? Upper central, upper left lateral. No one tells you how hard it is to match a brand new veneer to a set of eight or nine that have been sitting there for 10, 15 years.

Payman L:
That’s a good point.

Tif Qureshi:
Absolutely a nightmare. And you’ll end up doing three, losing half the hair on your head, and feeling ultra stressed about it as well.

Prav Solanki:
Is that something that you would personally struggle with, somebody with your skill as well?

Payman L:
Anyone would.

Tif Qureshi:
Anyone, yeah. I’ve got a great technician. I’ve been working with Luke Barnett and Tanya Knight for years. They’re excellent, but I know when that happens, my heart sinks because it is just… You know, eight years on, when an aligned, bleached, bond tooth chips, and the edge chips, there’s no stress at all. Just shrug my shoulders. Just trim that off, rebuild it. It’s a totally different kettle of fish. That’s the thing that people need to hear when they’re thinking about cosmetic dentistry. Now, I’m not saying of course that the BACD’s all about doing veneers. It clearly isn’t. It moved on a lot, but my goals are now not cosmetic. Actually, I’m looking at functional treatment on patients long term.

Prav Solanki:
Do you think their definition of a cosmetic dentist is different, the results that you’re giving your patients? Because in my mind, as a non-dentist, I look at cosmetic dentistry as just improving somebody’s smile so that they’re happy with it. That’s what I would consider in my own head. And I’ve just heard you talk about, it was almost like, you talk about a cosmetic dentist being different to what you’re describing. Is there a definition of a cosmetic dentist that’s popularised maybe amongst the BACD or the dental crowd that’s very different in line with what your philosophy of-

Tif Qureshi:
That’s a really good question. I don’t think you could certainly say that everybody in the BACD is a certain way because you’ve got a whole mixture of general dentists. And you’ve got some people that just do cosmetic dentistry, and some people do a lot more and a lot less. I think what I’ve realised is I don’t want to be this sort of pseudo-specialist that just tries to pull people in and treat them and do big cases on them. I’ll do big cases on patients, but generally, I’ll want to have known those patients for a period of time and do it for the right reasons at the right time.

Tif Qureshi:
Now, I’m not saying that the BACD doesn’t believe in that message. They may well do, and I know a lot of the guys. And I think they are totally open-minded in everything they do. I think John Kois, from what I understood, stood up on the stage and said pretty much the same thing the other day. And he gave an amazing lecture. And it’s not about the BACD. It’s about cosmetic dentistry in general that I think that it’s made me reevaluate my goals slightly. I won’t take a case on unless the patient understands they’re going to come back and see me. Simple as that, but it changes the dynamic because that might not fit into everyone’s cosmetic dentistry’s business model, where you see you’re doing big cases, and then you palm them off back. I’m not saying that that is going to end in disaster, but for my personal feeling, if I do something like that on a patient, I want to make sure they’re okay. I want to see them again. It’s as simple as that.

Prav Solanki:
Sure.

Tif Qureshi:
But you can apply that thinking, I mean this is where it gets controversial, you can apply that thinking across the board in specialism.

Prav Solanki:
Any industry.

Tif Qureshi:
Any specialism, any dentistry. If you do something, you’re doing ortho, well, you damn right should see the patient again, you know what I mean? And that goes across the board, general dentists, specialists, and all the rest of it. You cannot pretend everything is okay. Things change, and everything changes.

Prav Solanki:
Why are most of the cases that you face here relapse? Because there’s no long term follow up, right?

Tif Qureshi:
There hasn’t been. And I think it’s a very difficult one when it comes to actually being what a specialist is because you haven’t got any there. It’s impractical to keep seeing those people, but I do think that there hasn’t been, certainly in this country, I don’t think we’ve had enough coordinated retention strategy in this country. So, what’s happened is we have a lot of people doing very high quality orthodontics perhaps, but then, general dentists who are then looking after those cases aren’t really fully aware of what happens when a retainer’s failing, what to look for, changes in the anterior function and guidance and all of those things. So, I think there’s a long way to go still on getting the whole ortho and maintenance retention kind of protocols right. I do think the BOS are doing a good job in trying to raise everyone’s attention to understanding what retention is. But the reality is that the evidence has been there for years, and it just does feel like it’s been brought up recently, when really, it should have been there 10, 15, years ago.

Payman L:
So, is that a UK problem?

Tif Qureshi:
Oh, it’s global.

Payman L:
So, how come orthodontics hasn’t worked this out?

Tif Qureshi:
I think this is probably always one of the issues with the concept of specialism. It’s got nothing to do with the patients. This is actually because of how dentists want to change their careers. So, we sort of change our careers to suit us, and specialism is great. It’s a wonderful thing to be able to do. But again, one of the biggest sort of problems with specialism is you don’t really get to follow up. I’m sure some do. Actually, perio specialists certainly often do.

Tif Qureshi:
But unless you’re in that environment where you are going to be closely communicating with the dentist who are looking after the case, who knows, in 20, 30 years time, it probably should be standard that every patient… Right now, patient has ortho. They finish the ortho, and the general dentist should be then sending a full series of clinical photographs back to the orthodontist every year to review. How hard’s that? You see what I mean? And that should be built in to the programme. Actually, it should be built into the NHS programme, and there should be some funds that pay for that. But will that happen?

Payman L:
No.

Tif Qureshi:
I don’t know.

Payman L:
What is your week look like? How much work do you do?

Tif Qureshi:
For quite a long time, it was three, three and a half days of clinical practise. More recently, I’ve gone to two quite long days. Partly because I kind of find myself teaching virtually every week or doing something virtually every week, and that sometimes is going to involve travelling. So, if I have to travel on Thursday, I don’t really want to be working Wednesday or Thursday and then travelling in the evening. Otherwise, I just don’t see my family. So, the swings and roundabouts of it are yeah, I might do a bit of travelling every now and then. But then, if I’m not actually doing a lot of teaching, I’d be finished on Tuesday night and back at work on Monday. Having said that, there will be a lot of work from home and a lot of meetings and phone calls with all the people in my business. So, it’s busy.

Payman L:
How many events do you go to a year? It’s a gigantic number, no?

Tif Qureshi:
I think we probably do at least 50 in the UK, don’t we?

Payman L:
5-0?

Tif Qureshi:
Yeah. And probably-

Payman L:
Jesus.

Tif Qureshi:
Probably double or triple it if we look at all the different places we’re in, yeah. So, there’s a lot going on. And the thing is, we’ve got a big group of people. Now, we’ve talked a little bit about the team that we’ve assembled. But I think it’s important to mention them because all of these people are people who have… They’re friends. They’re not my friends previously, but they’ve become friends because they were people who believed in what we did, and then went on to teach. Many of them never taught before at all. Now we’re actually international lecturers. Nobody’s come into this in a kind of contrived, planned way. It was all people that believed in the concept.

Prav Solanki:
Tif, I’ve known you for years, and all the time I’ve known you, you’re incredibly passionate. You’re hard working, and you put a lot of physical time into what you do. How does that impact your work life, family balance, and what impact does it have on your relationships with your kids and wife?

Tif Qureshi:
I think I’ve got a very understandable wife. I mean she’s lovely.

Prav Solanki:
Understanding.

Tif Qureshi:
Understanding, yeah, sorry. Understandable, yeah. Understanding, yeah. I mean she’s lovely. She understands what I do, and she understands the pressures you get if you get put under. She also understands what it’s about. I’m not out there just having a laugh.

Prav Solanki:
She’s a dentist.

Tif Qureshi:
She’s actually a dental technician. She was trained at King’s. We actually met at King’s. We weren’t together then. We kind of met a few years after.

Prav Solanki:
You met at uni?

Tif Qureshi:
Yeah, we met at uni, but as I said, we weren’t together at the time. But she was at Kings. She’s a northerner. She’s from Preston or St. Anne’s actually. I like to say it’s Blackpool, but it’s near there or thereabouts.

Prav Solanki:
Manchester mate.

Tif Qureshi:
Somewhere out there, yeah, basically somewhere out there. But no, I like the place anyway. But no, she’s very understanding. I think, looking back, there’s things that I regret where there were times where I was flying off to the States and doing this and that, and part of it was just kind of not being able to say no and not being able to balance out what was worth doing and not doing. And I look back at those moments and times that I think I really missed out on certain things. I mean I can’t believe I missed her 40th birthday to do a lecture in the States. And actually, it kills me thinking about it, particularly because of what a waste of time it was. It went well, but for one reason or another, things didn’t quite work out the way I wanted them to work there because of some of the people we were working with. And we never had problems filling courses there, but there was some issues over there at that point. And you know, I just sort of look back and think, “That wasn’t wise.”

Tif Qureshi:
And now, I think because I’ve sacrificed the practise, if anything, so, the practise ticks over. I do what I need to do, but I could be doing a lot better with me there full time. We’ve got a great team there. But I’d rather sacrifice that than my family. So at the end of the day, I get to spend a lot of time with them. I’ll be at home five days on the trot sometimes, and then the odd week, I’ll be away for two or three days. Very rare now that I’m flying every single weekend for three or four days. I probably fly maybe once a month and maybe have something in the UK one weekend as well.

Payman L:
So, every other weekend, you’re away?

Tif Qureshi:
Every other weekend, I would probably say I’m doing something, but that could be in England.

Payman L:
But away?

Tif Qureshi:
But away, yeah.

Payman L:
I think Jason has a similar situation.

Tif Qureshi:
Yeah, yeah. I see his feet up on the platform. I don’t think my schedule is as intense as Jason’s looks right now.

Payman L:
But a big shout out to the partners. We do once a month, and that seems like hard work. Away, you know.

Tif Qureshi:
That’s why you have to sacrifice week time. You’ve got to. I could be in the practise making a bit more money, but I’m not going to because I want to be at home. I want to be able to pick my kids up from school. Literally, it’s actually quite nice to be able to do that. And you get to a point in the week where they get sick of your face, and that’s definitely when you know it’s probably good that you’re away the following week. So, it is swings and roundabouts. Last summer, I only did two days a week even though I had no lecturing. Imagine how wonderful that was, and I was literally off five days a week. So, I’m not going to feel too sorry for myself.

Payman L:
But no, the sacrifice is real though. You must’ve missed… Even I missed, I don’t work, I’m not a dentist at all, but even I miss some key events, whatever it is, carol service or whatever you want to call it. There are some things you’ve missed out by-

Tif Qureshi:
Definitely. And occasionally it gets thrown back at you by your kids and by your family. And it gets quite hard to try and-

Payman L:
There’s no defence.

Tif Qureshi:
There’s no defence. It’s so difficult to balance it out.

Prav Solanki:
What’s the most painful thing that you’ve missed, kids-wise?

Tif Qureshi:
Oh.

Payman L:
You bastard. What a question.

Tif Qureshi:
I have to say I don’t think I’ve ever missed their birthdays, although actually I missed my daughter’s last birthday, but that was only because she was away in Malta, so that was her own fault, on a basketball trip. But that was quite painful actually. But no, I think there’s been times where I just wish I’d been at home where things were going on. It might have been a friend’s birthday or-

Prav Solanki:
Just an event.

Tif Qureshi:
Yeah. You think, “Why am I here doing this?” And I think that’s why I’m much more picky about what I’m doing now and just not necessarily saying yes to everything. It’s like you were saying, people want to learn and teach. If you’ve got that attitude and all you’re thinking about I’ve got to learn and teach, you’d say yes to everything. And you just shouldn’t. You’ve got to peg it out.

Prav Solanki:
I’ve met your son, Aidan. And he’s quite interesting because he’s doing a little bit of work for the academy now. And it’s only recently I think he’s just started to understand why Dad’s putting all this sacrifice in.

Payman L:
What’s he doing?

Prav Solanki:
He’s doing a bit of social media work for us and helping us out.

Payman L:
How old is he?

Tif Qureshi:
He’s 17. He just posts stuff that we’ve checked. It actually makes it a lot easier because he’s next to me, and he can show me and say, “Before you, just to make sure it looks correct.”

Prav Solanki:
But more recently, he’s seen you lecture on a big stage as well, the whole family and stuff. And they know now. I mean he’s spent some time with us, came to Manchester, and even he said to me, “When I saw Dad up on that big stage, it made everything real and really made me understand.”

Payman L:
Yeah, so last time we were in Birmingham, I brought Depish’s whole family in at the end. And just to see that this is why you’ve lost your son.

Tif Qureshi:
It’s a wonderful thing to be able to do, and that’s probably one of the… I mean when they came to New Zealand with me, and we did this big event, the New Zealand Institute of-

Payman L:
They all went there?

Tif Qureshi:
Well, we are very lucky. I had an invite in Singapore and New Zealand all over two weeks, which just happened to be the Easter break. So, basically they were coming whether I liked it or not, they were looking at the flights, and they were coming. So, we went to New Zealand, spent a bit of time there. I did this big lecture of about two or three hundred people, and it went really well. I mean I love all the people there. I think I got on with them very well. But the kids came and watched the last bit and came up on the stage with me, and that was a moment that I’ll kind of always look back and think that was great. And whatever happens to me one day, they probably will see a picture of that and think that was a nice time.

Payman L:
They’ll be very proud.

Tif Qureshi:
Yeah, I think so. I think so. I think they’ll understand what it’s all about basically. A few years ago, I remember we were going in Norway. I took them once in Norway. But they were only 6 and 10 or something. And this old dentist leaned over to them both, we were sitting on a bus going somewhere, I think from the airport to the hotel, the Solstrand. It was the Swedish academy, which I mentioned, and this chap leaned over to my son and said, “You should be happy, proud of your dad. He saved a lot of tooth.” But my son just rolled my eyes, didn’t even have a clue what he was talking about. And I almost wept at that point. But anyway, it was a nice-

Prav Solanki:
What would you have done differently, if you could go back?

Tif Qureshi:
I think even though I look back at some of those cases that I wish I hadn’t treated, obviously there were a few. The weird thing about those is they’ve taught me so much, and I’m hoping to teach other people so much. So actually, it’s a good thing. Probably from a business point of view, there’s probably certain things we wouldn’t have done, maybe one or two people we wouldn’t have worked with, and places I wouldn’t have travelled to that I just didn’t need to go to. I don’t want to name names and stuff, but certainly there are things I wouldn’t have done in that respect. When you’re a dentist, you’re not a hardened businessperson. It just doesn’t work.

Prav Solanki:
Have any of your cases came back to haunt you? The ones that you feel now you wouldn’t have given them that treatment today, right?

Tif Qureshi:
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Not to the point where patients have come back in screaming and crying, but I think the haunting I find the fact that when I see a case that I veneered 20 years ago for crowding, and the patient just never came back, and then came back 18, 20 years later. And then the teeth are as crowded as they were when I veneered them. That’s quite haunting, and it’s a really powerful lesson. The photographs are hugely valuable in that it’s an education that’s cost somebody. And I’ve made that mistake. I’m lucky enough to have the relationship with the patient. The patient’s certainly not complained, but I’ve explained what’s happened. And these people have been okay, but I think now, knowing what you know, that’s not a great thing to-

Prav Solanki:
In today’s world of litigation, you do something wrong, a patient sues you. But you talk about having this long term relationship with your patient. What impact does that have on a patient even if you do screw up, right?

Tif Qureshi:
I think that is such an important question, and I think it’s a question we need to be talking about a lot more. We need data. I haven’t got it, but I’d love to see data that highlighted what the demographic of patients were who made complaints, how long they’d known the dentist for.

Payman L:
I think there is a lot research for that.

Tif Qureshi:
Is there?

Payman L:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tif Qureshi:
I’d love to see it. I can only imagine from my own experience that you seem to be far less likely to get into some kind of dispute or argument with a patient if you’ve known them, if you trust that they trust you, and you’ve gone through things with them. Something’s worked, something hasn’t worked. You fix it, you know what I mean? I think compared to this rush to treat new people. I thought we were talking about it a little while ago. That’s what worries me a little bit about the whole kind of Instagram thing. It reminds me a bit of Groupon. Remember those days a few years ago. Am I allowed to say that? It reminds me of some of the online purchasing, where people were self-diagnosing and having stuff done. I think that just seems to be fraught with risks. You need to get the patients in and get to know them before you start something. If they push you that fast, I probably would walk away.

Payman L:
I mean it’s very interesting. I used to work in Kent in a-

Tif Qureshi:
Where were you by the way?

Payman L:
In Ashford and in Folkestone.

Tif Qureshi:
Oh, right.

Payman L:
My VT job was Ashford. I did most of my veneers in Folkestone.

Tif Qureshi:
Right, right.

Payman L:
But the type of people and the type of practise that you had, actually you’ve got a much less stressed situation. It’s all well and good to say some young associate, “Don’t go looking for new patients.” But there’s some young associate in the city right now, and the only option he’s got is to find new patients. But what I’m saying is it doesn’t make your point any less relevant. Your point’s right. When people trust you and you know them, you can give them appropriate treatment, and if things go wrong, they’re going to be much more forgiving. It’s absolutely right. But the reality for people is very different sometimes.

Tif Qureshi:
I get that. And you’ve got to build a list. You have to build a list. But I think the key thing is you’ve got to look at what you’re doing for these people, and don’t let get yourself pushed into doing too much too quickly. I actually like to put barriers up in front of people. I like to push them off to the hygienist. They often need that anyway because you want to make sure they’re completely… The perio is looking really good. The hygienist is an excellent way to start. You push them into them a couple of times, and then I’ll actually have a conversation with the hygienist, like, “How did you find the patient?” And if it’s negative, we’re going to hold off a bit more. Do you kind of get my point? There’s little things that you can do just to make sure things are a bit… It’s a safer approach.

Tif Qureshi:
Doesn’t mean you don’t ever see new patients, of course. But I think we need to focus more on who’s there already as well, and look after those patients. And actually, look at what happens to them because people don’t look at actually what’s going on long term. We tend to look too statically at dentistry, rather than long term. It’s a snapshot.

Prav Solanki:
Got two questions for you, which relate to legacy and advice. So, it’s your last day on this planet. And there’s just one piece of advice that you can leave the world with.

Tif Qureshi:
One dental advice?

Prav Solanki:
No, any, any.

Payman L:
Just have both.

Prav Solanki:
But one of each, right? So, there’s one piece of advice, dental and non-dental life that you can leave the world with. What would that be?

Tif Qureshi:
Okay. Before we started, I said no religion. No talk about religion.

Prav Solanki:
Yeah, of course, of course.

Tif Qureshi:
But I’m going to bring it in now.

Prav Solanki:
Okay.

Tif Qureshi:
Which you guys are probably happy with. But I’m not going to make any comment on anything other than that. But one thing I do always believe and I think is extremely important that I think every religion has it totally right is that you just do unto others as you’d do unto yourself. And it’s not a difficult… It’s the Golden Rule. It applies in so many areas of life. And if you just put yourself in the position of your patient, the person you’re talking to at the supermarket, the person you’re maybe having a go down the phone, who’s in the bank, I think it helps you hold yourself back slightly and just think about how someone else is feeling. So, that’s probably one thing I would do.

Tif Qureshi:
Do you know that applies in dentistry as well? It’s exactly the same thing. I think it’s interesting. Like I said, I think if every single dentist on the planet subscribed to that, it would be a quite different profession to a certain degree. England, I honestly think is one of the most ethically orientated countries in the world. I travel quite a lot. I don’t want to point fingers at anywhere else, but there certainly are some places I’ve been to where you could tell the difference between what a healthcare professional is and what a businessperson is. And I think fortunately in England, and certainly a lot of Europe, we start off as healthcare professionals. Yes, we have to bring the business in, but that’s not what’s leading us there.

Payman L:
You mean America?

Tif Qureshi:
I’m not, no. It sometimes is like that, and I think they are more interested in businesses, no doubt. But equally, I know they’re interested in this-

Payman L:
But the public expects it there too.

Tif Qureshi:
I think they do. But when we started going there, I have to say I thought we would never have anyone come to our courses. They were always full, always. So actually, I think there’s a really strong demand for this kind of process. In the institution and the traditional look at cosmetic dentistry or whatever may not make you think that, but actually I think people do want this kind of thing done. So, I think it’s an approach basically.

Prav Solanki:
And my final question, Tif, that day’s past, and your legacy, Tif Qureshi was… Finish the sentence.

Tif Qureshi:
“An all right bloke” would do me, quite frankly. But a normal bloke who you could have a chat with and isn’t going to judge you and all the rest of it. That’s kind of the way I like… Yeah, all the dentistry stuff is nice, and if you get known for doing this sort of thing, but I just want people to feel that I was approachable and easy to speak with and I listened. That’s kind of… And I’ve listened to myself and the thing in my head, telling me that things I did were wrong, and we changed them. So, that’s kind of the way I’d like to think about it.

Payman L:
That’s really lovely to hear that from someone who’s had as much impact as you have. Thanks a lot for that. Cheers.

Tif Qureshi:
That’s all right.

Prav Solanki:
Thank you, Tif. And very good, thank you.

Speaker 4:
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.

Transcript

Prav Solanki:
Welcome to the Dental Leaders podcast, and today’s interview is with Anoop Maini who sadly passed away since recording this interview. Just saying these words as I’m sat here recording this intro, I’m still in utter disbelief. You know, sometimes I think he’s still there and he’s still here with us, influencing us all. His loss has left a massive void, not only in the world of dentistry, but for a lot of individuals personally and especially those who he was closest to, like his wife Neera, his daughter Nikita, and his son Rohan. But in his absence, his legacy lives on to continue through all of us. His passion for dentistry, teaching, and if you ever had the opportunity and you were lucky enough to strike up a conversation, you’ll remember those conversations where he just injected tonnes of humour into it, never, ever, ever noticed a day in the decade that I’ve known him where he was stressed or anxious or anything like that, and always took life in his stride, or at least he didn’t show it. He was always so selfless and so giving with his time.

Prav Solanki:
But guys, I’m just struggling to find my words, which is really unusual. Yeah, I think it’s just because I can’t believe that he’s gone. So, I’m just going to let you kick back, listen to the interview and get what you can from it, but there’s some really key messages here. If you’re a business owner, a dentist, and you’re working your socks off, just sit back and appreciate the messages from Anoop, especially those relating to family, how important and precious that time is.

Prav Solanki:
We really all do miss you Anoop. I know you’re up there, I know you’re looking down, and I know you’re smiling, I know you’re laughing, and I know you’re up there looking after everyone. And through us all, I promise you mate, your legacy is going to continue and be much, much stronger than when you were here mate. We’ll make you proud buddy. Listen guys, enjoy the interview.

Anoop Maini:
I just shoot from the hip sometimes.

Payman:
You don’t mean fire people?

Anoop Maini:
Well, not fire people. I can be-

Payman:
Fire ideas.

Anoop Maini:
Fire ideas, positivity, but I could also, if someone did something wrong, I’ll tell them.

Payman:
Who does the firing? Who does the firing in the practice?

Anoop Maini:
My wife.

Payman:
Who does the hiring?

Anoop Maini:
My wife.

Speaker 4:
This is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one-on-one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts, Payman Langroudi and Prav Solanki.

Prav Solanki:
Anoop, I think I’ve known you for over a decade and it’s a pleasure having you here on the podcast. I’m sure you’ve got lots of lessons to reveal to dentists and other people listening to this podcast, so let’s just get started. I’d just like you to take us back to your backstory, where you were born, where you were brought up, what your childhood was like growing up. So yeah, just kick things off Anoop and tell us a little bit about yourself and your upbringing.

Anoop Maini:
I was born in Kenya, Nairobi, where we had four siblings, mom and dad. In 1973 we left Kenya and we came to London. When we came to London we moved to an area called Mill Hill, which is North London, and we were probably the first Asian family actually in that sort of area.

Prav Solanki:
Sure.

Anoop Maini:
It was most immigrants sort of settled in sort of like West London, but we actually emigrated in North London.

Payman:
How old were you?

Anoop Maini:
I was three years old.

Payman:
So, you don’t remember?

Anoop Maini:
No, I do remember.

Payman:
You do remember?

Anoop Maini:
Yeah, three years old. I remember because I remember going to school. At that time I was fluent in Swahili, I didn’t speak English.

Prav Solanki:
Jambo, Jambo, Habari Ghani.

Anoop Maini:
Jambo bwana. So, in terms of fluency and obviously having to deal with the culture difference, the food differences, et cetera, it was quite a learning curve at that time. Obviously I don’t speak Swahili now. In fact, I think you know more than me at the moment. But in terms of the initial integration, it was a little bit difficult.

Anoop Maini:
In those days, fortunately the area we were in, they were pretty accepting of an Asian family. We were almost like a novelty factor, you know, so it wasn’t that difficult. I didn’t experience a lot of racism, as such, directly. They were pretty nice, English accommodating sort of families. Also, a lot of Jewish immigrants in the area as well.

Prav Solanki:
So, my parents came from East Africa as well, and my dad always tells me stories about coming into this country. He always tells me this story, that the only thing him and his family had were the clothes that they were wearing and three gold bangles. Yeah? Three solid gold bangles. My dad’s brother was wearing those bangles way up his sleeve so nobody could see it. At the airport, he was shaking his hand and the bangles fell off his arm onto the floor and they were confiscated.

Prav Solanki:
So, when they came into this country, they had nothing but the clothes on their back.

Payman:
Where were they from?

Prav Solanki:
Tanzania.

Anoop Maini:
See, my dad, we had to emergency sell our properties, et cetera, the house, so trying to get money out of the country, there was a lot of … You almost had to go through the back road. When you did that, a lot of the administration charges consumed the vast bulk of it, so he didn’t come here with a lot of money, as such. But for my father, he was like the father to his own siblings as well.

Prav Solanki:
Got ya.

Anoop Maini:
Because he lost his father quite young. Most of my uncles went onto university. They became solicitors, they became surveyors, et cetera. They were all pretty educated.

Prav Solanki:
Was your dad the oldest out of them?

Anoop Maini:
Second oldest.

Prav Solanki:
Second oldest, right.

Anoop Maini:
And the first oldest was actually studying in Oxford at the time.

Prav Solanki:
Oh wow.

Anoop Maini:
My father was due to come to London to study law, but my grandfather passed away and no one stepped to the plate, so my father stepped to the plate. So, he took over the running and the education of all the siblings, so the income dropped. He actually used to work too, so he was like the second father for the family.

Anoop Maini:
He looked after brothers and sisters and raised them. They call him papa, they call him dad. He’s been someone who’s always put everyone else before him, and that’s always been his culture. So, even my grandmother who always lived with us, he always looked after her. So, I’ve always been brought up in a very family-orientated closeness.

Prav Solanki:
I think a lot of people listening here, especially if they don’t come from an Asian background like we do, sometimes don’t have an appreciation of what that culture is. And so, living with extended family, being surrounded by uncles, cousins, all within the same house, right? Am I right in saying that?

Anoop Maini:
Absolutely, yeah.

Prav Solanki:
Yeah. Can you just talk to me about that environment and the pros and cons of it while growing up in that environment?

Anoop Maini:
I’ve got two sisters and one brother, and I remember we all lived in one room. So, we had two double bunks. My sisters are almost eight years older. A joke in my family is that I was a mistake, because-

Prav Solanki:
I can understand that. Kidding.

Anoop Maini:
No, I said, “I’m the loved one. I was planned.” Right? You know, the other ones were mistakes. But anyway, my brothers and my sisters are quite close to each other by like one year apart, and then there’s a four, five year gap between my brother and me.

Prav Solanki:
Sure.

Anoop Maini:
But you imagine, we’ve got quite age differential and we stayed in this one room for most of our lives up to about 16 to 17. So, we’re not a family that was very fortunate in any way. You know, my father had pretty down to earth jobs. He was very working class. He worked in a motor company selling parts and things. Then he worked for Sainsbury’s, he worked in the car park.

Anoop Maini:
So, it’s very humble character, but I never actually went without. He provided me with a car. My brother got a car. He put me into private education, although it was with a scholarship, but it wasn’t a full scholarship, it was still 50%. And when you’ve got school fees in those days, which we 14,000 or 12,000, even with a scholarship it’s still a lot of money.

Prav Solanki:
A lot of money.

Payman:
Was that Mill Hill School?

Anoop Maini:
Mill Hill School.

Payman:
Was it?

Anoop Maini:
Absolutely, yeah. Went to Mill School on a scholarship. So, you know, my father was always. My brother went to a private college. He really just went without. We didn’t have family holidays. Our family holiday may have been Blackpool, but we didn’t travel abroad. I didn’t travel abroad until I actually got married. You know, it was my honeymoon was my first holiday.

Payman:
You know, a lot of people, they look back at that hardship and they say it kind of defined them and gave them what they have today and so on. Do you feel that way?

Anoop Maini:
Absolutely, because you know, I look at anything in life and I can live with or without money. I don’t worry about taking risks because I’ve spent most of my life without much.

Payman:
So, you know you can always get back-

Anoop Maini:
I can always fall back to-

Payman:
My actual question is, your kids are obviously much more fortunate, in inverted commas, than that.

Anoop Maini:
Absolutely.

Payman:
Do you worry sometimes that your kids have never seen hardship, and so they haven’t got that inner strength?

Anoop Maini:
I think that is one of my errors, in a way, because where I experienced the hardship and sacrifice in a few different ways, I didn’t want them to, and I had the means and ability to provide them with a slightly more cushioned environment. I don’t think they’re so streetwise, or they’ve grown up in a very protected environment, so I think they would not have the same type of motivation that I probably had in terms of taking risks or advancement or taking challenges or being entrepreneurial.

Anoop Maini:
I’ll give you a perfect example. My son, the other day, my wife said to my son-

Prav Solanki:
Rohan?

Anoop Maini:
Rohan.

Payman:
And how old is he?

Anoop Maini:
He is now 16, just about to do his GCSEs. My wife said to him last summer, “Right, I’ll tell you what, we’ll pay you £50 a week if you do all the chores of the house. Right? You can buy your games, whatever.”

Anoop Maini:
And he goes, “Why would I do that?” He goes, “I’d just take it out of dad’s wallet.”

Anoop Maini:
So, you know, this is times we’re in, because they’re not in that sort of bit of-

Payman:
Did he not know your wallet had a padlock on it?

Anoop Maini:
But the problem is, he knows the combination.

Prav Solanki:
Anoop, you talked about that being one of your biggest mistakes, right? You said that giving him that, but what could have you done differently? Like if you could turn the clock back now, what would you change?

Anoop Maini:
I would have taught him the value of work, value of money, because I think I would have, from an early age, I would have encouraged them to not just get things for nothing, you know? To try and work towards it, maybe in more like a reward, whereas I was in the habit of constantly just buying stuff for him.

Prav Solanki:
Sure.

Anoop Maini:
You know? If I saw something, I just bought it for him.

Prav Solanki:
You wanted the best for your kids, right?

Anoop Maini:
Absolutely.

Prav Solanki:
You wanted to give them what you didn’t have.

Anoop Maini:
You love them, you know? You love them and you want them to enjoy life and to have things that you didn’t have. Again, it’s quite interesting because they’re used to travelling in quite a few exotic places, like from a young age to Mauritius to the Far East to South America. If you talk to them about their holidays, it’s all a blur, because they don’t have that sort of value on these holidays.

Anoop Maini:
My son will say to me, “Are we going business class?” And that’s the most important thing to him. You know? So these value issues, which I think they will start to face. My daughter’s now doing dentistry and she’s second year at King’s, and we’ve made the decision now that we have forced her to start taking loans rather than me funding her.

Prav Solanki:
Chopped her arm off basically.

Anoop Maini:
We basically have, because she was spending beyond belief. She was forever calling dad up and saying, “Put another £200. Put another £100.” She was having £12 cocktails up The Shard.

Prav Solanki:
They’re a bit more than 12 quid up there mate.

Anoop Maini:
Well, whatever it was, it was quite big by the end of the week. So, now we’re sort of trying to reeducate her.

Prav Solanki:
Sure.

Anoop Maini:
We forced her to get a job over the summer, so she worked as a receptionist in a school. We’re trying to encourage the work ethic for her, and I think that is a mistake from our behalf because I think in dentistry as well, you’ve got to have that slight value for money and the entrepreneur aspect, especially in general practice as well. I think she won’t have the same drive I may have had to try and achieve things, where things may have been more presented to her on a plate.

Payman:
I mean, I hear you and we all understand that story, but you can’t also ignore the fact that she’ll have something that you didn’t have from the privileged upbringing that she’s got too. There is that too, we can’t ignore that. She might think a lot bigger than you, you know? She might open a giant chain of dental practises, whereas you were always one at a time, for instance.

Anoop Maini:
Correct.

Payman:
I don’t know for sure.

Anoop Maini:
Absolutely. She may surprise us.

Payman:
True.

Anoop Maini:
She may be a totally-

Payman:
Did she say she wanted to be a dentist, or did you guys kind of put that in her head?

Anoop Maini:
You know, I’ll be honest, from a young age I was trying to influence her.

Payman:
She’s going to listen to this, you know that?

Anoop Maini:
Yeah, I know she is. From a young age I was trying to influence here, and I would have bought her the Play-Doh, the dentist Play-Doh. I bought her a Barbie doll which was a dentist, so I was trying to get this little influence in then.

Anoop Maini:
But actually, most of her while she was growing up, she was saying to me, “I’m never going to be a dentist.” Actually, she’s a terrible dental patient. I remember I tried to treat her, I couldn’t treat her. I passed her onto Neera, my wife, couldn’t treat her; she’s a dentist as well. In fact, we had to refer her to a pedodontist, a specialist pedodontist to treat her. She’s coming from that environment. She’s not naturally tuned into dentistry.

Anoop Maini:
So, as she grew up she just went, “I’m not going to go into dentistry. I don’t like blood, I don’t like that stuff.” She was thinking about studying history, going off to Cambridge or Oxford to study history, and that’s the pathway she was going to go down. And then she just surprised us one day and she came back and she said, “I’m going to do dentistry.”

Anoop Maini:
I think what actually fueled that up is actually I sent her on work experience. I sent her on work experience on several different journeys. One was to a law firm, one was to a financial institute, and I also sent her to a dentist called Koray Feran. So, I will thank him or not thank him, because she went to his clinic and he absolutely wowed her. Absolutely wowed her and totally motivated and inspired her. She came back to me and said, “You know what? Out of everything, I now want to do dentistry.”

Prav Solanki:
Do you think he’s the reason why she’s at dental school today?

Anoop Maini:
I think so, because I think the problem that we have from having a husband and wife team who are dentists is when we come home, we never talk about the positivities of dentistry. We always talk about the problems we have with the clinic, or the profession, or the day-to-day issues we have. So, when we go out for dinner the dentistry topic keeps coming up, so they never get that positivity, as such. Whereas when she went to Koray’s, she actually saw the real dentistry. So, I think that trip to Koray was actually very important.

Payman:
You know, with all respect to your dad, the question of your dad was working in Sainsbury’s and then you became a dentist, a step-up, let’s say, let’s call it that.

Anoop Maini:
Yes.

Payman:
Did you not feel like, “Hey, my daughter should step-up from where I am at,” or is there no step-up?

Anoop Maini:
You know, I’ve always … My son, my son’s not heading towards dentistry at the moment. I think he’s going to end up … He’s not very scientific orientated, he’s probably going down the financial road, so he’ll probably do economics or finance. I’m happy for them to do whatever they’re happy with. I think the worst thing I come across, especially younger dentists, is ones that don’t love their job, or got into the job for the wrong reasons, or maybe financial reasons.

Prav Solanki:
Life’s too short man.

Anoop Maini:
You know, they may have been peer pressured into it, or family pressured into it. If they don’t enjoy this job … Because whatever you do, if you’re good at it, it can be any field, you’ll make money. That’s what my father used to say to me. “You’ll make money. Just get good at it.” It could be in any field. You know? You can’t setup any company. Whichever field your forte is and your passion is, the money will come in some shape or form. You can set up an online business.

Payman:
The problem is, the system here … My kids are in a French school and it’s a totally different system. The system here, you almost have to decide at 16, sometimes even younger than that, of what you’re going to be later on.

Anoop Maini:
That’s very true.

Payman:
And who knows at 16?

Prav Solanki:
It’s tricky, right? So my daughter now is going through that whole choice of choosing options and things like that. She hasn’t got a clue what she wants to do. She knows she loves art, and that’s about it. “Oh right, well I might become an architect because it’s loosely related to art. It’s seen as a professional thing.” But, you know-

Payman:
What is she? 16?

Prav Solanki:
15.

Payman:
Yeah.

Prav Solanki:
But here’s the thing; at that stage in your life, unless you grow up in the environment what we did where it was almost drilled into you, “Unless you’re a doctor, a dentist, a lawyer or a banker, you’ve failed in life,” right? That was my perception growing up.

Payman:
The thing is, that immigrant, you know what I mean, that first generation thing-

Prav Solanki:
Yeah, it doesn’t exist anymore, right?

Payman:
What I would like to see is in the second generation, the next generation, that they’re talking about, I don’t know, writing a movie, or being something evolved on-

Prav Solanki:
A step-up?

Payman:
Call it a step-up if you like.

Prav Solanki:
Whatever.

Payman:
But an evolution from the doctor, lawyer, engineer thing. By the way, I see it. We all see it. Some young kids now doing interesting things like that, but it’s interesting. It’s an interesting question. My kids are a little bit younger than that, and both me and my wife are dentists, and actually it does make sense for one of them to become a dentist because they will get some advantages from it. But I also worry sometimes that … All three of us here are immigrants … That we don’t evolve the immigrant story out to more interesting things than the obvious.

Anoop Maini:
I know where you’re coming from because what also affected me was I heard a story about a dental student who was, I think, second or third year who committed suicide. Now, when you get to a stage where you’re committing suicide at that young age because you’re doing something you don’t love, that is a problem.

Anoop Maini:
I heard that story quite early on. My son, people may or may not be aware, he loves football. He’s an Arsenal supporter. Very early on he wanted to be a footballer. I took him out for trials, for the Arsenal Academy. He obviously wasn’t good enough to get in, but the thing is, had he been good enough I would have supported him. I would have carried down that road.

Payman:
For something you would have never been able to do.

Anoop Maini:
Never been able to do. I’m quite open on him. He doesn’t want to do dentistry, he said that to me. He’s a different kettle of fish, mentality, to me. He’s very astute, he’s financially astute. He’s a bit entrepreneurial, bit of a wheeler-dealer type mentality, so he’s someone who probably wouldn’t be happy in dentistry in that sort of clinical type environment. He’s a different kettle of fish. He’ll make his way somehow in the world doing something, but as long as he’s happy.

Anoop Maini:
Me and wife are always saying, you know, “How big does your house need to be? Enough to have one bed to sleep in. And how many cars do you need? One car.” You know?”

Anoop Maini:
I see a lot of dentists, even people outside the profession, buying material things, material goods. One thing that you soon get with material goods is instant gratification, but actually, that gratification disappears very quickly. If I bought a Porsche tomorrow or a Tesla, you would get some joy from it initially, but that soon fades. You get bored of it and then you think, “What’s the next thing?”

Anoop Maini:
So, if you’re looking at material goods to fill a hole in your life in terms of providing you with enjoyment, I think you’ve got a big void. I think you have to look at things that also fulfil you in different ways. You can’t just rely on … Money, to me, is not my primary goal in life. You know? The money that comes by doing what we’re doing is important, but I don’t do everything purely for the dollar. I’ve never done things purely for the dollar. I’ve made business decisions which also I could have done better with had I stuck with them, but I moved away because I was happier moving away for my own personal development.

Prav Solanki:
Are you happy to talk about how your son spent his first £10,000?

Anoop Maini:
My son’s first … You mean my £10,000?

Prav Solanki:
Absolutely. Happy to go there?

Anoop Maini:
Yeah, I’m happy to go there.

Payman:
Know the story already, do you?

Prav Solanki:
Fill us in. Fill us in. It’s a great story. You talk about your son being financially astute and entrepreneurial, and this story’s amazing.

Anoop Maini:
Right, so my son, he’s a bit of a gamer and he likes playing these games.

Prav Solanki:
Computer games, right? Xbox, that sort of stuff.

Anoop Maini:
Computer games, yeah, absolutely. You have to buy these credits and things, and he quite enjoyed doing that. But he used to ask me, “Dad, can you buy me some?”

Anoop Maini:
I said, “No, you can’t. What a waste of money.”

Anoop Maini:
I didn’t do that, so he thought, “I’m going to raise some money.”

Anoop Maini:
So, he decided to open up accounts, multiple accounts, PayPal accounts. So, he accrued about three or four PayPal accounts using some of my information, and in the end, he was buying things through PayPal.

Prav Solanki:
Just before we go there Anoop, opening a PayPal account isn’t easy, right? Because you register and then what it does is it charges your credit card like 3p, and then you need to read the credit card statement and put that transaction into PayPal to prove that you own that credit card before you can start spending money on it.

Anoop Maini:
That’s right, yes.

Prav Solanki:
How did he get around that?

Payman:
He figured it out.

Anoop Maini:
Yeah, he figured it out because actually, my password was pretty unanimous across multiples, so he could access virtually anything. So, he got into my bank statements, he got into-

Payman:
So, he spent £10,000 on buying uniforms for fighters?

Anoop Maini:
Credits. Yeah.

Payman:
Ten grand?

Anoop Maini:
So, when I picked it up, I saw my bank statement and I thought, “Crikey,” because it was starting to increase. When it’s a bit under the radar, you sort of miss of it. And this accrued over a few months. By the time I picked it up I rang up PayPal and I said, “Crikey, there’s fraud on my account.” So, there was an investigation, they blocked the account, and then they wheeled it down to my son’s email address.

Payman:
How did you feel at that moment?

Anoop Maini:
Well, he got a bit of a thick ear, but apart from the thick ear I was actually quite impressed by what he did in a way.

Payman:
Were you?

Anoop Maini:
I said, “You’ve just got to rechannel this sort of innovation and the way that you worked around it into other ways.” It was quite interesting when he did that, because I was giving the option of prosecuting my own son, which obviously we didn’t do.

Payman:
Tell me about working with your wife. I’ve worked with my wife before. Did you guys naturally fall into that?

Anoop Maini:
It’s really interesting because actually, in the workplace we don’t actually cross each other very much. It’s a bit like when you have associates, you only sort of slightly cross each other at lunchtime maybe.

Payman:
Yeah.

Anoop Maini:
So, having the wife in the practice, I don’t really see her technically from that perspective, but having someone who’s very similar to yourself, thinking about the business from the same … I find very useful and a lot of support. You know?

Anoop Maini:
I know people go into businesses with other partners, and you know, I’ve seen partnerships break up where sometimes the spouses interfere, et cetera, but actually being in business with your spouse … Because my wife is my best friend, so if you’re in business with your best friend, and that’s going to go live, yeah? I hope she hears that, and I love her.

Prav Solanki:
Anything else? Any other messages to Neera here?

Anoop Maini:
Yeah, I’ve loved her all my life. She’s been the most important, and I’ve never cheated on her, she’s beautiful.

Anoop Maini:
Right, so anyway, coming back to where we were, so working with my wife has been very useful for me because she understands what I’m doing. I develop myself inside the clinic, I’m technically, currently an associate for her because I sold my clinic a few years back. Even being an associate, technically, for her, I’m allowed to develop my dentistry, I’ve been able to buy technologies. I’m currently quite fascinated by digital dentistry at the moment, so I’ve bought a lot of digital equipment for the clinic. And you know, she’ll be quite understanding about it because she knows what I’m like as a dentist. When I get passionate about something, I immerse myself and I get really into it. That’s obviously a very expensive to do, especially in the digital world, so she’s been very accommodating.

Anoop Maini:
She also understands when I need to, when I’m travelling for courses, when I have to cancel days down in the clinic because I’ve got a business meeting, or I’m lecturing, or whatever. She’s very understanding from that. She understands where I’m going and what drives me, so having her on board has been very useful, because if I was with another employer, they probably wouldn’t understand that.

Prav Solanki:
I have quite a few business relationships with various different people, and those relationships are very different in many different ways. But the one thing that I really understand about being in business with other people is that you have different skill sets that complement each other. So, I know what my strengths are, I know what my partner’s strengths are, and luckily they don’t overlap, which works to our advantage. With you and Neera, how are you different? And where are your, what I would consider to be, zones of genius?

Anoop Maini:
Well I think people who know me sort of find that I’m someone who’s almost a little bit of a perfectionist. I’m a little bit too demanding on people. I’m quite demanding of my staff as well. I’m quite quick to fire. I don’t process a thought.

Prav Solanki:
Shoot from the hip.

Anoop Maini:
I just shoot from the hip sometimes.

Payman:
You don’t mean fire people?

Anoop Maini:
Well, not fire people, I can be-

Payman:
Fire ideas.

Anoop Maini:
Fire ideas, positivity. But I could also, if someone did something wrong, I’ll tell them.

Payman:
Who does the firing? Who does the firing in the practice?

Anoop Maini:
My wife.

Payman:
Who does the hiring?

Anoop Maini:
My wife. It’s quite interesting because this-

Payman:
So, go on, you shoot from the hip, and she considers things?

Anoop Maini:
Yeah, she’s much more considerate. So, in the practice her strengths are that she’s far more relaxed, she does all our staff issues, manages the clinics from that perspective. I’m probably more involved with sort of the marketing aspects, the business development, that sort of side because I can make decisions quickly, I have a vision. I focus on the vision. But in terms of dealing with people, she’s far better than I am. We complement each other that way.

Anoop Maini:
So, she’s a great person to have in the practice as a team. The team love her, they support her. She’s great from that way. Whereas I’m someone who sort of rolls in and I expect everything done to perfection. My staff always know I’m like that, and that’s quite a … I’m a difficult person to work around from that perspective, so having my wife in there who steps in between, to make them understand when I get upset when something hasn’t gone right, rather than me shooting from the hip, she intervenes. “What can we do next time to make this go a bit more smoother?”

Anoop Maini:
That’s the sort of personality I am. They call it like D type personality, or A type personality they call it. It’s someone who just comes in and it’s like, “I want X, Y, Z done like yesterday.”

Prav Solanki:
So, is she your calming influence?

Anoop Maini:
Yeah.

Prav Solanki:
Both in life and business?

Anoop Maini:
She is, but in the home life as well she’s very good with the children. She’s more of a socialite as well, so she’s very good at keeping our network with friends and family, whereas I’m probably so busy and immersed in my own little world, I forget to ring up people, et cetera. She’s quite good for bonding and also, relating to the kids and looking after the kids. She’s been brilliant. She’s a very good communicator In terms of encouragement for my daughter and my son, whereas I’m more directive.

Prav Solanki:
Sure.

Anoop Maini:
It’s like, “Son, what are you doing? Why aren’t you doing this?” Whereas she is much more … She spends a bit more time, involves it, and has longer conversations with them .

Prav Solanki:
Coming back to your dentistry, what would you say your biggest, and I mean your biggest, clinical error, mistake, has been in your career so far?

Anoop Maini:
I think when I qualified, quite early on, I did these veneer courses. It was quite a thing at the time, to be a cosmetic dentist you’re doing veneers. So, that was the perception in those days a long time ago.

Anoop Maini:
I did some courses learning how to slap on veneers for patients, smile makeovers, and generally the profession, a bit like you have social media today where people post up cases about the before and afters, how good you are, how brilliant you are, in those days we had the sort of media articles about … People used to post cases about smile makeovers, and success of clinics was about how much sort of advanced cosmetic dentistry you were doing. I engaged, I remember, a business consultant many years ago, and the key was to do elaborate smile makeover dentistry, so there was a lot of this push to do that sort of work.

Anoop Maini:
I remember even … Which I would never do today … I remember generating PowerPoints of patients. It’s like almost selling. You used to take pictures, you need to do imaging, and these patients didn’t actually come in asking for that. We were doing it as a, “Here we are. This is what you are. This is what you could be. These are all your problems. This is the beautiful result that you could get.”

Prav Solanki:
I remember those PowerPoints. They were generated by a specific consulting company.

Anoop Maini:
Correct.

Prav Solanki:
That a lot of people from that generation just adopted. Was that almost like the default treatment for any patient that walked through your door?

Anoop Maini:
It was, because at that time, I thought cosmetic dentistry … It was the persona of being in cosmetic dentistry, it was like an awe. It’s like the successful practises were called spas or they were cosmetic clinics.

Payman:
To be fair, the only options you had for cosmetic dentistry back then were train tracks for three years, or that treatment. I mean, I didn’t a lot of them too. I did a lot of them when I was a dentist. But where was the clinical error?

Anoop Maini:
The clinical error for me was, obviously getting involved in that sort of dentistry, is I didn’t learn the comprehensives of other facets of dentistry which underpin that. So, getting the occlusion right, getting the periodontal aspects right, managing wear, patients with wear issues which cause the demise of their teeth in the first place. Not understanding, just slapping on these porcelain veneers.

Anoop Maini:
I had cases, and there’s one case that rings in my mind. A patient would have spent 14, £15,000 with me, and I watched four, five years later, things smashing up. It’s very embarrassing, it’s very expensive, you have unhappy patients. I remember a negative review from this patient. That was a turning point; realising that the dentistry I was performing wasn’t as long lasting as I thought it was going to be, and understanding that I needed to learn more.

Anoop Maini:
I think a lot of problems that a lot of dentists have currently is they don’t have the longevity of looking at their work. So, once you’ve done a restoration, it might look great for the post-op, but what will that composite look like? What will that veneer look like? What will that crown look like in ten years time? Or that implant.

Payman:
And so how did you handle this patient?

Anoop Maini:
How did I handle that patient at that time? I think that particular patient, in the end, I had to refer for remedial treatment, a more experienced colleague.

Prav Solanki:
Anoop, so we’ve talked about the biggest clinical mistake, and in that particular patient who made a complaint, but that was a clinical mistake that you realised, say, five, ten years after making the mistake, right?

Anoop Maini:
Correct.

Prav Solanki:
Have you ever made a clinical mistake where in the moment you think, “Holy shit, what have I just done?” In your younger years, less experienced years, anything like that ever that sort of brings back memories?

Anoop Maini:
I remember during my VT year when I was doing a root canal and I completely missed the canals.

Payman:
Perforated. I’ve done that.

Anoop Maini:
It completely perforated, absolutely perforated. I remember just finishing off the root canal and I remember looking at it afterwards, it looked like an octopus. You know? And none of that GP was inside the tooth. It was all outside the tooth. And you think, “Oh my God.” So, that was probably when you’ve done something and you just-

Payman:
What did you do?

Anoop Maini:
Well, we had to take the tooth out. The tooth had to be removed. Fortunately, it was in a time where the patient didn’t value that tooth, as such, an exempt patient. So, it didn’t have any long term financial repercussions for me, but today, that would be totally unacceptable.

Prav Solanki:
And just take me back to that very moment that it first happened. What was going through your mind? How did you feel? How did you react?

Anoop Maini:
Well, the first thing is you feel sorry for the patient.

Prav Solanki:
Yeah.

Anoop Maini:
You are trying your best. It’s not like you intentionally try and do something badly.

Prav Solanki:
Sure.

Anoop Maini:
No one’s trying to do things badly. Mistakes do happen in dentistry. I’ve had things where I’ve put a crown, six months later the crown’s dislodged, or a veneer’s chipped, whatever. Things do happen, but when you’re doing something that has caused irreversible damage to someone and that patient’s come and bestowed their faith in you, trust in you, and then you sort of don’t deliver, I mean, it doesn’t embody what we’ve taught. We went to dentist school because we were there to try and improve health, maintenance and preservation of dental health, and if you’ve created a problem yourself that’s subsequently led to the loss of the tooth, it’s not a great motivational thing for you as a dentist. It doesn’t build your confidence up.

Anoop Maini:
I remember … It probably had an impact, because actually, I haven’t done a root canal for probably about 12 years. I’ve always referred out root canals.

Payman:
And you’re saying it goes back to that moment?

Anoop Maini:
It probably goes back to that moment. It probably wasn’t straight away from that moment.

Payman:
No, I know what you mean. I know what you mean.

Anoop Maini:
But now, I’m not that confident in root canal work, you know?

Payman:
Yeah.

Anoop Maini:
I just think, “This is not my forte.” That probably goes back to that stage.

Payman:
I want to ask a question about, you know, you’ve developed, what, three clinics now?

Anoop Maini:
Yes.

Payman:
And, what, all from scratch?

Anoop Maini:
It’s quite funny, the first clinic I bought. I came out, when I qualified, being a typical Asian I was trying to follow my peers which was, “Let’s own lots of practises.”

Payman:
Yeah.

Anoop Maini:
So, I remember I did my VT in Luton, and in Luton town which is like 90% exempt NHS dentistry, I didn’t actually enjoy working there at all to be honest because it just wasn’t the style of dentistry I wanted to do. But when I was there, the first thing I was thinking was, “Well, I’m going to become an entrepreneur. I’m going to be an entrepreneur dentist and I don’t really have to work then. I’ll just have a whole chain of practises and then just work like shops and businesses.”

Anoop Maini:
So, I was going to go down that pathway because that’s what my peers were doing. So, I thought, “Okay.” I looked in the back of Frank Taylor’s magazine and there was this practice in Luton town centre. I said, “Right, I know the area, I’ll buy that clinic.” So, we bought the clinic. Little did I know, with my lack of due diligence, it was a POGO clinic. Now, if you remember the old POGO, they were GA clinics-

Payman:
You didn’t even realise that before you bought it?

Anoop Maini:
No, because I didn’t do any due … I was young. I was so young. You know? So, I was so young, inexperienced, didn’t really know. Didn’t have guidance from any-

Payman:
So, four clinics then? Because there was Edgware Road I heard on the podcast.

Anoop Maini:
Yeah, no, no, I had one in Luton.

Payman:
And then there was Aqua, and then there’s a new Aqua, so four?

Anoop Maini:
Yeah. So, one called Confident Dental Care which we opened up.

Payman:
So go on, what happened with the Luton one? How quickly did you manage to-

Anoop Maini:
So basically, I got this clinic which was a POGO clinic, and the reason why these POGO clinics were for sale is because POGO, the change in The Poswillo Report, meant you couldn’t do GA-

Payman:
You needed an anaesthetist.

Anoop Maini:
Absolutely. You couldn’t do it in a general practice environment.

Payman:
Yeah, that’s right.

Anoop Maini:
So, this clinic became worthless. I was wondering why it was cheap. Now I know why it was cheap. So, I bought it. Me and my wife walk in, and we suddenly say, “Everyone wants a GA.” We thought, “Why do they want a GA?” And we didn’t kind of offer anything, we’re just local. Right?

Anoop Maini:
So, we very quickly … We started from the practice, it almost collapsed overnight. We had to very quickly go and learn sedation, intravenous sedation. There was a lovely guy called Michael Woods who sadly passed away. He was in Dunstable and he had a big sort of GA clinic quite close to Dunstable hospital. So, we did mentoring with him, and we did some cases with him, so I started offering IV sedation.

Anoop Maini:
Once we took that clinic, because I didn’t enjoy NHS dentistry, I decided I was going to be a private practice. It was the seventh surgery at that time, seventh surgery NHS clinic.

Payman:
Oh bloody hell.

Anoop Maini:
Yeah. But it was all Poswillo. There was no patients left. By the time we finished it was like two or three. But you know, they’re all GA patients and they were mostly referral. So, we decided we were going to open up a private practice. I was living with mom and dad. Overheads weren’t there.

Anoop Maini:
So, we decided we would set up a private practice. We then moved across the road, we set up a new building, I bought … I still own the building today. We set up a clinic called Confident Dental Care. So, it was one of those first practises that got branded. So, Confident Dental Care, everything was branded. That’s the first time I brought in DDPC, Gary Bettis, that was my first project with him.

Payman:
So, wait a minute. You bought the GA clinic and that was a financial failure.

Anoop Maini:
Total failure.

Payman:
Where did you have the money to open the second place? Did your dad let you have it?

Anoop Maini:
No, no, I didn’t have any money from dad.

Payman:
So, what did you do?

Anoop Maini:
In those days, banks were stupid enough to lend to you.

Payman:
So, they saw your first failure, and then paid you for the second?

Anoop Maini:
Yeah, because you’re a dentist. In those days, because you’re a dentist they would lend to you. I mean, there were people lending 150%.

Prav Solanki:
It’s true.

Anoop Maini:
So, I just borrowed money again. We didn’t, fortunately, pay too much for The Poswillo Report, that’s why it was cheap. But we just business proposal, and most banks were looking for your business. NatWest, Barclays, et cetera, Lloyds, they were looking for your business, so they would court you almost, buy you lunch, because you’re deemed probably someone who wasn’t going to fail.

Payman:
A good risk. Yeah. Even though you’d just failed.

Anoop Maini:
Even though we’d just failed. So, we set up Confident Dental Care, and actually, we got it up to three surgeries. We got it up to three surgeries, and we sold it as a fully private practice.

Payman:
How many years later was that?

Anoop Maini:
It was about six or seven years?

Payman:
And that was a squat?

Anoop Maini:
That was a virtual squat.

Payman:
So, that’s what I’m quite interested in. You know the idea of, you build it and they will come? Seems like you’ve done that a few times. But in that moment of waiting for people to come, some of the steps, some of the steps or some hacks that you would suggest for people that are going to do this again and again, set up practises from squat and have no patients. What are some of the tricks, some of the things you should look out for, cash flow questions? Give us some insights, because you’ve done this a few times now.

Anoop Maini:
Yeah, I’ve done it one, two, three times.

Payman:
Yeah.

Anoop Maini:
So, in terms of my recommendation to people, one is controlling the overhead. Be very careful on overhead control. Control your expenses. Especially you’ve got to make a lot of sacrifices in your own personal life as well, you’ve got to control you own expenses because there’s going to be no income coming through.

Anoop Maini:
What’s very important in any, if you’re starting up from squat, is what is your USP? What is your differentiator compared to your locals? You know? That’s going to be so important in terms of your marketing, because you can’t put blanket marketing out in terms of, “I do X, Y, Z,” because every other practice does X, Y, Z. You need to have A, B, C that no one else has got, and that’s so important.

Anoop Maini:
I think from a very early stage I’ve always done lots and lots of courses. I did a lot of courses, even from an early stage. I think that’s important in building skill level that your local peers can’t deliver. I still get, even-

Payman:
And you were marketing that fact, is that what you’re saying?

Anoop Maini:
We were marketing techniques that they weren’t doing. So, you know, implants, smile makeover type dentistry, cosmetic dentistry, tooth whitening procedures.

Payman:
Back then that wasn’t … And interesting, Confident Dental Care was which year?

Anoop Maini:
That was probably about 2000.

Payman:
So interesting, marketing back then was a totally different thing to marketing today.

Anoop Maini:
Yeah. Different. We had a website.

Payman:
Did you?

Anoop Maini:
Yeah, we had a website. So, we had a website that time. I’m not sure, Prav did that.

Prav Solanki:
We came in shortly after that, but you still had the practice then.

Anoop Maini:
I did, yeah.

Payman:
Go on, some of the hacks. Some of the hacks, some of the marketing hacks. Go on. So, the first one you said was don’t overspend.

Anoop Maini:
Yeah.

Payman:
Keep your eye on money.

Anoop Maini:
Keep your eye on the… Now, the keys for me was to have at least one patient a day, because that patient’s journey, because you’ve got all the time to devote on them, just make sure that that patient’s journey is exemplary. Go OTT on it, to the point of … You know, when they come in, the way they’re greeted. Obviously we had tea, coffee, the drinks et cetera, we had the fridge. Find out a little bit about them.

Payman:
I mean, you say obviously but there’s lots of practises today that don’t do tea, coffee and drinks. It seems obvious to you back then.

Anoop Maini:
Yeah, it’s important to differentiate.

Payman:
Yeah.

Anoop Maini:
The USP is not just your clinic, it’s the differentiator on the clinic. You know, we had a clinic that you walked in. There was no corporate dentistry as such in those days, so having a brand, having a logo-

Payman:
That was a thing in itself.

Anoop Maini:
Yeah. Having a clinic that was designed, you know, I had an interior designer come in. No one’s doing interior designing, you would just put Mongolia up. So, we had colour themes in there. We looked different, we stood out. And as someone said to, “Wherever there’s dirt, there’s always money.” So, even though we were in Luton, a lot of people who had money, had cash money. We had a lot of travellers come to see us preparing for their weddings. That was quite a big part of my market. We had a lot of people who used to run the local businesses, or car boot sales. They were coming in asking for certain treatments that they weren’t getting within the NHS services.

Payman:
But were you leafleting, or?

Anoop Maini:
We had the website. We used to leaflet market. We used the Arndale Centre, which is a shopping centre, so we used to distribute leaflets there. We even had a little stand.

Payman:
So, you went and bought a stand in the Arndale Centre?

Anoop Maini:
Yeah, we had a little stand in there. There weren’t dentists doing this at that time. It just wasn’t being done. So, we got patients coming in. We offered the free consultation.

Payman:
Back then as well?

Anoop Maini:
Back then.

Payman:
And it was fully private from day one?

Anoop Maini:
Fully private.

Payman:
Nice.

Anoop Maini:
Fully private. And things like hygienists. In those days as well, we always saw hygienists as being the rock in the clinic. I measure how successful my clinic is by how busy my hygienists are because they’re the barometer. If you’ve got patients return regularly to see a hygienist, you know you’ve got a healthy clinic, so that’s always a strength. When I see quiet hygienists, I know my business is in trouble. So, that’s why we always had hygienists from day one, because they develop rapport. They develop the maintenance, the loyalty.

Anoop Maini:
The other thing I would recommend is try and develop some sort of practice plan. So, you know, you get patients encouraged to join the clinic under a membership scheme, and it just helps them to maintain their loyalty and make it sort of worthwhile. It’s a benefit for them, it’s cheaper than if they paid outside. But again, it’s just that experience thing.

Payman:
And when it came to selling this clinic then, you’d decided you wanted to sell it? Did someone approach you? Who was it? Who bought it?

Anoop Maini:
We sold it to a colleague of mine, a guy called Hitesh Gohil.

Payman:
I know him.

Anoop Maini:
Yeah? We sold it to Hitesh. He was also at King’s with me qualifying. He was about two years below me. The reason for selling it was actually, at that time, I was starting up Edgware Road because I wanted to head more towards the West End because in terms of my dentistry. So, by opening up Edgware Road, it then became a problem of logistics.

Payman:
Being in two places?

Anoop Maini:
Absolutely, because you get two types of dentist basically. You get the entrepreneurial dentist who can own multiple clinics and slightly sort of detached from the clinical environment, more like the business environment. And then you get the dentists who’s vocational, so like the Koray Ferans, shall we say, who dentistry for them is so hands-on and they’re so involved with the business on the clinical level, that they can’t leverage themselves into multiple clinics. I can’t have a clinic run by a … I’ll get too involved in how it’s being treated, the standard of care. So, I can’t run multiple clinics.

Anoop Maini:
We had one in Central London, we had one in Luton, and I always had problems with the associates at the other end, concerns about the clinical output, the patient journey, the receptionists not performing. I have to be too hands-on, that’s my problem. I think I’m too much of a perfectionist.

Payman:
Do they call that perfection paralysis?

Anoop Maini:
Absolutely. So, I can’t take a laid back approach, which I know some colleagues do. They just worry, “As long as I get the bottom line, I don’t care what happens.” Whereas, for me, I need to get involved with each step off each business, and I couldn’t leverage that up. I think it’s my personality type. So, for me, it was about the dental practice was the opportunity for me to perform the dentistry I wanted to perform.

Anoop Maini:
So, we opened up at Edgware Road. At that time my daughter was born.

Payman:
Which year was that?

Anoop Maini:
That was 1999.

Payman:
Oh. So, which year was Confident?

Anoop Maini:
Confident, well my daughter was growing up, that was the problem. So, there was the problem with things like childcare, then my second son came in 2003. So, my wife had to pull back from dentistry a little bit to look after the kids, so we couldn’t support the two clinics. I had one clinic, virtually run an associates in Luton, and I just couldn’t manage it.

Payman:
And actually, from a business perspective, you don’t make that much money from an associate-led practice.

Anoop Maini:
You don’t.

Payman:
If you’ve got loads and loads of them, I’m sure it’s great, but from a single one …

Anoop Maini:
Absolutely. And especially when I’m in my practice in Hatch], which again was virtually a squat, is they’ve very time intensive, so you couldn’t share yourself across.

Payman:
Why was it you kept doing squats? Why didn’t you buy existing practises? What was the thinking?

Anoop Maini:
For me, I found whenever I bought any clinic which had a patient base, like the one I bought in Edgware Road where it was actually not a true squat, it had a very small patient base, none of those patients are with me today because they are not the patients that I-

Prav Solanki:
It’s not your philosophy, is it?

Anoop Maini:
They’re not my philosophy. They’re not my sort of patients. They’re not the sort of dentistry I want to do. So, you know, I’ve worked out wherever I’ve been, I’ve developed a whole new patient base. So, rather than then buying something and then trying to convert those people across, I’d rather develop my own patients, my own personality, and my own style of patients. They always say that patients reflect the dentist that they go to.

Payman:
Yeah, that’s true.

Anoop Maini:
So, we’re all very different. So, I couldn’t see buying a clinic from someone else and then have to deal with their methodologies, philosophies and approaches and have to reeducate patients. I might as well just get a squat, and that’s always been my philosophy.

Payman:
But it’s not for everyone.

Anoop Maini:
No.

Payman:
I mean, from the risk perspective and the marketing. These days particularly, right? You’ve got to have your marketing game right on.

Anoop Maini:
Absolutely.

Payman:
So then, okay, tell us the difference between starting and making that first one thrive, compared to the last one. What’s changed in you?

Anoop Maini:
The recent squat I set up, which was Aqua Dental Clinic in Hatch End, which is now five years old, that was probably the easiest because we-

Payman:
Because your life didn’t depend on it.

Anoop Maini:
Yeah, my life didn’t depend on it, but number two, it was easier in a way because we were already very experienced. You know? I qualified in 1992, so I’ve got 25 years of experience, 26 years of experience. My wife’s very experienced, so we know how to manage staff, we know how to control businesses, we know about expenses. We know marketing things that have worked for us before. You know, we engaged a marketing company that looks after us. So, we’ve made all the mistakes before so we can have the protocols in place to elevate the clinic quite quickly.

Anoop Maini:
And we had skill sets. We’ve moved into an area where it’s quite … When I was looking at the present site, we were looking at all the other practice’s websites. They’re all out of date. All out of date, very basic. It’s almost the basic standard you require from CQC, rather than having a proper thing. Now we have like infusion sort of type software inside the clinics. So, we have follow-ups, maintenance-

Payman:
Do you run ads as well?

Anoop Maini:
Yeah, we run ads. We do newspaper adverts, we do a lot of online marketing, a lot of social media marketing. So, we’re very more forwards compared to our local competitors in terms of what we’re doing.

Payman:
Where is it? Hatch End?

Anoop Maini:
Hatch End, absolutely.

Payman:
Where’s that?

Anoop Maini:
Hatch End is North West London, quite close to … Not far from Stanmore.

Payman:
Okay, yeah. Nice area.

Anoop Maini:
Yeah. So, it’s not far from Stanmore. Yeah. It’s a nice area. For me, the reason why I chose this clinic as well is because it’s quite important to pick an area that can support the type of clinic that you want to be in. You know?

Payman:
Yeah.

Anoop Maini:
It was a very middle class area. The average property price is-

Payman:
High.

Anoop Maini:
They start for 800 grand upwards, so they’re about 1.2 million for a house there. So, it’s in the area, it’s a very established area, so it’s a lot families. You’ve got private schools in the area, nice high end restaurants.

Payman:
Do you live there too?

Anoop Maini:
I do. I don’t live very far away, so I’m literally now five minutes away from work, which has been a blessing. But in terms of that environment, the most important thing I would say to someone else in terms of looking for clinics is location, location, location. The clinic that we’ve got at the moment is on a roundabout. It’s a corner property on a roundabout, a three bed semi. Directly opposite is Morrison’s, so everyone who comes out-

Payman:
Sees it.

Anoop Maini:
And we’ve got a massive sign up. We’ve got a huge sign. It’s a disproportionate sign, you know? No one can miss it, and we make sure that sign’s changed every month with a different feature.

Payman:
Really?

Anoop Maini:
Yeah, we change it every month because other people get … When you’re in an environment and you keep seeing the same things again and again, you sort of switch off.

Prav Solanki:
Call it banner blindness.

Anoop Maini:
Banner blindness, you stop seeing it. So, by changing it and even changing the colours, people retune to that banner. “What is that?” As they come around this visual roundabout, people see our sign. So, our number one-

Payman:
What are you most happy doing? Are you most happy drilling teeth, talking to patients? Are you most happy working on the business, or are you most happy teaching? Because you do a lot of that too. If you had to give one of those three up, which one would you give up?

Anoop Maini:
Business, if I had to.

Payman:
Really?

Anoop Maini:
Yeah.

Payman:
Because it sounds like you’re pretty into the business.

Anoop Maini:
I’m into the business, but I love patients the most.

Payman:
Oh, really?

Anoop Maini:
Yeah. So, my key is, I couldn’t give up the patients, because you said give up something.

Payman:
Yeah, yeah.

Anoop Maini:
So, there’s no way I’m going to give up patients and stop clinical practice because I love clinical practice. I love being a dentist, I love working with my hands. I’ve always worked with my hands. From a young age I was always making things out of math sticks, playing with Lego. I just love doing things and being creative, so working with patients is very important for me.

Anoop Maini:
In terms of teaching, I love teaching because one thing I’ve learned about teaching, it really makes me need to learn more.

Payman:
Yeah, it’s the best way to learn.

Anoop Maini:
Because to be ahead of the game, or when you’re teaching and someone asks you questions you can’t answer, you have to go back and learn it and it raises your game. So, I’m a much better person through teaching than I would have been on my own.

Payman:
Tell me, let’s talk about teaching a little bit.

Anoop Maini:
Yeah.

Payman:
I obviously work with a lot of teachers. For me, the voice that you have on stage, or whatever, is something that I’ve seen develop in a lot of people. Your value add as a teacher compared to the next, what would you say that is?

Anoop Maini:
Someone’s remarked upon-

Payman:
I mean, you’re very funny I’ve noticed.

Prav Solanki:
Entertainer.

Payman:
Yeah, he’s an entertainer.

Anoop Maini:
Well, actually call me Edutrainer.

Prav Solanki:
Edutrainer?

Anoop Maini:
Edutrainer.

Payman:
Were you a funny kid and all that, that whole thing? You know what I mean?

Anoop Maini:
No, I think I take on a different personality a little bit.

Payman:
On stage?

Anoop Maini:
When I’m on a stage, when I’m in front of people.

Payman:
Do you get nervous?

Anoop Maini:
I do, 100%. I get nervous every single time.

Prav Solanki:
Every time?

Anoop Maini:
Every time.

Payman:
You know, when I speak to speakers, the one thing I do say to them, “The moment you don’t get nervous, that’s weird.” Getting nervous is actually normal. It’s a nerveracking situation.

Anoop Maini:
I just did, probably the largest event I’ve done myself now, which is I spoke for the Dutch Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry.

Payman:
Just recently? I saw that.

Anoop Maini:
Yeah. So, that was a three hour continuous lecture, which I’ve never done to a static audience.

Payman:
That’s a long time, yeah.

Anoop Maini:
So, you know, we had two, 250 in the room, and I was following up Eric Van Dooren and people like Pascal Magne had been on this stage, Paolo Canno. That’s the guys I’m following up. Then Annop Maini from Harrow, Hatch End turns up.

Anoop Maini:
So, I was absolutely bricking myself for that one. Absolutely was bricking myself. I remember just literally-

Payman:
Heart racing, sweaty palms?

Anoop Maini:
Heart racing. Almost where you’re almost nauseous, like you’re going to be sick. So, I do get that stage fright, but actually, that’s what drives me. The adrenalin’s up.

Payman:
It’s normal. That’s what I’m saying; it’s normal.

Anoop Maini:
It’s normal. And when I come out, the way I relate to audiences whether it’s one person, or a 100, I try and connect with them. I do sort of tune into the audience a little bit and I can joke with them, but I’m careful how they respond back to my jokes. So, my entertainer bid. I find that people listen better and they understand better or get educated better when you make it a little bit more entertaining, rather than being a very dry production. If you make it a bit more fun, a bit more excitable, and you get the whole audience involved-

Payman:
The thing is, if that’s you, if that is you, I think the authenticity piece is huge, you know? The biggest error would be if that’s not you, thinking, “Hey, people like a funny guy,” and trying to be funny because of that. It obviously is you.

Anoop Maini:
I think I am. I think I get into a lot of trouble half the time because I just come out with stuff which I thought about. I think you have to be.

Anoop Maini:
For me, being on a stage is about, when I talk to people, it’s like how I probably would talk to you and Prav. You know, if we joke, et cetera. Actually, when I’m in front of an audience, I just relax down. I reckon all that adrenalin, all that buzz is gone within the first two minutes and then I settle down.

Payman:
I don’t know about you two, I mean, Prav’s going 0 to 60 in three seconds, he’s becoming an extraordinary speaker. But I don’t know about you two, but one big issue I’ve got about stage, it’s definitely not a natural siltation for me, is I never know how I’m coming across as a speaker. You know? Particularly you realise it when you watch videos of yourself thinking you know how it felt to say what you were saying, and then you’re watching it from the audience’s perspective and-

Prav Solanki:
It’s not what you thought was happening.

Payman:
It’s not necessarily what you thought was happening. I see this with speakers, I see it with Dipesh, I see it with a bunch of speakers, is they don’t necessarily realise whether they did well or not from the stage. I’ve got a big issue when I’m on stage, I almost focus in on the one person who’s not looking engaged, which is probably a big error. Speak to that. Have you ever noticed that? Have you videoed yourself?

Anoop Maini:
I try and avoid watching videos of myself.

Payman:
It’s useful though.

Anoop Maini:
Yeah.

Prav Solanki:
It’s very useful.

Anoop Maini:
Because most people will send me the video if something’s happened, like a good friend called Prav. I think when I’m in that environment, I can listen to the sound in the room. I can listen to if there’s chatter.

Payman:
So, you’re saying you’re pretty good at figuring out whether it’s a good performance or not?

Anoop Maini:
Yeah. You can tell by the silence of the room. You can tell by if people are talking, about the noise level in the room. When you can hear a pin drop, you’ve got people listening.

Payman:
Yeah.

Anoop Maini:
And if people, if you’ve said something that’s humorous or whatever, and they’re laughing-

Payman:
That feels good.

Anoop Maini:
And you see the energy coming up in the room. You can feel the energy in the room.

Payman:
Yeah.

Anoop Maini:
I’ll know by the end of a presentation if I’ve done well or not.

Payman:
Really?

Anoop Maini:
I don’t need to look at feedback form. I will know because I can tell by the energy of the room.

Payman:
I can’t. You?

Prav Solanki:
I think I can.

Payman:
Yeah?

Prav Solanki:
I think I can, yeah. You look around, you see a few smiling faces, you see a few people who are not engaged or whatever, but you know when you do something and you’re expecting a certain reaction, I got that reaction. So, yeah, I think I do have a feeling, but to be honest, I don’t think I’ve spoken enough to really know, right?

Prav Solanki:
Anoop, I want to take this conversation somewhere else now if that’s all right with you.

Anoop Maini:
Yeah, that’s fine.

Prav Solanki:
Talk to me about that ring you’ve got on your right hand.

Anoop Maini:
Right, yes.

Prav Solanki:
Where did it come from?

Anoop Maini:
This is my father’s ring.

Prav Solanki:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Anoop Maini:
So, my father passed away in May of this year. He had two rings on his hand, and I’ve got one and my brother’s got one. So, we got it engraved with my dad’s name because I wanted to keep him with me at all times. He was an absolute rock for me throughout my career. You talk about confidence, and to be successful in anything, you’ve got to have someone behind you. I’ve always worked out in business, you need consultants, you have to work with marketing companies. You always need someone. You can’t do things on your own, there’s always support.

Anoop Maini:
Moralistically, my moral compass was my dad. You know, a lot of these bits you say to me, “Why did you open it?”

Anoop Maini:
Dad said, “Just open it. Just do it.” He would say to me, “You open that clinic up. If it goes down the drain, what difference does it make? You’re living with me, you’re upstairs, you get your food, you get your clothes, I put petrol in your car, so what’s your risk?”

Payman:
Was it a sudden illness, or was he ill for … ?

Anoop Maini:
He was ill for about a year. He had Hodgkin’s lymphoma which then became aggressive. He did suffer quite a lot in his last few years. The hardest thing for me was you were talking about training, and in the end, he died from water on the lung, emphysema. I was out in Copenhagen doing a course. On the Friday I was out with the colleagues. It was a two day course, Friday we’d go out for the dinner. And then at 11 O’Clock at night, I then got a text from my wife saying, “Dad’s really unwell.” She said, “I’ll let you know how he is in the morning. I’ll keep you posted.”

Anoop Maini:
So, I was saying, I sent a message and I said, “Can you find out when the next flights are? Et cetera.”

Prav Solanki:
So, you knew it was that serious at that point?

Anoop Maini:
It was very serious at that point. So, all of my family members had congregated and I was in Copenhagen. When I woke up in the morning, I looked at my text and it said, “Dad’s passed away.” This was 7:30 in the morning. I’m going to hit the lecture stage at nine to do a course.

Payman:
Wow.

Anoop Maini:
So, at that moment, I had to make a decision. What do I do? I just thought to myself, “What would dad want me to do? What would dad say to me?” I know what dad said to do … He always said stick by your responsibilities. I couldn’t turn the clock back. So, I delivered the course and got the first flight out back home.

Anoop Maini:
But one thing I really regret was not being there for my dad when he passed away because I know my dad had asked for me. In inverted commas, I was the closest son to him, because I’ve always lived in and around my dad. I lived four or five miles away from my dad. My brother’s moved to South London, my sisters had gone up to Nottingham, et cetera, so I’ve always been in and around dad being the youngest son. So, not being there for the final moment, and I know he was asking for me, is probably the hardest thing.

Anoop Maini:
Like they always say, you never get the opportunity to say, “Dad, I love you and thank you. Actually, more than love you, thank you.” And I never got the opportunity to do that. That was the most painful thing for me. And going through that course in Copenhagen, holding that in and still delivering the course-

Payman:
One of the hardest things you’ve ever done.

Anoop Maini:
It was a very hard thing to do. It was a really hard thing to do. But I had … You had 18, 20 people in a room, paid their monies, you know? I had a responsibility to them.

Prav Solanki:
Most people would have walked away Anoop. I know I would have done. If that happened to me, I’d have gone and I wouldn’t have been in an emotional state to even contemplate that.

Payman:
Well, you don’t really know what you would have done unless that was happening to you, to tell you the truth.

Prav Solanki:
Well, no, but you know if … Yeah.

Payman:
But, I hear you. In the moment, he did it for his dad.

Anoop Maini:
Well, I thought to myself, “What would dad say?”

Prav Solanki:
Dad would want you to do it, yeah.

Anoop Maini:
I would run back, dad would say, “Look, you don’t run away from your responsibilities.” At the end of the day, I had a responsibility to these dentists who have taken time off, paid for this course. How would I benefit them or me by rushing off now? My dad’s gone.

Prav Solanki:
So, what’s your dad’s legacy?

Anoop Maini:
My dad’s legacy is the people he left behind because I think dad still lives in all of us. His legacy is he was someone who embodied, like you said raising people to the next level, he got all of us educated. We’ve all been to university, we’ve all, in inverted commas, been successful. My brother’s an optician, I think he’s got six practises or clinics. We’ve all reached our own level of success, and we owe that all to dad, because dad was the one who always was our driver, he was our business consultant, he was our energy. You know? Like I said, he got me through private school, he put my brother into a private college to get him through to his A-Levels because he missed a grade for him to get into Aston University to do Opthalmics. He missed a grade, he had to repeat a year, so my dad put him into a private college which was quite expensive. It was about £10,000 or whatever.

Anoop Maini:
Dad was a chap who just did it. Somehow he found out a way of doing stuff. I’m sure his credit card bills were huge, but he never … We always used to say this; my dad only had … Sorry, I’m crying. My dad only had two sets of clothes. My dad had two sets of clothes, that’s how much … He always said to me, “Why do I need so many clothes?” We bought him suits and stuff, he never wore it. He only had two sets of clothes that he wore for years, and that’s how he was, because he always didn’t spend on himself. He was always looking after his family. His family to him was everything. Raising us up and taking us to the next level was the most important thing for him.

Anoop Maini:
And he did that also not just for his immediate kids, he did it for his brothers and sisters. He set them all up. He got them all married, he helped with their wedding costs. That guy was working hours.

Prav Solanki:
He was the dad to them, right?

Anoop Maini:
He was dad to them. My dad was working 18 hours a day. So, you know, he was someone who went without. He didn’t have anything. He just didn’t have anything. He had two sets of clothes, I will tell you that now, even now. We bought him suits and stuff and he never wore it. He just said, “It’s not me.”

Payman:
Wow. I’m sure he was very, very proud of you.

Prav Solanki:
And I’m sure he still is. I’m sure he’s looking down, if you believe in that.

Payman:
What do you believe in that sense?

Anoop Maini:
I think he’s with me. I think I am dad, and I think my brothers and sisters, we’re all with us. You know? Parts of it, his personality is embodied with us. My biggest priority at the moment in my life is obviously looking after my mom, because obviously he was a big guidance for my mom as well. My mom’s not tremendously well, so our priority is obviously to make sure my mom’s well looked after. My responsibility to my dad is to make sure she’s fine.

Prav Solanki:
On the … Payman just touched upon it then … You know, we all have different beliefs, life after death, religious, non-religious, whatever. Do you believe he’s somewhere up there, looking down, as a guiding spirit? Is that within your belief system, or is it something else?

Anoop Maini:
Me and religion is a funny little game because I’m quite scientific in my … I’m someone who needs to reason and understand, so religion’s been an unknown. I don’t necessarily … I wouldn’t quite call myself an atheist, but I don’t sort of akin to a particular religion as such. But I believe dad is in my mind. With the spirit, I think he lives with me, having his ring on me. Like you said about his legacy, his legacy for me is to make sure I carry on his virtues into my children.

Payman:
That’s a beautiful thing, but an atheist could believe exactly the same thing.

Anoop Maini:
Yeah.

Payman:
Do you believe in God?

Anoop Maini:
To be honest, I don’t really-

Payman:
Think about it? Do you believe in karma?

Anoop Maini:
I think there is karma. See, the God, I think to myself, “If there was a God, why would there be so much suffering?”

Payman:
I guess he’s not into …

Anoop Maini:
Yeah. Why would there be so much suffering? Why would people starve in the world? Why would a four year old kid who’s done nothing wrong just not have on the food on the plate?

Payman:
I think the official answer to that, well one of them, is that if that kid has done nothing wrong, he will go straight into heaven, but his plight will show you how lucky you are. Something like that.

Prav Solanki:
I don’t know.

Payman:
Do you know?

Prav Solanki:
I don’t know.

Payman:
It depends on what religion we’re talking I guess.

Prav Solanki:
It depends on what your belief system is ultimately, right? That’s what I was interested in. Moving on from there, you spoke about your dad’s legacy. Fast forward, you’ve got your last day on this planet-

Payman:
Your funeral.

Prav Solanki:
Your funeral, right? If there’s one thing the world can basically remember Anoop Maini by, it’s this sentence; Anoop Maini was … Finish that sentence off for me in terms of your legacy. Anoop Maini was …

Payman:
And not what it will be. What you would love it to be.

Anoop Maini:
Anoop Maini was a great father, husband, family man and an inspiration to others.

Payman:
Thanks a lot man. It’s been lovely having you.

Speaker 4:
This is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one-on-one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts Payman Langroudi and Prav Solanki.

Prav Solanki:
Hey guys and thank you for listening to today’s episode of the Dental Leaders podcast, a vision that myself and Payman had over two years ago now. If you have got some value out of today, just hit the subscribe button in iTunes or Google Play or whatever you’re listening to. Let us know in your comments what you actually got out of the episode, because we love sitting back and reading those reviews. It really does make our day.

Payman:
It’s a real pleasure to do this. It’s fun to do, but I’m really humbled that you’re actually listening all the way through to the end. Join us again. If you got some value out of it, please share it. Thanks a lot.

Transcript

Prav:
The first time I heard your name was Payman, I thought the reason why they call you Payman is that you’ve got loads of cash and you pay for everything, right?

Payman:
What does that mean?

Speaker 3:
This is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts, Payman Langroudi and Prav Solanki.

Prav:
Here we finally are, guys, the Dental Leaders Podcast. This has been a work in progress probably for the last two years to 18 months. We’ve been talking about this for a long time. I guess the reason this came about is me and Pay have been involved in discussions with each other privately about content creation, the value of it, and understanding the why behind everybody’s whatever they do. We independently came together, didn’t we, Pay, and talked about podcasting?

Payman:
I think both of us listened to a lot of podcasts, but before we go any further, I should introduce Dr. Prav Solanki as your host. I’m Payman Langroudi. We were both going to talk to … One thing I realised was when I go out for dinner with a dentist, the conversation I have isn’t around fillings and even whitening. The conversation I have is about them, their lives and the details, the nuances, and that’s what I’m interested in when I talk to someone about the person behind the persona, if you like.

Prav:
That’s so true.

Payman:
We’ve got quite a lot of interesting guests lined up for this show. You probably have heard of most of them when you look at the name. What you’ll find is or what we found was there are people that we’ve known for years who we still didn’t know so much about their lives until we had the long form conversation. For me, I feel like with social media, the way it is, you end up knowing just a tiny fragment of someone’s persona, the thing they’re putting out to the world. Whereas, in this long form conversation, you really get to know the person better in a much more nuanced way and a much more interesting way. Hopefully people can draw lessons, what to do and what not to do from all of that.

Prav:
That’s so true. Payman, just touching on what you’ve just said there, the likes of people like Mark Hughes, Adam Thorne, Anoop Maini who I’ve known for over a decade, had numerous meetings, conversations with, but sitting down focused for an hour and having those deeper levels of conversation about their values, their families, their friends, their struggles in business, life, whatever it is. You really get to understand the person behind this public persona or the story. You often say that when you have a friend, in air quotes, “on Facebook” or on social media, they’re not really friends, but you interact with them. Perhaps you develop in your head what that person will be like in real life when you met them.

Prav:
I think what we wanted to certainly bring in the Dental Leaders Podcast is bring that persona to reality so that if you were to meet the person who came on this podcast, you would have a true sense of what that inner person is like, what their values are, and just to pull out a true level of authenticity. There are so many podcasts out there at the moment. There are several dental podcasts, and how to do a filling, what’s your technique on composite veneers, blah, blah, blah? I’m sure it’s all very interesting, but actually the human element behind it and the authenticity behind it I think is something that we feel people would be more interested in.

Payman:
Yeah, I agree with that. I’m a dentist but not practising anymore. You’re a doctor but not practising anymore. I think we both bring something to the party with respect to that. We both had a career going from clinical to now we’re both in a service role. I’m in the manufacturing role. You’re in the actual client service business. Meeting loads and loads of dentists and seeing the things that are common to them and the things that are actually unique to each one. I feel like there’s so many interesting conversations out there, and I’m really looking forward to discovering more of them.

Payman:
For anyone who is listening, the idea that we can have these conversations really will be helped by you guys to give us suggestions of other interesting people. Obviously, we’ve opened our Rolodex to find the key people that we know who we think people will find interesting. For me, some of the best stories I know of are from dentists who aren’t even famous dentists. Being a famous dentist isn’t the same as being a successful dentist. That’s interesting. We were talking about this before that even some of the most successful dentists that I know haven’t got a public persona.

Prav:
That’s so true.

Payman:
The stories that they tell are even more valuable, I guess. I’m really looking forward to this whole series and hopefully the audience will enjoy it too.

Prav:
Absolutely. I think what Payman has said there in terms of there are some dentists out there that most people won’t have heard of. There are a lot of dentists that I interact with day to day. Our definition of success is totally different. My definition of success may be different to yours, Payman, and a lot of people’s definition of success may revolve around wealth creation. One of the things that I’ve learned through speaking to a lot of these guests that we’ve interviewed is that a lot of people have had very fulfilling, stressful and successful lives, be it in the work-life balance space or be it within their own careers or jumping between job to job, leaving dentistry or going down different pathways. If I think about my work-life balance, this is probably one of the best work days I have in a month because-

Payman:
Although you’ve changed a lot, Prav. When I met you, how long ago was that?

Prav:
Over a decade ago now.

Payman:
A good 14, 15 years ago. You didn’t use to take any holidays at all.

Prav:
No.

Payman:
You obviously weren’t married, didn’t have kids.

Prav:
No.

Payman:
You were super focused. You still are. That whole work-life balance thing, the idea that you leave work at 5:30, that would have been totally something that you wouldn’t have done back then.

Prav:
No. If you would have had that conversation with me a decade ago and said Prav, I’ve got crystal ball here and in 10 years’ time, you’re going to be leaving work at 5:30, running at home to see your kids. Your wife is going to have a meal on the … You’re going to have a different life. You’re never going to work on the weekends again. I would have just laughed at you because at that time, my life just revolved around graft 14, 15, 16 hours a day, falling asleep with my laptop on my chest, waking up with my laptop still on my chest, doing a bit of word, jumping in the shower, go into the office and having those super long days of just grinding it out. I think a lot of entrepreneurs go through that.

Prav:
A lot of the stories resonate with that transition in time where I can relate to the areas in life that people are during their entrepreneurial journey and somewhere at the beginning. I can see a form of me there, and some are way ahead of me. I’m just looking at them from a very aspirational point of view thinking, how do I get there? What are the steps to get there? They leave behind many clues in the interviews that we’ve conducted that we all can learn from, I think.

Payman:
What’s been your darkest moment work-wise?

Prav:
Jesus. I think it revolves around work and health. Let me describe a situation where I was working so hard and I was living by myself at home. Every evening, I’d leave the office via Domino’s. My companion on the way home in the passenger seat was at Domino’s. Did I stop, pack up to eat the Domino’s? No way. I didn’t have time to do that. I remember having the slices in my hand whilst driving home, dropping half of it on my lap, but I would hoover at Domino’s between the journey of picking it up and going home. That was my every night routine. Breakfast was Subway on the way in.

Payman:
It doesn’t sound like you at all.

Prav:
Whatever else comes in. I was on this hamster wheel, and I was putting a lot of weight on. I remember I got to a certain point in time where I was massively overweight, and I’ve been to Central London for a meeting, and I was on the train on the way home, and I had a temperature. I was feeling dizzy. I’m really hazy and lightheaded. I rang my dad up and I said, “Dad, come and pick me up. I’m not going to make it off the platform.” All I remember is my dad stood at the other end of the platform. I’m walking across Manchester Piccadilly and I fainted.

Payman:
You actually fainted.

Prav:
I actually fainted. The next thing I knew that had happened, I was in hospital. The doctor, the medic at the time said to me, “Prav, you were so boiling hot, we could have fried an egg on your chest.” Funny enough, I had an infection in my parotid gland. Believe it or not, I went to see my brother beforehand and said, “I’ve got a little bit of a lump here. What do you think it is?” He goes, “Stop being such a wimp,” in a less polite word and sent me away. Weeks later, that developed into an infection. You know what? I just kept neglecting the signs, the symptoms, everything, the pain. I didn’t go back to see my brother. I didn’t go to see my GP. Why? Because work was everything. Work was my life.

Prav:
Anyway, IV antibiotics, out of hospital a couple of days later. Two days later, my abdomen had swollen, and I was back in hospital for another five days. They thought I had a volvulus in my gut and I got some obstruction. What happened is because of the antibiotics, I had a paralytic alias. Basically my gut had gone into paralysis. Stuff was going in but wasn’t going out.

Payman:
During the Domino’s days.

Prav:
During in the Domino’s days, mate. Fast forward, when I finally got out of hospital, that was one really that low moment where I thought, what the hell am I doing it all for? I am on this hamster wheel. I’m doing everything to keep my clients happy. Some of my clients, I will never make happy no matter what I do.

Payman:
How successful were you at the time? Were you firefighting or were you doing quite well?

Prav:
Financially, I was doing well, right?

Payman:
Really?

Prav:
Very, very immature in both my business direction, recruitment, leadership, all of that stuff. I was successful as a function of working hard and time and hours put in. I was just putting in too many hours and wasn’t working efficiently. I hadn’t had any professional coaching by that point or anything like that. My lowest moment was then when I realised that Prav, you’ve put all of this hard work and energy and you’ve neglected your health over the years. I had previously been fit, healthy and strong, and I hit rock bottom. It was at that point I realised I’m doing all this for who, for what? I cried myself to sleep. I really, really thought. When you sit down and actually reflect and think, what am I doing this for? You can get really unhappy about it and get really teary. It was at that point in my career that I decided to let certain customers go.

Payman:
See, that’s the thing, isn’t it? That every low point has its upside. Are you telling us that you then realised that not every customer is your customer?

Prav:
I think I realised at that point that there were certain customers that no matter what I did, I could never keep happy. Maybe there was somebody out there who could do that. Every time my phone rang and it had that person’s name on it, my heart rate would go up. Those that shouted the loudest got more service.

Payman:
A lot of dentists can relate to this. Everyone has a patient like that.

Prav:
You find that actually the reason why you’re working those 16, 17, 18 hours a day, whatever it was, was because of the demands put on you by unreasonable clients who expected more than you could possibly deliver. One of the hardest things for me to do in business was having those frank conversations with people and saying, “I think there’s somebody out there who can do a better job for you. We’re not the right people for you. At the end of this month, I’m just inviting you to find yourself an ideal agency. Here are the names of a couple of people who could help you out.”

Payman:
Prav, take us back to that time when you gave up medicine. I know it’s very fashionable these days. People want to leave dentistry because of all the stress. At the time when you were a doctor, recently become a doctor, and within how long was it before you took time out?

Prav:
I think for me, I decided that I wanted to go into full-time clinical research.

Payman:
Full-time.

Prav:
Yeah.

Payman:
Really? Okay.

Prav:
I did my PhD at Oxford.

Payman:
At Oxford.

Prav:
I spent three years doing that.

Payman:
Were you top of your class in medicine?

Prav:
Yeah, in the top five.

Payman:
Oxford.

Prav:
Yeah.

Payman:
Bloody hell. Go on.

Prav:
I was coming towards the end of my PhD. My supervisor’s job, a professor at the time had published a couple of papers. I presented at various conferences, and I really, really enjoyed the research side of things.

Payman:
22 – 23, right?

Prav:
Yeah. That was the career path that was paved out for me. I was offered a junior research fellowship at Oxford University, and that was where I was going to go, but in the last year I’m a PhD, my brother had qualified in … Actually, he qualified a couple of years before, but he set up a practise called Kiss Dental. I was kicking around in the last year of my PhD. I had won a scholarship. I pretty much finished my PhD a year early and was hanging around for the funding more than anything else. In that last year, I had some time to help my brother out with his practise, customer journey, marketing and stuff like that. That’s not through any knowledge.

Payman:
What did you know about that?

Prav:
This was my attitude. If I could learn the anatomy and the ins and outs of the entire human body where every nerve, blood vessel flows, the Krebs cycle, biochemistry, pharmacology, all of that stuff inside out. I’m sure I could figure out this marketing game.

Payman:
What did you do, read?

Prav:
Read blogs, websites, experiment. The biggest piece of confidence that my brother gave me was when he said to me, and back in those days, it was really easy to get your hands on money. He got I think 110% loan to start his business up, and then he got an additional 50 grand loan for the marketing. He goes, “There you go, kid. Do your best.” I said, “What am I supposed to do with it?” He said, “It doesn’t matter. Just splash all over Manchester.” We did radio. We did news like no one else has done before.

Payman:
He gave you a budget of whatever it was.

Prav:
50 grand.

Payman:
50 grand.

Prav:
50 grand.

Payman:
That’s so amazing. The thing is no one, especially back then, was spending 50 grand on marketing.

Prav:
Not even close, mate.

Payman:
I guess you guys had no idea about that. You just said let’s do it.

Prav:
My brother, if you know him or you know of him-

Payman:
I do.

Prav:
There are two words that will come into your mind when you think of my brother, risk taker.

Payman:
Really?

Prav:
Yeah, without a doubt. He’s got a massive set of balls. He takes risks, but he has so much self-belief and ambition. He knows he’s going to do it. In many areas of his life and aspects of his life, he’s done that, and it’s always served him well. Ploughing 50,000 pounds into marketing at a very early stage and trusting your brother who doesn’t have a marketing background to do that, it’s a massive risk. You know what?

Payman:
What happened? Some patients started coming in?

Prav:
Patients started flooding in. I remember the early days-

Payman:
What did you do with the 50 grand, radio?

Prav:
Radio, local newspaper, Google PPC, which was like 20 P a click compared to [crosstalk] really, really early. We’re talking 2005 here, right? 20 P a click, 30 P a click as opposed to the three and four pounds today. We saturated. We made loads of mistakes. If I look at the mistakes we made back then, holy … They were the biggest cardinal mistakes of marketing that you would have made today. You know what? We just grabbed land. What our goal was if anybody in Manchester thought dentistry, I want them to think Kiss Dental.

Payman:
This time, you were also doing your PhD?

Prav:
Yeah, but it was a three-year PhD. I’ve completed it in two. At the same time, I was teaching undergraduate med to medics, so I was lecturing in pharmacology at Oxford University and teaching a few classes and then doing a few pharmacology practicals as well. In terms of the PhD side of things, I had finished my experiments. I’d written up and had a lot of free time on my hands. A lot of this stuff I was doing remotely. I didn’t have to travel back to Manchester and anything like that for it. Ultimately, I was working in the family business, and it’s what I’ve always known. When my dad had the car shop, we worked in the family business. When my dad drove the taxis, we cleaned the taxis.

Prav:
When my brother had a practise, I was working in the family business and everything that I could do to help my brother be successful. Either way, he would have been successful in his own right. He has such a high level of ambition. If you’ve ever met him, you’ll realise that, but that’s what I wanted to do, anything that I could do to help my brother. He became a success. Every patient that walked through that door and met Kailesh fed off his personality, and he performed dentistry for them.

Payman:
Kailesh has got this amazing way of handling people. Many times, you’ve told me over the years that you’ve been delivering patients for loads of dentists, but Kailesh handles them in a really special way.

Prav:
He’s just got this way of lighting up a room. If you’re at a party, at an event, at a course, there is something quite special about him. I’m not just saying that because he’s my brother. He lights up a room. When a patient walks into a consultation, I’m sure he does the same thing. He created the success out of his practise. He was on politics and cars at the time. Some of his colleagues at the time said, who’s doing your marketing? I’ll speak to our kid. He’ll give you a bit of beer money, give them their beer money and he’ll start out, I didn’t have a clue about business. You know what I was charging for a full service back then? 50 quid a month.

Payman:
I asked Kailesh. I saw a video of the Kiss logo flying around doing fun things. It was really good. I came to Kailesh and I said, “Who did that for you? That’s beautiful.” I think it was one of the first times I had ever met him at some conference. He said there’s this company called The Fresh. He didn’t say it was you, his brother. I remember that.

Prav:
I think that was a big era back in the day because we did deliberately separate-

Payman:
Separate.

Prav:
… that because what I didn’t want to do is associate those two things. That was one of the early mistakes I think we made.

Payman:
How about leaving medicine? You had to decide. Was it much more exciting doing the marketing side or were you seduced by that?

Prav:
I did my PhD and passed it, obviously, and I was offered a junior research fellowship, staying on at the same same lab and everything, but I built up a passion because as I was saying earlier, Kailesh was on politics and cars. His friends had said, who’s doing your marketing? I built up a client base of say eight to 10 clients. I can’t remember exactly how many at the time.

Payman:
You had a business.

Prav:
I had a business. I was sending invoices out using Microsoft Word and actually didn’t know what I was doing. I hadn’t registered a company, was pumping money into my personal account until I found an accountant. I was just making all the mistakes you do early on in business, but I loved it. It was in my blood from the early days of cleaning taxis, mopping my dad’s shop, serving customers, selling cigarettes, alcohol, groceries. That was in my blood. It’s what I was born to do. I had a deep conversation with my prof at the time, Professor Tom Cunnane. I remember saying to him, “I really love this marketing thing I’m doing.” I was talking to him about that whole thing. He was a friend, a mentor.

Payman:
Did he not think it was a waste that you were leaving the highest level of research and-

Prav:
Very special guy, Tom. He always used to say to me, “Whatever you do, do it with love. Do it with passionate and enjoy everything you do.” He was a fun loving guy. I remember we used to have our tutorials, first year of medicine. Everyone else would have their tutorials in a classical wooden panelled tutorial office. We had ours in the pub. He was a very, very different guy. Taught us how to learn, taught us about enjoying life and passion. When I sat down and had that real conversation with him, he just said, “Listen, Prav. You got to do what you love. You’ve got to do what you enjoy. Just go and do your thing. There will always be a job here open for you. I hope to never see you again.”

Prav:
I think that was my first springboard into the business world and then everything else just, I made a shit load of mistakes and I learned my mistakes and learn … and I’m still making mistakes. When you evolve through this journey, and this is where I find myself today, if I could turn back the clock, would I have done anything differently? Absolutely not. Would have I gone to med school? 100%, because the skills that I learned in talking to a geriatric patient or talking to a paediatric patient or talking to somebody who is just incapacitated and having to take a history from them, give you all the communication skills that you need to communicate in business today. I remember the first time I met you. I was in complete awe of you.

Payman:
Me?

Prav:
Yeah. You’re the owner of Enlighten. You had the name. The first time I heard your name was Payman, I thought the reason why they call you Payman is that you’ve got loads of cash and you pay for everything.

Payman:
What does that mean?

Prav:
Look, in the early days, I was incredibly naïve.

Payman:
Aren’t we all?

Prav:
You look up to certain people and think, what magical powers do they have? I’m sure listeners out there get this as well, but you’d walk up to a certain person who you were in awe of, and you would feel nervous in their presence.

Payman:
Sure. That’s happened to me many times.

Prav:
I think it’s only later in life when … Certainly for me, the things that have balanced me out in life are kids, getting married.

Payman:
Yeah. It’s a big change in your life, big, big, big change. Definitely. Definitely much more at peace is the way I put it, since you got married. Not that you were broken before, but somehow you’re really completed now that you have kids, it seems like.

Prav:
I think it just … Certainly for me and maybe not for everyone, but for me, it’s unleashed or released an area of happiness. Not that I wasn’t happy, but it’s unleashed an area of happiness that I never thought was attainable or possible. It’s almost impossible to describe the feeling that my children give me in terms of happiness and joy and the completeness of me.

Payman:
You were definitely that dad that as soon as the child was put in your arms felt madly, deeply in love with.

Prav:
Totally.

Payman:
Remember we talked about I didn’t feel that. I hope my kids aren’t listening. Not that I don’t love them, I love them very much, but I didn’t feel that immediate moment of holding the child and immediately.

Prav:
The moment Mahaniya came out, it was a flood of tears. It was this-

Payman:
Which I’ve heard before from others, but that wasn’t my feeling. It’s different for everyone, isn’t it? It’s different for everyone.

Prav:
What about you, Pay, leaving dentistry?

Payman:
Yeah, it was interesting. Dentists ask me this all the time actually. The biggest resistance I had was from my parents actually, saying what a waste. The nice thing … I used to think about that myself, thinking, well, all this study and all this practise. Often I think … I certainly wasn’t the dentist who hated dentistry. I used to like it a lot. I like the patients a lot. I like the interactions a lot, but there came a point where I think it was you actually who sealed it in my head. I said I’m going to give up now and maybe come back to it at a later point. You said, “Well, why would you? Why would you come back? Why wouldn’t you just give up?” I think I hadn’t let go fully emotionally from the profession as such.

Payman:
From the perspective of survival, you really worry as a dentist. You really worry because it’s who you are. I wasn’t a dentist long. I was a dentist for about five years, but definitely I identified as a dentist. I still do by the way. If someone asks me, what do you do? I’m a dentist. The thing that really sealed it for me was the notion that if someone else started a company and it all failed, it really would be a gigantic disaster for them.

Prav:
Sure.

Payman:
Whereas as a dentist, if that happens to you, it’s a gigantic disaster of course, but you’re still a dentist. You can still go out, make some money, feed the family.

Prav:
Amazing fallback option, right?

Payman:
Yeah. Have all the status that comes from being a dentist, albeit by that time you would have wasted a few years and might have to be an associate or something, which I was anyway. I was never a principal of a practise. It’s very interesting because up to that point, I was thinking, no, you wouldn’t leave a profession like dentistry to do something like a business. At that point, it flipped and said, actually, the fact that you’ve got a profession like dentistry behind you is a good reason to go into business and take that risk, which we all know it is. It sounds to me like your business was cash flow positive straight away. We definitely weren’t. We had four years of terrible pain.

Prav:
Going back to when you left, you said one of the hardest things was having that conversation with your folks. Had they invested a lot of time, money and energy into a child becoming a dentist?

Payman:
Immigrant story. Our immigrant story was a bit different in that we had to run away from Iran. It wasn’t that go to a better life immigration. We ran away to a worse life. I’m telling you the way it was. We were very comfortable, very happy over there, and overnight had to get up and come over into a small flat, which is very different to what we were used to out there. An immigrant’s story of doctors and dentists. My brother is a doctor. I became a dentist. When you say invest, every parent invests so heavily, whether it’s financially or not. My brother was always top of the class. I wasn’t. I think they were pretty happy when I qualified as a dentist.

Payman:
When I said I want to stop, my dad is an accountant, and he said, “So what do you want to do?” I said, “We want to do this a teeth whitening thing.” He said, “Let me look at the business plan.” He had a look. There was this page on the business plan that said about legality. Bleaching has been illegal. From when we started in 2001 until 2012, it was illegal.

Prav:
What do you mean illegal?

Payman:
Bleaching was illegal. Concentrations above 0.1%.

Prav:
Even by a dentist?

Payman:
Even by a dentist, it was illegal. My dad looked at this page and he went, “So you’re leaving dentistry to do something illegal.” He said, “I think it’s an error. It’s not actually what you mean, is it?” I said, “No, that’s what I’m doing.” Accountants are risk averse. He said, “Look, I can’t back this.” I think he recognised as an accountant, what you do is you end up watching a bunch of entrepreneurs do well or not as the case may be. He said, “Look, I’m not going to stand in your way, but I do disagree with it.” My mom is similar. She thought it was a big waste.

Prav:
You almost proved him right.

Payman:
Well, yeah, because we had a tough time. It’s tough. It’s tough, tough, tough at the beginning. We had a company called Bright Smile. It was a super well-funded enterprise, and we were going head to head against them. With our flawed business model, we were just … The first four years were painful, properly painful. The funny thing is that’s probably when I met you, and you were in awe of this guy who owns Enlighten. We went badly, man. We were in serious trouble in several moments, three or four times in that first four years where we were about to shut the whole thing down and somehow got through it.

Prav:
What fished you out? How did you get out at the other end?

Payman:
In those moments, we managed. There was a moment where literally the bank called us, “Forget it. We’re shutting you down.” It was the day before Dental Showcase, when that came in. I remember at Dental Showcase literally fighting for our lives. We had a record day at Dental Showcase. It’s the agony and ecstasy of business that we all go through, dentists go through with their practises too.

Prav:
For sure.

Payman:
That happened a few times. For me, the thing that I learnt the most about that is the line between success and failure really is very, very thin. If my son came to me today and said, “I want to start a business,” I’d worry for him a little bit.

Prav:
Would you?

Payman:
A little bit. Times are different. Times are different. When me and you started out, the internet didn’t exist.

Prav:
Well, it did, but … Yeah.

Payman:
Not really with me. When we started out-

Prav:
Yeah, just about.

Payman:
So much that’s available to people now wasn’t available. I’m not necessarily saying it’s easier now. Nothing is easy, is it?

Prav:
It’s not. The way I look at it, a lot of people talk about now is the great time to start at business because it couldn’t be easier. The environment is still the same. The competition is still the same. Everyone is in the same boat. My daughter talks to me now about GCSEs and the fact that, oh, they changed the curriculum. We’re going to be the first year who’s going to be doing chemistry on this new point system, blah, blah, blah. So is every other student. The principles of chemistry do not change. The fundamentals of chemistry do not change. If you are the top student in your class, you’ll come out with the top marks. You look at the change in environment in business. We’ve all got the same environment. This competition, I don’t think it is any easier.

Payman:
I think it’s a super interesting time because 20 years ago, it was impossible to break into some businesses because of the way distribution worked and the way marketing worked. Today it’s almost all the huge brands are challengable and you can see it day after day. Uber comes along and does what it does to the whole taxi industry. You can see how any brand is in trouble if the right competitor comes in.

Prav:
Right. A disruptor comes along, yeah.

Payman:
Right. A disruptor comes in. 20 years ago, it’s very hard to disrupt. You had to get your product on the right shelves. You have to have the right relationships in order to do that. Marketing was TV or.

Prav:
News, national press.

Payman:
Marketing was so expensive that that’s where some brands got a proper stranglehold, which I don’t think is the case today. Today, you need talent for sure. There’s no doubt about that. You still need hard work. You’re right. The basics are the same.

Prav:
The basics will always be the same, for sure.

Payman:
This was supposed to be a 10-minute intro, but we got a bit further into it.

Prav:
Yeah, we digressed, but here’s the thing. I hope that you listeners out there have learned a little bit more about me and Pay.

Payman:
Yeah. I think that’s what we want the podcast to be. We want it to be free form, and we want it to last as long as it lasts. We’re not going to stick to climbing zoey.

Prav:
No, not at all. Not at all. Let the conversation flow. Let it go in whatever direction it goes and hopefully we get beneath the skin and beneath the depth of a lot of people in dentistry and you guys learn a little bit more about everyone.

Payman:
Brilliant. Join us. Listen to the first episode. You’re waving.

Prav:
Bye.

Payman:
Bye.

Speaker 3:
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.