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Transcript

Zainab: Some professions don’t allow that, and then women are torn. They want to be at work but they want to be at home, and they have to then just choose. Not everyone can get the best of both worlds, but I think we’re lucky, we can. It’s not been easy. It’s definitely a struggle. The juggle is real.

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

Prav Solanki: Hey guys. Today we’ve got the pleasure of having Doctor Zainab with us today. You’ve probably come across her on Instagram by witnessing her amazing composite work. Today we’re just going to go a little bit deeper and understand who the real person is behind her Instagram profile. Zainab, I wonder if I can just ask a few questions about where it all started, where were you born, where did you grow up. What was it like growing up with, is it three, younger sisters?

Zainab: Three younger sisters. Yeah. I was born in Glasgow in Scotland to a mum and dad who were both actually in health care. A year after that my sister was born. We lived in Scotland for about seven years in a town called Paisley not far from Glasgow and then moved to London for a few years. Then when I was about 11 my mum who’s a dentist was offered a job in the Middle East in Oman to run a dental department in a new private hospital.

Zainab: She was really, really up for the venture, and, for her, her dream had always been to live in front of the sea, work in front of the sea, kind of that environment. She’d known the lifestyle there to be quite chilled out. We went.

Prav Solanki: How old were you then?

Zainab: 11.

Prav Solanki: 11. Okay.

Zainab: The plan was that my father would come too, but he was in a consultant post here as a surgeon. Really stable, really quite happy in his job, and the job offers he was getting in Oman were a bit too far from home that would match the level he was at here. If he were to move with us, he would have had to not live at home anyway which defied the point.

Zainab: Three years in we decided to come back. We came back. It was also the time, it was time for GCSEs and it made sense that we just started that serious level of education here.

Prav Solanki: If I understand rightly, you moved away for three years.

Zainab: We moved away.

Prav Solanki: Without dad.

Zainab: Without dad. He came and went a lot, and we came and went a lot. It was really fun three years actually, the best three years of my life. Just living in the Middle East was amazing. The lifestyle is so relaxed. We start school at 7:30. We finish at 2:30, 3:00 max. Go to the beach. Everything’s just so relaxed. Mum’s literally where she wants to be in front of the sea and we just had such a good time. People are lovely. The lifestyle, everything’s open till late. You just feel like you’re on holiday but living there all the …

Zainab: Level of study, the level of education or the quality of education was really, really high. Actually, quite intense. If you failed your final year exams you’d have to retake the year. There was that pressure there. We went to an international school. Things were at a high level. We felt that pressure and from that sense, but it was compensated by the nice lifestyle.

Zainab: Then we came back. We came back after three years and just settled back. Then I did my GCSEs here in London, A levels and went to university, and have been here since. I was 14 when I came back.

Prav Solanki: What was that transition like when you came back in terms of the cultural environment being back with dad, I assume, and the education, the difference in education as well? If you can just summarise that.

Zainab: Coming back and being dad again was really nice. For him, especially, I think he really just wanted us back to just everyone settle back to the lifestyle that we had, the life we had here all together. Having said that, being a consultant surgeon he did locum a lot, and he had nights. For us, we were always used to him being back and forth and the nature of his work as a doctor was like that. Still, all being in the same home is always wonderful, isn’t it?

Zainab: Then in terms of settling back, to be very honest with you it was a bit gloomy. Because coming from that environment where everything’s just sunny and nice and relaxed, and here life is a bit more of a rat race. It took some time to adapt. I think we were all a bit upset about that aspect and missed it. At that age you kind of just adapt and get on with it. We were back at school and getting serious now about wanting to plan our futures and education and all of that.

Zainab: The education itself coming back actually it was quite … I came back when I was joining year 10. A lot of the subjects were kind of, I’d already studied them in Oman. I felt a bit like one step ahead. Then comes in all the examining boards and the nature of trying to revise for exams, and then the pressure was just on. It’s all about getting the grades and planning what I wanted to do. I was very clear I wanted to do dentistry.

Payman L: When did you decide that?

Zainab: I literally grew up with my mum being a dentist. It was sometimes my afterschool club. We’d get dropped off there or she’d have to come back and see a patient. I spent a lot of time growing up in the dental practise. Revising, studying for exams, things like that, in the dental practise. That was like second home. For me, seeing that, it was always very interesting and actually, funny enough, my mum is really good at composite bonding. I vividly remember her building up fractured teeth and just thinking, “Wow.”

Zainab: She would do it really probably in different techniques to now, but really, really effectively, quickly, and it just looked like magic. I was like, “Wow. I want to be able to do that.” Then what was really nice and what really inspired me, she was a big inspiration, was that she just was always so calm about everything. She made it look like it wasn’t particularly stressful. She was enjoying it and she was passionate about it and that always came across. That definitely, I feel, was an influence. I’d say really young. I can’t put my finger on it but well before GCSEs.

Prav Solanki: Exam time, school time, were you a swotty kid? Were you a grafter or were you just naturally gifted and smart and clever?

Zainab: I’m not sure. I definitely did work hard. My study style is to concentrate really, really heavily on something, rather than scan everything and try and absorb a lot of things at the same time. I dive into something. When I’m studying I take long, I take hours and hours to cover a subject, because I won’t go onto the next page till I’ve mastered that page. That was my study style. I’d say I’m a concentrator.

Prav Solanki: From my own cultural background, it was always destined that we would go into health care because it’s what our father wanted for us and wanted more from us than he got out of life, which was shopkeeper and taxi driver, and he worked so hard to put us through school. Was there ever any of that pressure on you to go into health care or at least to follow a certain stereotypical career path?

Zainab: I don’t remember it being verbalised. I think it came from me. I think maybe my mum was secretly relieved because she was so into it. I don’t remember it ever being something that was talked about as something that we should pursue. I do remember when I had decided on dentistry, my dad was a bit like, “But why not medicine?” There was this competition between the two.

Payman L: What did the other three end up doing?

Zainab: The one sister who’s directly younger than me, Ustra, did do dentistry as well. The third one did business and politics, and then the fourth one did dentistry and she recently qualified. Three of us are dentists. It wasn’t something that they pushed on us at all. No.

Prav Solanki: Moving on from obviously wanting to be a dentist and now being where you are today, was it always cosmetics that you were interested in? You mentioned that you saw, you all witnessed your mother doing amazing composites. Is that what initially got you started in cosmetics?

Zainab: That drew me towards it. It drew me towards the idea that this is a creative thing, and then what also drew me towards it was seeing my mum talk to patients a lot and build relationships. She really enjoyed those relationships. I’d see her chatting with them. That was a nice aspect of the work that I saw. I was really interested in biology and oral surgery.

Zainab: My mum actually went into the oral surgery pathway. She did a master’s in implants and went in that direction. I saw a lot of that. For me, to be honest, all of that was appealing for me. It wasn’t just the art. I didn’t know that I was going to go down the cosmetic points at that stage. I just was interested in everything.

Zainab: Then when I started university, I just wanted to be good at all of the disciplines. I took an interest in everything. Really only until about two years after qualifying did it crystallise that the one thing that really is fulfilling for me is really sculpting teeth and getting creative. That laboratory side. Not dentures, but that laboratory side where they’re looking at shapes of teeth and smile design. I’d look at people and see things that I wanted to change in their smiles.

Zainab: If I had a fractured tooth in a small child, rather than just doing a usual quick, I don’t want to say quick NHS, but you know what I mean. Rather than just a quick build up, I would sit there and really try and perfect it. That’s how I started practising . Nurses would comment at university as well. My final year case was a tooth wear case that needed full mouth rehabilitation. That’s quite advanced for a student.

Payman L: Where did you study?

Zainab: Kings. That was quite advanced for a student. I was thrown in the deep end with making a denture for this patient, root canals, perio surgery on him, and composites, upper and lower. That’s a lot for a final year case. I remember chasing Professor Stephen Dunne, literally chasing him around just trying to understand everything behind how to get this right.

Zainab: And reading. There were different views on this specific case. I had to then just make sense of it all myself. Out of all those parts, all those disciplines that were involved in his case, the bit that I really delved into was sculpting those composites and calling him back in to repolish and change the shape a bit. Nurses would come in and say, “This is going to be your thing. This is what you’re going to do.” I was like, “Yeah. I really enjoy this.”

Zainab: Then when I was in practise doing NHS dentistry, if, like I said, I had a fractured tooth, I’d just spend ages on it. Then the mother would say, “Can we see it? Look, are you proud of your art? Look, that’s lovely. Dah-dah dah.” There was always this thing, reinforcement from people who would see what I was doing, and say, “You look really passionate about that. This is probably something you should do more of.”

Zainab: Then it just grew from there and just really enjoyed that. I knew that I wanted to expand on it, and then I did more cosmetic courses.

Payman L: Did you always work at your mum’s practise, or did you work at other people’s practise?

Zainab: My first practise was the VT Practise in High Wycombe. I then stayed on for another nine months as an associate. It was about two hours from home at the time. I was driving back and forth and it was becoming quite tedious after nine months, eight, nine months. I then just thought, “It’s time to settle closer to home.” Then it was my mum’s practise. She had an NHS practise before this Harrow on the Hill one. I joined her NHS practise.

Zainab: She then started getting quite comforted by the fact that her daughters were now qualified dentists, quite confident, know what they’re doing. She started taking a little step back, slowly, slowly. It was actually at that point that she started planning her retirement. You know we came back from Oman, so she’s now in Oman. She retired and gone back. That was her dream. She’s built a home there.

Zainab: During that time that she was building that home, she was more and more busy with that, less and less involved in the practise. I was becoming more and more responsible for things. I began, I’d say, running or holding the fort of an NHS practise first about probably two or three years after qualifying, on the surface. I’d hold the fort in the sense that I was looking after things on the ground. She was still running the business, so to speak. I pursued a yearlong cosmetic dentistry course and then knew that I wanted to now advance my skills.

Prav Solanki: Who was that with?

Zainab: It was Professor Paul Tipton in Manchester. I’d go in once a month, travel in, and it just gave me a broad overview of cosmetic dentistry, crystallised that that was a path I was feeling really, really passionate about and wanted to excel in. She didn’t plan this, because she was retiring, but she just had a light-bulb moment where she was actually sitting in Café Café just opposite this dental, well, it wasn’t a dental practise at the time. It was just a remote building in Harrow on the Hill.

Zainab: She was kind of just getting a bit tired of running this NHS practise. My mum is one to always have projects. She just went and asked an estate agent, and she inquired about this place. She had a look at it, et cetera. Bottom line is, cut a long story short, she bought the place and set it up from scratch. Then she didn’t let us work there for a good few years. It was probably about three, four years before we were allowed to see patients there, because she wanted it to be really topnotch private dentistry, and we had to prove ourselves to her. It was very slowly, slowly. Then in 2013 I started working there properly.

Zainab: Ever since I’d say two years post-grad it’s been in my mum’s practises. She’s now sold the NHS one to somebody else. I just couldn’t see myself there for the long-term. The Harrow one she’s now sold to me.

Prav Solanki: What’s it like? I think your entry into business is completely different to everyone that we’ve spoke to traditionally, who have gone in, been very naive about business, and then started setting up a practise and learning all about the business of dentistry. Whereas it almost feels like since you were a child you were absorbing business by osmosis by doing your homework in the dental practise. Do you think a lot of the business acumen and knowledge, do you think that’s come from an early age just by observing your mother?

Zainab: You know what, I still don’t know how much business acumen I really do have. I feel like that’s an area that I’ve just landed into. I don’t think I’m very business-minded. I think I’ve been really patient-focused, patient-centred treatment. That’s my thing. I think that indirectly is what’s grown my … After mum retired, over the last three years I started just working really hard, but not because I wanted to make lots of money. It was because I was really into it.

Zainab: The bystander effect was that the clientele just grew. It was actually when I saw that it was growing that I felt confident enough to say, “I can buy this practise and keep it running, because I think I’ve grown the clientele here enough to keep it running well.” It wasn’t something, I don’t think I have a huge interest in business per se, or have an entrepreneurial spirit or anything like that really. It’s mainly the dentistry, and I think the effect of that is just that it’s grown well.

Zainab: My husband takes care of more of the business side than I do. I’m a really details person and I’ll get involved in everything, but financially he will make a lot of wise decisions. Whereas I will look at how people will perceive things or what branding it should have, branding should look, and things like that. It’s different.

Payman L: Running a business, owning a business has a financial aspect to it, but I wouldn’t say that’s the key aspect. Sorry.

Zainab: No.

Zainab: Well, not the way I see it in any case.

Payman L: The branding is a big, huge part of it. The way you handle your customers, your patients, and then the way you handle your people.

Zainab: That’s the crux.

Payman L: Your customers and your people really is the crux.

Zainab: Is the crux. That’s where my mind is.

Payman L: I know why you’re saying that you don’t think of yourself as a business person because you think of yourself as a dentist. You can be both. You can be both. It’s funny, because when Prav says it, he says it with a glow. In your world, business is a glowing thing, whereas I feel like Zainab doesn’t want to be known as a business person. She wants to be known as a doctor.

Zainab: It’s just that I don’t think in numbers. It may change, and I think I’d take pride in it still if it changed. I don’t have any qualm with it. It’s just that I just don’t have that way of …

Prav Solanki: I think you’ve probably nailed most aspects about business that a lot of dentists have to train and learn that you take for granted. For example, speaking to people, communicating, sales without selling, marketing. How much does Instagram influence your business? Does it generate new patients for you?

Zainab: It does, for sure.

Prav Solanki: You’re a marketer.

Zainab: Yes.

Payman L: Definitely.

Zainab: It’s how it’s ended up being. Yeah.

Prav Solanki: Marketing’s a huge aspect of running a business. I think a lot of this has probably come through osmosis and you are a successful businesswoman in your own right. I guess what you’re thinking about is patients come first and the detail in that.

Zainab: You’re right. Social media, it’s had a huge influence. I would say that it’s put the word out there. It has, and it’s essentially been a huge source of advertising. That’s it really. That’s been huge. People then know where you are, who you are, what you’re up to, the quality of your work, and it reaches far and wide. Definitely has been a big influence. I didn’t start it thinking it would be but it has.

Prav Solanki: When was the point, what was the turning point where you thought, “Crikey, this Instagram stuff is really working”? Was it after a month, a year, six months? What was the point where it was-

Zainab: No. It was about two years ago. I first started my Instagram about five years ago, four or five years ago or six maybe now. I’m losing track of time. I think two years ago is when I really noticed. I started posting more. When I first started out, I was just posting sporadically here and there, nothing really consistent. It was making a bit of a difference, but it was a small circle that it was exposed to.

Zainab: Then the following slowly, slowly grew. As it grew, the inquiries grew, and I got busier. I found it harder to post, but because I saw that it was helpful and because patients would come in and say, “I’ve seen this photo, can you tell me more about it? I’ve seen what you wrote in your caption. It was actually really informative. I hadn’t ever come across composite bonding.” I thought captions make a difference. Let’s explain this properly. I felt quite responsible about what I was sharing. I just started to think more about what to share and doing it whenever I could.

Zainab: I just gradually noticed that it was working. Patients would come and mention it. We have a feedback. In our registration forms in the practise, it says, “Where did you hear about the practise?” I’d see Instagram a lot, and I thought, “Wow. Actually this is really influential.” About two years ago.

Prav Solanki: Did that change your focus of how you was going to approach Instagram? Have you got a strategy, hashtags, pictures right-hand side, dentistry middle column, lifestyle, that sort of thing? Have you got a strategy or a-

Zainab: I do now.

Payman L: Yeah. I noticed that there’s noses and lips on the left-hand side.

Zainab: Yes. That’s it exactly.

Prav Solanki: Has that just come about by chance or have you learned the craft of Instagram and hacked the algorithm?

Zainab: I definitely haven’t hacked any algorithm. I’ve been hearing that there is an algorithm and I don’t quite know what it means. What happened is I was just posting without any themes. I had a lot to post, lots of content. I’d sit there and think, “I don’t know which one to post. Should I post this one or this one?” I’d look at my page. It just looked a bit messy. Being in aesthetic dentistry or aesthetic medicine you are all about being visual about things. I thought I really want to make this look neat.

Zainab: I’m doing lots of different things, and I don’t know how people will understand really how one minute I’m posting teeth and the next minute it’s a nose, and then the next minute it’s something else, and then randomly I’ll put something miscellaneous. I just thought, “Why don’t I just do a column, one of each?” It actually looked nicer and I just carried on doing it.

Prav Solanki: Wow. In terms of business now, where does the majority of your new patients come from? Is it still Instagram?

Zainab: Word of mouth, so families now. It’s the sisters and the mums. It just grows like that. Instagram has still been a big part of it because it’s reaching people further out who live far away, but I’m now seeing lots and lots of siblings and friends of friends and so on. As far as even, which is really nice, if a dental student comes and shadows, they’ll bring their mum next time. It’s really nice. It’s just growing in that way.

Prav Solanki: How much personal content do you put on there, like real life stuff? Do you put your personal life, what you’re up to, going here, or here on holiday, shopping there and that sort of stuff?

Zainab: I didn’t used to. I thought of it as this is just a professional page. I’ll just show my professional aspect and nothing really personal. Then friends of mine said, “Do you know, it would be nice if you just shared a bit about you.” Because I think people would like to see it. I’d ask patients, so they’d come in and I’d get to know them a bit, et cetera. They’d mention Instagram, and then they’d say, “I saw you were doing this or that.” I thought, “What do you think about it? Do you think I should share more personal stuff?” They’d say, “Yeah. Think it’s really nice for people to connect and see what you’re about.”

Zainab: I had that encouragement. I just thought, right, I’ll do little snippets. I’m still quite reserved, and it’s just still very much little snippets. I think slowly, slowly I’m willing to share a little bit more with time. It still is predominantly a professional page, and it will always, I think, just be snippets.

Payman L: We just had Linda Greenwall. She runs a group for women in dentistry. What’s your view on women in dentistry? Would you say it’s harder being a woman dentist than a man dentist?

Zainab: I haven’t experienced that yet. I was a little bit confused at first when I saw groups like that. I listened to what was being talked about and I understand that a lot of women have had difficult experiences. I can’t say that I have. I don’t know whether it’s just been lucky, or it could be that I’ve been oblivious to it at university and in my VT. When I see somebody being particularly difficult, I don’t necessarily assume it’s because I’m a woman.

Zainab: I just haven’t really felt like that, and I generally don’t have a victim mentality. I haven’t seen that. Maybe it’s a factor that I’ve been under my mother’s practise for a long time. I’ve still been exposed to five years at dental school and VT, two years, that’s a good seven years. I never experienced anything to be honest.

Payman L: Linda was saying that there aren’t enough women speakers. Have you noticed that? Have you thought about teaching, that sort of thing?

Zainab: I’ve been fortunate to have been asked to teach facial aesthetics. I’ve been doing that for the last five years. I would love to teach and speak more. I have noticed that there is a little imbalance, but only because it’s been highlighted. I wasn’t really focusing on it and noticing it much. It’s been highlighted more recently and I do agree that there is that. I think women should get out there more.

Zainab: I was talking to someone about this recently, and I can’t put my finger on the reason. I don’t want to necessarily think it’s because if women fall into this trap of feeling victimised, it’s not going to get much better. I think part of it is that women need to put themselves out there a bit more, so women need to put themselves forward and say, “I can do this. Would you like me to?”

Payman L: Women are less confident than men.

Zainab: I don’t know if it’s that. Because I think women have a lot of inner confidence. It’s a complex thing, and I think it comes from a combination of things. Partly women think I’m not sure I’ll be able to balance this with my life, if they’re particularly busy with home life and other things. I think although they think they can do it, they’re worried about rejection. I think that sometimes, and this is where now men’s mentality might come into things, is I think that there is this thing where women are thought to be nurturing, you know traditionally nurturing, home people, and although we’re successful dentists, et cetera, we’re quite happy not using our voice.

Zainab: There is this assumption that women don’t mind, but actually I think women have a lot to offer. I think that does need to change. There needs to be more of an emphasis on what women can deliver in our …

Prav Solanki: Do you think being a mother factors into that? Linda was talking earlier about being a mother, feeding the child, waking up early, waking up at night, running the practise. Eight days after giving birth she was in the practise, and just balancing all of that. Talk me through, you’re a mother. You’ve got one on the way in about 10 days time. Just talk us through how you balance all that and how that factors in your future success.

Zainab: It’s not easy. It’s really hard work. I work really, really, really, really hard, but I don’t know if I would have if I didn’t really enjoy the work. I think because I enjoy it and it gives me so much fulfilment, it’s become a part of my identity. For me to sit at home continuously for a whole year would be dampening down something that’s really there throughout, like really wanting to do something. I couldn’t do it.

Zainab: I tried to. I was at home for six months with my daughter, really enjoyed it. She’s my number one. It meant the world to me to have her. That constant feeding, that constant nappies, and so on, and just literally just being in that routine and not being able to talk to a child. At some point you just want to get out and do what you do.

Zainab: Seven months in I was really trying to get back to work and finding a support network to make it work. I just did it really, really gradually. It wasn’t easy. I nursed my baby for two years, but I still went to work. I just worked around everything. I think what’s beautiful about dentistry is that women have the option to work part-time, and then just build up and adapt according to your child’s needs. You can make it work. Some professions don’t allow that and then women are torn, and they want to be at work, but they want to be at home, and they have to then just choose.

Zainab: Not everyone can get the best of both worlds. I think we’re lucky, we can. It’s not been easy. It’s definitely a struggle. The juggle is real. It’s definitely tough.

Payman L: Zainab, I think it’s even happened to me. I’ve been a fat bald Iranian in Kent, in some little town in Kent I was the dentist. The guy would walk in expecting to see a dentist, what he thought was a dentist. I could see he was just sort of immediately thinking, “Oh, who’s this guy?” Have you had that happen, you have people come in and not expecting to see a woman in a headscarf as their dentist?

Zainab: I have had that. Yes.

Payman L: Go on. Tell us about that.

Zainab: I’ve had, and it’s not been verbalised, but you just get the vibe. I’ve had mainly men walk in, arms folded, and they just think, I don’t know what exactly they’re thinking. Either, “I don’t think she’s going to be able to help me.” Or maybe they don’t like the headscarf. I have no idea, but there’s something defensive there before we’ve even started talking.

Prav Solanki: You know exactly what it is.

Zainab: I’m not always sure. I’ve had vibes.

Payman L: I mean sometimes people are nervous when they come to, a lot of times.

Zainab: It could be that, so anxiety, for sure, is always one. Sometimes you just get the vibe. You can see the moment you have that eye contact there’s a thought …

Payman L: Visual cues.

Zainab: … in their mind. Once they’ve sat in the chair, and I’m really passionate about personal development. I’ve done lots of all of that stuff for the last, I’d say, about seven years. I am quite good at making a situation not about me and turning a situation around that can initially be awkward and proving that there’s a lot of value to come in this conversation or in this appointment.

Zainab: I can then within a few minutes see their hands relax and they start just listening to what I’m saying, and then the building of the trust. I’ve managed to overcome those moments. It’s never been something that’s limited me or actually put me off. I just get through it and manage to turn it around quite well. Actually they become quite loyal patients. I’ve never had an issue.

Payman L: It’s a good attitude to have on it though.

Zainab: Yeah. Because a lot of it is just perception, and it’s not what it is. You can turn it around just by showing who you are, rather than getting defensive and going in a bubble. There’s no point. Just you’re there to deliver something and let that shine.

Payman L: I think in the same way as when someone complains, you can turn them into your best patients by handling them correctly.

Zainab: Exactly.

Payman L: The same way, if they come in with a minus feeling you can equal and opposite that.

Zainab: Exactly.

Payman L: Tell me about your composite work, because I think in the end right now you’re here because of the fact that you’ve come up on our radar, on the Mini Smile Makeover with really beautiful composite work.

Zainab: Thank you.

Payman L: It really is. Do you feel like that can be taught? Do you feel like there’s a talent there?

Zainab: Yeah. I’m sure it can be taught.

Payman L: Because we grapple with this a lot. We teach 30 dentists a month on this subject.

Zainab: Really?

Payman L: Some people are always scared that, “I don’t have the talent.” We’re always saying that if you follow the simple steps you can get there. What was your journey from the composite perspective?

Zainab: I’ve always had a background where my mum draws paintings and she used to encourage us. Art was always something we just found really fascinating. We’d love drawing and we were quite particular about things.

Payman L: Actually, some of your first Instagram posts were drawings of-

Zainab: Yeah. Were actually drawings.

Payman L: I saw that.

Zainab: I’m quite particular about how things are done in my hands. They need to be a certain way. When it came to composites, I think that it was literally just practise, practise, practise. Then I’d look at pictures, look at what’s this beautiful smile, what’s desirable. I shadowed a dentist in Beverly Hills, Dorfman, Doctor Dorfman. He had wall pictures, like you’ve got smiles here. He had lots of these. I’d look and just really absorb what was a beautiful smile, and then just try and recreate it.

Zainab: I had a slightly, well, you could say OCD approach towards a composite. If I was doing a tooth, I wouldn’t let the patient leave until I was really happy with it. I’d seat them up, have a look, check with the lips, check with everything. “Sorry. Can I just sit you back down? Can I just polish that bit a bit?” That was how I was doing it. Then the rewarding feeling of their reaction, and it’s addictive when patients are that happy about something.

Zainab: Then I just wanted to build on it. It was taught, at the same time, of course, because I went on the Paul Tipton course. Doctor Monique ran some of his courses at the time. This was 2012.

Payman L: When he was teaching Tipton’s … Yeah.

Zainab: When he was teaching us, so quite a long time ago, about seven years ago. We did composites then. We also had a day where lab technicians came in and we did wax ups. On that day, we all did wax ups, so four front teeth. The lab technician took mine and said, “I like this one.” There’s always that positive encouragement. Then it was experimenting with different instruments, finding that warming composite really makes such a difference. It just built up, and then photography.

Zainab: I’d take photos and I’d go home and I’d look, and I just wouldn’t like something. Then I’d know what I want to change next time. It was just building on all of that. It’s definitely a process, and I still have lots to learn, I’m sure, constantly. And capturing the line angles, and, yeah, definitely lots more to learn.

Payman L: What are your plans going forward?

Zainab: I want to continue doing what I’m doing, but just continue taking it to the next level each time. I am, where I am, really happy doing what I’m doing now. I just want to do more of it. I’ve recently done a course by Doctor Sam Jethwa, Bespoke Smile. What that was all about, it was translating minimally invasive dentistry into porcelain veneers, mainly so that we can deliver porcelain veneers in an ethical way so that we have the longevity without the staining and so on.

Zainab: That’s the pitfall, I think, just of composite. Although what I love about composite, what really drew me is I could transform someone’s smile in a completely additive way without drilling their teeth. Always felt ethical. Could sleep at night. Happy. Everyone’s happy. The staining over time for some patients who aren’t good with their diets is a limitation. If I can translate that ethical way or that minimally invasive way into delivering porcelain veneers, that’s what I want to start doing more of where applicable.

Prav Solanki: What’s the replacement time for composite veneers? I’ve had numerous conversations with either people who teach composite veneers or other dentists who do them. They say a big worry is that after three years or however long it is that they’re probably going to need redoing. I just want to get an idea in terms of how easy is it to redo a composite veneer or is that the time where porcelain kicks in?

Zainab: I would then just have to put it to a patient. I tell patients that it will last somewhere between three to seven years, and that it’s very dependent on your diet, your maintenance, how often you come in, eating habits. Do you grind your teeth? All the colourful things in their diet, but also how hard the foods are that they’re eating. I have that discussion and I think what I’ve found is it’s really variable and really does depend on all those things. I can never really truly predict when a composite’s going to need replacement. I just tell them-

Payman L: You also haven’t been around long enough to see your composites seven years.

Zainab: Yeah. Exactly. I’ve seen that over the last five years my rate of chips, fractures is not high but the staining is something I see a lot.

Payman L: Staining’s definitely the primary concern.

Zainab: That’s the primary thing. Yeah.

Payman L: Then obviously polishing is a big factor. The composite you use is a big factor, by the way.

Zainab: Yeah. This is something I’m learning and want to go into a bit more actually. At that point when it fails, it’s having that conversation again. I always warm them. There’s always we’ve got a consent form. I’m always warning them this is something that requires maintenance. When it chips, you’ll need to have it either replaced or repaired or look at plan B. That’s instilled into all consultations.

Payman L: When you say you want to do more of what you’re doing now, I mean that could be you want to open six more practises, or it could mean you want to-

Zainab: It’s the nature of my work. No. Just the clinical.

Payman L: You want to only do minimally invasive cosmetic dentistry yourself and let other people do other. Is that what you mean?

Zainab: Yeah. I want to continue doing minimally invasive dentistry, but really, really get a bit more transformative in my smiles. Apply more disciplines to my smile makeovers and expand on my facial aesthetics. I now do mainly facial aesthetics injectables and skin care. I’d like to expand a bit more. There’s so much more out there, but it’s a real …

Payman L: What, the lasers and things?

Zainab: There’s loads. Yeah. There’s loads. I’m not one to just try and do everything. Like I said, I want to master one thing before I go onto the next, which means I take my time. I don’t jump into things too quickly. My vision is to just become more of an expert in what I’m doing clinically. In terms of business and buying more practises, I don’t visualise it. I don’t visualise me buying many. I want this one to be really, really, really successful, fruitful, have the reputation it deserves and represent us really well.

Payman L: How many years out of college are you?

Zainab: Nine years.

Payman L: You seem to have a real head on your shoulders. Self-awareness firstly. Which is rare at your age. Also, you seem to be relaxed with your progress. A lot of times with people at your level, at your stage, there’s an impatience. You don’t seem to have that. You seem to be very relaxed in your skin.

Zainab: The reason is-

Payman L: What do you attribute that? Have you always been that way?

Zainab: I’ve always been that way. I think it’s partly the parenting, I think, I’ve had, that’s just constantly instilling confidence. Parents are amazing. They’re role models. I’ve seen them always be quite grounded, level-headed, patient. They have goals but they always instilled this idea of contentment.

Payman L: You say that, but my brother and me are totally different. His brother and him are totally different. Same parents.

Zainab: It’s true. That’s absolutely true. My sister and I are completely different. Absolutely. It’s just the way that I perceive things. Contentment is something that they always talk about. Then personal development’s something I literally dived into when I was about 25. I’m now 34. When I was there, oh gosh, it was just literally-

Payman L: Have you done programmes?

Zainab: Yeah.

Payman L: What have you done?

Zainab: There’s one called The Landmark Forum.

Payman L: I’ve done that.

Zainab: Have you done it?

Payman L: Yeah. I’ve done that.

Zainab: What did you think?

Payman L: I didn’t like it.

Zainab: Really?

Payman L: Yeah.

Zainab: I loved it.

Payman L: I got it. I got it.

Zainab: You got it.

Payman L: I got it. I understood it, and I’m running rackets. Yeah. Definitely. For those of you who’ve …

Zainab: For whoever else knows.

Payman L: Did you go master’s level …

Zainab: If you know, you know.

Payman L: … and all of the … Did you just keep on going?

Zainab: I did the advanced course.

Payman L: I found it a bit cultish.

Zainab: I get that. What I did is I chose what to take from it, and then what I felt wasn’t of value.

Payman L: What else?

Zainab: Essentially I found it really useful. I drew loads from it.

Payman L: It’s a nice way to delete your past and just go forward. I like the idea a lot. What else did you do?

Zainab: Other than Landmark Forum.

Payman L: Yeah.

Zainab: Well, Landmark Forum really was a big part of it. With the Landmark Forum it was a three day, as you know, three days. Then there’s 10 seminars that you do. For about three months every single week I’d go in, and then the advanced course. Then I just thought, “Right, now I’ve got these tools, I need to go out there and live it.” They wanted me to do the next step, and I just thought, “I’m at a stage where I now need to just go out there and use all this, this toolkit and see if it’s working.”

Zainab: It was. I was really quite happy with it. To be honest, it’s quite intense. I was quite drained from all those evenings there, days and evenings. It’s really intense, but the value I got from it was something that you do not forget. It’s like riding a bike. You don’t go back. They’re tools forever. Essentially, it was about trying to not delete. I get what you mean by delete the past.

Payman L: I wasn’t saying in a bad way.

Zainab: No. No. In a way that can be good, but it’s about choosing what you want to keep about your interpretations of yourself and getting rid of your limiting factors, your limiting thoughts, and then having a blank canvas, and then creating. How that manifested is you know how I gave the example it’s not about me in an interaction? If I choose it not to be.

Payman L: Mm-hmm.

Zainab: That’s the power I got, that actually someone there has got a story and how they’re perceiving me is that is the story. It’s not real. That allows me to filter out its significance completely. It’s mindfulness. Ultimately it all came back to mindfulness. Then I did lots of other little things, meditation, mindfulness, et cetera. To be honest, the value I’ve got most was actually the Landmark Forum.

Payman L: Have you done it?

Zainab: Then some reading, but the Landmark Forum-

Prav Solanki: Do you meditate now, or is that part of daily practise?

Zainab: I would like it to be but it’s not now. It was up until I had my three year old, and then she is my every spare minute.

Prav Solanki: Got you.

Zainab: It’s something that I should aspire to go back to, because it really does help to just take a few moments a day. Definitely.

Prav Solanki: What’s your routine like as a mother, wife, and practise owner and practitioner?

Payman L: How many days a week do you drill?

Zainab: I work four days a week. They’re pretty long days. Sometimes 10, 11 hour days.

Prav Solanki: You start at?

Zainab: Start at about 10:00. I got into this routine where at least I’d give her breakfast and do the morning thing with her, and then go to work. Because I start at 10:00, I could work a bit later. In 2018 I got into the habit of working routinely till about 8:00, 9:00 PM, and, to be honest, losing track of time, and just being really, really into it. Then I made a New Year’s resolution this year that I had to get more work-life balance. Now I aim to not see any patients past 6:00, sometimes it drags to 6:30, but then there’s recordkeeping, et cetera. Now I get home at a reasonable time. Which …

Prav Solanki: Which is?

Zainab: … for some is not reasonable. Compared to last year it is. It’s about 7:30.

Payman L: Your husband, Ahmad, what does he do? Same thing.

Zainab: Yeah. Ahmad’s different. He’s more of an early bird, so he starts at 8:00 and traditionally used to finish about 5:30, 6:30. Now that he’s joined Harrow, he’s still starting at 8:00 but finishing later. He’s working really hard. We’ve talked about trying to achieve more work-life balance now. Now that we have a second baby on the way, and we both need to cap it really. Normal, sociable hours, 5:30, 6:00-ish. That’s our goal. Then if it happens on the off day or we will allocate an evening per week, that’s fine, but it shouldn’t be every day.

Prav Solanki: What happens with the little one when you guys are at work? You see her in the morning, do the breakfast thing, and then, what is it, nursery support?

Zainab: This is in those four days, so what I did is Layla, I didn’t take her to nursery for three years. I was nagged to and advised to by in-laws and others. My feeling towards nursery was that she was too young to be in an environment where she was going to be floating around many others. I’d looked at the Department of Health psychologists and what they’ve said, and three is the optimum age, so I stuck to that. Up until three I wanted her to have that one-to-one, either me on my three days off or somebody really, really trusted and who’s bonded to her.

Zainab: That person was the nanny that we have. She has been like the Mrs Doubtfire of our house. A real support. Without her I don’t know whether I’d be doing what I’m doing. She started coming just one day a week when Layla was seven months old and bonded loads with her. Then slowly I built it into two days. I didn’t start doing four days until about 12 months ago. It was about three days for a while.

Zainab: They just really had a lovely bond. I could see that Layla was happy, and that gave me the comfort to carry on doing what I’m doing. The routine, where my husband came into this is in 2018 where I worked intensely he would come home before me, and he would take over. Sometimes he’d get her to bed. Sometimes he wouldn’t. Sometimes I’d arrive late and she’s still awake and I’ll just take over. It was just teamwork. You know what, there’s no recipe where it’s all perfect.

Zainab: I was saying this to someone the other day who was like, “I’m worried about how I’ll juggle and should I have children?” I said, “Of course just do it and then survive it.” Because you just make it work. We step in. Whoever is there will step in.

Prav Solanki: As a team.

Zainab: Yeah. As a team. Now that we both work the practise in the last seven months, I’m getting home before him, and now he’s taken the later evenings and doing things, so we’re just teamwork.

Payman L: What’s your top tip to someone considering buying a practise now? I know it’s a bit different because you bought your mum’s, but what’s your top tip about running a business as opposed to just working in one?

Zainab: I think choosing the right practise is a big thing. I had the choice to have bought my mum’s NHS practise. I wouldn’t have minded buying an NHS practise but I didn’t like the area. I didn’t think the clientele were the type of clientele that I could do the type of work I wanted to do on for many years.

Zainab: I think deciding what you want to do with the rest of your dental career, getting clear on what kind of treatments you want to offer is important. Because then you’ll choose the right area and I think the area really matters, and the type of clientele that will come in through the door. If you are quite entrepreneurial, don’t mind taking a step back and just having a business running, then you could worry less about that. If you want to be actively involved, you have to think about who you’re going to be seeing every day and whether you want to do those kind of treatments.

Zainab: I think that’s probably, for me, one of the main things I’m thinking of when you asked me that. Other than that, all the business, all the financial side, to be honest, quite alien to me. I would say get a really good accountant who advises you really well. Always, always think about your why. You mentioned a few things, and just going back to personal development, one of the things I got was any decision going forward I really have to think about my why.

Zainab: Even on social media, we touched on the value of social media. When it gets too much I’m always thinking, “Why? What is my social media about?” Because it can get really, really too much, as so many people are talking about this now. Any decision I always go back to my why. I would really advise people get to grips with understanding why they’re doing something, what’s the driving force, and that will crystallise a lot.

Prav Solanki: Do you ever get social media overload? You know you kind of feel like, “Someone’s left a comment. I’ve got to respond to this.” And all of a sudden before you know it you’ve got this overload and then you have that moment of clarity and think, “I better start living my real life now.” Do you ever experience that?

Zainab: Yeah. I think there was a phase where I was really active. The more active you get the more engagement you’re going to get, …

Prav Solanki: And the more business.

Zainab: … the inquiries, the more questions. Then you feel that you have a duty to answer those questions, and then it becomes too time consuming. Then you just think other things that are important need to come first. Then people get a bit annoyed that you haven’t replied yet. Then you just go back to your why. Why do I need to be that active? Is this giving me value or is this taking me away from what’s important? That comes and goes quite a lot actually, that conversation in my mind.

Prav Solanki: Is that like a conflicting battle? How do you switch off?

Zainab: Yeah.

Prav Solanki: Because I have that sometimes that I’ll be at home. The one defining factor for me is I was on Facebook and my three year old came up to me and said, “Put your phone away daddy.” That was a real defining moment.

Zainab: Moment.

Prav Solanki: I thought to myself, “Well, I can just check my comments because she’s at the other side of the room,” but I wasn’t in the room with her if that makes sense. That was my why.

Payman L: I’m accused of that quite a lot as well.

Zainab: I was as well at one stage, and then I just realised she’s growing really, really quickly, and these moments, especially from working that much, these moments are precious. When I’m with her I just put my phone where I cannot see it. If she’s asleep I feel more at liberty. If she’s awake, then I just feel there’s loads of mum guilt, and then it just needs to be away. Actually, off the table even, just out of sight so that I’m not even tempted to check it. It’s not worth it.

Zainab: If you’ve got kids and they need you and your time with them is limited, then it’s not. It has its place and it’s good and it carries lots of value. Dentistry’s, I think, really changed because of social media. It’s changing a lot because of social media, and that’s just dentistry. The world-

Payman L: Good and bad.

Zainab: Good and bad. The whole world is changing because of it. It carries loads of value. It’s a place of influence. It’s a great platform, and we can use it really, really well, but not when it consumes us.

Payman L: Zainab have you read a book called Black Box Thinking?

Zainab: No. I haven’t.

Payman L: It’s about when a plane crashes they don’t assign blame. They want to just say what can we learn from the plane crash, and it actually relates it to medical. When there’s a mistake medically everyone tries to cover it up because that’s not the way we think about mistakes in medicine, and so we never learn from those mistakes. We’ve been asking people, if they want to share with us, what’s the biggest clinical mistake you’ve ever made?

Zainab: Thankfully nothing sinister. I have given anaesthetic on the wrong side of the mouth.

Payman L: Did you just explain it to the patient?

Zainab: I just explained it to the patient, and just said, “I’m so sorry. I’ve just numbed the wrong side.”

Payman L: It’s not bad in nine years.

Zainab: Thank God. Thank God. Touch wood. Again, even if it was a bigger mistake I think owning it. You just have to own it. We are human and just be really honest about it and apologise. Then reassure and say it doesn’t mean that we’ve caused any problems. It’s just I’m really sorry that you’re numb on the wrong side. I’m going to have to numb the other side now. That’s the only thing I can remember thus far.

Prav Solanki: Just one thing that we didn’t quite touch upon, you mentioned that you’re teaching facial aesthetics now. Who’s that for? What does that involve? Does it take up much time of yours?

Zainab: I teach for a company called Oris Medical who initially trained me six years ago. When they trained, actually I started facial aesthetics, didn’t think I was going to go that much into it. On the training course I was really intrigued and really loved it. Then just started treating my own patients, and it sort of just kicked off and the interest grew. Then about a year later they were recruiting, and they sent an email out to some of the delegates. I think they’d seen some of the work we were up to. That’s where I think I did begin sharing some of the work I was doing on social media.

Zainab: They asked if I’d had any teaching experience or what skills I could offer, or why I would be a good teacher, et cetera. I replied, and then they invited me for an interview and I came in. We had a chat and then they said, “Could you pretend you’re teaching someone now in front of us?” I did that. Then they said, “You’ve got the job.” I said, “Okay.” They said, “First come in on a day where you’re just watching how we teach and how we run the course.”

Zainab: I came in and actually it was really, really fun. I felt straight away part of the team. I began doing that. How it all started was once a month roughly, and then they wanted me to do more. They then expanded to run courses up in Leeds and they needed somebody to take all the products and lead the training. My sister had also, I got her on board and she started training as well. She was really interested. She was also practising and she loves teaching. She’s a great teacher too. She joined the team.

Zainab: There was a team of about five of us, and so Ustra and I, sisters, went up north and ran those Leeds courses for about a year. It was really good fun. We really enjoyed it. It was a big position of responsibility. Then they came back to the conclusion that they had more demand in London. We just continued running the London ones. Slowly, slowly some of the trainers either were having kids, well, I was one of them, had a kid. Took some time out, came back, and then Ustra had two children in this time, came back, et cetera.

Zainab: We were a really great team. Some of them lived really far away. Ustra moved up north. It ended up being that I’ve been one of their main lead trainers, the only London-based one for a while. Now I’m taking another little break, but hopefully be back.

Prav Solanki: Do you see teaching featuring heavily in your future?

Zainab: I really like teaching.

Prav Solanki: You enjoy it.

Zainab: I find it really rewarding. It’s really nice to see how people shift from that beginning stage of feeling vulnerable and clueless to suddenly this new skillset in quite a short time. That’s really rewarding. What’s nice and what I’ve learned from Oris Medical is the ethos there was really lovely, in that the support is ongoing. I still have delegates from the last five years still in touch with me, still ask me things, and we’re now colleagues. It’s really, really lovely. I do like it. I definitely see it as part of my future.

Prav Solanki: If you could do it all again, go back to school and fast forward till today, what would you change? What would be different along that path and what would have you done differently?

Zainab: I think the career pathway that I chose I still would have chosen, for sure. I think the timing I chose it would have been the same. If I was to tell my younger self something it would be probably stress less. Don’t get stressed. This is before I did all that personal development stuff, when I was an undergrad. I used to feel the heat, really feel the stress of dental school and all the pressures. I would have loved to have done personal development earlier. I think that’s something that I think is really invaluable.

Zainab: As professionals who deal with people and such intricate jobs that can be stressful, I think we need that toolkit. I would say that’s something I really, really am glad I did. My only regret is not doing it earlier, and I would recommend it to others.

Prav Solanki: It’s been a pleasure having you on our podcast today.

Zainab: Thank you.

Prav Solanki: Thank you so much for sharing your journey.

Payman L: Thank you so much.

Zainab: Thanks so much for having me.

Prav Solanki: Thank you.

Payman L: It’s been brilliant.

Zainab: Really enjoyed it. Thanks.

Payman L: Thanks.

Outro 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. Hit subscribe in iTunes or Google Play or whatever platform it is. We really, really appreciate it if you would …

Payman L: Give us a six star rating.

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

Payman L: Thanks a lot guys.

Prav Solanki: Bye.

Transcript

Prav Solanki: Hey guys and welcome to the Dental Leader’s podcast. Thanks for tuning in and today’s interview was with Dr. Benji Dhillon, a cosmetic doctor, plastic surgeon who used to be the clinical director of Allergan. He’s an opinion leader across a range of different cosmetic treatments, not just injectables. And what a super nice guy, family guy, young man, very enthusiastic. But the big thing is that he’s teamed up with Mark Hughes a Harley Street dentist and him being a ex- Hall Street cosmetic practitioner to bring a new concept into Beaconsfield. But what did you take away from that Pay?

Payman: Well you know it’s called Dental Leaders but not every single person on the show’s going to be a dentist. I was super interested in his approach and the idea of combining, having one roof where you’re going to take care of dentistry and facial aesthetics from a very high level.

Prav Solanki: Super high level.

Payman: I’m very interested to go and see the place because I’ve seen some pictures of it now on social media. But both those guys I’m sure are going to do super well.

Prav Solanki: They’ll do really well. I mean I’ve been working quite closely with Benji and he’s taught me so much about the facial industry and the aesthetics industry that it’s opened up a whole new world, in my mind, both about marketing but also about that business and how well it combines with dentistry.

Payman: Yeah combine that with four kids too.

Prav Solanki: Yeah he’s just had a little one.

Payman: Yeah enjoy it guys.

Prav Solanki: Enjoy.

Payman: What are the public into right now?

Benji Dhillon: The public are really into body sculpting.

Payman: Really?

Benji Dhillon: Yeah.

Payman: Does it work?

Benji Dhillon: It does work yeah. I mean you’ve got to look at the-

Payman: Talk us through what happens.

Payman: Six pack?

Benji Dhillon: Close to. Prav you don’t need it anyway. I know you’re ripped under that shirt..

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

Prav Solanki: Morning guys today we have Dr. Benji Dylan with us who is a facial aesthetics practitioner and Benji thank you for joining us today and thanks for your time.

Benji Dhillon: You’re welcome thanks for having me.

Prav Solanki: Benji I just want to go back to your backstory really. Tell us about your childhood, growing up, what sort of parenting did you have?

Benji Dhillon: So proper Asian upbringing, destined to become account, lawyer, dentist, or doctor at some point in my career. But interestingly I came from a family of no medics or dentists whatsoever. My mom dabbled with a bit of nursing. But always brought up with a strong ethos in studying hard as most Asians probably understand. Or people from ethic backgrounds. But dad was a first generation immigrant. Orphaned from a very young age when he arrived in England, having travelled across the ocean as many Indians did back then. As a result my upbringing was quite a firm one because he went without and he wanted me to understand how hard things came. So looking back it was a very important part of my upbringing and mom was from Malaysia but also an Indian. And actually had a very similar outlook on life. So I had a great childhood. Born and brought up on the south coast in Brighton with my little sister. And we never really went without but we were always made to understand how hard it came if that makes sense.

Prav Solanki: Yeah so my upbringing was kind of tough and I remember the one guiding principle of my father gave to me and my brother was; the reason I’m working so hard and doing what I do is I don’t want you to do what I do. I want to be better than me. And so was that a similar thing in terms of, was there a big emphasis on say, education and you being, was it “I want you to be a doctor?” Was that their dream for you to become a doctor?

Benji Dhillon: Yeah I think it was their dream for me to be a doctor but they were always open to me being any type of professional if that makes sense.

Prav Solanki: Like a lawyer?

Benji Dhillon: Yeah a lawyer, an accountant. I was terrible at math so that was out the window. But yes, the upbringing involved me understanding how hard my parents worked. They always made sure I understood that I had to work harder than them. So I think it was a bit different because of my dad’s background and the story he went through that he didn’t necessarily give give give to me. He almost made me understand from day one that I had to earn everything I got. And that’s even to this day. Despite me being a professional and having a family he still treats me the same way. So yes it was always an understanding that hardworking ethos, you get out what you put in. And I was always made to understand that from very early on.

Prav Solanki: So growing up when you say you didn’t go without but you didn’t get everything just give us a bit of concepts on that. So kids in my school had Nike shoe trainers and I got the Knicks from the local market. So what’s your version?

Benji Dhillon: I got the Robucks not the Reeboks. No exactly the same as you Prav. We had to earn what we wanted if that makes sense. So I’ll never forget the story when I was probably about 12 or 13 I went into a sports store with my mom and I saw this Olympus jumper I don’t know if you remember Olympus from back in the day?

Prav Solanki: Yeah yeah.

Benji Dhillon: And I absolutely loved this jumper. I wanted this jumper, nothing like it. And mom said I had to achieve X, Y, Z at school over a period of three months or so and by the time, I achieved those grades and achieved those objectives, the jumper had gone out of stock and out of fashion. But it really involved me having to do things to get something. Probably the best story I ever had is when I started doing my A levels. My parents said if I get three As at A level, they will buy me a Mercedes as my first car. So naturally like any child I was absolutely over the moon. I got the three As, asked for the Mercedes and my dad nearly capital punishment, nearly slapped me around the face. Going, did I ever really expect to get that Mercedes? So they never held true to that promise. But I had to earn what I got.

Payman: Where did you study?

Benji Dhillon: School was Brighton College in Brighton. So mom and dad worked tremendously hard like I’m sure a lot of parents, to pay for private school for my sister and I. And that led onto medical school which was Guy’s Hospital in London-Bridge.

Payman: During the guys and pommies or was it King’s by that time?

Benji Dhillon: It was just after the merger so it was actually King’s but–

Payman: Guys never stay Kings do they?

Benji Dhillon: I associate with guy’s purely because-

Payman: You’re a King’s boy right?

Benji Dhillon: No I don’t like to call myself a King’s boy because I played rugby for King’s hospital. So yes it was part of King’s but we played rugby against King’s Hospital.

Payman: So you’re a rug bugger?

Benji Dhillon: Yeah I was a bit. At least I thought I was. I think I played in the thirds most of the time.

Payman: So you enjoyed university?

Benji Dhillon: Oh I loved university. Coming up from Brighton up to the big smoke in London was incredible.

Payman: Playing rugby in medical school, was it the same in Oxford?

Prav Solanki: More about rowing.

Payman: Yeah in medical school rugby sort of disproportionately gets-

Benji Dhillon: It’s like a religion in and of itself.

Payman: Because I was in Cardiff and there it is a religion in the whole town, let alone in the medical school. But I wasn’t ready for that. My brother was in Guy’s and he said something about rugger buggers. But I got there, I got to Cardiff and I realised rugby boys are royalty and I was like, “What’s going on here?” And the funny thing is it kind of grows on you doesn’t it? We ended up going to a few games and so on. So you enjoyed it. Where you a good student, were you like near the top of the class or were you-?

Benji Dhillon: I was terrible to begin with. My first term I think going to university, being away from home. Probably the stereotypical thing, went to my head. And I remember my tutor at the time calling me in that I had failed the first term’s exams and that if I didn’t buck up he would tell my mom and dad and that was the last thing I wanted. I think it was an empty threat but I was too scared of it actually coming to fruition that I changed the game completely. And yeah I studied hard really for the rest of the six year’s university.

Payman: I remember my brother saying he found it really hard that everyone was really good in medical school compared to school where he was kind of top of his class.

Prav Solanki: It’s a huge shift, right?

Payman: Suddenly you’re surrounded by brilliant people.

Benji Dhillon: You are but how I look at medicine, I don’t know about dentistry, I’m a firm believer I think anyone can do it. In terms of the study and the academic side. I think what it really takes is just the effort. It’s the time commitment at the age of 18 to 23 to really put away that time to read those sorry mundane books on physiology.

Prav Solanki: When your friends are doing history or English.

Benji Dhillon: And they have two sessions a week and then they’re off doing other things. So I think everyone can do it but yeah there were some really bright people but actually the majority were normal like me but just decided to put in the effort.

Payman: And so you said, we were talking before, you said pretty early on you got interested in plastics?

Benji Dhillon: Yes yes so it was within my first year I did something called a special study module. And it was pure luck that I actually got into plastics. And I remember walking through my first operation ever and it was what we call a breast reconstruction with an autologous flap. It was a flap from the stomach. And then they had to basically plummet into some of the thoracic vessels under a massive microscope. And I was blown away by this. I mean to go into your first operation and forgive me if there are general surgeons listening to this but it wasn’t appendisectomy it was real hardcore surgery that was changing a patient’s life. I was blown away by the people they were really intelligent, they were really smart. And at the time I loved anatomy as well so it kind of started me on my journey.

Prav Solanki: In your first year?

Benji Dhillon: My first year yeah.

Prav Solanki: Some people go into plastics because of the glamour of it right? The potential for earning huge amounts of money, doing work that’s aesthetically leasing. But a lot of people don’t have appreciation for what you’ve just described there which is the reconstructive and almost the need based plastic.

Payman: Burns.

Benji Dhillon: Yeah I actually I don’t think that’s the case in the UK. It might be in other countries. I know it’s the case in the US because I spent an elective for a month out in New York in plastics. But I don’t think that’s the case in the UK. I think most people go into medicine with an awareness that they’re not going to earn a great deal of money in the NHS. Plastics I think appeals to people academically and technically. It’s taking the level to which you can use your hands practically to a whole different plane. The intricacy of the surgery, the intricacy of the work. So I think that’s actually what appeals to people. And it’s funny when you look at those plastic surgeons I entered into training with then, to them being consultant plastic surgeons now. Some have stayed in the NHS, some have branched into private work but actually still really respect their NHS work. They’re not just chasing the money.

Payman: So you started plastics training after qualifying as a doctor?

Benji Dhillon: Yes.

Payman: How many years of that did you do?

Benji Dhillon: I did, how of the medical school you have to do your rotations, your house jobs, etc. You then decided whether you want to go into, well what type of specialty surgery, general practise or not. Did a couple of years in that and then you enter, I did two years of surgical training within plastic surgery before I decided to leave the NHS all together and pursue new frontiers. That was probably the most interesting part of my life because I had just had my first child.

Payman: How old were you?

Benji Dhillon: I was, I should know this, I was 27 when I had my first daughter. I’ve got three now. And I was realising very quickly, yes there’s a lot of work involved with what you need to do in any specialty but particularly plastics. I wasn’t seeing a great deal of her or my wife. The on-calls, surgical on-calls were really kind of getting me down. But more so it was that I’d gone into surgery because I loved using my hands and a lot of management changes were happening and quotas were having to be met. As a result, the actual amount of surgery I was able to do was being taken down by managers, not by our consultants who were equally as livid. And I got disaffected with the NHS massively. And I just decided I needed to explore the world outside of medicine. Coming from a family of no medics, I realised there was something else. And I very quickly just ended up speaking to someone about pharmaceutical medicine and that’s how I then ended up becoming a medical director of a big pharmaceutical company.

Prav Solanki: Which was?

Benji Dhillon: Allergan.

Payman: Medical director of Allergan.

Benji Dhillon: Yep medical director of Allergan.

Payman: Well go on take me thorough. That was a big jump.

Benji Dhillon: Yeah it was a very big jump and I didn’t know what I was doing at the time if I’m honest.

Payman: How did you see the job advertised?

Benji Dhillon: No it was actually, the burns unit I was working on, because I was doing a burns rotation in plastics. I was doing a night shift and I started speaking with one of the, well the receptionist of the burns unit and I started expressing my discontent with medicine at the time. And she mentioned that her father was a GP, had left medicine, and had gone into pharmaceuticals. Which I knew nothing about. She said, “Look just have a chat with him, see what other things there are out there you could do.” I think it was the day after I gave him a call, lovely guy. And he was the vice president of Allergan at the time for medical affairs. I think couple of weeks after we had a beer and something to eat and he almost offered me a job on the spot having no ex-

Payman: What year was that?

Prav Solanki: So you were 26 when you had your first?

Benji Dhillon: 27 when I had my first child. The year I went into Allergan was, oh god, was about 2010, 2011 yeah around that time. So I’d done a fair bit of work in the NHS–

Payman: So you were pretty established by that time? I mean it’s a bigger thing now than it was then but they were still pretty established at that point.

Benji Dhillon: Yeah within aesthetics because that’s the role I went into. Became the medical director for aesthetics for Africa and Middle East. Yeah I mean they had created the market for what we know as facial aesthetics. They discovered Botox, they developed the whole market around Botox. They brought to market a number of dermal fillers and now a number of devices so yeah they-

Payman: You went straight into that job did you or did you climb into that?

Benji Dhillon: No I pretty much went straight into it yeah.

Prav Solanki: Were you doing much injecting then at all or?

Benji Dhillon: I had done a little bit using Botox for things like facial palsy’s in the NHS which is used, more so now than it was then. But I had no experience with things like dermal fillers and things like that. To be honest I had no idea what they were.

Prav Solanki: Right place, right time, right people.

Benji Dhillon: Yeah exactly. And like you say it was just meeting right people at the right time.

Payman: What gave you the confidence to think you could do that job, you know, as a medic?

Benji Dhillon: I don’t know if it was confidence or ignorance. I’ve always believed I can do something whether I am any good at it or not. I’ve always believed myself and backed myself to a degree. And I’m a big believer that you go into something and learn on the job as quickly as possible. And I think that goes across the board.

Payman: What’s involved in the job? Was it managing people?

Benji Dhillon: Actually a larger part of it was working with the marketing team who wanted to make claims and obviously sell more product.

Payman: They needed the money.

Benji Dhillon: Yeah and it was more about justifying some of those claims, are they saying the right thing, are they misleading people? But actually the best part of the job was two things. One, developing more data so setting up clinical studies, postmarketing studies around the products. And then meeting and talking to physicians and surgeons worldwide that are using these products and learning how we could make them better. Or even how we could make new products.

Payman: Were you involved in product development?

Benji Dhillon: Yep, yeah as the medical director you get involved in product development. Working with R and D. So I mean multi-faceted. Then I ended up managing what we call Amicells. Medical science liaisons across Europe, Africa, Middle East. There’s about ten at one point. And then you’re learning people management which I’d never done before.

Payman: What was the experience that must have-?

Benji Dhillon: Oh it was amazing, great company.

Payman: Were you travelling a lot?

Benji Dhillon: Travelled a lot yeah. And at first it was really exciting, really glamorous. But it soon gets to you, the amount of travelling you have to do.

Payman: Yeah but I bet your contemporaries who are still in NHS hospitals were thinking-

Benji Dhillon: Oh god yes. I’ll never forget this good story. I remember the first flight I had to go on to Denver. And I’ll be honest I’d never flown business class before then. And I remember getting and the secretary at the office had booked my flight. Turned up and they said I’m in business class. And I honestly thought there was a mistake. Expecting to go economy. I remember sitting in the lounge that day how my life maybe six months prior, where I struggled to get a digestive on an NHS ward and all of a sudden I was sitting in the lounge at Heathrow. And I can drink a glass of champagne and how my life had come full circle.

Payman: It’s funny because I’ve had the opposite problem with the speaker before where I booked him a business class ticket and he was expecting a first.

Benji Dhillon: Oh god. Well this is the problem. Expectations rise.

Payman: But go on.

Benji Dhillon: Yeah and I remember telling more of my buddies that were still in the NHS and still are today that wow here I am and I think at that time you lose perspective a bit. You think, “Wow this is really amazing this is really glamorous.” In hindsight could I have more respect for my friends who are in the NHS, doing what they do, not because I feel sorry for them it’s the opposite, but because they’ve stayed true to what they love, what they believe in and are trying to be really good at it at the same time. So yeah it was an incredible experience but I’m kind of done with that, the whole travelling side.

Payman: So how many years were you with Allergan?

Benji Dhillon: I was there just under four years. Three and a half to four years. And the last sort of six months was a very interesting time because Allergan was in the process of being acquired by a larger company. It was firstly Valeant Pharmaceuticals, in fact there’s a Netflix documentary on them, who tried to buy them which failed. And then subsequently Activist who’s a very big generics company who came and took over. So whilst that was going on I felt I learnt as much as I could, I’d met some great people but I really wanted to get back into using my hands. And during my years that I’d started injecting and started doing all the fillers, Botox and I’d learnt from the incredible people around me, and I just thought it was the right time to get out. And I met a doctor that who had his own clinic and very quickly we agreed to start working together.

Payman: Who was that?

Benji Dhillon: That was a chap called Tapin Patel. He’s an aesthetic doctor in London. He has his own clinic on Holly Street. And I spent close to three years with him. It was an incredible experience, he’s one of the best there is and he taught me, I mean my learning curve would have probably been a lot slower and he taught me things a lot quicker. So yeah it was a great time.

Prav Solanki: As a medic whose doing this, injecting and so forth, and you see dentists doing it, have they put a stop to nurses and non-medics?

Benji Dhillon: No no. As it stands if you look from the dermal filler side practically anyone can inject it.

Payman: Really still?

Benji Dhillon: Yeah yeah absolutely. So pharmacists are open to it, I think paramedic drivers, dental hygienists, dental nurses. On the Botox side which is obviously a prescription medicine it’s only really doctors dentists with prescribing rights as well as now nurse prescribers that can prescribe and inject as well. I think underneath your question is do I have a problem with everyone else injecting it? I don’t. The most important thing is people do it right. As it stands within the UK, legally all these different people can inject and do these treatments. I think people like myself that teach and the other educators out there have a responsibility to educate everyone and not say, “I’m not going to teach a paramedic or a dental hygienists.” But really try to raise the bar because if quality’s improved and outcome’s improved it only benefits the whole industry which already has a stigma attached to it which we want to take away.

Payman: So if you ruled the world, what would you say regarding whose allowed to do this and whose not?

Benji Dhillon: That’s a double edged sword question isn’t it?

Payman: No it isn’t because you could be training a dental hygienists tomorrow whose paying you but you’re working within the regulatory environment we’re in.

Benji Dhillon: Yeah I am. It would be, so all healthcare professionals I’m open to that. Whether it’s a dental hygienists, a paramedic. However I think what is required is people have a sound knowledge and foundation in anatomy. And I think there almost has to be some legal requirement for everyone to go through some anatomical training and examination process which they’re actually trying to implement now, which allow them to go into that next stage of injecting.

Prav Solanki: And do you think that can be learnt in a one day course?

Benji Dhillon: Absolutely not. No. Anatomy is, it’s life-long learning. There are anatomists that are constantly learning, so to think you can go in, and there are one day courses that te-. In fact in a one day course there’s probably only 20 minutes that’s focused on anatomy. There’s no way people can understand unless they’re currently learning themselves.

Payman: So if I wanted to, look I’ve never ever given a Botox or a filler, let’s say I want to get into this. What would you say is my minimum education level I should not legally or morally but what would you advise me as your brother let’s say whose trying to get into this, what should be my minimum amount of education that I get…if I’m trying to get into this?

Benji Dhillon: What should be or what is?

Payman: What should be.

Benji Dhillon: What should be. So I think what should be.

Payman: What would you advise me if I want to get into this field?

Benji Dhillon: I think there are two options. So say you were my brother and you wanted to get into it I’d be like, and you’ve got a background in medicine.

Payman: I’m a dentist as it happens.

Benji Dhillon: Yeah you know your anatomy. I hope, I’m sure you do. I would say, “Look just come and spend a day with me, observe me, let’s talk through things.” That’s kind of the minimum really that’s required for you to enter this space.

Payman: What would you advise me to do?

Benji Dhillon: What I would advise you is go on a course. There are a number of really good courses that have level seven certification now that you have to sit a number of exams. Some of them have coursework, projects that really try and solidify your understanding of anatomy, some degree of physiology, the products, safe injecting, managing complications.

Payman: So I guess you’d advise more than a one day course? How many would be minimum number of days?

Benji Dhillon: Absolutely. I think it’s a minimum time period. I think really it’s a six month time period where you have ongoing learning on a course. You have ongoing supervision with an experienced injector and ongoing treatment feedback. So it’s about seeing you inject or treat someone with someone standing over your shoulder. Because anyone can go, and in the most simple way, go an treat a frown line with Botox. But if you want to get really nice results even with something people think is simple like Botox, if you want to make it really sort of high level, it takes time to develop those skills. It isn’t as simple as people make out I think.

Payman: Sure sure.

Prav Solanki: Benji have you ever made a mistake when injecting? Clinical error, mistake?

Benji Dhillon: Yeah yeah yeah absolutely.

Prav Solanki: What was the biggest mistake that you’ve made?

Benji Dhillon: I would say the biggest mistake, it’s really aesthetic, I think the biggest mistake will come down to aesthetic outcomes. And it was very early on, putting the wrong amount or the wrong type of product in someone’s mid-face. That lead to a slightly unnatural result. And the patient was unhappy. It was an unnatural result and at the time I realised and I looked back, it was a very unnatural result. But it’s something you can rectify, with things like dermal fillers you can break them down, they’re reversible. But yeah everyone goes through that. Anyone who says they haven’t had any bad outcomes or complications-

Payman: What’s a common error that not so experienced practitioners make?

Benji Dhillon: Aesthetic results. So it’s again wrong product or wrong placement of the product in any part of the face that lend to unnatural results. And actually a lot of that doesn’t come down to your technique, it comes down to your assessment. And that’s what takes time. It’s looking at someone’s face, understanding what could do with improving, what could do with addressing and how you do it. And that’s very much a theoretical kind of thing in your mind that has to be developed over time before you implement that. Because every relatively confident person can hold a needle and syringe. And pierce the dermas and deposit product. But what takes time is what way you’re doing it. It’s the planning exactly. And I’m sure that’s the same in dentistry.

Payman: So many things yeah.

Prav Solanki: You see a lot of these girls with huge lips. Like people talk trout pout and things like that. Can you reverse that?

Benji Dhillon: Yes depending on what products. So if a hyaluronic acid based filler has been used you can use a product called hyaluronidase which is the enzyme which breaks down HA. Yes it’s reversible. But there are some permanent or semi-permanent fillers that aren’t HA based which you can’t reverse.

Prav Solanki: Ok, so do you see many patients like that?

Benji Dhillon: Thankfully not in my practise. But yes you do yeah yeah absolutely. You see them at a particular aesthetic congresses. So yeah you do see a lot of people with that.

Prav Solanki: Do patients come to you and say, “Can you fix this?”

Benji Dhillon: Yeah absolutely I think there’s two groups of people right? There are people that want that look. So they’re not going to come to you and say, “Can you fix this?” There are some people where they’re not happy with the outcome and that’s- either they’re bigger than they expected or products moved into the wrong position and yes you see those patients.

Prav Solanki: So patient out there whose had a result they’re not happy with and they want to come and see you. How quickly can you break that down?

Benji Dhillon: Pretty much straight away. Yeah you can, they come in same day you can use hyaluronidase and break it down.

Prav Solanki: Immediate results?

Benji Dhillon: You do get some degree of immediate results. I always say leave it for about two weeks before we look at it again to take down the swelling and see the real result.

Payman: I’ve got a question. Look, sometimes I’m sitting in I don’t know Marbella somewhere and there’s a particular look that I put down to someone that’s sort of got too much for too long. Is that a thing or am I just seeing bad results and there’s plenty of other people walking around who I don’t realise have had it done? Is there a long term effect on overdoing it or whatever?

Benji Dhillon: Yes and no to your answer. Yeah there’s kind of a few different responses to that question. I think there is a particular look and you’ve almost got to look at the United States as a case example. You’ve got very much a west Coast East Coast look and that often the more artificial looking outcomes where again, too much product or wrong type of product in the wrong place. And it does lend to that unnatural result. Full cheeks, smaller eyes, full lips that you can tell that someone’s had something done. Over time if more and more is put it, skin has something called creep, yes you’re going to distort the soft tissues and you’re going to have to almost maintain that to a degree. I’m a big believer that facial aesthetic treatment should be used in a way that no one knows you’ve had it done. And it’s all about being age appropriate. I do not believe that say a 50 year old should be made to look like a 30 year old. Because it will look obvious. 50 year old should just be made to look really well refreshed, less tired, less angry, less sad. Taking away all those negative emotional attributes but making age appropriate.

Payman: There is a definite down ageing going on in terms of people asking treatment to the younger age these days.

Benji Dhillon: Yeah absolutely.

Payman: I was a dentist and she was 27 something, I’m getting my Botox done. And people see it as a preventative.

Prav Solanki: We’ve got nurses who are getting it done at age 19-20.

Benji Dhillon: Yeah absolutely. Listen the younger market, I’d say 25 and below is really expanded in recent years due to social media influencing.

Payman: Is it a good idea?

Benji Dhillon: I don’t traditionally like to treat people under the age of 25. It makes me uncomfortable. I always go back to my moral compass. I have three girls and I don’t want them, when they’re 19, 20, without me knowing, going to someone else. So I see it as a responsibility. However there are some people at that age that have things that could be corrected that negatively affect them. A really good example is dark eye circles. Under eye hollows. For some people it’s genetic. And it gets people down, they have these really sunken eyes. They look tired. They’re only 21, 22 but people keep on saying they’re tired. They’re not. You can address those but the most important thing with this group of people is they understand what they’re having done. Have they explored all the options? Even at the age of 21 22 I always say, “Have you discussed this with your parents?” It could be really patronising.

Payman: That’s the Asian in you coming out.

Benji Dhillon: Yeah I do I do because, it’s the Asian in me. Some people don’t talk to their parents at that age but I always try to explore those. And it takes time to really elicit, informed consent but also are they understanding everything around the procedure?

Payman: What do you do for someone’s whose got dark like me?

Benji Dhillon: So I mean if there’s volume loss under the eyes, dermal fillers can be used to really restore what we call that lid to cheek contour. A lot of people are worried about pigmentation under the eyes, that’s a really hard thing to treat. That’s very very challenging. Sometimes if there’s hollowness with pigmentation, it can improve the look of the pigmentation but sometimes it doesn’t. So it really depends on the individual.

Payman: Do you ever think in the future like in 100 year’s time they’re going to look back on this period and say, “Those guys are crazy they were sticking poison into their faces for aesthetics.” And the long term possibility of that being an issue. They must have done a whole field of research into this right?

Benji Dhillon: Yeah I mean-

Payman: Do we know? How long has it been going.

Benji Dhillon: Yeah I’ll say from the medical side but in probably 100 years they may go, “oh my god why did people stick poison on their teeth to make their smiles better?” So I think what it comes down to, okay so Botox for example do we understand it 100%. Yeah we know but Botox has been around for a very long time. And lot of it has been used in the medical side so to treat children with cerebral palsy with contractures, people with migraines, osteoarthritis is now being investigated for use in, urinary incontinence, after strokes. There is literally an arsenal of medical uses that is used in much much much higher doses that really well conducted clinical studies have been done that show that there’s no real, it’s safe inverted commas.

Benji Dhillon: So within the cosmetic field, I personally don’t have any concerns based on the data that there’s going to be any long term issues but again it comes back to, it’s the aesthetic look. If we are creating frozen faces all around and then communities lose expressions then yes it does have a negative social effect.

Payman: Changes society.

Benji Dhillon: Yeah it changes society.

Prav Solanki: Benji let’s go away from injecting and certainly for me also you Payman, we have a moment in our life when we hit rock bottom. For me one of them was when my grandfather passed away when I was younger. Have you got any moments in your life that you sort of hit absolute rock bottom and what were they? Could you share them with us?

Benji Dhillon: Yeah I would say probably the first one is, well actually I say they’re three. One is my grandfather I lost him when I was about 17 just like yours, very close to him, incredible man, influenced me growing up. And it was very sudden, it was a heart attack. So that really hit me early on and I think at that age really introduced me to the concept of death.

Prav Solanki: Where were you?

Benji Dhillon: I was actually away on a Model United Nations trip with school. And I wasn’t told the news by my parents whilst I was away and I got back home, mom, my sister weren’t there, dad broke the news to me then and we shot straight up to London where my grandfather was. That was difficult time losing someone you love.

Prav Solanki: First time you’d lost someone?

Benji Dhillon: Yeah first time I’d lost someone. That was really tough but we have a great big family and the network helped heal that. I think probably the second thing is when my dad became quite ill. He’s, again I call it the Asian curse, it’s cardiovascular disease, it’s diabetes, etc. etc. He basically died on a table in the lead up to having a cardiac bypass and I was by his bedside when it happened. That was challenging because you’re helpless number one. You’ve got a medical team around you that, there’s nothing you can really do or add.

Prav Solanki: How long ago was that?

Benji Dhillon: That was just before my first daughter was born.

Prav Solanki: So you were a qualified medic?

Benji Dhillon: Yeah I was qualified. I think it was 2009. It was really difficult because I’ve got my mom and my sister are going hysterical around me. I’d been exposed to death and illness in medicine and it was very funny because at that moment I expected myself to react like my family but I almost became a medic in that moment and just looked at things objectively. But I think the realisation came that what happened to my dad that all of a sudden the responsibility falls to me for my mom and my sister. And I was just married at the time as well. So a lot of emotional thoughts going through my head then.

Prav Solanki: And you feel like you’re the rock in your family, that you would be the person that would hold everyone together if say your mom and your sister if the worst was to happen?

Benji Dhillon: I’d like to think so. I think I’m probably, they’re going to kill me if they hear this, a bit emotionally more stable than them. Not in a negative way that they’re emotional but I think I just look at things more objectively. So I’d like to think that I’m probably the rock. To be honest I actually think the rock now in our family is my wife because she’s a lot more [inaudible] and she can deal with things a lot better than anyone around me.

Payman: What was your professional low point?

Benji Dhillon: It was actually this year when I realised I wanted to set up my own clinic and for various reasons where I was and the clinic I spoke about earlier, I think communication errors occurred between myself and the clinic as to when and how I was going to leave to set up my own business occurred. And I think, we didn’t leave on bad terms but it left me in a space where I didn’t know whether I was coming or going. I didn’t have a new business to go to, I was leaving that business and foolishly we’d bought a new house earlier on. Because I didn’t know I was going to set up a new business. I did all the things you shouldn’t do at the same time. Buy a new house, set a new business, and there’s no money left in the bank. And I think that was the first time in my career where I was investing in something, didn’t have anything tangible yet to hold onto and had no money in the bank. And with three little kids, overheads through the roof I was scared.

Prav Solanki: What was going through your head at that time because you go from this point of you’ve never been a business owner before am I right?

Benji Dhillon: No, no.

Prav Solanki: So you go from this point of being wither employee or associate to then saying, “Hey I want to run me own business.” What was the defining moment where you said, “Do you know what this is what I need to do.”

Benji Dhillon: Yeah. I think it was a number of things. I’ve always had that kind of entrepreneurial spirit built into me because of what my dad did. He ran his own business. So there’s always been this thing, always be your own boss was at the back of, was this little voice singing to me at the back. And I think as I got into aesthetics there were things that I just wanted to do in my vision and in my way. And I think as I get a bit older and my kids got a bit older and then all of a sudden I thought, “Actually I want my own security for my family and I want to develop something that I’m in control of.” But making that jump from thinking it to doing it I think it’s just like jumping off a cliff almost.

Prav Solanki: And you’re on that journey now right?

Benji Dhillon: Yeah I’m currently in the middle of it.

Payman: When did you open it?

Benji Dhillon: We’re not open yet.

Payman: Oh you’re not open yet?

Benji Dhillon: No no so we are hoping to open the end of January so refurbing a rather large building.

Prav Solanki: In the West End?

Benji Dhillon: No no this is out in Buckingsfield in Buckinghamshire. So I made a conscious decision to go out of London.

Prav Solanki: Do you live there as well.

Benji Dhillon: I live in Beckinsville. I live 40 minute walk from the proposed new clinic. And I’ve done it for lifestyle choices as well.

Prav Solanki: I can already see the yummy mummys of Beaconsfield.

Benji Dhillon: Be fantastic good yeah.

Prav Solanki: And are you scared?

Benji Dhillon: Oh I’m terrified yeah I think everyday something new scares me.

Prav Solanki: If you were to imagine the biggest possible disaster for this business, what would it be?

Benji Dhillon: It doesn’t work.

Prav Solanki: What does that mean?

Payman: Running out of money.

Benji Dhillon: Yeah yeah running out, no patients coming through the door, no one believes in the vision I’ve had in my head so they just think it’s a farce. No one coming through the door, overhead’s through the roof, basically we have to sell our house to pay the debt.

Prav Solanki: So tell us more about this concept because it is a fairly new concept type clinic that you’re setting up so just give everyone a little bit of background in terms of what you’re doing, who you’re doing it with.

Benji Dhillon: Yeah of course. I mean over the last year or so I’ve been exposed to the dental world more so than I ever have done in my past. Really really luckily so because at the school my children go to, in the same class is a cosmetic dentist based on Harley street Mark Hughs and we just got talking at a birthday I’ll never forget it was in a hut. And we just-

Payman: Pizza?

Benji Dhillon: No no it was like this yurt. I mean kid’s birthday parties are done in the most, to be honest I would have preferred a Pizza Hut this place was freezing. So we go talking and realised we were on the same page, I knew nothing about cosmetic dentistry. To be honest dentistry to me was fillings. I had no idea of the options such as veneers or whiting etc. despite where I am now. And I actually began a journey with him undergoing a small makeover for myself. I realised very quickly that there was an analogy or sorry a similarity between what we did. We were dealing with the same real estate which is the face. And soon after Mark and I this is when I was at Harley Street we started referring other patients and there was some patients as I understood more about teeth and what it does to the face. I actually started referring patients to go see him first before they had any soft tissue work with me. Because I though it’s optimise their result and actually they’ll get more almost ROI on doing their teeth than they would on soft tissues. And actually he did vice versa. And we actually ended up getting really good outcomes associated with that. And happier patients because we were honest.

Benji Dhillon: We started speaking about doing something together and when the idea came up for me opening my own place I thought, “Why don’t we do it under one roof?” Have under one roof the offering of facial aesthetics and body aesthetics with myself as well as cosmetic dentistry. So again we’re offering a 360 service for the face. I think one of the things we’ve really tried to expand on is that, and I know there are lots of dentists that do facial aesthetics but this is Mark coming in not doing facial aesthetics. So we’re really specialised in what we deliver and how we deliver it because yes the consultations are relatively similar but there are some nuances between a cosmetic dental consultation.

Payman: It’s in the nuances where excellence really comes out.

Benji Dhillon: Precisely yeah.

Payman: And so he lives there as well does he?

Benji Dhillon: He lives just outside of Beaconsfield but not too far. He’s basically going to head up the team out there as I am as well.

Prav Solanki: When are you looking to launch?

Benji Dhillon: Hoping early February to launch. It’s going to be, I mean it’s a very old grey two listed building. We’ve got over 4,000 square feet to fit out. We’re going to have three to four dental chairs, about four to five medical rooms, we have a laser room. We’ve got a training studio where we’re going to, a custom built training suite as well.

Payman: Starting small then?

Benji Dhillon: Yeah. As I said early on I believe in myself and I don’t know if it’s ignorance or not.

Payman: That’s a big risk you’re taking.

Benji Dhillon: It’s a massive risk but I’ve always had this vision in my head of a patient experience.

Payman: Go on.

Benji Dhillon: Our patients are our gold dust to what we do. And we’ve really got to treat them amazingly. I want my patients, and Mark’s patients, I want them to walk in somewhere that feels like an experience. They are almost walking somewhere that they would attribute with a top end spa. You’ve got to marry that with a clinical excellence and the clinical service and the clinical feel. But as a result it’s taken time to find the right space that can lend itself to that kind of patient experience.

Payman: Is it a spa look you’re going for?

Benji Dhillon: In terms the waiting room area yes, I question myself whether we should be spending the money on that area.

Payman: You should.

Benji Dhillon: You waver don’t you when it comes to money, should I shouldn’t I? But it’s something I firmly believe in I want it to look and feel amazing.

Prav Solanki: First impressions right?

Benji Dhillon: Correct yeah.

Payman: I told this story sometimes. I must have been to five hundred more dental practises and I’m dentist and so I know everything about what’s going on in the main room and the difference between a good dentist and a bad dentist and so on and so forth. And yet I still now even today after everything’s that happened I draw all sorts of conclusions about the practise based on the quality of the coffee they give, the quality of the waiting room. Whether there’s blue tack everywhere saying if you miss your appointment. Private clinics. And fully aware that you can bring in brilliant coffee and have terrible dentistry. I’m fully aware of that and yet I still draw conclusions.

Benji Dhillon: Of course you do it’s human nature.

Payman: The patients though, the man on the street hasn’t got all that insight that I’ve got so of course he’s going to be drawing similar conclusions.

Benji Dhillon: Yeah precisely. I’m a firm believer in we’ve got to make people, what we do within cosmetic dentistry or cosmetic medicine, we’re making people feel good about themselves. I had my teeth done. Honestly speaking, yes it made my smile better but it made me feel really good about myself. I was just more confident smiling in photos and stuff. So that experience has to start obviously on the phone bu the moment they walk in and I’m so pedantic about little things like you’re saying blue tack, it’s go to feel special. They’ve got to feel special. How they’re greeted, how they’re looked after, to the time and effort we’ve put in to how we’re designing it. Down to the materials.

Payman: So you’re going to use white tack right?

Benji Dhillon: We’re going to hide everything. Yeah pushed under the sofa as well.

Payman: Concierge style service that you’re going to provide. A big part of that is whose going to be there, the people.

Benji Dhillon: Yeah of course. Do you mean staff-wise?

Payman: Yeah yeah yeah.

Benji Dhillon: I mean I’m in that journey now I’m in recruitment. I don’t know how, we’re going to try and find the best people we can as I’m sure anywhere will.

Payman: Experienced with hiring people. You’re obviously in a good situation because he’s made so many open, so many different practises. It’s interesting this question of the experience of the person who comes in and exactly what they’re going to feel as well as of course getting the medical side right but have you got any insight into what’s going to be your USP over the next medical aesthetic clinic?

Benji Dhillon: I think one is very much you’re coming there with the option to be assessed, the whole face to be assessed. So we’re always about doing right by you and making sure you spend your money to our patients in the best possible way that’s going to improve your aesthetic. Whether that means you coming in firstly because you don’t like your frown lines, actually we can say, “No your frown lines aren’t the right thing to do we’ll do a free dental assessment. You may consider doing your teeth instead.” And spending your money and potentially not spending your money on facial aesthetics. So I think, and that’s a matter of walking across a hallway rather than going down the road so I think we’re there to deliver the best outcome for you that you may not know about. It’s the same, I’ve got to look at facial aesthetics. People will come in always for these nose to mouth lines what we call nasolabial lines. I hate treating those because sometimes they may have really dark circles. You need those treated. I would assume the equivalent is in teeth. People think they want this done on their teeth and actually as a dentist you’re looking at the best aesthetics outcome is going to be doing that instead.

Payman: They want veneers but whitening’s the right.

Benji Dhillon: Correct so we’re effectively cross-selling that expertise to each other.

Payman: Are you also going to go down the laser hair removal and fat sculpting thing?

Benji Dhillon: No to laser hair removal, yes to fat sculpting.

Payman: Sorry.

Benji Dhillon: No no it’s all right. Fat freezing, fat warming. Laser hair removal is very much a beauty salon treatment. There are some amazing clinics that do it but you just can’t compare with the cost that beauty salons are charging for it. Yes body sculpting, non-invasive body sculpting. We’re all about effectively non-surgical, non-invasive options.

Payman: So what’s currently hot is that the thing? What are the public into right now?

Benji Dhillon: The public are really into body sculpting.

Payman: Does it work?

Benji Dhillon: Yeah it does work. You’ve got to look at the-

Payman: Talk us through, what happens?

Prav Solanki: Six pack?

Benji Dhillon: Close to. Prav you don’t need it anyway I know you’re ripped under that shirt. It’s non-invasive body sculpting or fat reduction is what it says on the tin. It’s no cuts, no blood nothing like that and with very differing technologies we effectively break down the adiposities through apoptosis. So it’s controlled cell death, it’s not starting off a necrotic chain reaction. And the one we’re going to have called cool scoped which is something called cryolipolysis. You suck the tissue into these freezing plates, it cools in right down to where the fat cell dies and your body eliminates it. On average you look at about 25% reduction for an area. So it’s not complete reduction. The caveat is, it isn’t for everyone. You’ve got to basically be to a good shape, you’ve got to be going to the gym, eating well and it’s really for those stubborn pockets of fat.

Payman: There I was thinking I didn’t have to go to the gym.

Prav Solanki: What I would have thought is if it’s 25%, the bigger you are, the better the result.

Benji Dhillon: Yeah you’d think that right. But if there’s a larger percentage taken down by that percentage you can’t always see that percentage change.

Payman: How long do you have to do it, how long does it last?

Benji Dhillon: It’s a one off treatment. Yeah I mean you may need two treatments for an area depending on the size of it. But technically speaking you don’t need to retreat that area.

Prav Solanki: What’s the level of investment involved in something like that?

Benji Dhillon: It varies.

Prav Solanki: Approximately.

Benji Dhillon: I mean if you were to say look at love handles is one area, you’re probably looking about 2,000 pounds. Under the chin, so we can break down double chins now, you’re probably looking at about 1,500 pounds. If you want to do your whole stomach, love handles, your underarms, it could go up to like 5, 6,000 pounds.

Prav Solanki: Got you. Let’s talk about relationships so you’re got three kids?

Benji Dhillon: Three kids yeah yeah.

Prav Solanki: Tell me about your family.

Benji Dhillon: So I’ve been married for eleven years just gone. We’ve been together about 16, 17 years. First, second year of university I should remember. Yeah we’ve got three girls together, nine, seven and five and yeah they’re fantastic.

Prav Solanki: So you met at uni, is your wife a medic?

Benji Dhillon: No she’s a lawyer. So she was a solicitor, went to law school. We weren’t at the same university together. We were introduced by a friend of her older brother’s.

Prav Solanki: Is this like the modern day arranged marriage?

Benji Dhillon: Not really no.

Payman: The second year university.

Benji Dhillon: Yeah it was exactly. Funny because I came from Brighton so I didn’t really go out with anyone back in Brighton. I was kind of the kid that no one wanted to go out with. Still to this day that’s why I got married so early.

Prav Solanki: I don’t believe that for a second.

Benji Dhillon: And we got introduced by a mutual friends just because we had told them we had similar interests. And actually my wife came from a relatively traditional background. Parents didn’t want her to go out with someone but she took the risk. We met each other’s parents within two months we made that kind of commitment early on. So out a couple of years, I wanted to finish medical school before we actually got married.

Prav Solanki: Yeah so my brother was introduced to a girl and it wasn’t what you would call an arranged marriage but it was almost like, here’s this one similar backgrounds whatever. And then-

Benji Dhillon: No our parents had no idea.

Prav Solanki: No idea.

Benji Dhillon: No idea. And then I remember actually going to tell, ringing my mom saying I met someone I really like her.

Prav Solanki: What was that phone call like?

Benji Dhillon: Oh it was really uncomfortable because my mom was like I haven’t introduced you to her. I’ve got to introduce you to someone. The traditional Indian thing to do. And the same for her.

Prav Solanki: What was the first question your mom asked about her? Is she Indian?

Benji Dhillon: Is she Indian? Yeah yeah is she Indian was probably the first. Where does she come from? Where do her parents live? Yeah those were actually the first questions my mom asked. Which came basically from her grandma.

Payman: You’ve got three daughters, I’ve got one daughter that must be interesting so you’re the only testosterone in the house?

Benji Dhillon: Yeah I’m the only man yeah. I love it. Oh god I think I was born to be a father to daughters. I absolutely love having my girls. I mean yes I don’t get to.

Payman: I’m sure you do but go on tell us some of the nuances that come, a bit emotional?

Benji Dhillon: No I mean they’re still young.

Payman: How old are they?

Benji Dhillon: Nine, seven and five. So they’re still little. The older ones start to get into more, understanding more about herself, the world, etc. But girls want to play spa days, they want to pretend they’re in a spa giving massages and getting benefits from that. Dad gets a massage. Saves me a couple of bob. So yeah no I love it.

Prav Solanki: How do you feel about them having phones?

Benji Dhillon: Mobile phones, oh I’m dead set against it. At this point in their life, this age, we actually don’t, we barely let them watch TV at home. They don’t use I pads, they barely use the phone because I want their mind to develop in other ways. I want them to read because our generations we didn’t have it back then, we kept ourselves occupied. I want them using their imagination because I think this is when their mind is so malleable and I want them to think creatively. So they make up their own games, we insist upon it. They read and they do things like that.

Payman: I find it really interesting if my son was sitting there writing a letter, he’s get all sorts of praise but if he’s sitting there writing a text message he’d get all sorts of. But if you’re saying exactly the same thing in those two. It’s kind of this questions of reading, reading off a Kindle is that worse than?

Benji Dhillon: No so reading off a Kindle I have no problem with.

Payman: Reading off an I pad.

Benji Dhillon: I think there’s a few different things. It’s almost like an entry level right? You start using your I phone or I pad for things that are acceptable like reading, soon that becomes I don’t know going on Instagram. It’s a gateway drug. And also for the eyes, the hand-eye coordination I want them to learn to write and stuff like that.

Payman: Right I mean who writes? I had a massive argument with my kids.

Benji Dhillon: Listen they may want to be a dentist or a surgeon in the future.

Payman: Yeah but I mean writing, writing’s so 1997 isn’t it? My kid goes to a French school and they have to write three different types of writing. Italic thing. And yet no computer classes. And let’s face it, our kids won’t even be looking at computers, they’ll have some sort of.

Benji Dhillon: Absolutely Google Glass or something.

Payman: And yet writing away.

Benji Dhillon: I completely agree with you. My kids are fortunate they do have computer classes but I think all those things do is teach hand eye coordination is developing–

Prav Solanki: Motor skills.

Benji Dhillon: Yeah it’s developing multi-skills. So I want them to do those kind of things. But I don’t want them having a phone yet.

Prav Solanki: What’s the right age?

Benji Dhillon: That’s a good question.

Payman: It’s when all their friends get one.

Benji Dhillon: I have in my head 30 years old. In reality I don’t, I think once they get to 15, 16.

Payman: No no but at 11 all of her best friends will have phones.

Benji Dhillon: Oh they have them now. Nine years old my daughter’s year. Not all of them there’s probably a handful that do. And listen, that’s the parent’s decision, I would never say it’s wrong, I just don’t want it for my daughter just yet. It may happen at 13. I think it’s hard to know until you get to that time.

Prav Solanki: Protective fathers, boyfriends.

Benji Dhillon: Don’t get me on that. Me and my wife argue about that.

Prav Solanki: Let’s do it.

Benji Dhillon: Oh god now I feel uncomfortable.

Prav Solanki: What age?

Benji Dhillon: Oh god.

Prav Solanki: What’s the process?

Benji Dhillon: The process that’s a really good question. Listen it could happen without me knowing, I’m open to that all right.

Prav Solanki: Of course it is.

Benji Dhillon: I think it’s down to them, I don’t think there’s, in my head I don’t have a right age for them to have a boyfriend. Clearly you don’t want it too young right? But I want to equip them to make those decisions when the time is right.

Prav Solanki: Your daughter comes home, 14 years old from school and says, “Daddy I’ve got a boyfriend.” How’d you deal with that?

Benji Dhillon: I think my wife would probably scream at her before I do. How do I deal with it? Sit her down, I’ll understand who, what, why, when. I would in my eyes at 14 I don’t.

Prav Solanki: My hormones are racing Daddy.

Benji Dhillon: Oh god don’t, honestly I’m sweating thinking about it right now. Really difficult. I honestly don’t know how I’d deal with it until the time.

Prav Solanki: The reason I’m asking is my daughter came home at that age and said, “What do you think about boyfriends, what’s the right age?” 35. I said absolutely right?

Prav Solanki: If ever happen, I don’t want you to hide it I want you to feel like you can come and talk to me about it. And the next day she came and told me about her boyfriend Jasper.

Payman: And the day after that Jasper was gone.

Benji Dhillon: He wasn’t around anymore. I know he has a dark side to him.

Prav Solanki: But I think in these situations certainly as a father of three daughters myself it’s one of those things that’s always in the back of your mind, you discuss it with your wife, but you can never prepare for it until it actually happens.

Benji Dhillon: No you can’t. I think you hit the nail on the head. You’ve got to have a relationship where they feel comfortable talking to you about anything and everything. I have to admit one of my, I think I sometimes scare my girls a little bit, where I think one of them put a bit of nail polish on and they actually hid their hands from me. I’ve had to address that. It’s just because of the way I was brought up. I have a little sister, my dad was very much like that. But I’ve got to change. Yeah you don’t know how to deal with it.

Benji Dhillon: We were driving back from my daughter’s birthday the other night, the nine year old, four girls in the car, we’re driving back home, all talking in the car and I was listening to the radio and then all of a sudden I heard about kiss boy in the same sentence so I know these kids, I know their parents I was like, “Oh my god.” Getting nervous. And they started talking about kiss, one of the girls asked who’s kissed a boy? Bless them three of the girls go, “Oh the only boy I’ve kissed are my daddy or my brother.” I was like oh thank god. One of the girls she said, “Oh there was this boy I like, he wanted to kiss me and it didn’t happen.” But it was a conversation happening at that age already. Yeah I hope I can be as good as you dealing with that.

Payman: How about as a boss I mean you’ve never been a boss I guess I don’t know you’ve had people-

Benji Dhillon: I’ve had to manage people yeah but never been a true boss.

Payman: What kind of boss do you think you’re going to be?

Benji Dhillon: I’m actually really looking forward to that. I think I’ll be fair. I want to be fair. I want to be inspiring and I want to help people achieve their goals in work and outside of work. One of the nicest things I’ve heard within my industry is a clinic owner whoever comes in, whoever she takes on, one of the first things she asks is what is it you would like to achieve outside of work? A girl came in and said, “I want to buy my own house.” She goes okay we’re going to work towards that, I’m going to help you. And she did, she helped to achieve her dream by helping her structure things financially. That’s the kind of direction I want to go in.

Payman: Firm boss?

Benji Dhillon: When it’s needed. Yeah I think coming back to that patient experience, if there’s any compromise on the quality of delivery of anything to do with the clinic, I think that’s when I’ll be firm.

Payman: About this, me and Prav we’re talking about the differences between the way he runs his people and the way I run my people and I think actually when I really come down to it, I’m probably better employee than I am as a boss.

Prav Solanki: I agree. It’s like stepping into a community centre.

Payman: As an employee no it’s kind of having someone to report to. By the way, I love being my own boss. But having someone to report to, having external, someone checking up on me is actually good for me. And I’m very close with my team but at the same time when you’re very close with your team it’s hard to tell them off. And we’re talking about hiring and firing, very difficult thing. But it’s interesting because it’s very different working with people when you’re all working for someone else and you think you’re great even though it might be your nurse. And at the same time you’re not the boss and actually being their boss.

Benji Dhillon: Yeah I could totally see that. It’s stepping into new water for me. I’m fully aware how I like to think about it in my head is I do want to be a bit like you, I want to friendly and inspiring form for my employees. I think the one thing I want to be is.

Prav Solanki: Sorry I just have to laugh there when you said inspiring.

Benji Dhillon: So inspiring.

Prav Solanki: I came here from Manchester this morning. I was at Haymen’s office before he was. He lives 20 minutes away.

Payman: But I went to bed before you woke up. Just before.

Benji Dhillon: Well I tell you what I walked in and saw the tennis table, that’s great stuff to have for your employees right? But I guess both of you have got your own businesses. I see there’s fledgling businesses as another child. I think when anyone messes with that I think that really bug the hell out of me and I’ll protect that little child as much as I can.

Payman: But you know how your kid does something silly and you start making excuses for your kid.

Benji Dhillon: See I don’t do that.

Payman: It’s that friend. You end up making excuses for your business as well.

Benji Dhillon: Yeah that’s true.

Payman: I catch myself doing it all the time. Have you got a longer term plan than this one clinic are you thinking lots of them? Or are you not.

Benji Dhillon: No no that’s the ambition, I’d love to you know if the brand works, if the patient journey works, yeah I’d love to take this to other sites 100%, that would be the dream but I want to make the first one work.

Prav Solanki: If your 20 year old self knowing what you know today.

Benji Dhillon: I’ll be honest, I would go back to 18, I’d go study dentistry.

Prav Solanki: Seriously?

Benji Dhillon: Yeah yeah. Honestly speaking.

Prav Solanki: Why?

Benji Dhillon: I would go back and do dentistry, not because I think there’s anything wrong with my career but I think dentistry rather than medicine allows a fusion between clinical work and being an entrepreneur a lot more than medicine does. And it’s actually getting into what I’m doing now that I’m really enjoying the business side of it. It really, it gets me excited. I love the clinical side, that’s my passion but it’s adding this extra element. And I wish I could have done that years ago. And I think dentists have that exposure.

Payman: Earlier on.

Benji Dhillon: Earlier on. And actually some of the stuff dentists can do, it’s incredible. It’s life changing as well. It could have been I would have become dual trained but yeah I would have probably considered dentistry more than I did. For me, dentists were, I hate to admit this, but dentists were failed medics when I was that age. But actually…yeah typical medic right? But actually dentists have an incredible career.

Prav Solanki: The anatomy class of the neck.

Benji Dhillon: That led to it’s own problems.

Payman: I really didn’t expect you to say that. But how about your brand as a cosmetic doctor. Do you play on the doctor?

Benji Dhillon: Yeah yeah absolutely. Being doctor-led with my background and experience, absolutely make a play on that. It’s years of experience, knowledge within the field that is important to the field that is important to the patient at the end of the day.

Payman: By the way are you handling their marketing? So we’ll see how quickly how patients come. Obviously you’ve got all of the best working on your marketing. But at the beginning, this is one bit of advice I’d give you for first time you go into business, the first year expect complete carnage, expect to lose all the money. If you don’t great.

Benji Dhillon: I can imagine.

Prav Solanki: It’s a bonus right?

Benji Dhillon: Yeah I’m well prepared.

Payman: Carnage. In fact first two three years. One of my friends he started a nuclear power station.

Benji Dhillon: Okay so he hasn’t gone small either.

Payman: No big player but he told me it’s going to take four years before that thing works. And in medicine sometimes we expect things to work straight away. And it’s not just that you’ve got to take a lot, some people don’t. But it takes a few years before you get into the rhythm of what you’re actually, your actual USP and that actual community. And when you find the right person. Now you’ve got craft and carry, patients will be coming in day one but expect it.

Benji Dhillon: Yeah no absolutely.

Prav Solanki: The thing is with business my biggest struggle is people right. Always right. So you may find this superstar employee and then for some reason they relocate.

Payman: My buddy with the nuclear power station, I said, “How the hell do you go about opening a nuclear power station?” And he said, “Believe me nowhere near as hard as if I had lots of employees.” And apparently it doesn’t take many employees.

Benji Dhillon: It’s all computers and automated.

Payman: Machines yeah. People are the hardest.

Benji Dhillon: Mom and dad had their own business years ago.

Payman: What did they do?

Benji Dhillon: They ran nursing homes, nursing and rest homes. And one thing that kept them up at night was people. And it’s sort of like saying someone leaves who’s amazing and all of a sudden you’ve got a massive hole.

Prav Solanki: Benji it’s your last day on this planet, and you can’t take anything with you and you’re going to leave behind one thing which is a note, and what do you want people to remember you by in that note? Benji was…

Benji Dhillon: That’s a good question. You love these difficult questions don’t you? That really revolve, reveal a person’s character. What would I leave?

Prav Solanki: How would you like somebody to remember you?

Benji Dhillon: I think first and foremost as a family man. Benji loved his family, his best.

Prav Solanki: Love that.

Benji Dhillon: Yeah they’re the two things that I would like to stand for.

Payman: Desert island type questions. So house on fire, you’ve saved your family, what’s the one thing you pick up on your way out?

Benji Dhillon: That’s a really good questions as well, things I’ve never considered. The one thing I’d take from home.

Prav Solanki: Olympus sweatshirt of course.

Benji Dhillon: No I never got that. My god that’s a really good question. I’d probably take kill us, I mean contrary to what we said earlier, I’d probably take my phone. It’s got all pictures of all my family on it. Memories. Because we don’t have photo albums anymore do we?

Payman: Of course we don’t.

Benji Dhillon: It can’t be the memories.

Payman: You’re not on the Cloud then?

Benji Dhillon: Some of it is on the Cloud yeah. It’s the memories right which you can’t replace. One thing I’d take.

Payman: Totally. Been lovely having you.

Prav Solanki: Been a pleasure.

Benji Dhillon: It’s been fun, been a lot of fun.

Payman: It really has and meeting you today for the first time today for me it’s been a real pleasure.

Benji Dhillon: Thanks for having me.

Prav Solanki: Appreciate it.

Payman: Thanks so much for coming.

Benji Dhillon: Thanks for difficult questions. Cheers.

Payman: Big big big luck with the project. What’s it going to be called by the way?

Benji Dhillon: Define.

Payman: Oh nice.

Benji Dhillon: Yeah Define.

Payman: I was going to call a product define.

Benji Dhillon: Oh were you?

Payman: Five years ago. I’ve got a really nice logo for it if you want.

Benji Dhillon: Oh really I might need it.

Prav Solanki: [crosstalk]

Payman: Excellent. Prav’s just taking a selfie.

Benji Dhillon: Yeah he’s going to edit us out.

Payman: Thanks.

Benji Dhillon: No lovely cheers.

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

Transcript

Prav Solanki: Hey guys, and welcome to today’s episode of the Dental Leaders Podcast. Today we had the pleasure of interviewing Mahrukh Khwaja, who’s the founder of Empowering Women in Dentistry group and has started a movement herself. What an inspiring character. Somebody who I’ve been following certainly, on social media, that popped up from nowhere. I think this group has given a lot of people confidence, courage and just brought certain mental health issues to the front. Certainly her own personal journey that she shared with us. It was very emotional and very heartfelt interview, I felt.

Payman: Well you could tell from her, the vocabulary she had around mental wellness and I think it’s one of those areas that, give it another 10 years. Everyone’s going to understand. I think without having gone through what she’s gone through herself, she’s very very, up-on, exactly what to look out for and what to do. The same time. There’s a lot more to Empowering Women in Dentistry than that but it seemed to me that that was her real area of passion. Really lovely, lovely interview. You can enjoy it.

Prav Solanki: Enjoy.

Mahrukh Khwaja: There are certainly challenges, I can appreciate that. But it’s also really exciting-

Payman: Of course.

Mahrukh Khwaja: As well that, something new can come and we can have different conversations in dentistry. And also I’m helping to create a seat at the table where I feel like perhaps we’re not always given that seat?

Speaker 4: This is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry, your host, Payman Langroudi and Prav Solanki.

Payman: It’s really good to have Mahrukh in the studio. I’ve been looking forward to talking to you. I remember one of the first few times we met and it was soon after the Minimalist conference and then also before, it’s before the Minimalist conference and you said to me, why aren’t there more women speakers at the conference?

Payman: And I thought about it and we had Sanely McCrone and she was, from my point of view, probably the best speaker, the most useful content that we had on that day. But at the time I didn’t appreciate the question. I felt why should there be more women on? Until I kind of turned it around and I thought, well, what would I have felt, if there was eight women and one man? I would probably have wanted more men. This question of Empowering Women in Dentistry, which is your whole thing, your group and so on. Where did it start and tell us some of the history about it.

Mahrukh Khwaja: Empowering Women in Dentistry really started from a feeling of frustration that women weren’t being equally represented in all spans of industry. When I was looking at this in a party setting where there are lots of principles out, that they were female or even at a conference setting, academia research. And I got to a point in my dentistry, I was in a bit of a rant and I was looking to upscale but finding a real lack of mentorship, a feeling of disconnection from other women and feeling quite isolated, being in practise and just really wanting to connect more with positive, uplifting women. That’s where the concept started.

Payman: But what do you think is the reason why there aren’t more women role models? Do you think that they’ve been, held back or do you think that there’s something about women that doesn’t put themselves forward or is it about having children? What is it? Is it all of those things?

Mahrukh Khwaja: I think that’s a really complex and interesting question. There’s lots of different strands and they’re definitely all inter-play. I think for me the biggest aspect is looking at fear, fear of failure, fear that women might have, of speaking up and having a voice. Are they going to be ridiculed, criticised? Definitely, are they putting themselves forward, perhaps not so much? Why is that, looking at the psychology behind that?

Mahrukh Khwaja: Definitely being mother does impact your dentistry, especially if you’re not supported. If your principal, for example, isn’t allowing for flexible working patterns, etc, that would impact things as well. I think it’s definitely complex. I feel like, there potentially could be a man’s club as well, where men in high visibility roles may not be giving the equal opportunities to women.

Mahrukh Khwaja: But having said that, women can step forward and create that seat at the table. I’d love to see that more.

Payman: And you’ve been interviewing successful women dentists yourself. Is there something about them that more masculine or is there something about them that’s a thread that you’ve seen going through those women, are they the type that don’t care what people think about them or-

Mahrukh Khwaja: Yes, it’s been a really interesting journey talking to women and there’s lots of different things I’ve kind of gained from that. Comments read I found was actually, they’ve all experienced a difficult scenario. They’ve all been bullied or harassed at work, which was really surprising to me.

Payman: All of the ones you spoken to?

Mahrukh Khwaja: Pretty much all of them.

Payman: Even the super successful ones?

Mahrukh Khwaja: Yes, definitely. I thought that perhaps there is a face to someone who might be harassed, but no, actually it’s successful, really driven women, have experienced some difficult situations but have flipped it around and have looked at self-growth and used that situation and really grown from it. I think that’s been the most surprising element actually, coming out of the interviews.

Prav Solanki: Have you come across any sort of female speakers, lecturers, mentors in dentistry, who’ve made it that haven’t had to sort of turn that negative energy around or being harassed or bullied and just made it positive on their own two feet from the ground up?

Mahrukh Khwaja: Yeah, definitely. I have come across a few women like that as well. That have had generally quite positive experiences. But I would say that’s the minority actually, majority have experienced some difficulty and it doesn’t necessarily have to be in the workplace. It might be in a relationship or just generally in life. And they’ve kind of come from their own rock bottom and they’ve wanted to change things around.

Payman: Isn’t that a human thing. I mean-

Mahrukh Khwaja: Definitely.

Payman: Do you think… forget the industry, do you think it’s harder to be a woman in society than being a man in today’s society?

Mahrukh Khwaja: I would say so-

Payman: I’m not sure, I mean I’m not sure.

Mahrukh Khwaja: I think it can be because women have the expectations to do well in their career, but also to be great mother, to be great wife. It’s all these hats that they’re juggling and there’s more pressure to be blessed in all of these areas. Not to say that men don’t experience this, at sometimes it feels like we’re being sold a dream that is very hard to achieve. Something has to give…

Prav Solanki: I kind of hear where you’re coming from because you know, if I look at myself, I’m the guy, I go out to work. I’ve got four kids at home and my wife is a full time mom and she runs a little business on the side as well, right? Well she can only fit that in around looking after the kids, doing the very best for them and everything has to be perfect. Every meal on the table, every kid’s club, everything has to be spot on the kids are a priority. Her career can’t be.

Prav Solanki: Then I come home after a really easy day at work and all the kids want to do is hug me and I play super dad and in some respects I see that from her perspective and a feel or it’s not fair because I’m the guy who goes out and I can live my dream, do what I want to do, I come home, I get the best of the kids and she gets to deal with a screaming winging kids during the day and I blackballed Paula glories. Did you sort of that, those similarities-

Mahrukh Khwaja: Definitely-

Prav Solanki: In other walks of like in business as well as just sort of what I’ve described as my sort of home life relationship with my wife? Do you see any sort of parallels in the workplace?

Mahrukh Khwaja: Definitely. I would agree with that there’s so many pressures that we mean are putting on themselves, historically we would focus on the motherhood role and why for now, more than ever, we’re focusing on career and all the different avenues in life, we want to be the best and it’s… we are doing a juggling act.

Prav Solanki: What’s your solution if there is one to readdressing that balance so that there is that equality or if you were to give some advice to, say my wife, how can she manage and juggle all of that? Perhaps give advice to me. I don’t know who you think you should give advice out to. I’d love to hear your thoughts on that.

Mahrukh Khwaja: I think it’s really important to focus on self-care and it’s one of the areas that we just don’t invest in. I’d really look at person development, making time for yourself, that you can then really explore the other avenues in your life. That’s been the biggest hurdle that I’ve kind of come through.

Prav Solanki: Go back to the… I’m going to keep relating this back to my own life ’cause it’s a good way of me understanding things. You talked about making time for yourself and my wife would argue, I’ve got four kids, I’ve not got time, I’m cooking so many meals a day. I’m feeding the kids, I’m taxing the kids around. What would you like in that? And I’m sure there’s loads of all the women out there in the same situation as my wife who said, you know what? I’d love to go back and maybe study. She may do that later on in life. I’ll get more time to work on her own business, which she does in the evening when I’m tucked up in bed, believe it or not and just like, what would you advise in that situation of just sort of addressing that balance? She said find more time or give time to yourself, a personal development. What would your solution be to that?

Mahrukh Khwaja: I think it’s actually just looking back to how do you reclaim your health? How do you feel happier every day? It’s a very simple little things. It’s not necessarily, going away on holiday. It’s incorporating these small practises daily and that makes a difference. What I notice, really helped me was every morning having a daily practise and setting aside by 10 minutes, it can even be as small as five minutes, start small and then work on that. It doesn’t need to be hours. And actually we do have time, we just prioritise it in different ways.

Payman: Sure.

Mahrukh Khwaja: That five minutes to spend on mindfulness, to spend on meditation, take a couple of… even two minutes, use an app. It doesn’t need to be complicated and you’ll find that you feel much more rested, much more karma and you’ll be able to take on tasks that you feel like you can’t normally-

Payman: Did you find yourself in a position of overwhelm and had to implement some of this stuff and that’s why you want to now talk about it. Is that what happened?

Mahrukh Khwaja: Yeah, definitely. I would say it’s a journey really. My first couple of experiences straight out of VET were really negative. I was working in toxic environments-

Payman: What does that mean, go on, expand on that.

Mahrukh Khwaja: The first couple of principles I had really focused on teaching in a shaming way. They’d come and they’d watch my crown preps for example, and then they criticise the crown prep in front of a patient. They take photos of my web but not just mine, the whole team. And then they’d be criticising those things in front of us. I went into work feeling very panicked, feeling very uncomfortable and already not really knowing my place when I’d come out of dental school.

Mahrukh Khwaja: And really, you want your-

Payman: You are vulnerable at that point anyway.

Mahrukh Khwaja: Exactly.

Payman: That’s the thing. It’s sort of who you are.

Mahrukh Khwaja: You’re not quite sure where you fit in. What can you give to your patients, you are not quite sure yet, cause you don’t have that experience. It was really negative. I’ve called it bullying and harassment. That’s how I would label it now but at that time, actually I normalised it, they’re trying to help me. But… and maybe this is normal. This is how people are taught. I-

Payman: It’s not dental school that, that’s way too, isn’t it?

Mahrukh Khwaja: I think, yeah. To element, I think. 2010 from King’s.

Payman: Right, something different to when I qualify… I remember in vet school that being a away from teaching, from some of the teachers anyway, I can think of.

Prav Solanki: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Payman: Do you think, the bullying directed to you in particular, is it because you’re a woman and were there any other sort of male VTs at the time or associates that were treated any differently? Did you feel like you were singled out at all?

Mahrukh Khwaja: In my experience, I’ve personally… there were a few other men there, but they were senior, so the conversations were different-

Payman: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Mahrukh Khwaja: With them. I think in part, perhaps me being female and younger-

Payman: Sure.

Mahrukh Khwaja: Meant that the principle could, or felt that it allows you to speak in a certain way. But I think it goes to show… it really reflects the principle kind of attitude and his own psychology. There’s someone who wants to be little, who wants to tear someone down. Probably has been torn down as well. And he’s got an interesting psychology as well. That was my first few experiences of coming out to dental school-

Payman: Say, at the time you didn’t recognise it for that?

Mahrukh Khwaja: I didn’t recognise it. And actually I stayed in that position for about six months. This is after VET and looking back at now, I wouldn’t, but I felt that I had a job and I felt, I wasn’t really sure if there was much else out there. Like I said, I normalise a lot of this toxic behaviour. Then I went from that to a marriage as well that was psychologically abusive. I came out of that, just feeling, not, well, really feeling lost, not really knowing who I was

Payman: Mm-hmm (affirmative)

Mahrukh Khwaja: And really looking inwards to find ways of progressing and to become a more calm, peaceful person, to reclaim that, that feel like I lost.

Prav Solanki: Just to sort of touch on your marriage and you just qualified in 2010, just got to get the chronology right. 2010, is that right?

Mahrukh Khwaja: Yes.

Prav Solanki: Did your VT and then you got married-

Mahrukh Khwaja: In 2013.

Prav Solanki: 2013, did your husband at the time, had you, was it a long term relationship, that was throughout university, or? Just talk us through how you met and the courting and all the rest of it, just to-

Mahrukh Khwaja: I know-

Prav Solanki: Paint the picture out there, because there is a lot of people out there, maybe some that are listening, who’ve been in either abusive relationships, physical, mental, whatever that may be. It’d be good just to get an understanding of the background of that if you don’t mind.

Mahrukh Khwaja: Of course. I met my partner in 2009 in dental school. He was training to become a physiotherapist. I met him at campus and we had a great time getting to know each other. I would say the relationship was really quite positive, in the early years and we decided to get married after a couple of years and-

Prav Solanki: Just talk me through the proposal.

Mahrukh Khwaja: Well, actually, I didn’t go… it wasn’t a western proposal, it wasn’t like that. It was more actually a conversation. Not very romantic-

Payman: But Prav’s a real romantic, you see he is.

Mahrukh Khwaja: I’m actually a romantic as well but no, it was just a conversation and we decided that it would be great to take it further into the next step.

Prav Solanki: Commit to each other.

Mahrukh Khwaja: To commit to each other and I knew a lot about his childhood and the difficulties he’d experienced-

Payman: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Mahrukh Khwaja: I got to know him very well. We decided to take that step forward.

Payman: When did the honeymoon period end and what were the first signs that you get from that happy situation to what you call, abusive.

Mahrukh Khwaja: It’s really different living with someone than courting someone.

Payman: Sure.

Mahrukh Khwaja: A person can convey a sad image for a few hours, but when you get to know them day in, day out, it changes very quickly. I would say very early on the marriage in the marriage-

Payman: Hadn’t you not lived together at all before you got married?

Mahrukh Khwaja: We hadn’t lived… no.

Payman: That’s an error isn’t it?

Mahrukh Khwaja: (Laughs) I mean, culturally that wouldn’t… that’s not accepted-

Prav Solanki: What are your thoughts on that?

Mahrukh Khwaja: I think it’s… I can understand why-

Prav Solanki: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Mahrukh Khwaja: Why it’s not celebrated to live with the partners.

Prav Solanki: Sure.

Mahrukh Khwaja: I can see it from that perspective, but then I can see I’m British-Pakistani, I can see the advantages of living with your partner. I can see at both angles.

Payman: Would you do it again?

Mahrukh Khwaja: To be married without living?

Payman: Yeah, Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Mahrukh Khwaja: I think I’d be comfortable with that concept.

Payman: Really?

Mahrukh Khwaja: Yeah. I think I would, actually.

Payman: Now you’re a better judge of character than you were back then or what?

Mahrukh Khwaja: Yes, I think so. I think I can pick up on the red flags a lot better. Plus I understand myself a lot better as well-

Payman: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Mahrukh Khwaja: I wouldn’t necessarily feel like I have to live with my partner.

Prav Solanki: I struggle with this concept, simply because I put this, this is my personal belief, that you don’t really get to know a person until you’ve lived with them.

Mahrukh Khwaja: Yeah.

Prav Solanki: Yeah, what there is though-

Payman: Hell yeah.

Prav Solanki: It’s disgusting little habits they’ve got or the annoying little things. And even then during the honeymoon period, you don’t quite figure it out. You’ve had kids-

Payman: (laughs)

Mahrukh Khwaja: Yeah, (laughs).

Payman: And then they get in the way and that’s when the true person comes out, on both ends.

Mahrukh Khwaja: Yeah.

Payman: I just find the whole concept of not being able to live and I come from a very-

Mahrukh Khwaja: Yes-

Prav Solanki: Traditional family background, where that’s frowned upon completely.

Payman: Did you and Bobby live together?

Prav Solanki: Yeah, of course.

Payman: How long?

Prav Solanki: A year? There abouts.

Mahrukh Khwaja: (laughs).

Prav Solanki: But the thing – and you know – I came from a very – and I hope my father in law’s not listening but-

Prav Solanki: (Laughing) I remember going to that house when we were courting and I put my hand on her shoulder like this. Two minutes later her dad drafted me off into his bedroom-

Payman: Bloody hell-

Prav Solanki: And he said, listen son, this touchy, touchy-

Mahrukh Khwaja: (Laughs)

Prav Solanki: No go on in my house, not until you’re married.

Mahrukh Khwaja: (laughs)

Prav Solanki: (Laughs) And I thought, wow. And that’s how strict and I’m thinking, it was, I couldn’t… my kids. I’d encourage it.

Mahrukh Khwaja: Yeah.

Prav Solanki: Because I’d rather they made the mistake at that point then… and do you, having made that mistake, do you still feel that you’d be able to…

Mahrukh Khwaja: I don’t know – I completely understand where you’re coming from-

Prav Solanki: Sure.

Mahrukh Khwaja: You’ve got lots of valid points, I can understand that, but I don’t know if it is because I didn’t live with him. It was actually more, for me, that I hadn’t picked up on the red flags-

Payman: Sure.

Mahrukh Khwaja: I hadn’t… that I was perhaps looking for something quite different in a partner and hadn’t really thought about what I needed in a partnership.

Payman: And by the way, plenty of marriages fail where you have lived with people-

Prav Solanki: Of course.

Payman: That is brilliant. Of course.

Mahrukh Khwaja: Exactly.

Prav Solanki: Of course.

Payman: That’s for sure. Then when did it start feeling that? What were the signs? What were the red flags?

Mahrukh Khwaja: The red flags were, that he had a history of mental health and hadn’t managed it, I mean, at all. My partner had… well he told me he had previously had bulimia and he also had depression and OCD. All these mental health conditions that he hadn’t focused on. That was a big red flag actually came from a background of abuse as well. His dad had hit him, there was physical abuse, potentially sexual abuse as well. I had actually completed a year of psychology, I did an in calculated-

Payman: Ah, ok.

Mahrukh Khwaja: PSE in psychology. I thought I understood these really well, what I hadn’t understood was all the distortion that comes with mental health, disorders. The thinking is sort of very different and I hadn’t appreciate that at all. That was a big red flag and the immaturity as well. Someone who didn’t have, wasn’t as mature as he could be, coming to being married you’d expect a level of maturity switch, he lacked. That was a big red flag as well.

Prav Solanki: What do you mean by lack of maturity? I mean, I always get pulled off, prating around all the time. It’s easy, in relation to sort of maturity towards sort of the relationship itself or?

Mahrukh Khwaja: Yes, more with the relationship, really being able to empathise with your partner more, to not get defensive even during arguments to try and understand your partner’s perspective-

Prav Solanki: Work as a team?

Mahrukh Khwaja: Exactly. Work as a team. I think that’s really important. There was quite a few flags that I didn’t… I saw it would work out and we could get through this. It was actually… he decided that he wanted out. It wasn’t-

Payman: He initiated that?

Mahrukh Khwaja: Yeah, he kept threatening me throughout the marriage, with divorce and it didn’t actually come from me.

Payman: Mm-hmm (affirmative). And how did you feel? First your boss, not comfortable then the marriage, not comfortable, how did you feel about that, was that your lowest time?

Mahrukh Khwaja: Yeah, I would say that was my rock bottom. It was a big change in my life. Going from really feeling like I’d set up my whole life. I knew where my life was going for that to be crashing down. I really felt it and I didn’t feel prepared going forward. I felt very lost and I feel like that’s very relatable actually. We all go through periods of loss and that’s what I was experiencing. I was going through grief and this cycle and not really knowing how to navigate it. I experienced, I would say like a roller coaster of emotions.

Prav Solanki: Mm-hmm (affirmative). What were the steps at the point where he, he said to you that you wanted to get divorced or whatever, and this time after all those threats, it was serious, I guess or you sort of took it more seriously?

Mahrukh Khwaja: I took it more seriously, but coming to think of it and analysing it more-

Payman: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Mahrukh Khwaja: It was probably another threat. It was a threat that if you don’t actually change your behaviour, because look all of the problems are because of you and also I felt like that was the case. I felt like, well I’m not doing enough.

Prav Solanki: You normalised it.

Mahrukh Khwaja: I normalised a lot of the psychological abuse. I felt like it really was me at fault here. It was a threat that he made and I took it seriously and it just propelled. And then it happened. We did actually push forward with the divorce, but I’m so glad to be out of that situation. It was such a big heading point, a big shakeup for me. I’m so glad that I had that experience. I’ve learned so much from it and he’s certainly not a bad person. Just someone who hasn’t explored their mental health-

Payman: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Mahrukh Khwaja: It’s just really impacted our relationship-

Payman: You still in touch?

Mahrukh Khwaja: No, I’m not in touch, now.

Prav Solanki: What was your biggest worry when you decided that you were going to take that threat? Seriously? What is life like on my own? Was it, what am I parents going to think or what were the things going and I just want to understand from a cultural background what are the issues that come to light when that becomes a reality.

Mahrukh Khwaja: Luckily or fortunately I would say, that I didn’t come from a place where my… I wasn’t under pressure from my family to stay in the marriage that was difficult. I’d been brought up to really work hard with all of my relationships. Naturally, I come from a place of compromise all the time. But there wasn’t that pressure at all that I needed to stick at something-

Payman: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Mahrukh Khwaja: Just because we decided to get married, I’m really lucky in that respect. I know there are other women out there that feel the pressure, but I certainly didn’t experience that at all. I’m really grateful for that, what I experienced really, was a loss of identity, finding out who am I now out of this marriage and where do I go from from here?

Mahrukh Khwaja: How do I put my trust in people again? That was a big one, it felt like a massive loss of the dreams and hopes I had. It was… I’m working out how to accept that, that was over. It’s not straight forward and I didn’t appreciate that either. I had lots of expectations of where I wanted to be straight after the divorce and you really need to give yourself time and be very compassionate and kind to yourself, because it does take time to heal. I was very, very fortunate actually to be in a position where I felt it was okay to seek help. Not just from my family and friends, but also with a therapist. I think that was a big turning point

Prav Solanki: And in this situation, if you were to advise someone else out there in exactly the same situation, you were brave enough to reach out to a therapist, someone else might look at that as, I can’t do that or whatever, or I don’t want to talk to a complete stranger about my problems, right? Just talk us through what advice you’d give someone else found in the same situation that you found yourself in lost dreams, shattered, everything, what golden nuggets could you give to someone in the same situation that you were once?

Mahrukh Khwaja: I mean, I can understand why there’d anxiety about approaching therapy and really putting yourself out there and talking about very vulnerable topics, but it’s not as scary as you think. I think that’s the first thing I’d say. Just go and explore that option, there’s no stigma attached to this. There’s no shame attached to that. It’s going and speaking to an expert on the mind, it’s someone to help you and they will help you grow and help you work through the difficulty you’re in, I would really encourage people to go and try it and it could work for you. I think talking therapy works for most people. I would say.

Payman: Because there was a stigma attached to it and that’s why people are so worried about it, but it’s changed so much, hasn’t? In the last four years even though?

Mahrukh Khwaja: I think definitely yes-

Payman: People are openly talking-

Mahrukh Khwaja: There’s a lot more openness around therapy now and I’d love to see more of that. It’d be great to talk openly more about the joys of going to a therapist and working on yourself. That’s the best, that’s where you need to invest your, your time and effort and money-

Prav Solanki: I work with a lot clients to make them or position them in front of their patients so that people find them or position them to be a type of dentist that patients want to come to. How do you find the right therapist for you and how did you go about finding the right therapist for yourself?

Mahrukh Khwaja: I think what I did was I used Google and I had an idea of who might be a great therapist, but actually you don’t really know until you go out there and approach people.

Payman: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Mahrukh Khwaja: For me I felt, I needed to be a woman and I’d love it if she was from an ethnic minority as well and maybe should understand some of the cultural aspects, nuances. That was the kind of person I was looking for-

Payman: Interesting.

Mahrukh Khwaja: But Luckily, it was one of the first people I touched base with. I had a phone conversation with her and I felt, it went really well. I felt a connection, I felt really drawn to her and we agreed to have our first session just to talk about what I wanted to gain out to therapy and I met with her and it just truly changed my trajectory and really really such a blessing to have met her. It just went really, really well.

Payman: From the first session?

Mahrukh Khwaja: Yeah, I gained so much from that first meeting.

Payman: Really? Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Mahrukh Khwaja: It was amazing.

Payman: How many meetings did you end up having? Would you still see her?

Mahrukh Khwaja: I see her now and again, if there’s any difficulty I’m going through or something I just want to explore with her. Initially I had probably about three months of therapy during the divorce and that was centred on accepting, the divorce was happening and how to move forward and it was really grief therapy, that’s when you’re going through that, you know the stages of grief.

Prav Solanki: And how often is that therapy, it’s over three months now. How often did you see your therapist?

Mahrukh Khwaja: Weekly? Every week-

Payman: On the couch, the way you-

Mahrukh Khwaja: Yeah, on a couch. It’s, it’s lovely. You’re in a really nice room, she has lavender kind of a vaporizer there, it smells really nice. She offers you tea, you’re having a really nice conversation with someone and you’re touching on really difficult aspects as well, but it’s someone that wants to see you push forward. It’s really a positive experience, but it needn’t be as scary as you, you think is, it’s just really a conversation you’re having when… and you’re getting some tools to help you push forward.

Prav Solanki: How different is that, to getting support from your best mate?

Mahrukh Khwaja: I mean, support from your best mate is always amazing, definitely, but it’s someone who… with a therapist, she doesn’t know you. It’s coming from a different angle. It’s very objective and you’ll be able to take the advice in a different way.

Payman: Sure.

Mahrukh Khwaja: Plus, a therapist has training in psychology, so can really understand your problems in a different way and for me actually, I learned probably best through understanding and understanding psychology behind things. It was really focused on understanding the psychology behind my husband and why he behaved in a certain way and what was his trauma? What was his-

Prav Solanki: Sure.

Mahrukh Khwaja: Problems, the shame that he experienced and how that impacted us and that was life changing.

Prav Solanki: I guess, they’ve been there and seen it so many times that they’re more qualified to just offer you that advice, right?

Mahrukh Khwaja: Yeah and one awesome thing as well was learning more about the kind of resources that are available, such as Ted talks. That was the first time I read, I’d really delved into Ted and the youtube kind of videos and podcasts that are out there and I came across just really interesting authors. It was a period of growth for me. I was learning much more about the human mind and then very, very exciting time.

Prav Solanki: You came from absolutely nowhere as far as I’m concerned. You were nowhere on my radar for sure. Then all of a sudden this person appeared on social media and started sharing ideas, information, positivity through what seemed to start off with a few little Facebook posts, videos, images, to now sort of spreading the word and the message. Is that sort of your way of giving back or what what are you sort of aiming to achieve from that?

Mahrukh Khwaja: The purpose of the group is to really showcase positive female role models. I guess that and also creating a mentally supported profession. That all really comes from my journey and my passion for mental health. A lot of the positive posts I have are centred on wellness are really coming from or I’ve experienced and I’d love to kind of push forward with that message of self care. I feel like in our profession, mental wellness is not always really focused on and I feel like burnout and stress is a common issue amongst dentists currently.

Mahrukh Khwaja: Whenever I connect with other dentists, they will tell me about their story and stress and burnout and long hours and rumination over patient complaints, is a common one that I’m hearing. If there was a way to support our profession-

Payman: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Mahrukh Khwaja: I’d love to really focus on that.

Payman: Do you feel like because you’d been through the process of getting better from your story, that you had with your life, do you feel like you’re better equipped to handle clinical problems, now, is it the same set of sort of tools, that you used to get yourself out of… if everybody should complain, would you use something similar?

Mahrukh Khwaja: Yes, definitely. I feel like it’s massively helped me to deal with stress and rumination. It’s a big one and actually without this toolkit I would be struggling a lot more. I wouldn’t be able to recognise, first of all, when I was stressed, and when I was feeling the burnout to prevent it progressing-

Payman: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Mahrukh Khwaja: Definitely just really learning about what tools, what coping mechanisms do I have, feel less stressed to manage my mental wellness. It’s made a massive impact-

Payman: Why don’t you give us an example, because there’s so many people, as you said, going through stress. I read that mental dental group with… it’s my favourite group on Facebook, say someone’s got a GDC complaint right now and they also hate their job and their husband isn’t responsive, but presence in the relationship, let’s talk about, of course there are personal things that are going to be right for you as a person and other general tools and let’s have an example, if it’s one out there, how can they click their mind into a positive mindset? First of all, I guess, you’re going to tell me, recognise that they’ve got a problem and… walk us through a few things.

Mahrukh Khwaja: I think when I’m going through a stressful situation, whatever that might be. Definitely first of all is recognising and owning up to yourself that there is something going on. That’s a big step, first of all. And that doesn’t mean you’re a failure. It’s just a very human experience. We all go through these periods of first of all, recognising it, and then just really looking at your coping mechanisms. What can you do that will help you really feel a lot safer and calmer and more connected.

Mahrukh Khwaja: That really varies for everyone, for me that is gratitude practise, daily. I do this just before I go to bed. I’ll think of all the things I’m grateful for, but we feel those things. You feel that sense of connection. For me also positive affirmations have been really helpful-

Payman: What does that mean?

Mahrukh Khwaja: These are positive statements that you make and they’re statements that you repeat and can really help ground you. It might be as simple as ‘I’m safe. I’m loved’. I did this a lot during the divorce because I felt completely unloved. I mean I have family that loved me but-

Payman: Sure.

Mahrukh Khwaja: I did not feel safe. I felt the world was changing around me.

Payman: Do you literally say that statement several times, that makes you feel better?

Mahrukh Khwaja: During moments of a panic attack where I found it really useful to say those statements and… definitely. There so many. It could be focused on I am loving and I’m connected, I’m safe. I am going to have a happy day. My patients are grateful for the work I do. It can be a very incredible statement. You can take it anywhere, which is awesome.

Prav Solanki: Just out of curiosity, you talked earlier on about your morning routine and having a set routine. I’ve got my own, I’m really, really interested to hear about what your morning routine is to settle positivity for the day and then what happens at the end of the day, even if you’ve had a shit day?

Mahrukh Khwaja: Yes. (Laughs).

Prav Solanki: Talk me through what happens at the end and how you deal with that.

Mahrukh Khwaja: I like to wake up and not go straight to my social media because-

Payman: What time do you wake up?

Mahrukh Khwaja: I wake up normally half seven. I think it’s key not to go straight for the social media because there’s so many messages that we get through social media and some of them are very negative and you have to have a lot of awareness to work around those messages. The key is to not go straight for that-

Prav Solanki: Is your phone always close by or do you deliberately put it somewhere else?

Mahrukh Khwaja: I mean, it’s in my room still.

Payman: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Mahrukh Khwaja: But it’s not that far away, but it’s actually a conscious decision-

Payman: True.

Mahrukh Khwaja: Not to focus on it. That’s a key one. I then, obviously I brush my teeth and get ready but in a mindful way. Incorporating all the benefits of mindfulness, the sense of feeling present and I bring that to brushing teeth or having a shower. Really being present and grounded and that’s, you get such a sense of calm of just that.

Prav Solanki: Just describe to the listeners out there who think that mindfulness is a load of hocus pocus-

Mahrukh Khwaja: (Laughs).

Prav Solanki: Or more importantly, just don’t understand the meaning behind it, because if you’d have asked me about mindfulness two years ago, I just thought it was some smoke and mirrors.I wouldn’t have got it, explained to me.

Mahrukh Khwaja: You know the sense of calm you get when you go on holiday and you are fully aware of all the different senses. You’re just hyper tuned to the colours, the birds, the trees, the textures, the smells, and you just feel really alive. That’s the feeling of mindfulness and it’s not a feeling that we should just wait, you know, once a year, we should try and incorporate that daily.

Mahrukh Khwaja: It’s working out the best way of doing that. It doesn’t necessarily mean having to necessarily, be in these beautiful places. For me, mindfulness is a journey and it was a lot easier when I first started to be outside in nature and I felt the benefits of it more than it was easier to access because you can really kind of look at all the different senses and I still have a big attachment to nature. I really feel the healing quality of it just being around trees and animals.

Mahrukh Khwaja: You felt this big sense of something bigger than your problems but that’s the concept of mindfulness, but bringing it back to daily practise-

Payman: Sure.

Mahrukh Khwaja: Is a lot harder and it’s, it’s something that I’ve had to work on, but you can definitely do it in the little mundane tasks that you’re doing every day when you’re on autopilot and you can really… as I was mentioning, feel the sense of calm, by focusing on all the different senses.

Mahrukh Khwaja: When you’re in the shower instead of ruminating and thinking about all the things you’re going to do that day and your mind is very busy in that, just giving it a chance to be relaxed and quieter by really honing into the sensations of having a shower, the warmth of the water, the sensation of the soap, etc. It’s such a powerful, easy way of feeling more connected and happier.

Mahrukh Khwaja: I would say that I’d agree with you proud about being very sceptical about it.

Payman: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Mahrukh Khwaja: I think if you don’t try it then, it’s very easy to dismiss it-

Prav Solanki: I agree, totally.

Mahrukh Khwaja: But it’s so powerful and actually doctors are recommending this in daily practise.

Payman: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Mahrukh Khwaja: That’s how amazing it is and there’s so many studies out there to support it. Even if you look historically as well and you look at monks, they were practising all these mindful processes long, long, long time ago. There’s nothing new and gratitude isn’t anything new, positive affirmations, these are all things that-

Prav Solanki: Of course.

Mahrukh Khwaja: Come from a long history, but we’re kind of repackaging them in a different way.

Payman: Do you think that by equating those two things, since you agree about women and about mental health and by the way you can have a group about whatever you want but do you think that there’s a risk that you then equate those two things together in the minds of the audience, that women are always going to be stressed? Did you think about that or?

Mahrukh Khwaja: I actually hadn’t really thought about it until recently. My brother who’s also a dentist, he mentioned perhaps that there is a connection that people are going to make. For me it really was just focusing on what I’m passionate about and I hadn’t really read into it in a negative way.

Payman: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Mahrukh Khwaja: I mean, stress and burnout is something that’s being experienced amongst both genders, not just women. It just happens that I have a women’s group and I love to talk about mental health.

Payman: Sure. I mean look, I like restaurants and I’m a dentist, I could start a restaurant dentistry, it doesn’t mean every dentist likes restaurants, right?

Mahrukh Khwaja: Yes.

Payman: I get it. But because both of them are quite contentious kind of subjects, aren’t they, that’s the… What would you say to people who say we don’t need another woman’s group or we don’t need a woman’s group in dentistry? For my part, I will say that I think, it’s one of the best professions for women. My wife’s a dentist too. The idea that you can do part-time, is amazing. A lot of careers, if you did part time, you would really go backwards versus dentistry.

Payman: That’s not the case, the fact that patient trusts you is the key relationship. We know we don’t have to rely on bosses or, I mean you were just taught this about your bosses’ situation, but certainly we do. But the key relationship in dentistry, is the patient-dentist relationship-

Mahrukh Khwaja: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Payman: That’s fully controllable by the one person… What do you say about people to people who say there’s no need for this? We don’t need it.

Mahrukh Khwaja: I don’t think this group necessarily is for everyone and not everyone’s going to feel there is a need for it. I completely appreciate that. But coming from my perspective, my personal journey, I felt, I needed it, that I wanted to be connected with other women that were passionate and I wanted to see a profession rather than being centred on ego and competition, to foster kindness and lift each other up. I felt that was missing. It turns out that that message, people seem to be drawn to.

Payman: It seems to resonate with a lot of people?

Prav Solanki: Yeah, for sure.

Mahrukh Khwaja: It seems to resonate with people.

Payman: For sure.

Mahrukh Khwaja: But I appreciate, it’s not going to resonate with-

Payman: Everyone-

Mahrukh Khwaja: Everyone and that’s fine.

Prav Solanki: Fast forward now, you’ve talked to us about your daily routine, your positive affirmations, your mindfulness, all of which I’m a massive fan of. What’s your life like now, obviously if you’ve talked about, the doom and gloom of the past and how you’ve used therapy and stuff to get over it all, just fast forward with it now. Are you in a relationship now? Are you happier now? What’s your work, at the moment in terms of your dentistry and stuff like that? Just give us a snapshot of what your life is like today.

Mahrukh Khwaja: I’m a lot happier than I was a few years ago. I’m in a lot better mind space. I am in a relationship that’s really positive and it’s helping me grow. I’m very grateful for actually all of those clouds and made them into rainbows. I’m really, really grateful to have reframed that part of my life. I was in a lot before in my dentistry.

Mahrukh Khwaja: I was practising , NHS dentistry and felt like I was on a treadmill and just not really nourishing my excitement and passion and moving back to London and up-scaling and going on courses has really made me a lot more excited about being a dentist.

Mahrukh Khwaja: That’s been a big change for me. I’ve almost finished my postgraduate certificate in Aesthetic dentistry and I look forward to just using those skills to give more choices to my patients and really do a work that I feel is more meaningful. I would say that’s my snapshot.

Prav Solanki: Brilliant. Just moving on to dentistry, what type of dentistry do you really love doing? If you could pick your dream patient to walk through the door, as your next patient. What is your treatment modality or transformation, whatever, however you want to put it.

Mahrukh Khwaja: I love Orthodontics and just being on that journey with a patient over quite a few months, but making a massive difference to their self esteem. Personally, I really enjoy orthodontics, but I also love lots of other areas of cosmetic dentistry such as concept bonding, whitening. I think more importantly actually is just the connections that you make with patients and the rapport that you build. That’s key for me. Having that focus now, to build a relationship where I didn’t really do that with my NHS test industry.

Mahrukh Khwaja: I think that’s been more exciting actually to really just learn about a patient-

Payman: People are… I’ve said this before, the thing I miss the most about being a proper dentist, is people, but interesting question and have you come across patients who you think need help psychologically and then you’ve put them on to that are you out looking out for that? Are you asking questions in the medical industry about mental health?

Mahrukh Khwaja: I always pick up on that. I have, there have been situations where I’ve had a patient and she’s come to me and she’s been really, really emotionally upset and really I spoke to her as my nurse did as well about her day and it transpired that, she had just recently been raped. That was there… There’s been lots of scenarios like that.

Mahrukh Khwaja: I’m always fascinated by people’s psychology and what’s going on in their life and I think that’s really important to do dentistry, to just look at the holistic kind of picture-

Payman: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Mahrukh Khwaja: And ask questions. I did sign post her to the GP, she had been to the GP but felt that she’d been dismissed. It was nice to really actually talk.

Payman: Did you go to your GP when you had distress or that you’re not bother with that?

Mahrukh Khwaja: No. I went straight to a psychotherapist. For me, I felt it wouldn’t necessarily benefit me to go and seek a GP, wasn’t looking to be medicated. I wanted to focus on my thoughts.

Payman: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Mahrukh Khwaja: That’s just kind of where I sit, but it’d be very different, you know, if I had different symptoms-

Payman: Sure.

Mahrukh Khwaja: Then I would definitely explore the GP route.

Payman: And men will come into the group?

Mahrukh Khwaja: If they share the same kind of values and passion, then-

Payman: (Laughs).

Mahrukh Khwaja: Sure, why not, but it is a women’s group.

Payman: Wait a minute, what is the group? What is it? Is it a forum? Is it a-

Mahrukh Khwaja: The group, it’s a women’s group, I have socials, where we meet up and we connect members.

Payman: How many members?

Mahrukh Khwaja: How many members in the groups? It’s interesting. It’s very difficult to-

Prav Solanki: Gauge.

Mahrukh Khwaja: To gauge because I have a social media platform. I’ve got quite a few members on the Facebook group-

Payman: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Mahrukh Khwaja: I have Instagram as well then I have their socials as well. It’s hard to give you-

Prav Solanki: Roughly how many women dentists are you connecting with on a regular basis would you say or influencing?

Mahrukh Khwaja: There are about 420 members of the group on Facebook, but then on Instagram is over a thousand and I get lots of messages continuously-

Payman: Daily?

Mahrukh Khwaja: Definitely daily, wanting to connect. Some of them want to be interviewed, others wanting to-

Payman: Fantastic.

Mahrukh Khwaja: Share their journey and just kind of touch base about their mental health journey as well.

Payman: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Mahrukh Khwaja: It’s pretty amazing, this journey over the past year-

Payman: You get time for it?

Mahrukh Khwaja: I’m really passionate about it, it’s not really-

Payman: It’s not a chore.

Mahrukh Khwaja: It doesn’t feel like it’s something I need to fit in. It’s something I enjoy, I’m not making any special time for. It’s something I’m passionate about, I don’t really feel it’s time consuming at all.

Payman: Mm-hmm (affirmative). When was it you went to that international conference for Women in the industry? Where was that?

Mahrukh Khwaja: That was in Benidorm around August time. The divas and dentistry convention-

Payman: They came from the US?

Mahrukh Khwaja: Yeah. Delia Turtle has a women’s group as well in America. It was her conference, her first women’s conference-

Payman: Benidorm for them is Cancun for us.(Laughs)

Prav Solanki: [crosstalk 00:55:41](Laughs)

Mahrukh Khwaja: (Laughs). But actually it really was an amazing experience because we had connected with all these global superstars and they were all kind of sharing their wisdom and wanting to lift each other up, which is such a beautiful thing to see in dentistry, especially where a lot of us are. I feel like the professional is centred on egos at time rather than compassion, kindness, lifting each other up-

Payman: Definitely.

Mahrukh Khwaja: It was a really good experience.

Payman: That’s the funny thing. I’m definitely guilty of it myself, by the way, but under the guise of, what’s right for the patient, we can really be aggressive to each other-

Mahrukh Khwaja: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Payman: Because, hey, we’re doing it for the patient and it’s just the perfect storm. It just sets everything up to be really aggressive to each other because if this guise at the patient, and sometimes, the question of kindness, someone says something or does something and it’s awful. The one that comes to mind is there was a lady dentist. Do you remember the story?

Payman: She went to Dubai and she went into an argument with the immigration officer and then they took it to jail. I think she sold her story to The Sun or something, but there were attacks on her. I mean, why was she…the idea that, hey she’s a fellow dentist who ended up in jail she… I think she got her camera out whatever she did, you know what to buy. It might be like and I don’t know that there’s much we can do about it, but what you’re doing is certainly something, I’m sure, are there any man?

Mahrukh Khwaja: No, there’re actually there’s quite a few men and I’ve had lots of men messaged me to say that they really support the cause and they’re really… they’re not coming from a defensive perspective. They’re, they feel like it can empower women, which is great to see. Shaw’s from Digi marks, also connected with me and he did the logo. It’s-

Payman: That’s amazing.

Mahrukh Khwaja: It’s really amazing. I’ve had a lot of support, actually from men, a lot of support. Even when I go into my said dentistry course and I talk to the other guys, they’re really supportive of it as well. I think on the whole it’s been about… it’s been received really well.

Payman: You’re doing the conference or you’re not sure? Where are you with this?

Mahrukh Khwaja: Definitely I want to do a conference this year. The goal is hopefully by the end of the year to, to launch it.

Payman: Tell me about your ideal conferences, women will be, all this will be because of women, obviously most of you are obviously women-

Mahrukh Khwaja: Not necessarily-

Payman: I’m not more worried about it. I’m more worried about it, but go on, what would they be saying and doing. Would they just be talking about dentistry or they will talk about their journey as a woman through dentistry?

Mahrukh Khwaja: I’d like to have some dental components as well, but yes, certainly that would be great for them to talk about the journey and be able to connect with the audience because a lot of them want to know how did they overcome their barriers.

Payman: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Mahrukh Khwaja: I think that’s really key.

Payman: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Mahrukh Khwaja: If you have an emotional story that, that’s the best way I feel, to connect with the audience. But a big part of the conference will be centred on wellness and that’s one of my key messages with the group.

Payman: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Mahrukh Khwaja: I’d love to see that, in a conference form. I’m yet to see it in the UK, I’d really love to make that vision come to life.

Payman: It’s amazing, doing a conferences is difficult and risky. Risky. That’s the key thing I would say to anyone who’s thinking of doing a conference. It’s a high risk. But how are you getting on from the sort of financial perspective for this group? Is it a charity funding thing by donations or is it, are people paying to be part of it or what’s the story? How’s it financed?

Mahrukh Khwaja: There’s no finance at the moment. It’s just me putting my message out there and seeing if it resonates. I don’t have any sponsorship at all, for the conference certainly, I need sponsorship to make up and to get to where I want to. But there are certainly challenges. I can appreciate that, but it’s also really exciting as well-

Payman: Of course.

Mahrukh Khwaja: That, something new can come and we can have different conversations in dentistry. Also, I’m helping to create a seat at the table where I feel, perhaps we’re not always given that seat, it’s nice to actually just create that-

Payman: Something that comes to mind is dentistry is actually a very female dominated situation. If you think of-

Mahrukh Khwaja: The number of students graduating-

Payman: I’m not even talking about dentists, I’m talking about nurses. Dental practises are overwhelmingly female. Talk to me about that. Are we just talking dentists? Are we talking, the team, are the team members involved?

Mahrukh Khwaja: Definitely within the… Are you talking about within the group?

Payman: Go on.

Mahrukh Khwaja: The group definitely doesn’t consist of just dentists, hygienists, therapists, nurses.

Payman: Really?

Mahrukh Khwaja: It’s not definitely focused with dentists and the socials we’ve had. We’ve had lots of hygienists and therapists being involved.

Payman: Great.

Mahrukh Khwaja: And nurses, which is really nice to see from kind of connecting, coming together, sharing their experiences.

Payman: If you had to be remembered for something professionally, what would you like it to be, your ideal thing? What would you like it to be or what would you like people to say about you and your impact?

Mahrukh Khwaja: I would love for them to say I made a difference to their mental wellbeing and it might be something as small as I read a post and it really resonated with me and I’ve been going through a difficult time and thanks for just being open about your journey. Something as simple as that. It doesn’t need to be, you know, something really big. I’d really really love it if I was remembered for that.

Payman: Does it happen anyway? Did you get DM’s saying that? Must do.

Mahrukh Khwaja: All the time.

Payman: Does that feel good? That must feel good.

Mahrukh Khwaja: It’s really amazing to have these open conversations and conversations, I wasn’t having before. Really nice to connect with different dentists and, and be really open and vulnerable about where I’m coming from and sharing my story. Appreciating how it can help someone else that might be going through similar struggles and-

Payman: Give us some of the positive role models you’ve spoken to and some of the things that, I don’t know, let’s imagine I’m a young woman undergrad and looking for positive role models to follow. Who are they? What are some of the stories some of these interesting stories that you’ve heard?

Mahrukh Khwaja: There’s certainly quite a few women that I’ve connected with-

Payman: Give some examples, who have you spoken to?

Mahrukh Khwaja: Bernice Ganda Sade McGrath [Shavananow] there’s a number of them. I mean, all of them. I don’t really need to name drop any of them to be honest because all of them have been really inspiring and positive in different ways. They bring different things to the conversation. Malia Ajanajad was a big one for me in, when I met her, I felt she’s promoting a type of female leader that I would love to see more of. Someone who’s assertive and kind and loving, has softer components to her and it’s the kind of leader that I naturally aspired to. It was great to to see and talk to her about her journey.

Payman: It’s a conversation that happens quite a lot in corporate life, isn’t it? If a woman does really well in the boardroom, can she do that without becoming a man, without going masculine.

Mahrukh Khwaja: There’s an element of that.

Payman: That’s what you’re speaking to.

Mahrukh Khwaja: There’s an element of that and I feel like women-

Payman: She has managed to keep her female side well.

Mahrukh Khwaja: I’d love to see that more. For me, I connect with that type of woman a lot more than the woman that’s more aggressive, but certainly I think women can be whoever they choose to be.

Payman: Of course.

Mahrukh Khwaja: They can be celebrated in lots of different ways, but it’s really nice personally, to see someone who speaks openly about their emotions yet they’re still doing really well. And you can still be a woman and appreciate all of the emotional side of you and yet still go really quite far. In fact that to you’re just more likely to connect and empathise with the patient. It really does make you a better clinician rather it being something negative.

Payman: Some of those stories we’re going to have slightly I’m sure, and I’m Shavana by the way… There’s some great stories with those and then as you say, so different to each other.

Mahrukh Khwaja: I mean there’s this well less known dentists out there as well-

Payman: Of course.

Mahrukh Khwaja: And they’ve all got very valid and interesting perspective, it’s really nice to connect with them.

Payman: On the station.

Prav Solanki: You did great.

Mahrukh Khwaja: Thank you so much for having me.

Prav Solanki: Thank you for your time. It’s been great.

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

Prav Solanki: Thank you for tuning in guys to the dental leaders podcast. Just got little requests to make. If you’ve got a suggestion of somebody else who we should be interviewing or somebody who’s got a really strong story, powerful story to share with us, please send us a message and help us connect with that individual so we can bring their stories to the surface.

Payman: Thank you so much for taking the time guys. If you got some value out of it, think about sharing it with your friends and subscribing to the channel.

Transcript

Payman: Hi guys, welcome to the Dental Leaders Podcast. Today’s guest is James Goolnik, one of the highest profile dentists out there. I think today was quite fun, quite interesting, going through his very beginnings, all the way to the campaign that he started about sugar and children’s teeth.

Prav Solanki: The Rewards Project.

Payman: The Rewards Project, exactly right. I go back a long, long way with James. I was actually in school with him.

Prav Solanki: James, ever since I got into this industry, he’s always been somebody who I looked up to. Was in awe of, really, in terms of looking at what he’s achieved, the team around him, the team of specialists that he works with. I remember once giving a lecture at the BACD and James calmed me down just before I stepped on stage. I wasn’t speaking in front of a large number of people but he gave me a few words of advice. Super, super nice guy.

Prav Solanki: What did I take away from today’s interview? The support from his family, the lesson from parents and family support, how a strong cultural background and strong family unit can set you up for life. That combined with hard work, effort, created what his success is today. You’re really going to enjoy today’s interview.

James Goolnik: Too much paperwork.

Payman: Yeah.

James Goolnik: Too much bureaucracy. Yeah.

Payman: Yeah.

James Goolnik: I like to be fast-paced and change things. If I do something one way and it’s not working, okay, I want to change it. I don’t want to go through six committees and wait a year to change something. I just want to get on and do it.

Payman: But fast forward, you were president at the BACD?

James Goolnik: Yes.

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: So today we have James Goolnik with us, the founder of Bow Lane Dental and many other startups, some businesses, which I’m sure we’re going to hear about. James, thanks so much for joining us today and taking your time out of your busy day to come and spend time with me and Pay. I’d just like to start by getting a bit of background. What’s your backstory James? Just growing up and how you got where you were, if you could give us a run through of that really.

James Goolnik: Yeah, sure. First of all, thanks very much for inviting me. It’s an honour to be here with you two. I remember you a bit from school. Not a lot. Payman and I went to the same school. I won’t tell you all the stories about that. That’ll be the uncut version of the podcast.

Payman: It’s a very good school now.

James Goolnik: Yes.

Payman: But back then it wasn’t so good.

James Goolnik: No, not so good. It was actually just boys when we went.

Payman: Yeah.

James Goolnik: I was like won’t go wrong. As soon as I left all the girls came in. I missed it.

Payman: Did you put your kids in a mixed school?

James Goolnik: They’re mixed with all actually, so I’ve got one in single sex. Actually, two in single sex and one in a mixed school.

Payman: Oh really? I insisted on mixed school.

James Goolnik: Did you? Okay. Don’t want to get them as problematic as what’s happened with you. So yeah, my backstory is I actually always wanted to be a dentist from the age of like 12. I was like okay, what do I want to do? I was thinking about different careers. I’m Jewish, so my family’s like, “You’ve got to be an accountant. A nice, Jewish accountant.” Or a doctor, that’s it. An accountant or a doctor. I thought I didn’t fancy accountancy but I thought I’d keep my mother happy and go spend a day with an accountant, spend a day with a doctor, and spend a day with a dentist. The dentist was having so much more fun, had a much nicer car, and it was just like okay, I want to be a dentist. Actually, Mr. Bay , if you’re listening, from Highgate Group Practise, you’re the guy that inspired me to be in dentistry.

Prav Solanki: Wow.

Payman: Was he your dentist?

James Goolnik: He was my dentist. He had a really nice manner to him. I enjoyed going there. I wasn’t scared or anything. Had some fillings. I know that’s a bit of a shock, dentist having fillings, but I think to be a good dentist you’ve had to have a filling, have an extraction, have a bit of everything. I haven’t had an implant yet or a root canal, but there’s always time. I think it was just I spent a really good time with him and just really enjoyed it, and thought, “Okay, I’m good with my hands. I like people. I like business as well.”

James Goolnik: My father was in publishing, so he published children’s books and games, and he’s always been about, “Work for yourself, don’t work for anyone else. You can be in control of your own boss, your own destiny. You can decide what you want to do.” So I thought, “Okay, I definitely want to have my own business. I want to specialise in something,” and dentistry was the right career that you can actually spend some time and actually become qualified… It’s for five years, but I loved it. So it was like okay, “Work with my hands, that’s what I want to do.”

Prav Solanki: And was that from the age of 12, that influence that you wanted to be your own man, work for yourself, have your own business?

James Goolnik: Yes, right from the beginning because my father was as well. I just saw that he could control… If he wants to finish work at 2:00 in the afternoon and come home, and he can. It was like okay, that’s really cool. I don’t want to do too much paperwork. I want to work for myself and have a bit of control. And I like making things. I was always making Airfix models and lots of different things. I actually filmed my first feature film with a guy that some of you might have heard of called Christopher Nolan. He did the Batman films and the rest of it, and we actually…

Prav Solanki: Wow.

James Goolnik: He was at school as well, in Highgate, you might have known him.

Payman: I didn’t but Tom Hooper was in my class.

James Goolnik: Oh, okay.

Payman: Who did a bunch a films.

James Goolnik: Okay, so I mean it’s… Highgate, it was quite a lot of interesting people. There were a lot of people who did nothing afterwards. So yeah, we filmed a film, it’s actually like a space film. I quite liked pyrotechnics at the time and he was good with Airfix. We made these Airfix models and put these little rockets on the end of them, and then we strung up in the basement some string from one side to the other. We put the Airfix model at the top, lit the pyrotechnics, ran back to the camera and went, “Let go.” It flew across. Okay, great. Now he’s made millions and millions.

Payman: And you’re a dentist.

James Goolnik: Yeah, he didn’t even put me in the credits. But anyway, thanks Chris. Yeah, that was fun.

Payman: What was it like being the kid of someone who wrote books for kids and had games for kids?

James Goolnik: Yeah, I was always the guinea pig.

Payman: Yeah, were you?

James Goolnik: Me and my brother were the guinea pigs. We got lots of free stuff. It was like, “Try this out. Is it any good? Will it sell? How much will it sell for?” We tried lots of different things so it was quite nice to try new things before they came out. My dad went to trade fairs and things like that, and sometimes we got to go along and stand on the stands. God, that was awful. Standing on a stand, I’ve been on dental stands since then, it’s like okay, comfortable shoes you need because it’s hard work.

Prav Solanki: Yeah.

Payman: Yeah, yeah.

James Goolnik: So yeah, it was really good fun.

Prav Solanki: You got integrated into business from a very young age in your father’s business I guess?

James Goolnik: Yeah, yeah.

Prav Solanki: What were you like as a student? Were you a swot or were you gifted?

James Goolnik: Yeah, I wasn’t particularly clever. I wasn’t particularly clever so I realised that actually to get anywhere I just have to work harder than everyone else because otherwise I just wasn’t going to get there. I was always doing work. I started out, I think my first job was at 13. I was delivering milk for the milkman. I wasn’t that business savvy because he used to pay me in yoghourts. It took me about a year to realise that actually I could get cash for this job rather than just yoghurts. My fridge was always full of yoghurts, which was quite handy.

James Goolnik: That was really good fun. I enjoyed that. I worked in the cinema. I did lots of different things, but-

Payman: Did your parents force you to work?

James Goolnik: No.

Payman: Was it one of those, or were you one of those kids that wanted money in your pocket?

James Goolnik: I wanted money to do my stuff. I wanted to buy the latest computers, I wanted to buy things.

Payman: Yeah.

James Goolnik: It’s like okay, they gave me a certain amount of pocket money but I wanted to upgrade it. And also, I was always interested in cars and I thought, “Okay, I want to get a nice car.” In that stage, they were all the Golf GTI’s and the XR2’s, and all that sort of hot hatches-

Payman: Peugeot 205’s-

James Goolnik: GTI and all that stuff. It was like, “I want to get a nice car, the best way to do that is…”

James Goolnik: So it was… Okay, I did that job. I went delivering newspapers, and then cinema. Cinema was quite good, working in the cinema. Anyone from London that worked in Muswell Hill Odeon in North London. That was good fun. Unlimited popcorn and Coca Cola, hence the reason why I’ve got six fillings now. It was like okay, this is not so good, but that was good fun. I was worked on the holidays and on Saturdays as well, so I started saving up.

James Goolnik: And also, being Jewish, when you get 13 you become a man, you do a bar mitzvah and lots of people give you gifts for that. I put all the money aside, saved up, and first car was not that sexy unfortunately. It was a Metro, a mini Metro, if anyone knows a mini Metro.

Prav Solanki: What colour?

James Goolnik: It was white, okay?

Payman: Oh.

James Goolnik: But the best bit about it, it had a big sunroof so you had this sunroof that could slide right the way back. It was an after market thing, and that felt like a convertible to me. It was like okay, wow, this is cool. But yeah, and then on from that I got a Fiesta XR2.

Prav Solanki: Green car.

Payman: Was that in school? 17, you had a Metro.

James Goolnik: Yeah. And then I had… Yeah, the XR2.

Payman: Did you drive to lunch?

James Goolnik: Yes.

Payman: That was the ultimate crime in school, I remember.

James Goolnik: Drive to… Well, the thing about driving to lunch was, which is quite bad, we all drive to lunch. It was only like a 15 minute walk-

Payman: What do you mean only? It was a long walk.

James Goolnik: It was a long walk.

Payman: To get to lunch was a 15 minute walk and all the rebels drove to lunch. It was a big no-no.

James Goolnik: The hardest thing was one of my friends, Guy, he had a VW Beetle and he drove to lunch, and there’s also another one of his friends, John. I was in the back of the Beetle and they were racing down one of the roads in Highgate, Winnington Road. They were racing down it and one of them didn’t judge the speed quite well, and they smashed into each other.

Payman: Oh.

Prav Solanki: Oh dear.

James Goolnik: So we had two smashed cars on the way and we were like working out, “We’ve got 15 minutes to get to lunch, how are we going to do this? Somebody’s got to stay with the cars and we’re going to leg it back to lunch.” So we left Guy with the cars to sort it out with the police. Okay, not so good. In school uniform. Don’t know how he got out of that one, but hey.

Payman: But those you knew working as a kid, Prav was talking about it before… He’s worked in your dad’s shop?

Prav Solanki: Worked in my dad’s shop.

Payman: He puts all his success down to what he learned talking to the public at that age. My parents forced me into a job at 16 or so.

Prav Solanki: What were you doing?

James Goolnik: 16?

Payman: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Before that, I didn’t. It was Oxford Street.

James Goolnik: Were you the one with the placard?

Payman: No, no, no.

James Goolnik: Golf sale this way.

Prav Solanki: Subway, McDonald’s.

Payman: I persuaded some clothes shop guy that that’s the career I wanted for the rest of my life and I worked a summer. I ended up spending more every day than I was earning just because I felt so horrible working that I used to go and eat… I would get steak and stuff.

James Goolnik: So nothing’s changed then?

Payman: Yeah, exactly, exactly. But what I’m saying, I actually hated my parents for making me work at that time, but how valuable that little bit of work was? Now, listening to you saying, “At 13,” and then all the different jobs, just seeing how people run businesses, talking to the public is huge.

Prav Solanki: Huge.

Payman: It’s huge.

James Goolnik: Brings you out, and also having your own money is like okay, I’ve made this money. I can spend it on exactly what I want.

Prav Solanki: Yeah.

James Goolnik: If I want a XR2, I’m going to buy an XR2 rather than having to-

Prav Solanki: So all that wealth that you’d accumulated at that young age, was your first big purchase the mini Metro?

James Goolnik: Yeah.

Prav Solanki: Yeah?

James Goolnik: It’s freedom.

Payman: Where did you study dentistry?

James Goolnik: My story was a little bit different because I didn’t get the grades that I wanted to get into dental school. I passed my A levels but I didn’t get enough right grades so I had to retake two of the A levels. I retook them and that actually gave me a lot more drive. Okay, I’ve studied hard but not enough to go where I want to go. I got a place in one dental school but it wasn’t where I wanted to be. I wanted to be in London. I’m a Londoner. So I went back and restudied them and got into King’s.

Payman: Was it an extra year?

James Goolnik: Yeah, I did actually discover… And also, I’m slightly unusually because I actually went to UCH so I was the first… The last intake at University College Hospital when it was great. I was like, “Okay, I’m going to go there,” and then after the first six months they said, “Actually, you guys are the last intake. We’re not doing dentistry anymore so enjoy it.”

James Goolnik: So yeah, this is great it was like a party, then a lot of the lecturers started leaving. I thought, “That’s not so good.” And then they said, “Actually, you are the last and we’re not going to take you all the way through so you’re going to do one year with us, and then you’re going to have to go somewhere else.” So we then had to split up and choose wherever we wanted to go to, so I went from UCL, I went on to King’s.

Payman: So that was the time when they thought caries was on the down, we don’t need to train anymore dentists?

James Goolnik: They were cutting back on dentists. Okay, how can we save money? We don’t need dentists.

Payman: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

James Goolnik: They got that wrong.

Prav Solanki: What was it like to… You said you worked hard, you were a swot or however you want to put it, and then you got your A level results-

James Goolnik: I didn’t get it.

Prav Solanki: … and they were not what you expected.

James Goolnik: It was a little bit of a kick in the teeth, as it were, but it was like okay, you know what? I knew I wasn’t as clever as the other people in my class, but I was driven and I wanted to do it, and I thought, “Okay, well I passed but I didn’t get what I wanted and I still want to do dentistry, so I’m just going to go back and do it.” So I just put my nose down and did it and got the grades and got into King’s.

Payman: A lot of people say that year of retake was the best year of their lives. They find themselves and that sort of thing. What was that year like?

James Goolnik: Half of it was quite hard because all my friends had got the grade and got into where they wanted to be, so that was hard. I had new group of friends, but I had an amazing girlfriend at the time so that was brilliant.

Payman: Okay.

James Goolnik: That helped me change my focus a little bit. And it was also a stepping stone in between… I was at school and I was at the same school for all those years and everyone knew me, and suddenly I’m going somewhere new and there’s people-

Payman: Where did you go?

James Goolnik: I went to a place called Mander Portman Woodward. It’s in Kensington.

Payman: Uh-huh (affirmative). MPW?

James Goolnik: Yeah.

Payman: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

James Goolnik: That was great because there were loads of different people, and there were people that were like on something the whole time and the reason they didn’t pass was because they were just out their heads the whole time. There were other people that just didn’t do any work and people like me who didn’t quite get to what they wanted to and they were studying. They treated us like adults. It wasn’t like they knew us from being 12 onwards and they knew all the things we’d done wrong. It was like, “Okay, you guys are 17, you know what you’re doing. You want to get these grades, let’s just do it.” It was actually brilliant.

Payman: How about at dental school?

James Goolnik: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Payman: How did you find… I’m we’ll get onto the social side, but the academic side of that, did you find it hard?

James Goolnik: I found it quite hard.

Payman: I did.

James Goolnik: I mean the manual stuff and doing it, I was good with my hands and I was always passing things and everything. I didn’t have to redo things like that, but the actual studying was hard work and it was like, “Okay, why am I learning about mitochondria? Am I ever going to need to know about this? Why am I learning this?” It was tricky to put that into real life.

Payman: Yeah.

Prav Solanki: Yeah.

James Goolnik: That was the hard thing, and there were these people that were teaching us who had never been in practise. I’m thinking, “You’ll teach me all about communication skills but you are communicating people who are not paying anything. It’s a whole different ballgame when they can choose where to go.” So I found that was very different. But King’s was great. There were some really good people that I’m still friends with, quite a lot of them, since then.

Payman: Do we know anyone who was in your year?

James Goolnik: Yeah, Tif. I think Tif.

Payman: Oh, were you in the same year as Tiff and Anoop?

James Goolnik: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Tif and Anoop, all of us.

Payman: Okay.

James Goolnik: We were quite-

Payman: Mamaly.

James Goolnik: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Mamaly and… It was quite a lot of us that have done quite a lot of things in dentistry since then.

Payman: Yeah.

Prav Solanki: Yeah.

James Goolnik: It’s drove us on. But no, I really enjoyed it. We set up different things and I, you’ll find this out later on, but I don’t drink. My first girlfriend was killed in a drink driving accident. I’ve never been a big drinker anyway and my parents aren’t big drinkers, but that just put me off completely. I’ve got this rule that if I’m driving I won’t drink a thing, and then through university actually it was easier just to not drink. Then I became… “Okay, what am I going to do? I want to be involved at the party but I don’t want to be the odd one out,” so I became a DJ. I DJ’d through all of university and that was great fun.

Payman: What kind of music?

James Goolnik: It was all 80s stuff. Some people might not call it music but I loved it. Wham, rap, it was great. Club Tropicana, everything. It was great fun.

Payman: Was your girlfriend, you were with her when this happened?

James Goolnik: Yeah.

Payman: So how old were you?

James Goolnik: That was when I was 18, so that was actually just-

Payman: Wow.

James Goolnik: … yeah, before I got into university.

Prav Solanki: You were in the car?

James Goolnik: No, I wasn’t in the car. It was a weekend and she was away with her friends. I’d just gotten into dental school, and then this happened before she started.

Payman: Wow.

James Goolnik: That was my first proper girlfriend so it was like okay, this is tough.

Payman: How did you handle that?

James Goolnik: I’d not really had loss in my life up to then so that was hard, and also I was really close with her. It was like, okay… My parents didn’t know what to say. It was like okay, how are they going to tell me? Yeah, it was tough.

Prav Solanki: They broke the news to you?

James Goolnik: Yeah, they broke the news to me. It was like okay, this is tough for 18, doing that, but…

Prav Solanki: And it was a drunk driver accident?

James Goolnik: Yeah. She was sober and all the rest of them, then somebody… Because she was coming out of petrol station and somebody came straight in and hit straight into her. He was way over the limit and killed her. Unfortunately it was just her in the car, her friends in the back were all fine. But that was tough.

Payman: Yeah.

James Goolnik: And that’s put me, I mean I was never a big drinker anyway, but as soon as that happened it was like okay, well drinking and driving shouldn’t be in the same thing.

Prav Solanki: I totally agree with you.

James Goolnik: I don’t care what people say, “Oh I can handle it,” whatever.

Prav Solanki: Just have one.

James Goolnik: Have one and then if something happens, you’re always going to think for your life, “If I hadn’t had that one, would that not have happened?” My rule is nothing, and then it was… Actually, in a way, it made me get into DJing that was great fun. Then it got me into meeting other people. You just force yourself to do it because otherwise if you’re sitting in the party and you’re the only one not drinking, everyone thinks they’re hilarious when they’ve had a bit to drink and when you’re sober it’s like, “You’re not that funny actually.”

Payman: So were you DJing at the university parties?

James Goolnik: Yeah, I was DJing at all those student unions stuff, getting paid for it, great fun-

Payman: I bet you were quite a popular guy at that point.

James Goolnik: At that stage it was great. It was a great way to meet people, and also I wasn’t that confident with girls at that stage and it was like okay, I’m in the DJ booth, they have to take to me if they want music. I’ll put rubbish music on until they talk to me. It was like okay, they’ll start being really friendly if… Okay, okay. So that was quite good fun. And the DJ booth has lots of dark corners, so that was also good as well.

Prav Solanki: Is it true that the DJs always pick up the hot chicks?

James Goolnik: Yeah, well my success rate definitely increased once I did DJing.

Prav Solanki: Increased the conversion rate, yeah, yeah.

James Goolnik: That was it, yeah.

Payman: So then in dental school, were you very driven in so much as like… Were you already planning, on your way out, what you were going to be doing? Were you focusing-

James Goolnik: Yeah, I was already planning to have my own practise and I wanted to do something very different, so I was looking at what other people were doing out there. Okay, that’s not that great. People don’t want to go to the dentist, why do they not want to go to the dentist? How can we make it more approachable, more friendly, more of a fun environment? So I was looking at what other people were doing in other industries and saying, “Okay, that’s what I want to do.”

James Goolnik: But also realising that, at dental school, five years is not enough to, one, get your communication skills up. They teach nothing about business. I learned it from my father and just winging and seeing what works, what doesn’t work. But also the skills we have clinically aren’t really enough. They may be enough to get you through for a few years, but they’re not enough to meet the demands of the patients. People want more and more things. Okay, I need to do some more training as well, but I also needed to have a life.

Payman: So you got a job?

James Goolnik: Yeah, so I got a job. I worked part-time, actually, in a dental practise doing nursing while I was going through university.

Payman: Oh really?

James Goolnik: And then when I finished I quite enjoyed the hospital life. There was something about the hospital that was quite good fun, and I was very good at taking teeth out. So I thought okay, what can I do? So I decided to do a bit of Maxfacts, so I spent a year doing Maxfacts.

Payman: House jobs?

James Goolnik: Yeah, house jobs, and that was good fun.

Payman: On call as well?

James Goolnik: On call as well, and that’s when I-

Payman: And casualty and all that?

James Goolnik: Yeah, that’s when I met my first wife, in casualty, who was a doctor.

Payman: Oh, okay.

James Goolnik: It was really good fun and we’re quite lucky because Maxfacts, there wasn’t a lot to do, so we were the ones that could do the facial swelling. People got drunk, again, that was another thing that put me off alcohol, it’s like all these people… Why did you drink so much? Now look at your face, it’s like crazy. The only good thing about them drinking so much is that I didn’t need to use any anaesthetic because they had anaesthetised their whole body, and you can just suture them back up again.

James Goolnik: So that was good fun and I got to take out loads of tricky teeth. And based in Camberwell we had these massive people with huge roots, and it’s like okay, I can get this tooth out. I don’t need to be strong, I just need to change my technique.

Payman: Did you know while you were doing that that you weren’t going to pursue that?

James Goolnik: Yeah.

Payman: So it was like a get a bit of experience thing?

James Goolnik: Too much paperwork, too much bureaucracy. Yeah. I like to be fast-paced and change things. If I do something one way and it’s not working, okay, I want to change it. I don’t want to go through six committees and wait a year to change something. I just want to get on and do it.

Payman: But fast forward, you were president at the BACD?

James Goolnik: Yes.

Payman: But we’ll come to that.

James Goolnik: I was also president of the Dental Society as well.

Payman: Oh, of King’s?

James Goolnik: Yeah, King’s. I started off doing more… When I did the DJing, then we did more fundraising, and then we said, “Actually, you know what? King’s as a dental school is not as inclusive as all the other ones,” so I reached out to Guy’s Hospital and all the other dental schools, and we had this dental sock where we all came together and we did this charity fundraising.

Payman: Oh nice.

James Goolnik: I did the DJing for that as well.

Payman: Nice.

James Goolnik: It was actually quite good fun. And then we got the reps, which they can’t do any more, but they came down and gave us loads of freebies. MPS and stuff, they all want to get us signing up so giving us as much as possible is like okay, this is cool. We were excited by these little planners and stuff weird things. It was fun.

Payman: Then you got an associate job somewhere?

James Goolnik: Yeah. So then I got an associate job, and that was… I worked in different places. I was Googling award-winning practises and there was one in Thamesmead that had an award-winning dental practise. They had done everything and they’d done loads of PR and all the rest of it.

Payman: I don’t think Google existed at that point.

James Goolnik: Maybe not.

Prav Solanki: AltaVista or Yahoo.

James Goolnik: Might have been, yeah. I don’t know. I feel like Google’s been here forever.

Payman: It feels like that, it does feel like-

Prav Solanki: Netscape, Netscape.

Payman: It does.

James Goolnik: I think I just picked up the phone and go, “What’s the best-”

Payman: So it was a nice practise?

James Goolnik: Yeah, it was in Thamesmead and it was mainly an HS practise but it did some private stuff, but he was really good. Principal’s name was Vijay. He was really good at marketing, really good at marketing, and really good communication skills. I learned lots about that and it was like [crosstalk 00:23:17]-

Payman: That was your first associate job?

James Goolnik: Yeah.

Payman: Did you have VT or-

Payman: Your first principal really shapes you I find. Well mine did. So this guy was marketing and was doing-

James Goolnik: Yeah, he was doing a lot more marketing and he was doing a lot more about communications throughout their newsletter, paper, newsletter-

Payman: Which back then was a huge deal.

James Goolnik: It was.

Payman: No one was doing that.

James Goolnik: He was doing a lot more stuff and he was working the community, and he was showcasing what they were doing with the local businesses.

Payman: Shout out, what’s his surname? Vijay…

James Goolnik: I think it’s Vithani. Vijay Vithani. I really enjoyed that. And then also, through that I then did some part-time associate positions on weekends. I was lucky enough to get a place in Beauchamp Place in Knightsbridge. Alan Gold and Roman Franks.

Payman: I know that practise.

James Goolnik: Yeah, so that was really… It was amazing. I was like the youngest person there. They were all going, “Are you qualified? Can you do this?”

Payman: So suddenly you were exposed to that very high-end…

James Goolnik: High-end, but I was basically doing the rubbish shift that no one else wanted to do. So like the Thursday afternoon late shift and the Saturday mornings.

Prav Solanki: Back then, how did you go about getting your jobs? You said you opened a book or Googled or whatever, you rang the place and said, “Give us a job,” or-

James Goolnik: Well no, I wrote letters. It was a big thing, about writing, so I looked at all the best practises around and I wrote letters to them saying, “Okay, this is me, this is what I can offer you and I’d love to work with you.” I sent out about 50 of them and-

Payman: It’s different, isn’t it? I never did that. I went and opened up the BDJ and looked for what jobs there were. That outlook of-

James Goolnik: I went for places that didn’t have jobs because they were where I wanted to go to.

Payman: Yeah, very interesting.

Prav Solanki: You had an idea of 50 practises you’d like to work in.

James Goolnik: And I sent the letters out and I got about 10 replies, but two of them were standout. I thought, “You know what? I want to go to these.” So I went there, met them, and yeah, I loved the practise. I was slightly different at that stage President of the Dental Society. I was more confident about what I could do and I was starting to learn about marketing and they quite liked that. Also, I was more moldable. They were, “Okay, I think I can teach this guy something. He’s not jaded yet.”

Prav Solanki: And all along during this whole period of time, you were going to open your own practise?

James Goolnik: Yeah.

Prav Solanki: That was very, very clear in your mind?

James Goolnik: It always was.

Payman: You were saving up?

James Goolnik: It was getting the skills because it was like okay, I need to know what I need to know because dental school taught me nothing about that. I can do teeth but can I do teeth profitable, and can I run a business and run a team and motivate people? It was more about, “I need to learn some skills,” so apprenticeships, as they were.

Prav Solanki: Stepping stones.

James Goolnik: Yeah.

Prav Solanki: It’s really interesting because a lot of people who know they want to go into business don’t know that they need the skills to influence and manage a team, or learn about marketing. Some people just find themselves and say, “Right, I want to start a practise, I want to go into business,” and then discover that. But it was very clear in your mind that you needed these skills?

James Goolnik: I needed the skills to have it and also I wanted to learn from the best, so who are the best out there that are doing these sort of things? Obviously I’m a Londoner so I know like in Knightsbridge, that is a high-end place. They’re going to have money, they’re going to know what they want. They’re not going to take any rubbish so let’s learn from these guys. Alan and Roman have been doing it for quite a few years.

James Goolnik: It’s also old school. When I started it was like people weren’t wearing gloves. It was like okay, it’s new now, we’ve got to wash our hands and wear gloves. Okay, what’s this rubber dam stuff? What do you do with this?

Payman: There wasn’t rubber dam…

James Goolnik: No.

Prav Solanki: Is that right, no gloves?

James Goolnik: They started off no gloves and they started… People were doing it in dental school, we were wearing gloves, but it was still, out in practise, it was just okay, wash their hands.

Payman: When I was a kid my dentist didn’t wear gloves.

Prav Solanki: Fingers in your mouth?

Payman: Yeah.

James Goolnik: Yeah.

Payman: It was thought to be like tactile sensation or something.

James Goolnik: I’ve got a story about that actually. This was only six years ago. We have an endodontist in our practise and they were moving. They were deciding if they were going travelling. Okay, we need to find somebody else, so I started interviewing people. We hired this guy, CV looked amazing. He had been doing it for like 10 years. Special was endodontist, all the rest of it. After the first day I always get feedback from the nurses, and so, “Were they nice to you? How was he?”

James Goolnik: They said, “Yeah, he was really nice, but there’s a real problem. He wasn’t wearing gloves.” I said, “What?” This is six years ago we’re talking about, okay? He wasn’t wearing gloves. I said, “What’s going on here? Are you sure? Did you miss it?” No, he wasn’t wearing gloves. What, nothing? “No, he puts the gloves on when he starts and when the patient’s lying back he takes them off. I said, “That’s a bit odd,” so I thought well you’re not doing a second day like that.

James Goolnik: I sat down with him and said, “I’ve heard something, that you’re not wearing gloves in treatment.” He said, “Oh yeah, that’s right.” I said, “Why did you not do that?” He said, “I’m an endodontist, I get much better feel with my fingers without gloves.” I said, “Yeah but what about cross infection and CQC and all that?” He goes, “Oh I put the gloves on in the beginning so the patient sees that I’m wearing gloves and then I put a rubber dam on and then it’s all sterile so I don’t have to do anything.”

James Goolnik: I said, “Okay, fine, you won’t be coming back here. Bye bye.” And that was the end of it. I could not believe it. It’s like wow, okay.

Prav Solanki: Wow.

James Goolnik: So there are people out there who don’t wear gloves.

Payman: Do you remember when you decided, “All right, I’m going to go look for a premises,” you started from squat, right?

James Goolnik: Yeah, started from squat.

Payman: That’s a big thing to do. Did you know that’s what you wanted to do? You wanted to set it up?

James Goolnik: I started looking at practises for sale, so I signed to all the selling agents, Frank Taylor and all that stuff, to see what there was out there and the people were selling… It was rubbish. I went to see the practises and they were rundown and they were like, “I want 200,000 for this.” For what? There’s nothing there. I thought I’m not paying for rubbish. I’m going to start myself. I also wanted to do it very differently, so I thought okay, I want to do something different. I’m going to start looking around for premises.

Payman: And the city was… I mean there was maybe… There were dentists but it was single handed…

James Goolnik: Yeah, it was really small.

Payman: That kind of-

James Goolnik: There was no marketing, no PR. There was no multi-specialists.

Payman: What made you think the city, apart from the obvious?

James Goolnik: Yeah, I mean I just love the buzz. The buzz of the city, there’s something special. Basically I then went on to do a master’s degree at the Eastman and the Eastman’s in Gray’s Inn Road, so I was going through the city a lot of the time.

Payman: Right, right, right.

James Goolnik: Some of my friends were working in the city as bankers and lawyers-

Payman: You got the bug?

James Goolnik: There was such a great buzz. When you get on the train and they’re all suited and booted, they look so good. There was money everywhere. I was like okay, this is the plan. I looked around and there was no one doing what I wanted to do in the city. I got this huge map out and I pinned… I got out the Yellow Pages, saw every practise in Central London, and I was pinning them around. I thought there was just not enough in the square mile. There’s not enough, and then the one’s that are there were doing an average job. I thought you know what? This is a no brainer. I’m going to go in here and do it.

James Goolnik: So actually, then two of the practises that stood out, I wrote a letter to them to say, “Look, I’m interested in buying your practise if you’re thinking about retiring in the next few years, we have a conversation.” Never came back to me so I thought you know what? I need to find something, so I then went to some estate agents, commercial estate agents, said, “Okay, I want to set up a dental practise. What do I need to do? I want you to find some premises for me.”

James Goolnik: So I had two guys on retainers looking for a dental practise potential. They were looking for it, and while they were looking there was an advert in the BDJ. I don’t normally read adverts, but there was a guy that was actually an American dentist, wanted to set up a practise in the city. A guy called Greg Bullock, he’s in New York, and he was doing something quite different. He was doing… All his staff was Japanese. So all the dentists were American but all the staff was Japanese, and he was targeting the Japanese market in New York and he wanted to do something in the UK.

James Goolnik: He wanted somebody to help him set it up, so while I was actually doing my MSC and working part-time, I started working for him and I helped set up the practise. It was great because he used to come every couple of months. Get loads of Skype calls and phone calls and emails and stuff, but then he would just come every couple of months so I had free range to set it up for him.

Payman: So this isn’t Bow Lane?

James Goolnik: This is before Bow Lane. It’s called Nihon Shika Group.

Payman: Wow.

James Goolnik: That was before Bow Lane.

Payman: I’ve got some experience, Japanese don’t trust non-Japanese medical… Yeah, that’s for sure.

James Goolnik: They’re great patients because they don’t need any anaesthetic. They just go into a zone and they just let you get on with it.

Payman: And they fully trust what you’re going to do.

James Goolnik: They fully trust with you, it’s fully paid by insurance so all you have to do is fill it out, but you have to speak Japanese. If you don’t speak any Japanese you’ve got no chance.

Payman: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

James Goolnik: So I had Japanese nurse, Japanese receptionist. I learned some Japanese, like, “Which tooth hurts?” Everything was silver plated. It was all precious, semi-precious metals. Inlays, onlay, things like that. It was just… Okay, I’m going to do it, and they were really respectful, easy to treat. I love Japanese food. It was just great.

Payman: What a cool dude this guy was though.

James Goolnik: He helped me.

Payman: Like back then.

James Goolnik: Yeah.

Payman: Was thinking of going from New York to London treating Japanese patients. That’s thinking outside the box.

James Goolnik: He had five practises in the states.

Payman: Did he?

Prav Solanki: Wow.

James Goolnik: He wanted to do one in the UK, so that was great because he was basically my mentor. He was the one who was teaching me about okay, I need to pay associates this amount money, this is how you need to do it. He helped me think about contracts and how to get the right team members, how to motivate them, how to get the best deal for your materials, and things like that. Because before, I just… Okay, I like this rep, I’ll buy all from Henry Shine, but actually there’s other ways of doing it. He helped me with the business skills side of that.

James Goolnik: At that stage, after a year of doing that, I finished my MSC and thought okay, I haven’t found a premises yet. And then suddenly, I got a phone call saying, “We found somewhere for you.”

Payman: And that’s Bow Lane?

James Goolnik: That was Bow Lane. I was just lucky. I wanted something with a self-contained entrance. It had its own entrance. It was above a shopfront so I wasn’t having to pay the fees for a shopfront. It was two and a half thousand square foot. It was the perfect location right in the city near Banks Station.

James Goolnik: The tricky bit was there was another dentist going for it. So there was two of us bidding for this premises and the way I got it, it was because I was doing it all through my agents. He didn’t know who the other bidder was. He knew there was another bidder, didn’t know who it was at all, and I just thought how badly do I want it? It was on… I don’t remember what it was, it was like 80,000 pounds a year. I thought how bad do I want it? I’m just going to over bit for it. So I put in a bid, I think it was 92,555 pounds. I just went straight in way above it.

Payman: Which year was that?

James Goolnik: And I killed it.

Payman: Which year?

James Goolnik: This was 2000. Yeah, 2000.

Payman: A lot of money in 2000. A lot of money for rent in 2000.

James Goolnik: Yeah. But it was a…

Payman: It’s a beautiful spot, it’s a beautiful spot. It is.

James Goolnik: I killed it because I beat the guy. And I don’t know who it is in the end, but it was great and it’s been a brilliant location. Been there 17 years now.

Payman: Did you then do it up a bit at a time?

James Goolnik: Yeah, so basically we planned it. I used Gary Butters from GGPC and they planned it as a six surgery practise, but I didn’t have the funds for a six surgery practise. I didn’t have any patients, so I thought okay, how am I going to do this? I was working part-time in the Japanese clinic. I was also working in another place now also in Knightsbridge as well, and another place in Bayswater for a guy called Ronald Dunn. I was doing that and also going in every day, check in on the builders, check in on all this stuff, so it was all… Juggling everything. We set it up as two surgeries to start with. We planned it for six but we set it up for two. We had myself and a hygienist, Christine, who’s still with me 17 years later.

Prav Solanki: Wow.

James Goolnik: That was brilliant, so it was like okay, I was trying to juggle everything. Pay the bills, make sure I was getting money as a dentist, and then trying to tell the patients in a nice way that I’m going to have my own practise but without any of the principals finding out.

Payman: Did you pull them over?

James Goolnik: I pulled quite a few over. I had an argument with one of my bosses because I actually wrote… I said to them, “I would like to write a letter to the patients saying where I’m going,” and they said, “No, you’re not allowed to do that.”

Payman: Yeah.

James Goolnik: I said, “Well they’re my patients.” They said, “No they’re not, they’re our patients.” At that stage we had no contracts. It was the old days where it was like spit on your hand, shake your hand, that’s it, how you work together. There was no contract. I wrote to about 10 patients and the rest of them we just… They could find us eventually from friends of friends. Google was around then.

Payman: I don’t think it was. What was it like on day one? Did you start doing one day a week? How did you do it?

James Goolnik: Yeah, I did one day a week and I just slowly… I would come in at the end of the day. I had a full-time receptionist and she actually started for a month before we even opened, so she was taking phone calls and bookings and stuff like that.

Payman: How about the business plan, working capital, spending on the build, all of these, did you make errors?

James Goolnik: Yeah, I made errors. It’s normal. I did a business plan but I got the money from HSPC and it was, to be honest, it was… As soon as they saw dentist, they will just give you money.

Payman: Think back then it was a bit more-

Prav Solanki: Easier, right?

James Goolnik: It was quite easy.

Payman: It was easier back then.

James Goolnik: As a dentist you got money, my parents could underscore the loan-

Payman: Guarantee it.

James Goolnik: … to guarantee it, so if there was any issues my dad guaranteed it. So it’s like okay, but I thought I’ve never seen a bankrupt dentist. People have always got teeth. I know what I’m doing. There’s definitely demand here and if the worse comes to worst, I’ll have a two surgery practises and I’ll sublet the rest of the building.

Payman: Yeah.

Prav Solanki: Yeah.

James Goolnik: So I thought let’s just go it. But at that time, I’d worked at the Eastman for so long and I’d made my own crowns, done my own lab work, I thought well there’s no labs in the city. I want to have a lab, so we decided to have the top floor as a lab space and we sublet it to Tony Laurie.

Payman: Who was Mike Wise’s technician?

James Goolnik: Yes. I met him through Mike Wise because I was doing Mike Wise’s course.

Payman: For anyone in the audience who doesn’t know, Mike Wise –

James Goolnik: He’s one of my gurus.

Payman: Do you know Tony Laurie as well?

Prav Solanki: No.

Payman: Tony Laurie was just the top, top, top, top, technician. Does he still practise?

James Goolnik: Yeah, he still practises. He works at the end of our street.

Payman: Oh really? Good guy, I like him.

James Goolnik: Yeah, he was the number one technician in all of UK, working for the number one dentist in all of UK.

Prav Solanki: Wow.

James Goolnik: Mike Wise is like one of my first gurus. He’s like evidence-based everything.

Payman: Were you on his course as well?

James Goolnik: Yeah, I did three years of his course. Met some great people in his course. Made me think about okay… He was Eastman trained so it was okay, this is the way we do it. This is evidence-based, this is what happens, but in private practise people don’t want silver fillings. They may be the best for them, or a gold filling might be the best, but there are other things that they won’t tolerate them. How do you communicate that to a patient? Say, “Okay, if we do it this way, this is what the expectancy is going to be of the tooth and the filling. This is your maintenance. Or we do it your way and this is what you’re going to do.”

James Goolnik: It’s all about informed consent but back in those days there was no written treatment plans, or they were long ones. There was no signing everything away like the young dentists do now. Everything is like signed in triplicate. I keep telling them, it’s like okay, I don’t care how much you’ve got signed. If you haven’t got a relationship with your patient and there’s no great report, I don’t care how great your compliance is, they’re still going to see… So the number one thing I always try and teach the younger dentists is the number one thing you’ve got to get is get a relationship with your patient. Make sure there’s a connection, make sure there’s a trust.

James Goolnik: Things go wrong. Dentistry is not ideal. We’re human. Everyone makes mistakes. Something happens, but if you’ve got a relationship with that patient and they know, like, and trust you, you can handle it and say, “You know what? I tried this, it didn’t work. I’m really sorry, this is what we’re going to do now. There’s this option, this option, this option, what would you like to do?” Give them that, rather than saying, “I did everything right. It’s not my fault. I’m not giving your money back,” which is what a lot of them do. “You signed the paper, you said you liked it, I don’t care now.”

Payman: I think it’s the other way around. You should immediately give the money back. But interesting question James, we just had another one of these, a young gun, Robbie that you just met, Robbie Hughes. Kind of what he was saying was that he wants to be different, he wants to be patient-focused. That’s all well and good now where every single coffee shop is customer-focused. Back then you really were one of the very, very first to be customer-focused. Let’s call it that.

James Goolnik: We really wanted to be different and also think about okay, what do they want? They want pain-free dentistry, they want to have a nice time in there in a nice environment. It’s got to smell nice.

Payman: You were definitely one of the first to do that, but then, talking to this guy, superb brain that he’s got on him as well, he’s talking about scaling, putting one in each town in the world, and all of that.

James Goolnik: That doesn’t turn me on.

Payman: Yeah. You’ve got that one jewel.

James Goolnik: I love it.

Payman: Didn’t ever think about doing a second?

James Goolnik: Yeah I did, I actually… I was a day away from signing a lease in Canary Wharf.

Payman: Oh really?

James Goolnik: I went to premises, got an architect in, did all the plans, did everything. This was about 10 years ago now. Got everything ready to go and I thought would I want to work in Canary Wharf? And the answer was no. Do I then want to commute from one place to the other? And all my friends who’d had more than one business were much more stressed. I thought do I want that? No. I want a work/life balance. I love what I do. I love treating patients, and I hopefully will always treat patients.

James Goolnik: But I didn’t want the extra stress and I didn’t need the money. I thought you know what? I’m going to keep at one, and it was quite hard because then I saw people, like Anoop and all these other people, my peers, who were getting two practises, three practises. I’m going to be a corporate, I’m going to do this. There’s a big ego thing about okay, why aren’t you doing this? Why aren’t you doing this? It’s like no, I don’t want to do that. That’s not where I want to be. Okay, I’m fine with that. That’s okay.

Payman: Yeah.

James Goolnik: You don’t have to have all that thing. For me it’s okay, what’s my lifestyle? I can go anywhere I want to go and have a holiday. Whatever I want to do, I can take… Work one day a week or six days a week if I want to, but I’m loving life at the moment so why would I want-

Payman: But then there’s also the appetite for risk question, right? As a young gun, there is no risk.

James Goolnik: There is no risk. You can do everything. I had the guarantee of my parents. I didn’t have kids at that stage. You can just chuck everything out. When you then have commitments and kids at school, and all the rest of it, it’s like okay, it’s a bit harder now. I’ve got… If this doesn’t work, what happens to this? You get more cautious on it.

James Goolnik: But then I love the excitement of doing something new, a new challenge, especially if somebody says to you in private, “You can’t do this.” Yes you can. It’s not been done like that before. Okay, that’s it. I want to do it.

Prav Solanki: I’m going to do it.

James Goolnik: Yeah.

Prav Solanki: Yeah.

James Goolnik: Somebody tells you no, if somebody tells me no, it’s like you know what?

Payman: That’s the challenge.

James Goolnik: You said no, I’m doing that. I don’t really care what you think.

Prav Solanki: Brilliant.

James Goolnik: I’m doing it.

Prav Solanki: Brilliant. So going back to opening a new practise, no patients, hygienist and… What was your first marketing campaign that drove patients through the practise?

James Goolnik: Okay.

Payman: You’ve done a few.

James Goolnik: Done lots of different marketing campaigns, some of which didn’t work. Actually, a good majority didn’t work but I’ve tried. The best one that’s worked is actually going round to every single local business in the area and just saying hi. I went to every single business in the area. I went to the hairdressers, I went to the beauticians, I went the investment bankers, and said, “Just to let you know, I’m James. I’m a local dentist around the corner. I’d love to take care of you. You get 10% off any treatment if you come to see us. Come and say hi.”

James Goolnik: I got to know the community as close as I could do. At that stage there were less big chains. There was still big chains, like Starbucks and stuff, but there were less big ones so I went in everywhere. They got to know us. We also put… The best investment I ever had in marketing, it sounds a bit crazy, is an A-board. Just plain A-board in the street. We’ve got a really narrow street in Bow Lane. It’s a pedestrianised street and at lunchtime it’s heaving, so we just put an A-board out with… And it was usually stuff to try and stop people, going, “Have you had your mouth checked for mouth cancer?” It’s like whoa, that’s enough to stop them.

Prav Solanki: Yeah, yeah.

James Goolnik: The other thing that worked really well is apples. We used to give out apples with stickers with Bow Lane on. So it was… Our team was just there at lunchtime. We gave out 250/300 apples, all for free, and it was just awareness. Okay, why am I getting an apple? So they stop and they look at the sticker. Oh, it’s a dentist. In my head, there’s a dentist, it’s purple, it’s called Bow Lane, and we’re in Bow Lane. Then six months later they break a tooth, they go, “Oh, isn’t there a dentist somewhere?” And then they remember it all. So it’s just getting to know about the local area.

Prav Solanki: Do you remember patients walking through your practise and saying, “You were the guy that gave me the apple,” or…

James Goolnik: Yes. Yeah, it was brilliant and it was also, at that stage, every patient, I knew all their names because I only had six. I know all about them, but it’s been brilliant. That was one great thing about being somewhere for so long, is that I get to see them when they were new city… Really vibrant, excited, happy about their life. Get to see them, and then I see their partners, and then I see their kids. Then sometimes I see the girlfriends and then I see their second partners.

James Goolnik: There’s one patient that I’ve actually seen all four of his wives now, so slowly… He obviously gets divorced with each one and then the new one comes along, so I get to see them all and make sure they’re healthy.

Payman: Talking of divorce…

James Goolnik: Okay.

Payman: Okay. Go on.

Prav Solanki: You met your wife whilst you were in your hospital job, that’s right?

James Goolnik: Yes, hospital job, yeah.

Prav Solanki: Just talk to us about the struggles of running your own business, work/life balance, and the toll that that can have on your relationship.

James Goolnik: It’s tricky because obviously when you’re setting up a new business you put 110% effort and energy in it. You live, breathe, and sleep it. There was that. Obviously my wife was a doctor as well so she was working quite hard.

Payman: Hospital doctor?

James Goolnik: Yeah. Hospital doctor, NHS. She’s working quite hard but not earning much money, so it’s all those sort of stresses going on. And then also, when you start up a business, financially it’s hard. You have to cut back on different things, which makes it tricky. Just trying to get priorities right, and over the years, as the business has got more and more successful, it’s tricky.

James Goolnik: You go to the business and it’s going really well and it’s really successful, and there’s loads going on, and then you go home and it’s not as engaging, there’s a dichotomy between those two lives. I found that the more successful I got in business, the more strain on the personal relationship was.

Prav Solanki: And at what stage did the kids come?

James Goolnik: The kids came very soon after… I think it was six months after we opened the business. I have twins, Harry and Kate, so that was like okay, we go from zero skills of parenting to suddenly parents of twins so that was a bit-

Prav Solanki: Stress, sleepless nights.

James Goolnik: Yeah. That was extra stress, but it was great fun. The business was going well. Just trying to balance all of that, but as the business got more and more successful it got harder. And then I thought you know what? The person I was when I met her, I’m not the same person anymore. She’s not the same person anymore. 10 years later you think, okay, it’s not working. I thought okay, well I’ve put this much effort into the business, business is running really nicely now, I need to put this same amount of effort into the relationship. We started relationship counselling for a year. Looked at all different things and just thought you know what? This is just not working.

Prav Solanki: Like you mentioned relationship counselling. I think it takes a certain type of person or couple to actually, first of all, except that they need outside help, and then the other thing is actually going to a stranger and talking about the ins and outs of your relationship. What was that like?

James Goolnik: I mean I’m quite an open person. When I meet anyone for the first time there’s… Trust is like at 98%, so I’m quite open then, but as soon as they do something that doesn’t show that they’re at the same level, I drop right down to like -5%. But I’m quite trusting. I knew there was a problem, I knew I wasn’t happy. My wife wasn’t as unhappy as me but I knew this wasn’t working. I thought okay, I need to do something about it. My personality type is I’m a bit of a fixer, so if something is not right I’m going to put 100% effort… I’m going to research the hell out of it. Who is the best counsellor? Who’s this, that?

Prav Solanki: Sure.

James Goolnik: I’ll chuck everything at it, but then if it doesn’t work within a set period of a time I go okay, I’ve done that, no, move on.

Payman: How old were the kids?

James Goolnik: The kids were five. About five.

Payman: Okay. And they’re 16 now?

James Goolnik: Yeah.

Payman: Wow.

James Goolnik: Four, five. It was tricky because do I stay in an unhappy marriage just for the kids and go through until they go through school? What’s the best hurdle? Is it better to go when they get through secondary school at 11? Do I wait until they leave school? I know lots of people in unhappy marriages who say, “I’m just going to stay with it for the kids,” and I just thought no. Life’s too short. I want to model them a happy life and I wasn’t having a happy life at that stage.

Prav Solanki: Can you remember the day you decided it’s over?

James Goolnik: Yeah. It was-

Prav Solanki: And did you decide it was over? Was it a mutual… Just talk me through that process.

James Goolnik: It was me who called the day and said I’d had enough. I think by that stage and the amount of counselling we had, she understood that it wasn’t going anywhere. We were talking at that stage and the counselling helped us talk. The communication was better, but we weren’t happy. I just thought… She wanted to try longer and longer and longer, but I thought I’d given enough. A year was enough. I’m not happy, the kids, at that age, can perceive when we’re not together. We were in separate bedrooms. It was just not right, so I just thought I’m calling it, that’s it. I’m out.

James Goolnik: And we then had to live together. Going through the divorce bit we had to live together for a few months before we could find accommodation, all that stuff. That was tricky. People say no matter how well you get on, soon as divorce lawyers get involved it’s like, “You’ve got to go for this, you’ve got to go for that. Record all conversations, copy the emails, do all this.” It got quite tricky at that stage. I’d just had enough and said, “I want to get out of this,” so I moved out. I hadn’t met anyone else. There was nothing else there. It was just like the possibility of having a happier life was worth moving out for.

Prav Solanki: If you could go back and relive that life before you started your practise and change something, do you think it would have been different?

James Goolnik: No. I just don’t think we were compatible.

Prav Solanki: You were the right people for each other.

James Goolnik: That was it, and when I started I was obviously a hospital dentist, hospital doctor, both worked in NHS. I wanted to do my own business but I’m from a family of people setting up their own business. She wasn’t. She was an only child and they hadn’t set up business before or anything. They worked for other big corporates. I think we had a different background. I was from London, she was from Norwich. There was too much of a difference. I think that was… Now, understanding that, getting older and being 50, you think actually, people’s upbringing is quite important. It doesn’t matter about your ages so much, it’s more about your upbringing. Are your family values? Have you been brought up in a similar way? Because that made a bigger difference.

Prav Solanki: I come from a… My parents are divorced. Wasn’t pleasant. As kids, nor… between them. It created a wedge. It did. Do you think it had an impact on your kids? What was your and your wife’s relationship, or ex wife’s relationship like during that transition period up to now?

James Goolnik: The relationship during the divorce battle was hard. We were communicating but not in a nice way. In the back of my head it was always what’s best for the kids, what’s best for the kids? Okay, let’s do this. My parent’s even said, “What’s best for the kids? I’m going to be there, I’m going to do this.” Every decision I did was what’s best for the kids? It was the first priority, and then what’s good for me? But I wanted to make sure I could cushion them as well as possible.

James Goolnik: My kids then had problems at different ages. My daughter found it really tricky as we were going through the initial divorce but she’s fine now, whereas my son was fine all the way through that and then a few years later he then found it harder. I’ve always put them first, 100% in front of anything, but our relationship then got better and better and better. We were quite friendly. As I said I’m big into cars, so I helped her buy her last car. I’m helping her buy her new car at the moment.

Payman: So super friendly now?

Prav Solanki: Oh wow.

James Goolnik: So we’re friendly but it’s… And obviously I pick the kids up every week so we do drop offs, but there are certain spark moments that happen. Every sort of six to nine months, something triggers it and it’s like, “You can do this.” I don’t know, she’s got to sign up a new house insurance or something and she’s getting really stressed by it all. “It’s all right for you, you’ve got a team of 24. If you want to get a new house insurance quote, you just send them an email and they’ll do it all for you.” They don’t do my house insurance. That’s not how it works.

Payman: Imagine.

James Goolnik: So that was the difference, and there’s always been a difference there. She said, “It’s all right for you, you’re earning all this money because you’ve got an easier life than me.” I’m earning this money because I’ve put a lot of personal education into me and I’m doing my own business. You’re working for the NHS. If you want to earn more money, you need to work smarter. You need to set up your own practise. You need to do something else.

Payman: Obviously your situation is your situation.

James Goolnik: Yes.

Payman: Dentistry’s a stressful job.

James Goolnik: It can be a stressful job.

Payman: Yeah. Dentistry can be a stressful job, particularly nowadays. I’m not going to say more, but nowadays with all the legal crap everyone’s got to take care of as well, there must have been a couple of like dark days where it was stress at home, stress at work. What’s your advice to someone going through that?

James Goolnik: Luckily I didn’t have many days where all the stress was coming in at once. You have days when it’s stressful at home and then you have your respite at home. I think one thing that helped is that I always had some place to go, so if home was really tricky I had my workplace and that was just a sort of a cocoon.

Payman: That’s interesting, isn’t it? You said work was actually… It’s the opposite?

James Goolnik: Yeah, I think if I didn’t have the business I think I would have found it really hard, and I’ve had other times where home is… Business has been really stressful, but then having a calm home, I just had somewhere that I could retreat to. But for me, I’m big into exercise so I found that… I used to run to work and actually that gave me some head space. I didn’t have any music on, I just went for it.

Payman: From where to where?

James Goolnik: I used to run from Putney into the city. So 8 miles-

Payman: Bloody hell. Every day?

James Goolnik: Not every day. Three days a week.

Payman: Wow.

James Goolnik: That was great because, one, I had my exercise over in the morning. I just felt a real buzz with the endorphins. I could think better, and I’ve always been better thinking when I’m moving. I’m not so good at like… I can’t sit at a desk and think, I need to be usually out in fresh air. That was great. For me, I had that crutch. It was the exercise that could help me go through whatever I was thinking. And also, if you have something on your mind from work, by the time you get home you’ve sorted the puzzle out already in your head. You’ve gone through it all, so that worked well for me.

James Goolnik: And also, I don’t like being like everyone else. I don’t like being a commuter. I don’t want to be one of 5000 people on the train. I want to be slightly different. I’m going to do it differently.

Payman: I get it.

Prav Solanki: Did you ever have any moments in your business where you felt like throwing the towel in?

James Goolnik: In the business?

Prav Solanki: Yeah.

James Goolnik: No, no, no. I’ve had some tricky, really tricky bits. I’ve had a member of staff stealing money from us. I’ve had colleagues writing weird things on emails and Facebook and stuff. I’ve had lots of different haters, but never thought… No. I love what I do. I still love what I do. I mean everyone has bad things. You might get CQC inspector come in the next day, “Oh, that’s what’s going to happen here.” There’s always bits and bobs that happen because that’s just life, but for me, hey, you know what? For me, I’ve got this thing. Okay, compare it to my day to what happened yesterday. Am I progressing in my life? Is today better? Have I learned something from it? Rather than compare myself to some other person who’s doing something else at that time.

James Goolnik: That’s the thing I hate about social media. You see the highlights of somebody’s journey that they’ve edited and filtered and whatever, and then actually it’s not real life. You compare yourself to them, it’s like why would you bother? You don’t know what’s happening to them.

Payman: Funny enough we were just speaking to Robbie earlier, and he was talking about filters and how a lot of dentists put their filtered cases up on Facebook and Instagram, but it’s not reality, right? Because if you put all your stuff out there, you get a mean average of what it is and it’s not as sexy as they make it out, right?

James Goolnik: Right. Anyone can make a composite that disappears. It might be a freak one-off, it just happens. Then you just doctorate and put it up. I’m not into that.

Payman: Yeah.

James Goolnik: That’s not my style.

Payman: Have you ever made a serious clinical mistake on a patient? Assuming you have, how did you deal with it?

James Goolnik: Yeah, the biggest mistake I’ve done is I’ve taken out the wrong tooth. It was a patient, it was only about eight years ago, took a look at the radiograph, the rest of it, and for some reason I just wasn’t concentrating enough and I took out the wrong tooth.

Prav Solanki: Was it the left and right, wrong way round on the radiograph?

James Goolnik: No, they were next to each other.

Prav Solanki: Right.

James Goolnik: They were next to each other and I looked at it, and I made the wrong decision. Took the tooth out and realised it straightaway. Okay, what am I going to do for this? I took out the right tooth which was next to it, so they lost two teeth instead of one tooth, and just said, “Look, I’m really sorry, I’ve taken out the wrong tooth. This is what’s happened. We checked the X-ray and the rest of it. This tooth wasn’t the best tooth. Now I’ve taken this one out as well. We can replace it with an implant and we’re going to do this free of charge. Now you’re going to get your tooth back.”

Prav Solanki: Going back to what you said earlier, the relationship with a patient-

James Goolnik: This guy I had been treating for five years. Never had any problems at all. We got on really well. I soon as I realised I just stopped and sat him up and said, “Look, this is what’s happened.” You can’t undo it, once you’ve done it. Once you’ve taken a tooth out and can’t push it back in and hope for the best. Luckily it was next to the other one and it was heavily filled. It wasn’t a great tooth anyway. It was right at the back. I said, “Look, I’m really sorry.” I didn’t charge him for the extractions.

James Goolnik: On the house.

Payman: But there was no recourse?

James Goolnik: No recourse, no.

Payman: He didn’t come for you?

Prav Solanki: At any point did you think there was going to be a recourse?

James Goolnik: When I first did it, when I took the tooth out, then I was like yes, okay, I’ve made a serious error. What am I going to do? I started sweating everywhere. Okay, what am I going to do? But then I just thought you know what? I’m going to be honest. If something happens in life just be honest and say… Stop, rather than trying to cover it up, it’s like-

Prav Solanki: Dig yourself a bigger hole, yeah.

James Goolnik: It’s life. Things happen. You just have to move on for it. I haven’t done it since.

Prav Solanki: Always double check now right?

James Goolnik: Yeah. 25 years of dentistry, 17 in the same practise, and one mistake. The other mistakes that happen probably every six to nine months is saying yes to a patient and then realising that actually, I can’t deal with them. What they want is not what I can achieve.

Prav Solanki: Got you.

James Goolnik: And that happens quite regularly and you just have to say, “You know what?” Half way through you think, “You know what Mrs. Jones? You want to achieve this, I can only achieve it this way but you don’t want me to do it that way. I think the best thing to do is I can give you your money back and you can find somebody that can do it that way because that’s not what I can do.”

Prav Solanki: Got you.

James Goolnik: I think that’s the best way, just to stop and think. Sometimes you can do the dentistry but dealing with a patient is the tricky part.

Prav Solanki: It’s hard, isn’t it? Not just dentistry, any kind of business. When you’re dealing with people you can’t keep everyone happy, right?

James Goolnik: Yeah. It’s impossible. The problem is the higher pedestal we are, being president at the British Academy of Dentistry or whatever, they look up at you and they go, “Okay, this guy has done it a thousand items before. He teaches dentists, he must know what he can do. He can fix me. I’ve been to 10 other dentists and they can’t fix me, but you’re the one.”

James Goolnik: When they come in the room and they tell you that, your ego sort of thinks, “Wow, maybe I am the one. Yes, I can do anything.” Because we’re a healthcare providers and we want to naturally help people. The first instinct for me is like Prav, I can help you. Yes, I can help you. But then when you start to look at it in more detail you think actually, what you want and what I can achieve are not the same things. I’m much better at picking it up now before I’ve started treatment, but we often make mistakes and think actually, I shouldn’t have started treating you. But when we started treating them I want to get them to a stable place.

James Goolnik: That’s one tricky bit about a principal, is when my associates get into trouble, I step in and go, “You know what? We need to get this patient in a comfortable place and happy, whatever it takes. Remake whatever needs to be done. There’s no charge.” And I just take over and fix it. We’ve not, touch wood, in 17 years we haven’t had a single case against us because we just take ownership and say, “Okay, I want to fix this. What do we need to do to fix it?”

Prav Solanki: Wow.

James Goolnik: Whether it’s giving money back, whether it’s sending them to a specialist, whatever we need to do, we’re just going to take ownership and get them in a happy place. At that stage, we may say goodbye to them and they can go somewhere else, or often times, they don’t want to go and they’re like, “I like you now James. I want you to fix everything for me.” Okay.

Payman: Your team, I’ve noticed over the years interacting with them, it feels like you’re talking to sort of a higher level of employee in a way. You must really invest in them heavily. I guess you pick them well in the first place.

James Goolnik: Thank you.

Payman: What kind of leader are you?

James Goolnik: I try and lead by example. I work very hard. I’m very passionate about my patients. I’ll always go the extra mile to try and help them and get them out of something. I don’t care about the money. I’m not interested in the money. Whatever it takes to get them sorted. I want them to grow and move on, and I understand that, say, a hygienist comes with me now, she may want to go off and do something else in five years time. I’m not going to hold her back. I want to try and invest in them. If they want to be an orthodontic therapist and they need the money for the cost, we’ll just lend it to them. Whatever it takes to keep them. I want them happy while they’re at Bow Lane.

James Goolnik: When they’re at Bow Lane, even if it’s only six months or a year, I want them happy. We get people that have… I’ve got three team members that have been with me over 15 years now, and then about six of them have been over 10 years.

Prav Solanki: Wow.

James Goolnik: They come back. We’ve got a nurse now who was with me for six years, went off travelling, got married, and now is coming back tomorrow to work back with us again.

Prav Solanki: Amazing.

James Goolnik: That is lovely, having them back. It’s part of our little family.

Payman: What are the secrets of that? Lead by example.

James Goolnik: Lead by example, be nice to them. Listen to them because often you think they want what you want. It’s different, so you might think actually what they want is a pay raise. What they want is this. Actually, it’s not sometimes. Sometimes, and one of my team said to me about two months ago, he said, “You need to say thank you more.” Okay, you know what? I do.

Prav Solanki: It’s amazing how much just a little pat on the back goes a long way.

James Goolnik: For the next two weeks, I was sending her messages on Instant Messaging about, “Thank you for that, that was really good.” The first day, she says, “You’re taking the Mickey now aren’t you?” But after a week I overheard her talking, “James really changed. He’s thanking me a lot more than normal.” Okay. It’s just a system. I’m putting a system in place that I’m going to remind myself to thank them more. If you just say thanks to somebody, it doesn’t mean anything.

Prav Solanki: No.

James Goolnik: Thanks Payman for doing X, Y, Z, and this is how it meant to me. That’s when it makes a difference. You’ve got to make it personal and make them realise that actually there’s an emotion attached to that. You’re not just saying thanks to everyone, because people just say thanks and it’s like have a nice day. It means nothing.

Payman: I think it’s worked though. Okay, so say thank you.

James Goolnik: Pay them well.

Payman: Pay them well.

James Goolnik: Pay them well is really important to do that, and also give them little wins

Payman: Are you proud of that? You’re paying your staff higher than the average?

James Goolnik: Yeah, yeah. We’ve slowly, every year, we just go up and up and up. It costs a lot more to get somebody new in and then to train them up to that level and to integrate with the team than it is to give somebody a pay rise. Okay, I don’t want this person to leave. At some point they’re going to leave. We had a receptionist and we ended up… We were paying her 30,000 pounds a year and she still wanted more, and one of her friends had gotten into a job that was paying more than that. She came to me and said, “I don’t want to leave but this is what I want to stay.” We did the sums and thought okay, you’re good, but as a business I can’t afford to pay you more than 30,000 pounds a year. If you can tell me how I can afford that, then I’ll do it. And she couldn’t, so that was the end of it. She left.

James Goolnik: Sometimes you have to let people go. I mean if she came up with some constructive ideas and said, “Okay, I can do this in the business or this in the business, or this, and this is how you can afford to pay me,” that’s a different matter. But she couldn’t and I thought we were paying well. I thought you know what? Otherwise I’m going to get everyone coming up and saying, “I want more, more, more.”

Payman: Have you got a performance related pay element?

James Goolnik: Yes. All our managers, we have a business manager and we have a treatment coordinator, and both of them are on KPI’s, key performance indicators, so they get 10% of their salary is also a bonus as well, so they get a certain amount of salary and they get 10% they can get as a bonus. But I found that the one thing that’s really helped recently, and we’re doing it the last two years now, is little surprises.

James Goolnik: For example, cinema tickets. I bought two cinema tickets. I messaged all the team saying, “Where is your local cinema?” And it was like Odeon or whatever. I got them two cinema tickets for them to go to any film they want, any time, and I gave it to everyone. A lot of practises may only give it to the nurses. I gave it to the dentist. Like Zaki was going like “This is really cool”, Zaki afford cinema tickets. Just the fact of getting something free from your boss is cool.

Payman: It’s nice, it’s a nice little-

James Goolnik: It’s different. I didn’t repeat that because I might do something different and you get like Boots vouchers. The other thing that’s worked really nicely is that we do free lunches twice a month. It’s always on a different day.

Prav Solanki: Twice a month?

James Goolnik: What we do is the day before we send the menus around and people choose what they want. They’re always healthy foods, and then we just provide lunch for them so they don’t have to… It’s everyone, the whole team gets lunch.

Prav Solanki: Delivered to the practise?

James Goolnik: Delivered to the practise. Always something healthy and we all eat together. That’s just really nice, to have their lunches.

Payman: Have you interacted with James’s staff?

Prav Solanki: I don’t think… No, I don’t think so.

Payman: There’s a real ownership, the way they talk about the place. You really feel like they’re stakeholders in the modern speak. You feel it, you feel it. It is like that, it is like that. But this combination of… For me, you can’t really be patient-centric, customer-centric, unless your team is happy. It’s one of those, you can’t expect them not to be happy one minute and then happy the next. It doesn’t work. Too many people expect that, yeah? Oh be super nice to our customers but I’m going to treat you like…

James Goolnik: We do surveys twice a year we send out anonymously to them to find out how can we do better? What are we doing? I mean some people would want more money, but there’s always little things that we can easily do. Like somebody said, “Why don’t we just get fresh flowers?” We had fresh flowers at the beginning of the day and then five years ago we were cutting costs. Do we need flowers or not? They go, “No, we should have flowers.” We got flowers in and it just lifts everybody. They love the smell of it.

Payman: It’s something you would never think of yourself.

James Goolnik: Yeah. The problem is when you’re in your business all day, and I’m in there three days a week, but when you’re in the business you do not see these things. You’re don’t see the little things, but actually they go, “Just having the flowers makes me cheery when I see that.”

Prav Solanki: I’m assuming you’ve had to fire somebody before?

James Goolnik: Yes. Lots of people.

Prav Solanki: Lots of people?

James Goolnik: Yes.

Prav Solanki: Ever get any easier?

James Goolnik: No. Sorry.

Prav Solanki: What’s the most difficult conversation you’ve had with somebody you had to fire?

Payman: Before we go any further, you’ve fired lots of people have you?

James Goolnik: I have fired lots of people.

Payman: So what’s the technique? Hire lots and fire lots?

James Goolnik: I think the big thing, and you hear about this all the time, is fire fast.

Payman: Yeah, hire slow.

James Goolnik: Hire slow and fire fast. Basically if you think in your gut they’re not the right person for you, then I always ask another team member just in case there’s some clash of personality, “What do you think of… Do you think they’ll fit in the team?” And some people take longer to warm up into a team, especially if we’ve got quite a big team that have been there a long time. They take a while to bed in. It’s a little bit intimidating initially. But yeah, usually the initial gut feeling is okay, they’re not quite right for us. It took us two months to get this person, I don’t want to then have to work harder and do double the work so let’s just see if they get better.

Payman: Yeah.

James Goolnik: You just have to say it how it is unfortunately. And we always, if somebody goes, the best thing that we’ve found is they go straight away. No mucking around, you get your stuff and you’re out. We pay for the whole month and we give them a lovely reference. It’s just go. You try and keep somebody on there when they’re not happy or when they’ve been fired, it just doesn’t work.

James Goolnik: And the same thing with… The hardest thing is to hire and fire a dentist. That is the hardest thing because they’re your colleagues, they’re your peers. You’re going to see them at conferences and the rest of it. It’s just not working, and that is, most of the time, it’s actually… The two times I’ve fired dentists, it’s always because of clinical skills.

Payman: So we had the endodontist.

James Goolnik: Yes, so the endodontist. Yeah, that didn’t last long. It ended in a day.

Payman: That wasn’t so hard.

James Goolnik: But then yeah, associates, it’s really hard. It’s clinical skills and sometimes… You can’t be there the whole time. You get feedback from your nurses, but when patients come back because things are breaking and coming off all the time, or you’re looking at X-rays and you’re thinking this is before, they’ve done this restoration, but why have they done this restoration? This tooth didn’t need to be touched.

James Goolnik: That is harder. It’s like okay, I think they’re over treating. Sitting them down to say, “Look, I don’t think the value that you put on your dental care and what we put on…” And then is it me? Am I just super conservative or not? I then talk to the other team members, like Ilan and Zaki have been with me for years, and say, “What would you do with this case?” And then they wouldn’t go in as well, it’s like okay, this person shouldn’t be working for us. That’s the hardest.

Prav Solanki: James, there’s a 101 other questions I’ve got for you but I’m conscious we’re running out of time.

James Goolnik: Okay, cool.

Prav Solanki: I’d like to focus on your new project.

James Goolnik: Okay.

Prav Solanki: Charity?

James Goolnik: Yeah.

Prav Solanki: Tell us all about it.

James Goolnik: It’s called the Rewards Project.

Payman: Okay.

James Goolnik: Basically I’m a parent of three kids and it really annoys me when I go and they have a haircut and they’re given a lollipop. There’s a three year old having a haircut, it’s so exciting for her, the first haircut, all the rest of it. Give her a certificate, give her a sticker, give her something that lasts for your business. Giving them a lollipop doesn’t help anyone.

Payman: No.

James Goolnik: That really frustrates-

Prav Solanki: Maybe helps your business.

James Goolnik: Well I’ve got enough… There’s enough dental care, cosmetic stuff, aesthetic work, we don’t need it from caries. And then every day, seeing the damage that is done by sugar to teeth really frustrates me. Children, most of the time, have no control over what they eat. They’re parents have complete control over what they eat and give them.

Prav Solanki: Very true.

James Goolnik: It’s like you do well… My son did well on a math test. He gets a bar of dairy milk. You’re in a school, why are you giving chocolate for that? You don’t need to. There’s much better ways of doing it. What I’m trying to get people to do is think beyond sugar. Think about what rewards you can do for good performance and good behaviour that don’t involve food or sugary snacks. That’s the next project.

Prav Solanki: Just give me a vision of how that project’s going to be executed and what it looks like. So stickers and certificates and hairdressers, or…

James Goolnik: What I need to do first is actually see what is out there at the moment, what people are rewarding people for and look at the good practise. There’s plenty of schools and nurseries that are doing good things for people when they’re doing well. We’re looking at… We’ve got a team of nutritionists, doctors, dentists, psychologists, all together.

Prav Solanki: Wow.

James Goolnik: It’s launching in May. What we’re looking at is how we can… What’s going on at the moment. We’ve got a rewards review that we’re sending out to 20,000 schools in the UK. It’s looking at what they do for sports days, what they do for festivals, how often they have their cake bake sales. So looking at what they do at the moment. There’s a survey going out to all the schools.

James Goolnik: Then we’ve also got two quizzes. We’ve got sugar quizzes, like how addicted to sugar are you? When, Payman, do you reach for that Yorkie bar in the bottom drawer? Is there a certain reason to do it? We’re looking at all of that out there. It’s a fun and educational resource, and then we’re sharing good practise out there. One of the things that’s out there is, I don’t know if you know, but you can actually retrain your pallet to not like sweet things anymore.

Payman: How?

James Goolnik: There’s research out there. It takes six days. What you need to do is cut down added sugar for six days and after the sixth day, when you have something sweet, it tastes so sweet to you, that’s the point when you think actually that’s not good.

Payman: Is that it, just cut it out?

Prav Solanki: I’ve not had sugar for 90 days. I had a strawberry the other day, holy crap it was so sweet. So ridiculously sweet.

Payman: I get it but like my kids, my daughter is completely addicted and I wonder if six days would do it to her. I think you’ve got to want to. It’s like stopping any addiction, right?

James Goolnik: As a parent the first thing is actually look during the prep work beforehand, so it’s like going through the house and seeing what rubbish you’ve got there with added sugar and looking at 100 grammes, trying to get everything under 5 grammes, but a 100 grammes first of all. Replace the sugary cereals and sometimes, okay, I’ve got these Cheerios and they’re too high. They’re 32 grammes of sugar. Let’s go for the lower sugar Cheerios first to get them down slowly, and if that’s too much, maybe do 50/50. Half the normal sugar ones, half the…

James Goolnik: The slow changes, people don’t notice if you reformulate slowly. And then looking at go-to snacks. Okay, what snacks can I make? What lunchbox stuff can I have for my kids that is actually not crammed full of rubbish? You’ll find they’ll behave better, they’ll concentrate better, they’ll have less dental problems.

Payman: I know.

James Goolnik: It’s a win/win for everybody, and the schools are really up for it. I think it’s easier at schools because we have them in a protected environment and they want to learn. It’s a win/win for everybody, and then the kids are going to come home and say, “Dad, why are you having that chocolate bar? You don’t need that chocolate bar,” and changing it.

Payman: Yeah, yeah. A friend of mine runs one of the big water companies and he said they’ve got this big issue with wipes being blocking up… And he said the most successful way of changing this habit is by teaching the kids. It works better than any other marketing…

James Goolnik: We’ve got a massive problem in the UK with the amount of extractions going up to the five to the eight year olds. It’s just up and up and up. The number one reason kids are going to the hospital for GA is having a tooth out. That’s criminal in this age.

Prav Solanki: Yeah.

Payman: Would you… You’re doing this… I know we’re supposed to be in the profession of prevention, but very left field compared to city cosmetic dentists. Would you say it’s something you’d like to be remembered for?

James Goolnik: I just like making a difference. It’s like okay, I want to do things that people say you can’t do. What is a big goal? What do I fight every single day? I fight with sugar in the mouth, with what’s going on, and the damage that’s been done. But with my kids, it’s like okay, you’ve given them a lollipop, now they want a lollipop for everything. I’m fighting this battle. I want to replace this. Sugar is great. You can have sugar at birthdays, it’s fine, celebrations. Have sugar when you know you’re having sugar, not when it’s hidden in a sandwich bar. They’re putting it in their sandwich because it’s cheap, it makes the shelf life go longer, and they’ll sell more sandwiches.

James Goolnik: It’s not because it’s good for us. There’s no nutritional value at all in sugar. They’re just chucking it in and they basically mass poisoning us. I think we can make a difference and I think with all the thousands of dentists out there, we see our patients regularly. We talk about nutrition, we have great communication skills with them. Let’s start talking about it. Let’s do stickers. My kids love stickers. They love sticker charts, they love star charts. There’s so many different ways that you can reward children without using food and without using sugar.

Payman: Is there a website?

Prav Solanki: Where can we learn about this?

James Goolnik: It’s called TheRewardsProject.Org. There’s loads of free resources on there. There’s some quizzes that you can have for kids, quizzes for adults. You’ve got your rewards review you can send out to your schools. We want to go into every single school and get them more and more engaged in what you can do. We’re going to be sharing good practise and teaching people about healthier habits. We’ve got nutritionists to say, “We’re doing this,” and we’re doing our 14 day sugar detox.

James Goolnik: You’re way ahead of us. You’re on the 90 day, but 14 days is all it takes.

Prav Solanki: I’d be happy to share any experiences I’ve had.

Payman: Did you say the TheRewardsProject.Com?

James Goolnik: .Org.

Payman: .Org. TheRewardsProject.Org.

Prav Solanki: James, one last question.

James Goolnik: Yes?

Prav Solanki: Your last day on the planet and you can leave the world giving three pieces of advice.

James Goolnik: Okay.

Prav Solanki: What would those be?

James Goolnik: Love, be loved, and never stop learning.

Prav Solanki: Beautiful. Thank you.

Payman: It’s like someone had already asked that question.

James Goolnik: It’s in my book, it’s in my book.

Payman: Brilliant. All right, well thanks a lot for coming over. It’s been a pleasure. I feel like we still didn’t get to the bottom of why is it that you want to prove everyone wrong when they say, “That can’t be done.” Until next time.

Prav Solanki: Mate, we’ve just… That’s podcast number two. Mate, we’ve just scratched the surface. We haven’t talked about his current relationship, work/life balance.

Payman: BACD.

Prav Solanki: BACD. Shit tonne of-

James Goolnik: The book and sleep. And meditation.

Payman: We’ll bring you back.

James Goolnik: The morning ritual, we’ve got to come back for the next-

Payman: We’ll bring you back, we’ll bring you back.

James Goolnik: Would love to.

Prav Solanki: For sure, for sure.

Payman: Thank you so much.

Prav Solanki: Cheers buddy.

James Goolnik: 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.

Prav Solanki: Thank you for tuning in guys to the Dental Leaders podcast. Just got a little request to make. If you’ve got a suggestion of somebody else who we should be interviewing or somebody who’s got a really strong story, powerful story to share with us, please send us a message and help us connect with that individual so we can bring their stories to the surface.

Payman: Thank you so much for taking the time guys, and if you got some value out of it, think about sharing it with your friends and subscribing to the channel. Thanks.

Transcript

Prav Solanki: Hello listeners, and thank you for tuning in to the Dental Leaders podcast. Today, we had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Andrew Moore, one of my most favourite people to work with, as a client, and to hang around and be with. This guy has got what I consider to be the most amazing dental practise on the planet. And I don’t just mean from it’s beautiful aesthetics and everything.

Prav Solanki: There’s a buzz, and there’s an energy, and there’s some magic that he’s created in his practise. If he could bottle that up and inject it into someone else’s practise. Wow. So many lessons to learn from this.

Prav Solanki: Pay, what were your takeaways from today’s interview?

Payman: Yeah, well it is my favourite practise in the country as well, just aesthetically, but then the number of implants he’s doing. And then just what a cool dude he is. Just what a cool dude.

Prav Solanki: Super cool man.

Payman: I think there’s loads to learn from this one, and he’s just one of the really low profile super high performer dentists that I know, so I’m sure everyone’s going to enjoy it.

Prav Solanki: Enjoy guys. Enjoy.

Prav Solanki: Andy, you’re very very good friends with probably one of the most successful businessmen in the world.

Dr. Andy Moore: What, 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: So today we’ve got Andy Moore with us from Advanced Dental clinic. I’ve known you for about 10 years now, isn’t that right?

Dr. Andy Moore: Yeah, I think so. We met at a trade show and you came up with a couple of gems that I was like, “Oh, I need to get this guy involved in the practise.” So yeah, it was a good meeting.

Prav Solanki: It was, it was a good meeting. And people always ask me, “What’s the nicest practise you’ve ever walked into? What’s the best environment you’ve ever seen in a dental practise?” And it’s always yours Andy.

Payman: Yeah, I’d say the same.

Prav Solanki: I can only describe it as magic.

Dr. Andy Moore: Yeah, that’s super nice to hear that.

Prav Solanki: When you walk through the door of Advance Dental clinic, the atmosphere, the team, the buzz.

Payman: The building.

Prav Solanki: The building. Everything. You just… you cannot recreate that. And you know that practise was created many years ago now.

Dr. Andy Moore: Yeah it was 16 years in May, that we opened the first bit of the practise. And then it must be eight years, eight maybe nine years, we opened the second bit. Actually I was looking today with a light coming in, really it was a nice sunny morning and thinking, “Well it still looks good.”

Prav Solanki: I think I must have come there soon after opened.

Dr. Andy Moore: Yeah, you did. Yeah, you did.

Prav Solanki: Because I remember you said it. It was just the-

Dr. Andy Moore: Yeah, it was a new build.

Prav Solanki: How did you get planning permission for that?

Dr. Andy Moore: Well, we had a few designs turned down. The architect had done some practises that I’d seen in a magazine. So when I saw that… he hadn’t done a new build, but when I saw his fit-outs I was like, “Oh yeah, I ripped it out of a magazine.” And then a friend of mine, he rips out of an architectural magazine as well and when this plot of land came up, he said to me, “Oh you got that plot of land? You should phone that guy”

Dr. Andy Moore: And we looked at the two things together, well it’s actually the same building, just in two different magazines. So I called up Richard Mitzman, and we went through quite a lot of designs and bits and pieces and eventually we got the sort of the all clear from the council and found out really what they wanted. And eventually we got… because the first few designs weren’t anything like what it is now.

Payman: For anyone who hasn’t seen it, really, you should google it. Advanced Dental, right?

Dr. Andy Moore: Yeah.

Payman: It’s stunning. And it’s a normal road with normal Victorian houses.

Dr. Andy Moore: Yeah, normal houses, yeah.

Payman: And then there’s this metal and glass spaceship.

Dr. Andy Moore: Well it fit the bill, and what they wanted was a red brick fronted building on the building line. So once they told us that’s what they wanted, and if you look at it from the outside, that’s what we’ve got. But it just goes back a long way. A number of people who come and go, it’s like a TARDIS-

Payman: Yeah.

Dr. Andy Moore: -the way it’s sort of… it’s a very long dental practise really. But to have a new build. I mean, I was so lucky to find that plot of land. That was one of the luckiest, ridiculously lucky moments in my life, for no apparent reason. Going into an estate agent, I knew I’d had a year to go on where I was working. I knew the guy was going to say no, it’s time to move on. And he wanted to sort of move me on.

Dr. Andy Moore: So I just walked into the state agent. I must’ve gone past a thousand times in my life and never gone in. I just walked in and I said to the agent, “Oh, I’m just looking for a building. Something like an old house to convert into a dental practise.” And he said, “Oh, I’ve just got off the phone to the doctor who owns that show, with a shack basically, that wasn’t being used, as the doctor’s surgery had been sort of run down for years and years previously, and she wants to sell.” So I said, “Okay, whatever they value, whatever you value at, I’ll offer, I’ll give you 10,000 pound ball and we’ll do the deal by the end of the month.” So it was one of those moments that I just knew I had to grasp, and I just prayed it was going to be a low valuation. I didn’t have a clue what it would be.

Dr. Andy Moore: And within three weeks, we’d done the deal, bought the place. I mean its two doors from where I was working. So I knew I wouldn’t have any problem with the patients being able to go there.

Payman: Did you own the place you were working, or were you-

Dr. Andy Moore: No, I owned my goodwill, so I could move anywhere. So when I sort of bought out of my associate contract, effectively I bought my goodwill. I owned my patients, and the plan was to find another place. But it would have been ideally not so close for political reasons, but that was the way it was. And we basically put up a board. A local guy came in and demolished the building, cleared the site, and then I got the architects involved. And away we went.

Payman: How long did it take, beginning to end, to build?

Dr. Andy Moore: Just over a year. So from buying the land in February 2002, to opening in May 2003. So, and then, we got a bespoke dental practise all in one floor, designed from the ground up.

Payman: Is Mitzman still around?

Dr. Andy Moore: Yeah. He doesn’t do most dental. Yeah. He qualified as a dentist years and years before me.

Payman: I didn’t know that.

Dr. Andy Moore: And then he sort of retired from dentistry when I started dentistry effectively. So he was quite a few years ahead of me. And then he trained as an architect, a sculptor. He did all sorts of stuff. And then he obviously saw there was a niche to design. This was before the days of all CQC and HCMO 105 and all this stuff that dentists weren’t doing, but he was… because he trained in the states, he was so up on all the…

Payman: Sterilisation and things.

Dr. Andy Moore: Yeah, yeah, and working. The first thing he said to me was, “Oh, you should work in two rooms.” And I was like, “I can’t work in a yard. I can’t work. I can’t do that.” He’s like, “No, no, you’ve got to do it. You’ve got to do it. It will make you so much more productive.”

Dr. Andy Moore: And so I took all that stuff on board. We had sterilising areas outside of the surgeries before that became the norm and the requirements like it is now. And I worked with two nurses in two rooms, and I just loved it. It was just fantastic. In doing implants as well. All that setting up time and clearing up time, that was just going on while I was doing other things. So it was a real… I’ve got a lot to thank him for, not just for the design of the building, but for the way he opened my eyes and changed the way I worked.

Payman: What did you spend? You mind talking about that?

Dr. Andy Moore: I got a Polish builder, that Richard, before Polish builders were sort of norm. I think the plot cost me 90,000, and it’s a decent sized goal.

Payman: Good old days.

Payman: Wow.

Dr. Andy Moore: Yeah. I mean the plot wasn’t a lot of money. Then the build, I think it was 260,000 to build it. And you look back on that and think, “Oh my God, I got a real bargain.” But it seemed like a lot at the time, because it was a risk for me as a one person. I was just me. To build a four surgery practise and quite a statement sort of big practise and taking on a lot of people.

Payman: Have you been to his other practises? He did Robbereti’s one.

Prav Solanki: Yeah, I haven’t, no.

Payman: Beautiful. He did the Gentle Dental in Croydon.

Dr. Andy Moore: Kamlesh, yeah.

Payman: Yeah.

Dr. Andy Moore: Well these are all guys… I mean I-

Payman: But yours was my favourite of all.

Dr. Andy Moore: Yeah, well I’ve got a lot to thank Richard for. But I think he’s got quite a lot to thank me for because everyone who came around to my practise, especially when I was doing teaching at the Royal College, they’re like, “Oh I want a practise like.” And about eight, maybe five, guys built practises off the back of coming to my practise with Richard. And so he did really well and he’s brilliant, and fantastic to spread that, the design worked so well. And when we got the other plot of land at the back and extended, then obviously he was the first person I went to do the extension there.

Prav Solanki: At what point did you decide I want my own business? Because you mentioned you had this moment where accidentally you stumbled into a estate agent, but before that, was it in your mind? That I want to be my own boss.

Dr. Andy Moore: Well I knew I’d have to do at some point. I mean when I was working as an associate, the agreement with my boss at the time was we would both go private and set up a private dental clinic in Chelsea. Because it was just coming to that point where NHS was getting harder and harder to where… and I had a good following of private patients, doing quite lot of implant work.

Dr. Andy Moore: So I knew at that point I was going to need to do my own sort of business stuff. And I’ve got friends who had been successful in business, and yeah, it was a natural progression. I think that when you… the dentistry, not gets easier, but it becomes less of a challenge to think about doing stuff that you need something else as a challenge. And building a business is a really good challenge for people. So yeah, it was a natural progression, I think so.

Prav Solanki: What was the biggest challenge, or the biggest shock, that came to you after opening a business? Was it managing teams-

Dr. Andy Moore: It wast the staff. Yeah. Managing the people. The patients were amazing. Managing the people. And when you were so used to working maybe with just your nurse and one other person and receptionist and stuff, it was much harder to take on a group of people and getting them to jell. And what we found was, because we were working differently to normal dental practises, there was a sterilising area, rather than all the girls doing their own thing. We found it was quite hard to take on experienced dental nurses, because they were so used to doing their own thing and not working as a team.

Dr. Andy Moore: So eventually we got that rolling, and then we eventually sort of took on and trained our own nurses. Some of the best people were people who we trained ourselves, rather than nurses who were already qualified. So that was really good in the end. But it was, the first couple of years were quite hard. We went through quite a few staff, which is always difficult to sort of say, “Oh, it’s not working.” That’s the hardest. That’s what I find one of the hardest things. Is-

Prav Solanki: Managing people.

Dr. Andy Moore: Yeah. Or letting people go that you know just aren’t right for the practise. But we’re so lucky now, because we’ve got such a stable group of girls and the dentists and everything. It’s been really good, the last few years.

Prav Solanki: It’s such a happy place, the times that I’ve been in. Everyone’s smiling, everyone’s happy. You can feel that buzz.

Dr. Andy Moore: Yeah. It’s got that. A lot of people say that.

Prav Solanki: How have you created that? Because it must be your leadership, right? There’s got to be something in there that you can give some advice to some of our listeners. I’ve never walked in a practise where the energy and the level of happiness is such a high.

Dr. Andy Moore: I think it comes from the building of it, little bit as well. I can’t just take the credit for it really. Because it’s a really nice place to work.

Prav Solanki: Yeah.

Dr. Andy Moore: I mean it’s a nice place. It’s a nice environment to be in.

Prav Solanki: Yeah.

Dr. Andy Moore: And that is good. I think the girls get… I try and give the girls as much responsibility as I can. Because I think that they, the right people are empowered by that. And that took me a while. That was another thing. When I first started, it took me a while to be able to let go of stuff. I wanted to do everything, and then I realise I had to sort of give responsibility to other people. So they’ve all got their own roles within the team, plus other roles as well.

Dr. Andy Moore: So I don’t know what it is. We just got a good group of people that we’ve sort of got together, and it does take a while to find that sort of team. It’s like putting together a load of footballers. That on paper, they’re all fantastic, but they don’t actually jell that well together. So I think that that took a little while. But now we’ve seemed to have got that, and it does seem to work with the formula we’ve somehow stumbled on I think there, so.

Payman: Do you still get involved in the recruitment?

Dr. Andy Moore: Yeah, I do actually.

Payman: Yeah?

Dr. Andy Moore: I do. Yeah. I tend to let the practise managers and all of the senior nurses weed out, and then I’ll get involved in maybe in the last five or six. Because at one point, I took a step away from that, and that was a mistake.

Prav Solanki: Right.

Dr. Andy Moore: And I took a… because I thought, “Oh, this is another thing I can delegate to other people.” And then I sort of didn’t get the people I wanted really. And it didn’t work.

Prav Solanki: If you could package up what is it that you are looking for-

Dr. Andy Moore: Yeah, I know, I could.

Prav Solanki: Could you describe the qualities in a person that you look for when you’re trying to find staff?

Dr. Andy Moore: It’s that personality, that spark that they have. Because I always say that you can teach someone dentistry, but you can’t teach them how to be a smiley, funny, bubbly person. Someone who can talk to other people. That comes really from within and it’s… we’ve had some people who have been really shy, and they’ve really come out of their shell. And perhaps I didn’t think they would. But I think for most of them, they’d have already got that before they come to the practise.

Dr. Andy Moore: And we try and find that, rather than going, “Oh, you’ve got really good CV. You’ve worked at this place, you’ve that place, you’ve got this qualification, that qualification.” I go by personality, the feel, and the vibe I get of people. Rather than looking at their CV.

Payman: Is that true with dentists as well or just…

Dr. Andy Moore: Dentists? Well, you have to have a bit more than that with the dentist. So yeah, I definitely go a little bit more. Luckily we don’t have to, we get… when the dentists come, they tend to stay. So we don’t have to recruit that often. So we may be looking for someone who’s got a good personalities, but we’ve got a skill set that will fit into the practise. Because what realise a long time ago was I couldn’t do everything. I used to try, and I used to do ortho, implants, all surgery, I was trying to do everything, and I realised I just couldn’t do that. So now, even though no one is, apart from the periodontist, is a sort of specialist per se, we have guys who work in the team who are really good at one specific aspect.

Dr. Andy Moore: So Vecelia is amazing at Invisalign, brilliant with people. And so if someone phones up and is interested in Invisalign, just straighten him with Vecelia. And that’s a way of keeping her busy. So we don’t… there’s a thing, sometimes principals want to have everything. They want to have all the patients and things. But for me, I just tend to focus just on the implant stuff, and the general dentistry gets moved around the other-

Payman: So do you not do any?

Dr. Andy Moore: Oh, I think you always end up doing a little bit. When you do implants, it’s such a general thing as well. Because you might be doing an implant on one tooth, and the patient needs a crown on the other, so.

Prav Solanki: Yeah.

Dr. Andy Moore: And I’m really still interested in digital dentistry with CEREC and stuff like that. So I still like to do all that sort of thing, but I do less and less these days. But I think you’ve always got to do that. There’s so many skill sets you need in implant dentistry, even if it’s just being really slick at making temporary crowns and bridges chairside, and stuff like that. You need those skills really.

Prav Solanki: What sort of volume of implant dentistry you doing Andy? Just so you could give us a real fight there in numbers?

Dr. Andy Moore: Well the practise did about 700, 750 implants last year.

Prav Solanki: Wow.

Dr. Andy Moore: So yeah, that’s been the norm for us for the last five years or so now. So yeah, it’s good. And I’ve taken on another guy, Phil who works for me, who’s taking on more of the implant stuff as well. So it used to just be me, but now Phil does more cases. So that’s really good. So it means I could take a bit of time off, so without the cases. I had seven weeks off in the summer with a broken arm, and there was hardly any cases that had to get put back because anyone who wanted to wait for me could wait for me. Anyone who didn’t, then Phil could pick up those cases. I think that worked really well.

Prav Solanki: I’ve always admired you Andy, because you’ve got the perfect, what I would consider to be the perfect work life balance. So you work damn hard, and you do a high volume of dentistry in the time that you do it at a very high standard. But you also, I have conversations with you about marketing or whatever it might be, or just stuff going on in the practise, and then you’ll be off on your next holiday or spending time with your family.

Dr. Andy Moore: Yeah.

Prav Solanki: So it’s really sort of, you’ve inspired me in some respects of me taking time out of my own life and spending it with my family, or taking extended breaks. So how do you get that balance right? Of owning your own business that’s got a massive overhead beside it, supporting a team, but also making sure that you’ve got an amazing work life balance?

Dr. Andy Moore: Yeah, I mean that’s another real… I think it helps when you do an implant work, which is sort of profitable once you get good at it. I think it’s hard at the start with implant work, and obviously with… I’ve been doing implants for over 20 years now, so I’ve gone through a lot of learning curves with that. And just having good people who can, that when you’re away, that stuff gets done. It must be hard for dentists maybe who work on their own, because they know when they’re away, they’re always thinking about the practise.

Prav Solanki: Yeah.

Dr. Andy Moore: And I still, even when I’m on holiday, I still see emails that I need to answer and I don’t think you can ever get away with it in this day and age. But I do try to… what I’ve been doing in the last five years is trying to chip away at my book. So I’d just take an afternoon here, and an afternoon there, and trying to gradually wind down as the other guys get busier. And that’s hard sometimes, to do that, because you got to have faith in everybody else. But it works really well for me that, and I try and take seven or eight weeks holiday a year if I can.

Dr. Andy Moore: And you come back refreshed, and you’re ready to go again. And I think, I find if I work for more than two months without a break, I get a little bit like, “I need a holiday.” I get too tired. So I think that works quite well for me, get that balance somewhere along the line. But it’s, again, it’s quite hard to put your finger on it. I think you have to toy with a bit. Do a little bit here, if you… the key I reckon is to, for me, to earn the same amount of money and work less is more important than me to work really hard and not-

Prav Solanki: Make more.

Dr. Andy Moore: And make more money and not have time to enjoy it. And I think I like doing other things other than dentistry. I enjoy dentistry.

Prav Solanki: So you, if… you’d said you’d take an afternoon off here or there or whatever, considered a treat or whatever. What is Andy time? So if you have an afternoon free to yourself, or a day free, selfish Andy time, what would you be doing with that time?

Dr. Andy Moore: Generally riding my bike, which is a bit sad, but yeah, I like training. I’ve done a couple of Ironman and lots of half Ironman events and stuff, so. And I like being outdoors. I like that challenge of pushing myself sort of physically to do things that I perhaps wouldn’t have thought I could do maybe 10 years ago. So I enjoy doing that. Just spending time at home. The kids, again, growing up now, so they don’t need me so much. Like they used to.

Payman: How old are they?

Dr. Andy Moore: Alfie’s 20. He’s at Uni. And my daughter, Lily, she’s going to be going to university this year so, it’s going to be me, the wife and the dog, so. I think she’s more nervous about it than I am. But yeah, so it’s good to have outside interests. I mean it’s good. I mean I… yesterday was a good one for me because I had a sort of nice day. Morning great, finished my patient before lunch a little bit earlier. So I had an hour and a half, sun was shining. And I was like okay, and I jumped on my bike, did a quick 50k ride, came back. Quick shower, and then did the afternoon. That was a perfect day for me. So bit of work, bit of training, and then spend the evening with family and stuff. So yeah, that’s the way I like doing things.

Prav Solanki: Has fitness always been something that featured heavily in your life? Or is it something that’s been…

Dr. Andy Moore: I’ve definitely got worse or worse. Well I’ve got fitter, but I’ve got more obsessed with it in the last sort of five, 10 years I think. I’ve always… I played football when I was younger and run some marathons and stuff. But yeah, in the last… I think as the kids got older and they, you get to that moment where you come home from work and they… and you come home and they’re doing their homework, and they’re doing stuff, and they don’t sort of feel like they don’t need you so much anymore. That’s quite a hole that can leave you with there. So I think for me, when the kids got to that point, I started doing a bit more training and sort of just spending a bit more time doing that. So yeah, I still really enjoy it.

Prav Solanki: Yeah.

Payman: Did your kids think about wanting to be a dentist or not?

Dr. Andy Moore: I thought about them wanting to be dentists. I was trying to… I’ve always been trying to… I think my son would be an amazing dentist. Because he’s really good with his hands, and he’s good sort of… he’s just a sociable people person. And I’ve been saying to him for years, “Just, it would be really good if you just…” And he just not had the thing for it. He’d not had the thing for it there. So it’s a real shame.

Dr. Andy Moore: I think it was that realisation. He was in primary school, and he said to me, “Well, if things don’t work out, I could always become a dentist like you.” And I thought, oh maybe that’s not his aspiration. So he’s more interested in engineering and design. He’s very, he’s quite artistic. So design, but I haven’t given up hope on him yet. I’m still chipping, even though he’s at university doing something else. I’m still mentioning it there every now and then.

Dr. Andy Moore: And my daughter, she’s going to do neuroscience. I was like, “Well you’re doing neuroscience, you might as well do dentistry, what’s the matter with you?” But I think they just want to do their own thing, and I can absolutely appreciate that. That they want to carve their own niche in life, rather than-

Payman: How did you get involved in implants so early?

Dr. Andy Moore: Well I-

Payman: Were you always a surgical type? Like were you-

Dr. Andy Moore: Yeah. I used to do a lot of surgery when I first qualified. I used to work at Basildon hospital and do… there was a days when you… there was a department run by one consultant and SHO and about eight clinical assistants. And someone got me into doing that when I first qualified. So, and I still like doing, we used to run our own lists. It was really good. It was a great way of getting surgical, sort of experience. And then after, probably, I think it was about seven or eight years of doing NHS, did a lot of amalgams in a really busy busy NHS practise, I just thought, “I just don’t know if I could do this for the rest of my life.”

Dr. Andy Moore: And I started then looking around for other things and someone said to me, “Oh, you should look at implants. It could be the next big thing.” So I met Ashok Sethi, and I did Ashok’s course. I’ve got a lot I’ve to thank Ashok for, because he opened my eyes to what other things dentistry could be. I remember going to his practise in Harley Street, it’s a big townhouse in Harley Street, and thinking, this is amazing. This is what I want. This is what I want to do.

Prav Solanki: What sort of stage of your career were you at that point?

Dr. Andy Moore: I was in that transition where I’d been… where dentistry, it was getting to be the bit same old, same old.

Prav Solanki: How many years qualified were you by then?

Dr. Andy Moore: So I must’ve been eight, maybe nine years qualified. And I was just… I was still enjoying it. I was still enjoying dentistry, but I was just at that point of like, “Oh my God, I’m… I could be doing this for another 30 years. I need to do something else.” Not something else, because I know I’ve got limitations. But something, maybe just a different challenge. So that was good for me, to go and see what else was going out there. And then aside, going on courses through Ashok, you know, did his year course. I thought to myself, well I’ll do the odd implant here and there. And again, quite a leap of faith as an associate in a predominantly NHS practise to turn around and go, “Oh, I’m going to buy all the implant stuff.” The physio dispenser, the kit, all the… and all this. When you-

Payman: Are you placing all 750 implants? Or is there a second implantologist there?

Dr. Andy Moore: Up until recently I was, yeah. But Phil is now doing a lot of, yeah, he’s doing a lot of stuff. So yeah, I mean it’s good. I mean we’ve got so many patients who just… because I think being in the same street, I’ve worked in the same street for 30 years, so I’ve got a lot of patients out there and I walk through town. “Oh yeah, I did that. I did that one. Yeah I did that.”

Dr. Andy Moore: So I think it’s just a volume of people. I don’t remember the name, but I remember what I did on them. And they sort of… you get people coming in straight out of the blue. I saw someone, yesterday I think it was, who I hadn’t seen him for 15 years.

Prav Solanki: Wow.

Dr. Andy Moore: And just came in and said, “Oh I broke my tooth. You did an implant for me 15 years ago, and I just want that one out.” And so I get people just coming back. So it gets easier, I think, as you’ve done more. There’s not much selling involved for me anymore with implants, because a lot of people are sold on it. Not like the old days, it was a real leap of faith for people.

Payman: You were just saying your original… we were talking before about your early veneer cases that you’ve-

Dr. Andy Moore: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Payman: Are you seeing Peri-implantitis as a big problem?

Dr. Andy Moore: Absolutely. I don’t see it as a big problem. I see it as a problem, yeah. And it’s a really hard thing. Because what we know now is different to what we knew then. But you get some real random stuff with implants. You could place an implant, it’s really stable, and then year down the line you’ve got failure, and you just can’t put your finger on that. And you’ve got patients who’ve… I’ve got patients who’ve had implants that I placed 20 years ago, and you look at it, you see they come in, you take an X-ray and the bone level is where it was 20 years ago. So I think dentistry, you do learn that there’s always going to be failure in dentistry, and it’s minimising the risk for the patient, and minimising the risk for you.

Dr. Andy Moore: Because that’s always a difficult conversation that. Because you don’t get enough failure to make it one of those things that you think, oh just not worth it. Because there’s so many other people out there who’ve got fantastic results.

Payman: What’s the state of play with Peri-implantitis? I mean, what’s the treatment? Is it just like Perio?

Dr. Andy Moore: It’s like Perio, yeah. I mean the thing is that you’ve got to weigh up often if it’s an anterior implant, if it’s got a deep pocket around there, you have to think about making it easy for that patient to clean. So it might be that you’ve got to sacrifice some of the aesthetics for it. So if that’s the case, and that becomes a problem, then it is often removing the implant is the only option and then starting again with something else.

Dr. Andy Moore: But a lot of patients, they understand things have a life span. Although I think it’s one of the only things that people ever say to me, “Will it last a lifetime?” That’s a tough one. When people are thinking something is going to last a lifetime. Well, you’ve got to gauge people’s expectations. And that’s the hardest thing, the expectations of people I find. These days, we do a lot of teeth in a day, and I still, I personally think it’s a really amazing treatment to offer someone, and you’re just gauging the expectations of someone who’s coming in. And they’ve got all loose teeth, they all need to come out. Then you see them in the morning. Place the implants, all this teeth out, so all the upper teeth out, implants in. Six hours later you’re fitting a custom made acrylic bridge.

Dr. Andy Moore: Something that’s made in a day. But it looks nice, it’s stable. And the patients, “Oh, it feels a bit thick at the back.” And then you just think, “Oh my God, that’s one of the hardest things to do in dentistry.” Even though you’ve shown them the models, and shown what the timber is going to be like, and said to them, “Look, it will be a bit thick because it’s plastic. It needs to be strong. You can’t have it breaking.” So those are the challenges, I think, that face a lot of implant dentists, a dentist full stop really, there. That is gauging those expectations are so high these days.

Prav Solanki: A lot of dentists tell me that sometimes patients forget where they came from.

Dr. Andy Moore: Absolutely. Yeah. That’s why you need a photo sometimes, and say, “Well this is where you were, and this is where you are now.” And it’s getting them through that transition stage. I mean we custom made pretty much all our temporary full arch bridges, lab made stuff, and it’s really really hard to do in a day. It’s really hard to get the bite right, get everything looking good. But we know it’s a temporary, and sometimes just getting over that to the patient, that they know this is something that we have to get through until we do the permanent one.

Dr. Andy Moore: Saying that, I saw a lady this morning who we did a full arch for, before Christmas. It was November. And I said, “Oh, is there anything you want to change about the temporary?” “No, just do, it looks fantastic.” And it looked brilliant. So most of them are like that, but you don’t know, when that patient comes through the door, whether they’re going to be a patient with really high expectations, or realistic expectations. And some of the patients you think have got realistic expectations turn out to have really high expectations. They don’t have a sign, they don’t come in with a sign. So it’s difficult, it’s difficult.

Payman: I think it is difficult dentistry, isn’t it? Does it get easier, because you’ve done so many?

Dr. Andy Moore: I think the surgical aspect, just straightforward surgery, gets a bit easier. You got to be a little bit, you still don’t want to be blasé about it. You still want to make sure that you’re on the ball. But yeah, definitely-

Payman: The soft tissue side of it for anterior seems like a headache.

Dr. Andy Moore: Yeah, that can be. Again, it’s case selection, and picking out ones that you’re going to do quickly, ones you’re going to do slowly. So you got an immediate. Sometimes it seems like the more difficult treatment, but you’re maintaining the soft tissue. And there’re other times you’ve got to do things slower and make sure things heal and just take your time with things.

Payman: Are you involved in the zygomatic?

Dr. Andy Moore: No. I thought about zygomatic implants. I went to Paulo Malo’s clinic in Portugal a few years ago and saw him do some zygomatics. And-

Payman: No.

Dr. Andy Moore: It’s sort of put me off. for me. Rather than make me want to go out and buy a kit, I was like, “Oh my God, there is a limit on what you should be doing in dental practise.” And for me, I think I’m a great believer in doing stuff a lot. You should do, but if you don’t do things from one month to the next or one six months to the next, you should be sending them somewhere else. So I think you get good at doing things quickly and a lot of. So if you’re doing one zygomatic case a year, you shouldn’t be doing it. You should be sending those to a guy who’s doing them every week, preferably. So I just, yeah, I backed away from that once I’d seen them in action, but yeah, maybe it’s a good treatment for some people.

Prav Solanki: Can you remember a patient who you’ve had the biggest impact on, life wise, in the way you’ve changed their life through dentistry?

Dr. Andy Moore: Yeah, I think the Teeth in a Day sort of stuff is the one that really, that’s the one that really gets people. When they’ve been suffering. You’ve normally had that thing where they’ve just had teeth, just one added on one, another other one added on, another one added on. I mean, we do this technique called [cinco 00:35:33], predominantly do it in the lower jaw. Where a patient will come in with often a full denture that I’ve had made recently. They’ve had their final lower three out, or something like that, and they’ve had a full denture made. And they just cannot wear it. They’ve had that nearly a full denture. We just had two teeth holding it in-

Prav Solanki: It’s a big difference.

Dr. Andy Moore: And then they’ve had those last two teeth out. The dentist, in good faith, has made him a nice lower denture. And that is a technique I really like. And it’s quite difficult, but I’ve been doing it for a long time. Because you got to put the implants in all parallel. It’s a Teeth in a Day, but using the existing denture to create a semi fixed. Patients can take it in and out, but it’s actually quite hard to get in and out. It’s a good, it’s almost fixed.

Payman: Yeah.

Dr. Andy Moore: And that’s one of the ones where you really, when they come in, and I think, “You know what? I’ll see you next week.” And I can really make a difference, that person’s life. Because they come in with a wobbly denture, and in a hour… a straightforward case, I can do it in an hour, an hour and a quarter, and they walk out, and they’ve got effectively fixed teeth.

Prav Solanki: But what changes for them Andy? So, patients have come back and said, “You’ve changed my life-

Dr. Andy Moore: Oh that thing is, “Can I bite an apple?” I have to reign them in a little bit, especially if I’m doing a median load. And I’m like, “Yeah you can, but not for six weeks.” But yeah, just being able to eat. I think people, we just all go out for dinner much more than we used to. And food is much more of a bigger deal. And I think you get people who say, “I go out and I’m having to take my teeth out halfway through a meal, or I’m avoiding going into social situations,” and stuff like that. And then when you get people like that coming in here, I definitely can do something with them.

Prav Solanki: Yeah.

Dr. Andy Moore: I could definitely do something to really improve their quality of life. So yeah, I think for that, and just that thing of people saying smiling without putting their hand up, without covering their mouth as they smile. And those sort of cases.

Payman: You know what it is? We don’t get taught enough about the emotional side of losing all of your teeth.

Dr. Andy Moore: No.

Payman: And emotionally when… I mean we’re all getting on a little bit now, right? But emotionally when something goes, whatever the thing is, my wife had started taking medicine and the doctor said, rest of your life, and it was like one of those moments in your life-

Dr. Andy Moore: Yeah. That’s a long time.

Payman: -and it was just taking a pill. And we looked high and low to find a doctor who would say, “Oh, she doesn’t have to take it for the rest of her life.” But when you lose all of your teeth, all of them. And like he says, the lower dentures that just doesn’t stay, emotionally, it’s a really bad place to be in.

Dr. Andy Moore: Yeah.

Payman: And then to be taken out of that, I can see that it’s going to be huge, isn’t it? It’s going to be huge.

Dr. Andy Moore: Yeah. Again, sometimes it is expectations. I think when we first started doing a lot of Teeth in a Day stuff, we were generally on people who had full dentures. So that was a lot easier to take them from a full denture to a fixed bridge, a transitional bridge. But it was such an amazing feeling. Now we got a lot of patients who have never had that experience of a denture. And they’re the ones that are hard to manage their expectations on. But at the end of the treatment, the cases have generally all gone really well. It’s just getting them through that initial period can be a little bit tricky, I think.

Payman: I bet the word of mouth is huge on it as well.

Dr. Andy Moore: Yeah. I mean we get a lot of people who just come to us, and they say, “Oh, you saw my friend. Oh you did my husband.” That is a big thing, because people really want to talk about that life changing sort of stuff. Because it’s just fantastic for business really.

Payman: Excuse my ignorance about this, you probably even know more about this than I do Prav, but is all on four, all on six, could you do that with any implant system? or is that specifically-

Dr. Andy Moore: Yeah, I think you’ve got to have a system that is going to give you really good primary stability. So it has to have a certain sort of thread or just the technique for putting it in. But I think most of the big systems now, they’ve got all the components to do that. Because it’s such a big treatment for people. It’s such a popular treatment modality that the implant systems, they’ve all got their own little way of doing it.

Payman: Do you use more than one implant system, or do you stick to one?

Dr. Andy Moore: Yeah. I use predominantly Ankylos, from Dentsply and I use Anthogyr as well, which is a French system, which is really good. And we pick and choose according to. It’s just nice to have another system that you look on. You think, “Actually, it might be better to use something different.” But predominantly, I still use Ankylos the most there. So I’ve been using it now for, it’s probably 16 years or since it came to the UK.

Payman: So you don’t have different qualities of implant?

Dr. Andy Moore: No, I don’t do that.

Payman: That’s a thing, isn’t it? Some people do that?

Dr. Andy Moore: Yeah, I don’t know about that. I’m not sure that’s really my thing. Premium implants, and stuff like that. Yeah, I don’t know how that works.

Prav Solanki: I think, I’ve spoke to you at length on this Andy, and we all know that Ankylos is at the top end of the market in terms of costs, right?

Dr. Andy Moore: Yeah.

Prav Solanki: And I said, “Well have you thought about using the cheaper implant?” You always talk about, you just need one failure to ruin a year, right?

Dr. Andy Moore: Yeah. I think you want to be putting something in that you wouldn’t mind having in your own mouth. And also, I don’t believe in complicating things. When you’re doing a plan for someone, and you go, “Okay, it’s going to be x number of thousand pounds to do this implant, but if you do this implant, it’s going to be a bit cheaper, and that implant’s going to be a bit cheaper.” And I really think that’s confusing for patients.

Dr. Andy Moore: It’s a bit like when we do a full arch, I won’t say all… like an all on four sort of treatment. We sort of charge it really as a procedure rather than per implant. So if I do four implants, it’s the same as doing six. Because the patient might be sedated and you, “Oh, actually I could put a couple of extra implants in here.” And you don’t want to have to sort of get over that sort of consent issue.

Dr. Andy Moore: So it’s actually better to do it as a procedure. Because in a way, four is less implants, but it’s much harder and more critically harder to do if you put four in. Because they’re often, it’s a much harder case.

Prav Solanki: Yeah.

Dr. Andy Moore: So I tend to do it as a procedure, and I think it’s better that way for patients, that transparency with patients. I learned that a long time ago, most of the complaints you will have is that patient didn’t expect the fees. So it’s not that they’re not happy to pay, but it’s that they thought it was going to be one figure, and it turned out to be another.

Dr. Andy Moore: So when we do a plan, we stick with that plan. Even though if I think, “Oh, I’m going to have to do some extra stuff, but I hadn’t mentioned it.” The patient, we swallow that cost, and you just do it because by the time you’ve spoken about it and talked about the whole thing, you could have just got on and done it anyway there. So that’s just the way-

Payman: My uncle is an implantologist in Iran, and he says that it’s very common in Iran. They say Swiss implant, South Korean implant or Iranian implant. He’s just like, “That’s absolutely standard thing.”

Dr. Andy Moore: Really?

Payman: And he was saying, “Yeah, I’m getting some luck with Iranian implants.” But we do have it in dentistry, don’t we? We have it whitening, basic and advanced, right? That that’s-

Dr. Andy Moore: Yeah, no I suppose so. Yeah. I mean, and I’ve seen, I don’t know if that’s the sort of practise we want. I don’t like to be demarcate between-

Payman: Yeah, I get it.

Dr. Andy Moore: -premium, because it should all be premium. And if patients have a cheaper implant, they’ll still want it to work. I don’t know. I’d… for me, I’m not sure about that. But a friend of mine, he saw someone years and years ago in a practise in Harley street that were doing the Hungarian implants sort stuff.

Prav Solanki: Right.

Dr. Andy Moore: And so they were doing the consultations there, and then you had the option to have a Swiss implant in the UK, or the Swiss implant in Hungary, and the cheaper implant in the UK, or the cheaper… and this treatment plan for a single tooth implant. It was about 10 pages.

Dr. Andy Moore: He sent it to me, I went, “Oh listen, just come over and see me. And actually it didn’t work out. When you looked at having it done in the UK and having the proper implant, it was the same prices as what we charge. So it wasn’t like they were trying to be sort of super cheap or anything. It was just really confusing.

Payman: I’ve seen some horror stories that people, tourism, dental tourism.

Dr. Andy Moore: Yeah. The dental tourism ones. I think less so now. Now the pound is so crap against the euro. It just doesn’t really work so cost effective. But back, say 10 years ago, when you were getting a lot of euros for your money to go over there and have stuff done. But yeah, I mean, I saw cases of just the sort of treatment that would take me sort of six months to do, they were done in three or four days. That someone would go over there and just have full mouth crowns. They were the worst ones. I think the implant ones, they’re more of a problem when stuff goes wrong.

Prav Solanki: Yeah.

Dr. Andy Moore: But just thinking, my God, they’ve done 24 crowns in a day, and you’re looking at these crowns, and they’ve all got problems around them, and ledges, and it’s just… Yeah, I had a lot of those maybe 10 years or so ago. And we get the odd case here and there, people just, “I’ve had these implants done, and I don’t want to go back.” I used to sort of try and help those people out, but that then became my implant, unfortunately. It became my problem.

Dr. Andy Moore: And you spend two or three hours trying to Google the clinic to try and get some information on what they were and what screws and what type. And I just-

Prav Solanki: Stressful.

Dr. Andy Moore: I had a couple of cases like that where it just became my problem.

Payman: How do you remove an implant? How does that work?

Dr. Andy Moore: It depends whether it’s-

Payman: Integrated or not?

Dr. Andy Moore: If it’s integrated you have to generally to refine around it and then-

Payman: What does that mean?

Dr. Andy Moore: Well just to drill with a hollow drill, yeah. Around the implant to loosen the bone and then we’ve got like a torque wrench that you can just unscrew it. But if it’s failing then it’s sometimes just like taking a wobbly tooth out. So yeah. So it’s taking out the ones that are well integrated-

Payman: And you do grafts and sinus lifts and all that sort of?

Dr. Andy Moore: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we do that as well. Yeah, we do more… we used to do a lot of block grafting, where we’d take bone from the lower jaw and things. But now we do more bone regeneration techniques, which seem to work really well now with new techniques and stuff.

Prav Solanki: And you’ve taught other dentists, and mentored other dentists, through implant dentistry, right?

Dr. Andy Moore: Yeah, we run a course at the practise. We do like a two day advanced surgical course, usually four or five times a year. And we have dentists… and I’d do live surgery. We normally have a Thursday and a Friday where we do two cases on a Thursday and two cases on a Friday. It’s good. It’s really good for Dave, it’s quite stressful for me. Having 10 guys all watching as you’re lifting the sinus membrane, and they’re thinking, “I hope he tears this. Then I’ll see him repair it.” I always know what they are thinking. Yeah, and it’s quite hard doing… because they don’t want to see me place a single lowers six inch. It might take 20 minutes. They want to see complicated stuff. So you’ve got to get complicated cases in, and they’re the ones more like to have sort of complications, yeah.

Payman: Do you enjoy the teaching?

Dr. Andy Moore: Yeah, I do actually. I sometimes, I was thinking to myself, oh, the lead up to it, I say, “Oh, I’ve got courses week.” But just doing the normal day, and then we generally get a really good group of guys in, and they’re dead keen to learn, and it’s a nice social thing, and it’s good for me. Find out what other people are doing, and I enjoy finding out what everyone else is… because it’s a very open thing.

Dr. Andy Moore: It’s not me just standing there and saying, “This is the way we do stuff.” I like, it’s more of an interactive sort of seminars and I get them to try and do a lot of the work, and just to talk about stuff and that works really well and it’s really rewarding, teaching. It is rewarding.

Payman: You learn a lot by teaching.

Dr. Andy Moore: Yeah, you definitely do. You definitely do. And you just meet some good people. I quite like having people over. We’ve got guys who’ve… I’ve been running the course since I’m opened the practise, so 17 years. And guys who keep coming back and saying, “Oh, I just want you to show me those cases and stuff.” And it’s really good. I really enjoy that and you get to see, get to meet a few nice guys.

Prav Solanki: Do the courses generate referring dentists as well for you?

Dr. Andy Moore: They used to. But we’ve sort of exhausted pretty much all the close to home dentists now.

Prav Solanki: Yeah.

Dr. Andy Moore: So most of those, if they were going to come on the course, they would’ve been already. But yeah, we used to generate that. I mean it’s quite a lot of the guys who came on the course originally are doing the same sort of stuff as me now.

Payman: Oh, cool.

Dr. Andy Moore: So that’s really good to hear. But now we get people from all over. I got a guy from Australia, so I was pretty impressed. I don’t know if he was over here for something else. I don’t think he came over especially. But yeah, a lot of guys from Ireland, guys from Europe. So yeah, it’s good.

Payman: What percentage of the work is by referral, and what percentage are your own?

Dr. Andy Moore: Yeah, I reckon probably the implant stuff is 35% referral, and the other 60% is through google, word of mouth. Those, with Prav looking after my website, we still do well on getting lots of hits on the website. And so I think you need that balance. I’ve always thought you… because you find that your referrals, they retire. Some of them retires, bit selfish, but they retire, and stop sending new patients. And then you’ll have guys who go, “You know what, I reckon I could do that.” And then they start placing their own implants, so they dry up.

Dr. Andy Moore: So you need that balance really. You need the balance between getting the patients from the local dentists sending stuff to you, as well as your own patients coming to you sort of through word of mouth. Like I said. Yeah, so.

Dr. Andy Moore: But a lot of the guys, the best referrals tend to be the ones who do the restorative. So they’ll send the patient to me for the surgery, and I’ll get it all teed up for them and then they go back and take an impression and do the final crown. So it’s a good way of doing it.

Prav Solanki: Andy, you’re very very good friends with probably one of the most successful businessmen in the world.

Dr. Andy Moore: What, you?

Prav Solanki: Richard-

Dr. Andy Moore: Yeah Richard, we met years and years ago. Just one of those chance meetings on holiday.

Payman: Richard Branson?

Dr. Andy Moore: Yeah. So that was one of those, another one of those sliding door moments in your life there. And we’ve stayed friends for 20 years or so.

Payman: Where was you? What happened? How did you meet-

Dr. Andy Moore: We were in Mallorca, and he had a hotel there, and we were staying there. It was me and my wife before we had kids. And we were having lunch, and he came up to me and said, “Oh, you look like the sort of guy who might want to make up a four for tennis.” And I was like, “Oh yeah.” And back in those days, a holiday for me, it was a proper holiday. I didn’t use to take any sports care with me or anything. I’d sit by the pool and read and those. They were the good old days. So I cobbled together some sports gear and borrowed a racket and I could hit a tennis ball, not very well, but. And so I made up a four tennis, and then we sort of hit it off, and that evening we had sort of bit dinner together, and he’s into his chess. And I used to play chess when I was a schoolboy.

Prav Solanki: So you played chess together?

Dr. Andy Moore: So I played chess with him, and he’s good. He’s pretty good at chess. And I think he had too much to drink, but I kept beating him at chess, and he wouldn’t let me go to bed until he’d beaten me. So we stayed up until wee early hours, and we still play chess together. It’s still very competitive. That’s one of our things we do. So yeah, it a good meeting that one.

Payman: You’ve been to the island?

Dr. Andy Moore: Yeah, we go there most years. So yeah, we go there and we’ve got a core friends that all go together. So yeah, it’s great. And the kids, my kids have grown up going over there. They’ve been going there for-

Prav Solanki: I remember receiving a text from Mandy one day and he said, “I’m sat here next to…” Was it Larry Page?

Dr. Andy Moore: Yeah, I do know Larry.

Prav Solanki: Google.

Dr. Andy Moore: Yeah.

Prav Solanki: He’s like, “I’m sat here next to Larry Page. You got any questions for him?”

Dr. Andy Moore: I thought you might be able to get me up on the rankings. I don’t think he’s quite… He’s not quite as focused on my website as he should be.

Prav Solanki: I don’t think that’s his priority.

Dr. Andy Moore: I’m not sure it is. He’s got an island next to Richard’s. So he’s a big kite surfer, so we often go out kite surfing.

Payman: He kite surfs?

Dr. Andy Moore: Yeah, yeah. So we’ll often do a trip over with Larry, and he’s a proper Californian sort of techno guy. He really is.

Payman: These super duper dudes, do they, I know they’re just like us and all that, but are they busy to the extent that they suddenly have to leave?

Dr. Andy Moore: No, they don’t seem to be. Richards always… I mean, they’re just so smart, I just… it’s hard to quantify. But I have sat down and had lunch with Larry Page and stuff. After kite surfing, we’ve sat done, and you sort of start quizzing him about what the next thing is.

Payman: Yeah.

Dr. Andy Moore: And you just go, “I haven’t even thought of that.” Just the stuff they’ve got going on is incredible. And they just think differently, I think, these guys. They’ve just got, and as they get more successful, yeah, they don’t do that. Just rushing off and doing stuff. They’ve got other people who do all that stuff.

Prav Solanki: That’s good to know.

Dr. Andy Moore: He’ll go out kite surfing, he loves kite surfing. He’s just just absolutely all over it. And he’ll go out kite surfing like four hours and stuff. He loves it. But yeah, they’re very, so switched on. Yeah, yeah. It’s-

Prav Solanki: Do you ever talk shop? Or is it all about the fun, enjoying that time together?

Dr. Andy Moore: I mean Richard, we talk about business. And I’ve got a lot of tips, business wise, from him. Not direct tips, just seeing the way he treats people. He’s such a good person with people. He’s so genuine and he treats his staff with so much respect. I’ve learned a lot from that, the way he is with people. And he’s always on the button. It doesn’t matter what business it is, he can cut through whether dentistry or-

Payman: Spaceships.

Dr. Andy Moore: -spaceships or trains or anything. For him, he goes straight to the core of things very quickly. So he’s quite a good person just to ask about stuff. But yeah, we don’t talk about my business too much. Seems to be insignificant when you’re going into space.

Payman: Are you not his dentist?

Dr. Andy Moore: Yeah. I do do some stuff for him. He’s so busy. He’s all over the place.

Payman: You can’t get the channels for him.

Dr. Andy Moore: He drives me mad sometime, because he’ll go and have some treatment done somewhere else. “Oh, I just got work. I had to saw this dentist in Miami.” And I’m like, “Why didn’t you just come and see me?” He said, “Well, it’s quite a long way.” He lives in the Caribbean most of the time now, so it’s a long time. It’s a long way for him to come all the way over to me for a crown. So, but no, we don’t keep it separate, but it is sort of one of those things where if he wants me, I’ll help him out.

Prav Solanki: So Andy, it’s your last day on the planet, and there’s three bits of advice you can leave behind for the world. What are they?

Dr. Andy Moore: Don’t work too hard. I think that’s a good one. Just… don’t know. I think you’ve got to really grasp opportunities, and it is quite hard because sometimes you’re going to be held back by your doubts and stuff, but go with your instincts. I mean I’m a big one for that. Just seeing something and thinking, “Yeah, I’m going to go for it.”

Prav Solanki: Go for that.

Dr. Andy Moore: Because you don’t want to regret stuff. You don’t want to regret not doing things. It’s not often you regret doing things. There’s probably a few things.

Payman: Yeah. It depends on what things you’ve done really.

Dr. Andy Moore: But most of the time you regret when you don’t do something. And we’re talking smaller stuff. But yeah, I would definitely say-

Prav Solanki: Take every opportunity.

Dr. Andy Moore: -take every opportunity and just don’t be a person who’s thinking, oh I wish I had done that. Because things sort of have a reason that they turn out, don’t they? It just seems to work that way sometimes.

Prav Solanki: Yeah.

Payman: And you’re one of the top implant surgeons in the country that undoubtedly, and-

Dr. Andy Moore: That’s what you’re saying.

Payman: You are, you are.

Prav Solanki: Without a doubt.

Dr. Andy Moore: I’ll take that from you.

Prav Solanki: Without a doubt.

Payman: And yet… I was going to say, yet so humble with it. And we were discussing before, a little bit under the radar. Not that many people have heard of you that, of course many have in your area, I’m sure. But considering your profile, considering what you’ve achieved, is that on purpose?

Dr. Andy Moore: Yeah, it probably is because I think… I used to teach at the Royal college a lot and I just, I really enjoyed the teaching element of it. It was just the underlying sort of politic of it always sort of, I always thought that it’s not really my thing, and I like doing my own thing. I like doing my own thing too much to get involved with committees and things. And you need people to do stuff like that, and you’ve got to take your hat off to the people who are doing it. Because if they weren’t doing it, that things wouldn’t work out quite as well for everybody else. But I’m definitely… yeah, I like to just keep my head down and stuff and just, I’m happy with my own lot in a way. I don’t need to-

Payman: I mean how’d you become Andy Moore? I mean the-

Dr. Andy Moore: You’ll have to ask mum and dad that. I don’t know about that one.

Payman: If you had to pin down sort of a key thing?

Dr. Andy Moore: Is it for a dentist?

Payman: Yeah. Let’s say there’s some young kid listing now who’s two years out, and he wants to be like you, what are the key strengths, the key things?

Dr. Andy Moore: The key things I would say, if you want to develop a practise, is get just good at normal dentistry.

Payman: But why? I mean if you could do [crosstalk]

Dr. Andy Moore: Because I think you need those skills. You need to see people. No, well that implants came to me much later.

Prav Solanki: 10 years, yeah.

Dr. Andy Moore: You don’t go straight in, and I think… I often see guys who are newly qualified and they want to… and it’s brilliant. And I’m not saying you shouldn’t have ambition, but I think sometimes you’ve got to learn to deal with people before you start-

Payman: Let’s say I’m Mr. Charisma. Let’s say I’m two years out, and I’m really good with people, and I want to do implants. It goes down to that sort of work on your strengths or work on your weaknesses-

Dr. Andy Moore: Yeah, well I think what you want to do is you want to build a rapport with the sort of people that, I’m talking patients, who you’re going to be treating for a long time. So you’ve got to be in it, it’s the long game. You can’t chop and change practises. “Oh that practise is good, I’ll go there. Or these are doing more implants, I’ll go there.”

Dr. Andy Moore: You’ve got to build your base-

Payman: That’s true.

Dr. Andy Moore: -and you’ve got to have that. I mean for me, I think being in the same area. I mean, sometimes I just think, because I didn’t come to Chelmsford on purpose. I came there as a six month stop gap before I went to something else. That’s a bit scary, because I never left the street. Which is… I don’t know what it says about me. Either I’m really lazy or… But I really enjoyed that.

Dr. Andy Moore: I enjoyed treating those people, and enjoyed the work. Yes. I still enjoy the actual bits of dentistry now, the actual mechanics of it. But I enjoyed treating those people and developing Rapport with those people. And I think if you then move on somewhere else, then you’ve got to build a whole new sort of good wIll up. I think staying things in somewhere for the long game, and getting good at the general bits of dentistry so that you can focus on the other bits.

Dr. Andy Moore: So you don’t want to be worrying about doing, if you’re newly qualified, don’t want be thinking about, “I’ll go to do an implant tomorrow, I’m really going to be…” It’s got to be something that comes as a natural thing, so you can then focus on all the other stuff. Because you’ll be looking after the patient, making sure the patient’s happy with the plan, making sure they’re comfortable when they come into the practise. That you’ve got all those. That, like you say, when you come to the practise, you get that feeling that-

Prav Solanki: It’s magical.

Dr. Andy Moore: -it’s a nice place to have a treatment done. And that’s what you want all the patients to feel.

Dr. Andy Moore: So if you can get good at doing the dentistry side of things. Either with… I don’t think you should do too many courses. I think you should keep your education up and focus on one area you’re really interested in. But don’t go overload on, because you need to do the miles. It’s a bit like my daughter’s passed her driving test recently. I said, “When you pass your test, you’ll do way more miles, and you become a better driver.” And she says, “Well you can’t be better than just when you pass your test.” You will because you get so many more situations that come along. So you need to be able to go through all these situations to… there won’t be many times that you get surprised by the things patients do or come in with. So you don’t want to be in that situation where you’re having to think about things too much.

Payman: Do you ever feel like slowing down?

Dr. Andy Moore: I have slowed down. In the last-

Payman: Have you?

Dr. Andy Moore: In terms of work?

Payman: Yeah.

Dr. Andy Moore: Yeah, yeah. I have slowed down, and I’ve got a long term plan, which is to slow down and let the other guys take over more and more work. So yeah, I do less hours now than I did three years ago. But when I’m working, I’m working. I actually want to have a really busy day, I want to-

Payman: Long days?

Dr. Andy Moore: Not long days, no. A busy day. I don’t work long hours. Because I don’t think that’s… it interrupts my training besides. No, but also, I think it… there’s one thing about getting old, even though I try and fight against it. You just get more tired.

Payman: Yeah.

Dr. Andy Moore: And I won’t work after five. I don’t work Saturdays and stuff like that. So I generally will finish a bit early on a Monday. Work full Tuesday, have either Wednesday off, or just work in the morning. I’ll work all day Thursday and then I’ll finish early on a Friday, one o’clock on a Friday. So I work, but when I’m working I really am working, I want the day to fly by and to do lots of fun, interesting things and to have a productive day.

Dr. Andy Moore: But yeah, I have slowed down, and I reckon I’ll gradually try and pinch another morning off. And so to go down to maybe three and a half days a week soon, and just do it that way, really. Rather than just suddenly go, “Oh, I’m going to pack up now.” Don’t think that’s going to work.

Prav Solanki: Have you got an exit strategy Andy?

Dr. Andy Moore: Yeah, really just that. I don’t see, at the moment, that selling the practise to one of the big corporates, and they say, “Go work for me for 5 years.”

Prav Solanki: Tie you in.

Dr. Andy Moore: Yeah, that would kill me I think. Because I love being my own boss. I like making my own decisions and just going, “You know what, I’m going to buy a new sewing machine because I think that’ll be a really good thing to have in the practise.” Or, “Let’s just do something different.” And I’d be really worried about someone else coming over and taking all those things off me. So I don’t see myself doing that at the moment. But maybe more towards just winding down until, because I like doing dentistry, I’d just like to do… if I could do maybe three days a fortnight or something like that, just to do the bigger cases and have the rest of the team running the practise.

Prav Solanki: What would you do on the other days?

Dr. Andy Moore: I don’t know. I can’t ride my bike anymore. I do now. I don’t know. I think it just… With that broken arm I had in the summer, the first week was murder for me because I was like, “Oh man, what am I doing at home?” And then actually, it was a nice summer.

Prav Solanki: Yeah.

Dr. Andy Moore: I sort of got into it, and scarily I sort of quite enjoyed it, not going to work. And the first few weeks I was popping in and seeing what they were doing. In the end I was like, “I’m not going to even bother popping in. I’m just getting in the way.”

Prav Solanki: Yeah.

Dr. Andy Moore: So I actually quite liked it. Yeah I know, I quite liked it. Taking the dog for a walk. And your day goes by really quick when you got the World Cup and the Tour de France to get through. And getting up late or reading the paper and stuff. So, I don’t think I’d have any problem with retirement, but I think my bank manager might, and my wife. Yeah, and my wife. More importantly, my wife might. So yeah, I think I’ve got to keep it going for a bit longer.

Payman: What do you think you would’ve been if you weren’t a dentist?

Dr. Andy Moore: Yeah, well I started doing physics at university.

Payman: Oh yeah?

Dr. Andy Moore: Yeah. And I realised that I just wasn’t smart enough for any of that. It was just so complicated for me. I thought I was quite good at maths and things and I was like, “Oh my God, this is… I can’t. I can’t. I don’t think I can do this.” So I only did a term.

Payman: You dropped out.

Dr. Andy Moore: Yeah, I did a term, and I just realised it wasn’t for me. And my sister just qualified as a dentist. So I went and spent a couple of days, and thought, oh yeah, this looks all right. I think this, I’ll give it a go. It’s hard to make decisions when you’re 18, what you want to do for the rest of your life, isn’t it?

Prav Solanki: Yeah.

Dr. Andy Moore: And so yeah, maybe I would have been some sort of physics type person. I don’t know. It could have been on the start of, it was just as computers are getting going and all that. I could’ve been involved with that, but I don’t know. I like people, I couldn’t see myself being in an office or anything like that. I think… I liked seeing different people.

Prav Solanki: Yeah.

Payman: Well it’s been really lovely speaking to you.

Dr. Andy Moore: Oh, good thank you.

Payman: It really has. I want to just thank you a lot for-

Prav Solanki: Thanks for sharing Andy.

Payman: Yeah sharing, and coming all the way here to do it.

Dr. Andy Moore: Yeah cheers.

Payman: I think there’s still a whole lot. Well normally we start these things by saying, “Where were you born?”

Dr. Andy Moore: Oh right.

Payman: We get the whole backstory, but because I so much wanted to know about Advanced-

Dr. Andy Moore: Yeah.

Payman: So it’d be great to have you back another time, go backwards then-

Dr. Andy Moore: Yeah, no, well I was born in Grimsby, if that helps. So I don’t think you need to do anymore research on that one. So yeah. But thanks guys.

Prav Solanki: Thank you. Cheers Andy.

Payman: Thanks a lot. We appreciate it.

Dr. Andy Moore: Thanks a lot, appreciate it.

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. And 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. And join us again, if you got some value out of…

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.