Audio

I am very excited here today. I have got Daniel Murray, Serta. Am I saying Serta right, by the way, saying it correctly. Okay, great. So Daniel and I have actually known each other since we were 14 years old. Payman was asking me earlier how I knew him, and Daniel was a very inspirational person in my life at 14. Was still is, still is. And one of the big things was, is that Daniel was a really hard working young boy. You might probably not remember that because you always say to me, I was an academic, but you were academic because you got four A’s in your A-levels.

Oh, I was hardworking.

Exactly.

Academic. I went to an academic school and everyone was smarter than me. But you can’t outwork me.

This is exactly it. And actually, that was the same as me. I went to a non academic school. Queen’s College. Definitely not academic, but what I knew from a very young age was that I wanted to be a dentist and so wanting to be a dentist since I was 12 years old, can you please vouch for me?

She really, really did. She’s the only person. I just like to say Rona was the only person I ever met at 14 who knew what they wanted to do, let alone the only person who wanted to be a dentist, which was so random. But she always wanted to be a dentist. It was remarkable.

Remarkable.

Really suitable. It was remarkable.

So I remember that lots of the teachers didn’t believe in me. They told me that I wasn’t smart enough. They would constantly tell my parents the only good thing that I was at was drama. And when I started hanging out with you and recognising the opportunities that good grades could give you, particularly if you want to go into a profession like dentistry, I thought, okay, I need to hang out with Dan, and that’s when we started revising together. But you don’t remember us revising for Othello together?

Not specific, no, but it’s probably because, like I said, hard worker. So I was revising for everything all the time because nothing was staying in my head.

Yeah, that was me too. So I’m just going to give everyone a little bit of background on Dan. He is an avid mental health advocate, so this series really is about opening up conversations about mental health and removing that stigma. Dentistry has one of the highest suicide rates of any profession. I didn’t know if you know that. Yeah, exactly. And Payman and I already have had conversations about why that’s the case. And there’s really a plethora of reasons he’s been trying to pinpoint it down to one reason. And I said, Well, that’s the whole thing about mental health. You can’t pinpoint it down to one reason. But why is it specifically that dentistry has this problem and things are like it’s very isolated. You know, you’re in a room in a very confined space all day with pretty much your nurse and the patient. You’re working in a very small field. You know, the mouth is where you’ve constantly got patients telling you that they hate you, you’re trying to remove pain but then end up inflicting pain at times. And also there’s this big problem of litigation complaints, you know, and somewhat your profession being out of your hands, you know, because you’re always under the eyes of governing bodies and so forth. So there’s a number of reasons. But really the problem is, is that they’re afraid to have conversations and there’s really a taboo. You cannot talk about your mental health. And I think the more conversations we have, the more hopefully we can guide people to the right resources and tools to help them with their mental health. And for me, I think what better person than to do that than you, who’s been a great inspiration in my life.

I have a question. I know you’re doing the introduction. Sure. So I shouldn’t ask a question, but there are no rules. So are those are those stats global or UK? And I guess I’m also asking because I imagine in America the litigation stuff must make the mental health problems Ten-x.

Uk is worse than America through.

Litigation. It turns out the UK is now worse than America. Yeah, the only place that’s worse than the UK. Israel. New Zealand. Oh really?

Israel was up there at one point?

Yes, I was up there. Yeah. Um, although this statistic about dentists and suicide, it’s actually a 100 year old statistic. And we were talking about this saying that, you know, other than today’s problems, what is it about the job itself that causes this issue? And, you know, I’ve heard you speak about entrepreneurship and the stresses of that. And, you know, they kind of clear. But at the same time, there are jobs. We were saying jobs more stressful than dentistry, many, much more stressful.

Jobs, more stressful than entrepreneurship. When people talk about entrepreneurship, I’m like, mean guys. I’ve spent like a day in the Army. Exactly, exactly. Or hospitals.

But but then we come down to what is it about entrepreneurship? Is it to do with who you thought you were and who you actually end up being? Or, you know, the distance, the time between the hard work and the success, the few number of people who actually make it or whatever it is. And your story around heights and brain.

We’re going to come on to that.

Yeah, we will. But brain, brain nutrition.

I ruined the intro, didn’t I? I’m so.

Sorry. He’s my friend. I’m joking. I’m joking. Go ahead.

Play nutrition as as as a thing that isn’t, you know, even thought about isn’t isn’t something that’s considered, you know, that’s something that we want. We want to at least have dentists not only talking about it, because these days the stigma of mental health is much less than it was even five years ago. But okay, now we’re talking about it. What can we do about it? What are simple things that can be done is what this this series is about.

This is exactly what the series is about because I’m like, Well, we can all sit here and talk about our mental health, but what tools have we got available to us? And I think that, you know, particularly as well, I think that male suicide is something that hasn’t been spoken about enough. And, you know, I think that there’s a huge stigma still attached to that. That’s very much to do with men feeling unable to talk about things. And as well, there’s a lot of men in dentistry I know it’s dominated by females, but males in particular find it incredibly difficult. We were just talking about Twitch, you know, recently with his suicide and how everything seemed great. And I was just telling Payman that people were so shocked because they were like, Well, he had such an amazing family and he had such an amazing wife and how could he? It was so selfish. And I was like, That’s just the most unhelpful narrative because people that are going through such immense pain and mental health are not being selfish and actually labelling with that makes the stigma worse. So really we’re going to explore different ways.

And I think for dentists in particular, I have found that being outside of the dental arena, because I’ve never associated myself so heavily within the medical world, has really helped me because I’ve learnt about different parts of myself who I am, different tools to really. And whereas I feel like in dentistry we don’t get really get taught about mental health and how to cope. So whilst I’m continuing my introduction, Dan, you are one of the most inspiring entrepreneurs I know. You also were the winner of UK’s Young Entrepreneur of the Year award. You That was when you were under 30? No. So you’re over 30. So we can’t claim that anymore. But you also are one of the UK’s top, top angel investors with over 50 investments, predominantly in health and wellness and sustainability as well, which obviously, you know, is a massive sphere that I’m in with Parler. And you have over 100,000 followers combined over your social media channels. You were very much hitting it on clubhouse. He became a huge thing during clubhouse, still going, by the way.

I don’t know, but it’s more like 150 if we count clubhouse.

Okay. If we count clubhouse, great clubhouse. So with that little introduction, I’ve already explained how we met, but I want you to tell me a bit about your first business because we’ll go on to heights, which is your current business. But I love talking about every aspect of what makes you you and how it led on to heights. So do you want to tell us a little bit about that? Yes.

So I won’t tell you about my first business because we’ll be here too long. Um, but I will tell you about my first proper call it. Start-up Um, and I’m defining that as the, you know, crazy rocket ship ride of let’s do something different and exciting. So that was called gravel, and I remember it, yeah. And the reason it was called gravel, although obviously, you know, on retrospect, quite a rapey name, probably shouldn’t have called it that. But you know, other than it was kind of, you know, at the time seemed smart because you would basically have a bookmark like on Pinterest. Yeah, but it would be a grab button and you’d be able to grab products from all over the Internet track when they went on sale, um, buy them like through a web browser. And basically that went absolutely nowhere.

So we’re there because I’d love to have like a little basket where I could just put everything.

Everyone said it was a great idea, but it was very hard to get traction and it was quite technical. And then we were running out of money and had about a week left and we had a conversation with the people we were working. It was only five of us at the time. We had a conversation with them being like, Look, we’ve got a week left. We’ve kind of got to do something crazy. And we decided to basically make this super basic app copying Tinder. And so the idea was you’d swipe your products, you’d get a feed of shopping products that we were using from our web browser anyway, and you could swipe through them for inspiration and curation, swipe right things you like. They go into your basket, your save list. When they go on sale, you get a notification. Anyway, long story short, it blew up. It went viral. Um, we got up to the number one in the app store. Amazing. Overnight investors throwing money at us, which we gladly took and and went on a really exciting ride. And you know, I did. There’s many, many, many highlights in that journey. Um, none, none really of which I would replace. Like it was, uh, you know, we grew the team to over 50 people. We raised millions of pounds, won awards. You know that young UK Start-Up entrepreneur thing was, you know, because I was building that company, um, we got invited to things all the time that. You know, definitely contributed to imposter syndrome. Like I was invited to Buckingham Palace just to interject.

There as well. So for anyone in the audience, understand what is imposter syndrome?

Um, it is the feeling that you don’t belong. Yeah. Or that what other people are saying about you doesn’t register in your own understanding of your identity in any kind of way. And so a very good place to get that is at Buckingham Palace. So I was invited to entrepreneurship events regularly, I’d say once every couple of months for a couple of years. Don’t know that these things happen at Buckingham Palace until one day you’re invited and you do. And then you’re invited back and back and back. And I met so many incredible people, lots of amazing stories. I once asked the you know, had a guy, lots of people talking to him. And I was like, oh, what is this guy do? What do you do? And he’s like, Oh, my name is Tim. And I’m like, Oh, okay, Tim, what did you do? And he’s like, You know, I invented the Internet.

It’s like, Oh.

So Tim Berners Lee.

Oh my God.

I see. Cool. And he’s like, What do you do? I was like, doesn’t, doesn’t matter.

That’s amazing.

I mean so many, so many stories like that. But you do get imposter syndrome in those scenarios. A 26 year old getting a meeting, people like that and that was norm. Um, but underlying it all, you know, you’re trying to work out how to run a business, how to grow a business and didn’t understand anything really about that kind of business. Um, and so a lot of pressure, you know, I think there were multiple different things happening at the same time. Um, one was the underlying imposter syndrome that I didn’t quite belong in these circles that I was being invited to. Yeah. Playing alongside the fact that I have a growth mindset and I was like, I need to rise to the occasion. So these are limiting Self-beliefs you know, I’m good at like the self-awareness piece in terms of like helicopter view on my thoughts and actions and behaviours. But, you know, I slipped back inside my mind by accident all the time, even though I slip out and can do that. So I guess my point being, whilst I know rationally it’s imposter syndrome and I know that I have to rise to the occasion, I then still will get the same mental chatter. I don’t belong. I don’t belong. I don’t belong. And I’m like, Oh, we just discussed this, Daniel. We just said that you belong so that you can rise to the occasion. So I’d, I’d go in that, like, cycle over and over again, and then, you know, this can’t outwork me thing. I ended up getting burnt out, which, you know, was totally my own fault.

So was this like sort of in the middle of the success of towards.

The middle of the journey? And it was my own fault. And basically, you know, like I say, a lot of, um, contributing issues. One of the issues is which I wouldn’t change, but I like to help people and I think it’s really important to help people. And one of the mistakes I think I made was, is boundaries really? So when that’s happening to you, everyone wants your help all the time. Yeah. Um, which is fine, but most sensible people say no and they don’t say no because they’re unkind or whatever. It’s like I kind of got to focus. I’ve got a team, I’ve got people that need my help and they’re basically the people I’m employing. And so that’s the cycle.

But I just I just need to sorry to interject there, but I think it’s really important. So for those that are listening, Daniel has really helped me along the way. It was funny because we actually reconnected after several years of losing contact and then he actually mentored me for Dragon’s Den, Simon and I. So it was unbelievable because he just jumped at the chance and really took time out of his day, which I remember. But one of the most important words that I think you use, which are really important for mental health take away is the word boundaries. And I know that a lot of dentists struggle with that. I don’t know if you remember this pay, but they find it really difficult when people ask help even like the ones you work with personally, they feel like they have to answer everyone, help everyone do this. Whereas actually saying no is an act of self love and self care in some way because you have got you’ve only got certain number of hours in the day. So I think it’s really, really important that you learn to say it’s tricky, but also you’ve got it’s it’s that guilt. And I think it’s that conditioning because you were saying, why do we end up the way that we do end up? And I think conditioning is such a big part of it because when we’re growing up as children, we get told you have to do this, you shouldn’t not do that. So I think it’s some conditioning is some kind of way. So we’ve got to rewrite it. I think if.

You’re in the health profession as well, you have awful boundaries around that. Like you’ve literally chosen to serve people for your career path. And I find that I’ve got lots of friends who work in the health sector. You know, it’s tricky because, you know, you’re running you’re running a business, right? You’re running a practice and then people criticise you for making money. And it’s like I literally could probably not be criticised for like making guns because everyone expects me to not have a soul or whatever. But if I make money for helping people. People criticise me, which is mostly immature, genuinely, but also just completely irrational. We have this very backwards attitude. You know, I have this thing the whole time with heights, like the amount of people that give me shit and then will like, you know, celebrate the latest brewdog advert. And I’m like, They’re selling alcohol. Yeah, like, I love Brewdog adverts too, but like, why are you having like, a go at me? They’re literally going to make you unhealthy and feel bad. And alcohol is poison. I’m not pious. I drink. Yeah, not a lot, but I drink occasionally. But like, I’m not pious about alcohol at all. But it’s like we have this weird thing in society where we will celebrate poison and criticise health or anyone that’s actually trying to support and.

Yeah, go on in, in that sort of nootropic world where there’s a lot of crap, a lot of snake oil, right? And it’s, I think your superpower having followed you for for a long time, is communication and, and sort of packaging ideas, packaging things into nice ideas for for, for your market, I guess. And so I can’t think of anyone better than you to take on something like that. And but it comes with the territory doesn’t it, With supplements. Yeah. There’s so much snake.

Well this is the thing. We’re going to go, we want to go into the supplements. So tell us then what happened with gravel. Yeah. So before we go on to heights.

Yeah. I mean, look very quickly, um, with gravel, um, went really well until it didn’t is kind of the best answer. The business had really bad margin, but very great growth. So at some point our growth exceeded our ability to fund the team, the business, etcetera, and we imploded it. So I was always aware that the business wasn’t healthy, but the brand was smashing it and the product was smashing it. You know, we had a million monthly active users. We were growing at 30,000 new users per week. Wow. It was exponential explosive growth, but we never fundamentally fixed the business model. And so at some point, very layman’s terms, our costs exceeded our revenue and ability to actually support the business. And the only way of solving that problem was going out and getting a massive whopping funding round and we failed to do it happened exactly the same time as Brexit, like the same couple of weeks. So that was such a surprise to people that everyone just pulled out of the market. And, you know, I think there’s I’ve learned so many interesting lessons. But one of the things about success, you know, is a fine line. You do need luck to have success. You know, luck can work for you or against you if your market timing happens around Brexit or around Covid. Right? Let’s say you are the world’s best travel business and you literally couldn’t possibly, on any kind of level, do anything better as a business. Your margins are perfect, your brand’s perfect, your customers love you, etcetera. Covid happens, you’ve got no business. It was all irrelevant.

It’s really interesting that you say that because I always say I actually always say there’s no such thing as luck because luck when preparation meets opportunity.

Yeah, totally. But but, but what you need I, I what I think is you need, like, you know, hard work. Yeah. You need, like, obviously good ideas, good energy. Et cetera. But you do need luck because. And I say you need luck, but you need you also need to not have bad luck. So environmental factors. You know, I remember doing marketing exams like years ago when everyone would talk about all these different factors and environmental would pop up and I’m like, Oh, fucking boring environmental factors. When does that happen? I mean, the 2008 financial crash, you know, environmental factor, Brexit, environmental factor, Covid and now obviously recession. Those are environmental factors. Ukraine, you know, these are real things that impact lots of the world’s best businesses.

Had you already identified the business model as the problem back then? Yeah. Oh yeah. Was that in retrospect?

No, no, no. It was so obvious. Oh, so.

So do you think if Brexit hadn’t have happened, you would have had the appetite to know?

I mean, look, the thing is, I’m not big on excuses. Like, what happened was, um, in a business like that, you have investors when you’re my age, which was 26, 27 at the time, and looking for advice and looking for help and looking for support from people that know the stuff better than you, you ask, you listen and you do. Unless you have the courage of conviction to be different. And I didn’t have that right. I should have, you know, I literally could see that our business didn’t work. But lots of businesses don’t work in this space. Like Amazon didn’t work for many years as million businesses that don’t work until they work. So this is a very common model for venture capital backed businesses, which is what? We were, um, you know, so going to my investors and saying, you know, we’re not making profit, we’re not getting anywhere close and our costs are way outstripping demand. They’re like, it doesn’t matter because you’re growing so fast. We’ll just give you more money to keep up that growth because that was the model. That is how you make those really big companies. So keep going down. And if I had the courage to say, that’s not what I want to do and I know that’s not right, I would have been in control of the business and I’d have been able to make the right calls and turn it into a better business. But I didn’t. I listened to them. I carried on as I was. Brexit happened and then everyone was like, Yeah, sorry.

Question What effect did it have on your mental health at that time?

Answer Uh, shit, really? Um, I mean, yes and no. Like the honest answer is, uh, I started that business, you know, I think of you like, for example, you’re someone with a lot of purpose. Um, and again, I’ve just never met a 14 year old with such purpose. To be a dentist is so niche.

But there you go. You heard it from him. Yeah.

I mean, it was amazing, but it’s super inspiring. And everyone that met Rhona when they were younger knew she wanted to be a dentist because that’s how much you talked about it as fascinating. So but most of us are like finding a purpose, trying to find a purpose. It took me a long time to find some semblance of purpose. Um, gravel was not it? But I wanted to try being an entrepreneur and I wanted to try and challenge myself to learn loads of lessons super quickly in my youth, which is what I did, right? That’s what that opportunity gave me. But in the cold light of day, running that business, whether things were going well or badly, I wasn’t enjoying it and I didn’t care. I don’t particularly care about fashion. It doesn’t do a lot for me. I was having to, you know, the thing that I always remember and I say this every day, this is how different it is for heights for me and why I got so excited about heights. Um, every day I had to basically research and read the latest technology trends, mobile, mobile e-commerce trends and fashion trends to be great at my job. Don’t give a shit, don’t give a shit and don’t give a shit. Um, every day I’m having to purposefully fill up my head. You know, I’m very much a believer, you know, I believe in neuroplasticity and I understand how the brain works now, but even then it’s kind of obvious input in output out.

So fill up your brain with information. Doesn’t matter what space you’re in, you fill up your brain with that information. You start to become that person and you can change that at any point, slowly but surely, by changing the information that you put in. For example, you want to become an entrepreneur. At some point you’ll start listening to Secret Leaders Diary. Vizio. Et cetera. Et cetera. Et cetera. You want to become a health professional? You’ll listen to, you know, feel better, live more, and you start listening to different podcasts and different audiobooks. And before you know it, you know a lot about health or you know a lot about entrepreneurship. It doesn’t happen overnight. It just happens over a period of time because your brain is changing to the information you’re choosing to put into your head. So becoming an expert in fashion, e-commerce technology, I just did not care. And I was just becoming a sector expert. I was going invited to speak around the world at these events and I was doing these talks and I was like, This is just so boring to me. I don’t see how this serves my life. And I wanted an out. And I felt actually, you know, how was it for my mental health? It’s horrible to have to fire a whole team. It’s horrible to go through a lot of public humiliation, which I definitely did.

Was an element of shame. Yeah, so much shame because you were so, so much shame out there.

So much shame. Yeah, I dealt with that. Um, I think I dealt with the shame well, because I owned it, but it was.

Talk about it. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. And actually, the thing that I’ve done with heights, which I think people have really appreciated, is what’s called build in public. So that journey started from when my last company failed. I wrote a LinkedIn post which went viral, and the LinkedIn article, which was a picture of all of our awards, of which there were a lot best, best mobile tech, best mobile start up in Europe. Like all this stuff from, from TechCrunch, from like all these like reputable Vogue award, like all this stuff, big table of awards headline. We failed. And this is why. And you know, since then I’ve never entered heights into a single award. They’re all bullshit anyway. But like, I guess my point is it’s less about anger towards awards or people that go for awards. I associate my immaturity in the last business as someone who lapped up the recognition and the clout and the awards and the schmoozing, which is a big distraction from. Are you building an actually good business? Yeah. And people do get distracted by ego and attention and not enough focus on actually doing the work.

Totally. And I think a lot of dentists listening to this as well, or even non dentists will resonate with that so much. And you Payman knows that because they base so much of their value and success on awards that we have a huge award industry. And I actually was gutted because last year I hadn’t. Entered for many years and won lots previously, but I hadn’t entered and non entering was actually the fear that I wouldn’t get anything. And the fear was people regard me so high and my clinic, if I don’t win it, it devalues what I’ve done, which is so ridiculous. So anyways, we entered like lots, we got shortlisted and we didn’t win a single award and I literally bawled my eyes out. I cried so much the next day and everyone was like, You’re so ridiculous as And like my friends and family, they’re like, You have a practice. It’s fully booked. Your patients love you, you’ve won awards. And I was like, I’m so embarrassed that people are going to think I’m a failure because.

You have a fragile ego. Yeah, we all do. Yeah, we all do. And the only way that you can work on becoming less of a egotistical human being, which we all are naturally, is to go through those experiences and say, All right, okay, that was a bit of an over-the-top reaction. Why do I really feel like that? What’s really going on here? And those questions are great for your mental health. I mean, sometimes they can take a mental health and a spiral, of course, as well. But in my experience, um, and you do this as well a lot, I think you’re fantastic because and you were kind of alluded to this earlier, but you know, you are interested in personal growth. You do a lot of personal growth, you do a lot of stuff that people would probably find very esoteric and weird, but actually woo woo.

I say they find it woo.

Woo woo, yeah, yeah, woo woo. But Payman.

Thinks I’m a bit woo.

Woo. Sometimes that stuff is the work. The stuff is the work. And there’s a lot of that that really does uncover proper deep insights. And actually, at the time of doing gravel, I was anti-religious. So when I say that, I mean like I grew up Jewish, but like a genuinely pitied anyone that believed in any semblance of religion, including Judaism, because I feel like religion just destroys the world. It’s just my God is better than your God. And back and forth over and over and over again without being everyone sitting around and being like, Wait, it’s all it’s all the same. God. Yeah. No. So anyway, it is getting to a horrible arguments and the world’s ruined, so what’s the point? So why totally remove myself from it And like atheist. But interestingly, you know, at some point had a very spiritual experience and. If you if you grow up Jewish. It’s an unusual one because it’s your race and your religion. So your spirituality is very tied to your religion and you can’t really separate those things. So I wouldn’t be able to consider myself spiritual. So I suddenly had this spiritual experience which was separate from religion, had nothing to do with being Jewish or any kind of religion.

It was just spiritual connection, feeling connected to the Earth and other people. And ever since then, um, the way that I’ve tried to the, the biggest breakthroughs I’ve had for my mental health have been thinking about it from terms of spirituality, which I know sounds again, woo woo. But the reason is because a lot of mental health problems, this is super basic statement everyone will be able to relate to. This isn’t woo woo all mental health problems really. They stem from your mind and from your basic obsession with yourself. I am this. I’m not good enough. I’m too good. This person likes me, this person doesn’t like me. Blah, blah, blah. Wow. Wow. You, you, you. You’re not the fucking centre of the universe. That’s basically the most important lesson that you can learn. But the problem is, almost all of us, myself included, up until this spiritual experience, are unable to see that you are not like, worth anything in the grand context of the entire planet.

And the thing is, we think everybody is constantly thinking about us, what we’re doing. No one’s judging us, but no one is. No, they’re thinking about themselves.

Yeah. So the reality.

Tell us what the spiritual experience was. Yeah.

So I did a, I did an ayahuasca experience. Peru, Uh, it wasn’t, it was actually in the UK, which was surprising. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Um, it was with, it was with a couple of shamans who flew over from, um, from California, but they had trained in Hawaii and Peru for ten years, so they’re legit. Um, but it was a really meaningful experience and it was very surprising to me. And I went because I was depressed. I had been I’d had depression for six months. So my best friend Rob was like, I was at dinner with him. Someone mentioned this ayahuasca thing. I’d never heard of it. He was basically being a good friend. He was like, You know, you haven’t been you. You haven’t been you for ages.

Dan Was there a specific trigger? Because I think I remember that there was quite a pivotal thing that happened in your life.

Yeah, my dad passed away, so I had depression for I always talk about depression, you know, in my terms as many different ways you can get depression. My way of getting depression was probably a very rational and reasonable like excuse for it, so to speak. You know, it’s worth saying I’ve never I do get sad. I do get like seasonal depression, but it’s not proper chronic depression. I got depression when my dad died, and I think that’s pretty normal, very common for people. I haven’t had generalised depression, which is a very different thing. And so obviously, you know, mental health and mental wellbeing and mental illness is a big spectrum include depression is at the far end of that spectrum right. And depression, the spectrum on depression is very different as well. The feeling is the same, but the trigger is different. So you want to remove depression from your life. There are multiple ways that you might have to approach that and it might be change your environment. It might be get over trauma and face trauma. It might be time. You know, lots of depression just passes with time. You know, there’s a it might be nutrition and hydration. It might be your health. There’s so many different things.

So but it’s Payman challenge me earlier and actually, it seems a good time to ask you this because he says, well, what’s that point? Because he asked me about my own journey. And I said, Well, I knew I needed to get help. And, you know, I had sources and people and stuff. He says, Well, what about the people that can’t even get help because they’re in such a bad spiral in a dark hole that they’re not sitting there thinking, I’m going to change my nutrition, I’m going to change my environment, I’m going to look up to all these people, he says. So where does that shift happen? Where it becomes like a black hole and they feel like there’s nothing to help them. And then there’s the people, like you said, where they’re on the lesser spectrum. Arguably you and I that are like, okay, what can I do? And then they change their daily habits and environment.

Is is a great question. And this is honestly the challenge because in my case, I probably would have just carried on with the Depression until I didn’t have it anymore if that was going to happen, I don’t know. Um, but I had a great friend and the great friend was like, We’ve got to do something about you. Like snap out of it, you know? And I was like, I don’t know, I can’t be fucked. And I also don’t really want to do psychedelics for a weekend right now where I’m at in my life. And he’s like, You’ve you’ve got to do something.

Shake it up.

Yeah. And so, you know, really interesting because, you know, I had a friend and the problem is in society, loneliness is such a trend, especially post Covid, especially with social media. You know, lots of people obviously don’t have that friend. And so, you know, the thing is, if you’re still even listening to this podcast right now, you’ve got to have quite a niche interest, right? You’re probably in the Dental profession. You probably are interested in mental health and maybe you or someone that you know is going through an experience. Us right now. And the first door that you can ever open here is curiosity. So if you’re curious enough to meet it halfway through a podcast on dentistry and mental health, which is amazing, by the way, to be so niche, but it’s so important to be niche because you find exactly the people you want to help. Um, go to broad, you’ll never find them. Um, so if you’re there, the first step is curiosity. And if you’re listening to information like this is such a good place to start, you don’t have to start and spring into action. You just have to have something, something, anything. Click in your mind that opens some light of possibility. And that’s why I needed, you know, I knew I wouldn’t feel like that forever.

Um, certainly with depression anyway, because again, for me, I was able to rationally connect it back to my dad. So I’m like, everyone dies, so but not everyone in the world is depressed. So I’m like, quite rational, right? I’m like, so what I’m going through is normal. He was my best friend. Um, at some point I won’t be depressed anymore. Time will pass. You know, it was ten years since my dad passed. I still think about him every day, but I don’t get depressed. I get joyous. So it’s a very different experience now. And that’s probably very common for people. So, you know, I think that there’s a, um, a journey that people go on. And when you’re at your lowest low, you’re totally right. You’re not suddenly like, let’s spring into action mode. I’m going to do my breathwork and a nice bath tomorrow morning. It’s like, No, I’m going to drag my ass out of bed, look outside, realise it’s fucking grim again. Why isn’t the sun up? But if all you do is take like one small step in the right direction, it makes a massive difference. And that can be listening to a podcast, reading a book, or going for a walk.

Yeah, I think also as well, there’s been way too much pressure now to have a perfect life, and I think that it’s also about being perfect every day. Like I get up, I’m happy I’m going to have my mushroom coffee, I’m going to do my breathwork, I’m going to do yoga, then I’m going to go to work and everything’s going to be fine. And the analogy that you were saying reminds me there’s a guy called Ben Carpenter. Carpenter. I don’t know if you’ve come across him. He’s actually pretty good and he’s basically like a fitness guy, the sort of debunks any of the BS online and he did the spoon analogy. I don’t know if you’ve seen it and he’s basically like everyone has a number of spoons and basically your spoon is like an expenditure of energy in your day. And sometimes somebody they will be like, I have one spoon to just get out of bed and shower. And sometimes when people are going through deep depression, as he described that he did at one point, he’s like, I couldn’t even shower. And people were like, You’re so disgusting and so lazy. He was like, But the energy literally wasn’t there and I just couldn’t do it. And I think it’s likening it to that, that you should even celebrate small steps and not achieving a million things in a day.

Recovery is recovery.

Yeah.

You look at physical health and you understand recovery, and that’s like very slow progress. I found that when my depression for sure, like there were definitely some days I wouldn’t get out of bed to shower. Definitely. Yeah.

That was the trigger that towards your recovery. So what happened after that?

Um, so the ayahuasca experience really just changed my perspective. Um, fundamental difference. Like I say, the fundamental difference was, you know, and this is very terrifying for people, I talk to them about, you know, they ask me about my experience and I’m like, ego death. And they’re like, That sounds like the worst thing ever. Why would I ever want to do it? I’m like, It is the worst thing ever. The actual ayahuasca experience is pretty much the worst experience you can ever have in your life. It’s pretty much like 5 to 6 hours of pure hell. It’s like, Did you vomit? And I actually didn’t. I didn’t. I’ve done ayahuasca now 12 times and wow.

Didn’t know you could even do it 12 times.

And I’ve only I’ve only vomited once. Um, but it, it actually feels very good to vomit, so it’s not a bad thing to vomit because you’re technically vomiting out like a trauma or something. Um, but, you know, they call it healing. And once you’ve done it, once you totally associate, you know, they call it medicine and healing. And once you’ve done it, it is absolutely the right language for it because what you do essentially is you become the observer of you. Almost like you’re floating out of your body and your ego is absolutely separated. So your sense of self is totally separated from the observer in your mind. And if this sounds a bit weird for people, um, you know, I, I like to liken it back to I always had a thing on my fridge which I bought at the Camden Gallery down there, actually a little, a little Post-it thing which says there’s a little voice inside your head reading this. That’s all it says. And I think that’s always been the best reminder of like, wait, there is there is a other person in here, isn’t there? What the hell is going on? So for anyone that can’t actually understand the difference between ego and self and stuff, you know, there’s a guy called Michael Singer who’s a great author, and he talks about, you know, you basically have a noisy roommate in your head whenever you have the loud chatter, the noise, the self deprecation, whatever the thing is that’s limiting you from doing something that’s giving you a like a hard time, the question is, who is that and who am I listening? Who’s the person listening? And once you realise there’s someone listening to a voice, you suddenly realise that there are basically two of you in there. So there’s like the chimp paradox. Yeah, it is like the chimp paradox. Yeah. And so, um, all of this is to say you separate for the first time completely from that sense.

And had you tried meditation before.

That or Yeah, I or.

Breathwork meditation.

I don’t think I tried it properly before that. After that I did meditation every day for years. I don’t haven’t done since my daughter was born. I’ve changed my mindfulness practice to reading to her because I was trying to do too much of that. I was trying to do too much. So it was like I was trying to still meditate and she’s fucking crying and ruining my time and my mind’s going off and all this shit. So I was like, You know what? The reason I meditate is as a mindfulness practice, I will change it to reading to her every day. And then I’m still doing a mindfulness practice to myself, but it’s something with her. So that’s been my switch since she’s been born. Um, but yeah, so back to the point, like the, you know, the experience separating myself from my ego made me realise that the world doesn’t revolve around me, that I am a tiny part of a huge cosmos. And, you know, the thing that both scientists and spiritualists can totally agree on is everything is energy. Everything in the universe is an atom, is an energy. You know, is some some form of it, right? So once you understand that basic principle, you essentially become in your experience like a speck of energy and feel connected to, you know, literally a tree, a human, a polar bear, a bee, you name it, you feel connected to it. And after you’ve experienced that sort of connection and you come back into your body. Your problems don’t seem so self centred anymore. And that was the big shift for me. You know, after I came back from that experience and I’ve had many more of like very like different experiences, but I did a complete 180 and, you know, it wasn’t like, I don’t believe in God, I don’t believe in the afterlife. I was like, I believe in Mother Nature. That’s my version of God I believe in. Uh, us. I mean, I don’t have a word for it, but I just believe that we’re all connected.

You know, spirituality is such a funny thing because.

Stigmatised.

Word by its very nature. There aren’t words to describe how you feel when you feel that way. I mean, it reminds me it’s.

About connectedness, though, as well. Like everything that.

That I mean, you’re right.

You’re right. Everything dances. And again it’s like things that people would say is woo woo. But when you’ve had these and I again I’m gonna use another woo woo word when you use like the word epiphany as well, when you’ve had that epiphany where you’re like, Oh my God, this all makes sense. And we’re actually all connected. And, you know, you were asking me earlier, you were like, Well, how did you develop so much empathy for people and so much compassion? I think, again, it’s certain experiences that make you feel that way and realising that we are all one. And it’s really funny because and I’m sure you resonate somewhat with this, even when I meet like really angry people or people that you describe having bad energy. I have a degree of compassion inquiry because I’m like, people are the way they are because of something. It could be trauma, it could have been bad experiences, it could have been death. And the reason why they’re behaving that way in whatever arena you’re thinking in is for a reason. So having that compassion inquiry, which Gab or Matei talks about as well, is so important because there is something that just brings us all together as human beings. As cheesy as it.

Sounds, I feel like the ridiculous thing that’s happened in humanity again, very ego driven. People will go to war for Allah. People will go to war for Jesus Christ. You know, people go to war for Moses. These are men, basically. So we’re basically saying I base my whole entire faith in existence to something greater to this man, that man or that man. When it comes to spirituality, there’s no man. There’s no there’s no leader. There’s no person. What you’re basically saying is, I believe we’re all connected to everything, but because there’s no figurehead for that, it’s very hard to rally a group around. So spirituality is like not a religion and therefore doesn’t get cult like following. And so people literally would rather believe that a man walked on water than believe that you’re connected to birds and bees.

So do you think you would have found it if it wasn’t for the the chemical experience?

Because not personally.

There’s huge there’s a huge thing around psilocybin at the moment. So what you’re talking about as well And um, Dan led me to a book which was really interesting called How to Change Your Mind. And it talks about the whole movement. They did a Netflix series on it recently, but the whole movement around medicine essentially, and psilocybin is being used, assisted by doctors to help deal with traumas and so forth. I mean, if you watch the second episode, even on Netflix, if you don’t want to read the book, they’re literally showing how people I think in Switzerland so fearful of death, old people, they’re dying of cancer, but accepting it, you know, with the psilocybin. So what you’re saying, I mean, you’re crazy. And I wouldn’t necessarily call it a medicinal experience, but it’s probably it’s probably what people are, you know, going through because when these plant medicines are used, um, you know, it helps people.

I’ll put it this way, you know, like the number one cause of, um, well, I mean, I won’t, I won’t go that extreme. So certainly one of the main causes of mental health problems is loneliness. Yeah. What is the opposite of loneliness? Connection. Connection. So when you feel connected to everything and anyone, no matter what they’ve done, who they are, or even if they’re a human or not. Race, religion, hate. This doesn’t factor in. You just feel connected. So you don’t feel lonely. And there’s a massive difference between being, you know, to solitude and loneliness. You know, you can have 100 people in a room with you and feel lonely, and similarly, you can be on your own and feel connected. So this is the massive difference. And like my view and actually religion does a great job of connecting people within those communities. The problem is, as the group is separates, so the group separates from other groups. So whilst you do get the sense of connection and community, which I think is super powerful and valuable, no matter what religion you are, it’s broadly a challenge, as is proven by every bloody war over the last few hundred years. That doesn’t really help on a global scale. Whereas, you know, obviously the benefit of spirituality and trying to seek connection to something greater than yourself as an unlock to most of the mental health problems, again, I find self-obsession, ego and. Loneliness. You know, these are all victims and symptoms of just being completely self-obsessed and thinking about yourself all the time and becoming smaller and smaller and more insular as opposed to, you know, letting all of that shit go.

Do you think you lost something?

In what sense?

Well, we see what you gain, something which is this sort of where you’re much more sort of centred after this experience. But did you lose something as well? Because, you know, we were talking.

He lost his.

Ego. We were talking. Well, but.

I’d love to think so. But that fucker always comes back.

You know, you be before you had this experience, you were was your ego the driver for your success, and did you lose some drive?

That’s a good question. I don’t think so. I that was my big fear, though. Yeah. So I said this to my business partner. I was running gravel at the time. Things were like actually really starting to take off. I just wasn’t happy. But they were starting to take off. And I said to him the Friday before, I was like, I’ve got to come clean with you. I’m doing this thing on the weekend. I don’t know how it’s going to go. But like, my fear is I come back on Monday and this is actually what I said. It was ridiculous. Like, my fear is I come back on Monday. I don’t care about gravel, I don’t care about Arsenal, and I don’t care about my cats. That’s like literally.

Did that happen?

That’s my gravel. No, I still cared about gravel. I still cared about Arsenal and I still cared about my cats. And I was like, Oh, okay. So it’s not quite like that. It’s not like you just give up all attachment to everything. It’s just that you have a new appreciation for more. So it’s a great question, but I actually don’t feel like, you know, it’s like when people people talk about when they have children, like you don’t lose things, your heart grows bigger. Well, it’s sort of like that with spirituality. You don’t really are losing stuff. You’re just aware there’s so much more. And frankly, for anyone that’s like on a growth mindset journey and learning more is very similar to the point of view where the more you learn the realise, the less you know. You know the people who think they’re the smartest people in the world are the people who are the people who actually don’t know very much. They have quite small worldviews, very political, one sided, etcetera. Extremely sure that they’re right.

Question for you though, now, so we know the gravel journey. We we understood that you went through and the emotions, particularly the shame. So let’s talk a little bit about your current business, which I’m a massive fan and a paying subscriber for. Anyone wondering, Um, two years now. Yeah, exactly. So talk to me about how that business was born and where you’re at so born.

Because I was, um, I’ve been going through a different mental health experience, so you can tell I’ve been through the wringer on on a variety of them. This one was worse than depression. It’s worth saying in my in my personal experience, this was the worst thing I ever went through, which was insomnia. So I couldn’t sleep for six months. This was at the point of things going really well in the business, really well. And I was getting married soon and all this stuff. And then one day I just couldn’t sleep. Okay, that happens next night. Next night anyway. Starts to become a pattern. A few days turns into a week. Turns into a month. Turns into six months. So. Really just a totally debilitating experience which caused, you know, I have generalised anxiety occasionally because I’m a human being, but I mean I think it’s worse than entrepreneurship. I’m sure it’s pretty bad in medical professions as well. But like anywhere where you sort of have to, you know, have responsibility for other people on you, it’s a pressure. You know, I think it’s a very reasonable thing, therefore, to feel anxiety and something like that. But this gave me chronic anxiety, which is very different, which caused panic attacks, which, you know, again, is a very weird thing to experience because. You’re basically having a completely normal day and then you have a panic attack out of nowhere and you’re like, What the fuck is that? Nothing has triggered me.

Nothing that I’m aware of has triggered me anyway. So these were lots of things that I think were caused by not sleeping for so long. And yeah, I tried all of the things I was where I got into meditation. I tried sleepio, calm, CBT, sleep therapy, normal therapy, of course, went to the doctor. He gave me sleeping pills. No one suggested nutrition at any point, but at some point I went for dinner with a friend and she said, Sounds like you’ve got a mental health problem. And I was like, I definitely don’t because. You know, I’ve literally been to every one and no one said I’ve got a mental health problem, which is like, well, I mean, you’re describing insomnia. If you haven’t slept in six months, that is a mental health problem. And I was like, If you say so if it helps. My attitude at the time was kind of like, if it helps you to have a label for me, that’s fine. I’m not ashamed of having one. And then suddenly, as I was saying it, I was like, Oh, I mean, maybe I am ashamed of having one. Maybe I’m not actually like aware of the fact that I’m not dealing with this thing properly. And she’s like, Actually, based on what you’ve said and what you’ve tried, it sounds like you’ve got a brain health problem. And then I was like, Definitely not. I’m not an old man.

There’s like, you know, I was 29 or something at the time, right? I was like, There’s definitely not a brain health problem. And she’s like, Well, what do you think a brain health problem is? It’s like Alzheimer’s. And she she’s like, Yeah, I mean, no, you’ve got a brain as an organ. There’s loads of things that could be going on there. You really should go see someone, go see a dietician. And I was like, What is going on in this conversation? Like, how are you going from mental health to brain health to dietitian? Also, she’s not in the medical field, so even then I was a bit like got no credibility here. But she was like, Listen, I’ll put it a different way then for you. What’s worked? And I was like, None of the above. What haven’t you done? Dietitian? Do you want to solve this? Yes. Well, then fucking go. And I was like, That’s a much better way of speaking to me. Fair play. Because she’s basically eliminated my rational choices out. So I went and the dietitian very quickly literally saw me and said, because I was able to say to her, it’s worth saying. I’m not saying that nutrition is the answer to these problems. What I’m saying is, once you’ve easily eliminated everything else you’ve tried and still suffering was really easy for the dietitian to say. Yeah, definitely. Sounds like your brain is basically giving you an alarm signal to say it’s not getting fed properly.

You need these supplements Omega three, DHA, DHA and EPA, omega three seconds, B-vitamin complex and blueberry extract. That’s what I recommend to you. The reasons being omega three seconds are like your brain is basically made of them. So 60% of your brain is fat and 90% of it is DHA. So she’s like, This is like the main building block of your brain. Something could be up there. Go take them blueberry extract because they’re antioxidants. So she’s like, You can’t sleep. They will clean out your glymphatic system by giving it a car wash overnight was how she dumbed it down for me and B-vitamins because they’ll regulate your energy and you’re having spikes at like 2 a.m. and you’re unable to sleep. You need to regulate your energy flow. Like these three things should really help and I reckon they’ll help quite quickly. So anyway, I was like, Sure, whatever you say. Anyway, went to Boots to buy them, took photos, send them to her. She was like, Oh no, you can’t buy them, they’re crap. And I’m like, They can’t be crap. They’re sold in boots. And she’s like, You can’t buy anything that you need from Boots or Holland and Barrett. Like, you have to go to Planet Organic and this is the potency you need. And then I was like, Right, sounds a bit bougie, but I mean, this was on the NHS.

The bougie. I buy into all that stuff all the time, but I.

Just didn’t I didn’t understand that there was any difference between these things whatsoever. But I did what she said. I went to Planet Organic. I spent £120 on these three supplements, which I was like, I literally had no idea supplements cost this much. What is going on? This was like £15 in boots a minute ago and now I’m following your advice and I £120 what has happened? But I took them.

What was the difference? Was it dose or potency dose?

There’s an enormous discrepancy between basically all of the above can make the same marketing claims. So the ones in Planet Organic can’t make any more marketing claim than the one in boots. But the difference is there’s a an ocean of difference between the minimum amount you can put into a product and make the claim versus the scientific dose that actually does what you think it’s doing. So you need.

A bit like whitening. Yeah.

Yes. You need the efficacious claim, right? You need the amount that’s going to make the difference. That’s what you’re reading on the claim and the difference is huge. You’re not talking about like a bit talking about like a fifth, right? So you go and spend five times as much on the supplements and Planet Organic. Well, you’re actually paying pound for pound exactly the same. It’s just you’re getting the thing that you need.

Did you luck out with this particular dietician or no. Is that general knowledge amongst dietitians?

Very general knowledge against all nutritionists and dietitians know this stuff. Really? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they all know. That’s why if you go to them, they’re not going to say go to Boots or Holland and Barrett. They literally give you brands that they recommend, you know the.

Whole brain nutrition. Yeah.

Oh yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. Especially dietitians. Um, because dietitians basically deal with sick people. Nutritionists will deal with like the the worried well more.

Um worried well.

But but but dietitians I mean absolutely yeah. Um and that’s the thing right who knew. I don’t know. And so, and so what I learned from this person is, you know, a lot of the people that come to see her, including on the NHS, but they never get referred by their doctors stupidly. Um, but a lot of their referrals are for mental health and there’s so many mental health problems, so mental health illnesses that can be supported and cured by nutrition supplements and diet. So. Obviously, the first place you go is is diet. You don’t obviously supplements clue’s in the name so I was actually quite good now but I’ve been practising all the last year but I was a shite cook so you know, I was like, go, go cook all of this. And I look at that, I’m like, Absolutely not. I’m busy. So what else have I got? Well, supplements, you could just take these. I’m like, I mean, definitely doing that. I’m going to take two capsules of something you told me rather than spend an hour and a half cooking and fucking up a meal. So, um, I add.

Nutrition. Sorry to there. Like, I know loads of dentists really, sadly, because they’re so busy working after as well. Yeah. Like looking after patients that will literally like their diet sometimes in the day, like chocolate bars and fizzy drinks even. They should be drinking fizzy drinks. But, you know, I mean, for energy, like I know some people that work on the NHS think 30 patients back to back to back to back and they’re literally like, just shove it in your mouth. And they don’t realise that that one change could actually make a massive impact.

A really large interestingly, a really large part of our customer base is medical professionals.

Dance.

Me Yeah, dance. Yeah. Um, well, there’s a lot of nurses, a lot of doctors, which is interesting because doctors don’t get trained in nutrition. They get seven hours over seven years. So there is no it’s not criticism of them, but there is no awareness. So as an educational thing, that’s why they don’t you know, that’s why I go to the guy. I went to my doctor with insomnia and he’s like, take these sleeping pills, not go see this dietitian. Did you to NHS? But he never referred me.

Did you have a particularly bad or unbalanced diet?

Um, it’s a good question. I was plant based, so it is much more common in people that are plant.

Based for the Omega and.

B12. A lot of them are B12 deficient and omega threes.

But I was taking B12 because the one thing that people tell you if you’re vegan is take B12. So what’s really interesting is you do you know, do you know why B12?

But the vegans being B12? No.

But do you know why it’s really important to take B12 supplement if you’re vegan, but otherwise just have B12 in your diet? This is the ridiculous connect that I think is hilarious. So no one thinks about nutrition or mental health, right? Really, broadly speaking, just do not make the connect. The reason that you take B12 is because if you don’t have B12, you will have psychosis, full blown psychosis, which will then the only cure for it will be B12 supplementation treatment, not an opinion. That is a scientific fact. Interesting. Yet the details. Take B12. Why does it matter? You’re vegan. Just take it. That’s basically what happens. So no one’s actually connecting the fact that, okay, here’s a real obvious use case that the nutrient deficiency of that will cause you a proper mental health problem that you can then overcome by taking that nutrient again. So it’s like it’s literally science and fact. And if you study it, that’s why you ask that question about nutritionist and dietitians. They’ll know this. Of course they know this is literally day one stuff for them, but it just never factors in the medical profession. And where do people go when they’re sick? The doctor, the GP. So the why.

They just don’t know you identified was the fact that no one knew about out there. People don’t connect mental health.

So my my opportunistic entrepreneur like idea, so to speak, was I think there’s a really interesting communication gap between us. So there’s not many spaces in the world where you can say, okay, science actually says this is true, not opinion, this is true. There’s endless science papers all available on PubMed for pretty much every single nutrient and all the different types of mental health, from psychosis to Parkinson’s to Alzheimer’s to moods to depression to sad. All of them, you know, different things and different nutrients for different things. But science papers proving how supplementation of or ingesting the natural version of this nutrient will impact this mental health condition. And so given there’s a plethora of evidence already is very rare to find a space as an entrepreneur where you’re like the evidence exists but no one knows about it. Here’s an opportunity that our job is to communicate it. And that’s how we started. We started as a newsletter, basically just trying to communicate what science says you can do to take care of your brain. And obviously I was aware how soon.

After you grapple ended did you start?

Um, so three months. Um, and it wasn’t like quite a perfect line, but we finished, we, we officially closed it down in July. Um, Joel, my business partner, and I took a couple of weeks off and actually just drove around the UK, did a little.

Known Joel since 14, but I haven’t seen him since I was 14.

Actually. You know, um, Nick Jenkins from Dragons Den who did your mentoring for Dragons Den. Like he offered us to come stay with him for like a few days, which was super nice. Yeah. Um, obviously as an entrepreneur, I was aware of, like, the things you start.

Heights with Joel as well. Yeah. Oh, excellent.

And grapple. So yeah.

They offer them. Yeah. So we, we spent a couple of weeks just going around the UK decompressing like seeing friends, like trying, but you know, starting to tinker and think about things. And we got back and we basically started writing this newsletter in November. Um, and the idea with the newsletter is we don’t know what we’re going to make. Just know that this is an interesting area to explore together. And we have different skills and basically almost in a weird way, our superpower was neither of us knew anything about the profession, which means that we can’t just make snake oil and we can’t just cut corners and we can’t do the things that everyone else does because we’re not willing to, because we wanted to make a great product and do it in a great way. So we had to literally start from scratch. And it was super interesting because we still get this now, but like most people don’t want to work with us because we don’t really cut corners then like, that’s not how this works, guys. And now we.

Have that challenge with Parler as well.

It’s really interesting.

Yeah, it’s like we just very.

Much, uh, this is how it’s always been done.

Exactly.

This is how you do it. Yeah. And you’re like, that’s literally not how you make the future, though. So that’s not how we’re going to do it. Yeah.

Um, it’s like I’m a challenger brand for a reason, you know?

So we got really lucky because in this newsletter, so amazing strategy, turns out because in this newsletter I found stuff from Sophie Medlin, I found stuff from Dr. Tara Swart. You know, these are people I was finding papers, I was finding really interesting research, and I was tagging them all on Twitter. So every week you have this thing and I’m tagging like tagging this person, tagging that person. Then they read it and they’re like, Oh, this is quite interesting and cool and end up getting in a conversation on Twitter and going to meet them in person. And that’s how I ended up meeting both Sophie and Tara was essentially from featuring them in my newsletter, from tagging them, from going to meet, and they.

Formulated the.

And they’re the ones who formulated our product. So that stuff is all happening in the background of like, we don’t know what we want to make, but let’s just go meet people that work in the space and talk about the problems. Um, and it was actually Tara, in fairness, that really identified the problem. So Tara, who’s our chief Science officer, she had a PhD in Neuropharmacology, so very much this space and she’s been a medical doctor, a child psychiatrist, neuroscientist, has this PhD and then was a coach for ten years. So but a coach to like CEOs, like global CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. And the thing that she’d noticed is how much when she was doing the coaching because she’d had her PhD in Neuropharmacology, she made nutrition and supplementation part of everyone’s program, which is the one thing no one did because everyone’s always like, It’s about the mind, it’s about asking great questions. She was like, I always started from hydration and nutrition because it is literally the biggest thing that’s going to make the impact for them. It’s what’s going to help them sleep better and get more energy. When they sleep better and have more energy, they’re going to be more creative, have better ideas, and then we can do the work. So I was like, Oh, so interesting. So she she started saying, The problem I always had though, is like basically have to get them ten supplements. Um, that you know habitually that’s hard. You go from not taking anything to taking ten you know take this vitamin D, take this omega three, take these vitamin C, take these B vitamins. And she was like, that was kind of the problem. So that’s when we started working on like, how do you combine all of this into like. An actual daily habit that’s really focussed around this problem idea of the brain. And it’s so.

Beautiful. It’s the most beautiful. I love taking it. It’s like a supplement you have.

Aesthetically, you mean, Oh.

My God, stunning. I’ve seen it. You know me. It has to match, you know, joking.

But a question for both of you. Yeah, because both of you have got this sort of purpose led business if we’re talking parlour. Yeah. Um, and I asked Simon the same the same question in a purpose led business in a way, if a competitor comes along and does what you’re doing, it should in a way make you happy because it’s making it’s fulfilling that purpose.

We say this, we say it depends who they are. I mean, if they’re cunts, then yeah.

But, um, but in their world, if Colgate suddenly goes.

Plastic, they’re not going to want Colgate necessarily.

Exactly. But this. No, this is the thing. No, totally. No. No. So do you know what I think? And Daniel probably agree. First of all, if you have a huge conglomerate company doing what you’re doing, it actually affirms that you’re doing something right in a way because they’re like, okay, cool, we need to do this too. But also there’s definitely not that worry. And I get that people are like, Oh my God, my God. Like, these people have so much money because I’m like, It’s a bit like, you know, when Razor Dollar Club came along and then Gillette tried to do the same. Gillette failed. Why? Because there was authenticity and the purpose was completely different that when someone else who’d been doing it been a completely different way for so many years, then tries to copy, you know, the little guys, it doesn’t necessarily bode well for them, you know, more often than not. So that’s what that’s kind of my view on it. It’s definitely.

True. I mean, in your.

World it would be.

Brinker.

Seven seas, whatever that thing is.

Yeah. I mean, yeah, I mean.

He’s trying to be diplomatic.

Yeah.

We’ll edit it out. I’m joking.

It would just be a bit inauthentic. I mean, the thing is, Seven Seas, though, is the brand that people grow up with. So it’s good, right? Because it is good that people like parents give it to their kids and all that stuff. So I don’t have a massive problem with it. I think it’s more for me, you know, brands talking about and trying to enter the space of brain care, which is what the category we’ve essentially defined. That’s good. More people, including big brands, talking about brain care. Very good. That’s an excellent thing. So we always talk about this as a mission led company. Like you just said, our goal is to grow brain care awareness. And if heights is at the centre of the brain care movement, we win. If heights isn’t at the centre of the brain care movement, it means that someone else came along, took our idea, made it better, but we still made a change in the world. So that’s pretty cool. So it’s one of those things I think category definition and and building a category is a really interesting approach because in many ways you can’t lose you. You might not. It’s one of those you might not win the war, but you can win your own battles. Yeah. And so there’s absolutely the chance that someone out executes you and outdoes you, but.

Not a good thing. Often when you’re the first.

First mover advantage, well, you.

End up losing. Yeah, you.

End up losing. Yeah. Because people come up and watch your mistakes and do it better than you. And it’s very common.

Yeah. Do you have a fear of failure? Be honest.

Not any more. Not after 12.

I don’t like I’m pretty. I’m like, I’m pretty determined.

To ego death 12 times. Yeah, Yeah.

I’m pretty determined to win. But I wouldn’t say I’m scared of failure or death. Those are not things that, you know, I rationally am scared of any more.

Than you know how in a way you you’re kind of defining the London entrepreneur scene, you know, the UK entrepreneur scene. And you could have I mean, you live in London, but you could have done it in Silicon Valley or whatever. And over there, failure’s kind of much more accepted than here. Yeah, big time. And is that does that changing here now in the in entrepreneur land and with investors and all that.

And because we know as well that you support young founders you know we were just talking about that as well.

So I think more so you know it’s interesting actually, because I because I do a lot of angel investing and I speak to a lot of young founders and like some of them have had a tough time over the last few months. I’ve just spoke to a girl a couple of days ago. Um, she’s shut down within about four months of me investing, which is pretty bad. And I just emailed her being like, you know, Yeah, like, are you okay? I know how shit it is to go through what you’re going through and like, do you need me to speak to any of your. There was someone else as well. They’re doing more of a pivot, so it’s slightly different. But I was like, Let me know if there’s any of your investors that are being horrible to you and like, just intro me on WhatsApp or whatever works for you and I’ll arrange a time to speak to them and like, you know, calm them down and make sure they don’t do that, because that’s what I’ve experienced a lot. And you know, these last two that I spoke to and this is in the last two weeks, both companies, they’re both of them were like, actually, people are being pretty nice. They’ve actually been pretty understanding. And I’m like, wow, that’s a real I feel that’s a good marker to to realise because that’s not normal. You know, If I’d have done that a couple of years ago, they’d have been like, Yeah, I’ve got about ten people I’d need you to speak to for me. And I’d have done it because it’s important.

And yeah, but um.

It was, I was really impressed on both of them. They were like, No, actually we’ll let you know if we do. But so far people have been very kind. Yeah.

And I think again, it’s about those conversations. So I think we can talk forever and ever and ever.

I still want to talk about Secret Leaders because.

Do you talk about secret Leaders go.

It. It was marvellous. Marvellous.

Thank you. I was. I told you his hero. I didn’t actually know that. Why didn’t you tell me that when I was like, I’m bringing Daniel Murray?

I was going to tell you, but, you know, I. I ended up. I ended up in Amsterdam one weekend by myself. I end up listening to every single episode. Really? Oh, my God.

That’s dedication. It was just so good.

The guests were so.

So was Steven on that then?

Yeah. He’s the second or third guest.

Did you listen to that one?

You’d have you’d have had to go back through the backlog. I think Nick Jenkins was number one. Steven is in the first five for sure.

Steven Bartlett Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, so many good ones. But but then now, now I see it says kindling media. Is that your company?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So basically we started off as secret Leaders and it was just me and a microphone, etcetera.

Is that what Joel as well?

No, I’ve got a different business partner for Secret Leaders called Rich. Yeah. Um, and Rich was originally, like producing and editing and I was doing the interviewing and, you know, writing interviews and producing sorry, writing interviews, doing them and marketing it. Um, but, you know, it started off as like a nice little side hustle and good interviews and stuff, but at some point it, you know, was growing too big and it.

Became the number one podcast business.

Podcast and business podcast. Yeah. And so it became big. And so it was like, it’s really.

Interesting. How did that.

Feel? I mean, that was amazing.

Um, amazing dance. Always had chat, by the way, in case you’re wondering, always sends you like 14. Always because he was fat.

So you.

Grow up fat, you get.

Great banter.

Um, so I think the, uh, but, but the reality is it’s, you know, I actually say this to people, it’s really interesting. You expect failure when you start, and it’s important too. But like, some people plan for failure, you don’t really plan for success. And so I didn’t plan for this side hustle to go, Well, I was doing it because I basically was wanted free mentorship from experts all the time. So it was a great way to do it.

Well, that’s people often say, right, the podcasts are that because you learn so much from the people that you’re interviewing totally.

And so, you know, that was basically it for me. Um, and that was enough. But basically it was, it was, it started to do really well. So we ended up having to hire someone and then, you know, learning about management and ego and stuff as a bootstrapped company as well as we’ve never taken any funding in, um. I was very this is at right at the start of the pandemic. Heights were starting to take off. Heights launched at the start of the pandemic, launched January the 6th, 2020. At that time, secret Leaders had just started to take off, too. So I was like, Oh God, this is actually going to get bad quickly. So I spoke to Rich and I was like, We need to actually hire someone full time for secret Leaders Now, the good news is we’d never taken any money out of the business, so we had quite a lot of money in it because we’d had advertising and it had grown and all this stuff. So there’s just cash sitting in the in the bank not doing anything with it. So fortunately we were able to immediately say, we can hire someone, we have a budget to hire someone, we can give them a budget to run it as a company. And so I think what’s been really interesting with that is, you know, we we we thought deeply about the type of role we wanted to create, the kind of autonomy that person actually had to have because of how little time we were willing to invest personally, because Rich has his own.

Start-up I had my own Start-Up. That’s just starting. At some point you have to basically say, Am I going to be, you know, pretend I’m Jack Dorsey and I can be full time CEO of two massive businesses? Or am I going to say, you know what, I think my best chances of success and where my purpose really feels aligned right now is heights. So I want to put 90% of my time in heights and 10% in secret Leaders. But I can’t make secret Leaders a success with 10% of my energy. So where does the 10% go? Interviewing. That’s it. So I like mapped out my ideal is in the next year. I’m like, I’m just turning up to interviews. I’m doing the interviews, I’m fucking off. Like I don’t do anything else. Literally anything else. Boundaries. Boundaries. And so it was really clear and we did this interview process, found a great guy. But part of this is you’ve got to give that person then the creative freedom to say, This is what I think we should do in the company. Trust them. Trust. Yeah. And so I think we got lucky with Will, who runs it because he’s, um, you know, he’d been an entrepreneur, he’d failed, he’d been a journalist, he’d really interested in media.

And long story short, he has grown secret Leaders really? Well, we’ve now hired a second person about to her, a third person. So it’ll be basically five of us in the company. Um, you know, talk about boundaries and stuff. I’ve got got to do interviews this Sunday for final round candidates for that company. Um, but the point being, um, as part of the process, he then was like, I’ve got this idea for this totally different podcast, but so I don’t think we should be secret Leaders I think we need to be kindling media. I think we need to be a media company and we should make podcasts, which would make great podcasts. This is my idea, this is how much it’ll cost. Anyway, a bit of a batshit crazy idea and I was actually quite anti it, I have to say. I was like, I don’t think we should do this a terrible idea. But that idea was called Bad Money, which is a show basically about the intersection of business and crime. And the idea is it’s like journalistically researched narrative stories season by season. And so the first episode, first series is about one called a gangster called Big Spender. And it’s because he’d grown up in he spent some time living in Hong Kong.

This was he’s a big guy in Hong Kong, basically responsible for the biggest kidnappings of all time. And it’s an amazing crime story. And so what we’ll did whilst running Secret Leaders is script this find journalists in Australia and Hong Kong. And I found the original police officers that like like jailed this guy like all of this stuff and like put together this podcast. Anyway, long story short is, um, we just hit 100,000 downloads on that. It’s been in the top three in crime in the UK for weeks now. We’ve had three offers from major Hollywood studios to option the rights to turn it into like a show. It’s like it’s really amazing to see what someone else I have nothing to do with that at all. But it’s amazing to see if you give someone some creative freedom, like where their ideas can take things and what they can do. And now he’s actually working on a personal finance show. So personal finance is a big problem in the UK. None of us really understand money. It’s a problem I personally really associate with as well. Um, so we’re actually, to your point, you know, you asked about videos and stuff. This will be our first foray into a video podcast setup. I won’t be. I might be a guest one time, but I’m not involved.

Um, but also, I just think as well, like, I’m smiling at that story because I think it’s so important that you have the right people putting in the skills because I’m like you. I’m like, I have ideas. I like rocking up, I like talking, I like the media. But I was just saying to Payman as well before you came, like, I hate admin side of stuff. Like I also like editing, like the thought of spending hours editing. I’m like, Not for me, you know, but knowing that you’ve got the right people and the right team, you know, like, it’s amazing how things can take a long time. It takes a long time. It takes a long time.

Run a 50 man company, right? So that that takes a bunch of trust and delegation.

Yeah, but I got letting go. Got it all wrong as well.

I got that all wrong. So, I mean, the thing is you learn. Yeah. And letting go is a constant.

Letting go is.

But letting but letting go is also, you know, I got to say, a lot of people will let go and learn the wrong lesson, as in learn the lesson, actually, that they shouldn’t have done that. And so letting go, I think I just had this conversation with someone at lunch, actually. Letting go isn’t the answer. Annoyingly, delegation isn’t the answer. And being totally in control of everything isn’t the answer. The answer is to do the work to find out where your zone of genius lies in the way that fulfils you. And maybe you’re a delegator and maybe you’re a control freak. That’s actually okay. I feel like both of those things have their place, and I feel like I’m still trying to find mine. But, you know, in this example with Will, you know, he could have been a charlatan, he could have been crap and the business could have torpedoed. So, yeah, there’s a lot of risk involved in it. It’s gone well. It could have gone badly and I’d be sitting here with a very different lesson.

So you’ve always had a co-founder and everything you’ve done, Always. You’ve got co-founders and Parlour, but not. Not in the practice, No. Yeah. Which do you prefer? Do you prefer being a partner or.

Do you prefer being interesting one? Right. Because I really enjoy. So the reason why I built the business model that I did at Chelsea is because we are Multi-specialist founder. And so at Founder Multi-specialist Clinic. So for me, my associates, for example, are almost like my founders. The reason why I say that is because I still think that no human being can do everything 100%, and I think people think they do are a little bit of micromanaging in their character. So like even in my practice, like, for example, I was texting Stuart, he’s one of my associates and I was like, There’s this really difficult case. You’re better at doing this. Can you advise on this? I need your help with this. I am not afraid to do that because I recognise my skill sets are certain and I really having that relationship with Parlour, it’s different, right? And I think it’s really different because when you co-found something, there is some point of the business, I think, where and I’m sure you’ve had this with Joel, there’s like resentment in some ways because someone feels they’re either working in a different way. You don’t see eye to eye.

And that’s the thing that I find most difficult, especially if you have like a certain type of brain, like I’m a very creative, slightly kind of ADHD brain where I’ve got loads of different things going on, but I’m really bad at putting it on like a computer, PowerPoint or Excel. Does that make like, I almost need someone to be with me typing it all up? Does that make sense? Whereas, you know, my other business partners like Adobe is phenomenal at the finances. I hate numbers, you know, And Simon is incredible as just like putting everything together and making sure everything’s done and very good at presentation and so forth. So in that way it complements. But I think it’s really important that everyone knows what they’re doing because there can be those conflicts and sometimes you can have those eruptions, which is normal. But in short, I just don’t think I’m ever really a one man band. I just don’t think I am and I’m not embarrassed. But I also don’t have problem letting go and controlling and trusting as in like I’m like, cool. I trust this person.

Go with it. You might find in the future that, you know, in this I sort of thing that’s happening, people with just great ideas will be amazing. You know, the best ideas will win because execution is becoming easier.

So yeah, I mean, it is it is in a way. But and also, like you got to think as well because why are people becoming so I actually got invited to a TikTok event a few weeks ago. I was really proud of that. I’m like, Am I a TikTok influencer? Anyway, I got invited to a TikTok event and there were all these, like, famous tiktokers, if you like. And it was really interesting because some of them had built like millions of followers on like the most niche things. But it was like how creative they were with like cooking and, you know, cutting things in a very specific way. I mean, there was a guy, millions of followers, because he only raps Dr. Seuss books. I mean, how nice is that? But he’s doing it like it’s a creative input, right? So I think, you know, the future is exciting and yeah, but I personally think one man bands are just really difficult. I don’t wish to be that.

I don’t wish to be it. Yeah, I’d much rather have half of something and more of my mental health than 100% of something and less of my mental health.

And I think I think that’s that’s a really that is a really good point because I’m going to ask Dan, we could talk for hours. Payman We know this, but I’ve got a I’ve got a rock.

I have to wrap up. Yeah.

So I’m going to ask you some questions. I think one thing that I want to comment on that you’ve just said there is that I’ve often been told, and I think surrounding myself with certain people is that like, oh, you know, like being a multi, multi millionaire is really important. I’m like, actually not. Because for me, having money gives you freedom. It doesn’t buy you happiness. And I think I always say I want to be comfortable, but for me it’s about having balance, recognition, health and respect that matters more to me. So someone said you could have like 10 billion and like none of the other things, or you could have like five and all of the other things I’d always choose the less.

Amount of money 5.

Billion, 5 million, five or whatever. Okay. But, you know, I’m just trying to say that I’d always choose something less in a monetary way to have your recognition.

Sounds a bit.

Egocentric. It is a little bit. But I think recognition in terms of when you’re remembered for something I hate to say it, maybe it is egocentric, but legacy legacy is important for me because I want to be remembered for doing something that makes a difference.

I was about to back Rohner up to say it. You know, it took me a long time to say and admit that I want recognition. And I. Do you think? There’s a really great thing for someone to accept and own their insecurities and there’s something uncomfortable about saying I want to be recognised. It’s embarrassing to say that to someone else because that fundamentally I’m very aware that that will make.

But again, we all want to be seen.

But we.

Most of us, we don’t.

All want to be seen, but a lot of us want to be.

Seen. Yeah.

A lot of us want to be seen. And that for some, you know, and.

That is ego.

That is ego. So maybe I have to go on a retreat. So, Daniel, amazing chat, as always. I love speaking to you, but I’m going to actually end with one question based on an egocentric question. Perhaps if you could be remembered for one thing, what would it be?

My cats. Fucking legends. Um, okay. Well, what can I say? I mean, honestly, like, the thing that I would love as a legacy is to have introduced brain care as a practice to the world. Um, and, you know, we, we in society do spend time in skin care, hair care, oral care, all these different parts of our bodies that are decaying. And there’s enormous industries set up around that brain care, not an industry, not a space, and actually an area where nutrition can make an enormous difference. And it’s just simple everyday practices and the impact that would have on society, on longevity, on human’s ability to have greater health span and life span, and therefore create even more beautiful, productive work that can actually encourage people to make this a better world. Like that stuff is super meaningful. So I very much believe in like butterfly effect and ripples. And I think that if that’s something that I can contribute to the world, then fantastic. So that far, much more than secret Leaders or anything else, because I think that’s where I can have an impact.

Sure. Thank you so much. Dan, again, thanks so much.

My pleasure.

My pleasure for doing this.

My pleasure.

Coming in. Thank you.

Definitely. I think that lack of confidence is something that is probably not uncommon, but I definitely think that that happens a lot less now. And it’s not because I’m a fantastic dentist. I think it’s because of how I communicate with patients and how if something goes wrong, I’ll manage it much better. I think you just learn as you get older, going through general life experiences, dealing with conflict with patients or anybody. I think you generally just get better at dealing with it and reading people and knowing where to draw the line, how to communicate. So it’s very, very rare now that I’ll have a patient that doesn’t want to see me. It’s a hell of a lot more common. I’ve got a patient that I don’t want to see. You know, I’m desperately hoping that they’re going to go and see somebody else.

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

Gives me great pleasure to welcome Alex Sharp onto the podcast. Alex is a young dentist who’s founded a platform called Dental Disruptors, which is kind of a platform and a podcast as well called Dental Disruptors, which is set up to support young dentists in trying to find their perfect job, I guess, or jobs where they’re supported and they feel happy and growing. I’ve listened to several of your episodes, Alex, and a lot of it is around sort of difficult stories of associate jobs and so on. And I’d like to unpack all of that. And I think the reason I had you on is because I definitely think associates need a voice. And this feeling in dentistry that, you know, you kind of do your time as an associate and get sort of abused and then one day you’ll be an associate, a principal, and then you can abuse associates yourself, sort of. So I know it’s not exactly like that, but there is this kind of feeling and and listening to to some of the stories of the associates on on your pod. I felt that definitely we they do need a platform. So it’s a massive pleasure to have you, buddy.

Oh, well, thank you very much for having me. Yeah. I mean, I, you know, Dental disruptors. I would like to think that it will get to the stage where it kind of becomes the the go to hub, if you like, for associate dentists. And, you know, we recently opened it up to hygienists and therapists as well, because I’ve been speaking to a lot of people in that world and realised that realistically a lot of the problems are transferable that they have and we can help them as well just as much as we can help associate dentists. So yeah, I definitely think that there’s an underrepresentation of associates right now from particularly from a legal perspective. And I think that that’s something that, you know, I want to address really because it is a big problem that I don’t think we always fully I don’t think it gets the media coverage, if you like, within the social media world from how much of an impact this has on not just the industry and our patients, but but on the individuals in their lives. You know, this entire Facebook group set up for people exiting dentistry or finding side gigs in dentistry and sometimes it’s just not a good match and people go into the industry and find out further down the line it’s not for them, but other times it’s because of how they’ve been trapped by other people within the industry that lead them to want to leave. And that was essentially my story. You know, after three years.

I mean, one thing I would say, though, dude, I mean, you kindly accepted me onto your Facebook group. But one thing I would say is it’s kind of it makes sense to have principles read what goes on on that group as well. You know, in the same way as, you know, I’m on the hygienist group and to listen to some of the stories that’s happened to them, I’m not a hygienist, but if they made a strong rule that said, no, no dentists allowed, then I would never hear some of these stories. So is that a strong rule on your on your platform that it’s only for associates and not for not for principles?

No, not really. So we do have principles in there and there’s a few principles in there who I know personally or who have been in the group who have become principles as well. You know, I’m currently going through a buying process myself, so I’d have to kick myself out of my own group. You know.

Rules have changed. Yeah.

Yeah. I’ll be the spy in my own camp. Yeah. So, um. So, yeah, I think you’re right. And this. This brings me to a good point, which is when I planned all of Dental disruptors, you know, way back when Dental disruptors is if you kind of zoom out a little bit and look at some bigger picture stuff. Dental disruptors is is one part of a bigger vision. And and the bigger vision is called care. Full health care and Dental Disruptors is the branch of care full health care that deals with supporting associates and self-employed clinicians. But in the future, when I own a practice and I’ve gone through that experience, I fully plan on setting up a sister group for practice owners. And the idea in my head is if I can share my knowledge and my experiences and the stories that I’ve had with practice owners as well, we can kind of get everybody on the same page. And then I want to build a system that will that will align the associate with the practice owner based upon a shared value system so we can address this issue of trying to find harmony between both parties, because I understand it works both ways.

The sun doesn’t shine out of the back side of every associate as well, and there’s two sides to every story. And I can speak personally that there were a lot of conflicts I had where either it was completely my fault or I misunderstood the situation or I didn’t handle it properly. And I think that I’m more than happy to admit that. And I think that happens a lot in the industry. So I want to make it clear that it’s not excluding practice owners. The bigger picture is to include practice owners. But right now Dental disruptors is predominantly for non practice owners. But we do have some in there because people have found incredible value from the insight of some of the people that we have in there, myself included. You know, because I do think it’s important to get a balanced argument. And not a let’s bash practice owners group. Know that’s absolutely the antithesis of what we’re going for. We’re going for collaboration. That’s that’s the key thing.

Yeah, but I mean, inevitably your group ends up being a place where people tell their sort of stories of problematic jobs. And I mean, let’s start let’s start from the beginning, the sort of the PhD jobs. What are some of the stories? What was your story?

I had a great time in PhD. I mean, I failed. Yeah, I failed my finals first time round and I didn’t like going through national recruitment again. But, you know, and having to basically skip a year. So whilst I graduated in 2015 and the November, I didn’t start my foundation till September 2016, so I kind of graduated a year early but was a year behind. But so my story was fine. My PhD, I had a great time. You know, the tutor I got was somebody who was one of the clinicians at the hospital and I had a good relationship with him, so I had a great time and I learned a lot. I had a lot of support. It was a fantastic place to be. And no, no, nothing negative to say about that at all, really. But I don’t know. I’ve very recently released a podcast with a friend called Rachel and she spoke about her experiences in PhD and that was like the polar opposite. So she never even made it as an associate because she had such a crap time with how she was trapped by her trainers and how unsupported she felt by the deanery. She had a totally opposite experience where she never even bothered to become an associate because in her head it was like, Well, if this is my experience of primary care, then I don’t want to do this sort of thing. And I found more and more extreme examples of that. As I’ve dug deeper and had phone calls with people and video calls of young people in tears. And it’s it’s heavy stuff. It’s really heavy stuff. Some of the things people go through. And, you know, in a weird way, it kind of makes me feel very grateful for my experiences. There weren’t, you know, they were horrible, but I definitely didn’t have it as bad as some other people.

Yeah, because it’s funny because you’re. I’m going to call it vet. Dude, I’m too old as your job kind of sets the sort of your first year, as you say, the initial thing that you see, but also kind of your trajectory, your launch pad. And so I remember my partner in Enlightened saying she had an awful experience and I had an extraordinary one. But what are some of the stories? I mean, I listened to the Rachel one and there was this event where she had a panic attack and she she couldn’t work at the practice that day. And she said, look, can I just come in and see everyone? And they kind of didn’t even see her and kind of blamed her for it and so on. And I think what you said before, we do need to emphasise as well that you know that what the principal was thinking. We weren’t in their heads at that point. Right. And you know, for me, the sort of balance between, you know, what is it? It’s, it’s a teaching thing, an education thing, but it is also a moneymaking thing for the principal and, you know, primarily for the principal, it’s a moneymaking thing. And and unfortunately, now the way the NHS is, it’s a place where you throw all the crap that you don’t want to treat yourself sort of thing, right? Yeah. What are some of the other terrible stories you’ve heard.

This thing, if you were to look at the running theme, the golden thread that underpins it all, mostly it comes down to a lack of support. So there’s a lot of people who have been left where they’re told that if they’ve got a problem, they’ll have that advice. And so they go and seek out that advice. And the principles. The principles, sorry the trainer isn’t there or doesn’t care or doesn’t want to get involved. And so the associates start panicking and they start doing stuff and they run into problems and it really affects their confidence. And then when they get their reviews from the deanery, they get failed. So one of my friends who failed his PhD post, the person who won the practice that wasn’t even his trainer, sent his wife in undercover as a fake patient for the PhD. And then at the end of it, the owner’s wife said, Oh, I’m the owner’s wife. And what you should be doing is selling these and talking about private options and referring people to the treatment coordinator and talking about this. And and he’s kind of like, what’s a treatment coordinator, you know, because you’re just starting out. And I think that, again, the cynic within me would say that there probably is a huge financial incentive.

But I also think that the reality of the situation is beggars can’t be choosers and there’s dentists graduating. There’s not enough trainers, from what I hear for the deaneries. So they don’t have the luxury of picking people where perhaps teaching is a is a skill or a high priority that they have because you could be the best implantologists or best oral surgeon in the world. But if you don’t have the capacity to teach and you’re not patient, then don’t be an FD trainer, for instance. And I think that because there is such a shortage, the deanery is like, Look, we’ve just got to get anybody in, you know, no matter how many years of experience you’ve got, within reason, you know, I think my. Was three years and he was a trainer. And I thought, God, I wouldn’t want to be trained by somebody who was only three years. I know what I was like after three years, you know. But I mean, I think that’s just a I don’t want to blame the deanery, but, you know, because this is obviously very, very multifaceted issue. But I definitely think that there are steps that need to be taken and.

To train the trainers, you mean? Yeah.

Yeah. I think there should be some sort of requirement for them to go undergo some sort of teaching, maybe a little course or a little weekend thing or something. There is.

Something. There is something.

Is there? Yeah. I don’t know enough about the process, I’ll be honest. But the another example, and I guess this is probably a bit unfair because this is exclusive to Covid, but there was a big cohort of, of dentists who who again, never worked as associates after their PhD because of their lack of experience and clinical exposure through the fifth year or the FDA. And they were just left on the phones and reception triaging patients antibiotics and stuff. And so they technically passed their FDA, but they had no experience at all. And these people had like crushing anxiety that all of a sudden they’re graduating. They’re at the same level of risk from an indemnity perspective as me and you. But yet they said like, done one crown in their whole like career. And and it’s kind of like, well you know realistically at the universities at fault for for turning out safe beginners whatever that means and the deanery is not at fault for saying, well we need to reset this whole cohort. But then how do either of those two facilities have the capacity for an extra year or an extra two year of students? It’s a it’s a really complex issue, but ultimately one they don’t care about because the risk is on the individual dentist. It’s my risk, for example, not not their risk. And there’s a degree of apathy, in my opinion. And but you know that that issue is not what dental disruptors is about. That’s beyond my influence and knowledge, really. But I think it is if we think about it, it is a massive contributing factor to perhaps why some associates get themselves in these positions.

Yeah, I mean, listening to you as a host, you’re a very good host. I’ve got quite light listening to you as a host. Thank you. But you sort of feel it. You can tell you feel the pain of the person talking. And you told me you had nine jobs in four years yourself. Yeah, I mean, I get it, right? You’re kind of looking for your perfect job or whatever it is. But isn’t there an element of you didn’t sort of stick around long enough to make make the place work for you in those nine jobs? I mean, tell me some of the stories. So tell me some of the worst bits of those nine jobs that got you, because I feel your pain when you’re when you’re when you’re listening to someone’s story tell, you’re just so into it. And then you you sort of reflect back what happened to you, man, What happened in that nine job period?

Yeah, well, I mean.

It’s the highlights.

Yeah, I’ll give you the highlights, but I’ve been asked that a lot. I’ve been asked that a lot. Well, you know, Alex, are you not the problem, mate? Is there not a common factor running through you?

I’ve got to be honest. That’s what I thought when I first heard that. I thought this kid. Come on. But. But then you listen to a few more of your episodes and you showed a lot of insight and maturity. Right? So tell me. Go on, explain it to me. Yeah.

So this would say I left a lot of them. They’re all very quite different reasons. So it could be as simple as the dyer is quiet. So one really quick example. The dyer is really quiet. I was working five days a week on the Nash and I probably could have got down to three clinical days doing the same number of days. So I approached a practice owner said, Look, I’ve been here for however many nine, ten months now. The dyer is really quiet. I’ve tried doing all these things to improve my day list. On your recommendation. It’s too quiet. How about this? I maintain the same number of contractual days. We condense the three days I work somewhere else. Two days. And they said it’s full time on no time. I’ll never forget that. So I said, Well, here’s my notice because my trainer said to me, It doesn’t matter whether it’s private, whether it’s on the doorstep, whether it’s fancy stuff. If it’s quiet, it’s not worth it. So I really held on to that. So that’s a simple example. Others is just to do with how the businesses have been managed and led so, you know, really poorly, poorly led practices, poorly managed practices and the way in which patients are double booked and squeezed in and forced appointment times are being shortened in reception, just doing whatever they want. And there’s kind of no order or structure or leadership within the business. But I think I left one that I loved.

There’s only one practice I’ve worked in where I would go back and work there again and that was fully NHS and I drove an hour there and an hour back every day because the team were amazing. The practice owners were amazing, the manager was incredible. Everybody had a great time. There was loads of socials, great atmosphere. Everybody got on. There was no bitchiness, no backstabbing. It was well led, well run. It was efficient. I earned the most money I ever earned there. And I and I worked no harder and actually slowed down because of how well it was run. And that was a massive eye opener to me. But I left there because I was ready to transition away from the NHS. So that’s the only practice where I left, where I. Didn’t have any negative. In fact, I cried when I left. I was so kind of disappointed and I felt so guilty. I took the practice going out for a beer and and as much as I wanted to try and keep it soft, I think I blindsided him. And he was really blown away because he’d supported me through, you know, other issues. So, for example, I had a practice I worked in where I raised concerns with NHS England because this guy took no notes, there was no BP’s, there was no radiographs. He was fitting temporary crowns claiming a band. Three We had patients with with, you know, caries and teeth.

I then had to take out and there’s these little old women coming in with dementia going, What do you mean get my teeth out? We had people coming in with letters, complaints, threats, all sorts of stuff, and I was the only one there. He bought a new practice, so that was I took over his old list. He moved to the new baby. So I was single handed and we eventually got a therapist in and I was talking to the therapist and basically said, you know, this is what I’ve seen. And I’m really worried because it wasn’t an isolated case. You know, the standard BP’s of 000 0 to 0 and it’s four, four, four, four, three, four. And you think, okay, we all make mistakes, right? We’ve all been there. But I was getting nervous because I was having all these conversations with patients. There was loads of complaints I was having to send to my indemnity and in the end we agreed to speak to well, we I should say, actually what I tried to do on several occasions was meet with the practice owner. I sent him emails, I sent them text messages, and he kept promising he’d meet me and he never did. And in the end, I spoke to my indemnity, who said, Look, Alex, you’ve tried all these things. If this isn’t isolated and is not making any effort, you have to report it to NHS England. Because if you don’t and something happens, you’ll be equally as liable as him by not raising concerns in the GDC could get blah blah, blah.

So I was like, Right. So I had to raise concerns. I had to go to a meeting, provide evidence and that practitioner and that NHS practice I loved, you know, I just started with him there one day a week. He came to that meeting with me. He supported me through that. He helped me with all of this stuff. You know, he was he was incredible. You know, two more examples. One, I worked in a practice one day a week, and when I joined the practice not long after I joined the practice, I got told that we’re going to have a meeting. And I was like, oh, okay. You know, thinking I didn’t know what it was about. Went into the staff meeting. There was the manager, another dentist, and I think the owner was there. Maybe he came on another meeting and basically they just sat down and told me why I’m a dentist, you know, why I’m incompetent, why I can’t, why I need to be retrained by the deanery and how I need to pay for that myself. I’m a financially driven, negligent, unethical, fraudulently claiming dentist. And, you know, I cried every morning when I went to work there because. Because I had this, like, crushing doubt of like, oh, my God, I’m this, like, terrible dentist and this terrible person. I thought I was doing all right.

And I believed what they were saying because this guy was like super experienced, you know? Yeah, he was really senior and I was young, I was fresh, and I was like, Oh, my God, you know? So it just crushed my confidence. And also going into an environment where everybody in that business thinks you’re this person. Yeah, horrible. It’s awful. It’s awful. And so I, um, he said to me, Look, you need to self-refer to the deanery. I have reported you to the deanery, but I can’t force you to go. If you don’t go, however, I will report you to the GDC. So. So I sat down and I said I went away, thought about it, came back, and I said, Right, I want evidence. I want loads of evidence. So they give me loads of evidence. And without going into loads of detail, a lot of it was crap. They just misinterpreted things. They didn’t check the relevant parts of the software for Radiograph reports. I had actually done, and I would say 75% of the cases there was nothing. Anyway, I wrote like a 25 000 word report with all the evidence that they’d given. I submitted it to the deanery before I even attended. And I went there. I sat down and the guy said, Look, I’ve read three document. I understand the situation. We don’t need to take any further. I don’t think there’s any issues at all. This practice owner is known to me.

He’s done this before. So I was like, okay. And he said, But you know, let’s jump through some hoops just in case. Do a communication course, do a claims course, Just something silly, just in case anything happens, you can prove to the GDC that you’ve done some CPD on it, you’ve shown reflective learning and all that stuff. So that’s what I did and it went away and there was no other communication. And then the last and most extreme example was just before Covid. This was the practice that was the nail in the coffin for me. And I could probably do an entire podcast on what happened. But I mean, it’s really hard to express the severity of the situation because when you say things like poorly led and poorly managed, it’s really hard to fully articulate that. But it was Dental practice owned by a therapist. And the the therapist had her her manager friend there. And there was it was just very nepotistic. And the therapist was doing all this cosmetic. I say cosmetic bonding, right? And I walked in picking up a departed dentists workload. And essentially, I would say nearly every patient in there was pretty much neglected. Like the composites were sealed together. There was ledges, there was caries, there was peril. And I remembered I was like opening up contacts like with either burrs or little strips, trying to make it cleanse able for the patient. And then the patient would come back and say, Well, now I’ve got gaps between my teeth.

I don’t like the gaps. So then the practice owner charged me to fix her crappy work, and I was I was involved in writing letters back to patients to comment. As an expert witness on other dentists work. She got she liquidated her old limited company. She was banned from Companies House. So she had a year where she couldn’t be registered. So she asked me to register as one of the practice owners of one of the directors of the company for the Dental practice for a year while her like Ban was in effect. And I spoke to my uncle, who’s a criminal solicitor and various of the people, and they said, absolutely not. You know, if anything goes wrong in that year, you’re liable if anything goes wrong. And this woman’s liquidated multiple companies. And I’ve got text messages and screenshots of conversations where she’s liquidated companies and raised £50,000, £100,000 of debt to various labs. And we had debt collectors coming in from the council of chest cameras threatening us all. We had debt collectors coming in from Dental Labs, threatening us all. It was one of those practices where it was so beautiful on the outside. It was amazing. We had heated lavender neck wraps in a coffee machine in the waiting room, but it was like rotten to the core, you know? And essentially I was just thrown under the bus all the time.

She kept saying to patients, You don’t pay me, you pay the dentist. He takes all the money. And then she’d say, Alex’s ran away with your money. He’s stolen your money. You need to speak to him. She was giving patients my email address. She was giving patients all these details. Is about me. I was. She was deducting all this money from me. I ended up losing about £11,000 when I left. She kept six and a half. Yeah, 6500 pounds in my retainer. Saying that within. Within, I think it was three months. Apparently 6500 pounds of my dentistry failed, bearing in mind. Historically I think the most was like £250. So six and a half grand failed in three months and then by six months it was something like £10,000. So then she was trying to sue me for this extra money with interest above Bank of England and blah blah blah. And there was threats and and I was trying to get my retainer money back and she didn’t pay my Invisalign lab bills. So for those people listening who don’t know your lab bills, your legally speaking, in most cases, especially with Invisalign, you’re contracted to pay them as the clinician, not the practice. So the practice took the 45% split, kept that money, but then didn’t pay Invisalign, so Invisalign was threatening me. So then I had to pay that again, but 100%. So I paid 145% of my Invisalign bills.

Did you have to pay again? You didn’t?

Yeah, I had to pay again because the practice didn’t actually transfer that money across. They just took the 45. So when I left after all of this, I mean, I had so many complaints coming out of my ears, so many letters, litigation notes. It was a mess. I was like, this was in nine months, nine months. And in the end I got a commercial solicitor involved and I was going to take him to court for so much stuff, for defamation, for slander, for unlawful deduction, for all this stuff. And we ended up finding out that she’d liquidated that company as well. So the limited company I had my contract with, she liquidated, set up a new company on a new site, and the commercial solicitor basically said, if you want to chase this, we’re going to have to prove that when she liquidated, the assets that she sold were bought by her new business and we chased those assets, he said. But that’s going to cost you tens of thousands of pounds. And for 11 or 12 grand or whatever it was, it’s not worth it. So I had to walk away from that situation. And that was when Covid hit. So Covid hit. And then even during Covid, she was getting patients to email me and she was saying, like, I have to come back to the practice and do all this Invisalign stuff for patients who were still in treatment. But I said, Well, I’m up in the Northeast. She was in she was in a different part of the country. And when we had the ban, there was regional like alert levels where you couldn’t travel.

I said it’s legally impossible for me to travel to see these patients. You know, I can’t do anything about it. So I had patients emailing me and oh, it was just it was just awful. And that was the nail in the coffin for me where I said, I’m done, you know, fuck it. I’m absolutely done. If this is how I’m going to be trapped, if this is how the industry is, if this is my general experience and I won’t go into it in too much detail. But, you know, you asked about my short, you know, periods of time. Well, my normal journey is three months, honeymoon period, three months trying to make a difference and improve things within the business. Realise that I can’t get anywhere, then have my notice in three months notice and then leave Now. Every single practice I’ve worked in except for that one I loved. I’d always tried to make differences, improve the business, improve communication, work with the team, work with the owners to develop things. And I didn’t get anywhere. And so I’ve learned that you cannot change the values of somebody who owns a business. It’s impossible. It’s too difficult a task. So I thought in my head there is no hope of anything changing. And it was the loss of hope was what made me think, this isn’t for me. I refuse to be unhappy. I refuse to be taken advantage of. I will find another life that isn’t in dentistry.

But that didn’t happen. You came out the other end, right?

Yeah. Basically I said to my partner, Look, there’s this other job. Um, you know, a different part of the country, and we both agreed I’d give it one more shot. And at this time of my life, practice, ownership wasn’t on my radar. I didn’t want to be a practice owner. I’d heard so many horror stories and how stressful and difficult and financially punishing it is. So I’d kind of stuck that off at the time. So I said to my partner, one more shot. And so that’s what we did. We relocated, moved. She gave up her life, career, family, friends, you know, we rented our house out, moved down here, rented where we are now. And, and, you know, I’ve been here for a while now for a couple of years. And during that time was when I met my business coach because I planned on getting out of dentistry by getting into property because that’s what everybody does. It’s really sexy. Apparently realised that actually property is really boring for me. Like I tried it and I thought, God, it’s really boring. So I sacked that off. And then I thought, well, how about owning a practice? So I started finding out about business was in these different networks and communities and eventually found my business coach. My business coach introduced me to his business coach and that’s when we started having conversations about, Well, why do you want to own a practice? Why don’t you actually make a difference? Why don’t you make a change? Why don’t you create the vision that you have for dentistry? Why don’t you be the one to do that instead of walking away from it and letting more and more people go through the process? And I thought, actually, yeah, that that is that sounds something that I could get behind. And, you know, we planned it for about a year before we even started working on it tangibly.

Who’s your business coach?

A man called Richard Perry. He’s not Dental. I have a bit of a chip on my shoulder about people, about business. Cultures within the Dental industry, but we can unpack that on another day.

It’s interesting what you say, man. I mean, what comes to mind. You said when you talk about leadership and business skills, you’re right. I mean, I think you probably find this in all professions, right? We’re just not trained in it at all. And I remember, you know, I went back to a road that I’d lived on 25 years ago, and I noticed that every single shop was changed except for the two dentists. And the thought in my head was that, you know, it’s an easy business. I know, I know. It’s a difficult business. Don’t get me wrong. It’s a difficult business. It breaks your back and you have to stress and all of that. But somehow you can be mediocre and still survive. Yeah. And you can’t be mediocre as a restaurant and survive. Not not in Britain anyway. I mean, other other economies where that’s possible. And so, you know, and this thing you say about changing the practice from within, you’re right. There are certain basic principles that can’t change. You know, people people are a certain way. But I think the biggest challenge in dentistry is that there isn’t any time even to work on the business. I mean, what are we talking in the half hour meeting that you can have in a week or something? Nothing’s going to change in that time. Yeah, and most practices are busy, you know, producing, working in the business and not on the business. So it’ll be interesting to see, to see your practice when that comes. Are you in the process right now?

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So we’re early stages, but yeah, I totally agree with you. And you know, there’s a, there’s a great book, I’ll paraphrase it a quote where he says, you know, what you don’t want to do is basically, you know, when you buy a practice, you don’t want to be wearing your associate hat and then take it off and hang it up and then go and buy a practice and put on another associate hat and the practice owner hat and potentially a manager hat and potentially a trainer hat. And my PhD trainer wore all four hats, right? And he was ultimately the one that made me think, God, this isn’t for me. And I think that’s a trap that not just in dentistry everybody falls into. You get so absorbed in your own business and you work on it and you work in it, not on it, and you don’t trust people that they’re going to be able to do it properly and all this sort of stuff. And I agree with you. I think that dentistry is with my limited experience and understanding of business, it’s an easy business because and I say this a lot because the demand in dentistry is typically infinite and it’s typically automatic. So as long as humans exist and have teeth, we will always be needed, right? Until technology or a meteorite prevents that from being important, right? So I think that I think that it is kind of easy to make it work. And I’ve also said in a similar way to you that if you pick these people up with the skills and knowledge they have and drop them in a different industry with comparable levels of knowledge and skill, the business would probably fail if it was in retail or catering or whatever. They probably fail. And so we are quite lucky. But the negative by-product of that is that you do have a lot of businesses that aren’t running very well. Um, that’s right.

But you can get.

Away with it. Yeah, you get away with it and it doesn’t mean these businesses are bad. I think this is a really important point. Some of the businesses I’ve worked in haven’t been like that last one I described. Right. That I don’t think that’s suitable for anybody. Some of them are just not aligned with me and who I am. And I think that’s important to say that it’s not working. You know, the tagline for Dental disruptors is a better life, the right practice. And that word right is really important because what’s right for me might not be right for you. And as we transition through our careers, that right practice will change. You know, that practice was right for me until it wasn’t. And then I was ready to move on to the next stage of my career. And where I work now as an associate is the right practice because it’s a stepping stone towards the next stage of my career, which is practice ownership, and I’m sure there’ll be more steps after that. So I definitely think that’s a really important point for people to understand, is that, you know, it is a very personal and unique thing, you know, working in the right practice for you.

On this pod. We tend to start with the where were you born? When did you first decide to become a dentist? So let’s go to that.

So I was born in Middlesbrough for my sins, consistently voted the worst place in the country to live.

And I’ve been to Middlesbrough.

Yeah, and wanted to be a dentist when I was four. Apparently my parents, you know, patted me on the head and said, Yes, yes, of course you do. You know, and before then wanted to be a hairdresser, you know, because I’m from a very working class family, You know, none of my family went to uni. Well, my uncle did later on. And, you know, none of my family really went to uni. There’s no dentist or doctors or engineers or lawyers in the family. So for me to be like, I want to be a dentist, people were like, Yes, yes, you know, But then I just kind of tailored my life towards it. And as I got older, people were saying, You know, you need to work hard, you need to work hard, you need to work hard. And then, you know, you get two GCSEs where you need to think about your GCSEs, you need to think about your A-levels and you think about uni. And it just kind of happened. And I only just got in, you know, I nearly didn’t get in and I’m very grateful I did. Then I failed my finals. So, you know, I feel that my journey, I’m not a naturally smart person. I’ve never have been I’m not a bookworm that can just recite stuff, you know, So I have to put the time in and the effort in. But I definitely feel that it’s made me much more appreciative of where am I feel very grateful for where I am now, both from the perspective of my upbringing and and you know, how I had that weird level of focus as a four year old.

What did your parents do?

My mum’s a librarian and my stepdad is a well, he was he’s retired now. He’s a turkey farmer for Bernard Matthews. So we lived on a turkey farm and my dad works for like different councils doing like stuff for tenants who are complaining about damp and mould and stuff.

So but there was an element of pride that you did go and study dentistry and become a dentist finally after you failed.

Embarrassing. My mum was embarrassing. You know everybody. Oh, this is my son, Alex. Oh, he’s a dentist. Or, you know, people that knew me from when I was a kid or, you know, it’s nice. It’s cute. It’s cute. I definitely think that as I’ve got older, I’ve. I appreciate it more. It’s more endearing. But yeah, as a, you know, as a, as a, as a younger man, you’re like, oh, mum, don’t stop, you know, please. You know.

So, okay, going, going, going forward. I mean you’re on what, episode 10 or 11 of the pod.

Yeah.

We’ve just released a letter.

Just started.

Sorry. Ten. Yeah. Just on ten. So we the thing is I’m so I work four days clinically, so Mondays are my non clinical day, so I’m incredibly time poor. So for me I’ve got so many people I want to speak to. I want to do all this stuff, but I just don’t have enough time. So I can only do one podcast a month. So it’s a bit of a slow burn, especially with the editing.

You should take my take my advice and outsource some of that work. You know, the it’s for someone who’s about to open a practice as well. Yeah, there is no need for you to be the editor or for you to be the person who uploads it. You know, there’s people all over the world up for that job. Yeah, but for not much money. It’s a thing of it makes sense to do it at the beginning so you understand it. But in the long run, you know, you’re being that guy again, right? You’re being the guy who’s doing everything yourself. Yeah. And if you’re going to if you’re going to be successful as a practice owner, you want to put systems in place. And by the way, I’m not great at it myself. Prav is very good at this sort of thing. But but, you know, are you doing the practice by yourself or are you doing it with a partner?

I’m doing it with my my partner. Yeah. So she’s going to do kind of managerial roles and help with the some of the non-clinical stuff. But not she’s not she’s not a she’s not a dentist. No, no, no, no, no, no. I stay very clear. I couldn’t think of anything worse.

She’s a nurse, I heard on the last podcast.

Yeah, she’s a medical nurse.

Yeah.

Burns. Medical nurse.

Burn specialist. Yeah, but no, I agree. I think one of the things my business coach always bangs on about is as a part of the bangs on in a disrespectful way, but I mean it in an endearing way is he says, you know that you always have to think about replacing yourself. You know, there’s only so much you can do. You need to plan the systems and processes at the beginning for how do you step out of that zone. And I think for me, because the podcast editing, you can imagine the topics of conversation we have can get emotional. They can also get confidential. And so it’s hard for me to explain to somebody how to edit out bits that really shouldn’t be in there. And there’s an element of me kind of I think I need to find somebody who probably really understands Dental disruptors, not just somebody who is just outsourcing. So but it is on my it is on my list of many things to outsource and my partner has helped me with with a hell of a lot of the marketing and the social media stuff because I am useless that I am not a marketing person.

Well, you.

Know, I’ll tell you what, you’ve been amazing at community building when I look at the Facebook page. Thank you. People interact on there. How long has that been going? Not long, right?

Yeah, maybe a year, actually. You know, it’s a good question. I don’t know. Maybe over a year now.

Yeah. But, you know, there’s there’s people interacting on it. There’s people obviously benefiting from it. And, you know, my, my advice to you would be to. Just keep on keeping on for now and it will work itself out. An engaged audience in the end will work itself out. There’s there’s no need to worry about where’s this going and what can I do with it and so forth. Because I can see I can see that there is sort of products on the on the way. I saw that legal thing that you’re putting together is that with your uncle is is he helping you with that?

Well, basically, because I’m not a solicitor, I have to be very careful about, you know, what I say.

But because quite a lot of legal advice on that side. Yeah. I mean, a contract negotiations is a big part of that, that side. Take me through some of that dude. Yeah. That when as a young associate, you’re going for a for an interview, a love kind of that idea that, you know don’t forget you’re interviewing the practice as much as the practice is interviewing you. You know, that’s very true. And something associates don’t, don’t realise so much here. But from the contract negotiation perspective, what are the common mistakes and what should associates look out for more?

God, this is a great question. I mean, I could I’m writing a full course to basically answer this question. Yeah. But, you know, the essence I think, comes down to more of a mindset thing, if I’m honest with you. I think I think we this is from practice owners and and self-employed clinicians perspectives is we kind of understand that we’re self-employed, but we don’t really understand what it means. And we definitely don’t behave like we’re self-employed. We allow ourselves to be treated in a certain way. And a lot of the contracts are written in a way that a really bad because they conflict with being employed and being self-employed. So really simple example, it says at the start of the contract for the purpose of this contract, blah blah blah. The associate is self-employed, but then further down the line the practice will say This is how many holidays you can take and how much notice you have to give. Well, that’s a contradiction. Then. You can’t be told how many days holiday you have to take. And I think that I know HMRC threatens periodically to do investigations and reclassify people, but the day that does eventually happen, there is potentially and this is this is from a practice owners perspective, way more of a risk, way more of a risk, as you will no doubt know from a tax and pension perspective. For a practice owner, if an associate gets reclassified as an employee, they can backdate it for to six years as high as 20.

If they think it’s like malicious, that could that could end a business. You know, it’s it’s it’s really, really important but I think it’s just about I think generally speaking, there’s a lot of apathy in the industry with regards to contracts. It’s very it’s dismissed. Here’s your contract. Sign it. Oh, yeah, I’ll sign it. Boom. Done. But I think we need to get into the mindset of we are both separate parties, businesses, commercial entities, whatever you want to call it. And as such, we should have our own individual understanding of our contracts and our own terms. And my kind of ideal outcome with Dental disruptors is to get to a stage in the industry where the norm is an associate writes their own contract with a solicitor. They set out all of the terms that they want In their ideal scenario, the practice owner already has theirs and they set that out. And then both parties bring that contract to the table and they sit down and now both parties understand what they want. And now true negotiations can happen and now both parties can be aware. And then you start to find out where the boundaries overlap and within the point where they overlap is where a deal can be made. But I think in order for us to get to that stage, we have to first even understand what a contract is, why it’s important. I get some people saying I don’t have a contract, I don’t really need one.

I have a good friend. And I said, Mate, why have you not got a contract? Are you stupid? Like, have you not listened to anything I say? You and the practice are incredibly vulnerable, you know. And so I think that, one, we need to appreciate and respect contracts. We then need to understand them and they then need to be written in a way that we agree with and that is commercially viable for both parties. And that, you know, ultimately is there to help serve the patients but also has to fulfil, you know, HMRC. S requirement of being self-employed, GDC, NHS, England, all these other bodies that also have some say a little bit on things that have to be captured in that agreement. And I think that we don’t do that. So we sign contracts and we land ourselves in problems. And if I was to distil it all away, it comes down to money every time. Everything is money, whether it’s people getting ripped off on their retainer, whether it’s not being paid at all or on time or false deductions or, you know, I had somebody you know, they they took money out of the retainer to pay for the patient’s petrol to get to the practice, to replace the filling. It’s like, well, where is that in the contract, you know, and people just take the mick. So I think that tons of it comes down to money and a big issue is training fees. So. I’ve seen overseas dentists with their training fees sometimes be tied in for five years post training, and if they leave, they have to pay locum fees and training fees and recruitment fees.

And it was something like, I think this young woman, I think it was something like £36,000 of practice was suing her for. And the practice owner’s wife was the solicitor that was writing the letters. So it was a lovely little tag team of abuse. And it’s things like that that I think. But this woman signed it because one, she she was an overseas dentist, so she didn’t really understand what was going on. She probably didn’t have the best grasp of English. She trusted that these people had her best interest at heart and she got absolutely shafted for it. And there are some practice owners that have bad contracts and don’t know. And there are some that have bad contracts and really do know. And it’s those ones that are the danger. Don’t get me wrong, the contract should. I’d love to live in a world where we don’t need it, where we can all trust each other and we just have a lovely gentleman’s agreement. If that’s not a politically correct term anymore, I apologise, you know, between between two people to say this is what we agree. But unfortunately the contract comes out when we run into problems and if you haven’t read it, understood it or you’ve agreed to dodgy terms, it’s going to get tricky. It’s going to get tricky.

And a couple of things, man. I mean, you’re right. There’s there’s the malicious contract, the one that you’re talking about. And by the way, I don’t know about you, man. You must have done it as well. I just signed away with with my associate contracts when I was an associate for sure, because I don’t know what else to do. But but that’s one thing. The other thing is, most of the BDA contracts and the ones from code. Do you know code? Code? No. Well, that was the thing. Confederation of Dental employers or something? Yeah. Most of those contracts are weighted towards the principal. And in a way, it’s like, Oh, I’m using a BDA contract. It assumes BDA means all dentists. You know, it’s not it’s not weighted one way or the other. Whereas a BDA contracts pretty much weighted towards the principal as well, in my opinion, from what I’ve seen. And I think it’s super important. Man So. So go on, let’s talk about it. You go for a job, you kind of like the place. You like the look of the guy. It comes down to, do you want to get this job or not? We look at the contract, okay? It’s money. It’s percentages, I guess, right? Bearing in mind sometimes you can earn more on a lower percentage and you know that that old thing that you shouldn’t you shouldn’t only be looking at the percentages. What else? The money that’s kept over, kept kept back. The retainer. Now, when I was a dentist, that didn’t really exist. Explain about that a little bit.

Yeah, I mean.

There’s terrible stories on that. Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, my.

Story is your story.

Yeah, I had a dentist who. It’s actually on the website. So on the website I put like loads of quotes from, from dentists who actually, you know, real life like things I’ve put in writing to me. And I think the I think this guy started his first associate job in the August and by September he left because of his experiences and the practice kept 12,500 pounds. And I thought, now imagine. No, sorry. He said he owed them 12,500 pounds. So imagine a situation where you’ve just graduated, you’ve just got your first job and somebody’s telling you you earn 12,500 pounds within what, what’s that six months or months of starting like. And he’s like, I don’t know if I’m in it anymore. I don’t know if I’m done, you know? And it’s kind of like it’s crazy. But the thing is, I mean, I know also associates who have gotten a small claims to get it back. And I know of some horrific stories where basically associates have gone, you owe me this money because you can’t legally pay, take it away because you haven’t given me evidence or whatever. So I want my money back. Practice owner says no. Associate says, okay, well, I’ll take you to small claims for it. Back practice owner says if you do that I’ll report it to the GDC. Associate says okay. So then the associate takes the practice owner to court practice Owner reports associate to the GDC uses an I won’t name the company but uses the legal firm which I genuinely believe are incredibly biased in favour of practice owners and write some dodgy contracts and gets all staff in the business to write, you know, allegations.

True or false? I don’t know. It’s all hearsay to me. And there’s this huge hearing and loads of people come in and there’s all this evidence and then there’s corruption with, you know, there’s a conflict of interest with the expert witness who says, I don’t know, 30 of the cases are bad, but actually, you know, there’s an appeal and then another somebody else comes in, another expert witness. And actually only two of them are bad. And this guy has gone through the mill for three years, been suspended temporarily, basically hates dentistry, is super depressed. He feels like he’s been completely abused and taken advantage of. And he is like. Why am I bothering? What’s the point? You know. Okay. Like I say, I don’t know all the facts, but maybe somebody’s made a mistake. Maybe he made a mistake. We’ve all made mistakes. But you don’t throw somebody under the bus for an amount of money because, unfortunately, I think that I’ve seen I’ve heard more and more cases, but that was the most severe one. And I think that the next logical step, in my opinion, which I’m very scared of, is that associates will say, okay, well, if I want to get my money back and I might not, and if I fight for it back, they’re going to report me to the GDC.

Well, I’ll report them to the GDC. So I’m going to start keeping a little logbook on my phone. Of all of the patients at the practice on the scene, of all of the mistakes they’ve made or the other associates have made, or all these things. And it’s just like, Why are we doing this? Why, why on earth are we doing this to each other? Our job, as you said before, is bloody stressful. It’s hard now back. It’s hard in our brain. It’s hard in our eyes and our hands. And we’ve got all these other organisations and associations out to get us. Or at least that’s how it would seem. And we’ve got no support, no cohesion, no collaboration. And then we cannibalise each other for what? For what? Ten grand? 15 grand. I mean, we know how much dentists are making, like what got to work for a month and on that back in most cases, you know, so to me, that scenario is really terrifying because if that’s if that’s the attitude that we have with each other, we’ve got a long way to go until we build collaboration. You know, it’s a very, very scary prospect to me.

Although I think, you know, with I don’t know who your audience are, but I’m expecting the younger dentists, right? There’s got to be some sort of balance as well to say that you are now hearing the worst of it. Right? You’re hearing the bad things. Yeah. And you know, we’ve we’ve got we’ve got to counterbalance everything we’re saying right now with there’s plenty of great practices and great relationships.

Of course.

Of course. You know, it’s important to keep saying that because. Because, you know, I’m sitting here juicily asking you, tell me some of the worst stories, you know, And then and then you’re telling me and it sounds awful. That said, I think a lot of it comes down to the professionalisation of of the business side, you know, just not it’s not professional. It’s not professionally run practices generally aren’t professionally run. I mean, I’ve interacted with thousands of practices. I’d say I had Chris Barrow on a couple of weeks ago. He was saying 20% are great and 80% aren’t. I’d say it’s slightly more than that. I’d say slightly, slightly more than that. It’s like a 5050 sort of split between practices that are at least going in the right direction and the ones who aren’t, you know. But so going forward, your practice, what’s it going to be? Is it like a private place?

Yeah, it’s fully private.

Yeah. I kind of just don’t want the hassle of the NHS for all the obvious reasons everybody’s aware of. But I think, you know, me owning a practice, I’m excited for it because I can’t wait to test my theories and I can’t wait to work out if I’m wrong or if I’m right because everybody’s like, Oh, it won’t be so easy when you’re on a practice. I’m like, I don’t expect it to be easy. I expect it to be a challenge. And I have no doubt that there will be certain things that I’ll be like, Ah, that’s why this was this, or that’s why. Or I’ll be bitten by an associate, perhaps, You know, I totally get it. And I think again, I know, I know the question was loaded at the extreme examples, but like I say, for me to zoom out again from Dental disruptors, this is about collaboration. And so, you know, I want to take those terrible, extreme, hopefully quite rare examples and say, look, this is what can go on, but there can be harmony and there can be great stories. You know, I’ve had I try and get people to share their positive stories on the group as well. When something good happens, you know, where they get their money back or the practice owner says, Oh, I’m really sorry about that. I didn’t realise. Here you go. You know, please forgive me. And it’s like, great, you know, just an honest mistake. It’s not always malicious.

I’d say most of the time it’s just poor communication. So for me, I’m a big believer in vision and values and purpose and goals. Like I’m all about elevated thinking and strategic thinking. That’s just what I really enjoy doing. So for me, my business is all going to be focussed around values. It’s going to be about having the right people who understand what we’re trying to do. And I know that it’s really hard to say these things because without sounding different, because everybody says, I just want to do it my way and I’ve got my way of doing dentistry and that’s fine. But, you know, there’s I kind of want an environment. I want to create the Dental practice environment that I wanted that I never found. And then I want to be able to give that to everybody else across the whole country in every dental practice, you know, almost like a franchise model of my own business to say, look, if you if you believe in these values, if you believe in operating in dentistry this way and perhaps you’re an associate and now you’re on a your own business, well, go and buy a business. And then the model is there if you want it to go and turn that business into, you know, this vision. So when I met my business coach, his business coach, he said to me, There’s two ways of spreading your vision. You can spread it like a.

Or you can spread it like a mirror and a candle would be, in this context, have one massive candle, one massive practice with a huge light that just shines across the whole country on multiple candles across the whole country. Or you could have a flagship candle and then you reflect the light off everybody else by turning everybody else into mirrors. So you just reflect your vision off everybody else. And that’s a much faster, much more efficient way of doing it. And that’s basically the ultimate the, I guess, the the strategic way of getting to that ultimate goal of creating a national collaboration between all clinicians and practice owners. Because ultimately we’re doing I’m doing this from a perspective of personal pain and to help the to help other to help the industry. But also I think sometimes we forget that it’s there for patients. These dentists who are suffering are these practices that don’t have dentists in the chairs. Patients are suffering as a result of this. So, you know, I think we have to also look look through that lens as well and say, well, this benefits all of us. Why? Why aren’t we honest and open with each other? Why aren’t we collaborating? Because we can all be better people, be better dentists, earn more money, serve our patients as best we can, elevate the industry and move forward as a as a true profession. But that’s that’s why it’s called a vision and not a reality.

So are you buying an existing practice or are you doing a squat?

Oh, I know squat.

Squat takes too long. I’m buying an existing one.

So then you’re going to you’re going to inherit staff from the previous guy. Correct. And, you know, my piece of advice on that is, you know, don’t don’t. It’s very exciting, isn’t it, When you when you’re buying a practice, you’ve got all these plans. Don’t go in bull in a China shop and start trying to change stuff. Yeah, definitely. Don’t do that. I’d wait six months before doing anything. You know, just. Just make sure. Make everyone comfortable. Patients and staff. Yeah. That nothing’s changed at all. Just. Just find out what’s going on. Who’s who, what’s what. And then the biggest mistake people make is they get excited and then go straight in and start trying to change everything. Although there is there is one model which is that smash it all down and start again. You know, build it, build it up again. But in most cases, I think you need to, you know, I buy my fruit and veg from this like very high end fruit and veg place opposite my my kids school in South Kensington in London, you know, and it got sold and all the guy did was move the till to the other side. He had the new guy. But I drew all sorts of what ifs from that. Yeah, that and for the first time understood what, you know, this advice I’ve been giving and people give this advice, right. Of what it really meant because that till moved and I started worrying about my fennel.

You know.

It’s it’s human, right? You think what else has changed, right? The tools changed. What else has changed here? And then, you know, eventually I figured it out. The fennel was still the fennel. But. But it’s something as simple as that. Yeah, something as simple as that. The question comes into people’s heads. Something’s changed. Yeah, And people don’t mind change. People want change as well. But small evolutionary change rather than revolutionary change.

Absolutely.

And I think I think have a there’s a great book I read called Principles by a guy called Ray Dalio, and he has this like business and he he’s a great guy. Honestly, the book is fantastic. And I’m a massive believer that my core value is honesty, right? So I’m a true believer that honesty is is the cornerstone of any relationship. So I think that a big thing for me, you know, whether I’m working with my nurse and I’m the quote unquote leader of that small team in that surgery, or whether it’s my own business, you know, I’m a big believer in that radical truth, radical transparency, you know, be open and honest, because then you can never, in my opinion, there’s never any issues of that. Me and my not so honest with each other all of the time. If there’s an issue, she tells me, if I find an issue, I tell her, obviously communicate it in a certain way. But I think that because of that, we get on so well. We have such a good connection, we’re so efficient and that kind of close relationship we have from a business perspective is beneficial to everybody. She enjoys working. I enjoy working. The patients come in. It’s not coming to see Alex, a dentist. It’s coming to see Alex and the nurse. I won’t name her because she probably won’t like that, but you know, it’s like we’re a team, we’re a unit, and the patients see that. And I think that it’s really important.

A big a big thing, just to basically echo what you’re saying is when I go in as to say, Hey, this is who we are, you know, this is our story. We really believe in this open and honest sort of stuff. Come and have a chat with us. Let’s find out. This is, you know, what we our vision, you know, our values and, you know, ultimately just be completely transparent with them from the beginning. And I think that, yeah, you don’t want to go rock the boat, right? When you’ve got a stable team, stable list, stable everything with a with owners that have been there for, you know, a number of years, it takes time to nurture those relationships. And if you start messing around with things, you’re going to you’re going to rub people the wrong way. And I don’t have the knowledge or the skills to know how to use an autoclave, you know, or I haven’t done a scale and polish for donkey’s years. If I annoy the hygienist, you know, so or recruiting somebody these days is a nightmare. So yeah, I think more so than ever, you know, just going in, keeping things as they are, you’ve got a business plan and you trickle it, you drip feed. You know, you don’t say, we’re not going to change anything, but you just there’s a way of communicating that. Right. And it has to be planned, has to be very carefully.

Although I would I would sort of caution that your relationship with your nurse is not the same as your relationship with your staff much as you want it. You think it will be. It’s you’re not paying your nurse’s salary. Yeah, it’s just not the same. I know exactly what you mean. You are a little leader as an associate. Yeah. You’re leading your patients, you’re leading your nurse, and so on. Yeah, but when you’re not the actual boss, it’s different, man. You know, it’s different now. I still think at Enlightened. I feel like I’ve got a very happy, honest relationship with my team as well. Yeah, I do think that. But I’ve got a business partner. Yeah. And you know, if any time I’m too sort of soft, he hardens. And there’s an element of when you’re paying someone’s salary. I mean, this this, you know, wage pressure. Wage pressure. Yeah. Oh, let’s all be open and honest. All right. Pay me more now. Yeah. In that moment. Yeah, in that moment. The happy situation of you and your nurse isn’t the same. It’s. It’s a, you know, it’s a different, different dynamic here, But, like, what you’re saying, I like what you’re saying. What you’re saying is lovely. All I’m saying is, you know, the associate nurse relationship really should be a very happy one unless there’s a there’s a culture clash between, you know, the individuals. But it’s slightly different when you can both moan at the boss, can’t you, when your associate. Absolutely. That’s sort of the pressure. Let’s get to the darker part of the podcast. I don’t know if you’ve ever listened to this podcast before, have you?

No, I haven’t, actually. My partner is thing you should listen. And I was like, you know, actually I looked at my car and I was like, Shit, I’ve got that podcast.

So disrespectful, so I apologise.

That’s all right. Of course. Of course. There’s a dark part to this podcast. It’s around. It’s around errors. Okay, so, so around the book, have you read Black Box Thinking?

No, I haven’t.

It’s about the black box. Thinking is about plane crashes. And it says, look, when a plane crashes, what they do is they they get all the information and they don’t want to blame any human, any individual. They want to they want to just make sure it never happens again. The thing never happens again. So they get all the information out and they put it out through the whole community and they get the lessons from it. And all the pilots and whatever the air traffic people, they all learn from that mistake. And hopefully that mistake never happens again. And then it actually it does segway into medical and it says in medicine, we tend to blame one person and blame is where it’s at. So what ends up happening is we end up hiding our mistakes as much as possible. And so what ends up happening is we don’t learn from each other’s mistakes enough. So in the spirit of going against that, we ask all our guests, What’s your biggest clinical mistake?

Biggest clinical.

Mistake.

I would say there’s probably two of equal weight in my head anyway. One was I injected, I did an ADB and I was partially through the injection. And the patient goes, Isn’t it the other side? And I thought, Oh, shit. And you know, there’s so many times you have a lot of near misses. I don’t know about you, but I’m terrible with my left and right. I said to the nurse, Oh, it’s upper right five. And then I say, Let’s have a composite for upper left five. And she’s like, upper left, right.

I’m like, it’s like a dyslexic.

It’s like a it’s like a dyslexic spectrum thing. It’s really.

Dangerous. It’s really dangerous. My notes are so haphazard. So that’s one. The other one is I nearly prepped and I was doing a veneer prep on one front tooth when I was in FD and I nearly prepped the wrong tooth and I fractured a file. I was trying to I found what I thought was MM2, the elusive MM2 that’s shrouded in mysticism. Right? And I was like, Oh, this is great. I’ve got patency, I’ve got a little file in there. Click. And I thought, Oh, that’s a really short canal. Look at the file, touch the tip. It’s blunt as hell. So there is a file in the palatal bone. So then I had to refer the patient for a specialist. Endo But that’s it, really. In my head, I don’t think I’ve really had too many blunders. I’ve probably had a lot of near-misses. But in terms of clinical mistakes, I think that’s probably those are kind of the worst things. I’m probably the worst. Endo Don’t come and see me for any endo.

Straight.

Canal and another one I’ll probably somehow perforate. It’s just not worth seeing me for an Endo.

The funny thing about Endo is it only takes one error like that for you to just say, That’s it, I’m out of endo, you know? Yeah. I’ve spoken to a couple of people on this board who cited an endo mistake and never went back to it after that.

I think especially when you leave the NHS, I mean, I’ve become I have definitely de-skilled an endo, you know, because I just refer everybody to a specialist because I’m like, Well, he’s going to charge £100 more. He’s down the road. I would say, I don’t know how many referrals I’ve made, probably well over 100 for malls and stuff. The amount of times this man finds an MTU is unbelievable, and I think I’ve probably found it twice in my life. So I think how many teeth have I not properly root filled? How many teeth are we Not all properly root filling. So for me, I’m like, Well, is it really in the best interests for me to do it, you know, for the patient? So I just have that conversation. I say, Look, I can, but you can go and see this guy for £100 more. That’s probably got a 90% better success rate than me. Take your pick.

Although, Alex, you know what happened to me once? I stopped practising for five years when we started Enlightened. And then I came back to it. And then the second time when I came back to it, I said, I’m. I’m going to refer out anything that there’s someone better than me to do. And guess what? Something wasn’t right when I was doing the bleaching your bonding. So you know what I mean. It’s a funny line, isn’t it? Because there’s always someone better than you.

Yeah, for sure.

But, Endo, you’ve drawn that line full adventures.

Full dentures are a dark art as well.

So I’m a.

Big believer in, um, I think it was maybe two years ago I kind of had this realisation of I used to be I used to chastise myself all the time, clinically speaking, right? So my composites aren’t good enough, my margins are crap, my dentures don’t fit, my ends are short. Whatever it is, I’d sit there and take photographs and compare myself to everybody and get into this really bad mindset. And I used to I did all the courses and tried to improve and there was some stuff I was just really crap at and had consistently bad experiences with really knocked my confidence. And I eventually kind of reached the conclusion that and are doing a lot of reading was that I shouldn’t bother trying to strengthen my weaknesses. I should focus on my strengths and outsource my weaknesses. And when I say weaknesses, I mean things I’m not good at or I don’t enjoy. I was putting myself through a lot of stress and a lot of hardship, trying to do things I just wasn’t good at, naturally speaking, like I’m not good at marketing, so I outsource that to somebody else. I’m not good at copywriting. I have all these crazy ideas, but I can’t capture them. In a beautiful statement. I just pay somebody else to do it because these are skills I don’t have. And like we were saying before, I think it’s admirable. I find any, to me, a specialist in any skill in any field of dentistry is impressive. To be good at every aspect of dentistry is more impressive because I think it’s so hard to be good enough in all the different fields of dentistry to be able to provide your patients with a good level of care. I think that is almost like a specialism of itself, you know, generalism. And so, you know, for me, that’s something that I’ve never been able to achieve. But equally, I don’t think there’s anything in dentistry I could say I would ever want to specialise in. You know, I like the variation of dentistry, but yeah.

Talking about mistakes, did you not have any management mistakes where the patient sort of lost confidence or.

Oh yeah, definitely. Yeah. I mean, it could be things like the LA just doesn’t work. So you know them up again and it doesn’t work and it doesn’t work and it doesn’t work. And you’re thinking, why is this not working? And then you get somebody else in or you can’t take a tooth out and you get somebody else in and then there’s a pop up on, you know, the desk and patient wants to see the dentist next time. And you’re like, okay, great.

You know.

But also conflicts of personality. You know, I think I’m a very extroverted person. I’m very chatty, and I’ve sometimes asked just general questions to patients and they just haven’t liked it. You know, I made and also making dentures for people. I used to make full dentures and just couldn’t get it right. And patients just say, Well, you know, I want to see somebody else now because you’ve been trying Alex for months. This is my third set. They’re still shit, you know. So yeah, definitely. I think that lack of confidence is something that is probably not uncommon, but I definitely think that that happens a lot less now. And it’s not because I’m a fantastic dentist. I think it’s because of how I communicate with patients and how if something goes wrong, I’ll manage it much better. I think you just learn as you get older, going through general life experiences, dealing with conflict with patients or anybody. I think you generally just get better at dealing with it and reading people and knowing where to draw the line, how to communicate. So it’s very, very rare now that I’ll have a patient that doesn’t want to see me. It’s a hell of a lot more common. I’ve got a patient that I don’t want to see. You know, I’m desperately hoping that they’re going to go and see somebody else.

I think being chatty is actually is super useful in private dentistry. You know, it may be the difference between a private dentist and an NHS dentist. Right. That you got time to talk, you know, But I hear what you’re saying. I mean, they say after a while you just end up attracting the kind of patient who likes you, you know, that’s the the way it ends up happening. But also, you know, the thing that worried me about your moving around so much was, you know, you must have heard this thing about, you know, seeing your own failures. You do need to be somewhere long enough to see your own failures as well.

Well, you’ll be glad to hear that in August this year. I’ve been at this practice for three years.

Wow. No, literally impressive. So I’ve seen.

I’ve seen my plethora of zirconia onlays fail spectacularly.

And now remains.

At least the other works lasting three years.

Exactly. Yeah.

I have no idea how my work added in my three month practice lasted.

What’s your favourite bit of dentistry?

Oh, I don’t want to be predictable and say the relationship with the patient. I think I’m going to stay away from that. And I’m going to say the relationship with the team, I’m I get so much pleasure and so much enjoyment out of being in an environment where people get on and they chat and it’s just light hearted and easy going. And I think that having that type of.

Mm.

See, I’ll be honest to you, this is a weakness of mine. And this is something that I think I’m personally going to really struggle with in general practice is I’m far too friendly. And I don’t mean that in a flattering way. I mean overly friendly. Right? And I’m far too open. I say things I shouldn’t say. I have conversations that would not be the most professional in the eyes of the GDC, right? With sometimes with patients. Right. And sometimes with with members of the team. And I think that having that boundary between I am a dentist slash leader or business owner versus you are somebody I work with, who I enjoy, who I like as a friend who I might go out for drinks with, but I also pay your wages or but we’ve still got to have a professional relationship is a really difficult line to tread. And for me personally, you know, me and my partner have had so many conversations about this. She’s always telling me off for conversations I’m having at work. And she’s right because I do put myself at risk. And I think that that is a weakness I never thought would be a problem. I guess I never thought that aspect of my personality would be a problem.

And so I am worried about how I’m going to navigate that when I own a business, how I’m going to separate that relationship, because I have to be very careful what I say. Let me say the practices where I’ve worked, I’ve known situations where the practice owner has tried to be like really friendly and pally and maybe have like sexual banter, for example, with the girls in one breath and then tell them off instantly in the same afternoon because they didn’t put something through the autoclave properly. And the nurses are like, You can’t have it both ways. You can’t be the boss and tell me how to do things, but then also have these conversations with us. And I think that there is lots of leadership styles that exist. And my experience is that most people tend to have quite an autocratic leadership style in dentistry. But my leadership style, the kind of friendly I’m your pal, first boss, second sort of thing is, is I need to rein that in. And that’s something that, you know, I’m working on and I think that yeah, that’s a it’s a really it’s a really interesting dilemma and I’m not sure how to navigate that at the moment.

I’m in a similar situation, man. I’m in a similar situation. But the way it’s going to have to end up being with you is that you’re going to be the good cop and your partner is going to be the bad cop. That’s the the because, you know, like going along the same lines as your work on your strength thing. You know, you’ll end up being the kind of guy that if you’re looking out for that all day, you’ll lose an element of yourself. You know, you’ll lose the best part of you as well as the worst part of you. But whether it’s your partner or a manager who handles that, the terrible thing about business is sometimes you have to lose people. You know, and when it comes to firing someone, suddenly all this stuff can come out that you need to look out for, that you do need to look out for. Yeah.

I mean, I’ve read.

A lot of reports where, you know, nurses have made various accusations three years down the line, you know, where Report eventually gets, you know, in the air. And then people say, oh, well, he said this, he touched my bum. He followed me into the toilet. He said, sexy. He said he you know.

That happened.

I’m sure you’ve read a lot of the reports, some of the things people say. I think, God, you know, part of me chuckles, part of me is terrified. And part of me is going, you know, I need to be careful because you just don’t know who is your friend slash employee now and who could be your arch nemesis. You have screenshots in WhatsApp group chats where you’ve been slagging somebody off. You have to be so careful.

Yeah. And you know, it goes along with that. When I said before we were talking about professionalisation, yeah, you know, at the end of the day this is professionalisation too, right? So yeah, be careful. Be careful with what you say.

Absolutely. Yeah.

But, you know, it’s a new challenge and it’s something I’m always one for, for challenges. And I like to push myself and it’s something that I know I’m going to struggle with and I know I’m going to make a mistake. And I think that for me, I’m happy to accept that. I’m not scared of making a mistake. I know I will. But I think it’s how I deal with that is what I consider to be more important than the mistake itself. You know, my partner saying, well, what if this happens? What if this happens? What if you say this or act this way? And then somebody and I say, Well, I can’t control it and I don’t want to be a miserable person. I don’t want to take over a practice like you say, lose the best part of me, which is, yeah, a bit playful, a bit immature, a bit inappropriate, a bit crude, you know. But yeah. Is that. Is that perfect? No, of course it’s not perfect, but I almost feel like I don’t think I could live a life as a practice owner where I don’t take risk. If that was the case where I wasn’t allowed to take risk, I wouldn’t want to be a practice owner or I would just be a silent partner and I would just manage the business and never work in it and they’d never see me. Alex Who you know, but I enjoy people. I enjoy that.

Relationship.

Yeah, but it’s a bit like, you know, that thing they say about patients who, like you, don’t sue you. It’s a bit like that. Yeah. If. If people can see your basic principles are correct, you’ll never end up in this problematic zone. And I feel like as an employee, you will be that guy. I’m looking forward to like, you know, you coming back in a year’s time and saying, Shit, man. It was. It’s a much harder job than I thought, being a principal and all this stuff I used to say about associates, you know, there will be things like that, right? There’ll be, they’ll be there’ll be a whole lot of costs you never knew about, you know, things breaking down and just stuff. Right? And you see it all the time. You see people go from associate to principal and suddenly they wake up to what it is to be a principal. So I’m looking forward to seeing what those things are for. For a guy like you. Yeah.

Me too.

And I look forward to, you know, like I say, a big part of it is then sharing that side of the story. Right. With the social. Yeah. Yeah. Because then I’ve got a balanced view. Then I can say, Hey, I had all these problems as an associate. I’ve got all these problems as a practice owner, you know, you guys know me, you trust me, You know what I’m like, I’m never going to change. I am who I am. And now I can tell you what it’s like from I don’t see the other side of the fence because again, it instils this attitude of a divide.

But us and them. Yeah, I.

Think I think that, you know, it’s important for me to understand both sides because that’s how I’m going to then build that system that promotes that collaboration. I can’t build it on one side. I have to build it from both sides. So, you know, buying a practice gives me a lot of personal pleasure and will give me a lot of financial freedom. I hope everything but more importantly, it’s going to it factors in in a big way to my bigger vision. So it’s like multifaceted and, you know, ultimately I’d like to maybe drop my clinical days too, too so that I can focus more on Dental disruptors and on this vision. You know, I don’t want to I don’t think I want to leave clinical completely, at least not not now. But I, I definitely want to have more time to focus on Dental disruptors and also just my life. You know, it’s, you know, what it’s like owning or running a business. It’s very time consuming. And even though the business is small, it’s so time consuming. You know, I’m always on phone calls with people or zoom meetings or making connections or, you know, today I spent all day doing the legal course, you know, just all day in front of a computer screen. And and it takes its toll. And then now, like we’re having a podcast and then tomorrow I’ve got a meeting and then Wednesday I’ve got a podcast and Thursday I’ve got a podcast and then I’m on holiday and it’s like, you just don’t have any time. My partner’s like, Well, who are you? You know? And I think that’s another thing. I mean, the whole mental health wellbeing. Is a is a huge conversation. But I think that know finding the time is really, really important. And I think that’s a key. A key goal for me is making sure that I’m limiting the number of clinical hours that I do. I know where that sweet spot is for me now, where I’m happy I can do four days a week, not five. Any more than that. No, I’m not doing any more than that.

83 days is perfect, you know.

Yeah.

I’ve done all of it. I’ve done one, two, three, four and five. I’ve never done six. But 2 or 3 to me makes makes a lot of sense. Three if it’s your main job, two if it’s kind of like a side job, you know?

Yeah, yeah.

I think I want to because my view is two days clinical in the business. One day on the business, one day on Dental disruptors. That’s kind of my thing. And then one day off a week. But I know it won’t be like that. I’ll end up working, but I’d like to think that I would have a day off. A week?

Yeah. I mean.

The thing is, dude, at the beginning, you’re going to. You’re going to be so overwhelmed that you’ll be working seven days a week at the beginning because it’s so much new stuff. And then then you start making changes again. A lot of new stuff. So, so, so I’d give it a five years before any of this is going to happen. I know five years sounds like a long time to you, but it isn’t. It just flies by. But yeah, I like the long term kind of thinking of it. And Dental disruptors. It’s been a it’s been a brilliant start, right? It’s been a brilliant start. Don’t worry, man. As long as people are engaged with it, it will be fine and people are already engaged with it. So, you know, Well done. Well done for for doing that. Thank you. Let’s finish with this. Give me a couple of things that you wish associates knew that most don’t. And a couple of things that you wish principals knew about, associates that most.

Um.

I think if I could highlight to people the importance of having a contract that they understand and that they agree to. I think that would go a long way because if you don’t agree to these dodgy terms, you’re not going to land yourself in sticky situations, so you’re much less likely to write. It’s all about prevention, isn’t it? It’s all about prevention. The second thing, although really this should probably be first, is I think that we need to understand ourselves more. You know, when you say the same thing so many times, you end up like making your own phrase. I feel like I’ve said this so much. My genuine belief is that we, all of us, every single human being, must understand their own internal world first before they can understand the external world. And what I mean by that is you need to understand your vision, your values, your goals. You need to know who you are as a person, what you care about, where you want your life to be, how are you going to get there? What are the steps? What’s the strategy? Once you know that now you can start using that information as a filter to understand your external world And in the context of Dental disruptors, once you know what you care about and what you need as a dentist, you can start finding a practice that aligns with that.

What I did was go and find a practice that I thought was aligned with me, and I didn’t really run it by a filter because I didn’t take the time to understand myself. Right? So once I did that, if I’d have done that process three years ago, I would have known that practice ownership was the only option for me three years ago. But I didn’t know that because I didn’t give myself the chance to do that. So I think, you know, whilst at the moment working on a legal course, you know, we’ve got I’m looking at my little wall full of bits of paper now, you know, we’ve got, we’ve got to finding the right practice course on there as well. And I think that that’s going to be more about this sort of stuff. It’s going to be more, I guess you could call it the fluff or the woo. But the bit that I think is the cornerstone of understanding who we are.

And Alex, let’s let’s say let’s.

Say you think about that and you come out with, look, I want to be in a practice which is, I don’t know, caring and considerate and respectful of each other, respectful of our patients, and has the latest equipment and X and Y and Z. How do we know? I mean, you go for an interview. How do you know that that’s what you’re getting?

Yeah, massive.

Question. It’s a massive question. And this is ultimately the biggest single dilemma that Dental disruptors is going to help achieve. So so to answer your question, we don’t know. But all we can do is do as much due diligence as possible to mitigate that risk. So there’s loads of things you could do. I mean, the interview is probably the biggest thing. When I got an interview, I literally don’t care about the practice at that stage. I want to go back for a second viewing of the practice. That interview is about getting to know the person. I did the same thing when I was viewing practices. I said to the seller, I said to the agent, I don’t want to see the business. I want to see the person. I want to go out for a coffee. I want to go out for lunch, and then I’ll come back and we’ll look at the practice. I don’t want to be distracted by the noise. Let me get to know you, what you care about, what you resonate with, why you’re selling your practice. And then we can take it from there. If we connect on that level, then I’m more interested in your business. That’s my priority anyway. So I would say that that we need to do our due diligence and understanding the person and understanding what they care about because I believe that the practice owner, their vision, their values ultimately just gets projected on the business in terms of the team, the systems, the processes, the culture, everything else pretty much.

So you need to know that person and if you don’t get on with the person, nothing else matters. Nothing else matters. The contract doesn’t matter, the scanner doesn’t matter. The licence fee split doesn’t matter. It’s all irrelevant. So I think that. But, but again, you need to understand yourself first to know what you actually care about and what you want and what you value in a person to understand that. Now it’s again, to sort of zoom out and look at the bigger picture. You know, the idea here is that Dental disruptors with the sister practice owner group, you know, we will be creating a values based assessment that says, I’m an associate who believes in these values. I’m a practice owner that believes in these values, you know, and with some degree of assessment or accreditation or whatever you want to call it, too. So it’s not just people arbitrarily agreeing. Then you can start aligning people and then the system can do the due diligence and the system can reduce that risk as much as possible. But people will always be people. People will cheat the system, people will lie, People will get it wrong. People, you know, will make mistakes. And and I think it’s really important to know that it’s never perfect.

People will lie to themselves, right?

Absolutely. Absolutely. And people people are not perfect and there’s no perfect practice. Everything is about compromise. Finding the right practice is a negotiation. A negotiation is about not having a fixed position. It’s about being willing to compromise on certain things. We all have our non-negotiables, things that there’s no chance we’re budging on. Right? But a lot of this stuff is kind of up for up for negotiation. And so, again, we need to think about what really do we care about that we that are non-negotiables for us and capture that in a conversation with somebody so that you’re clear and open and honest and communicating from the start. When I went to the practice interview where I am now, I had my CV, I wrote a covering letter, and one of the first conversations I said was, Look, there’s going to address the elephant in the room. I’ve had a thousand practice. Says. Right. And you’re sat there thinking, you know, Alex is the common factor. I will talk you through every single practice and all the reasons why I’ve left. If you want me to, here’s who I am, here’s what I care about. Here’s what I need. Here’s what I want. Can you give me that? If you can. What do you want in return? And if I can give you that, let’s go. But if we can’t, then we just walk away. And it’s no hard feelings. And I think that being open and honest about what you need as an associate is really important. Give me some.

Examples. What is it that you need?

Alex I think that maybe not so much now, but I would say most people need support. People say support, right? And that is such a washy term. I think we need to be more specific about what we need. You know, I need a dedicated nurse. I need the same nurse every day. I do not want a different nurse every day of the week or on a two monthly or three monthly rota. I just don’t want that. It does not work for me, you know, I want complete freedom of materials, equipment, labs. I’m happy to buy my own kit. That’s not a problem. I want complete freedom of my diary. I want to be able to book when I want, where I want, however long I want for whatever treatments, Right? These are the sorts of freedoms that I want because those are the things that make me happy. Those are the things that make me the best dentist, which is ultimately going to benefit your business. And I think this is the key thing is to communicate to people in a negotiation what is the benefit for them If I do everything I want, you don’t care what I want, You care what’s in it for you. So I have to make it clear to people that the reason why I want these things is because I can serve my patients to the best of my ability, be more productive, earn more money, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I think that when we start having those types of conversations, we start to get good outcomes and we reduce risk. It’s when we don’t have communication, when we’re not honest, when we don’t understand the practice or the owner or the contract, that’s when you’re going to run into problems. You need to have that clarity at the very beginning before you can make any progress.

And where do you draw the line on what bit of kit you’re buying and what bit of kit they’ll have to supply?

I think it just depends really. So I’m personally I’m not that fussed about buying my own kit. I know some people are like, Oh my God, the practice has to buy everything. I think if it’s, say, for example, if the practice has already got Venus and I want Empress, I would expect to have to pay Empress. I wouldn’t expect the practice to pay for that if that was my choice because I loved it. I wouldn’t expect the practice to pay for that. I would ask. I’d negotiate. Okay, well, why don’t you buy the first kit, the first batch? And if I haven’t used it all and it goes out of date, I’ll cover the full price or whatever, you know, because that’s a worry for a lot of practice owners to buy all this kit. It never gets used. But if it’s something relatively cheap or relatively insignificant or something that I use regularly that you know is going to make a big difference, like, you know, rubber dam clamps, I have a very specific set of rubber dam clamps and, you know, the practice bought them and they bought me some other, you know, I went on Sunny’s course the greater curve, you know, fantastic. And they bought the matrices. I mean it was it was like, you know, £100. It wasn’t much, but the practice doesn’t have to. And I think that’s really important for associates to know that the practice doesn’t have to buy this stuff. They’ve got what they’ve got. And if you want to bring your own stuff, you bring your own stuff.

Yeah, because it breaks down. You know, we do a composite course here and there’s materials on that composite course. And when I look at delegates, it does break down sort of 50, 50, half half of them are ready and willing. I’m talking about associates ready and willing to buy. And then there’s the other half who they expect their boss to buy. And it’s interesting, when I was an associate, I used to buy stuff as well. Insomuch as I see a lot of times being an associate is as much about education as it is about earning, right?

Yeah.

You know, you have to you have to think about that if you plan to. I mean, I was never a principal, Right? But but if you plan to be a principal, one way to think about it is the whole of your associate years. How many years that is, is training for becoming a principal. Although one of the reasons why I was really attracted to your group was because there are people, people. My wife will never be a principal. She’s a dentist. She’ll never be a principal. She doesn’t want to be a principal. She wants to be an associate. So there are people who never become principals at quite a large number of people. And so if if associates are going to be, you know, shat on the whole time because one day you will be the one doing that, you know, some people never get to that point of of owning a practice. You know, it’s been lovely having you, man. So I’m going to finish it with our usual two final questions. Number one. Fantasy dinner party. Three guests, dead or alive? He going to have.

To think about this? My initial gut feeling was to. Go of the think of it more on the business road like, you know, business wise, career wise. But then I thought, no, actually, if this is my fantasy dinner party, I want it to be people, actually, you know? Yeah. So I’ve got three. I’ve got Stephen Fry. Stephen Fry is my celebrity man crush. He has the he’s so intelligent. It’s unbelievable. And I’m so amazed by his intelligence. I love his story. He’s had such a colourful life, and I love how passionate he is about language. I think language is really, really important. It really betrays our mindset about things and our behaviour, our attitude. So yeah. Stephen Fry Fantastic man.

Like him.

Number two. Robin Williams. Absolutely. Mental, Crazy, hilarious. I just love his wild, wacky sense of humour. Just runs a hundred miles an hour all the time. Can’t keep up with him. He’s just brilliant, you know? You know? Bless him, you know, Fantastic guy. And you know, Aladdin was one of my favourite Disney films growing up as a kid and him voicing the Genie was just amazing. Absolutely amazing. So yeah, definitely have Robin Williams.

There although.

Although Committed suicide, right?

Yeah he did yeah he when he found out he had it was Lewy body. He hung himself I think.

I.

Think he had you know like for me this Anthony Bourdain. You know him? Sorry. Tony Bourdain. Tony Bourdain.

Oh, no, no.

So my hero, my absolute hero committed suicide a couple of years ago. And it’s a weird thing, isn’t it, that someone you look up to, you think is the luckiest person in the world? And it’s actually quite sad.

Yeah.

I mean, I was going to pick Chester from Linkin Park, you know, because I grew up with Linkin Park. I absolutely loved the music. And again, you know, you think to yourself, he’s a fantastic singer. He’s a good looking guy. He must be absolutely minted. And he killed himself. And you think Jesus. And then you go back and listen to the music and you think, God, how did I not really listen? I heard I didn’t listen. It’s kind of scary. The last guest I’d have is Ronnie James Dio, one of my favourite singers of all time. I don’t know if you’re into heavy metal or your or your rock music, but no. Ronnie James.

Which band was.

He in?

Quite a number. He was in. He sang in Rainbow. He sang in Black Sabbath. He sang in his own band. He was the guy that invented the kind of heavy metal, you know, the horns thing. Just a fantastic guy, really nice bloke, down to earth, you know, for kind of like a rock and roll sort of star. He he wasn’t really the sort of person that was, you know, really into all the drugs and the women. He was just like a normal guy. That was just a fantastic singer, really enjoyed music, really passionate and love music. So to me, yeah, I’d definitely have Ronnie there. Good luck.

Amazing. Amazing. And the final, final question.

It’s a bit weird.

At your age. Deathbed. Surrounded by your friends and family, everyone who is dear to you. Three pieces of advice you’d give them.

And the world had to write these down because I had to think so. I’m going to look off screen to read them. So the first one is. I cannot touch on this. Not that long ago. We all I’m an unbelievably strong believer that we all need to have a very, very, very clear purpose for our lives and our purpose being broken down into our vision, our values and our goals. And I think that we all need to understand that. We need to understand ourselves, have a direction for our lives. Without that, you’re just heading in any given direction, with no frame of reference as to whether you’re achieving your goals, what you’re doing, why you’re doing it. You literally have no purpose and you’ll be unhappy no matter how much of whatever it is you’ve got that you’ve got. See it a lot with people who are unhappy and they don’t know why, and it’s because they haven’t got a purpose for their life. They’re just going through the motions, accumulating things they don’t need. So I think that’s definitely top of the list. Second is to understand it’s kind of similar really, but to understand who you are first and to go through that first process.

And learn how to control that. So I think it’s all well and good understanding who you are, but I think you need to be able to control that and improve that. So I have my weaknesses. You know, I’ve had a therapist, I’ve had mindfulness coaches, I’ve got my business coach. And there’s so much about those individuals that and I also put a pet, a personal trainer, in the same realm as these individuals who take you through a journey from where you are now to where you want to be, who have done it before, who can help you and reduce the risk, reduce the time, reduce the stress of improving yourself. And I think that doing that process and harnessing who you are and controlling who you are will make you so much better at then assessing the external world and then controlling the external world and things around you. And I don’t think there’s anything that you couldn’t do. If you can do that. I genuinely like the concept of the impossible, I think is just a challenge to me. And that’s only because I just strongly believe that there’s nothing that we can’t do once you understand yourself enough.

Um. Like that.

Like that. Do you think we’re over the sort of the stigma of talking about mental health?

Yeah, I think so. I mean, I still think that there’s I think on a surface level, we are I think the deeper stuff we’re not. So, you know, in Rachel’s podcast, she spoke about, as you would have heard, she reached this corner every time she was in a car on the way to work and wanted to crash a car. You know, one of my mates nearly died because he had a massive breakdown, like a, um, like a bipolar breakdown, but on the manic end. And he didn’t remember anything. And he ended up getting sectioned. And he he did something before that happened that nearly killed him that he doesn’t remember. And stories like that that are like really hard hitting that I think are very severe, that are very strong manifestations of a mind that really is struggling. I don’t think we’re comfortable talking about that.

It’s it’s funny timing because we’re doing a little mini series called Mind Movers. It’s coming out next. After this After this episode, we’ll be in we’ll be the first mind movers that we’ve done. And the question with that was we’re all good to talk about it now. But is it is you know, what are the conversations good for? Are they are they are they good for just sharing or is there some something somewhere that it can go from from that? You know, and it’s it’s I’ve done it with non dentists with Romanesque and and non dentists to start with. But your generation seems to suffer more with mental health questions. Is it that or is it that you guys talk about it more. I’ve never really figured it out.

Good question. I think there’s probably a generational element of stiff upper lip. You know, don’t talk about it. You know, for example, you know, if I was ever feeling whatever depression technically feels like to me, I would never tell my parents and my partner would never tell her parents because it would just be swept under the carpet or, you know, get a grip of yourself, you know, grow up.

And the Yorkshire people. Yeah, yeah. You know.

But yeah, so there’s, there’s definitely an element of that, I think a generational mindset. I think there’s an awareness issue, an education issue, and I think that people are generally more sensitive. Like I’m pretty thick skinned as far as people go and I’m 31 and I some, you know, for example, you’ll know when you get the trainees in. Yeah, they cry at random stuff. And I’m like, Oh my God. Like, I only said something really innocuous and it upset them. And I think that people are generally more fragile and there’s probably many reasons for that. But for me, the burning issue is social media. I think people are so insecure for a whole host of reasons because of social media in terms of their looks or their money or their success or how good their composite veneers are, you know, whatever it is. And I think that people are generally way more susceptible to it.

But, you know, social media is social media. It’s not going anywhere. It’s it’s only going to get more it’s not going to get less. I thought maybe it had to do with, you know, I don’t know about your actually probably in your time as well. You had to be like top of your class three A’s at A-level to get into dentistry. And the sort of perfectionist types are getting in now. In my day, it wasn’t that. It was like it was like BC was, it was what you needed to get into dentistry, right? And so we were failures to start with, didn’t have to have to stress about being failures afterwards. I don’t know. So All right, let’s get on to your third piece. We didn’t have your third piece of advice.

So the third piece was just work smarter, not harder. And I think I know a lot of people who have quote unquote, successful, who have, you know, who I admire, who are really good people. But, you know, they talk about the hours they work and the graph they put in as like a kind of metric of their success or their commitment or their effort. And I just think. But you don’t. A badge.

Of honour. Yeah.

And it’s almost like. But the number of hours you work doesn’t impress me. In fact, if you achieved if you achieved less but, but work just, you know, half the hours I’d be more impressed. You know, everything is about leveraging. Everything is about outsourcing. Everything is about scheduling and goal setting and prioritisation of tasks. It’s all really boring shit. I bet this is probably the three most boring fucking answers you’ve had.

On this podcast. No.

Honestly, because that talk to people about this to kind of glaze over. But I’m like, this is literally like to me, going through that process, it’s the most important thing. It’s not sexy, it’s not glamorous, and it’s definitely not easy and it’s not taught in any way in any education system. But I think that you have to get these fundamental things right. And if you do, then perfect. So I definitely, definitely am a strong believer in working smarter, not harder. And and I achieve more and I’m happy with what I achieve and I, you know, manage.

Alex When did.

You become when did you become this sort of go getter? Kind of. Self improvement? Sort of. Kind of. When did you become that? Were you always that or did did did a switch flip when you failed your finals or something?

You know, I’ve kind of thought about this in the past, and the only thing I can think of is when I was a kid, me and my best mate, a guy called Ryan when I used to go and visit him when I was like a teenager, I’d stay at his house and we’d always crash in the same bed and we’d just stay up at night chatting just about anything. And as we got older, we’d chat more about things like relationships and what makes us happy and about our attitudes to money and about understanding people. And I think we were both just completely open and honest about all of our flaws and insecurities and weaknesses. And we kind of learned. I think I genuinely learned some skills then without realising about about understanding me, myself and understanding other people and finding ways to communicate. And and I think that probably from from a sort of late teenager, I probably started to do that without realising and then when I had some issues in my fourth year, I had a big like relationship breakdown with my mum and that threw me into therapy for a while and that was my first experience of therapy, you know, And I think since I was a kid when my parents divorced, that had a massive knock on effect.

So I explored a lot of that in that therapy session. I was like, Holy shit. I actually found it fascinating to learn about myself from somebody else that knew nothing about me, really. You know, she really made me just look in the mirror and she she said to me, I’ve got a massive guilt complex, for example. And she said to me, You know, Alex, what does guilt feel like to you? And I was like, Huh? And I was talking and talking and talking. And then she gave me a piece of paper and she wrote everything down that I’d said. And I read it and I thought, Holy shit, this emotion is dominating who I am, you know? And I’m not a very mindful person. I’m not an in the moment person. My mind is always drifting. I’m operating at 100 miles an hour. I struggle with giving myself permission to do things, to relax, to switch off. I always feel like if I should be working all of the time and these are all things that have come out over the years of speaking to people, whether it’s professionals or friends or just a lot of self-reflection.

How old were.

You when they split up?

I was eight.

So is there an element of, you know, people say of people feel like if you don’t make make something for yourself, it’s not going to come, you know, like independence came to you at that point where you felt like your world had fallen apart and that it was up to you.

Something like that? No, not.

Really. No, I wouldn’t say I felt that. I think I was.

So the guilt you felt guilty for their Break-Up, Is that what you’re saying?

Yeah, essentially. So there was a lot of without without this becoming a therapy session. There was a lot of. There was a lot of lies and poison and venom that was given to me from one side about the other side. And so eight year old me, all eight year old me wanted to do was know the truth. I just wanted to know what happened. And all I got was toxic, toxic and and comments and stories that really just started to cloud my judgement about both of my parents. And in the end, five years later, after loads of conflict between them, I eventually realised I actually don’t give a shit and I don’t care. You guys sort it out, do not dare get me involved in it anymore. And I just basically put it to rest when I was 13 and ever since then I’ve just I just said to them, I don’t want to know. I don’t know. But it definitely wasn’t the kind of, Oh, it’s me against the world and I’ve got much to prove. I never really felt that. I kind of just I always felt a degree of jealousy for other families that appeared normal, you know? But as you get older, you realise all families are screwed up. But, you know, as a kid, you think to yourself, Why can’t my family read together? Why can’t my family get on? Why can’t my family go around to other family members for Sunday dinners, you know, or whatever it is? And I think I carried that.

But the guilt was, yeah, there was a lot of kind of emotional blackmail. There was a lot of, you know, buying gifts for favours of love. And so things had connotations. So I went through a number of years not accepting gifts from people, you know, get you a drink. I’d be like, No, you do not get me a drink. I get myself a drink and I’ll get you one. But you don’t get me one because in my head there was a negative connotation associated with the gift. So yeah, there was loads of shit, man. Loads of shit to unpack with a therapist. And yeah. So I definitely think that I never became that person. I don’t think there’s a single event. I think it’s just happened. And then my business coach, who’s all into flow and high performance, he’s really just turbocharged that aspect of my development really. And I love it. I love it, and I could probably talk about it all day because I think it’s made such a difference to me and the people around me. But also I think it can genuinely make a difference to every human being on the planet if you just take the time to learn and understand and love yourself and accept yourself.

Yeah, I think the comparison you do with personal trainer at the gym, it’s very true, isn’t it? I mean, why can’t you have a personal trainer in business? A personal trainer mentally? And it’s really lovely to see. Lovely to see you. You seem like you’re together now. And I know you can never tell. Right. But what’s really going on? I thought Anthony Bourdain was together. He’s. But you know, it’s nice to see that you’re making moves and doing stuff. It’s nice to see that, man. I was half expecting you to say you’re going to go down this Dental disruptors line and never open a practice. And it’s kind of it’s kind of nice to hear you’re opening a practice and how good you feel about that. It’s been a real pleasure to have you on, buddy. A real pleasure. And I watch your progress with with interest because it’s been a brilliant start. And I’ve spent the last couple of weeks sort of watching every video you’ve done.

Oh, really?

Yeah, it’s quite good. You contradict yourself a few times, but. But actually, it’s beautiful. It’s beautiful. It’s the content’s good and you really believe in it. And I love that. I love the authenticity of that.

Well, thank you.

It’s been a real pleasure having you, man.

Now, thanks so much for your time. You know, it’s been lovely speaking to you. And obviously, you know, I’d never, never really heard of I’d heard Dental podcast, but I didn’t know who the people were that were doing it, you know? So you’ve been a lovely host. I appreciate, you know, I’ve had a good chat and yeah, I think we’ve unpacked a lot of stuff. I think we’ve put a lot of put the world to right in a lot of ways. And, and I hope that, you know, whoever listens gets value out of what we’ve been talking about and connects to things and resonates. And you know, for anybody listening who, you know, practice owners or associates, reach out, happy to chat, you know, obviously people are always welcome in the group and that yeah, listen to the podcast, go on the website, see what see what we’re doing. Because, you know, this is a it’s a fledgling thing. It’s all not for profit. So this is not about lining my pockets. You know, every penny is reinvested back into what we’re doing. So, you know, I like to think it’s a good cause. And, you know, we’re trying really hard. So thanks for giving me the opportunity to share on your platform.

Yeah. So Dental disruptors on all platforms, right?

Yeah, I believe so. Yeah. As far as I’ve tried to connect it. Yeah.

Perfect, man. Thank you very much, buddy.

All right. Cheers. Take care. Payman.

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

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We still do live in a world that’s obsessed with image and obsessed with looks. And I think that can be really unhealthy for every single one of us. And I genuinely believe that I didn’t belong in this world, and I hated everybody in it. My friends, I was so jealous that everybody just had these beautiful faces and I had this face. And I hated that before I stopped looking in the mirror When I did look in the mirror. I would push my eyes up to try and make it look like everybody else. And I thought, muscle memory will kick in. And if eventually if I just hold it like that, something would change. Bit of a difficult question. If you could now push a.

Button and change your face, would you?

Hello everyone, and welcome back to another episode regarding mental health. Today I am so excited to bring on somebody that was an absolute honour and privilege to meet someone I consider to be a friend now, and I think that he’s really going to inspire you. We’ve got Jono. Jono was actually born with a condition called Treacher Collins syndrome, which affects the bones and joints of the face as well as the muscles. Is that correct? That’s correct. And he has a really amazing journey because he was actually abandoned by his parents, his biological parents from a young age, but has gone on to do some incredible things. And particularly his self-love journey has been so inspiring to me. So I’m not going to go too much into an introduction because I feel like Jono could do it even better. And thank you so much for being here today with us Jono.

Now thank you for inviting me and I’m excited. Excited is the wrong word. I’m looking forward to getting stuck into this subject because it is such. As it’s a subject that affects us all. Yeah, even we might not feel it right now. There is definitely a high chance it will affect you. So. Yeah.

Perfect. Thank you so much. I did ask Johno earlier how his journey was into London, and he reminded me that he actually spent time in London as a child because he was doing being treated in Great Ormond Street. Was that right? Yeah.

Great Ormond Street.

Yeah. So, John, let’s start from the very beginning. I think it’s important the audience know your story in your own words. You know the condition that you have, your experience with your biological parents and you know where it led you later on.

So whilst we’re talking about mental health and wellness, I am now very aware when it comes to explaining my situation or sharing my story, how important the language I use is to my health and well-being and my happiness. So when I talk about so I was born with Treacher Collins and there was no family history of Treacher Collins. I was a sporadic mutation. So when I was born, it was a shock to my birth family. They felt it was best to go our separate ways. And I have no idea what they felt, what they went through. I just know that they gave me life and this is me explaining my situation, my story, my start. Today when I was in dark places, I would use the word abandoned, rejected, and but now I try and move on from that because that’s, like I said, healthier for me. And so I was in hospital and the health professionals were unsure whether I’d be able to walk or talk or how I’d develop, how I’d be developing mentally. And they introduced me to a lady, a foster carer called Jean, and not even five foot, this tiny, incredible superhero in a 40s. Single mum lived in a council house. Her own children had grown up and moved on and she just had so much love to give. So she gave it to children that needed it and I needed that love.

And she’s always told me that she met me when I was two weeks old and the health professionals and the social workers were like, Jean, you need to be prepared for the way he looks. He looks different. And Jean, not even been five foot that just went straight over her head, but especially words like that. And she was just excited. She just loved babies. And she always told me when she first saw me, she couldn’t help but smile. When she first had the opportunity to hold me, she felt an instant connection and instant love and was like, When can I take him home? She fostered me for five years, tried to reconnect me with my birth parents. That didn’t work out and she adopted me when I was five on the 18th of May 1990, and she gave me this beautiful foundation. She gave me a second chance of having a home, a family, and that consistency of that was just huge for my upbringing. And she always told me I was beautiful and always told me I was special. But through my teenage years especially, I lost that. And I developed this hate for my appearance that just spreaded throughout my entire life. And I was just consumed with darkness.

That’s such a beautiful story. And I think one of the things that really stands out for me is the word connection and where she felt really connected to you. And I think that connection is one of the most important things in life. I remember that I was listening to a Ted Talk by Brene Brown. I don’t know if either one of you have heard of her and she’s an amazing woman and she says that connection is the one thing that basically is the most important thing in a community, and it is one of the sources of happiness. And the problem is actually with today and the issues of mental health is the lack of connection. And that’s the problem that people feel. And I always say that you need to work really hard on trying to feel a connection with somebody because that can ground you. And I think that’s important not just in dentistry, but in all aspects of life. You know, when you’re feeling that loneliness, there is always someone that connects to you in some way, you know? So I think that that’s really beautiful. Pay. Do you have anything to add?

So when did you realise that she wasn’t your birth mother? At what point did she make that clear to you?

I’ve always known that Jean wasn’t my birth mum. And, you know, for starters, we had a gotcha day celebration, and every 18th of May we would have a party. And, you know, I got to tell all the kids that, you know, your mums and dads, you know, were stuck with you, whereas my mum went to the hospital and out of all the kids there, my mum chose me like I’m the chosen one. How cool is that? And then I made these backstories of my birth parents. They were a couple of rock stars. My dad played guitar and my mum sang and they just couldn’t live with me. They couldn’t deal me with for whatever reason. And it’s just something that I’ve always known. And then as I got older, I was like, But Mum, why did you meet me in the hospital? Why couldn’t my birth parents love me? You’re a single mum. You we live in a council house. Why couldn’t they cope? And yet you can. And I challenged her, but every time I challenged her and every time I tried to speak to her about it, she answered every question that I ever had. And that was that was huge for me. And I took that information on board. And sometimes I accepted it and sometimes I was like, That’s not adding up. Um, so what sort of.

Things didn’t add up for you?

So again, when I was in those dark days, I was like, they rejected me because of my appearance. That’s what it was. And then if you know, you’ve heard the saying that eyes got a face only a mother could love. And I was like, Oh. That doesn’t apply to me. And it crushed me. And every time I would hear that, as, you know, just passing by, it was like, oh, a reality check that my mom couldn’t love me. And. That’s not the case. I mean, I don’t know if I’m sure my birth mother does have a love for me. You know, I don’t think you lose that. But I was making up all these I was trying to find answers that I were never going to find out. And that was a really unhealthy place to be. I was always, Why? Why me? Why did this have to happen to me? Why did I have to look like this? Why? Why? Why? When’s it going to get better? And I was just obsessed. I became obsessed with the whys and I really struggled with that.

And was that a certain point in your life? You said you mentioned as you got older. So do you think that’s because you were going into teenage hood? Do you think that that was about the people that you were around? You know, what do you think really was the catalyst for you to question, you know, the reality that you were living in?

As a child, I used to naturally celebrate who I was. You know, I celebrated that my mom got to choose me and I wear a hearing aid. So I’m hard of hearing. And I remember at junior school we would get into water fights and I would like soak my friends and then they would go to soak me. And I was like, Whoa, guys, I’ve got a hearing aid. I can’t get wet. I’ll blow up the entire school. And they were like, Oh, sorry, sorry. And I used to just celebrate who I was. But then as I started going into high school, secondary school, those stories that I once celebrated and shouted about, all of a sudden they became a little bit uncool. I didn’t feel like I could talk about them. I didn’t think I feel like I could celebrate them. And I became embarrassed about them. And and then I started seeing my friends get into relationships. And connection is going to come up a lot. During this conversation, I saw my friends getting into relationships and that never happened to me and I took that so personal. I was like my birth parents couldn’t love me. How is anybody else going to love me? How is anybody else going to find me attractive? Where does that leave my future when it comes to having a family of my own? And I grew up without a dad. I was adopted by a single mom and I was like one of my coping strategies. Dealing with that was one day I’m going to be a father and I’m going to be the father that I never had. But then all of a sudden I’m thinking one of my hopes to make everything better. I’m like, I’m never going to be a father. And it crushed me. So I was trying to find answers. But then I was taking those answers away. And it it was tough. It was tough.

I’m really sorry to hear that. But I know the man that you are now, so I know that this story has a happy ending. Now, one of the things again, I think that you said is really important is that a child you would always celebrate things. And I’m actually completely obsessed with the inner child. Right. I’m sure you’ve done a lot of reading around this. And I talk about this with my own therapist as well, because we always talk about the child. And I think actually when we are in our adult self, sometimes we should speak to ourselves as if we are our younger self, sit in a way that helps you give that compassion, as you said, because what would like adult Johno say to like little Johno? What would Adult Rohner say? And you know, adult payments each other. So I think that that’s like it’s something to learn from as well. Like, you know, how our childhood really does help us celebrate things.

Took us through the process of going from that self-loathing to, you know, right now you’re obviously in a much better place. What were the catalysts that made you change the way you think about yourself?

We need to go back onto the inner child stuff as well because I’ve just been doing some work on that. Oh, no.

Go, go, go for that if you want.

When we’re doing the takeaways. So the turning point was, um, so from 15 to the age of 2014 to 15. So I spent six, 6 to 5 years developing this hate from a face, hate from a birth parents. I was jealous of my friends and the only thing that I could do to manage it was to not look at my face. And every time I went out, I would look at my feet and I would go from A to B as quick as I could. And that was the only coping strategy that I could I could do. And I tried to manage it. Loads of things happened in life. But the big turning point came by accident. I was obsessed with sport and fitness, and when I was 20, I found myself working in a gym. And if you’ve ever been, I was a fitness instructor. And if you’ve ever been to the gym, there’s this crazy thing that happens. People pick up and use the weights, but it’s virtually impossible for it to for them to put them back. I don’t know what it is, but they just can’t put the weights back. So I had to do is I had to put the weight back and the weight rack in this gym was in front of the mirrors mirror from the floor to the ceiling. And I found myself putting the weights away, avoiding my face, avoiding my reflection. But one night I passed nine gym closed at 10:00. I was putting the weights away. I’m obsessed with trainers, so I just bought some trainers and I were looking at my trainers in the mirror and I was like, Oh, I like my trainers.

I had my little short shorts on and had got a tan, and I was like, Oh, I’ve got a nice set of legs. So on my boat. And I was like, Hey, I’ve got a cute butt and I’m working up and I’ve just done chest that day and I’m wearing an extra small shirt and I’ve got a bit of a pump on and I’m like, Oh, I’ve got an ice chest. And normally I always stopped at my shoulders, always stopped at my shoulders. But on this day, I’m on this roll. I love my trainers legs but chest. And I got to my face and I looked at my face and I hadn’t properly looked at my face for years. And I saw that I had blue eyes. And that sounds so stupid, but I’ve not seen my blue eyes in what felt like forever. And I smiled. And when I smiled I got this. When I smile I’ve got this little dimple on the left side and I’m like, Oh my God, that’s so cool. And I don’t know how I got there, but I was looking at a face that I was now smiling at. And now loving. And I was just like the biggest energy shift, this whole empowering of like, wow. And I still hadn’t made it. And there was still a lot of work to do and there was still a lot of trauma to get through. But I was looking at my face and that was massive.

Yeah, that’s amazing.

Well, that was the moment, right? But what do you think it was that made you get to that moment? Was it was your life going better than.

So human connection? We’re going to come back to human connection again. So from 17 to 17, 18, 19, my friends are going to college in university at first holidays, first jobs first girlfriends, first kisses. And I was hiding away at home. Every time my friends invited me on holiday, I would say no. And then I got so jealous that I wasn’t there. They were in relationships and. And I wasn’t. And I was angry and I was isolating myself. And a good friend of mine who’s still a really good friend. He got me a job working in a busy bar up in Yorkshire and I hated him for it because I’d been into bars and clubs and I spent more time hiding away in a toilet than I did actually interacting with people. And then all of a sudden I found myself working in a bar and I hated it. I absolutely hated it. And I would leave early, make excuses. But I met and again, I made so many connections in the bar industry that strangers just changed my life from it forever. And that was groundbreaking. Wow.

Yeah. And again, it reinforces what we said, that it’s just that connection even on that level of just meeting people on a night out and having those interactions which are so important, which is why social media, I think, has become so toxic because it’s so easy to be isolated and be on your phone and nothing really replaces that physical interaction, you know, with humans.

So there were two moments.

A guy walked into a bar head to toe in tattoos, muscles coming out of muscles I didn’t even know existed. And we made eye contact and he seen me. And I quickly looked down at the floor and I was like, Oh, God. And he came straight over to where I was working, and he just stared at me Everywhere I went. His eyes just followed me and I eventually served him and I was like, What would you like to drink? And I’m looking at the floor talking to him. And he was like trying to get eye contact with me. And he was like me, What happened to your face? And I hated talking about my face. And I was like, What would you like to have? What do you want to drink? And he’s like, No, no, mate, what’s happened to your ears? Why are your ears little? What’s that in your head? Is that a hearing aid? And I was like, Oh, I was born like this. And he was like and you know, Are you deaf? And I was like, Yeah, I’m Adria in a cat ear. Anything without my hearing aid. Just trying to quickly skim through the conversation. And he’s like, Hold up, mate. If you take your hearing aid out and I shout really loud.

Can you hear me? And I was like, No, I can’t hear a thing. And he was like, Oh, I made you so lucky. And I’m like, Why? And he’s like, I’ve got a wife at home. And she is so loud. Being deaf, having a hearing aid would save my marriage, I swear to God. And then the best thing ever happened to me. He held out his hand and he was like, What’s your name? Shook my hand. He was like, What do you want to drink? I was like, vodka. Red Bull, please. Got up. Same. We did a vodka Red Bull together. And he was like, Nice to meet you, Jono. And off he went. Human connection, complete stranger in a single moment changed my life forever because I thought he was going to be cruel. I thought he was going to be mean. But he was just curious. And he and he was for a moment. It was one of my first moments as an adult that I realised that it was okay to talk about my face and not in a negative way. And yes, he could have gone about it in a different way. But now I’m also aware that some people don’t have the vocabulary, they don’t have the personal skills to be able to approach topics.

But he just changed my life. He was just that stranger. And we all have that power inside us right now. A simple connection. A simple human connection can change somebody’s life forever, sometimes negative in a negative way and sometimes in a positive way. And he changed my life in such a beautiful, positive way. During that exact same period, I continued to work in that same bar. A girl started working there and she just kind of long story short, one night she was like, You know, I find myself staring at you all the time. And again I thought, I hate being stared at. I hated it, hated it, hated it. And I was like, this is not cool. This is not sexy. Oh, she’s staring at me. And before I had a chance to say anything back, she was like, John, I find myself staring at you all the time. I just love your face in it. And she leaned in and kissed me. And that was one of my first kisses. And again, a simple human connection changed my life forever. Those two things led me to being able to apply for a job at the gym. And then I found myself working.

Yeah, it really is.

One thing that I want to ask. You still haven’t asked how we met, by the way, so I’m still waiting for you to ask for that. Um, but one thing I wanted to ask you as well is that I understand now, through the way that you’re speaking, that you have so much compassion inquiry for the way that people behave and the way that people react, even if it’s not the desirable way. Like you just said a moment ago, some people might not use the right vocabulary because they’re just unaware, and that’s because you’ve got a great understanding of human beings in general. Not a lot of people have that, and I think that’s incredible insight. But having said that, did you have a lot of resentment for people up until that point, up until you essentially done the work to understand people?

I hated people. I believe that we live in a we still do live in a world that’s obsessed with image and obsessed with looks. And I think that can be really unhealthy for every single one of us. Um, and I genuinely believe that I didn’t belong in this world that were obsessed with image and obsessed with looks. And I hated everybody in it. Like I said, my friends, I was so jealous that they just everybody just had these beautiful faces. And I had this face and and I hated that as it, you know, before I stopped looking in the mirror. When I did look in the mirror, I would push my eyes up to try and make it look like everybody else. And I thought muscle memory will kick in. And if eventually if I just hold it like that, something would change. And again, I got so angry that I couldn’t change my face. And then again, it all went back to my birth parents. And then I had an anger and a hate towards them. And that hate and anger just took over me. And I was just I was a hateful person.

Um, I think I think hate is quite dangerous thing and it’s a hard place to be in because when you hate things, you think if you hate enough, you can change it. And the reality is you can’t. And actually having understanding compassion is something that’s so much more powerful. So you can ask me the question then. Yeah, go on then.

I was gonna ask a different question first.

He’s always doing this, by the way. We’ve known each other since we were like 20 wind up merchants. So this is it. I’ll, I’ll say, like black. He’ll say white. Oh, okay. He’ll say down. So cool. All right, we’re playing this game. All right.

No, no, the.

Editor will sort it, but no p since you had these two moments that, you know, it was a connection from a stranger that changed so much for you. Are you now aware of that, that you can have that effect on someone else as a stranger? Massively. I’m not easy. I mean.

Just a massively like, honestly, we all have the power to the next whoever’s listening to. This your next human interaction, your next interaction with somebody else. You can change that person’s life forever. A handshake, a smile, a good morning. You have the power to change someone’s life forever. And now when? So I was recently, I started dating somebody and we went on dog walks and she was like, John, Oh, you talked to everybody. And I was like, And I’m not really thought about it. And she was like, You’ve said good morning to every single person that we’ve passed. And I was like, Yeah. And and I and I started analysing that and I’m like, Why do I do it? And it’s part of that human connection. But it’s also taking control because I was terrified of people looking at me and like them assuming or them making like, Oh, who is this person? Why does it look like that? And then all of a sudden if I say, Hey, good morning with a smile. Hey, how are you doing? All of a sudden that goes away and there’s a nice, pleasant interaction there. It’s a positive experience for them and it’s a positive experience for me. I’m taking control of that.

Um, I think, you know, there’s another really important point that you, you look a certain way, so you’ve got to worry about prejudgements and that sort of thing. But there’s, there’s plenty of people who look fantastic, but somewhere inside them, there’s something that’s broken. And, you know that, that, you know, the notion of be kind in general, you know, the person could be on paper, the luckiest person in the world could be a supermodel or whatever. But we know sometimes those people are the most damaged people of them all. And the idea that connection, you know, we we are a community species, that that’s what we’re good at, that any interaction could be one like that. It’s so inspiring. It’s such a it’s such a beautiful thing. Thank you. You know, it really is.

And again, you’ve just hit the nail on the head. I think every single one of us has got something inside of us, insecurities, things that we’re scared of, fears.

But yeah, yeah. Tell me.

Tell me, how did.

You guys meet?

I’ll tell you in a second.

I know my own time now.

I’m on my own time. The one thing that John says, though, is that like judgement, right? And I know that we’ve touched on this before because I’ve been quite sensitive about it, because I’m judged for also for the way I look. We’re all judged on some extent by our exterior, and I hate that, you know, because at certain points of my life people have judged me incorrectly and cruelly, you know, because of the way that I look. And I still find that difficult.

What things do they pick on or what do you know, any elements?

I think there’s certain elements that they think that like, I’ve got to where I am because of the way that I look, that I’ve not worked hard enough. Or they’d say that I look like I’m up myself, or that I am arrogant, that I love myself. And you know what’s interesting about that? Actually, it’s taken me a really long time to love certain aspects of myself. And I think even if someone does love themselves, why is that negative? Why aren’t we allowed to love ourselves? If you see somebody celebrating themselves on social media or something like that, posting a photo or something like that, you know, I’m like, That’s okay. You know, people are allowed to celebrate the things they do.

You know.

One of the most misjudged people.

Thank you.

See in dentistry. Yeah, that I know that she she projects a confidence. Confidence. But but but I think people think you’re shallow to some extent. This is what I mean. Whereas you’re one of the deepest people around. And there is that mismatch, right? If if the mismatch is a problem, it’s a problem, right? In the same way as if someone prejudges Jonah when they see him. But if you could own it and be cool with it. Yeah. That people will find out who the real me is. Once they’ve known me for a while, you know, then that’s even cooler. You know, it’s a it’s an interesting thing.

Totally. But I think, you know, the things that we talk about today are so much more important to me now. I have to admit I have fallen into the trap of image based things to an extent that I feel that I need to present myself in a certain way to get acceptance and approval. I’m not going to lie to you guys, you know, like I like looking and feeling good, as we all do. Suave outfit. You know, you do it for yourself, right?

They self care. Yeah.

It’s self care. Self care is self love. And I do believe that. But there is an element of validation which we’ve discussed as well. And I think that sometimes it is hard. But the, the point I’m trying to really make in a roundabout way is that like we’re all judging each other to some extent. Right? And I think that that’s something that we can say never judge because you never know what someone is going through. And I think one of my favourite most cliche quotes is be kind, because you don’t know what others are going through and you will see stories of people like Caroline Flack or recently with Twitch, the Dancer, where they will project happiness, success, fame, sexiness, all that. Stuff and then they’ll kill themselves, you know, because we don’t know what they’re going through. So I always say that even if people behave in an angry way, like you said, you’ve been there. There’s a story. They’re angry for a reason. Do you see what I mean? You know? So I think that’s just a really important point.

You know, I mean, at the industry we’re in is partly responsible for that world that you’re talking about, which is, you know, why is everything going to be about the way you look? I mean, she’s one of the most famous cosmetic dentists around. I make a teeth whitening product in my own defence, Right. We specifically try not to play on, on on the sort of the weakness or the sort of insecurity. Insecurity of a of, of a of a smile.

And this leads.

Into how we met, by the way. So go.

On.

So, so I’m, I’m constantly telling my team, look, a smile is on a person. Let’s talk about people rather than talking about teeth. You know, that’s that’s it. But but, you know, we got to put our hands up. We’re in that world. We’re in that world of making people prettier and. And look, these pretty, pretty, pretty girls on the walls, you know? Um, you know, even when we’ve tried, we said, Oh, let’s be really authentic now, and let’s have someone with a gap in between their teeth. At the last moment, we’ve pulled out and made it another pretty smile. But this, this world that that is so image based. Do you feel that you’re you’re over that and that the world itself will develop into something. I mean we’ve become as a as a as a society much more accepting of diversity. For instance, I, I saw two guys kissing each other in the street yesterday and I thought back to like 20 years ago, that would have shocked me, you know. And now it doesn’t feel like such a big issue. How do you feel? It’s it’s it’s moved on. Do you do you get like now compared to ten years ago, do you get different feelings on the streets?

So I we’re in dangerous ground because I do think teeth whitening is okay. I do think dentist work is is okay. I think Botox is okay. I think a well-balanced, well-balanced diet is okay. Wanting to tan is okay, wanting to colour your hair is okay. Lip fillers is okay. All these things are perfectly okay and perfectly acceptable. But when they become a dependency for somebody, that’s when it becomes dangerous. If they genuinely believe that if I get this done or if I’m going to do this, I am going to be happy. So I think it’s important that whilst we do these things that we we can buy these things. We also do the emotional well-being and we do the emotional work. And this is how you and I met.

Oh, finally.

How did you work it in?

How did you.

Meet?

Okay, well, I’ll let I’ll essentially I got called up to come on a TV programme and I was informed that Jono was heavily involved. And then I was said there’s going to be patients, there’s going to be doctors, and then I’m going to let him finish the rest of the narrative because it ties in perfectly.

So we have this clinic in Yorkshire and people come to us and they have been thinking about treatments on their appearance, on their faces, and they’ve been thinking, will that work for them? Will that be the answer to their problems? Will? Are they doing it for themselves or are they doing it for because of society the way it’s treat them? And they’re have all these things going on. And we had such a range of conditions. We did have somebody with a gap between their tooth. We we did have somebody that had had childhood cancer, somebody that was. And I’d been involved in an acid attack. We had a wide range of appearance related conditions and it was to the individual, it was massive to them. It had taken over their life. And I sat down with them and I spoke to them and I listened to them. Sometimes they wanted answers from me. Sometimes they just want to be heard. And I did all that with them. And then alongside these conversations that we were having, we had these crazy, amazing health professionals were then able, were then able to talk about treatments, and they’ve then gone away and thought, okay, we’ve done the emotional conversations. We start picking whether it’s right for me or whatever, and then the talking to the health professionals and hopefully those conversations with the health professionals are coming from a place of love and acceptance rather than feeling the need to be fixed. And Rona was somebody who again listened to them and guided them and walked along that journey with them rather than saying, We can do this, this and this. She walked alongside them. And I and that’s something that I really admired about you. So yeah, that’s how we met.

Yeah, it was it.

Was honestly one of the most inspiring filming days. And that’s when I was like blown away by Johnno and I was like, This guy is incredible because as I said, like and it was interesting to observe health professionals in a way, and I think this isn’t a conversation because they’re so clinical. They’re like, There’s this condition, so we’re going to do this. But again, like you said, don’t talk to the teeth, Talk to the human being behind the teeth, behind the smile.

The thing is, look, I think it’s your superpower as a clinician. It’s it’s you know, everyone has a superpower. Your people think your superpower is social media. Yeah, but it isn’t. It’s your your superpower is empathy. And and empathy is what patients want, which is why you’re such a successful dentist. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. You figured out Instagram? Yeah, but I don’t think that’s your superpower. Yeah, you know, different people can do Instagram, but the way that you speak to your patients, what I’ve seen and the way that you get their feeling and take that on yourself. And as dentists, it’s the number one skill. It’s the most important skill, right? Because, okay, you can do a filling. You can, you can you can prep a tooth, you can you can do all the things that that we learn about. But that side of it is the difference between liking your dentist and loving your dentist, you know, and that’s that’s why you’ve done so well. There’s no doubt about it. Yeah.

You’ve spoken about connection and it’s amazing to hear that you’ve obviously had some incredible connections in your life. Now, I know as well that there’s a possibility of your condition being passed on to children. How has that affected your relationships? Has it affected it or not? Talk us through it all.

Um, so again, just to hold that hold that thought, as health professionals, I’ve spent my entire life seeing every health professional under the sun. Um, their bedside manner in a lot of cases is terrible. Like I’ve.

Terrible.

Some, some people have like wanted to do an operation or a surgery and I don’t even know their name. And I’m like, okay, you know, And they just it’s so easy to forget because and I get there must be so much pressure. I need to see this patient. I want to give them the best line of work. And let’s talk about work, work, work, work, work. But ask me what my favourite football team is. You know, just like some simple thing like that is huge. And then. Okay, now. And now I’m in. Now I’m in safe hands. And I remember I had a local anaesthetic. I’ve got a screw in my head that my hearing aid attaches onto. I don’t want to be seen doing that on the camera too much, do I? But I’ve got a screw in my head that my hearing aid attaches onto. And every now and again the skin around it gets inflamed and starts growing over the screw and it needs cutting away and so on the local anaesthetic, they’ll put the drapes over me and I’m there and I’m nervous. And then a nurse’s hand will just come onto the blanket and hold my hand. And honestly, that’s the best pain relief ever again. It’s human connection. Just just that warmth of a hand. Another hand is just and I still appreciate that as as a 30 year old man. Um, so I mean, look.

If they want to punish prisoners, they put them into solitary confinement. You know what.

Shows you that? That, like, removing all connections is the worst punishment.

You imagine being in prison. The best thing would be to be in solitary confinement. You’re away from the murderers. But even in prison, that’s the worst thing that can happen to you to to cut you off.

Being all alone. Isolation. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But about kids.

Kids tell us.

So I was a happy kid. Happy kid. And then all of a sudden, I’m learning about the birds and the bees. And then all of a sudden, I’m learning about genetics. And then I learn as a young teenager that there’s a 5050 chance that I might pass on my condition to my child. And that terrified me. Absolutely terrified me. I would love a little blonde haired, blue eyed Jonathan running around, taking his hearing aid out when I’m trying to get him back here quicker and whatever. Let me feed you. Do your homework. No, no, no. I would absolutely love that. But the thing that terrifies me is with Treacher Collins, it’s an airway thing. And over these past few years, I have experienced far too many deaths within our community. Um, and it’s crushing and it’s heartbreaking. And then when it comes to then me thinking of my own family, especially as a kid, when I didn’t have the life skills or the emotional capacity to deal with it. I’m like, and then when it comes to relationships, I’m like, They’re not going to find me attractive. And then if somebody does find me attractive and I find myself in a relationship with them, and then I’m going to drop this bombshell on them that I’m going to pass on my condition to my child. Like, when do I tell them? Do I tell them on a first date and then they’ll run a mile and this one person out of the entire world found me attractive and she’s run a mile because I’m scared them off.

Or like, do I let her fall in love with me? Then do I tell her? And I’m a kid, I’m a teenage boy, and I’m like, Oh my God, what do I do? What do I do? And then I start doing research. Oh, you can have operations where you can not have children. Oh, okay. I think that’s what I’ll do as an adult. And obviously I didn’t go through with it. But again, I’m trying to find answers that I didn’t have the right information or guidance to do. And then now as an adult, it. It’s recently I’m having these conversations first date, second date, and then they’re having conversation. Oh, I don’t want kids. I’m not sure if I want kids or I’ve got this. And being able to talk to somebody and be vulnerable with somebody. Again, it comes to human connection. Being able to connect with another human being about dark thoughts, about scary thoughts, about things that we’ve hidden. All of a sudden you’re sharing with somebody and then it’s quite a turn on. You know, you can flirt and you can do all the sexy stuff, but when you’re being vulnerable, that is just like a lost connection on such a deeper level. It’s, it’s yeah, but sort of.

You know, the this angel who brought you up.

Jean.

Jean, don’t. Don’t you think this having, having witnessed that, don’t you think that you could then do that you could adopt a kid and do that for someone else?

Yeah, that’s a great point.

Yeah.

So again, as I’ve grown up, I would love to adopt, I would love to foster. There are children, more and more children in care, and there’s a shortage of foster carers and people willing to adopt and there is a need for people, but that obviously the other person in my life that I meet and go have that decision with, they’re going to have that, they’re going to have their say. And we’ve had a look at I’ve, I’ve also explored IVF, IVF, PGD, and then I did a documentary a few years ago about IVF, PGD.

What does it stand for?

Oh, do you know the PGD? So basically, I do my bit in the test tube and.

Then we’re not real.

Doctors, so I wouldn’t know.

So I put with your dad. Yeah. Yeah.

Um, and then we’ve got the eggs. Yeah. We put them together. And then once that process has started, they test it for Treacher Collins and then if we’ve got eight samples, if seven of them have got Treacher Collins, we don’t use them and we use the one with outreach. Collins And then we use that and hopefully that sticks and then hopefully the woman gets pregnant. But then, you know, that’s that’s scary. You know, if my birth parents had have done that, I would have been one of the ones that were tossed aside. And I and I absolutely love who I am. It’s it’s a minefield. But I can talk about it.

A bit of a bit of a difficult question. If you could now push a button and change your face, would you?

Oh, hell no. Not 100%. Like, I love that.

I love it.

I and again, it comes back to human connection and in a child stuff. So I did some work on my inner child last year. Therapist Yes, my therapist.

By the way.

Therapy is great and putting out there. I have a therapist. She’s coming on the show as well. Therapy is an amazing thing for self healing and mental health. Just want to put it out there.

So I completely echo that. A therapist should be just like going to the gym. It should be part of maybe not do it three times a week, but it should be a regular thing that you do throughout the year, throughout your lifetime. And and my therapist. So I was in a relationship that ended this was only last year. And then when it ended, I found myself loving that person even more. And and it was a really happy relationship that just ended. And I was like, oh, I’ve been rejected again and I’m loving this person and I didn’t want to lose this. And I’m like, Why do people keep on leaving me for abandonment? I, I through this work and speaking to my therapist, I still had an unhealthy coping mechanisms, abandonment, feelings going on. And he was like, John, I want you to spend some time with your inner child. I want you to talk to him. I want you to love him. I want you to listen to him. I want you to hold him. I want you to spend time with him. And I’m very I’m a tactile person. So I got one of my old teddies, and I put a one of my old rugby shirts on him, called him Little J, and he’s in he’s in my car at the train station parked up. He goes everywhere with me. And the first day I did it, I did a photoshoot up in Newcastle.

It took me a two hour drive to get up there and I’m so in tune with music. Song came on and I started crying and I looked over to Little J and I was like, Why do we keep on getting rejected? And and honestly, I broke down and then I remembered what my therapist said. And he’s like, Talk to him. So I was talking to him and I was like, You know what, little J Yes, we’ve experienced rejection, but we’ve also made so many beautiful connections throughout our entire life, starting with Momma Jean, starting with. All these kids and all these families that I’ve met throughout my life, I’ve had some beautiful relationships. And yes, they haven’t worked out, but they’ve been beautiful relationships that I’ve been blessed to experience. And I kept on saying to Little J, we attract. We attract beautiful moments and experiences. And I think through looking the way I do, I’ve had to do the work for such a young age, and I see such a unique beauty in our world and I wouldn’t change any of it. I just when I get trolls abusing me and I feel so sorry for them because they don’t see the beauty that I see in the world. And and it’s one of my superpowers. And I won’t change that for anything.

You know, speaking of trolls and so forth. And that’s the thing. Like, it’s really funny because I was obviously in a completely different way, trolled online, and I found it really difficult for different reasons. But now again, it’s that thing of like, you develop empathy when you do the work because you’re like, people are trolling for a reason. If people are trolls, they’re actually very hurt people. You know, if they can be that cruel to other people, they haven’t done any of the work. And you know what you said pay as well. Like if Jonno had changed anything, he wouldn’t have done all the incredible things. He’s gone on to help people in schools. He’s written a book. You know, he’s also had connections with some incredible people like Fearne Cotton. You know, you’ve developed an amazing relationship with her and she’s astounded. Um, and also Katie Piper. I know she’s kind of spoken about you and these opportunities may not have happened, you know, like a real ability to make a difference. And I think that’s a really beautiful thing for sure.

So what do you do now for work?

And I so I spent I did work in the fitness industry. And then for the past 16 years, I’ve worked in the care industry supporting like my mum was a foster carer for vulnerable children, children with autism and various other learning disabilities and physical disabilities. So I went into the care sector myself and, and worked in that industry. And then recently I quit that to focus on my book. And I’ve just wrote in my first book, Um, what’s it called?

Where’s my signed copy?

Um, so it’s called Not All Heroes Wear Capes comes out on the 20th of July this year, and I will get you a signed copy. Um, um, it is available to pre-order on Amazon was in W.H. Smith’s, um, and Book Depository. Um, and I share about my life and it’s called Not All Heroes Wear Capes. And I’ve met people in my life that assured me love the guy in the bar, that stranger, they were heroes to me. They didn’t have the capes. They didn’t have they couldn’t fly or anything like. But they saved my life when I was in my darkest times. And by them showing me love, I eventually found love for myself. And then that was enabled me to become my own hero. And when you reach that point full of self-love, being able to be your own hero, then you’re on to a winner. But that’s not me isolating myself and saying I can’t do everything. It’s me also recognising that in my tool kit, in my super hero belt, as you will, I’ve got therapy, I’ve got friends, I’ve got music, I’ve got drawing, I’ve got all these other little things in my emotional tool kit to be able to help myself.

This work that you did in the clinic about we’d broadly call that sort of body dysmorphic syndrome, where people think having a procedure is going to solve their life. And, you know, for dentists, for cosmetic dentists, it’s a massive issue because someone will come say, do my teeth.

And it will change my.

Life. You know.

The job, the partner.

Whatever you do to their teeth, they’re never happy with because the teeth weren’t the problem. It was something psychological. Do you have some insights on that body dysmorphia that you can help us with?

So I hated my face. And 18, 19, 20 years old, I became obsessed with my body. And I thought, if my face ain’t all that I need to make everything else compensating the best it could be. So I became obsessed with with the gym and fitness. I became obsessed with food. I would only eat chicken and vegetables. That was the only thing that I would allow to have gravy. I wouldn’t be able to have carbs. I had to be I had to have abs. It was abs in my head meant that I could be a little bit attractive. I used to run in the sauna to dehydrate myself. I used to be obsessed with sunbeds. I would buy designer clothes and I was like, Oh, if I do all these things, I might be a four out of ten and somebody might find me attractive. And then I am having these stories in my head like there’s a couple of girls like talking and like, Oh, you’re dating Jono, why are you dating Jono? And I’m like, in my head I’m thinking, Oh, they’ll say, Oh, he’s facing all of that, but he’s got a nice body. Or I used to, I had no boundaries and I was a people pleaser. Oh he’ll do X, y, z for me. And I just became obsessed. And I remember talking to health professionals throughout my childhood and we’re like, Jono, we can improve your faith.

You know, we can build your cheekbones, we can build your ears up and we can improve these features, we can improve your face. And I thought I never shared it, but I said no. And I would say to my mum, you know, I was made like this and I would make a joke. I’m brilliant at putting on a fake smile. And I would say to my mum, I was like, Mum, you wouldn’t even recognise me if I had all this work done, you know? And but deep down I didn’t want my face improving. I wanted a new face. I wanted a face like yours. I wanted a face like yours. And the fact that they couldn’t do that for me said no. I said no. But everything happens for a reason. And by me saying no as forced me to do that emotional work and all of a sudden my face hasn’t changed. But my world has because I’ve accepted that I’ve had to do the work without the cosmetic side of things. So again, the advice is if you do choose any treatment, you still need to do the work on accepting or working through the trauma, talking to your inner child, seeing a therapist, whatever it is, whatever stage of your life you are, if you’re happy or if you start, you still need to do the work. So that would be the answer to that.

One of the big things.

So I said so talking about steps that have improved your mental health, we’ve talked about therapy, which I think is like a non-negotiable, like you said. I mean, there’s some funny episodes in Sex and the City as well, where like, everyone has a therapist like having a gym instructor, as he said. So like, you know, I think, again, that stigma should be removed. You don’t just see a therapist because you think you’re ill mentally. Literally, a therapist can help navigate who you are. I’m in a great place at the moment, but I still speak to my therapist because I’m like, I catch myself. Certain things he said, certain because it’s so ingrained. We all have completely different thinking, like our memories are all formed from childhood experiences. As I said, Johnno, feeling like left at some points in his life, shows up in other ways in his life. Like, you know, as I said, like even breaking up with his therapist, she’s like, Don’t leave me. He’s not leaving him. But it’s just a trauma that’s been triggered. And sometimes I’m a very reactive person. I actually have a very high sort of energy and sometimes I get really easily offended. And I think it’s because things happen to me as a child to make me get easily offended. So now I try to catch myself and take three before responding. So to be reactive, I’m not reactive. I’m like, okay, just take a few days and then respond. And I think that I wouldn’t have been able to do that work without therapy. So I think therapy is a great thing. But what what else do you think kind of helped your mental health journey, which was always a work in progress for most people?

I recognised I used I used to try and escape reality. So again, 20 2120. 223 When I did start accepting who I was, I had an addiction around alcohol and sex. The alcohol gave me a false confidence and then somebody finding me sexually attractive was like my ultimate drug. And I was like, Oh, okay, I’m sexually attractive. Then that’s okay. That that’s that’s it. I’m I belong in this world because somebody finds me sexually attractive, and then the next day I’d be hung over and I’d be on my own. And then all these feelings that had come flooding back in again, it was so temporary. It was like the sun bed and it was just so temporary. So we’ve got to try and think, find things that are more long lasting that can stay with us and that is self love. What do we love about ourselves? And that’s something that I accidentally discovered in the gym when I was looking at my face. And you know, we talk about therapy. It’s hugely important. Finding things that we love about ourselves is hugely important too, because we never, ever go there. And for me, it was looking at my face and finding it. But then now I’ve gone in to my inner child and I’ve gone deep within and talking about when I was sat with Little J, I started finding things that I loved about Little J.

And he used to write Girls Love Poems, and he used to take quotes from Celine like lyrics from Celine Dion and put them in my poems and give them to girls and stuff. And I was like, I love that kid so much. With his little bowl cut that was copied from like, David Beckham and Nick Carter from the Backstreet Boys. I was so influenced by by, by music and film. And I would dress up like my favourite film character. And I loved him. I absolutely loved him. So I’m unpicking who I am and all those coping mechanisms. But one thing I want to touch on when I was I’ve, I’ve always thought about death and I’ve always questioned whether I belonged in this world. When I was 17, I started going into town drinking, and that’s when I saw all my friends pulling and one night stands. And how many people have you slept with? That didn’t happen for me. And I judged myself on how many people had not slept with. And I’m like, Oh, I’m less because I’ve not experienced these things. And then in a nightclub I’d be able to hide away. And then all of a sudden you in a bright takeaway and everybody’s looking at you. I found that so embarrassing and I hated it. So I would walk home and instead of going into a taxi with all my friends, I would walk home.

And I remember walking home once from my way to from town to my little village. There’s a crematorium still there now. And there’s a big dip. And you get down to the crematorium. The crematorium used to terrify me, so I always used to walk in the road. One night, early morning, I’m walking home. A taxi comes down this hill and it nearly hits me. And I’ve stepped outside and it’s bombed on into into next village. And that was 17 year old. That was the first time I realised that I wished that car had have hit me. I’ve when I talk about suicidal thoughts, I’ve never thought about taking pills. I’ve never thought about cutting a wrist or anything like that. I wanted to be in a car accident. I wanted to have something that would take me out of this this place where I didn’t belong. And eventually I worked through all that. And as I’ve said, I’ve got to a better place. But then four years ago, 2017, 2018, so 2017, everything I touched turned to gold. I was public speaking all over the world. I was in a relationship. I was raising thousands and thousands for charity. I was doing my own TV documentaries. I bought my own house. I was fit. I was talking about my emotions and my feelings.

I was in a really, really good place. And then 2018, January, February. And my mom, Jean, she ended up in hospital. That scared me. She’s okay now, but she ended up in hospital. A friend passed away. A relationship that’s again, that’s a common theme. A relationship ended and I was in a car crash. I wasn’t thinking and I was in a car crash. And all of a sudden I was I was going I was crying all day and I was hiding my feelings, putting on that fake mask when I was around people. Then when I was on my own, I would cry and I felt pain. I was drinking and I just wanted it to all stop and all go away. And I just felt numb. Woke up in a panic, and I thought I was having a heart attack. I had a pain in my chest. My my arm felt numb. I found 999 a firstrillionesponder came out and he sat me down on my sofa and he got me to breathe. And I was like and I felt okay. And I went back to bed following night, same thing happened. I were drinking. I fell asleep because I just wanted I was trying to escape all this pain. And the following day I took myself to A&E and this doctor did all of the checks on me, and he was like, everything was fine.

And I was sat in a waiting room in a in a side cubicle, and he was like, I’ve been observing you. Your results have been back a while ago and I’ve just been observing you. What’s going on, What’s wrong? And I was like, Everything’s fine. And I took myself home and he actually phoned my GP up as well during this process. And on my way home from the doctors I bought some more alcohol, I drank, and again, I was just crying and I just felt numb and I just wanted it all to stop and I didn’t know how to end it. I didn’t know how to take all this pain away. I wasn’t thinking. I eventually fell asleep and I woke up and every time I was waking up, all this pain and all this emotion just hit me. And during this time, somebody out on Love Island had taken their own life. Yeah. And had hung themself. And I became obsessed with How did they find the tree? How did they find the branch? How did they find the location? How did they find the rope? How did they get to that situation of ending it all and escaping this pain? I wanted to know how I could do that. How could I reach that? And I found myself downstairs in the kitchen and I was looking at my knives and I was so scared to touch him.

And I didn’t I didn’t touch them, but I was like, how was he got to that point? And I can’t. And thankfully it passed and I ended up talking to a suicide hotline. I don’t think that helped. They didn’t give me any advice or anything like that. But I spoke and then the next day I wrote a big massive message and sent it all to my friends. This is what’s happened. The emergency doctor had spoken to my GP. My GP then rang me to do a check in with me. How are you doing? And I started working and me and my friends agreed to go out for meals. We used to do like, boozy lads nights out. This is when I’m in my 30s in a good place. We do all these boozy nights out where we’d have a laugh and a joke and we were like, Let’s just go out. No alcohol, let’s have a nice meal. And we’d talk and we talked about things. And so what I’m getting is whether you’re in a dark place or when you’re in a happy place and everything you touch turns to gold, you still need to be doing the work because every now and again you might just get a kick in the gut. They’ll just throw you.

And I mean, 2018 isn’t that long ago. It’s, you know, there’s a there’s a fragility that you need to be constantly aware of because, you know, the it’s a beautiful story saying that you’ve gotten through it and all of that. But something at the beginning was so difficult that you got to be constantly aware that that could come and get you, you know, to do the work, as you’re saying, the work.

F f. F. F. F, f f for whatever reasons. It can happen to any single one of us at any moment in our life.

And I mean, dentists are famously take their lives more than any other professionals. The it’s and we were trying to figure out why I was going to say why yeah we don’t know we don’t we’re not sure why there’s some isolation in it. There’s there’s some sort of high achieving ness in it or something. Yeah but, but you know the.

And the thing is like actually a lot of them the most. Uh, I don’t know. I probably won’t use the right word, but they often find that when dentists do decide to take their own life, it’s usually in the surgery. So a lot of people find them in the surgery. Yeah. So it’s interesting that we know that it is linked to work somewhat. Do you see what I mean? So I think that is but I think, you know, Payman and I have been trying to unravel. But why is it dentists? You know, people get stressed and.

Apparently anaesthetists as.

Well. Anaesthetists are farmers to farmers. But I can understand why. But again, with farmers, it’s a very lonely profession. Do you see what I mean? You know, like dentistry like. And it goes back and the thing is, you mentioned again, connection. And I think that, you know, one of the big takeaways as well is that we need to constantly be finding connections. Because you just said the dinners with your friends, it’s a check in. It’s a way for you to be like, how are you doing? And it’s not just a WhatsApp or an Instagram message. It’s that physical connection. I remember even when I said you pretty, please come on this podcast and you said, Can we do it in person? I said, Of course, no other way, because it’s so much better, you.

Know, was being here.

I mean, this this series we we don’t normally do our podcasts in person but this.

I insisted.

This it just made so much sense for this series. Yeah I’ve got a question for you. So sorry for you around forgiveness. Of your birth parents. Have you had that sort of moment of. Sort of. Squaring that that that issue that.

So my birth parents gave me life. They made this who I am and they brought me into this world and they gave me life. And for that, I am forever grateful. They gave me a life that’s mine to live and fill it with love, fill it with adventure, fill it with connection. And I do like. Uh, with every part of me I just love and I seek out connection. And I do. And I have no hate for them. I’ve just come back from Africa and won quite a few. I went to some schools that were refugee schools and they in separate speaking events so they hadn’t heard the other questions that the other kids asked. Every single group, they asked a question Do you still love your birth parents? I’ve never been asked that anywhere else in the world other than those refugee schools in Africa. And I’ve never really thought about I’ve never I know I do love them. I don’t love them the way I love my mom and Jean. I love her with all my heart in in in that way. And then I have a love and a respect for my birth parents for for giving me an opportunity to to have a life and to have a family and a home and, um. Yeah, there’s no hate for them at all.

No. I understand as well, though, that you did try to contact your birth parents some years later as well. So what happened?

Um, so in my mid 20s I was in a really, really good place. I was in a really healthy relationship. Um, I was just happy, really, really happy. And I’d gone from hating my birth parents to saying, Hey, you know what? I want to share with you? That I’m okay and I’m open to meeting them if they wanted to. So I did it through after adoption services and I sat down with a lady and we accept we went through all my adoption reports and the adoption reports from the 80s were awful. We talked about the language. It was just cold and just so clinical. And when I was reading this and the adoption support work was reading this, and she was like, Johno, when we reach out to your birth parents, if that’s the way we decide to go through with this, I don’t think you’re going to receive a positive outcome. But it’s up to you. Do you still want to do this? And I said, Yes, I want to reach out to them. I want to let them know I’m okay and if they’re open to meeting me. So we sent them a letter and then two weeks later we got a letter back. From their solicitor regarding this subject. We do not wish any contact. Further attempts will be ignored and both my birth parents had signed it and. It broke my heart. It was another rejection and I was crushed. But during that time, I had spoken to Mama Jean and my partner at the time and my friends and I cried and I hurt and I was able to to move on. And I was able to live and I was able to I felt it. I’m a believer in feeling pain and I’m a believer of sitting with it and kind of like, okay, but you.

Purged it.

And, and, um, I, I moved on from it.

And I think that shows.

Your growth even further because I recently commented on Giovanni’s podcast when I spoke to you and I said, we become a society of self-soothing when we don’t want to sit with discomfort, we self-soothe. So it might be alcohol, drugs, sex, whatever. But really learning to just sit with that discomfort is actually really important and quite healing. And I’m trying to do it. There’s still like work to be done and, you know, you could even be self soothing by going on social media, like try to make the feelings go away something. So it shows, you know, how.

Much you grow.

It reminds me of grief, you know, when, when, when someone close to you passes away. Then I don’t know. I’m not a natural crier or whatever, but. But sometimes you cry and then you feel better. Yeah. It’s a cathartic emotion coming out. Yeah. Catharsis.

I purposely make myself cry. Um. Yeah, I. If I know I need to cry, I know I can watch the first 15 minutes of up. I’m bawling my eyes out of the animation up and it just.

And it just makes you feel better.

Crying and watch and a cry. And I. And I feel.

What’s up? Oh, my.

God. Up is amazing. Soul is amazing, too. Have you seen Soul?

Soul. Soul.

Tonight on the train.

Yeah.

Yeah, I’ll find that. Yeah, But another thing that I did last year, that walk home that I used to do as a teenager, I redid it, and I did it at 2:00 in the morning and police car stopped me and asked me what I was doing, and I was like, I’m doing this. And they were.

Like, crack.

On.

Crack on. And, um. And I felt it and I felt it. And again, when I’d done that rejection and that abandonment and that relationship ending, we went to a spa together. Absolutely amazing. I had a brilliant time. When we broke up, I went to that spa on my own and I and and I saw the the the outside Jacuzzi that we went in. People were there were couples. There were there were there were the robes there. And I purposely put myself in that situation on my own. And I felt it and I and I cried and I hurt. But there’s something I find quite therapeutic about going there again. And and and I feel a growth. And and then when people ask me about the public speaking and when I’m doing the talks in front of the kids, they’re like, is it draining? Is it hard? And I’m like, it’s three therapists, three therapy. I’m talking about These.

Podcasts are.

Definitely free.

Therapy.

Do people need to try it? Talking in front of kids about all your vulnerabilities and like, have you got any questions? And you’re like, What’s your favourite song? Who’s your favourite singer? And and you’re like, I’ve just offloaded on to you guys and that’s all you want to know. It’s like, Well, can we play football with you at playground? And I’m like, Yeah, let’s do it. And again, connection, talking, revisiting painful things in situations, having a good cry. Um, I’m.

Interested in Little J. I mean, does your therapist tell you to talk to your child self?

Yeah. So with the inner child stuff as well, Um, we’re actually doing something called Emdr. I don’t know if you did it, John. So Emdr is actually where you use your eyes to revisit an uncomfortable memory. And the memory may be the cause of, like, a the way that you are now and the way that you react to things, you know? So it’s like if I expressed to my therapist that I suffer a lot when people make a comment about a certain thing and it’s related to particular like possibly a particular event. So you’ve got to think about and the event might be something that you think wasn’t a big deal. Like it could be your parents arguing, your mum sort of telling you that you weren’t good enough when you were five years old or, you know, putting some kind of punishment. And then you go back to you go back to that memory and then you have to then talk. See yourself as a child, observing yourself in that memory. So for me, there was a memory that came up about university. But, you know, she says like, well, what would your five year old say? Do you see? I mean, you’re in your child. And what would the five year old say to you as your 20 year old self? Do you see what I mean? So you do work like that.

But what’s with.

The eye? You move your eye to sort.

Of the therapist.

Sort of change between child.

A little bit. There’s no, no. She it’s a little bit of hypnotherapy that when you follow the finger, it changes something in your memory. Does that make sense? And so they’re like as a shift, it’s quite interesting. We can talk about it further with my therapist comes on here, but also, as John was saying, there’s a lot of thing about nurturing your inner child. So there’s things about imagining your five year old self with you and cuddling it and telling it it’s okay. And the really interesting thing is, is that sometimes when we have those awful thoughts, like I’m sure Payman, even with yourself, with your business, you’ve been like, this isn’t good enough, this isn’t this, or you have those like self doubts. A thing is would you say that to a child? The stuff, the negative stuff that you’re saying to your head? Would you say that to a child? Probably not. Just so. I mean. So really, why are you speaking to yourself in that way? So it gives you self love and compassion. Do you get what I’m saying? You know, because you wouldn’t tell a child, you’re ugly, you’re fat, you’re worthless, you’re not good enough. You’re not this, you’re not that. Do you see what I mean? But we have those conversations with ourselves now, so it’s, you know, it can be quite effective in those ways as well.

So have you got.

A teddy bear as.

Well?

I don’t have a teddy bear. I might get one. Oh, I might. I’m thinking more like a jasmine Barbie. I think that would work well for me.

Let’s do. The Disney store, you know?

Um, and, uh, mine. Mine is a big, zippy doll I found in a charity shop, Big Blue Eye. And I used to go to my local rugby team, Featherstone Rovers. I was always the match day mascot, like before a surgery and stuff. So I’ve got this little shirt that’s got the number ten on that I wore as a kid walking my favourite rugby team out and it’s become Little Jay and he’s gone to the office with me and he’s gone on road trips with me and I have hugged him and we opened up about language, talking about our own story and our own teaching talk, talking about ourselves with love. But I also used to get motivation from I used to call myself like I used to call myself horrible names to try to motivate myself. Or even when I was struggling in gym and I was struggling with those last few reps, I’d be like, I’d think about my birth parents. I know the left, you can prove them wrong. And then I’d get angry and I’d get adrenaline and then I’d get those last two reps out. And then it became the norm. If I needed a little bit of extra, I would tap into that hate and that anger. But it would long term that would drain in and it were unhealthy. Whereas now I’m like, Come on, Johnny boy, you got this. And it’s I don’t get those adrenaline spikes as intense, but it’s healthier long term.

I needed that talking to yourself. The language that you use, talking to yourself. And sometimes I see it in when you’re talking about yourself. And joking about it. Yeah. Like, just for the sake of the argument and saying, Oh, look at me. I look like whatever. Yeah, like last week. Um. The I heard someone saying like, you know, your subconscious doesn’t know you’re joking, you know, and and this is kind of speaking to that. Yeah. Yeah. It helped you with the reps, but actually it was doing more damage.

Yeah, it just became the norm. Yeah, it just became the norm. And so a few years ago on Valentine, I found myself on Valentine’s Day. A lot of things were me comes with relationships because I spent a long time wanting to be accepted. So I found myself in this relationship Valentine’s Day and writing a letter down a love poem. I love your eyes. I love your taste in music. Like all these things I loved and admired about this person. I was like, Oh my God, she’s going to love this. I can’t wait to give it to her. And she’s just going to have this big, massive smile on her face. And then I pause for a moment. I was like, Why don’t I write things that I loved and admire about myself? So I put that to one side and I started writing. It was the element of writing things that I loved and admired about myself. And I sat there and I was like And I smiled and I was like, Huh, I’m a catch. I’m a good guy, you know? And that self-love talking to yourself, writing it down has become such a game changer in my life. And now it’s become a regular practice. And in 2021, I set myself the challenge of finding something that I loved about myself every single day. And like anything, exercise or any good things that we can do, sometimes it’s hard to maintain every single day. But I got 181 things that I loved about myself from what I see to from within to experience. And I revisited all aspects of my life and I just loved who I was and I’d encourage anybody to.

I saw that list and I, I thought it was really powerful. And again, in some ways it’s it’s gratitude because it’s gratitude for the things that you love. Do you know what I mean? Your life. And it could be, as you said, gratitude for the things you can see, gratitude for the things that you can feel, gratitude for the people. So in a way, it shows also the power of the stuff. And that’s why I say, you know, all the woo woo stuff works. You know what I mean? When they say to you like, meditate, breathe, feel grateful, do the work. You know, this is stuff that absolutely does work. Yeah. So tell me, Jono, what’s the plan for the future? Where do you want to be then? Now In ten years?

In ten years I’ll be Oh God. 48 Nearly 50.

Um, welcome.

Um, I spent a long time of actually, I think that’s a really, really good question and I’m so glad you’ve asked because I think I have been so focussed on giving my inner child love. And then with the book, I’ve been so focussed on getting these book deadlines. I’m very much in the now, which is really important because last year I was like, Well, my mum’s 80th birthday and I was like, Oh my God, my mum’s 80. My first trip to Africa, the book coming out with the TV series, and I’m like, Oh my God, these are all exciting. And then I was like, Whoa, let’s appreciate them now. And but by doing that, I have not even thought about long term in the future. I guess I just want to be happy. Yeah. And surrounded by. Human beings. It’s as if I’ve got that. And don’t get me wrong, I want to be successful. I hope my my books are successful. I hope potentially I’ve got another book. I hope my charity goes from strength to strength. I hope that I’m still able to contribute in talking into schools and doing anti-bullying workshops. And so and I hope all that grows, don’t get me wrong. But for me personally, if I’m surrounded by human beings that that I can connect with on a deep, deep level, I’ve got human connection and I’m safe and I’m well emotionally and physically, then that’s I’ll take that.

That’s a good.

Place to be. And actually, in a way, I could say it was a trick question because goals are tend to have an impact on our mental health, because when we create these goals and don’t achieve them, we often don’t feel great. And actually living in the future creates anxiety. Living in the past creates depression, and living in the now is where we find our happiest.

Have you.

Read Power of.

Now? Of course. Eckhart Tolle. It’s a classic.

It’s a classic.

Book.

Yeah. It helped me so much since I read it so much.

What book was that again?

The Power of Now. Um, so bullying. I mean, bullying of children. And a lot of times it’s about how they look. You got the fat kid or the the kid that’s slightly, I don’t know, introverted.

I had really big ears.

When I was younger.

I got made fun of you.

Yeah, I was still.

No.

But the the is are there are there parallels between kids bullying each other and bullying in the workplace? I. I’d say there are. It’s like a power dynamic or whatever. Can you give me some insights on bullying that you’ve you’ve managed to Because I’m sure if you go into schools and discuss your story and and relate that to bullying, you change kids lives, for sure. Yeah. The a kid who doesn’t even know he’s a bully, he suddenly realises I’m a bully and you have to feel sorry. I find more for the bully than the one being bullied sometimes.

Oh, yeah. It’s such a complex situation, like you mentioned. Hurt people. Hurt people. And when it comes to bullying and when I talk to all the kids. They will they ask all those questions. But when we’re playing football or when I’m having lunch with them, so many of them come to me and say, I’m experiencing this form of bullying. I live with my grandma, my mom and dad do drugs and be all sharing. But there are some kids that will say, Oh, I was saying this to this person, and I didn’t even realise that that was a form of bullying or that was causing them pain. And I’m going to change. And, and even adults, even trolls have come back to me and I’ve engaged them and they’ve like, oh, I’m, I’m sorry, I didn’t, I didn’t realise that. But I’ve also been bullied. In workplace as well. Um. There’s jealousy. There is they they they were hurt people. But again, I don’t know what they were going through for them to do what they did. The only thing I control is my own reactions and how I can protect and safeguard myself. Um, but yeah, it’s, it’s a tricky one, but it happens on playgrounds, in workplace, on social media, even within families. Even within relationships. Yeah. Is it a power thing? Is it control? Is it a lack of education or awareness? I guess I’m what I’m saying is it’s it’s everything.

It’s just such.

A complex issue. And actually. Well, I was having a conversation with one of my friends with a psychotherapist yesterday. We were talking about cancel culture and how effective it is, you know, people being cancelled online. And and it was a really interesting conversation that we had, which we’re not going to have now here. But ultimately it was also about. My partner was saying that cancel culture was a really good thing because people that are really harmful to people should be cancelled essentially. But my my. Yeah. So you’re not into it, right? But my psychotherapist friend was saying that she thinks it creates a totalitarian system which is basically effectively saying we need to control everything. And the speech, it’s a very tricky one, I think, because yeah, I don’t necessarily agree with cancel culture because I don’t think it’s helpful because like you said, it’s not getting to the root of the problem. Why are people behaving badly? That’s the issue. We don’t say, right, they’re done, let’s cancel this person.

I think I.

Read I, I think I read something you wrote about Clarkson. Yeah. Yeah, I think you wrote. I don’t I don’t think he should be cancelled.

No, I said, well, he said it was disgusting, but I don’t.

Think he should be.

I said cancel culture wasn’t helpful, you know. Yeah.

And I agree. I agreed with that. Yeah I, I agree with that. Yeah. In that, you know, if, if people are worried about what they’re going to say. Yeah. And if you talk to anyone these days everyone’s worried about what they’re saying then, then people won’t be able to, to progress together. Humanity won’t go forward. But then there.

Are the dangerous ones. You know, for example, when you have Kanye West creating anti-Semitic hate speech and possibly encouraging someone.

Unhinged, I think.

It’s worth it.

I think it’s worth it. Really?

Yeah. In the same way as it’s worth it to drive cars, even though some people have car crashes, you know? You know what I mean? There are there are downsides to everything but speech. Being worried about what I say. I do it all the time on this show. I worry about what I’m going to say next in case someone gets offended. I get it. I get the reason for it. But it’s going to hold us back as a as a as a society.

I the only thing I can add to this point is having a facial difference and a basic example. We used to say a disfigurement. So and again, I’ve been in many interviews where people have said, Oh, you’ve got a facial disfigurement. I could easily be offended and react differently or angrily. But it’s a simple conversation now. It’s like, Oh, it’s actual facial difference now. So I have to be able to share with you that that’s how I want or I prefer the language to be, and then you’ll be willing to say, Hey, okay, learning noted. Sure. And start using it. And so again, it’s it’s both parties being able to talk about it. I don’t want you to be scared of your language, but I want you to be.

Educated.

Open and be willing to learn.

Absolutely.

I mean, I learned something at the beginning of this talk because I use the word abandonment. And then I know noted that you had said that it’s helpful to use different language when speaking about your parents because it can trigger something. And I, I was uneducated about that. And now I’m educated and I know. And I think that that’s fair.

That’s a good.

Point. Yeah. But I’ve just learned that because I used the word, I used to say, oh yeah, I abandoned my, my parents. I used to say that. Whereas now I’m like, Oh, actually we went our separate ways. We went our separate ways. So and you know, in ten years time you asked me where I’d be in ten years time. That language, that of me sharing my story, that language I may be using in ten years time may have changed. Um, yeah.

No, I mean, look, the evolution of language is amazing. Yeah, but we were discussing cancel culture. Yeah. Where and what gets me about cancel culture is it’s almost like all different media outlets get together and decide this person’s cancelled.

Yeah, I think.

The organisation it takes for that it, it, it speaks to the fact that it is a conspiracy.

No, but the thing is. Yeah. No, but I. I do, I do.

I think it’s a complex subjects. I don’t agree with cancel culture, but I think that when you have potentially dangerous people with huge social media platforms and following they have a. Sponsibility. Because if someone like Hitler was cancelled, it would have been a good thing. Do you understand what I’m saying? Somebody that can have that much power to influence the masses and it’s dangerous. I’m not saying cancel culture, but we have to find a way to monitor, educate and sort of change the narrative as well.

So do you think like somebody like Kanye at one point, he needs to be say, hey, these are your actions, this is the impact that it’s having in a negative way. You either learn or you get cancelled.

Look, I’m not sure it’s even positive in the end. Yeah, because you cancel someone like Kanye, you end up causing a whole subculture of hate.

But at the end of the day, we all know that Kanye also, you know, he has bipolar disorder. Kanye needs help. You understand? Like he also has a medical condition and people are also abusing his medical condition, by the way, which has been a.

Having him on shows and things.

Yeah, but they’re also abusing because they’re recognising that, you know, when he professes certain views he might be in a certain state within his mind and that’s actually manipulation of media as well. It becomes a whole different conversation. So we can leave that, you know. But I have absolutely loved, loved, loved having you here. Jono, I think we’ve almost talked for two hours, by the way.

Like you’ve been such an.

Incredible human.

Being.

And all the way down from Leeds and I’m so glad that London doesn’t scare you because most people I speak to from the North are like, I hate London, I’m going back. But honestly, like you are such an amazing person, I think you’re going to really help a lot of people during this talk. And I’m you know, for one, I feel so privileged to know someone like you. So thank.

You.

Thank you for having me. And if anybody who’s listening to this does want to reach out or wants to connect, then I’m happy for you to put them in touch with myself. Um, talk about things, anything further. If they’ve got any questions, then what’s your Instagram? Jono Lancaster. Jono Lancaster.

Perfect. Last thing is I do actually ask a guest one random question off the cuff and I want you to answer. If you could go back in time, where would you go and why?

If I could go back in time personally or in person?

No. Well, it could be. Could be anywhere. You could go back to the 1950s, the 20s. You could go back a particular time in your life. It’s open.

I would love to go back.

Are.

I would love to go back to the 90s so I am the music, you know.

Best hip hop era. I’m here.

For it.

Um, you know, so not so obviously. I grew up listening to Puff Daddy as he was back then. Um, and then you had Tupac and Biggie, but then you also had the 90s dance music. Then you had also the Oasis and the Blur.

Um, even the old man.

Remembers Music.

Was good in the night.

Yeah.

Um, and then the obviously the Euro 96, that was the first big football tournament that I kind of recognised and loved. But during the 90s I wasn’t Jonathan. I wasn’t gonna where I am today. I know we can say that about ourselves, but I lived a good chunk of the 90s. Just been very fake. And I would love to have experienced the 90s being my authentic self.

Amazing.

And yeah, I would love to experience.

I’ll see you there.

I love that era. Perfect. Thank you so much.

My pleasure.

Why is it that dentistry, specifically as a career, is linked so heavily to mental health? The idea.

That you see your work fail, it’s soul destroying when that happens over and.

Over again. We are known as perhaps being in the top five professions where suicide is the highest rate and in fact even worse. I think if you speak to most dentists, they will know somebody who has taken their own life.

What do you think is the reason why we’re so find it so hard to talk about mistakes?

Because I think it’s about vulnerability.

It’s my great pleasure to welcome Rhona Eskander into our studio for a live Dental Leaders We’ve got a new process, a new a new series, a mini series that we’re going to be looking at that deals with mental health for dentists called Mind Movers. And, you know, it was born of kind of a frustration of, you know, what’s out there for dentists who are suffering Something that Rhona said to me that, you know, that the stigma of talking about this sort of thing is one thing. And we seem to be a lot better at talking about these things now. But then, you know, after that, what can people do to to improve their situation when they’ve got some sort of stress burnout? You know, I saw in a in a survey, 17% of dentists have considered suicide in a recent survey. So it’s lovely to have you. Rhona, what are your thoughts around mental health and dentistry?

First of all, Payman, thank you so much for having me. I’m smiling here because I think you’re looking at me so seriously, but it’s always a pleasure and I’m so glad that we can bring this alive. So as many of you know, I’ve been working with Enlighten for a number of years. I think that they’re an incredible, incredible brand. And the reason why I’m saying this is because I’ve been trying to approach the subject of mental health with so many people in dentistry and no one would really listen. I think there’s a lot of stigma and taboo that has been really associated with it. You said a statistic, but actually there’s been a lot more shocking statistics I think, in the last few years. And over and over again we are known as perhaps being in the top five professions where suicide is the highest rate and in fact, even worse. I think if you speak to most dentists, they will know somebody who has taken their own life because of the stresses and pressures of our job. Now, I’ve been really open about my mental health online, and I think whether people think it’s appropriate or inappropriate, I think it’s just part of being a human. You know, mental health is something that we all very much get, you know, very much as part of us. But we need tools to basically get through it. And I think that for me, looking outside the Dental arena and having those tools available to me has made me who I am today and overcome a lot of adversity in my life or those really difficult mental states. So my vision is with Enlighten, which I’m really excited, is to bring on guests that I’ve found really inspiring, that have overcome something in some way in their life and have been really remarkable People either in their field or to other people and really share their stories on how they can help you and give you something to take away with you. So that’s really the idea of vision. And I’m really glad that we’ve got some very exciting guests coming on.

Rhona, do you think that, you know, you discussed your mental health challenges that you’ve had before. Do you think that whatever job you did, you would have those? Or do you think that being a dentist has triggered some of that?

I think that that’s a very important question. Why is it that dentistry, specifically as a career, is linked so heavily to mental health? And I was doing a lot of research around this, and I did find that there were a number of reasons specifically related to dentistry. Number one, it’s the pressures of the job number two. So that’s working in a very small confined space, for example. Number two, it’s the psychology of patients constantly telling you that they hate you and feeling undervalued somewhat by people in society. Number three, it’s also the fear of litigation, GDC, all of our governing bodies and not knowing where your career is going to go. Number four, pressures of the NHS. And number five, also feeling this was a really interesting one for me that you didn’t feel you could talk about your mental health because you viewed yourself as a healer in society in some way, because you studied medicine. You’re there to help people and heal people. You can’t really admit to having things going on yourself. So I think those are the reasons specifically linked to dentistry. However, I think that everybody suffers with mental health no matter what profession they’re in. And there’s different ways when we speak to the people that I’ve invited on here, for example, entrepreneurs that have left jobs because of their mental health and started up their own start-ups, but that also comes with its own problems. So I think that really, yes, with dentistry and other professions specifically, there is an issue. But I think as a wider picture, as a generation, mental health is becoming more and more prevalent for other reasons.

But I mean, you list things like the NHS or being sued or the GDC and these these are, you know, local two right now in UK dentistry. But you know, I think for the last 100 years all over the world, dentists have been more prone to suicide than other professionals. Yes. So the job itself, you know, it’s not the most stressful job in the world. There are more stressful jobs than dentistry. And yet we suffer with stress. Now, of course, what you said, you know, the sort of the challenges of working on a live patient who’s, you know, nervous about being there. Sure. I get that. I think, you know, your relationship with your nurse is gigantic. You know, like the way you deal with your your staff and the way it almost feels like a family atmosphere and all of that. But and I’ve always had very good relations with all of my nurses. But I can imagine if if, you know, you and your nurse don’t get on for whatever reason, that’s the one person that you spend all that time with. If you think the patients are just, you know, their work, you know, it’s quite an isolated profession in that sense, right? That you’ve got no one around you for support as a dentist. You could go in and see your patients, only see your nurse and then leave. And if your nurse hates you or if you hate your nurse for whatever reason, I’m sure it’s a massive contributor and.

I think that is a contributor, but I don’t think that’s the be all and end all because lots of people can go into their work and not like their colleagues or their companions. And sure, like you said, you may argue, well, there’s more of them, but not really, because the company that you’re in can really affect your mental health, but perhaps not to the degree of feeling so suicidal. And I think there’s other things as well. You know, dentistry, as you said, you know, working on the patient has, you know, a few. It’s massively stressful because you really feel like someone’s health is in your hands. And I think there’s pressures of really, really immense on you. And I think that dental school as well doesn’t equip you for the emotional side of dentistry or the other things in dentistry that matter. You know, I say matter. I mean, they make you safe in the sense of being able to do the clinical skills, but they don’t really teach you much about complaint handling. They may touch on it, but not really a lot. You know, things like your indemnity, as I said, the GDC, these things are touched upon, but there’s not sort of a heavy focus and they don’t really give you tools on how you deal with things and you ultimately feel like a failure a lot of the time, I think in dentistry, because by the very nature of the job people are attracted to, they attract people that are very high striving, right? You know, you’re going to get people that get straight A’s and A-levels, do extracurricular activities, do X, Y and Z, and then they get thrown into this situation in dental school where they actually feel a little bit average.

That definitely happened to me because it was suddenly like, Oh, I’m actually now striving to just pass rather than getting A’s when at school. That’s what I was doing. So you don’t feel so great about yourself? And I think because people in dentistry are the ones that put so much pressure on themselves, they take it a lot more seriously when they feel they’ve had these failures, as it were. And that’s why I think we’ve got to rewrite the narrative on failure as well, which I hope to discuss later on in the podcast. But this is an extremely complex issue and I don’t think it’s something that can be just made black and white.

But I think if you’re a cardiac surgeon. The stress of whether or not that patient is going to live is probably more than the stress of the RCT and whether whether that tooth and yet cardiac surgeons don’t have the suicide rate the dentists have.

Yeah, totally.

So there’s something in particular. Now, what I said about it’s a live, you know, awake patient that certainly has I think there’s another angle on it where what do you think of this? I mean, I haven’t researched this, but the idea that you see your work fail and much of the work that you do doesn’t benefit the patient. It’s soul destroying when that happens. Right. And and much of dentistry causes problems rather than solves them. And then you layer on top of that a patient who doesn’t want to be there, maybe layer on top of that some sort of toxic work situation. Exactly. And then I think when people go into suicidal ideation, usually it’s a perfect storm of something at home, you know, some sort of chemical imbalance. We’re going to talk to Dan today about about that, you know, about the nutritional side of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But when I’ve looked into it, I can’t get a really good answer for why dentistry causes that.

I think it’s like the multitude of things that you were talking about. It can’t be one single thing. And I think actually I’m going to have to disagree with you in one way. You can’t necessarily pin one thing to mental health, and I think that’s a narrative we need to get rid of. You know, people might say, why did that person take their own life? They had a perfect life. They had kids. I mean, recently there was the death, if you remember, of that amazing dancer from the Ellen Show. And it was so sad because there was a TikTok video of him dancing with his family, looking so happy. And again, everyone be like he had a beautiful wife. He had amazing kids. He had a successful career. Why did he do it? And I think that’s the problem with what’s going on. We’re trying to make it a black and white issue. You have it all. Why would you do that? It’s selfish. And I think the narrative of it’s selfish. It’s extremely dangerous, you know, because we’ve got to provide resources to people. Because I saw this actually a analysis that said when people say it’s selfish for the person that’s going through the mental health, if it means that a mind is the burning building and jumping out of the building as the suicide, that’s the hell that they’re living in. They’re not seeing it in the way that we’re seeing it, you know? So actually, which is worse to stay in the burning building or to jump out of the burning building? Do you see.

What I mean? It’s not helpful at all to say it’s selfish. I mean, the last thing someone who’s committing suicide or thinking about committing suicide needs is judgement. Yeah, exactly. On top of all the problems that they have got. Exactly. I saw some research where the guy was saying that the only thing that they found helped with people who had had some sort of suicidal ideation was something as simple as the people who said no to treatment. Half of them they sent letters to every month saying, How’s it going? We’re thinking of you, this sort of thing. And half of them they didn’t send letters to and the ones they sent letters to didn’t kill themselves as much as the ones who did think someone cares. You know, the loneliness of the job. Yeah. Coupled with triggers, you know, the stresses that happen Now, you said you went through some mental health problems. Yeah. And did you did you sort of go into why? Why did you have these problems or did you just leave that to one side and say, how do I get out of this?

So I think if I think about it properly, I’ve always been prone to being vulnerable to mental health issues. So since I was a young kid, I remember always being really sensitive to certain things in the world. I know it sounds crazy insensitive kid. Yeah, and I was a very sensitive kid, but I was very sensitive and I was very aware of people’s emotions, people’s actions and people’s words. And I think that carried on throughout my life. And I think there was this general sense of being quite disappointed by human beings. I know that sounds strange, and I think it’s because I always was perhaps a bit naive to how the world was run and really believed everything was kind of rainbows and everyone had good intentions. And as I got older, people continuously disappointed me and that used to really affect me on a deeper level. And I felt that I felt a lot more throughout my 20s. I think it was the most difficult time of my life because I really believe you just have no idea who you are in your 20s. And that’s why I find it totally crazy that people think you should be making these life changing decisions in your 20s, you know? And I went to university and it was a really difficult environment for me. So, for example, I was the only Middle Eastern girl in an extremely different environment. You know, I grew up in North London, you know, pay as well because you grew up in the same kind of like childhood background.

And suddenly I was the only Middle Eastern girl, you know, with all these white boarding school girls, which is completely fine. But I was definitely seen as the outcast in a way. And I didn’t fit in from a. Aesthetic perspective where they were like, Oh my gosh, you’re so exotic looking and you know, things like that. And, you know, it was back in the day before Kim K and all that kind of look, and I remember feeling that I just didn’t fit in and comments were constantly being made about my image and I found that really difficult. And I tried so hard to be someone I wasn’t. Like I tried so hard to dampen the way that I look. I was so embarrassed of my eyebrows. I was so embarrassed of my hair, etcetera. And even, you know, living, you know, my parents, you know, tried to dampen down that they were Middle Eastern and so forth. And it’s crazy now because I love it. I’m like, this is me and this is part of my identity. But I think university was really tough as well because I just didn’t know how to deal with so much rejection. That was rejection within Dental school, but also social aspects of my life. I had friends, sure.

And you know, I was popular, but it just goes deeper than that. And sometimes I just found that my mind would run riot, you know, telling myself that I wasn’t good enough, telling myself that I needed to be someone else, you know, putting so much pressure. And I think that that voice in my head would just constantly be there. And in some ways, you know, you’ve got to flip it around because it helped me push further because I was like, okay, you know what? If this person doesn’t believe in me, I’m going to prove them wrong. So that was my drive. But I think one of the major things that helped me is that I sought out information from people that I believe had come over struggles and had made it in life. So I’m really excited that we’re going to have Daniel Murray Certa on the show. And the reason is because when I was young as 14, all my teachers told me that I was pretty much a failure because I was really good at drama and public speaking, but was not academic at all. I used to hang out with Daniel outside school and he was academic and he wanted to apply to Oxbridge and we used to study Othello together and Shakespeare and everything. And I remember being really inspired because for some reason I associated his academic success with respect in a way.

So I saw that he was getting the respect of teachers, and I’m not saying that’s the right way, but I noticed that. And I said, okay, great, maybe I can learn from Dan. So that pushed me and I’d study with him further and I’d do other things, and I really pushed myself academically even if it didn’t come naturally to me. So I always found that, like looking up to people and Daniel, when he comes on the show, he’ll talk to you about Difficult. The loss of his father was, for example, as well. And, you know, I can’t imagine how difficult that would be, especially as, you know, I’m so close to my dad. But being able to look up to people who have come so far in life and be able to come, those horrendous moments have really helped me. And then the more and more I looked up to these people, I realised there was a whole community of people that really have been through their own struggles but overcome them, you know, somehow. And I think that’s when I realised it’s actually okay. And most of us, most human beings have stuff going on in their head. Most not everyone is in like on that super, super complex level where they overthink things. And the more we help each other and the more we develop a community and the more we talk, the better it is.

You know what you said about being the outsider that, you know, I’m very interested in this idea of your your biggest strength being your biggest weakness. Yeah. And, you know, right now you’re an outsider as far as you know, you’re an outlier in dentistry.

Am I Payman. Can you. Can you? Yeah. Can you like.

No, you are. You are. And in the way I’m thinking about it is, you know, like you said, you feel you used to feel people like almost be empathic to the way people were feeling about you. And if it was a negative. Yeah, like you said, all these girls who were being negative. Yeah. But at the same time, I’ve seen you with your staff, I’ve seen you with patients. You’ve got you’ve got that in the positive way as well, right? You can you can make people feel fantastic. You can you can understand what, what someone’s saying to you without them actually saying it. And so, you know, our biggest strength ends up being our biggest weakness. And so what you just said here about sort of gaining strength from mental health challenges. Yeah. When you see other people overcoming them, one one sort of thing that worries me, though, is, you know, we’re calling this Mind movers, right? Do you think someone who’s actually suffering would bother to listen?

Oh, 100%, because I think it was when I was suffering and my weakest points that I sought out information and people that could really help me. So for me, it was looking outside dentistry somehow, which is why I want to have the conversation within dentistry. So if it meant looking on YouTube, you know, for videos or people that had talked about different things, of course there’s days that you’re completely paralysed and I think Dan can talk about that as well. But then you might have a moment where you’re like, I need help. I want help. Does that make sense? You know? And then you start to look for sources that might be going to therapy it. Might be, as I said, finding a community that understands you. It might be talking to other people. But what do you think?

What do you think the trigger itself is to go from to go from a position of I’m sad and I deserve to be sad or I am, you know, I’m sad about being sad or I’m going to try and find a solution to this. I’m going to try and seek out help. And there’s obviously, you know, some people never, never look for help or reject help. And then they’re the ones who descend into a in a darker place. Other people will look for help and try and, you know, try things out and, you know, in the same way. But I think.

A lot of people, the ones that don’t try things out again, I think it goes back to the whole thing of the stigma that people feel like I can’t ask for help because people are going to think I’m weak. I can’t have conversations because people are going to judge me. I have a family, What are they going to think? And that’s when they spiral. But the more conversations we’re having, like today, the more media outlets that are like, this person went through this, this person went through that, let’s be kind to one another. Let’s change the narrative. The more education we have, the more people I think will seek help rather than spiral out of control.

Let’s let’s take that on to dentistry in general. Sure. And, you know, failures. And it’s actually one of the reasons why we ask the question on on this podcast is that, you know, what were your biggest mistakes clinically and so forth. What do you what do you think is the reason why we’re so sort of find it so hard to talk about mistakes and and clinical failures?

Because I think it’s about vulnerability.

Why are we more vulnerable than the, I don’t know, the next profession? No.

But I think it’s in general, I think most people people don’t like being vulnerable. It was funny because I was having a conversation with one of my best friends yesterday and she’s having an experience with a guy. Right. And she said to me, this guy has a bad reputation. He’s known for not treating women very well. And she kind of gone there and she was like, I’m really scared. People are going to judge me. I said, What do you mean? She said, Well, I’m just worried people are going to speak about me, you know, like, Oh, poor her. She got messed around by him. And I said, And for me, I recognise that she doesn’t want to be vulnerable. Right. Because that’s ultimately it. Right? And this is talking about guys situations, not talking about a job situation. Human beings in general don’t like being vulnerable. What I’ve realised over the last few years is you very much know through my social media vulnerability is a superpower because vulnerability is actually what makes you relatable. It makes you relatable, it makes you real. So don’t be afraid to share those stories. And I think, yes, as dentists, because we’ve been high achievers, we’ve been used to be like, I got an A, I got a distinction. I got this. You see what I mean? It’s even harder for us to be like, Oh my gosh, I’m suffering. I failed this. I didn’t do this treatment that well, etcetera, you know? So I think that those are some of the reasons. But take vulnerability as a superpower. And if you change that, your whole mindset can change for sure.

For sure. I mean, I’ve thought about this in in business as well. And I know Dan does something called founders where it’s like a it’s like a safe space where, you know, founders can talk to each other about things that are going wrong. But often it’s hard. Even in business, it’s really hard to admit that something’s a challenge or that you’re really bad at something. You know how in every business some people are really good at some things and really bad at other things?

Totally. Like even with Parlour, as you know, like I’m so creative, but I’m absolutely awful, awful at like the computer stuff, like putting it down on a PowerPoint or like Excel. But I have a million ideas and you probably know as well, like working with me recently, it’s like I’m the ideas person. Like I can bring all the creative ideas, but it’s I hate that. Like I hate the sort of administrative side of things.

I’ve been I’ve been quite impressed with your execution side. You know, if if we say, let’s do something by that date, you tend to do it by that date, which I didn’t think you would be, that that sort of on it.

But I’m not good at but like.

I’m certainly not but.

I but I wouldn’t send like an agenda. Do you see what I mean? You know that kind of thing. You know, we’ve got Laura. That’s okay.

She’s listening. Yeah.

All right. Well, I’m really looking forward to this. Me, too. You know, and I think there’s going to be a lot of value in it. And we’ll try and also engage the people in dentistry who are involved in this space. You know, speak to Lauren and Mahrukh and see what see what answers they’ve got. They’ve obviously they’ve been asking these questions, the ones about specific to dentistry for quite a long time and super excited about all these people that you know and that you’re bringing on. So look forward to it. Amazing.

Thank you, Payman Thank you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

No. Do you know what?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There No.

My father never said anything.

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

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

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

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

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

And that was me.

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

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

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

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

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

Doesn’t it?

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

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

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

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

Yeah, that works, mate. Yeah. Jeez.

But let me tell you another.

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

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

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

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

And then I heard this rustling.

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

I’ve just told my dad I loved him.

Why? What’s wrong?

I said, I just wanted to tell him.

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

Round to our house, we kind of.

Ran in slow.

Motion down the garden towards.

Each other. But we didn’t.

Because when all them blokes.

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

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

Quite the opposite.

My my kids.

Would tell you that I don’t see enough.

Of them.

And I’ve now actually.

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

And, you know, the reason for.

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

And.

Do I feel guilty about it? Yes, I.

Do. Is that the complete.

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

Yes, it is.

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

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

Brilliant at giving everybody else advice and pretty.

Crap at taking it.

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

Own strengths and weaknesses.

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

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

The word.

Dentist. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

We’re just getting warmed up.

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

Yeah, I a couple of observations, by.

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

Of coaching.

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

And my client, my lab.

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

Well, as it happened.

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

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

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

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

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

Is you showed up.

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

We didn’t have any websites.

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

And that was it.

Now, the interesting thing is.

That.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Have everybody and.

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

Change.

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

I’m asking myself.

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

I believe that what.

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

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

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

And, you know, people fire me.

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

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

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

Prav You’ve been in this situation.

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

The same approach?

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

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

Yeah. And I think.

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

Yeah.

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

Um, and.

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

I’m then.

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

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

So, no. Do you know? No, I’m a coach.

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

Okay.

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

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

Well.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I say it doesn’t.

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

Know, I think I’m in I’m in a very.

Fortunate position.

That that.

Coaching is about giving.

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

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

Me.

Unless they are ready to do the work.

But the interesting.

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

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

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

Realised.

That that.

Isn’t going to happen. Yeah, and.

They’re the ones that leave and.

They always leave really, really quickly.

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

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

I am still.

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

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

You mean get into my area as a coach?

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

Well, first things first.

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

Have you not.

Worked with any other.

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

Um, but I.

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

And I have.

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

Scenario, really. Um, but I love it.

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

You know, the key skills for for a coach.

Oh, thank you. Yes. So, um.

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

I’ve had today.

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

And say absolutely.

Nothing about what you do.

How you do it.

Where you.

Do it, when you do it.

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

Goes blah.

And vomits all over you. And when they.

Finished.

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

Back again.

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

At that point.

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

The key skill is listening.

The key skill is listening.

Interesting.

And by the way, by the way, any.

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

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

One of the things.

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

Stories.

Stories.

Okay.

You know, and.

Moses wasn’t.

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

The fuck are you.

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

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

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

I’m going to tell you a story.

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

The parable.

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

Know, when.

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

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

My first and.

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

My second.

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

Now, many.

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

So I’m clearly an.

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

And yet.

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

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

Not a bloody chance.

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

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

Yeah.

And what I’ve discovered about that.

Man.

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

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

One of the greatest.

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

Oh, okay.

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

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

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

Where it’s a win.

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

That I just.

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

In a supernatural way. You believe in karma.

Well, can’t think of any other way.

Well, no, practically.

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

Go and beat his brains out.

That’s not very supernatural.

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

Well, no. You know.

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

Now, I said statistical.

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

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

Well well.

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

About.

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

You got the Facebook lunchtime.

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

Blah, blah and and and and I.

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

But all I did.

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

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

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

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

Well, yeah. And that, you.

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

1996.

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

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

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

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

So, you know, maybe the moral of the.

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

More of.

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

And that is the secret.

Of the success that I’ve enjoyed.

And every time I talk.

Consistently.

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

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

And every time I’ve asked.

Myself that.

Question.

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

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

All right. Well, the.

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

And poor dads.

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

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

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

Seen it all.

There is nothing that could surprise me.

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

The the NHS.

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

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

Well, you know, people have been talking.

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

But, you know, having.

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

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

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

No, no, no. Gym and hot tub.

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

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

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

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

Have you brought your vulnerable side? Today?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Not being shy.

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

Something like that. Oh, Eastern.

Europeans are known for their jokes. That is.

Nothing new.

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

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

Oh, well, I wouldn’t go that far.

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

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

There are so.

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

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

I would love to.

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

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

And and it’s good.

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

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

What’s that about?

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

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

Um.

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

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

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

Not at all. Really?

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

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

I mean, you.

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

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

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

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

You don’t believe that.

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

No, no, of course not.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Well, not by mistake. By accident, by.

Accident, by accident, but.

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

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

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

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

Of the teachers.

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

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

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

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

But, you know, I.

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

I don’t think I.

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

One man, man.

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

He built it.

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

Okay, then. So I wouldn’t.

Take I bounce back. Your question wouldn’t.

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

But he knows that.

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

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

Please.

No, no, no. Gym and hot tub.

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

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

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

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

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

The hard bit.

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

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

Strict when you need both a.

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

As well.

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

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

Sardinia. Dental. Yes. Yeah, for.

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

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

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

But you don’t like to be.

A bad policeman?

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

It’s the best. Yeah. And people feel.

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

It’s a really good time. I do need.

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

It’s an interview question.

You’re a perfectionist, that one.

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

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

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

No, I do. I.

Well, you just.

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

That’s true. Yeah, I do. I do.

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

So complacency.

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

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

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

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

Yes. On this.

Podcast, you know.

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

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

Oh my God.

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

Stuff that feels very obvious to you. Yeah.

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

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

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

It was the second time.

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

How long did you do it for?

Uh, 2 to 3 years.

Oh, really?

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

Beautiful place.

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

And as the third.

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

Right, Exactly.

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

Terrible.

Materials, not enough time.

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

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

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

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

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

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

So it’s a thin line, right?

It’s a very thin line.

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

If I. Yes, exactly.

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

I’m not the person, you.

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

Any other time.

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

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

Let’s talk through one of.

Them.

Which.

Which one? Which one? I’m thinking.

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

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

That’s the mistake.

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

Lost lost lost.

Confidence or some something.

More than confidence.

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

Okay, okay, let’s.

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

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

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

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

Permanently.

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

I’m like.

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

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

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

Why couldn’t you just redo those two?

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

Have a nice transition.

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

Yeah. Yeah.

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

Wow.

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

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

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

Again, it.

Seems like a success, not a failure to me.

Turn every failure into success.

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

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

Disc.

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

And I’m like, oh, my goodness.

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

That qualifies somewhat.

Finally, somewhat, finally, finally.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Okay, so there is very modest.

You’re very modest. You’re very.

Modest. There is a thing.

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

Lithuanians.

Are very modest from what I’ve noticed.

Because so many Lithuanians that are good.

Right. Agreed with that. So we have.

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

Know, it resonated at the right place.

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

Now, I take your point.

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

No.

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

Orange, orange skin, orange.

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

On my social media.

That’s what I was going to ask next.

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

You don’t find.

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

That? I do.

Educate them.

On secondary anatomy, on.

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

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

That.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yeah. What’s your process?

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

Popular now, Zoom consultations.

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

Connect to the person.

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

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

Really.

Like like I.

Still I wonder.

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

Course, of course.

And I think you probably would change the mind.

I mean, I do want to.

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

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

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

Works at all? Yeah.

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

I don’t.

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

Yeah.

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

Which course do you teach?

It’s a restorative Dental practice.

Which is a what? How long is that course?

Is it a year course. So this is.

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

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

So we’re always.

There, both.

Of us.

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

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

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

That’s a lot of.

The course you teach.

Um, I will say.

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

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

Bonded.

Bonded.

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

Yes, absolutely.

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

Behind the thing.

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

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

Quite evidence is always too.

Late to the party. Yeah exactly.

Always exactly.

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

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

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

And I do prep.

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

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

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

But of course it’s.

Changing for you.

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

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

Yeah, exactly.

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

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

I do not meditate. I am aspiring to meditate.

I do.

Not meditate.

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

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

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

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

But it’s so true.

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

Yeah. It’s just not.

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

Do you want.

Kids?

Such a tough question. You’re not sure?

I’m not sure. I’m not sure.

I’m not sure.

Nothing wrong with that.

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

Yeah, of.

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

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

Oh, yes, absolutely.

And I think when you’re a woman.

But it’s true.

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

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

What did you end up doing?

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

Oh, yeah. For yourself.

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

So lazy.

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

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

That’s your me.

Time.

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

Yeah. Um.

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

The quiet.

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

That. So the Japanese.

They say bathe, bathe in the forest.

Yes.

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

By yourself?

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

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

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

What you like doing.

Right.

Your perfect day. You wake up, cats.

Go for a walk.

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

Not to.

Cook. Obviously in a.

Restaurant? No.

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

I know, I know.

It shows my age.

Have you always gone to bed early? You just.

Love. You love sleep. This is.

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

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

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

Um, so if I’m. If I’m massively.

Stressed, I.

Eat.

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

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

Up some more of. In your.

Cases. Yeah.

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

One single place.

Well.

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

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

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

It does look.

Beautiful, actually, in from our office.

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

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

Did you take one of those 4×4?

I did.

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

Waterfalls and things.

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

Yeah, definitely.

And the lights. Quite interesting, though.

Yeah, the light is quite interesting.

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

Yeah.

So do you like skiing as well?

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

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

It is a very.

Very, very beautiful place. Yes.

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

Oh, the depressing one.

I don’t know why you find that depressing.

It makes me feel.

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

Like, okay, I’m.

Not dying yet.

You know.

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

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

And were you thinking were you thinking.

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

Both.

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

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

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

And are you just three girls?

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

Do you not have friends?

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

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

My sisters, my.

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

And were you.

Closer to your dad.

Then?

Yes, I was close to my dad. Yes.

Yes.

Okay. That’s the first piece of advice.

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

Live on your own terms.

Yeah, live on your.

Own terms, which I think.

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

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Amazing. So what’s the third?

Um.

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

No, no, keep going.

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

What’s the third? I’d say.

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

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

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

Achieving it. You know.

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

Of.

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

Yeah. So what are you chasing?

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

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

You follow your passions.

Yeah.

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

Do not look.

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

I do. Honestly, I.

Do. Yes.

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

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

I am. Do you believe in God?

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

What do you mean by that?

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

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

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

Well, do you believe in karma?

I don’t know. Maybe in some ways.

But I think.

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

Yeah. To me, it seems very transactional.

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

Yeah.

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

And so how should.

We live life and what is worthwhile.

And the good.

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

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

I hate this question. Thank you, Mike.

My question. Thanks a lot.

Oh, three guests.

Yeah.

Dead or alive?

I have to.

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

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

You’re in your element.

I told you. Yeah.

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

Be quite.

That’d be interesting.

That’d be interesting.

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

Ricky Gervais. Ricky Gervais. Yeah. Ricky Gervais.

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

He’s a serious guy. He’s a serious.

Animal. Issues.

That sort of thing.

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

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

Oh, gosh. You really are morbid, huh?

No, but.

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

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

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

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

I think I would bring.

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

Yeah.

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

Who invented.

The telephone?

No, actually, who.

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

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

Yeah, that too. Who killed you?

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

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

No, no, no, no, no.

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

Have three kids by then. Yeah, yeah.

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

Thank you. Thanks again.

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

Thanks for listening, guys. Hope you enjoyed today’s episode. Make sure you tune in for future episodes. Hit subscribe in iTunes or Google Play or whatever platform it is. And you know, we really, really appreciate it. If you would give us a six star rating. Six star rating. That’s what I always leave my Uber driver.

Thanks a lot, guys.

Bye.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let’s hear it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That is so true.

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

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

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

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

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

Powerful and concise and yeah, absolutely.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yes, agreed.

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

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

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

Right? Guilty as charged.

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

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

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

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

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

Going.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You’re so.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Instant red faces and.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How did you find Dental?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yeah, I.

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

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

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

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

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

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

So did you do the Mike? Wise Course.

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

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

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

And did you do it full time?

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

Full time.

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

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

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

So that’s called anchoring.

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

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

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

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

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

You know.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Are you doing all on floor as well?

Yeah, Yeah, we do.

Oh, nice.

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

And do you bother with marketing or not?

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

Consumer marketing. I’m not talking about professional.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yeah, that’s.

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

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

Weren’t comfortable with that feeling really.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Many miles.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You just carry on running, huh?

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

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

Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

This could go anywhere here. Yeah.

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

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

How do you do it? What I do to.

Fix NHS.

Dentistry.

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

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

They’ve just you know, it’s.

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

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

Yeah but.

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

Yeah.

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

I think it was pretty close.

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

Are the ruling party.

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

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

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

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

Yeah, I think.

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

Yeah, that’s that’s.

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

And despite the fact they.

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

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

Yeah, Yeah.

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

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

Yeah, it is a subtext.

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

Correct.

Yeah.

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

Mhm.

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

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

Credible, credible. Some of the work he.

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

I didn’t know that. Yeah. Yeah.

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

Your favourite movie.

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

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

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

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

When we were.

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

The favourite album.

Favourite album.

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

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

Oh, free game. Yeah.

Dead or alive?

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

So I’ll tell you.

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

I’ve heard. I’ve heard.

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

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

He he wasn’t Michael Jordan in basketball. He was not the Michael Jordan of baseball.

I’ll tell you. So, yeah, to have the.

You know, the, I guess.

The.

The determination.

Or humility.

Humility. Right. Humility to start again in another sport.

And he was playing in what they call the farm leagues at the time. And I remember it because I was into basketball and I would read we had actually basketball on Channel four, if you remember that NBA stuff we had on Channel four. And as a result, you get a bit of coverage in the paper. And remember, Michael Jordan quit the Chicago Bulls after they won what they call the three peat. They won three NBA titles in a row. And they said, oh, Jordan, just unstoppable. And he quit to go and play baseball and was what? It’s insane. And because he thought he could be a he at one time, he thought he could be a professional baseball player or basketball player. I wasn’t sure which. And as you say, to go from the heights and the fame to essentially taking the Chicago Bulls actually kept his contract going. So they still paid him. So he was still getting paid. They paid him in the hope he would come back, but he said he wasn’t going to come back, but he was playing for a farm league, you know, with guys who were, you know, part timers who were actually quite keen to injure him and show this guy, you know, and as you say, interesting just to know about that that that get a bit of chat about that and I’d love to ask him about all that And then the comeback after a bit like Ali after two years he was out you know the bulls had been overtaken, other teams had won. And he came back and said, we’re going to win again. And it was a bit motivating himself and the team to do the same thing again. So, yeah, Michael Jordan would be in their second, I’d have to say Barack Obama. Yeah. Chicago guy again, my cousin. Hello, Ollie, if you’re listening, is my cousin’s American. He lives in Seattle and he worked for the Obama administration.

Oh, really? Yeah, he’s got some fantastic photos.

Yeah, my aunt has a great.

Our Facebook profile is her meeting Obama.

It’s brilliant and all. He just tells me what a guy you know, he’s he also has done some work for the Biden administration currently and he worked a bit for Gore. But some of the things he says about Obama, he’s just, you know, just a great, great guy. And I just love to love to chat to him. No, you’re right. So I think I think he’d be a good dinner guest.

What an orator. Have you heard the podcast of Obama and Bruce Springsteen?

No, I have not.

Oh, excellent. Dude, it’s Spotify only. It’s called. It’s called Born in the USA. It’s like seven episodes. Yeah. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. Obama just talks the best. I think he talks better than anyone else in the world.

Yeah, he’s amazing. Amazing. And, you know.

His knowledge of history.

And.

I know he obviously history.

And you would.

Think the knowledge of history and geopolitics has probably comes with the territory, but probably doesn’t, you know, we’ve seen that. So yeah, he just came across as so knowledgeable and love love to chat to him. So he’d be number two. Number three, if we chatted about Muhammad Ali and what an enigmatic personality. And I think, you know, we’d love to have Muhammad Ali there, but the problem is I’d never get a word in edgeways. And so instead of Muhammad Ali, I would say Larry David kerb your enthusiasm.

Oh, he’s.

Emma’s number three.

Amazing.

Because don’t you don’t you find yourself.

Nodding in agreement with Larry?

All the scrapes he gets into, You kind of can’t help but think he’s quite correct.

Um, so I’d love to actually be the guy that says, You know what?

You’re quite right, Larry. I agree with everything you say.

So, yeah, I’d love to get Larry David.

On and.

He’d probably fall.

Out with Obama and.

Fall out with Michael.

Jordan in quick succession.

But yeah, so I’ve just realised all the guys have given you a live. So maybe that dinner party could even happen.

You’re a massive fan of Americana, it seems, huh?

Yeah. Love it. That’s my favourite country. It’s just, I suppose.

Growing up in the 80 seconds, America just seemed like the epicentre of everything. And my cousin, who I’ve mentioned, grew up in Southern California in the 80 seconds, and he said to me, It was as good as it sounds.

Um, and you know, you grew up with.

All the movies and all the culture was American and, you know, all the things you coveted, like, you know, Nike, Air Jordans and, you know, Eddie Van Halen’s guitar.

Chicago Pizza Pie. Exactly.

It was all from the States. So, yeah.

Absolutely Love America. And I’ve got some good friends now who are American that I visit regularly. And I just never had a bad time there. It’s such a great place to be. And probably, as you can probably gather, because we’ve been chatting for ages. I love chat to people and.

Yeah, they’re good at that. They love it. Yeah, and it’s great. You know, my.

Understanding, my understanding of that, talking to my American cousins is that they’re very quick to get to a certain point, but then very slow to get past that point, whereas we’re the opposite. We’re very slow to get to that point. But once we decide he’s all right, we’ll talk. We’ll throw everything at it. That’s the way she was explained to me. And that’s a good.

That’s a good.

Explanation. I like that you think you’re quite spot on with that. Yeah.

And I’ve sometimes I’ve been sat on a plane and talked to some guy sitting next to me and. And like, you know, in America it could be a 6 or 7 hour flight. And I think I’ve broken new ground, found a new friend for life because, you know, we just spoke for seven hours here. And then the guy will say, okay, see you later. Bye. Just walk off. You’re like, what happened then? Because we’re so not used to having those conversations so quickly with a stranger, you know? Yeah.

That’s fine. Yeah.

Let’s get to Prav final deep question. Deathbed. Surrounded by your loved ones. Okay. Three pieces of.

Advice. Three pieces of advice I’d give to my loved ones.

On my deathbed. Okay. I think when it comes to a challenge and I think this is the greatest.

Slogan in marketing.

It’s just do it. You know, think Nikes. Just do it. When it comes to anything that you.

Find a challenge.

Or you think is going to be a challenge. I think just.

That’s what I would say. Just do it. Jump.

Go for it. Yeah. The number of times.

The things I’ve done that have been most.

Worthwhile have been, you know, things I could.

Have quite easily.

Avoided and no one would have criticised me for.

It.

But because I’ve done them, you know, I think the hardest part is doing it is is just doing it. Once you do it, you’ll do it. I think generally you’re right.

I find that the cold shower, the longer you think about it, the less you’re going to do. You just jump in. You just do it. You’re quite right.

And it’s like going for a run. The number of times I walk past my trainers in the morning for, I physically have to actually put them on myself and push myself out the door and lock the door behind me with no key. And then once you do it, you’re like, you know, you never come back and say, that was a bad idea. I’m glad I did that, you know? Um, yeah. So just do it would be that would be one.

And I think the second thing I would say is I think you have to practice.

Practice and practice some more. And I think the.

Reason for that is that, like we alluded to earlier, everybody has self-doubt. And to make sure that your self-belief.

Outweighs your self-doubt, you can only do that by practice and practice and practice and practice.

So there can never be.

Enough practice or whatever you choose to do.

And that can be an.

Expert for sure. For sure.

Yeah. In anything, if you want to get good at anything.

Whatever it might be.

Practice. And I suppose the last thing would be.

And I wish I would do this myself, is. In the good moments that you have not only enjoy them, but be present in them. Don’t think about the next thing you’re got to do. Don’t think about once I’ve got this, I don’t want to think about the next thing. Just enjoy the moment which I’m guilty of not doing.

So yeah.

That would be my three bits of advice.

Have you read The Power of Now or listened to it or anything?

I have not. No. No. Very good. Very good.

Very good. Very good for that. Really. But I know what you mean. I know what you mean. I mean, I don’t really suffer with looking backwards, but I just can’t stop myself from looking forward. Yeah, that’s my problem. And you’re right. It does ruin now.

Yeah. Yeah, it does. I think I’ve just got myself this 1999 Bayern Munich shirt and I’m already looking for the.

Next thing I can.

Buy. Then I’ll be happy. No, you won’t. That’s.

That’s the nature of dopamine.

Yeah, very true.

Buddy. Thank you so much. It’s been a massive pleasure. Really, really enjoyed it and enjoyed it. Great considering we had a two hour conversation a week ago. Yeah, it was. It was refreshing. It was refreshing being on this side of it. Really, really very much enjoyed it. Yeah.

Next time you book a transatlantic flight, I’ll.

I’ll book the seat beside you. And we.

Can. We can. Yeah. We can get a seven hour one.

Thank you so much for doing this, man. Pleasure. Pleasure. Inspiration. Thank you. My pleasure.

This is Dental Leaders, the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts. Payman, Langroudi and Prav. Solanki.

Thanks for listening, guys. If you got this far, you must have listened to the whole thing. And just a huge thank you both from me and pay for actually sticking through and listening to what we had to say and what our guest has had to say, because I’m assuming you got some value out of it.

If you did get some value out of it, think about subscribing and if you would share this with a friend who you think might get some value out of it too. Thank you so, so, so much for listening. Thanks.

And don’t forget our six star rating.

It was like end of December coming back. We were just shopping for for the New Year’s Eve and coming back from the city on the Boulevard Avenue Kennedy, which is the main road to the centre. And I look at the left and I see a very nice restaurant. The name was The Last Supper, and I was with a friend and I said, Wow, look at that. It looks so fancy. Look at the lights. And people sit there in the lounge and drink champagne. Let’s go. Let’s go and have some champagne. And really, she said, come on, we have to go home to to prepare for tomorrow. And said, No, no, no, Let’s let’s go for a champagne. So and we went there and sit in this lounge, which was super modern. I think the architect, the interior designer was a designing opium in Barcelona or something like that. So really, really fancy. I look at there and I see the menu of the restaurant say, Well, what do you think if you go eat here for tonight because maybe tomorrow we don’t have a big, big party. So let’s go. It’s the 30th of December. Let’s celebrate the year and said, okay, let’s go have a menu. And sitting there drinking some champagne, eating fantastic food, seeing the people there, I told her, you know what? In this place here, I would really like to have a clinic. Like two, three weeks later, we go there and I sit at the first floor. It was something to rent. And in February I just signed a contract and it was in the same building. And I can tell you many things in my life happened. Like something from above came. You just have to wish.

This is Dental Leaders the podcast where you get to go one on one with emerging leaders in dentistry. Your hosts, Payman, Langroudi and Prav Solanki.

It gives me great pleasure to welcome Dr. Violetta Klaus onto the podcast. Violeta I see as a social butterfly on the international lecture circuit who she absolutely knows. Everybody, When I see you, Violeta, you’re talking talking with all of the big guns and the fully connected in, you know, this podcast, we tend to start with a whole life story, but I’d like to start there. Violeta is also principal of the Violife Smile Design. Amazing practice in Luxembourg and The View Lifestyle brand, which I’d love to get into if you let, let’s welcome you. And are you a social butterfly in Luxembourg as well? Are you are you sort of part of the social scene in in touch with everyone or is it just in dentistry that you’re like that?

So first of all. Hi. Hi everybody. I’m really honoured to be here. I don’t know if in Luxembourg it’s starting now after 13 years maybe to get more known in the Social Network, but I think I can connect very fast. It’s a magnetic thing. So you attract people which are alike and sometimes same visions. And this is why everywhere I go I find people which I can talk to and get inspired and bring inspiration, of course, as well. What can I say? It’s just my nature.

Do you sort of take it back to something in your childhood or in your youth? Where did you talk to Loads of people And, you know, you couldn’t. You couldn’t. You couldn’t read the room.

Oh, no, no, no. As as a teenager, I was really very shy. Really? Yeah. Coming. I grew up in Romania, so I came from a little city, had a few friends. I was coming to Bucharest, which is the capital of Romania with 14, and I felt like, Oh my God, you’re in the big city. It’s terrifying. Everybody was, yeah, really very social, very everywhere. Dance parties. I was not really allowed to go out. So probably at one point I started to do it on my own as I came to Germany with 24 and in Luxembourg, I really started to enjoy that because here is a multicultural, multinational, very small country, a lot of languages, a lot of people from everywhere. And it’s really fascinating to communicate.

When did you know you were going to move from Romania?

Well, actually, I had an aunt in California. And my dream and my plan, the plan of my family was to go there when I finished dental school or when I finished university. But what happened was that I met a guy from Germany, so never wanted to go to Germany, never wanted to to speak German, but it happened. So we married 88 and 89. The first child came. Then I came to Germany. I was working there in a family practice.

And which town in Germany were you.

In three years? Three years is at the border to Luxembourg. So we had a lot of connection with Luxembourg. And I found this part of Europe very, very interesting. So after 20 years of dentistry in Germany, I decided to move to Luxembourg. This was 2009 and I never regretted that. Mm.

So when you look back as a child in Romania, your outlook was you were going to do dentistry in Romania and move. Did you know that you wanted to do that from the beginning? We’ve got loads of Romanians working in our company and massive asset they are to us too. But was it that time in the sort of political era that you thought you were going to move out or not?

Well, from one point moving out, it was just going with my whole family to to America. This was like, oh, that was the original. Yes. The three sisters, that that means my mum and her sisters. One sister was there. She moved in 72. The other one moved in 80. And the third sister. That means my mother, she just waited for me to finish school and to go there. The second part of the decision. So Dental school. It was not from the beginning, but it has a very interesting story because I was like nine years old. I was in primary school and I had an accident. So a colleague hunted me in the break and I felt on my central incisor and well, dentistry in Romania in the in the 80 seconds was super bad. I got a root canal very early. I lost my central incisor very early, and I spent a lot of time in the university for braces for really fixing my problem. And that time my stepmother, she was a dentist, my mother was a general. How do you say a family doctor? And I was very attracted to dentistry and I was there like days and days and years. I was in treatment. I was smelling that that smell of dentistry. And I hated that. I was really frightened and at that time I suffered a lot because losing a central incisor in your teenage time was traumatising.

And my biggest wish and vision was to develop a kind of dentistry which is focussed on aesthetics, on painless dentistry and dentistry, where you feel, where patient feel good and safe and to take care of. So this was the story behind dentistry. Of course, the idea of doing dentistry somewhere else was clear because at that time in the communist Romania, there was not a big chance to do aesthetic dentistry or to specialise in any way or in a in a short time. And this is why it happened to come to Germany. And I started directly, like 1991. I came to I started to work as a dentist and I started directly to make a lot of continuous education regarding veneers, adhesive dentistry, minimally invasive dentistry. And I think that until 97, I did many, many courses. I wanted to level up and to be better. Let’s say in Romania, dentistry was very good. We we learned diagnosis and we had practical exercises. So we started to work on patients in the sixth semester. But I felt that I’m missing the modern digital dentistry, the digital dentistry and everything. What would help me as well? Let’s say from my point of view, I wanted to find a solution and I found it for me and I found it for my patients as well.

And so at what point in that journey did you go from, say, working for other people to say, I want to run my own practice?

As I came to Germany. My husband’s father was the second generation of dentists and they already had a family practice. And a very funny thing is that his brother was studying in Romania as well. You know, both are Germans, but it was for them impossible to study in Germany because they didn’t have a very good note at the Abbey. How do you say when you finalised a school you need to be levelled to dentistry when you are very good in in in the last exams. So they found Romania as a very good way to study dentistry and they had to learn both of them Romanian, which was very hard. And so we met. That means that my future husband, his brother and his girlfriend were dentists. So as I came to Trier, it was like a family clinic with three chairs. It was five dentists. And for me it was very clear that we will not work together. And my husband opened a clinic in 1990. I came in 91. We already have had our first child. It was my son. And this first clinic was very, very small. It was 84 square metre and only two chairs, a little waiting room. And this was like the idea of his father that, well, she will come to Germany and she will just take care of kids cooking for you, doing like home.

You can’t imagine now seeing me. Well, and of course, 91 came and in 92, my second child came. It was the daughter. After three months of staying with her, I restarted work and we developed very, very fast. Three years later, we expanded the clinic from 84m² to 240 square metre. That means five treatment rooms and it went very well. So at the end I was never employed. I started as a self-employed with my husband in the clinic, but definitely both of us are very different, very different characters, personalities and it was a very difficult way to lead a team because if you do not have the same vision and the same way of thinking about dentistry, this leads to many issues. So patients said, Oh, we want to go to him because he’s just very, very conservative and he is able to compromise. I was a little bit more strict in my treatment planning and in discussing with them about long term solutions and most of them full mouth rehabilitations if was needed. That’s why at one point I decided I want to go my way and I left him with a clinic in Trier and I moved to 2009 in Luxembourg.

Wow, what a story. Wow.

That was the first going out of the country.

It’s the third country to be a dentist with.

How does it feel turning up in a country to be a dentist when you don’t speak the language? Or did you speak German?

Well, I learned German as I was six. I think my mother had a private teacher for me and I really hated the language that was so hard for me. I always had headaches or I didn’t feel well as the teacher had to come. Then I had it in the primary school like four years probably. My brain saved a few information from that language so that as I came to Germany and the family was German, and not only the family, but everything. I came from Romania and I found a new kind of living and a new mentality which I had to adapt to. And it was not easy, but I did. And I started to work as a dentist. And I felt that if I do not speak the language perfectly, I will have really problems to to do a consultation and a treatment options discussion with the patient. So I used the time being with the kids, with the babies at home. I used the time to learn German, not from a course. I learned it from television, reading books, reading magazines, watching movies so very fast. I can say I’m a very fast learner and I could speak German almost without flaw, and this was very good for me. So definitely the best decision to communicate is the language. The best tool to communicate is the language. So this was important for me. But coming down to Luxembourg, imagine that it was not only German and English.

I could speak Romanian because we have 2000 Romanians in Luxembourg and my first patients were British, so this was a different kind of treatment, I may say very challenging because. I noticed. Oh, they are totally different than the Germans, so they don’t look at me and wait that I say something and they are very communicative. And they were like, Oh, come on, Violetta, stop apologising. Apologising that my headpiece is not really correct. And if I’m okay, just do it. Yeah, you’re doing fine. You’re doing great. And this motivated me a lot. And at one point we were speaking four languages in the in the clinic because then the French people came and of course, they tried to speak English, but, well, I had to use a few words of French just to make them feel comfortable. And even Italians, I tried to speak Italian. You don’t need to be perfect, but I noticed that people were so happy just to hear you say something in another language in their mother tongue. And I was really tired in the evening switching languages because my team was combined English, German, our software was German. And so now, after 13, 14 years, we have a team where we speak 11 languages. Wow. And this is something outstanding. I think the biggest challenge in communication team development and yes, even patient communication or written patient communication in three languages is really challenging. But I love it.

It. These practices were your practice, the way it looks now. And I encourage anyone to go and have a look at how it looks because it looks amazing. Did it look like that from the beginning, or is that something that you did recently?

No, it’s like 2009. What we did recently, we just bought three new chairs. So this month we got three aksana from from Sirona, which are super beautiful and we just painted the walls now in another colour, this is everything but all the furniture. And the planning was like this from the beginning.

I mean, it’s such a beautiful practice. And now, now that you’re telling me you did that in 2009 when hardly anyone was doing anything cool in dentistry? Well, over here it might have been different in Luxembourg, but you’ve got like a I mean, another way of looking at things. It’s clear. I mean, me and Prav know how difficult it is to do good content. So look at your page and it’s just full of great content. And there must be like, what a team of people, you know, filming the whole time or how do you manage that? Are you the creative lead on that or is there someone else who’s directing all of that?

Yes, I have two accounts. What in on Instagram. One is Doctor Violetta account. This is my personal brand. Yeah. And just for your life, small design, which is our clinic, our team and I have two content creators and digital designers who are preparing the posts. But the videos which we are doing, it’s iPhone. So really iPhone really. And sometimes we have somebody to film like my my. Some movies are done by a film director from Hamburg, which is a friend of mine and the photos we the patient cases and the photos, they are done in our photo studio. My team is really trained to do perfect photos, the smiles and I like to show our cases. I do not like to show any any stock photos and something which doesn’t belong to us. And yeah, we love doing photos. We love doing videos. Sometimes just when we are in the mood in the clinic, we take our iPhone and we just. Yeah, take some.

When did you switch on to social media? Was it like, you know, because you’re like like me, you’re not digitally native, you know, you didn’t grow up with it. Do you remember a point when you realised that’s where I’m, I’m going to focus on that? When was that? Who influenced you?

Well, UK.

Really.

Uk dentist. Well, let’s say I was a little bit careful with that because as I came to Luxembourg in 2009, we are not even allowed to have a website which was looking somehow different and it was totally different than everywhere, even in Germany. And I started creating a website with, of course, a company and I was invited by our like your GDC person. So like the college medical, because they were really all the colleagues were really angry that I am doing marketing. The website was just about informing patient about our working hours, about our treatments and the benefits of the treatments. And we had like two, three years, a little bit of discussions here, but they stopped mocking me and it was a time I don’t remember now exactly. When I met Chris Barrow, it was Internet, it was YouTube. It was I was blown away seeing so many things about and watching his videos about marketing, about social media, about treatment, coordination and everything was was happening in the UK. I felt it’s totally different than Germany and it’s absolutely important and necessary at a certain level, of course. But I was starting doing coaching with Chris Barrow and with Laura Horton, so I am very influenced by the UK dentistry and I visited management courses in London. I was always in touch with, with London, with UK and as well learning a lot about entrepreneurship, about leading a clinic being, yes, a owner. And a principal dentist and trying to get associates and to teach them these kind of treating patients the new patient journey and all all I developed was based on my knowledge but as well a lot, which I’ve learned from Chris Barrow and Laura Horton.

Amazing. I’ve got a couple of questions for you, Violeta, and one of them comes through. We seem to have skipped a huge amount of detail from leaving Germany to landing in Luxembourg and then creating this super clinic as somebody who. Took that journey solo and created what you created, let alone, you know, doing it with a business partner or a team of people. You’ve done this by yourself. Just talk me through the steps of that process. What you went through the ups and there must have been some downs as well. What what were the really tough times during that journey? And were there ever any moments where you thought, What have I done?

Well, it’s a very, very good point because this is let’s say at the moment in my life when I knew I have a tough decision and I didn’t imagine it will be like that in three years. I already was working with patients from Luxembourg, patients who were working in Luxembourg, you know, the Frontaliers, which were earning a lot of money in Luxembourg, living in Germany, because it was more interesting and definitely cheaper. And I thought, Wow, I have these patients. They’re coming from Luxembourg here to to Germany. They are my patients. I’ll go there. They work all there in the banks and all the financial centre and it would be easier for them to come to me like in their break or so to have a cleaning or to have the work done instead of driving through the rush hour to Trier at at six, 630 in the evening, coming for a cleaning and sometimes being late. And my team was waiting, waiting, waiting. Yeah. The Luxembourgish guys are coming. They are in you know, and they have a traffic jam and. In my mind. I said, okay, I will search something, but it has to be in a place where I like. And it was very, very interesting because we were shopping in Luxembourg. I’m coming to Luxembourg City. It’s a beautiful city. You can go out, you can eat. There is a really fancy style. And it was like end of December coming back. We were just shopping for for the New Year’s Eve and coming back from the city on the Boulevard Avenue Kennedy, which is the main road to the centre.

And I look at the left and I see a very nice restaurant. The name was The Last Supper, and I was with a friend and I said, Wow, look at that. It looks so fancy. Look at the lights. And people sit there in the lounge and drink champagne. Let’s go. Let’s go and have some champagne. And really, she said, come on, we have to go home to to prepare for tomorrow. And said, No, no, no, Let’s let’s go for a champagne. And we went there and sit in this lounge, which was super modern. I think the architect, the interior designer, was a designing opium in Barcelona or something like that. So really, really fancy. I look at there and I see the menu of the restaurant say, Well, what do you think if you go eat here for tonight because maybe tomorrow we don’t have a big, big party. So let’s go. It’s the 30th of December. Let’s celebrate the year and said, okay, let’s go have a menu. And sitting there drinking some champagne, eating fantastic food, seeing the people there, I told her, you know what? In this place here, I would really like to have a clinic. And can you imagine that in January, like 2 or 3 weeks later, we go there and I sit at the first floor. It was something to rent. And in February I just signed a contract and it was in the same building. And I can tell you many things in my life happened. Like something from above came.

You just have to wish and it’s coming. And of course, you ask me about the difficult things. And that was the point I wanted to have that I went there, I saw this office, I saw the The view and I said, this will be my clinic. And of course, I was very new in Luxembourg. I was alone, as you say, and I didn’t know many, many things which are regulations or problems with the as a tenant building things. So that means that we just starting construction and we noticed there was no air conditioned and no heating in there so that at one point like 50 K additionally investment to build the air conditioned and then my not the landlord, I was a sub tenant and so he was bankrupt and he wanted from me 160 K because he said, well I built here everything and now you have to pay to me if you want to be there. And it was a lawyers and everything. What you cannot imagine what you go through without planning. And all my business plans and calculations were really in the first three months was disaster. And of course these patients who were supposed to come because they were working in Luxembourg could come to have the cleanings, have something done there, said, well you know, I rather be in traffic jam, but the cleaning in three years is like €20 cheaper. Okay so I couldn’t have the same price as in Germany. You can imagine the wages in Luxembourg are way higher. The rent and everything was way higher.

I had a new investment and my first two years in Luxembourg I stopped doing full mouth restorations once per month and I started with fillings. I was doing composite restorations like 80% of my time and it was super hard in the first two years to get to the level I had in three years. That means from the utilisation and the treatments, which really were good for the revenue. Yeah. And as well satisfying. This was a hard, hard part. And the second, let’s say the hardest part was the team building, because you needed to have somebody to understand English perfectly. I brought a dental assistants from Germany. They were as well now in traffic jam the other side, so they had to travel to to Luxembourg. They were one hour in a bus or in their car. They didn’t find a parking. They were tired. They wanted to go home. They didn’t want to have a break because otherwise they would be there 12 hours. And at 6:00 patient came. So now I would like to have a filling. And my assistant said, No, I’m sorry, but I have to go home, you know? And I was happy that was the first patient to do something in the day. So yeah. And yes, then teaching them the English way, the all the English content and how to talk to patients, which were totally different than in Germany. Team building was the hardest and it’s still the hardest part when you have a clinic with so many languages and yes, a high standard of dentistry as well.

Violetta As a as a leader, you know, somebody who’s leading your practice and your team having been through it, the difficulties and leading your team right now, what’s the one piece of advice you’d give to someone, a prospective practice owner in terms of how to build a team or leadership advice? What would be your top three bits of advice? Managing people, Handling people.

Well, yeah, that’s the most important. I take first communication and of course for me it’s the language, but the language is not the most important. The most important is the attitude. If they do not understand my vision and they do not understand what we are doing there, they are not able to be in the team to find who is a team player. Sometimes it takes longer, but as a owner of a clinic you need to understand each person, the associate or the treatment coordinator or the. Untold numbers, but most of all the receptionist because they translate you to the patient and you can be the best in the room and can explain everything so they can really crash it and have a lot of time to discuss and to ask what they really want and have a test time. When you see maybe you you hire them to be a treatment coordinator, but at the end you see, well, they are a better dental assistant, dental nurse or maybe better in the reception. And then it’s better to ask if they are okay to change. And if they are not okay to change, they need to go.

What kind of a boss are you? Are you a strict boss?

I’m a very strict boss, yes. My people. So I have my my team. I have really people who who were in my team who left and came back. This is a good point. And they came back and they said, we know what we have here. You are really a bitch. So but you are one with a heart. So this is a bit different. They know that I really am very strict and consequent because I want a treatment to be smooth for the patient. I want them to learn. I want them to ask me when they need something. But when we are in the treatment room and they are doing the same mistake three, 4 or 5 times and I need to repeat that. And they know I’m not kind.

You say, because you want the best for the patient, but that could be delivered in a strict way or it could be delivered in a quite the opposite, right? I mean, you know what I mean. I want the best for my patient. I’m not a strict dentist at all. Quite the opposite. We all want.

That. We all want the best.

Yeah. Yeah. So what I’m saying is being being a strict boss is kind of. It’s in you somehow. Like, it’s not in me at all. Yeah, but. But it is. It’s in some people. Prav is a bit of a strict but Prav.

Yeah. Maybe. Maybe the word strict is has a different meaning.

Right now for me, strict is working with a protocol and checklists. This is a consequence. So having everything we need for the treatment, having the checklist and I really wanted to be prepared like that in the clinic is organised like that, but that doesn’t mean that they get.

Like.

We get a big discussion in front of the patient, but they feel exactly when something is missing or is not prepared.

You let them know properly. They know that I’m not.

Happy and they change it. If they don’t change it a few times, then I have to reconsider.

I think. I think when you said that if they and I kind of agree with what you said there in any any in any sort of role. Right. If they make the same mistake five, six, seven times, then you’re not kind. Yeah. And I think that comes to me it sounds like you’re you’re a take no shit kind of boss, right? That you have your thresholds and your limits. They’ve made the same mistake again, again and again. And enough is enough now, right?

Exactly.

When it gets to that point, Violeta and you, for me, I kind of make that decision instantly, right? So I’ve hired someone and there’s, there’s, there’s almost like that threshold. I can’t, I can’t put it into words, but that moment in time and it is literally a moment, I don’t want that person to work for me again. Okay. I know they’re out. Everyone has that. Do you. Do you have that? Do you have that? And then what’s what’s your when that happens, What’s your process? How long do you leave it? How long does it take? Do you have that conversation over and over again in your head? Or do you just go in like a bull in a china shop and say.

Oh, no, no, no, no. How would you do that.

To to yes.

There are two things. So I had people leaving, but they didn’t leave because I fired them. It was 1 or 2 who really decided at that point that they could go somewhere else because it was stressful or they didn’t feel really okay. And they told me that. And they said, You know, I really.

Need to try that, but please, I.

Love it here.

Anyway, if I would like to come back, would you take me back? So but I do not say that to everybody. It was.

Some employees which I.

Really.

Knew. They are very.

Good, but I felt they they are not. Not happy. And if they decide to go, they go. And if they decide to come back, we discuss and we see what are the conditions. And it happened two times for the others. Let’s say the new employees, they have a probation time of six months in Luxembourg. That means in the first five months we need to decide if they really are good for the for the job or not. And this is a discussion which is not.

It’s just, you know, would you like to.

Have something else? Would you like to do like.

You are not.

Trained or.

The role.

Of treatment coordinator, for example, we we we don’t think that you really fit in that position which you apply to.

But we, we appreciate you.

We see that you can do many, many other things. Would you like to do maybe reception or maybe to be a dental nurse? An assistant here is like that. They are trained for everything so they can choose. And if they say no, I don’t, then they have to go. But it has to do as well with the kind of attitude which we are observing. And, you know, this is not only my decision, I may say I always decide with the team, I always decide with the team, which is with me for years, and I can trust them because they feel if that person is really a team player, I cannot see it directly. Yeah, and I know that I can trust him as well because they really want help. They wouldn’t say, Oh no, we don’t like her, let her go. No, that’s not like that. We have a discussion about what are the plus, what is the.

What is the.

The pros and cons. Yeah.

In hiring, do you think you’re strong at seeing potential in someone when when you’re hiring? Yeah.

Yeah. Many times. Didn’t have a choice. Yeah.

Sometimes I had to hire somebody because there was nobody so many times I was applying in in the.

Uk because we really didn’t have anybody to for.

For a while. And the workforce problem in Germany and as well in Luxembourg.

Is, is very big. Yeah. At the end they have to have a.

Very high qualification imagine to to speak two three languages to come along with the software which we are working because it’s a complex software. I took this software with me from Germany. I changed, adapted this to the Luxembourg system. I translated letters and.

Everything in in.

2 or 3 languages in order to be able to print an invoice in English or in French.

So it was a bunch of work at the beginning.

And it’s as well a lot of.

Learning.

I am.

Absolutely aware you cannot learn.

In five months. Definitely. But you see the rate of learning, You see the progress in in five months, definitely.

And you can say, okay.

How long.

Will it take? I am I do I want to.

Pay somebody for two years until they really are there?

And mostly.

It.

Happens that they are there one year or two years and then, okay, the.

Babies are coming and they go and they are gone.

You spent I spent many, many months and years for.

People who left.

For maternity leave.

And some came back, some.

Didn’t.

They as well move. You can imagine Luxembourg is a country. People as well move out of Luxembourg.

So it’s a bit difficult. But by now.

I have a very good team and some are in. I think we got.

Three babies in.

The last two years and our.

Hyginus is coming back now.

After the second baby end of April. And it’s.

Ezra Ralph.

She was a dental hygienist in London. She was working in some known clinics, and she’s with her husband now in Luxembourg. And she’s lovely and we’re happy to have her back.

So I’m happy with the core.

Of my team because I know I can rely on. And when we expand, we are a little bit careful that it’s somebody fitting in the team, completing the team and not bringing it apart.

My other question V letter that I had was I’ve been asked both in Germany and also more recently in France to either speak or assist with marketing and stuff like that. But while differences between the UK and Germany, I’m not so sure about Luxembourg. I wouldn’t know in terms of what you’re allowed to say. And you touched upon that earlier that you come here and you try and bring the UK way and you’ve had some some conversations with the equivalent of the GDC, with your with your advertising. I think I think I heard that correctly Anyway. Exactly. And I’m just really interested to learn what actually happened there because like, for example, I’m speaking later on this year in Paris for Clearcorrect. I had to send them my entire presentation and there were certain things that I weren’t wasn’t even allowed to mention or talk about. And it related to advertising, marketing, incentivisation offers, all of that. And I had to really get creative with my presentation to try and get the same same points across. Right? And I’m really interested to learn how, first of all, the challenges that you’ve faced, both both in Luxembourg and Germany and how you overcame them because because it sounds like to me you kind of and I might be wrong that you kind of broke the rules a little bit and so what happened? And tested the water and then and then see see how far you can push the envelope. And I can see you laughing and smiling now. So. So I’m hoping I’ve guessed right. I just want to learn about what you’re what challenges you faced.

Yes, of course.

I think there’s always.

Somebody who is, let’s say, breaking the rules.

Or trying something new because.

We think we.

Are in. Right. To inform the patient. And in Germany, it was easier.

And I remember many, many years ago, it was like probably 25 years ago, one colleague from Trier, exactly the city where I was, was the first to go on Internet.

To have a website to sell toothpaste.

And he got real problems. He was many, many trials and he ended up really broken. And I think as well for him was the end of the career at the at one point. But he opened our doors. That means from that point we could have a website and we said, Oh my God, look at his website. Everything what you read.

On each page is because.

Of the trial number, blah blah. I am not.

Allowed to say anything.

So we are not allowed to say anything because he lost. But then.

He won.

It was too late for him.

But it was for us. Good. So this I’ve learned.

I never.

Discussed about fees.

Or selling.

Things in Luxembourg because of course this is still forbidden. The social media and Instagram is something coming up probably.

I was.

One of the first.

Here and now I.

See so many colleagues.

Having amazing.

Instagram profiles.

And clinic.

Presentations.

And I think there is one who can who is courageous.

Enough to make the move.

And then the others are waiting, watching, you know, how do you say stalking you? And that’s that one point I noticed. Nothing happens. And they start like very, very a little bit to put something on their Instagram. And then more and more and more. And so in the last one year I saw definitely very good Instagram and social media.

Presence as well.

In Luxembourg YouTube website. It is definitely different than 13 years ago as I as I did my first, and I’m very proud of that because what is the point? We are specialised, we are doing good dentistry, we want our patients to come into the door and know exactly what they what are they expecting. And if I am the.

One who.

They like. Maybe, you know, they.

Wait two months for.

An appointment. They come say, Oh, God, I don’t even like her, you know, But so they have the chance.

To meet me before they come.

They have the.

Chance to be interested in what I’m doing.

And to ask for it. This is for us as well in the patient consultation, big time gain, because.

We.

Don’t do 1 to 1.

Consultation on.

Veneers and explain from the beginning what is a veneer. They know already, what is Invisalign, what are veneers? And this.

Is.

Each of us. They have very high costs. So we want to to save the time.

And to inform the patient as much as possible so.

That they come and have the wish list.

And of course, they need consultation explanation, definitely.

But it’s so important and nobody can say this is forbidden because now we read about everything in Internet, about all all the reviews for something we buy or want to go in vacation, hotels, restaurants.

Why not for dentists.

Let’s say, you know.

Francis Sorry. And just to finish for Prav. Yes.

In France.

Let’s say they are the Leaders.

So Luxembourgish was always a bit French system.

And I think there is a little bit more difficult because it’s a bigger country and here it’s easier to to go near to the border.

But Violetta, what I was going to say, you know what comes to mind when you say that? Of course, I remember back just before I qualified, you couldn’t advertise in the UK either, and it felt arcane and it felt wrong and all that. On the other hand, sometimes the pendulum swings too far the other way. And one of the nice things about, let’s say not having Instagram dentistry is that you have to really focus on good old traditional blowing the socks off your patient, you know, like word of mouth, good old word of mouth. And and I know, I know Prav is going to tell me, Look, you can’t have a successful clinic without both. I get that. Yeah, but the purity of word of mouth means that you’ve got to make a patient journey in your practice. That’s guess, you know, memorable. It’s got to be something that people feel. You know, if you’re doing big cases, people feel like they’re finally jumping in. It’s a big, big step, you know, going for a full mouth rehabilitation or even Invisalign or whatever it is. What are your just like he asked you about your three big tips on managing staff. What are your big tips on patient journey? Um, you know, is it do you have tactics or is it are you just yourself and you’re listening and, you know, the whole thing. Patient journey. Give us some tips. Okay?

Okay. Yes. Um, patient journey.

Um, I do not know. I have the the feeling that everybody should do the same. I always thought I’m doing what others are doing. So for.

Me.

In Luxembourg.

And for for our team.

Word of mouth is very important. Think about the 600,000 people living here. And I can tell you the Luxembourgish, it’s not a I think it’s.

45%.

Is.

Is Luxembourgish, the rest are foreigners.

And word of mouth is I think more more important than than everywhere because people know each other, they live together, they go eat together. So if you are really doing something good, they hear and they want to come. But if you do something bad or if.

If you have.

A.

Failure, this is very bad for you. And even if it’s not a failure from.

The medical.

Point of view, from the clinical point.

Of view. So I was from the beginning aware that here I have to be good, I have to be transparent, I.

Have to.

Explain what I’m doing to.

Explain.

What is necessary to hear what they.

Want from me, but.

As well to notice that it is a lot. They were not educated about like for example, a gum.

Disease that was that is something.

Which was.

Not.

Really.

Something. They knew what that means. So we started at a at a.

Basic level of communication.

Explanation before starting to discuss about.

Implants or veneers or Invisalign.

So that’s why I developed the new patient journey. In that way, we are sending a questionnaire where we find out.

What.

Is their main concern.

So before they they enter the office, they fill out a questionnaire. There. And when they come in, I know a little bit about them. We have a little telephone interview. Of course, when we get them at the phone.

Sometimes we don’t.

And most they come. Yeah.

Yes. Before they.

Come. So to.

Explain how to find.

A clinic, to ask again, what are the main concerns and what how are they recommended and so on.

Then.

As well, this is a filter for the patient.

So they know.

My, my, my front desk team knows if it’s a patient interested in aesthetics or wanting to come to.

Me or is a patient who is.

Interested in implants and needs to see the implantologists or it’s just an.

Emergency patient. Yeah. Then we know how much time we.

We plan for this.

Appointment.

We send a letter where they know exactly what we’ll do in the first.

Session and.

How long time it takes, because most.

Of the patients were used to go.

To the dentist like ten, 15 minutes, check it a little bit and then say goodbye. And when they come to us and we do an intraoral scan, we do interior, we do extra photos, we do probably an x ray as well if it’s needed, if they don’t have a new one. And we take our time to.

Sit down with.

The with Itero scanner.

And to explain.

And to have a risk assessment, we cannot say in the first session directly the.

Whole treatment.

Plan and give.

An estimate.

But they have an idea.

About treatment steps.

And 99% start with the with the dental cleaning.

Program.

They are informed that we are taking photos because we had many.

Times.

As I thought, yeah.

It’s normal. We do photos and patient.

Comes please go do photos through x ray. And so they were sitting there and the photos say, No, I’m not here.

For the magazine, I’m not at the.

Vogue, what are you doing with me? So they were really uninformed, was very bad. So we.

Informed, I think, the information about what’s going on and as well.

The let’s say the option that they choose a very normal short check-up or a comprehensive check-up is very important. So and the second is.

Really to sit down because before.

Entering the.

Mouth with any scanner or.

Dental mirror.

Is just to sit down for five minutes.

And ask them how they come to me and.

How do they know the clinic and just have a.

Chat.

Just a normal chat.

Not where are you coming from? Oh yeah, I’m coming from.

Greece and oh yeah, that’s so nice there. And so a little bit of chat. I think this time is very, very important.

And what are you doing? You’re building rapport at that point, right? You’re trying to see if you like them and if they like you sort of thing.

Yeah. You feel if it’s a patient, I of course you need to be as well to take your time, be empathic in the moment. You’re not a machine to do the same all the time. I cannot give a recipe for that.

But I am there.

I’m communicating and I feel okay. I know how much information the patient needs, how much information they don’t.

Want to hear. And I feel directly.

If they.

Are anxious, not.

Interested or even don’t getting it. So it happens as well.

So you’re gauging all of that. Yeah. And so. So then keep going. Keep going. Yes.

And then you’ve done the.

Preamble, you’ve called them, they’ve come, you’ve told them what to expect. All of that is very different. Right. Very few practices do that. Did you learn that from Laura Horton or did you just make it up yourself?

I think as well From Chris Barrow. Chris Barrow Yes. Yes. But I did in Germany the same.

It was like my feeling that I need to know the patient who’s coming into my chair and I don’t want to enter his private sphere. So going in.

This.

Mouth without.

Seeing his eyes and knowing who he is and.

Who she is, all this.

That was important.

For me to to to get the feeling of who are you? Who are you? That’s important and for sure as well to see who am I?

And before giving to my treatment coordinator or my dental assistant.

To start with the photos. Well, sometimes.

I do myself the extra photos because the studio are so my my office in photo studio are the same room. So we sit there at the at a nice table.

Maybe you see it on social media as like the white table with the big screen.

And on my screen is I have a photo.

Gallery with nice smiles. So they say it somehow.

It’s a kind of of subliminal getting used to what is going on here. And I am watching their.

Reaction when they see very weighty. So. You know, it’s just very interesting when they look at that way. No, no. This is no Hollywood patient and no Hollywood smile here. And then we do the the extra photos first.

So they get used to that.

We talk, we chat in the meanwhile, and the treatment coordinator is there with us and takes them in the room and is doing the the scan. Sometimes we do internal photos as well.

When there is directly clear.

What are we having going to do? But the INTRAORAL scan is enough for the first comprehensive consultation.

And we don’t want to.

To bug them too much with the with the mirrors, with the retractors.

And and anything.

But when they.

Come with a specific wish of.

Dental aesthetics or Invisalign, then we do some close ups.

Violeta how do you handle it when a patient in the preamble tells you, Yeah, I’m just here for a Check-up But then when, when you, when you do the exam you realise, look, this guy could or this, this patient could really benefit from much more involved treatment. Do you, do you bring that in after you’ve done the initial cleaning phase and all of that stuff? Do you do you hint at it? How do you manage that situation?

Well, we we are not taking patients.

Who are not going.

Through a prevention treatment and going only for repair and.

Emergency.

That that’s we that’s not our.

But let’s let’s say they want they tell you on the phone, look, I want to come I want I want to have the hygiene. I want to have a general check-up. I’ve got no no ambitions for a beautiful smile or or whatever. You know, they’re not they don’t want to get involved in big treatment. But then you see you see that they would really benefit from either aesthetics or functional work. How do you introduce it in?

So it’s like that.

When the patient is coming for a general normal check-up and cleaning, then.

Definitely they get that. They get the check-up, they get a cleaning and our dental hygienist is doing a scan. Very easy. Has an internal camera. Very easy. And then it is their work to sensitise the.

Patient to come.

To me for a comprehensive consultation.