Full Transcript

Dr James: 0:49

Afternoon James. Hey, my man, how are you? I’m good. I’m good, James. Thank you so much, so much, to come to spend your time afternoon time on a Saturday, with me on this podcast.

Dr Chetan: 1:02

Oh, it’s my pleasure, my friend. I’ve been looking forward to this one. This is going to be an interesting one with a little bit of a different spin, because we’re going to, rather than being the individual hosts Chetan and I thought we’d make a podcast today where we’re the co-hosts and we bounce off each other, discuss how we can appreciate our ability to grow our wealth long term but also generate more money in the short term. So, for longer term listeners of the podcast, you’ll understand this relates to the build wealth create wealth model, which I’ve discussed in the podcast before, build wealth being how we invest, create wealth being how we actually generate more and, realistically for most people, to enhance their financial journey in terms of bringing forward the day at which they have financial freedom. Actually, the greatest lever that you can pull is to generate more money in the short term. Generate more money today, Of course, being ethical and observing all the standards that we should do is dentist. So I thought to myself who better to co-host this podcast than Chetan Matthias?

Dr James: 1:58

Thank you, james. Thank you, james. Quite humbling. Before we start, I think it would be apt for our listeners to know who we actually are, and I think most people know who you are. But for those listeners who don’t know who you are, if you could kind of give us a brief introduction on where you are born, what you do and what you do now, Sure? thing, James, this kind of growing head kind of. In briefness so that, so that my listeners kind of get a flavor of who little James was and who James is now.

Dr Chetan: 2:32

Yeah, of course. Yeah, no problem, what you do flatter me. I’d be interested to know if most people know who I am. I don’t know, I suppose, but anyway. So, yes, my name is Dr James Martin, so I am a dentist. I qualified in 2016 in Leeds and around about that time, I also began to read about finance, financial history and, specifically, cryptocurrency, and that inspired this whole voyage into learning how money works. Then, to cut a long story short, in 2020, I had a hiatus out of dentistry where I couldn’t practice clinical dentistry any longer. Well, sorry, let me rewind there just a little bit. I couldn’t practice clinical dentistry for the moment, for at that period of time, for about three or four months and I started a Facebook group and it’s called Dentist who Invest, so Dentist who Invest. It caught on, people started to join it and I went back to dentistry for a little while after that, but my heart was never really in it anymore, because I realized that I’d created something centered around the thing that I absolutely loved, which was finance and money, and then, after a few months, I left dentistry. I left dentistry to run the group, to focus on the group, and I’ve been doing that ever since, and that’s crazy, because that was like maybe two years close to two years ago. No, no, no, 18 months since I left dentistry and yeah, I haven’t really looked back. I do, like I did enjoy clinical dentistry. People often ask me that it’s just all this other crazy stuff happened and now we’re here having this podcast conversation.

Dr James: 4:03

Amazing, amazing. I still remember. I still remember the day when we met it’s probably around 18 months back and and you did mention about this group and you said, yeah, it’s just been six months since I started this group and I’m not sure how it’s going to go, and you know what it’s just got fire. How many members do you have on the group at the moment?

Dr Chetan: 4:23

We are just shy of 9.3 thousand, amazing.

Dr James: 4:27

Amazing Is it. Is it like the biggest group or the second biggest group in dentistry in the UK?

Dr Chetan: 4:33

Let me see, I think there’s three that I know of that are bigger. So one is the dentist, then I believe dentinaltribulescom is slightly bigger as 12,000. And then you’ve got D for D, which is the big boy. So yeah, we’re coming for you, d for D.

Dr James: 4:51

But you know what? The interaction that we get on your group is amazing and and that’s what. That’s what’s, you know, really attractive to see, if any any dentist who’s got issues with finances. They just post it on there and they get replies so quickly, usually within 24 hours. I mean, I’m sure it’s like a full time job. How do you manage something like that?

Dr Chetan: 5:13

You know what? Thank you for that. And yeah, there is a lot of engagement on the group and, interestingly, I fully believe that that’s related to the amount of content that I produce to put on the group and it’s kind of like this it’s kind of like when you have a bonfire and you’re throwing more kindling on just to keep the conversation going. So anybody out there who wants to start a group, that is 100% the way to do it. I didn’t realize that until quite a few months into my journey and then I was like, wow, this is actually how we perpetuate this conversation. So huge helpful hint out there to anybody who wants to follow me in that path, and for any social media presence. It’s about consistent content. To answer your question, I began to stop being able to follow every post quite a while ago. I used to look at every single one and write below them, and now I still do chip in whenever I see things that come up on the group that I’m like, oh wow, I can help on this one, yeah. But yeah, there’s a community there of other people in the finance world and they leap on these questions and they’re able to give answers which are knowledgeable and qualified given their position, and that, for me, drives a huge part of the value for the group.

Dr James: 6:27

Amazing, amazing. I mean I was just about to say that you’ve got such a good group of members on there. You’ve got accountants, you’ve got practice brokers and specialists in their field actually. So that’s really really helpful.

Dr Chetan: 6:39

So most answers they might come from you, but you also have specialists on there where we can bounce ideas from the cool part is I actually create the people that are on there, the financial specialists, so that I know that the advice and information that they give us all off are really good standard, which is a huge thing. That drives the power of the community, in my opinion, and that’s why I believe it’s different Chatting. There’ll be lots of people listening to this podcast who potentially have not met you, but, of course, you’ve got a bit of a following yourself, Got a huge follow up, naturally, on Instagram. So you doing all right and I think honestly, I honestly think that you’re one of dentistry’s most humble yet talented and amazingly gifted clinicians clinically, but also in how you manage the business side of dentistry as well, which is why I really, really, really wanted to collab on this. So it might be nice for you to do a little bit of an intro for those people out there who want to know more.

Dr James: 7:35

Amazing. Yeah, yeah, James, Very humbling, very humbling, but yeah, so a little bit about myself. My name is Dr Chitan Mathias. I’m a dentist, been doing clinical dentistry for the last 20 years. I’ve practiced in the UK for 15 years and prior to that I studied my initial studies in India. But I was born and brought up in Dubai and I lived in Dubai for 18 years and then moved to India, did my dentistry there, moved over to the UK, did a couple of masters and I’ve been working here ever since.

Dr Chetan: 8:09

No way. When did you move over to the UK? How long have you lived there? 2006.

Dr James: 8:15

Oh, okay.

Dr Chetan: 8:17

So let’s see 2006. All right, yeah. And then being strengths is strengths and sand, because some of the stuff that you’ve achieved is amazing.

Dr James: 8:25

It’s just that one thing led to the other. It’s just one thing led to the other. I’ve got a family now and then I also have the practices. But I worked as an associate when I started off with general dentistry, nhs. The grind finished that moved on to doing a master’s in orthodontics, a fellowship in orthodontics. Finished that, then moved over to implants and started doing my diploma at the Royal College and completed that. Then I fell in love with the business side of dentistry. I started acquiring my first practice in partnership and then I did. I’m a co-practice owner on my second one Now. I like the business side of dentistry, but what I’ve seen over the last 16 years of practicing dentistry is is there’s an evolution in the life of a clinician and everyone’s story and paths different. But what’s more important is you can make that journey as nice as you can or as hard as you can. There are people who have done this exact same journey in front of you. It’s always good to look out there. Look out there and see who’s on that journey that you want to go to, and just follow them that’s all it is and modify the journey a little bit. So all I do now is create systems, processes this to help my workflow a lot better, move a lot better and, more importantly, so that I can continue enjoying dentistry. It’s not about leaving dentistry I love dentistry but I just thought you know what, if I can implement systems and processes at the same time, not only can I enjoy doing dentistry, but I can enjoy doing dentistry profitably.

Dr Chetan: 10:13

I love it and this is the thing you know. I heard a term the other day, okay, and I don’t know if you’ve come across this, but I feel like a lot of people will be able to relate to this. Right, it’s where you run a business and it’s called the business. The philosophy in which you run the business inadvertently is known as charitable capitalism. Okay, so what do I mean by that? Officially, it is a business. However, because of how we’re running it, we’re not actually making enough money for it to be profitable. So, therefore, it’s almost like this social service that people are coming along and paying us, but because we’re not actually making any money whatsoever, because we feel like we can’t optimize our practice even further, we can’t generate more money Effectively. It’s like what’s the terminology for it? It’s like an NPO, a non-profit organization. So, if you think about it, if, like I say, you’re basically this place, this public service that people come along to, right? So how do we break out of that? Are you with me? And that’s what we’re talking about? There’s two ways, really. One is that we can change the investment in which the patient asks pays us right, we can ask for more, we can rebrand and we can shift what our practice offers, offer a hair designer service or just increase the price. It’s either fine. And the second thing is it’s more the backend stuff, the systems and processes, which is you’re good at. Well, I almost said, the systems and processes is more your forte, but you do a lot of both really, you know, and that is why I thought this would be such an interesting podcast. Can I? You’ve got a. We met each other through Reignite, right, and on Reignite there is a label that they use for chatting. Can I use that label? Yeah, that’s right. And, by the, it’s a flattering label. In case anybody’s thinking that it is not good, it’s an amazing label. And that label is the seven-figure dentist, the seven-figure dentist. What does that mean? Chatting Nets seven-figures grosses much more Nets seven-figures. That’s chatting’s return is take home pay, right, and once upon a time, if you would have said to me is it possible for a dentist to net that much? I would have said no, no way in hell. Right, and sometimes people might be listening to this and thinking how the hell can someone do that right? But when you net that level right, what it actually means is the quality of what you’re able to give people must be phenomenal. Okay, because a lot of what drives that is people coming back and repeat business and people referring other people. Right, you can’t people think that you have to compromise in your dentistry past a certain point. It’s absolutely not true. That’s how you really hit those flipping huge echelons when you are that good and you drive yourself appropriately and you also have the systems and processes to make that as efficient as possible, right? So for me, the proof’s in the pudding.

Dr James: 13:13

I mean. A lot of people, a lot of dentists, think that it’s all about the money, and if you concentrate too much on the money, you lose out on the quality. Now, the only way that you can make that work, wherein you can have a good turnover, at the same time enjoy your dentistry and provide consistent, very important, consistent, good quality work, is by having systems and processes in place. Now, for me, it wasn’t something that I thought I would do, but it was something that just led one way to the other, because I was constantly providing good quality dentistry, or I think I was providing good quality dentistry. What happened was I had more patients coming in through the door and more patients coming in through the door. Now I had two options. Option one either say no, I’m not going to do this. Or option two was a yes, but learn to work more efficiently and effectively. Obviously, I chose the latter Because it’s a service that I was providing to my patients. Well, the money came with it. Yes, but it wasn’t about the money, it was about the service, and I was like you know what, if I don’t help this patient, I’m not sure if someone else can. Maybe there could be someone else, but I wasn’t too sure. So for me, I felt the patient coming to see me and my best gift would be to help this patient as much as I can. So that’s how one thing led to the other and I ended up with Having these systems and processes in place. And it’s not set in stone, it’s constantly evolving. So what happened six months back, it’s not what I’m doing now, and what I’m doing now is going to change in another six months, because I’m constantly trying things, testing it. It works, it doesn’t work. So there are lots of factors, lots of factors, and having an amazing team around you is it’s so crucial and important, it’s so crucial and important. So I mean, that’s that’s why I kind of, at this stage in my career, I want to kind of help as many young dentists out there and a lot of dentists who kind of feel disillusioned with dentistry. Yeah, they feel that they’re in a rat race. They constantly there, one after the other, one after the other, one after the other, one after the other. They feel burnt out, stressed, and they kind of don’t enjoy dentistry as much.

Dr Chetan: 15:27

This is the point that I make quite a lot on dentistry invest. You know, we can invest your money. I feel like a lot of people have a skewed perception of just quite how much you can make in the short term. Now, investing your money is more something that you do for the long term. You know, when you go to a financial advisor, right, or any sort of Financier in the realm of pension planning, what they’ll say is they’ll say, right, okay, so you know, this money that you’re going to invest in this isa, sip or whatever. Realistically, this shouldn’t be money that we touch for like five years, five to ten years Okay. Now if I need more money today to enhance my lifestyle, to Live the dream, so to speak, to flash the cash if that’s what someone wants to do, that’s fine, right. Or if someone just wants to have more money so they have more security, or earn more money so that we can spend two days a week in clinic and five days Doing whatever the hell we want and have some have more freedom, then actually invest is not the answer, because that’s not going to give us what we want today. It’s more what we use to generate freedom in the future. And it just so happens that that time horizon oftentimes is like 20, 25 years. You know the, you know the way. Whenever you ask Joe blogs or someone walking down the street, what age can I realistically retire at, and they’ll say, yeah, I don’t know, 60, 65, 55 if I’m lucky. Right culturally, culturally, the reason why we say that is because that’s based on what tends to happen Whenever we invest our wealth. Right, that’s where that figures come from. Okay, it didn’t just you know, people didn’t just pluck that out of the air, right, it’s a representation of how long it takes Someone to invest our money to the point where we can live off it. Right? So my point is, okay, that, yes, we can use that to have more freedom in the long term and be able to retire. However, the other side of the coin how we actually generate more money today in the short term, quickly via our jobs, those are the means that we can use to have more freedom in the here and now and potentially drop a few days, potentially go on more holidays, potentially Earn even more money and then invest more of it and accelerate that financial freedom date forwards in time More towards the present day, because the sooner we have that option, and the sooner we have that freedom Means the greater flexibility we have and the sooner we get to live a life on our our terms, right? So this stuff Is just as important. And you know what? Seven figures? Sorry, chatting, are you gonna say something?

Dr James: 18:09

No, no, no, it’s fine. It’s fine. I just wanted to agree with you on exactly what you’re saying. What you’re saying is is so true because you know it all relates back. It’s a it’s a complete circle. You earn, you enjoy your dentistry. Because you enjoy your dentistry, you have more patients coming in. Because you have more patients coming in, your turnover increases. You have good systems and processes in place. Your profitability increases. You invest your profit right. That way, your money is working for you. In the background, you are concentrating on doing good quality dentistry. It’s almost a circle. To have a complete you know a complete outlook on a life of a dentist, you know that that’s basically what it is. If you live outside your means and you’re constantly under stress of mortgage and debt and this I mean, there’s always good debt and this bad debt. Yeah, but if you’re constantly under that stress, for you to function as a dentist Effectively and efficiently, it’s going to be a nightmare, you know. So I believe both of them go hand in hand Not only earning and working, but at the same time, making sure whatever you earn Is invested in the right resources. Yeah, so that was a certain trap to you there, but I just wanted to agree with you on that point and I think, for our listeners, so many gems out here. There are so many gems out here. I mean the first gem what you mentioned about content creation and making sure you put content in inside out. That’s like a golden nugget. It’s so important. Consistency is the key and the and the second thing, like I mentioned about About the money, profitability is, yes, it sounds sexy, it’s attractive, yeah, but what’s more important is good quality dentistry and providing an amazing service for your patients. The money comes, the money comes. Don’t run after the money. You know, concentrated on providing good quality dentistry and smartly work hard, but work smart. And then, whatever you earn in the background, make sure it’s invested, make sure it’s invested.

Dr Chetan: 20:08

And, yeah, Just to add to that, right? So let’s, let’s make a tangible example. So let’s say you have a dentist, or really anybody in any profession, and they have to earn 100 grand a year Just to match their expenditures, right, just to meet their outgoings, are you with me? Now put it like this let’s say that dentist has to work seven days a week to do that. Okay, that’s the amount of hours they have to put in, so their job to earn that 100k. Right now, the issue with working seven days a week is you work Monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday, friday, saturday, sunday and then you have to work the day after that Sunday, monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday, friday so you’re just continuously working day, day, day, day, day, day, day, day, day, day. Right Now, we’re human beings. We have to sleep, we have to eat, we have to have some time to rest. That the issue is right. We’ll never have, actually, we never actually have any time to break that circle, to break that cycle, unless we find it somehow, unless we create it. So what do I mean by that? Because when we have extra time, we’ve created some extra time. What we can do is we can review the things that we’re doing in those seven days To figure out how we can actually be more efficient, how we can earn more money. And then, when we earn more money, what it means is we don’t necessarily have to work the seven days anymore, because we can match our outgoings in six days. That will never happen through investing, right. That will only happen Whenever we realize how we can generate more money via our jobs, which is exactly what you do, right, and I feel I feel the thing that a lot of people think is that they make one or two mistakes. They either think investing is going to fix that Soon. It’s going to fix that, you know, within the next few years, because it won’t. It’s really a multi-decade thing, okay. The other mistake people make is they have this, they almost have a fixed mindset without realizing it, because they think they have to work seven days to earn that money, and really what most people would like to do is have 10 days so they could earn more, but that’s never going to happen. Even the biggest, best entrepreneurs on this planet have still got seven days to operate within. So they just figured out how to optimize their output per unit hour, more so than most people, which is actually a complete. It’s just another way. It’s just a completely another way of summarizing what you do, Chattin, or what you have done and what you consistently do, because what you do is you iterate and improve and improve and improve. Have I just summarized it nicely, Exactly?

Dr James: 22:43

I mean. So true, so true. You know the bit where you mentioned about mindset. To be a successful dentist associate or a principal, having the right mindset is so important. And the right mindset, which we all know, is a growth mindset, you know, making sure that whatever you do, you can always improve. There’s nothing set in stone. You could constantly try, try and hit the barriers, try and hit the barriers. Every practice is different. Everyone’s journey is different. What I implement in my practice with my team might not work in your practice. However, there might be a few tips that I implemented in my practice which you could use in your practice, you know. That’s why I love to share my journey. I love to share things that I do in my practice. So all the young dentists that are there, or there are older dentists who think you know one of those tips or one of those golden nuggets would be helpful for them. They could use it. You know it could change their lives. It could change the way they practice. At the end of the day, it would make life a lot more happier. You know to be in, but you’re right in what you’re saying. We all have seven days. We all have 24 hours a day. In that time we’ve got to work, we’ve got to sleep, eat and, you know, have some fun as well, which is so important. Having fun in this whole process is the key. It’s the key.

Dr Chetan: 24:04

Yeah, that’s great, and you know what? Here’s something that I’ve begun to get more into recently. You know, big believer in hustling and working hard. That’s me Right. But I actually think that, past a certain point, that mindset doesn’t serve you anymore, and the reason is this right, think about it. If that was strictly true, the people who earned the most money in the world would be hard physical laborers, because they’re working the hardest, right? So we know that that’s not true, right? Actually, it’s about working hard, but it’s also about spending time on the activities, including that work into activities which give you high returns per unit hour, and it doesn’t have to be financial. It can be other things. It can be impact. Like, if you have 10 million followers versus 10 followers, you make exactly the same post. It takes the same effort to make a post for 10 followers versus 10 million followers, yet you get way more impact. So that’s one form of leverage. There’s actually four different types of leverage. Really interesting book called the Almanac of Naval Rabacan for anybody who hasn’t read it out there, it talks all about this stuff. It’s really cool.

Dr James: 25:08

And when you actually got your post as well sometime back. Actually, it’s a really good book. I read it from the recommendation that you gave me. Sorry to interrupt you there. Yeah, please go ahead.

Dr Chetan: 25:17

Yeah, no, no, no, it’s cool. It’s cool. It’s honestly such an awesome book. Because here’s the thing when you actually spend some time every week thinking about how you can get more leverage out of each hour, right, that is how you begin to unlock greater returns financially, impact wise and achievement wise in your life, because you’re doing exactly the same things everybody else has. You just thought about how you can create more impact. There’s a saying that I love and think it’s by our communities, think by our communities. Give me a lever long enough and I shall move the world. That’s right. He didn’t come along and try to move the world. He actually spent time building a huge lever. Then, when the lever was ready, placed it under, the world came along, minute amount of effort and the whole world moved and he had huge impact. Most people, I feel, are trying to move the world with all this effort. They haven’t actually spent any time building a lever. So true, so true. It’s cool, right? You know what? On that chatting, here’s what I’d love to know more about, because this is super interesting. This will be really valuable for the people listening to the podcast. How did you begin that process? What are the first things that you began to change and implement, to begin that process of you being able to get more out of each hour. What are the classic things that dentists you feel could be doing much better?

Dr James: 26:40

I mean, the most important thing is self-awareness. I think Self-awareness we need to recognize the fact that we, as dentists, are obsessive about controlling everything. We just want to control everything. We want to micromanage everything. That’s a common trait seen in most dentists, but we’ve got to get out of that shell. So, most importantly, try and get out of the shell. Recognize the people around you. Recognize your team and most practices you have nurses, you have reception staff, so recognize your team around you and see what value they can get to your workflow. Give them responsibilities. Delegation is the key. Delegate, delegate, delegate, delegate as much as you can, because you know what you might think you’re giving them extra work, but they would love it. It’s probably something that they actually love. Like me as a dentist, one thing that I absolutely hate is writing notes. Is writing notes. I just hate it. And admin, yeah, man, yeah, can’t do admin. So what I did was, instead of trying to do something that I’m not good at, I was struggling with it. I said, okay, fine, got my nurse in and I said listen, can you do this for me? Fine, happy day. So when I work now, I constantly have either two nurses or three nurses with me at the same time in surgery. So that way I’m working at the same time and notes are being done in the background. But the thing is having the right mindset. So a lot of people would think wait a minute. You have three nurses at the same time in practice, so you’re paying whatever the average wages are for a nurse. You’re paying it three times plus your consumable cost for one patient. Yeah, but then what you’ve got to look at is I’m leveraging my time so in my time I can see those patients quicker, because I’m just doing what I’m good at, which is doing dentistry and using technology. Using technology, so it’s one thing. So the first step would be recognizing your team, recognizing and trying and building your team. See what you’re good at self-awareness, see what you’re good at and once you see what you’re good at, delegate the rest. Everyone’s got their strong points. My strong point, I think, is communication and dentistry. That’s what I’m good at. The rest of the things, I can’t be bothered. So every day, whenever I go to the practice, I look at my books and see how could I improve the outlay of my book? How could I see more patients at this time at the same time, without compromising the quality of care, how could I use technology in my workflow? And the real push came during COVID, because COVID we had two months, we weren’t doing much, and at that time I started implementing a lot of the systems and processes that were there in my head, tried to put them on paper. So that’s 2020. We are in 2022, now 2022, now 2023. Yeah, there we go 2023. 2020 now. And constantly putting persistent sense, and that’s the reason I said right in the beginning things are going to change. You’ve got to move with change. Things are constantly going to change. People’s habits are going to change. Their behavior is going to change. The economy around us going to change. We have this cost of living crisis, a lot of people getting scared. Are we going to have enough number of cases going to come through? Are we going to have enough number of private cases? Are we going to have enough number of implant cases, invisalign cases, coming through the door? Will people be able to afford? Well, there’s always work out there. You’ve just got to have the right mindset to constantly change and evolve. So what worked for you six months back, when there was a big demand, might not work for you as well now. You’ve got to evolve. You’ve got to constantly develop system and processes. So having the right mindset is the key.

Dr Chetan: 30:30

Love that. You know what I started to do recently. I’m definitely way too late to the party on this. Think about it. Right, if you can make every single hour more efficient, you’re going to get way more out of what you do, right? So what I started to do every Sunday is spend 30 minutes reflecting on the week, thinking to myself what could I, what did I waste time on this week? Right, you get honestly. Right, your productivity just goes wild. Right, you write it down, you document it, you compare it to last week. 30 minutes, watch, watch yourself become incredibly more productive, especially at the start. Right, because it’s like flipping exponential returns, then it’s more gradual returns, incremental returns, you know. So I don’t know if you do that chatting with your dentistry.

Dr James: 31:19

I mean, for me it’s journaling. I like I journal every day, wow, every day, every day, every day. I journal every day, every evening before I go to bed, and morning as well. I journal for the day ahead and journal of how the day went, and I constantly look at it and see okay, these are the things that happen. And what happens is if you go through a journal, sometimes I get a chance to look through my old journals, but most of the time it’s like the brain dump. You can just kind of keep throwing everything onto paper. It’s, it’s what’s the word. It’s very, I’ve just lost it, but it’s like liberating, like liberating, yeah it’s very liberating. Doing that and also and also, it gives you time to reflect on exactly what it does. So you doing what you’re doing is amazing because you’re self aware of doing that thing is going to help increase your productivity in a way. For me, I’m aware that by doing this it helps me function because I’m full on 12 hours in a day. I’m full on. I’m constantly fighting fires, running here, running there. Patience there’s that and I’m constantly full on. So I need that space and journaling kind of gives me that space, if that makes sense.

Dr Chetan: 32:41

It totally does, and self reflection is only really something that I’ve become more awake to recently. Previously, my answer to productivity was just to flip and brute force it. You know, like when the police want to get into your house and they just flip in, they have one of those battering rounds. Just keep doing that until you get through, Whereas if you had the keys, it would be way easier. You don’t even have to look for the keys, right, and the trouble is that finding the keys is a process. It’s an iterative process in terms of your productivity. So 100%, that’s something I’ve become more aware of recently. If I could go back and tell myself something like five, 10 years ago forget everything else. I would just say listen, James, get a higher purpose and then iterate. Start and then iterate your way there in terms of your productivity. And that’s how people do it. Because if you think about it, elon like, think about something like Elon Musk, right? You know what I mean. He is the CM7 days, everyone else does, right, chetan, matthias, is the CM7 days and Chetan’s net is unbelievable. So fair play, you know. And how has it happened? Well, you’ve just heard what Chetan had to say, which is you, literally. You actually take that process one step further, which I’m really interested to know, and you do it every day. So, just for example, so you know in that journal that you write at the end of the day what would be an example of something that you might write in there?

Dr James: 34:03

A good question actually. So there’s no system in there, it’s basically a brain dump. So what I try and do is I go back to what happened the first thing in the morning at eight o’clock in the morning when I walked into my clinic, and I kind of rewind through the whole day that went through and then I write down. And the thing is you start writing, the first two or three lines don’t make sense, but after you cross the first two or three lines, then you start getting a structure and then you are in your flow. Now, sometimes I just use a computer and a type, but I find it better when I write by hand, and then towards the end of it, so it’s a reflection and then it’s an advice on what I could have done better. So first stage is a reflection, then is advice on what I could do better, and the third stage would be action points on what I need to do. So that’s the usual format that I go through Every time I do a reflection. That’s usually my night reflections and in the morning I kind of reiterate what I go through at night. So my action points I just go through them again in the morning before I go ahead, and then the following night I look back and I say, okay, these were my action points, this is what I did and this is what happened. Well, these are the things I learned from, these are things I don’t learn from and these are the things that I need to do in the future. So amazing.

Dr Chetan: 35:27

So what happened? What you’re going to change and then specifically what you’re going to do Exactly. That’s it, wow.

Dr James: 35:36

And that’s kind of helped me a lot, because quite often we get, we get these ideas, we get these things as we are working and we forget them because we’re just caught at the moment and we’re like a hamster, like you said, constantly running, constantly running, constantly running, and sometimes it’s good for us to this kind of take a step back, think and then kind of implement it. I mean, I truly believe that all of us have this kind of inner power in us, but because we just following the rat race and we we don’t take time to sit down and reflect, very often we get lost in the crowd. Thank you, that’s what I think. Okay, as we are coming towards the end of this, there are a few questions I would like to ask you, james Sure. The first thing is where does James see Dentist to invest five years from now?

Dr Chetan: 36:29

Oh, wow, what a cool question. Here is where I see it five years from now and here’s where I see things going. So interestingly, I’ve made an educational platform for finance specifically for Dentist, which will educate Dentist on how they can invest their own money. The idea is that you have as much autonomy as possible. There’s lots of instances where you don’t necessarily need an advisor. There are instances where it would be helpful to have an advisor. The idea is that you have the ability to recognize when that occurs and recognize when you can do it on your own and when you can do it with some help. So that is something I’m really, really, really excited about in six months.

Dr James: 37:14

Sorry, james. So tell me a little bit about this so that my audience can know what exactly this is all about. So it’s like an education course. Is it like a course that you could enroll to and enroll on, rather than learn, and then you could do things yourself?

Dr Chetan: 37:31

Yeah, yeah, so that’s the format effectively so six months or a three month program or a year’s program. So when you sign up, what it means is that you get indefinite access to it. Oh, amazing, that’s how it looks at present. Now we may iterate that before now, in the release date. That’s the principle of how we’ve designed it, and then from that I anticipate more things arising. I anticipate being able to offer services within that off the back of it, potentially. So I feel like dentists who invest will progress down the regulated route of becoming an actual advisory firm potentially. I don’t know. Here’s the beauty of doing these things, and you’ll know this, chetan it’s like you have a plan. However, there’s no point in iterating your plan, to be too specific, because things so often change, and I feel like when you’ve got a really, really, really concrete set vision, that sometimes on the journey to that, when you see other things that come up and present themselves which are even more lucrative, which you couldn’t even conceive beforehand, then if you’re too rigid about how that looks, then what it means is you sometimes say no to even more amazing things in the short term. So for me, I have goals 100%. That is where I can see dentists who invest go, and that’s what I see as something really, really, really awesome that I’m really excited about that. I know would bring a huge amount of value to the dental community. However, again going back to self-awareness, I’ve always found that, from my perspective, whenever it comes to goal setting, that you want to keep it like maybe 20%, 30% fluid, so that you can see what comes up along the way.

Dr James: 39:20

Yes, it’s almost so important to have that leeway space. Yes, I mean, that’s where the mindset comes right. Having a growth mindset, you just need to make sure that you’ve got to be able to move right, move left rather than going down the straight path. That’s a very, very useful nugget out there actually, james. Thank you so much. So this course I’m quite interested about this course actually. So to enroll on this course, is it through your Facebook group or do they come in? Do they speak to you directly, and how does it work?

Dr Chetan: 39:51

So we’re going to launch this through the Facebook group over the next few months, so we’ll be charting. I’ve added on there 100%. I know that that’s going to revolutionize finance for the dental world, which is why I’m really excited about it and, like I say, the whole point is is to give autonomy and freedom to dentists, so I’m super excited about that, I know that.

Dr James: 40:12

Sorry, that’s quite unique. Actually, there’s not many people who do that. I mean, there’s not many people I’m aware of who do that, and especially to dentists, just for dentists. I think that’s yeah, that’s going to be amazing.

Dr Chetan: 40:25

Thanks, man. Yeah, it’s unprecedented. I know chatting, obviously, that you’ve given out loads of wisdom in terms of how dentists can effectively iterate themselves to profit, building success. I know that we’re coming up to the 40 minute mark and we like to keep these podcasts bite size manageable. Through your iterative process, through your learnings Learning and being iterative is the greatest learning. Okay, and you do that, which is why you said that today and through that process, through you actually learning these things and identifying areas that you could improve. Right, what if you could just go out there to the world? What would be the one thing that you could just wave your wand and tell dentists? This is the thing that you need to get better at straight away. Apart from the teamwork thing, I mean like day to day in clinic with dentists themselves, what could they improve so that they become more efficient and more profitable?

Dr James: 41:24

Amazing question Amazing question. The thing, the difficulty, is giving you one word answer. I think if there’s one thing, it is one thing, it’s having the right mindset. Okay.

Dr Chetan: 41:35

It’s having the right mindset.

Dr James: 41:37

The second thing would be self-awareness understanding yourself what you’re like, because I can’t tell you what you’re like a person. You’ve got to understand yourself what you’re like a person. Be open to change. Be open to change. There’s no one set rule. Be open to change. You’ve got to constantly adapt and evolve, adapt and evolve and be optimistic about the future. Enjoy dentistry. There’s so much in this profession. There’s so much in this profession. I’m so fortunate to be a dentist and I enjoy it every single day. It’s not only the dentistry side of it, but it’s also the business side of it that makes it so exciting. Use it as a playground, go and play in it. Those are my few pieces of advice that I could give you, but there are lots of exciting things happening. Lots of exciting things happening.

Dr Chetan: 42:32

Can I just say one thing? Just add to what you said. Here’s the thing when we talked about earlier I know that you said mindset and then for me, what I was expecting you to say, there was something along the lines of something that you can improve clinically. But you’re actually saying, james, above and beyond that, forget the clinical stuff. That will come as long as you have the right mindset effectively. Can I just add one tiny thing on top of that? You know what I see dentists not necessarily do to the best of their abilities, or something that holds them back a lot. I personally think it’s limiting beliefs whenever it comes to selling, feeling that they’re not worth a certain amount. I’ll talk to practice A and practice A and practice B, practice A and practice B. I’ll talk to these two practices In one practice. They’ll say okay, our extractions are 80 pounds and our smallest fill-in is 150 pounds. Then I’ll talk to practice B and they’ll say, oh, our extraction or smallest extraction is 150 pounds and our smallest filling is 80 pounds. So it’s just flipped on its head. Then you say to both of them it’s like oh, do you not feel like you could ask for a little bit more value there, remuneration in return for the value that you’re giving your patient. They’re like. Both of them are like oh no, no, no, no, we couldn’t possibly charge anymore. Here’s the thing. The curious thing is, they’re both exactly the same in every single way. What that tells me is that both those upper limits in terms of prices that’s what they’ve created, that limited belief in their head. They don’t believe that they can charge anymore, when actually, in reality, they easily could go there because they are giving the patient a lot of value. It’s just from what they observe every day has been conditioned, overly conditioned within them so that they feel like they can’t step beyond that. It’s a massive thing. It’s a massive thing.

Dr James: 44:28

So important here? Limiting beliefs. Limiting beliefs is the key. I mean, there’s nothing special. All of us have two hands, two legs, nose, eyes, brain. We all the same. We all dentists, we’ve all gone to dental school. If there’s someone who can achieve this, there’s no reason why you can’t achieve it. You can give all sorts of excuses oh I work in the wrong area. Oh I have work in a smaller practice. Oh my principal is this where are my associates? But it’s all up to you. Take your destiny in your own hands and make it evolve. Make it happen. Make it happen.

Dr Chetan: 44:59

Boom. We’re going to end right there, chad, that was an awesome podcast. Thank you so much for your time, my friend, we’ll catch you soon, thank you, thank you, james.