Dr James: 0:42

From the top.

Dr Sabah: 0:43

Hey team, welcome back to the Dentist Who Invest Podcast. Super interesting episode. Today we’re going to depart somewhat from the finance theme, depart somewhat from the finance side of things, and talk about entrepreneurship, which is the thing that operates surrounding finance, the thing that actually generates us money so that we can be able to invest, or certainly one of the things, anyway, and I’ve got a really cool guest on that topic here today and her name is Sabah Arif Sabah. How are you?

Dr James: 1:11

I’m good, thank you. Thank you for inviting me to your podcast. I am excited to be here. A bit of the nervous jitters, but all good, all good in the hood.

Dr Sabah: 1:19

They’ll settle down with time. It’s frithing easy, is it stuff? It’s just a conversation and the reason I wanted to get. I’ve done quite a few but it’s still.

Dr James: 1:27

every single one feels like a new one. I’ve done quite a few, by the way, in the last few months, but yeah, that is cool.

Dr Sabah: 1:33

Dentology, wasn’t it? It was one of the ones that you were on, yeah, so I was one in.

Dr James: 1:36

Dentology, I was actually invited to the one with the USA. That was really, really intriguing and it was absolutely different. So the USA one was quite good as well.

Dr Sabah: 1:46

They are a lot more high energy. Yes, and how they talk. They talk like I’m trying to think, it’s like you know, when you hear it on TV Advert and it’s like, hey, you might want to purchase this because of this, this and this.

Dr James: 1:59

They actually talk like that on the podcast. That’s exactly how it was. Yeah, he’s going to kill me if he listens to this podcast, but it actually felt like that. It felt like that. It felt a bit robotic kind of a thing.

Dr Sabah: 2:12

I found that a little unusual at the start, like it’s almost to the point where it’s slightly Like you would, you know, as if it’s exaggerated, but that’s literally just how they communicate. But over here, on Denys who Invest in the UK, we’re going to keep it real. Today, sabah, which is awesome. Sabah, we’re here to talk about entrepreneurship, obviously, and the reason why we’re going to be on this podcast was because you’ve had an incredible story, an incredible journey. Would you be able to share a little bit about who you are for people who have yet to meet you before we get into that?

Dr James: 2:41

Yes, sure. So basically I’m the founder and director of Smart Dental Compliance and Training, which has been running for the last nearly eight years. It’s going to be eight years anniversary in January. So it all started off with my passion for dentistry when I was working at Bupa and I was also pursuing a career as a dentiness and I was really lucky to be having that opportunity working in Bupa as a operation and clinical lead. And then I just developed myself. And then Bupa got taken over by Oasis, as everybody knows, and a lot of the roles were becoming redundant and at that point I felt that there was a need for me to go and do my own thing. Now a lot of people ask like, oh, did you actually think that you would get into entrepreneurship? And you would? Actually, I never thought about it. By the way, it wasn’t something that I planned, it wasn’t something that I wanted. I really, really wanted to be a dentist and in fact I was talking about this with my business partner today that that was literally my passion, day and night. All I thought was, all I’d lived, breathed, was dentistry. So I absolutely loved dentistry. So when I started Smart Dental Compliance, it started off very small as a consultancy business and then from there we started growing. I started recruiting and one thing I was very passionate about I was very lucky to have an excellent boss when I was in Bupa. So his name is Thurpinch actually, and he’s going to be joining us from 1st of October. So this time it’s going to be opposite I’m going to be his boss. So I’m really looking forward to working with him together. But it’s really funny how tables end up turning. So I learned a lot from him and he was really really good and he directed me and he helped me to grow a lot. And this is where I think some credit does go towards him. I’m not going to give all the credit, otherwise my parents are going to kill me, my family is going to kill me but a lot of credit in terms of my career opportunities, my career development, goes to him, because he really helped me to gain a lot of confidence and growth and hence why I went into opening smart dental compliance and training. And then I was very passionate about leadership. I was very passionate about management, started reading a lot of books, started learning a lot, done at MBA as well, with Oxford University. So I think, yeah, it’s been amazing the last seven years, I would say Absolutely crazy.

Dr Sabah: 4:56

And I bet that was a whistle-stop tour right there as well. I bet there was so much more detail that you could go into.

Dr James: 5:02

So much more detail.

Dr Sabah: 5:03

The podcast goes on and bosses. If you’re missing a classic example of why you’ve got to be nice to your employees because you don’t know when the shoe is going to be on the other foot, it could be at some point in the future. So you’ve got to be careful, you’ve got to watch out for that stuff. Not that that’s the only reason to be kind, of course, but it’s an important thing to remember. Anyway, sabah, so that was obviously a whistle-stop tour of yourself, your achievements. Can you tell me a little bit more about that first company that you mentioned, because obviously that was your first step into entrepreneurship? Yes, how did that feel? Tell me what you. Take a leap.

Dr James: 5:37

So, to be honest, it wasn’t as I said, it wasn’t something that I planned, but I had very good relationships that I had made in dentistry and it was hard for me to pick which sector I wanted to go to. I wasn’t really a numbers person, I was very like a hands-on person. So I had done my nursing as well and I had done a lot of management and I did enjoy management to some extent. So when I was opening my own company, I thought I started off as a consultancy, but very soon it started growing very quickly and I started signing up a lot of clients and then I started growing my team and I just done it because I was very passionate about it. So I think the whole passion came through. It was seven days a week. It still is a seven days a week, but I really do enjoy it and yeah, it is really fun and you learn as you go along. I think one of the best aspects of being an entrepreneur and owning your own business is that you can put your own procedures in place. You can put your own how you want to run things. You could do that. However, on the other hand, there’s a lot of responsibility as well, because now you’re managing a team and you’re just not managing yourself. So I was a person who would literally manage myself all the time. But now having a massive team and my team is great. I love them all and I think that was the most hardest point of my career is having that team on board and portraying my vision and portraying my mission across to them. But again, you know, because I was treated very nicely and I learned that treating your staff member and looking after them as well is one of the most important aspect of running a good company. And then came, obviously, the financial pressure. How was the company doing from a finance point of view? And one of the biggest challenge was in the beginning of my career. I had a lot of investors who was just like oh, we want to invest in. I’m always inspired by Dragon’s Den, so I’m a big fan of Dragon’s Den. I used to watch that and I used to visualize myself going in there. So that was my biggest challenge is getting investors on board and seeing that if the company actually did need investors or if it didn’t need investors and if I could grow without invested. So I’m really proud of myself that till today we haven’t had any investors on board. Yes, we’ve got sleeping partners and things like that, but as such, like in terms of investment ship, we haven’t had that on board at the moment.

Dr Sabah: 7:55

So bootstrapped it. Ish, I said you bootstrapped it, but then I put Ish on top of that because you have got some sleeping partners. They’re in there somewhere.

Dr James: 8:07

Yes, they’re in there somewhere.

Dr Sabah: 8:09

What keeps you going? What gives you that drive, what gives you that push and desire to be the best version of yourself and excel every day? What about when things get tough? What’s your fuel?

Dr James: 8:19

When things get tough, what’s my fuel, the push and the motivation and the desire is when you see the outcome. So this, the business overall. As you know, every single business goes through a roller coaster, right. So we’re doing really, really well and that’s where I think I get my push from. I get really motivated when we are doing well. The second push I get is from my team. So if I’m having a hard day, they’ll come and they’ll just chair me up with a nice cup of tea or they’ll go. Don’t worry, you’re still the best boss, we’re not going to leave you, we’re going to stay. So I think your team is like you know, your babies, your children. So they, they keep me really, really motivated as well. And I think for me, I’m a very like hands on person. I like to get my fingers into lots of different projects and when those projects are accomplished again, for me that’s another push. In terms of when I have some hard times, how do I get myself up? Luckily, luckily, I’m not that type of person who will get stressed out and put my head down, even if I’m stressed, I would read a lot of like motivation and books, motivational quotes. Music is another one that you know, long drive music just somehow get my head out of it. I am a fitness freak, so I like to go to the gym as well, so these are some of the things I said that would help me get through a stressful day.

Dr Sabah: 10:16

Because a huge part of entrepreneurship is the emotional side of it.

Dr James: 10:20

I know, yeah, yeah.

Dr Sabah: 10:23

In fact, I feel like that’s the reason why lots of people either don’t start in the first place or they get the right. Do you know what my fuel is? If I ever find myself in a place where I’m like, right, let’s go, I need some extra motivation to do this task. I always think to myself right, james, maybe this is how you’re feeling right now. You’re maybe feeling like you want to slow down or you want to give up, potentially. Remember, this is the precise point that everybody else quits.

Dr James: 10:51

That’s exactly what I say to myself. Pet talks every morning. Sorry, it’s not pet talk. My business partner told me it’s prep talks.

Dr Sabah: 10:59

Oh, it’s not a prep talk. It’s a prep talk. Boom, right there.

Dr James: 11:02

I love that there you go.

Dr Sabah: 11:04

And you know, whenever you remind yourself, hey, this is precisely the point that everybody else quits, then that reframe for me allows me to conceptualize in my head. I begin to think to myself okay, well, if this is the point where everybody else quits and everybody else is doing the thing that I don’t wanna do, which is to not have this, not build this company, not build a specific thing that I’m trying to create, then I know that I gotta think differently and do something differently. So all I have to do is remind myself that I am serious about building something flippin’ awesome and leaving the legacy to the world. That’s it that’s it, you know the second that I do that I’m like, wow, let’s go Instant. You know that, right there, fuel on tap, fuel on flipping.

Dr James: 11:40

That’s it. You just turn the tap on, you feel good, that’s it. Yeah, and the thing is, nobody does that. So nobody would come up to you when you’re having a bad day, or obviously, unless you’re very emotional and open about it. Usually people would go all right, you know, if it’s not working out, wrap it up, pull it a day, but nobody would actually go no, seriously, come on, I know you could do this and I found that a lot. I had to really really pump myself to be a self-motivator and go no, I could do this, I could do this. Everybody’s given up, but I need to put my head down and keep on going. So I think those are some of the very important aspects.

Dr Sabah: 12:17

I think part of it comes back to your beliefs as well, and I’ve forced myself over time to always believe that there is a way that something can be achieved. It’s just that if I don’t know what it is yet, I’ve yet to find it. What that means is my subconscious is looking for it. What it means is that I’ll keep searching. What it means is that it’ll keep going Boom.

Dr James: 12:39

That’s it. You have to keep going. I would say that to everybody out there If you’re planning to start something, start it today, start it now. Don’t wait till tomorrow. Don’t wait till you haven’t seen tomorrow. You don’t know what’s going to happen. So if you are thinking, do it, just literally, take the. A lot of people say to me, like, how do you end up? Just, I’ve done businesses just on my gut conscious. I’ll share a quick story. So, literally a year ago, I became like a fitness freak. My mom’s a nutritionist by profession, so she’s always been on my case. Come on, you need to change your diet, you need to do this, you need to do that. She’s always been on my case. And then you know, when you’re getting old and you’re thinking, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know what. I need to get my shifts together, I really need to get myself into a good. So you know, financially I’m in this place, emotionally I’m in this place, but physically I need to get to this place. And I was standing right opposite my office and I saw there was a shop opposite and the lady was just packing it. And you know, and because our offices are just around the corner, I used to go to that shop quite often to get my staff members gifts for birthdays and things like that. And I went in and I said what’s going on? Are you leaving? She goes oh yeah, my lease has come to an end. So the five years I’ve had a really nice time, had a really nice business, gone very profitable. However, you know, after the COVID, things have changed a lot now and I’m just calling it a day and I said to her can I get the landlord’s number? She goes yeah, that’s absolutely fine. So I got the landlord’s number, james, and you wouldn’t believe this. I gave him a call and I said I just met your lovely, you know tenant and she told me that the lease has come to an end. So is the lease available? He goes yeah, we’re going to start marketing from next week and I said to him how much? So he told me how much and I said well, I’m going to give you what you’re asking for for your asking price. So he said what are you planning to do there? And I said I don’t know. And he goes to me you do know it’s a 10 years, a five years lease that you’re going to be signing. This is how much it’s going to be. You’ve already got offices around the corner. There’s a dental practice around the corner, because he knew that I was from the dentistry. So he said what is this going to be? And I actually said to him I don’t know and I had no clue whatsoever what I wanted to do, but I just absolutely loved the place. So he said okay, that’s fine, I’ll get the solicitor to get in touch with you. Next day solicitors got in touch, I signed the lease, got it all approved and I remember that night I went to sleep right and I woke up in the morning and I told myself what the hell did I just do? What am I going to do with that shop? I had no idea what I was going to do. And then my team had always been on my case saying Sabah, there’s no nice place to eat around here. There’s already two cafes there, but they weren’t like very healthy nutrition cafe and, as I said, I’m a big believer of nutrition and fitness. So the next day I was just like I was dreading it. I thought, oh my God, what have I done? I don’t even know what I’m going to build on here. I don’t know how it’s all going to happen. I’m so busy, I’m working on multiple projects and then I thought you know what, actually, one of my staff member goes. You always had this dream to open this cafe, fitness lounge, all this kind of stuff. Why don’t you do it? It was like great idea. And they were like are you joking? I said I’m not joking, I’m actually going to build a cafe. Go in touch with the builders, made the plans and decided to open a fitness cafe and at the bottom we opened a fitness studio because I hated going to a gym, which was overcrowded, so I wanted a private fitness studio. But literally within one week, the build work started. Now, at that stage, let me tell you guys, whoever wants to open a business, I had no business plan. I had a bit of financial savings that I had invested. I am not from the cafe or the food industry. It’s totally different. I had no clue about it. Fitness, I just naturally enjoyed. It was a passion. I knew a bit about my coffee, loved my old lattes, so I could tell the difference between a good coffee and a bad coffee and that was it, and I opened a cafe and a fitness studio. So, just for those people out there, even if you do not have a clue, that doesn’t mean that you can’t do it. It all depends on the passion. I was very passionate about it and we managed to open a lovely place called Ptology in the heart of Bush Hill Park in Enfield. So it’s just about motivation, it’s just about passion and that’s it. And some people say, oh, you need 10 years of experience to do that kind of stuff. I’m not saying the cafe is absolutely doing amazing, but it’s got so much opportunity. People absolutely love it, our staff use it, the local people, they really like it. I love Intubary Designing, so I made sure that it looked really, really nice and it was very welcoming, which it does. So, yeah, that’s how the Ptology story came about.

Dr Sabah: 17:18

That is pretty flippin’ wild. I’ve got to take my hat off for that. That is pretty wild. And I am a big believer in that. One way that you can create success for yourself is if you basically A lot of people just want to know the outcome before they do something. There has to be a certain degree of OK, I’m just going to open doors and just wait out. Basically, a lot of people can’t handle that uncertainty and I like that side of the story. I like that you lent into the uncertainty aspect. You were like hey, I don’t actually know. Your literal words to the landlord was I don’t know and I’m going to do it anyway, and you know what Does that mean? That we go totally wild and put our life savings on flipping back.

Dr James: 18:08

No, it doesn’t. No, it doesn’t.

Dr Sabah: 18:12

What it does mean is that actually, in those times and those occasions where there is a little bit of uncertainty, if we can just lean into that or seep that out, what we mean is we’re on the path of an entrepreneur and that is a great thing that holds up on the back. They need to know the answer, they need to know what’s going to happen next. And then here’s the. Thing that cafe may have worked it sounds like it’s going well but if it wouldn’t have worked out, at the same time you could have said hey, do you know what? I had a hunch. I had a good feeling. My subconscious told me something, exactly, the community has told me something, and you know what? I went for it. And hey ho, on to the next thing. That is what I do really like as well. You talked about smart compliance at the very start, and you know what? We got so tired away in the whole emotional aspect of entrepreneurship that we never actually covered smart compliance. What is that?

Dr James: 18:54

Yes. So smart compliance is a company that provides a solution for dentists and dental practice to keep up to date with CQC, their training, their compliance, their audit, so all the things. I was at a manager’s hub conference last Friday and I was one of the speakers talking about compliance. So I done this whole funny PowerPoint presentation where I said we look at keeping up with Kardashians, but let’s look at how do we keep up with compliance. So a lot of dentists’ worst nightmare is failing a CQC inspection. So what we do is we come along and we’ve got this awesome, fast-discreting compliance software which has got you know, which is also AI powered now, I’m proud to say which allows you to create your policies, customize them. You’ve got audits. It gives you automated reminders. It’s also got CPD courses free CPD courses for all the dental professionals out there. And then we’ve integrated a HR system and we were one of the first compliance companies out there to have five features in one. So that’s compliance, cpd, hr, stock management and lab management. So it was created on the basis that managers wouldn’t have to sign up to multiple platforms in order to manage their dental practice. So that’s why we created it, and what we do is we’ve got 400 dental practices signed up to a system. We go into the dental practice to do the onboarding to get people comfortable using the system. We also do a lot of like medical emergency cross infection in-house training as well and we give like compliance support and monthly webinars. So yeah, it is a really, really good, you know a solution for anybody who hates compliance.

Dr Sabah: 20:35

Which is pretty much everyone right.

Dr James: 20:37

Which is everyone? Exactly which is everyone?

Dr Sabah: 20:40

Yeah, I got to admit that looks like one of the most tedious aspects of running a dental practice, because you know when you go into the manager’s office and there’s flipping row on row of folder compliance that nobody ever reads. But we’re not supposed to admit that right.

Dr James: 20:57

Yeah, yeah, so that’s what we do. So we replace the folders into a digital solution.

Dr Sabah: 21:03

Sweet, very cool. There’s definitely going to be a huge business need for that, and you know what? Right? This is cool, right? So let’s touch on this for two seconds.

Dr James: 21:10

Yeah, because obviously you’re at dentist, right?

Dr Sabah: 21:13

You saw, there’s all this compliance line around, right, which, by the way, every dentist is conscious of, that right. But being an entrepreneur is when you take that and you think to yourself, ok, this is a problem. I can foresee how this would be an issue. What’s the solution? Yeah, that’s. That’s the difference between the maybe the 99, 95% of people and the 5% of people who create solutions and create businesses. Are you with me? So I absolutely love that yeah. There were people out there who were listening to the broadcast and they’re probably thinking to themselves OK, I want something different. I want to break away from the 95. I am not necessarily that infatuated with dentistry, or even if I do like it. I’d like to do a little bit less and do something else. What would you say to those people to put the wind in their sails, to really give them a call to action?

Dr James: 21:58

Yeah, I think one of the really important thing is people think that dentistry is limited to either you’re a dentist, either you’re a nurse, or either you’re running a dental practice. But there’s so many more doors within the dentistry and it’s really good. Now we’re seeing that in our community. So you’ve got the option of going into finance Even if you are in dentistry. You’ve got the option to do social media and marketing. You’ve got the option to go into so many different fields within dentistry. It’s so vast. It’s just not being a dentist at the end of the day and we can see there’s a lot of people out there doing a lot of good work, especially, again, people who are wanting to open squat practices. There’s lots of squat practice workshops going on. So I would say like, if you don’t want to do that nine to five dental job, there’s definitely a lot more to it 100% there’s a lot more to it. Teaching is another one, which James does as well, so that’s something that’s really interesting. And software development looking at different types of software, We’ve got so many software companies out there who have developed some great systems for dental industry as well.

Dr Sabah: 23:03

Awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome. Thank you for that. Thank you for that In Spoe for anybody who is listening, cause I really think it’s a. You know it’s gonna be a knowledge thing to a degree, right, but do people see the lack of knowledge as a barrier or do people see the lack of knowledge as an opportunity? Is another way of looking at it. Think about it, because chances are other people don’t know that stuff too. So if you go find it out, then what it means is you can create some sort of business which is centered around that, which helps people who were in your position previously. If you think about it right Cause that’s what a business is create solutions, right, and because you’re a dentist, you learn something. You learn it through the eyes of a dentist then therefore it has applications in dentistry which someone who is an expert in that field however, they’re purely dedicated to that field and don’t know anything about dentistry can’t necessarily identify, makes no sense. Go one more thing to chuck on top of that. One more thing to chuck on top of that every day. Part of the reason where sadness comes from, part of the reason why people feel sad sometimes, is cause they feel like they have like think about it like this you ever seen the movie Limitless?

Dr James: 24:12

Yes, I’ve seen the movie. Yeah.

Dr Sabah: 24:14

Bradley Cooper right.

Dr James: 24:16

Yes.

Dr Sabah: 24:17

Side note how many times have you seen it?

Dr James: 24:20

Only once.

Dr Sabah: 24:21

Only once.

Dr James: 24:22

Oh, man, I’ve seen that so many times I don’t get time for movies at the moment, so just seen it once.

Dr Sabah: 24:27

I make time for Bradley Cooper any day, unlimited.

Dr James: 24:30

I’m gonna make time for it. I’m gonna write it down. That’s the level I’m at.

Dr Sabah: 24:34

That’s the level I’m at. Anyway, the movie Limitless think about the movie Limitless. So he takes the pill and he knows everything right and he’s able to constantly identify opportunities everywhere, right? So we have Joe Average and then we have Bradley Cooper in Limitless right, and then we have everything else in between right. And so Bradley Cooper in Limitless knows everything. Joe Average knows what Joe Average knows about their respective field. Are you with me? So the closer and closer you can get to that Limitless version of you, there’s the more opportunities that you see.

Dr James: 25:02

That’s it.

Dr Sabah: 25:03

In reality, you can’t take the pill. You can’t take the physical pill. What you can take is the metaphorical pill, the red pill, so to speak. If we wanna use another movie reference, which is Matrix. What is taking the red pill? The red pill is educating yourself.

Dr James: 25:19

Yeah, definitely Different fields.

Dr Sabah: 25:21

And the thing about it is it’s not gonna be like you just take the pill and you’re good. It’s obviously gonna be effort, right, but the more you do that, the more knowledge you have, the more opportunities that you see. Then your issue eventually becomes just not enough hours in a day.

Dr James: 25:33

Exactly, Exactly, and also, I think opportunities and knowledge has become so disposable. I mean, nowadays, if you wanna learn anything, you’ve got the YouTube, you’ve got the Google, you’ve got some really good books, you’ve got short courses, you’ve got long courses and there was a really really good poll the other day that will you send your children to university nowadays, but again, depending on what subjects they want to learn. I think, as much as it’s good that they go to university, but I don’t think it’s like a mandatory thing. Like back in my days, my parents, if I said I’m not going uni, they would go absolutely ballistic. They’d be like what are you joking me Right? Are you crazy? You were born to go to university. That’s why we raised you. But I think nowadays it’s not that important, because you can get knowledge, you can get opportunities. As long as the motivation’s there, as long as the passion is there and you are going to the right direction. You’ve got good support, you’ve got good network. You can actually do whatever you want to do. There is no limit to it.

Dr Sabah: 26:35

It’s about the hustle, it’s about the mindset.

Dr James: 26:38

It’s about the hustle. The mindset is big. The mindset is big things.

Dr Sabah: 26:43

Two quick things that I’m going to share, and I don’t want to hog too much of your time on this podcast.

Dr James: 26:47

No problem.

Dr Sabah: 26:48

Two things.

Dr James: 26:50

Enjoying the podcast.

Dr Sabah: 26:51

The first thing is the first thing is this right? I always used to think before I had my own businesses, before I got into that, I used to think to myself I was like right, well, it’s this huge thing, you take a leap and if it doesn’t work out, you’re back to square one and you’re just 1000%, not because you learn so many things through running that business.

Dr James: 27:11

Exactly, exactly.

Dr Sabah: 27:12

Even if that present form of it doesn’t work out, you still have the skill set to go ahead and create something similar which will likely work much better the second time if it doesn’t work out. So it’s not like you ever go square one. You make progress. Maybe you’ll get to square 100. Maybe you’ll have to go back to square 50, but it’s never square one right, definitely. The only way to square one is if we never do it at all. And it’s not an easy like, don’t get me wrong, it’s not an easy process. It’s not like you just make the thing and it flippin’ flies every single time. Colonel Saunders made what was the story about Colonel Saunders? Kfc was like his 10th business. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He only started it when he was 60. Ray Kroc bought a Sharon McDonald’s when he was like 55. Really pushed things.

Dr James: 27:54

And there was another person I was reading his story. He actually tried his business plan 127 times, 127 times before it came successful. And I’ve got that printed out and I put it in my office. So it just reminds you I don’t think I will actually me personally. People are there and they are very motivated, but me personally I don’t think I would try something 127 times. But it just tells you, like you know, you shouldn’t give up. It could keep going.

Dr Sabah: 28:25

I’d probably move on to the second idea if I tried one.

Dr James: 28:30

It’s the same thing. Yeah, I would move on to my second or third or even the fourth idea. Keep going.

Dr Sabah: 28:36

There we are. I’m very proud of that person, and you know what I said. I would say two things, then, and I’ve completely forgotten what the other one was. It was something along the lines of tenacity, which is the point that you made.

Dr James: 28:47

Yeah.

Dr Sabah: 28:47

Which is really cool.

Dr James: 28:49

Cool, so see if I’m trying to keep on getting there.

Dr Sabah: 28:51

Keep uslin’, but listen. I wanted to say I’ve been really grateful for your time today on the podcast.

Dr James: 28:57

No, thank you so much.

Dr Sabah: 28:58

You’ve given us so much in Spoe Me personally and also to any would be entrepreneurs and I’m sure any current entrepreneurs listening as well will feel hyper motivated after all these things that we were talking about, because the emotional component is huge. I think that’s like 90% of entrepreneurship and mindset All of those things that we spoke about just a minute ago. You’re such an accomplice lady up until this very point, and I’m sure that you’ll continue to do that.

Dr James: 29:23

Thank you very much.

Dr Sabah: 29:24

What does the future look like for Saba? What you got on the horizon?

Dr James: 29:28

Yes, we have got so many exciting things in the horizon. One of the things that I’m very passionate about is giving back to the dental industry. So, whether that’s managers because I work very closely with the managers, practice owners, you know, even DCPs, like dental professionals as well and what we have created this year. We created a small community called the managers hub. So the managers hub is a platform which gives appreciation to dental practice managers because, let’s be honest, managers do run our practices, they do run our ships, and sometimes I feel they don’t get enough appreciated. I mean, you know, even being a practice owner myself, sometimes I naturally forget to appreciate my manager for all the hard work she puts in as well.

Dr Sabah: 30:10

So you need to show them love, right? You need to show them love.

Dr James: 30:14

You need to show them love, you need to show that they’re valued. So we had about three conferences, four managers, dedicated for managers this year and on the back of that we are doing an end of year dental networking story on the 16th of December at landmark, london. Absolutely amazing venue. Not sure if you’ve been there. I was there last week. So the story is designed to celebrate everybody’s achievement. We’re going to have some nice inspirational speakers, we’re going to have lovely live music, we’re doing a lot of like team bonding exercises and you can buy your tickets from a van bright. I will share the link on my Facebook page. But it is going to be one of the best. I’m going to say the best because I am a perfectionist. When I do things, I put my heart and my soul into it. So choose the best venue. I try to choose everything the best. So networking sorry, those of you who are in dental, medical healthcare, whatever industry you are definitely come to the dental networking story 16th of December at the landmark and they will be linked for the tickets on my Facebook. Brilliant so that’s what’s coming up, which I am super excited about. There are 101 million things that are coming up as well, but that needs another podcast just to go through those, so I’m not going to do that today.

Dr Sabah: 31:34

Gotcha, gotcha, so the Swaray is the biggie, so to speak.

Dr James: 31:37

Swaray is the biggest event of the year because I’m a big events fan, so I love events. I love networking with people, especially after COVID. I think we don’t get enough chance to network with people and see what’s going on, so these events are absolutely amazing for me because I get to see all my lovely clients.

Dr Sabah: 31:56

Lovely joffly. Thanks so much for sharing, sharing Sabah, by the way, I just remembered the second thing that I was talking about earlier, the second lesson on entrepreneurship. I think it was, and that was one of the biggest things that I feel propelled me on that journey or certainly heightened the you know, increase, the amount of opportunities that come into my life was having myself on camera for the very first time and making some content. I really feel no-transcript.

Dr James: 32:30

I totally agree with you. Nowadays is so important. I am the worst in front of camera. I’m super shy, I’m an introvert person, I would say, but during the last three, four months I’ve actually forced myself to get on top of camera. In fact, next Saturday I’m recording my first ever series, the series I call the Compliance Dose of the Week. What I’m doing is I will lovely clients for smart dental compliance. I’m giving weekly dosage of compliance tips. So I’ve got my film day fully booked and, yeah, I’m getting myself in front of camera again.

Dr Sabah: 33:03

Hell yeah, well done, because it’s worth it. Right, and you’ve seen the benefits of it.

Dr James: 33:07

It’s definitely worth it. 100% is definitely worth it.

Dr Sabah: 33:11

That was something I look back at the very start, before I started Dental City, Invest etc. And I just thought to myself what has that got to do with anything? I thought that whenever you made content, whenever you made stuff for social media, it was very much a hey look at me thing rather than necessarily giving value. And now I’ve been on the other side of it. I’m like, wow, there’s so much cool stuff that occurs if you have the courage to be able to get yourself out there and make some content. And obviously that’s a skill as well. And for anybody who has 100% picked their phone up like this and pushed the record button and tried to speak into the camera, the second you try to do, that is the second that you have such a heightened appreciation of news reporters and what they can do, because they can just talk in the camera like blah, blah, blah, blah, like that.

Dr James: 34:01

Dental pepperoncs they’re really really hard.

Dr Sabah: 34:03

The first one million times, but then eventually you get some level of proficiency at it and then it becomes very natural whenever it comes to making content. Whenever it comes to making content, and then what that means is that all the beautiful, cool stuff that’s on the other side of that skill begins to open up for you, but it’s just like any skill set. You’ve got to practice, practice, practice, practice, and we’ve got to get it right. I don’t want anyone to do it. Anyway, I just wanted to share that, Sabah. We’re going to wrap up now. Anything you’d like to say in conclusion? Thank you.

Dr James: 34:30

No. Thank you so much, james, for inviting me to your podcast. It has been absolutely amazing to share some of my tips and inspire some of your lovely listeners.

Dr Sabah: 34:40

That’s very cool. I’m sure we’ll have you back very soon, Sabah. Much love and chat soon.

Dr James: 34:45

Thank you so much. Sweet to soon Take care.