Dr James:
Fans of the Dennis who Invest podcast. If you feel like there was one particular episode in the back catalog in the anthology of Dennis who Invest podcast episodes that really, really, really was massively valuable to you, feel free to share that with a fellow dental colleague who’s in a similar position, so their understanding of finance can be elevated and they can hit the next level of financial success in their life. Also, as well as that, if you could take two seconds to rate and review this podcast, it would mean the world. To me, what that would mean is that it drives this podcast further in terms of reach so that more dentists across the world can be able to benefit from the knowledge contained therein.
Dr Ferhan:
Welcome to the Dennis who Invest podcast.
Dr James:
Welcome back everybody to the to another episode of Dennis who Invest official podcast, episode number 29. We’re rounding off a very special month, as you all know, as you’re past the financial freedom month, and we’ve got a really nice way to put the cherry on cake. I’ll explain what that is in just a moment, but I just wanted to say thanks to everybody who’s joined us for this month. I feel like the podcast has really hit new heights. As you’ve seen, on the group we’ve got a very well, quite quite a famous guy in the financial world who goes by the name of Andrew Craig, who you may or may not heard of, who has made himself known on the group, and we’re looking forward to hopefully doing a podcast with him very soon. That came about because of Julian and I’s podcast not so long ago on how Julian achieved financial freedom, so really interesting stuff. I feel like it’s been really tangible for everybody who’s listening and hence there’s been a lot of engagement and it was really worth a while. And, as I say, we’re going to put the cherry on the cake very nicely today, because we’re going to talk about something that’s a little bit more ethereal versus your standard. Put money in, money in, money out, invest in, which is in the conventional sense, and that is investing in yourself. And investing in yourself comes in the form of education mainly, as we all know, finance money to buy education, and then the education itself is what grows you as an individual. And I’ve got a chap here who’s more than able to speak on that subject, because he spent possibly more years and I’ve been alive in education. You’ll see what I mean by that in just a second when he tells us his life story. You may or may not know him. He’s on the group fairly often. He does a little bit of investing in the conventional sense on the side as well, and his name is Ferhan Ahmed Ferhan, how are you today?
Dr Ferhan:
I’m great, james, thanks. Thanks for having me on.
Dr James:
Absolutely pleasure, my friend. So I’ve just enigmatically said that you’re very qualified to speak on education and investing in yourself. Can you tell everybody a little bit more about yourself, Ferhan? And what made me say that? Because you’ve got a bit of an interesting life story. You’ve done medicine and dentistry, haven’t you? But you’ve done dentistry, dentistry, then medicine, and then you went back for some more dentistry, didn’t you Afterwards? So a bit of an interesting one.
Dr Ferhan:
Yes, that’s right. James qualified from dental school in 2005 from Glasgow, and then I entered a two-year program, as many of my colleagues did at that time, because we’re kind of unsure, a bit lost, don’t know what area we want to fall into, but have an idea that we want to just get a good overall experience of what’s out there in dentistry. So up in Scotland it was called the General Professional Training Program at that time and what it involved was one year as a VT or a baby dentist and then six months within the community sector and six months doing mxillofacial surgery. And it was really in that six-month period in Maxfax that I was really inspired by the colleagues that I was around and it was really, I suppose, the sort of magnitude of the work they were doing. And I wanted to do a bit of that. And I knew really to push on and follow that path I had to further myself in terms of education. So I wasn’t quite ready to take that next step and pursue a career in medicine. So I did another year in between just to make sure that it was really what I wanted. And then I applied for medical school and I entered medical school in 2008. And I did a four-year postgraduate program. But really back in sort of 2007, when I was deciding to pursue medicine, I had it in my head that the reason I’m doing medicine was to further myself and to gain knowledge. I wasn’t doing medicine to pursue a career in Maxfax and I felt that was quite important for me because I always knew that I had that option to just fall back and not pursue a career in Maxfax. I wasn’t fixed in the idea of being a Maxillofacial surgeon. I wanted to do medicine because I just wanted to further myself, learn more, really build on what I learned from dental school and then see what happens. And four years at medical school in Liverpool were wonderful, had a really good time, and I went back up home to Glasgow following completion of medical school to do my foundation years. And then really I had to decide what I really wanted to do. Do I follow a career in Maxillofacial surgery or do I step back and maybe go into dental practice and see what that would open up for me in terms of doors and opportunities? And really what happened for me was suddenly I had this opportunity to purchase a small referral practice in Edinburgh and it was too good an opportunity to turn around. And so I did it and it worked well as a junior doctor during the week and then on sort of three or four Saturdays a month I would run this oral surgery referral practice single-handedly where I’d hire a room in a dental clinic in Edinburgh and that worked really well. However, as I progressed through foundation training, I had to make that decision and I did some postgraduate surgical exams to get into Maxfax. But what really sort of discouraged me from following that career in Maxfax was the lack of potential autonomy that I would have. And the decision was there to be made Do I apply for further training or do I step away? And for me I decided to step away and my small practice that I purchased in Edinburgh became amalgamated with another number of dental practices and I suddenly found myself a partner in a group of dental practices and where I would look after the sort of oral surgery, the sedation service, and then one thing led to another and sort of. We’re now eight years on from that period in my life and it was the best decision I ever made to drop out of sort of medical training and just pursue the dental surgical side of things.
Dr James:
Wow, that is a lot of education. That is a lot of investing in yourself.
Dr Ferhan:
Yeah, yeah. But you know what I say to colleagues that speak to me now and they’re potentially considering a career in medicine or furthering their career. When you look at it as, oh, I’ve got to do a five year medical degree or I’ve got to do a four year medical degree, I think that’s very daunting, and I’ve always been. You know the type of person. I just look a week or a month ahead and that’s it. I don’t focus on. In four years, I’m now sort of what, what age was I in 2008? Something like 26. Oh, in four years I’m going to be 30. I’m going to be pretty sort of skin financially. I didn’t look at it that way. I just said to myself right, I’m going to really enjoy this. I’m going to enjoy every single day and see what happens. And so I think what was really important for me was just to have an open mind and enjoy the journey and, honestly, it was the best decision I ever made. I am where I am because I made that investment in medical training four years and it was a sacrifice. It was a struggle. At times I struggled to be my mortgage. It was month to month and I had to work, you know, sort of long shifts, 48 hour on calls over the weekend. But I am the clinician I am today because of those experiences and I wouldn’t change it for anything and sort of from a financial point of view. Yet I invested my time at that at that period of my life and now I reap the benefits, sort of monetarily, from that investment of my time to go through medical school, because what I would say that medicine really did for me was it taught me some, some skills that I really didn’t have as a, as a as a dental condition, probably much more to do with sort of patient communication, sort of sort of developing empathy, how to speak to a patient, developing trust. I really learnt those skills through my medical training and you know, one thing led to another and it just it was phenomenal. It was a phenomenal experience and even those two years that were a real graft as a junior doctor Now I’m at that point I was maybe 31, 32, and being a junior doctor and my colleagues around me were 23, 22. And there I was, I was married, I think Hannah was born at that time. It was tough, you know long shifts, weekends on calls, nights but those struggles have certainly built up an immense resilience in me to keep going, keep working hard, putting in sort of long day shifts now as a clinician, which actually it’s sort of part of my life Long days, the grind with patients, et cetera. And I have to say I owe all that to the medical training.
Dr James:
I was gonna say, surely it must have taught you a lot of in terms of your commitment and in terms of dedication and being organized and structured. It’s almost like being in the military a little bit. You know what I mean, because you come out the other side and you just have this incredible.
Dr Ferhan:
I would say that because, obviously, you’re sort of a late 20s, you’re juggling being a student again, and then you know it wasn’t unusual that I’d be a student in 95. And then the hospital that I was a student in I would put on my scrubs and I’d be the on-call SHO for the next sort of 12 hours and then in between I just didn’t. You know, although I lived in Liverpool, I would travel up back home to Scotland to do weekends on-call. So sort of managing your diary was really important and sort of networking with other colleagues in different departments, because you would get called for work if you were known, and so you had to reach out to people to get these sort of job opportunities. And they were essential because I had to pay the sort of university fees, I had to pay a mortgage and have a sort of reasonable standard of living. I mean I remember there were times where I really did struggle to be the mortgage and I had to borrow money off my siblings to sort of get by. But I look at that time now with what was the investing process?
Dr James:
you know in a way, Because that time you were spending investing in your education, almost to the detraction of other aspects of your life. As you said, it’s not. I paid dividends eventually, so it’s just another way of looking at it, I suppose.
Dr Ferhan:
Absolutely. James Couldn’t agree more.
Dr James:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dr Ferhan:
It was that time, it was those night shifts, it was those sleepless nights, that stress of the exams, et cetera. That was the investment, and now I’d like to say that I reap benefits from that time Awesome.
Dr James:
Awesome For anybody who’s listening. We’re going to delve into why Farhan is saying that in just a minute. Farhan is obviously a dental clinician and he has a few sort of side gigs as well which are related to dentistry, which came about in quite an organic fashion. From that which may be of interest to anybody who’s listening, a lot of the stuff that Farhan has learned has been extracurricular. You know stuff that he didn’t necessarily teach you in university, which he has applied successfully in order to run, maintain his side gigs and his other, his presence online, et cetera, et cetera. Question for you, farhan this is just a slight aside. In my experience, anecdotally, most people who do medicine and dentistry they’re a very select group. I haven’t met many, but they usually do it the other way around, don’t they? They do medicine, then dentistry, just anecdotally. From what I’ve noticed, I don’t have any hard evidence to back that up. Is that true?
Dr Ferhan:
No, I think from my experience the colleagues that I come around, sort of they’re apparent to me They’ve done dentistry first, then medicine.
Dr James:
Oh, okay, yeah, maybe it’s just me then.
Dr Ferhan:
Because usually they’ve wanted to pursue a career in maxillofacial surgery and then the natural way into that path, career path, is dentistry and then sort of exposure to maxivax yeah, I’ve fancied that. That seems really interesting and then going into medicine and pursuing it from there.
Dr James:
Weren’t you ever tempted to just call it quits and just be a dentist, because there must have been a lot of time, as we thought to yourself, what am I doing? You know, because the money didn’t come then it took a long time.
Dr Ferhan:
Yeah. So what I would say is I’m the type of person that wants to start something I have to finish.
Dr James:
Okay.
Dr Ferhan:
So I never felt like dropping out of medicine. Once I got in I was excited. I saw it as an opportunity to start something new, a new chapter in my life. I was moving away from home for the first time, so it really was quite exciting. And then once I sort of finished medicine, I wanted to be fully registered as a doctor and just like in dentistry, you’ve got to do that pre-registration. You know, I felt I had to do the first two years. So I suppose when I had the first opportunity to make that decision, follow that career in maxillofacial surgery or go into a path where I could be much more of an autonomous individual clinician and really do what I wanted to do and make decisions for myself, then I took that opportunity and that was after FY2. And as soon as FY2 finished I mean I still remember now at that time I was doing A&E and it was just the best feeling, because four months in A&E at the Royal Glasgow was tough. It wasn’t that it was a tough job, it was the shifts. I mean the shifts were just hard work.
Dr James:
Yeah, that was one of the main things that made me sway away from medicine was I wanted that nine to five and I wanted that Monday to Friday and then you have your weekends off personally. But that’s not to say I’m right. You know, it was just what you’ve been through and now that you’ve come out the end of that process and where you’re at in your career, it’s worthwhile.
Dr Ferhan:
Yeah, I think the biggest problem I have with medicine is the lack of choice at times and the fact that you don’t have that control. And the beauty of our profession as dental clinicians is that you can choose to work two days, three days, four days. I mean, often I’m working six, seven days a week, but that’s my choice. I get to work with the people I want to work with. And that’s harder to develop that kind of lifestyle in medicine and that’s just my opinion. But for me I’ve been able to forge that lifestyle and in dentistry and that’s phenomenal, where now in my career I work when I want to work, I work with who I want to work, and it’s a great feeling.
Dr James:
Was it all worth it, then? That’s my next question. Absolutely, yeah, all worth it. Yeah, all was lit nice everything.
Dr Ferhan:
Yeah, and I look back and I suppose I look back to when I was studying for my higher education and I still remember going to the sort of public library in Glasgow and studying with my cousin at that time and we would study in these little cubicles and we’d come out of these cubicles every three, four hours and have our lunch, et cetera. Yeah, absolutely it was worth it, because now you know, I’m very fortunate that I am not restricted in any way. If I wanted something I could have it. I can work when I want to work and, fortunate enough that you know, I’m very, very comfortable and it’s a nice place to be.
Dr James:
Yeah, for anybody who’s listening, anecdotally, I’ll just share a little bit about my story which will just complement what Farahan’s talking about nicely. So I worked NHS for a long time and maybe because I didn’t know any better, because I just got out of dental school, I had got my NHS work done to a T and I had a UDA contract which was fairly high. But I was churning out the work and I felt like what I was doing was the absolute zenith of how a filling could be done or how a denture could be done and things like that. And until I started to go on more courses, I kind of realized that I was living in this bubble of, you know, lack of knowledge or this sheltered world where I didn’t really understand the full potential of what my work could be. And when I learned that it was completely eye-opening and it just it drives you and it propels you further, to be even better, I think, and for me it was just about taking that plunge. I don’t want to name drop courses and things like that, but it helped me so much in that sense, maybe just reignite my passion, maybe seeing dentistry from another facet. And another thing I’ll just throw on top as well, the networking of going to these courses and the people that you meet. These are other benefits that you reap so many rewards from in ways that you can’t even fathom. Would you like to add something to that as well?
Dr Ferhan:
Yeah, absolutely.
Dr James:
You’ll have a multitude more stories of that nature than me.
Dr Ferhan:
Yeah, I think. I think a number of years ago a colleague said to me and he was not a dentist but involved in dental industry and he talked about how much he invests in himself every year. And he said I invest at least 10% of my income on myself every year to better myself, to improve myself.
Dr James:
See even ring fence. And some money yeah, a portion of your capital into investing in yourself?
Dr Ferhan:
Yes, not bad idea Investing in yourself and as clinicians, we sometimes think, oh yeah, I’m going to upskill and go on all these courses. That’s great. But actually there’s other ways to invest in yourself and as clinicians, that’s equally important that you actually have courses to sort of build your resilience, build your mindset, build your decision making, build your confidence, build your communication skills. That’s equally important as improving your skill in surgical dentistry, implant dentistry, you know other aspects of cosmetic dentistry, whatever it is, and actually I would say more important, because, as a clinician, that’s involved in a lot of teaching and mentoring. Now, what I feel one of the biggest barriers to people pursuing or developing a specific area within dentistry is a mindset, is a confidence, and that doesn’t, you know, just happen. You need to work on that and sometimes you need some external help to help build your mindset, build that confidence. And you know, equally, as you invest in courses, you need to invest in those aspects for your career development.
Dr James:
Yeah, totally. I mean just again through the courses that I’ve been through and the people that I’ve met. Sometimes you can’t see things that are right in front of you until you have a mentor that points that out to you.
Dr Ferhan:
Yeah, absolutely, james, and it’s like the way I like to describe it as it was described to me. You are in the forest and all you see is the trees and your coach or your mentor is up there in a helicopter and he’s looking down and he sees the path in amongst all the trees and he can direct you. As an individual, you don’t, you don’t see it within yourself, but someone looking on the outside sees things a lot clearer, and that’s why it’s great to be involved in sort of mastermind groups, networking with colleagues, because and look for sort of sort of advice and look for ideas and sort of a sparks of creativity from other people, because it’s in those discussions that you have with clinicians or colleagues or mentors or coaches that things just start to become clearer, and in the past they were never that clear or that obvious to you. So that’s what I think. That’s really really worthwhile.
Dr James:
Maybe it’s something in investing that doesn’t get talked about as much. The onus is on putting your money in something that you can immediately make a return on as quickly as possible, and maybe it’s about playing the long game a little bit as well. We ran a poll on the group recently and the question was your greatest investment? And I believe self education or yourself came out top because everyone’s then someone. To be fair, someone quite rightly pointed out in the comments that everything else does flow from there. So that is true, I suppose. But yeah, like I say, maybe this is just a part of investing that maybe doesn’t necessarily get talked about as much, and I’ll just say that I myself has been. I’ve been someone who’s benefited from it very much. So, and if there’s any dentists out there, we all love a course. We’re all dentists, we all courses are in our DNA. There’s so many courses out there in dentistry and, as I say, it’s very important, when you’re thinking about money that you’re going to invest, to perhaps just ring fence some of that and think about investing in yourself to even even as maybe a proportion or however that looks to you at least some contribution.
Dr Ferhan:
Yeah, absolutely. If you think of Warren Buffett, you think of Benjamin Franklin is a really famous quote from Benjamin and he says an investment in knowledge always pays the best interest. And Warren Buffett talks about the best investment you can do is making yourself, because it’s the one that that can’t be taxed, you know, and I love that one too, yeah yeah, and the one I find is that you know, who knows what’s going to happen tomorrow? But the fact that you’ve trained, you’ve got a university degree, multiple degrees, qualifications or a skill, nobody can ever take that away from you, and that’s why it’s such a nice thing to always look to upskill, to be better and sort of propel yourself forward as much as possible.
Dr James:
I honestly, hand on heart, think that one of the greatest life hacks is reading books. Reading books about anything and everything or specifically something that you’re interested in, your career, and maybe I didn’t read as many books. Put it like this, I was a sort of person about three years ago. Prior to that, I was reading the same book for three years, you know, and it wasn’t a big book. If that gives you any idea of the progress, and I almost look back on that time and I feel like it was time wasted. So maybe if anybody’s listening to this can be inspired in any small way to just pick up a book. And even if there’s some progress, it’s still progress. And there’s a lot of things that I’ve read and I’ve learned that I reference almost every day and I would never have known them If I wouldn’t have picked up certain books books about investing, books about dentistry, etc. Etc. It’s like knowing. You think you know a subject. It’s like going from black and white to seeing it in color. I mean one book on dentistry not to get too sidetracked that I read, that completely changed my dentistry forever and it was never. I could never see things. The same again was Peter Dawson’s functional occlusion. Have you read that? No, oh, my goodness.
Dr Ferhan:
I’m a surgeon.
Dr James:
Fair enough. Fair enough, you’ll never see the TMJ the same again and you’ll realize. You know all those clicks and pops and all those deviations. They all mean different things and they’re all signify different stages of where of the joint. And actually, if we’re really doing our job very well as clinicians, we should be intervening even when it gets to that point. But the trouble is it’s a very hard sell to the patient because you’re the one dentist who’s ever said this to them and their old dentist is never. This is the part. This is the troublesome part about dentistry sometimes is you can take what you learn in a textbook and you can apply it to a real world situation, but it’s not always binary input or output, because you have to consider the patient, you have to consider their experiences. Is all of these things? You know what I mean. But yeah, very good book, if anybody’s interested. Totally changed my view on it.
Dr Ferhan:
And what are you reading at the moment, June?
Dr James:
I am reading it’s just over here the personal MBA a world-class business education in a single volume by Josh Josh Kaufman, and this is another very, very, very good book. If anybody’s listening, you should definitely pick up this book. I still don’t understand business, but I feel like it confuses me a little less. Now. I don’t know about one third in, and really, when you split a business down into what it is and how it works, it’s he puts it very eloquently. Let’s just say that.
Dr Ferhan:
I have just recently reread a book called Mastery by George Leonard. It’s phenomenal. Now, the word mastery is you know, if you have a favorite word, it’s one of my favorite words mastery. And basically, to sum it up, mastery is a never ending journey and the way to sort of not so we never achieve mastery. We’re always on that journey and the way to get on that journey is to stay on the path and practice and to be. I just think it’s phenomenal If you think about it. You never get there. And sort of thinking about that in terms of my own career and in plant industry, I feel I’m getting better the more I do it, the more I practice and I’m very much a collision of briefs that you need to stay on the path like and just focus in that one area. So, as I surgical dentistry, implant entry, that’s what I focus on every single day and eventually you just get better and better and achieving mastery. Well, that’s the goal, of course, for all of us, but we never get there and it’s really worth a listen. So that’s mastery by George Lerard.
Dr James:
Awesome. That’s really cool For Han. As well as that, I know that you have a bit of an online presence and maybe this is something that’s also benefited you not only your education, but the education of others and I think this is something important to mention, because maybe this is the aspect of business, of life that maybe doesn’t get talked about so much in school, in academia, but there’s a lot of benefits to be reaped for those and I, if you would have talked to me about a year ago, I hated YouTube. I hated Facebook. I hadn’t been on my Facebook account in however long. You know. I thought Facebook was for people who show off. You know, I’m not saying that was right. I’m just saying that was my opinion of it, and maybe now some of the experiences I’ve had over the last few months have totally turned that on its head, and you’ve been through that enlightenment as well to a degree for Han, haven’t you? Because you have a big Instagram presence. You’ve got online courses, people. You know you’ve got a lot of content out there.
Dr Ferhan:
Yeah. So the way I’ve looked at it is the best way to learn is to teach, and what teaching does is, you know, when you’re able to teach, you have to have a certain level of understanding around a topic, and that is tested when you expose yourself out there and you start teaching people. So don’t be sort of embarrassed, don’t have the fear, just put yourself out there and teach. And it’s not so much watch me, this is how to do it. See, put something out there, like I’ve done this. This is what I did, this is what I learned and I hope to do better next time by potentially learning from these challenges that I faced. And what sort of putting yourself out there does is it leaves you vulnerable, you’re exposed. But that vulnerability, that sort of exposing yourself, it makes you and pushes you to be better. And that’s ultimately what we’re trying to do every single day is be better. And certainly being online and having a presence on various social media channels has allowed me to do that and puts me out there and lets other colleagues know that what I’m doing and they sort of allows them to sort of reach out and maybe they can support me or maybe I can support them, but it builds a network and it takes a bit of time and but over sort of that period of time you build momentum. And once you build momentum and initially they talk about the flywheel effect that momentum is slow and it just gets going. But it’s slow and you’re putting the work out there. You’re putting the work out there, but eventually that flywheel sort of starts a life of its own and it just starts rotating and it starts rotating faster and faster. And so for myself, really I’ve seen that flywheel effect come out into play really in the last year where I’ve managed to really build momentum with a lot of the work I’m doing online and I’m just very fortunate that people are trusting me with their education and they reach out and they wanna be part of my different learning communities. But it’s all come from being out there and trying to sort of put out a content that appeals to people. And putting out content that appeals to people, you just have to be a bit careful that you don’t want to come across, because I think to sort of come across with arrogance or an ego. What’s really important is that, as a clinician that values teaching and loves to teach, that you sort of remain humble, and so when you’re putting stuff out there, it has to come across in the humblest way possible and it’s not check me out. Look at the work I’m doing. It’s amazing, it’s here. I do this type of work. This is why I do it, this is how I learn, these are the challenges, this is how you can do it, this is how you can get involved, et cetera, et cetera.
Dr James:
Awesome. There comes a time for everybody who wants to build a social media presence that they have to take a plunge as such, because there’s that first piece of content that they put out there and maybe for someone who’s never done that before, that can be quite a big thing. And I remember my first video that I put out. I still remember clicking the button to hit upload or make public, because it scared the absolute life out of me. It really did, and maybe there’ll be lots of people out there who are. They want to put stuff out there, but they’ve got this psychological barrier in place, rightly or wrongly almost always wrongly, because it’s a bigger thing in. It was a bigger thing in my head than it was in everyone else’s head. What did that plunge look like for you, Farhan, and what would you say to anybody who’s thinking of making that leap?
Dr Ferhan:
So, absolutely, we all have that fear, nobody is any different. It’s sort of in a human nature where you’re putting yourself out there and everybody can see what you’re doing, either on video, voice or as a picture. But ultimately you have to really know what is the goal here. What are you trying to achieve and are you trying to? Is it that you’re trying to fulfill your potential? Do you have these big goals? And achieving these goals are linked to having a social media presence and being visible on social media. So, as a clinician who teaches, I have to be visible on social media, I have to let people know the work I do. And so, yeah, there’s that real fear. But the focus is all about what am I trying to achieve? What is the goal? And it’s the process. Putting yourself out there is the process that you have to go through to achieve those goals that you’ve set yourself. And you certainly have fear and you’re anxious, but that’s okay because that’s a normal feeling and once you start doing it, the second time it’s a bit easier, the third time it gets easier, but the tenth time it’s the fear. Anxiety is still there, but it’s certainly easier and I don’t think it ever goes, but it’s much more manageable and when it when we talk about sort of getting started, well, the best time was ten years ago, but the second best times today and you don’t want to look back in a year and say I wish I did this year ago. And ultimately, if you have goals and that are aligned and will be helped by having that presence on social media, then you just need to start. And I think an important way of looking at it is we all have something to teach others and it’s all about fulfilling our potential and doing as much as we can, because you wouldn’t want to get to later on in life and look back and go what, if you know? Let’s always try to live life at energy level 10 and really push forward and push ourselves to the absolute maximum to see what we can actually achieve. Something that really interests me a lot more recently is what is it that we as individuals me person asked myself this question what am I actually capable of and what is my potential? And I generally believe that I want to push myself as hard as possible to see what I can actually achieve, and I think we should all ask yourself that question what can I actually achieve? What am I capable of and what do I need to do to achieve that? And just push, push, push yourself, because when I get to 50, 60, I only look back and see I gave it all, I tried my hardest and this is where I got. And then I can sort of rest comfortably with that thought that I gave it all real quick, guys.
Dr James:
I’ve put together a special report for dentists, entitled the seven costly and potentially disastrous mistakes that dentists make whenever it comes to their finances. Most of the time, dentists are going through these issues and they don’t even necessarily realize that they’re happening until they have their eyes opened, and that is the purpose of this report. You can go ahead and receive your free report by heading on over to wwwdentistunevestcom forward slash podcast report or, alternatively, you can download it using the link in the description. This report details these seven most common issues. However, most importantly, it also shows you how to fix them. Really, looking forward to hearing your thoughts. Yeah, 100% yeah, and it’s the ways that for me personally, when I started out, I I didn’t really know where it was gonna end up, and I still don’t really know where it’s gonna end up, but all I know is that I’m enjoying enjoying the process, and I really wish that I would have started just putting stuff out there, stuff that I was passionate about, about investing, a long, long time ago. I wish I would have had somebody to give me some encouragement, maybe many years ago, and not only because I’d be. I just enjoy doing it and I just think it’s really worthwhile and it’s fun. Apart from anything else, it was that mental obstacle that I put in place, that really, when I, when I sort of peeling back why I thought that way, I never really I don’t really understand why I did, and I hope that some anybody listening might be able to benefit from that. If there is something that you really love and there is something that you’re really passionate about, someone somewhere will find out really useful. Someone somewhere will find out you’re really useful and I think now a really nice way and really nice thing that someone said to me was that it’s almost your obligation in a way to put that out there because someone somewhere will benefit from that absolutely, james.
Dr Ferhan:
I think we have responsibility as individuals to teach others, help people. So, as we’ve come up the ladder, it’s our responsibility, for those that are higher up in the ladder, to help those coming up, and so let’s put, put content, a valuable material out there that potentially will help people, and you’re not looking to. You know, don’t look at it as on I won’t affect many people. If it affects one person, if it’ll help one person, that’s enough. That’s enough. That’s enough of a reason to put content out there on the videos platform. If you think about it, it’s such an amazing world. We’re so connected. Within seconds, you can be live on TV. You can be live to hundreds, if not thousands, of people on Instagram, on Facebook, on YouTube, and 20, 30 years ago, if you had said that to people, they thought one, you’re crazy. And secondly, they would have paid thousands for that opportunity. And now we have it our fingertips and most of us have it in our pocket and we can do it. But, however, a lot of us don’t and we should just ask ourselves, you know why?
Dr James:
not, yeah, 100%, and I actually still think people think as well. You know what held me back and I don’t know if I’m just speaking for myself I thought to myself maybe this is a bit stupid. I thought that the internet had pretty much already hit peak capacity and there was no more bandwidth from me to be on there and share my message. But we’ve seen, with Cruinifize it’s actually taking the internet to a whole new level of relevance, of importance. The number of people that I’ve met and I feel like I can call them my friend, and I’ve only met them over Zoom, you know, in the last six months, and I think that’s a really interesting point because, like putting content out there, putting yourself out there, exposing yourself, it really opens up so many opportunities.
Dr Ferhan:
And you know, it maybe doesn’t happen after the first post or the second post, maybe it’s after the hundredth post, but you will resonate with someone and people will reach out and I can honestly say on a weekly basis, numerous people reach out just for advice, just to say hi, and it’s nice, it’s great and feeling part of a community, and maybe it’s just a comment like I love your posts, or maybe it’s a comment like there’s things that you say that really resonate with me and that’s just a really nice feeling to get that from other colleagues, other people that you know, and we can all feel that way and all you need to do is get started to get that feeling.
Dr James:
Awesome and that was actually what I was going to segue on to next, farhan was the ways that it has benefited you that maybe people wouldn’t necessarily envisage when they’re just starting out on this journey, so let’s say, for example, someone was wanting to create an online presence because they wanted to generate themselves some PR for a course. Okay, that’s fair enough. That’s the very binary sort of input outweigh of looking at it, but there’s a whole other myriad of positives that have happened to me because of that which we won’t just what we touched upon earlier people reaching out to me saying that they like what I do. Just being able to help other people is nice as well, even if it is in only a small way. There’s loads of things like that. Is there any more things that you personally have benefited from, farhan, that maybe you wouldn’t necessarily have associated with this journey or this path before you began?
Dr Ferhan:
What I would say is my content is very much based around implant industry and education around implant industry, and so when I’m out there putting stuff out, content out there, it’s around implant industry and until people reach out and I can then sort of put them on to the online courses that I run and the mentoring programs that I’m a part of and I run with colleagues, and so in a way, I put myself out there to be someone that’s knowledgeable within implant industry and then I have something else to offer them when it comes to upskilling within implant industry. And that really has been sort of internally really rewarding for me and financially rewarding in terms of the online courses and then subsequent mentoring to rewarding for me. But I’d also like to think, rewarding for the individual clinicians or nearly 100 now that I’m involved with for them, because I’d be able to take them on a journey where they’ve been able to upskill and then benefit from that investment that they’ve made in me and in their training to further their skill to offer more advanced treatments for their patients.
Dr James:
Farhan and I actually originally met on an online course and we wouldn’t be sat here talking to each other right now. Number one because I probably wouldn’t have started a podcast, and number two because we wouldn’t have met in the first place. So it’s just a another benefit from it.
Dr Ferhan:
Yeah, absolutely. That’s great, james. We were part of a mastermind group and that’s how we met and yeah, and then subsequently, james applied for a position at a practice that I was working at and I put in a good word for him.
Dr James:
Farhan did his best to sabotage it, but that’s another story. No, I’m joking he helped me out big time. He actually did me a massive favor. So I’m very grateful to him and we are now work colleagues, although Farhan has since departed as well, a few days ago, from that practice. But never mind, no, but I did know I hugely benefited from putting myself out there and maybe just to summarize everything we said in the last 10 minutes, there are so many positives to it that I wish someone would have grabbed me and shaped me a little bit sooner, because I just did not appreciate it in any way, shape or fashion. And that’s not to say look at me, this is. You know, I’ve done all these things. This is wonderful. I’m just saying that this is very it’s a helpful thing to hear and I really wish someone would have got through to me a little bit earlier with it. And those might even necessarily be big things, just like Farhan was saying, just little things, like people saying hey, I like what you’re doing, stuff like that. It’s just another reason to get out of bed. And another positive and another thing that drives me a little bit in life and James, on that note, I think you know we can all do it.
Dr Ferhan:
Sometimes, I suppose the argument from colleagues is oh, what am I going to write about? Well, we can all journal our story. You know how about you? Just document your story, your path, the journey you’re on, daily or weekly, just what you’re doing, what you’ve learned, what you plan for the future, what your goals, document your journey, and actually there’s a lot to gain from that, not only from a sort of personal point of view, but other people want to sort of see, see that they can maybe learn from it and maybe they can reach out and give you advice. But I think documenting your journey is a very, very useful sort of thing to do and we should all do it. And why not? Why not journal on Instagram? Why not journal on Facebook what you’re doing and what you’ve learned from that week and what you plan to do the next week, and in a way it’s a way of making, making yourself accountable as well.
Dr James:
Awesome, awesome. And, as you touched upon earlier for a hand, you’ve also got your your own sort of side gig or enterprise now, which is organically developed through this, in that you tutor, implant dentists to.
Dr Ferhan:
Yeah, so, subsequent to the online programs, I then go on mentor colleagues that have gone through the teaching program and it’s been a phenomenal success. I’m very grateful that people have trusted me with their education and so at this moment in time, it’s sort of 1890% of my work week where I’m just traveling, working with other colleagues, different places every day, different teams and mentoring them for big, big, big implant cases and sort of extremely fulfilling as a job. It’s probably the most fulfilled I’ve ever felt in my career where you know I’m able to see the clinicians. I’ve helped, taught them the theory and then giving them some practical skills, but then actually being there as they’ve been able to execute and then seeing them develop, as we’ve gone through numerous cases together and you know there’s a sense of euphoria as they do their first big implant case and then their development and they see in themselves how quickly they develop and it only takes a handful of cases and there’s an immense change in them, and to be there to be part of that is just amazing, Awesome.
Dr James:
So another benefit, I suppose, from putting yourself out there.
Dr Ferhan:
Yeah absolutely, absolutely. And, as I say, I wouldn’t change a friend then, and I suppose it’s resulted from COVID, this sort of change. I’ve always been involved in a bit of teaching and education, but it’s taken up more of my work week now and you know, this time, this period of time in my life, this is what I’m doing, this is what I’d like to be known as as an implant trainer, educator, and it’s amazing. I love it, I’m very lucky.
Dr James:
Awesome, and you somehow have also found time on the side to write a book as well for a hand. So hats off.
Dr Ferhan:
Yeah, so yeah, I mean I don’t know how that happened, but sort of sort of, I think. Since last April I sat down and I’ve gotten to writing. So I have a blog on DrFirmAmcom and then I don’t know. Mindset and person development is something that I’m really interested in and I really feel that it’s under taught and under not talked about enough, and I think if it was more more emphasis was put on it, it would really propel a lot of people further forward and allow them to really look into fulfilling the potential they have within them. So I’ve got a book coming out. I’m hoping it’s done, it’s at the printers, it’s coming out May, may this year, so in about six weeks. It’s called being Unstoppable the mindset of a great clinician. And really what that book is? It sort of details my journey, but focuses on the importance of other things rather than doing courses or sort of getting a university degree. It focuses on the importance of goals, leadership, communication, networking, all these really, really important skills that we as clinicians must be aware of, we must look to develop. It’s not something that you can learn from one course. It’s something you become aware of, you read about and then you action every single day and then over time you get better and better. Never perfect, but you get better and better. And that’s what it is. It’s a book about that and hopefully it will resonate with a lot of people and allow other. It’ll resonate with clinicians so they can get an idea of what’s out there and then a sort of instigate or encourage them to start reading further around that topic. That’s a lot out there.
Dr James:
Yeah, brilliant For Han. All of this is wonderful stuff, really, really interesting. And this is why I wanted to talk about education, investing yourself because, yeah, there’s the obvious ways which we maybe dealt with a little bit at the start and for Han’s journey personally, but there’s also the not so obvious ways to like putting yourself out there in social media, et cetera, et cetera, and, as I say, that is just a really powerful thing that I really wish someone would have sat me down and told me a little sooner. We’re going to wrap this up now because we’re at a bit of a crossroads. This is not only the end of this podcast, but it’s the end of your path to financial freedom month as well, and it feels like a bit of an end of a chapter to me because so many things have happened in the last month. It’s been such an exciting month. I feel like it’s been really tangible and useful for dentists to listen to, because I’ve sought out exclusively dentists to speak about investing and that just brings it down to a whole new level of being understandable to dentists themselves, because it’s dentists to dentists and there’s minimal jargon and things like that. So, on that note, not to get too philosophical, but for Han. I wanted to ask you this If you were, if you had three bits of advice, you’re on your death bed, you’re dying, your whole family are around you and you could only impart three bits of knowledge to your whole family and they were all there what would you say? Furhane, Three bits. The first thing we didn’t rehearse this question. This is from the heart. I kind of sprung this one on Furhane by surprise, so this is going to be from the heart.
Dr Ferhan:
I would say, one of the most important things to me is helping other people. I Genuinely, internally, that is one of the most important things to me to be able to help other people that’s maybe conditions or patients or other people in suffering. That is something that’s dear to my heart and I would say that to anybody. One of the most important things that we can do especially as conditions we’re in very fortunate positions, especially here in the West is help other people. The other thing is work hard and it’s not so much sort of find your passion, it’s sort of developing a passion and I can see that my work is my passion. It’s everything to me, the work I do, and it’s to the extent where I look forward to Monday and when I go in, I travel. It doesn’t feel like work, it’s a hobby and I’m just fortunate that I get paid well to do it. And the third thing I would say is a smile and be happy because we have so much to be fortunate for our health and what we have, especially in this country, in the UK, and to the point where we can go out and we’ve got the health service and, for instance, the phenomenal work in terms of the vaccination programme. So just being grateful for what we have around us, and it’s focusing on the things to be grateful for rather than the struggles and focusing on the struggles and the difficulties. How about? Every day, we just focus on what we have to be grateful about. So that’s what I would say.
Dr James:
Farhan, that was wonderful.
Dr Ferhan:
I can’t believe that was spontaneous because that was so deep and philosophical.
Dr James:
I was actually quite emotionally involved in those answers because I thought they were so good. Thank you so much. What a brilliant way to wrap up this podcast and your path to financial freedom month for anybody who’s listening. Thank you so much for joining us on the show today. It’s been an absolute pleasure to have Farhan. Farhan, you’d be more than welcome back on the podcast anytime. Thank you so much for coming.
Dr Ferhan:
Thank you, James. Thank you very much. It’s an absolute pleasure, my friend.
Dr James:
We’ll speak again very soon.
Dr Ferhan:
I’ll see you later, take care, bye.
Dr James:
I’m a financial dentist interested in improving their finances, well-being and investing knowledge. Looking forward to seeing you on there.