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Dentists Who Invest

Podcast Episode

Full Transcript

Dr James: 0:41

Fans of the Dentists Who Invest podcast. If you feel like there was one particular episode in the back catalog in the anthology of Dentists 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. Welcome to the Dentists Who Invest podcast. What’s up everybody. The following is a recording created recently in an interview between myself and Tashvind from CGDent, where we spoke about my journey into investing into entrepreneurship and also the greatest lessons I learned along the way from creating my platform, Dentists Who Invest. Please enjoy everyone. So this is the second of our monthly North College of General Dentistry webinars. My name is Tashvind Kalasi, local dentist in Essex and your chair of the CGDent North Group. We have with us Marin, who’s the secretary, as well, and Simon Dungton-Mun, who’s the CEO of College of General Dentistry, and we have our guest speaker with us today as well, who is James Martin. He’s going to be talking about his journey of being an entrepreneur and giving us his insights of how to shine inside and outside of dentistry. Okay, so shall we get cracking, guys? Of course we can. Thank you so much for having me. I just wanted to say that before we started Looking forward to it. Absolutely Exciting evening, I think, ahead of us Lots of insights, and let’s see what you’ve got in the bag. There’s plenty in here. There’s plenty in here to keep you all entertained. The easiest thing to talk about in the whole wide world is yourself, isn’t it? So I think this is going to flow quite naturally. Something tells me. I agree Completely. I can forward through it and if anyone’s got any questions, please drop a question into the chat and at the end we will have a more informal chat. If you wanted to ask a question face to face as well, okay, all right. So, james, introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your journey and where you’ve gone to and where you’ve come from and what the challenges have been so far. Absolutely 110%. So my name is James Martin, my full name is James Martin, and I’m originally from Northern Ireland and I once upon a time, a long time ago, I made the decision to be a dentist and so, therefore, I went to pursue that career. Applied through oh, it’s slipped my mind Now UCAS. That’s what it’s called throwback. Throwback to UCAS back in the day I don’t know if they still use that applied to UCAS found out that I got into Leeds University. Didn’t know the first thing about that place in any shape or fashion, the first thing about Leeds but when I came to the city to study dentistry, I learned that I landed on my feet because it’s a pretty cool place. So went there five years, did my five years at dental school. Came out the other end, 2016,. Did my foundation year. I went to Sheffield for a year. I realized over that period of time that I actually quite like dentistry. I believe that I was quite good at it. I believe that I had the technical skills to do it. I love the patient management side. It wasn’t always the case. I had my. There were, you know well. Overall, it was an uplifting story. Overall, I enjoyed it. Overall, I had a good time studying dentistry and practicing dentistry, and then, to cut a long story short, around about 18 months ago, I had a period of time where I couldn’t work and because of that no, 18 months ago, let me see, it was actually just after COVID, but you’re quite right to mention that just for clarity. And I always had a passion for educating dentists and dentists teaching dentists how they can invest themselves from the point of view of increasing their skills and their abilities and so I started the Facebook group Dentistry Invest that’s where most people know me from and since then it’s been a little bit of a wild ride. I’ve seen that Facebook group grow. I’ve been creating content for it consistently so that people can come and learn and understand more about themselves and more about education and begin to grow their careers via the content that I provide on there, and since then I’ve been keeping up with that content, creating it constantly, and now I’m sat here talking to you guys tonight about my journey and the best things that I’ve learned along the way, because it’s a little bit off the beaten track. It’s not your standard GDP story rising through the ranks, maybe being a dentist, and then owning your own practice, etc. So it’s a little bit unusual and there’s been lots of skills and unusual things that have happened to me along the way, and that’s what I’m here to speak about tonight and the best lessons that I’ve learned. That I know, I know, I know. I know there’s people in the audience that will be very interested to hear, because I know it can help them in their careers as well. So you mentioned that you started a Facebook group. How quickly did that sort of grow and how much content did you have to put on there for your viewers and your readers to actually start to feel like there was actually some momentum in what you were doing? That’s a brilliant question, and you know what, sorry, were you finished then Were you going to say something else? Yeah, yeah, sorry about that. So, yeah, that’s a great question. So I started the group and I think the most important thing for me was that I never really thought that it would go anywhere. I never really knew what to expect and I had all this time on my hands and I was creating content about stuff that I was interested in anyway. So it was always very easy for me. Being interested in education, it meant that I could create content and it just flowed quite naturally. It was easy for me to do so because I was creating this, I was putting it out there and it was fun. I feel like, if you’re going to venture a voyage down that path of creating some sort of online presence, the very first thing is it has to be about something fun, something that you can talk about, which is easy for you, because you’re never going to be able to put the effort in otherwise in order to grow it, because, let me tell you take it from me it takes so much time and it is so much effort to get something off the ground and therefore, as I say, it has to come from your heart, it has to come from a place of love. I actually read a really good quote on this recently as of about two weeks ago, and it is from an absolutely incredible book. Can I mention the name of the book on this? Is that? why it’s an educational book. It is called the Almanac of Naval Ravacant and anybody who’s listening to this podcast should totally pick that book up. Apparently, an Almanac is a naval journal. It is a journal in which sailors document the stars, the times that they arrive at certain latitudes and longitudes, and that is. I don’t know why he’s opted for that title, because it’s got no reference to maritime or naval, you know, the ocean or the sea or any other thing of that nature in any way whatsoever. And yeah, that’s the title of the book and the guy’s name is Naval Ravacant is where the other part comes from, which I feel I have to explain because otherwise it could just be a mumbo jumbo of words. You know what I mean. But yeah, the Almanac of Naval Ravacant, and in there there’s a quote and I absolutely love that quote, and it was. It was talking about working and it was talking about playing and how, if you want to create something and get it off the ground, it has to feel like play to you, or else it’ll you’ll never be able to do it, and the quote was a little something like this this isn’t the exact quote, so you can’t, you know, quote me on this sort of speech, but it goes along these lines. It says everybody always accuses me of inverted commas working too much. I work for 16 hours a day, but what people don’t understand is I’m playing. So when I’m playing I can play for much longer than most people to work, that most people can work, because I’m simply playing for 16 hours a day. For anybody who has to catch me, they have to work for 16 hours a day and that’s why no one can ever catch up. And whilst I wouldn’t say I’m that hardcore, I was a little bit of inspiration and I could see the parallel in my own path when I read that line in that book. That’s really about enjoyment of what you do, right. Yeah, there you go exactly. That’s what it’s a fight. And so so for you personally. How much effort do you put on a daily basis? It varies. I mean, the beauty is, when you do something like this, it’s flexible, so you know you might have more time Someday and then you might have last time of the days, but you can make your own schedule, which is incredible. It’s so. It’s so much fun. That’s the best bit. But there are a lot of it’s a lot of times where it’s really your own initiative as to how much work you you have to do or you need to do. And it’s whilst it’s very easy to coast, I feel like for me that wouldn’t be that exciting because then I wouldn’t feel like I’m making progress. So it’s, it’s flexible. You have to have. You have to have. You use the word entrepreneur earlier. When I think about an entrepreneur, I think about someone who’s got a huge amount of initiative and I feel like you have to have that. That’s a prerequisite to live a lifestyle like that. Otherwise you’d never get to that position in the first place where you can coast. So it’s a self-fulfilling thing. Real quick, guys. I’ve put together a special report for dentists entitled the seven costly and potentially disastrous mistakes the dentist may come 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 forwards to hearing your thoughts. So, going back to 18 months two years ago and Just before COVID have kicked in, how are you managing being a dentist clinically and practice, because it’s quite a physically exhausting Profession really, because I know that when I finish clicks I’m I’m knackered. At the end of it I just want to go home and stop in front of the TV and have, you know, some food to eat and that’s me done for the day. I mean, how do you then motivate yourself to then go in and then start doing web website content, facebook content? You know what motivates you to do that. Well, it’s very important issue mentioned that I actually only created this platform About 18 months ago and that came after COVID. Are you with me? So before that, prior to COVID, I had a similar life I had. I always felt like I had lots of energy and I wanted to channel it into something, but I didn’t know what. And I used to come home in the evening and, yeah, I did a fair amount of sitting about slot, you know, sat in front of the TV, playing Xbox, playing PlayStation, whatever, reading books, etc. But I always felt like I had more to give Mm-hmm and for me it just came along. I always felt like there would have been so much pent up energy and so much of me would have felt like I Just had a lot of steam to blow off and something I wanted, something to channel a lot of love and energy into, and I never quite had it and I never really could reconcile where that feeling came from. And Then I created this and then, all of a sudden, it. I’ve just had that outlet for it and since then it’s been a good thing, it’s been a positive thing. I definitely think it depends on your nature whether or not this is something that you would enjoy doing. I feel like a lot of people would say that they want to Maybe be an entrepreneur or maybe have this lifestyle, but do they actually necessarily have what it takes or do they have the commitment to go alongside it? I feel like people would think twice if they knew how much effort it takes behind the scenes. Well, that’s my next question is like what so? What skills do you feel that you need to have to make this work? It’s not something that you’re trained at dental school, I mean when it comes to business and running your own practice and any other things outside of actually just doing the house. On dentistry, we’re not, we’re not taught that, we’re not skilled up in that. So where did you, where did you get your skills from? Did you get a mentor? Did you consult with anyone? Did you share your ideas and, you know, get inspiration that way? So what was your kind of like, your, your journey in that kind of space? Great question. I did have someone who encouraged me and mentored me, yeah, and I feel like that is Borderline, essential. I feel like you really need someone who is guiding you behind the scenes and encouraging you and even just offering you a Little bit of a reminder that you’re on the right path, even just offering you, even just by saying to you, actually, yeah, you are doing something right a little bit of validation, a little bit of confirmation. That is massive, because the thing about it is you have there’s not really anything that you’re aiming for per se, there’s no real goal. You just keep going and keep pushing yourself. Be with me, yeah, okay. So yeah, because of that. What that means is it’s very hard to know if you’re navigating it correctly or you’re on the right path or you’re doing the right thing. So to have someone who’s been there and done it before and inadvertently discovered this path as well, I’ll be able to guide you as a massive thing and there was a Significant person in my life who helped me with that. To answer your question, that is. The second part of your question was what skills do you need? I definitely feel like being someone who is Incredibly comfortable speaking on camera is a huge thing. That is definitely one of the life skills, the hidden life skills, the unsung things and Attributes and merits that can help you in the 2022, regardless of your career being comfortable speaking on camera. It’s a place that so few people are willing to go, but if you can go there, no matter what line of work you’re in, if you can put yourself out there, doors open. I’m convinced of it, so that is a massive thing as well. I think I should go through like extra training in that kind of space. Did you go for courses or did you just stick the camera on? Just go right, I’m gonna talk the second one. The second one I don’t feel like you can go to courses that help you, can go to courses that encourage you. It’s one of those skills you really just have to learn by doing, in my opinion and I’m also gonna throw a real curveball into the mix that you probably didn’t expect as well Skills that help people on this path, and Gary. Gary V talks about this a lot. I don’t know if anybody listens to Gary V, gary Vaynerchuk, but I’m a big fan of his. He talks a lot about human empathy, understanding people, and I’m convinced that if you understand people, you understand education and you understand how to create a platform Intuitively, because you already have the framework that’s ready to go, because it is that’s what you’re doing. You just communicate and the people. That’s effectively what you’re doing. You’re just amplifying it and making yourself better at it. And if you have, it’s a little bit like when you’ve got a footballer. You know, some people have natural ability and some people Need a little bit more work, and I feel like having the ability to empathize. That’s the natural ability that a footballer has, maybe before it’s refined even further by going down this path. Not that I’m, like you know, some sort of the pinnacle that you can, everybody can, aspire to. Are you with me? You know I’m not blowing my own trumpet, but what I, what I am saying is in the other people that I’ve noticed who are Prominent and are good at this sort of thing, I’ve always noticed that they have that in common. It probably isn’t really something you’d think, I know that it probably isn’t necessarily something you’d associate with that role, but I’m convinced that it’s massive and it’s under. Do you think there’s a difference? And I feel like actually doing webinars. Since COVID kicked in, I’ve become a lot more confident in doing presentations online. I don’t know if it’s because, actually, because I can’t see my audience as such. I can see you guys today, but normally you just put your camera on and you just have yourself on the screen and you can just talk. Do you think that it’s different if you had to then do public speaking in front of a large audience? I think that they go hand in hand, but, yeah, I do think that they are too slight. They are varied. I feel like you can be good at one and not so good at the other, or vice versa, but I do feel like a rise in tide carries all ships, in so far as if you become better at speaking, it naturally gives you the skill set which allows you to be more competent from the get go at public speaking 100%, and vice versa, because if you can speak, speaking is a transferable skill. It works in both of those fields. But, by the sheer fact, if you spent your whole life speaking on Zoom and then all of a sudden you were thrust out onto this stage with 200 people, would that be a little bit outside your comfort zone? Or, if you loved being on stage, you loved seeing how people interacted with you and how your energy reflected back onto you would you find it unnerving if you couldn’t see anybody’s face on the Zoom? It works both ways. It works both ways. I mean, I’ve done both so I’m kind of okay with both. But I was just thinking that if you’re a new starter and you wanted to get used to public speaking, maybe the webinar way is probably a nice way to start, so you get that confidence building up and then, as everything opens up post COVID, go fly and, go fly and become a public speaker and present on courses and conferences. Just going on to my next question is actually so your podcast? You cover lots of different elements. I know there’s the investing side of stuff, but there’s also you do, a lot around general dentistry and leadership. I know you’ve had speakers such as Simon Chard and Gazz Galuti and people like that. How do you pick and choose who’s going to be on your podcast? Your themes as well, because you had a really good theme a couple of months back. We had the side gigs, which I thought was fascinating because it showed me that actually dental professionals are actually really entrepreneurial, I guess, in that sense that they’re doing dentistry. But then there’s this other lady who’s got like a whole fitness club set up and stuff like that, and you just think you kind of get the time and the energy to do that. So how do you find your content and how do you find your speakers? You know what? My friends always ask me this and they’re like James, where do you find, how does it just happen that you just have all these podcast episodes and where do these people appear out of and do they approach you? Do you approach them? What’s the dynamic? And it’s a little bit of both, to be honest. I would say probably 60% of the time. 70% of the time they’re people that I know through being present on social media, because other people have follow-ins, other people have profiles and you’re aware of them, and maybe it’ll just pop into my head. I’ll just think hmm, do you know what? I think it would be in a fun episode if I got that particular individual on and we spoke about this, which is related to the overall theme of education and investing, just like we were talking about earlier. So I would say about 60%, 70% of the time. It’s not the other 30%. People message me and they say things like oh, we haven’t done a podcast together for a while. Do you fancy another one, james? Or oh, I’ve noticed you’ve got a podcast that might be interesting if we did one together on this theme. And by and large, I’ll virtually always say yes, because I think what they have to say, is interesting, and they’re people that I feel can bring another slant, another angle, some education to my platform and make it fun for everybody, because that’s what it’s about. It’s just about being entertaining and educational. You used Facebook as one of your platforms. Why have you chosen that specific platform? And what about the other social media channels, and where do you think we should be going in the future? I really didn’t give it much more thought, rather than much more than I’m going to start a group and let’s see what happens. And I believe Facebook to be the easiest place to make a group in which people are able to interact with each other. Now that there might be some teenagers and preteens listening to this who think to themselves that guy is showing his age because you can actually do that on TikTok and there’s this functionality and there’s this functionality. I don’t actually think you can do that on TikTok, but perhaps I’m happy to be corrected on that one by somebody who knows more than me, or someone else might be thinking actually, james, you can do that on Instagram if you use this feature and you do it in this way. What I’m saying to you is I honestly didn’t give it any more thought than I knew Facebook could create groups. I’m going to create a group, let’s go ahead and do it and let’s just roll the dice. And I think that there is a little bit of a lesson in there, because one of the things that I’ve noticed about people who are able to create platforms and have that entrepreneurial streak, they’re doers rather than thinkers almost, and they’ll just go and do things and then figure the rest out later. And I’ve noticed that in myself, almost to my own detriment sometimes, because I’ll do something, even though it probably wasn’t the right time to do it, and then realize later. But on the flip side, what it does mean is you’re a person of action. So it turns to that question. Long story short, is I just? learned from it. Okay, that’s cool. I know a lot of dental professionals like to use Instagram because dentistry is a very pictorial kind of profession, so pictures tell 100, 1000 words, or even a smile does yes. So if you can promote that on Instagram, then that’s cool. But is that something potentially another channel that could be utilized in the future? Or Twitter is the other one, isn’t it? Yeah, you know what. So I do actually have an Instagram as well for my platform. It just doesn’t really. I feel like different platforms offer different features and characteristics and I feel like it really depends on what you’re trying to achieve. So for me, on Instagram, you’ve made a really good point that if you’re posting something that’s a picture you know it’s very visual Then because of the format of Instagram, where you’ve got the picture literally takes up most of the screen and you can just scroll through it. It lends itself very much to posting your work in dentistry. You can get a bigger following on Instagram quickly because it’s more easy just to follow you. It’s more interactive in that fashion and following someone doesn’t necessarily mean that you’d expect them to be your friend. You don’t have to add them as a friend like you do on Facebook. Are you with me? So it’s more informal and it’s more easy to get a big following if you have something which is, as you say, very aesthetic, very visual, and you’re trying to publish. Maybe you’re an artist, maybe you’re a dentist, you know something along those lines. Yeah, facebook is more is Facebook is better for interaction in so far as if you want a community of people who are discussing subjects and bouncing ideas off each other. It’s easier to do that on Facebook because of the fact that you can reply to each other and also you can create groups, which you can’t do on Instagram. I think you mentioned TikTok, or did I just make a mistake? I think you mentioned TikTok but also LinkedIn. I mentioned TikTok, wasn’t it? Yeah, yeah. What about LinkedIn? Because that’s for more professional groups, isn’t it? Yeah? so Gary Vee has a lot to say on LinkedIn and the reason he likes it is because of its organic reach. So what that means is that you can post something and you can get a lot of likes, you can get a lot of views, you can get a lot of interaction without necessarily having that many followers. And because I was listening to him one day talking about it, I thought I’d test it out a little bit more. But I never really had. I never really seemed to be able to find a win in formula for LinkedIn. And that’s not to say that he’s wrong. I think that I just need to spend a little bit more time figuring it out. I feel like the essence of what I’m saying is that it’s best to pick one that aligns with what you want to achieve, aligns very closely with what you want to achieve, and then just triple, quadruple down on that platform so that you can grow a following on one, because it’s way easier to focus on one rather than try to grow many on several platforms simultaneously. It’s actually easier to pick one, get your following really big on that, just by concentrating on it. It’s about the grind as well. It’s about posting content. It’s about following other people. It’s about interacting with other people. It’s rarely the people who post one video and it gets this massive viral reaction that actually are successful with time. It’s more about the people who’ve put the grind in. So that is one of the biggest misconceptions that I had about social media. I thought that if you wanted to grow a following, you had to just get lucky. Actually, it’s more about the graph that you put in, and for me, if you grow one and you grow it extremely well and you grow it to a size where it’s noteworthy, then you’ve got a way easier, way, way, way, way, way, way easier job of growing a following on other platforms, which means you can diversify and it saves you a lot of legwork. It actually is easier to grow one rather than it takes less time to grow one and spread it to other platforms than try to grow them all at the same time. In my opinion, so, really, once you figure out a winning formula for the platform that you choose, you just content, content, content, grow it, grow it, grow it and then take it from there, right. I know you’re using. Facebook, and Facebook has its own challenges. How do you cope with the sort of the negative side, the negative press that you may get on Facebook? Do you know what Sometimes you know? Do you know what? Again, I feel like that is something that I expected a lot more before I went into it than how it actually manifested in reality. Rarely, if ever, happened. And, to be honest, the positivity, the uplifting stuff outweighs it by a factor of about 10,000. Honestly, it’s so, it’s. It’s never been an issue for me. Really, I feel like you get back what you put out there into the world. So if you put out love, if you put out happiness, you’ll get it back, whereas if you put out stuff that isn’t so great, then what will happen is you’ll easily attract that energy back towards you, whereas it’s very, it’s very. It’s very difficult to be nice to some, to be not so nice to someone who’s consistently positive and putting stuff out there that wants to. That is obviously to help people. Yeah, it’s really been an issue. So social media thumbs up, thumbs up, two thumbs up. Everybody should think about how social media can help them a lot more in life, because that was one of the things that was one of the impressions that I got about social media. That was just totally not accurate and incorrect, and I feel like every single person should have a following of some sort on some platform and share purely happiness, purely joy, purely love, and that you’ll get back in return, and I honestly think it’s one of the most life enhancing things that not enough people have realized yet in 2022. Cool. So going to move on to? What other sort of psychological barriers To developing, growing, trying to be successful? You know one of the doubts in your mind when you’re doing some of this work 100%. So you actually make a really good point, because I firmly believe that this is one of the biggest things that hold people back from voyaging into this whole. Other dimension of things that can help them and help them in their career is those thoughts that creep into your mind, such as what’s going on in your life, as what’s such and such person going to think, what my school friends from back in the day going to think, what if I make a video? What if I stumble? What if I mess up my words? What if I make a point that’s incorrect? What if I say something wrong? That is actually the main thing that holds people back from beginning. But the problem is you never actually overcome those hurdles and become better at what you’re doing unless you begin, and that is the paradox. That is the catch 22. So for me, to actually improve those things that we want to talk about and unleash all this other stuff in your life that could be taken to the next level in my, which, in my opinion, happens through posting content about something that you love online Then you almost you have to take that first step. You never fake it till you make it. You faith it till you make it that’s my favorite way of putting it, and what that means is that you put it, you faith it, you believe in it and you believe in it so hard. Yeah, it’s cool, isn’t it? You believe it so hard that it manifests in front of you and you just have to keep going. You have to take that step in the first place because guess what? Nothing ever happens if we don’t do anything. So it’s about for me, it was about taking that first step, and I wish I could have went back and told myself many moons ago James, you’re doing this wrong. You need to give this some serious thought. It can really help you, and when I talk about it, and when I speak about it honestly, it comes from my heart, because I know how many people can help, and it totally changed my life and I saw things. The person that I am now I’ve been 18 months ago. I see things completely in a different way, and it’s only because I started in the first place, rather than analyzed it to death and and analyzed it analysis by paralysis and all of those things. So if you had to give yourself like three good tips, so, james, back in 2020, to where you are now, what would you say to him? And just say look, really don’t go down this rabbit hole or this rabbit hole or this rabbit hole because of X1Z. Excellent, excellent question, I would say. First of all, I would say social media, when used correctly, can be your friend and it can enhance your life, no matter what your path, no matter what your ambitions, no matter what your goals are and no matter what career you’re undertaking. It’s there, it can be your friend and it can help you and focus on the positivity, rather than the minute of the minute amount of not so positive stuff that can sometimes occur on there, and I feel like that is disproportionately represented in our world Period full stop. So that is the first thing. The second thing I would say is dentistry is good, james, but try not to focus exclusively in dentistry. There’s so much more to the world that’s out there that can help you within your dental career but also help you become a person who is more fulfilled, more happy, more happy, gets more enjoyment out of life. And don’t get me wrong, this is coming from someone who absolutely loved dentistry when he used to be a dentist. He used to get so much fun out of it. But what I’m saying is don’t focus on it exclusively. There is other stuff out there that can enhance your life and also make you a better clinician too, because you bring an area of experience into that realm that you would never have known otherwise if you would have kept your blinkers on and just focused on what was right in front of you. Yeah, and we’ve seen that throughout dentistry over the past couple of years, where we’ve seen clinicians go out there and say, actually, they’ve noticed a whole delta in the dental profession somewhere, so it could be. I’ve been doing a lot of work around technology and scoping out different technology solutions and we have a whole host of clinicians out there who are doing exactly that. So I think that’s a really, really important point and I feel like, for example, the undergraduates that I teach, one of the things that I say to them when I first meet them is tell me something that nobody else knows about you. And the first time I did that, literally all these students were telling me well, I’ve got a cake baking business which I started over COVID, and I’m doing this, and someone else is, I don’t know, doing artwork and selling it online and you’re just like you know. You guys are amazing. So actually, dentistry and the dental profession really, really highly skilled, really highly educated and have a range of possibilities that could take them in any direction. Really, some people try and, I guess, connect it to dentistry. Other people may take it to a different space, but that’s all good. So, around psychology again, because I like psychology, I read somewhere about you around the conforming and the non-conforming kind of space. Do you want to talk a little bit about that? Conforming and the non-conforming kind of space. What was that? Was that some content that I made, or a post, or something? Yeah, was it about achieving the same results as everyone else? Was it about? Oh you mean, was it that post I put up the other day about knowledge, about knowledge, that’s specific knowledge. Was that the one? Or? am I so it could be? Yeah, so it’s specific knowledge and also how you become a trailblazer. Oh okay, yes, yes, yes, yes, yeah, of course, yeah, so that’s an interesting concept. So there’s different types of knowledge in this world, and one of those types of knowledge is specific knowledge. So what specific knowledge is? It’s knowledge that only a human being can possess. It can never be recorded anywhere else. So what I mean by that is if you watch a YouTube video or if you read a book and it’s on a specific subject, you can learn the whole thing, what the textbook says, but you’ll never actually be able to learn how to do that unless you do it yourself. So an example would be a filling or an extraction. You can learn how to do it in theory, yeah, and you can never do that until you actually just pick up that luxator or you pick up the high speed or do what you need to do to do that procedure. So that’s why, when it comes to dentistry, you really need your clinical mentors and your tutors to help you, because, no matter how many books someone reads, where they’re on the clinic for the first day and they’re treating a patient, they’re going to need someone there to help them. Are you with me? Yeah, absolutely. That’s what specific knowledge is. So the more specific knowledge that you can give, you can get, that is unique to you, the more powerful and educator you become, in any field, and particularly when that knowledge is very valuable to lots of people, or you can specifically take one body of knowledge and recite it to another group of people who are not necessarily related. However, they need to know that knowledge and they’ve got no other way of getting it. And if you’re that only person that can do it, you’re extremely powerful and you’ve got the ability in your hands to make anything that you like maybe make a platform to educate those people and help them. And it goes back to what you were saying there. It’s a little bit when you go off the beaten track like that and when you find something that can marry together something that is so useful to so many people but they’ll never be able to get from a book, they’ll never be able to get from a YouTube video they can only get it from you. Now, what that thing is, that is a whole other kettle of fish, but all I’m saying is, if we’re looking for this knowledge, this is the best knowledge, this is the knowledge that can help you the most and you can leverage to help the most people, if you can find it and if you can identify what it is. So it’s a concept called specific knowledge. That basically goes hand in hand with experience as well, doesn’t it? Yeah, I mean, definitely experience is a factor. Definitely experience is a factor because the more, the more teeth you drill, the more teeth you pull, you’re going to be experienced, you’re going to have more specific knowledge in that subject, you’re going to be able to help more people. But if a lot of people do the same thing, even though it’s specific knowledge, it’s still useful. But it’s even more unique and powerful If it’s knowledge that a lot of people need but not a lot of human beings have. And if you can position yourself over here on the second one, especially when it’s knowledge that they have to come to you for, then guess what? You’ve got an amazing ability, you’ve got an amazing skill and you can help a lot of people. It’s just finding what that is, and that’s the concept that, like I say, that concept is called specific knowledge, something to think about, and I use it to guide my thoughts every day on what my next, what I decide I’m going to do with my platform, how can I create something, how can I give myself that knowledge so I can help as many people as I can and educate them? And you come across as incredibly positive. So how do you say so upbeat and how do you sort of put those negative thoughts to Bay? Morning routine exercise is the secret sauce to being constantly positive and having loads of energy 24 seven. You’ll get so much more happiness out of life if you can exercise once a day in the morning, I promise. And also your diet as well. I try not to eat. There’s foods that give you energy and there’s foods that take away energy I try not to over. I rarely eat foods that take away my energy, so I try not to overdo it with those. I rarely eat chocolate or rarely eat excessive carbohydrates. I always find them make me really tired, so I just try to avoid them and that’s pretty much it. I’ve always noticed those things have helped me a lot. Oh, and, by the way, find something that truly makes you happy, because then, like I say, like that naval ravacant quote we were talking about earlier, then you’ll feel like you’re playing all day rather than you’re working. I think you had another quote that I think it was a Gandhi quote the best way to find yourself, to lose yourself in the service of others. That is correct. I think that’s nice Because you’ve heard that one before. Yeah, I think for me I like to do a lot of dental volunteering or just volunteering generally so, and doesn’t necessarily have to be around that people can be like conservation and stuff, but I get quite a lot of fulfillment from that kind of stuff. So I guess you know it’s the same concept that you’re coming across with, that being positive, helping other people, educating other people is the way forward, and actually if you’ve got a platform that you can grow and develop, that’s just just another tool in your kit to be able to inspire and encourage others. So yeah, it’s another way. I feel everybody should have something that they can use to help other people, because it is the thing that will give you so much energy, so much fulfillment and so much happiness and reason to get out of bed every day. It really, really, really helped me. It gets so much more happiness from life and I know it helps so many other people out there, and I really, really, really wish that I could just take something like that and give it to every person on this planet, because it’s life on another level and it’s so much fun. Fantastic, I’m conscious of time. I think we’re coming up to our Q&A session with our other guests, so are there any other questions anybody would like to ask? We’ll throw the mic out to the floor, absolutely 100%, or we can just freestyle. Okay, let’s freestyle it. Let’s freestyle, let’s go. So what other podcasts have you got coming up which can inspire you to refresh? I’ve got a few coming up on the horizon. I’ve got a lot on educating. Here’s one that I’ve got coming up. What was it that we agreed on the other day? Teaching it’s actually on that thing that we were talking about earlier. It’s more the philosophy of education rather than the education itself, so that people can understand how their mind works. And when they understand how their mind works, they become so much better at learning. It’s spending a little bit of time so that you can become more effective and compound your knowledge further down the line. That’s another thing I like to talk about as well actually compounding. So compounding is a concept that anything in life, instead of growing linearly, it grows exponentially with time, and it’s applied a lot to certain subjects more than others. But one that it’s not applied to enough is education and knowledge. So the more you know, the more you know. Your knowledge doesn’t actually increase linearly, it actually increases exponentially because that knowledge that you began to learn at the start, you tie it together in ways that you could never even imagine, as it grows further and further and further. So what you tend to find is, towards the end, this upward curve just tends to go pretty much vertical with time, and that if you can get to that point with a body of knowledge, you are extremely powerful, because no one can ever catch you, because you’re learning exponentially and everybody else is learning in a linear fashion, especially when they’re just starting out. Obviously, the idea is to uplift everybody as you learn, and you will do that too, but what I mean is you can help more people, and that’s one of the things that will give you the most satisfaction from life. And also one more thing I was going to say yes, that was it. If you can combine the specific knowledge that we were talking about earlier, then that’s when things get really crazy. Just something to think about. Do you think that once you’ve got that specific knowledge and you’ve compounded it and you’ve grown exponentially, that’s when you hit expert level, and does that expert level ever end? Or are you constantly learning, because that’s what life’s about, right? Well, you make a very good point. We never stop learning, and the one thing that you can learn from life is you should always be committed to being a lifelong learner. That’s the one thing that you can really learn. So, yeah, you’re absolutely bang on there. And just because you feel like you’ve, I mean, here we get into a deeper question, don’t we? What is expert status and verticalness? At what point to become an expert? You can be a specialist, but are you an expert? You can not have the title of a specialist, but you can know a lot about a very specific subject. It works in a way. And at what point do you become an expert? It’s very much a social agreement. It’s a social contract between others that you’ve got to that point. So what does that actually mean? There’s no definition as such, there’s just a consensus. Are you with me? Yeah, yeah, it’s almost like validation from your peers that you are the expert or you know you’ve reached the top of your game, but have you ever actually reached the top of your game? Like we said, there’s always somebody better than you, there’s always somebody worse than you, so you’re always kind of in the middle working your way up. Well, I think it’s really important to remember that, no matter what body of knowledge, no matter what thing you’re learning about, you can always know more, because it always goes deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper and no one can know anything. So you spend your life in the pursuit of getting to that point and you pull up. You pull other people up along the way and help them and give them what they need to know, to help them get to that point, to enlighten them, because knowledge is power Fantastic. Right. Any other questions from the floor, Any other tips you want to add to this excellent conversation that we’ve had this evening? No, it’s been super fun. I like that. We’ve focused. We’ve talked a lot about the path of education, because it’s something that I think about all the time. It’s interesting. I read a lot of books on the philosophy of education and that’s where I that’s where I get half this stuff from. I just put it together in my own way, you know, but it all comes from. It all comes from inspiring stuff. Actually, that’s another thing. You know, when we were saying earlier about the things that I wish I could go back and tell my younger self a lot sooner read as many books as you can. Holy moly, there’s so much to learn in there. There is so many amazing lessons that I gained from reading that completely changed how I saw the world, and that happened many, many, many times from I’m just looking at my bookshelf over here. That happened many, many, many times when I was reading, a wish that I would have not moved away from doing that for a fairly long period of time in my mid-20s Well, actually early to mid-20s, mid to late 20s was when I started picking up the habit again. But for me it’s more. Those are more lost years, because I could have had so, I could even know more, even still, than what I do now, and that would be really exciting and that would be really interesting. I wish I would have continued doing it from my early years, through those years to where I am now because, like I said that, would have been amazing. So what are your top three? Books that anyone who wants to sort of grow and sort of maybe step into a different space that they’re in now, but a book that could support them, which has got solid advice. What would you recommend? Absolutely so. I’m looking at my bookshelf over here for inspiration. So first thing I would say is that I would definitely pick up Naval’s book that I was talking about a minute ago, because a thousand people can read that book and you can even read it on. You can even read it twice and come away with completely different conclusions each time. There’s so much food for thought in there. It’s really interesting. I wish I would have read that book sooner. I’m definitely going to read it again at some point. I also really like the Four Hour Working Week by Timothy Ferris. I really like his podcast too, so everybody should check that out. Then my final book that I’m going to recommend I’m looking off on my bookshelf if I’ve got any favorites I’m going to say the Personal MBA. I really like that book too. Excellent, if you read those three books, you’ll learn a lot Anybody. So that’s your three holiday books sorted from when the summer comes. Absolutely, they’ll keep you busy as well, because they’re big boys, they’re not small. By the pool sorted Lovely stuff. I think we’re coming to an end now. I really enjoyed this today, so thank you so much for joining us today, james. It’s been a fantastic talk. I look forward to listening to some more of your podcasts. Keep up the motivation and the drives and education and the profession. It’s been brilliant. Any other questions Anybody want to ask before we wrap up? Okay, any last words from you, james? Just wanted to say thank you so much for having me. It’s been fun to reflect on this stuff because I don’t often actually take time out to think about it. These are my opportunities that I do do that. It makes me a little bit nostalgic because I look back and I think, wow, that was really special. I feel really lucky, I feel really blessed To be sat here talking about it and for you guys to think of me when you wanted somebody to come on your platform. I think that’s really special. So thanks a lot. Thank you for accepting. We really enjoyed it today. Thank you so much. I’m just going to let you guys know that we are wrapping up today’s webinar. However, our next one is scheduled for the 31st of March. We have Dr Sammy Stagnall, who’s going to be talking about the team approach to implants. So thank you very much everyone. I hope you’ve enjoyed your evening and have a lovely month without us. Take care, guys. Bye. See you all later. Bye-bye. Thank you. 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