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. Welcome back everybody to the Dentists who Invest podcast. Avid listeners of the podcast will no doubt have noticed that we have a new intro for the podcast. It is a little bit unusual. It is one that I never really expected the podcast might have. I didn’t really think we’d take that direction, but you know what I think? I like it and I’d love to hear everybody’s thoughts on it, because you know what, even if it’s not in its final form right now, we’re probably going to sample it and make it into something else later. What is more pleasant to listen to than a barbershop quartet? When I heard those guys, I just was so sold. I loved it, I loved what they did and I thought we have to work this in somewhere. So drop me a message, drop me a comment, let me know what you think about that. And you know what, maybe that is the final form and maybe it isn’t. And actually, as it happens, I have the gentleman sat opposite me today who I have to thank for introducing me to that barbershop quartet, and we’re here today to talk about something a little bit philosophical in the investment world that maybe doesn’t get as much airtime as it should. That speaks to my entrepreneurial side, and that is the power of humility and how it can help you in many more ways than you might be able to initially think. And that individual who sat opposite me now is called Idrian Dre, and, idrian, it is a pleasure to welcome you on the show. How are you today?

Adrian: 2:50

Thank you, james. It’s a pleasure to be here and to be the person behind that. Well say, the person behind the barbershop quartet makes it sound like I was the one who’s singing it. It’s not like I found a major that goes, oh I’d better use this one day. Never got around to it, and then manage yourself to you and look where it becomes this beautiful thing. Know what? I can’t wait to see what people think of it.

Dr James: 3:11

Two things, two things. I hope we didn’t mislead anybody to think that Idrian was indeed the barbershop quartet, that is, a whole other entity or being an individual. Idrian simply introduced me to the barbershop quartet, just for clarity. And then the second thing I wanted to touch upon what you just said there Idrian is the beauty of the butterfly effect, which is all these crazy things that we do at some point in the past in history that manifest in all these unusual, unexpected ways further down the line, and I love that, because that is the beauty of life and that’s what keeps us entertained and makes it fun. Makes it fun and the spice, and that’s happened so many times in my life. And that was just another example there, or something, probably a comment that you just made completely offhanded, and now it’s the intro for the Dentistry Invest podcast. So how fun is that.

Adrian: 4:02

Thank you, James.

Dr James: 4:04

That’s my only barbershop quartet. Are you sure, are you sure you’re not the barbershop quartet, idrian? Are you sure, mate?

Adrian: 4:14

I tell you what you’ve lost listeners. Just on that alone, I don’t think I should be.

Dr James: 4:20

It’s all good. It’s all good If they can put up with me. It’s no worse than what they hear every week, I’m sure.

Adrian: 4:25

Anyway.

Dr James: 4:25

Idrian, idrian, idrian. For those who don’t know, you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do.

Adrian: 4:32

So Adrian Dre now some of you listening making Adrian Dre where I’ve heard that name, for I come up sometimes on social media as the GDPR guy of Dentistry. So I’ve worked in Dentistry last few years. I was a data protection officer at one of the large corporates and I’ve seen all you can imagine when it comes to GDPR, which you might think, oh, that must be a fascinating life. Yes, okay, it is a bit boring, but actually can get a bit juicy when you talk about AI in Dentistry and also you talk about data breaches and I’ve had dentists call me up two o’clock in the morning because they get hit by compensation claim because they use someone’s image on social media and they shouldn’t have done all this kind of stuff. So I’ve seen the whole the broad spectrum of this. I know the bodies are buried sometimes because personal data is everywhere and I see the best and not so best parts of it. So that’s sort of me in a nutshell of what I have been doing, but things are a little bit changing. I probably don’t want to be the GDPR guy. I still do GDPR, but look at different avenues. James, you’ve been a bit of an inspiration to that to butter your up early on.

Dr James: 5:45

Oh, thanks, man. No, that’s kind, you know what. And yeah, I still find it a little hard to believe that, that the fact that, because of some finance books and purchasing some crypto all those years ago, that that’s now evolved into a whole other source of revenue and a group and all of this has happened, and it’s a little crazy, and that’s probably what you’re finding yourself on the precipice off now with these pastures, new pastures, green on whatever you voyage into. But today you the whole reason why we’re talking about what we’re talking about today was because it was something else that blew up for you a little bit on Clubhouse, which we were just talking about off camera, and you have, of course, been. Well, it’s a pleasure to be, you know, playing inspiration in any story, anybody’s story, and particularly yours, and I’m so grateful, I’m so glad that I could do that. And then also, as well as that, from the off the back of that Clubhouse, you’re now voyaging into the podcast world yourself with dental talk. Dental talk, wasn’t it?

Adrian: 6:49

Dental chat.

Dr James: 6:50

Dental chat. Oh, come on. Oh yeah, I have to rename it now, yeah. Dental talks pops a little bit. It’s like it’s got a bit of a ring to it. But yeah, dental chat works as well. Dental chat.

Adrian: 7:05

I bought the domain dentistchat now so I’ve kind of got a stick with it. But the but it is exactly that it is members of the dental community talking about a whole host of different issues and it’s predominantly a podcast. But my co-founders, andrew Acton, as you know from FTA media law associates and also Brad Thornton, who’s a principal runs dental business podcast We’ve got together because we met our friendship sort of started off Clubhouse, which is kind of died of death now. But we had some fascinating discussions with people all over the world in the dental community talking about marketing, talking about clinical staff, talking about the gripes, the grind, the things that we want to get better at. It was a whole broad spectrum. But what was great about it was getting people’s different perspectives on some fundamental, almost existential sometimes, concepts that affect all of us as human beings, but how we see it in a dental perspective, in the dental industry, in the dental sector, not just in the UK but in the US. So this podcast sort of bridges that together with UK US international contacts that I’ve got to get their thoughts on it Because you know well that’s going to resonate with someone who’s listening. Perhaps you know what. That’s just what I’ve been thinking I thought I was nuts because I was the only one who thought about it like that, and it’s great to know that I’m not the only one and all. I’ve not heard of that before and I want to apply that in my life and just improve who I am professionally, personally, whatever it might be I ain’t a life coach, but I like to be able to provide the platform that presents those different perspectives that help people’s lives. I think that’s that’s pretty much what we’re trying to trying to bring in, and this subject of humility is a kind of a little bit of a glimpse trade of the sort of stuff that we’re going to talk about.

Dr James: 9:05

But it’s validation, though, isn’t it? Because sometimes I hear things on podcasts and I think to myself hmm, I only. I always almost kind of half knew that already, like that was my logic already. However, to hear somebody who has this platform and who’s evidently very successful in business or achieved a lot of things, now preaching about it, now spousing the same message, it makes me realize that, actually, that thing that I was pretty sure was a good idea, but never really quite thought about it or never really quite had the reassurance, now I have a validation to triple down on that flippin amazin thing that I thought was good, and now I know that it’s good rather than just thinking that it’s good. And that’s why I like to have these conversations, because it’s already things that we have no already. However, it’s just nice to hear it, hear another angle on it, refine it and also ensure that we triple down on it and we magnify the things that are positive and maybe we push away the things that are not so effective. And that’s why we’re here to talk about the power of humility, not just in, not just because it’s a nice thing to do, but also because it’s an awesome business strategy, and I 100% can get behind that. So maybe you’d like to take the reins a little bit as to why you believe so strongly in it too.

Adrian: 10:25

Absolutely, and I think you know what it’s that word, humility, in a professional sense, rarely comes up. People talk about lots of different skills We’ve got patience, cooperation, leadership, negotiation, persuasion, that kind of stuff but humility rarely comes up. Because I think maybe sometimes when we hear that word, our natural inclination is to think well, that’s putting yourself down, that’s letting others go first, that’s too linked to the word humiliate. You know it’s dog eat dog, mate. I need to get forward and need to do this, need to cut through whatever it might be. But actually, perhaps our understanding of the words, the fundamental pillars of that quality of humility, have been slightly off. So we have to change our perspective. I’d like to share something with you, james, that I use when I used to be a teacher at an international school for some sport, rap, kids and Sweden. But when I was trying to get their focus on something, something they felt they already knew about, and sometimes they were bang on right, they had the right thought. They just needed that validation. Like you just said, I used to get into this exercise. So I want you to pitch this scene, you, james, or anyone who’s listening. So imagine me I’m stood right in the front of the class You’re sat. It’s one of the students. You look at me and I said, like, look at me, put your phones down, put everything down, wait to look at me. Both eyes open. I said raise your hand if you can see the end of your nose Right. Both eyes open. No one put their hands up. I said, right, okay, now what I want you to do is just close one eye, right, can you see it now? And, of course, everyone puts their hand on. I’ve got a glass eye, but everyone’s putting their hand up right, because now you can see the end of your own. So what have you done? You just adjusted your perspective, something that was always there. You’ve had to see it from a different, slightly different view to then to be able to recognize it, use it, whatever it might be. So this is what we’re going to look at now. Using that same kind of exercise is to maybe just our perspective. Perhaps we’ve already got the right perspective on it Brilliant. If that’s the case, keep listening, because you can get some validation. Validation is lovely, particularly if you’re millennial. We need it more than anything. So, but if not, perhaps there’s something from this and things that we can share to different perspectives that can help. You see, you know what flipping egg. I didn’t realize that I’m going to start using that in real life. So the first pillar, the first thing to have a look at, is what’s one of the fundamental elements to this quality of humility is modesty, and that, again, is a word in itself that could be seen as something different than what it actually is. But modesty is about being aware of your limitations. That, if you can be aware of your limitations and have the right view of that, that is such a powerful thing, because you can go from looking at you know what, I know my limitations, I know I can’t do that, but you don’t just mean, okay, that’s the ceiling and you know that’s it. You think, right, I can’t do that at the moment. I realize I need to do a course, I realize that I need to make some mentorship, I need to speak to this person, I need to already work on this that any other to push those limitations, to push those boundaries, to be able to get through that glass ceiling because then there’ll be another limitation to recognizing that there’s an element of modesty that you have to show is a very, very powerful thing, because how many times do? We see people in our day to day, whether it’s people who work within the practice, if you’re in a corporate, if you’re speaking to a salesperson, whatever it might be, and you know something right, probably more than they do and they’re trying to school you on it because, maybe out of a bit of arrogance, maybe about cutting their nose off despite their face, kind of thing. Right, they’re not showing humility, they’re not understanding their limitations. I mean, I do it myself. You know they should be like, you know what I know about this and that’s it. But that’s okay because you can grow from that. So, understanding that first thing about your own limitations is such a powerful thing, but don’t use that as a way to anchor you to your current boundary limit. It just think, well, okay, I know that, well, how do I push that forward? How do I go further? And that, if you think well that women, it doesn’t sound like a very humble thing. No, it is. It’s about recognizing you’re not better than you actually are, but that you want to be better. So you got, you got to do something about it. When I heard that, when I realized that I hate using this expression game changer, Real quick, guys.

Dr James: 15:08

I 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 wwwdentistuneinvestcom forward slash podcast report or, alternatively, you can download it using the link in the description. This report details the seven most common issues. However, most importantly, it also shows you how to fix them. I’m really looking forward to hearing your thoughts. I love that. I love that a lot. You know what it comes back to, something that I really like. That I heard a while ago, and there’s a difference between self belief and arrogance. And arrogance is where you project it to the point that it’s noxious, and self belief is. Arrogance is what you project. Self belief is what you have on the inside, and they’re actually both manifestations of the same thing. It’s fine to have self belief, because that’s what’s going to push you to let you do all of those things that you were speaking about earlier, but it’s only when it becomes arrogance, as in when you project it outside of yourself excessively, that it’s a problem. It’s fine to have the first one, it’s not so fine it might push people away from you to have the second one. So what we’re saying is it’s positive to have self belief, is positive to have that, but you have to just be conscious about how that projects, which slightly ties into what you’re saying just there. That is a really nice way of putting it, what you’ve just said.

Adrian: 16:53

Because there’s this analogy. You know, we’re all hit, no matter how arrogant, pigheaded or whatever it is that we make. We all have bad days. We all have the I could be crying myself to sleep moments. At least I hope so, because I get it every now and then. You know, I would consider myself a fairly confident person. I like to consider myself a humble person, albeit that is a contradiction in terms of something like Kanye West. But you know, we’ve got these things that we recognize in ourselves to a degree. So let’s just imagine that we are facing a mountain ridge you know the ascent, and we’re thinking how the heck am I going to get up up there? Let’s just imagine, actually, you’re already halfway up the mountain. So we got to do is look down and think wait a minute, I’ve got this far, so what do I do when I use what was available for the moment? I managed to grab that rock that was in my reach and push myself up and then grab the other one. I got there and I’ve just, I’ve just stopped. So it’s time to reflect and I think any everyone when you think about humility, think about modesty, think about self-belief. You can look from where you come from. People told you you can’t go into dentistry, you can’t be a dentist or whatever it might be. You can’t do this. I think it was Charlie Sheen that said can’t is the cancer of doing. But you can. You can be on that halfway up the mountain and think, you know what, not a limit in myself at the moment. So what, what is in my reach that I can actually push myself up? You know, I can grab that rock there, whatever it might be. I can grab that, that training course. I can grab that conversation with someone because I’ve seen them on Facebook. I’m going to message them and just say, hey, you know what really like that, what’s your thoughts on this? Push yourself forward. And there’s a humility that comes out with that. Because if you were thinking, you know what stuff it, I can run up that mountain and do whatever. You could make a jump. That that is an in modest decision. That means you fall off the flipping mountain. So if you have that kind of thing, you start to actually understand that humility is a is a big strength. The modesty pillar of that feeling is huge. And then the other thing is what you said how do other people perceive you? Do they perceive you as an arrogant person or as a humble person, and what impact does that have on you, on the people around you and that kind of thing?

Dr James: 19:26

I’m intrigued, and is that what you’re going to tell us about next Cause I’m all ears here.

Adrian: 19:31

Well, it is Well. I thought I’d better have a breather cause I talk a lot. I almost sometimes have like a mental little like stop watching my head. I’ve been talking for you know three minutes, but this is the. Thing.

Dr James: 19:43

Normally I do jump in and compliment stuff, but I’m just so all ears on this one. I’m literally on the edge of my seat, so I feel like I’m just going to obstruct proceedings, and I’m even doing it unconsciously, as I’m speaking right now, so I’m going to be quiet.

Adrian: 19:58

Well, hopefully I haven’t. This is not an elongated drum roll to an anti-climate, but I do think that this is what I’m going to say is going to be good, and this isn’t my thoughts. By the way, this is stuff that I’ve just picked up. This is stuff that I’ve had in conversations and the conversation with and I hope she doesn’t mind, I’m sure she wouldn’t mind I had lunch with Anna Middleton, london hygienist, good friend of mine, and we were talking about this kind of stuff in general and she introduced me to this term. She didn’t make it up. It’s a Stephen Bartlett thing called invisible PR, right, invisible PR how doing something which isn’t in the limelight, that isn’t going to be shouted about from the rooftops by you or anyone else, has this unknown impact. It has this unknown, invisible, often, effect which could have short-term or long-term payment and dividends to it. And I think humility is a big thing because, going back to what we said earlier, it’s not spoken about in a business sense, because there is unfortunately still 1980s, 1990s, walmart, dog eat, dog, be competitive, all this kind of stuff, get the knives out, stab each other in the back, kind of thing. But actually, if you can demonstrate genuinely, authentically, humility, modesty in what you do. But, yes, it isn’t blasting your own trumpet, but it is having this invisible PR effect. And I’ve seen that I’m not a dentist, I’m not anything special, but I personally try and work on this particular quality because I have a weakness to become arrogant. I used to be the lead singer of a rock band, for example, so I actually almost had to be arrogant for that persona. So I realized that weakness in myself. So I have to work on it. But by doing that, by working on it, try and make it as part of myself being trying to be humble, as part of my identity. It’s worked because it means that I now have great friendships with really key people that have a similar kind of thing. But these people have a lot of influence. I’m not putting this thing on because, oh, it means I can get in front of them and they’ll be able to do something for me. It’s just naturally arised and that’s the kind of the sentiment of this invisible PR. So if you’ve ever thought about thinking, well, there’s no point being humble because so and so they talk the most the blast of things, and it’s like, yeah, but they’re known for that, they’re known for being allowed now a show off, arrogant, all this kind of stuff, and that has an expiration date. If you can demonstrate this kind of humility, this modesty, appropriately, without seeing it’s putting yourself down but actually thinking that’s my limitations, now I can move forward and do something else, then that could have effects you would not even believe or realize right now, and I’m a big believer that that is possible by investing in this level of humility and seeing it as a business strength rather than a business weakness.

Dr James: 23:10

I think it’s massive, because when you’re ascending the mountain that you were talking about earlier, what you need is as many people to push you and pull you off that mountain as you can. All right now, if you’re arrogant, you’re actually inadvertently, without even consciously doing it. Sometimes sometimes consciously, sometimes not so consciously you’re actually repelling those people away because they’re less likely to be able to aid you in your journey. And I’m a huge believer of the philosophy that if you can be as kind and as helpful and as nice and draw as many people towards you as you can, your ascent becomes so much more easier because you’re actually lifting together as a team rather than trying to ascend on your own. And how else? You can do that so much more quickly when you have the collective expertise of a group of people who are willing to help you and go out of their way to do that, versus trying to do it on your own. So it actually makes sense, even just because it’s a human thing, even just because it’s a nice thing to do. Put that to one side. Let’s look at it purely from the cold perspective of who makes the most money and who’s the most successful in business. I actually think if you purely look at it through those eyes, it still makes total sense and it’s still the alpha play. That is my firm belief, and it is completely juxtaposed against this concept or idea that to be successful in business, you have to be some sort of macho, cutthroat, ruthless animal in your boardroom. I actually don’t think that works so well in 2022, particularly on the internet, particularly when, if you’re like that, it’s projected and so many more people find out about it and once upon a time they did in the 80s I just don’t think it works. I actually don’t think it works. That’s the thing. It’s not even that it’s an option. I actually it. Possibly. It maybe works to a degree, because if you keep pushing, it’s all ROI positive, but I genuinely think that you’ll do it that much faster. Even if you are completely business minded, it still pays to be humble, kind, nice, all of those things on the internet and use content to leverage it.

Adrian: 25:27

Absolutely, absolutely, and you can. We know how to do this correctly. I referenced Kanye West earlier and I think he was the one who said be humble, be humble. I was like, really, kanye, that’s coming from you. And I think the thing is you can’t, you can’t or if you are someone that thinks you know what I am a bit arrogant you’re not gonna be able to come across as a humble person overnight. You know, it’s not a Christmas carol, it doesn’t work like that. But the thing is you can work on this, on this, on a micro basis, and there’s lots of different ways to do that and you almost get outside of your comfort zone and I suppose see it as sort of like small steak kind of gains. And what you said earlier actually before I forget it is that in the boardroom, that kind of hard hitting, slamming your hands on the desk kind of thing is not the way that business deals are negotiated nowadays. When you look at things like Chris Boss, who was the FBI hostage negotiator, got you know he’s a masterclass, got his own podcast, this kind of stuff. He talks about tactical empathy and about, you know, having that collaborative conversation with people, trying to get them to empathize with your situation. You’re not gonna be able to do that if you’re arrogant. You know they weren’t able to negotiate people to release hostages because they were, because the FBI negotiator was arrogant. He had to show a sense of humility, right, empathy. So it’s certainly something that you’ve got. So how can you do these sort of small steak negotiations, these small steaks sort of gains in humility? And you’re working in dental practice. You know what? There are people in your dental practice that see things from a completely different view but are never asked about their professional opinion on something Receptionists, nurses, maybe even the practice manager to a degree, the TCO. When you’re looking at something, if you’re a practice owner, if you’re an associate, whatever it is, how do the humility to say, you know what, julie, jane, sarah, whatever they’re called, brian, what’s your professional opinion on this idea? They’re gonna be stunned, right. When are they ever asked for their professional opinion on something? You know what? I did this when I was working at a corporate level as a DPO. I got so much, so much value and cut through a heck of a lot of noise by going to the front line and asking for their professional opinion on something. It was brilliant and I realized that my initial thoughts on something was completely way off, and if I had put it out there, I would have it, would have never have landed, wouldn’t have landed well. So that’s one thing.

Dr James: 28:23

Well, there you go, and that all stemmed from having an air of humility. Yeah, which is the topic of this, yeah, which is the whole point of this podcast. Here’s another perspective on humility, or another way of looking at it, and something that I’ve always thought to myself, in passing, and consciously as well when you are arrogant, you’re effectively saying that you know better than everybody else, but if you think about it, in this weird and wonderful and wacky world where there’s so many confounding factors and variables, it’s literally not possible to be able to predict anything. So in a way, you’re actually suggesting that you’re naive enough to be able to believe that you are the sage, you are the philosopher, you are the guru who knows every single thing that is going to happen next. And it actually suggests a little bit about your worldview, which is not necessarily flattering, because anybody with a certain level of intellect will realize that it’s actually not possible to be able to do all of that and predict all of those things. And you’ll be able to do that very easily by observation on a dead or tight pisses, and therefore it may undermine you slightly in terms of your intellect, your perspective from the world, your understanding of it, and I’ve always thought that to myself and, by the way, that’s coming from the guy who hasn’t always been an angel his whole life, first person to hold my hands up and say that when it comes to being a little bit big headed. But I would like to say in my in my latter years, you know, certainly towards the end of my late 20s I started to figure this stuff out for myself and maybe I saw I saw things for how they really were and that was one of the realizations that made me unravel why I didn’t want to be like that. Does that make sense, adrienne? Did you like that?

Adrian: 30:24

I did like, and I think what that demonstrates is a confidence without arrogance. I think that’s that, unfortunately, you see and you know this is me, not as a clinician, but as a casual observer that’s worked in this industry I have seen this thing where it almost feels like you have to be arrogant. You have to really put yourself out there and be confident, because if you’re not, the other side is imposter syndrome, anxiety and all this kind of other stuff. Well, guess, guess what you can be confident with, how arrogant. In fact, those who are often very arrogant are the ones who, deep down, suffer for all these insecurities because it’s exhausting to keep up. That arrogance is massive. It’s usually underpinned by another person, right? Maybe a parent or a spouse, whatever, and then when they go or something happens, that’s when these people crumble. So if you, if you’re able to get that, that internal confidence without arrogance, if that is a part of your identity, then you know what things might take a while to get there, but the best things they always. You got to get this, to get there slowly. Anyway, you know, if you really want something, it’s going to be something you get. You got to be prepared to get there slowly, and I think actually just just sprung sprung to my mind, I said the word identity. Do you know where the the origins of the word identity? Have ever come across this before?

Dr James: 31:50

No, I haven’t intrigued to hear though.

Adrian: 31:53

So I’ll wrap up quickly. So the word identity means it comes from it’s from Latin words meaning repeated beingness. Okay, repeated beingness. So that, like I said just now, is that you can’t do this stuff overnight, right, you’ve got to. You’ve got to build up, you’ve got to push those boundaries slowly and slightly, and even if your ability of even showing humility it takes a while, but when you’ve got that, when you realize who you want to be now, he wants to be in the future, and you’re doing that on a repeated basis, on habitual basis, then that forms part of your identity. And this is this is why it’s great, because when you, when we end up going to you know, dental shows, dental environments, seeing our colleagues, people we’ve seen on Facebook or whatever it might be, there’s going to be individuals thinking, oh yeah, well, they, they, they talk their mouth out and you know what they’re not going to. They’re not going to attract nice people, people not going to want to talk, people probably going to be talking about. But if you see people that actually are helping, they’re being generous with their time, they are putting their hands up. You know what I don’t know everything on this they’re showing humility, just what people want to draw on to them. They won’t have good conversation with them because they recognize that’s part of their identity. So these are things that we got recognized can’t do overnight. Got recognized actually is a strength they can if people can pick up on it. But it was our peers which are patients that we can demonstrate this from day one by just asking someone in the practice that usually maybe not treated that well, not seen with any kind of I don’t know value, and then just say you know what love to get your professional opinion on on the colors of the new chairs? We’re going to get you know. Or you want to sit in on this interview for a new nurse? We’ve got. We’re even an associate. What do you think about it? Let’s get your, get your thoughts on it, blow them away. You know what? That? That then the forges a really good relationship. That first because they recognize well, that’s taken a bit of humility that person say that because why on earth they ever asked me for it? Well, actually, because they probably have got a very good perspective on something and also it helps increase your ability of humility.

Dr James: 34:15

Ability of humility. Love that. You know what two things that I wanted to jump in on. I love that ability of humility. There you go. I think you were waiting to say that, possibly before we can wonder this podcast. I don’t know how spontaneous that was, but I love it. I love it, though I’m still writing it down anyway. Two things First thing, on the gradual change thing that you were talking about a second ago In essence, it’s a bit of a fake it to you make it scenario. However, I don’t like fake it to you make it, because fake suggests disingenuine, and that’s why we should switch the narrative to faith it to you make it believe that you’re going to be there and guess what? You will so much more. It works so much more, rather than fake it to you make it. Fake it to you make it a little bit artificial, a little bit false, false faith it to you make it can be used synonymously in every single scenario that that first one applies. And guess what? It just has an amazing. It’s got a much better ring to it and it’s also a lot closer to the mark of how we should be looking at it. And then the second thing that you were saying there, which was oh, it’s just went out of my head, adrian. I will never know what that was, but what was that? I’m going to really kick myself now. What was the second, what was the last thing?

Adrian: 35:28

we’re talking about talking to maybe someone in the past getting their professional opinion.

Dr James: 35:33

I’ve got it. I’ve got it. It actually ties back to what we were. The whole point of density and vast podcast is it’s about investing from the perspective of making more people money. But this is it’s. Stuff like this is the killer business. These are the killer business strategies and the things that will actually lead you to making more money. And there’ll be so many people sat there thinking what has humility got to do with business and making more money? And the answer is literally flipping everything. Honestly and I’m not just saying that, I genuinely believe that from the bottom of my heart, because you know what, in that exact situation that you use, then the principal has the humility to go to other people in the practice and say what can I do better? First of all, not everybody’s ego can handle that, you know. Not everybody likes criticism, not everybody can take it constructively. And guess what? Those are the boots on the ground. Those are the people that are on the front line. Those are the people that are best equipped in that practice to tell you what you can do better so that you can make more money. And, by the way, the fit the patient facing staff in your practice could be making, or probably one of the most easy ways that are most neglected that most practices could be making more money. In my opinion, every time, every time right, a patient comes in who wants a treatment, the patients should be primed by those front facing staff to know exactly what the treatments are, exactly how much they cost, before they even meet the dentist. And those conversations go like that and practices, as I’ve seen associates, double their turnover through making those conversations so much smoother and not leaving it all to the dentist. Okay, maximize the chair time for clinical stuff and money making things, not conversations. That should be prepped by the TCO beforehand, and I’ve seen practices do so unbelievably well because of that. How did they learn that trick? Through humility and listening to their staff. That is the sort of stuff I’m talking about. Okay, and then let’s put the dentistry to one side. Let’s just talk about your online business. People connect with authenticity on the internet so much. Guess what makes you authentic? Being real, being humble, yeah, and that is what, why anybody who’s created a platform, who’s created any sort of thing on the internet that they want to eventually be a business. That’s why you will always beat the faceless corporations, because you’re a real person and it doesn’t matter one flip about the quality of your content is what you say on it and it’s who you are, and it makes a huge difference. It makes every single difference.

Adrian: 38:11

Absolutely, and people value, people treasure authenticity over perfection. And that is once I got that in my head. It didn’t matter if I came out of something and I looked a little bit like an idiot. It wasn’t particularly great, because that’s just me. So I’m doing, man, you know I’ll try better next time, but at least I’m putting it out there.

Dr James: 38:36

It hurts so much less and you move on so much more quickly Emotionally. If you do not have that quality and in the business game, in the investing game, it’s all about being able to you’re going to get knocked down, there’s going to be those problems, you’re going to have setbacks, and the quicker you can move on, the better. And if you completely unshackle yourself from believing that your self esteem is attached so much to the outcome, because you have to save face, because of these, this, this cage that you’ve built around yourself, where you have to be the alpha male, you have to be the dominant person at all time, because and you cannot suffer any perceived, perceived misdemeanor towards yourself, your status Then as soon as you let that go, you can move on so much faster and you become way more powerful.

Adrian: 39:28

Absolutely. You know, in my GDPR training days that I have with practice managers, I tell them about the data breaches I’ve, I’ve caused right, and I’m not supposed to be the one night of GDPR and I’ve done it, but then they make, then it breaks down, it breaks the ice, it breaks down those sorts of things. On this kind of like GDPR demigod, I was like no, it’s hard, it’s easy things. I’m trying to build your confidence and it can happen to anyone. These are things I wish have done. Now, when I do this like you know, sending an email I feel like I’m diffusing a bomb to make sure I’m sending the right person. All this kind of stuff it can happen to anyone Automatically. That person’s learning experience, the fact that they’ve paid, you know, the ticket to sit on the course, the fact that they’re going to then tell someone else about it or give me a video testimony or something. It’s just gone through the roof. Love it, Because you’re able to do that. If I’ve gone that like right, listen to me, I know that I’m right. All this kind of stuff, people would switch off. I would. I would switch off to myself. I was like that. So it’s, we’re all working on it. I’m by no means perfect, but you know, one thing I can do is I can fly the flag on this to say look, look into it, Try these little things, talk about it amongst yourself, your friends, your family, professionally, whatever it is, is humility really a strength that we need to give more attention to? Or maybe you think it’s a weakness, but you know what. That’s your opinion.

Dr James: 40:55

That’s totally fine, you know what? And that’s the thing about this podcast, because I’d never like to think that it comes across in any way like we’re preaching. We’re just two dudes who’ve learned some things about being humble through our own mistakes or our self admitted own mistakes somewhere along the line, and we’re sharing those just in the hope that there’ll be somebody out there who it also resonates with. And even if maybe lots of you knew this stuff already, it’s the validation that comes from it as well that I really like when I’m listening to other people speak about things and the reinforcement and also learning just how powerful this stuff is, and I honestly believe it with every essence of my being that it’s the soft skills that are the new hard skills in 2022, especially in the era of the internet. Preach, preach, right there, right there but we’re not preaching. Oh yeah, yeah, Actually that was a total contradiction.

Adrian: 41:58

Amen, I agree 100 emoji.

Dr James: 42:02

Much better, much better, much better. Adrian, you speak really well on camera. Your podcast is has that been released yet?

Adrian: 42:11

No, it’s, it’s coming out. So it’s a podcast, but also a live streaming some of our shows as well. So it’s it’s. We’re trying out the live stream game. That’s gonna be a bit crazy. I know you’ve done that. You’ve again been a motivation. Well, okay, james has done, he’s put himself out there. Let’s try it as well. Who cares? There’s a technical mishap, but we just want to get it out there. We want us to be, want people see different perspectives. And also I’ll be quick on this one one of the one of the features that we’ve got on it and you you’ve kindly participated in it is we’ve gone out to people across the world From nurses, receptionist, consultants, dentist, and we said watch your 30s to 60 seconds, thought on this, and They’ll present it, and then we’re gonna incorporate that into the show. So it won’t be interviewed like we have in here, but we get in other people’s perspectives, sometimes people who don’t usually get asked, looping it round to what was wrong earlier sounds like fun.

Dr James: 43:08

Here’s my tip for you and for anybody else who wants to stream on Facebook groups, and this is a tip that I learned the hard way a few times because I attempted to stream using Facebook live. Facebook live, the actual functionality on it, and holy moly, that thing is so Tempormental. Sometimes it’s gonna, it thinks it’s gonna work, you think it’s gonna work, and then it just doesn’t like. The little buttons that are supposed to appear just don’t appear. Okay, and if you’re, if you’ve got all these people waiting for you to go live, there is nothing worse than being about ten minutes past the start date and still trying to get your tech in order. Trust me, that’s, that’s a special kind of anxiety. What you’ve got all these people that you know are waiting as well. So my tip, my tip to you forget about Facebook, facebook live functionality. You can get a little plug-in for zoom, which means that you can connect it to your group, and Then you can. There’s this little Option that appears just on the little zoom toolbar at the bottom and the center on the right hand side, and it’s called the more option, and what it means when you hit that button. Once you have the plug-in, then you can literally click, go live on Facebook. Then in the Facebook group, you also have to get a little app as well, which you can get in the Facebook, which you can find in the Facebook group settings, and that, once you have that set up and all ready to go, it is like a dream, honestly. It’s so much easier. But Facebook really need to up their game when it comes to the live functionality because it’s so, it’s so temperamental. It just Decides some evenings that it’s not gonna work, or it just decides it’s not gonna turn up for work and do a shift, and you have no idea why some even as it does, some even as it doesn’t. So that’s my, that’s my tip for you, mate. That will save you Time, effort and bother, and for anybody else who is on this entrepreneurial path and you want to do Facebook lives. That is my gift to you. That is, that is all of these lessons, you know when, all of these things when, when I learned them or when someone else learns them. That is so valuable because it saves everybody about 10 occasions of heartache where they’re trying to set up zooms or do other stuff, because, well, it’s a workaround, effectively put there on a platter for you and ready to go. So there you go, my friend. I hope that that saves you significant heartache along the line because Someone who’s learned the hard way that Facebook live is not so great.

Adrian: 45:43

I Hope so, and if it doesn’t work, you can just imagine me like James. I trusted you.

Dr James: 45:51

I know my reputation is on the line big time now after that. So yeah, let’s hope it works. I’m sure it will. It will.

Adrian: 46:04

It was sure.

Dr James: 46:04

yeah, thank you, mate, I do appreciate it cool, bro, it in, we’re gonna wrap things up. No, thank you for your wisdom on humility. Anything you’d like to say to draw a line under what we’ve just said?

Adrian: 46:19

No, not really. I think, recognising limitations, but don’t be limited by the fact that’s it. Just recognize. You know what I’ve got to do to just put those, push those a little bit more, and that’s okay. Don’t have to be the best, but I do have to recognize I can be better and what do I need to do? That I can do that and it’s okay not to be the Best right now, but keep moving forward.

Dr James: 46:41

I’m gonna chuck one tiny thing on top of that, and this goes for the content creators on the audience or Really just doing anything in life, particularly when it’s something that you’ve only you’re doing for the first time. Six out of ten is good enough, and what I mean by that is as long as it’s okay, then put that content out there. The growth comes later. Making the content perfect comes later in your journey. Just put the first video right there, let it ride, let it flow. If what you say on it is interesting, people are so forgiving and not just forgiving but loving as well because they will connect with it, they will learn something from it and they will overlook anything else that go the technical blips, the ums, the ass, all of those things. And it’s so worth it. And if you have something in your head that other people need to hear, it’s not just an option for you to share it, it’s actually your duty to share it so that you can help those people. And that is the biggest mindset flip that helped me. And when I talk about the entrepreneur, you like that. It’s good, isn’t it?

Adrian: 47:40

I love that. Yeah, yeah, that’s pretty good. Put some body chills, full body chills.

Dr James: 47:45

Yeah, put your wind, puts the wind in your sails to go and do this stuff. And I love the finance stuff, I absolutely love it. But as I’ve been going through this whole journey, this voyage, I actually have learned that I love the entrepreneurial stuff at least as much, and maybe even a teeny, teeny, tiny bit more. And that’s why I talk about it a lot, because I want everybody to be on board with this stuff, because I want everybody to be having as much fun as what this can offer them, particularly when it’s a whole other facet to Just purely the clinical dentistry or whatever else it is that they do in their lives. And I just wanted to draw a line under proceedings by sharing that. Adrian, it has been wonderful to have you on the show, an Absolute pleasure, as always, and we’ll catch up with each other very, very soon. If you enjoyed this podcast, please hit, follow or subscribe so you can stay up to date with information on new podcasts which are released weekly. Please also feel free to leave a positive review so others can learn about this podcast and benefit from it. I would also encourage any fans of the podcast to sign up to the free Facebook community from which the podcast originated. Please search dentists who invest on Facebook and hit join to become part of a community of thousands of other dentists Interested in improving their finances, well-being and investing knowledge. Looking forward to seeing you on there.