Full Transcript
Dr James:
What’s up everybody, welcome back to the Dentist Uninvest podcast, and we are booked in with a very exciting episode today to talk about two young entrepreneurial gentlemen from the medical world, zian and Ams, and they’re here today to talk about their platform, peer, and also their experiences outside of Dentistry, because it’s a path less trodden, a path less beaten, but I’m absolutely positive that most dentists and doctors could benefit from going down there a little bit, because we’re so guilty of suffering from teeth tunnel vision, as we were describing just before we hit record today. So, all right, channel man. Zian Ams, how are you?
Dr. Amz:
Absolutely. Oh good, james, thank you so much for inviting us onto the show. Thank you.
Dr James:
Dude, my pleasure. So Ams and Zian. We’ll start with Ams first. It might be nice if you did a little bit of an intro for yourself, for the people who don’t know you, because you are, of course, a fellow podcaster.
Dr. Amz:
Absolutely so, yeah, so a little bit of background on me. So my name is Ams Choudhury. I’m a junior doctor, qualified in 2018, went to King’s College London. You know what? Entrepreneurship wasn’t my gig at first. Being in the social media line night wasn’t my thing. This was all an accident. I wanted to be a surgeon. I wanted to be a first. I wanted to be a heart surgeon, a cardiothoracic surgeon, and then I wanted to be an orthopod, and then I suddenly sort of fell into this world and happily, happily, fell into it. When I look back, I’m so grateful to Fahj, I guess. So, yeah, so what do I do now? So I’m a podcaster, as you said, james, the scrubbed in show. What we do is we essentially bring on healthcare professionals. We’ve done awesome, awesome things, james. You need to come onto our show, by the way, because I was doing it. You’re already scheduled in on our show. So yeah, so yeah. So that’s the scrubbed in show. It started off as a just a passion project. You know, we were just sharing the secrets. You know, at med school we knew the game to play, how to publish, how to get certain points, this, that and the other, and we just revealed all of that. So that took off. And then what we started to do was bring on guests who did even more and that’s literally blown off into the top 2.5% globally in the medical, in the medical category. And now and what happened was after that a bit of background on me again is that I’ve always been passionate in education, in peer to peer education, stuff that you can learn from people next to you. So before this call James, you were just giving me a gem after gem after gem. Right, that stuff’s not in the books, it’s not in the schools, it’s not in the curriculum. That’s peer to peer education. And you know what? That’s what the company peer is all about. It’s about how healthcare professionals, doctors, dentists, pharmacists, how all of us can come together, can learn from each other, can share what we know. And you know what this is. The best thing about it is how we can also earn a passive income from it. We’re all about empowering people’s creativity. Allowing them to create content and be entrepreneurs to this world is exciting, it’s fun, and you know what? It’s a doorway to let all healthcare professionals to become entrepreneurs. It’s a bit of a mouthful of. That’s who I am.
Dr James:
That’s cool, man, and you know we were talking off camera as well and honestly, in my opinion I believe that you share this opinion with me the power is in flipping medical professionals hands to go out there, create something that they love and put it on the internet. And guess what? Whether it gets a million followers or 10 followers, it’s fun. Okay, it’s fun. It’s just putting something that you love out there. Yeah, and I honestly think that one of the easiest ways that passive income is a buzz phrase, right, everybody’s like oh, how do I do it? And I feel like there’s this misconception that if you just know the tiniest little bit of something, you can go and buy this thing and it’ll it’s like the world’s best cast. You can buy this thing and it’ll just give you money forever. It doesn’t really work like that. Probably the easiest things that you can do is get a following, but the thing about it is you have to show that following so much love and do it for the right reasons, because they’ll have to believe in you as a person and believe that you’re authentic, and really that’s probably the easiest gateway to be able to create something on the side. Some sort of side business, some sort of side business is the best way to have passive income, but the problem with the business is that it’s never passive at the start, it’s active at the start. Okay, absolutely. It’s a lot of gruff and energy man. Dude. Show me someone who started a business and it was passive from day one, that’s. That doesn’t happen. Okay, but you get to that point and guess what? You will get to that point eventually. But the thing about it is one thing’s for certain If you never begin, nothing will ever happen. You know what I mean. And it leaves you start and put some energy into it.
Dr. Amz:
You’ve got a fit? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Do you know one thing about what you said about starting some sort of stream of passive income stream, some sort of passive of business, right? Do you know what’s one one thing that’s authentic to every single person on this planet, and that’s that we all know something, we all have unique experiences and we’re all willing to share that, and you know what? Someone’s got something to learn off of that. So the easiest content to create is just actually share what’s up in here.
Dr James:
That’s it, that’s it and that’s what I’m trying to do man. Yeah, I can tell you’re on your own podcast because you sound exactly like me. It’s like a flipping signboard, but you know that’s a good thing, man. That’s a flipping good thing, man, because it’s valid, and I say a lot of the stuff on the podcast boring. I feel strongly about it. I really do. This is the way. So many great things in life, so many great things. Zian, my friend, how are you today? My speech we had a little bit of an intro about yourself as well. Yeah, yeah, hello.
Dr. Zain:
So not as up there as I’m just here. I hope to learn a lot from you know both you guys, and you know it’s great to be here finally. So I qualified 2019 to Biomedical Science before that, but I’ve had this, you know, this love of teaching in some form for as long as I can remember. Mentoring, tutoring in sixth form, even not raising awareness about an edge, came on to my colitis and for me, I think sharing knowledge is really what makes the world go around 100%, like none of us to be here where we are without the help of someone else. You know, I firmly believe that. You know, my mentor was my own dentist from 15 years ago. He gave me work experience, he had my application and you know, I’m still in touch with him now in terms of like career and clinical advice, and the crazy thing is he still has his mentor from when he first qualified as well. You know I need that, guys, that 80 years old and it’s again. You know, sharing that experience, that knowledge, that teaching is what helps other people to grow and I think we forget sometimes that. You know there are people out there dying to know what you know.
Dr. Amz:
You might not realize it.
Dr. Zain:
You know what I mean, for example, as you had before you came on. It’s like you know you might just take it for granted being able to do a social media post or doing a ground prep, whatever it may be. You know someone else out there wants to know how you did that or how you got that job. And it’s only three plus a month other people. That, I think, is what helps people to grow and get, get get through in life really, and you know the reason I’m here now is I joined peer as a dental lead and for myself again, like I love teaching, I love education, but I thought it was a very small scale and so I joined peer because I saw, I thought it was a plethora of huge potential, limitless potential, you know, because it’s connected not with just one person, but you know hundreds of people on a global scale. And, like I said, we’ve all got something to teach and I thought peers are perfect way to share that knowledge you have, you know, back in university, when I was there it’s like Fair enough enough, in the textbooks and the lectures, a lot of the learning came from our older peers, people in the fourth years and the fifth years who’d come and give us a brief lecture, pass over the notes, even the clinical tours Do you know what I mean? They’ve been in the game for 15, 20 years and they’re passing on all those years of experience to you in one clinical session. And for me, that’s again what makes a world go round. And I thought, with peer, it’s a perfect place to share that knowledge, because you got something you know which is golden, it’s a gem, and it’s time you know to share it with other people and impart that knowledge and help them to grow and excel, and then they can impart it to someone else. That cycle is never ending. It’s evergreen. It keeps growing and keeps helping others, and I couldn’t agree more with what Amish just said. But I think knowledge is the key to life and it helps others to really excel in every way and during the peer team. Now I thought these guys were doing enough. I need to jump on this. There’s a huge potential and I just couldn’t wait to get involved so I dove in and now I’m here talking about it, talking about experience in the podcast with you guys.
Dr James:
Awesome and you know two things on sharing knowledge, right? First of all, people come to me. Some people come to me when they’ve made their own platform and they say, oh, james, you know I’m going to tell people certain bits of information on the platform, but I’m going to hold back on others and maybe that’s going to be for the more ring fence community, the paying community or whatever. And I’m like no, you’re actually sabotaging yourself if you do that big time. Okay, because the pure reason why people will come to your group is because the best gems of knowledge that are on there are on there. Okay, you never hold back, never, ever hold back. Okay, you’ll feel inauthentic. Number one and number two that will be ultimately sabotaging your whole effort. In the first place, because the whole thing is going to make people want to come to your platform or to your podcast or to your social media following or whatever it is, is because the information is so insanely good on there. And if you do want to make a program or something else, just give it to people, give the knowledge, give it to people in a structured way, because people need that. It’s the fact that it’s succinct and in order that people will pay for. That’s where the value comes from, okay, not the fact that you’ve held back the whole way. Okay, and I love that, mike, I realized that a long time ago and that is a gem right there for anybody who wants to create a following never, ever, ever hold back. Go all out for those people. Number one because it’s an amazing human thing and number two because it is actually the best thing for the health of your platform. And the second thing I was going to say just then here’s another way of looking at sharing knowledge. I get a lot of people who say things like oh, I don’t feel like I know enough to help this person, to help that person. Here’s the thing by default, you arms and use in because of who you are individuals. You will be able to serve and help some people better because you’ll be able to communicate to them and relate to them better, just because of who. You are right, absolutely. One side yeah, yeah, you know there’s two chaps who are under 30. You have an inherent bond with people who are under 30 that somebody’s 90 will struggle to have, absolutely.
Dr. Amz:
I’m not saying that you’re not.
Dr James:
I’m being careful with my words. They’ll struggle to have it, surely from the fact that we’re not in the same generation. Therefore, communication and how we get information across to each other, there’ll always be that shared bond, that shared upbringing that gives us a unique understanding of each other. Okay, absolutely, let’s speak apart the person who’s 90, maybe they’ve got so much more experience, but can they actually communicate that? Does that make them a good teacher?
Dr. Amz:
Yeah, yeah.
Dr James:
Have something that will help other people. It’s not just an option to teach other people, it’s your duty. Okay, exactly, I’ve always said this thing 100%.
Dr. Zain:
It’s a responsibility, you know. You’ve been, you’ve been blessed with this knowledge. You put in the graph the work, you paid the fees, you’ve got it all up there. But it’s no good just sitting up there. It needs to be shared to help others. You know, I couldn’t agree with that more to the rest, yeah, and you know what it’s empowering.
Dr. Amz:
That’s really important to understand that when you share what you know right, you’re opening the doors for someone else. It’s not you just opening doors up for yourself and the opportunities for yourself that will open up when you’re sharing content, putting value out into the world, but for that person who’s taking that all in right, they’re breaking through their own doors because of you 100%, 100%. So yeah, man, absolutely I agree with that. Back in 2015,.
Dr. Zain:
I was mentoring saying that, living for us at Ames and I meant to talk to students. One of them wanted to get into dentistry right. Another one wanted to be a midwife. So now they’re both qualified and the crazy thing is the dentist who got in he was with me on my floor in clinics and hospital, so I’d see him on clinics seeing patients same time that I was there. Now this guy is on Insta. He’s working for some fancy practice in Known Wolf doing the insaneest smile makeovers for footballers. What kid Play for Liverpool, play for Chelsea and I’m seeing my little village, you know, taking out teeth and he’s there doing the craziest composite veneers. And all this. Wow, this guy. I remember him from 6’4″, even helping him to rise to the United States statement, and now you know he’s sick of it in touch. And now he’s there smashing it making twice as much money as I am. You know what I mean. Doing all this.
Dr. Amz:
That is wicked man. That is wicked, it’s amazing.
Dr. Zain:
And then that’s the beat of it. He and himself is now teaching others, you know what I mean and other people are going to say how did you get there? What do you do? What skills do you have? How can I gain those skills myself? And it’s just on cycle that keeps it going, absolutely. So what are you looking for?
Dr. Amz:
Here’s an interesting question for both of you guys, right? So who’s the best teacher for you guys? Wherever you are in your life, who would you say is the best teacher? Is it the professor? Is it the guy at Harvard, oxford, cambridge? Is it the guy who’s working with you? Who would you say?
Dr James:
That’s a good question. So we’re talking about, broadly speaking, which character in my life I’m the most from. I’ve had some really good mentors, you know like some really good people who I definitely wouldn’t call them colleagues. I would say they’re people that I’ve worked for or I’ve hired them to do certain things, or maybe my tutors from clinic. I don’t know if there’s a right or wrong answer, but that would be my anecdotal response on that one.
Dr. Amz:
What about you, Zane? Who would you say? I think that’s difficult.
Dr. Zain:
I think the best teacher is the one that you most want to learn from at that time. So, for example, if you want to learn about taking out teeth, doing surgical extraction? The best teacher is going to be the old surgeon. You can do it already. If I’m not allowed to run a household, run a family, then I’ve got to speak to my parents because they raised me. So for me, the best teacher is the person that you want to emulate next year, next month or five, ten years time. That’s all right. Yeah, you know, grass make it from different sources. You know I’m not going to ask my dad to teach me how to do a filling. You know I’m going to go to someone who I think is the best at that, or someone that I know can do well, but the place that I want to be at, so I’ll go to them. So I think, for me, teaching you learn from everyone, even when, but I had my nephews 15 years old teaching me about NFTs. You know what I mean. Age is just a number. It’s all about who has the knowledge and who can share it the best you know he wants to share it with you. And for me, the best teacher, like I said, is the person who’s willing to help you be the person that you want to be, that you see for yourself. That’s, for me, the best teacher.
Dr. Amz:
Wicked. So you guys kind of took the line right away because you guys kind of gave away the answer. But yeah, so I think the best teacher’s out there, right? So you guys alluded to it. It’s not one person, it’s never one person. One person does not know everything, right, James? You said to also you’re learning from people who you employ or people work for you and you’ve worked for. So it’s people around you, in your setting, in your environment, people who are one step ahead of you, one step behind you. And then, Zane, you talked about being time specific. So where you are in your life, right? Different teachers have different levels of importance. So, for example, you just use the dentistry example, right? If you’re learning, then you’re a qualified dentist, right? Those guys doing the stuff that you need to do around you, they’re the best teachers right what a student right, a student with the goal of getting past the exams. Their best teachers are probably going to be the guys that have just sat the exam and just come out of it right, and then they move on. And then you use the last thing, zane, which was you want to learn the best things and the best people out there, right? So you want to nitpick, take the best from everyone out there. So yeah, man, that’s my opinion. I think the best teachers come from different time point in your life, different specialties and people around you. Man, and for everyone 15 year olds teaching you about NFTs, you could teach me a thing. Send me his number man, yeah, exactly.
Dr James:
But see, I love that mindset right, Because anybody who knows that is all of a sudden so much more alert to opportunities to learn, because it’s like they’re not just because they’re out of context, just because they’re not in a traditional education facility. Your mind is now still open because you’re thinking yourself actually knowledge is all around me. I’m almost inadvertently closing myself off. If I’m not recognizing it, there’s another way of recognizing it. There you go, and that’s why that lesson is helpful. Ams, you’re someone who’s progressed on this path of entrepreneurship. It’s inadvertently. Almost from what you were telling me earlier, you just started talking about things that you loved and then all of a sudden, people started noticing your podcast. Yeah exactly it’s a life enhancing thing right, it’s so much fun. What would you say to anybody who’s thinking about taking the leap, putting themselves out there in the internet, creating some sort of side hustle, creating some sort of content? What would you say to those people? Would you say do it? Would you say, think twice. Would you say unequivocally leap out it, without even giving it a second thought. What would you say? Yeah.
Dr. Amz:
You know, I saw before I go into the answer right, I saw a LinkedIn post of someone who’s talking about this, about side hustling, and he’s several months down the line now and he was like I wish I started earlier. And that’s one thing that everyone says. Everyone says I wish I started earlier. So three words to anyone that’s thinking of some sort of side hustle project, venture, podcast, youtube, anything, and that’s just do it. You’re right. If you look at the first videos, the first podcast that we released, right, they’re embarrassing. They’re embarrassing man, I want to take them down. I don’t think Abdul will let me take them down, because I found it hard to speak on camera. I found it hard. I was stumbling and I was trying to find different words that didn’t match my sentences, didn’t make sense. I was trying to say one thing and something else came out of my mouth. But you know what it’s like. That’s the journey. When you look back, you’re like, oh look at that. Look at that, look where I am now. So just do it. Get started and you will learn along the way and you know what the most powerful thing is when you just do it. You get to James Like I wouldn’t have ever met you were it not for my podcast. And then me meeting Zayn Zayn being a dentist and telling me all about your podcast. And what you’re about is the community, it’s the friends you form. You don’t get that. I mean, you get that at work, but again, it’s all in one frame of thought, one frame of specialty. Everyone’s thinking the same almost. But yeah, man, just do it. Just do it.
Dr James:
That’s awesome. And then you’re progressing down the same path at the moment. What are you learning along the way? What would you say to the old saying who never thought about this stuff or maybe wasn’t even necessarily in this stuff?
Dr. Zain:
I say so Like things are big part of this be joining this journey. Being on there right now is because I wanted to learn those schools. I’ve got no experience in tech. No, it’s missing entrepreneurship. You know I’m just Doing my thing for the NHS, working as a core training on all surgery. But you know, I saw the stuff that these guys are doing for a while. You know I was a long time this. I was scrubbing even yourself, james. You know long time this is a dentist to invest and the message that I kept getting and hearing was like you know what these guys they weren’t always professionals that they are now the experts that you listen to. They all start somewhere. I mean, james, you said to yourself before you know, like four years, when you bought your first bitcoin, it went to. You know, I went down the drain. So you learned books of how to improve and I thought you know what I need to have that same mindset, like I’m not going to learn it just by seeing it, I need to just jump in and that’s why I did. I dove in, you know, face first into this world of you know, education and entrepreneurship. But for me, the main reason why I’m really here with Pia is, you know, the love of education and teaching With Pia. It all breaks it down to make it accessible to everyone. You know, I’m saying like I said before. You know, before I teach and it might be in a one workshop with 10 people, but with Pia, with this platform, we can reach a thousand people with one post, and that’s the whole reason that I’m here, where professionals can help other professionals, students can help other students and their friends, and the chain goes on and on. You know, and you’ve got access to people from around the world through Pia, through this platform of education and that specialist knowledge. So, in terms of the entrepreneur side, is fantastic because I’m learning skills, you know. That helped me in every part of life, and the fact that you know I’m on social media more Before I do it, as you know, to talk, to pass the time, but now I’m there, you know figuring ways of marketing Posts, engagement, reaching out to people, connecting people, networking, all that kind of stuff which I would never do my day job as much as I am right now. So, again, it’s like you want to earn a skill, the better to learn the skill is to do it. You know what I mean. And not learning from these guys has been great because, like I said, these guys have been established for you know, good couple of years, so they already know the tips and the tricks Same with you, james, and now you just passing on to the people and myself. I can then pass it on to other people going forward. I know how to do an Instagram post, you know, I mean the other day I did my, you know, back to make my first real this week.
Dr. Amz:
I never done that before so, in terms of you know, zane, zane before he wasn’t on, but now I didn’t.
Dr. Zain:
I said entrepreneur, it’s just, it’s a journey. It’s never an ending journey, you know. And it’s just about growing and going forward and setting the next goal and the meaning that it’s never one day that’s the same and, I think, exactly another. And the fact that before you know, I go but my job work night. If I come home and watch TV and just chill out, it’s like I’m exhausted, I’ll be shattered. But with this it’s like it’s almost like competition is the game. So you come after your day job, then you started doing this and then I’m working on this from like 6 to 10 pm. I belong, it is. There’s no end point. They’re not in a bad way. It’s about that, that passion, and ever dies and it gives you energy you never knew you had before. But you see exactly what you’ve just said. I was just about to say that there’s two things in life.
Dr James:
There’s things that take energy and there’s things that give you energy. Okay, and everybody’s like, oh, how can you put like flipping 20 hours a day, every flipping day, into this thing? And I’m like, no, it actually gives me energy. I’d rather do this above everything else in the whole world. Okay, exactly, flipping cool, okay, and that thing is waiting out there for everybody, and you know, here’s, here’s the thing, right, there’s 168 hours in a week, okay, and we only live for so long. Like putting stuff off is Honestly akin to You’re just throwing time down the drain. You only have so much of it. You know what I mean Exactly. I’d rather spend my whole life rolling the dice and trying to create a side business or a side hustle, then go into my grave or go into my death bed and looking back and thinking what if and you know it’s a really powerful thing you can do? Here’s a mental trick that I use. Why don’t have it? If I’m feeling like you know I need more energy, I’m demotivated or something that’s slightly outside my comfort zone, I think to myself, james, if you don’t do this thing right now and you were trying to explain why you didn’t do it To yourself on your death bed that wash with you as a man who’s about to leave this world, who wanted more than anything to have more experiences.
Dr. Amz:
Bro, that’s scary man, that is scary. Go there, you know what that.
Dr James:
Do that and see how many things you start saying yes to and how much more progress you start to make. Oh, that’s the idea. That’s the idea of regret though, isn’t it?
Dr. Amz:
That’s the idea of regret. You don’t. You are going to regret all the things you didn’t do exactly. Exactly. You’re not going to regret the things you did do. It’s the stuff you didn’t do.
Dr James:
What would the 90 year old with 50 million in the bank Gave to swap places with the 30 year old or 25 year old who was flat broke? What would he give, he or?
Dr. Amz:
she exactly man. Everything under the sun, man, everything under the sun, he wouldn’t even he or she wouldn’t even think twice, would they?
Dr James:
you know, that puts things in perspective right there. It makes us realize how much life you have to live. You really do know exactly these things. You know, mindset is awesome and I always thought mindset was a bit of a hippie word and I thought, oh yeah, mindset, what’s that? Like a bit of a woo woo word, you know, but I, I honestly. There’s so many things, so many things in this world are constructed by our mind. You think about the world outside of your head and the world inside of your head. The world outside of your head has no meaning whatsoever. Okay, it’s just a collection of flipping atoms just flying around. Yeah, the only way it has any meaning. Okay, it’s because of what you assign it in your head. Two people can look at the same situation. One can say this is bad. One can say this is good. One can say this is a problem. One can say this is an opportunity. Yeah, what is that? Subjective, bro. And you know when you’re feeling, when somebody is going to go outside their comfort zone, they’re feeling scared. Call that same emotion excitement.
Dr. Amz:
Exactly that’s what it is, man, I think at first I was. I was scared of Content creation, I was scared of being an entrepreneur, I was scared of Trying to start something up. And then you do it and it changes from fear to excitement. So now, for example, if you release a new, if I release a new, a new product or feature for the platform, right, I would have been scared, but now I’m excited to see what the market does with it, what people do with it. Um, so, for example, on on the peer platform, people are not just sharing medical stuff, they’re sharing dental stuff, interview stuff, they’re sharing stuff on cryptocurrency. So, james, you’ve got one up there as well.
Dr. Zain:
Yeah.
Dr. Amz:
So the fact that people can take one functionality and do so much, ah, man, that is excitement, man, that is excitement.
Dr James:
So yeah, big time, big time, big time, big time, big time. And you know, mindset is so flipping important because there’s so many times on this journey that you get the sensation of feeling of overwhelm. Zane arms you’ve ever been there.
Dr. Amz:
And then being overwhelmed by.
Dr James:
So much to do that you’re like.
Dr. Amz:
Then let’s hear your thoughts first, because I’ve dumped you with a lot of work.
Dr. Zain:
Of course, 100. You know 100%. I’m not gonna lie that it’s been overwhelming At times and it’s that I feel like I’m not even doing that much and I’m already feeling overwhelmed. I think what’s going on, but I realize, like the, the to do list is never ending, you know. I mean the to do this is just constantly growing and you’re thinking, you know you need to figure out ways, essentially, of how to prioritize. Okay, what is the media, what is the medium, what’s the long term? You know, what can wait till tomorrow, one and sweet done right now. Now, I think a lot of that actually has come from working, not on calls, in the job, in the hospital. You know, again, you have Situations, your bleeps going off and you have to prioritize them. What’s the emergency? What can wait, what can be done later? So I think, with being overwhelmed, 100% because it’s never ending, you know life is never ending. There’s always going to be things to do, always be things coming up in the way you know, and it’s like, personally, professionally, you know, giving enough time to everyone and everything is not easy. But then you have to remind yourself. You know what your motivations to be here as well. You know that’s a big part for me and I think you know, like right now you know there’s so many quotes, but, like you, just think about the hard work you put in now will pay off later. And you know, same that, joining with peer, again, it’s like you’re reaching out to content graders, you’re getting people on board to join the country and share their knowledge. You know, teach others. But it’s, like you know, sometimes We’ve talked about it before it’s like you throw 100 darts but one will hit and it’s that one, but that one that connects. Is that all that it takes? You just need one to be successful. And there you go, you can push forward a progress through that. And so you just have to be persistent, persevere, be committed, dedicated and just keep going, because you know things will work out as it done before. Like myself prime example applied for dentistry, didn’t get in. Went to biomedicine, didn’t get in. But then I got in through the weighing list. I didn’t get in the first time around. I was like, ok, but if I didn’t try the first time, then, if it didn’t push myself to do that, I wouldn’t have gotten in at all. And it’s like you do all the other stuff to make yourself sell and that’s what I’ve paid off. Later on, when it comes to my application, I was in the environment, I was in mentoring, tutoring, I was in charity work, and then I thought I could just open my application, but at the same time, I learned so many skills from it. So when I got into dentistry. I was loving it Because I thought I’ve learned so much already. I’m mature, I’m ready to be here. And it’s the same journey now in peer. It’s like again I don’t know how to do a lot of things, but it’s only by doing it you learn and then you become better at it in the long term. So that feeling of you know it’s always there, but it’s just about coping mechanisms, about having the right support around you. You know getting the wife to help you out once or twice. You know sharing the load, getting to know her.
Dr. Amz:
It may be Happily.
Dr. Zain:
I hope Happily, happily, yeah hopefully, and a lot of also is that the team around you, the support number you’ve got around you. So, again, I wouldn’t have joined peer if it wasn’t for Ams or Abdul doing this right now, because I thought, you know, these guys are a legitimate. They’ve been doing this, scrubbed in, for a while. You know, they know what they’re talking about. I would happily work with them and they’re just such a friendly, wicked bunch, you know, and the same with yourself. James is like you know. I’ve been following your podcast for a while, big Love and it’s like you know what James a wicked guy. He knows what he’s talking about. You know, I love to be here, love to connect with him and before this, you know, early last month, we’d never even spoken before, and then a couple of weeks ago we were on the podcast. You know what I mean, but it’s just about making the jump, and I think that’s what much of us get to do is that you don’t realise how capable you are until you’re in the situation.
Dr. Amz:
And before I’d be on call, you know I’d get.
Dr. Zain:
I’d say like, oh, I’ve got this to deal with. And then you’ve got a laceration, you’ve got a tooth that’s come out Before I’d be peeling myself. I’d be lying down, I’d be breaking. But now it’s that second nature. I can deal with my eyes closed. It’s not a problem. I haven’t done that. It’s only through time and experience that you get to that point. So just persevere. That’s what happens.
Dr James:
It’s like every time you step aside your comfort zone, you get that experience right, but you know what you can do. You can that feeling, that emotion, you can reframe how you see it Because actually, if you think about it, that’s when you’re doing your growing, yeah, so sometimes for me. I think to myself actually I’m not, I don’t have that sensation today. I’m actually gonna actively go looking for it now.
Dr. Zain:
Okay, it was amazing yeah but that’s.
Dr James:
I’m back to my brain, because then I’ve thought to myself actually I’m growing and I’m learning more. When I feel like that, and sometimes, if I go for a few days and I think I haven’t had that feeling for a while, I’ll think about something to do which is gonna push me, because then I know that, as I say, it’s good for me as a person. Yeah, absolutely. That took me a long time to realize. I used to make myself do it but I didn’t enjoy it. But now sometimes I seek it out. Now, sometimes I seek it out, it’s just another way of looking at things. Yeah, that mindset, absolutely, it’s awesome, it’s so good. Yeah, it’s a real hack, absolutely Real hack.
Dr. Amz:
I’ll give you two gems that sort of sort of changed it for me from feeling overwhelmed to feeling everything, feeling sort of manageable, apart from when I melt down, obviously sometimes. But two things. Number one Zayna alluded to it earlier that it’s never ending, and Sam and Sinek talks about this infinite game. If you start looking at it as a game that doesn’t end, the goal is to be just in the game, to survive in the game, to create in the game, to constantly just be alive, basically, rather than I need to achieve X, y and Z, and once I’ve reached that destination, life’s accomplished. That never happens to anyone. So I think if you look at it as a, it will never end. You just have to keep on going, keep on being alive, just be in the game. That’s a great mindset, and I think the second thing that I want to pass on is this quote, and I think it changes things for everyone and in whatever you’re doing dentistry, medicine, if you’re in the career, outside the career, or doing whatever project, and that’s, we all overestimate, so sorry, we overestimate how much we can do in a year and we underestimate how much we can do in 10 years, right, so we feel like we’re gonna do all the world’s things within the first year, achieve this, that and the other. But if you take things that are a step at a time, a step at a time, if you wanna learn graphic design, break it down into a hundred small steps, just one at a time. By the end of the year, by the end of two, three years, you’ll be able to freelance for big, big corporations. Man, that’s how I see it. So yeah, absolutely Think about it. For dentistry, even within your careers right, you’re in dentistry, it’s a five year course, undergraduate medicine. By the end of the five years you’re a doctor. That’s crazy, man. That’s crazy. Then, five years, but if you thought at year one, how many years would it take for me to become a doctor? Then to say 10, 15 years, man.
Dr James:
So, yeah, I would argue that if you do ever make it or get there inverted commas, then you should never feel like that, because then that means you’re no longer on the ground. That actually takes the fun out of it. And if you do feel like that, it’s probably a sign that you should be pushing in another direction. That’s how I see it, but I used to. I did definitely used to see it the way you described earlier. You know, I thought, oh, once I get out of dental school, I’ll be all right Once.
Dr. Zain:
I get out of FD.
Dr James:
I’ll be all right Once I leave this practice. I’ll be all right Once I do this.
Dr. Amz:
I’ll be all right, and then you just Once I’m dead, Once I’m dead.
Dr. Zain:
I’ll be all right.
Dr James:
Do you know what’s the term I really like? You know, like a mirage, right? You know, when you’re in the desert and you’re thirsty and you keep thinking the water’s in front of you, but it’s perpetually 200 meters in front of you. Do you know what I mean?
Dr. Zain:
Yeah.
Dr James:
And that’s because it is what it is. It’s not an oasis, it’s a mirage. Yeah, Absolutely.
Dr. Amz:
Do you know who talks about it in his book? It’s the comedian Adam Kay. The doctor who created this Is Gonna Hurt.
Dr. Zain:
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Dr. Amz:
He talks about. All med students say it’s gonna be good when I graduate and become an F1. F1 say oh, I’ll be F2. Oh, it’ll be when I’m a surgeon.
Dr James:
It’ll be when.
Dr. Amz:
I’m a consultant. It’s like, oh, when did they ever 90.
Dr James:
Next thing you know you’re about to retire because you’ve had that mindset your whole life. You know what I mean Exactly. But even though I say that and I’m making it out like I’m some sort of vicar espousing that amazing mentality, I still do that a lot of the time, so I’ve got to be careful, I got to nip that in the bud. Actually, really, pierre, tell me about Pierre, because it’s your guys. Venture into education for dentists and doctors, isn’t it?
Dr. Zain:
Yeah, yeah yeah, sure, if you can break it down. Actually, I’d love to break it down from different viewpoints, because I think Pierre’s first age has got so much potential right In the world of dentistry medicine, we know it’s already quite established. But then we’ve got pharmacists, engineers, financial advisors, you know we’ve got all kind of people joining Pierre and contributing now, but if you look at it from different levels, so for the students, I think it is an amazing way to learn about ever-growing amount of dental topics and you’re learning from specialists. You can revise theory, you can create quizzes to make practice exams. For me personally, university group revision was a big aspect of my learning. You know what I mean. I’ll sit together, revising, sharing notes. Well, pierre, they should do the same thing in an online world. You know, you can make a quiz, share it with your friends, you know, and they can revise from it. You can make yourself your own couple of quizzes and do an examination. We’ve all done initiatives for universities, giving them that kind of free membership to students, because that’s how much we believe in the benefits and the power of Pierre to be an educational platform. Like I said, I’m here purely to make education accessible and you know like, for example, I want to go on these fancy courses. I want to learn from the best terribly, you said, if you want to learn a skill you don’t know, from the best you know and you have to invest in yourself to do it. And I really wanted to do that 100%. But being away from London in the east of England, you know, doing my DST here is difficult for me to get into London to do those courses or to go to Birmingham to do the conferences. So the next best thing that I thought I could do is get involved with peer and get those people on peer. So you can’t go to them but you can bring them to you. So you’ve got the master’s of composite, the school surgeon, especially. You’ve got all these people on peer to learn from. You know you can’t go to them and they can come to you in an online world. And that’s the big part of peer is getting all that specialist knowledge accessible anywhere worldwide. You know that is our real one, the main goals of peer at the same time. And then things with peer it can be applicable to every single level. So if you want to qualify DENSIES, you can use that as a revision tool, as a learning tool. You can learn from your colleagues, connect with your favorite educators again, people who you look up to in the dental sphere, you know doing amazing things that have content on peer for you to learn from. So in a way, you learn from them directly. And the thing with a lot of DENSIES I know tons of DENSIES with vast knowledge, but they’ve got very little, very little social media presence, you know. But with peer, you know this is tailored for education. So, even though it is like an educational social platform, they can use it to share learning, you know, and you know, really put themselves out there and their brand, their passion, grow themselves in that way. You know, a lot of dentists may not feel that they’re enough to offer, but the beauty of peer is that anyone can be an educator. They just need the professional knowledge there to share. And you know, prime example is yourself changed because, like I said, you are a dentist by trade. We know that you’ve given away tons of financial knowledge and education over the years. You’ve connected so many healthcare professionals with other similar professionals. You know, regarding finances and investment, you know your educational tool, james, has been Facebook and the podcast. You know now you have the total finance course. But we see a peer as a way to reinforce that learning that you might get online. You know. You see I see loads of great quizzes on Insta that dentists do. You know they put up images, put up quizzes. But once that story is gone, that learning is gone. With peer, that educational learning will be there forever. It’s ever green, you know, never expire and you can access it whenever you want. So with peer, it’s a great way to people to share knowledge, to test themselves as well and say, if you run a course, it’s a great way for you. And so when it comes to kind of the course leaders, you know, I think peers, you know people are running these kind of courses, the small courses, the producer, dental courses, the composite courses, those kind of examples. I think people will benefit them in many ways. So, like I said already, it gets excess. I can’t go to London for a course on the weekend because I’m here working. You know I can’t go to Birmingham because I’ve got family or wherever it may be. But I still want to learn from my favorite educators, the big names. So peer brings those people to me, to you, on your laptop right in front of me. You know that is a massive, massive advantage of a peer is that you’re learning from the professionals, the ones who are teaching others. You know, and at the same time you know it can be overwhelming. For dentists, those are recently qualified. Yeah, it’s like you’ve got tons of courses nowadays. You know it’s very saturated. You know that you’ve got a lot of choice but you’re ambitious. But then it’s like which one do you choose? You know how do you allocate your time, your leave or your money to attend to which kind of course? You know, but therefore, with peer, the opportunity there is that you can get a little taste of that course beforehand. So if you’ve got these people who run these courses to then put their quizzes on peer, you’ll give those people an insight. Okay, this is what that all research course involves. This is what that small or that composite course involves. I enjoyed it. Let me go into it further. So that’s, it gives a little taste of insight what they expect if they went into those courses fully. And then for the people who do the course leaders you know we treat peer like a funnel. You know you give learners access to your content. You give them a little taste, an insight into your course and their teaching, what they can gain, and then it will encourage them to commit fully, you know, and then sign up and do the whole thing. So, again with access on peer, it’s global, it’s not just UK students or UK professors you can target, it’s the whole world. That’s the beauty of peer and beyond that, you know, it’s endless. We’re looking to then, you know, have organizations on there this advice you know BDA, gdc, dental two bills again behind the presence on pair, they can really provide insights in what you know, the learning they provide, what they can offer, encourage users to sign up to their organizations via peer. You know what are the benefits they would get joining them. But people giving that taste, insight and, again, making all that knowledge accessible. And they can then diverse. You know, once you’re on pair you can access the whole thing. You don’t have to pay for certain bits. You know, once you’re a member you’ve got access to everything. You know. And that’s the beauty of peers, that once you’re on there you can see everything. And so let me try that, let me look into that. I never considered that before. What’s this about? They do the quiz to become interested and they go on your link on your profile, on your bio, and they want to learn more and they can do so because of what you put there. At the moment it’s quizzes, we’ve got pictures, we’re looking to put video in there too, webinars, you know, commenting features. There’s a lot going on and peers is growing really well and we want to just keep that growing further. In one of my dreams even, like I said, I love teaching. I really enjoy teaching. So we’re here to become a tool, like a national tool, a nationwide tool for health education, even to use Deanaries, you know, they can use it to deliver their teaching, their study days, be incorporated into, like the DFT, the DCT teaching, the postgraduate training programs you know all in advance, all mentioned in the Invasing Denture Care Review. They all talk about learning, continuous learning. We know about CPD, beyond registration, and so through peer we helped, you know, increase our knowledge, increase our learning. Let them revise, you know, learn that specialist information, complete their portfolios, all this kind of stuff to really benefit themselves. And the advantage of peer at the same time is that all the effort you put into making those quizzes, you get something back in return. So each time someone does your quiz, you know, you get a little bit of kickback, a little bit of income, but then what you do with that income is entirely up to you. We’ve had people on the platform say look, I’m not here for the money. I need to educate, and I know that’s perfect. You can get that money to charity, you can set up initiative, you can fund bursaries. A lot of the time we use some of the money to then give free membership to people abroad. You can’t access peer themselves. So with peer, it’s a great potential to educate the world, really learn something back in return, promote yourself. You know you’ve got a lot of people, intentionally especially, who are very ambitious. They want to be educators, they’ve got that passion to educate, but they’re still starting out. Peers are perfect place to start out. You know they can find me on peer, do my quizzes and this is what I got to teach. They get something back in return so they can build the aspirations, reinvest in their futures via peer. And you know side houses are a big theme on this podcast as well. Bto Peer is. It lets people create their own side houses through it as well. So that is for me really, if I can summarize it, peer is giving you access to knowledge from your favorite educators in one place you know, and then for that person, who’s educating? It’s helping you to teach others, it’s rewarding, it’s growing your passion, your brand, your skills as an educator and you’re rewarded for all the time and effort and energy that you spend, not just in the people but in the promotion you get and the little bit of income on the side as well if you need it. But again, people don’t. People aren’t there purely because they love teaching, like I do, and they almost share that passion with everyone. So that is Peer. They’re not sure, really.
Dr James:
Oh man cool, and I believe it was your baby Ams.
Dr. Amz:
Yeah, so I’ll tell you a little bit about how it came about. So let’s talk a little bit about how education was, and you’ll actually see that Zayn’s issue with going to that course is just displayed by it. So back in the day, right, the best teacher, the best educator, would be in a certain city, in a certain town, in a certain institution, behind a massive paywall. Right, we’re talking tuition fees of 100 grand, 40 grand, 50 grand right now it’s 9 grand, I understand. So, right behind these walls, right, and you could be on the other side of the planet if you wanted to learn from that specific person. You’d have to get a ticket to go across, make sure you’re available at that time, make sure at that institution and make sure you’re in that room at that specific time. Now, in this digital era, right, you don’t need to be there. What you can do is you can be there all through, virtually. You can be there virtually, right, and the idea was that how can we break down the walls? How can we allow people to learn from each other? And then there was this other point that came to our minds, both me and Abdul, which was that fair equity. Right, you have to understand the market. Right, you have companies out there and you’ve got two options. Right, you can work for them or you can sell your content to them, and there’s only a few players. So you better, you have to match what their demand rate is, which is not very high, right, and it’s a single rate. So we thought why can’t people just teach themselves, using their face, their credentials as the brand, as the company? Right, because everyone knows something that they can teach. Every single dentist out there will have a certain talent that they can teach to someone else. Every medic knows something that juniors don’t, or seniors don’t, or their colleagues don’t. So the idea is to teach each other and remember everyone’s experience is different. We all went to three different universities, right? If we share that knowledge from different professors, different mentors, you create a massive pool of knowledge. So it’s about connecting people. Now, the other thing that I wanted to allude to was that the fair equity, where Zayn talked about money. Right, peer gives you that fun of content creation, of becoming a personal brand For you. When you do, peer, write, you’re not only just now imparting knowledge, it’s going to now. It’s going to now push you to that edge of all. Right, let me think about what photo I put up there, what thumbnail I have there, what branding and marketing I do, and you know what it gives you that fun of content creation. One, peer, you’re not working for anyone else but yourself and you’re teaching other people, and you know what humans naturally love teaching. We all love imparting what we know up here. So, yeah, man, peer, is putting the fund back in education, putting the money back into the right hands and, yeah, making it just fun, learning fun again.
Dr. Zain:
The way I see it, the way I already see it, is like before we’ve had the area of the era of social media.
Dr James:
Now it’s like the area of the era of social media. I was literally about to say this. It’s social flipping media.
Dr. Zain:
It’s actually education, exactly.
Dr. Amz:
They cross between the two. They cross between the two Exactly. I’ll just not say that.
Dr. Zain:
Yeah, that’s what I mean, because half of my teaching I’ll be honest then talking from YouTube you know what I mean. Two morphology doing extractions, how to give an ID block. You know what I mean. So I’m a very visual learner. You know what I mean and I’ve learned it from YouTube, watching the how to guide. That’s what I do on the page the next day. It’s about teaching yourself and finding the right people to learn from really online.
Dr. Amz:
You know, that’s really important the bit where you talked about finding the right people and your flavor. So you’ll find that you’ll connect with different people. For example, you and James are both dentists right, but you will both teach the same topic in very different ways, right, and different people gravitate towards you, and there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s just about communities and there’s benefit because they’re getting the right flavor they want. You guys are benefiting because you’ll get finding your community as well. So, yeah, man, that is it.
Dr James:
That’s cool. Anybody who’s interested in peer check it out. I think I’m going to spell it right P E E, no P E or Rcom right.
Dr. Amz:
Two E’s man, two E’s and two R’s. Come on, two E’s and two R’s.
Dr James:
Yeah, did I say that. Did I say two E’s and two R’s? You said one E two R’s oh that was no, no, no, oh wait, that was a total typo, the verbal version of a typo. There. I meant to say two E’s and two R’s, because I noticed that it was spelled slightly differently. So yeah, feel free to check it out. Everybody who’s listening on the podcast guys, you’ve been so generous with your time today. Anything that you’d like to say, just to wrap up before we finish.
Dr. Amz:
Nothing at all For me. It’s a pleasure, james, to meet you, to meet you, your mindset, I’ve learned a lot from you and it’s again peer to peer knowledge on this podcast as well. If anyone who’s listening on your podcast they’re taking value away, they better be going. But all the content that you have, it’s evergreen. Go back. If this is the first episode, go back, take your all in and action all of that. That’s all I’m going to say.
Dr James:
Thank you, man, I love it.
Dr. Zain:
Zianne. Yeah, james, to echo what I’m saying, it’s been a pleasure to be here. It’s been great fun just having a chat, you know, talking about passions, education, helping others and being on this journey together. And another fact that, even though we’re teaching or doing different things, we’ve all got the shared experience. You know, we’ve all had the same kind of challenges, the same kind of feelings of being overwhelmed or time management or hitting the brick wall, and how to overcome them is that we learn from each other. You know what I mean. It’s like other people have been there, done that, and they would have to share that knowledge, and that’s how we’re here, that’s how we’re here on the podcast, that’s how you are there, james, with your Facebook. You know it’s like you’re sharing the knowledge to help others for nothing in your return, and that’s the beautiful thing, you know. So we appreciate you hosting us today. It’s been great fun and we look forward to next time.
Dr James:
My pleasure, guys. I’m sure we’ll meet again very soon. We’ll catch up later, see you. Take care, james, see you.