Latest / Success Story with Scott Clary / Dr. Jon Marashi - Celebrity Dentist & Entrepreneur | How a Dentist Built a $1 Billion Dollar Brand By Seeing What Others Missed

Transcript

Dr. Jon Marashi - Celebrity Dentist & Entrepreneur | How a Dentist Built a $1 Billion Dollar Brand By Seeing What Others Missed · Success Story with Scott Clary

• 0:00
  I did not come from an affluent family. I knew at a very early age that if I wanted anything
• 0:06
  in life, I had to go out and find ways to earn money. What do skateboarding Hollywood smiles
• 0:10
  in a billion dollar exit having common? One name, Dr. John Marashi, known as the Tom Ford of
• 0:16
  cosmetic dentistry. Dr. Marashi has designed smiles for some of the biggest names in entertainment,
• 0:20
  but his influence doesn't stop there. As the co-founder of Bite, he disrupted the orthodontic space
• 0:26
  with a direct-to-consumer model, leading to a one-billion dollar acquisition by Densplai
• 0:30
  Serona. I'm a firm believer that opportunity passes us by all day long and it's just whether you're
• 0:36
  open to receiving it. My path to entrepreneurship outside of working in someone's mouth. This
• 0:42
  particular patient asked me, don't you have anything nicer than the toothbrushes you sell the
• 0:46
  outfit? I said, no. She looks at me and she goes, why don't you make one? Man, it just hit me.
• 0:51
  That's what took me down the rabbit hole on my first project. The second year of business,
• 0:55
  we had a run rate of a hundred million dollars, so we had a 10x multiple when we got out.
• 1:00
  From artistry and the clinic to innovation in the boardroom, Dr. Marashi's story is about more than
• 1:05
  teeth. It's about vision, execution, and reimagining what's possible. The crowd that we spray
• 1:09
  out of your mouth during the teeth cleaning, it's linked to diabetes, cardiac issues, and dementia.
• 1:16
  It's 25 years of experience of doing it wrong and figuring out what works. But the shortcut that I
• 1:22
  would tell someone is... Welcome to success story. I'm your host, Scott Clary. The success story
• 1:31
  podcast is part of the HubSpot podcast network. Now HubSpot doesn't just have great podcasts.
• 1:37
  They also have great tools for entrepreneurs. Let me tell you a story. I'm sure you've all heard
• 1:42
  of the Angel City Football Club. Well, you don't just become the world's most valuable women sports
• 1:47
  franchise by accident. Angel City Football Club did it. The little help from HubSpot. When they
• 1:52
  started, data was housed across multiple systems. In HubSpot, unified their website, their email
• 1:58
  marketing, and fan experience in one platform. This allowed their small team of three to build an
• 2:03
  entire website in just three days. The results were nearly 350 new fan signups a week and a 300%
• 2:10
  database growth in just two years. Sure, you can be a great team in the arena. But if you truly
• 2:17
  want to build a legacy of franchise and a dynasty, you have to build a community outside of the arena.
• 2:22
  And HubSpot helped Angel City Football Club do just that. If you want to learn about how HubSpot
• 2:28
  can help your business, visit HubSpot.com. There's some other great case studies and you'll learn how
• 2:33
  HubSpot can help your business grow better. And one quick ask. Before we dive into today's episode,
• 2:39
  I need your help with something important. I've just launched a quick survey to better understand
• 2:44
  what you guys want from the show. And your feedback is going to directly shape our upcoming content.
• 2:50
  It's only going to take a few minutes of your time, and I made it super easy to find. Just head
• 2:54
  over to ScottyClarry.com slash survey. And as a thank you for helping me out, I'm giving away a
• 3:00
  free gift card to one lucky responded chosen at random once we hit 100 responses. So not only will
• 3:07
  your feedback help make this show even better, you might score something cool just for sharing
• 3:11
  your thought. I really appreciate your help with this one.
• 3:23
  Dr. Marashi, I'm excited you're here. You have been redefining cosmetic dentistry for over two
• 3:30
  decades and counting now. But you're also an entrepreneur. So I'm curious what was the point in your
• 3:35
  life when you realize that dentistry could be an art as well as a platform for entrepreneurship?
• 3:42
  It's a great question and thanks for having me here today. And it's really one of my favorite
• 3:46
  stories to tell. You know, I'm a firm believer that opportunity passes us my all day long and it's
• 3:53
  just whether you're open to receiving it. And my path to entrepreneurship outside of working in
• 4:01
  someone's mouth was just purely happenstance. And what happened was I was in my practice doing
• 4:08
  a checkup on someone who just finished a teeth cleaning. And this particular patient asked me,
• 4:12
  she said, don't you have anything nicer than the toothbrushes you sell in the office? And at that
• 4:17
  time, my practice just like everyone else's, you know, either had a sonic hair or an oral beat.
• 4:22
  And they're great toothbrushes. And I was like, what do you mean? She's like, well, I don't like it.
• 4:27
  I said, well, what is that you don't like about it? And she said, well, it's just a cheap white
• 4:31
  piece of plastic. Isn't there anything nicer? I said, well, no, I mean, this is the best that there
• 4:37
  is. And she looks at me, she goes, well, why don't you make one? And man, it just hit me like a
• 4:45
  sack of bricks in the head. And it would have been very easy just to, you know, kind of, you know,
• 4:50
  and you know, check her teeth and go on. But the rest of the day, I was still thinking about it.
• 4:54
  And I'm like, why don't I make one? I wonder, I wonder if I could. And so when I finished work
• 5:00
  that day, I sat down on my computer, you know, open up a Google browser and said, my first
• 5:05
  search was this, how to manufacture a sonic toothbrush. And the day and age that we live in is
• 5:12
  insane because you can get so much information that you never had access to for. And the stuff that
• 5:21
  came up was just unbelievable. And that's what took me down the rabbit hole on my first project,
• 5:27
  which was an oral healthcare company called Mirashi oral health. I wanted to build a luxury
• 5:31
  sonic toothbrush. And this project, you know, took me a while. It took me from start to finish.
• 5:37
  It took me two years to get to market. And it was full of, you know, setbacks and failures and
• 5:44
  challenges, you know, like, think about this. So at that point in my career, I know teeth. That's it.
• 5:50
  I know how to, you know, work on teeth, make teeth healthy, make smiles look beautiful.
• 5:56
  Do you think that my dental school training taught me anything about supply chain,
• 6:03
  packaging, shipping, material, safety compliance testing, UL? Do you know how many
• 6:12
  pantons of rose gold there are? It's mind blowing. And so, you know, you get sucked down this rabbit hole.
• 6:20
  And then there's the time commitment too, right? You know, like, I have a full time job already. So
• 6:25
  I'm working on this, you know, late at night and in the morning, so on the weekends. And then
• 6:30
  you're spending a lot of money doing it too, right? And, you know, I bootstrapped this one
• 6:34
  myself. And, you know, every month that you're spending thousands of thousands of dollars developing
• 6:39
  this thing. And then you're getting back product that's junk and it doesn't work and you're,
• 6:43
  you know, giving it out for free because you want to get feedback from people. And finally,
• 6:48
  you get to something where you're like, oh, wow, like I'm proud of this. Let's get it to market and
• 6:53
  see what happens. So, you know, the process was an incredible amount of brain damage. But what it
• 6:58
  did for me is I, you know, I built this muscle that I didn't even know that I had. And it was only
• 7:04
  through trial and error. And when it finally launched, you know, I had some good fortune on my side
• 7:09
  and Vogue magazine did a story on it and one of their issues. And it was about a half page or so.
• 7:14
  And it highlighted the toothbrush and, and my dental practice and affiliation was celebrity. And,
• 7:22
  so it was a really amazing learning experience, you know, it's interesting that I think that,
• 7:28
  you know, when you talk about entrepreneurship, they always say like, oh, there's like a 95% failure rate.
• 7:33
  Yeah. But I believe that your version of entrepreneurship where you lived in an industry for so long
• 7:40
  then saw the opportunity. I think that you flip those numbers on its head. It's not easy. But I
• 7:45
  think that that's, that's the secret to successful entrepreneurship. You have to have like insider
• 7:50
  information on, on a pain point that no one else would ever see. A lot of people probably don't
• 7:55
  realize that whatever was on the market or in the market at that point was not good enough for
• 8:01
  for the majority of people. They wanted something better. They wanted something new. You were living
• 8:06
  in it. You saw it. Now it's still very hard to after having a successful career, take yourself out
• 8:14
  of the comfort zone, take yourself out of what you know every single day and then go and become an
• 8:19
  entrepreneur. That's not easy. That's not easy at all. But you in that position had the best possible
• 8:24
  chance of success because you lived in it and you understood the industry better than anyone else.
• 8:29
  So I just find it interesting that people think about entrepreneurship in terms of like drop
• 8:34
  out of Stanford, go build the next Facebook or Amazon or fixer Google when people that were in your
• 8:41
  position, they could have been successful entrepreneurs. But they never, they're high earning.
• 8:47
  Other dentists for example, they're high earning. They probably saw the opportunity too. It's not
• 8:52
  like you're the first person that thought of this idea. Not at all. But they just didn't want to go
• 8:55
  down that that journey. And they would have had the chance of success that you had if they had
• 9:00
  taken themselves out of that comfort zone and pushed themselves into something brand new.
• 9:04
  I think that opportunity exists for everyone and you bring up a good point. It's about, you know,
• 9:10
  the ideas they come and go in your mind and do you actually do something with it?
• 9:17
  I have a friend of mine, Scott Marlatt and he was one of the first 50 employees at Facebook.
• 9:23
  And so you can imagine after the company IPO, like, dude, didn't need to work again.
• 9:29
  And he went on to found the company GoodRx. And you know, they do that coupon for medications
• 9:36
  and prescriptions. And that company IPOed at 1.8 billion. The guys doing just fine. And he's
• 9:42
  one of the nicest fellows who meet. Well, our kids go to school together and, you know, we've
• 9:47
  spent a lot of time together over the years and we talk about business and entrepreneurship.
• 9:51
  Now, here's an interesting thing. His dad was actually a dentist. And I was like, oh, no,
• 9:56
  kidding. I had no clue. And Scott was an engineer by training. And, you know, he decided that he
• 10:00
  wanted to do something, you know, kind of more meaningful and bigger and better than what a
• 10:05
  traditional engineer would do. And that's why he went the route of doing us being part of a startup.
• 10:11
  But one of the things that we talked about one time was leveraging what you know already.
• 10:18
  So for myself as a businessman and an entrepreneur, you know, like, I could have done anything,
• 10:23
  just like anybody else could. But for me to go into something that I knew nothing about at all
• 10:31
  would have required an exponentially greater lift of knowledge and expertise. Whereas at the
• 10:38
  time when I started the toothbrush company, I already knew dentistry. I already knew
• 10:44
  toothbrushes in general because it's something that everyone uses. I was very familiar with
• 10:49
  what the pain points were. And so, you know, Scott talks about, hey, listen, you don't have to,
• 10:55
  you know, invent something. You know, it's better to copy genius than invent mediocrity. It's an
• 11:00
  old saying. But I really piggybacks on what you were saying about you can take something that
• 11:07
  in industry that you're already in and start thinking about it differently. Like in dentistry,
• 11:12
  for example, you can think about, well, what are the pain points that dentists have? What are the
• 11:18
  everyday problems that your staff would have or your patients would have? And when you start asking
• 11:25
  better questions, you know, you're going to get better answers. And when you can think about things
• 11:29
  that either have not been addressed ever, which could be disruption, or things that could be done
• 11:36
  more efficiently, you know, you're more likely to get mass adoption of it.
• 11:41
  When you, because you've done both, yeah, now you've done both. So with bite, I would consider
• 11:46
  that disruption. Bite was total disruption. So when you think about either of those businesses,
• 11:55
  if you're talking to like a young entrepreneur that's just getting started, which version of
• 12:00
  entrepreneurship do you recommend? All the above. And I'll tell you why. Because you don't know what
• 12:06
  idea is going to hit. You just, you flat out don't know. Share a great story with you. Jamie
• 12:12
  Simmonoff is the founder of the Ring Doorbell. Really good buddy of mine. And we've talked about this
• 12:19
  several times. And as I've talked to him about my entrepreneurial endeavors over the years,
• 12:25
  one of the things that he told me is he calls it the fifth idea. He said, your first idea
• 12:31
  may not be your best, or maybe it's a great idea, but you didn't execute it properly. So it
• 12:36
  didn't go anywhere. So oftentimes it's not until your fifth idea where you've gained the necessary
• 12:42
  experience that you can actually do something to move the needle and get traction. And it's actually
• 12:49
  less and less about the idea as opposed to the execution upon it. So you know, that was really,
• 12:58
  it was a very powerful statement. And it's wisdom too, if you think about it, you know, to have
• 13:03
  the expectation that the first time you do something that you're going to be amazingly successful
• 13:07
  with it, you know, that's why you have that 95% failure rate, right? Yeah. So when you think about
• 13:14
  failure, you know, in our culture in the United States, failure is frowned upon. And people,
• 13:19
  people fear it and they shy away from it. But failure is really nothing more than just,
• 13:25
  you know, lessons that you learn. And what do you do with those lessons that you learned? And how do
• 13:31
  you, you know, make better decisions and use that as experience learning of how to do it better
• 13:38
  the next go around. So, you know, I think as a culture, if we embraced it as thinking like,
• 13:46
  oh, I messed this up, I failed. I'm no good as opposed to, okay, I'm just getting my reps in and
• 13:52
  developing and building myself and my abilities and my knowledge base and my experience.
• 13:59
  I think people would probably have a higher threshold or higher tolerance for doing entrepreneurial
• 14:05
  endeavors. And I wish more people thought about it like that. I think that I think that it's very hard,
• 14:13
  especially if you don't have the influence around you, the positive influence around you that's
• 14:17
  saying things like you're saying to persevere for an extended period of time or through the first
• 14:23
  four failures to get to the fifth. I think more often than not, especially because failure is
• 14:27
  frowned upon. I mean, it's in our circles, we hear, we hear these sayings and these like entrepreneurial
• 14:34
  algorithms all the time, right? Like failure is less than, you know, you have to fail. Like, these
• 14:39
  are things that we embrace because we've lived through them multiple times, so we know they're true.
• 14:44
  But if you've never, if you've never built anything before, it's very hard to understand that idea
• 14:50
  because failure feels like shit, failure feels horrible. And I'm curious, even leaning back to your
• 14:57
  going back to your own story, what were your first failures? What were your first four ideas that
• 15:07
  led to the fifth that was successful? What was the thing that you tried that didn't work out? And
• 15:13
  then how did you persevere through it? What was the mental model or the strategy that even for,
• 15:21
  I mean, even for, for building a toothbrush for two years with no understanding of supply chain
• 15:27
  and logistics and all the other things that come with creating a consumer good? What was the thing
• 15:33
  that allowed you to do that for two years? When at any point, you could have said, you know what?
• 15:38
  F this I make good money. I make good money as a dentist. I don't need his headache because that
• 15:43
  could have happened at any point on that two year journey. Yeah, it could have happened with the
• 15:48
  first Google search, you know, just like, like, what am I getting myself into? I have always felt
• 15:56
  and, you know, maybe it's just my own internal drive that if you put your mind towards something,
• 16:02
  you know, that you can do it. And, you know, maybe I had some of the rose colored glasses on on
• 16:10
  the toothbrush endeavor. And I'll tell you why because I didn't think it would be near as hard
• 16:16
  as it actually was. And so, you know, I'm like, when I ran my first search and I'm like, okay,
• 16:22
  cool, there's, you know, offshore manufacturing. And I can talk with these folks and start dealing
• 16:28
  with design and getting some prototypes. But like the first factory that I worked with was such a
• 16:33
  dud, it was unbelievable. But I didn't know until I had burned a ton of time and a ton of money.
• 16:40
  And you're getting this product back, but it's just not right. And, you know, you're like, God,
• 16:47
  you know, you feel it. You the angst, like, how come it's not right? It's costing me time. It's
• 16:53
  costing me money. Should I still be doing this? The self doubt is always there. I think anyone who
• 16:59
  says otherwise just isn't really being forthcoming about it, you know, because you do ask yourself
• 17:04
  those questions. Like, am I doing the right thing? And the reality is like, you don't know. I mean,
• 17:10
  no one knows if it's going to work or if it isn't, but there has to be this. And money ties into
• 17:18
  it too, right? Because if all you're trying to do is make more money, your motivation for it probably
• 17:26
  won't be as intrinsic. I think my motivation was trying to develop something that hadn't been done.
• 17:35
  And for me, the reward for that of like, wow, I created something, you know, a segment of the
• 17:41
  market that did not exist that people wanted and they went out and purchased. And my name was on
• 17:48
  it. To me, I was like, that'd be pretty dang cool. So that was more of the motivator. And, you know,
• 17:55
  what people saw was the outcome, you know, like it went to market, it got traction, you know, got press.
• 18:05
  But the part that folks didn't see was all the setbacks along the way. And how many times I had to go
• 18:11
  back to the drawing board and all the extra time and money and so forth. And, you know, if you if you
• 18:16
  waited out, you know, only the individual can answer was it worth it. But for me, it was, you know,
• 18:23
  I have another buddy who's a banker and he's been very successful and he told me something similar
• 18:28
  to the fifth idea concept, but he also talked about, you know, what what his definition of success
• 18:34
  wasn't. And he told me he goes, my mentor had told me that it wasn't all about making the most
• 18:40
  amount of money. It was about being able to do what you want when you want with whom you want.
• 18:45
  And I was like, wow, I mean, that's really freedom in life. Yeah. So if you have something that you
• 18:51
  believe in that you think is going to change the world in in some small way, right? You know,
• 18:58
  like helping people solve problems, whatever that problem is, you know, that's a strong motivator.
• 19:06
  I don't know what else to say around that. No, it's good advice. I think that that's I think that
• 19:14
  that's what people should optimize for. They should figure out what they're optimizing for and let
• 19:19
  that pull them through all the hard times. And I think that's why money a couple ideas.
• 19:25
  Money can never be the motivator. And I also hate the word motivation because motivation the
• 19:29
  second something gets hard. It's out the window. Like it's gone, right? It's gone immediately.
• 19:35
  And and and if you're only pursuing it for money or some first initial fire or motivation when
• 19:40
  the hard times happen, which they inevitably will, you'll, you'll give up. You'll move on to
• 19:45
  something else and you'll and the sad thing is, I mean, all these clichés are so true. Like all
• 19:49
  the successes on the other side of of that pain and that anxiety and that stress that you will
• 19:54
  inevitably endure on this entrepreneurial journey. But the other side is worth it because then you do
• 20:00
  get true freedom and true fulfillment once you figure out how to get through all those hard times.
• 20:04
  Well, the failure too on top of it are the things that build your resiliency and better prepare you
• 20:11
  for, you know, what the next project is going to be true. You know, rush your oral health was a
• 20:17
  precursor to my larger success in life, you know, which was the company by and for those of you
• 20:22
  listening, bite was a direct to consumer clear aligner company. So imagine if you could go and get
• 20:28
  in vis-a-line done, but you didn't have to walk into the dentist's office to do it. And I'll share
• 20:34
  with you how that became about because it's a very interesting story. So, you know, the elephant
• 20:41
  in the room when it comes to dentistry is two things. One, I don't care where in the world you are,
• 20:47
  it's expensive. No one wants to talk about that, you know, especially the dentist, but it is.
• 20:53
  And I always thought access to care was an issue too. And what I mean by that is not that there
• 20:58
  isn't a dentist, you know, within a certain radius of you. But if you stop and think about it,
• 21:04
  you know, for you to go to the dentist at, you know, at an 11.30 a.m. appointment on a Tuesday,
• 21:10
  well, you got to actually carve out a pretty good chunk of your life to do that. Yeah, exactly.
• 21:15
  You got to commute, you got to do the appointment, then you got to go back to where you were,
• 21:19
  and not only did you have to spend money to, you know, at the dentist's office,
• 21:24
  but you also lost money because you weren't working during that time. I mean, it's a, I mean,
• 21:29
  like you think about the value proposition of that, and at least think good, you're getting good
• 21:32
  oral health out of it, but there is an opportunity cost, is my point. So, I started thinking about like,
• 21:38
  okay, I've been very blessed in my career that I got to become Dr. Fancy Pants and take care of
• 21:45
  all these fun Hollywood people, but what about everybody else? And so the driving question was,
• 21:50
  could there be a quality product or service that could be delivered at scale, where it eliminated
• 21:58
  the high cost, and it created a better accessible model. Yeah. And that's how, how bite came about.
• 22:07
  Clear liners was not new in dentistry. It had already been around for a while.
• 22:12
  But what I was able to do with this company, and I always like to give credit to where it's due,
• 22:16
  because I had two fantastic partners that I was able to join this team and be on the founding
• 22:22
  team and help this thing grow. Love you, Blake and Scott is a little shout out. Was that
• 22:28
  we found a better way of doing it. We built a better mouse trap and a cooler way of doing it. And,
• 22:34
  you know, timing really factors into it. So this is, this is actually the kind of the crux of
• 22:41
  the story here. So it was, you know, we launched in 2018. And it took us a year of development
• 22:52
  to actually get to market it. And we started getting some traction. And 2019 sales started
• 22:58
  picking up and we're like, okay, cool. You know, like we might actually be able to do something
• 23:02
  with this. And the company was bootstrapped and we didn't want investor money so we could
• 23:08
  make our own decisions and, you know, react accordingly based on the ground condition.
• 23:13
  You learned a lot of this stuff from again past. Exactly. You know, I already had experience
• 23:18
  in product and all of this. But imagine this, you know, rewind the clock to March of 2020.
• 23:25
  What happened? Over there. Right? Exactly. Okay. So my dental practice, I had to close my doors.
• 23:34
  And as did a lot of folks and we thought the world was over, right? I mean, nobody knew there
• 23:40
  was so much uncertainty. Now, picture this. We're having a conversation right now, me and you.
• 23:47
  I couldn't tell you to save my life if I had a piece of breakfast burrito between my two front
• 23:52
  teeth. Why? Because I can't see myself. But during COVID, outside wherever you lived or your
• 23:58
  COVID bubble that you participated in, how did you communicate with people? Exactly. Zoom,
• 24:04
  face type. Yeah. So now we're spending hours down the screen and guess what? Everyone was looking
• 24:09
  at their face. And the number one thing people notice in conversation is actually the mouth. Why?
• 24:16
  Because it moves the most so the eyes get drawn there. So mouth and teeth, your smiles, number one,
• 24:22
  eyes are number two, hairs number three. And there's been numerous studies that have come to
• 24:27
  the same conclusion. So now all of a sudden, you got the whole world on zoom, face time, etc. And
• 24:32
  they're going, oh my God, I didn't realize how bad my teeth are. And we're all our own worst
• 24:38
  critics, you know, where to come us to self. But here's the problem. Guess what? John Marashi's
• 24:42
  dental office is closed. I can't help anybody. Yeah. But bite could help everybody because we were
• 24:49
  a direct to consumer model. So now you got all these people, all of a sudden that don't like their
• 24:55
  smile. So they got a pain point, right? And they're driven by the vanity of it. And they're like,
• 24:59
  Hey, I want to have a healthier smile, but a better looking smile. And bite was here. We were the
• 25:05
  we were the antidote. You know, we were the aspirin and the vitamin at the same time. And because
• 25:11
  the business, you know, we thought we thought the bite was going to go under, but the exact opposite
• 25:16
  happened that all of a sudden this demand was insatiable. Why did you think that before COVID?
• 25:21
  No, when COVID hit is when we thought we were like, all right, we're screwed now. All this hard
• 25:25
  work was for nothing, you know, because no one's going to spend money and everyone's going to be,
• 25:29
  you know, like just like everyone else thought, but the exact opposite happened. And, you know,
• 25:34
  we couldn't have forecasted that. You know, that was just that was a total stroke of luck that
• 25:40
  all of a sudden demand skyrocketed. And, you know, there were not enough hours in the day,
• 25:47
  you know, to meet demand. It was absolutely insane, but we were in position. And the company had
• 25:53
  been structured, you know, through the skill and expertise of my partners that, you know,
• 25:57
  the supply chain had already been worked out. And, you know, we had, you know, we were running
• 26:02
  lean and mean. So, you know, we weren't like a bloated pig with overhead. And, you know,
• 26:07
  because otherwise, you're just growing a brain hemorrhage at that point. So, you know, we were
• 26:10
  in position to really let this thing run. When, when something, when you bring up and you think
• 26:17
  of an idea and you create a company like bite, how do you balance? So, how would you balance sort of
• 26:23
  the same in office experience with innovation? Because innovation is moving fast. And I think that
• 26:30
  the reason why it wasn't done at that point was because it was, it was hard to correct someone's
• 26:36
  smile direct to consumer. So, when you think about how do you create the best product that can
• 26:41
  still serve the customer in the same way and replicate the in office experience while being
• 26:46
  direct to consumer, what are the things that you have to think of? How much innovation has to be
• 26:50
  done to do it properly? Technology was the driver on this. It couldn't have been done in the past
• 26:56
  because of the technology didn't exist for it. Yes. Okay. So, having the technology available,
• 27:02
  it was basically just a jigsaw puzzle first at that point and say, okay, if we want to do our
• 27:08
  business model like this, how do we use the available technology that we can do it efficiently
• 27:15
  and cost effectively? So, you know, before I want you to think of like this, like if you wanted
• 27:23
  to get a clearer liner like an invisible line tray, you had to go to a brick and mortar office.
• 27:30
  And there had to be a dentist or a dental professional, them taking the mold of your teeth,
• 27:36
  right? And then every time that you needed a new tray, you'd go back in and then they would
• 27:41
  remold you. But technology allowed us to send the customers. They took the mold themselves.
• 27:49
  And then we could scan it when it came back and the software could actually move the teeth.
• 27:58
  So, you only needed that first mold. It would show the progression. Exactly. It was like a virtual
• 28:05
  time lapse of the teeth movement. And then 3D print each sequential movement of tooth and
• 28:13
  build trays and aligners based on that to get someone to the finish line. You couldn't do that
• 28:19
  in the past. And also this goes back to that very first point I made about
• 28:25
  it. Unless you're in it, unless you're in this industry, you wouldn't have seen that opportunity.
• 28:31
  I wouldn't. That's for darn sure. Yeah. That's in my opinion, that is the most beautiful
• 28:37
  version of entrepreneurship. And I think that's what people should think about. You don't always
• 28:41
  have to create something that you know nothing about. No. In fact, when people ask me about entrepreneurship,
• 28:47
  I tell them like, like don't go for sexy. Yeah. Yeah. Go for everyday problems that people have
• 28:56
  and figure out are you an aspirin or are you a vitamin? You know, if you're an aspirin and you got
• 29:00
  pain, there's nothing that people won't do to get that aspirin and there's no amount of money.
• 29:05
  They won't pay for it. You know, because they're in pain, solve their problem. And people run
• 29:11
  towards pleasure, right? So if you're a vitamin, you know, and you want to look good and feel good,
• 29:15
  people run towards that too. You know, that's the whole market of discretionary spending.
• 29:20
  I 100% what would be your advice for understanding if you're a vitamin or a pain killer?
• 29:26
  Understanding one versus the other. Well, I think it's just that, you know, it's going to be the
• 29:30
  market, you know, that you're in like what market sector are you in? And what is it that you're
• 29:35
  addressing? You know, are you with the toothbrush? Was that more of a vitamin than a total vitamin?
• 29:41
  You know why? Because when I was talking with that patient in dental hygiene, she said,
• 29:47
  I want something that's beautiful and elegant that looks amazing on my countertop. She's like,
• 29:52
  this piece of crap, I throw it in the drawer. Yeah. So I started thinking about all right,
• 29:56
  well, materials and premium finishes and something that's going to look elegant. And so, you know,
• 30:02
  it became a complete exercise in aesthetics. And it needed to have a kinesthetic component to
• 30:12
  it. What I mean by that is a feel because people like looking and holding things that are beautiful.
• 30:20
  So I realized like, I had to go through all different kinds of, and I used aircraft grade aluminum
• 30:26
  that was anodized. But once again, several different grades and thicknesses and finishes and,
• 30:32
  you know, and sometimes you just don't know until you've looked at it and held it and given it to
• 30:38
  enough people to get some feedback on it. Yeah. I love how you have mapped out like the vitamin
• 30:45
  and the way to bring a vitamin product to market. Very different. I think also, I think a lot more
• 30:50
  difficult because again, it's not a pain killer. It's not something that people are horrified over
• 30:57
  every time they look at themselves and zoom. It's a nice to have, not a need to have.
• 31:03
  But still at the end of the day, both can work, both can work if you understand your industry better
• 31:08
  than anyone else. There's that. And then there's another component too. It's the power of proximity
• 31:15
  and relationships. So I'm taking a little bit of a left turn here. Part of the success that I've had
• 31:22
  has been predicated by the people that I'm around. And it's because I had my mind was like an
• 31:29
  open vessel to receive feedback information and ask for help when bite was in the in the middle
• 31:39
  of it, meaning that, you know, we were we were cruising through, you know, we were our numbers were
• 31:45
  killing it during the pandemic. I was back in dental hygiene again, client of mine,
• 31:52
  guy live about mile or so from me. And, you know, when I get in to do a checkup on someone,
• 31:57
  you know, as a business owner, there's usually a hundred things going on. I just got interrupted
• 32:02
  from a procedure that I was already doing. And I got to go check someone's teeth. And then you're
• 32:07
  thinking about like what the staff is doing up front and so forth, normal owner type of stuff,
• 32:12
  right? So, you know, you get in, you do the checkup, you do your pleasantries, and then you got
• 32:17
  to get back to what you were doing. So the guy that was that needed the checkup as the name's
• 32:24
  Chuck. And I sat down with him and he's like, good guy. And he goes, hey, Doc, what are you working on
• 32:29
  that's cool these days? And just, you know, that was his icebreaker for me. Yeah. And normally,
• 32:36
  I would have said, oh, you know, the usual smiles. And I'm making teeth, you know, look beautiful.
• 32:41
  And everything is good. Okay, open wide, right? And then I do my thing. And something and I don't
• 32:46
  know what it was because I was in the middle of a procedure in another room. It made me slow down.
• 32:53
  And I said, you know, I'm working on this cool project. And I started telling him about bite. Now,
• 32:58
  Chuck Adams at the time was a healthcare banker for Goldman Sachs. And he goes, what's your exit?
• 33:06
  And so I talked to him about, you know, where we're headed with the company. He goes, are you guys
• 33:11
  ready to sell? And I said, well, the numbers ride, of course, you know, that's every entrepreneur's
• 33:17
  dream. He goes, I might be able to help with this. So really, so well, you know, let me connect you
• 33:22
  with my partners, because they're more on that side of the business. And see where it goes. So this
• 33:28
  was maybe mid to late October, 2020, December 31st, 2020, fast forward, you know, was that 45 days?
• 33:38
  Or wait, no, no, two and a half months later, month and a half later. Last day of probably,
• 33:46
  you know, the shittiest year that everyone had, right? The deal closed and Chuck connected us,
• 33:57
  the sellers to our buyer, which was Dent Splice, Serona. And at the time, they were the juggernaut
• 34:04
  of the dental industry, $12 billion market cap. And they purchased our company for a billion dollars
• 34:10
  in cash. So you talk about the power of relationships and proximity, you know, like, I built this one
• 34:17
  company because someone in my teeth claims that you should build better, but make something nicer.
• 34:22
  And the thing with bite is that, you know, that our exit was predicated on a chat that I had with
• 34:29
  with some guy when it was getting his teeth cleaned. And I could have just blown right past it,
• 34:34
  thought nothing of it. So I don't think my story is unique in terms of, um, having these
• 34:43
  opportunities. I think just most people are blind to them. And, and I don't mean that in a
• 34:47
  dragatory way. I mean, I just people are not being receptive to what's going on around them and
• 34:52
  being open to what possibilities could be. Yeah. That's, that's it. I mean, how nuts is that?
• 35:00
  That's, that's incredible. You know, because we were, we were shopping the company at the time,
• 35:05
  but this ended up being the one that got the deal done and for an insane number. So that was quick.
• 35:12
  Yeah. That was quick to a billion. That's, that's, I don't think I have a lot of entrepreneurs on
• 35:18
  this show. And I don't, how far, how long was it from when you started? So it took us a year to get
• 35:23
  to market. Yeah. And we were in the marketplace for two years. So three years to a billion. Yeah.
• 35:28
  And in the second year of business, we had a run rate of a hundred million dollars. So we had a 10x
• 35:34
  multiple when we got out. Incredible. Absolutely incredible. The first, the toothbrush did not do
• 35:41
  no. You know, I was happy that I didn't lose my shirt on it. And, you know, and I usually could have.
• 35:48
  And honestly, it wouldn't have mattered because the experience that I gained and the things that
• 35:56
  I learned about building and running a business had I not done that. I wouldn't have had the,
• 36:05
  the wherewithal, the experience, even the, the, the fortitude to have been involved with bite.
• 36:13
  It would have, it literally would have been biting off more than I could chew. So, you know,
• 36:17
  like things lead to things, right? That whole fifth idea thing, like, like, you know,
• 36:22
  Marashi oral health and the toothbrush never would have been a bite because I didn't have
• 36:26
  the skill set necessary. But when I got to that, you know, to the opportunity with bite,
• 36:31
  I was ready. I had experience and I was able to contribute to help this company grow.
• 36:36
  How does your, how does your life change after having a billion dollar exit?
• 36:40
  So let me tell you something. So I just told you the New Year's Eve, right? New Year's Day,
• 36:46
  I'm back in my office seeing a patient who had a tooth emergency, broke his tooth.
• 36:52
  And, you know, most people out, you know, on New Year's Day don't want to be back at work doing
• 36:58
  anything. Yeah. And probably even fewer people that had just had the good fortune that had been
• 37:05
  bestowed upon me. They'd say gone fishing. Yeah. And I was back in my office and I was smiling
• 37:11
  ear to ear and I was so happy doing what I was doing because my calling in life has always been
• 37:17
  about serving people. I've been very clear about that from a very young age that that's what I'm
• 37:22
  here on this planet to do is to help people. And it told me at that moment where here I am on my day
• 37:28
  off, taking care of this guy with a broken tooth. I don't even have a dental assistant helping me
• 37:33
  or anything that I had chose wisely. You know, like this was, this was a good decision that I was a
• 37:40
  dentist. And, you know, I could have retired, right? But, but I decided, you know, I want to keep
• 37:47
  doing this. And, you know, my core business has grown over the past few years. And I'm probably
• 37:53
  working harder now than even I was prior because of the growth in my business. And I'm very thankful
• 37:58
  for that. It just tells me that I, but I chose wisely. I mean, I think that that means you're,
• 38:03
  you're in your zone of genius when even after an exit like that, you're still choosing to put in
• 38:07
  work at. You know, my friends that I've mentioned so far, they've all gone on to do other things.
• 38:12
  You know, my partners from bite, they're doing a fitness mirror now and they've got other companies
• 38:18
  that they're involved in. And, and these are things that led to more things for them. You know,
• 38:23
  my, my good friend, Bashin Lehman, he founded Postmates. And he's already on another company. And so,
• 38:29
  you know, I think what it is with the entrepreneurial spirit is that there really is no destination.
• 38:36
  Because, you know, for them, for me, money wasn't the driver. It was just doing cool things and
• 38:42
  trying things and working hard. And, you know, I'm 51 years old now. And the idea of sitting around
• 38:48
  and doing nothing is actually pretty scary. Like, what, like, what am I going to do to sit around
• 38:53
  and do nothing? And, and maybe when you're busy and stressed, it sounds nice. But that's what
• 38:57
  vacations are for. You know, and then you recharge and you want to get back to work and do things.
• 39:02
  I don't even see a world where I'm not doing something. I mean, there's going to come a time
• 39:08
  where my eyes are no good and my hands aren't as nimble. And, and I won't be in someone's mouth.
• 39:14
  But that doesn't mean that there aren't other cool things to work on and to challenge myself with.
• 39:19
  No, I was just going to say, this is such a common theme with entrepreneurs that I, that I speak with,
• 39:25
  doesn't matter how big the exit is. There's, they're always moving on to the next thing.
• 39:30
  Some of them do take more than 24 hours off. Yeah. After they, after they haven't exit.
• 39:36
  But a lot of them are, they get anxious because it's just a personality type that wants to keep
• 39:42
  building and keep. Where did that, for you, where did that come from? Was that something that was
• 39:47
  bestowed upon you by your parents that you have an entrepreneurial upbringing is entrepreneurship?
• 39:53
  Something that you learn over time or is it something that you're born with? What are your thoughts?
• 39:58
  You know, I think it's, it's a combination of several factors. You know, I think some people
• 40:04
  are wired for some people have an appetite for it. There's others that don't and, you know,
• 40:08
  no judgment. That's just, you know, people, there's just different personality types.
• 40:14
  You know, how I grew up and how I was raised, you know, I didn't, I did not come from an
• 40:21
  affluent family, you know, is probably a lower middle class family. My folks worked as
• 40:26
  hard as they could to, to do what they were able to do. You know, I, I never didn't have food.
• 40:33
  So it's like, I'm not painting this picture of extreme poverty. But I also, you know,
• 40:39
  but I wasn't the kid with the fancy bicycle either. And so I knew at a very early age that
• 40:45
  if I wanted anything in life, you know, like if, when I wanted toys, in fact, when I wanted
• 40:50
  my bicycle, we didn't have discretionary income for that. So I had to go out and find ways to earn
• 40:56
  money. And so I was always hustling since I was a kid. And there's limited ways to make money
• 41:01
  as an eight year old, you know, but, you know, you're, I figured out, you know, I got two hands
• 41:06
  in a strong back. So I could shovel sidewalks in the winter. And I was able to mow lawns and, you know,
• 41:13
  weeding and a paper route and things like that. So I started very early, like I was always working
• 41:19
  in doing something. And the first time I was able to get a job as a bus boy, you know, like, and so
• 41:24
  that's, that's kind of where, you know, from an earlier age, I think some of the hustle came from
• 41:30
  is just like, okay, you want something, you have to work for it. That's how life is. And, and I'd
• 41:35
  always lived my life that way. You know, I don't think I was the smartest kid. I mean, I, I like school.
• 41:46
  It's probably debatable if I'm the best dentist on the planet. I mean, my mom thinks I'm pretty
• 41:50
  good. Maybe that counts for something. The counts for a lot. And moms are important. But what I was
• 41:55
  not afraid to do was to roll up my sleeves and do the work. I knew, I knew if I was willing to
• 42:01
  work hard, probably something was going to turn out, right? Lingoda is a partner of success story.
• 42:06
  Look, I'll be real with you. My French used to be solid. I learned it in school. I even had
• 42:11
  decent pronunciation. But when I booked trip to France last year, it was a total blank. I could barely
• 42:17
  order a croissant without sounding like a tourist. So I jumped into the Lingoda sprint challenge.
• 42:23
  And man, it changed everything. I'd take live classes late at night after podcasting,
• 42:28
  only five students max real teachers, real conversations. And in just two months, I went from a
• 42:35
  bonjour to holding full conversations at a Paris cafe. Confidence unlocked. Now here's the play.
• 42:42
  30 or 60 classes in 60 days. And if you finish them all, you get 50% cash back. That's basically four
• 42:50
  euros or five dollars per class. That's insane value. Go to try.lingoda.com slash success
• 43:00
  underscore sprint. And then use my code, Scott Sprint for an extra 20 euro off on top of their
• 43:08
  current deal. Registration closes May 5th. Classes start May 12th. Let's get fluent.
• 43:14
  Freshbooks is supporting today's episode. And if you've ever wondered how successful
• 43:17
  entrepreneurs stay on top of their finances while growing their business, the answer is Fresh
• 43:20
  Books. And numbers don't lie. Over 30 million people have chosen Fresh Books processing more than
• 43:24
  60 billion in invoices and saving an incredible 192 hours every year on accounting tasks.
• 43:30
  Think about it. That's nearly eight full days. You can get back to focus on what really matters,
• 43:34
  growing your business. Fresh Books is more than just accounting software. It's your all-in-one
• 43:39
  financial command center, create professional estimates, track time, automatically bill clients,
• 43:43
  and capture expenses on the go plus it integrates seamlessly with over 100 business tools you
• 43:48
  already use all backed by award-winning customer service. If you're ready to stop drowning in
• 43:52
  receipts and you're ready to stop chasing down payments, here's what I want you to do.
• 43:56
  Head over to FreshBooks.com to start your 30 day free trial. No credit card required. And for
• 44:01
  all you success story listeners out there, I've got something special. Get an exclusive 60% off for
• 44:06
  six months when you visit FreshBooks.com slash pricing dash offer. Transform your business with
• 44:12
  FreshBooks today. That's FreshBooks.com slash pricing dash offer for 60% off. Today's
• 44:17
  episode is brought to you by Vanta. Now listen up, this matters for your business. And today's
• 44:22
  digital landscape security isn't optional. It's essential. Without it, deal stall, sale cycle stretch
• 44:28
  on and scaling becomes very difficult. Now why? Because investors, customers, and partners all
• 44:33
  expect businesses to demonstrate strong security practices before they commit. If you can't prove
• 44:39
  trust, you lose opportunities. So whether you're a startup founder, trying to land that first big
• 44:45
  client or an established company scaling your security program, Vanta helps businesses of all
• 44:51
  sizes prove that they're trustworthy by automating compliance across 35 frameworks like SOC 2, ISO 27001
• 45:00
  and HIPAA. The exact certifications your prospects are demanding. Here's why you need to pay attention.
• 45:06
  Vanta gives you back precious time that you're currently wasting on compliance. Their platform
• 45:10
  automates up to 90% of the tedious compliance work. It helps you respond to those endless security
• 45:16
  questionnaires at the five times faster and it connects you with experts to get your security
• 45:20
  program running immediately. The results speak for themselves. A recent IDC report found that
• 45:26
  Vanta customers achieve over $535,000 per year in benefits and the platform pays for itself
• 45:33
  in just three months. So you're going to join over 10,000 global companies like Atlassian,
• 45:38
  Korra, and Factory who use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time. And don't miss
• 45:44
  this. For a limited time only, my listeners can get a thousand dollars off Vanta. That's real money
• 45:50
  back in your pocket. Visit vanta.com slash Scott right now before the software expires. That is
• 45:56
  vant.com slash Scott. I think that's probably the best attitude. I am a firm believer that if
• 46:03
  you put enough time into something, you do figure it out. Some things will come easier than others,
• 46:08
  but put 10 plus years of your life into something and you'll find a way to be semi-good,
• 46:14
  semi-good at the very minimum. What was the just sort of going into your thought process about
• 46:20
  how you navigate life? I understand where the entrepreneurship side of you came from,
• 46:26
  and I understand the opportunities you sort of pursued in entrepreneurship when you're building
• 46:31
  these businesses. Where did the passion for cosmetic dentistry come from?
• 46:37
  The very unique niche. When I started noticing girls in seventh grade, for some weird reason,
• 46:44
  the ones that I gravitated towards were the girls with braces. I didn't have braces,
• 46:50
  we didn't have money for braces. For me, that was something aspirational. But I also saw it as like,
• 46:56
  boy, they're going to have this incredible smile on those things come off. I was kind of weird
• 47:00
  for a kid that young. That's the way you thought. As a kid, there were only two things I wanted to
• 47:06
  do in my entire life. It was going to be a dentist or professional skateboarder. That's it. There's
• 47:12
  only two things I was interested in. I'm still doing it. I haven't skateboarding for 39 years.
• 47:19
  I never stopped. It's my passion in life. The way the cards felt, probably for the better,
• 47:26
  being amateur skateboarder and professional dentist. But cosmetic dentistry when I was a kid
• 47:31
  wasn't a thing. Getting into dental school, I thought I'd probably just end up being in an
• 47:36
  orthodontist because I had the thing for smiles. But that's where I got the first exposure to
• 47:41
  cosmetic dentistry. I was like, holy moly, like, no, this is what I want to do. Once I saw what
• 47:47
  the possibilities were, how you could transform someone's smile because straight teeth don't always
• 47:52
  necessarily mean good looking teeth. That's what cosmetic dentistry does. Whether the procedure
• 47:57
  is teeth whitening or fixing a chip on the tooth or using porcelain veneers, which is the bulk of
• 48:03
  what I do. A veneer for the listeners is a little sliver of porcelain that's bonded over the front
• 48:08
  of the tooth and you can control the shape and size and color and when you treat the full range
• 48:13
  of visible teeth in your smile, you can really make a smile look incredible. So I got that exposure
• 48:19
  to it in dental school and I was hell bent on learning as much as I could and turned out that the
• 48:24
  guy who basically invented this procedure was an instructor at my school. So I followed that dude
• 48:30
  around everywhere to get the information. And he ended up starting the first honors aesthetic
• 48:36
  dentistry program in a dental school. And I was student number one admitted into it.
• 48:42
  Really? Yeah. So you were an OG. You were one of the original cosmetic dentists.
• 48:49
  So I mean, for, you know, people had been doing cosmetic dentistry out in private practice,
• 48:54
  but in terms of it being like a formalized type of program with us with a structured training.
• 49:02
  Yeah, I was student number one. And that set me up to start doing these advanced procedures that
• 49:10
  not even very many people were out there in private practice doing. And here I was as a student doing
• 49:15
  it. And through that, I was able to connect with the dentist in New York City. I went to NYU
• 49:22
  who at that time, he was like number one in the world for doing this. So I followed this guy around
• 49:28
  like crazy. And you know, like showing up at his office and following him to conferences and all
• 49:33
  this stuff until I convinced him to hire me. And you know, I was 27 years old working in this top
• 49:39
  cosmetic dentistry practice learning how to do all these procedures. You know, like, you know,
• 49:43
  talk about the 10,000 hour rule. And some people spend a career trying to get to there. And I had done
• 49:48
  I had had achieved that in less than a couple of years with this guy. And then at that point,
• 49:53
  I said, you know, I want to I want to go do it on my own. And so that's when I moved to California
• 49:58
  in early 2004. And you know, I've been there since. And so, you know, professionally, my ride in
• 50:06
  dentistry, you know, I had a really, you know, fast and quick ascent. But it was because of all the
• 50:13
  hustle that I did at the time where I was thinking about, you know, the big picture as opposed to many
• 50:19
  students just live sort of test to test and exam to exam to get out the door. But when you when
• 50:25
  you first start, so one common thread between all of your successes has been relationships and being
• 50:30
  around the right people. I see it again and again and again and again and even even how you created
• 50:37
  your practice, the you work with celebrities. And obviously that's a great clientele. But to your
• 50:42
  point, having that high end clientele also leads to business opportunities that you were just
• 50:48
  treating your teeth. But then all of a sudden, you have a guy sitting in a chair that can help you
• 50:52
  exit for a billion dollars. So again, your network has created not created outside of your own work,
• 50:59
  but your network has been a huge multiplier. Absolutely.
• 51:02
  And your success, you know, if you practice dentistry in Los Angeles, it's a statistical
• 51:08
  improbability that you will not land someone who works in entertainment because that's the
• 51:13
  entertainment hub of the world. But it's not like, you know, that you're going to have everybody
• 51:21
  all of a sudden, right? So it's a it's a slow process over time of building relationships and
• 51:28
  networking and hustling and, you know, until you finally get someone on the delus. Yeah. And
• 51:32
  slowly over time, you know, I've had people ask me, how'd you get everybody and all these famous
• 51:38
  folks? And I'm like, well, it's only up, you know, there's an overnight success of 25 years.
• 51:42
  You know, people, people forget about that part. But the people that I've been able to meet and
• 51:48
  take care of and spend time with, I mean, they're, they're, it's pretty mind blowing and pinching
• 51:54
  me on. I'll share a story with you. It's a funny one. You know, I'm known for doing beautiful
• 52:00
  smiles, right? But sometimes you get hired to do an ugly smile. And it's not like the normal thing
• 52:07
  that I do, but I'm walking Phoenix, who's a friend of mine and client, just a gem of a human being.
• 52:13
  I just couldn't say enough good things about him. He did this movie called The Joker. And I don't
• 52:17
  know if you saw, but it's a real dark character. Yeah. This guy who loses his way. And, and, and
• 52:26
  you're rooting for this guy to do horrible things with my wife. And he came and he's like, Doc, I'm
• 52:30
  doing this role. And I need my teeth to look terrible. And so it was really was, you know, doing
• 52:37
  the opposite of what I do to people to instead make him teeth look nice, making teeth look crappy.
• 52:42
  So it was appropriate for this role. Does he change his actual teeth? So, you know,
• 52:47
  Joaquin lost a lot of weight for this movie. You know, he's, he went very method in this. I think
• 52:52
  he lost like, you know, it was like 60 pounds or something like that. He's not a big guy to begin
• 52:57
  with. And, you know, he was down to like 120 pounds. And, you know, for a guy who's like, you
• 53:03
  know, five foot 10, that's really, really skinny. And what, what we did to his teeth. And, you know,
• 53:11
  he's allowed me to share the story because it's pretty cool. So I had fixed his teeth years
• 53:15
  ago, not with veneers, but, you know, with like teeth whitening and, you know, some chip edges.
• 53:20
  So you do this stuff called bonding. And it's like a, it's like a putty. You can, you know,
• 53:24
  you can harden it and repair the edge of a tooth like if you had chipped your fingernail and you
• 53:28
  had to repair it. And what we did is we took all that stuff off the teeth to reveal the cracks
• 53:34
  and the chips that have been there for a long time. So it's kind of like reverse dentistry. Yeah.
• 53:38
  And, and that's what made the teeth look so unsightly for the role. Oh my goodness. And then,
• 53:44
  when the movie was done, we fixed it back up. And then I had to do it a whole second time because
• 53:47
  they had Joker part two. Yeah. So, you know, you really got to do fun things like that.
• 53:55
  And, you know, it comes in unexpected places. Ryan Seacrest, dear friend. I mean, he's just,
• 54:02
  the guy's just awesome. I don't think I've ever met anyone harder working in the business than
• 54:07
  this guy. And, you know, I've been cranked called more times and you could possibly believe by
• 54:12
  this guy in the office to meet to talk on the radio or the TV or whatever about, you know, like a
• 54:17
  tooth problem that he had. And, you know, so there's a lot of pinch me moments. I mean, one of the
• 54:22
  best ones, you know, our talk about celebrity is, you know, for probably about the last 10 years or so,
• 54:28
  anytime that Vin Diesel is come in, we always go and get a cup of coffee afterwards at the end of the
• 54:33
  day. And it's funny. We'll be walking down the street and he goes, you know, he's like, I'm not
• 54:38
  out in public too often. Obviously, he's one of the biggest celebrities in the world. And so,
• 54:42
  I'll go into coffee bean and grab two cups of coffee and then, and then I'll walk out and
• 54:46
  hand him his cup and then we go behind the building and sit down on a curb. And because it's
• 54:50
  private in the alley, and it's just two old guys with kids just shooting the breeze. And so,
• 54:57
  this must have been maybe like a year or two ago. And he goes, do you want to go to Rome? And I was
• 55:04
  like, yeah, can I ask why? And he goes, he goes, well, I'm having the premiere for my latest Fast
• 55:11
  and Furious movie. I thought, no, I don't want to come. I'm like, yeah, definitely want to come.
• 55:14
  I'm like, well, when is it? He goes next week. And I'm like, can I have a day to work on this?
• 55:20
  And I go to work the next day. I'm like, cancel my schedule. I'm going to go to Rome.
• 55:24
  And, you know, there I was a week later on the red carpet in Rome for this big movie production.
• 55:30
  And, and, you know, like, I didn't get into dentistry to do these things. But what has happened
• 55:38
  and why these relationships have been so successful is because when I take care of celebrities,
• 55:46
  I don't treat them any different than I do any other person in my office. I don't care what walk
• 55:51
  a life you came from. You know, you're going to get the best of me no matter what. And
• 55:57
  you know, celebrities in general, oftentimes, you know, they have their persona.
• 56:00
  And, but when they come to my office, they can let their guard down. And you get to know the
• 56:05
  individual and the person and dentistry is very intimate. So you develop friendships with folks.
• 56:12
  And I really do count my blessings that I have been so fortunate to do and experience so many
• 56:20
  cool things like who would have thought like as a dentist, you know, that you get to do things like
• 56:26
  now. But that's so that's just it's just a lot of fun. And I do agree. I mean, I think that if
• 56:32
  the average person is not going to be running into celebrities every single day, but like just think
• 56:36
  about I'm thinking about an entrepreneur that is listening to this that is speaking with some
• 56:45
  big business on, you know, exited entrepreneur. I think the lesson is you just treat them like
• 56:51
  regular people. It doesn't matter how successful they are. I think that the people that you want to
• 56:55
  work with, you want to spend time with if they can't be normal and regular with you, they're not
• 57:00
  people that you know, the folks who want to do business with anyone. No. Yeah. If people have
• 57:04
  egos and so I like I listen, I have a podcast. I interview people that have had wild success.
• 57:11
  Very fortunate that people are, you know, a hundred million dollars, a five hundred million
• 57:17
  dollars, it's several billionaires. Fortunately, the majority of them are very down to earth,
• 57:24
  very regular, real people. And I don't think they like when they're treated any differently.
• 57:28
  Yeah. And I think that those are the people that you want to spend time with, you want to have in
• 57:32
  your circle. And again, it's not celebrity for me. It's more business celebrity. But still,
• 57:38
  if you are trying to build relationships with these people, just treat them like regular people,
• 57:42
  I think that's how you build a real relationship with them.
• 57:46
  The relationship is not a bad reason. Yeah. I mean, they really are. I look at my successes
• 57:53
  that I've had and, you know, that being able to build and cultivate meaningful relationships
• 58:03
  has absolutely been part of the success formula. Yeah. I think that just because of the people
• 58:10
  that you surround yourself with, like you said, that has led to all the success in business and
• 58:14
  life and everything. Did you hear that saying like, it's better to be the dumbest person in the room?
• 58:19
  That was a percent. Yeah. You know, to this day, I still try to be the dumbest person in the room.
• 58:25
  I actually have a chance at learning something. When you think about the work that you do,
• 58:32
  I'm sure you see a lot of bad work because I see a lot of veneers that blind me.
• 58:37
  But if somebody is just looking for your advice on how to craft the perfect smile, per se,
• 58:44
  what is your advice to them? What should they be thinking about if they want to get some work done?
• 58:48
  You know, everyone, when it comes to aesthetics, right, is subjective in nature. And the niche that
• 58:55
  I've carved out in cosmetic dentistry has been the quiet luxury of smiles, you know,
• 59:01
  doing things that are tasteful and look appropriate and not flashy. And some people want that
• 59:07
  other look and no judgment, you know, they want those big white choppers. But there's a lot of
• 59:11
  folks that unfortunately get an unintended result. I think that's what I'm trying to avoid for
• 59:16
  people. So, you know, my advice is, look, if you're out and you're looking to have cosmetic
• 59:23
  dentistry done, and I can't take care of everyone. There's just one of me. There's a lot of fantastic
• 59:27
  dentists everywhere. You know, some of the questions you should be thinking about are, you know,
• 59:33
  is you're going to interview your dentist, you know, ask them, what do they think? What's their
• 59:39
  aesthetic? What's their opinion on it? But more importantly, ask them to show you
• 59:45
  before and after samples of their work, because there's actually smile libraries you can purchase
• 59:50
  of before and after. So, that's not even their work. Yeah, it just shows examples of what cosmetic
• 59:55
  dentistry can be. So, you know, say, show me examples of your work where the starting point is
• 1:00:01
  similar to my condition and the end point is something similar that you think would look good for me.
• 1:00:06
  And if someone has done enough of this, they'll have an extensive library to show you like, hey,
• 1:00:11
  look, here's what I did for this person. Here's where they started. You can see the similarities
• 1:00:15
  and here's where I was able to get them. And if you see enough of that, you're going to have a good
• 1:00:19
  sense of this person's design and abilities and aesthetic and determine if it's right for you.
• 1:00:25
  If you keep seeing cases where you're like, I don't like that one. I don't like that one. I don't
• 1:00:29
  like that one. And their only answer is, well, we'll make yours different. You know, you might be
• 1:00:34
  rolling the dice a little bit. Yeah. So, you know, just by, or if you have a friend that, you know,
• 1:00:39
  you like their treatment that they receive, then, you know, that might be a good starting point,
• 1:00:44
  you know, better than picking a name out of a hat. I see these examples of veneers where they
• 1:00:50
  shave the tooth down to nothing. It's not supposed to happen. What can you explain what's happening
• 1:00:56
  in those cases versus what it should be? Okay. So, let's start with what a veneer should be.
• 1:01:02
  A veneer once again, by definition, is just a covering. That's it. And it goes on the front of the
• 1:01:07
  tooth. Now, if you think about it, if your tooth is already in the correct position and you put a
• 1:01:12
  covering on it, it's thicker than what it originally was. Right. And you can only increase the
• 1:01:19
  thickness so much before it doesn't look right. So, if your tooth was smaller or normal size,
• 1:01:26
  and you bump the thickness just to smidge chances are you won't notice, which means when the veneer
• 1:01:32
  goes on, you don't need to do any drilling because it's additive in nature. Yeah. Okay. Or if the
• 1:01:40
  tooth has kind of a weird shape and you can't get the thing to fit on it, maybe you got to modify
• 1:01:44
  the surface a little bit so the thing can lock on properly because there's a geometric shape that's
• 1:01:49
  required. But generally speaking, if that's required, the amount of modification, and when I say
• 1:01:55
  modification, this is what the layperson would would call like shaving or tooth grinding,
• 1:02:01
  is a half millimeter or less. You realize how tiny a half millimeter is? It's almost imperceptible.
• 1:02:07
  So that's how it's supposed to be done. How it ends up being done, a lot of the time is by
• 1:02:16
  dentists that haven't had appropriate training because there's not a lot of really great training
• 1:02:20
  out there. And it's very quick and easy to whack a tooth down because they say, oh, just let the lab
• 1:02:28
  guy worry about it. And that's more of like a crown preparation, not a veneer preparation. A crown
• 1:02:33
  is where the tooth gets whacked down to like 50% of the size that they put a covering on it.
• 1:02:37
  But the reason why that's being done is because there were some major structural durability
• 1:02:42
  issue of the tooth that they had to basically grind away the broken down parts to cover the thing
• 1:02:48
  and make it durable again. But if your front tooth or your front teeth didn't need that, why on
• 1:02:54
  earth would you want them whacked down to nothing? And then there might be working with a dental
• 1:02:58
  laboratory where the technician is not as well trained. They don't even know what the client looks
• 1:03:03
  like. And they just, and on the model, the teeth might look really good, but it's like seeing
• 1:03:08
  a dress in a window. And then the woman tries on said, no, this doesn't, doesn't fit me very well.
• 1:03:12
  So it's rampant in our profession to a fault. And truth be told, I rarely meet a dentist that
• 1:03:20
  purposely is trying to do a crummy job. But if you don't have the training, then you know,
• 1:03:26
  you don't even know that you're not doing a good job, right? You just think like, oh, this is okay.
• 1:03:31
  So half of what I do these days is revision dentistry where someone went somewhere else and they
• 1:03:36
  got that unintended result. Now I'm the fix it guy. You can't, if your teeth are shaved down,
• 1:03:41
  you can't fit. You're right. You can't make the tooth grow back. You're right. That's a one-way
• 1:03:47
  street. But what I can do is get rid of the crazy horse teeth, remove them. They actually have a
• 1:03:54
  laser. And the energy from the laser goes through the porcelain and it debons it. It falls right off
• 1:04:01
  before they had to drill it off. And in drilling off the porcelain, they drill off more of the
• 1:04:05
  tooth unintentionally. And then the the the shave down tooth got even smaller like how crazy is that?
• 1:04:11
  So I have a laser that can remove these things. And then I can bond a new set of veneers on that are
• 1:04:17
  smaller thinner yet stronger. So at least the tooth looks normal again. I understand. So what's
• 1:04:25
  happening when what's happening when people get that little like shave down and nub thing going on
• 1:04:34
  compared to what you do. If you put on veneers, you could take off the veneers and they could still
• 1:04:39
  have fully functional teeth. If you have done a no prep design, meaning no surface alteration,
• 1:04:45
  you just bonded the veneers on it 100% correct. The veneer can be removed. The surface can be
• 1:04:51
  repolished. And it's like going back to square one. Do you see a lot of this with medical tourism?
• 1:04:57
  People trying to get cheaper veneers in all these different countries. Oh yeah, this guy,
• 1:05:03
  this guy named Jeff, he went to Columbia. And the funny thing is, Jeff is really rich already. He
• 1:05:10
  just got bad advice. And he flew down there. And the crazy thing is is they knock him out.
• 1:05:16
  You know, they have an anesthesiologist while they're doing the procedure. And something went
• 1:05:20
  horribly wrong. And he woke up in the hospital with no teeth. They shaved him all down and they
• 1:05:27
  couldn't finish the procedure. And he's like, well, I can't leave the country without teeth.
• 1:05:33
  So he recovered for a couple days and went back and they put him under again to finish the thing.
• 1:05:39
  I mean, he could have died. And he got back up to the states and a guy lives down in South
• 1:05:45
  Orange County and half the teeth broke because they weren't engineered properly and they weren't
• 1:05:50
  bonded properly. And his teeth were shaved down as a mess. And long story short, he got referred
• 1:05:56
  to me and he's telling me the story. And I'm just like, like as shocked as you are. I mean,
• 1:06:00
  I thought I had heard it all. I was like, oh my God. So, you know, it was a full revision case.
• 1:06:06
  I mean, I had to remove all the porcelains and rebuild the bite and get them the aesthetics and
• 1:06:11
  everything is fine now. But you know, there's a lot of folks who who travel because once again,
• 1:06:19
  the stuff is expensive. And that's not to say that if you go abroad somewhere that just because
• 1:06:24
  you practiced dentistry in a foreign country that you're a lousy provider, of course. I think what
• 1:06:30
  it is, it's a cautionary tale that sometimes you get what you pay for. I think so too. I think
• 1:06:36
  forget teeth. Just medical tourism in general is very scary to me. I mean, you see all these horror
• 1:06:41
  stories about all these injections and all these plastic surgeries that go horribly wrong.
• 1:06:47
  And also, I mean, the anesthesia, the anesthetic part of it, there was just a case.
• 1:06:52
  Anesthetic is not good to go under again and again and again and again. Either. I think that
• 1:06:57
  this is not your field. But somebody just died from having an anesthetic for a full back tattoo.
• 1:07:03
  Oh gosh. Yeah, because now they're doing full anesthetic, general anesthetic for some longer tattoos.
• 1:07:09
  Okay. So I mean, if you, if you don't have to go, do you have to go under anesthetic for veneers?
• 1:07:14
  No. No. Oh, so this is like very strange that. Yeah. No, it's elective in nature. I mean,
• 1:07:19
  like, look, you don't have to go under for colonoscopy, but a lot of people prefer to sit. Yeah,
• 1:07:23
  yeah. And honestly, if you're, if you're the point is if you're doing something where you're going under,
• 1:07:28
  um, maybe do it in the US at least where you're a little bit safe.
• 1:07:33
  I have a board certified anesthesiologist doing it. Yes. Not just a technician. Yeah.
• 1:07:38
  Because the standards of care are different in different countries. And that's what you have to
• 1:07:42
  be careful of. That's it. It's not that there's not good doctors all over the world. Because there
• 1:07:46
  is, but you just have to make sure that you know what you're getting yourself into. Have you ever
• 1:07:52
  had to turn a patient away for a request that they had? Oh, all the time. Yeah. Why is that?
• 1:08:00
  You know, what happens is, um, you get to a certain level of proficiency in your career and
• 1:08:06
  then word gets out. And so you get a lot of people that want to come and see you, which is exactly
• 1:08:11
  what every business person wants. Um, but sometimes, uh, as a result of it, it attracts the crazies.
• 1:08:20
  And in my world, you know, the crazies are the ones who come in and they bring a folder with them
• 1:08:26
  and it's about this thick. And it's got their records from five, 10, 15 different dental offices.
• 1:08:34
  And they've been to multiple dentists and how their procedures done over and over again.
• 1:08:40
  And as you start to listen to the story, you realize that it actually wasn't the dentist. It's,
• 1:08:46
  it was the patient's expectations. And there, there are some folks that no matter how good you are
• 1:08:53
  at doing something, you're not going to be able to deliver because their expectations simply
• 1:08:59
  just aren't possible. They're unreasonable expectations. Now, earlier in my career, I didn't have
• 1:09:05
  the people management skills or even the experience to sniff that out. And you know, you're hungry
• 1:09:12
  to do the work and you do it. And then you just end up getting your ass handed to you and it sucks.
• 1:09:18
  But now that I have more gray hair on my head, you know, I learned to read the signs. And,
• 1:09:23
  and I've had to tell people, you know, you sit and you listen and because they've paid you for a
• 1:09:27
  consultation. And, and they are there for you to tell them the truth. And so, and that's what I have
• 1:09:34
  to do. And sometimes it's very difficult. And I tell them, I say, listen, I hear what you're saying.
• 1:09:40
  And after listening to you, what I believe to be true is that I can't help you because I'm not
• 1:09:47
  going to be able to give you the outcome that you're looking for. And what I don't want to be is the
• 1:09:52
  next name on the, on the graveyard list that you're carrying with you of someone who couldn't
• 1:09:58
  deliver. It's not fair to you to spend that time. It's not fair to you to spend that money.
• 1:10:03
  If I already know right away, I'm not going to be able to do that. And most of the time,
• 1:10:09
  when I'm saying that, it's because what they're asking for are like crazy, big, thick, white teeth.
• 1:10:16
  And that's just not my thing. I don't do that. But it's not like, um, I don't know what else,
• 1:10:20
  what if the people get like any like, uh, like jewelry or stuff in their teeth or you know,
• 1:10:26
  I get those requests once in a blue moon. There's actually some dentists that have built very
• 1:10:32
  successful practices. I got a buddy of mine who does like the, the grills and the diamond stuff
• 1:10:37
  in the teeth and the charge of fortune for it. So, you know, people don't really come to me for
• 1:10:42
  that sort of thing. It's, it's more for the veneer thing. And, you know, for, for, you know,
• 1:10:47
  having a beautiful white smile. But there are versions of it, you know, the chick lady teeth and
• 1:10:51
  the horse teeth that that's just not my thing. And some people want that and they want it on steroids.
• 1:10:56
  Yeah. And so, you know, that's where I find myself saying, hey, listen, you know, I, I don't
• 1:11:01
  provide that service. So, and it's funny. It's like the second you tell someone, no, they want
• 1:11:06
  you 10 times more. And they think that they think it's, and they'll beg and bleed. And it's very,
• 1:11:13
  you know, it's very kind of them. They believe in you that much. They say, and, and they'll offer you
• 1:11:17
  any amount of money. I don't care where to cost. And you're like, look, it's not about the money.
• 1:11:21
  You know, it's just that I can't do this. Are there, are there any procedures that people do
• 1:11:26
  request that could be bad for your oral health or just health in general that you would say don't
• 1:11:31
  do this kind of procedure? Yeah. I would say, you know, I have this actress. I love her to desk.
• 1:11:37
  She's been a client for about 15 years. And she has one of the most gorgeous factory original
• 1:11:41
  smiles that you have ever seen. And every year she, she'll come in and say, okay, I'm ready for my
• 1:11:49
  years now. And I won't do them. And she's, and the first couple of years, you know, she was a
• 1:11:55
  little off put that I wouldn't do. And I said, it is impossible to improve upon what Mother Nature
• 1:11:59
  gave you. I can only fuck this up. You know, and sometimes just have to know. And, and over the years,
• 1:12:07
  you know, she has thanked me, you know, for not doing an unnecessary procedure for her. Now,
• 1:12:13
  it brings up an interesting conversation because need and want are two different things. I mean,
• 1:12:17
  who am I to pass judgment on someone who has a healthy functioning nose that I think looks nice?
• 1:12:23
  And they want to, they want to alter the appearance of it. That's up to the individual. And so,
• 1:12:29
  you know, what she did is she listened to me and trusted my opinion on it because she could have
• 1:12:35
  just gone to the dentist down the street. There's always someone who's going to say, yes. So,
• 1:12:39
  you know, I try to steer the people in the right direction. And, you know, based on my belief system.
• 1:12:44
  And I say, look, if, if I think that they'd be better served not doing treatment, I have plenty of
• 1:12:50
  work to keep the lights on. I don't have to try to sell someone something just to, you know,
• 1:12:55
  to make a few bucks. And it's a good moral compass. I think that's why people respect you because
• 1:13:01
  you make those decisions, right? That's really that is, that is the hallmark of somebody who you
• 1:13:07
  want to take advice from when they don't just say yes to everything you ask them. You don't want to
• 1:13:11
  be a yes man. You speak a lot about the connection between oral health and just health in general.
• 1:13:18
  Yeah. I think I've never really had, and I've never had any dentist on this show before ever. So,
• 1:13:24
  what are some things that people should be aware of in terms of oral health, oral hygiene,
• 1:13:29
  taking care of your oral health, how that affects the rest of your body as well?
• 1:13:33
  So, great question. And it highlights the lack of, um, of widespread knowledge to the masses.
• 1:13:44
  And what a terrible job dentistry has done promoting this because the surgeon general came out,
• 1:13:49
  I think it was somewhere around like, uh, it was like in the early 2000s or maybe it was even the
• 1:13:54
  late 90s. Yeah, I'm drawn a blank here. But I mean, I think I was in dental school when this happened.
• 1:14:00
  And surgeon general at the time said the mouth is the gateway to the body. I mean,
• 1:14:05
  what you put in here is going to have an effect elsewhere. And this many years later, we now know
• 1:14:12
  that plaque and bacteria, you know, the crud that we scrape out of your mouth during the teeth cleaning,
• 1:14:18
  when this stuff has build up over time, it's linked to diabetes and cardiac issues and dementia,
• 1:14:30
  really? Yeah. How? Because the bacteria that's in your mouth can circulate through the blood stream
• 1:14:38
  and it can cross the blood brain barrier. So, we now know this to be the case. And it's not just
• 1:14:47
  dentistry. It's the whole medical community. And that's why there's been a massive push from the
• 1:14:53
  health and wellness community. Get your teeth cleaned. That's like the number one prevention.
• 1:14:59
  So if you think about this, like life gets in the way and it's a longer interval from getting a
• 1:15:04
  teeth cleaning, I'm even guilty of it. But if it's hammer and chisel for the dental hygienist to
• 1:15:09
  get that crud off your teeth, what does that tell you about the level of buildup that's in there? And
• 1:15:14
  yeah, whereas between your home care and getting periodic teeth cleanings in my practice,
• 1:15:23
  I try to get my patients to come every three months for cleaning, okay? Why is that?
• 1:15:28
  If you're coming in and your mouth is in a perpetual state of cleanliness,
• 1:15:34
  what do you think the chances of you having those types of problems are?
• 1:15:39
  It's full risk mitigation. Like you don't get fat from the one potato chip that you ate,
• 1:15:47
  right? And you don't get a big bicep from doing an arm curl one time, right? There's a
• 1:15:56
  consistency and discipline associated with your overall health and oral hygiene and oral
• 1:16:02
  health is related to your overall systemic health. Andrew Huberman has got a phenomenal podcast.
• 1:16:10
  They did an episode on oral health and I think it was like almost three hours long and I listened
• 1:16:15
  to it and he met with people way smarter than me, you know, people who have PhD and do research on
• 1:16:20
  this. And so if anyone is listening and wants to get like the real solid info and the deep dive
• 1:16:26
  on the science, listen to that. It was a phenomenal resource.
• 1:16:30
  You mentioned that people should be coming in once every three months. What does the average
• 1:16:34
  person do for their oral health? I don't think it's once every I don't think the dental community
• 1:16:40
  has really informed people of what you just told me. No, I've never heard that. That's what I'm
• 1:16:46
  saying is that is that our profession is done a lousy job, plain and simple. And you know,
• 1:16:50
  the most that the average person will hear is you should go twice a year. And look, if you can keep
• 1:16:57
  your mouth clean enough that when you go twice a year, there's minimal buildup, that's fantastic.
• 1:17:04
  It's just not most people. And Western diets are just horrific, you know, when it comes getting
• 1:17:11
  buildup on the teeth because of the of how carb-heavy everything is. You know, carbs stick to teeth,
• 1:17:19
  plain and simple. So if you had a lower carb diet, a paleo diet, a keto diet, a Mediterranean
• 1:17:28
  diet, whatever diet that is a little bit less carb-heavy, does that actually help your oral hygiene?
• 1:17:33
  Well, yeah, because you'd have less residue on your teeth. But the other facet of it too is,
• 1:17:39
  what are you doing to keep the surfaces clean? So if you're eating stuff that is less sticky gooey
• 1:17:45
  sticking on your teeth, that's going to help, right? And then there's the component of brushing
• 1:17:50
  and flossing it. I get asked this question all the time. People are like, well, what's the best way
• 1:17:54
  to keep your teeth clean? Like, look, this is not a sexy recipe. Yeah, you know, you got to clean
• 1:17:58
  your teeth. And you know, if if you're going to be lazy about it, at least be strategic about it.
• 1:18:05
  Because the best time to do it is at night time. Okay, well, why is that? Because you're done
• 1:18:11
  eating at that point. Get all the crap off of your teeth. So when you go to sleep and your mouth
• 1:18:16
  is the least active, you have the most amount of protection because the residue that's in your mouth.
• 1:18:22
  Like if you brush and floss in the morning, eat all day and go to bed at night, you got all this
• 1:18:26
  crud in your teeth. The bacteria are like, part A, you know, because they got a they have a food
• 1:18:31
  source now that they eat and they metabolize it and they secrete an acid and the acid causes
• 1:18:37
  disruption to the health of the gums and it also causes cavities. So because it's burning a
• 1:18:42
  hole in the animal and then the bacteria go in and colonize and starts rotting your, rotting your
• 1:18:46
  teeth. But if you don't have a food source for the bacteria to use to wreak havoc in your mouth,
• 1:18:53
  you're a step ahead of it. Okay, also your mouth is less active at night time. When the mouth is not
• 1:18:59
  moving, you're not generating as much saliva. Well, saliva has two functions. One, it's to coat your
• 1:19:05
  food so you can swallow it and you don't choke on it. And the second, it's to bathe the surface
• 1:19:12
  of your teeth and gums and it has protective enzymes in it that actually kill off the bacteria and
• 1:19:18
  help food from sticking on your teeth. But when your mouth is producing less saliva, you have less
• 1:19:24
  protection going on. So you want to have your mouth in a cleaner state at that point. What would be the
• 1:19:30
  what would be the best outside of brushing and flossing and brushing and flossing at night?
• 1:19:36
  What are some other things that people can do? Like think about mouthwash. Is that useful?
• 1:19:42
  How useful are electric toothbrushes versus regular? Do they make a huge difference?
• 1:19:48
  The different kinds of floss. You have like the regular floss and you have the floss on the
• 1:19:52
  little plastic thing. So I don't think many people really know what they're doing. They're just
• 1:19:57
  kind of trying to do it all and hopefully something works out. The different kinds of toothpaste
• 1:20:03
  or do any of them do anything differently, you know, paying more for toothpaste. So all these
• 1:20:09
  different things, can you let go through and tell people what's actually useful? Okay. I got to add
• 1:20:16
  one more thing first because you're talking about what the things that people can do to damage
• 1:20:20
  or mouth. People will walk around with a can, you know, like a like a little quail, you know,
• 1:20:25
  like these carbonated lemon waters, these are acidic. And I like that stuff. It tastes good.
• 1:20:30
  Yeah. But carbonated water has a lower pH. Therefore, it's acidic. And a lot of stuff that we eat
• 1:20:38
  that has sugars in it are acidic, lower pH. The lower the pH is in the mouth. Now what you're doing
• 1:20:45
  is you're you're having an acidic environment which can cause erosion of your tooth and animal.
• 1:20:51
  Plain and simple and make you prone for cavities. So that in itself, like people like, well,
• 1:20:58
  I have to drink water all day. Good, drink water. It's good. It hydrates your mouth. It's healthy
• 1:21:02
  for you. But, you know, dumping lemons in it is a really bad idea. Really, really bad idea.
• 1:21:09
  So hygiene maintenance, you know, what works? What does it? Okay, brushing and flossing we talked
• 1:21:14
  about that. I have always said sort of tongue and cheek, the best toothbrush and floss are the ones
• 1:21:19
  you actually use. I mean, that's that's kind of the crux of it. Technology has gotten so good with
• 1:21:25
  the sonic toothbrushes that if you spend, you know, 30 to 50 bucks, you'll get something that'll
• 1:21:32
  do way better than a manual toothbrush and you can spend as much as, you know, three, four hundred
• 1:21:36
  dollars on some of the fancy ones. Yeah. When I created my own toothbrush, I ran the other direction
• 1:21:45
  of not having all these buttons and lights and now they have an app and all this stuff. And
• 1:21:50
  I thought I thought it was a little overwhelming. And, you know, just using a toothbrush correctly
• 1:21:57
  and one that has a sonic motor to it, you know, the vibration of the bristles is what helps bust
• 1:22:03
  the plaque up off your teeth. So I do like the idea of having a sonic toothbrush over a manual one.
• 1:22:10
  Flossing. I'm, you know, I'm kind of, you know, non-preferential in that department because as long
• 1:22:18
  as you're using it effectively, a lot of people just go up and down real quick and they don't go
• 1:22:21
  up and around the gum line, you know, to get the stuff out. So, so manual dexterity actually
• 1:22:27
  plays a larger factor into the efficacy of flossing than the type of floss that you're using
• 1:22:33
  itself. Now, there's other aids that have been developed that can help it, you know, you've probably
• 1:22:38
  heard of like a water pick and so forth and you can hydrowash your tea. And, and they work if you
• 1:22:43
  use it and get it in a crevice, one of the complaints people have about water picks is it's just
• 1:22:47
  messy. It sprays everywhere. And now there's this other device that's called a pro claim where it's
• 1:22:53
  a custom fitted mouthpiece and you put it in your mouth and it, and there's a little hose that
• 1:22:56
  connects to a 22 ounce canister of water and solution. And your teeth have been digitally scanned
• 1:23:04
  by the dentist so the mouthpiece was custom fitted to you and all the water ports line up with
• 1:23:08
  your exact crevices. So in seven seconds, it blasts all the plaque off. And I've been using this,
• 1:23:14
  they actually sent me one to use. I was really cool and in full disclosure, I actually invested
• 1:23:18
  in the company. It was good. Yeah, I was like, this thing is awesome. So I said, another entrepreneurial
• 1:23:24
  hat that I'm wearing now too. But it's a sign of just like how technology is taking, you know,
• 1:23:32
  it's like really floss is the string is the best thing that we have. And so I don't think pro
• 1:23:39
  claim replaces floss because if you got something wedged in there, you have to mechanically and manually
• 1:23:44
  get it out. But the residues that can get up around the gum line and under the gum line that people
• 1:23:50
  struggle with getting out with dental floss, you know, things like pro claim do a fantastic job
• 1:23:56
  helping solve for that. What about different kinds of toothpaste because there's toothpaste. Yeah,
• 1:24:01
  there's there's there's charcoal charcoal. But then the regular like levels of toothpaste. And
• 1:24:08
  then I've seen toothpaste that claim to remove plaque. I don't know if that's a real thing or
• 1:24:14
  there's toothpaste that claim to fix cavities. Yeah. What do you think? Question about toothpaste is
• 1:24:21
  this. So I generally tell people I'm I'm on team fluoride and there's there's debate in
• 1:24:31
  there's debate on the internet and less than the scientific community about the efficacy of fluoride
• 1:24:37
  and if it's toxic and look, you can go down the rabbit hole on that on that conversation. But what
• 1:24:42
  I'll tell you is this is I have patients in my practice. People who are in their 80s and 90s
• 1:24:48
  who've been using fluoride their whole life. Drank fluoridated water have zero health issues.
• 1:24:54
  You know, they didn't become mentally impaired. They didn't get cancer. Like so I look at things
• 1:25:01
  empirically, you know, like or pragmatically. You know, I see people who are healthy that have
• 1:25:07
  used this stuff for decades. It does not concern me. I think the benefits of remineralizing your
• 1:25:14
  teeth because that's what fluoride does, especially on a Western diet that has it's highly acidic
• 1:25:21
  and lots of carbs. There's a lot of benefits for that. So I do like a fluoride toothpaste.
• 1:25:26
  Activated charcoal does a fantastic job dealing with surface stains on your teeth. So we're talking
• 1:25:32
  about like coffee, tea, red wine, you know, cigarettes, stuff like that. Those are external stains
• 1:25:38
  and it does a good job binding to the plaque and taking it off. My favorite one, I'll give a shout
• 1:25:45
  out. I have no financial interest in the company. It's company called Hello. Like hi, hello,
• 1:25:50
  how I love their toothpaste. I think they make a really good product because it's not
• 1:25:54
  chock full of preservatives. So I try to tell people to steer away from that.
• 1:26:00
  And you know, the ones that claim to remove plaque and so forth, you know, there's ingredients
• 1:26:07
  in it that have a higher probability of binding to the sticky stuff on the surface,
• 1:26:13
  but it doesn't do its job unless the mechanical action of brushing helps bust up the surface layer.
• 1:26:21
  So it's kind of a one to punch. You know, you want to have the toothpaste and the toothbrush
• 1:26:26
  and the correct mechanical action to do the most effective job. Do you think that people are taking
• 1:26:31
  their oral health seriously when they come into your office for the first time or do you think
• 1:26:35
  that people are more concerned like is it a priority? Is it still a priority or are people more
• 1:26:40
  prioritized with because you mentioned something interesting about brain dementia, cardiovascular
• 1:26:47
  health. I don't think that people correlate the two. So I'm curious if you're noticing like a younger
• 1:26:55
  generation is taking their oral health as seriously as definitely I was told when I was growing up
• 1:27:01
  went to the dentist all the time. We were told just because of cavities. That's exactly. Yeah, but
• 1:27:06
  there's, you know, I still agree with your earlier comment that it is not widespread enough,
• 1:27:13
  but the, you know, where I practice in Los Angeles, I think there's, you know, there's,
• 1:27:18
  there's a heavy emphasis in Los Angeles about health and wellness in general. So, you know,
• 1:27:22
  this is part of it. So, you know, the folks that are coming in to see me, I think are more
• 1:27:28
  versed in this and they do take it more seriously and, and we give recommendations and we do our
• 1:27:35
  best to try to educate people so they do have the knowledge and then it's their choice, you know,
• 1:27:40
  how they want to manage it at that point. A big thank you to indeed for supporting success story
• 1:27:44
  because hiring people is one of the hardest things you're ever going to have to do as an entrepreneur
• 1:27:48
  as a founder as somebody who's trying to build a business. It's important to hire well and find
• 1:27:52
  the right person, but it takes so much time and it's so labor intensive because like most entrepreneurs,
• 1:27:58
  you have a thousand things going on and there's a good chance that you just realized your business
• 1:28:02
  needed to hire somebody yesterday. So, how can you find that great, amazing, right fit candidate fast?
• 1:28:08
  It's easy. Just use indeed because you don't have to waste time struggling to get your job post
• 1:28:12
  scene on all these other job sites. If you're using indeed, you can just use their sponsored jobs
• 1:28:17
  to help you stand out and hire fast. Your post jumps right to the top of the page for relevant
• 1:28:21
  candidates so you can reach out to exactly who you're looking for faster and the results really
• 1:28:26
  speak for themselves. According to indeed data, sponsored jobs posted directly on indeed have 45%
• 1:28:31
  more applications than non-sponsored jobs. And you know what I love most about indeed? It really
• 1:28:35
  just makes hiring so fast because everything is streamlined in one place. No more juggling multiple
• 1:28:41
  platforms or waiting weeks for the right candidate and how fast is indeed in the minute I've been talking
• 1:28:46
  to you 23 hires were made on indeed according to indeed data worldwide. There's no need to wait
• 1:28:52
  any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with indeed and listeners of success story will get a 75
• 1:28:57
  dollar sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at indeed dot com slash clary terms
• 1:29:03
  that it should do apply. Just go to indeed dot com slash clary. A huge thank you to next week
• 1:29:09
  for supporting today's episode now. What does the future hold for business? If you ask nine experts,
• 1:29:14
  you're going to get 10 answers bull market bear market inflation up inflation down honestly at
• 1:29:19
  this point you just need a crystal ball. But until we get one over 41,000 businesses have found
• 1:29:25
  the next best thing. They future proof their businesses their operations with net suite by Oracle
• 1:29:31
  which is the number one cloud ERP. Imagine having your accounting your financial management your
• 1:29:36
  inventory your HR all flowing together in one fluid platform. And here's what makes net suite
• 1:29:42
  different it gives you one source of truth for your business you get the visibility and control to
• 1:29:46
  make quick confident decisions while others are guessing you're working with real time data insights
• 1:29:52
  forecasting you're basically looking in the future of your business with actionable data whether
• 1:29:56
  your company earns a couple million or even hundreds of millions net suite helps you respond to
• 1:30:02
  immediate challenges and helps you grab your biggest opportunities and speaking of opportunities
• 1:30:06
  they put together the CFO's guide to AI and machine learning and net suite dot com slash Scott
• 1:30:12
  clary. This is the playbook for understanding how to use AI for your business. The guide is free
• 1:30:16
  that is net suite dot com slash Scott clary. I just want to take a quick second to thank
• 1:30:21
  Habspot for supporting today's episode now. Success story is one of the many podcasts in the
• 1:30:26
  Habspot podcast network which is the audio destination for business professionals. If you like success
• 1:30:32
  story you're also going to like billion dollar moves another incredible podcast hosted by Sarah
• 1:30:36
  Chen spelling. Sarah is an incredible interviewer she asks the hard questions on her show you're going
• 1:30:42
  to learn about the triumphs failures of all her guests the hard lessons of the best and brightest
• 1:30:47
  in business so that you two can make billion dollar moves in venture and investing in business
• 1:30:53
  and in life. I want you to go listen to billion dollar moves wherever you get your podcasts it is
• 1:30:57
  one of my favorites Sarah is one of my favorite hosts if you like success story you're going to
• 1:31:01
  love this show and a quick pause if you haven't had a chance yet I'd love your input on our listener
• 1:31:06
  survey at Scott the clary dot com slash survey it takes just a few minutes and one lucky respondent
• 1:31:13
  when a gift card once we hit 100 responses your feedback directly impacts what we cover on the show
• 1:31:19
  I really appreciate it is there anything that as you age and and get older there's other things you
• 1:31:24
  should start to consider for your oral hygiene absolutely because as you get older okay
• 1:31:35
  here's what we see so for people who are not healthy as they get older often times they're on
• 1:31:43
  medications and and a lot of the medications that people take as they get older have the potential
• 1:31:51
  to have side effects to it and one of the common side effects and a lot of medications is reduced
• 1:31:58
  saliva production in that causes the condition called dry mouth so now you take away your number one
• 1:32:04
  defense system in the mouth you don't end up with one cavity and up with a mouthful of cavities
• 1:32:10
  so the benefits of being healthy and not being on medications is not just for your overall health
• 1:32:18
  but your oral health too no question about that and when you look at somebody's uh when you look
• 1:32:23
  in somebody's mouth um can you tell if they have other serious health conditions like between the
• 1:32:30
  teeth and the tongue like have you ever caught something or made somebody's you know aware or
• 1:32:36
  something that maybe they haven't been to the doctor in a couple years and they should go
• 1:32:40
  yeah you fortunately in my practice I don't see that often and I think that's just a facet of
• 1:32:46
  the socioeconomic group that I'm taking care of but you do see stuff the scariest one to see
• 1:32:53
  is oral cancer because oral cancer doesn't care if you're rich or poor and unless you've seen it
• 1:33:03
  and you know how to recognize it and sometimes like I've seen some oral cancer that have come
• 1:33:08
  in where it's just like like you would have reck you would have saw and said hey that doesn't look
• 1:33:12
  right yeah yeah but sometimes it's literally like a dot and there could be saliva over it hiding it
• 1:33:20
  so you have to look really careful you know or you'll see like a uh a papaloma it's kind of like
• 1:33:28
  a papaloma is almost like a like a blister or a wart type of appearance and it's way back in the
• 1:33:35
  palate you know or in the throat and that can be a precursor for a cancer so you have to you
• 1:33:43
  you got you it's like when you're looking you're looking with intention like I know it's there
• 1:33:47
  somewhere yeah you know the certain laundry list of things um because it's about early detection
• 1:33:54
  for treating it and I'm not an oral medicine specialist but if I see something that looks suspicious
• 1:34:01
  always referred out to the appropriate specialist to get a second opinion and this is why that
• 1:34:05
  three month that three month window is so important because you're not going to go see your doctor
• 1:34:11
  every every three months you're not going to go see your GP every three months unless you have a
• 1:34:15
  condition but if you have somebody who's educated enough to at least sort of raise a flag
• 1:34:21
  I mean that can save lives totally that can save lives when should people say somebody is not going
• 1:34:26
  to the dentist right now because in their mind they're thinking well my teeth don't hurt
• 1:34:31
  so you know I'm fine what is the thing that they should be concerned about when they look at their
• 1:34:36
  smile so you know if you're talking about um the aesthetic component of it because it's visual
• 1:34:43
  looking at your smile you know if your teeth are not straight if they're not as white as they used
• 1:34:50
  to be if you're seeing signs of damage on the edges you know like busted up edges which could have
• 1:34:55
  come from like teeth grinding or teeth clenching things like that you know these are the early warning
• 1:35:00
  signs like hey you know you might want to have some something you know uh some interception on this
• 1:35:07
  to keep it from running down the wrong direction yeah okay and that's when you start to say hey
• 1:35:14
  I should go to a dentist yeah I should go yeah and you know if you see something if you notice
• 1:35:20
  something different it's only gonna get worse exact behaviors when it hurts it's already too late
• 1:35:25
  and you know I tell people I said look my job is to never be known as doctor I told you so
• 1:35:32
  yeah I'm trying to you know if if here is everything looks good and here's oh shoot what are we
• 1:35:40
  gonna do now I said you know what I'm gonna do everything to keep you over here no matter how much
• 1:35:46
  kicking and screaming you're gonna do you'll thank me that you didn't end up over in this this side
• 1:35:51
  I love it um okay I want to go back to sort of where you're at now in your life and sort of what's
• 1:35:56
  the future for you and I think that one thing that I I'm just curious about because now I know that
• 1:36:01
  you're investing in a new company so you're always you're always trying to become uh you're
• 1:36:07
  always trying to get back into entrepreneurship how do you manage uh pressure and stress of building
• 1:36:13
  companies while still maintaining the practice obviously you have you have it down to a science to
• 1:36:18
  a degree um why do you keep doing this to yourself when you don't have to but also how do you do it
• 1:36:24
  so the how part is you know it's it's 25 years of experience of doing it wrong and figuring out what
• 1:36:32
  works but the shortcut to the front of the line that I would tell someone is the power of the word no
• 1:36:40
  in order to do certain things exceptionally well you have to be willing to say no to a whole lot of
• 1:36:48
  other things so you can put your time and energy only on the things that matter I wish I had been
• 1:36:55
  better at that earlier in my career you know I probably wouldn't have had as much stress or you
• 1:37:02
  know burn out or challenges along the way but now with the gray hair and the maturity and the
• 1:37:08
  experience comes the ability to prioritize things in my life and not feel bad about being able to
• 1:37:16
  say no or choosing to say no rather to the majority of things that come along so I can focus on
• 1:37:22
  the things that matter there's an art and a skill and a discipline to say no outside of saying no
• 1:37:30
  more on a day-to-day level everyone sort of has their own practices or routines that sort of set
• 1:37:35
  them up for success so again when you you do say no to a large amount of things that don't serve you
• 1:37:41
  but you still say yes to some very cognitively draining and and and just time consuming things that
• 1:37:49
  you have to manage throughout your day your your dental practice your ventures your businesses
• 1:37:53
  and now some investments with the the billion dollar exit you have a whole portfolio I'm sure
• 1:37:57
  of things you take care of what are some sort of daily practices and rituals that have served you
• 1:38:02
  really well well I'd put that in two buckets right because just to even have the stamina to do
• 1:38:12
  these things and the physicality and then there's a mindset that's associated with it as well
• 1:38:20
  you know to have a 1% life it requires 1% behaviors and I have prioritized in my life
• 1:38:29
  diet sleep exercise and my mind as well so you know I sleep track at night to make sure that I get my
• 1:38:40
  minimum seven and a half hours and with the exception of flying out to Miami that had to get
• 1:38:45
  about four o'clock yesterday to catch that flight and do that that thing last night but generally
• 1:38:50
  speaking you know I'm very disciplined with making sure I get that sleep and you know we now know
• 1:38:58
  I used to be as I'll sleep when I'll die you know when I die kind of guy it squeeze out more
• 1:39:03
  work during the day but we now know it's like it's like after hour six and seven where the body gets
• 1:39:10
  the benefits of the deep sleep in the REM to do all the repair to your body to and then the detox
• 1:39:17
  to keep it healthy and my diet you know I'm two and a half years in now of I've always had basically
• 1:39:24
  a clean diet but but I do intermittent fasting now and you know I eat between 11 a.m. and 7 p.m.
• 1:39:31
  that's my window and you know the 16 hours that I'm not eating you know it's that chance for the
• 1:39:39
  body to become more efficient in metabolizing fat instead of muscle and all the other good stuff
• 1:39:46
  that comes with it and exercise you know it's like you got to keep moving and being active and
• 1:39:51
  I've had the same trainer for 19 years wow I work out with them twice a week and I still ride my
• 1:39:58
  skateboard and so you know finding time for me to do things that make me happy but also keep my
• 1:40:03
  body moving is really important and getting my mind right is a real big deal for me and you know
• 1:40:09
  I have a therapist that I go and see and a lot of people you know there's always there's been a
• 1:40:14
  stigma in the past about having a therapist but folks I'm the first one to say I got the same
• 1:40:20
  damn problems as everybody else you know this is life and you know relationships are challenging
• 1:40:25
  enough and work and business and how we feel about ourselves and to be able to work with someone
• 1:40:32
  just to help you process and get through and get the and get the unnecessary stories that you have
• 1:40:41
  and the clutter out has been a life changing thing for me and I have so much gratitude around that
• 1:40:47
  and so you know you combine it you know sleep diet exercise getting your mind right
• 1:40:54
  this puts you in a position where you live better you feel better you are smarter you make
• 1:41:03
  better decisions because you're not burned out you know I showed at the conference I was speaking
• 1:41:10
  out last night I have a slide in it and it shows a picture of me at age 23 and a picture of me
• 1:41:18
  now and at age 23 when I walked in the door at dental school I had kind of like straggly hair
• 1:41:24
  and I had braces and glasses and I smiling really big and it's it's the most unflattering photo
• 1:41:31
  that you'll ever see of anyone and I put that up on there and I said you would you have bet on
• 1:41:37
  this guy right here because it's really it's this that bad and and everyone's laughing at it
• 1:41:43
  and it's it's such a horrible photo I said but the guy on the the other side you know this is John
• 1:41:48
  now I said he didn't go from here to here it wasn't accidental it wasn't my birthright either
• 1:41:58
  it was built by design it was very intentional along the way and it kind of goes into another thing
• 1:42:05
  because along the way in my business travels I cannot underscore the importance of having
• 1:42:12
  coaches and mentors you know the mentors things I've had fantastic mentors you know as dentist
• 1:42:18
  but I've also sought out the knowledge in the business world I I got a communications coach
• 1:42:22
  so I could learn how to talk more effectively with my patients and I've also have a business coach
• 1:42:29
  to this day that helps me look at the numbers in my practice most dentists just look at you know
• 1:42:35
  top-line profits and overhead and and maybe new patient flow and that's about it and you know I
• 1:42:41
  understand how to read a profit and loss and a statement of cash flow and a balance sheet
• 1:42:47
  and you know all my accounting is done in a curl not in cash and I understand what deferred revenue is
• 1:42:52
  and and I could look at someone else's business and tell you if I would invest in it you know because
• 1:42:57
  I understand how to read a scorecard but these are I don't know shit about any of these things
• 1:43:02
  but I went out and I had to learn more in order to become the person that I wanted to be so you
• 1:43:09
  know when I talk to groups now I talk about you know kind of like my three takeaways I said look
• 1:43:13
  know your outcome and you're allowed to change your mind but start moving towards something
• 1:43:18
  immersion learning through having coaches and mentors is the fastest way to get cuts to the front of
• 1:43:22
  the line and number three and it's not sexy is discipline inconsistency you know if you live
• 1:43:32
  your life with those three principles it's a guarantee that good things are going to happen I agree
• 1:43:38
  that's so smart very very wise I think that again now I see how you've applied those principles to
• 1:43:45
  your own life and in your own stories like this is the I love that that built by design right nothing
• 1:43:51
  is just up to chance it's all built by design and if you maintain those three principles for a long
• 1:43:56
  enough period of time and you'll get to where you want to go yeah you really will get to where you
• 1:44:01
  want to go for you if you look at all the lessons that you've learned the growth lessons the we were
• 1:44:09
  joking about how um sort of at this stage in your career even might even sort of this podcast is
• 1:44:14
  to help people navigate some of the stressful moments in their life so that maybe they have a
• 1:44:19
  little bit of wisdom that helps them navigate them a little bit more effectively if you think about
• 1:44:24
  one lesson that stands out there was particularly difficult for you to learn from what was that
• 1:44:30
  lesson and why oh I tell you that one for sure uh January 7th 2025 this year this year
• 1:44:39
  yeah life will throw you curveballs I lived uh past tense now in Pacific Palisades
• 1:44:46
  California a house burned down yeah I lost everything life will throw you curveballs
• 1:44:55
  and what I've learned from this is that no matter how successful you are
• 1:45:03
  the only guarantee in life is that whatever hasn't happened before is probably going to happen
• 1:45:09
  and how you respond to it is a culmination of everything you've done up to that moment
• 1:45:16
  and are you in position or are you out of position um I mean I didn't walk out of my house that
• 1:45:24
  morning thinking like all right well it's nice seeing all this stuff and you know that's not how I
• 1:45:30
  thought my day was going to start and but how my day ended um I was like oh my god like it wasn't
• 1:45:40
  just my house this whole community wide doubt you know that's actually the hardest part of this whole
• 1:45:44
  thing is that your friends and your neighbors and your community is gone I mean it's just it's not
• 1:45:52
  like I haven't seen a house burned down before but multiple square miles like they said surface
• 1:45:58
  area wise double the size Manhattan burned down and so you look around and you just see see nothing um
• 1:46:07
  there was a fire that had happened five years prior in Malibu and most of the community
• 1:46:13
  had to evacuate and there were people that didn't have anywhere to go and the day of the fire
• 1:46:20
  I realized I'm homeless and if I don't do something right now I'm going to be homeless um so by
• 1:46:30
  eight thirty the next morning I signed a lease on an apartment that was furnished in pet friendly
• 1:46:38
  because I knew with thirty thousand people being displaced there were not enough rentals between
• 1:46:44
  homes apartments condos that could could support what the demand was going to be yeah and so I
• 1:46:51
  immediately you know I went from you know starting my day top like okay I'm on top of the world to
• 1:46:57
  like okay I am not on top of the world right now and and this wasn't a problem that money
• 1:47:03
  can solve you know and something like this but being being proactive instead of reactive
• 1:47:10
  is what allowed me to reorganize lightning fast and create safety for my family you know because
• 1:47:19
  I have I have a wife and two little girls and um you know the first couple of weeks was pretty
• 1:47:26
  rough it was rough on on every level because you know you've lost your community you've lost area
• 1:47:32
  I mean like when I left work that day I'll have to close on my back that's it literally so
• 1:47:38
  I stayed at a friend's house in Beverly Hills that night and on the way or in like holy crap I
• 1:47:41
  got to stop at the mall and go buy some socks and underwear so something I haven't done a while um
• 1:47:49
  and I made a decision very early in this that I needed to live not just exist
• 1:47:58
  and what I mean by that is I have watched my whole community devastated and watch friends of mine
• 1:48:08
  lose everything and people from all different walks of life people you know who are better off
• 1:48:14
  than me and and people not as fortunate at me and it affects everyone differently yeah and what I
• 1:48:20
  saw was some folks who you know have it pretty good and it rocked them to the core and understandably
• 1:48:27
  so but I was like oh my god I don't want to to feel that way I don't want to I can't let this run my
• 1:48:34
  life because you know you can't change what happened but what you can control is how you think about
• 1:48:41
  it and so it was a very conscious decision for myself and for my family like the show must go on
• 1:48:48
  and so you know the first few weeks it was just kind of getting our footing again and just
• 1:48:53
  buying basic provisions and things like that and and keeping my business going and fortunately you
• 1:48:59
  know like my business was the next town over we thought it was going to burn down for a minute but it
• 1:49:05
  didn't I'm very very grateful um and uh you know so you kind of go from you know from survival mode
• 1:49:13
  to like okay you know what I just have a new set of problems that I got to deal with that's it
• 1:49:18
  you know this year business wise had certain things that I wanted to do and now I have to say no
• 1:49:24
  to them because I have to allocate time and resources because I'm building a house that I wasn't
• 1:49:30
  planning on building now and so things like that and so you know life is throwing a curve
• 1:49:34
  while my way but like I got two choices I could be like oh whoa to me and fuck and and all this
• 1:49:41
  stuff yeah and justified and I could let it rock me to the core and eat it me or I could say okay
• 1:49:51
  this is the hand that was dealt now let's let's figure this out and move on and I'm very thankful that
• 1:50:00
  you know I have I have the resources to whether the storm but the thing that really matters
• 1:50:08
  you know in addition to that I would say is is the mental attitude and you know my my my
• 1:50:15
  mental attitude is I think is predicated it's like mental toughness but it's predicated on
• 1:50:23
  these 1% behaviors and the discipline that I've had in my life and allows you to approach
• 1:50:29
  something this horrific with that same mental toughness you have to it'll it'll destroy you
• 1:50:36
  otherwise and you know fortunately most of the folks that I know they want to rebuild they want
• 1:50:42
  to come back to Pacific palisades they want to see this community flourish again I'm not leaving
• 1:50:46
  Pacific palisades it's my home and it's going to be like 10 years I don't think it'll be 10 years
• 1:50:52
  you know like the government which I'll give it some credit where it's doing this my lots already
• 1:51:00
  they already did the EPA testing and that was phase one and phase two Army Corps of Engineers
• 1:51:06
  has already cleared out my lot so all I need is a stamp set of plans and my contractor can
• 1:51:11
  start building is it okay health wise to to be the ground is not yeah so they just soil samples the
• 1:51:19
  waters already been tested and actually you know that so this DWP you know they've been flushing
• 1:51:26
  the lines for two months and they came out and said the waters fine but but I had it tested
• 1:51:30
  privately yeah you know and I found this company that does like the highest trace level testing
• 1:51:36
  clear okay yeah okay I mean that's not an easy thing to go through it isn't man it really is it
• 1:51:45
  I can't even imagine like we always talk about like you know like stressful things that happen in
• 1:51:50
  business it's nothing it's nothing because your home is your home home is memories your home is
• 1:51:55
  there is emotion if you have a bad day in business it's not like so worse like in business you know
• 1:52:01
  the worst thing that can happen is is you go out of business or you die but you can always start
• 1:52:07
  again right well if you don't die yeah if you don't die you can start again there's unlimited
• 1:52:12
  opportunity yeah but it's it's hard to overcome the emotional connection that you have built
• 1:52:17
  with your house and your things and your memories it's not it's not business it's not cold it's
• 1:52:23
  like it's something that it's part of you that you can never get back yeah but I guess if you have
• 1:52:29
  the right and if you have the right reason in your family and you understand that you can build
• 1:52:34
  new memories and you can build a new home and and you have that mental toughness to get through
• 1:52:38
  so it doesn't break you things will be better on the other side but that's not easy it's not easy
• 1:52:44
  but it's a choice you know it's it's it's it's a choice that I've made yeah to adopt this attitude
• 1:52:52
  and like even being here was a is a choice right like I like I could have canceled this and said
• 1:53:01
  hey man just you know my life's been turned upside down and you would have like holy crap I'm
• 1:53:05
  really sorry that happened but for my own mental well-being it's really important for me to be here
• 1:53:11
  because it's part of what I would have been doing anyway and by me doing the things that I would
• 1:53:16
  normally do makes me feel like my life is normal not disrupted I think that's I think that's super
• 1:53:25
  powerful because the bad event happens to people bad events happen all the time but you can't let
• 1:53:32
  the rest of your life's story be rewritten by that one bad event it's going to it's going to be
• 1:53:38
  difficult but life does go on and the sooner I think this is very very powerful the sooner you can
• 1:53:44
  get back to where you're happy you're normal you're doing the things you want to do the suit that
• 1:53:49
  I think that's like part of the healing process absolutely I it has to be because if not that that
• 1:53:56
  trauma and there's going to be there there is like a level of trauma whenever stuff like this happens
• 1:54:01
  and that's probably where the therapy comes in and yeah thank goodness but I think that trauma
• 1:54:08
  can last forever if you're not careful totally I mean all it takes is one life changing event that
• 1:54:14
  can ruin someone yeah you know the the difference is it's just you know how do you process and how
• 1:54:19
  do you move on from it yeah um one thing I would say about you know mass um you know catastrophic
• 1:54:28
  events like this it has shown the true colors of the residents of Los Angeles in the most
• 1:54:36
  unexpected and beautiful way because I had folks reaching out to me from you know friends neighbors
• 1:54:46
  people who are even affected just saying are you okay yeah is there anything we can do and you know
• 1:54:51
  the truth of the matter is like I didn't need anybody to do anything for me you know like I still
• 1:54:58
  have the ability to provide food for my family and I got a roof over our head that was basically
• 1:55:04
  all that needed to be done at that moment but it didn't stop people from reaching out repetitively
• 1:55:10
  and what I found is just the outpouring of love and support from the community that you're receiving
• 1:55:18
  made you feel like hey I'm not alone in this there's other people going through this too
• 1:55:23
  and I feel supported and I'm going to make it through this is a huge part of it I know that your
• 1:55:29
  whole life and businesses in um is in LA but what makes you want to go back to that particular area
• 1:55:36
  that obviously has been a stressful area for fires again and again and again yeah so Pacific
• 1:55:43
  palisades in my opinion was the last of the leave it to beaver communities it's very small
• 1:55:52
  and it's very family driven and you can walk everywhere in it you know and it's a very you
• 1:55:59
  know beautiful upscale area like it's sort of like the Hamptons of the West Coast and you know
• 1:56:07
  I've lived there for 15 years and when I walk out my door there you know I run into my friends
• 1:56:15
  and my neighbors and my patients and so the community feel that you get from the people who are
• 1:56:23
  around you and just it's scenic like you wouldn't believe because it's a coastal community you know
• 1:56:28
  and and it's right next to the ocean it's 10 minutes from my office I mean just you know
• 1:56:35
  most people think in LA you know you got to drive one to two hours everywhere in the trick to
• 1:56:39
  living anywhere it's just having your life in a small small radius so I've been very blessed that
• 1:56:45
  home and work are so close to one another and like I said the people that are closest to me in my
• 1:56:50
  life you know are my patients and friends and we all live in the same area and the disruption now
• 1:56:57
  is that we're all spread out like buckshot of course you know so you know people have moved to
• 1:57:02
  you know Santa Monica Brentwood Beverly Hills you know the South Bay people have gone up to
• 1:57:06
  Santa Barbara and just you know we're all spread out and because we don't intersect in that close
• 1:57:12
  proximity you feel a hole in your heart as a result of it you know that like where are my people
• 1:57:17
  and we all want to get back and that's that gives me hope it gives me something to look forward to
• 1:57:24
  you know last night my wife and I were talking and she goes you know can I build my closet bigger
• 1:57:31
  this time and you know and it was so funny hearing that because it was kind of like throwing a
• 1:57:38
  middle finger up to the tragedy yeah and that's how I saw it I was just like hey you know what like
• 1:57:43
  if that's not making lemonade out of your lemons like I don't know what else is have any
• 1:57:50
  priorities in your life shifted since the fire totally yeah um you you know life throws you
• 1:57:59
  curve balls along the way and this is like the biggest curve ball that I've ever received where
• 1:58:05
  because things like this like like like what happened to us here is like when when you guys
• 1:58:11
  here in Florida get rocked by these hurricanes well the the other side you know the Sarasota
• 1:58:17
  and basically the golf side of Florida has been demolished at two or three times yeah and it's like
• 1:58:24
  year after year and you see these homes submerged and everything but when you live on the other
• 1:58:29
  side of the country and you're just watching it on TV it's um like you feel horrible about it but
• 1:58:37
  it's not as tangible because because you don't live there right and then it happens to you and
• 1:58:42
  you're just like oh my god and you you feel the um the fragility of of things that you can't
• 1:58:49
  control in your life right like how things can change like that so you know what's changed for
• 1:58:55
  me as twofold as one is that my priorities in 2025 have shifted because like I said there's
• 1:59:00
  there's things that I wanted to do business-wise and work-wise that I have to press pause because I
• 1:59:06
  got some some family and and life rebuilding to do and that's okay um and then the other thing
• 1:59:13
  I started thinking about for the first time too is you know like even after selling by you know
• 1:59:21
  I've been like working hard and killing myself and grinding and everything like that and I told
• 1:59:24
  you earlier I said I never see myself not working but I started thinking about like well how many
• 1:59:30
  hours do I really want to work and should I be spending more time doing things that I enjoy
• 1:59:37
  then I currently do and you know just so and that's it for me that's a really tough conversation
• 1:59:45
  because I love working and then I started thinking about like you know maybe I maybe I do work too
• 1:59:52
  much you know maybe you think you work too much I don't know you know they say it's not work
• 1:59:57
  if you if you enjoy doing it and and I smile when I talk about it you know that's how much I
• 2:00:02
  enjoy doing it but um you know so so you know what I would say is I'm having conversations with myself
• 2:00:11
  that I haven't had before and and the main reason before is because I was just too immersed in what
• 2:00:17
  I was doing and maybe even when I was younger I was too afraid to have conversations because you're
• 2:00:23
  you're sort of in the building and and acquiring stage of your life and you know like when you lose
• 2:00:31
  your house and everything you own and I've been very blessed because you know like I have a nice
• 2:00:37
  things or had in the past tense and you know now all my worldly belongings fit in a duffle bag
• 2:00:44
  yeah and you realize very quickly like you know I really don't need that much to live it's nice
• 2:00:52
  having all the other stuff and and even my wife and I were kind of joking like because I like
• 2:00:57
  clothes and fashion I had a lot unlike you know I'll probably buy less clothes this next go around
• 2:01:03
  and you know maybe the trade-off will be just buying like nicer clothes that better quality that
• 2:01:09
  lasts longer and so forth but you know do I really need 12 pairs of jeans you know
• 2:01:14
  yeah this part so so you know you start thinking about consumption and how much you need and
• 2:01:20
  there's a trickle effect to that too because it ties into well how big of a house do I want this
• 2:01:25
  time and how many cars do you really need and and maybe I want to have more time for traveling and
• 2:01:30
  and so I'm examining these now because of this traumatic episode that's happened and I don't
• 2:01:36
  have answers for it yet it's probably going to be work in progress but it's the first time
• 2:01:42
  that I'm having these conversations and I'm like hey you know what these might be some cool
• 2:01:46
  things to explore I think that a lot of people if they don't have this major life event
• 2:01:52
  they'll make money they'll be lifestyle creep and they won't even they won't even think about
• 2:01:56
  what they're spending money on and if they actually why they're making those purchases right yeah
• 2:02:01
  I think that happens to everybody lifestyle creep is dangerous it doesn't matter how much money you
• 2:02:06
  have because the tendency is to is to always sort of you know get to that next thing whatever that
• 2:02:13
  yeah and it's very easy to spend more money it's very it's all very easy to spend more money
• 2:02:18
  but it makes you reevaluate like maybe you don't need all the stuff and maybe it does make sense to
• 2:02:22
  travel more and enjoy more experiences and maybe instead of working 80 hours a week even if you
• 2:02:28
  love it maybe you know maybe the family is like I wouldn't mind if he spent another 10 hours you
• 2:02:36
  know with us yeah the week to do stuff yeah just be present be around be around yeah I hope
• 2:02:44
  that I hope that people ask themselves these questions without having to go through what you
• 2:02:48
  went through oh well there's an easier way to get to that answer those questions rather yeah don't
• 2:02:54
  have to mine's everything to do it yeah exactly do it more strategically how is your I like to
• 2:03:02
  understand you know you've gone through over your life a huge identity evolution you have
• 2:03:08
  evolved since that kid embraces to to where you're at now how is your definition of success changed
• 2:03:15
  over your life massively when I was younger you know as a as a kid you know it's funny like one
• 2:03:27
  of the motivators for me when I worked at the grocery store in high school I was I was a bag boy
• 2:03:31
  at the grocery store and and the summers I'd worked there 48 hours a week and you know help people
• 2:03:38
  take their groceries out to their car and I would you know put the groceries in people had like
• 2:03:44
  really nice cars we didn't have one I always like cars as and so for me it was kind of this
• 2:03:49
  motivator like one day I'm gonna have a really nice car and so you know there it was a motivator
• 2:03:56
  and there was there was an element of the pursuit of success and things right and
• 2:04:05
  and you know I realized if I work hard I could have things and I could be successful professionally
• 2:04:13
  and then as I said earlier things lead to things right because I didn't think that by
• 2:04:20
  you know by being a dentist and having a certain level of income you know that would
• 2:04:24
  allow you to have certain things but you know I ended up taking it to a totally different level
• 2:04:29
  and it actually more important than the things were the experiences and the people that I got
• 2:04:34
  to meet and the relationships that I got to have well the evolution of it came from my friend Jeff
• 2:04:41
  Sebel that's my banker friend that I told you and he was the guy who said to me success is not
• 2:04:46
  about having the most amount of money it's about doing what you want when you want with whom you want
• 2:04:53
  it and that's what I think about more now than any then I ever have in my life especially with
• 2:05:01
  what's transpired with the fires where I'm just re-looking at everything and saying you know
• 2:05:09
  just because that's how I was doing it up until this date doesn't mean I always have to
• 2:05:16
  continue to do it a certain way you know like that's the power of choice right and um
• 2:05:23
  you know the reality is that I paid my dues you know I'm very aware of that like I paid my
• 2:05:29
  dues I did the grind and I wouldn't have changed it for anything like if I if you said I had to
• 2:05:36
  go back and redo maybe maybe there's some things and mistakes that I made that I could have avoided
• 2:05:42
  and done more efficiently but the effort that I put into it and the intensity I would not have
• 2:05:48
  traded that I wouldn't trade in the sacrifices and and all of that I think it was worth it but
• 2:05:56
  but there there's probably a certain point where you know where I would say look no matter how much
• 2:06:03
  more hustle that I do I won't eat in a better restaurant yeah there won't be a nicer vacation
• 2:06:10
  that I can take um there won't be a nicer shirt that I can wear so you start thinking along those
• 2:06:17
  lines and then you start thinking about your time and how you're spending it and so forth and
• 2:06:23
  and it just raises interesting questions and philosophical things to think about like hey you know
• 2:06:28
  I actually I am in a position where I can have my cake and eat it too because of the hard work
• 2:06:34
  that I've done over the years what do you think was the the most significant um personal price
• 2:06:40
  that you've paid for something oh boy um you know what it is it's um it was family relationships
• 2:06:50
  yeah as far as I say I just felt like all my energy just leave me you know when I was um
• 2:06:57
  building my practice and writing Marashi oral health and involved with bite
• 2:07:05
  I didn't have a lot of free time you know I was getting up early in the morning I mean I was
• 2:07:11
  I'd get up at 4.45 in the morning you know and 20 minutes get ready out the door to the office
• 2:07:18
  and start grinding my first patient wasn't until 8 a.m so I had to have that time in the morning
• 2:07:24
  to work on stuff because then I had to run my business and see patients and then I wouldn't get
• 2:07:30
  home you know until you know 7 o'clock at night and then I eat dinner with my family and then go
• 2:07:38
  right to my desk and start grinding away again and it was rinse wash repeat for years doing that
• 2:07:47
  and you know when you when you believe in something so much and you're going to put this
• 2:07:55
  you know herkulean effort into it something has to give and look I have I pass no judgment on
• 2:08:07
  anyone of what what they choose as long as they're aware of what the outcome of their choices are
• 2:08:13
  and in doing this you know the outcome during that time was that relationship suffer
• 2:08:21
  you know my kids were this big at the time so how I justified it to myself was they won't remember
• 2:08:28
  they're too little they won't remember that dad wasn't around and you know like marriages
• 2:08:34
  and easy and you know me not being around and being able to help raise and you know I was a good
• 2:08:40
  provider but I don't think I was a good husband during that time because I wasn't around and I'm tired
• 2:08:46
  and stressed and irritable and you know the one thing I would say you know to her credit my wife
• 2:08:56
  is that she never said stop doing this she knew how important this was to me and that part of my
• 2:09:04
  drive in doing this was to give my family you know a life different than what I had growing up
• 2:09:11
  and you know you win some and you lose some and there was no guarantee that all this effort that
• 2:09:18
  I was going to put into it was even going to work yeah and so I'm glad that it did and as a result
• 2:09:24
  you know I've been able to give my family this really beautiful life and and I'm still young
• 2:09:31
  enough and healthy enough now you know to partake in it and you know back to your original question
• 2:09:37
  about you know like you know how do catastrophic events change you is I think I think that
• 2:09:43
  this long-winded answer is I want to be a more frequent participant with all of it yeah it's
• 2:09:53
  interesting how a couple thoughts I see this a lot where first of all I do agree that for seasons of
• 2:10:00
  life there has to be imbalance if you're going to build anything enormous there does have to be
• 2:10:06
  imbalance partner is one of the most important business decisions you'll ever make for sure
• 2:10:12
  totally for sure for sure but also sometimes you have to wonder like this is something that I struggle
• 2:10:18
  with too I also say like I work a lot you know for us for I don't have kids yet but for her for our
• 2:10:27
  future kids like this is why I work so much and she I mean she always it's she always says like well
• 2:10:34
  I never asked you to like work this much so really who are you doing it for at the end of the day
• 2:10:39
  I thought about that a lot and I think that sometimes it's for me and I of course it is I say that
• 2:10:44
  it's for a personal drive and a validation that you want to have yeah proving you can do something
• 2:10:50
  you know we all have stories about wanting to become someone bigger and better than who we think
• 2:10:56
  we are yeah um but your family gets to be beneficiaries of it yeah and what it tells you is
• 2:11:04
  that you partnered with someone who's fantastic because she didn't have that as an expectation yeah
• 2:11:09
  exactly so if you look 20 years into the future what's the impact that you want to have with your
• 2:11:16
  work with your life all of it I think um you know this next phase is is is definitely going to be
• 2:11:25
  predicated on mentorship and what I mean by that is is um you know on a professional level the
• 2:11:35
  practice of clinical dentistry is just really tough because it's hard enough working in someone's
• 2:11:40
  mouth who's squirming in the chair and but running this business and it's and it's a tough business
• 2:11:48
  on top of it and one of my superpowers is running a great business I know that I know the business
• 2:11:57
  of dentistry really well because I learned how to run a business and apply it to dentistry and most
• 2:12:07
  dentists do dentistry and the business is just whatever happens um so I see a world where
• 2:12:17
  you know I would have my own program where someone who's ready to get serious about their
• 2:12:21
  business and wants to learn how to make their their dental practice run efficiently smoothly
• 2:12:29
  profitably you know that's exciting to me I know there's a demand for it I people from all over
• 2:12:35
  the world reach out to me and there you know as the free helpline I try to you know help people where
• 2:12:40
  I can and and I think about you know like myself having a coach in business this could be applied
• 2:12:46
  towards dentistry and I also think about doing this for my kids too neither of them want to be dentists
• 2:12:52
  which I think is great you know like pursue what they want to do but I've learned a lot about business
• 2:12:59
  life success and a lot of what not to do's where you know as a father you think about like
• 2:13:07
  you know I used to joke I said Michael for my daughters was to get him out the door with good
• 2:13:12
  manners and no cavities that was it I was like if I've done that I've done my job and now I think
• 2:13:17
  about you know how can I educate and inspire my kids that they could have a better life than
• 2:13:26
  what I had and that they can you know go on and be successful in whatever it is that they want to
• 2:13:33
  do but I can help them avoid the pain points and you know be there to guide them and coach them
• 2:13:41
  and mentor them you know not just in life but also in business and in career and so forth and
• 2:13:47
  um you know I didn't have that kind of guidance you know as a kid I had to I had to figure it out
• 2:13:53
  myself um so being able to give them some shortcuts to the front of the line would be tremendously
• 2:14:01
  rewarding now I have to put an asterisk next to that because um I'm very aware from being a kid myself
• 2:14:08
  you know was that sometimes uh you don't give your parents their their due credit yeah like
• 2:14:16
  that's my kids they look at me like sometimes like on the dumbest human that ever walked the the
• 2:14:22
  planet but so that might be more of a pipe dream for me um I have a question so how do you balance
• 2:14:28
  when you've had such massive success how do you balance uh you know giving your kids
• 2:14:36
  a little bit of an advantage versus giving them too much and almost just a ruining like
• 2:14:42
  ruining them to a degree because you could you could make it so that they never have to stress
• 2:14:49
  about work and and especially when they're you know just starting out getting a job and they could
• 2:14:54
  have you know little allowances that could let them live their life and not go through all the
• 2:15:00
  struggles that you went through yeah they'll be highly unfulfilled and they'll probably end up
• 2:15:04
  you know with depression and all kinds of horrible things it's uh it's a it's a slippery slow
• 2:15:09
  I see it in I see it in L.A. a lot I see it I mean I see it everywhere but um on on a very
• 2:15:15
  serious I see kids that are like trust fund kids that do drugs yeah for dope like it's it happens
• 2:15:22
  in L.A. quite a bit it's real it's very real so I've always wondered how people that are are
• 2:15:29
  very successful and wealthy manage raising their kids properly so I think it's hard to figure out
• 2:15:35
  that line yeah it's a delicate line and my wife and I you know we constantly talk about it ourselves
• 2:15:42
  because part of the reason I work so hard is because I did want to give my kid a good life yeah um
• 2:15:49
  but there are I think the idea is that there has to be guardrails and you know where
• 2:15:58
  you know you want them to have certain comforts and strategic advantages like
• 2:16:06
  you know like my kid gets to go to private school you know like that's a blessing you know that
• 2:16:11
  she gets to go to this really great school and get access to a top notch education so you know
• 2:16:18
  I'm very thankful for that and that's something that I'm willing to invest in and that's not to
• 2:16:23
  say that public schools aren't good or there aren't good teachers there I just want to be very clear
• 2:16:28
  about that but you know a really good private school offers a lot of advantages that many
• 2:16:35
  public schools don't have so I see that as a strategic advantage and what I'm doing is I've created
• 2:16:41
  this opportunity and I spent a lot of money doing it that's going to hopefully help my kid in the
• 2:16:46
  long run you know because it's going to make him smarter but we also spend a lot of time especially
• 2:16:51
  now that the kids are a little bit older you know I have a 12 year old and a 17 year old and my 17
• 2:16:56
  year old I have a lot more adult conversations with her now about what happens with choices that
• 2:17:04
  you make in life and the concept of the conversation revolves around whatever you choose there's going to
• 2:17:14
  an outcome or a consequence associated with it some are good and some are bad and so if you can
• 2:17:21
  think about what those outcomes are going to be before you decide yeah you'll probably make better
• 2:17:29
  decisions and so that's the edge that we've been leading with you know how old is she though she
• 2:17:37
  17 yeah 17 yeah these are going to be these are real these are real yeah now I'll tell you
• 2:17:42
  something right now I mean I love my kid to death but my god like like age you know 12 to 15
• 2:17:48
  was a rough ride you know she was you know becoming a teen and going through the roller coaster and
• 2:17:54
  I think you know it's like no parent is immune from that but she's coming out on the other side of
• 2:18:00
  it and she's working really hard in school and you know I mean maybe even what I want for her
• 2:18:09
  is not what she wants you know I don't have any control over that but I can at least control the
• 2:18:13
  narrative while I still have her under my roof and you know we've tried hard to teacher that you know
• 2:18:21
  your family is the most important thing and that you know we have a lot because we worked hard
• 2:18:28
  and we sacrificed but that also creates an obligation and responsibility for us to take care of
• 2:18:34
  other people because our family is very philanthropic and we we give time and we give money
• 2:18:42
  to all sorts of charities and causes that are important to us and my kids have watched us do the
• 2:18:48
  they don't know any different you know like when they were when they were a lot younger you know I
• 2:18:54
  made them every year in order for them to qualify for getting gifts from Santa Claus I made them
• 2:19:01
  donate 50% of everything they owned and they would pick and choose and they put the stuff into
• 2:19:08
  trash bags and then we would go to you know to Salvation Army and the fire station all this stuff
• 2:19:14
  to make the donations and I would make them go up and introduce themselves to the person and say
• 2:19:19
  you know my name is Ava Marashi and I'm here to donate my my toys to the kids that don't have any
• 2:19:25
  amazing and so one year we're packing the stuff and she was kind of lolly gagging and and and I
• 2:19:33
  just threw something in that I didn't think that she played with as she goes she broke into tears
• 2:19:39
  and she's like daddy not spider man please that was spider man and she pulled him out of the bag
• 2:19:44
  and spider man is actually well actually spider man burned down in the fire but up until now
• 2:19:49
  the spider man will still around he survived the cut every year and so you know like I'm not going
• 2:19:55
  to be able to teach my kid probably how to go without to the same level you know that I did
• 2:20:02
  but I sure as heck can control you know teaching them the importance of family the importance of
• 2:20:08
  if you're well off like that's that's not you know it's not just like okay great for us and
• 2:20:14
  to health everybody else like you can't take it for granted yeah you have to go out and it's your
• 2:20:18
  job and responsibility to help other people because not everyone is fortunate and lucky um so that's
• 2:20:25
  a big part of you know the the the parental philosophy that we have and and you know um you
• 2:20:32
  talk about like you know trust funds and so forth and personally I think that um you know
• 2:20:38
  too much too early is a bad thing yeah so you know you have to kind of be careful about
• 2:20:44
  how much and when and and try to set your kid to the expectation of you know
• 2:20:53
  if you want to have if you want to live your life like how you've lived it thus far
• 2:20:59
  then you're going to need to work hard to have you know the type of career that will
• 2:21:04
  afford you that type of life and that's going to affect the choices that you make of how you study
• 2:21:10
  in college and jobs and so forth very very good I think that's I mean listen there's a lot of ways
• 2:21:17
  to screw up parenting I don't know how to do it I don't have kids in my own um but I'm incredibly
• 2:21:23
  scared of of messing that up and I think that like some of these ideas of of keeping them accountable
• 2:21:29
  helping them understand that you know money can never be taken for granted just because you have
• 2:21:34
  it doesn't mean everybody has it you have to work for this and sort of not giving them too much
• 2:21:38
  too young I think that's a good a good formula at least to set them up on the right path
• 2:21:43
  well you try I mean like I've probably screwed them up a hundred other ways but like a
• 2:21:49
  regular parent um if you think about something that you know now uh that you wish you knew
• 2:21:56
  when you first started your career could be a life lesson could be a business lesson could be
• 2:22:00
  a dental lesson doesn't matter what would that thing be what things stand like stands out when I say
• 2:22:04
  that I think what it stands out to me is that um in the height of all the chaos whether it's
• 2:22:12
  your personal life or professional life or outside events that have you know caught your off guard
• 2:22:20
  it's gonna be okay generally speaking you know unless you have like a terminal health illness
• 2:22:28
  generally speaking it's gonna be okay if you work at it and you keep plugging forward
• 2:22:36
  things do have a way of working out and in hindsight most of the things that
• 2:22:41
  caused you the greatest amounts of stress and pain and you look back on me like yeah
• 2:22:47
  sock but it wasn't as bad as I thought it was gonna be and you know that's what I would tell my
• 2:22:52
  younger self um easier said than done but it gives you a little per you know wisdom and perspective
• 2:22:59
  moving forward for dealing with hard hard times hard things hard challenges that you don't have
• 2:23:06
  to let it eat it you know to the same level if people want to connect with you first of all
• 2:23:12
  well where do you want to send people so they can sort of like outside of coming to your office
• 2:23:18
  and getting their teeth on like what are you are you gonna work on anything in the future any new
• 2:23:22
  companies book podcast what are you what are you putting out into the world that people can consume
• 2:23:28
  I mean right now it's it's what we're doing you know I I'm doing like a lot of speaking engagements
• 2:23:34
  and podcasts yeah you know talking about this very thing um let's add on my presentation last
• 2:23:40
  night was from broke ass dental student to dentists of the stars to billion dollar exit that's a
• 2:23:45
  good that's a good title it's a good hook for you know if you're a dentist I suppose and um and
• 2:23:50
  so this you know this is this is where I'm at at the moment you know outside of my clinical practice
• 2:23:55
  and uh is having these speaking opportunities and I'm the keynote speaker for uh this big the
• 2:24:01
  the statewide dental convention here in Florida uh not this year they booked me a year in advance
• 2:24:06
  so I'll come back in 2020 amazing that was kind of neat um and then you know I connect with people
• 2:24:11
  a lot on social media too um you have a nice following and and you know it's fun to
• 2:24:18
  storytell if you will you know through that medium because it's just you know on my page it's uh
• 2:24:23
  it's it's more than just teeth so what's your what's your Instagram that's your main one yeah what's
• 2:24:28
  your handle yeah it's at dr. John Marashi so dr j-o-n-m-a-r-a-s-h-i amazing um last question I like to ask
• 2:24:39
  out of all the things that you've sort of learned over your career um you've sort of given over a
• 2:24:44
  whole bunch of wisdom and and and lessons if you had to pick one thing you only had to pick one
• 2:24:50
  you can only pick one thing that you can teach over to your kids the most important lesson
• 2:24:54
  what would that lesson be and why yeah raise your standards if you hold yourself accountable
• 2:25:03
  to standards higher than anyone else could hold you too stuff works out you usually come out on top
• 2:25:12
  things will happen you'll do far greater things than you even thought was possible you'll get
• 2:25:17
  in less trouble I love it I've never had that answer before I've never had that's an amazing
• 2:25:23
  answer thank you so much I appreciate you for coming on