Dr James, 58s:

If you want to do different things versus an average path through life, you know that you can't take the same actions, Even if the average did shift. If you follow the mean, you'll always be in the mean. If you want to do these outline things, you're going to do different things. So I guess, whenever I find myself in a situation where I have an inclination to react a certain way or take a certain course of action, that I often think to myself but is that what the majority of people would do now? And if I reflect on myself and I think yes, they probably would, then that is like a little red flag in my head.

Dr Randeep, 1m 34s:

Today's guest, Dr James Martin, is the founder of Dentists Who Invest, a thriving online community and education platform dedicated to helping dentists take control of their finances and build long-term wealth. After qualifying from Leeds University Dental School in 2016, James quickly developed a deep interest in finance and investing. By 2021, he had transitioned out of clinical practice to focus entirely on empowering dentists through financial literacy, community building and mindset. He's also the founder of Videre Financial Planning, a fixed-fee wealth management firm committed to transparency and ethical financial advice. In today's conversation, we'll explore how financial strategy, mindset and smart systems can transform the way dental practices are run. We'll talk about breaking the link between time and money, the rise of financial confidence among dentists, and how modern financial tools can support clearer decisions and better outcomes, freeing up practice owners to focus on what really matters. Welcome, James. Thank you so much for having me looking forward to this. James, what first drew you to dentistry and how did your early career unfold, and what was the turning point that led you to leave clinical work in 2020?

Dr James, 2m 49s:

Yeah, you know it's an interesting one, because what drove me to dentistry was I can't remember if I've ever told this story or not publicly, but I'll share it today. But basically my cousin was a dentist and when I was like 16, 17, uh, you know, I put I always wanted to be a good student and excel academically, I guess, and I got my GCSEs and then my cousin basically came to see me and was like you should consider being a dentist, because I'm a dentist, and here's all the reasons why I like it and I think it's great. And I guess that that seed was planted at that point. I always remember we had this career teacher who came to see us when we were 16 and he said okay, guys, no wait, when we were 17, because you apply when you're 18, right, when you're doing your second, at the start of the second year of your A-levels, right? Yeah, that's how it works. So, yeah, it must've been at this, it must've been an AS level. And he was like right, guys, this is the start of the summer before A2. And he said okay, guys, you got the whole summer to decide on this quite pivotal decision in your life as to what you want to do at university. So just have a good time, have fun, but make it count, just give it some thought. And I always remember I went away from that whole summer and I just didn't think about it at all. And I came back and he was like, okay guys, well, if you want to do medicine, you have to send your applications off, like now, right, like they have to be done before the end of September because the deadline is October. So I was like, okay, well, I'll give this dentistry thing a shot, it sounds pretty good. And then I can't remember what my backup was. I think my backup was chemical engineering. Um, so, yeah, that was how I came to be a dentist and I, uh, you know, on paper it wasn't just that, obviously, like on, I thought it sounded quite good. And then you mix science with practical hand skills as well, which sounded something fun to me at the time. And then, yeah, I did dentistry, went into dentistry, didn't really like enjoy it at university, but I thought, ok, cool, maybe when I I get out it'll be a bit different. First year fd I wasn't particularly a fan off, but then I started to actually understand it. I just, I guess, just had enough practice and um, now I started to quite enjoy it. Uh, um, would I say that I was, uh, you know, there were some people and you could just see that they were phenomenally talented at it, like you know, like in their dexterity was just off the chart. I was probably. Maybe I could have got there with some perseverance. I think that you can uh, but there was definitely people who were more naturally talented at the hand side of things hand skill side of things than me. Um, and then what happened was I always had this dual passion of finance and investing, which is basically inspired by. Whenever I got, uh, out of university when I was in 2016, I was like, right, we're in the big bad world. Now it's time to learn about this stuff. 2016, 17, that was something that I uh carried or nurtured alongside learning about dentistry. And then where things really changed for me was in 2020. I started a Facebook group called Dentistry Invest when I had this hi, alongside learning about dentistry. And then where things really changed for me was in 2020. I started a Facebook group called Dentistry Invest when I had this hiatus out of dentistry because I had surgery on my knee and it basically all went from there. So there was never really a point where I was like, right, I'm going to drop this and do this. It was more a continuum or it was more a series of events. They say there's this saying that I really love luck is when preparation meets opportunity.

Dr Randeep, 6m 24s:

Yeah, I've heard that it's a classic one and it's great. It's kind of great what you said about. You know you went into the financial side of things. Did you see a gap there? I mean, what problem were you most driven to solve? You know, when you started Dentist to Invest? What was your kind of driving force behind that? Because it seems to have hit a nerve and, you know, kicked off. You mentioned the Facebook group and that kind of rapidly grew from that into a global community really. So what do you think? Was it timing or what drove you? What drove you and what did you see that was lacking? Timing, or what drove you? What drove you and what did you see that was lacking?

Dr James, 7m 3s:

You know what? The first thing to acknowledge is that I never actually really put pen to paper and thought, right, where is there a niche here? Is there not? Is there some sort of untapped reservoir of demand? I basically started the Facebook group when I had some time out and I thought, okay, cool, there's got to be, there's got to be a group where Dennis talk about money and finance, right, like that's just got to exist, like surely. And I almost didn't start it because of that. And then I did my research and I was like man, no one's actually done this. This is crazy. I did learn about a year later, six to 12 months later, after I started Dentistry Invest, that there is an American investing page and it's called something like Dental Investment Group or something like that. It was very American. They talk about their 401ks and their Roth IRAs, I think they're called, whereas we've got our ISAs and pensions. So there was no UK version. And, yeah, I didn't even realize at the time. I just started. It started making content and then someone shared it on a big dental forum and people started to join. And it was when it got quite significant numbers and significant engagement pretty fast that I was like right. There is something here, something that the audience is telling me rather than me figuring it out per se. It was the level of interest that it got that gave me that feedback. The world gave me that feedback to indicate to me that there was something here, more than any sort of initial strategic move or planning.

Dr Randeep, 8m 33s:

James, how do you kind of keep the platform engaging in an educational and empowering me? What's your kind of modus operandi on that? How do you keep the community going?

Dr James, 8m 46s:

Great cue and the answer is it's a lot more effort than it looks, because you have to be very certain to let people on there who are going to uphold the values of the platform and not just see it as some sort of opportunity to gain a lot of clients or cash in. So I'm always very certain to, first of all, I'll post content on there regularly and I'll make sure that the people who are on there get good answers to their questions. I'll make sure sure that the financiers on there, the people from the financial world on there, are of a certain ilk in that they're dental specialists, they're not just anybody and I'll also make sure that they are aware, guys, it's not really the policy of the group or the culture of the group that you can just be on there and flog your services 24-7. You have to actually give valuable answers, like that's how it works. Everything has to be. You have to give way more than you take and I think that, as long as because I'm very certain to get to know everybody and how can I say, keep an eye on that. That's why I believe it's growing to the level that it has and, interestingly, you know what? We're recording this in August 2025. This has been the biggest month ever in terms of engagement on the Dentistry Invest Facebook group by way of posting, so I think something's working, which is great.

Dr Randeep, 10m 18s:

Would you build it differently with the tech that's available now around AI and things like this? I mean, how would you rebuild it if you could start today from day?

Dr James, 10m 28s:

one. I have actually reflected on this before and I think on the whole there's probably not too much I would change. Facebook has definitely changed over the last four or five years. Like, certain methods of posting used to absolutely slap back in the day and get really good engagement, whereas now not as much. You can physically see the algorithm changing year on year. What I would do now is one thing I have learned, and I know your audience are tech enthusiasts. I think the old school marketing techniques of the early 2000s, which are big ass email list and a really killer website, still work really well to this day. And the way I used to see things back in the day was I used to see the Facebook group as the main hub of activity, whereas now I see the email list probably is the best way to engage people and the Facebook is a means of getting people to engage with. The email list probably is the best way to engage people and the Facebook is a means of getting people to engage with the email list. So I kind of see it the other way around. Whereas I used to use the email list to drive traffic towards the group, it's not so much the case anymore, so that's where things have moved around for me. So if I was to start all over again, I'd probably focus on building a really big email list as the first and primary objective and a killer website, which I just did not take seriously until like 12, 18 months ago, and I think I could have done things much faster if I would have known that at the start. But you live and learn. These are the lessons that you pay for by way of experience and time, so it's okay.

Dr Randeep, 12m 3s:

Yeah, 100%, 100% agree with that. And how? How could AI personalize financial education for dentists? So what, what's your kind of view on some of the AI tools and how do you think that could really help for the dentist kind of personally in their personal finances and even kind of practice finances?

Dr James, 12m 23s:

If you're a UK dentist and you wish to add to your verifiable CPD portfolio for this learning cycle, it's worth knowing that Dentist who Invest has over a thousand minutes of free verifiable CPD on our website. Just simply head over to wwwdentnis2investcom and hit the video slash CPD tab and you can go right ahead and help yourself to as much CPD as you need. You'll also find a link that takes you straight to the CPD section of the Dennis who Invests website in the podcast description. Yeah, so it's an interesting one. So, as regards to how we've integrated it on the group, here's a really cool thing that we use AI for Every one of my well, not everyone, but a lot of my podcasts have CPD on them. So we actually use AI to generate the CPD. Basically, we'll get the CPD to watch, to read the transcript and say, hey, can you? We've got all these prompts set up that we figured out. One day we'll feed in the prompts. So it's all done in a standardized way. It will come up with the questions, we'll approve the questions and then we will use that as cp, as a method of, uh, the user being able to get cpd whenever they listen to the podcast. They fill in like a little questionnaire. Those are are AI generated, but human approved, so that's been a really cool way that we can generate CPD at scale, basically for all of my content, which means that it's even more valuable to listen to, which is incredible. So that was quite a cool thing. I think, as well as that, where it can be used as well is to create the templates for your posts on Facebook. I don't know if it's quite at the level just yet where it can replace a human being, but it can definitely. If it can give you like, the scaffold for a post, that will help. And then you where, the, where, the, where the skill comes in of someone who's posted, you know, uh, on social media fairly regularly. Uh, you kind of know just how to word things in a way to make them interesting, I guess, or at least, or at least, or at least maybe you don't, you can never predict it a hundred percent, but you have an inkling, like you have an intuition there, and AI just can't quite do that just yet. So I definitely think that dental practices out there should be leveraging that for their social media and content. Like, why the heck would you not? Basically, so that's cool, I mean in our financial planning firm that we talked about just a second ago. One really cool way that we're using it is to actually help us with the financial plans. So what someone will be able to do is input their data into a sheet standardized sheet and say here's how much money I have. Here's my goals, here's my objectives. What's the most efficient way to achieve this? I have. Here's my goals, here's my objectives. What's the most efficient way to achieve this? And whereas once upon a time you could do planning to a degree, with software, it's a lot more fluid now. There's a lot more ways that you can adapt that to the specific needs of what someone wants, because you're literally just talking to a person still needs a human to sign it off, like you've got to make sure it's correct. But that's what's out there, and there's a lot of firms that are still stuck in the 90s and early 2000s because of bureaucracy and because of layers of management that just don't have the agility to be able to implement that stuff. So I really think that ai is man. That is like the next. How can I say this? It's the next. It's like what crypto was in the mid 2000s. It's like what the internet was in the early 2000s. It's the next revolution. It's happening. We've got to make the most of it. And the thing that blows my mind about ai is it's a thing that humans create it like we literally created it, right, but we still don't fully understand it, like we still don't fully understand all its applications. That, to me, is just nuts, and that is yeah. It's like the two ways you can look at it. You can be like that's slightly unnerving, or you could be like right, well, it's happening.

Dr Randeep, 16m 4s:

I might as well embrace it and there is some sort of opportunity here yeah, I think we're at a very nascent stage so that there's a lot happening at the moment in ai. As you know, there's lots of noise around there as well, so it's really interesting to kind of have that clarity that you you see people actually use this successfully for kind of their personal finances. And have you had kind of many people come into you kind of in terms of their practice finances and seeing how this could help them structure things for practices? And it would be interesting to get your take on how you see this technology kind of disrupting things in either leveling the playing field Do you think it would help operators to compete with maybe some of the larger corporates out there? How do you see it leveling or disrupting the playing field out there from kind of a financial point of view?

Dr James, 16m 54s:

Well, you know what I mean. I feel like it's crazy. I mean this is probably getting a little bit. Yeah, there's going to be applications in financial planning and wealth management, and those will be possible for dental practices and dentists, of course. So more along the lines of just making sure that whatever financial plan we create for them, well, it's that much more bespoke and every consideration is there, and all the T's across and the I's are dollars, so I can definitely see it supplement in the advising the financial planner. More so on the business side of things. I mean, it blows my mind in 2025, there's loads of practices out there that don't have a CRM. There's just so many. Like that gives so much time when you know how to use it properly, right, and I'm sure you've talked about this and I'm sure that perhaps even your software does this, randy. But I mean some of the amazing stuff that you see nowadays is where it plugs into your phone system. It drafts up the email that you're going to send to the person afterwards as you're talking. Based off the conversation, it rates you in terms of your politeness and behavior on the call, which I guess that is useful, and people have to just get used to getting feedback from a machine, right, because it's literally just there to help you. That really is the future. The future has officially arrived at that stage. So those are some of the things that I've seen, and yeah, let me think what else. I mean. Those would be certainly the ones, the applications that I've seen, that spring to mind, that I'm just like wow, and these are just the ones that people have thought of now, like AI. When did ChatGPT come out? 2022?, 2022.

Dr Randeep, 18m 38s:

They all blew up around then yeah, yeah was it around 22?

Dr James, 18m 42s:

2022. Yeah, I just I remember that. I remember everybody talked, I remember it launched, right, and then it just went viral, didn't it? Because everybody just shared it with each other, right? It just that week, okay, that was like, wow, a computer can actually do this. Uh, this is nuts, um. So, yeah, those are the applications. We're still. It's still young, like there's still, it's it's like the next gold rush, right, like it's. It's like america, it's like the america is being discovered again. Like this is land of opportunity. Yeah, and we gotta, we gotta. When we look at these things, you know everything, even like coronavirus. Very sad, what happened. It was terrible. No one would have wished for coronavirus, but any disruption, any disruption, categorically is an opportunity. Like that's literally what it is right. You just got to see it that way. Too many of us look back in the rearview mirror and think, oh shit, that was a chance. We had an. We had a chance right there to do something right. You know what I mean, but that's literally how it feels at the time. You just got to reframe your brain to see it that way. And whether that mean that you're rolling your sleeves up, creating some sort of ai tool, getting involved, if you're really going to go whole turkey, like you're going to go all in, or you're just embracing it by way of your down practice to make it run smoother, make it much more efficient, to make it more profitable, so you don't have to graft as hard every day, so that it kind of works for you a little bit more.

Dr Randeep, 20m 4s:

There's got to be something somewhere there, but that only starts with being willing to embrace it it's, it's embracing it, and what would you, what advice would you have to people who maybe are kind of a little bit, you know, on the fence or they don't quite understand it? Um, they maybe want to get into it, but but they're just not sure. What would your advice be to them? How could they start on this journey of kind of AI and personal and financial planning? What would your advice be to them? You?

Dr James, 20m 32s:

know that's a good question. The first thing to acknowledge is I am probably just one step beyond those sorts of people, because I'm not I've investigated it to a cursory level. Do I know as much as someone like you? Absolutely not, uh. So what I would say is go try out chat gpt if you haven't already uh, because there's still a lot of people who sit in that camp and and then what I would then do after that? If you've already tried that out and you're maybe thinking yourself, right, okay, cool, this is cool, but I don't immediately see how it's going to help me, maybe just have a real think about the stuff that you're doing on a day-to-day basis which AI can help you with or make much faster. If you kind of reduce it to a series of prompts or you reduce it to a series of consistent ways that you can feedback, you can, you can input it into chat gpt and chat gpt will be able to help you, because that's when all the good stuff happens. It basically does all the thinking for you, or it can be a lot of the thinking for you, right? Even write down and generate me a shopping list, like, make me a shopping list. You know you can write that and it'll give you like a list of four things that you want. Um, yeah, just anytime you find yourself thinking about something, a lot, maybe just train your brain to think to yourself right, how can I get a chat GPT involved in this? And that's when all the good stuff happens. That's when the doors start to open, if you ask me. And when I had that unlock for myself, that really helped because all of a sudden I wasn't trying to just come up with everything on my own. I think I think it's. I think it's glamorized in life that we have to be the sole person who comes up with all the ideas for our own life. But really great book. Have you ever read it? Called who, not how, you like that book? Is it on that bookshelf behind me? yeah, it's one of them at the back there in my collection well, yeah, basically who, not how, and I've definitely said this a hundred times in my podcast, but I'm going to say it again because it's such a great book basically who, not how. The whole premise of the book is if you want to figure out how to do something right, stop saying how can I do this and start saying who can help me do this, because I swear you'll get much better results, much faster, much easier, and you won't have to. That doesn't look like hiring someone necessarily. That just looks like asking them right. And even though that's such a simple lesson, it's not a binary thing do we ask people to help us or do we not ask people to help us? It's more of a continuum. It's how well do we do it? And you know, the day I started thinking like that a lot more, that just got way easier. It stopped being such a struggle to a point to. To a point now where if I have an obstacle or something I need to overcome right and I um feel like it is, I'm thinking about it and it's taking me a lot of time and effort my brain is literally conditioned to think now there must be an easier way there, there must be right like this is too, this feels too hard, right? So then I think, right, okay, cool, who can I ask? And obviously, one person in a way that you can ask is chat gbt right on ai, and I bet there's millions of other ais out there, but I'm I'm very much entry level, uh, ai knowledge I'm hearing that a lot, james, that yeah, people are using this as a co-pilot and it's not kind of it does the thinking for you, but it, yeah, definitely speeds things up.

Dr Randeep, 23m 45s:

Even if you want to just kind of run ideas could speed things up with you can do something within like a in a couple of minutes that would have taken hours, hours or weeks before. So you know, I definitely second laid, it's definitely co-pilot and that's how I got into it, just trial and error and trying ChatGPT for kind of daily tasks and then just saw the power of it. So in terms of DWI, tell me a little bit about your vision. How would you like DWI to have changed the profession, say, you know, in five, 10 years time? What's your kind of long-term vision for that?

Dr James, 24m 22s:

I definitely think that I would like to ensure that the forum uh for those who don't know, who might be listening to the podcast where it originated from as a facebook group which eventually became a forum that people engage on and ask questions whenever it comes to finance. So I I'd probably like to just ensure that that whenever it comes to finance. So I'd probably like to just ensure that that stays the way it is in terms of its credibility and engagement and rapport. I'd love to grow it. I'd love it to be the biggest Facebook group in the UK why not? But that's just the kind of entrepreneur, the visionary in me I guess that, just, it doesn't have to, if you think, if you take a step back from it, even if it stayed where it is, I'd be pretty happy with that. What I would like to do is grow other communities. I would like to take that model to other communities and expand that, because I think that it would work really well and I think that they're still underserved. There's an opportunity for someone right? I've even said it on this podcast, I've publicly broadcasted it right, there's there's still not forums for doctors, right? Uh? And pharmacists and stuff where they can do the same. Why the heck would there not be right? Um, so that's one thing I'd love to do, I think, uh, seeing dentists who invest a lot more as a uh, a media company or an open source for financial information, not just with what we do with the dare, with the financial planning from mentioned just a second ago, but with every niche and ensuring that people will go there whenever they want to learn about any topic related to finance, like indemnity, like accountants, like whatever right anything under the sun. And then what that would mean is that the offering is expanded and, yeah, just growing our financial plan for them to be the best that it can possibly flip them be. And I feel like when we do that, then it will grow by itself. It will grow and expand. It will grow and expand as a business, as an operation, without us even necessarily really marketing it per se, which is the sweet spot just by word of mouth, but you only can do that whenever you know that the product is killer. So, yeah, it's just continuing to deliver on that front, and if we do all those things in the next five years, yeah, man, I'll be happy. I like the train that I'm on, man, I just want to keep going on that train.

Dr Randeep, 26m 37s:

That's a great vision. I always say you say why not think big? Why not think big? It takes the same amount of energy to think big than to think small. So yeah, I definitely second that. And it's a great, great philosophy to have, james, one practical step you could give dentists. I mean, if you could just give one step that they could take away and put into practice this week towards financial freedom. What would that first step be?

Dr James, 27m 5s:

Okay, I got this is. This is really simple. Okay, but this is this is. I think that it's really profound. At the same time, I feel that a lot of us are conditioned to think about money in a certain way that is not even necessarily that accurate whenever you put it under a microscope. Have you ever read that book, the Psychology of Money by Morgan Haisel?

Dr Randeep, 27m 34s:

Yeah, I've got the audio book yeah, with the kids now. So audio books rather than real books.

Dr James, 27m 40s:

Oh right, yeah me, call me a old school, call me a grandpa, right, but I always buy the book. I just like the books, and there's this satisfaction. Put the book on the shelf and you can like look at it yeah, you retain a lot more, I think, when you read maybe. yeah, I don't even you know what. I don't even know if you do or not. I honestly don't. I just love having the book right and maybe that's something I need to look Like how do I get the info in my head the best? Is it a book, is it something else? But I need to get over my love of books and having them in the first place, but anyway. So if someone takes my books off and bookshelf really annoys me, like especially if they're gone, like if I find that there's one missing, even I just need to know that it's there. There's like some sort of hoarder, I don't know inclination in there somewhere. But anyway, to answer your question, great book, love that book. And basically he explores how people's mindset towards money is influenced by your parents a lot, and they're looking out for us and they're trying to influence us to do the right things. But are they necessarily the best things for our age and generation? That's what you really got to have a healthy I'm not saying they're not, but you've got to have a healthy skepticism for it. And you've got to ask your own questions, right. So I'll give an example, right, property is still very popular to this day and don't get me wrong. There's some people who make millions from properties, but the heyday of property was back in the 80s, right, whenever taxes were not what they are now on it, and the property market was booming and doing really well, whereas nowadays the UK government, how they've structured things tax-wise and accounts-wise, is a lot more in favor of vices and pensions and everything along those lines. You can't put property in an ISA. You can put commercial property in a SIP. Sometimes, not always, but it's not as easy to do. It's not as easy to do as simply just buying some sort of fund or whatever. And actually, if you look at the data objectively, you'll actually find that world equities outperform all these other asset classes, but most people don't know about them, right? So that's an example, okay. So I was reading the other day that 95 of people in the uk don't have an isa. Like that's the level that we're at. And then of the dentists are much better. I think it's more like 50 50 from from having conversations with them. Every time someone's told me about their eyes, I look over the phone or something. It's probably like 98% of the time. There's usually something to refine in there. There's always something to make better. But yeah, anyway, back to what I was saying, I would say, if I have one piece of advice, I would say realize that understanding money is not about being greedy, it's not all these connotations that we have in our head that are negative. It's not in any way, in any way, anything other than trying to better yourself and trying to understand the single greatest thing that would give you back your time to do whatever the hell you want in life, and the second that you have, that you have freedom. That's really what it means, and it's to have a healthy skepticism about what everyone tells you, even those people that we hold in high regards in certain areas of our life, because you know, whilst it may be well-meaning advice and whilst it may have worked for them in their generation, will it necessarily work for us in our generation just because it worked back then? Who knows? Is the answer. Let's have a healthy skepticism, let's educate ourselves. When we're educated, we make better decisions, we make better outcomes, and when you educate yourself on money and finance, the literal main objective is to get your time back and live your life. So to me, that's the most important thing that we should prioritize, not because of any other reason, just because it then gives us the ability to live our life on our terms.

Dr Randeep, 31m 21s:

Yeah, I think it's always good to ask questions. You can't go wrong with asking too many questions and yet critical thinking and having a healthy skepticism In terms of AI. Could you think of one way AI could automate a part of a dentist's business or finances? I mean, if you could pick just one area for them to focus on where they could leverage ai to automate either their personal finances or business finances, from your kind of background, where would you ask them to focus on?

Dr James, 31m 52s:

okay, you know what? I saw this really cool thing the other day and it was a ai tax calculator. So it's like, okay, cool, we. You input all your data and then it tells you all your potential tax deductible expenses based on your profession. So you type in dentists and it just comes up with them and it keeps a track on how much you're earning every month. It gives you suggestions for things that you can do should you want to increase your earnings, and also gives you suggestions for who you might speak to whenever it comes to your investment strategy, based on having, based on having a conversation with you and based on having, uh, understanding your objective. So I thought that was freaking cool, uh. So, yeah, watch this space, because I think I'm going to be releasing something along those lines pretty soon, and I think to me, that's the very first thing a dentist can do to get a real grip on their finances and understand what's out there, and that's all AI driven. So there we are.

Dr Randeep, 32m 49s:

No, definitely, I think it's a lot of it. It's about how much, how you can structure things, and not so much how much money you earn or your income, but how much. How much you can keep essentially, after everything, everything's said and done income, but how much, how much you can keep essentially after everything, everything said and done. You touched on books. I mean towards the end of the podcast I always like to do like a little quick fire lightning round then just to get more into kind of your, your mindset behind things. You mentioned a couple of books. One of the questions actually was I mean, is there, is there one book in particular that's really rewired how you see the world? I mean, out of all the ones you've read or you've got, which one would you really oh man, I'm so spoilt for choice right now.

Dr James, 33m 25s:

I do you know? Do you know what is one book? I think about the lessons from this book literally every day. Uh, it's called the almanac by naval rabicant okay, yeah, yeah, I've heard of it.

Dr Randeep, 33m 37s:

I haven't read that one, but I've heard of it what this book is.

Dr James, 33m 39s:

This guy is like a modern day sage, like he's like a billionaire and he just thinks so profoundly. What the book basically is is a collection of his tweets, his best tweets. That's all it is, and they're all. They're all organized into categories and it'll be like health relationships, finance, business, stuff like that. Right, and there's two lessons in there. There's a lesson on how he describes leverage, which is the fundamental principle of how to get more out of each and every hour. We all have the same amount of time on earth. It's just that some of us have figured out how to get more out of it. Right, like an ai is a tool that helps you do that as well, incidentally, um, so there's a lesson in there on leverage and a lesson on there on the different types of luck and how you can maximize your odds of having lucky. Inverted commas, things happen to you that I just thought was awesome, and I just think about all the time, uh, how I can implement things into my life to uh, welcome, uh, more of those concepts and welcome, welcome those, yeah, to allow those things to help me. Basically, yeah, great book, really great book. I think that that the reason I like that book is because it's more on general wisdom in life and general things, that this guy's used to become a billionaire and a philanthropist and all this amazing stuff over the years.

Dr Randeep, 35m 1s:

So, yeah, great book fantastic, and one habit that powers your progress behind the scenes. I mean, what's one thing that you do every day, which which you, which is indispensable to kind of your productivity, and how, how you go about um dwi and the rest, the rest of your businesses it's got to be this, it's got to be this.

Dr James, 35m 22s:

I always think to myself here's something that often goes through my head and it's like okay, cool. The first thing is to figure out what you want from life. Right, so I want to have massive impact and build all these really cool things and leave some sort of legacy that's unique, and I know that that is more important to me than anything else. Right, because I can look back when I'm a certain age and be like, yeah, well, whether whether I achieved what I wanted to achieve or I didn't, I worked so damn hard like I literally left everything on a dance floor. You know what I mean? I, I gave it my all. Uh. So what I would say is if you want to do different things versus an average path through life, you know that you can't take the same actions. It's just by definition. Even if the average did shift, if you follow the mean, you'll always be in the mean. If you want to do these outline things, you've got to do different things. So I guess, whenever I find myself in a situation where I have an inclination to react a certain way or take a certain course of action, that I often think to myself. Hmm, but is that what the majority of people would do now? And if I reflect on myself and I think yes, they probably would then that is like a little red flag in my head and I'm like right. So actually, if I want to see the high level 4D chess move play here, I know that it can't be that by default. I'm not saying that I'll always come up with a better way but it makes me pause. And the number of times that I pause and then I think of something, maybe even like 30 minutes later, and I'm just like right, that is the play. That is a much better play. The number of times I save my ass and and generated opportunities for me, it's amazing. So I would say I would say, to just summarize, that when you find yourself about to take an action that you believe is the action that most people would take in that situation whether that's like you're tired, we've got work to do, so go to bed like that would probably be what most people do or just get that little bit of extra juice out and get it done um, even though that's the harder path is probably the best thing for you.

Dr Randeep, 37m 34s:

So, yeah, that is a really cool lesson and that that's helped me a lot I love that philosophy, I think, is that there's something to be said about being a contrarian and, um, yeah, so that that that's a great piece of advice there. And what? What startup advice do you secretly disagree with? This is a bit of a strange answer. It's kind of like inverting it. So I mean, when you're starting something, you've done a startup what advice would you disagree with?

Dr James, 38m 2s:

I'm actually so glad you're asking this because I was thinking about this today. Do you know, one of my least favorite things that people say of all time If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is I hate that man. I literally think that's lame, right, because you're you're, you're assuming that, you're assuming that you can, you have all the information to make that decision up to this point, right? But the reality is that if you never put yourself out there and have those experiences, you're unable to say whether or not that's a good opportunity, because you have no idea how it's going to pan out. Yeah, so actually that logic just keeps you where you are. Don't get me wrong, like, there's times where it will help you as well. So I really hate that saying. I think entrepreneurship is a game of shifting your beliefs. I think entrepreneurship is a big old game of just being able to question yourself and what you think is right. The number of times I've been, I thought things were a certain way in my head and someone has said something to me like oh, you know, you can just do this, don't you? And it would be so easy to just be like that's not true, or think you know everything or be a bit arrogant about things because you've been doing it for like 10 years or whatever right, I've always found if you can just not listen to that little voice and be willing to learn from everyone the number of unlocks that I've had through that mindset, a number of things that I've had happen to me where I was like, right, maybe that person was right, or I didn't have that quite that quite right. Um, even when they were things that, on the face of it, just looked too good to be true. If you have that attitude to everything, then even when the real opportunities come along as well, you're going to be skeptical about them, right? The reality is you have to fall and stumble to learn how to walk right, and you've got to walk before you can run. So the only way you can do that is just to accept that you're going to. If you're skeptical about everything, you'll never learn those lessons yeah, well, that's a great one.

Dr Randeep, 39m 52s:

Which tech tool can you not live without right now? If you could choose one piece of technology, uh, that you just find indispensable to you day to day, I'm gonna say I'm gonna say a really solid crm.

Dr James, 40m 7s:

That's what I'm going to say, even though that's pretty basic, basically like that's, everyone should have that. There's still so many dentists that don't have that Customer relation management software. The amount of time that that has saved me over the years through like organizing it and creating little automations and stuff is just nuts. I feel like every practice should have that. I feel like that will save a lot of money and time and probably boost profitability for virtually every business on this earth.

Dr Randeep, 40m 36s:

But yeah, watch this space. Watch this space because that's something that we're actively working on. I think AI is going to plug into that very, very nicely, and it already has with a lot of industries. I find that dentistry we're slightly behind the curve with these things, so it'd be nice to see how that implements and how we can make a big impact to the dental industry with this technology. Finally, james, which entrepreneur, dead or alive, would you shadow for a day and why I'm going to say this right now.

Dr James, 41m 9s:

Now, and I know not everyone is his fan and I can understand why, and I probably he probably lost a little bit of cool points even to me, um, recently because of his behavior. But if we take, if we separate the, the art from the artist, if we're, if we're very uh, you know how can I say it is certain to do that or keen to do that? Um, it's got to be elon. I'm sorry, it's got to be elon. The guy's got four companies that are worth over a billion. Try to tell me he doesn't know something about life and business and the world. Spending a day with him like how he, how he thinks and operates, how he goes through life, the boundaries that he sets in terms of his expectations from other people and how they should help him and how he is, how they aid him and facilitating him and create that like just think how he must think is just unbelievable. Um, to get to that level, has there ever been a greater entrepreneur? The guy had a rich family but, yeah, he had some investment, but he's not the richest man he's ever lived or he's up there and he's generated, you know, a large part of it off his own back just through reading, through taking unbelievable risks and rolling the dice and and that part I admire. Maybe not the artist, but I do admire the art.

Dr Randeep, 42m 34s:

Yeah, you're not the first person to say that on this podcast and yeah, some people think he's the original AI. It might be the neural link chip that he has in his brain as well, who knows. But yeah, it definitely gets a lot done in the 24 hours that everybody has. Well, james, we're going to wrap up. Where can listeners connect with you?

Dr James, 42m 57s:

Yes. So if anybody wants to find out more about me wwwdentistinvestcom, or if you're a Facebook user and you are a dentist, then you're very welcome to join the dentist who invest facebook group, which is a real hub of activity. Actually, there's probably like six seven posts on there a day from dentists just asking all sorts about finance, so certainly they receive quite a high level of guidance or free on there, which is really cool whenever it comes to their money. We work hard to create it and make sure that it's a fun community, so certainly we welcome anybody who sounds like they would like to participate and that's free to join. Feel free to connect with me on there fantastic, james, thank you.

Dr Randeep, 43m 38s:

That was. That was an awesome conversation and lots of nuggets and gems for for our listeners. So, yeah, that's brilliant and, uh, thanks a lot for your time. That's been amazing.