Transcript – Dentology Podcast with Anushika Brogan
Episode Release Date – Monday 3 February 2025
Chris (00:01.29)
Monday morning, seven o’clock. Let me yawn. Well, people know it’s recording. Oh, alright. Just in case someone might think, flip, it’s seven o’clock and they’re doing it live. Imagine if we did do it live every seven o’clock. I’d be in my pajamas. Yeah, would be hard work. But then we’d have to change them. Oh no, yeah, you have to change, put your proper clothes on. Yeah, true. You’d have a cup of coffee. Yeah, we’ve got a cup Maybe a sandwich, but anyway. It’s funny, we’ve got so far through this process and…
We get good people every week, but every now and then you get somebody and you scratch your head and you’re like, why haven’t we had this person on before? How did we get so far in and not already talked to this person? Cause they avoided us. Well on that note, we now need to introduce someone that you’ve poorly set up. now he’s going to be cracking though. She’s going to be amazing. It’s going to be a very good conversation. We joined by Dr. Anishika Brogan and Anishika is the CEO and founder of Demiro.
Anushika Brogan (00:41.432)
you
Chris (00:58.452)
Dental Studios. How are you Anishika? well?
Anushika Brogan (01:01.814)
Yeah Anushka, I’m fine, thank you. How are you?
Chris (01:04.561)
Very good indeed, very good indeed. Good to see you actually. I seen you for many years in face to face but we go back a long way as we say. Say again?
Anushika Brogan (01:10.19)
I I’ve been avoiding you, just so.
Chris (01:15.377)
Yeah. Well, that’s true. I must admit, it’s quite funny when I was in the showcase, I did see you running away a couple of times. But you were quicker than me and I just thought it’d be terrible to try and rugby tackle you. Imagine, So we’ve got, I mean, geez, there’s a lot to talk about. History. There’s, yeah. I mean, the way you’ve grown your business, we want to dig into that and unpick it. But before we get into the dental bit, I quite often think there’s clues to who we become.
Anushika Brogan (01:21.974)
Hahaha
Anushika Brogan (01:28.429)
you
Chris (01:44.627)
from our childhood, things that happened when we were young or upbringing. Could you just kind of set the scene? What was your upbringing? Where were you brought up, family life, before you kind of left school and headed off to dentistry?
Anushika Brogan (01:58.158)
So I was brought up on the Isle of Sheppey, which is a tiny little island off the south east coast of England that no one’s ever heard about. Half the time people know about the Isle of Wight and all the big islands, but no one really knows about the Isle of Sheppey. It’s very hidden. to be honest, most people don’t get off the island. It’s that kind of island.
Chris (02:02.953)
Ahem.
Yeah.
Chris (02:18.313)
You can never leave.
Anushika Brogan (02:22.51)
Stay there, yeah. People just stay there. And when my dad came over, he had a choice of either going to Chelsea for a job or going to the Isle of Sheppey. And because my brother was quite young, he decided that being on an island would be nicer in terms of our upbringing rather than being in a city. So that was his decision. He was like, actually, it’s by the sea and it’s a nicer environment. However, there was hardly any Asians there.
which was interesting for me because I had faced quite a lot of racism when I was younger. And then also I just wanted to get off because I really liked city life. And so for me, was just like, you know, there was no buses. There was a bus once an hour that took us to the mainland. You know, it was really rural. There wasn’t even a McDonald’s when I was growing up there. you know, it was very, very rural. yeah, he was a research chemist.
Chris (02:55.358)
it.
Chris (03:04.487)
Mmm.
Chris (03:09.821)
I will.
Chris (03:17.353)
What did your dad do?
Anushika Brogan (03:21.932)
Yeah, so he worked for Abbott’s Laboratory. Yeah, he was there.
Chris (03:24.423)
Right. So you, before you did dentistry, you started out on the route of pharmacy. So was that an influence from your father?
Anushika Brogan (03:33.472)
Yeah, yeah that’s right. So I took my subjects based on me doing pharmacy and then when I did pharmacy work experience I hated it. So at that point I was like no I need to find a different career and yeah it kind of went from there really.
Chris (03:39.026)
Right, yeah.
Ha ha ha
Chris (03:46.794)
What’s interesting about that is for me work experience worked because it shows you that it wasn’t for you before you made the big decision of doing a degree and then getting into the business and realizing then it didn’t work for you. Lots of…
people, and they tend to be people probably over 35, 40, talk about doing work experience in dentistry. And that was the thing that turned their head. And they went, actually, I really love this. So did you also get to do work experience in dentistry as well as in pharmacy? was that an influence too?
Anushika Brogan (04:18.444)
Yes, yes, yes, yeah, went to the Yeah, I absolutely loved it. I had a tiny little girl from New Zealand, she was tiny, and I was so talk of bed to her, all I remember, she was so small, and she was quite young, young dentist, and she had extracted a tooth, and back then, you know, there less regulation, et cetera, and she let me use her drills and fill an extracted tooth with amalgam.
Chris (04:45.841)
Whoa. Really? spirits. Wow.
Anushika Brogan (04:50.297)
Nowadays, you’re lucky if you’re allowed to sit in the same room as everything going on, you know. It’s so different now, but it was brilliant. I just loved it. I loved the talking to patients. I loved bringing them into the surgery, chatting to them, and I loved the practical side of it as well. So, you know, for me, was as soon as I did that, I knew this was what I wanted to do.
Chris (05:10.213)
I’m just imagining that. Do you want to go? Yes!
Anushika Brogan (05:14.862)
Yeah, you would never allow it now. There no regulation. It was great.
Chris (05:18.377)
Is that so believable? Hands on. Do you offer work experience through DiMera or have you explored it at all? Or is it just too challenging these days?
Anushika Brogan (05:29.294)
It’s quite challenging and we do let, so if we’ve got dentists who have family, friends, etc. you know, we do let them, allow them to do it. There is a company that’s just been set up actually, we’ve just been contacted by them, where they charge kids an amount to come and do work experience because there’s no incentive for the dentist to let people come in and do work experience and it’s quite challenging to have someone sit in a room with you. Whereas actually if we can say to them, you’ll get paid for the week.
Chris (05:33.513)
Hmm
Chris (05:51.497)
Mm.
Chris (05:55.785)
Mmm.
Yeah. And it’s hard, it’s hard because the amount of dentists we’ve talked to where the work experience has been so instrumental in them choosing dentistry, you think it’s a shame because there’ll be certain people that will be well influenced by their parents or they might have a family friend or family member. So those people are kind of being steered, but it’s the kids that just never thought about it. You know, academically they’re smart, but they just never get the opportunity to see what dentistry actually looks like because obviously
Anushika Brogan (06:07.278)
Yes. Yeah.
Chris (06:27.721)
As a patient sitting in the chair, it’s incredibly different experience than somebody who’s working in the practice But they might never get to see that it’s a bit of a shame. It is nothing and it’s not dangerous useful I get the regulation and compliance and the system doesn’t doesn’t lend itself to work experience if you could do a To be a tooth whitening
Anushika Brogan (06:33.142)
Absolutely.
Anushika Brogan (06:47.077)
You’re absolutely right. Yeah, I mean, you know, my son is doing dentistry, my niece is doing dentistry. yeah, and you know, you do have an impact. If you talk to people about your career and your passion about it, of course you an impact on them. People don’t have career to choose. It’s really difficult when you’re 16 years old, isn’t it?
Chris (06:52.861)
Yeah. really?
Chris (07:00.425)
Oh yeah. Yeah. No, no. It’s a great career though, Dench. We’ve always said to people, know, it’s one of those ones, isn’t it? That you can, I know it’s a sort of bit corny, but you can change someone’s attitude to life by the way you change their…
their teeth and it’s there’s so few things that can actually you know you can have someone walk in one way and then walk out another way and their whole demeanor and confidence and maybe their whole life changes. It is an amazing skill I think.
Anushika Brogan (07:20.91)
Thank you.
Anushika Brogan (07:33.674)
That’s what my interview sounded like when I went to university. I’d had orthodontics and I was really, you I wasn’t very confident. And when I had my braces, it just changed my life, changed my life. And that’s, you know, was what I said in my interview. That wasn’t the real reason. It was the filling that actually did it for me. But, you know, had to come up with a big story.
Chris (07:53.736)
Yeah. There’s a nice phrase of rising tide lifts all boats. At the beginning of your Korean dentistry, who was kind to you? Who was nice to you when you joined the profession?
Anushika Brogan (08:08.718)
I think associates at my first practice were really nice to me. There’s a lovely lady called Amanda Webster. can still remember her being really nice to me. was a few years ahead of me, not very far ahead of me, two or three years ahead of me, but really just kind and nice. And like the hygienist in the first practice I worked in was really lovely. Just, you when you’re surrounded by nice people, has a big…
Chris (08:20.265)
Mm.
Mm.
Hmm.
Chris (08:30.569)
Hmm. did you start? Where was your first practice? okay. right. Okay. I used to live in, well, Pinner, but so around the corner.
Anushika Brogan (08:35.51)
I worked in East Coat, Middlesex, it’s where I live now actually, yeah. Yeah, it’s East Coat, so on East Coat High Street, so that was, yeah, was Georgia Chief back in the day. But that was where I first started out. And I think I probably had the nicest team experience there, where I worked. It was nice.
Chris (08:48.073)
I thought I recognized you.
Chris (08:56.845)
okay.
Chris (09:04.237)
So Demira, you’ve got 42 practices.
which is crazy when you say it. And we have lots of people that listen to this who are hugely ambitious. Lots of fairly young dentists who have an ambition to build their own group. Can you kind of just break it down for us from kind of, you know, qualifying how long you spent as an associate, your first acquisition, and then perhaps we can dig in a bit more as to how you’ve grown this business to quite the size it is. And maybe I should ask a question that I may well should know the answer to, so I might look a bit stupid.
Demira, where’s it come from?
Anushika Brogan (09:39.224)
So I really liked the name Amira. So I had my two boys and before I got remarried I needed to rebrand the business because my ex-husband wanted to keep the name of the business that I had grown to a certain size. And so they recommended that I went for a name that was a non-word.
Chris (09:56.073)
Right.
Anushika Brogan (10:02.11)
and I didn’t want to call it anything to do with smile, so it had to be something different for me. And I really liked the name Amira and I always thought that if I had a daughter, I was going to call her Amira. But then I thought, that’s quite a nice word. And then my brother passed away and his name was Dee, short for Deepak. And so I’ve put the two things together and that’s how Amira was born.
Chris (10:05.499)
Mmm. Mmm.
Chris (10:15.72)
Right.
Chris (10:26.697)
Nice. What’s great, because it actually feels right. Yes. Do you know what I mean? actually, go, oh yeah, it’s a mirror. That’s cool. I love the origins. Brilliant.
Anushika Brogan (10:35.985)
At the time, remember people going, what kind of name is that? It sounds like Demerara. Like, you know, what are you doing? Is it like a play on sugar? And I was like, no, it’s got nothing to do with sugar. I was like, it’s got nothing to do with sugar. I was like, no. But yeah, that’s where the name came from.
Chris (10:43.305)
Is it a play on sugar? yeah, teeth. Yeah, it’s a subliminal marketing name.
Chris (10:59.818)
Brilliant. Thank you. you. Great. I probably should have known that, but I just thought I’d ask a question.
Anushika Brogan (11:03.83)
No, I don’t think it’s public knowledge necessarily, yeah.
Chris (11:06.771)
So very personal as well. It’s a bit like Minish Talati has his group, Maumin, and that’s something similar. That’s a combination of his name and his late sister’s name. So yeah, I think when you can integrate things like that, it does make it quite special.
Anushika Brogan (11:17.208)
Yeah, yeah.
Anushika Brogan (11:22.286)
Yeah, yeah, I always feel like, you know, he’s there in the background somewhere.
Chris (11:25.499)
Yeah, which is lovely. Lovely. So yeah, so go on, so tell us, so you pop out of dental school, so where did you, where did you qualify and what were the first few years like and how did you get to your first own, first practice?
Anushika Brogan (11:35.195)
Am I qualified for Kings?
And then in the year I qualified, it became GKT. So my qualification was GKT. And then I had lined up my VT position. And so I was going back to Maidstone in Kent. So was going to live at home, had everything sorted, had decorated my bedroom at home. And then I got offered the oral surgery position at King’s as a housemaster, which is one of the best ones to do. And I was at this crossroads because I didn’t want to let the guy down that I’ve like, you know,
Chris (11:41.909)
Mm-hmm.
Chris (12:01.409)
Wow.
Anushika Brogan (12:07.952)
booked my VT with. Back then you could choose couldn’t you? And I just was at a crossroads and then I was like actually I need to do what’s right for my career and this is a really good career move and so I decided to go back to King’s and do that job and I did six months in primary care and oral surgery at King’s and then I did the next six months which was more like an SHO position in Tooting.
Chris (12:10.021)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Chris (12:37.905)
Right, right, yep.
Anushika Brogan (12:39.503)
Georgia’s. Brilliant. Both experiences were absolutely brilliant. I saw some crazy stuff. Like there was a guy who had sinus infections and we had to cut his face up and pull his face. It was not a face off. was amazing, amazing experiences. Cancers and, you know, people being stabbed and all sorts of things was great. So really good year of my life.
Chris (12:52.551)
wow.
Chris (13:01.619)
flip I say in your first year
Anushika Brogan (13:04.812)
in my first year, taking out loads of wisdom tea. Yeah, it was really, really intense. So it was good. And then second year I did BT training. So that’s when I ended up in East Coat.
Chris (13:09.822)
Wow.
Chris (13:17.523)
Mm-hmm.
Anushika Brogan (13:18.75)
And then I got an associate position because they didn’t have enough positions for me to stay on. So I think I stayed on on a Saturday, only on a Saturday morning working there. And the rest of the week I ended up getting a position in South Harrow because my ex-husband was living in Ealing and I was about to move in with him and get married. So a couple of days in South Harrow and the chap I was working for also had a practice in Whitechapel. So I did three days in Whitechapel and two days in South Harrow.
So that was where I ended up working my first year. And then I, within my first year, got pregnant.
straight after getting married and then I was living with my ex-husband’s family and I wanted to leave and I was, I’d saved up a little bit of money and I was like how do I get out of this situation because I want to leave and I don’t know how to get out and I went to see a clairvoyant and I said to the clairvoyant what do I do? Do I use my money to buy a practice or do I use my money to buy a house? Because I don’t know what to do. The clairvoyant said to me
Chris (14:25.129)
Yeah.
Anushika Brogan (14:27.822)
your money to buy a practice it will be really good for you because if you end up with a house all your money is going to go into the house and not into the business and like now when I look back on it I was like 24 years old 25 years old what was I thinking to trust a clairvoyant with the whole vision of my life? Well I did!
Chris (14:43.921)
Yeah. But actually it’s great advice. And she’s on the board. She’s on the board of Demira. Should we buy this business? Hang on, let me just think about it.
Anushika Brogan (14:49.292)
Great advice, isn’t it? It was great advice. Yeah.
Anushika Brogan (14:58.014)
Yeah, I mean, live advice, yeah, it was fantastic. then I started looking at practices and I remember going to see a practice in Grays in Essex and this practice, my first practice in Oxford, and I just got a feeling when I was driving back from the Oxford one that that was the one, yeah. And I…
Chris (15:16.637)
That was
Anushika Brogan (15:20.526)
I ended up going, I was really pushy even from the beginning. If I think about what I did, there was an agent and I turned up at the agent’s offices on the Monday morning and was like, want to buy this practice. And they were like all in a mess because it was Monday morning. And now thinking about it, I was like, what was I doing? I just got up on Monday morning. I was like, I want to buy this practice. What do I do? It was in the beginning.
Chris (15:39.262)
Wah.
Chris (15:42.791)
Wow. So what were you then? was about 27, pregnant and wanting to leave. Is that about right?
Anushika Brogan (15:49.99)
24 and a half, yeah, 24 and a half, yeah, I was 24 and a half. And yeah, wanting to leave my position that I was in, trying to get out, had a deposit and that was it.
Chris (15:55.528)
Wow.
Chris (16:00.222)
Yeah.
Chris (16:03.913)
Wow and you went on to violet practice as well.
Anushika Brogan (16:06.896)
Yes, completed when my son was nine months old.
Chris (16:10.121)
What’s that thing about the most stressful things you can do in your life? Isn’t it one’s buying a house for a business. Well done. Having a baby. Well done. And getting divorced. Was that around about that when it all sort of started the divorce thing or was that subsequent to that? only two, only two out of three then. Wow.
Anushika Brogan (16:22.734)
No, no, that was, I stayed for another nine years after that, so, but I knew quite early on that I was not happy.
Chris (16:32.137)
Are you quite a gut driven emotional instinctive person? Because you were saying you went to a clairvoyant and then with Oxford you said, just felt right and I had to buy it. So do you lead on your instincts quite heavily? Well, yeah.
Anushika Brogan (16:36.248)
Yes.
Anushika Brogan (16:44.578)
Very much so. Very much so. With people and with practices.
Chris (16:49.129)
Right, Yeah. Have you ever used a clear one again?
Anushika Brogan (16:53.742)
Yes, when I was younger I used to, not anymore, but I used to go quite a lot when I was younger.
Chris (16:56.284)
Yeah.
All right, interesting. All right. So you’ve got your one practice and most people stop at that point. For most people, having a practice is enough. That completely consumes them. What was the time period between buying your first practice and then deciding that you wanted more? And did you then decide that you wanted more as in, want to grow this big, or did you just think it would be quite nice to have a second and then it kind of rolled out from there?
Anushika Brogan (17:28.49)
So what happened was, so I bought my first practice in 2003 and then my, and you know, the first couple of years was a massive struggle because there’s so much to learn in the first couple of years. Back then it was easier, I think, than it is now with regulation, et cetera. But you know, it’s still hard, you know, managing staff, managing big personalities, you know. I can still remember I had like, you know, a nurse who was throwing instruments across the room every time I ran late and you know, stuff like
Chris (17:40.271)
Mm. Mm.
Chris (17:49.187)
Mm. Mm.
Anushika Brogan (17:58.336)
And when you think about it now, you’re just like, ah, I had no experience in managing people whatsoever, and her moods were up and down all over the place. And then during that first couple of years, I got sued by one of my staff because of unfair dismissal, all of this type of, you just don’t know what you’re doing to you. In the first couple of years, everything happens to you.
Chris (18:01.641)
Wow. Yeah, yeah.
Chris (18:09.129)
You
Chris (18:19.835)
Nah. Yeah.
Anushika Brogan (18:24.27)
you know, and it impacts you big because like, you know, a few thousand pounds, yeah, and a few thousand pounds is huge when you first start out. So all of those little, little things that you have to go through and the like, you know, growing pains of doing that. But then what happened was I got pregnant again with my second son in 2005. And by the time I had him in the November, I’d made my practice associate led because I obviously wasn’t going to work there for a few months. I, because I had such a short,
Chris (18:26.425)
Massively stressful, isn’t it?
Chris (18:31.667)
Yeah.
Chris (18:52.253)
Mm-hmm.
Anushika Brogan (18:54.256)
maternity leave with my eldest son, I wanted to have a year off. was like, no, do you know what? I want to have a year off to look after my children. I want to spend some time with them. So I took a full year off on maternity leave, and by about six months in, I was really bored.
Chris (19:03.987)
Mm-hmm.
Anushika Brogan (19:12.406)
really bored. And I was like, I can’t do this. This is not for me. you know, it’s not to disrespect people who, who do have extended maternity leaves who like, you know, decide that’s for them. For me personally, that was not a choice I could make because I’m a working girl and I wanted to work. And, know, my best friend is a stay at home mum. And, you know, we always discuss like the different, different levels of stress. She has different stress to me, but we all, you know,
Chris (19:22.953)
Mm.
Chris (19:27.635)
Hmm.
Chris (19:35.88)
Hmm.
Chris (19:40.528)
Hmm
Anushika Brogan (19:42.272)
it works for Yeah, yeah, things work for different people. And then I decided at that point that I wanted to do something massive with my life. And it was that last kind of six months where I was like, what can I do, what can I do, what can I do, what should I do? And my practice that I’d bought had started out as a two-sidere practice. By the time I’d…
Chris (19:43.281)
It’s horses for courses, isn’t it?
Anushika Brogan (20:05.484)
gone off on maternity leave in 2005, which was only a couple of years later, it had grown to a four-cell surgery practice. And I was like, I think I can do this. I think I kind of get what people want. And if you give them what they want, they kind of come back for more. so…
Chris (20:14.889)
Hmm.
Mmm.
Chris (20:21.529)
I suppose especially as you turned it associate led so you knew that you could still make money as an associate led business and therefore you’re thinking hang on a minute
Anushika Brogan (20:26.444)
Yes.
Anushika Brogan (20:30.998)
Yeah, because actually if I can do that, then I can buy something else.
Chris (20:34.608)
Yeah, you can do it elsewhere. Yeah, but this was quite early days. Lots of people now obsess about how do I grow an associate led practice? I can go and buy another and I want 10 and da da but you were kind of with no blueprint You were just kind of saying I need it to be associate led so I can take maternity leave So it was it was a different driver You weren’t driving it because you wanted to step away to grow You just wanted some maternity leave but as a result of that, know, the really good business that you didn’t need to be in Yeah
Anushika Brogan (20:58.658)
Yeah.
Anushika Brogan (21:02.262)
Yeah, yeah. I ended up going back actually two mornings a week, but I privatized my patients because I’ve been there already for like three or four years. So I privatized the patients who had been coming to see me. And you know, most of them, I privatized to a dental analyst, most of them still see me.
Chris (21:03.357)
Which is now a model, yeah. That’s brilliant.
Chris (21:09.673)
Hmm.
Chris (21:21.513)
Right.
Anushika Brogan (21:21.966)
20 years later, so the one day I do in clinic is still in my original practice that I worked in. Most of them still see me 20 years later. So, which is really nice, isn’t it? Because I’ve become friends of yours and, you know, all of that good stuff, you see your work fail, all of that stuff that, you know, we all know.
Chris (21:26.321)
Nice.
Yeah, it is, lovely.
Chris (21:36.519)
Hmm.
Anushika Brogan (21:40.706)
which is really, really important has happened to me. But then what I did was I looked for another practice that was closer to home, I’d say. So I found my practice in Chingford and it was a property and the business was for sale. And when I went in, you walked in and it was like a little battery farm, like tiny little reception behind a hatch. You know how, perhaps as you.
Chris (22:05.385)
Very old school, yeah. Flippin’, yeah.
Anushika Brogan (22:07.784)
very old school with a hatch and I just had this vision that actually if we opened up reception and made it more inviting for patients it would do really well. So I bought that and remortgaged my house, guaranteed my house which you have to do in the early days because you don’t have any equity in anything else. So I skipped, bought a house after, from the money that I’ve made from the first practice I’d put a deposit down in the house.
So then I remortgaged the house and bought my second practice and took out a bank loan and I was lucky at that point interest rates were quite low.
So that was useful at that time because I think that’s a little bit of a barrier at the moment, particularly for people to grow. Interest rates are quite high. And then I hired a company to come and remodel the whole practice to my vision, how I wanted it. We created four surgeries out of a building that was three surgeries. And I put a hygienist in there. And I think people miss that bit. People who own businesses don’t realize how much
Chris (22:52.477)
Yeah.
Chris (23:02.247)
Hmm. Right. Okay.
Anushika Brogan (23:17.296)
income having a hygienist brings in. And that’s like one of the critical things that, you know, with all the practices, they don’t have hygienists. think they’re missing the trick. That’s such easy money and everybody wants to be cleaned. So did that. And then I started working in there. So I was working my two mornings in Oxford and I started working in that practice. So I wanted to see what the demographic was like, whether it similar, if I needed to do anything different.
Chris (23:18.653)
Hmm, no, definitely. Yeah.
Chris (23:28.039)
Yeah, agreed. Definitely agreed,
Chris (23:44.141)
Mm. Mm-hmm.
Anushika Brogan (23:47.168)
And once I’ve got it kind of established, then I hired somebody to replace me and made that associate led. So, and then I kind of, then I was quite excited and I was like, I can do this. I think I know what I’m doing here and I can definitely start to grow it. So I charted out exactly how I was going to grow my business and kind of the hierarchy of how I wanted to do it. And then I…
Chris (23:55.869)
No.
Chris (24:02.631)
Yeah. Yeah.
Chris (24:11.612)
well.
Anushika Brogan (24:15.316)
spoke to my ex-mother-in-law about what to do and she said to me, well, what you need to do is set up a company and put it into my name, your brother-in-law’s name, my husband’s name, and I’ll lend you some money. And so, and that’s how that whole saga began.
Chris (24:35.689)
okay, right, right, right. So that’s how your in-laws got involved in the business. got embedded with your business. Yeah. Right, okay.
Anushika Brogan (24:44.654)
Yes, exactly, exactly that. And so it just became a big mess because I didn’t realise what I was getting myself into at all. Because they just said to me that if anything ever happens, we’ll make sure it goes to your kids and blah, blah, blah, blah. And I told them at that point, I was like, didn’t know anything about corporate law or… Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Chris (24:51.849)
Mmm.
Chris (24:58.259)
Yeah.
Well, you’re trusting, aren’t you, at that time? And I suppose, I guess everybody hopes that…
the other side of it’s never gonna come true. Everybody assumes that it’s all gonna be fine, we’re gonna grow it, it’s gonna work, and it’s only when things go wrong. It’s a bit like when people buy or sell dental practices, you have a sale and purchase agreement, and in a perfect world, it stays in the drawer, and it never comes out. And when it does come out, there’s kind of a problem. And the situation that you described, if things hadn’t turned out as they did, then it would have never been an issue. But.
Anushika Brogan (25:14.518)
Yes.
Anushika Brogan (25:24.888)
Yeah.
Anushika Brogan (25:33.741)
you.
Chris (25:34.154)
obviously things didn’t go down that route. So it did become an issue. So what size did your group get to?
Anushika Brogan (25:38.733)
it.
Chris (25:41.514)
Because obviously, you you’ve been quite over about it this this resulted in you getting divorced So that’s why this part about your your ex-in-laws being involved in the business is quite critical But what size did the business get to before before your marriage and it was a very messy divorce. Yes It was it was very public. It was don’t know if you want to you want to google situation Yeah, there’ll be quite a lot there of uh, I knew she’d get it for you
Anushika Brogan (25:55.864)
this channel.
Anushika Brogan (26:05.498)
I’ve tried to bury it with good stuff, but if you dig deep enough, there’s a lot of stuff about my messy divorce. We had seven practices in that company, and my two practices outside of the company that I’d originally set up. There was nine in total.
Chris (26:12.136)
Yeah.
Chris (26:16.263)
Right.
Chris (26:20.701)
Right. Okay. And did you then lose those seven practices as a result of that? you have to start from the ground up or were you able to keep those practices?
Anushika Brogan (26:30.444)
No, so I was really lucky because at the time the area teams really supported me a lot, a lot. you know, there’s a whole thing about transfer of the NHS contract. We had no trust document to say that I held it on trust for the company. So actually the NHS contracts belonged to me.
Chris (26:36.84)
Bye.
Chris (26:42.619)
Yeah.
Chris (26:49.203)
We’re in your name. right.
Anushika Brogan (26:50.272)
read my name and so there was only I think there was three that I’d tended for that were in the company’s name which I did have to hand over but the rest stayed with me and I just bought them out.
Chris (26:57.192)
Right. Right. Right. okay, right. So wasn’t back to ground zero. You were able to build on what you had, Sure. Yeah.
Anushika Brogan (27:04.748)
No, I lost a lot of money because I had to buy my own practices back for myself. But, you know, in the grand scheme of things, it was OK. I ended up with… So then what happened was I tended for some more during the divorce and I won them. And that was like a lifeline to me because that NHS funding that came in paid for the divorce.
Chris (27:12.37)
Yeah.
Chris (27:21.256)
Mm.
Chris (27:25.489)
Yeah, I tell you what that’s an amazing thing isn’t I mean I know you sort of was it we say it’s found on 15 years ago or something, you know I find that quite amazing that you’re going through a very public unpleasant circumstance at out outward looking no doubt internally personally, it’s not a very nice experience, but you’re still
Anushika Brogan (27:33.358)
15 years.
Anushika Brogan (27:43.82)
Yeah.
Anushika Brogan (27:48.632)
All right.
Chris (27:50.514)
tendering for contracts. I find that quite remarkable really that it would have been quite easy to sort of almost like pull your feelers in, put the shutters up, resolve that issue, then think about it. But during this whole process, you’re thinking, well, actually I’m just going to, I am going to tender because I want to keep growing. think it’s remarkable. And I guess there’s a bit in there. It’s a survival strategy. It’s kind of, I’ve got to get through this. And probably something different.
Anushika Brogan (28:17.102)
I I used to work a lot to escape my life because I wasn’t happy in my marriage. And actually, when then the divorce hit, I worked even more.
Chris (28:24.627)
Hmm. Right, okay.
Chris (28:30.537)
Right, yeah.
Anushika Brogan (28:32.25)
Because you you just kind of you go into yourself, but if your coping mechanism is to work You know some people come for eat some people drink some ice to work. That was my way It was a distraction tool. You know it’s just a distraction Actually, I think it’s quite a positive distraction versus other things that you can
Chris (28:39.783)
Mmm. Mmm. Mmm.
Chris (28:46.697)
Mm.
Chris (28:51.122)
that you could do, yeah. As advice, working hard as advice is better than some of the alternatives. you still like that? Have you got more balance in your life now?
Anushika Brogan (29:00.364)
Yeah, much more balance now than I did have, yeah, for sure. Yeah, my husband’s very instrumental in that. He comes and tells me off if I work too hard. He’s just like, it’s time to stop now. Which is good, yeah. Yeah.
Chris (29:03.293)
Right.
Chris (29:09.673)
Oh, it’s quite nice. Oh, that’s good. Which is good. If we just pause for a second before we kind of go on in terms of the growth, you talk a lot about culture, behaviors, ethos in your practice and how it’s really important to have that across your whole business. With 42 sites now, how do you put in place the infrastructure to make sure that if you walk into one of your practices, it has a consistent look, feel, behavior, ethos when you’re not there?
Anushika Brogan (29:40.462)
I think people are quite clear in my organisation of what my expectations are. I’m not kind of, you know, very…
I want them to feel proud of their own practices and I give the practice managers a lot of ownership over their own practice. You know, I want them to feel like it’s their business. if I feel like they’re not treating it like that, then I would pull them to one side and say, don’t know if you’re necessarily right for us because you need to feel that ownership that it’s your site. You know, if your receptionist are on the phone, it reflects on you, not on me. You know, and so I feel like once you give them a little bit more autonomy to kind of run
Chris (29:55.165)
Hmm.
Chris (30:09.885)
Mmm. Mmm.
Chris (30:16.137)
Hmm
Anushika Brogan (30:22.902)
things then they feel like they’re responsible because I don’t make them pick up the phone at the weekends. I don’t say to them they’ve got to do all of these things but most of my team would do that. You know if I messaged something out that affects them on the group they you know so many of them would answer but I don’t ask that of them it’s because they care.
Chris (30:28.937)
Hmm.
Chris (30:32.808)
Mm.
Chris (30:41.29)
I think it’s it’s been we sort of have I made many years going to bang I like Blake who taught me that and the best management thing he said if you treat everybody like a thoroughbred He said they will perform like a thoroughbred and he said occasionally after pulled the reins in but he said if you teach them if you treat them like show ponies or donkeys on the beach he said don’t expect much from them and that’s exactly what you’re saying to people is that I’m gonna entrust you with my brand and my ethos and
Anushika Brogan (31:07.5)
Yeah.
Chris (31:10.309)
If you don’t follow it, then I’m going to pull your reins in a bit. I think it’s great. It’s a great management technique. It’s a great management technique.
Anushika Brogan (31:13.602)
Thank
Anushika Brogan (31:17.32)
Do you know, I hate being micromanaged. I hate it. You know what the NHS are doing at the moment where they’re absolutely scrutinizing everything. It’s horrible for dentists, isn’t it? Nobody likes working like that. it just doesn’t breed like, know, that’s why people are leaving the NHS because they just don’t want to work like that. They don’t want to be scrutinized all the time. If you give people autonomy and responsibility, you do get the odd few that really abuse it. There’s people who don’t turn up to work.
Chris (31:24.433)
Yeah
Yeah.
Chris (31:35.56)
Hmm.
Chris (31:44.104)
Yeah.
Mmm.
Anushika Brogan (31:47.184)
They take them, they can go home early, all of that kind of stuff. They get caught eventually.
Chris (31:50.922)
I mean, we always say, don’t we? One of the things we feel sorry for dentists is that they’ve set the bar so low that basically, because when we used to be at work in the bank, we would do things called exception reporting. So basically, if it was an exception, then it would be reported, then you’d action it. But basically, 98 % of things are never an exception. Whereas the NHS…
Anushika Brogan (31:58.658)
Yeah.
Anushika Brogan (32:04.525)
Yes.
Chris (32:15.433)
And dentistry to a certain degree with the GDC seems to have almost gone the fact of we’re going to assume that 2 % of you are okay and 98 % of you are dodgy. So everybody’s got to go through this ridiculous sort of scrutiny as you say when really you don’t need to because there are some bad apples, there are some people, but I mean, over the thousands of people we’ve seen, they are few and far between. Few and far between.
Anushika Brogan (32:22.508)
Yeah.
Anushika Brogan (32:29.634)
Yes.
Anushika Brogan (32:33.73)
Yeah.
Anushika Brogan (32:38.206)
Absolutely. Most people are nice people, aren’t they?
Chris (32:41.898)
They are. They want to treat their patients well. They want to deliver the best service they can. But equally building a team to your size takes time, doesn’t it? You don’t just kind of get the right person every time. There’s quite a lot of, there’s a bit of a revolving door of you end up with some people that just don’t fit. And it doesn’t mean they’re bad people. They just don’t fit in your environment. that’s right. They’re not yours.
Anushika Brogan (32:45.902)
Yeah.
Anushika Brogan (32:50.541)
Yes.
Anushika Brogan (32:54.06)
No, it’s done.
Anushika Brogan (33:04.78)
And then there’s so many like, you know, pointers, I think that you can pick up on if people are not the right fit for your organisation. I always think that if people are crying a lot, they’re not right for the job, whether it’s a head nurse job or, you know, they’re crying. Yeah, they cry a lot. And actually people don’t pick up. I definitely didn’t used to pick up on that early doors. But now if people, if people say to me, I’m crying a lot, I’m just like, that is because they’re too stressed and they’re out of it.
Chris (33:11.528)
Hmm.
Chris (33:16.521)
crying a lot seriously
Chris (33:34.013)
Yeah. Yeah.
Anushika Brogan (33:34.764)
doing their job, know, that is too big a job for them. And I think that, you know, when you’re managing a business, it’s really important to understand that people have top levels of where they can get to. And, you know, if you stress them past that top level, they just feel like they can’t cope.
Chris (33:52.222)
Yeah, people just I remember once working in a bank years ago. We said this thing with We we promoted this woman who was brilliant, but she was terrible to this job We gave her and she was like we tried, know their improvement programs and Monthly weekly management, you know all this sort of stuff and eventually My boss said to me said have you actually asked her if she wants this job? And I said, we do that? said yes. I just said to do you want this job? went no, hate it
Anushika Brogan (34:16.31)
Hehehe.
Chris (34:20.763)
really really hate this job and we said well do you want your old job back yeah please problem solved yeah she wasn’t bad she just didn’t want that job she just didn’t like it
Anushika Brogan (34:22.006)
Exactly.
Anushika Brogan (34:26.006)
Yeah. And we’ve had it before where we’ve promoted practice managers to area managers. They’re great as practice managers. The minute they go to area managers, they just cannot do it because it’s totally different skill set. You have to be strategic and, you know, business focused and all of these things. And actually, they’re quite happy with their team around them and they’re able to manage things on the ground. you know.
Chris (34:38.813)
Yeah. Yeah.
Chris (34:49.866)
But that’s a management skill itself, isn’t it? To be able to identify the people that have been put in positions that they’re not good. Because otherwise you just stress them out and then they make a mistake. yeah, I think that’s a real management skill as well. So let’s pick up the story. So you’re now divorced, you have your few practices and we’re now at 42. So how did you get from…
Anushika Brogan (34:56.174)
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Anushika Brogan (35:09.389)
Yes.
Chris (35:13.927)
those few, not with saying the fact you said you doubled down, you threw yourself into work, that was a theme that kind of was your vice. But how did you get from there to where you are, where you are now?
Anushika Brogan (35:24.088)
We’ve had quite steady growth, I would say. So when I finished even my degree, so I, you know, the beginning part, I hardly had any debt.
Chris (35:28.317)
Hmm.
Chris (35:36.233)
Mm.
Anushika Brogan (35:36.622)
So when I walked away with nine practices, so by that point I had 12 and then I came back again to nine. So I walked away from my divorce with nine of my practices and I didn’t have very much debt. So I raised debt in order to pay my ex-husband’s family back. Like, you know, for the practices I took away, for property, et cetera, so it’s part of the divorce. Had a bit of debt, but actually I wasn’t very happy
Chris (35:44.026)
Mm-hmm.
Chris (35:57.63)
Mm-hmm.
Anushika Brogan (36:06.576)
leveraged at all for the nine sites that I had and I didn’t really understand how leverage works and about EBITDA because I think back in the day it was all about goodwill it wasn’t really about EBITDA.
Chris (36:09.257)
Mm.
Chris (36:13.609)
You
Chris (36:18.385)
Yeah, percentage of turnover.
Anushika Brogan (36:20.014)
Yes, it was a percentage of turnover rather than EBITDA and how the bank kind of view things. And I then consolidated all my debt into one place. And then I had a huge acquisition facility ahead of me. And so I was like, oh, actually, I can probably go out and buy some practices. So I bought a couple of practices. I bought my practice in Bournemouth and I bought a couple of practices in Twickenham and things. And then I
Chris (36:23.677)
the underlying profit.
Chris (36:35.497)
Mmm.
Anushika Brogan (36:49.92)
kind of let that kind of settle. Then I was thinking about doing a private equity sale. And so I wrapped up quite a bit thinking that in 2018, I’m going to go for a private equity sale. And so did all of that, had quite a few in the pipeline, and then decided it wasn’t for me. Changed my mind right at the 11th hour. Everything was kind of, you know, set up with almost
Chris (37:03.4)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Chris (37:11.817)
changed mine.
Anushika Brogan (37:19.362)
gone ahead with the legals and things and then I was just, this is not for me.
Chris (37:21.267)
Farewell. How many practices do you have there, Anishka?
Anushika Brogan (37:26.286)
I think I had about 18. Yeah, about 18.
Chris (37:29.042)
wow. But this is interesting because this is back to this gut instinct thing isn’t it? It was like just no wasn’t yeah.
Anushika Brogan (37:34.454)
Yeah. It was giving me sleepless nights.
I was really bothered about it. was just like, you know, it’s such a big decision and it just did not feel right to me. There was something that just did not feel right to me. you know, the company that I was going to go to, they were going to buy 51 % of my business, which meant that they were going to be the controlling shareholder. And it just felt all the same to me all over again. And I was like, oh, I just don’t know. Even though, like, you know, the multiples were great, the money was great. I was just like, oh. And then I remember
Chris (37:42.749)
Mmm.
Chris (37:47.657)
Interesting.
Chris (37:55.729)
Yeah.
Anushika Brogan (38:09.255)
I literally like on the back of a fad packet, I literally got a piece of paper and I mapped out that if I kept my own business and got to 50 sites, how much would I earn? And if I did it through private equity, how much would I earn? Yes. No, I haven’t, I’ve shredded it.
Chris (38:24.692)
well, have you kept that bit of paper?
What a shame, can you imagine maybe like what was that thing where some Blakely designed something on the back of a napkin or something? come on. What it was. I love stories like that. Yeah, I disappointed
Anushika Brogan (38:41.41)
I remember turning up at work with my accountant and handing it to him and just going, the maths doesn’t work. It doesn’t work. It just doesn’t give me as much profit because you’re taking out a huge chunk now, but actually you don’t end up with owning everything and blah, blah, So I kind of just decided that that wasn’t for me. And so I backed out of it.
Chris (38:56.681)
Hmm.
Chris (39:01.206)
Right. Wow. And do you see it as a, Demira, as a bit of a legacy business because you were saying both your kids doing dentistry? I can’t remember.
Anushika Brogan (39:09.646)
No, so my eldest one has just finished law, law degree, and my middle one’s doing dentistry. But they’ve both made noises about coming into the business at various points. But I’m not putting any pressure on them, because I think them being happy is much more important to me than anything else. I want them to be happy. If it’s the right decision for them when the time’s right, I’m fine. But if it’s not, that’s also fine.
Chris (39:22.504)
Yeah.
Chris (39:26.716)
Yeah.
Chris (39:30.464)
Right. And if you set a limit for how many practices you’re to do, we’re just going to keep going and see how you go.
Anushika Brogan (39:38.19)
There’s no limit. There’s no limit. Sky’s the limit. We’ll see where we get to. I mean, I know how long I want to work in the business world. I want to do probably about another 12 years. I’ll probably start cutting down in the next seven years and then carry it on for another five as sort of consultant, if you like. But I don’t want to work for the whole of my life.
Chris (39:48.114)
Bye.
Chris (39:55.858)
Hmm.
With what you know now, if you could go back, would you change anything that you’ve done?
Anushika Brogan (40:05.966)
I think I probably would buy more practices early. I think, you know, when interest rates are low, you feel scared.
Chris (40:14.185)
and values were cheaper.
Anushika Brogan (40:18.254)
I think you feel scared. I think of, what if it doesn’t work out? And put you off quite a lot about growth and expansion plans. People put you off terribly. And I also had a period where I’ve had various periods where I’ve had quite controlling advisors, I think. And I think that now I don’t have controlling advisors anymore because I know what I’m doing with the business.
Chris (40:20.232)
Mm-hmm.
Chris (40:39.857)
Interesting No
Yeah, you’re pretty solid. Yeah, but also you’re you’re quite unusual in that you worked out very quickly that
you could make it work in that you turn your first practice associate led that worked and you’re like, okay, I get it. And you did it and you did it again and it worked. because that kind of back in the early 2000s was breaking the mold, lots of people like to kind of just do what’s been done before. So anything that’s slightly different just feels edgy and different. Whereas you knew that it was working for you. Whereas lots of people that advise, advise on existing systems at work, as opposed to help you create something new. So you probably wouldn’t have fitted
that system particularly well, so you kind of almost had to find it yourself.
Anushika Brogan (41:27.854)
I think the challenge is that you obviously earn so much more money if you’re in the business working. I don’t particularly like locums in the business. I think that a lot of people are just like, yeah, replace yourself with a locum. Well, that’s really expensive and that doesn’t work.
Chris (41:32.873)
Definitely, yeah.
Chris (41:38.377)
Hmm.
Chris (41:44.103)
Yeah. And it doesn’t carry the brand value. It doesn’t.
Anushika Brogan (41:46.67)
No, no, because they just don’t care enough about the patients, et cetera. And so I think that, you know, if you plan it, you plan an exit so that you can come out, then absolutely. But you have to plan it with the right people around you. I think if people are thinking of growth plans, I would definitely say get an associate, but be present around that associate to make sure that they’ve got the right values, because that is how your business will grow. Because it’s so easy, isn’t it, to open your books, because, you know, a dentist is
Chris (41:51.164)
No, that’s right.
Chris (42:08.919)
Mm-hmm. Mm.
Anushika Brogan (42:16.684)
popular. It’s really easy. Really.
Chris (42:17.703)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, you only have to look at some of the larger corporates. you know, with constant changes of of associates and stuff there, then don’t do very well because people aren’t coming back. think lots of people get caught in no man’s land. You broke through it. And I think if you’ve got a single practice you work in is quite profitable. And I think the no man’s land is where people end up with two, three or four practices. And it’s not quite big enough to produce the underlying profit.
to replace the profit that comes from them working in one practice, but they just don’t have the resources, the skills or whatever to break through and suddenly end up with seven, eight, 10, 12 practices, which then produces more profit than the one practice you’re working in. And it feels there’s a lot of people that, and you broke through that quite quickly, but there’s a lot of people that have found themselves liking the idea of it being associate led, but they haven’t yet built a business to a size where it’s working for them.
It just feels like they’re now working for business, but not in a clinical capacity. Yeah. I just think it’s an interesting one, isn’t it? You know, when you said the first one, you turned from two to four and then you wanted more time off. So you then, you know, you increase the gross, but probably did the profit. Okay. By making it associate led, but it’s interesting. The fact of your motivation was a more personal motivation to have more time. And then when you realized actually you could make it work, you were like,
Whereas I think a lot of people don’t sort of see that, they? It’s a real interesting one, because all they see is, as you said, Annie, the reduction in the amount of money I take home, which I don’t want to take. Thanks very much. I still want to earn that amount of money.
Anushika Brogan (43:55.586)
Yeah.
And actually, do you know, I did do a stepping stone where I was working part time. then so I can remember when I had Basingstoke, so I had Oxford, Chingford and Basingstoke. And I used to work that two mornings in Oxford, two days in Chingford. And then I used to do the third day. I used to go to Basingstoke. was, I never worked properly in Basingstoke as an associate or as a dentist, but I used to go there.
Chris (44:21.118)
Wow.
Anushika Brogan (44:29.72)
and just go through all the accounts and look at all the books and look at all the UDA targets and look at what everyone was boasting and all of that, like an area manager. So then when my fourth practice came along, which was Docklands, I then kind of did, I cut down one day in Chingford at that point and did the same thing in Docklands. And I kind of area managed quite a lot of what was going on myself. So I understood the business.
Chris (44:36.361)
Yeah, yeah.
Chris (44:53.342)
Yeah.
So you understood it yourself. as you can then pass that on almost,
Anushika Brogan (44:59.406)
So that then when we did end up getting an area manager, then it was very, very easy to kind of pass. So I was living in Ealing still. Well, I’d moved away from my in-laws, so I’d moved to New Barrow in my own house, but still being quite controlled.
Chris (45:05.181)
Yeah. Was this when you were living in East Coast still?
Chris (45:18.761)
Wow, I’m just thinking it’s quite a lot of traveling, isn’t it?
Anushika Brogan (45:21.966)
Yeah, yeah. I’ve never scared of being on the road.
Chris (45:25.801)
Yeah, why are we here? What would you say based on your experience is the critical skill you need to master as an entrepreneur? What’s the one thing that’s made it work for you?
Anushika Brogan (45:37.006)
think I’m just not scared. think having a really good attitude to risk that things can go wrong, but of course they can go wrong. But if you have the attitude that no matter what happens, I’m going to make it right, you can’t. Yeah. Yeah. I’ve always been a bit… My mum always used to say to me when I was younger, you just love a challenge, don’t you? And I was just like, mm-hmm.
Chris (45:47.934)
Mmm.
Chris (45:53.161)
Have you always been like that?
Chris (46:03.305)
Ha!
Anushika Brogan (46:05.324)
Yeah, if it’s not challenging me constantly, I get bored. So I want to be challenged. I like a challenge all the time. So yeah, I don’t like it.
Chris (46:08.679)
Right, okay, right.
Are you able to describe what success looks like for you?
Anushika Brogan (46:18.326)
I think success is balance.
in your life. think that, you know, financial success is not enough for me. think, you know, I think having, you know, good family values and good family around you is really important. Having nice friends around me, you know, it’s so colourful to have lovely friends who really care about you and you can share your life with. That’s really important to me. Health’s really important to me. You know, I put a lot of attention on sleeping properly.
Chris (46:24.061)
That’s it is.
Chris (46:32.649)
Hmm.
Chris (46:36.329)
Excuse me.
Mmm.
Chris (46:47.689)
Hmm.
Anushika Brogan (46:51.36)
exercising, eating properly, those things. Yeah, and you know, I think it’s, I want to be the best daughter I can to my parents. That’s really important to me. I think all of those things are important. I don’t think work’s the only thing that’s important.
Chris (47:01.714)
Mm-hmm.
Chris (47:06.473)
And I think it sounds to me like this is a this is a byproduct of your experience of life as well I think if we were talking to you 20 years ago, I don’t think we’d got an answer. I Think we’re hearing a very different response based on a lived experience and a lived life for where you are now
Anushika Brogan (47:14.742)
Now you’ve been there.
Definitely, yeah. And I think, like, you know, over the years, sometimes when I look back on decisions I made when I was in my 20s, I was so feisty and so, like…
Chris (47:31.529)
You’re still pretty feisty in fairness.
Anushika Brogan (47:34.126)
Yeah, maybe. But I think, you know, I was like a bull in a china shop with stuff. And like, you know, the empathetic side of me wasn’t there so much. You know, I didn’t really understand people who were going through really difficult situations. Whereas now, you know, you know, some of my patients, I sit and talk to them, they’re like in their 60s, and they’re losing their partners because they’ve got MS or, you know, stuff like that, it really makes you think, what is life about? You know?
Chris (47:46.057)
Hmm.
Chris (48:00.764)
Mmm. Yeah.
Anushika Brogan (48:04.24)
It really does change your perspective on life slightly, I think.
Chris (48:07.145)
Yeah. Yeah. It’s been a, it’s been a great conversation. mean, geez, we’ve, we’ve been talking for nearly 50 minutes and we’ve covered a lot of ground and I think there’s, there’s a lot, there’s a more. a glass of wine in there at all. No, no, no, no. And there’s a, there’s a, there’s a whole.
Anushika Brogan (48:20.942)
That’s not my sign.
Chris (48:23.529)
I think there’s a whole other chapter that hasn’t been written yet as well. I think you were saying that you want to do this for another decade or more and it’ll be fascinating to see where this gets evolving to and where it keeps moving to. But we’ve got to the point where we have to ask you two questions before we can let you go. So the first question is if you could be a fly on the wall in a situation, where would you be and who you be there?
Anushika Brogan (48:46.742)
I think, do you know what fascinates me? How on earth were the Egyptian pyramids made? That’s what I to know. I don’t know. No one can explain it. I want to know how they were made. That’s what I want to know. I want to know how on earth those pyramids got there because they’re so heavy. How did they get, how, how? I just can’t figure it out. Can’t figure it out as far as me.
Chris (48:53.997)
We’ve watched hundreds of documentaries on it. Aliens, it’s got to be aliens.
Chris (49:11.572)
Excellent, That’s a good one, we’ve not had that before. We’ve never had that one. And if you could meet somebody, you could sit down with a nice glass of red wine with somebody and have a conversation, who would that be?
Anushika Brogan (49:22.958)
Oh, would 100 % be my brother. It would be my brother, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Chris (49:25.289)
Tell us about your brother
Anushika Brogan (49:29.454)
He was 39 when he passed away, so quite young and really talented as well. He had a brain aneurysm that popped and so I feel like there was so much I wanted to say to him that I didn’t finish saying to him because like number one, you’re too young, don’t kind of, you know, in hindsight, you don’t expect it. You don’t expect it. And he just used to annoy me all the time. You know, we used to fight all the time. Now I would just tell him how much I loved him, whereas back then I didn’t.
Chris (49:33.146)
I was young.
Bye.
Chris (49:41.927)
Mmm. Mmm.
Yeah. You don’t expect that at 39 do you?
Sure. Yeah.
Yeah.
Anushika Brogan (49:59.36)
you know, I kind of like, oh you’re so annoying, what do know, you know, all that kind of stuff. So yeah, that would be my two.
Chris (50:02.611)
Yeah.
Chris (50:07.881)
Brilliant. Thank you. Thank you so much for your time today. You’re busy person, but it’s a great story to tell and thank you for unpicking it as well. think people take so much from kind of seeing the highs and the lows and the toils and the troubles, but you’re still here and you’re still moving forward and you’re doing it with enthusiastic. People only see like quite often where you are now, don’t they? They see, you know, you with your 43 practices and it all seems, but there’s the whole history.
Anushika Brogan (50:11.534)
and happy community days.
Chris (50:36.231)
backstory to all which I think is the fascinating thing that people yeah yeah
Anushika Brogan (50:38.21)
Yeah, there’s been a lot of grip required, a lot of tears, a lot of, you know, struggles and stress and yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s all part of the journey. you. Thank you. Bye.
Chris (50:43.474)
Yeah.
Chris (50:47.965)
Yeah, no, brilliant. Thank you very much. Lovely. Thank you for joining us today. Thank you very much. Keep well. Bye.
