Dentology Podcast with Sandeep Sadana

Transcript – Dentology Podcast with Sandeep Sadana

Episode Release Date – Monday 25 September 2023

Andy & Chris:
Here we are again. Yet another one of the Dentology Podcasts. It’s quite remarkable isn’t it to think that when we started this it was kind of a little of an embryo of an idea and now we’re the other side of 100 episodes. It is amazing really. It’s amazing I think one that we’ve got to 100. I think I also find it amazing that people are listening and then listening in higher, larger, longer numbers. Which is, it must be interesting. Which is somewhat fascinating. The interesting guests just keep coming. I think as a profession. dentistry just has this rich depth of people who are doing interesting things, different things and innovative things. And we’ve got one today. We’ve got one today. We are very, very fortunate. So today we have Dr. Sandeep Sadana joining us. And Sandeep is a dentist director of the direct restorative excellence known as Dr. Dre, which I think is the coolest thing in the world. But he’s known as Sunny. So let’s welcome him as Sunny. How are you doing, Sunny? Are you well? Morning.

Sunny:
Yeah, all good guys. Morning, morning. Thank you for having me.

Andy & Chris:
No, not to our, I’m really looking forward to our conversation today. I think there’s lots of elements of your journey and career so far. I think people are gonna take a lot from, what’s nice about this podcast is that we like hearing people’s life stories. Much more interesting than business. Well yeah, and from that, the business tips flow. And when I was kind of doing some research and reading about you, there’s so much in what you’ve done so far. People are gonna take bundles from it, so. I’d recommend you call me pressure. Poor old son. You look at that.

Sunny:
Yeah,

Andy & Chris:
Yeah.

Sunny:
yeah.

Andy & Chris:
All right. He’s a son. You got to be interesting and inspirational in one guy. You know, no, no pressure. It’s fine. Thanks so much. I think people need a notebook and a pen for this episode. There’s going to be a lot in it, but not if you’re driving. No, exactly. Exactly. To start off, how are you? Are you all right?

Sunny:
Yeah, I’m good, thank you. I’m super well man. And yeah, just quick one as well. Got to do the obligatory compliments up front, right? But what you guys have done is amazing as well. Super inspirational, right? Super inspirational. FTA law, FTA

Andy & Chris:
Thank

Sunny:
media,

Andy & Chris:
you.

Sunny:
FTA finance, is there anything you guys don’t do?

Andy & Chris:
FTA dating, but we might do FTA dentistry dating. Thank you very much. I think what we try to do is, you know, this podcast is the business of dentistry. I think we’ve tried to support dentists in as many non-clinical ways as possible. It’s kind of all the business stuff. And actually, and you would know this, you know, you spend five years minimum at dental school becoming a really good clinician technician. And for many dentists, the business skills don’t come that naturally. So if we can support people on that side of their career and their life, that’s a good thing. And all the things we’ve done have kind of naturally flowed from that as an approach. So now, thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. So just to kind of give ourselves some context, we’ll get to your dental bit in a minute, but in what ways did your parents set you up for the person that you are today? What was your childhood like?

Sunny:
Well that’s deep already isn’t it, that’s going well deep immediately.

Andy & Chris:
We might as well dive in at the deep end. There’s no

Sunny:
Yeah

Andy & Chris:
point in

Sunny:
exactly. What a tea.

Andy & Chris:
being in a shallow end with our water wings on.

Sunny:
For sure, for sure. Well, it is interesting. I always try and come on podcasts and say stuff that I haven’t said before as well, because there are some people that have heard me speak so many times. It gets a bit boring if they hear the same old spiel. So I’ll probably just be quite open and honest about something interesting. So growing up in an Indian family, there’s lots of things that come with that. Right. Especially you’ve probably heard the common cliche, which is, you know, Indian parents want you to be a doctor, dentist, all that kind of stuff. And that is

Andy & Chris:
Yeah,

Sunny:
supremely

Andy & Chris:
yeah,

Sunny:
true.

Andy & Chris:
yeah.

Sunny:
The other side to it as well is like, you know, arranged marriages, like they are a thing. They actually are a thing. And so my mom actually had a range-rider when she was very young, like we’re talking like 18. And then I was born 19 and then that didn’t really work out. So it was me and my mum for a long part of my life. Right. So it’s just us two. And I pretty much grew up in a shop, which was my uncle’s shop. So my mom was just hard working.

Andy & Chris:
Just on that Sunny, how was that, obviously from an age and a culture and a moment in time, how did that play out within the family that your parents obviously didn’t stay together? Was that a challenging time for your mum?

Sunny:
I can’t imagine how difficult that must have been as a young lady, you

Andy & Chris:
Mmm.

Sunny:
know, to parents that were born in India and then, you know, the granddad, my granddad came over to India, left his family there, you know, very little money in his pocket, that type of, you know, rags to riches type of story. Then

Andy & Chris:
Yeah,

Sunny:
did that

Andy & Chris:
yeah.

Sunny:
was able to work factory to bank to that kind of stuff in the 70s, 60s, 70s as a turban wearing bearded man. I’m sure that was pretty difficult as well. And

Andy & Chris:
Yeah, yeah.

Sunny:
then managed to save enough money to actually get the family over and then my mom was actually the first one to be born in the of the family in the UK so

Andy & Chris:
Bye.

Sunny:
there’s probably like a bit of a disconnect as well you know like growing up in the UK from traditional parents there

Andy & Chris:
Yeah.

Sunny:
is that’s a bit of a thing I suppose is less spoken about people who come from sort of immigrant families and what they grow through because it’s quite a cultural shift like you’re you know you’re brown enough to be Indian but you’re also not white enough to be English type of deal right so there’s that

Andy & Chris:
Hmm.

Sunny:
kind of where do you fit type of deal so I think she probably encountered that. I probably encountered that a little bit as a youngster as well. But yeah, it certainly had

Andy & Chris:
Mm.

Sunny:
big, big effects on the family, right? That’s quite a big deal for

Andy & Chris:
Where

Sunny:
Indian

Andy & Chris:
did you

Sunny:
families.

Andy & Chris:
grow up, Sonny?

Sunny:
So I was born in Hackney, grew up in Walthamstow and always lived around there. So my uncle’s shops were in Walthamstow, so that’s where pretty much I spent most of my days because obviously my mum would drop me there in the morning, she’d go to work, trying to put food on the table and doing the best she can as a single parent, right? And then, yeah,

Andy & Chris:
Yeah.

Sunny:
then I’d come home to the shop and then she picked me up after dinner. So yeah, difficult, I’d say for her more than me because I was a kid, right? What do you really know at that time?

Andy & Chris:
Hmm.

Sunny:
You realize the effects later, right?

Andy & Chris:
Did your uncle get you to work in the shop? So did you sort of do shelf stacking? I’m just thinking as to, is this part of your friendliness and service culture? And is that an early age? So as you know, you were already working, even though it might’ve been sort of like very low key, but you were learning these skills then. Because whenever I’ve met you, you’re an extremely affable, very personable, personable chap, you know, and I know that’s part of, you know, your nature, but it’s also part of what your experience you’ve learned from. I was just wondering, is that sort of what you did as well at an early age, you know, developed a work ethic?

Sunny:
Yeah, for sure. I mean, you need to spend a lot of time with Indians. You’ll find that straight away. They’re going to put you to work immediately. Right. So that’s

Andy & Chris:
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah

Sunny:
me and my cousins. Yeah. I mean, yeah, we grew up in a shop, learnt the ropes, you know, and, you know, you grew up watching these two uncles again, you know, turbines and big bids in the East End of London. And then how they deal with people and how they were part of the community and all the rest of it, like it does rub off on you. Right.

Andy & Chris:
Hmm.

Sunny:
I think, yeah, there’s a lot to be said for just getting in the mud, so to speak.

Andy & Chris:
Did they pay you?

Sunny:
with hugs and kisses and the occasional backhand, right?

Andy & Chris:
But I think it’s funny isn’t it, mentors come in different… shapes and sizes, don’t they? You know, and quite often those early years, you know, in your case, it was uncles, but they also instilled something in you around, you know, work ethic and values. And, you know, you’ve mentioned about kind of turbans and beards a couple of times. There’s a pride in there as well. You’d be proud of who you are, and it isn’t necessarily always going to be easy, but you should still remember kind of your heritage and your culture, because that’s want to lose.

Sunny:
Yeah, for sure, for sure, for sure. And I mean, from a cultural perspective too, like my granddad, like he actually died when I was two years old, so I didn’t really get to see him too much. But he had this

Andy & Chris:
No.

Sunny:
big thing and it runs in our family that, you know, where you are, you’re like, where you lay your hat, that’s your home, like you treat that, you know, with respect type of deal. So that’s like a big, big running theme in my upbringing, right? It’s not so much like, you know, wherever you work, yeah, pretty much that, that’s pretty much it. Wherever you are, you know, you get stuck in with that society, that, you know, community.

Andy & Chris:
Yeah, you immerse yourself, don’t

Sunny:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Andy & Chris:
you? So did those early years work ethic? Did that make you a studious young sonny? Were you good at school?

Sunny:
You know, funny enough, surprisingly too many I was. And one

Andy & Chris:
Hahahaha!

Sunny:
of those things, and to be frankly honest, out of all the kids in my family, I was the naughty one. I was the naughty one.

Andy & Chris:
Right.

Sunny:
But I got away with it because I got the grades. So that was my uncle used to say to me all the time, he’d

Andy & Chris:
Ha

Sunny:
say,

Andy & Chris:
ha!

Sunny:
get the grades, do what you want type of thing. So I think I just took that to the extreme. I was like, I’ve got the A, leave me alone.

Andy & Chris:
Hahaha

Sunny:
So, yeah, and certain things like that, that rubbed off as well. Like one of my uncles was really big on. like English and language and how we communicate and it’s so important, you know, it’s so important.

Andy & Chris:
Mm.

Sunny:
You know, you could say one thing, you could say the exact same thing in two different ways and it can elicit a completely different

Andy & Chris:
Yeah.

Sunny:
response, right?

Andy & Chris:
Oh, yeah. Yeah. So much.

Sunny:
So one of his things was, you know, I’d get dropped off to the shop like really early, 6.30am. These guys are working, you know, these are the, yeah, we come back to talk about hard work and stuff, right? You know, sometimes dentists, we think we work hard, but actually, I think people who run shops and people who are waiters and think that’s hard work, you know, we all work hard,

Andy & Chris:
Yeah.

Sunny:
right? So it’s probably not worth comparing, like everyone works hard. So that’s not a variable

Andy & Chris:
Mm.

Sunny:
I rely on. I think that’s actually a constant if you want to try and do stuff. But he was really big on that. So he’d make me read like the independent at like five years old. six years old like read it you know

Andy & Chris:
Oh wow.

Sunny:
and just really encouraged me to read the newspaper to him while he was putting them out so that I reckon that had an effect you know these are all things that you realize much later in life

Andy & Chris:
Yeah.

Sunny:
these formative experiences that you don’t attribute to anything you think it’s all you right oh yeah I’m good at English

Andy & Chris:
Mmm.

Sunny:
maybe not necessarily maybe there was some you know little seeds that were planted that helped

Andy & Chris:
But that’s fascinating because also when you’re reading the telegraph or the independent, or whatever it might be, to your uncle, not only are you practicing your English, but you’re also absorbing those stories, aren’t you? So you’re starting to build your real rounded picture of the world. It’s brilliant actually, because the inputs that a lot of people nowadays, they get a you know, Instagram and Facebook, really.

Sunny:
Mm-hmm.

Andy & Chris:
But it’s a really smart way of developing you as a young person, but without just sitting you in front of books and learning stuff. You know, you’re acquiring skills and it kind of gives some kind of context and makes sense why you’re personable and why you’re a good speaker and why you’re somebody who engages. And that would have kind of gone back to those very early years of things that happened then. So you said, and we have heard it before, you know, doctor, lawyer, dentist, those are your choices. It’s either that or a failure, you know, which ones you want to be. So of the limited choices you had, why did you choose dentistry? Why was that the one that piqued your interest?

Sunny:
Well, this is a, you know, everyone gives this really poignant answer at this point, right? And I’m not gonna, the truth was, you know, I was, I was getting good grades and it was a case of, um, it was a case of, you know, those choices. And I spoke to, you know, a family friend who was a GP and she kind of said to me, you know what, dentistry is better. And then coming from a GP who was, you know, that held a lot of weight. Then I remember in college, one of my, you know, my good friend at the time, who, uh, he said to me, let’s go check it out. So then we went down for an open day at Queen Mary. And they were like, oh, and you get to play football every Wednesday afternoon. And I was like, yeah, I’m sold. And

Andy & Chris:
Excellent.

Sunny:
that was pretty much, that was pretty much it. Right. So I got the grades, got the opportunity. Um, and yeah, just took it really.

Andy & Chris:
Cool. So you played football? Yeah, you played football as well. So you

Sunny:
Yeah,

Andy & Chris:
went to

Sunny:
regularly.

Andy & Chris:
Queen Mary.

Sunny:
That’s why.

Andy & Chris:
And what was your dental school experience like? Because

Sunny:
or what else?

Andy & Chris:
obviously, we speak to people who are in their 50s and what they talk about is almost unbelievable compared to somebody like, sorry, to Tane, who’s literally just graduated from King’s. So he’s kind of literally just left and you’re kind of that midpoint where, you know, you qualify with a few years. That’s, you should caveat that. What’s your dental school experience that you can recount? Yes. Ha ha ha.

Sunny:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was a mixed experience actually, right? The dental school, I found it really regimented, right? And I found first year really tough, right? Because every six weeks you’re having this exam. So that’s pretty militant, right? When everybody else is like doing freshers and stuff, right? And just going

Andy & Chris:
Yeah,

Sunny:
out

Andy & Chris:
they’re

Sunny:
all the

Andy & Chris:
just

Sunny:
time.

Andy & Chris:
enjoying themselves.

Sunny:
And you’re just under the cross, right? And it was actually really strict. I remember my first day walking in and this lady, I can’t, I won’t say her name now, but she basically pulled me aside and said, you can’t dress like that. And I had a tracksuit on and she had like a big problem with it and I was like. I

Andy & Chris:
Seriously.

Sunny:
could just feel like, yeah, seriously. So attitudes have changed massively, right? But she had like such a problem with how I dressed. And I was

Andy & Chris:
Wow.

Sunny:
like, damn, like, you know, shit, what was I in that for? That kind

Andy & Chris:
Yeah.

Sunny:
of feeling. And then, yeah, it was just intense. People by and large were pretty cool, but I think I started to realize, oh, you know, is this from very early on, is this what I wanted to do? And long

Andy & Chris:
Well…

Sunny:
story, what I always wanted to do was, so my mom got remarried, my stepdad, he was in the TA. So I got really influenced by the army reserve stuff. And then

Andy & Chris:
Right, yeah.

Sunny:
both my uncles were like in the air cadets as kids and they had like really fond memories of it. And so I was always drawn to this kind of stuff. Like I was inspired again, I’ve talked about the uncles a lot, but we talk about the early experiences. And one of my uncles was like, he’d be behind the till. And when it wasn’t sort of like, he wasn’t doing anything, he’d pick up a dumbbell and just start doing some curls and stuff. So I was really influenced by physical culture very early on. My mom’s really into keep fit as well. And so I always wanted to do something with the army. Like I just always wanted to do that. And then I was at this, you know, you do the trade fair and then I saw the army

Andy & Chris:
Mmm.

Sunny:
stand, I went over and they said, yeah, you know, we create officers. Like you wanna be an officer? I was like, I didn’t even know the difference really what was, you know, the officer and a soldier and an NCO and all this. I was like, yeah, cool, signed up and then joined the reserves. And then that’s really what got me through uni. That was the thing I enjoyed the most. That was really like,

Andy & Chris:
Right.

Sunny:
really, really engaging for me. Whereas dentistry was like, I was there to get a degree. I was there to, you know, create a future. But beyond that, I really just focused on. doing

Andy & Chris:
Mm.

Sunny:
what I was required to do and then just

Andy & Chris:
Wow.

Sunny:
all the rest of my time really dedicated on them.

Andy & Chris:
So did that end up you kind of almost having two worlds whilst in dental school? Did you actually hang out with the dental students that much or in your downtime were you heading towards the sort of reservist side of things?

Sunny:
Yeah,

Andy & Chris:
And you could.

Sunny:
that

Andy & Chris:
What

Sunny:
was pretty…

Andy & Chris:
reserve regiment were you in,

Sunny:
So

Andy & Chris:
Sonny?

Sunny:
it’s called an officers training corps, it was London. So

Andy & Chris:
Oh, yeah, the HTC,

Sunny:
it

Andy & Chris:
yeah.

Sunny:
was actually… yeah, and that was actually set up during World War. You know, because they needed to produce a lot of officers

Andy & Chris:
Yeah.

Sunny:
and so they got quite a history. I think, I don’t know the exact percentage, but quite the large majority of officers actually come from those places. So they’re dotted

Andy & Chris:
Mmm.

Sunny:
around the country, right? And so many of my friends

Andy & Chris:
Yeah.

Sunny:
became officers from there.

Andy & Chris:
I said, were you tempted to go into the MOD or army dentistry or?

Sunny:
well, this is it, right? I think I was living in a bit of La Land. Like I really liked the green stuff. I loved, you know, I know it’s a bit, I’m PC, but you know, I liked shooting. I liked running around. I liked, you know, I liked all that kind of stuff. I liked, you know,

Andy & Chris:
Mm-hmm.

Sunny:
like boxing and you know, all those types of things that you kind of get pat on the back for, but in any other context, you’re

Andy & Chris:
Mm-hmm.

Sunny:
like, oh, you monster. So it was quite

Andy & Chris:
Yeah.

Sunny:
cool. And I enjoyed the fact that there, if you had a problem, like you just sort it out with the other bloke, you know, and then however

Andy & Chris:
Yeah.

Sunny:
it goes down in the morning. he’ll probably sit next to you for breakfast and go, that was funny, wasn’t

Andy & Chris:
Yeah.

Sunny:
it? It’s very enjoyable, a place like that. Yeah, I’ve lost my trailer thought now. What was you saying?

Andy & Chris:
That was whether you thought about becoming

Sunny:
Oh yes,

Andy & Chris:
a dentist in the

Sunny:
apologies.

Andy & Chris:
army.

Sunny:
Yeah, I did actually, I did want to do that because then I started to think to myself, I’m doing all this fun green stuff and then when I speak to other people who actually have gone into sort of professional roles in the army, you don’t do that much green stuff. You’re just a dentist in

Andy & Chris:
Right.

Sunny:
a uniform.

Andy & Chris:
Okay. Yeah.

Sunny:
So that’s kind of like the two worlds was dentistry was quite difficult in a lot of ways. Yeah, very regimented. Well, and the army is very regimented as well, but regimented doing the things I wanted to do, right?

Andy & Chris:
Yeah.

Sunny:
And so I didn’t want to… kind of blur the two and then I’m not really getting benefits from either anymore so that was a difficult decision to make at the end of the degree right do I go full time as an army dentist

Andy & Chris:
Yeah.

Sunny:
which I decided didn’t really want to do and then the question became do you stay as a reservist but again

Andy & Chris:
Yeah,

Sunny:
you know

Andy & Chris:
I was gonna

Sunny:
now

Andy & Chris:
ask, yeah.

Sunny:
you know I’m gearing up towards family life and all the rest of it’s a massive time commitment and you know unpopular view here as well is actually quite jaded with the whole military thing by the end of it because You see people come back from Iraq, you see firsthand experiences of what this does, then you start to get

Andy & Chris:
Mm.

Sunny:
clued up. When you’re 18, you don’t know anything. When you’re 23,

Andy & Chris:
Hmm.

Sunny:
you’ve been around it, you start getting clued up to the politics of it all, and you start

Andy & Chris:
Hmm.

Sunny:
thinking, oh man, I’m not sure I really believe in this cause here. I’m not really too sure.

Andy & Chris:
Yeah.

Sunny:
Sending young people to their deaths over something that’s really politically motivated, I’m not sure I could get behind it. So a little bit unpopular of a view, but I made the decision to actually walk away at that point.

Andy & Chris:
Just before we kind of segue back into the dental side of things, can you talk us through your first parachute jump?

Sunny:
Yeah, I can actually. Funny enough, one of my mates, he’s a paratrooper, it’s his wedding on the weekend. And it always gets brought up, right? So we’re in a taxi going to the venue, and there’s a car full of paratroopers and artillerymen. He’s like, mate, do you know what happened to, they call me Deep, right? Do you know what happened to Deep on his first jump? He’s like, nah, what happened? And then obviously the story ensues. So yeah, with the military, you do a lot of training, yeah? You know, you’re very much an independent. You’ve got to be capable. Everything’s about being capable. It’s a full meritocracy. If you could do the job, fantastic. There is no, oh, you know, well, he’s not that good enough, but we’ll let him in. No, you’ve got to be good. You’ve got to pass the test. It’s all

Andy & Chris:
Yeah.

Sunny:
standardized. So it’s the same with

Andy & Chris:
Yep.

Sunny:
jumps. They’re not going to let you jump unless they know you’re safe. So typically, most people, when they do a parachute jump, what do they do? They’re strapped to a professional, aren’t they? And you get to enjoy the ride. You haven’t got to worry about anything. Not with the army. You do, you know, a day of like, maybe a day and a half, I can’t remember now, Quite a while ago and you do you know lots of training lots of drilling to make sure you know what to do should something go wrong And then yeah, we’re going in this little box plane You know like rickety old thing into

Andy & Chris:
Mm-hmm.

Sunny:
the air and you’re all strapped in one after the other So if somebody doesn’t jump the others can’t jump right so I can’t know where I was like third or fourth or something You got a jump master. He’s very experienced You know guy with a helmet and a camera and all the rest of it and he’s looking at you He’s like you ready, and you know you say you jump out the side in these planes right now what? What this is, it’s a static line

Andy & Chris:
Was it

Sunny:
that means

Andy & Chris:
static

Sunny:
when you…

Andy & Chris:
line? Oh,

Sunny:
Exactly.

Andy & Chris:
thank you, I was gonna say, was it a static line?

Sunny:
Take some of the guesswork out for you at least, right? So if you first jump, you’re by yourself. And as you jump out, you haven’t got actually deployed a parachute because it’s attached to a line. That means once you

Andy & Chris:
Yeah.

Sunny:
get a certain distance away from the plane, it pulls the chute out for you. So there I am hanging out at this plane. And this, when I tell you the wind is hitting you fiercely in the face, yeah? I don’t think I’ve ever felt anything that intense. Like, you know, I’ve ridden motorbikes, but that was in your face, right? And you’re half dangling out. and then he’s looking, he’s like, you ready? I’m like, yeah. And then,

Andy & Chris:
I- Hahahaha

Sunny:
you know, you’ve got this posture that you need to jump out, almost like a backwards banana type of deal. So you get caught by the way, all this good stuff. And you remember all this, you do it. And I thought I did everything to a T and as I did it, I’m falling, I’m falling. And then I feel a little bit of resistance and then I’m still falling. And then I look up and this parachute is a ball of washing and it didn’t deploy properly. And my right arm was caught in the line.

Andy & Chris:
Oops. Oh no.

Sunny:
So there I am. falling towards the ground pretty down quickly. I don’t know if it’s terminal velocity but probably close to right you’re going pretty down quick and then you need to get rid of that

Andy & Chris:
Mm.

Sunny:
parachute and you need to deploy the second one which is spring loaded so it’s very unlikely that one’s gonna go wrong. That one comes out you grab the toggle above your head you grab both sides you do your little tests and then you know what that’s a testament to how fantastic military training is right. You can have all the views in the world on them but guess what they know how to train people really well because it worked

Andy & Chris:
Wow.

Sunny:
the training paid off and there I was floating down. and that’s when every expletive I had in my vocabulary came out, right? And then, if you were an atheist, I’ll tell you what, you’ll start to believe in something at that point.

Andy & Chris:
Oh, what an amazing story. Yeah. And in that moment you say about kind of conditioned training. Yeah. It’s a bit like, I guess being like an airline pilot and something going wrong. You, you fall back into your training incredibly quickly. Did it feel quite instinctive and intuitive what you had to do because the training was so good?

Sunny:
100% without that

Andy & Chris:
Did

Sunny:
training

Andy & Chris:
you jump

Sunny:
who

Andy & Chris:
again?

Sunny:
knows yeah the next day

Andy & Chris:
Ah, there we go,

Sunny:
so

Andy & Chris:
good man.

Sunny:
well it’s interesting though because I had a rough landing I’ll tell you that though but

Andy & Chris:
Ha ha.

Sunny:
I tell you actually I remember the landing too because that’s part of the story too right so yeah I had a bit of a rough landing you know there’s a particular way to land but I was quite flustered at this point right you know as you can imagine naturally

Andy & Chris:
Yeah, yeah. Reasonably so.

Sunny:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so what you’re supposed to do is you’re supposed to like put the brakes on just before you touch the ground So then you go like I mean no one’s gonna be able to see my hand movement But we go like this and you just gently fall to the ground and instead I pulled the

Andy & Chris:
Bye.

Sunny:
thing too early And when you let go you actually accelerate and I accelerated into the ground So that was fun.

Andy & Chris:
Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Sunny:
And then there was a there was a wagon waiting for me, right? So they’ve driven up like, you know Two grunts from the from Never Even Air Base and then they come in the wagon and they’re like looking at me And they’re like, we’ll get in the wagon then not gonna help you And they’re like, grab your parachute as well. And then I’m like dragging this parachute behind me, grabbing it up, put it over my shoulder, get into the back of the wagon, just lie down, go, oh my God. Yeah, and just, that was it. So I was like, no mercy as well. And then I remember, I remember the guy at the time, Lieutenant Storey, he like, he took me around the corner, he’s like, he put his hand on my shoulder, he’s like, you all right, mate? I’m like, yeah, no, I’m good, he goes, you’ve done very well. He goes, look, get the evening off, yeah? You and you guys will get the evening off. He says, what’d you fancy, a KFC? So they took us off base, took us for a KFC, one of my pals, and you know, at the time, all of us wanted to be paratroopers, right? That was the thing, yeah? Either

Andy & Chris:
Mm-hmm.

Sunny:
paratroopers or marines, you know, there’s like this little rivalry

Andy & Chris:
Yeah,

Sunny:
going

Andy & Chris:
yeah,

Sunny:
on.

Andy & Chris:
yeah.

Sunny:
That’s when my particular group of pals all wanted to be paratroopers, and a lot of them went on to do it. And then this particular one, he’s like stoic guy, right? He’s stoic guy. And he’s looking at me, going, mate, I don’t think I can jump. And I was like, geez, we’ve got to jump. If we don’t jump tomorrow, we’ll never jump again. Right. And so the freakiest part of all of this, we’re up in this plane the next day. and we’re in a box plane, there’s one behind below us, and we’re watching all the guys jump out of the plane below, and another guy had a malfunction. So the probabilities

Andy & Chris:
Oh, wow.

Sunny:
are just like so low, right? But it’s just a bit freaky.

Andy & Chris:
Wow.

Sunny:
So can you imagine how that shook me and

Andy & Chris:
Yeah,

Sunny:
him?

Andy & Chris:
yeah,

Sunny:
And

Andy & Chris:
yeah.

Sunny:
then there’s, you know, the army values are like courage, discipline, respect for others. He’s a big free, I remember, that carried on. And mate, it’s courage you’ve got to dig deep, right? And I just look at his probabilities, right? It’s unlikely to happen to me again, unless somebody really didn’t like me.

Andy & Chris:
and make sure it wasn’t the same parachute packer. Yeah.

Sunny:
Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Andy & Chris:
But in terms of life skills, I mean, it’s pretty extreme, but what an experience to have gone through.

Sunny:
Sure, sure, sure. I mean, many others.

Andy & Chris:
Yeah.

Sunny:
But that was quite there.

Andy & Chris:
So bringing it back to the tame old world of dentistry, because

Sunny:
Sure.

Andy & Chris:
now everyone’s heart’s racing and they’re listening to a remarkable story. As he jumps out of the chair

Sunny:
Yeah.

Andy & Chris:
with no parachute. Thinking about your dental school experience, we get quite a lot of students and younger dentists, or even aspirational dentists listening to this. What would you kind of give them as your golden tip? What was the thing you learned going through dental school? Don’t jump out of a plane.

Sunny:
Yeah, well it’s probably a bit late for that but before dental school I reckon it’s best to go and really spend time with dentists and see what their work in life is and speak to experienced ones and work out is this really what you want to do because when you’re young you think about prospects

Andy & Chris:
Hmm.

Sunny:
yeah you think about right you know I get I can you know work a nine to five earn really good money help people do creative work with my hands it all sounds really good what’s the downsize people don’t tell you about the downsize the downsizes well back pain is rife through dentistry, it’s

Andy & Chris:
Yeah.

Sunny:
crippling, crippling back and neck pain people have. Funniest thing is you ask your dentist, is your back hurt? Nope, not mine. You know, it’s almost like you can’t tell anyone.

Andy & Chris:
You can’t admit it. It’s almost like an admission of failure, is it, if you’re back

Sunny:
Well, you’re

Andy & Chris:
at it.

Sunny:
a liability as well, aren’t you? If you say to and I know this firsthand because one of the practices I was in, my back started to really pack up, yeah, really started to have problems and think I’m pretty physically fit, I’d say, you know, and my

Andy & Chris:
Hmm.

Sunny:
back really started to hurt after doing sort of the six day, you know, when you started to do everyone goes for it they go

Andy & Chris:
Mm.

Sunny:
and start doing six days you go oh I made all this money in five days let me do six and then

Andy & Chris:
Yeah.

Sunny:
you start getting on that kind of hamster wheel and you know people save up for houses and all the rest you got to do what you got to do I get it you’re young once type of deal but that became really quite crippling for me so that’s I’d say actually find out about the occupational hazards find out about what’s entailed in the work find out the downsides before you actually say I want to go be a dentist probably do your due

Andy & Chris:
Hmm.

Sunny:
diligence you know I’ve got this kind of adage when it you know a business adage like Whenever I’m doing anything, especially if the decision is irreversible, I ask myself what are the alternatives? You know, and I really try to contemplate what they are, right? And it’s the same for somebody before, one of the biggest decisions of their life, what they’re going to do for the rest of their life, should probably go and think, what are my alternatives? And why

Andy & Chris:
Hmm.

Sunny:
are they that?

Andy & Chris:
I think that’s really good advice. Thankfully, whilst people don’t think about it in the moment, most decisions are reversible. We quite often don’t think they are, but they are, they are reversible. And thinking through that process is a healthy thing to do. You’ve said that, and this is a long period of time, you know, post-qualification, but you said you struggled in dentistry and with dentistry for the first eight years. Why was that? Why was it challenging for you? the health issue. What was it?

Sunny:
I’d say number one, I don’t think I really maximised uni, if I’m being brutally honest, self-reflective, in that I did the requirements of me and that was it, right? And then there’ll be other students who’d be there and they’d jump onto an extra clinic or they’d be like, oh, you finished with your chair? And then you’d go and then they’d jump in your chair and do something. You know, there was people who were maximising their time. I don’t think I did that as well. So again, that’s the advice to the people who are in dental school. Max it out, max it out. You know, make your dollar sweat.

Andy & Chris:
Mmm.

Sunny:
you know, really get them, get the value, right? You know, you’ve paid for this degree, you’re paying, you know, ancillary costs to stay there and eat and all the rest of

Andy & Chris:
Hmm.

Sunny:
it will get, get bang for your buck, right? So speaking to, speaking to lecturers there, getting an insight, you know, just making friends, you know, really doubling down on why you’re there and what the objective is. I think that makes a lot of sense. I don’t really think I did the max in that regard. So then you get out and then I did VT and thankfully my vocational training was in Charlton. South London and I had a fantastic trainer, really kind person, really just can’t say enough words about how he believed in me more than I believed in myself at the time right because I’m looking at this going oh you know when calamities are happening where things are going so wrong with procedures and he’s just there going look don’t worry about it this happens you’re not going to do that again are you? I was like hell no so you know it was having that kind of encouragement behind you, his name is Mr Keely you know for anyone who wants to know right but honestly one of the most respected people in my life right because just believed and just was fantastic

Andy & Chris:
Hmm.

Sunny:
teaching style. His teaching style rubbed off on me as well, very much to, you know, you know, you’ve got tell, show, do, but there’s also ask a question, let the person answer, let them figure it out for themselves. Like that’s supremely beneficial,

Andy & Chris:
Hmm.

Sunny:
especially for my learning style, very engaged. So I really adopt that a lot. I said that was all right and I improved a lot and I learned more in that one year, but I could have maxed out the VT year with something like that in my corner if I had actually paid attention more so in uni, you with me? So

Andy & Chris:
Hmm.

Sunny:
that was that. Then after that, you go into the real world. And they were always dropped into NHS dentistry. And many people think you have to go and do VT and then go into the NHS. You don’t, you don’t. I actually know a bloke who studied abroad, came back, went straight into private, did almost inverted commerce VT with his older cousin. And this guy is probably one of the top earners in the country now, right? So there are unconventional methods. And I say I’m an unconventional person and it was just a shame that stuff like that wasn’t available to me. But just to open your eyes that there are other means. I went into the NHS thinking that’s what you had to do and then you know 20-30

Andy & Chris:
Mm.

Sunny:
patients a day you’re really in the deep end and then what I felt like it was the door was shut behind you like get on with it you’ve got 7000 UDAs to do you know and it’s just like immense pressure to deliver um that was quite tough and then

Andy & Chris:
Mm.

Sunny:
yeah there’s something to be said about mentorship and support you know you can go to practices that

Andy & Chris:
Hmm.

Sunny:
are really supportive and I think as an early dentist that’s going to be your friend whereas I just went with

Andy & Chris:
Mm.

Sunny:
whatever was available oh that’s the job I’ll take it

Andy & Chris:
Just on that point, Sunny, it was recently said, wasn’t it, that there might be this locking for dental students post-qualification that they’ll need to commit a certain amount of time to the NHS. And whilst I’m just against the idea of a locking, I think you should create an environment where people want to be there, as opposed to they have to be there because they’re told to. However, working in the NHS as a newly qualified dentist, it does give you a lot of patience to see, a lot of experience. and hone your chair-side manner and communication skills. So are you saying that if you had your time again, you would have not taken that route and gone privately, and do you think you would have developed at the same speed or quicker if you’d have gone down that path? Or are there things that working on the NHS early on in your career do provide?

Sunny:
I think in my context, the NHSVT, like I said, when Mr. Keeley was priceless, it was invaluable for me, and I’m sure that’s the

Andy & Chris:
Mm.

Sunny:
case for many, many people. I’m just saying,

Andy & Chris:
Yeah.

Sunny:
if I was switched on and I had my eyes on the prize and said, look, what’s my goal? What am I trying to do within the next five years? I would have looked

Andy & Chris:
Mm.

Sunny:
for a supportive practice that was private and say, look, I don’t know everything. This is what I’ve done in uni. I’ve gone over and above. Here’s what I want to

Andy & Chris:
Hmm.

Sunny:
do. I know what to treat and I know what not to treat. That’s very attractive to me. If you have a young person that says, I know what I shouldn’t do. that’s equally as important as them

Andy & Chris:
Mmm.

Sunny:
being able to do the things that they can do.

Andy & Chris:
Yeah,

Sunny:
So I

Andy & Chris:
yeah,

Sunny:
just think

Andy & Chris:
absolutely.

Sunny:
there’s a, that could be a leveraged opportunity for the right people is what I’m getting out here.

Andy & Chris:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you had a period where you weren’t that enamoured with dentistry, but then back in 2018, you fell back in love with it. And was that the time that you met your mentor?

Sunny:
Little bit before that actually just that was that was a couple years before that actually happened But yeah, obviously I had a rough spell with the whole NHS thing and then trying to move private and then realizing that

Andy & Chris:
Mm.

Sunny:
Yeah, six years in I got the opportunity to join a squat practice. It’s actually a friend from uni and Took that up very difficult people also Underestimate what it is to jump from what they’re doing There’s almost like that safety and what you’re already

Andy & Chris:
Hmm.

Sunny:
doing here because then you move from this NHS job that pays really well Let’s be frank you’re doing 7, 8,000

Andy & Chris:
Yep.

Sunny:
UDAs a year and a little bit private on top, that’s good money for a young person. And then you

Andy & Chris:
Hmm.

Sunny:
go to private and you’re like, yeah, it’s going to be better. You know, I’m like, see your suckers type of deal, feeling in my head that this is going to be,

Andy & Chris:
Heh.

Sunny:
you know, you know, like I got this, you know, your ego starts to inflate. I’m private now inverted

Andy & Chris:
Mm-mm-mm.

Sunny:
commas, right? You feel, and then you get there. And actually my take on that year was like 30ish K something like that. And that was brutal for, you know,

Andy & Chris:
Mm.

Sunny:
someone having a young family and child and a mortgage. But, you know, it was deferred gratification. That’s one thing I’m quite good at is actually I can really think long term. That was something I think after a succession of failures you start to realize that quick money and quick success just isn’t the route for everybody and that is like

Andy & Chris:
Hmm.

Sunny:
almost you have to build a wide foundation before you can go upwards. So I kind of really got forced to embrace the long term perspective. Yeah.

Andy & Chris:
So you said about failures. what was kind of the process that you went through? What things did you try, did you experiment with that didn’t work out for you? And I’m not kind of putting you on the spot to say, come on, tell us all your failures, but I think it’s a part of life that people don’t talk about enough. And the reality is, yeah, I think it was Bill Gates said that success is a terrible teacher. You know, failures, where you learn all

Sunny:
truth.

Andy & Chris:
your lessons. So what are the things that you kind of gave a whirl and just didn’t quite work out for you?

Sunny:
loads of things and I think also what we get is when you’re under pressure here, when things aren’t working out for you, it’s a highly emotional state right, it’s not a

Andy & Chris:
Mmm.

Sunny:
logical, when you’re in a position of power, you’re making all the money you need to make, you can make really good decisions because you’re not doing things for money and material need right, you know Maslow’s

Andy & Chris:
Hmm.

Sunny:
hierarchy, you’re not doing it for food

Andy & Chris:
Yeah,

Sunny:
shelter

Andy & Chris:
yeah.

Sunny:
and all of that sort of stuff, now you’re doing it for other things like purpose, meaning and la la. So

Andy & Chris:
Mm-hmm.

Sunny:
when you’re in that highly emotional state where you know, the rude awakening of being a private dentist and actually not being that good because a lot of the stuff you do privately like composites and stuff like that, you’re only doing them every now and then on the NHS and the things

Andy & Chris:
Hmm.

Sunny:
that you’re just doing every now and then you’re not going to be good at unfortunately and neither was I. So I actually had more complaints, more refunds, more all of that type of stuff redoing treatment for free privately than everything that does in NHS. The NHS patients were happy with what I was doing, you with me? So

Andy & Chris:
Yeah.

Sunny:
that inflates your ego too because you’re like, well, my patients love me, I must be good. Then you get to private. You know, I actually remember my first patient, he comes in and I still had that NHS hat on and he takes his jacket off and he had an arsenal top on. And I said to him, you know, I pointed to the door and I said, you’re in the wrong place, I’m making a joke. That did not go down well at all. And that was my first day in private. You with me, it’s a steep learning

Andy & Chris:
Wow.

Sunny:
curve when you’re not in it. And that was a relationship I could never recover despite, you know,

Andy & Chris:
Mmm.

Sunny:
first impressions actually count. So you have these types of lessons again. I’ve actually forgot the question again. I’m sorry, I go on such tangents sometimes.

Andy & Chris:
No, no, no. I was just thinking, I can imagine now in your wardrobe, you have your scrubs and you have 20 different football shirts and depending on which patient comes in, you put on your Arsenal, your Tottenham or your Chelsea or whatever the football

Sunny:
I don’t

Andy & Chris:
shirt

Sunny:
even

Andy & Chris:
that’s

Sunny:
mention

Andy & Chris:
needed.

Sunny:
football anymore.

Andy & Chris:
Or just

Sunny:
I

Andy & Chris:
don’t mention football. Yeah,

Sunny:
don’t

Andy & Chris:
yeah.

Sunny:
mention football anymore. I just keep it. How’s the dog?

Andy & Chris:
Yeah. Doing obscure sport. Are you into hurling? But you’re

Sunny:
Yeah.

Andy & Chris:
right. In that context, the lesson to make sure that you accommodate people and don’t judge what you think might be funny, but somebody else might not. Yeah, those are things. But now you were just saying about the things that you tried that didn’t

Sunny:
Sorry.

Andy & Chris:
work out for you, because

Sunny:
Yeah, yeah,

Andy & Chris:
you

Sunny:
yeah.

Andy & Chris:
sort of stepped away from danger for a bit, didn’t you? And I think you tried to do, there was an end to end referral service, and you doubled in Bitcoin and bits and pieces. You tried a few things, but I think it’s important, because what we’re gonna come onto in a minute, I think that was a pathway that led you to where you are now.

Sunny:
Sure, sure. So yeah, I remember, pick up where I was. So I was saying that actually you get this shiny object syndrome, right? Where, like I said, reflexively you’re looking for opportunities that could be the thing that are going to, you know, lead you to salvation.

Andy & Chris:
Mmm.

Sunny:
And at the time, 2016 kind of time, 2017, everybody was on this facial aesthetics hype. Right, so everyone was like, ah, dentists are the best people positioned to do facial aesthetics. We already understand the face. Understand the face, I could barely remember blood supplies around the eye. I can’t remember that. I can remember the mouth, but not around the eye or the nose or any of that. Ironically, you know, we’re the best people position because we use needles all the time. Well, it’s a different type of needle. It’s a different type of thickness. Like we use one needle all day long to give anesthetic, not anything else. So I got sucked into that, you know, did a whole bunch of training courses. And I’ll tell you what, I was so desperate. You know, you get that sunk cost fallacy, right? Were you really trying to recoup your investment? So you’re really

Andy & Chris:
Yeah.

Sunny:
trying to do whatever you could to pour energy and time into like this facial aesthetic design, because you’ve spent a good few grand on a three day course. And now you’re trying to get that investment back and then again you’re not doing it regularly so I was never that good And then it takes real focused effort and attention to get good at that thing But when you’re doing that thing by default you’re not doing the other thing So the more time you’re spending on

Andy & Chris:
Yeah.

Sunny:
facial aesthetics the more time you’re not getting better at your dentistry And young dentists will always say to you, oh you know I’m thinking about doing aesthetics and implants and aligners and things And I’m like okay so what are you going to drop? And there’s

Andy & Chris:
Mm.

Sunny:
no answer, it goes quiet Because everyone wants it all, where’s talk this thing on Instagram? You can have it all You can have the beautiful woman

Andy & Chris:
Hmm

Sunny:
and the beautiful house and the career and work 80 hours a week and have a six pack and you know, it’s just

Andy & Chris:
Hmm

Sunny:
Life is or sometimes not always and why and so I think that was a

Andy & Chris:
Yeah, yeah,

Sunny:
sudden

Andy & Chris:
good point.

Sunny:
couldn’t really make that work too well and I actually really run with that and that had like a part in my life all the way up until maybe like last year where I had my regular patients and the ones. You know, I just started sticking to the procedures. I was very good at with facial aesthetics and then last year I made the decision to actually just stop marking for it. You know, I actually had a treatment room. I actually ran courses on it and running courses on it, it’s because I thought I was a good trainer, yeah? Like I thought I’ve got a good style

Andy & Chris:
Mm.

Sunny:
and I think the military really helped with that because you just learn very protocol ways of thinking, right? How do you make it so anybody

Andy & Chris:
Hmm

Sunny:
can come in, learn this protocol and get pretty much a good result like everybody else would, right? So I thought I was good at that and I think I did have an edge there. The problem was I was selling the commodity. So if you go type facial mistakes with dentists, there’s tons and tons and tons.

Andy & Chris:
Mmm,

Sunny:
And if you think about

Andy & Chris:
yeah.

Sunny:
somebody like… Bob Connor who’s been doing it for how long, who trains dentists,

Andy & Chris:
Mm.

Sunny:
I think I’m going to leave it to him because he’s probably the best person positioned to do that if people are serious about getting into facial aesthetics as a

Andy & Chris:
Mm.

Sunny:
dentist. So yeah, identifying what I should and should do became quite clear. Then yeah, I did have a, have a stint of like being really quite not even that happy in private dental, you know, when

Andy & Chris:
Mmm.

Sunny:
you’re working really, really hard. It’s the environment too, right? You’re working really hard and then you build this squat practice up as well and you’ve got lots of patients now, you’re doing good collections, you know, you’re grossing you know 30k some months and yeah doing well and then for your percentage to be reduced each year you’re there without it actually being in the written contract could actually be quite sour grapes right so that was one of the other emotional

Andy & Chris:
Hmm

Sunny:
spurs to me to think wow I’m not even and I learned from that experience with my own team now that they’ve got to have skin in

Andy & Chris:
Mm.

Sunny:
the game they’ve got to have vested interest to make this and they got to see the vision the way you do and you know what by that point I didn’t see the vision I wasn’t on board anymore I didn’t see a future there. So you get really enamored

Andy & Chris:
Mm.

Sunny:
with that too. So now you’re looking for the exit.

Andy & Chris:
Yeah.

Sunny:
And so the exit became a host of things, but before the end of referral service, I caught onto Bitcoin really quite early, like 2017, I caught onto it. I was like, look, this looks really interesting. Got quite obsessed with that. I’m quite obsessive. Like if I go into something, I’m quite dedicated, you

Andy & Chris:
Hmm.

Sunny:
know? Some would say obsessed,

Andy & Chris:
Yeah.

Sunny:
some would say disciplined, but I learned as much as I could. And an element of ignorance, right? You don’t know what you don’t know, right? You don’t know

Andy & Chris:
Yeah.

Sunny:
how difficult things are. You don’t know that actually… you know being a dentist you think you’re smart your skills don’t always transfer over right it’s not

Andy & Chris:
Mm.

Sunny:
they don’t transfer over to facial aesthetics it’s a new discipline in my opinion it doesn’t transfer over into financial trading because it’s a different discipline it requires a different skill set and there are people who’ve been doing it for 20 years professionally and now you’re going to step into an arena and go i’m gonna have a go yeah that’s the

Andy & Chris:
Mmm.

Sunny:
quickest

Andy & Chris:
Yeah, yeah.

Sunny:
way to get slaughtered long story i caught a bit of luck i bought bitcoin at 1800 us the us dollars and then that was like 2017 and then buy Christmas. Yeah buy New Year. It was worth 20 grand apiece So my portfolio is worth a quarter of a mill at that time and I was like, yeah gonna resign now Yeah, I don’t

Andy & Chris:
I’ve made it, I’ve made

Sunny:
I Could

Andy & Chris:
it.

Sunny:
I can do this all day. This is quite easy You know sit in my computer having a bag of crisps

Andy & Chris:
Mmm.

Sunny:
click a few buttons, you know, it sounds

Andy & Chris:
Ha ha

Sunny:
easy

Andy & Chris:
ha.

Sunny:
And then 2018 the market crashed and then yeah, I mean I was just I didn’t know I was doing well I’m not professional He went from like 20k to 11k in like a couple of weeks and I was like, what do I do then it bounced up to? 17k I was like I’m saved And you know, just the emotional heartbreak as that sort of just bled

Andy & Chris:
Mmm.

Sunny:
out and I just returned to education really quite fully, thought to myself, look, I worked so hard for dentistry, this is what I’m at, this is what I’m in, this is what I know, you know, this is where my network is, these are the people, you know, you’re trying to give that up, it doesn’t make sense, you know, there’s a lot of ground you’ve made.

Andy & Chris:
Mmm.

Sunny:
Unless you’ve got an edge somewhere else, via network and something else like that, I’m not sure that made sense. So I really went heavy on the education, did all the big names, and then… It wasn’t clicking for me. You know, it still wasn’t

Andy & Chris:
Right.

Sunny:
clicking for me. Yeah, I got better.

Andy & Chris:
You’ve still not found it, have you? You’re

Sunny:
Nah, it

Andy & Chris:
still

Sunny:
wasn’t.

Andy & Chris:
kind of wandering around looking for the thing.

Sunny:
Yeah, it weren’t clicking for me because everywhere I went, right, and this is what I learned about commoditization as well, is that again with facial settings, yeah, they’re all teaching the same thing, let’s be real, right? They’re just different flavors and iterations and delivery. So it’s a commodity, right? It’s so I have to ask yourself, is there someone out there that’s selling what you do for cheaper? And when it comes to facial settings, yeah, that’s true, right? It’s true. So that was a commodity type game from, you know, in that regard. And

Andy & Chris:
Hmm.

Sunny:
I just didn’t want to get caught up in that later on. I started to realize, realize what that was. Yeah. You know, you have to forgive me, I’ve lost my trailer thought one more time. I’m really sleep deprived at the minute. We’re building

Andy & Chris:
No,

Sunny:
up to

Andy & Chris:
no,

Sunny:
our course on Saturday.

Andy & Chris:
honestly. No, honestly. No, no, it’s good. It’s good because it’s given us that pathway. It’s wide and varied. Well, the thing that I like is you’re kind of, you know, it feels a little bit like Edison and the light bulb. You’re talking about, you keep knocking off things that don’t work for you, which ultimately takes you towards the thing that does work for you. And I don’t know how it came about, but you met the inventor of the

Sunny:
Yeah.

Andy & Chris:
greater curve system. and who became your mentor and was that the thing that then put you on the pathway to start your own restorative excellence business?

Sunny:
Yeah, so that was it actually.

Andy & Chris:
And why was that special? What was it about that encounter and that system and that experience that was different from everything that had gone before that hadn’t captured your imagination? And how did you get that encounter? Was it a chance encounter or a manufactured encounter, if that makes sense?

Sunny:
manufactured. So actually I remember my point and it’ll lead on to this now. So I was doing all these courses and actually again it was the same thing they were all pretty much teaching the same method of working which without getting too clinical is like sectionals and it’s the same approach and using this the same stuff pretty much right for everything and I was learning that all these different flavors but that wasn’t clicking for me yeah it just wasn’t clicking for me right the common problems dentists have every day I just couldn’t solve them still and that’s like it’s very

Andy & Chris:
Mm.

Sunny:
embarrassing conversations have with patients sometimes. So then I went on to this American forum called Dentaltown, this is 2018 and that’s when I found this Great Curve system. I’m looking at all these cases and at the time there were like 17,000 posts and then I found out this company had been around since 2006. So it’s not like a fly by night thing, this is an established

Andy & Chris:
Mm-hmm.

Sunny:
way of working, just not really commonly known in the UK. And I’m looking at these cases and it looks stupidly simple, like two components instead of five. Right? So instead of having five things, and this is like very military,

Andy & Chris:
Hmm.

Sunny:
you want to get the job done simply and reproducibly

Andy & Chris:
Hmm

Sunny:
rather than layer on loads of complexity. which may give you marginal gain, it might not. So that was what struck a call with me. So I started using this for two years, from 2018, 2020, and I got a lot better immediately compared to like, the return I got on this small spend on a kit versus like the nearly 50k hours spent on education, this was showing up in my pay packet, whereas the education wasn’t necessarily. And that’s not a slight on any of those trainers, they’re fantastic people,

Andy & Chris:
Mm-hmm.

Sunny:
and some people really resonate with that way of working, just wasn’t for me. And then I started using it, I got better, but. I still had problems with that as well. Like even though I was, I was better, there were still nuances to the system. I just didn’t know. And a YouTube video can’t teach you. Then in 2020, I heard this podcast called Dentistry Uncensored, which I had been listening to for years. And Dr. Brown was on that. And he’s a guy in his seventies, right? He’s been practicing for 40 years. And he’s talking about all the same problems we are and saying bold audacious claims that, you know, we’ll get you put in Facebook prison, if you say it out loud, right? On the dental groups.

Andy & Chris:
Hahaha.

Sunny:
And so he’s saying it as a guy in his seventies. And I’m like, Well, this is interesting. And even more interesting to me was actually he was a Vietnam war veteran before he was a dentist. So he was actually

Andy & Chris:
Right.

Sunny:
in Nam and then became a dentist when he came back. So that was interesting. And so I emailed him. We started speaking. Then he said, let’s jump on a zoom. So we did. We got on. Then he’s like, show me your cases. And I was like, yeah, you need to do this. I was like, well, that’s it. And a little, little tricks and tips that he made the system. He made these techniques. Right. And so I’m learning from him

Andy & Chris:
Mm.

Sunny:
and he’s mentoring me for a bunch of time. And then in twenty one I left associate dentistry completely and set up a referral service. I started renting chair space and visiting other people’s practices with this new skill set that it was it. It was it. It was like the light bulb moment. I was like, wow, dentistry is fun. This is, this is really, you know, when you can get a result

Andy & Chris:
Hmm.

Sunny:
and you can confidently say to a patient, I can do this. Yeah. And the

Andy & Chris:
Hmm.

Sunny:
things that you may not be able to do, you can let them know that I might not be able to do this, but I can have a good old go. This is how much the fee is. This is how much fees would you like me to go? Yeah, let’s do it. And then now you become this problem solver. So that was liberating for me. That was good. And like I

Andy & Chris:
brilliant.

Sunny:
said, I’m You know, I think I’m a bit outside the box, just in general. I think my whole family would probably say that as well, like, being the naughty one. But this was that for me, because it was not the mainstream, but it had enough history and evidence to suggest that actually this really does work.

Andy & Chris:
Hmm.

Sunny:
Dr. Brown’s cases are crazy, like, you know, mind boggling. You know, I speak to other greater curve users. There’s one from Canada. He’s got like 10 year recalls. I’m looking at it again, this shouldn’t be possible. So yeah, that was it. And then in the end of 21, after like, you know, really… firing on all cylinders, producing more now than I ever did in my whole career. Like almost felt like making up for less time. Um, I said to Denny, I said, look, I, you know, I want to teach this. I want to create a framework. I want to, I want to, I want to formalize this. And he’s like, yeah, I want you to too. So I came back with a minimum viable product showed him and he’s like, let’s do it and that’s it, the rest is history. So now we have a, not just the Drey composite course, but we have many other offerings now as well. So we have an anterior program, posterior program, two for a day. We have a year long as well, which is more focused on production and communication and sales and all that kind of stuff for people who just really want to be top performers. But it’s just morphed into something that I didn’t really think it was going to be. I actually thought it was going to be just this

Andy & Chris:
Mm.

Sunny:
really cool course. Now it’s turned into

Andy & Chris:
Yeah.

Sunny:
actually a way of practicing, a way of being.

Andy & Chris:
What I love, Sunny, is your whole… voice, body language, energy changed when you started talking about that. Everything before there was a kind of a slight melancholy tone to how you were telling those stories. Almost a resignation. Yeah, yeah. There was kind of a heartfelt, didn’t work out. When you started talking about this, the energy just like flips. So this is obviously the thing that you really want to do and you’re passionate about and it

Sunny:
Yeah

Andy & Chris:
shows.

Sunny:
for sure. For sure, for sure, for sure.

Andy & Chris:
So what does your, what does your week look like now? You still deliver some clinical dentistry. You do a couple of days a week, is it?

Sunny:
About a week, about a day in total. So it can vary. I mean, that’s, I think one thing that people don’t realize as well when they go and say, I’m gonna do my own thing, is that actually how adaptable you have to be. So if you’re used

Andy & Chris:
Hmm

Sunny:
to having a regiment like I am, like I’m really, I do very well waking up early in the morning, but of late, you know, recently, I’ve been working late into the night because of school holidays and other stuff and all that. So you’ve got to be adaptable, right?

Andy & Chris:
Yeah.

Sunny:
So, and that’s my working week too. So I’ll visit a clinic in Surrey a couple of times a month, and that’ll be on a Monday. and then I use my own chair space evenings, Wednesdays or Fridays. So it varies, it’s never the same every week. So that’s interesting.

Andy & Chris:
Is it important for you to still, because of falling out of love in dentistry, falling back in love and now having this system, is it important for you to continue to practice your clinical skills yourself?

Sunny:
Yeah for sure,

Andy & Chris:
Could

Sunny:
I think that goes-

Andy & Chris:
you see yourself going to a point where you could become an educator?

Sunny:
I don’t think a dental educator can exist without being wet-fingered personally. All

Andy & Chris:
I think

Sunny:
right,

Andy & Chris:
you’re right.

Sunny:
so that’s just my stance, right? Because, you know, I’m battle testing this. And not only that, I’m developing my own techniques, yeah? Techniques using

Andy & Chris:
Mmm.

Sunny:
Great Curve that didn’t exist before, you know, the partnership between me and Dr Brown and the Great Curve camp. You know, so imagine being able to develop frameworks and techniques and really exciting stuff that I don’t want to say just yet because I’m the type of person to say it when it’s here rather than say it when it’s not. But I mean,

Andy & Chris:
Yeah.

Sunny:
I wateringly interesting stuff, especially from an hourly rate perspective, some

Andy & Chris:
Mmm.

Sunny:
of the stuff that’s possible using this as part of your

Andy & Chris:
Mm.

Sunny:
primary tool, and then the frameworks and techniques that we’re developing alongside

Andy & Chris:
Yeah.

Sunny:
it. So, yeah.

Andy & Chris:
I must admit, I don’t think it’s ever been more exciting. When you look at the repeatability of some of these treatments, the scalability, the technology that’s coming along to support clinicians, I think it’s an incredible time. And I think from a patient care point of view, patients are getting better outcomes and more long-term reliable outcomes. And I think it’s only going to get better. I think the technology that’s appearing in dentistry as a non-clinician, you know, I talked to lots of dentists in the profession at the moment for where it’s heading. A lot of it’s kind of tech-supported. It’s quite remarkable.

Sunny:
I totally agree with that, however, my counter to that is this. Technology is there to make our life better, right? It’s not there

Andy & Chris:
Yep.

Sunny:
to layer on layers of complexity and then you kind of feel that you have to use this thing because everybody else is. Is it giving you better outcomes? Is it reflected in your collections? Is it giving you a return? So, again, from a military perspective, again, like from the bare bones, basic, like you wanna be able to… have what’s in your burger on your webbing and that’s it, be cool for the next two days, three days, four days, whatever it is. And it really does feel like that, that what we’re doing is actually really taking it back to simplicity, right? It’s

Andy & Chris:
Mm.

Sunny:
stripping it back and saying, the stuff that you do every day, the problems that you have every day, imagine coming and spending the day with me and never having that problem again. If somebody had promised

Andy & Chris:
Mm.

Sunny:
me that and they could save me all that time, yeah, of me practicing the Greta Kerr by myself and then getting trained by Denny, being the only man in the world to be mentored by him, saving all that aggro and just packaging that up so you could do an online course first and then come and spend the day with me. And then you could literally fast track all of that. You know, to me that is, that’s super exciting, right? But it’s less incumbent on having the need for technology such as scanners and this and that. It’s not that. This is saying the stuff

Andy & Chris:
Interesting.

Sunny:
that you do, right? Every day that whether you’re NHS or private,

Andy & Chris:
World class basics, yeah. It’s

Sunny:
well,

Andy & Chris:
interesting isn’t it, that

Sunny:
that’s

Andy & Chris:
the

Sunny:
amazing.

Andy & Chris:
OTC…

Sunny:
I’m stealing that Andy.

Andy & Chris:
It’s amazing, the OTC impacts upon you after all these years. Yes, yeah. To keep with the military analogy, you’ve got lots of battle scars. What’s your best day in business and your worst day in business? How, what’s the, you’ve done a lot of stuff. What did the extremes look like? Yeah. What’s

Sunny:
I

Andy & Chris:
your parachute not opening and then opening? Yeah.

Sunny:
think… It’s difficult because there’s a lot. I think the high moment, the absolute high is when you’ve actually delivered a program and it’s just knocked the socks off everybody. And then not only that, when they come back to you and look, there’s some dark moments sometimes, there’s some difficult parts, you know, like doing business is full of conflict, right? You’re

Andy & Chris:
Yeah.

Sunny:
dealing with people, right? And guess what? People are wonderful, but they’re also not. Yeah, they’re also the opposite of wonderful, right? And

Andy & Chris:
Hmm.

Sunny:
so dealing with that can also be very like disheartening sometimes and it can get you down for a good period of time. And then I’ll get a message

Andy & Chris:
Hmm.

Sunny:
from someone that goes, Mate, I’ve just grossed 5.3K today. This is mind boggling. And this is a 27 year old dentist. And it blows my mind if I could gross 5.3K in a day. Yeah. Doing basic dentistry, right? The first class. What do you say? World class basics like doing that. So then

Andy & Chris:
Yeah, yeah.

Sunny:
that just fully just inflates me up again. I’m like, come, this is why I’m doing it. This is what you’re doing it for. You’re And not everybody’s measure of success is money, right? Other people are not coming to us because they want to, you know, we train dentists and therapists to grow 2 to 4K a day on average, right? But that’s not what everyone comes for. Some people come because they want to be part of a supportive community. Some people come because they want the respect of their peers. Some people come because patient care is at the forefront of that. So we make sure not to, you know, superimpose our definition of success onto other people.

Andy & Chris:
Mm-hmm.

Sunny:
So that’s

Andy & Chris:
Yeah.

Sunny:
the high moments like when people come to you and say, look, man, this is really change the game. Like, what have you got next? When can I do the next program? Like, you know,

Andy & Chris:
Yeah.

Sunny:
when can I see, I want to come to the clinic. I want to watch you. You know, that’s super cool. Right. You’re making a difference. It’s contribution rather than, you know, look, look at, look at my car. Right. This is different. This is like, you know, sharing the gospel, so to speak. So that’s pretty, pretty

Andy & Chris:
Hehehe

Sunny:
high. A down moment. I remember a down moment of that. This was a stressful, stressful moment dealing with a contractor. And, you know, I treat everyone in good faith. I think everyone’s a good actor until they prove otherwise. And that can go against

Andy & Chris:
Yeah.

Sunny:
you. But at the same time, I’m still probably not going to change my ways in that regard, because the benefits of that creating long term relationships and stuff that’s come from this, and people who are on board, who see the mission as you do, you know, who want to be

Andy & Chris:
Yeah.

Sunny:
like want to work alongside you has come from trusting.

Andy & Chris:
Hmm.

Sunny:
It hasn’t come from

Andy & Chris:
Yeah,

Sunny:
me

Andy & Chris:
I

Sunny:
being

Andy & Chris:
love that.

Sunny:
scrutinizing. So I just accept that it’s the cost of business. The cost of business is you’re going to come across these people going to be with you in 10 years. You’re going to sit at dinner, go and make what cracking decade that’s been. And there are other people

Andy & Chris:
Yeah.

Sunny:
that aren’t going to be with you. I say this quite often, I say, many people will start that race with you. Very few will end it with you. And so I’ve just accepted enough of that. And I remember actually having an experience with a contractor who at the time, again, it was an emotional decision because I needed somebody on board to fulfill this part of the business very quickly. We did that good working relationship, but there were fibs along the line, along fibs that I didn’t pick up on.

Andy & Chris:
Mm.

Sunny:
An example was, oh, you have to use our software because if you use it, they’ll kick you off the platform. which turns out to be utter bullshit-hucky, right?

Andy & Chris:
Mm-hmm.

Sunny:
And so I fell for that. And then at the end, when this contract relationship terminated for whatever reason, I’m sweating there going, shit, I don’t really own the IP right now, he does.

Andy & Chris:
Mm-hmm.

Sunny:
And that was like a pivotal moment. And that got me down for a day or two, cause I was like, how have I cocked up on such a decision like that, right? And it’s really,

Andy & Chris:
Mm.

Sunny:
that’s my point. The emotions play such a part because you want to get moving, you want to move fast, you want to make things happen, you want to, you know, you want to do it, right? And so as a result, it’s messy at the beginning. You know, startup land is very messy, I’d say.

Andy & Chris:
Mm.

Sunny:
But that actually got me done. But I’d say that one of my superpowers, so to speak, is I recover very quickly. You know, so like, you know, everyone gets, everyone goes down, but it’s how quick you go up, right? I mean,

Andy & Chris:
Mm.

Sunny:
I haven’t dropped

Andy & Chris:
Mm-hmm.

Sunny:
this in here yet, but you know, one of my hobbies is boxing. And that’s all about, mate, take that lick to the face and get up, carry on.

Andy & Chris:
Hmm. Yeah. Well, it’s funny when you were saying about your lowest point, you actually said I was down for a day or two. that shows your resilience and your ability to bounce back quickly. Because lots of people, when they talk about the thing that hit them hardest, they’d have dragged that round as baggage for weeks or months, or they may never leave it, but your ability to accept the hit on the chin and just move on. And I think a lot of this, yeah, we, we kind of, it’s threaded through the whole conversation today, but I think that military experience when you’re at dental school really has given you an, an outlook and a structure and an approach to life and business that I think I’ve not really heard that common across dentistry. No, not at all. I think you’re quite unusual in how you think and how you approach things and how you prepare to have this kind of just keep pushing forward mentality. And I think a lot of that does sit back with some of that early days training. And done is done, isn’t it? Yeah. I think that’s the key thing, done is done. You can’t do much about it. What I think is brilliant is you’ll sit a young guy and you’ve already done, tried so many things and you’ve now found a thing that. you are so passionate about and there’s you still got decades ahead of you which is so exciting

Sunny:
Sure, sure, and

Andy & Chris:
ah

Sunny:
I

Andy & Chris:
brilliant

Sunny:
appreciate that.

Andy & Chris:
really good

Sunny:
You mentioned about resilience and stuff as well. I think it’s quite interesting too. It’s almost like you look at, you know, you look at like an Olympic athlete and then the eyes won the gold, eyes, you know, you see that fleeting moment. You don’t actually see everything that went into that. So actually, yeah, all right, I’m

Andy & Chris:
Mmm.

Sunny:
relatively resilient now, but I wasn’t always that way. And it’s, you know, it’s the experiences,

Andy & Chris:
Yeah.

Sunny:
the knowledge and the skills that you have mastered that all culminate to actually say to yourself, actually being resilient is probably the thing that’s gonna help me quite a lot, right?

Andy & Chris:
Hmm

Sunny:
And, you know, not really… you know, not really paying too much attention to things that, you know, Napoleon said this quote that really sticks with me. He says, he says, space, I can recover time, never. And so for me,

Andy & Chris:
Hmm.

Sunny:
that’s analogous with many, many things, you know, space,

Andy & Chris:
That’s

Sunny:
you

Andy & Chris:
very

Sunny:
know,

Andy & Chris:
true.

Sunny:
in a military sense can be for us, it could be resources, it could be, you know, money, it could be, you know, whatever. But for me, that’s what it is, right? You know, I can recover many, many things, but time not.

Andy & Chris:
Hmm.

Sunny:
So I pick my battles. There are certain things that, you know, you could have a dispute over a couple of grand. Am I going to pursue that? Probably not. It’s just, it’s not,

Andy & Chris:
Yeah.

Sunny:
it’s not worth my time at this stage. Five years

Andy & Chris:
No.

Sunny:
ago, I’d probably fight two for Nell for that two grand.

Andy & Chris:
Yeah.

Sunny:
You know what I mean? So, here’s what it is.

Andy & Chris:
Well, you say about, we can’t recover time. I think we’re, we’re up on time, Sonny. We could talk

Sunny:
Alright.

Andy & Chris:
all day. We could talk all day. There’s, there’s so

Sunny:
been

Andy & Chris:
many

Sunny:
great.

Andy & Chris:
things that we could deep into, but we need to, we need to ask you two questions before we leave you to go boxing or educating or clinical delivery or whatever you’ve got going on this afternoon. Yeah. So the first question we have for you is if you could be a fly on a wall. Somewhere what would that situation be? When would it be who would be there? We intrigued on this? Yeah, it’s me, too

Sunny:
I tell you what, this is a recent one, you know? Again, these questions, they all, they would have been different answers at different points in my life, but this is quite interesting to me at the minute. I think, you know, when a president gets sworn in and they do the oath

Andy & Chris:
Mm-hmm.

Sunny:
and all that, I would love to be on the wall after that bit, yeah? Where these five gentlemen come in black suits and say, Mr. President, we need to talk about Area 51. You know, and just what comes, what is, like what goes down, like what is it that, you know? the most powerful man in the world actually needs to know at that point that he didn’t know prior to that. I think that’s a pretty

Andy & Chris:
Yeah,

Sunny:
interesting thing to know.

Andy & Chris:
yeah. Or not being too political, maybe he just couldn’t remember he’d been sworn in.

Sunny:
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah

Andy & Chris:
There have been some relatively Asian presidents. There have been some very Asian presidents, and this will be quite a big one at the moment. Anyway, moving on from my political moment. And our follow-up is if you could meet somebody, you could sit down with somebody and have a chat with them and find out about them. Who would that be? Who would you like to meet? Yeah, now this is interesting.

Sunny:
Again, this question changes over time. But actually right now, I think paying homage to a guy called Howard Faran. So he’s the guy who set up Dental Town and

Andy & Chris:
Oh dental tail, yeah.

Sunny:
Dentistry Uncensored podcast, right? And I was listening to that quite religiously. He’s a very cool guy, very funny, very

Andy & Chris:
Yeah.

Sunny:
down to earth, tells you how he is, very successful in his own

Andy & Chris:
He’s

Sunny:
right as well.

Andy & Chris:
very brash, isn’t he? I like his

Sunny:
I

Andy & Chris:
style.

Sunny:
love it. I love it his style as well. But you know, not only do I think he’s a fantastic mentor, his book, Uncomplicate Business, I recommend that to any dentist. I listen to that audio book every year just to refresh me on like sent to me. But it actually if it wasn’t for him and setting up that podcast and I wouldn’t have heard Dr. Brown on the podcast and I wouldn’t have reached out to him and I wouldn’t have received that mentorship that actually changed my life. And that

Andy & Chris:
Hmm. Interesting.

Sunny:
same thing that we’re now offering to the world by sharing that message.

Andy & Chris:
Brilliant. Interesting. That’s absolutely fabulous, Sunny. Thank you for your time. Honestly, I think your stories are great. I think the way your whole life is joined up, there’s a real relationship between all the things you’ve done and whilst it’s dived off down weird old alleys and you’ve kind of come back and tried things, there’s a real sense of you are now on a path which you’re passionate about and I love that. It’s an embodiment of if at first you don’t succeed, try and try again, find something, keep going, keep getting up, keep getting up, keep getting up. Cheers, Sonny, we’ll let you go. Thank you for your time. It really is appreciated. Yeah, fascinating. Wish you all the success in the world going forward and hopefully we’re gonna bump into another event or a function some time soon.

Sunny:
Andy, Chris, legends. Thank you.

Andy & Chris:
Cheers man. Thanks. Keep well. Cheers.

Sunny:
Take care, yeah?