What Most Owners Get Wrong

0:00Hey. Good afternoon, Jim. Hey, Arun. How are doing, buddy? Good to see you, man. Excellent. Hey. Would you give us just, like, kinda your background? Like, tell me about your journey and and why you do what you do. Sure. I'll give you, like, a thirty second version of it. Sure. Was a full time professor at the University of Miami for nearly twenty years. And during that time, I wrote a lot of books, published a lot of articles, invented techniques. I gave a lot of seminars worldwide. And then I left there, went into private practice. And now I'm still giving seminars now for, you know, our seminar company. I'm still writing books. I'm still publishing articles. I'm still developing new techniques and things. And and so that's what I'm doing professionally is on the personal side is there I was the employee.

0:38Yes. For twenty years, this next journey, I've been the employer. And I've grew that original one practice to now seven practices that I personally own. Wow. Congratulations. Thanks. Yeah. I'm the chief clinical officer of a 80 office group and equity stakeholder in that, and we're on track to grow that to is the Amos 300. Is and then, of course, I have my seminar companies and then have been passively investing in a variety of different industries. So that's a quick rundown. Hey. That's that's pretty awesome. You know, I one of the things that I've always admired about you is how you can kind of combine all of that clinical acumen and academic background that you have with educating dentists. And I I always wondered, like, what really inspired you to get so heavily involved in educating dentists to to do surgical procedures?

1:25Well, I mean, I come from educational background. My dad is a physician, full time faculty for his entire career. He's a kidney specialist. So I grew up around academics, around education. It's kinda in my DNA. I was helping him is, you know, I was proofreading his medical articles in high school. I remember that. It's for grammar and punctuation. Is and so I've been around this. I understand how things work in the academic world. And that's why as soon as I graduate out of my residency, the first thing I did is I took an academic position at University of Miami. He was super delighted because for an academician, there's no better thing than to see their kid go into his, academics. And I under understood the value of publication, the value of educating.

2:04I understood how important it is to train the next generation, and how to train good to be able to take complex subjects and chunk it down to bite sized morsels that they can digest easily. Nice. So it was just kinda natural evolution. The tougher journey when when I left the university is now become entrepreneur because that was not in my DNA. That was a much tougher journey. But university part to me was in my DNA. It was a challenge for a lot of other folks that joined university that didn't come from an academic educational background. I can see that. Now was in terms of turning into an entrepreneur, you know, getting away from kind of the, I guess, college kind of education, I guess, environment, was there a defining moment that, like, really kicked off your entrepreneurial journey?

2:44I mean, because I look at you as like one of the most impressive entrepreneurs I know. I mean, we've been friends for a while and and just like these things that you're doing just blow me away. It's amazing. But I mean, it's not like you came out of the womb like Kesen, Achra Bindoor, clearly. How did you how did you go down that path? You know, is what I did is I left the university because things were changing. You know, for the beginning of my career, when companies would come out with a new CT scanner or new software or anything, they would come and present it to us at universities first, and they would usually donate it. So we had early access. We're the beta testers for implant companies, for bone graft companies, for software companies, CT scan companies, hundreds of different companies literally had a beta testing, and they would give us grants and we'd publish articles.

3:30And I like to be on the cutting edge. And what happened is at a certain time when the economy started going down, companies forwent the beta testing because it's expensive for them to give us grants and or donated products, and they went straight to market. So all of a sudden, my buddies in private practice were getting earlier access to things than I would. And I like to be cutting edge. And all of a sudden, what kinda excites me and jazzes me is cutting edge, and I wasn't able to do it as well. So I said, let me go into private practice so I can have the earlier access to things. And that was really is the driver for me is I just wanted to be on cutting edge. And then when I went in there, the first four, five, or six months, did fantastic.

4:03I do big procedures, full arch cases, implants, fast. And so, wow, I made in one week what I used to earn in one year at the university. Was crazy. Gosh. But, you know, it wasn't the driver for me. I got pleasantly surprised like, wow. Oh my god. I'm making in a week what I used to make in a year. Some days, I wanna bang my head on the from warm. Didn't have this sooner. But amongst you, I was delighted with my former career and delighted with this. But after five months, the practice crashed. No kidding. Yeah. Because the first five months, there's lots of people out there that knew me but didn't wanna be seen in a hospital setting. So they're waiting for a nice, elegant private practice setting. Mhmm. And as soon as I got there, whoop, they all came in.

4:40After those first five months, I was done with all them, and I had to market. I didn't know how to market. I'd spent twenty years at the university. Who marketed the university? Yeah. We don't we don't learn marketing in dental school or oral surgery, rest of the deceased student. Or in as faculty membership or anything. Of course. Okay? So I didn't know how to market. I just know how to hire and fire. At the university, there are people that did that. Yeah. And so I didn't know how to do that. And I was I'm embarrassed to say I was hiring based on is my private practice on if that a pulse or not. If they're breathing and have a pulse, you're hired. You know, I tell you what, everyone's talking about. Yeah. That that is a problem for all of us at some point in our our careers.

5:14I hope not. I can't talk to I mean, there were times in my early career where I was desperate. I was hiring out of desperation because I needed a human being sitting in that With a pulse and breathing. Yes. Yeah. Exactly. And then, I mean, obviously, it was always a mistake. It was always a problem. Well, I see coming back around again right now. You know, since the pandemic, so many people left dentistry, and there's so many practices that are just really struggling to recruit good talent. And then once they have them, actually keep them because it's such a competitive marketplace now. Have you seen that kind of, like, come back full circle a little bit? I see that just because I wasn't trained on that at the university, but a lot of people weren't trained in whatever environment they got their early training on.

5:57Yeah. So they are still making that mistake. Yeah. And then I knew because I'm an educator, I knew that the best return on investment is education. And as much as there I was giving seminars on bone grafting or dental implants is on all these things that I was passionate about, I'm like, well, I need training. Yeah. And I'm not you know, is is not too arrogant to admit that. I mean, I said, okay. I need training on this. Okay? And this is where the return on investment is. This is how I can keep myself in business. And I was ready to go back to university. You know, I'd left on very good terms, and I had my old job back if I wanted it. And then, you know, you'd think, okay. One last thing. Let me just try one last thing.

6:30Let me go sign up for some courses. And I signed up for some courses both within dentistry and outside of dentistry and on things on the the mechanics of running the practice, things on mindset issues. Because for me, money was obviously never a mindset. You know, at the university, I was on 50,000 a year salary, no commission, bonuses. Oh my god. That's after dental school and and becoming an oral surgeon. I mean That's after everything. Tough. Jeez. And it was a mindset thing. And so I had to shift my mindset onto, okay. I need to have some revenue. And so I took seminars on mindset things. I took seminars on technical things. And, yeah, the first five months, we made so much that I was doing fantastic, as I told you.

7:10Then after that, I actually had to take loans for the CE. I did. As you know, from any kind of CE, it's 10 x, 20 x return. Absolutely. I made it back. It's always incredible. Yeah. I made it back within one, two years. Good. Uh-huh. And so that's where I got these ideas from. Well, yeah. Over time, you tweak them and you modify them and you personalize them. In the beginning, I just drank the cool I did exactly where was trained, and over time, I modified things a bit. Well, that I think, you know, obviously, being adept as a clinician is, you know, kind of first and foremost. We gotta have that before we can really do anything else. But we both know there are a lot of dentists out there, super talented, great with their hands, they have all this education, but then they lack the leadership skills, they lack the communication skills, they lack the business acumen to actually be successful.

7:55You know, if you don't have the communication skills, guess what? You're not gonna do much dentistry. If you don't have leadership skills, guess what? You're not gonna have a great team. If you don't have business acumen, you can do all the other things right and still not make any money. And so as dentists, we don't get any of that training in dental school. So I love that you went outside of dentistry and got all of this additional knowledge that has quickly paid off. And then, you know, the more that that I meet people, because I still give seminars on almost a weekly basis, you know, nearly 52 weekends a year, I'm giving seminars. Wow. I say nearly, I mean, I'm not doing Christmas weekend. I'm not doing Easter weekend.

8:28I'm not doing Mother's Day. Yep. It's pretty darn close to 52 weekends a year. And so I'm in the trenches. I'm in front of fifty, sixty, 100 doctors every single weekend. Yeah. And so I can hear their questions. I can hear their concerns, technical or otherwise. And and then I come back and say, look. Is you know, something I have solution at my fingertips, the technical stuff. Now the business things have solution at my fingertips. But if they have other questions, you know, life issues or health issues, I say, well, let me look into it. Yeah. Then I go take courses on those topics Yep. For them and ultimately for myself also. So then I've it's forced me to grow as these questions come up. I wanna be able to help them.

9:06Yeah. Absolutely. And take seminars on then on personal growth, maintaining good health, on these types of things so that I can share those things with guys that are asking these questions. You know, something you just said really kinda resonated with me. You have you've I know you've been in front of thousands of dentists, hundreds of dentists, dozens of dentists, like, big groups, small groups, medium sized groups, kind of all those different iterations of it. I was involved in a mastermind that you did with a small group, which was amazing. I mean, it was such a such a great value, and I think everybody got so much out of it. And return on investment was insane for everybody, so that was awesome.

9:43I'm super excited because you have agreed to cohost a luxury dental retreat with me in January. I think the sixteenth through the nineteenth, we're gonna be in Puerto Vallarta in a luxury home and with chefs and massage therapists and, you know, all that good stuff. Great education, conversational, and then we'll have some cool excursions. But when you look at all of those different things, from a thousand to a 100 to 20 to say 10, like we'll do in our retreat, do you see advantages to different sizes of groups or anything that makes smaller group more valuable?

10:18Well, is each each different size has its own dynamics. You know? It's when I've done a 2,000 personal audiences, it's on a major it's podium with lights in my eyes. I literally can't see the audience. All I see is white. So in essence, if they have a quizzical look on their face, I'm not going any slower. I'm just going full speed. But then I'm long. I'm not slowing down or speeding up. I'm just going I'm listening to myself in essence. Okay. When it's a group of maybe 50 and I can see everyone in the room, there isn't bright lights. Okay. Now I can customize it. The head's going up and down. Okay. They guide it. I go a little faster. Yeah. On my face, okay. Let me slow things down. Okay. Completely different experience versus a 2,000, where I'm like, I sent you to myself.

10:59Feedback you get from the audience, the people you're speaking with, this is what really kind of guides you in terms of how you're going to deliver content. It is not a met it is not a memorized lecture. Nice. It is a conversation in essence. As you take that down from 50 to 25 in a more casual setting, okay, like the mastermind group that that we launched, what, five years ago, six years ago now Yeah. Is more casual setting, and now it opens up for not only the prepared script and small deviations from it, it can be less prepared script, really customizing things for them, and allows for then delving into not just which people usually wanna come for, it is usually about technical or about business.

11:43Yeah. Allows integration about health, allows about personal growth, allows about relationships. And then you take that down to really small, okay, 10 person groups in a luxury destination to get your creative juices flowing is and build camaraderie is now allows for discussion on all of these arenas.

12:01Come out of it is knowledgeable, energized, confident about technical, about business, about health, about relationships, about all of these things, custom geared to your specific needs.

12:14Right? This is not based on what the speaker thinks you need. It is custom tailored solutions to each and every person's concerns in the room. You know, Erwin, that's perfect. And and you can only do that when you do have kind of a small group like that. And and that's that's really one of the driving forces behind starting this this company. You know, luxury dental retreats mean, yeah, who doesn't love luxury travel? I mean, I love it. Of course, I've been a travel snob for a long time. But, you know, for for doctors to go to a setting where they get to, like, basically have conversations with you just like this for seventy two hours, you know, when we are asking questions in real time, we're asking about our specific scenario as opposed to being out in an audience where you don't really have freedom to do that or to, like, really build a relationship.

13:00It's really for me, from an educational standpoint, as a student or educator, it's always been my favorite format because you can kinda go a little deeper and you build relationships that can last last a long time. You know, is I'm glad you're a part of it. If you think about time, is it can be broken up in different types of time. And, you know, what do you mean by that? You know, in English, you have one word for the word love. Right? So you say, okay. You love your significant other. Okay. You love I love you, Jim, but but you're not like that. I mean, you have to explain the difference. Right back at you. Yes. Okay. You love your kids. Unconditional love. Right? There's different type I love the planet. Completely different type of love.

13:36In Greek, there's numerous words for love. There's about seven, but three major ones. And one word would be brotherly love, like buddy to buddy. One would be romantic love. One would be for your children. One would be for the planet. And as soon as you say the word, you know exactly the meaning. You don't have to clarify, like, well, you're not like that. Okay? So I think when we have different definitions of time, okay, then we can understand. And if you make a chart, because I'm a scientist, I like to make charts this way and this way. Yeah. This axis, let's say, predictability. Mhmm. K? Let's say this axis is profitability. Okay? So maximum predictable and maximum profit, that corner, let's make it four squares, that corner maximum profit, maximum predictable is in the clinic.

14:19I know whatever amount an hour, $500 an hour, $5,000 an hour, whatever you're making. Yeah. An attorney, it's whatever you're billing, $600 an hour. Okay? Predictable and profitable. Okay? Now let's take diagonal from that. Very unpredictable, very nonprofitable. Yeah. Family time. Not profitable in the classic sense. I was gonna say different kind of profitability. Not in the classic sense. And very unpredictable. Okay? Like, woah. He just fell on the ocean there. Let me get him out of there. Okay? And very different. These, everybody knows about. I don't have to explain these two. I think the issue is these two we don't know about. Okay? This one, nonpredictable but very, very profitable. Okay? That could be if I'm sitting there with Jay Abraham, and we're sitting there for, let's say, an hour, and five minutes are there, they give me a $5,000,000 idea, and I run with it.

15:08I make 5,000,000 off of it in five minutes. Right. That was unpredictable. Much, much, much, much more profitable than my thousand, 2,000, 3,000, or even $5,000 an hour. Even my all annex time in the clinic isn't it. Right. Very unpredictable and very, very, very profitable. Okay? Does that make sense? Okay? Yeah. It does. Let's call that renaissance time. Okay. It's work time, family time, renaissance time. And I think a lot of us have lost that idea because we think renaissance time should either be family time or work time. Okay. Renaissance time has its own value, which is much, much greater. Right? That's why I've gotten to where I have. I made a conscious decision over a decade ago to get myself a seat at the table with the billionaires.

15:53Proximity, man. Proximity is power. Let me hang out with Richard Branson. Yeah. Let me hang out with Tony Robbins. Let me hang out with with J. Abraham casually, renaissance time, not in a seminar per se, which I would almost is is in casual settings like this, and ideas get drawn. And boom, million dollar ideas, $5,000,000 ideas, 10,000,000 ideas flow. Of course, it's up to me to then do the work. But if they have become good friends of mine, now they can actually hold me accountable as well. Nice. Okay? That's huge. That accountability piece is, I think, lot of times missing, you know. And if you don't have some deep relationships or people who have kind of gone through some of the same things as you have or been there with you, you know, you don't have that deep relationship, and you're not bouncing these kinds of ideas off of one another.

16:37And then you go, well, where do I get the time for this from? I don't wanna take it from work time. I don't wanna take it from family time. Absolutely. This corner over here, okay, very nonprofitable and very predictably nonprofitable. What is predictably nonprofitable? Instagram. Facebook. Scrolling. Yeah. Well, okay. Predictably nonprofitable. That's where you take the time from. Yeah. We're not gonna work less hours to have rentals. We're not gonna give a family time to rent a ton of time. We'll go to the building rent a ton time and take it from, let's call it, barnacle time. Barnacle time. Okay. I like that. Now I might still need some little barnacle time, but it's not gonna be Monday morning. Yeah. Because Monday morning, we're on.

17:14Okay? That's gonna work time. When is barnacle time? I'm sitting at the airport waiting for a Friday night flight. Okay? I lecture Saturday, Sunday. I'm waiting at the airport on Sunday night for a flight home. I don't wanna do any of the other three things. That's the time for barnacle time. That makes sense. And and I think that's something that a lot of people struggle with that. You know? I mean, I think most of us have too much barnacle time. You know? It's just like you get in this mindless routine, and before you know it, an hour and a half has passed. It's like, oh my god. I will never get that time back. Yeah. So it's but it's the idea because especially as as scientists, the way we are as doctors, we think, okay, we have to see exactly predictability.

17:51And here, Renaissance time is unpredictable but the most profitable time. Yeah. Okay? Okay. Hour for hour because ideas, they come in five minutes, and they're the most powerful is ideas. Makes sense. So that so that kind of underscores the importance of being in the right room, being with the right people, being with someone who has done the kinds of things that you want to do. You know? And that's something I cultivated early in my career. I I went out and I mean, I sought out at at one point, I had a list literally written down 17 different mentors. And each of them had some skill or something that they did really well that I wanted to learn from. And I was very specific in turn in my mind, at least.

18:31You know? Those are the things that I wanted to talk about. Those are the things that I wanted to understand. And I tell you what, it made all the difference in the world for me. And there aren't that many people kind of have all of those things, all those sorts of attributes. But you're one of those people. I'd call you an all rounder. You kinda have skill sets in all of those different areas. And that's one of the reasons, in addition to just you being such a good friend, one of the reasons why I really love hanging out with you because I always get great ideas from you. And, you know, that that classic book, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill Yes. Fifty years later and still a bestseller. It is. What he did is he spent his life interviewing, I don't know, ten, fifteen, 20 people that he admired and looked up to and just broke down their thoughts and listed it.

19:14I mean, that's it. Yeah. He interviewed what you said. You seek out the folks that you wanted to mentor you. He seek out ten, fifteen, 20, I don't know how many, as mentors and put their things down into one chapter each and summed it up. Became a classic hit back then and has been a bestseller for fifty years or more. I don't know exactly printing. It's it's so true. And it's it's funny, Arun. I bet over the years, you know, I did thousands of hours of CE, and then I spent several years as an educator myself. But I probably heard at least 20 or 30 different speakers bring that book up as, you know, one of the, you know, most important things that they ever read or one of the things they read that they got the most value from.

19:52And and that just speaks volumes to, you know, the staying power, you know, of this guy talking about basic concepts that made others The wheel necessarily. I mean, some of us are more creative than others, but most of the time, we're duplicating genius or we're combining all of those things that we've learned from different people. Reinvent the wheel. What Tony Robbins says is you can go and spend twenty thousand hours on YouTube and and and figure it out yourself. Or you can go to the guy that has already spent the twenty thousand hours on YouTube, plus the only experiences, of course, etcetera. Fast track. And then cuts it down to ten hours condensed for you. Yes. Right. Yes. Well and, you know, that underscores the importance of of not just mentorship, but mentors who will share their secrets, the things that have made them successful, the things that were mistakes, you know, the things that they would do differently now because, you know, there nothing fast tracks success better than learning from the mistakes of others and then also learning from the successes of others.

20:46Yeah. You So gotta have someone that's willing to share and is completely transparent and completely vulnerable. Yeah. Absolutely. So, you know, Jay, to change change course just a little bit, I I wonder, you know, obviously, all these years of educating dentists, you know, I think you you've trained over 10,000 dentists to place implants, I think, some crazy number like that Yeah. Which is awesome. But you've seen every skill level from, like, the best of the best to, like, man, I don't even wanna touch that tooth or I don't even wanna, like, you know, make an incision. You've seen it all. For you, you know, over the years, I mean, you I've seen you out there with with dentists who have gone through your courses.

21:21And and I know they always have so much respect for you, and and they just really like you personally, which I think is is an even greater thing. But some of them are extraordinarily successful. And, you know, of course, there's always gonna be some that just they don't have whatever it takes to make dental implants or surgery part like, a sustainable part of their practice. Like, for you, what differentiates those two extremes? I don't know if that's the case. Okay? You know, the mission the mission I started on is decades ago is I had a mission. At that time, GPs were not doing dental implants. It was not within the purview. Right? It was in the purview of oral surgeon periodontists. Yeah. Who did extractions?

21:57GPs. Who did most of the endo? GPs. Who did most of the crowns? GPs, not prosthodontists. Right. So most aspects of dentistry were within GPs. There were two that were outliers. One was at that time orthodontics was only orthodontists, and the other was implants. And I decided at that I had a very clear vision that I'm gonna make implant dentistry a part of everyday dentistry. The way root canals are, the way crowns are, the way reaching extractions are, and yes, still a place for specialists in each one of those Absolutely. Are cases. So that was a conscious decision I made. You know, we train over 20,000 dentists to place dental implants in America. Wow, over 20,000. Well, have my numbers all There's around about a hundred and hundred and twenty thousand general dentists in America.

22:40So we still have a long ways to go. There's still another 100,000 we've gotta train on dental implants. But, you know, that's about seventeen, eighteen percent is compared to 0% back then. Sure. And that's why I'm still out there 48 weekends a year because I got a mission is under this. I wanna make it. I wanna be remembered for the guy who made implant dentistry part of everyday dentistry. The young would know that history. They think it is a part of general dentistry. You know, Arun, like, that has that's how I have known you all the years that I've known you. You know, I think I think I met you about, I don't know, maybe sixteen, seventeen years ago when I was I was on the board of directors with the Academy of Comprehensive Aesthetics.

23:16And you were, like, our our top speaker at several of our big conferences. And so I didn't get to know you really well, but I do know you were a huge draw sixteen, seventeen. Like, everybody was talking about doctor Garg, doctor Garg. Everybody had been going through training with you. And if they hadn't, they were about go through training with you, which which is awesome. And I you know, going back to those days and and just like seeing how you've progressed even further, you know, over the last fifteen years or so, it's extraordinary. It's really it's really great. And you've I think you've really seen this vision through. You have Well, I have to appoint day resting on any laurels. We train 20,000.

23:56Yes. That's great. But, you know, there's there's a 120,000 dentists in the country. There's still another 100,000 we gotta train. Yeah. There are some others now that come up to train some of these folks. But even with them, maybe combined with all these other institutes, they've trained about another 10,000. Sure. Still maybe 30,000. Still 90,000 need to be trained. And that's kind of been my driving mission in all of this. So I had a clear cut goal about this. And then in orthodontics, the same thing kinda happened. It happened not through a speaker or a mentor. It happened through the company, Invisalign. I mean, they brought orthodontics. Right. Well, they brought it to the public, and then the public asked for it.

24:29And when your patients start asking for it, it's like, okay. I better get trained. That's cool. So, you know, Arun, you've seen it all. You know, in your years in academia, and then as kind of a new practice owner and surgeon and then as an educator and now somebody who's expanded into all these other areas, many of which are in dentistry that I know about that are amazing, and some outside of dentistry, you know, restaurants and whatnot, which I think is even more fun because they're great restaurants.

24:56But at any rate, with all of that, looking at where we're at now, the landscape today, what are the most exciting things that you see in the pipeline? New innovations with regard to technology or techniques or materials? I mean, what what's out there that you think is going to make a big impact on the industry? You know, it's there's sayings out there. You've heard things like grow or die. You can't stay at the same place. And so and then, you know, even as far as Charles Darwin, his quote was about the species that survive the the ones that are most adaptable to change. Survival of the fittest. Yeah. But it but it was really more about survive the fittest with adaptability. Mhmm. What might survive the fittest in terms of strength.

25:35Sure. So what's always been is about adaptability because change keeps on happening. And so there's lots of change in dentistry in general and implant dentistry, etcetera. And, I mean, for the younger guys, what they're seeing now is things like a lot more digital. Know? Ten years ago, most of the impressions were analog impressions, impression materials. Now, you know, at least half the office in the country have gone to intraoral scanners. Half might still be using his impression materials, but that number is gonna keep on going up. Okay. So that means more and more intraoral scanners will be sold. More and more folks need to learn how to use digital intraoral scanners if they're not doing that. As as with intraoral scanners, what does that mean?

26:11That means no more shipping impression materials. That means no more labs worrying about spraying it down in HIV or, you know, hepatitis on the impression materials and contamination and pouring plaster models. And what does it mean in terms of accuracy? Know? Yeah. Eating clowns much faster because at that time, you had shrinkage of whatever, point 7% shrinkage of the impression material. Yeah. Compensated because maybe point 9% expansion of the stone. So, hopefully, cancel each other out. Isn't that funny to think about to think about the the compromises that we've made as a profession for, you know, decades and to look at it now and just the whole digital workflow. But starting with the scanning, I mean, the accuracy and efficiency related to that and the safety and and the lower cost.

26:53I mean, like, everything All of is so much better. And we still have, you know, a handful of doctors out there who aren't making that change. And, you know You don't have to ship the if you don't have to ship the models, you shave the shipping cost. If they don't have to pour the models, they can save the cost of that labor to pour the models. Right. Now they can lower the prices. You're uploading these provide better quality because it's a more accurate model they get digitally. 100%. And you're uploading these images to the labs directly. And so things get turned around a lot faster too. Or, of course, you can also do it all in office. And, you know, like single appointment dentistry is becoming more and more prevalent.

27:27Now now in the all n x world, you know, obviously, there it's becoming a bigger and bigger thing because we've got, what, 32,000,000 edentulous Americans, which is mind boggling to me. That's almost ten percent of Americans are edentulous, not including babies. In a country like I'm a girl cloud, that is mind boggling, isn't it? Unbelievable. And so the need for full arch dentistry is never gonna, like, subside. It's always going to be there, at least for the foreseeable future until, you know, people are taking better care of their teeth when they're young. Well, what happens? You go, well, what if we treat a million of these thirty million this year? Yeah. But then you got two million more that became edentulous.

28:03And if you treat a million, you got two million more. So the number keeps on growing. Well, it's it's heartbreaking. But thank God, like, the procedures have gotten so good and so predictable. And we have so many doctors like you, you know, training dentists to do it. And with more experience, you know, when somebody's done a 100 arches, they're pretty damn good at it, you know? So from a patient standpoint, that's really really nice. From a societal standpoint, that's really nice. So but, obviously, it's still a complex surgery. I mean, there's a lot going on, and you're dealing with What a lot of are the biggest challenges? Like, what what things do you see as stumbling blocks for dentists who wanna do full arch surgery?

28:40Our All On X, whatever you wanna call it, is training programs about twelve, fourteen years ago because the demand was there. More and more dentists wanna do it. And the first year, we did four programs that we do with live patients, so they actually got a hands on experience. And it was it was six doctors at each one. Today, we're doing that program 12 times a year with 12 doctors at each one. Wow. Put the mouth on it from about 20 doctors trained a year to almost a 150 doctors a year on average. Incredible. Wow. I didn't realize that that you were trained that many every year on that specifically. Just on that procedure. And, and since then, I about four years ago, five years ago, Quintessence had us do a book on that, just dedicated that topic.

29:21They got a second edition. I've already submitted to them and turned that around because things have evolved in the last five years. More and more photogrammetry, for example, is, things like that. So we added those chapters in. Mhmm. And so lots of growth there is, photogrammetry. The intraoral scanners for All The price was about 80,000. Then it went into 50,000. Now they're down to about 25,000. So today, there's almost no reason is not to have a intraoral scanner for All NX as even if price was a concern before. That's incredible. You know, I mean, all technology over time decreases in cost, of course. But to have it be that accessible to any dentist who really wants to get into this I mean, obviously, they need to do their training with you, like, make sure they're really good at it before they start treating patients and that sort of thing.

30:05But to have that opportunity and to have it be affordable. I hate $20,000 in a general practice. I mean, you're you're really talking about monthly payments. The Or you're probably talking about one All NX case? Yeah. Oh my gosh. That's right. And that covers the photogrammetry. Okay? Yes. So is lab costs have gone down. If you look at old old advertisements, okay, and I would take pictures of them even, you know, five years ago, All NX from some of these mega labs that just do kinda average quality mega labs is the prosthesis, the lab cost was close to $7,000 Wow.

30:395 or 6 years ago. Yeah. It's dropped now. The most labs do it for about $2,800, full arch zirconia. Is that right? So you look at the I've got the picture of the old ads, it was about triple that. It's gone to one third the lab cost, and I think that's gonna go even lower. I think it's gonna go down from 2,800 to probably 1,800. Yeah. And when the lab cost is drops is and it's more accurate, the photogrammetry. It's and there's more and more implant companies that have developed the workflow for this. Whereas, originally, it was just Nobel, and then a couple of other companies did follow them. And now there's 10 different implant companies that have a workflow and the abutments and parts and pieces for it.

31:13So before, when I was training folks, I'd say, well, be sure to select only this one company. And be sure to select only these three companies because Right. Now your regular implant company may not have the parts and pieces for it. And now I can say, you know what? You can select from any of these ten, twelve companies, and you may already be using them. There's nothing new to change there. And so it's becoming easier and easier. Is training Well, that sounds is Yeah. Twelve years ago, we were the only one. Six years ago, we were the only one. Now there's plenty of training programs. More availability, lower lab cost on it, better accuracy with the photogrammetry as versus impressions. Is patients are knowledgeable about it and will ask for it.

31:45So more patient demand for it. So it's gonna continue to grow. Well, you know, the great thing about about that, you know, having competition out there, you know, whether it's the technology side or the training side or, you know, whatever it is, Competition leads to innovation, you know, because nobody can kinda rest on their laurels.

32:01Everybody's gotta continue to up their game. You know, whether it's making things more efficient and cost effective, you know, that's one big thing, or making the training more innovative or more cutting edge, you know, which is like what you've always done because you're a perpetual student.

32:17Doesn't matter that you have eight freaking dental education companies, You are a perpetual student. And I have so much respect for that because I do think a lot of people do kinda kick back and, you know, it's just sort of coast along because, look, I've already done all this and, you know, I've been doing the same thing for twenty years and, you know, they never really changed their methodology or approach.

32:36But that's what, in my mind, gives you both I love what I I love what I do. I'm passionate. I'm excited about it. You know, Walt Disney would walk around his theme parks, and he would come back with at least one thing he wanted to improve every single day. That was a philosophy. At least one thing to improve even though, you know, you go, wow. You know, Disney World is so great. It's and I believe in the same thing. Every day, something has to be even better. And so we never think we're perfect. We're we're excellent, but we're never perfect. We're always gonna be better. You know, Arun, I've always agreed with that mentality that, look, it's it's a problem if you stop growing. It's because as soon as you stop growing, you start dying.

33:10You know? And there are different seasons of life. And I haven't always been, you know, of that mindset. But, you know, this past year, it's really been, like, 1% a day. Like, just, you know, have those habits, have those routines that help you grow every single day. You know, whether it's in your, you know, body, mind, spirit, profession, you know, it's just always making progress. And, you know, I I don't think you've ever had that, like, dip. You've always been on an upward trajectory. And, you know, when you accumulate 1% a day, you know, over the course of twenty years, you know, it's really extraordinary, you know, what you've been able to control. My mindset has always been upward trajectory. Right.

33:48But like anything else, I mean, in any kind of business, things do go like this. Sure. Oh, absolutely. And up weeks and down days and down weeks and down years. You know, that does have ups and downs. But, fortunately, my mindset has always been is up, up, up, up. Yeah. Well and and, you know, business is like that. I mean, they're it's an it can be unpredictable, and they're just things outside of our control. You know, pandemic hits, and all of a sudden, you can't take doctors to Dominican Republic. You know what I mean? And then you pivot and then you open a different program or you do it in a different way. But that adaptability is something you referred to earlier. You know, Darwin talks about, you know, survival of this.

34:24Those who can adapt will evolve into, you know, whoever's going to be successful moving forward. And that continuous adaptation, that learning, that 1% daily, I think is what will always keep you out there on the cutting edge. And it's something that I really aspire to as well professionally and and personally. Yeah. So that's that's good. Now when it comes to our luxury dental retreat, you know, in Puerto Vallarta, what what should attendees really expect? I mean, like, in terms of kind of an agenda I mean, I I have a rough agenda, you know, in terms of how we're gonna spend our time each day, you know, with maybe five or six hours of kind of conversational education and then, you know, maybe an afternoon out on the yacht, you know, having cocktails and appetizers and, you know, then coming back and maybe getting a massage and then, you having the chef prepare his dinner at the villa, those sorts of things.

35:12So that's an agenda. But in terms of the itinerary related to the education, what do you see as kind of the main I can come to take formal agenda, and it can be based on the technical things, the business things, the the personal things.

35:27And, and then from there is keep it free form on whatever anybody wants. But I think a lot of it, you know, what I've seen at at some of the masterminds, you know, that we've done, a lot of those ideas actually come over dinner or on the yacht or on Absolutely. Or, you know, etcetera. So solutions because it's it's a specific question on, you know, what drill speed should I do the implant at? Well, that yeah. Very formal question. But if it's about these growth things, who knows when the question pops in the head and what inspires you for it? Well, that takes us back that Renaissance time. Hours. I think that all waking hours Yeah. Okay, are actually you know, if you're awake for fourteen hours a day or sixteen hours a day, I think it's sixteen hours a day of intensive camaraderie and intensive learning and is it's all.

36:11There's value. There's so much value in that. And that's what we're talking about earlier also. The proximity is power. You know, there aren't many opportunities to get, like, this close with the speaker and to be able to really, like, pick your brain, so to speak, and, you know, have conversations that that veer off, you know, from the clinical side into the personal side or into the entrepreneurial side or into the growth mindset side.

36:33And I agree. Like, over the years, that's why I found so much value in those smaller group settings because that is my opportunity to really, like, have a a real conversation with those mentors that I sought out. Yeah. You know, is with with a lot of these guys like the Jay Abrahams and etcetera, our agenda is, okay. We're going fishing. Our agenda is something like this, and things come up. It is is, you know, doctor Klein, who was the chairman of the department, we used to go fishing together. It's at least once every three months. Mhmm. We'd, you know, play hooky from the university once one Friday. A a month. Good for you. Yeah. We go it's it's fishing. And Well, in dental school, we played hooky and went and water skis.

37:10That was our that was our thing. That's awesome. It's it was renaissance time for us. When I'm looking back on it back, then I identify as such. And we came up with some of the best ideas, some of the innovative surgeries back then, new surgical techniques back then is we because we're just kinda hanging out together like that. And so is we came up with a lot of different things is during that time. It is with Jay Abraham, the the business coach, is now more recently, is we do this at least twice a year. We get together Yeah. For a day or two. And is what I learned early on, these guys that have gotten to this level, Tony Robbins, he bought himself a hotel in Fiji so he could be at his own hotel and have the ultimate in renaissance time with his inner circle.

37:49Absolutely. Now Richard Branson bought himself not just a hotel, his own island, Necker Island. I I still haven't made it. I I've been invited, but haven't gone yet. But I I definitely need to to to take care of that one of these days. Okay. Absolutely. Alright. And so he can have his renaissance time not only at a core resort, but his own resort is and I actually followed their path. I, as you know, I purchased you and I went down there. I purchased a hotel, is in restaurant in Luther, Bahamas. And that was just cutting and pasting. That's what Tony Robbins says to do. Yeah. That's what is as Richard Branson says to do. That's what Jay Abraham says to do. I did. And you and I had tremendous renaissance time down there.

38:23Oh, we did. We definitely did. And, I mean, what a beautiful setting. Know? I I had never heard of Eleuthera before that. And now that I've been there and you have a hotel there, I hear Eleuthera all the And there's so many cool things happening on that island. I think Disney and the Ritz Carlton are both, you know, setting something up there. I mean, you bought at exactly the right time because how much how much oceanfront property do you have? It's I mean, it's a long coast. Five acres. Yeah. And as you saw, five acres and there's four it's a small hotel, only fourteen fourteen separate bungalows. Yeah. Well, they're all individual and then a restaurant on-site, pizzeria, and a bar. Well, and one thing I remembered before I even went down with you, like, googled everything, blah blah blah.

39:03Your restaurant was ranked number two on the entire island, which I can corroborate. It's pretty phenomenal. My my highlight was the lobster pizza. When your when your hotel manager is going out and spearfishing, like catching all the stuff like the same day and then putting it on pizza, I mean, wow. It doesn't really get The restaurant is voted number 20 on the island. The the pizzeria is voted number one in the country. So restaurant is the island. The pizzeria is voted number one pizzeria in the country. I'm not surprised. You mean, how many Italian, like, wood fired ovens are there in in The Bahamas? And there can't be that many. That was with lobster and truffle. So lob truffle pizza. Oh, man. Alright.

39:43No. I feel like we gotta get back there sometime soon. You're killing me here. No. That's cool. Well, hey, Arun. I really appreciate all your time. I mean, it's been great catching up, great chatting. You know, it always is. But, yeah, to see your face today and to hear your enthusiasm for what you're doing, you know, out there in the world. And and and really, for me, I'm so honored that you've agreed to cohost a luxury retreat with me. I mean, it's gonna be amazing. And, you know, hopefully, some of the people listening to this will will end up joining us. If not for this one, then for the next one that we do. But Yes. Thanks, man. It's so good to see you, and take it easy. Alright. Good chatting.