SPEAKER_02 0:00

This episode of Why Did I Become a Doctor is brought to you in partnership with Medical Brief, South Africa's leading daily healthcare news service. Stay informed with trusted reporting, expert insights, and analysis that matters to healthcare professionals. Subscribe free at medicalbrief.co.za forward slash subscribe. Enjoy the show. Actually, I'm I'm avoiding asking you too many questions. No, but mine was kind of like forced into it because of my hand.

SPEAKER_00 0:33

Is that are they all off? Sure, sure.

SPEAKER_03 0:36

Is this the is this the ever escape? You must do trigger warning before you whoop it out. Boy.

SPEAKER_00 0:42

I've actually seen him do this before. Oh me. I don't remember where you were speaking.

SPEAKER_02 0:45

Must have been on that video, man. That that one was. Why do people travel?

SPEAKER_00 0:48

I was there.

SPEAKER_02 0:50

Huh?

SPEAKER_00 0:50

I don't remember when you were speaking, but I was there. I don't remember.

SPEAKER_02 0:54

It was a prison. I spoke at a prison.

SPEAKER_00 0:59

No, no, it was not a prison. Where was it? But you were speaking mostly about um 3D printing, and you spoke about how you printed your hand or you printed a hand. Mostly about 3D printing. I don't know which course I went to.

SPEAKER_02 1:16

Come on, yeah, you must have been like, geez, there's so many that I've done. Oh, excuse us. Yeah. We cousin. We we he lived at my house for a few years also when he was studying at D U T and so Are you guys from Durban? Yeah, he I'm from Durban. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:34

I'm also I see, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:35

You've got a Zikazan and KZ and Kate there. Yeah. What?

SPEAKER_00 1:39

My dad is Zulu.

SPEAKER_02 1:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:40

So I'm I'm Zulu.

SPEAKER_02 1:41

What KZN thing?

SPEAKER_00 1:42

What did you say? My number plate. My number plate. Yeah. But my mom is Tulsa, so I grew up in the Eastern Cape and I speak Tulsa, but I'm actually Zulu.

SPEAKER_02 1:50

Okay, okay. Well that it that because the surname is a Zulu Sunday. Yeah. But where about in KZN? Oh, originally. Okay, let's let's come on. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:04

Is this part of it?

SPEAKER_02 2:06

No. We we could have made it part of it. What the clapping? The first part. Like yesterday's what? Yeah, yesterday's what? I just think the mics. Yeah.

unknown 2:16

Dr.

SPEAKER_02 2:16

Bean Slangulela.

SPEAKER_03 2:18

Hi. Welcome. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 2:20

It's good to have you here. Thank you for uh accepting the invite. I mean, I saw you presenting at DPA Congress last year. Yeah. It's like, no, Yak, we gotta get this person on. I message Yak. And then they're like, yeah, cool, do it. Then I to I had to do this thing. I and I'm not this type. Yak knows me my whole life. Like, I'm very I avoid people. But I had to like go out of my shell and be like, hey, Dr. B, it's so good. Uh why don't you come on? Remember I sat next to you. Yeah, I remember. Interrupted you and your friend. Yeah. Oh, do we do it in real life? Yeah. IRL. I thought he he sent you a DM or something.

SPEAKER_00 2:53

No, I met him at the Congress.

SPEAKER_02 2:55

I'm moving on up both from the DMs to the IRLs. He used to make me do that. IRLs. How I've grown, huh? Yeah. Dr. BD. Now, your old man is uh is a judge. Why didn't you do law?

SPEAKER_00 3:07

I wanted to. Um I wanted to, yeah. I wanted, I thought I was gonna be a lawyer when I grew up, but I just saw how much reading my dad did. And I don't know if I'm that committed to reading.

SPEAKER_02 3:17

It's a lot.

SPEAKER_00 3:18

Like he still does it. Like my dad has an entire library, and I still feel the same way today. So I'm very glad I didn't become uh a lawyer. I don't think I would have been bad at it, just the reading part I couldn't commit to.

SPEAKER_02 3:30

And then um I thought you were gonna tell me the old man said don't do it, because that's what a lot of lawyers tell their kids.

SPEAKER_00 3:35

No, no, he didn't. My parents have always been very flexible with what we want to do. Um, so it was really up to me. Um, he probably would have been glad. Yeah. Um, but I just I was like, no.

SPEAKER_02 3:49

And you said we, so how you got siblings? How many?

SPEAKER_00 3:51

Yeah, I got two siblings. I've got a younger sister, she's like a year younger than me, and then a little brother.

SPEAKER_02 3:56

Yeah, and are they also in healthcare or?

SPEAKER_00 3:58

No, not at all. Not at all. My little brother just started working in a property agency. Okay, and my sister's also in property with my mom. They do like student accommodation and that kind of thing. But she's like a qualified uh psychologist and chef. Oh, cool.

SPEAKER_02 4:16

Yeah, all right, very diverse background. Where are you from? Stop.

SPEAKER_00 4:19

So I'm actually from Mtata in the Eastern Cape. Um, but I am Zulu, so I have my roots, roots, roots in um Umlasi in KZN.

SPEAKER_02 4:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:29

Um but I definitely grew up in Umtata.

SPEAKER_02 4:31

So you grew up there, so did you ever go to Umlasi?

SPEAKER_00 4:34

Like, yeah, I went there every holiday.

SPEAKER_02 4:36

To do what?

SPEAKER_00 4:36

Yeah, my grand Funny enough, I live up the road from there. Okay. Um, but my grand was when my grand was alive, we would go every holiday. Like the distance between uh going between Durban and Umtata became so short for us. Like it was. But is it for me? Like, no, it's not a few years. Five and a half, five, but it was just like you know what a yadini.

SPEAKER_02 4:58

Huh? Do you know what a yadini? No. What is it?

SPEAKER_00 5:01

It's like I've never been to IRL. It's like have you ever heard of Rans in Cape Town?

SPEAKER_02 5:08

No.

SPEAKER_00 5:09

Oh gosh. Um Gonga in Soweto?

SPEAKER_02 5:12

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 5:12

So it's basically like a is it Kong?

SPEAKER_02 5:15

Kong is called.

SPEAKER_00 5:15

No, Kong is a club.

SPEAKER_02 5:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 5:17

Kong is a club. Gonga, and it's like these places based in townships, um, and it's about music, vibes, and food, and uh mostly like a party in the hood.

SPEAKER_02 5:28

There's a lot of there's one song about it, right? Uh maybe there's many, but nothing.

SPEAKER_03 5:36

Oh, yes, yes. Oh, you're really good at it. Uh yes, I do like that song.

SPEAKER_02 5:42

How do you know, Gigi? Have you been there? No, I've never been there, as I said, but I mean it's a good one. I don't even think it's an institution, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 5:47

Like it's it was big. Yeah, it was big. The owner passed away, so I don't know what's happening now there. I don't know if it's still open even. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:54

Um, but you So you've never been then?

SPEAKER_00 5:56

No, I have been.

SPEAKER_02 5:57

Oh, you have?

SPEAKER_00 5:58

I have been. My goodness. Long ago when I used to party more.

SPEAKER_02 6:01

You used to go to the enjoy there.

SPEAKER_00 6:03

Yeah, it was fun. Like it was different breaking away from the normal club in the city and then So it is a club then? No, it can't it's got that vibe. I mean, you stay there late, but it's very it's more on the lounge side than the club side. Okay. A club is completely devoid of food. Yeah. But there you must eat. Yeah. The meat is good. That's what I think.

SPEAKER_02 6:25

So they didn't the b business rights didn't say like commercial zone for my club right now.

SPEAKER_00 6:30

I think they say it's a restaurant, but a restaurant that popes.

SPEAKER_02 6:34

It's like a scent. My my good friend uh on the dental practice there, Mlasi Dental. Oh yeah?

SPEAKER_00 6:41

So he's uh in that center by I don't know where it is.

SPEAKER_02 6:48

My good friend from high school. So what was it like growing up in um Tata?

SPEAKER_03 6:53

Um I've been.

SPEAKER_02 6:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:55

What were you doing in Tata?

SPEAKER_02 6:57

I went to I went for an interview in the Eastern Cape to a place called Elliot.

SPEAKER_00 7:01

Oh one of my cousins and sisters went to Elliot. It was the first boarding school I ever heard of. It is a very cold place. Did you ever stay there?

SPEAKER_02 7:10

One night I had to go there. I flew down, hired a car, drove to this place, stayed there in the night, went for the interview in the morning, and then drove back and flew back to George.

SPEAKER_00 7:18

But hold on, Elliot is it's not in um Tat, it's in the Eastern Cape, but it's like one of those middle of nowhere. Like I couldn't even point in the direction of it. I just definitely knew it exists. Um so you have to like take a flight and get a car to get there.

SPEAKER_02 7:34

So it was hectic.

SPEAKER_00 7:35

And all I remember is that it's freezing.

SPEAKER_02 7:38

It's cold and it's misty.

SPEAKER_00 7:40

It's like the Midlands on steroids.

SPEAKER_02 7:41

Okay. I've also been to Umtata. I went there on business. I had business. What business? I went there on work. I mean, my work flew me. My my goal was to go to Umtata and find law firms that we could use as correspondent attorneys in matters because we were for DPL. Oh, interesting. So I went to Umtata, I ate at the sp I think I ate at the spur there. How long ago did you go? This was nine uh 2019. Ah, it was something we did. 2019, and you know what, uh, it was traumatic, eh? Because town is choked, busy. And I had a hired a man they hired a manual car.

SPEAKER_00 8:20

You can't drive, you Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:22

I I only learned how to drive manual during my commser, yeah. Like I got the license, but you know, I drove automatically. But no, you tell us about you. How what was Umtata like?

SPEAKER_00 8:30

Umtata was born there. Born and uh well, yeah, basically born and bred there. Um I was born in a town nearby, but I've always lived there. Um it was I had a really great childhood. I was everything happened for me like in one little vicinity. And obviously on from my mom's side, there was a lot of family um in Umtata. So um we did we did a lot of um things. There wasn't much to do because we don't we didn't have um the same culture as someone that grew up in a proper city, like um being dropped off at the mall on Friday nights or anything like that, because we didn't really have those types of spaces. But I remember back in the day we did the cinema a few couple times, but we haven't had a cinema for maybe 20 years. Bicycle. Yeah, we did have a cinema for maybe like the last 20 years, or maybe even more.

SPEAKER_02 9:21

Now you see why you're asking if they've got a spur there. Come on.

SPEAKER_00 9:24

We've always had a spur though.

SPEAKER_02 9:27

So yeah. I think your mom was did she work or what is she?

SPEAKER_00 9:32

Yeah, my mom is a I think it's called an educator. She teaches, it was always the funniest thing to say. My mom is a uh an educator for people studying education. So she teaches teachers.

SPEAKER_02 9:45

That's cool. How cool? Yeah, that's kind of a theme here that we speak about always on the show. Yeah. Like no, not everyone should be educators. You need someone in the field to be taught how to educate. Yeah. Yeah. You know in what context we discuss, we usually discuss it in the context of you know, when you become a registrar or something, right? Okay. You still have to teach. And when you become a lecturer, you have to teach students. Post grad, I mean. But nobody taught you how to teach, right? You you you became a content in your field. Yeah. But nobody taught you how to teach.

SPEAKER_00 10:15

There's a lot they don't even teach us at school anyway.

SPEAKER_02 10:17

And then put the judge's daughter, but you had to be on best behavior all the time.

SPEAKER_00 10:21

So my dad wasn't always um uh a judge, yeah, but I mean, he was always obviously in the justice system. He was a lawyer, he was an attorney. I was actually about to ask you if you why you didn't find my dad's firm.

SPEAKER_01 10:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:33

It's right there. Maybe I did. It was maybe. Um, no, but you said 2019. He was already a judge by then.

SPEAKER_01 10:39

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

Um, so I mean, I guess I did have to be on best behavior, um, but I was always generally on best behavior. I mean, when I was a bit of a rebel as a child, um, but other than that, I was I've never really I don't think I'm a problem child, Mom.

SPEAKER_02 10:56

Yeah, we'll see. Yeah. Tell mom to comment. Like what they are.

SPEAKER_00 11:00

Mom, please leave a comment in the and like and subscribe. And like and subscribe. No, I don't think I've been a problem child. I think um I was, I think I'm a fair child. Like I've I think I've pretty much done what my parents would have wanted a child to do. And not actually, I and the nicest thing is that I also for me is that I chose it. I was never forced, coerced, or anything. Like my entire path, I was like um led into this, and I walked in freely, and I still choose it every day, and I've always had the support of my parents.

SPEAKER_02 11:32

So you strike me as an extrovert.

SPEAKER_00 11:34

Yes, I yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:35

Always been always been that way. I think so, yeah.

unknown 11:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:38

I wonder how people become extrovert. Are you just born an extrovert?

SPEAKER_00 11:41

I don't think anyone is born anything. It's like a circumstantial thing. Um, but I okay, maybe I'm uh maybe I'm lying. Some people are born probably a bit shy. Um, but I think most of my is it extrovertness is probably due to it's like a survival uh mechanism for me. Um like how?

SPEAKER_02 12:04

What do you mean?

SPEAKER_00 12:05

Like when you don't okay, I'm gonna be blunt, okay. When I was younger, I was not a pretty girl, okay, right? So the the the the social definition of pretty, the magazine lady, all right? Not that girl, I was too dark, the boys didn't like me very much, I was opinionated, all of these things sort of worked against me. So I felt like I needed to be able to talk the talk. So um instead of just you know be pretty and expect the attention. So I needed to command it. So when did you become pretty? Because you because uh you are pretty. So I think I've always been pretty. Yeah. It's just the word was. I never felt like I was pretty.

SPEAKER_02 12:52

No, you used the word was not pretty. That's what I'm saying. So when did you become pretty?

SPEAKER_00 12:55

Oh, when did I become pretty?

SPEAKER_02 12:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:57

I think when I and funny enough, funny enough, it has a lot to do with my teeth. Funny enough.

SPEAKER_02 13:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:04

Um, but I don't I I became more confident.

SPEAKER_02 13:08

Yes, I was gonna just want to point out I don't think you were ever not pretty. You just might have lacked. How do you did you grow up with what to be? No, I don't well, I don't think anyone, I don't think anyone is not pretty. Seriously. Like that's my point.

SPEAKER_00 13:20

I mean, I don't I don't think I was not pretty in retrospect. I was, I think I was speaking from at that time. I did not recognize myself as beautiful or um or smart or I mean I was book smart and that was always something that like I stood on. So maybe I wouldn't, my milkshake didn't bring all the boys to the yard, but my brain did, you know. So I was always proud of that. Um, and that became very important to me. So um to demand my space become became very important to me. So that's probably when I became an extrovert. So I got the confidence, and then when I started to do work on my teeth, the things that make you a bit more insecure, I felt like those all those acts and um sort of self-love, self-self-love, self-care, like almost built the person that I am now. Like now I feel it's growth.

SPEAKER_02 14:20

Growth, it's amazing, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:22

So so were you academics was your thing, or did you play sport or I did play sports, but not uh I was you no one will remember me as an athlete. I didn't play sports, I played netball, and then when I moved to KZN, I went to KZN for high school by the way. Um what tell why?

SPEAKER_02 14:42

Why did you move?

SPEAKER_00 14:43

Um, the schools are better there uh compared to in Umtata. So my parents have always wanted us to go there, and we were also in boarding school, so I think they wanted that for us as well. Which school was it? Yeah. I went to St. Mary's in Cluff. Okay. Yeah, the KZN one.

SPEAKER_02 14:58

At what a at this is grade six. This is grade eight.

SPEAKER_00 15:00

So I started high school there, uh, but all my siblings started earlier than me. I went first, and then my sister started earlier, my brother, even the earliest. Yeah, but after you. But you were the first to leave.

SPEAKER_02 15:11

So you left home. And no parents, so you come to KZN. Yeah, boarding school. They dropped me off at school. That's hectic. It's nice as a parent. I would love that. Wow. I hope your kids don't want. My one kid, yeah. She's 36. No, I'm joking. No, I'm not joking. But yeah, well, we're still gonna get back to Yep, because he made a comment, which I don't I don't know if it's true. He said he thinks everybody's pretty. Everybody is. I don't think anyone's not pretty. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I don't think I don't think anyone's ugly.

SPEAKER_00 15:38

I think there is something that makes everybody beautiful, but I just don't think it's necessarily in how a person looks.

SPEAKER_01 15:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:46

I don't think um, I mean, also beauty is in the eye of the beholder, which is fine, but I do think everyone is beautiful in their own way, and sometimes it's not a face value, an appearance.

SPEAKER_02 15:59

You guys are looking at the deep aspects. I'm just talking about very shallow, pretty on the face of it. You know what I mean? So that's not what I'm prescribing, what he is uh beliefs on to us, projected, projected, which is ironic. Is it ironic? Or dramatic dramatic irony? Yeah, I don't know what you want to call it because this is the industry we're in. Yeah, we are there to provide self-confidence for patients, yeah, inside and out, right? And sometimes some of your patients will come just for the outside, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so to take us back. So grade eight, you leave Ntata. Was it scary?

SPEAKER_00 16:35

Yeah, it was. It was a completely different environment for me going to St. Mary's. I mean, I was the only black girl in my class.

SPEAKER_01 16:43

Really? Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 16:44

Yeah. Someone from an all black school and all of that.

SPEAKER_02 16:47

No whites in in in your school?

SPEAKER_00 16:49

No, zero whites in my in school. No.

SPEAKER_01 16:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:53

Was it uh did you go to Queenstown?

SPEAKER_00 16:56

No, I was in Umtata.

SPEAKER_02 16:57

In Umtata. But you said you were like in a in a s in a small town outside of born in East London.

SPEAKER_00 17:03

Yeah. In East London. Yeah, I was born in East London. But we've never lived in East London. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 17:07

So you go from a school where there's only black kids to being the only black kid.

SPEAKER_00 17:12

Yeah. So in the grade, there were four of us.

SPEAKER_02 17:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:15

Okay. Four black girls. It was an all-girls school.

SPEAKER_01 17:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 17:18

Four black girls, and there were four classes in grade eight, and they split us up. So there was one each. So there were four out of about a hundred.

SPEAKER_02 17:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:28

So it was like one, one, one, one.

SPEAKER_02 17:30

Diversity.

SPEAKER_00 17:31

And we yeah, and we only met up, and and only three of us met up because we all chose Zulu as our first traditional language. And I think one of my friends, some of my friends this day, actually, I think she chose Afrikaans. And so that's when we would sort of meet up, and but most of the time we were separate, yeah. But at least we were all in the boarding house. Um, but yeah, it was very white. So it was extremely different. I mean, everything was different from how the kids speak to their parents, to like the cars they get picked up in, to the things they do on weekends, where they go, what they're allowed to do, um, their perspective. So I learned so much from that, and I always took all the information, soak, soak, soak, and I'd go and regurgitate it back to my friends back home. I created a lot of emails, email accounts. As soon as I discovered how to create an email, I was there back home, like creating everyone's email.

SPEAKER_03 18:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:29

So it was cool. Like Facebook accounts. I was like, guys, I heard about this thing, email, Gmail, whatever, and set up your account on Yahoo or whatever. And I was doing that. So it did teach me a lot. Opened up my mind about travel as well, because obviously they'd gone like really nice holidays, um, and which they describe, but um and then you never talked back to your parents when you got back home. A little bit, a little bit. I I found a way to to maneuver. Yeah, um, so now I was able to, like my parents had to actually justify their um choices. But now I needed an explanation for this. So yeah. Um and I also learned about tolerance um because I now I lived with people that were that live very differently to me. Like I shower every morning, they don't shower every morning. Okay. Like, what are you doing? You know, so I also had to learn a lot about uh their another way of life. Yeah. Um and I got to experience racism.

SPEAKER_01 19:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 19:41

Uh or maybe their ignorance I got to experience. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:45

Um I had that too, we were discussing with I think Judge Davis, where when I got I got picked for the Natal cricket team and I got called up in assembly and I'm walking past the guys, this is under 13. And you hear one or two lighties say, Hey, token, you know, like this.

SPEAKER_00 20:00

Yeah, yeah. I was also the token.

SPEAKER_02 20:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:03

Um, and so like You were one of four tokens. No, but remember, we didn't always we weren't always in the same place. So a token is generally one.

SPEAKER_01 20:12

Yeah, there's only one special black in the girl, right?

SPEAKER_00 20:15

So that if they'd take me out on the weekends, there'd be a token guy from the other school. And then the only the only option for me is the other token.

SPEAKER_01 20:26

Crazy, eh?

SPEAKER_00 20:27

Yeah, so it was just um on a social and academic um level, there was a lot of like people trying to tell you where you to place you. And so I guess that's also where my um extroverteness comes from is I needed to assert myself and I needed to choose where which space to occupy. And obviously, you know that sometimes you come on a little strong. Um, so I did get into trouble for that.

SPEAKER_02 20:56

Did you ever want to just go back home?

SPEAKER_00 20:59

No, never. I was extremely challenged, yeah. Um, and I was very determined to overcome. Um, um it was also a very it it drove me um to be in that space. It drove me to become more sure of the decisions that I've I make. So I've always been like purpose-driven. You want a challenge? Yeah, I do want the challenge. I want to show you that I can, you know, beat the odds or I can prove you wrong. And so I had a lot of things to prove wrong. And I did feel a sense of responsibility for everyone I represented back home. Um, so I wanted I didn't want to walk away and let people think that this is a representation of bringing a little black child into an all white school. I wanted them to remember me. I mean, I was president of the SRC by the time I left. You know, all of these things from in the boarding house to the actual school um in Matrix.

SPEAKER_02 22:05

So So you had a sense of responsibility also to your community back home. Yes. In your mind, you're like, I'm I've given I've been given this opportunity. I have to make the most of it and show that.

SPEAKER_00 22:14

So if I entered a room, yeah, I have to make the most of it. And if I've entered into a room, I've been given an opportunity, I must be remembered in that space. And that opens the door for the next one to feel like they can come in and belong in the space and to also because representation really does matter. I understand that a lot better now that I'm older. But back then it was just about proving people wrong and making my dad and my mom proud and you know, just not wasting the chance that I was given. I did immediately realize that this was a rare thing. Um, just based on, like I said, I'm absorbing all this information that seems so basic to other people. And I go home and I'm like the Steve Jobs of Umtata getting females. You know, just that's the title of this episode. Steve Jobs of Umtata. So it was just like the most basic things that we used um at school that weren't we didn't even know about.

SPEAKER_02 23:10

Um so I definitely felt like I was sent to go and see and how do you think, sorry, how do you think your have you ever asked them, your parents, how did they come to that decision of sending you specifically there to St. Mary's? I mean how did they do their research or do they know somebody else?

SPEAKER_00 23:29

They knew a few people a few people from um Umtata were sending their kids to KZN schools. Um it obviously made a lot of sense in my family being from KZN as well, so there was like a little bit of a family cushioning there as well. So it wasn't, I think it made my parents feel better about sending your child away. Um but they always knew about the schools, but we did, they had a community where if someone had gone, then off the back of um that child having gone, when because when you go to these schools, it's a who know, it's a who's who, right? So it's like, oh no, no, no, we came to this school because um this child is is a relative of ours and they also came here. So they like that whole linear thing going on. So it makes it easier. So it is important that someone has gone before you, because then it makes your path slightly smoother. Um, so I think that's how they they knew I I don't know. Interesting, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:25

You also said it uh you mentioned the word rare opportunity, right? Yeah, but isn't it interesting? I don't know. I wonder if as the opportunity becomes less rare and more like the normal you know, let's just say it was a normal thing for you to go to this this kind of school, whether I wonder whether we've still had that motivation or drive to like to represent to represent and to do better. I mean, if it's just a normal thing, right? You know, I don't know. Can I can I ask you that question? Yeah, what like I mean we we went to like Model C private schools and stuff. Did you feel a sense of responsibility to your community? No, to the Indian community. Like a very selfish type, I I feel maybe. I just thought about myself. Like I'm not a selfish type, but I still didn't feel like I was represented.

SPEAKER_00 25:11

I think it I think it depends where you come from. Exactly. I mean if you grew up in um Santon already and you were going to a Santon school, that is normal for you.

SPEAKER_03 25:21

That's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_00 25:22

But for me, it was a complete like when I went out on the weekends with my friends, the houses I was where would you go? No, it was in Cliff. So we would go to uh a Hillcrest, um Durban, Bellito. Um yeah, but not I don't think I had a friend in Maritzburg. Um and the houses like crazy. Like, so it was just things I'd never see, like I'd never see houses that big. Um I had a friend who I'll mention it, but I don't know if you can include it. I'll mention it because we're having a conversation now. But like she lived in like the most English home. And first of all, we got to order our own dinner. So you have what you want to eat at dinner. So they ask you in the afternoon, what do you feel like for dinner? You say, Oh, chicken wings or chicken whatever. And then you have your own dinner, this one has their own dinner. They're making it, but it's what you ordered. But the same thing. And the mom, and the mom, head of the as at the head of the table, and everyone had their little salt and peppers, individual salts and peppers. I mean, those are things you don't think about.

SPEAKER_02 26:35

It's a different world.

SPEAKER_00 26:37

So I mean, I was like, there's no ways this is normal.

SPEAKER_02 26:40

I think I can leave that in. I mean, that's a decent space. Yeah, it used to be words.

SPEAKER_00 26:44

No, but it's easy. So it was I was aware of it, even if I wasn't immediately aware, like in a school environment, but it was definitely not for me.

SPEAKER_02 26:53

The one of the biggest eye-openers, because I was in an Indian school for like from grade, what, grade one, preschool, right? Then I went to a white school, grade two. And I'll never forget this. It's so weird. Grade two, I used the word bloody. I said, hey, why are you being so bloody silly? And all the kids were like, You can't say that. I was like, Oh, okay. Didn't know it's like a swear word to say bloody, but anyway. How you how you knew you know what bloody? I must have heard it. Yeah. Bloody fool. It's a thing, man. I know it's a thing, but what like when you're in grade two? Yeah, maybe I was a grade two. Our parents don't swear. But that's not a swear word, guys. Yeah, but they don't even use the word bloody. Oh, maybe you're my. They do. Come on, it's an Indian thing. Yeah, bloody. Come on, it's you're bloody. Yeah, so that or the other. So funny. Bloody, and it's like not pronounced bloody, right? It's bloody, bloody, this and that. No, but it must have been out of your comfort zone. Different culture, right? Extremely out of my comfort zone. And a different culture. But that's the beauty of this place, right?

SPEAKER_00 27:51

Now when I think back on it, like I remember certain, like certain things come back to me. How like um my friend's parents were so rich that um the pharmacy would deliver their medication. Things that now we order on that was being done in 2008, 2006 in some households, you know.

SPEAKER_01 28:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:11

Like um, when we went to Spa, she didn't use her card. It was like she had an account at Spa. Like just weird things that you don't um and and it's all before an online, before the online era. I mean, now we can all do that and get the food delivered and the medication delivered, but those are things like I was seeing back then. And what did I know about shopping? You go to the shop, you pick up the items, you wait in the queue, you pay, you go home.

SPEAKER_01 28:36

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 28:37

No other version of that existed until I saw it. So it was I opened it.

SPEAKER_02 28:41

It's so cool. Yeah, um, what a great opportunity. And then, but now where does dentistry come into this picture?

SPEAKER_00 28:48

So um I had my own dental problems. So it's called, so I had like a class three skeletal maliclusion, which uh is basically like an underbite. So my lower jaws are sticking out, and so I had like a little bit of a banana-shaped face. Um, not that I knew or understood what that was. All I knew is that my teeth in a part of my mouth weren't meeting, so I couldn't bite into like slices of toast and like weird things. And I started having a lot of dental problems, and this happened like grade 10, 11. And um, there was a girl in my class whose mom was a dentist right up the road, and so the school would take us, take me to the dentist, and she then diagnosed me, and then she spoke about this orthognic surgery and all of that stuff. So I subsequently underwent jaw surgery. When I describe it to my patients, I say Kanye West surgery, so it's like just realigning my jaws, and I had braces in my before.

SPEAKER_02 29:50

So when was this?

SPEAKER_00 29:51

This was in 2011. So I had braces in my check high school in high school, and then 2011 first year, I did the surgery.

SPEAKER_02 30:00

In Durban.

SPEAKER_00 30:01

Uh, I did the surgery in Durban, yes, but I was already at Tuck said.

SPEAKER_02 30:05

That's big surgery, eh? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:07

It was. It was it's I still I still feel like it's cool. I remember everything. Um, it was weird, and but the weirdest thing is how much I didn't realize it changed my face. So if you didn't know me very well, like if you'd met me a couple of times, you wouldn't recognize me. You'd need to like know me, know me to be like, was there something? So I completely changed. It was pretty cool. So sometimes when I meet guys, I'm like, you know, I didn't always used to look like that.

SPEAKER_02 30:34

Yeah, that's when you became pretty. That's when I became pretty.

SPEAKER_03 30:40

Everybody's pretty.

SPEAKER_02 30:41

I still maintain that. You don't need orthodnetic surgery.

SPEAKER_00 30:43

Listen, listen, it's not it's it didn't, it didn't make me look like a completely different person, but it made me feel like a completely different person.

SPEAKER_03 30:51

And dentistry changed your life then.

SPEAKER_00 30:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:53

That's why I'm shout out to that dentist who couldn't diagnose them. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:58

So in grade 11, um the final nail in the I'm gonna be a dentist coffin came when we had to pick careers like shadow someone in the career. So I chose um Dr. McDowell. And that's the same dentist. Yeah, the same dentist as my dentist. So I said to her, can I please just watch you for a couple weeks? Because it was also close by, so it was very easy um to arrange. And she was like, Yeah, of course. And um Dr.

SPEAKER_02 31:24

Sarah McDowell.

SPEAKER_00 31:25

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 31:26

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:27

And she's still practicing. I was in the class with her daughter. Um, no, Sarah McDowell's her daughter. Oh she was she can't open Sarah.

unknown 31:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:37

Sarah McDowell, I went to, she was in my class as her home mom. And um she said yeah, sure. Um, so I started watching her. And the one case that stood out um that I got to follow to the end was of a housewife, this lady who comes in and she has her teeth are not great, so she doesn't feel good about herself. And she genuinely believed like she was um going to get divorced because she was so insecure when her a big shot husband takes her to all these events and the social stuff, and she just doesn't feel like she's up to par, and she just generally feels like her husband might leave her because of the way that she looks, mostly because of how her teeth look. And so she started this journey with Dr. McDowell, and I got to see like the week-to-week transformation. Not even I don't understand what's going on in her mouth. I'm a kid, I don't understand dentistry. Um but the effect it had on her from being like, I think I'm getting a divorce too, I think he's gonna divorce me tomorrow morning, to like, there's no way he's leaving me. And I was like, What? Like that completely changed the way she saw herself. Um, and so that was very important to me. And so when I was now, okay, let me pick a career. I was like, okay, sorry, dad, not law. Um and I was like, hmm, what's no one doing in my family? No one's a doctor. I didn't want to be a GP because I'm like, no, not interested in the flus, not interested in um helping people that don't realize the value of what you're doing for them. That doesn't sound fulfilling to me, just only doing what you're supposed to do.

SPEAKER_02 33:23

Wait, hold on. And then at that stage, you thought dentistry people see would see the value. Yeah. And what I thought based on the shadowing.

SPEAKER_00 33:30

Still a kid, remember?

SPEAKER_02 33:31

And also based on the shadowing experience.

SPEAKER_00 33:33

Yeah, based on the shadowing experience, I was like, I would like for my patient to at least come out of the saying you've something shifted. Um, so this feels like I'm making an impact. So that was it. So, and then I could have to do this thing. And my parents were like, You just got a full scholarship to do medicine. I said, No, please pay for me to go to tax.

SPEAKER_02 33:56

So, wait, no, hold on, that's interesting. So, you had a scholarship now to one.

SPEAKER_00 33:59

So I applied. Yeah. I applied, I applied at every university in the country in grade 11.

SPEAKER_02 34:04

Um, you're the third person, by the way, that we've had on the show that's gotten into medicine and chose something else. Yeah. Only three. Well, we've only had 30 something. But that's 10%. 10%. Yeah. One in ten. No, but unpack this nice, you applied everywhere.

SPEAKER_00 34:20

So I applied everywhere. I even applied to Rhodes. I even applied for law. I'm very much like a back up person, like a clan B. Contingencies, yeah. Yeah. Um, so I applied to Rhodes. I think I applied at Rhodes for Biokinetis. So I obviously in the universities that don't offer medicine or whatever, I had to choose something like it. And I think I applied to law somewhere else. And then, and that's how I realized how few universities offer dentistry. Um, and then I applied medicine at Stelli's and then UWC for dentistry and VIT and Tux. And I think the university I didn't apply to was SMMU at the time. The I don't know what it's called now.

SPEAKER_02 35:02

No, it's SMU, yeah, Sivakum Medicine. What was it called before? It was called Medusa. Medusa. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:06

So I never applied there. Um, mostly because I didn't really know about it at all. Um and then I got accepted everywhere for everything. Yeah. And then I got a couple of scholarships. I got one at Rhodes, and the one that's closest to to medicine, I suppose, was at UW, sorry, at University of Cape Town. Right. Um, Standard Bank gave me a full ride.

unknown 35:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:31

But you must have what did you do well in Matric and 709?

SPEAKER_00 35:34

I was before Matrix, it was grade 11 marks only.

SPEAKER_02 35:36

Oh, sure.

SPEAKER_00 35:37

Um you were hitting hitting. Yeah. Um someone someone told me grade 11 was the most important. Yeah, it was more important than matrix. Someone told me, and thanks to that person, I tell everyone I can now as well. Um, but I didn't need my matric results, it was just like, just get up, just pass, and you can come wherever you want. So I had I was spoiled for I had the choice.

SPEAKER_02 35:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:00

Um, 40-footy I had the choice.

SPEAKER_02 36:01

And mommy's like, ah, you're giving up medicine for it.

SPEAKER_00 36:03

Yeah, it's like, no, I'll just do this. You've got you know, free ride, whatever, whatever, whatever. And I was like, no, now it's down to the universities that offer dentistry. And now I got to pick based on the institution. So I did a bit of research on each institution and what I liked about it. Um, and I was down to two based solely on the facility. Um and I chose Tux.

SPEAKER_02 36:30

Which two?

SPEAKER_00 36:31

UWC and Tux. Because UWC has a faculty of dentistry, so they take it pretty seriously.

SPEAKER_02 36:36

That's huge.

SPEAKER_00 36:37

Um, yeah. I didn't like the fact that at VITS you have to, you know, go across the road. There's a lot going on there. It just seems like a like an afterthought um type of uh thing set up for me. And then the facility at Tux was uh really nice, exceptional. They have a hospital for dentistry and and all of that. So I was like Does Vitz not have that?

SPEAKER_01 36:59

I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 37:00

They don't have so we actually have an actual dental dental hospital. Okay, not our they go to a hospital and they've got some rooms at the back there. Oh, that's what I thought at the time. There were some rooms at the back there where they can uh practice dentistry. So I was like, no, I want to work with the series I want to work with like the serious setup of the.

SPEAKER_02 37:19

We're speaking to prof this week about it, actually. I'll I'll send him your opinion.

SPEAKER_00 37:24

Which prof?

SPEAKER_02 37:25

The head of department at what's yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:27

Oh, about where they where they just like how we can assist them and oh okay. Yeah, please do.

SPEAKER_02 37:32

So you had what so Tux and U Dubs were the two.

SPEAKER_00 37:35

So Tux and U Dubs had made the short list.

SPEAKER_02 37:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:39

Um and then I chose Tux because um I guess I I perceived it as a better university all around. Um I was closer to family in Pretoria because I have some family here in Tilburg.

SPEAKER_02 37:54

Um and then your parents now they had to make a decision as to whether or not they pay for this, or do you gotta choose your bursary that you got?

SPEAKER_00 38:03

I don't know. Because you didn't get a bursary decision.

SPEAKER_02 38:05

Uh you didn't ask them.

SPEAKER_00 38:07

No, I said this is what I'm going to do. I said I'm going to. I think because my parents were always prepared to pay for my education.

SPEAKER_02 38:14

I think there was a white person's influence on you from blackboarding school, like I'm doing this.

SPEAKER_00 38:19

No, I'm doing this.

SPEAKER_03 38:20

This is what I want to do.

SPEAKER_02 38:21

Yeah, she had her own privilege also. Come on. She knew her parents were gonna pay for it.

SPEAKER_00 38:25

I was like, if you I said no, don't worry. This I will this is not gonna be wasted on me, so let me at least do what I want to do. Um and they're still living easier. Yeah, they're still there, they're at least in Cape Town.

SPEAKER_02 38:37

So you're moving from Clouf or Clouf as they say in Kazerin. It's not Cluf. They said Clouf. I'm at Clouf. Yeah, so Clouf to Tux. Have you been to Pretoria before?

unknown 38:46

No.

SPEAKER_00 38:48

No, I hadn't and I didn't like it either. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:52

But why why not UWC? Did you explain that?

SPEAKER_00 38:55

Uh no family in Cape Town, um, don't know much about the university at all. Um, yeah, it was just like based on the facility, I like the idea of the school of dentistry and all of that, but I know very little. And I also wanted to choose um a school I felt. These are these are uh uh my opinions at the time. I felt like it was a um more of in line with where I also went to high school. Like I was like, I want to go to the best one, you know. What I thought was the best one.

SPEAKER_02 39:31

UWC also has their own um dental faculty, like hospital outpatient thing. Thank you. Yes, yes. They have a school of research that time. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's actually what what my question is. How do you do the research back then?

SPEAKER_00 39:44

Oh, just Google, then you can see. I mean, they they have even the way you apply, right? They have like all sorts of departments just for dentistry, like it's a very organized online thing. Yeah, so you can also see from that. And they also had like videos of the thing and um the facility and all of that stuff, and I compared it to Tux. And I don't remember getting anything from Vitz, but I knew because they would name the hospital that they go to so it was more described and shown. Um yeah, so I I probably asked a few people as well. I don't know who I would have asked now, but then I just ended up going with Tux.

SPEAKER_02 40:26

You you you guys had WhatsApp and stuff when you were also no what didn't you? Uh Mix It, yeah. At least, okay.

SPEAKER_00 40:32

We had mix it and Facebook.

SPEAKER_02 40:33

iPhones were around.

unknown 40:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:36

I think so, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:38

Yeah. So I chose Tux.

SPEAKER_02 40:39

And how how what was um didn't want hospital.

SPEAKER_00 40:44

I didn't I don't know. I didn't I didn't really feel connected to it on a personal level. Um, but the whole thing, I mean the one thing I really hated about it was the the res setup. You know, that whole thing of leaving high school and feeling like, oh, I'm gonna be independent, I'm gonna be like flying freely, you know, whatever, from boarding school and to going into an institution where it's like 2.0 of that. I was like, come on. They would wake us up, yes. Oh, you're in colours. They wake us up in the morning and then we had to do dances. I said, Dad, they make me dance like a chicken. I said, uh uh, man. What? I said, get me out of here. Yeah, we were called kids, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:32

They were chickens.

SPEAKER_00 41:33

So first your students in the in the res, you wear a uniform for a period. Yeah. So everyone can identify that you just arrived, you just gotta chill you're the kid, and then you get on the block. Um, and then they would uh in the beginning of my course, we all studied on main campus. So we go to main campus, and oh, they did this horrific thing of putting us on a bus and then picking up the boys from the other boardings um res and putting them on a bus and then dropping the two groups in front of each other, and then the boys had to pick a girl to walk to class. My goodness.

SPEAKER_02 42:11

Do you know how awful that? I didn't know about all this. I was in hip hop. Did you? Yeah. Did you have to do that? I was in hip hop on first, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:16

I want to swear, I hated it so much. So it was yeah, I remember that very vividly. And I had a beautiful friend. Yeah. I never got picked. I would always walk to class with whoever picked Courtney, my bestie. She was beautiful now too. Courtney had anything. They'd pick Courtney and Courtney would pick me.

SPEAKER_02 42:36

Shame, that's so sweet of Courtney. Yeah. But she was also a dental student or something. Yeah, she was a dental student. Wait, wait, sorry, how come you didn't have to do that? I got into I knew a person that got me into hippo from first Hippo is the senior resident. Okay, so it was only You went to Hippo.

SPEAKER_03 42:49

Yeah, Hippo down the road. You never went to Olympus. Never.

SPEAKER_02 42:52

I from first year I was in Hippo. I had tops. So that this whole like system that they had was only like relevant to your hostel. Those razors, yeah. Those razors.

SPEAKER_00 43:03

I don't know if they did that on main campus things.

SPEAKER_02 43:07

I had main campus things.

SPEAKER_00 43:08

But they also had like events, like your whole life was planned for you in first year. Um you had to they called it foeing blummer keys. You know, they had like that whole parade.

SPEAKER_04 43:20

Yeah. Rag.

SPEAKER_00 43:22

Rag. So they had this uh parade where we would is that a plastic thing? It's like we're folding these plastics around a wire and creating like uh maybe let's call a spaceship and then we had it it's gonna get paraded up and down the street on on the stairs.

SPEAKER_02 43:38

They were training for auto. Wire bending, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:42

It's horrible. It was so horrible.

SPEAKER_02 43:45

I mean, I've never heard about this.

SPEAKER_00 43:47

No. I hated it. I hated all of it. Also, I think for me it's not like a it the fact that it was centered around it was like socializing girls around boys. It was very uh like a a daily setup. So even when we were following boomer keys, instead of maybe putting us in groups with other girls and making other friends and getting exposed to the entire university setup or whatever, they would put us with boys. Why are we following boomer keys with boys?

SPEAKER_01 44:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:20

Like, yeah. So it was just then it just became another situation where now the girls are having to compete for the attention of the boys. And I was just like, I can't believe like high school all over again. It's like Did you want to leave? It was horrible. So I did want to leave. I wanted to leave very badly. But my dad said you made your bed.

SPEAKER_02 44:39

But this is the first time, actually, but this is the first time then that a challenge was not stimulating for you.

SPEAKER_00 44:45

That's not a challenge, it's rubbish. Yeah. It's absolutely what is that? What did that teach me? Well, that's that's it just it just I feel like it it took more than it it gave. I mean, to undo, I mean, imagine I'm I'm a 17 year old, I've also finished school early, so I was 17 when this was happening to me. I'm 17, I finally feel like after whatever traumas of high school, um, I can go to high school and boys school, I can go to varsity and like live more freely with open my mind up with other people's minds also getting opened up, and then to get put in a similar mental institution of like, oh, you're not the pretty one, uh oh, you're not the like to have to fight for my life again.

SPEAKER_02 45:29

But you don't you do still have that view now, like that was it was redundant. You don't think that it was like build some resilience in you to face real life world challenges right now? No. But being a dentist practice owner?

SPEAKER_00 45:42

No, I don't think throwing Bomba Keys on a Friday night with boys helped me with anything in my life. Yeah, I don't think so.

SPEAKER_02 45:52

I don't want to get too granular, but I can I can sort of draw like some form of parallelism.

SPEAKER_03 45:59

Let's hear it.

SPEAKER_02 45:59

Yeah, you it it taught you resilience because right now what you gotta do as a dentist practice owner is kind of compete in that space. You gotta be the best to showcase yourself to be the best. And you know this. And you don't also don't want to do it. It's not great for us to be showing other people who we are in order for them to choose us and pick us. I disagree, I disagree. She she she she she rose to the challenge in proof and all that stuff. That was a relevant challenge. This is folding blomakes, man. Yeah, no, I'm not saying it, I'm not justifying it, but it taught you something subsequently, like the resilience. Imagine you went through life just all chilled, have no challenges, and then one day when the real challenge comes, you don't know what to do.

SPEAKER_00 46:44

I can appreciate being challenged and um the growth that comes with it. I just think for a challenge to be designed by an institution, it must always have that result, or at least mostly have that result on. And I imagine I was an introvert and that kind of stuff was happening to me, or I didn't already um have a background of having built up some sort of self-confidence or resilience around these types of things. I don't think everyone that went through that came out the same. It might have broken some people, it might have been it's not nurturing a young person. I think there are definitely other ways, like boot camp. Uh take me to boot camp and say, listen, what you need to understand about life is um it's hard, like the lunges you must do right now. Cool. Then I understand difficult situation, overcoming it, victory at the end, teamwork, like all other. There's many challenges you can put kids through or people through that teach them the same, that have the same educational outcome.

SPEAKER_02 47:53

Yeah. They would never do this in an in the in an India university. Well, that's what I'm getting at. Yeah. So I'm not I'm not justifying the whole system that was designed for there to be some outcome of resilience, no. But subsequent to you going through this flawed system, you probably ended up being a little bit more resilient to life. And I'm saying this because I went through the exact same thing, but it wasn't designed to be social. No, I was like at a totalitarian university. I had we had uniforms for like three years of our lives. We had a hostel, we get locked up in the hostel. Boys and girls separate. I'm not laughing at you. I'm laughing with you.

SPEAKER_03 48:32

Are you in prison or are you in school?

SPEAKER_02 48:34

Or is it Mauritius? It was another island. It's run by uh people from India. So, but that's the point I was getting at, right? Like I hated it. I thought there was destruction. I think you might have thrived in that kind of an environment more, and you might have said, yes, I accept that it was designed to make me more academically resilient. Because that's what it was, right? It was all geared towards academics. This is geared towards following boomer keys with guys uh people of the opposite sex, and what's the point, you know, what is it? How is it enriching your academic?

SPEAKER_00 49:03

I think I think even fauxing boomerkees in retrospect, foeing bourmachis with females then gives us all that experience and the educational uh, you know, we get the same, we try for a second an outcome, you know. Um but the the competition around um boys and the socialization around it was very uh unenjoyable. And I can tell you now, even for my friend Courtney, um, I don't think she enjoyed it either. Like, I think the same way I never got seen as beautiful or at first sight as she was, she never got seen that she's more than that. She was super smart.

SPEAKER_01 49:49

Very good point.

SPEAKER_00 49:49

So now she's there purely because she's and that's the only thing. And it also, even for the guy at that stage, you're being like taught to only look at this one part of a woman. If if it was more organized and it was well thought out, they would have put us together in a random selection. Not say boy, go choose girl at seven o'clock in the morning. Yeah, that's like by 8 a.m., I feel like S. Yeah, come on, and I have to go to school, and my dad sent me here to get educated.

SPEAKER_02 50:24

That's maybe when was this? 2012?

SPEAKER_00 50:28

Um 2011. Do you think it still exists?

SPEAKER_02 50:31

Yeah. That's what I was wondering. Maybe it's it might have changed. Maybe it's not no longer happening. Because people have institutions have moved on and matured and things like that.

SPEAKER_00 50:38

Uh I I think I know a lot of uh things would have changed, the activities and yeah have changed a bit, but I have actually no.

SPEAKER_02 50:46

Well, if you're a Tuck Tucky student and you're watching this, you know, comment and let us know if it's f fowing blomer keys is still going on at Calitia and all these places. What's it called? Flowing blomaches. Fowing, folding, bowing, right? Fowing. Fowing means flooding. I think it's folding.

SPEAKER_00 50:58

Yeah. Yeah. It was like I remember literally folding the thing. Fowing, but it was a plastic material, I remember.

SPEAKER_02 51:04

How was dental school?

SPEAKER_00 51:06

Mmm, hard. Yeah. Very hard for me. I was actually having this conversation with a friend the other day, and um I did perform well academically in high school. Um, but I'm not a special kid in terms of um intellectually. Like I don't have a photographic memory. I don't, like, there's no talent that was like God given. I have always worked my butt off uh when it came to to my academic and otherwise achievements. So um so good of you to say that, eh? I wish more people would say that. Yeah, no, I went to high school with girls with photographic memories. That thing is insane. Like it was like, you know how we can screen grab? That's how like this girl in school with Candace used to study. She just had to scan, read through it once, and it was embedded in her brain in the same way that I had to learn and comprehend and all of that. So because she could also explain it back. It's not like she was regurgitating um what she'd read. She could also explain it back. But the amount of effort I had to put in to articulate it the way that she could articulate it and and the time it's so different.

SPEAKER_02 52:20

Do you think people are born with that skill?

SPEAKER_03 52:22

I think some people are born um super smart or with a certain skill, yes. But also dental school, you know, it's not only just about the theory, right?

SPEAKER_00 52:33

No, no, it's not. So when it came to dental school, the first academic shock for me was um, I can admit, because I went to a private school, I assumed I was better equipped academically. Nope, I was not. Yeah, I was close to failing all the time. Um, in my course, for the first two years, I think, when we were studying with the medical students, we were in the exact same classes as them, there was this thing called academic. Basically, it means you don't have to write the exam.

SPEAKER_02 53:07

Promote, promote.

SPEAKER_00 53:07

Doing it so you get promoted. So, because we write tests all the time, so we're always getting assessed, um, you can pass a block by your continuous assessment mark, and you don't have to write the exam. If you don't pass it with whatever the pass mark is, I think it was 60, um, then you have to write the exam. Then there's a first exam, second exam, and a supplementary. I went to the supplementary on every single block for that two years.

SPEAKER_02 53:37

Me too.

SPEAKER_00 53:38

There was a time that um there's a friend of mine, still a very good friend of mine to this day, he went to school in um a government uh school, and he lived in my apartment and he taught me anatomy from scratch between second exam and the sub. Also, these exams are happening while everyone is on holiday. So I never went home um during the holidays because I was writing the entire time. Um, sometimes we'd get told we can't stay in reds, and then I'd have to like live at my friend's apartment in Hatfield to attend tutor sessions and and all sorts of things. Like there's nothing I didn't extracurricular thing I didn't do um in undergrad to pass.

SPEAKER_02 54:22

Yeah, well, I could totally relate.

SPEAKER_00 54:24

So it was not easy for me. Um and the hands on I was shocked. Um hands-on, I was fine. Yeah, um, I was fine, hands-on, I was I think as competitive as as anyone else, but I've never been um in those situations. I've never been um the the best at it. Yeah at school I didn't feel like I was the best at anything. Um I just was always beating myself. So I kind of became I had to focus on myself and what I was doing, and if I was doing it better than the last time, then I was growing. Um because yeah, it was it it was difficult. I think I had a small stage where um because Courtney was very smart. Courtney was uh very smart, she is a very smart um student.

SPEAKER_02 55:17

Where's Courtney now?

SPEAKER_00 55:18

She's in Tanzadin.

SPEAKER_02 55:19

Dentist. Were you guys like partners in crime throughout the whole student? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:23

She was like my bestie throughout the C and she was really smart, you know. And so it became harder when I compared myself to Courtney. And I was getting less done when I was comparing myself to Courtney on every level. The looks, the boys, the school, the uh the whatever. You know, Courtney was a 10 out of 10. She was a triple threat.

SPEAKER_02 55:43

Yak is gonna Google after this now, yeah? Anyway.

SPEAKER_00 55:48

So so I really admired it.

SPEAKER_03 55:52

Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 55:54

I go so I I I Courtney very much inspired me, but I think the way I was internalizing that inspiration wasn't good for me. And once I started to change the way I I looked at it, instead of saying I need to be more like Courtney, I just said I need to be, I'm inspired by this person that's really doing well, and I want to be a person that does really well. And how do I do that for myself? So, how do I build on myself? And been doing that my whole life, and not doing that.

SPEAKER_02 56:27

That's very cool. That is that's a very inspiring story. But it's also good to have that person. I mean, I you can't go through dental school. I feel like you can't go through it on your own. Like, I don't know. You can. Well, besides Yak. Locked up. No, Yak was the only guy in his class, the only person, the only student. Because the dental school closed down and he was left behind.

SPEAKER_00 56:47

You were the last one, last on out.

SPEAKER_02 56:49

Yeah. I used to have one on one guy. Because he failed a year, and so the rest of the class moved on and they closed dental school, but they had to keep keep it open for him. He was literally the only student. But that's why that's why he ended up. You have to call patients with that's why he ended up this way with the hair and everything. Uh no, but any horror stories on dental school? Like I got I got before my first prostro session, the lecturer told me, take the shaving foam, take this thing. Mr. Naidu, go down the wall and shave. That's what you did when you started crying. No, I didn't cry that day. I I cried on my first um So they made you shave. Yeah. Uh your hair also. No, the lecturer made me shave my facial hair. Like, Mr. Naidu, please, before you start to see your patient, and he gave me, the lecturer gave me this gillette. The shaving kid. That's what I don't understand. You guys attended the same university. Yeah. They're making you and first joke go out and draw with the boys, and at the same time, they're making you go and shave before seeing a patient. It's like double standard. No, I can't mention it. I don't want to mention it. Oh, you're not gonna print it. I am printing. I'm pretty I don't I want less editing as possible. I do all the editing, yeah. Which department? He just sits and looks pretty on the inside. On the outside. This is Prosto, so Prosto Department.

SPEAKER_03 58:00

Oh my gosh, everyone hated Prostor Department.

SPEAKER_00 58:02

I know.

SPEAKER_02 58:03

Yeah, every and all of our guests, whenever they they speak negatively about dentistry, it's proster. It's proster. But this is a prostoration. I want to make it, I want to make it clear because this is not a reflection on how the the university is now, because we don't know. Yeah. We're talking about Yeah, what we went through. I mean, I qualified in 2010. We're gonna get to manage PRA. I qualified in 2010. So, but also this is fair comment. I mean, this is the reality I faced. I'm not making the story up, and our guests come here and we we see a trend. So I'm cool with putting it out there. I just don't want to mention names.

SPEAKER_00 58:35

You know what's funny is that um I also did not have a great experience with PROS, but just not like that. I don't have like a story where, you know, he like a physical anything. It was just more like I wasn't treated, like that feeling of not being treated well or not being uh regarded. I don't know how to do that. I get you.

SPEAKER_02 59:00

And people might try and gaslight you and say, no, it's you, it's not them, it's yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:04

Um, but generally people felt like that in that department. Um because PROS also has the expense of stuff in it, yeah. So you're always getting reminded how much Improgram costs and and all of that stuff in that department. And it was the hardest department to excile or to do well in or better in. It was kind of like you felt like you needed to win someone over in that department in order to to make it um ahead. So I as a result never connected with the physical lab work because I would mostly be pros, like denture making. I hated it. Um the reason I I so anything that has to do with like being in the lab, huge deterrent for me too to this day. Um and dentures, I just have this low-lying, like, oh, I wish I didn't have to do this. Even now. When it comes to dentures, yeah, yeah. Um, I think when it comes to PROS work, especially where dentures are, because that's what we were doing in undergrad, right? Especially where that is concerned, we very, I very much just remember how it made me feel. And I I only do it because I care more about helping the patient than about how I was made to feel by Professor Whoever back in the day. So I still do it, I still do do the best I can with it. Um, and I have good results. It's just I know what I actually feel about it. But the funny thing is, once I started getting opened up to other pros stuff, like the aesthetics, the cosmetics, that's very prostodontic stuff. Um I'm now like in that direction fully. And I've got like really uh like one of my mentors, Dr. Jagath Paul, is a prostodontist. I love him to bits. I think he does amazing work, and he's completely turned that over. And I met him at school as well, and I think he was a registrar at the time, and so we connected back in school, and then post-uni, when I moved back to Joe Burg, I I found him again and we um continued our relationship. He's actually my doctor now as well, and I could always, you know, call him and he shows me his cases, and if there's something I don't like, he's completely flipped the presto thing on his head. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:31

What do you mean he's your doctor?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:32

He's my prostodontist, too.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:34

Oh, you refer to No, no, no.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:35

He's my own doctor. Oh.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:38

I'm allowed to ask, what are you doing?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:40

Implant count.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:41

Oh. But no, no, Abish. He's top. He's so incredible. But it also should also show us how important your teachers are to either nurturing you or killing off the vibe. Yeah. You know. Have you ever been back to dental school since undergrad?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:58

You mean to study something else?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:00

No, just yes. Have you ever walked off those halls?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:02

Yes. Yeah. I couldn't find work in Durban. Okay. Um, so I went running back to uh my friends there, which were all the registrars, but mind you. Yeah. Um, the actual lectures were so unapproachable, so whatever. So I never connected them. So I went back, Dr. Troma was still there. Okay. And I said, yo, I can't find work.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:25

Um, so I came here.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:26

And Marvin and I were in the same class.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:28

Oh, really? Yeah. So you must have been there.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:30

And then um he called a few people and he tried to like sort of connect me. I said, I just need a lifeline, and then I'll figure it out once I'm here, um, which direction I go in. I just didn't know sort of where else to go. And yeah, so he helped me um look for a job. And so when I moved back here, I first got work in Pretoria.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:53

Okay. Um But where sorry, before that, where did you do your ComSav?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:56

ComServe in KZ, my at uh Prince Mshiani near Ayadini.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:02

So you draw there after work every day. No, what was what was ComServe like?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:08

Um easy compared to this. Um bit to private practice. Yeah, it was easy. I mean, I worked in a hospital. Uh I was sort of deployed to a clinic. I had a friend there, Prince. Um, what's her name? Not a lot of mention.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:26

Uh Tavish.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:30

They they took me out quite um quickly. Um I was supposed to be working at Micheney. So when I had deployed I was like, let me pick um rural areas close to where I would be home.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:44

Because then I'd have it be right up there from my grand's house and my parents' house.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:49

So um they and rural allowance.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:53

Rural allowance also. So they put me in Dotti at Kingsborough Clinic.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:00

I saw Toti is in a mum's and doti.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:03

Mums and Dotti, yeah. And I saw about anything from 35 to 50 patients a day only extracting.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:13

That's what I was doing.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:14

I almost broke my arm.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:15

The forearms must have been.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:17

There was a time where this one damn work, and also I worked in a chair that didn't move. Oh gosh. So it was in one position. Yeah. So it was in one position the whole time. And I don't know what the condition is, but I literally the one time I could not flex my, I could not open my arm like this.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:33

Crazy, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:34

Because I was just, it was kind of stuck in one position.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:36

How was the money though?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:38

Crazy. Oh, sweet. It took very long to earn that amount of money on my own after Comce. I was balling out of control in ComSop. Yeah. You had more money than you did. I mean, I went from pocket money to some serious cash.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:52

You know, and you get it saw as a text return. Yeah, for the first two months because it's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:59

Um, what did I do with it? I bought a BMW.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:02

I don't advise that.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:04

That that's probably where you heard me.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:07

First paycheck? First paycheck. What was it?

SPEAKER_02 1:05:10

No, what did you do with it? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:12

I bought the car before my first paycheck. What do you mean?

SPEAKER_02 1:05:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:15

I already had the beam before my she appropriated the white privilege.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:20

No, wait, hold on. They financed. So they financed you before.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:23

Yeah.

unknown 1:05:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:24

Literally based on my contract.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:26

No, of course. That's what uh we spoke about irresponsible. Yeah. Like it's terrible.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:30

No, it is terrible.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:31

Not on your part.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:32

No, it is terrible. It is terrible. Um. Yeah. And that is exactly what happened.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:40

Okay, but wait, but let's we get there. So you bought the beamer. Did you get your parents anything?

SPEAKER_03 1:05:46

No.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:47

Come on. Really? Yeah, me neither, actually. Did I get my parents anything? No, I didn't. Like a gift? Yeah, I definitely don't think you can get it. I did not.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:54

Yeah. I bought a UB40 album. I can't remember what I did to the rest of it. You mean like what do you mean an album? That's what you bought with your money. I don't I just remember that you don't know how to spend money. That's why you're not a dangerous anymore. You don't know how to spend you don't know how to blow cash. Oh no, really, really.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:14

He knows how to blow cash. Because I was going to Joburg every weekend because I was in Saniton. So yeah. It got to the extent where one of our uncles who used to encourage us to go out said, hey, chill, you're going out too much. So I was blowing cash, but just not on a beamer. And I had a hand-me-down car. So I I'm still driving that car from second year. I'm driving the same car for the last 19 years.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:37

Oh, you don't like cars, do you?

SPEAKER_02 1:06:38

I'm not a car person, thank goodness.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:40

Lucky.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:40

I like gadgets. So you bought a beamer and then what else?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:43

I bought a beamer and also I had a lot of excess cash. Um, I was living at home, so I didn't pay rent. Um I think my biggest thing to pay for was um the car and my I suppose my lifestyle. But even then, uh it it's so different to how it would look now because we weren't doing the things that young people have to do now. Like even when you go out, you're not you don't have to buy a bottle of champagne. Like so, I had a lot of um extra cash, which I saved. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:17

Oh, you saved. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:19

Saved up a lot. Yeah, I saved up quite a bit.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:21

Um what was the plan with the saving?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:23

Like in case I don't have a job next year or I at the time, honestly, it just I was just trying to be responsible because I was it was almost like I couldn't spend the amount of money that I had. Okay. So I let me put it away. Like I I felt like I had that much money. I didn't have a lot of responsibility. So I mean, just the rural allowance was paying for my car. And then my parents, or I had a car before, which I used towards the car, and then my parents, because they clearly had the foresight to know I was making a terrible decision, helped me with deposit. So I had a a pretty neat deposit for my car. So my rural allowance paid for my instalment every month, and then I still had my entire salary.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:05

And no black tax. Did you not have any black tax for you?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:09

No, no, no.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:11

Come from privilege, you don't have all those things.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:12

I'm good, I'm good now. That's tough. Um, I was very blessed in that regard. So I saved my money, um, and it did help me down the line. I used it to stop my first practice. Um, and I still needed a bit of help, but I needed way less help with that money.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:32

Well, that's good. And and you applied to stay on, I'm assuming, actually.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:36

Yeah, I tried so hard to stay in the government because I thought, wow, just one more year of the sweet life, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:43

Um yeah, then you kind of have a contract and you have surety. Yeah, so then you can make your own.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:48

And also that environment, I mean, I knew that I wasn't being challenged, I wasn't doing dentistry, in my own opinion. The highest, the oldest or person in the highest or role of authority in um what do you call it in the clinic was a dental therapist. So I was like, you're putting me as a new dentist with a dental therapist. I mean, experience-wise, she was right up there, but I know that that's not how it's supposed to be, sort of the setup. Um, but she did teach me a lot like how to actually achieve an extraction in the most impossible circumstances. Um, and the reason I was doing most of the work was because she was injured most of the time.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:33

Oh, injured.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:34

Yeah, she was much older, so she was always injured. Um, but yeah, I I so it was really sweet. So I wanted to stay on, and then I realized um this is making me lazy. Oh, yeah, like I was like, there's no ways if I I mean I won just one more year because I knew that like I can't carry on like this. Like my brain is going to hell here. Um so but I couldn't. So I was forced into private.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:02

That's a good realize. But that's no, but isn't that strange? And I want to unpack this more because, like, why? Why not just be okay, fine, this will be the rest of my life. I'll just be earning this night, I'll be comfortable, I'll have a pension, I'll be working chilled, I'll have money. Why do you say no? I need to change. Like, what is it in?

SPEAKER_00 1:10:22

No, no, I'm not that kind of person. Yeah, I mean, you are definitely not that kind of person.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:27

I know, but why? That would kill you. What makes you that kind of that you know that's what I'm interested in? I know you're not that kind of person.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:32

Like, there's no where's the stimulation? Like, there's no fulfillment from that.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:38

Why do you want to be stimulated? I mean find stimulation elsewhere, you know?

SPEAKER_00 1:10:41

No.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:43

I want to win.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:44

I want to feel like a winner every day. I want to do things, I want to do the hard thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:50

Okay. You think there are people that actually choose to stay in some of them? Definitely. And you know what? Good for them. Like I not everybody wants to be stimulated in that aspect. They might think, okay, I've got other stuff to do.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:01

Yeah, I get you.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:02

You know, and and it's good for them.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:04

Yeah, no, I get you. I was very much like, you know, when I don't know, you when you're in a place and it doesn't necessarily have to be a um acad uh career or academic in any position you or space you you occupy in your life. Sometimes you're sitting there and you're just sitting there and you're like, this doesn't feel right. This doesn't feel like where I'm supposed to be. This is like, and there it'll be the small questions you can't answer. I feel this way, why am I still here? And then you can't answer.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:34

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:35

Or or what am I doing this for? Who am I doing it for? And those questions become harder and harder to answer the more you're in the wrong place. And then you realize you're participating in your own demise. Like by staying in a place that doesn't feel you might not know. I didn't have it all figured out. I didn't, I didn't know what was that I needed to be challenged in this way or that. I just felt it didn't feel right.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:00

But there's something in you that tells you.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:02

There's something that just says, no, I'm not in the I'm not in I'm not where I'm supposed to be. Okay. But that's over. I feel called. I feel pulled. Yeah. Like I'm I feel pulled towards something else or towards more and more and more. I mean, it can get toxic to live your life um uh in in that, you know, in the sense of the top of the mountain is the bottom of the next one. Can get toxic. I've I've uh lived that part as well, but I definitely um know that like when I feel like there's more, there's more. It transcends more. And it yeah, and it and it also transcends into relationships with people. Like when you feel like this is a good friendship, I'm going to nurture this more. There's so much else I can get out of this friendship, there's so much I can give the other person. The more you're in the right space, the more you do, the more you achieve, the more you feel good about yourself, and et cetera, et cetera. And the more you're in a bad place, you're in a bad relationship, like, why am I still with this guy? Like, what is he, what is he uh contributing to my life? Like, what does what what does he what is his impact? What is my impact in theirs? And you also feel like drained and unable to think when you're not being pulled in the right direction. You just feel like you're drowning, you're always trying to explain yourself to yourself. And so I don't, I no longer stay in those spaces where I feel like to trust your intuition.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:25

I mean, yeah, something's getting you around.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:27

And it takes a lot to trust yourself.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:28

Exactly. I was gonna say well done for that, because sometimes, so like he was saying kudos to those people who like, you know, stay in the those positions. But sometimes like that's it's easier to stay in something complacency. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:41

And there's no motivation for you to want to because it takes effort, it pushes you out of your comfort zone to detach from those, you know, those same choices that you've made because it's it's and the longer you stay in them, the harder it is to break free from them.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:55

Yes, yes. And I think I think um the only thing I've like the one of the biggest lessons I've learned in my life so far is that a lot of the time you're looking elsewhere and at other people or things, and you feel pinned down by those people or things. Um a bad relationship, a bad job, a bad whatever. But people rarely look at what their role is in their own suffering, accountability. You know, like how what are you doing to contribute to this? Or what are you doing to pull yourself away from this? And a lot of the time we're not doing anything.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:32

Where do you get this insight from?

SPEAKER_00 1:14:34

Like, did you read about it or um Did somebody teach you? Maybe therapy. Okay, yeah, probably therapy. Um, it was very much related to my relationships, like personal relationships, not work, but it ends up everything trickles into the other.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:54

We talk about this uh quite often now and then therapy. I mean, it's such to get an outsider's perspective can really open your eyes and your mind to things.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:02

Yeah, like even going to therapy and talking about uh a man will has taught me how to manage some of the things that I have to go through at work as a business owner. Like um, you know, small things like sweating the small stuff. Are you going to stress yourself out every single day by nitpicking at every single thing that goes wrong? Are you going to accept that you're in a dynamic space and things will go wrong? And so is your approach going to be like, oh, why is this happening to me? Or is it going to be like, okay, how do we, how do we solve this? How do we, what's the solution out of this? Because it's going to happen. Your dental assistant is not going to come to work one day. And that can't break you every single time.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:43

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:44

Like, oh, wow, I don't have a dental assistant, my life is ruined. And genuinely, when you don't have the skills or the tools to cope through small things in life, you in you personalize and internalize all these things. You think your your dental assistants are coming to work because of you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, it really could be something else, but you can't consider that because you're so like everything is is a feeling and everything is about you. And so sometimes, you know, removing, and and I think I can admit as a woman, it is an active thing I have to do to remove the emotion out of some of the decisions I have to make, because wow, feelings can really get in the way of making the right choice. Sometimes it's like, let's deal with the facts.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:31

And and and sometimes the outcomes are very different from when you're dealing with the emotion. So I do a lot of what I call counting to 10.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:38

Pausing.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:39

Um, yeah, my one of my best friends taught me that. So Topsy always says when I'm at a restaurant and I've literally specifically been specific about something and she's gotten it wrong, I'm just like, she's like, count to 10, B. So I count to 10 and sometimes count to 100. And that makes such a huge difference in the decision I make. And I use that counting to 10, counting to 100 in every scenario. When the taxi driver cuts me off, when someone jumps the red and I almost kills me, um, when a patient is coming into my office, my space, my whole life's work, and telling me and making me prove myself to them. So all of those things count to 10 and then and then make a decision. How do you manage this patient? Oh, I so I go from, oh no, this patient is so rude. Um, I might be rude back or I might feel small because they are the ones that are the paying customer. And and then you shift to a space of, it was really nice for you to give me the opportunity to treat you, but I don't think I can give you the best care. And you can disclose how they've made you feel. I've done that to one patient before I said, listen, the way in which you approach your treatment makes me not the best version of myself as a dentist. So I'm not gonna be able to achieve this. I think it's best for you to go to Dr. Yash. In your best interest. Yeah. But that mental thing is. And it is because I really want to, yeah, I really want to perform well and I also want to feel good. I have to be there every day. Yeah, they used to tell us dentists kill themselves all the time. I said, I'm not gonna let another person make me want to kill myself. So when people come into my office and say, I hate the dentist, I say, it's your first time here. I can have my own chance, can I have my own opportunity? I appreciate what you've been through. Let's talk about that. But maybe don't approach it that way. Because you're also now coming into a space and you're leaving this negative energy. Like maybe come in and say, You went through the effort of changing your dentist, right? So give me a chance, give me a fair chance to show you that it's different. You're here for a reason.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:55

So this mental pause thing, I mean, you gotta practice it, right? It doesn't 100%.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:59

And it is really hard for for someone that can get as hot as I can get. So it's really hard, but it does get when you start to see the results of it in other people and in yourself and in the outcome of certain events, you're like, oh, this is it's really good for me. So you want to keep doing the thing that's good for you.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:19

It's such an important practice. And you gotta practice. I mean, we always tell our uh members that come to us, you know, if you if you get an email that you want to react to, always sleep on it. And I know it's easier for me to say that because I'm not the one that's getting emotionally challenged by that email. That's why they're replying three days later and it's weak. But when you're in that but when you we've got SLAs. But when you when you're in that position yourself, you you sometimes need somebody else to tell you pause because you're not gonna pause yourself. Yeah. And then you've got to practice it. Okay, but let's go back to the chronology. So ComSurf, you're finishing, but now you can't get in for that one year more.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:54

Uh yeah, I couldn't get in. I tried to work in other provinces. So I started looking for a job. Fortunately, during ComSurf, I was um shadowing at a dental practice down the road because I had had this feeling like I might have to go into private. So I was like, let me align myself with a practice. So I was shadowing on Saturdays, I would go and watch them and just understand. And I thought, listen, it's not that they promised me anything, but I know naturally if I'm around here and you know I know how things work, I might be well considered.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:25

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:26

Um, compared to another person.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:28

And you're showing interest, you're going up asking for money, you're just going, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:31

Um, so they let me do that. Um, eventually I got um snubbed. Um, so I didn't get that job, so I started to having having to actually look for a job, and that was incredibly hard. Um I was attending, um, I'm not gonna mention the organization because I don't want to give me more editing.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:52

Yeah, give you more editing. So I went to a certain organization and they had events that they would do, the CPD or the just talks or seminars, whatever. And I thought, okay, let me start doing this good way to meet people, maybe, and I felt really lost and really alone. And um, I was like, I need mentorship or something.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:10

And this is in Dublin.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:11

I yeah, I definitely have no idea where to go. All the things I'd planned didn't work out for me. Um, or my one plan didn't work out for me. Um, so now I'm very lost. So let me let me put myself in an environment where I could talk to people. Then you get there and it's so clicky. And you're 22 and no one speaks to you. And yeah, and I like I would go to those meetings and leave with nothing. Yeah. You know, I just and I wasn't getting anything out of them. Um, and that um funny enough, that experience is the reason why I never joined that organization because I never I never felt like there was a place for me, I said, Oh, this is not for me.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:56

It's it's so amazing how it like just simple impressions like that can make a lasting impression on somebody, right? Because we we had Rudwan Haferjee on the show and he went to one of the ITI meetings, right? And I can mention that it's a good story. And he said, somebody from the community invited him there, they made sure that they they they asked him, Do you need halal food? We've got halal food for you. They asked him, Can we speak in Afrikaans or English? Which do you prefer? Even though he was the only minority person there. I see. And he said that made him really appreciate them. So a small thing of the thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:31

Yeah, I think he did the same for me at ITI, and I was like, this is incredible. It's like everyone wants a safe space, guys, even if it's not um a safe space needs to exist for you everywhere. Either you create it or you're in one, and people gravitate towards those things, inclusive spaces. Yeah, you must feel like they had you also in mind, not just you, but you know, that you were also thought of.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:56

Um, so that made it incredibly hard, which is when I started to um, and obviously, searching online, more Joburg ads come up. I don't think the doctors in Durban are putting ads on indeed. Maybe now they are. Um, so I got a lot of Joburg hits. Right. Work in Joburg.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:11

Job may come forward.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:12

So I was okay, maybe let me go and um set up a couple interviews and also then go speak to my lecturers. It's been a little, it's been a while, but I know I I know the people I'm gonna go there and speak to. Hence I went to Dr. Trauma. So um, and while I was working uh locoming in Pretoria, I got an opportunity in North Cliff. Um and it all started with like small little locum positions, like someone is going away for two months. So you get that, you get that understanding, that stability. But my thing was I wanted to work. My dad was always like, You're gonna have your own practice. And I was like, Dad, just can I have a can I get a minute here? I don't even know what I'm doing, I don't even know what like what this takes. Um, and also it was mostly based on clinical because I thought having your own practice means you're alone, so I need to know everything before I open up my own practice. Um, so I was going there to build the skill because now remember I was taking out teeth for a year. So I didn't know, I didn't know root canal, I didn't feel confident anymore in what I was taught at school. Um, so I worked in other practices and I observed the things that worked and didn't work. And the funniest thing is the first observation I'd make was um when it came to staff standpoint. Obviously at that time I'm part of the staff, right? So I understand the grievances, I understand what the receptionist has an issue with, what the receptionist goes through, um, the assistant, the whatever, whatever. So it was when it comes to staff at that time, it was always like the staff versus the owner, you know, that kind of thing. And I said, if I ever had a practice, this is not the environment I want to set up. Um, so those are the first things I learned. It was more like the people things. It wasn't the clinical stuff.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:01

The soft skills, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:02

Like knowing what how not to handle a situation or how not to run your practice. Um, and I'm sure you've heard many horror stories about young dentists, and we don't get paid, and we we get undercut, and we, you know, all sorts of things um happen to to us. Um, and so after that, I was approached um by some businessman who'd found me.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:28

Sounding dodgy.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:29

Um God. No, he was a doctor.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:32

Uh oh, doctors gotta be done.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:35

No, doctors gotta be done.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:36

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:37

And um, he'd heard about me. I don't know through who. At this point, I had cast my net wide. Okay. You said I need to meet someone, I'm meeting them. Um, so that's that's also been a really great building block is to put yourself out there. You need to expose yourself. I exposed myself fully, both as much as I could with doctors. So I didn't have doctor friends. Yeah, I didn't have anyone my age who was going through the same thing I was going through, or a female, or you know, because remember, I'm the only one in my family who decided, oh, let me go be a doctor.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:08

What year was this? This is 2012. Wait, no, no, no, no, no. I'm sorry. I finished 2015, 2017.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:17

Okay, yeah. Oh, wow. But it's the same year I opened up my bracket. Really? Yeah. So 2017 is my second year out of it.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:24

So he has a a clinic or hospital set up. He's renovating the whole thing in town, and he wants to add Joe Booktown, huh? Yeah. And he wants to add a dental department.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:34

Okay. Much more kosher. Ending to that story. Oh. Not like a random businessman. He had a plan. No, no, he had a plan. Some medical.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:43

He wants to to have a dental department and he wants me to run it. Wow. So I said, what do you mean? He says, no, we'll set everything up for you, we'll open up the businesses, everything has to be in your name. Na na na na na na na na na. And you will have a say in everything in the process um uh until you see the whole project through. Um and we'll do like a profit sharing arrangement and na na na na. And it sounded fair at the time. And I the only concern I had was I just landed on the scene. I I don't think. And he was like, you know what? I this is what I love about you. You're green.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:21

So I was like, okay, didn't understand what that meant, just meant I'm new, but okay, cool. And that's where it began. I was involved from the layout to the building plan. That's so cool. To picking the equipment, things I'd never opened. So everyone I funded everything. He funded everything.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:39

Wow, okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:40

It was his.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:41

Um, and I would go into showrooms and have my own appointment set up, and I'd be like, for the first bit, you need to first give me the theory behind this. I'm not just here to shop for a handbag, so I need more. I need to understand why is this chair 300,000? Why is this one? 800,000. What about the leather? What happens over this period? So I wanted to understand. So I had to learn on the job because I was like, I need to be able to justify why I'm you are like Steve Jobs.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:13

Have you ever read about Steve Jobs? You must read about him. He's like he's, you know, he was the CEO of Apple. Yeah, but he was into like the fine details of every there's the famous thing about it make it one pixel to the left type of thing. Was that the stuff? Oh really?

SPEAKER_00 1:28:27

Yeah. I mean, I needed to understand because I always felt like if someone comes in and says, explain. Why is it like this? Why your f why is your floor this material and this colour? So now I know I can't pick a floor that's uh maybe too slippery. I can't pick a floor that's too brown because if I drop my burr, I won't be able to see it. I can't have a black countertop because if it's dirty, I cannot I won't be able to see all the dirt. So, you know, things like that. But I can have a black cabinet, but I can't, my countertop must be white because it's clinical. I must be so that the ladies keen other can see. But who told you that?

SPEAKER_02 1:29:06

Yeah, okay. Who taught you all of this? It's just no one. It's just like it sounds like a fact that you're mentioning. I mean like you have to have a black countertop and so I think it's maybe my control freak side. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:17

You I I always wanted to enable everyone around me also to do the best that they can do. Um, so if you make it harder for someone to do something, then you're never gonna be satisfied with their work. So because I know I can't have my eyes and ears everywhere, I make it easy. If I walk into the room and I'm just as a like even as a patient, and I look at the room, I want to see, okay, the floors are clean, okay, the counters are clean. Maybe they can put their hands in my mouth. So I always put myself in the position of a patient. Um, would I want to sit here? Would I be comfortable? Um, and I think some things you need to communicate more uh overtly. Like if it's white and it's clean, there's no ways you're gonna think it's not clean.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:02

But isn't this why hotels all have like white um you know bedding and towns there? Probably.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:07

If you go to a hotel and it's got a lot of And I know that because my mom is in hospitality, right? So she's always had white, uh, they do the white thing. So a lot of things I'd pick up from there, even the the way a space feels. So the homie, so she does she did a lot of like B and B. So I I call my waiting room the lounge.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:28

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:28

I don't really call it a waiting room, say in the lounge. Um uh because it's the idea is when you walk in there, you're in the lounge, and when you're chatting with the receptionist, like a home setup. Yeah, like give them a coffee, there's a TV playing, they can be on their phone. Do they want to charge their phone? There's a plug point right next to them. Um, how do you make them more comfortable? Yeah, um, and then make it like they didn't even come to the dentist. The dentistry is just by the way, yeah, um, to it also. Even the conversations I'm having, very I I do the education part, but mostly I also want to follow up on the person. So if you say to me you're going to um Dubai next week on a holiday, I'm putting that in my notes. Yeah, and next time I see you, I'm gonna ask you about that trip.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:16

How was the trip?

SPEAKER_00 1:31:17

Uh you know, connect because I'm yeah, because I'm building a story up. And now I'm gonna know. I also go from this is the guy with the white hair to oh, he went to Dubai. I also I build a relationship with you in my in my brain, and it also helps me remember you and connect with you.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:32

And besides the connecting thing, it also has like practical implications. If the guy is going to Dubai next week, you can't like prep a crown or whatever now. And so there's more to it than just connection.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:42

So knowing what you do, like if I'm dealing with an artist, I'd be like, okay, I want to know your schedule for the next three weeks. Um if I'm dealing with a soccer player, times are terrible with practice and all of that. So I have to factor that all in and make a plan.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:57

But that's now, this is all current. Take us back to Joe Burg CBD, being the steamer. CBD. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:03

So um then I went into the building plans and we and we did that. Um, equipment and all of that stuff. And we opened. Most of the things I hadn't learned by then were workflow. So, like the the software is like your cureks and all of that stuff. So I didn't know about that, and I struggled with um billing because I was personally sending the account to the medical aid.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:31

It worked at the time in a small practice where you're not too busy, you can do that. But a lot of the things didn't make sense at scale. Okay. You know, when I thought about like, imagine if 20 of these people came in the day, would I be sleeping here, sending out accounts to all these different medical aids and all of that stuff. So um, mostly on the admin side, then that's where the breakdown started. Is on the admin side where they had basically said, we've got this, is where they didn't have it.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:00

Um, and that's when I started to see that this is this is gonna be very hard for me. Um, and then also the way that the profit sharing was set up. Um, long story short, they put me into a lot of debt with SARS. Oh, god and I didn't know, and I did try to get ahead of it. Uh, because I I remember calling um my sister who's a CA, and I said, I need you to come sit in this meeting with me. I've asked for it with the owner of that guy and his accountant. So I don't have one, so you're gonna have to just come in here. This makes sense. Because I'm aware that I'm not paying tax, but they're taking all the money and they're supposed to do all of this stuff, but I don't understand how I'm operating and not paying tax. I need that to make sense to you. Yes, because then I won't end up in trouble. Then they we sit, we figure out, okay, no, this is not how it's supposed to go, this is how it's supposed to go. Then everyone's like, okay, great. Then we go back, and the guy still doesn't do what we discussed in the meeting. Um, so there was a lot of like, oh, the little girl um behavior towards me. She doesn't know better. And then I was like, oh, this is the greenness that I was being labeled as. And you know the positive for them.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:19

I don't know what to ask for.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:20

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:20

Um, and they can always like slow things down when it feels like I'm I'm I'm getting I'm getting up there with asking too many questions, type of thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:32

Um, so then it started to become a very weird situation for me, especially with the debt um that I wanted to now start to settle. Um, and then I said, I'm out.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:47

Um so but before that I called, I had been um, I have another mentor, but he's a GP. Um, he worked in the medical center then. So I called him and I said, Can you put me in touch with the dentist that you work with? Because I want to kind of work both ways. I wasn't too busy anyway. Um and I went there and he said, On Thursdays I don't work, you can use the chair. So I designed this whole thing like a Dr. B pop-up.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:21

Because a lot of my people also didn't want to go to town. I was like right by small street, it was tough.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:26

Um, and a lot of people didn't want to go to town. And so I said, Hey, my people that don't want to go to town, I'm gonna do a pop-up every Thursday at this practice in four weeks.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:35

Where are you saying this? On social media or on Instagram. You've got a big following, eh?

SPEAKER_00 1:35:39

Like now I do, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:40

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:40

Yeah, I I it started back then. I started um when I graduated and moved to Joburg, I started taking pictures with family, friends, and saying thank you so much for supporting me. And it became a thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:50

Oh, cool. Yeah, cool.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:52

Um so you do this pop-up now where we do this pop-up and I say, I know you guys don't want to come to town. I'm gonna be in four years on this day um every week. And I had filled up, I filled up my diary. I was getting like really great extra income. So I was like, hmm.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:10

And that was your people, hey, like you were all yeah, my own connections. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:14

I mean, at the time I was also going out a lot. Um, my one of my best friends worked in the alcohol industry. So my face was all over the place. I was that dentist that like we're party, party, partying, and then on Monday we're we're down to business. So, and and I and people respected me because I was human and a really good dentist. So real person, yeah. Yeah, so um that sort of worked, like building up my social profile also helped with with the business. Yes, and um, so eventually I said to that doctor, listen, I really want to leave the other practice. I don't have anything, but I know that I can't afford everything. Um, can I come in and open my own business? But I'll share resources with you. So I'll use your assistance, I'll use your reception, your phones, your everything. I just want the room because he had like some accounting firm renting. Said kick them out, then we'll make this whole thing a dentist thing, yeah, and I'll operate from there and we'll share resources. Because I don't have x-ray machines, I don't have so all I needed to do was get a chair, scaler, um, some consumables, a computer, and a um x-ray machine and get started.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:28

And well, the biggest thing I'm thinking is obviously the piping and to connect your chair to the suction, the pre-existing suction and the compressor.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:36

He was gonna do that as the landlord.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:38

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_00 1:37:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:39

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:39

I said if you do that as the landlord, and then the only thing I wanted the only thing I wanted, I said, listen, I'm not doing profit sharing. Tell me how much you want. And you name your price for this stuff.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:52

So the rental included me having an assistant, me having a so I wasn't involved, I wasn't involved in employee stuff. I wasn't involved in the admin. I wasn't in, I didn't have to have my own software.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:03

So it it really helped. And he gave me a figure and I said, okay, if you feel like that's fair, that's great. So now I just had an amount I had to beat. And then I said to my accountant, let's talk to SARS, let's do an arrangement. Now let's see how much money I need to pay back every month.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:20

And then SARS gave me like a year thing, and I needed equipment, but I didn't want to go to the bank. And then one of my friends from the supplier said, Hey, there's this um BEEE thing where we give you interest-free equipment up to a certain value and you have to pay it off in 12 months. I said, give it to me.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:40

But I didn't have money to pay for all these things. So I went to my parents and I said, Okay, you guys, please, can you do, just in case I don't make the money, do the first three months of all of this stuff. And then after that, I'll have saved in that three months, and then I'll be able to take it over somehow, like whatever. My mum said, Okay, good. And that's how I started. I'm surprised you didn't go to the city. And I emptied my savings account, obviously. I emptied my savings account, and I spent the entire first year. So after that three months, I all I asked for was then my parents said, Okay, we'll help you with rent and like groceries and personal expenses and whatever. And then so I didn't have personal expenses. So all the money I made from the business, I used to pay SARS back and pay for my rent, pay SARS, pay for my rent until I was done. So for like a year, I didn't make any money for like a whole year. Amazing, huh? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:34

And now how is things?

SPEAKER_00 1:39:36

Way better.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:37

Yeah. Yeah. Well.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:00

You must know what's going on. Um, you don't just open a chocolate, even if you open a shop that sells chocolate, you must know about the thing. You know, you must know the patient, client, experience that's coming to buy the chocolate. You must know how much chocolate is needed. You must understand the business. You don't just get to sit at home and say, I've got a chocolate business down the road. Doesn't work like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:22

Um, so I needed so it taught me like I need to be very involved. I need to know what's happening. And um, as long as you keep your finger on the pulse of the business, um you can overcome.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:35

Amazing. What a story. Uh where are you now? You still in the No, so I left four ways.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:39

I've got a practice now in Santon and one in Roderport.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:44

Of Grayston on Grayston Drive Santon. But what's the practice name? That's proper sentence.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:48

Dr. B Inc.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:49

Okay. And Roderport. Oh, nice you're incorporated. It's good.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:51

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:53

Yeah, we have to be or something. Yeah, we have to be. Yeah. Um registration. The social media thing, I mean, you you're prolific. So the what's that like?

SPEAKER_00 1:41:06

It's uh it hadn't it was nice when it started.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:11

Um, because there was purpose behind it. But obviously, you know, the digital landscape has also changed. It's not as safe as it used to be. So there's a lot more consideration going into it. And now we're more forced to do what the platform wants us to do. Okay. So back then, when everyone was choosing what to watch and how long to watch it for, and nothing was getting pushed or trending or whatever, it was fair game. You have an educational thing to share, and everyone who cares gets to see it. Now you post something, and if it's longer than 30 seconds, Instagram is not really pushing it, or like your followers are not seeing it, um, that kind of thing. So it really changed. Um, and also what people care about also has changed on Instagram, I suppose.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:02

Which platforms are you on? Where you be?

SPEAKER_00 1:42:04

Mostly it was Instagram.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:05

Mostly Insta.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:06

Yeah. So people started to really care more about the person. Um, and I felt like I needed to share more personal stuff to get everyone to care about the business. Dr.

unknown 1:42:19

B.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:21

Oh, I thought he was searching for what's uh what's your friend's name there? Uh my friend. Topsy. No, the other one. With a C your Khalitsia friend. No, Courtney. Yeah. Everyone's beautiful. Dr. B.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:35

Everyone's beautiful.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:36

Does she have more followers in New Yak? Who? Dr. B. Yeah, of course. What do you mean, of course? Yak is a big it's a big celebrity so I'm not. It's you've got 34, I've got like about 20. But my I I'm not by any means, there was no intention behind. Do you guys make money off it? Yeah, say I don't.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:55

Do you make money? I did start to make money because I became a key opinion leader for certain brands.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:00

Okay, so it's partnerships. You've got to Dr. Platform pays you.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:03

No, no. So Dr. Platform pays me.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:06

So I've done like one or two things that has gained me a lot of followers, but there was there's no intention. I had I don't use it for.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:12

Oh, yeah, no, it became uh very intentional, and it was nice to get paid for my purpose. Like it was all you a KOL for? I was a KOL for ROB.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:24

What's K O key opinion leader? Key opinion leader, yeah. So I was ROB, wow.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:28

So I was even there a brand ambassador for like a year.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:31

RLB is huge, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 1:43:33

It was actually when I started, I was like, one day I'm gonna be, I want like I wish for a brand like that to notice me and it's insane when they notice me. I was like, what?

SPEAKER_02 1:43:43

Give us some advice because I want this podcast to like pick up, man, you know, like but uh and as Yashu would probably say, you have a very pretty face for why are you putting in inverted comments? Because your opinion of pretty, but it's like you've got a a very like a persona and a look for like ambassadorship. So are you trying to say that we're but we're too ugly for this thing? No, I'm saying I'm saying with opinions like that, we probably won't get chosen. Well, go ahead. I I think I'm good looking with it. Speak for yourself. We have a head on the outside. But I'll consult with you afterwards and you'll give me some advice on how to get brand partnership. No, that's fine.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:20

Yeah, so it was the whole brand partnership thing. Fortunately for me, my the social media thing was always very organic. I've never tried to manipulate anything, and even every brand I've worked with, I've believed in personally. So if you do go to my house, you will see the brands in my house.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:43

You go to my practice. I organically, if you ask me for advice in my practice, what I say you should do on social media is what I say you should do in the chair.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:52

So basically authentic.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:54

Yeah. So it was very authentic. Um, and I think that's sort of what drew people to to it as well. Um so I when it beg when it changed and when it was forcing me to change, I then started to not like it so much.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:13

Um I've currently been quiet on social media for the last since December because I think I'm trying to figure out like, do I want to go back? How do I want to go back? What does this mean for me? Also, the downside of it is that um because I've I became the face of my own brand, it has been it was a very big challenge and a very long thing to include other people. So when I went and I did this uh practice thing, yes, I was pushed into it mainly time time-wise. I never really got to uh figure out beforehand fully how I wanted it to go, um, which is typically how I approach things, beginning with the end in mind. I was kind of like forced into it and I had to figure it out. And so then it became for me about creating a space that I didn't have when I just become a dentist. So that's why I'm focused on employing your younger dentists, just giving them a way less traumatic experience than um uh we went through, you know, being alone, not having um guidance, um, you know, from even not knowing where to buy a dental chair, if you have a thought that you want to open your own practice, those all those things are very real. Um so I provide that space in my practice. So I employ young dentists, we're in a group set up so we can literally help each other. Um now, fortunately, we've had time. So I've got like 10 years experience now, and there's a dentist with eight, and there's always a, you know, there's always different experiences, and I encourage everyone in the practice to do different things so that we we can all as a collective offer the patient more. Um, so every year we do like check-ins. Okay, what's your plan? What's happening this year? What are you focusing on? Okay, so you want to go into author more, you want to do max fac more, so then we can keep everything in as in-house as possible, um, and also ourselves and as individuals um grow. Um, I involve them a lot in how in the operations. So I delegate certain tasks, like I have a head of um practice that side, that's not me. So everyone that has a problem speaks to her, and then I'm like a little bit more in the background because it's all it also starts on the inside of the business. Like what's happening on the inside needs to then translate on the outside. So I really try to involve them, and when I and I notice like if I go on holiday, we have significantly less business because people assume like they just think of it as like she's not here, yeah, but my doors were never closed. So I was like, okay, everyone has to participate on social media. We're going to say family dentists so that people know there's more than one dentist. People will understand that everyone in the family can come to us. So we're just gonna communicate it a little bit differently and we're gonna include other people's faces a bit more and just like kind of pull Dr. B back a little bit so that everyone has the opportunity. And it worked. Um, and sometimes I had to literally have to be in the practice in order to hand a patient over to someone else. Like people just wanted that comfort, and I understood it because when my friend owns the restaurant, I feel like I'm having a better experience when my friend is there versus when they're not there. Yeah, so I was like, okay, I'm very like understanding when my friend is not there because they have another restaurant now. So that means that someone else can have the same understanding, but they must still feel like I know what's happening, like I approve of this. So in the beginning stages, I they will work when I work, and then whoever's supposed to be booked for me, I'll just they'll take my overflow while I'm there. So I come out and I say hi to you, but someone else treats you. So then you've got in the Dr. B tick and you've got in the treatment, and nothing went wrong. So you realize that someone else can clean teeth too, you know? So even better. Yeah, and so you shift the mindset of the person to because they they do personalized stuff like I just want this doctor. And it's like I spent a lot of time handpicking the people that work here. I would let my mom be their patient.

SPEAKER_02 1:49:33

You've curated this.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:34

Yes, it's not, it's not like I just hired someone. So trust me, from character to clinical skill, I've thought about it all for the patient, right? And I would put myself in their chair, so you're good. But I needed to show them. And sometimes it's just sitting in the lounge with them and before they go in and then walking them to the room and then and it works. Yeah, so it takes it took a lot of time. So that was the problem with social media, is that it made me feel enslaved to the brand. Like I can't um everything that I do impacts the business.

SPEAKER_02 1:50:13

That's a lot of weight on your shoulders.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:15

So it was a lot of weight on my shoulders.

SPEAKER_02 1:50:17

So um But lots of people are taking social media fasts and things like that now. Again, going off for weeks and days. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:23

I think it's I'm reading a book by Prima Rawat. It's called Um Care Yourself. So it's about eliminating all the noise. That's when when I started reading that book, I I went off social media. And my life overall now is a lot more quieter and I can so much better, yeah. Like I'm in the moment, so much more than I used to be. Um I definitely will go back. I have to go back. I do feel a social responsibility to go back online. Um, I just need to figure out how to do it in my own uh way, in a way that makes me comfortable, in a way that keeps it about dentistry, because it's also very easy to stray.

SPEAKER_01 1:51:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:04

You know, you start posting your food more than you post about teeth because people now want to hear what you're having for dinner more than they want to hear about cavities. So you gotta still drive, you gotta still play in that cavity about cavities.

SPEAKER_02 1:51:17

Who wants to hear about cavities? Come on.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:20

Yeah, so you gotta still play in that um space.

SPEAKER_02 1:51:23

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um and what about real life socializing? What do you do for fun?

SPEAKER_00 1:51:28

Oh, I love food, so I eat at a restaurant with my friends.

SPEAKER_02 1:51:32

Um we're keeping you from lunch tape.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:36

Um so I do that. I like to travel.

SPEAKER_02 1:51:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:40

So I'll travel as much as I can.

SPEAKER_02 1:51:42

Do you see your parents much?

SPEAKER_00 1:51:44

Yeah, I see my parents at least once or twice a quarter. But they and they're in They're in the Eastern Cape, so because we have a home in Durban, sometimes meet there. So most holidays I see them. What was the home language?

SPEAKER_02 1:51:57

Tosa or Zu? But you can speak both, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:52:01

I'm fluent in both, read, write, everything. But I'm more naturally a Tosa speaker. Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:52:08

Cool. And no regrets not doing medicine all those years ago. Absolutely not.

SPEAKER_00 1:52:13

I think um even having watched my friends who are um doctors go through not sleeping, um, just the calls, just I think the environment for me, I made the absolute right choice. I have encountered a lot of challenges along my way, but there is no bigger thing to overcome than feeling forced to do something. And that environment, I don't know if people get to choose a lot, you know, um sleep hours. Um, I'm always very impressed by doctors who have families, like an anethetist with our family. I'm like, wow.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:58

How?

SPEAKER_00 1:52:58

I don't know how you did this. Because I mean, the studying, the the time in the hospital, like all of that stuff. I'm like, wow, kudos to you. Um, I've always also started with the end in mind in terms of like how I want my life to look. So I'm I've always tried to set my life up in a way that kept me a bit more flexible.

SPEAKER_02 1:53:20

Oh, you're at the end now? What do you feel? What's the end?

SPEAKER_00 1:53:23

I think the end will be me completely doing cosmetics.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:53:29

Okay. Um, but the way I do cosmetics is I love basic dentistry because I feel like it has a massive role in the psyche of the patient and the outcome of a cosmetic treatment. So to take a patient through from a cavity to smile makeover is like amazing for me. And now I've incorporated um clearer liners into the thing. And for me, it feels um both like it's ticking the clinical boxes, but also the ticking the box of the age I'm in. So I feel like I'm I'm participating in 2026. I'm practicing the dentistry of now. And obviously, if I had cooler stuff, it may be the dentistry of tomorrow, but I don't feel too far behind in terms of that. And I think the end really looks like for me being able to take time off, guilt-free time off. Because now I'm still at the stage where like I feel like I have to be at work, and for it to work, I have to be like literally there every day. Um, so maybe if I have time to nurture a relationship and maybe have a kid somewhere down the line and still be able to do what I love, that would be that would be nice. Um because currently I don't feel like that. Currently I feel like I've got to be there. I don't have time for um anything else. And the pressure of having a business is like you have all these people in your business that represent families. So it's like I can't just all the decisions that I make in my personal life affect other people now.

SPEAKER_02 1:55:09

So Dr. B, this conversation to me felt like an a journey. I don't know, Yak, if you felt like you took us on a journey. Yeah, no, same, yeah. Uh to Pretoria, to being a what's it, claik caken or whatever it is. Uh kluki. Kluki. Uh I can't believe we gave them airtime. It's been such a journey. Yeah, but it's part of your life, right? So you have gotta give it the airtime. So, but thank you so much for sharing it, man. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much. And and maybe we'll speak in 10 years and we'll see that the journey is still going.

SPEAKER_00 1:55:42

Thank you for the opportunity. My first podcast.

SPEAKER_02 1:55:45

Yes, thank you for being our first. Oh, your first. That's so cool. All right, cool. Yes, we'll let you go to your death. Thank you so much for doing it.

SPEAKER_03 1:55:54

Thank you. It was so much fun.

SPEAKER_02 1:55:56

Yeah, really.