Transcript – Dentology Podcast with Rana Al-Falaki
Episode Release Date – Monday 7 April 2025
Andy & Chris (00:01.121)
Monday morning at seven o’clock. What’s that mean? Coffee, pyjamas and cornflakes. No, we were recording another podcast. Oh, I remember. I remember. Well, yes, of course. Well, today we’re very, very fortunate. Very fortunate indeed. We have Rana Alfalaki joining us and Rana is a specialist periodontist, optimal performance strategist. Optimal performance. to find out more about what that is and the founder of Meddent, the Leadership and Wellbeing Academy.
Hi, how are you doing?
Rana Al-falaki (00:32.014)
I am amazing! Thank you! just have to ask, did you suffer from Sundayitis or is that not a thing anymore?
Rana Al-falaki (00:41.324)
You are so happy on a Monday morning.
Rana Al-falaki (01:03.342)
or six days or seven days. You’re a dentist, right? Only 24 hours a day.
Andy & Chris (01:09.289)
I think one of the benefits of getting older is you forget something anyway. It could be any old day. But I think if you genuinely enjoy what you’re doing, you don’t kind of put it into a bucket of I do this then and I do that then. I think you’re constantly turned on. You’re constantly thinking of new ideas. You never really leave it when it’s your own business or you’re doing something that you really enjoy. When you love it. Yeah.
Rana Al-falaki (01:13.07)
Yeah
Rana Al-falaki (01:36.63)
And that’s the key though, you have to end up loving it because you cannot detach from it and you get this label that it’s who you are, especially in dentistry, you know, I’m a dentist or I’m a practice owner and then you live it, breathe it 24 hours a day. Unfortunately, so many do get Sunday-itis because of the stress and the worries about it, but you’re absolutely right. If you can get to a point of flow where work doesn’t feel like work, I mean, that’s just amazing.
Andy & Chris (01:53.001)
Mmm.
Andy & Chris (02:01.088)
Yeah, it’s taking us a while. Yeah, and we’ll come onto that in the conversation, but it’s definitely an issue within dentistry. And I think it’s kind of multi-layered in terms of why people feel like that. But we’ll get to that. We’ll get to that. need to start. We need it to be up. We need to be uplifting and to be running. Who are here? So before we get into like the dental bit, can you give us some context on yourself? Kind of who you are, your upbringing, what your childhood looked like? Because
Rana Al-falaki (02:14.702)
We don’t want to depress people on a Monday morning. We want to energize them.
Andy & Chris (02:30.709)
We’ve done a fair few of these and it’s always the people. It’s like, who’s talking? Who are they? Where did they come from? What they about? And then it kind of gives so much more context to what we’re to talk about later on. No pressure. No, no, not at all. Yeah, I grew up, everything’s really great. Yeah, it’s brilliant. Yeah, lovely. Everyone’s interesting. Everyone’s interesting.
Rana Al-falaki (02:52.834)
No, you just stole my line, Chris. was going to start you on the 11th of September 1973. My mum hitchhiked on a lorry to Northwick Park Hospital in Harrow because my parents had no money and my dad was missing. Yeah. I was when it was all new and dandy. So there we go. I know.
Andy & Chris (03:02.783)
Northwick Park Hospital. Look at that. Is that where you were born? Northwick Park Hospital.
Yeah, doesn’t look so new and dandy now though, does it?
Rana Al-falaki (03:14.914)
So yes, actually, born and bred in London, but that is actually a true story. My mother did, I had two older siblings, but they’re like three and a half years literally between us. By the time my mom was pregnant with me, it was like, my God, we can’t afford another baby. What on are we going to do? It’s the seventies. My parents, my dad had come over from Iraq and had studied business in Manchester. My mother wasn’t working at that point. She’d come over to be with him in London. So she was Bahraini and they didn’t have any money. And so literally she
got a ride on a lorry to go and give birth to me while my dad struggled with like a double buggy on a on a bus. My sister just thought what’s this stupid bundle at the end of the bed and that I could say that formed our relationship through the rest of our life.
Andy & Chris (03:50.581)
Really? Wow.
Andy & Chris (04:00.332)
informative. So you had the choice of being a dentist or a long distance lorry driver. What type of lorry was it?
Rana Al-falaki (04:01.14)
I love that I, but you’re a nuisance to Oprah.
Well actually, let’s be fair, you could potentially earn more being a lorry driver nowadays. Anyway, so yes, so to Arabic parents who were very highly educated.
Andy & Chris (04:15.657)
Yeah. Just say, sorry, I got a joke here. Sorry, just a joke. That’s a different type of delivery driver. See? There we go. Anyway, sorry you were saying.
Rana Al-falaki (04:25.102)
Ah, there we go. No, so just we, was born in London, born and bred in London, never left London. And even through my studies, my parents were very highly educated, but certainly didn’t come from, know, from a…
significantly rich background, but my mother ended up working for the Emirates Embassy and Press and Political Affairs and my dad was a businessman and he traveled all around the world. And so we never really wanted for anything, even though we really didn’t have much money, but we had so much love. We had this wonderful, amazing upbringing, you know, very close to both my brother and my sister. As much as sharing a room with her was a pain, like I said, at the end of the bed thing had continued. And then I remember when I
wanted to go and study dentistry, I wanted to like, I wanted to leave home, you know, this Arab upbringing in London, I’ve been stuck in an Arabic school every Saturday. I mean, I had no life. It’s like, I want to go, I want to go. And yet my mother was so attached to me. actually, I think this is a bit sad. So I know I’m smiling, but so she had a bit of a premonition and she was worried that if something happens to me at this point, she was the only breadwinner. She was holding down three jobs. My dad’s business had been affected in the recession and you she
used all her money to kind of try and send us to school and to private school and I got scholarships to Sixth Form College and worked in the library and other jobs and so on. And she just said, look, if something happens to me, I would be so worried, you know, that you would be stuck somewhere and financially we couldn’t help you and support you. So that was the sob story. So I agreed to go not to, I think Sheffield, Cardiff and Bristol were my out of London choices. I didn’t go to King’s, I chose to go to the London, which was at the time just seemed so down to earth and friendly.
I lived in West London, Bart’s was in the East, travelled on the central line every day until the end of my first year and then my second year I finally got my freedom and I was like I really need to leave home so that’s what happened but actually my mother’s premonition came true and she did develop breast cancer.
Rana Al-falaki (06:29.414)
in my third year of uni and then just in my VT year I went to spend it in Canterbury but I was back and forth all the time because she was really sick and then she did sadly die that year.
Andy & Chris (06:42.255)
wow. very sad.
Rana Al-falaki (06:43.18)
when I was 23. So I think that shaped my life significantly as well in terms of situation they made in my career. Everybody left home. My dad couldn’t take it anymore so he left the country and moved off to Tunisia to run a hotel business that a friend offered him because staying in England was too painful. My brother moved in with his girlfriend, my sister got married and I joke because I say I was left home alone with the parrot.
Andy & Chris (06:49.121)
Oh, I can imagine.
Andy & Chris (07:03.466)
Wow.
Andy & Chris (07:10.805)
Nice, nice.
Rana Al-falaki (07:12.142)
who proceeded to live till a grand old year of 35, this lovely little African Grey who died in 2012. He told me to make tea in Arabic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he would tell himself when he was being naughty again in Arabic. So not quite there, but.
Andy & Chris (07:19.809)
Did it swear?
Andy & Chris (07:23.942)
okay. In Arabic. is impressive. Yeah.
Andy & Chris (07:34.017)
But it makes sense, doesn’t it? Because I guess anything that’s going to mimic is going to mimic in the language it hears. if it’s an Arabic house, it would be an Arabic speaking parrot, wouldn’t it? Yeah.
Rana Al-falaki (07:38.853)
There you go.
Rana Al-falaki (07:44.896)
Yeah, yeah. And weirdly, I speak Arabic to my parents, but English to my brother and my sister, you know, I think in English it was a little bit odd. So that’s that’s that’s that was me. That’s that’s what changed my drive. What’s that?
Andy & Chris (07:55.809)
It’s a bit random going to Tunisia, isn’t it? It is, isn’t it? Yeah. I was just saying, it’s a bit random going to Tunisia.
Rana Al-falaki (08:02.126)
Yeah, well, this friend had a hotel business. He’s got hotels all over the world and he had a vacancy where he needed someone to go and manage the company that ran the hotel and other things. He was like, well, if you want, come and stay here. And my dad still lives in this hotel suite. He came back briefly at some point, I think when I got married for five years and then he went away again. So best part of now 25 years, Tunisia has been his home.
Andy & Chris (08:05.121)
Hmm.
Andy & Chris (08:10.624)
Wow.
Andy & Chris (08:23.283)
Wow, and you go to see him I see.
Rana Al-falaki (08:25.422)
I do. it’s, you know, I’ve had, obviously I’ve got three, well, obviously I have three children now who are all teenagers and they’ve grown up thinking their grandfather, that was their grandfather’s house, this lovely big five-star hotel. So it’s great. We have family reunions. I don’t have to share a room with my darling sister. We each have separate rooms, so nobody falls out. And the three of us descend with all of our kids and have this wonderful quality time with my dad, which is amazing.
Andy & Chris (08:36.609)
Ha
Andy & Chris (08:47.425)
Brilliant. That’s fabulous.
Family times, brilliant. Yeah, it’s funny how you describe your childhood and I think we’re going through a new generation that’s very different. there’s lots of, we’ve had lots of people on the podcast that have shared a similar story and similar in the sense that their parents came from not a lot, had to work really hard to make ends meet. And they then have their children, in this case you, who then education becomes really important and they want you to have a better life than the life they had.
So you then go on and get a professional qualification, move into dentistry. And dentistry rewards quite well. The financial returns from dentistry are pretty good. And I think we’re in a phase now where we’ve gone through the generation of people who came to the UK, had a very tough life, wanted their children to have a better life, but now have their kids, the next generation. And a…
And I think about my own children, you know, I don’t think they have any idea as to how hard it was for their grandparents or us as their parents because things have just moved on and changed so quickly and it gets lost in the journey somehow, doesn’t it? Because you obviously lived it firsthand, whereas I doubt that your children can really comprehend what it would have been like for you living up, but also for their grandparents.
Rana Al-falaki (10:07.958)
Yeah, mean, just my school photos. I’m in the same clothes my brother was in, you know, a year before. He got the same little V-neck, 70s pullover, and then the same dresses that my sister wore. But what I have tried to do with my kids actually is really let them know that history, right? History, what’s history? History is his story. So what is the story I can tell my children and therefore brought them up to really value money, to value hard work, but also to value the balance.
Andy & Chris (10:12.253)
Yeah.
Andy & Chris (10:23.625)
Mmm.
Hmm.
Rana Al-falaki (10:36.204)
because I don’t think I had it. And none of them want to do dentistry, surprise, surprise, because they saw just, I think, just how hard I have worked and the lifestyle that they had. So my oldest is hopefully going off to Loughborough to do marketing and business. They’ve already said, okay, you’ve got a job here then. My daughter, possibly chemical engineering, because I think she’s interested in making makeup.
Andy & Chris (10:37.056)
Yeah.
Andy & Chris (10:41.29)
and just…
Andy & Chris (10:45.535)
What do they want to do?
Andy & Chris (11:01.747)
Okay, interesting.
Rana Al-falaki (11:02.956)
And the youngest who knows, I think he’s on the line of an astrophysicist of some kind, we’ll find out.
Andy & Chris (11:08.145)
You say for yourself that your parents pushed you into dentistry. Were you a willing participant or were you press gained? I’d only think in the context of young people now, you kind of have to choose your GCSEs when you’re 13, 14, that then sets the path for A levels, that then sets the path for university. I think that’s a massive pressure and expectation on young people. So where were you at in terms of…
the decision that you were needing to make. Did your parents heavily influence you in a positive way or did you feel that you were kind of kicking and screaming into dentistry?
Rana Al-falaki (11:44.626)
Well, actually, some reason, they were obsessed with the idea of engineering. And I remember sitting there in school watching these videos and engineering thinking, I still don’t get it. I don’t understand like what is this whole engineering thing? And, and they wanted the same for my brother. so my brother had already paved the way for going down his own path and decided I’m not doing engineering, I’m going to do economics. And I was, I was a real maths whiz. So I was wanting to do something like maths and operational research.
Andy & Chris (11:49.226)
Run.
Rana Al-falaki (12:14.5)
or then I was going to mix sciences with business. And then actually it wasn’t so much my parents pushing me into dentistry. It was the overarching culture that I came from a very highly educated family. All the women in my family, everybody in Bahrain, you know, can’t get away with one degree. Everyone would have a master’s or a PhD or even two PhDs. So it was more the surrounding of what was normal. And I ended up thinking, well, okay, if I go and do this three year degree, then what am I going to do?
Andy & Chris (12:35.798)
Wow.
Andy & Chris (12:42.614)
Mm.
Rana Al-falaki (12:42.862)
I’m still going to at that point, you don’t really want to study, do you? But then I’m thinking, OK, well, I’m going to have to do a master’s degree and then this and that. And I don’t even know what I’m going to do with myself. And my aunt was actually a specialist periodontist. And she so she was an influence. And then I went to OK, I’ll explore, I’ll human my parents. I remember even having a stupid thought like, like having long nails and I don’t want to have to cut them. And, you know, five years of It’s difficult like a 17, 18 year old girl.
Andy & Chris (13:11.914)
Yeah.
Rana Al-falaki (13:12.312)
So I went to see, and I know this guy still, we were family friends, I went to see them, and I remember, I always remember what he said, and he just said, if you’re in the surgery and you see a set of teeth walking towards you, this is not the career for you. You will be bored stiff. But if you see a human being and you like that, then you will have a career for life. Yeah, and I thought.
Andy & Chris (13:38.465)
I like that. That’s nice. That’s really interesting because that’s, I had a professor who said, he said he saw the, when they were talking about patients, he said they’re just a biological way of getting a set of teeth into my surgery. And it was quite interesting. That was his view about it. mean, it was an old school, but it’s quite interesting. But yours is the other end of that spectrum, which is, it’s a person with feelings and emotions and a family. And by the way, can you please help me with my teeth?
Rana Al-falaki (13:42.24)
I’ve always felt that.
Rana Al-falaki (14:08.314)
With my oral health as we really like to say, so that we actually understand bringing the mouth back into the body. And I guess that’s what’s always, I guess I was always into that and that’s what’s always shaped my subsequent choices. So they didn’t really push me, but they were obviously delighted that that then was my choice. And yes, again, then you’ve got the whole typical Arab parents, you we’d go to all these receptions. Like I said, my mother worked for an embassy, right? And my dad would proudly parade me around. This is my daughter, the dentist. This is my daughter, the dentist. This is my daughter, the
Andy & Chris (14:08.437)
Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Rana Al-falaki (14:38.138)
dentist. You can imagine like my fear when I retrained as a coach to think he’s not going to be going around saying this is my daughter the coach. Fortunately he does now because it’s like well this is my daughter the best-selling author and the coach and the speaker and she’s been on TV and radio and I’m like okay great as long as I please my dad that’s fine.
Andy & Chris (14:49.067)
Ha ha ha ha.
Andy & Chris (14:53.632)
That’s enough. Going back to studying at dental school, what was dental school experience like? You were at Barts. I appreciate in the context of what you said about your mum. Obviously your mum wasn’t well, but how was dental school through that period?
Rana Al-falaki (15:10.734)
probably still the best years of my life in one respect because I’ve done a lot of growth and development on myself and realised deep down I had a lot of stuff I needed to deal with and
Andy & Chris (15:12.705)
Hmm.
Rana Al-falaki (15:22.094)
So I was clearly masking a lot by working incredibly hard. And, I’m happy to share that in a minute, but I was, I was, I had great friends who I am still brilliant friends with today, who I absolutely adore. I was student president. was always the year reps. And then I was president of the, of the dental society. And we, in those days, we were allowed to talk about alcohol. So we used to run what we call the dental beer race. So we, you know, that was a 26 pub.
Andy & Chris (15:25.537)
Mm.
Rana Al-falaki (15:52.2)
be a race all around Whitechapel and Myland. Of course you had to do a test run to get permission, you know. And I had a great, great team around me and I loved it. And I remember even then in my inaugural speech, I remember…
Andy & Chris (15:54.432)
Wow, man.
Yes. Yeah, just to make sure it was okay.
Rana Al-falaki (16:07.912)
rather to the chagrin of some of the people in the year above putting up videos of them kind of being having a great time and being drunk and all the rest of it. Bear in mind you’ve got the Dean of the Dental School at this event as well. But my point was there’s got to be more to life than just work and study. So when our friends came around and said you know do you want to go to the library that was code name for the pub next door and you know but we had a good time and we had wonderful friends and it wasn’t all about
Andy & Chris (16:23.221)
Hmm.
Rana Al-falaki (16:36.35)
studying and working so hard there really was balance and fun.
Andy & Chris (16:42.239)
Hmm. It needs to be fun. I always, my son, he went to university and he openly admits that he might have had a little bit too much fun in the first year and a half and it was only his sisters who said if we get higher grades than you you’re never going to live it down. But I think it does need to be fun doesn’t it? Life needs to be a balance. You mentioned it earlier, it needs to be a balance. Yeah, yeah. So you finished at dental school and then
Perhaps there’s a link back to your arm here in Bahrain, because you decided to specialize about how you come to the periobe. Yeah.
Rana Al-falaki (17:14.99)
Yeah, well actually that wasn’t the reason, although I did go and do my elective in Bahrain and got, I probably did more, my uncle’s the Minister to Health, so he got me a special licence and I probably did more dentistry. Really handy, I’ll tell you. Well, it was really good. It’s like, wait, how did you get to fix people’s teeth?
Andy & Chris (17:21.249)
interesting.
Andy & Chris (17:25.845)
Good to know people in the right places. Nicely dropped in there.
Rana Al-falaki (17:34.622)
working in my aunt’s clinic and I probably did more in those four weeks in Bahrain than I probably had in like an entire fourth and fifth year of dental school so I came back very confident. The link to Perio wasn’t so much from my aunt actually, it was a case of this high standard that was ingrained within me that was part of me, I can’t just sit here and just settle down and be a general practitioner and my vocational trainer and I would definitely give him a shout out Ashley Watson who is amazing and Derek Watson on the Canterbury
Andy & Chris (17:39.871)
Yeah.
Rana Al-falaki (18:04.536)
scheme and they were absolutely fantastic and Ashley particularly just instilled in me.
the quality that you want to do and how much you care for your patients and quality of treatment. So I never came out with this kind of bash the nash attitude. I don’t think that happens anymore, but it was a term we used, wasn’t it? And then, but then I just thought, well, I need something more. So I started studying. At that point, my mum was alive. So she was really excited about the thought I was going to get you in an MFDS and go on to do something else. And I just realised I wasn’t happy in general practice. And I was trying to settle because obviously my mum had died and I was actually
Andy & Chris (18:34.879)
Hmm. Hmm. Yeah.
Rana Al-falaki (18:38.872)
engaged with someone, a dentist, and I thought, I’ll just try and settle, and I couldn’t settle. It just wasn’t within me. So was a case of, okay, I have to do something more. And then it was a case of thinking, what is it you enjoy, Renna? What did you enjoy at Dendal School more than anything? And for me, just like maths at A-level, for me, Perio just made complete sense. It was the one discipline I absolutely loved, which I know is contradictory because so many students, I’ve taught students, they think it doesn’t work.
Andy & Chris (19:07.551)
Yeah, yeah, it’s interesting, isn’t it?
Rana Al-falaki (19:08.876)
made it but to me it was just it just well maybe it was the numbers thing you know pocket charts all the time but it just made complete it just made complete sense and and there was this human element which obviously is what’s then taken my career to a much deeper level.
Andy & Chris (19:13.727)
Hmm.
Andy & Chris (19:24.561)
Mm-hmm. It is fascinating isn’t it? You know when you find out you speak to
you know, with Perrier who loves Perrier and other people are like, and you talk to an endo who loves endo and other people are like, oh, how could you do that all day? I love the fact that in dentistry, there’s some people who really love general dentistry. And then there’s the specialists who really love the specialism that they do. And I think it’s brilliant that you’ve got that broad range. You you all start from the same place really, but.
some people would say, well I want to do something different. Fascinating. But you took it to another level didn’t you? Because it wasn’t just that you then got these higher level specialist qualifications. You then set up two specialist practices in 2004 and 2009, selling out to Dentex in 2018. So there’s a real business entrepreneurial side to you as well isn’t it? It’s not just doubling down on the clinical side.
Rana Al-falaki (20:15.064)
Yes.
Yeah, yeah, 100%. I think part of it was about understanding my values and realizing autonomy for me was a huge thing. So I needed to run the show. I needed to do things on my terms the way I wanted to, to my level and to my standards, so not be victim to somebody else. So setting up in 2004 from scratch, that’s exactly what did it, which was absolutely brilliant. And then after having my second child, I then decided actually
into the city is a bit of a pain, let me set up another practice which I did closer to home which was in Buckhurst Hill and then yeah and then I just grew it from strength to strength. think though and I do use this when I work with people and I mentioned sometimes you become a victim of your own success.
Andy & Chris (20:54.486)
Bye.
Rana Al-falaki (21:08.012)
So if you didn’t have the foundations in place, and I started with a wonderful team who were literally like my family. I mean, when I got divorced, they moved house for me. They sat there packing and unpacking boxes. They were incredible. However, when we grew…
And we ended up going from a team of three, myself, my nurse and my practice manager to a team of 12, with hygienists and several surgeries and several specialists. It was an amazing practice with a wonderful reputation, by which point I was traveling all around the world, lecturing, speaking, and being this real global pioneer with everything I was doing with lasers. But I wasn’t happy being a business owner anymore. And it was mainly because I was, I wasn’t working on my business. I was having to work in my business and I didn’t have the time.
Andy & Chris (21:51.681)
Mm.
Rana Al-falaki (21:54.62)
to really spend with my associates, with my hygienists, with my team members to really train them to the standards that I wanted, which meant I could never really shut down. I was constantly thinking of things in the background.
Andy & Chris (22:04.021)
go back over that because it’s very disjointed.
Rana Al-falaki (22:15.682)
Have we lost connection?
Andy & Chris (22:17.569)
We keep fading in and out. Andy mentioned that you set up the two practices and then after that we haven’t heard much since then it kind of broke, so I’m not quite sure what’s going on. It looks okay on our side. Is your connection still good? can see that you’re 93 % uploaded, but perhaps we go back to the, you asked that question again and then we’ll start See, it’s come back again now. It just seemed to have a blip for some reason. I’ll ask the question again and then we’ll…
Rana Al-falaki (22:34.606)
Yeah.
Rana Al-falaki (22:43.98)
Yeah, yeah. Okay.
Andy & Chris (22:47.265)
We’ll try that. So you obviously really enjoyed the specialty side of things because you then went on to set up two practices, two specialist practices in 2004 and 2009, sending out to Dentex in 2018. So what was the story behind that and what did that look like for you?
Rana Al-falaki (23:07.022)
So for me, autonomy was definitely a big value. I needed to do things my way to my standard. So I didn’t want to be victim to anyone else’s choices. that’s what really, and freedom is one of my huge values as well. So having my own practice was exactly that. And then when it was, so that was 2004, 2009, I ended up setting up a second practice closer to home. Cause, and so I was literally going around a building site with one baby against my chest and one trolley cause they’re like 16 months.
Andy & Chris (23:16.277)
Mm-hmm.
Rana Al-falaki (23:36.948)
support.
around this building, so I setting up this practice that was going to be mine and it was, you know, was Alpha Perio, Buckhurst Hill, and it was absolutely fantastic. But we started off very small, you know, it was just a very small team. It was myself, my practice manager and my nurse who stayed with me then for 11 years. And so we were really, it was happy and I built up a community and I built up an entire community. We used to run events where we’d have 60 to 70 dentists come in middle of the week for an evening event. Exactly. mean, that just doesn’t happen anymore, does
Andy & Chris (24:06.603)
Wow, wait.
Rana Al-falaki (24:07.984)
Such was kind of the following, the respect and referrals rolling in all the time. It was brilliant. And I often say this to some of my practices that I work with, the clients that I work with, when they’re really struggling, I say, sometimes you’re a victim of your own success. And that’s what happened.
Andy & Chris (24:23.553)
Hmm.
Rana Al-falaki (24:26.414)
I was very busy. was busy in the clinic. had three kids. was traveling all around the world lecturing and speaking. I’ve become this global pioneer with the use of lasers. I was writing research papers. I was working in America with the laser company in the evenings. It was just insane. And I didn’t have time to sit there and train my team, train my associates in how to convert the way I converted, train my receptionists in how I wanted them to
and I was relying on other people, but I was relying on other people who weren’t the right people to rely because they hadn’t been trained either. And when I say that, I would have an admin day, but by that point, my dentists are planning on trying to work with patients or my hygienists want to work with patients because that’s the way they’re paid. So they don’t want to spend time mirror watching me in the surgery and hearing how I do it. And this is a challenge that really happens today a lot as well.
So I’d had enough by that point and my choice to sell was, it was just like going through a tunnel all the time, being on autopilot, being there till eight o’clock at night. But again, it was my escape because like I said, I got divorced as well. So working really hard again was a really good distraction on the times when I didn’t have my kids, but I became sick.
So that was the final call. And I alluded to something when I was talking about being in dental school, thinking, I think underneath the surface, I wasn’t quite right. Yeah, there were traumas that I hadn’t. So I was sexually abused when I was 12 years old.
Andy & Chris (25:46.763)
Right.
Andy & Chris (26:05.505)
Right.
Rana Al-falaki (26:05.998)
through to the age of 14, but I blocked it out and I wasn’t even aware. I mean, I did have a happy, ironically, I had a really happy childhood. But this went on and it came back to me in my twenties and I never really dealt with it. So I think this aspect of lack of self-love and therefore masking it by being this amazing, incredible career person, that was a big driver that I wasn’t aware of at the time.
Andy & Chris (26:11.617)
Hmm.
Andy & Chris (26:22.07)
Mmm.
Andy & Chris (26:25.627)
Mmm. Mmm.
Andy & Chris (26:31.327)
No.
Rana Al-falaki (26:31.79)
And of course, eventually when you don’t deal with stuff and you just keep adding on the rubbish, it comes back to bite you.
Andy & Chris (26:34.369)
Mm-hmm.
Andy & Chris (26:38.337)
Hmm.
Rana Al-falaki (26:38.766)
So that obviously had choices in terms of the relationships that I had, the marriage that I had. And so by the time I was then in my 40s, I was thinking, you know, I am messed up. Maybe I should really try and sort this rubbish out once and for all. And I tried with a counselor and that was just talking about problems. I mean, I could talk to anybody, but without tapping into my emotions at that point. So then I actually got a coach. I was going off to Canada to lecture.
Andy & Chris (26:43.401)
Mm.
Andy & Chris (26:54.645)
Mm.
Andy & Chris (27:03.19)
Yeah.
Rana Al-falaki (27:08.72)
thought, you know, I want to try something different, something a bit self-soothing. And I came across this coach and she became my coach with six months. She was brilliant. And the first thing she said to me was, we’re going to take a deep dive into finding out who Renna actually is. And I thought, wow, gosh, it was just like a huge blanket being put on me because I’ve been so busy all the time. And we are, especially in the dental profession, we’ve got what we think we should do.
Andy & Chris (27:28.628)
Hmm
Andy & Chris (27:32.383)
Hmm when when she said that to you did did you instinctively know what the answer was or was it going to be a discovery for you as well?
Rana Al-falaki (27:37.849)
No. Yeah, I was just like, wow, this is going to be amazing. What does she even mean by that? I mean, when she started talking about values and we hear this word so often anymore, it’s overdone. It’s like, I don’t know what my values are. I don’t know who I am. Wow, this going to be amazing. This person is going to reveal this to me.
Andy & Chris (27:43.22)
Mm.
Rana Al-falaki (27:54.506)
So through this coaching journey, one of the realizations we got to was Renna, you’re still a leader. You don’t need to be a practice owner to be a leader. Because by then, like I said, you know, was traveling around the world. It was really expected of you. You must have your own practice and things as well. So it was that. Plus, like I said, I became sick. I got to the point where I’d be sitting there with patients. My heart rate would be well over 100 at rest. I’d have episodes where I’d have to leave my patients and my team.
would find me lying on the floor in the staff room and then trying to walk home and not able to quite literally it would feel like my legs were so heavy I was almost having a like I was having a heart attack and it wasn’t a panic attack and when I went to the cardiologist with my results having had this ECG for seven days and I’d had these tests before all through my pregnancies as well.
and I went in with the usual, it’s nothing is it I’m absolutely fine again so dentist like and he was like not so sure about that actually and I want you to go and have a look at this condition on the internet it’s not widely accepted yet but we it’s something that’s called POTS. So I went home and he said if this doesn’t work if you don’t change your ways basically we’re gonna have to look at lifetime medication, surgical stockings and a massive change of lifestyle.
Andy & Chris (29:02.069)
Hmm.
Rana Al-falaki (29:18.126)
I went and had a look at this website about pots and there were people like me on there. Really busy, high flyers, love to hike and climb mountains which is what I love to do all the time.
Andy & Chris (29:30.443)
Mm-hmm.
Rana Al-falaki (29:31.918)
and their lives had literally ended. They couldn’t get out of bed, they couldn’t function. I just bought a townhouse and it was saying you’re probably gonna need to live in a bungalow and make all these lifestyle choices. My kids loved it because I couldn’t get all worked up because they knew if I got really angry I’d be on the floor again. And it was just, yeah, I mean I joke about it but it was a very, very dark, difficult time.
Andy & Chris (29:58.881)
It’s hard. hard. Yeah. What’s interesting, when I looked at the timeline of you setting up your first practice in 2004, second month 2009, setting in 2018, we have this notion about owner fatigue, which is lots of principles, do their thing for 10, 12 years, and then just like, ugh, I’m done.
Rana Al-falaki (30:00.202)
and at the same time still running a business going to work.
Andy & Chris (30:21.537)
And they can’t attribute it to one particular thing, but they just get to this point of exhaustion where it’s just all too much. They just don’t want to go on owning and running a business anymore. And lots of people fall into this 10 to 12 year window. I find it fascinating that your window was similar, but with a very different reason. like I say, the timeframe, there’s a tick in that box.
but the reason for it for you was very specific as opposed to lots of practice owners that just don’t quite know. And the coach you had in the process you went through, I think it probably links to the shirt you’re wearing today because did your coach use the nail it kind of process with you? And was that the thing that kind of helped you get through that process?
Rana Al-falaki (31:07.926)
No, she just, I mean, she used different processes. I actually think I coach on a much deeper level now. because coaching is like, have to stretch someone to really grow. It’s a bit like ortho retainers. Like you’ve got to stretch it. You’ve got to stretch those ligaments. You stretch them, you sit down, you’ve got to keep it stretched so you don’t bounce back. And I certainly then had episodes of bouncing back into, into my old ways. What I used to call a wantaholic way. Like you’re so addicted to wanting, cause that’s the dopamine hit every time you get something or achieve something or
Andy & Chris (31:12.98)
Bye.
Andy & Chris (31:17.308)
Mm-hmm.
Andy & Chris (31:22.4)
Yeah.
Andy & Chris (31:30.869)
Bye.
Andy & Chris (31:36.267)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Rana Al-falaki (31:37.812)
get an accolade so you feel better about yourself. And it’s about finding a way to have this inner joy inside you, regardless of the circumstances and without needing things to happen to actually wake up with joy and have it all day long. then she used different processes like coaching throughout. The nail it is a process, but it’s a process I’ve developed to systemize everything that encompasses what optimal performance actually is.
Andy & Chris (31:54.463)
Bye.
Andy & Chris (32:00.481)
Right.
Andy & Chris (32:04.833)
think the whole thing about people’s identity is fascinating that they link their identity potentially to quite often to something as opposed to themselves. And often it’s to work they do. And it’s a bit like you saying how proud your father was when he said, meet my daughter, the dentist. And we all do it because when you meet somebody for the first time, the most common question you ask somebody is what do do?
Rana Al-falaki (32:24.15)
Absolutely.
Rana Al-falaki (32:30.967)
What do you do?
Andy & Chris (32:32.513)
So what you’re doing is you’re categorizing this person in terms of where do they fit, in terms of this kind of hierarchy. It is what you do. You don’t kind of say, tell me about your family. Where did you last go on holiday? Have you got some nice walks near you? We don’t ask those questions. When they retire, they sort of struggle. What do you do when you’re retired? And it’s almost like, Whereas the fact is they’re still the same person. They just don’t happen to be working. It’s quite fascinating.
Yeah, so we’ll be sort of.
Rana Al-falaki (33:02.286)
So when I introduce myself to people, or when I start to talk to someone, I say, who are you? And then they might start with the dentist, I’m like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, who are you? And it really does, it riles people a little bit, and then they get into it, and they actually realize.
Andy & Chris (33:07.894)
Mm.
Andy & Chris (33:11.777)
Mm.
Andy & Chris (33:16.873)
I was going say she’s one of those annoying people.
Rana Al-falaki (33:23.042)
What was that Chris? I’m one of those.
Andy & Chris (33:24.115)
I said, I said, you’re one of those annoying people. Who are you? My name’s Chris. No, no. Who are you? bugger off. Yeah. Yeah. Who am I? Fascinating. think it’s fascinating. And I think the truth is not a lot of people genuinely know a bit like when your coach said to you, we’re going to find out who you are. It’s like, I don’t think, I think because people are quite busy and because they have so much structure and routine, they don’t actually have much time and space.
Rana Al-falaki (33:29.006)
Who are you? Who are you at your core, really? Like, how do you resonate? Yeah.
Andy & Chris (33:54.163)
or in many cases need to answer those questions until something happens where there’s perhaps a stumble in the road and you go, okay, right. I need some framework to kind of get through this. That’s when understanding who you are becomes way more important. think that the great thing is that you actually identified it and did something. You know, the danger is you could have just kept having your episodes, couldn’t you? And you could have just kept going on that because that’s the way things are without actually
Rana Al-falaki (34:06.67)
100 %
Andy & Chris (34:24.211)
addressing it and I think there’s so many people that hopefully people listening, well not hopefully people listening but if there are people listening the answer is you can do something about it but you actually have to do something.
Rana Al-falaki (34:37.344)
Yeah, exactly. really, you might have heard this phrase, know, the pain of people only really change when the pain of staying the same exceeds the pain of change. And that’s exactly what happens. So and often what will happen is you will act, you’ll think, yeah, I really should do something about this. I mean, like even even not even.
Andy & Chris (34:45.543)
Mmm. Yeah.
Rana Al-falaki (34:58.37)
lifestyle stuff, let’s take a dentist who goes on a course, goes on a clinical course, right? They’ll do something, like hopefully on a Monday morning or for that week, but then they’ll sink back into their old ways because they’re not stretched for long enough, right? Even though they know that might be good for them. And so exactly the same in life, we do that all the time. You know, I really should lose some weight because I’ve just been to the doctor and they’ve told me I’m pre-diabetic or I’ve got back pain or yes, I really do need to put my phone away so that I can sleep better because it’s affecting my concentration.
Andy & Chris (35:08.277)
Yeah.
Andy & Chris (35:14.229)
Mm-hmm.
Rana Al-falaki (35:28.194)
and in affecting my concentration, I’m not showing up as my best for my patients or my eyes going off the ball and if I carry on like this, I might end up getting complaints or I’ve had a GDC complaint. I mean, gosh, in dentistry, right? I’ve had a complaint against me and then suddenly we start doing everything the right way. But how long does it actually last? That is choice. But you have to remember what that pain was like and remember you’re not going to go there. And interestingly, people will usually make change.
Andy & Chris (35:36.608)
Hmm.
Andy & Chris (35:40.939)
Hmm.
Andy & Chris (35:47.233)
Mm.
Rana Al-falaki (35:57.346)
due to the pain, but they cannot maintain the change due to the pain. They then need to find something in front of them to reward them to head towards. So the pain kind of gets you out, but then if you still don’t have a direction, you will sink back into your old ways.
Andy & Chris (36:11.157)
Hmm. I suppose the change relieves the pain. So because you’re no longer in pain anymore, you feel okay. And that’s the temptation to slip back. Isn’t it? So tell us about, so you’ve got, you set up MedDen, the Leadership and Wellbeing Academy. And what’s the relationship between MedDen and NaLIT? Are they, do they work together? Because you do a variety of things. Can you sort of talk us through kind of where you’re at now in terms of what you’re doing?
Rana Al-falaki (36:34.925)
Yeah.
Yeah, so I mean the reasoning behind that. obviously I became a coach. I’ve been coaching for years, written books and I went off and I thought I don’t want anything to do with dentistry anymore. Dentists aren’t ready for me and I’ll go and work to a lot of that in the business world, albeit still doing clinical work in dentistry. And then I think dentistry is ready for this now. I think there’s enough talk about burnout and stress and health and lifestyle to appreciate it. So I decided, okay, let me bring nail it into medicine.
Andy & Chris (36:59.649)
Hmm.
Rana Al-falaki (37:06.704)
and dentistry. So nail it is a formula. Nail it is a, it’s actually 38 components, but each letter of nail it, so six letters is six subsystems that makes up this ultimate achievement formula, which is optimal performance. What I call really high levels of balance, productivity, and happiness. You where we all really want to be, right? And that is optimal performance. When you are a high performer, which so many dentists are,
Andy & Chris (37:34.049)
Yeah.
Rana Al-falaki (37:36.648)
The reality is you are very likely to burn out. Optical performance is about sustaining those high levels of success once you achieve them in the first place. So that’s the system and MedDent uses that system. So in the training that we do, I then use the nail it system.
Andy & Chris (37:49.217)
All right.
Rana Al-falaki (37:55.016)
in all of the events, all of the training, because it’s part of it’s kind of USP is all training is very experiential, it’s fun, it’s challenging, it’s evocative, and it causes results in sustainable change. So we use all of that in our training, depending what memberships or bespoke training that we do.
Andy & Chris (38:15.937)
fine. And that’s all good. But then you’ve also got Breathe Dental Wellness as well. Just put another spanner in the works. So what’s that aspect?
Rana Al-falaki (38:21.134)
Back to the house either!
So with all of that passion that I have for the dental industry and giving back and my own life story, some of which I’ve shared with you today, the Chief Dental Officer.
turned out they wanted or they needed a resource to be able to signpost the dental profession too. And this is all the dental profession, not just dentists. So our hygienists, our therapists, our technicians, dental industry, you guys, you know, appreciating that.
actually it massively impacts on performance, it impacts on patient care, it impacts on health, it impacts on well-being, it has a multitude of effects, it impacts on financial health, on how good you are with your business, it impacts on all your other relationships and so on. So when he wanted to do this, the original signposting was literally kind of like an A4 sheet with some, okay you can go and see X, Y, Z for all these different things. So we went to him and we said, look, this, you I was
in process of building the MedDent platform. This is my area of expertise. Please let us do it. So in collaboration with them, I created this other acronym called BREATHE, so BREATHE Dental Wellness. And so it covers every single aspect of wellbeing. And I have to say, wellbeing is about being well. This isn’t just about yoga and stretching and…
Rana Al-falaki (39:57.888)
And the kind of it’s not the soft term of well being. is hardcore well being. This is well being that’s going to give you a balanced, successful, productive, happy life by mastering leadership and performance as well. So BREATHE stands for, so it’s all about breath work, stress reduction, mindfulness. The R is all about re-energizing. So everything to do with coaching, mentoring, getting your energy back, you getting rid of all the sludge that you’ve got energy inside to really show up and grow. The E is all about emotional regulation. So in there, of course, you’ve got
communication boundaries and and emotional intelligence, which is the massive kind of secret source to any success really. The A is all about addiction, which is a massive problem we know we have in health care. So how can we actually really give you advice and help with that? T is all about therapy. H is healthy. So healthy body, healthy diet and nutrition, healthy lifestyle and healthy relationships. And the E is economic, so financial health, which there’s a lot of stigma. Why should we be talking about that? But again,
It’s a huge stress. So what we wanted to do on this platform was answer those questions. Like if I’m a dentist, how do I know what therapist to go and see? So if I go on the therapy page, there’s videos on the that say to me, okay, well, this is this is the types of therapy like ABC, CBT, ACT, like what are all these things? And what should I be looking for? And what what might help me what might suit me if I go on to the healthy page? Okay, right. This is somebody who’s talking
Andy & Chris (41:08.545)
Hmm.
Rana Al-falaki (41:27.752)
about my specific lifestyle in the dental industry, not just giving me generic advice that I can read on the internet. The bee, I’ve interviewed some fantastic breathwork specialists, but she tailored it to the dental industry, to your lifestyle, so it’s not generic habits and the same with…
Andy & Chris (41:29.812)
Hmm.
Rana Al-falaki (41:46.028)
Mindfulness experts. So the idea is this entire platform is entirely free for the whole of the dental industry to support well-being. And of course, we know supporting well-being supports your lifestyle in every other way. So it has videos, it has information, it has downloadable resources, it has a chat bot you can interact with. You can reach out to us for support and help. It literally has everything on there. And then you have a carousel at the end of every page, which signposts you every page to twenty
to 30 other resources or organisations and tells you what those organisations could do and you literally tap the button and you can go to those people’s websites or call them so that you have support in every way.
Andy & Chris (42:29.909)
Sounds brilliant. It makes sense why Jason, Jason Wong would get behind something like that as well, because it’s much needed in the profession. And it’s nice to hear that it’s not purely for practice owners or associates. It’s a profession wide resource. yeah. Profession wide, which is brilliant.
Rana Al-falaki (42:46.762)
Yeah, and we’ve really, really tried to make that important because it’s even like with business growth and business growth coaches, you know, they’re all about practice owners. Well, what about all the people who are associates? What about people who are nurses? What about all the therapists? What about all the hygienists? Like, what’s there for them? So it does offer the option to sign up to MedDent.
Andy & Chris (42:53.046)
Yeah.
Andy & Chris (42:57.204)
Yeah.
Rana Al-falaki (43:06.338)
which is a completely free silver membership. But on that, then you have all of the videos and all of the PDFs and you get, unlike our regular newsletter and tips so that we really start embracing performance and wellbeing.
Andy & Chris (43:19.009)
And he’s an ongoing process as well. An interesting fact about you and talking to you today, you’ve got a lot of energy and passion. So this doesn’t come as a particular surprise, but your heartbeat can run up to 200 beats a minute. Talking to you today, it doesn’t surprise me one bit. I bet you’re resting at about 120.
Rana Al-falaki (43:32.558)
Oh yeah. I told you that.
Rana Al-falaki (43:41.354)
I’m resting, I actually rest, I rest at about 52 actually, because I’m very, yeah, yeah. But I can, so I like to, I like to assume.
Andy & Chris (43:45.793)
wow, a massive range, yeah.
Rana Al-falaki (43:52.846)
It’s because I’m so fit. was actually an aerobics instructor when I went through dental school that what’s helped helped pay my way teaching aerobics and fitness. So from my teens, so I’ve always been very, very cardio fit anyway. But and yes, when I do HIIT training, I can, I will push over 200 and they say actually your max heart rate should be roughly 220 minus your age. So mine 51 now, so mine should be 169, but I’m just fit.
Andy & Chris (43:56.545)
What?
Andy & Chris (44:20.159)
Yeah. Very impressive. Very impressive. Do you, I assume, but do you treat patients anymore or not? You do.
Rana Al-falaki (44:23.202)
What can I say?
Rana Al-falaki (44:29.518)
Yeah, I do. do. I do. And you know, I think that’s really important because given everything I do with all the training and the leadership training and the support I give to the dental profession, I think if I wasn’t in it, it would feel a little bit inauthentic. So I still do six to eight days and I still do some clinical teaching as well every month.
Andy & Chris (44:41.951)
Yeah? Yeah. Yeah.
like since.
Rana Al-falaki (44:51.406)
But my passion is definitely the other. I’ve worked in every aspect of dentistry. I’ve been in NHS, private, practice owner, associate, teacher, consultant, professor, industry, community, the lot, right? So I think I’m pretty well equipped to be able to advise and mentor most of those areas. But I think unless your finger’s on the pulse, because it’s always changing, isn’t it?
Andy & Chris (44:58.358)
Yeah.
Andy & Chris (45:05.311)
Hmm.
Andy & Chris (45:13.034)
Yeah, for sure.
Rana Al-falaki (45:20.404)
then you and even the trends of how patients behave is always always changing. I just I think it’s really important to maintain that clinical level.
Andy & Chris (45:20.423)
yeah, yeah, yeah. Definitely.
Andy & Chris (45:28.925)
Mm-hmm. Brilliant. One of them. Yeah, absolutely. We’ve got to the time. We’ve got two very, very important questions that we need to ask you. The first one we have for you is you are a fly on the wall. Which wall are you hanging on? Who’s there? What’s going on? It’s the lorry driver. Yeah.
Rana Al-falaki (45:36.396)
And ta-da!
Rana Al-falaki (45:45.134)
you
Rana Al-falaki (45:48.654)
You know what, actually, it’s a little bit political about the current times, but I would love to be in the Oval Office with Donald Trump right now. Just finding out where on earth his thought process is at and if he actually genuinely makes his actions from care or maliciousness. It’s quite bizarre.
Andy & Chris (46:11.873)
It’s a very interesting time. I think the assumption is he has a thought process. Yeah, I think six months from now either people are gonna go He’s a genius and he’s actually, know, elevated the United States to a point where it hasn’t been for a long while or it’s gonna be absolute carnage and there’s gonna be a trade war which is gonna be Difficult for the planet and I don’t think we’re gonna know for six months But yeah, I agree. It would be very interesting
Rana Al-falaki (46:17.185)
Yeah.
Rana Al-falaki (46:21.741)
Hmm.
Rana Al-falaki (46:35.149)
Yeah.
Andy & Chris (46:38.367)
And the follow-up is you get the opportunity to meet somebody, sit down, have a cup of coffee, glass of wine, whatever your drink of choice is. or dead, you say? Yeah, you can sit down. Who would you sit down with?
Rana Al-falaki (46:50.05)
I’d actually bring two people together now. Can I do that? You know, they’re both spiritual.
Andy & Chris (46:52.457)
Okay. Greedy. Yeah, there are rules. Most rules are there to be broken anyway. We’ll break it.
Rana Al-falaki (46:57.952)
Exactly, it’s break rules. We don’t believe in rules. Definitely not. Not if you have value freedom. And it’s actually, it’s Robin Sharma and the Dalai Lama. So they’re not that different.
Andy & Chris (47:06.634)
okay. No.
Rana Al-falaki (47:09.452)
You know, Robin Sharma is the author of The Monk that Sold His Ferrari, right? So, and he was probably the first person I started, that’s what really got me into my personal development journey. And reading those books and on that part of that, because he talks about personal development, but in a beautiful philosophical, also spiritual way, which is very much how I approach things as well with a level of consciousness. And then of course, the Dalai Lama is the same. I’m just listening to his book.
Andy & Chris (47:11.531)
Yep.
Andy & Chris (47:19.029)
Right.
Andy & Chris (47:30.241)
Mmm.
Andy & Chris (47:34.945)
Hmm.
Rana Al-falaki (47:39.396)
that they’ve done with Desmond Tutu called Joy. And it’s just an absolute delight to listen to. And obviously I know all those principles. I’ve heard them all before, but I would love to get in a room with the two of them and be a fellow guru. It would be amazing.
Andy & Chris (47:47.553)
Hmm.
Andy & Chris (47:51.275)
Mmm.
Andy & Chris (47:54.731)
That’d be brilliant. Rana, it’s been an absolute joy. We’ve skittled through so much and I wish you well on it. think where you’ve moved to in terms of your career, you feel like the right person at the right time in the right place. It sounds like your own personal experience and what you’ve been through and what you’ve created feels like it’s turning up in dentistry at the right time and I wish you well with it.
Rana Al-falaki (48:20.162)
Thank you. Thank you. think, you know what, sometimes when, this is a good tip for any listeners who do have gone through negative life events or pain, it’s very hard to at that time to experience it and think there is a purpose and a meaning and an opportunity here. But if you look back a year, two years, three years, there will always be a reason why you think that has benefited you. So actually I really tried to do that now. If you’re going through anything, think what could the opportunity or learning be here? And of course in the, we’re, we’re in a serving.
Andy & Chris (48:33.845)
Mm-hmm.
Andy & Chris (48:41.163)
Mm-hmm.
Rana Al-falaki (48:50.096)
loving profession, right? So let’s start actually looking after each other as well. So yeah, everything I’ve been through has definitely given me purpose. So thank you so much for letting me share that today.
Andy & Chris (48:51.457)
Hmm
Andy & Chris (48:59.443)
No, it’s brilliant. It’s been good. good a reason. Absolutely. Thanks very much. Cheers. Keep well. Look after yourself. Ta-da.
Rana Al-falaki (49:04.044)
Thank you.
