Dentology Podcast with Simon Chard

Transcript – Dentology Podcast with Simon Chard

Episode Release Date – Monday 24 February 2025

Andy & Chris (00:01.073)
It’s always nice when we have a returning guest. We haven’t had many. No, we haven’t. It’s a rarity actually. It is. It is. It should be honoured, We are very honoured. Today we’re delighted to have a guest come back. We’ve got Dr Simon Chart joining us. I’ve got to take a big breath for this because there’s a lot coming. But Simon is the co-principal of Roedderley Lodge Dental Practice, co-founder of Parler, redefining oral healthcare for the next generation, co-founder of the Dental Growth Retreat, which we’re going to find out something about.

Si (00:09.102)
you

Andy & Chris (00:30.651)
past president of the BACD. Tick. And a key opinion leader for a variety of dental things. Tick. Well done sir. Welcome Simon. How are you? It was. was. How have you been keeping?

Si (00:39.266)
That was very efficient. Yeah, very well. Very well. I you can add to that farther of three under six as well. So that obviously throws a bit more of a spanner in the mix, as you well know.

Andy & Chris (00:53.265)
Yeah, yeah, you’re a grown family and you do it so well, you’ve always got a smile, you’ve always got time, you always seem to be really present and focused on whatever you’re doing. Sometimes a smile and a grimace though, they’re very similar. They blend. It’s my positivity, Simon.

Si (01:06.638)
That’s how you look at it Chris.

Andy & Chris (01:14.897)
But genuine, think that when you are incredibly busy, you have to. You have to really focus on the thing you’re doing, or else you just do loads of things to a mediocre level, don’t you?

Si (01:14.945)
Yeah.

Si (01:24.62)
Yeah, absolutely. mean, and that’s what it’s all about. I all of us, I’m sure, at times feel burnt out. We feel our stress levels are getting too much. But if you are doing things that you actually love and are passionate about, then I mean, we’re all on this call very lucky to do what we love, really, right? So it makes even the most stressful moments a bit more manageable.

Andy & Chris (01:32.688)
Yeah.

Andy & Chris (01:44.582)
yeah. Yeah, definitely.

Andy & Chris (01:49.713)
Absolutely. So we originally spoke back in March 2023. So nearly two years ago. It’s absolutely crazy. He looks exactly the same. He does. Yeah, we’re aging. He’s like the Peter Pan of the Tentastra. He’s 74. Something that was big back then that would be nice to get an update on was Parler and Dragon’s Den. That was a lot happening around that space. We’re now nearly two years on.

Si (01:59.822)
That’s your bad.

Yeah.

Andy & Chris (02:19.406)
I’d like to get an update generally on how Parler’s doing, but just reflecting back on that moment, because you got offered the money by the Dragons, but you didn’t accept it. Do you still stand by that decision?

Si (02:30.21)
Yeah, absolutely. mean, as I may have said before, so apologies if I repeat myself, but we were so early on when we went on Dragon’s Den, we’ve been trading for six months, we’ve done, I think, 50 grand worth of sales. It was really, it was too early on to be accepting fundraising and to lose 30 % of the business, which is what they were offering.

Andy & Chris (02:37.488)
Mm.

Andy & Chris (02:46.564)
Hmm.

Andy & Chris (02:51.066)
Yeah.

Si (02:51.746)
for 70 grand at that stage, it just doesn’t make any sense. I don’t think you’d ever want to give away that level of ownership of your business.

Andy & Chris (02:56.111)
Hmm.

Andy & Chris (03:02.704)
No.

Si (03:03.828)
so early on and in many ways to be honest the more and more people I speak to who have taken fundraising just like a dental practice owner who sells his practice to a private equity firm it can seem very good and the money can seem great and the opportunity can seem great doesn’t always play out that way so although I’m sure Tej and Deborah would have offered a huge amount of value I’m proud to say that we’re still going which is

Andy & Chris (03:14.767)
Hmm.

Andy & Chris (03:32.739)
Mmm. Yeah?

Si (03:33.712)
not that easy really in the grand scheme of things.

Andy & Chris (03:37.872)
Well, think the stats on startups are horrible. Wasn’t it 95 % of businesses go out of business in the first five years? Yeah, it’s huge. Yeah. Yeah.

Si (03:45.634)
Yeah, and then it goes on and on worse and worse every like five years, 10 years. So we’re now five years old as of this year. And we are, we’re still listed across Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, Boots, Cicado, Whole Foods, Boots. Our subscriber list is growing. And we’re pivoting, we’re sort of re-tacting, I think along the way as the commercial environment changes. I think where we started off being very much sort

Andy & Chris (04:12.474)
Mm-hmm.

Si (04:15.708)
We are a sustainable brand and an eco brand. Our raison d’etre continues to be to eradicate single-use plastic moral care, but we have moved, I think, much more into the wellness space now, trying to be a real advocate for oral health and the linkage with whole body health. Things like our probiotic mouthwash that we launched about 18 months ago now, that’s doing really well, becoming one of our top, top sellers across Sainsbury’s.

Andy & Chris (04:35.152)
Hmm.

Andy & Chris (04:44.152)
Hmm. Hmm. But you were real pioneers then, weren’t you? I think-

Si (04:45.578)
truth.

Andy & Chris (04:49.69)
Colgate fairly recently bought out of SLS Free Range, haven’t they? And it seems that you were kind of looking at doing this. Obviously, the company’s five years old, but I know that you’ve been thinking about this and been passionate about the oceans and trying to do something for way longer than that. But now it seems that the mainstream are kind of catching on. I mean, that phrase greenwashing is terrible, but you don’t want people who are kind of doing it because it’s a marketing angle as opposed to truly

committing to doing it because it is sustainable and it’s good for the planet. Dolphins on tins of tuna. Yeah.

Si (05:26.798)
Absolutely, and I mean the classic was, I won’t call them out specifically, but a certain large multinational brand putting their recyclable toothpaste tubes in non-recyclable outer packaging. It’s just a classic example of that. So I’m sure there’s many, good people in those companies and they are trying their best to do the best that they can. But the inevitable outcome is that they’re large publicly owned businesses on the whole. They are driven…

Andy & Chris (05:40.686)
Yeah. Yeah.

Andy & Chris (05:47.543)
Yeah.

Si (05:55.916)
by profits as we all are in the business. But I know that I make many, decisions that do not make sense financially. And I could make more money if I was willing to compromise on the quality of my ingredients, the ethics of my ingredients, the quality and ethics of my packaging. God, it’s easy to make things in plastic. I mean, it’s so easy, but these things last.

Andy & Chris (05:56.817)
Shareholder value. Margin driven.

Andy & Chris (06:18.126)
The world’s designed for it, isn’t it? Yeah.

Si (06:19.682)
These things last forever and they’re just piling up, piling up 20 billion every year. And that plastic isn’t going anywhere. Some of them might be recycled, but the big plastic count from last year showed that only 17 % of recyclable plastic actually gets recycled. The rest of it’s hitting landfill and it’s still plastic.

Andy & Chris (06:27.312)
Hmm.

Andy & Chris (06:38.192)
Only 17 % of recyclable plastic is being recycled. Not of all plastics. Frightening, isn’t it? That’s terrible. there some article, I read an article, something at the bottom of the Marianas Trench or something, which is the deepest part of the world. They found that plastic particles in the fish down there, I was saying. And it was like, flip.

Si (06:43.054)
Yeah, and they’re recyclable plastic, yeah.

Si (06:57.614)
Well, 90 % of us have microplastics in our bloodstream. So it’s just not a solution. look, at the end of the day, are we going to be able to persuade the whole world to change that? Clearly, with old Trumpy telling us that plastic straws are back on the agenda in the States, it doesn’t look like it. But all we can do is try, right? And at the end of day, it’s…

Andy & Chris (07:01.808)
That’s mad.

Andy & Chris (07:09.85)
Hmm.

Andy & Chris (07:16.672)
No, no. But we can do our bit. Yeah, that’s right.

Si (07:22.382)
I’m very, very proud of what we’ve created at Parla. I’m really proud of the brand. I’m proud of the difference that we’re trying to make. It’s no green washing. It’s no gimmicks. It’s just real quality ingredients, quality packaging. And we’ve got some really exciting.

Andy & Chris (07:31.408)
Hmm.

But people are buying into that as well, aren’t they, Simon? Because you’re saying you’re selling more, your subscriber list is increasing. But also you’ve just completed another funding round which is oversubscribed. So that kind of says that the dental community and other non-dental investors are seeing what you’re doing as being important work. And I know we make investments for returns, but people are still backing the idea and the principles that sit behind it.

Si (08:00.408)
Yeah, absolutely. I’m really excited this year, honestly. Fundraising is hard. That’s our first fundraising round and we’ve been bootstrapped up until this point. But it’s great to have some new blood in the team from a dental point of view. Samir Patel’s come on board, Tom Crawford Clark, Middy, loads of sort of top-top dentists who we know.

Andy & Chris (08:22.575)
Yeah.

Si (08:27.278)
We know well, obviously because it’s a small industry, but are also industry leaders in their own way. So it’s really exciting to have some new ideas and some new people to sort of help us shape the future of oral care because there’s still so much wrong with oral care. Yeah, I’m really excited for what 2025 will

Andy & Chris (08:38.66)
Mm.

Hmm.

And you have to keep evolving, don’t you really? know, with your probiotic, it’s just that you can’t just stand still. Otherwise, either someone catches you up or you run out and lose relevance.

Si (08:52.524)
Absolutely. Our uniqueness compared to those big boys, we’re never going to have the budget to outspend them, obviously. So we have to be super nimble, super quick. We have to be a speedboat to their big freight ship and sort of be ahead of the curve. So that’s really our focus moving forward.

Andy & Chris (09:03.76)
Mm.

Andy & Chris (09:11.62)
Yeah.

But also as a business, you’ve configured your business in a way to support your products as well because you’re now certified as a B corporation, aren’t you?

Si (09:25.804)
Yeah, and that was a year’s worth of work.

Andy & Chris (09:27.856)
Just for the uninitiated, what does that actually mean, Simon?

Si (09:32.204)
So B Corp is an accreditation that was set up to try and connect business and profits with purpose. So they want businesses to be a force for good and they believe that they can be. And they’re very, very strict as to…

the criteria that you need to achieve to be accredited by them. So much so that you can go into your articles of association and make modifications so it’s in line with people, planet and purpose. So that was about a year’s worth of work and take into account we were built as a sustainable, ethical, basically a perfect B Corp brand but it still took year to get it over the line. So it’s lot of work but we’re really, really proud of the few B Corp certified oral care brands.

Andy & Chris (10:11.374)
Mm-hmm.

Si (10:19.76)
in the world. We’re the only one in national grocery, so in the supermarkets. And yeah, it’s something that we’re really, really proud of. And I think it’s just a, we knew internally already that we were doing everything the right way, but it’s nice to have that sort of formal adaptation as well.

Andy & Chris (10:36.056)
Validation. Yeah. Yeah. And how does the life of a founder feel? you wake up every day and it feels like ground zero? Or do you see the gains? I remember years ago, my father having this analogy where he was saying that quite often life’s a bit like climbing a ladder. And it’s only when you stop and you look down and you realize how far you’ve come that you appreciate the movement you’ve had. How does it feel for you with five years under your belt with Parler?

Si (11:02.414)
It’s a roller coaster is the only way I can describe it really. mean, it’s got high, high highs and it’s got crashing lows and the frequency of those is pretty regular. And so the mental resilience piece, think obviously we talk a lot and we’ll talk about the retreat later on, but we talk a lot about mental health indensity and the huge prevalence of chronic stress and burnout. I would say probably one of the

Andy & Chris (11:17.444)
Hmm

Andy & Chris (11:23.3)
Hmm.

Si (11:31.022)
the sort of professions that almost challenges us in dentistry is startup entrepreneurs with regards to the terrible nature of their mental health status as a general rule. Because it is relentless, it is brutal, there’s no days off, there’s no holidays from a startup is something that we say internally quite regularly. And so at the end of the day, when you’re working with a small team and you’re relying on many, different moving parts, ingredients, manufacturers,

Andy & Chris (11:36.996)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Andy & Chris (11:50.713)
Yeah.

Si (12:00.976)
retailers, there’s so many variables at the consumer themselves, there’s always a challenge and I heard Gary Vee.

talking about it one time and he described it perfectly that running a small business is basically just fighting fires every single day and the sooner you can get your head around the fact that that’s normality and that the days when it’s easy are the sort of isolated incidents. That is the better way to look at it rather than the other way around a big surprise when stuff is challenging. Same for all my dental practice owners out there as well I’m sure. It’s a challenging time and certainly the last five years.

Andy & Chris (12:29.392)
Yeah, yeah.

Si (12:39.788)
has been a very, challenging time to run a business. Constantly increasing prices, cost of living crisis for everyone. So people are a bit tight with their money. Certainly since the sort of COVID bubble and the Zoom boom and all that sort of stuff has relinquished. It’s been challenging from a cost-based point of view across the board really.

Andy & Chris (12:41.305)
Mmm.

Andy & Chris (12:48.9)
Mm-hmm.

Andy & Chris (13:00.976)
I think you’re right. There’s not been much stability is there because you had COVID and then straight out of that we went into the recruitment crisis. Then falling out of that you then had rampant inflation. Ukraine me up. you had the war. Then most recently we’ve had the change of government in the US that’s potentially impacting the UK in terms of confidence and how people fear and whether the recession looming. So yeah, so there’s so many elements.

Si (13:24.492)
Yeah. I’m gonna tell you something here as well.

Andy & Chris (13:31.02)
by 0.1%. Yes, but to your point you’re right in a bit like what Gary V said there’s always going to be these external changes but you have to keep pushing on you can’t say well I’ll at this point we’ll just we’ll just stop you just keep pushing and the game going back to the funding now you just completed what will that enable you to do in pilot is that to build out the team is that is that where you need more resources to help you grow to the next the next stage

Si (13:57.57)
Yeah, I mean, as with everything, you’ve got to build all the different components of the business. So we’ve already brought in one new team member. We’ll probably bring in one more towards the end of the year. But the big focus at the moment is the new product pipeline that we’ve got in store. We’ve got some really exciting new products coming. So there’s a big focus on that. And then it’s really just driving awareness, really. mean…

For frame of reference, marketing in the sort of locations that we’re in, in the Boots and the Sainsbury’s and the Waitrose, it’s bloody expensive. And obviously they’re dealing with P &G and Colgate’s pockets.

Andy & Chris (14:29.454)
Yeah.

That’s right,

Si (14:34.414)
10 grand here, 20 grand here for a little wobbly thing that sits on the shelf seems like pennies for them, but obviously for us, like we’ve got to really consider that spend and see what ROI we’re to drive out of it. you need a decent amount of capital to be able to actually compete on those shelves. And then from there, we’ve also need like sort of clever strategic minds to work out how to get the most bang from our buck when it comes to the money that we’re spending because

Andy & Chris (14:38.885)
Yeah.

Si (15:00.876)
We can’t just spend it generically. have to be unique in our execution to compete with these big brands.

Andy & Chris (15:06.242)
Mmm. I think gorilla marketing. Yeah, I work out. Yeah where you should be so where Where would where do you see parlor like you’re five years in if we then kind of rotate and look five years out Where would you like to see parlor five years from now?

Si (15:24.312)
So as I say, I I think that wellness space and the beauty through health, as opposed to beauty through the Love Island crowd, is gonna be the new space that we move into. I think the days of big lips and overly filled faces and that sort of artificial beauty, I think that’s gonna go. And I think that the big, big focus is towards luxury wellness. And you see that already, I don’t know if you saw the Neko Health brand that launched recently from the founder of Spock.

Andy & Chris (15:27.673)
Mm.

Andy & Chris (15:34.095)
Mm.

Si (15:54.208)
Spotify where you can go in and you can have a full body scan and a variety of other tests with medical professionals, very much sort of longevity focus, wellness focus.

I think that’s gonna be the big growth space for the future. And for me, the phrase that keeps on rolling around in my head is I want Parler to be the wellness brand in dentistry. And I want Parler to be helping to advocate for the connection between the mouth and body. And that’s so well trodden in the literature now. But yeah, still many, patients have got no idea about the connection. And I think it’s the biggest…

Andy & Chris (16:21.776)
Mm.

Andy & Chris (16:30.503)
Yeah

Si (16:32.16)
It’s a double edged sword really in a positive frame of mind. We can improve the oral health, which obviously has dental professionals, that’s our aim. But then we can also improve the whole body health and we can use the whole body health as a carrot to get them to clean their teeth better and vice versa. So we can really work to improve the health status of people in this country and beyond. yeah, that’s my favorite.

Andy & Chris (16:40.537)
Yeah.

Andy & Chris (16:45.292)
Mm. Mm. Mm.

Andy & Chris (16:52.878)
Mm.

I think you’re, again, it’s quite pioneering work. I don’t hear many people. I mean, there’s this kind of isolated pockets. You’ve got Victoria Sampson with the saliva work and James Gornick’s just opened his optimal health practice, which is beyond dentistry. And Miguel Stanley in Portugal has been talking a long time about it, joining up. But, you know, I’m involved in the profession and I can only pick out a few isolated incidents of people. I guess you need more voices. It’s like a groundswell, don’t you have a sense?

Si (17:09.742)
Yeah.

Si (17:25.454)
Absolutely, all three of those people that you’ve described, Miguel’s a mentor of mine and a close friend, James and I have had many, many a conversation about this over the years. And Victoria is a good friend and friend of the brand as well. She was there on our launch day back in 2020 when we first launched. they’re all doing brilliant things.

Andy & Chris (17:25.809)
chain.

Andy & Chris (17:30.297)
Yeah.

Andy & Chris (17:34.104)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Andy & Chris (17:43.674)
Yeah.

they’re still isolated aren’t they they’re still they’re yeah yeah yeah

Si (17:48.48)
Yeah, as you know, the curve of adoption, we’re in that early stage, but it’s moving in that direction. And I think that’s only a positive. I’m sitting next to my vitamin D tester here in the clinic. So we do sort of point of care blood testing for our surgical patients to check their vitamin D levels and those sort of things. I think that’s going to be integrated into more and more in dentistry. There’s going to be companies that need to support in that. And there’s sort of

Andy & Chris (18:02.51)
Yeah.

Andy & Chris (18:07.28)
Yeah.

Andy & Chris (18:14.572)
Yeah.

Si (18:18.454)
a mindset shift I guess that dentists and dental professionals, hygiene therapists, the whole team need to get on board with.

Andy & Chris (18:26.384)
There was an article I think was on Yahoo or Yahoo, what do call it, about, I think it was something like the most missed vitamin that no one really thinks about. It was something like they were saying 22 % of people, I think it was, have inadequate vitamin D levels, mainly because we don’t eat enough and we don’t go out and get the sun and all that sort of stuff because people are just sitting inside. It’s fascinating really.

Si (18:43.18)
It’s way lower than that Chris.

Si (18:49.966)
The number of my patients that have low vitamin D levels is so high. It’s really surprising. And don’t forget vitamin D, we call it a vitamin, but it has so much more of an impact on the body’s systems than being a nice to have. It’s integral to so many of our immune responses. And yeah, it’s really something that people should be, if there’s one thing anyone listening to this podcast can take.

Andy & Chris (18:55.033)
Really?

Andy & Chris (19:03.919)
Hmm.

Andy & Chris (19:07.312)
Hmm.

Si (19:17.122)
get some, have a vitamin D3 supplement with K2. I use a sublingual spray from a company called Bare Biology and just start taking that every day. It’s really, really vital.

Andy & Chris (19:26.21)
Mm. Yeah. Fascinating. You mentioned earlier about stress in the context of being a founder, growing a business, and you related that into dentistry. You’ve fairly recently started the dental growth retreat, and I think there’s another one coming up soon. Were those two things linked in terms of stress and the modern work environment and creating this dental growth retreat?

Si (19:50.296)
Yeah, absolutely. mean, I’m a personal development obsessive and I have… I do.

Andy & Chris (19:56.521)
Are you getting counseling for that? No, just meditation.

Si (20:02.126)
And I’ve spent the last probably 10 years of my life optimizing every element of it, whether it be my health, my daily routine, my exercise routine, how I structure my working days. I’ve put a lot of time and effort and money into optimizing those things and had various mentors and paid health and wellness coaches over the years as well. And so it’s a real passion of mine. And the thing that really stimulated

Andy & Chris (20:09.904)
Mm.

Andy & Chris (20:30.702)
Hmm.

Si (20:32.08)
me to implement and to bring about the Dental Growth Retreat was that I saw the study from Dental Protection in 2020 which said that over 50 % of dentists are looking at leaving the profession for reasons of personal well-being. I’ve been lecturing for on mental health probably for I would guess since about 2016, 2017.

Andy & Chris (20:43.792)
Mmm.

Si (20:53.966)
And that’s a very important topic to me. And I thought, actually, this needs to go further than just a one-off lecture on mental health and the issues that we see, which is almost double the prevalence of mental health issues in our profession. One in 10 dentists have had suicidal ideation in the last year. Really shocking stuff. And obviously, we all know.

Andy & Chris (21:00.324)
Hmm. Hmm.

Andy & Chris (21:07.545)
Yeah.

Andy & Chris (21:11.012)
Mm.

Si (21:14.518)
friends and colleagues that we’ve lost over the last few years and it continues to be a problem. So I’m not going to, can’t solve everyone’s problems and nor do I claim to be able to, but what I thought I could do is actually just create a unique event, an in-person event, which I think it’s never been more important for us to have in-person events.

Andy & Chris (21:16.472)
Mmm. Mmm.

Andy & Chris (21:33.872)
powerful. Definitely, yeah.

Si (21:35.374)
So to have an in-person event, a couple of days where people could come away, they could give themselves the space they need to think about why they’re doing what they’re doing. Because coming back what we said at the beginning of the call, having purpose and direction and Ikigai or Plano Vida or whatever you want to call it, is so, important. And again, that’s in the research. If you have purpose, you are so much more likely to live a long and happy life.

Andy & Chris (21:51.568)
Mm.

Andy & Chris (22:01.934)
Mmm. Mmm.

Si (22:03.074)
rather than what I see so often in dentistry, people just following the crowd and just doing what everyone else is doing and not wanting to go outside of their lane and their channel. And so that’s why I think we see a lot of unhappiness in the profession because they don’t really know why they’re doing what they’re doing. They thought making more money would help them, but it doesn’t after a certain point. And again, that’s the literature.

Andy & Chris (22:13.008)
Mm.

Andy & Chris (22:20.794)
Yeah.

No, that’s right. It’s that old statum, isn’t it? If you’re not happy without money, you won’t be happy with money.

Si (22:29.282)
Yeah, exactly. I the bell says if you’re not happy with the coffee, you won’t be happy with the yacht. Which I think is great. So I wanted to create something that, as I say, gave them the space.

Andy & Chris (22:34.728)
Yeah, that’s true though, isn’t it? You need to create your own north, don’t you really?

Andy & Chris (22:44.368)
Mm.

Si (22:45.558)
and also gave them an opportunity to focus on the things around dentistry, build that resilience of body and mind so that when they do deal with the inevitable chronic stress that we all experience, either as clinicians and or as business owners, they were more able to weather the storm and feel sort of more stable when those situations presented themselves.

Andy & Chris (22:51.696)
Mmm.

Andy & Chris (23:04.4)
And also in your personal life doesn’t it? leaches out into your personal life. You know, can’t be one person here and one person there. It’s all joined up. Where do you host these events?

Si (23:17.912)
So the next one, which is coming up on the 19th to the 21st of March is again at the Wilderness Reserve in Suffolk, which is basically, I think it’s a five-star resort, but it’s a 15,000 hectares and they’ve got these individual sort of estates or residences on it. So we rent out something called the Chapel Barn Estate, which as by the name, there’s a big barn there converted, which is where the lecture is. And then it has its own sauna and steam room, swimming pool,

Andy & Chris (23:25.401)
Right.

Si (23:47.856)
It’s got its own wild swimming lake. yeah, so in March it will be chilly.

Andy & Chris (23:50.019)
Yeah, I saw that freezing. Yeah, I bet. So do you do wild swimming as part of the experience? you do wild swimming? How cool.

Si (23:57.998)
Yeah, absolutely. Yes, we go for a sunrise swim on the second day. And it’s very bonding. like, as I say, it’s, we start off, the first question I ask when we get there is, what are you most proud of in your life? And I think it’s a really interesting place to start. And the fascinating thing was, and I wasn’t really expecting this, but this was the first time a lot of these people have met, very, very different people, some young associates, some older principals, all sorts of people there.

Andy & Chris (24:13.456)
Hmm.

Si (24:27.95)
I think everyone reported the thing that they were most proud of was the thing that had been the most challenging in their lives. I thought that was such an interesting reframe of these really, really difficult things that we’ve all been through. We think we want to avoid those challenges and those really hard times, but yet when you ask someone to report back, what are they most proud of?

Andy & Chris (24:35.416)
Bye.

Andy & Chris (24:43.225)
Yeah

Si (24:48.81)
It’s that. I just thought that was really interesting. And again, people were I was really grateful. People were very, very open and honest about the challenges they experienced. And we really created a great bond and we have an ongoing WhatsApp group where we catch up and the feedback from all those individuals afterwards, whatever their goals may be to get healthier, to lose weight, to have a more balanced in their life. Some of them have tweaked their calendars, their working environments, where they’re working, who they’re working with.

Andy & Chris (25:11.674)
Hmm.

Si (25:18.824)
So loads of like really cool changes that will come out at the back of it and yeah I’m looking forward to the one in March.

Andy & Chris (25:21.188)
Hmm.

Did you find it hard to get people to think about what was proud? The only reason is we used to ask various questions to people in interviews and we’d say, what was your biggest success and your biggest failures? And it always used to amaze us that people could quite easily reel off their failures, but they couldn’t think about their successes. It was like, it was like really human condition. You feel that you’ve failed more than you’ve succeeded.

Si (25:51.574)
Yeah, well that’s probably true for most of us, isn’t it?

Andy & Chris (25:53.905)
It was really interesting. think in a way it’s just what you were saying that they’re proud of where maybe they’d struggled. Is the plan to roll this out as a program or is it always going to be in that location and select few events through the year? Do you see something that could turn into a full program nationwide?

Si (26:04.012)
Yes.

Si (26:16.206)
Um, I’m taking it one day at a time. I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s really a passion project for me more than anything else. Uh, obviously I’ve got my hands full with parlor and, still doing a few days of clinical work and running the practice and children and lecturing and all the rest of it. So, um, when, I told my wife, I was doing it, she was like, you’re absolutely mental. Um, but, um, as I say, I, the way I, the matrix I run my decisions through, uh, to what was on the retreat is.

Andy & Chris (26:19.05)
Mm. Yeah.

Andy & Chris (26:28.6)
children.

Yeah.

Andy & Chris (26:37.488)
You

Si (26:46.16)
through my life mission statement.

Andy & Chris (26:49.519)
Mm.

Si (26:50.786)
which is to do amazing things that I enjoy with people that I love that have the potential to change the world. So if it fits into that matrix, then I just do it. And I just, whatever it takes to get it done, I’ll get it done. And so with this, I couldn’t get it out of my head. The moment I saw that study, I was like, I’ve got to do something around this because it’s what I love to do. I love talking about my ice bath and my sauna and my red lights and exercise

Andy & Chris (26:58.832)
Hmm.

Yeah

Andy & Chris (27:05.306)
Yeah.

Andy & Chris (27:09.604)
Yeah.

Andy & Chris (27:13.952)
Mm. Mm.

Andy & Chris (27:19.504)
Mm-hmm.

Si (27:20.72)
and anyone that follows me on social media knows that’s pretty much all I talk about. I don’t really show many before and afters and smiles anymore, but that’s just where my passion is.

Andy & Chris (27:30.428)
Mm-hmm. I guess even if people don’t come to the retreat if it sparks something in them Yeah to go and do some further reading or you know Get themselves some help in a particular way of their life that they’re not that happy with at the moment That’s going to be a result because going back to what we were saying before about raising the awareness about the Connection between the body and the mouth the more that it can be shared openly about it the more it can help people It’s got to be a it’s got to be a good thing. Could you let us have a

link and we’ll drop it in the show notes as well so if people were interested they can find out some more information perhaps even join you in later in March

Si (28:00.418)
Yeah, sure.

Si (28:06.348)
March the 19th, yeah, we’ve got a few tickets left, so, take a quick look.

Andy & Chris (28:08.878)
But yeah, I quite like the idea of a summer growth retreat in Portugal by the sea That sounds quite nice And how did your own interest just come from just being curious about living the best life possible or have you found yourself in situations where You you may have been starting to suffer the early signs of burnout or stress has bit got too much for you

Si (28:14.85)
Yeah, it’s been discussed.

Si (28:37.292)
Yeah, absolutely. mean, not wanting to go dive too deep into my own personal therapy. But I’ve certainly got my own fair share of issues. I think we may have discussed previously about my sister had bone cancer when she was seven. We could have really rocked our family and certainly had some knock on negative impacts on the way I react to certain stimuli.

Andy & Chris (28:41.828)
Yeah.

Andy & Chris (28:53.87)
Yes, yes.

Andy & Chris (29:02.8)
Mm.

Si (29:03.53)
also was hugely instrumental in the amount of success that I’ve experienced in my career. again, a double-edged sword there. as I started to see more and more success, more and more opportunities presented themselves, as more opportunities presented themselves, my time got more and more squeezed. And so I think by that nature, I’ve almost been forced into optimizing my life for stability of mind and for efficiency.

Andy & Chris (29:08.174)
Hmm. Hmm.

Andy & Chris (29:21.488)
Mm-hmm.

Andy & Chris (29:30.617)
Yep.

Mm.

Si (29:33.376)
So things like waking up early, which I now view as one of the biggest changes, positive changes I’ve made in my life and working out, came as a result of the fact that I was running Parler and the practice and lecturing.

and I had a child and so I didn’t have any other time to fit this into my diary. So I thought, right, well, I have to do this because I value it so much. It’s vital for me that I do exercise every day and I need to get this extra work done and I’m working in the clinics, I think at that time, maybe four days a week. And so I need to wake up early so that I’ve got the time to do 45 minutes of work on parlour and then I can get my workout in and then I can get the kids to school and then get off to work.

Andy & Chris (29:49.946)
Mm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Hmm.

Yeah.

Si (30:18.576)
and see my patients. And so I think a lot of it came through just the outcome of the direction my life was going in. And now it’s just, I don’t think about working out when I wake up in the morning. It’s a completely autonomic habit that if I don’t do it, I’m like, I’m annoyed that I haven’t been able to work out this morning for whatever reason that is. But thankfully it’s pretty rare because I’ve got a gym at my house.

Andy & Chris (30:19.308)
Mm. Yep.

Andy & Chris (30:31.364)
Mm.

Andy & Chris (30:38.874)
Hmm. Brilliant. That helps. Simon, it’s a whistle stop tour, but it was great to get an update. Really good. Really, really good update on those things. But as you’ll remember from before, we can’t let you leave without asking you two final questions. So the first one is you’re a fly on the wall again somewhere. Where are you going to be and who’s there?

Si (30:52.654)
Hmm.

Si (31:00.206)
Well, think the first thing that comes to mind, I don’t know if you saw the tweet from Trump yesterday, not wanting to mention his name twice in the podcast, but he was reporting his phone call that he just had with Putin. And now they’re best mates and they’re going to solve all the woes together. I would have loved to hear how that conversation actually went. It must be fascinating.

Andy & Chris (31:11.408)
With Putin,

Andy & Chris (31:20.95)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, what was that conversation truly like? Yeah. Yeah. I was going to say Putin probably was busy and didn’t take the call. So Donald just decided that he’d say on his own, A very long one. Yeah, yeah. That will be very interesting. And you get your chance to meet somebody. You can sit down, glass of red wine, glass of whiskey.

Si (31:26.891)
It happened, I don’t know, but anyway, was in… Yeah! You the voice mail!

Andy & Chris (31:45.626)
cold milk, you’re drinking choices. probiotic shake, probably. that’s right. some kefir or something, yeah. Who you going to meet?

Si (31:59.002)
I think maybe I said Marcus Aurelius last time, so I won’t say that one again. So think I’ll probably, the first people to go to mind are my grandparents, to be honest. My grandparents who have all unfortunately now moved on to another plane. So I think if I could have another glass of wine with them, that would be, yeah, that would probably be who I’d choose.

Andy & Chris (32:12.388)
Hmm.

Andy & Chris (32:17.444)
Yeah, a big family dinner with them there. Yeah, organic one. Yeah, which actually links back to kind of, you know, purpose and why you do all the stuff you do. Yeah. You know, the people around us are the most important, aren’t they? Family and friends.

Si (32:21.134)
All

Si (32:25.922)
Absolutely. And I think, as business owners, it’s so easy. I loved, I think it’s from Sack Hill Bloom that I heard this, where they were talking about how…

up until your kids are 10, you’re their hero and they want to spend all their time with you but it also tends to be the time where we’re in grind mode and work mode and then you’re like when they’re in their teenage years I’ll be retired, I would work really hard or I’ll be slowing down a bit and I’ll be able to see them more then and then at that point they don’t want to see you so I’m very very cautious of my time and making sure that I see my kids as much as possible and even to be honest last night my daughter said to me

Andy & Chris (32:43.524)
Yeah.

Andy & Chris (32:50.661)
Yeah.

Andy & Chris (32:55.226)
They’ve moved on, yeah.

Definitely.

Si (33:04.034)
daddy, we barely see you. And Megan was like, obviously, I’m home every night. So they do see me, but just not as much as mummy. And I thought, maybe I do need to of tighten this up a little bit more and get some more time in. We’re always learning and growing and improving, aren’t we?

Andy & Chris (33:11.927)
Hmm.

Andy & Chris (33:18.015)
Yeah. So like a knife to the heart. Yeah. But the great thing is kids are brutal. They just tell you how they feel in that moment. And in that moment, that’s how you feel. Like you say, whether it’s right or not, occasionally it’s good just to make us pause and think, are we kind of getting it as right as it could be?

Si (33:37.579)
Absolutely.

Andy & Chris (33:38.381)
On that bombshell of timing, we should let you go, Simon, because I know you’ve got a busy afternoon ahead. Thank you very much indeed for your time today. It’s been really good. yeah, hope to catch you up with you again sometime Thank you, Simon. Always good to chat. Cheers.

Si (33:49.848)
Thanks lads.