Dentists Who Invest Podcast
Official Podcast of the Dentists Who Invest platform. Talking all things investing, money and finance with a dental spin. Have you ever wondered how you can grow your wealth and protect your hard earned money as a Dentist? We've got you covered. Featuring famous guests such as Andrew Craig, Edward Zuckerberg and Benyamin Ahmed we delve deep into EVERY aspect of finance to educate and empower ALL Dentists.
Dentists Who Invest Podcast
From Nepal To Wimpole Street with Dr Anil Shrestha
You can download your FREE report on how you can avoid financial mistakes as a dentist using the link just here >>> dentistswhoinvest.com/podcastreport
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What a journey Anil has had! From his roots in Kathmandu to becoming a pioneer in prosthodontics on Wimpole Street, this episode is packed with inspiration and practical wisdom. Anil opens up about navigating dentistry in 1970s Britain, the lessons he’s learned from managing money, and how he built financial stability through self-education (and a fair few mistakes along the way).
But it’s not all about cash flow. Anil shares his take on balancing a demanding career with what really matters—cherished family moments. He gives us a peek into his work-life philosophy, showing how he structures his practice to keep his values front and centre.
You’ll also pick up loads of practical financial tips, from using ISAs to staying steady through setbacks. Whether you’re a young professional or further along in your career, Anil’s story is a cracking reminder of the power of resilience and smart financial planning.
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Disclaimer: All content on this channel is for education purposes only and does not constitute an investment recommendation or individual financial advice. For that, you should speak to a regulated, independent professional. The value of investments and the income from them can go down as well as up, so you may get back less than you invest. The views expressed on this channel may no longer be current. The information provided is not a personal recommendation for any particular investment. Tax treatment depends on individual circumstances and all tax rules may change in the future. If you are unsure about the suitability of an investment, you should speak to a regulated, independent professional.
Maybe it might be nice to start off with a little bit of a bio about yourself, Anil, for the people who have yet to meet you. Okay, Okay.
Dr Anil:So, yeah, okay, we'll talk a little about philosophy, because that's quite important for developing a career, or a happy career in dentistry. I mean, I'm comfortable and I'm happy and things work around the way that I've made them. And it takes work, James, it really does. But you know my life's not perfect and I'll disclose a few things. But everyone goes through their own unique journey. Personally, I'll tell you a bit about myself.
Dr Anil:I was born in Kathmandu in Nepal and came from a privileged existence, I'd say. We lived until I was about five or six opposite the old royal palace in Durban Marg. If any of you have been to Nepal you'll know it's a protected area and I used to look over into the grounds of the old royal palace. Our family was in a well-established time. It goes back almost 300 years in Nepal, was in construction, finance, tobacco, import and export luxury goods, and my great-grandfather was jeweler to the royal family. And then dad, who was professor at Johns Hopkins, came to the royal family. Um and uh. Then, uh, dad who was professor at johns hopkins came to the, to the uk. Mom was university lecturer and, um, they decided to take me out to the uk and that's where I grew up from about the age of five or six and moved to semi-detached suburbia in 1970s Britain, which wasn't an easy time as an immigrant. But actually the thing is, James, I don't know whether I discussed with you, but I've always known I'm different, even amongst my own people. So the thing is that for me, from as early as about age seven or so, I became very comfortable with that, I embraced it, and that kind of reflects on my journey to where I am in dentistry and my relationship with money, which is presumably what the theme of this podcast is about, I suppose, because they're interrelated. So when you put into a different environment, people often misquote Darwin and say it's survival of the fittest. It's not. That's not what he said. What he actually said was it's survival of the species who adapt to a changing environment, and that's essentially where I was. So I changed to a different environment where I had to learn a completely new language and then, anyway, ultimately I went through education and got to Newcastle where I graduated in 92 as a dentist. So I've had a 30 year career.
Dr Anil:I suppose now, and like many of us almost all of us that are listening to this podcast what I understood was that, um, if you worked hard, you could achieve and we all have because to get into dentistry. What you have to remember, especially when it relates to finance, is that you were at the top five of your class at school almost consistently all of you and what we then do is we work in an environment where you should be very comfortable with your relationship with money, with the change environment. You may have come from a poor background, middle class background, wealthy background, doesn't matter. I went from privileged to nothing and I rebuilt everything from pretty much an immigrant background and you know I'm sitting here now. So I'm now a specialist in prosthodontics working in Wimpole Street.
Dr Anil:I took over from a very world-famous dentist, dr Michael Wise, who some of the older guys will know he was also the most expensive dentist in the world. I've been told that many times and I've done the due diligence. So I mean this guy, his work was beautiful and he did very well and he worked hard and he had a good life. He's still around and we all can. He had a good life, is still around and we all can. There's nothing wrong, James, with seeing other dentists doing well. What bothers me is the ones that struggle, and I don't think they should, which is one of the reasons why I'm happy to speak to you, because if anyone can learn anything from my mistakes I've made many then great, because we all have a story.
Dr Anil:And one of the first things I did was I adapted to change. So I adapted to coming to a new environment and when it came to making money, I realized that as dentists, we have the potential to earn lots. Now, lots of dentists will be earning anything from 40,000 to maybe about 1.2, 1.3 million a year or so working as individual practitioners. The more entrepreneurial ones of us will be in seven figures, with multiple practices, et cetera. And it's difficult. Because it's difficult and you're in the top five of your class. You taught yourself dentistry, you taught yourself science, you taught yourself everything to get through exams.
Dr Anil:I realized that I should be able to teach myself finance, and I was teaching myself finance pretty much from when I qualified, because there were independent financial advisors available, there were banks available. They all wanted your money. They all said, yeah, let's look after it. And I thought I thought, why? Why am I entrusting all this money that I'm making, even as one or two-year-old graduate, to essentially people Because you can do the background on them who were pretty much in the bottom 50% of your same class, who did I'm not saying they're all like this, I'm not saying they're all like this who did a course or a degree in financial management as an IFA for as little as six months? That's all it takes. You can look it up. Why are you entrusting your tens of thousands, your hundreds of thousands, your money that you're putting aside for your family for you to spend on whatever you want your watches? You're putting aside for your family for you for you to spend on whatever you want, your watches whatever, it really doesn't matter. And so I started to look things up, and one of the first things I did this is pre-Google was look on government websites or government sites, that, and pamphlets, essentially from comparing different interest rates at different building societies.
Dr Anil:I mean I was a consistent saver, James. Okay, I mean you know I, I have to tell you, I think I was discussing with one of your guys, um, on, on your course. He said, oh, you know what? You know how? How do you learn to save them so so, um, so well, or whatever? And I don't think I do. I just I was just consistent. You know, I've always been disciplined and I've always been consistent, but I've always had a vision. I've known where I want to be with with money, um, so I've had an idea of what money does. It basically gives you freedom to to, uh, live your life comfortably and to support your family, support all your loved ones. And you should plan from the beginning of your career to the end of your career when you start as a dentist.
Dr Anil:So I would, as a school kid, do things like I don't know, I'd have a paper round, I'd be working in shops, I'd be packing stuff, even when I was at university I'd have jobs, et cetera. Like I don't know, out of a paper round, I'd be working in shops, I'd be packing stuff, even when I was at university I'd have jobs, etc. Okay, but for me it it just made sense even from the age of about seven or eight, when I was doing my first bits of money making, um, to make, if I made a pound, I'd say 50p. I put it away because that's delayed gratification, I suppose. But we've learned that, we've all mastered it, because that's the reason why we studied so hard, instead of going out to play football or going out clubbing, whatever. Okay, we decided to put in that extra hour of study, etc. Okay. So if you can do that in dentistry, you can certainly do it in money.
Dr Anil:And then I started finding out what. I started to understand why I was paying tax. I started to look at different accountants, et cetera when I was paying tax, finding out what fees I was paying. And the thing that I didn't want to do was what I first experienced, which was sit with an accountant who was, quite frankly, a bit condescending and said, oh, you've got to pay this much, et cetera. And then they would talk a load of figures and I thought is gobbledygook, but I can teach myself. So the next time they did my peer analysis, I started asking questions and he could see that, oh, this isn't the usual question I get. This isn't the usual. You know, why am I paying this much, etc. Um, and I just started asking questions, basically, and doing my own research. Now it's so much easier. Now it's so much easier. Not only is it easy because you can look at this stuff on uh, on on google, etc.
Dr Anil:Okay, but, um, you've got people like yourself. Now this is like I say. This is one of the reasons why I'd agree to do this for you because I can see you're doing good for our profession okay, which is that you've got an empathetic listener who understands finance and you're building a team around you. From what I understand, I've met them, so I know these are good guys because, you know, I've only asked a few incisive questions and it's pretty clear that I understand what I'm talking about. They understand that I understand what I'm talking about and they're still open and so I would implore all of you, the young guys especially, going into looking at your finances, because there were a few people there. I only went to one of your invitation events just to see whether, quite frankly, you're full of shit or not.
Dr James:Well, you've got to do your groundwork right, and that's a good thing, that's exactly what I'm saying, James.
Dr Anil:Why wouldn't you, why would you trust all your money? That's a question to all of you that may be listening to this. Why would you trust all of your money, your tens of thousands every year, and just say, oh, my IFA deals with it, he's told me to invest in this, he's told me to invest in that, without asking a question? Because this is the money that you have established is needed to support your family, your kids, your school fees, your retirement, etc. So when I did ask you guys, they were able to answer, and I would hope that when you do establish your business, that you would be able to speak to the dentist that do decide to ask you questions or perhaps invest money with you or have their investments looked after by you, that they would have a clear understanding of exactly what you're talking about. If, if they do, okay, then and I know that's what you want, because that's what you've set, what you've, uh, what your goal was from the outset then, fantastic, and I wish I had somebody like that 30 years ago, because it would have saved me all this trouble. Nevertheless, we're here now, okay, and I'm telling you, okay, there are so many other dentists and we don't have to talk about money. Talking about money and comparing money is, it's just vulgar. You don't need to do that, okay. But um, there are many, many dentists I know them all personally, the ones that I'm thinking of okay that have done exceptionally well. They've understood money very well, they've understood how to look after their money very well, they've understood how to spend it very well, and i've've got no problems with them spending their money on hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of watches or whatever. If it gives them pleasure, great, ok, because they deserve it.
Dr Anil:Ok, now for me. You know I'm comfortable and I try to keep a low profile and, as you say, you know, a few people know me, but I've been around for a while and I've been around in some profile positions and things. So now I'm quite happy just sitting here in Wimpole Street and seeing my patients and I see as few as one patient a day and I've learned a lot from them as well, because the kind of patients I see I mean it's not only to the general public, it's a referral practice only and I'm always busy here, James but I see VIPs, high net worth and ultra high net worth, and do you know what I've learned from them. I've learned that the only thing they don't have is time. They don't have time and they want quality of life, which is why they want their teeth done, et cetera. And I'm able to.
Dr Anil:I mean, most of my work is full mouth rehabs and complex well, but I fit my whole working life around my personal. I fit my working life around my personal life and I fit my patients' appointments as priorities for them. So instead of them coming for several appointments, they're in for pretty much a whole day. So, like the guy from Geneva that came last week Last week was just incredible I had Monday lady from Guernsey, tuesday guy from Geneva that you'd know. Thursday guy came in from Cyprus Russian. And then Friday, let's see, on Friday, oh, lady from new zealand that you definitely know anyway.
Dr James:Oh wow, so this is, these are. These are international patients.
Dr Anil:At least 20 patients come from overseas, but all of them. What I've learned about them and money, okay, they, they're all high net worth. I'll try. Net worth okay is that they struggle for time. Okay, they struggle for health. And so if you go back to what you think is a difficulty with money, then when you first start making it because I've met so many dentists over the last 30 years, especially when I went to your course, when you were introducing people to what your ideas were in terms of finance, and they were people who just qualified I was very pleased to see that young guy from kings.
Dr Anil:Oh, my god, he'd only qualified literally a few months ago and he was trying to learn about money. I thought that was me, that's, that's what I should have been, that if I had that, that would have been me. Two guys that I knew that had been qualified, well-established, superb surgeons, at least two of them, one a specialist, another one, uh, from um. Well, anyway, you know who I'm talking about. But these guys, um, were saying, look, they've got two, three practices, so they've been established for a while and they're struggling with money. I thought wow, because they didn't quite understand the difference between different nuances of financial instruments as associates and as new practice owners, etc.
Dr Anil:Philosophy of money, which is that for me it's to be able to support myself and my family, um, comfortably, to to create those memories. Okay, because having money and just squandering it never been something. You know, I spend money but, um, it's stuff like holidays. I've got a six-year-old now and, um, you know, she doesn't wonder. Yeah, she doesn't know what watch I'm wearing, she doesn't know what shoe she's wearing. We look after her very well. She's very happy. The thing that is important to her is that we spend time with her. We go on fantastic holidays and things, and I make sure that my working life doesn't dominate my whole life. So for me personally, philosophy of life in terms of working, work-life balance, um, you may or may not know I'm, I've always been very disciplined.
Dr Anil:Uh, I get up at five o'clock every day. I finish my meditation journal by six o'clock. I work from six until seven, just after seven, seven, seven, thirty, seven, 30, seven, 30. I'm in the gym. And then what I used to do until a few years ago was I'd used to rush into work, to get in at nine o'clock, because I still had the old corporate mentality. I've got to see that patient. What for An emergency scale and polish at nine o'clock for 45 minutes or an hour, okay, or just a quick look. I thought, no, I'm going to start. I want to finish my training. I want to spend my 10 minutes in in the sauna. I want to actually get into work for 9 30, have my breakfast, read my stuff etc. Finish everything, uh, so that I can then see my first patient at 10. Um, all my patients are seen in intervals of an hour. Sometimes there's only one patient the whole day, sometimes not. You know we have breaks and stuff and I finish everything at five, but between 10 and 5 I just work.
Dr Anil:I've got an idea of what my hourly rate should be. I've got an idea of all my expenses, a very good working idea, okay, and there are people that will tell you how to calculate your hourly rate to pay your expenses. I mean, I've got a debt-free practice, but you know it took time, um, but I still know that you know there are huge expenses, um, and so I look forward, um, and plan ahead. So I plan to probably be working for another 15 years or so. So I've just signed, as of last week, a 20-year lease, which is unheard of here in this house. You know they're normally there five or ten years. But the landlord likes me a lot so I've paid the stamp duty, land tax on that and it all fits within my budget because I've planned it.
Dr Anil:So I'll work from nine sorry, I'll work from 10 until five and all I do is I focus on my work. Then I don't squander my time. I don't, because time is money. I don't waste my time, et cetera. But between 5 and 6, I'll do all my admin my letters, dictations, treatment plans, et cetera. 6 o'clock I finish. 6 o'clock till 7 o'clock, interestingly enough, I read finance. So from 6 in the morning till 7, currently I'm working on my Russian language B2C1 level so that I can go to technically I'm going to university in a Russian speaking country, but I do that because many of my patients are Russian currently, because of the conflict etc. They come over and they see me, but that's just something I'm working on at the um. Uh, and then from seven until eight o'clock I go back to the gym.
Dr Anil:So I'm training for a fourth dan for the next june, july, so it's. I've got a strength training program in the morning and then I've got a train. I do my kata's and everything in the evening, and I do that literally every single day. Weekend is slightly different, okay, I still train twice a day, um, but what I'm doing is I'm fitting my work around my life okay, and I've calculated what I need to be earning during that, during that day, in that week, in that month, okay, and so I've also calculated and I I'm not I'm not anal about it. Okay, if I don't make so much money one day, or if I decide I need some time off or something, or you know wife's book something, cause it's like pepper pig land, then I do it because that's more important to me than making an extra. Whatever it is, okay, it doesn't matter. Okay, because at the end of the day or the end of the financial year, I'll make money, and I know I do because my accountant prizes me of things and I can keep and I keep it.
Dr Anil:I'm very good with looking at my balance sheets. Now, all of these figures and things, okay, they shouldn't be frightening any of you guys, okay, especially the ones that are slightly anxious or, you know, wondering what I'm doing talking on this podcast about. Okay, I understand all my balances of all of my uh, assets, all of the different asset classes. I know what's in my bank account, personal account, building society accounts, um. I know when things have to be paid off. I know when bills are coming. I know things like when I'm planning to do mot.
Dr Anil:So anything from like 100 pounds to tens of thousands of pounds and I've got them. It's just the way I am. I plan everything and when I'm not making money, I know how much I need to compensate by, because I don't let money rule my life. But I've been doing this for such a long time that I've understood how to balance things, which is why, having a saving mentality, like even when I was very young, it really helped. So I'm just doing all the talking at the moment. James, I'm sure this is supposed to be a two-way conversation, but if you want me to carry on talking, I will.
Dr James:You know what. You know what we go with. The flow is is what we do on these podcasts, and sometimes I can chip in, and sometimes the guest is just in full flow talking about their wisdom whenever it comes to finance, and either is cool, and I think it was more of the second one rather than the first one today.
Dr Anil:So, yeah, completely wisdom or not uh, James, but you know, if you've gotten, if any of the listeners got anything from this, then great, uh, you know, that's the reason why there were some pearls in there.
Dr James:There were some pearls in there, 100, but yeah, no, I'm I'm listening intently.
Dr Anil:You were in full flow just then so, um, I remember one of the guys, uh, on your course, asked me. He said, oh, you know when, when, you know when did you get this? Um? Or you know when did you learn how to save and everything? I I said, well, I don't know.
Dr Anil:It was like a kind of a mentality I had which was, I remember, when I was seven and I went to the local corner shop and I saw these raffle tickets Remember, I was only seven Book of raffle tickets and a pound then was a lot of money, okay, I mean we're talking about in the seventies.
Dr Anil:And so I bought this book of raffle tickets and a pound then was a lot of money, okay, I mean we're talking about in the 70s and um, so, uh, I managed, I bought this book of raffle tickets I don't know where I got this bloody idea from, jason and then I bought all these little knickknacks and things that all the girls and the boys in my class were sort of playing about with, like little rubbers or, you know, pencil sharpeners or pencil different colors and things like this, bought a handful of those, bought everything, and then the next day I gave out these raffle tickets and I was selling them for 10p each, or 5p each, or 10p each, and there were a few prizes. Anyway, I came. Even my teacher, miss Birtwell, bought a couple of tickets.
Dr Anil:I must have made, I think, about eight or nine pounds or something, I mean it's nice solid and nine hundred percent return I saved literally 50 of it and put it away into my piggy bank this little china piggy banks that I had, okay, and the rest of it I then used to. I mean, I wasn't, maybe I bought sweets, comics or something like that, okay, but I just I just automatically thought I'm going to save some of this, don't know, you know, I'll save it for something bigger. So when I qualified and actually even when I was a dental student I was working three jobs I'd always do um, I'd always, every 10 pound I made, okay, I'd split it, okay approximately. So I put a third away. Three pounds for tax Remember, I wasn't paying tax then at the time okay, but I put it away Three pounds for savings, three pounds I'd spend when I qualified. I remember I think my first check was for about £2,000. And again, I just automatically split it. I had a building site account and I put about £333 into that or out of the £1,600 or whatever it was, and then a third into a tax savings account in my bank account and a third into my current account, or maybe it was all in the bank account. So I always had and I still do now I have a tax account, I have a savings account and I have a current account. So I always had and I still do. Now I have a tax account, I have a savings account and I have a current account. So I'm putting two thirds of it away and I wasn't aware of you know, exactly how much tax I needed to pay at the time, but it meant that I was always had enough money to pay my tax. So I just never mess with HNRC and with the IRS, with interests in states, and basically there's no point.
Dr Anil:You have a potential as a dentist to make more than you can imagine. More than you can imagine, and you should have those dreams, because you should also know exactly what that money should be. Not necessarily a figure, but, um, you should be planning as soon as you qualify okay. So, for example, I mean, there are certain milestones in your life like, um, even if you don't have a girlfriend or a boyfriend or whatever, you're not sure about getting married, you know that you're going to be married at some stage. Put away some money for that. Put away some money for a mortgage wherever you want to live. Imagine where you want to live. I mean, if you want to live in Wimpole Street. I mean, if I can do it, you can do it. If you want to live in Dubai or something like that, just put some money away for it. Put some money away for regular, tax-free investments. I'll come back to that. Put money away for school fees. If you imagine you're going to have one kid, save for two. If you imagine you're going to have two kids, save for three. Just put it away.
Dr Anil:It's easier to put it away when little bits come in and just be consistent. So I quickly learned that, um, um, I think you asked me about this, about ices and things, and one of the guys asked me as well how do you do it? I said it's very simple. Money comes in. So I have a limited company. Um, I put five thousand pounds every month into my pension, five thousand for my wife, because you have a maximum of sixty thousand pounds. So it just goes in every month. You don't think about it, okay, you, you build up everything else. I mean, you may not be able to put all that in straight away, okay, but you put away a certain amount that you won't miss for my ices. So I've had ices since they were first TESAs and then they became PEPs and then they became. So this is back in the early 90s and I've managed to put away money maximum amount every single year since I first qualified, which is about a year or two after they first came into existence.
Dr Anil:And I can tell you this is a tax free investment scheme, scheme which does not exist pretty much anywhere else in the world. It's unique. And iso millionaires do exist and you can take money out when you need it pretty much anything that's in your pot. And the funny thing is, if you then put it back again within one tax year for the 5th of april the following year, okay, it still remains within that wrapper. So you've got access to however much you put in there. Okay, and it's being invested in in into a stock market, which is where it should go.
Dr Anil:Really don't worry about these other types of prices, cash, eyes and things. They. They just don't have the um, financial, um, returns or returns, absolutely. So I I used to look after them myself. They just have my own portfolio. I still have a portfolio now. So I have one with and you can do it on a different basis. You know with our Greece Lansdowne. So I used to run all my accounts there and then they just became unwieldy as they became bigger and bigger. Cause I was looking at and I was keeping up to date with um financial papers. I mean, if you can read a cricket almanac and and you can read tennis scores and things okay, then you can definitely read the ft, okay.
Dr Anil:You should be able to understand the relationship between inflation and interest rates. You should be able to understand. If you don't understand any of this, you can teach yourself. It's very simple. It just takes a little bit of work. If you can understand pathology, you can definitely understand this, trust me. And you should be able to understand what happens when the Fed raises rates. You should understand how geopolitics affects stock markets. You should understand all the different risks factors and equities. You should understand these are things that you can teach yourself, because once you can, then you can talk to a specialist. You don't have to be the specialist. Then you can talk the same language as your IFA and you will find IFAs like I've found and like my wealth managers here and overseas who actually understand this very well, so they are talking the same level of language. It's like talking to somebody who's very well educated and understands what root canal is or resin, retained bridges or whatever so it's possible to do. And when you do that, then you have a better relationship with your money, because you know what your dreams are, you know what your potential income stream is, you know what your expenses are.
Dr Anil:Okay, you work out a balance of what kind of a lifestyle you want to lead and then you plan ahead for the future. So then I do what I call focus. So I have a dream, I then focus, I then plan, okay, and then I schedule it. So I plan, so I know what strategies I'm using. I then schedule it so it'll be in my iCal or like I'm looking at the screen now, and then in my file effects and then I execute it. If you don't execute it, or if you don't schedule it, then it's always going to be a dream. And then, if you don't execute it, then it's always just going to be a plan. That's in your diary, um, and so I've worked out where I want to be. So I know what my financial plan is and so far everything seems to have worked.
Dr Anil:But things don't always go to plan. I mean, without going into too much detail, I got divorced. I lost everything, and from that, instead of being despondent, I thought, okay, I'll look after them. I'm still very good friends with my ex-wife and my daughter and I just made sure they were well looked after Because, at the end of the day, as dentists, you know, we're used to especially guys, we, I'm sure the girls as well okay, but guys only because I know the kind of hobbles we lived in. You know you give me one room with a sofa and a desk where I can work, and a lamp, okay, and a tv and a little kitchenette, okay, you could put me there now. Okay, if everything fell apart and I know that within three, four years, okay, I could be back on my feet, living comfortable life again and all of you could do it.
Dr Anil:Ladies, um, slightly different priorities now at this, because you may have kids and stuff like that. It'd be harder. No one's life's going to be potentially easy. So you need to plan for contingencies. So contingency plans, for example, cash investments. You should always have at least one year's worth of cash access and you can do that tax-free as well and potentially make a small return of maybe up to about two percent.
Dr Anil:So, if you have an opportunity, start investing a tiny bit into premium bonds, get your maximum 50 000 in there. I mean, you could be winning money there literally every month, okay, and it'll just go into your current account. You could end up with one million pounds. Okay, one million pounds not really a lot of money, to be honest. You know it's'll make you. It'll pay off a lot of bills and things, okay, but work out. You know what's important to you and what figures are important to you, I suppose.
Dr Anil:But this is where understanding money and understanding your relationship with money brings you to a level where you become relatively comfortable and competent with something which we weren't actually taught you know as undergraduates, etc. And you have to learn it because this is part of what you are now. You're a business person, whether you're an associate or whether you're looking after your own practices, group of practices. You have other income streams, like I don't know a portfolio of properties, et cetera, that are bringing in revenue. But you're planning ahead. You're planning for everything from school fees et cetera, and then always have a plan X, which is when everything just becomes a disaster, believe it or not.
Dr Anil:Although I wasn't ever planning to be divorced, I had a contingency plan which meant okay, it worse comes to worse, I'll lose everything and I'll at least have enough to rent a crappy property somewhere where maybe student bill again, you know, you go back to after a few decades and you can still do it. And I just I used that for me personally as a point where I thought, okay, anything I've achieved now and I've been comfortable at that stage, I will eclipse. And so I had a new dream. I had a new focus, I had a new plan, I had a new schedule, I had a new way of executing it and I was just disciplined and I was consistent.
Dr Anil:And whether you think I'm successful or not, James, that you know, it really doesn't bother me. Okay, but I'm sitting here in wimpole street and that's not to say look at me. It's to say look, I'm actually giving you a glimpse into my life, which I don't many people um, just to say that as dentists, you have this ability to go from zero to hero, down to zero again and back to wherever you want to be. You're never going to be in a situation where you've got absolutely no hope Never, and especially when there are people out there to help you, like you, or you'll find other people. I'm really hopeful of what you're going to be doing, James, because I'll be gone in 10, 15 years. I'm really hopeful of what you're going to be doing, James, because I'll be gone in 10, 15 years that you'll have set up an opportunity and a service for especially the young guys so they don't have to go through the struggle, because it's hard enough.
Dr Anil:Being a dentist, you know you've got crazy patients, you've got crazy workloads and everything else and finding that you don't know how to handle money. Um, there's a way, basically. Um, so I don't know what else you want to hear from me, but that's. That's pretty much how I've lived my life and, as I say, you know I I'm very happy and comfortable with my work fitting around my life. My wife books all the holidays. She's got everything fits around. So my diary has school holidays, where we're going, et cetera. You know where she wants to go, like a Peppa Pigland or a play or something, okay, and then I fit my patients around it and if they want to come in at 9 o'clock and I don't start till 10, well, go somewhere else.
Dr James:Well, I think, just to touch on some of the things that you said just then, it's a big thing to realize in life. A lot of people make their life about the inputs, and really we do the inputs in life to get the outputs, so to speak, and one of the outputs is cash or remuneration. What are the inputs? The inputs are going to work right, so the part in between is leverage, as is cash or remuneration. What are the inputs? The inputs are going to work right, so the part in between is leverage, as in how we can get more out of each and every hour. So a big part of what's helped you create a life around your schedule is thinking about the part in between.
Dr James:How can I leverage my time? In terms of to touch upon what we said today, it's our cash flow, isn't it? And to do that, what it's meant? That the outcome of that means that you can go to the clinic for one hour a week. It's about investing in yourself, it's about investing in your skillset, it's about having a business, it's about having these things, so that what it means is you can live that life, and if somebody embraces that fundamental concept of leverage, well, they're in for some really good stuff whenever it comes to the world of finance and whenever it comes to the world of money. Anybody who's ever got wealthy or who's ever achieved really good cash flow in their life has embraced that concept, and this, what you're describing, is the outcome of that and why it has benefited you, which is amazing yeah, I, I, I really enjoy dentistry.
Dr Anil:I, I love what I do. I love seeing the patients. I see, you know, we have relationships with our patients. There are so many fantastic dentists out there. There are also so many fantastic dentists that struggle a lot unnecessarily, and one of the things they really struggle with is money, or their relationship with money and how to, how to look after, how to protect their, uh, futures, etc. And if you go back to what I said, you know, um, if, if you can get yourself through five plus years of university studying something as hard as dentistry, I mean you're literally in the top one percent of the population you can definitely teach yourself finance.
Dr James:Finance is not a foreign language that cannot be mastered you got the brains by, by, by sheer, by the sheer fact that you are where you are as a dentist with that doctor before your name shows that academically you're in the top one or two percent of the country. So if you, if dentists, don't have the brains to understand it, who does?
Dr Anil:is my question, and that's a very powerful belief you know, I think, is they just need a little nudge because they come out of dental school and it's not an easy environment. You know, I mean 20, 30 years ago, 30 years ago when I qualified. You know you're literally thrown out into practice and uh, you know we had an option of doing vt and then it became mandatory, which then became uh, df1, df2, etc. Okay, but you know you're practicing very much defensive dentistry now I, I know I'm I'm an expert witness and I'm a specialist in in rostow and you know I do second opinions for lots of things and I can see that the environment has changed dramatically. I spend a lot of time in postgraduate education. I used to spend a bit of time in undergraduate education and it's definitely become more hostile.
Dr Anil:Um, if, if, um, we can get these young graduates to come into the profession and realise that there is help for them and that they can actually understand and negotiate the financial seas, which can be quite tumultuous, then I'm very hopeful. I'm very pleased you're doing what you're doing, because you know it's it's unique. You can come across many different ifas. But all I'd implore your listeners to do is start questioning. I mean, don't be aggressive questioning, but ask really incisive questions.
Dr Anil:Quite honestly, the question you should be asking yourself is, like I did, why am I entrusting all of this five plus years, 13 years for me of hard work and all my money, and just saying, okay, you look after it and and you talking to me in a foreign language and being quite happy for me not to understand what's happening with it? Because you know what happens, you know you think, oh, why did I end up paying that much? Because, um, I mean, I've made mistakes. Uh, certain um investment funds I've invested in and I thought and I calculated, after over 10 years, if I just shifted my risk profile, or if they'd shifted my risk profile to high risk, which is what I wanted instead of oh, you don't actually want to be risking that much in that 10 years, I would have made an extra 210 000 pounds tax-free this is the thing right, and it's it's very much.
Dr James:They input into the computer that your profile, a profile of an individual. The computer spits out a number with not nearly as much context as there is in actual reality and then put, assigns you a portfolio which ultimately is inverted commas low risk.
Dr Anil:What that actually equates to is low volatility, and then that also generally means low returns yeah, yeah, and and they do it because they think, oh, I don't want to risk my job, or you know, I have to answer to my manager as to why do you put him in high risk? You put him in high risk because he asked you to and he can afford to lose that money and he actually wanted to make that extra return, which he would have done. So, you know, please do ask questions, please ask questions and if, quite honestly, if the IFA or whoever you're asking, even your bank manager or the bank manager's financial advisors within the bank which you may come across, tell you, oh no, you don't want to be doing that, doctor, yeah, ask them why.
Dr James:If they're uncomfortable with it, then just move. No-transcript. Or certainly has the opportunity to like particularly reading papers.
Dr Anil:Okay, you can read one paper and you can just. It might well, just because it's published in the bdj doesn't mean it's a definitive paper. If you're a critical, critical reader, okay, which you all are, we're all critical readers. We're trained as scientists, we're trained as dentists okay, about one particular technique and looking at the standard deviations on that and looking at the end number, et cetera.
Dr Anil:Okay, you apply the same principles to your financial advice. You think, actually, let me find out. You know you read other papers, you draw your own conclusions. Okay, because that's how you get your summary sheets and you know you, you learn and you get your position papers and things. Okay, so you do apply the same things.
Dr Anil:And then it becomes really interesting because then you start to understand that you have other instruments, other financial instruments, that you can apply. I mean, we're talking about basic stuff at the moment. This is really basic, low-level stuff that I'm hoping all of you readers will already be familiar with and are asking themselves questions about. Okay, but when you start then exploring different assets and different investment schemes and and understand, like I look at my ledger wallet and my crypto assets and I think, oh, that's interesting, and then you see that incredible volatility there, and then you see enterprise investment schemes and other ways of ameliorating your taxes and other ways of looking at things like your inheritance tax and looking at what lasting powers of attorney can actually influence in terms of looking after your parents, finances and things. So you start to become more and more educated in finance to relate to you and to relate potentially to like my, my daughter, my eldest daughter as well.
Dr Anil:Okay, I look after, I guide them, the youngest one even. That you know I'm basically preparing for. So you can map out a lot of this stuff. You can. It's all there. The information is there.
Dr James:And you know what. I think that that's a really powerful message to round things off on today, and you actually reminded me whenever you were talking just then, Anil, about two episodes that I've made on the Dentists Who Invest podcast, which very much cover the foundations of what somebody needs to know whenever it comes to money, whenever it comes to just starting out. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to go ahead and mention those two episodes now for anybody who wants to look them up. So the first one is episode 252, that's the basics of investing. That covers the fundamentals of money, which is what I know I was referring to earlier when we were talking about inflation, whenever we were talking about returns and guys, if you really really, really, really want to understand a little bit more about the nature of money itself and where it comes from insofar as its history, I can thoroughly recommend episode 303, which is some things that you should know about money. You can also find them on the dentists who invest website under the video section.
