Very Dental: Understanding Visual Learners with Dr. Ash Mark

[00:00:01] This is a production of The Very Dental Podcast Network.

[00:00:05] This is The Very Dental Podcast.

[00:00:17] Welcome to The Very Dental Podcast, where you'll find entertaining and relevant conversations with visionaries, clinicians, and your friends in the dental space.

[00:00:26] Now here's your host, Dr. Alan Mead.

[00:00:29] Very dental people, welcome to another episode of The Very Dental Podcast.

[00:00:34] I'm your host, Dr. Alan Mead.

[00:00:35] Joining me as a co-host for The Very Dental Podcast.

[00:00:39] He's been on Very Clinical with Zach and Kevin a bunch of times, actually recently too.

[00:00:43] Dr. Ash Mark.

[00:00:44] Ash, how are you doing?

[00:00:45] Hey, great, man.

[00:00:46] Thank you so much for having me.

[00:00:48] Super grateful to be here.

[00:00:49] I'm very glad to see you.

[00:00:51] I'm very glad to see you.

[00:00:52] You've been on the network a bunch of times, but I've never actually been able to talk to you.

[00:00:57] So Ash is, people may well know of Ash from YouTube.

[00:01:05] Ash is an educator, a dentist, an educator, but he's also kind of like a YouTube phenomenon.

[00:01:11] And if you've ever heard of the YouTube channel, All Things Dentistry, that's Ash.

[00:01:18] That's Ash.

[00:01:18] And I have to tell you, I know, I mean, I've seen a ton of the videos, but I don't know much about what goes on behind the video.

[00:01:27] I'm kind of curious about that.

[00:01:28] Yeah.

[00:01:28] So Ash, but before we even get into that, tell me a little bit about yourself.

[00:01:32] I know you're from Canada.

[00:01:34] You're from north of the border.

[00:01:35] Tell me about yourself and your family and all that stuff.

[00:01:40] Yeah.

[00:01:40] So you have a great voice.

[00:01:43] I gotta tell you, like you have a great radio voice or podcast voice.

[00:01:46] So good for you.

[00:01:47] That's amazing.

[00:01:48] And I'm super grateful to be here and shout out to Zach and Kevin, hair fryer.

[00:01:52] I love that.

[00:01:53] Yep.

[00:01:54] Yep.

[00:01:55] I love it.

[00:01:56] If you can, if you see it in person, it really, it's, it's really worthy of the nickname to be perfectly honest.

[00:02:01] Really?

[00:02:02] Yeah.

[00:02:03] Someday it's glory.

[00:02:05] Someday I'll be able to stand in the glory.

[00:02:07] That's right.

[00:02:08] Yes, sir.

[00:02:08] So, uh, I'm up in Canada and, uh, deep woods, Ontario where the mosquitoes will be happening soon.

[00:02:16] Oh man.

[00:02:17] It's a matter of time.

[00:02:18] Like they're probably, if you open your window, you can probably hear them getting going up there, man.

[00:02:23] Yeah.

[00:02:24] And, uh, so, and I'm a father, uh, very, you know, we're all proud fathers.

[00:02:30] So proud father of four children, three boys and a girl.

[00:02:34] And yeah, so it's 16 to double digits.

[00:02:39] Now the young one just turned to 10.

[00:02:42] Okay.

[00:02:42] I've been telling her she's supposed to go backwards in age, not get older.

[00:02:47] I get it.

[00:02:49] And that's it.

[00:02:50] And I'm just, you know, I'm a, I'm a dentist and I love what I do.

[00:02:53] So this is what I'm supposed to be doing.

[00:02:55] That's awesome.

[00:02:56] I don't know why, but it is what it is.

[00:02:58] So, okay.

[00:02:58] So father of three boys, 16 to, I don't know what the age, but first off, I have two boys, a 16 year old and a 14 year old.

[00:03:08] And they're a lot, they're a lot for me.

[00:03:11] Yeah.

[00:03:11] So I'm imagining two more and I'm, I, I can't, I can't imagine how you do it to be perfectly honest.

[00:03:18] Yeah.

[00:03:18] It's busy and everyone's in hockey and it's been a great, um,

[00:03:23] I think after two, I'll be honest, like after two, it's super busy.

[00:03:26] But then three, what happens is that I've learned to appreciate where the teenagers are going and now really appreciate and grateful for the younger two and really try to hold on to those ages.

[00:03:40] That's cool.

[00:03:41] I look at it.

[00:03:41] Yeah.

[00:03:42] Cause I know we all know where 16 is headed.

[00:03:45] Yeah.

[00:03:46] Yeah.

[00:03:47] It's funny.

[00:03:47] Cause okay.

[00:03:47] So my 16 year old, my 16 year old, uh, has autism.

[00:03:52] He's, uh, he's, uh, he, he's pretty close to a normal high school student.

[00:03:57] He's in some special needs classes, but honestly, academically, he's been kind of coming on in the last year or so.

[00:04:02] Like he seems to take it a little more seriously.

[00:04:04] He's an excellent, excellent tuba player of all things.

[00:04:07] He's like really good tuba player.

[00:04:09] He he's, he's naturally musical.

[00:04:12] Um, he's a blast to be around, but like, so the, the three of us went, uh, my younger one, he's, he just turned 14.

[00:04:21] Super into Pokemon go.

[00:04:23] So apparently you can get the right Pokemon eggs hatching if you walk.

[00:04:30] So we went, we went and just walked on one of the rail trails for several miles today.

[00:04:36] Right.

[00:04:36] Kind of right before we were recording.

[00:04:37] So I have no idea what it is.

[00:04:39] I think it's kind of like geocaching.

[00:04:41] I don't, I don't really play Pokemon go.

[00:04:43] It is on my phone because occasionally he wants to use my phone to do it.

[00:04:46] But of course it is funny how you can.

[00:04:49] I was telling someone else on a podcast, my life is their life.

[00:04:54] Right?

[00:04:55] Of course.

[00:04:55] Yeah.

[00:04:56] And, and, and I don't think people understand or appreciate if you haven't had kids and older kids, like you're talking to teenagers in particular, because man, the activities, there's just a ton of stuff.

[00:05:07] And it's like, I can't even actually thank God Jacob doesn't have that many activities yet.

[00:05:14] Cause Sean, he's got something going every freaking night and it's amazing to me how we can even pull it off.

[00:05:21] There's so much stuff going on.

[00:05:22] So a lot of dental travel that I would probably do if I could, I can't because there's always something going on with my kids.

[00:05:28] I can only imagine with four, it's even more now if, since they're all in hockey, do you do at least you get them to the same place for the most part or not really?

[00:05:37] No.

[00:05:38] And it's a lot of, and that's what I love about team sports is that sports are great because.

[00:05:44] Um, albeit I was, I never played organized hockey, but what I like about the team thing is that you can rely on other parents and it takes a long time to create those networks.

[00:05:53] But then once you have the network, your mood, you know, you're shuttling other kids around and then, uh, it really is a team effort.

[00:06:00] Uh, so, so yeah, we rely on a lot of other families, which is great.

[00:06:04] And, uh, connect with other people.

[00:06:07] It's really funny.

[00:06:08] The, the music thing.

[00:06:10] Um, so I, Sean, Sean doesn't like marching, but I, I grew up in the marching band and I played in college marching band and, and I love to watch him march.

[00:06:20] He, he marches with a Sousaphone.

[00:06:21] He's, he's like 60.

[00:06:22] He's bigger than I am.

[00:06:23] He's a big kid, but he really likes concert better, but there's just all, he's also in the jazz band, all these things.

[00:06:28] And there's all these different.

[00:06:30] I've been, I'm the social media person now for the music boosters.

[00:06:36] Oh, that's cool.

[00:06:36] Yeah.

[00:06:37] Yeah.

[00:06:38] Kinda it is.

[00:06:39] I feel like, I feel like literally I could put in more time.

[00:06:42] I can put in as much time as I do at my job, I suppose, if I wanted to.

[00:06:45] I'm also now that I'm the MC for the jazz and more concert coming up in April.

[00:06:50] I'm the, I'm so like, clearly we're getting kind of sucked into the music thing, which is totally cool.

[00:06:54] It's, it's fine.

[00:06:56] Uh, but it's just like, yeah, I mean, it's, there's, it's just a lot.

[00:06:59] It's a lot.

[00:07:00] And I will say, right.

[00:07:01] The parent networking is pretty good.

[00:07:04] It's pretty amazing.

[00:07:05] Yeah.

[00:07:05] Like in that, and you kind of get to know all the different kids and stuff.

[00:07:09] So it's, it's, I don't know.

[00:07:10] I, I, it's still kind of new to me as a parent, but it's, that's cool that you've got, you've got, uh, hockey and all the different kids.

[00:07:16] And so are any of the kids, how serious are they?

[00:07:19] Serious.

[00:07:21] Oh yeah.

[00:07:21] So yeah, so I've got, uh, yeah, a few, three out of the four competitive hockey players.

[00:07:28] So they're, uh, they're good.

[00:07:29] And, uh, they take it seriously.

[00:07:31] I mean, it's still for fun.

[00:07:33] No, we're not aiming for the end.

[00:07:35] Well, one, the third son, Michael, his dream, cause he's a third son trying to keep up with the other brothers.

[00:07:40] Of course his dream is to go to the NHL and that's fine.

[00:07:43] I mean, I had a dream.

[00:07:45] We all have dreams.

[00:07:46] So, you know, we'll try to help them help them out as best as possible.

[00:07:51] So, uh, but the, my daughter, it was really interesting.

[00:07:56] She did not want to play hockey until last summer.

[00:08:01] And so she's 10.

[00:08:02] So it wasn't until eight years old, cause she'd been dragged to hockey rinks.

[00:08:05] Her whole little kid, like ever hated it.

[00:08:10] Okay.

[00:08:10] We're going to go to so-and-so's game now.

[00:08:11] I'm like, okay.

[00:08:13] And then one summer she was hanging out at my house with my neighbor's kid.

[00:08:16] And she said, dad, I want to play hockey.

[00:08:20] I'm like, uh, okay.

[00:08:22] Uh, yeah, yeah.

[00:08:23] I'll get right on that.

[00:08:24] So, and then by the end of the summer, she's like, did you sign me up for hockey?

[00:08:27] Well, it turns out she wanted to play for a specific team.

[00:08:32] Just, she didn't really know there were two options in the area where they live.

[00:08:36] And, um, I go on the website and, uh, it's a full, oh gosh, are you kidding me?

[00:08:46] And I've wanted to do it, but they had, you know, I was like three months

[00:08:50] far gone in terms of booking.

[00:08:51] So yeah.

[00:08:53] And then, uh, so there was a local girls team and I was, you know, it took me a

[00:08:58] while to get the courage to say, Hey, listen, that's not available.

[00:09:01] Do you want to play with this?

[00:09:01] And she said, yes.

[00:09:02] I'm like, well, perfect.

[00:09:03] And then, so now she, her, she's second year of competitive and headed

[00:09:09] towards provincials for her age.

[00:09:12] So it's amazing.

[00:09:12] So she's come so far.

[00:09:14] It's great.

[00:09:15] It's so much fun.

[00:09:16] And girls is so much different than boys.

[00:09:19] Yeah.

[00:09:19] Yeah.

[00:09:20] I'm probably not as physical, but I mean, honestly,

[00:09:23] give them some time.

[00:09:24] They'll get there.

[00:09:25] Yeah.

[00:09:25] Well, they've got a new professional hockey women's league out and, uh, it's

[00:09:30] pretty intense, pretty intense.

[00:09:33] A few American teams too.

[00:09:34] Okay.

[00:09:35] So, okay.

[00:09:36] So the thing that Ash has that I want you guys to understand a little bit, uh, Ash

[00:09:42] has a YouTube channel, all things dentistry that has 150,000 subscribers.

[00:09:48] I always used to think I was kind of hot stuff having a podcast that had like 6

[00:09:51] million downloads or whatever.

[00:09:53] And the reality is, is like in podcasting, I have no idea what that even means.

[00:09:58] I know that I've been doing it for 10 years.

[00:09:59] And so it's one of these things where it's cool, but I saw videos on yours

[00:10:03] that are more than 12 years old.

[00:10:05] So you've been doing this for even longer than I have.

[00:10:08] Yeah.

[00:10:08] You know, and, uh, well, I mean, 12 years as a YouTube channel, you are OG in

[00:10:16] YouTube.

[00:10:16] I mean, for sure.

[00:10:18] Like YouTube, YouTube as a, as a thing, like it is now was just, it's just so

[00:10:23] different, but when you started.

[00:10:25] Yeah, you're right.

[00:10:25] And you know, that leads to the question, why did this happen?

[00:10:28] Right.

[00:10:29] And it honestly, so for, you know, what's funny is I was thinking about this

[00:10:33] before I was going to talk to you and it actually was going to be all things

[00:10:38] dental.

[00:10:39] So I'm, so I'm sitting around in my residency, this two year, uh, AGD

[00:10:44] residency in Fort Hood, Texas.

[00:10:47] So this, our NHL, um, dreamer, uh, was born in Texas actually in

[00:10:53] Killeen, Killeen, Texas.

[00:10:54] Yep.

[00:10:55] And, uh, after my first year residency, I was sat there and thought like, I don't

[00:11:00] want to go back through all my notes and have to relearn this through notes.

[00:11:04] Why don't I just record it?

[00:11:06] And I'd sit in these, so we'd have like my residency would be like three or four

[00:11:11] days of clinical than a day of sitting and listening to lectures.

[00:11:15] And I sat and thought about, there's so many simple things that we learn that

[00:11:20] somebody tells you that's life changing.

[00:11:22] Yeah.

[00:11:23] Like just do it like that.

[00:11:24] And you're like, why didn't I learn that?

[00:11:29] Whenever.

[00:11:29] Yeah.

[00:11:30] So I talked to my program assistant director and, uh, he's amazing guy, just

[00:11:36] retired actually.

[00:11:37] And I said, uh, could I, uh, video this stuff and then put it onto this thing

[00:11:44] called YouTube?

[00:11:45] And I didn't really, I mean, we knew what YouTube was.

[00:11:47] It was a little different, very different.

[00:11:49] Oh yeah.

[00:11:49] I mean, yeah, it just didn't, I think it was just, it was for putting videos on.

[00:11:53] Yeah, exactly.

[00:11:54] It was almost like it, yeah, it was nothing.

[00:11:56] It was people, people didn't like have careers as YouTubers.

[00:12:00] Yeah. Right.

[00:12:02] I think fair, fairly said if there were, there were not very many of them anyhow.

[00:12:05] No.

[00:12:06] Like you couldn't even make a thumbnail.

[00:12:08] Like I remember years later, cause I had to take a break cause it was getting

[00:12:12] crazy with kids.

[00:12:13] Sure.

[00:12:14] So, and, um, I remember the first, I remember clicking on a YouTube video

[00:12:19] with this huge, crazy thumbnail.

[00:12:20] It was not mine.

[00:12:21] It was like something else.

[00:12:22] I'm like, wow, they, how did they make their thumbnail?

[00:12:25] I remember just looking at that and thinking like, oh, I could actually do

[00:12:28] that with my own.

[00:12:28] And it was a slow, painful process to learn how to do that.

[00:12:31] But so the whole reason was one, three or four reasons.

[00:12:36] One to share this, the simple things I was learning with the rest of the world.

[00:12:40] That's all it was.

[00:12:41] It was just like, this is so ridiculous.

[00:12:44] I'm doing, I'm getting this education for free.

[00:12:47] Why don't I share it with other people?

[00:12:49] And I had this amazingly smart, intelligent people around me.

[00:12:53] So it was like, oh, let's do that.

[00:12:54] And then, uh, the second one was maybe my kids.

[00:12:58] Um, I don't know if you've ever thought about, so we're

[00:13:00] now in to a different generation with electronics and video, but I

[00:13:05] have no video of my dad as a kid.

[00:13:08] And that was before kind of crazy videoing everything of which I do.

[00:13:13] So it was like, oh, maybe my kids will look back when I was a kid and want

[00:13:17] to see what I looked like when I was in my early thirties, right?

[00:13:21] Right.

[00:13:22] Maybe we'll do it.

[00:13:22] Who knows?

[00:13:23] And then the third one was, I just don't want to read my notes and I

[00:13:26] just want to be able to click on something and watch it and then be

[00:13:28] able to reproduce that clinically.

[00:13:30] And that was about it.

[00:13:31] That's how it just started.

[00:13:32] And then that's it.

[00:13:34] Okay.

[00:13:34] I got, I got something for you.

[00:13:35] So, so I remember when I was in, I went to the university of Minnesota.

[00:13:39] I graduated in 1997.

[00:13:40] So it was the mid nineties.

[00:13:42] Yeah.

[00:13:42] I, my oral surgery rotation.

[00:13:44] First off we had, we had a didactic class, I think as

[00:13:47] sophomores of oral surgery.

[00:13:49] And I mean, you want to talk about, you want to talk about not understanding.

[00:13:54] Oh God.

[00:13:56] First off, you know, literally you just spent hours and hours in the,

[00:13:59] in the operative preclinic drilling class twos.

[00:14:03] And, and literally you're just like, you don't, why would someone take a tooth out?

[00:14:08] Why will I, we'd never seen tooth decay.

[00:14:10] We'd never seen, hadn't seen any patients clinically at all.

[00:14:14] And then we got an oral surgery class and they're telling us about taking teeth out.

[00:14:16] I didn't even know why, why would you take teeth out?

[00:14:18] I didn't know anything.

[00:14:19] I, so, but on top of that, you're reading a book that would explain

[00:14:24] to you how you, how to take a tooth out.

[00:14:27] Yeah.

[00:14:27] Right.

[00:14:28] And I'm thinking to myself, well, Hey, I mean, I, I guess I just

[00:14:31] need to read up on this stuff.

[00:14:33] We know.

[00:14:33] So I remember, I remember oral surgery rotation.

[00:14:35] I was, I think I was probably a sophomore still.

[00:14:37] I was observing and the guy would just yell at them to luxate, luxate the tooth.

[00:14:41] Don't put the instrument on until you luxate it.

[00:14:44] I didn't know what that meant.

[00:14:45] And luckily I was, how would you, how could you even describe what a luxate?

[00:14:51] Like, I don't even know.

[00:14:52] What are you saying?

[00:14:53] Like luxate, luxate.

[00:14:55] Exactly.

[00:14:55] Exactly.

[00:14:56] My thing is like, but then when everyone was really exasperated and sweaty and

[00:15:00] crying and the patient was over it, the surgeon would come in and he could get

[00:15:06] that thing out in two seconds, of course.

[00:15:07] But, but the thing was, he'd let you look at what he was doing.

[00:15:11] And all of a sudden you could kind of see, Oh, Oh, you mean push down and honestly,

[00:15:17] I'm not going to tell you that I, whatever it is immediately, but, but, but I saw

[00:15:21] a little bit of what he was doing.

[00:15:22] Mind you.

[00:15:22] I don't think I knew how to, how to luxate the ligament of her tooth.

[00:15:27] Probably.

[00:15:27] I'll bet it was 15 years into practicing as a dentist before I'm like, Oh, I get it.

[00:15:31] I get it.

[00:15:32] Once the tooth starts moving, then you can get an instrument on it.

[00:15:34] But if it's not moving, don't bother.

[00:15:36] You're just going to make things worse.

[00:15:37] You know?

[00:15:38] So on some level visual and, and, and not pictures, let's be perfectly honest.

[00:15:44] Pictures are relatively useless visual.

[00:15:47] Being able to see what someone is talking about while they're talking

[00:15:51] about it is incredibly valuable.

[00:15:52] I would say that frankly, dental school doesn't have a lot of application until

[00:15:58] you've, I mean, I, I got out of dental school not knowing what the hell I was

[00:16:02] doing because I'm thinking to myself, honestly, the tools that you have in

[00:16:06] YouTube would likely be better than dental school for most people.

[00:16:09] And I suspect you have a lot of followers that are in dental school because some

[00:16:14] of what you're doing is a lot of the basics that they're doing, but it's, it's

[00:16:19] a visual, it's an actual video and a visual of what, like I can watch someone

[00:16:24] do it in a closeup type video like that and understand a lot more about what's

[00:16:30] going on.

[00:16:30] We didn't have that 1997.

[00:16:32] There's nothing like that at all.

[00:16:33] Oh, I remember.

[00:16:34] So, so on some level, it's, I can understand why you have the following

[00:16:39] that you have because it's video of, of what you're literally, you know, it's

[00:16:43] basically reading the oral surgery text, except seeing a visual video version of

[00:16:49] basically.

[00:16:50] Yeah.

[00:16:50] Right.

[00:16:51] And for me, um, I think for me, for me, the, where we are now in kind of, it's

[00:16:58] obviously, you know, everything changes and I'm into endo whatnot, but for me, a

[00:17:04] lot of the thought that goes behind a lot of these videos is remind remembering

[00:17:09] when I didn't know and, and then trying to like not make it like I'm a, an F1 car

[00:17:16] racer, cause I'm not, I'm still driving.

[00:17:19] You know, a minivan, but I get from A to Z.

[00:17:22] Yep.

[00:17:23] I'm not doing it, you know, at 300 miles an hour, but the more important things I

[00:17:28] think that I'm trying to tease out are what's going through my mind and the

[00:17:32] thought process versus like, Hey, look at me.

[00:17:35] I did this.

[00:17:36] It's like, Hey, look at me.

[00:17:38] But in the process of doing that, this is what I'm thinking about.

[00:17:42] And some of the, some of the more like, um, uh, the, the cognitive thinking that

[00:17:48] like, and that I'm human as well.

[00:17:50] It's like, Ooh, I wonder what I'm like.

[00:17:52] Okay.

[00:17:52] I'm looking here.

[00:17:53] Like I I'm just literally, I'm in the process of, um, editing, voicing over a

[00:17:59] video, actually I'm trying to get out for a few other students that's essentially

[00:18:04] tracking for, you know, MB2 very complicated, but what are the thought

[00:18:09] processes in, you know, T's doing that procedure from start to finish?

[00:18:14] And I look back at just all the videos that I've watched because although I did

[00:18:18] go to residency and although I was taught and I was trained, I still watch some

[00:18:23] videos that were just phenomenal on that.

[00:18:26] And it's really, it's that process of, you know, I was actually just thinking

[00:18:31] about even before we talked to, before we talk just the visualization and actually

[00:18:35] even more of, sorry, I'm rambling on here.

[00:18:38] You're good.

[00:18:40] You know, part of what I'm trying to facilitate is literally just the

[00:18:44] visualization plus the thought process.

[00:18:47] So when somebody dives into something similar, they're like, Oh, I remember

[00:18:51] that image and maybe it's applicable here.

[00:18:56] Um, that's really all I'll do.

[00:18:58] One of the beautiful things about say social media or even like I was, I was

[00:19:02] big into dental town in the early two thousands.

[00:19:04] Of course.

[00:19:04] Yeah.

[00:19:05] Um, and, and one of the things that was really the best thing ever about dental

[00:19:10] town was that people could, you could, if you had a lousy day, if you had a really

[00:19:15] hard procedure, if something dumb happened, if something, um, I don't know.

[00:19:21] You name it.

[00:19:21] Everyone, everyone, everyone there could understand what you were talking about.

[00:19:26] Even if it wasn't like just, you were just describing, you know, this patient

[00:19:29] was a horrible rotten person or this tooth was rotated and I didn't know how

[00:19:34] to get the contact or whatever.

[00:19:36] Everyone that's done clinical dentistry understands that.

[00:19:40] And so what you're saying is that you're trying to get the thought

[00:19:44] process of when that stuff happens.

[00:19:46] What am I thinking?

[00:19:47] And how do I know what to do the next thing?

[00:19:50] Because unfortunately, not every, every procedure that we do is the same that

[00:19:55] we were taught on a type it on and tested on a type it on dental school.

[00:19:58] Like, in fact, as soon as we were pushed out onto the real world, you realize

[00:20:01] that none of it is like that.

[00:20:02] The reality.

[00:20:03] So you have to kind of constantly be evaluating this procedure

[00:20:07] against what you already know.

[00:20:08] And so you're talking about the thought process of dentistry as you do it.

[00:20:12] Absolutely.

[00:20:13] That's a huge deal.

[00:20:14] And, you know, I've been given the gift of, um, lots of practice, lots of mistakes.

[00:20:22] Right.

[00:20:23] And you know, I've, as I'm talking about this, what I'm cognizant of, so say for

[00:20:30] example, in a, for some, I don't know why, but for some reason I've had some

[00:20:36] students ask, can you put up 30 minute videos?

[00:20:39] I don't even want to watch 30 minutes of whatever.

[00:20:42] Right.

[00:20:42] But they, some have asked it and I'm like, okay, fine.

[00:20:45] Cause I love doing them.

[00:20:47] They are a lot of work, but like, yeah, sure.

[00:20:50] And what I'm able to do, what I find is that, you know, same with your

[00:20:54] podcasts, you'll see where people drop off and there's an average time, you know,

[00:20:58] the first 10, 15% of the video boom gone.

[00:21:02] So as I go further into the video, I'm allowed, I feel more confident to now

[00:21:10] vocalize some of the potential errors that are happening as we're going, because

[00:21:14] you know, it's not going to be medialized perhaps as much cause no one's going to

[00:21:17] make it.

[00:21:18] The only people that have hung in this far would want to know anymore.

[00:21:22] That's exactly right.

[00:21:23] It's exactly right.

[00:21:24] So that's what I'm.

[00:21:25] So that's where all it is.

[00:21:26] It's not the, you know, fly by night.

[00:21:29] Oh, I'm going to pick that out.

[00:21:30] Oh, that's so dumb.

[00:21:32] You, you know, whatever the negative comments, right?

[00:21:34] Yeah.

[00:21:35] Yeah.

[00:21:35] So I wait until a certain point and then it starts and I don't cognitively think

[00:21:40] it consciously think about it, but it just kind of slowly kind of like, Hey, I'm

[00:21:43] past that zone.

[00:21:44] I'll start talking about an incident that happened here or not so much as the video

[00:21:50] is going, but talk about another situation where that didn't work out as well as I

[00:21:54] wanted it to.

[00:21:55] Yeah.

[00:21:56] This is kind of where the situation led to.

[00:21:59] Um, because a lot of those things are really helpful and that's honestly what I

[00:22:04] love about not using YouTube for other very specific things like, you know, for

[00:22:08] example, your private Facebook group, you can then, um, with some level of

[00:22:14] confidence and S and no safety, you'll be okay.

[00:22:17] I can have, there's people not hunting to be in it, you know, to bully me or

[00:22:22] whatever you want to call it.

[00:22:23] There's so much, there's so much here.

[00:22:26] There's so much here that I want to talk about.

[00:22:28] Okay.

[00:22:28] So first off, okay.

[00:22:30] You and I are kindred spirits in the way that we are both content creators.

[00:22:34] And, and what you described is, I mean, your process is 10 times more complicated

[00:22:41] than what I have to go through because audio is so easy to like you and I aren't

[00:22:46] video right now, but I just do audio.

[00:22:48] So audio is so easy to edit and any other thing I can always edit things to make

[00:22:53] us sound really smart and perfect.

[00:22:55] Like, because there's no weird skips.

[00:22:57] Yeah.

[00:22:57] I'm telling you, you won't believe it.

[00:22:58] We're going to be, we're going to be amazing when I'm done with us.

[00:23:00] Really?

[00:23:01] Wow.

[00:23:02] I'm totally leaving that in.

[00:23:03] Okay.

[00:23:04] Editing, editing for audio is a piece of cake and video is much harder.

[00:23:07] And I mean, you have a skill set on that for sure.

[00:23:10] But how much pressure do you feel to feed the beast?

[00:23:14] Like I put out three episodes a week, every week and I have not failed, but yeah,

[00:23:20] but it's easy.

[00:23:21] Audio is easy by comparison.

[00:23:23] And mind you, one of those episodes is Kevin and Zach.

[00:23:26] Oh yeah.

[00:23:27] And then I do a monologue episode or we have a guy who does a student podcast.

[00:23:31] So I'm rotating this stuff in.

[00:23:33] So it's, it's easy and I've been doing it for a long time.

[00:23:36] The longer that you know, the longer you do it, the easier the editing becomes.

[00:23:40] So my question is how, how do you handle the pressure for, for to put content out

[00:23:45] there?

[00:23:46] There is none.

[00:23:47] There's none.

[00:23:48] No, you just, you put it out there when you get it done.

[00:23:51] Because what happens is, is because I have gone through iterations of that.

[00:23:55] I mean, I'm not like before.

[00:23:57] So I remember in resident, so in residency I would track, I mean, I was so busy, but I

[00:24:03] just tracked not views.

[00:24:04] Uh, it was like say five people watching, you know, like, okay.

[00:24:07] It'd be like three likes.

[00:24:09] And then you could see that the dislikes, I think at that time, like how many years

[00:24:13] ago?

[00:24:13] You know?

[00:24:13] So I remember tracking that.

[00:24:15] So it would make me feel terrible.

[00:24:19] Yeah.

[00:24:19] And so I just stopped looking and you know, that's pretty simple.

[00:24:26] And so I stopped looking at that.

[00:24:27] I stopped looking at likes.

[00:24:28] I mean, I'll glance at it like, Hey, we're above 80 or above 85% in terms of people

[00:24:33] liking the material.

[00:24:34] Okay, great.

[00:24:35] That's where I want to track.

[00:24:37] It doesn't, but I don't, fortunately I've been, I'm not doing it for that.

[00:24:41] I think what it is, it's really just more of a hobby.

[00:24:45] Yeah.

[00:24:46] What's crazy is that first off YouTube has, I'm sure you have tons of feedback on what

[00:24:53] videos do really well.

[00:24:54] What don't do you like who, you know, who's, what's getting more of there's the, the,

[00:24:59] the, uh, logistics in the, in the, in the numbers I get for podcasting is they're

[00:25:04] just, I know almost nothing.

[00:25:06] I know most of it.

[00:25:07] I don't know how long people hang in there.

[00:25:09] I don't know how many of that stuff where YouTube I know is pretty detailed about

[00:25:12] that stuff.

[00:25:14] It is, but I think, you know, you've really seen, um, I mean, I'm a YouTube

[00:25:17] content consumer.

[00:25:19] Uh, that's, I don't, I don't really, I don't really use Instagram.

[00:25:23] I mean, probably cause I'm old, but I don't use Instagram very much.

[00:25:26] I don't not tick talk like it's, it is what it is.

[00:25:29] I'm just, yeah.

[00:25:30] It's YouTube.

[00:25:32] Yeah.

[00:25:32] Yeah.

[00:25:32] It is what it is.

[00:25:33] So in terms of the metrics and stuff, I don't really track it that much.

[00:25:38] I just, I kind of see like in a dashboard says, you know, at percentage time people

[00:25:46] and most people dropped off and like, okay, whatever it's, it's more fueled by

[00:25:52] if I see if something happens.

[00:25:54] So really I'll tell you the process.

[00:25:57] Something happens.

[00:25:58] Something happens.

[00:26:00] I'm like, somebody can learn from this either good example or bad example.

[00:26:06] That's really where it comes from.

[00:26:07] That's it.

[00:26:08] And, uh, cause if you, I find for myself, uh, you know, I got a full time job, so

[00:26:15] I got four kids trying to, trying to make this like, it'd be pretty stressful.

[00:26:19] So it's gotta be more fun.

[00:26:21] I get it.

[00:26:21] And honestly, podcasting, the reason that I'm able to do the podcasting thing with

[00:26:25] the kind of schedule that I have is a takes less time for me to do what I do

[00:26:28] than what you do for sure.

[00:26:29] There's no doubt about that, but be, um, I I'm fast at it now.

[00:26:35] And I mean, I'm not even kidding.

[00:26:36] I edit, I edit as much stuff between patients.

[00:26:39] I edit when patients are getting numb.

[00:26:41] I do.

[00:26:42] I mean, like I, I just, I just run to my, I have a full setup at my office.

[00:26:45] I have a full setup at home.

[00:26:46] I can do it wherever it's so.

[00:26:48] And I always have kind of the schedule going on in the back of my brain at any

[00:26:51] point, but I'm, I don't know.

[00:26:53] I can literally, if, if someone said you have to put an episode out tomorrow, it

[00:26:57] has to be all new content.

[00:26:58] I could sit down at this microphone and record a monologue about almost anything.

[00:27:03] Uh, and I, I, some people might say, yeah, I can tell you're recording about almost

[00:27:07] anything, but a lot of times I'll just have, I'll just have ideas in the shower

[00:27:10] on my way to work or whatever, because I used to, I started with a blog.

[00:27:14] I used to write a blog back in the, you know, in the aughts, you know, and,

[00:27:17] and I always have, I'd have ideas and I develop them.

[00:27:20] Well, I have to tell you, it's easier to me to develop them on the microphone

[00:27:22] than it is to type my goal when I'm writing it.

[00:27:25] I go off on tangents that I don't go off on the microphone.

[00:27:27] That's a whole other story, but my thing is, okay.

[00:27:30] So first off you have to use a microscope, right?

[00:27:32] You're are you a smoke guy?

[00:27:35] Yeah, it's, uh, I use it for two reasons.

[00:27:39] Uh, one, uh, for the visualization and the light, my neck, my neck.

[00:27:45] Yeah.

[00:27:45] Oh yeah.

[00:27:45] That is an even with ergo loops.

[00:27:48] I don't know if you've tried ergo loops.

[00:27:49] No, I I've, I've worn them.

[00:27:51] I haven't used them clinically.

[00:27:52] So they were amazing.

[00:27:53] And I, a friend of mine had a pair, but it's still something on your head and

[00:27:59] it's still weighing down, you know, at the, at the front of your face.

[00:28:02] So for me, it's the detachment of anything to my head.

[00:28:06] I mean, I'm still using loops, I'd say maybe 2% of the time, but, um, I love

[00:28:12] most of the time though.

[00:28:13] So that's, that's really, I have a scope in every operatory and I don't, I don't,

[00:28:16] I'll bet I use a scope probably if I use it half the time I'm doing pretty well.

[00:28:22] So you're using it a lot then when did you start using a scope?

[00:28:25] Residency.

[00:28:26] So, um, we were forced, voluntold to use it.

[00:28:31] Okay.

[00:28:31] And, um, because that's really the only way you're going to use it.

[00:28:35] It's like, it's the learning curve is so painful and the, you know, um, I'm so

[00:28:42] excited.

[00:28:43] It's such a double-edged sword microscopes.

[00:28:46] You've got people that are like, oh, I want to use my, you've got clinicians that

[00:28:50] are eager to use a microscope and get better.

[00:28:52] Um, but what I find is that it, the same learning curve for maxillary teeth, you

[00:28:58] know, what we did, you know, dental school in, um, indirect vision took you, everyone's

[00:29:03] got a different learning curve to finally do their things.

[00:29:06] And now, you know, well, we just do take it for granted.

[00:29:09] Yep.

[00:29:09] The same for mandibular teeth with a microscope is that same learning curve.

[00:29:14] It is.

[00:29:15] It's, you know, so, um, that took a long time.

[00:29:20] Yeah, it did.

[00:29:21] Oh my gosh.

[00:29:22] The learning curve.

[00:29:23] I can say this for people that I have, I have some listeners that are definitely

[00:29:26] into the idea of scopes and I still think it's a worthwhile thing because I think

[00:29:30] some of the technology on scopes, including like various scopes and different,

[00:29:33] different movements, it's, it's not as bad as it used to be, but it is something

[00:29:37] it's there.

[00:29:37] There are plenty of people that get scopes and find themselves not using it.

[00:29:40] Oh yeah.

[00:29:41] It just, they just haven't, they just can't put the time in or I get it.

[00:29:45] And there are days where I'm using the scope and I'm like, screw this.

[00:29:47] I get, I'll get my matrix placed.

[00:29:49] I'm like, okay, I'm going to lose cause I can't, I can't take it.

[00:29:54] It, that's real life with it.

[00:29:56] And I mean, anyone who is able to use, I know a few guys that really don't use

[00:30:00] loops and only use the scope and God bless them, but I can't do it completely.

[00:30:03] But your point is, okay, the point I want to get to you're able to use, I mean,

[00:30:08] you're your video, definitely a lot of it comes through a scope.

[00:30:12] I can tell.

[00:30:13] And what's cool about that.

[00:30:15] My question is I've got multiple scopes where all I have to do is push a button

[00:30:21] or pull a trigger and it'll record everything.

[00:30:23] I still don't do it.

[00:30:25] I don't think it's crazy.

[00:30:27] It's like, I have everything set up in such a way that I can do.

[00:30:29] I just don't think to do it.

[00:30:30] Or I, or I'm like, oh, I'm not going to bother with.

[00:30:32] So are you recording everything?

[00:30:34] And then after you've recorded go, oh, that might be worthwhile doing or not so much.

[00:30:38] Not so much.

[00:30:39] It's a, it's kind of hit and miss just depends on what's going on that day.

[00:30:43] I'm glad you say that makes me feel a ton better.

[00:30:46] You know, I mean, a lot of this is just, I'd say just, I remember, you know, being

[00:30:53] a little kid and I wanted to make, this is not to sound esoteric or like a, you

[00:30:58] know, something like a bigger than it is.

[00:31:00] Like it was really to make dentistry different.

[00:31:04] That's really from a little kid.

[00:31:07] I think that's what fuels the desire even today.

[00:31:11] Just, um, you know, it is what it is and, uh, that's what just keeps the

[00:31:14] fuel burning or the flame burning.

[00:31:16] I don't know why.

[00:31:17] So that's that.

[00:31:20] So, okay.

[00:31:21] So knowing that this first off, if you guys have not seen what Ash does, well,

[00:31:27] I'll put a couple, maybe a couple highlights, uh, in the show notes.

[00:31:31] You can see, I mean, he's, it's not hard to find him.

[00:31:33] He's got a million videos and he's got restored.

[00:31:35] He's got tons of great endo stuff.

[00:31:37] He really focuses a lot on it, but he's got a ton of really

[00:31:39] good restorative stuff too.

[00:31:40] But the stuff that the thing I like the most is that your rubber

[00:31:45] dam looks like my rubber dam.

[00:31:47] Like, oh, it's a reality, man.

[00:31:49] Yeah.

[00:31:49] Yes.

[00:31:49] It's real.

[00:31:50] So here's the thing.

[00:31:51] Here's the thing.

[00:31:51] So much of, I mean, you say you don't live on Instagram and God bless you

[00:31:55] because it's a terrible place to be.

[00:31:57] Um, if you are a dentist and you're comparing yourself to Instagram dentists,

[00:32:03] it's, it's, it's bad for your mental health.

[00:32:05] Okay.

[00:32:06] Like, like, like the soft box, beautiful rubber dam placements.

[00:32:10] God bless those guys.

[00:32:11] They're amazing.

[00:32:12] But also that's not practical.

[00:32:15] That's not, that's not the kind of thing that you like, like

[00:32:19] Ash uses rubber dam, but his rubber dam looks like mine.

[00:32:22] You know, it's got shit all over it.

[00:32:24] It's got holes in it.

[00:32:24] And what are you like?

[00:32:25] Cause you know what?

[00:32:26] I'm working on a patient with that rubber dam and sometimes

[00:32:28] birds do crazy things or disc or whatever.

[00:32:30] You know, you're like, and I love that about your stuff.

[00:32:33] I love that because I can tell that you're not, you're not trying

[00:32:36] to be something that you're not.

[00:32:37] You're, you're a dentist working on patients.

[00:32:39] You're not, you're not creating it, the documentation.

[00:32:43] So you can like put it up there to be amazing like that.

[00:32:46] If you create the documentations, cause you want to show someone

[00:32:49] something that you're seeing.

[00:32:50] Actually, what's really funny.

[00:32:51] I don't know what holes you're talking about, but those, if there are three

[00:32:55] hole, like three or four holes in the rubber dam, those are placed very

[00:32:58] specifically because when I got my own endo done by a good friend of mine,

[00:33:03] John amazing ended on us, uh, he cut those holes in the rubber dam for me to breathe.

[00:33:09] Yeah.

[00:33:09] I didn't ask him to breathing is good.

[00:33:11] Like, and, uh, and, uh, I was like, wow, that's, that's freaking amazing.

[00:33:16] So I don't do it all the time, but man, what did, if you know, it's huge

[00:33:20] being under the rubber dam and you can't breathe and, and yeah, patients,

[00:33:24] patients, uh, patients tolerate it really well, but a lot of times you

[00:33:27] gotta, you gotta modify it, uh, in order to make it work.

[00:33:31] What I was, I'm, you know, I'm going to just find the one cause

[00:33:33] I thought it was a great video.

[00:33:35] It was like giant fillings or something like that.

[00:33:37] And it was, uh, it was basically, you had one of the purple flexi dams on

[00:33:43] and your dam was, I'm just looking for the very video I was talking about.

[00:33:50] It's it's the one right here.

[00:33:52] It's it's entitled.

[00:33:53] I'll put it in the show notes, huge fillings and new dentist must watch.

[00:33:57] Your dam placement is excellent.

[00:33:59] It's not that there's holes, it's just that your dam it's used.

[00:34:03] I mean, you've been working out a patient on it's 44 minutes long.

[00:34:06] This video it's amazing, but wow.

[00:34:08] Really?

[00:34:09] And your, and your, yeah.

[00:34:09] And your rubber dam, your rubber dam retainer kind of has junk on it.

[00:34:14] Cause you've been, you know, you've had materials all over like

[00:34:16] that's, that's what I'm saying.

[00:34:17] I'm like, I appreciate that because that's what mine looked like when I get done.

[00:34:21] You know what I'm saying?

[00:34:22] And I still, I still had good isolation.

[00:34:24] I still had, but it doesn't look as pretty as all these Instagram

[00:34:27] dentists, mind you, I'm a little bit more mental about the Instagram thing

[00:34:29] than you are, which is probably just means you're smarter than I am.

[00:34:32] But the reality is like, what's so great about your video is that it's all.

[00:34:36] It's real.

[00:34:37] It's all real dentistry.

[00:34:38] It's really well done, but it's all like, you're not trying to be something

[00:34:41] like, you're not trying to put on the special effects or anything like that.

[00:34:45] No, I find, you know, there's some amazing, I don't know how they get

[00:34:50] photos of it, like and how they have the time to ligate every single tooth.

[00:34:55] I'm not, this is not a negative comment whatsoever.

[00:34:57] It's just, I don't think I have the patience to do that and make it look

[00:35:02] freaking perfect.

[00:35:03] And I'm like, Oh my God.

[00:35:04] Like I think I've think about it like maybe once a year.

[00:35:07] I'm like, Oh, I should try that.

[00:35:08] And I have tried it and it doesn't work.

[00:35:10] I'm like, I forget.

[00:35:10] It's hard.

[00:35:11] I mean, it's really hard to do.

[00:35:12] Not only is it hard, I haven't been able to do it yet.

[00:35:15] Like I'll even on a re on a patient that's really patient with me.

[00:35:19] I still feel like I'm wasting their time.

[00:35:21] If I'm wasting time, that's exactly what I feel like I'm doing.

[00:35:24] And it's not even my time.

[00:35:25] It's like I'm wasting their time.

[00:35:27] They don't want to be in there any longer than they have to.

[00:35:31] They do not want to be there at all.

[00:35:33] Like zero.

[00:35:34] And yeah, you know, I had a, so I'm a, I will, I'm a grinder and, uh, and I hate

[00:35:41] the dentist.

[00:35:42] I literally hate getting mouth needles.

[00:35:45] Like it's, it's caused me to wait to have cracked teeth in my posterior for a

[00:35:53] decade.

[00:35:53] Cause I was waiting for one dentist or a good friend of mine and then, uh, could

[00:35:58] never connect.

[00:35:58] And then I was just waiting.

[00:36:00] And then finally I bit down on something and like, and yes, I were in Roxas on

[00:36:04] appliance like for 25 years now.

[00:36:07] And, uh, bit down like, Oh my God, the writing's on the wall.

[00:36:12] So I'll tell you when he was coming at me with that 25 long needle, I, you know, it

[00:36:19] was like, people don't want to be here.

[00:36:22] And the, the more, but so if I can make sure there is a different diatribe on a

[00:36:29] conversation I have, but if I can make this solidly numb, this is just from age

[00:36:33] experience and mistakes.

[00:36:35] Solidly numb, meticulous, but precise and efficient now fast, but efficient, which

[00:36:41] all takes, you know, it's taken so many years to get to that.

[00:36:44] That's what I'm aiming for.

[00:36:46] And if, you know, obviously anybody listening to this, who's been doing this

[00:36:49] for 20 years, they know they're like, okay, yeah, we're getting rid of, I'm not

[00:36:53] doing that procedure or not.

[00:36:54] I'm not adding that because it doesn't.

[00:36:56] The 2% return on investment in terms of that time is not worth it.

[00:37:01] Yeah.

[00:37:01] Whatever it is, you know,

[00:37:03] I like that.

[00:37:04] I love that because like there's a fair amount of like, uh, kind of shaming

[00:37:10] culture.

[00:37:11] If you're not doing it this way, you're not doing it right.

[00:37:13] Or you're like, there's a lot of, there's a lot of that in dentistry and the, and it

[00:37:18] depends on, and some people just don't care.

[00:37:19] They're fine with that, but some people are really affected by that.

[00:37:23] And so it's like, I have to be careful about careful about what we put on there.

[00:37:27] Like there are probably places in the world where if you didn't have your, your damn

[00:37:31] ligated the way they think you should, you're not doing it right.

[00:37:34] I'm like, you know what?

[00:37:34] There's people out there in the world that have to have dentistry done that are

[00:37:38] probably not that probably not the right office for them.

[00:37:41] You know what I'm saying?

[00:37:41] I appreciate, I appreciate, I would appreciate a dentist that's doing it the way

[00:37:46] you're doing it with the idea that, you know, we don't want to make this any longer

[00:37:49] than we need.

[00:37:50] Yeah.

[00:37:50] Right.

[00:37:51] It's just, but it's really, it's not, yeah.

[00:37:55] Okay.

[00:37:55] Yeah.

[00:37:55] I just, just watching that needle come at me like the horse needle.

[00:37:59] I'm like, Oh,

[00:38:00] here's another thing too.

[00:38:01] I've, I've had work done when I was not numb enough.

[00:38:05] Oh man.

[00:38:06] That was that same situation.

[00:38:07] And the dentist, the dentist was just like, I'm almost there.

[00:38:10] I'm almost there.

[00:38:10] And I'm thinking, okay, here's the thing that, okay, we got it.

[00:38:14] We're not doing it that way again.

[00:38:15] I made it through it this time, but, but if I'm not numb enough and you're almost there,

[00:38:19] you're still stopping, you're taking the off and we're going to make sure I'm numb

[00:38:21] enough.

[00:38:22] Cause I'm not doing that again.

[00:38:23] Like I, I, I, that, that sucked.

[00:38:25] And so I am, I am the guy, every patient that is worried about being numb.

[00:38:30] They want to be in my chair because I won't work on them if they're, if they're not

[00:38:35] profoundly numb and I will stop the procedure and not do it if I can't get them numb

[00:38:40] enough.

[00:38:40] And I know that sounds like a lot of guys that were getting a thing done.

[00:38:43] I'm like, yeah, it's awful.

[00:38:44] Patient in it where I wasn't numb enough and that sucked.

[00:38:47] That was not great.

[00:38:49] I totally get that part of it too.

[00:38:51] Okay.

[00:38:51] So before we talked about this, before we went on and I got, I got a, it's just funny

[00:38:56] cause it's, it's true.

[00:38:57] So you do a ton of endo education.

[00:39:01] We'll make sure that the links to he's got, I mean, he's got online courses and private

[00:39:06] groups and everything.

[00:39:07] You can, it's a, it's relatively inexpensive, really good courses with a bunch of, I

[00:39:11] mean, Zach has been all over these things.

[00:39:13] I've been talking about it for years and he's got new course out now.

[00:39:15] We're going to put all the links in the show, but he's known for endo ashes.

[00:39:19] But here's the thing.

[00:39:20] We were laughing a little bit before we came on because endo is one of the

[00:39:25] procedures that is given up by general dentists very often.

[00:39:31] Actually, I have given up endo and then come back to it multiple times in my

[00:39:35] career because I just felt like, you know, when endo is good, it's the best.

[00:39:41] Oh yeah.

[00:39:42] It's bad.

[00:39:43] It is, it is brutal.

[00:39:46] Oh, the story is you're like, and I'm not saying that people should or shouldn't do

[00:39:50] endo having a microscope honestly makes a big difference with endo too.

[00:39:53] But the reality is, is like, I think endo and maybe implants too are the kind of,

[00:39:57] it's hard to dabble in those things, right?

[00:39:59] Like it's hard if you're not getting the reps, it's a really hard procedure

[00:40:03] to, to, to continually do well.

[00:40:06] You know, it's, it's one thing if you're talking about interiors with the

[00:40:09] relatively, it's a whole other thing when you're, you know, when you've got,

[00:40:12] so endo is something that you can't really do a little of very effectively.

[00:40:16] What do you think about that?

[00:40:18] Yeah, you're totally right.

[00:40:18] So what the beauty of endo apart from the absolute difficulty is that it

[00:40:26] didn't come for me, it's, it's a beautiful, um, especially at the beginning.

[00:40:32] Well, at the beginning of your career, you just want to get away from pretend

[00:40:35] teeth and extract the teeth and do real things.

[00:40:37] I'm fully cognizant of that.

[00:40:38] Like I'm done with that.

[00:40:40] I need to get patient experience, but then you, you deal with enough

[00:40:43] patients where it's like, Ooh, these are complicated situations.

[00:40:47] Yep.

[00:40:48] And then I don't know what happens.

[00:40:50] Then you kind of go into different CE things, but the beauty of endo is that

[00:40:54] you can do it without a person attached.

[00:40:56] Yeah.

[00:40:56] Yeah.

[00:40:57] Good point.

[00:40:57] So what I love about it is that you can, it encompasses, you know, restorative

[00:41:03] because you're, you've got a drill in your hand and you're practicing your

[00:41:06] your, um, precision and I'm not even a precision person, but when we think

[00:41:11] about it, your, your hand, eye coordination, your manipulation of just

[00:41:15] the burr, the way it feels, the depth, all of these things can be encompassed

[00:41:19] on an extracted tooth, which then furthers your skills in restorative,

[00:41:23] especially those freaking class twos on an upper second molar.

[00:41:28] Yeah.

[00:41:30] What?

[00:41:31] So the extracted teeth and then what, um, trying to get the reps in, I mean,

[00:41:36] no one wants to do this, but if you want to get better and you want to do it, not

[00:41:41] so much at a fast pace, but you want to get better at it, it's, it's extracted

[00:41:46] teeth, it's breaking, it's, it's, it's, it's releasing yourself from trying to

[00:41:53] make it perfect and extract the teeth to then starting to break things and

[00:41:58] understand how these things work, these files.

[00:42:01] Yeah.

[00:42:02] And that gives you more confidence to be like, oh, I pushed that hard that time.

[00:42:06] Probably I'll do this or whatever it is.

[00:42:08] Right.

[00:42:09] That's in part of, and that's unfortunately, you know, who has the

[00:42:13] time in their practice to, you know, at the end of the day, crack out three

[00:42:18] extracted teeth and hammer away at them.

[00:42:19] Like, yeah, no one does.

[00:42:21] Yeah.

[00:42:22] But that is such a speedy way to, uh, to, to getting better at

[00:42:27] endo cause it is reps.

[00:42:28] It literally is only reps.

[00:42:29] You can have reps, but it doesn't have to be on patients.

[00:42:32] That's sort of beautiful.

[00:42:33] It's unbelievable.

[00:42:34] And that was the emphasis for the, for the first course that I started was

[00:42:38] like, you can just do this, put this off.

[00:42:40] I had a package.

[00:42:41] I think it's still like a packaged, very simple.

[00:42:44] You can have it on your desk.

[00:42:45] You just access your teeth and then all you need to do is access a three

[00:42:49] teeth in the operatory, make a mess for just that moment, say that hour,

[00:42:53] have those three teeth done your access.

[00:42:55] And then you can just whittle away on a desk without, you know, um, you

[00:43:02] know, cordless or even a corded handpiece, whatnot, just there.

[00:43:06] Yeah.

[00:43:07] I, the funny thing is too about that, I have to tell you, I have this,

[00:43:11] this cool, uh, wireless, uh, it's connected to an iPad.

[00:43:15] It's the, it's the dense by Sirona fancy schmancy wave one thing.

[00:43:20] And it's what's really cool about it is it's got a little, it's got a little.

[00:43:25] I don't, it's an indicator as to how much stress the file is

[00:43:28] under at any given moment.

[00:43:29] Right?

[00:43:30] So it's like, so it's in a course you're hesitant to let it go do any stress at

[00:43:35] all, and I just thought about this.

[00:43:36] I'm like, you know, I ought to do is get some extracted teeth and see how much,

[00:43:39] see how, see if I can get that baby to spike and see what it's going to do

[00:43:41] with these heat treated files.

[00:43:43] Yeah.

[00:43:43] It's like in the story is if you don't know, you don't know it's an interesting,

[00:43:50] it's an interesting concept.

[00:43:51] And of course then you could, at that point you could actually really get to

[00:43:54] know your files a little bit better.

[00:43:56] Yeah.

[00:43:56] A hundred percent.

[00:43:57] And you know, there's a different, the hardness of plastic blocks is night and

[00:44:02] day to T so you can, you can whittle away on the plastic blocks you want, but it's

[00:44:06] not giving you that same tactile feedback as natural teeth.

[00:44:10] So, but it's a pain in the butt to go and do that.

[00:44:13] Right?

[00:44:13] Yeah.

[00:44:13] Yeah.

[00:44:14] It really is.

[00:44:15] Yeah.

[00:44:16] You got to know you got to either do a lot of surgery on teeth that you're not

[00:44:20] sectioning into bits.

[00:44:22] You know, honestly, I'm sectioning, you got to know some surgeons who like to get

[00:44:25] teeth out in a whole piece.

[00:44:26] That's what you need to do when you need to throw them a, throw them a really good

[00:44:30] Christmas gift and see if they can collect teeth for you.

[00:44:32] And that's the trick.

[00:44:33] I mean, I used to do that all the time.

[00:44:35] I don't bug them.

[00:44:35] I should do that again.

[00:44:36] I'm going to do that again.

[00:44:37] I'll get in touch with all my, my, uh, surgeons.

[00:44:40] Tell them to hang on to some teeth for me.

[00:44:42] Yeah.

[00:44:42] Right.

[00:44:43] So I forgot about that because I remember, you know, 20 years ago it wasn't really a

[00:44:47] lot of Ridge preservation rocking.

[00:44:50] It was just like, boom, out of comes that's that.

[00:44:51] So yeah.

[00:44:53] One piece.

[00:44:53] So now I completely forgot what are you talking about?

[00:44:55] Exactly.

[00:44:56] Yeah.

[00:44:57] It is true.

[00:44:57] You're it's, it's hard to do endo on root tips or it's hard to do endo when

[00:45:02] you've sectioned it into five pieces, which is the reality is when I'm doing

[00:45:05] extractions, I, I get that handpiece out pretty quick.

[00:45:08] That's been, that's been my thing.

[00:45:10] So it's fair to, to do surgery and not expecting not, not with the intention of

[00:45:15] every tooth being the perfect endo.

[00:45:18] Yeah.

[00:45:18] Right.

[00:45:19] So those surgeons, they, they don't, they work pretty fast.

[00:45:22] So I'm thinking maybe that's going to be the key.

[00:45:24] Get know a couple of surgeons who are a little brutal in their, uh, in their

[00:45:27] delivery and then, and then they'll have, they'll have nice whole teeth for you to

[00:45:31] work on.

[00:45:31] I like that.

[00:45:32] I like that.

[00:45:33] Yeah.

[00:45:33] So like you back to your point, like it is, it is really, it can be a confidence

[00:45:39] crusher or absolute confidence builder and it could be one or the other.

[00:45:46] Endo.

[00:45:47] So true.

[00:45:48] I mean, I think, I think, uh, I think probably surgery on some level can, or,

[00:45:52] uh, surgery and particularly implants can kind of be the same thing, except I mean,

[00:45:57] I, I, I, there was a time when I was placing implants, it was a short time.

[00:46:01] There's a time I don't do it anymore.

[00:46:03] I don't have a CT.

[00:46:03] So until I get a CT, I'm not going to be doing any of that stuff.

[00:46:06] I, and I kind of limit the endo for that reason too.

[00:46:09] I gotta get one of those, but I dunno, it's just one of those things where, yeah,

[00:46:12] there's a lot of things that you can spend your time on that, but you need the

[00:46:17] reps in endo and I think you need the reps in, in implant stuff and that's

[00:46:21] sometimes hard to get.

[00:46:22] It is hard to get.

[00:46:23] Yeah.

[00:46:23] So, yeah, so that's a, so I think my perspective on endo is, is bringing it

[00:46:30] to, um, that it's not a perfect ninja hole.

[00:46:36] Yep.

[00:46:37] Cause that's not what, uh, that's not, that's reality for an F1 car racer.

[00:46:43] Yeah.

[00:46:43] But for the minivan driver, you know, we're going to get in there.

[00:46:48] We're going to not blow the whole thing out, but we're going to, um, make it so

[00:46:53] that it's accessible for those who want to continue down the road of, of endo and

[00:46:58] be successful and be predictable.

[00:47:00] I think that's part of the problem I've run into is, um, marketing.

[00:47:06] We've all run into marketing, um, especially wave one, the beauty of what I do not to

[00:47:12] drag this on and I'm grateful for your time is that I'm not sponsored.

[00:47:15] So I'll be it.

[00:47:16] I do love wave one.

[00:47:18] What I hate about it is that it's marketed as that single file.

[00:47:22] Yeah.

[00:47:22] And it's, it is not like it is far from that.

[00:47:26] I like it because there's a variety of reasons.

[00:47:30] It's great for lots of things and, but it's not a single file.

[00:47:34] And what I've come to learn is that it's hard to unwind that from dental school

[00:47:40] for newer dentists to be like, Hey, it's not that way.

[00:47:44] So I want you to have predictable outcomes the first time, not the

[00:47:50] third or fourth time, the first time.

[00:47:52] So we're going to open the, and that's really kind of what I teach is this.

[00:47:56] I'm gonna teach, I'm like a storyteller.

[00:47:58] That's you said educated beginning.

[00:48:00] It's more like I'm storytelling.

[00:48:01] It's like, we want predictable outcomes the first time you're in there.

[00:48:06] And that's that.

[00:48:07] So you can watch Instagram with, you know, tiny accesses, tiny little,

[00:48:14] tiny file finishes, tiny this, but they've got gentle weight.

[00:48:17] They've got lasers.

[00:48:18] They've got this, they've got that.

[00:48:20] 90% of general dentists do not include myself.

[00:48:23] And that's kind of where, uh, that's kind of where the storytelling goes.

[00:48:26] It's just to make it predictable and accessible for the minivan driver.

[00:48:30] Yeah, no, that's, I like that.

[00:48:32] That, that analogy works for me because I, and so many of us aspire to, or there

[00:48:37] were are marketed to that we're going to be F1, but you know what?

[00:48:40] I don't think our patients need us to be that way either.

[00:48:42] I think, I think most people have a, most people in regular practice, they don't need

[00:48:45] that, they need, they need the minivan more than the F1 for sure.

[00:48:49] Predictable and care like caregiving, predictable numb.

[00:48:55] Numb as hell.

[00:48:56] Yeah, exactly.

[00:48:58] That's it.

[00:48:59] It's all true.

[00:49:00] It's all true.

[00:49:01] Okay.

[00:49:01] So here's the thing I'm going to put every link I can find in the show notes.

[00:49:05] Cause if you guys don't know Ash, you need to get to know Ash.

[00:49:08] Um, he's got, he's got courses.

[00:49:10] He's got just, he's got so much video.

[00:49:13] You could watch it for, you'd watch it for years and he cares.

[00:49:16] He puts, he puts a lot of care into what he does.

[00:49:19] I don't, I still don't know how you do it with video, honestly, with as much as I,

[00:49:22] I edit audio.

[00:49:24] I don't know how you can, how you do it.

[00:49:26] It's amazing.

[00:49:27] I appreciate that dentistry.

[00:49:29] I've wanted to try getting somebody else to do it, but it's just, I

[00:49:39] can't believe you still edit your own stuff.

[00:49:40] I'm like, you know, so, um, I have a Mac book.

[00:49:45] I'm working on a Mac book as we speak right now.

[00:49:47] And I just updated it and I used to use final cut and there's a few things we do.

[00:49:53] And then CapCut came through from a Tik Tok and that's been, it's not more

[00:49:59] efficient, but there's more things I can do with it and it's great.

[00:50:03] Um, but it's still, it's just stop and go.

[00:50:08] And, uh, it's, it's, uh, I love the beauties.

[00:50:13] I love doing it.

[00:50:13] So that's, uh, I do it while we have, uh, kids get dressed for hockey.

[00:50:18] So I'm sitting actually in my car, fitting around for like 20 minutes.

[00:50:21] And then I got it.

[00:50:23] I get it.

[00:50:24] When you've been doing it for a long time, it's much easier for you to just do it

[00:50:28] than to explain to someone else what it should be done.

[00:50:29] The other thing is I've always thought is like, how can someone who's not a

[00:50:32] dentist know if this is a conversation that dentists are going to want to listen to?

[00:50:36] So on some level, I feel like I have a responsibility to like, you can, you

[00:50:40] could send a bunch of really bad recordings or bad topics to someone.

[00:50:44] They could edit it beautifully, but it'd still be garbage because

[00:50:47] it's not good content.

[00:50:48] You know?

[00:50:48] It's like, so on some level, this is, I'm talking for audio.

[00:50:51] On some level.

[00:50:52] That's why I've always felt like I'm just going to do it.

[00:50:54] It's just as fast for me to do it at this point.

[00:50:56] And, and I, I know, I know where I'm trying to get to.

[00:51:00] Yes, that's exactly the story you're talking about too.

[00:51:02] You know, exactly.

[00:51:03] You know how the story is supposed to go and you know how to.

[00:51:06] And, and you know what to keep in and whatnot to keep in.

[00:51:08] And that's a big deal.

[00:51:09] It's a huge deal.

[00:51:10] It is.

[00:51:11] And I've, I have tried a few times and I'm just like, Hey, forget it.

[00:51:14] Like I'm just going to, each video goes through three or four iterations and

[00:51:23] then different editing, whatever, and posts and stuff, and then boom, off we go.

[00:51:28] Yeah.

[00:51:29] And there's nothing better than when you hit that button and it's gone

[00:51:32] and it's out in the world and it's yeah.

[00:51:34] I love that.

[00:51:35] That's pretty great.

[00:51:36] Yeah, it is.

[00:51:36] It is a, it's such a different world than when we went to dental school.

[00:51:40] Like entirely different.

[00:51:41] I don't know, although just not to drag this on too long, I don't know if it's

[00:51:46] better though, because I think the problem you had mentioned with Instagram is that

[00:51:50] it's easy to get funneled into like, Oh, I want to try that.

[00:51:56] Yeah.

[00:51:57] You know what?

[00:51:57] I, you know, like I remember when I was in, you remember too, your first

[00:52:03] five years of dental practice.

[00:52:04] Wow.

[00:52:05] Yeah.

[00:52:05] Like you're, it's a fire hose and you're just trying to stay alive and not, not

[00:52:10] trying to, there was no nothing to achieve.

[00:52:14] Like there was nothing visually to like, Oh, that person's doing that.

[00:52:16] It was no such thing.

[00:52:17] Yeah.

[00:52:18] Yep.

[00:52:19] Uh, you just talk to your friends and like, Oh, well that didn't go so well.

[00:52:22] You always hear kind of like, it was just people talking about their, you

[00:52:26] know, what issues they had and whatnot.

[00:52:28] And unfortunately now it's like, if you try this simply to do this and

[00:52:32] you'll get to this result.

[00:52:33] And I don't know.

[00:52:35] I it's, I wish it were that simple.

[00:52:37] I really do.

[00:52:38] That's the beautiful thing about the podcast podcast was essentially I was

[00:52:42] inspired by, you know, the, the shop talk when you're having dinner with, with

[00:52:47] your friends after you took a course all day or you were at a meeting all day and

[00:52:50] you know, everyone's telling horror stories about what, you know, and that was

[00:52:54] essentially what I wanted the podcast to be just, Oh, that's cool.

[00:52:57] And just talking about dental stuff and, and, and their experiences in a lot of

[00:53:01] cases.

[00:53:02] And, and I do think that on some level, social media has sort of killed that a

[00:53:05] little bit because everyone's sort of, um, it's more about, it's more about the

[00:53:09] brand they're putting out there or the influencer status that they're trying to

[00:53:12] be.

[00:53:12] And it's less about, you know, I don't know.

[00:53:15] I, I, it's, I think that there's still place for this stuff, but I mean, people

[00:53:19] are going to appreciate what you do because it's, it's, it's real, you know,

[00:53:23] it's beautiful, but it's also like, it's what, it's what it looks like in, in their

[00:53:28] operatory too.

[00:53:29] And that's, what's really cool.

[00:53:30] You know, like, is there, but my question to you, I'm not trying to be facetious.

[00:53:34] Is there a dental influencer?

[00:53:36] Like seriously?

[00:53:37] Oh yeah.

[00:53:37] There's yeah.

[00:53:38] It's dental.

[00:53:39] Yes.

[00:53:40] There's, Oh my God.

[00:53:41] That's a whole other podcast.

[00:53:42] I don't recommend you do it, but go on Instagram.

[00:53:45] I can send you five of them and you'll, you'll go, Oh my God, I didn't realize

[00:53:49] that this existed.

[00:53:50] You don't, it's best that you don't know this Ash.

[00:53:52] It's best that you don't know.

[00:53:53] Okay, good.

[00:53:53] I will stay away from it.

[00:53:55] I recommend highly that you do.

[00:53:56] That's I'm, I'm, I have regrets.

[00:53:59] Let's just say that.

[00:53:59] So, well, wrap this up.

[00:54:02] I got to get my kids to bed.

[00:54:04] Yeah.

[00:54:04] Well, that's really funny because my daughter's calling.

[00:54:06] There we go.

[00:54:07] There you go.

[00:54:07] Ash, thank you a ton for being on.

[00:54:09] I'll put all the links in the show notes and I'll let people

[00:54:11] know how to get in touch with you.

[00:54:12] Thanks a ton.

[00:54:12] This was a blast.

[00:54:14] Hey man, I am so grateful for your time.

[00:54:16] Like honestly, from the bottom of my heart, I'm grateful to

[00:54:19] have this time and to meet you.

[00:54:20] It's an absolute pleasure.

[00:54:22] It's been my honor.

[00:54:23] Thank you so much.

[00:54:24] Thanks a ton.

[00:54:26] Cheers.