Work Life Balance + Setting Priorities – PS014

Jaz’s Introduction:
And sometimes that happens. Or sometimes you are sacrificing sleep or your health, which really we shouldn’t be doing. But sometimes this happens. ’cause of other events and other priorities at that time. So to find this daily balance and work-life balance that slots into everyone’s magic week, it just doesn’t exist because there’s a season of life for everyone.

And so a lot of what we talk about today with Emma Hutchison, who’s the Protrusive Student. So welcome to this Protrusive Student episode. About 20 or 30% of what we talk about in this episode is related to students, and about 70% is all to do with dentists in the real world. Because Emma asked me, how do I do it? How do I balance everything? How do I balance fatherhood, clinical dentistry, Protrusive? And so a lot of my tactics or the strategies that I use are revealed in this episode. 

Hello Protruserati. I’m Jaz Gulati. Welcome back to your favorite Dental Podcast. It’s the student series that we do, but as we’ve seen in the comments on YouTube, mostly dentists tune in because they find it’s nice to reconnect with the basics and with a topic like work-life balance and priorities in life. This is applicable and universal to everyone. So if you like the title and you clicked on, thank you so much and I hope you enjoy this listen. 

As part of this Protrusive Student episode, Emma has released her orthodontics for students notes. So in the Crush Your Exam section of the Protrusive Guidance app, there’s a section just for students.

Basically there’s little student forum there. It’s like an up and coming area. So if you’re a dental student, you want free access, please do join the app and email student@protrusive.co.uk proof that you’re a student. And then get, also, get access to the Protrusive Vault. That’s where all our infographics and everything live.

That’s how all community service to students. Emma’s just has done a wonderful job of sharing all her notes, so it’s about, I think 14 or 15 sets of notes on there from dental materials to indirect restoration to now orthodontics for students, and if you’re just a geeky dentist that just wants to download them and read them, then you can totally do that as well. Head over to www.protrusive.app to get started with Protrusive Guidance. Those sections I mentioned are absolutely free. 

In this episode, Emma and I discuss so many themes, and what’s striking is that Emma’s time as a locum nurse, so she’d go to different clinics when she was called and she’d nurse for like a new clinic every time, for example, and I asked her, did you ever come across any miserable dentists?

Any dentists that just looked really burnt out or unfulfilled in their profession? Which I think is a really sad thing, right? Everything we do in this podcast is about making dentistry tangible. But also reigniting your passion for dentistry. Reconnecting with that feeling you used to get in your belly when you wanted to get into dental school.

I think it’s really important to just remember that feeling. ‘Cause that sometimes helps us to drive us through a difficult patch. But when I ask Emma about this, and she noticed certain trends, certain qualities about the dentist or the practice that she knew within 10 minutes that, okay, this practitioner is burnt out or this practice lacks a culture, and that’s very relevant to work-life balance and priorities and setting boundaries and all those things. So a big higher level discussion today, and it’s laced with themes like burnout, goal setting and setting. Really importantly, what are your non-negotiables in life? It’s really important to do that, but of course you’ll see that all in the main episode, which will check out now, and I’ll catch you in the outro. 

Main Episode:
Emma, happy New Year 2025. Welcome back to the show. You are the Protrusive Student, so tell me what student thinks have been up to over this Christmas and New Year period.

[Emma]
Over my Christmas and New Year, I’ve been trying to enjoy it, obviously, and I have enjoyed it, but I just know that my big exams are around the corner, so I have been doing work every now and again, just keeping on top of making lecture notes and flashcards and all those sorts of things, but I’ve just not been overwhelming myself. So, that’s what I’ve been. 

[Jaz]
You need to share these flashcards with the students if you’re comfortable to do something. 

[Emma]
Yeah, yeah. I use Quizlet for my flashcards. I know a lot of students use Anki as well. I think that’s quite a popular one. 

[Jaz]
But think these are all digital things, right? 

[Emma]
Yeah, all digital. 

[Jaz]
A flashcard on old school still means like in a paper and pen like I used to back in the day. 

[Emma]
So, no, it’s all there on there. So. 

[Jaz]
Good. And so it should be so great, if you’re happy to do so, ’cause you’ve been sharing your notes so generously, whenever is the best time for you to share those to the students who will help someone in the world to help pass their dental exams, which would be good. Today we’re talking about a different topic as you requested. Basically the story is, guys, Emma wanted an episode on like the student perspective of orthodontics, and I thought that’s gonna be so difficult to do.

Right? Like, I was extractions, one was a real success and extractions went really well. But you asked me about ortho, like I think, I won’t be able to help you as a student. When you come to your first ClinCheck and your first, it’s all conundrums.

Is this possible with liners or should I refer? I’ll be able to help you then. But actually at the student level, it was always a blur what they wanted and yeah, orthodontics was very, very confusing as a student, I have to admit. 

[Emma]
That is fine. That’s fine. For this episode anyway, we’ve made like orthodontics student notes for this episode, so. We’ve still got our format. 

[Jaz]
They can download him in the Crush Your exam section of the Protrusive Guidance app. But the topic chosen by Emma was an interesting one, actually. Work life balance. So what spurred that one? 

[Emma]
Probably inspired from my Christmas period and my mom’s like, oh, come watch a movie. Come watch a movie. And I’m like, oh, give me an hour. I’m sitting down doing work, blah, blah, blah. And it’s just, I’ve had on my minds that I do have exams coming up. I think I can be quite prone to just shutting myself in my room and not leaving, not seeing sunlight, but I’m determined not to do that so much this year and just to sort of not burn myself out really.

‘Cause I think we can all be quite good at that as dental students. So it was just a bit of a chat about work life balance and I know, well, most dental students will be having exams coming up, so hopefully people can take away something from that just to keep your mental health in, in good condition and not to burn it.

[Jaz]
Well, I think I’m in a good position to speak about this because I have made all the sins. Like I think I told you in the very first episode, one of my regrets is like in the final year, just like literally not looking after myself and just like being all about, okay, get these exams sorted, gave up everything social, gave up everything, gym, which is very important to me, and I just let myself go so that I can do well in the exams.

And yes, I did well. But I don’t know, if I just did those things that I enjoy doing, like exercising and the social aspect and just wasn’t so harsh on myself, like wasn’t so demanding on myself, didn’t stress, didn’t take on so much what I feel is one unnecessary stress in the stomach. Perhaps maybe I would’ve done better or one or 2% less.

Like it wouldn’t have been significant. I just like to think and it reminds me. So it’s a quote that recently came my Instagram recently, and it was from Kobe Bryant. And it was basically his confidence on the basketball court came from the fact that he knew that he’d done everything he could to prepare.

And that’s what gave him confidence. Anytime, and the most beautiful part of this quote is yet to come, which is anytime he felt anxious, right? It just meant that he didn’t prepare enough. So when we feel anxious, when we feel stressed, it just means that perhaps we did not prepare enough. Okay for it, basically.

And so the advice I would give you is pace yourself. Do some, it’s wonderful that you’re doing during this Christmas, but also, it’s a season of life whereby you’re gonna have to work because if you don’t do it now, if you don’t study now, when are you gonna do it? It’s gotta be done.

But at the same time, you have to craft yourself and give yourself these breaks. So it is actually a tough one. ‘Cause they say the Mahatma Gandhi quote, if you’re familiar with it, it says “Live each day as if it was your last”. Do you know the next bit? 

[Emma]
No. 

[Jaz]
“Learn as if you’ll live forever.” 

[Emma]
Yes. That is what I, yeah. 

[Jaz]
So really like, I want you to go deep. I want you to really learn, but you also then have to be clever about it. Like there’s no point going off tangent learning something that’s not gonna be on your exam. ‘Cause it is kind of a means to an end because no matter how well you do, it will not determine your success in your career. Like 0%, like your academic prowess and what you achieve unfortunately has no correlation to your success as a dentist.

Your success as a dentist will come from your emotional intelligence, your interpersonal skills, a bit of luck thrown in there, right? Your first boss, what they’re like, all that kind of stuff. So do what you can to feel prepared. Don’t look back and say, I regret not working hard enough. But very few people, I dunno, very few people think, go back and say, I wish I worked harder.

I wish I spent more nights reading books. Maybe they don’t say that, right? And so, remember that we only need 50%. I always, for me, it was never gonna be enough. I wanted to aim for the highest, and I know you’re the same and I get that. So it’s a tough one because I want you to work your butt off, but also don’t do what I did and give yourself that break as well.

[Emma]
Yeah. And I think that’s the thing about dentistry, because. You only need a D to pass, right? But you still need to work. You can get a D and you can pass by the skin of your teeth. But in order to do that, you still have to work really, really hard. So if you are someone that’s like me or like yourself, who do strive for those A grades, those B grades, you’re naturally gonna be that kind of person that’s a bit more hard on yourself. And the thing with dentistry is like, you’re never going to learn everything that’s in your content. Like, I was sitting last night and I was saying to my mom, I was like, how is there so much to know about teeth?

And she was like, well, you’re not gonna memorize at all, especially not for this one exam. So that you just need to do your best. You’re never, ever, ever gonna remember absolutely everything that your lecturers chuck at you. And I think that’s made harder because you can get made to feel quite bad for that at university, because all of these lecturers, they’re specialists in what they do.

They all believe that their lectures are the most important. And then when you turn up to these tutorials and you don’t really know the answer from the lecture you had two weeks ago, you can be sort of made to feel quite a bit silly for it maybe. And you can be dead hard on yourself, but you’re never gonna remember everything. But you just need to try your best. 

[Jaz]
Forget. I mean, the problem with these exams is that like all the exams we had when we were younger, they are to some degree a memory test which is a real shame. So I always try to not worry about like memorizing things so much, but trying to, as long as it makes sense to me, like if something actually makes sense to me, then there’s no chance I’m gonna forget that basically.

So, I’m sure you’re the same. Try and make sure you internalize it, understand the why and the mechanics of it. Rather than understand that, insulin resistance and this causes diabetes, understand the actual mechanics of what’s happening with the insulin or whatever. As an example, I’m listening to Robert Lustig’s book, Metabolical, uh, and it’s about your overall health, diet, nutrition.

And that’s why that in specific example came up to me basically. But I know it’s relevant ’cause they ask us about that, especially with perio and stuff. But as long as you understand what’s going on. And the why behind it, that will really help you. 

[Emma]
Absolutely. And I think for me, that internalizing it is putting it into my own words in these notes that I share with people. Like I know that for a lot of my friends and it works, they have the slides and they annotate the slides and that’s what they’ll use for their revision. But for me, I need to like you said, internalize that. And I take that and I put that into my own words, and that’s what I study from like a slideshow is not that good to me. I need to sort of sit down and write it in words that make sense to me, and then that’s what I then use. 

[Jaz]
It’s like you have to talk to yourself about it for a while. Like that’s how I to do it. I used to like think about it, okay, well this is what’s written here, but let me say it in my own language that makes sense to me, and then write it down.

And then, revise it again closer to time in my own handwriting, no longer needing the textbook anymore. ‘Cause I’ve kind of taken the textbook, I’ve taken the slideshow, I’ve taken, nowadays you guys are lucky. You got chat GPT right? You take what they tell you. And then you internalize it Emma language and then that will give you the best way of understanding and not no longer like regurgitating and memorizing. It’s more like coming from an internal understanding. 

[Emma]
Yeah. And even people who will look at my notes, you’ll take bits from that and you’ll turn it into your own little thing that is relevant to you and that’s fine. But my first real question I wanted to ask you, Jaz, was, I know you’re a very busy man, so how do you structure your day to make sure, you’ve got a young family to make sure that you have time for your family, your friends, hobbies outside of dentistry, how do you keep it together? 

[Jaz]
Yeah, I could ask you, I don’t know. No, I’ve got some guidelines and I think a lot about this. So let’s talk about it. It’s gonna be fun. My life is a beautiful mess at the moment with having two young boys, especially one 19 month old, almost 20 month old now, who just doesn’t sleep well still. Last night it was up like twice. I had to get him one to milk, one to calm him down and stuff. So the lack of sleep or the disrupted sleep, which is the biggest killer when you’re a young parent.

And so that’s that. But it wasn’t always like that when me and my wife were just us and there was no kids. It was the other, if you ask me then was I stressed? Was there loads of workload? I always said yes to you. Then I was like, oh, I can’t get more than this, and now you throw kids in.

I was like, oh, you can’t get more than this. And so the perception always is that, oh yeah, it’s really difficult. It’s really difficult, but you really need to go back to your north star, your why, why you do what you do. And I think it all goes back to having a mission, having a goal of some sort.

So for me, my mission is to make sure I serve my family, I serve my patients and serve you guys, the Protruserati. This is my mission. Now, linked to this mission is a common question that people ask me is, Jaz, why have you opened a practice? Why don’t you run your own practice? And I would love to, honestly, I think I do a good job and I’d give it my all and I’d I’d make it the exactly how I want it to be.

But if I did that, that would be the death of Protrusive. Because I know that there’s only so much one can juggle and then doing so much one can delegate as well. So really, I’m at a point now where I know what my priorities are and I live by them, but to be able to serve my priorities, I have had to make some lifestyle modifications.

So for example, before kids and before Protrusive, I used to watch every single Manchester United match, like the whole 90 minutes plus the analysis. Like every single match I’d be watching it, right? I just barely watch the highlights Now. I’m a Fairweather fan now, barely watch the highlights and no guys, it’s not because my team sucks at the moment.

It’s generally because you have to kind of make a list, right? Like, here’s your big goal, right? So I want to achieve all these things with Protrusive and family and go on this many vacations and help my patients in this way, work this many clinical days. But to be able to, and be a great dad, like that’s really important to me, right?

So all those things, but then you have to write down, okay, what are you willing to sacrifice to make that happen? So for me it was okay, I have to sacrifice watching football. Fine. I don’t wanna sacrifice watching the IPL, which is the cricket that happens between like April and June. And for me that was like, okay, fine, I’m gonna watch those fine.

‘Cause that I’m not willing to sacrifice that, right? I was willing to sacrifice Netflix, Amazon Prime, all those things, right? So I hardly watch it. Only just started watching Squid Game season two with my wife. Like, that’s it. That’s the only thing this year, that’s it like two hours this whole year.

So really, because I’m so driven and I’ve got all these things I want to do, like if I’m not working. I’m serving my children, I’m teaching my son something. We’re playing, we’re practicing cricket in the living room. We love doing that, right? So it’s about deciding to achieve the goals you want to achieve what is important.

And really, sometimes you’ll get these little shiny things that will come and distract you, but realize actually this is a distraction. And that really big thing that you are working towards, don’t lose sight of that. So don’t lose sight of whatever your goals are. It may be.

So the answer is it’s hard, but because I know my values and I know my goals. It then becomes easy because I know, okay, I’m gonna not catch up with my friends for, I don’t get to see my friends that much as much as I want to, and that’s the honest truth. Because I put my family above my friends at the moment, and that’s just the season of life I’m in when my kids are a bit older and they don’t care about me anymore. Then it’ll be a different season of life. Okay. So it’s all about the season you are in and the season I’m in at the moment is very much, family first. 

[Emma]
Yeah. I mean, that makes so much sense. But to someone like me, I don’t have kids. I’m still so the baby of my family, out of everyone, I mean, I’m 25 and I’m the youngest. There’s no babies or anything in my family yet anyway. 

[Jaz]
But like you and Rakesh, when you were at the live event, you were talking like, hey, does Jaz sometimes message you like four or 5:00 AM and that kind of stuff, right? 

[Emma]
Yeah. 

[Jaz]
And then you wake up at like 10:00 AM and you check my messages and start writing. I made that better. I don’t actually remember what time I wake up, but like to make it work. Sometimes, when I’m reading to my son, I get so sleepy. I might as well sleep as well. It’s 9.30, 10.00 or, okay, I’ll sleep. Then I wake up at 4:00 AM to make sure I get the stuff done.

It needs to happen. And so you’ve gotta squeeze it in somehow some way, and it all needs to work. Me and my wife are absolutely exhausted, like running the home, running the kids, clinical, we’re both clinical as well, so it can get really crazy and having you guys, the team behind me, it means so much to me.

So it’s a bit like a practice owner saying, oh yeah, I’m indebted to my practice manager with the associates, the management team, the reception, the nurses or whatever. It’s a bit like that. So you have to have good people around you and a really understanding relationship with your spouse as well.

[Emma]
Oh, a hundred percent. And my mom and dad are sort of that version for me, like when I’m at home and if I’m studying, like there’s no pressure to do chores around the house or anything like that. Like they’re very understanding and bring me a cup of tea in the morning and they’ll just let me get on with things.

But yeah, me and Rakesh still talking about that. Yeah, no, but it’s amazing that my mom and dad are able to do that for me. My dad’s retired, my mom’s part retired, and they’ll do absolutely anything for me, like just to help me get through this because they know it’s my dream.

And the same with just, I’ve got such a good support system around me. Friend-wise as well. A hundred percent. My university friends, a million percent because we’re all going through the same thing. But even just my friends from home that I went to school with, when I come back to my mom and dad’s house, it’s so good just to go and speak to them and sometimes talk about dentistry and uni, but sometimes just not to.

I think after you’ve graduated, dentistry can start getting a bit more fun. But at university when you’re studying and exams, you can sort of lose that a little bit. Burnout and things. It can get a bit, just not what you want to talk about. Day in, day out. So going home and having those conversations, just about literally anything else. That’s good as well. 

[Jaz]
I was just gonna say two things I didn’t mention is, like you said, hobbies and stuff for me. I watch cricket when this IPL season. I used to play cricket. My shoulder got dodgy. So now my joy is vicariously living through my son. I take him to cricket on Sundays and I love that.

But I go to gym three or four times a week and before my mindset was like, if I can’t go for an hour and if I can’t work out for an hour, there’s no point. And that was so, so wrong. And actually the latest research would back up that those who did 25 minutes to half an hour intense workouts, okay?

They gained as much muscle mass and achieved all the cardio parameters as someone who did longer sessions, basically. So it’s about doing more intensity, shorter workouts, and that’s the only way I can make it all fit in. So I do these shorter workouts and that keeps me sane. It keeps you away from the teeth, keeps you away from everything.

And that’s really important. But you need to decide what it is for you that will give you that sanity. Now, for some people that might be Netflix, and that’s okay. As long as you make peace, as long as you write it down. Things that make me happy and keep me sane. Netflix, that’s fine. For me, gym is more important than Netflix, so that’s why there’s no time for Netflix.

But I forced, I literally forced time for the gym ’cause that’s really important. And the only other thing, ’cause you mentioned the word burnout in, I get so close to burnout sometimes, right? But the reason I think I’ve been doing okay, both me and my wife is we are big believers and thankfully, me and my wife are aligned in this, which is having our vacations and holidays booked 12 months in advance.

It’s so important to us so you know exactly where we’re going and when things heat up with the children, patients, and the clinic stuff, and protrusive stuff and everything gets too much. And we know that it’s just three more weeks until we go away. And that just is a beautiful thing.

So having your breaks, the worst thing you could do is you’re burnt out. Like, oh my God, I need a holiday. And then you start looking and the next chance you get to take a holiday is three months away. Then you know you’re screwed up. So I mean, in a way you kind of know where your breaks are as a student.

[Emma]
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Always. Pretty much. But my mom always says that as well. You need something to look forward to. Even if that’s, however, many months in advance, you’ve got something to save money for. You’ve got something to look forward to- 

[Jaz]
Something to clutch onto. 

[Emma]
Spend with your partner. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Like you need those things planned in advantage. Something to look forward to, a good support system around you and what I do as well that. I think I’ve only really been doing the last, I’m gonna say a year, six months maybe, is this probably won’t work for everyone. I don’t know if you’re the same Jaz, you probably are, but I will plan my week ahead.

Like I’ll sit down on a Sunday and I’ll give myself half an hour just to make a list of what I’m gonna do every single day, Monday to Friday. I know some people that do it hour by hour. I don’t really do that. I suppose I have to with uni and things. I’ve got clinics at certain times, but just sitting down and saying, right.

These are the lectures that I’m gonna watch that day. These are the notes that I’m gonna watch that day. I’m gonna go to the gym after uni. I’ll organize what I’m gonna have for breakfast, lunch, and dinner that day. And I just take that 30 minutes, that hour on a Sunday and I will just organize my next week with it. And it seems like a lot of work, but just give yourself half an hour or an hour. Or sit down the night before and just organize what you’re gonna do. That helps me. 

[Jaz]
You must feel so good after doing that, right? 

[Emma]
Yeah, no, it feels so good. But then with that also comes like if you have a terrible day at uni and you go home and you don’t really feel like having chicken and rice for dinner. You ought to get a big fat McDonald’s. Like that’s also okay. When I first started doing this, I would get so upset with myself if I got to that Sunday and I still had all these things that were left over on my to-do list, but it’s fine. It’s really fine. Like no one’s gonna die. It’s fine. 

[Jaz]
That reminds me of how we, and I said this recently in the New Year’s special episode, but we always overestimate what we can do in a day or a year. If you take a even a day or even just a year, we overestimate what we can complete in a short amount of time. But if you look at 10 years, we always underestimate.

So you have to think the long game as well. And you, I mean, it’s so good that you aim high. But you only achieve 60% of those things. But if you’d only aim for just completing two things, you’d be left disappointed. So your greatness comes from that you’re aiming high and you’re being strict, but it’s also being kind to yourself.

And sometimes, you know what? There is a season of life you’re in. And because you’re a season of being a student, Emma. Like when sometimes an opportunity will come your way that, you’re 25, you can only do it now, you can’t do it when you’re 35 for example. Or you can’t do it at any other time.

‘Cause now is the time you’re a student, now is the time that you are young. You have energy. So if you don’t do it now, you’ll miss the boat. So when those kind of opportunities come by, it’s about recognizing, hey, this is a rare moment in my life and actually I need to stop these other things and take this opportunity.

And it is something special about recognizing that. So it’s a bit like someone who doesn’t going to all the parties and stuff when you’re young, right? And then, first, second year even throughout uni, whatever, right? And you do it. And it is good to get outta your system.

It’s good. Now, I think we talked about this before as well, but if you start doing that, you’re now associate, you’re four years in, and then you’re going to late night parties and stuff, and you’re turning up to patients and you’re groggy and whatnot no, that’s not cool, right? Or you’ve got a family, you can’t be doing that. So there’s a time and place for that. And you have to respect that and, and go with the flow of that season of life. 

[Emma]
Yeah, for sure. And I felt that, when I was in my earlier twenties, like sort of covid day times, I’ve not fully got it outta my system. I still love a good party, but it’s now something that I won’t let myself do too often.

Because if you’re turning up to lectures nine in the morning, feeling all groggy and horrible and got home at five in the morning, like it’s just not what you want to do anymore. And it just ruins your day after for me. 

[Jaz]
So it’s about quality. It’s about choosing now rather than quantity. It’s about that night, that sounds good. No lectures next day I’m gonna let my hair down have a good time, basically. And so it’s important to do that while you’re there with your friends, and you got the vibe of a student, if I was a student, I know what I’d be doing right now.

So, more power to you, you do it. But I like that you respected a bit that okay, you’re more senior in your dental school level now and you need to set some boundaries and that’s really important. 

[Emma]
Absolutely. Yeah. 

[Jaz]
Professionalism. 

[Emma]
Yeah. Especially in fourth year at Glasgow, all of our clinics start at nine in the morning, so you can’t be going out the night before and having a mad on or anything like that.

But for me, and like my priorities and what I want to achieve this year at uni. That’s not something that I’m going to be doing anyway. I relate to you saying, I love Netflix, I love watching things, but gym is a non-negotiable for me. So I will say like, I’m only watching one episodes of something a day.

Before I go to bed or read a book or something like that. And that’s it. Like gym is definitely, like you said, like it’s my safe space. Like that’s when I get to unwind. So I don’t get as much time to watch Netflix or go out too much or anything like that. So it is definitely like prioritizing what you want out of your time at the moment. And ultimately I think most students would agree, like my priority are my studies at the moment. So you just have to make sacrifices to other. 

[Jaz]
And for other people’s, it is not gym, it’s cooking or it is Netflix for them. And that’s fine. It’s just making peace. Just making peace that you are you, everyone can’t be a gym freak. It is not for everyone. You have your own little things that you do. You might be a certain sport that you play or an instrument that you play, or, or just go into jazz clubs. I don’t know what, it could be anything that you want, right? 

So as long as you make peace with the fact that, okay, these are your non-negotiables and these are things that you are willing to not be so strict on, to make sure that you fit the big things in. It’s like the whole thing again, I feel like I’m getting deja vu. Like I think we discussed some of these themes in the past, right? The thing where the professor goes about the big rocks, the tiny pet pebbles and the sand. Do you know this one? 

[Emma]
Ringing bells. I feel like you’ve either talked about it on the podcast before or we’ve talked about it. 

[Jaz]
Maybe someone listening to a podcast the first time. So it’s really important we do this. Okay. So it’s like a professor. I’m really hoping, I’m trying to make sure I get this right. So basically the professor goes, he gets a big jar, and he fills it up with these big rocks, basically. And he asked him, is this jar full? And everyone says, yeah, it’s full. Like it’s full of rocks. And then he puts in these tiny little pebbles inside that, which obviously fit into little cracks and crannies and whatnot, nooks and crannies.

And then he says, okay, well, is it full now? And I say, yeah, yeah. Now it’s full. And then he gets some sand and he fills it up some more. Now it’s definitely full, right? I’m sure the next step he could have taken is actually put some water inside or something. Right? But anyway, it’s pretty full now.

Okay, now if you did it the other way around, if you fill it up with sand. You won’t have space at all for the little pebbles of the big rocks. And so the lesson there is, what is your rock? You gotta prioritize your rock if you fill up your jar with things that aren’t so important. The sand, then we’re gonna have time for the really important things. So that just reminded me of that. So I had to share it. 

[Emma]
Yeah, I feel like we’ve talked about that before, but yeah, it’s so true. Like you need to have your big priorities and then whatever else fits in around it, but I’ve wanted to be a bit kinder to myself this year and not being so hard on myself when I don’t get absolutely everything done because I am an overachiever.

[Jaz]
Well, especially Emma, if things are out of your control. Have you heard of this, the circle of concern and circle of influence. Have you heard of this? 

[Emma]
No, I don’t think so. 

[Jaz]
Okay, so your circle of concern, I think, I hope I’m getting this right. These are all the years of self-development books are coming into play right now. So the circle of concern basically is anything that you could be concerned about. Anything. Like, for example, if something comes on the news and you look at the weather, right? And oh, it’s gonna be really cold next few days. It’s be snowing and stuff. That’s your circle of concern. These are things that in your sphere of life, okay.

That you care about. That all that could impact you in some way. It could be the menu at your dental school cafeteria. It could be the emails that you get or whatever. These are all circles of concern. The circle of influence is actually as a tiny proportion of that, the things that you can actually directly influence.

Now, you can’t change the weather. You can’t change the weather, right? So the weather and what’s gonna be like tomorrow or whatnot, and how cold it is, is not in your circle of influence. You can’t influence it. So just making peace with the fact that only those things are in your circle of influence.

Okay. Should you focus on circle of concern. It is what it is. And then making peace with that. And if it’s something that, for example, when you can’t push through or you can’t smash your checklist or your to-do list, but it wasn’t your fault, it was like external influences that are out of your control that weren’t in your circle of influence.

It definitely, you shouldn’t be hard on yourself at all. That those are things that are outside your control. And it reminds me of another quote where. Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it? 

[Emma]
Yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah. How you react to it. It’s just, I know I’m only 25, but I think it’s something that you just get better at as you get older as well. Like I remember, being younger and it’s so easy to do the easy things. It’s hard to do hard things and when you don’t want to get up and go to that 9:00 AM lecture or you don’t want to go to the gym yet, it’s hard to do that when you don’t want to. But I think just as I’ve gotten older. It’s become a bit easier to help myself in that kind of a way and do the hard things because you have this goal in front of you, I suppose. 

[Jaz]
Eat that frog. Have you heard of that one? 

[Emma]
No. Okay. Where’d you get all these from? 

[Jaz]
All the years of finally all those audible credits are shining through, right? So this I believe is Brian Tracy and I think he has got a book, named after it’s called Eat That Frog. And it basically means eat that frog and it means basically, do the most difficult thing first, imagine you had to wake up, right? And you got all these things to do, but the first thing you had to do was eat a frog.

Like, what a difficult, disgusting thing to do. All the French people are like, what did he just say? But anyway, like, eat that frog, just get the most difficult thing out the way first, and then everything else will be easier. So that’s the kind of theme. But it reminded me like Emma, like obviously you’ve been dental nursing for many years, right?

For lots of dentists. Did you ever come across a dentist who you felt that they didn’t wanna be there? Like they had burnt out. Or they didn’t wanna be there. Can you share some recollections of that? 

[Emma]
Yeah, a hundred percent. And I think because I’ve worked with so many dentists, ’cause I did locum for such a long time, you get dentists that just don’t really care too much and it’s usually in, this is a generalization.

From me just watching, it was always in practices that were overbooked. These dentists were overworked or I know they have control over their books, but they’re just cramming everything in like 10 minutes, 15 minute appointment times. Very, very short appointment times, and they just like sort of stopped caring practices that were understaffed as well.

I think within the first 10 minutes of walking into a practice I can sort of gauge, the sort of morale in there and how well people get on and things. 

[Jaz]
And it’s the culture. It’s like palpable, isn’t it? The culture of a practice. 

[Emma]
It really is. Like you can walk into some places and everyone’s work ethic is down and people are awful all the time and understaffed and things, and it’s not really a nice place to be. So I think in dentistry it is really, really important to make your workspace as much as you can somewhere that you enjoy being. 

[Jaz]
Like, my idea of hell, and I’ve experienced a little bit of this in certain practices in the past, is like you wake up and you don’t wanna go in. I would hate that. Like, I would say hate that. So, I look forward to going to work ’cause I work in a nice practice and I worked hard for that, don’t get me wrong. I made life designed to work in a clinic and like you said, actually, I can’t believe I’ve forgot to mention this, but people, the Protruserati who listens to this podcast know this about me already, is I work a shift pattern, right?

So I work a morning clinic one week. And that’s three days a week at the moment. It used to be more, but now it’s come down to three so I can focus more on Protrusive. So, three days a week in the morning, and then the next week it’ll be like the two till 8:00 PM shift. So the evening shift.

That allows me to get dad time in, I can bathe my children, I can do a school pickup or a school drop off or sometimes both on a Wednesday and Friday which is amazing, right? So it is important to consider, how are you gonna design your life? But the reason I mentioned that is on the back of an Instagram post, I made recently, which got so much engagement, right?

It was about people working five, six days a week, in dentistry. And I said that I posted something like it’s something that is gonna really push you towards burnout, working five, six days a week. Actually it was Stuart. So Dr. Stuart Yeaton on the Protrusive Community, he’s an orthodontist.

And he said that we were discussing on the Protrusive Guidance app about work-life balance and all these wonderful things. And he had this wonderful thing to say. He said, people in business, right? So not dentistry, like in the business world. In the real world, okay? And like law, for example, right?

They get very stressed out for days when they have a client meeting coming up, right? So for a dentist, every minute of every day is a client meeting. And sometimes you’re meeting these clients for the first time and they have so many high expectations. Like, think of that, like, that’s like throwing you in a pool of fire.

That is a stressful scenario. And our energy levels always have to be right up there in terms of conveying confidence and positivity to the patient. And it’s hugely draining for most in the long term. So the role that we have, like we have to manage expectations. We have to be kind of like a shrink for the patient.

We’re kind of being like the psychotherapist for a patient. Sometimes we’re the patient’s only hope. Sometimes we are being a healer in so many different ways. We’re trying to be the scientific person as well. We’re trying to be a carer. It takes a lot out of us caring for so many people and decision making and deciding, hmm, should I crown this?

It should be a large restoration trying to apply all. So really dentistry is a really tough gig. And so the reason I mentioned that is ’cause then I said that, okay, when you are young, and that’s the main point is that when you are newly qualified, I was working five, six days a week at that point.

Clinical. I had the energy, I had the time ’cause I didn’t have any kids and I was really going on a lot of courses. Okay. Like a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot. Which I’m so thankful for. ‘Cause I can’t do that now with kids. So it’s a wonderful thing to do that when you have that season of life once again, to be able to do that, then to do it, to get it outta your system, right?

Yeah. But when you get your 10,000 hours in and you now, for example, no longer need to look at your day list before you go in because you can just, not autopilot. ’cause that’s a bad term to use dentistry, but like you don’t need to revise the stages of crown prep where you need to go in. You don’t need to revise this.

You can just do everything. As a student you can relate to that, right? So when you can do that, when you get to that level, right, do you really need to work five, six days a week in this quite stressful environment of a dentist where we’re just dealing with people the whole time. And so some studies have shown that three and a half days is optimum and your income doesn’t really go down that much in case it might even go up ’cause you become more productive and then you have more time for yourself and your mental health and to sometimes work on the business. 

Okay, so sometimes you’re working in the business, but then you get to work on the business. You get to think, how do we get more patients into the clinic? Or how do I refine this skill so I can start doing implants, whatever. So that’s a really important thing to mention whereby a lot of colleagues, like, you might be thinking, I dunno what you think about that actually. Have you ever thought about how many days a week you’d like to work? 

[Emma]
Not me personally, but like I’ve definitely noticed that a lot of dentists do. Like, they don’t work five days a week for, well, I don’t know most dentists, but a lot of dentists don’t. Three, three and a half, four, even four and a half.

And I think that just shows how much of a stressful job it can be because if you are working 4, 5, 6 days a week constantly for a very long time, you will get burnt out. And it’s like you were saying, you almost have to like put on a face all the time. Your brain is constantly working.

You have to be that happy person. You have to be the engineer, you have to be the artist, you have to be the medical professional as well like. It’s all of these things. Dentistry is so well-rounded. There’s so many- 

[Jaz]
In such a regulated environment as well, right? Like we’re so heavily regulated and that’s a huge weight on our shoulders as well to add to that. But just a point that you mentioned, like even someone like me who’s working three shifts a week, right? I work three days a week, right? But I still have to do responding to emails. I do these elaborate letters to my patients, like TMD reports and stuff. I have to do my clin checks, right?

I have to think about, okay, the week ahead, communicate with the lab and stuff. There’s so much to do in outside of clinical hours as well, and so I dread to think that person who’s working five, six days a week, and then they’re also coming home to do all these additional things, which we all kind of have to do now. It’s very, very tough. 

[Emma]
Very tough. Yeah. I’ve never thought personally about how much I want to work. 

[Jaz]
Oh. Nor that I am, you know what? I realized that was a stupid question by me to you. I’ll tell you why. Right. Because I just remembered that when I was a student, like the only day I could like my life was like, I’m a student right now, and the next dot was I graduate and there was nothing after that.

Dot. I graduate, there was nothing. ’cause you just can’t see past that barrier of what happens, what life is like after you graduate. ’cause you’re so engrossed in your studies. And that was me. And so I wouldn’t have been able to answer that as well. 

[Emma]
Yeah. No. But I used to work in a practice that did VT or foundation year, and I remember hearing the practice owner say to the VT, you know, you might think at the moment, this was August, September, you might think at the moment that you’re gonna go in and you’re gonna smash it, whatever. 

You might be really nervous, but just book time off. End of October, start of November, like book time off because you will burn out. Like book it off now before you get booked up. So yeah, book your time off like you were saying in advance. But do you have any other tips like that? Not so much even for dental students, but like for VT as well, or towards the end of dental school, just about avoiding burnout specifically. 

[Jaz]
I think two things I want to add then, for someone who’s new in the game, right? Yes, of course. Book your time off. Really great advice. But when we don’t know so much and the scary thing is that when you qualify, you think, oh yeah, I got a good percentage in my exam.

When you come out in the real world, the first patient that you get, you’re like, what do I do again? Is anyone gonna check this? Like it is just that it’s how it is to apply dentistry is the name of the game. And to do that is sometimes difficult to bring together all your actual lectures and all the academic stuff.

You learn how to actually apply it to the living being in front of you and to be able to communicate to ’em and have that relationship in 10 minutes, right? So there’s all those challenges that you have. So when we are new in our career, we are doubting ourselves and we don’t know whether our plan is good.

We haven’t seen our failures come back, so we really don’t know what works and what doesn’t work. So to find or gain mentorship as soon as possible, right? So this could be a trainer, for example. Sometimes that mentor figure might come as another associate in the clinic. Or as you may know, Emma, we’re setting up a something called Intaglio, where it’s like a marketplace for dental mentors.

So wherever you get a mentor from, and this is like a cliche almost, right? They all say, start taking dental photos. It’s really important, right? But find a mentor. Again, these are all really important things. So mentor, before it was all about do courses, courses, courses, which I truly believe in, right?

So do courses amazing, right? Get your knowledge, but to help you implement those courses. That’s the role of the mentor. The mentor will help you to show you your blind spots, so the soon as you can latch onto a mentor, the better, is a top thing I’d say that will really, really, really accelerate your trajectory of your career.

The second thing I’d say when you are really young is get the foundations right. Get the basics right, get your communication perio, carries, small class twos, big class twos, extractions. If you get that right, you are gonna be winning, right? People focus on the edge bonding and the aesthetic stuff very, very quickly.

Get the occlusion right, get the perio right, get the foundations right, and that will serve you really well. So, don’t run before you can walk. And what goes with that is something called just in time learning. Have you heard of this one? 

[Emma]
I don’t think so. 

[Jaz]
So just in time learning, I often talk about this because it’s so, so important. You might fall into a trap whereby, for example, to relate it to you as a student, Emma, you might say that, oh, you know what you feel as though you are really weak on oral pathology. And you might say, I’m gonna open up Odell’s Oral Pathology Book, but go to chapter eight. I’m just gonna start reading some oral pathology.

Okay. So that’s just in case learning. That’s like, okay, I might need this information in the future. Let me just read up on it. Okay. Just in time learning is knowing that you got that oral pathology exam coming up in a month. And they’re gonna test you on this chapter and therefore that’s why you read it.

To relate that back to clinical dentistry, there are so many skills out there that we are yet to learn ’cause we don’t get to taught dental school. And so a big mistake that dentists can do, and I’ve made this mistake, so that’s why I’m happy to talk about it, is you go on a course about, let’s say crown lengthening.

I always use it as an example ’cause crown lengthening is like, oh, you know what? I dunno crown lengthening. It wasn’t taught to me at dental school. Let me learn this so I can use this to make me a better dentist, help save more teeth for my patients and be able to provide another service to my patients. So you go on this crown lengthening course, and then after it tumbleweed, like you don’t see a crown landing case, and then you find a patient.

And then they say, no, they can’t afford it. And then a year goes by, you haven’t done it. And like you feel like you need to pay 1500 pounds all over again to relearn how to do crown lengthening. So is it better that you find that patient who needs crown lengthening? Tell that patient, hey, okay, so we’re gonna do this.

I’m gonna learn this skill soon, and you’ll be my first patient. Have that discussion upfront. Go on the course, apply it the next day. That is magic dust right there in terms of learning and accelerating your growth. So be more about just in time learning rather than just in case learning.

[Emma]
Yeah. I’ve never really thought about that before. Like that’s really using your initiative there. Yeah, ’cause you can spend so much money on these courses and then just not have the right patient come along and then having to go on that course again. Yeah, definitely. 

[Jaz]
It also, similar aligners, right? So when you have a good relationship with your patients and you find four or five patients who’ve got slightly crossed incisors and just slightly lower incisor of crowding. And you have that conversation with that look. Look, is this something that you’re interested in? I’m going on a call soon. I’m looking for ideal patients who might be, wanna be like simple cases like you who can very quickly straighten their teeth.

But I’m building up some cases and you’ll be amazed, like, one in 10, one in 20 patients say to you, yeah, you know what? Put me on that list, Emma, when you are ready. I love you so much to my dentist. When you are ready, straighten my teeth, I’ll do it. And I know you’ll gimme a bit of a discount ’cause I’m your first patient.

Be like, yeah, sure, of course. Kind of thing. You give ’em free whitening, whatever. And then there we are when you go on that line, of course. You’ve got five simple cases ready to go on patients that already you already know and like, and that’s the best way to do it. 

[Emma]
Yeah. And I think when you’re talking about mentorship as well, ’cause that’s something that makes me very nervous, you know? In six months, I’ll be in my final year, and I still don’t know how to make a decision really. I don’t know when that comes, but it is something that’s probably the thing that I’m most nervous about is being able to make decisions and decisions on the spot within that appointment. And I know that you have, your trainer there that you have to talk to, but at some point you need to gain more independence.

And I would still like to think of myself as quite an independent person. Someone that can like, rationalize things and talk things through in my head, but that is still something that I worry about decision making and am I doing the right thing? 

[Jaz]
Oh, we always worry about that, but especially the early stage of your career when you don’t know anything and you haven’t succeeded, you haven’t failed, you dunno where you are, you dunno what level of work is, and there’s so many things that you don’t know.

You don’t know all the things that you don’t actually know, and that’s the scary thing, right? You know all these things, but there’s so many things that you don’t know. And then there’s things that you, for example, Emma, do you know how to do functional crowning? 

[Emma]
Uh, no. 

[Jaz]
Okay. So now you know that you dunno that okay. But there’s so many things that you don’t know that you don’t even know exist. Do you see what I mean? 

[Emma]
Yeah. Yeah. 

[Jaz]
You don’t know what you don’t know. And that’s the thing when you’re starting out, and it’ll always say that way, there’ll always be things that you just don’t know, right? And so what I say to you is when it comes to things where you feel you have been appropriately trained. For example, if you have a patient with multiple caries, right? And you are thinking, hmm, should I restore with GIC or composite, or whatever, I’m giving you a basic example, right? When you are a newly qualified dentist, you’ve had enough training at that point to decide, okay?

At that point, right? Just go with your gut. Go with your gut. Just go with your gut, okay? But if it’s like, okay. Now is tooth replacement options. Should I refer this patient for an implant or should we do a bridge here? But then there’s slightly dubious things here and things which are a little bit out of your comfort zone that you haven’t really done many reps in.

At that point, then just get all the records, get your photos right, get your radiographs and be like, you know what? This is a tough case because of X, Y, and Z. I’m gonna discuss this with my mentor, and the reason I say that is when, like people come on the Protrusive Guidance app and either in the chat or as an article, they’ll put photos and x-rays of like, guys, can you help me?

And as a wonderful, nice and geeky community, we are, we help everyone. But the limiting factor is if you only give one image and say, can you please do a full mouth treatment plan? It’s very difficult if you give 20 images, five x-rays and say, okay. This is the problem. This is what I think. What do you think?

You’re gonna get so many more replies and so much more help. So the more data when you are, when you are unsure, collect good data, present it to your mentor or mentors. And you’ll really get good advice back. 

[Emma]
Yeah, I’ve seen it on Protrusive Guidance as well. Like whenever I see a notification, I’ll have a look through and I think because you’ve got like the biggest geeks on there, they love talking about it and it is really, really helpful.

But I think the thing to remember as well is that a lot of the time there isn’t a right answer. I know we’ve spoken about this before, you’ll get a million different treatment plans for loads of different people. But yeah, I suppose it’s just having, gaining the confidence over time that you’re not making the wrong decision. There’s many different right decisions sometimes, but that you’re not making the wrong one. I suppose. 

[Jaz]
I think that is like, if you look at it from one perspective, then dentistry sucks because there’s like 200 ways to do something. That’s terrible. You could think that, oh, that’s the worst thing ever.

But if you flip it and think, actually dentistry’s beautiful because I have 200 chances at doing something, it’s probably gonna work. If you flip it round, it’s like, okay, well this dentist said do this, this dentist said something complete opposite. If you see that as, oh, that’s so stressful. What do I do instead say, that’s amazing.

I can literally do two opposite things and it’s gonna work. Right? So see it as a beautiful thing instead of seeing it as a bad thing. Okay. And then just do what feels right to you and then keep learning and refining. And the fascinating thing, Emma, is I speak to all these dentists that I really love and respect that are far more intelligent than me and far more qualified than me.

And I show them one of their old cases, I say, oh yeah, you know Dr. So and so you posted this case on social media seven years ago, and you know what they say, oh yeah, that was good, but I would’ve done it differently today. And so at that time they were posting, they were at the top of their game, but they’re still saying now, some years later, oh yeah, you know what?

I would’ve done it differently. So it’s never gonna leave you, you are always gonna be changing how you approach it, but you have to make peace with the fact that, with the knowledge and experience that you’ve gained, thus at up to that point in your career, you are making the best judgment call at that stage.

And don’t hate yourself for that. You have a certain level of experience to make your decision. But that’s it. That’s at that time it will change and refine as you get more experience and make peace with that. You did the best you could at the time. 

[Emma]
Yeah, and you’ll gain more and more experience as you go. I think it’s something that is scary for me, like thinking of about starting that journey. ‘Cause I know I’ve not even, I’ve barely started that journey and I think as we want to be the best, we’re quite perfectionist. We want the right answers. We want to do the best for our patients. So it’s more of a mental struggle than anything. Sometimes just what do I do? What’s the best thing to do? But it’ll be fine. 

[Jaz]
It will be fine, Emma. You know the community will be there to hold your hand. I’ll be there to help you. You’ll be absolutely fine. 

[Emma]
Yeah. 

[Jaz]
The only thing Emma that you said was planning your date, like you said, on a Sunday, you will look ahead of the week. The only thing I just wanna add on that is that there’s different ways to do it and you’ve gotta find your system. I used to do to-do list. So, I make a big to-do list and hopefully throughout the week I’ll tick ’em all off. When you get extremely busy and you got kids and work and diary issues and whatnot, then I move to a calendar based system.

So now, like if there’s a task that needs being done, for example, there’s a treatment plan for Mrs. Smith that needs to be done. And I know the deadline is 25th of January, for example, right? I can’t just leave it in my to-do list and hope that at some point when I get a pocket of time for 25th of January, I’ll do it and I’ll take it off.

Okay. Used to work, but now my life is too hectic for that. So what I have to actually do is have to slot it in the diary in my Google calendar. I’ll see, okay. The on the 20th of Jan, between four and five, it Sean’s doing swimming. I will do my treatment plan then, and I slot it in. So not only is it like a reminder for me, but it’s actually there, the time is blocked.

So, that’s the way I do it now, whereby I say all these things I wanna do, but until I actually slot it into the diary, it doesn’t actually have a physical manifestation. It doesn’t actually have a place in the, in the universe yet until it’s actually locked in in the camera. 

[Emma]
Yeah. Yeah. And I think it’s easy to say, oh yeah, I’ll get it done by this date, but you can forget or just put it off. 

[Jaz]
You can do that, but I think as life becomes more complicated and you have more complications and family and work and this kind of stuff, I think a lot of students will eventually move on to the calendar based system when they’re ready. When you enter the big, bad world. I think the calendar system is probably the adulting way. 

[Emma]
No, for sure. Yeah. I find it useful to do like my week at a time, and then I don’t do it like hour or anything because my day isn’t too heavily structured. I don’t have kids, anything like that. But no, eventually at some point I think it’ll catch up.

[Jaz]
It certainly will. Emma, thanks so much for asking these great questions. I hope that was useful. What was your biggest takeaway in terms of, with your upcoming exams and stuff, how has this our chat influenced you? 

[Emma]
I think again, just like making time for the things that are non-negotiables for me. And then like you were talking about your big priorities and then fitting things around that, not just focusing on the easy things that you can do, but just pushing yourself to do all the big hard things as well. 

[Jaz]
Eat that frog. 

[Emma]
Eat that frog, I suppose. Yeah. 

[Jaz]
Excellent. Emma, thanks so much for your time. It is been fun to do all of last year Protrusive Students and happy to continue to into 2025 and you guys can check out the orthodontics notes, all this wizardry that Emma is uploading and if enough people comment below, Emma will share her flashcard notes. Using these techno app widget things that she does all this digital voodoo stuff, unless she’ll add it on the crush your exam section. So only if enough people comment will we do that. 

[Emma]
Perfect. Thank you so much. 

Jaz’s Outro:
There we have it guys. Hope you enjoy that. Please do comment below if you enjoy this or if you want access to Emma’s flashcards. And of course if you did find this episode useful, then please do send it to your practice WhatsApp group.

Let everyone listen to it. Share the love. This episode was not eligible for CE or CPD credits. We are a PACE approved provider, but most of the other episodes, I’d say about 95% are eligible for CPD or CE. So if you are a true Protruserati and you like listening to the show and you wanna be able to verify your learning with a certificate and have an area to reflect on your learning, then we can give you a certificate by answering the quiz.

You need to be a paying subscriber or protrusive to do that, but for a very small tax deductible amount, you get access to that. And all of the master classes as well. For that section, check out protrusive.co uk/ultimate and join hundreds of dentists as part of the nicest and geekiest community of dentists in the world.

Don’t forget to like and subscribe. Even if you’re listing on Spotify, there is a subscribe button there. So many listeners and watches just keep returning, but they never subscribe. Honestly, it would mean so much to us if you hit that button. And as always, little round of applause to Emma, our Protrusive Student who shows up every time.

Ask great questions. We’re spurring on for you. We are rooting for you, Emma. You can do it in your exams. Anyway, we’ll catch you same time, same place next week. Bye for now.