Dr. Alex Planes’ Honest Opinion on Scaling Your Business

 You're listening to the Radcast, a top 25 worldwide business podcast.
 If it's radical, we cover it.
 Here's your host, Ryan Alford.
 Hey guys, what's up?
 Welcome to the latest edition of the Radcast.
 We got an Instudio interview today.
 My favorite.
 We say if it's radical, we cover it.
 I know a thing or two about dentistry, if you follow my journey, it's been a few dentists
 in my life, but none as special as the one in studio today.
 Dr. Alex Plains, what's up brother?
 What's up brother?
 Thank you so much for your amazing hospitality.
 Hey man, my pleasure.
 You look good man.
 Thanks man.
 You look sharp.
 Thank you.
 I'm like, damn, I gotta get my, I gotta get my tailor.
 I'm a jeans and t-shirt kind of guy, but you know, I know what I love dressing up casually
 to.
 I didn't know what to expect.
 No, you look good man.
 Thanks, thanks, thank you.
 You look great.
 Thank you.
 I appreciate it.
 Life is good.
 My son turned four years old today.
 So I'm here.
 This is how the braiding with you now.
 Hey, happy birthday to Zander, Zander, I like that name.
 Thank you.
 He's a good golfer name, Zander.
 He's a stud.
 Yes.
 Yes.
 Yeah, I'm excited.
 I went out to our steak dinner here, amazing hospitality, made of these.
 Have you been to Greenville before?
 First time.
 G Vegas, baby.
 First time.
 I love the weather.
 Yeah.
 It's so nice and cool.
 I'm used to Florida where it's so humid.
 You go anywhere and you're just sweating bullets.
 Yeah.
 Yeah.
 Oh, other humidity.
 We, it's finally cracked for us.
 That's why we, we get the four seasons.
 So we're starting to get a little bit of that.
 Yeah, it's nice.
 It's nice.
 I like it.
 I like it with more time.
 I know.
 Exactly.
 There were enough time, right?
 Yes.
 Let's run a nine.
 Offices now.
 Yes, nine dental practices across Dave, Florida.
 Yeah.
 Man.
 And only nine years in.
 Nine for non, baby.
 That's right.
 Hey, that's scaling.
 Been trying to scale, been trying to scale little by little, but it's getting there.
 Yeah.
 So Dr.
 Let's start with some of the journey talk.
 I definitely want to talk some of the sun talk.
 So father's sun talk.
 You got three boys.
 I've got four.
 Yes.
 And just for our audience, let's set the table with what got you here, man, what brought,
 what brought Dr.
 Plains to life.
 That's great.
 That's a great question.
 It's funny.
 You asked me that at the age of six years old, I knew that I wanted to be a dentist.
 It's funny because my mom and my two aunts were dental assistants.
 So that's the reason I got into dentistry.
 I realized that I had a passion for helping people.
 My friends will come.
 They'll be like, I'll give you a pack of skittles and you can take out my baby teeth.
 So I would literally start doing that, but I didn't believe in myself.
 So I graduated.
 I was in sales, started my business degree, like most of us do.
 And then I realized like, this is not what I meant to do in this life.
 So during hurricane Katrina, it's crazy, I say this and you might not believe me, but
 I had a premonition.
 I got like a vision in my life that said, if you don't go to dental school, this is
 what's going to happen to your life.
 It's a premonition.
 I'm going to be partying, wasting money from girl to girl, no real consistency.
 And that's not where my values are.
 I wanted to have a family.
 By literally, I was 21 years old.
 I called my buddy Gus, which had friends that went to dental school in the Dominican Republic.
 And I'm like, I want to go become a dentist and he's not a problem, Alex.
 So he jumped on a plane to Dominican Republic.
 He acted like my uncle.
 I enrolled in school in January.
 And in May, I was in the Dominican Republic.
 Wow.
 I was there.
 It was a journey.
 I had no idea what I was got in myself into, no electricity, no hot water.
 Like I'll literally go sometimes days with no electricity over there.
 But it was an amazing country.
 It gave me a lot of resilience and it gave me a lot of strength to do what I want to
 do.
 How was the curriculum?
 It was all in Spanish.
 Yeah.
 It was all in Spanish.
 Compared to the United States, you do get a lot more hands-on training over there.
 Okay.
 By year two, I was already doing extractions in the local communities.
 Wow.
 I remember my first day where the team...
 I was nervous for you.
 I would be nervous as shit.
 Right.
 Pulled to my teeth out.
 All right.
 Just sit still, buddy.
 I'd be like, okay, can I get a string in the door?
 Is that how we do it still?
 No.
 It literally is.
 It's Ryan.
 It was literally like they said, take that tooth out.
 I'm like, but where do I begin?
 I have no clue how to do this.
 So I got it done and then time flew.
 I graduated, got back, started my reds.
 I got into Columbia University in the city of New York for my residency, amazing opportunity.
 Thank you for Dr. Termin for believing in me.
 May he rest in peace.
 He actually used to play the clarinet.
 He was the director of my program.
 So I graduated there, got married, and I literally opened up my first practice after
 nine months.
 And then I just started...
 I knew that I had an entrepreneur heart and I wanted to grow more.
 So I basically opened up my second practice within 10 months.
 Wow.
 I had no idea what I was doing, but I knew that I can...
 I knew I had some background in managing.
 So I knew that I can make that grow.
 So my wife is a dentist as well.
 So she was in one location.
 I was in the other location.
 And we literally just started growing from 2014 to 2023.
 And we're now in nine locations.
 Lot to impact there.
 I'm going to come back to working with your wife, because I think there's a few people
 can pull that off.
 I'm going to come back to that.
 But talk to me about the decision of a little...
 I don't know the percentage, but I would think most people coming out of the school will
 go work at another office or dentistry versus starting their own practice.
 Correct.
 Was that just...
 You said you're an entrepreneur, so you made that decision.
 But that's not an easy thing to just step into, because you've finally learned...
 You've gone through all this schooling, resident...
 You've learned to be a dentist.
 You've learned to do that.
 You got to scale it.
 But learning to be to own and run a business in office, those are two different things.
 Yes.
 I mean...
 So what was the thought?
 Other than just knowing what you wanted to do, and sometimes that's just the clearly
 unique.
 Well, so basically what I did, I graduated.
 I went down to Miami.
 I worked in four different private practices.
 It was complete madness.
 Well, then I enrolled and I started working for a corporate, corporate dental group called
 Aspen Dental.
 I was with them for nine months, but I knew that I always wanted to have my own business.
 Because my own vision, the way I take care of my patients, and not to talk bad about them,
 they're very controlling...
 They like to control the schedule a certain way.
 And I felt that I wasn't giving my patients the adequate patient care that I really wanted
 to.
 So that's the...
 So that's the shuffling in and out.
 Yes.
 You get 20 minutes for this.
 Yes.
 So I literally learned a lot from them in the business side within nine months, like
 about PNLs and about overhead costs and how to negotiate with your vendors and how to
 staff.
 So I literally got like a business degree within nine months working for Aspen Dental.
 And then I just went with it and opened up my first practice.
 Wow.
 That's getting after it.
 What was like the biggest holy shit moment versus maybe like the yay moment of that
 process.
 So basically the one of the hardest things that I went through was getting approved for
 the loan to buy the practice.
 Yeah.
 That was one of my first obstacles.
 Then I realized how hard it was to get staff.
 Then I realized, how do I market?
 How do I let people know that this guy that is Cuban is in Viral Beach and one of the
 richest islands in the country, seventh richest island in the country.
 And I'm literally here and I'm 27, 28 years old, where the median demographic was 68
 to 72 years old.
 So they were like, why would I go see you kid?
 There's so many other dentists.
 So it was very hard to convince or treat the patients a certain way where I realized like
 they want to come back to see me.
 So that was one of my biggest challenges retaining those patients.
 And ultimately what was the hook that you used to get them?
 The rec mail, baby, the rec mail, the rec mail and I would do a lot of Google PPC.
 But honestly it was a lot of direct mail.
 And then I started doing some radio shows and I did some TV commercials.
 TV didn't do too well in the dental space.
 But right now my main bread and butter is Facebook ads and social media marketing and
 Google.
 Yeah.
 You're a charismatic guy.
 Like I can see.
 You seem genuine like down to earth.
 I am.
 And so like that.
 I think that there's some warped there.
 People know that I care, people know that I care.
 And one of my biggest core values is transparency.
 So I'm very transparent with my patients.
 So they know that if things are not perfect, I'm going to do whatever it takes to make
 it right.
 What made Alex Plains become doctor Alex Plains?
 I sense like some ethical foundation behind you.
 Like where does that come from?
 Where did that get instilled in you?
 I'm the first generation doctor of my family.
 All my families were blue collar workers.
 My grandfather was a welder.
 My grandmother was a supervisor for a sewing company.
 My mom was dental assistant, my aunt's for dental assistants.
 So I'm the first generation doctor of my family.
 I wanted to make them proud.
 They come from Cuba in 1980.
 So I went through so many struggles to get out of that country.
 So the least I can do was build a legacy for not only myself, but for my kids and my
 family.
 That's powerful, man.
 Thanks, man.
 How does?
 What's something maybe someone in America doesn't completely appreciate about Cuba and
 his people?
 Like what's something?
 Like we hear, okay, it was Russian or like communist driven and all that and you hear
 about these stories.
 I've met a lot of great people from Cuba.
 Yes.
 And there's like some of this warm, genuineist that comes through with a lot of the Cubans
 that I've met.
 But I don't know.
 Tell us something that maybe your audience wouldn't know.
 Cubans are very known to being very hardworking.
 Miami was built by Cubans.
 That country, that's this.
 Sorry, that city has developed so well and it was based on the Latin American population.
 Cubans are very hardworking.
 They're very committed and they're very smart when it comes to medicine.
 In the country of Cuba, everyone has medical coverage and even though there's no medicine
 but they get the training to become amazing doctors.
 Well, but in regards to the personal foundations, it's just the unity.
 We like to be all united.
 Like we're going to do Thanksgiving.
 We want the whole family there.
 Christmas, New Year's.
 If I literally don't go to those events, like I get this owned from my family.
 I think that might be every family depending on you.
 Yeah, a lot of families even in the US.
 Yeah.
 We got a bad rep for that myself.
 Some parts of it.
 Yeah.
 I love you, Adana.
 Sorry.
 Remember the first time I missed Thanksgiving because we actually wanted to go to Tennessee
 with the boys and my grandparents were just devastated.
 Oh, man.
 I'm sure.
 How were the boys?
 Seven, six and four.
 Okay.
 There you go.
 Those are good ages.
 You're getting outside of the baby phase.
 You know what?
 Four is getting past the baby.
 Like even three, I know there's toddlers and they're not a baby.
 Yes.
 Yes.
 It's getting more into my middle son has given me.
 I love Nicholas.
 He's very bright.
 He's very smart.
 Like he has conversations like an adult already.
 And he's just being a madman now jumping on couches and throwing stuff and just upset.
 I guess he's just having a middle child syndrome.
 Are they playing sports?
 Yeah.
 I had them in baseball last season.
 Okay.
 They did some jutsu as well.
 All right.
 Now they want to do soccer.
 I'd better say soccer.
 Yeah.
 Burn some energy.
 Yeah.
 I guess I'm running.
 That's right.
 A couple of mine played play soccer.
 Soccer, baseball, basketball and swimming.
 Swimming.
 Swimming.
 Swimming.
 Swimming is a good one too for burning energy.
 Yeah.
 Get back to working with your wife.
 That's very good.
 Have your own offices at the start.
 There's some separation.
 Yes.
 Church and state.
 Man and woman.
 Talk to me about how that experiences.
 So it's me and my wife are both one of the best things you got you any I recommend to
 anyone is get a personality test done.
 I'm a high driver.
 My wife is a high driver.
 We have two alphas right fighting for the then.
 My wife is an amazing dentist so I was lucky to have her in one office but it definitely
 does bring a lot of stress to the household especially when it's not your ideal day.
 I'm going to be transparent.
 I'll tell you the truth.
 And it does bring a lot of stress.
 The good news is that my wife said Alex you handle the business side of things.
 I just want to go in and do the clinical day-to-day stuff and that alleviated a lot of
 the issues.
 Yeah.
 That helps.
 That helps conquer it.
 Yes.
 How has it been as far as like growing from one to nine practices with her?
 She hated it.
 She hated issues.
 Why are you getting yourself into so many offices?
 My goal was to just scale my business and that's just what my passion is and what I
 love to do.
 Building businesses.
 I guess both in business but maybe even being a dentist.
 What's rewarding for Alex?
 For Dr. Alex.
 What's like your most rewarding moments?
 When I build a dental practice and I see where it was when I basically went and looked
 at the show and then I see that I actually build a practice and we're serving 1,500 patients
 every single year through that facility and every single year we're growing or reviews
 are getting better.
 That for me is an amazing reward back.
 How does it feel when you're usually a driver?
 You have a hard time letting go of responsibility.
 Yes.
 So I'm not going to put words in your mouth but I think I know your brother as I know
 myself like letting go of responsibility trusting others.
 Yes.
 How has it been for you in that journey?
 Oh man.
 I still have major trust issues but I've realized like drivers.
 We have all these ideas.
 We have the vision that we want to get at but then you need that S personality to settle
 it all down for you and put it to work because I throw so much stuff at the wall every single
 day.
 I'm like, I got this idea.
 I got this idea.
 Jeremy, I got this idea.
 Christie, I got this idea and then I need somebody to lay it all down for me and type it
 up and get it all laid out.
 Yeah.
 It sounds like you're starting to find where your gaps are.
 Yeah.
 So my mind showed themselves pretty quickly, good at these two things, not at these
 now.
 Correct.
 So organization like I have paper thrown all over the place and I'm a procrastinator.
 A lot of the time that leaves things to last minute but I've been creating some habits
 like getting five critical tasks done before 11 o'clock in the morning has really been
 helping me out.
 What for someone listen and we're going to talk about some of your coaching and all that
 down the road.
 Talk to me, you're scaling and someone listening that's going, okay, I'm growing a business.
 Dr.
 Plains did this in a hurry.
 But what's your biggest advice to people trying to scale?
 Yes.
 I love that question.
 I think there's, I know there's definitely a lot of break points that we all go over
 them really quickly like I invested massively in IT infrastructure when the revenues were
 not there yet to support that IT infrastructure.
 You also got to be careful on bringing a season that good or bad, it was a big expense
 and we were worth it.
 It was worth it now, but I did it way too early, probably a year and a half, two years
 too early.
 So don't invest in technology too soon.
 Correct.
 The break points, you cannot go over the break points.
 So for example, there's companies that I've seen that bring a whole C suite and their revenue
 is five or six million dollars.
 You can't bring a C suite of your revenue is not at least over 20 million dollars.
 But you also, one of my biggest recommendations is you got to invest in the infrastructure,
 strong infrastructure, before you start scaling.
 What I mean by that is HR, accounting, financial, clean, transparent financials, procurement
 negotiations, having how to hire the right people and marketing and obviously having good
 clinicians to support you or good team members in whatever field you're in.
 Yeah.
 Obviously being a barker, I'm going to jump at the marketing side and we started down
 there faster early with the direct mills and stuff.
 But what's been client acquisition calls are always like the high, other than like staff
 and all that.
 Correct.
 Staff, infrastructure and very quickly acquisition cost.
 I know you mentioned that you're transparent about learning like what works, what doesn't,
 any surprises along the way.
 I realize, for example, I love how you just set acquisition costs, right?
 So like a direct mail, and we go back to direct mail acquisition costs is anywhere from
 150 to 200 dollars per patient.
 Yeah.
 Okay.
 For PPC and Google for my full-large marketing, it ranges anywhere from 2500 to 3500 dollars
 per one patient, wow, to close one of those cases.
 That's crazy.
 So it's a lot.
 It is.
 But what's the lifetime value of a customer to you?
 The lifetime value, it brings it in high revenue right away.
 And then basically they stay for the maintenance because they don't no longer have any more
 teeth.
 Yeah.
 So something like a full-large ranges anywhere from 20 to 25,000 dollars for one patient.
 And then you're paying $2,500 acquisition cost to get that one patient.
 Wow.
 What's the average?
 It's like at the age of someone that's doing the average age of someone doing that.
 The average age is anywhere from 55 to 60 years old.
 I've done guys and females in their 20s and I've done people as old as 84, where people
 in their 20s is because they had significant dental issues or because they just wanted
 to look pretty.
 No, actually high consumption of sugary drinks like mountain dew, gatorade and some drug
 users, but mostly because of sugary drinks.
 Yeah.
 And just dental neglect.
 Everyone's afraid I'm going to go on to the dentist.
 Wow.
 Yeah.
 I'm going to keep my smile.
 I'm going to look good on camera like you, Dr. Plains talking with Dr. Alex Plains, dentist
 and one hell of a guy.
 So Dr.
 Let's talk a little bit about what you do in an out of the office.
 I know you've transitioned your knowledge into coaching and teaching and things like
 that.
 Talk to me about some of your programs.
 So basically right now I realize like the full-large space, there's only 5% of dentists
 in the whole entire world are doing this type of procedure.
 So there's doctors doing veneers and crowns and fillings and root canals and whatnot.
 But this procedure is very limited to just 5%.
 So what I did, I started a training institute to train doctors that want to learn how to
 do full-larges.
 They can come to my program here in Florida.
 I'm sorry, not here, but in Florida or in Costa Rica to get surgical training.
 And then if they want to stay and become a JV partner with us or join our program and
 become an implants for all center, then they can do that and we offer the team training,
 the marketing support, procurement support and HR support as well as the call center.
 Wow.
 Nice.
 Terran Key.
 Yes.
 Business in a box.
 So we help them build their business and they still run their business as they want
 to.
 That's great.
 Yes.
 I just can't imagine.
 It's kind of medicine, but taking people's teeth out and just putting in all new ones.
 Yeah.
 Let's get a little bit with the medical reality of what that entails.
 Yeah.
 So we extract all your teeth on one visit, whether it's six or 12 or 14 or 16 teeth in the
 top or in the bottom.
 How bad is that hurt?
 You're under sedation.
 You'll get your ass kicked.
 Like a dirty day.
 Okay.
 You'll feel the discomfort for 30 days, but it's revolutionary and you take out all
 the teeth.
 You put, you trim the bone down, you level everything out.
 I don't want to get too technical, but you put the implants in.
 You do scans right after and within 24 hours, you're printing a device with a new smile
 design that you insert into the patient's implants.
 Okay.
 So they'll ask for error.
 Those don't.
 So six months later, we make you your permanent set out of a material called zirconia or
 a nanosuramic material.
 Okay.
 And then those last forever, nothing's forever.
 I can't say that.
 I'm willing to get to be forever and I'm sure things are forever.
 But that success rate is over 98% for this procedure.
 Wow.
 So how long do they last?
 Typically.
 I've had patients with zirconia devices for over 20 years.
 The chances of it fracturing are very small, but they just don't guarantee it forever,
 but it could last.
 Yes.
 Yes.
 Yes.
 Yes.
 So you're teaching people how to do this and how to build the business around it.
 Correct.
 They come to you in Florida or in Puerto Rico, close to recon, sorry.
 Yeah.
 So either location.
 In person training.
 Correct.
 In person.
 Very hands on.
 Yeah.
 We have a faculty that will be there from A to Z teaching you why you're doing this and
 how to understand it.
 See a lot of people go and they get training and then they come back to the United States
 and they're all hyped up.
 At the moment they realize, okay, how am I going to market this procedure now?
 How am I going to get it started?
 What implant system am I going to use?
 They realize that this is why this program is so good because we're going to be there
 with you along the way and we're going to be like that accountability partner throughout
 the whole program.
 I find it's interesting.
 We're talking very specific to a dental approach and what that is.
 But what you just said there, I find to be the issue with all the coaching and everything
 else that goes on is it's a lot of knowledge being passed around, but there's not a way
 to put it to practice.
 Correct.
 And I think everybody goes to conferences and you go to the things with some of my friends
 back here that I love, have the pump up events, Grant and Brad, we talked about them.
 Love those guys.
 But you go and you learn all this stuff from them and they're, it's invaluable what
 you learn.
 But you got to go get to know how to implement.
 Yes.
 The question is everything executions everything and I think that's where it falls down.
 So it's really, you're clearly ahead of the game in recognizing that and then providing
 that.
 Absolutely.
 So it's funny.
 You say, so I work with Cardone Ventures, right?
 As well as grants, type projects with Brandon Dawson.
 So I did the whole business platform with them, it's an amazing project.
 The amount of information they give me, it was honestly worth every dime.
 But now my question is like to implement all of that, I need a team of people that know
 what they're doing to get it going.
 You know what I mean?
 So it's great that you say that.
 So that's why this program is so unique.
 It's because I realize that people go and get training.
 Then they come back, they try once, they have one hiccup and then they just give up.
 Yeah.
 So we're not going to let you give up.
 We're going to continually, continuously mentor you throughout the process.
 And then you got a podcast as well.
 So we'll get a meta on us here.
 We're going to talk about podcasts on the podcast.
 Your number one marketing and business show, we appreciate everyone for making us number
 one.
 Amazing.
 Talk to me about live stream.
 Live stream is, I never knew I was going to do a podcast.
 I have a company called live stream, Denner or live stream you, which is basically a program
 to help Dennis build a practice with architectural planning, buying the shares, lease negotiations,
 the legal, the whole aspect to getting it all going, right?
 We actually just helped the doctor in Miami open up his first practice in July and he's
 doing phenomenal.
 Dr. Nick Castellanos, he's doing great.
 So that's how it started.
 So basically the reason live stream is because I always wanted to teach people how to stream
 their life.
 So learn from my mistakes, I'll teach you how I spend thousands of thousands of dollars
 in chairs that I really didn't need and equipment I didn't need.
 So don't make those mistakes.
 So I'm here to help you to stream your life.
 That's great.
 And so the podcast as well, we have guests on it.
 Yeah, we talk about personal development, leadership development, because one of the things
 that I realized in order to lead people, you need to have a lot of leadership development.
 Yeah.
 So I listen to like at my lab and Brad Lee, Grant Cardone, John Maxwell.
 So I'm constantly trying to learn more and more just to become a better leader because
 there's a huge difference between leader and manager.
 Yeah.
 What's been like the biggest thing you've unlocked in yourself?
 I, man, that's a loaded question.
 I know.
 Hey, you can take that a few different ways.
 Personally, professionally, I realized like, and professionally, I realized that pretty
 much when they say this guy is the limit, that's complete truth.
 If you really want to chase something and you create a vision and your goals are written
 down in a whiteboard or whatever way you can want to do them.
 If a guy from Halea, that's where I'm from, where my parents made no more than $7 an
 hour, becomes a dentist and opens nine dental practices by himself.
 Anyone could do anything.
 But if you stay consistent and you stay disciplined and you stay committed, the sky's the limit.
 So you can accomplish anything.
 Yeah.
 Is there a characteristic that maybe you didn't know you had that's come out maybe in some
 of, I don't know, developing as a leader.
 I think it's definitely resilience going through ups and downs and staying consistent and
 not giving up, getting denied by banks, getting an arguments with attorneys or accountants
 or even team members, HR issues.
 And I've always been able to patient care issues and I've always been able to stay resilient
 through all of it.
 What's a bad day for Dr. Plains?
 What's the thing positive?
 Like, what is it?
 What is it like?
 Everything's great with non-practices and everybody knows it's not easy, but I just, you
 sense to me to have the drive and the attitude to make, I don't know, shitty situations
 good.
 Yes.
 But I'll tell you, I'll tell you, I'll tell you it actually just happened a couple, like
 eight weeks ago actually.
 So I was working on a patient, things were going great.
 My day was almost over.
 It was like two o'clock, two thirty.
 And all of a sudden I'm doing a procedure and the patient starts coughing.
 She's sedated, coughing, coughing and an implant tool actually went into the airway.
 Wow.
 So she starts coughing, turning pale, sweating, I'm sweating, I'm like, call 911 and she's
 like coughing.
 And then all of a sudden, within two minutes of coughing directly by a miracle of God
 because I'm much, I started praying.
 I really started praying.
 Of course, I'm doing my necessary precautions to make sure the patient's taken care of.
 She coughed up the part.
 Wow.
 So it was literally stuck in the oral pharynx.
 So it was really stuck there in the middle.
 So it either goes to the lung and it's a major issue or she swallows it.
 It wouldn't have gone to the stomach because it was literally stuck there right before it
 hits the lungs.
 Yes.
 So it was a stressful day, man.
 Damn.
 That is not bad.
 It went from being high, highs to blow lows real quickly.
 Geez.
 Yeah.
 So the other day I came back from Labor Day weekend and at 730, my phone's already getting
 ringed up with staff members out sick, doctors that can't make it into work.
 And my first case canceled.
 Those are normal days for me.
 Yeah.
 But the one with the part, that was a really scary day for me.
 Just a total random accident.
 Yeah.
 I've been doing this.
 Was there coughing?
 Is what caused it to begin with?
 Yeah.
 Because she started coughing and she moved and the part slipped off my hands and it went
 into the airway.
 Man.
 Yeah.
 How was she after the fact?
 She was thankful.
 She was a good trooper.
 She was 72 years old, beautiful lady.
 But she was really nice.
 She understood that it was her fault.
 Yeah.
 It gets still, man.
 The pressure.
 It was though.
 The pressure was on.
 The pressure was on.
 Literally.
 The pressure was on.
 We got so many stories, but I know it's not in regards to that.
 There's cases that I've been sedating patients and then they get completely violent.
 They start punching.
 Yeah.
 How about a say?
 Is there any funny stories that you can share?
 They start.
 Can you see the home videos of people who they're sedated in the back of their car and
 they're like, I'm sure you don't have any of those, right?
 No.
 Yeah.
 That was another day.
 Sometimes they get really violent under the sedation.
 It's hard when you're trying to run your company and you're trying to mentor and lead
 people and everyone comes to you for answers, but yet you also got to take care of your
 patients that they're looking for the right solutions.
 And that's the reason they came to your practice.
 Practice.
 Good word leading to what I was going to ask.
 You're a practitioner, though.
 Yep.
 You're running down offices, but you're still working on that.
 Chairside.
 That's unique because I think a lot of people, whether it's lawyer or dentist or other
 they start building the compound of the corporation, you got going on and they get out of
 it.
 But that's important to you, right?
 Yep.
 I love patient care.
 I'm never going to leave the chair.
 I might go for 2024, which is right around the corner, time flies when you're having fun.
 It's to go down to two or three days a week to really focus on not only my patients,
 but also focus on running the business and working on all my side ventures.
 It does, it does, you got to work on the business, not in the business.
 That's right.
 If you really want it to grow.
 Exactly.
 Yeah.
 Any other side ventures that we haven't hit?
 No, that's pretty much it.
 Yeah.
 Nice.
 You got a lot, though.
 I'm excited about it.
 Is there like a guest or when you think about your podcast, things like that, they're
 like, there's a, I can't wait to have like some dream.
 Yes.
 You're wanting.
 I'm living the dream right now.
 Have you?
 Right.
 Hey.
 Hey, sit you up there.
 There we go.
 Man, thank you again for having me here.
 It's been a lot of fun.
 I definitely want to meet at my let.
 Yeah.
 I'll be meeting Bradley in a couple of weeks in Las Vegas.
 I'm very excited about that.
 I love Andy Frazzella.
 Oh, yeah.
 I love Andy.
 He's hardcore, but he's.
 I'll show you some pictures.
 Yeah.
 Andy.
 In a bit like, shit, 15 years ago.
 Wow.
 That's awesome.
 Yeah.
 So I like him and I like Alex Hermozzi.
 Yeah.
 Alex Smart.
 Yes.
 So he's a mad scientist.
 He's a genius.
 He is.
 He's very smart.
 Yeah.
 So yeah, baby steps, right?
 So we'll see where this road leads us.
 Do you?
 Do you like the coaching?
 I love coaching.
 Yeah.
 You seem like a good mentor.
 I love helping.
 I just literally started training a doctor out of Orlando named Dr. Freddie.
 And within three months, he never even knew how to do dental implants.
 And within three months, now he's doing implants at least a couple of times in his week.
 Well, that for me just so much fulfillment with that, because at the end of the day and
 you know this, right?
 And it's not about the money.
 It's just about what is your purpose?
 Everyone talks about purpose, but really what is our purpose in this world?
 And for me, I realize it's to give back and help others reach that potential.
 What's happening with the family these days?
 Yeah.
 Is it everybody likes to talk about work, life, balance?
 Always have the non-negotiables for you.
 That's balance look like.
 Does it exist?
 It doesn't exist.
 It doesn't.
 And the day I realized that was the day that I was actually in peace, I realized let me
 stop chasing it because it really is not realistic right now.
 I definitely try to participate with my kids in their sports.
 I try to go to all their school events.
 When I get home, I do the homework with them.
 I don't pay people to do that type of stuff because I really want to be hands on.
 My goal for 2024 is to literally even spend more time with them and at least have one
 vacation a quarter and one seven day vacation a year.
 We got to start somewhere.
 Yeah.
 What's Dr. Plains like to do when he's not working or doing family sports?
 Yeah.
 I love sports.
 Baseball, football, basketball, love going to games, love playing them.
 Who's your team?
 Miami Heat for basketball for football, the Cowboys and the Doffins.
 Okay.
 So, yeah.
 The office is looking pretty good this year.
 Yes, they're 2-0, man.
 They're 2-0.
 They're 2-0.
 And for Baseball, the Marlins, I grew up being a brave fan, but then I became, once the
 Marlins opened up in 93, I became a Marlins fan.
 Yeah.
 And I liked the Yankees.
 I liked the Yankees.
 I was there when Jeter hit his 3000 hit and I was hooked because I lived in New York for
 a couple of years.
 Yeah.
 Baseball and Cuba.
 They were good.
 They were good.
 They're always just bad asses.
 They're good.
 They're good.
 All of them is the programs.
 They're not funded correctly, so they don't have the trainers anymore like they used to.
 Yeah.
 Where's all this head?
 What's the next 10, like, if you get your crystal ball next 10 years, didn't you go?
 That's it.
 Is it?
 Enjoy the journey.
 You're on a wild ride or you like, you got like absolute goals in mind.
 Yeah.
 My main goal is at the age of 49 is to eventually consolidate the business and definitely
 start scaling, like stepping back, but running my consulting company with Livestream
 you and the implants for all institute and my podcast and helping others and inspiring
 others.
 Yeah.
 It's powerful, man.
 Yeah.
 Working everybody, keep up with all these things and keep up with everything you're doing.
 Social media, Dr. Alex A. Plains or Livestream with Dr. Alex Plains on my YouTube channel and
 Plains Dental Partners and implants for all.
 There you go.
 So.
 It's been great having you, man.
 Thank you, man.
 Likewise.
 And I appreciate it.
 Yeah, man.
 I think the people are going to get a lot out of this and this is just to start and let's
 continue the relationship, bro.
 Next time you got to come to Florida.
 I know.
 We're about to start doing stuff on the road.
 Right.
 That'll be cool.
 Yeah.
 I love it.
 That'll be awesome.
 I love to come check out your stuff.
 I'm actually going to be in Miami in a couple of weeks.
 Awesome.
 Yeah.
 When are October?
 October 3rd to the 5th.
 Oh, cool.
 Awesome.
 Yeah.
 Awesome.
 I'll be going to Vegas.
 Oh, yeah.
 What is that was an event?
 I'm going to his podcast.
 Oh, perfect.
 Perfect.
 So I'm going to be there from the 4th to the 7th.
 There you go.
 Maybe do some gambling.
 Play some roulette.
 You play roulette.
 Oh, yeah.
 Oh, yeah.
 Oh, yeah.
 A little bit of everything.
 Awesome.
 Just to go to Vegas.
 A couple of times a year.
 I haven't had it.
 I would go about every couple of years, but I love Vegas.
 I just can't go that often.
 I got into trouble.
 Yeah.
 I can take.
 I go.
 This is what I'm taking.
 Yes.
 Winter loose.
 I'll go lay about the pool and go out to the club or do whatever.
 Nicole, my wife with me, we'll go get into something.
 But if I win, I can believe it there.
 You hold yourself very disciplined.
 Yeah.
 You take with that on certain things.
 But I really appreciate you coming in and being on the show.
 And it's been great, man.
 Yeah.
 Can't wait to hear it.
 Hey, guys, we're at theradcast.com.
 Search for Dr. Alex Plains.
 You will find all the content from today's episode, the full version, the short version,
 the highlight clips, and everything you don't want to miss.
 I'm at Ryan Alford on all the social media platforms.
 You'll see that blue check mark.
 Have it before you can buy it, baby.
 We'll see you next time on the radcast.
 To listen or watch full episodes, visit us on the web at theradcast.com
 or follow us on social media at our Instagram account, v.rad.cast
 or at Ryan Alford.
 Stay radical.
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