How to create a happy business that thrives with retired “crazy” dentist Paddi Lund | #387

Tim Reid:

Sold the building.

Paddi Lund:

Yeah. Sold the building interesting. This is everybody’s life plan, isn’t? that you go out of business and then sell it. But for me I’ve got one more year. I thought whatever year was I’m sure enough my lifestyle had been gradually becoming less and less expensive throughout the years. It was very frugal minimal life. I have three shirts and two pairs of jeans and one pair of shoes and a backpack. And this is how I live all of the time and saw some of my thoughts here I am with enough money to last me for the next 200 years. Why am I bothering to sell this business? And I thought it was a little like selling people. All these people that I’ve got to know for such a long time and served them. So I felt a little bit funny about leaving them with no one to look after them. But on the other hand I thought not. I don’t know anybody at all but I trust enough to hand these people over. So I said to them Look I’ve got a on the Coast who’s pretty good. And he can take some of you but otherwise you just have to look around for anybody.

And again gave got a couple of months just to in case anybody had any major problems and then I’ll close the doors and I went home.

Tim Reid:

You could have sold it and given the money to charity, Did you consider that?

Paddi Lund:

No. I’m not really out to wish the credit.

Tim Reid:

You’re very honest though.

Paddi Lund:

Yeah. I have degree in medicine as well as dentistry so I could do a bit of medicine and bit of dentistry. So I was doing a bit of that up in the north of Thailand. And eventually I figured this also didn’t float my boat but I just haven’t got that very altruistic gene.

Tim Reid:

You’ve studied a lot I mean you have invested a lot of time how many years is a medical and dentistry degree?

Paddi Lund:

I did surgery as well.

Tim Reid:

So, I’m guessing you’ve invested over 10 years.

Paddi Lund:

Maybe 11 or 12 years or something like at that.

Tim Reid:

At that point when you’re studying you must well no I won’t say because must is a word that’s going to be used much around here. But you thought well I’m going to build a dentistry practice. I’m going to build an empire. Or did you think at some point going to have three shirts in a backpack.

Paddi Lund:

No. Like most people I went through the stage of empire building and found that I wasn’t though I was okay in managing few people I was not good at managing a lot of people. I found my optimum number was about two. I can well manage two people more than that. It gets a bit complicated when I stop enjoying myself. When I was empire building I found that I was being a professional employing other professionals. I would often make less money than I should have done because I was spending my time managing when I could have been spending my time as working as a professional which is usually a fairly high dollar value. So it’s a big jump from being a competent relatively expensive professional provider to building a small empire. But it’s very rare.

Tim Reid:

So I could just hopping that time machine and go back to that point in your life because you did  study for those 11 12 years you did go out and try and build an empire at a point in time like from what I understand many dentists found themselves immensely unhappy and you had a very unhappy practice. You considered suicide. Can you tell us about that point in your business life?

Paddi Lund:

It’s to do with empire building and and wanting to much and no matter how much money we make we can always spend more. It’s easy to have a lifestyle that’s bigger than your business. And it leads to What Charles Dickens said and very well I think it was Mr. Mc Comer giving advice and he said and you know and I paraphrase please don’t send me letters if I’m wrong or paraphrase I said basically annual income. 1 pound. Annual. Expenditure 19 and 11 pounds that result happiness and you only on one hand and you know expenditure one pound and one penny and the result is unhappiness.

Tim Reid:

Spending more than you’re getting.

Paddi Lund:

Yeah. Exactly. And. it’s like being on a financial treadmill. It’s horrible. And most people get into it at some time in their life but they develop high maintenance habits. They eat expensive food and go to expensive restaurants because especially professional people that’s their due. And also they’re expected to do it. Many people will have a high maintenance spouse and high maintenance children.

Tim Reid:

I don’t know what the word is but What did you have that was keeping you there. Did you have a wife, children. What were your highly expensive habits?

Paddi Lund:

No. I think my fast cars expensive restaurants and expensive resorts I think or probably expensive house. I’ve been married a couple of times but the mall was a pretty sensible affair that probably gave me the best of the best advice I’ve had in my life. So I can’t blame them.

Tim Reid:

What was that? What’s best advice? Leave me.

Paddi Lund:

I can’t tell you that at this point.  

Tim Reid:

I’ll ask it again about 15 minutes. So Paddi, I think we all get way you are going with this. And so at a point in time you have you’ve just imploded have you? Is there a was there a day that you reflect back on where the you implied it.

Paddi Lund:

It was probably particular week when I started to go insane

Tim Reid:

Would you mind sharing that with us?

Paddi Lund:

I could. For me it’s a rather boring story. I don’t need to do that  anymore. But it’s a method of escape. If we get stressed often in our lives we search and search for escape. And eventually most of us end up with some sort of a escape through showing how stressed we are and becoming slowly inside. We call it break down stuff like that. But it’s it’s a way of dealing with the situation. Your brain is saying you can’t go on like this anymore. My body’s can’t go on like this anymore. And so it’s a compensating mechanism which just can’t function anymore. Doing this sort of thing. And many people end up in mental hospitals. Many people end up changing their job. And many people in professions end up killing themselves. But I was always a little more pragmatic and my brain works a little different than many people in the city. A strange answer. And that other people don’t see and my strange answer for this situation was to get happy. They insight was I’m unhappy. Sounds simple but many don’t come to that we think or are working too hard or too many responsibilities. The economic situation is that of a difficult profession. Basically what it boils down to is I am unhappy. For me the purpose of life is to be happy. And I think it’s the same for most human beings. And if we’re not happy life is terrible and we all want to end it. So I think for some pragmatic when I decided it was unhappy or thought I was going to do something about it rather than just take pills so that I can tolerate a situation which is very common. And also I decided I was going to change the situation. And so I set about changing the situation and probably my second insight was my job that was doing it to me and it wasn’t my private life it was my job my job was very stressful because I was trying to provide. I work so hard to make lots of money and trying to make lots of money to try and buy a little happiness in my private life because I had so much unhappiness in my own business life. But that’s very inefficient way of going so I decided. And I thought no  I’m going to build a business that gives me happiness.

Tim Reid:

A happy business.

Paddi Lund:

Well you could say that but that’s doesn’t really illustrate what I was doing. It did end up being a happy business. You are absolutely right. But the aim was and this I think is important that aim was to make me happy. Does it make it sense?

Tim Reid:

The aim is to make you happy. Yeah. You were the problem.

Paddi Lund:

I had a problem and I was not happy. And anybody who is not happy has a problem I suspect would you agree with that?

Tim Reid:

Absolutely. And I guess this was reflecting in your staff your patience. It was just kind of the whole ripple effect was dark.

Paddi Lund:

Exactly and the more we are unhappy the more people around us become unhappy and the more people around us become unhappy the more they influence others to be more unhappy. If we live in an environment with happy people we tend to be happy if we live in an environment where there are unhappy people. We tend to be unhappy.

Tim Reid:

Would I be right Paddi in saying that you were lucky in the sense that you were in a very dark place but you somehow had the mental capacity to realize that you needed to get happy because many I guess wouldn’t.

Paddi Lund:

I’m not sure whether it’s the lack or not Tim. So that’s a whole philosophical question. I suspect it was due to the fact that I had great parents and a good education and an unusual brain.

Is that a luck or is that a pre-destination?

Tim Reid:

Okay. That’s another podcast interview somewhere else. Did you have people tapping you on the shoulder. Any honest people around you because I imagine you’re living in a fairly unreal world at this stage. Nice resorts nice cars nice houses nice restaurants in that environment. They’d be a lot of dishonest people I don’t mean criminals I mean people saying you’re great. Paddi  we love you Paddi. But but did anyone tap you on the shoulder and say you’re a fool Paddi.

Paddi Lund:

To a certain extent, my wife Deborah was very sensible but she also didn’t have all the insight into the situation that she gave me good advice. Yes. That was pretty straightforward. But most people are not introspective enough to understand this problem because most people have the same problem. I think that economic and social success gives us happiness and that is not true.           

Tim Reid:

It’s a hard one to overcome, isn’t it?

Paddi Lund:

It’s so well promulgated.

Tim Reid:

Tanks to marketing and advertising.

Paddi Lund:

It’s the whole world is skewed it’s more than marketing. But it’s been here since time immemorial. Rich people are going to be happy and people who are socially successful are going to be happy. There’s a slight amount of truth in it but it misses the whole point. And the point is we have to build a life that makes us happy and not much of that life needs to be to do with the social systems and economic systems that we have.

Tim Reid:

So Paddi, always feel guilty about leaving the philosophical discussion I feel t it’s going to come back anyway. It is good. It keeps you honest. You decided you needed to create a business that made you happy. So, what did you do? How did you go about that? I understand one of the first things you did was fire 75 percent of your client base.

Paddi Lund:

That’s an interesting story and makes it sound a little more on carrying was. It’s a fun story. It’s not quite true. And selling wasn’t the first thing that I did. The first thing that I did was introspection. I had to decide what made me happy and what make me unhappy. It’s really hard introspection. It’s hard to figure out. Just to sit down for half an hour and think how can I build a life that’s going to make me happy. And what is it about my current life that makes me unhappy. To do that, it requires an enormous amount of energy. And and it max your headache. I know from personal experience it’s very hard to think that deeply. Usually we shy off and just go on with life. It that make sense.

Tim Reid:

Yes it does. Absolutely. You’re an honest fellow and this is an honest session. I’ve just been in Charner as I said before we hit record for four days and I went over there to give a talk and I knew I had some spare time and I was going to reflect. I’m in a very busy time in my life at the moment. I was going to do some introspection. I didn’t call it that but I went to do it and I found it all too hard.

Paddi Lund:

That’s one of the hardest things in the life it’s easy just to get on with doing stuff.

Tim Reid:

Absolutely.

Paddi Lund:

Much easier. And that’s not just in the life. Life is the most important thing. It’s also in our business so often we would just keep pedaling. And I don’t think about the systems that might make it less arduous. Introspection is like that. If we introspect and goes through the pain we can make our life less arduous. But we have to pay the price to start off with. You don’t have to  do it for a long time. To start off it with you can do it for a minute or two. But I was explaining to my on thai boxing teacher a day . He’s a great thai boxer but he’s not that wonderful as a teacher. Because he hasn’t learned to think he’s learned to exercise his body and put up with the pain of his muscles. But he hasn’t learned to put up with the pain in your brain. When you think. When you think that the part of the brain that’s not used to thinking it hurts. So that’s introspection if you’re not used to introspection. Take it easy. You’ll get there.

Tim Reid:

What’s the question that you sit down and ask Paddi?

Paddi Lund:

How can I be happy? What is it making me unhappy at this moment. I assume most people understand that if they’re happy in life that’s good. And if they’re unhappy that’s bad. We get this good feeling when we are happy and we like it we enjoy life and we get his bad feeling when we unhappy. You accept that?

Tim Reid:

Absolutely.

Paddi Lund:

Happiness is the most important thing in life. We sometimes think on the most important things life is family or religion or country or community.

Tim Reid:

I would almost say peace. Well I think it’s a subjective question but I like pushing concept so is that happiness the end point to me I would have thought to be at peace with who you are would be the end point not happiness.

Paddi Lund:

If you are at peace with who you are, you are happy.

Tim Reid:

You will be.

Paddi Lund:

I think so. Yes but that’s certainly a component of happiness. This is my tenant that happiness is the most important thing in life. And that we look for things to make us happy and some of us find that we get happiness from our religion and from our country. And we tend to think that these things are more important than happiness but an actual fact and that what we supply our happiness that’s what’s supplying happiness. So the end point of it all is happiness and we have different sort of tools that we use in life. So for me that was my first aha moment yes I want to be happy. And the second one was discovering what it was that made me happy.

Tim Reid:

So you at least must have thought at this point in time Paddi that the idea of being a dentist and owning a dental practice was what you wanted to do. There were just things within the way you went about running that practice that were making you unhappy. Is that correct?

Paddi Lund:

Can I switch it around a little and say life it took me two attacking me to the place where I was a highly-qualified dentist or when we’re talking about Raul’s surgeon and I needed a job to give me to give me money to live on. But I also discovered that I wanted to be happy. So purpose became to run my business in such a way that it would provide me with happiness rather than take away happiness. Does that make sense?

Tim Reid:

Yes absolutely. So everything that you would do going forward had to provide happiness or didn’t fly in the world of Paddi Lund.

Paddi Lund:

That’s it. So I set adding all the things that made me happy and taking away all the things that made me unhappy. Sounds logical.

Tim Reid:

Yeah totally.

Paddi Lund:

And if I talk about one area what’s my product and previously I thought my product when I was a physician was health. And when I was a surgeon it was taking away infections and cancer when I was a dentist it was filling up holes but in the end. As I explored this happiness comes more and more. I thought most people like me they want happiness just like me some product actually is happiness or I would like to make my customers more happy than where we were before they met me. That became my purpose and while I supply that was through the industry so it doesn’t really matter what business you’re in if you can supply people with happiness. That is the perfect product.

Tim Reid:

So I’m going to bring that back to a bit of a marketing discussion here and say that you do identify that everything you’re going to do in the practice going forward had to provide happiness to Paddi Lund as a result it would provide happiness to your staff and your patients. From what I understand,

Paddi Lund:

That’s a little bit of a dish.

Tim Reid:

I love how you keep pulling me up.

Paddi Lund:

If I become happy, I sort to be the leading light in the business. It tends to make other people happy. It’s not so selfish as it sounds.

Tim Reid:

No. I agree absolutely.

Paddi Lund:

By making myself more happy I became more aware that my purpose was to make other people happy because that is what made me happy. We surround ourself with happy people would become more happy. It’s wonderful. We are social animals. We need to be happy and we discover that we get more happy by surrounding ourselves with happy people. So we start to make them happy and then when a day come up that becomes they sometimes start to realize the same thing and they tend to want to make me happy. It’s a nice little circle. Makes sense.

Tim Reid:

Absolutely. So from what I understand, you went and identified a whole lot of things in the business and I imagine it was this was a joint kind of exercise amongst you and your staff and said where is all the sadness in the business and what can we do to fix it. Where I’m going with this Paddi’s that I’m interested in I would love to. I would love you to share what the experience of being a Patti Lund patient. In fact you didn’t even call them patients. I’d love you to share that because I think that’s it’s a really interesting story. Is that what you did?

Paddi Lund:

The main thing that I discovered at that particular time is that were greatly affected by how other people treat us. This impinges on our happiness greatly. What that means in our society is generally politeness. People are polite and respectful with us it tends to make us feel good. And if that impolite and disrespectful it tends to make us feel bad. That’s in a nutshell what I discovered at that point and I discovered it by looking at the interactions that we had with each other and questioning people about what it was about interactions that made them unhappy and almost 100 percent it was the lack of common politeness lack of thinking the lack of respect the lack of smile talking about people behind their backs. There were all sorts of areas that make people feel. And then the modern world is disrespected and not quite like it actually disrespected. So we together made up a series of standards that we would use in our communication with each other. This is in my business family which was just like you might call stab or tee. So we made a seven rules and standards and put them on the wall and we attempted to live by them and we were not a hundred percent successful but we certainly improved our happiness remarkably. For a long time every evening we would score happiness.

Tim Reid:

Wow. Don’t need to recite these seven but was is an example of one of these standards, Paddi?

Paddi Lund:

One of the standards was if you want something from someone and if you receive something say thank you. And if somebody says thank you to you, say: you’re welcome or it was a pleasure.

Tim Reid:

Wow. It is beautifully simple.

Paddi Lund:

Most of people when I say that oh that’s too complicated. I’m running a business.

Tim Reid:

Really?

Paddi Lund:

I can understand that but it really only takes about three seconds and I actually when I first saw that standard I had a lot of resistance to it myself in fact I was the worst person using that standard. But now it’s become second nature. I mostly do it and it makes a lot of difference in my interaction with people.

Tim Reid:

And at the end of the day you literally sit down with your business family and asked how do we go on those seven standards today.

Paddi Lund:

Yes. It wasn’t always made we did a round robin and it was facilitated who asked and how happy are you today. And. Why is it not 100 percent. What happened on your day? And almost invariably at some little human interaction that didn’t go so well. So as we come across each area that was causing a problem we attempted to make a standard to cover that area. And we call this the overall system the courtesy system. And I wrote a book about Ik called building the happiness engine business which centers around that story about how to build a system of communication in a business that makes people happy with each other. And eventually we extended that to our customers and we mandated that our customers must use that with us. We we made a bargain with each new customers. We will always use the standard with you. We would like you to use the standard in return. Well it’s probably better if you find some other business.

Tim Reid:

So Paddi to that point you did choose to farewell a number of patients 75 percent might be getting in the way of a good story.

Paddi Lund:

It could easily have been but it took a long time to do.

Tim Reid:

From what I understand, you took down the shingle you didn’t market yourself overtly you implemented a referral system in which existing patients. What did you call patients?

Paddi Lund:

Oh customers and guests.

Tim Reid:

Existing guests were asked to refer if people like themselves and it was very much a very closed practice. You operated off what I would probably call a scarcity model.

Paddi Lund:

Well that was the early model. That was a long time ago. That’s what t I call by invitation only which meant that only certain of my customers who were invited were given the privilege of inviting their friends. So I had to be a special customer to be offered that privilege. It was not all the customers who could refer their friends. And so no name on the phone book. Silent number.

Want front door. No signs and no one could just walk in the door even if I could open it. You have to be invited by one of his privilege customers. And I had special invitation. So it became by invitation only.  Which is yes it’s the scarcity model. But that’s not that wasn’t the point. The point for me was to surround myself with customers who were wonderful.

Tim Reid:

There was a balance here as you almost walking a tight rope. I’m trying to build a happy business versus people viewing this as an incredible arrogance. Did you get a bit of that?

Paddi Lund:

I didn’t never get that personally except from other dentists when I spoke about this concept. I didn’t have to find that from customers they seems to be privileged to be friends. And if they weren’t privileged they would work hard to be privileged. So that was my experience of that.

But certainly the dentist would think this was an arrogant model and also probably there were many other people who didn’t come in contact with who were not dentists and not customers of mine. He felt something but it doesn’t matter because. I really want to point one percent of the population as my customers. So I would sometimes sit at my front window and watch people walk by. And I think yes for every thousand people in the world there would be one person who really wants what I’ve got and that’s fine.

Tim Reid:

Did this all lead to you reducing your significantly and putting your prices up significantly Paddi.

Paddi Lund:

I’m not sure what led to what but certainly could what happened. 10 years of my practice. I only worked. Two and a day’s times a week and a single person practice so maybe two days in the last five years. In mind investigations quite a lot more money than the average dental practitioner. So when you say putting your prices up. I’m not sure. If that’s true because that denies that there is a price for a piece of work and I don’t have that.

Tim Reid:

I don’t understand that. Can you explain that a little bit more you. You started to work less.

You’re selective about who you worked with and in you did and significantly more so they must have been a definite decision at some point to say that feeling is now going to cost. It used to cost $100. It’s now going to cost $300. They must have been at some point where you have you’ve reviewed your pricing.

Paddi Lund:

I don’t believe that is the case. It. Can you mind a little bit.

Tim Reid:

I’d love to. I’m always open to that.

Paddi Lund:

That’s assuming that there is a price for an item.

Tim Reid:

There was no price for an item. There was no menu.

Paddi Lund:

My price is just happiness and the mechanism of supplying the product is helping people to be happy about their live  because they’re comfortable and they can chew, look egood and healthy. Now that’s the product the price is related to that product not to an individual item.

Tim Reid:

I get that. Therefore, I wouldn’t have been an ideal patient and ideal guest because I would want to be walking into this wonderfully happy practice knowing that well I’m getting a feeling and I’m going to have less pain and I’m going to be able to smile again and I’m going to have a healthy mouth but geez I’d love to know what the budget for that feeling.

Paddi Lund:

I understand your point of view and that assumes that after you had gone through the process of invitation and gone through the process of welcoming and education that you still felt the same way that you were filling centric. Do you understand?

Tim Reid:

Yes, I do.

Paddi Lund:

Well being essential to our happiness.

Tim Reid:

Transaction versus Transformation. You’re more into transformation.

Paddi Lund:

I think that’s a good way of putting it. It’s not just me that has good ideas.

Tim Reid:

No, no. Absolutely not.  Ok, so I’m clearer on the why you want to bet charging. I’m not 100 percent clear. I’m not going to push much further on this but I do think it is interesting because pricing is one of those areas of many small business owners listening that troubles them. Was there one guest who came in for a filling in and paid 100 bucks and another one who paid 500 bucks on the same day or did the menu say I don’t know, I don’t even know what question is here, helped me Paddi.

Paddi Lund:

You are still feeling centric. It’s an interesting way of thinking we tend to have particular ways of thinking about particular businesses and the people who are in the business tend to be the most standardized thinking about their own business. We can be a little more creative when we think about businesses that we don’t own a way of thinking about that business when we’re in a business is very hard to get out of the standardized way of thinking about the business. I have a friend and my boss who was in the beginning of organizing FedEx and when you read the facts your status is that this guy is looking at the transport and communication and packaging and parcelling business in a completely different way. He’s got a different paradigm and this is what is very useful sometimes when we want to build a different kind of business to develop a different paradigm for that business. And it’s only when you ask me these questions about filling all the cost I start to realize I don’t even think about the business that I had in this way. It’s not even part of my mindset anymore. Some of it has been in the past 30 or 40 years ago in the past. That’s how I thought about dentistry but it’s completely different now. I have a completely different mindset. And the interesting part about is anybody can do it. You don’t have to run the same generic kind of business as everybody else.

Tim Reid:

Great point.

Paddi Lund:

It is possible. There’s no angel watching over your shoulder and saying no that’s not standard that’s not standard car practice shouldn’t think like that. That’s not standard pharmacy. Pharmacists give drugs out and take money. That’s the model. Well it’s changed a little in recent days. The company they give advice and to a certain extent provide a safeness for the doctors these days. And in different countries you’ll see different models. In fact there’s worth going around the world and seeing the different models of business that you can see. In Thailand, I’m fascinated by the different ways that people do things we think that we in the West have the ultimate way of doing your everything oh it’s not true. I’ll build a swimming pool. I have this mindset about swimming pool because I’ve built swimming pools in Australia. You ring out the the bad hoe guy and he tears down the fence and he makes a hell of a mess of the yard and then he drives the machine up the back and he starts tugging at it. And then when they get a bobcat and then he and a truck is a hell of a mess. It put a massive safety fence around it and saw the model. Well here people don’t have swimming pools. It was not a common thing but the I said to a friend of mine whose house it is and I said I’m going to build a swimming pool and she tail lady said fine. Accepting people. And so I said well I need some tools I need a job. I see him clearer. Which these tools used to dig holes. And they’re very efficient at digging holes and carrying the dirt while you dig the hole with a very long spade but very narrow I can’t say it hand you use a mattock and then you have this thing called a Bungie which is made out of a car tire and you hold it in front of you with two handles and you can carry about four shovelfuls of dirtiness.  I don’t need a barracks. I started digging using these implements and spreading the dirt around the garden and making little mounds to make me go and interesting.

Tim Reid:

Repurposing.

Paddi Lund:

After a week and a half I’ve got a swimming pool and a  But not the end of the story you’ve got to do the right thing which is not what you want to go under easy. And you just do it yourself. So we’re going to dig this swimming pool and I was quick to do the heavy machinery but a lot messier. And a lot less fun.

Tim Reid:

So your point Paddi is, there are different ways of cutting the cloth and often particularly in the West we just do what is expected within our industry and what every other plumber or dentist or car practor or business owner has done forever and a day. But there are other ways of doing it.

Paddi Lund:

You’ve hit the nail right on the head.

Tim Reid:

Thank you very much. Hey Paddi we could go on forever. This should have been a one day workshop not a 35 minute podcast interview. And again Gil is asking me not to ask this question but I am interested in smell and it is a rational question. Following such a philosophical discussion but again smell is one of those things that I haven’t had the conversation on the show about and it’s an important marketing play in your practice. You spent a little bit of time trying to get rid of the smell of the kind. And what did you actually do to address that?

Paddi Lund:

Smell is very important and they don’t practice because many people are fearful of the smell of dental practice and unlike vision and sound we can’t easily block out smell it comes it with the air and it’s a very primitive sense. One of the more primitive senses and is very deeply connected to our emotions. So very hard to block out. Once you have an unpleasant association with a smell or once you have a pleasant association with the smell. You might remember back to some lady that you knew wore a particular perfume and smelling that perfume will bring her back. At the age that she was looking as lovely as she was can you sympathize with that.

Tim Reid:

Yeah I can. I was actually thinking more about the sale of milk at kindergarten but which brings back wonderful memories that I could also reflect on what wonderful ladies that I met that smelled beautiful and choked absolutely.

Paddi Lund:

So many people seemed to have this thing about the smell of dentist so I thought I’ll get rid of it  so when I built a new building I designed the air conditioning so that it sucked the air from the added parts of the building through into the inner part of the building with the operators wanted were what the surgery areas and out through the top of the building. So, it’s a bit like in a bacteriological a bar treaty it always sucks in which you do not get the bacteria going in here was the smell and smell going out into the lounge areas was the first thing and the second thing I did do a number of steps. But eventually we became a dental patisserie and we started baking good smelling the patisserie in business dental buttons. I

Tim Reid:

Dental buns as you call it.

Paddi Lund:

I tried to get away from that word because when I was speaking in America it was almost too much laughter and I just get tired of things like get patisserie. Dental buns yes especially if you have a lot of dental resistance in the audience that they go crazy for about 5 minutes. So yes that’s exactly right. So this changed the smell of my business to a smell that caused people to fear in their hearts to a place where people smell something that made them think about the mouse not as a place of fear but as a place of pleasure. And I engineered the situation where almost inevitably people would taste these bones as a first process and this is a way you can do that. It’s not easy.

Tim Reid:

What do you mean, you engineered the way? What do you mean by that?

Paddi Lund:

Oh well if you say to somebody would you like a cup of tea. Almost invariably most people will be green jay. That means you don’t want to trouble to people. However, in my business. I want people to have a cup of tea because I want them to feel cared for. I know that charity when someone breaks down barriers and I know that sharing dental patisserie with down barriers it’s like getting close to the big mall. And so I have a form of was for the tea which I gradually  which worked really well and it is I’ll look up. I’m glad you say I’m glad you come. Well I’ll just put the teapot on nose just got a cup of tea but I had to drink tea alone. So why would you join me. Would you join me. Oh no that wasn’t going to feel really bad. Of course they said that they will join me if. It’s time I might go read it. There’s another way of doing that but these systems are terribly important. It’s like introspection when we introspect about life and we think about our business from a systems point of view as a way of making the business run more efficiently and easily and with more quality. So I’m a very systems person especially in terms of communication. So that’s one of the examples of a communication system so that people will do what you want them to do.

Tim Reid:

You must drink a lot of  tea and have a  lot of buns.

Paddi Lund:

Yes. So I have to do a lot of ties.

Tim Reid:

Hey Paddi. I really appreciate this chat it kind of went where I thought it wouldn’t have waiting some very unusual directions which I love it and I my listeners love too I think we got some marketing gold in there as well as some philosophy and some will. According to Paddi. So I thank you so much for sharing all that.

Paddi Lund:

You’re very welcome, Tim.

Tim Reid:

Lots of questions left maybe for another time if people wanted to find out a little bit more about you. I know they can hit it on Paddi Lund: http://www.paddilund.com There is a book as well What was it called?

Paddi Lund:

The one that I was referring to was called Building Happiness Centered Business. And the website is http://www.paddilund.com

Tim Reid:

Absolute pleasure. Thanks so much. Bye!