7 Lessons on Mentorship and Legacy from Jay & Preeti Gohel

0:00Preeti Gohel: The following programming is sponsored by Mark J. Bernstein. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of this station, its management, or Beasley Media Group. Entrepreneur, founder, author, and financial advisor, Mark Bernstein helps high-performing business owners turn their visions into reality. At March Forward, Mark and his partners and associates think out of the box to partner with their clients in regards to their visions for their lives, their businesses, and their legacies. And through his innovative work with the Forward Focus Forums, Mark connects entrepreneurs to resources that help to fuel their success.

0:35Preeti Gohel: Founders Forum is a radio show and podcast where entrepreneurs share their journeys, reveal the stories behind their successes, and the lessons they've learned. Join Mark and his guests for a mix of inspiration, valuable insights, and a bit of fun. Now, let's dive in. Good morning, America. Our guests today have been guests on a previous show, and they are Jay Goel and Preeti Goel. And Jay is CEO of Aesthetic Dental Associates, and Preeti is CFO of Aesthetic Dental Associates. And if you listen to their show, you'll know a lot more about them. It's a great show if you haven't heard it. And we're going to start with our topic of the day, and it's very appropriate for what they're going to be talking about, which is their new enterprise that's called Thrive 360.

1:23Preeti Gohel: And we're going to talk, the word of the day is progression. So I'm going, who did I ask first last time? I think that was me. Okay, so Preeti's up. She was pointing to Jay.

1:36Jay Gohel: I think you should start. Okay, go ahead, Jay.

1:39Preeti Gohel: You start. When I think of progression, it means, you know, a natural progression. I feel like the word, it should be a natural progression. It should just come in an organic way to you in terms of growing personal, professional, and just holistic approach to like what are you looking to grow? What do you want to do in your life, in your personal life? And then what do you want to do in your professional life? And where do you see yourself one year, three years, ten years from now? And that's just kind of like what we should talk about, I feel like, as a progression. That's great. By the way, it was Jay first last time.

2:10Preeti Gohel: I just remembered as he answered it. So it was your turn. But we've discussed offline that Preeti likes to consider things before she answers. Yes. Have you considered the question?

2:23Jay Gohel: Yes. Good. First of all, thank you for having us here.

2:27Preeti Gohel: My pleasure.

2:28Jay Gohel: So I think I would definitely agree with Jay. It's like in life you have to let things go the way they are going. and then you have to think the stages of the life, right? So you have to just slow down at a time and then just think, okay, what do I want to do in my next three years, in my next 10 years? And I think at this stage of our life, we want to give back. That's one thing we definitely want to do that. and then what we have learned we want to give it to other people so that their journey is easier what we have learned from our journey we want to tell people how these things can be done faster if you have a right person to guide you I think that's what I would say

3:24Preeti Gohel: it's a very good advertisement for Thrive 360 I'm not doing an advertisement shameless plug right there I know you didn't mean it never hurt anybody No, you and I would think of that, Jay. She would not. She was not thinking of a shameless promotion. I know that. But anyway, we'll have a little fun with it. But so a quote comes to mind, and you guys know I'm a follower of the strategic coach led by Dan Sullivan. And he didn't make this up. I don't know who did, but he's known for it. Progress, not perfection. So, right, progression, there is no perfection as far as I'm concerned. It's just progress, right?

4:01Preeti Gohel: So, and that, it's almost exactly what you said, Jay, future vision, all that. And you said it, you had a much more thoughtful answer than either of us would have given Preeti, but it kind of lends itself to the same thing. So it's great to have you both back here today again. Thank you for having us. So what we didn't talk about on the last show intentionally was that you're, you know, you're plugging along, you're growing your dental practice, and you're mentoring along the way and teaching your people. But you want to take it further than that. And that's the concept of Thrive 360, which is going to be a nonprofit and a for-profit, the way I understand it.

4:43Preeti Gohel: And who would like to describe what that is? Why don't we start with that? I think that's Preeti.

4:48Jay Gohel: Yes. I think Thrive was just an idea. I would say it came from our purpose. And I think we realized that we got our purpose during COVID. And during COVID, we realized until then, we were like just working for ourselves, right, to support our family, to support, you know, our kids, you know, everything. But when COVID came in, we realized that we are not just supporting ourselves, we are supporting our team. And not only our team, the family attached to them. And I think that was a big move during COVID. Like I still remember when everything was closed and me and Jay were like, we both are workaholic and we had to sit at home and we are like, you know, we have to open the office.

5:42Jay Gohel: And and we're like, it's it's not for us. We have to make people come to the office and work because they need work. Right. So that that actually, you know, that thinking. keep on building.

5:56Preeti Gohel: And they needed to get out of the house. I had a guy who drove down from New York to get a root canal.

6:01Jay Gohel: Wow. They were in pain.

6:04Preeti Gohel: People were in pain.

6:05Jay Gohel: So we couldn't sit at home and then when we realized like it's not just for us, I think the people who worked with us, our team, you know, now we are working for them. Really, like that's the whole.

6:20Preeti Gohel: Servant leadership. That's right.

6:23Jay Gohel: That's exactly right. And then, you know, and that came from and it just keep on building. And I think last year we decided like, you know, we got to, you know, give our knowledge and our experience and everything back. How do we do that? And that's when Thrive came into. And we started this was just our thinking, you know, Jay as a mentor, myself as a CFO giving financial guidance. but we brought our kids into that too because our son actually, you know, we have like four pillars of Thrive and Jay and myself are the two pillars. Clinical mastery, I'm the CFO and our son is actually teen. He's the third pillar as teen health and our daughter, she is turning an adult this year So we wanted her to bring her experience of becoming an adult.

7:24Jay Gohel: So we created Thrive with Four Pillars, how a family can run together and thrive together. So that was, I think, the whole purpose behind Thrive.

7:37Preeti Gohel: Do you want to talk about the four pillars?

7:39Jay Gohel: So I just said about the four pillars. So my son, my daughter, and Jay and myself, we are the four pillars. and each one of us support a pillar. Our son supports the teen health. Our daughter is how to become an adult.

7:56Preeti Gohel: She's in the studio with us, by the way, I should say. Yes, she is. Aria, and she's doing a great job with video production and editing today.

8:06Jay Gohel: And myself, I, you know. She says hi. And I talk about the financial clarity for entrepreneurs, I would say, and definitely for the dentists.

8:18Preeti Gohel: And Jay's?

8:19Jay Gohel: Jay is the clinical director.

8:21Preeti Gohel: Clinical mentorship. Got it. So you started working with other practitioners already or you're in process? I'll take this one. So within our organization, we already are providing mentorship to our doctors and not just from a clinical side for our providers to understand case acceptance, to understand what does it mean to be patient centric and how to be a more comprehensive dentist. You know, having a whole body approach to care and understanding the patient is not just a set of teeth that they have, but there's a human connected to that. I want to ask you a question about that, but I want to give context to the question.

9:07Preeti Gohel: So dentists are trained as technicians, right? Yes, dentists are basically engineers in a biological sense. Correct. So given that, how is the reception to this kind of what I would call soft input? Kind of like how do you deal with people? How do you deal with your life? How do you deal with finances? The simple answer is there are two kinds of people in the world, Mark. And you've got to really look at, is somebody coachable or not? So as a mentor, I interview a lot of dentists and I meet a lot of doctors. And my focus is always like developing in them a sense of understanding like, hey, do you understand you're a lifelong student?

9:52Preeti Gohel: And you're going to have to continue with that mindset throughout your life. And do you want to learn? Do you want to grow? And you're going to have to become a student. A student of the human condition, essentially, is what I say. And is somebody coachable clinically? Great. I come into the picture and if they are coachable, they're going to do great with me. I've taken people and doubled their production and they've taken bigger paychecks home and they live very well because they understand that they're coachable. Preeti looks at the numbers and Preeti does a lot. She'll spend time with the doctor.

10:26Preeti Gohel: She'll show them the numbers and she'll kind of explain to them like, hey, this is why you need to kind of present a better treatment plan and why you need to present it this way. She'll help them understand the financial aspects of it. So we're doing it with our team and then we realized because we're part of a lot of groups of doctors and we get coached ourselves. And we realized the biggest struggle people have is just because you're good clinically doesn't mean you should go out and buy a practice. Right. Because then you get burned. You're like, oh my God, I'm making half the money I was making as an associate.

10:58Preeti Gohel: And you've got to really realize, does success for you as a dentist mean practice ownership? And if it does, then by all means. Because you're going to wear 20 other hats that are really not well-paying hats that become your responsibility. Just a little comment. Not everybody can be an entrepreneur, right? That is exactly right. That and also not everyone, although we'd like it to be that way, not everyone is a lifelong learner. Exactly. That's something I've struggled with in business because I think everybody, I assume everybody wants to be that. Not everybody does. Not everybody does. Some people are not coachable.

11:33Preeti Gohel: Right. And if they're not coachable, then that by all means, you know, there's a subset of that population and we wish them all the best. But if they're coachable, then we want to kind of, we open thrive at the mindset that we are going to make it possible that, hey, we had a really long learning curve because we struggled a lot in the beginning of our career. And we want to shorten the learning curve and provide a guardrail to anybody who does want to take on that additional load. Mind you, that additional load may not be a load that they get compensated for. But if they want to be an entrepreneur, that's a load they have to be willing to take.

12:10Preeti Gohel: But by the way, I want to mention to you, it doesn't mean it's a bad thing that people don't want to be entrepreneurs because unique abilities, which we talked a little bit on the show. If everyone's an entrepreneur, nobody's really – maybe not everyone's getting the work done. And so I've, as an example, partnered with people in my practice, in our business, that are, you know, what they call minders and grinders. You know, people that take care of clients, that do, do, do the work. And it's stuff that I was competent at doing, but it wasn't my unique ability and it wasn't what drives me. And they're much better at that than I am.

12:54Preeti Gohel: You've met some of our staff, so you understand that. And it's okay because somebody else can be the visionary and somebody else can be the implementer. And you guys are kind of like the visionary and the implementer, right? Exactly. And we have that in our business as well. Entrepreneurship is chaos in the beginning. Right. How long does the chaos last in the organization really depends on if you have a person like Preeti by your side who can kind of make sense. out of that chaos and put structure into place. And that's never been my strength. And I mean, I wouldn't be anywhere without Preeti.

13:37Preeti Gohel: She's such an integral part of everything we do. I'm so grateful for her. She'd be somewhere without you, though. She would be somewhere without me. She'd definitely be going places, many fun places without me. But it is so important to understand that as an entrepreneur, if you don't thrive in chaos and the uncertainty doesn't excite you, that's a very clear indication that, hey, I should stick to my strengths. This is a great place to take a quick break. We'll be right back on Founders Forum. Your best smile and your best tomorrow can start today. At Aesthetic Dental Associates, we believe a smile is about so much more than teeth.

14:17Preeti Gohel: It's confidence. It's health. It's the freedom to laugh, speak, eat, and live life without hesitation. As a Pennsylvania-based dental group, our mission is simple, to change lives by delivering exceptional dentistry with compassion, innovation, and a commitment to serving others. Whether you're looking for preventative care, cosmetic dentistry, dental implants, or a complete smile transformation, our team is here to help you achieve a smile you'll be proud to share. Service is at the heart of everything we do. That's why each year we're honored to host our Smile for Freedom event, providing complimentary dental care to local veterans as our way of thanking them for their service.

14:55Preeti Gohel: It's one of the many ways we give back to the communities that have trusted us with their care. A healthier smile, a brighter future, a team that truly cares. Your best smile and your best tomorrow can start today. Visit TheAstheticDental.com or call 610-701-0102 to schedule your appointment. We look forward to welcoming you into our family. We are back on Founders Forum with our guests today, Preeti and Jay. I'm saying Preeti first this time because she's going to lead off the second segment. So, Preeti, tell us about exactly where you are with Thrive 360 and what your intentions are and what you want to do with it.

15:37Jay Gohel: So with Thrive, our goal is to support all the four pillars, right? And as we are in the dental field, we want to support the doctors who are struggling with the finances. And it can be at any level. It can be a new graduate. It can be an entrepreneur. It can be an associate working with somebody in the practice. Because what I'm seeing, you know, like I'm part of a lot of Facebook groups, they struggle with their finances. You know, they have like big loans and then, you know, they are joining the practices and they want to buy practices just to give them the right.

16:24Preeti Gohel: You need to associate with some good financial planners to help you with that. Yes. Definitely. We'll be sure to send them your way. Maybe we need to do that. But maybe we need to kind of put something together for a while.

16:35Jay Gohel: Yes, yes. We should actually. So basically, you know, showing them like, hey, what steps you need to take and, you know, not to get stressed out about it. Because, you know, I do understand like how the doctors are coming out with so much loan and then they want to open the practice and they, you know, what they're thinking just to give them a path. Like these are the steps you should be taking. and what are your goals? First to know their three-year goals, like where do you want? What lifestyle do you want to do? As you mentioned earlier, Mark, is like not everybody is entrepreneur. Not everybody wants to take over, you know, or wear all the hats.

17:20Jay Gohel: So I think knowing them and giving them the direction and showing them where and how they can go, I think that's our goal with Thrive 360, which is one of the pillars. is, you know, the clinical mentorship and financial clarity. And the other two pillars that we started with our kids, which we realized, like, you know, as we mentioned, you have to have a balance. 360 means you have to be involved with your kids.

17:52Preeti Gohel: By the way, I just want to mention 360, which you mentioned on the other show, means what in our industry they used to call a whole person concept, right? You're looking at the whole person. It's not just the finances, not just the clinical aspect of the practice, but the person themselves and the people around them.

18:12Jay Gohel: That's exactly what we thought about. It's like the whole circle. So if I talk about the other pillars and how they joined us, is when we talk about our legacy, right? And our kids is part of our legacy. And we want to make sure that what we have built, they understand that and they carry over that. And for that, I think is very important. Like you cannot just keep on working, focus just on work. You're not taking care of your health and becoming an adult, which nowadays it's like so tough. Where are you, you know, where are you getting your mindset from? What are the things you have to focus when you're becoming an adult?

19:00Jay Gohel: So that's how our kids came into the play. And by the way, our son is like, he's into health, you know, all these teenager kids. And looking at him, you know, we all got so involved in our health. Like, you know, he's so much dedicated to go to the gym every day. He tells us what to eat. And I'm like, you should definitely do this because as, you know, as an entrepreneur, we are just focused on work. We are not thinking about our health. So I thought this was so important that we need to bring this pillar, which is if you don't feel healthy, you cannot work.

19:39Preeti Gohel: You just brought up another point. You're learning from your children. And so I was on the phone with an entrepreneur yesterday who I know very well. And he was talking about all his mentors. and I thought he was talking about mentorship and he said, I'm doing mentorship within my company. So I figure he's mentoring his employees like you've talked about. He hired four people in his company to mentor him to learn all the things that he's not good at. You know, just to do, it's a very large company. They're over$100 million in revenues and that kind of thing. But he's learning from his employees.

20:17Preeti Gohel: And so I mentioned I have younger partners in my business. And this, I learn from them every day now, right? So surround yourself because, you know, you become successful by being good at the things that you're good at. But you still sometimes need to learn about the things you're not so good at. You don't necessarily need to master them, but you need to know about them, right? So isn't that a magical thing? And I'm sure as you build this network, like I do on the show, you know how much I learn every week by doing this show from people like you guys? I mean, I'm learning a lot sitting here today.

20:51Preeti Gohel: and we're talking about you guys having your own podcast. That will be another method. You can say you're teaching, but you're learning while you're doing it, right? So I just wanted to point that out, that it's a very fine line between teaching and learning. And actually, you're learning while you're teaching as well because you've got to get better at what you're doing to do that. So pretty interesting phenomenon, right?

21:11Jay Gohel: Yes, and I think every moment you learn, if you have a mindset to learn, you'll find you can learn from anybody.

21:20Preeti Gohel: Agreed. yes so I I do so as an aside I do I am statements every day I did them this morning on the way here I have them taped and I read or recorded you know it's not taped anymore but digital recordings and I repeat what I hear and one of them is I am a lifelong learner I'm open to discovery I'm so I so that every day I keep my eyes open for what I can new adventures new experiences and what I can learn, right? And I'm old and I'm doing, you know, so I mean, I'm halfway there the way I look at it. But anyway, so it's a new enterprise for you.

21:56Jay Gohel: Yes.

21:57Preeti Gohel: And it's going to be a for-profit means you need to look at the financials.

22:00Jay Gohel: Yes.

22:01Preeti Gohel: And there's going to be a non-profit aspect to it. What kind of challenges do you expect to see as you're building this business?

22:09Jay Gohel: Challenges. All businesses, I think every business has a challenge. And if there is no challenge, I think there's no fun.

22:17Preeti Gohel: And there's no learning.

22:18Jay Gohel: Yes, there's no learning. I think the challenges that I see in this business is reaching out to more people and understanding what their goals are and to make it customized for them. I think the connection, people connection is very, very important in this aspect because everybody has different goals. And our challenge will be making sure that we are helping them towards their goals. And it's all the pillars. So to complete our 360 circle today, what have you learned from what you've been doing in practice up to this point?

23:01Preeti Gohel: What are the strengths you have to help you do that?

23:04Jay Gohel: The strengths, I think I am able to connect with people pretty well. I am pretty good, like I feel like to put myself in their shoes. What happens sometimes and I've seen like we have got coached ourselves, what I have seen like coaches can just come and tell you what to do. But it's not easy for the person who's getting coached. so just to put yourself in their shoe and see their struggles i think that's the strength that i have because i have been coached yes yes yeah so you have to be in it you cannot just coach from

23:44Preeti Gohel: outside so by the way we've been focusing on you for this show and appropriately but jay is an example because i know he's a lifelong learner too and talked about a book that i haven't read but I know of that I'm going to read now called Principles of Influence. So he's obviously paid attention to those kind of issues as well. And I'm going to shift it to Jay now because we only have three minutes left, believe it or not. Tell me your thoughts on your legacy because I know a lot about this is legacy. That's a very good question. Thank you for asking that. The legacy that we'd like to leave behind from a professional aspect is to have an organization that continues to grow.

24:28Preeti Gohel: All of our practices have been legacy practices. We feel that we are standing here today because we're standing on the shoulders of giants that walk before us, both clinically as well as non-clinically. They have given us a platform that we've been blessed by. And I'm spiritual, but, you know, or however you want to say it, God to carry forward. You know, it's the power that's been, you know, we've been blessed with. So we want to create that organization that gives everybody within our organization the same power, the same pathway to allow them to grow the organization successfully and go on to higher leadership positions and get to 50, 100 offices.

25:11Preeti Gohel: That's one legacy. We'd like to create that. The second part of that. You're talking about beyond aesthetic dental now. Beyond aesthetics, you know, what that organization will be, how will it look, the sum will be defined by its parts. Everybody, I want to elevate more leaders within the organization so that they feel they own part of it and they have a say in it and they can kind of guide it. Because, hey, we have short time on this planet, right? Third rock from the sun, we're not going to be here long. So I want to kind of create that pathway, but at the same time also understand mindset of charity.

25:49Preeti Gohel: So the organization can serve a for-profit purpose, but that gets old after a while. And what are we doing for the community as a whole? How are we giving back? A lot of it is also mindset of positivity, of gratitude. So like you said, you have I am statements. I wake up and say thank you every morning I wake up. so I want to get everybody to start being more grateful have more positive references just a quick note here humans have about 60 to 80 ,000 thoughts every day 80 80 percent of them are negative so understanding your reference points in life understanding who are your friends and keeping the positive and subtracting the negative and being grateful every day you wake up I just I recognize all the thoughts that come, but I decide which ones I choose to keep.

26:42Preeti Gohel: Don't believe everything you think. Right. Right. Did you read that book? That's a great book. That is a great book, yes. I've used that book a lot over the last year. Guess what? We're out of time, guys. It happens. So thank you so much for being here. Another enlightening show. Thank you all for listening. And we'll see you all next week on Founders Forum. Thank you, Mark. Thank you.

27:06Preeti Gohel: Founders Forum was brought to you in part by March Forward, LLC. We partner with entrepreneurs like you to assist in accomplishing your future vision, your life, your business, your legacy. Comprehensive wealth planning that starts with you, not a product. We hope you enjoyed your time with Founders Forum and that you found something of value to take with you throughout your day. Join us again next week for another episode of Founders Forum on WWDB 860 AM Philadelphia or on your favorite podcast streaming service. Securities offered through DFPG Investments, LLC, DFPG. Investment advisory services offered through Diversify Advisory Services, LLC, Diversify.

27:48Preeti Gohel: DAS and DFPG are affiliated entities. March is unaffiliated with DAS and DFPG. members F-I-N-R-A slash S-I-P-C. The information provided in this podcast is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be interpreted as investment advice. The views expressed are those of the host and guests and do not necessarily reflect the views of Diversify or DFPG.