The Daria Hamrah Podcast
Do you want to change or simply improve your life? Take your business or your personal relationships to the next level? Have you ever thought why change is so difficult? Ever wondered how people become successful and we just call them "lucky". The Daria Hamrah Podcast gives you Dr. Hamrah's personal insights and pathways to his successes and what he calls "true happiness". Featuring interviews with some of the most successful entrepreneurs, authors and experts in their field, he shares their insights into what he calls the "Secret of Life".
The Daria Hamrah Podcast
"The Aesthetic Approach to Vitality and Social Connection" with Dr. Tim Pearce
Embark on a transformative journey with Dr. Tim Pearce, where the fusion of art, science, and human connection paints the landscape of medical aesthetics and longevity. As we traverse the realms of beauty and aging, Dr. Pearce, a maestro in the field, unveils the profound impact of his work—not just in enhancing appearances but in nurturing confidence and fostering social bonds. His transition from traditional medicine to the artistry of aesthetics stands as a beacon of creativity and autonomy, reshaping our understanding of health and well-being.
In a series of heartfelt narratives, we navigate the delicate intricacies of aesthetic medicine and the unexpected joy it brings to lives, like the 92-year-old woman whose treatment rekindled her social flame. Dr. Pearce's evolution from practitioner to entrepreneur reveals the resilience required to sculpt a business in an industry rife with both promise and peril. This episode is a testament to the courage needed to carve out a niche in the competitive world of medical aesthetics, challenging preconceptions and cultivating a culture of continuous learning and growth.
As we close, the episode synthesizes the essence of living well and the symbiotic relationship between aesthetics and longevity. The discussions illuminate a path towards a life enriched by healthful choices, community, and the science that underpins it all. Dr. Pearce's own regimen underscores the value of balance and the impact of intentional living on longevity. Join us as we contemplate the broader healthcare landscape, the influence of social media, and the art of parenting in an increasingly digital age—themes that resonate with anyone striving for harmony in the modern world.
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Hello everyone, welcome to another amazing episode of the Daria Hamrah podcast. Today I have a very special guest, a very inspiring guest, a colleague and celebrity on the internet whose mission is to help ethical condition master medical aesthetics. He's an expert in medical aesthetics and anti-aging, dr Tim Pierce, out of Manchester, the UK, and he is coming on today to just not only talk about the art and science of aesthetics and beauty, but we're also going to discuss a science that has actually been there for quite a while, just not known to the general public enough, which is the science of longevity and anti-aging from the inside and anti-aging from the inside.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:So we're going to talk about both how we can anti-age from the outside as well as from the inside today, and I think you'll find it very interesting to hear what options are available today with today's science, as there is a lot of controversy out there, as there is still a dichotomy between the traditional physicians, insurance doctors and what's taught currently in medical schools versus what emerging science has revealed in the past decade, which is fascinating. But just to introduce Dr Pierce a little bit, you know he's a very inspiring person at least I know it to many of it as well as me, and that's why I wanted to have him on this podcast today, since he really has an amazing talent and ability to communicate and educate. And I can't tell you I mean I I studied anatomy and physiology for probably 30 years now and every time I see one of his e-learning lessons I learned something new, and whether it is a reminder of something that I've forgotten or something that truly I actually didn't know. So I always love his posts and his YouTube videos. So we will share the links after the podcast, but just to show his vast experience.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:Over the past 20 years, he has completed over 25,000 cosmetic procedures and is the owner of SkinViva, which is one of the UK's top aesthetic clinics. As well as SkinViva Training and also has an e-learning site, and you can check out his website in the link below in this podcast. So, without further ado, tim, welcome to my show, and it's an honor to have you and tell me how did your journey start in medical aesthetics? Now, you studied medicine and then what? All of a sudden, you thought you want to make people beautiful.
Dr. Tim Pearce:Great question. Thank you very much for that lovely introduction. Like I said just before we came on, I really value like a really authentic, honest conversation. So I'm going to be completely honest with that question, which was I saw an ability to have some autonomy and to make a bit of cash on the side, and I think that's how many clinicians start. We work in the public health sector. At one point it was my dream job until I was doing it and then as much as and I still actually work in the public sector just very part-time, but I could not see myself doing that for a lifetime.
Dr. Tim Pearce:I'm creative. I don't fit the typical kind of profile of a doctor, if you, if you do the psychotype of a, of a clinician. Um, I'm very open and creative and I value autonomy and it's the creative element in particular that I I could I could see was not going to have an outlet in the nhs and I would. I tried many times. I tried. Um, it was like this junior doctor's dragon den was the first time I really went for it. I was trying to get funding for this idea for a system that would build a feedback loop between clinicians in the ER, because there was a lot of bad practice going on and I could see the clinicians were not talking up to their superiors saying, I don't think you should do it that way, and the superiors were kind of sustaining kind of relatively out of date stuff or just unnecessary stuff, and I wanted to solve that problem. But there was never any funding or any backing or there's always a reason why the system had to stay the same, and so there was a lack of autonomy and there was a lack of potential for growth in what I saw.
Dr. Tim Pearce:Once I was in what was once my dream job and I started to look for other things and there was nothing quite like aesthetics for just an easy transition out. At least it seemed that way. To be honest, it wasn't as easy as I thought it was going to be. But you know, you think you can inject, so why not do a few injections, as many clinicians start out thinking, and so that was my move into it. It was never the plan, but it did tick a few boxes. And then I think, like a lot of people, when you're in the new situation, you start to look for more value and more things that you can do, and it actually became richer the longer I was in it, as opposed to what I thought was going to happen, which I thought I was going to get bored with it.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:So to explain us the journey from being a student I know we're always students of the field, that's not what I mean I mean from truly becoming a master and feeling that now I have the ability to educate, to teach. When did you, at what point did you find yourself ready and what motivated you? I mean you find yourself ready and what motivated you? I mean you're probably busy enough doing what you do. What motivated you now to go out of your way and educate, not just like in a very informal way, but really in in such a professional way that most medical schools are not able to teach that way. With the visuals and the just in detail and in-depth discussions of anatomy and how it pertains to just the clinical techniques, like, did you have a teacher that inspired you? Like, oh my god, I want to do the same or is it just? How did all of that evolve? Kind of walk us through that so people get to know you a little bit it's funny.
Dr. Tim Pearce:I remember being a junior doctor, on the ward I learned to take blood. You know done a few hundred of those, a few thousand probably by then and I saw these two junior nurses and they had to do the blood round and I remember thinking I really want to teach them, um, and I don't really know where that came from, but I got really excited. I knew I could do it. I knew I could and I knew what they were going through, because I remember what it was like not knowing and not being able to get the blood out and feeling awkward about stabbing people that you just met with a needle.
Dr. Tim Pearce:Because you know there's when you're very junior, it's a, it's a shift you have to go through yeah and um and I just I just got I really knew that I I could teach them something and I wanted to do it. That was the first time I kind of had a penny drop moment of it's really fun helping people um, progress and it's still. I would say that's the thing that's actually at the heart of everything I want to do is I just love to try Same with patients. I teach patients a lot as well. That's probably a lot of where it started. If you get a patient who's interested in the topic, isn't just kind of trying to solve a short-term problem, but wants to understand. I talk a lot and teach a lot to those patients and it's just something I've always enjoyed doing trying to capture ideas and turn them into words, trying to put boundaries on ideas as well.
Dr. Tim Pearce:I think a lot of teaching. If you just give the description of what it is without the description of what it isn't, it lacks something. So a lot of my content I'm trying to put a boundary next to the idea, otherwise it's. It basically means less. You know there's a but after where you should inject um. That makes more sense than if you just give the the dot, dot, dot to dot. Description of actions. Um, and I said, and I just always enjoyed making making sense of those sort of ideas and turning them into words and and it it wasn't. It was actually also, like I said, it was never the plan, but I I found when I did teach I was lit up and I wanted to do more of it, and so I kind of went went down that route now, what are in in your teaching journey?
Dr. Daria Hamrah:um, you've, you've taught now thousands of practitioners, from physicians, nurses, any sort of healthcare providers. What do you feel is the biggest challenge when trying to teach all these? You know practitioners that are very motivated, you know, just like how you got into this initially are motivated by the financial aspect of it. How do you address these ethical boundaries and how do you let them know all this stuff that they don't know? And tell me a little bit about that responsibility and that challenge that you have in doing so.
Dr. Tim Pearce:I heard someone give a good talk recently and I'm afraid I forgot their name, but they said at one point that God tricks you into doing good work, and the idea is, yeah, you have this idea that you want to buy a Lamborghini or something which has never been my goal, but say that that's your goal. But you then? So you set out with a selfish goal that's just about you, and then you figure out that the only way you're ever going to achieve that goal is actually by delivering value to other people. And so my introduction on my foundation course is all about what is the value of medical aesthetics. Like it, because if you start out thinking it's about injections or it's about even just about beauty and not about the actual battle that the humans that are giving you money are going through, that they need help with through the medium of appearance, then you'll never be as good at it or as well paid as the clinicians who are really in touch with what it is the patient's already seeking and what they need, which is so much more than a procedure. It's guidance, you know, it's understanding, it's all the safety elements, are all the things that you have to put a lot of time and effort into, and I think most people actually love that. I've heard a set about companies as well. If you're a company that's only focused on money, you never get the best talent, because no one although everyone wants to make money, they also want to do something with purpose, and and that was my same issue, like on the, the first week I started seeing patients, I I remember thinking I need to find some greater purpose in this, not just that they're paying me. I need to understand it.
Dr. Tim Pearce:And I often tell the story of my first patient, who was 92 and uh, and I remember thinking, how am I going to make a 92 year old look younger? Because I thought that was what my job was to make her look younger. And anyway, she told me this amazing story and I always feel so grateful that she told it to me on my first day, which was that she didn't really want to look younger. She wanted to not frown so that people would talk to her on the bus, and I was like, well, that's what it's about.
Dr. Tim Pearce:It's about human connection, you know. It's about people connecting through appearance, and and then that's the real value, and then it makes sense why a 92 year old would have Botox, it's because she wants to connect with people and she has a barrier. I can remove the barrier and she can go make the most of the rest of her life. And so that story is on is on the front of my training manual at Skin Viva Training, so that everyone starts reading that, because that's where I want them to start. And I'm all for people making money. You know the more money you make, the better, so long as you're doing it to serve people. You know it has to start with the value that you generate and I think then you know I'm a strong believer that no one really loses if you build your business in that way.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:I think I completely resonate with you. I think, ultimately, what makes one successful or business successful is about intent and purpose, and that's what you're alluding to. If the intent is there, if the purpose is there, you don't have to work hard. You know, everything comes natural, and if you don't, you don't have to work hard. Everything comes natural. And if you don't, then you can't sustain it long term. And if you can't sustain a business long term, you can't buy your Lamborghini.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:But I love that you said, and that's really true we get tricked by these materialistic things that society makes us believe that we need to call ourselves successful, but they just get us onto the path. They just get us starting and get us going. Once we're on the path and if it is truly the path that we are passionate about, our attitudes will change and our goals change and it becomes more purpose than a job or anything else. And I think one of the things that I love the most.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:I had Dr Stephen Dayen on a podcast several years ago and he beautifully said and I always repeat that sentiment that we're really, if you look at it, we're self-esteem doctors, we're self-confidence doctors, and that's what you gave that 92-year-old by getting rid of her frown lines is giving her self-confidence back, so she feels like others are going to talk to her and she's not going to be lonely. And so it's not just about vanity, it's not just about beauty she's not going to be lonely. And so it's not just about vanity, it's not just about beauty. It's about feeling accepted, feeling confident and gaining our self-esteem back, no matter what the age is, whether you're a 20 year old that is not happy about the nose, or you're a 92 year old that feel people look at you as a grumpy old lady yeah, it's a, it's human connection and it's what I actually think.
Dr. Tim Pearce:It's the foundation of everything that we do. It's like you you basically can't do any work in your life without human connection and there's also no purpose to it without that human connection. So, um, it's, it's so easy. Once you talk to enough patients, it should become the center of everything that you do. And I think there are a lot of good practitioners who've just been trained in a slightly different way and they think the center of what they do is either anatomy or beauty or some other commercial driver that someone told them, because I also had all of that in the beginning. But if you just boil it down to that we're helping people connect with each other, then you see where the value comes from and it makes everything matter so much more. And it's paradoxically the deepest thing, even though people think we're the most superficial thing, the most superficial industry.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:But actually that human connection is actually very deep and very important. And how do you feel the patient? You know we live in an area where there is many there's probably more untrainedrained clinicians out there, especially here in the united states where it's all all the time, every day, in the news. It is now with the counterfeit botox that's out there in the news. How can the consumer or the patient protect him or herself? What are some advice that you can give the common person that is looking for aesthetic rejuvenation as seeking a practitioner?
Dr. Tim Pearce:yeah, it's really. It's actually. It's really hard and, unfortunately, often the instincts that patients have are not correct. Um, and I I once, as part of researching growing my clinic, I I asked people to search for another clinic with me, overlooking their shoulder, and asked, and then I interviewed them about how they chose. It was really interesting, but it wasn't what I expected. So, um, I remember getting a lot of people choosing the clinic based on the photographs. They said well, it looks good, so it must be.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:It must be good, you know you mean the actual photograph of the clinic?
Dr. Tim Pearce:like yeah, the environment yeah and you.
Dr. Tim Pearce:Obviously it's a proxy for competence, because it, if it looks shiny and big, it's it's probably they've got a competent person behind it, but unfortunately you don't. You don't actually know for sure. You know we've got plenty of clinicians who are extremely good at marketing and building processes that drive patients through, but when you talk to the patients afterwards they often feel worse. They're actually not better off. Um, you know they've. They feel.
Dr. Tim Pearce:There's one near me famous for kind of sullying patients into treatments and that's the word I get you that used all the time. It's that you need, there's something wrong with you. You need this um, and it works because patients look up to doctors and doctors they will. They will just go down the route of delivering the procedure that they've told them they have to have in order to be complete um. So, but it does get out with a few smart patients and, of course, the more patients who listens to, to kind of good podcasts like yours and figure out kind of what it really should be about them, the harder it is for those clinicians to to run amok in that way, and I don't think there are many of them. I think it's probably the 10% who are narcissistic and the rest are trying their best to do more valuable work. But as a patient, I think I would delve into reviews and I would pour over the sentences, not the number of stars. I want to look for a clinician who doesn't make you feel small, who's listening, who is involved in not just the physical but the emotional side of stuff. I also think it's useful looking at dissatisfied patients and seeing how the clinicians respond, because none of us get 100% satisfaction rates, but it's how you respond to that. That's a big part of it and I'd be looking for evidence that they value safety, that they say no to people, that they give guidance, that there's no judgment for asking for the wrong thing.
Dr. Tim Pearce:And, of course, woven into that, you want the hardest bit for a patient to spot is actually the, the technical skill. Um, I don't know, particularly with something like facial surgery. It's. It's so complex and most of the outcomes you you might see before and after, but you don't see the. You know how many nerves are injured or whatever the issue is and it's that's extremely hard.
Dr. Tim Pearce:But you want practitioners who are, who are able to be, to present their true selves and not some cardboard cut out. I think is part of this and I think that comes with a degree of self-confidence and integrity that if you're able to have an open, honest discussion for example, I think, a podcast, where you're you've admitted you know sometimes the results aren't what that, what you think they are, and you have where you're, you've admitted you know sometimes the results aren't what you think they are and you have to. You're grappling with that versus the types who are everything's always fine on my side. I think that's that's some indication that you're you're striving for the truth, which is really, rather than trying to present an idea, but aside from that, it's volumes of treatments.
Dr. Tim Pearce:I'm a big believer in expertise through practice, like I don't think it's very easy to become, you know, even with the training, the best you can do with training um is give people a simple model in their head and then the real reality of actually doing that is there's infinitely more stuff, and that's partly why I'm never afraid of sharing everything I know, because there's always so much more and so many different ways of describing it. But that comes from. You know, there's a lot of reflective learning and practice. That is also important. So those are some of the tips. There's probably a lot more to it, but it is a tricky thing to do well. There's probably a lot more to it, but it is a tricky thing to do well.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:So how do you address that with your students or clinicians that come and you basically teach? How do you teach them that mindset and that self-awareness, that look, just because you took this class doesn't make you an expert, so you still should be self-aware and look critically at your results. And how do you? You know, I call it sometimes I call it doctor dysmorphia, where you know the change you created now is the norm and you don't. You kind of get tangled in that and then you keep. You see it on these patients that keep getting blown up with fillers and I don't personally believe it's a patient's fault. You know if a patient comes to me and says I want more fillers, you know it's up to me to say no. So how do you? I found it very hard to teach that self-awareness where the clinician can protect him or herself from that, what I call clinician dysmorphia. Is that something you address in your classes?
Dr. Tim Pearce:So this is the problem of you know, the small child who loves his own drawing.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:Mm-hmm. Yes, exactly.
Dr. Tim Pearce:That's a great analogy. Yeah, it's a it's. It's really hard, and one of the things I do is I always congratulate patients who are clinicians who are dissatisfied. A lot of people message me and they're dissatisfied, and I'm like this is fantastic, because if you're not dissatisfied with maybe 50% of your work, then you're not seeing it, because it's really hard to make a human face.
Dr. Tim Pearce:It's probably reasonable to just turn everyone into a score. If someone's a six out six and you make them to seven or eight, some people can do that quite easily, but once they're an eight, to try and make them a 10 is very easy. That you keep them the same or make them slightly worse, and that the dissatisfaction is something that you should grapple with and accept as part of what it takes to be good, and if you're not ever dissatisfied, you're missing something. So, um, I think social media sometimes helps people, because the anxiety of it not being right makes them more self-critical. Um, but so a lot of clinicians will talk to us about that on our forums, where we support them as they. They feel like none of their work is good enough and the only thing I can say is this is a better state of mind than thinking you're great and not being um. I don't know if you can make someone who doesn't have that see it it's.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:I'm not sure yeah so yeah, so the one thing I'm alluding to is taste. You know you find people in our profession that have good taste and bad taste. You know it's hard to explain it. I mean it. Of course it all goes to the beauty norms, or what we find subconsciously as beautiful, and it doesn't necessarily have to be perfect. It's not about numbers and ratios like it's taught in textbook, it's just a harmony of everything, and beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But then you see people or clinicians that have great taste. They really understand beauty, and some that don't, and I know I'm I'm being a little bit vague here with my description. But how do you, can you even address that? Can you even teach taste?
Dr. Tim Pearce:well, I once uh over lockdown. I I asked I server of my audience to see if they would want to sculpt with me, because we're all locked down. Like why don't we do a course where I'll buy some clay and you can all kind of watch me? And I got quite a negative response. People didn't want to do it and I was kind of sad by that.
Dr. Tim Pearce:I did it anyway, I didn't do it with, I did it by myself and I don't know a lot of people don't like the messiness of it. I swear it's kind of a silly reason. But I tell you what I learned from doing that is that there's always room for more improvement. And I would do my first one and I'd look at it and I'd be proud of myself because I'd never done a sculpture before and it looked a lot like a human head, would I?
Dr. Daria Hamrah:like it if it was my head or my wife's head?
Dr. Tim Pearce:Absolutely not. So then I was like, okay, this is interesting, I'm proud of that, I could do it. But why don't I want to put it on social media? It's because it looks like an alien, if I'm honest. So I need to try again and then make it better, and that is a joyous process and I actually think it's a lot of, actually, what is most interesting about life, which is we don't understand stuff. You grapple with it and then you have a moment of enlightenment where you get this euphoric like oh, now I understand, there's a gentle curve there. Without the curve, you look round, put the curve in or the.
Dr. Tim Pearce:You know there's so many things as I was sculpting that that were, um, that that had those, that wonderful euphoric moment and it just makes you conscious of the details and most of us, um, it's worth knowing that most people still respond to beautiful people as beautiful people, even if they are not artistic. And so what that means is they have somewhere in their brain an idea of what beauty is. They just don't have it in their cerebral cortex. It's not a conscious idea, it's unconscious. So the reconnecting of those two things, I believe, is possible through experience. It's not possible through just saying oh, I looked at a beautiful face. That's what a beautiful face looks like. You actually have to try something not like it and then figure out what's wrong with it and and then you get better at it. So, um, that's why I think sculpting is a great thing to do, but we're limited as trainers in terms of what people think of, in terms of what they want to pay for, in terms of training. It's one of the struggles. We've just had it again. I was with all my trainers the other day and they were saying we want to train in a different order. Um, we don't want to start with, like a nasolabial fold injection is too dangerous for people who just starting. So we're, we're trying to think of ways, but but the you're always up against the commercial situation, of course, um, and trying to do things in a way that that people actually will. People say they want things, but they don't want to pay for things. So come and come and do.
Dr. Tim Pearce:A sculpting course sounds fun for me to be worth my time. It's. It's unlikely that I'm. You know, it'll be a feature that we do once a week. Let's put it that way. I might. I might get some really passionate clinicians who you know, come and do it, uh, but I don't think it's going to be or I could maybe do it in different way in terms of online but it's not going to be something that the average clinician, when they're first starting out, is going to do a sculpting course in their first year. It's just not commercially the right sequence, unfortunately. That would be the right thing to do for people who are going to buy in more broadly. I think you probably could do that with a section of the market, but it's just not the average clinician who's starting out.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:Now this e-learning, and you also do um live learning. Uh, in addition to e-learning, um, you know that's a huge um business aspect and um take, I'm sure it takes a lot of your time and I know your wife, who is um partnering with you in that endeavor, is obviously a great help and you guys are doing that together. And how do you and how are you guys enjoying the business aspect of the aesthetics? I know you know as clinicians who were raised to take care of people and were never taught anything about business. How do you learn all of that? Is it you know? Or your wife? How did you guys get into it? And how did you learn? Because obviously you're successful, you must be doing something right. Did you have good mentors? Did you just make a bunch of mistakes and learn from that, or all of the above?
Dr. Tim Pearce:I've made so many mistakes, but the mistakes are, the are usually the best thing that you do, um, but only once you've solved, obviously. So, um, I knew nothing about business, I was just hopelessly optimistic. Um, miranda was the same. We both come from very public sector. You know, we're quite a socialist country.
Dr. Tim Pearce:We have basically socialist families, some of them slightly communist so you know it wasn't, we were kind of the pariahs of the family for like going into this whole capitalist world and I think it starts. I think business is the best personal growth you'll ever get, because what it does is it rubs your ideas that you take to be true up against reality and the good ones help you and the bad ones hurt you. And so you know, you go into business thinking yeah, you know, if and I never did, I was, I was always very idealistic of thinking like kids, sorry that's all right.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:No, worry about it um that got the dog barking as well. This is my home, by the way, too luckily. Luckily they're out uh, uh with my wife, so but yeah, no worries, we have noise. I can uh do a background noise cancellation, so that's not an issue at all okay, I'll try.
Dr. Tim Pearce:I'll try my best. Hopefully it's just yeah it can get so crazy that I might need to stop, but I'll keep going for now that's okay.
Dr. Tim Pearce:So, um, uh, yeah, the question about business. Um, I knew nothing about business but I we read some autobiographies, we bought some business books. Uh, we got some training. Most of it was nonsense. You know, we even had a at one point. We had a you know this nba guy who'd come and help us and he, he gave me some very clear advice that training was a bad opportunity and online was never going to work. So so you know, you you've got to figure out.
Dr. Tim Pearce:If you're an entrepreneur, you got to make your own decisions and I started yeah, I started the online stuff in 2016, um, and I was getting advice from everyone it's a bad idea and that. So I don't think many people have an entrepreneurial mind. Um, by, by definition, most people, it's a minority thing so what made you?
Dr. Daria Hamrah:what made you follow through if all these experts that you thought know more about business than you do say it doesn't work? And how did you make it happen, despite?
Dr. Tim Pearce:it well, one thing I've learned about myself and it's not always a good thing, um, it sometimes hurts a bit is that I don't really make decisions based on what, what the the prevailing consensus is on stuff.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:But isn't that the basis of entrepreneurship? Is that? Isn't that the definition of entrepreneurship? To think different and to identify a need or a problem and come up with a solution, which is exactly what you're doing.
Dr. Tim Pearce:Yeah, I think it is. It's very good for entrepreneurship. It's not very good for, um, if you want to fit in with the crowd, um and obviously there's always part of you that kind of especially when you're younger you want to be approved of by your colleagues, and I mean I sometimes laugh with miranda, how naive we were, that we were like, oh, we'll just put our best foot forward and try our best, and everyone will be really happy when they see us trying our best and they'll.
Dr. Tim Pearce:And it wasn't like that at all. Like so. So, realizing that you're, you're going to get a a percentage of people who make up stories about you and a percentage of people who resent you and and the rest who are grateful. Um, it's quite useful to just accept it that way. Um, and until you establish it's basically only at a point where you overtake people that you get friction. I don't know, I'm sure you've experienced something like this, but there's a thing.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:it speaks to your confidence, because the people that care too much about what others think of them, or the people that seek other people's approval, that just comes from a point of insecurity, and that insecurity is built in us since childhood. And I think the fact that you guys pulled through speaks not just about your passion of what you have within the field, but also the confidence you had in yourself and saying you know what. This is something I'm passionate about. I could care less what others think. I'm going to do it anyways and anytime. I have a guest on my podcast, and the reason why I'm doing this podcast because I think there's so much to be learned from the stories of someone like people like yourselves and others is that the story is always the same First they laugh at you, then they hate you, then they pay attention to you, then they love you, then they pay attention to you, then they love you, and then they want to be associated with you, and, and so that's the story of all successful people, and I love steve jobs quote that says think different. And that's really the secret sauce to any successful person entrepreneur or whatever you will and I think it all goes back to you know, beating your insecurities and just doing what you believe in your heart is the right thing to do, and no one has ever gone broke trying to help other people. And that's exactly what you're doing, and that, and one of the reasons why I so admire and respect you, is that the time, effort and energy you take into educating this um profession that that has no formal training there is, it's not taught at a university, um, it's usually like some weekend course sponsored by a company, and now these people are going there and injecting stuff in human bodies with lack of understanding of anatomy and physiology and the complications associated with it, almost like being oblivious to it, saying ah, it's rare, or kind of justifying it with it's all baloney, that never happens until it happens, happens until it happens.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:And I've seen my fair share of complications, which a couple of times I actually excused myself. I literally went into my office and I had to cry because I couldn't deal with the fact that this person, this beautiful person that just wanted to enhance their look a little bit, now is debilitated for the rest of her life and I couldn't deal with it. And that's when I realized it could happen to me. I could be responsible for something like that, and I learned it in the first um five years of my practice, where it scared the living daylights out of me, because until you see something like that, it's kind of like the fine print in a textbook that you really almost forget about. Your brain wants to forget about it because it has to justify why you should do what you're doing, because you're looking at other things that come with it. So it is hard. At the end of the day, we're all humans and no one likes to hurt another human, and I think what you're doing, in particular the way you do it, is so admirable.
Dr. Tim Pearce:And.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:I think you guys are probably. I mean, I'm on social media, I'm on the internet. I can't think of a better learning factory or learning source for clinicians trying to do injectables. So I really commend you for that and I really admire you.
Dr. Tim Pearce:Well, thank you, and I really resonate with what you said about your emotional reaction to patients, because it dawned on me that that wiring, firstly, it's not uniform, like not everyone feels that way.
Dr. Tim Pearce:In fact, I've seen very prominent training schools saying if you're going to inject, then you have to accept the complications are part of the process, whereas my reaction is I don't want to ever accept that. I know that they are statistically, but if you just say, well, I'm going to accept an average complication rate and put up with patients, because I was the same as you, I I would.
Dr. Tim Pearce:if I saw a patient even like a result they didn't like that was affecting their confidence, I would feel I'd feel it like it would go home with me at the weekend and I'd feel bad about it, let alone the thought that you'd have someone who was young and beautiful anyway, but having a small tweak that ends up with them being blind like that was such a tragedy in that form.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:It's unacceptable, that it's totally unacceptable.
Dr. Tim Pearce:So then you exactly it's that rejection of it. I think it's really important that you, because when you start from that point of view, you put a ton of effort into multiple different stages to try and reduce the risk. And that's why I say the anxious clinicians should be the ones doing the non-surgical rhinoplasty, not the ones who think it's oh, you know, it's par for the course. If you get a few blind patients every now and then, you know it's definitely the ones who are scared who then need to use that fear to inject more safely. But you know, I've had the criticism from people. I had an MCAS. Some random doctor came up to me and said you're just scaring everyone and all I could think to say was I was one of those scared doctors. But I'm not anymore because I learned, and that's what I'm trying to do is just teach people to not be scared by giving the right information, not by saying don't worry about it, it happens or false reassurance, of course, and so I think we owe it to our patients.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:Remember, we're not saving lives, we're just trying to change lives, but we don't want to kill someone or make someone blind in the process. I can't think of anyone who would be able to live with that. I certainly don't want to experience it. But let's talk about, let's shift gears here a little bit Now. Is it true that you're moving on from aesthetics, and is it a rumor? I just saw an Instagram post on your site that you're moving on from aesthetics. Can you tell us a little bit about it? You know, what do you? What did you mean? Were you serious about it or, uh, was it like a code for something else?
Dr. Tim Pearce:so that we we tried to choose a word that was catchy, but not. Not like I'm giving up aesthetics but I'm moving good.
Dr. Tim Pearce:I should say moving beyond or moving up it was supposed to be. I'm broadening out from it um, because the way that I've been trying to teach people to do aesthetics, it is linked to longevity in a way that most people don't realize, which is which, which we've already touched on, but essentially, um, human relationships are absolutely key to longevity. It's a ridiculous difference in something like 50 reduction depending on the size of your social network, how socially connected you are and the quality of your relationships is really key, and that's what medical aesthetics is actually for is to help people build relationships. So I still think it's part of it and if you follow I'm sure you follow, like Brian Johnson and the blueprint stuff and this amazing demonstration of what is possible. He's having medical aesthetic treatments too, and I think it's going to be part of it.
Dr. Tim Pearce:But what I think is happening is the lens is shifting, like we're no longer looking like. I don't, like I don't want to be called a cosmetic doctor because it's not. That implies it's just on the surface what I do and that doesn't fit with how I see it and that's a paradigm that I have, which not everyone agrees with. But the paradigm shift to see aesthetics as part of human health and therefore as part of longevity, is what I'm basically making the case for is we should all be. All clinicians really should be thinking about what they do in the context of live long and prosper, as Spock says. It's a great quote, but that's what we're trying to help people do is to live long and prosper, and that's the lens with which I now see the rest of my career is I want to help human beings live long and prosper. I don't want to be doing cosmetic work and I gave up cosmetic work, you know, eight, nine years ago anyway.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:So are you just simply changing your perspective on what you're doing, or are you going to add or do anything different in what you're doing, what you have been doing?
Dr. Tim Pearce:Yeah, I'm going to. I think it's going to. I mean a lot of it. That video was very much a statement of intent. It's not a.
Dr. Tim Pearce:I don't actually have a 10 year game plan of all the things yet, but I'm now because I triggered. I'm a big believer in triggering a change because I've been thinking about this stuff for longer than I've been talking about it many years longer. But now it's out there, not even on this podcast. Now I'm having to think about it, hear, hear, and so I can feel it dragging me now and I've always been a big believer in change is hard. But if you stake something in the ground and say you're going to do it, there's an element that takes on a life of its own, so similar with my clinic. I've told them I want to start introducing longevity stuff and they're like well, what? And I'm like well, let's actually hash that out.
Dr. Tim Pearce:I've got a researcher now who's like writing down everything. She can find all the interventions we're seeing, which ones are very aligned with aesthetics. You know, polynucleotides is an example. It kind of fits on this more scientific side of changing the way that cells behave. But there's all sorts of things that I think will branch out from it, and I don't think my clinic will. Well, it's possible. Who knows what you can do in 20 years? But I'm not seeing that you have to have one expert who does everything. I think it's all going to be much more network specialty and we'll have you know. We're not going to have an MRI scanner in the clinic. We're going to have people who do that who we network with.
Dr. Tim Pearce:So it's building that network is a big part of it and trying to find experts. One of the problems I realize we're going to face is quality information, because there's so much nonsense and bro science that it's going to be hard to sift through that. So I'm kind of thinking about ways of getting the best people to want to contribute to one source of information. I don't have the answer yet. I'm thinking around.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:Well, I think you're on the right path. You know, I certainly resonate with the fact that we need to treat our patients comprehensively. So it's not just about cosmesis, it's not about just one thing. I think it's about comprehensively from inside out. That's always been my philosophy and I think there's so much science now, especially in the last decade alone, that is so rapidly evolving.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:And one of the scientists that is really at the forefront of all this longevity treatment is Dr David Sinclair out of Harvard, and you know he started this research. I knew of him when I was at Harvard in 99. He had joined the genetics department and I was involved with the genetics department because I was doing molecular genetic and molecular biology research in head and neck cancer, and he is a geneticist that has really been on the forefront of longevity research and discovery, where he started it, and that science goes only back to the 90s. It's not not that I mean it is now 30 years old. You could say that's old science. But back then they've been just able to turn the clock back on yeast, which gets transferred to NAD in your body, which is a coenzyme basically that's responsible, as you know, for all kind of cell function. They literally can turn a two-and-a-half-year-old mouse into a six-month-old mouse and human age is going to be about 10 years. Rejuvenation within a week. I mean so like the Wright brothers are already flying. We don't have commercial airplanes yet, but the cat's out of the bag already. I mean, the science is there and it's fascinating if you think of it, because if you think of what we're trying to do, which is anti-aging with external stuff, you can actually anti-age internally. But if you think about what causes the cell to age is essentially damage to your DNA.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:I'm turning 51 in two weeks and I could tell I feel much better than I was. I felt in my 30s. Granted, in my 30s I was a residence I don't know how many, maybe sleeping two or three hours a day max. I'm sure that has something to do with it. But my lifestyle? I changed my lifestyle when I turned 40, because I realized the changes in my body. I realized like things are changing and I didn't want to wait until I get ill. I didn't want to wait until I get dementia, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, but that was more subconscious. Now I'm consciously looking for these things, researching, and I'm giving recommendations to my patients based on the science that's out there Simple lifestyle changes, from diet, activity, and now I even have integrated weight loss in my practice, because I think, especially here in America, it is the greatest pandemic that we have of most chronic diseases.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:And if you look at how media or some big pharmaceutical companies are putting propaganda out there against that, it's kind of interesting, Like you ask yourself, why would they do that, Aren't they? Don't they care about the health, well-being of people? Isn't that why they make drugs and medicine? So we can, they can, make us healthy. Well, wait a second, not so fast. You know. I think they have a different they. I don't want to raise a conspiracy, but I think it's worth thinking about.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:You have to really think more smartly about what you should be doing, what you can do keeping yourself healthy, and it's not very fancy, it's just manage your weight, eat healthy, exercise, build connections with other human beings, and part of it is like you alluded to when you look better, you feel better. When you feel better, you socialize more. That science is out there. That's not. You know that's not like my opinion or your opinion.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:I think all of those contribute to the anti-aging aspect of what we do, and I have people on social media all the time DMing me. They send me a picture and then literally the question is hey, what can I do against my aging? What do you recommend? And I've taken screenshots of my conversations because people don't believe me. I tell them look, the first thing you need sleep, reduce your stress, hydrate, eat well. You don't have to be a nutritionist, Just Google it, the information is out there. Then we can talk hydrate, eat well. You don't have to be a nutritionist, just Google it, the information is out there. Then we can talk.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:Because if you don't do those things right, nothing I do will actually last. So then what's the point? And I'm not here, out there to get your money. I want you truly to look the best version of yourself, not just for six months. I want you to look better in 10 years than you look today, and it's possible. Are you interested?
Dr. Daria Hamrah:And so I really question my patients' intentions and just make them aware that, look, there is more than you think that you can do on your own without my help. And the information is out there. You just go find it. It's on the internet, For example. Dr Sinclair has actually a podcast, so it's available to anyone. But yet people watch Netflix a stupid show for the fifth time, and wonder and eat potato chips and wonder why they look old, and so it all goes back to the inability of your body repairing your DNA. And we have the science that you can actually reverse that. Well, you know. So I think we, as aesthetic physicians, we have that responsibility to educate ourselves first so that we can be the best doctors to our patients, Because ultimately we do that for the well best doctors to our patients, because ultimately we do that for the well-being of our patients, nothing more and nothing less.
Dr. Tim Pearce:Well, you touched on something that I think is one of the biggest barriers, which is the psychological approach, or the philosophical approach to the interventions, and I even have this in my own household, which is that, for example, with food, because I've been on this journey for much longer, I no longer associate certain foods with treating myself. I feel like it's punishing myself if I eat a massive lump of cake.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:Now.
Dr. Tim Pearce:I don't know when that shift happened, but it happened and I look at it and it doesn't mean the same thing to me, but it never used to be that way. It used to be something else. So, true, but Miranda's a little bit behind on this journey and she's like well, I want to eat the cake, and so we have this. You know, we've got kids and we obviously both feed them differently, and it's just made me interested to realize that many people associate the stuff that they value in life with the stuff that's doing them harm. So life is worth living because I get to eat potato chips in front of Netflix, and that's a hard problem to solve.
Dr. Tim Pearce:But you have to go through this journey of experiencing something and for me, obviously I had the fear of Parkinson's, but also I have lots of stress, especially when the business was first getting off and the exercise would help me feel better during the day. I'd have better ideas. You know, I started fasting. I was like, wow, I'm so much better on the podcast when I haven't had a, you know, a big fat meal full of carbs. And then you're like, well, this is actually making my life better. Now I'm not actually doing it for the future now. It's actually helping me right now and that's the thing I would. I think is a problem we need to solve for people. Is that your life is more meaningful and more enjoyable now, when you make, when you live healthily, and it's not. I think a lot of people see it as deprivation. If you read the responses to Brian Johnson in particular, a lot of people are negative, like he's punishing himself and he's really disciplined but that's people's opinions.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:Yeah, yeah, that's people's opinions. Yeah, of course I mean I, I would not, I would never be able to do what he's doing. I mean he's really out there but I admire him for that because he has the discipline and he's probably going to live longer than I will. But you know it's not for everyone. But that doesn't mean you should make fun of it. But that's human nature, right? Whenever something, we feel something, is not within our reach, we poo-poo it, we make fun of it so we can cope with it, and I mean that's normal human behavior.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:It's kind of funny, especially funny when physicians do that, when physicians frown upon it, physicians that have not spent a minute or a second to educate themselves about it, that really take what they learned in medical school like 20 years ago as the Bible and just treat the patients for chronic disease. Basically, wait until you get ill, wait until you get sick, wait until you have cancer, and then treat it. And when you ask, can I have a full body scan, a full body MRI, they're like well, do you have any family history of something? It goes back to the 20, 30, 50, 100-year-old type of questions that physicians usually ask before they order the test, which is predicated on the approval of insurance companies for those tests. So it's kind of like we're treating humans based on what insurance companies tell us and it even handcuffs or prohibits any clinician to think outside of the box. Say, well, wait a second. So if I get an MRI like when I don't have I'm 51. If I get an MRI now, a full body MRI, now I have a baseline I can compare it to if I get another one in two years or five years and I can see what happened in my body, what shifts that occur, and I can proactively treat and prevent and change my lifestyle or become aware of stuff, rather than wait until I have a tennis ball-sized tumor that all of a sudden I see wait a second. For some reason I'm getting these headaches and I get these blurry visions once in a while.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:And then get an MRI scan a year after I was diagnosed with these things that didn't resolve with Tylenol or conservative measures, and then, well, maybe we should take an MRI. Well, guess what? A family member. That's what happened to them in Canada and when they got their MRI. This is a true story that I just told you. That's what happened to them in Canada and when they got their MRI this is a true story that I just told you he had a tumor the size of a tennis ball in his brain right behind his optical chiasm. Six months later he passed and I told him. When he told me about his chronic headaches, I'm like just get a brain MRI. And he said no. My doctor said there's not enough evidence, insurance won't approve it. I'm like just go fucking pay for it it's 600 bucks.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:How much money did you spend on dumb stuff that you don't even need last year? Go pay. He's like no, that's why I have insurance, you know. Blah, blah, blah. So this entitlement, the sense of entitlement just because you have insurance, you're forced to use it and you don't want to spend your own private money that's what really killed him, and I think, as um, as a society, we should really take our health more seriously. Um and um, just like we spend money on vacations, on stuff we don't need um on you know, I don't know, you know what? I know?
Dr. Tim Pearce:everybody has their own weaknesses, but I think, if we budget it right, um, we could definitely live longer and look better this is, but this is the key shift I think that people need to go through is realizing that that that's the most valuable thing you could do with your money. It's not like you should try not to spend while you're spending money on all sorts of other things, but it's not funny take it, take something to make you aware of it.
Dr. Tim Pearce:But, um, you know, I have the same issue, even worse, in the uk, because it's mostly free but it's it's also obviously controlled with what you can have. I have a patient who's probably in her late 20s now, who's diabetic since she was 10. And they wouldn't give her a continuous glucose monitor and an insulin pump when she was terrible at managing her diabetes. And she's now got all of the complications. She's registered partially sighted, gastroparesis, kidney failure, waiting for a kidney transplant, and I'm like how, how, who is making these decisions? That you can't spend a few hundred bucks a month on someone when they're young and then avoid all this stuff.
Dr. Tim Pearce:And she's got two kids now, also with type one diabetes. You know and you're thinking at least they will, it'll be better now, but it we always seem to be so far behind. The proactive stuff, and I think this is the only thing that might eventually flip healthcares around is when they actually get the measurements back of how much it's worth to the economy to have healthy people, because it's enormous, like it's easily going to pay for itself, but it does take a shift. Right now it's firefighting, isn't it?
Dr. Daria Hamrah:Well, I think it has to do with how the system works. Who is making the money, um, at the end of the day, treating chronic disease? Uh, pharmaceuticals and insurance companies. Those are the billion dollar industries that are guiding the whole narrative.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:And I think it's funny when you, in the beginning of our podcast, you mentioned that the reason why you went away from traditional medicine and being a physician treating patients to aesthetic medicine is you felt helpless, like you can't do the things that you wanted to do and the way you want to do it, and you're kind of like handcuffed by the NHS and traditional insurance type of medicine.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:And it's against what a physician wants to do, which is making people feel better. And it's kind of funny how there is this antagonizing force against the very thing we're trying to do, and that is unfortunately, a shame. And I think a lot of the young generation are being deterred from entering the field of medicine because you know they're smart. I mean, the information is out there, it's all online and there's not a person that doesn't have a family member that has been suffering as a result of this system. So what are you doing for yourself? You know what are you doing for yourself as far as anti-aging, healthy lifestyle, walk us through your routine. You know I want to learn from you um.
Dr. Tim Pearce:So I by no means consider myself an expert at this, by the way, I'm, I'm I'm.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:No one is an expert, no one.
Dr. Tim Pearce:I, I call us enthusiasts, but not experts yeah, but I I'm kind of embracing the being a student idea, um, and you'll see me on like on social media, hopefully owning that position because I think this is so early that we need to look at it that way. But the basic things are actually pretty straightforward, like you've already alluded to. So, um, I try and run. Uh, it's about 37 minutes now every day. Um, so that's about seven kilometers. Um, I don't do that every day. So that's about seven kilometers. I don't do that every day because there's always, you know, there's challenges, time and stuff. But I'll very rarely do a production day without running because my brain works so much better Waits three times a week, not quite at the moment because I turn my garage into a gym, but only half there.
Dr. Tim Pearce:I have started Brian Johnson'sson's blueprint stuff. I've only just started taking um ashwagandha, which I hadn't looked into much, but it has it's. I think it's what's made the biggest difference to my recovery. So I'm on it to myself with a whoop and, uh, the recovery element, I've always had a relatively low um heart rate variability. You know I'm doing exercise and sleep, but I'd wake up, feel tired, 50 recovery, and that seems to have made a big difference in the last week and you know, end of one, but it's supposed to help the recovery and I've experienced that as helping. Uh, I take creatine five milligrams a day. Um, I do fish oils, not the omega-3 supplement, one of the validated ones, um, and I take an interesting supplement which is a replacement. It's an NAD booster but it has niacinamide in it. But it also includes I forgot the term, the name for it, but anyway it's in parsley and it decreases activity of CD38, which uses up most of your NAD.
Dr. Tim Pearce:It'll come to me in a moment. It's got some other interesting things in it, but it's a much more strategic supplement called Neuchido. It comes from the UK. There's a doctor, a clinician, she's a scientist actually you'll see on my page coming up the next few months who I've got to know quite well. So it's her company who makes it and she told me some interesting stuff around how these supplements come to the market and it just affected me quite a lot thinking about the commercial drivers which we have in aesthetics as well and how these things end up.
Dr. Tim Pearce:Whoever kind of has the most money has the most influence. But I just liked her story because she's really a small company. She's mission driven, she's very passionate about the science. She's passion, mission driven, she's very passionate about the science. Everything's like back to the science, uh. So that's the supplement that I take in the morning as well. As soon as I started taking it, I, um, I, you feel it. You feel better. You also feel if you take it at night because you can't sleep. So tells you it's working. Um, nad, the nad levels. I did take nmn for a while but I stopped it on the basis that I'm fairly convinced, although I've never measured my nad levels. I'd like to do that, um, but it's. They're interchangeable at least, if not better to take the other one is there anything else interesting?
Dr. Daria Hamrah:yeah, let me know what that is. I'm curious as to what that is because really, you know, tackling it at source, which is antagonizing the reduction of NAD is really key, as it is the key coenzyme in a lot of the cellular events that occur.
Dr. Tim Pearce:It's in apple skin and parsley. You will find it quite easily. I don't think it's a secret, but I can't remember off the top of my head.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:It's not resveratrol, right, it's not resveratrol. No, it's not resveratrol Because that is more in like grapes, berries, nuts and red wine, which is something I take actually.
Dr. Tim Pearce:It will probably pop into my head later on.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:I'm sorry, I've forgotten it.
Dr. Tim Pearce:But the resveratrol thing, I don't know if you've been following it, but you know that the company that bought it then couldn't make anything out of it and it didn't work and they said there was some sort of assay that had given them most of their results. I'm not an expert on this, but I was a bit disappointed, really, to hear that it wasn't as effective as once thought. But these things this is one of the biggest issues in this whole sector is it is so complicated compared with you know stuff you can see and touch, that you do in aesthetics, that you know either works or it doesn't to a degree. But it's not like that in this world.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:It's uh, it's going to take a lot of science and a lot of open collaboration a hundred percent, and that's why I'm a believer of unless it harms me, it doesn't take much to take it. Why not? And I mean, obviously you want to use your food as a source of all these things, if you can, and I think as part of part of a Mediterranean diet, and eating a lot of berries and nuts and leaf vegetables, I mean, those are really. I mean, that's what I basically have for lunch, instead of a pizza or some carbs. That suck my energy for the rest of the day and makes me feel much better.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:And I could tell you, though, when I started taking NMN, a lot of my ailments that I have, like shoulder pain, back pain, muscle pain and I'm very active athletically those have really improved significantly. I don't know whether it was a coincidence of time, just my body just had time to recover and heal, or that's what it was. Obviously it's not a study, it's just an observation, but I usually go by. What if my body feels good, uh, doing something, I just do that, and I'm very in tuned and I listen to my body, and I think we should do more of that.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:Um and then take all that information that's out there, as you you mentioned, diluted to with a grain of salt, but still keep our eyes and ears open on these topics.
Dr. Tim Pearce:The compound I was thinking of is called apigenin Apigenin, apigenin so it's in dried parsley and I think in apple skin as well. So it depresses CD38, which, as you get older, churns through. I think it's something like 100 molecules. It basically uses most of your NAD up as you get older and it's related to basically deteriorating cell function and it's this is all covered on Nicholas' podcast. It's a dysfunction to do with aging, but I don't know the details enough. But it seems like a really simple and clever way of. And what I also like about these ingredients, similar to what you said, is I like things where I think this really seems like limited downside and potential upside. It's not super complicated, I'm not having a drip every week.
Dr. Tim Pearce:You know it's something that you could get from diet in a higher concentration. It feels nice and safe, and why not?
Dr. Daria Hamrah:exactly, yeah. So for those of you who are listening, abagenin is a flavonoid that is abundantly present in common fruits, vegetables, nuts, onions, oranges and tea. It has various beneficial health effects, such as antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and chemo prevention. So this is basically. All of these things help, all you know, helps the longevity and influence the epigenetics of our body to just function much better. And I think it all goes back to a balanced diet.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:All this conversation keeps going on a balanced diet. I mean people take now collagen pills, collagen supplements. That's controversial too because, truthfully, it's all broken down in your gut anyways into amino acids, so into the building blocks. And you can get the same building blocks from your diet and you know, taking these collagen pills and I have patients that get these stomach cramps and all these side effects. I'm like, well, why don't you just adjust your diet? Why do you make your life so complicated? And they're not cheap either. You know all these supplements are not cheap. So if you can get it from your diet, do that first. That's why it's called a supplement, meaning if you can't get it from your diet or if you're not getting it from your diet. But I think supplements shouldn't be a replacement, um, there just should be complementary, yeah, and I think I think one of the hardest things for patients is that because it's so complicated, they don't.
Dr. Tim Pearce:They have we, and even for me it's the scale that you don't understand. Like you'd say, um, you know, to take omega-3 oils, for example, you're supposed to get them from fish, but fish also has mercury in them. And then they they think, well, what am I supposed to do? Like it's got mercury in it and it's got the thing that's good for me and you need a real expert. Like if you listen to ronda pat talk about this, it's really interesting because she cites a study where the intelligence of children was higher according to their mercury levels because the fish oils were so powerful.
Dr. Tim Pearce:And there are a few things like that similar with folate and pesticides. So pesticides cause DNA damage, but folate is so good at defending your, your dna, that you actually have lower, lower damage to your, to your dna when you've eaten enough folate, even if there are pesticides that damage your dna on it. So it that's one of the hardest elements to get right is like, how do you because it? Otherwise people get confused and they do nothing. Um, and so you? We need to sift through the information and give those kind of solid bits of advice, saying yes, not dismissing it. Yes, there are some potential risks, but they're outweighed clearly. So do those things you know and things like sleep and diet, exercise or at least straightforward, although there was some risks with any of these things but it's basically we need to get this list top 100 things you can do. That's really clear, and then let the patients really go for it.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:Yeah, I mean on the other side. I have to tell you, tim, it's easy for us to say these things. You know, if you look at 90% of the population, they're really struggling. 90% of the population they're in survival mode. They don't have enough time. 90% of the population are in survival mode. They don't have enough time, they don't have enough money, they don't have the mindset to even research these things. They're struggling to. They're living paycheck by paycheck. They're struggling with raising their kids. They're struggling with making means to an end. They're struggling with managing their lives and I'm always careful when I try to.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:I feel like it's. I know it's our obligation to talk about these things, but in some way it is unfair to expect 90% of the population truly struggling to have even a mindset for all these things. I mean, they just eat on the run whenever they can. Some of them don't even have the means to get proper food and quality food.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:I think, before these things can reach and affect the majority of the population, the whole system of the world has to change, and I don't know if we will see it in our lifetime, but I think all we can do is to disseminate information and then maybe, if someone's pain point reaches a level that they're like you know what? I don't want to live like this anymore, that they do things like they never thought they would be doing, meaning they would downscale, not live above their means and spend more time with family, live healthier. And I think more people than think or believe could do that starting today, but for some reason they choose not to. Because I think society has programmed us to keeping up with the Joneses that we're making it too hard for ourselves including me and you.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:So I wouldn't exclude at least myself. I can speak for myself. I have to constantly remind myself that what's important in life, what's really important for me, what's important for my patients, what makes me happy, what makes me do the things, that, when I'm in my deathbed, think that I have no regrets, and I live every day of my life by that. Whenever I make a decision, I think of the moment. I'm in my deathbed thinking would I be proud of myself? Would I have any regrets, yes or no? If yes, I'm not going to do it, and that's an awareness that came to me about seven, eight years ago and it just can't leave me anymore. I just can't get rid of that. It's almost this consciousness sitting on my shoulder, constantly watching over me, and I feel, uh, blessed to have that. And I am talking to you. I feel, uh, I, I, I totally feel that, um, uh, you, you, you feel the same way. You do things because you believe in them. You know authenticity, um, being genuine and you and really caring about the human being that crosses paths with you. So very grateful for you being on the show, tim.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:A couple of rapid fire questions United or City?
Dr. Tim Pearce:United. I used to live literally a stone's throw from the stadium, so very close, used to be close to me stupid question soccer or football? Well, I grew up half my life playing soccer and then the other half football, because I grew up in South Africa. So I don't mind.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:Oh, really did you okay? And they're soccer players. What do you think of the term soccer in South Africa? So I don't mind.
Dr. Tim Pearce:Oh, really Did you? Okay, and they're soccer players though?
Dr. Daria Hamrah:What do you think of the term soccer?
Dr. Tim Pearce:I'm completely used to it. I know it's weird If you're British through and through and you think it's weird, but for me, I grew up playing soccer and then played football from 14 onwards.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:Great, If you could give your 20-year-old self one piece of advice. What would that be?
Dr. Tim Pearce:I hesitate because I am a believer that things happen. You have to go through the experiences. But it might have been because I was interested in longevity long before anything else. I just didn't know how important it was. The first book I bought after medical school was preventative nutrition book, um, but I didn't know what it was going to turn into. So I might it might be something on the lines of stay at that, um, but at the same time, maybe my purpose is to is to use what I've currently built to bring it to more people later on. So, um, uh, I wouldn't necessarily give too much advice.
Dr. Tim Pearce:Let me think of one good thing that would be universal. I think it's related to what you were saying about patients and how they struggle, and also I think that the battle that many people are going through it is to stay hopeful. Don't be cynical. I think I had periods of my life where I was a bit more cynical and hopeless and it just slowed me down enormously, and so I I resonate what with what you were saying. Patients go through as well, or the public, everyone, um, because I think, but but that's the key if you can stay optimistic and hopeful about the future and try and build the future um that you want rather than just wait for things to happen. That that makes everything better for everyone I think we owe it to ourselves.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:I mean, what else would you be rather doing? I think we owe it to ourselves.
Dr. Tim Pearce:You know a lot of a lot of people that I think they're like. I've had many people close to me like who lack hope for the future, very pessimistic about the environment and politics and all that stuff, and it breaks my heart because it stops you doing everything else when you don't think there's any greater purpose. So that's the thing I'm always rallying against is just don't get cynical about the future.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:What's your definition of capitalism? The way you would like to define it?
Dr. Tim Pearce:I prefer the term free market economies because I really think there's something beautiful about two people, one with some resources and one with a skill, and they weigh it up freely and make a free exchange. That's the essence of capitalism, um, now, obviously there are elements where, if things aren't priced incorrectly like if you don't price in the price of oxygen and you just see the price of timber you chop down the tree and you and that's a problem with capitalism, um, but if things are priced correctly, then exploitation.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of people misunderstand capitalism with exploitation, but if things are priced correctly, then free markets I'll call that exploitation. Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of people misunderstand capitalism with exploitation.
Dr. Tim Pearce:Yeah, but I do get it that there are things that you need governments to price in for because capitalism can't do it. So I'm not an outright, you know, just complete libertarian, although I definitely err on that side of the spectrum. But I think the value exchange is key. I think if you make something valuable and you give it to someone who doesn't want the money they want the valuable thing that sounds like a really good exchange and that's what we should be trying to do and and not see it as a zero sum game.
Dr. Tim Pearce:I think if you, if you, if you think the person who got the money has got something and the person who got the thing has nothing, then it looks like a sinister thing. But that's not how any. I don't know where that idea comes from, because personally I never give away money for nothing. I give it because I want the thing more than the money, and that's how most people operate. That's the free market, which I think is an unbalanced good. There are imperfections, but it an unbalanced good. There are imperfections, but it's unbalanced good. Love that.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:Question that is on everybody's mind, that I personally always get being a family man and you seem to me like a family man. I know you have kids and dogs and you have a very busy professional life. How do you find work-life balance and what is the meaning of work-life balance to you?
Dr. Tim Pearce:So I mean that's a good question. I made decisions to sacrifice opportunities to put my family first, particularly traveling with kids and stuff. I knew when they were little I did not want to be. What was happening was I was. I could see this path where I'd be at every conference and and I just didn't want to, I just decided I'm not doing that, in fact, so starkly that I almost go to none of them. You know I do online stuff and occasionally go to them and find out. Everyone knows me, but I I don't know, everyone, but it's.
Dr. Tim Pearce:But that was the right decision for me at the time. Because I um, but it's, uh, but that was the right decision for me at the time. Um, because I value the connection with my kids more than anything else. It is the most important thing to me, um, and then I try and make the rest of my work fit in with that. Like I want them to see, we do bring them to certain things so that they get the experience. Um.
Dr. Tim Pearce:So a lot of people talk about work-life integration. I think I'm fairly integrated. It's. Everything points in the same, generally points in the same direction. I still have to battle with it, like everyone. This last week I did like three 12-hour days and it wasn't good, um, uh. So you know I have to make decisions to try and rein it in, and if I don't tuck the kids in at night, they complain. They're like, where were you working late? You know so, um, but that they don't realize how lucky they are, because even a regular nhs gp would be home a lot less than I am, of course, um of course.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:I mean, everything is relative. I think everybody has to define the like life work balance for themselves, and I think a lot of us put ourselves under too much pressure and stress, um, judging ourselves for not being there enough. But, on the other side, if we don't work hard, we can't be successful. If we're not successful, we can't provide a lot of the things for the family that others are not fortunate enough and privileged enough to do. And I think, at the end of the day, work-life balance means are you happy, is your family happy? Is your business successful? If you check all those boxes with a yes, then congratulations, and I think that's how you have to look at it, as opposed to saying, well, you're not there for a big football match or a graduation and this and that, and you know, I think at the end of the day, it's not too. We're judging ourselves too much and putting ourselves under too much pressure, and that's what the struggle truly is. Last question Sorry.
Dr. Tim Pearce:One thing I've learned that I really appreciate and the more I go through the chaos of life and seeing things go wrong in other people's lives is it is those relationships are the key. Like to my business. Success is key. That my, my wife is happy, you know, obviously we work together, but I can't go off and ignore her for even 24 hours is a bad idea. Like we need to be united.
Dr. Tim Pearce:Um, we're I'm a, we're trying to systematize love in our family. So it's like you don't walk past a member of the family, I mean there's no, I don't shout to people, do this, but I I do this myself. If I'm walking past, you get a hug. You know it's, and I find that, um, it's like a unifying part of the day. That means every other problem that you hit is built on that bedrock of we're hitting the problem together, you know, as opposed to separate, because I realized with miranda that most of our rows were about separation, like we felt separate in the battle. And as soon as we figured that out, it was like, okay, well, let's just do something every day that makes us feel together and then we can deal with the problems. And that's been really helpful. But I think my whole business is built on that idea as well, because I know a lot of clinicians who work together. You can't neglect that relationship. It has to be number one business number two and otherwise everything is under threat.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:Yeah, I mean, why are we doing what we're doing? That's the question we have to ask ourselves to have a happy life and provide for our family, for our next of kin. So that is the whole purpose and I think it goes back to being purpose-oriented Social media. The whole purpose, and I think being goes back to being purpose-oriented, um, social media. Is it, uh? Is it going to destroy our society or is it the best thing that happened to our society?
Dr. Tim Pearce:I mean, it could destroy our society because of I'm thinking more about ai and when you don't know what's real or not, um, there's none of that going on already. Um, I think, on balance, like any powerful thing, it's, it's a, it's a mix. I always think this with fire as well. Like you know, when that was being discovered, you could easily make the argument it was a bad thing, but we also built everything out of it, and then we still have bad stuff that comes with it. So I think you need I think we need to be cautious about um I, there's, there's, there's two pulls, there's the misinformation side of things, but then there's the authoritarianism on top of it. That's then creates a distortion about what, what's real and what's not. That I'm worried about.
Dr. Tim Pearce:You know I'm a big free speech advocate. I I'd rather see someone I disagree with saying things than have it suppressed and come out in an uglier form, usually in form of violence, later on. But it's very hard. I'd say it's 51% good and I think it could be better if everyone was more aware of what it actually is, because I think our brains are very confused by the numbers.
Dr. Tim Pearce:And I went through this with social media, because when you first start, you think everyone will be happy with the stuff you post. But if 100,000 people see it, there's going to be a ratio of people there, no matter what, are having such a bad day that they're going to respond negatively. But your brain thinks you're a member of a tribe with 1000 people in it and if three people are awful to you then you're. It's life and death. You know, whereas actually that's not the case. You're talking to millions over time and of course and mostly it doesn't matter, it's just noise. So if you can realize this, that most of the negativity on social media is is, you know, people on the toilet having stressful days. They're not actually making cerebral decisions about whether you're a good person or not, they're just venting. That makes it a bit easier, but it has huge issues. I would be particularly worried if I had teenage daughters, for example. I think it's particularly hard for girls, but if you have a good family and you support them and you educate them, it's probably 51% good.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:That was the perfect answer and I love your fire analogy. We can destroy stuff with it, we can build stuff. And I think to your last comment is it goes all back to proper parenting teaching the kids values giving, nurturing them with self-confidence so they don't get hurt by insecurities or by the bad people out there. There's good and bad in everything in life, and social media is both good and it's bad.
Dr. Tim Pearce:A knife is good, bad.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:Fire is good and bad, so I think it depends on how we choose to look at things, how we utilize them. It's just a tool, it's a technology like anything else. Tv in the 50s was frowned upon. The same way social media is frowned upon now. And I think, as human beings, we're going to evolve. Technology is not going to care about our opinion, it's just going to evolve and we just have to learn to deal with it. And it goes all back to especially when you have girls, but also boys to proper parenting. I think we should really take on that responsibility and teach our children proper values and be there for them so that they're protected against all the bad stuff out there.
Dr. Tim Pearce:I think the biggest self-defense you can give your children is is that they feel like that they love themselves and respect themselves. I always come back to that as because I'm now at the age you know they're going to high school and I have to just let them out, he's gonna. I know there are drugs at the high school.
Dr. Tim Pearce:He's gonna go to um and we talk about it, but I always come back to you know, does he, is he loved? Does he love himself enough that he wouldn't mess? Because that that was what stopped me when I was at school. I was like, well, why would I mess with my body? Like for because some skid at school wanted me to do it. And it never. It literally was never even an option.
Dr. Tim Pearce:I just never went down that route because, and so I just I just go back to that of like, make them love and respect themselves, and they can. They can look at that social media post and not go seeking validation on social media um, which if you don't get it's crushing, if you think it's your only source of it. So you need to. They just need to become real individuals outside of social media before they go on to it, and hopefully that will cover most of the bases.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:Yeah, perfect. I mean, again, social media to me is just exposing the social issues that exist out there at a scale now, whereas when we were children it was still there but it wasn't exposed like it is at scale. It was always there, you know, and I think people get that confused and use it and weaponize it and use it as an excuse to justify why they're not doing their job. And I loved your answer and you're 100% on point. There's nothing more that we owe our children than raising them with proper values, proper self-esteem and self-confidence, so that we can trust them when they go out there, that they're protected and don't make stupid decisions. Just like me and you were protected, obviously, by our parents.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:I grew up in Germany and drugs I mean in Germany when you're 13, 14, you start smoking. At least in the 80s, when I grew up and drugs were available, I mean you just had to hop across the border to the Netherlands. You couldn't get them. It was legal there. But I never felt the need because, like you said, you know, I didn't feel I need to, I didn't feel it's going to, I didn't have any feeling that I had to quiet or down or to suppress and I just wanted to experience things and I loved life, even though it was very hard growing up as an immigrant. But you know it goes all. So I give a lot of that credit to my parents and, uh, so I tried to be similar parents for my children. Tim, yeah, any questions that I should have asked you that I didn't ask?
Dr. Tim Pearce:I don't think so. We've covered quite a wide range of stuff um, yeah, yeah it was fun uh and uh, yeah, useful uh to me just to talk through these issues. Think about it again, so I appreciate it thank you.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:Thank you for coming on. How can people get in touch with you?
Dr. Tim Pearce:you can just follow me at Dr Tim Pierce on all the platforms beautiful and if you haven't seen any of his platforms, I highly recommend.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:If you're in the aesthetic and cosmetic industry, you won't know what you've missed out, but there is a lot of content out there, and thank you again, tim, for coming on on a Saturday and enjoy the rest of the weekend with your family, and hopefully we'll meet sometime soon, whether in the US or in Europe.
Dr. Tim Pearce:Thank, you so much. No, I really appreciate being invited. It's very honored to get the message. I'm glad we made it happen.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:No, thank you. That says a lot about who you are as a person and I truly appreciate it. And so long Tim.
Dr. Tim Pearce:Thank you very much.
Dr. Daria Hamrah:Thank you, bye-bye, all right, episode's over. I hope you enjoyed my conversation with the one and only Dr Tim Pierce from Manchester, england, and please don't forget to leave me a review on Apple iTunes or leave your comments on Spotify, and hope you tune in until next time. Bye-bye.