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
From Clinics to Cuisine: Felix Bertram's Multifaceted Life
Ever wondered how to juggle multiple successful ventures while maintaining a sense of personal growth and leadership? Join us as we sit down with the remarkable Dr. Felix Bertram, the powerhouse behind Switzerland's largest clinic chain, Skin Med. Felix takes us through his multifaceted journey, from leading a team of 140 employees, owning a Michelin-star restaurant, to being a charismatic host on Switzerland's Shark Tank. He unveils his relentless passion for creating unforgettable experiences and the sacrifices he's made along the way, such as working evenings and weekends, which have had a surprising impact on his biological age.
This episode is rich with insights on navigating the labyrinth of personal and professional life. We explore how societal pressures and early influences shape our career paths and delve into the courage it takes to break free from conventional roles to follow one's true passion. Felix shares invaluable advice on overcoming fear and self-doubt, drawing from his own experiences of expanding his clinic during the pandemic. His reflections on leadership, personal failures, and the importance of self-reflection will resonate deeply with anyone striving for growth and success.
Lastly, we dive into the intricacies of the healthcare and aesthetics industry, particularly in a post-COVID world. Felix discusses the challenges of hiring, the importance of strong branding, and employee engagement in attracting top talent. We also touch on the significance of sustainable business practices and the human connections that drive long-term success. Tune in for an episode brimming with practical advice, inspiration, and wisdom from one of the most dynamic entrepreneurs in the industry.
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All right, everyone, welcome to another amazing episode of the Daria Hammer podcast. Today I have a very special guest. I know I say it every time because all my guests are special, but my guest today is especially special just because it's the type of person that I always look up to, and he is one of the people people the reason why I do everything that I do. He is a self-funded owner and CEO of Switzerland fastest growing and largest clinic chain called skin met, with over five locations and 140 employees performing over 6,000 surgeries and procedures a year. Dr Felix Bertram is a highly accomplished business guru in aesthetics. His passion and knowledge for entrepreneurship has translated into multiple successful ventures, including being an investor of Switzerland's shark tank called Höhlen der Löwen meaning translated, the Caves of the Lions. He's mentor and leader of most transformative event in aesthetics, which he just returned from and he's going to tell us about it called the inner circle. He's also owner of a medical grade skin care line called skin med doctors and owner of the fastest ever.
Speaker 1:Now you'll be surprised to hear that um, two-time michelin star restaurant called skins. Yes, he's also a restaurant owner. Um, also, he's a podcast host. His podcast is called aesthetics and business. So, for those of you who have not tuned in, there is a lot of valuable information and amazing and talented guests on his podcast. I listen to it regularly and I learned a lot from that. So thank you for that podcast, felix. And the one thing is also he has the fourth most watched TEDx speech in 2023, called the Ugly Face of Beauty, which we're going to also delve a little bit into that topic. So, without any further ado, felix, welcome to my podcast.
Speaker 1:I know we share a little bit of common history and background. So I have we chatted for an hour several weeks or months ago and you know I really find your background and everything you do interesting and, like I said in your intro, one thing that people always ask me is that hey, daria, how do you do all of these things? Now you're a doctor, you're a business owner, you do a podcast, you, you go on talks and you go on seminars and scientific meetings and publish Like, how do you do all of that? So whenever someone asks me that question, people that pop into my head are like you and like Tony Robbins and all these people, and I'm like, huh, if they just knew what others are actually doing, they wouldn't be impressed with what I'm doing.
Speaker 1:You're one of those people that put everything I do to shame, just because of not just the amount of ventures and work you do, but also the level at what level you do. Everything you do, you do at a just superb and excellent level. Basically, you never seem to half-ass anything. So that's something to be said about and that's truly inspirational. And my mantra is if you know one person that can do something, that means it's possible. So the only thing between you and that is just do you really want it, or how much do you love it? Is it truly your passion? Are you just in love with the idea, or is it really something you love? So I want you to tell the audience and we're going to right delve into this, we're going to go pretty deep right in the beginning, and then we're going to talk about your background how do you do all of this? It's the same question people ask me. I want to ask you how do you manage all of these things?
Speaker 2:Thank you first, ari, for having me on the show. I think I would like to put light on two things. Number one it's my why. My why is to create and build. My why is to create experiences. Um, my why is to create experiences. I love creating experience for my patients. I love to create experience for myself. I love to create experience for others.
Speaker 2:So you know, we most of the people work eight hours per day, uh, and spend time with their family or hobbies in the evening, and I mostly spend my evenings and my weekends and my holidays on working. That's what nobody sees. People usually see Instagram or other things, and everything comes at a price. All the Inner Circle attendees got to listen to that. I just measured my biological age with 74. Really threatening. I'm going to some measurements right now. So that's the price.
Speaker 2:But these four hours per evening if you do the math, it's about 180 extra days per year. Right, that's massive. So it's not the big one thing you should do in a week or two. It's the consistency by being passionate about something, and my life was very much handling all the troubles of my clinic throughout the day and my visions and my ideas. I was working on the evening. So that's a very important part. And the second is you have as a leader. You have to create more leaders. You don't need to have followers, you have to need more leaders, and I think I built a brilliant team, starting with the in a circle management and my clinic people, cfo, coo, a leading doctor, and below that we have another layer of leaders, uh, inspiring them, and that's the kitchen crew. Does it on their own, it's a, it's a crew of young, amazing people. I have nothing to do with the restaurant unless enjoying it and eating there, so I think that's, um, that's it, uh, passion and building up other people.
Speaker 1:So someone listening to you is like why would he do that to himself? I work a nine to five job and it's stressful enough. This guy just told me his biologic age is 74 and he's self-inflicted injury. Why does he do that? What's your? Why your, why Like, why would you do that? Why would you hurt yourself and why would you age yourself? I know you're probably going to change some things to counter that and we're going to talk about longevity a little bit because it's a fascinating topic. I've been on that trip for about a year now personally, but, um, I want to know to answer to those questions of those people saying why would you self-inflict injury?
Speaker 2:that's a very, very good question, daria where does it come from?
Speaker 2:I'm thinking a lot about that. My honest answer is I think I went through some painful phases in my childhood, phases of not being seen, phases of rejection, phases of being bullied, and I think there's a massive energy inside me to prove the world that they're wrong. But again, it comes at a price and I haven't been aware of that. I just only felt what, getting weaker and weaker, and I felt it, um, instinctively inside me there's something not really wrong. So I, I, I was exhausted and just drawn and I started taking this test.
Speaker 2:But this is the force. There is no I, you know, I think and that's the story of many successful entrepreneurs there's something inside them, there's some kind of fuel bringing them there, and it's maybe the need of applause, the need of recognition, the need of love, the need of being seen. And this was my opportunity. I haven't been a sports star, I haven't been a male model, so my way of being seen and approval, getting some approval, recognition was was entrepreneurship. I realized, oh, I have some talent here. I can, I can bring it to something, and that's my, my force, my driving force so what's the biggest personal sacrifice you've made to achieve your business success?
Speaker 1:and do you ever regret it?
Speaker 2:Health and no friendships for many years feeling lonely. You know, when you have 140 people you have only very rare and few people understand your feelings and your problems. Most people see you as a rich man and having a fancy entrepreneur's life, but you're very lonely, you have very few friends, you have very few time for your friends, which I deeply regret, and I sacrificed health and I sacrificed health. So there's nothing to honestly, there's nothing to rave on and celebrate me for my success. It comes at a price.
Speaker 1:So do you ever regret what you've done?
Speaker 2:Yes and no. I think I'm right at the pinnacle of my success with all this, what happens, and the clinic has a massive valuation and that gives me some kind of fulfillment. I now feel I'm almost there. I don't need more approval, I don't need more love and recognition. It has come to my life, but maybe not through business success, more through my inner circle, and I don't have regrets. But I have the need of changing something in future. So I'm right on it.
Speaker 2:I try to handle over my entire management or operations to other people. I want to step out a little bit. I want to work more on on, yeah, inspiring people. I mean the event, like the inner circle, giving something to people. You know, giving is just something so nice. I don't know if you, if you, think the same I I often, when i'm'm in the restaurant, I see a young family at the next table. I call the waiter and say I'd like to take the bill. And please don't tell them that that is me and just observe that I'm just happy. I'm just happy to give something. And it's the same with other people. Share my knowledge, share my experiences, share my vulnerability, my fuck-ups, my failures and seeing these people, enlightening, say oh gosh, he's a human. He has the same problems than I have. I think that's my future mission and I don't need to build another billion dollar company or whatever I'm.
Speaker 1:I think I I'll change that more sports, more health and more giving so for someone that is looking up to you, that wants to be Felix, that has all these aspirations or actually, I'm going to ask the question differently what would you tell your own 20-year-old self if you were able to meet him today?
Speaker 2:What's the one advice you would give him? I love your questions. It's amazing. Follow your why or your passion, whatever you want to name it. North Star, I did that too late and it has a lot to do with narratives, right? I think there was some kind of business interest in me from childhood on, and I can give you many examples of that. The most impressive one is my father died when I was 23. He was only three years older than I am now from cancer and I spent the last evening with him and I had a book with me about stock investment. It was a business book because I, when he slept like I, I was reading this book and he woke up from from from sleep and saw the book and said don't invest in business or don't invest in stocks, invest in memories. A lovely sentence and and I'm thinking a lot about that this right now, just want to change my life invest in
Speaker 2:more memories. But coming back to my 20 year old self I was I was very much influenced by the medical field, right, and we both went through that. And then you and I don't want to judge it, but you get brainwashed in a way. So you were a doctor. You should heal people, which is lovely and and great, but there's some kind of cage and you shouldn't step out of that. You shouldn't do social media, you shouldn't do aesthetics, you shouldn't do business. Business is dirty, business is awful. So I needed quite a while until I had the courage to really say no. That's my why I love being a doctor. I still do once a week, but the rest of my week is working on projects, following my visions, empowering people, and I think that's something I would recommend.
Speaker 2:Have this moment of self-reflections in your life once a week, a meeting with yourself. Think of what do I love, what do I don't love, what do I want to make out of my life, and then follow this dream. Don't love, what do I want to make out of my life and then follow this dream. Um, many, many people cover it by narratives, outer voices screaming. We are so influenced by all this screaming social media. I want to be the next xyz, I want to be a kol, I want to have a training institute, I want to have a family. You know, it's not possible to have it all, in my opinion, and therefore really reflect on yourself. What is my view, what is my passion?
Speaker 1:Would you have understood? Would your 20-year-old self understood everything you just said? Actually, Would your 20-year-old self actually have listened to you? Have you had said that to him? It's a funny people often don't listen to any advice. Would he just say, yeah. Would he just say, what the fuck?
Speaker 2:are you talking about?
Speaker 1:I want to do this. You know you're just. You know, uh, you're just lazy, you're just coming up with excuses. I really want to do this. I want to have to prove it, uh, to to the people. I have to stick it to the people. I have to stick it to them. Would you have understood that? And on that question, if you were to because I give that advice to young folks all the time the most I get is like a thoughtful five seconds and then they go back to whatever they had set their path to, and it's kind of like they might hear it, but I don't think they're listening. So would you think you would have listened to your own self if you have set all of this great, dropped all of this great wisdom?
Speaker 2:Probably not.
Speaker 1:So what's the solution?
Speaker 2:You know it's the same with…. Is it how it's?
Speaker 1:supposed to be. Maybe Are we supposed to experience things.
Speaker 2:Yes, I think everyone is on their own journey and has to explain. It's the same with you. Know, I always think the first inner circle. I had this task to tell people how business works. And let's assume someone wants to know how can I build something like you did? And I could give all the technical details. Right, you need KPIs, you need a platform, you need good adhesives, you need numbers all this. But it wouldn't work because I have to go through these experiences and you'd have to be on this journey and you have to personally grow.
Speaker 2:I was a bad leader when I started. I was young, I was under pressure, I had the feeling everyone is the same and work, work, work. Today I'm probably much wiser and much nicer to my people, but I needed this personal growth and I think that's with business the same, or with any kind of advice. When it comes from someone who is older or more mature in life, mostly people don't follow it. In best case, it's a seed you planted somewhere in their heart or in their soul, in their brain, and then my thinking over it again and again. That's, I think, the best you can achieve. But everyone is some kind of an own of their own journey. Would you agree on that?
Speaker 1:yeah, I think it's something we were never taught right. It's something we evolved into, just like you said, through our own personal experience. Do you think it's something you could teach? Do you think what you just said? Because you, it's kind of like you have to grow into a certain responsibility, your experiences make you who you are today, but do you think you can teach or train that? Because I went exactly through the same.
Speaker 1:I was a horrible leader. I was always like push, push, push. Nobody was good enough, everybody was lazy. I always measured everybody based on how I was and I realized like they don't have the same passion. You know, what's now looking back is what my driving force was and still is, is my passion, and that's why, to me, nothing I do is really work, and because it's not work, it's not really stress. You know, I usually compete with myself, with my own standards. I don't compare myself, but then yet I compared everyone else, everybody that worked for me, with myself and held them up to my standards, and of course, they would most of the time fail and that was very upsetting and disappointing. So I was a terrible leader because I didn't have patience.
Speaker 1:So the key word here is patience as a leader, you have to bring out the best in people. You have to recognize what their strengths are, what their weaknesses are, and I always thought you have to work on their weaknesses. Now I shifted my mindset. I try to now work on what they're good at, what they're strong and where their talents are. I focus more on that and try to raise that up and then put them in a position where they can succeed, as opposed to try to fix them. But that's experience. You know, I failed for 15 years and that's why I know all these things. So my question is can you teach that? All this experience that we painfully experienced, that really chipped away on our health, on our sanity, on our lives, on people around us, is it something you can teach? You think? I mean, this experience should be somehow teachable, shouldn't it?
Speaker 2:In a way, maybe I think the most powerful connection is authenticity and vulnerability. So if people are in a crisis or in a vulnerable moment and you connect to them on this level and you are the proven person who made it out of this struggle and are now hugely successful, I think that's something which works. But maybe I'm biased by the inner circle. I have the feeling these people really are deeply impacted, but mostly through vulnerability and seeing that all we speakers fucked up and we all have problems and still have them. And the second thing is about people. You know, I rely on what you said.
Speaker 2:I don't force people to do what they should do. I try to pick people the way where I believe they will do it because of their internal motivation or intrinsic motivation. That's the trick, I think. Don't shape them and inform them, see what they want to do, what they're motivated by, and then give them the space. I call it framework training, trust. So we take on new people, we have a very precise recruiting system, then we give them the framework of our company, we train them, but then we trust them, and trust is a very, very powerful thing. Once you trust people, you will see how they blossom 100%.
Speaker 1:I mean it's empowering. If someone knows that you trust them, they'll do things that they normally wouldn't have done and they will put their own sweat and heart into it. It just gives meaning to what they do. I think the most disempowering thing for someone is to micromanage them, because it's like raising children. You know, if you're a helicopter parent, they grow up with complete lack of self-confidence. They get depressed because they feel they're not good for anything. They're. They're not competent in doing anything because no one trusts them. So I think you hit a keyword. Their trust is a really big factor and let them just grow into their responsibility.
Speaker 1:But what would you say from? Just you came just back from Inner Circle. What would you say? The top three challenges are for all these attendees. Now, these attendees for everybody that doesn't know they're usually people in the aesthetic business. That doesn't know they're usually people in the aesthetic business. They are, in a sense, either overachievers already or people that want to achieve that. They're really motivated, self-motivated and driven right. I mean, why else would you spend money out of your life and out of your business and travel to Switzerland and be with a bunch of people? People are not crazy to do that they have a purpose. So we're already talking about a highly motivated bunch which is self-selected. What would you say the three biggest? What they've expressed their three biggest challenges are, and what is the advice you give to them?
Speaker 2:Number one, finding their why, uh as I.
Speaker 1:What does that mean? What do you mean? Finding your why?
Speaker 2:I think you have one why in in your life? You have some, something inside of you which is driving you, in my case, create and build and create experiences. You have a why.
Speaker 1:Um not sure if you it, but did you know that when you started?
Speaker 2:No, no, no, not at all. Not at all. Honestly, the inner circle helped me to find my why, and I don't want to put it too deep. You can find your why and then ask yourself, why do I have this, why, and so on. But what I discover is many people are so much distracted by Instagram and we all, we are some kind of tribe. We all do the same. Currently, it's just popular to open training institute, and every med spa is a training institute, and I know, that's funny you know, and, and, and, and.
Speaker 2:I've met so many people are struggling with that but that's a marketing.
Speaker 1:But that's a marketing strategy. That's just like, uh, showing to the public, hey, hey, I'm an expert just because I have a training institute. That's PR and marketing really strategy. So some are truly experts.
Speaker 2:Yes, definitely Most aren't, but for many it's just burden and burden and more responsibilities. And I have small kids and all this. So, finding your why and learn to. I tell them always. I have this moment of self-reflection. I have a meeting every week with myself and I'll go through all this. What is the red thread in my what's popping up in these silent moments? Your why is not shouting at you, your why is whispering to you.
Speaker 2:And if you listen to yourself and to your inner child, you get to know your why or at least the direction. So that's number one. Number two is everyone is just one step away from their dream life or their vision. But the step is called my own fear. So fear is a very big burden or border or invisible curtain to take the next step, for whatever reason. But many people have fear, fear of other people's opinion, fear of losing the old job, fear of losing financial security for a moment. But I would love to encourage people take the step, you will be surprised how lovely life is afterwards. And number three is if you are in this environment, like the inner circle is, and you listen to all these personal stories, it gives you this kind of permission to go and thrive. I think that's it why fears and then the permission to go. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:It does make sense and I think fear is a great component. You know, I I lecture internationally and nationally here to mostly med spa owners 80% of my audience is usually at med spa owners and 20% are other doctors and my talks evolved. They used to be first very scientific, just like basically science-oriented, technique-oriented, basically science-oriented, technique-oriented, and then I realized that I'm not setting my audience up for success and they just can't. Maybe they don't know where to start, maybe they have other things that are preventing them. And what I realized is that confidence it's like. And what I realized is that confidence it's like oh, dr Hamra I mean it's easy for him to do that, you know and it's almost like having this imposter syndrome and feeling like you're not good enough. And that's a confidence issue and that's a fear issue. Fear of failure doesn't even let you start to take the first step. So then I started putting my first two to three slides more of asking questions, raising questions, making them self-reflect, to then motivating them, to then empowering them, and then my whole talks like 80%. Now it's more about inspiring and empowering, and then I get into the scientific stuff and to how to do something, because I feel like I have to prepare them. I have to give them the confidence like, hey, we all start at 0.0. No one started at 55.
Speaker 1:So then the feedback I've gotten is such that just talking to you about it right now gives me goosebumps, because I remember every day I get DMs, email, text messages of how I changed their lives, their businesses, and I can't tell you how humbling that is. I just got recently such a heartfelt message where the person talking about the experience that certain things that I said in my talk, how it affected him and how it then affected their business, that he was choking up as he said that. Do you know how humbling that is? I never knew I can have an effect on someone. So what that tells me is like people are hurting. People really want something really bad and they are going to succeed because they have so much passion that they are hungry for advice. But so it's our responsibility to help them, based on our experience, because we can do that and there's nothing more empowering and talking about why people is like, hey, why do you travel? Why do you take time from family and travel? You could be on the golf course.
Speaker 1:I'm like it's because of what I just said, because making a difference, like paying for someone's meal, is not any different. It's the same type of emotion and feeling you get from that and I think you get to a point and you're at the point in your career where your why is just about giving back, is about helping people, because you don't have to prove it to anyone anymore. You just want to see people succeed, because that's what makes you happy. And when people talk about happiness and pursuit of happiness is different things to everyone and, uh, to you right now, and I, I, I have I really share that sentiment with you and that's why I love having this conversation and our podcast is actually going to a total different direction. But, um, it is what it is. Um is that when you give back, and if that's your why, if you see and witness people succeed and you know you had part in it there is nothing greater than that. You know. I mean, I could guarantee you that will turn back my biologic age now I, I couldn't agree more.
Speaker 2:I couldn't agree more.
Speaker 1:So for you talking about fear, right, Talking about fear, self-doubt, which is the stuff that really prevents you in the beginning to do all the things that you could be doing. Your potential is in the way between you and your potential. Have you ever faced a moment of profound self-doubt in your journey and how did you overcome it, Like the moment where you said I really don't think I can do this. And how did you then overcome it? Was it a person that helped you? Did it take some time? Can you go back to that moment and walk you through that, if you remember?
Speaker 2:Definitely, definitely Many, many times I had massive fears. So let me share a story. It's just two years ago, beginning of 2022, we had this clinic expansion. It was this huge building, I think 4, 000 square meters or 2 000 at least, uh where we wanted to open the restaurant and some consultation rooms, operating theaters and so on. We wanted to open in january 2022 and I had 25 people on the payroll, um, and then the architect showed up and said I have two bad news. Number one the construction is delayed for six months and the budget is two million above initially planned. So let that sink in right. We were growing fast financially. We were operating Fire the architect.
Speaker 2:That wasn't his fault. We touched an old building and it was during covid, with all the supply chain problems and um.
Speaker 2:But now I had 25 people on the payroll. We didn't want to to um, let them go. We had no revenue for half a year in this area and we had two million above budget and um, and all our plans with michel nastar seemed to crash, uh. So that's how this sensation happened. We had we start in january and the mission last awards are in in october, so we had 10 months then, if that, if we could open, and then month might be enough to get one star, uh, or some other kind of attention, uh, and opening in in July and then only having four months to prove Mission Impossible for whatever reason, went from zero to two stars.
Speaker 2:But let me get back to my personal situation. I had to go to the bank and the bank said we give you the $2 million but you have to guarantee privately for them and, to make it a little bit more funny, you have to guarantee for 3 million. I'm joking a bit, but there's a reason behind it. So no blame on the bank, but that was. You know, people might my company's worth a lot, but my private situation is not the same. So I have a house but a mortgage on it and I have 12 dogs rescued dogs and I was back then really hit a mentally rock bottom because I was sitting in my garden with my dogs and had the fear of losing it all Because, you know, one wrong step, like two months later, or two months more delay, or a little bit more of the cost, would have killed us and we were very close to bankruptcy and I scared the shit out of me. I I didn't sleep, I started drinking alcohol. Maybe that's the reason for for my, my current um biological issues uh started taking sleeping pills.
Speaker 2:Uh was crying a lot and I, you know, when you are close to 50 and have the fear of losing everything, it's threatening and you can't go back. You know I can't leave. I can't. It's my company, it's my responsibility. But what helped me? And here's the point? I sat down and thought, okay, what is the worst can happen here? Do I gonna die? No, I'm not gonna die. The worst case happen here? Do I gonna die? No, I'm not gonna die. Worst case is that I'm broke, right, and I'm in debt and I might have to sell my house. I might be a loser in the public, but I'm a doctor, I'm a trained doctor, I will find work anytime, I will bring food to the table, I can feed my dogs and I probably have a roof above me or a bed. So, um, that helped me to. To relax a little bit, say. The worst case is that, right? Uh, not nice, not at all, but it's, it's not my life which is in danger by then, right?
Speaker 1:so so what?
Speaker 2:turned it all around to think what is the worst case? What is the worst case scenario, especially if you build a small business. Okay, then it fails, but you probably can start over again do you ever regret having gone big?
Speaker 1:do you sometimes wish, when you're walking your dogs and you're taken in nature and you're thinking, you're thinking about what's important in life? Would you ever wish that you hadn't gone big?
Speaker 2:one year or one year, half year ago, I would say yes, I I regret that I was then really in a bad situation. Right now it's the opposite and I can't go into details, but I probably will be financially free at a point, at a level where I can do everything and I hope I have some nice years left and I hope I can return or reverse my biological age and take care more about that. But then I'm looking very much forward to do a lot of things I always wanted to do. I never skipped them, really. I had a few years where I was lacking of experiences and travels, but it's now better and it was better before. But I want to really focus on memories, experiences and my health and I probably will be there very soon and that gives me some kind of fulfillment. So no, right now I wouldn't say I regret.
Speaker 1:So you know, I think you know in good times, whenever things are good, we're motivated, we're positive, and whenever things go back, we're really depressed and we're negative and we have remorse and regret. The hardest part is in during those times where you're down to overcome those challenges and to push through despite all adversity. And I think that speaks to resilience and that speaks to consistency, and where that gets its energy from, its power from, is just your why, why you're doing all of this. I think that always pushes you through these type of adversity, because that's something that important, and that's why I think most people fail.
Speaker 1:That's why I think most businesses fail, because you can't build a big and successful business unless you take big risks, which you have clearly taken.
Speaker 1:But the reason why you didn't get buried is because you pushed through despite all of the adversity, and I think whenever I talk to successful people like you, it's almost like the stories are identical. You have to hit rock bottom for you to catapult and reach levels that you not only are way beyond what you had originally planned, but which are things that you've never even thought it's possible that they're in you. They're in you and with all the sacrifices, with all the pain and the suffering that it comes, I think everybody has to call it, whether it was worth it or not for themselves, and knowing that tomorrow or even today, you can change everything. It's up to you. No one put a gun to your head, and I think most people that live in a cage is that they feel they can't, whether it is because they're so inhibited, because other people's opinions and judgments are so important to them that they almost live a life for others and it's so hard for them to make decisions that make them personally happy and that's why they're suffering.
Speaker 1:And the moment of truth comes when they're in their deathbed, when they're thinking I wish I had done this. I should have done that, I could have done this. And for me personally, one of the things that has really changed in the past year as driven as I was and I still am, as important it is what I do every day at work, and as much as I love everything I do, the one thing that was always an afterthought was my health. And when I learned about you know longevity, and when I learned about the fact that, first of all, there is a difference between your biologic age and your chronologic age and that, no, it's not all in your genes. Your genes are a factor, but your genes aren't your fate. Your fate is your lifestyle. And when I learned that, I became more curious because, you know, I'm 50, I just turned 51. And I feel better than I felt when I was in my late 30s, when I started my business, just because I lived the unhealthy lifestyle, I had a lot of stress and I didn't even think of doing things that made me happy, because that was not important. The most important thing was my career, my business, and that's just how you feel and how you think when you start off. That's why I asked you. Your question is like what would you, what advice would you give your 20 year old self? And probably your 20 year old self wouldn't even listen to your advice, because you are in a different mindset. You feel invincible, you feel like you're healthy and you're too young. You think life, ah, it's so long, you have so much time not realizing that it goes by in a blink and if you sleep on that, you get into health situations that it will be very hard to reverse, and by that I'm talking cancer. You know, we know that stress causes cancer and we know, based on science, it's not even an extrapolation anymore. You know, maybe 20 years ago it was a hypothesis. Now it's scientifically proven. But then the reason, I think, why us or people are not so aware about these things is because it's not something that you see or hear in the news. It's not something that society talks about. It's only like a niche thing. If you happen to watch a YouTube or a social media post about something that's now getting more and more, I feel like everybody is on it now.
Speaker 1:Um, I was just uh at my son's soccer tournament. Uh, yesterday and I was just speaking to one of the dads and somehow we came about health and and then so I, you know, kind of told him about you know a little bit. I asked him, hey, do you know about longevity? Only to realize that for a whole year he's been on this very strict protocol. He knew everything about the supplements, about the genetic and epigenetic factors, how they influence each other, how the lifestyle influences biologic age, and this guy's an engineer and I was. I looked at him like holy shit, you know, like how do you know? He's like, yeah, it was during COVID.
Speaker 1:I just didn't feel like my doctor is giving me good advice and I thought I'd take things in my own hands and I started researching and I stumbled on the science and I've never looked back since and I've lost 40 pounds, I'm much healthier, I feel better.
Speaker 1:I mean, everything changed in him, just because you know he changed his lifestyle and he took supplements that his body needed, that his doctor never talked to him about, and so it changed, it turned around everything. And so I think for everyone, we have to. You know, if we don't take care of ourselves, we can't take of our business, we can't take care of our business. We can't take care of people around us, and I think the focus should be more on taking care of yourself first, because you know we have a lot of the audience that is interested in leadership and building the business. There are a lot of entrepreneurs, and so you've emphasized the importance of strong leadership structure in your clinics. How do you identify a potential leader within your organization and what? I know? You talked a little bit about the training that you provide to them and a little bit about how you ensure they're successful. But how do you balance being both a manager and a leader, and what qualities do you believe are essential for effective leadership in the aesthetic industry?
Speaker 2:I'm not particularly sure if the leadership in the aesthetic industry. I'm not particularly sure if, if.
Speaker 1:The leadership in the aesthetic industry is different than others.
Speaker 1:Um well, by that I by that I mean the, the ethical attribute to that, you know, because there is a conflict between generating profit but then also doing the right thing, meaning there's a lot of conformational bias going on in the aesthetic industry Now, people convincing themselves to push a certain product, to push a certain technology and to close an eye on whether it works or not, or whether that's the right thing to do. But because there's so many low hanging fruits to take advantage of that to get into grow the business, that requires a leadership characteristic with high ethical and moral standards. So because if something is has your name on it, you want to make sure that your leaders that you hire think the way you do.
Speaker 2:Very good. It's definitely part of the leadership and let me start with that. We, as SkinMaid, are highly ethical. All of our doctors have a high grade of autonomy and freedom to whatever they can do, whatever they want, as it's ethical, and we force them to be ethical. We earn money because our branding is super strong. Uh, could dive into that. Why it's super strong? Because we're not talking about prices and we're not talking about you know, there are two types of brands functional brands. Functional brands like toyota or microsoft. They compete by prices and numbers, and I think we have the tendency to be a functional. There are two types of brands functional brands. Functional brands like Toyota or Microsoft. They compete by prices and numbers, and I think we have a tendency to be a functional brand in aesthetics as well.
Speaker 2:Explaining Botox, explaining face People want to come to our clinic, want to go through the transformation. It's about feeling confident, attractive. But that's the one part. If you go deeper, the core motivation is longing for recognition and love, or creating moments, and you know moments. What do you mean by moments? I want to feel confident, and not only from the outside, also from the inside. That's why I think longevity is such an interesting aspect, because when I'm confident and have a lot of self-esteem, I'm able to connect to people.
Speaker 2:And if you would recall your life, what are the most memorable moments? My memorable moments is when I was in love, when I was connected to great friends on travels. It's always about connections and people. So our TV ads is only about moments of connections. You see people discussing we. You see a lady putting on lipstick in in the mirror of a car and you I'm your imagination go in the direction. Oh, she's probably going on a date. You know we. We play with these kind of things.
Speaker 2:So that's why I think our brand is is really successful. So all of our doctors and providers are fully booked and then we train them in the understanding of that we are somehow trading our time and how we can optimize the structure of our schedule, and that's all we do. They have all autonomy to reject treatments, send people back home, and we enforce them. The success factor is just being very well-structured and have a strong branding and a disciplined purchase philosophy. So we don't fear negotiating with companies or getting into volume in fillers and ask for better prices. That that's our, our strategy.
Speaker 2:So I think you can be successful by being hugely ethical. I even would say the opposite. If you notice, I'm not good in sales nothing, um but I think I connect with people. Well, I spent the first time of my consultation with only connect to people in whatever way, and that leads to the fact that they all come back and bring friends and aunties and mothers because they trust me. I think again, trust is such an important factor here and that fills my schedule and my waiting list is long and the waiting list of our doctors is long. So that's, that's the secret of earning money in aesthetics, in my opinion and so how do you pick your leaders that work for you?
Speaker 1:how do you identify the ones that share that sentiment? Yeah, is there specific questions that you ask them? Do you look at their background? Is it all of the above? How do you know?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we really hire leaders from the scratch. We try to build leaders within our teams or in our company and the motivation of being like in business, the motivation of being financial free, is the wrong motivation and won't lead to success because it's not powerful enough. The same in our company we have a lot of people. I want to be a leader, I want to have the name. You can go to our webpage. You won't find anything about me being the leader of this company. I'm amongst the doctors in the lower third somewhere, amongst the doctors in the lower third somewhere.
Speaker 2:And we have to say to the outside we don't communicate any of the leadership stuff because we don't want people to be motivated to be the leader of a team or whatever. We want to have the intrinsic right motivation to do it. And leadership is serving as a leader. You don't get your coffee made in the morning and sitting there and counting money and pushing people around. That's wrong. You are serving them. That's what I do. I make sure they can work properly, I make sure they're happy. That's my job and that's the job of leaders. And we scan people for a while to figure out if they have the right attitude and mindset in being a server instead of a so-called boss with a better salary and a car. That's the wrong motivation. And once we scan them, we have a leadership academy. We invest massively in recruiting personality tests, structured interviews, onboarding processes and so on. And then we have a leadership academy.
Speaker 1:So once you are a leader at skin mid, you get trained, uh, through this leadership academy, to do the right things and these investments pay off massively and so, um, you know that's a complete, I would say, paradigm shift between the, the traditional way of leadership you know, and is it something that you came about? And how did you learn that? I mean, did you just realize it on your own? Is it like, how did you learn that? You know they don't teach that in medical school? How did you learn leadership? Did you go to seminars? Did you read books Like of?
Speaker 2:course I did, I did, I learned, did I did? I learned through failure, I learned through failure. And I just recently had an experience.
Speaker 1:I was uh, I was with richard branson yeah, I was going to ask you about that. That was pretty cool. Tell me about how it was meeting richard branson.
Speaker 2:Sir richard branson sir richard branson in a nutshell. Right, I didn't got any massive business advice to take away. To be honest, I knew everything that we're talking about. But experience Richard Branson was such an impactful moment. This man, you know, you, can.
Speaker 2:You arrive at Necker Island and you, this is the place where you, you always were matching. That's how billionaires live Colored birds, a water sport area you only can dream of, with everything, everything, scuba divers and surfboards and catamarans and all top-notch and people helping you. Like a resort, like a sushi bowl Crazy. All tables are constructed to dance on the tables. But here's the thing um, richard branson, um, may I share a story? Yes, the last, the last day before we um departed from the island, I went on a swim and I don't most people might know, I only have one leg.
Speaker 2:I lost one leg through a motorbike accident, so I went on a swim with another guy who's a friend of Richard and he's an extreme sportsman. So the island was four and a half kilometers away. The fastest I ever swam was two kilometers, and that was five years ago, where I still was in shape and trained. And without training, I went on this swim and the entire spirit around Richard Branson is to push boundaries and I made it this four and a half kilometers to the other island. My friend Bruno went back so he went swim nine, but I swam four and a half kilometers, which is for me personally a massive success. So the next morning I was packing my suitcases, someone knocked on my door and said Richard wants to talk to you. And I said I haven't done anything wrong.
Speaker 1:So I went to the breakfast area.
Speaker 2:And Richard was waiting there and celebrated me. You can see it in some Instagram video.
Speaker 2:He lifts my hand and he celebrates me in front of the group and then later it was a rainy day. So he's a. He's a billionaire? I think he has. He's the only human who made it in eight different industries to billionaire or billion dollar companies airlines, mobile cruise ships and stuff like this. This guy is 73 and he walked through the rain down to the docks and was waiting for each and every one. He helped with the suitcases, he helped people into the boat. He saw me again, said you were amazing. Richard Branson tells me I'm amazing. Come on, you know, he has the ability to make people feel special and I went back.
Speaker 2:I think in general I'm a nice leader and I was aware of all this and I tried my very best to walk into my clinic every morning to say hello to everybody, ask some personal questions, but I pushed it a little bit beyond that. When I came back I really tried to connect with each and every one. Richard Branson has 60,000 employees. I have 140.
Speaker 2:So if he can do it, I can do it and you will see the massive change. When you, as a leader, you bring some kind of calmness and friendliness and love into your company, you will see the change. And just this morning a doctor sent me a picture of one of my doctors attending the inner circle, grabbed a pencil from the hotel and and some nice presents and went to the clinic in our clinic in Zurich and made this tiny present for this other doctor who couldn't attend. So I thought, well, great, it works. I'm spreading this spirit and it seems to work and get some kind of infectious and everyone is now super nice to each other and caring, and I think you can't underestimate the power of making people feel seen, make them belong to the company.
Speaker 2:And you know, some attendees at Inner Circle said well, we don't have a restaurant. How can I create lunch? The restaurant is also for lunch for our people and that's an important aspect of creating culture. We'll dive into that later if you want. But I said, listen, instead of having a restaurant, it's probably much more powerful if you bake a cake in the evening and bring it to your team, right? Because it's the gesture you spend time on, a cake for them and bring it the next day. You don't need a fancy restaurant or ordering food from someone. Make it yourself or make a pasta.
Speaker 1:It costs, costs you half an hour, but you will see the power of these tiny gestures yeah, so, and then, on the other hand, how do you manage or handle, like if someone in your company really screws up badly. You know, can you, can you walk us through a situation or scenario? And how do you? How did you manage that?
Speaker 2:yeah, uh, and that might sound brutal, but I'm acting very quickly and I I lay off people very quickly if that happens. Why? Because I had three times the experience that one person who really was toxic, infected the entire company and screwed up more or less. We had a leading nurse and we early on saw it's not working and it's heading in the wrong direction, but we didn't act it and we gave her like seven feedback conversations and what happened in the end? She infected the entire department and then she left and pulled out another seven people. So for like six months we were not able to operate anymore. So nowadays I have this rule of three conversations If I see someone screwing up. First conversation is just a conversation with a clear warning. Second is with a written paper where they have to sign about all the things which have to improve or have to change. But the third conversation is the last one and then we lay people off. Yeah, I think Sounds brutal, but it's important to save other people's jobs.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's removing the bad apple early is key.
Speaker 1:I had that several times and um you know, one of the mantras I have now is I hire fast and then I fire fast. I used to do all this research before I hired someone and the thing is, when people apply, they, they create this almost this fictitious um resume and um, half of it is not even true. So it's hard. You talk their prior references. You know they just want to be nice. They don't say anything bad unless that person is really a bad person. And then you realize, man, they don't even know half the stuff that they said they know. And then you're like, okay, well, if they have potential, we're going to train them. And then they keep screwing up and at some point you know, uh, then you let them go. But then the time and money and um sweat that it takes to train someone, boy, I mean, that is it. It's a strain on the entire team, it's not just one person. Yeah, it strains the entire team.
Speaker 1:So I think cutting that uh sooner is something I learned and that I'm implementing more. And the tough part is really I don't know how it's in switzerland, but in the states here since covid, it's really gotten difficult to find good people. It's almost like either they're already taken or they don't exist. You know, in the past it was more of a market where there was a surplus of good people and you know you would interview multiple people and then able to pick the best one, and now it's like no one wants to be in the industry and anybody that is in the industry they have their own businesses now and they don't want to work for someone else. Is that also the case in Europe?
Speaker 2:It's the same case, even worse here, but for whatever reason, we don't have the problem. I strongly believe because of our branding and employee branding, all the process. We do everything we offer. We have a spirit book, we have a proper onboarding process, the restaurant, the food, all these kinds of things. We currently have nine doctors in the pipeline. We could sign with five, but we don't know what to do with the other four, and they are all brilliant. So we're thinking of opening another clinic to get them employed. And I heavily believe in not only branding to the public but branding to employees that's a smart idea, that that's a great idea.
Speaker 1:I think that's. Branding is probably the most important thing, but it's the one that takes a lot of work, a lot of consistency and, uh, it's more of a long game, not a short game, and I don't I don't think many are patient enough to invest in the long game but may I ask you a question?
Speaker 2:I think, especially for smaller companies, it's more of a personal branding. Do you don't have applications because you are a big account on instagram? You are known on these conference, you speak, you brilliant mind, you are super empathic and and and people love to be around you, I assume. Do you don't get applications because people want to work for you?
Speaker 1:um, so I do so. I have a fellowship training program and I have an international fellowship program where people from all over the world they come and spend a couple of weeks with me but also have an accredited fellowship program where people train, which is accredited through the AACS and through the university, which is a formal fellowship program. So, to answer that question, in that department, absolutely all the time, you know, people want to come and train with me, want to come and train with me. When it comes to employees, it's just the part of people that want to actually work in this industry is getting reduced.
Speaker 1:People just don't want to be in healthcare anymore and if they're in the aesthetic industry, they go up and open up their own shop. They don't want to work for someone else because they don't understand what entrepreneurship means. It sounds cool. Someone told them hey, why don't you open up your own business?
Speaker 2:and you don't have to work for someone. I think you've talked to the wrong decision. What's that? It's the wrong decision. Our top doctors earn more with us in our clinic because we have such a great infrastructure and all the admin is handled, than with a tiny small practice, and I think the same in us well, talk to many now in a circle who's struggling um sorry, well, I think, I think, I think you're absolutely hit the nail on the head.
Speaker 1:I think what they don't realize is that what they didn't even consider is when you're an entrepreneur and business owner, you work 24 7 and that's something they don't realize until they're in it. And also, not everybody is made like personally, they can handle the stress of the risk of the business. So they think, oh, I just opened my business, money will just flow in. They don't realize that every decision they make counts. There is no taking off. You work 24-7, seven days a week and you have to deal with not just what you love, which is patient care, clinical aspect. You have to deal with the financial situation. You have to deal with the financial situation. You have to deal with the hr situation. You have to deal with unhappy patients, you have to deal with cancellations. I mean everybody, everybody is coming to you, everybody's coming to you for a solution and you're it.
Speaker 1:The buck starts and stops with you and that's what most are not prepared and they get crushed. And then, when you're crushed, you don't even enjoy what you're doing anymore. So I think it's almost like um, you don't know, they don't know what they don't know. They just look at things from the outside how um um great it looks. But once they're in the trenches they realize. Realize they made a mistake. And you know, I think it's evolving. And then what leads them to just stick with it is it's almost like they're embarrassed to say I failed. So they just keep suffering until they really go bankrupt, until the bank comes and takes everything away from them and say hey, you're not making me.
Speaker 2:I think it's time that the med spas will heed in this direction.
Speaker 1:Of course. I mean, look at how many med spas are opening up each day. I mean it's not surprising. I mean it's 2000 per I don't know, it's massive per year.
Speaker 2:It's about 1800 per year here in the us yeah, yeah it's insane you know what the narrative is wrong and you see that on instagram don't work for someone, be free. It's wrong. You're not more free, you're not more independent. It's the opposite. You have much more responsibilities and you work on your weekends. You're not off at five in the afternoon. You have off weekends, you work. I think that's what many don't understand. They have the feeling it's more freedom.
Speaker 1:It's the opposite. It's the opposite. It's the opposite, like, you really have to love this and and I think that's something that, um, I hope people are listening carefully um, if they're either working for someone and are planning on opening up their own business, or they already have their own business and have second thoughts. I mean, like you said, you could make way more money working for someone else and on top of it, you clock out at five, you have the rest of your life, you don't have to worry about a thing and you just, you know you don't have to, you know, um, fall into that entrepreneurial trap because you know, statistically, really, 10 are made for it and 90 and that's just basic.
Speaker 2:Um, you know psychology the only thing I heard and that's the the flip side here. Then obviously there are some doctors who are not really fair in terms of paying and treating and uh got so many stories. I need I only do heal the one side right. But I think if you choose a right, a good employer who is fair and helps you and pays you fairly, then it's a good option. But I get these people who are working with the wrong maybe get paid poorly and are underrated. Then you might change. But in general it doesn't mean you should open your meds bar and I agree on that. So there are probably a lot of nice, nice employees out there who who is fun to work with so the people that?
Speaker 1:yeah, so the people that come to the inner circle, are they mostly business owners, or are they? Yeah, they're mostly. But so what is, from what you've learned, their biggest pain point?
Speaker 2:out of it. Um, especially when they have young families or young kids. Um, then they have to struggle with finding employees on their own, which is super hard, and, um, that's mainly the struggles are finding patients. Getting in new patients is hard, and then have doing all the social media, their own, digital marketing, google rankings. So there's a lot of things to do and you won't survive. If you average, the competition might be the case 20 years ago, but the competition is so high in the moment that you have to be super good to fill up your clinic and that doesn't happen just by opening it up and putting a label outside. You have to use all these digital options and social media and finding people and working on contracts, and I think that's the baseline. We have currently, unfortunately, this trend given by many big entrepreneurs on social media praising, uh, not working for others doing their own thing. Well, you know, I think the world can work like this. Yeah, if everyone is doing their own thing, then, well, you know, I think the world can work like this.
Speaker 2:If everyone is doing their own thing, then you won't have companies and you won't have entrepreneurs anymore. So of course, you should follow your passion, you should have a happy life, but this can be possible within a company. Talk to my doctors. Malte gave a speech at the Inner Circle about employment and how he loves it, how he can improve, how he can grow as a leader, how he can have this entire infrastructure with operating rooms and all kinds of lasers.
Speaker 1:So, on that token, you know there's a lot of these big companies, venture capitalists coming and just swallowing all these businesses, doctors, from all specialties Now the trend is aesthetic industry too. How do you think the future? Where do you think the future lies? I mean, I know there is always room for um brands like you, um that you know I, I talk, I, you know I compare them to the ritz-carlton, to rolex, to. You know those brands that you know they don't need to be part of a Walmart or an Aldi or you know one of those corporate industries. They can exist based on the brand, because there's always people that are seeking excellence. They don't really care about price, they care about brand, they care about experience, they care about connections. But where do you see the future for all the other businesses with this trend?
Speaker 2:I love this question. Just this afternoon I had a call with an investor. I'm getting approached by banks and investors every day and they want my advice how to handle this industry. And they want my advice how to handle this industry. And today I had a several hundred million dollar fund who wants to go to US? And they said, well, we do small clinics and we only offer hair removal and Botox because it has high margins. And I said, good luck, I'm out and we just see a big clinic. I don't want to name them, but they're struggling in UK. I think they started in Australia and they backed up by a big investor.
Speaker 2:My belief is you won't survive in this market on this strategy. They all will fail. They all will fail.
Speaker 2:If you want to thrive in this industry, or in many industries, you have to focus on the people. I always say when I was a small clinic, I was focusing on my patients. Now I'm a big company and my main focus is my people, because my people take care of the patients. So my people have to be happy. Then the patients are happy and then the company is happy, and I'm 100% sure that the only way to success is to give a workplace where people can grow, where people can train, where people can develop and where people feel connected and feel belonging to a community.
Speaker 2:I think that's why Sk Scheme is sexy at the moment, because we have a training institute, we have this leadership academy, we have all the rest, and I think that's the only way to do it. So if I would have a venture capital fund or private equity, I would create a great, huge community of ethical people. I would create a great, huge community of ethical people. I would offer trainings, I would offer some kind of certification and I would invest a lot in these kind of events for connecting. I would connect them all to each other because also, a lot of women and nurses are working in our industry. They love to connect, they love to connect, they love to network. I would heavily focus on this and I'm pretty sure that would work very, very well.
Speaker 1:I think, yeah, I think it's like an institute where I think it all starts with training People. I mean these companies, they come from a different mindset. They just want to scale. They just look at numbers and they're like, okay, I mean these companies, they come from a different mindset. They just want to scale. They just look at numbers and they're like, okay, what's scalable, what can we lead to? Can double, triple or quadruple the revenue really fast, Because their goal is not sustainability, their goal is to flip it. You know a lot of these, a lot of them. They they just grow it for a couple of years and then they flip it to the next uh, firm or company. I mean they, the last thing on their mind is what you just said, and so that's a complete different mindset and um it's my.
Speaker 2:My vision is more sustainable. Of course, you might have not the profits, you might have to compromise on 10% of the profits, but I'd rather grow fast because we are hugely attractive for people than squeezing out the last piece of money to have, I don't know, 30% EBITDA or whatever.
Speaker 1:Yes, I mean look at all these brands that have existed for over a century.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that have existed for over a century. That is. The reason why they've existed for centuries is because they did not care about quick scalability or pump and dump. There's a difference between a pump and dump company and a company like you refer to as something that's sustainable long-term. It's two different mentalities and that's why I truly believe for the non-believers out there that are listening that everybody talks about doomsday or the golden days are over. It's wrong. You know, every business should be built based on your brand and your brand should be reflected in your passion for excellence, quality and truly, genuinely care. When you care, I mean, at the end of the day. This is something that's been instilled in us for millions of years as part of evolution. When you care about someone, you connect with someone. There is no better advertisement or branding than that 's it like that's it.
Speaker 1:It's not that complicated, but um, that really has to come from inside. You can't personal commitment.
Speaker 2:It doesn't work if you sit on your dashboard and count the numbers well, it comes from here.
Speaker 1:It comes from here and and I know I sound like fufu and I sound like spiritual, but that's really it I mean I love. You know the richard branson um story you gave because you can tell you don't even have to spend time with him, you can sense that energy. You know, I've watched him here. He's been on shark tank uh in in the?
Speaker 1:u the US multiple times and you could sense it Like he's a little different man, like he really it's like he loves people Like it's almost like someone you want to hug, is like your dad, your grandpa, that just genuinely cares you and just, even if he doesn't do business with you, he just wants to make sure you succeed. You can sense that yeah.
Speaker 2:Let me share a quick story. Yeah, when he travels the world, and let's say he flies to Atlanta, he makes sure he's going to the same hotel where the stewardesses of is that the right word? Yeah, flight attendant, the flight attendants of Virgin stay. He wants still now where he's. I don't know how many billion he has and he doesn't need to do any of this. He makes sure he's in the same hotel, like the flight attendees, um, to connect with them in the evening. So he's sitting there at the bar in a holiday inn and is chatting with with his people. Amazing, yeah, well, you know, and it's not only these five people sitting there. They will spread the word right, they will go back and say listen, what richard was last night?
Speaker 1:that's the magic that's also human connections, connecting at the human level. And going back to the very beginning of our podcast, um, you said something very profound. You said something that I resonate with. Um is the human connection part. When you get so tangled in your life, in your business, and when you reach the pinnacle of your success, all of that comes at a cost, which is, you know, when you look at most successful people, there is a degree of loneliness in that life where people from the outside they can't imagine, they don't understand. I do understand when you said that it hit home with me. Uh, your circle of friends gets significantly reduced because it's it goes both ways.
Speaker 1:It's from from your side.
Speaker 1:For me personally, from your side, is that you just pick your friends carefully because you really at least I can speak for myself and tell me how you feel I connect only with people that I can have a true connection where I can learn from, where I can have deep conversations.
Speaker 1:Um, that where I I know I can help them and I know they can help me. It's at a different level and the number of those people are very few. You know, really far in between, from the other side, people look at you as this big thing and they're like I probably doesn't want to talk to me or hang out with me. He's, he is too fancy, is too popular. He probably, you know, doesn't have time to hang out with me or, to the point that, don't even approach you. It's kind of like I remember when I was a teenager, when there was this, you know, war going out and there was this beautiful girl in the club and you really wanted to talk to her, but you're like she probably doesn't want to talk to me, you know she you know, it's kind of like that effect so or or guy, for that matter.
Speaker 1:So I think there, because it goes both ways, you keep getting, I guess, lonelier if that's the word to the point that I don't know. I'm going through that personally myself right now. And so, when you said that, and when you look at you know, at longevity studies, one of the pillars of longevity is human connections. You know, when you look at the centurions in the world, the people that live hundred years and above, one of the main reason and they interviewed them, and there's this Netflix show called the Blue Zones they asked those people hey, what is the biggest contributor of you living this long? And they said connection, human connection I'm with people that I love. Connection, human connection I'm with people that I love. And, um, you know, it's a community I live in and it's and, and the one that studies have shown that actually reduces your um, lifespan by 50 is being lonely, living in loneliness, putting someone in a nursing home that reduces your lifespan by 50, according to to studies, it's because they're lacking that human connection, they're not with people they love.
Speaker 1:And so I decided to take a different approach in my life and I was so driven. I'm still driven. Nothing changed in my passion for what I do, but I tried to lay more emphasis on that. I try to connect with more people. Uh, just take the time outside of business to just connect with people, with my family, with my children, with my wife, with, with anyone. That is important to me and and I think part of longevity should be connection, human connection, and that's underestimated.
Speaker 1:It. It almost sounds like blah, blah, blah, almost like sounds like a fortune cookie thing, but to me that's an integral part and I think our society, because of social media, keeps secluding us from those opportunities. Because we get lazy, we can see our loved one on social media, so we don't take the time and go and hang out with them or have deep conversations with them, you know. So, on that note, how do you feel about social media? It's, you know, being the greatest tool in, in connection and advertisement and, uh, take getting your word out there and connecting with people, with billions of people across the world, which was before social media not possible at that scale. How do you feel about social media? Is it the best thing that ever happened to us or the worst thing that ever happened to us?
Speaker 2:It's like many. You know, the invention of fire has great things to to offer, but also you can do well bad things with the same will happen with ai. I personally think, as you um touch on, it's a great thing to boost your personal brand. We didn't have these opportunities. Now you can create this personal brand.
Speaker 2:On the other hand side, I don't want to be the slave of social media. They telling me I have to post 10 times a day or whatever, and now this and now this, and then carousel this. So I try to find a mix. I try to. You know, posting and using Instagram or these tools is one thing and mostly a great thing, but getting lost in all these scrolling is a dangerous thing. And when people tell me I have no time, I always have this need to say well, what about skipping the scrolling in the evening and read a good book instead? Right, and you know there's nothing valuable in most of these postings. It's there, of course, are some rare gems, uh, like your instagram account. But, um, you could. Especially tiktok is so tricky. You see all these fancy pictures and you dopamine, dopamine. Yeah, so I try to reduce that. I have, I have some kind of systems on my phone. Yeah, so good. And bad.
Speaker 1:I think it's funny about time. You said that I really believe time doesn't come to you. It doesn't happen just miraculously. I think you make time. Time is not something you're given by the 24-hour period. It's something you make and we all make choices. And if anybody has a real moment, an honest moment with themselves and just count the hours in a day that they waste on just bullshit and aimless scrolling or watching TV or whatever that is, I think it's all about priorities and priorities come.
Speaker 1:What your want is what your goal is, what is your vision. And you know one of the things about you know, reaching your goals is like you can't reach your goal without having a vision. You know. So first, you know. That's what I, when I give my talks, I start my talk with that. I say you need to have a vision of where do you want to be, where do you see yourself, what's your north, what's your why, what you're saying all the time. But then if you don't have sufficient amount of clarity in how you're going to achieve that vision and how you're going to do that, and you don't have the belief that you're going to be able to do that, you're never going to get there. I mean all of that has to be in alignment. Your belief and your clarity in how you're going to achieve that vision. That really has to align. And if it doesn't, if your vision is so high that your clarity and belief is really far lower, in that you're never going to get there. And then you're going to try it for a week or so, and then you're going to try it for a week or so and then you're going to say, well, I don't think that works, and then you're going to give up. And that's whether in business, in life, in relationships, in anything, in athletics, in sports, and the examples are out there. I mean you just have to open your eyes and look into how the successful people are doing it. And it's all the alignment of their vision with their belief and and their clarity and how to achieve it.
Speaker 1:And I think how do you, how, how do we obtain clarity and how we can do that? And that's why I love the, the, the, the inner circle, circle that you've established is what you're essentially giving the audience, is the clarity, because that's where I think it starts. Most people don't even know where to start and how to do it. And then, once you obtain that. Now you start believing you know what. Okay, so maybe I can do it. So now I'm a little bit more clear on how to do it. Now they start believing in themselves. Now the fear goes away and the confidence comes back, and I think without those two things, you're never going to achieve your vision. If you have vision, most people don't even have the vision. I remember when I started my business, people asked me what's your vision? I'm like what the fuck are you talking about? I want to start making money. I need to pay my debt.
Speaker 1:I want to be able to buy a house. I want to buy a car, I want to have a family. That was my vision. But you know what that did? That led me on a path. At least it got me started.
Speaker 1:And then along that path, I learned the stuff that is actually important, which we talked in the beginning, the advice you gave your 20-year-old self. That's what you learned along that path. But to get on a path, you have to have whatever vision. If your vision is to buy a house, great. What do you have to do to get there? Well, you need a job. You've got to be good at what you do, otherwise you're not going to sustain. And those are the basics, and it's unfair to tell a 20-year-old or a 30-year-old all this spiritual advice.
Speaker 1:I remember a good friend of mine who was 10 years older than me, who was very successful. He gave me that advice and then, immediately after he gave me advice, he said you won't understand it now and I know you're not going to do any of this. You probably think I'm just talking a bunch of nonsense, but it's okay, because you're you probably are not ready yet. You will understand it in 10 years from now.
Speaker 1:I never forget that when he said that, because after I said that I was like at first I was like, wow, that's pretty cocky, you know, that's pretty, you know like why would he say that? And then I realized maybe it's true, but whatever I'm doing now is not working out for me because I'm constantly stressed. So it stuck in the back of my mind, almost like he planted a seed that, without me knowing, influenced a lot of the things that I did subconsciously. How did I learn that Later on? I didn't know at the time I was doing the stuff, but later on, looking back, I'm like that conversation influenced me in a positive way and I think that's what we can do now to give back to plant seeds in people's minds and prepare them for success, and that's our, I would say, oxytocin. That's um, you know um, to me it's, it's, it's uh, the biggest degree of uh service.
Speaker 2:You know service is. I mean I, I did. I even until until today I don't know my why a hundred percent, so there's no stress and no force. You know many people already do subconsciously what is right and what is aligned with their why. So don't? I wouldn't do any pressure on this.
Speaker 1:Your why changes, felix? I believe that our why changes. I think every stage in our lives has a particular why because we're developing. We're a work in progress. Every human being, spiritually and professionally, is a work in progress and therefore our why changes depends on the phase of life we're at. Like I said, early in my life, my why was different, was about reaching some level of financial freedom or do things that I like to do at that time in my life. My why now has changed so I can be a better influence for the people that I am around my family, my co-workers, business partners, to be the best version of myself. And maybe in 10, 15 years or 20 years, my why will change. Maybe it will be all about you know what? I'm going to retire and I'm just going to teach. I'm going to teach my mistakes and my successes to people that need it, and that will be my why. It's a type of service I think. As human beings, we came to this world to serve primarily.
Speaker 2:That's why that gives us happiness To me a little bit more precise. I think your why is always the same, but the just cause changes. But I need a little bit of time to explain it. It's the same meaning in the end.
Speaker 1:You're talking about fulfillment. It's fulfillment and happiness.
Speaker 2:Right, right, absolutely I agree. And things change over life and that's good that it does.
Speaker 1:So a little 180 here here, because there's a question that was on my mind I always wanted to ask you, and I you know uh, it's a little off topic now, but I really want to ask you that question, which is about the perception of aesthetics, cosmetics, cosmetic surgery and cosmetic changes in Europe and how that differs from America. I know that I grew up in Germany and it's something that still today is a little frowned upon. People doing plastic surgery, cosmetic surgery. There's this heavy, heavy judgment in the general population on this topic In America, even though there still is obviously some population, but mostly it's accepted because of Hollywood, celebrities and social media. Now that's made it so normal and I speak to some of my German colleagues. They're like they don't even allow us to post anything in regards to aesthetics.
Speaker 1:And they're frustrated. How can I promote my business, how can I showcase what I can do if I'm not allowed by the organizations, by the medical societies here in Germany, to showcase, uh, what I can do, which? Speaks for the severe conservatism in the system. So what do you think is the reason for that is?
Speaker 2:uh, the number one question I get from every single patient is although the number one concern is, but make sure it looks natural, so that's the number one concern people have over here. Why do you think over?
Speaker 1:here? Why do you think they say that? Why do you think they say that? Why are they so concerned? I mean, of course it's normal, like everybody wants to look natural, I'm not talking about that but why this fear? Do you think maybe they're concerned about judgment?
Speaker 2:It's mainly about the culture. We here in Germany and Switzerland it's the same with wealth. We don't show. We most people don't want to show their wealth. Uh, and why? We don't like people who are different or have the head above others in whatever direction and reason. So, uh, while in us you get high five when you have a roger royce or a ferrari, whatever, and you've made it. It's different here why is that?
Speaker 1:why do you think that is? It's been always on my mind maybe I'm just guessing.
Speaker 2:You know that's a very deep question but maybe because the ones who US is mainly are built by people who embarked on a journey to this country and built US right A lot of Europeans. So I would say the people who had the courage and bravery to go on this journey are a little bit more confident, have a little bit more self-esteem and a little bit more driven and ambitious and in in that that in many regards and they want to, you know, they have this dna in them in themselves, while where the people with, uh, weak feet stood here in europe and we all more or less created out of these more conservative and anxious people. Could that be a reason? I'm just guessing. I have I never questioned myself why it is yeah, it's interesting, you know, maybe it's a wild theory.
Speaker 2:Right, it's a wild theory yes, um, I remember, um.
Speaker 1:First time I came to the states I was 16 years old and I was so intrigued by this, almost this freedom that these people had here to say what they think, do do what they want, not not caring about other people judging them. Yeah, um, that it was so intriguing. When I went back to germany that summer I told my dad I'm like I want to live in america. And, and he goes, why would you do that? You know, like everything here. My dad was a successful physician. He said you can take over my practice and everything was laid out on a red carpet. He's like why would you do that? Why would you go through this? I said I don't know. I just don't feel inspired living here because everything is so repressive. It's almost like people don't like you to succeed.
Speaker 1:If you succeed, they're so envious and it's almost like you feel guilty. I don't want to live feeling guilty, and so I don't know where that comes from. Maybe it has to do with maybe America is extreme and maybe Europeans are normal. Maybe that's how it's supposed to be. But when you look at how humans have evolved, how we have progressed, the one thing that led to progression of science, technology and our society is people stepping outside of the box and not caring, thinking different, like Steve Jobs says, not caring what others think of you. And aesthetic industry is kind of like the microcosm. I feel it's a microcosm of that. So how did you get away from the general medicine and what made you build up the courage to go in aesthetics in a country that most people don't know is much harder than here in America?
Speaker 2:Yes, back then, it's 25 years ago. It was very at the beginning and I, you know, I'm not an intellectual guy, I don't. I'm not a researcher or scientist. I'm someone who likes to build and create, and that's also meant with my hands. So I like to do skin surgery, I like to do these flaps and graphs and faces and therefore I also like to do aesthetics. I always was driven by shaping something and creating something where I'm proud of something tangible. I think that was my motivation and I think in general, I'm fearless. To be honest, I think I'd rather be a good fit for US and I would feel comfortable living in US. I think, for my personality, I'm more like you guys over there than being a fit here in europe. I love europe, I love switzerland, don't get me wrong but sometimes I have this feeling I should be somewhere else to uh, to have some more like-minded people around me well, maybe you can help um busting the myths in europe through your work and showing that it's everything we do is about giving people self-esteem and self-confidence.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, definitely you know we're really self-esteem doctors. You know we're not Okay. Last question I know we're an hour and a half into it and you know I don't want to take much of your time and I know you're a busy man, but, um, is there a question I should have asked and that I didn't ask? I always ask that question at the end there will be so many questions.
Speaker 2:I mean, we could talk for hours and days pick the one question that you feel like I should have asked you, but I didn't ask um, okay, I asked richard branson this question um, if the sky is a big, big billboard and every human, every plant and every um animal can see this billboard and you can put a message up there, what would that be? And he said all we need. Now you can ask me this question and I'll give you my answer.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's my question.
Speaker 2:The billboard question.
Speaker 1:Yes, what would your billboard say?
Speaker 2:If anybody can see it. Invest in memories. What's that? Invest in memories? Invest in memories.
Speaker 1:So have you taken steps already.
Speaker 2:Oh yes.
Speaker 1:And what are those?
Speaker 2:Well, I'm stepping out of the operations. That being said, I currently have the mornings off, so I do cycling in the morning or exercises and have some time for reading and self-reflection. I've never booked so many holidays than this year, so I'm traveling almost the entire year looking forward to that. Uh and um, meeting more of my friends and being more connected with them. Uh, and I have the very concrete plan to continue with that wonderful.
Speaker 1:So who are? Who are the people that are most meaningful to you in your life, that you like to connect with?
Speaker 2:my very inner circle your inner circle maybe five people, but I, you know I like. I respond to every message on every channel, I'm approachable and all the inner circle people can tell I spend time with them. So I'm not arrogant, amazing, distracted or not approach amazing but I have a very small inner circle and these people are important to me.
Speaker 1:Amazing, On that note. How can people get in touch with you?
Speaker 2:Well, my main channel is Instagram. Yeah, I would say Instagram. I'm also on LinkedIn. We have a webpage.
Speaker 1:So Instagram is at Dr Felix Bertram. So for those of you want to get in touch with him and um felix, thank you so much. Uh, this was I loved our conversation and I hope we'll get to talk a lot in the future. Um share ideas and you know you're certainly an inspiration not just to me but to many others, and I can't wait to see great things, greater things, from you, and I will be following you closely thank you there.
Speaker 2:It was amazing conversation, interesting questions.
Speaker 1:You're great host, thank you so much, thank you so much, bye, bye bye all right, everyone episode's over. I hope you enjoyed my conversation with the one and only Dr Felix Bertram, and please don't forget to leave me a review on Apple iTunes or a comment on Spotify podcast, and I hope you join me next time. Bye-bye, we'll see you next time.