 Aloha, welcome to Keys to Success, which is live on the ThinkTech livestreaming network series weekly on Thursdays at 11am. We are your hosts. My name is Danilia, D-A-N-E-L-I-A. And I'm the other half of the duo, John Newman. Welcome to the show. The goal of this show is to provide professional and personal development tools and profound insights on how to achieve success in life, career and or business. We are very grateful for all the positive feedback we have received from viewers. Comments like every time I watch this show I either learn something new or I'm reminded of what I need to refocus on in my life and business. You, our viewers, are our motivation. Dr. Tony O'Bagby, Acting Director of the Veteran Affairs Pacific Islands Health Care System, was our guest on our last show and her words of wisdom can be accessed on Newman Consulting Services website, which is NewmanConsultingServices.com or our landing page, Danilia .org. Our theme for today is embracing change and overcoming fear. Joining us in the studio today, as are our guests, is Adrian Alfonso, the owner of Aesthetic Dental Designs. Mahalo for joining us today, Adrian. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, it's a pleasure to have you here. Thanks. Okay, we're going to jump right in on this and ask you some wicked questions, okay? Bring it on. All right. Share with us, I guess. What made you decide to create Aesthetic Designs? I was introduced into the industry at an early age of 15. I grew up with my aunt and uncle here in Hawaii and my uncle in the laboratory. So as soon as I was old enough to work, back then I think it was 16, you got your workers permit. Yeah. That's where he put me. Put you to work. Family business. Keep me out of trouble. Yeah, that's right. Okay. Yeah. And after high school, I moved to the mainland in Nevada and Los Angeles and I found jobs doing the same thing, kind of advanced my skills there and eventually I moved back home to run my uncle's business because he was in Air Force Reserves and he took a position as an active reserve, I think it's called, that made him full-time there for a few years and he needed someone to run his laboratory and that's when I was here running it for him for a few years and his position became a civilian job. He's a program analyst for the Pacific Air Force and at the time he didn't want the lab anymore so he was Adrian, you know, I'm going to close a lab. You can either find a lab to work at or you can buy my assets and start your own laboratory and I opted for my own adventure. Yeah. Okay, opportunity, huh? Yeah, that's right. You took advantage of it. Tried to. Yeah. So when did you take over with your own business with that? 2009. May of 2009 is when we officially started on our own. So was there any other considerations in your mind at that point? Did you experience any fear taking over the business or were you just really comfortable and just knew that was the right thing to do? It was the only thing I knew how to do, to be honest. When it was presented to me there was, I think I went through every single emotion there was. Right, from going to, for working for people to becoming your own boss, it sounds great but there's so much responsibility that comes with that. Absolutely, yeah. We understand that. There was a lot of fear of course. It was, fear is not really the right word, I think it's more concern because now I'm in charge of my own success. Right. And you start to doubt yourself a little bit. Yeah, it's so true. It's hard in the beginning but to overcome that I surrounded myself with good people. I joined, there's a local association of mostly dental laboratory owners and I connected with them and they were reassuring that everything's hard in the beginning. They've all been there. Just like I was fortunate to be your neighbors, right? My first, our original office was right next door to you and those Sundays that, you know, John you would see me in there and I'd tell you, oh, she's busy. You would always just tell me, that's how it is, young man. So things like that really helped. Yeah, it was, it was fine. What do you, what do you want, what do you want to accomplish? What is it that you want to accomplish in your business, what are your goals? For me there's business goals and there's personal goals. Business goals, we fabricate dental prosthetics, fixed prosthetics, implants, bridges, anything restorative for a patient. That's the ultimate goal, right, is treating these patients and for a patient that has no teeth or they want cosmetic work done, you know, we partner with dentists. We don't work directly with patients, we work through the dentist and I'm, you know, creating that team to really help the patient and the best possible outcome is for them to love what they have in aesthetics and in function. My own personal goals is, of course, stability for my family, right, and preparing for the future, right? Isn't that always the driving force? I think for a lot, you know, it's interesting to see how we go through different phases of our life. You know, when you first fought, you know, when you first took over the business, you were in a different situation. I mean, we saw you, we saw you in the beginning, actually, and then, you know, you got married and now you have a child and it's just, it's been wonderful for us, a blessing for us to, to watch you grow that way, you know. Thank you. You also saw the, the love and affection that you, you put into your work, you know, you, you really, as you stated, you want to help people, you know, you want to make sure that people, when they, when they have your product, you know, it makes them feel better, you know, about themselves and enjoy. Absolutely. Well, having no teeth is just like, I mean, that's a big thing, you know. And so, you know, whoever's doing the work, I mean, you, you totally trusting that person to produce the best product you can possibly have. Yes. You know. So, yeah, that's great. Okay. Well, you recently moved into a bigger space. Yes. And so, why did you move into a bigger space? What was your purpose for doing that? And also, how did you know that was the right move? Yeah, we moved into a larger office in April of this year. It's something we've been talking about for a few years. We loved our location. We never wanted to leave our location, the building that we're in, and we've actually been looking for a few years, but the opportunity came up where the space opened up, and just one day I was like, Lisa, my wife, I was like, do you want to look at the space just, just for fun? Let's look at it. And as soon as we saw it, we fell in love with it. One of the main reasons for me was to open up, have a space that we can dedicate for education. I've done educational events on my old lab, but those were just chairs set up in the midst of the rest of the laboratory, and this one I wanted a proper place, because I'm inviting dentists there. Right? They need to look professional. They need to know that I'm serious. Our model that we've kind of been going by was encourage communication through education. There's a big disconnect. I've experienced it between laboratories and technicians. That's a tweetable quote. Say that again. Encourage communication through education. Yeah. Hello. Yeah. You better watch out. She's taking it. Okay. So you wanted to have more communication going on in that area? More communication. There's, you know, a doctor fills out a prescription and sends it to us. We're recreating a restoration for our patient, but not everyone is the same. There's a lot of communication that needs to be had, especially with implants and, you know, fully indenturalists, meaning like a patient with no teeth, if we're restoring a full arch, right, now we need to be on the same page as far as function, patient expectations, things like that. The education more is to educate, but more to share stories, right? If I'm working with the dentist and we go through these troubles and it took us 10 steps to get there, well, the next times I work with, I want to be able to share that experience and get us there in five steps. So that's really the main focus of it. But you know, when you go, I mean, we were in the same situation when we first came here to Hawaii years ago, 25 years ago, and we started with a little room, you know, and then within six months, we expanded into the space that you see now, which is much larger, and about two years ago, we expanded that as well. But I guess, you know, one of the questions I wanted to ask you is, you know, what comes with bigger space is extra overhead, extra expenses. And how do you deal with that? How did you mentally deal with that? Was there no question about it? You didn't even think about it, or was that a factor? Of course it was a factor. We nearly tripled our space, which means our rent just about tripled. It was a big concern. Lisa and I, we do make it a point to have one thing, it's just my wife and I, Lisa and I, running there, but she handles the finances. But it's so important for us to be on the same page. And we talked about it, and we knew that if we wanted to grow our business, this was a move that we needed to take. And it's part of it was having faith that the opportunities were going to come. Another part of it was believing in our business plan. Yeah, so did we know, we have a number that we have done that we have to hit every month, and of course that number grew. And really, just mainly believing in our business that we can do it was, that's how we've tackled everything. And believing in yourself, you know, it's interesting because when we first moved into our office space, we didn't really need to have a training room. But they offered a, this training room was in a unique situation, location. So they offered to give us the training room for a very reasonable price. And I'm like, I don't know, John, you know, it's the 600 square foot training room, that's a lot of experts. And John's like, baby, we need to do it. We need to do this because, you know, there'll be a, we will utilize it. There'll be a reason for it. And here now, you know, we can sit 20 people in it. We have laptops, we have tables, and we're doing trainings. And it's just fantastic, you know, all from believing in it. And a little bit before I moved, you guys even expanded more. Yes, that's true. And the thing is, you have a goal. And as you said, you work to achieve your goal. And if you just take one step at a time, you know, you're always going to be catching up. So if you know where you want to be, then put yourself there. And then put yourself there and also, also understand that you will, you will hit obstacles and, you know, don't, don't be turned away by them. We kind of face them and get through it and believe in yourself and, you know. Yeah, because, because having a business is a challenging, but actually fantastic experience. Because while you're going through all the obstacles, it's very difficult. But like you said, having, you know, that communication going is very important. Knowing where you are in your business, having belief that it's all going to be OK. Is, is like one of the top priorities is believing, believing, believing, believing. Never, ever, ever give up on yourself, ever. That's great. Adrian, statistics show that out of a hundred new businesses, 70 actually fade away in the first two years. And 25% survive for 15. Now, you've been in business since 2009. So you're in the top 50% of success rate. So what do you attribute your success to? For one, I think it's the trade I'm in. I'll have to be honest about that. It's it's a business that should be around. Statistically, they are around for a very long time. It's a specialty. Oh, yes. Right, right. I think one of one of our big success, one of the reasons for success now is, is how we've adapted digital technology, right? Digital, digital is kind of it's a has a huge influence in demo right now. And that goes back to the start of digital x-ray, digital charts. You guys are familiar with this with that, right? But now there's digital impressioning, where instead of taking a traditional polyvinyl impression where, you know, Dennis sticks his gooey stuff in your mouth as you bite down. Now they're taking a camera, camera tip and going into your mouth and they're taking a 3D image. And they're such a, sorry, there's there's a huge learning curve for that. For Dennis and for laboratories, for me, I naturally caught on. It came easy to me. And I've become I've become a resource for for local supply companies. Like they ask me, they ask me to speak, they ask me to train. That's great. Relations. Thank you. That's great. And yeah, I mean, that that that opens up a lot of opportunities there because now these companies are saying, Hey, there's this guy, Adrian, none of the designs. Call him for help. That's great. Yeah. Let's come back to that in just a moment, because that's a really, really good thing that you're saying. We're going to take a short break. This is keys to success on the Think Tech live streaming network series. We're talking with Adrian Alfonso, owner of aesthetic dental designs regarding our theme today, embracing change and overcoming fear. My name is Danilia, D-A-N-E-L-I-A. And I'm another half of the duo, John Newman. We'll be back in a minute. So please stay tuned for more keys to success. Hey, everybody, my name is David Chang, and I am a new host for the show, The Art of Thinking Smart. I'm really excited to be able to share with you how to get the smart edge in life. We're going to have awesome guests in the military, business, political, nonprofit world. So no matter what background you're from, we have something for you. Please join us every other Thursday at 10 a.m. at thinktechhawaii.com or on the art of thinkingsmart.com. I look forward to seeing you. For a very healthy summer, watch Viva Hawaii. We're giving you the best tips and with our best health coach here. So Viva, health coach, Viva la comida saludable. Aloha. It's summertime in Honolulu, Hawaii. My name is Stephen Phillip Katz. I'm your host for Shrink Wrap Hawaii. We're on every Tuesday at 3 o'clock and we talk about mental health and general health. Join us. Thank you. Welcome back. This is Keys to Success on the ThinkTech livestreaming network series. We encourage you to call our hotline at 415-871-2474 to join our conversation or tweet us at thinktechhibm any questions or comments. We've been talking with Adrian Alfonso, owner of aesthetic dental designs regarding our theme today, embracing change and overcoming fear. My name is Danelia D-A-N-E-L-I-A. And I'm the other half of the duo, John Newman. Welcome back. So Adrian, before the break you were talking about the fact that now you're teaching and you've been asked to give presentations and so forth. Yes. Great. Yeah, follow up on that if you will. So the main company that I'm an advocate for is DenseBly Serona. For the clinician side, which is the dentist side, they have Sarek. Sarek is just the dentist's ability to do a chair side restoration. I don't know if you've heard a lot of same-day restorations. Oh, right. I'm glad you explained that because we have no idea what you're talking about. That's kind of what they push. Okay, great. Yeah. I also, so I've become a resource for them. Oh, great. Supporting them in digital, whether it's designing or just figuring out the program itself. It's software. There's a huge learning curve in software. So what's interesting through this conversation is that it's very clear that in your heart, you're doing the work that you're supposed to be doing. Yes. Right? I mean, that's obvious. That's really come out. And I think that's really important for people to understand that in your business, whatever you do in life, as far as work or donating time or whatever it is, that you do what you love to do because you know in your heart, you're meant to do that. That's really critical. Yeah. And that wasn't always clear to me. In fact, our first year in business, I probably spent a year looking for a second job. Yeah. No joke. Yeah. But you said from the beginning, you said, you know, this is the only thing that I know. Yeah. You know, I was born into it. That was everything. And you became passionate about it. Yes. And we can see it in the way you are answering these questions and sharing with us. And that's a wonderful thing. That's a blessing. Well, you know, it's interesting because I think we all go through that in business. I mean, I know other business people, same thing. You know, they come in, they talk to us and we're like, look, just don't give up because I did the same thing. Okay. We had our business for a while and it was just so, it's just seven, seven days a week, you know, 24 hours a day virtually. And it was just so exhausting and you're going through all these challenges. And I said, you know, I said to John, I said, I think I'm just going to get a job. And I got a job for like three months and I was miserable. And I was crying every day. He's like, what's going on? You know, I said, you know, I realize now that I'm meant to, we are meant to have a business that we're meant to do this. And I've never looked back. We've never looked back since. Yeah. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Adrian, change is a main constant in life. We know that. Embracing change is a key element in growing and improving. So share with us. How have you learned to embrace change? To embrace change. How I've learned to embrace change. It was going back to, to the change in our industry. Right. It was if, if, if digital technology and dentistry were gone today, I would be fine. I was raised in the traditional laboratory. I can make things by hand and start to finish. That's not the direction the industry was heading. So that's why I embraced it by first investing in it. Right. That was, that was the single most difficult decision we had to make because there's, for us, there was initial investment into it. But then it was just getting yourself out there. There's people that want to teach you how to do things correctly. How to do things easier. Right. It's just, it's connecting with the right people and networking with the right people. Finding people that inspire or was a big part of it. Yes. Right. Because there's a lot of naysayers. Yes. Not to ignore them. Right. They have something, you know, that, that can help you still. But finding people that would motivate you to be successful. You know, that's interesting because that's one of the subjects that people keep bringing up on the show is that you've got to surround yourself with people who support you and are positive influences in your life and have mentors. Yes. You know, that's extremely important. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Wonderful. So what do you, what do you feel are your top three success habits? Top three success habits, I think about this all night. Right. The first one, see now I got to think about this. That's exactly what we want you to do. I was surprised you didn't have any paper with you. You see us. I take your time and think about it. Because you're speaking from the heart and it's felt by the heart. Yeah. Yeah. First one is personal sacrifice. Yes. You know, one of my years, I've been in business 2009, one of the years, I think I took about five Sundays off the whole year. And this was before I had my daughter, of course. But, but it was no question. If I was working until 3 a.m. going to sleep for a few hours, waking up at 5 a.m. at the office and going right back to work, it was, it wasn't even, not that it wasn't a concern, it was just in my head is I have to do it. Right. Personal sacrifice. Right. I'm not doing those hours anymore. Yeah, that's great. The biggest change was because we have Taylor, our daughter, she's almost two now. And I want to be in her life, not the other way around, not married to the laboratory. Right. But another sacrifice is just helping people, right? I've been lucky to be surrounded by other technicians helping me. So there are local laboratories here who have technology or who need help. And some people, they ask me, why do you help them? They're competitors. And I always say, well, I'm not good at this because it came after. I'm good at it because someone taught me. Right. And if I can be a resource to my competitor here, then just have a good heart. Absolutely. Because what you give comes back to you too. That's exactly right. Yeah. Very, very. My second one would probably be, so personal sacrifice was the first one. Right. Second one would be clear conscience. Okay. Most of the decisions I make are based on me having a clear conscience. As a business person, it's easy to take advantage of somebody. But all of those decisions are based on that. Third one would be to have humility. I see this, when I started the business, I was 25. You're still 25, right? 24 now. All right. I don't know how it works. I'm 33 though. TMI. But having humility, I was doing cold calls going to dental offices. In their eyes, here's this kid saying, hey, I can do this for you. I can do that. Now, I had to learn to accept criticism because I was learning so much. I see it a lot with younger generations. I'm millennials, right? I'm right on that edge of millennial or generation X. Oh, okay. Right? So I can be a millennial before I would be offended by that. Now I'm trying to own up to it. Oh, good. Because we did have that conversation we recall. Yeah. Great. But I'd find the younger generation, they always feel their feelings are hurt or they feel underappreciated. But really, you got to be able to take constructive criticism. Yes. And for me, that's humility. Yes. And being able to accept that is one of the things that in my head as a business owner is like, I'm always learning. Like, that's always in my head. Someone always has something to teach me. And I think that's important to being successful is being able to listen. And you've got to be willing to accept. Oh, yeah. That's the key. And also understand that individuals who are a lot more mature than you, who have had their businesses a lot longer than you and so forth, they've been through what you've been through, they've been through, you know? Point. And they continue to grow. And so it's really important to listen to more seasoned individuals who have businesses for many, many years because they have so much to offer. Now, you still do your own thing, but, you know, their experience really helps to guide you sometimes with decisions that you have to make. Honestly, I'll have this mindset for the next 50 years. Yeah. And that's the only mindset to have. That's right. That's one of the things we teach in our classes. Yeah. Learn to listen. Yeah. You'll be surprised what you hear. Yeah, that's right. So true. Okay, Adrian. Okay. So what is the best advice you can give our viewers and listeners regarding keys to success? I thought about this one hard also. And there's always my grandmother. Before I lived with my aunt and uncle through high school, I was mainly raised by my grandma. And she raised me and my sisters by herself. And she would always say, just live within your means. Yeah. Yeah. So does that apply to personal? Yeah. But when I think about it more, that applies to business also. Yes. Right? Today, can my business operate successfully with what I have? Mm-hmm. And I can. Of course, we always want more. Right. But just operating and living within our means is something that I always find myself saying silently to myself. Yeah. Thank you so much, Adrian. Well, we're out of time. We'll have to wrap it up. Adrian's Words of Wisdom with regards to keys to success can be found on Newman Consulting Services webpage, which is newmanconsultingservices.com and landingpagedenilia.org. Thank you to you, our viewers and listeners for tuning in. Thanks to our broadcast engineers, Zuri Bender, our floor manager, Nick Sexton, and to Jay Fudele, our executive producer who puts it all together. Thank you so much, Adrian, for joining us today and sharing your insights to success. Think Tech Keys to Success will be back next Thursday at 11 a.m. We ask that you tune in again and ask your friends and family to do so as well. I'm Danelia, D-A-N-E-L-I-A. And I'm the other half of the duo, John Newman. And leaving you today, we'd like to leave you with a quote from Zig Ziglar. And it says, you can have everything you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want. Thank you all. Aloha. Aloha.