Dr Adnan Ali - From GP To Business Owner And Rethinking How To Help People Succeed

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Dr. Adnan Ali is on a mission to reduce the risk of people developing preventable diseases such as diabetes and heart disease. With a lifelong passion for technology and entrepreneurship, he started his first business, Altech, at the age of 15 and has continued to explore various business ventures throughout his career. In addition to his career in medicine and co-founding a popular restaurant, Dr. Ali is also an ICF-accredited coach. He combines his expertise and passions to improve the global health of the business world, with a particular focus on prevention and wellness.

What Scott discusses with Adnan

• How he realised he could scale up into his own business to help hundreds of thousands of patients instead of a 1 to 1 basis
• How reading and studying only takes you so far and you have to take action to make progress
• His perspective on people's goals and motivation 
• Creating shared goals
• Assessing and helping people based on their being (who they are)
• Motivation, support and accountability
• How people's work colleagues are almost like a second family and the impact COVID had on people as a result
• Our identity and the impact that can have on our mental health if it is challenged
• The benefits to organisations where CEO's and senior leaders are open about needing time out themselves
• How the root of the word "wealth" comes from wellbeing
• And much more...

Links in this episode

• Healthality: https://healthality.co.uk/
• Adnan on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dradnanali/
• All Adnan's social links: https://linktr.ee/adnanali
• Adnan's podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/health-success-how-i-do-it/id1557630275
• Bounce: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7845157-bounce

Transcript

[00:00:00] Scott: Hi, I'm Scott Fulton, the host of the Rebel Diaries podcast. This show will help you learn how to make work better for you, your colleagues and the organization you work for. I believe the modern workplace is broken for too many people with leaders and their teams, drowning in corporate complexity, information overload, and unnecessary levels of stress. 

[00:00:18] Scott: Having spent over 20 years leading disruptive high-performing teams who have won international awards for their impact. I've now dedicated my career to helping coach and train leaders and teams to deliver more value and impact at work whilst reducing the risk of burnout, overload, and wasted effort. 

[00:00:34] Scott: This podcast is dedicated to you and thousands like you who know work can and should be better.

[00:00:39] Scott: You'll get tips and insights from me as well as the amazing guests I invite to be the show, many of them have disrupted their industries and are thought leaders, speakers, and authors who have fascinating stories and advice to share. 

[00:00:50] Scott: Thank you for listening. I'm Scott Fulton and welcome to the Rebel Diaries show. 

[00:00:54] Adnan: Identities are really important to giving us purpose and a sense of direction, a sense of belonging. If that's being challenged in any way then it is going to play a significant impact on that person's wellbeing.

[00:01:12] Adnan: The root of the word wealth it comes from wellbeing. I don't know how many, hundreds of years ago so being wealthy was actually somebody who was really well. And obviously health was then linked with having money, et cetera, and riches and being able to look after yourself and eat well and all that kind of stuff.

[00:01:30] Adnan: For your boss to realize that actually there's more to it than just turning up to work. And I think when you've got leaders like that, the employees probably have a better work-life balance because then they're more likely to then follow the example. Whereas conversely, if you've got "how dare you take some time off to go home? I need you here" that will definitely have an impact won't it? 

[00:01:51] Scott: Dr Adnan Ali is an experienced medical director and co-founder of Healthality a private GP service. He has a history of working in integrated urgent care and primary care. With a key interest in the use of artificial intelligence technologies in improving patient outcomes. 

[00:02:07] Scott: He partners with busy entrepreneurs and business owners to strike what he calls the deal of a lifetime by leveraging their most valuable asset their Health.

[00:02:15] Scott: Hi Adan. Welcome to the Rebel Diaries Podcast.

[00:02:19] Adnan: Hi, Scott. Thank you very much for the invite.

[00:02:23] Scott: Thanks for joining. You are first guest for season two,

[00:02:26] Scott: so glad to have you here.

[00:02:28] Adnan: I feel very privileged

[00:02:29] Adnan: actually 

[00:02:30] Scott: I've gone with 

[00:02:31] Adnan: by accident, 

[00:02:32] Scott: I've set you up 

[00:02:33] Adnan: It is great.

[00:02:33] Scott: I've got high standard to stick to. It'd fine . 

[00:02:36] Scott: Can you tell us what a day of life is like for you as a doctor, but also, working on your private business?

[00:02:42] Adnan: As a medic, as a doctor we we have this goal or we go into medical school and we we come out thinking that it's all about patients. It's all about patient care and seeing patients every single day for the rest of our lives. And and that's what I did for a number of years.

[00:02:57] Adnan: And then what happened? As I got more and more into my work, I realized there's more ways to make a difference to patients than just seeing one-on-one. And you can actually make a difference on a scaled up version. Managing hundreds or thousands of patients. So I then I shifted into into a very unusual career where I.

[00:03:20] Adnan: Went into sort of leadership opened a restaurant created an interest in he healthy eating and nutrition. Trained as a coach. And then. Set up also a private health business with a focus on health improvement. So my day now is very unpredictable. It's it is different every single day, which is what I love.

[00:03:43] Adnan: One of my values is variety. And trying to live that value is really important. So day for me is, and it's not, it is not every Monday's the same. It's not every Tuesday. It's gonna be the same. So for me, it could be that I might be clinical one morning. And then, writing a blog post in the afternoon or helping out with a local community organization in the evening.

[00:04:07] Adnan: So there's a whole load of different things that come into it. And that's exactly what, I've wanted to do. Variety. So day is extremely varied.,

[00:04:15] Scott: Are you still running all those things you mentioned, so have you still got the restaurant, have you

[00:04:20] Scott: still got the 

[00:04:21] Adnan: No, the restaurant, we had to move away from just before Covid, in fact. But that was a great experience. That was, I keep, I tell people that's my mba. So running a restaurant for five years being very popular in our town. I think we're ahead of our head of our time, but we we you learn so much when you actually go and do something, right?

[00:04:40] Adnan: So you can read as much as you want, you can study as much as you want, but until you actually get to do something, you, you don't actually learn. And that's why it's important to actually just get outta your comfort zone, right? And go and do these things.

[00:04:59] Scott: Yeah, that's a almost a form of it probably is a form of procrastination. Is it? You can read about stuff and in your brain you think, "I'm making progress. I'm just reading all these things", but you're not actually taking any action

[00:05:11] Adnan: yeah. It's, it comes into it's almost like a, an imposter syndrome. and I think in fact it is an imposter syndrome where you feel that you just do not know enough. Therefore, there's no way that I can just go and start doing what I want to do because I'm not good enough or I don't know enough, or I haven't got the right skills, I haven't got the right experience.

[00:05:35] Adnan: I think some of this is ingrained into us a little bit as well. When you get your first job, you're like, what's your experience? And you're like I've never had any experience. And it's we need at least two years experience or five years experience.

[00:05:46] Adnan: You're like where the hell are you meant to get that from? So sometimes. . I think what we do in our minds is we end up, like you say, just reading, studying, reading, studying, watching this YouTube video, listening to a podcast thinking that actually what we're doing is preparing ourselves. But then that's all great if you've actually, if it's actually something that's helping you deliver or do what you want to be doing.

[00:06:11] Adnan: But if you're never actually gonna take action, then potentially you're just you are procrastinating.

[00:06:16] Scott: Yeah, that is certainly not my expertise, but I've heard people talk about, almost the education system is geared to. It's very academic, but it's sometimes quite out of touch with the real world when you actually get out there. Like I've never had to use any of the maths or trigonometry that I learned.

[00:06:33] Scott: Maybe I didn't take that right career path,

[00:06:34] Scott: but.

[00:06:35] Adnan: I, you've got this I don't know if we could talk politics here, but vision of of making mass compulsory for all kids up to the age of 18. And I can see where it's coming from to be honest with you. So I've got one of my other interests. I love DIY. 

[00:06:50] Adnan: that's probably my, that's my time when I let off steam, right?

[00:06:55] Adnan: That's my downtime. And for a lot of other people, that'll be a very stressful time. But I love it. And and there's, and doing any kind of carpentry or whatever and you're making things, you need maths, you need to be able to figure things out. There's some quite complicated, , angles or wherever if you're cutting, joining bits of wood together.

[00:07:16] Adnan: And actually cons. And I think you know what there is, maths is needed. So I'm yeah, okay. I think maybe he is, maybe he's right on this one. I think we all we forget the importance of some basic math skills. And then the other thing, if you look at, how we manage our finances, and again a big source of stress for a lot of people is the fact that they don't know how to manage their finances.

[00:07:39] Adnan: And again, that comes down to math. So yeah, so you could say I think the current educational system is not geared towards setting us up for or setting people up real life jobs and maybe some of these approaches that are being proposed could be an answer.

[00:07:54] Scott: . Yeah. I'd never considered the link with, maths and diy. That's probably why I'm

[00:07:58] Scott: terrible at both 

[00:08:00] Adnan: But then, you've got a drum set in a drum kit in the back. There must be maths involved in

[00:08:05] Adnan: that. 

[00:08:06] Scott: yeah. There's timing and yeah. Coordination around stuff. But yeah, I haven't had to do any calculations in my head, luckily, cuz then I'd be just awful. I'm not particularly great as it is at drums, but I'm learning . 

[00:08:18] Scott: I know one of the subjects that you are interested in is people's goals and motivation 

[00:08:25] Adnan: that's it. 

[00:08:26] Scott: and is that something you help people with then as part of your coaching or does it cover the whole spectrum of, being a doctor as well? 

[00:08:32] Adnan: So this is, this was a. a kind of a one of those, "ah ha" type things for me was we, the traditional approach to medicine, traditional approach to patient care. And it has moved a lot, but it was always been a, it's a doctor patient relationship and it's always been the doctor advising the patient and the patient taking the advice of the doctor and go from there.

[00:09:01] Adnan: And we've never really, I don't think we've ever really worked with patients on a true sense to set goals and to motivate them to. To achieve those goals. So in a normal general practice consultation, so we're taught to come up with a shared cared, shared care management plan. But what it tends to be is here's a list of options.

[00:09:23] Adnan: Which ones do you want to go for? Okay, let's do this one and let's see how you get on top of thing. But there's no actual real goal there. So for somebody being diagnosed with diabetes mental health disorder, anything. We never actually set any goals for them that what is it you actually want to achieve, or, and diabetes would be quite a good example where, you've got some specific numbers and objectives their average blood glucose readings, et cetera, where you can quite, you can be quite sub objective about measuring their progress, but we don't actually sit down and say your goal or a shared goal, an achievable one, is to get your HBA1C down from, 55 to 51 over the next six months. Okay. And that's the current thing that we've started doing. So from a coaching point of view, what we do is we. the person's like a full assessment of their being. And being is about, who they are, right? So it is not just a number, it's not just their weight. It's not just their any complications they're having. It's looking at everything. So their life, their work, their family. Of, the sports or their activities they might be doing, the things that they're missing out, the things they want to achieve, and the numbers around any particular disease in the background that might be there.

[00:10:51] Adnan: Setting a goal and then working with 'em on a coaching perspective to then go and achieve those goals through motivation, support, accountability, those kind of things. what we find is that, You can apply this really to anything and even to somebody who is from a mental health point of view.

[00:11:13] Adnan: So if they are suffering with stress, anxiety low mood, those kind of things where there is an element of there are a number of factors that can be adjusted that would actually make a difference to their life. So by then sitting down with 'em and say okay, what are the actual, what are the root causes?

[00:11:33] Adnan: What are the goals that we can set? And then how can we then help you achieve those goals to go and make a difference so that we can then actually empower them? To do something rather than the doctor said, I need to do X, Y, and Z. Take this medication, go off for this, therapy or this exercise. If the doctor said, the doctor told me to do this, and moving away from that to actually, this is what I need to do and I want to do.

[00:12:01] Scott: How often do you see this overlapping with people's careers and how well they're doing at work or not doing as well at work?

[00:12:10] Adnan: I don't know if there's any particular figure that can be put on it, but, and this is a something that's been missed, I think is that we've always separated out. people's work lives, their home life, their social life. It's all separate. But actually, if you think about it, a lot of people's friends, maybe their work colleagues and in fact they're probably spending more time with their work colleagues and especially pre covid.

[00:12:42] Adnan: It's changed now and that. Could be one of the reasons why there is more sort of anxiety, stress, loneliness is actually your work colleagues were up almost like a second family, right? And therefore, if there are issues going on in your work or in your career or whatever, they're, they are going to impact.

[00:13:01] Adnan: And I don't, I think we underestimate that, that impact and therefore that's why it's important to take this. The approach of the being, who are they and who you are is not just when you're in the doctor's surgery for that 10 minute consult. It's not when you're at home on the weekend with your family.

[00:13:20] Adnan: It's actually that whole 24 hour period.

[00:13:24] Scott: People. Identify a lot with their career, don't they? That's almost the first question people ask when they meet is, what do you do? And the answer is, I'm a doctor, I'm a programmer. You know that they put so much of their identity into that, and if they're struggling or that is taken away, let's say they're made redundant, that's gonna suddenly, impact how they feel about themselves.

[00:13:46] Adnan: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. It's an identity and and we all identities are really important to giving us purpose and a sense of direction, a sense of belonging. And if we, if that's being challenged in any way then it is going to play a significant impact on that person's wellbeing.

[00:14:09] Adnan: Whether it's through redundancy, whether it's through. Any kind of workplace bullying or whatever might be going on or even starting a new job or even being promoted, right? So where, things like imposter syndrome can, it's got a creep in as well. There's a lot of very senior executives who do suffer with anxiety, stress, et cetera, and you think you'll, you are like, how could you be suffering?

[00:14:35] Adnan: And in fact, this is the most annoying thing that I get as a doctor is what, how can you be on well as a doctor? And it's it's, we're all human beings. We're all human beings, and I think that's what we 

[00:14:46] Adnan: forget. 

[00:14:46] Scott: . So you've had patients that are like surprised of you that you can get unwell or you can get stressed, or 

[00:14:52] Adnan: it's, yeah, 

[00:14:52] Scott: think you've got all the answers. 

[00:14:54] Adnan: Yeah, it's, yeah, it's that's you are seen, I think anybody who's in that kind of position of it's all it's, it is an authoritative position. So your boss, your doctor, your lawyer, those kind of people and then, that's, I think that's why they carry potentially a lot of stress as well, is that you almost have to maintain this perception of everything's perfect. 

[00:15:20] Scott: Yeah. 

[00:15:21] Adnan: showing any sign of weakness is then frowned upon, right?

[00:15:26] Scott: Yeah, it's get, it's gotta be getting better though, hasn't it? To some degree. But I get what you're saying around, cuz mental health is so much more open to be talked about in the workplace. But I can see how people look up to people in those kind of positions and go. They've gotta be okay cuz I'm struggling, but then, oh no, if they're struggling,

[00:15:44] Scott: then we're all screwed kind of thing.

[00:15:46] Scott: So almost like they give you hope that

[00:15:49] Adnan: Yeah. 

[00:15:50] Scott: But as you say, we're all human beings. we're all fallible. 

[00:15:52] Adnan: but that's, and there's hope in that. There's hope in that, in if you know that your so the best organizations that I come across are the ones where the management team or the leader, or the CEO, or whoever it might be is open about. the fact that they need some time out, or actually I've got a doctor's appointment or I've got a, a kid that I need to take here or whatever.

[00:16:21] Adnan: They're open about what's going on and they talk about their life and they're happy to show that because conversely, we talk about, work as being a very important and quite a it's a huge part of our lives, but also our life outside of work is also very important, right? So we never really bring our li life outside of work, into work.

[00:16:44] Adnan: And the ones who do, I think they're the ones who can then set a really good example. I remember when I was I was working for an organization with a very. I think more than actually I think it was 80 or 90% was the senior leadership team was female. And I remember we were going live with a new service and I was burning the candle at both ends type of thing.

[00:17:09] Adnan: Staying away from home, getting the service up and running, and. and I commented, I think our managing director, she had come down to support and then she was asking me how things are going. And I was like, yeah, it was all good. I've been here for the past week and blah, blah, blah. Look how much.

[00:17:25] Adnan: And she goes have you not been home? I was like no. I've got no. And she goes, you need to go home. Your family need you as well. And and I was like, That's, and it was just so empowering that, a leader saying that to you and giving you that permission to go and live your life as well, even though it was a, it was a very important and very challenging time for the organization.

[00:17:48] Adnan: To for your leader, for your boss to realize that actually there's more to it than just turning up to

[00:17:54] Adnan: work. And I think when you've got leaders like that, you then, I think you have, the employees probably have a better. I think they probably have a better work-life balance because then they're more likely to then follow the 

[00:18:05] Adnan: example. Whereas in conversely, if you've got somebody how dare you take some time off to go home? I need you here. Then that's, that will definitely have an impact, 

[00:18:14] Adnan: won't it? 

[00:18:15] Scott: Yeah. It's that culture of. Oh you're expected to be available at all times. The I people checking emails on holiday and all that stuff. That's just not, in my view, that's just not sustainable. You just get burn out and I dunno if you've heard it, you probably did, but Elon Musk and the whole Twitter thing, he was like, sack a load of people and then.

[00:18:37] Scott: There's, there was messages going out to staff that unless you are prepared to like work really long hours, sleep on the floor, you haven't got a job . 

[00:18:48] Adnan: There is a need for hard work. ,right? There is a need for, sometimes you just have to put the hours in, don't you to get something off the ground, otherwise nothing would ever get done. But I, yeah, I think his approach. He's, again it's measuring people against your own expectations, your own standards and obviously he's an extremely driven person with, with this vision that nobody can compare with, if you think. I don't know, trying to get to the moon. He's already thinking about getting to colonize Mars or something. So he's always thinking that one step ahead and it's almost he needs to, he almost needs to check himself. Cuz he, I remember listening or to one of his, some snippet of an interview where he was saying that he literally lived in his factory and had a mattress on the floor or something in the boardroom or whatever.

[00:19:42] Adnan: And it's that's okay. That's fine. That's one of your, if that fits your values and you are happy with that, then that's great, but you can't enforce your values upon everybody else. And there are leaders unfortunately like that and I think Covid unfortunately, with the whole home working was seen as a.

[00:20:02] Adnan: It was an opportunity, people thought, oh, we sat at home, they're not gonna be doing any work. It's gonna be very unproductive but working from home.

[00:20:10] Adnan: You end up being at work all the time, right?

[00:20:14] Adnan: So remember when I, during Covid working from home, literally rolling out a bed sitting in front of a computer and then being sat in front of the computer in this very room not seeing or speaking to anybody apart from faces on Zoom or Teams for eight, nine hours. And then you get up and you're thinking great. And then because you are, you're not getting up for your natural kind of break. You not go out for lunch. 

[00:20:42] Adnan: You are not, yeah. There's no commute. And you are actually literally, whereas a normal nine to five working day you're probably working what? I don't know if somebody was extremely productive, maybe six to seven hours of those of that.

[00:20:59] Adnan: Maybe even less where they're actually fully on working to, to going from that to back to back Teams meetings. Normally you would've traveled from one meeting to another. So you've got some thinking time, some downtime and then not only have you got all the meetings today, now you've got all the work to deliver as well.

[00:21:17] Adnan: So then you are. , then you're adding on that extra hour into the evening or two. And then it's easy because nobody's got any travel to do. Just put another meeting in at five or quarter past five or half five because you've, you haven't got that commute time anymore. And it slowly 

[00:21:32] Adnan: creeps. And unfortunately that's still happening I think with a lot of people. And I think as medics were really bad because we. We tend to I think we do tend to just accept that long hours are a normal part of life. And meetings that start at six or six 30 or whatever are just the norm.

[00:21:52] Adnan: And it's actually it's not we need to move away from 

[00:21:54] Adnan: that. 

[00:21:54] Scott: And as medics, are you driven by targets? So do you have to see a. Obviously under the NHS you do have to see x number of patients per day. That kind of stuff.

[00:22:03] Adnan: It depends on the type of work you are doing. So I've been very fortunate in that, again, just the variety of stuff that I do. So I tend to do a lot of urgent care stuff, so a little bit more flexibility. But yes, generally speaking, there is a number of patients that you need to get through and recently it's just extremely busy.

[00:22:22] Adnan: But but it's, think it's actually, it's, I find it personally now. I find it more rewarding and probably easier sitting down doing a clinic and seeing a bunch of people, a bunch of patients then the whole. The outside bit where you are in meetings or trying to sort out a firefight or do a, provide a new service or whatever it is you might be doing.

[00:22:49] Adnan: That stuff can be quite, quite stressful. Whereas sometimes when you're actually with a patient one to one, it's, that can actually be really rewarding.

[00:22:57] Scott: Yeah, I get that. I, on my training I say to people, Meetings and emails are talking about work, not doing work, . And actually, if you are, you need to be as much as possible delivering the value to your customers. So like you've said, sitting with the patients helping them is gonna be much more rewarding than everything else.

[00:23:15] Scott: I get that. . So how does a doctor run a business? How is that for you in terms of, was that a bit of a mindset shift?

[00:23:22] Adnan: Huge shift. So running the restaurant was a, an interesting exercise a bit of a it's almost like learning on the job. And because it wasn't linked to health directly in the, in the true sense of the word. There wasn't the challenge that I then faced when we set up a private health service and the biggest challenge that I faced and weirdly, and it was, it's not until now that I've started practicing and saying these things is charging people for something.

[00:23:55] Adnan: And I think it's as doctors it's ingrained that, healthcare is free. And should be free. And the NHS definitely should be providing free healthcare at the point of need. And, but then, we live in a in a world where we are able to go and choose as well, we have choice.

[00:24:14] Adnan: So if somebody chooses to pay for something, they can do and and I can offer that. So that's, we went we went into, this private health, but , but I've always found it very difficult saying, so even till now, it's always a bit of an awkward, okay, say, I'll send you an invoice, or this is the fee, or whatever.

[00:24:35] Adnan: Cause it just feels unnatural. And I think that's what puts a lot of doctors off is the whole money bit of the business, asking people to pay for your expertise or your time or wherever it is. And that's been, that's probably been one of my biggest challenges. So I think I love the whole the strategizing, the planning, the going and meeting people the networking.

[00:25:00] Adnan: The website, the creative bit the posting out on, the marketing posts, et cetera. Developing the links, developing all that kind of stuff, the contracts, whatnot. And actually obviously, seeing our clients, seeing our patients. And it's always when it comes down to the money and we've never had anybody who doesn't want to pay.

[00:25:20] Adnan: They're there. They know they go 

[00:25:20] Adnan: to pay, 

[00:25:21] Scott: Yeah. It's not a surprise

[00:25:23] Adnan: No. But it's always a little bit for me, it's always been should we offer them a discount? Should we do this? Should we do that? And you're like and you're thinking actually this is a business. And if we don't if we don't charge properly, then.

[00:25:37] Adnan: we're doing a disservice not only to ourselves but also to other people in that we'll never be able to truly provide and fulfill the mission that we've set out on. So one of the tricks that I've learned to do is to say out loud the figure that we're charging for whatever service it is beforehand, so that. I dunno if you've ever experienced this, when you, especially when we're doing bespoke quotes for somebody or an organization, and you look at the quote and you're like and you start the conversation and then immediately you drop your price down even though you've written it down, like you know it's gonna be what, X 

[00:26:13] Adnan: amount of 

[00:26:14] Scott: Because you're worried what the, how they

[00:26:16] Scott: react.

[00:26:17] Adnan: Whereas actually if you've beforehand, if you have already almost had that conversation with yourself and said we are charging you 950 pounds for this program and get comfortable with that figure, then you're more likely to say it when you go and do the actual, have the conversation.

[00:26:37] Adnan: So that that's been a. A huge challenge for me is not trying not to undersell ourselves or undervalue ourselves. And I don't know if that's, if it comes into, if it's a mindset thing from how we've been. , the development of a doctor, or whether it's imposter syndrome, again, creeping in that, is our service really worth that much?

[00:27:02] Adnan: Are we really actually that good or not? So it feels really weird kind of, talking about this, that, how can a doctor feel that they're not good enough at delivering care, but. That's, again, something that's driven into us is that, you are always learning and you're always, till the day you retire you, it's a learning exercise, which is absolutely true, but I think sometimes that can impact on us negatively, where we then never feel that we have the what do you call it?

[00:27:34] Adnan: The ability or the right or whatever want to call it, to go and actually deliver something that we think we can do. We're always holding ourselves back, I think a little bit.

[00:27:46] Scott: Yeah, I'm with you on that. I went through a similar journey. So I spent 20 years in public sector in digital. And when I set up own business, it was like I was actually serving the public sector from the outside. And yeah, I went through the same thing. It was like, oh, how much should I charge?

[00:28:03] Scott: Feels weird. But then someone said to me, they were paying for you when you worked for them. They're just paying for you in a different way now. I was like, oh yeah. And also, I think same for you as doctors medics as well that the

[00:28:18] Scott: public is still paying for the NHS 

[00:28:20] Adnan: Yeah, 

[00:28:21] Scott: And then again, someone else said to me, almost a lot of people don't care how much it costs. They just need to go through the motions of getting it paid by the finance people.

[00:28:30] Scott: And to charge what you know you're worth and, but yeah, I'm absolutely with you is imposter syndrome. All those things go through your head.

[00:28:37] Adnan: Yeah, absolutely. So getting over it, I think I don't think I'll ever get to the stage, but but then also there's this altruistic bit that comes in, I think of, we what we are trying to do is our, I say our goal is not to make money.

[00:28:56] Adnan: Our goal is to make money. We're running a business, right? But our real mission, our real goal is to improve the health of people. And specifically people who are So essentially what we're trying to do is I look around me and I see people my age your age potentially who. Are dropping down dead from preventable diseases, either at this age or in 10 years time, or 55 at the age of 60, 65 even which is really young.

[00:29:31] Adnan: And it's happened to. To friends family, friends, et cetera, people that we know, people that I see as patients and people generally. And in particular it's men who just do not know what is going on inside them. They don't know that they're literally a ticking time bomb. With extremely high blood pressure or extremely high cholesterol levels.

[00:29:57] Adnan: And these are almost silent killers, right? So because they don't really manifest themselves with particular symptoms until you actually start becoming unwell, by which time you've actually. You've almost gone past a threshold. So we're on a mission to, to get those people to find out more about what's going on inside them at an earlier age, so that they're then empowered, as we talked about, with the goals and motivation to go and do something about it now.

[00:30:31] Adnan: rather than when they're 55, 60. They're having, they've retiring from work or wherever it is going along with their doctors. They've blood pressure all over the place. They're diabetic, the cholesterol's over the place, and actually by that time, you've there's no, I don't know if there's any real motivation left to then do something about it or even the physical.

[00:30:54] Adnan: The energy that need, you need to do something about it. People in their thirties, forties, you've got a lot of energy, you've got a lot of time to still do something. Whereas by that age it's very difficult to change your mindset, to change the way you're living to go and do something about it.

[00:31:08] Adnan: So that's our goal is to. To help men in particular to identify their underlying risks and be empowered to do something about them so that they can live those for fulfilling lives that they've probably been dreaming of and working for. And everybody's working towards retirement and I want to go and do this and spend time with my grandkids or, go off to traveling the world.

[00:31:34] Adnan: But actually they reached that and then they haven't got any energy left.

[00:31:39] Scott: And what do you think's behind that lack of realization? Is it lack of awareness? Is it people just are too busy or do they think, oh, it won't happen to me, or a combination of all of those are

[00:31:52] Scott: more.

[00:31:54] Adnan: It's a combination of all those and more. The main main thing is lack of awareness. Think when we do not feel something or see something we don't believe it's there. Or we don't think it can be there. And until it then appears you don't do anything about it, and it's easy to ignore, it's easy to ignore as well, right?

[00:32:18] Adnan: And then there's other priorities in life that then take over. Your work, your family life your, your business, whatever you might be doing is going to take priority. And it's it's when we, then it's those people who realize that actually health is, and I know it's a bit cliche, health is wealth and all that kind of stuff, but it truly is the mean, the root wor the root of the word wealth.

[00:32:46] Adnan: it comes from wellbeing. So it is, I think it's back in, I don't know how many, hundreds of years ago. That, so being wealthy was actually somebody who was really well. And obviously wealth is then linked, or health was then linked with having money, et cetera, and riches and being able to look after yourself and eat well and all that kind of stuff.

[00:33:06] Adnan: And that's, turned into wealth and I think we've forgotten that. But actually without your health. There's, you can have all the money in the whole entire world. You're not gonna be able to do anything with it. And and there's people who, they get into their sixties, they're retiring or they have retired or whatever and they're regretting the fact that actually 20 years ago they could have done something if somebody had made them aware.

[00:33:32] Adnan: That would mean that now rather than a trip to the doctor every couple of weeks and popping pills every day, they could have been doing something much more different and living a very different life.

[00:33:43] Scott: Brilliant. So one of the questions I ask all my guests is if you could take one book with you to a desert island

[00:33:50] Scott: and see you've got a lot of books behind you, what would it 

[00:33:52] Adnan: that's such a tough question. Such a tough question. I wasn't expecting this one. Okay. Religion plays a really important part in my life. I would have to say the Quran, which is which is a book that when you read it it's actually it's a manuscript for how to live. So I look at. I listen to a lot of podcasts.

[00:34:11] Adnan: My favorite podcasters is Tom Bilyeu. And and he talks about, purpose and life and we are all living in a matrix and this, that, and the other. And I'm thinking actually that's all the teachings of the religion that I follow, right? And the more I've been getting into this, the more I realize that actually there are ways of life that actually if we just go back to those ways of life and start studying and following those practices, we don't need any of these.

[00:34:42] Adnan: Kind of self-help books and whatnots, it's all there. So that, I think that would have to be my number one book. If I could have a second choice, if I could have a second choice it would be it would be, I suppose the book that's influenced me the most and the one that I probably talk about most, if anybody ever if knows me, is there's a chap called Matthew's Syed. I 

[00:35:05] Adnan: dunno if you've come across him. So he's

[00:35:06] Scott: books. 

[00:35:07] Adnan: Yeah.

[00:35:08] Adnan: So his first book, I think this is his first book, it's called Bounce. And it's about nature versus nurture, talent, growth mindset, all that kind of stuff. And that was probably something that was very important for me from a learning point of view to, to realize that actually you can do pretty much anything.

[00:35:30] Adnan: In your life as long as you put the time in, properly, put the time in. So it's it's what's, it's the purposeful practice, right? So that's definitely. Top of the list.

[00:35:42] Scott: Great. So if anyone wants to work with you, what's the best way for them to get hold of you? 

[00:35:46] Adnan: So I'm active on LinkedIn and on Facebook. If you can follow me there or they can visit our website. Which is healthality.co.uk and by all means they can get in touch or there's an Instagram as well yeah, or you can pick up the phones for us. So one of, one of the things that we do is we don't have reception staff.

[00:36:08] Adnan: Our clinicians Mann the phones so that we are always you talk to us directly rather than via a third person.

[00:36:16] Scott: Brilliant, and I'll make sure we get all those links in the show notes for the listeners. 

[00:36:20] Adnan: Yes. No, I appreciate that. It's been really good chatting with you. 

[00:36:22] Scott: Yeah, thanks very much for being on the show. 

[00:36:24] Adnan: Thank you.

[00:36:25] Scott: A big, thank you for listening to the Rebel Diaries show your time is precious, so it is appreciated. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to hit that subscribe button in your podcast app of choice so you don't miss the next one. There's a new episode every Monday morning, ideal for your commute to work or early morning walk. 

[00:36:42] Scott: Until next time, take care be a rebel and deliver work with impact.