Read/Respond

Profile: My dad

Focus: how my dad past life/experience motivated him to work hard in his business. Responded through email  

1.     If you had to describe your life in a sentence what would it be? My life is filled with happiness and joy with my friends and family that surround me.  

 2.     Tell me about the difficulties and hardships that you and your family in Pakistan had to face? The difficulties that me and my family had to face are from diseases, poverty lifestyle among the country. I have many brothers and sisters; we had to work at a young age.

3.     Tell me about the difficulties and hardships that you face in your transportation business today. My transportation business gives me problems with the insurance companies whose coverage is state minimum. The regulators who regulate the cab business they are increasing assessment fees every year, causing burden and additional rules for the cab industry. Right now we have the biggest challenge with Uber and Lyft. They are working with Uber X illegally and the department lets them work to destroy the cab company.  

 4.     What was it like to come to the United States alone with a few resources? It was challenging coming to the United States because it's a different country with a different culture so I had to adjust myself. Language barrier was a challenge. Finding jobs and getting the apartment by myself was a challenge because I was away from my house.

5.     When did you begin to see your success?  How did you know if the job was right for you?  I found myself working hard and starting my business because before I worked for someone else. Now I have experience with my business so I took advantage and became successful. I am one of the biggest owners in Philadelphia.  

6.     What lessons did you learn for your first time experience in the United States? I learned one should have a proper education. Here I also found out the owner and employees work hard. I learned that the United States is a land of properties and is the biggest economy in the world. If you work hard and invest your money in the right field you can become very successful.

 7.     What was the most impactful thing you experienced in your life? When I married to my wife it really changed my whole luck because my wife is an educated lady and helped me in my business and give me proper ideas which I really enjoyed it. And she gives me a boost. Right now I have a wonderful business and right now I am living in an upper class neighborhood.  

 8.     Can you describe a moment where you felt that your hard work was finally starting to pay off? Thirteen years ago when I started my own cab business and the prices were going up I felt my work finally started to pay off. There was an article in the New York Times said that the cab medallion went up really fast better than stock market and better than gold.

9.     In what time period in your life did you learn that coming to the United States was a good idea? As I arrived in the United States I felt that it was the best idea because I make living very well and I became a millionaire in this country.  

10.  What was your vision in life and how were you able to learn from past failures to improve your position? My vision in life was to be a very successful business man. I learned from my father who was a very successful business man. Business is in our family because most of our family members own their own business. I learned to make sure you have full control of your business and manage it properly.

11.  What new ideas for your business helped increase your hard work? To open my body shop mechanic shop car dealership and commercial insurance for the taxi cabs, basically we always do something and make new ideas trying to expand our business. In different we learned whichever field has the most opportunities we go for it and we never stop.

12.  In what ways do you hope to continue the legacy that you brought in the United States with your family? I want to pass down good education and future. I want to teach my kids and make my son in the same business as I am. I want to take my insurance business and transportation business to cab industry to airplane carrier. We also like to go to shipping.  

13.  What attributes do you believe are needed to be successful at accomplishing your goals in life?  To have a good relation with your clients and employees people is an attribute I believe people should have. Good management, honest, wise m, loyal to the customers, hardworking, and giving unlimited time to business are the attributes needed to accomplish your goals in life.

14.  Can you describe a moment where you felt under lots of pressure or felt you were lacking behind? We always had a strong competition with Uber and Lyft. Besides this we had pressure when we opened our own insurance company, we had lots of pressure from the stock who worked for us from the claim department and the under righting department.

15.  What are the things that keep you motivated to this day? My belief to be successful and confident, keeps me motivated. I enjoy working and being the owner of the business keep me motivated

16.  Where and why did you choose ideas for your business? I choose Philadelphia for my transportation business because I live here from the beginning. I noticed whoever was in this business done very good in life. Right I am one of the top guys in this business and who became successful.

17.  What do you believe are the characteristics needed to be successful? I think honesty, trustworthy, cooperative, and punctual are the characteristics needed to be successful. And treat people with a respect and trying to help them.  

18.  How were you able to manage, overcome hardships in your life to be in the position you are today? I consult with my wife and we both try to make the decision at the difficult times. And she brings the luck in my life and because agree with our investment. We are very successful today.

19.  If you had to do something differently in which you did in the past would what you do differently? I would do a commercial real estate business.  I would go ahead and try to open the construction company.  

20.  What did you learn from your early jobs and other people in life? I learned how to work hard. Also I learned to make some money and then I think I can control my destiny. Because when I have money I can live and support myself and my family. People who I worked for are now working me. We use to work together, but right now they became my employees. I am very lucky they are working for me.

Focus: How a career and passion in dentistry shape who Dr. Henkel is today.

Interviewed by email to Dr. Henkel (mentor for my internship)

Interview Questions:

1.   Who are the most influential people in your life?  Tough question to answer because as there have been so many.  The obvious of course would be my mother, wife, and daughter.  But educationally, two people really come to mind.  One was my microbiology professor, a very small in stature woman from the Philippines, who gave her entire lecture series; start to finish, over an entire semester, without ever looking at a note.  Not once. She would have been my mentor for my master’s degree had I not changed course in dental school.  The other is a clinical instructor at the Univ. of Detroit dental school, Dr. Benjamin Leone.  One of the toughest instructors we had in dental school.  Getting “A” from him was next to impossible.  But he taught us more, made us do our work to the highest standard, than most others.  

2.  What is your inspiration for doing your job? Couple of things, from a personal perspective, dentistry allows for a great lifestyle, giving adequate free time to pursue whatever it is you enjoy.  From a professional perspective, helping people, relieving their discomfort, seeing the change in self-esteem when we complete smile rehabilitation, makes it all worthwhile

3.     Why did you choose the field of dentistry? What was your vision? Interestingly, it almost chose me.  I was pursuing a pre-medical curriculum throughout my college years, and dentistry was not even on my radar.  I had no relatives in the field, as did many of my future classmates.  But I was always good with my hands, loved assembling model cars, airplanes, and building rockets as a kid.  Dentistry allows you to merge working with your hands with modern medicine.  It was a perfect fit for me.

 4.     What characteristics do you believe are necessary in your profession? Truthfully, most excellent dentists share a common characteristic, and that is attention to detail.  Most are extremely meticulous about what they do. 

5.     Tell me about a time when you found it difficult doing your profession? How were you able to overcome such hardship? Dentistry is a blend of artistry and science.  I was always good at the academics, always at the top of my class.  Artistry, not so much.  So early on in our “hands” classes, I lagged behind.  Some of the folks in my class could turn out dental restorations that were like works of art naturally.  I had to learn how to create proper shapes and contours.

 6.     What skills have you learned in your career profession? Things like running a small business and giving back to the community come to mind.  Running a dental office is like running many other small businesses.  Rent, electricity, employee salaries, insurance, etc., all have to be factored in.  I know personally two extremely competent and skilled dentists who have filed for bankruptcy because they never really learned to manage a business.  In terms of community service, because you are an educated professional, it is important to give back.  I’ve been involved with rotary international, served as president and other offices in the local club, and I also was involved with the local education foundation of our local high school, also serving a term as president.

7.     What skills have you learned during your Schooling years? Schooling years give you the basics to succeed in your profession, but do not make anyone an expert.  It is most like a learning permit.  One has to commit to a lifelong learning process.  I’ve been out of school since 1979, and I’d estimate 2/3 of what we were taught has either been found to be not correct or has been supplanted by newer techniques and technology.

 8.     Tell me about an experience during your schooling years that change the way you look at things? Probably the most impressive thing was what my mother sacrificed to allow me to get through school.  She was a simple person, high school educated only, recently divorced, but she made sure I had what I needed to get through undergrad and then through dental school.  At the time I didn’t fully appreciate what she did as she never talked about it.  it was only after looking back years later I realized I would never have made it through without her physical support (meals, supplies)  as well as financial support.

9.     Why pursue/ what was your motivation in forming Horsham Dental Elements? My original office was in center city Philadelphia.  My wife and I moved to Horsham in 1982, and entertained after a few years opening an office near our suburban home, and in 1985 we did, starting off practicing under my own name in 1985, moving to our current location in 1990 as the pine run dental and implant center, and then later as Horsham dental elements when our complex was purchased and the name changed to the elements of Horsham.  

10.  Tell me about an unusual experience you have faced in your life? Probably the worst thing ever was training for a 24 hour bicycle marathon race back in Detroit, and being run off the road intentionally by a driver and ending up with a shattered elbow and spending the weekend of the race in the hospital. 

11.  How ambitious do you believe your goals are/ were in life? I’ve always set goals very high, quite often unattainable. But if one does not set high goals for one, how will they ever know what might have been attained.

12.  What legacy do you hope to instill in being a dentist?  It is my greatest hope, that with the thousands of patients I have treated, thousands of dentists that I have taught or lecture to over the years, that in some way I have left all of their lives a little richer, a little better for the experience.

13.  What advice would you give to future students wishing to pursue in your profession?  Go for it.  Dentistry provides an excellent lifestyle, decent pay, is well respected, and provides enough free time to pursue other interests as well.  For instance, I am a diver.  Dentistry provided me the opportunity to travel the world over, going to places like the Galapagos Islands, the Caribbean, the Pacific Rim that many other professions would have not allowed me to do.  In my role as an instructor, I traveled all over North America and Europe to places I may never have seen otherwise.  Dentistry was recently listed in a survey by money magazine and U.S. News and World Report as the number one profession.  Number one was orthodontics, a dental specialty, and number 10 was oral and maxillofacial surgery, also a dental specialty 3 of the top ten.

14.  Are there any activities/events that you wish to accomplish or do in your future? I want to accomplish a lot.  At 64 years of age not sure how much I can accomplish.  There are many places in the world; I’d like to still visit.  Many technologies and treatment modalities I’d like to help shape.  I will probably continue teaching and giving back to my profession if I’m able.

15.  How do you keep up with the advancement of technology in your field? Are there any ideas that you hope to do in order to improve or expand Horsham Dental Elements? We have always been on the cutting edge.  We are a beta testing site for new technologies, and helped introduce a couple to our profession.  We are part of an evaluation team that functions like the consumer reports for dentistry.  New equipment and materials are sent to me and several other evaluators around the country are results tabulated and then published.  For instance, I have in the office currently 3 different wireless headlamps, a couple different filling materials, and several different materials used for root canal treatment.

16.  What is the oldest memory you have about yourself? Probably lying in kindergarten with 30 other kids on mats wide awake supposedly taking an afternoon nap that no one ever takes.

17.  In your opinion, what market opportunities or competitive advantages do you believe Horsham Dental Elements have over dentist firms? We have several advantages.  We have more advanced training, state of the art equipment, 35 years of experience, teaching and lecturing experience, office design and layout that most other offices just do not have.

18.  If have traveled, what experiences do you believe provided the most impact for you? Traveling lets you see different philosophies and techniques in other areas of the world.  Europe and Asian rim companies are very big in dental implantology.  European and Scandinavian countries have some different philosophies of what we teach in the United States.

19.  What characteristics do people generally associate when they think of you? Tough one to answer without sounding self-serving, but primarily I’d say that we are fair and honest, present all available options and their pros and cons, and hopefully present an aura of confidence without being pompous.

 20.  If you had a chance to go into another career field what would it be? Why? I think I would have been happy and equally successful in medicine, civil engineering, medical technology, definitely something in the sciences.  I was a biology major undergrad.

21.  How do you view yourself? What qualities do you believe you have that makes you generally a likeable person?  Hopefully we show a genuine concern for the welfare of others, and that we have their best interest at heart.

22.  What are some life lessons that you value?  What I have told my daughter, what I leave my students with, is that when we leave this earth, we leave it a little bit better place than when we entered it.  I believe to contribute something to the pool of knowledge and quality of life for those who come after us.  Make a difference in someone’s life.  In the end, material gain stays with your heirs.   

Article:

National Center for Biotechnology Information. Recent advances in imaging technologies in dentistry. By Naseem Shah et al., www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4209425/. Accessed 24 Oct. 2014.

O'Hehir, Trisha E. "New Technologies In Dental Hygiene." Registered Dental Hygientist, www.rdhmag.com/articles/print/volume-21/issue-9/columns/periodontics/new-technologies-in-dental-hygiene.html.

My thoughts on the TedTalk is that it gives good insight on the reason people chose to act at times. This can include ideologies and the way people perceive things. I for instance found it interesting that Brown states’ vulnerability is associated with negativity, such as when a person feeling shameful or afraid.  A good analogy for vulnerability is that it is like a knight going to war without a shield or maybe even with very little armor. In that scenario, a knight would most likely feel exposed or open for attack against an opponent. Another thing I found interesting in Brown’s speech is that people tend to go through a cycle of vulnerability in which they try to numb their feelings. Brown herself states that in her research she found that those who had a strong sense of love and belonging, “whole- hearted” people often believed they were worthy. Overall, Brown’s main message was the idea that there are some things that are just beyond our control and we need to make the best of what we have, when we have something. This is especially the case for once she mentions the idea of believing one is enough. Often in life we set limitations and look at the issues/problems we face on a regular basis instead of appreciating what we have.

Joan Didion reason for why she writes is because writing gives her the ability to express her ideas or thoughts in a way that can private, but also perhaps imposing. The constant message and reasoning through writing gives the writer the chance to say what he or she wants to. Didion describes the challenge she had to face as a college student when she began discovering negative connotations for her view of writing in general. Moreover, she was always thinking about limitations, including what she felt she could not do. This ultimately brings her to discover about herself as being a “writer”. A sentence that grabbed my attention was “Had my credentials been in order I would never have become a writer”. This sentence can give a clear indication to the reader that Joan Didion truly did learn something about herself whether she thinks of herself as a good or bad writer. In other words, Didion has a strong feel that her writing should be both meaningful and impactful for her to communicate. In general, she talks about looking beyond the surface which is especially present in literature. In some ways this is similar to my writing as I try to be active in searching for my writing both in a macro and micro scale. For instance, I always make sure that the word choices for my writing pieces give a clear distinction so the sentence is precise and accurate.