May 5, 2021
I had the opportunity to sit down with celebrity cosmeticdentist, Dr. Bill Dorfman. We chatted about how he came up in theworld from childhood to creating one of the most famous dentistpractices in Studio City, CA.
On top of the practice he created, he also started Discus Dentalwith a dear friend of his, which was a global leader inprofessional tooth whitening products with brands such as Zoom®!,BriteSmile®, and NiteWhite® and they eventually sold the company toRoyal Philips Electronics for millions.
Dr. Bill has appeared on Larry King Live, Oprah, The Doctors andwas the only dentist to appear on ABC's Extreme Makeover.
Now with his extremely successful career, he has turned some ofhis focus towards philanthropy and the LEAP Foundation for highschool and college students.
You're going to see this side of Dr. Bill and his passiontowards entrepreneurship, success, giving back and hisfoundation.
As always, thanks so much for listening to the podcast and Iwould so appreciate a rating of 5 starts and a review. It wouldreally mean the world to me.
Much love,
Joe
Dr. Bill Dorfman
Celebrity Cosmetic Dentist, Partner of Discus Dental, Inventorof Zoom! and Founder of the LEAP Foundation
Author of:Billion Dollar Smile:A Complete Guide to Your Extreme Smile Makeover
Website: https://www.billdorfmandds.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drbilldorfman/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DrBillDorfman
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drbilldorfman/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/DrBillDorfman
Podcast Music By: Andy Galore,Album: "Outand About", Song:"Chicken & Scotch" 2014
Andy's Links:
https://www.facebook.com/andygalorebass
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Transcript
Joe: Ok, my guest today is Dr. BillDorfman. Dr. Bill, welcome.
Dr. Bill: Thank you. How areyou?
Joe: Great. So it's a pleasure tohave you here with a lot of the guests that I have on, I reallylike to give the audience an idea of who you are and not just jumpin to where we are today. So if can you give us some background ofyour time line, how you decided to get into dentistry where yougrew up, just kind of bring us up to today is is slow, slower, asfast as you want to.
Dr. Bill: Sure, I am a native ofCalifornia, I grew up in Granada Hills as a little kid, I happen tohave an accident where I knocked out my baby teeth. We had a greatfamily dentist. And at some point I just thought this would be acool thing to do and help people the way he helped me. And so atthe age of about three, I said, I'm going to be a dentist. And itjust never wavered. I was a weird kid. I mean, how many kids wantto be a dentist? Right. But I've always been weird and I've alwayskind of marched to the beat of a different drum. I never felt likeI fit into any, like, group or peg. I just kind of always did myown thing. I was like the Switzerland of a kid. I was friends witheverybody, but not really part of anything, you know, like I swam.But I wasn't always with the swimmers and I played football, but Iwasn't with the football players and student government. But, like,I just was kind of a free spirited kid that didn't really I didn'treally, like, do what most normal kids do. I don't know. It wasfunny. I had this conversation with my parents recently and I said,you know.
Dr. Bill: How was I as a kid, likewas I easy to raise, hard to raise, and they're like, you areperfect like you. And, you know, and I honestly don't ever rememberI never argued with my parents. I never got into trouble. I was aweird kid. I just I always just kind of did what I was supposed todo. I guess it was in my mind, like the path of least resistance. Ididn't smoke. I didn't drink. I didn't do drugs. Like I mean, Ialways kind of just did what I was supposed to do and I was happygo lucky guy. And, you know, I went to school and it's funnybecause I was always voted most likely to succeed in kindergarten,in grade school and junior high and high. And I was like, why dopeople always say that? I don't know. It was just a weird thing,even in dental school and. You know, we grew up really poor. Imean, I was one of five kids, I started working when I was fiveyears old. I had a job. I worked in in the in the yard forneighbors. I would go pick weeds. And then when I was old enough topush a lawnmower, I would pull weeds and do the lawn mower.
Dr. Bill: And then when I got alittle bit older, I got a job working at Ralph's, which is agrocery store. And then I worked as a janitor. My mother was anursery school teacher. And so I would go to school and I wouldwork as a janitor and clean the schools. And, you know, my parents,I would say we were rich, rich, rich in love, poor monetary things.And maybe that was good, you know? I mean, I literally supportedmyself. I mean, outside of buying food, all my clothes, everythingI wanted, I just I bought you know, it's funny because I have threedaughters and I almost feel like when they got into college, I gotinto college, too, because I was so active in helping them writetheir entrance stuff and did it. But my parents had no idea. Youknow, one day I got a letter, I'm like, Hey, Mom, Dad, I'm going toUCLA. They're like, Oh, that's great, sweetie. Then they'll clue,you know? I mean, it was just that's just how it was. I was theindependent kid. I just did my own thing. I remember. GraduatingUCLA, I got a call from the dean's office and I was awarded theoutstanding senior award, which is kind of a big deal, right?
Joe: Yeah.
Dr. Bill: So I call my folks and mymom, dad, I get on the phone, they're both on the phone. I'm like,you won't believe this. I said, well, I just got a call from thedean's office and I'm going to be the outstanding senior at UCLAgraduating class. My mother says, What's not to believe? A lot.They picked me, there's ten thousand students,
Joe: Right.
Dr. Bill: She goes, darling, do youreally think there's somebody better?
Joe: That's awesome.
Dr. Bill: I'm like, Mom, you're liketotally missing. My parents had no idea. And it was actually kindof funny, you know, and, you know, so, you know, I kind of wentthrough and I graduate UCLA. I finished that, you know, going toUCLA. And then I got in a dental school. My first choice is dental,which was a great school. It was a three year program. And as I wasentering my senior year, I realized, you know, I've never seen theworld or anything. Actually, I had never even really been on anairplane. And it's like I need to open up this practice and betethered to a specific area. Like I didn't want to do that. So Idid some research and I found a program in Switzerland that was theonly clinic literally in the world that wasn't a third worldcountry where an American dentist could work legally. Problem is,there were four hundred applicants and only one position, and I wasbound and determined to get that. So I had every professor in mydental school write me a letter of recommendation. And they wereamazing letters, you know. I know. I wrote them all I
Joe: That's
Dr. Bill: Mean,
Joe: Right.
Dr. Bill: Basically, I would say,can you write me a letter and they do I know I have to
Joe: Yeah.
Dr. Bill: Write another letter andthen say I'll write it if your personal lives. So I did that and Isoon realized that was getting me nowhere. So then I startedcalling the director of the clinic back in nineteen eighty three.This was not easy. We didn't have cell phones. You know, I, youknow, I couldn't make long distance phone calls from my dentalschool, you know, what am I getting like keep putting quarters likea lot of your millennialist. Don't you know that you actually usedto have to put money in a pay
Joe: Exactly,
Dr. Bill: Phone. Right.
Joe: I was there.
Dr. Bill: Right. So there is and youcan use a credit card and none of this. So I would have to time itat home. And and even then, it wasn't easy. A lot of times youcouldn't get through. It didn't work at the bank. I start callinghim and calling him and I tell kids and we'll talk about my leaveprogram a little later on, there will be life defining moments inyour life. Sometimes you plan on, sometimes you don't. Sometimesthey just happen. And this was one that I really didn't plan, butit was so fortuitous that it happened. And I'm on the phone withthe director. His name was Mr. Schreyer. And I said as I realized Iwas getting nowhere with these phone calls. Can I take you tolunch? Because I had heard somewhere that, like, you should takepeople to lunch
Joe: Yeah.
Dr. Bill: And the crazy thing is andhe said it, he goes, But you're in San Francisco and I'm inSwitzerland, I'm like, no problem, I'll fly there. Which is evencrazier because I was broke like I had no money. I couldn't evenafford, like the 30 cents to go on the bus every day of school.That's how broke I was. I would walk like two miles. And so he saidyes. And I figured out a way to borrow money. And I went toSwitzerland
Joe: Wait, but don't
Dr. Bill: And
Joe: Go past
Dr. Bill: I.
Joe: This point. Wait, I want toknow what you told your parents when you said I'm going toSwitzerland to take the head of the department at the dentalschool. Out to lunch. I want to know what your parents said tothat.
Dr. Bill: They thought it was agreat idea.
Joe: That's incredible.
Dr. Bill: Good luck. You know,
Joe: That's
Dr. Bill: I mean,
Joe: Awesome.
Dr. Bill: They had no clue. Soanyhow, I did it. There was a girl that I had been friends with mywhole life that, you know, I had kind of hoped that I would marryone day. That never happened. But we're still best friends. But Itook her with me and I figured if I got stuck on words, she wasvery talkative and she could help me out. But the two of us tookhim to lunch and he hired me.
Joe: That's
Dr. Bill: And
Joe: Incredible.
Dr. Bill: It literally changed mylife. I mean, I got an opportunity to live in Europe. For twoyears, I learned how to ski trip about salesmanship of the scandalto I'm completely fluent in French. I
Joe: Wow.
Dr. Bill: And I was really notgifted in languages in school. I mean, and I still I have a godsonin Switzerland. I mean and I still have very close friends there.So it was a great, great, great experience for me. And it reallygave me an opportunity to see the world. I came back to L.A. Ireally became enamored with cosmetic dentistry as opposed to justgeneral dentistry. And so I did something that we also teach Italy.It's called Kopi Genius. I realized that the last thing BeverlyHills needed was another cosmetic dentist. So I found the five mostsuccessful cosmetic dentists and I called all of them and I said,Can I come in Chattanooga? Shadowing wasn't even a thing back thenlike they were what do what
Joe: Yeah.
Dr. Bill: I'm like now coming towatch you. And I did. And, you know, there weren't a lot ofstudents at the time doing this, but they all five of them said thesame thing to me. You're really different. I think what they weresaying in a nice way is you're weird, but they're really different,you know, because students would come in and watch me do dentistry.And that's not what I did. What I did was I went in, I wanted tosee how they brought the patients in the intake forms, what theysaid to the patients, how they brought them back to the treatmentrooms, how they presented the treatment, and then how theyperformed the treatment, and then how they took the patient out ofthe room, how they collected money. I wanted to get paid and Ididn't know how to collect money from people working in dentalschool. They teach you how to drill teeth. And in the clinic inSwitzerland, I didn't have to deal with money. I just did the work.So I wanted to learn how a business ran and all that. And I satthere like a sponge in these offices. And my goal was to make anoffice better than theirs, to take the best of the best from all ofthese these guys and make a better dental office.
Dr. Bill: And within two years I didit. You know, I had the busiest and probably still have the busiestdental office in all of Beverly Hills because I copy Genius andthat's what I did on Instagram and Instagram became popular. Ididn't just do it. I hired a whole team. I'm only going to in theworld with a million followers on Instagram. You know, I didn'tjust do it. One of the things I teach, at least when you go go bigand that's what I do, if I'm going to do something, I commit and Ido it. So, you know, I started this dental practice soon afterthat, I started a company called Discus Dental where I inventedZoom. And we grew that company from zero to one point three dollarsbillion in sales. And I did it by hiring a great team. My bestfriend, Robert Heyman, was my business partner and he was a genius.And his father was Fred Hammond, who created Beverly Hills GiorgioCosmetics, two seven, three of all Fred.
Joe: Well.
Dr. Bill: So Robert grew up in thatindustry. So he knew marketing and manufacturing and advertising. Iknew dentistry and advertising. And together we built the largesttooth whitening company in the world. Zoom became Q to became thenumber one to fly new product in the world. And then we sold thatcompany to Phillips back in 2010. And since then, I've been thefeatured dentist on ABC's Extreme Makeover, CBS of Doctors New YorkTimes, best selling author, 20 Lifetime Achievement Award. ThreeChildren, two ex-wives. This Thrill Ride.
Joe: Incredible. So I have to askyou, and this is for the entrepreneurs in the audience, because thequestion that would come to my mind is you're fresh back in thestates from Switzerland and you decide that you're going to plantroots and probably one of the most expensive real estate areas inthe world. How do you start up a dental office in the heart ofBeverly Hills?
Dr. Bill: So I basically didn't putall my eggs in one basket, I grew up in Granada Hills, thedifference between Granada Hills and Beverly Hills is astronomical.The only commonality is the word Ilze. Right. But I didn't knowwhere I would usually drive more. I had the advantage holes of allthe people I grew up with living there and coming to me. But Iloved the allure of Beverly Hills. So I worked as an associate intwo different dental offices. So it didn't cost me anything. I wasa hired gun. I would go in and work and bring in patients. And Isoon realized that I loved cosmetic dentistry. I love the mentalityof people in a business area like centricity and, you know, and notso much kind of like family dentistry. And so I pretty much closeddown the office and Granada Hills worked in in Century City. Andthe plan was I was working with an older fellow to buy him out.Well, as soon as we started getting closer and closer to the buyoutdate, I think my enthusiasm became infectious. And he decided hedidn't want to quit anymore.
Joe: Oh.
Dr. Bill: And he was very sweet. Andhe said, you know, Bill, he said, you can do this by yourself. Hesaid, you don't need to buy my practice. I'm going to stay here,open up your own practice. You have enough pay. I had more patientsthan he did
Joe: Oh,
Dr. Bill: After
Joe: Wow.
Dr. Bill: Just two years. And so Idid. It was really fortuitous that the dentist right next door tous moved out of the building. And so there was a completelyfurnished dental suite. I didn't have to do any build out at all.All of the plumbing, the gas, the soft, everything was there. So Iwas really lucky. I moved into that suite is on the 11th floor, mybuilding, and the only thing I needed was all the dental equipment,the chairs and the
Joe: Mm
Dr. Bill: Lights
Joe: Hmm.
Dr. Bill: And this and then anotherstroke of luck. There was a dentist in our building who was four orfive flights above me who passed away. And there was a fullyfurnished dental office up there of all this equipment. And thebuilding didn't know what to do with it. And it was a mess. It wasa mess. So I went up there and and I had it evaluated and assessed.I was going to try and take out a loan or something. And theappraisal came in at close to seventy five thousand dollars for allthat. I had three thousand dollars in the bank at the time. I mean,that's it. And so I, I went and I spoke to the owner of ourbuilding and I said, listen, I've been up on in that suite and it'sit's a mess. I mean, and it was it was really disgusting and dirty.And I said, I will empty the suite. I will take all of theequipment, I will clean everything up and get it ready for you toread. And I'll give you three thousand dollars cash. And he said,fine.
Joe: Wow, that's
Dr. Bill: And
Joe: Chris.
Dr. Bill: I still I still have a lotof those instruments, and I this is 40 years I've been practicing.I have all the surgical like four extractions and I have all thatstuff still in my office with that doctor's name engraved in it.But that was how I really opened up my office. I had no budget. Ihad no ad budget. Like, I couldn't advertise, but I realizedsomething. And as an entrepreneur, I would say you need to sitback, look at your situation and really think outside the box. Andthis is what I did. I thought, OK, I'm in Century City. There is afive block radius of buildings around my office with 20000 thousandpeople coming to work every day. Right.
Joe: Hmm.
Dr. Bill: We know on average that 50percent of those people don't have a regular dentist. OK, so that'syou know, what was I'm sorry. It was fifty thousand people in thatarea. So that's twenty five thousand people don't have a regulardentist that work for me. Of those, twenty five thousand eightypercent of them work in companies with dental insurance so theydon't even have to pay anything. They just need to come in andbecause I'm so close, they can walk over, they wouldn't have todrive. So what I did is I hired five kids from Beverly Hills HighSchool, which is right next door to my dental office. And I made upthese flyers for I think I paid three hundred bucks and I had themput a flyer in every single office in Century City. Now, this wasway before 9/11, so there was no restrictions
Joe: Right.
Dr. Bill: You could go. And sobasically by doing that, the flyer gave people a great first timeoffering to my office. If they had dental insurance, it was free.And I got something like 80 patients the very first month. And ifwe continue to do that and so we were basically getting patients intwo ways, internal and external. Internal was taking the patientsthat came in, giving them the greatest dental experience we couldand asking them to refer friends and then externally going out andputting out more and more and more flyers and bringing in patients.The next month I got something like one hundred new patients. Andhonestly, since then I have probably had no less than 90 newpatients a month my entire career. And there were I mean, and theaverage dentist gets like 20. But I have never not been busy evenduring the pandemic. We've been busy. I'm busier now than I've beenin years because I always say I invented Zoom when people think Ithe video conference, what it was. But people are sitting on Zoomlooking at their smile,
Joe: Yeah.
Dr. Bill: Going, I'm not reallyhappy with that. I'm doing more cosmetic dentistry right now thanI've ever done in my life. It's it's a
Joe: That's
Dr. Bill: Boom.
Joe: Crazy. And when you said whenyou started your practice you were going to concentrate on cosmeticsurgery, so were all of these new patients coming in just forcosmetic stuff, not for cleanings, or were you doing
Dr. Bill: Well,
Joe: That also?
Dr. Bill: First of all, it wasn'tcosmetic surgery, it was cosmetic dentistry,
Joe: Ok.
Dr. Bill: But as a cosmetic dentist,yeah, we do regular dentistry too and do
Joe: At.
Dr. Bill: Fillings and crowns andcleanings and everything else that you need to do to maintain youroral care. But the focus of my of my practice, the thing thatreally differentiates me from most dentists is the fact that I do,you know, cosmetic dentistry. And I have a very high profileclientele for that.
Joe: Yep, so that's my nextquestion, you get right into it perfectly. How did you get
Dr. Bill: Ok.
Joe: Like with any entrepreneur?Obviously, if you provide a really great service, you're going toget talked about right. And automatically you're going to getknown. And like for my business, I have an entertainment bookingagency here in Scottsdale and Phoenix. Somebody writes to me, callsme. They have an answer. Within an hour or so, I'm known for myresponse time. And then the product I deliver is a very highproduct with you. How did you get that first step into a clientelethat you now have?
Dr. Bill: So there's a few things.First of all, you said something, you said you automatically get nowrong. You don't automatically
Joe: No,
Dr. Bill: Get
Joe: You
Dr. Bill: No.
Joe: Do it yourself, you write.
Dr. Bill: You know, it takeswork,
Joe: Yeah.
Dr. Bill: You know, I was reallyfortunate early on in my career, there's a woman that I went tohigh school with as very close. But if you came in and needed a lotof dental work and said, hey, do you want to barter what I got,even though the barter was
Joe: Yeah.
Dr. Bill: I was so naive when itcame to business. And then I said, well, what do you do? She goes,I'm a publicist. I'm like, I don't need one of those. She goes,Yeah, you do. I'm like, I don't even know what one was. So I don'tleap of faith. I thought, OK, fine, we'll barter and we'll do it.She was genius. I mean, she got me in magazines, journals. She gotme listed as the best dentist in L.A. in L.A. magazine, which washuge that, you know, she she was friends with the editor. She gotthe whole editorial staff to come in and be my patient. They lovedtheir experience. And so they ranted and raved about my practice.And those things started building up my practice. And, you know, Ican get more into the whole PR thing, but that was really a bigmindshift for me. I never thought as a dentist I would have like apublicist. I mean, and the crazy thing is today I'm probably thebest known dentist in the world. Go figure.
Joe: Yeah.
Dr. Bill: Right. But a lot of thingshappen. And, you know, I always tell kids when they come to leak,if there's only two concepts that you walk away from from thiswhole program, these are the two that I think are most important.Number one, don't wait for opportunities in life. Make them, youknow, I mean, if I meet another millennial who's sitting therewaiting for the universe to do something, I want to scream and pullmy hair out. Like the universe doesn't care about you at all. Youneed to care about you. And number two, when you get an opportunityin life, don't take it. M. it. There's a big difference
Joe: Yeah.
Dr. Bill: When ABC put me on ExtremeMakeover dentistry, great TV, not so good. You know, if I watch thefirst two episodes of that show, I literally stunk like they shouldhave fired me. But at least I was smart enough to know how bad Iwas. So instead of waiting to get fired, I was proactive. I tookacting classes, hosting classes, teleprompter in class. I hired thewoman who worked with all the kids on American Idol to sit downwith me and teach me how to do what we're doing right now. Tointerview, to talk. I mean, this was not natural for me. It wasn'tat all. But, you know, if you practice and you practice and youpractice, you get better at things. And there's a bigmisconception. We always think practice makes what?
Joe: Perfect.
Dr. Bill: Ron.
Joe: Right.
Dr. Bill: Practice makespermanent.
Joe: Yeah.
Dr. Bill: So with your practicingin, you're not getting the results you want, don't keep doing that,get a mentor, get a coach, hire somebody and learn how to do itright, because you need to practice it the right way. Right. Tomake it perfect. And
Joe: So.
Dr. Bill: So there was a lot oflearning for me. But, you know, at the end of the day, it paidoff.
Joe: Then would your grandmother sayyou look thin? Is that what she said? She looks.
Dr. Bill: The first time I was onTV, I said, Grandpa, this is a woman who never said anything bad toanybody. I said, Gramps, did you see me on TV? She goes, Of courseI did. I said, What do you think? She says? You look very
Joe: If
Dr. Bill: Skinny.
Joe: It's.
Dr. Bill: I'm like, But what do youthink about what I did? She goes, I'm telling you, you wereskinny.
Joe: I want to talk a lot about Lee,because even though you said, like, the universe doesn't care, I Ialso believe and I'm a big Dave Meltzer fan and he's sort of mymentor at this point that we get in our own way. And so there isabundance out there. And if we get out of the way and we just knowwhat we want and we ask for it and we act accordingly, things come.So this connection with you means a lot to me because of Lee.Before we get to that, do you want to talk a little bit about yourown podcast? Just because the lead part of it for me is huge and Ireally want to concentrate on that until our time runs out, so.
Dr. Bill: Well, I mean, the know theway that my podcast ties in the league is, Leape is a motivationalleadership program for high school and college students that we doevery summer. And it's always been at UCLA Live. Obviously, lastyear it was virtual. This year, I think we'll have probably onehundred students live and maybe ten thousand virtual.
Joe: Oh,
Dr. Bill: But
Joe: My gosh.
Dr. Bill: It's been amazing. And ifany of your listeners have kids or no kids, fifteen to twenty fivewill be July 18th to the twenty fourth. They could get moreinformation at w w w dot leap foundation dot com. We've had amazingspeakers Paula Abdul, Mark Wahlberg, Anthony Hopkins, Kathy Bates,Michael Strahan, Usher, Apollo Ohno, Jason Alexander. I mean, Icould go on and on and on. And these people come, they speak tothese kids and they they give them their pearls. They give themtheir words of wisdom to help these kids become successful. Andit's it's an amazing program. And, you know, I was always fearfulthat people would look at is like one and done like we have themfor a week. But by putting out content continuously, we're able tostay in touch with the kids and we have the students stay in touchwith each other. And so because I've been able to interview allthese amazing people, I started this podcast. It's called Meet theMentor. And every week I. I interview another person. A big part ofLeape is mentorship. The program culminates on Friday with a mentorworkshop where I bring in doctors and lawyers and firefighters andwriters and actors and actresses, you name it, and the kids get anopportunity to sit and talk to these people one on one and ask themabout their careers. And it's so valuable. And it's it's literallythe highlight of the week for these students. So I continue thatthroughout the year by doing this. Meet the Mentor podcast. How isit done? Crazy. I mean, we're number one in Yemen. We're number twoin Iceland, number three in Finland. And I think I'm ninety fourthin the category of forty seven thousand of these podcast in the US.And it's it's it's been phenomenal. And the purpose is twofold.One, to keep students engaged and keep, you know, exposing them todifferent mentors and to to expose parents and friends and familyto lead. And hopefully they'll send their kids to the program.
Joe: So how did this come about?What was the light bulb that went off for you to say? This reallyspeaks to me. I mean, I can imagine you are with all the thingsthat you've done, your super busy, and then then all of a suddenhave this light bulb go off and say, this is how this is. I want togive back and this is how I want to do it.
Dr. Bill: You know, I've always beenvery philanthropic and it's funny because I had this common themein my life where every time I've committed to do something purelyfor philanthropy, it's ended up becoming incredibly successful forme on a monetary basis with literally no hidden agenda. And I cangive you an example after example after example. The first onebeing discussed, you know, I was working at at the sports clubL.A., which is now an equinox. And a woman came up to me namedCynthia Hearn, who I didn't know and said, would you like to helpraise money for children's cancer research? Well, I wasn't wealthyby any stretch of the imagination, but how can you say no to that?Right.
Joe: Absolutely.
Dr. Bill: So I said, sure. You know,she said, you are a dentist. I said, yes. And she goes, and you'resingle, right? I'm like, Yeah, but this is weird. She goes, Well,we're doing a bachelor auction and
Joe: Oh,
Dr. Bill: We need 10 bachelors thatwe can auction off to a thousand women for this charity,
Joe: Oh.
Dr. Bill: To be honest with you.That was stupid and humiliating. But out of that, I met RobertHamit Robert Heyman with the other bats are standing in line besideme. By the way, Robert was over last night. We had dinner. Webecame instant. Best friends were brothers.
Joe: A
Dr. Bill: And
Joe: Simple.
Dr. Bill: Robert and I starteddiscus dental and we literally brewed that company zero to onepoint three billion dollars. And along the way we've raised overforty five million dollars for children's charities. I mean, a lotof really cool things. But I was exposed to lead through anotherprogram that was very much like it was a precursor to lead. Andthat program was a program for students where they brought mentorsin and they asked me to come as a mentor. And unfortunately, thefounder of that program passed away. And when you did, I thought,you know, I can make this a nonprofit and keep it going so thatthat's how I actually got introduced to Lee.
Joe: Wow, that's really interesting.So when did this start? By the way?
Dr. Bill: So LEEP has been goingthis summer would have been our 13th, so the fourth theme fleetwill come up this summer, but I've been doing the program prior toleave for probably 10 to 15 years before I started.
Joe: That's incredible. And whenthey go out to you said it's on the UCLA campus and where are theystaying in dorms, if they.
Dr. Bill: Right, so students comefrom all over the world. We get kids from Australia, from NewZealand, from Europe and Asia and Africa, you name it, it's like amini UN. It's really fun. And we get about five hundred kids. Theyall live in the dorms and we put on, you know, I think the bestprogram of its type in the world. And a lot of the success of theprogram is the community. I mean, I get amazing speakers and theydon't charge us. I mean, you couldn't afford to pay, you know,Anthony Hopkins, Mark Wahlberg. I think we'll get Katy Perry thisyear. I mean, I we couldn't pay, but when I when I talk to himabout the program and they see how much passion we put into this,they say, I'll do it, doc, I'll do it. And now with Zoom, it makeseverything so much easier because they don't even have to show upprior to the pandemic. If I had told kids. Oh yeah. Mark Wahlbergtold Zoom in maybe like and
Joe: Yeah.
Dr. Bill: Now it's like it doesn'tit's like live or Zoom. They're happy to see him.
Joe: That's incredible. It's justreally the reason this speaks to me is because I feel like in theworld that we're in and I'm I just turned fifty nine in February.So next year is a big year for me. And I think about all the timeand I don't want to say it was wasted or regret or anything, but Ithink about that we end up trying to repair ourselves as adults onthings that might not have happened. You had your life a littledifferent. You knew exactly what you wanted to do. You followedyour path that you're wired differently, your DNA, and you wereable to just literally do all of these things. And I'm sure you'vehad your struggles. So I'm not I'm not painting this picture of,you know, none of that. But it would be so nice to get to theseyoung minds early and explain that the world literally is youroyster. And you need to follow your. And sometimes I don't know.Right. So you say follow your heart. Sometimes they're confusedabout it. But I love the fact that you're getting to these youngminds earlier and you're helping them to understand things sooner.And that's why this program speaks to me so much. I think it'sincredible.
Dr. Bill: Well, I'll tell you what Ihave found empirically to be one of the most important factors inall of this. When I sit back and I say, you know, what am I mostthankful for, you know, from my parents now, they never bought me acar. They never gave me money. But you know what? They did give meconfidence. And confidence is currency, if you are a parent, thegreatest, greatest gift that you can give your kids is confidence.And the very first thing we do, at least when a kid walks in thatdoor and I open the program, I say to them, hey, when you woke upthis morning, whether you think you did this or not, you put anumber on your forehead once the lowest 10, Zayat said. How many ofyou did not put a 10 on your head? They raised their hand. I said,Who picked the number? You did have to take a test. No, did have todo anything. No, I said wipe it off and put a 10 on that. I said,from now on, I want you to walk like a ten top like a 10, act likea ten. But most importantly, surround yourself with other kids whoare tense because you're trying to be a 10 and everybody around youuse it to guess what, you become a two. So we give the kids thesepop soccer
Joe: It's also.
Dr. Bill: Support on their phoneten. And you might hear something super crazy. Joe, we sold discusdental on ten, ten,
Joe: Oh,
Dr. Bill: Ten
Joe: Well.
Dr. Bill: At 10 a.m. toPhilipps.
Joe: That's crazy.
Dr. Bill: I think about October10th, 2010, at nine a.m., the merger documents came on like this isyou can't write this stuff. I'm waiting till exactly ten o'clock sothat when I go to sleep in 2011, I could tell the kids what aperfect ten day looks like. And we I signed that paper and, youknow. It was an emotional moment for me. I always knew as against.I'd be comfortable, I had no idea. That I had the ability. To makethe kind of money I made when we sold my company, that was likefunny money to me, I didn't even think something like that couldhappen. I didn't grow up that way, you know? And, you know, and Ithank my lucky stars every day for for meeting Robert Haymond, forparticipating in that charity auction, for, I mean, all the thingsthat led up to that. Because I wouldn't I mean, you should seewhere I'm sitting right now. I'm I'm on the 30th floor of thisbeautiful condominium in in Century City. I wake up every morningthe happiest guy I know. And so, so grateful for everything. It'sit's really it's really been amazing.
Joe: Well, you know what? Good foryou. Well deserved. I can just tell by I do a little bit ofresearch up front for these. I want them to be somewhatspontaneous. But I when I went and looked at what I felt, I wantedto figure out more about who you are. I can tell I can tell fromjust how you look at the kids that are part of the program. Iwatched one of your talks to them, and I can tell it really it'ssuper important to you and and your generous and loving and givingback. And it just it's very, very cool. And I appreciate you.
Dr. Bill: Well, I think my my mymantra is. Learn so you can earn and then return. And I feel if youcan really accomplish those three things, you'll have a lot ofhappiness and and self satisfaction in life. So that's really whatI focus on.
Joe: I agree. Well, I literallycould talk with you forever. This is amazing. I'm honored that youcame on my podcast. What is the best way for someone to get myguests in touch with you in regards to what do you prefer? Andalso, the lead program has
Dr. Bill: Yeah,
Joe: The best.
Dr. Bill: I mean, believe it or not,I'm the only person I know with probably a million followers whoactually answered all of their demands. So Instagram, I don't dotick tock or even Facebook, but if you really want to reach me,it's super easy. It's Dr. Bill Dorfman, D.R Bilel Dorfmann onInstagram. I promise. I answer one hundred percent of my DBMS. Ifif you're interested in the program, please go to Sleep Foundationdot com. You can sign your kids up right now. And yeah, I thinkthat's.
Joe: Well, thank you so much, Iappreciate it. I look forward to to seeing more about what happenswith LEEP, and I definitely want to stay in contact with you. And Iwish you all the best.
Dr. Bill: Well, thank you.
