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An empowering dentist turned entrepreneur leads with love, defies expectations, and creates a positive work environment for her team as she strives to revolutionize age management and unlock the fountain of youth.

Do you desire to cultivate a thriving work atmosphere that uplifts your team and yields outstanding results? Join me as I welcome Neda Hovaizi, a renowned expert in empowering teams and creating an environment that fosters growth and positivity. Discover her groundbreaking approach to achieving unparalleled success and transforming your workplace into a hub of productivity and fulfillment.

My special guest is Neda Hovaizi

Neda Hovaizi, the founder of Lumi Aesthetics and Lumiere Dental, is a highly accomplished business owner and dentist. With a deep-rooted passion for dentistry, Neda’s journey began at a young age when she expressed her desire to become a dentist after her first dental appointment. This passion only grew stronger as she pursued internships and gained practical experience in the field. Neda’s commitment to ethical practice and exceptional patient care led her to start her own practices, where she has been able to provide top-notch dental services to her patients. But her dedication doesn’t stop there. Neda is also known for creating a positive work environment for her team, fostering their growth and empowering them to excel not only within the practice but also in their personal and professional lives. Neda’s success is a testament to her perseverance, expertise, and ability to build a thriving business while prioritizing the well-being of her team and patients.

We all have the ability to influence the world around us in a way that nobody else can. We are all unique and such a gift to this Earth. – Neda Hovaizi

Neda Hovaizi’s journey as a dentist and business owner.

Neda Hovaizi turned a major setback into a launching pad for her career. The firing from her job opened up new pathways for Neda, sparking the initiation of her own dental practice. Despite the lack of experience and funds, Neda’s determination combined with her visionary outlook helped her establish a successful dental practice, proving that resilience and a tenacious spirit are integral for entrepreneurial success.

The transformative power of dentistry and aesthetics.

Neda Hovaizi emphasizes the transformative potential of dentistry and aesthetics. She believes in viewing patients as holistic individuals, making an effort to create an empathetic and positive environment in her practice. Importantly, her work extends beyond dental care, exploring innovative age management techniques, reflecting her belief that beauty blossoms from within.

Importance of PR in expanding business reach.

The evolution of Neda Hovaizi’s business, from a dental practice to a med spa, highlights the power of public relations. She understands that building trust with her clients has played a pivotal role in the growth of her ventures. Moreover, Neda’s perspective reframes aesthetic procedures as acts of self-care, a concept that resonates with her clients and contributes to her business’s overall success story.

Connect with Neda:

Visit her website: https://www.lumieredentalspa.com/ and https://lumiaesthetics.com/
Follow her on Instagram and Linkedin

Transcription

Okay. I’m so thrilled to have Neda Hovaizi here today with me. She is the founder of Lumia Aesthetics and Lumiere Dental, and I’m so impressed by her. By you, nida, thank you so much for coming on here today. I can’t wait for people to get to know more about you.
00:01:02

Oh, thank you, Alessandra. And I have to say the feeling is mutual. From the first day I met you, you’re so magnetic. I didn’t even know what you know, meeting you in the kids drop off line at school and just your energy is so magnetic. You’re a beautiful person inside and out, and I feel lucky to be here with you.
00:01:22

Oh my God, thank you so much. That’s the nicest intro anybody has ever done on this podcast. Thank you. Yeah, no, and I feel exactly the same way. So I’m so excited to get to share you with more of the world, share you with our listeners, and I am so impressed by, as I said, two different businesses plus everything else you do, but I just literally don’t know how you do it all.
00:01:49

So I want to just get to dive into more and share with everyone. So yeah, I usually just let people start off by telling, how did you start the business? Kind of going from what was your background? And since you have two, I know we might have to dive into it a little differently, but take us through the beginning of getting going. Yeah, absolutely.
00:02:10

I knew just like, starting off at four years old when I went to the dentist for the very first time, that something about that was so attractive to me. I don’t know, I mean, I probably met the dentist for 5 seconds, but I remember that memory so vividly. I remember walking out of the appointment with my mom. I remember the parking lot, we were walking with the car, and I just was like, mom, I’m going to be a dentist when I grow up. And she was like, okay, wacko four year old, that’s impossible.
00:02:43

What did you like about the dentist? But I think what it was is they had the fish. They were all nice to me. I felt like the center of attention. There was some kind of performance going on for me, and I really enjoyed that.
00:02:57

And so that’s really where the passion she’s going to want to be a truck driver next time she sees a truck, or a motorcycle driver when she sees a motorcycle. But it really blossomed as I went in through high school, and I did an internship with a pediatric dentist who was actually one of my neighbors, and I used to babysit her daughter, and it really blossomed from there. And I think watching her being a badass businesswoman really made me kind of believe that that’s something that I could do as well. And I say this story a lot of times, and I’m sure it’s the same for you as well. When we have an example of something in our lives, it just kind of becomes truth for us.
00:03:44

Both my parents have their PhDs, and so growing up, I never thought there was an option to be anything but a doctor of something. When I was much younger, I remember people would ask, like, oh, are you going to go to college? I thought, what do you mean, is there an option? I thought, everybody becomes a doctor of something. Seeing her do her business and just, like, looking up to her so much, I just thought, okay, so that’s what I’m going to do.
00:04:12

And it just became kind of like, I know I’m going to be a business owner. I know I’m going to be a dentist. It all kind of happened. It rolled really easily. The opportunities would come up, and I would take them, and I wish I could say I was, like, planned it out, but I didn’t.
00:04:30

I was working in a dental office when I was right straight out of dental school in Boston, because I just got married.
00:04:41

I got married right after I graduated dental school, and so I moved to Boston from Virginia, and I didn’t know anybody. Like, this wasn’t my network. It was really hard right out of school to find a good job, and I really did. I landed this really toity job in the middle of Boston in the financial district, and I had these hoity toity patients, but unfortunately, the owner of that office, it was like a facade, almost like it was beautiful on the outside, like, the equipment and the assistants and everybody was beautiful. The patients were beautiful, but the way it was managed was very manipulative, not only to the staff, but also to the patients.
00:05:22

It was a business.
00:05:25

It wasn’t a medical practice where you feel comfortable and taken care of. And so I really got thrust into practice ownership a lot earlier than I would have wanted to because I couldn’t align myself ethically, mentally, physically, emotionally with what was going on there. And I butthead so much with the owners, and I’m a totally anti conflict type person, and it just was like this innate kind of drive that, okay, maybe I thought I would start a practice five years in. I’m going to start a practice nine months in, and I bought a practice literally. Yeah.
00:06:07

Nine months after I started working there, I left and I bought a practice, and I never looked back. That’s so amazing. I feel like I didn’t realize it was quite so soon. I feel like that we have a lot of similarities with starting our business there too, except for the fact that you knew you wanted to be a dentist from the time you were small. I didn’t know that, but I also feel like I never really knew I wanted to even be a business owner, but it was out of necessity for me too, and it was so quick.
00:06:38

I started my business like, a year after college because I was in situations where I was like, I don’t love this. This isn’t the kind of company I want to work for. Why don’t I just do it myself? But I feel like there aren’t that many people I’ve talked to who have that story, so that’s really interesting. Well, I think we have so much in common.
00:06:55

I feel like we even look alike. I look at you, I saw some pictures. I had to take a double take. I was like, oh, that’s me. No, it’s Alessandra.
00:07:02

Well, I take that as a huge compliment because I think you’re gorgeous and you always look so yeah, no, I do feel like we have a lot in common. Oh, my gosh. But dentistry? I can’t compare that to PR. I feel like there’s so much more that goes into becoming a dentist, and that is, like, commitment.
00:07:26

That is a lot of school, that is a lot of training, and a lot of working with people in a very intimate way. Well, thank you for pointing those things out. I think when you get used to something and you take for granted all the skills that you’ve learned along the way, it just kind of becomes, like, part of who you are. And sometimes I do have to step back and think, wow, the innate kind of qualities of my personality really line up so well with being a good dentist. But then there’s a lot of things that I had to learn along the way.
00:07:59

I am a firm believer in not comparing, so I think being PR is badass. It’s something I don’t know how to I say this all the time too. I work really hard in my businesses. I put 110% for my staff, my patients. I think once patients come into my practice, it’s very evident to them.
00:08:18

And once people start working for me, it’s very evident to them that I don’t just want them to work for me. I want them to grow within our company and even beyond our company. I’ve always been a supporter of that. But I don’t do a good job telling people about this. Nobody really knows until they happen upon me or happen upon one of my practices.

And it kind of takes me back to this story. My dad said when I really was like, I really want to be a dentist, and he was like, Netta, you can’t change the world one tooth at a time. How many teeth do you have to fix to change the world or change somebody’s life? And at the time, he probably had had a couple of fillings, so he just thought it was like an unpleasant experience. He never needed a full mouth reconstruction.
00:10:45

He didn’t have the experience of a parent needing dentures or something. So he, I guess, also didn’t understand the gravity of what a dentist can do for somebody when they need that. But I think that always stuck in my mind, that I have this capability to change the world. We all do. We’re all born with this ability to influence the world around us in a way that nobody else can.
00:11:10

And we’re all so unique and such a gift to this earth. Sometimes I tell him, I’m like, dad, you really messed me up, because I feel like I have this grand mission and reason for being here, and because I’m not fulfilling it, I feel like a failure. And he’s like, no, that’s not what I meant when I said that I think PR is so valuable because it doesn’t matter how much you work inside a practice and do beautiful things, but if you can’t take that to the masses, if you can’t bring your gift to more people, well, you’re kind of, like, not fully fulfilled. I totally get that and appreciate that. And I also just want to make I know you know this and this is what you want to tell your dad, but what you guys do to fix somebody’s teeth and smile is changing their life, right?
00:12:13

I mean, that’s what kind of you’re getting at too, right? That can be life changing for people when they have whatever, something that’s holding them back because of their teeth, right? So it’s life changing to them. And I’m sure over the years now, you’ve changed hundreds of lives, thousands. I don’t know, probably so many.
00:12:31

Well, thank you for saying that, because it tickles my heart even when you say that. It brings up all these emotions for me because it’s not only dentistry, but it’s also in aesthetics. I’ve been doing dentistry now for 13 years as a dentist. I worked in dentistry for many years before then as an assistant, but through high school and in college. But as a dentist, it’s been 13 years, and in aesthetics, it’s been ten, like Botox and Fillers and other aesthetic treatments.
00:13:02

And when you really work with people on confidence and treatments that affect confidence, you recognize that it’s not so much doesn’t start from the outside, it really does start from the inside. And that’s where I feel like, how do you see my secret sauce comes from is that I have this ability to inspire people from the inside. And so, yes, I can fix their teeth. Yes, I can put their cheeks back where they used to be, but I can also spark within them the fact that that’s not where their value comes from. Their value comes from within.
00:13:38

And, yeah, we can put bells and whistles on it, but if we don’t fix what’s inside, if we don’t align what’s inside, no matter what I do on the outside, it’s not going to give them that fulfillment. Too. So I just feel so blessed that I have the ability to do that. So many people trust me to do that, and I do think I’m changing the world, and I do. I mean, my dad is so proud of me.
00:13:58

He’s going to be so embarrassed when he listens to this, and he’s like, that’s not what I meant, Nada. But I’m glad it inspired this. Yeah, no, I think true, it’s like, also you can go to and I want to go back to because I’m so curious how you went from going to I’m just going to buy my own practice and start this on my own. But I love this kind of conversation. I want to come back here more, too.
00:14:19

But, yeah, I think that a lot of people go through life as you’re kind of saying too, with little things that maybe hold them back, and they don’t realize that. I think that finding someone that they trust, that’s what I feel like. I feel like what you are is, like, someone who’s like I could come to you and be like, there are these things, and it’s holding me back. Some of it’s internal, some of it’s external. And you have to really have someone that you trust who can help you with those things and that you trust to help bring out the best in you internally or externally.
00:14:57

And being able to find that person, or being able to trust someone to be like. Because I feel like most people don’t know necessarily exactly what it is. It’s like, maybe there’s something with my teeth that I don’t love, but I would have no idea how to fix it or probably even how to articulate what I don’t love, or same thing with the aesthetics. I wouldn’t really know really where to start. And so knowing that I could trust you to be like, I want to have this be my outcome, and I bet you just lead people through that in such a good way.
00:15:34

You’re saying that too. I do think that’s one thing that sets us apart in both practices, but specifically in aesthetics, there’s no insurance portion. So a lot of times patients are coming based on word of mouth and other people’s experiences. And that’s one thing that they do say. They say, I never feel like you’re selling me anything.
00:15:58

I feel like you’re my partner in this journey. And that is definitely my mission. That is definitely the feeling I want patients to have. Because it’s the truth. Quotable Media Co is my labor of love.
00:16:09

It’s my passion project. We can go into more detail. I grew up not feeling beautiful because I was a Middle Eastern girl with a mustache and hairy legs in Virginia and acne. And I just didn’t feel beautiful. I felt very much unlovable by the general American public.
00:16:34

We moved to Virginia when I was twelve, and I remember going to middle school my first day, and I could hear the kids in the corner say, is that a boy or a girl? Because I had like, a mustache. It wasn’t a mustache, but it was like I’m sure you know what I mean. Believe me, I know exactly what you mean. As an Italian Jewish girl, I know exactly what you mean.
00:16:58

And I just want to say for the record, because we are recording this on video, but most people will probably listen on audio. It’s a podcast, of course. I just want everybody to see you. I wish everyone who’s listening now could see Nada right now. Because literally, probably one of the most gorgeous people you’ve ever seen.
00:17:15

I’m not even just saying that. So gorgeous. And always looks you always look totally beautiful. And I’ve seen you when you’re not all put together and just literally just naturally beautiful. So I just need to stick that in there for anyone who’s listening.
00:17:32

But I know we all have those stages, especially when we’re young, too. And I know that’s also high school can be an awkward stage. And so I’m not at all minimizing the experience that you had as a child, but I just need to point out that you are beautiful. Anyone who’s listening. Thank you, Alessandra.
00:17:50

You’re very kind. And I believe that we have the ability to transform our external energy when we are feeling whole and aligned with ourselves. And I’ve been through a journey. I mean, I’m so grateful for feeling unbeautiful when I was in middle school because it sparked this whole journey of helping other people feel beautiful and recognizing it’s not the mustache that didn’t make me feel beautiful. That was just a side effect.
00:18:21

It was really that my internal confidence when they said that about my mustache, I believed them. It wasn’t that it was my mustache. It was my belief in somebody else’s opinion of me being superior than my own opinion and being more valid than my own opinion. And so my gift from that was that I learned that that’s not true. And I determine my value, I determine the energy I put out.
00:18:49

I determine what’s beautiful for me. And to be able to help others recognize that, to light that fire in their hearts, it’s what keeps me going. It’s the gift to me. I don’t even have words to explain how lucky I feel to get to do this on a daily basis. And now getting to talk about it with you, it just feels like a dream come true.
00:19:14

Oh my God. Amazing. Well, yeah, no, and I think you’re lucky in having figured some of that out too. Like when you were younger, or at least like before now, because I think it’s something that women struggle with all the time and people struggle with into adulthood and beyond. And I can tell.
00:19:36

I’m sure you still struggle with certain things related all the time. It’s maybe not something you ever fully, I don’t even know, conquer or whatever, but the fact that you were able to kind of go through that and then also use it to figure out how to okay, let me actually help other people with this, especially if they’re already adults or later in life and still struggling with these confidence issues or not feeling like they’re living out exactly who they could or should or want to be. So I think that’s really special that you’ve been able to do that and to create two businesses that both kind of like, help with that. So that’s incredible. Just to go back to what you said about it still coming up, I think what happens is any muscle that you continue to use, you strengthen it.
00:20:25

And it’s almost like I see those feelings coming up, and I’m like, oh, let me nip that in the bud. I see me questioning myself or I see myself believing somebody else’s opinion over mine or the world’s or the society’s opinion of women or whatever. The issue is being a mother, whatever the issue is, and I’m able to catch it faster, and I kind of call myself out on it, and I’m able to move forward from it a lot more easily. So, yeah, I mean, it’s not like, oh, you’re healed right now, you’re fine. No, it’s just you learn coping and processing techniques, and that’s so much of what this is.
00:21:06

It’s continuing to grow and continuing to learn from each and every experience that comes up. Yeah. And I feel like part of that, too, is as a business owner, too, I feel like there’s so much personal and professional development and growth that we go through that I don’t know, maybe this is a weird thing. To say, but I feel like not your average person doesn’t maybe necessarily do all of that, go through all of that in such an intentional way. Because I feel like as business owners, especially, I know a lot of the people that I hang around with, we do a lot more professional development than other people because we are so personally invested in our business and our professional growth, because it’s so personal to us.
00:21:47

And then what ends up happening, I feel like, is that naturally we get really invested also and interested in just any kind of personal growth too, because, again, it’s so connected and becomes part of what our business life is, too. So I feel like those circles tend to be very kind of aware, self aware, and intentional about the ways that we do things and the ways that we just intentional about life in a way that a lot of people aren’t necessarily. So it gives a whole different level of awareness and that then you can like I feel like with you especially, you could then bring to your clients and the people that you work with and stuff, too, because that’s just who you are now. And yeah, you can just bring that to everyone else. Oh, absolutely.
00:22:35

And I think what you’re saying is so true. The energy we put out, we attract. So I think we’re obviously always surrounding ourselves with people who are like minded, whether it’s intentional or not. I do think because I’m in a dental environment and people come to me to fix cavities and broken teeth and replace missing teeth, I see an array of people, an array of business owners. And I think what you’re saying is very true, but I think it’s about this community that we have kind of created.
00:23:09

I certainly think there are people outside of that, so there are still certainly business owners who are not. And you recognize it a lot faster. And sometimes even people in your own family are not open to hearing those things, but when they are, it’s kind of like fireworks go off. It’s like, well, my husband has a conversation with me about things that are spiritual, emotional, personal development. It’s like no other turn on is bigger than that, I’m like, oh, my God.
00:23:40

Personal development. I know. I love it. One of the things that I love, too, is that I feel like we should touch on is I feel like you bring that all to the people that work with you, too. As an owner of two businesses, and these are businesses that require staff, you have teams which I want to also ask you more about.
00:24:00

There’s so many things I still want to ask you about because I feel like there’s so much to it all. But one of the things that I love, too, is when I see just what you guys share on social media and stuff, your team loves working with you. They love working at both of your locations. It just seems like such a fun place to work. I feel like you’re bringing all that energy and all that, just like it probably also comes from what you said at that first place that you worked, where it was just, like, not a great environment.
00:24:28

And so obviously you’ve been really intentional about that too, but you’re bringing it to your teams, to your staff, and making sure that they’re having a great place to work. And I imagine I just am assuming I just feel like you’re really supportive in their development, too. What goes with all of that? Yeah, certainly that’s my intention. And I think, like any business owner or mother or friend, sometimes your intentions are there, but you aren’t able to deliver on them always.
00:25:01

And it’s always a process, and each opportunity for growth is good, and I see it that way. I do have an incredible staff, and I would say the culture of our practices is that we call ourselves the Lumi family. When patients come to us, we say, welcome to the Lumi family. It’s not just a catchphrase. It’s something we really feel and try to make sure that energy is there every day.
00:25:27

Of course we’re human. Sometimes we’re in a bad mood. Sometimes we got up on the wrong side of the bed. But really, that’s the overall energy is that I had such a hard time coming out of, like, at the end of the day, at that first dental practice I worked in, I felt like I would have to fight. To feel good coming out of the office.
00:25:49

And I would have to fight to hold on to my ethics and to feel like I did good. And it was just this constant battle either between me and the owner or the manager or just the systems that were in place. And I vowed that if I were to ever have my own place, it wouldn’t be that way. You would leave the door feeling proud of yourself, feeling like I touched other people’s lives in a positive way. And quite frankly, when I first started, it was equivalent to a lot of free dental work, because I felt like, oh, I’m going to help this person who doesn’t have money for this.
00:26:26

And I was, like, running myself dry. So understanding where your value comes from, and even though you’re charging for a procedure that might be expensive for that person, that value is there, and your value is there just by discounting. It doesn’t mean you’re helping somebody. So that’s a conversation for another day and self value and all that stuff. But, yeah, that was a theme and a goal and a mission that I’ve had for my business is that my staff feels good when they put their head down on the pillow to sleep.
00:27:01

They feel like they’re part of a team that’s helped people, that has positively influenced the people that have come into their network, into their circle. And I think for the most part, I’ve succeeded on that. But again, like we said, it’s daily. You have to always remind each other. You have to set your standards.

And you’re doing it with two different businesses, too, so it’s like extra, I imagine. But wait, tell me. I love that we’ve gotten to talk about all of these things, but I still have questions for anyone who’s wondering. I do want to go back a little bit more, too, about how you went from, okay, I need to start my own place. Just tell us a little bit more.
00:28:53

So I think you said you bought a practice. What exactly happened to be like, I’m opening my own dentist office? So I got into an argument with the owner of the practice over something stupid. I thought I was just showing him how passionate I was about patient care and advocacy and growing his practice in an ethical way. And I got an.
00:29:21

Email at 04:00 a.m. That next morning to not show up to the office. Oh, my god. And I was devastated, because I’d never been fired before. I always thought I was a hard worker.
00:29:35

Everything I did came from a place of love, but I did I did stand up to him and butt heads with him a lot. And I think he probably thought, let me just cut my losses here, and I say this a lot of times again.
00:29:53

I’ve learned to see the world with the glasses of well, that’s not probably how I want to say it. I’ve learned to see the world with the perspective that it’s all a gift. And that was one of the biggest gifts, because it forced me into hitting the ground running. And really, I mean, I had already been looking at practices to buy, and I had been interviewing at different dental offices, and honestly, it was just one office after another. Worst, worse, worse, worse.
00:30:26

How quick can you do a filling? How many fillings can you do in an hour? How many root canals crown? I was like, what are you like, this is not how you’re supposed to interview a dentist. And so I had gone onto craigslist, and I had googled like, craigslist searched dental office for sale, and I found one in quincy, and I was less than a year out of dental school, and I was really my husband was a resident at brigham in anesthesiology.
00:30:59

We had no money. We had nothing. And I didn’t want to ask my parents, after paying all this money for school, to then also buy me a practice. And so I went to see the office, actually, with my assistant at the time, and she was like, nutta, you could turn this place around. And I was like, I don’t know, maybe.
00:31:18

And I didn’t have the guts to pull the trigger, and he fired me, and it was like, bam, here was my gift. Oh, my god. Right after you’d seen the space, and it was available, it was still for sale. I mean, I think that that was the only place they were marketing the practice was on craigslist. And I don’t think, know, experienced or legitimate dentist looking practice would have been searching on craigslist.
00:31:47

So I think it was like, really? I was lucky because they were inexperienced in selling a practice. I was inexperienced in buying a practice, and we just kind of fell into each other’s arms, and there was no way that I could have practiced in that practice the way it was, but it was a shell of a practice. I asked for them to not leave any of their employees. I knew I needed to start from scratch.
00:32:12

I knew I had to renovate the space. I knew that the patient base was not the patient base, that my goal was. But nine months out of school with really no nest egg to back me up it was the best option. And my husband, I will say, has always been so supportive, my whole family. But my husband specifically said, well, worst comes to worst, you lose the money we invested in it.
00:32:40

Worst comes to worse. And I was like, okay. But he also probably knew you were never going to let that happen. I have a feeling. Well, we were really early in our marriage.
00:32:50

We got married. It was like a year and a half into marriage, and he believed in me. But he also said, worse comes to worst, we lose what we invested in it, and that’s fine. You tried something, and it didn’t work out. I mean, I definitely think I’m a more positive thinker, and he’s more of like a doomsday thinker, but combination is a good combination.
00:33:14

But yeah. So he fired me. I bought the practice two months later. It was supposed to be on my 27th birthday. Wow.
00:33:27

Something happened with the closing papers, and we ended up closing the day after. But it was my gift to myself on my 27th birthday. Yeah. So a lot of people say that, like, oh, my God, you were so young. And I was.
00:33:39

And it was such a gift because I’ve had time to really hone my experience, hone how to manage people. And I would say the toughest part of practice ownership, business ownership, is certainly managing people. You touched on this earlier, having a team, and it’s not just managing what they do at work, but it’s also they’re a whole person. The same way as a patient that comes to see you is not just the teeth or not just the lips that you’re going to enhance. It’s the whole patient.
00:34:08

It’s understanding that you become a community that spends more time with each other than a lot of times they spend at home with their spouse or their children, and recognizing very early on that I wanted it to be a good experience. And it was hard for me. I was younger than a lot of my staff at the very beginning. And growing up in a family, I’m sure you have this experience, too, where you respect your elders, you listen to your elders, you don’t question your elders. It was really hard for me to ask people to do things for me because I said so, because I have a vision that’s grander than perhaps you understand.
00:34:54

These are concepts that I learned later. But from the very beginning, I knew that I had to lead with love. I knew that was the difference that I wanted to have compared to the practice that I worked in when I first graduated. I knew I wanted to lead with love, and for that to be felt all across not only the staff, but the patients. And that is one of our main reviews.
00:35:15

That happens all the time. I don’t want to come to the dentist, but I want to come hang out with you guys. I love the energy here, and that’s such a compliment to us, such an honor. That sounds like the most amazing thing you could ask somebody ever, no matter what your business is. But especially something like dentistry, where people often don’t love actually having it done, to be like, I just want to be able to come there to hang out with you guys, and I’m willing to also have a dental procedure done in order to do that.
00:35:48

I was going to say when you said you were only 27 and the people working for you were even older than you, I think what people say that to me a lot. They’re like, how have you done all of this already? Kind of thing. And it’s kind of like, Well, I just started young, so by now I’ve had a lot of time. As you said, you kind of essentially figured out a lot of these things along the way.
00:36:14

It’s kind of like you were doing it from the beginning just because you kind of intuited what needed to be done and how to create the spaces and the experiences that you wanted, and then you kind of learned more about what that actually is over time, why and how you’re doing it and why it’s working. But, yeah, part of it is just from taking the leap when you’re young and then having a lot of time to let things marinate more or expand more or just kind of come together stronger because you’ve had now all of this time to hone it. Hone it. Not just hone your craft, but hone your team, build your team, how things work, how everything comes together. And there’s something to be said for that.
00:36:57

So I always like to kind of point that out too, because if anyone is younger listening, yeah, some people are like, who are you to have a dental practice when you’re 27? People are like, who are you to start a PR company when you’re 23? Or whatever. But it’s like, why not? And now everyone’s like, oh, how have you done so much at your age?
00:37:18

And that’s how it’s by just starting, just trying, just going for it when you had the opportunity. And yeah, I don’t know. I think that’s just really cool. So I love that. I’m going to speak for myself, obviously, but I do think there’s something about being naive and innocent that you can take that leap a lot more easily.
00:37:39

I didn’t have any kids. I didn’t own any property. I just was out of school. I had a husband that was in school. We didn’t really have a lot of responsibilities outside of each other and school loans for me, obviously, but it just was kind of like I didn’t think about it too much.
00:38:01

And I think that that’s a gift of being naive. And we always talk about your inner child and how children, when you have children, you’re forced to kind of see the world through their eyes. And that’s such a gift because it reminds you of what’s important and what’s not so much important. And I think I have to remind myself to see my businesses through the eyes of an immature entrepreneur because there’s so much excitement, there’s so much kind of hope and belief. I’m sure you feel this too.
00:38:37

You get into the routines, you have your protocols, you have your processes, you have your home, your children, the after school activities. I mean, it can become mundane, and you can forget why you did it all to begin with. And that spark. And I think so much of our job is to kindle that flame and make sure that we keep cultivating it and remembering why we got into it. I think that’s a lot of times what you said, like, why we delve so much into personal growth.
00:39:14

Because if we want to continue being happy and feeling fulfilled and growing, we need to do that within the kind of guidelines of personal growth. Like, we’re forced to have personal growth if we want to continue to feel inspired and fulfilled. I mean, I think that’s a huge part of who I’m becoming is recognizing that I am not my achievements, yes, they’re great and to be celebrated, but they’re not what define me. They’re not what makes me special. That was innate to me starting off.
00:39:52

I’m so proud of myself for being able to hone my capabilities and be able to bring my energy to multiple people, and now through trying to have more of a voice to even more people. But that’s not what makes me special, and that’s not what makes our patients special. It’s innate to humanity that we’re special. Yes, I love that. Well, maybe that’s a good segue.
00:40:19

And not that we can’t still talk about some other stuff, but I did want to ask what else? Not that you need to or should be doing anything else, but I know you, and I know that there’s more that you’re like I know there’s always going to be something more, whatever, over time, but I also know you’re working on some other stuff. Well, first of all, anything coming up with either the businesses that we’ve talked about so far about with the aesthetics practice or the dental spot, any kind of like next steps or anything new coming up with them, but also just personally, like, what else you’re working on and planning to do in the next couple of months, years, whatever. However far out you’re thinking. I don’t know how far out you’re dreaming.
00:41:04

Yeah, well, dreaming is so special, and I think it does take us back to childhood and how playing make believe. I feel like dreaming for an adult is kind of like playing make believe as a child. And it’s so fun and it’s so inspiring. Kind of like the immature entrepreneur that sees hope and excitement. I think that’s dreaming brings me hope and excitement too and I love that.
00:41:36

I love celebrating where I am right now and also dreaming and scheming about where I’m going. So thank you for asking that. And I do the word I recommend to everybody to dream and scheme. Like take time, you know, maybe not every day but like every week or if you have time every day to just really envision those dreams because they do become reality when you believe that they will. And that’s been really fun for me.
00:42:04

So I will talk about a little bit of some exciting things at Quotable Media Co because I am really passionate about it. I do think going along with kind of our mission, which is external beauty comes from within and really when your inner light shines through alongside that, we are really on the cutting edge of where age management and beauty management comes in and really being able to understand how the body is functioning and doing testing to really understand what our bodies are lacking over time and over really evolution. Our bodies weren’t meant to live as long as they are now. You hear it all the time. 50 is the new 40, 60 is the new 50 and sometimes certain parts of us are accelerating where other parts of us are not catching up and so you hear a lot these days.
00:43:03

I’m so exhausted, I feel overwhelmed. I want to go out to these parties and do all these things but I don’t have the energy for it. And really understanding what that is internally has been the next steps with our Med spa and we’re really excited to roll out our new program because it is partially psychological, it’s partially physiological and we are really getting into how we can help kind of what’s the word? I’m trying to say it nicely so that it’s understandable and doesn’t sound like I’m saying a lot of medical gibberish. We want to help influence our bodies in a way that we can combat aging before it happens.
00:44:04

And there are lots of ways to do that with really I hate to use the word manipulate, but we are manipulating the way that our body breaks down or doesn’t break down using natural peptides, understanding our hormones supplementation. But it’s all medically driven with blood tests and physicians and really tailoring kind of an aesthetic beauty antiaging plan that goes along with our patients wants and their desires and certainly not what we want and what we desire, but their idea of beauty, their idea of where they want to go with their libido, with their skin care, with their energy. I mean, all these things. I’m just really excited to be able to roll this out because nobody’s really doing it yet in our area and the possibilities are endless for our patients and it goes along with the mission that we have to be a part of positively influencing our patients lives and not only the longevity, but the quality of life. Because it’s not just about how can we live longer, but how can we be our best selves for longer infinitely.
00:45:23

Sounds like medspot of the future. That literally sounds like probably where the future is going. I’m really intrigued by that. And also how about life changing these things that are going to help us be able to keep living our best life into our 60s or whatever. That’s pretty incredible.
00:45:44

Yeah, I mean, it’s not sexy to say age management, but really it is kind of like managing the breakdown of our bodies, like preventing that from happening. And you’re right, it is the fountain of youth. But really with our overall mission of fountain of you, which is you are the source of your beauty and really understanding you both on a physiological and psychological and external way, we are able to really tailor the best protocols and treatment plans for our patients and we feel like we’re partnering with them. And again, I’m a dentist. I’m not doing these things.
00:46:32

It’s my vision. But we have nurse practitioners, we have RNS, we have estheticians, we have physicians. These are people who are tailoring these treatment plans. But I feel proud to say that I’m leading this ship in this direction because I know it’s what I would want and it all goes back on.
00:46:56

I don’t want to be somebody who influences others to change who they are. Rather, I want to inspire them to love who they are right here, right now and work on how we can be the best version of ourselves for longer. Yeah. Oh my God, I love that. I feel like we should just end right here.
00:47:14

But I also don’t want I feel like that’s such a good place to end. We’re going to make that into a quote, but no, I love that and I love that it’s like it’s your vision. You’re staring the ship again and you’re also creating the space and the opportunity for the right team to come together and offer this to your clients and your patients and stuff, which is amazing. And also I just realized we didn’t even for a little continuity of the story, we didn’t even really touch on how you ended up also owning a med spa. So maybe you go back to I.
00:47:46

Know, I’m so long, I’m sorry. No, I love it. And I’m also the same way and I’m like I want to hear the whole I’m just so nosy. I want to hear all the details. I want to know exactly how you have done this.
00:47:58

But then also I love all the other actually diving into I feel like you’ve given us so much about what it’s like to be a business owner and what it’s like to be you and the actual thought and intention and care that’s gone into everything you’ve created. And I feel like you’ve shared so much in such a powerful way, and I’m almost like, I don’t even want to make you go back and tell us more of the nitty gritty of the story. But I also do want to.
00:48:24

Mean it’s. It’s kind of fun. I when I was in dental school, there was an oral surgeon who did only aesthetics, and he was fabulous. Dr. Nyam, too.
00:48:35

He used to always call me kim kardashian, which, like, oh, my god, would make me so happy. But he would offer to the dental students to come in and observe any of his courses that he would offer to other surgeons, not just oral surgeons, but different surgeons who wanted to get into more aesthetics. And so I would go all the like, I was first on the list always, and I got to know the staff and everybody, and I knew that I wanted to do aesthetics. But when I got married to cyrus and I moved to massachusetts from virginia, dentists were not allowed to do any kind of botox and fillers, and it was clear to me I just wanted to do minimally invasive. Just I love crowns and veneers and doing regular dentistry.
00:49:21

I knew I didn’t want to do oral surgery, which is a fabulous field. I think women in it are badass, and I’m so impressed by what they do. I just knew it wasn’t I didn’t want to go that far into more invasive procedures. I really loved the minimally invasive procedures where I could actually speak with patients and influence the way they’re thinking about their beauty and their internal and external expression of it. But, yeah, so when I moved to massachusetts in 2010, there was no opportunity for me to do that because of the legal part of it.
00:50:01

And so in 2013, when they did change that, I was, like, again, first in line to go get trained on. They had certain trainings that were approved. So I went, and I did, like, two or three right back to back and started doing botox and fillers in my dental practice with patients who already knew, liked, and trusted me, and they knew I would take care of them, like I would take care of family member. And yeah, it really kind of sparked from there because a lot of women loved not having to tell their husbands where they were going, what they were doing. Like, the bill would come from the dentist’s office, and they were like, this is amazing.
00:50:39

They were telling their friends, I was getting all these patients coming to me for botox and fillers who I mean, I’d have to register them as my dental patients, but they were still getting their dental work elsewhere. They loved their dentist. They just wanted to come in somewhere that nobody would know. So, really, that’s where it all started. And I thought, okay, I told my husband we could really expand on this.
00:51:03

I mean, obviously, people want this and he know again. He was like, well, the worst that can happen is oh my gosh. So we ended up finding a space in Quincy to grow into. I knew that if we stayed in the dental office, there was a cap on how much we could grow, but if we moved into a space that we could really cater to an aesthetic clientele, we could grow into it. And so that happened in 2014, one year into doing aesthetic treatments in the dental office.
00:51:40

And I was shocked, actually. I was met with a lot of resistance, both from the dental community, also the community in general, my friends and loved ones. My mom was like, why are you doing this to yourself? This is so much work. And at the time, I had had my first child, ryan, my now ten year old, and I’d had a really difficult pregnancy.
00:52:02

I had preeclampsia. He was born ten weeks premature. I had gone through a lot of emotional difficulties with that, and kind of dealing with these feelings of not being able to do my job properly, my body not being able to do what it was made to do, and later on recognizing that’s where all the pain was coming from. But I was really excited, and I was met with a lot of resistance, and it was that resistance that allowed me to grow too. So I don’t balk at it, I’m not upset about it, but it wasn’t that exciting.
00:52:42

Like, here we are and the floodgates open. I recognized that actually my initial success was a lot because people didn’t have to say they were going to a med spa, so we opened as a laser center, so that still the bill would come as a medical practice. But quickly that kind of caught on, and people understood that laser center meant med spa, and it was like a slow ramp up. But we had really great staff. And I would say what really catalyzed our exponential growth was we had always maintained that we believe in minimally invasive natural treatments, what the patient needs.
00:53:29

We’re not trying to oversell. We are always trying to be a partner. And so that really led to us having a lot of loyal clientele, so that when COVID hit, people really wanted to go to places that they knew they could trust. And I would say that’s what catalyzed and catapulted us really into, being able to own who we are. Yell it from the rooftops.
00:53:56

And patients really appreciated it. And I think also COVID people were seeing themselves on video more, and they recognized the value in taking care of themselves and doing maintenance, rather than feeling like aesthetic procedures were changing who you are, rather than getting your nails done, getting your hair done. It’s personal maintenance, it’s self care, it’s self love. And really when it was restructured that way, and we were able to help patients reframe it in their mind, the floodgates opened. And I’m so grateful for that.
00:54:30

And we’ve built the team over time with nurses and nurse practitioners and estheticians. And there was a segue I wanted to say.
00:54:46

You were saying, what am I doing in the future? Like, what am I working on? We talked about a lot of all the things that I’ve done. In retrospect, sometimes I sit down and I’m like, why am I so driven to do all these things? And partially it’s because my dad told me I was able to do whatever I wanted to do and I was meant to change the world and I better not do it one tooth at a time.
00:55:11

Part of it is that I recognize that so much of who we are is what we believed as a young child. And I think our generation you can probably attest to this. Is that we’ve been hardwired to accomplish. You have to do this so that you can get this grade. You have to get this grade so you could go to this school.
00:55:34

You have to go to this school so you can go to this profession. You have to do this profession so you can have this life. So accomplishments equal value. Accomplishments equal value. And I, like many other high achieving people, believed that my value was attached to achievements.
00:55:52

And I recognized that I was on this spiral, this hamster wheel of continuing. Like, each achievement needed to lead to another achievement. Otherwise I wouldn’t feel fulfilled or feel that I was valuable. And recognizing that kind of sparked something in me that I realized I need to help other people. I was drowning in burnout and doing incredible things, but not feeling fulfilled by it.
00:56:22

And so I’m writing a book called Achieve aholics, anonymous. And I’m really excited to share kind of my learning story of where I went from what drove me to achieve to what now drives me to achieve and how that set me free, how that allowed me to love my life more so than I ever thought possible, to enjoy the moments. And I’m so excited to share that with everybody. Oh, my God. I’m so excited about that.
00:56:53

That’s amazing. Incredible. Oh, my God, I love it. Okay, well okay. Oh, my God.
00:56:59

I still have to ask you two other things I have to ask you. First of all, I just feel like we have to touch on having the two different businesses, too. How do you actually navigate two different physical locations with your teams within and with you working in both of them? How did you do that once you opened both of them? And or what does it look like?
00:57:17

Like, how do you physically own two different businesses, know the same town, but two different buildings? Yeah. Alessandra it was a lot of blood, sweat, and tears at the beginning, as anybody with multiple businesses or even just one business can attest to lots of blood, sweat, and tears in the beginning, and then I recognize it doesn’t have to be hard to be good. I don’t have to torture myself to say I’m a successful person. So it really looks like a lot of delegation.
00:57:48

It’s a lot of really hiring the right people one, two, helping those people grow into your vision of them. Because if you hold a vision for them and kind of an intention for who you want them to be, they can grow into that vision if they believe you and if they see themselves in that. That’s one of the best parts of my job is to get to watch my employees grow into the positions that I want them to be in and then even watching them catapult from there to positions that they are inspired to move on to. I mean, I hate to lose employees, but when it’s for great reasons, I love to watch them and celebrate them. And I will say that’s really how I am able to do all the things that I do is that I have a lot of help.
00:58:47

I was going to ask yeah, you’ve been open about the support systems that you have too. And I was going to say I feel like that’s one thing we have to touch on just because you do so much, but also you don’t do everything yourself. And I love that you talk about that because I think that’s one thing. I don’t want people to leave and listening to this episode and be like, oh, my God, but there’s no way I could do all of that. So, yeah, what does that support look like?
00:59:14

You shouldn’t do all of it. So much of probably, again, how we grew up and a message that I keep hearing, and I believe in it. You can do everything. You can be everyone. Yes, absolutely.
00:59:24

But you don’t have to you don’t have to be everyone just because you have the capability to be forget yourself, to fuel the future. That’s a lot of what I did, is that I sacrificed myself in efforts for the dream, and I learned early on I’m going to burn out. And so I do. I have a lot of help. It’s not inexpensive.
00:59:54

It’s expensive to have help, but it allows me to enjoy the parts that are important to me. It allows me to grow exponentially. Yeah, I mean, I think everybody should talk about it at first. I think sometimes you don’t want to flaunt. You want to be successful.
01:00:16

You want to do things you don’t want to say, oh, I have somebody who does this for me. But if I’m doing the laundry and cooking and cleaning the bathrooms, I won’t have the time to sit down and plan for the future. If I’m doing those things, I won’t be able to take my kids to dance practice when that was always my dream, that my mom would come to dance practice with. Me. I think so much of who I am is because of all the hard work and the sacrifices that my parents made.
01:00:45

And I’m forever indebted to them for teaching me and holding me and raising me up. And I’m so blessed to have grown up in a very healthy family where growth was expected and growth was celebrated. And I’m really excited to be able to kind of change that perspective moving forward, taking the good and leaving kind of the overwhelm that I have to do those things. Like, yes, I have full capability to be whoever I want to be. My mom was and is this badass businesswoman.
01:01:25

She’s a researcher, she has patents galore, and she’s constantly reinventing herself. And, yeah, a lot of times she wasn’t there for recitals or she’d be on a business trip. And that showed me that a woman can do and be anything she wants. But it also showed me that by doing those things, she’s sacrificing other things. And in my life, I’ve chosen that.
01:01:51

I don’t want to sacrifice one thing for the other. I want to hold true to what it is that I want and ask for help in the areas that I need so that I can do the things that I want and I can be the person that I value. So, yeah, I don’t know if that. Answered your question fully, but no, I think it does. I think that’s such a good answer.
01:02:13

And yeah, I think you alluded to the fact that you’re not necessarily cooking and cleaning and that means you get to go be with your children when you’re not at work and you get to be obviously at work and with your teams when you need to and want to. Yeah, I think that’s just, like, important. You’ve been so intentional about creating the life that you want, I think, building the businesses, but also the life that you want outside of that and making them merge together in a way that makes sense for you. And it might not be the way that I feel like most women listening to this probably do aspire to or kind of have similar expectations for what they want for their life. But even if it’s not that, it’s just being intentional about what that is for you.
01:03:02

But, yeah, no, I feel exactly the same way. I’m like that’s the reason I started the business was so that or that’s the reason I wanted to work for myself was so that I would have that flexibility to go to the things with my child even if it’s during the middle of the day, if I wanted to. Because those are also my two priorities are like the business and then my family and just being able to create that lifestyle the way that you want it. And yeah, it’s with intention and it’s knowing what’s important to you. And if that’s different for someone else, that’s fine too.
01:03:37

But it’s just knowing what you don’t want to do so that you know what you do want to spend your time on. So I think that’s just worth saying as much as we can. Yeah. No, I’m a perfectionist and I have to be for my careers that I’ve chosen. I am very detail oriented, parallelism, symmetry, all that goes very hand in hand with what I do.
01:04:09

However, I’ve also learned to let go in certain areas. I mean, I have incredible managers that I really delegate a lot of the thinking to. I give the vision and then they take it and run with it. And I’m so impressed with what they’ve been able to do and how they’ve been able to grow and who they’ve been able to become and how that’s allowed me to become who I want. I mean, I have a manager for Quotable Media Co.
01:04:33

I have a manager for the dental office. I have an executive manager for my life. I love it. It doesn’t happen easily. I take that back.
01:04:41

It can be easy. It doesn’t have to be hard. You just have to have the right people in place. And don’t be shy. You are worth it.
01:04:50

The investment in yourself is never wrong. You may have to tweak it. I mean, you might try one thing out and it doesn’t work or it’s not the right person. And tweaking is part of growth. And growth is always good.
01:05:02

I know I say that a lot. I love it. So good. I feel like this is all so good. Is there anything else that you want to share that I didn’t even think to ask?
01:05:12

I feel like we could keep going. Forever, but I want to chitchat forever with you, Alessandra. I know we’re going to have to do like part two, another episode. Even what you’ve just said about I feel like even just finding the managers that you trust and love, I think there’s a whole nother conversation around building that team in a way that’s going to work for you, but yeah, no, literally, we should have another conversation. I think I would love to invite you to come to Quotable Media Co.
01:05:39

We can hang out, we can have girls day with the staff. It’ll be awesome. I’d love to have you. Well, tell people how they can keep an eye on you, especially like with you mentioning the book. How will they know when that comes out?
01:05:53

How can they keep up with you and keep in touch, even if they’re know local to the Quincy area and maybe can’t come to the dental office. Although tell them where to find those too, in case they are. The dental office is called Lumiere Dental Spa. It’s in Quincy on Sea Street, really near the ocean, which is beautiful. Quotable Media Co is called Lumi Aesthetics.
01:06:14

It’s also in Quincy center. And our instagrams are the same, lumi aesthetics and Lumiere Dental Spa. And then my personal kind of journey. I started a new Instagram with my new kind of achieve, a holics branding, but it’s called Nettahovezi, my first and last name. And you can certainly follow me there.
01:06:35

You can sign up for my newsletter. I would love for you to kind of see a little bit more of my story and my journey and then you’ll definitely actually, we have an event coming up, November twelveTH. Actually, you were at my last event last year and so much showcasing it in the magazine. I’m so honored. Let me show you your magazine because I brought it.
01:06:57

Beautiful. For anybody who hasn’t held this magazine, oh my God, it’s so yummy. It’s like better than Vogue. I feel so lucky to have been on the front cover. You have to hold it.
01:07:10

There’s nothing like holding it. Oh, my God. I’m going to turn that into a quote. I can’t believe you just said that about the magazine. I truly believe it like Vogue is not as quality feeling as this quotable magazine is.
01:07:26

And the spreads are so fabulous, all the stories are great and I feel so blessed that you chose me for the front cover. So thank you. But that was the event that was showcased in the article and it’s going to be an annual thing now. Fab, fierce female. And our theme for this year is Embrace the Fountain of you.
01:07:46

I can’t wait to talk more about it. It’s going to be brunch on November twelveTH. It’s a Sunday. It’s going to be at the Revere Hotel in downtown Boston. It’s going to be beautiful, magical.
01:07:57

The theme is going to be a Secret Garden because we all have a secret garden inside of us waiting to bloom. And I can’t wait to share that more on that. So, yeah, you can follow me on Instagram and also sign up for my newsletter. All of that will come out to you. Oh, my gosh, that’s so amazing.
01:08:13

I love it. I am so obsessed with all of that. Thank you so much for having this conversation and sharing all of this with everyone. I think this was so great. Thank you.
01:08:26

Thank you, Alessandra. I really appreciate the opportunity. I always love hanging out with you, so can’t wait to do it again.