The Campbell Academy Blog (41)

Apprentice and Master

Something happened, and something changed in me.

I like it.

It's different.

I feel better.

Two guys that I know really well in implant dentistry who are super high profile and have really successful businesses were lecturing recently together.

One of them attended our first-ever business course in 2017, and the other one I met even earlier when I did a seminar on practice finance for Straumann at a hotel in Coventry years before.

The second one, whom I met in Coventry, sat down with me afterwards and picked my brains about what we were talking about. I showed him a model for a dental practice, the ones that we had and what we were developing. I told him I thought it was the best way forward, and so did he.

We then built a practice, which is extraordinarily successful based around that model (at least to start with).

The first guy who attended the business course adopted everything we did, modified it for himself, and built his own business, which is vast now and brilliant and still continues to give us credit for the kickstart.

It's really lovely, kind, humble, beautiful.

Both of them messaged me independently after they had lectured that day, sending me pictures of them lecturing and saying that it was the stuff that we did that kickstarted their careers to this point.

I'm not entirely sure if that's true, but to be any small part of their success and to talk to them like that after their lectures is such a beautiful thing.

I think the Colin of some years ago would have had FOMO looking at those pictures, wondering why he hadn't been asked to speak there or why they hadn't said.

All I felt now was pride—pride in those guys, pride in the fact that I know them, and they're decent people and brilliant.

It felt very much like the turning of the tide, I guess; it felt like the apprentice had become the master, and the master slipped into the background.

It's not that I'm a master; it's just I'm old, but I'm happy to sort of fade now to invisibility, to focus on the projects that I really want to focus on and to help people become the best versions of themselves to help us achieve the best version of ourselves.

I'm not giving up, not in any way, shape or form, I'm going harder and stronger, just quieter and in the background.