It's About Time!
Many years ago I sat down among friends and we begun to talk at about our struggles in business and how we overcame them.
We found each others experiences enriching and decided to get together at least once a week to share our achievements as well as defeats.
Shortly our defeats became springboards to new lessons, successes, and achievements.
This podcast wants to continue that feeling by engaging into a light hearted conversation in which our guests will delight us with their life's adventures, defeats and successes and how they got where they stand today.
It's About Time... Let's Start!
It's About Time!
"Il Dottore"
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Welcome to It's About Time!
On our first episode you will get to know a little bit about my self as well as Dottore, Omar Fabbro.
Doc has been a constant presence through out my time in the United Arab Emirates. He has been an entrepreneur since he begun his adventures in the Emirates, managing his own Dental Clinic in Dubai as well as exploring his other passions, such as dental jewelry and watch making.
Like me, Dottore had to deal with how to handle family business and working with his father as well as siblings.
It is the first time you meet him but for sure it won't be the last.
So sit back and relax because "It's About Time" to get started!
If you want to know more about Doc check him out on his socials:
@doctorfabbro
Got Questions? Want to know more? Get in Touch!
Follow the podcast on Instagram:
@itsabouttimeiat
Family politics are the most toxic thing in the world for me. This is my opinion and I stick by it. I don't like politics in general, but family politics are the worst. I have thought about this and said if this opportunity would have come my way six years ago, I wouldn't have been able to continue. It is simply because I did everything else that I did that I have knowledge, the confidence that I can do it. Because I failed so many times, because I changed my ideas so many times and because I learned so many things through all my failures. You can't worry about everybody, man. You can't.
SPEAKER_00Definitely if you want to grow a business, you cannot.
SPEAKER_02You can't. You have to worry about you and what you need to achieve. And then people will follow you. Don't fall into the whole I call it the White Syndrome, the title syndrome.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, because you can't save people, right? I received email 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, domain there. You know what you want to do. So cancel it. I said that was the day in which I decided. I said, cancel, cancel, cancel, cancel, cancel.
SPEAKER_02Hello everybody, and uh welcome to It's About Time. Uh today is our first episode, and uh you'll be together with myself, Chris, and Omar.
SPEAKER_01Omar.
SPEAKER_02So um the whole purpose of um our podcast is to talk about our personal experiences, both um successful and unsuccessful, uh, which have led us to where we are today. Uh business, uh friendships, etc. Uh personal growth and development, anything and everything that has to do with it. And uh Omar has been a fantastic friend of mine for many, many years while we're out here in the Emirates.
SPEAKER_01Around 10 years by now, right?
SPEAKER_02Something like that. And um he uh hopefully will be the co-host of the podcast, and we will see. But in the meantime, um that's what we're here to do. And um we'll get started.
SPEAKER_01So I wanted to ask you a question. You remember the first time that we met?
SPEAKER_02The first time that we met um it was in Golos Italia.
SPEAKER_01It was in Golos Italia, yes indeed. You're coming with your friend, I guess. Uh the North European friend, the one with the motorcycle also early the other. Oliver, no Oliver uh the one that moved, I think, to uh Danamark, that's possible. Oh Chris, Christian with Christian, yeah. Your coming was with your friend Michele, right?
SPEAKER_02We were having, yes, yeah, with Christian and Mikey. But Mikey is the one that introduced us.
SPEAKER_01Mikey was the one who introduced me to you, yes.
SPEAKER_02Michele is somebody that you probably see if we catch him. Uh it's definitely somebody we're gonna have on the podcast. But yeah, Mikey introduced her. We were gonna had a cup of coffee, and uh, I'm pretty sure you didn't like me that much the first time. I didn't like you that much.
SPEAKER_01You were having uh maybe that they was you were a little bit upset or something happened to you. I remember you were a little bit upset that day. So I said, okay, he's uh he's a nice guy, but you know, I was a little bit moody that day. And then we managed to catch up one day. You had a like uh Hurley Davison's uh event, yeah, which uh I came with a friend of mine. Yes. There was a lawyer, but I don't know if you remember about that.
SPEAKER_02Ah man, I don't remember.
SPEAKER_01Is it the lawyer, but I I do remember you. Yes, and then your party, the party you organized at your home. The barbecue the big one, yes. Man, that was nice. Where I met Oliver and all your friends from the group, no? The Onyx, not Onyx, Orix. Orix, Orix group. Yeah, very, very nice.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so that that's how we met, and it was a while ago. And then uh and then from there, we just our friendship kind of picked up very, very naturally.
SPEAKER_01Naturally, yes. Also, the neighbor helped because we were living all uh we were all in GLTs in Jumena Lex Towers. Jumet Alex Towers was a fantastic neighbor back in the days, it was full of European uh was new. I remember the water at the lakes, it was actually transparent, you remember that.
SPEAKER_02Correct. Just so everybody knows, we have been in the Emirates myself for 20 years and all my roughly 14 years. 14, yeah. So it's been a while. We've been a while here. Um, yeah, that was super cool, man. And that that that's how we met.
SPEAKER_01And the thing flow not naturally in the direction where we are today.
SPEAKER_02Tell us a little bit, how did you get here? Why did you come here?
SPEAKER_01There's a the there's a kind of crazy story, I will say. This is why I'm asking you. It's basically we my wife to be, uh we were talking about experience, you know, other countries for what concern the work environment. It says, okay, we know Italy, we you know we have a business, a family business in the medical field. We are all doctors in our family, so you know that. And uh, I found that a little bit boring. Even though it was interesting the idea to develop the family business, I was very into the idea of doing that. At the same time, I didn't like the idea that everything is being built to me for my family. And people were telling me, ah, because you know you're lucky every your daddy did everything to you. Yeah, that's it. We have a saying for that in Italian, it's called Feo di Papa. Feo di Papa. You are also Field Papa. Oh yeah, maybe so that was the thing, it was actually annoying me. Plus, uh working inside my clinic and also my friend's clinic in the meantime, was actually knowing the process of doing things. So I says, okay, I want to be challenged a little bit more. Back in the days, I was not even speaking English at all. I was just uh, you know, the barely minimum information that you have through maybe video games or whatever. That was my level of knowledge of English. I was not able for sure to speak like this right now back in the days. And uh my wife was actually having a total different background. She comes from a private school, English private school, British in Rome, and then also international school, like Kings College London, much as a business school. So she had a totally different approach to life compared to mine. Mine was very more uh much more oriented to the family, remain there to build whatever it was, even though it was having this interest. But she was used to by her family to get used to to move around, to discover opportunity elsewhere. And we kind of liked the idea to do it together. So we were selecting cities in all this process. I said, Okay, well, we can move. She lived in London, so I said, Okay, London could be a very good choice, it's very close by, you know, is uh is an interesting city, very buzzing back in the days. And it used to be Europe back in the day. Yeah, Europe was back in the days, exactly. So it was actually very convenient from the point of view as a choice. I really liked it. And uh but the weather I didn't like it. So at the same time, we were having those other friends, part of the private school of my wife, that were actually uh there are actually Saudis. There are Saudis, they're Emirati, there are of course Americans, a little bit of everything. There were back in the days we were traveling through Saudi Aramco, for example, Total and other type of big corporate, and we were getting relocated in uh Italy, for example, Rome. We stick together as a friendship, we used to travel together, having, I don't know, like New Year's together in I don't know, Spain. We were doing this kind of uh back in the days it was crazy things because nobody was doing that. Nowadays it seems normal to you know travel for a new year, but back in the days was not that normal. I was uh 20 years old, 20, 24, something like that. Right, and uh and then they invite us for a wedding in Bahrain and uh Dubai was something that we were discussing about because my wife she was used to come here before when she was a children, and they were traveling through uh Dubai to reach other Asian destinations, so she was used to spend some days here. And we are having some other friends also here living in the same moment as well, you should try. You should try. Dubai is uh is growing, it's not uh you know the usual Middle Eastern place, is uh is a very different, very you know, contemporary European style, you know, very open compared to the other maybe nations around, especially back in the days. And uh we came for this wedding, it was in Bahrain, but we spent some days in Dubai. We checked also, of course, uh Qatar back in the days because you were having Qatar uh with Doha, you're having uh Dubai, you were having Bahrain, but you were having also uh Singapore. All of them they were growing at the same speed back in the days. So we were deciding between those cities. And out of you know uh the simplicity to move here, do the fact that we were having friends, we were, you know, everything was much uh easier here, so we decided why not? So let's try. But it was not actually a try. We studied the market, we decided, okay, what can we do in which way? It's not like you know, you're running out of your own country with your bag, you know, because everything is going back. No, no, no, no. We we planned the thing. I said, okay, we'll do this in this way, we'll move in this way, I will organize this in this way. And this is what we did basically. We studied the market before moving in. And this was actually the correct approach, and I this is the correct approach that I suggest everybody that wants to move to Dubai to have. Don't just come. Come, you you know, you you go in a place in which you want to be on holiday. You know, yeah, if you want to move here, study the place. So we spend literally one month here. We spent one month in Singapore, for example, also, to try to understand which one was the most suitable place for us.
SPEAKER_02What was the uh determining factor that said Dubai yes and everything else? Not necessarily no, but not at this moment.
SPEAKER_01Okay, uh for sure there was a problem of titles, uh for what concern myself also, but also for my wife. We were overqualified for other markets. And also for my wife, being in Italy, she would have not had any type of career. Right while Dubai was uh was expanding dramatically, and there was a lot of research uh they were showing that they were looking for a multilingual, multicultural type of people that were capable eventually to tackle different markets. My wife she speaks five languages, so it was the perfect place. Difficult to get your wife to speak all the languages, she gets super shy about it. Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_02I know she's fluent in all of them.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but it's necessary she is very fluent in all of them. Yeah, and what about you, Chris?
SPEAKER_02Ah man. I got here because my dad asked me. He asked me to come over to open the family business. So my family, uh my family's business was my grandfather started from uh long ago, about 60 years ago, is farming. Um they started in uh in Eritrea, okay, so in the Italian colony in Africa, in Ethiopia. Uh, and he began farming there. He began uh setting up plantations, and and he was a fairly important gentleman there. My father then was born together with all his siblings in that colony, and he continued the business of my grandfather. My grandfather passed away in in 1980, so I didn't have a chance to meet him.
SPEAKER_01I was born in 82. By the way, let me just tell you one thing. Um, of course, they don't know, but I'm a doctor. Some patients of mine they grew up in Eritrea. I'd actually know your father and your grandfather. Happened to me to they told me, he said, I know this gentleman, I remember his father or his grandfather. Oliver's my the CEO of my biker club, Oliver, his father used to work for my grandfather.
SPEAKER_02Oh, really? Yes. So when Oliver told me, told them that there is this uh guy he's riding motorcycles in the bike from Denadai, and the the father Oliver is like Denadai, you mean Denadai family? Yeah, Giancarlo Denadai, like yeah, oh my god, and then we met and met my father together also with Oliver.
SPEAKER_01You have such a kind of uh it could be, man, it could be, it could be, you know, it's still family type of uh relationship.
SPEAKER_02But my relationship with Oliver is a bit different. I'll tell it to you later. So so I came in um because my family was working with fruit trade, and the biggest market they had was the Middle East. We're talking about uh Iran, we're talking about Saudi, Qatar, Kuwait, UAE, etc. Some other markets, but uh and the plantation was a bit all over the place, but the biggest buyers were in the in the Middle East. So I was asked by my father to say, come in and let's set up the company and set up the family office, and that's what I did. I came up, uh I came here after uh studying in USA after university. I didn't really know what to do, although I I was groomed to kind of take over the family business. Um and I came over and I opened the office and we started in Javza.
SPEAKER_01Okay, at the airport free zone, uh where we had a small place and then I guess it was the perfect place for uh international logistics for you.
SPEAKER_02At the beginning, but we never used planes, everything was via containers. So Jabelali was much more interesting, but at the time I didn't know better. So we started in Javza and then we moved to JLT, where we had the office in JLT. You've been there a couple times.
SPEAKER_01Amazing and uh incredibly big office, actually.
SPEAKER_02And um, and yeah, so eventually the whole movie and the whole family moved here. So my dad, my mom, my sister, and I was already here. And that's how I ended up here. Uh now why I stayed is a different story altogether. That's a good point.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, because in between all of this, you decided also to change direction in your career, right?
SPEAKER_02Correct. So some things happened in uh in a family business, as you know very well, because you also came from a family business.
SPEAKER_01It's very complicated to handle. There's a lot of voices going on, there's a lot of politics. Yeah, more politics than actual real company. I mean, that's company structure from other people, I would say.
SPEAKER_02And family politics are the most toxic thing in the world for me. This is my opinion, and uh and I stick by it. I I I don't like politics in general, but family politics are the worst.
SPEAKER_01So I guess they're also connected with the fact that they see you grow. And they they saw you when you were younger, and the the perception of you is also bonded to those memories about you.
SPEAKER_02It's the classic cliche, you know, your parents will always see you as all the mistakes you made, not necessarily as who you're becoming. Also, yeah.
SPEAKER_01So they don't see also your victory many times, they only see where you're making mistakes because their their role was to educate you.
SPEAKER_02And so they continue to do that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, they want to, but that necessarily means they're up to date with the the the real market or update. It is actually, it is, it is.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so so uh I I stopped working for the family business, and my father as well, he removed himself from the family business and he opened a company to continue what he was doing because he likes it. Yeah, it's he loves it. And uh and I took the opportunity to work with him, specifically with my dad, and uh set up a company for food service. So I was distributing fruits and vegetables, and that company was running when I met you.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, actually, I remember we used to buy from you things. Remember coffee, for example, and coffee, yes. Coffee was the biggest product was purchased from you. You were also having water and all the things.
SPEAKER_02We had water, we had meats, we had we had a bit of everything.
SPEAKER_01Um, I had you were supplying a lot of restaurants back in the days, uh, restaurants in Dubai.
SPEAKER_02And it was super exciting. Up until I realized that um I didn't have the knowledge at the time to be able to run the business the way I needed to be run. Yeah. Uh I wanted to be the best in service and the best in this and the best in that, and I realized that one of the most important things that you must do when you run a business is collections. Your cash flow is extremely important. Not because your paper says that you're making money, you've got money to pay.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's true.
SPEAKER_02And I know it sounds basic, but I guarantee you there are many, many, many individuals around the world who don't pay attention to this. So I got involved into the excitement of the business, making sales, making this, making that, blah, blah, blah. And the ego played a big part as well.
SPEAKER_01So ego is uh the biggest enemy. You want to turn out, it will uh hit you in a way and the other.
SPEAKER_02And uh and yeah, so eventually I ran out of cash and I had to close down the business. But it was only that part of the business, not the entire No, my father continued with everything else. I just removed myself from this operation also because this experience made me realize that I wasn't really enjoying the whole thing. I yeah, I like the adrenaline or the distribution, logistics, but I wasn't enjoying the rest. Uh it it became uh I don't know. I I just didn't have good feelings for it anymore. Uh it became tedious and it felt like a job.
SPEAKER_01That's the biggest problem. But we I guess this happened with any type of job or you know, like entrepreneurship type of adventure. You might have a certain point, you might feel that you're doing something that you are not planning to do to make the business continue to work.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_01Especially when we are talking about numbers. Right. You always start looking around the numbers, they're entering, they're exiting, and you become more an accountant, even though you have maybe an accountant, you become more an accountant. And a collector and a financing agent, you feel like a bank. Yeah, exactly. You're doing paperwork, you're not doing any more the operation, your micromanaging.
SPEAKER_02The chit chat with the chefs that I used to love going to the chef and talking about what their menu was gonna be. So um I stopped that and uh I never regretted it. No, I I know I never regretted it. I really have good memories from it. So I stopped that, and then I had the opportunity uh to start an IT company together with uh gentlemen from from here.
SPEAKER_01There was the IT company during the cigar night, the one that you developed during the cigarette. No, that's another one altogether.
SPEAKER_02That came after. Actually, before that, I was working in a company called Watermelon, and I came in as a but remember, Watermelon was not after that.
SPEAKER_01No, okay, it was before.
SPEAKER_02I and I came into watermelon as a um business developer director. Uh very interesting experience. I was there for about a year. What it was about the company? Well, the the cool thing about the company is that the company was creating an online platform to do exactly what I was doing in the food service industry, just online instead of optimizing the process and all the problem that you might have, I guess. Right. You were creating a B2B uh sales center where people could list their products and people could buy the product, but business to business. So everything was vetoed, everything was checked, all the certifications were all done. So it made all the KYC that you have to do here for regulations much more uh streamlined.
SPEAKER_01If I'm not remember uh wrongly, I remember it was something like uh kind of platforming which the um chef they can order between different suppliers directly using tablets. They would make a basket directly, like uh a normal delivery nowadays. But like you do in Amazon. Yes.
SPEAKER_02You know, you get different things, you never you don't even know where they come from.
SPEAKER_01Yes, but B2B with all the certification and things to make.
SPEAKER_02So that that is still going on. I'm just not part of it anymore. I remove myself from it. Um because, again, very interesting, but still didn't spark that thing inside of me.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_02Um, in the meantime, I did a master's degree in blockchain technology, and I work with our friend Theo. Yes, which hopefully will be another person you'll see here. And um, and we started this blockchain technology company called Ecoblocks, which again, successfully still going on. Uh, and good luck to Theo for everything that he's doing, but again, not for me.
SPEAKER_01So you were not feeling motivated in that.
SPEAKER_02You enjoyed the idea because I had the conflicts going on with watermelon, because it was happening almost at the same time.
SPEAKER_01This is why I was remembering.
SPEAKER_02I had to make a decision and said, I cannot dedicate the time that my friends require me to have for this. Yeah, so I will focus on one thing, and I picked watermelon. I I saw that my expertise had much more to do with it. So did that. Um, remove myself from it, removed myself also from EcoBlocks, yeah, and opened up a consulting company together with Condorcet's Condor Brokers, yeah, together with George. And this was still operational today. Uh and he's still doing a couple of things here and there. Mostly George is handling uh the day-to-day for it. Um, and uh and yeah, and then together with Mr. Fadi, yes, we opened yeah, we opened Blackbird guitars. Uh so with this Fadi Fadi is an amazing uh guy, you know. He's uh he has this passion for guitars, he's a collector of guitars, he goes to auctions, which is something nobody knows. Watts is a pretty savvy businessman, I would say. He is a very busy man. He is for sure.
SPEAKER_01Another guy would probably have here. He has a lot of talent for that, you can tell. He does also with his family business, how he's running everything in the operational. So he's the perfect person to you know make your business grow and to operate that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so I spoke with him and uh I love music, and so we chit-chatted a little bit, and and he said, I'm doing this, and I asked him, Look, uh I want to be part of it. So just let me know what I need to do. And we came to an agreement, and now I'm a shareholder and uh part uh silent partner, although I'm not very silent. Like usual, I would say.
SPEAKER_01And we make these electric guitars here in the UA, which is super cool. How many model? Because you have plenty of that in your house, I remember. Yes, like C seven, I guess.
SPEAKER_02As of now, models, I think one, two, three, four. I think we've got about eight models that we're producing. They're all electric, and some are semi-hollow and semi-hollow, but uh very, very nice stuff. Good stuff for entry, entry and amateurs. Yeah, fantastic. Um and then, as you know, last year I ended up going to uh Roma, our capital. By the way, I'm Italian as well. Some part of me. And uh I went to study jewelry making, and I fell in love with it, and I remember that.
SPEAKER_01I was used to come and visit you in Rome. Yeah, it was actually very interesting. We're spending a lot of time talking about jewels and also eating, to be honest. And eating, yeah, we ate a lot.
SPEAKER_02I mean, we found the one restaurant that that was very nice.
SPEAKER_01Every single day, every single day, yeah.
SPEAKER_02But anyway, we uh I I I fell in love with jewelry making and stone setting, particularly stone center.
SPEAKER_01Because I remember the part of uh goldsmiths was not actually suiting you much. I remember you didn't like it much. No. But for what concerned stone setting, engraving, and other type of uh mastery, you were really into it. I was really into it. I remember the first time when I came to Giarardi, you were like a super hype. You know, remember, oh look at this, look at that. It was actually exciting to see all these people working all together and uh try to develop new stuff.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, the environment was spectacular.
SPEAKER_01It's beautiful. I love it. This is why I followed them on Instagram, by the way.
SPEAKER_02You see the energy, you see, you feel it. It's super cool. And uh and this thanks to my wife as well, because she's the one to convince me to go to Roma to do the course.
SPEAKER_01You're not very convinced at the beginning. You're kind of being interested about jewels and stones. Remember, you always had it for years. This kind of thing.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but to be honest, I was kind of in a slump.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_02So she said, let's do this. I'm like, eh, okay. I looked at the prices, there's a lot of money. I don't know.
SPEAKER_01It was not definitely.
SPEAKER_02She said very clearly, what else are you gonna do? Yeah, you're right. I'm not sure. Stay at home. I'm probably gonna stay home, do nothing. Exactly. I'll go with you, okay. We'll do an extended holiday or whatnot. I had nothing to do. It was how long was the three months. Three months. So we spent three months in uh Roma, uh, intensive course every day, eight hours a day, and um loved it. Loved it. In fact, I came back, I set up my workshop, and now I'm making jewelry at home as a hobby.
SPEAKER_01It's not really a hobby if you think about it. We developed together a piece actually for my wife for the for Christmas. That was actually an incredible piece. I did the design, the sketch. He managed to find all, of course, the team behind to develop the 3D casting and all the all the parts of the stone setting, the stone, the necessary. It came out a beautiful piece.
SPEAKER_02I still have to see the ring on uh on his wife's finger. So still waiting to see that. Hopefully, before the end of the year it will manage. Hopefully. Yeah, man. So so it has been uh that that's why I stayed. I stayed because I was able to kind of do what I wanted here.
SPEAKER_01And also, you if you consider that, you know, what I what I like all this story about the jewel part is you uh did a course, you learn how to do the setting, and you show yourself that you're capable to start from A to Z, the production of jewels. Not only do only your part, but also the uh line of network that you need to have to assemble the piece from zero to the final product. So that it kind of, you know, because you can be very good in doing something, but having the capacity to connect all the dots to finalize the product, that's the difficult part. Everybody is capable to do, I don't know, uh just to say a cake, maybe, or uh some dishes, but no necessarily are capable to create a la uh you know a protocol to execute that in a professional way to create a product. So the fact that you learn how to do it from zero to the final product and the delivery of the product itself, that is uh actually fantastic. It's telling you you're ready. You're ready to start professionally. You already started professionally, but to start officially producing big quantity, or maybe single pieces or uh what you're saying actually is pretty cool because I have thought about this and said if this opportunity would have come my way six years ago, I wouldn't have been able to continue.
SPEAKER_02It is simply because I did everything else that I did that I have the knowledge, the confidence that I can do it. Because I failed so many times, because I changed my ideas so many times, and because I learned so many things through all my failures. So when I tell you watermelon, when I tell you uh Apple Tree, when I tell you uh EcoBlocks, all of them were big lessons for me. Of course, and uh and uh today they are successful in lessons, but at the moment, at the time, they were very painful when I had to close down my company because of my own mistakes and I had to dismiss my 30, 40 employees that I had. It was devastating. Of course.
SPEAKER_01And um because also you are thinking about those other people, but of course, you know, also if you're responsible for the people that are working for you, yes, this is also a heavy weight to lift every time.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it is, but I also learned something important there, and uh, we might have a different opinion on this one, but it's okay. Um you can't worry, you can't worry about everybody, man. You can't definitely if you want to grow a business, you cannot. You can't, you have to worry about you and what you need to achieve, and then people will follow you.
SPEAKER_01Well, the people need to be not only follow you, they need to be aligned. Well, of course, and you need to So they need to understand correctly the you know the value of what you want to create in which way, because otherwise it means they were not not selected properly, but they were not knowledgeable about what you're looking for to do, so they were not ready to join you. You know, if you inform them correctly, they're able to understand, okay, this is uh, you know, this work is for me or not for me. But if they join me, as well, ma'am.
SPEAKER_02You know very well here very well when you interview people, they tell you whatever just to get the job on the visa. Absolutely. Happen every day. That's that's a that's a big advice that we can give anybody here. It's like don't fall into the whole, I call it the the the white syndrome, the the entitled syndrome. Yeah, because you can't save people, right? When you see all these guys and they're coming from very different realities than you, and all of a sudden you start feeling sorry for them. Don't do that. No, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_01It just suits the purpose of what you're looking for.
SPEAKER_02If if you think about being respectful, you gotta respect them. They're going through their things, they have to go everybody has his own thing in his own way.
SPEAKER_01It's just that you perceive their problem different than yours. Okay, so you you like feeling that you can help them to achieve something in the future, while not necessarily they see the same to you. Bravo! Exactly. And they are not, they're just you know, this guy just give me money to do uh exactly uh I don't know for nine to ten or whatever. Correct. But you know, compare for what concern also the the protocol thing, you know. I was realizing this thing because about you, the fact that you learn how to do all the process. Because this is what I face in the in the phase of production of the grills, you know, the jewel, the dental jewel that I'm planning to do. And I and I found the way in which you're actually uh let's say we are sharing together this information, that you are pushing me to take my decision in that direction to create my own, let's say, protocol of execution. Because right now, of course, I'm Chris. I need to do this. What can we do? Because I don't know. Yeah so now you put me in contact with the people necessary to start the product, and uh, we started actually. We you've you've seen the final product the first grid, then we realized that it's very nice. That would be for uh for a fairly famous DJ here in Dubai, so I'm very very excited to delete. We'll get we'll get some pictures and we'll see. We will have reels and pictures and everything. Maybe he invites us to a little party, man. That would be nice. That would be really nice. And uh that helped me to not only take courage because sometimes it's not about courage. You have courage to do a lot of things, but you need to take action. It's not about courage, it's just you know, do the thing. You know, the you know, like for example, for the watches, I'm delaying in a way or the other the production of the technical drills.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you're so frustrated. By the way, guys, explain about the watches, man. You're the jumping into watches.
SPEAKER_01No, just jumping between things, yeah. But what happened basically? Uh with Mr. Chris, he invited me over. No, no, let's start from uh from Hong Kong. Uh yeah, let's start from the back. Yeah, yeah, Hong Kong is actually the kind of beginning because it's in the same phase. So I had the opportunity to be uh before this trip in Hong Kong to be exposed to um the watch industry, okay, in a way and the other. And you like watches? I was not that interested back in the days. I liked watches, but then I was not that interested. Then I started doing some classes, you know, watchmaking classes. I started realizing, you know what, I like it. I kind of like it. I just discovered something that was totally not thinking about. This is why you need to try things in life. And uh I said, okay, I did this class, this this other class. I went to Switzerland with another friend, and we went to uh visit a watchmaking um uh watch manufacturer, Géchel Le Coultre. And then we came back, and then at the same time, you invite me over for the Hong Kong German stone thing. And in the meantime, I was starting thinking, okay, I think I want to start realizing watches, you know, like single pieces. And I created the piece. The first piece was for you, it was to thank you because you are always all the time. Because Christova has a fantastic thing. He encouraged you to take action over your you know, passion, desire, and maybe opportunities. Yeah, this is a fantastic uh you know capacity he has.
SPEAKER_02Worst case scenario, you failed.
SPEAKER_01You failed and then what and in all of this, you know, brainstorming of ideas about watchers. I said, okay, I need to understand about stone because maybe we will use stone for the watches. And in the meantime, I was thinking about grills, dental grills, and dental jewels more than grills. Okay, because when we are talking about grills, you're always thinking about you know the wrapper and these other things. What are we actually designing? By the way, the designer, you introduced me to the designer actually. Hey, yeah, that was uh Mr. Philip. Yes, Philip number one. Man, it would be nice to have him here too. It has a fantastic design, and there are no conventional type of grills. This is what I like. And the idea was also to associate the grills with uh hearrings, necklace, you know, watches and rings. Why not? So, Chris, and some sort of combination of jewels together. And to do so, okay, everybody knows gold, everybody knows silver, everybody gonna know platinum, but what about stones? So, Mr. Chris invited me over in Hong Kong with me, you and some other friends of yours, uh, going together to understand better about the market of stones. That was a fun trip. It was a beautiful trip. That was a fun trip. A lot of cigars.
SPEAKER_02And it worked perfectly because you were in Singapore.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_02And so you were in Singapore and from Singapore. My family came to around.
SPEAKER_01Yes. And it was beautiful because we I didn't only learn about you know stone, also thanks to the guides of uh Xenia, your wife, and of course all the other people involved, but also I discovered the the reality behind the stones and how to perceive them, how to think with them. It changes, right? It dramatically changed because we are talking about how big it was the fair. It was it were two square kilometers in magic, like here in Dubai, World Trade Center, by two. Yeah. In two different locations.
SPEAKER_02It is the second, it is the second largest in the world by surface, yeah, and it is the largest by footfall.
SPEAKER_01If you think about it, in all the the weeks that we were the week that we spent there, we didn't see the entire fair.
SPEAKER_00No.
SPEAKER_01Which has been where we were interested, we had so big, so much, so many manufacturers, so many people. And I start learning also about the the cost, real cost, real cost of production, cutting, and all these other things that were very interesting. I've been part of a negotiation for very interesting stone, uh, as a spectator, of course, you know, as a direct uh involved party. And uh it was actually there where I found your aquamarine that you purchase, and I says, uh during the we were having a dinner together, actually, and I checked this aquamarine that he purchased with me. And I was looking at that, you know, we're having uh dinner at a Chinese restaurant. Yeah, our uh JW Marquise was behind on the knees. Okay, and I checked the stone and I said, Oh, I like this stone, Chris. I I guess I will buy back from you. He said, Oh, if you want.
SPEAKER_02Actually, I didn't want to really sell it because I bought it for myself. But the whole point was to sell it. And and you proved me right. It was a good thing. It was a good thing, yeah. And what you designed with that stone, man.
SPEAKER_01That was fantastic. Basically, one patient of mine canceled during the procedure was uh vineyard preparation, reschedule the the appointment. The vineyard preparation cases are generally uh four or five hours. Okay, so we schedule longer appointments just to be sure everything goes in the right direction, have time to discuss with the patient, etc. So when they move this appointment, it's actually tricky because you you just empty your schedule for four hours. So I says, why not? I was in the phone with you, I guess. I started sketching on uh uh Adobe Fresco I used. It's uh it's a very simple uh software to even say I was impressed with your drawings. Yeah, it's just very fast because we were late. This man's an artist. This man's an artist. And uh we because we were late, because I decided very late on uh uh to to you know let's do it a ring. I was during stress, honestly speaking. I was December, we was supposed to be ready for Christmas, and I was traveling on the 18th, yeah. Like two weeks to do everything from A to Z. This is why it's fantastic. But again, uh all of this trip, thanks to Chris Tobal, allow me to push further the opportunity of the jewelry industry, associate necessarily, uh maybe not even necessarily, but associate also with my industry, that is uh uh dentistry. So the jewelry industry, how can I associate, how can I use this in my system? This is why when you were saying about watermelon and all the other uh companies that you've been part of, that you're not uh, let's say, sad for what happened because you learn things that you then apply nowadays to your actual things. And this is one of those. I literally learned how to use stone, which stone can I use in which way, and the workflow to operate in that direction. I literally learned the software to do this because in the meantime I did courses in CAD designing and everything, especially for watchmaking. Watchmaking is not a very simple field, and do the fact I'm a kind of control freak for this, especially for the first official model. I want to maybe you get it done, man. Maybe you just do it and then you fix it on the way. This is your approach, but with watch, it's not really like that. It's a little bit more complex. Because you start the discovering, you know, like they used to say, if you knew it before, you will have not done it. It's better to discover all the perks in the when you're working the direction, it's better. Because every every day I'm discovering something new. I says, ah damn, I need to check now again all my technical draw, all my things, because I need to update something based on the manufacturer capacity, based on the machine, based on the material I'm utilizing. And uh, but this was thanks to that moment in life in which especially uh I was going through the um I was closing other activities, okay, uh different uh venue, uh different things. There was trying to, in the meantime, to make it work, there was uh dragging in reality because this is this is the reality, because many times you want so much something to succeed, and also you dedicate so much time we are talking about years, six years and plus, on project that they are not taking off. Or maybe they are steady, you know, they are making some money, but they are not growing, they are in the in the area in which you will need or a business developer you pay full time to help you, and capital to help you to go in the right direction, or you will not make it. So it was the moment in which I kill literally one day I says, okay, I remember the day basically, we had a lot of discussion about this. Yeah, it was the day in which the domains are in renewal. I received email, one, two, three, four, five, six domains are in renewal, what do you want to do? I said, cancel it. I said that was the day in which I decided, I said cancel, cancel, cancel, cancel, cancel. How did you feel after that? Upset. Upset, upset? Very upset. Because uh I failed, I failed. It was a baby. It was a baby, but also I was really believing it was possible to do that. But the fact that we uh we approached the business, me and my business partner, in uh in our own way, I believe. Even though he doesn't believe in the same way in which uh he doesn't have the same vision that had a he's a he has having a different opinion about that. Uh but my vision I was working pretty much every day over the project was that we were too slow. We had a fantastic idea. We started developing the idea when nobody was doing that, and we took so much time to develop it that everybody entered in the business with other products that were actually better than ours. So we should just uh you know, as you have also the technological growth, you know, you're having platforms that were helping developing these things where back in the days when we started, they were not. Okay, so we just need to decide. Of course I was upset, of course I was sad. But then again, I found out myself having kind of free time, and that was the open opportunity for new venue, new projects, new ideas, and the watchmaking and the jewel just came out. This is why it's fantastic.
SPEAKER_02Well, Doctore, I think we had a good chat already. It's a fantastic chat, also I kind of like this. So I think we're gonna have to do it again for sure. Yep. And uh I need to convince you to be the co-host of this thing because it depends on the time of the day. La Parlantina. Now, for everybody, guys, um, we normally, when we talk with each other, it's a mix of English, Italian, and everything else in between. Particularly me, my Italian has been deteriorating over the years.
SPEAKER_01I can tell that. Yes, I can tell that. I used to correct his Italian continuously.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01But this is also because of your background. You have a different, so many different languages that you're also.
SPEAKER_02Let's leave some stuff for the next episode because there's so much more. But all right, so Dottore, thank you very much for it was a real pleasure being here with you, Chris.
SPEAKER_01And uh, as always, we had a fantastic chat.
SPEAKER_02Yes, and thank you everybody for joining us today. And hopefully, we'll see you on the next one. Take care. See you.
