Max Mito and Montana Grenfell - The Importance of Pharmacist Expertise in Revolutionising Pharmacy Practice with Technology

Max Mito is the Co-Founder and CEO of StrongRoom AI (SRAI), an innovative organisation dedicated to improving patient outcomes and enhancing the administrative efficiency of healthcare providers through technology solutions and AI-driven insights. With a background in economics and history, Max leads StrongRoom AI in its mission to optimise pharmacists and healthcare facilities by delivering efficient, profitable, and patient-centric solutions. SRAI offers a comprehensive suite of medication management and patient drug adherence solutions designed to tackle the worldwide issue of ineffective drug management and adverse events. The company's vision is to eliminate preventable adverse drug events globally, ensuring safer and more effective treatment for patients everywhere.

You can find Max Mito on LinkedIn.

Montana Grenfell, Chief of Staff at StrongRoom AI, leverages her extensive experience as a pharmacist to enhance healthcare standards for professionals and patients alike. With a decade-long career that began as a Registered Pharmacist and progressed to Operations Manager, Montana brings industry knowledge, management skills, and a passion for healthcare to her role. Montana joined StrongRoom AI, where she is dedicated to revolutionising medication and care processes to mitigate the repercussions of drug mismanagement. Montana is committed to empowering pharmacies, care facilities, and hospitals, navigating the challenges of an evolving healthcare sector, and championing safety, efficiency, and growth in the industry.

You can find Montana Grenfell on LinkedIn.

Do you have questions about your pharmacy career? Then contact us or meet our team.

Transcript

0:00

Your Pharmacy Career podcast proudly brought to you by Raven's Recruitment Australia's Pharmacy recruitment agency

0:06

spotlights the myriad of career options available to pharmacist your host Kristi Lee Patterson and her esteemed

0:13

guests will be sharing invaluable career advice that you can Implement at any stage of your career Journey welcome to

0:19

your Pharmacy career podcast I'm your host Kristi Lee Patterson today we have two remarkable guests Montana Grenfell and

0:27

Max Mito Montana is a seasoned community pharmacist with over a decade of

0:32

experience and now serving as the chief of staff at Strong room AI Max on the

0:37

other hand is a Serial entrepreneur and the co-founder of Strong room AI

0:42

revolutionizing drug Management Solutions through technology Montana and mattx welcome to to the show and thank

0:49

you so much for joining me today thanks for having us uh Krysti Lee thank you so

0:54

my first question I might pass it over to you Montana as our resident pharmacist at room mon tenner could you

1:01

share with us your journey as a community pharmacist and how you managed

1:06

to transition that into your current role at Strongroom AI sure thank you Krysti for having us I began my journey

1:13

as an intern pharmacist at chemist Discount Center in Mornington gained really essential hands-on experience

1:20

there but actually started out with prime Pharmacy Group before then when I was much younger so virtually grew up in

1:26

pharmacy from a very early age I then went on to become pharmacist in charge at Advantage pharmacy and managed the

1:32

operations and ensuring patient care there then I transitioned into pharmacist support manager I provided

1:40

support and implemented training programs and policies and procedures and then went on to be operations manager at

1:47

Advantage pharmacy and for chemist Discount Center I focused on enhancing efficiencies and strategic initiatives

1:53

within that role and for those two banners then in May last year I transitioned over to strong AI as chief

2:01

of staff and I now oversee the daily operations and collaborate with Senior Management Drive efficiencies and

2:07

productivity my focus is really much on know the process of improvement organization development and those types

2:14

of aspects within the business at strong room AI wow what a mouthful I was going to ask you what a chief of staff does

2:21

but you answered that already which is great because I think a lot of bumsters probably wouldn't really know what a chief of staff even does every day it's

2:29

a very unique role cross between a lot of the operations and business sides of things but also you've got that human

2:36

element with your staff so that's really important it's a major Focus that strong room AI has so that was sort of the

2:42

involvement of my position and why Max and Chris got me to come across amazing

2:47

well yeah that's a good Segway over to you Max so what inspired you to become a

2:52

entrepreneur at such a young age and how and Earth did that lead you to founding

2:58

strong room Ai and getting into the pharmacy space yeah that's a very good question growing up yeah I've always

3:04

wanted to make a really big impact before I die effectively uh sorry

3:09

getting a bit a little bit deep but I've always at the time I remember thinking

3:15

about whether that would be done working within an organization or doing it

3:21

myself and I saw that as I was growing up the ones that were making the most impact were the ones that were creating

3:27

solutions for I guess the biggest problem so the way that we came across the problem of medication management and

3:35

strong room as a whole was initially really wanting to use facial recognition

3:40

to match with people's medical records as an initial point in time and we thought that would really solve is the

3:47

ability to connect people to make sure that they would get the right treatment

3:52

at the right time with the right data so that was really our first idea within the medical space and just keep in mind

3:59

we were second year university students with my background being in economics and history and then my other

4:05

co-founders uh more from a traditional tech computer science background and we were quite surprised as we were going

4:12

through it that there was still a large amount of paper being used across the industry and what really surprised us

4:19

even more was that within medication Management in particular that was still

4:25

being done on paper within Elderly Care Facilities Private Hospital doors and

4:30

obviously everything is still very fragmented even today so we decided that

4:35

we would change projects from that initial idea to where strong really is

4:41

today and yeah so that's really how we came into the medication management landscape and uh started off with

4:48

methodone well I guess opioid replacement therapy as a software but now we've got yeah Solutions across a

4:55

lot of different verticals so yeah yeah you're right as someone that's been in healthcare for so long basically my

5:02

whole adult life yeah when Outsiders I don't want to call you Outsider MX but when you're not in it I am yes people

5:10

don't realize how much paper is still floating around but you you guys are making less paper Flo around which is

5:17

great but yeah it is kind of eye opening when I go to say other events or speak

5:22

to people in the industries and they make jokes about I haven't seen a fact since the 1900s and like with still have

5:30

one in our Pharmacy this is a bit awkward yeah yeah I think Max I'd love

5:35

to ask you a question now that kind of ties in from what you were talking about

5:40

with the medication management and how you've transitioned strong room to be so much more than just that op replacement

5:47

therapy yeah product with modern Pharmacy practice it's changing a lot in

5:54

montner I'm sure you've got quite a big Insight of this and probably in Max's ears about what's coming what can you

6:01

tell us about the role of Technology Max that you see in modern Pharmacy practice and how is strong room AI going to make

6:08

an impact in there yeah so it's a really good good question so I think that still

6:14

and strong room and we're working as quickly as we can alongside other providers that are also Innovative in

6:21

the space but obviously Pharmacy is the the role within the communities are

6:26

expanding quite rapidly and we're seeing that globally as well So within the UK

6:31

they've now got Pharmacy First programs which is pretty similar to our the Australian expansion expanding scope of

6:38

practice and you're seeing similar sort of things in Canada as well as in the US

6:45

as well I think what's really important with Technology Solutions as Healthcare

6:50

is Shifting is to remain Dynamic and agile but also keeping in mind that it

6:57

needs to be very workflow friendly which is incredibly important to adoption but

7:02

it also needs to keep in mind that pharmacies are also a business that needs to remain profitable so keeping

7:09

those different criteria in mind strong room I think really just where we see our roles playing and evolving is to be

7:17

providing that technical infrastructure where in 10 years time if I look back and see if we've succeeded on our

7:23

mission it would be to make sure that Independent Pharmacies have the same levels of efficiency as a Chemist

7:30

Warehouse but we can also provide ways for automation for different lines of

7:36

Revenue that comes with servicing patients as well absolutely I totally agree and Montana my question for you is

7:45

why do you think it's important for tech companies like strong room to have pharmacists on staff and what value do

7:51

you bring to the team which I think just hearing what Max said to said about the future of technology in Pharmacy it

7:58

seems pretty obvious to me but I'd love to hear your thoughts on that yeah there's a couple of different ways to

8:04

answer that question I think pharmacists bring crucial Healthcare expertise a patient Centric perspective and the

8:12

regulatory knowledge to tech companies like strong room AI we enhance the

8:17

interdisciplinary collaboration the cross collaboration between what actually happens on the ground and what

8:23

happens with the tech teams and we ensure products are clinically sound user friendly they work for a dispensary

8:29

they work for a pharmacy they work for countries that using the platform I

8:34

think the background that a pharmacist provides is really important so if a pharmacist like myself I specialize in

8:40

the operational management and those types of aspects so that helps Drive the way that the Technologies built with

8:46

efficiencies optimizing processes aligning Solutions with the real world Healthcare needs that are required and

8:53

ultimately we bridge that gap between Healthcare and Tech and that's really important and I think getting more phes

9:00

in roles in the technology that actually then pharmacists use is so important

9:05

because strong room we're building products for pharmacists to use so no

9:10

why not have the input from the start because then the output is what is required and I think from a strong room

9:16

AI value Mission and the morals of the company that's what really is the essence of it because they actually take

9:23

the input and make sure that it's actually in the product that we push out to the customers I think he worded that

9:29

so brilliantly Montana and it almost yeah it seems obvious you would think that more tech companies that have

9:36

products in healthcare would have people on their teams that are in healthcare or even advisors and some of them don't

9:43

which is seems a be wild but I've really love the approach that you guys are taking and I think you're right

9:50

pharmacists we have really good translatable skills so yes we've got that technical knowledge but we're able

9:56

to translate complicated information into an a language that's easy to

10:02

understand and my limited knowledge of technology and data I think it's it's

10:08

almost like doing the same thing even though you're not translating information around counseling but you're

10:14

Translating that Tech information into a usable product for the end user yeah and

10:21

I also think the way in which pharmacists are positioned in as a healthcare clinician we also have the

10:27

knowledge of a business Acumen as well well the organization and how it flows like the day-to-day operations is really

10:34

taken into account in the way the tech teams here build those products and that makes them user friendly in on the

10:42

ground absolutely and Max I know you're a big believer in having really great people on your team and I know Montana

10:49

is not the only pharmacist on your team so obviously you see the value that pharmacists and people with different

10:55

diverse experiences bring to your team yeah definitely I think that I've come

11:00

to appreciate what unique role that pharmacists play and the characteristics

11:06

that's required to be a good pharmacist as well it's not just again from a public perception not just someone that

11:12

is filling scripts all day but effectively they have to have the people skills especially if they uh work within

11:20

Community Pharmacy in particular they are dealing with complicated more and

11:25

more complicated I would say medication treatment schedule so as a result of

11:30

that they've got to analyze information quickly make decisions quickly and that really relates to how we work as an

11:38

organization as well where we do want people to be able to make decisions quickly we do want them to be able to

11:46

synthesize data in a way that makes sense and also be able to collaborate with others which is very very important

11:53

as well so I think as of right now onethird of our team are pharmacist

11:59

and actually the majority within product and customer success is also pharmacists

12:05

in fact I think there's only one or two of them who aren't and one of them who isn't actually grew up in Community

12:11

Pharmacy and he was able to come on board unfortunately before he could even get to UNI so yeah take that as as you

12:18

will yeah fortunately for him or for you maybe fortunately for you unfortunate for him yeah exactly now we've talked a

12:26

lot about the success that career transitions of both of you to get to where you are today but I guess the

12:34

thing with success there's always challenges and uh things that you need to overcome in your careers and I'm sure

12:41

both of you have had different experiences Montana I'd like to yeah

12:46

hear if you've experienced any significant challenges in your career

12:52

and yeah how did you overcome those challenges I think I'll answer the

12:57

question this way the first point that I'd really like to hit on is as you and I both know as pharmacist chrisy Lee

13:04

when you work in Pharmacy and you do for a long period of time and from a very

13:09

early age you realize that we have a fragmented Health Care system and that really hits home and because a lot of

13:15

Pharmacists actually have the empathy and the compassion for their community and for their wider population that's

13:22

pretty much the first significant challenge I came up against because it's a bigger one it's something that in some

13:28

ways is not in your control and you have to be able to when when you feel so much

13:33

for your community you really want to help and that's what majority of Pharmacists want to do so I would say

13:39

encountering that firsthand of like the lack of coordination the inconsistent information the inefficiencies that are

13:47

existing between different platforms the patient confusion that occurs the poor patient education that is sometimes

13:54

there with s different patient cohorts and the disparity in care that can sit

14:00

that can occur is really unfortunate and it's something that you want to do something about and that's a really big

14:05

challenge because it's never ending and you need to go about finding ways to find solutions for it or have an impact

14:13

in a way that you would like to ensure that you feel like you're doing something for your community in a positive manner so I think in my

14:19

transition to strong room AI I was able to really feel like I was empowered to

14:25

help in that environment and do something about you know developing care coordination programs and promoting

14:32

patient centered care and positive outcomes for patients through a technology platform that could reach

14:39

thousands of people in an instant and that allowed pharmacists to really expand the way that they could

14:45

communicate with their patients and it really gives that comprehensive care because not always is your patient in

14:51

the pharmacy so for me it was really important to find a way that as a pharmacist I could help other

14:57

pharmacists find ways to communicate with their patient provide additional patient education and Health Care

15:04

through a different stream that may not have been conventional when we first

15:09

started out but through the products that are being built in the technology area that we can actually help to

15:16

coordinate that and provide another level of care to patients that doesn't currently exist I think you've answered

15:22

that really really well and I can definitely relate to some of those frustrations that you were talking about

15:28

and know probably every pharmacist listening has experienced that but what I love with

15:34

what you did is rather than just seeing it says this is just the way it is and

15:40

we just have to deal with it it's okay well how can I get involved in something

15:46

that is trying to change this it doesn't have to be like this and yeah I don't know how many times I've been in phes on

15:53

a weekend or a Friday night and you've got yeah people being discharged from hospital or in and out of the AG Care

16:00

Home and yeah it's an absolute mess and it's Health it really shouldn't be like this so I think yeah I can really see

16:08

the passion that's coming through the way you speak about this Fontana which I think is is amazing and I think at the

16:15

end of the day most people that become pharmacist it's because they want to help and for people that are listening I

16:22

think if you're able to get into roles similar to what moner is in you can have that influence on such widest scale

16:30

rather than just the people in front of you which is still really really quite rewarding and very very important but

16:37

you can have that wider influence and and try and drive change that way like if we all come together for the greater

16:43

good because that's what we do as farmacist and that's the way that we go about sharing information even and why

16:49

we have so many associations and why we're mostly everybody's connected to each other and we all know each other

16:54

inside of the industry but it's ultimately to streamline the care for the patients and to really have that

17:00

improved patient Health outcomes on a wider scale and I think with the

17:05

different Avenues and Technology Stacks that are being built and products that are now available like at the heart of

17:11

it for Max and Chris and what they've developed here it really is with the

17:17

thought of improving it on mass and that's what I think is really important about in the communication of getting

17:25

what we can do out on a wider scale fores and Healthcare CL because we can all do that 1% and compounded that makes

17:33

a huge difference to right and so max I'm sure you've probably experienced

17:39

your own challenges or you mentioned earlier the frustrations that you saw early on when you saw Healthcare using a

17:46

lot of paper and so yeah can you share maybe some of the challenges you've seen and what you've done to overcome those

17:53

challenges yeah I mean as we were sort of talking before the start of a podcast for C I think just running a business in

18:00

general any business is always challenging and starting a new one is also can be difficult at times like with

18:08

any business strong room goes through its ups and downs I think for sure the struggles of starting a company there's

18:16

challenges when things are slow and then there's always challenges when things go right as well and you're growing very

18:21

quickly so last year we had a really great year but I think we grow a little bit too quickly than what we were

18:28

expecting which was a good problem to have on the surface but we also learned some quite painful experiences from that

18:35

so we've always prided ourselves and having great customer service as an example toward it and for about three

18:41

months last year it was just not at the level that it should have been and that hurt me personally a lot that you do go

18:49

through emotions like you've disappointed your customers who've taken a chance on you or you might feel some

18:56

senses like a little bit of Shame as a result of that as well but it's always important to have that level of tenacity

19:02

I think to just keep working through those problems day in day out and just

19:08

not give up and that's what's seen us through each problem we come up against and over time you become used to it and

19:15

in some senses also enjoy the challenge of it all as well so yeah I can

19:20

definitely relate and I really appreciate your honesty there as well I know a lot of people listening would

19:26

definitely be able to relate to that I think think yeah with business starting a business I've done the same thing and

19:32

I like the way that you said growing quickly was a great problem to have and it is actually a problem and no one

19:38

really can prepare you for it you can have all your forecasts and plans and yeah it's great when it's busy and The

19:44

Works coming in and but then it it does also can cause some problems as well and

19:50

sometimes you've got to make decisions and prioritize things and that means that you're going to drop the ball somewhere else and so I think I can hear

19:58

that from what you were saying that customer service piece and I think because it's something that you've

20:03

created it's a piece of you right and people and especially when you pride yourself in the people part and that

20:10

customer service and it can be hard not to take it personally as well I think

20:15

yeah there's also around that as well we because we haven't had a prior we've

20:22

never been an executive of a prior business before that's come in the same

20:27

way thaton room has it also means that we're also learning everything ourselves

20:32

as we go and there was this really there was an interesting quote I saw and it

20:37

could just be on like one of those silly Instagram motivation things as you're going through it reals or whatever but

20:45

there was something that was saying like you have to grow personally 200% in terms of capabilities in order to grow

20:52

100% year on year as a business and that's something I've sort of thought about a little bit more so for the first

20:59

time this year I had like an executive coach that just helped me through how I'm communicating but to be honest this

21:06

is where I also want to get really great people on board like Montana as well I learn a lot from them as well so so they

21:14

sort of come in as like a semi coach to myself as well so and I think that's just the power of being able to bring

21:20

really great people on board so yeah yeah it's almost if you especially when you're starting something from scratch

21:27

you have to do a basically everything yourself right and then as you're getting bigger you need to bring other people in and and it's

21:34

that trust having people around you that you trust that you know we're going to get the job done and do it to your

21:40

standard and there's pharmacists listening that are maybe business owners it's no different to what Max has

21:46

experienced it's still a business as well and you need to be able to have good people around you that you know can

21:52

catch the ball when you need to yeah go and do something else yeah exactly yeah

21:58

and I guess now I probably still keeping on the theme of challenges and

22:04

opportunities I'd probably would like to know what yeah both of your thoughts are around maybe what are the biggest

22:12

challenges in the pharmacy profession we've talked about some of them already but they are actually really big

22:19

opportunities for companies such as strong room AI where through the use of Technology we can actually overcome a

22:25

lot of these problems so is there anything that maybe we haven't spoken about that you've seen as a challenge

22:31

and something that technology can improve upon so on my end we've been looking at the power of data quite

22:39

closely and I think that there's good instances of data being used

22:44

appropriately and then there's obviously negative effects of that for the pharmacy industry and I think this is

22:50

something that Pharmacy owners probably need to just become a little bit more cognizant of and it is a very hard

22:58

process to educate yourself on for something that seems like that's seems incredibly foreign I think in the US

23:05

unfortunately you're seeing pbms come up a lot in the headlines about the role

23:10

that they play they take phy data and then obviously to process the different

23:17

scripts but because of a way that it's all been owned Etc it provides a very

23:23

difficult condition for independent pharmacies to exist but then on the other hand if you're seeing pharmacies

23:31

that very much have a good understanding of their data they can navigate through the opportunities and assess things a

23:38

lot more acutely and this is something we're still trying to tackle as a company is how do we make data

23:46

accessible readable and actionable to Pharmacy owners and we're not quite

23:51

there yet but it's we can definitely see that this is a problem that's coming up

23:57

and if people keep ignoring this issue it's going to provide problems down the road so yeah so that's that's probably

24:05

on my end Montana probably has a different different answer yeah very similar similarly aligned with and

24:11

following on from your about the data and the AI piece it's also about how you

24:17

integrate that into a pharmacy and what that means to a team what that means to the humans in the team and how they can

24:23

actually use the integrated technology in their day-to-day and what that how your dispensary technician works with

24:30

that your pharmacist works with that and the pharmacist in charge works with that data and the changes that it makes to

24:36

their roles I think that's a really big challenge that will come up about how we actually roll that in and integrate that

24:43

into the pharmacies and how we get them comfortable with it so I think that will be a challenge that we will face but

24:49

we'll face it together and we'll come up with the solution together and you know we'll make sure that is a an actionable

24:55

piece for them that they feel comfortable with and that everybody feels safe to roll along with on a

25:00

day-to-day basis absolutely we've been chatting for just over half an hour now

25:06

with and so I could keep on chatting for probably a couple of hours and I

25:12

everything that we've talked about has been different pieces that I would love to dive into deeper maybe at a in the

25:18

future but bringing it back to our listeners a lot of them are listening to this podcast because maybe they're

25:25

wanting to know how to do something different in their career especially as a pharmacist and so Montana I'd love to

25:32

know what your practical advice is for pharmacists that are looking to expand

25:38

their roles outside of that Community Pharmacy so you've been there and done that and maybe some people are just a

25:44

bit too scared that they don't have right skill set so yeah what's your advice to those pharmacists my number

25:50

one piece would be have confidence in yourself have confidence in your ability I didn't necessarily know technology and

25:58

had a code and all that type of jazz when I came into strong room AI but you've got to remember that's not the role that you're coming in for and you

26:04

know you have a different set of skills and we can apply our skills in Tech in management in Consulting like yourself

26:10

chrisy Le and what you've gone on to do yourself which is amazing in its own right you need to interview yourself

26:16

enhancing the Health Care Solutions most importantly though I think we need to make sure that we always maintain our

26:23

currency which like ensures that we stay up to date with different advancments that are happening in our industry and

26:30

also that we continue to drive evidence-based care and drive the innovations that are around us but also

26:37

be a sponge like learn grow be happy to take on different education like I sit

26:43

in rooms with Max and learn so much about how to create a startup and create the technology business that him and

26:49

Chris have I sit next to Chris who's our CTO and learn so much about technology and why it's built in a certain way and

26:55

what you can do with it and what it allows different Healthcare clinicians to be able to do from writing a code you

27:01

know you sit with our different development teams and you learn from them so I think also making sure that

27:07

you understand that you're not ever going to know it all but don't make out that you know it all and go in with an

27:13

open mind and learn from everybody around you because you can always be learning new things and and be willing

27:19

to grow and evolve I think that's a really important piece but to start out with have confidence in yourself and have confidence with your skill set and

27:25

then take that in and and be willing to absorb like a sponge oh I think that's great advice and having confidence in

27:33

the skills that you do have and not talking them down I don't know why us as phaces like to do that we try to be

27:39

pretty humble and modest which is a good quality to have but yeah you do sometimes need to I guess Chach your own

27:45

horn a little bit that's okay but then you mentioned yeah being a sponge and that's something that I do I I find that

27:52

every interaction I have no matter who it is I have the ability to learn something from them and you never know

27:58

where that could happen either it doesn't necessarily have to be a workplace it could be sitting around

28:04

having a drink with friends or at a conference and I think yeah a lot of great Innovations happened from those

28:11

just talking to people and listening to their problems and yeah just willing to learn from other people is a and allow

28:18

yourself to have that experience like go out put yourself out there be in rooms that you know you might not feel like

28:24

you should be there but be there and and learn from that and have conversations with people yes and it is scary we're

28:32

not going to pretend that it's not scary like side we're dying not really but yeah I was just reflecting on a time

28:39

where just recently I got invited to a what was called executive lunch for sea

28:45

sues because yeah now I guess I am a managing director of my own company and I didn't really look at myself that way

28:53

and I'm very comfortable in the pharmacy industry in this particular lunch it was actually at Tech lunch and I was the

29:01

only one there from a healthcare background and as they were doing the intros I thought oh my gosh what am I

29:07

doing here how did I get an invite to this but then I when I mentioned who I was and they were all just wanting to

29:16

understand more about oh wow what are the challenges in Health caran Pharmacy and how can we help and then they were

29:23

all very happy to even some of them I've got their numbers for now and I've been able to contact them and just ask them

29:29

some advice on yeah how to be an executive in my own company and so that's always nice to be able to yeah

29:36

chat to other people that have been there and done it as well and so yeah maybe Max you've probably might have

29:42

similar advice as well but for you maybe pharmacists that are wanting to step

29:47

into ownership whether that be a buying a a pharmacy or establishing a new

29:52

Pharmacy or even creating a consulting company like I did what's your advice for those people yeah I think it's

29:58

always really rewarding to step into it I would say that I have personally

30:04

benefited from starting it a lot younger and I don't know how people that do do it later on in life which is a much more

30:10

common demographic to do so do it but if you're young and and thinking about it I

30:16

would just go straight into it and similarly to what Montana said as well I think the world is evolving so quickly

30:23

and we only really need to see the last three years for that and so I think it can feel overwhelming at

30:30

times but the most important thing I think is to keep reading and uh keep

30:36

talking with people that are a lot more talented than yourself and that will help you make sure that at least you're

30:43

thinking about things the right way as well so and you'll have a support system around you so yeah a great advice and

30:51

when you you mentioned about doing it earlier on in in life I still like to think I'm still pretty on that 30

30:59

for no I'm just for you like it's all good but I I had in mind was like most

31:05

business owners start when they're like in their late 40s

31:11

I no you've got one on him now you've got one but do you know what though even

31:20

like in your 30s and for me starting the businesses whereas if I'd done up when I

31:25

was 19 I wouldn't have had a mortgage I wouldn't have had all these other commitments I wouldn't have had a stepdaughter so your level of risk is

31:32

very different when you're younger and there's always going to be people that are telling you oh but you need to do

31:38

this first you need to do this you need to do whatever and I love the the path

31:44

that I've taken and everything that I've done up until this point to start my business has helped me give me the

31:50

knowledge to be able to start sometimes you just have to start and do it and so

31:56

you can put it off and give reasons why but I think yeah just jump in it and give it a go and what's the Worst That

32:04

Could Happen well for me I thought well what's the worst that I could happen is oh well I have to go back to work as a

32:09

pharmacist well that's not too bad still and I think that's one of the best things about being a pharmacist right

32:15

I'm so I am in many ways jealous of Pharmacists because you've always got something to fall back on well uh

32:23

unfortunately with an economics and history degree there's not too much to fall back on but

32:28

yeah so especially with pharmacists I think you're all in a very privileged position to be in and yeah nothing in

32:36

life is difficult as you think it is but you just have to keep working at it that's all so yeah at the time when

32:43

you're in that situation no matter what it is it always feels tough but then it's also good to to sit back and kind

32:49

of reflect on where you are and look back and I think just in the short time that I've had my business when I'm

32:55

thinking oh it's not growing as fast as I would like or I'm not getting the contracts that I thought I'd be getting

33:01

but then I look back to where I was just 6 months ago and I thought oh actually I'm doing pretty good I've actually

33:07

kicked the goals that I wanted to so that's good to stop and and reflect as well on your achievements whether that's

33:14

in your business or just yeah your personal achievements as well well thank you both for the conversation I've

33:20

really really enjoyed it and I hope everyone listening has as well is there any last thoughts or any comments both

33:28

like to make before we sign off no just thank you so much for having us as well it was lovely to have a chat with you

33:33

after well I I see so a but after working together a couple years ago so

33:39

yeah yeah it's always a a pleasure speaking to you and also monetta yourself I've also had the pleasure to

33:45

work alongside Montana and so it I'm so proud to see where you are so well done

33:51

thank you so much for having us thanks for giving us the platform to have a chat thank you well thank you for tuning

33:56

into your Pharmacy podcast don't forget to subscribe for more inspiring stories

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