Mike Gray's path to dentistry was anything but straightforward — and that's precisely what makes this conversation so compelling. 

A former semi-professional mountain biker who raced the World Series across three disciplines, a musician who once had the head of Universal Publishing sitting in his living room in rural Wales, and a dentist who spent years doing everything he could to avoid dentistry, Mike has lived several lives before arriving at the one he clearly loves. 

Payman and Mike cover the full sweep — grief, therapy, surgical war stories, and an obsessive, self-taught approach to digital restorative dentistry that culminates in his POISE Protocol: a no-prep veneer workflow that he believes makes truly minimally invasive ceramics available to the vast majority of patients, not just a lucky five per cent.

In This Episode

00:00:55 – Introductions and first impressions

00:01:20 – Mountain biking career

00:09:15 – A friend's suicide, guilt and stepping back from maxfax

00:12:15 – Therapy

00:14:10 – Life on the World Series circuit

00:19:25 – From maxfax to music

00:28:10 – Blackbox thinking

00:33:45 – Music career — Alabama Three, Peppa Pig and Covid

00:49:25 – NHS dentistry debate

00:51:50 – Falling in love with dentistry

00:54:40 – Self-taught restorative and the digital workflow

01:00:25 – Ditching the articulator

01:01:20 – Prototypes, not temporaries

01:05:10 – Into implants

01:11:00 – Compassion fatigue

01:13:40 – POISE protocol and no-prep ceramics

01:25:10 – The Lodge and the course

01:29:05 – Resilience and failure

01:34:20 – Practice ownership

01:41:10 – Instagram

01:49:20 – Fantasy dinner party

About Mike Gray

Mike Gray is a dentist based in Wales, working at Parkway Clinic in Swansea and The Lodge — a referral and education centre where he hosts his sold-out POISE Protocol course on minimally invasive ceramic veneers. His background spans maxillofacial surgery, semi-professional mountain biking at World Series level, and a music career that attracted interest from Universal Publishing and, improbably, Peppa Pig. He teaches himself CAD, machines his own surgical instruments, and has spent five years developing a digital workflow for no-prep ceramic restorations that he believes renders feldspathic and heavy preparation largely redundant.