Podcast
Perfect Practice
Hosted by Sachin Patel · EN
Perfect Practice is a wellness practitioner's tactical blueprint to building, growing, and scaling their practice.
12episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Transformative Health Strategies for the Modern Practitioner with Holly Niles
Dec 30, 202400:47:56Tap to summarizeHolly is a functional medicine nutritionist and lifestyle transformation specialist who is passionate about educating, guiding, coaching and assisting clients in finding balance in their life. Most recently, she had the unique opportunity of working for several years with Dr. Mark Hyman and his medical team at the UltraWellness center in Lenox, Massachusetts. Working with hundreds of diverse patients at this premier functional medicine center offered me a wealth of experience and knowledge. She is happy to be able to share this as an integral part her collective knowledge with her clients. Holly's approach looks at the full spectrum of your life. All the varied aspects of your life combine to create the health or lack of health in your body. This concept is the essence of functional medicine- getting to the root causes of imbalances, Every client is unique and to that end, Holly creates specific individualized plans that combine research based medicine with user-friendly sustainable lifestyle changes. Holly looks forward to working with you! Specialties: Functional Medicine Nutritional Consultations-in person and remote, Corporate Wellness Programming and Initiatives, Stress Management Sessions and Programming, Meditation, Yoga and Yoga Therapy. Website: www.hollyniles.com Instagram: www.instagram.com/wholehealthgenie Facebook: www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61568167412035
Transcribe →Mastering the Art of Conscious Sales: Aligning with Client Aspirations with Oliver Wolf
Dec 30, 202400:56:06Tap to summarizeOliver Wolf, a devoted family man, is the co-founder of Beyond the Peak Inc., a premier Conscious Sales Agency, and The Conscious Sales Team which facilitates bringing the Conscious Sales teams, systems and strategies internally. Renowned as a formidable business strategist, Oliver possesses a distinct flair for systems, leadership and operations. His expertise lies in crafting optimal strategies to bolster the back-end of businesses, ensuring they are primed for exponential growth. With over 15 years under his belt in sales, leadership, and management, Oliver melds this experience into a unique perspective he terms "Business Harmonization." This approach, rooted in the synergy of systems and teams, is his secret weapon in assisting visionary entrepreneurs. Under his guidance, they not only scale beyond the coveted 7-figure mark but also transition into their ultimate zone of genius, embracing both their desired lifestyle and business acumen. Instagram: www.instagram.com/official_oliver_wolf Facebook: www.facebook.com/oliver.business.harmonization.specialist Website: www.thewolfsyndicate.com and www.conscioussales.com
Transcribe →The Human Algorithm with Joshua B. Lee
Aug 22, 202400:49:26Tap to summarizeIn this episode, Sachin interviews Joshua B. Lee on all things about developing your connections on LinkedIn and why LinkedIn delivers the audience you want better than any other social media platform. Josh opens with vulnerability and builds on his strengths as he teaches principles for human connection online. Listen to learn more about H2H relationships on LinkedIn and how you can grow your authority there. Key Takeaways: [1:00] Sachin introduces today's guest, Joshua B. Lee, the Dopamine Dealer on LinkedIn. He's one of the most positive, caring, compassionate human beings. He will talk to us about making our interactions and marketing more human. Sachin welcomes Josh to Perfect Practice. [2:20] Sachin met Josh at a variety of masterminds, including Archangel with Giovanni Marsico, Amber Spear's Mimosa mastermind, and Genius Network with Joe Polish. [2:43] Josh and Sachin were introduced by Kevin Thompson. Josh talks about Sachin taking time to show up for so many. We change the world for the better through enriching, transparent conversations about what's going on. [4:00] Josh is the Dopamine Dealer on LinkedIn. His approach online is to treat other humans how his mother taught him to treat them. That allows him to start conversations that turn into relationships that open massive opportunities. [5:24] Josh says when he acknowledges someone for something they take for granted, compliments them, or asks about them, they get a little dopamine hit. This puts them into a flow state, allowing them to have a conversation. It's like going from the door to sitting on the couch. [5:48] With the dopamine bond, it's two friends having a conversation. It's not about sales, it's about coming together to create opportunity, allowing the byproduct to be whatever it might be. [6:34] Josh and Sachin were part of the mastermind and Kevin Thompson brought them together. In recent years, Josh has built many ventures; now he focuses on LinkedIn. [7:11] LinkedIn has been going for 20 years, longer than any other social media platform! It made a shift when Microsoft bought it. People are on it to add value and get value. [8:21] It's a platform to add value to other educated individuals who are business decision-makers, who generate a revenue scale that's a lot higher than that on any other social media platform. On LinkedIn, you can create a massive change. [8:39] Josh adds that he's not competing against half-naked influencers selling sunglasses. He calls the people he works with thought leaders with influence. They put information out there. [9:01] Josh gets massive reach on LinkedIn. There are a billion people on LinkedIn. Four million of them are active. Those four million get access to 10 billion content impressions weekly. [9:17] Josh says there's no other platform he can win on with the right people who are ready to take action with people that he wants to be able to talk to. [9:29] Josh sees OpenAI as the future of business and search in the next year or two. [10:13] Josh designed one of the first MySpace ads that a lot of social media ads are based on today. There's a conditioning on social media to like, comment, share, post, and be caught up in a pattern we don't even think about. [10:57] We take these things for granted. There's so much in this world that we take for granted and don't pay attention to. How do we connect humanly on a platform like LinkedIn? [11:43] Use messages like, "Hey Sachin, I saw you looked at my profile. I just want to reach out and say thank you. Too often we don't appreciate that. I'd love to find out what pushed you to look me up." [11:55] Or, "I saw you liked my recent post. I just want to reach out and say thank you. Too often we don't appreciate that. I'd love to find out what pushed you to engage with my content." You're trying to start a conversation by thanking them for something they take for granted. [12:07] It's a stop-gap in the pattern. It allows them to be able to hear you now and be able to have that true conversation. Josh hates cold calling and cold emailing, but these people looked at his profile or his content. It's an opportunity, let's explore. [12:26] People like Sachin post amazing content on LinkedIn. If you like a post, comment on it, thank the poster for it, and compliment it. Start with "Thank you." Don't make it about you. [13:28] Josh points out how it feels when there's a warm reaction to something you post on LinkedIn. It opens up the opportunity to engage. [14:09] Josh's advice for a practitioner to be in service on LinkedIn: Start with your profile. Build the right profile, fully fleshed out, not just with your resume but with your career journey. Most people don't look past your banner and title. [14:36] Titles don't attract. Use a headline with an XYZ statement: "I help (support) X to do Y so they can have (achieve) Z." X is your ideal client or tribe. It starts there. Use your profile to tell people where you've been, where you are, and where you're going. It's a storyboard of your life. [16:01] The more you talk about where you've been, the gap between you and your audience gets smaller. "You worked at Chili's? Me too!" Now you have commonality and connection. [16:50] The next step is to share content that backs up that you're the authority in your space. Better to be an authority than an expert. In the world of AI, everyone's an expert. Be the authority that people go to every day. [17:40] Use the 10-20-70 rule of content. Ten percent personal, showing you're human. Twenty percent, stories of what your company has done for people. Seventy percent, educate and aggregate value for your audience. Become a destination site as the authority in your field. [19:10] If you say, "Hey, here's 50 pages, and here are the 10 lines of it you need to pay attention to now," that's how you need to show up on LinkedIn every day. Educate them enough that if they have a problem or issue, they're going to come to you for the solution. [19:45] After profile and content, what next? You have to be active about drawing in your audience. Josh uses LinkedIn's CRM system, Sales Navigator to identify his audience better than any other social media platform. [20:18] It costs $100 U.S. per month. With the relationship you can build with one person, it should give you, if not 10X, at least $100 in value every month. You can only reach out and connect with 400 people a month. Monday through Friday, that's 20 people per day. [20:47] Use Sales Navigator to identify your exact audience, click on the button, "Active on LinkedIn the last 30 days," to get a pretty tight audience. Engage on their content, reach out, connect with them, and draw your ideal audience in to look at your profile and content. [21:09] When you're having that conversation with them in the DMs, you create that opportunity and make that relationship deeper. [21:24] It takes Josh's clients 30 to 45 days to get in the human algorithm, rebuild their LinkedIn profile, get content going, and have that in place, to start messaging. Josh helped a client have a relationship conversation within seven days of engaging with someone's content. [22:20] Most people fail here by talking about themselves. Josh's Mom taught him when you meet someone new, compliment them. It's nice to be nice. Do that on LinkedIn. Give endorsements. You'll get thanks. Get their mindset, to know them better. [24:01] Ask if they consider themselves an entrepreneur, or a business owner with an entrepreneurial mindset. Entrepreneurs are early in their careers. Being an entrepreneur is exhausting. Business owners are more established with a team and a growth mindset. [24:40] They might answer they work for someone else. However they answer, it allows you to provide value. If the answer isn't what you're looking for, you can still leave them with value. [24:59] Josh shares an example. He helped Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy relaunch the book, Who Not How with a free plus shipping book offer, even though they weren't aligned. [25:14] Josh has done it in seven days, but it can take longer, depending on a person's LinkedIn profile and content. As you continue to have 400 conversations a month, it keeps growing, creating more opportunities. [25:59] Sachin's updating his LinkedIn profile during this call. Josh says Giovanni Marsico did, too. Josh was also on Evan Carmichael's podcast and Evan did it, too. Make your profile human. There are people who do things similar to you but they're not you. [27:34] Josh points out that he is sharing his knowledge with Sachin and influencing him to take action. It's essential to be a thought leader with influence. The power is yours. You can do it straight from LinkedIn better than from any other platform out there. [28:12] Josh has a book, Balance is Bullsh*t. He was very successful but he didn't feel it. He was miserable, and money was his driver when it should have been a byproduct. He reset his life at age 36 and wrote about it. ...
Transcribe →Integrative Women's Health with Jessica Drummond
Aug 8, 202400:48:04Tap to summarizeIn this episode, Sachin interviews Dr. Jessica Drummond on a variety of topics around her journey from being a nurse practitioner in a clinical facility to being an integrative women's health practitioner, serving clients around the world. She speaks of her experience with long-haul COVID, and how her practice had prepared for her to be absent for two months while she recovered with hyperbaric oxygen therapy. Dr. Jessica shares her business insights and how going digital in time for the pandemic was a great shift for her business. Listen to learn more about how Dr. Jessica navigates health and illness, hard times and good times, with the support of family, friends, and mentors. Key Takeaways: [1:03] Sachin introduces today's guest, Dr. Jessica Drummond, who will talk about her health challenges and her business. Sachin welcomes Dr. Jessica to Perfect Practice. [2:16] Dr. Jessica is a physical therapist and a certified clinical nutritionist with a doctorate in clinical nutrition. She graduated as a physical therapist in 1999, planning on sports medicine. She enjoys sports and exercise so she started her career in outpatient orthopedics. [3:19] She grew interested in women's health. Within the first decade of her career, Dr. Jessica realized that physical therapy was not the complete answer to some of the more complex conditions affecting women. [4:06] That's when Dr. Jessica dove in to learn more about health coaching, clinical nutrition, functional nutrition, and taking a more integrative perspective. Dr. Jessica mostly educates professionals but she has a small practice of clients with complex chronic illness. [4:52] When you come at a complex condition with a holistic mindset, and let the client lead with all the things that they can do, that gets Dr. Jessica excited. We don't have a quick-fix solution for complex chronic illnesses like endometriosis. [5:25] Dr. Jessica started the Integrative Women's Health Institute as CEO and Founder. Dr. Jessica thinks that having an athlete mindset has supported her in everything, not just her work. In terms of successfully navigating entrepreneurship, it absolutely helps her. [6:26] From 2006 to 2010, Dr. Jessica's husband moved the family often as a consultant, so Dr. Jessica had to keep restarting in new clinical positions. She started her practice not to be an entrepreneur but to create something she could do anywhere. [7:12] At the time Dr. Jessica didn't even have an iPhone, so she didn't have a lot of tools to do digital telehealth but it was possible. She had a beautiful office in her home to meet clients in, but all of them chose to work with her by telehealth, instead. [8:10] Dr. Jessica's athlete mindset is flexible, curious, and persistent. She says if you just keep doing it, you overcome the obstacles. If you give up, you don't overcome the obstacles. [8:39] Sachin is reading Areté, by Brian Johnson. He recommends it. It has 451 lessons on 1,000 pages. One lesson is about making 50 pounds of pottery to get the best final product in an art class, which is another way of putting in the reps. [9:54] No one mentored Dr. Jessica in entrepreneurship, but she had a teacher who inspired her in digital marketing. She has a cousin entrepreneur who helped her a lot. All during her schooling, she expected to have a straightforward clinical career. [11:58] Dr. Jessica's parents supported her education and paid for most of her schooling. She had a safety net. It's easier to be entrepreneurial when you have some financial cushion. She also still had her clinical skillset if she needed to fall back on a job, that helped her to take risks. [14:00] In the beginning of her business, Dr. Jessica's challenge was technology and she never did a tone of it. As quickly as she could, she hired people to help her with technology. The way she learned is when she didn't know how to do something, she would do it and get feedback. [14:46] Dr. Jessica thinks what gets people stuck is thinking through how to do something, and learning about how to do it, instead of doing it. The most valuable thing for her to do was to try something and then see if it worked. [15:09] Dr. Jessica was building the first large-scale digital version of her women's health coach certification when she met JJ Virgin, who encouraged her to sell it first and then build it, so she did. [16:45] For the first five years when Dr. Jessica was launching larger-scale global programs, she would go talk about them anywhere in the world that invited her to speak, if there were more than 20 people. She went all over the place. [17:08] Dr. Jessica overcame obstacles by taking action. That required doing a lot of things, like being on the news, filming YouTube videos, and speaking in front of audiences who heckled her. She knew that what she was talking about was helpful for patients because she had seen it. [20:19] Sachin had a conversation with an investment banker who told him the three things investors look for when buying a business: EBITDA, How much the Founder is involved in operations, and SOP. [20:52] Many entrepreneurs were challenged by the pandemic. It affected Dr. Jessica with long-haul symptoms. [21:39] Dr. Jessica thanks Sachin for the help he provided to her with breathwork, while she was ill. The year 2020 was great for the Integrative Women's Health Institute because they were ahead of the curve. Her colleagues at in-person practices were shut down. [22:36] Dr. Jessica and her team were able to quickly pivot and educate people through telehealth with a decade of telehealth experience by that point. If you're creative and constantly looking for opportunities, sometimes you're a little bit ahead of the curve and can take advantage of shifts. [23:02] Her colleagues who run small private practices were willing to adapt. Some of them grew new lines of service but in the short term, it was hard. For Dr. Jessica, the short-term was great. [23:21] Then, in December 2020, Dr. Jessica got COVID-19. She thought with Vitamin D, she would be strong. She was shocked to become super sick. She was weak for months and had more long-haul issues. Almost four years later, it's still something she manages. [24:03] Being so sick cost Dr. Jessica a lot of money. She was grateful to have some cushion from earlier in 2020. Dr. Jessica had a team of 20 running the company. They stepped up. Dr. Jessica was grateful to have work, to tether her to reality as she recovered. [24:59] Dr. Jessica says part of the healing is staying contributory, even if in small ways. There's a sense of purpose in the work. [25:41] The systems and structure of Dr. Jessica's company had to be ironclad. At that point, they were not, so she brought in a fractional COO. They reorganized the team a bit and the COO is still with the company today. [26:12] In 2023, as a part of her long-haul COVID recovery, Dr. Jessica went to the hospital at Yale for hyperbaric oxygen therapy which was key to her complete recovery. It required hours of therapy every day for 40 sessions, so she took two months off work. [27:03] At that point, the Integrative Women's Health Institute had built all the structure and systems to have everything running without Dr. Jessica's participation. They were able to maintain their revenue generation, and profitability, and support their students and clients. [27:26] This year, they are working on how to scale their strongest programs. Dr. Jessica has hand-picked the strongest programs that they want to keep doing. They have a clear path to the goals to hit to get to the ideal EBITDA for profitability, and for the company to be stronger. [28:03] When you go from being at the peak of health to the week later, almost dying, you think about your business as a resource for your family, if they were to need it and you weren't there. [28:19] Dr. Jessica doubled down on creating and optimizing SOPs, so her skilled team can continue to scale the mission of women's integrative healthcare. Dr. Jessica has worked very hard on this asset for 15 years. If anything happens to her, her family will recoup something. [29:18] Hopefully, Dr. Jessica won't die suddenly, and she and her husband will have something out of the intense work of the past 15 years. [30:35] Dr. Jessica says if someone has long-haul, the key is figuring out what kind of long-haul. There are different underlying causes. The most common symptom is fatigue. Dr. Jessica supported her mitochondria from Day 1, so she never had fatigue. Support your mitochondria. [31:11] The second thing is thinking of oxygen as a nutrient. For Dr. Jessica, hyperbaric oxygen therapy was key. You may have capillary microclotting. You may be dealing with organ damage or irritation to the immune system that triggers mast cell activation syndrome. [34:31] Because you create a business out of thin air, you can create it in any way that you want. It's valuable from the beginning to think about the pieces of it that could run without you needing to be fully present even for a little bit at a time. You ca...
Transcribe →Healthy Living in Menopause with Cynthia Thurlow
Jul 25, 202400:54:29Tap to summarizeIn this episode, Sachin interviews Cynthia Thurlow on her early career as a nurse practitioner, and why she took a leap of faith into beginning a holistic healthcare practice focusing on the health of perimenopausal and menopausal women. She speaks of her two TEDx talks, how the second one became viral, and led to her writing her first book. She speaks of intermittent fasting and what it did for her health and her practice. Listen to learn more about how Cynthia helps women in the second half of life live in their best health. Key Takeaways: [1:00] Sachin introduces today's guest, Cynthia Thurlow. Cynthia has done two TEDx talks and created a revolution around intermittent fasting. Today, we're going to go through the chapters of Cynthia's journey to inform you about the perseverance it takes to succeed. [2:28] Sachin thanks Cynthia for hosting him on a past episode of her podcast. Sachin and Cynthia met through Mindshare. Sachin is grateful for the collaboration in that community. [3:29] A great deal of why Cynthia does what she does is wanting to help women understand that navigating the second half of their lives does not have to be fraught with poor quality sleep, weight loss resistance, and gaslighting by well-meaning healthcare providers. [3:54] Cynthia started her journey in ER medicine and then cardiology as a nurse practitioner. She got to a point where she was no longer inspired to write prescriptions. She felt that so much of what she was seeing were lifestyle-mediated issues. [4:18] Cynthia says that so much of what we do in traditional allopathic medicine is focused on urgencies and emergencies and there's clearly a place for it but where we fall short is in prevention and chronic disease management. [4:33] Cynthia no longer felt aligned with writing prescriptions for lifestyle-related issues, so in April 2016, she took a massive leap of faith and left traditional clinical medicine. She assured her husband it would work. She felt there was a need to provide support in different ways. [5:27] Women started coming to her who felt they were misunderstood by providers who had 10 to 15 minutes to talk to them about multiple concerns, women who were being put on anti-depressants instead of checking hormones to see whether they needed oral progesterone. [5:51] Cynthia started creating programs in 2016 in response to consistent symptoms and concerns that women had, which led to one-on-one work. Nurse practitioners in her state were not autonomous. She knew she needed to be in lifestyle medicine. [6:16] Cynthia's colleagues didn't have time to talk to patients about sleep, nutrition, or exercise, so they referred those patients to Cynthia. That was how it evolved initially, and it was gratifying, but Cynthia still felt something was lacking. [6:56] In 2018, Cynthia wanted another challenge. She wanted to do a TEDx talk about the issues and changes women go through in perimenopause and menopause. [7:14] Cynthia did a second TEDx talk that went viral. It validated to Cynthia's family that her work was needed and that she had a genuine business. Cynthia speaks of the stress of going from being an employee to being an entrepreneur but says that great risks have great rewards. [8:22] Cynthia says she was meant to be married to her husband and have her boys. Occupationally, the work she is doing now impacts more people than being in an office or the hospital where she was seeing 16 or 20 patients a day. Now her message is amplified. [8:44] Her message also serves as a reminder that you are capable of so much more than you realize. Some of what you do is a leap of faith and some of it is understanding you have a message that is worth amplifying. Aligning with that concept allows you to propel forward. [9:47] As an entrepreneur, understand that things take time; they don't happen overnight. What you see on social media are highlights. They don't show you the tough part. They don't show you the 80 hours a week you may be working as an entrepreneur. It's so easy to doubt yourself. [10:12] Put your blinders on and focus on your vision and impact and the people you know you can reach and inspire. Sachin adds, some days you step in grass, and some days you step in mud but you just keep moving forward. As you go, you learn and develop skills. [12:07] Cynthia tells what it was like to resign from the hospital. Cynthia says in Human Design, she is a Manifesting Generator. She leans into what feels intrinsically right, viscerally. She loved her patients but she was not happy with writing prescriptions. She was mentally tired. [13:41] Cynthia's body was telling her she had to make a decision. One day, her feet hit the floor and she said, "Today is the day." Her husband didn't understand. She was fearful to tell her employer but once she did, it was like a weight was lifted off her shoulders. [14:16] Cynthia spent six weeks mourning the decision because she loved the people she worked with. She loved her patients, but not the environment. She was no longer growing intellectually. She was not aligned with the model of treating symptoms with prescriptions. [14:58] Cynthia felt that there was more that she could do by focusing on lifestyle and helping people understand that poor sleep, inactivity, poor eating, poor relationships, and poor spiritual practices do not lead to good health. [15:40] Colleagues and her parents told her she was having a midlife crisis but she disagreed. She had put much thought into it and had a clear vision of where she saw her business going. She couldn't do it in the context of continuing to work in that environment. [16:19] Looking back eight years, Cynthia sees she is now exactly where she is meant to be. There's a reason things happened on the trajectory that they did. She had to take that leap of faith. Now Advanced Practice Nurses reach out to her and ask how they can do as she does. [17:35] Cynthia says all of us listening to this podcast need to realize our work is so needed and valuable. We have to have faith in ourselves. We need to build an army to help support people's health and wellness needs. Cynthia says the current system is broken. [17:55] Sachin quotes Dan Sullivan who said that every system does exactly what it is designed to do. Sachin's take on that is that the system is fixed to be rigged against the patient and the practitioner so a small percentage of people benefits from everything that's happening. [18:28] Sachin is thankful that the system is great in emergency situations but eventually, it grinds down practitioners, patients, insurance companies, and governments. He can't see how it will play out over the course of 50 or 100 years. [19:12] Sachin addresses the mid-life crisis issue. For a lot of people, going into a holistic style of practice happens around mid-life. But it's not a mid-life crisis, it's an opportunity to be reborn. Reframing that in people's minds can be helpful. It's a new world, embrace you. [20:36] Cynthia is the first entrepreneur in her family. Her parents instilled in her a strong sense of self-confidence. She comes from a family of people who are in service to others, both in medicine and teaching. She speaks of how she and her husband balance each other. [22:17] Cynthia has a child she suspects will be an entrepreneur. He's constantly figuring out strategies and solutions. He wants to go to business school and work on Wall Street with complex computational models. [22:50] Cynthia invested early in her mindset and her business. She got a business coach early and she credits every coach she hired with helping her drive her business further. You cannot do it all on your own. Hire people who know more than you do to help you expedite your growth. [23:24] Cynthia joined Mindshare in 2019, After her talk went viral, she had felt the universe telling her it was time to leap again. After joining the mastermind, she felt like a little fish in a big pond, amazed at the quality of people she was around, people she could learn from. [23:51] Cynthia is a proponent of being a lifelong learner. There's no greater joy for her than learning. She is very coachable. Give her a suggestion and she gets it done. Her business is not a hobby. She wants to make an impact and as a result, generate an income. [26:33] The American Heart Association produced a document on time-restricted feeding at an epidemiological conference. It looked at two days' worth of data, wasn't a research study, and wasn't peer-reviewed. It linked time-restricted feeding to heart disease and morbidity. [27:45] Intermittent fasting may deserve to have more research done, particularly within women, Cynthia says you can't draw a conclusion from two days' worth of information that is self-reported at an epidemiologic conference. It goes back to clickbait. [29:01] Cynthia did a video on Instagram a couple of days after the article came out. She told her audience it does not impact her decision to continue talking about intermittent fasting. For most of us, it is not going to change utilizing that as a strategy for ourselves or our clie...
Transcribe →Studying Excess Inflammation with Dr. Tom O'Bryan
Jul 4, 202400:50:23Tap to summarizeIn this episode, Sachin interviews Dr. Tom O'Bryan on excess inflammation and the effects it has on your body. They address the causes of inflammation, the purpose of inflammation in your body, and how it can accumulate by continued exposure to toxins in your body. Dr. Tom O'Bryan talks about his docuseries The Inflammation Equation, the experts he interviewed over a year for the docuseries, and how you can access this docuseries and learn more about inflammation in your body. Dr. Tom also recommends the Neural Zoomer Plus test to learn about excess inflammation you may have in your brain. Listen to learn more about excess inflammation and its treatment and prevention. Key Takeaways: [1:02] Sachin introduces today's guest, Dr. Tom O'Bryan. Today we're going to talk about one of the most important topics that impacts virtually every cell, every system, and every organ in your body, something that Time magazine has called the silent killer, inflammation. [1:24] Dr. Tom is not only a brilliant clinician but also very detail - and scientifically - oriented. He is working on a new project Sachin says will blow your mind. [1:54] Sachin welcomes Dr. Tom to Perfect Practice. Dr. Tom wishes he and Sachin lived in the same place to get together weekly or so for coffee. Dr. Tom lives in Costa Rica but he imports his coffee from Reno, Nevada, from Brain Bean. [2:44] Dr. Tom tells about Brain Bean, its founder, Dr. Michael Nelson, and their coffees, including Zen Blend. Sachin says "I'm going to buy it right now. … I'm sold. Thank you." [3:55] Dr. Tom explains his work with inflammation. We wouldn't be here if we didn't have an active immune system protecting us every day. When it gets called up, the question is, what's it trying to protect you from? [4:55] A related thought is that, according to the CDC, 14 of the 15 top causes of death are chronic inflammatory diseases. It's always excessive inflammation that causes disease. [5:28] Dr. Tom shares a slide from Dr. David Furman at Stanford. The slide has three gears that are linked in a line. The first gear has teeth labeled with things that attack our systems: viruses, bacteria, inactivity, obesity, lack of regenerative sleep, excess stress hormones, and more. [7:11] When the first gear gets out of balance, it turns to the middle gear, labeled Systemic Chronic Inflammation. Your immune system is responding to a perceived threat. [7:44] Dr. Jeff Bland, the Founder of Functional Medicine, told Dr. Tom in an interview, "A negative thought is just as powerful at activating your immune system, creating inflammation, as exposure to the SARS-CoV-2 virus." [8:21] Dr. Patrick Hanaway, who co-founded the Functional Medicine Center at Cleveland Clinic, told Dr. Tom in an interview, after a diagnosis of Stage 4 throat cancer, "I thought I was bigger than the stress in my life." [9:50] Then Dr. Hanaway talked about how he has learned to handle the stress of life so much better, which reduces activating the immune system. [10:24] Dr. Tom returns to the image of the three gears. The gear in the middle is your immune system trying to protect you. That turns the gear on the right, which is your genetics and antecedents, such as mercury toxicity. Genetics and antecedents point to your weakest link. [11:02] The pull on the chain attacks your weakest part. The pull on the chain is inflammation. Excessive inflammation is bad for you. [11:28] The World Health Organization tells us for the last four years, the average life expectancy for newborn children is less than the average life expectancy of their parents, meaning kids are expected to live shorter lives than their parents are expected to live. [11:50] The main reason for this shortened average life expectancy is the inflammation from your immune system trying to protect you from something. We have to identify what your immune system is trying to protect you from. Maybe your toxic dishwasher detergent! [12:57] We can't eliminate all exposure to toxins, but we can make progress. Keep working at it, a little bit at a time. Can you reduce your immune system's need to protect you? [13:54] Dr. Tom interviewed the actress Fran Drescher. She's a 23-year survivor of uterine cancer. Her oncologist saved her life. Fran wrote a NY Times bestselling book, Cancer Schmancer. She started the Cancer Schmancer organization to educate people about cancer. [14:50] Fran Drescher said the first thing you have to do is to treat yourself as your best friend. Educate yourself on the chemicals you use every day. For longevity and quality of life, take regular baby steps to reduce the load on your immune system trying to protect you. [15:27] Dr. Tom has patients answer a questionnaire and take labs before he sees them by Zoom. One of the tests is the Neural Zoomer Plus. It looks at 53 markers of excess inflammation in your brain. [17:18] Blue Cross Blue Shield came out with a paper in February 2020 that went unreported because the pandemic was happening. The paper said that in the previous four-year period, there was a 407% increase in the diagnosis of Alzheimer's in 30- to 44-year-olds. [17:56] Right now, there is an explosion of cognitive decline, diagnosed depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, brain dysfunction, autism, and attention deficit. The brain is a sensitive and active organ with 20‒25% of the body's blood at one time. Inflammation is killing brain tissue. [18:36] Dr. Tom has never had a Neural Zoomer Plus come back normal. Results show people have low-grade inflammation in the brain. It doesn't make them sick but it eventually triggers symptoms. Then they get diagnosed with a disease, after decades of inflammation. [19:31] A government report published in 2019 stated that Alzheimer's will bankrupt Medicare within 25 years because so many more people are getting it. [19:59] They showed that there are 20 to 25 years of excess inflammation in the brain before you ever have a symptom. You feel fine but your brain's on fire! By the time symptoms come you're pretty far down the path. [20:32] Look for antibodies being elevated. Dr. Tom tells of four immune systems. The one in our gut is like the sheriff. The marshall is in the bloodstream. The system in the brain is the glial cells. They fire an inflammatory cascade to get rid of anything that's not supposed to be there. [21:47] When you have chronic inflammation from environmental toxins like mold in your house, your immune system tries to fight it. Inflammation in the bloodstream crosses the barrier into your brain and the glial cells react like fireworks exploding and causing collateral damage. [22:44] The collateral damage causes elevated antibodies to get rid of the damaged brain cells. The Neural Zoomer Plus test identifies elevated antibodies in the bloodstream. Next, find out where the inflammation is coming from; food, mold, or toxins. [23:36] Dr. Tom says the Neural Zoomer Plus test looks at pathogens like herpes, cytomegalovirus, and streptococcus. Those pathogens can be in other parts of the body, but the antibodies cross into the brain. [24:24] Dr. Tom speaks of a connection between some celiac patients and antibodies to the cerebellum. If they have these antibodies, when they go gluten-free, the antibodies to the cerebellum go down. Dr. Tom calls this molecular mimicry. [25:21] When the cerebellum is attacked, you can lose your balance, or misjudge door frames as you walk through them. To test balance, take your shoes off, stand straight, lift your right knee in the air, and count to five. Let it down lift the left knee and count to five. [25:48] Repeat the test with eyes closed. That's a simple test for cerebellar balance. If you can't keep your balance, we now know where we have to look. Let's measure and see. Do you have antibodies in your cerebellum? We have a path to follow to reduce the inflammation. [27:30] The Journal of the American Medical Association, one of the most prestigious journals, published a paper on couples going to assisted fertility centers. It showed that women who ate three servings a week of organic fruits and vegetables had the best outcomes. [31:11] The study didn't address this, but Dr. Tom thinks the women were also doing other things to be exposed to fewer toxins, like using organic shampoos and soaps. Probably there were other areas where there was less insult activating the immune system trying to protect them. [32:07] Dr. Tom notes that a fertilized egg has no defense. It's completely dependent on Mom's environment. If Mom has a toxic environment, from a lifetime of accumulating toxic chemicals, and she's eating conventional fruits and vegetables, that takes her over the edge more often. [33:01] In those women, the implantation failed 18% more often, and if there was a pregnancy, it was lost 26% more often. That's powerful information! Anyone can eat three servings of organic fruits and vegetables a week while working in the direction of reducing the toxins in your life! [33:23] Buy organic shampoo from the health food...
Transcribe →EP142: Modern Holistic Health and Healing with Dr. Elena Villanueva
Jun 11, 202400:59:38Tap to summarizeIn this episode, Sachin interviews Dr. Elena Villanueva on her journey from chiropractic to holistic health practitioner. She shares some of her origin and the health crisis that cost her three sports medicine centers and her home before she recovered. Listen to learn more about the Holistic Health practices of Dr. Elena Villanueva. Key Takeaways: [1:01] Sachin introduces today's guest, Dr. Elena Villanueva. Dr. Elena runs an amazing practice that brings the best of ancient wisdom and modern science together to help people have their deepest healing and feel amazing even when all other things have failed. [1:42] ModernHolisticHealth.com is where you can learn more about her work. [1:49] Sachin will ask Dr. Elena to unpack her recipe for growth, persistence, and success, and share with us how we can build a practice that we love, that gets amazing outcomes, and that has an awesome impact in the community, and build an amazing team that does great work. [2:33] Sachin welcomes Dr. Elena to Perfect Practice. [3:04] Dr. Elena's biggest challenge has keeping her personal life and lifestyle as her "number one." She starts working and she can just go, go, go, like a racecar. Before you know it, the wheels are coming off the car because she put herself on the back burner. [3:51] Her biggest rewards have been when she sat down and took time to get right with herself, reprioritize her values, and get a deeper understanding of how she can have longevity in this type of work. [4:24] Dr. Elena aspired to be in the health field from the time she was six or seven years old. Her stepfather was a surgeon. Her uncle is a surgeon. All her uncles are in the medical field. She wanted to be like them, helping people, and making a difference. [4:49] In her pre-teens, Elena started going to the clinic with her dad, getting patients ready to be seen. As a teenager, she was with him in his plane, flying to border towns to do charity cataract surgeries for the farmers. She helped him in the surgery room. [5:39] Elena developed a love for helping people. That led her to go to chiropractic school to learn to do things in a more natural way. At the time, she didn't know about naturopathic school or she might have gone in that direction. That's the essence of the work she does today. [6:03] After chiropractic school Dr. Elena had three successful sports medicine practices in the Austin, Texas area but she ended up getting very sick. Her father had just passed on and she had no advocate to help her. She was ashamed to tell anyone she was suffering. [6:41] Dr. Elena was so sick she almost died. She lost her three practices and her home. She lived in her car but didn't share with anyone what had happened to her because she carried a lot of shame. [7:03] Dr. Elena survived. She experienced a lot of miracles along the way and says miracles are always there if you're looking for them. She had a big shift that led her to where she is today. She went back into practice with opportunities to cover for other doctors on maternity leave. [7:33] Dr. Elena rediscovered her love for being in the health and wellness field, this time, doing more holistic and functional-type care rather than strictly the biomechanics of the back and neck. She discovered her purpose for what she is supposed to do, and that's why she is here. [8:03] It has been a beautiful ride, but it's not always easy. It presents itself with challenges. If we can become conscious of the common challenges, we can overcome them and we can complete our mission or whatever it is we believe that we're here to do. [8:23] Sachin points out the many similarities between Dr. Elena's journey and his own, including the unwellness he experienced and thought was normal before discovering functional medicine. Informed decisions bring better outcomes. [9:57] Dr. Elena found out that there was a combination of factors that had led to her becoming ill and unable to heal. That is what she teaches today in her five-part series. She had had a combination of toxins in her body, including mold. She wasn't eating the right foods. [10:40] She was burning the candle at both ends so she had a lot of physical and mental stress running three clinics as a single mother. She worked super hard to build security. Her choices, combined with toxins in her environment, and unresolved trauma, led to massive dysbiosis. [12:11] Dr. Elena also suffered fatigue, brain fog, and back pain, She went down quickly with some severe symptoms and conditions. Doctors didn't know what to do for her. She had severe bleeding for about two years. The doctors wanted to cut out her reproductive organs. [12:55] Looking back, she sees it was a lot of grief being processed. She lost her memory gradually. She developed complete aphasia and severe gut issues. She had to take things to help her sleep and to help her massive panic attacks that she thought were heart attacks. [13:47] She experienced massive headaches, emotional breakdowns, massive depression, and rashes all over her body. It felt like everything that could go wrong was going wrong. [15:10] Dr. Elena talks about how her experiences help her as she reaches out to others through an educational five-part series, starting with the Beyond the Pill Masterclass, and the Mental Health Masterclass, exploring the root causes of problems and offering solutions that work. [16:24] Dr. Elena's experiences also show up in her practice. Everyone who works for Dr. Elena first came to her because they saw her teaching when she shared a part of her story when she found that our mess is really our message. Her story can inspire audiences and practitioners. [17:53] Dr. Elena's approach incorporates a multi-faceted system addressing the conscious and the unconscious mind, the belief systems, the mindset and the stories that we create, and the unprocessed emotions and trauma, as well as the physical facets of who we are. [18:21] The physical aspects are explored through bloodwork and labs, to help guide the bio-individual needs of their foods, lifestyle choices, and manner of exercise, supplements, and protocols to work on for the different organ systems of their body. [19:34] Modern Holistic Health has a six-pillar system: Personal, Business, Marketing, Sales, Lifestyle, and Integration. Personal comes at the top, as she learned from her very successful mentors. She applies the Personal to her team, helping them to develop themselves. [20:27] Dr. Elena believes that the degree of success that you can see in your business is directly correlated to your personal development and growth. Success to us doesn't just mean money. What happens if you're healthy in the money section, but not in the relationship section? [21:12] A lot of people have a bad relationship with money. They generate money but later they have nothing to show for it. They don't know how to invest their money, build their portfolio, or be better stewards of the money they make. This is under the Personal pillar. [21:45] Personal is the first of the six pillars and Dr. Elena teaches a lot of personal development. Dr. Elena sees that as a gap in a lot of practitioner certification courses and masterminds. Dr. Elena has a lot of breakthroughs with her practitioners on that. [22:11] The second pillar is Business. What are the foundations and the values upon which we are building our business? Why are we doing the business? It's important that what we are doing with our business is in alignment with our value systems. Know basic business strategies. [23:01] Building a solid foundation is important so you can get to that million-dollar mark and beyond it. What worked for you to get to $500,000 isn't necessarily the same structure that will get you from $500,000 to $1,000,000, from a million to two million, and so on. [23:47] One of the biggest mistakes practitioners make is that they try to grow wide quickly rather than focusing on growing deep roots first. Be involved in and understand every bit of your processes, in the beginning. Know that Version One is not going to be the final process. [24:42] You need to be on top of your processes. When you scale to the next level, if your processes are not solid, and you're not deep-rooted in your processes, that's where things will go sideways really quickly and you could end up losing money without even knowing it. [25:03] Dr. Elena teaches her practitioners to develop a mindset of curiosity and excitement around the processes. If you dread working on your processes, you are saying to the universe, "I don't want this anymore," and something will happen to mess up what you're trying to build. [25:38] The other four pillars are Marketing, Sales, Lifestyle, and Integration. Building the right team around you that has the same values is part of integration. Integration is key. That is where you get the real growth. Integrate all the parts for long-term business success. [30:12] Modern Holistic Health has an organizational chart showing who is on...
Transcribe →EP141: Transforming Your Unconscious Programs with Olga Stevko
Jun 11, 202400:55:57Tap to summarizeIn this episode, Sachin interviews Dr. Olga Stevko on unconscious programs and how to transform them, relieving symptoms caused by the stress created by your unconscious programs. Listen for insight on stress and its effects on many systems in the body, and most importantly, how to become neutral to stress triggers. Key Takeaways: [1:01] The topic is our subconscious and unconscious nervous system and how it affects our health, business, and the way we show up for others and ourselves. [1:28] Sachin introduces today's guest, Dr. Olga Stevko. Sachin met Dr. Olga last year at Mindshare. Sachin and Dr. Olga have connected several times over the past few months as she helped him with some of the subconscious challenges holding him back. [2:32] Sachin welcomes Dr. Olga Stevko to Perfect Practice. [2:58] Dr. Oga developed her methodology by combining several modalities. She trained as a medical doctor in Russia and practiced medicine there. She learned neurolinguistic programming and started working with the unconscious mind. [4:06] In her medical practice, Dr. Olga observed that people of similar age and condition healed at different rates. Some healed quickly. Some never healed completely. Dr. Olga believes that their mindsets would determine how they would heal. [4:58] Dr. Olga's curiosity led her to explore the work of Carl Jung, Sigmund Freud, and Milton Erickson. She realized that the unconscious mind is so powerful it creates our subjective reality and things related to it. [6:28] Dr. Olga explains that unconscious programs result from stressful life events and trauma, including transgenerational epigenetic inheritance. Dr. Olga says that 95% of our entire life experiences are shaped by unconscious programs. [7:40] She says unconscious programs influence how we perceive ourselves, other people, and the world around us. [8:18] Dr. Olga states that unconscious programs affect our nervous system with fight, fight, or freeze responses. This can lead to many different issues in many areas of our lives; relationships, business, health, and even premature aging for some people. [9:11] Dr. Olga says perception is how we perceive with all of our senses: what we see, hear, touch, smell, and taste. Perception comes through our autonomic nervous system. Dr. Olga's theory is that our unconscious mind is our autonomic nervous system and much more. [10:13] The perception of an experience is different for every person in a group in the same situation. This comes from unconscious programs from unresolved genetic trauma, wound trauma, and childhood trauma. [10:58] For some people, the perception can be fearful, for some, neutral. For some, it can create anger. Our perception is not our reality. Our perception creates in us a certain reaction because of our unconscious programs that can create fight, flight, and freeze responses. [11:28] All of that can affect our body and mind in a big way. Psychoneuroimmunology shows that stress affects our immune system and endocrine system. Perception can affect how our brain, peripheral nervous system, and autonomic nervous system react to a certain stimulus. [12:34] That creates biochemical and physiological changes in our body that can lead to our immune system response, which can lead to health conditions. Stress can lead to numerous health conditions, including cardiovascular, autoimmune, and allergies. [13:35] Your perception can create a stress response. That stress response can be because of emotions like fear, sadness, grief, and anger. Dr. Olga found that emotions support us through our autonomic nervous system. [13:58] It's unconscious. No matter how you prepare yourself not to react, in that situation when you have a similar perception and response to certain emotions, your unconscious mind will rule, no matter how consciously you're preparing yourself to react differently. [14:24] It's significant that emotions are created on the unconscious level. To change the response, you need to work on the unconscious level. You need to transform unconscious programs that create that response and perception that create many issues in your life. [14:59] Your business and relationships are about you, how you look at situations, how you perceive situations, how your thoughts are forming, your ability to verbalize those thoughts, and your emotional intelligence and social intelligence. [15:36] All of that can create can create problems in your relationships and business, or allow you to be very good in business, communication, and relationships. [16:53] Dr. Olga believes that everybody experiences trauma. She believes the opposite of the consequences of trauma is resilience. Some people are resilient. They find new meaning and resources to deal with challenges. [18:07] Dr. Olga has a theory that some people are so resilient because of their ancestral genetic experience. Their ancestors' ability to be resilient can be passed down genetically. [18:49] Some people are resilient even if something horrible happens, while others cannot function under stress. [19:33] Dr. Olga explains that people are born with a certain set of genes that do not change. Genes can be expressed in the womb. People are born already with certain symptoms. In some people, genes are expressed in childhood or adult life. Trauma leads genes to express. [20:35] Dr. Olga's process can work even with children several months old. She would work directly with the children and with their parents. She asks that the child be present in the room, playing, sleeping, or watching TV. The child's unconscious mind can still be listening. [21:29] During the process Dr. Olga created, the trauma that created the unconscious program will resolve and the unconscious program will be transformed. As a result, there can often be dramatic shifts not only for that issue, but other issues can also resolved or symptoms reduced. [22:00] The same unconscious program can create more than one issue. [23:24] How the mind reacts to some unconscious programs wastes a lot of energy. Some people are in a freeze, fight, or flight state every day. Dr. Olga observes how people look. Unconscious programs often create neuromuscular locks everywhere in the body and face. [25:47] Dr. Olga describes traits she observes in people with neuromuscular locks from unconscious programs in their facial expressions, posture, breathing, and speaking. [27:12] For example, if there are neuromuscular locks in muscles for breathing and voice production, often, people's voices will be not deep but airy, or they might have a choked voice or feel a lump in their throat that will remarkably affect their voices or breathing. [28:02] Dr. Olga has seen multiple clients with panic attacks who had such strong neuromuscular locks that they could not breathe deeply to help calm their panic. It's important to train your muscles and transform the unconscious programs that create neuromuscular locks. [28:55] Dr. Olga had a client who, by transforming several of his unconscious programs, went from a high-pitched nasal voice to a voice like a baritone singer. It's a total change, without doing voice exercises. He's breathing dramatically deeper without trying to change it. [30:16] She has observed a change in body language in some clients. She asks people to express themselves by drawing lines and shapes. Dr. Olga sees in these shapes unconscious patterns that guide her in what unconscious program to work on during that session. [31:05] Dr. Olga works on one program at a time. Even transforming one unconscious program can produce truly dramatic shifts for many people. [33:34] Some people sabotage themselves all their lives because of unconscious programs. They're doing so much but not moving in the direction they want. [34:41] Some unconscious programs trigger neuromuscular locks that affect muscles and joints, and even after adjustments, they do not stay adjusted. When you identify what causes some neuromuscular locks, the problems are resolved. Dr. Olga gives patient examples from her website. [35:43] Dr. Olga talks of the process she created. After an assessment, observation, and looking at the drawing or drawings, Dr. Olga identifies what unconscious program the person will work on in the session. During the process, the client's unconscious mind will do most of the work. [36:18] While the client's unconscious mind is working, consciously, the client will be doing the two or three steps of the process. The unconscious program the client will be working on creates certain somatic experiences. It can be an emotional experience. [36:45] The process will guide the client's unconscious mind to find all the memories that created these unconscious programs and the symptoms they created. Your mind can be working on groups of memories at the same time, including genetic and childhood memories. [37:30] After the client's unconscious mind finds all these memories, your conscious min...
Transcribe →EP140: From Physician to Functional Medicine Practitioner with Dr. Penney Stringer
May 21, 202400:47:16Tap to summarizeIn this episode, Sachin interviews Dr. Penney Stringer on her journey from working as a family practice physician to achieving her purpose of bringing healing to groups of people through a mindful functional medicine practice. Listen for insight on following your heart in the flow of abundance as you help clients heal. Key Takeaways: [1:01] Sachin introduces Dr. Penney Stringer, a trailblazer and mother of two children. Sachin welcomes Penney to Perfect Practice. [2:22] Dr. Penney Stringer started as a medical doctor and moved into functional medicine. After her residency, she worked in a community healthcare center outside Seattle, Washington, working with people on the margins. The clinic also had an acupuncturist and naturopaths. [2:54] Dr. Stringer was a family medicine doctor. She referred everyone to the people she knew could help them: a nutritionist, a naturopath, an acupuncturist, and a counselor. There was also a dispensary. At the same time, she did hospital work associated with the clinic. [3:36] All she had to do was write prescriptions. One day, she felt sick writing a prescription for a medicine she knew was harmful. A young patient with ankylosing spondylitis and bad back pain had been to a naturopath and had been given antibiotics and fish oil for a gut infection. [4:08] The patient came back to Dr. Stringer and was all better. He didn't need the prescription for pain medication. After being treated for his gut infection, his autoimmune disease got better. Dr. Stringer questioned how that happened. [4:26] About that time, she was invited by a naturopathic student to a Jeffrey Bland lecture in 2000, in Seattle. Jeffrey Bland is the "grandfather" of functional medicine. She started going to the free lectures Jeffrey Bland was giving. [4:57] The first lecture was all about the microbiome and the biochemical pathways. It was what Dr. Stringer had thought she would learn in medical school. She went to her first training not too long after that. She says the rest is history. [5:28] Dr. Stringer moved to a new town in the early 2000s. A doctor was practicing functional medicine there with a patient waitlist of five years. A nearby hospital funded the functional medicine wellness clinic and Dr. Stringer's salary at the clinic. [6:43] Right out of her Institute for Functional Medicine AFMCP course in Boston, Dr. Stringer had a mentor, all the testing, all the supplements, all the patients lined up to see her, and a salary that she didn't have to worry about. She felt like it was what she was supposed to do. [8:21] Dr. Stringer says it was a blessed situation in every way. It was all insurance-based so patients could get the best care with two dedicated physicians. The doctors were free to do what they believed in. It was not regular Western medicine. It was functional medicine from the start. [8:47] The town is a nuclear toxic cleanup site. A lot of the jobs are in the cleanup. She helps with people's detox and hormone renewal analysis. Her first patient was full of heavy metals, just as she had learned in class. She feels like things are put in our path to see if we're awake. [10:45] Dr. Stringer thinks that the key is paying attention. If you want to learn about something, request it from whoever is listening and see how long it takes to show up at your doorstep. [11:52] Dr. Stringer talks about her sense of presence. She says her dad was a keen observer of nature. He was a biologist and environmental scientist with a doctorate in parasitology from Johns Hopkins. He viewed the world with a beginner's mind and asked profound questions. [12:25] Dr. Stringer tells how her father researched the chrysalis of the monarch butterfly, and presented papers on it around the world, all because he wanted to know what happened in the chrysalis. He asked the question and got a grant to find out. He's now in a documentary. [13:35] One of Dr. Stringer's earliest memories with her dad is going in the woods. He would stoop down and turn over a rock and show his children the universe under the rock. He instilled in Penney some of that sense of presence. [14:01] Dr Stringer spent her junior college year in Spain, studying Spanish literature and she saw daily siestas. When she came back, she learned transcendental meditation. After meditating, when she went outside, she could see every shade of green she had never seen. [15:05] Dr. Stringer teams up with a master cranial sacral therapist to do a double hands-on with patients. They sit in silence with a patient for an hour. [15:50] That has given Dr. Stringer so much insight and awareness about the process of healing and being present with another human being and holding the space for transformation, being there with their joy, pain, or release. It's not always comfortable. [16:18] Dr. Stringer has to do cranial sacral herself to release what she observes in others. There's a lot of pain and suffering. Some of us are very in tune with that pain and suffering. It's important to do your own work to release what you observe so it doesn't get stuck in your body. [17:28] If you are not dissipating the energy that's building up, you feel burned out or don't care as much. You feel tired. Dr. Stringer notices that her nervous system gets shaky. You could get headaches, upset stomach, or not sleep well, or more, from holding onto other people's energy. [20:13] Dr. Stringer worked at the functional medicine office for about five years and then they went their separate ways. She had children. She went back and worked at the community health center so she didn't have to run a business when her babies were little. [20:30] Then Dr. Stringer started her own practice. For 18-and-a-half years, she had done functional medicine in the insurance system. With Sachin's mentorship, she took the leap and jumped out of the insurance system, partially spurred by how the recent pandemic was handled. [22:00] Sachin has been Dr. Stringer's only business growth mentor. She has done everything by her heart. She doesn't do or choose anything based on finances. Dr. Stringer thinks that when you have the right intention, things work out for you and abundance flows. [22:46] Dr. Stringer says that Sachin has been a very helpful mentor for her, for thinking heart-centered but business savvy. Beyond finances, for Dr. Stringer, the bigger part of abundance is being in nature every day as part of her ability to do her work. [23:32] Dr. Stringer had another important mentor in medical school at Georgetown, Dr. Jim Gordon, who runs the Center for Mind Body Medicine. He's a Harvard-trained psychiatrist and an acupuncturist. Dr. Gordon informed me so much about the way Dr. Stringer thinks about healing. [24:09] Dr. Stringer's purpose is healing in community. The reason she joined the mentorship was to solidify doing groups and making the community the hallmark of her dynamic and system. Dr. Gordon's training in mind-body medicine is the basis of all of Dr. Stringer's groups. [24:45] Dr. Stringer says Sachin is a great mentor. She feels that learning business and healing are not that different and that they can all be together. [25:12] Dr. Stringer recommends learning to facilitate mind-body skills groups as an eloquent and beautiful model for being a facilitator but also a participant in the group. It's mindfulness-based training. [25:35] Dr. Stringer had another pivotal shift when she went to ECO Conference. It helped her reframe the way she thinks about barriers to healing and how to address toxins and stealth bugs. [26:17] Dr. Stringer speaks of a book that was pivotal to her, The Nature Fix, by Florence Williams which documents a positive biochemical effect in the brain that PTSD sufferers receive from being in nature for three days. Sachin relates it to the wellness modality of forest bathing. [29:02] Nature is a powerful teacher and powerful medicine for our sanity. Sachin suggests prescribing forest bathing to your patients and clients. It could be a missing link for a lot of people's healing journeys. [29:23] Dr. Stringer notes a recent NYTimes article on the recommendations of nature for health benefits. They recommend spending 20 minutes in nature, three days a week, plus five hours a month of longer hiking, plus going off-grid for three days a year. [30:19] Sachin is going on a three-day snowshoeing hike with his brother and a guide in Algonquin Park where the lake freezes over. They'll have a sauna tent and bathe in a hole in the ice in the water. He's super stoked about it. [30:55] Being in nature is such an important thing we should all be doing. He hopes what you learn from this conversation is to spend some more time in nature. [31:41] Dr. Stringer brings up the benefits of fasting. She is on the second day of a three-day ProLon mimicking fast and she feels an amazing shift. It's amazing to get into a fasting state. It's phenomenal. Sachin notes that It's an easy modality to integrate into your practice. [33:44] Dr. Stringer recommends bodywork; worrying with the subtle energy of...
Transcribe →EP139: Healing After Betrayal, with Dr. Debi Silber
May 7, 202400:52:08Tap to summarizeIn this episode, Sachin interviews Dr. Debi Silber, founder of the Post Betrayal Transformation® Institute about her journey from television production to coaching people to post betrayal transformation. She shares the problems that grow from past betrayals relating to emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual issues that remain unhealed until the betrayal is faced and dealt with. She shares examples from life and even from her family life and career. Listen in for insight on how your clients' betrayals or your betrayals may be causing issues for them or you. Key Takeaways: [:59] Sachin introduces Dr. Debi Silber, who joins us for a conversation about our business, our emotional health, integrity, and betrayal. [1:42] Betrayal is something we deal with constantly. It likely happened to us many years ago and it currently impacts the way we operate. It may impact our nervous system, our relationships, and the dreams and aspirations we reach for; certainly, it impacts our self-worth. [2:17] Dr. Debi Silber has developed a very successful business following her passion and her mission, speaking to people about betrayal and the trauma that it causes, the impact it has, and the breakthroughs that can come as a result. [2:35] Sachin thanks Dr. Debi for being here on Perfect Practice. [3:34] Dr. Debi followed her gut. She had graduated from college with a double major in TV production and broadcast journalism but she learned that production wasn't rewarding or fulfilling her. Debi didn't immediately give up production, but health was what was calling to her. [4:32] Eventually, Debi became an NSRD and a holistic dietician with a Master's in nutrition. From there, Debi became a personal trainer. That business took off. Although Debi was eating well and exercising, she realized she was sick. She was anything but the picture of health. [5:13] Debi studied to become a whole health coach. She learned that the thoughts she was thinking, the stress she was under, and the relationships she had were at the root of her sickness. [5:30] Debi cut the ties and healed from all of it. That was the beginning of this new health journey. Years later, her traumas from betrayal led her to the Ph.D. program, the studies, and where she is now. [5:51] Dr. Debi founded the Post Betrayal Transformation® Institute. She is a holistic psychologist with a health and personal development mindset. She is a two-time bestselling author. She has a popular podcast. She gave two TEDx talks. She's been on the Dr. Oz Show. [6:40] About toxic relationships. Dr. Debi says you're in a toxic relationship when you start questioning and doubting yourself, when you stop believing in yourself and you figure that someone else knows better than you, and when you don't realize your value and worth. [7:21] Often, it starts with an early betrayal. A child is shushed by his mother and starts to think he doesn't matter. If that's his belief, it will affect his choices, the work he would do, and the people he would date, if it doesn't get looked at. [9:10] The second of Debi's three discoveries is that post betrayal syndrome has symptoms. It shows up in health, work, and relationships. It can show up as a repeat betrayal. The faces change but it's the same thing. You go from boss to boss, friend to friend, partner to partner. [9:40] It's not your fault, it's your opportunity: There's a profound lesson waiting to be learned! You are lovable, worthy, and deserving. You need better boundaries in place. Whatever it is, until and unless you get that, you will have opportunities in the form of people who teach you. [9:56] A repeat betrayal means it is unhealed. [9:59] The second way betrayal shows up in relationships is the big wall keeping everyone at a distance. It comes from a place of fear. Our trust was so shattered that we would rather keep everyone at bay than risk vulnerability and feel that pain again. That's an unhealed betrayal. [10:24] At work, your confidence was shattered so you don't have the confidence to ask for a deserved raise or promotion, and you're bitter and resentful instead. Or you want to be a team player but the person you trusted the most, or your boss, proved untrustworthy. [10:47] In health, people go to a well-meaning doctor, coach, healer, or therapist to manage a stress-related issue. At the root of it is an unhealed betrayal. [11:06] Dr. Debi founded National Forgiveness Day, September 1. If you're working on forgiveness for the wrong reasons, it backfires every time. Move toward acceptance first, it's an easier reach. [12:26] Withholding forgiveness only hurts us. In the betrayed community, we feel the rug has been pulled out from under us and we barely have any control over our lives. Granting or withholding forgiveness is something within our control and we are hesitant to give it back. [12:52] Debi shares a story of the power of forgiveness for an elderly woman with an old family betrayal. She also had digestive issues. She participated in a 21-day forgiveness journey. Two weeks into her forgiveness journey, she healed from her digestive issues. [14:36] Dr. Debi says 95,000-plus men and women have taken the Post Betrayal Quiz from many countries. Of respondents, 78% constantly revisit their experience, 81% feel loss of personal power, 80% are hyper-vigilant, and 94% deal with painful triggers. [15:08] Physical symptoms reported are low energy (71%), sleep issues (68%), extreme fatigue (63%), weight changes (47%), and digestive issues (45%). Mental symptoms reported are overwhelm (78%), disbelief (70%), shock (64%), and inability to concentrate (62%). [15:42] You can't concentrate, you have a gut issue, you're exhausted, and you still have to raise your children; you still have to work. [15:52] Emotionally, 88% experience extreme sadness; 83% are very angry. Think about what your nervous system is doing when that's happening. [16:07] Eighty-two percent are hurt; 79% are stressed; 84% have an inability to trust; 67% prevent themselves from forming deep relationships for fear of being hurt again; 82% find it hard to move forward, and 90% want to move forward but don't know how. [17:01] This betrayal could be from a parent when you were a child or the boyfriend or girlfriend who broke your heart in high school. They may not know, care, or even be alive and you have these symptoms from something years ago. You can heal from all of it. [17:34] People typically go to therapy, where they feel heard but also retraumatize themselves, solidify their story, and make it who they are. They are stuck with repeat betrayals. [18:32] Some people numb, avoid, and distract. They use food, drugs, alcohol, work, TV, or more to numb, avoid, and distract themselves. In PBT, people learn to face it, feel it, and heal it. That's how to move through it. You can't move through it if you're numbing or coasting. [19:03] Some people join a support group and are miserable together. They sabotage their healing because they don't want to outgrow their people. [19:28] Numbing, hanging onto your story, or seeking people with the same story is like Krazy Glue® keeping you stuck in one spot, preventing you from moving through the five stages from betrayal to breakthrough. [20:35] We can stay stuck for decades but if we're going to fully heal from post betrayal syndrome to a completely rebuilt space, post betrayal transformation, (Dr. Debi's first discovery), we're going to move through five proven, predictable stages (Dr. Debi's third discovery). [20:58] We know what happens physically, mentally, and emotionally, at every one of the five stages and what it takes to move from one stage to the next. Healing is entirely predictable. [21:18] Stage 1 is before it happens. Imagine four legs to a table, physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. People lean heavily on the physical and mental and neglect the emotional and spiritual. A table with only two legs topples over. [21:40] Stage 2 is shock, trauma, and discovery day. It's the scariest, by far of the stages. It's the breakdown of the body, mind, and worldview. You ignite the stress response. Your mind is in total chaos and overwhelm. You can't wrap your mind around what you just learned. [22:39] Stage 3 is survival instinct. You grab hold of anything or anyone to stay safe and alive. This is the most practical stage. It's the most common place to get stuck. Once we've figured out how to survive our experience, as it feels better than shock and trauma, we plant roots. [24:25] Because we don't know there's anywhere else to go, but it still feels bad, we start numbing and distracting. This can go on for years and we're stuck in Stage 3. [25:19] If you are willing to let go of your story, the benefits you're receiving, grief, and more, you move to Stage 4. [25:31] Stage 4 is finding and adjusting to a new normal. You acknowledge you can't undo what happened but you control what you do with it. That turns down the stress and stops the damage you've been accumula...
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