Latest / You're Not Too Much / Don't Send Me a Video: Lists, Learning Styles & the Women's Health Gap

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Don't Send Me a Video: Lists, Learning Styles & the Women's Health Gap · You're Not Too Much

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Don't need to know this. What's the outcome? Why do we not
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do the same when our sleep gets bad or when our mood changes? Like,
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why are we willing to accept those things even when
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help is offered? I don't take it. Some of the things that exist in my
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brain exist in the brains of, like, 10 other people in the world. Because
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I'm that good at what I do for a living, I can't run a calendar
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to save my goddamn life. All right, here we go.
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I'm gonna pretend I'm pushing record, because that feels right. Okay, I'm pressing record.
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Boop. Hi, everybody. I'm Lauren Howard.
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Welcome to Different Not Broken, which is our
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podcast on exactly that. That there are a lot of people in this world walking
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around feeling broken, and the reality is, you're just different, and that's fine.
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I don't know if this makes me, like, peak Elder Millennial
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or if it's just the way I learn, because I am not of.
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Well, I am kind of a visual learner, but I want to learn things
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fast. I just want the information in front of me. But
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we have reached the point of the timeline
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where everybody feels like the explanations they
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send or the content they create or the
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education they put together has to be in video.
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I say this as a person who actually creates a fair amount of video,
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so I'm somewhat guilty of this as well. But I want to speak
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for. Maybe it's not visual. Maybe it's that I'm tactile, so I
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need to be able to actually do it. I don't know. I want to speak
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for all of the elder millennials who are like me.
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Don't send me fucking videos.
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I don't want them. I want a list.
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I want things written down so that I can read them and
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consume them and jump around in the order the way my brain needs to jump
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around in the order and look for the parts that are actually important to me
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and skip the ones that aren't. Don't send me a video.
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Especially if I'm paying you for something. Don't.
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Don't send me a video. Because here's the thing. I'm paying you
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so I don't have to do anything with that thing that you're
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doing. And if you send me a video now, I
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have homework, and I am paying you to
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do the homework. That is not how I consume information.
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I don't know why everything has to be a
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recorded explainer. I don't need a recorded
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explainer. And this is not just for work. This is just
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like in general life. If I want to figure out how to do a thing,
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if I go to the Google box and I say Google, how do I blah,
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blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm not picking the YouTube video you give me
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first. It's not going to happen because I don't want to sit through
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three and a half minutes of how you learned how to
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cook fried chicken from your grandmother's
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best friend's beekeeper. Like I. No,
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just give me something that I can scroll through
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so I can get the information. I don't want the
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explainer, I don't want the background, I don't want any of it. I just
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want a list. Now there are times
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where I am coming to consume your content very
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voluntarily. And then I want the story and the
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side quest and the list and the whatever. And if I come out of it
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learning something, great. But if you are trying to give me information that
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I need succinct, package it up, make it
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very easy to consume. Don't send me a video. If you send me a video,
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I'm going to respond to it. I'm not going to watch this. Can you give
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me the highlights? I don't have time to watch a 20 minute video to
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learn the thing that I'm paying you to do. If I have 20 extra minutes
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in a day, that is a miracle and it is not going
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to your video. Don't send me videos. Somebody who,
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one of my employees called me yesterday and was like, hey,
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so and so sent over a video that they said we need to watch. So.
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And I just went nope, nope.
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And he was like, you're. What do you mean nope? And I was like, I'm
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not, no, no, I'm putting my foot down. I am not
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watching it. Can you give me the bullet points? Can you give me the highlights?
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And he was like, so you, you want me to watch the video? And I
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was like, if you could, that'd be great. Or you can go back to this
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human and say, hey, can you send this in a list that is consumable in
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the way that we consume things? Either are fine, I'll get the information.
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But I'm gonna get into that video and I'm gonna be like, don't need to
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know this, don't need to know this, don't need to know this. What's the outcome?
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That's the outcome that I need. Awesome. And then I just wasted 19 minutes
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of 20 minute video because the nuts and bolts. I'm so proud that you know
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it. I'm so proud that you're good at it. I support you in being good
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at it. That is information you can keep in your brain where it belongs.
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And you can just give me the one that. The part that I want, which
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is the outcome that I am paying you for. Thank you very much.
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Certain members of my team learned yesterday that if a video comes through, I'm going
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to pretend it's dead. It doesn't work. The link is broken. I'm not
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watching it. Send me a list. Send me bullet points. Voice
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notes are the same thing, friends. Voice notes are the same thing.
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And thankfully on voice notes, at least I get the.
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The transcription. And that's like a beautiful, happy
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medium because it means that the person who tends to do better
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talking can share their information that way. And the
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person who consumes better by reading, I can get my information
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that way. But I'm just saying, if there's no transcription and you
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send me a five minute voice note that is going into the voice note
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chasm and it's never coming back. It's just not.
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I'm sorry. I apologize that you did all of that work on
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my behalf and I consumed none of it. I do apologize. However, if
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there's transcription at the bottom, awesome. We can do that
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same thing with your video. If your video
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translates into, like, captions that I can just read,
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we're golden. Excellent. That's the way I want to consume information.
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If you just send me a video as, like, here's all the information that you
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need because then I have to take notes from that video. No,
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it's not my job as your job. I refuse.
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Anyway. I don't know if that's an elder millennial rant or if that's just a
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my brain doesn't work that way rant. I feel like there's probably
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a lot of elder, like, we grew up, like, I still want to go. My
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instinct when I need to learn stuff is still to go buy a book. That
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might just be me reincarnating the ghost of
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somebody from the late 1800s or something. I don't know. But I just assume that
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that's who I actually am inside. That's fine. But, like, I still want to go
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read stuff from a book. And books you can, like, thumb through and you can
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find the right page and you can read just the parts you need. And it's
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great. Technically, you can do that with websites too. But,
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like, yeah, that's. That's the way I want my information. Please provide it that
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way. Or just know that it's gonna go into the void,
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and we only use the void for screaming. So if that's not
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what it is, it's probably not gonna get the attention that it
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deserves. Sorry, that's the way my brain works.
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This week we have a very, very special guest who I can't wait to talk
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to. It is Joanna Strober. She is the CEO of Midi Health, which
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is an incredible woman focused healthcare company
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that is again, focused on perimenopause, menopause, and
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all of the changes that we tend to see that have historically been,
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like, ignored, or we pretend that they don't exist, except they very much
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exist. So I'm so excited to talk with Joanna and to
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learn a little bit more about her company and also just talk about the things
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that got us to a place where she felt like this company was needed
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when it absolutely, very much is. So, Joanna, thank you so much
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for joining me today. Thank you. Well, do you mind giving us a
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quick introduction from yourself about the who, What, Why? Tell us a little bit
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about the company and about kind of what got you to this point where you
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realized that this company was so very necessary. Yeah. So
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I'm Joanna. I am 56 years old. I have
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three children. I've had five careers. At
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least I have. So I've done a lot of different things in my
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life. And I am a woman, obviously.
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And when I was starting in my late 40s, a
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lot of things started going wrong. I wasn't sleeping very well, I was
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gaining weight. I was having some marital issues. A lot of things were going wrong.
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And I went to a primary care doctor, and that doctor
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told me to get therapy. They sent me to a marriage therapist, to a stress
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therapist. They told me I needed, you know, anxiety medications, and they prescribed
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an SSRI. They sent me to get a sleep study. They never
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said, oh, wait, maybe this is all related to your hormones. And why don't we
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think about your hormones and maybe this is a hormonal issue.
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And so I had a long, you know, a struggle with this. And eventually I
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got to a doctor and that doctor gave me the right medications
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for me, and everything changed very rapidly. It
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was a concierge doctor. I had to pay them a lot of money, but it
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was worth it because my life changed dramatically same time. I
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just felt this sense that everyone had needed to have access to
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women care. That was started with women first and started
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with thinking about hormones first instead of them being an afterthought.
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And so that was really how I got the idea of the company. And what
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was exciting to me is that now,
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because of the insurance changes over Covid, I could basically take
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the breast woman's practice, the best women's health in the whole world,
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and scale it. And I could get the best doctors and say,
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okay, write great care protocols. Write care protocols
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for sleep, for anxiety, for night sweats, for mood changes.
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Write those care protocols and then we will use technology to give everyone
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access to those care care protocols to the best, highest
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quality care, and we can get it covered by insurance now. So
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that's really how we came about doing the company. And how
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long would you say it took you between getting the,
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I think what we now perceive to be very dismissive response from your
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typical primary care, which we see all the time, to
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finding a doctor who actually listened and
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understood the realities of being a woman in your
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late 40s and how biological changes sometimes drive those things. It
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took a long time. So that's obviously what made me sad, is that it took
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a long time. You know, you have to remember, like, perimenopause
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was not something people were talking about just a few years ago. So
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I was searching for these things online, but there weren't
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like, experts in perimenopause, which is what I was
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experiencing. I still had my period, so I was not in menopause.
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There were not a lot of doctors out there talking about perimenopause, and there weren't
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a lot of online people talking about it. So part of the problem was I
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was searching, but I was searching for the wrong things. So
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I think women now today are much smarter. But that discussion has changed a
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lot in the last few years. But for me, that discussion was rough because I
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didn't get access to the right information. I feel like a lot of
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women, we do that to ourselves before we even go looking for the information. We
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go like, well, I'm not sleeping at night, but it's probably these 60 things I'm
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doing wrong and has nothing to do with something that's out of my control. I
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probably did this wrong. And then we gaslight ourselves out of care until actually going
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to seek it. Is that something that you see within your patient population now? Is
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that something that you've kind of built messaging around to try to address?
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Yeah. Isn't that interesting? I mean, I think you're right. We stop sleeping and
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we think, ugh, you know, we don't think, oh, I should go
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proactively try to fix this. We don't do that for
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whatever reason. And honestly, it comes up a lot in sexual health.
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A lot of our patients have stopped having a good sexual relationship with their
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partner, and they're just blaming themselves. Right? Like, they
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don't think, oh, maybe this is physical, maybe this can be treated.
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Instead, they just. Their marriages are suffering and they're not having sex
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and they're angry and they are not seeking help. And.
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And we see that a lot. So I do think that
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we as women don't take enough care of ourselves. And, and, you know,
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we're probably prioritizing our family and. Or other people and not.
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Not ourselves. I think a lot of it, you know, I joke to myself, like,
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when our eyes get bad, we immediately go get glasses. Right? Like,
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we don't think, oh, I should just suffer and have bad
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eyesight. So why do we not do the same when our sleep gets
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bad or when our mood changes? Like, why are we willing to accept those
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things? And, and I guess that's part of what I think about is, like, these
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are all part of aging. Let's. Let's be proactive. Let's fight these
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things. We don't need to just deal with them.
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So looking at kind of the populations that you see and
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maybe your own personal experiences, the experiences, the people you interact with,
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how often do you see these symptoms
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manifest as poor concentration, as
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executive dysfunction, delays or difficulties
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that maybe were. I never want to say that they didn't exist before because
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I. I tend to find that when you start getting into these questions
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with people who are complaining about these things in their late 40s, it wasn't that
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it didn't exist before. They just were better at coping with it. They just were
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better at kind of. I won't say ignoring the fact that it existed, but
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just, like, getting by. Whereas you tend to hit this wall where all of a
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sudden you're like, these things aren't working anymore. How often do you see that
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manifesting in the population and. And what programs and
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things have you guys designed to try to address that specifically? So I'm not
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a doctor, so I want to be careful on how I address this. Right.
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Totally understand that. We do see it a lot. Right. And it's. It's such
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a confluence of things. And so that's part of the challenge is that it's such
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a confluence of things. Maybe you're stressed about your kids and you're
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stressed about your work, and you're not sleeping and you're gaining weight
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and your concentration is shot. Are you surprised your concentration
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is shot? Like, all those coping mechanisms that you had that, like,
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enable you to thrive, those coping mechanisms are going, boop.
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You probably developed some really great skills to cope with those things.
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And then your coping mechanism, as your body is changing,
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those coping mechanisms are harder and harder. That's a lot of what I
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think is going on. Like, your brain is full and then you add
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anxiety and then, like, how are you supposed to do all this? So I think
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that I like to think about what we do as iterative care. And what we
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should do is we try one medication first, we see if it's better, we
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try one supplement, we see if it's better, we add something else and see if
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it's better. And let's do one step at a time and iterate
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with you and see, are you. Are you able to concentrate a little bit more?
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Maybe we need to up the doses of estrogen a little bit. Are you now
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able to concentrate a little bit more? This is not medical advice, but.
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Right. For some people, B12 could be something that is very
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effective for them. There's actually incredible research on
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lavender and how lavender can actually be very calming for
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people. And so instead of trying Ativan, which has a
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lot of other negative effects, maybe you try
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lavender. Like, I think my job is to give you all the science and to
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give you the information so you can a little bit be a science, experiment with
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yourself and try to figure out what. What works and what makes you feel better.
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But I think, I do think that a lot of this is that we develop
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coping mechanisms. So maybe you have some adhd. We all do on
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different levels. Right. Or maybe, I mean, having children, I can tell
15:27
you, like, that's what happens. Right. But you, you get through it because you develop
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coping mechanisms and then as those get challenged, I think it just
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gets harder. So that's kind of how I think of it, is, you know, how
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do we help people to manage those things and build those coping
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mechanisms? Back up one more thing on this and
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then I want to jump out of the kind of more medical side of things
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and move over to the kind of business side of things. Let's say you're
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a woman or somebody who's afab, et cetera, who
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goes to their primary care doing what you think you're supposed to do. And you
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say, I'm having trouble sleeping, my concentration is all over the place. I
16:02
feel like I'm responding to things poorly, I'm gaining weight and I don't know why.
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And they give you what we kind of treat as the standard response, which is,
16:10
well, eat fewer calories and exercise and maybe
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this is just anxiety, which, like, as a person who runs a
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mental health practice, it could be anxiety, but it also could be 7,000
16:21
other things. And let's maybe not chalk everything up to anxiety.
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What would you say to somebody who maybe just got, whether they
16:28
realize it or not, dismissed by their primary care and
16:33
has to find another path? Or it's like, either
16:37
not really give up, but like, accept the onus, this is your fault,
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or go pursue another avenue. What would you say to that person who's in that
16:45
situation? So, you know, I don't want to blame primary care
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doctors. You know, the truth is they are given 10 minutes a visit
16:52
to take care of you, and it's not necessarily
16:56
their job to do what you just said. Right. The question
17:00
is, and this is honestly why we created midi, is
17:04
we needed to create a different care pathway. So I don't think instead
17:07
of like, that, they're doing their job. Their job is to, you
17:11
know, give you a medication or give you something. That's why. So I don't know
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if you've seen the research. 20% of women are on SSRIs in our age category.
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20%, that's crazy, right? They do not all need
17:22
to be on SSRIs. But the easiest thing for a doctor to do is say,
17:26
okay, do you want to try an SSRI? That's the easiest way to take care
17:29
of it. Instead of this iterative thing that I'm talking to you about, let's try
17:32
one medication, let's try something else. Let's think about estrogen. Let's think about it
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like they don't have time for that. That's not the business model of
17:40
care. And so I try not to actually blame them. The other
17:43
thing that's actually really important is they can only know so much, right? And new
17:47
research is coming out all the time, but you can't count on every primary care
17:50
doctor to know all of the new research coming out. It's impossible. That's why
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we created our company. Like, that is what we created the company for, is for
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what you're talking about. Okay, So I want to change
18:01
topics a little bit because you are not only. You are absolutely running an
18:05
exceptional company that's providing really excellent care to women, but you also happen to
18:09
be one of those women, which is convenient. And you
18:12
are playing in a space and playing, I mean, working, existing,
18:16
building amazing things in a space that doesn't welcome a lot of women.
18:21
And I wanted to talk a little bit about what. What that
18:24
particularly has been like. Do you feel like your kind of venture experience was
18:28
different. Do you have any wisdom that you can pass on to the
18:32
next round of, you know, female founders who will be going to
18:35
search for that funding and figure out how to run their companies? And is
18:39
there truly, is there anything you would do differently? Because I've been, you know, I've
18:43
been running my company now for about two years. It's not my first company, but
18:46
I can think of maybe 150 things that I would do different just off
18:50
the top of my head. And so I wanted to just get your perspective on
18:53
that about what it's like to be in the space you're in with just
18:57
in this climate, in, in the funding climate in general, especially
19:01
considering how funding has changed in the last three years so drastically.
19:05
Honestly, I feel very fortunate and I'm, I don't really think a
19:08
lot about the other companies or I just think about building this
19:12
company, which is actually very helpful to me. So, so it doesn't help to get,
19:16
oh, it's a hard funding environment for women. Like, I don't think about that
19:19
stuff. I just think my job is to build this company into being the
19:23
best company and to prove to people that a women's health
19:27
company can grow to be a really big important company in the world. That
19:31
is my goal. And you know, if I fail, then I will
19:34
fail, but I'm going to work my damnedest not to.
19:38
But I, I think, you know, if you start thinking about all those other things,
19:41
it's very hard to actually focus on building your own company. So I don't, I
19:45
just try to just focus on building this. So I want to touch on what
19:48
you said, which is that a woman's health company can
19:52
do well. Was there ever pushback from people saying like,
19:55
nobody's either nobody's going to invest in this or this isn't. This
19:59
isn't the company that's clear to people a few years ago that
20:03
women's health is a thing that's okay. Like, I don't think
20:06
that's, that's just, you know, things you have to come up with new
20:10
ideas. And the reason why women's health company is a thing is that
20:14
women are looking for it. If they're not looking for it, it doesn't exist. Right?
20:17
So it's a catch 22. If women just keep going to the old
20:20
system and not going to new, innovative women's health companies, then companies
20:24
won't exist like this. So there's a market. It's just about a market.
20:28
Women get botox right? Women get, they go to
20:32
dermatologists, they like, you know, I think of it like women are
20:35
looking for beauty, they're looking for health, they're looking to feel better.
20:40
And our job is to solve that. And. But that's not how historically
20:43
healthcare has been built. And so we just had to prove that there's a different
20:47
way of building a healthcare organization. And that's, it's hard. And you
20:50
know, there's a lot of work in proving it, but that's really what we're still
20:53
doing is proving that that is, that is a real business. Did
20:57
that ever make you kind of incredulous as you were
21:01
trying to explain this to people that you had to like actually spell out for
21:04
people that women are different and sometimes
21:08
require different healthcare? So I'm gonna say yes. But
21:12
there's a pattern recognition for people you have to develop.
21:16
When I'm trying to get funding, I'm not. This is not charity. Right. People have
21:19
to believe you can build something into a big company. That's the belief. There is
21:23
a pattern recognition of, oh, there's been Google, there's
21:27
been Facebook, there's been, you know, this big company, like, does this
21:30
look like that? The answer is no, it doesn't. So
21:34
we don't have the same margins as software companies. Right. Like there's a
21:38
pattern recognition there and we're breaking that pattern. And so my job
21:42
is just to show that now we have to prove that there's different patterns. Right.
21:45
And there's different ways that people can be successful. But I don't blame the
21:49
investors. Like they are trained. Their job is just to make
21:53
money and they have certain investments that make the most sense to them that can
21:56
make money. And now, now I have to prove that I can do it with
21:58
a different pattern. Well, you hit on something really important that I think we probably
22:02
don't talk about enough in, in healthcare. And, and when I say healthcare, I mean
22:05
specifically either value based or fee for service healthcare. Though I think health
22:09
tech probably experiences this some to a degree. But
22:13
like, you know, when you start talking about like hockey stick growth,
22:17
like you're not gonna get hockey stick growth off of insurance reimbursements. It's just
22:21
that's not the model and it's one of the harder things. I mean, especially as
22:24
we started having funding conversations as well, like explaining to people
22:28
that there is a part of you that has to want this to
22:31
succeed just as much as you want your money back. Not that we're
22:35
not saying we're going to give you your money back. Not that we're not saying
22:37
that we have multipliers here, but like we're not selling
22:41
widgets. You know, you're not selling something that has a cost of goods, of goods,
22:44
two of two dollars that you're charging $12 for. That's not healthcare. I do think
22:48
that AI is going to change healthcare and I think it's gonna
22:52
actually create some pretty amazing opportunities to
22:55
enable providers to just focus on the care and
22:59
we can automate the rest of it, right? So if you can automate pre authorization,
23:02
you can automate billing and you can automate a lot of the other tasks
23:06
that are take a lot of time and energy from the
23:10
providers and you can make it so your only job is to do care and
23:13
the rest of it is automated. I actually think that's a pretty extraordinary opportunity.
23:17
So I mean, we're looking at that very carefully, right? How do I use AI
23:21
to train our providers to offer better care more
23:25
efficiently? There should be less burnout because they can spend less time on
23:28
paperwork, less time fighting to get reimbursement for
23:32
weight loss medications. Like, right. A lot of the things that they do that they
23:36
don't really enjoy, we should be able to automate, so we should be able to
23:39
actually just enable them to spend time on what they do, like which is actually
23:42
talking to patients. And so I do think there are really interesting
23:46
technology companies or, you know, AI platform
23:49
companies that will be created that will enable better healthcare. So I'm
23:53
actually very optimistic about that. I think there's a part of that that we don't
23:56
talk about enough because I, I understand the hesitance toward AI as much as I
24:00
understood understand the, the eagerness toward it. Like I get
24:03
both sides of that. And I was a skeptic, I still am a skeptic,
24:07
but very much a skeptic of it in healthcare. But the more I get
24:11
into some of these newer systems and again I get pitched
24:15
stuff, not only pitch stuff, but I get asked to consult on stuff like this
24:17
all the time. The thing that I'm coming around to, especially
24:21
around like prior authorizations and things that you mentioned, is that, you know, my
24:25
hesitation is always, okay, well who is this going to displace? Is this going to
24:28
displace somebody who's needed in the healthcare system or who currently does an important role
24:32
in the healthcare system who will no longer be important because we are creating
24:35
these automated systems? And what I
24:39
have found, the more I dig into this is we're,
24:42
we're fixing things that aren't getting done anyway. Like the number of
24:46
prior authorizations that physicians offices just don't do because they don't have the bandwidth.
24:50
And if it's not approved, they just say it's not approved by your insurance. Even
24:53
though there's probably a form, there's probably an appeal, there's probably another
24:56
level that you can go to. There's probably like a line, a phone line you
25:00
can yell into, and those things are not getting done. And that's, that's
25:04
part of, I think that's part of the deal. Like, they do it on purpose.
25:06
If we, if we bureaucratize this so much that you, we won't have to spend
25:10
the money on the medicine. And I totally get that. But those
25:13
solutions that you're talking about, what they're doing is basically
25:17
fighting back against the bureaucracy, not against the parts of health
25:21
care that we actually need humans involved in. Like, if a, if we don't need
25:25
another human to ever do another prior authorization and that person can ensure
25:28
that our patients are getting the exceptional care and the time, you know, and the
25:32
access to things that they need faster. Like, please, let's build a system that does
25:36
that, that prior authorizations are never something that we were supposed to have
25:40
entire people, you know, focused on within a
25:43
healthcare organization. They are just literal bureaucracy to save
25:47
the insurance company money. And so, like, yes, I agree with
25:51
you. I think if we can finally find the pieces that get
25:54
patients closer to medication without. I mean, right
25:58
now we have a practice that we run that we have to do between three
26:01
and four prior authorizations for a single medication. It takes
26:04
weeks, even if we get an immediate response. Because sometimes the systems
26:08
don't notify you, sometimes they don't send the prior authorization through the right system.
26:12
Sometimes we have to sit on the phone to find out. None of that is
26:15
necessary. That is all healthcare bloat. And if we can throw AI at the healthcare
26:19
bloat and actually get people access to their own care,
26:22
I'm on board for that. So one last question before I let you go.
26:26
And again, I so, so appreciate you giving us this time and sharing
26:29
about what you're working on. Cause it's so important to our listeners if you meet
26:33
somebody who, like you, maybe has an idea for a company
26:37
that is, has never seen, you know, the,
26:41
the marketplace has not seen anything like it before, or they're about to go on
26:44
to their, their venture journey and they don't know where to start,
26:48
or they're nervous. What would you say to that person who is like,
26:52
you on day one where you had this idea, you know, you're
26:56
going to get a lot of no's. And, and my suggestion is
27:00
you listen to them very carefully. So don't just assume that they're
27:04
not taking you seriously. Listen to them, listen to what they say,
27:08
get their feedback. I think being humble and listening is actually very helpful.
27:12
If you get insulted by the feedback, it doesn't help you.
27:16
So my suggestion is listen really carefully to what they say. See
27:20
if it's relevant, see if you should listen to it, follow it,
27:24
not follow it, iterate. But you know, a lot of those
27:28
people who turned me down at the beginning of the process gave me
27:31
very, very valuable information and some of them
27:36
ended up investing later. So I actually think you should be very
27:40
excited about your idea, but you should be very humble and listen because
27:43
those people who are turning you down, their job is mostly to turn people down,
27:47
right? Their job is not to invest in every company. Don't be
27:51
insulted. I think a lot of times as women, we get insulted, for example, and
27:54
we feel hurt and we feel like, oh, they're, you know, they're sexist
27:58
or they're this or they're this. And the truth is they're only going to make
28:01
a few investments a year. Maybe yours is the right one. But
28:05
I would just listen to them and see what they're saying and then keep iterating.
28:09
And if you believe in your company, just keep building. And I think the more
28:12
you don't get insulted and the more you just listen and just stay in
28:16
learning mode, the better off you are. Well, Joanna, I really super
28:20
appreciate it. Thank you so much for the time. It was lovely talking about
28:23
you. If people want more information about your practice and, and what you guys
28:27
do, where can they find you? Yeah, we're at join midi.com so just j o
28:31
I n midi.com and we offer insurance covered care for women
28:35
for really all parts of women's health in all 50 states.
28:40
And now we'll go to Alison, who has this week's
28:44
small talk. We have a question from Omar in Dearborn,
28:47
Michigan. I'm realizing how much I've internalized
28:51
the idea that needing support equals failure.
28:55
Even when help is offered, I don't take it. How do you learn to accept
28:58
support without feeling like you owe people something?
29:02
Well, first you can ask them if you owe them anything.
29:05
It's a really good way to like handle it right up front.
29:10
I really appreciate you doing this for me. How can I help you back or
29:14
what can I do in return. And if they say nothing,
29:18
you take them to mean nothing. Because it is not
29:21
your responsibility to repay a
29:25
debt that they haven't told you that you have.
29:29
That said, every single person
29:33
in the actual world needs. Needs help.
29:37
Every person. I use this as the example all the time because it is so
29:41
silly, but it is so true. I run four
29:44
companies, four very successful companies,
29:48
all of which are doing amazing things. I am busy
29:52
from morning till night. Some of the things that exist in my brain, this
29:56
is not me bragging, this is just an illustration. Some of the things that
29:59
exist in my brain exist in the brains of like 10
30:03
other people in the world. Because I'm that good at what I do for a
30:07
living. I can't run a calendar to save my
30:10
goddamn life. I'm physically
30:14
incapable of doing it. If you ask me when
30:17
I'm available, I'm like, I, I can maybe
30:21
check. I'm not sure if you want me to put an
30:25
actual event on the calendar. I will do it wrong.
30:29
I will do it wrong every time. I will forget to invite people. I will
30:32
put it on the wrong time. I will put it in the wrong time zone.
30:34
I will use the wrong video setting. All of it. I will
30:38
do all of it wrong. It is the simplest part of my day
30:41
and I am incapable. And everybody's
30:45
like, use a calendar integration thing or a
30:49
scheduling link. And I do have a couple of those, but I also have like
30:52
multiple calendars and multiple sets of visibility for multiple
30:55
people in different companies. It's so complicated. I can't run
30:59
a simple one. But you add that level of complexity to it.
31:03
Nope. So a couple years ago, I had to literally say to
31:07
another grown human, I am physically
31:11
incapable of doing this. Can you take this over for
31:15
me? And it was so freaking embarrassing
31:19
because I can build a complex
31:23
50 state entity with all of the different pieces and parts that it's
31:27
supposed to have to be a compliant structure that has
31:31
everything that you need, including complex licensure,
31:35
schematics, and billings. I can do all of that,
31:39
but I. I cannot click a button on iCal. I
31:42
can't do it. That is a very
31:46
silly example of what could be a very
31:49
genuine need for help that you're explaining. But the point is
31:54
that everybody, even the most productive people, even the people who
31:58
have the biggest support systems, even the people who
32:01
look like they have it together all the time and never break
32:05
a sweat, even those people
32:09
need help sometimes. And sometimes we need help in way, in places that
32:12
are silliest things. Now I often need help in things that are very. Not
32:16
silly. Not silly at all. This is kind of
32:20
calendar related, but one of the times that my mom got sick and I was
32:24
like literally running to the emergency room in the middle of the night, I had
32:26
to call our chief clinical officer and be like,
32:30
I have no idea what needs to happen tomorrow, but I can't do any of
32:33
it. I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. I don't know what I'm responsible
32:37
for. I don't know what my day is going to be like. I don't know
32:39
if I'm going to have access to my phone. I have no idea. So
32:42
you've got to figure it out. And she just was like, okay, I got it,
32:45
no problem. But that was like. That was not
32:49
a. I'm silly and my brain's weird and I
32:53
can't do this thing. That was a real, genuine need
32:56
in the middle of a real crisis where I needed to be able to say
33:00
to somebody, I need help and I need you to
33:04
just do it, make the decisions, take care of the things.
33:08
I will trust you, whatever you can do. And had she not
33:11
done that, the fallout from me just ghosting
33:15
for several days while dealing with this family thing could have been
33:19
really bad. There was a ton of stuff on the schedule, a ton of really
33:22
important stuff that we needed to be doing. And, like, do I pay her
33:26
to be in that role? Absolutely. But I very much could
33:30
have tried to juggle both things because as the
33:34
leader of the company, I should be able to figure all this stuff out. And
33:38
I have. No. No. I needed help.
33:42
And there was no way I was getting through that week without help,
33:46
despite the fact that I can do a whole lot of shit without any
33:50
assistance and put in long days and
33:53
love working and love being productive and love getting things done. There
33:57
was no way that I was getting through that period without help.
34:01
And that is not a failure. That is a reality.
34:05
That is not something that I did wrong. That is a situation that I was
34:08
thrown into, which is probably very similar to what most people are
34:12
experiencing. It's not something you did. It's something that is happening around
34:15
you or to you or whatever. And asking for
34:19
help is in no way a failure and in no way
34:23
weakness. In fact, what it does is it builds your network stronger. And then
34:26
when that person needs something, when they need somebody who is reliable and
34:30
who will show up and who will fill need like they did for you,
34:34
they'll know that it's you. And at no point has she come
34:37
back to me since really heroically jumping in and just sorting
34:41
the shit out. Has she come back to me and reminded me that she
34:46
did this for me and that now there was a list of things that
34:49
I need to do for her? She would never. But that's not the relationship. She.
34:53
I needed help, she did the help. There's no tab left for that. And
34:57
at some point, if she has a thing that she needs help with, she'll come
35:00
to me and I'll just be like, done. That's what you do. So ask
35:03
for help. Figure out how to ask for help. Now, if
35:07
you need help and you don't know how to ask for
35:11
help, you can start a conversation
35:15
by saying, you know, with somebody who you trust, who you think would be helpful
35:19
by saying something like, I'm drowning and I
35:22
need some. Somebody to help me with something, but I don't know what it is.
35:26
And let that person tell you what things they can help with,
35:30
because that's a real reality of needing help, is that sometimes the
35:34
ask in and of itself is so overwhelming because there's so much that you don't
35:37
know where to start. Let that person weigh in. Sure, I'll be happy to
35:41
help. How can I. Can I clear your calendar? Can I make a phone call
35:45
for you? Can I call so and so and then start
35:48
ticking things off the list by not adding any additional emotional
35:52
labor to yours? Thanks for being here, guys. Have a good day. Love you. Mean
35:55
it.
36:01
Don't give me fucking homework. I got
36:05
all my degrees. I did the homework.