Latest / The Well with Dr. Wendi / Sick in Plain Sight with Shanta Quilette Develle Carter-Williams

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Sick in Plain Sight with Shanta Quilette Develle Carter-Williams · The Well with Dr. Wendi

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Well, a wellness-centered podcast for leaders.
0:04
SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Dr.
0:05
SPEAKER_00: Wendy Williams.
0:06
SPEAKER_00: I've spent more than two decades working with leaders and studying the relationship between work and wellness and how that shapes and feeds our leadership.
0:14
SPEAKER_00: Wherever you are on your leadership journey and wherever you lead, you will learn something here.
0:20
SPEAKER_00: You are welcome here, exactly as you are.
0:24
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the well.
0:42
SPEAKER_00: Wherever you are, whatever you've carried in with you, you don't have to carry it for the next little while.
0:48
SPEAKER_00: Let's go ahead and place that down.
0:52
SPEAKER_00: This is a place to draw from.
0:54
SPEAKER_00: Not one more place that has something of you.
0:58
SPEAKER_00: So let's take a breath in together.
1:03
SPEAKER_00: And let the outbreath be the longer one.
1:07
SPEAKER_00: Let it linger a bit.
1:08
SPEAKER_00: Slow it down.
1:12
SPEAKER_00: You've been holding something up, maybe for a long time.
1:17
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to name it.
1:19
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to fix it.
1:22
SPEAKER_00: Just for now, set it down beside you.
1:26
SPEAKER_00: It will certainly still be there when we're done.
1:30
SPEAKER_00: But you won't be quite as alone with it.
1:33
SPEAKER_00: We'll be in the well together.
1:36
SPEAKER_00: And this is what the well is for.
1:39
SPEAKER_00: You came to replenish, to think.
1:44
SPEAKER_02: And when you're ready to lead from a full place, not an emptied one.
1:51
SPEAKER_02: So one more breath in.
1:57
SPEAKER_02: Let's begin.
2:00
SPEAKER_00: Well, okay, y'all.
2:02
SPEAKER_00: I want to ask you to sit back and buckle up and welcome yourselves back to the well.
2:09
SPEAKER_00: I am so thrilled to have our next guest with me today.
2:14
SPEAKER_00: Um, but before we bring her in, I want you to get a little bit of a sense of her story and a sense of how we are navigating this conversation with her.
2:24
SPEAKER_00: So let's talk about where this conversation lives and really where it lives in the distance between what you know about your own body and what somebody with more authority tries to tell you what to believe or what they're willing to believe about your body.
2:39
SPEAKER_00: Some of you have said a true thing out loud about your health, that you know you just don't feel quite right or something's off.
2:47
SPEAKER_00: You may have said it about your team, your organization, even in leadership.
2:50
SPEAKER_00: Like you have a sense that it's not really working.
2:53
SPEAKER_00: And you watched it get received, filed away somewhere, and handed back to you, typically by an HR department.
3:00
SPEAKER_00: But someone who kind of isn't really taking your concern and your complaints seriously, they're not arguing with you.
3:07
SPEAKER_00: They just kind of absorbed and explained away what is going on.
3:10
SPEAKER_00: And that can happen to us when we are in the health space.
3:13
SPEAKER_00: So my guess has lived in that gap.
3:16
SPEAKER_00: Um, that gap between knowing what's happening for you and not being listened to, not being listened to by a doctor, by a board, or even by yourself.
3:30
SPEAKER_00: She lived there for about eight years.
3:32
SPEAKER_00: At age 34, she felt her heart flutter on a treadmill, and she knew it was not right.
3:38
SPEAKER_00: She she knew it.
3:39
SPEAKER_00: She was told she was overexerting, so she went back, and she was told she was working too hard and that this should she should consider leaving her job.
3:48
SPEAKER_00: So people, and sometimes this can feel like an impossible kind of advice because who can really afford to leave their job?
3:54
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, over the next five years came chest pain, nausea, dizziness, shortness of breath, pain down the arms and legs.
4:02
SPEAKER_00: And every time, a version of the same sentence, your tests are fine, uh, it's stress, go lose some weight, it's all in your head.
4:10
SPEAKER_00: I hope I'm not re-traumatizing her by retelling the story.
4:14
SPEAKER_00: At 39 years old, she had a heart attack.
4:17
SPEAKER_00: And she went home five days later with no medication and the same advice.
4:23
SPEAKER_00: Now, at some point, we're just looking at uh malpractice.
4:27
SPEAKER_00: Um, less than a year after that, she had a stroke and then finally got a diagnosis.
4:33
SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm gonna ask her help with pronouncing this uh this diagnosis.
4:39
SPEAKER_00: Is it atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease?
4:42
SPEAKER_00: Is that it, Shanta?
4:43
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
4:44
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
4:44
SPEAKER_00: The lead and this is the leading cause of death in the world.
4:48
SPEAKER_00: It took eight years, a heart attack, and a stroke, before anybody with any common sense would give her any, would name that very common condition for her.
4:57
SPEAKER_00: So my guest today is Shanta Quillette, Carter Williams.
5:01
SPEAKER_00: No, we're not cousins.
5:02
SPEAKER_00: Well, we could be.
5:03
SPEAKER_00: Uh great many of you already know her as uh Hey Shanta Q.
5:08
SPEAKER_00: She's uh online on Instagram and and other spaces as well.
5:12
SPEAKER_00: You may have seen her on stages.
5:13
SPEAKER_00: She has really taken her story and her narrative, infused it with laughter, uh, infused it with humor so that people can digest it and try to understand and make it more human.
5:25
SPEAKER_00: Before any of this stuff happened to her, though, she was like this amazing and uh I would say pretty powerful and profound professional, a forensic accountant, which those are the people who go find out where the money really is, and a federal revenue officer, which I don't know what they do, but I'm assuming they find the money.
5:43
SPEAKER_00: Uh, she's a woman who spent her career reading ledgers for small, small irregularities, small problem that would predict the larger failure.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: Um, 12-hour field days, working hard, seven children at home, which is like another job and a half.
5:58
SPEAKER_00: She knows exactly what it's like to see a warning sign early and be the only person in the room that makes sense of it or tries to and takes it seriously.
6:08
SPEAKER_00: So today, today she is an award-winning committee comedian, and she may be funny.
6:14
SPEAKER_00: She I find I find her funny just being herself, uh, but she may be uh demonstrates some of that with us today.
6:20
SPEAKER_00: Um, and is one of the most widely followed health advocates in this country.
6:24
SPEAKER_00: She was keynoted uh for the World Heart Federation in Geneva and the Global Heart Hub in Barcelona.
6:32
SPEAKER_00: Sat on a panel at the World Economic Forum and serves as a national ambassador for the American Heart Association.
6:39
SPEAKER_00: She founded the Pink Peppermint Project for Women.
6:42
SPEAKER_00: That's a that's a tongue twister.
6:44
SPEAKER_00: Pink Peppermint Project for women in the middle of a health crisis.
6:49
SPEAKER_00: Uh millions of people listen to her, and notably they act on what she tells them because she knows what she's talking about.
6:54
SPEAKER_00: But the reason I asked her here is not the platform, though she has a very large one, and you likely are already following her.
7:01
SPEAKER_00: Uh, once I started following you, Shanta, I found that all my friends were already too.
7:05
SPEAKER_00: It's the strategy underneath it.
7:09
SPEAKER_00: She could have come out of the decade furious and she could have been entitled to it, right?
7:13
SPEAKER_00: No one was listening to her.
7:15
SPEAKER_00: But what she did instead was reach for the one instrument that gets past defense.
7:19
SPEAKER_00: She made people laugh.
7:20
SPEAKER_00: That's some real lemons out of uh lemonade out of lemons, I think.
7:24
SPEAKER_00: She uses humor deliberately to disarm, to build enough safety in a room that a hard truth can actually land.
7:31
SPEAKER_00: She's not, in her own words, interested in motivation for the moment.
7:35
SPEAKER_00: She's building what stays after the room empties, after the laughter end, the laughter ends.
7:41
SPEAKER_00: And about the body that nobody would listen to, she says now that she's a CEO of that body.
7:47
SPEAKER_00: She is in charge.
7:48
SPEAKER_00: I think everybody should think about whether or not they're the actual CEO of their body, of their life, because I think that's a powerful statement.
7:56
SPEAKER_00: That's the sentence I want to sit with inside today, because nearly all of you lead something: a team, an institution, a household, a family, a movement.
8:04
SPEAKER_00: And every one of us, every one of you is running an instrument panel, this body, that somebody at some point taught you to ignore the signs of whether it's illness or just when you need a little bit more care.
8:15
SPEAKER_00: So we begin here not with what is wrong with you, but with what have you been reporting accurately for a long time to people who kept telling you it was not a date.
8:25
SPEAKER_00: So I want to invite to the well, Shanta Quillette.
8:29
SPEAKER_00: Welcome, Shante.
8:31
SPEAKER_00: How are you?
8:31
SPEAKER_01: How are you?
8:32
SPEAKER_01: I would have sworn you've been you was reading out of a chapter of a book.
8:35
SPEAKER_00: Um well, tonight, definitely.
8:37
SPEAKER_00: I I I have I have done my homework.
8:40
SPEAKER_00: I do do my homework.
8:41
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
8:43
SPEAKER_01: That's an introduction right there.
8:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
8:46
SPEAKER_01: I am I'm so grateful to be here at the well.
8:49
SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much, uh, Dr.
8:50
SPEAKER_01: Williams, for having me.
8:52
SPEAKER_01: Uh, I look forward to the conversation.
8:54
SPEAKER_01: Call me Dr.
8:54
SPEAKER_01: Wendy.
8:55
SPEAKER_01: Dr.
8:55
SPEAKER_01: Wendy.
8:56
SPEAKER_01: Okay, Dr.
8:56
SPEAKER_01: Wendy, Dr.
8:57
SPEAKER_01: Wendy.
8:57
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
8:58
SPEAKER_00: Uh I look forward to the conversation that we're gonna have today, child.
9:02
SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
9:03
SPEAKER_00: I'm so excited.
9:04
SPEAKER_00: So we start off with on the on the well, the drip, which is our version of a rapid fire.
9:11
SPEAKER_00: Drip, drip, drip.
9:12
SPEAKER_00: So I have just a few questions for you, and you just answer them as the answer first comes to you when you when you hear it.
9:20
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
9:20
SPEAKER_00: Number one, how do you restore or renew yourself?
9:25
SPEAKER_01: Oh, with uh prayer.
9:28
SPEAKER_01: Prayer, yes, meditation, and grounding.
9:31
SPEAKER_01: Um it keeps me it keeps me centered.
9:34
SPEAKER_01: Uh I start my day, I start my I basically start my day with gratitude.
9:39
SPEAKER_01: Yes, um, first and foremost, and then um I have a chart in front of my bed with a list of affirmations.
9:47
SPEAKER_01: Uh, I say those affirmations and then I go into prayer.
9:51
SPEAKER_01: Uh listen to me some soft music.
9:53
SPEAKER_01: I might turn I might uh light some candles.
9:56
SPEAKER_01: Uh and that's how I I recenter myself every day because a lot of times um the day before um we we tend to allow the day before to uh predict what's gonna happen tomorrow, and sometimes we can carry that into the next day.
10:15
SPEAKER_01: And so uh one of the things that I like to center myself in is if if the day didn't go so well, then what will I do to prevent what I had happen yesterday going to next neck the next day?
10:30
SPEAKER_00: So you're trying to interrupt it a bit, like yeah, disrupt something disrupt it.
10:35
SPEAKER_00: It's okay, disrupt it, okay.
10:38
SPEAKER_00: Um what is your favorite act of joy?
10:43
SPEAKER_01: Favorite act of joy, laughing.
10:45
SPEAKER_01: Yes, laughing reminds me who I am every day.
10:48
SPEAKER_00: Really?
10:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, laugh.
10:50
SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna be.
10:50
SPEAKER_01: You have one of those laughs that people know it's you.
10:53
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yes.
10:53
SPEAKER_01: You know, let me tell you something.
10:55
SPEAKER_01: It is so crazy how I could be at the airport, I can be on a plane.
11:01
SPEAKER_01: Um, I was in New York last week.
11:05
SPEAKER_01: Me and my girlfriend, we were sitting at the table and we was having a good Kiki.
11:08
SPEAKER_01: And we a good Kiki girl.
11:11
SPEAKER_01: And when we left, as we were leaving the restaurant, the lady said, Are you the internet sensation?
11:18
SPEAKER_01: And I said, I guess if that's what you want to call me.
11:20
SPEAKER_01: And she said, I recognize your laugh.
11:23
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
11:24
SPEAKER_01: And we were like, I was like, but I get that all the time.
11:27
SPEAKER_01: You either recognize my laugh or my voice.
11:30
SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
11:30
SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
11:31
SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
11:31
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
11:32
SPEAKER_00: What would you say are the life practices that help you to persist in difficult times?
11:37
SPEAKER_01: Ooh, again, I have to go to prayer.
11:40
SPEAKER_01: I have to go to prayer in in ministry.
11:43
SPEAKER_01: It is so important to me.
11:45
SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm I'm a very religious yet spiritual person.
11:49
SPEAKER_01: And so I stay grounded in my faith.
11:52
SPEAKER_01: Has that been a part of your life, your whole life, or is that something you've done?
11:55
SPEAKER_01: My entire life.
11:56
SPEAKER_01: My entire life.
11:56
SPEAKER_01: I grew up with an apostolic grandmother, a colic grandmother, a church of God.
12:01
SPEAKER_01: Oh, grandmother.
12:03
SPEAKER_01: I have some cogic roots too.
12:05
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
12:13
SPEAKER_01: That is something that has been instilled in me.
12:16
SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
12:16
SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
12:18
SPEAKER_00: And last question: what are you absolutely loving in your life right now?
12:21
SPEAKER_00: What is just like it is doing it for you?
12:25
SPEAKER_00: Freedom.
12:26
SPEAKER_00: I know that's right.
12:27
SPEAKER_00: How does freedom manifest for you right now?
12:29
SPEAKER_01: You know, so I, you know, they say that the the greatest commodity is time.
12:34
SPEAKER_01: And so I was always focused on time.
12:37
SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, they say time is money, but then after being sick and and being able to sit down in solitude, I realized that sovereignty and time is the greatest commodity.
12:49
SPEAKER_01: And so being able to control every bit of my life.
12:55
SPEAKER_01: That and and when I when I thought about time before, I had time, but somebody was always controlling it, whether it was my job, that way, my organization.
13:04
SPEAKER_01: But now I do stuff because I want to do.
13:07
SPEAKER_01: I want to do.
13:08
SPEAKER_01: Um and I'm not controlled by money or anything like that.
13:12
SPEAKER_01: I feel like God put me in a position before I got sick and put my husband in a position before he also got sick, that um, if we didn't work another day, we would be, we would be financially secure, right?
13:26
SPEAKER_01: Um, so that's one of the greatest things that the good government, even though they medically retired me, that's one of the good things that the good government did for me is give me security, and that security has allowed allowed me the freedom.
13:37
SPEAKER_01: So if I want to say I'm gonna lay in the bed or somebody asks me to do this, I can say no without an explanation.
13:44
SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
13:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
13:45
SPEAKER_01: So that so that's important.
13:46
SPEAKER_01: My freedom is the greatest.
13:49
SPEAKER_00: So interesting.
13:49
SPEAKER_00: Did you think you were free before you were free?
13:52
SPEAKER_01: I did.
13:53
SPEAKER_01: You know, you don't understand freedom until you actually experience it.
13:57
SPEAKER_01: Because even with my job, you know, even though I I worked 12 hours a day as uh a uh revenue officer with the IRS, it was we considered that job like a self-employed job, right?
14:10
SPEAKER_01: And so we can we controlled our schedule, we went out in the field basically when we wanted to.
14:15
SPEAKER_01: We had we we managed our case inventory, but still at the end of the day, it had to be done, and it still had to be done in a specific time.
14:23
SPEAKER_01: No matter how I thought about our how I thought about managing it, it was still controlled time.
14:29
SPEAKER_01: So when I went on vacation, I only had a week of vacation, right?
14:32
SPEAKER_01: Um, if I had two weeks of vacation, I had to be back.
14:35
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't like one of these things now is like I got unlimited vacation, right?
14:39
SPEAKER_01: And there's nobody that I need to to to really answer to unless I'm, you know, doing my brand deals and things like that.
14:45
SPEAKER_01: But still, I controlled that time.
14:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because you make the agreement with that brandale, for example.
14:50
SPEAKER_00: I do, I do get that's up to you.
14:52
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
14:53
SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you for uh engaging the drip with us.
14:56
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna get into some of these questions now.
14:59
SPEAKER_00: So the first one I want to start with is this diagnosis.
15:03
SPEAKER_00: Um, because it, you know, the part that I imagine gets skipped.
15:07
SPEAKER_00: There were eight years of you feeling something that was wrong and being told in different words each time that that wasn't it.
15:15
SPEAKER_00: Um, what does it do to you?
15:17
SPEAKER_00: What do you think it does to a person to be an accurate reporter of her own body, of their own body, and be treated as if they're unreliable or not a useful informant of themselves?
15:29
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's a good question.
15:31
SPEAKER_01: Um, being dismissed made me question what I knew about my own body, right?
15:36
SPEAKER_01: And before the appointments, it made it where it I felt like I had to rehearse, right?
15:43
SPEAKER_01: Which which symptoms did I mention first?
15:45
SPEAKER_01: Um, how do I explain something without uh sounding emotional or sounding aggressive?
15:53
SPEAKER_01: Uh, and it's also a stressful, a stressful experience.
15:56
SPEAKER_01: So you imagine I'm already having the stress of um my body um not working in a way that um I anticipated, but also worrying about me knowing that some or stressing about me knowing something is going on with my body and nobody listening.
16:17
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
16:17
SPEAKER_01: So I I wasn't just uh seeking medical care, I was performing credibility, right?
16:26
SPEAKER_01: And that was very exhausting for me.
16:29
SPEAKER_01: Uh a patient shouldn't have to prove um if she's worthy of being believed.
16:35
SPEAKER_01: And that's what I got at a point in time because I remember even my own doctor uh with so much audacity when I was asking him a question, you know, I had started Googling my symptoms, right?
16:48
SPEAKER_01: And so I got to the point where, like, hey, do you think it can be this?
16:51
SPEAKER_01: Can we test about this?
16:52
SPEAKER_01: And he looked at me in my eye and said, Aren't you, aren't you an accountant?
16:57
SPEAKER_01: And I'm thinking, like, yes.
16:58
SPEAKER_01: And he's like, Yeah, well, stay in your lane.
17:00
SPEAKER_01: Like, I know, I know my job and I know what I'm doing.
17:03
SPEAKER_01: And I should have said, I am an accountant, and the math ain't mad then.
17:06
SPEAKER_01: You know, all these invoices that I'm, you know, bringing to you um are not me not being managed properly, right?
17:12
SPEAKER_01: And so I didn't, I didn't say that.
17:16
SPEAKER_01: But you felt that.
17:17
SPEAKER_01: I felt that.
17:18
SPEAKER_01: I felt that.
17:19
SPEAKER_01: Um, and so uh it was just it was just so much stress, you know.
17:23
SPEAKER_01: Quit your job.
17:24
SPEAKER_01: And yeah, I started having palpitations.
17:26
SPEAKER_01: That's the first thing people thought about was quit your job.
17:29
SPEAKER_01: You know, you work for the IRS, it's highly stressful.
17:31
SPEAKER_01: Um, but my they were acting like my direct deposit was causing my palpitations.
17:36
SPEAKER_01: Uh it's like, like, no.
17:40
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, uh oh.
17:44
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna do this.
17:45
SPEAKER_00: I was you can't even help you.
17:46
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, she's gonna do this.
17:49
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
17:49
SPEAKER_01: Like they made me sick.
17:51
SPEAKER_01: Um but literally, yeah.
17:53
SPEAKER_01: So it was making, yeah, it basically was making me sicker because I had to to not only worry that about being dismissed, but also you're going to your job, you're missing days, right?
18:03
SPEAKER_01: And so they're asking you to validate why you're missing those days, but you don't have somebody who's supporting why you're missing those days because they're saying that, hey, there's basically nothing wrong with you.
18:12
SPEAKER_01: It's it's all you, it's all in your head.
18:14
SPEAKER_01: You need to lose weight, which at some point in time that was true.
18:17
SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, my job at some point did get stressful, but that wasn't to that wasn't related to my underlying condition.
18:29
SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
18:31
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's really interesting, interesting the way that you're talking about stress right now.
18:35
SPEAKER_00: Because, you know, at the well we talk, you know, about like, you know, you're not tired of the work, you're just tired of carrying it.
18:42
SPEAKER_00: And there's sort of speaking to then this feeling of, you know, how do I um how do I stay connected with the thing that I love?
18:51
SPEAKER_00: A lot of people that I work with and that we have on the show are folks who feel called to a particular purpose in their work, you know.
18:57
SPEAKER_00: Um, and at the same time being exhausted in the work can can begin to communicate to them that maybe this isn't the right place for me, maybe this isn't the right profession for me anymore.
19:08
SPEAKER_00: But what you're saying is that even before you get to that, you're at the doctor's office and you're stressing.
19:13
SPEAKER_00: And I have to tell you that this hit personally, because this happens for folks in my family as well, uh, when they've had health concerns, and there's an anxiety that erupts in the preparation of going to the doctor around do I, how do I perform?
19:29
SPEAKER_00: How do I perform that I'm not well and perform in such a way that my performance becomes credible?
19:34
SPEAKER_00: You said that, performing credibility of knowing your own symptoms.
19:38
SPEAKER_00: I find that you and that that is a type of stress that for one member of my family who had high blood pressure, their blood pressure was related to getting ready for that preparation.
19:46
SPEAKER_00: So they would continue to have high readings at the doctor's office because of this, right?
19:51
SPEAKER_00: These things are pushing and pulling on each other.
19:54
SPEAKER_00: I wonder for you, you know, the way that so you stress in the doctor's office, but the ways that stress was used with you is also really interesting too.
20:02
SPEAKER_00: It's it's almost feels manipulative, right?
20:05
SPEAKER_00: Because on the one hand, it's the reason why nothing's really wrong because it's just stress.
20:11
SPEAKER_00: And on the other hand, you are experiencing so much stress, such that it is the cause of this of the disorder and the discomfort that you're feeling.
20:20
SPEAKER_00: What's the difference to you between stress named as a cause for that someone treats and stress named as a reason not to help you or to send somebody home?
20:29
SPEAKER_01: Um I I don't think there's a such thing as just stress, because stress is absolutely real.
20:34
SPEAKER_01: And whether you have regular stress or you have stress related to health condition or anything, it's going to impact your body in some way or a form of another, whether it's work-related, home related, whatever it is.
20:48
SPEAKER_01: Um, but but I don't think stress should have been part of the investigation and not the reason to stop investigating, if that makes sense.
20:57
SPEAKER_01: Um stress can absolutely.
21:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
21:02
SPEAKER_01: And in my case, stress was actually worsening my condition, my illness.
21:07
SPEAKER_01: Um so I would say stress should never be used to explain every symptom away, right?
21:16
SPEAKER_01: At some point, if you if your body is doing the same thing over and over, then we need to, you know, resource out, do some additional testing, um, which wasn't done at that time.
21:25
SPEAKER_01: They were actually just looking at me as an individual and saying, okay, first of all, this person is too young.
21:31
SPEAKER_01: Um, this person is working a has a very intense career.
21:36
SPEAKER_01: This person is a mother, and all the other things that I was doing outside of it.
21:39
SPEAKER_01: So I would say stress may be contributing, um, but let's treat it and keep looking, right?
21:49
SPEAKER_01: Uh huh.
21:49
SPEAKER_01: Uh huh.
21:50
SPEAKER_01: Not you're just stressed and go home.
21:52
SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
21:54
SPEAKER_01: You know, you know, it's an interesting place.
21:56
SPEAKER_01: No, I was just thinking in my head.
21:57
SPEAKER_01: I was like, one is one is essentially.
22:00
SPEAKER_01: And the other one is dismissal.
22:01
SPEAKER_01: And you shouldn't have you shouldn't have to uh collapse before your uh your exhaustion becomes credible.
22:09
SPEAKER_01: Before your exhaustion becomes credible.
22:12
SPEAKER_00: You know, one of the things I'm thinking about too, Shonta, is that like there's a lot of folks who are in their leadership roles.
22:18
SPEAKER_00: And especially right now, like it's really um a tough time to be in the in particular in different workplaces.
22:24
SPEAKER_00: Um and to, you know, many folks are feeling the crunch in the workforce push out.
22:29
SPEAKER_00: So if they have a job, they are trying to keep it.
22:33
SPEAKER_00: Uh and they probably are feeling more pressure to keep themselves where they are, and particularly for leaders, you know, in that space.
22:41
SPEAKER_00: How do you, when we think about these folks who who feel that way around the context of their work, and they're also in what some might say, oh, that's just a busy season.
22:49
SPEAKER_00: What do you wish that they heard in your story to take that feeling, to take what they're experiencing more seriously?
22:55
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, listen, nothing is more serious than your health, not your job, your children, none of those things, because essentially none of those things can work if you're not here to experience them, right?
23:06
SPEAKER_01: Or if you're not in the you're not in the the the shape to do so.
23:10
SPEAKER_01: So my thing is immediately listen to your body and don't allow anybody to dismiss you.
23:17
SPEAKER_01: But I also believe that, you know, uh there should be better options and better systems and resources in the places where we work.
23:28
SPEAKER_01: Because as women, you know, we we women, we having babies, we having fibroids, we're going through pyramenopause, we're going through menopause.
23:35
SPEAKER_01: We got all these different things that we got to deal with on top, you know, of our job and trying to stay um in a place where you don't look like you you can't do the job, or somebody else is younger coming in and taking it because they feel like, oh yeah, this job is not too much, this job is is is just too much for you.
23:57
SPEAKER_01: And maybe you should consider retirement or or as they told me, find something that's more seditary for you, something more that you can you can handle.
24:05
SPEAKER_01: Um, and not just realizing that you're a whole person and you're a human.
24:09
SPEAKER_01: And so your body is going to be affected by things that happen in your life every day outside of work.
24:15
SPEAKER_01: You imagine managing books as I did, managing books.
24:18
SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm dealing with taxpayers who are who are emotional and upset and irate, and they also have their own experiences, and then I'm adding on top of it, and I'm getting yelled at, you know, and I got to, you know, go back to work and and deal with that.
24:31
SPEAKER_01: And then I also got to come home and deal with my own my own life.
24:35
SPEAKER_01: And and in some cases, life be life at.
24:37
SPEAKER_00: And I mean, you have seven children.
24:40
SPEAKER_00: That's nothing to snuff.
24:42
SPEAKER_00: How how old is your oldest and your youngest?
24:45
SPEAKER_00: What's the story?
24:46
SPEAKER_00: I have a blended family of seven children.
24:48
SPEAKER_01: Oh, so I have seven children at the home at one time.
24:52
SPEAKER_01: For those who do God bless you.
24:54
SPEAKER_01: But they are they are they they're from they go from the ages of Addison, who's the youngest, is 20 years old.
25:00
SPEAKER_01: And then Chauncey, who's the oldest, is uh 32.
25:04
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
25:05
SPEAKER_00: That's a huge that's a big spread, though.
25:07
SPEAKER_00: And that's a lot of people, but especially during that time that were looking to you and your your husband to like really be provided and taking care.
25:14
SPEAKER_00: And it sounds like he too was going through some health issues, perhaps stress-related, et cetera, as well.
25:19
SPEAKER_00: So you all were really going through it together.
25:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
25:22
SPEAKER_01: Here's the thing.
25:23
SPEAKER_01: I think what we need to keep in mind, going back to the question where you said when you're putting all these things um in front of your your own health, or you, you know, you're trying to climb the leadership ladder, or you're trying to stay you're in a position where you're not demoted or anything like that.
25:41
SPEAKER_01: When you when your health is impacted, you know, say that you you you know you're ignoring the you're ignoring the signs, right?
25:49
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
25:50
SPEAKER_01: So the signs are there, but you don't have the time to take off, or every you're putting everybody in front of you, that impacts once you once you are in a position where you are sick and the people around you become your caregiver, you impact them.
26:05
SPEAKER_01: So you so as my husband, so although my husband didn't get cancer until, you know, after um my my my illnesses, he still had to, he still had the stress of having to take care of me.
26:21
SPEAKER_01: Uh I lost my I lost my independence in a lot of ways.
26:26
SPEAKER_01: So he the independence I lost, he gained.
26:28
SPEAKER_01: So not only is he responsible for himself, he's responsible for me.
26:31
SPEAKER_01: And he's responsible for all the things that I can no longer do, right?
26:36
SPEAKER_01: That's stressful.
26:37
SPEAKER_01: And that's stressful.
26:38
SPEAKER_01: And as hit him as a man, especially a black man, sometimes there's nowhere, there's nowhere for you to express that stress.
26:45
SPEAKER_01: You just gotta keep working and keep doing it and keep taking care of your family.
26:48
SPEAKER_01: You can't sit in the corner and cry about it, right?
26:51
SPEAKER_01: And so that was the impact that it had on my family and my children, because now my children have PTSD because now they're consistently wondering, is mama gonna still be here?
27:00
SPEAKER_01: Is mama still gonna be here?
27:01
SPEAKER_01: Every time mama has a headache, every time mama's sick, everybody's in the forefront.
27:05
SPEAKER_01: Everybody is their antennas are up and like, what is what is this now?
27:09
SPEAKER_01: Um, so when we when we when we think about stress and when we think about our health, we have to also think about those around us and how it impacts those around us.
27:18
SPEAKER_01: So I always say, you know, the doctors should do absolutely 100% do their job, but you also have to be an active participant in your own rescue.
27:28
SPEAKER_01: So you need to know your numbers, you need to know your, you need to know your numbers, you need to know your family history, you need to know when you get that headache at work that comes on all of a sudden, what does this mean?
27:37
SPEAKER_01: Is this just a temporary headache, or does this mean, is this alerting me that something is lingering down the down the line?
27:45
SPEAKER_01: So it it's it's so important, especially as black women, because we have and women, period, in general.
27:52
SPEAKER_01: Um we have been taught to wear exhaustion like a badge of honor, right?
27:57
SPEAKER_01: Yes, we have and and we use these titles like I'm super mom and I'm superwoman.
28:01
SPEAKER_01: Girl, you can't fly, you ain't got x-ray.
28:06
SPEAKER_01: Can't you can't do nothing, can't pull your laughs out or do nothing.
28:09
SPEAKER_00: You sneak in a joke so fast, like it catches me up.
28:14
SPEAKER_01: You don't get no gold, you don't get no gold cords or nothing.
28:17
SPEAKER_01: Bionic woman, nothing can't jump no fence or nothing.
28:20
SPEAKER_01: And so you you call it yourself something that does not exist, and then and then you have a mindset of I'm a superwoman, I could do everything, I can do all things.
28:30
SPEAKER_01: And then the next thing you know, you're burnt out, you're tired, you're angry, you're going through perimenopause.
28:35
SPEAKER_01: Yes, you know, you're mad at everybody, you you're not performing well at work, yeah when you could have gotten, you could have handled that in the beginning by just taking care of yourself and making sure that you put your health in the forefront.
28:47
SPEAKER_01: Now, that does not negate doctors dismissing you.
28:50
SPEAKER_01: That does not negate you know, the responsibilities they that they have as practitioners to you as a as a patient.
28:57
SPEAKER_01: But you do have to be an active participant in your own rescue.
29:01
SPEAKER_00: It it sounds to me that you're saying there's a real delicate balance here, and we have to hold tight to the tension between the care I provide for myself or that I am on the on watch for for me to make sure I get what I need, but also that I do hold healthcare professionals accountable to me.
29:18
SPEAKER_00: So know my numbers, but also they need to take that information, that data about my numbers, what I know about them, what they're learning about me, and do something responsible with me in relation to that.
29:30
SPEAKER_00: Right.
29:30
SPEAKER_00: Uh 100%.
29:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
29:33
SPEAKER_00: 100%.
29:34
SPEAKER_00: You know, you were working as a forensic accountant, and I you I'll be honest, I I am a big picture person, so I can only imagine how oppressive those Excel sheets or whatever it is she was looking at.
29:46
SPEAKER_00: I was like, oh my God, I never want to do that.
29:48
SPEAKER_00: Never please never ask me.
29:50
SPEAKER_00: But so, but one of the things I think about that is like there's just such a level of particularity, right?
29:54
SPEAKER_00: Like you are in those details, you can find a thing.
29:57
SPEAKER_00: You probably my mother's like this, actually.
29:59
SPEAKER_00: She likes getting inside of that stuff and feels accomplished when she finds the reason why the numbers are off, you know?
30:04
SPEAKER_00: Right.
30:04
SPEAKER_00: Um, but I think it's fascinating for another reason because you spend your whole career like finding the small irregularity in a thing that protect uh predicts the larger failure that helps us to understand, like, oh, this thing over here, this little pee in the princess beds why she can't sleep over here, right?
30:20
SPEAKER_00: Like, what's going on there?
30:21
SPEAKER_00: And then when your own body ran that exact pattern over eight years and the system was supposed to read it, it didn't.
30:28
SPEAKER_00: And it only responded once things started to really, really break down.
30:32
SPEAKER_00: What do you make of that parallel between the career that you had and what was happening in your body, especially because it happened twice?
30:39
SPEAKER_00: The heart attack and then the stroke.
30:41
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
30:42
SPEAKER_01: That's a that's a really good question.
30:44
SPEAKER_01: So um I worked for I worked as a revenue officer with the with the well with the IRS, and I also I have a background in Forentica County.
30:52
SPEAKER_01: And so basically, uh a revenue officer um works in civil law enforcement investigations.
31:00
SPEAKER_01: So um we are those who, when you um have a balance or you're not paying your taxes, or you're not paying your employment taxes, we go out um as basically collection agencies, and we're the ones who um file liens, levies on your bank account, seize your property.
31:18
SPEAKER_00: Um now you're making the audience not like you so much.
31:22
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna be an unsympathetic.
31:25
SPEAKER_00: Like Jesus.
31:25
SPEAKER_01: I'm all right.
31:28
SPEAKER_01: Um, but yeah.
31:30
SPEAKER_01: People don't like people, listen, the only people that don't like me is who fall in that category.
31:34
SPEAKER_01: Um pay your taxes.
31:40
SPEAKER_01: Um but as a forensic accountant, you know, we look for inconsistencies.
31:48
SPEAKER_01: We we we follow the small clues that um that reveal a larger problem.
31:53
SPEAKER_01: And that's what makes your question very iconic because my body gave me small clues, and like you said, for for eight years, but every symptom was was treated like a uh a separate incident, right?
32:08
SPEAKER_01: And so as in accounting, you know, you know, in misappropriations and and things like that, my leading indicators uh were the symptoms, you know, the exhaustion that kept returning and not going away.
32:22
SPEAKER_01: Um the the the repetition, when you look at when you look at a financial statement, you're looking at repetition, you're looking at um things that are out of the ordinary.
32:31
SPEAKER_01: So um that repetition of my exhaustion and my heart palpitations, that was evidence, right?
32:38
SPEAKER_01: And so um most systems, when you think of forensic accounting, they wait for uh big failure.
32:46
SPEAKER_01: And so what happens is the patient, me, the patient, I collapse, I have strokes, um, you you they you they you quit uh and and and the numbers the numbers fall.
33:00
SPEAKER_01: Uh but what I've learned in in leadership and in my own health and being the CEO of my health is recognizing the pattern, right?
33:11
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
33:11
SPEAKER_01: Uh before everything falls apart.
33:14
SPEAKER_01: Anybody who's managing a big organization, they are going to recognize the pattern before everything falls apart.
33:21
SPEAKER_01: And so the goal in in forensic accounting is not um is not to explain away the clue.
33:30
SPEAKER_01: The goal, if you look at it, look at it from my body, is to understand what it's warning you about.
33:37
unknown: Right.
33:38
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
33:40
SPEAKER_00: Having that career in terms of really being able to zero in on the fine point of the thing that may cause the larger crises, what do you think that let you see about a crisis possibly coming that the clinicians who were supposed to be working with you and identifying that didn't see?
33:58
SPEAKER_01: Um being able to answer I think being able to answer ask the right questions, right?
34:04
SPEAKER_01: And for me, I I hold myself acco I'll I hold myself accountable in that because I think one of the things that once was missed was my family history, right?
34:16
SPEAKER_01: And I did not have, I didn't, I didn't have the full picture, the overall picture when it came to my my family component of what was going on outside of my own household.
34:30
SPEAKER_01: Um my immediate family, you know, when I say my mom, my dad, my grandmother.
34:35
SPEAKER_01: And so when doctors, when I was going in, especially the first cardiologist I was talking to that uh diagnosed me essentially first with uh exercise reduced arrhythmia, when we were going over that sheet that you get when you go to the doctor, right before your patient overview form, there's those questions about your mom, your dad, your grandmother.
34:54
SPEAKER_01: And they asked you, you know, but high blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart problems, stroke, heart attack.
35:00
SPEAKER_01: They ask you all these things, right?
35:01
SPEAKER_01: And so because I did not have the knowledge, uh, I was not able to answer those questions appropriately.
35:10
SPEAKER_01: So they were all no.
35:11
SPEAKER_01: So basically, you you have a 34-year-old woman who is active, coming in, who is on a treadmill, exercising, and there's no family history.
35:22
SPEAKER_01: There's no, you know, everybody's pretty much healthy.
35:25
SPEAKER_01: Not saying that that makes gives gives a practitioner an excuse, but it also says to them, like, okay, well, what could it be?
35:36
SPEAKER_01: You know, I feel like if I would have been like, hey, you know, my once I found out, you know, once I had my heart attack and my stroke, I found out that my mom had had a mini stroke and my mom had had a minor heart attack.
35:46
SPEAKER_01: My dad has the same condition.
35:48
SPEAKER_01: He has the LP little A.
35:49
SPEAKER_01: I found out all these things that I felt like if I would have told the doctor, he's like, okay, now we can test you for, you know, LP little A.
35:56
SPEAKER_01: We can, you know, dive deeper in your uh um than the surface level part of your arrhythmia.
36:03
SPEAKER_01: It's not just exercise, uh exercise-induced arrhythmia, it's something else.
36:07
SPEAKER_01: So let's do the echocardiogram, let's do a heart catheterization, let's do all these things.
36:11
SPEAKER_01: Let's let's put you on a uh a medication just to, you know, manage the symptoms that you're having.
36:19
SPEAKER_01: None of that was none of that was done.
36:22
SPEAKER_01: And girl, you know what I feel like in this very moment.
36:25
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if I'm answering your question, but I went into brain calling and I went into perimenopause.
36:30
SPEAKER_00: Girl.
36:30
SPEAKER_01: Perimenopause is a real thing.
36:32
SPEAKER_01: It's a real thing.
36:33
SPEAKER_01: When I did just like this, that's when that's when my mind stopped.
36:36
SPEAKER_00: That's okay.
36:37
SPEAKER_00: I love it.
36:38
SPEAKER_00: What I love is that more for than for our mothers that were able, that we can say perimenopauses.
36:43
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what I was talking about.
36:44
SPEAKER_00: So we hit it.
36:47
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, so basically that's that's the parallel.
36:50
SPEAKER_01: That's the parallel of that.
36:52
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's it's a funny.
36:55
SPEAKER_00: I love that.
36:56
SPEAKER_00: Um, it's just a very real thing, right?
36:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
36:59
SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, I and I think that's interesting because I think about you now talk about yourself being the CEO of this body, of this life.
37:07
SPEAKER_00: Uh it's very empowering to talk about it that way.
37:10
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, but we also, you know, uh have folks who are CEOs, who are VPs, who are, you know, founders and of their organizations and whatnot.
37:19
SPEAKER_00: And it is hustle culture 101 right now for these folks.
37:22
SPEAKER_00: They're trying to navigate these things.
37:24
SPEAKER_00: When you put that forensic hat on and the small indicators that you talked about, what might be some things that they might need to keep an eye on and not just say, oh, it's a busy season.
37:34
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I'm a CEO, this, I just have this big job and it's so important.
37:37
SPEAKER_00: But rather, no, no, no, no.
37:39
SPEAKER_00: That's going to need your attention.
37:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so what I can speak on is my own lived experience.
37:44
SPEAKER_01: And so one of the things we know is that cardiovascular disease is the number one killer of human beings, right?
37:51
SPEAKER_01: Um more than all five cancers together.
37:55
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
37:56
SPEAKER_01: And when you think about heart attack, it shows up differently in women than men.
38:02
SPEAKER_01: So the the the symptoms of a man typically is like, you know, you see what what you see in the movies.
38:08
SPEAKER_01: Like it's like, ah, my, you know, my chest, and you know, he's sweating profusely and all these different things.
38:13
SPEAKER_01: But for me, my experience was totally different, right?
38:17
SPEAKER_01: Not outside of the palpitations, because I had heart attack symptoms that I wasn't aware were heart attack symptoms for two weeks leading to my heart attack, right?
38:28
SPEAKER_01: And those symptoms were.
38:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
38:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
38:34
SPEAKER_01: So those symptoms were what I could, what I compare to flu-like symptoms.
38:40
SPEAKER_01: So the one that stood out the most and I always talk about was exhaustion.
38:45
SPEAKER_01: Like very lethargic, very tired.
38:48
SPEAKER_01: And I'm not talking about just like, oh, I worked, I worked hard today.
38:52
SPEAKER_01: I need to rest.
38:54
SPEAKER_01: I mean repetitive, like I said earlier in the conversation, repetition is important.
38:59
SPEAKER_01: Uh, so I was very tired.
39:01
SPEAKER_01: Um, I would have light chest pain, I would have shoulder pain, which we they, you know, they always say, oh, it's on the left side, but I had shoulder pain and arm pain on the right side.
39:11
SPEAKER_01: But what we've learned is that any part of the chest area and shoulder area could be a symptom of a heart attack.
39:19
SPEAKER_01: So I was having these symptoms, nausea, uh, you know, all these different things.
39:25
SPEAKER_01: And up until when I got to the hospital is where I started vomiting, where you're they basically say your body is basically this is like the last stage where the body is really trying to protect you, right?
39:36
SPEAKER_01: And and really try to warn you.
39:38
SPEAKER_01: So just, you know, jaw pain.
39:39
SPEAKER_01: I had jaw, I had jaw pain that went down to my neck.
39:42
SPEAKER_01: I had numbness in my in my in my arm, tingling.
39:46
SPEAKER_01: So those things.
39:47
SPEAKER_01: And so you need to pay attention.
39:48
SPEAKER_01: And what I say is that any type of chest pain, immediately you need to call 911.
39:54
SPEAKER_01: Don't, don't wait, you know, if it's something especially that it just pops out the blue and it's consistent, I'd say call the doctor.
40:01
SPEAKER_01: It's better to be safe than than than sorry.
40:05
SPEAKER_01: Uh and yeah, just look look at the patterns, and even like like a headache, a headache or uh a consistent pain in the leg, something like that.
40:16
SPEAKER_01: You get a bottle of Tylenol, right?
40:19
SPEAKER_01: You get a bottle of mucinx, you get a bottle of Malox, you get uh Icy Hot, you read the bottle, you read the back of that package, and every one of them says, if these symptoms persist for more than seven days, discontinue and call your doctor immediately.
40:41
SPEAKER_01: They tell you that for a reason because abnormal pain consistently is not unless you've been diagnosed with something, just consistent pain in the same place is not normal.
40:57
SPEAKER_01: It's not normal.
40:58
SPEAKER_01: So you you you have to be aware.
41:00
SPEAKER_01: And and when those things happen, you know, before you go to the doctor, when you make your doctor's appointment, make sure you you you journal exactly what happened.
41:09
SPEAKER_01: What were you doing?
41:10
SPEAKER_01: What time it happened.
41:11
SPEAKER_01: That's why the doctor says, hey, when you had the pain, were you laying down or were you active?
41:16
SPEAKER_01: What were you doing when the pain occurred?
41:18
SPEAKER_01: Were you sleeping?
41:19
SPEAKER_01: Were you, you know, so they they ask these questions because it's important.
41:22
SPEAKER_01: But by the time you get to the doctor, you don't know how many times it happened, you don't know what time it happened, you don't know what was doing, what you were doing, you don't know what other symptoms were um in in line with what that with that headache.
41:35
SPEAKER_01: So you might have had headache and stomach pain and the knee pain and all those things, but by the time you get to the doctor, you don't remember, right?
41:41
SPEAKER_01: You you just talk about one one symptom.
41:44
SPEAKER_00: I just have to say I'm I'm hearing you.
41:47
SPEAKER_00: And the list of symptoms that you are naming are things that I know people feel all the time, and they're not, it's likely not registering.
41:56
SPEAKER_00: But the other piece that's connecting to me is the first question I'm saying.
42:06
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's got three hundred people.
42:09
SPEAKER_01: Now when you go to the doctor by the way, it's so hard to pyramidopause.
42:16
SPEAKER_01: My speech is learning, it's peramenopause.
42:18
SPEAKER_01: So you don't want that to happen either, you know.
42:23
SPEAKER_00: And it could, but what I was thinking I can't, I knew this might happen with you.
42:29
SPEAKER_00: Um with the the because you're you're funny.
42:32
SPEAKER_00: But would you when we started talking, remember you were talking of we were talking about being considered an unreliable informant?
42:38
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm just thinking about this juxtaposition, right?
42:41
SPEAKER_00: Of all these different types of symptoms that they they could they they're they're kind of usual.
42:47
SPEAKER_00: Some of the things you said, I'm like, oh, I'm like, oh my God, maybe I'm having a heart.
42:50
SPEAKER_00: Like I don't I need to go get something checked out, right?
42:52
SPEAKER_00: Uh it could be something else, perimenopause or whatever the case may be.
42:56
SPEAKER_00: But you know, one, just to keep track of it because our lives are busy and trying to know what's happening for me.
43:01
SPEAKER_00: And then two, you kind of get it all down or as much as you can remember, and folks don't believe you or not taking you seriously.
43:08
SPEAKER_00: Like this feels very um, I don't know the word.
43:12
SPEAKER_00: I I just I can I I it it it just feels very frustrating.
43:18
SPEAKER_00: Exhausting, I guess would be the way to think, and exhausting, right?
43:22
SPEAKER_00: Um to have the need for help, the need for medical care uh and to be to be put in a position where you're not heard, not seen, especially when you need to be most seen and most heard.
43:36
SPEAKER_00: Right.
43:39
SPEAKER_00: Right.
43:40
SPEAKER_02: It is it is exhausting, it is frustrating.
43:43
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for my dish.
43:48
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you're you're saying what so many women say every day that say to me on a on a daily basis.
43:54
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's it's hard when you know what when something is going on with you and nobody.
44:00
SPEAKER_01: Would listen, right?
44:01
SPEAKER_01: And there's a lot of women who are in the graveyard who didn't get, who weren't able to get a second opinion, right?
44:07
SPEAKER_01: So that's the frustrating thing about that.
44:09
SPEAKER_01: But my thing is, like I said, you are the CEO of your your body and your and your and your health.
44:15
SPEAKER_01: So as any organization would operate, there's a lot of firing, there's a lot of uh reorganization that you have to do.
44:22
SPEAKER_01: And so when you think about you as you you are the CEO of your health, you think about all the stakeholders who are around you.
44:31
SPEAKER_01: So I consider my my doctors and my practitioners my employee.
44:35
SPEAKER_01: And so if they are not performing at a level that I feel like is necessary to keep my organization running, then we are going to, we're gonna we're gonna do some layoffs, we're gonna do some firing, we're gonna do some reorganization, right?
44:48
SPEAKER_01: And that is, and you have the authority to do that.
44:51
SPEAKER_01: You have the authority to do that.
44:52
SPEAKER_01: One of the things I always say, if I tell my doctor something and my doctor doesn't listen, I say, hey, go ahead and put that in my record that you are not allowing me a uh a referral or you are dismissing me or you are going against my recommendation when it comes to my own health, right?
45:14
SPEAKER_01: So you write that in there and you you'll see a whole uh you you get into a whole nother ball game because they're not gonna they're not gonna write that, right?
45:22
SPEAKER_01: So um they are 100% not not gonna write that.
45:26
SPEAKER_01: But also just you have to take authority over yourself.
45:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
45:30
SPEAKER_00: I get it.
45:31
SPEAKER_00: I just, you know, right now it just feels like such a battlefield.
45:35
SPEAKER_00: You know?
45:35
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
45:36
SPEAKER_01: Well, you don't feel like disruptive.
45:38
SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying going there flicking over tables and stuff.
45:40
SPEAKER_01: Um, you ain't gotta do that.
45:42
SPEAKER_01: You know, you you you just you just have to be you you just have to be aware and in control of of of who you are and and how you operate when it comes to you.
45:58
SPEAKER_01: Because you only you don't you you like I said, you only get one life, right?
46:02
SPEAKER_01: And my thing is is you can't enjoy the blessings in life.
46:07
SPEAKER_01: You can't you can't enjoy, you know, the the next level of your career if you don't have people around you who support that, including yourself.
46:21
SPEAKER_00: Hey there.
46:22
SPEAKER_00: I hope that you all are enjoying this episode.
46:24
SPEAKER_00: And I also wanted to just take a quick moment to remind you that there are multiple ways for you to engage some of the work that we have happening at the well.
46:33
SPEAKER_00: Yes, we have this wonderful podcast and this community that we're growing, a newsletter as well.
46:38
SPEAKER_00: But some people are looking for something a little bit more, some direct work and service with me.
46:43
SPEAKER_00: Uh that can happen in one-to-one coaching, coaching with your institution or your organization.
46:48
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and so if there are ways in which you'd like to dive a little bit deeper, please feel free to find the link below in our show notes.
46:55
SPEAKER_00: You can click on to book a discovery call, and we can talk through a path that's right for you and your organization.
47:01
SPEAKER_00: As always, you are welcome at the well, and we always want you to be well so that you can lead well.
47:07
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to figure out the next step alone.
47:09
SPEAKER_00: We're right here with you, and we will be here together.
47:14
SPEAKER_00: You talk a lot about the uses of humor, and you say that humor is not entertainment for you, that it is a strategy.
47:22
SPEAKER_00: Can you share more about what you mean about that?
47:24
SPEAKER_00: How do you use humor as a strategy?
47:26
SPEAKER_01: So, so like I said, I love a geekiki.
47:29
SPEAKER_01: Laughter reminds me who I am, where I'm going, and and and and what makes life so great.
47:35
SPEAKER_01: Because if you can't, listen, um I've gone through enough, I at least should have a punchline for it, right?
47:41
SPEAKER_01: Uh another thing is laughter scientifically improves your life.
47:47
SPEAKER_01: It increases your increases um your endorphins, it lowers your blood pressure.
47:52
SPEAKER_01: Uh, and that has, that has, like I said, that is in law, that is in medical journals that that scientifically laughter is good for you, but also it lowers people's defenses when um without lowering the truth.
48:04
SPEAKER_01: So what I tend to do is use laughter as a mechanism to get important messages out without people feeling like um I'm angry or bitter or attacking them, right?
48:16
SPEAKER_01: It lets me say something difficult before people are already, you know, they get on the defense, right?
48:24
SPEAKER_01: So I know that.
48:26
SPEAKER_00: Do you feel like you have to do that as a black woman too?
48:29
SPEAKER_00: Because I know that sometimes people ascribe like angry black woman or strong black woman and all these kinds of things.
48:35
SPEAKER_00: Do you did you do you feel like you're just funny and you were just doing that, or that laughter, humor, comedy was something you developed as a mechanism to make sure that you could get heard?
48:45
SPEAKER_01: I'm 100% certain if I would have been an animal, I would have been a hyena.
48:48
SPEAKER_01: I'm 100% sure.
48:51
unknown: Okay.
48:52
unknown: Okay.
48:56
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
48:57
SPEAKER_00: Okay, okay.
48:58
SPEAKER_01: You know, I think in some places, I think sometimes I think that could be that can be true.
49:02
SPEAKER_01: But for my for me, um, it's absolutely 1% of it's 100% of who I am.
49:08
SPEAKER_01: Uh, I have always been.
49:10
SPEAKER_01: Like I have a family of people who are funny, who laugh, who joke, who a lot of times we we don't take what most people take serious as serious because we dealt with a lot of pain.
49:21
SPEAKER_01: And I one of my quotes is laugh to keep from dying.
49:25
SPEAKER_01: And so very early on in my age, experiencing death at a very young age with the loss of my my brother, um, that is one of the ways that I I learned to cope.
49:34
SPEAKER_01: That is one of the ways my family learned to cope, right?
49:37
SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, while listening to J Richard Pryor talk about some of the darkest tragedies in his life and using that to entertain George Carlin, just the the way that he just delicately delicately was able to talk about death and just make it make sense and not make you you fear it.
49:53
SPEAKER_01: You know, it is it's something that's inevitable that you that you go through.
49:56
SPEAKER_01: So um I know that a joke can can carry truth past security.
50:03
SPEAKER_01: When people, when, when, when people laugh, their guard drops.
50:08
SPEAKER_01: Um, and then you have somewhere to to land the truth.
50:12
SPEAKER_01: So it's really important.
50:13
SPEAKER_01: And you think about a lot of comedians, a lot of that humor comes from some dark places, some dark experiences.
50:22
SPEAKER_01: But I think also me as a individual, it's a gift.
50:26
SPEAKER_01: It is a gift that innately that God gave me and only me can use.
50:31
SPEAKER_01: And so um, when people say you were an accountant, you were a very risky account, I was silly on the job.
50:36
SPEAKER_01: I always tell people that the great thing about me and being able, and not only this, I think is also important too, is that, you know, I I never had to really face any adversity in in life because I grew up in an all-black neighborhood, I got a predominantly black neighborhood, went to all black school, and you know, just grew up with so many, so much black excellence around me, I never in life had to code switch, right?
51:04
SPEAKER_01: I never had to be anyone different.
51:07
SPEAKER_01: So no matter where I was in the workplace, in school, in college, I played sports, uh getting a ticket, anything, I've always used humor.
51:19
SPEAKER_01: I've always been the loudest person laughing in the room, uh, because that's just who, that's just who I am.
51:26
SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
51:26
SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm.
51:27
SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm.
51:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
51:29
SPEAKER_00: And I feel like you, um, I I I I was picking up what you were putting down.
51:33
SPEAKER_00: So I got you this time when you were talking about the coming up too.
51:36
SPEAKER_00: It's because I asked you about race and gender, right?
51:39
SPEAKER_00: Because there is a way that we try to code, that we try to mitigate how people are experiencing us.
51:43
SPEAKER_00: And so code switching is one of those ways.
51:45
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes trying to be funny is that too, but it sounds like this is just who you are, who you come from.
51:49
SPEAKER_00: This is who I am because it didn't require that of you.
51:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's who I am.
51:54
SPEAKER_01: There was a time, there was a time when I was at work.
51:57
SPEAKER_01: When I get serious, I get serious.
51:58
SPEAKER_01: I ended up I work for the IRS.
52:00
SPEAKER_01: So let me tell you something.
52:01
SPEAKER_01: I used to have to walk into corporations um with, you know, with pompous white men, right?
52:09
SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I don't know if I can use this word, but we used to use it, excuse my language, but cock strong white men, right?
52:16
SPEAKER_01: And I'm coming in as a as a black woman who is who is educated, who has authority, right?
52:23
SPEAKER_01: The first thing you see when I walk in the door, you walk, I walk in the door is a black woman.
52:27
SPEAKER_01: You don't know I'm an IRS agent.
52:29
SPEAKER_01: You don't know what kind of authority I have.
52:31
SPEAKER_01: And the minute that I sit you down and say, hey, my name is, you know, Officer Carter, you know, ID number 5672.
52:38
SPEAKER_01: And I throw up my badge and say, hey, I'm here to take your stuff.
52:41
SPEAKER_01: I'm here to tell you that if you don't pay this, it's not gonna happen this is gonna happen to you.
52:45
SPEAKER_01: You know, you can imagine that experience.
52:48
SPEAKER_01: So there have been many times where I've had to, you know, have this intimidate.
52:55
SPEAKER_01: I think it was harder for me to be intimidating than it was to for me just to be, you know, laughing.
53:00
SPEAKER_01: But so a lot of times on the job, you know, I would, I would use comedy as a defense mechanism.
53:07
SPEAKER_01: I remember going into an office and um telling a gentleman that, you know, we were the next step was seizing his property, and he was he was in tears.
53:17
SPEAKER_01: And I jokingly was like, you know, it could be your it could be your kids, right?
53:21
SPEAKER_01: You know, you know, and so um he was he was like he said, well, that's a if if that's an option, you can take them SOBs, right?
53:31
SPEAKER_01: No, no, no, no.
53:34
SPEAKER_00: But it it was a way to cut throat.
53:36
SPEAKER_00: Because you said something, yes, it let the guard down.
53:39
SPEAKER_01: He just was so tickled, and you know, and we eventually didn't end up seizing his property, but it was just that moment with levity, yeah.
53:47
SPEAKER_01: The levity, we were able to, I was able to to to bring his defense down that I knew that it was just something that God had given me, a gift that God had given me to be able to manage um, you know, these these types of situations.
54:02
SPEAKER_01: So there have been times where like I have been the angry black woman.
54:05
SPEAKER_01: I've gone through some stuff in the workplace where I've been the angry black woman, but I I you know, and then and and and I think it is a little different in the government sometimes because you do have the support.
54:16
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes you get, you know, you got the union, you got this.
54:18
SPEAKER_01: Um I worked in a predominantly black office here in in Dallas.
54:22
SPEAKER_01: When I went to Arkansas, that the experience was was really different.
54:26
SPEAKER_01: And there wasn't a lot of laughter, I can tell you, at that part in that part of my life.
54:30
SPEAKER_01: Um, but I've learned I've learned that laughter just it just it just makes me makes me feel good.
54:38
SPEAKER_01: And maybe some that somewhere down the line, you know, growing up, you know, we would that's you know what was taught to me, you know, you some things you just you just gotta laugh off and you just keep moving, right?
54:51
SPEAKER_01: Um and we don't worry about the things that we can control when we don't and we laugh about the things that we can't, right?
54:56
SPEAKER_00: So it reminds me of that Langston Hughes book, uh Not Without Laughter.
55:01
SPEAKER_00: And he's really talking about like how you make it through.
55:04
SPEAKER_00: You said that laughter can get uh the truth through security.
55:07
SPEAKER_00: One, that is very funny.
55:09
SPEAKER_00: Um but two it is.
55:13
SPEAKER_00: It's like uh you say these things so quick, and I'm like, I heard that.
55:17
SPEAKER_00: Um do you think though that there's a way in which sometimes things just aren't funny, or that, you know, maybe humor isn't the way to, you know, like is humor sometimes being used to hide when really we should, you know, you um really just sort of sit squarely with the truth, you know, with our backup around that sometimes.
55:35
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, 100%.
55:36
SPEAKER_01: See, I I can laugh about what happened, but I can still demand accountability.
55:40
SPEAKER_01: That's real.
55:41
SPEAKER_01: My laughter does not erase the harm that I experience in the medical system, it doesn't experience the micro, it doesn't erase the microaggressions that I experience or the disparities that I feel like I experience as a black woman in the medical system.
55:54
SPEAKER_01: Because there's a lot of times that I like I very well feel like you treated me different because I'm black.
55:59
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's one thing that I'm a woman, but uh, but I'm a I'm black too.
56:03
SPEAKER_01: And a lot of times when a doctor did say, you know, you know, you have a doctor saying, hey, don't be stressed.
56:10
SPEAKER_01: You're too stressed.
56:12
SPEAKER_01: I don't think that applies the same as if a white woman was sitting next to me, right?
56:17
SPEAKER_01: Because I feel like the levity of my stress is different.
56:20
SPEAKER_01: Not saying that they don't have, you don't have stress, right?
56:23
SPEAKER_01: Because it is hard as women.
56:25
SPEAKER_01: Women are our we are largely, um, there are a lot of large disparities when it comes to women in general, whether you're white, black, Latino, it doesn't matter.
56:32
SPEAKER_01: But then when you tell me as a as a black woman, don't be stressed, is is this person dealing with the same microaggressions that I'm dealing with?
56:39
SPEAKER_01: Is this person also dealing with, you know, I have a black son that I gotta stress about every day, every day that he walks out the door?
56:45
SPEAKER_01: Is is that stress the same, you know?
56:48
SPEAKER_01: And and how do I relieve that stress?
56:50
SPEAKER_01: So my my laughter does not erase the harm.
56:54
SPEAKER_01: And it definitely doesn't excuse the system.
57:01
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
57:02
SPEAKER_00: Um, because some things just aren't funny, right?
57:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right, right.
57:05
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
57:06
SPEAKER_01: Like I said, you can laugh later about it, you know, after, you know.
57:08
SPEAKER_00: You know, but there's there's there's a realness of being in this world in this way that you're also saying that you hold it to account.
57:15
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
57:16
SPEAKER_00: So much of what you describe, you know, being disbelieved, learning to underreport, performing, being fine when you're not feeling fine is usually treated as a private personal experience.
57:27
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I think that one of the things that strikes me or comes up around this is that when folks are in high-level leadership positions, and again, you have this dual dance of having been in that kind of space, navigating uh the roles, but also people who also um were pretty powerful as well.
57:45
SPEAKER_00: Um watching folks, when there's too high up, it's almost as if you can't be vulnerable.
57:50
SPEAKER_00: You can't tell people how you're really doing.
57:52
SPEAKER_00: Um, that you might have to under-report because, you know, if we don't show that we're just fine at work, what will that mean for us in this particular situation where we lose the opportunity, et cetera?
58:03
SPEAKER_00: What happens to a leader who has been dismissed enough that they stop reporting the things that are going on for them in the context of their work?
58:11
SPEAKER_00: You know, they're saying they need different resources, they're saying they need the support, they're saying they need the whatever the thing may be, but they're not being seen.
58:19
SPEAKER_00: What do you imagine happens for them?
58:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it reminds me of the the the statement check on your strong friend, right?
58:28
SPEAKER_01: Oh my goodness, yes.
58:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
58:30
SPEAKER_01: When uh when when leaders are dismissed often enough, uh they they become very good at saying, I'm fine.
58:38
SPEAKER_01: Think about how many times when you were not okay that you said that you were fine, right?
58:43
SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
58:44
SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
58:45
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's so difficult too, because I do it all the time still.
58:48
SPEAKER_00: Like I'm I'm guilty of it.
58:50
SPEAKER_00: But half the time it's because I don't want I don't feel like telling you everything right now.
58:54
SPEAKER_00: Because it's like a little exhausting to have to tell that story, too.
58:57
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
58:58
SPEAKER_01: And and here's the thing I I'm fine.
59:01
SPEAKER_01: Saying I'm fine doesn't remove what's going on with you.
59:06
SPEAKER_01: That's real.
59:07
SPEAKER_01: You know, it it it's still gonna show up, whether it shows up in your health, it shows up in your decisions, your patience, your relationships.
59:15
SPEAKER_01: Silence does not remove the pressure, it only changes where the pressure comes out.
59:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
59:22
SPEAKER_00: Right?
59:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I know for sure.
59:24
SPEAKER_00: So it needed it needs to get out some way.
59:26
SPEAKER_01: It's gotta get out somehow.
59:27
SPEAKER_01: And so um when when when I feel like when leaders is don't have a a safe space to put down what they're carrying to the people around them, that carries big consequences.
59:43
SPEAKER_00: What do you think happens to the people that are reporting to them?
59:46
SPEAKER_00: Because I I think a lot about how when a leader is stressed, maybe unaware, or just not getting what they need, that there are folks who they evaluate who are trying to please them, you know, their their direct reports, their employees.
59:59
SPEAKER_00: How do you think that stressed leader affects their team?
1:00:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it takes it it it it it it it it controls organizational outcomes, right?
1:00:11
SPEAKER_01: If your leader is not performing at a quality level, and most likely your employees are not gonna be doing that are gonna be doing the same thing.
1:00:20
SPEAKER_01: And sometimes it's taken out in anger, it's taken out in reports, um, it's taken out in in in attitudes, all these things, like because you're a human being.
1:00:28
SPEAKER_01: And the thing is, is that you're pretending and um and showing up with in in in a a sense of strength, um, and and realizing that strength is not pretending that that nothing affects you, it's recognizing it before it affects everybody else around you.
1:00:47
SPEAKER_01: And that goes back to what I was saying.
1:00:49
SPEAKER_01: Like, if I'm ignoring my symptoms and I'm not taking care of myself, right?
1:00:55
SPEAKER_01: I have a heart attack, I end up in the hospital as like my stroke, I'm incapacitated, I can't walk.
1:01:02
SPEAKER_01: Now I have now my husband has to take care of me.
1:01:04
SPEAKER_01: Now my husband has to take time off of work.
1:01:06
SPEAKER_01: Now my children have to take time off of work.
1:01:08
SPEAKER_01: Now my children are not performing well in school because they're worried about my my mom.
1:01:12
SPEAKER_01: Now they're stressed.
1:01:13
SPEAKER_01: Now worried about their mom, they're stressed.
1:01:15
SPEAKER_01: So it has an entire ripple effect.
1:01:17
SPEAKER_01: It's not just you with effects, right?
1:01:19
SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
1:01:20
SPEAKER_01: Right.
1:01:20
SPEAKER_01: So if a manager's not a manager's not at work because he's in the hospital, what good is he to his employees?
1:01:27
SPEAKER_01: Right?
1:01:28
SPEAKER_01: You know, and eventually somebody else is gonna replace you and do the work.
1:01:32
SPEAKER_01: Right?
1:01:32
SPEAKER_00: That's a word.
1:01:33
SPEAKER_01: That's a word.
1:01:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:01:36
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
1:01:36
SPEAKER_00: You know, one of the things that we talk a lot about here is like not only thinking about the individual leader, but the organization that they work for and what that organization may owe them.
1:01:47
SPEAKER_00: Um in your opinion, what would it actually look like for a leadership team or a board uh to say to their CEO or to a member of the team to see their to see them as human and to receive the the symptoms that they're showing up with disengagement, overwhelm, maybe even uh physical health, but maybe psychological health impairment as well.
1:02:09
SPEAKER_00: What would it look like for them to receive the reports from their people as if they were a good clinician, trying to be responsive to them?
1:02:19
SPEAKER_01: I think it would be, I think it would be amazing.
1:02:20
SPEAKER_01: I think if we had that type of transparency and in the workplace, um, I think it would be governed better.
1:02:27
SPEAKER_01: I think one of the things about working in the in the government is that uh I was able to be transparent.
1:02:34
SPEAKER_01: Uh, and you know, we had things like reasonable accommodation.
1:02:38
SPEAKER_01: And I remember when I started really getting sick and it started, it started showing up in my work, that immediately that my my manager pulled me to the side and said, Hey, you know, what's going on?
1:02:50
SPEAKER_01: How can we help?
1:02:51
SPEAKER_01: What do you need?
1:02:52
SPEAKER_01: If you need time, more time off to go to the doctor to get your situation resolved, we can allow you to do that, right?
1:02:59
SPEAKER_01: And if the manager didn't do that, we had the union to fight against us, right?
1:03:04
SPEAKER_01: And so I think, I think we're all human beings.
1:03:07
SPEAKER_01: And at some point in our life, you know, whether it's it's us or our or our loved ones, it's gonna affect us.
1:03:12
SPEAKER_01: And so if you could have the complete transparency of people, people would be better with being, you know, open and honest about what's going on with them without realize not without having to worry about their job being in jeopardy.
1:03:25
SPEAKER_01: I think that's the one thing is like once you start showing that you can get a form, you feel like somebody's writing you up and trying to get you out the door, right?
1:03:32
SPEAKER_01: Uh, because I I remember, you know, essentially that was one of the things when I had to medically retire, is that they're like, hey, can you can you do this job?
1:03:40
SPEAKER_01: Now, okay, you can't do this job.
1:03:42
SPEAKER_01: Well, can you do this?
1:03:43
SPEAKER_01: And or can you do that?
1:03:44
SPEAKER_01: Or or or basically you can't do anything.
1:03:47
SPEAKER_01: So now we have to look for a resource.
1:03:50
SPEAKER_01: And and and and the and the resource was, hey, we are we're gonna medically retire you with benefits.
1:03:56
SPEAKER_01: Um, they just didn't like kick me out in in in the streets, but in a lot of places, people don't have that don't have to be a few things.
1:04:03
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:04:03
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they don't make it easy for them.
1:04:07
SPEAKER_00: I'm thinking about two people who could be listening to you and I talk right now.
1:04:12
SPEAKER_00: So one is the person who truly is tired, not tired of the work, but is tired of carrying something for years and years and years, eight years ago situation.
1:04:22
SPEAKER_00: Um, and before they try to rush and fix themselves because they see the problem as themselves, what would you want them to know?
1:04:31
SPEAKER_01: Is that it it is oh it is okay to be it's okay not to be okay, and in silence is a di is in silence is dim discrimination against yourself.
1:04:44
SPEAKER_01: That is a powerful word.
1:04:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think silence is a dis is discrimination against yourself, and so um you you have to hold yourself accountable.
1:04:55
SPEAKER_01: And the thing is, is I'll go back, you know, to my faith.
1:04:58
SPEAKER_01: You know, God has given us all a purpose, right?
1:05:02
SPEAKER_01: And they say faith is um faith is dead without work, right?
1:05:06
SPEAKER_01: So you you can do all the things, right?
1:05:10
SPEAKER_01: You can have faith for all the things, but you have to put the work in to make those things align with God's will for you, right?
1:05:17
SPEAKER_01: So in order for you to enjoy those blessings, you have to be healthy, you have to be competent, you have to be all those things.
1:05:24
SPEAKER_01: You can't enjoy the blessings that God has for you down the road if you're not will to do that.
1:05:29
SPEAKER_01: Um the people around you can't enjoy the blessings if you're not will you, you, if you're not willing.
1:05:34
SPEAKER_01: And the one thing that I always say that kind of sticks is that, you know, we will put more emphasis on how we look, our hair done, our makeup, the best red lipstick.
1:05:45
SPEAKER_01: But let me tell you something about lipstick.
1:05:47
SPEAKER_01: It can go two places.
1:05:48
SPEAKER_01: You can go, you can look, you can you can wear your red lipstick and your makeup in a casket, or you can wear it alive.
1:05:54
SPEAKER_01: And lipstick looks better, much better when you're alive.
1:05:57
SPEAKER_00: On an alive person.
1:05:58
SPEAKER_00: I like a red.
1:06:00
SPEAKER_00: Lip, Shanton.
1:06:00
SPEAKER_00: You know, you just called me out like that, so I don't know.
1:06:03
SPEAKER_01: Um I love red lipstick too.
1:06:05
SPEAKER_01: I love red lipstick and red nails.
1:06:08
SPEAKER_00: But there's a second person in the audience who thinks that this thing is just stress, it's particularly a leader, um, and that perhaps they're saying that about themselves or they're saying that about someone on their team.
1:06:18
SPEAKER_00: They may not realize that saying that is the dismissal that you talked about.
1:06:24
SPEAKER_00: What would you say to them to respond differently?
1:06:27
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, a thought isn't a fact, right?
1:06:30
SPEAKER_01: A thought isn't a fact.
1:06:31
SPEAKER_01: So in order to be sure that someone is not stressed, is to go to a practitioner who can listen to you who and who can assess you.
1:06:40
SPEAKER_01: Now, you know your body better than anybody else.
1:06:42
SPEAKER_01: And so you have to access your stress.
1:06:44
SPEAKER_01: You have to see, hey, what things about that I'm doing every day that may be causing my stress, what things are coming into my life that may be causing me stress, and then try to remove those things.
1:06:52
SPEAKER_01: And if those things resolve the issue, then maybe it was stress.
1:06:56
SPEAKER_01: But if you're, you know, your blood pressure is constantly high, you're constantly having headaches, you're having palpitations and things like that, those are things that need to be reviewed and looked at and you should be concerned about.
1:07:05
SPEAKER_01: And if someone is coming to you in the workplace and they're being transparent and they're saying, hey, this is what's going on with me, then I think you should take it at face value.
1:07:16
SPEAKER_01: You know, I feel like you, you, you treat you, you treat, and it's hard to say this, you know, you treat your employees like you treat yourself.
1:07:21
SPEAKER_01: Well, if you don't give a, if you don't give a good god darn about yourself, then you probably ain't gonna care about those who who are in front of you.
1:07:28
SPEAKER_01: But I I I say that we we need to have a sense of empathy.
1:07:31
SPEAKER_01: You know, I I think that's one of the things when you talk about leadership and CEOs and executives, there should be some type of sensitive uh sensitivity training that goes into that.
1:07:40
SPEAKER_01: You have to be you have to have a sense of empathy.
1:07:44
SPEAKER_01: You you have to be to willing to see yourself in a place that that person is in.
1:07:50
SPEAKER_01: You could be in that place that that person's in, right?
1:07:52
SPEAKER_01: Without dismissing it out there, of course, there are gonna be people who are going to um abuse policy and things like that.
1:08:00
SPEAKER_01: But still, I think we should go on our better judgment and not just assume that someone is is is is faking or trying to get time off, um, which which what I hear, you know, when I was a union steward, that, you know, people would think people would be sick and they would be like, oh, well, they're just faking.
1:08:17
SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, a year later, they're in the bathroom, and this is a true story, you know, that they're in, they go to the bathroom and they're gone for 15 minutes.
1:08:27
SPEAKER_01: And and you go into the bathroom and they're dead in the stall because they've had a stroke, right?
1:08:32
SPEAKER_01: And so instead of going to work because they're they're scared to miss time or ask for leave or they they end up getting leave without pay, and they still gotta be able to take care of, you know, pay their bills and things like that, they don't they don't say anything.
1:08:46
SPEAKER_01: Because they don't say anything, now it doesn't even matter because they're not here.
1:08:52
SPEAKER_00: But you have to have that trust to tell the truth.
1:08:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:08:55
SPEAKER_00: So here's my last serious question.
1:08:57
SPEAKER_00: Then we're gonna cycle out and start uh getting uh start thinking about um transitioning off the the the conversation.
1:09:04
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
1:09:05
SPEAKER_00: One of the things I love about your story, Shonta, is that you you truly made lemonade out of lemons.
1:09:11
SPEAKER_00: Right.
1:09:11
SPEAKER_00: Right?
1:09:12
SPEAKER_00: Like you rebuilt an even bigger life from the one that you came from.
1:09:19
SPEAKER_00: Um very different one that's about healing, that's about your real healing story, and also one that is uniquely and diabolic.
1:09:29
SPEAKER_00: It's it's it is in a comp it is a whole other pivot.
1:09:32
SPEAKER_00: Like it literally is in the other direction.
1:09:34
SPEAKER_00: Many of our listeners, one of the things that we talk about on this uh podcast, and that I talk about a lot in my work and research and presentations to people are about that number now.
1:09:43
SPEAKER_00: Seven over 700,000 black women are without work.
1:09:47
SPEAKER_00: And you are a black woman who, you know, medically retired, but could have had a different story on the other end of that.
1:09:54
SPEAKER_00: But instead, you're doing this.
1:09:56
SPEAKER_00: What made made this possible for you?
1:09:58
SPEAKER_00: What made you possible?
1:10:00
SPEAKER_00: Shanta Q online, all the the ambassador to this, the speaker here, truly, people who know you're laughing restaurants in New York.
1:10:09
SPEAKER_00: How did that happen?
1:10:12
SPEAKER_01: I say God is faithful even when he's not fast, right?
1:10:16
SPEAKER_01: Uh God made make room for my gifts.
1:10:22
SPEAKER_01: The gifts that were already already embodied in me, that were already instilled in me, that were already profit prophetically spoken over me when I was a child, right?
1:10:31
SPEAKER_01: And so I think about a lot of things that you know when I was growing up, what I wanted to be, and uh they just didn't pan out that way in that moment.
1:10:42
SPEAKER_01: And so a lot of times I believe that um, you know, no doesn't mean um never.
1:10:51
SPEAKER_01: Never.
1:10:51
SPEAKER_01: It just means not now.
1:10:53
SPEAKER_01: And a lot of times we try to enter into doors, or I may have tried to enter into doors and or in places or tables that I wasn't experienced enough or did not have the enough the enough wisdom to sit at.
1:11:04
SPEAKER_01: And a lot of times we only see what's in front of the door and God sees what's behind it.
1:11:08
SPEAKER_01: And so God's like, hey, how am I gonna give this?
1:11:11
SPEAKER_01: I know if I give this to her, she won't be able to manifest it in a way right now, versus if she goes through XYZ, she's gonna be ready and prepared.
1:11:27
SPEAKER_01: So my life is all was already written for me, right?
1:11:31
SPEAKER_01: And I have been doing all the things, and you know, I you know, and I and I'm gonna say honestly, my life had been written for me, but a lot of the times I was snatching the pill while God was writing.
1:11:43
SPEAKER_01: So it was my my goal to be like, hey, if I'm gonna do all this stuff, it's gonna be at 57.
1:11:49
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna be retired, you know, I'm gonna be out and I'm gonna retire now, but I'm talking about traditionally retired.
1:11:54
SPEAKER_01: 57 and a half, getting my retirement, my TSP, my social security, all those things at the same time, and I'm traveling the world.
1:12:02
SPEAKER_01: But that's not how it planned out.
1:12:05
SPEAKER_01: That's not how it went because that was my plan.
1:12:08
SPEAKER_01: That wasn't God's plan.
1:12:09
SPEAKER_01: So God just made just made room for the gifts that I already had.
1:12:15
SPEAKER_01: And so my voice, my my my humor, my wit, my ability to tell a story, uh the the ability to be able to relate to, you know, different people, different things, and to and to show up wholeheartedly as who I am.
1:12:36
SPEAKER_01: Right?
1:12:36
SPEAKER_01: And God knows now that I won't share the check with the snake.
1:12:39
SPEAKER_01: You know, back then I probably shared the check with the snake.
1:12:41
SPEAKER_01: But um so so I I I think you you really have to you you really have to surrender um in life.
1:12:53
SPEAKER_01: And you know, when people think you surrender, it is like you just stop and you you you just don't do anything and you just wait for God to tell you, no, during all of this, I you know, as difficult as it would be and as it was, and you as a psychologist, I'm not gonna lie and say that I wasn't depressed.
1:13:07
SPEAKER_01: I didn't, I'm not gonna lie and say there wasn't fear or there wasn't doubt, or you know, even in your, you know, even or there wasn't questions.
1:13:14
SPEAKER_01: You know, even Jesus said, Why has thou forsaken me while he was on the cross?
1:13:18
SPEAKER_01: So it, you know, there was all these things, but really, I I knew that there was something much bigger and greater for me on the other side.
1:13:30
SPEAKER_01: And I just had to align um with the Holy Spirit to, to, to figure that out.
1:13:36
SPEAKER_01: And once I figured it out, it was upward with uh it's been upward trajectory ever since then.
1:13:42
SPEAKER_01: You know, I I've lost 173 pounds.
1:13:44
SPEAKER_01: You know, I I tell my story.
1:13:46
SPEAKER_01: I don't, I don't, I don't co-witch.
1:13:49
SPEAKER_01: I tell it like it is.
1:13:50
SPEAKER_01: I don't, you know, I'm not bothered by, I don't need validation, you know.
1:13:55
SPEAKER_01: I don't need people to clap for me.
1:13:56
SPEAKER_01: You know, I don't need to think I've had a stroke, heart attack, you know, I've been I've you know, I've been stabbed, I've been all these different things.
1:14:02
SPEAKER_01: So okay, you can't throw that in there like that.
1:14:04
SPEAKER_00: That's okay.
1:14:06
SPEAKER_00: I've been stabbed.
1:14:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I have to I didn't know that.
1:14:10
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
1:14:11
SPEAKER_00: No, I'm just like it's just you just I guess my point is I'm sorry to interrupt you, but it was just you just said it so cavalierly because and it said it speaks to all the things that you have overcome.
1:14:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:14:24
SPEAKER_00: Uh and that you're here now, uh, really a testimony in your life.
1:14:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:14:28
SPEAKER_00: And your faith, I think.
1:14:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:14:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:14:30
SPEAKER_01: And at the bottom line is what I'm saying.
1:14:32
SPEAKER_01: If I can get through all of that, it everything else is magic.
1:14:38
SPEAKER_01: Everything else just comes easy.
1:14:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:14:40
SPEAKER_00: You know?
1:14:41
SPEAKER_00: All right.
1:14:41
SPEAKER_00: It's time for us to get going.
1:14:43
SPEAKER_00: One thing that we like to leave people with is a renewal practice that maybe is in your world and in your life that you want to share that you feel is something that they might be able to try and do too.
1:14:54
SPEAKER_00: Is there anything that is like really when you I know you don't let yourself get as tired as you used to, which is a you know, right?
1:15:02
SPEAKER_00: But when you really need to refuel yourself, what do you do for you to get back to you?
1:15:07
SPEAKER_01: Rest is not a luxury.
1:15:14
SPEAKER_01: Now you say a necessity, right?
1:15:21
SPEAKER_01: And and when and you can either and here's the thing, people will say, you you hear this all the time, and I and I hate the statement, is that I sleep when I'm dead, right?
1:15:33
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna do I'm gonna do all the things because I'm gonna sleep when I'm dead.
1:15:36
SPEAKER_01: Let me tell you something.
1:15:38
SPEAKER_01: Dead is not sleep, dead is dead.
1:15:40
SPEAKER_01: Okay, sleep is a you your eyes are closed, you're in a conscious state, you you you're in an unconscious state, but you you you know, you're awake.
1:15:47
SPEAKER_01: You know, you know what I mean.
1:15:48
SPEAKER_01: You alive.
1:15:49
SPEAKER_01: I do, I got you, I got you.
1:15:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so the thing is is that the thing is is that you need rest.
1:15:57
SPEAKER_01: You need rest to re to recover.
1:16:00
SPEAKER_01: It is necessary for your body to rest, and and you owe your body that.
1:16:03
SPEAKER_01: And if you're and if you and if you don't allow your body to rest, it will rest for you.
1:16:10
SPEAKER_01: And that shows up in high blood pressure, that shows up in in in in in in high stress, and that's how you get the heart attacks and the strokes and things like that.
1:16:19
SPEAKER_01: So if I could tell any woman, is is to make sure you rest your body.
1:16:26
SPEAKER_01: Allow yourself to recover.
1:16:28
SPEAKER_01: Love yourself.
1:16:29
SPEAKER_01: It rest is the greatest medicine that you can give yourself.
1:16:32
SPEAKER_01: It it allows your mind to recover, it allows your your spirit to to recover.
1:16:38
SPEAKER_01: You know, when you when you don't get sleep, what first people say, you look tired.
1:16:44
SPEAKER_01: And that's how it shows up.
1:16:46
SPEAKER_01: It shows up in your face, it shows up in your skin, it it shows up in your attitude when you have a lack of sleep.
1:16:52
SPEAKER_01: So my my biggest, my biggest concern, my biggest message is make sure you rest and and and love your and love yourself.
1:16:59
SPEAKER_01: And know that it's okay not to be okay, but it's not okay to stay there.
1:17:04
SPEAKER_01: And also know that a a good clinician does not debate you out of having a syndicate.
1:17:10
SPEAKER_01: They get just as you do.
1:17:14
SPEAKER_00: Well, listen, Shonta Quillette.
1:17:17
SPEAKER_00: My job is to let you have the last word, and I think you've given me uh at least three to four of them, which I think is good.
1:17:24
SPEAKER_00: But also for others too, because it's just some really deep and beautiful wisdom inside of what you've shared.
1:17:29
SPEAKER_00: I want to thank you so much for coming on as well and sharing your story so openly, not just here, but with so many people.
1:17:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:17:37
SPEAKER_00: Um, you really are on a path and following a calling that is bigger than any of us, but we're all benefiting and we're grateful.
1:17:44
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
1:17:44
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
1:17:47
SPEAKER_00: It was so wonderful having Shanta Q, Shonta Quillette, on the show today.
1:17:52
SPEAKER_00: And I wanted just to take some time and to really uplift some of the um research, some of the groundwork beneath um pieces of the story that she shared that really uh make her story more than just about one person, but really um grounded in the the the larger frame of the human experience.
1:18:13
SPEAKER_00: You know, her core claim is that she was diagnosed or misdiagnosed once and she was systematically discounted.
1:18:21
SPEAKER_00: And that's really important for us to sort of hold true because it speaks to how we see some elements of health disparities in our in our society and our culture.
1:18:30
SPEAKER_00: That happened for her in the exam room, but in our world, it happens all over the place.
1:18:35
SPEAKER_00: So there's a philosopher, Miranda Fricker, and she gave this a name, this sort of tendency to not be seen or heard or really taken up in a in a real way in multiple spaces.
1:18:48
SPEAKER_00: She called it testimonial injustice.
1:18:51
SPEAKER_00: And this is this idea of a credibility deficit that someone that a hearer applies, so someone who's listening, that they apply to a speaker because of who the speaker is.
1:19:00
SPEAKER_00: Now we know about health disparities, we know about black women and and health and black maternal health and some of the uh various challenges that folks have experienced in the healthcare um system to having the health concerns, the symptoms that they're raising being seen as and heard legitimately as such as that.
1:19:20
SPEAKER_00: Women presenting with acute cardiac system symptoms also have this issue.
1:19:25
SPEAKER_00: And there are others.
1:19:26
SPEAKER_00: One of the things that we want to make sure that we um are doing is certainly advocating for ourselves, but more importantly, as healthcare providers, ensuring that someone doesn't have to wait eight years to be heard.
1:19:37
SPEAKER_00: Shanta Q's story is remarkable for that.
1:19:40
SPEAKER_00: For many others, they're they don't live to tell the tale.
1:19:43
SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, our position here at the well is that we want to make sure that we're hearing and listening to folks.
1:19:50
SPEAKER_00: And as she talked about, it's a two-way street.
1:19:52
SPEAKER_00: You must absolutely know what your symptoms are, what your measurements are, what your numbers are, as she says, but you also have to be in relationship with someone who's going to listen to you.
1:20:04
SPEAKER_00: So that's key.
1:20:06
SPEAKER_00: We also want to name something else that comes up in the research relative to what she shared.
1:20:12
SPEAKER_00: You know, and this really sits with what the individual leader is carrying.
1:20:16
SPEAKER_00: There are two things that can be true at once that, and the tension is in teaching what is happening there.
1:20:21
SPEAKER_00: First, stress was not a soft answer.
1:20:24
SPEAKER_00: Stress is uh a symptom, a set of symptoms that one is living with uh because of external and internal symptoms.
1:20:33
SPEAKER_00: It's one way that they're showing that those symptoms exist and also demonstrating how they are responding to an environment that they are experiencing as stressful.
1:20:42
SPEAKER_00: Now, there are two concepts that come out of this idea of high effort coping against structural barriers, those structural barriers to being seen and to being and to having to work long hours and those being associated with elevated stroke risk.
1:20:58
SPEAKER_00: Uh the first was developed by um uh a researcher, Sherman James, and he coined the term John Henryism.
1:21:07
SPEAKER_00: And so this was um meant to articulate this idea of those who are really um overworking, overextended, and demonstrating then cardiovascular cost in the form of stroke because of that.
1:21:21
SPEAKER_00: John Henry was a black man who was seen as uh in in the the the tell of being able to work extreme long hours uh in extenuating and extreme circumstances and being successful at that.
1:21:36
SPEAKER_00: Well, we're all human and all of our bodies has have limits.
1:21:39
SPEAKER_00: The other concept that I want to share with you is the Superwoman schema, and this describes the obligation to project strength, suppress emotion, and refuse help, all the while succeeding on thin resources.
1:21:53
SPEAKER_00: Uh in our work, we've talked a little bit about weathering.
1:21:56
SPEAKER_00: And so when we know that someone is doing this, uh, she is putting herself in the position of, you know, overworking in such a way that her body is now going to weather the cost of being stressed and stretched in ways that um are not sustainable.
1:22:13
SPEAKER_00: We also have to talk about this, though, too, in terms of how this relates to leadership.
1:22:18
SPEAKER_00: You know, a leader learns that their own signal may be uh seen as a weakness or may not be believed as being a symptom or a signal at all.
1:22:30
SPEAKER_00: And this may cause them to go silent.
1:22:33
SPEAKER_00: Um, many people read it as resilience, as a strength under pressure.
1:22:37
SPEAKER_00: We have all these euphemisms for this, but really what we're doing is uh permitting someone, expecting someone to operate and to function even as they are breaking.
1:22:48
SPEAKER_00: And there's a kind of cruelty attached to that that I think in systems and organizations we want to pay attention to.
1:22:54
SPEAKER_00: If you are responsible for the oversight of the performance of one of your leaders, them being depleted, them being overextended, tired, exhausted is having consequences on the outcomes and the performance of them within your association, within your organization.
1:23:11
SPEAKER_00: It leads to them not being as sharp as they can, to making worse decisions, and that they have more of a potential to harm people downstream of them, i.e., their direct reports who are requiring and depending on them to be people who um people who can really uh do the good work uh and and be good leaders for them.
1:23:31
SPEAKER_00: And the last bit here, we got to talk about what organizations need to be doing.
1:23:35
SPEAKER_00: And I asked Shanta Q this during the conversation because she really had a vision and a view for how the structure and the system should be responsive.
1:23:44
SPEAKER_00: She herself lived through a system failing her.
1:23:47
SPEAKER_00: Here is where her line meets the governance world in our work.
1:23:51
SPEAKER_00: I work a lot with chief executives and executive teams, but I also work a lot with their boards, and their boards are providing the oversight of that chief executive.
1:24:01
SPEAKER_00: The organizational analog of its distress has a name, and we have to call that.
1:24:06
SPEAKER_00: And that's the that is organizational silence.
1:24:08
SPEAKER_00: This idea that when people conclude that speaking up is futile or costly, or that leadership receives a filtered picture and loses the ability to detect problems that it most needs to detect, because no one's showing you.
1:24:21
SPEAKER_00: Uh, for some reason, it's not safe to demonstrate that vulnerability.
1:24:25
SPEAKER_00: And this not only will have consequences for the employees and those in the system, but ultimately for the bottom line.
1:24:32
SPEAKER_00: What I really respected about Shanta Q is her pivot story and how her humor uh wasn't necessarily a personality trait, but something that she used to um as a tool to maneuver around defense.
1:24:47
SPEAKER_00: The research on leadership and leader humor is unambiguous uh in one direction when used well, not at the expense of someone else, but to help lighten the mood, move through debate, get us through certain situations that can feel a little uh touchy or sticky, it raises the perceived confidence and status and strengthens the leader and membership relationship.
1:25:10
SPEAKER_00: And this builds the psychological safety, and this is what we all need the psychological safety that makes voice telling the truth about what you're actually experiencing possible.
1:25:21
SPEAKER_00: When used badly, either as aggressive or at the expense of someone, um, it does the reverse.
1:25:27
SPEAKER_00: And we'll just go ahead and name that as a toxic working environment, particularly when someone with power and authority is using humor uh to undermine the uh the sense of self and presence of one of those that they are responsible for and too.
1:25:40
SPEAKER_00: What Shonta Q is doing is deliberately uh using the humor in the way that the literature describes as helpful, and I think we should thank her for it.
1:25:49
SPEAKER_00: And she's just incredibly funny.
1:25:51
SPEAKER_00: I had such a wonderful time connecting with her.
1:25:54
SPEAKER_00: Here's the takeaway, though boards and executives do not manage leaders' well-being, they govern the conditions that produce or prevent that depletion.
1:26:03
SPEAKER_00: That's what you have the power, and it is an awesome power to have.
1:26:07
SPEAKER_00: You have the power to create a good environment, not only for your leaders, but also for those who are working with them.
1:26:13
SPEAKER_00: And those same conditions determine whether anyone tells you the truth about how they're really doing.
1:26:20
SPEAKER_00: When your leaders can't trust you to hear them and to support them, you're setting the whole organization up for failure.
1:26:27
SPEAKER_00: And that's just unacceptable.
1:26:31
SPEAKER_00: So, now to our replenishment assignment.
1:26:33
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna put this in the show notes so you'll have these assignments these uh this assignment to work with.
1:26:39
SPEAKER_00: I want you to name one thing that you have reported more than once.
1:26:43
SPEAKER_00: It could be to a doctor, to a boss, a board, a board member, a partner, and have been told what it was nothing.
1:26:51
SPEAKER_00: I want you to write it down in one sentence, one clear, complete, and concise sentence as best you can.
1:26:57
SPEAKER_00: The way you would write a finding rather than a complaint.
1:27:00
SPEAKER_00: A finding like a research finding or something scientific that is just plainly and in itself factual.
1:27:08
SPEAKER_00: Then I want you to decide who you are going to report it to next and by when.
1:27:14
SPEAKER_00: Listen, I know that this raises the stakes of not only being clear about that, but also identifying who you'll share it with.
1:27:21
SPEAKER_00: But if we've learned nothing else from Chanticue's story, it's that these issues, these challenges are not things that can happen in isolation.
1:27:29
SPEAKER_00: They require community and they deserve the full attention of us certainly as individuals, but many more others as well.
1:27:37
SPEAKER_00: So I hope that you have enjoyed this episode of The Well.
1:27:41
SPEAKER_00: We will see you next time.
1:27:42
SPEAKER_00: Until then, be well.
1:27:45
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for listening.
1:27:47
SPEAKER_00: I hope this message found you in a good place and left you even better, and with something that you can use in your work this week.
1:27:55
SPEAKER_00: If you'd like to learn more about the well and the work that we do, please visit drwendywilliams.com.
1:28:02
SPEAKER_00: W-E-N-D-I, not why, drwendywilliams.com, and also follow me on Instagram, on LinkedIn, at drwendywilliams.
1:28:10
SPEAKER_00: I'd love to hear from you.
1:28:12
SPEAKER_00: And please also do like and subscribe to this podcast and share a review.
1:28:16
SPEAKER_00: If you're finding something of value, please write us a review and also pass on the good work with others.
1:28:23
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we know that there are many people who are trying to lead well in this time, and we want to make sure to broaden and to grow our community, and you are the number one way to help us to do that.
1:28:31
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the well, and we'll see you next time.