Latest / Glovisor Podcast / He Was Told He Might Not Walk—Then He Chose to Rebuild His Life | Jose Segurado (Ep 67)
Transcript
- Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR: A multiple sclerosis diagnosis forces anyone to rethink life, career, and future. Welcome to the Glovisor Podcast, where we explore business growth, communication, and personal development through real conversations with people that make an impact. Our guest is a health and life coach, author of I Choose Life, a former banking professional based in Barcelona, after a multiple sclerosis diagnosis in 2014. He rebuilt his health and career. Clinically stable without new relapses, he now helps people navigate health challenges, burnout, uncertainty, and major life transitions. Glovisor welcomes Jose Segurado. Hey Jose. Jose Segurado IG @elijovida: Hi, thank you very much. Thank you very much for having me. It's a real pleasure to be here with you. Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR: Likewise. Jose, so let's begin. Please share with us a little bit more about what you do. Jose Segurado IG @elijovida: Well, you have described very well my my life, my experience, what I have been through. I I am a former bar banking worker during eight years before and in 2014 I was feeling bad for several months and then I went to a doctor and I had very difficult diagnosis, multiple sclerosis with more than thirty lesions on my brain and more than thirty lesions of my spinal cord. And doctors told me that in six months or between six months and one year, I wouldn't be able to walk properly. So can you imagine what that was in my life? It was horrible. And I had a really bad situation for a time and trying to rebuild myself. But then I started thinking about my life, about rebuilding my life, because there were things that they were not working very well in my life. And I had the the feeling that something inside of me could be working better. And if I go through this intuition, I could rebuild a little bit my my life. And this is what happened. I changed many, many things and I'm gonna talk about it with you. I did many things. I changed so many things in my life and then I felt much better. My my situation improved dramatically and I had not more clinical relapses since then. And now I help other people to to deal with autoimmune diagnosis or other challenges in their lives or major life circumstances. This is my life right now. I completely changed my life. Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR: Okay, so let's go back because I I mean I can't even imagine. Here you are, you're a young guy, prime time of your life, and you go to the doctor, and this is what you hear. You hear something that's gonna be limiting your life in about six months. What was your initial thought, like as soon as you walked out of the doctor's office? What what were you thinking? Jose Segurado IG @elijovida: Well, you know, we all have internet and I was Googling everything, all my symptoms, and I had that idea in my mind that in my mind that they maybe they saved me that they say me. They t say that it's multiple sclerosis. All the symptoms were like multiple sclerosis. So I had this idea in my mind. But when I went to the doctor and I did everything, the RI and it showed more than thirty lesions and thirty lesions here, and then they did the another another test and they said you have multiple sclerosis. Wow, it was like the the final sentence that I I didn't want to listen, but but I had that in my mind and I was terrified. It was a lot of noise in my head, in my mind saying, okay, all of your life, everything that you were dreaming about, all your your dreams, everything that you had imagined for you in your life, everything is done. you you don't have this this in your mind and you it was horrible. But and and I went back to my to my house and I started crying and I had three really bad days crying and crying and being super afraid of going to sleep because maybe next morning I wouldn't be able to walk to walk or maybe I could have more symptoms or something else could happen to me. But at the same time when I when I was at with the doctor at the office, I had a little noise, a little voice sorry, in my in my head, very very small, very little saying this is not that true as he is saying you. because there are a lot of things in your life that that are not going good in your life. So you need to change many things in your life and maybe, just maybe, if you change these things and if you improve your life, maybe you could improve. I had these two voices in my head. This is something very was something really strange at that very moment because the the the big voice, the noise was very clear. Everything's gonna end. But there was that subtle boy voice saying, Okay, maybe there is something else that you can go through this, you can explore this, and maybe you you can change something in your life. Not everything, but maybe something. And it was a very difficult situation during These three days because it was like a battle in my in my head. But after the three days, I said, no, no, stop crying, stop crying, or or keep on crying, but stop for a while and go through the internet where you find that you maybe you have multiple sclerosis and maybe you have you find something else. And this is what I did. I started looking in the internet on Google, multiple sclerosis or In Spanish, sclerosis multiple, and everything that I found was horrible: disease, disability, not being able to walk, not being able to have the the the life that you want for you. But then I said to myself, okay, I'm pretty sure that not for all the illnesses, but for almost all the illnesses in the world, there is someone who has improved dramatically. And maybe Go for it and then I changed my my the search that I did on Google and I and I wrote multiple scrolls recovery or cure. And then not in the first pages, this is what I I I needed to go deeply, not in the first pages, but in the page 30 or 40, I started seeing cases of people with different situations, with different processes in in their lives. And I started reading a lot all the stories of these people. And wow, it was amazing because all of them were so different. But at the same time, they were really close in a way, in the way they they were thinking about their lives, their way behaving, they were having a relationship with their work, with their families, as psychology, and now there is something People or it said that it's something about the autoimmune psychology, the same way of thinking, of doing things in your life. And I was saying to myself, hmm, this is interesting. And I I feel I feel myself in this, in these stories. So I started reading and reading and reading, and everything was different, but everything was very similar. And there were common points: the diet, the diet, the supplementation. The exercise, the the work. Well we can go step by step if you want to to walk through to to keep on talking about these things if you want. Because there there were so many things but at the same time it's simple but it's difficult at the same time. Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR: first of all, let's go back to three days. I can't believe that that's all it took for you to get over this and and go to the next level was only three days. 'Cause I can imagine Jose Segurado IG @elijovida: Three horrible days. Three horrible days, but three days, yeah. Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR: But but you don't think about it though, because even you did the shift, you must have some predisposition to the positiveness anyways, because you you even even in your search, you change your words to be a positive outlook versus am I no longer a patient of this, but how do I take control of this? And you made that shift. Now, once you made that shift and you start to see those commonalities. Did you start to just jot it all down? Did you ever meet with anyone else and and get their perspective? Jose Segurado IG @elijovida: Well, everything was so it has it was like a kind of common sense because everything sounds so real and I feel so it was like a mirror. So I was reading their stories and I and I was thinking, okay, this is like my story. They have this problem with their life, with their job, a job that they don't like, the same way of having relationships with different people and with themselves. We are very similar. And they did more easy or simple things like changing the diet, changing the supplementation. And I started taking notes of everything. And I had a a big picture of everything that I had to do from from that very moment. Changing the supplementation, changing a little bit the exercise, changing the relationships with myself and with the world, changing several addictions, changing my work. So I have I had everything in my in my head. So but I had to do it ever step by step. And that was not easy to do. But I said to myself, okay, start start from the easiest part. And the easy part for me was the easiest part for me was changing the diet because it is difficult because But it's not that difficult. It's going to a different store, buying different things and eating different things is difficult because it is, because everything that we are eating and in the States, you you can tell me that it's very difficult to eat properly, to eat clean, and to eat organic, things like that. So if you go outside, the majority of the things that you can eat are not health healthy. But if you want, if you do the effort, you can do it. Can pick up different things and start having a really different diet and change it the supplementation as well, in and including new things in your life like vitamin D, like omegas, things like that. So I started doing it, and in a week, in two weeks, I started feeling differently. And I said, Okay, I feel much better, and Some of the symptoms that I had started like being getting softer or milder. And I was feeling much better. And I said to myself, okay, if I'm improving it, I'm gonna keep on doing changes and changes and changes. And if I improve, okay, better. And if I don't improve, let's see what I'm gonna do. I I didn't want to be in a wheelchair, but I I didn't know. So Let's let's go for it. Go go for it. Follow this path and you are you are starting seeing results, small results, but go for it, go for it. And I did it. One step at a time. And I I achieved great things. Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR: So now, I mean, you have the beauty now of hindsight. You can look back and you know all the different steps and you know the process of all this. If someone found out today, they went to their doctor's office, they had the same conversation you had with your doctor, and they walked out, what is the first thing they should be doing? Jose Segurado IG @elijovida: Well, the first thing is for me is to embrace the pain as well, because a lot of people is super hard on themselves and they say, Okay, I'm not gonna cry, I I'm gonna fight and things like that. I don't like this fighting language about illnesses or diagnosis. No, the first thing is to take care of yourself. try to let you be a little bit vulnerable with these situations because Because it's not easy at all. You need to cry. You need you have to you have to express yourself and and and be sad for for a while, for one day, three days a week, whatever. But don't don't live after that in the in this situation, in the sadness. From that sadness you need to s make to take some steps. And the first step is to for me is to change the diet, to change salia with the diet and and to and to look for solutions, to look for a team to who who can support you and and and and look for su solutions. My my solution is not the only solution. You need to to find for solutions and to to have certainty and hope. And this is the most difficult part for me because many times not all of the doctors but sometimes the the medical care system or the doctors doesn't give you a lot of hope hope or doesn't give you a lot of certainty. And I think it's important to have something to believe in or something to embrace when you are living this situation. It's a very difficult time in your life. Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR: Of course, yeah, it it definitely is. Now, so now that you went ahead and took that first step of food, which obviously, you know, exercise, healthy eating, these are all key points. And it and it pretty much carries over to just about every illness or even everyday life, right? To improve your life. Jose Segurado IG @elijovida: Uhhuh. Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR: so now you had mentioned work. How did what are the steps you had to take for work? Jose Segurado IG @elijovida: Well, work it's important because it's something that you do on a daily basis, every day, and if you don't like it or even if you hate it, it's not gonna be good for you, for your life, for your soul, for your health. So there there's a lot of people doing the same thing every day, every day just for money, and you don't like it and you hate it and it's gonna have consequences in your life. And when I was talking about the the autoimmune psychology, many times it's it is a little bit about that. It's doing something because you have to do it, because it's something that the society or your family think that you must do and it's or it's a good thing for you to do. I was working in banking and it was a perfect job. And I'm not saying that working in banking is is a bad thing. Not at all. My job was amazing. I had the the best Everything. My my my maid, my teams w they were amazing. But the only thing that was not good was that I didn't like it at all. But I was doing again and again for eight years. And I I I had to to look at myself, look inside of me a and and say the truth to me. You don't like it. You don't want to keep on working on something that you hate or you don't like every day of your life. And this is not something This is not easy at all. And you cannot do it, maybe you cannot do it in just one day or one month. I I couldn't do it in one month. I I did it in one year time. but it did it finally. and if you find the solutions, if you find all the things that that you like better for your life, you need to go for it. And if you listen to yourself, to your intuition. your intuition, God, the universe, w wa whatever guides you in that direction and then things happen and you find solutions Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR: many different people have different beliefs of how they hear that voice of how you said the universe, how God speaks Jose Segurado IG @elijovida: Mm-hmm. Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR: to us, or or how how we should make that decision. So to you, how how was that where you said, Okay, wait, there's a little voice that's telling me how how did that come through for you? Jose Segurado IG @elijovida: Well, I knew that, but I I I I was not able to make the step to do it and I didn't do it. It was a friend of mine that sh she was super upset with me explaining the same story again and again and she sent the message to my boss. but it it was a different situation in my case. But I I I knew that. I knew what I wanted to do and I I I could listen to that voice. you you can you can listen from me that I I have voices many times. This is not that I'm crazy but but it's my intuition and I think I know that we all have our intuition and we can or we must listen to this intuition but we have too much noise in our life. We have a lot of noise like social media, TV, films, whatever. It's every day it's constant, constant, constant. And I think I think it's I I believe I know it's really important to make time for ourselves to spend time for ourselves without listening to anything or anyone. Just to be with ourselves, to listening to the messages that we receive, or maybe going to sleep and from from our sleeping we receive messages and if we listen to something we can write down and and pay attention to that these messages and maybe you find answers there. Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR: Now how about on the family side? As soon as you heard this, did you run to your family and embrace because now you're thinking that your time is so limited? And how did that relationship change? Jose Segurado IG @elijovida: Wow, in my case was difficult for me because I saw my parents, they were super sad, they were crying and crying and crying. I I and I didn't want them to to to feel bad. So I I took a little bit of distance and I I put a face of strength, you know, saying everything is okay. This is not something good that you have to do because very this is very common in with people with multiple with multiple sclerosis and autoimmune condition. we are faking every time to be super strong and that everything is perfect always and it's not like that. This is what I did, but it's not the the proper thing to do, I think. So I spent time just with myself and with friends trying to try to be a little bit happy, trying to do funny things, fun things like watching movies and going to drink something to party with it just to don't think that much about my situation. while I was looking for for answers, for solutions. But you know, I saw my family suffering that much that that that I didn't want them to suffer. Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR: Imagine. Yeah, and Jose Segurado IG @elijovida: Mm. Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR: I mean that's a normal thing for family members to feel that way, especially because they feel so powerless, right? Like, what can they do? Jose Segurado IG @elijovida: Mhm. Yeah, the yeah, of course. What can they do? They cannot do anything. Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR: Exactly. Now, so here you are, you change your work, you change the way you live, and what did you do after that? Jose Segurado IG @elijovida: Wow. So I I asked for something that I don't know if you have that in in in the States. It's it's a a period of time where where you stop working and you don't receive the salary from your from your work, but you can go back to your work if you want in a period of time, six months, one year. I I asked for three years. So I have no job, I had no money at that very moment. I said, Okay, what what what I'm gonna with my life. But at that very moment a friend of mine called me with with an opportunity to to work a little bit just with a little money in a theater play. And I I like I I do theater, I'm an actor as well. Sometimes like like sometimes in small roles and things like that. And I was working with him in in that in that theater play. And it was amazing because I was I had plenty of free time for myself. Just doing the theater thing, receiving just a little bit of money, but I had time to think about myself, about what I wanted to do in my life. And from that moment on, I start doing things like researching more and more ways to improve my health and and better my health. And after that I I said to myself, Hmm, I want to write a book. I want to explore. press, I want to explain my story to the world just in case someone can find a situation like theirs situation and find solutions. Because for me it was really difficult to find solutions. It was not that difficult because I I I I just had to wait for three days and then started working looking for solutions. But it was difficult because you cannot find the solutions like this. You need to go deep. I I had to go To the page 30 or 40 in Google to find something interesting. And not everybody has the strength to go that deep to find solutions. So I wanted to show people that another way of doing things is possible. I don't have all the solutions, but I I have certain solutions or my solutions or my my ways. And if you find someone to give you hope. Because I I know, I feel that hope is something very important that you don't have at that specific time when you receive the diagnosis. I think it's very important that that someone can give you this this hope. And this is what it is. Start writing. Start writing as a as a as a way for me to to express everything and to to express all of my demons and express all of my story. And from that I wrote a small book explaining my recovering process. And and when I had it, I said to myself, Hmm, maybe I want to work helping other people to to improve their situations. And I was I started checking on the internet and I found health coaching. And I said, Maybe this is good for me. And I went through this this path. Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR: So the book I choose life is mostly or or it includes all of the steps that you utilize in order to get to where you are today? Jose Segurado IG @elijovida: this small book is very important for me because it's my experience of of it's like my diary of where I was and how I was able to recover. And it's it's like a diary and I I write everything, express everything, my fears, the diet, the supplementation, the exercise, everything that I did step by step in order to to recover to recover, to improve my situation. Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR: you've worked with different individuals. now that Jose Segurado IG @elijovida: Many of them. Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR: yeah, you've shared your story. Now do you think that a lot of these steps and these instructions that you've put together in this book can they apply to other illnesses as well? Jose Segurado IG @elijovida: Yeah. It's not just it's not that one diet works for everyone. We are all different and we all need to find our ways, our solutions. It's not one solution fits all. But there are general roles, general things that are important for everybody. For example, diet. Maybe you are vegan or you are vegetarian or you eat everything, meat and everything. It's it's different for everyone and everyone, everybody can can adapt their lifestyle to the diet and find the diet for for them. But we know that we cannot eat junk food every day. And if you in eat jung junk food every day that a lot of people do, our health is not gonna be okay. So there are certain rules like eating mostly vegetables and then good quality protein, vegetable or from meat or from fruit from fish. legumes, so there are general rules and real food basically, not precooked food. there are general rules that apply to everybody and then we need to look at everybody very personally because we are all different and it's not the same thing for everybody. Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR: Now you've worked with a lot of different people, so do you Jose Segurado IG @elijovida: Mm-hmm. Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR: have a success story that you're able to share with us? Jose Segurado IG @elijovida: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yesterday or two days ago I put a post on my Instagram account of a woman from Venezuela. I I I I was working with her for six months and she was first of all in a wheelchair, then she after the wheelchair she was with the walker and from the walker she's using the sticks. So for me this is amazing and have I have this video of her walking with the sticks and I can see her face, her smile. This is an amazing story. This is an amazing story. Yeah, and I have many, Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR: What a turnaround. Jose Segurado IG @elijovida: many, many, many stories, many testimonials of people from with different levels of recovery because we are all different. And if you are in a very bad situation, it's more difficult to to improve your life, of course. And if you are in a better situation, it's it's very easy to improve your situation and everyone is difficult, different. But but we all can improve certain things in our life, certain areas in our lives. So let's jump. For me it's very important to to have the to have the power, strength to jump into the process of of making changes in our lives. It's not easy, but it's not impossible. It's not that difficult. I think it's more difficult to to stay in in a bad place, in a bad situation. Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR: if one of our listeners wanted to work with you, can you explain to us what that journey looks like? Jose Segurado IG @elijovida: Mm-hmm. I have different ways of working with me, but the most common is the the six months program. I work with them during six months and we have a session like every two weeks. So a total of twelve sessions. and in each session we end the session with la like Different tips to do to improve the different things that you have to better in your in your life, like the diet, the supplementation, the relationship, different things. And but this is just one thing: the session and the the homework that you have in the sessions. In between the sessions, where the real life happens, we are in contact. If you put something into action and you find it okay, and you find solutions better we can celebrate it together. If you have a problem or if it's difficult to to put into practice, we go through it together and we try to to work through that. And yeah, it's a very strong process, very heavy process. And I don't know what we are gonna do exactly. I I I know for sure that we are gonna go through supplementation, diet emotions, relationships, exercise, life work, spirituality. We're gonna go through everything, but it's different from to for everyone. And it's like a surprise for for both of us. It's like, okay, let's go for it and let's gonna see what what happens. And we can see patterns, things that we are doing this way and it's go working for us or things that we are doing in a in another way and it's not working for us. So it's a process. It's working hand by hand together and and discovering our health and and re rebuilding ourselves in a Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR: it's a process and everyone's different as you just mentioned, but what is Jose Segurado IG @elijovida: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR: like one common thing that you keep seeing that is the biggest challenge for most people? Jose Segurado IG @elijovida: Well, the most common situation that I see in people with a diagnosis before st before thinking what is going on in my life, what what I can change in my life, the situation that I can see in them is that they do a lot of things that they don't want to do. They put a lot of emphasis in other people, in taking care of other people, in and not taking care of themselves a lot. Maybe It can seem to the world that they are taking care of themselves, but deeply they are not taking care of their emotions, their needs. And this is very important. This is something that we repeat again, again, and again. And is it's like when you go in a plane and they say to you, Okay, if there is and there is a problem with the flight, the oxygen max masks are gonna appear and you don't have to put the ox oxygen mask in the other person before. No, you need to put the oxygen mask on you before. Because you need to take care of yourself first. Because if not, you cannot help other people. And this is this is very important. And we don't do it. We don't do it. And out of people with autoimmune conditions, they help other people. They take they look at the priorities or the needs of other people before they're on. Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR: if listeners remember only one thing from today's conversation, what do you hope that message is? Jose Segurado IG @elijovida: Hope. The message is there is hope that maybe we don't have all the solutions. And I'm not saying that I have all the full solutions for for everything or for everyone or for the illnesses in the world. but I don't have it, you know. But but we we can have hope. We we can take the reins of our life back, we can make changes, and if we we make a change, we create a change. we create a shift in our life in one direction or or the other direction, we can start seeing improvements in our lives. And with the next improvement, we want to go for the next improvement. And if we find light in our life, there is light in our life. There is there is a teaching, a teaching from the I don't know which scriptures, but but there is a teaching saying that that the health is before the illness. And this is very, very deep for me because when we we we face a diagnosis and illnesses, we want to find the cure. But maybe we don't have to find necessarily the the the cure. Of course we have to go with a doctor, it's perfect, but it's not going for the cure, it's going going back to the state of health. That we all have inside of us. So we have the health inside of us. We need to reconnect with our health. It's not something so difficult that we need to cure or find a cure or find the most difficult drug and the most expensive drug in the world. Maybe we need to do it, but just maybe we just need to reconnect with our health that we all have inside of us. And it's not that difficult sometimes. Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR: It's nice big reset back to your healthy state. Make sense? Jose Segurado IG @elijovida: Mm-hmm. Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR: Now, where can our audience connect with you? Find out more about what you're doing and continue this conversation. Jose Segurado IG @elijovida: Yeah, the most practical and easy way to find me is through my Instagram. My Instagram is at @ Elijo Vida. Elijo Vida, which is the name of of my book in Spanish. You can also find the book in English in in Amazon, I Choose Life, in Spanish, Elijo Vida, and this is the the easiest way to to find me. You can find cases of recovery, a lot of people explaining their situations, the life success stories, things like that. And you can connect with me and we can have a a little chat about your situation and see the ways how I can help you to to better your situation. Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR: we'll have this information in the description. Jose Segurado IG @elijovida: Mm-hmm. Great. Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR: Well, Jose, thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate your time and and the value you've shared. Jose Segurado IG @elijovida: Thank you very much. It has been a real pleasure to be with you. well it's it's my pleasure to try to send this message of hope, of light, to people, because there are many, many things that we can do to to improve just a little bit better. Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR: Absolutely. Jose Segurado IG @elijovida: Thank you very much. Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR: You're welcome. Thanks everyone for listening. If this episode inspired you, make sure you share it with someone who needs it. And don't forget to follow the Glovisor Podcast, where we explore and have more conversations that make an impact. Till the next time.