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From the Rockies to Resilience with Dr. Erica Elliott · The Heart-Led Business Show

• 0:01
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Heart Led Business Show, where compassion meets commerce and leaders lead with love.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: Join your host, Tom Jackobs, as he delves into the insightful conversations with visionary business leaders who defy the status quo, putting humanity first and profit second.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: From heartfelt strategies to inspiring stories, this podcast is your compass in the world of conscious capitalism.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: So buckle up and let's go.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: Let your heart guide your business journey.
• 0:35
  Tom: Ladies and gents, fasten your fun factors, we're about to embark on an outrageously original odyssey.
• 0:42
  Tom: Our guest, the darling, diverse Dr.
• 0:45
  Tom: Erica Elliott.
• 0:45
  Tom: From high peaked hiking to bilingual enlightening, she's made her mark from the Rockies to Co Housing Communal Corners of Santa Fe.
• 0:53
  Tom: Now she's got the prescription for passion pioneering a heart-led health haven.
• 0:58
  Tom: So tune in as we dig into the heartbeat of her tremendous triumphs on the heart-led business show.
• 1:03
  Tom: Elliott, welcome to the show.
• 1:04
  Erica Elliott: Thank you.
• 1:05
  Erica Elliott: I'm so happy to be here.
• 1:06
  Tom: Awesome.
• 1:07
  Tom: I'm really excited to dive into this conversation with you today.
• 1:10
  Tom: And of course I like to kick it off with the first question, which is always, what's your definition of a heart-led business?
• 1:17
  Erica Elliott: Well, I lead a heartfelt business, so I'm going to tell you what it means to me.
• 1:21
  Erica Elliott: And that is when you're doing something that you're really good at, and you love doing, and you'd almost even do it if you weren't paid for it.
• 1:30
  Erica Elliott: And it's in service to others.
• 1:32
  Erica Elliott: You know, you can't beat that.
• 1:34
  Erica Elliott: And I finally found that.
• 1:36
  Erica Elliott: Even though I'm 76, there's no way I'm going to retire because I love what I do.
• 1:44
  Erica Elliott: And so I am going to keep working until I drop dead.
• 1:48
  Erica Elliott: And one of my patients said, please don't drop dead during one of our appointments because I couldn't handle it.
• 1:55
  Tom: Oh my gosh.
• 1:55
  Tom: I can't believe you're 76 years old.
• 1:57
  Tom: You do not look 76.
• 1:59
  Erica Elliott: That's because I'm doing what I love.
• 2:00
  Tom: Exactly.
• 2:01
  Tom: It's all about the heart too.
• 2:02
  Tom: Yeah, that's beautiful.
• 2:03
  Tom: Remind me a lot of my mother.
• 2:05
  Tom: She's constant.
• 2:06
  Tom: She's 84 now and just super vibrant and yeah, still learning.
• 2:11
  Tom: She's going to get her doctorate degree.
• 2:12
  Tom: It's crazy.
• 2:13
  Tom: Anyway tell us what inspired you to start heart-led business because it, you didn't always have a heart-led business.
• 2:20
  Tom: So take us through your journey.
• 2:22
  Erica Elliott: Okay, so all my life, I knew I had a purpose and I had no idea what it was.
• 2:27
  Erica Elliott: And I had to overcome a lot of obstacles.
• 2:30
  Erica Elliott: In fact, people can read about it in this book, From Mountains to Medicine.
• 2:35
  Erica Elliott: And in order to figure out first who I was, and it wasn't who I thought I was, at all.
• 2:41
  Erica Elliott: And in order to do that, I had to have a breakdown in college and be forced to see a psychiatrist who was extremely skilled.
• 2:48
  Erica Elliott: And that's how I discovered that I was not who I thought I was.
• 2:53
  Erica Elliott: And that's really when my world began.
• 2:56
  Erica Elliott: And that was, I became my authentic self.
• 2:59
  Erica Elliott: And that was so exciting.
• 3:01
  Erica Elliott: And then I was on this 10 year journey which was really thrilling trying to figure out why I'm here.
• 3:08
  Erica Elliott: And I learned so much along this 10 year journey.
• 3:11
  Erica Elliott: That was after college, after I graduated from college, then I went on a 10 year journey.
• 3:16
  Erica Elliott: I didn't plan on a 10 year journey.
• 3:18
  Erica Elliott: It was just, it took 10 years for me to figure out what I'm really supposed to be doing.
• 3:24
  Erica Elliott: And I, actually, what I'm supposed to be doing was right in front of my nose and I didn't see it because I come from a lineage of doctors in Switzerland.
• 3:33
  Erica Elliott: My grandfather, my uncle, and so my DNA was wired to be a doctor, but I never even considered that.
• 3:40
  Erica Elliott: And had a misconception.
• 3:42
  Erica Elliott: This misconception drove me during those 10 years.
• 3:45
  Erica Elliott: And I'm so glad I had the misconception because those 10 years were so valuable in contributing to me being the kind of physician I am today.
• 3:54
  Erica Elliott: And so I had this misconception because the only doctor I knew was my uncle, who is a medical doctor in Switzerland, and he was so far beyond what the mainstream medicine was doing in those days.
• 4:06
  Erica Elliott: He was like 50 years ahead of his time.
• 4:08
  Erica Elliott: And I went to learn about him and I realized he's a genius.
• 4:13
  Erica Elliott: And I knew I wasn't a genius.
• 4:15
  Erica Elliott: You know, I didn't think I was a genius.
• 4:17
  Erica Elliott: And so I didn't even, so I had this misconception that to be a doctor, you had to be a genius because he was the only doctor I knew.
• 4:24
  Erica Elliott: I was very healthy.
• 4:24
  Erica Elliott: I didn't go to doctors and my mother was swiss.
• 4:28
  Erica Elliott: We ate totally healthy foods and stuff.
• 4:30
  Erica Elliott: I didn't need a doctor.
• 4:31
  Erica Elliott: And so he was my only representative of what a doctor is.
• 4:35
  Erica Elliott: So I didn't even consider that for myself.
• 4:37
  Erica Elliott: And then towards 10 years.
• 4:40
  Erica Elliott: I decided since my college in the 60s, I tested out of most of my science requirements, because I had a very excellent education in Germany.
• 4:48
  Erica Elliott: And so I didn't have to take those courses, unfortunately.
• 4:51
  Erica Elliott: So 10 years later I decided to take a few advanced placement courses.
• 4:56
  Erica Elliott: And everybody in the class, of course, was 10 years younger than me.
• 4:59
  Erica Elliott: And I discovered I was the only, non pre-med student.
• 5:03
  Erica Elliott: And then I had an epiphany.
• 5:05
  Erica Elliott: These people in my class who are future doctors, were not geniuses.
• 5:10
  Erica Elliott: And they were really good at memorizing and really good at standardized tests.
• 5:15
  Erica Elliott: And I thought, my god, I can do this.
• 5:17
  Erica Elliott: This is nothing for me.
• 5:18
  Erica Elliott: I mean, this is a piece of cake.
• 5:19
  Erica Elliott: And so, but again, those ten years were not wasted, because I learned so much from teaching on the Navajo reservation.
• 5:26
  Erica Elliott: I learned that teaching, I adore teaching, but not just giving facts.
• 5:30
  Erica Elliott: Giving information that empowers the person, and that's the kind of doctor I that empowers and is given with love.
• 5:38
  Erica Elliott: And that's transformative for those children in the class who, up to then, were not interested in learning and they were treated badly by the white teachers who thought they were not very smart.
• 5:47
  Erica Elliott: It turned out they were incredibly smart.
• 5:49
  Erica Elliott: They just weren't treated with kindness.
• 5:52
  Erica Elliott: And I learned the language too, which made a total difference.
• 5:56
  Erica Elliott: And then I went on to join the Peace Corps and taught nutrition to indigenous people at high altitude.
• 6:02
  Erica Elliott: And I, was the only woman in all male climbing club.
• 6:04
  Erica Elliott: I talked my way into it.
• 6:06
  Erica Elliott: They didn't know what to think of me because I wasn't like the women there.
• 6:09
  Erica Elliott: They accepted me into their club.
• 6:13
  Erica Elliott: And so I learned about overcoming fears.
• 6:16
  Erica Elliott: I learned about working in a team.
• 6:18
  Erica Elliott: I learned about going beyond what I thought I was capable of.
• 6:22
  Erica Elliott: So climbing mountains was all a big metaphor for me.
• 6:25
  Erica Elliott: I don't think it was for the guys.
• 6:26
  Erica Elliott: The guys would thought about, you know, I made it to the summit.
• 6:29
  Erica Elliott: Well, that was important to me too, but as a symbol of overcoming fear and realizing I can do way more than what I ever thought.
• 6:37
  Tom: That's really cool.
• 6:38
  Tom: Like that's not the career trajectory that most doctors go through either, which I think is just fascinating that you created this whole life experience within 10 years.
• 6:48
  Tom: then you got your medical license.
• 6:50
  Erica Elliott: I went through medical school, but that's a whole new, that's a whole nother podcast because I thought, oh, I finally found my destiny.
• 6:57
  Erica Elliott: And then I realized first of all, well, I was very excited about what I was learning anatomy and physiology and all this stuff.
• 7:05
  Erica Elliott: But then when it entered into areas that were politicized, I knew something was wrong and I didn't have the big picture.
• 7:12
  Erica Elliott: I didn't know about the Rockefeller Pharmaceutical Liaison and how corrupt it was.
• 7:18
  Erica Elliott: I was innocent, but I knew something was wrong because I have a very good bullshit meter.
• 7:24
  Erica Elliott: I've developed that ever since I was a girl and I knew when something wasn't true or a lie, I could feel it.
• 7:31
  Erica Elliott: And I started learning all these things and I didn't know what to do because if I would ask about it.
• 7:37
  Erica Elliott: I would say like to the cardiology rotation, I'd say the cardiologist, well, doesn't diet make a difference in how you eat and exercise?
• 7:46
  Erica Elliott: And he said, this was, you know, in late seventies, early eighties, he said, no, people aren't willing to change and it's just easier to give them pills.
• 7:55
  Erica Elliott: thought, that's great.
• 7:56
  Erica Elliott: Awful.
• 7:57
  Erica Elliott: And that was just one example of the stuff that I was worried.
• 8:02
  tom-jackobs_1_09-05-2024_000544: Was he you this while he was smoking a cigarette at the same time?
• 8:04
  Erica Elliott: Yes.
• 8:05
  Erica Elliott: Yes.
• 8:05
  Erica Elliott: Smoking cigarettes.
• 8:06
  Erica Elliott: The whole thing.
• 8:07
  Erica Elliott: I think I thought I'm in an insane asylum because, and then here's what happened to me.
• 8:12
  Erica Elliott: I'm very competitive, not in a bad way.
• 8:15
  Erica Elliott: I'm just competitive with myself and I wanted to be.
• 8:18
  Erica Elliott: So in order to do that, I did something very bad, which has a good.
• 8:23
  Erica Elliott: What I did that's very bad, is I put my soul, that knew some of this stuff was wrong, I put it in a box, and tucked it away, and just went along with the program.
• 8:32
  Erica Elliott: And that took a terrible toll on me.
• 8:34
  Erica Elliott: I thought everything was fine.
• 8:36
  Erica Elliott: You know, oh yeah, I'll go along with the whole thing.
• 8:38
  Erica Elliott: It's terrible to sell your soul.
• 8:40
  Erica Elliott: You pay a horrible price for it.
• 8:42
  Erica Elliott: And it's not really a heartfelt thing I was doing at all.
• 8:46
  Erica Elliott: And so, and then I worked when I graduated, I worked for at different places.
• 8:51
  Erica Elliott: And finally I worked with corporate.
• 8:53
  Erica Elliott: Medicine, because I was a single parent, had to have regular hours, had to have a decent salary, had to not deliver babies all night.
• 9:00
  Erica Elliott: I had to be able to go home at 5.
• 9:02
  Erica Elliott: So again, I made a deal with the devil because this is so not me.
• 9:06
  Erica Elliott: You're like a robot.
• 9:08
  Erica Elliott: You're like on a conveyor belt.
• 9:10
  Erica Elliott: You have 15 minutes to deal with somebody who's really sick and you order a bunch of tests and you give pills for all the symptoms.
• 9:16
  Erica Elliott: And It was taking a terrible toll on me.
• 9:20
  Erica Elliott: Well, here's what saved me.
• 9:21
  Erica Elliott: A disaster saved me completely.
• 9:24
  Erica Elliott: And that is, I became injured by the chemicals in the building.
• 9:29
  Erica Elliott: It was a new building, outgassing nasty chemicals.
• 9:31
  Erica Elliott: And they used nasty chemicals to disinfect.
• 9:34
  Erica Elliott: They sprayed pesticides once a month.
• 9:36
  Erica Elliott: It was disgusting.
• 9:38
  Erica Elliott: And everybody was affected, but I was affected more.
• 9:41
  Erica Elliott: I found out later when I studied environmental medicine that I can't clear those petrochemically derived chemicals from my liver very well.
• 9:49
  Erica Elliott: So I was badly injured.
• 9:50
  Erica Elliott: It affected my brain terribly and the rest of my body.
• 9:54
  Erica Elliott: And so that was it.
• 9:55
  Erica Elliott: And I thought, oh, you know, my, my career's over.
• 9:59
  Erica Elliott: I can't go.
• 10:00
  Erica Elliott: I became one of those people that they make fun of that's sensitive to everything, like a kind of person.
• 10:06
  Erica Elliott: I went through that phase and I thought, you know, I doom and gloom.
• 10:10
  Erica Elliott: That's what I felt.
• 10:11
  Erica Elliott: There's no hope for me.
• 10:12
  Erica Elliott: I can't go into public buildings.
• 10:14
  Erica Elliott: They full of toxic chemicals.
• 10:16
  Erica Elliott: What am I going to do?
• 10:17
  Erica Elliott: Well, jumping ahead, these people started coming to my house! I remember the first person knocked on the door, I'd been crying on the couch thinking everything's over, and I won't even be able to pay my mortgage, I'm gonna be I was having extreme thoughts of being homeless and all that stuff and the knock on the door and by the way, my brain was very damaged I had almost like dementia from the pesticides and I opened the door and It was a former patient.
• 10:44
  Erica Elliott: She said can I have an appointment with you?
• 10:46
  Erica Elliott: I said, what?
• 10:47
  Erica Elliott: This is my house.
• 10:48
  Erica Elliott: You're coming to my house.
• 10:49
  Erica Elliott: First of all, how did you find my house?
• 10:51
  Erica Elliott: She said, Oh, I just asked some people.
• 10:52
  Erica Elliott: And I said, well, I'm brain damaged.
• 10:54
  Erica Elliott: And she said, Oh, I know that.
• 10:55
  Erica Elliott: The nurse told all of your patients about what happened.
• 10:58
  Erica Elliott: I said, what do you mean you want an appointment?
• 11:00
  Erica Elliott: She said, please, I have the same thing you have.
• 11:03
  Erica Elliott: Please.
• 11:04
  Erica Elliott: Can you please, can I just, sit in your living room and have an appointment with you.
• 11:08
  Erica Elliott: I was so confused.
• 11:09
  Erica Elliott: And I said, okay, she walked in.
• 11:11
  Erica Elliott: Like she knew sat down on the couch.
• 11:13
  Erica Elliott: I sat down on the other couch.
• 11:15
  Erica Elliott: I could have not follow her very well.
• 11:17
  Erica Elliott: Cause I was so brain damaged.
• 11:18
  Erica Elliott: I couldn't remember one sentence to the next, but I made total eye contact.
• 11:22
  Erica Elliott: I was totally listening to her.
• 11:23
  Erica Elliott: All of a sudden she says, Is our time up?
• 11:27
  Erica Elliott: Well, is it up for you?
• 11:30
  Erica Elliott: And she said, well it's been an hour, how much do I you.
• 11:33
  Erica Elliott: I said, you don't owe me anything! And she said, I want to tell you something that you don't seem to understand.
• 11:39
  Erica Elliott: You're the first doctor that's ever believed me, and taken me seriously, and really listened to me.
• 11:45
  Erica Elliott: And here's a hundred dollars.
• 11:47
  Erica Elliott: And so, that was my first patient.
• 11:48
  Erica Elliott: And I actually eventually got well, and in the process of getting well, I learned all the things that they don't teach you in medical school.
• 11:55
  Erica Elliott: I learned a deep dive into nutrition, deep dive into supplements, deep dive into environmental medicine with talk education about toxins, mold exposure, Lyme disease, all the things you don't learn in medical school, which are really happening big time in, our times we live in.
• 12:12
  Erica Elliott: And pretty soon, I had more patients than I could handle.
• 12:15
  Erica Elliott: And they were telling all their friends.
• 12:18
  Erica Elliott: And eventually, it was patients who just, who didn't just have what I had.
• 12:22
  Erica Elliott: It was just people who needed a proper diagnosis.
• 12:25
  Erica Elliott: That's why my fourth book is going to be called, the medical detective because I'm going to tell the reader how I figure out all these medical mysteries which is so easy and so it's a real indirect indictment on mainstream medicine because you'd say well why can't those 15 other doctors or specialists high class specialists, why couldn't they figure out something that you're figuring out in 10 minutes?
• 12:48
  Erica Elliott: And so, so it's an expose without directly condemning modern medicine, mainstream medicine, anyway, I am so happy.
• 12:55
  Erica Elliott: I just love what I do.
• 12:57
  Erica Elliott: I love helping people feel better.
• 13:00
  Erica Elliott: And that is going to bring you to ask me about how this let's see, I wrote it down.
• 13:06
  Erica Elliott: How did I figure out a way to oh, was it about payment?
• 13:11
  Tom: Yeah, the profit and all that, but I wanted to dive into something that you said a little bit earlier, you know, the mainstream medical my understanding is.
• 13:19
  Tom: Patient comes in with a symptoms.
• 13:20
  Tom: Oh, my shoulder hurts or whatever.
• 13:22
  Tom: We treat the shoulder, that's it.
• 13:24
  Tom: And not look at the entire person, which, you know, that could be caused by maybe a foot problem or a hip problem or something else.
• 13:32
  Erica Elliott: Tom, you're right on, you're right on.
• 13:34
  Tom: And fun.
• 13:35
  Tom: Like, would you consider yourself like a functional medicine now or integrative medicine?
• 13:39
  Erica Elliott: Started, it didn't have a name.
• 13:41
  Erica Elliott: This was when I started practicing like this.
• 13:43
  Erica Elliott: It was over 30 years ago.
• 13:45
  Erica Elliott: There was no name for what I did.
• 13:46
  Erica Elliott: So I called myself an alternative practitioner.
• 13:50
  Erica Elliott: And then people said, well then you're a holistic doctor.
• 13:52
  Erica Elliott: Then they called it an integrative doctor.
• 13:54
  Erica Elliott: And then they called it functional.
• 13:56
  Erica Elliott: But I was all those things all the time.
• 13:58
  Erica Elliott: No matter what label you put on it.
• 14:00
  Erica Elliott: I was dealing with the whole person.
• 14:03
  Erica Elliott: And I was drawing on many different areas of healing.
• 14:07
  Erica Elliott: Many different area.
• 14:09
  Tom: That's great.
• 14:09
  Tom: What a pioneer as well.
• 14:11
  Tom: And I'm sure you came across, the people that were talking about quackery and just like really putting down what you were doing and that's such a shame, but what a testament for you to stick through it and continue practicing as well and helping so many people.
• 14:26
  Tom: So as you're building this practice by happenstance, it sounds like it was just a divine intervention, if you will, how did you then turn it into a business that produced a profit and you were okay with now charging people what you're worth for the services you provide?
• 14:42
  Erica Elliott: That's a very good question you ask, and that's something I struggle But many of the patients just bypassed that equivocation and just forced me to take money that they gave but I, that's not sustainable.
• 14:55
  Erica Elliott: And so I did struggle.
• 14:57
  Erica Elliott: I went through many stages because I didn't have anybody to guide me on this.
• 15:02
  Erica Elliott: I, this was new territory.
• 15:04
  Erica Elliott: And so many times people would tell me they were poor, so I didn't charge anything.
• 15:09
  Erica Elliott: And those were the patients who didn't do what I suggested, didn't get well.
• 15:14
  Erica Elliott: Got nothing out of the appointment because they had no skin in the game, but it took me a while to figure that out.
• 15:20
  Erica Elliott: And so, finally, I figured that out.
• 15:22
  Erica Elliott: Addressing their quote, need, I'd say, well, I'll do a trade.
• 15:27
  Erica Elliott: That was a huge failure too, because I ended up with things that I don't want.
• 15:31
  Erica Elliott: I don't need, I got six landscape plans.
• 15:34
  Erica Elliott: I got multiple, lots of artwork.
• 15:36
  Erica Elliott: And so that didn't work.
• 15:40
  Tom: You get any animals, anybody, you know, give you a goat or a cow.
• 15:45
  Erica Elliott: Well they gave me the eggs.
• 15:46
  Tom: I mean, that's good.
• 15:47
  Tom: Is still very active to this day, but you know, it's not sustainable, it sounds like.
• 15:52
  Erica Elliott: Yeah, and it wasn't you know, 12 eggs does not equal the cost of an appointment.
• 15:57
  Tom: The cost of eggs.
• 15:58
  Erica Elliott: Yeah, so here's what I, well, then I did the sliding scale thing, and then I was really burned on that, like, one woman told me, you know, how poor she was and everything, so I just charged her a little bit, and then I ran into a friend of hers, and said, and she said, oh, have you seen Jane?
• 16:18
  Erica Elliott: And she looks great.
• 16:19
  Erica Elliott: And I said, I was puzzled.
• 16:20
  Erica Elliott: What?
• 16:21
  Erica Elliott: She looks great from what?
• 16:22
  Erica Elliott: And she said, oh she had a facelift.
• 16:24
  Erica Elliott: And I said, she had a facelift?
• 16:26
  Erica Elliott: How much did those cost?
• 16:27
  Erica Elliott: She said, oh, hers was 5,000 dollars.
• 16:30
  Erica Elliott: I thought that's the end of sliding scale.
• 16:32
  Erica Elliott: So, but what I did was I did a sliding scale that nobody knew meaning I knew who was really having struggles.
• 16:41
  Erica Elliott: And so I made up my own silence sliding scale that they didn't know.
• 16:45
  Erica Elliott: So they couldn't tell everybody she's doing a sliding scale, you know, so they can say how poor they are.
• 16:50
  Erica Elliott: And so that's what I do now.
• 16:51
  Erica Elliott: And it works out perfectly.
• 16:53
  Tom: Well, I mean, it's a great way to help the people that need help, but also make sure that they're putting skin in the game as well.
• 17:00
  Tom: Like you said.
• 17:00
  Erica Elliott: Yeah.
• 17:00
  Erica Elliott: So what really turned things around for me.
• 17:03
  Erica Elliott: A patient was trying to, in the early days when I was figuring things out, she was trying to.
• 17:09
  Erica Elliott: Do what you're doing, you know, like, helping me have the nerve to charge what I'm owed.
• 17:14
  Erica Elliott: And she explained that there was a true story about a business that was going out of business, it's men's clothing.
• 17:22
  Erica Elliott: And so as a last resort, the owner hired somebody to give him.
• 17:26
  Erica Elliott: Some financial help.
• 17:27
  Erica Elliott: And that person said, you know, it's just one piece of advice.
• 17:32
  Erica Elliott: You need to double your prices and you will have a successful business.
• 17:36
  Erica Elliott: And that's what happened.
• 17:37
  Erica Elliott: He was undercharging.
• 17:38
  Erica Elliott: So people didn't value his work.
• 17:40
  Erica Elliott: And that's what was happening to me in the early days is if you don't have skin in the game, you're not going to get much out of the appointment.
• 17:48
  Erica Elliott: And so I learned a lot from that story.
• 17:50
  Tom: Yeah.
• 17:50
  Tom: It's a, well, it's a two way street because it needs to be that energy exchange needs to be somewhat equal so that everybody is winning.
• 17:58
  Tom: Cause you know, even.
• 17:58
  Tom: from a consumer standpoint if I go and try to negotiate the price of a service so low, that practitioner takes it, like that's not sustainable for the longterm because they're going to go out of business.
• 18:10
  Tom: They're not going to be able to help more people.
• 18:12
  Tom: And it's a lose versus being okay with charging what you're worth, you know, not being extravagant with it.
• 18:18
  Tom: Like.
• 18:19
  Tom: Charging way too much, but being reasonable so that you can have a life and live the life that you want.
• 18:24
  Tom: I think that's absolutely reasonable for people to expect.
• 18:27
  Erica Elliott: So I came to that.
• 18:28
  Erica Elliott: Plus my son gave me these very stern lectures.
• 18:32
  Erica Elliott: He's a businessman, very successful.
• 18:34
  Erica Elliott: He was very stern me.
• 18:36
  Erica Elliott: He said, mom, people will appreciate you more if you charge what you're worth, mom.
• 18:42
  Erica Elliott: And he was so adamant about it.
• 18:44
  Erica Elliott: And so I keep inching up my rates.
• 18:46
  Erica Elliott: And now he says it's acceptable.
• 18:48
  Erica Elliott: He'd like to see a dollar, but he said it's acceptable.
• 18:51
  Tom: That's awesome.
• 18:52
  Tom: So what is the specialty that you work on?
• 18:54
  Tom: And so if people have that issue, they can contact you.
• 18:58
  Erica Elliott: Well, I'm not taking new patients cause I have 1200 That's just too much So, but I do a blog and on that blog.
• 19:08
  Erica Elliott: There's a category called medicine.
• 19:10
  Erica Elliott: It also has other things.
• 19:11
  Erica Elliott: The website is called Musings with an S, Musings Memoir and Medicine.
• 19:16
  Erica Elliott: And, but they have, there's a category.
• 19:18
  Erica Elliott: If you click under medicine, you'll see all these medical posts, which I wrote them for all the people that I wasn't able to see because I'm too full.
• 19:27
  Erica Elliott: They say, I have this problem.
• 19:28
  Erica Elliott: So I go write a blog about it.
• 19:30
  Erica Elliott: And so they get freaked out.
• 19:31
  Erica Elliott: And then it could be accessible to everybody like statins and cholesterol and the harm that's being inflicted on us and mammograms.
• 19:40
  Erica Elliott: And, you know, and I am talking freely force.
• 19:43
  Erica Elliott: Fortunately, I haven't been censored.
• 19:45
  Erica Elliott: I haven't had my blog taken down, but during the pandemic, it was limited what I could say.
• 19:50
  Erica Elliott: But I wrote out during the pandemic, a very nice protocol that's gone around the world.
• 19:55
  Erica Elliott: People have sent it to their friends all over the place.
• 19:57
  Erica Elliott: And so you'll find information on that blog post with very common problems that people have.
• 20:04
  Erica Elliott: And they can't find this kind of information.
• 20:07
  Erica Elliott: In mainstream media.
• 20:09
  Tom: Yeah.
• 20:09
  Erica Elliott: And then the third memoir that I'm working on now will be my trajectory and actually some of the story I'm telling you now and my fourth book will be very useful public because they'll figure out, they'll learn how to figure out their own problems and save themselves a lot of sweat and money.
• 20:25
  Erica Elliott: And it's so simple and I, you know, I'd love to give an example of how simple it is because like, okay, so this guy from San Francisco is a businessman and he heard me, people hear me through the grapevine.
• 20:38
  Erica Elliott: I've never advertised one single time, it's all word of mouth because people are so desperate.
• 20:43
  Erica Elliott: They can't get the help they need.
• 20:45
  Erica Elliott: It's so pathetic.
• 20:46
  Erica Elliott: And so somebody said there's this woman in Santa Fe who really likes to figure out medical problems.
• 20:51
  Erica Elliott: This is when I was still taking new patients.
• 20:53
  Erica Elliott: So he made an appointment, flew in, and he said, In 10 minutes, I solved his problem.
• 20:58
  Erica Elliott: And he had been to, cause he's wealthy.
• 21:00
  Erica Elliott: He went to all these famous specialists and nothing helped him.
• 21:04
  Erica Elliott: And so here's what I did.
• 21:05
  Erica Elliott: I asked him to do a writeup before he came to save himself time and money.
• 21:10
  Erica Elliott: And I write, here's one of my methods of figuring things out stood to do a timeline when were you feeling fine?
• 21:16
  Erica Elliott: And when weren't you feeling fine?
• 21:18
  Erica Elliott: And what changed?
• 21:19
  Erica Elliott: And nobody asked those questions.
• 21:21
  Erica Elliott: I mean, I'm showing how simple it is to figure out these problems that all these specialists can't figure out.
• 21:26
  Erica Elliott: And so he did that.
• 21:28
  Erica Elliott: He did the timeline and everything.
• 21:30
  Erica Elliott: And I said, okay, January 20, whatever.
• 21:33
  Erica Elliott: 21 or no, it was before the pandemic.
• 21:36
  Erica Elliott: Sorry.
• 21:37
  Erica Elliott: It was, I don't remember 2018 or something.
• 21:39
  Erica Elliott: And he said he started going downhill and I said, what was different?
• 21:43
  Erica Elliott: And they all say the same thing at first.
• 21:45
  Erica Elliott: They say nothing.
• 21:45
  Erica Elliott: And so I said, okay, we're going to sit here until we find out what was different.
• 21:49
  Erica Elliott: Did you travel abroad?
• 21:50
  Erica Elliott: No.
• 21:50
  Erica Elliott: Did you change your diet?
• 21:52
  Erica Elliott: No.
• 21:52
  Erica Elliott: Did you have emotional problems with girlfriends or money or something?
• 21:56
  Erica Elliott: Nope.
• 21:57
  Erica Elliott: Did you move somewhere?
• 21:58
  Erica Elliott: And he said, yeah, oh yeah, I did.
• 22:00
  Erica Elliott: I moved into this rental.
• 22:02
  Erica Elliott: In San Francisco.
• 22:02
  Erica Elliott: I bet you know the answer already.
• 22:04
  Erica Elliott: And so, I bet you do.
• 22:05
  Erica Elliott: And so five minutes had gone by so far.
• 22:08
  Erica Elliott: And so then, I said was the date on that?
• 22:10
  Erica Elliott: And I said, well that's around the time you said you started gradually feeling worse and worse.
• 22:15
  Erica Elliott: And I said Do you feel better when you go camping?
• 22:18
  Erica Elliott: And he said, yeah, I do as a matter of fact.
• 22:20
  Erica Elliott: I said, do you have stains on your wall or buckling of the paint?
• 22:26
  Erica Elliott: Said yes, and I said was there a water leak?
• 22:29
  Erica Elliott: And he said oh, I don't know and I said well staining and buckling means there's a water leak you have mold toxicity.
• 22:36
  Erica Elliott: You need to get out of the house now and never go back And then we'll start the long journey to wellness.
• 22:43
  Erica Elliott: You've got mycotoxin sickness illness and it's a long journey out because you've been in that place for two years.
• 22:51
  Erica Elliott: At the end of a year, he was always getting better, but at the end of the year, he pronounced that this is the best he ever felt in his whole life because he had changed his diet.
• 23:00
  Erica Elliott: He had done all these things.
• 23:02
  Erica Elliott: And so in a way I said to him, I said, Wyatt, this disaster was the biggest blessing because people don't want to change what they eat or what they do unless they have no choice.
• 23:14
  Erica Elliott: And you had no choice.
• 23:15
  Erica Elliott: You were stripped.
• 23:16
  Erica Elliott: You were a mess.
• 23:17
  Erica Elliott: You couldn't do your job.
• 23:19
  Erica Elliott: You couldn't run a company anymore.
• 23:20
  Erica Elliott: And so you were so desperate.
• 23:22
  Erica Elliott: You did everything I said.
• 23:24
  Erica Elliott: And if I told you to eat rocks, you would have rocks or frogs or whatever.
• 23:28
  Erica Elliott: And I said, regard this as a blessing.
• 23:31
  Erica Elliott: And here's my motto.
• 23:33
  Erica Elliott: And you can apply it to yourself.
• 23:34
  Erica Elliott: Never waste a bad experience.
• 23:37
  Tom: Mm, absolutely.
• 23:38
  Tom: Yeah.
• 23:39
  Tom: that's great advice, especially in business because every experience is a great learning experience, even though it might suck at the time that you go through it.
• 23:47
  Tom: So tell us a little bit about your book.
• 23:48
  Erica Elliott: Okay this book the first half It goes through my time at this very progressive college, and in Germany, I didn't know about the ins and outs of the colleges.
• 24:00
  Erica Elliott: They all sounded the same to me, and so my advisor said, just go to where your parents went if you can't make a choice.
• 24:07
  Erica Elliott: And I said, well, my mother graduated from the University of Zurich.
• 24:11
  Erica Elliott: I'm not going to go there and my father from Harvard and I don't want to go there and so anyway, when back in the days when hitchhiking was okay for totally okay and safe and nobody got murdered or anything.
• 24:23
  Erica Elliott: I would hitchhike around in the summer in state youth hostels.
• 24:26
  Erica Elliott: And I remember a few times meeting these very unusual people who dress kind of in an unusual way.
• 24:32
  Erica Elliott: Because I didn't know about hippies in the United States.
• 24:35
  Erica Elliott: I didn't know anything about it.
• 24:36
  Erica Elliott: And so I thought, wow, they're kind of unusual and they're playing instruments.
• 24:40
  Erica Elliott: And when I talked to them, they were so knowledgeable about world politics.
• 24:45
  Erica Elliott: They knew I lived in Europe and they knew more about where I lived than I did.
• 24:49
  Erica Elliott: And they were so smart and eccentric.
• 24:52
  Erica Elliott: And so I told that the college counselor, the American college counselor, that I'd made up my mind I was going to go to this place where those people went, called Antioch College.
• 25:02
  Erica Elliott: And she gasped and she said, that's no place for a nice, smart girl like you.
• 25:07
  Erica Elliott: And I said, why?
• 25:08
  Erica Elliott: And she said, because they demonstrate against the government, the war in Vietnam.
• 25:13
  Erica Elliott: And I said, what's wrong with that.
• 25:14
  Erica Elliott: Well, they, and another thing, they have mixed dorms.
• 25:18
  Erica Elliott: Men and women in the same dorm.
• 25:21
  Erica Elliott: There's no other college that does that.
• 25:23
  Erica Elliott: And I said, well, what's wrong with that?
• 25:24
  Erica Elliott: My brothers live in the same house as I do.
• 25:27
  Erica Elliott: It's not a problem.
• 25:28
  Erica Elliott: And then she said, well, the real problem.
• 25:31
  Erica Elliott: They smoke this thing called Meju.
• 25:33
  Erica Elliott: I said, what?
• 25:34
  Erica Elliott: And she, I said, what's that?
• 25:36
  Erica Elliott: And she said, it's a plant that makes you crazy.
• 25:39
  Erica Elliott: And so I said, well, it sounds interesting, but when I went there.
• 25:43
  Erica Elliott: It was a terrible culture because I didn't know anything about how to talk like the hippie talk.
• 25:49
  Erica Elliott: I didn't know their language.
• 25:50
  Erica Elliott: I didn't dress like that.
• 25:52
  Erica Elliott: It was so shocking to me, but I had a little conversation with myself and I said, okay, you probably made a big mistake coming here, but we're going to try and fit in.
• 26:02
  Erica Elliott: So I bought The kind clothes they wore.
• 26:04
  Erica Elliott: Got rid of my mini skirt and all that stuff and my little heels and stuff.
• 26:09
  Erica Elliott: And I learned to I'm linguistically oriented I moved around all my life.
• 26:13
  Erica Elliott: So I speak multiple languages.
• 26:14
  Erica Elliott: So I thought I can learn this language too.
• 26:16
  Erica Elliott: Like, When the driver and the van picked me up from the airport, one of his first questions is, have you ever dropped I dropped acid.
• 26:23
  Erica Elliott: I said, well, I don't think so.
• 26:24
  Erica Elliott: Maybe in chemistry class.
• 26:25
  Erica Elliott: So, I couldn't understand them at all.
• 26:28
  Erica Elliott: and things like that.
• 26:30
  Erica Elliott: Yeah, groovy.
• 26:31
  Erica Elliott: And I was trying so hard to fit in, because that's how I survived moving around in Europe.
• 26:36
  Erica Elliott: I looked like the people I was with.
• 26:38
  Erica Elliott: I acted so I would fit in.
• 26:40
  Erica Elliott: And so I did the same.
• 26:41
  Erica Elliott: And I tried drugs.
• 26:43
  Erica Elliott: And I wasn't cut out drugs at all.
• 26:45
  Erica Elliott: Pretty soon I became psychotic and my roommate had sex all night.
• 26:49
  Erica Elliott: So I was sleep deprived.
• 26:51
  Erica Elliott: And so I had a breakdown.
• 26:52
  Erica Elliott: I actually had a suicide and they forced me to see a psychiatrist.
• 26:56
  Erica Elliott: In those days, only psychotic people and schizophrenics saw psychiatrists or people in mental hospitals.
• 27:02
  Erica Elliott: So this, I was so ashamed.
• 27:04
  Tom: Wow.
• 27:04
  Erica Elliott: And And at first I wouldn't speak to psychiatrists cause I would just cry and look at the floor cause I was so full of shame that I came to this to see a psychiatrist.
• 27:12
  Erica Elliott: So he talked a little bit about himself while I just sat there and cried.
• 27:16
  Erica Elliott: And he told me that he was the first black psychiatrist to graduate from.
• 27:21
  Erica Elliott: The University of Zurich in Switzerland where my mother graduated from.
• 27:24
  Erica Elliott: So, whoa, that got my attention.
• 27:26
  Erica Elliott: And then he kept asking me questions and I wouldn't answer.
• 27:29
  Erica Elliott: So he went to the door and opened it and said, you can leave now because you're not participating in your care.
• 27:34
  Erica Elliott: I'm forced to see you because otherwise they're going to tell my parents and kick me out.
• 27:38
  Erica Elliott: And he said, well, you can work that out.
• 27:40
  Erica Elliott: And then I said, well, if I talk, can I stay?
• 27:44
  Erica Elliott: And he said, yes.
• 27:45
  Erica Elliott: And he came back and sat in the seat and man, did I talk.
• 27:48
  Erica Elliott: And that's the first time in my life that I had been seen and heard and treated with the deepest respect.
• 27:56
  Erica Elliott: I mean, he saved my life.
• 27:57
  Erica Elliott: I mean, he helped me find out who I am and not by telling me what to do or giving me pills.
• 28:03
  Erica Elliott: He just held that sacred space for me and I could figure out my own problems.
• 28:07
  Erica Elliott: And the only time he spoke was to sort of set me free.
• 28:10
  Erica Elliott: When I was really off target, like he'd say, now tell me again, why do you think you're stupid?
• 28:16
  Erica Elliott: And so I, then I'd say all these reasons.
• 28:18
  Erica Elliott: And he said, well, how come all your professors and teachers say you're brilliant?
• 28:22
  Erica Elliott: And I'd say, Well, I fooled them.
• 28:23
  Erica Elliott: And he tried not to laugh and he'd say that's quite a thing.
• 28:27
  Erica Elliott: You can fool these very educated people.
• 28:29
  Erica Elliott: I mean, he helped me understand all the false conceptions.
• 28:32
  Erica Elliott: I had my harsh upbringing, very harsh upbringing.
• 28:36
  Erica Elliott: And, but I reconciled with that.
• 28:38
  Erica Elliott: I was the first person in my family to say, I love you.
• 28:41
  Erica Elliott: That's how our family was.
• 28:43
  Erica Elliott: We were, it was harsh.
• 28:44
  Erica Elliott: And so I broke free of that.
• 28:46
  Erica Elliott: I still love them, but I wasn't going to participate in that kind of behavior.
• 28:50
  Erica Elliott: And that's when I learned to really appreciate myself and realize I'm really a good person.
• 28:55
  Erica Elliott: I'm not the person I thought I was at all.
• 28:57
  Erica Elliott: And so it talks about that in the book and going through my early life.
• 29:02
  Erica Elliott: That's the first half of the book.
• 29:03
  Erica Elliott: The second half is that 10 year journey.
• 29:06
  Erica Elliott: Which is very exciting to finding you know, my true purpose in life.
• 29:10
  Erica Elliott: And it'll take the reader through all sorts of adventures.
• 29:14
  Erica Elliott: But the adventures were all symbolic.
• 29:17
  Erica Elliott: So some people, especially guys, I'm not stereotyping, but they say they love the book.
• 29:22
  Erica Elliott: Because of all the climbing and avalanche stories and getting, teaching for Outward Bound, but those, they, I'm not sure they got it, but these were lessons for me.
• 29:32
  Erica Elliott: This is what, it's not, look at me, and you know, I'm doing this and that, and I'm the first American woman to climb the highest mountain in the Western Hemisphere, Aconcagua.
• 29:43
  Erica Elliott: It was all, I was learning life lessons.
• 29:47
  Erica Elliott: Those, it was profound life lessons.
• 29:49
  Tom: Amazing.
• 29:50
  Tom: And what way to kind of put it all together in a nice book as well and share that with the world and share your expertise as well.
• 29:57
  Tom: Our time, unfortunately, is up today.
• 30:00
  Tom: I could go on for hours, I think, talking with you.
• 30:02
  Tom: So fascinating your career and your life.
• 30:05
  Tom: And I'm just so glad that you're here and helping so many people find out their problems that nobody else can kind of figure out.
• 30:13
  Tom: So thank you for that gift that you're giving people and thank you for showing up today.
• 30:16
  Erica Elliott: Thank you very much.
• 30:17
  Erica Elliott: I appreciate it.
• 30:18
  Tom: Thank you.
• 30:18
  Tom: All right, listeners, thank you for joining in for today's episode as well.
• 30:23
  Tom: I appreciate it.
• 30:24
  Tom: I know Dr.
• 30:24
  Tom: Elliott appreciates it as well.
• 30:26
  Tom: So please make sure that you are checking out everything that she's doing.
• 30:29
  Tom: We're going to put a link to her book in the show notes as well.
• 30:32
  Tom: So if you check that out, grab it over at Amazon.
• 30:35
  Tom: And and also if you could do me a favor and give us a rating and review on the podcast application of your choice, it really does help spread the word about the show and help other people get the help that they need building a heart-led business.
• 30:48
  Tom: So until next time lead with your heart.
• 30:50
  Tom: Awesome.
• 30:52
  Speaker: You've been listening to the heart-led Business Show, hosted by Tom Jackobs.
• 30:57
  Speaker: Join us next time for another inspiring journey into the heart of business.