Latest / QUESTION EVERYTHING / Women's Health Disparities + How to Advocate for Yourself: with Hitha Palepu

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Women's Health Disparities + How to Advocate for Yourself: with Hitha Palepu · QUESTION EVERYTHING

0:04
Speaker 1: Big things happen when you're pretty, pretty bold, pretty clever,
0:08
Speaker 1: pretty strong. I'm Danielle Robe, and each week my guests
0:12
Speaker 1: and I have conversations that put a new spin on pretty.
0:17
Speaker 2: This is pretty smart.
0:19
Speaker 1: Hello, Hello, Hello, I hope you're having a really beautiful day.
0:23
Speaker 1: Before we jump into today's episode, I want to share
0:26
Speaker 1: something with you that's been on my mind. I saw
0:29
Speaker 1: a good friend from growing up who had a baby
0:32
Speaker 1: when I was home in Chicago for Fourth of July weekend,
0:37
Speaker 1: and she was asking me all about switching over to
0:40
Speaker 1: non toxic products, and so I was telling her some
0:42
Speaker 1: of my favorite ones, and particularly deodorant she couldn't find.
0:47
Speaker 1: And I have had several friends ask me about this
0:50
Speaker 1: as they get pregnant, and I was thinking, there's apps.
0:53
Speaker 1: I think that's so great, But there's absolutely no need
0:56
Speaker 1: to wait until you're pregnant to start thinking about this stuff.
0:59
Speaker 1: And so I wanted to share some of my favorite
1:01
Speaker 1: things with you in case you're interested in it. So
1:04
Speaker 1: I put together a video on my Instagram and my
1:07
Speaker 1: highlights page to show you some of my favorite cleaning products. Deodorant, makeup, fragrances.
1:15
Speaker 1: I know those are hard to give up. For people.
1:16
Speaker 1: But I have a really, really beautiful clean fragrance for you,
1:20
Speaker 1: and I don't know. I think sometimes it takes a
1:23
Speaker 1: lot of time and energy and a little bit of
1:25
Speaker 1: money to switch these things over, and so I just
1:29
Speaker 1: wanted to make it easy. It's something I really believe in,
1:32
Speaker 1: and so I just wanted to share it with you.
1:34
Speaker 1: And if you're at all interested, it's all my Instagram highlights.
1:37
Speaker 1: And I just don't want it to be overwhelming, because
1:40
Speaker 1: I know I was super overwhelmed when I thought, oh
1:42
Speaker 1: my god, I have to change everything over all at once.
1:45
Speaker 1: And what I realized is you just change things over
1:48
Speaker 1: when you run out of what you already have, so
1:50
Speaker 1: you're not wasting money and all of that. You don't
1:54
Speaker 1: have to throw everything out all at once. I feel
1:57
Speaker 1: like it's just like anything else in life, like food
2:01
Speaker 1: and healthy living. It's make it work for you, be realistic, pragmatic,
2:05
Speaker 1: and just make it so it's as easy and seamless
2:09
Speaker 1: as possible. This is actually a perfect topic for today
2:13
Speaker 1: because we are talking about our health, women's health really,
2:19
Speaker 1: so did you know that only thirty nine percent of
2:21
Speaker 1: participants in clinical trials for drugs and medical devices are women,
2:26
Speaker 1: despite the fact that we represent about fifty percent of
2:29
Speaker 1: the population, or that women's reproductive health concerns like menstrual disorders, endometriosis,
2:36
Speaker 1: and polycystic ovary syndrome known as PCOS are often under researched,
2:41
Speaker 1: which means there's limited understanding and treatment options. Women often
2:46
Speaker 1: face higher health care costs, including insurance premiums, due to
2:50
Speaker 1: factors like reproductive health coverage and maternity care. And get this,
2:55
Speaker 1: women are more likely than men to die from heart attacks.
2:58
Speaker 2: You want to know why.
3:02
Speaker 1: Hither Palapo is the CEO of Rochian Pharmaceuticals, and she's
3:07
Speaker 1: here to fill us in. Hither is a consummate multi
3:10
Speaker 1: hyphen it. She's an entrepreneur, she's the author of the
3:14
Speaker 1: book We're speaking, the Life Lessons of Kamala Harris, and
3:17
Speaker 1: she herself is a speaker. She's passionate about helping women
3:21
Speaker 1: advocate for the care they need. So today we're learning
3:25
Speaker 1: how the pervasiveness of gender bias in the medical industry
3:29
Speaker 1: has led to a slew of challenges for women seeking care,
3:32
Speaker 1: from how our pain is often dismissed or ignored.
3:35
Speaker 2: Complain until the doctor comes into the room, and when
3:39
Speaker 2: they say what's your scale on a pain of one
3:41
Speaker 2: to ten? Say it's ten as if I was a man.
3:44
Speaker 1: To the frankly shocking misconceptions and leading cause of death
3:48
Speaker 1: in women.
3:49
Speaker 2: Women are more likely to be discharged from an emergency
3:53
Speaker 2: department mid heart attack than men.
3:57
Speaker 1: And why infertility shouldn't be considered a women's health issue anymore.
4:02
Speaker 2: It's an economic issue, and it's a workforce issue, and
4:05
Speaker 2: it's a productivity issue.
4:07
Speaker 3: Today is not meant to scare or overwhelm, but rather
4:11
Speaker 3: to empower, inform, and serve as a reminder that it's
4:14
Speaker 3: your body and your intuition deserves to be heard, validated.
4:19
Speaker 2: And assessed. Hither is really fun.
4:22
Speaker 1: At the end, she tells us how she manifested her
4:24
Speaker 1: husband and why she loves Taco Bell so much. But
4:27
Speaker 1: she has this left brain right brain thing happening. She's
4:30
Speaker 1: able to share the medical and scientific knowledge in a
4:33
Speaker 1: way that's really digestible. I mean so much so even
4:36
Speaker 1: I understood it. And when I tell you science is
4:39
Speaker 1: not my thing, that is the understatement of the century.
4:43
Speaker 1: Today is really about us learning together, talking about how
4:47
Speaker 1: we can advocate for ourselves with doctors, health care systems
4:51
Speaker 1: and try to circumvent the holes that exist in the system.
4:55
Speaker 1: Side note, if you have a woman in your life
4:58
Speaker 1: that you love, I really reck commend sending them this
5:01
Speaker 1: podcast with the time code of the section about heart attacks.
5:04
Speaker 1: The information that hy the shares honestly may just save
5:08
Speaker 1: their life.
5:15
Speaker 2: Hia.
5:15
Speaker 1: Do you have a memory of what sparked your love
5:19
Speaker 1: of science or medicine?
5:21
Speaker 2: I do. I have a few that I think all
5:24
Speaker 2: intermingled together into why I decided to work in science
5:29
Speaker 2: and specifically life sciences when I grew up, so my
5:33
Speaker 2: father had a really unique way of delivering consequences for
5:38
Speaker 2: unexpected behavior. I think is the correct term in this
5:41
Speaker 2: day and age. Is that gentle parenting or I think
5:44
Speaker 2: it's nerdy parenting when I tell you what is Whenever
5:49
Speaker 2: I was out of line and like needed to be
5:51
Speaker 2: kind of brought back straight, he would hand me the
5:53
Speaker 2: medical Dictionary from his office. He would pick five words,
5:57
Speaker 2: and he would give me an hour to write an
5:59
Speaker 2: essay including essays yeah that like explained either like a
6:03
Speaker 2: certain kind of cancer and like the yes, do you
6:06
Speaker 2: do this with your kids? I'm going to I started
6:09
Speaker 2: that when I was about ten years old, and so
6:12
Speaker 2: Roe is eight so I hope he's ready because it's coming.
6:16
Speaker 2: It's kind of brilliant, it is. And then I was
6:19
Speaker 2: reading I don't know if you remember these or read these,
6:21
Speaker 2: but Lerlne McDaniel. She wrote these like young or middle
6:27
Speaker 2: grade books about kids with like terminal disease like cancer,
6:32
Speaker 2: brain tumors, heart transplants, whatnot, but were like why a romance,
6:37
Speaker 2: and so I got very intrigued, I remember, and at
6:42
Speaker 2: the same time when I was reading these and got
6:44
Speaker 2: super into it, my dad's best friend, who was my godfather,
6:48
Speaker 2: his leukemia returned and he ended up passing away. And
6:52
Speaker 2: I saw that deterioration from someone who has been like
6:56
Speaker 2: this giant bear of a man and my hero, to
7:00
Speaker 2: deteriorating in a hospital bed. And I remember then thinking,
7:06
Speaker 2: you work on cancer drugs with my dad, and yet
7:09
Speaker 2: we still couldn't figure out how to how to cure you,
7:14
Speaker 2: Like there's no reason why someone like you should pass away.
7:17
Speaker 2: So that kind of importance of the work that life
7:23
Speaker 2: sciences and scientists like my father did very much inspired
7:27
Speaker 2: what I think was what my career was going to be.
7:29
Speaker 2: I was going to figure out some way to work
7:31
Speaker 2: in this field. Now enter college. I was terrible a
7:35
Speaker 2: noise science classes. Really, I was a disaster in the lab.
7:39
Speaker 2: I just didn't have that level of attention in detail
7:43
Speaker 2: you need to be like working in a lab or
7:46
Speaker 2: to be a physician. I learned that I'm not meant
7:48
Speaker 2: to be in the lab. But in college I also
7:50
Speaker 2: studied history. I had a lot of business internships, and
7:53
Speaker 2: what I discovered is I love storytelling, I loved sales
7:57
Speaker 2: and marketing, and I said, maybe there's an opportunity for
7:59
Speaker 2: me to work in the business side of industry. So
8:02
Speaker 2: I ended up in tech sales actually right out of college.
8:06
Speaker 2: But after training, I got put on the global PHARMATYAM,
8:08
Speaker 2: which was fantastic gave me exposure to the industry in
8:12
Speaker 2: a unique way. But after a couple of years, I
8:15
Speaker 2: was like, I don't want to be a vendor anymore
8:17
Speaker 2: and I want to actually be in industry. And that
8:20
Speaker 2: was the time my father's company started to grow and
8:22
Speaker 2: scale and they began hiring. So that childhood dream of
8:27
Speaker 2: wanting to work with my dad on helping develop life
8:29
Speaker 2: saving medications finally came true. And that was in two
8:33
Speaker 2: thousand and nine, and fourteen years later, here we are,
8:38
Speaker 2: what's considered biopharmaceuticals. Biopharmaceuticals is basically now this overarching term
8:44
Speaker 2: for therapies, medications, and devices that fall within the biotech
8:50
Speaker 2: pharmaceutical sphere.
8:52
Speaker 1: So you've said, for most of your career, you've often
8:55
Speaker 1: been the youngest, the only woman, or one of the
8:58
Speaker 1: few people of color in a room. How does that
9:01
Speaker 1: perspective shape you when it comes to your view of medicine.
9:05
Speaker 2: It shapes me a lot, because I think about who
9:09
Speaker 2: are we formulating this for, who are we developing this for,
9:13
Speaker 2: and in the context of my own experience as a
9:16
Speaker 2: patient in the healthcare system. So I am the first
9:21
Speaker 2: to say, when we're designing a clinical study, are we
9:24
Speaker 2: making sure women are part of the enrollment criteria? Not
9:27
Speaker 2: only that, are we making sure we actually enroll fifty
9:30
Speaker 2: percent women? Are we making sure we enroll plenty of
9:33
Speaker 2: people of color? When I was studying a lot of
9:36
Speaker 2: clinical trial databases just to see who trials were done
9:40
Speaker 2: on in the past for the products that we were
9:42
Speaker 2: then developing, I saw that it was mostly men and
9:46
Speaker 2: largely white men, very not all often enough people of
9:50
Speaker 2: color enrolled. And when you are testing the clinical efficacy
9:55
Speaker 2: of a product, that's going to ostensibly go into a
9:58
Speaker 2: wide diversity of people on a very specific type of person,
10:03
Speaker 2: whose size, whose physiology, and whose gender could affect how
10:07
Speaker 2: the drug responds and body. I don't think you were
10:10
Speaker 2: actually doing your due diligence as a drug developer to
10:13
Speaker 2: make sure this is a drug for everybody. How is
10:17
Speaker 2: this not something that's mandated It was, So this is
10:23
Speaker 2: a fun story. Back in the seventies eighties, which was
10:27
Speaker 2: like the heyday of like when billion dollar drugs were
10:30
Speaker 2: getting developed and launched left and right, clinical investigator said,
10:35
Speaker 2: we don't know how to account for menstruation. Menstruation seems
10:40
Speaker 2: like a big variable to try to deal with as
10:43
Speaker 2: a part of the clinical development program, So we're not
10:46
Speaker 2: going to enroll women. It was a part of In
10:49
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety three, when the NIH's budget was finally reauthorized,
10:53
Speaker 2: that one major provision in there is all NIH studies
10:57
Speaker 2: had to enroll women and people of color, kind of
11:02
Speaker 2: in line with the same population of the United States.
11:05
Speaker 2: But it took ntil nineteen ninety three, and that was
11:08
Speaker 2: only still for NIH funded studies. It took industry about
11:12
Speaker 2: another ten years to catch up and get to a
11:14
Speaker 2: point where they were enrolling women, enrolling people of color
11:19
Speaker 2: to clinical studies.
11:21
Speaker 1: So tell me about how skeptical or not skeptical people
11:25
Speaker 1: should be, because I think back to COVID it's like
11:28
Speaker 1: a very prominent example. People were so skeptical of the vaccine,
11:34
Speaker 1: but then like the joke online now is like, oh,
11:37
Speaker 1: people were doing their own research on the vaccine, and
11:39
Speaker 1: yet like oh, zempic a diet drug is like yeah.
11:42
Speaker 2: Just shoot it in my arm or wherever you shoot it.
11:45
Speaker 2: Do people have reason to be skeptical at this day
11:48
Speaker 2: and age, I will say someone who spends a lot
11:51
Speaker 2: of time on Clinicaltrials dot gov, reading about who's been
11:55
Speaker 2: enrolled in studies and reading study reports. If you take
11:58
Speaker 2: a look at how the studies with the makeup of
12:01
Speaker 2: the studies were now, it is very diverse, and it
12:04
Speaker 2: does properly reflect we've come a long way. And I
12:07
Speaker 2: have to say, for as alarming as some of these
12:11
Speaker 2: moments are, in this case, the industry did course correct
12:14
Speaker 2: rather quickly in a time where they don't typically course
12:17
Speaker 2: correct as fast. And I will say with the COVID vaccine,
12:21
Speaker 2: it was one of the rare examples when the industry
12:26
Speaker 2: really worked together. There was incredible cross sector collaboration to
12:31
Speaker 2: be able to get these vaccines out as quickly as
12:34
Speaker 2: they were, to get them updated as quickly as they were.
12:37
Speaker 2: I think we're in a much stronger place now that
12:40
Speaker 2: should another pandemic happen, we have this kind of not
12:44
Speaker 2: just the technology, but the collaboration to be able to
12:47
Speaker 2: produce something quickly. And yeah, I read a lot of
12:51
Speaker 2: the research. I read a lot of the reporting, and
12:53
Speaker 2: I think this was a rare time where I was
12:56
Speaker 2: so impressed and amazed at how selfless the industry was,
13:00
Speaker 2: because we're not a very selfless industry. I'll be the
13:02
Speaker 2: first to admit it. So I'm looking at your sweatshirt now.
13:05
Speaker 1: And when we originally spoke, you told me that you
13:08
Speaker 1: were going to undergo a hysterectomy, and you had a
13:13
Speaker 1: perspective on it that I hadn't heard before.
13:16
Speaker 2: You were pissed. Yeah, why were you pissed? I'm thirty
13:21
Speaker 2: eight years old. I'll be thirty nine in two weeks.
13:24
Speaker 2: I kind of like came up right when the HPV
13:26
Speaker 2: vaccine was approved. But I grew up in a very
13:32
Speaker 2: conservative household, Like my mom took me to my first
13:35
Speaker 2: gynecological appointments, and there was this messaging from the doctors
13:41
Speaker 2: I had seen. It's like, well, if you're having sex,
13:43
Speaker 2: you should get the HPV vaccine. Couldn't tell my mom
13:46
Speaker 2: that that vCard was long gone, and so it felt
13:51
Speaker 2: like it would have been admitting something that I wasn't
13:53
Speaker 2: ready to tell her. And I couldn't just see the
13:55
Speaker 2: doctor on my own. I should have gone a plant
13:57
Speaker 2: parenthood got the vaccine when I could, but I think
14:01
Speaker 2: because I was scared of that kind of cultural social terms, yeah,
14:07
Speaker 2: that I never got it. So in the past I've
14:10
Speaker 2: been monitoring with my OBGYN my annual paps. I've also
14:14
Speaker 2: had to get kolposcopies and ongoing monitoring and leaps that
14:20
Speaker 2: to monitor the presence at HBV sixteen that has in
14:23
Speaker 2: my body caused cervical dysplasia, so really high grade lesions
14:28
Speaker 2: in my lower and upper cervix. Now, it was after
14:32
Speaker 2: my pap earlier this year and then the following couple
14:34
Speaker 2: that my ob said, I think you're going to need
14:38
Speaker 2: a hysterectomy. I'm going to put you in touch with
14:40
Speaker 2: this specialist and luckily he is the best surgeon for
14:45
Speaker 2: this in New York City. All my ob friends have
14:48
Speaker 2: said if I had to have this, he's who I
14:50
Speaker 2: would go to. So I'm grateful for access to great
14:54
Speaker 2: doctors and supportive doctors and care. I'm glad that it
14:58
Speaker 2: can be done laparscopically, which is much more minimally invasive.
15:02
Speaker 2: I can go home the same day, within six weeks,
15:04
Speaker 2: things will be fine. But how did we get here
15:07
Speaker 2: where it was either you got the HPUV vaccine to
15:10
Speaker 2: help reduce the risk of gynecological cancers in this way
15:14
Speaker 2: and lesions may not have been this severe, or a hysterectomy,
15:18
Speaker 2: and there's nothing in between. And why is there nothing
15:21
Speaker 2: in between? Women have never been treated as a priority
15:25
Speaker 2: in our healthcare system. I mean, just like we talked
15:27
Speaker 2: about before, drugs, even that were originally now used as
15:31
Speaker 2: first line therapy for breast cancer and ovarian cancer was
15:34
Speaker 2: usually tested it in a cancer that predominantly mail patients
15:39
Speaker 2: were enrolled in first before we got around to seeing
15:41
Speaker 2: if it worked on women. Chemotherapy drugs, if we just
15:45
Speaker 2: take a look at this example, most of the first
15:48
Speaker 2: line chemotherapy drugs that you get when you're diagnosed with
15:52
Speaker 2: a solid tumor cancer have been tested on men. First, wow,
15:57
Speaker 2: and in other cancers first, before they got around to
16:01
Speaker 2: doing breast cancer, ovarian cancer, uterine cervical cancer study, we
16:06
Speaker 2: decided what the first line therapies would be based on
16:10
Speaker 2: men got it and what men have and then we
16:12
Speaker 2: kind of said, does this happen to work for women?
16:15
Speaker 2: We've never really taken a first, a women first approach
16:18
Speaker 2: in drug development. In therapeutic development, we're starting to, I
16:22
Speaker 2: think the identification of the BROCA gene to help identify
16:26
Speaker 2: the risk of breast cancer for women and create these
16:29
Speaker 2: sort of pre viber modes of you know, undergoing double
16:33
Speaker 2: mystectomies and whatnot before the cancer actually has a chance
16:38
Speaker 2: to develop is one approach, and in a way this
16:41
Speaker 2: is also the same thing. But why are we having
16:44
Speaker 2: to have whole organs removed because we haven't developed therapies
16:48
Speaker 2: and we just women are just not viewed as important enough,
16:53
Speaker 2: or reimbursement isn't important enough. There's a lot of different
16:57
Speaker 2: reasons why. But consider who runs healthcare and the biopharma industry.
17:01
Speaker 1: Is it's just like who's funding these studies basically, but
17:05
Speaker 1: it goes to how much money can you make?
17:07
Speaker 2: What is the total addressable market? And we still haven't
17:10
Speaker 2: taken considered that women make up over fifty percent of
17:14
Speaker 2: the population in the United States. So there is a
17:17
Speaker 2: hierarchy of care. There is a hierarchy of I would say,
17:22
Speaker 2: where you're investing your research dollars, and it's usually in
17:25
Speaker 2: what has traditionally always made money versus where the unmet
17:29
Speaker 2: need and the need really is.
17:32
Speaker 1: Is there a better model from another country that you've seen.
17:35
Speaker 2: No, this is a global issue. Wow, So I'm like
17:41
Speaker 2: shocked to hear that. I thought you were gonna be like, yeah,
17:44
Speaker 2: in Sweden, think about it. In the United States is
17:47
Speaker 2: still where the most cutting edge research and healthcare in
17:51
Speaker 2: the biopharmat industry is still happening. It's not happening anywhere else.
17:57
Speaker 2: But at the same time, the men running industries are
18:01
Speaker 2: the ones deciding where to allocate research dollars, the ones
18:05
Speaker 2: running the big healthcare funds are the ones deciding who
18:09
Speaker 2: to invest in. And women's health while being important for
18:15
Speaker 2: every part of our life, you can't have life without
18:18
Speaker 2: women birthing more people into this world. Women's healthcare rights
18:23
Speaker 2: are basically been revoked in many states in this country
18:27
Speaker 2: due to abortion bands and nailing down on reproductive healthcare access.
18:33
Speaker 2: It's scary.
18:36
Speaker 1: So I read that that white men became the gold
18:39
Speaker 1: standard of drug studies.
18:41
Speaker 2: I would say white men were the ones think about.
18:44
Speaker 2: Who was running the pharma companies for many, many, many years,
18:48
Speaker 2: white men, So it didn't occur to them that maybe
18:51
Speaker 2: we should be testing this on different people. They thought
18:53
Speaker 2: what worked on them would work on everybody. And what
18:56
Speaker 2: we're now seeing is that there are health differences between
19:00
Speaker 2: different ethnic groups and between men and women. So if
19:05
Speaker 2: you're just calculating dose of a drug based on a
19:08
Speaker 2: six foot man's physiology, and in white man with his
19:12
Speaker 2: particular conditions that he's genetically predisposed to in lifestyle wise
19:17
Speaker 2: is predisposed to, you're missing out on the fact that
19:20
Speaker 2: women typically carry more fat and less water in their body. Therefore,
19:25
Speaker 2: drugs are going to interact differently inside women. South Asian people,
19:28
Speaker 2: for example, tend to have higher cholesterol and at greater
19:32
Speaker 2: risk for cardiac disease. But we are more produceposed to diabetes,
19:37
Speaker 2: heart disease, etc. And we tend to carry more fat
19:40
Speaker 2: in our mid section, and those affect how a drug
19:43
Speaker 2: will absorb in your body and how much will enter
19:45
Speaker 2: the bloodstream. So the quote unquote gold standard of things,
19:50
Speaker 2: white men being the predominant and roally in these clinical
19:53
Speaker 2: studies in so many of the drugs that we take
19:56
Speaker 2: without thinking, yes has changed. That's one of the things
20:02
Speaker 2: that has remarkably changed, and I am delighted that we
20:06
Speaker 2: are putting a more diverse lens and approach in clinical
20:11
Speaker 2: trial enrollment. We also need to do better, got it.
20:15
Speaker 1: So we've heard of the pink tax I did in
20:18
Speaker 1: an episode where we learned that shampoo is more expensive
20:24
Speaker 1: for women, raizors, tampons, obviously, HM is healthcare more expensive
20:29
Speaker 1: for women?
20:30
Speaker 2: Yes? That was a quick yes. Think about it this way.
20:34
Speaker 2: Women are still paying out of pocket for birth control,
20:37
Speaker 2: even though the Affordable Care Act had meant to say
20:40
Speaker 2: everyone should have free access to contraceptive care regardless of
20:45
Speaker 2: your gender, and insurers were at one point required to
20:49
Speaker 2: cover all birth control, no exceptions. Now once, something that
20:53
Speaker 2: happened and a weakening of the Affordable Care Act was
20:57
Speaker 2: that religious led employers could refuse to could decline or
21:03
Speaker 2: opt out of that due to quote unquote religious beliefs.
21:07
Speaker 2: Thirty percent of hospitals in the United States are run
21:11
Speaker 2: by the Catholic Church or Catholic charities. So thirty percent
21:18
Speaker 2: of hospitals will not necessarily or there's extra red tape
21:23
Speaker 2: in order to get your birth control covered, or you
21:25
Speaker 2: choose to pay for it out of pocket. Meanwhile, viagra
21:29
Speaker 2: is covered by every ensure. That thing is cheap, it's
21:33
Speaker 2: covered completely. That's wild. So that's one very clear example,
21:39
Speaker 2: and the discrepancy of men are supposed to you would
21:45
Speaker 2: think that the argument of well, you should do what
21:48
Speaker 2: the Lord has blessed you with. So if the Lord
21:51
Speaker 2: has blessed you with the inability to get it up,
21:54
Speaker 2: you should live with that.
21:57
Speaker 4: Oh my god, or you should pay out of pocket
22:01
Speaker 4: for it, exactly. I don't think you should live with it,
22:03
Speaker 4: but you should pay out of pocket though, Yeah, women
22:05
Speaker 4: have today.
22:06
Speaker 2: Whereas contraceptive care like birth control is prescribed for a
22:10
Speaker 2: million different reasons outside of preventing pregnancy. It is the
22:15
Speaker 2: first first standard of treatment for fibroids, pcos and other endemetriosis,
22:21
Speaker 2: and a lot of other pynacological conditions have nothing to
22:25
Speaker 2: do with preventing pregnancy that directly directly impact a woman's
22:30
Speaker 2: quality of life. She is in pain, she can't go
22:32
Speaker 2: to work if she is in pain, she can't go
22:35
Speaker 2: to school. If she is in pain, she can't live.
22:39
Speaker 2: Women should not have to pay or people with uteruses
22:41
Speaker 2: should not have to pay out of pocket for necessary
22:44
Speaker 2: care that allows them to live totally.
22:48
Speaker 1: So, you mentioned heart disease, but I was reading that
22:51
Speaker 1: it's the leading cause of death for both genders in
22:54
Speaker 1: the US, which I did not know.
22:55
Speaker 2: And women are more likely to die after they have
22:58
Speaker 2: a heart attack. Can you explain why that is? When
23:01
Speaker 2: you think of a heart attack, what are the symptoms?
23:03
Speaker 2: You think of? Tight chest? I also think of a man,
23:07
Speaker 2: to be honest, like I think of big and sex
23:09
Speaker 2: in the city. It's like such a thing in movies
23:12
Speaker 2: for men to suffer from to keeling over the immediate
23:15
Speaker 2: chest pain, etcetera. For a women, a heart attack could
23:19
Speaker 2: manifest with nausea, it could manifest with shortness of breath,
23:26
Speaker 2: panicked feelings, anxiety. So just a regular Thursday, basically. So,
23:33
Speaker 2: unless you know you go to the emergency department to
23:37
Speaker 2: ask for a high sensitivity traponent test and an EKG
23:43
Speaker 2: and for aspirin, you advocate for yourself to get the
23:47
Speaker 2: suspected heart attack protocol, you will likely be just sent
23:51
Speaker 2: home saying, oh you have food poisoning. Oh, you're stressed.
23:55
Speaker 2: And women are more likely to be discharged from an
23:58
Speaker 2: emergency department mid heart attack than men, and that's why
24:04
Speaker 2: they have a higher death rate. And this is actually
24:06
Speaker 2: very close to me because our caregiver, who's been with
24:09
Speaker 2: our family for eight years now, she her daughter texts
24:14
Speaker 2: me on a Sunday night saying, so my mother won't
24:18
Speaker 2: be coming in. She has complaining of not feeling well.
24:22
Speaker 2: She went to the emergency department and it turns out
24:24
Speaker 2: she was having a heart that she had a stead
24:26
Speaker 2: put in. Wow. And when I talk to her, I go,
24:29
Speaker 2: how did you know to go to the hospital and
24:31
Speaker 2: how did you know to actually advocate for this? She said,
24:35
Speaker 2: I've been hearing you talk about the different symptoms of
24:37
Speaker 2: women's heart attacks for six years now, and so I
24:41
Speaker 2: knew what to ask for.
24:43
Speaker 1: So The New York Times cites a study that says
24:46
Speaker 1: doctors and nurses prescribe less pain medication to women than
24:49
Speaker 1: men after surgery, even though women report morphs, frequent and
24:54
Speaker 1: severe pain levels. So it's not just about who's being studied,
24:58
Speaker 1: it's actually and there's inequality and care as well. What
25:03
Speaker 1: do you know about the bias that exists among doctors
25:06
Speaker 1: and is it at all acknowledged.
25:09
Speaker 2: I am very lucky to have a lot of friends
25:12
Speaker 2: who are physicians at the beginning of their career and
25:14
Speaker 2: starting to take on senior leadership positions where they are
25:17
Speaker 2: shifting just because what was standard of care when we
25:20
Speaker 2: were learning and what we were taught when we were
25:23
Speaker 2: interns and in medical school, these kind things can change too.
25:27
Speaker 2: And they listen to their nurses. I think so many
25:31
Speaker 2: times a nurse will say, Hey, I need to get
25:33
Speaker 2: some pain meds for this patient. A doctor who's seeing
25:36
Speaker 2: arounding on twenty patients at a time may not just
25:40
Speaker 2: be like automatically. That bias is a part of the curriculum.
25:44
Speaker 2: It's a part of how medicine has been delivered in
25:46
Speaker 2: this country and worldwide for years. And I also have
25:50
Speaker 2: to point out that also black women suffered the most
25:54
Speaker 2: in this. Serena Williams shoes her bodies. She's had a
25:57
Speaker 2: polmonny embolism in the past after she had delivered her
26:01
Speaker 2: daughter and she felt off and she knew what it
26:04
Speaker 2: could have been. She immediately had to advocate for herself
26:07
Speaker 2: to get a CET and get a heperin drip stat
26:10
Speaker 2: because she felt a clock in her body. And even
26:14
Speaker 2: then it took two, three, four attempts before she actually
26:19
Speaker 2: got those tests and those medicines. So I can't explain
26:24
Speaker 2: how we got here because there again, it's been we've
26:27
Speaker 2: been developing how we deliver medicine from the mail lens
26:32
Speaker 2: and buy men for so long we haven't ever thought
26:36
Speaker 2: about and it purse a patient first approach to medicine.
26:41
Speaker 2: To that too. I will say for anyone who's in
26:43
Speaker 2: a hospital watching this, or find some self in after
26:46
Speaker 2: watching this, don't be afraid to advocate for yourself, even
26:50
Speaker 2: if you have to say I need a job of motrin,
26:54
Speaker 2: I need the injectable tile and all, I need pain
26:57
Speaker 2: medication right now, and complain until the doctor comes into
27:04
Speaker 2: the room. And when they say, what's your scale out
27:06
Speaker 2: a pain of one to ten, say it's ten as
27:08
Speaker 2: if I was a man. Because we're used to having pain,
27:12
Speaker 2: so we downplay it. We do, but also we don't
27:15
Speaker 2: want to inconvenience. How many times would we are we like,
27:18
Speaker 2: oh I don't want to bother the doctor. Oh I
27:20
Speaker 2: don't want to bother the nurse. I'm okay, I can
27:22
Speaker 2: handle it. Yeh, I mean we have an organ that
27:24
Speaker 2: sheds once a month, like we know how to live
27:28
Speaker 2: with pain in a way, women.
27:30
Speaker 1: And families are also asked to take on extreme costs
27:33
Speaker 1: when it comes to infertility. This is something I'm thirty two,
27:36
Speaker 1: so a lot of my friends are starting to get
27:39
Speaker 1: to this point. They didn't realize a how frequent infertility
27:45
Speaker 1: is and also how expensive it is.
27:48
Speaker 2: And it's considered a women's health issue. It's an economic issue,
27:53
Speaker 2: and it's a workforce issue, and it's a productivity issue
27:57
Speaker 2: because if you aren't able to sustain your population growth,
28:03
Speaker 2: how can a country go on, especially now when one
28:08
Speaker 2: party wants to restrict immigration at severe rates. How are
28:12
Speaker 2: you going to sustain, if not grow your population to
28:15
Speaker 2: work and contribute to the GDP to keep cities and
28:19
Speaker 2: towns and the country running. In order to have a country,
28:23
Speaker 2: you need people. How do you have people now increasingly
28:28
Speaker 2: with the help of fertility services. This is not a
28:32
Speaker 2: women's issue. This is a global population and a global
28:36
Speaker 2: development issue. And unfortunately to your point, to the point
28:40
Speaker 2: of where is the cost of fertility treatments, like how
28:43
Speaker 2: is it structured? It's not in the actual retrieval or
28:48
Speaker 2: the physician and nurse costs of the process. It's the
28:52
Speaker 2: drugs because these drugs, even if they are insured covered
28:56
Speaker 2: by insurance, it's usually very partial coverage or selective coverage
29:01
Speaker 2: of a couple of the drugs. People are still paying
29:03
Speaker 2: out of pocket thousands of dollars for these drugs that
29:08
Speaker 2: again are old hormones. There is nothing new or novel
29:14
Speaker 2: about fertility drugs. There is a single manufacturer on the
29:17
Speaker 2: market right now who can charge what they want, so
29:22
Speaker 2: they do. They can mark it up to any price
29:25
Speaker 2: they want. Yeah, right now, you only have one manufacturer
29:30
Speaker 2: on the market, yep, and they own the market and therefore,
29:34
Speaker 2: by being the only one, they could price this however
29:36
Speaker 2: it want. It is very Martin Schakrelli. But if you
29:39
Speaker 2: don't aggressively price things like in the hundreds of thousands
29:44
Speaker 2: of dollars, it doesn't necessarily get the same attention like
29:48
Speaker 2: it's not so egregious or people are like, well, it's
29:51
Speaker 2: just expensive, except when you stop and say why is
29:54
Speaker 2: it expensive? And I've talked to fertility doctor friends of
29:57
Speaker 2: mine and listen, I've looked into this. It requires a
30:00
Speaker 2: different kind of manufacturing suite that my manufacturing partners don't
30:04
Speaker 2: have right now. It requires a way to build a
30:08
Speaker 2: new distribution channel to be able to make this as
30:10
Speaker 2: cheap as possible, because when you consider why a drug
30:13
Speaker 2: can be so expensive in America, we have many layers
30:16
Speaker 2: to our distribution that goes from manufacturer to patient than
30:20
Speaker 2: other countries do. They have a much more flat system.
30:24
Speaker 2: So it goes from manufacturer to distributor to then depending
30:29
Speaker 2: on if it's kind of a retail pharmacy dispensary, a
30:32
Speaker 2: pharmacy benefit manager working with your insurer to figure out
30:36
Speaker 2: what price they're going to pay to then take it
30:38
Speaker 2: to that pharmacy, and even different pharmacies are going to
30:41
Speaker 2: have different prices to then go to the patient. Got it.
30:44
Speaker 1: So there's a lot behind the scenes that we have
30:46
Speaker 1: to consider, is what you're saying.
30:48
Speaker 2: There is, And I think it's an excuse to keep
30:52
Speaker 2: a very maintain a status quo in a very bloated
30:55
Speaker 2: system because it's a profitable system. Everyone is making more
31:00
Speaker 2: money than I would say that they need to when
31:03
Speaker 2: you consider people not being able to eat or afford
31:07
Speaker 2: infuluin on a regular basis, because these companies are extremely
31:13
Speaker 2: profitable where profits are growing, and I see executive pay
31:17
Speaker 2: and shareholder return being the people who get the most
31:21
Speaker 2: of that, and less going to the employees who went
31:24
Speaker 2: into this wanting to help people. Tell me if I'm wrong.
31:28
Speaker 1: It seems to me like the only way to make
31:30
Speaker 1: something like this not a women's issue is for the
31:32
Speaker 1: government to get involved, Like it has to be subsidized
31:35
Speaker 1: in some way, or it has to be mandated that
31:39
Speaker 1: egg freezing is covered by certain employers, or if not
31:43
Speaker 1: subsidized by the government.
31:46
Speaker 2: I would say I wish the government would take a
31:49
Speaker 2: more active role in I wouldn't even say dictating drug prices.
31:54
Speaker 2: I think there's a workaround which, just like you did
31:57
Speaker 2: with the COVID vaccine, become the biggest purchaser of some
32:02
Speaker 2: drugs that people are having a hard time affording and
32:05
Speaker 2: having access to, and then work with local pharmacies like
32:09
Speaker 2: you did with the COVID vaccine on the distribution of
32:11
Speaker 2: those drugs. And when you are the biggest procure you
32:15
Speaker 2: can negotiate on price in a way that circumvents the
32:19
Speaker 2: whole issue of biopharma. Not wanting the government to say
32:24
Speaker 2: what they should price it as right, take that economic
32:27
Speaker 2: carot and use it as a stick instead.
32:31
Speaker 1: The term gas lighting or medical gas lighting is real.
32:35
Speaker 1: I was reading trying to figure out if I had
32:38
Speaker 1: experienced it, how.
32:39
Speaker 2: Do you spot it. It's so subtle, That's what's confusing.
32:44
Speaker 2: It is. Sometimes it's not the egregious. You're in insane
32:47
Speaker 2: pain after having delivered a baby, and you're being ignored
32:51
Speaker 2: and you see, you know you don't feel well. That
32:54
Speaker 2: is medical. I would say negligence and outright terrible care.
33:02
Speaker 2: Gaslightink is so subtle, and it's so insidious because it's
33:05
Speaker 2: in a way where you're kind of said, you know,
33:08
Speaker 2: I've seen this before, You'll be fine with this. When
33:11
Speaker 2: someone is too quick to say this is all you
33:14
Speaker 2: need and they want to just move on to the
33:17
Speaker 2: next patient, versus you know, taking the time, making sure
33:22
Speaker 2: you've answered all your questions, explaining things multiple times if
33:26
Speaker 2: you're struggling to understand. I'm so lucky to have I
33:30
Speaker 2: think just the world's best obgyn. She has never rushed me.
33:35
Speaker 2: When she called me to tell me about meeting a hysterectomy,
33:38
Speaker 2: she stayed on the phone with me for forty five minutes, wow,
33:42
Speaker 2: talking me through different types of different options, saying I
33:45
Speaker 2: don't think conization is going to be the right thing
33:48
Speaker 2: for you, given we've seen now these lesions get increasingly severe.
33:52
Speaker 2: She goes, are you sure you're done having kids? I
33:55
Speaker 2: can refer you to a fertility clinic and you could
33:57
Speaker 2: do a round of IVF and just free some embryos
34:00
Speaker 2: if you're not sure, And she just was so supportive,
34:05
Speaker 2: and she was listening to me as a person and
34:07
Speaker 2: not just thinking about my uterus and my reproductive systant
34:10
Speaker 2: as a patient. How are you feeling about it now?
34:13
Speaker 1: It must be kind of scary to feel like there's
34:17
Speaker 1: some things being taken.
34:18
Speaker 2: Out of you. It is. And then you know, I
34:21
Speaker 2: had my period to get like for the second time
34:23
Speaker 2: in two weeks, and I'm like, can't wait goodbye, excited
34:27
Speaker 2: for you to be evicted. It's both and and I'm
34:30
Speaker 2: someone who's had really severe postpartum and prenatal depression in
34:34
Speaker 2: both of my pregnancies. So something I requested very early
34:38
Speaker 2: on was a referral to a reproductive psychiatrist. And I
34:41
Speaker 2: have friends who made excellent recommendations, and I've been talking
34:45
Speaker 2: to one and got on an anti anxiety med because
34:50
Speaker 2: I know how this region of my body has affected
34:56
Speaker 2: my mental health. They are intertwined, and while we haven't
35:00
Speaker 2: identified those specific mechanisms of action of how various hormonal
35:05
Speaker 2: release and imbalances can affect our neurochemical balance, I mean,
35:11
Speaker 2: I have a feeling it's there, and I would like
35:13
Speaker 2: to be able to invest time and resources in identifying
35:17
Speaker 2: that women's reproductive system brain connection. We just haven't really
35:24
Speaker 2: understood it. But again, I'm lucky to have a support
35:28
Speaker 2: of ob who immediately wrote that referral, gave me a
35:31
Speaker 2: list of psychiatrists that she's referred patients to in the past,
35:35
Speaker 2: and then checks it on me. That's important.
35:38
Speaker 1: Are there higher authorities to escalate a problem if it persists?
35:44
Speaker 2: I think second and third opinions are kind of the
35:47
Speaker 2: first line of escalation, because if you're being told now
35:50
Speaker 2: by three different people, maybe they're onto something. I would
35:56
Speaker 2: also say it makes me annoyed that we have to
36:00
Speaker 2: do this. Sometimes finding a doctor who visibly resembles who
36:04
Speaker 2: you are is really important. I have friends who are
36:08
Speaker 2: black women who only go to black women physicians and
36:13
Speaker 2: dentists and optometrists and healthcare providers. And even though that
36:16
Speaker 2: might adds a significant more work for them to find
36:20
Speaker 2: these physicians and if it's not in their neighborhood to
36:22
Speaker 2: get to them. For them, it's a priority because they
36:25
Speaker 2: go I know when I come in and I have questions,
36:28
Speaker 2: my pain, my symptoms, my concerns will be taken seriously.
36:32
Speaker 2: Think about who your doctors are and within what's covered,
36:36
Speaker 2: do what you can to find ones that you do
36:40
Speaker 2: feel comfortable with. The second thing is is I yes,
36:44
Speaker 2: I work in biopharma, and I think Eastern medicine has
36:48
Speaker 2: had a lot of these things figured out before we
36:50
Speaker 2: ever did. So places like Parsley Health that does employ
36:56
Speaker 2: a East West approach and a holistic view of healthcare
36:59
Speaker 2: might be the right kind of primary care facility for
37:03
Speaker 2: you to be able to know that you're going to
37:06
Speaker 2: be taken care of, but also you're going to take
37:08
Speaker 2: both approaches in resolving what malady is. And I think
37:12
Speaker 2: the last thing is is remembering in this country we
37:15
Speaker 2: don't have an actual healthcare system. We have a disease
37:18
Speaker 2: management system that is very profitable, and the role of
37:22
Speaker 2: a doctor is to diagnose and treat. They are looking
37:26
Speaker 2: for problems because they'll know how to treat it and
37:30
Speaker 2: it's a very clear cut. So if you do need
37:34
Speaker 2: something more holistic, go to practices that employ that approach,
37:39
Speaker 2: or go see an acupuncturist or a Chinese medicine doctor
37:44
Speaker 2: or an aurvebic practitioner and understand and get to know
37:48
Speaker 2: your body in a different level using a different approach.
37:51
Speaker 2: But ultimately, I think it all kind of falls into
37:55
Speaker 2: wanting to take better care of yourself. And I will
37:57
Speaker 2: say the last thing is is try just to take
37:59
Speaker 2: care of yourself. The basics sounds so boring, eat well,
38:03
Speaker 2: move your body, get sleep, manage your stress. But ultimately
38:07
Speaker 2: that is what wellness and health is going to contribute to.
38:12
Speaker 1: Okay, we've talked a lot today about what's wrong.
38:17
Speaker 2: Overall? What do you think we're doing right? What gives
38:21
Speaker 2: you hope? What gives me hope? And health care for women,
38:26
Speaker 2: especially in America these days is actually whenever I open
38:29
Speaker 2: Instagram and TikTok, Yeah, I guess I have just gotten
38:33
Speaker 2: on doctor talk and women's physician talk. Yeah, but the
38:37
Speaker 2: way I have seen so many incredible physicians educating about
38:44
Speaker 2: their respective areas, from plastic surgery and more cosmetic elements
38:49
Speaker 2: to cardiac care, to how they're actually delivering care for patients.
38:54
Speaker 2: Dermatology TikTok is very fascinating. It's fun to watch because
39:01
Speaker 2: the people work outside the system. These women are largely
39:05
Speaker 2: saying I get what I have to do as part
39:07
Speaker 2: of my job, but here's how I want to do
39:10
Speaker 2: it things differently. And social media has been an incredible
39:14
Speaker 2: vehicle for I think, teaching women about their bodies and
39:18
Speaker 2: how to also advocate from this self in the system
39:21
Speaker 2: that already exists. And I think in time we will
39:24
Speaker 2: see change. We're starting to, but it's going to take
39:27
Speaker 2: a lot more of us to work in this industry,
39:31
Speaker 2: get to the senior levels within this industry, or build
39:33
Speaker 2: the companies that we're not being served by. And I
39:35
Speaker 2: think you're seeing a lot more women. Digital health, I
39:39
Speaker 2: think is a great opportunity for women's healthcare to be
39:43
Speaker 2: prioritized in the women's health system to be built from
39:46
Speaker 2: the ground up. If being able to have one on
39:49
Speaker 2: one time with the doctor as hard telemedicine can be
39:52
Speaker 2: and extremely useful. I've never met my psychiatrist, just zoomed
39:55
Speaker 2: with her.
39:56
Speaker 1: Okay, I want to do a little rapid fire about you.
39:59
Speaker 1: So you wrote a book about Kamala Harris. It's called
40:01
Speaker 1: We're Speaking The Life lessons of Kamala Harris how to
40:03
Speaker 1: use your voice, be assertive, and own your story. What
40:07
Speaker 1: is the lesson or advice from the book that changed
40:09
Speaker 1: the way that you move throughout the world.
40:12
Speaker 2: It's words of wisdom from her mother, which is, don't
40:16
Speaker 2: let anyone tell you who you are. You tell them
40:19
Speaker 2: who you are. And I think women mostly have been
40:23
Speaker 2: put into boxes that are convenient for men to understand
40:26
Speaker 2: their roles in society. I am not just a mom,
40:30
Speaker 2: I am not just a wife. I'm not just someone
40:32
Speaker 2: who works in healthcare, and I am not just a
40:35
Speaker 2: content creator. I reject shrinking myself to fit your comfort
40:39
Speaker 2: and I'm all about the hyphens. And if that makes
40:42
Speaker 2: you uncomfortable, well there's the door. Yep. I want to
40:47
Speaker 2: snap for that.
40:49
Speaker 1: Your website says hit that on the go, and you
40:52
Speaker 1: are really on the go. I see you on Instagram
40:54
Speaker 1: for everybody who like they need to follow you. Your
40:58
Speaker 1: goal is to bring the same sensibility to all the
40:59
Speaker 1: time decisions small and big that women make every day.
41:02
Speaker 1: You walked in here and I thought, wow, you look
41:04
Speaker 1: so glowy, and immediately you shared.
41:07
Speaker 2: M what it was you said? What did you share?
41:09
Speaker 2: I won't share. You mix serum with your foundation or
41:12
Speaker 2: tinted moisturizer and you get it into like a nice,
41:15
Speaker 2: beautiful jelly consistency and apply it. And then I also
41:18
Speaker 2: like to apply it like I'll smear it all over
41:21
Speaker 2: my face and then I'll blend it out with a
41:22
Speaker 2: very fluffy brush like a powder brush. And that to
41:26
Speaker 2: me is just I saw this on Instagram. My friend
41:29
Speaker 2: Adaitya actually was the one who did this real I
41:32
Speaker 2: am like, this is genius. It really works. It works
41:36
Speaker 2: so well. And the second thing is is if you're
41:38
Speaker 2: using like like almost stay on like a stick concealer dad,
41:43
Speaker 2: like a concealer brush, and like a tiny bit of
41:45
Speaker 2: face oil, and then use that to blend it out
41:47
Speaker 2: so you don't get the creases and like a cake. Look,
41:50
Speaker 2: it looks really natural. So I love that you're such
41:53
Speaker 2: a sharer.
41:54
Speaker 1: One of the things that you talk about a lot
41:56
Speaker 1: is that you love a deeply or you deeply love
41:58
Speaker 1: a well packed suitcase.
42:00
Speaker 2: I used to be good at this. If something happened
42:03
Speaker 2: and I lost it. What is the key to a
42:06
Speaker 2: well pack suitcase? Step one is pack from the items
42:10
Speaker 2: that you always reach for when you're at home, like
42:13
Speaker 2: eighty percent of your suitcase should be power pieces, like
42:17
Speaker 2: the thing the genes that you reach for when you're
42:19
Speaker 2: on your period and you're blowing, the shirt that always
42:23
Speaker 2: makes you a million bucks. The even your makeup bag.
42:27
Speaker 2: It's like, what is my daily makeup routine? Do that
42:30
Speaker 2: and then throw in a fun lipstick and then you
42:31
Speaker 2: have room about twenty percent to do I'm going to Paris,
42:35
Speaker 2: I need to have that striped shirt.
42:37
Speaker 1: Yes, okay, you're a multi hyphen it so you also
42:40
Speaker 1: have an amazing newsletter, smart Solutions for your Best Life.
42:44
Speaker 1: Your site says it gives you a few bullet points
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Speaker 1: about like what it is. This one stood out to me.
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Speaker 1: It says, give graciously? Yes, what do you give graciously
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Speaker 1: most often?
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Speaker 2: Besides advice? Yeah? I had to actually when you sent
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Speaker 2: this question over, I had to ask, like my girlfriends
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Speaker 2: because I'm like, I don't know what I can graciously
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Speaker 2: the most And they said your time, And they said,
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Speaker 2: you never rush people. You really listen and you're always
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Speaker 2: careful to ask do you need to vent? Or do
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Speaker 2: you want advice? And you can change your mind in between.
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Speaker 2: But I just want to mentally prepare myself for how
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Speaker 2: I can best help you, And I think that was
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Speaker 2: like the nicest thing one anyone's ever said to me.
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Speaker 2: But two, I think we all just want to be
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Speaker 2: heard at the end of the day. We want to
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Speaker 2: feel heard and we want to feel valued, and so
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Speaker 2: by being a good listener and helping where I can,
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Speaker 2: and even if that's just I'm door dashing some taco bell,
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Speaker 2: like grab a seat on the couch, here's a blanket, talk,
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Speaker 2: let's talk. What's the last thing someone gave to you? Graciously?
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Speaker 2: There has been three pieces of advice that I've heard
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Speaker 2: from three different friends that I think have really been
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Speaker 2: sticking with me that I keep mentally coming back to
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Speaker 2: when I find myself being overwhelmed. So one is a
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Speaker 2: month rough that my friend Nathie often shares in her
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Speaker 2: yoga classes, which is breathe here and be here. And
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Speaker 2: it's a moment of reminder of just when things seem
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Speaker 2: to be getting so overwhelming, reground yourself by just saying
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Speaker 2: breathe here and be here. She also recorded like a
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Speaker 2: beautiful morning yoga flow to me like this was a
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Speaker 2: couple of years ago that I still practice and start
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Speaker 2: almost every single day with. And that to me is
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Speaker 2: one of the greatest gifts I've ever been given, and
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Speaker 2: she's said she's going to do a new meditation for
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Speaker 2: me for the surgery recovery time, which I'm very grateful for.
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Speaker 2: The second piece of advice is know what season you're in.
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Speaker 2: Are you planting seeds, are you tending and growing a garden,
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Speaker 2: or are you harvesting. That's something my friend Neha has
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Speaker 2: said and she spent. She went on a career pause
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Speaker 2: to prioritize family life when her son was born, and
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Speaker 2: out of that pause came the platform she's building called
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Speaker 2: Mother and Title, which is redefining what it means to
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Speaker 2: be a stay at home parent in a more empowered, modern,
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Speaker 2: powerful way, which really is needed. It's very needed. And
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Speaker 2: she talks a lot about how those early years of
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Speaker 2: her parenting journey she was planting the seeds for now
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Speaker 2: this cultivation and harvesting time she's in now. So as
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Speaker 2: someone's praying for her own pause, it reminds me to
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Speaker 2: just plant the seeds. You do not need to be
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Speaker 2: harvesting all the time, and you can't, so I find
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Speaker 2: that really helpful. The third is from my friend Como,
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Speaker 2: who's also been my coach when she said, reminded me
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Speaker 2: that recovering from surgery is not a break. These are
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Speaker 2: two very separate things. Thought of it as a break too.
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Speaker 2: Thank you. I'm glad I'm not alone totally, but that
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Speaker 2: wisdom reminds me to actually, there is a period for
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Speaker 2: recovery and then there's a period for a pause. And
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Speaker 2: so that wisdom also sticks with me when I find
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Speaker 2: myself self sabotaging and starting to put things on my
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Speaker 2: calendar that don't need to be there in this period
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Speaker 2: that I'm pausing that I'm grateful for. Do you have
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Speaker 2: a mechanism for when you say yes versus no? I have,
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Speaker 2: and I often sometimes break my own rules. So I
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Speaker 2: do have now sort of three caveats for what I
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Speaker 2: was saying yes to in this period leading up to surgery,
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Speaker 2: which is I have nothing going on the next day,
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Speaker 2: I stand to learn and get something, not just press
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Speaker 2: or whatnot. But this is a relationship I want to build,
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Speaker 2: and there is value that I'm also going to receive
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Speaker 2: beyond the tactical out there, Like there's a soulful connection
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Speaker 2: here that I want to explore deeper. That that is
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Speaker 2: very much. I have to make that decision. But they
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Speaker 2: bring the ones that they think will work for me,
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Speaker 2: and honestly not being my own worst, ending me and
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Speaker 2: letting somebody else screen everything first. So that's really hard,
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Speaker 2: but I have an incredible team who now I'm just like,
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Speaker 2: I need you to tell me if this meets the
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Speaker 2: basic criteria, and if it does, then we can have
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Speaker 2: a conversation.
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Speaker 1: I've never heard anybody state the second one, the soulful one,
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Speaker 1: but I think that's how a lot of us make
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Speaker 1: decisions and we just don't recognize it.
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Speaker 2: It's something I've been more aware of lately, of what
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Speaker 2: why do I say yes to something? And there is
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Speaker 2: always that inexplicable My soul lit up when I thought
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Speaker 2: about this opportunity that you can't put into paper, and
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Speaker 2: so I've stopped trying to try to explain it, and
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Speaker 2: I just sort of it's that soul gut check.
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Speaker 1: It's like the hell, yes, okay, a book that changed
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Speaker 1: your life, something you think everybody should read.
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Speaker 2: This is a plug for all romance novels, and I'm
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Speaker 2: going to tell you why romance novels I think will
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Speaker 2: save the world. That's a really big statement. My life
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Speaker 2: has gotten infinitely better since I started prioritizing reading romance
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Speaker 2: novels for a few reasons. These are worlds where people
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Speaker 2: who are historically underrepresented or don't have the power. They
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Speaker 2: are loved for all their multitudes, not in spite of
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Speaker 2: some of them their pleasure, and they are treated as
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Speaker 2: a priority. So they come first. Wow, literally and figuratively. Yeah,
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Speaker 2: it was just good to say. And there's always a
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Speaker 2: happily ever after. Who doesn't love that? So in the
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Speaker 2: predictability of romance novels, I have also found incredibly incredible
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Speaker 2: diverse stories, Like reading queer romance has really taught me
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Speaker 2: what does that queer experience look like? That is a
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Speaker 2: help of that? And enjoyed these stories And what does
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Speaker 2: two men falling in love? How similar it is to
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Speaker 2: a man and a woman falling in love, but then
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Speaker 2: also how different it is same with two women, same
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Speaker 2: with someone who might identify as a sexual and the
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Speaker 2: limitations that their non desires. How does love evolve in
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Speaker 2: that kind of relationship? Don binary? And I think art
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Speaker 2: has a way of changing hearts and minds in a
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Speaker 2: way reporting and nonfiction content doesn't. So when I find
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Speaker 2: myself holding on to old ways or old mindsets and
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Speaker 2: questioning why am I so fixed or rigid in something
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Speaker 2: that isn't part of my own experience. I need to
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Speaker 2: learn about this more. I look for a romance novel
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Speaker 2: about that topic, because there is the comfort of the
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Speaker 2: romance novel and in these tropes and the happily ever
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Speaker 2: After and the same exact plot, and I also get
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Speaker 2: something much deeper.
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Speaker 1: So I've never thought of that, And kudos to you
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Speaker 1: for seeking out diverse stories. Hey, we do a pretty
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Speaker 1: smart question. Okay, so everyone.
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Speaker 2: Who okay, okay, go ahead. What is the best advice
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Speaker 2: someone has given you? And why? And how about the worst? Oh?
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Speaker 2: I love this question for you. This is a really
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Speaker 2: good question for me. Yeah. The best advice my mother
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Speaker 2: gave me as a child is she never forced me
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Speaker 2: into a single career. Whenever I said I wanted to
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Speaker 2: be a pop star, a fashion designer, mister T from
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Speaker 2: the A team, I had a weird phase. It's okay.
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Speaker 2: She would also say, and a doctor, And it wasn't
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Speaker 2: It was never you were an Indian kid, you must
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Speaker 2: be a doctor. It was you can do many things
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Speaker 2: that and was so important. And I've kind of evolved
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Speaker 2: that amber sand into hyphens that make up my total career.
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Speaker 2: But I do the same with my kid. When Roe especially,
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Speaker 2: it's like I want to do this, I want to
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Speaker 2: do this, I want to do this. I go, great, there,
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Speaker 2: you can do one thing, you could do many things.
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Speaker 2: I can't wait to see what you'll do. I don't
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Speaker 2: want him to ever feel like he has to be
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Speaker 2: limited into being just one thing. The worst advice anyone
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Speaker 2: has ever given me was probably to niche down in
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Speaker 2: that I could only create one kind of content, And
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Speaker 2: I was like, I categorically reject that, and I'm glad
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Speaker 2: I did. What's the smartest decision you've ever made marrying
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Speaker 2: my husband. You know, when we talk about stepping into
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Speaker 2: our power and owning our multitudes, having the right partner, really,
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Speaker 2: I think is the biggest indicator of how your life
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Speaker 2: is going to be.
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Speaker 1: Everyone says that that's why I'm so stressed out.
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Speaker 2: Do you want me to tell you how I manifested
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Speaker 2: my husband? Sure? Tell us. So. Back in two thousand
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Speaker 2: and nine, I had just turned twenty five and my
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Speaker 2: best friend was raving about the secret. So I read
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Speaker 2: the Secret right after my birthday and I was like, oh,
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Speaker 2: manifestation sounds fun. Let's manifest something, and I go I
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Speaker 2: was still skeptical. So I'm like, I'm gonna manifest a husband. Literally.
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Speaker 2: So I did what the book told you, which is
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Speaker 2: like write a list or create a vision board of
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Speaker 2: the thing that you think you want. And then I did. So.
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Speaker 2: I wrote a list of qualities I thought my husband
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Speaker 2: needed to have. I then went to women in my
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Speaker 2: life who had relationships like the one I wanted for myself. Yeah,
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Speaker 2: and I'm an only child that I am extremely extremely
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Speaker 2: close to my cousin and his wife, like she's effectively
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Speaker 2: my sister in law. So one night I was over
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Speaker 2: at her house. We were having a glass of wine,
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Speaker 2: and I showed her this list because their marriage is
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Speaker 2: one I really respect and admire I kind of wanted
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Speaker 2: for myself. She took one look at the list, she
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Speaker 2: ripped it up, and she goes, that's your parents' list.
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Speaker 2: Oh that's not your list. Good cousin, I know. And
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Speaker 2: she found I'm going to a colume and.
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Speaker 1: Be like, Okay, advice, T Yeah, I don't need an ear,
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Speaker 1: I need advice.
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Speaker 2: Yes, this is awesome. Thank you, thank you so great.
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Speaker 1: I want to thank the people that make the show possible.
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Speaker 1: Colleen O'Neill, Jill Salama, Karrie O'Keefe and Phil speed Tech. Okay,
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Speaker 1: you know what time it is. Today's a good day.
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Speaker 1: To have a good day. I'll see you next week.