268: From Burned Out to Fully Charged in LIfe and Work with Dr. Neha Sangwan

The accountability gives you that power. So when you realize that you said something or didn't say something, did something or didn't do something, now all of a sudden you have the power to change something.

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Foreign.

Hello everybody. Welcome to another episode of Finding Brave. Once again, I I'm like levitating. I'm so excited to have to have our guest today, Dr. Neha Sangwon, who I've known now for years. It might be eight years, we'll have to look back. And you were I met you as an amazing guest of my very first podcast with Mo Fall. Best Work, Best Life. And NEH is here to talk about a million things that are going to be important to us. But of course her new book, which now you're seeing this in October, we're doing this in September right at your book launch day. As you start. As you start to party. Happy birthday to your book. I'm so happy to have you. Thank you for making the time in this Amazing time in your life. Your second book. Thank you.

My second book, baby. Yes. Love it.

I'm thrilled. All right. We are going to be talking about this people a lot of things, but this from Burnt out to Fully charged in Life and work, which is basically the subtitle of your book. And I need to apologize in advance that I'm so glad I'm talking to a doctor right now. I have had the worst bout of who knows what. Not Covid but cold flu and I don't get sick. So I think what we're talking about here is actually going to make my head explode. We don't want to see that on screen, but so forgive me if I'm not my sharp self. It boy. We were just mentioning how not being well really makes us off kilter. And we're going to talk about everything. But let me tell you about Neha. Here we are. Dr. Neha Sanguan has a unique background indeed. I didn't know this till I read this. Neha, she's a mechanical and biomedical engineer as well. What's that?

I said that's true.

That's true.

As I worked for Motorola in the 90s when Motorola was the thing.

And then you became an internal medicine.

Physician like every good Indian child would.

There's a lot to say about that. Okay, we'll probably get to that. After a decade of caring for hospitalized patients and this is where I met you, Right where you had all these realizations. She realized she could be of service to people long before they showed up in the emergency room. In 2008, she left her physician partnership and founded her own company, Intuitive Intelligence. As an entrepreneur, speaker, author, executive coach, Neha combines the art of communication with the science of medicine to transform work, cultures and people. She has become a powerful catalyst for corporate and medical teams, leaders and communities to prevent, prevent and heal burnout while also creating healthy partnerships built on trust, compassion and collaboration. Neha combines the science of medicine, as we said in the art and communication to bridge health, happiness and performance. You're a three time TEDx speaker. Isn't that an amazing experience? And the author of two books. The first I so adored and I still talk about and I still recommend to People Talk Rx and we're going to have links below.

I can show them that. Oh, let's.

What a groundbreaking. That was a hay house book, right?

It was a hay house book. That's true.

No, it's. I still truly recommend it and quote from it. And the second, which is out today. Yeah. How to heal. No, how to simplify, personalize and heal. Burnout powered by me. All right, my dear, we've got about 30 minutes here. That's going to be hard for me to, to manage here, but I want to, I want to start with, you know, a little bit of your story. Now you talk about it in TalkRx, how you began to see people with life threatening illnesses in the emergency room come back.

No.

And something occurred to you there. Can you start there with your personal story? And then why are we talking about burnout now? Why with all the things that you could write about, why were you compelled to write this story? Can we start there?

Sure. So I would say, you know, I didn't get out of school until I was 31 years old. I finished my residency and then I feel, it felt like I just continued on with residency by becoming a hospital physician. So a hospital physician means that when you come into the emergency department and they decide that you're sick enough to come in, I'm the doctor who comes down to the emergency room, takes the history and physical and takes care of you through discharge. So I would have 18 hospitalized patients a day. So you're dealing with the patients, you're dealing with the emerging catastrophes, you're dealing with the families. One day in June 17, 2004, I walked in and somebody had called out sick on our team. So they also gave me the air traffic control for the hospital where you vet all incoming, you know, traumas and, and admissions. So from 6am to 11am I got through two of my patients, right? So five hours I got through two of my patients because I was trying to handle everything else that was going on. And I turned to the nurse, Nina, and I said to her, nina, could you give 40 IV millie equivalent. Could you give 40 milliliters equivalents of IV potassium to the gentleman in 636? And she turned to me and she said, Dr. Sanguine, are you okay? That was my first indication I might not be. I said, yeah, why? She said, because that's the fourth time you've asked me that same question in under five minutes. And I've answered you every time. It was one of those moments where it felt a little surreal and it felt like, what is she talking about? But I had become so used to the inundated beeping and pager and Dr. Sangwon and right. That getting interrupted, redoing things, starting again. The chaos had finally got me all the way to ineffectiveness and so really, really scary. And I still didn't get it. So, so I went to the bathroom, which is pretty much where you have privacy, and I grabbed my hospital phone and I called a colleague, my psychiatric. A psychiatric colleague. And I said, roger, something seems a little odd. Do you think I could. When can I speak to you? And he said, how about 5 o' clock today? It was like 11 in the morning. He said, how about 5 o' clock Today? And I said, I looked at my pale face in the mirror and I said, how about now? And he said, oh, my gosh, come on, come on over, like, whatever you need.

He was in the hospital.

Yeah, he was seeing patients.

What a blessing.

In the clinic, which was attached to the hospital. And I went over there and one hour later, he wrote me a prescription for one month off weekly sessions with him and a prescription for Prozac. So in one hour, I went from running the hospital to standing in line at the pharmacy as a patient on medical leave, waiting for my medication. And so I have to say, it was such a startling day. It was nearly 20 years ago. And here's where the difficulty came in. I didn't know what this thing was. And I remember driving home. Now, first of all, I shouldn't have been driving. I now understand that. But I was driving myself home, still a little stunned. Actually, let me back up in Roger's office right at the end when I realized what he was giving me. I said, but, Roger, I have 16 more patients to see. Like, I thought I was just sidelining you to let you know that. I said the same thing a few times, like. Like, maybe I just need a rest. Maybe I just need to kind of talk it out. And he said to me, oh, Neha, don't you worry those 16 patients are going to be seen. It just won't be by you. And I think.

Do you mind me asking, Neha, what did he diagnose you with? Do you mind?

Yeah. No, he put me on stress leave, he said. Then as he was talking to me that hour, he started talking to me about people pleasing and how my way of showing up in the hospital was I would take any vacant shift if just like I did that day. I took the pager because somebody called out sick and there was no backup schedule. So when they said, neha, can you do this? I had taken an oath to serve my patients. So listen, if nobody's here to do it, I'll do it right? And so I think there's a way that as healers now, I'm an executive coach as well. And as a coach, as a healer, as a parent, you know, there's these ways that we learn to just give, and we keep absorbing and taking on more and more, and we don't even realize that we literally have physical limits. And that day, that day, I ran right into the brick wall of that limit. And here's what I'll say. I'll say, thank God for Nina, for Roger, for them kind of waking me up because I could have written the wrong medication for a patient. I could have hurt someone. I could have. Driving home that day, like, all of it, I look back and I just think, you know, sometimes burnout's not something we recognize because we're so in it. But that's why as a society, as a community, as those we love and lead, we really need to be able to say something. You know, we need to say, are you okay? You're not quite like yourself, you know? And so I remember driving home that day and being a little bit baffled, like, what is this thing that's going on? And I looked at the medication on the passenger seat, and as I was driving, I thought, I don't know what's wrong with me, but I'm pretty sure it's not a proac deficiency. And so I came home and I put it in the top drawer of my dresser. I knew I was going to be seeing Roger every week. And I thought I started having, like, flashbacks of medical school and pharmacology class where they made us memorize all the side effects. And I was more afraid of that than I was of how I was feeling. And I. It's something I had prescribed to patients many times before for the right person, for the right ailment, for the right amount of time. I. I did it myself, but it didn't feel like the right fit for me. And I said, I'm not depressed. Like, I was pretty high functioning until an hour ago. I don't know what's going on. And so I went weekly. And chapter two of the book is literally me and Roger's five sessions. So you see two doctors in 2004 talking about what we know, what we don't know, why the world doesn't talk about this, what. What is happening. And he taught me that I was burned out. And he taught me what I. What I knew about that. So five weeks later, fast forward, I walk into his office and it's the first time that my throat, which was like, so constricted, has now relaxed. And it's the first time that I've started sleeping through the night. And he had given me another month you know, of time off. And I came in and I was so excited to tell him. And I said, roger. And he said, oh, my gosh, Neha, the Prozac is really kicking in.

And you hadn't taken.

And that was the. Say it again. What were you saying?

You hadn't taken it?

No, I hadn't taken it.

Did he know you hadn't taken it?

Well, no, I didn't really think about telling him. I mean, here's the problem with making a doctor your patient. We self manage.

You people are impossible to help. Forget it. So.

Right there, we're resistant. We resist. So I put it in. In the drawer and I never thought of it again. I didn't. I wasn't hiding it from him. I didn't mean to not tell him. I didn't even think about it. I was like, okay, I'll put this here, and if I need it, I'll start taking it. So I said to him, listen, I never took the proac. I'm so sorry. But I wanted to know if our sessions could help. And he looked at me, kathy, this was like another trauma for me.

I'm dying.

And he said, neha, you'll. You have to make a decision because the insurance company doesn't pay me to see patients who aren't on medication. So are you going to start taking the medication or are you going to find another provider? And in that moment, I actually got how when incentives aren't aligned properly, people don't get the care they need because I'm a doctor in the system, I'm burned out and I'm costing the system money. There's somebody here that is helping me, and I'm getting better, and he's asking me do I want to start taking a medication I don't need, Right? I'm clearly starting to get better, or do I want to find another provider which felt like abandonment to me. Like, wait a minute, but. But you're the one who's helping me, right? And I decided that, you know, normally it would be a good thing that I didn't need the medication. In this moment, it wasn't. And I decided then that meant I needed to find someone who could help me that didn't mandate me to be on meds. And so he helped me, you know, start to find other people. And he also extended my leave. He said, you're going to need more time. So I was off for a total of three months. And thank God I found Mark Hyman, Jim Gordon, lots of other people along the way who were Willing to help me and guide me. So I had gotten, this is the way I think about it. I had gotten what I needed from him and now my lessons were going in another direction.

Well, I have a million things to say in questions, so let me dig in. But I do want to say one thing. Having been a marriage and family therapist, psychiatrists are a particular brand of doctor and medication and medication management is part of what they do. You could see a therapist, you could see a psychologist. Right. So just for everyone to know, I don't want to paint any, you know, negative pictures of psychiatrists per se. You know that medication is where you. If I were a marriage and family therapist and I thought you needed medication, I would send you to a psychiatrist and we would work in tandem. Right. So just wanted everyone to understand that. Wow, I need to ask you this. I work with, as you know, mid to high level professional women and I will say this unabashedly. There are certain cultural groups that have what you are experiencing in spades. Indian women, Asian women, some Jewish women. You know, now I'm Greek and Italian and I had, you know, some of these aspects, but it was really more, I think how I raised and how I internalized how I was raised. But I would love you to touch on for a minute. You know, I just gave a talk to women in securitization of the Structured Finance association and a number of women there were are Asian and you know, I've had this conversation 2 million times that certain cultures and families and systems train us, train women and men. My focus is women on being the best, not saying no, striving to be the top. This is like the water that they swim in. Would you say that? I'm going to pose two questions. Your cultural experience, your cultural training contributed is an added layer to what you experienced. And are you seeing that in the people you work with? And secondly, I want to say this because I think it's important. Experts of any kind, whether you're a physician, whether you're a medical expert, whether you're are often very difficult to treat or I don't treat anymore, I'm a coach. They're very difficult to coach because their world has been about being at the top of helping others.

That's right.

And it's almost unfathom fathomable when an expert of that level, your level, actually needs help themselves. But this is what I want to say to everyone listening that experience, and I'm dealing with 10 women right now, is what makes you better at helping others. Because you had to sit in the driver's seat looking at your Prozac prescription, you had to realize, I hope this isn't hurtful to say, but you failed in a very big way. You could have, I thought you were going to say, you prescribed that to someone who would have died being given that, you know, you were making mistakes.

Yep.

I feel like those breakdown moments are what make us more of who we are and therefore far better to serve other people. Tell me what you think about all of that.

All right, so I'll start with how I think about any complex problem. And I think it's about me. We, world. So burnout is a very complicated issue. It's a global. I would call it a global. Our own global epidemic that's going on. But I think when people think about it, they simplify it and then they don't understand why that's not the complete picture. So there's me. There was a part of me that was people pleasing, came from an Indian cultural background, like you had mentioned. I wanted to get an A. I wanted my community, my parents, to be proud of me. Evidenced by. By the engineer who became a doctor. Right. And I was so driven for that. Accolades, that appreciation, that love that I thought those accomplishments would give me, that I was willing to push through my body. I was. At any cost, I was willing to do it. I had trauma really early in my life and I became a people pleaser very young. And in the people pleasing, I was very tuned in to everybody else's needs and wants. And so that was the part that was me. And Roger really helped me understand that in our sessions. Then there's the we piece. I was in a somewhat dysfunctional and toxic work environment where bullying was occurring, where leadership didn't handle conflict, where it was kind of avoided. And can we just focus on the patient? Focus on the patient. But they wouldn't take care of the fact that we were being bullied by each other. Right.

So the system is a mess. And in a very toxic system, you're not going to serve others.

And what am I going to do as a people pleaser? I'm going to try to fill all those gaps. I'll take care of it. I'll do it. I'll do it. Right. So there's me, there's the we, the culture, and then there's the world, and that's the policies where there's no backup schedule plan, there's no staffing. You make your budget number by understaffing. Right. So there's all these ways in Healthcare and in other industries where we've adapted to try and make the goals that we think we need to make. But it's a me we world. So yes to the cultural impact that's huge. What was the second question? The second one was.

Oh, it was really more of an observation, but I'd love your thoughts. There's a lot of experts in the world and a lot of experts are terribly burnt out and they're traumatized and they're in some ways broken. I'm going to use the word non therapeutic term broken. But because of everything they fought for to be experts, sometimes they are not open to being vulnerable, to look at what is going wrong in their lives. Do you believe that? Do you see that?

Yeah. And I live that. So yes, yes and yes. So me burning out felt like the worst day of my life. But what I will say is it has cracked me open like most crises do to opening my heart to a new way of thinking and being. And the reason is. So we have 70,000, approximately 70,000 thoughts a day as humans and 90 to 95% of them are the same as yesterday. And so that's why it's so hard to change our mind. But the moment you end up on medical leave and you're a doctor who was running the hospital an hour earlier, in that moment, you can't believe you're the one on stress leave. You can't believe someone just sent you home. And so that cracks open your world to a new perspective because now that wasn't in my paradigm. So crisis actually helps me. Whether it's a heart attack, a stroke, a pneumonia, they're awful in the moment and they're scary and sometimes painful, but what they do is, it's almost a spiritual breakdown of epic proportions. Because somewhere along the way I started saying yes when I really meant no. I started to say I'd take an extra shift when I needed an extra night of sleep. I started making these decisions that felt small, but they actually led me farther and farther away from my own self care and my own authentic self. When you talk about experts, Kathy, what I think is really important is the world gives us accolades for knowing the answer and being right. And people come to us and we, we feel like we are of value and important. And it can be in any profession when you get good at what you do. The world rewards you with belonging and fame and likes on social media and whatever it is. And we need to belong as much as we need air and oxygen. And so we're these beings, these social Beings that fall into the trap. Right. Of if my mind is really sharp, maybe I can just figure out how to live there and ignore my body, my heart, my spirit, all these other ways. So here you are coaching someone who's an expert in their field and they don't know how to say, I don't know. They don't know. It's very awkward and uncomfortable for them to be in the space of asking for help. They're the one giving help. So 100%, I agree with you. Yeah.

You're saying, well, I, I would also throw this out and see if this fits your paradigm. I really believe this as a former therapist and a corporate VP that got my ass kicked, you know, sexual harassment, blah, blah, blah. And then 16 years of this coaching. Insight's awesome, but insight doesn't change our lives. It's action that changes, that changes our lives. But not just any action. It's a different kind of action than you've ever taken before. And I. That's what I see, changes lives. And I think that fits really nicely into what you said. This gap where you are sent home. You're going to have a series of days doing something you've never done before, which is not practice medicine and get paid for it.

That's even worse. That's worse. They paid me 60% of my pay.

That was hard for you on leave.

Oh, my God. You.

You weren't even in the place to see that. You, you all contributed to where I'm at. Not that you're going to blame, but God damn, you should be paying me a little. You didn't see that then. Interesting.

No, I felt like a complete and utter failure. Why are all my colleagues. Everybody else is handling it. They're still working. How can I be the one that isn't? And I. I don't need handouts. I'm happy to work for the money that I receive. And so it. I think it was a bit of pride. I think it was a bit of shock. I think it was a paradigm I had never even entertained, thought of or imagined.

But what's fascinating is that break in the universe, that chasm is what has led you to be who you are today.

100%.

You were forced to take different action. I love it.

I love it. Yeah. And I love this paradigm that you're speaking about. I'm going to tell you how I think of it. So that awareness, by the way, it's my secret weapon of how I go into a room full of doctors, a room full of CEOs, people who are experts at what they do. My job is to make sure in the first five minutes, I tell them something they didn't know. They didn't know.

What is it?

What do you tell them?

So you have to do, like, a twist. You have to do something that surprises them, that they really didn't.

Didn't think about themselves, about themselves or about the world they're in?

Yes. So something as simple as the five levels of agreement, let's say. So I'll teach them. Like, they'll say, we. We need to figure out how to make the team around here more competent. Okay.

Oh, good.

Well, I'll say, okay, let's. Let's do this tool. And so I take them through the five levels of agreement, and they start to realize in a scenario, they were giving level zero agreements, meaning they're just calling out, like, I need two units of blood, stat. Okay? And nobody answers. Which is a level one agreement, where someone just acknowledges, like, oh, blood, you need blood. That's an acknowledgment. A level two agreement is, oh, wow, wow, you're right. Like, we really need to get this person blood. So now I'm giving you positive interest. Like, I agree with whatever you're saying.

Got it.

Third level of agreement is, yes, we do need to get blood. If I can finish what I'm doing, I'll go get it. If I can finish what I'm doing, that's like a qualified yes. And then a level four is a clear yes, which is, yes, we need blood.

Okay.

And a level five is, I'll go get type O blood, O positive blood. I'll be back in 15 minutes. That's details confirmed. Now, if people just yell out, hey, we need two units of blood stat. And nobody answers. And what they're complaining about is that everybody around this team is incompetent. What I'll do is I'll pick a tool, I'll show them, and then I'll say to them, so when you are in the operating room and you say, get me two units of blood, stat. What level agreement is that? And they're like, oh, my God, that's a zero. And I'm like, see, isn't it interesting how you're giving level zero agreements, but you're wondering how the team could be more competent? This is why we're doing the program. And what. Wow.

And why. Why is it. What's the ultimate reason you get zero agreement because you're a narcissistic authoritarian barking out orders because you don't respect other People, because you.

No, no, no. Yeah, yeah, it is. Because they, they focus more on task and less on relationship. They act like every, you know, request is it's about getting something done. And what about the ongoing relationship with someone? The way you, you get it done either builds trust and strengthens the relationship or ruins the relationship. Now, if you and I are in a transaction, we're only going to be together once. If I cut you off, if I, you know, whatever I do, it's not going to matter if we don't have an ongoing relationship. But when people work with each other, they live in families, they're in a relationship. It's about how you get things done and how you, how you do it. Because now it's about the relationship and the task. And so they didn't, they don't really understand that. They just say, oh, it's about the patient. We all have to do it. And they're barking orders, they're doing this. They're not calling. They don't know people's names. They. Right. So when you, when you don't treat people, the relationship as sacred as the accomplishment and what you need to get done, you won't have be able to do it over time very effectively.

I got questions, Neha, ask your questions.

Well, one more.

Go ahead.

You just said insight to action. Okay. And. And it's action that makes things happen. So I would say the insight, which is an awareness. Yes. And you and I are both in this space. The thing to me that tells me whether someone is actually going to do something is if they go from insight to personal accountability. Once they get to personal accountability and they take ownership for their part in something. Now, I know we can move to exploring different options, getting clear on which option they want to try, and taking them to action. But if they don't go from insight to personal accountability, I am a little weary that I'm ever going to see action. True change and action. And I think that's the piece of that is the game change. How do you inspire personal accountability in yourself and in those you love and lead?

Love it. Not to always bring it back to me, but my latest book, Most Powerful you, talks about how I was seeing over and over and over, no matter what level these women were at. I mean, doctors, lawyers, millionaires. Why are, why am I hearing the same problems and the same challenges? And the very first thing I noticed was they were missing the bravery.

That's right.

Take accountability.

That's right.

Eyes wide open for what isn't working. I don't mean, blame themselves. I mean, wait a minute, this isn't working. But what can I do? Or how am I sustaining it? Or how am I co creating it? Bravery. But bravery isn't enough. Then you need power. I mean, personal power, positive power. It's so similar. It's that, hang on here, what's going on? But only when you say, I can do something here.

Yeah. Yep. That's when the accountability gives you that power. So when you realize that you said something or didn't say something, did something or didn't do something, now all of a sudden you have the power to change something. And I would say in any interaction, let's say you and I got in a conflict. So there's a part of it that would be me, there's a part of it that would be you. And there may be a likely a part of it that is the circumstances. Maybe it's launch day for my book, or you didn't feel well, or whatever there. So there's me. We world. There's always the three pieces. And when you take accountability, you don't want to go overboard and be taking accountability for things that aren't yours. You don't want to be blaming the other person and, and missing your part, and you don't want to be missing what led to it in the bigger world. So there's three pieces that are so good.

All right, now here's my deep question.

Sure.

Where do I begin? A lot of what I've learned in doing this podcast is about patriarchy and the systems, the system we live in. This is not to bash men. Patriarchy hurts both. All genders.

It does.

But I, I have to ask you this. There are. I've seen, because I've worked with people in a lot of different industries, that there is true narcissistic personality disorder.

At.

That, we'll call it that. But it also, people who don't want to be vulnerable, of course, will not allow themselves to be. They are the expert. They are the owner. They are, they are the. You know. So when you are sharing your five agreements, I have to ask this. Now let me. I have a big question, so let me narrow it. I believe that there are certain subgroups of people that will resist that terribly that I don't need to get agreement. I need to tell you what to do, and you need to do it.

That's right.

If you're talking about a narcissist agreement, which often involves some sort of question or challenge, like, I can't agree with you, Neha, till I Understand something and this doesn't make sense to me, so you need to explain it to me better. Now. We don't have time in the emergency room when it's, you know, or a surgery stat. But agreement often comes with. Hang on, I gotta push back here and let me understand something. I think there are certain people and I want to ask you, I guess here's my question. I think that the idea of building relationship in order for a system to work is something that women often understand better. Now is that neurobiological or is that how we're trained? We're not going to get into that. But I see that women fundamentally understand that better than many men. Not all women. Not all men. Do you find that when you're working with groups of men, let's say physicians, CEOs, like I will come out and say this, a lot of male CEOs I've spoken to, they're not going to go deep enough and be vulnerable enough to do the kind of coaching that I, that I have seen creates breakthrough. They're just, they're very well defended. Do you see that? Now if I were working with CEOs that you do that are willing to go deep, I'm sure I'd see something different. But do you see that there's a difference in gender that or even in industry segment, among doctors, among academicians, among deans of universities. I see a lot of inability to be vulnerable, unwillingness to be vulnerable in a number of high level people in certain industries. What do you think when I say that?

So yes, I'm, I'm very much in agreement with what you're saying. But here's the thing. Somebody who is deeply defended and really protecting themselves is protecting something very vulnerable right behind that.

Of course.

So oftentimes the more defended and much more of an expert we have become, it often is born from a trauma much earlier that we have now over indexed and worked really hard to become something. Right. To make up for that failure or that part of us that we feel is less than. So usually when I dig deep enough, there's trauma. Yes. All right, so women, biologically, we are literally born with oxytocin in our system. Hormonally, oxytocin is the tendon befriend hormone. And it is the difference with if there's like a fire in a building, right. And by the way, males are, have testosterone in place of that. Okay. Which is a fight or flight type of defense. Because they were hunter gatherers, they needed to take care of, kill food and fight predators. So, yes, even on a biological level, yes, there is a difference. And that tendon befriend, oxytocin is when there's fire in a building. The stereotype, right, of testosterone is it would get out, run, okay, someone with oxytocin in their system, higher levels of oxytocin would go, okay, does everybody have their jacket? Come on. Okay, let's go. And there's a, there's a, there's a we framing that just comes with attend and befriend. So it goes all the way down to biological, not to mention social, socializing. Now, if you notice, many women who excel in the systems that we have in place do so by becoming very testosterone like, and they adjust themselves in order to succeed in a. In a world that asks something very different of us. And so, yes, I agree with you on the self protection and all of that. To me, narcissism is when you only care about yourself, right? And there's, there's different kinds of narcissism. There's a grandiose narcissism, but there's also the kind of narcissism that comes from low self esteem. And in reaction to it's all about me, because it has to be, because I don't know how I would handle it if someone else was getting attention, right? So I think there's different flavors of it, but I think all of that does play a role. And I do think that there's a biological component. I think there's a socializing component in our society. And my mom, like, what I'd say about my mom is I asked her why she has endured so much in her life. And she said to me, you know, Neha, one of the things you have taught me just by being your mother, I've watched you, is you have taught me that I had choice that I never knew I had because I'm 53, I've never been married. My babies, they're book babies that I will leave in this world, but I don't have biological babies. And in an Indian household, that was a big deal for me not to get married, me not to give grandkids, all of that. And she said to me, as a woman in the culture I was raised, our education was important, but it was never as important as being a mother and a partner. And we were considered the glue of the family. And if our family fell apart at any cost, it was our fault, because the woman of the household is supposed to keep the family and the community together. And I just Said to her, wow.

Mom, difficult, difficult role. Yeah, it's really mantle that you have.

That's too heavy to bear.

Yeah, it's. And so I understood that. I read Joy Luck Club. I tried to really kind of delve into what is it to be a woman of this era, in this culture and really develop more compassion for my mother, rather than saying, mom, like, you can choose something different. And she was like, you know, Neha, when you said those things to me, it didn't impact me half as much as me watching you do it.

What a brilliant woman.

Yeah, she really is.

What a woman.

Kind of amazing.

Mama shout out to you, huh? I could talk to you for a hundred hours. I'm gonna keep you on for a few more minutes so that we can talk about very quickly, so everyone understands. We know the me, we know the we about burnout. I think from what we're talking about. Can you just tell us from a perspective that you have unlike anyone else, what is going on in the world that is contributing? I mean, I think I know the answer, but I want to hear from you what's happening in this moment in time that is making us have a true mental health crisis. What. What is happening?

Yeah, so I think you gotta, you gotta look at things over time. When we had hunter gatherer, our, our ancestors, them listening to their body, like paying attention to a pit in their stomach or hearing rustling in the leaves in the forest was the difference between life and death. So they were very tuned into their own body. They used their senses to survive. We then went through the industrial revolution and, and made machines and made. We. We got rid of our biological circadian rhythm where you have wake cycle, sleep cycle, like you go up with the sun and down with the sunset. We gave up all these things for automated machinery. And faster is better, do more with less. Every year, profit over people. Somewhere in our society, we've created the ability to do more. And all of us have collectively taken our minds, put them together in our companies and decided speeding up our external world, making communication instant, making a cell phone for everyone in their pocket, being able to communicate on the Internet. Everything we're doing is about speeding up the external world. And I think that we have simultaneously tuned out of our own internal system. So we, we say things like, only pay attention to research trials that are n equals 10,000 subjects who did a double blinded placebo controlled trial. Like that's the thing we listen to. But just like me that day driving home from burnout, there's something really important which is n equals 1. My lived experience in my own body, my knowing that I know something's wrong here and I'm willing to listen to you putting me on leave and I'm willing to come into these sessions that you want to do with me, but this medication that doesn't feel right to me. And so that's my own intuition, that's my own gut knowing, that's my own lived experience of being 50 years or at the time, 33 years in that body. And so we now in the world need to value n equals 1. Our own togetherness here and having our body communicate not. Not pushing through our body, but partnering with it. Our mind often pushes through our body rather than partners with it. We got to what if like faster isn't better but in fact we needed to learn how to slow down in order to speed up sometimes. What if doing more with less isn't really the thing, but it's like knowing when to do less. What if it's not profit over people and all these things were taught about success aren't actually true? What if it's people like everybody matters and everybody wins. What if it's by investing in your people is how you make a greater profit? And so I think we need to rethink this. I think we're swimming in wanting to belong and society has some outdated beliefs that we've been raised with and we believe our success. And what if those aren't right? What if that isn't the truth? Love it.

I love every word.

I want to ask you this as well. I have seen this with myself. I haven't broken the addiction, but you know, at 63, I was used to seeing people. If I gave a speaking gig, they were looking at me. If I was talking to someone, we were looking at each other. We were. Everyone is on their phone. Yesterday I was looking again. We can't even walk down the street one block without pulling it out. I'm in the elevator. It's. I'm addicted. And I'm also addicted to. Oh, why is it that, you know when you have a sinus thing, it also hurts? Oh, let me look. I'm addicted to. If I have a question, I now can know the answer. The problem is for me. And if it's for me, what I've learned as you have, then it represents millions of people. It is actually hurting my system to be engaged with information in a non stop way. It's hurting me. I think in part that's why I'm sick right now.

Today.

I know there's A million studies, but I haven't seen the study that shows what is our impact physically and mentally to be so addicted to information device and even reading and in pouring in information constantly. Do you believe that that's could be a part of why we're so tired and burnt out? I mean we don't rest.

Yeah. And that's part of that outward focus that I just spoke about. So how I just said we tune out of ourselves and we're tuned into something else. And now what's really, what's really key about technology, money, capitalism. None of these things are good or bad.

Nothing is. But thinking makes it so, as Shakespeare used to say.

Right?

Yeah, it's, it's really about any time we overuse them, right. Or we're using them like money is not a good or bad thing. It's, it's an amazing currency in exchange for me providing my skill set, my gifts, my value for what I believe, you know, is a good exchange of my time and energy. Same thing with technology. There's so much good that's come from it. And so what I'd say is too much of anything becomes the problem. Or when you do capitalism without the consciousness, without the people, you've got a problem. When you do technology and you forget about your own self care and the most magnificent technology that mother nature has given us and we are trying to tune out of that and we stay up really late and we don't get our sleep. Well, when you sleep, three important things happen. Repair of your muscles. Repair of your muscles and immune system, processing of your like memory so you can consolidate what you learned. And third, emotional processing. So when people stay up and they're addicted to technology and they're not getting the sleep they need, their immune system doesn't get to repair so they fall sick. And so it's all connected. And I think what we've lost is we want to blame one thing and we don't actually understand that. Me, we, world, it's all connected, right. And the good news about that is wherever you're ready to start focusing and improving it, that too will improve everything else. And so I think we've got some big opportunities here in the world. I think we've gone a little bit in a collective thinking on a track that's taken us away from ourselves and our own self care and had us chase titles and positions of power and likes on social media and money in our bank account. And the emptiness that it's giving us just tells us that we've gone a little Too far. And so let's pull back on that a little bit, invest a little bit more in ourselves and come back into balance, because then we can have it all.

I love it. Yeah. Do you want to leave us with one specific tip to address, to figure out where we're burned out or one. I know it's not simple. It's interconnected. It's. But anything you want to leave us with, you know, something we can take away and maybe an action step. Anything.

Sure. You know what I'll. What I'll say here is, there's. Okay, so I have a link. It's called intuitiveintelligenceinc.com forward slash, burnout dash rx. And you guys can put it in the. In the show notes. It is show notes. What I'll tell you is I have. I have created an assessment, a pulse check that people can do in. In not very long that assesses where you are on the spectrum from burned out to fully charged by whether you have a net gain or a net drain of energy on a physical, mental, emotional, social, or spiritual energy section. This will give you the interactive online, you know, form that you can do it. And I have created videos of me, you know, 10 minutes. 10 minutes. 10 minutes, walking you through each section. So why don't we just give that to them?

You got it, people. I'm heading there this second. I know. Physical. Given that I had a cold, flu, whatever the heck it was we. I know. In a minute, you're. You have said it. Your body says what your lips cannot. So one quick step is look at your body.

We'll share that.

Oh, my dear. So where else can people go to learn and learn from you? Neha, where do they get your book? Where do we send them?

Well, certainly go to Intuitive Intelligence, inc.com. it's inc at the end. And when you're there, I want you to think about how you learn best. If you're somebody who wants a newsletter, you know, regularly in your inbox, you can do that. If you're somebody who really likes to read articles, do it that way. If you're someone who listens to podcasts, there's a QR code with where everywhere. I have podcasts that I've been, you know, interviewed, and I have my own as well. That one's for TalkRx, but YouTube, you can, you know, you'll. You'll talk all of it. FedEx talks. You'll access it all@intuitiveintelligenceinc.com yeah, I love talking to you. Thank you so much. I love talking to you, Kathy.

Oh my gosh.

More often.

Let's do it. Come back, everybody. Wherever you see this, I say it every time. If you don't have a question for us, we're not doing our jobs. Let us, you know, really, it shouldn't just be us talking heads. That was fun, you know, in the car. I mean, it can be that. But please, please, where you see it, if you have a question, reach out and we will both do the best we can to support you on your beautiful journey to health and wellness.

Me.

We in world. Gosh, don't we love it. Thank you my dear and enjoy your book launch. Congratulations. I hope you loved it. People, we will see you in two weeks. Have a Finding Brave. Wonderful. Two weeks. See you then. Bye.

Yay.

Yay.

Thank you, Kathy.

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