Episode Transcript
[00:00:09] Speaker A: You're listening to Selling the Dream.
[00:00:11] Speaker B: This isn't an interview, and we're not.
[00:00:13] Speaker A: Journalists, but each week we'll ask our guests to open up and share their secrets to business success.
Let's have a conversation and have some fun.
[00:00:24] Speaker B: Hey, everybody.
[00:00:25] Speaker A: Welcome to Selling the Dream, your podcast. If you're interested in entrepreneurship, if you're interested in selling, if you're interested in leadership, if you're interested in learning and talking about any of those things or hearing us talk about those things, this is the place to be.
As always, I'm joined with my co host, Joe Iredell coming to us from Carlsbad, California. Joe, haven't caught up in a while. How are things? How are things in California, man?
[00:00:53] Speaker B: Rocking and rolling, brother.
A good time to be alive, you know, it is.
[00:01:00] Speaker A: It's. It's. It's. It's a great time to be alive.
[00:01:02] Speaker C: And.
[00:01:03] Speaker A: And I know that, you know, you're enjoying some beautiful weather out there. It's starting to turn a little bit.
[00:01:09] Speaker B: Big news. I haven't talked to you recently.
We got a dog, bro.
[00:01:14] Speaker A: No, you didn't.
[00:01:15] Speaker B: We did. We got a dog.
[00:01:16] Speaker A: What'd you get?
[00:01:18] Speaker B: It's used, so I don't know what it is, but we got it used.
[00:01:24] Speaker A: How many miles are on it?
[00:01:27] Speaker B: It's a little bit under a year, I think, but, you know, dog gear.
[00:01:31] Speaker A: All right. Wait, you still have the rabbit?
[00:01:34] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:01:35] Speaker A: The dog and a rabbit get along?
[00:01:37] Speaker B: We had to. We had to set up some mediation, and they're going through. They're going through some counseling right now to work out some issues about, you know, who gets what. But, yeah, they're. They're working through it. I think they're gonna.
[00:01:51] Speaker C: I think.
[00:01:51] Speaker B: I think they're in it. They're both, you know, they both have the same goal in mind. They just have different approaches to it.
[00:01:56] Speaker A: So I. I can see that. I will tell you, when we got our dog about a year ago, I did not want a dog. There was nothing.
[00:02:03] Speaker B: I.
[00:02:04] Speaker A: Last thing I wanted was another heartbeat in my house that I had to take care of. And we got the dog, and he's the coolest thing on the planet. I love him.
[00:02:13] Speaker B: Yeah, I figured. I figured if I just add one more thing to the mix that I can blame stuff on when it's broken or eaten, then, like, you know, takes the heat off me a little bit.
[00:02:24] Speaker A: That's true. That's true. I'm sure the kids are thrilled about that, too.
[00:02:27] Speaker B: Yeah, they're fantastic.
[00:02:29] Speaker A: We have an awesome show today. We Have a super cool guest that I'm very, very excited to introduce. I have so many questions and, and, and I can't wait to dive into them, see where this conversation takes us. I want to introduce Dr.
Suzanne Vester.
Dr. Suzanne Vester is a doctor in.
I knew I was going to forget how to pronounce it.
Naturopathy, Nature pathy. Thank you very much. Dr. Suzanne is a doctor in naturopathy and a doula. I just learned what a doula was. It makes me feel kind of silly. I'm sure my wife knows and she's gonna be embarrassed that I didn't know what it was. But share with our audience. What is a doula? For those that don't know, maybe it's just me.
[00:03:21] Speaker C: No, you're. You're not alone. Doula is a non medical person that is a support person for mom during birth, both labor delivery and postpartum. We have the amazing opportunity of just loving on mom, helping her to transition, getting what she needs, helping her to advocate for herself during her birth process.
It is one of the best parts of my job.
[00:03:46] Speaker A: That sounds like a lot of fun. That really does sound like a lot of fun. I don't know how you end up in that industry, but that's a whole.
[00:03:56] Speaker C: Story in and of itself.
[00:03:57] Speaker A: Well, let's talk about that a little bit. Let's talk about your journey, you know, into, you know.
[00:04:06] Speaker C: K.J.
[00:04:10] Speaker B: You always want me for not reminding you two truths and a lie.
[00:04:13] Speaker A: Oh, that's right. That. See, I. And I even told. That was good.
All right, before we get into your journey, let's. Let's talk about our two truths and a lie. This is the game that we play. It's always a lot of fun. Joe is going to try and figure out at the end which one is the lie. So let's start with the three facts.
One of them is a lie. Two of them are true. Start with number one.
[00:04:40] Speaker C: My mom was a public school teacher. Kindergarten.
[00:04:43] Speaker A: Your mom was a public school teacher?
[00:04:45] Speaker C: She was.
[00:04:46] Speaker A: Okay.
All right. Number two.
[00:04:50] Speaker C: My father was a pastor.
[00:04:54] Speaker A: Okay. Number three.
[00:04:56] Speaker C: I played collegiate tennis.
[00:04:58] Speaker A: Collegiate Tennis.
[00:05:00] Speaker C: Tennis.
[00:05:02] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:05:03] Speaker B: Whoa.
[00:05:05] Speaker A: Fantastic. I think I just gave myself a.
[00:05:08] Speaker B: Little hint, but we'll.
[00:05:09] Speaker A: We'll get back to that later. All right, back to that later.
So. So tell us what inspired you to pursue becoming and. And help us with it. You're a biblical nature pathy.
[00:05:20] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:05:21] Speaker A: Okay.
How. And. And you're. You're have it. Have a huge concentration on holistic health. Correct. What kind of pushed you in that direction?
[00:05:31] Speaker C: I'VE always kind of been one of these people who just loves to learn almost for the sake of learning, because I don't feel like you can go into anything too educated and growing up. I grew up in a small town in the western part of North Carolina and my grandparents, I was very blessed. They lived almost next door to us and they were very rooted in, like, this is how you fix problems.
You don't always have to go to the doctor. You don't always have to look at it as a life sentence. This is how we fix problems.
Very rooted to nature, very rooted to the basics. So that's how I grew up. And then as I got older and began to see the health history of my family corporately, I was like, oh, I gotta, I have got to outrun that as fast and as hard as I can because I don't want to end up in some of the places that they were in and kind of combine that desire to not have health problems, to have good longevity with how I was raised, how I grew up. It was almost a perfect blend of how do I do that and how do I do that? Well, to steward myself without going the traditional route, without taking an ibuprofen for every headache, without.
Without eating all of the terrible, terrible foods that are available and feeling like trash afterwards.
So that desire to outrun my potential health problems in my older age just really kind of led me down the path of, okay, like, why, why do we not use more plant based options when it comes to medicinals? We have all these amazing herbs out there. We have all these amazing compounds that are being mimicked in laboratories to create medications. Why can't we just go back to the source and use those and see what comes of that? Because our bodies, I very strongly believe, are meant to heal, are meant to be, to be active and prosperous and thriving. And the only way we're going to get there and do that is to really dive back into the roots of, of how we are built, how we're made and how our body works.
[00:07:53] Speaker A: Early, early on, you had to make a decision or at least take a stance on western medicine.
[00:08:00] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:08:00] Speaker A: Has that evolved at all?
[00:08:04] Speaker C: I would have to say not really because I've always been a very strong advocate for. It has its place.
And I'll give a great example. This past Friday, four days ago, five days ago now, I had surgery, I had my gallbladder removed. It was not something I wanted.
[00:08:19] Speaker A: You look great.
[00:08:21] Speaker C: Thank you.
It wasn't something I wanted, but it was something that was necessary and was largely Unplanned. So I do feel like it absolutely has its place, but I don't know that I feel like it has its place when it comes to preventative things. It's not very good at preventing things. It's very good at treating symptoms, it's very good at treating major problems. If you are in a car accident and you, you, you crush your leg, you're going to need medical intervention.
That's just the way it is. I can't help you fix that problem.
Naturally you're going to require more intervention. So I think it absolutely has its place.
I just really struggle with the band Aiding philosophy that I see far too often with providers and clients who are coming in through the practice.
[00:09:17] Speaker A: Do you put a higher emphasis on that, on where western medicine has its role, where it's maybe being over prescribed in the mental health space?
Do you believe there's a lot of opportunities there for people who are looking for alternatives to the western medicine when it comes to whether it be anxiety or depression or the things that aren't a broken bone issue?
[00:09:48] Speaker C: I very strongly do. Because if you look at, if you look at the most prescribed pharmaceuticals in the mental health space, they're being prescribed to individuals for years and they're really meant to be used for short periods of time until you can find a different direction, whether that is through natural medicine, through counseling, through, they're just getting out into nature more, getting away from things that are being the culprits of your depression and your anxiety. But they're really meant to be short term usage medications. And what we're finding is they're not short term usage, they're being used for years and years and years. And their compounded effect is very, is very detrimental to your body's systems for that long of a period of time. And what you find is you're in the ditch after a year or two on these prescription medications. And in order for you to get back out onto the road and stay within those white lines, man, it requires a lot of work, a lot of very focused work, intentional work. And it is not easy. There are lots of setbacks. It's definitely not linear. The one thing I wish I could impress upon people the most when it comes to your mental health is nothing that you take pharmaceutically with very few exceptions is ever going to fix the problem.
It's just not going to fix the problem. The problem is the thing that you've not yet given a name to you. You may feel anxiety, you may feel depression, but what is at the cause of that, what is the problem that is causing that?
[00:11:31] Speaker B: So is that to say I. Because I agree 100% with everything you just said. And like, I guess my take on it has always been with prescribing drugs to fix these things. Like, I just feel like a majority of the issues aren't actually physiological. Like when it comes to the mental health stuff, it's, there's so many external factors that are making people feel the way that they feel. And prescribing drugs and things like that, it's not like it's not create. It's not stopping those thoughts from entering their brain. It's like it's just altering the thoughts in their brain with drugs which then they, the reality gets screwed up. But the, you know, I'm, I don't want to say like against Western medicine, but if you look at it as a business like the business model is their worst customers is a healthy person or a dead person, so they can keep them somewhere in that range between dead and healthy, then they're going to have a customer for life. So that's where it's really like.
[00:12:42] Speaker A: But couldn't you controversially, couldn't you say that about any, even holistic practitioners? Is it.
How would you kind of reposition that that argument?
[00:12:54] Speaker C: Suzanne, I would say that you have both. You have very good Western practitioners who really do have the heart of I want to see you well and healthy and thriving. They're very unfortunately few and far between. But you also have, on the other spectrum, like you just mentioned, you also have natural providers who, whose business model is very much like a Western practitioner.
And that's problematic in that you're, you can, you can pop a pill as a pharmaceutical, you can also pop a supplement. Neither of those two things are going to be the answer to the problem.
What you have to, to really kind of look at, especially I tell people this all the time. When you're looking for a practitioner, ask them very succinctly and listen to their answer. Where do you want me to be in a year as the client? Ask that question.
My answer to that question is always, I would love for you to see me as a resource in a year, but not as the source of whatever it is we're working on. I want to graduate you onto the next part of your life. Come back to me whenever you feel like you need to.
But the end goal is for you to not need me anymore. I want to give you education, I want to give you solutions, I want to give you options.
And then I want you to decide what's best for you in each given moment. I don't want to be the one dictating to you what I think you need to do. It's your choice.
But I want to be a resource for you. The negative part is so many functional practitioners at this point, they do see it as well, how much can I get out of recurring revenue from each one of the people on my roster?
And if you're trying to graduate someone off your roster within a 12 month period, then you've lost potential revenue and you have to replace that revenue. The good news is there are plenty of people who need your help.
[00:14:48] Speaker A: Never ending supply.
[00:14:49] Speaker C: There's a never ending supply. You just have to be very mindful. And sometimes you have to, as a practitioner, you have to let someone go because they are hanging on, wanting the next fix for the next thing. And you have to very gently and kindly tell them, you know what? I think we have come to an impasse here because you're giving too much reliance on the things that I can recommend to you versus your ability to go out and really do well on your own. So it, there's that really weird codependence that comes in there and sometimes you have to just say, I got, I gotta let you go.
[00:15:24] Speaker B: Yeah, I rather, I rather see someone addicted to being healthy than dependent upon not being sick. So it's, it's almost like you go to the gym, like, like, yeah, I can get in really good shape and.
