Naji Gehchan: Hello, leaders of the world. Welcome to “Spread Love in Organizations”, a podcast for purpose-driven healthcare leaders, striving to make life better around the world by leading their teams with genuine care, servant leadership, and love.
I am Naji, your host, joined today by Patricia Boulogne a Certified Functional Medicine Practitioner, Coach, Chiropractor, Speaker, and Author. Pat has helped thousands over the last 35 years stop adapting their lifestyle to pain, and chronic problems by focusing on the whole person. The result is that her clients and patients, find out the WHY and the CAUSE of the problem, and identify the starting point: what, why, where and how to begin their health journey to live longer, better and healthier. Pat is the founder and principal of AskDrPat ~ HealthTeamNetwork, a company dedicated to skyrocketing your health, lifestyle, and mindset with strategies and programs that make sense, and help you age gracefully, think, move and feel better, and live longer and happier!
Pat, It’s a pleasure to see you again and have you with me today!
Patricia Boulogne: I’m really happy to be here. You know, I love to share knowledge and I like to help. I like to see people thrive.
Naji Gehchan: It’s great. It’s really a
Patricia Boulogne: great opportunity.
Naji Gehchan: People thrive, live longer, happier. I think all, everyone is eager to hear more about how to do that. But first I want to start with your personal story.
What’s in between the lines of your journey and becoming the doctor and business person you are now?
Patricia Boulogne: Well, you know, one of the things that happened is that when I was going to chiropractic school and I just finished chiropractic school, but I knew my father was not well before that he dropped out of a heart attack.
And that was really quite upsetting, you know, at the time because, you know, I always thought about like, what is it that I could have done, um, or what, you know, with all the resources and tools that I had access to, he didn’t take care of himself. He didn’t, um, you know, he’s. Occasionally, he smoked a pipe, um, and had a glass of scotch and, but he really didn’t take care of himself.
He didn’t eat well. And um, it came as a surprise to everybody, you know, because it was, as I said before, it was sudden, but it always made me sad because I kept on thinking like, oh, I could, maybe I could have done something. And that, from that experience, I decided that I was going to help other executives and entrepreneurs and business owners, you know, live their lives to the fullest and be as healthy as possible, um, moving forward, because it’s a lot, sometimes it’s a lot simpler than what we make it out to be, and it isn’t as complicated or feeling overwhelmed, because a lot of times people, when they hear the word medicine, they kind of shut off.
And they don’t want to know, they’re thinking like, Oh, I’m going to leave it to the doctor, you know, and I like to speak very simple language. I like to keep it simple. Um, go back to like, you know, know that the cart isn’t before the horse, the horse is before the cart when someone leaves with working with me, you know, and going back to basics because you have to know your foundational lines in those numbers.
They really count.
Naji Gehchan: So thanks for sharing this. And you’ve been helping, as you said, leaders be better, healthier, more fulfilled leaders, uh, for themselves and their teams by focusing on the whole person. Can you share more about that and what do you mean by whole person?
Patricia Boulogne: Well, you know, a lot of us, you know, we, we get so busy, you know, that we start sacrificing our relationships, our careers, and our life to move forward.
And we don’t have all the tools, but if you. know what to do. You can go into the game with more sustenance. Um, and what I mean by it, people used to ask me all the time, because I had a very busy practice on Cape Cod, and people used to ask me all the time, like, how do you do it? I see you here, you’re like going.
And I ate well, I had good thoughts, you know, and I exercised, I moved, I did some, I mean, You know, what I told people to do, I did myself, and what I realized by doing those simple things of, you know, you’re, you know, you’re mastering your mindset. Mastering your mindset is huge, no matter what industry that you’re in, but especially for your health, when you have that mastered and that you become a priority instead of putting everything else ahead of you, then you can even be, you know, you can have more consistency with being productive.
You know, you sleep better, think better, move better. You’re like physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, socially, and especially financially. You can make better decisions.
Naji Gehchan: So, I love this idea of mastering your mindset. Can we double click on that and tell us how to do it and what happens next?
Patricia Boulogne: Well, I always, you know, I think, you know, going from having something that’s a habit into a ritual is a key component and essential.
And so that, um, you know, the habit into the ritual, you have to be silent. What is that? So, I have a, um, You know, something that I give out when I’m, you know, doing webinars and things like that where I talk about like what are those five things that you have to do. And I would say when you first get up in the morning, bathe your body in water, not outside but inside also.
Every organ in your body will love you for it. Also take 20 minutes in the morning. Maybe you have to wake up a half hour earlier to do that, but have that, you know, like so that you have that downtime and you’re doing it as a meditation or a prayer. Whatever it is that you need to center yourself, pick nine things that you can focus on that day.
Three for your business, three for yourself, you know, and three for your spirit or your family. Um, and then, you know, write those down and do and make a, A nine before nine ritual. Um, and, you know, the last thing is, is like, you know, be kind to yourself, you know, take breaks. I just posted something today about, you know, taking a one minute break for breathing, you know, breath work is really essential.
And I’m thinking, wow, in just one minute, you can, you know, energize your body, you know, you can have a quick fix. And you can also fix that last two by the way. Um, and then you can also be more calm. And so if you’re more calm, then stress isn’t going to take over you. You command stress. You’re in the commanding seat of that.
So that mindset portion of that is, you know, having that positive mindset with a positive mental attitude and all these other wellness initiatives gives you the success that you need and gives you the stamina and also the energy to make it through even your longest day.
Naji Gehchan: I love those practical advices you’re giving us.
Uh, can you share now a little bit more about your book? I love the titles. I’ll let you talk about your book, the title, and what’s in it.
Patricia Boulogne: Yes, the book is called Why Are You Sick, Fat, and Tired? And The book is about discovering your health’s weakest and strongest links. The purpose of the book is to show and shed light on where to start your health journey.
It’s a workbook. It’s a guidebook. It’s an advocating tool. You can take this to any learned physician. The results from the questionnaire, then there’s, it’s the questions, there’s 11 chapters of questions, 12 11, meaning men, 11 for women, and in those questions, it’s like a deep dive survey, like a system survey for the body, so that, I have, I’ve had people say to me, as a matter of fact, you know, like, my doctor’s never asked me that, you know, but it really helps you identify where your weakest link is at.
Cause then you know where to focus your time, your energy and your money. And then you can reset your mindset, you know, and also your health at the same time and be able to move forward and keep moving forward and a consistent fashion.
Naji Gehchan: So is there any, you know, any magic formula, uh, I would say if you want to try to improve your.
Lifestyle and be healthier because this is the promise you bring to, uh, people you see. So I’d love to hear from you if you have any, uh, any magic formula for, for, for me and all the listeners here.
Patricia Boulogne: Well, my first advice and magic formula is to make sure you’re well hydrated and you need 50 percent of your body weight in ounces, you know, for that.
The other thing is, is that everyone’s so individualized and everything’s personalized. Okay. And on some level, what I do is very concierge, um, is that I look at each individual, you know, blueprint of persons, like, you know, where do you want to go? What do you got going on? Where do you want to go? And what are you willing to do?
You know, and if you’re willing to do something, there’s always something you can do. I have a, lot of, you know, tricks up my sleeve, so to speak. Um, and how to like, Oh, do this instead. Or, you know, I told somebody I was talking to last night in my last call just said, I’m having such a hard time sleeping.
And I said, take a little extra calcium before you go to sleep. Don’t take it in the morning, take it at night, you know, and take it a couple hours before you go to sleep, you know, and then Make sure you’re, you know, distance from blue light from the TV if you’re watching TV or your, you know, computer or telephone, you know, and then, you know, stop that and just have that peace of mind with that a good two hours beforehand, a minimum of 30 minutes.
You know, and then have water next to your bed so that you can keep the temperature in the room, you know, and those, those are like, little things that people don’t think about very much. Um, you know, or they live someplace where, you know, this morning I had garbage trucks going down the street at 530 in the morning and I thought it’s time to get up.
It’s time to get up and do my routine. Um, and you know, and like get thicker skin, like stop getting so upset about stuff that really in the big game plan of life doesn’t matter, you know, and so that I’m thinking, is this going to matter to me 5 years from now, you know, a year from now, then don’t worry about it.
And maybe for better sleep. Because there are so many people, sleep issues are an epidemic in this country. And so, as far as the sleep goes, if you can’t sleep, just ask yourself, what is it that’s really going on here? And if you can do something about it, get up and fix it. Do it. Get it over with. And then give yourself permission to go to sleep.
And if not, dictate or write it down because in less than eight hours, it’s still going to be there. It’s not going to go away and there’s nothing you really can do about it. So when you adopt that mindset that anything is possible and that this aspect of this can be, it can be put off till the next day, you already put it off anyway.
So, let’s just, you know, just like accept it, move on, keep moving forward, you know, and keep good thoughts. So, start the day with a, you know, good positive thought and if it’s, you start and you have, uh, it get, you know, waylaid or derailed, you know, you just gently, energetically push that thought away, cancel it and then you keep on moving on forward because you, it’s just like you’re.
The energy that you need, it will cost you 10 times more energy when you’re upset or stressed out than if you just stay calm and stay centered.
Naji Gehchan: Don’t sweat the small stuff. I don’t know if you’ve read this book, but I love it.
Patricia Boulogne: I do. You know, I actually met that guy in Boston once. time. Um, when I used to live downtown Boston, um, we’re talking, this guy goes, Oh, I’m going to go see him right now.
And this guy knew a friend of mine in the building that was in, knew him. And I said, I want to meet him. And so he goes, we can come with us, you know, come and have a drink. And then, you know, he goes, we got something else we got to do, but we’re going to meet for a drink first before we go to dinner. Like, all right.
I meant, I never say no. That’s one of my big things. Never say no to a great invite. Yeah. Ever.
Naji Gehchan: That’s great. Uh, so it’s really, uh, you’re giving really great tips for us to take care of ourselves. And I love how you frame that it’s, uh, because we hear a lot about making it a habit, but you’re pushing us to start thinking about making a habit.
a ritual. So can you give us a little bit more what you mean by that?
Patricia Boulogne: Well, let’s just take, you know, the, there’s a, a thing, a rule called the 2190 day rule. And the average person takes anywhere from 18 days to 265 or 54 days, about eight and a half months in order to make a habit into a ritual. So it’s like, it’s a non event.
So you’re just get up and you go do it. And so, If you look at the 20 90 day rule, or the 21 90 day rule, if you do it for 21 days, you know, then you can do it, whatever that is that you are successful with for 21 days, then you just do it for an additional 90 days. And so if you do it the additional 90 days, you’re at 111 days, which is more than halfway through.
Um, and so it’s just, you know, it’s just being consistent. Everything is, you know, it’s like consistent. I use the word consistent a lot, because when you’re consistent, you get better results. And also, if you have an accountability buddy, You know, somebody that’s just like, you know, like, well, I have a hard time walking more than a block.
Well, walk a block until you can walk farther, walk as fast as you can, as far as you can for as long as you can, just get out and move. You know, my second patient in clinic was a 92 year old woman, and she was a little scared. She was a good old Southern Belle girl from Atlanta, Georgia, because that’s where I went to college.
And I asked her when she came in, I’m thinking what’s a 92 year old woman coming into a chiropractor for and wanting to get advice about how to do it better. And I’m thinking she has so much that she can teach me. And so I asked her what she did for exercise. And she said she lived in a neighborhood that was turning so she would take her Dixie cup out and go water all her plants in the backyard.
And I said, well, how many plants do you have? I thought she was going to say, like, 20 or something like that. And she said, Oh, you have 150 and I’m going like, you know, but and what she did is she just made it into, you know, exercise and put the mindset that that was exercise for her, which helped her stay in better shape, you know, and keep on moving because her line was, Dr.
Payette with his beautiful Southern accent, if you don’t move, you’re going to die. And that is just so true.
Naji Gehchan: So thinking about now more leaders, do you see anything different for us managing teams and organizations and how to ensure a better health and lifestyle for our teams and also for us? Like any different advice you would give?
Patricia Boulogne: Well, you know, you’ve got to look at what, you know, when I look at somebody, what I do is I look at, what do you got to do in a day? You know, and it’s just like, what’s the most important thing you have to get done so you’re not doing emails the first thing in the morning, or else you’ll get sidetracked, you know, and all of a sudden it’ll be 2 o’clock and you haven’t done anything.
And so it’s, it’s taking a look at that, like the, the eating, you know, proper diet and nutrition is, you know, is so important, um, proper exercise and getting up and moving so you’re not sitting down so long, you know, there’s studies showing that sitting is not a really good idea. And then, you know, getting enough sleep or even taking a nap or doing the breath work that I talked about today in my post on LinkedIn.
It’s just a simple, simple, simple thing that you can do. And there’s a lot of simple things that you can do that you just don’t sometimes think about. And then for like leaders, you know, to have that harmony and that balance and being able to think better, you’ve got to really have a clean diet. And you have to really be a little bit ritualized, like how much sleep am I getting?
You know, and not sweating the small stuff as you well pointed it out and at summation of that. Um, you have, you know, you first have to identify where you’re at though and that’s a big problem. A lot of people think that like, Oh, I’m okay, I’m healthy. You know, we’ve all heard the story about the person leaving the doctor’s office and a couple of days later dropping dead of a heart attack and they were given a clean bill of health.
You know, it’s a lot of times people can be very thin, but have a lot of fat around their organs. It’s called VAT fat And, or visceral fat and, you know, and then looking at like, you know, like, what is it that’s like leaders need, like, you know, like, what is it that, you know, what’s an easy thing for you to do on a regular basis so that it’s, you know, that you can have, you can think better, you can feel better and move better.
You have those tools with you, you know, so you’re always driving a Ferrari as opposed to driving a jalopy and for a body. Putting that, um, you know, and because you can, you know, delegate, leaders are really good delegators. And, you know, if you know that you like, I need this, this, this, and this, you can delegate it out so that it gets done for you.
And then that way you’re not consuming extra time doing something that is somebody else can do for you in that aspect.
Naji Gehchan: So I’d love to give you now a word and get your reaction to it. The first one, the first one is leadership.
Patricia Boulogne: Well, leadership, you know, I think that, you know, when I, when I talk to leaders and talk about leadership, I, you know, think about my first words that come to my mind are parents.
Because parents are children’s first leaders. They mimic you, and by the age of five, they get you down to a science, and wrapped usually around your finger, their finger. And so, you know, I look at, like, leadership. I look at, you know, when somebody can be who they say they are, and take the appropriate action to implement, to go, going forward.
And when somebody does that, and keeps their word, especially for me, How I feel is that I can honor that, and I respect that, and I can follow that.
Naji Gehchan: The second one is mental health.
Patricia Boulogne: Well, do you know that May is Mental Health Month? And mental health, we, I think a lot of times we have a problem with it, because in the United States, for instance, we don’t, Um, we’re never taught how to eat and the gut brain, um, connection is huge and a lot of mental health like the anxiety, the depression, you know, the, the antsiness, a lot of the times that comes from the foods that we’re eating and the miscommunication from the food to the brain and we’re eating poor foods, we’re eating fast foods, we’re letting that, you know, um, create, change how we.
respond in relationships and we don’t sometimes don’t realize people who are hypoglycemic sometimes are really irritable and or somebody’s really sick. They’re really irritable and you don’t really know that, you know, so that’s what, um, you know, the mental health part of that is like, that’s and the 1st thing I.
talk about in mental health is you gotta hydrate, you gotta eat well, you know, you have to exercise, you gotta create movement. I had a patient who was very depressed and when I was on Cape Cod and um, her husband says the only time she moves is when she comes to my office. And um, I said, well, what motivates her?
She goes, she likes you. And I said, well, tell her to come in Monday through Friday, you know, because, you know, I’m going, if that’s what it takes for her, you know, maybe a little bit at a time that can be reversed, you know, and, and I go in, in how that one thing, sometimes that we have stuff that happens to us when we’re growing up, that we hear something the wrong way and we keep on sabotaging ourselves and keeps on hitting the wall and keep on hitting the ceiling and not being in a free flow fashion.
So we all know what. Being in our vibe is like. You know, when you’re on your game, you’re moving forward, you know, and it’s everything is that all the pieces of the puzzle are fine in the places that you want to have them in. And when they don’t, it can be overwhelming. And even where work would be normal, in those instances, work feels like you’re being overworked.
And it’s just, it’s just like a different perception, like how do you change that? And it changes with mindset, one thing at a time.
Naji Gehchan: The third one is, Einstein’s time.
Patricia Boulogne: I love Einstein’s time. You know, I was driving on 495 in Boston and I got pulled over by the police. Well, actually I pulled over. They pulled in behind me because I thought I was having a problem.
And I was listening to this book that talked about Einstein’s time. And I wanted to take notes, so, and I knew I had enough time that I could listen to that chapter again and take down keywords and, um, and possess it. And what Einstein’s time is, like, when you’re in your vibe, um, is that, you know, things just flow for you.
And, you know, you don’t have, like, you don’t worry. You don’t have that level of stress you’re able to, like, you know, uh, Be in one with your situation. The day that I was listening to that, I was covering a doctor’s office up in Lawrence, Massachusetts, and, um, the one I walked in, I was telling this girl the next, the day before that, and I said, you know, what happened to that?
You know, so and so and so and so, cause I worked in this office before. And, uh, she said, well, how many people do you want to see? And I said, fill me up. And so I walked into the office and it was the standing room only when I got there at 9 o’clock in the morning. I went, Oh my God, I’m never going to get out of here.
And I decided to take that thought, get rid of it immediately, cancel it, you know, not look at my watch. Because if I looked at my watch, I was going to go back into Newtonian time and just do it. And I finished, I was like 15 minutes after the hour, but I, you saw a significant amount of people in a four hour time segment, like around 55 or 60 people.
It’s, you know, and it just like, it just flowed. I didn’t, you know, think, I didn’t think about it, you know, and it was enough. Where families, it was more of a family practice. So you had the mother, father, you know, and the brothers and sisters all jammed in this one room that thinking, wow, and just do it, get over yourself, you know, and do your best job that you possibly could do.
And if you run late, you run late, you know, it’s not the end of the world. But that’s Einstein’s time when you’re in your vibe.
Naji Gehchan: The last one is spread love and organizations.
Patricia Boulogne: You know, if you, you know, there’s a, I recently heard this song called, um, I am woman and, um, and it talks about, you know, when you put out what you want, you know, to the universe, the universe provides for you.
And when you’re in your vibe or in Einstein’s time, that happens all the time, all the time. So if you put out love. And you share the love that you’re, that you have within you, because we all have, we’re all geniuses, you just have to learn how to express it, and that whatever you put out, you, you, it comes back to you.
And you know, that’s, you know, when I, when you say that, that’s exactly how I feel about no matter who I meet. Uh, and someone, uh, coined me, um, the other day and we decided that I should, uh, market myself as a, um, as a grace magnet. And uh, they said, cause you just have that knack, you know, you have, you know, something happens and you get, you get it taken care of and, um, and I’m really resourceful, too, and I’m not scared to talk to anybody.
Naji Gehchan: Any final word of wisdom, uh, Pat, for healthcare leaders around the world?
Patricia Boulogne: Say that, the beginning part of that again, please.
Naji Gehchan: Any final word of wisdom? for healthcare leaders around the world?
Patricia Boulogne: Well, I think, you know, one of the things that when I was in chiropractic school and our schooling was very similar to, you know, Western, like traditional medicine doctors, except for we didn’t do the prescription part of it.
And, you know, I would look at people who are standing, you know, you know, treating people and I think you need to lead by example. And you need to, you know, so I think that healthcare practitioners should do exactly what they would tell anybody else to do, you know, and they need to be their own example and going forward because then you get people who are, you know, who can say yes to you, who respect you and who could trust you, you know, and if you’re going to have be a trusted authority, you better be your word.
And you better like, I want to see you in action. You know, when I see you in action, I’m going to, it’s like if it doesn’t, it doesn’t resonate to me, you’re the last doc, you know, you’re the last doctor or the last professional I’m going to see in that industry, I’ll go find somebody else. But I think it’s really important to be able to trust somebody and to be able to, you know, be able to ask questions and, you know, not talk, you know, when you go in to see them, not talk about their dog, whatever is going on with them, unless you have like, you live next door to them or, you know, and the such.
So I think that that’s important.
Naji Gehchan: I love it. It’s walking the dog as, as we say, you know, I’m being a physician, I definitely relate to what you said. And also you talked about leadership with your children. Uh, it’s, if you try not to walk the talk with your children, it’s even, you get immediately the feedback, right?
And it’s, well, you didn’t do this, and you’re telling me to do it. Why? So I think it’s, you know, amazing to these two, I love it.
Patricia Boulogne: Yeah. It’s just like, my girlfriend’s son was very incredibly intelligent, and, um, so he would ask me every once in a while when he was even, he was three years old, he could read.
Um, so he would ask me to read books to him and so I’d read and I didn’t feel like doing it. So I’d skip pages and he goes, Auntie Pat, you forgot the part about, remember, you know, go back a couple pages. You know, you forgot that. Did you make a mistake and turn too many pages at once? I said, sure did, Sam.
Never do that again. You know, he caught me every time. You know, but I think we, I think we need to spend time, you know, with, you know, children and they’re, you know, and developing their, you know, consciousness. I mean, this same kid when I was in, when I lived downtown Boston was sitting there and he was looking at his mother’s a doctor.
His father is, is a, a significant massage therapist in Boston and he was sitting there and he said, Oh my God, your spines. I had one of those spines that hung on a hook, you know, my off in my immediate office at home and he goes, Oh my God, that guy must be in so much pain. I said, why is that, Sam? He goes, look how crooked his sacrum is.
He was five years old. So, but he, he knew body parts. He, he was way ahead of the game.
Naji Gehchan: Well, thank you so much for being with me today and for this great chat.
Patricia Boulogne: I appreciate it. I really enjoyed, I really enjoyed being here. It was a lot of fun and it was informative.
Naji Gehchan: Thank you all for listening to SpreadLove in Organizations podcast. Drop us a review on your preferred podcast platform
Follow us on LinkedIn and connect with us on spreadloveio.com. We’re eager to hear your thoughts and feedback. Most importantly, spread love in your organizations and spread the word around you to inspire others and amplify this movement, our world so desperately needs