384-SYB-Neha-Pathak-MD.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.
Carol Cox:
We’re diving into how to tackle a big and I mean big global issue in your thought leadership and talks with my guests. Thought leader Academy grad doctor Neha Pathak on this episode of the Speaking Your Brand podcast. More and more women are making an impact by starting businesses, running for office and speaking up for what matters. With my background as a TV political analyst, entrepreneur and speaker, I interview and coach purpose driven women to shape their brands, grow their companies, and become recognized as influencers in their field. This is speaking your brand, your place to learn how to persuasively communicate your message to your audience. Hi and welcome to the Speaking Your Brand podcast. I’m your host, Carol Cox. If you have ever felt that your topic seems overwhelming to your audience, or that the issue that you want to talk about, or the thought leadership message that you want to share is just it’s like a really big issue, and you’re not sure how your audience is going to relate to it. Or your audience may think like, what can I do about it? Well, keep listening, because in my conversation with one of our thought leader Academy graduates, Dr. Neha Pathak, this is exactly what we talk about. Neha is a primary care physician.
Carol Cox:
She’s also lead medical editor at WebMD and host of their fantastic podcast called Health Discovered. She’s a graduate of Harvard University as well as Weill Medical College of Cornell University. She currently lives in Atlanta, Georgia. You may be surprised with this big global issue is that Neha has decided to focus on in her writings and in her talks, and we’re going to get into that. We also talk about the power of storytelling. No matter what your topic is, no matter what your industry is, and no matter who your audience is and the benefits of it. And then Neha shares some of her speaking experiences and insights that she has for you. If you would like to work with us to develop your thought leadership message, create your signature talk and learn the business of speaking. We do that with you in our online Thought Leader Academy. We work with you both one on one and in a small group of women, so you get plenty of personalized coaching, feedback, support, and community. We’re enrolling now for our April 2nd start date. You can get all the details of speaking your brand.com/academy again that’s speaking your brand.com/academy. Now let’s get on with the show. Neha welcome to the podcast.
Dr. Neha Pathak:
Thank you so much for having me Carol.
Carol Cox:
Well, let’s start first with your background. As I mentioned, you’re a physician and your lead medical editor at WebMD. So tell us about those two roles that you have and what you do there.
Dr. Neha Pathak:
Yeah. So I am a primary care physician. I always say the one thing that doesn’t give me imposter syndrome in my life is to say that I’m a primary care doc. Um, and so essentially, my job, as I see it, has always been to try to go upstream of the health or illness that someone is suffering from and try to really prevent illness before, um, we’re dealing with managing a condition. And so what I had done, really all of my clinical career is to do that one on one with patients in the office at most, maybe 1 to 10 with group visits. And so the possibilities of working with WebMD really were just mind boggling, amazing to me. I was very excited for that opportunity, because now it’s sort of being able to communicate reliable, trusted messages with larger groups of people. And so that’s really what brought me to my current work.
Carol Cox:
Talk about this big global issue that you’ve decided to tackle in the work that you do around your thought leadership. So and it happens to be about climate change, which, again, I don’t think a lot of people would think, you know, primary care, doctor WebMD, climate change, they don’t seem to go together. But of course, we know and I know from working with you that they do. So can you tell me a little bit about what got, you know, why this topic? Why climate change for your thought leadership?
Dr. Neha Pathak:
Yeah, I think that I it never even really occurred to me as something where I was interested in thought leadership. It just became, um, it was an area where I just in terms of caring for my patients, caring for my family, caring for my community, as I mentioned, sort of really thinking like, what’s upstream, what’s upstream of what’s making us potentially sick, or what allows us to have a stable environment so that we can have healthy food and places to go for physical activity and nature. That has some stability in the world around us. And every time, sort of the answer was coming back to, well, there is this major crisis going on with our climate, where in the office we often talk about our diagnoses being based on what’s most common during that particular time. Right. So we’re thinking about flu season. We’re thinking about pollen season. We’re thinking about. So in my office I really use the time, the place that I’m at my geography, to help me with thinking through what are the potential diagnoses. And it just became and what’s going on with my children if I’m thinking about it in the home. And it just started to dawn on me as I was seeing patients, as I was taking care of my children, that what I had learned in medical school was really shifting, and that the climate was playing a role in that. And so as I dug in and tried to learn more, I felt like I needed to communicate this with my patients. And that’s really how I sort of learned more. And that’s why I’ve leaned into trying to share this information in a way that people can understand, in a way that people can feel like they have a role to play, um, in the work that I do.
Carol Cox:
Well, and that and that’s fascinating that, like you, you were working with your patients and again, kind of this contrast between, you know, years ago being in medical school and what what were kind of the main areas of focus and what was contributing to, you know, disease and illness versus what you were seeing with your patients as the years progressed. And I like to think of thought leadership emerges from us. Sometimes it’s from experiences that we’ve had directly say, you know, when we were younger or at some point in our life and, but and sometimes our, our thought leadership emerges because we’re noticing things that maybe other people aren’t picking up on. And that sounds very much like for you, like you were starting to notice these things and putting them together and realizing that there was there was something else going on. So let me let me ask you this, Neha. So climate change we know is a huge issue. Like there’s so many components of it, it can feel really overwhelming even for even for those of us who we care. Like I care about the climate, obviously, I don’t want the climate impact that we’ve already are seeing in not only in the United States, but around the world. But yet it also feels like, well, I’m just one person, like, what can I do about it? How much impact can I make? And aren’t the government supposed to figure this out? Or like, you know, big, big companies, can’t they do something? So how do you address that in the work that you’re doing?
Dr. Neha Pathak:
So I think everything you said is exactly right. And I think that that’s what I’m hoping to accomplish. I think it was in a conversation with you where I was sort of thinking about, so who do I want to talk to? What is it that people want? And then what is it that they fear in terms of losing? And then ultimately, what do they need to understand so that they feel like they can take action? So I think whenever I think about talking on this topic, that’s really sort of those are the three questions I ask myself or I hope to answer by the end of my writing. Or if I’m talking to an expert. Those are the things I’m hoping to get across. So I think, number one, feeling overwhelmed 100%. I think we should honor that feeling, acknowledge it. It is completely accurate and appropriate to feel like we’re one person, we’re one family. How can we make any dent into this problem? So I think that honor, that honor that feeling. And then in terms of, well, what do I want as a mother, as a primary care doctor for my patients? I want to live in a world that has some stability, so that the short terme and long tum health of my family and my patients can be optimized.
Dr. Neha Pathak:
That’s really what I want. And then what do I fear is that I have to change things in a major, major way to make those things happen, which is really hard for any of us to do. Even if I tell you right now that you have a particular even if I tell myself I have a particular health condition, so I’m going to need to change the way I eat or how much I move. It’s really hard to close that gap between knowing that and actually changing behavior. So I think recognizing that is important and then just understanding that you’re right, it is. You know, our government, you know, it is big businesses that have to make these changes. So that’s who we have to demand these changes from I think is is sort of the big thing that I’m hoping that people can get behind. It’s we don’t we can do little things in our home. But that’s really where we need to sort of direct action.
Carol Cox:
Well, and I appreciate that. Neha and I have for those of you who are watching the video in the show notes page, I have her signature talk here on the board with the post-it notes. And, you know, to your point about, you know, in whatever for for those of you listening, whatever your topic happens to be when you’re presenting it in front of your audience, is that validating where the audience currently is, saying the things out loud that, you know, they’re probably thinking like, imagine if Neha is starting to talk about her topic related to climate change. And she’s like, all right, we’re going to talk about climate change. And these are the things you need to do, and completely just doesn’t even acknowledge how people are feeling about it, that maybe, you know, it feels too big of an issue like. So that’s really important to do in is to. Knowledge where people are at that you feel the same things and then but like, okay, so but what what can we do about that? And so we came up with a framework for this, uh, an acronym. Do you want to, do you want to talk about that and kind of the kind of the main pieces of because I think this is useful not only for listeners to think about, like the meta of their own thought leadership and their framework, but also for climate change, like what is what are some things that we can do?
Dr. Neha Pathak:
Yeah, I feel like I’ve gone through a lot of iterations of it since we’ve talked as well, and a lot of it has shifted depending on the audience. So, you know, it’s really, I think, your framework. And that’s what’s so beautiful about the framework that you gave me is that it was an audience of moms originally that I was thinking about, and then it shifted to when I had to when I ended up having to give a talk, it was in front of this large health professional society. So I really sort of shifted it to, um, we have to own the problem. So, um, I think that number one is understanding the overwhelm. So recognizing that we do have, um, feelings of just being completely overwhelmed and that this doesn’t necessarily fit into our clinical practice, it doesn’t fit into our homes because we have so much to do already. The next thing is, I think that we have to recognize that we can win in this situation so that there are things that we’re already doing in our lives that are wins for climate change. So for the health perspective, I am part of a group of lifestyle medicine providers. So the win for us is the work we’re already doing in our clinics, um, to help people recognize the health benefits of a plant rich diet, to help people understand the health benefits of physical activity in the world around them. All of those are carbon. They’re much less carbon intensive than some of the other types of health behaviors that people, um, currently are really sort of focused on or sticking to. So we’re trying to help people shift to those health behaviors that are already wins for us. We’re already doing that for health and helping people, if that. They’re so inclined to recognize that that’s a win for climate as well. And then the N is for now. So the time really is now for us to do this. And as lifestyle medicine providers, we are doing it now. So it’s just sharing that message with other health professionals.
Carol Cox:
I love that you came up with a framework just for them, for the for the physicians, because that makes a lot of sense, because I know for the framework we had come up with for directing this at Moms was E’s, so acronym E a s e like how to do this with ease, right? And not putting more stress and more burden on them, but instead like, how can they involve their children and their families and kind of and make it so that it’s a, it’s a positive thing that they’re doing within their household? Not one more chore to do.
Dr. Neha Pathak:
Yes, exactly. Yes. No, absolutely. And I think that that’s what was really freeing for me is like actually kind of constraining yourself to, um, an acronym or to a framework really helps you think about, well, what does this audience need or what is it’s going to what is going to really resonate with this other audience? So yeah, I think that that was really helpful. And it’s similar messages, maybe different stories. Um, but I think just being able to tweak it in different ways for a different audience.
Carol Cox:
Well, let’s talk about stories now, because I know that when you went through the Thought Leader Academy and we worked together like many very highly educated, highly accomplished women, and you certainly are like we we tend to stay focus on not not even like just the facts, but like, what is the information? And especially for, for those in, you know, in medicine and health and science, like what is the science say? Like, you know, what is the research say what has been backed up as far as things that are beneficial for us to do. So? I know that personal stories usually don’t come into that. You know, think about conferences that you probably have gone to over the years and are probably not a lot of personal stories. So but I will I encourage you to have to put personal stories into the talk that we were working on. You have a great one about taking your daughters to see Taylor Swift in concert, right? That makes it so relatable. So how what was that? What was that process like for you and and how how do you see storytelling now?
Dr. Neha Pathak:
I think that that is absolutely one of the things that I just did. Not particularly because mostly what I had done prior to working with you had been giving talks in a health professional society space or amongst health professionals where there’s sort of a very standard accepted structure, um, that you don’t necessarily want to deviate from the writing that I had done, and we’ve talked about this a little bit, had really been very much reported writing this is what the experts are saying. And here’s what I can share with you. Here’s how I might synthesize that information, but in general, not really less of me and more of what is the information. And I will say that even in the talk that I gave for the health professional society, I did throw in a few stories. And that’s where I got probably my biggest round of applause or interest. Or you could see that the audience was sort of engaged with the story, where I was just sort of thinking about, well, how is it that as health professionals that are really interested in lifestyle interventions, how is it that climate change is a threat to those interventions? And then at the same time, on the opposite side, how can we own this? By continuing to do the work that we’re doing.
Dr. Neha Pathak:
And one of the examples I gave was, for example, if we’re talking about helping our patients understand physical activity in the world around them, if we think about it with a climate and health lens, then we can just help them understand well, if there is a chore or an errand that you have to do that is within the span of one mile, try to do try to walk that or bike that. And I sort of threw in my personal story of having a community of moms now who it happens that my daughter’s daycare is exactly a mile away. So we walk her down, we walk back, we get to talk about our husbands. So it’s social connection, it’s mental health, um, and it’s physical activity. And I think that that story, it was really interesting to see how the audience connected with just tweaking our prescriptions so that it it multi solves.
Carol Cox:
And I’m sure that’s very they’re going to remember that story. And then next time they’re going to think about well not only can I walk somewhere but maybe one of these little these these behavior changes that I can make.
Dr. Neha Pathak:
Yeah. And I think yeah, the ease piece of it, it’s important for all of us. Right. We want to make sure that whatever we’re doing solves for not just one problem, but many problems. And it’s easy and fun and social.
Carol Cox:
And Neha, I just very recently you published an article on the website Yale Climate Connections, and I’ll include a link to this article in the show notes, because it’s it’s definitely well worth reading. It’s a really beautifully written article. And when I saw it on your LinkedIn, I clicked over it on it. And so I’ll just say the title of it is I’m a Doctor. Here’s what Western medicine misunderstands about nature. So I was like, okay, you know, that sounds that sounds like Neha, right? Like I know you like you’re combining these things. And I really expected especially, you know, Yale like Yale climate connections, like very prestigious. I really expected the article to start with. Well, you know, being in nature, science has shown that it releases dopamine or, you know, whatever it happens to be. But no, no, no, that’s not how the article starts. The article starts with I still flushed with embarrassment when I relived the moment it was 20 years ago. I was a shy medical student and so on, and I was like, yay! I was clapping when I was reading it because that like, it brings as the reader, it brings me in. And I was so engaged in reading the article and I felt like I just, I felt like that kind of like that professional distance had collapsed, even just on the screen by reading that story about you.
Dr. Neha Pathak:
Well, I really appreciate that feedback. I thank you so much for sharing that with me and just how you felt as you were reading it. And I will share with you that that is probably the first narrative, personal essay that I’ve ever written, and a lot of it is thanks to you and just sort of, again, not just the framework, but helping sort of pull in like, what is the you of this? Why are you the one that’s sharing this information and pulling back, going through your archive and your memory and thinking about how are our experiences, these personal experiences, really connected to the way that we’re thinking about the world around us or the work that we’re doing in the world around us? And so this is the first time I’ve sort of put me in a story like that. And, uh, yeah, I mean, I think it was really to say that there was a time when I tried to share sort of my own sort of, I would say, cultural inheritance as part of the practice of medicine. So for me, it was really just yoga, not as the way we kind of practice it, um, in the world today, but just moving, breathing, feeling connected to everything around us. Um, and just it’s just sort of this journey to recognizing that that’s what we kind of maybe need to expand our understanding of what yoga is, to include the world around us as well, and protect that world because it has health benefits for us and, and spiritual health benefits for us as well.
Carol Cox:
I love that. And and this sentence also in the article really stuck out to me because I remember you had shared this in the Thought Leader Academy. In the article you write, I teach my children to ask for Mother Earth’s blessings every morning before they place their feet on her to do their daily tasks.
Dr. Neha Pathak:
I thank and again, this is not something else I necessarily would have shared in, you know, an article like this or at all. Um, but it really is sort of how, how am I thinking about it really in my own life? And how can that connect with the way that other people are thinking about it? And there are so many traditions. There’s so many ways that we see the world and we think, oh, these are so different. But so many of us think about how we honor the world around us, how we care for the world around us. And I think sharing that specificity helps us think about, well, what is it that you know? Well, I have my own way of kind of doing that, and I hope that that sort of translates.
Carol Cox:
Absolutely. Well, Neha, let’s talk about some of your speaking experiences. I also want to chat a little bit about how your how you are approaching your podcast interviews that you do. So I remembered that you had a speaking engagement. So you graduated from the Thought Leader Academy in October, and I think the speaking engagement was around that same time. So maybe right, kind of right after we graduated. And I remember back in August when we started, you said something like, I usually, I usually like don’t look forward to speaking engagements and. Right. And can you tell us why. So what like what was that about that and how are you feeling now?
Dr. Neha Pathak:
Yeah, I. So that’s the reason that I connected with you was really because I had this speaking engagement. It was probably the biggest opportunity that I’d ever had, the largest audience. And, um, I have and I think I shared with you then my biggest, biggest, biggest weakness is procrastination. And just the the fear of having to do that sort of ends up making me just constantly say to myself, I’ll do it later, okay, I can do it later, or I’m thinking about it. That means I’m doing it and not actually physically putting anything on paper. So I really connected with you as sort of this accountability coach to just help me put it on paper, like, if I could talk to somebody and not in the world of medicine, where I kind of understand the frame that I need to be talking from, but someone who has a completely different perspective, a different a completely different way of understanding persuasive kind of language. Um, so this was like a very different type of process than I’ve ever done before. And so I did just what we sort of talked about. I for months beforehand made these slides, really thought about what is the persuasive message here, what are the interesting graphics, what are the great stories from my archive and from other patients, other health professionals that I can kind of throw in here? And it was an audience of, I think around 2000 health professionals.
Dr. Neha Pathak:
It went well. And you know me, I never say anything positive about anything I’ve done. So it was I’m working on that piece as well, which is to, you know, just appreciate and have gratitude for the journey. Uh, so I think that that really has shifted my relationship with being able to say yes to other talks, to feel comfortable and then sometimes often to just say no, um, to some of these opportunities as well, because I feel like it has to really speak to me. Um, and I really feel like I have to be able to pull all of these pieces together in order to, to do this well. So I just really appreciated the process of going going through that and forcing myself to put something on paper and sharing it with somebody who could then give me some feedback.
Carol Cox:
Well, I remember I had, you know, emailed you good luck beforehand and then you wrote me back afterwards and you’re like, it went great. And so you had some exclamation marks in there. So I think, yes, I think you did a great job.
Dr. Neha Pathak:
I had a bar of just thank you. My, my bar was don’t collapse on stage. So that was met and then I was like and then this is you know and it was it really did it went well.
Carol Cox:
Do you have any advice or tips for speakers, maybe speakers who also feel like you when they when they’re thinking about their upcoming speaking engagements?
Dr. Neha Pathak:
So I think one a the earlier you know about it, don’t tell yourself, oh, I have three months before I have to start working on it. It really is sort of when you find out about it, if it is really something, that opportunity that is so meaningful to you, um, put that passion down on paper as soon as you can. And then I think finding someone who is an accountability person or group is just crucial, because I think that, you know, I, I put and generally this is another thing I just kind of have thrown together slides in the past and been like, okay, I can I, I got the idea, I can speak through this, but it’s when you iterate and you show it to somebody who maybe is not necessarily in your field. If they can connect with that message, then, you know, you’re kind of on to something. So I think those are the keys. And then having a framework, I don’t think I necessarily even thought through the fact that you need a story arc, even for these types of health professional presentations, where it’s not just here are my objectives, here’s the information. I hope you hope I met those objectives. It’s sort of here’s my what I’ve started to add to in some of my slides now or in some of my presentations are here are my objectives. But here’s my hope for what we come out. With. At the end of this time together, I hope we co-create something new. Information. I hope you help me understand what resonates, what doesn’t. And then I’ll sort of go into the the presentation.
Carol Cox:
I like that, Neha. I like I think of it as like you’re you’re extending an invitation to the audience instead of, you know, saying, okay, here, I’m just going to lecture to the audience. You know, one way, here’s all the information, here’s the information dump. Instead of even if the audience is not literally saying anything back to you, I always like to think of it as a dialogue and like you’re extending the invitation for them to join you on this journey of discovering, in this case, it happens to be like, you know, this climate change is a big issue. What can we do about it as physicians?
Dr. Neha Pathak:
Yeah, and I think I think the whole this is and I’ve told you this in the past as well, like I’m not great with the terms, you know, thought leader or I am really so interested in learning and I’m really interested in understanding how other people are seeing this problem so that we can sort of work together and figure out, because it really is a all hands on deck. And so how can we all with our individual skills or our different interests? Come together to do something, and I definitely come at it from a place of I’m still in the process of learning. I am definitely not an expert in climate science. That’s going to tell you. I’m telling you from a health perspective what I’m seeing, what the concerns are for people’s health. So how can we all sort of think about this problem, and what can each of us do to tackle it in our own ways?
Carol Cox:
Well, to me that is thought leadership. I always say that it’s not about having all the answers. It’s being willing to ask the big questions and being willing to not to know that you don’t have the answers, but that these are conversations that need to be had and that you want to contribute to those conversations that are going on. So yes, I always say you don’t have to put thought leader on your LinkedIn profile, like you don’t have to do that. But I really think, like I still feel like embracing that identity for yourself helps you to realize the important role that you’re playing. And then hopefully kind of role modeling that for others. Subconsciously, you know that and then that they can see that and take it for themselves as well.
Dr. Neha Pathak:
I care. I think that that’s such a key message. And that is beyond also just understanding the sort of the framework and the operationalizing, putting a talk together or even sort of outlining. What I want to write is these internal feelings of imposter syndrome. And I’m not there yet. I’m still working on it. But I think that that’s another thing that I learned from working with you and the other women, that this was a very women focused program, I think really was important for me, because I think a lot of us come into whatever space we’re in, just having imposter syndrome or not thinking that what we know is enough or what we have to share is enough. And so it’s really been about sort of eliminating that self-talk. Each day. I maybe get a little bit better at that. And then not being afraid to share these ideas, I think was another thing that came out of working with you is, and I’ve talked to you about this as well, I am not great at social media. I’m not great at just like putting things out there that I’ve done. Um, and I think it’s sort of like, no, it’s okay to own your work and what you’re doing and what you’re passionate about and share that with other people. Um, so I think that was another major thing that I have to thank you for.
Carol Cox:
Oh, well, I am so glad to hear that. And yes, there is so much power in a community of women working together because you we do recognize that we are facing similar things because of the societal messaging that we’ve grown up with. And so learning how to be more, you know, confident in putting ourselves out there is something that we all are, you know, are are working on all of the time. All right. Neha, so for listeners, you can connect with Neha on LinkedIn. The link is in the show notes also that the link to that article that I quoted from earlier that Neha wrote is also a link in the show notes. So be sure to read that as well. And yeah, thank you so much for coming on speaking your brand podcast for going through our Thought Leader Academy, being such a valued member of our community, and for the very important work that you are doing because you are the messenger your audience is waiting for.
Dr. Neha Pathak:
Thank you so much, Carol.
Carol Cox:
Thanks so much to Neha for coming on the podcast and our next episode, we’re going to talk even more about storytelling, how to integrate your personal story into your talk, and there’s lots of different ways that you can do that. There’s not just one way. In some cases, your story may be the central message of your talk, and other cases it may be used to support one of the points that you’re making. Also, with stories, you can start at the beginning, of course, but you can also start at the middle of your story or the end of your story, and then come back to the beginning later on. So that’s what you’re going to hear on our next episode. Don’t forget that if you’d like to join us in our Thought Leader Academy enrollment is open, now you can go to speaking your brand.com/academy again. That’s speaking your brand.com/academy to get all of the details. Until next time. Thanks for listening.
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