nobody knows anything about you why did you start a cognate what is your story so in order to answer those questions i asked my very good friend carol mays whom i've been working with in my pos corporate life and organizational change and cultural and so forced to interview me so today karol is going to be in charge so carol thank you so much for being with us today you're welcome and i'm delighted to be here it's going to be fun yes i'm sure it's a little bit bizarre but go for it ok so i'm going to ask you some questions that have actually three different themes ok so let's start right with the very first thing and if you recall years ago when we first met i was coming into pfizer to work with you and a lot of other teams on emotional intelligence and how to have healthy productive teams and i introduced you to the concept of heliotrope growth how plants follow the sun and grow towards the sun and you immediately took to that and you described it to your team and you said remember when it's cloudy outside in the rain is coming down the sun is still out there pulling you towards it and i wonder and i think your your listeners would like to hear about how did you come to understand so deeply the concept of heliotrope it growth ok well that's that's not an easy question but i remember very well this time and it was a tough time and we had a lot of new people who had been integrated in pfizer and i was trying to create a common culture  same time keeping people or teams old personalities and i wanted everybody to be optimistic yeah optimism is something that i would say can be like i can be labeled as optimistic because i think this was my way of looking at and seeing the sunshine even if it was covered with clouds and  in fact you know i've always been i'm a trained engineer i'm a business woman and i did all my career in pharma and commercial roles yeah and i had to be a leader at one point i was leading more than two hundred people and but then i i was always an a type of person you know always trying to impress my father frankly speaking this is something i realize over the years  i completely collapsed this was in two thousand and five i fell i mean i had terrible panic attacks and i fell into a kind of a very deep depression dark hole a dark hole another with thing about killing myself but i had zero energy i couldn't write i could not read i couldn't and drive a car and my doctor said to me well you broke your brain  d well of course i had to you know goes to psychotherapy i took some medications and so force but i had to push myself to the point of collapse and i should have known better because i speak about it in my book i'm an ovarian cancer survivor i am americal yeah in fact and i survived this in two thousand and one so speak about knowing how to take care of yourself but i did not take care of myself and i did my job my kids my husband my commute be more important than me and i when i thinking about taking care of me i always thought well i don't have the time  and i had to think about how am i going to get up again and how my going to move on and i am going to have to change and one of the aspects of my personality for genetic reasons or for whatever is i was always looking at the glass half empty and i start you look at the glass half full  i i change and i look that there is a ray of sunshine everywhere anywhere you go in any moment of your time there is a reason to hope there is a reason to yeah and i said well next negs the to morrow is going to be better a fact with the help and advise of some friends and you know doctors number one i started to run  and you know running can really rewire your brain yes it releases several tone in jumps your endorphins and so force it's a form of meditation you know i was running like six thousand miles and i also started to learn to meditate and all of this i think i started to kind of fix my brain i still had to take some medication but you know what i haven't had a panic attack since two thousand and six when two thousand and eighteen that's a long time ok and i think it's because i was able to change my brain to rewire it to make it more resilient and to focus to become more grateful and to take better care of myself and the better i took care of myself the more energy i built and the more and more effective i became at helping others it's like i became a better mother and i became a better wife and i even became a better leader  because i became more self aware and understood that i had holistically to take care of myself my body and my mind to be grounded and to be able to give back now was this the time because as i recall you began to learn about nutrition in steps in small little phases and you began to have as much passion about that as you had about your work in the people that worked with you  this that a sign of heliotrope it grows too that you begin to grow towards this new source of energy and actually begin to invite that into your life and into your work yet in fellow ways see that tradition online while i was working yes i was already not knowing exactly what i was going to write that's what i was like i want to i'm a nerd you are a nerd and i wanted to write more about nutrition i kind of you how to eat way i was raised in europe but i adopted a lot of stuff not so healthy at it use here in terms of resources and sizes right but i came back to my roots and when you eat healthy and you pay attention to what you put in your body gives us energy and feuding all those little cells and if we don't feed them well you know the plant is going to log be optimally presenting let me say that's right so i i  combined then you become a person that's more harmonious yes and when you are in harmony with yourself you inspire others and people are attracted to  get come up you know so let's go on to the second theme and you've brought this up a number of times so like you said i'm a nerd and i love neuroscience and i love it and on the on the on the brain side and i love it on the mind side and trying to figure out how the mind in the brain work together and how the body influences that because our emotions start first with our body and the economy diet is full of different ways that you can use your mind in your brain in your body to to benefit you but i also know that that will force ourselves to go out and run ten miles even in the heat even when we're exhausted and that's our mind forcing our brain and our body to do something that it's saying stop and so i'm wondering how did you figure all that out because the cockney diet book which i'm sure everyone is seeing the commonly diet book is full of tips about how to use your brain and understand your body and let your mind to be heliotrope it to them rather than push them beyond where they need to be well first of all of based on what i said earlier it was my body and my mind collapsed and so i had to bring them back together and i also had gained a lot of weight by not eating in a very healthy way so i lost like somebody sortie five pounds and i also changed the composition of my body really building muscles starting to go to the gym you know it's very important to do the holistically and so i had been dealing with the weight loss but then you know gaining losing gaining losing and then when i finally changed i said well i have to tricia i have this background yeah you're going to lose a twenty pounds but then they're going to come back because you're going to go back to your old behaviors and every single is your brain doesn't like change your mind like it's a status quo yeah we are creatures of habit right that's how  laughs was i was not dealing with my stress when you're stressed you don't pay attention to would be to weren't even aware of it no and all of people who i work with is initially they don't even realize how stressed they know they don't know what relaxation becomes the new normal yes and so when you discovered that how did you back because change is about letting go of a lot of things how did you know what to let go of and what to maintain as you changed as you change your lifestyle your habits and then that you sider to become in your tradition the ass well you know i i took stock of my skills and my talents what i was good at yeah and then you know i was trained for three years to become a nutritionist i went to nutrition meetings and yeah so for us i went to see beauty classes  i started to do meditation so i felt all the good impact on this on my body and being certain that my brain had changed after the collapse  senate well why don't i put all this together and help women change and lose the weight but that the same time do this from a holistic perspective yeah and if if it doesn't start here a i say you all you have all those roads if in fact in fact not have a better analogy your brain is a jungle yes and you're right yes but you have those spots ways that you used get your brain happy instead of always going for the treat the easy fix is a fix i put all this combine i said it's like a chinese menu in his book right we deal with the  stress we deal with the emotions yeah we have course deal with the body exercise and nutrition and also self love and all of this helps you also to stay focused like to come back to your first question about how you tropic yeah right what do you love about yourself what is it about your and when you focus on what is good about you what is strong about you what you like about yourself you get  you get happy in fact and people can feel it and this positive energy is the one that's going to help you change because you focus on the positive versus the negative so positivity actually is at the mirror and see something you like about yourself you always have something you like help yourself a compliment i've been in my hair today i like my art fit you are going to leave your house on the positive note and you will have a different perspective on life if you start you these way i had to do this to get out of my depression you're right it's all my big believer that if i can do it you can do it and everybody can change it's never too late to change but you have to work at it and you have to work at it and imagine if we not only apply that to ourselves but if we applied it to each other that if every time we saw another person we saw all the good things about them and so we knew that when you're looking at me you're seeing the good things of carol yes not just the the bad and goes on here i would things have i care all right and i'm seeing all the positive things about you it would be so much more generous of spirit i think we know also i think we need it in them i mean i do generally do and it completely changes your perspective if you come into a rule moring it was a group at a party and you come with a positive attitude i'm going to meet wonderful people i'm going to have a good time and i'm not talking about you know stupid self talk but maybe a positive attitude you you will brew yes people will be attracted to you you know very neat i consciously have always applied this i'm glad your name did that for me ok because every time i go to work with a group of people one of the things i always tell myself because i usually don't know them is i am going to love these people i don't know who they are i don't know what they're going to be like but i am just going to love these people and it always helps me get over my shyness or my introversion because i go in without knowing them thinking they're going to be great and i'm going to love them so i think that's how that works for me yeah well you know the power of the group of the power was you know you asked me that question before we met supportive you can inspire each other when somebody is feeling down yeah you will have a tip or something also have speak will not feel like their own all many times have i had groups where women thing i cannot wait i cannot wait i cannot lose weight because i'm a failure because i have no will because is this is this and then they are that other women are on them and they realize we all have to see issues  but one little tip here and what will to be there and then you see people change and it's inspirational to others so initially i decided i need to inspire other women right and i always speak about women because it's my business is ninety nine percent women married to is with a different way but if i was able to change you know and it's never too late to change i mean i have seventy year old clients who went from a surrogate person's body fat ratio to twenty five so the bill muscles like seventy six minutes never actually so if you can change you can change yes loss but weight loss is kind of a metaphor of it is so when i think you look at the way you live your life yeah that's a very often once women have called heard this change that has to do is the way the nourish themselves so it's a boost of confidence but i see weight loss us not just the weight loss it's you know change your lifestyle learn to love yourself others and  and you will be boosted by others as well you know i think back to when i was young i'm going to date myself here back in the fifty's and all of the women in my neighborhood as i was growing up none of them worked women didn't damage or the war and they spent their time together swapping recipes you know having coffee gardening whatever it is that they did not have as a kid i can't really tell you what that was good but we've lost some of that and i think you bring up an important point as whether or not it's an online community or an impersonal community getting together especially as women we're so social and it's part of our past to work together as women to help each other do what we need to do to make our lives full and fruitful and i don't know if you remember but years ago you had about ten of us over to your house and you made us a wonderful healthful lunch or it was the lower we were we were lured we took the bait veronique we had so much fun that day and i think if if women are are seeking to make some big changes in their lives it's that kind of community that would help them yes absolutely yeah that was the first the  this program i've done it for five years it took me three years to have the courage to do a clinical trial and to test and and to in fact validate my results but in that trial women were supporting each other as part of the trial that something everyone should remember that there were forty women in like five groups and five to eight and each week there were meeting one of us for a while our and i remember we did a lot of what what did you achieve this week how you feel about yourself and then i was putting on the board all the scenes they were doing right and they were mesmerized because at the end of the session they were saying i don't five siblings i've done i've changed five sings in my life this week yeah  very excited and then there was always swapping of recipes or we are going to start a group of walkers or i'm going to go to the gym was you some friendships were born out of those groups and in fact they've been very we still are meeting in fact i see around you some face to face groups but i'm moving which was always my vision to online because i can help women in princeton but i want to help women outside of pri everywhere i cannot be everywhere i can do classes and so force and workshops but i believe that was in the videos and engagement that you create games and experiments and so for people get started with the cognate diet it's not you know what people always say it's not the right time now and i say it's never the right time and in fact it's always a good time my most successful  yeah i have always a program going on it's you know six weeks online and then you get the book as well but for wherever who wants to embark on a life changing adventure and losing the weight for good i'm starting in january it's a wonderful new your if you can start in january new year's resolution yes so i'm hoping that this was a chance for people to get to know who you are i've enjoyed knowing you for what the last fifteen years almost twenty and i would encourage everyone to get to know you more yeah i thank you so much carol for taking the time yeah fine joy that this was the interview by carole ma and i was very excited to have this opportunity to see a little bit of who i am and you know yes i'm a cancer survivor yes i went through this horrible burnout but you see i'm happy i'm radiant i'm healthy i thinking good care of myself i'm having fun in life so stay tuned for most shows it's about the holistic lifestyle of the cognate diet i'm going to have c b d experts organic farmers  endocrinologists and fitness trainers and success stories to share as a wonderful day