Welcome to shameless leadership. I'm your host, Sarah Dean. This show is for women, transgender people, non-binary folks, as well as allies, who are committed to advancing their leadership while also advancing the leadership of those around them. In each episode, we will offer practical tips, leadership strategies, and inspiring

stories to help you become a more confident, compassionate, and inclusive leader. The truth is,

you were born to lead. What might happen for you if you were to wholeheartedly embrace that

part of yourself? So let's start now, together. Hello, shameless leaders. So today we're going to be talking about my own personal health, which feels a little

vulnerable and like behind the scenes.

If you haven't watched the show on YouTube before, this would be a good episode to watch

on YouTube because I'm really, I feel like I'm kind of just like talking to girlfriends

for this episode.

I don't have a lot of notes prepared. I'm going to be talking about some things that have come up in my health as a 49-year-old woman and things that I think will be really helpful. What's been interesting as I've gone on this, as I've kind of figured out some stuff with my health, and especially as it relates to paramedopause and menopause in the last few months, and I've talked with other women and close friends of mine about it, is I've seen how conversations between women about this topic can be so helpful and so eye-opening and can prompt other women to start to probe into their own health and start to recognize like, oh, there's maybe some ways that I'm suffering that I don't need to be suffering. I think that women are really good at brushing things under the rug. We're really good at being dismissive of our own symptoms because who has the time to deal with them? And also we're just like, well, who's even going to listen? And I'm not going to get anywhere even if I try. So I'll just like let it go. I don't want that to happen for you. I want you to be in a position where you feel like you can really take charge of your health and that you know the right questions to ask. And so I'm hoping by sharing some of my

experience that I'll be able to maybe inspire you to ask good questions with your health care

providers and get answers for yourself so that you aren't suffering needlessly or that you're not

attributing abnormal symptoms to normal life because I was doing that for quite

some time. So that's what we're going to be talking about today. This relates to leadership because

when our physical health is compromised in any way and women's physical health is compromised

on a very regular basis over the course of our lives, especially if you're someone

that suffers significantly from premenstrual syndrome or PMDD or if you're someone who is

paramanopausal. I mean, if you're someone who's recently given childbirth, if you're pregnant,

there's all these things related to our reproductive cycles that can impact our health,

let alone any other health issues that we might have. And when our health is compromised in any way, it impacts how we show up in leadership. It impacts how we engage with the world. And so while this isn't about like how you can manage menopause to be a better leader, so it is about how you can manage perimenopause and menopause so that you can be a better leader, but also so that you can just feel better because you deserve that. So if you're watching on YouTube, it's just hanging out and having like, you know, I was going to say having drinks with a girlfriend as I'm drinking room temperature bubble water. So if you're not on YouTube, you can listen along per usual. If you are on YouTube, though, one other thing, I do have two dogs in my office. So you might see little dogs running around at any time. I always have one dog behind me, but we have a little house guest right now. So there's, you just never know what's going to happen when there's two dogs in the office. All right. So the reason I wanted to do this episode is because six months ago. I think it was, no, it was more than six months ago, but last fall. So in the fall of 2024, I went to my doctor for my usual physical. And at that time, she was like, let's just check everything because I hadn't been in any year. And there was some things even a year ago that we hadn't looked really deeply into because everything seemed to be in a good spot. And so she's like, let's just look at all the things. So we did all this blood work. And there's two really important things that I love about my doctor. And I think this is so important. I tell anyone who's looking for any woman of a certain age who's looking for a doctor to look for these two things. So the first thing is I see a naturopath, and I don't care if you see a naturopath or not. I love having a naturopath who really blends Eastern and Western medicine. So she's a naturopath who believes in science and vaccines and hormone replacement therapy. She just does a great job of pulling from different disciplines and medical disciplines, which I think really helps me get

the most comprehensive health that I can get. So the first thing is with that, because she's an

astropath, she works on a different business model, basically, for lack of a better word.

So my appointments with her for a physical are always a full hour long and sometimes go over an

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