No one said following your passion was easy. For Dr. Neha Sangwan, becoming an entrepreneur meant bucking family expectations and leaving behind the career she’d spent decades working toward. It wasn’t easy–but it was worth it.

Neha Sangwan MD, CEO is a physician, engineer, author, speaker, and communication expert. As the founder of Intuitive Intelligence, she empowers individuals, leaders, and teams with effective communication tools that address stress and prevent burnout.

Dr. Neha consults for top organizations like Google, American Express, Kaiser Permanente, and the American Heart Association. She has shared her work across three TEDx stages and authored two books: TalkRx: Five Steps to Honest Conversations for Connection, Health, and Happiness; and Powered by Me: From Burned Out to Fully Charged at Work and in Life. Her work is integrated into a corporate mental and emotional wellness program called Bridging-Me-We-World.

The Root of All Stress

Stress causes or exacerbates over 80% of all illnesses. As a doctor, Neha was responsible for treating symptoms; but she realized that many of the patients she treated would return with the same health issue a few months later because they hadn’t addressed the root cause of their stress.

So Dr. Neha started asking her patients five questions:

• Why this? (ie. why burnout or why a heart attack?)
• Why now? What message is your body trying to tell you?
• What clue, symptom, or pattern now makes perfect sense? 
• What else in your life needs to be healed?
• If you spoke from the heart, what would you say?

These same questions can be applied to stress you’re experiencing in any area of your life or business.

The interesting part, however, is that every single one of Dr. Neha’s patients knew the root cause of their stress. Most of the time it could be traced back to a communication issue, either with themselves or others (a strained relationship with their children, for example).

Dr. Neha realized that if she wanted to help people heal, she had to connect all aspects of health–physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual well-being. So she began the journey of becoming an executive coach and communication expert.

Developing Triple Vision

An essential part of healing is what Dr. Neha calls “triple vision”, or the ability to hold three views in harmony: the external, internal, and wider world.

Most of us are conditioned to focus on the external world of money, status, and what other people think of us. But your inner world–your values, passions, and purpose–is just as important as what others ask of you. If you lean too far into the external, it’s easy to lose sight of what you truly want.

The last view to consider is the world and the wider impact you want to make. Dr. Neha sums up triple vision as: “Me, we, world” and it’s a skill that all great leaders possess. To lead a successful team and business, you need to balance all three views.

Enjoy this episode with MD and CEO Neha Sangwan…

Quotes

“How did I dedicate 31 years of my life trying to live other people’s dreams?”

“I had given over my life to other people. And so I wanted that agency back and I thought, ‘Okay now you have to figure out what that means for you.’”

 “Allow your intuition to write, even if it doesn’t make sense, or speak it out because the answers are in there.”

“You’ve got to slow down to speed up.”

“As we keep ushering in and thinking that faster is better, and do more with less every year, and all these things, I think we better start thinking about what we’re saying. Because we’ve created a world that has exceeded our biological ability to function in and people are burning out everywhere.”

Links mentioned in this episode:

Podcast Resources

Visit Neha’s website: https://nehasangwan.com

Connect with Neha on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drnehasangwan/ 

TalkRx: Five Steps to Honest Conversations That Create Connection, Health, and Happiness: https://www.amazon.com/TalkRx-Honest-Conversations-Connection-Happiness/dp/1401942482

Powered By Me: From Burned Out to Fully Charged at Work and in Life:  https://www.amazon.com/Powered-Me-Burned-Fully-Charged/dp/1265443386/ 

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