IAM124- Holistic Psychologist Helps Clients with Holistic Mental Wellness at Different Levels

Dr. Nicole LePera trained in Psychology at Cornell University and The New School for Social Research in New York City. She practices as a holistic psychologist and is founder of the Mindful Healing Center in Philadelphia. Recently she brought her work online to spread the message of holistic mental wellness.

• CEO Hack: Having a balance
• CEO Nugget: Don't believe your thoughts
• CEO Defined: Freedom

Website: https://yourholisticpsychologist.com/

Instagram: @the.holistic.psychologist
Facebook: the.holistic.psychologist

Full Interview:

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Intro 0:02

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 0:26

Hello, hello, Hello, this is Gresh from the I AM CEO Podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Dr. Nicole LePera of Your Holistic Psychologist. Dr. Nicole, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Dr. Nicole LePera 0:38

Awesome to be here. Thank you so much for having me.

Gresham Harkless 0:39

No problem. And what I want to do is just read a little bit more about Dr. Nicole, so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. And Dr. Nicole LePera trained in Psychology at Cornell University and The New School for Social Research in New York City. She practices as a holistic psychologist and is the founder of the Mindful Healing Center in Philadelphia. Recently, she brought her work online to spread the message of holistic mental wellness. Dr. Nicole, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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Dr. Nicole LePera 1:07

I am. Thank you.

Gresham Harkless 1:08

No problem. Let's do it. So the first question I had was here I guess a little bit more about your CEO story. And what led you to start your business?

Dr. Nicole LePera 1:14

Yeah, absolutely. So I'm one of those people who was always going to be a psychologist. So as you heard, I went to a lot of schools to do so did my training in New York, and moved to Philly to start my practice had kind of two pivotal points along the way, which kind of directed me into the holistic work that I'm doing now, one of which was around my own battle with anxiety and discovering mindfulness.

So hence, when I opened up my private practice, I really focused a lot on using mindfulness-based techniques. And the mindful healing center. Started working privately with people as I evolved and started working with people started connecting with colleagues in the same field at the same time went through a health crisis of sorts of my own, and really started to realize at that point, look at my own nutrition, look at my own lifestyle, and really start to realize that the major piece that was missing in my own healing journey, as well as a lot of the clients that I was working with,, was a holistic piece.

So I kind of pivoted again, and then started to really implement a lot of lifestyles, a lot of nutritionally based practices into the work that I was doing with my private clients, but also saw this big world that is the online sphere, and really was wanting to kind of get the message out there that I think is missing, and a lot of conventional mental wellness.

Gresham Harkless 2:28

That makes perfect sense. And obviously, it's sorry to hear about having to go through those different experiences, but it sounds like you've been able to go through them, but you've been able to cure yourself, but also help out so many other people as a result of it, you may not be able to do that if that didn't happen, I guess.

Dr. Nicole LePera 2:43

Right. I think all the time. I'm always the biggest, I guess, cliche statement of, you know, we learn, we pick what we do with our past experiences. And I think like you're saying, there's a part of me now that can truly relate a lot of the people, the clients that I see in my practice online, anxiety is just so prevalent. So having had my own experience, as difficult and terrible as it was, I think allows me a lot to speak from a point of lived experience, which I think is really helpful.

Gresham Harkless 3:08

Yeah, definitely agree. So I wanted to drill down a little bit deeper and hear exactly how you're helping to serve these clients, how you're helping them with their holistic wellness. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?

Dr. Nicole LePera 3:17

Yeah, absolutely. So, when I think of when I say holistic, I mean the mind the body. So obviously, I do a lot of the mind piece of things. And what that looks like is I'm of the belief that we have this subconscious part of our mind that is formed. Usually, when we're very young, I call it our subconscious programming, it's kind of what happens, what kind of you know, are the things that we do very consistently on a daily basis.

So for the mind piece, I do a lot of work around kind of understanding what our narratives are our stories, our programs, and obviously trying to work to shift them because a lot of times, they're not so helpful. The biggest piece is I think, the body piece. So I do a lot of nutritional work, there is a ton of research out there that is really starting to find the pivotal role that our gut health actually plays in everything from anxiety to depression, actually, there's like autism, um, schizophrenia, things like that.

So a lot of mental illnesses, I think are the way I would define them as a symptom of actually a gut-related issue. So I do a lot of nutritional focus. And I bring this up too because I think that there's a lot of contradictory and confusing, overwhelming information out there in terms of all things, nutrition, there are so many different camps of people. So I really tried to drill down and give the people that I work with my clients, at least what my opinion is in terms of the optimal mental wellness diet for humans.

So a lot of nutritional work, as well as lifestyle. I do a lot of work around breathwork meditation, mindfulness is still a huge part of my practice. So it kind of from working on all of those levels. You know, as I said, I do this still working individually with clients, I bring this message online, I'm expanding, I'm doing Skype sessions, all of that. So it's been a really cool evolution. I'm hoping in the next couple of months to get a program that I will be able to release to help people kind of self-direct themselves through some of the healing process.

Gresham Harkless 5:00

That's exciting, and I've always heard that about the kind of holistic wellness that you sometimes just try to take one piece of it. It's like, oh, that I ate that today. But it could be so many different other factors that you need to kind of have that holistic perspective to understand exactly what might be the underlying cause, as you mentioned.

Dr. Nicole LePera 5:17

Absolutely. And I think and I have this probably isn't a long conversation for a different time. But I have my theories, I think as a society, we do like to have this kind of I called the reductionistic, right, one problem, one solution approach, right? Like, I hurt my arm, so I just fixed my arm. But I think to speak more, and I wholeheartedly agree, I don't think it's ever as simple as one thing. We were very complicated more often than not because all of our systems are so interconnected, our mind and our body is one of those two major systems, you know, we can't just pick apart one thing and say, This is how you feel. Unfortunately, it looks like a bunch of different things.

Gresham Harkless 5:50

Right. Exactly. That makes sense. So now I wanted to ask you for what I call your secret sauce. And this could be what you feel kind of distinguishes you or sets you apart. But do you have an example of a secret sauce?

Dr. Nicole LePera 6:00

Yeah, so absolutely. So I think my secret sauce, and I think it actually really helps me in terms of being the clinical psychologist, part of the work that I do is, I like to call it, I am a master of objectivity. I think a lot of it comes from my own childhood experiences, but I have an almost uncanny ability to distance myself, not all the time my own personal feelings sometimes, but to distance myself, especially in the room with people.

And I think that really helps me because a lot of times, we hear someone say something or we don't agree, and we become triggered, I think I can sit in a lot of here a lot of things and sit in the feelings that all those things bring up and not allow my own feelings to kind of get in the room.

And when you're doing work with people on an individual basis, I think that can be a really good secret sauce to have as a psychologist because it's really about them, and not what I think of what they're saying or feel I should say about what they're saying, but kind of showing up for them, meeting them where they're at. So I think that's really benefited me in my personal life and my practice.

Gresham Harkless 6:57

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And so objectivity you're saying is kind of like you're not, I guess, all the way into like, what it is that somebody's saying, you're able to kind of look in partially and make what is the quote-unquote, right decision based off of not based off any bias? Is that correct?

Dr. Nicole LePera 7:12

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So it's I think to a large extent, we all see the world through our lens. And often that lens is our narratives, the meanings that we're assigning, and therefore the feelings we have. So part of the mindfulness-based approach that I practice outside of my practice, as well as standing in that objectivity, like you're saying, being able to hear something, not to say I don't have thought about it or a feeling about it, I'm human, but not being able to step far enough back, I think he put it a really good way from that to then just kind of meet the person where they're at and not then speak through my lens and what my opinion or my feeling might be if I might not agree, or what have you.

Gresham Harkless 7:45

Yeah, that's that was definitely a great example of a secret sauce. And definitely, a lot of people can use and benefit from that as well, too. So now, I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. And this might be an app or book or a habit that you have, but it's something that makes you more effective and efficient as a business owner.

Dr. Nicole LePera 8:00

Yeah, absolutely. So interestingly, the first answer was a kind of objectivity, the mindfulness piece. My second answer is going to be the body piece, I think nutrition. As I said, what propelled me into my own holistic wellness personal journey was a health crisis. And with that comes, and I think a lot of the symptoms that I was having are a lot of the symptoms that a lot of us have, my brain felt foggy, I had no energy motivation, while I could kind of summon it, I really had to work hard to do it.

So really changing my lifestyle, my nutrition, as the major factor of it, I think, is really giving me a balance that allows me to be more successful, to have more energy to think clearly to have those hours where I feel like I'm very much alive in my body in a way that I think if I hadn't made the lifestyle or nutritional changes that I had, and a lot of us aren't making, you know, are struggling. And I think that we're being limited in our productivity because of it.

Gresham Harkless 8:53

Yeah, absolutely. I've always heard that the kind of like I guess you are what you eat to some degree. So sometimes when you're putting things that might not be great for you and to your system, and not taking care of your nutrition as best as you can that can manifest itself in stress or depression or frustration. So you kind of have to look at that and figure out what you're putting into your body.

Dr. Nicole LePera 9:10

Yeah, there's so the research one of the major things it's coming, you know, bringing up to the light is there's a very much a connection between our guts and our brains to the extent that if our guts are damaged Before long, the blood-brain barrier, so the kind of protection that keeps our brain safe, gets penetrated.

So to speak your point, there's a very real physiological effect, then if toxins are going into our brain, not only our mental processes going to be slowed down, but areas such as memory and executive functioning, kind of where we do our creative thinking are actually legitimately going to be affected. So I think that really does speak for we have to follow that train down, right? And then really make sure our guts are healthy so that upstream our brains are physiologically as healthy as possible.

Gresham Harkless 9:54

Yeah, that definitely makes perfect sense. And I think that's a phenomenal example of a CEO hack. And now I wanted to ask you for a CEO nugget. And this might be a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. Or if you can happen to be a time machine, what would you tell your younger business self?

Dr. Nicole LePera 10:06

Yeah, so I would tell my younger business self, this, I would tell my younger self, this, I would tell everyone this, not to believe your thoughts. And like I said earlier, I think a lot of times our thoughts are one of our major disservices, whether we're an entrepreneur in business, whether we're just someone trying to make it through our day, we have a lot of negative critical voices. And like I said earlier I think a lot of it comes from this programming, and it becomes so subconscious, that we're saying these negative things to ourselves on repeat, not even realizing it for the time.

So I think a really huge hack and something that I'm still working on, it's much easier said than done is not to believe, you know, my thoughts, you know, everything from the morning routine that I now hold myself accountable for to even my food choices, there's a part of my mind that tantrums still, I don't want to wake up early, I don't want to not have ice cream, I don't want to do this thing.

So I think from anything if I don't want to do or not do too I can I can't succeed, you're a failure, all of these thoughts. I think the biggest kind of tip is to just ignore them, or at least develop a distance. right not to say that they go away, I hear them, but I can choose to listen to them and throw my hands up and say, Okay, I soc. Or I can choose to say alright, thoughts, not today, you're inaccurate. I'm not listening to you. So I think that's a huge kind of a huge, important piece for us all to keep in mind. It's a practice, it's much more difficult, than I think instead, but it's something that I think could benefit a lot of us definitely entrepreneurs who have that critical voice.

Gresham Harkless 11:35

Yeah, I think that's absolutely true. And you know, especially in this day and age, sometimes there's so much kind of negativity pulling at you. And a lot of times, as you said, it's been kind of in doctrine, I guess, into us as we've grown up. So sometimes you have to be able to, quote-unquote, fight fair. But I think that I guess you kind of touched on one aspect where you kind of rewire in that, not that I don't think that I could do that. But I actually can do that as a way to kind of take control and kind of empower yourself to some degree so that you can reach whatever goal you want to

Dr. Nicole LePera 12:00

Yeah, absolutely. A little bit you said in power, I probably say in power a million times a day, because I think that there were so many little micro-moments in a day where we can whether or not to victory over a thought or making the way I kind of put it, we make a small promise to ourself, and we keep it even if it's so little and so small. I think that's hugely empowering. I think even just stepping back and acknowledging that we have a choice with what we do with our thoughts, whether we listen to them or not, that's empowerment, and a lot of us are disempowered for a lot of different reasons. So I think really cultivating I love that you brought that word up that empowerment, I think, is hugely beneficial, again, whether or not we're just someone trying to heal from our past, or someone trying to be an entrepreneur and be really productive and succeed. I think empowerment plays a major role.

Gresham Harkless 12:41

Definitely, definitely, I would definitely agree with that. And now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO, and we're all gonna have different, quote-unquote, CEOs on the show. So I wanted to ask you, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Dr. Nicole LePera 12:52

Yeah, absolutely. So I think the first word that came to mind, as soon as, like I have, you know, thought about this definition is freedom. Everything from freedom to come up with the ideas that I want to present to the world to freedom to pick the population that I want to present it to, or work with, to freedom to pick the hours that I want to work. I think a lot of us are pushed into this 9 to 5 kind of be productive in these hours timeframe, and I don't think it necessarily works.

So, the freedom to wake up and decide these morning hours are my most productive are these afternoon hours and work on that schedule, obviously, to financial freedom, right, you know, the harder the amount of effort I put in translates and has nothing to do with anyone else to freedom in terms of being able to move and kind of do my work wherever I want. So I think the number one thing that comes to mind when I think of my version of a CEO, what is so appealing, and what kind of has inspired me to pursue my own path is freedom.

Gresham Harkless 13:47

Yeah, I love that. And even kind of like what you said before about being able to kind of make a choice and it kind of sounds, like you have the freedom to be able to make your choice. And we all kind of have the choice to do that. But as a CEO, you're kind of marking on that path and making that decision that I'm going to do that. So I think that's a phenomenal definition. Dr. Nicole, I truly appreciate you for taking some time out of your schedule, what I want to do is pass it to the mic just to see if there's anything additional you want to let our readers and our listeners know and how best they can get a hold of you.

Dr. Nicole LePera 14:12

Of course. So I have two major platforms. The one that I'm on most consistently on a daily basis is Instagram @the.holistic.psychologist. I'm on there pretty much every day I post new kinds of daily tips whether it's nutrition and lifestyle or things kind of mental, the mind mental wellness, so come check me out on there. And I also have a blog at yourholisticpsychologist.com. And I write blogs weekly, there is an email list if you if anyone who is interested. The link for my website is also in my bio on Instagram so you can get through it that way. If you sign up to my email list, there's actually a free gut health PDF I put together a couple of weeks ago and you will be on an email list and get my blog. So Instagram and/or yourholisticpsychologist.com.

Gresham Harkless 14:56

Awesome, awesome, awesome. I will have those links in the show notes just so that anybody can always So click through here and follow up with you. But Dr. Nicole, I truly appreciate you for taking some time out of your schedule and all the awesome work that you're doing and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Dr. Nicole LePera 15:07

Thanks. I appreciate being on and thank you so much have a good day.

Outro 15:10

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