Disrupting the System & Throwing Out the Rules with Robin Berzin

Hi heroine,

Today, I speak with Dr. Robin Berzin. She’s the doctor, founder, and CEO of a wellness and medical practic, Parsley Health, that takes a whole mind-body approach to your health. Robin is on a mission to heal and reinvent American healthcare when less than 4% of CEOs in the healthcare space are female. She’s a real badass with a medical degree from Columbia University who has raised millions of dollars in venture capital. In this episode, we talk about how she dealt with being lost and confused after college, having a baby while fundraising for her startup, and how to build your creative confidence as a woman.

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Highlighted Excerpt:

Majo: How did your yoga practice help you align into your purpose?

Robin: It taught me to listen. It taught me to listen to myself. I think I was someone who was a little bit trapped in her head and I think a lot of us live with a bit of a concrete wall between our bodies and our heads and we don’t really pay attention to what’s happening in our bodies, and we live in our minds and we live in the past; we live in the future and we’re never present. And if you’re somebody who is like a grades getter, go-getter, and an overachiever in any way, whether that’s in sports or academics, you’re rewarded constantly for that, right?

It’s reinforced in our educational system and it’s certainly been in mine growing up in Baltimore and going into this all-girls school that was very academically oriented and also athletically oriented. I wasn’t good at the athletics part but I was pretty good at the academics part.

For me, yoga was this moment of literally just waking up to right now and I realized I had this huge concrete wall between my head and my body. And then in many ways, there’s kind of low-grade abusing myself living on really crappy food, not really exercising, partying at night, hating my job, being in a crappy relationship with a crappy boyfriend at the time, and I think yoga was just this kind of stillness. And then I started listening; and then I started looking back to undergrad and back in my life and starting asking the questions, “What do I want to do? What do I care about? What is interesting to me and how do I want to spend my time?”

Show Notes:

• On childhood, her early days as a “neat freak” and “good girl.” [01:55]

• Working as a paralegal and stumbling on a yoga studio that would change her life. [04:42]

• Losing her grandmother to colon cancer and her growing interest in medicine; winning the award for a paper in complimentary medicine. [09:17]

• Her amazing experience working with Dr. Oz and Oprah’s team. [20:20]

• Reaching out to Dr. Oz to get the job. [23:09]

• How she learned to fundraise and how she managed after giving birth to her son. [26:04]

• Her thoughts on starting a company – don’t overthink it, just do it. [32:02]

• What she reclaimed during her heroine’s journey. [33:42]

REFERENCES:

Learn more about Robin Berzin and Parsley Health here.

A BIG THANK YOU & SHOUT OUT TO OUR BADASS PATRONS ESPECIALLY: 

Brigid Cabry Nelson leads Lettershop, an award-winning creative studio that serves a wide range of clients—from boutique retailers to large corporations—approaching each and every project with vigor and enthusiasm. Learn more about Brigid and her work here.

Bianca Wendt, an award-winning art director and graphic designer based in San Francisco and London. Learn more about Bianca and her work here.

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MUSIC:

by Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs