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A podcast by millennials, for millennials, covering health challenges unique to Gen Y. Get expert insights, practical patient advice, and inspiring survivor stories to help you make informed healthcare choices. Empower your journey with YMyHealth!
00:02
Melissa Schenkman
Welcome to the YMyHealth podcast, a healthcare podcast created by millennials for millennials. I'm Melissa Schenkman.
00:09
Julie Woon
And I'm Julie Woon. We're two members of Gen Y on a mission to tackle the health challenges unique to people in their 20s, 30s, and 40s.
00:16
Melissa Schenkman
With inspiring Survivor stories, plus insights and practical advice from experts across the country. We've got you covered.
00:22
Julie Woon
Whether you're navigating a chronic condition, cancer, or challenges to your mental health, or.
00:27
Melissa Schenkman
You're trying to manage our complicated healthcare system and your prevent or just want to make smarter healthcare choices, this is the podcast for you.
00:37
Julie Woon
Let's get started.
00:41
Melissa Schenkman
Welcome to the YMyHealth podcast. I'm going to be your co host, Melissa. And we are kicking off National Wellness Month with amazing episode with a very awesome guest, Kristen Oja, who is the founder of STAT Wellness and STAT stands for Strength to Achieve Total Wellness, which is such a creative idea when you think about just conceptually, but also that you thought that so through because it really, it's the message, it brings through the message of the work that you're doing. And so many of us are trying to achieve that total wellness. And so we're going to be talking today about your journey into the wellness space, the really incredible things you offer at stat Wellness, and kind of giving us some advice, really, because we're all looking for that, especially in the millennial generation.
01:32
Melissa Schenkman
There's a lot of stress out there and things that we deal with, and we're trying to always improve our health and find different ways of doing that. And so we're going to be talking about that as well. So welcome, Kristen.
01:43
Dr. Kristin Oja
Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here.
01:46
Melissa Schenkman
Thank you. We're so happy to have you here. Well, I just kind of wanted to start with really, what drew you to pursue a career in the healthcare space to begin with.
01:55
Dr. Kristin Oja
So it's funny, it kind of found me, I think, you know, I wasn't that young girl that wanted to go into the medical space. My daughter wants to be a doctor. She's already telling me. And that wasn't me. I was going to be a fashion designer at one point. I made my own clothes going to high school. Literally sewed myself in clothes, had to cut myself out of them. I wasn't good. I'm glad I didn't go in that direction. But I found personal training first and I absolutely loved it. It was after being an athlete my whole life, going to college, all of a sudden my genes not fitting and being like, oh, wait, like, we have to intentionally exercise. Because I never had to exercise. I played sports. Right? I became a personal trainer. And then I love being that cheerleader for people.
02:37
Dr. Kristin Oja
I loved empowering people. I love seeing people get stronger, feel good. And so I was like, I don't need to go to school. This is it. Like, I love this. And my parents encouraged me. They were like, kristen, get a degree. We don't care what it is. Just go to school. Get a degree. Personal training is awesome. You could do that as a career, but get a degree. And so I'm really big into having mentors. And so I talked to mentors, and they told me, go nursing. You can always fall back on it. And my first rotation was in the dialysis unit, which is filtering blood for four hours. It's dark. There's no windows in this hospital. Fluorescent lights. And I'm this cheerleader that's wanting to help people feel better. And they're just curled up under blankets. And I was like, wow.
03:18
Dr. Kristin Oja
I was like, this is sick care. So I pushed through and finished school, found the er. I'm an adrenaline junkie, so I loved it. I got, you know, 13,000 steps in a shift, and we got to see everything. It's a trauma. But then I was like, everybody's coming in on this gurney with a brown bag of 15 medications, and they didn't know who was prescribing, what, why they were on it, the interactions between them. And so I kept thinking, there has to be a better way. So I went back and got my master's. Then I functioned it as a family nurse practitioner. And what I found in that model was, you got five minutes with a patient, and you're finding the right medication to match the symptom. I was like, well, that doesn't make me super happy.
03:58
Dr. Kristin Oja
Like, I still want to go back and empower my patients. I want to make them feel good, this personal trainer in me. So I went back and got my doctorate and then did functional medicine training through the Institute of Functional Medicine. Because my mind keeps going back to, why, if your hair is falling out, why if you're bloated, why if you're depressed, why if you have high blood pressure, why? Right. It's not a medication deficiency, and we value medicine, but it's not the deficiency. So basically, that was the journey that led me to be like, we have to do healthcare different. And I put an emphasis into functional medicine and wellness. Oh.
04:31
Melissa Schenkman
Which we're definitely going to talk about, the functional medicine as well. That is quite a journey, but also extremely interesting and so relatable because I think so many people pursue this path and they, and don't know, maybe in the beginning, you know, it always like, well, it has to be the traditional healthcare path. But then. And I actually was on that journey as well as people know about my background. But you find out in that process what's the traditional, is not what's the most helpful and also not, as you know, well suited to being that positive force. Right. And what you were looking to do and to improve healthcare. But I really appreciate that. And you know, for a lot of people, especially like in older generations, they don't really understand this concept of what, you know, you've been talking about.
05:19
Melissa Schenkman
And for you, like, they often see, you know, that these are two completely separate things.
05:24
Dr. Kristin Oja
Right?
05:25
Melissa Schenkman
Health is one thing, wellness is another thing. And sometimes the perspective is that health is something that is necessary. And I bet you found this with patients at the time, like, it's something that's necessary to engage in or you're going to get around to getting that test or that screening. But that wellness is this luxury, is this extra kind of. In your view, how are health and wellness connected and how is engaging in both key to successfully living a long and healthy life?
05:52
Dr. Kristin Oja
I think, number one for me, yeah, health is not. You guys have probably heard this quote. It's very popular in functional medicine. I didn't come up with it. But health is not just the absence of disease. And that's what we're taught, right? So we don't have a medical diagnosis. So we're healthy now. We're focused on wellness things. Sauna, weight training, all of that. But what we absolutely know is health is not the absence of disease. We can actually be very ill and not diagnosed with a process. And so to me, health and wellness is blending in optimization. It's feeling your best, it's understanding we're all unique individuals and not normalizing things. I feel like it's very common in the US to normalize our symptoms. You're tired and your hair's falling out. You have two young kids at home.
06:41
Dr. Kristin Oja
You don't have to be tired in your hair falling out. With two young kids at home, like, you need some normalizing. And so I think in the wellness industry, there is normalization. Right? It's all about optimized skin. In the health industry, it's, do you have a disease state? Do you need a medication? Let's see, once a year, your labs look good, but you're like Wait. But I have a whole list of symptoms can we go through? So I think, to me, it's bridging it together to realize both health and wellness is all about optimization and being the best version of yourself.
07:08
Melissa Schenkman
Oh, absolutely. And that's something that millennials, very much, as you all know and being a fellow Milleo, are very interested. And it just seems like almost natural to us to think that way. And so that brings me to my next question, which is, you know, why do you think people in their 20s, 30s, and 40s are more open to this idea and more understanding of the idea that really, the fact is health and wellness go hand in hand? And why do you think they see this as an equal partner?
07:37
Dr. Kristin Oja
I feel like were taught to challenge. Like, I think were taught to be curious. And the older generation, when you look at them, they take everything. If you're the expert, I'm going to believe you. And I think this even came from Google. You know, take away ChatGPT and AI, right. We lived in the Google era where we would verify that what we're told is correct. If we're told to take this medicine, well, what are the side effects? If we're told to do this, well, we want to understand, we want to be curious. We now have the power through google.com and the other generations, they had to trust and they had to believe that whatever their provider told them they needed to do was what they need to do.
08:21
Dr. Kristin Oja
And so I really think it's some of the external tools that have allowed us as millennials to be curious and to bring health and wellness together, to ask questions. I think about this with me taking my car in, right? I know absolutely nothing about cars. If you tell me I need to do something with my car, I will do it. I don't even know the right questions to ask. I don't even know how to search on Google, what to ask. I'm gonna do it. Yeah. And I feel like now we're becoming so much more knowledgeable about our body. We know the right questions to ask, and if we don't.
08:48
Melissa Schenkman
No, absolutely. That's brilliantly put and very true that we do. And we seek out that knowledge as to who the right person is to ask on top of it, which is just a whole nother step, and knowing that people have recognized this concept and having experienced all of this firsthand and understanding it, both from your experiences with patient care in the traditional medical setting, but also in seeing the positive impacts on the body that fitness and personal training and practicing lifestyle Medicine can have and all of that kind of. What led you to say, okay, I want to go from doing the ER shifts, which are a whole nother thing with traditional medicine, to I want to build an entire practice that combines health and wellness.
09:34
Dr. Kristin Oja
So multiple layers. Number one, I think I have a whole podcast on this, on the little buy about becoming the CEO of your life. Take a side business. You know, who are we, and what is our purpose in this world? What's our core values? And one of my core values to actually have impact. And when I looked at what I was doing for patients, you know, writing a prescription and fixing a problem, it didn't align with my core value of having an impact. And I believe in order to have an impact, you have to know the person. You have to know them. You have to build a relationship. And so, you know, our new patient visits are an hour, and we talk about your mom's pregnancy, the birth, your upbringing. Did you exercise? What was your menstrual cycle like?
10:14
Dr. Kristin Oja
We have to talk about everything in order to know what to do in your plan. Now I think back, I'm like, how did I even know what to prescribe someone in five minutes? So I think there was that layer of, like, I want to have an impact, and in order to have an impact, I have to know my patients. And then the second thing is, I have always been born an entrepreneur. I think there's a piece of me that's an entrepreneur. So I'm constantly looking at place I've worked or things I've done. What do I think should be done differently? I'm constantly evolving. I think most of the listeners on here, too, we're all trying to be our best.
10:41
Melissa Schenkman
Absolutely.
10:42
Dr. Kristin Oja
As a person, as a business owner, everything as a mom. And so I kept trying to evolve and. And over and over again. What comes back in science on what is one of the most important things for longevity is community and happiness. And so that's really some of the foundation of what started Stout Wellness as this medicine and movement practice. Let's build community. I want to see you work out. I want to see you getting some tea or coffee after class. I want to say hi to you in the hall. I want to know that you have access to an unlimited health coach that can report back to me on how you're doing in between our visits. So I think it was this. This deep wanting to have an impact in people's life and not even me, right? The practice.
11:19
Dr. Kristin Oja
I want to build a practice that's having an impact in scaling and I want to focus on what truly is longevity, community and happiness. And so kind of bridging these things and always being an entrepreneur and taking my own work experience really led to the stat wellness model that we started back in 2019.
11:36
Julie Woon
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12:28
Melissa Schenkman
That's absolutely phenomenal and I think you are so right. That is such a common theme in our generation. Very much of how do I improve upon what I see? I see the need. People see the whatever the need may be, I see the need. How do I change the way things are? How do I improve upon them? How do I and also to your point before too, align it with your values and what you're doing. And I think, you know, far as community and happiness, those are sometimes so under recognized as to how valuable those are within our health and within our wellness. And far as the entrepreneurial piece, I have to ask because there are so many people out there, I think that they have an idea but they don't know how to carry it forward. Right? I think that's the challenge.
13:11
Melissa Schenkman
There are tons of people with great ideas, but there's the process and it is quite a process to be able to carry it forward. What were some of the kind of challenges that you faced along the path to making this a reality within, you know, having this practice within the health and wellness space?
13:29
Dr. Kristin Oja
Well, first of all, I wanna tell everybody that wants to be an entrepreneur is thinking about it is a beautiful ride, but it is a ride, right? I always tell people it is up and down. It is up and down. The lows are so low, the highs are so high, and everything in between. And I think people look at stat success because we've had it in a very short period of time and sometimes think it just kind of happened. And entrepreneurship is very hard. When we first opened, I worked from 3am to 11pm every single day. I couldn't pay myself for two and a half years, not even a single dollar. So I worked from 3am to 11pm for two and a half years. My first salary was $36,000. And I was only able to do it because my husband.
14:09
Dr. Kristin Oja
It's so funny because I talked about this on some other podcasts. My husband did not want me to start STAT Wellness because, you know, we're too young. We had no kids. We had this nice house. We traveled the world. We just had this really cushiony, beautiful life. And I wanted to have impact and I wanted to make a difference and I wanted to break the boundaries. And I went to banks. The first challenge was I went to banks and every single bank told me no. Every single bank. They. It was like, there's no proof of concept. Who's blending functional medicine and movement? And I was like, nobody. That's why I'm doing it. And so I showed him functional medicine practices and I showed him movement practices. I met with people for hours and hours, and everybody told me no. I still signed the lease.
14:49
Dr. Kristin Oja
My first lease was almost 8, 000amonth and I had no revenue coming in, no business model. Your listeners are probably. Their heart is like pounding. But I'm a seven on the Enneagram and sevens. We see opportunity in everything. We don't get weighted down with risk. And I think that's a lot of entrepreneurs because there's so many risks, there's so many unknowns, there's so much on the line. But your mission, your purpose, your passion. I just knew. I told my husband. He was like, where's your business plan? I was like, it's right here. And he was like, what are you talking about? And I was like, it's in my heart. Like, I know I might die trying, but, like, I will do anything it takes to get us to be able to make this work. And, you know, fast forward six years.
15:29
Dr. Kristin Oja
We have 45 employees. We have five locations. We've been able to do it. There is still, like, we're actually in a trough right now. We just opened our largest location. So, you know, it's this. And it doesn't stop if you want to grow, but you get reminded every Time you hit a low point, that there is a high coming. Like it will come. We felt this so many times in business, and so you have to remind yourself of that. But I could go on all day for lessons learned, if there's any specific you want. But that's some of the big ones.
15:58
Melissa Schenkman
Just I was thinking about the challenges, and you really have hit on so many of what the big challenges are, and especially in this space, to your point, even in the beginning with the banks, because so much of health and wellness you don't have. Even with what we've done, it's taken us as we've built that proof of concept. But you have the proof from every person who you talk to who tells you the impact that it's made on their lives. So even though may. You may not have that in the beginning in numbers, it exists. The proof exists. And so that's very helpful to hear. And I think so many of us who have been on the entrepreneurial journey in the health space in particular, can relate to that. And very inspiring to hear, too, how you started and where you are now.
16:43
Melissa Schenkman
I know you have location. I think Nashville.
16:45
Dr. Kristin Oja
Right. Nashville's our most recent and our biggest location. And I would I'll say one other thing, because a lot of health entrepreneurs. Yeah, Business leaders, are taught to manage a business based on a pro P and L, a profit and loss statement. Right. How do we increase margins? How do we improve our P and L? And if anybody listening is a health entrepreneur, it won't work in healthcare. It just won't. To run a business based on a P and L, you need to run a business based on patient experience, because they're your marketing. They're the ones that are coming back. And so that was something we did from the very beginning, was how do we focus on the patient walking through the door? And we have made so many decisions that have cost us money.
17:23
Dr. Kristin Oja
We've made so many decisions that barely had any profit margins to keep our patients in mind.
17:29
Melissa Schenkman
Oh, that makes a great deal of sense, too, because that's what it's all about.
17:32
Dr. Kristin Oja
Yes.
17:33
Melissa Schenkman
Is the patient and the person. No, that makes complete sense. And, you know, far as some of the initial steps. So you've talked to us a little bit about the challenges with a mix of some of the initial steps that you took. And taking the risk on signing the lease is absolutely incredible and very inspiring for us to hear. You know, Farah's initial steps in terms of, like, okay, you did that and all the financial, you know, set up as best that you could and those things. But in terms of okay, how am I going to have. Because you have physical therapy, you have movement, you have functional medicine, you have biometric testing, you have all these different pieces.
18:09
Melissa Schenkman
What were some of the initial steps in terms of building your network of people who were going to come in and offer things and work with you? Because obviously we can't. As amazing as every CEO is, you cannot do everything you wear.
18:21
Dr. Kristin Oja
Lots of remind myself of that every day though. It is so. I know, so hard. But so a few things. One, when we opened, because we did not take on any financial support and I mentioned were self funded, I did have to wear almost every hat when we first started. But I hired one person in 2018 before we opened doors, Sarah Rose, who's our director of operations. And I always have to give her a shout out in any podcast because she's still with us and like the business would not be where she's just our rock. She's my rock. She's the person I can vent to. Like you need that person in your organization. I'm very visionary and she's very like in the weeds, making sure it can happen and asking the right questions. So Sarah Rose and I were together.
19:04
Dr. Kristin Oja
I was answering phone calls, I was texting my husband every time I got a new patient booked. Like it was to that point, like just hoping somebody would come in. I was teaching 15 to 16 fitness classes when we first opened, starting IVs, doing their labs. And then as soon as we had a profit, instead of paying myself because I mentioned it was two and a half years before I could, I hired that next person. So that was our nurse. How do we. Okay, we need to bring in a nurse, help with blood draws and IVs. Then when were able to tire the next person. Okay, let's bring in another functional medicine provider. Okay, now let's bring in a health coach.
19:34
Dr. Kristin Oja
So it was a gradual process because I'm trying to figure out how do I pay my $8,000 lease plus this full time salaried employee who's incredible. So it's gradual. And I certain personalities, mine included, we want everything when we first open doors. And we have to remember, just like everything we talk about this a lot is you go through your pregnancy phase, right? You go through the birth phase, you go through the infancy, you go through the toddler, you go through the elementary. And you can think about these things with children is how you feel in the business. There's so much overlap when you think about your Business as a baby. So just remember like you're not going to birth a grown child.
20:14
Melissa Schenkman
That's correct. What a great analogy. That's very true. With how businesses evolve.
20:19
Dr. Kristin Oja
Yes.
20:20
Melissa Schenkman
That's just absolutely amazing to think about how you went stepwise in terms of the types of individuals you needed to hire, where the finances were to do that. And then kind of as you built out services and you have so many different types of services. And I think that is one of the many things that makes Stat Wellness so unique is because you don't see any individual place that where you can do all of these different things that all optimize your health in one spot, which is just so incredible. So I was gonna have you kind of tell us a little bit about some of the variety of services and the treatments that you are.
20:53
Dr. Kristin Oja
Yes, I'd love to. And this has also been hard because we want to bring every single thing in. Like, I love acupuncture, I love chiropractors, I love all of this. But we've really stuck into two areas, functional medicine and movement. And so all of our services we offer are either under functional medicine or movement. So functional medicine is root cause medicine. So taking a deeper dive into your health, understanding the why. And that's where the health coaching, the dietitians, the nurses with IVs, injections, that all kind of comes in. And then on the movement side, that's really about human performance. And we really believe that movement is medicine and muscle is our greatest asset as we age. So that's where we've added in group fitness, personal training, small group training. VO2 Max is a really good indicator of cardiovascular health.
21:42
Dr. Kristin Oja
Resting, metabolic rate, body compositions. We're really big in our patients. Not talking about the number on the scale. We like really don't care about that. So we're really big into data. And over the years, Stat Wellness stands for, as you mentioned, strength to achieve total wellness. But there's also this big spin on know your stats. And so a lot of people come to better understand what's happening inside their body on the functional medicine side and their external body on the movement. How am I lifting? How is my composition? How is my strength? So that is a little bit of kind of how to think about our services. But we like to say we're a one stop wellness shop and we all get to talk with each other. And that's what's so fun.
22:19
Dr. Kristin Oja
I get to talk to the health coach on how my patient's doing and the dietitian and they can call me about when they're not having improvements or side effects or whatever it may be. We're a collaborative, multidisciplinary team.
22:31
Melissa Schenkman
That's absolutely wonderful. And that is something that you are definitely feeling a need on, because that is so missing, as you all know, in mainstream medicine, with different practitioners talking to one another about a patient to optimize their health. So that's wonderful. Just in addition to all the other great things you offer that you have that as well. And as you've seen patients kind of go through all the different things that you offer, you know, whether they've been their functional medicine patient, you're seeing them in the fitness classes, you're seeing them, They've done their VO2 testing and all these different things.
23:01
Melissa Schenkman
Is there kind of maybe a couple things that have surprised you over the last couple years in working with patients within the concept that is so different than what you were used to working in the environment you were used to working with patients before that you now have seen within stat wellness.
23:19
Dr. Kristin Oja
So back to the thing I was saying before with community and happiness, I think over and over again, I always joke that if I ever close down style wellness, I'm opening the happiness project. Because I think even on your quest for health or quest for wellness or optimization or longevity, there is so much unhappiness and so much discontentment in the United States. Like, I'm not the size I want to be, My hair's not as thick as I want to be. I should be doing this and that, and this works for her, and I want to do this. And social media is telling me this. And so I think the thing that over and over again shows up in what we see in labs and what I hear is the connection between the mental health and our physical health. It is so transparent.
24:04
Dr. Kristin Oja
Like, there is no way to deny that these two things are deeply connected. So that has been very evident. We have about 8,500 patients, and it's just clearer and clearer. So I'd say that's number one. Number two, I think the biggest thing that's become really interesting to us, and we know this because went into functional medicine, is the individualized approach to care. But the more I do it, the more I realize we are so different. There are so many patients that feel incredible on a more carnivore style diet, even though I can't imagine doing that, and it's hard to even recommend they feel so good. People that feel amazing on a whole 30 type diet, there's people that feel great on a vegan diet. And, you know, science likes to tell us there's one that's best.
24:47
Dr. Kristin Oja
And I really believe our gut microbiomes, our genetics, our Lysol, our body composition, the longer and longer we've done this, we have to listen to our patients and we have to realize like, they are not the same. The 12 patients I see, the 10 patients I see today, they're each chemically very different. And what works for one is not going to work for all of them. And again, why went into functional medicine, but when you do it, you start realizing, wow, I made that recommendation and it didn't work for everybody. Why did it not work for everybody? But why did it work for some?
25:17
Melissa Schenkman
Yeah, that's incredibly, all of that's incredibly interesting to hear. Incredibly interesting. And then gives you the opportunity to help people, so many more people in a much greater way as well. Seeing those nuances. Is there anything kind of in the world of wellness right now are on the horizon that you are particularly excited about and that you think people should watch out for?
25:38
Dr. Kristin Oja
It's been around for now probably a year or two that's been really big in society. But I'd say the two things I think that are really great is taking ownership into our own health. So I really love the Stello or the continuous glucose monitors now being available over the counter. I think everybody should know what's happening with their blood sugar throughout the day. Because when you can balance your blood sugar, you are decreasing inflammation, improving performance, food cravings, brain health, longevity, healing, sleep. I mean, the list goes on and on. So that's something I'm really excited about that it's now available over the counter. You don't need a prescription. You can know what's going on with your blood sugar. I'm also really excited about people knowing their own data.
26:19
Dr. Kristin Oja
And this one, I think comes with a caveat about what I was talking about before with happiness. I think we get a little bit too fixated one point. In the United States, for example, intermittent fasting is good. Now we're eating from 1 to 4 o' clock in the afternoon. It's like we take everything a bit too far. But if you're listening and you don't take everything a bit too far, wearables are really fantastic. I know for me, my mindset is keep going. I feel great all the time. And sometimes our check engine light is on and we ignore it, we turn it off. And so I really love this wearable. I love the Stello I love being able to have our patients start connecting the dots. Oh, I have a glass of alcohol and my deep sleep wasn't as good.
27:00
Dr. Kristin Oja
I'm going to be more choosy when I have that glass of alcohol or oh wow, when I ran six miles I actually needed an extra day to recover before I ran six miles again. You know, even the healthy things, understanding how it's impacting our body, I think that is the way of the future. And then as much as I like to say I hate technology and chat, GPT and AI, I have loved it because my patients are coming in. A lot of providers out there probably hate this. They're putting their labs into ChatGPT and they're getting reports of what they should be doing and then they're bringing them into their appointments.
27:32
Dr. Kristin Oja
And I love it because they're coming in with questions and they already have some of the knowledge like hey, I read about this, I'm really interested in this and that's how my brain works and that's how now so many of our patients brains get to work.
27:46
Melissa Schenkman
That is absolutely fascinating. Julie and I were just talking about AI the other day and we're always looking in to you know, doing different trainings and things like that and finding he's relevant for why my health. But I had not heard about people putting their flaps. That's a new one on me and will definitely be on many listeners. That is fascinating.
28:05
Dr. Kristin Oja
So I had a patient that just did a comprehensive stool test and she put it into a software called perplexity, a six page report. And I agreed with 95% of it. And I always tell people that are listening like I hope this never takes away our job and people still feel touch because I do. But I think it's so hard. Even if we have 30 minutes, 60 minute appointments, we don't learn everything in that period of time. Right. And so these tools can be so if used effectively can really let you be the driver of your health.
28:38
Melissa Schenkman
Yeah, no, absolutely. That's something to definitely, I think for all of us to try and it's very interesting. And if it makes people more empowered, all the better with their health and in their partnership with their healthcare provider. I think that's great. And for other people out there who want to become entrepreneurs like you in the health and wellness space, what is one key piece of advice that you have from them that you've learned on your journey?
29:03
Dr. Kristin Oja
No matter what field in healthcare you're in, no matter who it is, I always tell people what scaled stat is listening. Listen to your patients. Listen, listen, like sit and actually care. And caring is listening. And I would say it's so surprising. People ask us all the time and it's, we focus on the patient in front of us and we listen. It sounds so small.
29:24
Melissa Schenkman
Yeah.
29:25
Dr. Kristin Oja
And our favorite quote, our podcast, little by little becomes a lot. Just remember, on your entrepreneurial journey, just take one step, take another step. You're not going to figure it all out. You're going to keep figuring it out. It's always a new problem, it's always a new something. But as long as you keep working towards the same goals, it's gonna all work itself out.
29:45
Melissa Schenkman
Wonderful, wonderful advice. And lastly, kind of, what would you like people to know the most about wellness? And I know there's so much, but if there's one thing in particular you'd.
29:56
Dr. Kristin Oja
Like people to take away, it's not a one size fits all. I can't stress that enough. And take the time to pay attention. Take away the wearables, take away the data, take away any of that. Take the time to actually see how do you feel like when you wake up? How do you feel? Are you energized? Do you have good mental clarity? Are you craving foods? Why are you craving the foods? When are you craving the foods? I think we don't take enough time to have awareness around how our body is feeling and doing. And my patients are the only ones that can tell me that there's no blood test I can do for that. There's nothing I can see besides you telling me how are you actually feeling on a day to day basis?
30:35
Melissa Schenkman
Absolutely. Well, that's definitely a great thing to think about and to take away. Well, how can people find you?
30:41
Dr. Kristin Oja
Many ways. So stoutwellness.com is our website. We're at Wellness on Instagram. My personal website is KristinOja.com and Kristin Oja DMP on Instagram. And you can always call or text our office at 404-254-5905.
30:58
Melissa Schenkman
Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Kristen. Thank you. Thank you so much. You're so welcome for sharing all of this with us, sharing your journey, your entrepreneurial journey with us, for all that you're doing in the health and wellness space and really and sharing some of the cutting edge things with us as well in this space as we navigate our own healthcare and making sure that we optimize that health and wellness together. So thank you so much.
31:22
Dr. Kristin Oja
Thank you.
31:24
Julie Woon
Thanks for tuning in to the YMyHealth podcast. We hope you're leaving inspired and important.
31:29
Melissa Schenkman
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31:35
Julie Woon
Have a story to share or a question for us? Connect with us at YMyHealth on social media or visit our website at ymyhealth.com until next.
31:44
Melissa Schenkman
Time, remember, your health journey starts with the right information. Stay healthy.