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“The ambition is never the problem. It’s the how that was always the problem.”
I Have a Story for You is a podcast about power, environment, and the gap between the rules women were taught to play by and the rules that actually determine what gets recognized.
Hosted by Dr. Sonja Adzovic — doctor turned high-stakes decisions strategist — this show is for capable, accomplished women who are working harder without changing position, and who suspect the problem isn't their effort. It's the read.
Each episode begins with a story — personal, historical, or cultural — and follows it into the kinds of questions women carry privately:
Why do I keep over-functioning in rooms that don't reward it?
Why does competence stop translating at a certain level?
Why does the next move feel impossible to make from where I'm standing?
Why am I being told I'm "almost ready" by people whose feedback is operationally meaningless?
This is not a podcast about hustle, productivity, mindset, or confidence. It's about reading the system clearly — power, environment, identity, perception — so the next decision isn't shaped by an inaccurate map.
Expect research.
Expect pattern reads.
Expect the relief of finally having language for something you've been feeling but couldn't name.
I have a story for you.
Let's begin.
00:00:01
I'm Dr.
00:00:01
Sonja Adzovic.
00:00:02
This is I Have a Story for You.
00:00:07
As always, we're going to begin with a story.
00:00:11
Sarah is ambitious, always has been.
00:00:14
She's never been sure where this drive to hustle so much has come from, but it's been with her for as long as she can remember.
00:00:23
She's the kind of person who took more courses in university than was necessary.
00:00:28
and got the most competitive summer internships through sheer determination, grit, and scrappiness, or sometimes just more preparation and calling every second, third, fourth connection that she could get her hands on to make all of this happen.
00:00:46
By now, at the age of 33, she has risen to Director of Strategic Financial Responsibility at a multinational corporation.
00:00:55
after starting off as an entry-level analyst.
00:00:58
Over the years, her motto has been, I can do anything anyone can, and I'll make sure I do it even better.
00:01:06
Of course, she works out weight training, Pilates, she does cool plunges and intermittent fasting.
00:01:13
She's currently working towards her next promotion when it happens.
00:01:20
It comes out of nowhere, hitting down on her like a ton of bricks.
00:01:24
Slowly at first, brick by brick.
00:01:28
At first, she's simply tired more than usual.
00:01:31
Then she struggles to get out of bed.
00:01:34
She finds that she's annoyed when people ask her questions at work, getting irritated quickly, losing her patience in a flash.
00:01:44
The bricks keep piling on.
00:01:46
until she finds herself not caring about anything really anymore.
00:01:50
Not her work, not her promotion, not her personal life.
00:01:53
She's tired, but she can't sleep.
00:01:56
When she does, she sleeps for hours on end.
00:01:59
but still can't shake this feeling of constantly tired.
00:02:04
Sarah was in deep burnout.
00:02:06
Okay, now let's fast forward.
00:02:08
Sarah, being Sarah, saw a therapist, read the amazing book by the Nagoski sisters, Burnout, and is moving forward.
00:02:17
But
00:02:18
One thing is still there.
00:02:20
The thought of going back to working the way she used to, showing up at 100% every day no matter what, is something she almost wants to do because she has big goals, even though it led to burnout.
00:02:35
You know, how else is she supposed to achieve all these goals if she's not 100% every day, right?
00:02:40
But every time she tries to move back into that pace, she finds she can't get herself to do it.
00:02:48
It's like her body is repelling it, rebelling.
00:02:53
And this is where we meet Sarah, where she feels she's lost her ambition, her drive, what makes her unique.
00:03:01
Not only worried that she won't be able to advance further in her career, but worried she won't be able to keep up in her current job.
00:03:10
So the question is, has she lost her ambition?
00:03:14
What should she do?
00:03:15
Now, my story is quite similar to Sarah's in the sense that I had this happen to me a couple of years ago, where I had the same question come up, where I was wondering, have I lost my ambition?
00:03:28
Has it just gone away?
00:03:30
That ambition, that drive, has always been very much a part of me.
00:03:35
I have no idea, just like Sarah, where it came from.
00:03:37
I was certainly never pushed towards
00:03:41
academic or any sort of other excellence when I was a child for my parents or otherwise.
00:03:47
It's just there, this determination, this drive.
00:03:51
And I'm very thankful for it in a lot of ways.
00:03:54
You know, it's what got me to a projects abroad, month-long volunteering trip to rural India when I was 20 years old, all funded by myself, the program, the, you know, airfare, everything.
00:04:09
That's what got me into University of Toronto, what got me into medical school, what got me into Ursula Franklin Academy.
00:04:16
So there has been this intense drive and to getting published when I was very, very young in a research paper about microRNA.
00:04:25
All of those things drove me very much to succeed and towards my goals.
00:04:32
And there was this moment where, just like Sarah, I very much just
00:04:37
burned down.
00:04:38
Nothing really mattered anymore.
00:04:40
The things that drove me, I didn't care about anymore.
00:04:44
I didn't care about external validation or what people were going to think of me.
00:04:49
And it was just gone.
00:04:52
And when it's something that's so much a part of you for so long, it's disorienting.
00:04:58
You feel unbalanced.
00:04:59
You feel like you've lost a part of yourself, but you still have these goals, like
00:05:06
the drive's not there.
00:05:07
So it's very much a freaking out moment in terms of how do you move forward?
00:05:11
Does it mean these goals are no longer attainable?
00:05:15
Does it mean you have to find a new way to do them?
00:05:17
Does it mean you should just settle for, you know, mediocre?
00:05:22
It can be very, very disorienting.
00:05:23
And it certainly was for me for a long time.
00:05:27
But the question is, what is actually going on here?
00:05:29
When we have this
00:05:32
loss of ambition or what looks like loss of ambition.
00:05:36
What is going on?
00:05:38
Is it actually that there's been loss of ambition or are we talking about something else maybe?
00:05:42
Are we maybe not even talking about burnout?
00:05:45
Are we talking about something much deeper?
00:05:48
That's what we're talking about today.
00:05:49
Now to understand this, we have to go back.
00:05:53
Yes, this story begins in history.
00:05:56
And I'm obsessed with history.
00:05:58
I read everything I can get my hands on.
00:06:01
Recently, I read a biography about Catherine the Great.
00:06:04
It was phenomenal.
00:06:06
And...
00:06:07
History is fascinating because to understand why things are the way they are today, we have to go back and we have to understand history.
00:06:16
Everything can be explained today by looking backwards.
00:06:20
Everything from the rise of the trad wife movement to the animosity between Taiwan and China, we can go back and we can look at history.
00:06:30
And only by understanding how we got here can we find a way to move forward.
00:06:36
whatever the topic is.
00:06:37
And that's what we're going to do right now.
00:06:39
We're going to look back so that we can move forward.
00:06:43
As we look back into history, women have been battling for their rights for thousands of years.
00:06:52
From the right to own property, to be even defined as a person, to be able to hold a job, to have their own bank account, to be able to own their own credit card,
00:07:04
These are things that we women have fought for so long.
00:07:08
And in most of the world, this has been achieved.
00:07:11
In most of the world, women can drive and have their own property.
00:07:14
They are classified as persons.
00:07:17
And in no sense is this battle done.
00:07:22
Far from it, women still earn less than men.
00:07:25
But it is an ongoing battle and huge, huge strides have been achieved.
00:07:30
That stands.
00:07:31
But an interesting thing happened
00:07:34
when woman got a seat at the table.
00:07:36
So in the mid-20th century, we can call it as woman firmly having a seat at the workplace, not an equal seat, but a seat nevertheless.
00:07:48
And so when woman got a seat at the table, it was with the understanding that nothing in the current system should change, but that woman should adapt to the currently established system.
00:08:01
The problem
00:08:03
with this is that this is a male model system.
00:08:07
That means a 24-hour cycle.
00:08:11
That means pure logic, no emotions.
00:08:15
That means discipline, profits per first, people second.
00:08:19
That is the system that woman came into slowly and reluctantly, not by their choice, reluctantly, but yes, reluctantly as per the system, they came into it.
00:08:31
And this was, you either adapt to the system or you're out.
00:08:35
And the effects of this system are still in place today.
00:08:39
Nothing has changed.
00:08:41
If women wish to advance professionally in their careers or start a business, it is with the assumption that the only way to succeed, the only way to advance is by following this system, 24-hour cycle, pure logic, force, restrict, discipline.
00:09:00
That is the established paradigm that is still in place today.
00:09:05
Now, while there's nothing really wrong with these concepts fundamentally, and especially for men, for women, it comes at a cost.
00:09:16
It comes at a cost of, one, being detrimental, right?
00:09:21
So this is detrimental, as we'll see.
00:09:23
But 2, it comes at a cost of suppressing
00:09:26
the advantages that female biology provides women.
00:09:32
And it is not an advantage that is solely for home life, if we're going to say that as, you know, thousands of years where women more were.
00:09:42
But professionally, there are advantages that we can use to advance professionally.
00:09:50
Now, women, because of all this that we've seen in the past, because women have been suppressing so much of their female biology and things that actually work for them.
00:10:01
What is so amazing to me is that...
00:10:04
despite suppressing their advantages and kind of going against what might be a natural inclination, women have achieved so, much.
00:10:16
We see more than ever so many women at the heads of their industries as CEOs, as senior vice presidents.
00:10:24
And it really goes to show the immense power of women because we're doing something that feels like
00:10:33
going uphill, in heels, with a boulder on our back, and we're still climbing all the way to the top.
00:10:42
That is really the power of woman.
00:10:46
That's not to say, though, that we can make it a little easier for ourselves.
00:10:50
And that's what we're going to be talking about here.
00:10:52
Because now is a key moment in time when we as women have the opportunity
00:11:00
to undo the damage that has been created from this paradigm and to make things just easier for ourselves.
00:11:08
This isn't about being soft or more feminine or make things easier.
00:11:11
It's about, hey, this is how I function.
00:11:14
Why wouldn't I use it to my advantage?
00:11:17
Other people do.
00:11:19
Okay.
00:11:21
So we're going to be talking about the solution in two ways.
00:11:24
By shedding the mechanisms that don't work for female biology, that are counterintuitive, that work against our female biology, and then by adopting mechanisms and solutions that actually work to our advantage, that work with our female biology.
00:11:42
That's how we're going to look at this.
00:11:44
So the first, in terms of shedding the male model that hinders women professionally.
00:11:49
So
00:11:51
Over the years, we've seen movements, most of them are rooted in firm science, that has pushed people towards discipline and toughness for the sake of productivity, success, and professional advancement.
00:12:10
And the idea has always been loosely that with more discipline comes more success.
00:12:16
And
00:12:17
That's fine in a sense.
00:12:19
You do need discipline.
00:12:21
But the problem with this is that, you know, pure, you know, bare knuckle discipline for women means restriction.
00:12:29
And restriction creates mental and physiological damage instead of the benefits that it promised.
00:12:39
So the biggest example
00:12:42
here is cold plunges.
00:12:44
Now, we've seen a lot of research that shows that cold plunges are so beneficial.
00:12:51
And that stands.
00:12:52
So the idea with cold plunges, I'm sure you've heard of them.
00:12:55
I'm sure you've tried them.
00:12:57
I'm sure you've at least tried a cold bath or cold shower, if not one of those ice plunges or ice baths.
00:13:05
But here's the science behind it.
00:13:06
The idea behind it
00:13:08
is that when you immerse yourself in 4 degrees Celsius, I have no idea what that is in Fahrenheit, when you immerse yourself in 4 degrees Celsius, there are benefits to your health and longevity.
00:13:22
So for example, your brown fat increases.
00:13:25
Your brown fat is phenomenal.
00:13:28
Babies have it, we lose it as we get older.
00:13:31
But basically it protects against diabetes and cardiovascular disease because compared to regular bad fat,
00:13:38
which stores glucose.
00:13:41
Brown fat, when activated, actually burns glucose.
00:13:45
So that is why it is protective against diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
00:13:50
So the idea.
00:13:51
4 degrees Celsius, cold water, you have an increase in this brown fat.
00:13:57
You also have an increase in mitochondrial function.
00:14:01
We've seen the super big benefits to our health in terms of mitochondrial function in the last couple of years.
00:14:09
We also see dopamine release.
00:14:13
improved mood, and benefits to the neuroendocrine system.
00:14:17
Great.
00:14:18
We've also seen in athletes that there's benefits to health recovery, decreased inflammation, and decreasing soreness after working out.
00:14:31
That all stands.
00:14:33
But here's where it gets really interesting.
00:14:35
This does not work like this.
00:14:37
We don't get these same benefits.
00:14:39
Woman, we don't get these same benefits.
00:14:42
So for years, women have forced themselves into freezing baths.
00:14:47
Okay, how many times have you forced yourself into a freezing bath because somebody told you that it's going to do wonders for your health, for your mental health, for your physical health, it's going to help you like succeed more professionally, personally, everything.
00:15:01
So how many times have you forced yourself into a freezing cold bath?
00:15:05
No judgment here, because I've certainly done it.
00:15:08
I thought, hey, this is going to be beneficial for me.
00:15:11
and I've tried freezing cold baths, I've tried freezing cold showers.
00:15:18
And while doing it, most of us, myself included, have then berated ourselves because we found it miserable.
00:15:25
We couldn't do it for any, you know, long period of time because it was so...
00:15:30
painful and awful.
00:15:31
And we just braided ourselves.
00:15:33
We said, I'm just not tough enough.
00:15:35
I need to be tougher.
00:15:36
I need to be stronger.
00:15:37
I'm not disciplined enough.
00:15:39
I'm not tough enough.
00:15:39
I'm not strong enough.
00:15:41
And I need to be if I want to achieve everything I want to achieve.
00:15:44
But this is one of those moments where your body knows, your body instinctively knows, especially the more and more you listen to it, the more and more you get attuned with it and stop
00:15:59
berating it for every single thing, it gets easier to trust it.
00:16:03
And this was one of those moments where when your body is repelling something, it was kind of saying, okay, you need to listen to this.
00:16:11
And science eventually caught up.
00:16:13
And what we see now is that women don't get these fundamental, really amazing health benefits at 4 degrees Celsius.
00:16:24
Instead, we get them at 15 degrees Celsius.
00:16:30
Which is a huge difference.
00:16:32
It's a remarkably big difference.
00:16:37
Because here's how it works.
00:16:38
When you plunge yourself at 4 degrees Celsius, when men plunge themselves, it triggers a big enough stress response to cause all these health benefits.
00:16:48
but not so strong that it overwhelms the system.
00:16:51
So for women, when they plunge into less than 15 degrees Celsius, it causes a too strong stress response.
00:16:59
Instead of the body being like, oh, I'm going to, you know, get into a little bit, it freaks out.
00:17:04
It goes into a massive panic mode, essentially.
00:17:09
What happens when you go into essentially pure panic mode?
00:17:13
Okay, here we go.
00:17:15
We have cortisol shooting up.
00:17:17
Okay, if you haven't read anything by Mate Gabor, highly recommend, especially his book, The Body Says No.
00:17:26
Highly recommend that the detriment of high cortisol for an extended period of time has been so thoroughly examined now.
00:17:36
So you have cortisol shooting up, your thyroid activity drops.
00:17:40
and the hormonal and metabolic effects that we discussed earlier don't end up happening.
00:17:47
Now all of this can then disrupt your menstrual cycle.
00:17:52
So essentially, your body is in absolute panic mode.
00:17:56
You have inflammation, right?
00:17:57
With cortisol, you have inflammation running through your body, your menstrual cycle, right?
00:18:03
Which keeps your body kind of on track with its rise and fall of hormones.
00:18:07
Your thyroid, same thing.
00:18:09
Those are all super important functions.
00:18:12
All go completely into chaos because it's panicking.
00:18:15
Your body's panicking.
00:18:17
So you can get these results, but not in the same way, 4 degrees Celsius versus 15 degrees Celsius.
00:18:24
And what's interesting is that here we're entering into the effects of the menstrual cycle, which we're going to go into in a second.
00:18:32
But this benefit that your body gets also changes with your menstrual cycle.
00:18:37
So
00:18:38
your core temperature changes with your menstrual cycle.
00:18:42
So the reason for it is because estrogen and progesterone fluctuate with your cycle.
00:18:50
So if you're watching this on video, I'm going to put in here.
00:18:53
a picture of your estrogen and progesterone rising and falling throughout your cycle because it's really important to know and to understand what's happening, especially as you see the effects that this rise and fall of your estrogen and progesterone has on your body, your cognitive, so how you think, how fast you think, how much you're able to think, in what ways, in addition to the effect that it has on cold plunges.
00:19:20
So for example,
00:19:22
During the luteal phase, a cold plunge will affect you differently than if you are doing a cold plunge in the follicular phase because of the difference in estrogen and progesterone during those phases.
00:19:36
So in the luteal phase, so this is after ovulation.
00:19:40
So you have the follicular phase and then you have the luteal phase.
00:19:44
During the follicular phase, you have your menstruation for five to seven days, a little bit, you know, shorter than that sometimes.
00:19:52
And then you have also during your follicular phase, those days before you ovulate when the egg is released.
00:20:01
And then you have a drop in estrogen, rise in progesterone during the luteal phase, which lasts until you get your period.
00:20:10
Okay, so during the luteal phase, so the second-half of your cycle,
00:20:16
your body is more sensitive to cold because your progesterone is high.
00:20:23
So when you plunge, even at 15 degrees, it causes faster vasoconstriction.
00:20:30
So your blood vessels constrict faster than in the follicular phase.
00:20:36
And you get a steeper drop in core temperature.
00:20:40
What does this mean?
00:20:42
That means that
00:20:44
If you are in the second-half of your cycle, 15 degrees won't feel the same and won't have fully the same benefits as 15 degrees in your follicular phase.
00:20:55
This is important, right?
00:20:57
So you might need a little bit even warmer during your luteal phase.
00:21:03
to get the same benefits, to prevent your body from going into that panic mode and too big of a stress response.
00:21:10
That's why it's important to know where you are in your cycle just for this, not to mention everything else we're going to talk about.
00:21:16
And I felt this very acutely recently.
00:21:20
I was at the spa and I was in the sauna.
00:21:25
It was great.
00:21:25
And there were these showers right in front.
00:21:27
So I decided to do the
00:21:29
10 minutes in the sauna and then do a little bit of a cold shower and then back in.
00:21:36
Had an amazing time at the sauna.
00:21:37
I just can't explain to you.
00:21:38
Side note, had an incredible time at the sauna.
00:21:42
It was this, I've never been to it before.
00:21:45
This is my first time at the sauna, at the spa rather.
00:21:48
Had an incredible time.
00:21:50
edible pool and tepidarium and steam bath.
00:21:54
And the steam bath was made of all these tiles.
00:21:57
And it was dark in there.
00:21:58
And the tiles were black with this glistening effect.
00:22:01
And they were covering every surface in there from the bench.
00:22:06
And it was all stone.
00:22:07
And so from the bench to the ceiling to the floor.
00:22:10
And so when you walked in there with these really, really, you know, sort of dim lights, it felt that you were in the universe.
00:22:17
It looked like you were in the darkness amongst a million stars.
00:22:22
It was phenomenal.
00:22:24
Anyway, back to the sauna.
00:22:28
So 10 minutes in and then the cold shower.
00:22:31
So I walk out and I'm doing my cold shower.
00:22:34
And by now I can kind of, you know, figure out what's around, what feels around 15 degrees.
00:22:38
And I have everything thinking, this feels a lot colder and not as nice as I
00:22:45
usually find it.
00:22:47
I'm thinking, no, I don't know, maybe I'm just too relaxed today or something like that.
00:22:52
And I thought, okay, no, hold on.
00:22:53
Maybe if you're relaxed, maybe this is your body telling you something.
00:22:56
And I remember thinking, oh, you know what?
00:22:58
I actually am in my luteal phase and this will feel a little bit colder than usual.
00:23:05
It's still maybe the same temperature, but it feels colder because my progesterone is high, higher core body temperature, faster vasoconstriction, I feel colder.
00:23:14
So I just put it like a tad warmer.
00:23:16
There's no thermostat on the water.
00:23:19
So it's very, very, you know, approximate.
00:23:26
And I thought, okay, this is it.
00:23:28
This is, you know, I'm seeing it in my in my actual life, the effects of this.
00:23:32
So that's in terms of cold plunges, right?
00:23:36
We don't see the same benefits
00:23:39
in the same way.
00:23:41
So this is very key point.
00:23:42
We can get the same benefits, but not the same way.
00:23:46
We can get the same results, but not in the same way.
00:23:50
We can get the same output, but not in the same way, not with the same input.
00:23:56
This is really key for what we're talking about here.
00:24:00
And we've seen the same thing with intermittent fasting, for example, for sleep.
00:24:08
that the benefits observed in men aren't the same in women.
00:24:13
When we do it the exact same way, the benefits aren't the same.
00:24:17
We can get the same benefits with intermittent fasting, waking up early to have a lot of time in the day, but we have to do it a little bit differently.
00:24:28
So I was in this camp for very many years.
00:24:31
I woke up at 4.45 and my mantra was for years, I'll sleep when I'm dead.
00:24:39
Now I'm like, that was so stupid.
00:24:41
That was just not a good idea.
00:24:43
But that's what I was doing and that's what I thought that it took.
00:24:48
And so I restricted heavily with food.
00:24:51
I did intermittent fasting, very, again, restricting how much I'm intaking.
00:24:57
And I forced myself into baths and all in the name of ambition and success.
00:25:03
And this is where I want to be very clear.
00:25:06
The ambition, the success, the drive is never and was never the problem.
00:25:13
For you, for me, for any woman out there, the ambition, the drive, the success is not the problem.
00:25:21
The map for it was, so the compass was reading restrict, force, discipline, be tough.
00:25:30
but it was actually taking me further from where I actually wanted to go.
00:25:34
I needed a new compass.
00:25:35
I could get the ambition and the drive and the success, but not with this compass, not with this map.
00:25:41
Now, another thing is we've already talked about the cycle, but the cycle is really important because this is another key difference between men and women.
00:25:51
While women have a 28-day cycle, the one we just talked about,
00:25:56
with low estrogen, progesterone, rise in estrogen, fall in estrogen for ovulation, high progesterone in the luteal phase.
00:26:04
And men don't have that.
00:26:06
Men have a 24-hour cycle.
00:26:08
So every day looks pretty much the exact same in terms of their biology and hormones, right?
00:26:14
Their hormones rise and fall the same time each day.
00:26:18
So testosterone climbs in the morning, then drops, same with cortisol.
00:26:22
So men can run the same day on repeat
00:26:26
which makes consistency, working out, and planning pretty straightforward.
00:26:32
And I remember writing this and thinking, wow, I really, really envy that.
00:26:37
And I'm thinking, oh, why do you envy that?
00:26:40
And I realized, oh, you know, I envy it because that's the current model that is considered valuable, that is considered the way to succeed.
00:26:51
And that's why I thought, oh, I'm really envious of this.
00:26:53
I wish I could do that every day.
00:26:56
I can't because women have a 28 day cycle.
00:27:00
Now remember, if you're getting upset right now because you're a feminist like me and you think, well, I can do everything a man can, absolutely, we've already shown that.
00:27:08
But the thing is, that is that thing that I mentioned earlier, input versus output.
00:27:14
Have same output, different input.
00:27:16
That's what we're talking about here.
00:27:18
So
00:27:19
This is what women are expected to keep up with.
00:27:22
A 24-hour day, the same input every day, the same results.
00:27:25
But the reality is different.
00:27:27
And a research study published in Biology found that cognitive function differs across the cycle.
00:27:39
I found this study really, really fascinating.
00:27:41
So what was seen was that in
00:27:44
The pre-ovulatory phase, so when estrogen is high, pre-ovulatory is you get your period and is time between the end of your period and when you ovulate, so when the egg is released.
00:27:57
Women show better short-term function, working memory for auditory material, and attention more than in the luteal phase, which is the low estrogen.
00:28:11
And higher estrogen also brings greater efficiency in information processing and working memory.
00:28:19
It also causes an excitatory effect in our brain.
00:28:23
I remember reading this and thinking, oh my God, this explains so much.
00:28:27
So in the high estrogen phase, your short-term memory grows.
00:28:31
And you can think of short-term memory as the storage box, where you can store memories.
00:28:38
And working memory rises with it.
00:28:40
And you can think of working memory as the ability to take the stuff from the storage room and concentrate it, manipulate it, organize it, and apply it to this information all at once.
00:28:53
So think of yourself as having a massive billboard of all this information.
00:28:57
You're kind of like moving it around and figuring it out and you're applying it and everything.
00:29:01
And if you think back to these moments in your own life,
00:29:05
You can often remember yourself feeling as this like sharp, quick ideas, genius who can just, if she just maintained this pace, could achieve anything she wants in the world.
00:29:17
That's during your pre-ovulatory and then your estrogen drops.
00:29:22
You're like, well, what happened?
00:29:23
I was on A roll.
00:29:25
Okay, that's because your estrogen dropped.
00:29:28
Again, this doesn't mean that you can't succeed in everything.
00:29:32
Wait.
00:29:33
So
00:29:34
Does this mean that you don't have access to this genius energy, this increase in working memory, this increase in short-term memory, this excitatory effect in your brain during the luteal phase when your estrogen is low and your progesterone is high?
00:29:48
Well, yes and no.
00:29:51
You're still the same person.
00:29:54
You're still you.
00:29:56
But the fact is, that low estrogen and high progesterone during the luteal phase,
00:30:03
has effect on your body, your processing speed and executive function drops.
00:30:11
And especially then during the menstrual cycle, when both are at their very lows, both estrogen and progesterone then really fall, that sharpness somewhat decreases.
00:30:22
And
00:30:23
This can feel like a really bad thing, but when I thought about it, okay, my body's kind of busy doing something else.
00:30:29
It's not just hanging out and lingering.
00:30:31
It's going through this fairly big process.
00:30:34
So I kind of looked at it as, well, needs must.
00:30:37
You know, we only have a certain amount of, let's say, energy throughout the body.
00:30:42
It has to, you know, be allocated.
00:30:47
as needs arise, right?
00:30:49
It's like when we eat, for example, all of the blood and energy rushes to our intestines to get that functioning, right?
00:30:58
Or when we're in...
00:30:59
fight or flight response, right?
00:31:02
It stops going to our intestines and goes to our muscles.
00:31:05
Our body's really good at allocating and spreading out that energy where it needs to go.
00:31:09
So I very much thought, okay, well, needs must during the menstrual cycle or during the menstrual phase, menstruation, it's kind of busy doing something else.
00:31:19
Leave it alone.
00:31:20
Stop judging it so much.
00:31:22
But again, you're still, you're still you.
00:31:27
And also we have to remember that beyond cognition, right, during the luteal phase, but especially during menstruation, many women, every woman to some extent, but many women experience lethargy, pain, cramps, cravings, sharper emotional reactivity.
00:31:48
How many times do you snap at someone during your luteal phase?
00:31:51
I am a monster.
00:31:53
Brain fog, brain fog is really, really bad, especially if you're doing a sort of creative work or really for anybody, but brain fog can be really, really painful and really disorienting when you feel like you have to be sharp and your brain's just not really getting there.
00:32:08
And all of which can, so all of this can really affect your ability to show up.
00:32:13
in the same way every day.
00:32:15
Because as you see, you're not the same person every day.
00:32:18
Your hormones are changing every day across your cycle.
00:32:23
So this research study was really, really fantastic.
00:32:27
Now, that's to say that there are discrepancies, right, with research.
00:32:33
This isn't black and white.
00:32:36
And you can go on my Substack to see the different research studies that show somewhat different
00:32:43
different results, but also why different studies show different results.
00:32:49
So for example, the way that it selected people for who's going to be in the research trial, or for example, which part of the cycle were they tracking.
00:32:59
So there's a lot of reasons for discrepancies between research studies, but one that I do want to
00:33:08
call out, which I find fantastic.
00:33:10
And it goes towards this idea that you're still you.
00:33:14
And it was an imaging study done in 2019 that showed that while there are differences across the menstrual cycle, your brain essentially gets the work done regardless.
00:33:30
by allocating the thing it needs to do to another part of the brain.
00:33:35
So another part of the brain compensates for the part of the brain that's kind of on a dip, which is really, really fascinating.
00:33:43
So again, it goes into this idea of input versus output.
00:33:47
The output will stay the same.
00:33:49
You'll get the stuff done, but it just might be a different part of the brain that's compensating, which again is really, really fantastic and something that is, again, unique to women.
00:34:01
So here we get back to the idea that if your cognition, your mood, your energy levels are different every day, are your only two options.
00:34:16
If you want to succeed, if you have big goals, if you have big dreams, if you have, you know, such big dreams that you're almost embarrassed to share any of them with anybody, are your two options,
00:34:28
to suck it up because that's what the system needs and that's what you have to do?
00:34:33
Or do you let the consistency and ambition and drive go out the window because one, you're just not able to do it anymore like Sarah or because you know that eventually it will cost you your health?
00:34:49
Are those your two options?
00:34:51
No, absolutely not.
00:34:53
So forcing it isn't the answer.
00:34:56
We already saw with the cold plunges, what forcing and restricting does to female bodies.
00:35:03
Okay, forcing isn't the answer.
00:35:05
It backfires, it causes burnout, it causes raised cortisol, causes raised inflammation, unexplained pain, autoimmune diseases.
00:35:16
No.
00:35:16
Also as a side note, women's autoimmune diseases are rising so, much in women.
00:35:23
So here again, forcing isn't the answer, restriction isn't the answer.
00:35:27
It always, always backfires.
00:35:28
Health first.
00:35:29
How are you going to achieve anything if you can't even get out of bed because you've destroyed your health?
00:35:35
No, you got to take care of your health 1st and then from that safe base, rock it up.
00:35:41
So like I said, input and output are different things.
00:35:45
So when it comes to success and ambition, the problem is that
00:35:49
In this model, they get treated as one thing, because that's how the male model works.
00:35:55
They input every day to get the output, right?
00:35:57
So consistency means showing up every day with the same effort to produce output.
00:36:04
But the female model, as we've seen with the rise and fall of estrogen and progesterone throughout the cycle,
00:36:12
means that you don't need the same input every day to get the same or bigger output because now you're working with your female biology, which means that you are not going against the boulder, you're going with the grain.
00:36:27
You are going, you know, faster and faster.
00:36:30
So you can get even more done like this.
00:36:33
So for example,
00:36:35
I do my creative work.
00:36:36
So writing, sub-stack pieces, topic ideas, filming podcast episodes, answering pitches or preparing for speaking engagements, all during my post-menstrual and before my ovulatory phase.
00:36:51
It doesn't leave a lot of time.
00:36:53
But once you get the hang of it, or once I got the hang of it, you know how to organize, organize your time for this.
00:37:00
So I lean into the advantage.
00:37:02
Remember that whole
00:37:05
increased short-term memory and increased working memory.
00:37:07
It's that working memory and the excitatory effect of our brain.
00:37:11
So I lean into my advantage.
00:37:13
So when I'm on my highest creative cognition, that's when I use it.
00:37:18
I use that sort of advantage, that high that I have during that phase to do work that
00:37:26
favors that kind of me, that favors that kind of vibe and that environment for me.
00:37:32
On the other hand, during the luteal phase, I do kind of work that needs a little bit of a downer effect.
00:37:42
So for example, I edit, I research, I draft templates, I answer comments because I'm a little bit slower then and
00:37:50
It's not that is a negative thing.
00:37:54
It's that these tasks are perfect for that energy level.
00:37:57
It's about like matching where you are.
00:38:00
Now you try editing when you're in this like excitatory, oh my God, I have all these crazy ideas.
00:38:06
It's a little harder when you're trying to catch the missing comma or the T that was supposed to be capitalized, but it's not because your brain's, you know, thinking about all these things and it's excitatory and have all these ideas.
00:38:16
Remember that thing that happened that's connected to that other thing that happened.
00:38:20
right?
00:38:20
So you have tasks that benefit different parts of you, different energy levels, different cognition, different moods, and I match those up.
00:38:31
All going to say that the output is still there.
00:38:34
All the stuff gets done when it needs to get done.
00:38:37
The input just looks different.
00:38:39
So the podcasts, the articles, the emails go out, even when I'm not in prime cognition time, even when I'm not in my highest energy or best mood, because thank
00:38:50
for scheduling.
00:38:50
And that's how I really organize it to make it work.
00:38:56
And that goes to my benefit.
00:38:59
So it's just a different way of organizing for that consistent output, not consistent input.
00:39:05
Now, obviously, there's two caveats to this.
00:39:08
If you're working for yourself, you have more control over how you schedule your time.
00:39:16
And if you're in corporate, you'll often have to do things
00:39:19
that simply go against where you are in your cycle.
00:39:23
And sometimes that happens in your business, too.
00:39:25
Sometimes a speaking event just, you know, happens when you're in your, you know, menstrual, menstrual phase or during your luteal phase, it happens.
00:39:35
So it's not about being rigid and just canceling those things.
00:39:38
And sometimes you just have to do it.
00:39:40
But it's about knowing what your body needs.
00:39:43
So for
00:39:45
For example, a big presentation during the menstrual phase, so you find a way to book extra sleep, a massage, a day off, someone else to take care of the dog or the kids or whatever, book a spa day, so that your body gets the rest that it needs during this time.
00:40:08
Now the second caveat is that this is all research and is for an average of women, but you are not an average, you are an individual individual being, which means that hormone changes across the cycle.
00:40:25
shift with age, for example.
00:40:27
So the effects on energy, mood, and cognition can also be affected, as I said, by age, but also your physical environment and also by psychological factors.
00:40:37
So the research above is a guideline, which means that tracking your own cycle and the physical and mental changes that come with it is what matters.
00:40:48
The point is to see how your own body responds, to see how your own body cognition, energy, and mood changes along with your cycle to match the tasks with the benefits of that part of your cycle to push you even further so you can advance more professionally, personally, and achieve everything you want to achieve.
00:41:12
The ambition is never the problem, it's the how that was always the problem.
00:41:17
so to use your female advantages for you.
00:41:22
And now going back to Sarah, remember Sarah, she was at a point where she was recovering from her burnout, but it was how she lost her ambition.
00:41:32
Now, after hearing all of this, it might be tempting to just say,
00:41:37
Okay, so she just needs to track her cycle and go back to doing things, according to her cycle and for her female advantages, and she needs to match up tasks with where she is in her cycle.
00:41:50
But it's not so easy, right?
00:41:52
That's not the full solution.
00:41:56
What she, Sarah, needs to do in this moment depends on two things, on two questions.
00:42:05
Because Sarah is at a key decision point.
00:42:09
She's at an inflection point in her life, which means that the decision she makes will affect her trajectory for the next 5, 10 years of her life, meaning that the cost of a misread in this situation is too high.
00:42:26
She needs to make the right decision.
00:42:28
And for that, she needs to ask two questions.
00:42:32
two questions that anyone in a similar situation needs to answer in order to move forward as well.
00:42:38
So if you're in a similar situation, you can find the breakdown of exactly these questions and how Sarah needs to work through the situation on my Substack.
00:42:49
So Sonia Adzovic at Substack, and you can find the article which is titled Sarah, Have I Lost My Ambition?
00:42:56
You can check out everything there and work through it for yourself.
00:42:59
This is the same kind of work I do in the strategic
00:43:02
decision advisory, but here you can match your situation with Sarah's and go from there.
00:43:10
Next week, we're going to be talking about the leadership skill that women have been told to suppress, ignore, and pretend that doesn't exist, but actually is the leadership skill that gives you such a huge advantage in your professional life.
00:43:27
To make sure you catch this week's episode,
00:43:31
make sure to subscribe to I Have a Story for you.