Holistic Nurse Coach and Researcher, Giovanna Navarro

[00:00] Michelle: I had so much fun talking with Giovanna Navarro. Her passion and energy were palpable. She's a dynamic and accomplished nurse with a remarkable range of abilities. With over 20 years of nursing experience. She is also a devoted wife and mother, as well as a savvy businesswoman. As a Heartmath practitioner, she is highly regarded for her exceptional emotional intelligence. She travels around the world conducting biomedical research as the lead researcher on a team of scientists. And I'm not done yet. She's a Neurochange Solutions consultant and a holistic nurse coach. Although I feel like she's so much more than a coach, she's almost like a spiritual healer. Through her onsite and online wellness programs, she's well known for her ability to guide clients through transformational processes, helping them move from lives of stress and anxiety to ones of peaceful confidence. Her deep understanding of human behavior makes her a valuable asset to those seeking to improve their lives.  In the five-minute snippet: What's one little mistake? Here is Giovanna Navarro.  Well, good morning, Giovanna. Welcome to the podcast.
[01:39] Giovanna: Good morning, Michelle. Thank you so much for having me here.
[01:43] Michelle: I found you on LinkedIn, and I've said this now many times, that I found such great people on LinkedIn. It's just such a great platform. And when I saw your profile, I was just blown away. I had so many questions like, oh, my gosh, what is a Heartmath practitioner and a nurse holistic coach and a Neurochange Solutions consultant? There are so many layers to who you are. And I thought, wow, this is a really busy lady.
[02:20] Giovanna: Yeah, well, thank you so much. I mean, I'm so glad that we connected. And I agree with you. LinkedIn is such a rich platform. It's surprising because every day I find such amazing talent and people who are leaders in their community or at their workplace. And for me, it's like a Pandora's box in a good way. It's a really good platform, and I'm so glad that the universe connected us.
[02:43] Michelle: Yeah, I love your description of that. So one of the things that immediately caught my eye is that you are a coach, so you're a board-certified nurse holistic coach. So tell me, who comes to you in need of coaching?
[03:01] Giovanna: Yeah, so that's a great question. So as nurses, we have this reputation of being helpers, of being educators, of being a go-to person for many things, mostly medical. But I think nowadays that we have a lot to say when it comes to people when they want to change a behavior, when they want to reach a goal, when they're having certain issues that they don't know how to deal with, and it doesn't have to be strictly medically related. So my kind of clients are actually very diverse. They come from all over the world from different backgrounds, age ranges, you name it. So basically I have been coaching managers. I've been coaching leaders at their businesses that they want to see how they can improve their work conditions. I work very closely also with healthcare professionals who want to find a better work-life balance or that they're dealing with burnout, anxiety, depression, insomnia, you name it, because of the demands of this line of work. I also like to work a lot with clients who have experienced some kind of medical condition. For example, someone who has suffered a heart attack or stroke or has a new diagnosis of diabetes. The anxiety, the worries, all the things that go through their mind or so many what-ifs that so many people don't understand? Sometimes it's a very rich session where we can navigate through those things in a very personalized approach. So nurse coaching is definitely a field that has no limits as to who you can serve with it for sure.
[04:47] Michelle: Well, that's really interesting. I didn't know that your clients could be patients who are going through medical emergencies crises or challenges. That's something that's new to me. I always think of a nurse coach coaching nurses. Have you seen post-pandemic, have you seen an uptick in your business of nurses and other health professionals coming to you for help?
[05:16] Giovanna: Absolutely. I think COVID-19 meant so many things for us in so many ways. And I think the biggest trend that I see right now of people is having to try to balance all their responsibilities and what brings them joy and not being able to. So there's like, let's call it this sense of frustration, of not having enough time, not having enough resources. So people are more impatient, they're a little bit more frustrated, and their stress response is very elevated. So I think that's the uptake that I've seen of people just not dealing well with their emotions and dealing well with their responsibilities and feeling like there's no way out for them.
[06:04] Michelle: And what we're feeling in the medical community, it just feels like that has kind of flowed over into life everywhere. It feels like we're all like our tolerance for life and challenges and impediments have just gotten so much bigger or smaller. I guess, like you said, we're impatient. We feel this time crunch. And certainly, as nurses working during the pandemic, after the pandemic, and honestly, we felt that before the pandemic. Right. It's like the pandemic just really amplified the problems within the nursing community and within healthcare in general.
[06:57] Giovanna: I agree. And sometimes I even like to bring up that. I think it actually opened our eyes to how we are really seen and how we're really supported within the healthcare system. I think it was an eye-opening situation for all of us because as you said, we've always dealt with staffing issues. We've always dealt with unfair salaries and things like that. But I think after COVID, we really saw what they were willing to do for us and I think with very good reason. That's why a lot of nurses are setting these healthy limits and saying, no more, I am done. I'm not going to put up with this anymore.
[07:37] Michelle: Yeah, I'm really happy to see that. That boundaries, that's kind of been like a bad word in the nursing community. Like we're supposed to just always care and always say yes to that opportunity to work an extra shift. And now we're starting to say no. I'm focusing on my work-life balance. I have something to do with my kids that day. Or we don't even have to have an excuse anymore, which is fantastic. It's like if we don't want to do it, we can just say no. And there's no other explanation that has to come with it. So that's refreshing.
[08:22] Giovanna: Exactly. I think over the years there's been this false belief that nurses and doctors as well and other healthcare professionals, we are born with this superpower of mental toughness and that exhaustion is a badge of honor, that we have to give it all for everybody. And now that we're setting these healthy limits and these boundaries, people are like, oh, this is new, what do we do about this? But it's the way it should always be.
[08:45] Michelle: Well, since we're talking about COVID one of your jobs is you are a researcher and you work with a research team. I think that would be really fun. My brother is a nurse researcher and the director of research at his institution. I think nurses, in general, have really inquisitive minds, but one thing that I saw that just was released was the study Meditation-induced Bloodborne Factors as an Adjuvant Treatment to COVID-19 Disease. And that's exciting. Tell me about that.
[09:23] Giovanna: Yes, we are literally making history with this, Michelle. I think it's hard for the general population to understand this, but I'll try to do my best if I give this some background. Over the years, many, many cultures centuries ago have been studying well, not really studying, but applying techniques or practices about the mind-body connection. They knew this from many years ago, that there's a benefit to connecting with your mind and your body and having everything more aligned so you can be in a more composed state or let's call it a more coherent state on your day-to-day things. What we have been doing is we have been doing research for almost gosh. I think we're reaching 25 years of trying to find some medical proof, some scientific proof, that the mind-body connection has really profound benefits in our biology. And we have been doing this study where we were taking samples from participants during a week-long event where we teach them how to meditate, we teach them why it's important, and how to do it in their day-to-day activities. So just adding it in, just like cooking, just like sleeping, just getting into this meditation practice. And we did this with all these participants before the event, we would take samples, we will take saliva, we will take blood, we will take tears, and their vital signs. And we also did some brain mapping. We use EEGs to measure their brainwaves. So we would take samples before the event, during the event, midweek, and then after the event. And we kept comparing all this data. What's really exciting about this is if you were to look at a research study, let's say for a pharmaceutical company, for a new medication, these studies take about two years just to collect the data. The groups can vary in size, but they could be from, let's say, 25, 30, or at the most, 100 participants collect all that data over two years and then try to prove it and test it in different ways. And then after three or four years, you will get the published study from this. What we accomplished was actually even bigger than that. We were able to study over 2000 participants in two years time. And we were not just able to collect that data, but to show the results and to prove from a scientific method that it is true, that what we're saying is true. So in under two years, we had a bigger amount of participants and in a short amount of time, we got the results to get published in a formal publication. So it's really groundbreaking within the scientific community, within the medical community, and for all of us in the general population to see what we're capable of accomplishing.
[12:17] Michelle: Yeah, I mean, that's an enormous feat. What does it feel like to work with a team of researchers on a project like this?
[12:26] Giovanna: Oh, my goodness. It's like I literally have to pinch myself. I have to see if I'm dreaming, if this is true because it just brings everything together. It just brings what you've always known within yourself like this inner wisdom that there's something more out there. Right? Let's call it religion, let's call it spirituality. Let's just call it, I don't know, your higher self. You always have this voice that you know that there's something better, that there's something out there. But being able to pair that with medical and scientific methods to see it in software where you can see where this person is improving, where you can see where this person is healing, where you can see right away when someone passes from being in a state of anxiety to a state of ease and seeing those brainwaves change, it's just magical. It's the only word I can use. Yeah, for sure.
[13:16] Michelle: Yes. It's really powerful. I will link the study in the show notes, so anybody who wants to check that out can. But I read it and I was just fascinated too. And I think we need more research like this because there's a large group of people that feel like there is no connection, that you can't change your immune system merely by meditating. And so this is something that really says, yes, you can, and it's really powerful. So I just encourage people to read.
[13:58] Giovanna: Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think we're just getting started, Michelle. I mean, we just started with this because it was something very easy to quantify, but I think it's going to expand to so many other scenarios and situations that we deal with because one of them that I'm focusing mostly is on burnout. On burnout, because as you know, burnout is because of a chronic stress response and some people say it's external factors. It's your work environment if it's a toxic work environment. And yes, I mean, those things have some leverage on them. But what we have found, and this is very close to my heart, is that burnout is mostly due to how your body is responding to your environment. So you have the choice always to, let's call it program yourself to how you want to respond, how you want to feel, how you want to perceive your environment. So burnout is something that is absolutely preventable and it's something that you can absolutely recover from if you have the proper tools. And meditation is definitely one of those.
[14:58] Michelle: Yeah, that's encouraging to hear because as you know, the entire medical community has really been challenged with burnout. And I myself have experienced burnout. And I feel like that's really when I think back about why I retire early, I tell myself, well, you'd already worked 40 years and that's a long enough time so you can stop now. But when I really examined the reasons and the feelings, it was burnout. And then I wanted to blame it on the pandemic. While lots of things changed during the pandemic, I was working in the NICU full-time. I was seeing a lot of people that I worked with get sick. I was seeing patients die. I was scared myself every day going into a hospital with high COVID numbers. So I was experiencing a lot of anxiety. So initially I thought that's what was causing me to burn out. But then after I retired and I had some time to think about it, I looked back and I go, I was kind of really starting burning out a few years, even before the pandemic, just from personal things that were going on in my life that were, like you said, changing the way my body was feeling, having a lot of insomnia, anxiety. So I have employed some of those things that you teach about and they've been really helpful for me and I know that they can be helpful for other nurses and other medical professionals too. So I'm so glad that you're getting the word out.
[16:48] Giovanna: Absolutely, absolutely. And yeah, I can completely relate to your story, Michelle. And I'm really not surprised when people in the healthcare field talk more and more about burnout and the issues that they go with. And I've seen this trend of not just burnout, but autoimmune disorders, and it makes sense if you look at it from a biological point of view. It makes complete sense because what is really triggering the burnout? So let's take a step back. So the CDC says that burnout is a syndrome that is due to chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. Okay, well, sounds simple, right? But if we look at our physiology, what is stress? So stress is a way for us to feel safe, to survive whatever threat or danger we're perceiving from our environment. But as you said, during this time of crisis, when we had to deal with COVID and seeing so many people get sick, so many people dying, and you really question yourself. It's like, am I going to get sick? Am I going to die? You have this sense of uncertainty. So the stress response is activated, and there's no way to turn it off. Right. We all for, like, two years in a row, and our energy, if we look at it like a battery, it was completely depleted from this. So a lot of people experience, like you said, all the trauma from working with patients with COVID plus all the depletion of energy from the stress response that we were not able to charge. And on top of that, nowadays, we're dealing with all this crisis about the staffing, the nursing shortages, and all these hospitals that are closing down. So how can we not be stressed? How could we not be burnout, Michelle, if we have all these demands and all these things that we can't control or predict and that we're still expected to excel no matter what?
[18:37] Michelle: That's right. We're still expected to excel no matter what. And that's just such a high bar for anyone to meet. And as I hear you talking, you are a nurse, and you have your own nursing experience, which comes through in everything that you're saying. So talk about just how you came to be a nurse and some of your history of working as a nurse.
[19:07] Giovanna: Oh, happy to. Yeah. So I knew right from high school that I wanted to be a nurse because I'm from Costa Rica, and where we're from, our high school encourages us to do, like, community hours. So I chose to work with a nursing home center and then with an orphanage center. And I just felt like, this huge compassion and empathy for all of them that I felt like that was one of my callings. And then after I did those community service hours, I realized that when I was a kid I wanted to say when I was seven or eight years old, I kept having these recurrent dreams that I was healing people and animals. But I was very sad because I would try to place my hands on them and I couldn't heal them enough. So I will wake up crying frustrated about this. So when I did those community hours in high school, I said, well, maybe that was calling my intuition, telling me that there was something within me that had this calling. So I decided to pursue a nursing career. I did all my college here in Costa Rica and then I decided to move here to the States. And I moved, I want to say about 20 years ago to Austin, Texas. When I started working here, I was working in this magnet hospital with HCA and I went straight into telemetry cardiology, and from there I moved to the EP lab. And it was great because as a nurse, you feel like you're advancing in your career, not just academically, but the opportunities that come from that. But at the same time, all working on those long hours, it started to take a toll on my body. I started dealing with insomnia, I started having issues with weight gain. I have to confess that after every shift we went out with my friends for a few drinks and I realized that I was drinking gosh five to six times a week. I'm like, I can't keep up with the pace. It was just like I would question those things, but at the same time, well, I'm a nurse. It's expected for me to be stressed, it's expected of me to always be busy, to be multitasking. And this is how I am relaxing, this is how I'm compensated. So for many years, I went on like that. I then got pregnant with my first child and I decided I did not want to keep working in the hospital. I wanted some balance so that I could spend more time with my daughter. So I decided to start pursuing jobs in nursing, but that will be from home. And I was lucky enough to get this job with a company that had care managers and that was like super fun because you were on the phone talking to patients and helping them with their medical issues. You work with their insurance plan. So it was really, let's call it humane side of nursing. Because you learn about their family, you learn about their relationships, you learn about why they were struggling and why they weren't compliant to things. And that's actually what led me to want to become a nurse coach because I felt like I knew what they needed to do, I knew why they weren't doing it. But I couldn't get them to change. No matter how much advice I gave them, no matter how much I told them, eating healthy, and taking your meds is going to make you feel better, I just could not help them change. And that's why I'm questioning like, there has to be more tools. How can I close this gap between all the knowledge that's out there and all the resources so that patients can actually use these resources? So coaching was able to tie those things, put all those puzzle pieces together, and that's what led me to pursue even more. I'm always like this book where I'm trying to learn new things, and that's what led me to pursue, like, okay, so nurse coaching is great. What else is out there? I wanted to understand human behavior. I wanted to understand why we do the things we do. And that's when neuroscience came in, and that's when all this beautiful software and the research work that I'm doing. So it's like one thing has led to another, and I think that is the best thing about nursing. I love being a nurse. And just like you, I dealt with stress, I dealt with unhealthy coping mechanisms, I dealt with burnout, I dealt with an autoimmune disorder. But I will not change it for the world, Michelle, because it's so diverse, it's so many doors that you can open, and that you can serve your community if you're just curious enough and creative enough to do it.
[23:21] Michelle: I really feel the same, Giovanna. That was just really well said. And one of the things you said really resonated with me. And I think so many nurses could relate to this. Know, you were talking about nurses are supposed to be multitaskers when nurses are supposed to be, they're supposed to be stressed. And we really take on that nurse identity and it's not always good for us. Right?
[23:49] Giovanna: I was saying not always. I think it's just simply not good for us. But we have to open our eyes and realize that Michelle, because like you said, even from nursing school, what are we told? We have to be good at this. We have to know it all. There's no room for errors, there's no room for new perspectives. So what do we understand? Oh, I have to be perfect. I have to do it all for everyone. And even if it's situations and scenarios that we cannot absolutely control because it depends on the patient, depends on the doctor, we still feel responsible for this. So it's very unfeasible and unrealistic expectations. That's when perfectionism kicks in. That's when all this chronic stress kicks in, and that's when burnout kicks in, because how could we? I keep asking this. Who is perfect? Who has all their stuff together? No one. No one. So why are we so hard on ourselves, not just as nurses, but as human beings? Why are we so hard and so demanding of ourselves and other nurses as well? Because we see another nurse that they're making a mistake or something, and sometimes we might give them a look. That's why nurse bullying comes in. And you're like, why is perfect? And to be Miss know it all when you should be more empathic, more compassionate, and recognize you're just a human being doing a job. That's it.
[25:08] Michelle: Yeah. And we have all those tools, we have the compassion, we have the care, but we don't use those on ourselves, right? We reserve those for our patients. And that's sad. And I'm starting to see a shift where we're turning those traits as nurses that we have. We're turning them around and we're applying them to ourselves and to our lives. You have over two decades of nursing experience, and how does that experience make you a better coach?
[25:46] Giovanna: That is a great question, and it brings me back to one thing that you mentioned that was very important. You said, we're patient with our clients and with our patients, but why not with us? Why can't we show the same amount of patience and flexibility that we show to other people, to ourselves? So I would say in all my years as a nurse, I have gained, let's call it this wisdom because of my personal struggles and what I see in my clients and my patients is like, we're always going to be busy. There's always going to be a why you don't want to do something. And there's always something in your external environment that's going to come up that's going to challenge you, that's going to make you question things. So we're always going to be busy. We're always going to be putting out fires. But again, if you don't learn how to be flexible, and how to be patient with yourself, you're never going to have the tools to go throughout your life with this. Like, change is always a constant. Stressors are always a constant, and let's call it your work environment, it's never going to be perfect. There's always going to be toxicity, there's always going to be micromanagement, there's going to be feeling pressure from other people, or it could even be your friends and family members. But what I always advocate is this, Michelle, we nurses need resilience. And I know when I mentioned resilience, nurses just run the other way. They hate because it makes us feel like they're telling us that we're not good enough, that we're not strong enough. But I like to invite people to see it from a completely different perspective. If we look at CEOs, if we look at leaders in our world, if we look at, let's say, Olympic athletes, astronauts, you name it, what do they know that we don't know? Because they're always busy. They always have, too. So what are they doing that we should be applying to? And that's the message I like to translate to all nurses and healthcare professionals. They know that stress is always going to be there. They know that change is always going to be there. But they see stress as an ally. They see resilience as an ally because they learn how to control their thoughts, their actions, and their feelings. And that translates to being able to control how you're responding to your environment, to your stresses. So they take time each day to become aware of this. Like, what am I doing? Why am I doing it and how can I change it differently? And as nurses, if we have a job that has so many demands, has so many responsibilities, that it comes with such an emotional toll, why wouldn't we want to have these tools? It just doesn't make any sense to me. It's not a matter of pride. It's not because you're doing anything wrong. It's something that you need, because we are dealing with life and death situations on a day-to-day basis, and we need the tools to be able to understand that, to process it, and most importantly, to let it go, because we can't carry all those emotions. You can't keep going to bed at night and feeling guilty because maybe you didn't answer that call light right away. Maybe because you should have given them that glass of water sooner. Or maybe you felt like when you were placing the NG tube or the Foley catheter, you should have done it differently. You can't bring all of that stuff home and not be able to sleep, just to wake up the next day and keep doing it over and over again. You need a way to release that and to let it go in a healthy way so that you can keep enjoying your profession and that you can be the best version of yourself, not just for your well-being, but for the ones from your family members and your patients as well. And that is the secret. That's the secret that all these successful people have. And that's why I like to call a successful nurse. It's not the nurse that has the biggest amount of titles. It's not the nurse that's making the biggest amount of money. It's the nurse who knows that their physical and mental health is their priority. Because without that, there's no money, there's no career that's going to compensate for it.
[29:38] Michelle: I love that you talked about the tools. Right? Like nurses, we love tools. We create tools to make our job easier every day at work. And so calling these things tools, I think that's something that we could really identify with and pick up and run with. So that's really smart. One of the other hats that you wear is something that really piqued my interest. I knew a little bit about it, but you're a Heartmath practitioner, and Heartmath was created in 1991, I remember having some exposure to that in the '90s. But talk about HeartMath and what you do as a practitioner.
[30:26] Giovanna: Absolutely. Happy to. So, yeah, like, you're right. HeartMath has been with us for a few years, and they have also been doing research, but they're studying it from a different approach. They have discovered that the heart has a nervous system that is actually more complex than our brain. So what they have discovered is that our emotions are the ones that are sending. The signal up to our brain, and our brain responds to that. And then that's when it releases all the chemicals and their hormones in response to that emotion. So what they try to communicate to the community is that our emotions are like a life force, and they affect our physiology, our chemistry, our hormones, and they're actually like a driving force that helps us do what we want, even when the odds are against us. So they have a belief that there are no good or bad emotions. They call them either renewing emotions like joy, gratitude, happiness, and compassion, and depleting emotions like anxiety, worry, and fear. So emotional resilience, it's actually another, let's call it a tool that it's vital to success for anyone, especially in nursing. Why? Because if you learn how to feel both emotions, the renewing of the depleting emotions at the same time, and you learn to navigate them in a way that it doesn't deplete you, that it doesn't affect your mental well-being, then you have let's call this shield. Like the sword and shield that you can use to protect yourself from a day-to-day thing. So one example that I use with nurses, let's say that our nurse is during the hospital shift, and she has this very challenging patient, and this patient, for some reason, got violent and tried to physically hurt this nurse. So what is the nurse going to do? She's going to protect herself, right? She's going to take the appropriate measures to make sure that the patient is safe as well. But instead of just walking out of that patient's room and going into another patient's room and just sucking up all that stress, all that fear, all that adrenaline, as she's walking to the other room, she can do a breathing technique, which is what I showed during the workshops, a quick breathing technique that takes 30 seconds, 60 seconds. She can release all that adrenaline, she can release all that fear, and then she can go on with her day. So that's why harm is so crucial and so important because they show you techniques to release that energy, to release all that buildup, so you can maintain healthy energy levels throughout the day. And my favorite part is, like, if you're a very visual person, we have software that you can connect to your phone or to your computer and just know the Apple Watches that measures your heart rate, your HP, it measures that in real-time. So it can tell you how coherent you are or if you're really stressed and what you can do to improve your energy levels or your stress levels throughout the day with live feedback from that. So my role as a heart, my practitioner, is one to show people the theory, the research on this, why it's so important, why it's so useful, and to give them these tools so they can learn the breathing techniques that they can use when they're working, when they're at home, and how to use the software so that they can check on themselves on a day-to-day basis and learn how their nervous system is responding on a day-to-day basis to things. That way you learn more about yourself, like why you're thinking this way, why you're responding this way, and most importantly, what you can do about it. That's why I love this and it's such a helpful tool for people with burnout because if you look at research on burnout, there are so many articles, and there are so many publications on what is burnout and how it affects you. But I feel like we're lacking in telling people what they can actually do to heal from this or to actually prevent it. So those are the tools that Heartmath provides to really tell you, okay, you have the situation, this is what you can do in a matter of minutes. And it's just a very practical phone tool. So I think it's a wonderful resource for anyone that's interested in learning more about themselves and how to have a better work-life balance.
[34:45] Michelle: Yes, and I went on their website which I will post in the show notes. It's just fabulous. And there's been so much talk in the last few years on heart rate variability, and that was something that was familiar to me because, for the last four or five years, I've been wearing a band on my wrist. And this one is made by Whoop and it was made initially for athletes, but now I think so many people in the general population are using it because it's just kind of like instant biofeedback. So it measures your heart rate variability and it gives you a number, I guess, of your daily strain and then it also measures your sleep and all the stages of sleep. So, you know, if you're getting good sleep, if you need more REM sleep, if you need more deep sleep. And it's just been so beneficial for me personally and also just for the people that use it in terms of getting that instant biofeedback. And you can change those things, but it's data and I'm kind of like a data nerd and so I love looking at all my numbers and seeing what I need to kind of tweak and what I need to do more of and less of. So it's awesome. And I just instantly identified with HeartMath and I think it's a wonderful thing. So again, I will put that in the show notes. And I also saw that you not only coach nurses, but you coach corporations. So you're in the boardroom kind of as well as in the break room. Right? And you do that because you've been trained by Dr. Joe Dispenza as a Neurochange Solutions consultant. But just talk a little bit about Dr. Joe Dispenza and that relationship and then what you do as a consultant for corporations.
[36:53] Giovanna: Absolutely. Happy to do so. Dr. Joe Dispenza has also started working with the Hartman Institute in his earlier years. And then he decided to do a little bit of the research on the side on his own. But he's been talking for many years about the mind-body connection and to demystify this knowledge with a scientific approach. What he says is that in order for us to change, we need to become aware of what we're thinking, how we're acting and how we're feeling. So I'll give you a quick example. For example, research has shown that we think on average, 60,000 to 70,000 thoughts in one day. But here's the kicker out of those thoughts, that's a lot of thoughts each day, 90% of those thoughts are the same thoughts as the day before for most people. So what does that mean then? It means then that your today probably won't be any more different than your tomorrow or than your yesterday because we're just repeating more of the same. And the hardest thing about change is not doing the same thing as the day before. So if we want to create a new goal, if we want to create a new life, if we want to create, let's say, a new working situation, then we need to become aware of what you're thinking, acting and feeling to see what is benefiting you, what is not benefiting you, and how to change that. And how do we do this? We do this it's a multifactorial approach because one, we teach people about their thoughts, we teach them about meditation, and we teach them about how to change their brainwaves. We also teach them tools that they can use on a day-to-day basis to discover what habits they have that are benefiting them, what behaviors, what beliefs are serving them, and which ones they need to change. So when he does this, he has different approaches. He has videos on his website that you can purchase and learn about the lectures he has, the week-long events that he does throughout the world where I get to travel with him, and that's where we do the research studies. But then he realized about ten years ago that there was a huge need within the corporate world for this because they were having issues with employees who could not deal well with frustration. They had issues with retention rates. They had issues that their employees were not productive. And the leaders wanted to understand why was this, why was it that especially after COVID incentives as like a salary bonus or more time off wasn't really giving them the results that they needed. So they wanted to understand what was going on with their teams, what was going on within the departments that was causing this effect. So all that he teaches about the mind-body connection, about meditation, and about all these tools, he created this company that's called Neuroscience Solutions, where we provide workshops that can be done online or in-person to teach not just the corporate leaders, but the employees themselves, how to apply these tools. So he has a very select group of certified consultants, and I am one of them. So I would say to whoever's listening, there's a lot of information out there about Dr. Joe Dispenser on YouTube, free resources. But if someone ever offers you a course, a book, or anything, you need to look for that certified seal. There's like a logo that we have to help you differentiate that this is actually coming straight from the source. It's coming straight from Dr. Joe Dispenza. And it's not just another company trying to benefit from this, because he pledges that he wants to keep his work very pure, that he wants to keep it in a way that makes sense to people. And I think it's wonderful to be able to translate meditation. Can you imagine, Michelle, like, talking about meditation with a CNO at a hospital? It would be like what? You know, what's going on? And it's happened. We've done it many, many times, and we can see the results. And we're doing studies with hospitals, with schools, with many other places as well, because we're testing this out to see how we can improve the circumstances for everyone because everybody wins with this.
[41:08] Michelle: That's a great website, too. I went on there and there are just so many great resources, and I saw the certification process, and it's rigorous. So I'm glad that you mentioned differentiating between that seal so you know you're getting the real deal. But one of the things that I was thinking about, because I'm not a corporate entity, I'm a nurse. And I think being coached by a nurse would be something that I would be familiar with because this person would be a nurse. But how has it been for you as a nurse, going into corporations and doing work with them? What do you do differently, if anything, with CEOs than you would with a nurse coming to you with burnout?
[42:04] Giovanna: That's a great question. I love that question, Michelle. So I can tell you know, I've been very blessed to be in different fields in nursing. And I have worked for a few years for digital health companies like Fitbit, Google, and  One Drop. So that exposed me to the world of corporate people because I used to see them like this. Like, who is this strange person? Like, they're even human, right? So being able to work in a digital health company helped me really understand their needs, their wants, and their struggles. And I can tell you for sure one thing, Michelle. A leadership position is very lonely. And I sometimes feel bad for CNOs because they have this bad rep in the hospitals. But it's actually a very lonely road for them. I'm not saying that they're innocent about the things they do, but it's a very lonely road. And they need tools too. They need tools to be able to manage this. So going back to your question, I can tell you that at the end of the day, we're all human. We all have emotions, we all have beliefs, we all have values that are close to our heart and those things translate into our workplace. So any business, any corporation actually behaves like a family. There are different people that have different perspectives. But at the end of the day, the needs, let's call it the mission and the vision is very similar. So how would I coach this corporation? Well, we approach that. We ask what are their needs, what are their goals, and why do they want to achieve this. We try to identify if there's a pattern, if there's a common factor that's affecting the corporation as a whole or if it just one employee or two employees or a particular department that is having issues. So we create a personalized plan for this. We have metrics to measure the before and the after results. So again we go back to data, we go back to graphics to see which areas need improvement and how they can improve. And oftentimes I found that the reasons are pretty much the same as a healthcare professional. It's not feeling valued, not feeling like they're worthy, not feeling like what they're providing is being seen by their employer. So that's when all these feelings come that affect their efficiency and their productivity. Nurses on the other side have a different perspective from this.
[44:25] Michelle: Obviously not being in the corporate world, there's like this chasm. We see them I think, as nurses, as just like unfeeling and always focused on the bottom line and just this separation of us and them. And you explained it so well in that, hey, we all have this common thread, we're all human. And when you break it down like that into discussing emotions and so know it translates very well from a nurse to a corporation. Are there people, Giovanna, that are uncoachable?
[45:09] Giovanna: I think some people are uncoachable because they're just not ready for change. They're not ready to look at new perspectives. But I recently discovered, Michelle, that those persons, need to, let's say, walk their journey a little bit more. They need to discover more about themselves before they can understand why they need to change or why they need to be coachable. So, yes, there are a lot of people who are simply not ready for change, and it's okay. It's just part of their journey, and it's a process. For example, when I do these workshops, I love to provide them with the foundations, and the background of this. Because if we look at it from a neuroscience point of view, they don't have that knowledge. They don't have the neural connection to actually understand this. It will be like me, if someone were to give me a piano and say, okay, play a song, I would sit at that piano, stare at the keyboards, and I would just see black and white keyboards. I have no idea what to do with this piano, right? But if I have knowledge of what music is, what this keynote does, and how to read the music, I could at least start trying and practicing and maybe do a Do Re Mi too far, but at least I could do something with it. You provide people with that knowledge when you explain to them, hey, we have this. This is how it's going to benefit you and this is how you can achieve it then people might be like, maybe I'm just tired of doing this and having so many false starts or so many failures and maybe I'm ready for something else. But like I said, it's a journey and some people are ready, some people are not. This is why, if you look at my website and anytime that I approach a new client, I love to offer them a free consultation, like a first-time consultation to see where they're at. Maybe they don't have an idea of where they're at or where they want to be, but I can get a sense of what level of readiness this person has. Or let's look at it from the other side, right, because it's a reality. Maybe their mental state is not where it should be. And I need to work closely with a doctor. And maybe this person needs a prescription for, let's say, an anxiety medication to control those panic attacks first. Or they can be coachable. So I love this because as you said at the beginning, nurse coaching is so vast that I could work with one person one on one. Or doctors refer me to people that have depression that they just started this medication so that we can tackle this from a multifaceted approach.
[47:46] Michelle: You just read my mind for that question, because my question was, have you ever been coaching someone, and their personal life is kind of flowing over into their professional life and you're seeing that maybe they need some mental health resources beyond what you can provide in coaching? And kind of what do you do in that circumstance? Do you refer them to their physician? Do you refer them to a therapist? But yeah, you answered that absolutely.
[48:19] Giovanna: And I think you have to be wise and humble enough as a nurse coach to understand when you're maybe going out of your limits when maybe this is not your field. As you said, refer them to your therapist, refer them to a doctor so they can get in a more stable state and they continue with the coaching sessions. But that is a call that's very personalized and you have to be very conscious of what people need. Going back to nurse burnout, I think with burnout, a lot of things can come out of us that are really not who we are at our core, it's just a result of that exhaustion. And people have a loss of personal identity. They have a reduced sense of accomplishment. And if they're not careful, that can lead to anxiety, that can lead to depression, that can lead to other types of disorders. But if you catch them right away, then there's a way to stop it. But sometimes people come with those conditions and it's just like it's not impossible, but it's definitely a more, let's call it thorough approach to them.
[49:22] Michelle: Yeah, and that's part of being a Holistic coach too, right? It's like seeing the whole person. It's not just someone who comes to you with a problem from work, there are other factors involved. And having that holistic mindset, you can see that there are other things that are contributing, maybe to burnout. It's not just the job.
[49:50] Giovanna: You brought out a really good topic on that because it's not just like your emotions and it's really giving cues to see why is this person physically or mentally exhausted. What are their family dynamics at home, what are their financial situations, and what are their beliefs? Maybe they're struggling with their spiritual side. There are so many things that come into play that you have to see the person as a whole. That's why the Holistic approach is so rich and so powerful, because you really get to understand this person, where they're coming from, how did they get here, and how they can actually improve. Because I could tell you for hours, oh, there's this tool, there's this resource and everything. But if it doesn't make sense to you if it doesn't apply to your life in a practical way, then that person is going to say, this isn't helpful, this isn't useful. So being able to understand why this person is dealing with those things, it's so crucial.
[50:45] Michelle: Well, as we wrap up here, Giovanna, we've talked so much about coaching today, and what I want to know is, who do you go to for coaching and support?
[50:59] Giovanna: Me? Well, I have been very blessed, Michelle, to have amazing mentors. When I started this journey seven years ago. I have a friend, she's not my friend, she's my dear friend, but her name is Barbie Caleb, and she's very noticeable on Facebook. That's where she works mostly. So if you're looking for a mentor, a female mentor who can really understand why you want to do things, I would say she is a go-to person for that. Dr. Joe Dispenza as well. He's been such a crucial mentor in my life. He's helped me change my life in so many aspects. And then last year, this new mentor came out of the blue. And his name is Ken Honda and he's from Japan. But he has a very interesting approach. Knows holistic knowledge and stem knowledge, and he talks a lot about money, like having happy money, and how to be successful with your finances, which I think is another very important topic for knowing that we struggle so much with limiting beliefs around money. So all three mentors have been very crucial in my life to help me be who I am today, and I'm forever grateful to have them in my life.
[52:09] Michelle: And mentors are just so important, right?
[52:12] Giovanna: They are. They help you see things from a new perspective. They challenge you when you don't want to see something or tap your shoulder and say, "Hey, it's time to change this." And you're like, I don't want to know. But you need to. So, yeah, it can be scary. It can be very scary sometimes to face that change, to look at yourself in the mirror. But that's what a mentor is for, to say, hey, I know it's scary, I know it's painful, but it's for your own benefit.
[52:37] Michelle: I considered myself a mentor with my colleagues through my many years of nursing, and I also had mentors. And when you're doing great work, you also need somebody. It can't just be you. So I like that you have those people to call on and please send me their contacts so I can put those in the show notes for anybody that yeah, well, we've talked about a lot today. Giovanna, thank you so much for being my guest.
[53:09] Giovanna: We sure did. I had so much fun and I'm hoping the people listening to this can get some little golden nuggets from this and use it for their own benefit.
[53:19] Michelle: I know they can. You've brought so much value to my audience and I appreciate it. So at the end, we do the five-minute snippet, which is just five minutes of fun. It's just some questions so that everyone can see the off-duty side of Giovanna. So are you ready to play that?
[53:37] Giovanna: Let's do it always.
[53:40] Michelle: It's a lot of fun. If you could be the personal assistant to anyone, who would it be? Personal assistant?
[53:53] Giovanna: I would be the personal assistant, actually, to my mentor, to Ken Honda. He's just such a fun guy, for sure.
[54:02] Michelle: Okay. Would you rather learn from every mistake or never make a mistake again?
[54:09] Giovanna: Oh, that's a tough one. I would say learn from every mistake. Although I have to confess, I'm not really good at that. Perfectionism is still going strong.
[54:19] Michelle: I was like, Michelle, you're talking to a coach. Like, she's not going to say, oh, I'm never going to make a mistake again. Even though kind of that's part of our nurse personality. Right.
[54:29] Giovanna: Growing pain, for sure.
[54:30] Michelle: Yeah. Okay, what three things would you leave in a time capsule for people to open in 50 years?
[54:39] Giovanna: Definitely. I would say a guide to meditation. I will leave them hiking shoes because we need to be outdoors in nature, for sure. And I will leave them a video game. I think video games are so fun and so important in our lives.
[54:54] Michelle: Oh, that's so fun. Okay. Would you rather have a teacup pig or a mini horse?
[55:01] Giovanna: Oh, a mini horse. You can't say no to horses.
[55:04] Michelle: Horse sounds so fun. Yes. I grew up with my mom, and she bought a pig. We kind of had, like, this little farm in the middle of a city, and my mom bought this pig that was really super tiny. And of course, as kids, we just fell in love with it. But it wasn't a mini. It grew and grew and grew to be, like, 300 pounds.
[55:25] Giovanna: Oh, my goodness.
[55:26] Michelle: I Know. Okay, would you rather forget how to spell or how to add?
[55:34] Giovanna: How to spell.
[55:36] Michelle: Because there's always spell check right?
[55:38] Giovanna: There's Spell Check. And I'm thinking, I want to count my money. I want to count my coins.
[55:44] Michelle: That's great. If you were a bartender, what famous person would you like to serve at your bar?
[55:50] Giovanna: Oh, let me see. Who would I like to serve? Oh, Jason, Momoa. I think he's so much fun.
[55:56] Michelle: Okay. That would be fun. Would you rather jump in a pile of leaves or a pile of snow?
[56:03] Giovanna: Snow for sure. Leaves are too pointy.
[56:09] Michelle: Only if they're soft leaves. Right. What does your Friday night look like? Your typical Friday night.
[56:16] Giovanna: Oh, my God. So I'm actually an introvert. I love staying at home. So our Friday nights we make pizza at home with my husband and my two kids. We watch our favorite movie or play video games. So that's my typical Friday night. I'm a homebody for sure.
[56:33] Michelle: I love it. And I was thinking about this the other day because I'm a homebody too. And I was like, man, the pandemic. The one thing that I actually enjoyed about it was I didn't have an excuse to go out. It was like, oh, I'm going to stay in because there's COVID out there. Right.
[56:53] Giovanna: It was perfect for a little bit.
[56:55] Michelle: I know, right? Okay. Would you rather move objects with your mind or make them disappear with a clap?
[57:04] Giovanna: Oh, move them with my mind, I think that would be so much fun.
[57:07] Michelle: I know because you're all about the mind. Very Cool. What's the last thing that you've done that you were really proud of?
[57:18] Giovanna: I actually would say hopping on the treadmill as we turn it on. And I was able to jog for 40 minutes without stopping. That was a huge accomplishment. I am not cardio. You can get me to lift weights, and do yoga, but cardio? No, thank you.
[57:33] Michelle: Wow. How many miles did you run in those 40 minutes?
[57:36] Giovanna: I'm not that fast. I don't think it was that long, but I survived 40 minutes without passing out.
[57:44] Michelle: That's a feat. Would you rather have your biography written or your journal published?
[57:53] Giovanna: I think a journal published for sure.
[57:57] Michelle: What was the most memorable class you've ever taken in college? 30 seconds.
[58:03] Giovanna: College, I would say, oh, my first class of anatomy in Costa Rica. Because they took us to the morgue. I had never seen a dead body, and I was just like it was so cool but so different at the same time.
[58:16] Michelle: Oh, I bet. Wow. Well, you did really well, and I just appreciate you. We've had some laughs, and we've talked about some serious things, and I'm so glad I met you. I'm so glad that you said yes to coming on the podcast.
[58:33] Giovanna: Well, thank you so much for having me, Michelle. It's been an absolute pleasure, and I just love talking to you. You have this beautiful, soothing voice. It's just lovely. So thank you so much.
[58:43] Michelle: Thank you. Thank you, Giovanni, I appreciate that. You have a great rest of your day.
[58:48] Giovanna: You too.
[58:49] Michelle: Okay. Take care. Bye.