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Welcome to Ready Set.
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Collaborate with Wanda Pearson.
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This is where ideas spark, connections grow and collaborations fuse success.
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Tune in for inspiring stories, expert insights and game-changing conversations.
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Let's build, connect and thrive together.
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Remember collaboration is the key to success.
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Welcome.
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Welcome to the Ready Set Collaborate podcast, where we respond like powerful voices making a difference through purpose, passion and connection.
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I'm your host, wanda Pearson, speaker, author and founder of WDD Pearson Associates.
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Today's guest is someone who truly embodies healing physically, mentally and spiritually.
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I'm thrilled to welcome Dr Dominique Carson, a licensed massage practitioner, author and health advocate.
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Dominique's hands have not only brought healing to hundreds of clients, but her voice and story are inspiring change in wellness spaces everywhere.
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She's been featured in national publications and continues to educate communities on the power of massage therapy for overall wellness.
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Get ready for an empowering conversation about the healing journey, entrepreneurship and the purpose behind the practice.
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So let's dive in.
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Dr Dawn.
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We call her Dr Dawn.
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It may be dominant, but we call her Dr Dawn.
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Dr Dawn, say hi to our audience.
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Hi everybody, Nice to meet you guys.
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Yes, only certain people say Dr Dom.
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Yes, yes, I'm glad I'm part of that certain piece.
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I'm reading what I was talking about.
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But I tell you I was just telling Dr Dom I need a massage right now.
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The stress that we go through and you just don't know, but I used to.
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That used to be one of my self-care things.
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Every month I go get a massage.
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I have to get back into that.
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But see, dr Nam does traveling, but we don't talk about that in a minute.
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So let me read her bio and we're going to dive into some questions I have for her.
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So every rose has its thorns, but the beauty of the flower makes the pain worth it in the end.
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Yes, it does.
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Dr Dominique M Carson has been remarkable in her current state, virginia, and her hometown, new York City.
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She has beaten all odds by becoming an award-winning massage practitioner, freelance journalist, author and orator.
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Is that how you say it?
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Orator?
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Yeah, I have problems sometimes with my Chicago accent.
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From the time she was eight years old, she used her artistic and writing abilities to inform and inspire others, leading her to greater heights.
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As a result, she received her bachelor's and master's degree before she was 25.
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All right, girl, after my bachelor's, I'm done, I ain't going to go to school.
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Carson became the first African-American to receive the Brooklyn College Wall of Fame Award in 2011.
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Carson was interviewed over.
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She has interviewed over 100 figures in popular culture.
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As a freelance journalist, she received various awards, including two X Arthur All-Star.
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Yeah, we beat that Arthur All-Star Award, didn't we?
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Dr Dom?
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The Global Iconic Changemaker Award and the Global Recognition Award for her editorial and health wellness work.
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In spring 2024, she was awarded an honorary doctorate in humanitism from the Global International Alliance.
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Wow, I am so well.
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Listen, we got to start here, girl.
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I'm definitely.
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That's very impressive, especially by the age of 25, getting your master's.
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So now you're talking about getting your doctorate.
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Tell us about that.
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Because of the honorary.
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I was fine with the honorary.
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I said you could use your doctorate, because that was my hesitation when I got nominated.
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I got nominated for the honorary on my cousin's birthday.
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We lost him to gun violence.
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Going on five years and I got the honorary doctorate.
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I was fine.
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I was like, because that's a badge of honor, that's usually you get that from prominent leaders and celebrities.
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So a colleague was like how was you feel if you get your PhD?
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I said the only way I'm getting this PhD is somebody pay for it, because I'm done Between all my education.
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I don't want any more student loans.
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I don't want to go through that process while I'm still recovering from the massage school's loans.
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And it was like there's two programs.
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So the first program I turned down because I still had to pay $8,000 out of pocket and I was like, no, that's not going to work.
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And then this other one was like is Licks Universities in Hawaii, your tuition is taken care of.
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If you are part of our academic network, you pay a monthly subscription.
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So I said, ok, I look into it and I prayed on it and I said God, if you really want me to do this, please just send me some signs Because, like I said, honorary is fine.
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I heard God said go for it twice.
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And I just pitched a dissertation topic.
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They loved it.
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So it's called PhD by portfolio and what that is.
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Because I had so much literary work over the years I can.
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I don't have to go do the prerequisites, I can just go through my dissertation.
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I said what am I doing?
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The catch is you have to do it in 24 months.
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So, starting in December is going to be a very intense 24 months.
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But that's how it came out yeah.
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And God will get you through that.
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Yeah, he will do it.
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He will do it Because everything that you're doing, that I'm doing, god is pushing us, because you know what.
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That's the plan he has for us, and I love Jeremiah 29, 11.
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That's my favorite scripture he has the plans for you.
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You don't know what you're going to do, but he has that plans for you.
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He plans to prosper you, not to harm you, but to give you hope and a future.
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Sure, yes, that is something that I love doing.
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So let's dive into some of these questions, and I'm so proud of you, girl.
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You keep doing what you're doing here.
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Thank you, tell us about your journey.
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What inspired you to become a massage therapist?
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It fell under my lap, I promise you, I thought I was going to be like Carrie Bradshaw, Sex and the City, living as a journalist in life, and I was Fresh out of college.
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I was working a nine-to-five, covering the show, interviewing the artists and doing it all over again.
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That was my lifestyle for a long time.
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So I'm going to circle back maybe seven years earlier.
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I'm still a senior in high school, spending time with my grandparents.
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As I'm getting older Us teenagers we want to be out everywhere, but I still made a vow that I was going to be spending a lot of time with my grandparents.
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My grandmother had this aches and pains my mother's mother and I just did like a light touch on her Felt better.
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She said you're going to do something with your hands.
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And I'm like grandma, like I use my hands Like as a writer.
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She said no, you're going to do something else with these hands in addition to what you're doing.
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Yeah, and I said, and she said you heard what I said and I was like anytime.
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She said you heard what I said.
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Fine, all right, I'm gonna listen to this.
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My grandfather said maybe within a few months, you know, you want to speak on stages, right.
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I said okay.
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I said he said you.
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God has blessed you so much on what you're going through to keep it silent.
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And as you get older, the stages are going to get bigger.
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I didn't plan on speaking.
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I promise you, speaking was a college assignment.
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I was in an honors program.
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I had to speak and propose different topics I think that's how it prepared me to go into this PhD lane.
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And I had to do a presentation in front of Columbia University.
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Okay, coldest audience.
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I'm a 20-year-old college student, cold audience.
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I had to compare some literary concepts for Death of a Salesman and the Great Gatsby.
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Wow, yeah.
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And I was the rookie and a lot of my classmates were like, yeah, I'm not doing that.
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But I took a step and said, all right, I'm going to do it.
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Represent the half of us.
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And when my mentor, he did like this, you did a good job.
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But I didn't know that.
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Because when I tell you, ms Wanda, their face was so solemn and I'm like, ok, did I screw up?
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You don't know what they think.
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I don't know what they think.
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I don't know what they think, so I step out, they talk to my advisor, my mentor, and he did like that.
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I was like, oh, now the massages came because my mother wanted to do something different.
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She treated my brother and I.
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My brother was a quarterback for high school football.
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Okay, and I fell in love with it.
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It it was a euphoria.
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Adrenaline was high.
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I was like yo, this is what my mother's been doing for years.
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But I never thought I was going to be a provider.
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I knew that I was going to incorporate it, like my mom, like a self-care regimen and all of that.
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It was my grandmother.
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And I just played around with the opportunity for years and I'm in my journalism career, like I said, I got my master's and everything is good, but I felt like something was missing, like I need to be doing something else, like something more tangible.
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So I'm revisiting this massage.
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So my grandfather on my dad's side he gave me a hundred dollars and I'm sitting on this Brooklyn bus and I said what am I really going to do with this $100?
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I applied to massage school and the rest was history.
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My family thought I was crazy.
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I was ridiculed.
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Now, when I got my license now it's okay, when I'm going to get my son, no, keep that same energy, that big bad wolf energy.
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Keep the same energy.
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My mother was just concerned with the timing.
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Okay, because you just graduated with this master's and now you're telling me that you're going to go back to school and get this.
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I said, ma, if I don't do it now, I'm not going to do it.
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That's right, and I did it.
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That's right, and I'm glad the time that I did it, because and look at you now, look how you have progressed, and then doing a traveling one too yes, what a blessing.
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God is so good, I tell you, because we don't know what we're going to be when we grow up.
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We know we are just having that faith and the trust to know that he's going to put you in the right place at the right time.
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So I'm so proud of you.
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So you hold a doctorate and wear many hats.
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How have your life experiences?
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shaped your approach to wellness and healing man, because now, all my years as a journalist, I can educate people on health and wellness and massage therapy through text, whether it's in articles, whether it's through books and now a coloring book, and now an award-winning coloring book.
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It was something that I always wanted to do.
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The minute I became a therapist, I said I want to come up with a concept that's going to be fun to a lot of people and still educate people about massage therapy.
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So I talked to Dr Lena Payton Webb back in 2023 at All the All-Stars and I said Lena, I want to do a coloring book that still represents me and my personality but still gets the message across about massage therapy.
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So we went from color schemes, concepts and I love acronyms, especially Intensify when I was in massage school.
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That's how I was able to get through a lot of the coursework and run a lot of acronyms.
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I want an acronym that relates to massage and touch is such evident.
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It's an evident base.
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It's an innate desire that people really want to have, whether people admit it or not.
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Touch is such an innate desire really want to have, whether people admit it or not.
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Touches such an innate desire.
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That's how the T came and I just wrote the acronym down.
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I told Lena that's how I want to write it and we worked on it for almost a year and I want it to be different.
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And the people have customized portraits in the coloring book so I was able to take a doctor, a massage a lot of massage therapists have their own customized portrait.
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And.
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I'm able to pitch it in a way where they was like okay, I think I want to consider that I want a customized portrait.
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So the doctor that I met at a conference I pitched it to her and then when she saw herself she was like, oh my God, that woman really looks like me, because I know it sounds crazy to a lot of people.
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Wow, and I showed 10 people one of my good classmates from elementary school.
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Her daughters are in the coloring book.
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Wow, we were able to put her actual daughters in the coloring book.
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So when she said when her daughters saw them, she was like, oh my God, mommy, we famous, we famous.
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That's awesome yeah.
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That's awesome and because it gives them hope.
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You know, everything that's going on in this world today gives them hope.
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I have four granddaughters, so I may need to be talking to Dr Lena because my grandkids are very active.
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I'm telling you.
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she kicked the door down and that's when I told I was applying for a couple of book awards with the book, and nomination is one thing, but when you get one, not one, but three categories the international book awards, I got it in three categories body and mind, spirit, self discovery, body and mind and spirit and alternative health, and then to get it in that alternative and the integrated health category.
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Yeah, I was like man, yeah, that is awesome.
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So that's great.
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I'll tell you, I'm so excited about everything you did.
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Let me ask you a few more questions here, because we're getting down.
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I'm going to have you on again because I want to see what this doctor was.
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How did you progress?
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I know you're going to progress here.
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So many people think massage is just about relaxation, but it's so much more.
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Can you explain the deeper benefits of having a massage?
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Sure.
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So it's more than relaxation.
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It's pain management, it's rewiring your nervous system, because think of your body.
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We have all these body systems that we have.
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We have 11.
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And out of the 11, you need your nerves and you need your endocrine.
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Your endocrine helps you regulate your hormones.
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You need the nerves to send the signals for your movement and your body to do what it does.
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So with massage therapy we reduce your fight or your flight response and make it more in a rest and digest state.
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It helps you with anxiety, it helps you with depression, it helps people with muscle relaxation a lot of conditions and then we come up with a treatment plan based on the medical condition or diseases that you have, versus somebody with diabetes or somebody with osteosporosis.
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This is not a one-size-fits-all type of modality, for it depends on where they're at in their life.
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You may have to tone it down for people that never got a massage before.
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Yeah, yeah.
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So it helps with.
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We tell people to hydrate before massage and hydrate after, and I said that to a client one day.
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She was like I've never had a client, I've never had a therapist tell me to hydrate before.
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I said because it's going to help with your muscle recovery.
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The best way I can describe massage therapy is muscle awareness, soothing stress and generating endurance in your muscles.
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We deal with this is a muscle-based profession.
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That's what we take here.
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We take care of your muscle tissue tendons, everything to help you relax and feel recharged and, like I said, mainly rewiring your nervous system.
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Yeah, I can see all of that because, like I was telling you, I used to get one once a month and I really need to get back into that because it really does, especially when you're in pain, stress that you're under so many things, especially now today.
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You need to get this done more often and I tell people.
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If you can't get it once a month, I understand circumstances, finances, whatever.
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You need to get it three to four times a year.
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Think of how we go and get our car maintenance and all that good stuff.
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Think of your body as a tune-up.
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Yes.
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You want to get it three to four times a year, if you can't get it every month.
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Yeah, and.
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I'm saying circumstances where you're at in your life, you want to, especially elderly, unfortunately.
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You want to fix income whatever, but incorporate it where you can get it, three to four times a year.
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Yeah, just for maintenance.
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I like that and I'm going to start doing that.
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I actually get reflexology.
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That's good too.
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Reflexology and reflexology.
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My girlfriend she tells me exactly what's going on inside my body.
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I'm not drinking enough water.
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Is your pancreas everything they can tell from?
00:16:00.306 --> 00:16:00.426
you.
00:16:00.426 --> 00:16:06.091
But I'm telling you, you got the intestines, you got the pancreas, it's kidneys, all of that.
00:16:06.130 --> 00:16:07.831
Yeah, she was telling me that and I didn't even lie.
00:16:07.831 --> 00:16:11.840
I was like, yeah, I ain't been drinking a lot of water.
00:16:11.840 --> 00:16:13.547
Yeah, I know I should do this, so having that is so important.
00:16:13.547 --> 00:16:16.918
So what's it like building a business in the wellness space?