Episode 182: Inventing a New Kind of Pharmacy | Dr. Swathi Varanasi | Integrative Health Expert & Co-Founder of Element Apothec
Dr. Swathi Varanasi is creating the kind of healthcare she wished existed - one rooted in science, inclusivity, and plant-powered wellness. As an integrative health pharmacist and entrepreneur, she’s bridging the gap between evidence-based medicine and holistic care. She shares how she co-founded Element Apothec, how she’s changing pharmacy from the inside out, and why more women of color need a seat at the funding table. We talk about entrepreneurship, community impact, and how she stays grounded while paving a new path.
“There are so many ways people can improve their health from food to supplements to sleep to pharmaceuticals, mediation and beyond. Whole person medicine is the new frontier. With that is personalized and individualized medicine. ”
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Follow along using the Transcript
Chapters:
00:00 Dr. Swathi Varanasi’s mission
01:20 Why she left traditional pharmacy
03:00 What is integrative health?
05:10 Starting Element Apothec
07:30 Plant-based medicine and evidence-based care
09:00 Bringing equity and inclusion into wellness
10:30 Getting her first funding
12:00 How to lead with curiosity
14:15 Being the first in her field
15:45 Self-care for founders
17:00 Navigating burnout in health spaces
18:45 Building credibility in alternative wellness
20:00 Educating patients and changing mindsets
22:30 Partnering with patients, not prescribing to them
24:00 Launching the first integrative health residency
26:30 LinkedIn and unexpected opportunities
28:00 What she’s working on next
Yeah, I met her through LinkedIn and I was always, the person sending out cold messages to people who I thought were doing really cool things to learn from their path. But this was actually the reverse and she messaged me and was like, Hey, what you're doing looks really fascinating.
Could we like have a chat?
That's Dr. Swathi Varanasi, and this is The Powerful Ladies Podcast.
Hey guys, I am Kara Duffy, a business coach and entrepreneur on a mission to help you live your most extraordinary life By showing you anything is possible. People who have mastered freedom, ease, and success, who are living their best and most ridiculous lives, and who are making an impact are often people you've never heard of until now as a Western society, we have more and more visibility today on how whole body health and whole choice health is critical to our individual and community health.
Today's guest, Dr. Swathi Bari, is an integrative health pharmacist. Committed to leveling up how we take care of ourselves and how we think about healthcare solutions. Additionally, she's an entrepreneur, speaker, author, and a woman who is constantly asking, can we do this better? And why not me? In her roles as Chief Scientific Officer at Element Apathic Medical Communications at Everly Health.
And Director of Science at Los Angeles Normal.
Welcome to the Powerful Ladies Podcast. Thank you so much for having me today. You are so welcome. Let's jump right in and tell everyone who you are, where you are in the world, and what you're up to. Sure. So
I am Dr. Swathi Varanasi. I go by Dr. Swathi for short. I'm a pharmacist by trade, so went to pharmacy school and really found that my passion was in preventative and integrative health, and so really forged my own path to do that.
Amongst, a lot of people wondering what on earth I was doing, a lot of my colleagues. But yeah, so I, I did that and that leads me to where I am right now. So a combination of consulting, freelancing, and also I'm an entrepreneur, co-founded an incredible company. Working towards growing that and working with everyone on that.
And where I am in the world. I'm in Los Angeles at the moment. And you're just back from a holiday, right? You said? Yes. I'm just back from a holiday. My friend got married in France so I just went for her wedding and then spent a week in Paris and came back. Yeah,
tough. It's it's such a tough, thing to do for a friend, right?
I know. It was a hard decision.
I would love to dive into explaining to everyone listening really, what is integrative health? Amazing.
No I love that you asked that because everyone has their own definition these days of what integrative health is and how different practitioners within the space will define it.
So to me, integrative health really is integrating all of the different health and healing modalities together. And to me, one of the cruxes of integrative health is. Patient-centered, shared decision making. And so really what that means is that the patient is in the center of all the discussions and we're taking into account what the patient wants rather than just informing them, oh, this is the only option.
Just laying out all the options and working with them and working as a team to figure out what is the best course of action for everyone. And so that to me is really what. The root of integrative health is but to me it, in, it incorporates everything from sleep hygiene to nutrition, to in some cases supplements, pharmaceutical options.
There's so many different ways that we can optimize our health and wellness. And to me I don't wanna feel limited by only one option or the other option. I don't want patients to feel limited either.
So when we're looking at when to use integrative health is it for every health decision?
Is it for big health decisions? When can people gauge. Like my regular doctrine quotes will be fine for this versus when should I incorporate integrative medicine?
I would argue that integrative medicine can be used every day. It's just a way to optimize your health and wellness to be the best version of you is like my little definition.
So I would say like everything from, what you're putting on. Plate that could be viewed as like a part of integrative health, like what time you go to sleep, what you're doing right before you go to sleep, maybe your morning routine. Like I think a lot of these things could all work together really synergistically to make up integrative health.
But I do understand where the question is coming from because a lot of people are wondering. Integrative health really is only appropriate for certain like conditions. And I think integrative health can be incredible for a lot of different conditions, particularly chronic disease states, but I think that there's a way to incorporate it into our everyday also.
And for me it's really refreshing having more and more people in the healthcare SP space caring about me as a client and other people as a whole being. Versus an arm or a lung or a something. Yeah.
Whole person medicine is really like the new frontier, and especially like with that too, it's personalized medicine.
Individualized medicine, and so a lot of the new efforts are moving towards that. I would like to say that more people are interested in it, in the healthcare professional space, but not as many that should be. But it's moving in the right direction, but definitely still much progress needed
And is it that our traditional medical system is broken or inadequate, or is it like this just as piece is missing to tell the bigger story?
Because I think just like all of the, you know what's true, not true, and there's so much discussion about that with health and wellness in particular right now. So what's your perspective on where the current state of the medical, the traditional medical system is, and is it a complete overhaul or is it, oh, we're just forgetting steps like 7, 8, 9, or maybe it's steps 1, 2, 3.
Yeah I really like this question too. So I would say that I. There's no need to do a full on overhaul. It's more of like the education of the healthcare professionals and the way that they view health and healing. So I guess that's getting to like maybe step zero through two or zero through three kind of a thing.
Because I think that later down the line there are lots of certain scenarios where. Like maybe prescription medications, radiation, whatever it is appropriate. However, a lot of the time we can avoid some of these, end results if we are speaking to a healthcare professional that can help us from like way early on before, we find out we have diabetes and our A one Cs through the roof and we have to go on metformin.
There's so many other things we could do before it ends up becoming that.
Yeah. And so many, as you mentioned earlier. Very simple, everyday things that make such a huge impact.
You mentioned that you are proud to have been a co-founder of a new company. Tell me about that company and how did that come to be?
Yeah the company's element, apathic and so our CBD Botanical Wellness brand our main focuses are ensuring that all products are clean. We have transparency with our consumers and then at the end of the day that we're being innovative and effective. While still maintaining safety and as a pharmacist, like efficacy and safety are the most important things to me.
So that's definitely a lot of the conversation comes back to, is this gonna work? How well is this gonna work? Who are we gonna test it in? And all those kinds of discussions. How it came about is, I always say, and I joke, but it's like maybe not a joke, that LinkedIn is a magical place because Yes.
It's so incredible the amount of people you can meet. Just the quality of human beings that are out there. I think that like maybe in, in certain scenarios we don't I guess like in, in the past with certain networking opportunities, it seemed very limited as to the only. Place you could meet people were at conferences or, things like that, especially in the professional setting.
To have something like LinkedIn and I bring that up. I talk about LinkedIn a lot, honestly, because I just think it's, I just think it's incredible. Like I, it makes no sense to me that it's still free, but I'm gonna go with it for as long as that's possible. So yeah, I actually met Davina, who's the CEO and other co-founder.
We have another co-founder as well. But, yeah, I met her through LinkedIn and I was always, the person sending out cold messages to people who I thought were doing really cool things to learn from their path. But this was actually the reverse and she messaged me and was like, Hey, what you're doing looks really fascinating.
Could we like have a chat? And so this was pre COVID, of course. We were able to meet in person, we're both within the LA metro area, so we were able to meet up for coffee. And I got to learn more about the company, more about like this. Story behind it, which is just really beautiful and poetic. So the, I can give you a little background.
So the story is that her great aunt, so our CEO Davina, her great aunt, was diagnosed with a number of autoimmune conditions and was told by her healthcare professionals that she had very little time to live. And that was like the end of the road for her. And in addition to the autoimmune conditions, or rather, I guess as a part of the autoimmune conditions as well. She was allergic to a lot of the medications that she was given, so they're just, they, from their perspective, they felt like there was nothing else that they could do. But of course she didn't take that answer and she was like, Nope, I'm gonna figure out how I'm gonna make this work and I'm gonna be here.
And and so she started delving into. Everything from herbal medicine to, nutritional Chinese medicine, looking at herbs from all different capacities. And then also how herbs can play a role in essential oils. Learning as much as she can about that and then starting to formulate her own products.
So her own product started helping her, and then she started making some for friends. She started selling at farmer's markets and everything. But she wanted to see. Scale the company, but she felt like she wanted to ask someone who could devote all their, time, effort, and energy into it, and someone who is already genuinely passionate about integrative and preventative health herself.
So Dino was the clear choice for that. And so Dino was trying to put together between her, our COO, who's just like. Fantastic. And organizing absolutely everything and optimizing processes and then me who I bring the medical perspective, the scientific vernacular into our like threesome for us.
Yeah.
Very cool. What has surprised you most about starting that company and what are you most proud of so far?
What surprised me the most? I suppose this shouldn't be as surprising just given the statistics that are out there, but I think that's one thing to read a statistic and another thing to experience it as a company is just the the seemingly lack of funding for women.
And or like women of color. Yeah. So like within venture capital funding, if you're looking for any kind of funding, like that was something that I had heard about before, but to actually experience was a different situation. So I would say that was one of the things. And then the other thing I would say is, I guess sometimes within integrative health you live in a bubble of of course people are gonna be open to ashwagandha and kind of thing.
Yeah. But. It's always like a nice, brings you back to okay, there's really a sense and need for education within the space. Yes. And that's one of the main things that I'm focused on in the company, is trying to improve our education for consumers as well as providers as well in the future is.
It, to me, it's just one of the most important things. And I guess I, I already mentioned that too with the medical system question that I think if we can change the minds, or not even change the minds, rather just educate people on like objective facts. Regarding nutrition, regarding supplements, regarding everything, health and wellness related, then I really think that there can be a lot of change from the get go rather than later on.
And it's becoming more and more a pop culture conversation of just how much like food is medicine and Absolutely. It's the easiest thing. It's the most affordable and easiest thing for everyone to make choices on a daily basis. And there's still so many things working against you as a, a person living in western civilization today. I was just thinking about it because I'm obsessed with the, like True Real Foods, I think is the brand. It's a no sugar ketchup. It's all vegetables.
Oh, I know what you're referring to. They also, they have is
it Primal Kitchen?
Is that what you're thinking of? No. Love them too. But it's another one based in, in, I'll have to send you a picture later. But it's literally the best ketchup I've ever had. And I was thinking during lunch, I was like, people don't talk enough about we think we have to be. Super good a hundred percent of the time, or it's like a free for all.
And I think we go back and forth between the swing of oh, I'm being good. I'm sleeping, I'm drinking water, I'm eating salads. And then, oh, fell off the wagon. Fell off hard. Yeah. And I'm like, I just, it makes me happy that there are brands doing things that just to allow the small. Things that we can enjoy to be just closer to good for us.
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that
we
all should give ourselves a little grace too because it's, if like your friend's getting married, you're going to eat the cake and it's fine. Yeah. Because like you're celebrating I'm not saying eat the cake, three times a day or like once a week, but if it is that certain scenario, I think people should be allowed to feel like they can eat what they want as long as they are.
Living a balanced lifestyle. Yeah.
How does integrative health align with what it means to you to feel powerful?
I think to me, so to me power is like the power in being the best version of you and like standing in that power, fighting for what you believe in and like really it doesn't have to be like a position of power.
It's like power is something that you feel and something that you like embody for others. Too. So you're embodying it for yourself, but also like others see certain things as your, like superpowers, for example. And so to me, integrative health really is like the empowering yourself, empowering, I guess from my perspective, empowering patients to make the decisions that really resonate with them the most.
And decisions that they're going to be happy with and decisions that they're gonna actually be compliant or like adherent with too. Because it goes along with their goals and lifestyle.
Yeah. If we go back to 8-year-old, you would she imagine that this is your life and this is how you're making a living?
Oh my gosh. Absolutely not. No. My 8-year-old self was very much in the thought process of I only saw certain careers around me and like maybe I saw pharmacists. Sure. But like I didn't really see like anyone branching out. People were. Physicians, teachers like lawyers like the quintessential careers that kids are told about.
And so I always saw that and thought that I would end up in one of those. I always loved science, so I just assumed science means physician at that point in your life. But one of my favorite stories that I like, love to tell is whenever people would ask me growing up what I wanted to be, I think I always just had a rebellious.
Spirit and I always would say an inventor that was like exactly what I wanted to do. Did I know really what that meant? No. But like I knew that I wanted to create things and then things like change the world through something that I did. So I think from an a young age, I knew that I just had no idea how I was actually going to realize that dream.
Yeah.
When we look at what women have to manage in their lives, I think it's very parallel to what integrative health means. Because it does feel like we're juggling a hundred plates at once. And I, when I think of integrative health and medicine, I think of ha having to evaluate all these things at once as well.
Yeah. How do you go through your busy schedule and knowing that you wanna achieve these things and make these impacts? And of course you still wanna have fun and get to go to France and all the things that make up you, how do you find and maintain balance?
Yeah. To me, balance is really important.
I've found when you're on the verge of overworking and almost burning out, like you realize, and sometimes, like for some people it takes till that point to realize, okay, I really need to maintain balance. I talk about balance with patience and some all the time. But maybe I'm pushing it a little too far, to me, like what really helps me is just like planning out my week and allotting different times to different things. So like I will plan like my workout schedule on a Saturday or Sunday for the following week, just so I know that they're already like, blocked off in my calendar and like I really love.
Class pass. So it's like already scheduled, like ready to go. I just need to show up, or I'll work out at home depending on the week. Like some weeks I'm able to work out at home and other weeks that's not the case. I try to schedule out things like that. I try to schedule out meals and certain things like that.
So for me it's just like planning. I think that really helps me stay a course. Of course. You are not gonna end up sticking to your plan 24 7 or like all the time, which is allowed. But I do think that at least helps guide some of your like, decision making during the day.
And I think often, I'll say that whenever, because decision fatigue exists
And we can plan things out like our best self who had the time to do it, made a choice for us. So can we trust ourselves from yesterday? And just follow. Follow what we plan. 'cause some people are even so rebellious against their own plans, which I always find entertaining, but it is so much easier just like just do what's in the schedule.
Like I don't, I can think less and know that I'm at least being in alignment with what I'm committed to. Exactly.
And especially if you're busy too. You don't really have time in the heat of the moment to be like, what else can I do? It's just okay, this is on schedule. Let's just let's do it.
Yeah. Yes.
And with that, when we look at your day to day how much time are you spending in continuing your own education and research and learning? 'cause I feel like that's so critical for the work that you're doing.
Yeah, absolutely. I try to spend as much time as I can. I would say a lot of the time it ends up being the weekends and not the weekdays when I end up doing that.
But I really love reading professional development books and like staying up to date on like different trends and things happening, like in the health and wellness space, I also think is really important. Mainly because a lot of patients and, friends and family are asking about those particular things.
So it's good to stay abreast on everything happening there and figuring out. What is actually scientifically relevant and important versus what's just like a passing fad. Yeah.
What is a fad that everyone's asking you about that you, you're saying just please ignore it right now. Alkaline water.
I just don't understand it. It makes absolutely no sense and I just, I have nothing positive
to add. Yeah. I keep seeing all the things on my Instagram that are all about like the choline cleansing powders you can get now. I'm like, yeah, but it's just like cilium husk. Just take some focil husk.
Yeah. Yeah. I know. And
Metamucil
is
like
one ingredient that, is that yeah. Yeah. There's such an expansion of the health and wellness space. It's one of the fastest growing industries. You mentioned the lack of funding that's happening for women, and I'm hearing that across the board from all of my clients and other podcast guests who've been looking for funding as well, especially when it comes to women of color.
Are you seeing any shifts happening in that space? Are you seeing more female founded companies show up? Are you seeing more funding come available? Are you seeing more women of color? Being acknowledged and celebrated in the space.
I do I do see a trend and a change for the better.
I just still think there's a lot of work to do. I've attended pitch competitions where like our CEO is pitching and I'm like there to support her and it's, she's the only women pitching out of seven. Yeah. Brands or something like that. Here and there. There'll be like another women founded brand, but it's really still very much saturated.
And then if you look at the actual, like the angel investors or whoever is like going to be investing in the brands themselves, a lot of them are also not women.
Yeah. And the statistic that always blows my mind is that. Of all of the million plus companies. Like in generating revenue, 4% are owned by women.
Yeah. And I think the venture capital statistic is 7% of capital funding goes to women. Yeah. Yeah. Which
is crazy. Knowing that women are the higher percentage graduating the higher percentage in the workforce, like the higher percentage certain companies now?
Yeah. It's, i'm happy that women are scrappy and determined and are gonna do it anyway, and it shouldn't have to be an imbalance playing field by any means. I agree. Yeah. When you look at the women in your life, who are women that you have been inspired by, supported by, and mentored on your journey?
Yeah so many people, oh my goodness.
So to start from like a young age and now like appreciating it more is the women in my family, they are just stellar. Like my mom, for example, was just like, she's like the definition of someone who is like determined to get something done. Regardless of whatever obstacle is in her way. Something of course I never realized as a child, but now seeing her path and everything, I'm able to see that.
And then another person that I can mention is Dr. Pam Tarlow, who's. Incredible. And she's an integrative health pharmacist and she's actually one of the main p she's pretty much the main reason why I'm here today, I would argue is especially within the integrative health space, like I would argue she's one of the first pioneers really doing anything and patient care, anything and.
When I initially met her, I was doing a rotation as a student. And so the last year of pharmacy schools all rotations and so I found this rotation that was integrative health focused and so very excited to go out to LA and at the time I was living in South Carolina, so very excited to go out and have this.
Experience. Within a few days of the rotation, I'd already decided and like finally found what I was supposed to be doing in pharmacy. And so I asked her, is there any way you would train me? What would that look like? There aren't any, postdoctoral residency or fellowship programs in this what are we gonna do?
So we just continued the conversation and then. Decided that like we would start the first residency program for pharmacists interested in integrative health. And so I got to be a part of starting that as well as be the first resident. And so I got to work with her from, like a student preceptor to a like resident preceptor to now like a colleague.
And so that's definitely been like an incredible relationship that I definitely would not have. And that would not have succeeded as much as I have in the integrative health space without her, as well as the guidance of other women in my family.
I hear so much of in what you're sharing of how you are not there's a bravery level where you see something and you're like it's not here, but I want, so what do we do?
Yeah. Have you always been that way? Is that something that you learned in a moment? I think I've
always been that way, but I never really thought about it until I was asked a similar question a, a few months ago, and I really had to sit down and think about, this was like more of a written response.
I was able to sit down and think, and I realized that a lot of the things that I'm most. Proud of are things that, like I started from scratch, like when I was in pharmacy school, I saw that there was no real opportunity for pharmacists to do a lot of clinic work. There was some, but just not enough.
And I knew there were more students interested. And so I found through I was living with medical students and so I heard from them that they had this incredible opportunity to go to a free clinic that was bilingual. And they were able to like practice a lot of what they were learning in the classroom at the clinic.
And so I figured, how come like pharmacists can't do that if medical students can do that. I contacted the clinic and then also coordinated with people from the administration of my university and we started like the first ever diabetes education program that was bilingual. So pharmacists or rather, I keep saying pharmac.
Pharmacy students got to go during their second, third and fourth year, mainly like later, third and fourth year. They were able to go and they're still able to go now. That's something I've been trying to keep up with and ensure that it's still sustainable so many years later and they're still doing it, which is amazing.
And so yeah, students are able to go there. They're able to interact with patients one-on-one and do a lot of the like in-depth consultation and things that we learn in class that we don't really get to implement until rotations or like our job later on. So you're basically fulfilling your goal of being an inventor?
Yes. In so many ways, yes. I just I never would've put two and two together until I sat down and thought about it, but yes.
Yeah. I think that there is such power in being among the people who can see something and say why not? And then also be able to say, this is just what we do.
There's lots of people who have a vision of oh, something should change and it'd be great if it did. There's not a lot of people who can say, okay, let's create it.
And being one of those people. And it's so great to be around other people who think that way. Because that's when you really start to realize that anything is possible.
Yeah. And exactly. Whatever we want. Whatever we don't want, we wanna add, we wanna change, make easier. It really is as simple as someone saying. That's silly. Why don't we change it?
Yeah. And I think that what people are scared of that, like I had to get over in this process also is the beginning is not going to be easy or pretty or it'll be exciting in like a yay this is moving forward, but not in a, oh my gosh, I'm, like fulfilling everything I want to do tomorrow.
So there, there's like a level of like. Patience and like perseverance that it takes for that. And I think that a lot of people, especially in our society, are very much like immediate gratification, seeking.
I think that's why it's so important to speak to how long it does take. There's that quote about when we see someone who's scaled a mountain, we only see them at the top. We don't know what they had to climb to get there.
Yeah.
And even in podcasts, I think only 7% of podcasts that get made get past the seventh episode.
And
then of those, they usually don't monetize until around episode 500.
Wow. In any significant way. And so people think it's like there's this idea out there that if you make it, they will come.
And I'm like, that is the farthest from it. And that's also why I'm glad you brought up the need to educate customers because the things that are so easy for us to do.
We don't remember step zero to four. 'cause we've already, they're so ingrained in who we are. Yeah, exactly. And being able to go back and bring people with you. Because it just, it makes the process easier and I think it also makes it more fulfilling 'cause Absolutely. Then you're really building relationships with them.
And I think one of the most rewarding things with education that I see is I really love seeing the change. Like I love seeing the evolution of someone's mind. So I like, and I think that's why I just love education on the whole is you really get to make. I feel like change is an extreme word, but you get to help transform the way someone views things.
Which I, which I think is really powerful. I feel like that's like a superpower if you can do that. So that's part of it. And I really do think that, especially within the integrative space, but in other spaces too. I think overall people are just more curious than they ever have been. And so I think that's working to, the advantage of everyone who wants to educate.
'cause there are, people who want to be educated.
Yeah. When you aren't inventing new needs in the world and you're not running the business and writing and speaking and all of the things that you do what does the rest of your life look like? How are you having fun? How are you relaxing?
What are you working on that maybe makes you feel vulnerable or like you're brand new at something?
Ooh. Yeah. So one of my favorite things to do is travel. That's one of anytime I have a break, I try to whether it's visiting a friend or going to a new country, so I before France, I was able to go to Amsterdam and travel around the Netherlands a little bit.
That is my 35th country that I've been to. So that's something I've been working on and really have enjoyed like a lot of solo trips over the years. That was pretty much every, like every break I had from school, I was going somewhere on a solo trip or visiting a friend somewhere.
So yeah, I definitely love traveling. I really love staying active and I feel like a lot of people say that, but I really do love taking really long walks and the like, when the weather is beautiful out and just getting in nature, but just like relaxing. Then I feel like that's something I've had to teach myself over time is like, how to relax and, sometimes you might not learn that until you end up in a situation where you don't have wifi and you're like I guess I can't answer my emails then.
But but it's really nice to completely unplug like that. And and then like in my spare time living in LA trying to enjoy like the, of course, the weather and all the different events and restaurants and things like that. So trying to make time for everything.
And you mentioned that you were out in South Carolina.
Are you from there? Are you from la. No, I'm from New
Jersey actually. Oh, nice. So I grew up in Connecticut and New Jersey. And then I went to undergrad in Minnesota and then I went to pharmacy school in South Carolina. And then I did my residency out here and stayed here since.
Very cool. Yeah, I was born in New Jersey and so most of my family's in that.
Little corner of New York, Connecticut, New Jersey. Oh, nice. Yeah. So when you were at the midway point for the year what are you excited about? For the rest of 2022?
Yeah, I think the thing that I'm most excited about right now is just like new beginnings. I'm just excited to start to try to do new things and just get more out of my comfort zone.
That's something that I wanna challenge myself to do. So that's. That's one of the things that I wanna focus more on. I really enjoy like medical writing and like whether that's like for consumer facing or provider facing. I just I really enjoy it. I love editing and so I would like to push myself a little more and see what else I can do in that space.
And the other thing that I really love to do on the side is speaking. And so if. I can have more opportunities to speak and to write. Those are probably two of the things I wanna focus on a little bit more.
We ask everyone on the podcast where they put themselves on the powerful Lady scale. If zero is average everyday human and 10 is the most powerful lady you can imagine, where would you put yourself today and where would you put yourself on average?
I think every woman should say 10. So I'm gonna say 10 because I think every woman should feel powerful in everything that they're doing. And I understand that not every day you're gonna feel a hundred percent. That's totally normal. But I do think that like we should enter each day with the intention of just being like our 10 out of 10 powerful lady self.
Yeah, I like that. We also have been asking everyone this year, what is on your wishlist? Powerful ladies community is big. There's lots of people with resources and connections and ways to help, and I'm a big believer in asking out loud for what you want, because you never know who has that next key waiting for you.
Yeah. So what are some things on your wishlist? On my wishlist. Like a just a life wishlist or Could be? Life could be anything. Yeah. What's something that you're seeking or wish was just handled?
Ooh. One of the things is social media. I feel like I'm not very good at it. Not that I dislike it, I just don't think I have the knack for it.
And when I'm planning out my schedule, it's always like one of the things that ends up like falling by the wayside. So that would be something that I would really like to do. I think I like ebb and flow through, like I post a lot and I get excited and then I just have a list of things that I would like to post.
That are just sitting in the list in an Excel spreadsheet and not posted. So that would be something that would be really incredible that I would love to to do and also like to keep my website up to date would be the other thing. So like certain, like mini kind of things that, that I used to be able to work into my schedule and I haven't been able to do recently.
Probably those things would be like in the top, top two that I can think of. Yeah.
I think congratulations. It just means that you're becoming a much bigger and bigger leader and boss because it just means you need an executive assistant. I know it's one of my clients. We're still battling.
We've working together for years. And I'm like, you need an assistant. And they're like, why? I can just Google on Amazon. I can. I'm like, I know you can, but you're so powerful. I want you being able to do all those other things. 'cause anyone can, in theory post on social media, but not everyone can.
Can be the inventor and be the writer and all those things. But we'll put the word out for social media support and making sure that you're getting your admin things handled because you are very powerful and we just certainly don't want you being bogged down by a to-do list that you are bigger than.
Oh, thank you. No, I appreciate that. And then also if anyone knows of speaking engagements or anything where they would like, like an integrative health expert or anything, then I would love to do something like that too.
Yeah, there's just such demand for the work that you're doing. I'm excited for more and more people to know you and hear you and support what you're up to.
Oh, thank you. So with that, where can they find you? Where can they follow you and how can they get in touch with you? Yeah, so my Instagram is Dr.
Swathi, so D-O-C-T-O-R-S-W-A-T-H-I. And my website is the same thing, so www.drswathi.com.
Lastly, for everyone who's listening, what would you like to leave them with today?
One of my favorite quotes, or like sayings I guess is that if they can do it, so can I. So I think that's something that I always come back to is like when I see someone achieving or doing something incredible, I just come back to if they can do it, like to me, oh, this is also silly.
But, there was like one mentor I had that used to say, this is so not a way to end a podcast. But there that I had this mentor that used to say everyone poops. And that's just like a reminder that like at the end of the day, everyone is a human being. So if that human being can do it, how come I can't do it?
So yeah. That's something I always come back to and something that's definitely been helpful to me. So I hope it's helpful to someone else.
Love that. It has been such a pleasure to get to know you today and share your story. Thank you for being us to me and the powerful ladies, and I can't wait to see what you're up to next.
Oh, thanks so much.
All the Atlantic Connect with Dr. Swathi are in our show notes@thepowerfulladies.com. Please subscribe to this podcast wherever you're listening and leave us a rating and review there. Critical for our podcast visibility and getting us in front of more people like you. Would love to hear this episode.
Come join us on Instagram at Powerful Ladies. And if you're looking to connect directly with me, visit kara duffy.com or Kara Duffy on Instagram. I'll be back next week with a brand new episode and new amazing guest. Until then, I hope you're taking on being powerful in your life. Go be awesome and up to something you love.
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Instagram: @elementapothec @doctorswathi
Website: elementapothec.com doctorswathi.com
LinkedIn: swathi-varanasi
Email: drswathi@elementapothec.com
Created and hosted by Kara Duffy
Audio Engineering & Editing by Jordan Duffy
Production by Amanda Kass
Graphic design by Anna Olinova
Music by Joakim Karud
