Speaker 1: I'll get at Welcome to another installing the show, Doctor
Speaker 1: Denise Vaness, Doctor Tiffany Cook, and the shitkicker that is
Speaker 1: me just here just rounding out the trio. We'll start
Speaker 1: with doctor Cook, who's over there in her clinic. Good afternoon, Cookie,
Speaker 1: how are you?
Speaker 2: I feel it lately you're priming me on the whole
Speaker 2: doctor Cook thing so that one day I'll get attached
Speaker 2: to it and go, I really want to be a doctor.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm trying to get you to do your first degree,
Speaker 1: and I think it is a beautiful time. You're smart,
Speaker 1: You've got a bit of flexibility, You're your own person.
Speaker 1: You don't have the emotional baggage of a husband or
Speaker 1: a boyfriend or girlfriend or wife or whatever is your
Speaker 1: current status.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure I have the emotional baggage of what
Speaker 2: is tiff Cook, though, and that is a heavy burden
Speaker 2: to carry.
Speaker 1: Ergo, ergo an undergrad degree in psychology. You're welcome. That
Speaker 1: might open a couple of doors. Speaking of all the
Speaker 1: degrees in the fucking world, the woman who's got more
Speaker 1: degrees than a fucking thermometer, Doctor Denise for ness, Oh
Speaker 1: I love.
Speaker 3: I'm good. It's been so long.
Speaker 1: I know, I know it's been a minute, as the
Speaker 1: kids say. You know, the kids say when it's been
Speaker 1: a while, they say it's been a minute.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because they're cool. They're cool. That's that's what cool
Speaker 3: people say. Just willing, I was about to reel off
Speaker 3: some things that my son, like, oh, all the young
Speaker 3: ones are going to tell me I'm so wrong. It's
Speaker 3: like skippity something, Harry, my twelve year old, like, they've
Speaker 3: got this language and it's just it's stupid, of course,
Speaker 3: but it's so cool in their world and it's like
Speaker 3: skippity something. Anyway, we won't even go there because I'm
Speaker 3: not even cool enough to repeat the words that my
Speaker 3: twelve year old says that's cool in that genre, that
Speaker 3: age bracket of teenagers.
Speaker 1: Well, whether or not it's stupid or cool, I think
Speaker 1: is about context. Like in their world it's cool and
Speaker 1: hip and see nobody fucking says Hippi sixty year old people, right,
Speaker 1: but you know in your world it's like, what the
Speaker 1: fuck are you talking about? Just use actual words, son, I.
Speaker 3: Asked him, Like that is that a good word or
Speaker 3: a bad word? Like are we we're saying something's cool
Speaker 3: or we're saying it's shit basically, like that's there's such
Speaker 3: strange words that you can't even work out. And the
Speaker 3: first time I asked him, I shouldn't put any I
Speaker 3: shouldn't say bad things about my son because he's the
Speaker 3: most amazing boy in the world. But I don't think
Speaker 3: he even understood. Like the first time I asked him,
Speaker 3: he goes, oh, I think it's like a good thing.
Speaker 3: I'm like, you're saying it though, like that's crap, and
Speaker 3: he goes, oh, no, actually means like really good. I'm like,
Speaker 3: but the way that you say it in that sentence
Speaker 3: doesn't actually mean that. So it's really interesting trying to
Speaker 3: I mean, he's only twelve, and this is probably something
Speaker 3: that older boys say as well, so I think they're
Speaker 3: just grasping onto things they hear as well. So anyway,
Speaker 3: let's get on with the podcast and not talk about
Speaker 3: language that I don't even understand.
Speaker 1: Yet well speaking, and then we'll move on. The other night,
Speaker 1: I rode to the gym on one of my motorbikes,
Speaker 1: which is probably the it's not the best one, but
Speaker 1: it's probably the most impressive to a young man, and
Speaker 1: there was a kid going into the gym who trains there.
Speaker 1: Don't know his name, seem a bit, don't know his age.
Speaker 1: I'm saying fifteen probably. I pull up and it's like
Speaker 1: the loudest motorbike in the world. It's kind of cool looking,
Speaker 1: the black and yellow one tip. And I pull up
Speaker 1: there and he's walking in. He just stops and looks
Speaker 1: at it, and he goes to me, that's sick, and
Speaker 1: I go, is it? He goes fully sick? I go
Speaker 1: goodie gum drops like, okay, just myself, My black and
Speaker 1: yellow motorbike is fully sick and as evaluated by a black,
Speaker 1: bloody fifteen year old Emilio that goes to the gym
Speaker 1: or whatever. So yeah, I'm with you. I didn't I
Speaker 1: don't know, but I get the energy behind it or
Speaker 1: the intention behind it, and it was positive. So two
Speaker 1: thumbs up for my sick motorbike.
Speaker 3: I'm down with sick. I feel like I'm not that old,
Speaker 3: like you know, it's sick man, like that's you know,
Speaker 3: and you can tell that it's a really good thing.
Speaker 3: I feel like I've heard that before. This is a
Speaker 3: whole new one that's never skippity something skippity didn't It's
Speaker 3: like they're almost doing a slight rap song or something. Anyway,
Speaker 3: next time, I'm going to be back on soon and
Speaker 3: I'll tell you what the words are. Everyone. For those
Speaker 3: of you who are so interested in this, because.
Speaker 1: It's fucking waits. You were telling us before we came
Speaker 1: on air, and I'm sure you don't want me to
Speaker 1: talk about it. Why are you covering your face? You
Speaker 1: were telling us before we came on air. Hey, everyone,
Speaker 1: I'm doing this just for you audience. You're welcome. You
Speaker 1: were telling us that your husband has resigned from his
Speaker 1: job and you're very busy. You're traversing the globe doing
Speaker 1: education and gigs and conferences and just enlightening the world
Speaker 1: to think better, do better, live better, and be healthier.
Speaker 1: But you were saying there was like when you're flat
Speaker 1: out at work and he's flat out at work, there
Speaker 1: can be a little tension in the household, although you
Speaker 1: both love each other. But he's not working now, so's
Speaker 1: there's some during the day sex happening. So that's good.
Speaker 1: I mean that's a paradox, isn't it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, you said is it good? And I said, yes,
Speaker 3: it's much better with him at home. And then I
Speaker 3: mentioned the day sex, and as I said it, I
Speaker 3: was like, oh, I shouldn't say any of these things
Speaker 3: to you because I know it's going to come on air.
Speaker 3: But anyway, I'm sure everyone loves it, and everyone loves it. Well,
Speaker 3: I'm just tiff. Just just jump in and save me,
Speaker 3: save me.
Speaker 1: Well there was there was which you also did mention
Speaker 1: the infamous quote from a previous episode where you were
Speaker 1: talking about how well manicured your man's don't fucking shave
Speaker 1: you shake your arms at me, well groomed and Denise
Speaker 1: how well, hang on, how well groomed and manicured he
Speaker 1: is and how unmanicured you are? Was that still the
Speaker 1: current state?
Speaker 3: No, you know what, And I'm happy to disclose that
Speaker 3: I take better care of myself these days. And I
Speaker 3: had laser, so I've not had laser since before I
Speaker 3: had children. Things change, You have to get busy, you
Speaker 3: just let it all go. I'm in a stage in
Speaker 3: my life for all of a sudden I can make
Speaker 3: a bit of time for me. And I had a
Speaker 3: laser on my arms that was a bit weird, my
Speaker 3: legs and my bits everywhere like Brazilian people. So the
Speaker 3: lady gets in there and she kind of just moves
Speaker 3: away along. You're like, oh, hello, But anyway, so Ryan's
Speaker 3: really happy. I'm tidy than I have been in a
Speaker 3: long time. How's that for listeners? Is that educationabook?
Speaker 1: Well? I think we can pretty much wrap it up there.
Speaker 1: Hey one, that's Denise vanessisiro train molecular geneticist. But to us,
Speaker 1: she's just the chick who just had her bloody bit slazered. Yeah,
Speaker 1: see you next time.
Speaker 3: It was Harry for a really long time because I
Speaker 3: was just too busy. Because that's life, people, that's life.
Speaker 3: Priorities change before you have children and before you get married,
Speaker 3: and before you're busy. You take such good care of
Speaker 3: yourself and then you just let it all go for
Speaker 3: a really long time.
Speaker 1: See. If I feel like you want to chime in,
Speaker 1: you look like you're biting your bottom lip.
Speaker 2: I just thought Finess was a really apt last name
Speaker 2: for this conversation.
Speaker 3: Finess All right, Well, a little finesse sometimes you need
Speaker 3: a lot finesse. Do you remember that ad? No?
Speaker 1: I do not, I do not, Thanks for thanks for
Speaker 1: the tunes.
Speaker 3: It's an ad.
Speaker 1: You're the best I love. Do you know what I
Speaker 1: love about you?
Speaker 3: More?
Speaker 1: Than maybe any other guest, is that you don't have
Speaker 1: a filter. And I think that's that's for somebody who
Speaker 1: who's literally one of the smartest people I've ever met,
Speaker 1: and you combine that intellect and that brain, that giant
Speaker 1: brain of yours, with this lack of filter or some
Speaker 1: might say social appropriateness. I love it's.
Speaker 3: It's so true. It's so true. But I'm learning to
Speaker 3: embrace it. I think not only am I sharing all
Speaker 3: this stuff with you, I think just generally in life
Speaker 3: the last few years, I'm learning to be me kind
Speaker 3: of all the time. And we may have discussed this
Speaker 3: in the past, Craig, whether it's on air or definitely
Speaker 3: off air, how I've almost been two people.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: There was niece like doctor Denise was actually very different
Speaker 3: to the like Denise. Denise and my friends know me
Speaker 3: as like crazy. And then there's the you know, when
Speaker 3: I'm in work mode, it's like work mode, you know,
Speaker 3: I'm the professional, I'm going to bite my tongue. So
Speaker 3: it's really interesting getting to a certain age, like mid forties,
Speaker 3: where you're kind of just going okay to be me,
Speaker 3: and it's okay too. I can actually be silly and
Speaker 3: you know, potentially in some people's eyes inappropriate or say things,
Speaker 3: but at the same time still completely understand cellular biology
Speaker 3: and genetics and really be out there to just help
Speaker 3: people get as well as they can. And to be honest,
Speaker 3: I think the personality in some senses can be really
Speaker 3: helpful for people because they just sort of then kind
Speaker 3: of connect with you and go, oh, okay, well, you
Speaker 3: know she can be like that and say all that.
Speaker 3: Maybe it's not so too distant from me, because I
Speaker 3: think the professionalism sometimes can be a disconnect from the
Speaker 3: real person, you know, when you're trying to be that.
Speaker 3: But for a very long time I thought I needed
Speaker 3: to act a certain way, and I have to say,
Speaker 3: if I can do a little shout out to her,
Speaker 3: Tash Corbyn. I've got a business coach who's like Adhd
Speaker 3: and crazy as well, and she's been so good for me.
Speaker 3: She's just like, she's amazing. She's making all this money,
Speaker 3: but she's a really good person. She's out there doing
Speaker 3: good with the world, and she's opened my eyes to
Speaker 3: just being totally off. She's the least Instagrammy. She's so successful,
Speaker 3: successful in so many ways, but she's also strange and
Speaker 3: different but authentic and doing amazing things for the world
Speaker 3: and the planet. Anyway, there you go, little not a
Speaker 3: little tangent for you all. There's me just falling into
Speaker 3: being okay with who I am.
Speaker 1: But you're exactly right. I was thinking it before you
Speaker 1: said that. You know, the part of the appeal that
Speaker 1: is you is that you do. You know, you open
Speaker 1: this door on this kind of subject matter that for
Speaker 1: a lot of people, me included at times, is pretty
Speaker 1: fucking alien and confusing and unfamiliar. But everybody's got genetics,
Speaker 1: and everybody's got a body, right, and everybody's got DNA.
Speaker 3: You wouldn't be here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, everybody's got to manage their you know, their food
Speaker 1: and their lifestyle and their sleep and their genetic potential
Speaker 1: and you know, and then when we get somebody who
Speaker 1: you know, is at the level that you're at, as
Speaker 1: in world class geneticist who understands what you do. But
Speaker 1: then you can you know, like what I think is
Speaker 1: even though what we're talking about at the start was
Speaker 1: just funny bullshit, that really is meaningless. If I was
Speaker 1: if I was listening to this show as me and
Speaker 1: I'd never heard you or me or TIF, if I
Speaker 1: was listening as an outsider with my current knowledge and
Speaker 1: all of that, I'd go, that's really fucking clever, right,
Speaker 1: because we've got this lady who's a fucking molecular geneticist
Speaker 1: or you know, whatever you are, and but oh, she's funny,
Speaker 1: she's likable, she's charming. I want to keep listening, right.
Speaker 1: And that is analogous to me walking out on a
Speaker 1: stage with a bunch of people who don't know me,
Speaker 1: and they go, oh, here is another fucking high performance
Speaker 1: mind coachy, fucking boring cookie cut, here's another slide, here's
Speaker 1: some rah rah, here's an inspirational video. And I go
Speaker 1: out there and I do exactly what they don't expect,
Speaker 1: you know, And there's stories or there's some laughter, there's
Speaker 1: some interaction, there's some arms in the air, there's some
Speaker 1: borderline inappropriate references that ninety nine per cent of people
Speaker 1: are okay with. And then all of a sudden, before
Speaker 1: I've taught them anything or really told them anything, I've
Speaker 1: got rapport and I've got connection, and I've got a
Speaker 1: little bit of trust, you know, And I think for you,
Speaker 1: and I certainly, no, you don't need to be coached
Speaker 1: by me, But for what your job. Whereas you know,
Speaker 1: you're not always talking to academics or researchers. In fact,
Speaker 1: I would think most of the time you're talking to
Speaker 1: people who don't know what you know, or nearly all
Speaker 1: of the time. Then I think just as important as
Speaker 1: what do I know and what can I tell them,
Speaker 1: is how do I tell them what I know in
Speaker 1: a way which is super fucking interesting and understandable and
Speaker 1: also usable? Like can they operationalize something that I'm telling
Speaker 1: them today? One? Is it relevant for them too? Do
Speaker 1: they understand what the fuck I'm saying? And then three,
Speaker 1: what's one or two or three things that based on
Speaker 1: what I just told them they can do like now
Speaker 1: ish which is going to help them potentially. And I
Speaker 1: think you have that, you know, apart from the obvious
Speaker 1: is you've got the skills and the knowledge and the
Speaker 1: research and the miles on the clock. You've got that
Speaker 1: other missing piece that most academics don't have.
Speaker 3: Or they've suppressed because they feel that they need to
Speaker 3: behave or act in a certain way as I did
Speaker 3: for a while, in the sense or trying to trying
Speaker 3: to be the professional, trying to be what I imagined in
Speaker 3: my mind, a successful professional person would be. Like you
Speaker 3: have these thoughts of what a business person is or
Speaker 3: what an academic is or you know, so you create
Speaker 3: this this image of someone and you think, well, if
Speaker 3: I want to be that person, I've got to be
Speaker 3: like that. I can't be like me because me is
Speaker 3: not that. I can't be both those things. Like, well,
Speaker 3: actually we can. You know, I'm still that person. I
Speaker 3: don't have to be sort of. I mean, I'm guessing
Speaker 3: this is maybe tying into some of the research that
Speaker 3: you do, perhaps, Craig, and speaking about coaching, I think
Speaker 3: you picked up on a lot with me in the
Speaker 3: very early days because we've known each other for so
Speaker 3: long and even mentioned about, you know, writing a book
Speaker 3: or getting all this stuff out there. You know. I
Speaker 3: think next year might be our time, you know, for
Speaker 3: us actually doing together. Yeah, just that needed the time
Speaker 3: and the space. I feel like next year is just
Speaker 3: going to be amazing. I mean, I'm always positive, but
Speaker 3: I'm very confident next year is going to be just great.
Speaker 3: I've got the time and the space. As I said,
Speaker 3: my amazing husband's now home, so he's taking the load,
Speaker 3: which is a big step for him. And by the way,
Speaker 3: like he I will have to say that is when
Speaker 3: you talk about images of people. I think he will
Speaker 3: not like me saying this, because he is not the
Speaker 3: extrovert at all. He doesn't like me talking about him,
Speaker 3: but somehow I always do because I'm always talking. But
Speaker 3: it's been a bit of an adjustment for him in
Speaker 3: the sense that he was really happy being home, well
Speaker 3: really happy in an exaggeration. He was more comfortable being
Speaker 3: home when the kids were babies, because that's kind of acceptable,
Speaker 3: and then he went back to work when the kids
Speaker 3: started school. Plus we needed that when I was caring
Speaker 3: for Dad, for him to sort of bring in a
Speaker 3: bit of money. I didn't have the capacity to work
Speaker 3: as much. But now that I'm busy again, it wasn't working.
Speaker 3: It just wasn't working, and as it was putting a
Speaker 3: lot of tension on us, and then me traveling, and
Speaker 3: we don't have family up here. So you know, he's
Speaker 3: come home, but I think there's been He doesn't tell
Speaker 3: me all of it, but there's been a few things
Speaker 3: said to him. You know, there's a couple of blokes
Speaker 3: that a lot, you know, mate should be working, you know,
Speaker 3: so there's this expectation that he should be out working,
Speaker 3: and that is a little bit for I think him
Speaker 3: to work through. I mean, he knows the most important
Speaker 3: thing is the family. He's so dedicated to us and
Speaker 3: the kids. But it is a little bit harder with
Speaker 3: the stigma. I think that's the word I'm looking for.
Speaker 3: Reality is though, if I was at home still, you know,
Speaker 3: my babies are still stells in primary school. You know,
Speaker 3: she's only grade two, she'll be grade three next year.
Speaker 3: She's eight, and Harry's about to start high school, which
Speaker 3: is amazing, but you know they still need us, You
Speaker 3: still need a parent. So we're just looking at our
Speaker 3: house at the moment. The last few years there's been
Speaker 3: no repairs or maintenance because we've been so busy, like
Speaker 3: just having someone just to do, especially when you live
Speaker 3: on an acre and a half out in the middle
Speaker 3: of you know, New Interland. But that's a little bit
Speaker 3: sad in some senses, I think for him as well,
Speaker 3: even though it's great for us as a family, great
Speaker 3: for me. I've now got time to just put energy
Speaker 3: into the business, explore cool things with you next year, Craig,
Speaker 3: because I'll be like, great, I've actually got a little
Speaker 3: bit of space I can do this, I can commit
Speaker 3: to my passion and my dreams. But the reality is
Speaker 3: he's then at home, and that is by today's standards
Speaker 3: and society. You still look frowned upon it, but by
Speaker 3: some people because there's an expectation that men should be working.
Speaker 3: And I don't think we have to stay home as
Speaker 3: women anymore. But it's more normal for the mum to
Speaker 3: be at home with the kids, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Well I think I mean, yeah, I
Speaker 1: agree with everything that you said, but I also think
Speaker 1: you know that he's contributing. It's not like he's sitting
Speaker 1: at home playing fucking video games. Right, he does a little.
Speaker 3: Bit of that, or just throw it. He's totally throw
Speaker 3: you under the bus there, Ryan, Okay, he'll no, but
Speaker 3: actually no, him and Harry do like video games. But no,
Speaker 3: he's doing heaps.
Speaker 1: He is.
Speaker 3: If you've I don't know, are you on LinkedIn at all?
Speaker 3: Do you ever see anything on LinkedIn that is him?
Speaker 3: If you've noticed that all of a sudden, I'm all
Speaker 3: over LinkedIn, that's him every day taking He'll take if
Speaker 3: you're comfortable with it. He's just taking all the stuff
Speaker 3: he finds online, and he's making skets on LinkedIn. He's
Speaker 3: reaching out to Mark because I've got a couple of
Speaker 3: people that work for me underneath his commune dicating with them.
Speaker 3: He's just fixed. He's very organized. He's to manage a
Speaker 3: company backer in Melbourne. More of that way inclined, so
Speaker 3: behind the scenes doing things. It's not luck. He doesn't
Speaker 3: help with the business at all. If anything, he could
Speaker 3: do more, it's just that I'm a little bit emotionally
Speaker 3: attached to the business. He wants to do more.
Speaker 1: We'll call that control freek that's what we'll call that.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, but you're right. He's contributing not just to
Speaker 3: the business but also to us as a family. And
Speaker 3: I think that's almost one of the most important things,
Speaker 3: because I am the most successful in getting the best
Speaker 3: results with my clients and patients or my educational my
Speaker 3: workshops when I'm in a good place, and that happens
Speaker 3: when our family is in a good place. You know,
Speaker 3: when you got that tension or in you know that
Speaker 3: you don't have that stability at home, it's very hard
Speaker 3: to show up or be as good as you can
Speaker 3: be when you're dealing with that sort of stress at home.
Speaker 1: It's really interesting because Melissa is, so I have two companies.
Speaker 1: One is just you know, all the corporate stuff that
Speaker 1: I do, So that's a different company. But all of
Speaker 1: the stuff that comes under the banner of the U Project,
Speaker 1: which is obviously all the podcasts and conferences and workshops
Speaker 1: and blah blah blah, that all comes under the banner
Speaker 1: of that, and that company, which is literally just called
Speaker 1: the U Project. Melissa owns fifty percent of that if
Speaker 1: you know that. Yeah, So, but all the goss we're
Speaker 1: just disclosing all that I'm I've told people. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm happy with that. Like she's When I say to
Speaker 1: people she's more valuable to the U Project than me,
Speaker 1: they go, oh, so humble of you. I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I know that sounds humble. That's not actually humble. That's
Speaker 1: actually reflective of what is true. Right. And so it's
Speaker 1: like when we do a conference, the U Project conference,
Speaker 1: or we do let's say we do a U Project
Speaker 1: event or which just gets called craighap Alive or whatever
Speaker 1: in Brisbane or wherever I go. Literally everything except the
Speaker 1: actual speaking Melissa does. So. Melissa builds the page, Melissa
Speaker 1: books the venue, Melissa comes up with all the dates,
Speaker 1: Melissa organizes you know, hotels, afairs. You know, she interacts,
Speaker 1: she answers one fucking million emails. She's like everything that
Speaker 1: has to be done.
Speaker 3: Yep. As I'm a speaker, you know, she's communicating with
Speaker 3: me for slides or you know, all sorts of things. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 3: doing all that behind the scenes.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So let's say there's fifty things that go into
Speaker 1: that event. On the day, she does forty nine of them,
Speaker 1: you know, or maybe forty seven and I do three.
Speaker 1: But she actually works much harder than me and for
Speaker 1: me to be able, but all of the stuff that
Speaker 1: she does is unseen to most people. It's unseen. It's
Speaker 1: you know, and because I'm the mouthpiece and I'm the extrovert,
Speaker 1: and I'm the one on the days showing off and
Speaker 1: talking bullshit and trying to make people laugh, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's like I create the energy for those three hours,
Speaker 1: but the thousand hours leading up to those three hours
Speaker 1: is all her. And that's you know. So yeah, I
Speaker 1: think that people like you and me, who are very
Speaker 1: public facing, we need at least and Tiff is the same,
Speaker 1: you know, like Tiff as Tiff sits in and doesn't
Speaker 1: talk most of the time, and you know, records and
Speaker 1: edits and like, without her, it's the same we do.
Speaker 1: I don't know, Tiff probably does two hundred episodes a
Speaker 1: year with me, you know, and without her, without Melissa,
Speaker 1: And I'm not I know this sounds cheesy, but it's
Speaker 1: just true, Like it just wouldn't happen. Like I'm fucking hopeless.
Speaker 1: I couldn't do all the stuff that you know. Sometimes
Speaker 1: I'll ring Tiff and go, ah, like there's something that
Speaker 1: I could maybe do and if I could, it would
Speaker 1: take me an hour and it'd be shit, And she
Speaker 1: does it in sixty seconds and sends it back to me.
Speaker 1: I'm like, there we go. That's why we've got a
Speaker 1: you and a me, because you're good at shit that
Speaker 1: I'm terrible at. So yeah, I think that, you know,
Speaker 1: whatever capacity, you know, Ryan's kind of supporting you or
Speaker 1: walking working alongside you. It's it's like you get the
Speaker 1: glamorous bit, yeah, and it's it's you know, I get it,
Speaker 1: but it's yeah, sometimes they're the ones doing the real grind.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, even when the kids were babies, and
Speaker 3: initially he used to travel with me, particularly when they
Speaker 3: were little breastfeeding stuff. He had no choice, but towards
Speaker 3: the end he just said, I can't travel with you
Speaker 3: anymore once they're a little bit older. He says, it's
Speaker 3: just not fun for me being in a hotel room,
Speaker 3: like you're out there, you know, having dinners with people,
Speaker 3: conference dinners, and I'm you know, with the kids. So
Speaker 3: then he was, you know, staying home and I was
Speaker 3: traveling on my own. But even the traveling, you know,
Speaker 3: I can say yes to an event. So next year
Speaker 3: is so busy. We're definitely we've recovered from COVID, Like
Speaker 3: it's taken a long time for me to really be
Speaker 3: booked so far in advance, Like before COVID, i'd be
Speaker 3: booked at least six, if not twelve months ahead for
Speaker 3: a conference coming that only really this year did things
Speaker 3: start to pick up. And now next year I'm booked
Speaker 3: through t October, which is exciting. But almost every month
Speaker 3: I've got well every month I do have something not international,
Speaker 3: but I've had to say no to a few things,
Speaker 3: which is exciting only because I've had to. I'm not
Speaker 3: good at saying no, but balancing out, like I'm in
Speaker 3: New York in feb and then I've got you know,
Speaker 3: Europe and the UK, and then I've been asked to
Speaker 3: go to the UK for something else, and it's already
Speaker 3: within two months of going to London. It's like, I
Speaker 3: can't go back to London. But I can only do
Speaker 3: that because he's at home and that doesn't put pressure
Speaker 3: on the kids and us, and like you said, with
Speaker 3: all the tech stuff as well, Like Ryan's always been
Speaker 3: my tech person. And even when I went to Jubai,
Speaker 3: I had five talks and he could see that I
Speaker 3: was kind of flipping out or leave things to the
Speaker 3: last minute. It's like can I help? And I say, well,
Speaker 3: can you format all of these slides just done? You know,
Speaker 3: like in a couple of that. And he does things
Speaker 3: that different his attention to detail because he's a very
Speaker 3: different personality and he comes from like audio visual background,
Speaker 3: so used to you know, make music, DJ and stuff,
Speaker 3: and so he's really into that. So everything just looks amazing.
Speaker 3: So yeah, you know, having that little team behind you,
Speaker 3: but like you said, where the face. So everyone just
Speaker 3: sees me and there's just an assumption that you know,
Speaker 3: rhymes at home not really doing anything. It's like, actually
Speaker 3: he's picking up the pieces everywhere with the house, with
Speaker 3: the kids, with the business, and also, as I said,
Speaker 3: is now has a newfound love of LinkedIn. If anything,
Speaker 3: I'm like, I don't know if you have to put
Speaker 3: that many videos of me on LinkedIn?
Speaker 1: Ah, tell him this is what I reckon he should
Speaker 1: do for you. How many followers do you? Can you
Speaker 1: have a look how many followers Denise has on Instagram?
Speaker 1: And tell me TIV do you know I have to
Speaker 1: top your head, doc or you're not off?
Speaker 3: But I don't do LinkedIn? Oh sorry, I don't do Instagram.
Speaker 3: I do, but he doesn't. Ryan doesn't touch Instagram, doesn't
Speaker 3: like Facebook. I have a va who does my Instagram.
Speaker 3: But I think we've got a few thousand people.
Speaker 1: You know what I reckon would be good for you?
Speaker 1: Like this to me fucking coaching you in the middle
Speaker 1: of a show.
Speaker 3: Do it?
Speaker 2: Do it?
Speaker 1: I reckon fifteen to thirty second grabs of you saying
Speaker 1: something profound, no longer than thirty, no shorter than ten.
Speaker 1: You know where You're just telling us something because your
Speaker 1: your delivery is great. And I mean this with respect.
Speaker 1: You look good, you sound good, your energy is good,
Speaker 1: your content's good. It's like very very like very very good.
Speaker 1: Product for that platform, and even though you don't like Instagram,
Speaker 1: I mean I would be putting it on both, like
Speaker 1: it doesn't have to be one or the other. Like
Speaker 1: if you've got you know, I've got thirty something thousand
Speaker 1: on my personal Facebook, similar on my private or business
Speaker 1: and then thirty two or three on Insta and then
Speaker 1: a bunch on you.
Speaker 3: Know on Instagram. Are you? Are you cool on Instagram? God,
Speaker 3: I'm such a judgmental b arch. I would never have
Speaker 3: thought you'd before.
Speaker 1: Oh no, no, Instagram, I reckon as the best. Like
Speaker 1: I've got I think thirty I don't know, thirty just
Speaker 1: under thirty three thousand, and that's yeah, yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: probably get more work from Instagram than anywhere. No way,
Speaker 1: definitely definitely.
Speaker 3: Are you on TikTok No? Yeah, no, I'm not there either, and.
Speaker 1: I am on OnlyFans so with your I podcasts in
Speaker 1: the dude and yeah, and we just filmed from I'm
Speaker 1: not going to say it, ah fuck.
Speaker 3: Because what's going to happen is I'm going to start
Speaker 3: talking shit with you because I would bounce off you.
Speaker 3: And I actually even call myself and was like, we're
Speaker 3: not going to go there.
Speaker 1: We're not going to go there.
Speaker 3: Yes, all right here, that's too far.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about your actual work a little bit, you know,
Speaker 1: just before we wrap up after having spoken far from
Speaker 1: now about nothing in particular. So what's new in the
Speaker 1: world of you and research? Like, what do you know
Speaker 1: now that you didn't know a year or two ago.
Speaker 1: What's got your interests, what's got your attention? What are
Speaker 1: you excited about?
Speaker 3: Oh God, I'm so excited about so many things. So
Speaker 3: the world is finally changing, I think when it comes
Speaker 3: to medicine. I mean, what I do has been happening
Speaker 3: for a long time, but I don't fit the mainstream
Speaker 3: medical model. When people come and see me, they have
Speaker 3: to spend a lot of money on testing. You know,
Speaker 3: nothing's covering on Medicare sort of. This integrative medical model
Speaker 3: is fantastic in the set. Of course, I'm biased and
Speaker 3: all the genetic testing, but it's just I haven't really
Speaker 3: been able to see if and when this will integrate.
Speaker 3: But this year has been a game changer. I was
Speaker 3: in read so I was invited by the Ministry of
Speaker 3: Health of Saudi Arabia and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Speaker 3: to go over to a conference which, by the way,
Speaker 3: I thought was a scam. I was like, as if,
Speaker 3: I'm not even going to answer that email, and Lucky
Speaker 3: Ryan was like, I think you should answer this, and
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, it's a scam because I get
Speaker 3: so many emails to ten conferences and half of them
Speaker 3: are just your dodgy.
Speaker 1: Have you had any sorry to interrupt, Have you had
Speaker 1: any of those where they invite you to speak and
Speaker 1: they want you to speak for free or they want
Speaker 1: you to pay for a spot.
Speaker 3: So that's what I mean when I say I get
Speaker 3: invited to speak at conferences and their dodgy. So they
Speaker 3: invite you and then they say, oh, you'll have to
Speaker 3: pay the registration fee. You know, maybe we can give
Speaker 3: you one night hotel, but you know we're not covering
Speaker 3: any expenses. It's just like, why would I becoming number one?
Speaker 3: What is your conference? So their money? They are people
Speaker 3: behind the scenes who I think are exploiting those that
Speaker 3: want to do public speaking or want to be seen.
Speaker 3: So you pay to go over, you pay for for everything,
Speaker 3: and then you can say, you know, I spoke at
Speaker 3: this event. Now in saying that as an academic, and
Speaker 3: you probably know this too. Craig as an academic. You know,
Speaker 3: I did pay even if I was a speaker. You know,
Speaker 3: my organization might pay registration or I wasn't getting a
Speaker 3: speaker fee because I was employed by the hospital or CSIRO.
Speaker 3: But these were legitimate, big, you know events. These are
Speaker 3: not big, legitimate events that you know, the top the
Speaker 3: head of you know whatever. These are private organizations putting
Speaker 3: on conferences that I think are just trying to make
Speaker 3: money from them. But yes, I do, I get I
Speaker 3: get a few of those. And again talking about Ryan
Speaker 3: being home because he's now seeing all these things come through,
Speaker 3: is helping my admin with all the emails. He said,
Speaker 3: you're just ignoring all these conference things. I said, they're dodgy,
Speaker 3: I said, I said, I just tell FJ unless they
Speaker 3: actually know something about me or there's certain things. If
Speaker 3: it's just a random one, I said, we just ignore them.
Speaker 3: We don't have time. But now we've created a template
Speaker 3: that actually goes back to the person and actually says
Speaker 3: watch your speaker fee da da da da da da,
Speaker 3: like just all these questions, and then that means we're
Speaker 3: getting that response. And then when we get the response,
Speaker 3: we can either just say, you know, we respectfully decline
Speaker 3: or like with Saudi, I can go, oh, wow, this
Speaker 3: is actually the real deal, because I would have let
Speaker 3: it slide like I do all the others. And it
Speaker 3: was amazing, amazing. I for the first time in my
Speaker 3: life think I've had true imposter syndrome. And now people
Speaker 3: talk about that. I think in my world because I've
Speaker 3: been doing this for so long, and you know, just
Speaker 3: I could be at any conference and I just feel
Speaker 3: like I'm in my element. But this was a different
Speaker 3: kind of event. This was the Global Health Summit. There
Speaker 3: were politicians and royals and it was huge and it
Speaker 3: was about changing healthcare. So by two thousand and thirty
Speaker 3: they want to move to a preventative health model from
Speaker 3: a reactive. So in Australia, if you get.
Speaker 1: The Saudis, yes, yes, wow, they already do DNA testing already.
Speaker 3: At a population level. So if you're going to get married,
Speaker 3: if you get engaged. Now I'm not saying I agree
Speaker 3: with this, I'm just sharing information that I learned.
Speaker 1: I know what you're about to say. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So they have to, by law go and get
Speaker 3: genetic testing done, and if they are found to have
Speaker 3: genetic mutations or variations associated with you know, conditions, they
Speaker 3: can't get married. Apparently, I'm just reallying information that I
Speaker 3: was heard, but apparently sixty percent of marriages have been stopped.
Speaker 3: The reason that came about, though, is not so much
Speaker 3: because they want to move to a preventative health model,
Speaker 3: which is what they are moving towards. That is because
Speaker 3: they actually do have a higher frequency, a higher rate
Speaker 3: of rare genetic diseases in their population because there's a
Speaker 3: lot of people coming together and breeding because they want
Speaker 3: to keep bloodlines and families. So they've realized now that's
Speaker 3: not okay. So they do have a high risk of
Speaker 3: certain genetic diseases compared to other populations. So they already
Speaker 3: have that in place. If you get engaged, you're going
Speaker 3: to get married, you have to do genetic testing. If
Speaker 3: a couple has both of these genetic disorders, they are told,
Speaker 3: you know, well, if you have children, you're going to
Speaker 3: get these diseases. So that's already happening. But they want
Speaker 3: to do whole genome sequencing on the entire population, in
Speaker 3: the sense of doing even like what I do nutral
Speaker 3: genomics or just looking at chronic disease. I think I
Speaker 3: think this is where I come in. I'm trying to
Speaker 3: learn still how I was invited to this prestigious event,
Speaker 3: because there were times that I was like, how the
Speaker 3: hell am I here? Like do they make a mistake?
Speaker 3: You know, when people are meeting me, they're like, what
Speaker 3: do you do? I'm like, Oh, I run a business,
Speaker 3: And you can see their face light up, and I'm
Speaker 3: thinking my business is from home, seeing patients online and
Speaker 3: doing a bit of education. These are people at a
Speaker 3: very different level to where I'm at.
Speaker 1: Well, you could say I'm an award winning medical researcher
Speaker 1: with a PhD in molecular genetics, or you could say
Speaker 1: that that's a much better start.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, they actually sent me a couple of lines
Speaker 3: and I did do it on LinkedIn, though I was
Speaker 3: quite late. They asked me to do it, you know,
Speaker 3: the second I got the invite and I accepted. But
Speaker 3: they put me as a global expert, you know, like
Speaker 3: the world leader in this kind you are, And in
Speaker 3: all honesty, there's probably not a lot of people that
Speaker 3: have done what I've done ten years as a scientist
Speaker 3: and now twelve years as a practitioner actually doing this
Speaker 3: with patients in the real world. So there's not a
Speaker 3: lot of us. Mind you. I met other geneticists, clinical
Speaker 3: geneticists that are still working in a medical practice doing
Speaker 3: what I do, which was amazing because we don't have
Speaker 3: that here in Australia just yet. I think it's coming.
Speaker 3: But what it just showed me is so they invested.
Speaker 3: They're investing thirteen a billion, not million billion dollars into
Speaker 3: changing healthcare. It's genetics AI tech and it's exciting and
Speaker 3: what we will see in the future. I don't think
Speaker 3: Australia will adopt this as early, but these countries will
Speaker 3: lead the way and we will start having what I
Speaker 3: do as a more mainstream approach to identifying are you
Speaker 3: at risk of cardiovascular disease or type two diabetes or
Speaker 3: you know where where do we need to optimize your nutrition?
Speaker 3: What are your genetic strengths and susceptibilities, you know, giving
Speaker 3: people that information. So we are definitely moving towards it
Speaker 3: because we have the knowledge. It's just not it's just
Speaker 3: not part of the medical model here in Australia as yet.
Speaker 3: So that's super exciting everyone.
Speaker 1: It is like I mean, I love it, I love it.
Speaker 1: You know, proactive not reactive preventative, you know, so we're
Speaker 1: so we're encouraging habits and behaviors and lifestyles and resources
Speaker 1: that will means we're going to prevent people getting sick
Speaker 1: versus having, you know, a little health model versus a
Speaker 1: sickness management model, right, which is what we're currently in
Speaker 1: trying to manage sickness. But the problem with the current
Speaker 1: sickness management model that Australians live in is that it's
Speaker 1: very fucking profitable.
Speaker 3: Yes, I mean there's also another issue. I don't necessarily agree,
Speaker 3: even though I love what they're doing over in the
Speaker 3: Middle East, and by the way, I've been doing a
Speaker 3: bit of work in Dubai for the last two years.
Speaker 3: It's another exciting thing. It might be a whole other podcast,
Speaker 3: maybe doing some research with universities out in Abudwi and Dubai.
Speaker 3: But the other thing is I don't agree with everyone
Speaker 3: having their whole genome sequenced. I think it should be
Speaker 3: a choice. Yeah, because someone like me, maybe someone won't
Speaker 3: take that information. Knowing that I have the strongest genetic
Speaker 3: respector for Alzheimer's and dementia, I take that on board
Speaker 3: and I appreciate knowing that because it gives me a
Speaker 3: bit of motivation when life is busy and crazy, to
Speaker 3: just remind myself, this is what you've been dealt. We
Speaker 3: need to we need to keep this in check. And
Speaker 3: someone else might actually not react that way. That could
Speaker 3: be more of a stress, more anxiety. And not everyone
Speaker 3: wants to make the changes. I mean, this is what
Speaker 3: you do, Craig. You're there trying to get people to
Speaker 3: make change. Now. I use genetics for that because I
Speaker 3: feel like when people understand their DNA, that's, you know,
Speaker 3: that really helps them feel like they should be doing
Speaker 3: these things. It's not just generic advice. This is about me.
Speaker 3: I can see that this potentially is really going to
Speaker 3: help me. But not everyone is wanting to make those
Speaker 3: changes for whatever reasons. They're not going to change their diet,
Speaker 3: they're not going to exercise, they're not going to you know.
Speaker 3: So it's got to be the people that actually want
Speaker 3: the information and that are willing or interested in living
Speaker 3: that particular lifestyle. And that's not everyone.
Speaker 1: And another moral slash ethical question that arises in my
Speaker 1: little head anyway, is if we're and dating this that
Speaker 1: everybody has to have it. Now, let's say like your
Speaker 1: genetic predisposition to Alzheimer's what Let's say you didn't want
Speaker 1: anyone to know that, and you're very brave and very
Speaker 1: open and authentic, so you just tell us everything, right,
Speaker 1: including the laser. Thanks for that, But you know, like
Speaker 1: all and then all of that information is going somewhere.
Speaker 1: Who's controlling all of that information and who's controlling the
Speaker 1: safety of that and you know the privacy of that.
Speaker 1: I think there's anyway, let's not get political, but.
Speaker 3: No, there's a lot of stuff around Saudi They only
Speaker 3: want to do so that level of DNA testing. They
Speaker 3: do not want that out of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Speaker 3: They don't want anyone else having that data. All this
Speaker 3: stuff is talked about. They'll bring people like myself in
Speaker 3: to help with that foundation, educating them on these risk factors,
Speaker 3: the genetics to look for for chronic disease. But they
Speaker 3: want everything in house within their country. They don't want anything,
Speaker 3: you know, so nothing. They do not want any of
Speaker 3: their data potentially being accessed or breached by anyone else. So,
Speaker 3: and it's a very important question in the sense of
Speaker 3: well what happens if someone does get this information. So
Speaker 3: things are changing in Australia for those of you who've
Speaker 3: had DNA testing, or if you're thinking about it, or
Speaker 3: if you had it and this wasn't explained to you.
Speaker 3: Because even back in the day when I did research
Speaker 3: and we were doing genetic testing on all of our
Speaker 3: patients in the recurrent miscarriage clinic or the hardest clinic,
Speaker 3: trying to work out, you know, was there a genetic
Speaker 3: component to the stillbirth or the preclamsy or whatever it was.
Speaker 3: We I wasn't told then that this information legally back
Speaker 3: then has changed. But back then, if you had done
Speaker 3: any genetic testing and you want to get life insurance,
Speaker 3: you had to disclose that you'd had genetic TIS testing
Speaker 3: done and potentially, depending what was in that, it could
Speaker 3: affect your life insurance. So that's also a huge problem.
Speaker 3: Thankfully it's taken a long time. That is no longer
Speaker 3: the case in Australia, and part of that has always
Speaker 3: been around, well, if that's the case, you're you're going
Speaker 3: to prevent people doing research, us learning improving what we
Speaker 3: know with genetics if it's going to basically hinder people
Speaker 3: or it's going to have some sort of negative effect
Speaker 3: on them. So things were changed a few years ago.
Speaker 3: For example, if you had the brackagenes, you still could
Speaker 3: get life insurance up which is associated with breast cancer
Speaker 3: up to a certain amount like five hundred thousand, but
Speaker 3: not the higher amounts. But now it's all changed. You
Speaker 3: don't have to disclose that. Yeah, so things are changing
Speaker 3: around privacy with DNA testing and genetics. In Europe, it's
Speaker 3: always been much more for the consumer. So in Europe,
Speaker 3: you know, they can't discriminate, they can't use that information.
Speaker 3: But in Australia it was a little bit different. The
Speaker 3: other thing is a lot of people have just given
Speaker 3: their DNA away. They've gone and done twenty three and
Speaker 3: me they've gone and done ancestry and they're like, great
Speaker 3: for one hundred bucks on ninety bucks, I can get
Speaker 3: all of this stuff done. They don't read the consent form.
Speaker 3: They don't realize that all their information is their things
Speaker 3: at one point were being sold to pharmaceutic companies. I
Speaker 3: mean it should all be what we call de identified,
Speaker 3: like what you would do with your research prey. You know,
Speaker 3: we're not using personal details, but it's there. And I
Speaker 3: think twenty three meters had a breach. But a lot
Speaker 3: of people have given their data away, just like they
Speaker 3: do on social media, and probably don't understand the consequences
Speaker 3: potentially to that. But it's changing as we are moving
Speaker 3: towards this as a potentially more conventional approach. I think
Speaker 3: the regulations, the laws will get stronger and stricter to
Speaker 3: protect us so that it can't come back and cause
Speaker 3: any issues. But yeah, these are things that we almost
Speaker 3: need to be in sort of catch up mode because
Speaker 3: it's happening so quickly, and people have jumped in head first,
Speaker 3: as I said to online DNA testing companies without seeing
Speaker 3: a practitioner, without really knowing what they're doing, and having
Speaker 3: their lots of people have done whole I have patients
Speaker 3: that come to me that have done whole genome sequencing.
Speaker 3: Now it can be done for less than one thousand dollars,
Speaker 3: And then I have to say to them, I can't
Speaker 3: interpret that you need to hold buy informatics team, you
Speaker 3: need someone else, like unless I was still in a
Speaker 3: lab and this was my assessment. But sometimes people don't
Speaker 3: even really know what they're signing up for and what
Speaker 3: they're getting, and they spend money and they don't even
Speaker 3: know how to use the information.
Speaker 1: And what would that have cost twenty years ago two
Speaker 1: hundred grand.
Speaker 3: Oh, it wouldn't have even been available to the everyday person.
Speaker 3: More than that, I would say, back in my do
Speaker 3: in the olden days, when I used to don my
Speaker 3: lab coat and do PCA and sequencing and DNA testing,
Speaker 3: I used to test one snip that means one ale,
Speaker 3: one little base pair change in a gene at a time.
Speaker 3: So in the ten years I was in the lab,
Speaker 3: we went from doing you know, one snip to you
Speaker 3: could do hundreds on like a snip chip and micro
Speaker 3: rays and all sorts of things. But it's come so far,
Speaker 3: I mean, nagin doing the whole whole genome and stuff.
Speaker 3: You know. Yeah, it's it's definitely a lot more affordable,
Speaker 3: a lot quicker. But the issue at the moment today
Speaker 3: twenty twenty four, twenty twenty five, I'm guessing this will
Speaker 3: come out next year, seeing we are only the way
Speaker 3: Merry Christmas. Everyone is like Christmas basically, right, Merry Christmas.
Speaker 3: It's that it's the interpretation that's that's the biggest thing
Speaker 3: at the moment, is about interpreting the information correctly. That's
Speaker 3: where we need to do a lot of work.
Speaker 1: Right now, what are the chances TIF of doing two
Speaker 1: back to back podcasts completely coincidentally with Geneticists. We just
Speaker 1: did we just yeah, we just did an episode just
Speaker 1: before You, Denise with a guy called doctor Bill Sullivan.
Speaker 1: I'll read you a bit of his bio. He's the
Speaker 1: author of Please to Meet Me, Jeans, Germs, and the
Speaker 1: Curious Forces that make Us who we are. He's an
Speaker 1: award winning professor at the Indiana University School of Medicine,
Speaker 1: where he studies and teachers genetics and infectious diseases. Received
Speaker 1: his PhD in CELA molecular biology from University of Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1: Blah blah blah. He's been on CNN and Bloody a
Speaker 1: Million TV. Yeah, and you guys are You're different but
Speaker 1: in the same wheelhouse.
Speaker 3: Yeah cool, I'll have to listen to that one. You
Speaker 3: can connect us, Craig.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Oh, you would love him. He's In fact, I
Speaker 1: thought after I got off the call with doctor Bill,
Speaker 1: I thought, what would be a stellar chat would be
Speaker 1: an hour and a half with both of you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because you'd want to ask him stuff, he'd want to
Speaker 1: ask you stuff. I could just get myself a coffee,
Speaker 1: sit in the bean bag. TIF could just play with
Speaker 1: her fucking animals, and then we'd just come back eighty
Speaker 1: minutes later and see how the both of you have gone.
Speaker 3: Yeah exactly, and then just you know, do a little
Speaker 3: bit of editing. That would be awesome. I would love it.
Speaker 3: As I said, I was so excited when I was
Speaker 3: in Read to meet these other geneticists because here in Australia,
Speaker 3: my people, if I'm going to put it like that,
Speaker 3: you know, with this integrated medicine community mainly GPS or naturopaths.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm on the faculty education faculty with ACNUM,
Speaker 3: SO with the Australian College of Nutrition Environmental Medicine, so
Speaker 3: we teach. I teach genetics epigenetics to used to be
Speaker 3: mainly GPS or doctors wanting to bring this into clinic
Speaker 3: because some do more so these days, even naturopaths, nutritionists,
Speaker 3: but there's not a lot of geneticists they are actually
Speaker 3: doing this. I'm teaching doctors and practitioners how to do it.
Speaker 3: So I was so excited when I went to Read
Speaker 3: that I was with other geneticists that had been trained
Speaker 3: in genetics that were also taking this on board. Because
Speaker 3: when I was in my bubble of academia. I didn't
Speaker 3: even know this was happening in the world. And I
Speaker 3: am sure that we've discussed this on an earlier podcast,
Speaker 3: but I gave a talk for ACNEM was twenty and twelve,
Speaker 3: twenty eleven, and I said, I think we're ready for
Speaker 3: this in clinical practice. You know, we had an eighty
Speaker 3: percent success rate in the recurrent miscarriage clinic. And that
Speaker 3: wasn't just genetics. You know, there was a team, we
Speaker 3: had sonographers looking for structural abnormalities in uterus. You know,
Speaker 3: there's a whole team of people. But we had great success.
Speaker 3: The genetics was a huge part of it, identifying certain things.
Speaker 3: And I said, you know, we should be doing this
Speaker 3: out in the real world, not just in a research sense.
Speaker 3: And they kind of, you know, link my arm after
Speaker 3: I've finished the presentation and they take me out and
Speaker 3: there we go. When we're looking at all the sponsors,
Speaker 3: three of them are genetic testing companies, and it was
Speaker 3: already happening. And in my little world, I thought only
Speaker 3: did this in a research sense. I had no idea
Speaker 3: there were commercial companies and people could just do DNA testing,
Speaker 3: which was great because I ended up obviously leaving and
Speaker 3: then becoming a practitioner myself, and now I use places
Speaker 3: like this because I don't have a lab anymore. But
Speaker 3: that's the interesting thing. When you are an academic, you
Speaker 3: just don't know that these things are actually happening in
Speaker 3: the real world. So yeah, it was exciting to meet
Speaker 3: other geneticists that were embracing this and people saying to me,
Speaker 3: you know clinical geneticists that still run medical genetics clinics
Speaker 3: and going, oh, methylation is so important, and they're bringing
Speaker 3: this in medical model that they are truly bringing it together. Exciting.
Speaker 1: I don't want to get in trouble with any GPS,
Speaker 1: but GPS are correct me if you think I'm wrong.
Speaker 1: But largely trained in treating and managing sickness, not in
Speaker 1: promoting health per se. I mean they do, but indirectly, right, so,
Speaker 1: which is that's what they're trained for. But obviously integrated
Speaker 1: medicine and preventative medicine is a different models to spend.
Speaker 3: Their own money, their own time, investing in themselves in
Speaker 3: different ways, and many of them, you know, it's it's hard.
Speaker 3: It's hard for some of these doctors. Some of them,
Speaker 3: for example, my mentor, he's just such a he's in
Speaker 3: his eighties, still working as a GP at the clinic
Speaker 3: that you know, Craig down the road from you where
Speaker 3: I used to be. He's up for the fight, you know,
Speaker 3: in the sense of he'll he'll, he'll go up against
Speaker 3: the medical board and things like that. But sometimes these things,
Speaker 3: like you know, nutritional medicine was based was sort of
Speaker 3: classified as complementary medicine. At one point, gps were potentially
Speaker 3: losing their medical license for practicing complementary medicine or not
Speaker 3: not doing exactly what the guidelines say. So for some
Speaker 3: of these gps, not only is it money and time
Speaker 3: to learn about nutrition, environmental toxins, the impact of stress,
Speaker 3: the impact of genetics, you know that, they're also putting
Speaker 3: themselves on the radar as well. So it's but things
Speaker 3: are changing. Someone called Penny cold to Cott and a
Speaker 3: huge team of people but led the way with you know,
Speaker 3: working with the politicians the medical boards to try to
Speaker 3: protect integrative doctors and also try to, I guess show
Speaker 3: the differences between evidence based you know, what we do,
Speaker 3: which is based on science, compared to sometimes some other
Speaker 3: things that may not be so safe. A lot of
Speaker 3: that been put in place now so there's a little
Speaker 3: bit more protection. But at one point doctors were losing
Speaker 3: their license pretty quickly if they were doing things that
Speaker 3: were seen to be outside the scope. So that's that's
Speaker 3: a bit sad, but that's because there's a model exactly
Speaker 3: like what you said. It's based on, you know, waiting
Speaker 3: for that diagnosis, that pharmaceutical model give those medications. And
Speaker 3: I think it'll be quite a while before it changes
Speaker 3: here in Australia, but it is happening.
Speaker 1: I think also people perhaps maybe they realized, but they
Speaker 1: probably don't think a lot that doctors are not trained
Speaker 1: in nutrition. Doctors are not trained in exercise, prescription, doctors
Speaker 1: are not trained in a lot of these things which
Speaker 1: are just fundamentals of health, you know. And imagine if
Speaker 1: we had a medical training paradigm where people go in
Speaker 1: to do medicine and before we throw drugs, depending of
Speaker 1: course on the issue or the condition, but imagine if
Speaker 1: the first strategy was changing food, or was addressing sleep,
Speaker 1: or was addressing you know, exercise or movement or you know,
Speaker 1: all of these other things before we just start chucking
Speaker 1: drugs at it. Now, I know that's not appropriate for
Speaker 1: every condition, you know, but there are a lot of
Speaker 1: conditions where you know, maybe the starting point is not
Speaker 1: a drug. Maybe the starting point is that you have
Speaker 1: lest you know, you've got anxiety. Let's cut out caffeine,
Speaker 1: Let's cut out nicotine. Let's try and get some sleep.
Speaker 1: Let's do some movement, because we know that that promotes,
Speaker 1: you know, dopamine and turns on your parasympathetic nervous system
Speaker 1: and will calm you down potentially depends, you know, Let's
Speaker 1: do some other shit that's going to change what's happening
Speaker 1: in your body biochemically before we go. Well, here's a
Speaker 1: pill that doesn't actually fix anything. It just changes a
Speaker 1: symptom temporarily, you know.
Speaker 3: And then when you exercise, then you're more likely to
Speaker 3: drink more water, and like you said, it affects that
Speaker 3: parasympathetic system, so they're a bit calmer, they might sleep
Speaker 3: better often after exercise. You might then choose a healthier food.
Speaker 3: Like it's this kind of positive vicious cycle whereas you know,
Speaker 3: getting them out of those habits and exactly what you said, Craig,
Speaker 3: the medications. Although I'm not anti medication, you know, I've
Speaker 3: had graves. Being on medication saved my life. You know,
Speaker 3: I love the integrative model where we are utilizing this
Speaker 3: you know this, the medicines and the pharmaceuticals that are
Speaker 3: out there, because it can actually be life saving. And
Speaker 3: I think medicine is amazing with emergency medicine, but when
Speaker 3: it comes to the chronic health conditions, it's not working.
Speaker 3: And we can say it without me bagging any doctors.
Speaker 3: They are amazing GPS, even those that aren't even integrated.
Speaker 3: You know, they're working their butts off. They've only got
Speaker 3: two seconds. Of course I'm exaggerating, but you know, two
Speaker 3: seconds to see each patient deal with all this stuff.
Speaker 3: But the reality is these medications are fixing a symptom
Speaker 3: like blood pressure medication so well, you know, we can
Speaker 3: actually do so much and in most cases you probably
Speaker 3: could turn around that hypertension through diet and lifestyle. I
Speaker 3: mean with mine, I was told you'll never recover for
Speaker 3: an autoimmune disease. You have to have your thire removed
Speaker 3: or radioactive eye died, can't be near your baby, can't
Speaker 3: be near your husband, can't go through traveling and all
Speaker 3: these things. And you're like, that doesn't sound good. You
Speaker 3: know I'm going to be radioactive. I can't be him
Speaker 3: a child, and then we can give you hormone. It's okay,
Speaker 3: because we can treat you. We've actually got something to
Speaker 3: give you. It's fine. We can give you hormones and
Speaker 3: replace what your thyroid does and you'll be okay. It's
Speaker 3: actually common for women. It's fine. And you're like, that
Speaker 3: does not sound fine, and so many people don't have.
Speaker 3: I guess the background that I had and the support
Speaker 3: again from my husband to question that, because when I
Speaker 3: did question it, and we've definitely talked about this before,
Speaker 3: but when we did question it, the endocrinologist said, well,
Speaker 3: you'll die early, you won't have any more children. You know.
Speaker 3: I'm leaving in tears. Came home just crying, an absolute mess,
Speaker 3: saying to Ryan, I just just doesn't feel right. I
Speaker 3: don't want to go down this path. And he came
Speaker 3: with me to the next appointment. We asked for a
Speaker 3: second opinion. We then see another top end of chronologist
Speaker 3: who says, oh, no, I would never do that for
Speaker 3: a reproductive age woman. He said, you'll stay on medication
Speaker 3: anti thire medication. Then once you've had a child, because
Speaker 3: you've had aggressive graves and you won't recover. So Simil
Speaker 3: a message, but different treatment. He said, we will remove
Speaker 3: your thyroid or you'll have the radiodivider after you've finished
Speaker 3: having your children, because if we do this now, it'll
Speaker 3: affect your fertility. An you're thinking, these are mainstream doctors,
Speaker 3: evidence based giving me different information. It's crazy, But I recovered,
Speaker 3: as you know. I mean, that was really my path
Speaker 3: into integrative medicine as well. And I'm so blessed that
Speaker 3: I do understand genetics and ne epigenetics, because I thought,
Speaker 3: this doesn't make sense. You know, we're not stagnant beings
Speaker 3: just because you get a diagnosis right now, you've got
Speaker 3: diabetes or hypertension or on autoimmune disease, something's triggered. That
Speaker 3: was it stress virus, nutrient deficiencies, genetic susceptibility. It's likely
Speaker 3: it was all of them. It's never just one thing,
Speaker 3: you know, lots of things have to come together for
Speaker 3: you to have that perfect storm and then get really sick.
Speaker 3: And depending on what manifests, that foundation is your genetics.
Speaker 3: So for me, I have all the genes for Graves disease,
Speaker 3: the autoimmune staff, I've got the HLA's with celia. I
Speaker 3: don't have celiac, but you know, there's a lot of
Speaker 3: things that are sort of all linked in that autoimmune stuff,
Speaker 3: mind you, fertility stuff no surprise, you know, babies and
Speaker 3: no ivf isshues or whatever. It's a strong point for me.
Speaker 3: But we all have these sort of strengths and these
Speaker 3: susceptibilities and predispositions, and if we're not living a certain
Speaker 3: kind of lifestyle, you know, a disconnection from our genetics
Speaker 3: and what our body needs. We can get sick. That's
Speaker 3: our body telling us something's wrong. But that's not a
Speaker 3: forever state. You don't stay sick forever. That's it unless
Speaker 3: you keep doing the same thing. If you change that environment,
Speaker 3: you change your diet, you change your exposures, you get
Speaker 3: out of that toxic relationship that whatever it is. You know,
Speaker 3: all the things that are coming in that are triggering
Speaker 3: all those negative effects. You change all that, you're going
Speaker 3: to get a different response. Now, I can't say to
Speaker 3: every single person you'll totally recover, but I can guarantee
Speaker 3: you'll get much much better. Depending on the level of
Speaker 3: damage to your body or certain tissues, you might still
Speaker 3: have to rely on a medication or there might be
Speaker 3: some thing, but you can one hundred percent get well
Speaker 3: and in extreme cases, I've even heard from a practitioner,
Speaker 3: a functional medicine doctor in the US, someone that had
Speaker 3: their thyroid removed it actually grew back. So yes, so
Speaker 3: you know, the body's pretty amazing. I mean, we even
Speaker 3: just talking to my mother in law this morning about
Speaker 3: angiogenesis like the creation of new blood vessels because she's
Speaker 3: got a blockage and deciding whether she has surgery and
Speaker 3: going through all that with her and letting her know
Speaker 3: how much the body can heal and are if you're
Speaker 3: putting the right things in. But for everyone listening, you know,
Speaker 3: even if you are on a there's nothing against medication.
Speaker 3: You might need it to save your life. If you
Speaker 3: are experiencing something really severe, maybe it's a temporary fix
Speaker 3: while you then you know a bit of symptom relief,
Speaker 3: try to start to think about, well, what is going on,
Speaker 3: what got me here? And then what can I do
Speaker 3: to start to pull me out of this? And you
Speaker 3: may actually find that, you know, you're no longer reliant
Speaker 3: on medication to have a diagnosis, because that is fact
Speaker 3: that you are not just the same person forever in
Speaker 3: a day, we're constantly evolving. You sells all that stuff.
Speaker 1: So yesh, yeah, I love it, and I always encourage
Speaker 1: people to, you know, not with anything drastic, but do
Speaker 1: your own research. And what I mean by that is,
Speaker 1: you know, try something like if you don't walk, then
Speaker 1: do thirty minutes of walking a day for thirty days
Speaker 1: and see what happens. Or you know, really common miight
Speaker 1: I've done with at least. I actually did this on
Speaker 1: sen which is a radio station in Melbourne that I
Speaker 1: may or may not have talked to you on once,
Speaker 1: but yes we did. Yeah, I did a project with
Speaker 1: listeners and we had a couple of hundred get involved,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure half of them dropped out. But so
Speaker 1: I did a show then called the High Performance Show,
Speaker 1: and I said, I was talking about this idea, and
Speaker 1: the idea, it's the simplest idea ever, is just don't
Speaker 1: drink any calories for a month. Right, So that's the
Speaker 1: only change. So eat what you normally eat. Let's just
Speaker 1: change one thing, but all of the calories that you take.
Speaker 1: And it's funny because I spoke to many people who
Speaker 1: have I would say most people have between five hundred
Speaker 1: and one thousand calories a day of liquid. If you
Speaker 1: add up like a fruit juice here and there, or
Speaker 1: a couple of coffees or a beer or a whatever
Speaker 1: milk on their thing or you know. And then so
Speaker 1: I spoke to a guy who had we figured out
Speaker 1: it was about nine hundred a day, and you go, well,
Speaker 1: that's twenty seven thousand calories in a thirty day period
Speaker 1: on top of your food, like, on top of your meals.
Speaker 1: That's twenty seven thousand calories. And when you realize that
Speaker 1: three and a half thousand calories equates to a pound
Speaker 1: of fat, or seventy seven hundred calories equates to a
Speaker 1: kilo of stored fat, because fat's just energy, blah blah
Speaker 1: blah whatever. Right, I know it's not exactly that, but
Speaker 1: just the idea of saying, well, let's remove twenty seven
Speaker 1: thousand calories, keep your food the same, keep your movement
Speaker 1: the same, keep your lifestyle the same. So that guy
Speaker 1: did that and lost just over four k's And he
Speaker 1: didn't exercise anymore, he didn't eat any less, but he
Speaker 1: lost over four k's. Yeah, it's amazing. It's amazing that
Speaker 1: you can. You know, you don't need to be Denise,
Speaker 1: you don't need to be me. You don't need to
Speaker 1: be a bloody physician. You can say, all right, well,
Speaker 1: what I'm going to go from four coffee in the
Speaker 1: day to one and I'll just see what happens. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm going to do strength training twice a week for
Speaker 1: forty five minutes, and that's the only change. But I'm
Speaker 1: not going to do it for three weeks. I'm going
Speaker 1: to give up. I'm going to do it for six months,
Speaker 1: two days a week, no matter what, and then see
Speaker 1: what happens. You know, it's like we can run our
Speaker 1: own experiments in an intelligent, safe.
Speaker 3: Way and it's never too late. I remember when my
Speaker 3: dad was still here, and you know, he was a smoker. Well, eventually,
Speaker 3: in the end he wasn't a smoker because he couldn't
Speaker 3: go and buy himself cigarettes. But while he still could
Speaker 3: buy him self cigarettes, I was sort of suggesting that maybe,
Speaker 3: seeing that he was having a lot of lung problems
Speaker 3: and breathing problems, he should stop smoking. And he said,
Speaker 3: I said, oh, it's too late for me, even spoke
Speaker 3: to the cardiologist. Whatever, it doesn't matter now, I said, actually, Dad,
Speaker 3: in a year's time, it'd almost have bloody, brand new
Speaker 3: lungs like you know those cells are going to die
Speaker 3: and to get new ones. Even with our liver, I've
Speaker 3: had people say to me, I've kind of drunk my
Speaker 3: whole life, or I took drugs when I was young.
Speaker 3: This it's like, no, no, no, Your liver regenerates really quickly.
Speaker 3: We can take a biopsy out of chunk and it
Speaker 3: will grow back pretty quickly. So you start putting the
Speaker 3: good nutrients in plenty of water, doing the right things,
Speaker 3: those old cells die and then you get new cells
Speaker 3: that are healthier. So it is never ever too late.
Speaker 3: And I know, you know, I'm not sure what you
Speaker 3: think about this, but kind of rounding off, I know
Speaker 3: you've got I've got one more patient and then that's
Speaker 3: it for Christmas. I wasn't going to work today, but
Speaker 3: of course we love our business. We fit everything in
Speaker 3: and you've got one other person. But new Year's goals.
Speaker 3: I know, it's sort of one of those things you think, oh,
Speaker 3: you know, new Year's resolutions or goals. But one thing,
Speaker 3: like you said, Craig, one small thing, because often that
Speaker 3: one positive thing, if you can nail, that will lead
Speaker 3: into something else, and it'll lead into something else. But
Speaker 3: just and super simple doesn't have to be complicated, a
Speaker 3: whole overhaul, just choosing one thing. So for me, everyone,
Speaker 3: I'm putting this out there because it helps. For me.
Speaker 3: It's committing to the gym. Even though I have a
Speaker 3: full set up at home, I don't use it. I
Speaker 3: have to go to the gym, and I tend to
Speaker 3: prioritize everything else. Even this week meeting to the US
Speaker 3: in the morning, patients fitting them in, and it was
Speaker 3: a sign from the universe because the US meeting got canceled.
Speaker 3: Something happened in the lab that I was meant to
Speaker 3: meet another one patient's results wasn't ready. I was like,
Speaker 3: I've pushed the gym aside to fit in these really
Speaker 3: early morning meetings, trying to help people out, and they're
Speaker 3: getting canceled anyway. So one thing, one thing, and for me, everyone, exercise.
Speaker 3: Next time you see me. I'm going to be fit.
Speaker 3: I'm getting my muscles back doing as everyone.
Speaker 1: All right, Tell everybody how they can find you and
Speaker 1: connect with you. Not that you need any more business
Speaker 1: or any more work, but no.
Speaker 3: Tell everyone, I have thirty thousand people like you on Instagram.
Speaker 3: If you're on Instagram, make me cool, join me on Instagram.
Speaker 3: I do my amazing assistant put stuff up there. So
Speaker 3: if there's events or I have a Facebook group, I
Speaker 3: pop in and I answer questions. We hang out. So
Speaker 3: it's your Genes and Nutrition community. If you're a practitioner GP,
Speaker 3: you know, registered practitioner. I have launched the Precision Health
Speaker 3: Academy where I'm now teaching genetics epigenetic stuff. It's like
Speaker 3: the most exciting thing in my life right now. But yeah,
Speaker 3: and I will be seeing a lot more of you
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty five. Tiff Craig and Melissa, I know
Speaker 3: you're listening there somewhere in the background.
Speaker 1: Well, we're very excited. I'm excited to discover what the
Speaker 1: intersection of your work and my work might be in
Speaker 1: the book that we're going to write next year. So
Speaker 1: we'll say goodbye for now. We'll say goodbye fair in
Speaker 1: a minute, doctor Denise, doctor Tiff, thanks for your time. Bye,