The stroke that changed my life

Leah Neaderthal0:02

I mean, I couldn't believe it, like the whole thing lasted maybe two minutes, but it changed my life forever. Welcome to the smart gets paid podcast with me. Leah niedersall, I help women land higher paying clients in their independent consulting businesses, but I've never been a salesperson. My background is in corporate marketing, and when I started my first consulting business, I learned pretty quickly that it's about 1000 times harder to sell your own stuff than it is to sell someone else's. So I taught myself how to do it, and I created the sales approach that I now share with my clients so they can feel more comfortable in the sales process, get more of the right clients and get paid way more for every client contract. So whether your client contracts are $5,000 $100,000 or more, if you want to work with more of the clients you love, do more of the work you love, and get paid more than you ever thought you could, then you're in the right place. Let's do it together. Thanks for tuning in, and don't forget to rate, review and share. Hey there. Leah here, thanks for tuning in. I hope that wherever you're listening to this, wherever you are right now, you're having a good week, making some good progress in your business and taking some time for you. So recently, it was the seventh anniversary of something that changed my life, because at the age of 36 I had a stroke. So today I want to share with you what happens, how it happened, and what I've learned from then, and hopefully what you can learn too. And actually, it took me a long time to start talking about this, and even now, I don't really talk about it that much, like I don't have it in my marketing. If you go to my website, on the about page, it's like one bullet point at the very end, because it's really personal. But also talking about it in my marketing felt cheap, like this was something that really profoundly impacted my health, my sense of security, my life, and it felt sort of cheap to use it for marketing copy, but I realized that people needed to hear about it, if only to be aware of the risks and to learn the signs of a stroke so you can recognize it in yourself and others. So here I am telling my story, and thanks for letting me talk about it here. So it was Friday, August 12, 2016, and really, I mean, it started out like any other Friday. I was in the kitchen making coffee, and I had bent over the garbage can or something, and when I stood back up and turned around, I just felt weird. I felt really off, and my vision was kind of patchy. And I caught my wife's eye, and she looked at me, and her face just dropped, like her smile just evaporated. And she told me later that she saw that one side of my face was drooping, and I just, I can't even describe I just felt so off. And she took my arm, and she sort of walked me over to the couch, and by the time I sat down, I couldn't speak. Like I was trying to say things, you know, like I knew what I wanted to say, but the words were just not coming out. And I remember I actually started laughing, because it was just so nuts, like what was happening, and I was getting really frustrated that I couldn't speak. After about a minute, I could talk again. And then my wife was like, Okay, well, let's just get you to the bed. And so she walked me to the bedroom, and by the time I sat down on the bed and I leaned back on the headboard, I couldn't talk again, and my whole left side had gone dead, like I looked at my left hand and tried to move it, but it just wouldn't move. And I couldn't move my leg, and I still couldn't talk, like when I tried to say something, it would just come out, like short sounds, and like my mind was clear, and I remember that my thoughts were clear. I just couldn't get anything out. And all I could think about in this moment when I'm sitting there on the bed, this is gonna sound crazy, but all I could think about was the coffee, because we used one of those, like, you know, stove top espresso makers. It's called a macchiato, you know, you put the grounds in, you put the water in the bottom, you put it on the stove, right? And that's how that makes espresso. And I remember sitting there being like, the coffee, the coffee's on the flame, the coffee's on the fire, like it's gonna catch on fire. This whole place is gonna burn down. And like, I'm gonna be not able to move. And like, I need to tell someone, I need to tell someone to take the coffee off the stove. And we had a friend staying with us, and eventually, like, I was able to communicate to her about the coffee, and she ran to, like, turn off the stove. And then my wife came back in the room, and she had been on the phone with 911, and later I found out she had called my parents, and she comes back in the room and she tells me that an ambulance is on the way, and I'm just, like, trying to breathe, like trying to stay calm. Mom, because what the fuck is going on? So by the time the ambulance arrived a few minutes later, I could talk again and I could move again, but they took me to the nearest hospital just to get, you know, checked out. And so we spent the day at the hospital getting all sorts of tests, and we finally learned that I had had two small strokes. I mean, I couldn't believe it, like the whole thing lasted maybe two minutes, but it changed my life forever. I was 36

Leah Neaderthal5:31

so I was discharged that following Monday, and over the next few weeks, I had trouble with reading and what they call word finding. Like for reading, I would look at something and just like, read it wrong. I remember that I went to pick up my prescription, you know, this medicine that they gave me, and it said at the corner in big letters, promo said 900 and I was like, promo said, I don't think that's what the medicine is called. Like, did they give me the wrong medicine or something? And a few minutes later, I looked at it again, and I realized that what I was looking at wasn't a medicine called promo. Said 900 it was the time the prescription was due to be picked up. It was promised for 9am and stuff like that would happen all the time. The word finding was actually a lot worse. I would want to say something, but I just couldn't find the word in my brain, like I just couldn't access it. And that made me really terrified. Like I'm someone who, you know, my whole life, intelligence, education, all of that was the most important thing in my world and my family. And, you know, I've always been told I'm smart and like, I'm a sales coach and whatnot. Like, my whole life, my whole job was to read things and talk and to lose that, you know, to lose what had made me me was really terrifying. So thankfully, those what they call deficits. Thankfully those deficits went away after a few weeks, and I could read and speak normally again. And seriously, I am so incredibly lucky that there were no lasting effects. And the reason I didn't have any lasting effects was because of the type of stroke I had. So most strokes happen when something blocks blood supply to a part of the brain, or, you know, when a blood vessel in the brain bursts and then, without blood or oxygen, that part of the brain dies or becomes permanently damaged, which is why, you know, most strokes have permanent effects. But the type of stroke I had wasn't a blockage. It was called an ischemic or a migranous stroke. So basically, instead of being blocked, the artery just sort of seizes up for a time and closes and then blocks that blood flow, but after a while, it opens up again, and then blood flow, you know, returns to that part of the brain. So I was so incredibly lucky that these deficits didn't go on forever. So what's crazy is that we knew it was a stroke, but we still had no idea why it happened. Like, 36 year olds just don't get strokes, right? So we had to figure out why it happened, because we left the hospital with like, a week's worth of medicine, but really had no real plan and no answers, and how we got answers. That's that's like a story in itself. So my wife started this massive search to find me like the best doctor she could. She started a massive internet search she had connections to healthcare, and she reached out to everyone she knew in healthcare. She reached out to everyone in DC where we lived, who could point us to, you know, the best stroke specialists we could possibly get into to see if we could get an appointment. And since we were living in DC, we were just about an hour away from Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, which is, you know, one of the best hospitals in the country. And we got the name of a stroke specialist who does this exact thing. But what we learned is that you don't just like make an appointment with a doctor at Johns Hopkins. So many people want to be seen by the doctors there, and so you have to go through a medical concierge who like reviews all your stuff, and then makes determination to approve you or not. And if you're approved, then you can make an appointment. And even then, the appointments are like, 810, months out, because, again, there's just so much demand for this incredible hospital. So we got connected to a medical concierge, and my wife got to work scanning the huge stack of papers that we got from my stay in the hospital. You know, I was there for four days and had this, like, huge file. And after it was all scanned, she emailed this huge file to the medical concierge so she could, you know, I'm guessing, put it into the queue and start the process of getting it reviewed. But then my mom had an idea. She took that file, drove up to Johns Hopkins and went to the building where the MD. Called concierge was and she went to the reception desk and asked to see this woman who we've been emailing with for the purposes of the story. Let's just say her name is Rana, all right, and so my mom, she's standing at the security desk holding this massive file asking to see Rana. Okay? And the security guard, I'm sure she looked at my mom like she's crazy, holding this file, asking to see Rana in person, but I guess she could see like how desperate she was, and she said, let me see what I can do. So she goes up the elevator, and a few minutes later, a woman comes down and says, I'm Rana. How can I help you and my mom? Oh my gosh, it's been a long time since I've told this story, and my mom, like, explained the whole thing, and she's crying, and she said to me, she later, she's like, she fully realizes that this isn't the thing that people normally do, but she's like, my daughter had a stroke. She's 36 we don't know what caused it, or if it'll happen again, please, can you help me? And it just so happened that Rana's daughter had been in the hospital the previous night because of a heart condition, and I think she felt this like kinship with my mom, who all she wanted was to get her daughter some help and some answers. And Ronna said, I can't promise anything, but let me see what I can do. And a few days later I got a call from Rana,

Leah Neaderthal11:29

okay, and a few days later I got a call from Rana that said, the doctor can see you, and you have an appointment in three weeks. So I go to the appointment. I saw the stroke specialist, and the gist of it all is this, they still don't know why it happened. One theory is around the fact that I've had migraines all my life. So I've had migraines since I was 10 years old. It's migraines with aura where your vision is, you know, partially obstructed. And also when I was younger and I was dating men, I was on birth control. And when you have migraines with aura and you take birth control, there's a small risk of getting a stroke. Like, I actually remember my gynecologist telling me that it was almost like an offhand comment, you know, years ago, but I'm pretty sure she assured me that it's like a really low chance. But apparently it does happen. So that's one theory, and so the stroke specialist gave me a prescription and sent me on my way. But I mean, honestly, it's still pretty much a fluke that I had a stroke, and seven years later, we're not totally sure what caused it. So suffice it to say, the stroke changed everything for me. You know, even though there weren't lasting deficits, it affected everything in my life. It changed how I ran my business. It changed how I thought of my health. It changed my sense of security. It changed how I took care of myself and my brain. It even changed my pregnancy. I had to take shots like my entire pregnancy and even six weeks after that, because being pregnant is a high estrogen state, and high estrogen can cause a stroke. And when it came to giving birth, I had to be induced, because I was like, I am having an epidural. Like, period, but you can't have an epidural if you're on blood thinners, which I was on. So we had to, like, time the induction, right? And whatnot. So anyway, you know, forgive the double negative here, but there isn't anything in my life that the stroke didn't affect and I've learned that. I mean, it goes without saying that I have to take care of my head. I have to take care of my brain, and to do that, I've had to unlearn some things that I learned a long time ago. I mean, listen, I've always worked really hard. I've always put a lot of pressure on myself, you know, starting in grade school through college at an Ivy League university, and all through my career in big ad agencies, I've always just been a little stressed. Stress and anxiety was kind of a default state for me. I'm a recovering perfectionist. And in fact, this stroke is a thing that took me from being a perfectionist to what I call a recovering perfectionist, and I had to unlearn this high pressure, baseline level of stress, and I had to recognize and learn that this isn't the only way to be, and it's actually still something I fight against today, and so what I do different now is that I just take care of my head. I'm not going to tell you that I have some perfect practice where I like meditate every day or whatever, but on the whole, I'm much more aware of when I need to take care of my brain. You know, when I'm burned out, when I just need to walk away from the computer, when I need to take a walk or read an actual book and, like, not do work. I mean, let's be honest, I still put pressure on myself. I still hold myself to high standards. I still feel stress and anxiety. It's not like my. Life is free of those things. I still don't get as much sleep as I need. I mean, listen, I've got a four year old and a one year old, right? Like, my life is not Zen. And again, I don't have, like, a clean cut five simple steps, very marketing II, very tied with a bow, Zen practice. But I know how to manage the stress and my head better. It's about awareness, checking in with my body and making different choices. So in my work with women who run consulting businesses, nearly every woman comes to me because they want things to be different. Maybe they want to make more money, or they want to work with better clients, or they want to replicate their corporate salary or make a lot more than that, but they think that in order to do that, they're going to have to get back into the hustle culture. They're going to have to work super hard and have no time for themselves, and they're going to have to grind because everyone came from that culture in corporate and they don't want to replicate that same culture in their lives. And I could absolutely appreciate that. That's why the methodology I teach lets you make more money and get better clients without having to get back into hustle culture, because I know the risk of what that hustle culture and that pressure can do to you. So here's what I wish for you out of all of this. First, take care of your head. Recognize when you need a break, whether it's a small break, like stepping away from the computer, or a bigger break, like not opening your computer for a whole weekend, just don't push through. Pushing through might have served you well in the past. It certainly might have helped your former employer, but it won't help your head or your health. And when you're running a business like the ones that my clients run, it's based on your expertise, and your expertise lives in your brain only, so protect your brain. And the second thing I want to share with you that I hope you take away from this is to recognize the signs of a stroke. So there's an acronym, fast, F, A, S, T, for Face drooping. So does one side of the face droop or is it numb? If you ask somebody to smile and their smile is uneven, then that could be a sign that their face is drooping. A stands for arm weakness. Is one arm weak or numb. If you're with somebody ask them to Raise both arms, and if one arm sort of drifts downward, that could be a sign. S is for speech difficulty is a speech slurred, and T is for time to call 911 when you're having a stroke, every minute counts, so call 911 immediately. So that's fast, F, A, S, T, face, arm, speech. Time to call 911 I sincerely hope you'll never have to use this knowledge, but if you do, you'll be ready. So there's an interesting postscript to this story. A few months after all this, my wife started having some tingling in her feet and legs, and we sort of worried that it might be Ms. And she started down the path to figure out, you know, Is this Ms or not? And she went to a neurologist, and the neurologist did, you know, a whole battery of tests, and the last test was a brain MRI. And so I remember being in the car with her, and the phone rings, and it's the doctor's office, and she has it on speaker, and the doctor says, Well, you don't have MS, but we did find a tumor in your brain, and that started us down this whole path of tests and doctors, and she did. She had a tumor in her brain, sort of behind her eye, and so a few months later, she went into surgery to have the tumor removed. What's really interesting about this is that the tingling hands and feet that originally sent her to the neurologist weren't a result of the tumor. They were a trauma response from watching a loved one watching me have a stroke. And so in a weird way, if I hadn't had stroke, she wouldn't have ended up at the neurologist, and they wouldn't have found this tumor. So in some way, you know, when I had a stroke, my wife saved me, and then the stroke saved her. So when I say that the stroke affected everything it really, really did, thanks again for allowing me to share this with you. And remember, protect your head. If you know someone who needs to hear this episode, please share it with them. And if you or someone you know has had a stroke, please know you're not alone. Hey, everything we're talking about in this episode is part of the system. Women like you are learning in the academy. In the Academy, we help women consultants install the two systems. Every B to B consultant needs a marketing system to consistently attract the right clients and a sales system to lead a sales process to a yes and get paid more for every contract. So even if you've only gotten clients through referrals or word of mouth in the academy, you'll learn how to attract and sign clients outside your network, how to lead a sales process with confidence and how to get paid. For your value, not your time, and there's no cold calling or cold emailing involved, no changing your services or making a course, and you won't use any pushy sales tactics. That's just not our vibe. So if you like what you've heard here, the academy may be your right next step to learn how you can get these two systems in your consulting business and make progress faster and with fewer roadblocks. Head to smart gets paid.com/academy, and apply and we can chat about next steps. All right, see you over there. Transcribed by https://otter.ai