Lifting While Climbinbg Podcast | Dr. Manna Semby | November 2024

Holly Smithson	Hi everyone and welcome to this edition of Athena's Lifting While Climbing podcast. I'm Holly Smithson, Athena's president and CEO and your host for today's Lifting While Climbing podcast. And I have to tell you, I'm really, really excited as all of us prepare to open up our homes or travel to some other family members home to celebrate this season of gratitude and of all the things that, give us joy and and I suspect that after you hear this podcast, that Doctor December will certainly make that list.
Holly Smithson	And I'm really grateful for you, Amanda, to come in and share your story so that you might give some inspiration to those of us that are struggling, given all of the different variables that are happening in and the market and certainly in the industry and for women more broadly. So thank you for joining us.
Dr. Manna Semby	Well, thank you for having me here. I'm delighted to have this conversation today.
Holly Smithson	Well, you know, when you and I had lunch, a couple of months ago, you had told me about this extraordinary path of yours. Coming from a finance background. Accounting, an executive on Wall Street, started there at Goldman Sachs, then took a pivot, which I want to talk a little bit about that, and going in and getting your degree, as a naturopathic doctor and serving as, a functional medicine expert so that folks could, realize the health and the wellness and the vitality, that we all deserve.
Holly Smithson	So just really, really impressed. I know that you're the founder of Aruna. Precision Medicine and also the founder, of the Cognitive Resilience Center. So tell us about your journey and some of the, I guess, the big, big moments that caused you to really reflect and then make a very, very market, turn around. Yeah. Spending your time.
Dr. Manna Semby	Sure. So, I came to the country in 95, and I was advised by my career counselor at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, which is where I went to study accounting, because as an immigrant, I always want to be able to pay off my loans and my bills. And I was like, okay, I can do that.
Dr. Manna Semby	So I did that. And then I started my career at PricewaterhouseCoopers, followed up with ten years at Goldman Sachs, and it was all great fun. Working in Manhattan and my young children at that time, they were about two and a half and one were diagnosed with autism. And my pediatrician, whom I used to love, said that there was nothing she could do for me or for my children.
Dr. Manna Semby	And that was quite a shock for me because, I used to think that doctors have all the answers, or at least many of the answers, if not all of them. So it was quite eye opening for me to see that somebody whom I, respect so much and have always turned to for advice did not have any advice at all for me.
Dr. Manna Semby	So that kind of set me off on a path of like, what do I want to do for the rest of my life? So I started looking for answers in other than conventional medicine, what else is out there? And that one thing led to another, and I found myself going back to school to attend naturopathy, medical school.
Dr. Manna Semby	In, first in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and then in San Diego, California. And, as I learned more about this world of natural medicine and functional medicine, I became really, really excited about the possibilities because I found that this was medicine, being practiced the way it should always have been. The focus is on really finding out what is the core issue, what is the thing that is causing the problem?
Dr. Manna Semby	Sometimes there's not just one, there can be many. So it's really like finding the right thread that runs through the whole case and unwinding that and, and and really getting relief instead of just throwing drugs and surgery at people. So I became really excited and passionate about that. And then I had my own journey with health challenges. I went through a pretty abrupt perimenopause and a difficult menopause.
Dr. Manna Semby	Then I went straight into breast cancer. So it was like one thing after another. And what that journey showed me was that doctors, even now in 2023, still, were they still did not have the answers. And, some of the doctors were telling me information that I knew was not only incorrect, but with really poor bedside manner.
Dr. Manna Semby	And you would imagine that somebody that has, you know, recently been diagnosed with breast cancer and going to go through chemo and surgery and radiation that, they would have had, taken the time to do the research on what is a story with hormones and hormone replacement and how best to advise patients going through this journey.
Dr. Manna Semby	So, my experience became the impetus for me to double down into my passion of midlife health and brain health. So at Aruna Personalized Medicine, my focus is on helping midlife women navigate the challenges, challenges of perimenopause and menopause and also brain health because it's a big thing for women, right? Women are diagnosed with dementia at twice the rate of men.
Dr. Manna Semby	And then on the other hand, I have this center for Cognitive Resilience where I don't talk so much about menopause and perimenopause because I find when I do that, I lose a certain portion of the population, right. So whether, you know, and, so I just want to make sure that I want to be able to help people raise the awareness that unless you have the genetics for early onset dementia, there's a lot we can do to prevent dementia.
Dr. Manna Semby	As long as you don't have the early onset dementia genes. So we can do a lot so that you or a loved one is not diagnosed with dementia in your mid to late 60s, early 70s because that's often when we see the diagnosis occur, right. So I am now very passionate about just my own journey has been the, you know, the catalyst for doing for my work.
Dr. Manna Semby	And I find it very gratifying because every day I find more and more women that are wanting to have this information.
Holly Smithson	You know, as I listened to your very, very incredible journey and I think about, you know, immigrating from another country, coming to learn the language, coming to work for one of the most prestigious financial institutions in the world, or two of them and Goldman Sachs, and then getting more advanced degrees to follow the passion that, was largely spawned by your children, and then your own, cancer journey.
Holly Smithson	That is just extraordinary. So I just want to honor you and commend you for that. And as everybody thinks about the challenges and the adversity that they are grappling with, and what do you do with that adversity, right? I mean, that that is just that is the quintessential of your and your your entire journey. It's like, I have a challenge.
Holly Smithson	Obviously coming here to this country, you were pursuing something that was greater than where you were and.
Dr. Manna Semby	What the.
Holly Smithson	Circumstances allowed there. Yeah. I mean, it's just it's every turn. That's all you do is you're just. You take that, you take this, I guess this this, this vault or this wall or this mountain, and you turn it into a double door that you walk through. Where does that come from?
Dr. Manna Semby	I think we all have it. I think we all have it. I think we all have that reserve of strength and resilience. You have done that in your journey and, I think a lot of women in midlife find themselves having to do one sort of pivot or another. It might be in your personal life, it might be in your professional life.
Dr. Manna Semby	I think women are just so good at doing this, you know, like we do this all the time. So to me, it feels like it feels like I don't think I did anything special. I just feel like I just I just did what I wanted to do, what I what made sense of each step. I am just gratified that I was able to keep following through, that they weren't these roadblocks that made me feel like, oh, I can't do this anymore.
Dr. Manna Semby	You know what helped me, of course, was that I have never been a perfectionist. And I think we fall into that trap a lot of being a perfectionist. For me, it was like, good enough is good enough. Keep moving on. Right. So as long as we don't do that, as long as we're always making progress, I think sky's the limit.
Dr. Manna Semby	And that's the way to go. Like nobody has it figured out, no one has it figured out. So we just we just do what we have to do.
Holly Smithson	Yeah. And I think that's, I'm going to assume that your comment about we don't have to be perfectionists is going to be very salient for this audience. And we have these belief systems, right or wrong, that we have to be the master of whatever, we seek to, to, to pursue. And that's just that's just not true.
Holly Smithson	It's a, it's a false. Yeah.
Dr. Manna Semby	I think I think I, I mean, I have a special place in my heart for corporate women, right? Because that's when I started my career. That's where I was, And I would have stayed had my life not been drastically changed by all these events that happened in my life. And I know I understand that drive. You know, you can do it right.
Dr. Manna Semby	You know you can do it. Yet you there aren't that many female role models, right. And every step of the way you are a trailblazer in many ways, right? You are doing things that have not been done before. You are doing them in ways that have not been done before. You may not have a big, group of people that are cheering you on.
Dr. Manna Semby	Some might not be, some might be suspect, some might be, doubting you. So in the face of that, how do you keep going so as like more power to all the women out there, all the Athena women out there that are doing this every day, and this is my personal strategy, you know, to do my best but not get caught up in the perfectionist thing.
Dr. Manna Semby	Right. And I'm sure every woman could tell a story about that. You know, this, this teeter totter between doing your best and thinking, is it perfect or not? And I think we have to get comfortable with that at some point, because there's a lot to do. There's a lot of deliverables, and we have to keep moving on right.
Holly Smithson	So as I so I think, I think as I'm hearing you, you know, it's really understanding that every opportunity that comes your way, you see it as just that. Right? I mean, with, with the interacting with the, the health care system, people call it health care system, the traditional health care system. And then understanding that that wasn't actually going to be a problem, wasn't going to solve the problem.
Holly Smithson	It was just trying to put some Band-Aids on the symptoms. And really taking that as a, as a call to action, as a path that really appealed to you. And I'd love for you to share a little bit more about that sort of pivot, that course correction. Because obviously you have a very, very, very comfortable and I say this to all of our listeners who are very comfortable, I use that word loosely, but comfortable, meaning financially comfortable.
Holly Smithson	Right. Working for Goldman Sachs, you're an executive, you're on Wall Street, but is there some other calling that is more, demands, a more, devoted energy of you. And for those people that may be at that same crossroads, like, what did it take for you to do that? And, and take those risks? Because that's significant risk when you're hanging, when you're moving, when you're when you're in the harbor and there's no winds, there's no undercurrents, and you're in safe you're in safe harbor, man.
Holly Smithson	You're get ready to set out to, to sail and who knows. Right. So talk a little bit about that transition because that's pretty significant. And I want.
Dr. Manna Semby	To I just want to clarify, are you talking about the pivot to medical school and. Yes. No. Okay.
Holly Smithson	Yeah.
Dr. Manna Semby	So, there is you know, there's always so much more to the story, right? It's not just what we've already talked about. There's many other layers. Right. So around this time I also went through a divorce, which was a contentious divorce. Right. And my ex-husband happens to be, in the world of finance as well and is successful.
Dr. Manna Semby	And, I didn't, do things the way, a savvy woman with money and resources would have done. Because when I was done, I was done and I wanted out. And so I didn't actually do it the right way. So it wasn't comfortable. It was difficult, you know, fighting legal battles. But I thought there wouldn't be any in a new place.
Dr. Manna Semby	When I didn't have any family. So there were many challenges, many, many challenges. But it was just like, there is no choice but to keep moving forward, because going backwards is not an option anymore. It was for me. It was as simple as that. Going backwards is not an option. You just have to keep moving forward.
Holly Smithson	Yeah, and I like that. And and oftentimes what comes with that is just clarity. And it sounds like you had a lot of clarity.
Dr. Manna Semby	It was just like okay this is what I'm going to do. This is what I'm going to do. I felt like this is where my new life was going to be. Like, I had this vision of myself in my new world. I had a vision of myself in my new world. I had a vision of occupying a certain place in my new chosen world.
Dr. Manna Semby	And that's beginning to come true. Now I can see that that, yes, that vision that I had, which I didn't work to create. I could just see that, and there were many times in my life when I did not have clarity on different things. And I can tell you without it, without a doubt, that the lack of clarity is the most suffering one can ever have.
Dr. Manna Semby	Right? Because you just don't know which way to go, what is right. And I've certainly had my share of that. And, but it, you know, there's only two choices. You go backwards or go forwards like, you know, life never stays still, right? You have to keep moving in some direction. So I just kept moving forward, kept moving forward.
Dr. Manna Semby	And then, there were times when I had to step into something where there is, you know, no, nothing known is like your next stepping out into, like, a deep, dark. I don't know what. And, but, you know, it worked out. There were times when it was stressful. I was like, gosh, what am I going to do?
Dr. Manna Semby	How it going to work out? But it worked out, you know? So I think that's how it works out. Like even when you don't know that it's going to work out, you just keep keep at it.
Holly Smithson	You know, you're you're, you're reminding me of, the one of the six laws of detachment is, trusting the process, right? Yeah. And, and and part of trusting the process is knowing that solutions will emerge. And I don't mean just, you know, okay, go back at your school, get your doctorate, and just hang out. I don't mean that.
Holly Smithson	Of course not. But just this notion that there's things are always moving forward. There are things that are, you know, the universe and events are always organizing. And when you have that clarity, you have that commitment that I'm going forward and I'm going to trust the process. Then suddenly, magically, in time, maybe not in the timeline that you would prefer, but eventually, you know, these, these solutions emerge.
Holly Smithson	And that certainly is the case for you. I want to where I'd like to take the conversation is, particularly I know that you have just been, notified that you will be presenting as a TEDx speaker here in San Diego in, is it February of 2025? Yeah. So, yeah. So in three short months, you'll be taking the stage.
Holly Smithson	And I'm very excited for you and congratulations. And, and I'd love to tell if we could get a little sneak peek on your TEDx talk. Give folks a little bit of insight. In terms of, what you'll be sharing and sort of the idea that you, that you hope you'll be spreading for, for all the subscribers, that 80 million subscribers on TEDx X and those on our guests.
Dr. Manna Semby	Yeah. So my passion, again, because of my own experience and what I know from my, corporate experience and also my work in health and wellness, my passion is to explore what I call the perimenopause broken rung hypothesis. And what I'm saying is called perimenopause B and under acknowledged and under addressed contributors to still only 20% representation of women and senior leadership in the C-suite.
Dr. Manna Semby	And what I am saying that it is right. We know so many things that, women have to deal with as they climb the corporate ladder, right? There's unconscious bias. There is discrimination. There is work life balance. There are, you know, not enough role models. So many reasons that are out there for women that there are obstacles that they have to climb.
Dr. Manna Semby	And I feel that this their health and wellness is an underappreciated, not really realized contributor to the loss of resilience that women experience during their 40s and 50s. I spoke to one woman today who is, so highly accomplished, and she she shared her story with me for the last 5 or 6 years. How differ it has been for her.
Dr. Manna Semby	And I was really remember, we have talked about I want to speak to 25 women. Yes, who have either downscale their career or have managed to hang on with much difficulty because I want to document these stories of what it is like continuing to hold on to a high stakes professional career or being compelled by their health or lack of wellness to quit or downsize their job.
Dr. Manna Semby	Downscaling their job. So I spoke to the first of those 25 women today, and I was like, can I record your story? I hit record and I was on call, and I and it was I mean, I felt so much pain from her, but I was like, she has a lot of strength, but she's it's been so difficult.
Dr. Manna Semby	And does it have to be so difficult? I don't think it should be difficult like that for women, you know, why cannot we figure out what women need and provide that support? You know, only 14% of employers are providing perimenopause and menopause support. Bank of America published a report last year that said only 14% of employers are doing that.
Dr. Manna Semby	And why is that? Why only 14%? It's because employees haven't asked for support and they haven't asked for it. And I'm like, oh my God, she's here. It's it's okay. So what I want to say is who hasn't asked for support? The women haven't asked for support. Yeah. Well why haven't they asked for support? There's so many reasons why they haven't.
Dr. Manna Semby	Right. One is there is so much going on. It is hard to delineate what is exactly happening due to a hormonal change in your body, what is happening due to the physiological processes in your body and in your 40s and 50s. That's the number one education, right? Second, they do have so much going on and, you know, work life balance and bias and role models and all that.
Dr. Manna Semby	Is it enough? It's probably not enough. Right. And then it's like once they know okay, this is what's happening is perhaps is related to this hormonal change. How many women who are on the cusp of making senior vice president or vice president or managing director are going to raise their hands and say, yeah, I'm having trouble. You know, how many women are going to say, we don't want to complain?
Dr. Manna Semby	We have, you know, we have come up such a difficult, hard road, right? Finally, we are at that place where we are about to make that, big jump. And it's like, okay, what how am I going to say that? And who am I going to say it to? And is there is audience receptive? I was looking at, okay, so the 14% of the companies that are doing something about this, what are they doing?
Dr. Manna Semby	Yes. There is flexibility work from home. Great. That's wonderful. But there are things like cooling stations and I'm like, which woman thing? A cooling station is going to help her. A cooling station might be on a different floor, on a different or on the same floor across the floor on the other side. And, you know, hot water, hot flashes, like when a hot flash occurs, you don't have a minute to walk over there, you know?
Dr. Manna Semby	So it's like, first of all, I think only 14% of companies are doing that. We need to tell them what we need. We need to tell them these are the things we need. Right. And women have to then feel, feel that it is their right to take the space that they need to ask for what they need.
Dr. Manna Semby	You know, women have the right to take the space to speak up and say, I need this without any editorial about around it, without any, you know, facial expressions, without any raised eyebrows, nothing. We need this. That's it. You know, women have so much spending power. Women have power. And how is it that we are still in that position where we have to ask somebody for, oh, please, we need this.
Holly Smithson	I mean, then it's it's interesting because, there's so much about women that, where they give up their agency and don't ask for what they need in order to continue to execute on, you know, their roles and their function.
Dr. Manna Semby	And so that we also internalize the messaging from the world, we internalize some of the messaging that is unhelpful to us, right? That is unhelpful to women as a whole. We internalize some of that messaging and that is counterproductive. Yeah. So there is a lot of work ahead. You must have seen there's a lot of talk these days about perimenopause and menopause.
Dr. Manna Semby	There's more dialog about it, which is great. Okay.
Holly Smithson	Yes.
Dr. Manna Semby	But okay. What is the work that needs to be done now? That's where we need to be. Like, what are the things that we will tell companies? These are the things we need, starting it so and so stage in a woman's life. This will help us. And if you do this, you will see women feel more supported and not lose their resilience and not be losing women in their 50s when they have so much to give.
Holly Smithson	I, I had I had one of my clients, just very, very, very successful woman and she was in full on menopause and they were pitching a very, you know, high worth client. And the woman went in there with her partner, our business partner, and said, you know, I just want to give you a heads up, you know, anything can happen.
Holly Smithson	And she went in there crying, and the next thing you know, she was flooding with sweat. I mean, it's just coming out of her forehead, coming down the side of her cheeks. And she just kept presenting and she was just like, mortified. She's like, what am I going to do? I mean, she literally looked like she just got off of, you know, the football field and, and her boss picked up on the cue and said, hey, Susan, here's where I want to.
Holly Smithson	I want to kind of add to the discussion. And if I can direct your attention to this slide, I think what you'll find is, you know, I just kind of like took the ball from her so she could kind of, you know, compose herself and, you know, kind of have that kind team. So to the extent that we can at least share with our team, I, I like that level of vulnerability and say, listen, here's some of the things that I'm going to be entering as I enter into this phase.
Holly Smithson	And I want everybody to be in the know. I don't know to what length this is going to impact me because, you know, we're all individuals. We don't know. But here are some of the common, characteristics. And then you give everybody, like the heads up and starting to educate people because to your point, there is a dramatic focus on menopause.
Holly Smithson	Harvard, HBO, there's so many people that are putting together workshops and webinars. There's, just a huge body of evidence, and literature out there. It's just it's awesome to see this level of, transparency. So then we get to shift from educating and raising awareness. It's no longer taboo, but then also educating people because you know what?
Holly Smithson	Everybody's headed there, like it or not. Nobody gets out free and then you move into solutions that companies might want to consider recognizing that we're all getting older. So the workforce is getting older, and we've got this 85 million shortfall by the World Economic Forum in 2025 and Stem talent. So we have to completely re juxtapose our workforce dynamics and recognize an aging workforce population has you got to take into account these other factors.
Dr. Manna Semby	Yes. And that's why I really appreciate the male allyship program that Athena has because, we want the men to understand and men also want to understand the men who are allies. They want to understand. They want to be able to help us the way we want them to. So I think this is certainly, a discussion, which is why I was really, pleased to when my Ted talk was not, kept for August.
Dr. Manna Semby	Right. I was like, this is not something just for women. Men need to hear this. We need men to stand with us, to be with us, to understand. And, so we are all in this together. Like, if we leave. If we leave, the men also lose. Society as a whole loses, right? So it's important for us to move forward together.
Holly Smithson	Yeah, I like that. And and you're right. It is. It is understanding, the implications and not just for women. It's just, it's it's for society as a whole and having greater recognition and the education and the awareness it that's those are the prerequisites to actually, put forward solutions that are holistic, comprehensive, and inclusive.
Dr. Manna Semby	Yeah, absolutely.
Holly Smithson	All right. So as we wrap up here, you know, one of the things that, you know, occurs to me throughout your very dynamic and, impressive, career journey is that you are just an absolute spectacular champion for women's resilience. And I know we just had the elections here in the United States, a presidential election. There's a big, huge wave, in the electorate that voted for, I would some would say the return of the patriarchy, kind of a stripping of women's rights.
Holly Smithson	And there was some research, I think, coming out of the election where 70% of men had voted for, the Republican candidate for president elect Trump, and then 55% of Latina men had, voted for Trump. And it was almost this recognition in those demographics that while we've been focusing on kind of closing the gender gap and closing the pay gap and really creating a much more inclusive, work environment, that as an unintended consequence, there's been this sense across men that they are being left behind and that they are in the shadows.
Holly Smithson	And some of the, you know, speculators are attributing that to why all of these? The male vote went to kind of away from the women's rights and all the progress that we've made. In the last, you know, 5 to 10 years, what are your thoughts and, and suggestion not to get political, but just to recognize that that's the voting block.
Holly Smithson	And that's where they're feeling. So we have to like it or not. We have to. This isn't about liking who's in the white House, whether or not we voted for him, but rather what society and what that that signal is. Because right now it almost seems like it's an either or, like we either try to support and lift up women from, you know, being second class citizens for so long.
Holly Smithson	Or we focus on propping up the men like, I wish that we're such a sophisticated society. Can't we do both?
Dr. Manna Semby	You know, I've been struggling to understand what's been happening in the country politically, myself. And I am always trying to understand, okay, how is it that people voted the way they did? And I don't have all the data, but I, I have heard that a lot of Democrats didn't vote, and more, Republicans turned out and they voted.
Dr. Manna Semby	I hear from some people that some people will never vote for a woman, and there are other men that will say, we don't see that as a problem. We would love to have a woman president. So it's all over the place. I do think that the whole election calculus is such, multifactorial, just like all these problems we're talking, right?
Dr. Manna Semby	Yep. I do think there will be a woman president and not in the very distant future. I do think so. But I also think that, we also have to make sure that the policies and positions are also competitive, and they make them known to the world. Right. You have to be competitive with whatever game you're playing.
Dr. Manna Semby	You have to be top class. And then if you're a woman, hey, that's cherry on top, right? So it's like you have to me. So I, I found myself questioning was the messaging of this party one party versus another was a difference in the messaging. And in fact, president elect Trump, is he actually going to deliver on all the promises and positions that he said he was going to?
Dr. Manna Semby	But that's what perhaps people wanted to hear. It's kind of like politics is the ultimate game, right? Like, oh yeah, oh, it's going to be so. But I am not ready to give up hope yet. And I don't think from my limited perspective into American ism as still, you know, as an immigrant, even though I've lived more than half my life here now, I feel like, the kind of people that I know, right, would be very happy with a woman president, as would I be.
Dr. Manna Semby	And it's like, you know, it's perhaps the timing wasn't right, even though. And don't forget, like, you know, we women have made a lot of strides, a lot of strides. And we just have to keep doing that and keep building a bigger and bigger and bigger critical mass. Right? The more women we see in higher levels of, so set up for society in, in, corporations, in politics, in business, everywhere.
Dr. Manna Semby	It's like Ruth Bader Ginsburg said, like how many justices in the Supreme Court would be too many women. And she said nine. You know, so it's like, you know, it's it's the messaging over the years, over the generations that have been internalized. And we have to actively work on uprooting them, you know, from our cells, from the previous generation or from the next generation.
Dr. Manna Semby	The work is not going to stop. We have to continue doing that. Yeah.
Holly Smithson	And, and I, I really appreciate that. And I think to your point about how critical the male allyship and just allyship in general as a real centerpiece of everything that we're doing is we're trying to elevate society and evolve and be forward thinking and really focus on on progress. As a society, I think is, profoundly true.
Holly Smithson	And I, I can't tell you how much I appreciate you coming into the studio and, and sharing your, your illustrious career journey and, so appreciate the resilience on display and the level of grace and trust that you have placed in and your, your destiny. So thank you so much. And.
Dr. Manna Semby	Of course, my pleasure.
Holly Smithson	And, this is so this is just a little teaser for, for your TEDx talk, which is coming out, will be recorded live. When was that? February. Do you have a date? On the.
Dr. Manna Semby	19th.
Holly Smithson	February 19th of 2025. And that is so scary to say because before we know it, it'll be here. So thank you, Doctor Marna. Sandy, for coming in and sharing your journey. And we'll be we'll be all eyes watching you on your Ted x, debut next year. And that wraps up this edition of our Lifting Wall Climbing podcast.
Holly Smithson	So I'm Holly Smithson, Athena's CEO. And we'll see you next month for our holiday and final podcast of 2024. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll see you next time.