Natasha on “How to Build a Patient Community” with host, Roi Shternin, from Chronically Empowered
In this series, I am shining the spotlight on a few moments where our founder’s expertise, creative spirit and kindness spill out and show why her resolve to our community is particularly federating. For this purpose, I have chosen a Chronically Empowered podcast, where she is in conversation, as a guest, with patient empowerment renegade
.#1 The Mindset Shift
Roi and Natasha discuss strategies to promote health as a professional activity.
In this segment, Roi looks back on his previous ventures and identifies one major limitation: he failed to capitalise on his skills and wealth of experience. How has Natasha done it with InflamMed?
Keywords from Natasha: mindset, process and vulnerability.
For InflamMed, a community-based social impact enterprise, that meant she first had to put her tech toolkit on the back burner, and then clearly define the gap she had experienced as a young sufferer of a chronic illness and continues to experience in other forms in the workplace now.
“[T]he mindset shift is don't start with the tech... Start with the problem that you're trying to solve… we are human beings... And the only reason [humans] are going to be using the tech is because it's solving a problem that they [face] right now. And so, you always start there.”
“There's no point bringing in the tech because it gets expensive, it gets complicated, and it tends to lose that thread. So, it's getting that thread really clear and crisp”, she adds.
According to Natasha, adopting this process has made her more attuned to the problem she has set out to solve. But probably the biggest growing up has been learning to listen to people who know her.
“I've learned to listen to friends… because the friends that really know me, people I've been vulnerable with, [the same] people who really see my strengths, I don't think I've ever really been listening to them before…”
She decided to resist calls stirring her down a more conventional careerist path that does not suit her because, or maybe even thanks to her vulnerabilities.
Roi highlights their common decision to be authentic to themselves and create their own community, rounding off with:
“It takes a lot of courage and vulnerability to say […] I will not go down this path.”
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Listen to the full podcast on Chronically Empowered.
Listen to or watch Invisible Insights “Challenging Healthcare Norms” for a podcast where the table is turned.