The Cost of Leaving Yourself Out with Dr. Mamta Bhatt

0:00Many of the high achievers who come to me are doing all the right things. But they still don't feel good. They've got brain fog. They've got sleepless nights. Because the one thing that there is no pill for is how to reduce stress. And today's day and age has the highest stress. So it's about self-awareness. For me, it was about how I abandoned myself in the pursuit of excellence. And I have pursued excellence my entire career, whether that was in the corporate world or whether that was in the monastery. And it took me years here and years there both to then realize that, oh my gosh, I had left myself out.

0:49This is what holds conversations with founders and leaders about the weight people carry and what becomes possible when they are no longer alone in it. I'm Carla Royal, your host. My guest today is Dr. Mamta Bott. Dr. Mamta trained as a scientist. She holds a PhD in macromolecular science with executive education at Wharton and Harvard Medical School with a diverse career in research, product development, and change management for Fortune 50 companies. Then her body stopped. After years of a life built on rigor and output, she woke up one morning and could not lift herself out of bed. What followed was chronic fatigue, hormonal and digestive imbalance, and remedy after remedy that did not work. So she turned to the scientist in herself. She researched ancient healing systems, food supplements and herbs, her lifestyle, and she ran the expert on her own body. Within three months she was out of bed and jogging again. The people who had seen her in that condition started asking her how? That question became her work, and she has been doing it ever since. Her approach draws on both halves of her life, the laboratory, and years in an ashram in rural India, where she studied meditation, breath work, Ayurvedic, and naturopathy with living masters. Today she works with high achievers on recovering health, energy, and what she describes as the difference between decisions made from disconnection and decisions made from self-respect. Dr. Mopta, welcome to What Holds.

2:34Thank you so much for that delightful introduction. It's a pleasure to be here.

2:39I'm so happy to be with you again because we've had such a wonderful conversation in the past and I've been eager to sit and converse with you again. I'm delighted that you're here. You've had a life that has gone in some very different directions. Scientist, executive, nearly 20 years in a monastery, and now the work you're doing today. Where do you find yourself now and what's holding your attention?

3:04The thing that's holding my attention right now is that humanity is plagued with so much information. There's AI, there's all that you can find, everything on the internet. But what's really deeply missing is wisdom. And I wish to bring that empowerment that you don't have to go everywhere to find out what's in your own house. And if you're looking for a needle that's lost in your house, you need to look for it there. So your health can be found mainly by you because you're living in this body. And there's nobody as equipped as you to know if it's feeling tired, if it's feeling exhausted, if it's feeling a brain fog, if the sleep is poor. All we need is to bring our attention inwards and be, as I call it, the CEO of your own health. And I think I meet a lot of CEOs who are doing an extraordinary job in their companies, but keep their body as the last priority. And my goal is to bring that to the top because unless your health is good, you cannot bring the best to the work that you do.

4:17I agree. I also work with entrepreneurs and founders, and I find that they don't that they're the last ones that they pay attention to. And I'm curious how you believe that impacts the work that they're doing and what they're putting out in the world.

4:34I think it's eye-opening that highly intelligent and really creative people are creating extraordinary businesses, but somehow because their attention is outwards, they're unable to see that the computer that you're using and the software that you're using in your own computer is maybe outdated, maybe it's stalling, maybe it's got a virus, and you're not fixing that and expecting your software to give amazing output. That doesn't make sense. So I think it's just about in awareness and bringing their attention to their own system. And as soon as that happens, they're all bright people and they can do it.

5:17I always wonder what it is in them that they don't want to look inside. I wonder if what they're building they believe, I I know I've believed this from time to time, that what they're building is a reflection of them, and that's the thing that they put forward more than who they actually are.

5:39I can speak to myself, and I think I see myself and so many of these people who come actually virtually everybody, is that somehow, Carla, I don't know if it was the years that when we were growing up that or is is it just how we are as individuals. But we were somehow, or at least I was thinking of my output as my identity. I thought of my work as a reflection of my self-worth. And I was so sure about it that I spent all my energy pouring myself into the outside. So achievement and accomplishment became my identity. And that, by definition, was going to give my health the second place, not the first. And if your own identity is your achievement, then you're going to spend maximum amount of time on that achievement because you want your identity to be the best. And therefore, by definition, your last priority, the health, maybe gets no time or maybe gets a few minutes or an afterthought. And that's what I see in all the people who come to me today who happen to be big hedge fund managers. Many of them somehow are from finance, because they're living very stressful lives. They are busy morning to night and trying to make the best decisions with very high stakes, so there's a lot of stress. And food becomes an afterthought. By definition, it's more cups of coffee so that their brain can remain active. It's the exercise gets last priority, even though they may have jogged to work, but it's a stressful jog. Many of the high achievers who come to me are doing all the right things, but they still don't feel good. They've got brain fog, they've got sleepless nights. Because the one thing that there is no pill for is how to reduce stress. And today's day and age has the highest stress. So it's about self-awareness and seeing, for me, it was about how I abandoned myself in the pursuit of excellence. And I have pursued excellence my entire career, whether that was in the corporate world or whether that was in the monastery. And it took me years here and years there both to then realize that, oh my gosh, I had left myself out.

8:08That is so interesting how you've done both of those seem like extreme opposites. And that's you, especially for such a high achiever to then go into an ashram. Was it 20 years? Did I that is amazing to me to see that those two worlds coming together. You said that your identity became your achievement and success. Yes. Why did that happen? How did that come to be? Oh my gosh.

8:38I think that has definitely a root in childhood. And I think for me, I cannot speak for other parents or other children, but I've introspected a lot on it. And I think I got strokes when I was a very high achiever my entire childhood, a nerdy person. So if I got hundred out of hundred in a math test, right, let's say, and I got kudos, right? And I got some treats from my mom. And if I excelled in something else, there was always a reward. And I'm sh my mom was a psychologist and I love her. I love her. She's passed away, but I love her dearly. She was the most wonderful person, and her intentions were so good. In her way, she thought that, hey, if I tell her that if you get uh hundred out of hundred in science, what would you like? And I used to like a certain South Indian dish, which was like a crep, like a lentil crep. And I I was a I loved it, and we didn't eat that at home. So my mom would say, Okay, I'm gonna take you there. And so we would go over there, and it so it wasn't like cookies or soda or chocolates. It was what I liked. And it became our little routine. My mom and I would go and we would go and eat at this tiny little hole hole in the wall type of cafe. But we had the best time and I have the best memories. I think it was not her fault at all. I think it was the way I as a child took it. That when I do this, when I excel, I am worthy. You see, that's what I took it as. Nobody to blame for it, but somehow, unconsciously, that's what happened. Because I had a lot of time to introspect on how did this happen? Because Carla, I was not only a person who pursued excellence at work. Let me share with you, while I was working on some large projects, traveling to seven plant sites and talking to 3,000 people, giving talks to all of them, I would still come home. And those were the days when there was no internet, so I'm dating myself. But I would go to the library and buy bring these books home to how to reupholster a channel back chair. That's not an easy task, okay? And here I would sit and buy this fabric and re-upholster, and then I had these gorgeous channel back chairs. I would learn about antiquing. Each thing was a project and excellence for me, and that's on me, that's not on anybody. I remember when I called guests over to my house, it had to be the perfect dinner, the magnificent flower arrangement, all the perfect china, all the perfect the wines with each course, right? The right wines, and I'd be cooking from bon appetite. Like, hello. How could I raise such a bar for myself? Do you see in every area? I used to be into gardening, and of course I have to grow apples and pears. This is a lot of stress. At that time you're young and it sounds exciting. I I loved learning new things. So clearly I'm giving you just a little just a little window into my life. It wasn't just that I worked so extraordinarily at work, and everything I had put that pressure on myself to be extraordinary. And that was extraordinary to me. We were not going out into some award functions or anything. It was just that I wanted this garden with apples and pears and the perfect good-looking flowers. I love flowers. So what I'm trying to relate for people to relate is if you're like that in any area of your life, whether it's finance, whether it's trading, whatever it is, and one trade goes bad, what's the dialogue that's in your head? I think to myself, every time it anything was below my own mental bar, I would be really sad because I just wanted to do it perfectly. That is so unreasonable. That is so unreasonable because we are not robots. Even robots, AI does is not perfect, right? When something goes wrong at work, whether it's a trade or whether it's a project or whether it's a human personnel problem, understand that you're an intelligent human being. You're doing your very best with all that you're carrying. And every time, 100% of the time, nobody's successful in every single thing. So give grace to yourself, give kindness to yourself, give compassion, make the space a little broader and allow yourself flexibility.

13:13So many people have grown up with that kind of background where either they got their sense of worth from being told how great they were, or they were told they were nothing and then they had something to go out and prove. And I think our culture, in many ways, at least the Western culture, is it is all about black and white winning or losing. There's no in-between place. And I think that people do believe that they get their worth from what they achieve, and it's very damaging and also very understandable because we're bombarded with that message all the time. I have a client who's a day trader, and it is it's a crazy world out there in trading. It's up and down, and there's no way to be perfect and get it right every time. Yeah. But the thing that we work on is part of that dialogue that you're talking about, and learning how to, and this is the case for all of my clients, is helping us expand our capacity to handle the ups and downs, to be more flexible when we're dealing with real life. And that includes when things don't go well or when we fail. And that's an incredible capacity to learn. You've said that when you became ill, you expected the best doctors to be able to tell you what was wrong and help you solve it. Instead, you spent years without an answer. What did that do to you? That's an excellent question.

14:43I think what it did to me was made me dig deeper into that resilience, into courage, into strength in myself, faith in myself. And I didn't know how strong I was till I look back at it. Many people asked me this question. That I have to say it's extraordinary that the number of times I was told no, and how many times I got up and I just was determined to get well. I just didn't give up. I think that has to be the strongest thing that I just didn't give up. Because the truth is that in my body I felt like it was a weight of a million tons, like body full of lead, so fatigued and tired every morning. It's like you have a massage every day, and then right after the massage, you're again your body's hurting. So what's going on? Deep within me, I knew that it was my body that was tired, but my mind was very fresh. Of course, over the years, of 20 years of being bedridden, it's it grates on you and you really it wears you down and you start getting depressed. Like the best of people would get depressed, right? So definitely that happened to me. But I have to say, if and on looking back, that utter faith in myself that there has to be a way. There is a way. I'm going to find the way. And that's what kept me going from doctor to doctor. And even as a scientist, I would never have gone to alternate medicine because that was just not the area I would ever go to. But my own life humbled me because being tired like that and nobody in the Western medical world being able to help me, why and get me out of it, had me go to whoever can help me get well. Right? I want to get well and I'm going to do what it takes to get well. And so I had to live alone when nobody believed in me. My own family thought that, well, the best medical doctors have said they can't help. And so it's all in our head. And that's how I got really isolated because when your family doesn't believe in you, you've got nobody. And that's when you start really relying on something greater than all of us. And I had to rely on that. And that with grace turned out to be the greatest power in the world, which lives inside you. And you got to stay with this. And I think in a great way it was my greatest freedom because I got to stand on my own feet, believing in me, when nobody believed in me, and realized that I can empower myself. And I I am a scientist, and I can find what did the ancient people find when no supplements and no injections and nothing was available. What did they say helps people to heal? So I went into that, and what I found was that they said food is your medicine. And uh I thought I had already done it, I had already become vegetarian, I thought that's the answer. And then I delved into it deeper, and I found so many people who hadn't been able to get well from other methodologies also changed their food. So I created a protocol just for me, very customized after looking through all of my um markers. And for 90 days, I was well, and that changed the direction of my life, and I realized that all of me looking outwards for an answer, right? Like this is the demigod who will help me, was not the right place to be looking. Because it's like I said, if you lost the needle in this room, you've got to look in this room. So if it's my health, I need to know that after eating which food do I start becoming tired? After eating which food do I start getting energetic? After what kind of interactions or thought processes or people do I start feeling exhausted? Start becoming aware because this is the biggest gift you've got. And if you can take care of this, who else can? You got to give it the highest priority.

18:55I had similar situations more psychologically, really, and that was what I couldn't get help from all the therapists and the coaches I was seeing. And I just went on a hunt after it. Like, how can how do people change and what can help? And also physically, too, I've had some chronic things. And I think where I've ended up is that I have always looked to someone else to heal me, to fix me, to have the answer for me. And all of these searching years, much like you, have led to, no, I I have the answers within me. That said, you and I both have had support, and we need support. It's not that we do it in isolation or can do it in isolation, but the answers are within us. I agree with you there that that needle, I love that metaphor of the needle. You ended up spending nearly 20 years in the monastery. What held you there for that long?

19:50Really, it was actually I had not gone saying I'm going to live here 20 years. It was actually just a quick solace because everybody around me felt like it's all in my head and I could not take that because I knew this was okay. This was the one thing that was okay. So I needed to just be away from that negative influence. And I I'm really proud of me today because of course I wasn't mature enough at that time to know that I was consciously doing that, but I was really doing that. I was trying to just stop all this negative, so I got to get well. Inadvertently in the monastery was silence, and my soul knew that I loved it. I you remember I lived a very hectic life. I was traveling a lot, talking and giving talks and to lots of people and in big negotiations. So it was a lot of stress, and being in silence was not common to me. In fact, completely alien. And I think you know how you sometimes your being knows that it loves it. It just took to it like a duck to water. So many people ask me, didn't it drive you crazy? No, it was like a it's like it was like a bomb to my soul, right? It was a bomb to me because all of us, you know, irrespective of any strata of society, if you go and talk to people, you'll eventually find everybody wants peace. Everybody wants to be happy. Those two things everybody wants. And here I was getting just that just that peace. And this was a new system. And remember, what was I good at? I was a really good student. So I reached there and I really quickly learned that there's something called meditation, there's something called silence, and for hours we sit like that. And I started really getting into it. I just started getting into it and I started feeling better. So the fast forward that I want to make for you is the 20 years was inadvertent because I kept thinking, remember how I came? I came to heal myself, so I thought I'll get well. What happened actually was I started learning all these completely new dimensions, right? Like right brain stuff. I started learning a whole new curriculum, if you were to say so. And really loving it, loving the peace, loving the quiet, loving the alone time. But it's somewhere deep down, again, I had a goal, like I had in the corporate world, right? You have ROI, you have so many other things. But here also I had a goal that I'll get well. And my goal wasn't being accomplished. And I just kept doing this more and more, thinking again that if I become excellent at this, I will ace this. And I the the answer will be I will get well. So what happened was that I started really progressing very, very, very well in my meditation. Uh, and I could really get what peace and silence and no thought, like that's a real gift, if you can be even a moment and no thought. And I was able to be in this space for large periods of time and had some amazing experiences and more importantly, amazing insight into my life. But it did not translate to that energy. Remember, I was looking for energy. And it is after I had so many years of this incredible, again, spiritual success. And after that, I realized that all the material success and all the spiritual success, neither of them individually gave me health. And that's when I felt I I don't know if I shared this with you that you know I was really kind of getting depressed now that I wanted to be well, uh, that I had an epiphany one morning. I was looking at the sunrise, and I felt so happy and my heart opened up, and I was looking at these orange-yellow rays coming out through this branches of a tree, and I just thought, oh, what it would be to be happy. Because remember, I had kept my condition of being happy that when I get well, I have energy. And so from inside me, the voice said, But you are happy, your mouth is face is smiling, your heart is open. And when I kind of self-observed, I was. And in that moment, I knew for the first time in my life ever, nobody's ever said that, but to feel it truly in every cell, that you could have a body that's not really well, and you could choose joy. And those two apparently paradoxical things, to live together was like the biggest aha I had. And from that moment, Carla, you probably cannot imagine, because everybody who knows me knows me that I laugh, I love to smile, I love to have a positive outlook on life. But trust me, I was a very serious scientist before that and very serious about all my pursuits. But from that day, I just knew that there is so much to be happy about because that moment which came unasked showed me that in this life, whether you're trading, whether you're doing billions of dollars in your hedge fund, you have something to smile about, something to be happy about. It can be your cup of coffee, it can be the blue sky, it can be your child laughing, it can be your dog uh jumping. You have to train your brain to look for that. And in that moment that happened to me, and this is the whole thing about neuroplasticity, in that moment that happened to me where I saw that how magnificent the sunrise can be, and it can make me, without thought, just be joyful, I realized how many other moments I was missing. Because remember, as before, I was very one-track focused. I just wanted to get healthy, right? So I was like doing this spiritual practice and this breath work and this and this and this. But my whole center, the foundation, had not been fixed. But that foundation, when I changed that and I started looking for all the little things, every moment that are good already. I don't need to fix them. You're not a project to be fixed. There is enough in life to be just joyful about. And we as very high achievers take life too seriously. We think everything is goal-oriented, we think everything is about reaching here, but we don't know that from here to here, there's a journey. And you know what? The quality of life depends on how you lead this journey.

26:30I think you're so right about the hype I I call it hyperfocus, and there's so many successful people are hyper-focused on their success, and they don't even give thriving a thought. And thriving is a very different energy than success. And you can have both. You can have both, but thriving requires a different kind of attention. Our brains have a negativity bias, and we have evolved to look for the negative and to not really notice the positive. And to your point, it's so important that we take real intention to see the positive in our lives. And seeing that will help us thrive more. You said that when you got sick, a lot of people you thought were close to you disappeared. And I can't imagine how painful that must have been. Was there anyone who stayed close? Was there anyone that you could let see how bad it really was? Yeah, myself. Yourself. Nobody else. And when you went to the ashram, were there those there who could see and kind of hold that space for you? Yes.

27:40So what I learned in the ashram was that you start finding people, as anywhere, who are more similar-minded, who have resonance with you. And very honestly, I remember I I was a high achiever even at the ashram. I'm being very honest. I realized that only afterwards, is that in the ashram I was like, okay, what's the top of the heap here? That's the enlightened master. So let me go out and learn from them. I mean, I wanted to learn from the best in whatever game it is that we're playing. So I sought out uh enlightened masters and I went and met them and shared wherever my situation was. And of course, they were more interested in my spiritual growth naturally, because I was really growing rapidly. And I was very grateful that I was able to have that. And from their point of view, they felt that it all made sense, that all the people from my normal life disappeared because that was required for me to go inwards. Otherwise, I would have still been clinging outwards. So they had their own explanation. However, it was very painful and very isolating. It was very isolating. In retrospect, it was a great gift because if once you learn to rely on yourself, you learn that this is your best friend, that this has to think the best for you, this has to take the best, most positive actions for you, has to monitor the patient, be the patient as well as the doctor to yourself. It's a very, it's a very empowering thing. And I think that really makes you take charge because nobody's coming to save you. You've got to save yourself. And once I realized all that, I found out about how ancient people cured themselves, and I integrated it into the modern science that I know, because I had to bring the best of science to the best of ancient wisdom. And I created my protocol, I realized that there are two ways you can come to this. One, you can be aware in the beginning and start doing it. Very few of us are like that. There's a great master who said that the person who sees the other person falling into a ditch and avoids the ditch is the wise person. But most people go there still and trip. So if we could be wise enough to see somebody else's suffering and see how are we suffering the same way, and how can I heal myself before it becomes a big project, those are the wise peoples. And today in the world, there are 70% of the world's population that is sick with a chronic disease, right? And I think there is no other time in history that we have had more information, there's been more connection across the globe, everybody knows about everything, and maybe that's good and maybe that's not. Because our brain has not been created for that bombarding of information. It it thrives when there's some rest. It thrives when it sleeps in deep sleep. It thrives when it can clean its toxins out when you sleep well. And so I think all of us probably have to give ourselves more attention in the quality of recovery.

31:04Your work now is built around self-love and what you call self-abandonment. You talked about abandoning yourself, and now you talk about self-love. Where in your own life do you still have to watch out for that? Everywhere.

31:19Everywhere. I'm sharing with you, this is not one of those things that is one and done. It's about layers and layers of yourself. Let's just say that you know that you tend to clutter your house. Is there any one day that it's over and done? Because it's a life that you're living in, then you will have tendencies to just leave things here and there, and you will have to declutter, right? So, same way for this, I have to watch myself. I tended to be a workaholic. I remember my achievement was all my worth. That's what I thought my identity was. So I have to watch myself. That am I, as usual, overworking? If this evening am I going on working on my projects rather than saying, stop, you've just got to do something else, right? And and I I keep watching myself. Remember, self-love is when you give yourself the first respect before, again, the output. So you have to know what what what is the disease you're curing, right? If the disease is that you think that your output is who you are and is your worth, so you will keep on running behind that. And you have to watch out for that. It's about every moment to make a change, every moment to become aware. How do I make a decision? Somebody calls me for an event and I haven't rested for the whole week. I have to say no, unless it's something that's really critical. That learning to prioritize, always checking in with yourself and saying, hey, what what do I need? Right? And then once you know, really, I really need to rest. Okay, then you rest. Those are hard decisions, especially for people like us who are always making decisions for our business, for our work, and we'll say, Yeah, of course, this will be good for this. This will be important. So many people need to hear from me. Yes, it's it's about giving the first priority to you.

33:17I appreciate that response because I do think there are some people out there who say you can arrive and then it's never a problem again. And I love the fact that you say, no, you have to keep paying attention. I love so much how you are treating the whole person and teaching them to treat themselves as a whole person. That is an incredible gift. How can people reach you?

33:42So I'm reachable at info at drmtabud.com. You can directly reach me. There's a text number, there's no phone call, there's a text number where you can reach 813-235-3724, text us, and we will get back to you.

33:58Dr. Mamta, it's been a joy and a pleasure to be with you today. Thank you so much for showing up with so much inspiration and enthusiasm and and thriving. I appreciate you. Thank you so much. Thank you. If this conversation brought someone to mind, send it to them. That's how a new show like this reaches the people it's for. I'm Carla Royal. I work privately with founders and leaders on the things underneath what they are carrying. You can find me at Carlaroyal.com. This is what holds. I'll see you back here next time.