During her night shifts, Dr. Heather Hammerstedt realized there were people in the ER that didn’t need to be there. Not that they didn’t need treatment, but that many of them had health problems that could have been prevented if someone had intervened. 2 1/2 years later, she is the founder and CEO of Wholist, a health coaching company that is transforming the way many view doctors and the healthcare system. We discuss why doctors need to understand the importance of the health coaching model, what was one her biggest regrets starting out, and how she skillfully leads a mostly virtual business to grow and scale.
There is so much great info here, you won’t want to miss a single minute!
Dr. Heather Hammerstedt’s health coaching company
https://www.wholisthealth.com/
The 8 Week Lifestyle Medicine Course for Physicians and Practitioners (Save $100 with this link)–
RAW TRANSCRIPT
From time to time I like to highlight physician entrepreneurs, people are actually out there in the trenches actually doing it. They’re not waiting for a double blinded placebo study to actually decide to venture into something. And I came across this wonderful physician who actually was kind of intimidated because she was doing push ups and sit ups and I know she could probably kick my butt. So I want to be very cognizant of her time be very respectful. But Heather Hammerstedt is a physician, emergency physician trained, and she’s actually certified in lifestyle. Medicine, who decided many years ago to start up a business in helping people become better, improving their health and wellness. And she’s been doing this for quite a while you probably have heard her before if you’ve seen one of her videos, she’s very active in social media. And I really wanted to know basically, how she got started and how she was able to take that leap into becoming her own boss. So without further ado, Heather, thank you for joining me on the podcast today.
Dr. Heather Hammerstedt
Thanks so much for having me.
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
I really appreciate it and like I said, I like I am intimidated. So I got to be very cognizant because you definitely are. I saw those things I go, I can you know if I can even think about doing your own health and wellness community. You know, obviously, you know, walking the walk and talking the talk, and you’re in Boise, Idaho, is where you are. You’ve got, I saw the picture, two beautiful children, you’ve got a stay at home husband. So I’m going to take you back when we can go a little time machine back when. So when you were in emergency medicine, you had graduated from emergency medicine residency. When did you get this idea about starting your own business?
Dr. Heather Hammerstedt
So I graduated from one of the Harvard emergency medicine programs in 2007. And I stayed there for a year and taught and then got my Master’s of Public Health at Harvard as well and started a nonprofit, doing emergency medicine education in Uganda, which we still do, and that took up a fair amount of my extra time for about a decade. And slowly as our graduates have become their own teachers and their own administrators of our program, which is totally the goal, to work yourself out of a job. My role became smaller and smaller in the nonprofit and around that same time. I started like having This 3am moment, every day in the emergency department where I was like, this person does not need to be here, this could have been prevented this person. If we had gotten them 10 years ago or five years ago, we could have, you know, not had to be on dialysis, not had a myocardial infarction like not have a diabetes complication. And I’ve put my hand up for all sorts of things. Over the years I studied Ayurveda, I studied medical acupuncture, I actually got my health coaching certificate while I was still in medical school, all these things that I like, just didn’t, like I hadn’t utilized and I realized that I had all this knowledge and I have this idea of like comprehensive health, teamwork around health, that that I that I could take advantage of. And so I got the entrepreneurial itch about two and a half years ago, and put together whole list which is basically a team based approach towards whole person care figure Hearing out how we can use the evidence behind lifestyle medicine, which is food and sleep and exercise and mindfulness around the prevention and reversal of disease and the way that we access that is through food and helping people figure out what do they think about food? How do they use food? Why are they using food that the way that they are? How do they view their body, what’s their self story around what their body is and how they use it, and really rewiring their brain and helping them use the what and when of eating to lose weight, but more importantly, to get to that sustainable long term health.
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
Now, some including myself, you know, heard the term lifestyle medicine, we’ve seen conferences on it, but it’s, at least for me, educate me what exactly is lifestyle medicine? How would you define it?
Dr. Heather Hammerstedt
Yeah, so lifestyle medicine really is kind of gathering the evidence that is out there in various spheres of not just medicine, but of health around the whole food, plant based diet, around exercise around the coaching model, and around mindfulness, and how that affects long term disease. It’s really helping people do the things that we know that we need to do theoretically, in terms of what we put in our body, how we move our body and how we control our inner state, too, and how that actually in the evidence affects long term health. And so it’s not quite the same as integrative medicine where you’re using different modalities of, you know, non conventional or alternative medicine in in the same realm as conventional medicine that’s kind of integrative medicine, and functional medicine. They really dig into the kind of molecular ideas behind health So digging down into kind of the smaller pieces of us that may eventually become your whole body. This is really using like, what are you eating? How are you moving your body? And how are you controlling your thoughts? And for me, that’s really powerful. Because those are things that I think we all understand that we need to do. But we it’s hard to get those sustainable habits into our life. And so that’s what we do at holistic is help people do that.
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
And it seems like that type of medicine really fits well with the telemedicine type model. Yeah, you can basically do this almost anywhere, correct?
Dr. Heather Hammerstedt
Yeah, you certainly could I do. I do do some lifestyle medicine, telehealth in the states that I practice in, which is Idaho, Oregon and California. But the the primary way that we do this in Wholist is that we use a coaching model, which means that we are kind of holding the space for people to come up with a plan that’s going to work with their life and we help guide them to that. So we have a 12 week program where you can come in and you’re assigned a personal food coach and a personal mindset coach and those two people work on the what and the when of eating and the why of eating, and really kind of get into the weeds with you on that. And so, the primary part of holes is that we’re not really practicing medicine, most of them most of us are just doing coaching around them.
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
Yeah, and I definitely want to get in on that because that’s a question that I get a lot from my students about where is the line so let me get to you but before we do that, you mentioned that you were you got your certification in health coaching, you know, previous to this were you doing that on the side and then decided to start the business or did you just go full? Let’s do the business now and see what happens.
Dr. Heather Hammerstedt
Yeah, so I I went to medical school at Temple in Philly and at the time there was an in person program in New York City called The Institute of integrative nutrition. It’s now an online program. But at that time, I would I would take the train on the on the weekend up to New York and take this course. And it was really transformative to me realizing, you know, this whole other part of health that people were talking about that was outside of medicine and all the things that I was learning while I was in medical school. But but then residency started, right and like, like, life does not continue and
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
Everything gets pushed aside for sure. Exactly.
Dr. Heather Hammerstedt
So. So I didn’t actually practice as a health coach for a very long time. And really, until I got this idea to start this team based approach to whole person care is when I really got back into coaching and digging back into what the coaching model is and how it’s so different than the prescriptive model of medicine and And so yeah, so it’s just been a few years, and the coaches that I have working with me come from all all all over the place. So I have dieticians, I have nurses, and I have physicians, all of who practice in a coaching realm, some of them formally trained, and some of them not formally trained.
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
So when someone has an idea for a business, you know, they want to do something that’s entirely new. And then you have others like myself, who, you know, see what other people are doing and then have our own, you know, our own USP or unique selling proposition that that makes it unique. It’s often more difficult to, you know, to become, you know, to create like an applicant, Uber that’s completely transformative than to do something that’s different. Did you have like, Did you look at other businesses because this sounds, you know, pretty unique, but you have there was Did you have mentors? How did you, you know, decide get that idea to actually become, you know, reality
Dr. Heather Hammerstedt
I… winged it.
I think, you know, being an emergency medicine, I’m not afraid to try something, right. I mean, we’re, we’re pretty MacGyver in our specialty. And so what I did was I just grabbed a bunch of people who put their hand up and said that they wanted help with their food and their body and how their mind worked around food. And I just practiced on them and created something that along the way that was serving them. And I think that that was a good model for me, because I don’t know if I would have been able to know exactly what people needed in this realm unless I was working with them in real time. So creating a product and an idea ahead of time just didn’t make sense to me. So I had, you know, a beta group of people and I realized that I was saying the same thing over and over again. And so what I decided to do was to create The program being mostly audio based. And so, in the 12 weeks at this point, everyone gets an audio podcast for me every single day of the 12 weeks on either weight science or on mindset around food, and metacognition, around food. And so that kind of leads them at this point, like as a blueprint through the program, and then they have the personal coaching, the mindset coach and the food coach as a kind of support and accountability to help them use that information and to plug it into their specific roadmap of where they want to go. But that that was just it’s just sort of happened that way because I realized, like, you know, in the emergency department, like if I could have a podcast that I gave someone on their chest pain rule out, like, single night, it would save me so much time, right? So that’s really kind of how the basis of this program happened was just everyone needs to know this specific sort of information and i and i just yeah, just kind of winged it.
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
I love that it’s funny because, you know, I’ve done some coach coaching with doctors for a while, you know, they wanted to become entrepreneurs. Uh, definitely one of the biggest specialties that come up is emergency room, emergency physicians. And I thought it was because that, you know, because you’re, you’re in a time shift, you have that extra time to explore different activities. But I do think that that the idea about the MacGyver and just kind of figuring it out,
Dr. Heather Hammerstedt
yeah, we’re action takers, you know, and like, never know what’s coming in the door at any moment. And so we have to be prepared for everything. And so I think for the most part, we’re not quite so afraid of the unknown as other people do. And when I talk to most, you know, mostly other female physicians at this point about business development, I’m always saying, you know, it’s you just have to take a step. It doesn’t matter if it’s a step in the wrong direction, action begets action, right? And so you don’t always have to know what the future holds before you Step out and do something.
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
Right. And oftentimes, you know, as a doctor, we certainly are in the trenches here, if you’re making life and death decisions, you know, if you’re undecided about what color your website should be blue versus red. I mean, not the biggest, you know, issue that you have. But, you know, I’m being facetious here, but oftentimes, you know, I work with doctors who just not ready to put themselves out there. you’d mentioned that you had a beta, a beta group, did you initially charge them or was it free for your friends? How did that work?
Dr. Heather Hammerstedt
I throw it out there like as a New Year’s Eve challenge a few years ago, and collected some people for a very nominal amount of money. But I did charge and I do think it’s important even in a beta group to charge a small amount of money. It brings value to what you’re doing. from both sides, like you realize that it’s important because someone else is paying you For your time, and they realize it’s important because they’re putting something into it. But it was a small amount, but I do I do often advise that to people who are starting out, it’s like everyone always wants to do it for free, but it is it is still your you still are providing valuable service even if you’re experimenting on somebody your
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
way that you say that because, you know, recently I posted that something that, you know, I’ve charged I charge, you know, for my consulting services, but every now and then I do like a free consultation there and I hear their sob story, and I really want to help them or maybe their friends. And I would say that for every free let’s say I give 10 maybe one person will actually take action on it. Yeah. And you know, it’s the same advice that I give my pay clients, but like they don’t have any skin in the game and oftentimes, I don’t I feel you devalue your your your worth when you’re giving something for free and they just don’t take it as as important as someone who is you know, trying to get Long are saying, you know, I’ll just, I’ll just learn through YouTube videos or something like that it was like, probably the best way I think is having a mentor or a coach to help you. I mean that that helped me did you have coaches when they help you out?
Dr. Heather Hammerstedt
So I did not use coaching at the beginning, I and that is one of my biggest regrets. I think that if I would do it over again, I would have invested in coaching for myself much earlier than I did, I just sort of thought like, Well, I have a great idea and I have a great product and people are, you know, being served by this and they’re just gonna come but and I struggled for a long time I’ve invested a lot of money into failing forward and and a lot of time and just you know, working for free basically, for myself. And then I invested into first a marketing coaching company. And then I invested into a business coaching company and then invested into a sales coaching company. And those those serial investments for me over the last now nine months have gotten me from a $5,000 revenue month to this month’s probably 90.
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
That’s awesome. I love love to hear that. Um, so let’s talk about laughter. But before we do that, I want to get this question out. So we’ve talked about, you know, there are these doctors hearing about these health coaches. You and I both know health coaches, were making, you know, six figures a year as a health coach, they’re not physicians. But you know, they are very passionate and I’m sure that they get the results and so there has been this. I’ve seen a big demand in doctors wanting to become health coaches. Certainly now with you know, the more people are getting on zoom calls telemedicine because of that What we’re going through right now, and it’s a lot more people are open to education online. That being said, there are a lot of doctors who don’t know what in I would like to be educated as well is what is the line? You make a clear distinction between you’re not practicing medicine, you’re in the coaching model. What? Explain that to me and how did you come up with that determination?
Dr. Heather Hammerstedt
Yeah, so, you know, you asked six lawyers, you get six answers. And so I’m not a lawyer and I can’t, you know, provide exactly what that line in the sand is for the listeners I can give you my opinion. My opinion is is that it is very though coaching is very different than medicine. In coaching you out are providing information and you you are meeting someone exactly where They are in their kind of, of varying states of ability to understand where they want to change. And you are helping them come up with a plan on how they want to move forward. In medicine, we are prescribing and telling people what to do. They’re very, very different. So I think that the coaching model is exceptionally useful for physicians to learn, regardless of what you’re doing to be able to help your patients make sustainable change, because otherwise they’re doing this while you’re telling them what to do and nodding their head and they’re not going to do it. So I think it’s really important to learn that model. caveat. Let me put my my addition to that is that I do have a lifestyle medicine online course where I teach people how to do this. So that’s not the only reason why I’m saying that it’s important to learn. So there’s that I think so they’re very different. And I do think that having some specific certification and training in this is important for physicians. Because, number one, it helps you learn how to do it appropriately and safely for the patient. But secondly, also has you have another hat, where you can be like, I am a doctor, and I’m practicing medicine here. My other job is I am a health coach and I am coaching over here. Whereas if you don’t have that formal certification, it gets wavy, right? Friends, what you’re doing and when so that’s one piece of advice is that if you’re going to do it, definitely get a certification so that you can, you can say what distinct role that you’re playing. And then you need to have like very clear waivers in terms of services that says what your scope is during that relationship. And so I have very clear you know, papers that everyone signs that says, You know, I I understand I’m not receiving medical advice. This is not a medical relationship. This is forming a relationship with a coaching company. And I think that that is very important. There are going to be lawyers that tell you that regardless of if you know what all of those things that you do, that you’re taking a risk because you’re a physician, and that those lines are blurred, and I get that. I don’t think that me being a physician, however, encompasses my entire being. I think that there is, you know, a chance for me to be something else. And in that case, this case, it’s co holistic, and it’s a health coach. And I think that if you take the appropriate risks to have those papers, sign that be very clear with your clients, and also have coaching insurance and also have medical malpractice insurance, then I think you’re as safe as you’re going to be.
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
Thank you. If you’d like we can have a link to your course. In our show notes. That would be good for you for those who want to find more information that this is really good stuff because like you said, there’s six different attorneys tell you six different things all six will take your money. tell you that day tell you what want to hear. But you know, someone’s actually been there done that, that that’s really important advice. So talk to me, took me through about whole list. You mentioned that we didn’t really get into kind of the nitty gritty. It’s a 12 week program and explain how it all works.
Dr. Heather Hammerstedt
Yeah, so basically, people get on the phone with me or one of my strategy coaches and we sit down with you even before you’ve decided to come into the program for about an hour and really dig into, you know, how you use food, what your body’s like, what you want it to be like, what you’re really you know, what is what is affecting all of that because weight is so complicated. It’s such a hormonal dysregulation problem with insulin and cortisol and dopamine and serotonin and our leptin and ghrelin and you know, our adipose tissue actually makes hormones on its own. And so really kind of figuring out where all the pieces is coming in from everybody. So when we have that conversation and decide that someone is a good fit to come in and work with us, and they’re ready to take action towards their long term health, we bring them in and we assign them to two coaches. One is a food coach. One is a mindset coach, and based plug in every Monday and they start getting podcasts on meat, weight, science and mindset around food. And that, again, is just sort of a blueprint that leads them through those 12 weeks where they really can understand, really the evidence behind how their body works with food and how their brain works with food. Because, you know, I am just really passionate about people understanding that about themselves so that these choices that they make every day, I was less about the number on the scale and more about understanding how Their body and brain works in that way, it becomes much more sustainable and making those choices. So educating them that way. And then having that support and accountability with their coaches, the the food coach, her job is to really, you know, we have an app on your phone, you just take a photo of your food, we’re not counting anything because like, my fitness towels, 100% not sustainable for life, right? So you’re gonna be looking at your plate and what’s on your food. And so take a picture of your food and it goes to your coach and then you meet her on a video call once a week to really dig into what worked and what didn’t work. And if you’re showing up to that call, and you’re saying, you know, I lost three pounds more importantly, my sleep was better and I was less irritable and I had great energy and I felt satisfied with my food then you know that what in the land of that plate is serving you? The mindset coach, his or her job is to really dig in with you about you know, your relationships, your work situation, your relationship with food. The way you use food as a child, you know all of those things to figure out what are your thoughts, because if you can control your thoughts, then you can control your feelings and your actions and you get different results. But if you are not aware of what that story is in your brain, around why you use food and how you view yourself and your value, then you’re never going to get different results. And so, those mindset coaches are everywhere between a neurologist to a hypnotherapist to a physician who’s a life coach. So we have tons of different options to really curate a really terrific team for someone depending on what they need and where they are.
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
I read somewhere that you call yourself a health curator to me.
Dr. Heather Hammerstedt
Well, I mean, that’s what it is. Right? It’s like it’s figuring out exactly what everybody what that specific person needs. Because the way that you use food and the way that you use your body and the way that you think about yourself and is entirely different than than me, right. And so we have the same physiological processes, but they’ve been turned on their head, depending on what our experiences are. And so I think finding the right people to work with, with each individual to really get them where they need to go is curating them that team and I have like, a bigger idea for a whole list of like, having little pockets of us all over the place where you have, you know, not just the mindset and the food coaches, but you have who needs an acupuncturist and, you know, who needs you know, who needs this type of kinesiologist and who needs what in your community and try to pull together even a bigger team than what we’re currently doing?
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
Dr. Heather’s gonna take over the world first here. So you’re still working though, as an IR doc is all right and doing the business?
Dr. Heather Hammerstedt
Yeah, well, yeah, I have been working full time. The great the new news is that I am cutting back Part time this summer which is really exciting.
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
Right right man being full time mom obviously you’ve mentioned you’re a stay at home husband.
Dr. Heather Hammerstedt
I do. he’s a he’s amazing. He’s He’s our chef. He’s our everything so you know Wholist and my East Africa work and emergency medicine and Parenthood, we wouldn’t be able to do any of it without him That’s for sure.
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
So are you his boss too?
Dr. Heather Hammerstedt
I do. I do send some marketing money his way. He does all of our cooking and I use it for marketing. So
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
you mentioned marketing and I’m always always interested how do you how do they find out about your you do online and social media? Is it word of mouth?
Dr. Heather Hammerstedt
Yeah, so I would say probably 75% of our revenue comes from social media. So I have a you know, really well functioning funnel that I set up that basically goes from Facebook ad Instagram ad to webinar to scheduling a call. And that’s been converting really well. And it took a lot of work and a lot of failure for them to find one that really works. But I would say probably 75% of our revenue comes from that. And then the other 25% is mostly, you know, organic social media work in terms of reaching out and people seeing what we what we do by what we post and you know, what we’re, what our content is in my facebook group, it’s curate your health is my facebook group, a fair amount comes out of there as well.
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
And I alluded to the past that, you know, there’s videos of you working out that you have on there, was that a conscious decision? Was that something that you’re really comfortable with? Or was there some hesitation to do that?
Dr. Heather Hammerstedt
Uh, yeah, I mean, me on social media three and a half years ago versus now is like an entirely different being right like I have definitely improved of walking the walk and being vulnerable and realizing that if people don’t want to see what I’m doing that they can just keep scrolling and that I’m going to be my my biggest critic. And so, I just, I just I feel it’s important that people will realize that it takes work to be healthy. And that so I try to use my stories primarily to just demonstrate what real life works like and that means hanging out with the kids. That means it’s riding the peloton. It means it’s exercising in my office, that means it’s me on the computer taking coaching calls, it means it’s me wearing a mask at three in the morning. Right? And so, I want people to realize that like, you know, life is life and it’s hard work. And that you can do it if you commit to it.
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
It was funny, I was gonna ask you what a typical day look like but I think he just kind of summed it up. Yeah, yeah, exactly the last two hours. If you were to give advice to, let’s say a doctor who wants to start an online business, look, advice would you give them?
Unknown Speaker
Um, I think the question,
Dr. Heather Hammerstedt
I think going in with their eyes open, I mean to be like, entirely transparent, I probably sunk $50,000 into this company in the first year, and worked two full time jobs to do it. And the next year, barely broke even. And I think, you know, and now it’s like, now that it’s flying, it’s like that was totally worth it, but you just don’t know that at the time. And just you never know when the next step is going to mean success, which means you’re either perpetually failing forward or you you succeed the next day and you don’t know which day that is and For me, I’m just like super stubborn. And so it worked for me. And I. So I think going into with your eyes open and realizing that it’s going to take time and money. I think secondly, investing early and asking for mentored coaching help, I think is really important. The third is, I think, having it in mind that the purpose of you doing this is probably so that you are not needing to be present to be making money. And if you don’t understand, if you don’t have that goal in mind, then you are probably going to be setting up setting yourself up for another job like being in position where you are needed, right? And so from the very out front, I was automating and automating and automating and automating and just like investing my time into figuring out technologies So that I don’t have to touch anything. So at this point, you know, I have 12 coaches into two strategy strategy coaches are basically like sales folks. And then the webinar funnel, right and, and I have just tons of like, email automations off of that, like, someone comes in, they get on the phone with one of us, we hit a button, and their program starts. And that entire 12 week program is automated to them. And I think that understanding how to set that up so that you don’t have to be intimately involved is really, really important. Because we have a habit of being martyrs. Yes, I think, I think this is not you know, it’s not the time to do that in the online world.
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
I love it. You know, you’re systematizing things. I mean, you know, I think doctors who they do telemedicine think it’s gonna be easier but yeah, they just gave themselves another job. You know, like with concierge medicine is like I would like do not want to give my my phone out 20 hours a day. It may sound great, but if you’re not, you’re still substituting time for money. You know, you’re kind of almost in the same or even worse position that you’re in. Wow. lots lots of stuff that you got there. I don’t know your employers are the independent contractors and are they virtual? Are they are they in Idaho with you? Other than your husband?
Dr. Heather Hammerstedt
Yeah, the whole the whole company is virtual. So coaches all around the country. A couple of them are here just because they’ve been with me from the beginning. They are independent contractors.
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
This is amazing. Thank you for giving us an insight into your business. No doubt you’re taking over the world. So we’d love to have you on in future and to see how you’re, how are you doing and growing, but if someone is listening to this, and they want to get more information where can they go what’s the best place?
Dr. Heather Hammerstedt
Yeah so the company’s name is Wholist so it’s a play off of you know cardiologists gastroenterologist using the whole person. So W-H-O-L-I-S-T. So our website is WholistHealth.com. On Instagram, I’m at holistic health. And on Facebook, I have a Facebook group called Curate Your Health, where we do kind of daily challenges and education and I do tons of live training there. Free group. Yeah, free for free for the public. Yep. And then I have a podcast as well, anywhere you listen to podcast called curate your health, where I interview other physicians and other experts around, you know, health and wellness and empowerment and leadership. And it’s really fun.
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
Awesome, awesome. And we’ll have links to all of that on the show notes. Dr. Heather. Thank you. was, I learned a lot is amazing. Just having getting insight from somebody out there in the trenches actually doing it. Understanding the ups and downs of being an entrepreneur, it was really educational and really informative. So thank you so much.
Dr. Heather Hammerstedt
Yeah, thank you.
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming
And thanks, guys for everything as she mentioned, she just wasn’t being stagnant. She was out there actually doing it. As always guys keep moving forward.