Kajal Roy Owner of Niyan MedSpa

Speaker 1: 0:30

I think with videos I'm learning that if I make mistakes and I just throw it out there, it's okay. So I'm coming around to it, but that doesn't mean that I'm doing more videos, You're coming around doesn't mean you're there yet. It's a process, sorry, it's a journey.

Speaker 2: 0:48

And that's how I would she do it as a profession.

Speaker 1: 0:53

So I'm a physician and I own a med spa, so I do Botox filler, although filler, I feel like, is trending out. I think now the trend is coming in like gaunt not gaunt, but like not the high cheeks but the thinner lips. I think that's trending in and the high cheeks and the big lips and all that stuff is trending out. So anyway, botox filler, body contouring, hormone replacement, weight loss and, like you know, chemical peels, things like that. I am adding internal medicine into my practice because I miss treating the disease process and preventing it. So I'm starting to now incorporate general practice into my office.

Speaker 2: 1:55

That's cool. I'm not going to do that. It's usually the other way around.

Speaker 1: 1:59

Yeah, I did it backwards. I it's, you know, working with Tina it's. I've done like a complete 180. Mine I went into medicine wanting to do surgery. I met my husband. He screwed everything up In a good way, I hope, in the best way possible, in the best way possible. So I met him at a time where I was like I have to apply for residency and if I go down the route of surgery which I wanted to do cardiac surgery I think that's a long time and if I have kids I won't ever see them and if I have a husband he'll probably divorce me. So I was like, well, I don't, I don't want that for myself. So I never applied for surgery and I applied for internal medicine and I hated it.

Speaker 1: 2:55

The only time I really enjoyed it was when I worked in the ICU. When I was doing procedures I was all sterile, gowned up and had a big old needle in my hand. That was exciting for me. So then I started looking into like Botox and just a way for me to get that fix. I guess Sound like a drug addict, but I. So I started doing it and I do love it. You know, I do love that it changes somebody's confidence, because that I feel like that can just take you to the next level. So I've been doing that for since 2012. I started out doing Botox parties with all the nurses and case managers and stuff that I worked with in the hospital and then I bet you were there like BFF.

Speaker 2: 3:52

When are you going to have another party again?

Speaker 1: 3:54

Oh yeah, they were like, can you bring it into the hospital? And I was like, how about? We just set up a party, and so I did that. And then they started saying, well, can you do this, can you fix this, can you take care of that? And I was like I need a laser for that. So then I bought my first laser and opened up the brick and mortar and I had Med Spa in 2018.

Speaker 2: 4:23

What's the name of the brick and mortar?

Speaker 1: 4:25

Nyan Med Spa. How do you spell that? N-i-y-a-n? Okay, and so I've been doing that. And then I was also working at the hospital, still so doing both. And then 2020, I was like I'm leaving the hospital. And then COVID hit and I had to close down my business. So I closed the business, worked more in the hospital to help out, and then by the end of 2021, I was like you guys got two extra years out of me, I'm out of here, I'm done. So I left the hospital the end of 2021. And then all of 22, I worked remote one night a month for the hospital.

Speaker 1: 5:14

And so this year was the first year where I was like completely cut off. And by July I was like I miss it, I miss medicine. So I think it was January this year. I started weight loss program in my office and I noticed that I was pulling people off of their medications and dropping down their blood pressure medications and my husband goes. You know, you're doing medicine right. And I was like, yeah, and he goes, so why don't you just do medicine?

Speaker 2: 5:46

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 5:46

And I was like you're probably the better business person Does he have his own business, he does. He is actually going through his journey right now, where he has got his full time job and his business. He's a financial engineer and his business is he owns a home health care business. So we're actually in the process of kind of combining the two under one roof. So there's a big long term plan where we just want to keep adding different things, like maybe physical therapy, occupational therapy, to go out to the homes and stuff.

Speaker 2: 6:27

So there's a lot.

Speaker 1: 6:29

Your own empire. My own medical empire. That would be amazing, but it's going to take time. But we have a vision.

Speaker 2: 6:40

I love that. That's exciting. So now, do you still have your? Do you still have your brick and mortar? Then I do, okay, I do so. Now you're adding in internal medicine into it. Yes, what type of services?

Speaker 1: 6:54

So everything. So diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, managing all of those things and then helping kind of get you into the right specialties. So somebody with I don't know congestive heart failure, getting them to the right cardiologist, helping them through their disease process and kind of hand holding them to make sure that nothing's getting missed. Doctors, patients in the hospital, used to always ask what's your role. I have my cardiologist, I have my pulmonologist, I have my nephrologist Like why are you here? Yeah, and I was like I'm the quarterback, I make sure that we are all moving towards the same goal. And they're like oh, so you keep them all in check. I was like I wouldn't say that I just make sure that we're all thinking about things from not just one organ's perspective. I'm just thinking about the big picture. That's awesome.

Speaker 2: 7:58

It's great how much the business of medicine has shifted, where so many individual doctors can create their own practice, and it's more. I just see it more Like growing up. If you wanted to see a doctor, it was you go to the hospital or you go to like one of these old clinics. Your family doctor? Yeah, exactly, and now I'm seeing a lot more like private practices that are working in such different ways, and I think that's so great because it gives patients and everyday people options.

Speaker 1: 8:39

Yeah, and I think options are great. We should have options.

Speaker 1: 8:46

I know that I'm probably I may not jive well with one person, but another person may love me, yeah. So I think it's great to have options and I think people, a lot of people, will say you know, I give all my patients my cell phone number, like, just ship me a text, because I know when you get to the car you're like, oh, questions pop up, I'm gonna ask for that. They just ask me, yeah, and they're like you don't care. And I'm like it's, I do care. That's why I want you to text me. But I also think that you need to be your best advocate. You need to advocate for yourself, because if you're not doing it, nobody's gonna do it for you. So I kind of I went into this being an advocate for my parents, like all through med school. So when I learned medical stuff during school, I learned it in a way where I could explain it to somebody that didn't have a medical background, because I had to explain it to them. What was going on.

Speaker 2: 9:50

Can you tell me about that journey? How is that you got a box of Kleenex? Yes, actually we do.

Speaker 1: 9:58

So that journey. My dad was diagnosed with diabetes in his 40s and he had that attitude of so what has been this mess? Oh, and it's already. 3 problems the same, I'll be fine, it's not going to happen to me, it's, I can eat that piece of cake. And in his defense, I think there just wasn't a lot of information out there and they also came from they're both. They're both.

Speaker 1: 10:36

My parents are entrepreneurs, so they had an education of seventh grade and ninth grade and because they had to both drop out of school to help the family, and so when he was diagnosed with diabetes, he just didn't know what to do and the guidance really was don't eat that. And that was it. And here, take this medicine. So throughout his disease process he started developing other problems and then once I was like I remember I was in med school I came home for must have been for summer or winter break or something and we went to a neurologist appointment and my dad was getting dizzy when he would stand up and the neurologist said oh, you have autonomic dysfunction from your diabetes, take this medication. And my dad was like okay, and I kind of looked at him like you have no idea what he's talking about. And so we left and I looked at my dad and I was like what did you understand about that conversation? He was like just get in the car. So got in the car and he goes. Now tell me what did it mean? So I explained to him. I said well, what happens when you have like all this sugar floating around is it has to be used up somehow. And a lot of the ways that it gets used up is exercising muscle. That's why they tell diabetics you got to exercise just to get it out of there. Or it ends up in your kidneys, it ends up in your nerves and it destroys that tissue. And he goes okay. And I was like that's why you can't feel your feet, that's why, when you stand up, those nerves that control your heart that say hey, gravity has kicked in, we've got to pump a little bit harder to pull that blood up. There's a lag. That's why you feel dizzy. And he was like oh, that's what those two words mean. And I was like yeah, pretty much. So he was like okay.

Speaker 1: 12:58

And I went back to school and I thought I'm not going to talk like that. I don't want my patients to leave my office thinking I just got to take this medication because she said so. I need for my patients to know why they are taking something and what's going on with their body, because the more you know, the more inclined you are to take care of yourself and you understand it and you understand why you're asked to do things. And I think that way also because I'm always like, well, I don't want to do something just because you told me to. I need to know the why. So that was kind of how it changed. My mindset was seeing my dad go through that. Then it was just like one thing after another, he lost his toe, he ended up on dialysis, he ended up getting a kidney transplant he had. I remember one time my mom called me at school and she goes are you coming home? And I was like why do you want me to come home? What's going on?

Speaker 2: 14:13

And she was like oh, I just miss you.

Speaker 1: 14:16

I was like you don't miss me, what's going on? And she said just come home. She was like I just want to see you. I was like okay, so I hopped on a plane, I went home, they picked me up from the airport and we didn't go home. We went to the hospital and my dad had quadruple bypass surgery and he had just come out of the OR and I was like you didn't even tell me what if something happened in the operating room. That's where my cardiac surgery want came in. I did change my mind a couple of times, like seeing him in dialysis. I was like, oh, maybe I'll be an aphrologist. So he just watching him go through each thing it drew interest. Now, looking back, I love diabetes. Not that I want to be a diabetic, but I love that disease process and I think the reason why I like it so much is because it's so preventable.

Speaker 2: 15:33

It's going to say you can do something about it, I can do something about it.

Speaker 1: 15:37

Not a scalpel. He passed away in 2014. And I, honestly, I didn't see it coming. He had the transplant After 10 years. He had transplant failed. He had to go back on dialysis and he didn't want to. And I had my kids at that time and I was like you don't want to stick around for them. And he was like so he did.

Speaker 1: 16:12

He went back on dialysis even though he didn't want to and I remember there were times where I would talk about him to his doctors in front of him, because they just had to fix him. And I remember saying, oh, can we put him on like an appetite stimulant because he wasn't eating? And so we did. And I remember about a month before he passed, he took a little cup of the appetite stimulant and he ate like a champ. That day I was like, oh my God, he ate. I remember we had gone to a place down in Florida they lived in Florida and he shared a fish and chips platter with my mom and he was like, I think I want a brownie Sunday. I was like, get it, order it. And we were all chit chatting and he finished the entire thing by himself.

Speaker 1: 17:17

About a month later he passed away and I was cleaning out his medications and that was the only time he had taken that medicine and I was like I looked at my mom and I said he'd given up a long time ago and I totally missed it. She looked at it. She was like what do you mean? I was like he didn't want this medicine. He just was tired of us poking and prodding him and I think every step of his process I again have changed. Now I poke and prod and talk about emotions and feelings and are you eating? And with all of my patients, because I missed it with him and I don't want to miss it with people that I meet now, that even with my mom I call her every day do you eat? Where do you eat? I was talking to her on the way here. She's in India right now and again I think it's like 11 o'clock at night. I was like do you eat? But yeah, that's kind of my journey of how I've changed and how he's made me change or helped me change or kind of guided me, and I have a vision for what I want my practice to look like now.

Speaker 1: 19:00

Somebody asked me the other day. They were like what would you do? What bothered you about the hospital and I was like, well, I think what bothered me about the hospital was when patients would come in and they're dying and nobody knows what their wishes are. And I have to come in as this new person and ask the hard questions of do we do CPR? Because now it's like everything's a big mess. And now this new person is coming and asking this question and it's like does she not want to do anything? I was like I want to have those hard questions in my office because that's where they are supposed to take place. They're not supposed to take place in chaos. They're supposed to take place in a place at a time where things are good and those decisions can be made rationally. So that's where I see myself count me.

Speaker 2: 20:08

You're right, though, on that last thing. You just said. They ask that question when everyone's on an emotional roller coaster, roller coaster. Even the patient themselves are maybe feeling pain or feeling things that would influence a decision. What made you want to become? That's a beautiful story, and thank you so much for sharing that. That's so powerful and so motivating. What made you want to be a doctor in the first place?

Speaker 1: 20:41

Seventh grade I cut open a frog. I was like, whoa, that's cool, that's kind of what ignited that spark. But I always said I wanted to be a doctor. Even like when I was small I don't think I really knew what that meant. I don't think I really knew what that meant until I actually became one and then I was like, wow, this is a lot of responsibility.

Speaker 2: 21:16

Especially as an emotional person. That like not saying that doctors aren't emotional people. Obviously they are, but there is a line of like you've got to be able to dissociate a little bit.

Speaker 1: 21:27

So this emotion right now is very new for me. I was very guarded. I actually just had a conversation about this with a friend of mine yesterday. I was extremely guarded to the point where, when I would go to pick up my kids from day care, in my head I would think I'm just going to go and run and hug them and I would walk fast to them and freeze and I would just tap them on the back hey, how are you, how was your day? So this emotional, vulnerable part of me is very new. I think it's also because I've been out of the hospital for a year, because you have to be very guarded, because you're walking from one room where somebody's dying to another room that the person's going to be discharged home and you don't have the actual time to process those feelings, so you just kind of block it and move on.

Speaker 1: 22:40

I remember my first year of residency. There was this kid. He was like 19, 20 years old and he had sickle cell disease. He would come in every 10 days in crisis. So we'd, you know, iv fluids, pain medication and kind of send him on his way once everything calmed down and there was probably a little bit of dependence on pain medicines from his part. But I remember one night I was working the night shift and they called cardiac arrest over the loudspeaker and it was to his room and we went there and he was pretty much dead and we still did CPR, we still tried, but we don't know how long he was there and when we called you know time of death and we walked out of the room I had tears in my eyes and I remember my third year resident looked at me and he goes, you're going to cry over him.

Speaker 1: 23:54

And I was like no, I just, I just have something in my eye. Nope, I'm good. And just booked it down the hallway and from that time I was like I can't do this, like I can't have these emotions and I maybe shouldn't. So I just blocked everything out, and that including towards my family, my dad. When he had his great toe amputated. He had to go to physical therapy and he had to stay at a rehab facility to learn how to walk without his big toe. And his roommate had both legs amputated below the knee and my sister looked at. My sister was like that's not fair, he shouldn't be in this room with him to see that every day. And I said, well, maybe he should, because you know that's reality. It could be his. She was like you are nasty Monster yeah.

Speaker 1: 24:57

She was like what is wrong with you? I was like it's the truth, let's go. Should we go get coffee? But that's what the hospital did to me. And now, looking back, I feel bad. You know, I feel bad that I was lacking in emotion in a lot of ways, but it was my defense mechanism and I had to do that to protect myself. Unfortunately, it trickled into my family. But now it's like. Now I just feel and there's nothing wrong with it. I truly thought when working in the hospital, emotion was a sign of weakness, and it's not. It just shows that you care.

Speaker 2: 25:54

It would be hard, though I know I volunteered I've always wanted to be a doctor, by the way, so I volunteered at a hospital to do the. Now I lay me down to sleep sessions, and so it was like my first one. And so, basically, when you photograph the babies, that didn't make it in one way or another. And so I remember walking in with my camera and my name is Aliyah, my daughter, who was maybe three years old at the time. Her name is Layla, and so the little, the baby that passed her name was Layla, aliyah, and then their last name, and I remember I saw that I was like, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh. First it's just like baby in the last name.

Speaker 2: 26:42

But then they said like oh, her name is. I was like, oh, that was like the first like. You know, like slap in the face, yeah, I go in there with my camera. I'm just like crying as I'm taking these pictures. And the mother was just like hugging me. I'm like, no, no, I can't. No, this is so in my head. I'm thinking this is so unprofessional. But they became like my good friends. Yeah, after that and that's what she said she's like, you know, she's like. I think you were the only one who showed true sympathy and empathy with us at the hospital. Not that she was saying anything negative about the nurses yeah, yeah, yeah, she's like, but there is, they see it all the time. And because I was like I'm so sorry for like crying, yeah, I think it's just part of the culture, though, and the hospital is not. You can't show emotion, but it's not professional, because you've got to Well, you have to move on and take care of the next one.

Speaker 1: 27:39

Yeah, that was like that was another big thing. Tina and I had been kind of going back and forth on should I take insurance, Should I not take insurance? Should I let them dictate how much time I can spend with my patients? And I think right now, just talking through this with you, I was like no, I like to have time with my patients. You know, if I can spend an hour with each one, that's worth it. It's not only worth it for me, but it's worth it for my patients, because you're not going to get anything in 10 minutes.

Speaker 2: 28:14

No, well, and the challenge with that? So I go to a private my family does a private where we pay, I think our doctor visits 500 and Like a concierge take place, correct Insurance doesn't do anything with it. I want an hour to sit there and talk to my doctor, like I don't want to feel like I'm rushed. Yeah, but the challenge is that's only you know. Most of the population in the United States is you know what I mean. You kind of pigeonhole yourself. Yeah, I knew what you meant.

Speaker 2: 28:54

See, I said weird stuff. You pigeonhole yourself into a very small demographic of people that would be able to Afford that Afford that type of.

Speaker 1: 29:06

So that was my other thing I think about, like the Medicare patients. My mom's a Medicare patient and she could afford to spend the money to go to see a doctor concierge. But the woman is like, oh, I can't even buy a small French fries for McDonald's Can't.

Speaker 2: 29:35

Yeah, it's too much.

Speaker 1: 29:37

And I'm just like mom, you can afford McDonald's French fries. So I just I don't want the older patients that are on Medicare may be limited in their income, not be able to get the care. So that's my struggle.

Speaker 2: 29:58

The dilemma.

Speaker 1: 29:59

Yes.

Speaker 2: 30:00

Yeah, I think that would be hard.

Speaker 1: 30:01

It is nothing to do with the money. It has to do with my time and then the affordability.

Speaker 2: 30:10

So it's a shame, though the way the insurance like the whole and I won't get into this topic, but I think it is a shame the way the whole insurance world works in terms of like being the middleman, making lots of dollars.

Speaker 1: 30:25

Well then you have people that are telling you you can't order something, but they don't really know why you're ordering it. They don't understand. So yeah, don't even get me started on insurance.

Speaker 2: 30:37

We can do a whole episode on that. Okay, so kind of like looking forward into, like just the industry overall. What are some things that you talked about, like what you would like to change in the hospital setting, but like as an industry overall, what are a couple of things that you wish would turn the page or kind of shift a little bit?

Speaker 1: 30:58

when it comes to that.

Speaker 2: 30:59

How would you like things to kind of shift a little bit?

Speaker 1: 31:02

As far as Madison, or aesthetics, because I feel like they're kind of they're both different.

Speaker 2: 31:08

Yeah, okay, well both. Let's start with aesthetics.

Speaker 1: 31:13

I think with aesthetics, I think I want, I wish my patients would not want to look like somebody else and I think I hope that that's going to change. I hope that I have patients that will come in and be like, can you put more filler in? And I'm like, nope, You'll have to go somewhere else and I'm okay letting them go. I don't want my name associated with something that's gonna look crazy. I also don't want it to look unnatural and I think that aesthetics-wise it is kind of going that way. People are embracing who they are. They are at least the older generation, and when I say older, what's older.

Speaker 2: 32:06

I was gonna say what's older.

Speaker 1: 32:08

Like 30s, 40s I would say like my age, like so mid-40s up, I think, people that are in their 20s and 30s. There's still some maturing that needs to happen. There's some truth to that. When you hit 40, you just really don't care.

Speaker 2: 32:32

Yeah. I'll be 40 next year, so but I was there two, three years ago.

Speaker 1: 32:37

Yeah, and you know, 40 is not like the cut-off.

Speaker 2: 32:39

Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know what I mean.

Speaker 1: 32:41

Like, as you go through things, you're just like why do I care what people think? Yeah, I'm gonna do things for myself. And I think at 40, I hit that, and that was a while ago I kind of hit that moment with I don't care anymore, I'm living for myself, I'm gonna do what's gonna make me happy. And so I feel like my patients that are in that age range, like 40 plus, are embracing their natural beauty and I love that and I hope that continues. I hope that the 20 and 30-year-olds can see themselves for the beautiful people that they are, without wanting to be somebody else.

Speaker 2: 33:26

Do you feel like? What do you think is influencing that? Oh, social media, 100% I don't want to do a leading question there.

Speaker 1: 33:34

Social media? Yeah, definitely, definitely social media. And you know, I have patients that will come in and be like oh well, I saw on Instagram, I saw that they were doing this injection and that injection and I was like I'm not doing it, you don't need it, your face is very different from their face. And they'll come in with the reels to show me and I just I'll just I tell all of at least my patients. I'm like, no, this is what you have to work with and this is what will work with your face, because we're not trying to look like her.

Speaker 2: 34:17

Yeah, it was one of the weirdest trends that you've seen on social media when it comes to aesthetics.

Speaker 1: 34:27

One of the weird. I think it's the alien cheeks. What's the alien cheeks? The alien cheeks and the pointy chin.

Speaker 2: 34:36

A lot of celebrities are doing that, right yeah.

Speaker 1: 34:41

I feel like if you take it too far, you almost look like the Wicked Witch of the West. Isn't that the green one? Yeah, yeah, put a little mole on there, yeah, and with the hair, yeah, I don't. And I do see, I do notice that people are like no, I don't want to do that anymore. So I hope that that's going away, because that was just becoming really crazy.

Speaker 2: 35:06

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 35:09

But yeah, the pointy chin. I was like, why do you want a pointed chin? I don't understand that. It looks so unnatural.

Speaker 2: 35:16

Yeah, that's funny. Yeah, I think one of the weirdest things that I've seen is these people that want to look like either Barbie or Ken, where their whole face has been manipulated.

Speaker 1: 35:32

Yeah, frozen. And I've actually heard of some people where they're like oh, I went to this place and they recommended 16 syringes of filler and I was like, what's normal, what's normal, I will not put more than two. Oh wow, I won't do more than two at a time. 16 is like that's crazy town.

Speaker 2: 35:54

I'm trying to imagine where you put 16 syringes.

Speaker 1: 35:57

I don't even know For me. I will say I'll do two, and then I'll say you know what? Let's revisit it in a couple of weeks, let's let it settle in, and then we can always do a touch up if we need to. But if I put in 16, I can't take it all. I can't take one or two of them out. You know, I just it doesn't make sense. Yeah, that's funny 16.

Speaker 2: 36:23

So what are a couple of things you like to shift, that you would like to see changed within the medical profession?

Speaker 1: 36:30

I think what we talked about before is just having those important conversations early. Okay, yeah, and that's just. That hits home for me. Yeah, and it doesn't ever happen. I feel like anytime some older or even younger person that comes in and they're super sick, that conversation has never taken place. There's actually this form I don't even know if it's legal in Virginia. I know in Maryland. I used to practice in Maryland. It's called Five Wishes. It's like 10 bucks you pay for it and it's just a simple worksheet that you can go through with your loved one or whoever, and it's just asking those hard questions.

Speaker 1: 37:18

To just start the conversation, we did it with my dad and he said that he, if he died in the hospital, he wanted us to at least bring him to his driveway. I was like, why, you're not going to know, but it was very important to him. So I remember when we took him home in hospice, I asked them. I said if he dies in the hospital, then you take him to the driveway. And they were like, absolutely not, it's not legal. And so we were like, well, guess, we're taking him home then. And it was just, we had like a roadmap as to how he wanted to go on his terms. Now, mind you, all people don't have that. I call it a luxury, but at least you have an idea of what people want.

Speaker 2: 38:29

Yeah, what is it called Five Wishes Worksheet? At least, yeah, five Wishes.

Speaker 1: 38:35

It's just, I mean songs you want playing, just the things that you wouldn't ever really think to talk about.

Speaker 2: 38:43

Yeah, you think about that for your wedding or for like a celebration, yes, but not your end of life. Yeah, that's interesting. So who are you outside of your career?

Speaker 1: 38:55

I'm a mom, I'm a wife, I'm learning to be me, I'm learning to take out time for myself. This is going to sound really stupid. I'm Indian and I say that with such, with a lot of power behind it, because it's something that I fought for a long time. My parents, my parents, are both Indian and my dad was very proud of it and he wanted us to be very proud of it too. But we grew up in right outside of Richmond Virginia.

Speaker 1: 39:44

There was three Indian people at my high school me and my two sisters and we had to assimilate. We had to fit in, and back in the 90s or the late 80s 90s, I was in high school. In the 90s it was just fitting or just be left to the side. So I just I fought it. When I met my husband, he looked at me. He goes have you looked in the mirror recently? And I was like huh, and he goes you know you're brown, right? I was like, oh yeah. And he goes embrace it. And so I was like, well, I mean, I do, I do like all the things you know, I do like the culture things and whatever. And he goes okay, okay.

Speaker 1: 40:49

And we actually just went to India for two weeks over Thanksgiving. It was my husband's first time in India and he's the most Indian person you've ever met. That had never been. And my two boys, they went with us or we went on a tour, so we have no family over there. And the first morning we had met up with our tour group and the tour guide gave us like these lanyards and a little piece of paper to write on, write our name on. And so we wrote our names and we stuck it in the little plastic thing and put our lanyards on and he came around and he was like okay, god, joel. And then you know my kid's names. He was like Nikhil, arian and my youngest, arian, looks at me and he goes and I was like I already know.

Speaker 1: 41:45

He goes. I didn't have to tell him how to say my name correctly and I was like, well, your name's from here, yeah, these are your people, and he goes and you could. I mean, I don't know about, I can't speak for my kids, but for me I felt this instant sense of belonging. I was raised here, so I am American. America is my home, born in the UK, so I'm British by birth. But this trip made me realize I am Indian through and through, and now I'm like outwardly proud. So this is that something. There's been a lot of new changes this year, so that's, I mean, that's me. I'm a mom, I'm a wife, I have a bunch of nieces and nephews that I adore. I love spending time with them. I like, I love being with my family, not just like the four of us, but even my extended family.

Speaker 2: 43:03

It's like the music to you Jam in the car.

Speaker 1: 43:06

Oh, hip hop.

Speaker 2: 43:08

Like what type of hip hop?

Speaker 1: 43:11

Like the stuff from back in the day, like in the 90s. You're younger, so if we're on a road trip and like you're trying to get pumped and we're trying to get excited about wherever we're going, I would say like biggie Smalls or actually like Hispanic music. Yes, I really like my husband goes. I'm pretty sure you were Hispanic in your last life.

Speaker 2: 43:50

Like your hip, start, move in. And you just like Wow, this is like um.

Speaker 1: 43:54

So yeah, I do like Hispanic music. That gets me like just in a really good mood. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 44:01

Saying that's so funny.

Speaker 1: 44:04

I don't understand a word of what they're saying, which is maybe sometimes good.

Speaker 2: 44:08

Yeah, I think it's good, because then you're not focusing on that, you're focusing on the beat and the rhythm and it's speaking to your soul in a different way. Yeah, yeah, and in terms of like, if you had one message to share with the world, what would that message be, especially after all these transitions you've gone through this year?

Speaker 1: 44:31

Save a voicemail of the important people in your life. I think that is something I wish I had. I wish I had one of my dad calling me up and saying darling, I haven't heard from you, where are you? So, yeah, I think the simplest it is just yeah, save a voicemail of all the important people so you can one day hear it.

Speaker 2: 45:04

I love that. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for being on the show and for sharing so many beautiful stories with us.

Speaker 1: 45:09

Thank you for inviting me. How does that connect to that?

Speaker 2: 45:10

How does that connect us all in through the mess.