Timestamp
2:29 Meagan O’Leary’s backstory
6:29 From CPA to running bagel bakery in Gig Harbor, Washington
9:10 Becoming a part of University of T Mobile and then getting a job at Microsoft
11:47 Coping with cancer
13:03 How Meagan cured herself and the beach ball metaphor
15:45 Meeting Joe Dispenza and what he said to Meagan
18:00 From poor me syndrome to prioritizing sleep and exercise
21:36 How to start your next thing
23:25 Metabolic approach to cancer with Nasha Winters and Foundation training
28:43 How Meagan sets herself up for success
30:00 Your network is everything
30:52 Meagan’s reading list
Social Media
Meagan O’Leary on Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/meagano/
Follow Patti Dobrowolski – Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/upyourcreativegenius/
Follow Patti Dobrowolski – Linkedin
https://www.linkedin.com/in/patti-dobrowolski-532368/
Up Your Creative Genius
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SUMMARY KEYWORDS
worked, people, microsoft, creative genius, called, ran, little bit, gig harbor, bagels, move, fantastic, health, week, washington, joe dispenza, writing, life, learn, sleep, happened
SPEAKERS
Meagan O’Leary, Patti Dobrowolski
Patti Dobrowolski 00:03
Hello superstars. Welcome to the Up Your Creative Genius podcast where you will gain insight and tips to stomp on the accelerator and blast off to transform your business and your life. I’m your host, Patti Dobrowolski. And if this is your first time tuning in, then strap in because this is serious rocket fuel. Each week, I interview fellow creative geniuses to help you learn how easy it is to up your creative genius in any part of your life.
Patti Dobrowolski 00:39
Hey, everybody, oh my gosh, I have Meagan O’Leary here, she is the most incredible person, you are going to love all the things that she talks about. I can’t wait to get started. But I got to introduce you first. Welcome Meagan first, just. Hello!
Meagan O’Leary 00:54
Hey there!
Patti Dobrowolski 00:57
So, let me just tell you, everybody, she’s a Director in the Customer Experience and Success Operations at Microsoft. Now she’ll tell you if you want to hear more about what that is. But let’s just say that in her 16 years of working at Microsoft, she’s driven these award winning operation improvements, digital transformation, modern technology deployment within a complex matrix environment, which Microsoft is. But she is known for her collaborative leadership, her uncanny bias for action, and for leading teams to do what people consider to be the impossible. But my favorite part of your bio was when you wrote about yourself as a coach, advocate motivator that you learned from your own and your clients experiences that the true and most successful path to health and wellness stems from self empowerment and autonomy. Oh my god, I can’t wait to talk about that. So welcome to the show. Thank you. Alright, so good to see you, too. I see you have in the background. For those of you that are just listening, she’s drawn a picture of her and me, and she’s got a picture of her most recent map up there. So that’ll be fun to see what of those things already happened because I know you you draw a map and then boom, you got to draw another one like a week later. The consummate activator here. So tell everybody a little bit about yourself. How did you become and do and get to who you are today?
Meagan O’Leary 02:29
Well, okay, I live in Seattle, Washington right now. I grew up on the east coast of the United States. My whole life there. My dad was what we call a beltway bandit. So anybody lives around the Washington DC area knows that means he worked for the government as a West Point grad. So he actually even worked with Liddy Dole and Robert Reich, and it was just an amazing place to grow up in a subdivision called Wayside, and Tamarack. All the kids that grew up there. We still go and share the things we learned we did because we had a creek that ran all the way around our neighborhood. We’d go and play in the creek. And we share still the stories of those times in the Facebook group, which is really fun.
Patti Dobrowolski 03:08
But anyway, so the first thing is it stands out to me as your dad was a West Point grad. Right. So that just tells you right there. What an incredible, you know, disciplined environment you grew up in?
Meagan O’Leary 03:22
Yeah, well, yes. And he was a West Point hippie as well. Okay. All right. That’s good. A little bit of West Point, hippie, and yes, he was disciplined. He was an engineer. And he moved on. He eventually left the government had his own companies did mergers and acquisitions. But I ended up staying in Seattle area in the Washington DC area. Tell us about 27 years old. Okay. And yeah, and I was my early career. I was a certified public accountant,
Patti Dobrowolski 03:47
CPA. Oh, no, no, that’s fantastic. Okay, good.
Meagan O’Leary 03:53
I graduated when there was a bit of a recession on the East Coast. When I was in school, I went to University of New Hampshire. I worked in the controller’s office, or they call it comptroller’s office. My first job there was the registrar’s office was going from accepting checks and money now just dating myself here checks and money to a computer system. So my job was all of the registered ladies. They’re all ladies would scooch the little chairs up around me and I would teach them how to use their computer.
Patti Dobrowolski 04:19
Oh my God. And so you know, how far afield is that today? You just really getting everybody to scooch their chairs up so you can show them like, Okay, here’s some magic I meant to do on the computer, just watch.
Meagan O’Leary 04:33
And they were laughing and it was kind of fun. So I went to University New Hampshire, I went back to Washington, DC where I grew up, I ended up getting my CPA license, worked for a real estate development company for a few years. And then my grandmother had been in Tacoma, Washington, we used to spend our summers there, just passed away, left the family a little bit of money. So me, my brother and my mother, we decided to move to the Washington Tacoma area and open up a bagel bakery.
Patti Dobrowolski 05:01
That is fantastic.
Meagan O’Leary 05:03
Now,
Patti Dobrowolski 05:03
You know, I spent part of my childhood in Tacoma too. Did you know that? That one of my great aunts lived there? And so we would go there. Yeah. Yeah. So all right. So you worked in a bagel bakery, you had one.
Meagan O’Leary 05:15
We had one we ran for a few years. Hard work. Learned a lot. I would say the biggest learning experience I always tell people I had from the bagel bakery was probably towards the end of my two year run there. A woman came in and said, your cinnamon raisin bagels have no raisins in them. Why would we have cinnamon raisin bagels and not have any raisins? And she goes, Why can’t see them? So there aren’t any raisins in there. And I ah. So we have a big mixer. And we would mix the raisins in. I said, Would it help? If I mix the raisins less? So you could see them? She goes, that would be perfect. I said then would you believe that they have raisins in them? Yes, she said. But I can’t tell you how much that left an impression on me around perspectives and different people’s perspectives. Even though there were raisins in there. She couldn’t see him. She didn’t believe that they were there. Right.
Patti Dobrowolski 06:02
Oh, so, then how does that translate to your everyday life? Now when you think about that, that you have to leave a little trail of something that’s more visible so that people understand that it’s there. Yeah.
Meagan O’Leary 06:15
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. People can’t see it, smell it, touch it, whatever their favorite way to experience the world that it doesn’t exist. This woman just needed to see her raisin.
Meagan O’Leary 06:27
I love it. So what happened after that?
Meagan O’Leary 06:29
So after that, I moved from Gig Harbor, Washington where we opened the bagel bakery in the 90s. And you can go back and look at Gig Harbor in the 90s. It was not Gig Harbor up today. And we sold bagels. But we didn’t sell bagels like you would sell bagels on the East Coast and the East Coast. People buy bags of bagels and cream cheese. People in Gig Harbor, Washington, they wanted sandwiches with high labor. We were fairly successful, I would say and we didn’t anticipate there being so many sandwiches that we would be making every day. So anyway, we sold that I moved into the city and I worked and went back into accounting as a controller for various restaurants in the city. So if anybody’s in the city, you would know the B-liner Diner at the time the Coastal Kitchen, the Five Spot or something called Luncheonette. So we’re for these gentlemen Mr Chow Foos. They ran these restaurants. So I was their controller. And I would ride my bike from restaurant to restaurant and do the books, essentially.
Patti Dobrowolski 07:26
That’s fantastic. Yeah, I love that. Yeah. Okay. And then how did you end up at Microsoft then?
Meagan O’Leary 07:32
Okay, so after that, I went to a restaurant that was a cross over in Bellevue. And I worked there for about a year and a half. And the gentleman that was running the restaurant, and I, he and I just, I’d say we didn’t get along so well. So I ended up losing my job. I’d never been fired before. So I was fired. best thing that ever happened to me. I mean, the moment no, but back best thing that ever happened. So I collected myself. And I met this woman who did placements at the time I choose, she’d helped people find a job. And so I went and met with her. Still, she and I still talked to this day. And I remember I had on this beautiful suit. And I went in to talk to her and said, look, you know, I’m looking for my next thing. And she looked at me as if you need a new cycle, not a new cycle. She goes, you just need a new cycle. And I said, like what she said, Well, there’s a little company called Western wireless out in Issaquah, Washington, those of you aren’t local. And they need somebody temporarily to take a role for somebody and accounts receivable while this woman’s having her baby. And I said, Okay, so you think that’s a new cycle? She goes, Yeah, it’s a new company, a new industry, and you’re out of the restaurant. I think it’ll be good for you. So I go, and I get this temporary job with Western Wireless. And with a permanent job, Western wireless becomes VoiceStream VoiceStream becomes T Mobile. So I did an eight year run from I remember us having 100,000 subscribers on the VoiceStream network. And then we were purchased by Deutsche Telekom. And so I ran really all the back office systems for what became T Mobile at the time.
Patti Dobrowolski 09:01
Wow. That is incredible. Oh, my God. I remember when T Mobile was happening then became such a big kaboom. Yes. All right. So T Mobile.
Meagan O’Leary 09:10
Yeah, we call it the University of TMobile, because all of us that are there. Again, we’re all in a Facebook group. And we still share information. And it was really a close knit group of people. So from there, I was recruited into Microsoft into leading a, they call it a time a customer data integration project. So it was a data mastery project. And I’d been running the back office systems for SAP for SAP, and I implemented SAP, at T Mobile. So then I go to Microsoft, and I got more into the data space. And so from there, I moved into the Partner Group, which I think you work with a lot of folks in the partner Yep. So that’s how I kind of kind of touch base. Then I went to a field facing sales tool implementation role. Then I moved into finance for about six years. Then I moved into the Microsoft Consulting Services. And now I’m in the organization which is CNS, which is.
Patti Dobrowolski 10:06
Yeah, fantastic. Well, and what I know from you is that even in the time that I’ve known you, you’ve moved around in there. And that’s the I think the beauty of Microsoft is that once you get there, you can move around a lot into different organizations, you can have different roles, you can expand yourself, and and you certainly have now, what in the world do you think? Did you enjoy all that movement? And then what happened to you after that? When I met you, you had just recovered from cancer? So say a little bit about what that.
Meagan O’Leary 10:38
Oh yeah. That happened in the middle of it? Well, so my philosophy at Microsoft has always been I would come in, build a strategy, put together the plan, implement, and I always finish what I started, always. But once I finished what I’d start if there wasn’t something exciting where I was, I would look for something new.
Patti Dobrowolski 10:55
Something else. Yeah, yeah. easily bored. Gotta move on. Right.
Meagan O’Leary 10:59
Yeah. I think that’s part of my nature. Yeah. And, you know, I think I have a pretty good brand, Microsoft, and I’m known for getting things done. I’m known for, as you mentioned, in the bio, working effectively with others. And, as you mentioned, in the middle of my career in finance, I was in finance six years, probably longer than I’ve ever been any place. I ended up with a cancer diagnosis. And, you know, it was a hard time for me. Really hard time.
Patti Dobrowolski 11:29
Yeah. Well, I and you were in a relationship at the time. Right. And you have a young son? I do right. 14 now. Yeah. And so but at that time, you know, that must have been really scary for you. How did you cope with all of that?
Meagan O’Leary 11:46
Cope isn’t interesting. I don’t think I did cope. It’s interesting Patti, look and see if I have it. I do have it. I know not everybody can see the video. But I was thinking about one of my coping things that or, something that happened, and I’m holding up this book called Meagan Bear Adventures. And I’m going out of the office for about three months ended up with a double mastectomy. So I had cancer, both breasts and different cancer in both breasts. And while I was gone, my team purchased this. It’s a describe it for folks. It’s a rainbow bear. And it would light up and see the lights. And while I was out for three months, they would take the bear to meetings, there was an outing, there was a party, and they took the bear to the party.
Patti Dobrowolski 12:28
I love that.
Meagan O’Leary 12:29
So you see this book,
Patti Dobrowolski 12:31
That is so sweet. So the sweetest thing ever.
Patti Dobrowolski 12:33
That really, that is so amazing. And one of the things that to me is amazing about you, is that you claimed your health, you reclaimed it. And so say a little bit about what you did, because you’re a complete bio hacker. I mean, you check your metrics all the time about where things are. And so talk about how you learned about that and what you did to help yourself, really cure yourself. You really did. Talk about it.
Meagan O’Leary 13:02
I did. I did cure myself. And the way I describe it to people is, this is the metaphor I have used when I talk to folks. And when you’re involved in a diagnosis, you know, you’re talking to the person that’s giving you the diagnosis, and they have a perspective. What I came to learn is, is my beach ball metaphor, and I’m writing about it right now, if I’m sitting here and you’re sitting across me, Patti, I’m looking at the yellow stripe on the beach ball, you’re looking at the red stripe, right? There’s somebody over here looking at the blue stripe, and another person looking at the green stripe. Yeah, each one of those stripes is a doctor or a therapist or oncologist or someone within the world given me a perspective on my diagnosis and my prognosis. And what I realized is, I can’t just listen to the one stripe story, I need to get up on top of the beachball look down at all the colors, and really listen to what people are telling me, and then figure out what’s going on in my body. I do a lot of testing, I do a lot of blood draws, and different tests, different modalities. I even have a continuous glucose monitor that I wear every day to see what my blood sugar is doing. And so I test and I assess, and I make decisions on what I think is right for me to do.
Patti Dobrowolski 14:12
What you need to eat and how much sleep and things like that, right?
Meagan O’Leary 14:16
Yeah. And I’m not perfect in any means with this. It’s hard. I just looked at the options. I did the research. I had the mindset of everything’s a good idea until it’s not a good idea. And so I would look at and being somebody who worked on machine learning and I know statistics, I would look at the statistics and what folks are saying and in the cancer space, it just turns out that the treatment tends to in a conventional way, go towards the worst case scenario. Yeah, if you look at anything as a sine curve to it, yep, there’s the right side and there’s the left side and then there’s the middle. I decided I didn’t want to plan for the worst. I wanted to plan for the healthiest. Yeah, the healthiest alternative, how I could be the most vital how I could live as long as possibly could.
Patti Dobrowolski 15:01
Yeah, yeah. And so you did. And so you are true. Alright. And so part of that is you took that three months to really take care of yourself. But then how did you change? Because I think, oftentimes, and this is just my perception, and you can say. What drove you into having that kind of activating that cancer gene that you had, right? But I often feel like stressful environments where you’re working too much not sleeping enough eating really crappy food, and they all these things contribute to the activation of it. And what did you change in your behavior as a result of getting that? What changed in you? Or what didn’t change? Because there’s so many things did, right?
Meagan O’Leary 15:45
Yeah. You know, one story that I haven’t told a lot of people. It was a four years ago, this month, that I was diagnosed breast cancer. And a month after that, I got on an airplane and flew down to this church called Agave. I’m not somebody who’s generally very religious, but Agave is run by Reverend Beckwith, do you know him? Yes, yes. And he had a guest there named Joe Dispenza. And so I went there. And I actually met some fantastic people. And so friends with them today. And I ended up having a conversation with Reverend Beckwith, about my situation. So look, I was just diagnosed with breast cancer, and I’m super stressed out about it. And he took both of his hands and he put them right above my chest, and he closed his eyes. And I’m standing there, I’m like, Okay, I’m not sure really what’s going on here. And it was about a minute and he opened his eyes, he said, You are going to live a long life. And I realized one of the keys to living that long life was to rethink some things. But also that connection that I had with him in the moment was amazing. Later that day, I got to meet Joe Dispenza, a friend of mine that I met there knew him very well. And I had a conversation with him around, you know, hey, what does it take? What should I do? And then he and I had a conversation, he said, you know, you have to make the choices that work for you, there’s probably not a path, that’s the same for everybody. But you have to make the choice for you. And I was actually going back and forth around mastectomy and not to have a mastectomy. And he looked at me, he said, it may be that getting a mastectomy is going to help you jumpstart your health. And I thought, why I had never really thought about it that way, you know, that you can get through some of the dysfunction in your body, and you can jump started. So with that, that was kind of my start on what would become the journey of last four years.
Patti Dobrowolski 17:32
Yeah. And you know, one of the things that you said in your bio, is that you believe that the successful path is through self empowerment and autonomy. And so autonomy is like you in the beach ball. Right? And self empowerment is you reclaiming your choices, right? Not being victimized by it. Did you ever find that you felt victimized by the experience? We just had some days where you’re like, why did it happen to me and like that?
Meagan O’Leary 18:01
Yeah, definitely. Poor me syndrome. Yeah, for definitely poor me syndrome. And one of the things that you asked how the why of this, or you know, what happened? What did I change, I had some roles over the years, that I would get up at five in the morning, I would do cardio, I would jump on phone calls, I would work all day, I try to take a break in the middle of the day, but I’d be back on phone calls at nine or 10 at night. So I was running a pretty long day. And you know, even the breaks I was doing during the day didn’t help me refresh. And often I would choose cardio oversleeping. And when I think back on those days, or even look at some of the sleep tracking, I would have nights with for sleep. Yeah. And now seven hours is what I did.
Patti Dobrowolski 18:44
Yeah, that’s what I was going to ask you actually was okay. So if that was your day in the past, what’s your day in the present? What does it look like for you?
Meagan O’Leary 18:52
Yeah, what I found for me is I prioritize sleep. Yeah. So if I’m looking at this, I’m like, Well, I’m, I’ve got something going on, I’m not gonna go to bed till 10. I’m going to sleep in rather than getting up and working out. And I do prioritize working out. It’s very important to me to move my body. Effectively, I beat my office into the basement, and I workout room right across the way so I can run over and ride the bike or do something. So it’s a little more integrated to my with my day, then separate and apart. But let’s say sleep versus definitely the magic for me.
Patti Dobrowolski 19:21
Yeah. And also the other pieces that you got to place up on Camino island during that same time, right. So you were able to get out into I don’t know the woods as much as you can get in the woods. Right. You’re right on the water there. And yeah, so I think these things play an important role. But then how did your wife deal with it and your kids? I mean, how did your son deal with it?
Meagan O’Leary 19:46
Um, you know, my son’s been great. He had empathy at two they say that they don’t even fear to but he did have empathy at two. I do think he’s still protective of me. Yeah, okay. I think he felt like he was or could lose me so easily. does have a little bit of protectionism towards me? And Shannon, my wife, it was just a jolt for both of us. And it brought us closer together.
Patti Dobrowolski 20:09
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Well, she’s such an amazing coach in her own right, you know, just getting people motivated to change their life and get things going. So, I mean, it’s an amazing combo, the two of you, number one, and also that you were able to really transform yourself. And for years, that’s all it’s been. So I think I met you right at that time, when you had just been, you know, you had gotten your first clear from that, when you went to the doctor, they said that it was clear,
Meagan O’Leary 20:38
It was clear it, it came back and clear to came back and cleared several times. And I’ve, you know, finally figured some things out. I mean, notice, for me, I’m 40 pounds lighter than I used to be, I also prioritize connections with others and connection with myself and be mindful of what I need and super mindful of what I want from other people. And then something that’s also important is what are those boundaries for my life, you know, to have the relationship with my family, to spend the time with my family to be able to get the sleep I need in the workout. So, you know, boundaries in this type of situation become really important. And I would go back to the bear and the people that work for me, and yeah, how loving and caring they were for me. And while I was gone, they covered for me, when I came back, they made sure that I had the time, I needed to take care of myself, because I was doing things like high dose vitamin C twice a week and hyperbaric oxygen, oxygen tank, I get into for 90 minutes. So I had a lot of things I was still doing. And they were fantastic.
Patti Dobrowolski 21:36
Yeah, that’s fantastic. And I just think that one of the things that I really admire about you and appreciate is that you’re always looking at what the next thing is that you have to do, whether it’s in your career, or whether it’s in your health, you’re always trying to figure out well, now what now what do I need to do? And so when you think about the now what for what you’re doing now, what do you envision for yourself? I know, you appreciate your work at Microsoft. But what else are you doing or thinking about? Are you doing any writing what’s happening?
Meagan O’Leary 22:09
I love to write, I was a journalist. Before I was anything else where I was younger, I was on the school paper. It was interesting how I got away from that. And I’ve back at it. Now I actually have someone who edits my writing for me, so I can write more. I’m writing my beach ball story right now. All right, usually on my the anniversary of the finding out I had breast cancer, I try to write something as well. So I’m in the middle of that right now. And for me, I’ve started to coach at bring some folks on scholarship that I coach on, how do you work through an early diagnosis? What are the things that you can think about? How can you create your own board of directors around the beach ball? And how do you want to be with it? What do you need to do to get your mind body and spirit back to where you need to be? So I do work with women in that in that regard? I am working I’ve I’m a certified primal health coach with Mark Seisen. I’m a certified heart math coach, do you know Heart Math? Yes, of course. Okay, yeah, about heart coherence head heart coherence. And so it’s a practice that I have, I use their biofeedback tool to look and see, how’s my coherence? And what can I do to make sure I’m going to do maybe a stressful situation? How can I manage it more effectively? But right now I’m studying to become a health and wellness coach, through the Functional Medicine Institute.
Patti Dobrowolski 23:23
Oh, yeah. Fantastic.
Meagan O’Leary 23:25
Yeah. Finishing up something at a training program. It’s called the train advocacy program with Nasha Winters, who wrote the metabolic approach to cancer. And finishing that up right now, it’s all about how to help people assess with their doctor what’s happening with their terrain, so they can have the right plan to do what I did, essentially. And then I’m doing something really fun called Foundation Training. Have you done that? You know, what sad foundation training is all about breathing and posture, think about having a lot of scar tissue in your chest, and it can cause your body to pull in. And so I found foundation training as a way to open my body back up, and then also help with some back pain that I had. And it’s a series of, of movements that pulls you out in decompresses your body, but creates a spiral such that you can you can move in a healthier way to not pull yourself.
Patti Dobrowolski 24:13
I love that I got to do that for sure. You know, I got that scar, that railroad scar, I got to do something with that. That’s all Yeah, I have to have that conversation with you offline. That’s fantastic. Now, behind you, you’ve got a vision map up there. So I know that we’ve done many of vision map together. So tell me what’s in that vision of the future for you what’s up there on that picture?
Meagan O’Leary 24:35
Well, I don’t know if this is the last one. Well, it must be because what’s in there for me is when I decide I’m going to leave from Microsoft when I have no idea when that is how do I expand upon this coaching that I’m doing right now with people to help them find their own path? And you know, I want to spend more time doing that. I want to spend more time learning these if modalities and ways to help people because I love doing it. For someone who did not do well in high school Biology, you know, just for me to have learned all this and picked it up and even this foundation course I’m going through all the anatomy and physiology how the body works, just for me to bring more of that into the world to help more people is really what I want to do.
Patti Dobrowolski 25:13
Yeah. And you’re gonna be so fantastic at that. I know that I have been like pushing you to do for a long time, like, get out, do it. But one of the things that you talk about is you talk about some people’s perception of cancer, and how they have it and what they say about it. Can you speak a little bit about that? You know, where people just talk about it? What happens to them when they get it? What they talk about when they beat it?
Meagan O’Leary 25:40
Yeah, well, I can tell you that some people become the diagnosis, they become the prognosis. I get a little frustrated when I hear someone say it’s not curable. Well, it’s not curable, the way they define curable, but I can take you back to my Joe Dispenza conversation and the power of intention. And I never want to live my life with something uncurable. I would reframe that in whatever way possible. Yeah. For myself.
Patti Dobrowolski 26:07
Yeah. What else? Good, because we’ve talked about this before. And I’m curious, like, so if somebody stuck in that mindset, you know, when people give you a diagnosis, and they say you’re only have four months to live, I remember they said that about my mother. We never told her that. We never told her that they had said that because we’re like, yeah, they don’t know, they really don’t know. And so she lived longer than that. And who needed to know that right?
Meagan O’Leary 26:34
Yeah. Well, they Nasha Winters that I was mentioning I study with, she had ovarian cancer was given very little time to live. She was really sick. And she’s 50 years old. She’s still with us today teaching everybody what have worked with 1000 people and then teaching others how to have the right conversations around your terrain in your body. And, you know, the other pieces is as you’re sitting there, around the beachball, again, talking to the oncologist, and they’re giving you the path forward to do your research to understand and, and not Facebook research, you know, I love when I go to Facebook, and someone says, Hey, I’ve read this diagnosis of cancer, what supplements should I take? And I always say, well go get your blood tested and tested and understand what you need. You don’t need what I took, or you don’t use oils took you need to know what you need, you know, and you know, for me, when I look back on this, I needed to get more connection with my community, I need to get more connection with myself, I needed to have the right boundaries, I needed to sleep more. And so the sense what I put forward to both people get really clear what you need. And don’t get so stuck in the prognosis of it all. Yeah, because even if you have a day to live, that’s a day, you how are you gonna have that to be the best day you’ve ever had? Does that answer your question.
Patti Dobrowolski 27:47
Yes. And I was thinking too, there’s something about belief, right? And so you in a way, you always set your self up for success by what you believe. And that is something that I know to be true for you is that, you know, you rarely doubt yourself unless somebody says something and you think what, you know, but you really have been very forward moving, in terms of your career, and also in terms of your health, like you’re not passive at all. And I think that’s part of making good changes not being passive, realizing that everything, without exception is here for you to grow from, right. And so grow was so when you think about that whole trajectory of what you went through, what did you learn? What did you learn from it? What was your big aha?
Meagan O’Leary 28:43
Well, that curiosity is the way forward, that you really need to embrace knowledge, you know, learn the things, if you didn’t learn biology, learn some biology, so you know what people are talking about. Don’t just hand anything over to any one doctor. And doctors are people too. They have their own limitations. And not every doctor knows nutrition. And so create that right team for yourself, integrate perspectives from as many people as you possibly can. And don’t get stuck in the dogma don’t get stuck in your own beliefs. You know, my belief was that I could get better and I had a vision of what better looked like. But I continue to ask questions, you know, am I making the right decision? Let me look at all sides of the story. And then continue to adapt is as things change, as there’s new information, then continue to adapt for sure is you notice things before?
Patti Dobrowolski 29:33
Yeah. And when you think about so people that are listening, who want to be a better leader or want to pivot in their career. I mean, you’re the consummate change maker. That’s what’s true. It’s like when you feel like this is boring. I’m done with this. You move on and what would you say to someone who feels that way, but isn’t quite sure how to make that leap? What would you recommend to them that they think about and consider and then do.
Meagan O’Leary 30:00
In this may be a little bit different than you’re thinking about, I’ll say, you know, at Microsoft, it’s been as much about my network as anything else. Yes. Like who I know. And hey, hey, I’m looking around, what’s the next thing? Give me ideas. And it’s always through the connections that I find the next thing.
Patti Dobrowolski 30:17
Now, so your network is everything, right? Network is everything.
Meagan O’Leary 30:21
It’s everything. I thought, my smart my brain was everything. When I was 23 year old. I was kind of a pain in the ass. Actually, I’m in a different place. Now. I’m like, oh, I need other people. Yeah, people.
Patti Dobrowolski 30:34
Yeah, network is everything. Well, if you were to just tell us a little bit about what you’re reading right now, or what are you into right now so that we can get a glimpse into what the future is? I know you’re writing again. So you’re going to write a book that’s going to happen. But what are you reading?
Meagan O’Leary 30:52
I’m reading Eric Goodmans book that just came out. He is the Foundation guy. It’s about a little bit about foundation training. It’s about pain, about cannaboids. And the cannabinoid system, a little bit about THC, interestingly enough, and he’s interviewed in his stories about a lot of people that he worked with over the years. So I’m reading his book, it just came out, I think about four weeks ago, I’m going to meet him at the end of the month, when I go for the training, the foundation training I was mentioning to you. And I’m reading another book off to share it with you. It’s about movement. So I guess where I am in this whole journey right now, whereas it was in a body, as in a mind is really movement? How do I move my body? And how do I move things through my body? It’s really kind of where I am.
Patti Dobrowolski 31:34
It’s incredible to me that every time I talk to you, you have done something amazing and new, that you’ve learned something that like a totally different health hack, or something that you’re exploring to see, what does this do? How can I use it? So when you turn your practice on, you turn Microsoft off and this practice on, it’s going to be incredible for people that need help. And you know, you told me at the very beginning, you talked a little bit about a podcast that you had done. Can you say a little bit more about where people can find that? We’ll put it in the show notes as well. But what’s your podcast about?
Meagan O’Leary 32:16
Yes, with an ageist magazine, a gentleman named David Harry’s Stewart started this. He’s a photographer. And he’s now a bit of a journalist. And so he interviewed me, he and I met through similar calls, similar way that I met you. And he and I started talking to us. Let’s do a podcast. I go. That’d be fun. So we just did last week came out yesterday. There’s a My birthday was this week, too. Yes. Okay.
Patti Dobrowolski 32:39
Happy birthday!
Meagan O’Leary 32:40
I can’t remember I told you that. So that podcast goes through everything that I’ve done soup to nuts on. It takes a while to go through it like the red line around a cold plunge tub. And just I go through all of it there. So it’s with a just magazine.
Patti Dobrowolski 32:55
Okay, we’ll look for that. That’s fantastic. Well, I can’t wait to see what you’ve come up with. And I know that the next couple of years are going to be very exciting, because we’re going to hear a lot more from you and your story. So everybody, you know the drill, just follow Megan O’Leary, you can find her on LinkedIn. But there are a bunch of other places you can find her in the show notes. So follow her and I just can’t thank you enough for being here today and sharing your story with me and all the things about how you became who you are today. I know everybody’s gonna want to hear the story, especially but you’re curing yourself. So thank you so much for everything today.
Meagan O’Leary 33:33
And I can talk to you forever, by the way, so
Patti Dobrowolski 33:37
I know so we’ll bring it back. Oh, do it that way. I can’t wait. Okay, everybody, you know the drill. If you liked the podcast, pass it on to your friends. And until next time up your creative genius. Thanks again, Megan. Thank you.
Patti Dobrowolski 33:54
Thanks so much for listening today. Be sure to DM me on Instagram your feedback or takeaways from today’s episode on Up Your Creative Genius. Then join me next week for more rocket fuel. Remember, you are the superstar of your universe and the world needs what you have to bring. So get busy. Get out and up your creative genius. And no matter where you are in the universe, here’s some big love from yours truly Patti Dobrowolaksi and the up your creative genius podcast. That’s a wrap.
