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Ep 234 – Funnny…Not Funny

What do you do when you messed-up?

Everyone makes mistakes in their practice and the way they connect with clients and that’s okay.

Join Geraldine as she talks about how she messed up in the past and how she managed it with humour and turned her mistakes into valuable lessons.

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Get a taste for content in this podcast:

 

When I mess up with people on the phone or texting or whatever, I apologise. 

Then I go through things to try and make sure that my processes are in place – that I don’t do it wrong again – that I don’t upset people. 

 

Podcast Introduction:

Mentoring with Geraldine is a bite-sized practitioner podcast for Naturopaths, Nutritionists, Herbalists, and practitioners. Responding directly to the needs of the practising natural therapist.  With interviews, herbal discussions, something business, something clinical … you’ll get the variety you need to enjoy, and stay motivated, in practice.

 

 

So thanks for joining me today. Don’t forget to rate, review, and subscribe to the podcast for our episodes. If you’d like more support, get in contact and I look forward to working with you soon.

Episode Introduction: We All Mess Up!

 

Hello everyone, and welcome to “Mentoring with Geraldine, and the Bite-Sized Podcast”  How the devil are you? 

 

I’ve been in business a long time, right? 

And when you’ve been in business a long time, other people think:

 

“She’s amazing”. 

“She’s incredible”. 

“She can prescribe at the first appointment”.

“She’s so fast – she knows what she’s doing”. 

 

Yes, I’ve been in business 20 years. I’ve been in healthcare, for what feels like forever. 

So I thought today you might like to have a little bit of a giggle at some of the things that I’ve done.

I’ve got 2 glaring ones – 1 of them just came to mind, and it just made me think:

 

“Oh, you can have a nice, fun podcast for this one”

 

Let’s Case Study These Mess Ups: 😆 

 

So a couple of my mess-ups from the past:

 

* Mess up #1 

 

So this is not my mess up. 

Mess up #1 was in college. 

 

The lecturer said:

 

“Make sure if you are going to explain the ingredients in a product, you are really careful about how you explain them”

 

She said:

 

“One of my clients… “- 

(they already had a multi B, and she wanted them on a different multi B)   

 

and she said:

 

“It’s got this in it, and that in it …and your one hasn’t”.

 

One of those items was boron. 

What she didn’t say to the client (and what I encourage you to always say is):

 

“Finish what you’ve got, and then we’ll move on to this next product”.

“In the meantime, hopefully we can get more of these foods into you, and maybe we don’t even need that product”.

“Maybe we can get these other foods in you and then we can use something different, or nothing at all, because the foods have done it”

 

But she’d said that boron was one of the items (in the new product). 

 

So he thought to himself:

 

“Well, I’m going to take my tablet. I’m gonna finish it off, and there’s boron under the sink in the kitchen where I keep it because it’s Borax, and it’s a cleaning product”.

 

So he proceeded to take some borax, and ended up obviously in hospital in A&E, having burns in his mouth from the Borax, from the cleaning solution. 

So A&E phoned her and said:

 

“Did you tell him to take Borax?” 

“Who are you?” 

 

To which she replied:

 

“No, there’s boron in this product”. 

“Yes, there’s boron in Borax, but it’s totally not the same thing”.

 

It’s the tiniest amount in the world that’s in this tablet. 

Why would you go and take Borax from under the sink? 

 

So it’s not a funny one, but it’s a learning one. 

Rather than say:

 

“Let’s finish what you’ve got”

“The reason I’m going to get you onto this one (provide explanation) …”

“… and these things are in tiny amounts, but they’re in the right form”.

 

She didn’t say that. So – that’s learning #1. 

So that was when I was in college. 

 

* Mess up #2 

 

Then when I was in college, and we were right at the end when you’re in clinic. 

Well we had a lot of refugees in the area, we were in.

 

So we had a translator there, this particular day, and I had one of the clients from this community and the translator was there.

 

I would say:

 

“So what did you eat for breakfast?”

 

Then he (the translator) would go”

 

“Bli-dip”

And she (the client) would reply:

“Bli-dip”  (like 1 sentence). 

 

And I would ask:

 

“How much water do you drink?” 

“How much coffee?” 

 

(Because I always do a 24-hour food recall, if I haven’t got a 7-Day Diet Diary). 

 

So she was sort of making these little answers to him:

 

“That’s 1 coffee a day”.

 

Now this woman had palpitations. 

She had a lot of PTSD. 

She’d been through an extremely traumatic, horrible, horrible war event, and much of her village had been wiped out basically. 

She was 1 of the survivors.

She dug herself out from underneath dead bodies. 

They’d only managed to shoot her in the shoulder or something, and they hadn’t killed her, like they’d killed 100s of other people.

 

So she had had this very, very traumatic thing happen to her, so she had palpitations. 

So it’s obviously the anxiety – the palpitations. 

It took quite a bit with this translator to understand, that she was having 1 coffee a day.

Who cares you know?

She said her diet was actually pretty good now.

 

There were quite a lot of basic staples in there, because that’s what she was used to eating. As they’d been war-torn for a long time. 

So she’d kind of got used to eating potatoes and things. 

So we had to encourage the vegetables back in. 

 

Then when I saw her again a fortnight later, and I’d given her some herbs and I said:

 

“How are the palpitations?”

 

And there had been no change?

 

But I had a different translator and I said:

 

“How many coffees are you having?”

Then I looked at my notes and of course it’s rude, isn’t it? …. when you have forgotten what they said last time.

 

I looked, & I said:

 

“Ooh, it’s just 1 coffee, isn’t it?” 

 

And the translator had said:

 

“How many coffees?” 

 

… to ensure he had understood me, and then started talking with her. Then we got to a point, where I had to say:

 

“Hello, I’m here. Can we find out what’s going on please?”

“What the answers are?”. 

 

Well it turned out that she was only having 1 coffee a day. 

It just turned out it was a Turkish coffee every day – in a pot – those bubbling pots that go round and round.  

So, there’s like a litre of Turkish coffee every single day in this pot! 

 

So once we managed to wean her down off these to 2 espressos a day, most of her palpitations went away, along with the supplements and the herbs that we’d given her.

 

She was getting a lot of counselling and a lot of support as well. 

So with all of those things, this anxiety and these palpitations went away. 

 

So when we say:

 

“How many coffees are you having a day?” 

 

… let’s remember to ask the quantity. 



* Mess up #3 

 

Fnally the last one, this was also in the student clinic.

 

This was because as I’ve said, I always take a 24-hour diet diary – I always ask what they’re eating. 

 

So I said to this lady:

 

“What do you have for lunch?”

 

 And she said:

 

“Oh, oh. Wellll …. ummmmm”

 

And I said:

 

“Well just describe it”. 



She said:

 

“Oh yeah.  Well, there’s some meat and there’s lettuce and tomato and bread, bit of pickle and some sauce”

 

And I said:

 

“Well, that sounds great. You know, a bit of a salad”

 

She said:

 

“Yes, yes, salad. That’s right. There’s salad”

 

I said:

 

“Oh, fabulous”. 

“Could you put some apple cider vinegar on that to aid your digestion?”

 

(Because she had a lot of bloating problems – she was burping, and a bit of reflux after her lunch). 

 

I said:

 

“Maybe you could add some apple cider vinegar there to help with the digestion and we’ll try different things”. 

 

She’s like:

 

“Oh, okay then”. 

 

Then we went on with the rest of the consult. 

Saw her again. She came back, and I said:

 

“How did you go with your salad at lunch – with adding the apple cider vinegar?”

 

And she said:

 

“Well, actually it was really horrible. It wasn’t very nice at all”

 

I replied:

 

“Oh, that’s strange”

“When I put apple cider vinegar on my salad, I really like it”. 

 

“So it’s a salad – so how did you put it on?”

 

And she said:

 

“Well, it really soaked into the bun”

 

I said:

 

“The bun – in your salad?” 

“So what is it that you have for lunch?”

 

And she said:

 

“Well, I have a burger from the 3 arches (the golden arches)”. 

 

So no – apple cider vinegar isn’t going to go well on a burger. 

 

It’s Totally OK to Mess Up – So Long as We Learn From it:

 

So I thought you might enjoy a little giggle on today’s podcast and think:

 

“Yeah, I’ve made a few mistakes and it’s okay”

“Because Geraldine makes them too”. 

 

We all make mistakes and we’re all learning.

Every time we meet a new client, we are learning. 

Every time we touch base with a client, we are learning.

Connection and communication – how we script with them. 

Those have been learnings for me over the years. 

 

I did a coaching course – a year-long coaching course. 

You don’t have to do a year-long coaching course. 

You can just join The Academy and get all the information from in there.

 

The Trap of Being Too Prescriptive:

 

But I did that (Coaching Course) because I realised that I was too prescriptive.

I was telling people what to do. 

No one was doing what I was saying. 

I was like:

 

“Well, you have to go and do this – you have to do that – you have to do this – you have to do that”

“You’re on 5 schnitzels a week – you can’t have that”

“You have to have this, that, and the other thing”

 

Well, they didn’t do it, did they? 

 

 


 

Because change is hard, and change takes time. 

So we all make mistakes in the way we connect 

(or don’t connect in those cases)

with those clients. 

We’ve all messed up at times and that is okay

because we take them on as learnings. 

We take them on as learning for ourselves

so that we can grow 

so that we can become better practitioners

 


 

 

So, you know that I messed up.

When I mess up with people, on the phone or texting or whatever, I always apologise.

I go through things to try and make sure that my processes are in place – that I don’t do it wrong again – that I don’t upset people. 

 

So from today, have a good giggle.

If you want all of  the scripts and everything, Yes, they’re in The Academy

Such as: How to speak to people, and what to do, and what to say. 

 

Wrapping Up:

 

I hope you have a good one.

I hope this has set you up for the day with a little giggle – of the burger with apple cider vinegar on it, and the coffee pot. It wasn’t just 1 coffee. It was a litre of coffee! Ooops!

I hope you have a good one and I look forward to seeing you next time.

 

You know the deal – subscribe, follow, share the podcast with your colleagues. 

Pop it in the Facebook groups that you hang out in, so that other people know it’s here, and so that they can learn from these sessions with me in the podcast.

 

Because the more I’m shared, the more people learn, and the more people I can help. Which is what I really want to do, and where my passion lies.

 

So we all have a passion, don’t we? 

I want you to stick with your passion, and help me with mine. 

So have a good one and I look forward to catching up with you soon. 



Signing Off:

 

Thanks so much for joining me today. Don’t forget to rate, review and subscribe to the podcast, for the weekly episodes. If you’d like even more support and learning, then The Academy is for you. Here, you’ll find part 2 of the herbal discussions, more clinical learning, and case studies, to support your clients in practice. 

 

Bye for now.