Speaker 0:01

Welcome to the Heart Led Business Show, where compassion meets commerce and leaders lead with love. Join your host, Tom Jackobs, as he delves into the insightful conversations with visionary business leaders who defy the status quo, putting humanity first and profit second. From heartfelt strategies to inspiring stories, this podcast is your compass in the world of conscious capitalism. So buckle up and let's go. Let your heart guide your business journey.

Introducing Dr. Diane Mueller: Wonder Woman of Wellness

Tom 0:36

Peepers, we're on the fabulous heart-led business show, and we're dishing up a hearty helping of health hormones and holistic happiness with our terrific guest, wonder woman of wellness, Dr. Diane Mueller. She's lighting up lives with libidos galore at my libido doc. So take a break, buckle up as we dive into the delightful details of her business, bringing in a bonanza of bewitching buzz. Dr. Diane, welcome to the show.

Dr. Diane Mueller 1:05

What an intro. I love it. I actually have a Wonder Woman sticker on my computer. So Wonder Woman of wellness. I'm totally taking that. I love that intro.

Tom 1:14

Awesome. And that's a really good. I think it's an appropriate name for what you do and we'll definitely

Defining a Heart-Led Business

Tom 1:20

get into that. But before we do, I always like to ask, what is your definition of a heart-led business?

Dr. Diane Mueller 1:25

My definition of a heart-led business is a business that is really oriented to purpose as one of the core leading missions. My particular purpose with my business is really helping people understand that pleasure and happiness is not just about desire, but something that we require. So that's one of the things I would say is a purpose oriented business, but also a business which is connected to spirituality, which is connected to always doing the right thing, which is connected to caring for our staff and treating people with love and kindness, you know, and understanding the complications that come with human existence, right? Understanding when people have a bad day, understanding when people have a bad moment and really working to approach business and the way we, I lead both with my patient care, as well as with my leadership, with my team, with compassion, with kindness, understanding forgiveness, but also with motivation purpose and goal.

Tom 2:23

No, that, that's great. And I hear that a lot about aligning the purpose with the business and that it really helps kind of drive the entrepreneur to achieve more in the, in that business. Of course on the flip side of that, there can be struggles with the business side, and we'll definitely get into the business side and what that all looks like as

Dr. Diane's Journey and Business Inspiration

Tom 2:44

well. But before we do that, why don't you tell us a little bit about your business and what inspired you to start it?

Dr. Diane Mueller 2:49

So I have a couple of businesses. The main one I'm focusing on these days is my libido business. It's mylibidodoc.com and this business was really inspired by a few different things, but one was through my own discovery of pleasure and what pleasure could actually do for healing. So I'll give you a story. So in my twenties, I started developing all of these very strange vulvar symptoms. And I was very confused about what they were. I was going get UTI tested and STD tested. And luckily everything was negative, which was awesome, but I would be lying awake at night with pain and wouldn't be able to sleep and nobody could figure out what was going on. It was just this weirdo, you know, type of thing.

The Power of Pleasure in Healing

Dr. Diane Mueller 3:34

Well, what I ended up doing, encouraged by my roommate, was I started a masturbation practice. And what I learned with that is with that first night of exploring this, I actually had a hundred percent of my pain go away and I could sleep. And then second thing, second night, same thing. Third night, same thing. And after a couple of weeks of doing this, I was completely pain-free. So that just opened my mind was one of the first things that open my mind to the concept of pleasure beyond even sexual pleasure, just pleasure in general as a human. And it's been fascinating to me over the years, all of the things, all the hormones, all of the nervous system, inflammation, weight loss. We see all the different things that actually get. Brought back into balance when we allow our body these times of day to actually explore pleasure in a wide variety of different ways. And yet, you know, it's like, I feel like in functional medicine and holistic medicine, we talk about diet and lifestyle and sleep and, you know, exercise and all of these great things for healthy living, but pleasure is still this like missing piece of the conversation. So that's one of the things I feel like most excited about with my work is really helping people understand that we have these pleasure receptors in on our body all throughout our body for a reason. It's actually part of how we balance ourselves and balance our stress. So that's really what I work to do is I work to educate and support people to get their energy, to get their health, their hormones, or relationships all back into balance using a wide variety of methods, but pleasure being, you know, one of the things.

Tom 5:10

That's very interesting because I haven't, like I've heard hormone and libido work with a lot of functional medicine docs that I work with, but not the pleasure piece of that. So how does that come into play with your clients?

Dr. Diane Mueller 5:22

A lot of different ways.

Balancing Hormones and Stress

Dr. Diane Mueller 5:23

So, you know, one of the things we see, I do work with a lot of post-menopausal and pre-menopausal, perimenopausal women. So, so 35 to 55, when women are really good at kind of going through that change. And I will wind up working with testing hormones and balancing hormones and, you know, hormone replacement therapy and all those great important root causes. But also one of the things we see that makes menopause and that transition period so hard for women and men too, as they go through their andropause, the change in hormones for men period. One of the things we see that makes it so hard is stress. And I always like, every time I say stress, I'm like, this is so cliche, right? So I like. So tell everybody like, hold on, I'm going someplace because we all know stress is a problem but right. So, so stress, what winds up happening when we are stressed going into menopause, oftentimes 10, years of stress. What happens at that time of transition is our adrenal glands, which produce our stress hormones, at menopause are also supposed to take up some of the slack of the ovaries no longer producing hormones. So as the ovaries stop producing hormones, the adrenal glands actually produce a hormone precursor called DHEA. So the adrenals produce this, the DHEA turns into estrogen and testosterone. And if things are going well, we actually can have our adrenal glands, our stress glands, take up some of that slack, you know, from that got, say, lost at menopause, and that transitions a lot easier. Well, most of us are not going into this point of life super easily, right? It's like kids, career, job, house, all the things, and it's just gotten a little out of control sometimes from an overwhelmed perspective.

The Importance of Oxytocin

Dr. Diane Mueller 7:01

What we see is we can do all sorts of various things to re regulate our stress response, but one of the most profound ways of actually re-regulating our stress response is through use of oxytocin, our pleasure hormone. So we actually see that it rebalances the way the brain is communicating and sending signals to the body about the appropriate level of those stress hormones. So in working with women of this age, I do lab testing to look at all sorts of hormone levels, at the adrenal levels, at thyroid levels, working on the gut and the diet and wide variety of things. Cause there's so many factors, but the place that I really emphasize that I think, like you said, does get lost oftentimes with a lot of women and males during this time period is really comes down to that, that balancing of the stress, that balancing of the hormones through pleasure. So many times in life, especially for people that are in long term monogamous relationships. So many times in life, like that's the point where it's like the relationship can feel a little stagnant. People become roommates, you know, just pass each other in the night and still have that deep care about each other. But how amazing it is when we can actually start going through and putting together these techniques to actually start falling like deeply and passionately love with our long term partner.

Tom 8:15

Yeah. And the added benefit of reducing stress at the same time and living better and healthier too. That's awesome.

Dr. Diane Mueller 8:21

Yeah, exactly. And cardiovascular has research on weight loss, on melatonin increase. So we have a improvement in sleep. We see a, we see research on cardiovascular improvement. We see research on memory even and oxytocin. So that's what I'm saying. I feel like it's like with all the studies I've seen on oxytocin, it's like, we have this magic, like, amazing chemical in our brain that regulates so much of our body, and yet we're not being taught to like prioritize and make this a, you know, even just a small part of our day to help us self regulate. Even just a small part of our week.

Tom 8:56

So having that date night, for sure is mandatory once, once a week.

Dr. Diane Mueller 9:02

Yes, absolutely.

Scheduling Intimacy and Maintaining Relationships

Dr. Diane Mueller 9:03

You know, the funny thing about that too is like, I talk a lot about, about, you know, scheduling the date night and scheduling intimacy escapades. Sometimes is what I call them. And it's so funny to me and it makes sense, right? Anything that's funny to me around like common things I hear also are very logical things. And I understand why people get to where they do because my common thing, right? It's like, well, if I set schedule sex, like, gosh, like Dr. D, this is just not spontaneous at all. And true. And. Oftentimes in the beginning of our relationships, you know, it's like we schedule our date night on Friday, you know, like when we're meeting somebody and then we schedule like when we're going to see each other again. And we call and text and we schedule schedule. So it was never really spontaneous in the beginning when it was hot and passionate. It's only like when we move in together and start combining our lives and we think supposed to happen on accident that we actually stopped scheduling it. So in the beginning, it wasn't spontaneously. So we have to just reorient to like, you know, to that I think is a thing as well.

Tom 9:58

Fascinating.

Transitioning to the Business Side

Tom 9:59

And what, I mean, what great work that you're doing too, to help so many people, but let's transition a little bit into the business side of running a heart-led business. And one of the reasons I started this podcast was to highlight just what effort needs to go into the business side for a lot of the heart-led business owners that don't really like sales or they don't really like the business side. So how do you balance being a heart-led business and making money?

Dr. Diane Mueller 10:25

I was at a business conference this weekend with Mindshare community that I absolutely love, JJ Virgin's

No Money, No Mission: The Balance of Profit and Purpose

Dr. Diane Mueller 10:32

group. And one of the speakers was saying something that I looked up and it looks like quite a few people say this, but I hadn't heard it said just like this before, which is 'No Money, No Mission'. And I was like, Oh, what a brilliant way of helping people. Cause so many times, right. It's like those of us that go into business, which is why I think your show is so important because I think so many people are, you know, starving that are in the medical profession or in the helping profession in any sort of way. Because if there's this, almost this like. Mentality, right? Of like, well, I need to help people. And like, in order to help people, like I got to make my services like, you know, free or super low cost. And it's like bad to charge money and all those things. And I really love this whole thing about no money, no mission. Because when I've seen people, for example, try to pay, when I've seen other clinicians try to pay their bills by doing things like keeping their prices super low, I'm like, What winds up happening is over in order to pay their overhead, they have to see maybe 30 people day. Well, I see like, you know, most days I see a max of eight people a day and that's on a super busy day I do that right because it's like. That's because if you do more than that, like the brain doesn't work as well. Like you're not really delivering people like that super high quality service. Plus, you know, there's no money, no mission thing is like money that comes in and charging a good value for what you are giving allows for us to put money back. It's like, there's so much money that comes into my practice that I put right back into the world to create free content, to to find more people. To be, go to conferences where I can meet more people that help me with the mission. And it takes money to actually build more things, to put more things into the world. So I think, I really think it's one of the most profound statements that really just clarifies, like, if there's not money coming in, there's not energy coming in. All money is, in my mind, is a different form of energy, right? And so that flow of energy is just so essential. So if I'm putting all of this effort out and I don't have any energy coming back in, in part through the form of money, then I don't have any resources. I don't have any energy. I've drained myself. My resources. I'm depleted. Which means I can't help anybody because I don't have any resources left. So it's important that we do charge in order to have this mission to help people because in order to have a mission, we have to have money. We have to have that energy.

Tom 12:58

I love that. No money, no mission. That's great. And I prescribe to the, that selling is serving, as well. And, know, because like you said, if you don't have the resources, you can't help people. You know, put your oxygen mask on first before helping others.

Dr. Diane Mueller 13:12

Yes, exactly. And at the end of the day, it's like, if a clinician can't afford to pay their bills or get a massage because they're stressed or. Eat good food to like, keep them energized, keep their brain working well. Like none of it's going to work. So I really think we just have to get out of that poverty mentality and realize like money, we can actually take money and also provide real positive, amazing value for people. And unfortunately those things are like really thought to be like at opposition when it's really, truly a both.

Tom 13:46

Absolutely. Now, you know, I've heard other practitioners that don't have the same mentality say that, but I can't charge a lot because the clientele that I want to serve doesn't make that much money or cannot afford my services. So how do you balance? You know, some people I'm sure can't afford what you offer. How do you balance that and still you know, making a living?

Dr. Diane Mueller 14:07

It's a great question.

Creative Solutions for Serving Lower-Income Clients

Dr. Diane Mueller 14:09

And so I, this is where I think like hybrid models can come in really well. So like, for example, one of the things I do is I have my one on one type of practice, right, where people come and they get that one on one care. But then I have low price educational programs where people are basically come in group format. And it's not medicine, it's education, but I teach them how to get well. And so that's been one of the things I've been able to do where because in a group format, I'm able to see a lot more people. It's done through this educational model, not through this medical model. And when I first started that, It was like an unknown as far as like the results I would have with people. And I've been blown away. And I think in some part, because I'm truly it's because it's truly education, not medicine, and people are just learning what they need to do to get well. They also, what's interesting is there's so much more almost like personal responsibility that I've seen where people really take charge and that model of their own health and actually a pretty profound way. And so that's been a way that I've been able to still serve people that have, say a lower income and still maintain the integrity of needing to serve my mission by bringing enough money into the clinic. So there's a lot of different ways people can do that, but that's like, you know, one way around, like, you know, like another thing when you're, talking about. Okay, well serving you know, lower income people. One other way is, okay, well, maybe there's a higher price point for certain people and then certain number of people are taken into the clinic every month. Maybe that up to prove income and some of your higher price people help to pay for the lower price people, their scholarship options, you know, so I think there's a lot of different creative ways to do it, but that's where I really, that would be my advice to people that are really like, In that, Hey, I want to really serve this type of population, which, you know, it's very important, but of course we still need to set things up in a way like, okay, well, how can we do that and be creative about still having enough money to come in to actually, you know, feel like we can take care of ourselves. So that's the way I have found that.

Tom 16:11

Yeah. And that's a really great compromise as well. So, yeah. And, you know, it was interesting what you said also about people taking personal responsibility. And, you know, I hear this all the time as well from especially doctors that are still in the insurance model, where the People are coming in, they just, they want the pill, whatever, or the pill, potion or powder to make them feel better. And there no personal responsibility. And yet, you know, our insurance rates are still going up. Our healthcare costs are going up. And because people really aren't taking personal responsibility, you get to the root cause of what actually their problem is. Obviously as part of functional medicine, you go to the root cause of the issues. How else are you able to help people kind of, get to the real problem that they're having and take personal responsibility?

Empowering Clients Through Education

Dr. Diane Mueller 16:55

I do a lot with the nervous system and reprogramming the mind. I created a system after over 20 years of meditation and Qigong studying like really deep studying sometimes 30 day meditation retreat. So I've done a, you know, a lot down the road of working with the mind. So I have a program where I kind of synthesize all of my studies over the past two decades called Hack Your Mind. And what I'm really working to in this program and I offer it. To my one on one clients for free, the current price right now for the program is 27 dollars for those that paid for it. So it's still like, really, you know, my goal with this program is like empowerment, like, make this accessible, right? So it's a really low ticket price point. And I do that because from a standpoint of health the personal responsibility like we're talking about, I really find is one of the key, most important things. And what I do in that process is I take people through This program of understanding the subconscious and finding the subconscious thoughts that are actually getting them stuck, that are leading to not taking full responsibility, that are leading to, you know, sometimes victim mentality. And sometimes it's just people that just get stuck in these thought loops of being sick for so long. And just like, it's amazing how many people on a subconscious level actually believe that they're not going to be well, or they don't deserve to be well. And that, you know, maybe they won't say that to me consciously, but when they start going through my process, they actually realize like, wow, I have some real self limiting thoughts that are self sabotaging. So that's one of the best things that I've seen is like actually working with the mind and those subconscious thoughts and triggers to figure out like how are those subconscious drivers actually preventing people from taking either that full level of responsibility or just preventing them from getting in that neurological state that is really promoting healing.

Tom 18:47

Great explanation.

Surprises and Challenges of a Heart-Led Business

Tom 18:48

Circling back to the business, I don't know how we got off on probably my questions, but have there been times where as a heart-led business, you've had this really wonderful surprise that, that came from being a heart-led business?

Dr. Diane Mueller 19:01

Oh, I mean, I guess I get surprised all the time in life. I've had patients send me gifts, you know, and that's always a sweet thing. I think one of the fun surprises I've had this month is I got invited to be on a eight part primetime TV show that I just got filming last week. And so I think that some of the biggest, most fun things really are being invited to, you know, to speaking events, to speaking here with, you know, people like you, because I really feel like the best thing from a standpoint of being a heart-led business, one of the best things is having the opportunity to turn my voice into one that reaches hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands or more in a, you know, in a single conversation. And that's what happened just last week. Just this filming that is going to go out to 35 million people. Where it's like my voice then is, you know, it's just talk about exponential. You know, I'm a very efficient person in my business. Like how can we take what we're doing and be as efficient as possible? So I think I really nailed week on that.

Tom 20:01

35 million. That's pretty amazing. That's Now on flip side of that have there been those moments where you're like, Oh, if I were just profit driven, this would be so much easier.

Dr. Diane Mueller 20:11

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, because I think some of the things right in, in like profit driven, right. You know, scenarios like I had. I had somebody early on in business coaching tell me you could be rich or you could be right. And, you know, when customer sometimes that is not happy with something, you know, and even in heart-led business, sometimes customers have moments where they're not happy about something and they express this. I really always encourage I really like open, you know, transparent communication. So I much prefer people if they're not happy about something to chat about it. Right. I'm not a shove it under the rug business or person. So I do appreciate where people bring things up and in the motto, you can rich or you can be right. You know, anytime people bring, you know, something up that they're not happy with, of course my ego gets hurt, right? And so in a, hey, if I could be, you know, if I could be right all the time, that would be what my ego would be saying in those moments is like, well, you're wrong and I'm right. And let you know, stick it to you, which not what I do. Right, but you know, that's a you can be rich or you can be right. So you can be right. I can lead by my ego and really not hear those people and hear what's underneath whatever they're talking about. Or I can really decide to put my ego aside. And really listen, not just to what their, you know, whatever their complaint is, but what truly is beneath it by asking questions. And, you know, if I was just profit first, it would just be like, Hey, I don't care. Like, this is what we said. Like, I don't care if you're happy or not. This is our, how we, our policy and all those types of things, which, you know, sometimes in acute scenarios could be easier, certainly on my end. But it certainly is just not from a standpoint of core values, how I run my business or my personal life, you know?

Tom 21:56

Absolutely. I actually had that one of those conversations last night. So no, and you know, it's so funny you're like going into the conversation, you get that voicemail, you get that text message and you're like, and then take a deep breath, go, okay, there's a kernel of truth and everything's, you know, perception is everything, right? So, you know, just, take a step back and then, you know, and it turned out to be a great conversation and we expanded, you know, some of the business opportunities. So, you know, it all like when you, between the head and the heart, you know, when you let that heart kind of lead it really does work so much better than just going right the primal instinct of, you know, be rich or right.

Dr. Diane Mueller 22:33

Yeah, exactly right. Yeah, good advice early on in my profession.

Tom 22:37

Well, Diane, it's been just a fascinating conversation of just where you've been and how you're managing having a not a profit led business, having a heart-led business. And know, thanks for sharing

Conclusion and How to Learn More

Tom 22:47

that. How can people learn more about you and what you do?

Dr. Diane Mueller 22:50

Yeah, the easiest thing, if anybody is interested in leading their life with more pleasure, is just to go take my libido quiz at libidoquiz.com. So that's in that quiz, you will take that quiz, and I developed that with the help of a programmer. Which is really designed to take a look at all the questions you answer and say, Hey, for the uniqueness of you, here are some of the top areas where you might need to get tested on, lab tested on, as well as some potential treatment solutions to talk to your doctor about. So it is really designed to be actionable for people that take that quiz. So that's at libidoquiz.com. And then any of the other work I have, you know, my one on one care, my ebook, all of that can just be found by going to my main website, which is super easy. It's just mylibido.com

Tom 23:35

That's such a great URL to have. Well done. Well, Diane, thank so much for sharing your expertise and your wisdom and your heart with us. I really appreciate it.

Dr. Diane Mueller 23:45

Thank you so much for having this podcast and the work you do. I think it's such an important work for business owners to really understand that we can have both, you know, both money, both heart, both happiness and amazing businesses that truly help the world. So thank you so much for having me.

Tom 24:01

And to our listeners, thank you for watching the show today or listening to the show, depending on your platform of choice. We really do appreciate it. And make sure you're checking out what Dr. Mueller has provided. And we've linked all of that up into the show notes, so it makes it super easy. Just go to the show notes, click those links. Take that quiz for sure. I think I'm going to be taking that quiz as a 54 year old, probably with low testosterone needs to look at that. But anyway and if you could do what other smart and considerate listeners are doing, and that is giving the show a rating and a review that really does help spread the word and help more heart-led business owners find some advice that could keep them in business. And until next time, lead with your heart.

Speaker 2 24:42

You've been listening to The Heart Led Business Show, hosted by Tom Jackobs. Join us next time for another inspiring journey into the heart of business.