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Mr. Biz Radio: MINDSET - Going from Happily Married to Divorced to Reconciled to Book to Movie!

Unedited transcription of the show is included below:

 (00:05):

Welcome to Mr. Biz radio, Biz. Talk for Biz owners. If you're ready to stop faking the funk and take your business onward and upward, this show is for you. And now here's Mr. Biz, Ken Wentworth.

(00:19):

All right. Welcome to the episode of Mr. Biz Radio with me, Mr. Biz, Ken Wentworth, and hope you're digging the new intro producer Allen worked hard on that. We got some, we got some new music and try to jazz it up a little bit, but everyone, as we journey through life, whether you might not even be an entrepreneur or a business owner, but even just life in general, we all hit different types of crossroads, different challenges, different bumps in the road, et cetera. And that's what I wanna talk about this week. So we have someone who has been there done that has lived through her share of difficult, challenging crossroads. And so we're gonna talk to her this week. She's an author, and actually, we're gonna talk about this too. They're making her book into a movie. So wanna hear about that super exciting stuff. Our guest this week, again, as I said, is an author mother of three wife entrepreneur, and she launched a healthcare company called GIOSTAR Chicago. She wrote a book called Untethered on my personal journey after saving my husband’s life". Ushe discovered that the fulfillment gain from diminishing the pain of others is like nothing else. So our guest this week is not other than Mrs. Shelly Sood. Shelly, welcome to Mr. Biz radio.

(01:31):

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

(01:34):

Yeah. So super excited to talk about this, because again, this is, this is something that will resonate with everybody. I mean, clearly as an entrepreneur, we face challenges, the ups and downs and, and, and inevitable bumps on the road that we all face as an entrepreneur business owner, but really this applies to everyone, right. Even if you're not a business owner in your corporate career, whatever type of career you might have, we all face those, those key crossroads. And so I wanna make sure we, we dive into that because again, I think it's gonna be really powerful for people before we get into all that though. Why don't you tell us about your entrepreneurial journey, Shelly?

(02:06):

Sure. So as you indicated, I'm an entrepreneur and I formed the company GIOSTAR Chicago. That was about four years ago. And you know, that was really after the epiphany I had, my husband was suffering from bipolar disorder for nearly two decades undiagnosed. So, you know, we went through our share of personal problems. He filed for divorce. We had a very contentious divorce. I was scared and terrified that something was happening to my children. I was fearful that he would do something that he would later regret and, you know, sure enough, After he came down from his manic phase and went into his depressive phase he finally finally sought help. So at that point I really helped save his life. And, you know, that was really, like I said earlier, the most fulfilling thing I had ever done in my entire life. And you know, it was really against all odds because when you have somebody that's suffering like that, and they're just determined to put every roadblock in your face to prevent you from helping them you know, you're, you're against all odds. So my life, you know, six years ago, six or seven years ago is completely different at this point. And because of what happened to me because of the travesty and all that. And because I helped my husband, I was able to launch this company and really wanted to help others at that point.

(03:29):

Yeah. So, I mean, and, and if this is too personal, just tell me, but I'm curious because I, I dealt with a little bit this, a friend of the family where, where during his, his bipolar situation, were there any substances involved? Did he become any, any addiction or anything like that on top of the bipolar?

(03:47):

Yeah. It was mostly cigarettes and smoking. Yeah. Okay. But, you know, there was a lot of alcohol consumption and cigarette smoking and things like that. You know, so that was that interestingly enough, though, he kicked that addiction immediately. It, that was literally overnight and I've never seen anything like that.

(04:07):

Yeah. Well, I mean, that's, that's super impressive. I mean, obviously he must have recognized at that point that those things were causing him to spiral downward or causing problems in his life. And so he's, you know, obviously made a change and that had to be super rewarding for you to see like, okay, he recognizes it because I think, you know, from everything I hear in these stories, you always hear one of the most frustrating things is being, I don't wanna say a victim, I guess you kind of are a victim of being in someone's life. Like that is when they don't recognize it and you are trying to help them, but they don't recognize it enough to help themselves. That had to be a really positive sign that he, okay, he's finally getting it. He realizes this is a problem.

(04:46):

Exactly. Yeah. And I had the lawyers against me. I had clinicians who didn't believe me. And so I was just losing it myself through this whole process. <Laugh> so, yeah. Yeah.

(04:57):

I mean, yeah. Again, talk about, you know, critical crossroads. I mean, you're facing a whole slew of them seemingly one on top of the other, on top of the other, on top of the other, like you said, once, not only this situation with your husband, but then the tag on effects of that, of, of divorce and facing that and with your children. And again, I'm sure it's super frustrating. It had to be challenging, you know, how did you best protect your, your kids from that? I mean, I mean, I'm sure you couldn't a hundred percent, but I'm sure that was a super worry for you and also a challenge.

(05:26):

Yes, absolutely. But the thing is the more I tried to control the sys situation, the more it would backfire. So I, I really just did not have that greater understanding that things were going to evolve as they were going to evolve and have an ounce of trust. I had lost all faith and trust in humanity, cuz I'm sitting here, I've, you know, this devoted wife for 20 or 15 years. And my husband suddenly pulls the rug from underneath me and fells for divorce. And you know, I'm not, you know, managing my career all that much. I've took a, taken a backseat, raising kids. I mean, it, it's a very common, typical story minus the mental illness component. So, you know, that's one of the things that, you know, I want to be able to tell my story cuz it's, I think it's gonna really resonate with people of how there really is hope in this world to make those changes. And when I say changes, I mean, you know, those personal insightful changes to your core being.

(06:28):

So how did that lead going from that situation and overcoming that and, and seeing the fulfillment that you felt from that, how did that lead to Giostar Chicago?

(06:37):

So after my husband and I got back together, you know, I, I helped him and nurse him kind of back to health together. Of course he had a huge role in it and was determined to get help as well. And after that had evolved, you know, we had decided, okay, let's give the marriage a shot because I had kind of given up on the marriage at that point. And then I, I just had that epiphany that I need to do something for myself. I need to be able to have this feeling and repeat the feeling of being able to help other people in this world. Like I did my husband. And so the paths cross and the universe was, you know, by my side and I met the owners, the co-founders and founder of Giostar , Devin Patel and Anand Srivastava who have been in this research realm, Anand Srivastava for a, over a quarter century. And so I was really blessed to cross pats with such insightful, knowledgeable humanitarians.

(07:34):

It's interesting how the universe works. Right. You know? Yeah. How those things happen. You know, it's interesting. I, I hear this all the time and I see these memes on social media and everything, but it says, you know, when you're ha when you're having a down day, we all have down days down and again, you have a crappy day and you're just really feeling unmotivated, maybe even depressed, whatever it might be. They said that, you know, I always see this, one of the best ways to get out of it is to show gratitude towards someone else, even a stranger on the street, just smiling at them, nodding at them, giving them some sort of affirmation, even though it's difficult in that time to do that. And I've tried it, you know, and, and literally, I, I remember leaving a meeting, I was super down, bummed out mm-hmm <affirmative> and I, it popped in my head. And so I'm like, let me try this. And I'm walking past someone that I don't know on the street, never seen them before I noded and waited. And I said, that's a great hat you got and the smile on their face, all of a sudden you're like, wow, you know, and it's very small microcosm of what you dealt with, but, you know, I, I, I sort of understand, you know, that sort of mentality and how that makes you feel.

(08:33):

Yeah. It, it absolutely, it's so meaningful and, and you hit the nail on the hat. Gratitude is huge, you know, I mean, we should all look back at our lives 5, 7, 10 years ago and, and see where we are today. I think we are, we are give ourselves a hard time and we are own worst enemies a lot.

(08:52):

Yeah. All right. We're gonna hit a break meets faster. The break. We're gonna talk about Shelly's book untethered in the movie.

(09:02):

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(09:41):

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(10:10):

Got a question for Mr. Biz. You want answered on air, email it to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Now once again, here's Mr. Biz.

(10:21):

All right. Welcome back to the show. As we do at the top of the second segment of every show, it's sun, Mr. Biz tip of the week, and this week's tip a financial one surprise, right? One of the quickest ways to financial problems is holding onto unprofitable customers. I talk about this all the time. I call it the silent business killer. You have customers that are, are clients that are at best break, even, but oftentimes they're, you're losing money. I call it the silent business killer, because of course, most of the time you don't realize it. Cause why would you purposely have that? But the whole point of the tip is you have to find them. You have to look for the silent business killer. You have to find them and you have to eliminate them. Doesn't mean getting rid of the customer necessarily.

(11:00):

That means you need to change the pricing. You need to change the offering, et cetera. It might mean though that whatever you're trying to offer them, you can't offer it an effective price an effective price that is willing the market's willing to bear. And in that case, you may have to drop the service or drop the customer or whatever it might be, but make sure, make sure you look for those things because almost every business I've ever worked with has had some version of the silent business killer. So do not allow that to be you <laugh> all right. That's the Mr. Biz tip of the week. All right. So Shelly, I should mention, you can go to giostarchicago.com to find out more Giostar. And that's giostarchicago.com following on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Ubut so Shelly, so let's, let's move from,uyou start Giostar uyou write the book "Untethered". So how, how did, what, what decision process to happen that you're like, man, I need to write a book about this.

(11:55):

So initially it really wasn't even a book. It was just a bunch of notes. And my best friend had advised me during the divorce document, everything in terms of dates, everything that's happened for the lawyers. So it started out as kind of a running journal of this is a day. This is what happened kind of routine. Then after my husband and I got back together and we were healing, I used my writing as a healing mechanism for my own self and for my own trauma that I had endured through this whole process, you know, I probably had some level of PTSD at some point. And so it just became so cathartic to write and slowly I would just stay up till two o'clock in the morning and write and write and write and pour my heart on this paper. And it didn't matter, you know, I, I didn't overthink the spelling, the grammar, the, the flow or anything of the sort, just getting it out there on paper. And so for several years then after that, I would start to edit, make modifications. Then my husband got involved and started writing his voice. And so now it's just evolved into this beautiful story.

(12:59):

Okay. So now we go from the book, how did this whole movie thing come about? This is super exciting. Like seriously, I'm sure everyone's like, oh my gosh, how this happened.

(13:09):

That was just the universe again, you know, the universe, it was just put in my path, I crossed paths with the right people at the right time who were looking for this kinds of, kind of story. And I built relationships with producers. And so, you know, now we're working on, you know, development of the script per se.

(13:28):

That's awesome. That's super exciting. I know it's a long process to go through that, but at the end, at the end, I'm short will be absolutely worth. It. It'll be something that make you even more proud of having come through the whole situation with the book and then being able to have it, you know, see, see it as a movie will be even more rewarding I'm sure.

(13:47):

Okay.

(13:49):

So let's talk a little bit shift gears on some of the things that you do with Chicago. So tell us a little bit about what, what that looks like, what you do, how you help folks, et cetera.

(13:59):

So Giostar Chicago is a stem cell therapy clinic. We're located in the suburbs of Chicago in Glenville, Illinois. You know, and we're focused really on de degenerative conditions. So patients that are suffering from arthritis, some autoimmune conditions, things like that, lung disease, and we really help the patients using their own stem cells. You know, so that's just been an amazing journey. It's been a life changing journey in terms of being able to be an entrepreneur learn on the job. I literally probably got a MBA in the first two years <laugh> of running a company without actually having an MBA. I'm sure. You know what that's like. And, and so just, just the whole ins and outs of the business, learning from my own mistakes and my own failures, but really at this point, you know, thriving in the business as well. So,

(14:50):

And so I'm guessing getting into stem cells. I mean, that's not like just therapy, not to, not to down. I'm not saying therapy's just therapy, but that's, you know, that's much more medical. I don't know how to say it. Mrs. Biz is a nurse and she'd be probably embarrassed for me to say it that way. But so what's some of your MBA, so you have obviously have a background in some of that, right?

(15:09):

Mm-Hmm <affirmative> no, no, I don't. <Laugh>, I mean, I had a couple of years, I had a couple of years in the field with you know, developing centers in India, through other companies and things like that. So I was paying, playing more of a marketing type of role. I wasn't quite an entrepreneur. And so I was really just getting my feet wet in the industry, but, you know, I'm very much believe in self taught. I, I always believe in personal growth and continuous, continuous learning even to this day, I'm, I'm learning. I have, you know, coaches for my book or coaches for speaking engagement. So when I was in that mode, I was learning and absorbing everything like a sponge surrounding myself with professionals that I could pick their brains and understand the business more and more and understand stem cell science on a whole.

(15:59):

So have you, have you faced I would guess that some of what some of the uphill battle you face is I'm sure. Cause I've seen a lot of the research myself, the amazing impacts that stem cell can have, but do you still face one of the biggest things is the, is the actual education letting people know? Cause I'm sure there are people, especially maybe a little bit of an older generation they're like, that sounds like trickery. Like some kind of, you know which doctor stuff I don't know about this is that, is that one of the challenges you guys have faced with Giostar Chicago.

(16:28):

It is, you know, because traditional medicine, obviously we need traditional medicine and it offers so many types of different treatments or whatnot. But the problem is these chronic conditions do not really have treatments per se. They have more of a bandaid, you know? And when those medications are taken a lot of times, you know, yes, we need the medications at times, but other times they cause other side effects and other problems. And so people don't know where to go. So my mindset is okay, well, you've tried this outlet. Did, did it work for you? I always ask the patient that question. Did it work for you? Because if it did wonderful, you know, you don't need to come to us. That's great. That's the purpose. But if it didn't and you're looking for alternatives, just look within yourself and think about, okay, there, there's no real harm to trying list.

(17:19):

You know what I mean? It's, it's not gonna do any harm to your body. The only thing is it's going to help you. It's going to bring down that total inflammation. And you know, my husband was actually one of the patients that saw the results really in the early days. So he was one of those success stories that, you know, had a herniated disc. And the doctor said that he absolutely needed surgery. His MRIs were so bad, so bad. I mean, he was lying in bed. He was miserable and we did the stem cell therapy on him and boom, he was good to go. He was getting out of bed and moving and everything.

(17:55):

Well, the thing I love about it, so I reached this was a long time ago. Gosh, probably I don't know, maybe 15 or so years ago from an athletic perspective. So I had an injury. I used to compete and I had an injury and I started to do it because I'm seeing a lot of these professional athletes that were leaving the United States and going to Germany to get stem cell therapy, et cetera. And I'm like, well, if these guys are doing it, there must be something there. So I did some research on my own way back then and saw some of those things and I never did pull the trigger on it because even back then it was gonna be so darn expensive for me to, you know, fly a Germany and be over there for extended period of time, et cetera, just didn't work out.

(18:31):

But I, I saw some of the massive benefits you can get from it. So again, this week we're talking with, this is Shelley Sood you can find out more at giostarchicago.com, check out her book, "Untethered". You can find that everywhere you find books, as you wouldn't imagine. You can follow on Instagram, on Twitter, on LinkedIn and on Facebook. You're gonna come back after the break. And this is what I talk about at the outset. We're gonna talk about how to recognize those key crosswords in crossroads in your like's journey. And, and we're trying to reach a certain destination. You have certain goals. How do we recognize those to make sure that we get past them?

(19:11):

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(20:12):

Check out all three of Mr. Business best-selling books at mrbizsolutions.com. Now, once again, here's Mr. Biz.

(20:21):

All right. Welcome back to the show. And this is, this is the meat, right? We're gonna get to the meat here, and we're gonna learn a lot from Shelly's experiences that she's had. We've talked about during the first two segments, a lot of things in her personal life, obviously, and as an entrepreneur, as she mentioned learn becoming an MBA, a hard school, hard knocks, MBA graduate learning how to run a business, et cetera, and starting a new business and a new town, et cetera, et cetera. So she has faced this. She's been there, done that on many different fronts, again, personal life professional, all these different angles. So she's gonna be able to help us a ton. So, so Shelly, walk us through that a little bit. How do we recognize some of these key crossroads when they come? Because you know, sometimes when, when life's piling up on you or so it seems everything seems like a critical, you know, crossroad, like, is this trying to tell me to go here or should I do this? Or is this like, not that big a deal? How do we recognize some of those things?

(21:19):

So if people step back and, and really started to embrace reaching higher levels of consciousness, then they would really be able to evolve and start to see the crossroads in their life with complete clarity. Because I think what happens in this day and age, we're in this physical world, we have all this noise around us. We have opinions of others. We are influenced by the media. We are influenced by what others think. And we are influenced by that loud noise in our head that shows doubt and, and it constantly happens to us. And so the way that I have gotten past that, you know, when I first got back together with my husband, I played the victim and, and I felt like, how could this happen to me? You know, when I was going through it, actually not when I got back together. And, and so my evolution occurred at that point, when I realized I was not gonna be the victim anymore, I was gonna really start to embrace.

(22:21):

You know, there was a reason that this happened to me and my evolution had to really take place as a result. So I relinquished all control over the situation because that was one of my other things. I was kind of a control freak, frankly, <laugh> so, you know, it really takes this special person to look within themselves and see that. And so I used higher levels of consciousness through, you know, transcendental meditation through, through mindfulness to really be able to understand that there's more out there in the universe, that we, we were able to gain clarity in what really our sole purpose is in this world. And, and I think my journey was to find my sole purpose and to untether my own life, as well as my husband to untether his through his own personal journey. And, and so that's kind of where I got the title of the book, untethered. And, and so that's how I evolved over time through, you know, the creative visualization through transcendental practices and through meditation, which I practice every single day.

(23:32):

It's very interesting. And I, I, you know, I, I haven't gotten into meditation yet, and I, it's funny that you're, as you a guest on the show bringing this up and how transformational it was for you, because talk about, you know, crossroads in the universe. I, I, I'm not kidding you, Shelly, in the last two weeks I've had, you're probably the sixth or seventh person who's mentioned meditation to me. So maybe this is maybe this is a sign for me as well.

(24:01):

Right.

(24:02):

I need to take a, I need to take a, take a step back and, and, and, and dive into this a little bit. What are some things that you have found that you know, when you are, you're going through a difficult situation and you can't get out of your own way, your, your mind, as you mentioned, the loud voice in your head is really just, you know, you get this paradigm and you're just looking for more negativity to feed that paradigm. Like I'm in a bad mood and then everyone stinks. And so I'm looking for things that make me that, that are gonna gonna support my mindset. How do you snap yourself out of that? I, I mean, I know I'll be honest, occasionally that happens to me and I'll catch myself and I'll be like, and I'm talking to myself, of course, like stop, you know, stop. Look, if you look for crap, you're gonna find crap. If you look for good, you're gonna find good

(24:47):

Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. Yeah. And I don't think people really fundamentally understand that that is very, very true. That is one point. And, and the only way I'm really able to do that, to tell you the truth, because there's so much negativity around us, you know, the media breeds, they love the negativity. People thrive on listening to negativity in the news and everything. It's a sad situation. And so I get in my little cocoon again with meditation <laugh> and mindfulness, and I am able to really carve my path and truly manifest what I'm looking for in this world and my purpose through meditation. But also when you reach those crossroads, right, we have to have some movement as well. We can't just sit back and say, the universe is going to give us X, Y, Z, because the world just doesn't work that way. And so we're faced with these crossroads and we're faced with these decisions and it's like, well, which way do I go? Kind of thing. And so at that point, really the most important thing at when somebody is meditating is to tap into the I intuition and that intuitive mind, and that level of meditation can really be tapped into. And that is where you're able to get clarity and make the decisions that you need to make because people, a lot of times they don't have confidence in their decision making ability.

(26:12):

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I've run into, I run into it with clients all the time, you know, as a Al CFO and working with business owners either, and what I found Shelly is it's one of two things. Usually there's not much gray either. They're they have unbridled confidence sometimes, maybe too much. Let's just say, or they just second guess, and they're very wishy washy. And, you know, I tell 'em, I, I have one particular client. I, one of the things I say to 'em all the time is stop straddle on the fence, you know, take action. It might not be the right action, but you gotta take action to determine if it's the right way or not. And, and I heard that, you know, when you first started to mention this, you said, you know, you have to take action. You can't just sit back and meditate and say, oh, everything's gonna work itself out. You have to take some action, even if it's imperfect action.

(26:59):

Yep. Exactly. Because that fear, you know, breeds basically in action and we're all scared. We're all living in this world where we're so fearful, well, what is really gonna happen? So you gotta assess, okay. If I take this path, what is the worst case scenario? If I take this path, what is the worst case scenario? Can I live with the worst case scenario for plan a and the worst case scenario for plan B? If the answer is yes, then go for it.

(27:26):

Yeah. An interesting thing I heard, and it sounds so simple. I heard David Meltzer mention this. He said, when you're having those times, when, you know, you just have that negative paradigm in your head and you just continue to fuel it. And oh, that guy pulled out in front of me and, oh my gosh, it's raining. And you know, you just stuck a pile on your own self is he said, stop. And literally consciously out loud, say the word cancel three times, cancel, cancel, cancel. And I'm I heard him say that. And I'm like, okay, that's like the cheeses of all cheese things I've ever heard. Like, well, unbeknownst to me, you know, I don't know, 10 days later I'm having one of those days. And for whatever reason that popped back in my head and I'm like, I tried it. And while it didn't a hundred percent relieve the situation, it helped. And I'm like, whoa, you know, again, just that. And then, so just what you said, really in a more simplistic way is taking a step back, having a higher level of conscious stepping out of that negative zone for enough time to say the word cancel three times just as enough of a pattern interrupt in your brain to like, okay, stop looking for all the negativity, you know?

(28:33):

Yep. Exactly. And that's what I would have with my husband when he was manic, everything was negative, everything that was coming out of his mouth. And so it's so funny, you brought up the word cancel because my word was skip. So I would type text messages, skip, skip, skip. It would drive him totally nuts, but it course <laugh> cause it kept me in my space and protected me.

(28:55):

Yeah. Well, it's been powerful. I know I I've used it. And I've continued to use it and sometimes, you know, I'm gonna have to say stop and say, cancel, cancel, cancel like three or four times, but nonetheless, Hey, whatever works right. Sometimes <laugh> again, this week we've been talking with Mrs. Shelley Sood, you can find out more at giostarchicago.com. That's G I O star Chicago, giostarchicago.com. Follow her on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Shelly, thank you so much for coming on the show. Absolutely fantastic content really love having you on.

(29:27):

Thank you so much.

(29:29):

Awesome. Well guys, thanks for watching as always. Thanks for listening. And don't forget as always cash flow is king.

(29:40):

To become part of Mr. Biz nation, follow him on all social media platforms or never miss a show by going to mrbizradio.com. If you prefer free video content, visit the Mr. Biz YouTube channel or check out his streaming channel, which is available on 100 plus streaming platforms at mrbiznetwork.com.