Stressed? What Your Heart Rate Is Telling You

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

DI GILLETT [Host] (00:03)

So Jane, in your view, what is the power of women?

 

JANE SMORODNIKOVA [Guest] (00:09)

When I hear that, I mostly think about the systems and organisations and movements women built to solve their own problems outside of system and organisations built by men and for men. So, for example, when Venture Capital firm that is from women decide to invest in female founders.

 

because they are basically 30 times more successful but get only 2 % of venture capital. Or when there is a community that’s lobbying research for endometriosis or ⁓ bringing the gaps in scientific research because most of medical and health research is made by ⁓

 

on men bodies because men’s body considered as a human body and women are too complicated to research because of the cycles and all these things. So yeah, I think the power of women is like when women just stop relying on society and start to solve their own problems by themselves.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (01:31)

So how many of you believe you’re managing stress or is it your body simply compensating? I’m Di Gillett and this is the Power Of Women Podcast and welcome to our regular listeners and for those new to this platform, we’re about the opportunity to showcase and celebrate the strength, resilience and achievements of women from all walks of life.

 

Now I know health and wellbeing and the focus on managing our stress levels has become a recurring theme on this podcast of late. But personal experience and your feedback has catapulted this to front of mind and if it’s happening to me, I suspect it’s happening to you too. Which is why I am thrilled to welcome today’s guest with whom I’m going to take a more evidence-based angle to the discussion.

 

as we explore the intersection of leadership, science, resilience, and the reality of modern stress. Jane Smorodnikova is the founder and CEO of Waltory, the first consumer app to use heart rate variability. I’m gonna say that again for Daryl. The first consumer app to use heart rate variability to help everyday people understand stress,

 

energy and recovery in real time. Jane took a clinical metric once reserved for elite athletes and laboratories and turned it into a daily decision-making tool used by millions globally. And you may recognize the name as the app on your iPhone or your smartphone with the red heart. But behind the 16 million user platform is a woman managing her own nervous system.

 

And that’s part of today’s conversation. And what we’re going to cover is scaling a global business, the physiological cost of chronic stress on high performing women and how HRV changes our understanding of recovery and where AI enhances health and also where caution is required. So let’s get started. Jane Smirodnikova, welcome to the Power of Women Podcast.

 

JANE SMORODNIKOVA [Guest] (03:52)

Thank you. Thank you for having me here.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (03:57)

Jane, could we just wind back before Woltree became a 16 million user platform? What did you identify as the opportunity and what was behind the app?

 

JANE SMORODNIKOVA [Guest] (04:12)

Yeah, basically, you know, ⁓ it was a pure ambition because ⁓ I was a fan of this like changing the world’s disruption startups. And at about 35, I had something like a panic attack that, you know, all the big challenges and big markets are transformed with data already. And it’s like nothing left to make something huge. ⁓

 

Of course, it was a silly thought, anyway, and ⁓ I realized that healthcare is the last industry that was not transformed with data. At the same time, human generated data is growing much faster than any other data on the planet. ⁓ And that’s an opportunity. So you just see like the biggest market on earth, the biggest challenge on earth, and it’s unsolved.

 

So that’s how we actually started to go there. And next, if you want to do something in any industry with the data, you need to find your metric. Because all transformation like Spotify metric is the data that how you actually listen to particular song. For marketing, it’s how you click on particular ad.

 

or Uber is geolocation data of the driver. So if you want to transform ⁓ an industry, you need a metric. And the first problem we found is that actually there was no metric for health, only metrics for disease. And that’s how we actually found the heart rate variability that can track you from like ⁓ you’re almost dead to you’re in your best shape possible.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (06:02)

Hmm, isn’t that interesting we had the negative not that not the positive. Yeah

 

JANE SMORODNIKOVA [Guest] (06:07)

Yeah, and that’s why hardware rate variability was used for people in whose health and performance some industries are interested in, like professional athletes, like military. Yeah, and for normal human beings, there is no financial interest at any organization or a group.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (06:36)

Yeah, yeah

 

JANE SMORODNIKOVA [Guest] (06:37)

In our health, basically.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (06:39)

Yeah, so with that in mind Jane, how difficult was it to get the interest of investors when you came up with this idea?

 

JANE SMORODNIKOVA [Guest] (06:51)

So basically we have never raised institutional funding, only some angels because we were not able to manage like when we came to Silicon Valley in 2018 and we had this app that was able to track hardware capability with just a phone camera and interpret it in a personalized way.

 

and investors got their medical experts and medical experts told us that heart rate variability will never be popular and our bet was that it will be on the risk in 24-7 months and they said it’s not possible it will not happen anytime so we lost our chances to fundraise ⁓ but we were right and they were wrong so we just you know

 

decided to continue without ⁓ big venture funding and became profitable as a result.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (07:48)

There you go, that’s very satisfying I bet.

 

JANE SMORODNIKOVA [Guest] (07:51)

Yeah, you know, it’s a very cool thing talking about like tracking your founder’s stress. There is no more stressful thing that ⁓ your chances to die every month. so on our young years before profitability, I had a really strong correlation between my stress levels and our revenue. And

 

This correlation just disappeared when we became profitable.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (08:23)

Yeah, there you go. think many could relate to that, albeit not everybody puts their everything on the line to throw into a business. So at what point did you realise that this had potential to scale globally?

 

JANE SMORODNIKOVA [Guest] (08:42)

It was about three years of the company ⁓ when finally ⁓ Apple Watch managed to measure heart rate variability in the background. We understood that ⁓ you can’t build a huge company if you have retention metrics like usual health app, ⁓ like a benchmark. You need something extraordinary.

 

and that’s why we turned all the data we collect into something like a Twitter feed from your body and when we launched it, we started to grow like crazy, like 30 % per month and people, retention spiked and people tried, like started to buy it like crazy.

 

So, and we grew like, without funding, the problem is that when you grew too fast, at some point your servers will not…

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (09:40)

Yeah. So you needed the funding to even exist. Yeah. Yeah.

 

JANE SMORODNIKOVA [Guest] (09:47)

Yeah, yeah, and it was hard because there was no funding for us ⁓ and like we had to repair our service, we changed our technical team, we changed leadership team. Somehow we survived, I think only because of the team and their dedication to our company and mission.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (10:07)

How many of you in the team in those early days, Jane?

 

JANE SMORODNIKOVA [Guest] (10:10)

about 100 people.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (10:11)

Okay, yeah, so there was quite a workforce behind it. So in that funding journey and not being able to go to market because of the wonderful promotion of those in the finance world, did you find the angel funders were female-centric, tech-centric? What were the profiles of the

 

of the actual angel funders who became interested in this proposition.

 

JANE SMORODNIKOVA [Guest] (10:42)

Basically, ⁓ most of our angels are just like people who knew us before and who understood that basically they invest in the team, like just trust them that you’re able to build something. So that’s where our first investors and of course, like our connections and connections of my co-founders were like the major reason for

 

like about like 10 million fundraising that we made in like our early days from the angels but it’s actually pretty big in terms of the angels so most of them are entrepreneurs like founders who had built their own company and there are different ⁓ like process management companies, gaming companies

 

logistics companies like ⁓ other setups like this so most of them are founders not professional investors.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (11:41)

Yeah, interesting. So my question, my next question could be could be personal or commercial. What did growth actually cost you?

 

JANE SMORODNIKOVA [Guest] (11:55)

⁓ I personally think that’s ⁓ the reason I started to get early pyramid-aposal signs because of that.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (12:09)

Please do. Expand on that.

 

JANE SMORODNIKOVA [Guest] (12:12)

Yeah, because it’s really hard. You know, I know that ⁓ and it’s like there have been research about this that founders are more stress resilient than most people. And that’s actually how you get into this crazy job. ⁓ But as a result,

 

you have no way out, you cannot just go to another company and ⁓ just decide that’s all for me, so you just need to stand no matter what. ⁓ I think that I have seen all my limitations and reached my limits a lot of times and of course it’s

 

You have to learn to manage this because you can adjust, you know, burnout and go to sabbatical for two months. ⁓ So you don’t have such an option. So you have to learn how to manage yourself, even if the pressure is too high. And ⁓ at the same time, you know, I think that when I was young and when I was like, if it

 

In more early days, I just decided that I should not rely on any venture funding. I should not expect any understanding from any external ⁓ community and just rely on yourself. It would save me a lot of energy.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (13:47)

I was going to say, is that more or less stressful not having the pressure of external funding?

 

JANE SMORODNIKOVA [Guest] (13:57)

It’s much easier to rely on yourself. It’s what right now, like for last couple of years, when my co founder left and I like the only one standing founder in the company, it was first it was like really hard. But then you realize that ⁓ it’s much easier to just rely on yourself and manage yourself without any expectations without

 

like trying to be nice and look good and etc etc and managing your own energy with respect.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (14:31)

Yeah. So how have you managed the pressure? What have you done?

 

JANE SMORODNIKOVA [Guest] (14:36)

You know, it’s like really ⁓ stupid personal tricks because like for everybody you just need to, ⁓ if you want to achieve something, you need to invest in your recovery and support system, like in your infrastructure. And it’s like, it should be serious. So that’s why actually I live on the islands. I see the sea every day in my window. I can meditate in a Buddhist temple.

 

⁓ I can go to Thai massage on a daily basis or weekly basis. So you invest in your recovery and your infrastructure.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (15:18)

Sure. So Jane, can you just share with our listeners, where do you spend six months of your year? Where are you right now?

 

JANE SMORODNIKOVA [Guest] (15:28)

I live on an island called Koh Samui. It’s near the temple that was in that Netflix series about Thailand recently. I live here. my house is even in the series. Easy, really. There you go. Yeah.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (15:37)

White lotion.

 

JANE SMORODNIKOVA [Guest] (15:48)

And it’s very nice here. It’s very peaceful. Nothing is happening here. It’s very stable. And so I just travel to Europe, to the United States for business meetings. So I had this particular time in the year when I communicate with external worlds. And then I just go back to a safe spot and work on the intellectual heavy tasks on algorithms, on building the company and the product, etc.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (16:18)

So have you been monitoring your own heart rate variability during the journey of building the business?

 

JANE SMORODNIKOVA [Guest] (16:26)

Of course, for us it’s our everyday. We are not just monitoring heart rate variability, we are monitoring everything and building new algorithms all the time. But thanks God, thanks to ⁓ Valtteri, think my heart rate variability today is better than 10 years ago when I was smoking and not exercising and not monitoring everything.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (16:50)

There you go. weren’t, you weren’t, see, you weren’t a good pin up in those days. So it’s taken you down a wellness, conscious wellness approach as well, which, but I can understand that the stresses of founders don’t always see you follow the best habits because the pressure’s high. So Jane, for…

 

high performing women listening and what you’ve learned about this data that you have been gathering, what are the signals that we typically ignore?

 

JANE SMORODNIKOVA [Guest] (17:26)

Basically, ignore most of the signals from our body. we, like people in Western civilizations are not aware about what is going on in their bodies. And the problem when pressure started to grow and you started to experience stress, your ability to feel decreased even more. So that’s why you just get your stress reaction. ⁓ And

 

If your stress is not managed and it’s not finished, it just continues to accumulate. And here is like very important thing about the women, because we were taught that stress is a fight or fight response. ⁓ So just you can run or you can fight, but for women, there is a third way. It’s called something like ten and be friends. So

 

they just start to take care more about people around them because it’s a pattern they use to build a more safe environment. And that’s how they become obsessed with the clean and taking care of kids and taking care of their partners, et cetera. And when they do not have a great feedback on that and support, ⁓

 

and oxytocin that should be generated there, they just get more burnout and more stress. And that’s why you just like, you need to find out what type of stress and what type of emotion actually you’re experiencing ⁓ and find a way to release the stress. Like for example, if you feel anger and aggression and rage, go to MMA or something and actually beat somebody.

 

It’s like, it’s very good ⁓ to, ⁓ like, you know, just to release your stress. Or if you feel anger, but it’s cold, go to shooting and shoot something. ⁓ It also works very well. If you feel fear, you can run. And that’s when running is really helpful and walking is really helpful. And if you feel unsafe,

 

build connections, but if your relationships in your house are not good, fill it outside with some women group, with volunteering, with something that actually will give you gratitude back to support and like will make you feel more safe.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (20:04)

So with coming back to the app for a moment, does it show how the impact of stress or does it detect the impact of stress on our sleep, our hormones and on our cognitive clarity?

 

JANE SMORODNIKOVA [Guest] (20:24)

So basically ⁓ you can see how your brain is ready for work every day if you’re measuring the morning. So you can see your ability to focus and you can see ⁓ how much energy do you have and of course you can see how your sleep is changing if something is wrong. So yeah you can see all this stuff like except probably hormones because it’s a blood ⁓

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (20:49)

future.

 

JANE SMORODNIKOVA [Guest] (20:50)

⁓

 

Yeah, yeah, much much harder to measure but yes, you can see all this and like the most important thing that ⁓ why we are like calling this like the first up to measure it in real time is that you we can track your stress that is accumulated ⁓ when you’re just sitting down with a zoom call with a stressful person, for example, and you can see

 

that this person basically is generating your stress and this one and talks with this one are actually good for you. And then you can see how walking or other activities are releasing your stress and you can see how you can release the stress and that’s how to manage through the day not to come to 100 stress at the end of the day. Because you know, there is a huge myth around

 

the women or the high-performing men that if you are running in the morning, ⁓ enjoying in the morning, and then you have 10 hours of Zoom calls, and basically you’re okay because you’re exercising, that’s bullshit. Because ⁓ you spent 10 hours accumulated with the stress, you went to the sleep with 100 % of stress, your sleep was not good, and you’re just in the cycle of burnout.

 

So of course you will be more resilient, a little bit more resilient than if like in comparison with people who are not exercising at all. But managing stress is not about just this. You need to fill these things into the day.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (22:26)

Like anything, if we don’t measure it, we don’t know what’s going on and therefore we can’t address it. So is the crux of what makes this so valuable, the fact that it is gathering the data and giving us the measurement by which to make the decisions, is that the sweet spot?

 

JANE SMORODNIKOVA [Guest] (22:49)

Yes, because it’s very personal. Nobody can provide you any recommendations and interventions that actually 100 % will work for you.

 

⁓ Everybody is unique, your environment is unique, your body is unique, you need to find out things that are working for yourself in your personal conditions. So that’s why you just need to see what is going on when you try these things, how your body reacts, when you try these things, how your body reacts. Sometimes you just find out something cool like, for example, I know a of people who are just laying down with a laptop on the Zoom calls.

 

and their stress stops accumulating because they’re laying down. And for other people it doesn’t work like that. So you just need to like explore yourself like you’re a scientist of yourself.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (23:44)

Yeah, got it. Well look, you’re listening to the Power of Women podcast and coming up we’re going to unpack how HRV operates in practical language, what it tells us about our energy and recovery and we’ll also touch on perimenopause and menopause.

 

If you’re loving the Power of Women podcasts, be sure to jump onto our YouTube channel and hit that subscribe button to ensure you never miss an episode. I’m talking with the founder of WellTourie, Jane Smarovna Kovar, and it’s a 16 million user platform turning heart rate variability into a daily decision-making tool for stress, energy and recovery.

 

Jane, can you tell us in layman’s terms how this app actually works?

 

JANE SMORODNIKOVA [Guest] (24:41)

So basically the best way to use our app is just to wear some wearable like Samsung Watch or FitBait or Apple Watch, like anything and connect it to the app. And by getting data from these wearables, we build some visualizations that in the background are really

 

personalized and scientific and based on like tons of millions of data of people like you. ⁓ And it shows how your body reacts and what is going on with your body. ⁓ Talking about your sleep, your exercises, your recovery process, your stress, your energy, like, and basically even your general health, like your

 

ability of your body to cope with what is going on. And if this metric is going down, you actually need to go to the hospital if you see the red lights ⁓ out there. So we are not able to diagnose anything. We are not able to give medical recommendations, of course. But ⁓

 

We have seen tons of stories when we have got a one-star review with a mention that, you know, why you’re telling me that I’m not okay, I feel okay. And usually it means that people just used to feel like that.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (26:12)

Mmm, they’ve got no benchmark.

 

JANE SMORODNIKOVA [Guest] (26:15)

Yeah, I think that it’s normal. ⁓ But then we tracked this ⁓ reviews ⁓ after like several months. It’s improved on the five star review. And they write to us that, you know, I came to the doctor, I made some tests, we have found this and it can be something different. And so thank you guys, because actually you’re right. ⁓ So that’s ⁓

 

That’s the most lovely review for our team. Every time we just make a check that we help somebody and it feels pretty good.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (26:55)

rate variability tells us what in essence. ⁓

 

JANE SMORODNIKOVA [Guest] (27:00)

To explain heart rate variability, think it’s the very important thing is to understand the difference with the pulse ⁓ which is like your average ⁓ heart rate ⁓ during a minute. imagine a grandma in a room with a temperature of zero, but she has a warm coat, a hat, boots and all the things. And you know that she’s…

 

like being there for an hour with an average temperature of zero, do you think she’s okay? And you think like probably if the cold is warm, she’s fine. But if you know that every 10 minutes the temperature goes from plus 30 to minus 30 for the whole hour, you will not think that she’s okay after this hour. But the median, average

 

temperature is still zero. So that’s the difference. So heart rate variability is milliseconds between each heartbeat. And it’s a time series that shows much more information about what is going on. It shows how your heart tries to adapt to everything what is going on with you. And the nervous system is signaling to your heart, should they be faster or slower or things like that.

 

Your ability of your body to adapt to what is going on is your health. You can imagine some, I don’t know, the tree that you can flex and it’s not breaking, it’s just flexible and that’s your health. But if you will push too much,

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (28:48)

It’ll break.

 

JANE SMORODNIKOVA [Guest] (28:50)

And that’s your disease basically. So if every disease occurs in your body when the ⁓ pressure is too much and you’re not able to handle, that’s why variability is adaptability. That’s why the more variable you are in general is the better. But just in general, because there are conditions and people for whom like

 

Too much heart rate variability is also not good. It means something just stopped working out there. Yeah, so it’s very personalized. It’s very unique for each phenotype, the type of your nervous system, the type of your genes, et cetera. That’s why you should never just compare bluntly your metrics with other human beings and look more on yourself.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (29:44)

Jane, for those unfamiliar, why is it HRV a more powerful measure than perhaps measuring our steps, our calories or in fact the hours slept?

 

JANE SMORODNIKOVA [Guest] (29:57)

Yeah, basically, you know, steps are really useless because in terms of your health or longevity, it’s really important to go to some cardio zones that are usually higher than usual walking. So of course, like walking 10,000 steps per day is better than 2,000 steps per day.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (30:24)

But some of those need to be at greater exertion.

 

JANE SMORODNIKOVA [Guest] (30:27)

Yeah,

 

yeah, so it’s just not enough just to track steps. Yeah, you need to go to the heart rate and the cardio zones. Then talking about like, so heart rate variability is the metric that actually reflects how your body is coping with what is going on and can be measured in a passive mode without any actions and just be collected and be interpreted in like

 

closer to real time. ⁓ So that’s why wearing a wearable with a high quality signal is really something that

 

is important and can collect a lot of data for you. even if you’re like our last algorithms ⁓ and algorithms that we are actually using to detect that ⁓ this Zoom meeting is like more stressful than another one, we are actually not using the heart rate variability itself, but our new algorithms that are trained on heart rate variability, but just uses your heart rate fluctuations during your talking and your personal baselines

 

So it allows you to actually track every minute of your life.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (31:43)

So that’s actually tapping into our cortisol levels really if somebody’s spiking at all or not.

 

JANE SMORODNIKOVA [Guest] (31:49)

Yes, yes. And it gives you a metric that is about feedback from your body about everything you are doing and that you can use this data to explore yourself, to know yourself better and to manage yourself better.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (32:09)

So if I’ve got ⁓ my wearable on and I’ve hooked up to the app and I am checking my HRV on a daily level, a daily occurrence, what are the patterns I should be looking for? Are there actual patterns and changes that I should be monitoring for?

 

JANE SMORODNIKOVA [Guest] (32:33)

You know, it really depends on ⁓ the app you have. the best companies out there who are experts in heart rate variability interpretation, and it’s really not that easy process like Aura or Woop or us, ⁓

 

Each of us develop our own like metrics that actually reveals something, some signal from all this like data. And by like choosing the provider, you’re choosing a set of metrics that actually you’re reflecting on because like the raw metrics are not that useful for not professional people. And each company develops their metric in

 

in connection with the audience they want to reach. Like for example, if WUAP is positioned for people who are actively exercising, the metrics they develop, the stress and recovery metrics or readiness metrics are related to people who are exercising a lot. if like, Aura ⁓ is focused on sleep and she’s like bringing the readiness metric,

 

out of your sleep heart rate variability and shows this and it’s a great metric actually that can be used to track how your daily readiness is changing. So talking about us, are like we also were focusing mostly on like relatively healthy people

 

and we are like changing it right now, but ⁓ we show a lot of metrics, much more because we have been targeting the broader audience from the beginning and the people who are not sick yet and people who are not athletes. And so we have this like long-term metrics like

 

health, so you can monitor the basic high level state of your health. You can monitor intraday fluctuations about what is going on with your body. You can see how your sleep patterns are changing. So it’s a set of metrics and basically visualizations because, you know, people are really bad at interpreting complicated charts. ⁓ So we have found that, for example, showing heart rate variability as a liquid

 

with the color, amount, boiling effects, etc. Like a magic ball of liquid of your nervous system is the best because we incorporate different metrics inside and people intuitively feel, they just see that it’s red and boiling so it’s like not good or it’s like a jelly so they feel like a jelly at the same time.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (35:26)

simple creatures really aren’t we?

 

JANE SMORODNIKOVA [Guest] (35:29)

Yeah, it’s a very successful visualization. People share it with their relatives all the time, etc. And actually when it’s packed with real science, it works really well. And people feel that ⁓ they learn from it and their brain actually ⁓ training using this data without using their prefrontal cortex. It’s just embodiment.

 

Of what is going on

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (35:59)

What about when it comes to menopause and perimenopause, which is a topic that invariably comes up for the power of women community, Is this app and is this measure useful at that time in our lives?

 

JANE SMORODNIKOVA [Guest] (36:18)

⁓ Yes, because you need to notice that something is wrong and you will notice it, that something is wrong. ⁓ I should say that we are not that good in helping perimenopausal women right now, but we are going there this year. That’s the goal of this year for us. ⁓ But what I know is that ⁓ perimenopausal women

 

are usually misdiagnosed, are usually get into depression signs, usually… Yeah, I usually, you know, get highlighted with that you’re depressed or emotional or panicking or etc. And all this is bullshit because there is this like, your ability to adapt is changing because your nervous system become so sensitive.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (36:53)

So true.

 

JANE SMORODNIKOVA [Guest] (37:14)

that it’s really hard to adapt to things and that’s why it’s so serious thing. It lasts so long. You need to prepare yourself in life.

 

as soon as possible. You need to build muscle, you need to take care of your bones, you need to get some resistant training when your bones get feedback from reality. You need to get much more protein, etc. So you just like you need to prepare yourself and change your support system because it’s not a joke. And you need to find a doctor who is not thinking that it’s a joke or you’re just depressed.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (37:53)

With the integration of this data and AI, is there anything or any cautions that you would call out in terms of the information that is coming back? It’s not to be designed as Dr. Google. That’s not what the idea is. This is about giving us real-time information to make informed decisions, yes?

 

JANE SMORODNIKOVA [Guest] (38:22)

So we are basically ⁓ not ⁓ trying to provide some AI chats right now because everybody is doing AI chat, et cetera. So we are focusing on the data that actually you can take to AI chat and talk with them about it. But talking about AI, of course, is really important because ⁓

 

There is an elephant in the room that ⁓ is positioned like a general wellness in most of these companies, ⁓ but people are talking serious medical questions with them and discussing all of their medical questions with them and tons of people trust AI.

 

more than their doctors actually because doctors just talk with them like 15 minutes or something and with AI they can upload all the data and talk about etc. So I think it’s really serious and we need to understand that it’s a fundamental shift that everybody just start to use AI as a doctor no matter what positioning in marketing you are using.

 

And everybody knows that actually, but like, you know, FDA is calm and do not like want to intervene. ⁓ it’s, and actually, AI is good. But the problem is that it’s as good as the questions that are asked and the data that is provided and the timing.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (39:57)

Of course.

 

JANE SMORODNIKOVA [Guest] (40:03)

that actually you’re asking and people tend to ask the wrong questions in the wrong time period of time. of course, AI is great and much better than you have you just cannot afford a doctor or you can get to a doctor in six months or something. It’s much better than not having

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (40:25)

But there’s the caution because if you haven’t articulated the question in quite the right manner, the information you’re getting back is only as good as the question asked. It’s like briefing an ad agency. Crap briefing, crap ad. Good briefing, good ad.

 

JANE SMORODNIKOVA [Guest] (40:41)

Yeah,

 

engineers call it garbage in, garbage out. So ⁓ yeah, the simple tips here, ask one AI to check the answers of another AI. ⁓ After you’re asking something, ⁓ ask, you sure? Prove me, give me some sources. Even two AI, just prove this wrong. Give me some sources. ⁓ Is it really true? Think one more time. So even just this simple thing like, can you think one more time?

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (41:11)

Yeah. Yeah, that’s really good advice. So Jane, who owns the biometric data that you’re gathering?

 

JANE SMORODNIKOVA [Guest] (41:22)

It’s like who owns is a tricky question. basically, yeah, of course, it’s managed by the companies you’re using to generate, to store and to analyze this data. And the things that ⁓ they will do with this data depends on the law.

 

And thanks God we have the law that says that data is yours and you can take it out, that you can ask them to delete it, et cetera, et cetera. ⁓ But also ⁓ you can think about ⁓ the ownership of the company and ⁓ what is like is going on there. Like imagine a startup, for example.

 

is launching and they have great intentions, building great company, building great algorithms, etc. Then they fundraise and then they fundraise one more time and then they fundraise one more time and from broader

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (42:27)

in the insurance firm invest.

 

JANE SMORODNIKOVA [Guest] (42:29)

And at broader perspective, you just see a successful company. But you know that ⁓ usually even on the second round of financing, ⁓ founder cannot control anything and cannot stop anything. And then you have a company that is owned by investors and financial people and controlled by financial people and the basic ⁓

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (42:57)

Go Yeah.

 

⁓

 

JANE SMORODNIKOVA [Guest] (43:00)

of Deliver C-Corp is to provide the profits ⁓ to the shareholders. like you have a situation when the patient interests can get into confrontation with financial interests. And that’s how we get to the worst things in healthcare that we see right now.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (43:18)

Absolutely,

 

JANE SMORODNIKOVA [Guest] (43:28)

So it’s very important to understand who is behind the company.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (43:32)

It’s like understanding who’s actually advertising and you often see these well-being ads but you know that it’s being funded by a drug company that’s heavily invested behind the scenes. So hence the question and I know that’s a very political area to get into which we won’t but I appreciate your insights in that Jane.

 

Could I ask you a couple of rapid fire questions just to round up today’s discussion? One daily non-negotiable for your nervous system.

 

JANE SMORODNIKOVA [Guest] (44:14)

I think it’s like ⁓ moving around the day. ⁓ Small moves, go to coffee, ⁓ lay down, just ⁓ breathe, look at the sea or the sky or something. Just not get stuck into some particular one situation like your chair and Zoom. ⁓ That’s one thing that you should be most afraid of.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (44:44)

One metric, women should care about more than productivity and their weight.

 

JANE SMORODNIKOVA [Guest] (44:50)

I would say that it’s their ability to recover and their support system. They should care about their support infrastructure and recovery infrastructure as they do care about their productivity infrastructure. That’s really important and it includes some variables and devices and apps, et cetera, but also other things like the safe space, the personal space, the space when you can be alone.

 

when you can feel engaged with some great social connections, etc. So your support system is like the most important thing. It’s not a joke. It’s a really very important investment.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (45:32)

Yeah so Jane if a high performing woman is listening to this today and suspects she’s functioning in chronic stress but still tells herself she’s coping what would you say to her?

 

JANE SMORODNIKOVA [Guest] (45:47)

that you are not coping. ⁓ You can check it out with the data. in denial. Yeah, because usually when we are stressed, ⁓ we try to influence our minds that we are coping, everything is okay, we will get through this, blah blah blah, blah blah blah, and all these things are not healthy.

 

It’s not true that you are more efficient if you just work 12 hours a day. It’s just not true. You are more efficient if you are recovered, if you slept well, if your prefrontal cortex is working actually. So just don’t lie to yourself. ⁓ You don’t have to be like the silly movies when people just work, then sleep for six hours and then work again.

 

There are tons of research that shows that ⁓ in a week of six hours sleep, you are just drunk in terms of intellectual productivity. all this is lie about. Yeah, so ⁓ just get into reality, face your reality, face the reality of your limits of your body. It’s okay. It can be managed in a proper way and everything will be okay.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (46:58)

Your cognitive impairment.

 

Yeah. So Jane, is the WorldTour app work with all forms of smartphones?

 

JANE SMORODNIKOVA [Guest] (47:23)

Yeah, it works with the iPhone and Android, but not with all wearables. We have the best integration possible, but we try to increase this amount all the time.

 

DI GILLETT [Host] (47:36)

So

 

I can connect my Fitbit to the app and start tracking real time. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, there we go. So for the listeners today, I think this focus on health and wellbeing, as I said at the beginning of the podcast, has become a little bit of a hefty focus over the last few months. I had a personal experience starting the new year with

 

symptoms of a heart attack turned out that it wasn’t ⁓ and I’m now monitoring just about everything that moves in my world to make sure that I do know what’s going on and in actual fact I do a echo stress test tomorrow so that will tell me even more about my heart rate variability and what’s going on. But to Jane’s point,

 

Don’t ignore what’s going on and there are so many times when we are so run down and so burnt out exactly to the point that was raised our cognitive impairment is the equivalent of being drunk. So if you are getting poor sleep, poor rest, no mindfulness practices, you are probably running on empty and doing yourselves no favors and if you listen to what I talked about on the podcast with Maddy Dyckvold

 

It is not going to be about aging well and your longevity is going to be compromised. And we all know now that protein and our muscle strength and muscle and bone density is a key part to aging well. And this wrapped around it is a great way to track it to know where you’re at. So Jane, thank you so much for your time today and sharing it with our listeners on the Power of Women podcast.

 

and I look forward to sharing more of this information with the community going forward. Until next time.