Get ready to be inspired by a remarkable journey to becoming a key player in healthcare innovation and thought leadership.
In this episode of Bite the Orange, Robin Farmanfarmaian, a professional speaker and healthcare entrepreneur, discusses her life and career, focusing on technology and innovation in healthcare. She begins by stressing the importance of accurate early diagnoses, as marked by a misdiagnosis during her teenage years, which led to multiple hospitalizations and opioid dependency. Robin's career transitioned into professional speaking, and in this conversation, she emphasized the importance of clear messaging, commitment, and niche expertise for success. She also shares her vision for a home-centered healthcare future powered by AI and continuous monitoring, with a focus on major diseases like diabetes and cancer.
Tune in for a deep dive into the intersection of technology, healthcare, and personal branding as Robin Farmanfarmaian shares her path to success!
FULL EPISODE
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Emmanuel Fombu:
Welcome to Bite the Orange. Through our conversations, we create a roadmap for the future of health with the most impactful leaders in the space. This is your host, Dr. Manny Fombu. Let's make the future of healthcare a reality together.
Emmanuel Fombu:
Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to another episode of Bite the Orange. And today, we have a very special guest with a very unique background, and that is none other than Dr. Robin Farmanfarmaian. Am I correct, Doctor?
Robin Farmanfarmaian:
Yes.
Emmanuel Fombu:
Perfect, with that being said, so for those that know you and those that don't know you, tell us about yourself. Who is Robin?
Robin Farmanfarmaian:
So, I am in Silicon Valley. I've been here in the Bay Area for 25 years on cutting-edge technology and innovation. I'm an early-stage entrepreneur, and I've worked in over 20 early-stage companies, including curing cancer by finding small molecules using AI for drug discovery, worked on sleep apnea, inhaled insulin, and currently, I'm working on VR for radiologists as well as remote patient monitoring for oncology and oncology clinical trials.
Emmanuel Fombu:
That's quite fascinating. At first, I read about you several years ago, and I think it's a book you wrote, which congratulations, by the way. I think being an author is quite an accomplishment, right? For those that don't know, try writing a book, and you find out what the process is like. So ... people, congratulations on that piece. It was a very interesting book, and I want to start from that piece. And the book is about the patient as CEO. So tell us, what's your story? What got you to actually get to that point of writing that book?
Robin Farmanfarmaian:
Sure! The whole entire reason I went into the world of healthcare is because, as a teenager, I was misdiagnosed with an autoimmune disease, and I ended up having 43 hospitalizations, six major surgeries, and three organs removed. By the time I was 26 years old, this was stemming years after I'd had my entire large intestine surgically removed, which was considered a cure at that time, but I definitely wasn't cured. And so my pain doctor just kept saying, okay, you're just going to be in pain for the rest of your life, and kept upping my opiate dose until eventually, I was on 80mg a day of methadone, which is an absolutely gigantic dose of opioids, and I hated it. So I went to my pain doctor as soon as I could get back into them, I said, I need off of this now. I think the reason pain is worse than the original pain. And they said, okay, next step could be to surgically implant a morphine pump into your spine. I was like, Wait a second, I was 26 years old, I was essentially a shut-in. The hardest thing I could do sometimes was take a shower, and what I was hearing from my doctors was that was the rest of my life. And so I said, absolutely not, and I fired my entire healthcare team, became the CEO of my own healthcare and my world, dropped my own methadone dose by about 40%, and went through pretty severe opioid withdrawal by myself for about 7 or 8 days where all you can do is like drink lemonade and eat salt off the tip of your finger, and then, at the end of the week, and I was feeling better, I rebuilt my care team with doctors that worked with me as a team and a colleague. I got diagnosed correctly with Crohn's disease, put on an IV medication called Remicade, and within 24 hours of that very first dose, I went into remission.
Emmanuel Fombu:
That's a very sad story, Robin, and I'm glad that you found the right solution for you, and I think it's a big problem that a lot of people in America today are facing. Look at the opioid crisis, for example. A lot of people get addicted to opioids that, because they went on the street and just got it; it's because they started off with some condition or some doctor prescribed the drug for them, and then they happened to get on it, and we know what has happened since then. ... be affected by this. And we know also that many people with several conditions, we look at ulcerative colitis, for example, look at Crohn's, sometimes it's similar in certain ways, but people should do the right test to actually find the right diagnosis; time to diagnosis, something that's a big issue. So with that experience that you had, can you please talk to us what your thoughts or feelings are about the need for early diagnosis and proper diagnosis?
Robin Farmanfarmaian:
Oh, diagnosis is everything because it leads on to every other aspect of healthcare. If you think about it, there are two massive interventions we can now do in the world of healthcare, and it's only been like this for about 80 years of all of human history, which is surgery and pharmaceuticals. And yes, I'm incredibly healthy, I've been a vegetarian my whole half of my life, I work out seven days a week, do all the healthy habits you can possibly think about, but that in and of itself does not put my Crohn's disease in remission. It really comes down to being able to do all of the surgical intervention, and for me, that's just an incredibly important part of it. And once you've gotten diagnosed correctly, you can get on the right therapeutic which can put you into remission. The other thing about a diagnosis is it follows you around. So, I'm from Boston, I went to the best doctors in Boston, and then I moved to California, and I went to the best doctors out here in California, but at the end of the day, I was diagnosed, so the first thing they see on their chart is ulcerative colitis, a misdiagnosis, and so they just automatically assume everything is because of the UC, and the diagnosis really gets in the way of being able to help the patient.
Emmanuel Fombu:
I found it very interesting as a speaker on the podcast, especially Bite the Orange piece, and I'll take a completely different turn on this conversation because there's a lot for us to learn. I'm actually very proud of how you create a brand for yourself, right? You understand, so when, one person that I look at and I see the author piece, and I see the speaker piece, I see the entrepreneur piece, right? It's something that you created for yourself, and I think it's something very unique, right? That's something like someone like myself would learn from and other listeners could learn from. So, how did you go about building this unique piece? So you have different parts of the stories. I don't want to put you in a box, right? I want you to be yourself, and so talk to us how you created ... Dr. Robin.
Robin Farmanfarmaian:
Early on in Silicon Valley, wait, 10, maybe 12 years ago, I went into Silicon Valley, and I worked on the business side of tech companies and big conferences, and the men were pushing me down. Like every which way you could think about it, they were sabotaging me, they were stealing my work, and I realized, you can't fight that in the US directly through things, like HR is not there to help the women not be abused by the men in the company, it's there to protect the company. And so I decided, instead, I said, Oh, you know what? How can they not push me down? How can they stop from being able to erase me from websites as if didn't even exist? And I said, Oh, you know what it is? If I become a professional speaker, nobody can push me down. ... myself into a professional speaker, and on, what things that I wanted to speak at, and it included things like the book, and so finally, when I launched the book, and this was back in 2015, it changed the equation, absolutely changed the equation. And now I feel like I'm in a tank, and the men who were pushing me down are on horseback, and, which is hilarious. And so I've been now a professional speaker for over ten years, but when MeToo happened in 2016, 2017, I was like, Oh my gosh, I didn't realize this happens to all women, because you always think that it's really only happening to you.
Emmanuel Fombu:
Because no one talks about it. Everyone suffers with it privately, right?
Robin Farmanfarmaian:
Exactly. So I said, okay, you know what? I'm going to take that five-year project plan that I created for myself, I'm going to standardize it and template it so that women and minorities can use it, use my own project plan regardless of what industry and what position they're in. And so I came out with my second book called The Thought Leader Formula, and it's really that step-by-step instructions on how do you build a personal brand to drive career goals as well as business goals. Because of course, in Silicon Valley, if you're a CEO of a startup, sometimes it can get really hard to get inside the corporate doors or inside the venture capitalist doors, and so by building a personal brand, you can pull your company up with you.
Emmanuel Fombu:
And that's a really good kind of roadmap. I'd love to hear, you know, give us like, like a high-level version of it. And, of course, I would like to refer all the listeners to your website, then, to get in contact with you. We have your contacts in the show notes, but that's something that I think is very important, and I think, and healthcare, in general, is difficult to change, right? And so, as leaders in this particular space, whether you're a patient entrepreneur or whatever it is, you have a role to play, right? And I think telling your story and how you create that roadmap is also very important, how it becomes successful, right? So I think we could take whatever you are applying here, that formula, and apply it across the board to different things that we do. So what is like the overall plan piece? I want you to give you all the resources here, but what is that? Give us a tease of what that does look like.
Robin Farmanfarmaian:
So every single chapter has action items, so there's homework and a workbook that comes with this so that you can map it up, map it out as it goes along. First thing I say, start with your why. Why do you do what you do? And you've already heard my two stories on why I do what I do. It's because people don't care necessarily about what you're doing, they care about why you are doing it right, that's the interesting thing. And so getting that into an elevator pitch that I teach people how to do, like the one-liner, the two-liner, the elevator pitch on themselves, and then you've got to come up with your business model. Okay, it's great, but being a thought leader does not pay those. How are you going to actually get money from this? Is it a salary because you can suddenly get promoted and you got more negotiating power? Is it because you're a CEO of a startup, and you get funded? Is it through professional speaking like I do? I charge now $20,000 for a lot of my keynotes. Book sales, that is never going to be a business model, so like thinking about that through your book, is your marketing essentially a marketing asset? And I teach people how to get a book done really quickly, including, and I tell a story, this one's awesome. My friend Monica, she was a painter, like an artist, right? Beautiful paintings. And she decided, oh, 5 or 6 years ago, that she wanted to become an expert on blockchain and be on stage and talk about blockchain at all the conferences. And I told her, I'm like, What you need to do is write Blockchain 101. You don't want to be the speaker that's trying to compete with all the bros who are also talking about crypto and blockchain. You should be the only expert on blockchain at the entire conference and inside of corporations. And so what she did is she took my book, The Patient as CEO, switched out the title, switched out the photo to serve as her $3 business card. She wrote it in eight days, she wrote essentially a 30-page PDF, and I call that instead of writing a book, write a PDF, the, uploaded it to Amazon as both a paperback as well as a download, and within three months of launching her book, she was asked to speak at a MIT, which is just incredible, right?
Emmanuel Fombu:
That's great. That's quite interesting as well, but there's also a lot more to it than that. I'm talking to, for example, have you ever seen like a public speaker kind of person who's been like a jovial kind of person? Because that's your personality, like someone that can talk. I'm an introvert. You don't know me personally, but I'm an extrovert in certain situations, right? But it comes natural to other people, which, I would expect everyone to become a speaker, of course, we don't expect everyone to become a leader, right? But so, what are some of those attributes that you identify as? Some things that someone that has naturally and could say, Hey, maybe I could do this?
Robin Farmanfarmaian:
So I say 90% of people can be a professional speaker or become a thought leader if they choose to, right, and they make that commitment. It is a lot of time, it takes multiple years to build a brand that you could go inside of corporations and do things, but what it is being really clear on your message, right? So when you first launch yourself, like what I did was I wrote the book, The Patient, everyone knows exactly what that means, right? Just like Shakespeare tells an entire story in one line, that's what you need to think about, right? And so, what is your story? What are you teaching people? Because that is that slim-size slice of vertical, essentially, where people can remember what you're doing. And then, after you've launched yourself as that professional speaker or even just a public speaker, you don't necessarily need to go inside a corporates in charge. And I teach people what kind of conferences pay for speakers and what kind of conferences are for us. But once you've launched yourself and really have a following and are being asked to speak at other places, then you can dramatically expand your brand, right? And so that's one of the big tricks that I talk about on how to be that professional speaker and the skill set around that. In fact, I can't remember what chapter it is, but I do have a chapter where you have to map out your skill set and then map out the skills that you don't yet have, but you need to learn over the next couple of years to make yourself successful as a thought leader or speaker.
Emmanuel Fombu:
Which is quite interesting, and I find this very nice actually, because we have a lot of patients who have great stories and unique stories that they could share with the world, right? And that's what I like about how you did that, because you could have someone that has Crohn's disease that can actually tell that story within corporations that you make a change, right? You could have a caregiver that has someone that you care that they could actually share that voice, right, to influence change, and that comes all the way in this concept to help enable change, right? Because if we don't speak up and we don't change how people think, they could never actually achieve the future healthcare that we're talking about. So with that being said, I know that you're down in Silicon Valley area, what got you interested in AI, and what are your thoughts around AI and its role in the impact of future healthcare?
Robin Farmanfarmaian:
Ray Kurzwell is one of my mentors and one of my closest friends, and he is just one of the fathers essentially of AI, and I worked for him for a couple of years, 10 to 15 years ago, and we've been good friends ever since, and so he really got me into the world of professional speaking and thinking about artificial intelligence, right? And so right now, in the world of AI, it's incredibly exciting as it's intersecting into healthcare: everything from the large language model like GPT to digital therapeutics, vocal biomarkers, which means using a patient's voice or cough as a vital sign, and of course, the world of predictive analytics, right? That is one of the biggest things that AI can do right now in the world of healthcare is that predictive analytic piece.
Emmanuel Fombu:
Which is interesting. When I talk to people about AI in healthcare, and people show up like, Oh, is it possible? I go, hold on, calm down. As a physician, I'll tell you, I'm a human being. Whether you're smart or dumb, it doesn't matter, right? But we make decisions based on logic, right? So if this, then that, right? If I wake up or do I sleep, that's decisions, right? So ... on one ... algorithms, it's just logic, right? It's different computer systems that we have today, computer science has advanced to, who could take a massive amount of data to actually make that informed decisions, which is what, how we all function, how we make decisions in general. So where do you see the future of healthcare five years from now to impact patients with Crohn's disease in your particular case? What will be different? ... replicate the example you mentioned, right? Hopefully, less opioids, early diagnosis, but where do you see, how do you see this advancement ...?
Robin Farmanfarmaian:
So what I'm seeing is a massive shift in care to the patient's home, everything from dialysis to IV medication like my Remicade, I get in home now, to the hospitalization and acute care in the home. And so, over the next five years, you're not going to need to go to clinics anymore. You need to be hospitalized, instead, companies like Biofourmis, or there's a number of, DispatchHealth will come in, set up the hospitalization at home, and then staff it. So whether they need to have a nurse come in once a day, once every two days, or four times a day, whatever is needed for that particular patient, you can be hospitalized at home, and then you can be discharged at the end of that. What that does with those words is it really sets the stage for the payer reimbursement for the payer payments, but not having to go to an ER anymore or getting any of that done in a clinic is a big deal. And then the home environment is going to be much more robust, so instead of getting your blood pressure taken four times a day, if you're hospitalized, instead you have something like the Vital Connect or a Biobeat. Biobeat does continuous blood pressure monitoring. And so all of a sudden, instead of three data points a day, we had millions of data points every day on every single patient. And so it'll become almost like your environment, your clothing, the walls with wall sensors, and your body with sensors, almost continuous monitoring and catching things 5 or 6 days before they become an actual problem.
Emmanuel Fombu:
It's quite fascinating talking to you. I see your passion about this piece, right? I know, like you said, I've called some ... on the phone, and I said, Hey, do you know you could use a remote monitoring solution? Oh, sorry, I don't really have time right now. I have all these patients to see, and have these ... in the space, right? But talking to you, I'm looking at a very diverse kind of background and your passion for it, everyone can be involved in this movement. Everyone can make it happen. Everyone can get involved, right? Now, some of the companies you mentioned, for example, Biofourmis, I remember being called ... several years ago in Singapore, or like from a conversation where I used to visit Singapore, and I'm sitting here now in Boston and see how they have grown it up and outside of it. It's a very ... of them, what they do ... and be involved in the health app out of Miami Beach, right? Like ..., I've seen them, I've seen where they've grown and where they're going during COVID period, and where Sam has established himself, and I'm very proud of what they're doing over there. Biobeat, for example, what they've done, and I think companies, Winter Light Labs and Voice Biomarkers, I think these are all fascinating, right? But I think for us to get there, a lot of the leadership skills or things that you actually teach or where you do for a living, who help. Everyone listening, regardless of what field you're in, you could reach out to Robin, right, and Robin could help you establish that thought leadership as well to gauge whatever your dreams are and make whatever you're trying to make possible. So with that being said, Robin, this is like I'm ... I'm sure there have been some challenges, right? I know you mentioned the initial part, challenge of being a woman, of course, in a corporate world. You mentioned that part, but what are the challenges have you faced along the way?
Robin Farmanfarmaian:
There are lots of challenges, no matter what you look at it, within building your own thought leadership platform.
Emmanuel Fombu:
What about the idea of quitting your job, right? That's one of the key pieces where you have a job, where you've been doing this for quite some time. I see many executives, or people that work for corporations for a long time, and the idea is, do I leave now? Or they get terrified, everyone leaves, they lose their sense of identity, right? That's something that you go through and I think should be ... for this, right? And I think that's a challenge. So what do you think about, what, how did you navigate that period, or how did you know the people that navigated that initial period?
Robin Farmanfarmaian:
So, initially, I used to work full-time for corporations, right, so, or startups, and that means all of a sudden your entire identity gets wrapped up in the company that you work with. And so instead, I changed that whole entire model and I'm like, you know what? I'm not going to work full-time for companies necessarily anymore. I'm going to have multiple clients and multiple, what I call revenue streams, and that way you can build your personal brand, like mine is now Patient as CEO as well as how AI can democratize healthcare, so people know exactly what I am an expert in and you just go from there. But really having that strong personal brand means you're not tied to any kind of a company anymore, which means when you leave a company, you're not being devastated by this whole, Oh my gosh, so is my identity. You aren't what you do. You are what you decide to put out there in the world.
Emmanuel Fombu:
That's quite interesting as well. But, so what do you see your career journey, where you go? What do you see? What do you hope to accomplish in the next year or the next few years?
Robin Farmanfarmaian:
Where I'm going personally?
Emmanuel Fombu:
Yeah, where are you going?
Robin Farmanfarmaian:
Oh, well, I have a life goal of positively impacting over 100 million patients worldwide, right? And so I like to work on the big diseases. And so the way I see my career going is, of course, many more keynotes, because my favorite thing in the entire world to do is give a keynote. But then secondly, really impact that 100 million patients. And so I like to really concentrate on some of the biggest diseases out there: diabetes, and oncology, and sleep apnea, because these all are foundational type diseases and can dramatically change the equation for a lot of patients that way.
Emmanuel Fombu:
No, that's quite fascinating, and I don't want to take up too much of your time, but I'd love to have you back, Robin, to the show. I think it's been quite fascinating. So anyone listening, if you, I'm sure you could benefit from all the services that Robin is offering, myself personally, reach out and sign up as well to support Robin. I'm sure there's a lot I could learn, but Robin would love to have you. But if you're listening, please let's ... support her. If you have a keynote speaker, you should definitely get Robin on there. She has a right patch to that experience to make this happen. So thanks a lot, Robin. Hopefully, we'll get you back in the show in the future.
Robin Farmanfarmaian:
Sounds good. I had a great time. Thank you so much for having me.
Emmanuel Fombu:
Thank you for listening to Bite the Orange. If you want to change healthcare with us, please contact us at info@EmmanuelFombu.com or you can visit us at EmmanuelFombu.com or BiteTheOrange.com. If you liked this episode and want more information about us, you can also visit us at EmmanuelFombu.com.
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Robin Farmanfarmaian:
Robin Farmanfarmaian is a professional speaker and entrepreneur driving high-level business development for cutting-edge medical and biotech companies poised to impact 100 million patients. With over 180 speaking engagements in 15 countries, she educates audiences on technology, the future of healthcare, patient empowerment, building thought leadership, and more. Keeping with the empowerment theme, Robin also works with entrepreneurs and executives who want to become thought leaders to accelerate their career and business goals. She is the author of 4 books, including “The Patient as CEO: How Technology Empowers the Healthcare Consumer” and a follow-up book with Michael Ferro, "How AI Can Democratize Healthcare: The Rise of Digital Care".
Things You’ll Learn:
Crafting a clear and compelling message is important for people to establish themselves as thought leaders in their respective fields
Robin's book, "The Thought Leader Formula," provides actionable insights for individuals seeking to build their personal brand and thought leadership.
AI has applications in healthcare, such as predictive analytics, continuous monitoring, and digital therapeutics, which are reshaping patient care.
Robin envisions a future where healthcare services, including hospitalization and monitoring, are administered within the patient's home, driven by technology.
Leaders should aim to become specialists in their chosen areas, as this can open doors to unique opportunities and partnerships.
Accurate diagnoses and home-based healthcare highlight the importance of prioritizing the needs and comfort of end-users or patients when developing products or services.
Resources:
Connect with and follow Robin Farmanfarmaian on LinkedIn.
Discover the Democratizing Healthcare website.
Visit Robin’s website!
Get your copy of Robin Farmanfarmaian’s books, The Patient as CEO, and The Thought Leader Formula!