Wellness Reimagined: Jennifer K. Hill Of Om-Heals.com On 5 Things That Should Be Done To Improve and Reform The Health & Wellness Industry
An Interview With Maria Angelova
Treat the whole person not just the symptoms. Often our emotions can be trapped in our bodies, and yet traditional medicine only treats the physical ailment not the root emotion or cause.
In our world of constant change, and with life moving faster than ever, topics such as mental health, self-care, and prevention have become popular buzzwords. But there are misconceptions about the meaning of self-care and exercise. Many opt for quick solutions — surgery, pills — to dull the problem without adequately addressing the underlying cause. Meanwhile, many parts of the industry are unregulated and oversaturated. People with years of training are competing with people with weekend training. Many providers are overworked, overwhelmed, and underpaid. The general public is not educated about asking the right questions when selecting a wellness provider. In the face of all this, what can be done to correct the status quo? In this interview series, we are seeking to hear from a variety of leaders in the health and wellness industries who agree that the wellness Industry is in need of an overhaul and offer suggestions about what can be done moving forward. As a part of this series, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Jennifer K. Hill.
Jennifer K. Hill is an Evolutionary Leader, entrepreneur, author, speaker, and TV host. She has hosted popular shows with Dr. Deepak Chopra, Dr. Rollin McCraty, Dr. Dain Heer, and many other leaders from around the world. After selling her first company in 2018, she recently co-founded a new company in the wellness space, Om-heals.com.
Thank you so much for doing this interview. It is an honor. Our readers would love to learn more about you and your personal background. Can you please share your personal backstory? What has brought you to this point in your life?
I began my career as a legal recruiter. After working for a few years for someone else, I opened my first company at 28 years old. Less than ten years later, I sold it, and it continues to be profitable even years after I had left. Prior to that, I spent most of my young adult life struggling with depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation. It was not until much later in life that I was diagnosed with Asperger’s, which really helped me to understand a lot more about myself. Prior to learning that I had Asperger’s Syndrome, I had spent most of my 20’s and 30’s trying to understand myself and where I fit into in the world. This led me to a deep dive into personal development and healing.
What is your “why” behind the work that you do? What fuels you?
As someone who tried to commit suicide three times between the ages of 16 and 20, I have deep compassion for anyone who is struggling with how to “be a human being” in this world. It is something that I continually work on every day. Helping others to understand themselves and one another is one of my prevailing passions. It occurs to me that this is the key factor that enabled me to be successful in recruiting. It was this yearning to understand the self and the other, that helped me to excel in that field and to recently co-found my new company, Om-heals.com.
What are some of the most interesting or exciting new projects you are working on now?
Om-heals.com is my passion project. We took the wisdom I gained from 15+ years in recruiting and synthesized that into a mathematical formula (or algorithm) that mirrored my intuition to match users with holistic practitioners around the world.
Our underlying theory we based the algorithm on, is that the average person can only tolerate so much variability from themselves across the quadrants that we measure. When two people attempt to have a therapeutic relationship and there is too much variability, it creates an “accidental adversarial relationship.”
This often leads people who are seeking help to give up on their well-being due to an inability to feel seen, heard, and safe.
However, when two people are matched algorithmically, we see astounding results (approximately 90%+ efficacy!).
When users answer our matching questions and receive their best matches (it is free to see who the matches are) based on our algorithm we see about 80–90% of first sessions resulting in multiple follow-up sessions due to how strong the initial match is.
We truly believe this approach can disrupt the wellness and healthcare space. There are many applications beyond what we are doing with holistic practitioners. So much so, that we are developing a software solution to license our algorithm to therapists, doctors, dentists, and potentially others. Right now, we have just opened our waiting list for potential clients and partners who would like to be able to license our algorithm.
It has been said that our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
When I built my first company, I made the mistake of thinking everyone was designed the same way as me. This led to anger, frustration, and me generally being short-tempered with my staff and others. Sometimes I refer to myself as a “recovering jerk,” because I did not realize the cost and impact of assuming that everyone thought the same way as I did.
Have you ever gotten that “I’ve reached my limit” feeling because of how people go about doing certain things when you know “just how they should be done?”.
With Asperger’s, it felt like that x10.
It was only in 2015 when my business coach came into my life and began doing Human Design for me and my team members, that I began to transform my perspective.
Once he taught me that we were all designed differently and that there was a way to work within each of our designs, my company flourished as did our team and we were able to sell the company in 2018.
OK, thank you for all of that. Let’s now shift to the core focus of our interview. From where you stand, why are you passionate about the topic of Reimagining The Health and Wellness industries? Can you explain what you mean with a story or an example?
The reason I am passionate about Reimagining the Health and Wellness industry is that seeing people struggle with depression, anxiety, pain, and other ailments hurts my heart. As someone who personally struggled with similar maladies of the spirit and mind for several decades, it is my deepest desire to help people reconnect to the health and wholeness within themselves.
A great example of this was a veteran we gifted a session to. When we first began Om-heals.com last year, we gifted a session to a veteran for every purchase made. One veteran shared that “My one session with Sada (a practitioner on our platform) did more for me than 30+ years of anger management meetings and therapy.”
Our dream is that everyone in the world has access to the right healthcare and wellness practitioners who are a fit for them and their needs. We are clear that giving people access to finding the right “energetic” match for them can completely disrupt the healthcare and wellness space in the best possible way.
When I talk about Reimagining the Wellness industry, I am talking about reimagining it from the perspective of the providers as well as from the perspective of the recipients and patients. Can you share a few reasons why the status quo is not working for both providers and patients?
The status quo is based on the old paradigm of competition instead of cooperation. One of the other projects I am involved in is called the “unitive narrative.” The premise of this narrative, which is based on 1000+ scientific articles, is that we evolved to cooperate, not to compete.
The desire to compete instead of cooperate leads people to try find “the right price” to compete with others in the industry. It leads to situations where people compete on skill alone, and wonder: Why did such a highly recommended practitioner work out so poorly for me? Why was it such an emotionally painful experience? The focus of cooperation leads the right practitioner to be matched with the right user, based on something more tangible than “they’re better than x”.
Healthcare, business, education, and other systems are all based on the old paradigm of competition. When we shift into a model based on cooperation, we will see a great transformation not just in healthcare, but in all areas of life.
Consider for a moment that the best and most sustainable practices are ones that cooperate with partners that they work well with… so when the user is matched correctly with a partner in that ecosystem, that entire ecosystem opens up meritoriously for everyone concerned.
That’s a path to sustainable success. Our algorithm is the key that unlocks that success for both the user and the industry.
Why do you think there is a good opportunity now to improve and reform the health and wellness industry?
The old systems and models of healthcare are decaying. Individuals, organizations, and countries are seeing how these old models are not sustainable. Change is being called for. Due to the breakdowns in COVID that highlighted the flaws in our outdated systems and models, something new is being summoned into being. We’re an expression of the desires of both users and industries to smooth out rough corners or even, at times, flip the approach entirely.
Can you please share your “5 Things That Should Be Done To Improve and Reform The Health & Wellness Industry”? Please share an example or story for each if you can.
The five things that should be done to improve and reform the health and wellness industries are:
- Treat the whole person not just the symptoms. Often our emotions can be trapped in our bodies, and yet traditional medicine only treats the physical ailment not the root emotion or cause.
- Empower individuals to find the right medical match. Encourage patients to take the time to do the research to find the right match for what they need. That might be our algorithm or maybe it is using one’s own intuitive powers. Do not settle for someone who is not your energetic match.
- Individuals need to ask themselves: What do I need to feel safe on my healing journey? And then to realize that they have permission to ask for what they need.
- Research what is missing. A deep dive into what is missing in the healthcare and wellness industries is necessary. This requires a global collaboration of countries, companies and individuals to provide clarity on what is missing in our current systems.
- Cooperation. Without cooperation we will fail. We will be building something new on an unstable foundation. If we choose to build these new healthcare and wellness systems from a place of cooperation though, we will create a durable future that works for everyone.
From the recipient and patient side of the industry, can you please share a few ways that patients and recipients should reimagine what the wellness and healthcare industry should provide?
Patients and recipients have the right to ask for what they need in a healthcare or wellness system. New initiatives and paradigms need to be created to give the patients what they need, and patients need to be willing to ask for it.
I think patients have settled for far too long for less than adequate healthcare and wellness solutions. It is up to the individuals to hold healthcare and wellness companies accountable.
What do you think are the biggest roadblocks to reforming the industry? What can be done to address those hurdles?
The biggest roadblocks are the old ways of thinking. Several hundred years ago science would have considered modern day medicine magic. The same is true for what is possible for our futures. With exceptional developments in traditional healthcare, energy medicine, quantum physics and science, what may look like magic today, could in the very near future be scientifically provable. I think it is important that we keep our minds open to new ways of thinking about solutions.
I remember years ago; I had interviewed a gentleman for my “Get Yourself the Job” podcast I hosted. He shared a story with me about how man got to the moon. He explained, NASA had the brightest minds all in the same room for years researching a solution to get man to the moon. The only problem was, everyone who was in the room had a similar perspective or way of thinking. The moment that NASA brought in four divergent minds into the same room, they found a solution to get man on the moon in a month.
This story illustrates our need for innovation and disruption. We need new minds at the table to come up with new solutions.
I’m very passionate about the topic of proactive versus reactive self-care and healthcare. What do you think can be done to shift the industries towards a proactive healthcare approach? How can we shift the self-care mindset for consumers and providers alike?
I love that you use the term pro-active vs. reactive self-care and healthcare. I previously used those same terms to describe job hunting when I ran my recruiting company.
To me, a proactive healthcare solution begins with parents, children and education. Rather than waiting for old traumas to manifest into physical ailments, I think we can begin by teaching parents and children self-care at an early age. I think traditional education is also transforming and transmuting at this time, and as this continues to evolve so will our healthcare system.
We previously thought that there was a linear way to teach people, though what we are discovering is that people learn in a variety of ways. We are uniquely designed and so too do our healthcare and education solutions need to reflect this. In fact, we may test our algorithm for teacher student relationships to increase how well students can learn from their teachers.
What if, in the same way a patient cannot receive healing from someone they are not energetically aligned to, the same is true of students not being able to learn from teachers who they are not energetically aligned with? The implications of this are vast.
Thank you for all that great insight! Let’s start wrapping up. Can you share your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Why does that resonate with you so much?
“Let this be your greatest task, let this be your greatest joy. To give people back to themselves…even in their darkest hour, especially in that hour.”
That quote was engraved on a charm on a bracelet that my sister gave me some years ago. I truly feel this is my purpose.
We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we both tag them :-)
Thank you so much. I feel a strong draw to connect with Oprah. As someone who loves doing TV and radio interviews, and is also passionate about spirituality, equality, and wellness, I look forward to having lunch with Oprah in the near future.
I appreciate your time and valuable contribution. One last question, how can people reach or follow you?
The best way to reach me is https://www.om-heals.com/contact or on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenniferkhill/
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent on this. We wish you only continued success.
About The Interviewer: Maria Angelova, MBA is a disruptor, author, motivational speaker, body-mind expert, Pilates teacher, and founder and CEO of Rebellious Intl. As a disruptor, Maria is on a mission to change the face of the wellness industry by shifting the self-care mindset for consumers and providers alike. As a mind-body coach, Maria’s superpower is alignment which helps clients create a strong body and a calm mind so they can live a life of freedom, happiness, and fulfillment. Prior to founding Rebellious Intl, Maria was a Finance Director and a professional with 17+ years of progressive corporate experience in the Telecommunications, Finance, and Insurance industries. Born in Bulgaria, Maria moved to the United States in 1992. She graduated summa cum laude from both Georgia State University (MBA, Finance) and the University of Georgia (BBA, Finance). Maria’s favorite job is being a mom. Maria enjoys learning, coaching, creating authentic connections, working out, Latin dancing, traveling, and spending time with her tribe. To contact Maria, email her at [email protected]. To schedule a free consultation, click here.
