Sophie, Perfectionist

Sophie is a 53-year-old senior lawyer for a top-notch international law firm that has offices on both sides of the Atlantic. Sophie approached me in March 2021 to get help for her chronic migraines. Sophie was living a super hectic life as a professional lawyer, traveling regularly between Frankfurt and New York. At ground zero, Sophie had 15-18 migraine attacks on a monthly basis, and she felt that the medication was causing tremendous trouble, making it difficult to function effectively anymore. To be honest, it's amazing how well she had been coping until the point we met for the first time.

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Perfectionist Mindset

Due to her extremely busy schedule, we only had time for two meetings, and the rest of the intensive coaching was executed through online calls, supported by text messages and phone calls. As a person with a true fighter spirit and a perfectionist mindset (the latter is a direct quotation from her), Sophie purchased not one but two cold therapy tanks. One served her on a permanent basis at her Frankfurt home, and the other was a super compact model that she could pack into a storage bag and take with her in her travel bag! And hear me out on this next detail: she told me how she made sure that the hotel she stayed at on her business trips could provide her with plenty of ice cubes so she could have a real ice bath!

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Innovation 1-0-1

The most amazing and admirable part of Sophie's story is that she managed to turn the extremely challenging moments during the first two months completely to her advantage. Two weeks after starting the self-care program, Sophie faced a tough situation one day. She was right in the middle of a tough negotiation when she felt a migraine attack trying to kick in. Right there in the conference room with half a dozen sharp-minded business executives and their lawyers, she did something super cool. It was about to be her turn to make some important points. She felt horrible, but she calmly took several deep breaths and didn’t talk for a full minute. The counterparts were getting nervous and started to ask her to respond. Sophie managed to execute superior negotiation tactics in the middle of a rapidly arising migraine attack. Silence is an extremely powerful negotiation weapon. Breathing gave her the opportunity to pause and gather the strength and willpower to function. Then she did something even cooler. She started to talk, and after the first sentence, she began compression treatment while speaking! I have heard many times of people working in office environments praising compression treatment as highly convenient in such an environment, as it doesn’t look like self-care. But what Sophie had done is something truly amazing! Sophie laughed when she told me the story afterward. “They had no idea that I was blocking the migraine attack so it wouldn’t kick in! All those businessmen and their lawyers, including my own colleagues, thought I was running some new negotiation strategy!” There was a huge amount of money at stake in that negotiation, and if Sophie had been forced to leave the conference room due to a migraine attack, they would have most likely lost the deal and almost $20 million. Amazing!

Clear Waters

Sophie turned out to be a true migraine survivor, shining in those dark early days before the migraines started to lose their sharpness and the attack volume began to drop. Based on my guidance, she began to do mini (2-minute) compression treatments combined with tactical breathing almost every hour during the business day, and longer sessions when she wasn't at the office, in meetings, or at some important business lunch or dinner. After two months of intensive self-care, Sophie was in clear waters. During the second month, she had three migraine attack attempts which she handled like a real pro with self-care, and one attack managed to kick in but only because it started while she was sleeping. Ever since, Sophie has been shining, she feels normal and is super energetic. There have been several months when migraines haven't even tried to kick in, showing how well she is recovering from her demanding job. Yes, she still carries the portable cold water tank with her when traveling and makes sure she has plenty of ice cubes so she can take a nice ice bath wherever she is staying. Inspiring don’t you think?