Soul Sickness and Success: The Truth No One Tells You

What happens when a successful healthcare professional faces a personal tragedy that forces her to reimagine her entire purpose? Dr. Samantha Harte's raw, vulnerable story takes us from disillusionment with the healthcare system to entrepreneurial success, and ultimately to a profound spiritual awakening following her sister's fatal overdose.

Dr. Harte's journey began when she realized the healthcare system wasn't serving patients or providers. Despite her doctorate in physical therapy, she was earning just $33 an hour while witnessing trainers and yoga instructors making two to five times more. With a combination of necessity (a marital crisis) and vision, she launched a cash-based practice swimming against the current of insurance-driven care. The result? A remarkable 30% profit margin in her first year by simply meeting a need others weren't addressing.

But business success wasn't the end of her story—it was just the beginning. When Dr. Harte received the devastating news of her sister's fatal drug overdose in 2022, everything changed. Despite being 15 years sober herself, this tragedy forced her to confront what she calls "soul sickness" in a new way. She began seeing addictive patterns everywhere—in her wealthy clients' obsession with productivity, martyrdom, and thinness. This awakening led her to write a bestselling book, reconnect with her early dreams of music and performance, and develop a powerful philosophy: "If you want to be a financial mogul, become a spiritual billionaire first."

Ready to transform your relationship with success, recovery, and purpose? This episode offers both practical insights for entrepreneurs and profound wisdom for anyone seeking deeper meaning. Listen now, and discover how facing your darkest moments might reveal your greatest gifts. Share this episode with someone who needs to hear that healing and success can go hand in hand.

To connect with Samantha, book a FREE discovery call by clicking the link below!

https://calendly.com/drharte/free-discovery-call-w-dr-harte

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Solo Episode
• 1:03 Healthcare Disillusionment and Business Birth
• 5:11 Sister's Overdose and Spiritual Awakening
• 9:10 Breaking the Circuit - Music Performance
• 12:22 Becoming a Spiritual Billionaire

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome back everybody to the truth about addiction. Today I'm actually releasing a solo episode, and what you guys are going to hear is a 10 minute talk that I gave at something called the growth talks. It's now being branded as the monetized talks. A guy named David Rivero, who's a really successful entrepreneur in Beverly Hills, has these monthly events and he asked me several months ago to speak at it, and it was a real experiment to share an impactful part of my story in 10 minutes or less. It was also in front of a group of entrepreneurs. It was also in front of a group of entrepreneurs, so I wanted to make sure I was really speaking to that audience, but still authentically sharing the heart of my message, and I'm so proud of how the talk came out, so I wanted to share it on this mini episode, enjoy, like, subscribe, share the episode with a friend and leave a comment. I'd love to hear from you.

Speaker 1: 1:04

Remember that you can always reach me on Instagram at Dr Samantha Hart or book a free discovery call with me on my website drsamanthahartcom, love you guys inside my head never good enough receiving me for dead.

Speaker 2: 1:27

But perfection's just a game of make-believe. Hey, gotta break the pattern, find a new reprieve almost.

Speaker 3: 1:40

I'm going to give you the introduction to Samantha Hart. He completely messed up the interview. I apologize. I'm sorry, that's okay, you got it.

Speaker 4: 1:49

That's what happened to me. I had a couple of drinks in the bar in the back. You got me, you got me, you did. You're right, it was the bartender in the back I should have had a little bit of fun.

Speaker 3: 1:55

I'm trying to kick. I've got Samantha Hart and she is, by the way, super, super successful. She is a doctor number one she had. She is a best. She is a world-winning author. She has a book written super successful. She's also she's been on ABC 7 News. She's been on ABC 7 News. She's been on CBS. She's been on People Magazine. She is everywhere. She is known as the mind, body, wealth and health expert. She is like the guru and that's why we wanted to have her speak. I know she's going to provide tremendous value tonight. She's an amazing speaker, samantha. It's all you. Yay, thank you.

Speaker 1: 2:51

Thank you so much. Hi everybody. Can you guys hear me, okay? Thank you so much, david, for having me here. It's an honor and a privilege to be in front of a group of people and tell you guys a little bit about me, and 10 minutes is a challenge, I have to be honest. So I really thought about who's coming to this event and how can I provide value in 10 minutes, because I have so much to say.

Speaker 1: 3:15

So where I'm going to start is in 2010, which is when I graduated with a doctorate in physical therapy and at that point I had put some dreams that I had as a kid aside about being a star and singing and dancing all over the world. And I played it safe and I went to school and I got the good grades and I got the fancy degree and here I was, I was gonna help people for a living. And then I saw the healthcare climate and I was so heartbroken because everybody was chasing symptoms and nobody was treating the source of the problem and most people who were physical therapists doing what I wanted to do was treating athletes and sexy kinds of injuries, because I'm a dancer and it was five patients at a time to one therapist and the most that they were getting done was alleviating some pain with a stim unit on their leg and doing some straight leg raises. So I was paying attention to the health care climate and going this doesn't work for them and it definitely doesn't work for me, because not only am I not helping people, but I'm also in more debt than the money I'm making. So what am I going to do? And I started to ask patients where are you going when insurance decides you're good enough, when you're 60% better, but you're a runner or a dancer and you want to be 100% better? Oh well, we're going to.

Speaker 1: 4:40

The trainers and the Pilates instructors and the yoga teachers were paying cash. I was three years out of my doctoral program, making $33 an hour, $33 an hour, but the trainers and the Pilates instructors and the yoga teachers were making 80, 120, 175. And I was like, well, that's going to change, because what if I became your strength and conditioning coach? And the thing is, they didn't teach us in PT school how to build a brand, how to build a business. They taught us how to care for our patients, which is important, but you can't get good at caring for people when you don't have time to care for them. So I decided what if I started a business with really low overhead?

Speaker 1: 5:30

And really the business was born when I was in a marital crisis, so there was a little bit of fear and desperation lighting a fire underneath me, which is not always a bad thing. I had to make more money, but I also wanted to do something I loved. So I started working with people on the extension of care and I opened a practice in Santa Monica and there were a sea of other practices around me that took insurance. So I was swimming upstream. Why would somebody come to me and pay four, five, six times as much money? Well, maybe, if I provide a really good service, they will, and maybe they'll tell their friends. I made a 30% profit margin in my first year of business. That's unheard of. I wasn't trying to to make a lot of money. I was trying to survive honestly and to help people and to pay attention, which is what entrepreneurs do. You pay attention, which is what entrepreneurs do. You pay attention to a need that people have that isn't being met, and then you try to fill that need. So I did that and it was great, and I had a practice for 10 years.

Speaker 1: 6:42

And then, on March 13th of 2022, I got a phone call that I had been dreading my entire life. See, I'm 15 years in recovery from drugs and alcohol. I'm not California sober. I am sober from all things that mess with my mind. Thank you. And, by the way, if you're drinking, please don't feel awkward. This is not a plug-in to get sober. And, by the way, if you're drinking, please don't feel awkward. This is not a plug-in to get sober. However, the call that I got was that my sister died of a drug overdose. Yeah, that is the kind of call that you dread, that you wonder how will I survive if that thing happens to me? How will I stay sober if that I can do all these things, but not if that thing happens to me? How will I stay sober if that I can do all these things, but not if that happens?

Speaker 1: 7:34

And it happened, and I had lived through a lot of things sober up until that point. That changed everything because Samantha, the doctor who was really helping people with their pain, I always saw the soul sickness in the patient. If you're a good practitioner, if you're good at what you do, if you're a good entrepreneur, you meet the person emotionally where they are at and when you meet them there, you build the relationship, you make a connection and then God knows what's possible financially. I always saw the soul sickness in the person, but I couldn't unsee it after that. So someone would come to me high net worth, if you know, santa Monica, north of Montana, all the money in the world, chronic knee pain. They went in network. Nobody could help them. They found out that I was great at what I did. Here's all the money Help me. But then they would be addicted to productivity or martyrdom or thinness. Right, a woman who really needed to lift more than five pounds to build strength so she wouldn't be in pain anymore, but she couldn't, because that might make her fat. She wouldn't be in pain anymore, but she couldn't, because that might make her fat. And all of a sudden these addictive cycles were everywhere, not just in recovery and not just about substance abuse.

Speaker 1: 8:57

And when my sister passed away I thought I need to write a book. I don't even know what this book is going to be about, but this work me in the clinic as doctor is done. It doesn't mean I don't practice, I do, but I am a lot more than a doctor of physical therapy and I needed to take all of who I was and who I was becoming into the places and spaces that I was going next. So I wrote and I wrote and I wrote and what started as a memoir became a self-help memoir because I thought, well, what changed my life?

Speaker 1: 9:30

When did my life actually begin? And it wasn't when I overdosed on cocaine Nope, kept using for a while. After that. It was when I hit spiritual rock bottom, when I was five years sober, running on perfectionism to keep me safe and whole in the world, and then my marriage fell apart and I couldn't say or do anything to make him love and forgive me. I was physically abstinent and spiritually bankrupt. And the right person came into my life at the right time and we did the steps, the 12 steps of recovery around my marriage. We made them practical, we made them fresh, modern, trauma-informed, so I could actually navigate that situation, clear my shame and hear my intuition. And that voice not the critic, the intuitive voice is the thing that said you could start your own business if you want, you might be good at it. And that same voice said you need to write a book. And that same voice said no, your book's going to help a lot of people, not just people who are suffering from addiction.

Speaker 1: 10:35

My book just got released, on June 10th. It's out in the world, it's in the back. It's a bestseller, which is insane. It's so insane and in the process of writing the book and turning away from life as I knew it because it didn't feel resonant for me anymore, everything opened up. Those dreams of being a singer and a dancer started to come to fruition. I got asked to go on tour as a choreographer in Japan last year. I'm a mom, I have two kids at home, I'm 41. You better believe I went on tour. You better believe I went all over Japan flipping my hair around like a fool and then, when the recording artist heard me sing, he said can you sing?

Speaker 1: 11:24

And I was like ah, kind of. I mean, I kind of wanted to have a record deal when I was 19, but you know that was a long time ago. I'm now making music with Grammy award-winning musicians. I just got on the cover of a magazine today. It's out in the world. It's called gurus, which is really funny because David put that in the title of my intro, that I'm a guru. And here's the thing All that stuff is so cool, it's shiny and sparkly, just like this house, that I kind of match with. All of that is amazing. I have never met a person who's wealthy as could be, whose money could solve their heartbreak, ever. So when I thought, do I belong in this room with a bunch of billionaires? You know, I sure as hell do. And here's the thing If you want to be a financial mogul, become a spiritual billionaire first. Thank you so much, thank you.

Speaker 2: 12:51

Waking up. I hear the desperation call. I turn my back and hit my head against the wall To meet a crucifix. To take me to my knees, whipping my mistakes. To jump over the grief. Breaking the circuit, making it worth it. Oh, sick and tired of the voice inside my head Never good enough. It's leaving me for dead. But perfection's just a game of make-believe. Hey, gotta break the pattern, find a new reprieve. Breaking the circuit.

Speaker 4: 13:40

Making it worth it all. I am ready to make a change. I am bigger than my pain. There's a note deep inside.

Speaker 2: 13:58

I gotta let the light. I can be brave and afraid at the same time. Practice self-compassion, start to calm my mind, taking tiny steps to loving all of me. Just the process, cause it's gonna set me free, breaking the circuit.

Speaker 4: 14:24

Making it worth it. I am ready to make a change. I am big, bigger than my pain. There's no deep inside. I got the the life. Gotta gotta gotta break it, or fake it till we make it. Gotta gotta gotta break it, or fake it till we make it. Gotta gotta gotta break it. Come on One, two, three. I am ready to make a change. I am bigger than my pain. There's no deep inside, thank you. There's no deep inside. I got this life.