Though many residents of the Big Apple might envision their career path early on in life, few — if any — can predict the experiences they might have that would lead them down a different one. Such was the case for Dr. Sekuleo Gathers, a New York City-based medical doctor whose own experiences would see him eventually gravitate towards a career as a mindset coach helping others discover their own personal truth and professional potential.
“Just a kid from Brooklyn”
As a teenager, Dr. Gathers attended LaGuardia High School, a famous performing arts school in New York with notable alum including the likes of Jennifer Aniston, Nicki Minaj, Nora Lum (aka Awkwafina), and SNL’s Michael Che. “You could just be walking through the halls on your way to another class and people would be singing, dancing, or acting out a scene,” Dr. Gathers recalled.
Indeed, the vivid and melodious halls of LaGuardia High School were at times a stark contrast to his environment closer to home. He grew up in the Brownsville area of Brooklyn, a neighborhood with some of the highest poverty rates in New York City, but also a place with deep history for the Jewish and African American communities. The neighborhood is home to some important historical grass-roots movements for the working class.
“I grew up in a poor neighborhood, but my family wasn’t actually poor,” Dr. Gathers clarified. “My mother inherited her parents’ house and my father just didn’t want to leave. He was hard-headed in that way, but I’m glad I grew up there because it taught me to be humble. I played with the kids in the neighborhood and grew up with them. From that experience, I was able to understand what it means to come from a place like that.”
And despite being more financially stable than others in his neighborhood, Dr. Gathers’ father taught him another important lesson. “My father was an administrator at the Board of Education. Although he always held supervisory roles, he treated everybody the same. He would stop and talk to everybody, from the students to the custodial staff. That definitely informed the way I approach my profession. Treating everyone with respect and honoring whatever value they bring is something I do even to this day.”
Personal Rhythm: A Prescription For Truth
The balance between growing up in Brownsville and attending a school like LaGuardia High instilled a strong sense of balance between the arts and sciences in Dr. Gathers early on. Although he admits that he’s always been more inclined towards the arts than sciences, he explains how his study of medicine helped him learn that the practice is both an art and science in equal measure.
“I played the viola in junior high and high school, but I didn’t focus on it,” he told us. “Once I graduated from medical school, I got back into music production and filmmaking. There’s a creativity to life that connects all people. As a healer, physician, and mindset coach, you need to understand the rhythm of a person to really connect with them and help them achieve what they want.”
That rhythm and personal connection, Dr. Gathers explained, is perhaps one of the most challenging things to find within ourselves as an individual. During a routine procedure while in his second year as a resident physician at New York City’s own Mount Sinai Hospital, Dr. Gathers contracted Hepatitis C from a patient. While his diagnosis was one of the worst things that could have happened, few experiences are without a silver lining.
For the first time in nearly 20 years, Dr. Gathers suddenly found his life on pause. During this period, he learned two important lessons. Firstly, he had spent his life avoiding the truth of who he was, and who he wanted to be, having let the hopes, dreams, wishes, and trauma of others dictate many of his prior decisions. The second lesson was finding that the most successful people in the world — regardless of who they are — tend to be motivated by the darker experiences of their past, which can cause their success to plateau.
A New Kind of Doctor for NYC
Less than 2 years after beginning treatment for his Hep-C diagnosis, Dr. Gathers emerged free of the condition with a new lease on life. After being cured, he opted to attend the prestigious Lee Strasberg Theater and Film Institute. But why would an accomplished medical doctor decide to go back to school for theater and film? Again, as Dr. Gathers himself described, the practice of medicine is a delicate balance between art and science—much like his own NYC upbringing.
“Even though I was cognitively learning about myself, I needed to find more practical ways to bridge those emotional and mental gaps,” Dr. Gathers said. From his psychiatry colleagues, he learned how acting could become a vehicle through which one can discover not only the power of their own voice but also learn how to understand the rhythm of others, using it to connect with them in more meaningful and impactful ways.
In better understanding this process, Dr. Gathers likewise began developing a deep love of filmmaking. This, in turn, allowed him to understand how many of his own personal experiences had been distorted and based largely upon the opinions and stories of others and their own experiences.
Today, Dr. Gathers’s work with clients as a mental health and mindset coach centers around the power of recognizing one’s personal narrative, and how that narrative can affect the way we interact with the world around us — be it positive or negative. Dr. Seku is particularly focused on helping leaders, high-performers, and high-achievers navigate the next stage of their journey. He plans to launch his own platform ConnectMD later this year, through which he will offer his range of services as a medical doctor, mindset coach, and life strategist to serve others while providing a living example of how embracing inner truth unleashes one’s full potential both professionally and personally.
“What sets me apart from other mindset coaches is the fact that I’m a medical doctor,” Dr. Gathers explained. “My intent is to connect physical health and mental health to optimal health. That’s what ConnectMD is all about.”
