The year 2000. I remember I was absolutely blank. Just graduated. Walking on the streets of Bangalore. Just a day earlier, I had graduated in Mangalore, with a BBM degree. If y’all have been to Bangalore, I was on MG Road, and just looking around a board saying, “Which consultant can I see?” “Who can land me a job?” I fancied the name ‘Tom’ at that time, and I saw Tom Associates. I walked into this consultant’s office. He looked at me and he said, “There is an interview right now. Would you like to go?” I said, “Yes.” He took me to an office, and I landed my first job at Citibank two days after my graduation. My journey began there in my corporate career.
I worked with HSBC, then I joined Akamai Technologies, and then I joined Oracle. God was so kind to me throughout my corporate career. I was blessed. Every quarter, I was promoted. And in five years, I was promoted as the Vice President for Sales in Oracle. I was in Boston, US. Flying business class. Staying in five-star, seven-star hotels. Successful. The money was coming in. Good money. So, most of us here are possibly in the situation where I was in 2000, not knowing where to go. And some of us are in corporates or in jobs where we possibly are happy doing what we’re doing, but there is still some kind of a desire to do something more in life. That’s when I quit Oracle. I quit taking that fat paycheck because I just knew that was not what was driving me forward.
Imagine a person lying on the floor in your bedroom looking straight up, saying, “Lord, I want to do something but this is not what it is. Tell me what you want me to do and I’ll do that.” Well, I started all my prayers and worship, but God in his own humour was looking at me, saying, “Okay, go on.” Nothing happened. Nothing happened. Now, the money in my bank account was going low; it was depleting. And I thought, I need to make money now. What do I do? Let’s start a business. And at that time — now you should listen really carefully to how the Lord can lead you. It’s funny at times. Sometimes I look at him and say, “Are you seriously doing this to me?”
And when I was in that phase of just not knowing where to go or how to move about my life, absolutely clueless, the Lord brought this person into my life and said, “There is a place where you can do something.”
There was a time when my uncle developed an ointment — a medication — for pimples. And I said, “India’s a great market for pimples.” I had many on myself. So, what would I do? I applied it on my face. And I knew I was going to be an overnight success. I so knew it. India is a market for pimples, isn’t it? Yeah. So once I applied it, for the next one month I could not get out of my house. Yeah. You can imagine all the people who are here — those many pimples were on my face after I put the ointment. And I’m not joking. Not joking. I went to the doctors; they gave me antibiotics and I was fine. But I knew there was something in this ointment which did something. Because in one month even though I got the antibiotics, I did not take them. But in one month my face was so clear, you can’t imagine. I mean, as clear as this.
There was one time that I was just in a pharmacy because my friend owned a pharmacy. I was just talking to him and I said, “Hey, you know what? There’s a particular ointment. I don’t know what it really does, but I think there’s some kind of potential.” See, the Lord talks to you in ways you can’t really imagine. While I’m talking to him, a man walks up to the pharmacy. He almost could not walk, and he was sitting in the pharmacy, saying, “Give me an ointment for a wound. I’ve got a wound which is seven years old, almost 10 cm deep, and I’m due for an amputation in a week’s time. So the doctor said, ‘In a week’s time we are scheduling your surgery — an amputation — basically you’re not going to have a limb.’”
Now, remember, this thing that you see on the screen, it’s an alarming statistic. I’m going to talk about that a little later. My pharmacist friend, with my permission, gave this ointment to this guy. He went home. And I could hear my heartbeat because I didn’t know what’s going to happen. In 24 hours, my pharmacist friend calls me back. I thought I was gone. When I went back to the pharmacy, this guy was crying and he was laughing — the patient who had come. And the wound which was not healing for seven years, which was almost so deep that it was getting into his bones, had completely covered up. And that morning he went to the doctor to show it and the doctor said, “You don’t need an amputation. What did you do?”
Now, I went back to do a little bit of research in the line, and I realised that what this ointment did was basically it removed all of the dirt from your body, the infection, and helped blood come to the wound, and that is how wounds started to heal. I did further studies on that. Just the statistics. And the WHO says every 30 seconds, there is one amputation around the world. So as we speak, you can count 30 seconds. There earlier was one amputation in 30 seconds. When I took this medication to hospitals, this was the face that they had. Ditto. Some large organisations even threatened me. When they threatened me, you know what I wanted to do? Exactly what most of us want to do. We want to run back to our corporales, or your old life or wherever you were.
When a person is an amputee, the person is only able to live for approximately five years. Not more. What got me excited was when me and my team were able to save these limbs, we were able to save so many lives.
When I was in that phase of complete fear, there was this one time that I attended a GLS Summit — a Global Leadership Summit. And in that summit, a similar summit to how you guys are sitting and listening to a speaker, I heard the speaker, Gary Haugen, say that fear is a silent destroyer of dreams. Is there anybody here who does not have fear? All of us are fearful, right? So when I heard that — that fear is a silent destroyer of dreams — I felt a gentle push on my back, saying, “Sheryl, you should go forward.”
As I speak, I may not be able to express how scared I was. Because the goons can be really big and you don’t know how to move forward. But at that time, I collected whatever money I could, and miraculously, Jesus sent a person into my life and he said, “Sheryl, there is a rundown hospital. Would you like to take this up? Nothing is functioning in that hospital.” And when I was in that phase of just not knowing where to go or how to move about my life, absolutely clueless, the Lord brought this person into my life and said, “There is a place where you can do something.”
This is our first GoHeal wound and burn care hospital that we started with just 50 beds. And with these 50 beds, we were able to then save about 100 limbs per day, those days. From these 50 beds, the Lord took us to an even better hospital with 200 beds, where we were able to save a lot more limbs. I’ll tell you an alarming fact: When a person is an amputee, the person is only able to live for approximately five years. Not more. What got me excited was when me and my team were able to save these limbs, we were able to save so many lives. Because those people are somebody’s dad, somebody’s mom, somebody’s sister, somebody’s brother. You are saving a life.
As I was moving on with my life, again the backlashes came, saying, “You don’t have a medical degree.” So I was a BBM graduate then, and very late in my life, I went back to study. I did my second PUC once again in my 30s, and then I was awarded a medical degree as well as in India and I was able to practise medicine in the hospitals and we were able to save a lot more limbs in the world.
Now you may think, Okay, Sheryl is successful; she’s doing all of this. But no matter what, fear will always strike us on a daily basis, guys, but that does not mean you’re going to step back.
And when you are able to do this legally, you’re able to touch a lot more people’s lives fearlessly because the Lord is calling you to get out of your fear and to go forward into a life where you’re going to change people’s lives. I just want to ask a question to the audience: Is there anybody here who wants to get out of a situation where you’re feeling completely in fear? Is there anybody? Nobody? Great, I can see a lot of hands there. Remember that in the Bible, the word ‘fear’ is mentioned how many times? 365 times in the Bible. And there are 365 days in the year, which means Jesus knows, we being humans, we will have fear no matter what stage we are in in our lives today.
Now you may think, Okay, Sheryl is successful; she’s doing all of this. But no matter what, fear will always strike us on a daily basis, guys, but that does not mean you’re going to step back. Step back if you must, but don’t go back into a life where you are not going to be able to take that step in the future to do something great. We are living testimonies. We are people. We are God’s people. Our lives should be an example to the ones we are catering to.
When I treat people, I don’t share the gospel. I don’t speak much with regard to the Bible or Jesus. But my patients say, “We know we are going to get healed because we know who the God you worship is.” And that is what I want to always do in my life — lead by example. Lead by example, whatever you do. Whatever you do. Let people know that you are in Christ and your light should shine on them, and should rub off on them.
This is a picture of me in the operating theatre. We do about, on an average, 17-18 surgeries a day. And we have crossed the mark of saving 2 million limbs from the time we started this mission.
We are living testimonies. We are people. We are God's people. Our lives should be an example to the ones we are catering to. — Dr. Sheryl Colaco Share on X
There was this very important person in my life, and she said, “Okay, you’re doing a lot. We built a company where we make these medicines, but we are in Mangalore. We are only serving a community that is coming to Mangalore, and the world needs what we are doing.” And now, Preethi Valerie is right here with me. She’s the chairperson in our company. We manufacture these medicines, and these are now available all across the globe, majorly in the US, in Canada, and in the UAE. So why I mentioned Preethi is that sometimes we want to walk alone. We don’t realise that God has given us angels all around us. We need to listen to them. We need people to hold us all along in our journey. And through our people, we see God’s love, we see Jesus coming into our lives and taking us one step after the other.
And this is one of my favourite pictures. When I get in the operating theatre, I can lose a patient on the bed. But I’m always reminded. I’m always reminded, Sheryl, you came from nothing. And then I raised you into a corporate life. You were living a very high-fashion life, and then God got me to picking worms. Why do I say ‘picking worms’? Because people with diabetes, their wounds go rotten. And when flesh rots, there are worms. And imagine me living a lifestyle like that. I was like, “God. I mean, seriously. Dude.” And from picking worms, literally getting down, the Lord has gotten me to a stage where we are able to touch lives and save human lives across the world. And where he leads, he provides. So do not fear going ahead and being excellent at whatever you do because that picture says, “He may be next to me in my profession.” But remember, keep that picture in your mind because he is standing right next to you, leading you.
And remember one last thing — as you move on in your life, it may be one small step for you, but it’s going to be a giant leap for mankind. Thank you.
