Grow the Good

James Lawrence, also known as the Iron Cowboy, is a mindset and fitness coach, best known for testing his mental and physical limits. In 2021, James set out to complete 100 Ironman-distance triathlons in 100 days. He ended up doing 101 triathlons in 101 days.

The Conquer 100 wasn’t the first time James tested his athletic limits. It started when his wife signed him up for a marathon. But one marathon wasn’t enough, so he tried a sprint triathlon. He was hooked, and in 2011, he completed 20 half-Ironman distances in 22 weeks and then 30 full-Ironman distances in 2012. In 2015, he completed 50 Ironman triathlons in 50 states in 50 days. 

In this episode, the Iron Cowboy talks with Sonya about his 101 Ironman-distance triathlons in 101 consecutive days - the planning, the pain, the wins and expectations.

• Guiding principles and ethos
• Importance of celebrating small wins
• How they planned the 101
• Dealing with the monotony of the 101
• Managing internal and external expectations
• Importance of his mantra Here We Go
• Some of the injuries he incurred
• Insights post Conquer 100

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The Grow the Good Podcast is produced by Palm Tree Pod Co. 

Cycling has been a lifeline for Haley Smith. Haley, a top professional cyclist, competed in the cross-country event at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, winning the bronze medal, and was named to the 2020 Canadian Olympic team and competed in the delayed summer games in 2021. She recently signed with Maxxis Factory Racing after a decade with Norco.

But cycling has been more than competition to Haley; it’s been a tool to manage her mental health. 

In this week’s podcast, Sonya sat down with Haley to talk about her path to cycling, battling anxiety, mindfulness, expanding views of success and more. 

• Getting started in cycling
• Battling anxiety
• Mindfulness work to manage mental health
• Cycling as a meditative activity
• Not avoiding difficult things
• Finding mountain biking
• Staying in the moment and daily improvements with cycling
• Measuring improvement - expanding view of success
• Working on outlook and attitude
• Goal setting
• The Olympic experience

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The Grow the Good Podcast is produced by Palm Tree Pod Co. 

Dr. Diana Hill focuses on ACT - Acceptance and Commitment Therapy - and specializes in evidence-based and compassion-focused approaches. 

Diana started as a biopsychology major and also practiced yoga and mindfulness to manage her struggles with anxiety and eating. After her undergraduate degree, she went for her PhD in clinical psychology. She became the clinical director at La Luna Center, an intensive outpatient center for eating disorders that embraces feminine, and holistic, integrative approaches to healing, designing programs centered around ACT. 

After becoming a mother, Diana moved back to Santa Barbara, and started a private practice.  To stay on top of the most current psychology research, she started a podcast called Psychologists Off the Clock with her colleague Dr. Debbie Sorenson in 2016. She also wrote a book with Dr. Sorenson called ACT Daily Journal: Get Unstuck and Live Fully with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, released in 2021.

Diana also records a podcast called Your Life in Process and offers a Foundation of ACT course.

In this podcast, Sonya and Diana talk about acceptance based therapy, mindfulness, and more. 

• Acceptance-based therapy
• Mindfulness
• Practicing mindfulness
• What acceptance means
• A “yes” brain
• Values - qualities of action that you bring to situations
• Psychological flexibility and the six core processes
• Harnessing energy
• Resting even though you feel guilty
• Enoughness
• Being efficient with your time
• Celebrating successes

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The Grow the Good Podcast is produced by Palm Tree Pod Co. 

Impostor Syndrome - you've heard of it. You've probably felt it. It happens when we discount our ability in a certain area or areas, despite obvious evidence to the contrary. For example, I've been World Champion. I've won major races around the world. I've been US National Champion 4 times. I have been a paid professional athlete since 2014…. and yet at times… I still do not feel like I am a “real pro.”  Boom. Impostor Syndrome. Imposter Syndrome shows up in many areas of our lives (even if we have advanced degrees, tons of experience, and heaps of success). It can be paralyzing and prevent us from getting started or going after our goals and dreams.

In this episode, I talk about:

• The 5 Types of Impostors
• Other Reasons We May Feel Like Impostors 
• What Do We Do About Impostor Syndrome?  
• When Impostor Syndrome isn't a Problem

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The Grow the Good Podcast is produced by Palm Tree Pod Co. 

Gretchen Rubin has a knack for taking a huge amount of information and making it clear and relatable for the masses. Her focus is happiness and human nature and has several bestselling books, including The Happiness Project and The Four Tendencies. Her work draws from cutting-edge science, the wisdom of the ages, lessons from popular culture, and her own experiences to explore how we can make our lives happier, healthier, more productive, and more creative.

Her podcast, Happier with Gretchen Rubin, discusses happiness and good habits and won a 2020 Webby Award for “best of the internet.”

She has been interviewed by Oprah, is a regular columnist for O, The Oprah Magazine and makes regular appearances on CBS This Morning. She’s crossed paths with the Dalai Lama, and had her work written up in a medical journal.

Gretchen started her career in law and clerked for Justice Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, before realizing she wanted to pivot to being a writer.

In this week’s episode, Sonya and Gretchen deep dive into the four tendencies - upholder, questioner, obliger and rebel.

• Four tendencies: upholders, questioners, obligers, rebels
• How a person of each tendency handles interactions
• Working with other tendencies
• Diving deeper into the rebel tendency
• Tendencies and careers
• Behavior changes for each category
• Imaginative forms of outer accountability
• The word “motivation”
• Strategy of abstaining
• Planned exception

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The Grow the Good Podcast is produced by Palm Tree Pod Co. 

Brian Asbill, MD, board certified in Cardiovascular Diseases and Clinical Lipidology, had a career defining moment back in 2013 (he’ll talk about this during the podcast). One of his patients, who had already survived two open heart surgeries and was still experiencing chest pain, came in to see him after a recommendation for a third surgery by a different doctor. Brian had a book in his office by Caldwell Esselstyn called Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease, which he decided to share with the patient. This book, which recommended switching to a plant-based diet, changed this patient’s life. Three months later and 27 pounds lighter, he no longer needed many of his medications and his chest pain was gone. 

This began Brian’s path to Lifestyle Medicine, becoming the first board certified physician in Lifestyle Medicine in 2017.

Brian co-founded Ruckus Health, dedicated to supporting people holistically in uncovering their innate ability to live in physical, mental, emotional and spiritual balance.

Dr. Asbill is a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology and is a professional member of the American College of Physicians and the North Carolina Medical Society.

Key Takeaways:

• Finding Lifestyle Medicine
• Career as a cardiologist
• Transitioning to a whole food, plant-based diet
• Detecting cardiovascular disease if you're asymptomatic
• Reversing cardiovascular disease 
• Cardio protection with plant-based diets
• Foods that are a no-go 
• The 6 pillars of Lifestyle Medicine
• Stress management tips

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The Grow the Good Podcast is produced by Palm Tree Pod Co. 

Today, you'll learn the difference between fierce self-compassion and tender self-compassion. In 2017, I had the opportunity to sit down with Dr. Kristin Neff to talk about her book “Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself,” and the basics of self-compassion. This week, I had the opportunity to reconnect with Kristin, doing a deeper dive into self-compassion and learning more about her latest book “Fierce Self Compassion: How Women Can Harness Kindness to Speak Up, Claim Their Power, and Thrive.” 

​​Kristin is a leader in the field of self-compassion research, creating a scale to measure the construct almost 20 years ago. With her colleague, Dr. Chris Germer, she has developed an empirically supported training program called Mindful Self-Compassion, and she co-authored The Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook as well as Teaching the Mindful Self-Compassion Program: A Guide for Professionals. She is also co-founder of the nonprofit Center for Mindful Self-Compassion. She is currently an Associate Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin.

Key Takeaways

• What is fierce self-compassion
• How does self-compassion work in athletics and competitive environments
• Self worth: Self esteem vs self-compassion
• How to teach your kids self-compassion
• Emotions associated with each type of compassion
• How to get angry appropriately and express anger
• Listening to your anger
• Self-compassion in the social justice movements
• Sexual assault and self-compassion
• Avoidance of difficult emotions without identifying with them
• Reframing vs. acceptance
• Strategies for practicing self-compassion

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The Grow the Good Podcast is produced by Palm Tree Pod Co. 

Our family made a lot of changes in the last year to our lives. We moved to an entirely new town, bought a house, changed our work environment, got pregnant with our second child, and we are raising a sweet toddler!

Each month, I like bringing a solo episode to you. Usually, it's about a well-researched topic as it relates to topics covered on the show (and you can get weekly doses in my newsletter), but today, we talked about courage, parenting, marital satisfaction, and more!

Key Takeaways

• Why we moved to Squamish
• What it means to have courage to make changes
• Marital Satisfaction with a Toddler
• Matt's Running Journey
• Taking 3 years off racing
• Feelings about our new baby coming soon

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The Grow the Good Podcast is produced by Palm Tree Pod Co. 

Emily Oster tells it like it is. The Professor of Economics at Brown University is known for her books that take a data-driven approach to pregnancy and parenting. Wondering what’s behind the sushi rule during pregnancy or how much coffee you’re allowed to drink? Curious about co-sleeping? Potty Training? Emily provides the data and analysis that drive these well-known rules. 

Emily’s first book, Expecting Better, provides information to help women make their own well-informed decisions throughout pregnancy. She then wrote Cribsheet, a similarly data-driven book to help new parents navigate all of the conflicting information about how to breastfeed, sleep-train, and potty training. 

Her most recent book, The Family Firm, provides a framework for data-driven parents to think about the key issues of the elementary years: school, health, extracurricular activities, and more. 

In this week’s episode, Sonya and Emily talked about many topics of interest in early childhood development.

• Hierarchy of types of research studies
• Confusion around data reporting
• Do childhood vaccines cause Autism
• Does sleep training work and is it beneficial
• How having children impacts marital satisfaction
• What's best: nanny vs. daycare vs. stay at home parent
• Data around TV watching and learning for kids under 5
• Potty training
• Alcohol and breastfeeding and pregnancy

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The Grow the Good Podcast is produced by Palm Tree Pod Co. 

Dani Taylor and Giacomo are vegan bodybuilders. Sounds a little bit like an oxymoron, right? But these two married athletes are amazing examples for how you can be plant-based, strong, and champions. In this podcast, Dani, Taylor and Sonya sat down to talk about how to be a vegan bodybuilder, what steps to take to incorporate more plant-based foods into your diet, and their work coaching through VeganProtein.com. 

Dani is a vegan figure competitor and champion. She co-founded VeganProteins.com and PlantBuilt.com, a nonprofit organization of strength-based vegan athletes who compete together to raise awareness for veganism and money for rescued animals at farm sanctuaries, with Giacomo. 

As VeganProteins head coach, Dani helps women build confidence to lift weights for the first time and find their strength. She also specializes in vegan figure competition prep to help people prepare for competition.

Giacomo is an assistant coach through VeganProteins and works with clients on a daily basis to help them reach their bodybuilding and powerlifting goals. Giacomo has been vegan for over 10 years and involved with fitness for over 20 years.

In this episode, you’ll hear more from Dani and Giacomo about VeganProteins, becoming vegan, maintaining strength and weight for competition and the discipline for their success.

• What is Vegan Strong
• Typical day of eating for a vegan bodybuilder
• How to get leaner and lose weight - what you may not know
• Learning to love vegetables
• Curiosity into action
• How to not be afraid of consequences
• The first steps for the plant-curious
• How to learn to cook
• Creating balance when you have intense singular focus
• How to have the discipline to achieve a great physique 
• How to get back on track

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The Grow the Good Podcast is produced by Palm Tree Pod Co.