She's Bold with Beth Whitman

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Today's conversation is with Roshi Joan Halifax.

You might know of Roshi from her work in the Buddhist community. She's a Zen Buddhist teacher at the Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe. But she's also an anthropologist, she's an ecologist, a civil rights activist, a hospice caregiver and an author. Her most recent book is Standing at the Edge: Finding Freedom Where Fear and Courage Meet. Roshi practices what's called socially engaged Buddhism. She's very involved with protecting the rights of others and empowering people. What she's come to realize is that those living a virtuous life may find a shadow side to what they do. What she means is that even when doing good work, we can go too far, ultimately harming either ourselves or the person or people we're trying to help. In this conversation, she explains exactly what she means by that. In short, she encourages us to find balance. And this is exactly what her new book entails – how we can see the big picture, how we can have compassion but still stay in balance.

It seems to me her book couldn't have come out at a better time. A time when so many of us are experiencing outrage and despair over what's going on in the world but we want to be helpful and try to make things better. And as you'll hear, I personally found some wisdom and comfort in her words and suggestions for how to deal with our current situation.

Roshi and I met through a mutual friend, Angel Murdock (whom she refers to in this episode). You can go back and listen to my conversation with Angel on episode 38 to get a bit of background on her work.

Connect with Roshi Joan Halifax:

Upaya Zen Center (website) | Facebook (Upaya) | Twitter (Upaya)

Other items/people mentioned:

Standing at the Edge (Roshi's book) Thich Nhat Hanh Zen Buddhism (Wiki) Theravada Buddhism (Wiki) Vajrayana Buddhism (Wiki) Sharon Salzberg Jack Kornfield Insight Meditation Society Roxanne Swentzell Fyodor Dostoevsky Vaclav Havel Barbara Kingsolver

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I am so excited to bring you another episode with Dr. Robyn Benson. If you haven't already listened to my first conversation with her back in September (episode #11), definitely go back and listen to that. It will give you quite a bit of background on Robyn and her practice.

In short, Robyn is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine. She not only brings with her a background of knowledge steeped in ancient wisdom and practice, but she is also one of the more forward-thinking practitioners in the country.

Her practice is called Santa Fe Soul Center for Optimal Health. She specializes in youthful aging and provides cutting edge health technologies that focus on regenerative medicine, women's health, preventative medicine as well as helping people recover from addiction.

Her facility is pretty high tech and it really interesting. I've had a number of treatments with her including just having received two prolozone shots in my foot to help with a bit of healing from a running injury (so far so good but I'll report back in another couple of weeks on how that's going).

Anyway, Robyn and I had a delightful follow up chat and talked about some of the new treatments that she's doing and the types of patients she's working with. But we also talked about some other really cutting edge practices including stem cell treatments that are available as part of her work in regenerative medicine.

There's so much emotional distress that's an undercurrent in our culture now but the good news is that when your body feels better, your mind is going to follow suit. And there are countless many small ways that we can improve how we feel.

Well, with that bit of intro and food for thought, so to speak, enjoy this conversation with Dr. Robyn Benson.

Connect with Robyn: Santa Fe Soul (website) Dr. Robyn Benson (website) Facebook (Santa Fe Soul)

Other items mentioned:Regenerative medicine (wiki) Progenitor cell (wiki) Prolozone Therapy (at Santa Fe Soul) Platelet Rich Plasma Therapy (at Santa Fe Soul) Corydalis (wiki) Curcumin and tumeric (wiki) Triphala and fruit flies Theta Chamber (at Santa Fe Soul) Cranial Electrotherapy Stimulation (wiki) Women's Retreat (with Dr. Robyn Benson)

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In this episode, I take some time to answer your questions! I cover some interesting topics including:

* How I started my business * How I handle running in terms of mental and physical challenges

I apologize for not being able to get to everyone's questions--they were awesome! If you didn't get the chance to submit a question yet, you can do so here. Connect with me: Facebook Instagram WanderTours Be Bold Facebook Group (women-only) Twitter

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In this episode, I take some time to answer your questions! I cover some interesting topics including:

* Details of my solo motorcycle trip through Central America * How I can be so polite and generous (someone else's observation, not mine) * The nitty gritty of my meditation practice * And my life's biggest regret (there's only one!)

I apologize for not being able to get to everyone's questions--they were awesome! But I fear I went on a bit too long already in this episode so I will use those for another addition of Ask Me Anything. If you didn't get the chance to submit a question yet, you can do so here.

Mentioned in this episode: My motorcycle ride through Central America Insight Timer (app) Dan Harris's 10% Happier podcast

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Jean Thompson is a full-on chocoholic and has been for as long as she can remember. It's therefore befitting that she is the Owner and CEO of Seattle Chocolate Company, one of the Northwest's premiere chocolate companies.

In this episode, we talk about how she went from investor to CEO/Owner after an earthquake nearly destroyed Seattle Chocolate. 16 years later, she's still just as passionate about the business, bringing creative changes to the company, recreating the brand, innovating and disrupting an industry that she loves dearly.

She also reflects on how she questioned her own abilities at running the company when the recession hit and sales fell flat but she kept moving forward and came out the other side on top (while other chocolate companies went under).

What came out of that time was JCOCO, a slightly higher end chocolate with a philanthropic arm that has, to date, provided 2.7 million meals to those in need in just the past 5 years. JCOCO, by the way, is another brand of chocolate that's still part of Seattle Chocolate.

We wrapped up with some of Jean's wonderful insights into travel and, of course, being bold.

Please enjoy this conversation with Jean Thompson.

Connect with Jean: Seattle Chocolate | JCOCO | Instagram (Seattle Chocolate) | Instagram (JCOCO) | Twitter (Seattle Chocolate) | Twitter (JCOCO) Mentioned in this episode: Good to Great by Jack Collins (Amazon) Leadership and Self Deception by the Arbinger Institute (Amazon) Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sink (Amazon)

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"If you have the opportunity and the ability, you have the obligation." ~ Allison Dvaladze Allison Dvaladze first landed on my radar when I came across an article about her suing Delta Airlines because of an incident that happened on a flight in April, 2016. During that flight from Seattle to Amsterdam, Allison was sexually assaulted by another passenger.

We don't get into the details of what happened (you can Google her for more information) but, in short, let's just say the flight attendants weren't equipped to handle the incident.

For the past two years, Allison has been trying to get legislation passed that will require airlines to implement procedures when occurrences like this happen. And they happen more often than you might think—it's just that they often aren't reported so there are no statistics about it.

With the help of Washington State Senator Patty Murray, Allison has had some luck in getting a bill passed on the House floor. And you'll hear more about that and how it all came about during our conversation.

That alone would have been an interesting conversation with Allison. But before I reached out to her and invited her on the podcast, I did a bit of research and discovered that her advocacy for women ran much deeper than this one issue.

Allison is currently the Director of Global Strategy, Partnerships and Advocacy at the University of Washington. What she does is travel the world to help build partnerships and networks that support advocates of women's cancers, specifically breast cancer, and this is often in low-resource settings such as developing nations and communities.

Her work is fascinating and she gets into some of the details of it in this conversation.

But what is really striking is how she got to this point in her life, meaning her early travels and adventures and how her natural inclination to help women not only has been a thread in her work life but in her volunteer work and her now advocacy for women travelers.

One other little thing...to top it all off, she's part of an eight-woman team who will be sailing from Port Townshend, WA to Juneau, Alaska this summer. That'll be 750 miles on a sail boat during this adventure race. So yeah, she's pretty amazing on many fronts.

Connect with Allison: Women's Empowerment Cancer Advocacy Network (website) Sail Like a Girl (website) Twitter (Allison)

Cancer support: Fred Hutchison Cancer Research Center Union for International Cancer Control National Cancer Institute Susan G. Komen American Cancer Society Uganda Women's Cancer Support Organization Gertrude Nakigudde

Other items mentioned: Losing Sight of Shore (Amazon) Senator Patty Murray Christopher Elliott Flyers Rights Race to Alaska (r2ak) Sail Like a Girl (Facebook) Protect Airline Passengers from Sexual Assault (Facebook)

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"I realized why I was put on this earth is to be a spark for other people. To be that visionary, to drive with my passion and to bring other people along with me." - Angela Shen

This week's guest is Angela Shen. Angela is the Founder and CEO of Savor Seattle Food Tours.

Our paths crossed many years ago when we used to get together for these semi-regular brainstorming sessions with a half dozen or so CEOs of local tour companies. We would get together at a coffee shop or over breakfast every couple of months and talk through challenges that we might be having with our business and others would have input.

I was always in awe of how focused and directed Angela was (and she still is) in terms of her business. And after getting to know her much better through this conversation, I can see why she is so impressive. She has an academic background that's played a part in her success but she's also really creative and, perhaps more importantly, she's got this passion for what she does and her life goal is to inspire others.

During our Seattle Culinary Tours, we take this fantastic walk through Pike Place Market with one of her guides from Savor Seattle. And these guides are always just so much fun and super knowledgeable. I now get that they are either infused with Angela energy or she has just the right radar to find people who are equally as passionate about food that she is.

In this conversation, you'll hear about Angela's background growing in up a tiny town in Minnesota with her entrepreneurial immigrant parents. She knew that being an entrepreneur was her path but she didn't just dive right in. She was smart about it and figured out a way to gain as much knowledge as possible about business and branding before moving to Seattle and starting her own business.

But as she was growing this business, all while being a wife and mom to two kids, she had a health issue that pushed her over the edge and forced her to take a really honest look at her business and she started to question what it was that made her happy. Basically she realized that working 80 hours a week was not sustainable.

She took a good look at her life and then made some decisions (which includes solo travel) about what it was going to take to be happy. Ultimately she feels like 99% of people are going to look at some of those decisions and judge her for making them. In other words, they are quite unpopular for a mom with two kids.

What it comes down to is that she's going against numerous stereotypes including what it means to be a woman (and a Chinese woman at that) and also a mother of two.

I really admire Angela for having the strength to make these decisions in order to be her best self. Because if she's not showing up to be the best Angela that she can be, she's doing a disservice to everyone—family, friends and colleagues. You're gonna really like this conversation.

Connect with Angela: Savor Seattle (website) Savor Seattle (Facebook) Savor Seattle (Instagram)

Mentioned in this episode: Hearts, Smarts, Guts and Luck by Anthony K. Tjan (Amazon) Italy Tour Table Less Traveled 4 Deserts Race Insight Timer How I Built This (podcast)

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Today I share the results of my personal lab tests. It's a look at approximately 150 bio markers as tested and interpreted by sports nutritionist, Chris Talley.

This is an intimate and, in some cases, surprising look at my overall health, what I'm lacking in my diet, what I can do to improve my nutrition, what's looking good and some alarming (toxic) results that need to be cleared up.

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"You fail your way to success and what is success, it's relative, right?" - Sabrina Seher

I met Sabrina Seher when I was running the Seattle Quadzilla last fall.

Sabrina was also running the Quadzilla. But Sabrina, as you'll hear in our conversation, really stood out for me. She was saying hello to a lot of people on the course, she was having fun, she was jumping around. She was basically doing everything you don't do if you want to conserve your energy in order to run 26.2 miles.

But we chatted during one of the races and then became Facebook friends. Naturally I started seeing her posts and noticed that it seemed like she is always running a race. And, news flash, she is.

She has given me new perspective on what it means to be a runner/marathoner. The typical thinking is that you need 16 weeks of training to prepare for a marathon. And yeah, that is technically true, particularly for first time marathoners or someone looking for a personal record or a Boston Qualifying time.

But if enjoy running, especially long distances, then why not run a Quadzilla or run 52 marathons in a year like Sabrina did a couple of years ago?

By the first week of April, she had already run in this calendar year five marathons, a 50K and two 100-milers.

So, yeah. She's out there running a lot.

In addition to all these marathons, Sabrina owns Super Studio 253 in Tacoma, Washington. The studio offers all sorts of classes as well as training for runners. She also is the race director for the Cascade Super Series marathons and half marathons and manages a group of pacers.

At first you might think that Sabrina is all about Super Sabrina. But she's not. She's about a Super You! Her motto is Find Your Super. And she really means it. She wants people to be their better selves, to dig deep and discover what it is that can make them Super. And her energy output and desire to make YOU better is quite infectious.

As you'll hear in this conversation, she has not had a straight path to wellness and success. Her life has not been perfect. But she emerged from some dark places only to come bursting out so that she could set an example for her two children and so that she could be an inspiration to others.

I observed and was the recipient of a little of that energy during the Seattle Quadzilla. But got a huge dose of it during our conversation and that energy is still with me.

She's the kind of person that you want to surround yourself with. And she kinda gives you faith that there are great people in the world, you just need to know where to look for them and be open.

Connect with Sabrina

Super Studio 253 | Run Super | Instagram | Facebook

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Today's guest is Geraldine DeRuiter.

Geraldine is an unlikely travel blogger. Unlikely because she's, well let's just say, she's an uncomfortable traveler. You'll hear why she's not the best of travelers during our conversation.

She's best known for her blog, the Everywhereist. Her writing has been called "consistently clever" by TIME Magazine and "dark and hilarious" by the New York Times. Her blog post, "I Made the Pizza Cinnamon Rolls from Mario Batali's Sexual Misconduct Apology Letter" received more than a million views. And if you haven't already read it, you must. I'll link to it below.

In addition to chatting about her unlikeliness as a travel blogger and her love for baking and "real" cinnamon rolls, we chatted about aging, living to 140 years old, how she ended up standing at the airport in her underwear and how her blog and twitter posts have turned more political since the November 2016 elections.

I had so many other questions for Geraldine but I was under a bit of a time constraint and we couldn't dive into a couple of subjects I was so looking forward to chatting about including her brain tumor experience. But we both agreed that we need to sit down again to chat so look for a Part II with Geraldine hopefully in the not too distant future.

Connect with Geraldine:Twitter Website Instagram

Links/books/people mentioned:All Over the Place: Adventures in Travel, True Love and Petty Theft (Geraldine's Book on Amazon)Lin-Manuel Miranda (Wiki) 3,000 Cups of Tea Jennifer Jordan (on Be Bold Podcast) Greg Mortenson (Wiki) Three Cups of Tea (Amazon) Seven Seconds (Wiki) Geraldine's Cinnamon Roll Post Mario Batali (Wiki) Valorie Curry (Wiki) The Tick (Wiki) Cinnamon Bread (Beth's favorite)

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Be Bold, Beth