The Plant Yourself Podcast

Doctors Ayesha and Dean Sherzai founded the Healthy Minds Initiative (HMI) to scale their impact on the tragic epidemic of dementia plaguing the world today. 

The first thing that we have to understand is that the majority of dementias are preventable through diet and lifestyle. The Sherzai's acronym NEURO—nutrition, exercise, unwinding, restorative sleep, and optimization—encapsulates the pillars that can determine our cognitive trajectory as we age. 

Second, individual behavior change is hard. And it's especially hard when the community norms are unhealthy.

Third, traditionally underserved and marginalized communities are bearing the brunt of the damage and ensuing tragic consequences.

And fourth, circling around, those communities can actually become leaders in the public health crusade against toxic lifestyles, since their empowerment can become the solution. 

HMI exists to empower communities to spread both the message and practice of lifestyle medicine. But in order to do that, the Sherzai's and their partners can't come in as experts. 

Instead, they approach as curious partners, willing to learn, and willing to stick around and provide support for the long term, and not just until the latest research grant runs out. 

In our conversation, we talk about the need for systemic change in research models that prioritize community engagement and sustainability. 

And we talk about what sustainable progress looks like, and can look like—in other words, a blueprint for community engagement and empowerment that can create a grassroots, decentralized, democratic health movement.

The Healthy Minds Initiative

The Brain Docs

Nourishing Our Brains and Preventing Dementia with Ayesha Sherzai, MD: PYP 279

The Role of Science in Public Discourse and Racial Justice: Dean and Ayesha Sherzai, MDs: PYP 414

The Alzheimer's Solution, by Drs Ayesha and Dean Sherzai

The 30-Day Alzheimer's Solution: The Definitive Food and Lifestyle Guide to Preventing Cognitive Decline, by Drs Ayesha and Dean Sherzai

Lewis Bertus was following medical best practices as a physician's assistant when his wife's illness forced him to take a hard look at the limitations of the healthcare industry.

The drugs weren't helping her type 2 diabetes, no matter how much her doctors insisted that the pharma route was the only responsible one.

So Lewis "did his own research," which can go in all sorts of directions, some of them pretty horrifying.

Fortunately, with his grounding in medicine and his deep spiritual faith, he struck gold.

Once he learned that a whole food, plant-based diet can reverse type 2 diabetes, he devoted himself to spreading the word. And empowering people with the ability to get that diet off the pages of books and the frames of videos into their kitchens, onto their forks, and into their mouths.

In our conversation, we talk about his work as a health coach specializing in diabetes reversal.

We look at various barriers to change: cultural, biochemical, and habitual.

We dive into the primacy of mindfulness as a tool for managing cravings and reducing stress.

We explore the intersection of mindfulness and spiritual practices, and how the "STOP" process can tap into religious beliefs in the service of health.

We also talk about the challenges of addressing health disparities in historically marginalized communities, and the urgent need for diversity in healthcare — patients can see healthcare professionals who "look like them" and have credibility talking about their lives.

Enjoy!

LewisBertus.com

If What Lights You Up were simply an extremely practical guide to job hunting, I wouldn't have been interested in a conversation with the author, Mary Olson-Menzel.

Not that job hunting isn't an important topic — it clearly is, especially if you're out of a job or in one that's making you miserable.

It's just that I wouldn't be interested in having that convo, and so I'd skip it.

That said, What Lights You Up is in fact an extremely practical guide to job hunting.

What piqued my interest was the idea that our careers can be powered by joy, self-expression, and contribution rather than opportunism, random chance, or calculated self-interest.

What if we lived in a world where people were allowed — hell, encouraged — to break free from unfulfilling work and discover their passions? What might change if that were an unalienable right?

But this conversation isn't just about an inspiring thought. It's also an extremely practical guide to job hunting (have I already mentioned that?) that's powered by the principle that you can use work as a means to growing your best self and giving that self to the world.

We talk about a tool to help you figure out what lights you up: the "Light Log."

Mary shares with me a new (for me) way of networking, with intention and authenticity.

She also offers some exercises for job-seekers, and coaches me through the 3 P's of job searching (which are also the 3 P's of prospecting, so I was taking notes!).

If you want to make a difference while making a living, this conversation is for you.

MVP Exec

What Lights You Up?

Just because homelessness is a complex problem doesn't mean that there aren't simple solutions.

The obstacles to ending homelessness stem from the "address homelessness" industry itself, which benefits from the persistence of the problem rather than its eradication.

What's needed, according to today's guest, Momma Kai Sanders, is affordable housing.

That's the root of the issue: homes that people can afford to live in.

And Momma Kai isn't just talking about it. She's taking action — running for mayor of Raleigh, North Carolina, on a write-in ticket.

She's running for her son, Wisdom, to create the policies now that can give him a chance at a good life in the future.

She's fighting for the most vulnerable and marginalized from a position not just of solidarity, but identity.

She's all about compassion and authentic leadership.

If you can vote for her, I hope you do so.

If you know folks who live in Raleigh who can spread the word, I hope you reach out to them.

It's a long shot, sure, but the most important question isn't "Who's going to win?" Instead, it's "Whose team do you want to be on?"

Momma Kai's Instagram page

Helping the Unhoused – and Homeless – Move From Poverty to Prosperity: Momma Kai Sanders on PYP 562

True Privilege is Growing Up in a Low-Trauma Environment: Momma Kai Sanders on PYP 566

Tom Solid and Paco Cantero are the minds behind the Paperless Movement, a consultancy and educational program for people who aspire to high performance in a fast-changing digital landscape.

Which is to say, they're here to help us get shit done in a world of infinite bits and bytes, a world of 24/7 access to information, and a world which will grab our calendar by the short and curlies and impose a zillion external agendas upon us if we don't learn how to defend our time, our priorities, and our purpose.

Rather than focus on the latest and greatest individual tools (the "it girls" of the productivity world), Tom and Paco emphasize the need to understand systems, and use tools for particular purposes to achieve desired results.

We dive into their ICOR framework, and encounter such things as the Capturing Beast, the Single Source of Truth, and the pitfalls of using the internet as a "Second Brain."

We also explore the difference between Deep and Shallow work, and why it's crucial to be deliberate in building time and space for the former.

Here are the key takeaways, according to AI:

• Productivity is about performing at your best without burning out.
• Understanding that everything is a system can enhance productivity.
• Busy professionals can be productive if they have clarity in their tasks.
• Switching tools frequently can lead to confusion and inefficiency.
• A structured approach to productivity is essential for busy professionals.
• Continuous improvement happens naturally when systems are in place.
• Clarity in goals and tasks leads to better tool usage.
• It's not the tools that matter, but how you use them.
• A combination of small changes can lead to significant improvements.

Ultimately, productivity is simply a means to achieve What Matters Most to us.

Joyfully.

With peace of mind.

And on purpose.

PaperlessMovement.com

ICOR® Journey: Learn how to build your ultimate productivity system with any tools!

In the movie There's Something About Mary, there's a scene where Ben Stiller's character picks up a hitchhiker who tries to pitch him on a business idea.

There's a popular exercise video called Eight Minute Abs, but the hitchhiker is going to capture market share by making a video called Seven Minute Abs.

He explains, "If you walk into the video store and you see Eight Minute Abs and Seven Minute Abs, which one are you going to take? Seven minutes, of course.

But he gets stumped by the question, "What if somebody else comes out with Six Minute Abs?"

I thought of that scene when I got pitched for a new book called Three Minutes a Day: A Fourteen-Week Course to Learn Meditation and Transform Your Life, by Richard Dixey.

I thought, boy, have we really dumbed down the tradition of meditation from its origins.

Starting with Buddha sitting under the tree for days or weeks at a time until enlightenment descended upon him, to the practices of of monks and nuns of the monastic orders in Europe who would sit and pray for several hours a day.

And now, just like everything else in the West, we've turned it into something that you can package and microwave and sell to the masses who just want a quick fix.

Then I took a look at the book and completely changed my mind.

And in fact, the conversation you're about to hear with Richard Dixey, the author, is actually one of the deepest explorations of spirituality I have ever had. It's changed how I think about my own spiritual practice. And it's been a couple of weeks now of going through the exercises in the book, and my spiritual practice has transformed for the better.

I understand if you're skeptical. So have a listen, and let me know what you think.

• A Mantis Carol, by Laurens van der Post
• A Story Like the Wind, by Laurens van der Post
• Three Minutes a Day: A Fourteen-Week Course to Learn Meditation and Transform Your Life, by Richard Dixey
• Yet Being Someone Other, by Laurens van der Post
• Dharma College
• RichardDixey.com

Thoughts on the episode? Let us know.

Let's get started because we don't have a lot of time.

At least that's the perspective of today's guest, Jodi Wellman. Jodi is an executive coach and speaker, and the author of You Only Die Once. And she's a big fan of Memento mori, Latin for "remember that you will die."

Acknowledging the scarcity of our time, she insists, can help us make the most of the time that we have.

And it doesn't have to be morbid. It can be fun. Jodi keeps skulls as decorations, and they're surprisingly cheerful-looking

Remembering that we don't have infinite time and infinite opportunities can provide a much needed push when we're stuck. 

So we can live the life we want, rather than waiting and rationalizing and looking back with regret at the end.

In our conversation, I get free coaching on making some bold moves in my life.

We talk about my fear of "indulging," even a little — that it will turn into a one-way highway to depravity — and how I might explore some balance between self-indulgence and Puritanical austerity. 

In summation: "Life is short. We gotta get on with this shit."

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Sarah Davis was a corporate risk manager who began to chafe at the limitations on her life.

Sure, she had a safe job and a comfortable income. She ran marathons (3:38 PR — damn!) and was living the dream in Bondi, Australia.

But something was missing.

When Sarah interrogated herself, she realized that she wasn't living as big or as bold as she wanted.

Did risk management always have to be about minimizing risk at all cost? Or could the principles of risk management inform and guide actual risk taking?

Could she use her professional skill set in tandem with her experience in surf sea kayaking and her love of travel and her pursuit of novelty to do something big and bold and amazing?

In our conversation, we talk about the life lessons learned as she became the first woman to paddle the Nile River from its headwaters in Rwanda all the way to the Nile Delta in Egypt.

I hope you're inspired to step outside of any comfort zones that have got you stuck. I hope you're inspired to identify a passion project and pursue it. And I hope you stay safe and well the whole time!

A couple of the quotable quotes from this episode, as identified by AI:

Links

SarahJDavis.com

Paddle the Nile: One Woman's Search for a Life Less Ordinary, by Sarah Davis

Instagram: @sarahpaddles

Sarah's LinkedIn profile

Sarah's YouTube channel

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Over the years I've had the privilege of supporting thousands of people to make changes in their lives:

• entrepreneurs sharpening their focus and implementing their action plans
• executives growing their leadership and influence chops
• regular folks adopting healthy habits and uprooting self-sabotaging impulses

And I like to think that the net effect of all those individual changes is a more global shift, as the ripples extend beyond my clients to their families, organizations, communities, and the world.

But that's different from engineering large-change scale from the get-go.

And heaven knows, the human species could really use some transformation at scale at the present moment, if we are to survive on a livable planet for much longer.

So I reached out to change expert Huw Thomas to explore the keys to behavior change at scale.

In our conversation, we cover Huw's three keys to change:

• leadership
• management
• governance

We dig into empathy, resistance, adaptability, and influence, and a bunch of other buzzwords that actually contain real nuggets of wisdom.

And we talk about our own journeys of change, and the obstacles we've created, faced, and overcome.

Enjoy!

Links

HuwThomas.com.au

Maximum Achievement, by Brian Tracy

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen R Covey

Leading with Emotional Courage, by Peter Bregman

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This is the first conversation that I had with Dr Richard Hodge, and it's the fourth podcast that I've published.

That's because after we talked, Richard sent me an email basically saying, "Hey, we covered some pretty advanced stuff, but I think we need to really break it down for folks."

So the last three conversations with Richard have been reverse engineering our way to this conversation, the culmination (so far).

This is the conversation about how to make a difference in the world.

How to use systems thinking, how to approach problems and issues holistically.

How to listen to up-until-now marginalized voices and community.

And how to still be how to be a small, insignificant human beings and still look at the world and know that there's "no problem too big."

I hope you enjoy our conversation, and that you're inspired to lend your mind, spirit, and shoulder to the wheel of Better.

Links

DrRichardHodge.com

Rory Sutherland's TED Talk

The Memory Code: Unlocking the Secrets of the Lives of the Ancients and the Power of the Human Mind, by Kelly Lynne

Unlocking the Emotional Brain, 2nd Edition, by Bruce Ecker, Robin Ticic, and Laurel Hulley

Right Story, Wrong Story, by Tyson Yunkaporta

Antifragile, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Awakening from the Meaning Crisis (Video series by John Vervaeke on the Four Ways of Knowing)

The Greatest Night in Pop (Netflix documentary on the making of "We Are the World" in 1985)

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