When you're doing a video podcast with the guy who wrote the book on focus and mastering our attention, you don't take lots of notes. Instead, you look at your guest and stay present to the wisdom and insight he's dropping left and right.

Which explains why I don't have a lot of show notes for today's guest, Chris Bailey. Chris and I got on Skype to discuss his latest book, Hyperfocus: How to be More Productive in a World of Distraction. 

I wanted to get Chris on the show ever since hearing him on my buddy Peter Bregman's leadership podcast. I've discovered, both in my own life and with my clients, that digital distraction is turning into an epidemic and a serious addiction. Turns out the devices and the apps are designed that way, to capture and hold our attention for as long as possible.

There are WellStart Health clients who struggle with bedtimes, with eating, with meditating – all because they're spending way more time than they would like on their smartphones and tablets.

And the quality of my work day depends, to a huge extent, on whether I get up and check my phone, or get up and immediately start meditating, or engage in breathwork, or pour a bucket of ice water over my head. That one split-second decision leads to a virtual spiral or vicious cycle. And repeated daily, that split second can determine the kind of person I am, the kind of influence I wield, and the kind of person I am.

Chris's book, Hyperfocus, is far more useful than a warning or a rant about the evils of technology. Instead, it's an evidence-based deep dive into attention, focus, productivity, happiness, and meaning. And a hands-on user's manual for the human mind.

Two of my big aha insights from Hyperfocus:

* Resistance is frontloaded

* The human mind has a novelty bias

Chris is also funny and charming, and despite his focus on focus, delightfully distractable by fun and goofy tangents. (To be fair, Hyperfocus doesn't advocate spending all our waking hours in hyperfocus; there's a second mode, which he calls Scatterfocus, which is just as important, and in world, just as elusive. Which is where we spend some time in our conversation.)

Anyway, put your phone on Do Not Disturb, close your browser tabs, fire up your favorite podcast app, and enjoy this conversation with Chris Bailey.

Add your voice to the conversation via the comment box below, and please share – that's how we spread our message and spread our roots.

Links

Chris Bailey's website: A LifeofProductivity.com

Hyperfocus

The Productivity Project

Chris on the Bregman Leadership Podcast (for Hyperfocus)

Chris on the Bregman Leadership Podcast (for The Productivity Project)

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Sick to Fit, by me and Josh LaJaunie, is now available in paperback. Get a couple (dozen) copies here: Sick to Fit paperback. The Kindle ebook is also available, for free: Sick to Fit Kindle.

Ready to make 2019 your year to keep those New Year's Resolutions? Check out the upcoming WellStart Health 12-week On-ramp to Health: WellStartHealth.com.

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Caroline Trapp, DNP (that’s Doctor of Nursing Practice to you and me), is the director of diabetes education and care with the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), as well as a nurse practitioner specializing in the care of people with diabetes in Michigan.Trapp is a passionate advocate for the role of nurses in educating and empowering patients on lifestyle medicine to combat chronic disease, particularly diabetes.

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Caroline Trapp, DNP (that’s Doctor of Nursing Practice to you and me), is the director of diabetes education and care with the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), as well as a nurse practitioner specializing in the care of people with diabetes in Michigan.

Trapp is a passionate advocate for the role of nurses in educating and empowering patients on lifestyle medicine to combat chronic disease, particularly diabetes.

She points out that the founder of modern, science-based nursing, Florence Nightingale, including two chapters on nutrition in her Notes on Nursing. 

The largest workforce in healthcare, nurses are experts in patient education, making them the ideal profession to carry the message of plant-based healing of disease.

Trapp sees two ways for nurses to make a difference in terms of their patients’ diets and health outcomes:

* incorporating plant-based eating into their own lives, as role models

* getting educated on how to educate their patients

The current diabetes best practice, tight control of blood glucose levels, is tragically inadequate. Patients with good numbers still go blind, have heart attacks, and need kidney dialysis on a regular basis. We can do much better, Trapp asserts.

We chatted about the obstacles faced by the medical profession to empowering patients with lifestyle tools. We looked at medical education, particularly the continuing medical “education” provided by pharmaceutical reps (along with free food and goodies) to medical practices around the country. 

We also discussed her work bringing plant-based eating to the Navajo nation, and how to make what could be perceived as a hippie, vegan diet culturally acceptable to native peoples. 

Enjoy, add your voice to the conversation via the comment box or audio recording box below, and please share – that's how we spread our message and spread our roots.

Links

Caroline Trapp's professional page at PCRM

Pharmed Out – “No Drug Reps” public pledge for healthcare providers – PDF

NativePowerPlate.org

Email Caroline Trapp

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Like what you hear? You can contribute to the growth and improvement of the podcast by becoming a patron. Click the “Support on Patreon” or “Donate” buttons on the right to help out.

Announcements

Sick to Fit is now free on Kindle! The book, written by me and Josh LaJaunie, is basically the Big Change Program in book form. If you're ready to roll up your sleeves and take charge of your health outcomes, you can start right now, for abso-freaking-lutely free. (If you don't have a Kindle device, you can read it on your tablet, smartphone, or PC.)

Please share widely – we're hoping to reach a million people with the free book. Once you've downloaded Sick to Fit, you can join the private Sick to Fit Facebook group for real-time community and support.

Ready to embark on your Big Change journey?

WellStart Health's next cohort begins on January 7, 2019. Visit WellStartHealth.com/program for details and to apply.

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Darina Bockman is a business mover-and-shaker; a Senior Finance Director at CBRE, and a long-time vegan activist.

She felt split; on the one hand, committed to helping her organization succeed and achieving personal career success, and on the other hand, representing her views on animal rights, human health, and environmental stewardship through plant-based advocacy.

And it occurred to her that there might be others like her; leaders in corporate management who happened to be vegan (or, if you prefer, vegans who happen to be in corporate management).

In 2014, Bockman created the LinkedIn group, Vegan Leaders in Corporate Management. The group grew rapidly (as of five minutes ago, there were 3125 members), and quickly morphed from a “support group” to a platform for strategy and best practice sharing to promote vegan advancement in their organizations.

Bockman is co-author of the “Vegan Leaders Playbook,” a comprehensive consulting and communication guide for corporate leaders who want to move their organizations to a more plant-based-friendly position. It's a free download at VeganLeaders.com, and well worth the read, even if you want to pursue activism on a local and non-corporate basis.

In our conversation, we talked about the cutting edge of the vegan movement in the workplace; the elements that predict success in a vegan initiative; and their new support program to help leaders achieve maximum impact on their organizations, and through their organizations, the world.

Enjoy, add your voice to the conversation via the comment box or audio recording box below, and please share – that's how we spread our message and spread our roots.

Links

Vegan Leaders in Corporate Management LinkedIn Group

VeganLeaders.com

Sick to Fit – new book by Josh LaJaunie and Howard Jacobson, PhD

Support the Podcast

Like what you hear? You can contribute to the growth and improvement of the podcast by becoming a patron. Click the “Support on Patreon” or “Donate” buttons on the right to help out.

Announcements

Sick to Fit is now available for purchase on the Amazon Kindle store! Please grab your copy for just 99 cents. Don't wait too long; we're planning on dropping the price to Free

Thoughts on the episode? Let us know.

Darina Bockman is a business mover-and-shaker; a Senior Finance Director at CBRE, and a long-time vegan activist.She felt split; on the one hand, committed to helping her organization succeed and achieving personal career success, and on the other hand, representing her views on animal rights, human health, and environmental stewardship through plant-based advocacy.And it occurred to her that there might be others like her; leaders in corporate management who happened to be vegan (or, if you prefer, vegans who happen to be in corporate management).

Click to subscribe to the Mindset Mastery Memo.

Support the show

Thoughts on the episode? Let us know.

While leading the morning run groups at Engine 2's Plantstock this August, I met a young woman named Emily Skamla. She was fit and speedy  - easily pounding out 6-minute miles, and smoking me during the hill repeats.I figured that the combination of youth, a Plant Strong diet, and a commitment to training were the whole story. Instructive, mildly inspiring, but certainly not Plant Yourself Podcast material.Boy was I wrong.Turns out, Emily has been suffering since the age of 7 with Type 2 Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (RSD; now known in medical circles as Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, but we'll stick to RSD since that's the term Emily uses).

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While leading the morning run groups at Engine 2's Plantstock this August, I met a young woman named Emily Skamla. She was fit and speedy  – easily pounding out 6-minute miles, and smoking me during the hill repeats.

I figured that the combination of youth, a Plant Strong diet, and a commitment to training were the whole story. Instructive, mildly inspiring, but certainly not Plant Yourself Podcast material.

Boy was I wrong.

Turns out, Emily has been suffering since the age of 7 with Type 2 Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (RSD; now known in medical circles as Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, but we'll stick to RSD since that's the term Emily uses).

It's a beast of a disorder. Triggered by an innocent-seeming wrist sprain from a gymnastics fall while in second grade, Emily's RSD led to changes in her bone and skin, tissue swelling, and extreme sensitivity to touch.

And constant, agonizing pain.

Meet RSD

The key feature for Emily was the constant firing of pain signals from the brain, even in the absence of physiological damage.

The worst part was, the RSD went undiagnosed for 14 years. Fourteen years of a childhood with an invisible disorder that her doctors didn't recognize or understand. Fourteen years of living with severe pain that was not acknowledged or explained. Fourteen years of fruitless surgeries, prescriptions, and other treatment dead ends.

Emily tried to live a normal life, but the disease took its toll mentally and emotionally, as well as physically. She suffered from depression and anxiety. She felt suffocated – a slave to the RSD that was dominating every cell in her body.

Healing

And then, she decided to take matters into her own hands.

Beginning with a whole f00d, plant-based diet. And a commitment to physical fitness and exercise that turned her into a formidable athlete.

Emily is very clear that she's not “cured.” But the plant-based diet has allowed her to feel healthy from the inside out, even as the pain remains.

And the pursuit of physical discomfort through hard athletic training has allowed her to reconceptualize the pain of RSD as soreness. As the kind of discomfort that leads to growth.

In addition to running lots of marathons and other races, Emily took up boxing and crew – more challenge and more discomfort.

In our conversation, we talked a lot about discomfort. And how discomfort can be our worst enemy, or our best friend.

And we compared her RSD with the discomfort of transitioning to a plant-based diet. The physical discomfort of cravings and withdrawal. The social discomfort of being different from your group.

I am indescribably inspired by Emily and her journey. She's another one of these people who blows my feeble excuses out of the water. I hope you'll find her story of healing as valuable as I have.

Enjoy, add your voice to the conversation via the comment box or audio recording box below, and please share – that's how we spread our message and spread our roots.

Links

Emily Skamla on Instagram: @emmskamla

Email Emily: [email protected]

Plantstock 2019

Talk Back

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Like what you hear? You can contribute to the growth and improvement of the podcast by becoming a patron. Click the “Support on Patreon” or “Donate” buttons on the right to help out.

Announcements

Josh LaJaunie and I have started a Facebook Live series. We go live on Thursdays at 1pm US Eastern Time. Join us this coming Thursday 11/29/2018 via this link.

Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in 2016.

Unwilling to surrender his health destiny to the medical profession, Adams did some research, adopted a plant-based diet, lost 30 pounds, and reversed his condition.

And he didn't stop there.

Instead, he committed to making Brooklyn into Ground Zero for healthy living.

And not just for his constituents.

Adams reminded us that Brooklyn, if it were a city in its own right and not a borough of New York City, would be the third-largest in the US.

With outsized influence – as Brooklyn goes, so goes New York City. And what happens in New York City often spreads to the rest of the US. And the US exports its values and culture to the rest of the globe.

Brooklyn, Adams explains, is the butterfly flapping its wings in China causing a storm in Mexico. Except in a good way

Thoughts on the episode? Let us know.

Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in 2016.Unwilling to surrender his health destiny to the medical profession, Adams did some research, adopted a plant-based diet, lost 30 pounds, and reversed his condition.And he didn't stop there.Instead, he committed to making Brooklyn into Ground Zero for healthy living.

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Carol J. Adams is the author most recently of Burger and Protest Kitchen, and a self-described “feminist-vegan.”

Our conversation was eye-opening to me in many ways.

I noticed my language in ways I hadn't before. I saw for the first time a chunk of cultural programming that was determining a lot of my attitudes and actions.

And I watched myself tread lightly – and I suspect clumsily – for fear of offending Adams and listeners to the podcast.

Interesting…

Adams' best-known work, The Sexual Politics of Meat, was first published in 1990. In it, she argued that exploiting animals – including eating them – went hand in hand with patriarchal exploitation and disempowerment and abuse of women.

In the #metoo era, in the #whyididntreport era, in the “Grab them by the…” era, Adams' voice is provocative, challenging, and and important.

As someone who encourages people to eat plant-based, as opposed to vegan, I found her moral clarity particularly challenging as I wrestle with means and ends, progress vs absolutism.

I hope my own issues don't get in the way of Adams' message, and that you find value and wisdom and a prophetic passion in her words.

We covered:

* animals as “absent referents” – applying literary theory to politics

* animals as metaphors for feminine victimization (“I felt like a piece of meat”)

* connections between patriarchal attitudes, sexual violence, and meat eating

* famous vegetarian feminists

* ads for meat reinforcing a culture of sexual assault

* the “sexy animals” trope in fast food advertising

* who are you eating? a burger or a woman? (Hardees, Carl's Junior)

* men need to “reup their man card at every meal”

* masculinity defined as being violent

* ethics eclipsed by pleasure (“I can't give up my hamburger”)

* pleasure becomes  a response enabled by a privilege

* the “talk radio eye roll”

* why “dominion over the animals” doesn't mean keeping them in a cage

* historians see the hamburger as the greatest thing ever

* the hamburger as another failed modernist solution (like apartment buildings)

* the importance of redefining pleasure

* not changing is harder than changing

* “Why Look at Animals” – John Berger

* “Why Look at Women” – Suzanne Kappler

* misogyny is undergirded by animal agriculture

* from “the animal that…” to “the animal who…”

* the slippery deniability of symbolism

* and much more…

Enjoy, add your voice to the conversation via the comment box or audio recording box below, and please share – that's how we spread our message and spread our roots.

Links

Burger

Protest Kitchen

The Sexual Politics of Meat

Carol Adams' website

How Meat and Milk Uphold Misogyny

Sexual Politics of Meat Examples

From the Ground Up documentary website

Talk Back

Support the Podcast

Like what you hear? You can contribute to the growth and improvement of the podcast by becoming a patron. Click the “Support on Patreon” or “Donate” buttons on the right to help out.

Announcements