The mindbodygreen Podcast

Paul Hawken's expansive career as an environmentalist, best-selling author, and entrepreneur began with a case of greenwashing. Get the scoop on that story and so many more in this intimate podcast episode that spans from the civil rights movement into the present day and decades into the future. Hawken's expansive resume as founder of health food mecca Erewhon and lifestyle brand Smith & Hawken, author of a dozen books, and prolific public speaker and activist is only part of what makes him so fascinating. Hawken's outlook on the future of our planet is unlike any other, and the way he speaks about the people fighting climate change from the front lines can make even the most pessimistic of us more hopeful. His most recent project, Drawdown, spotlights 100 of the more substantive solutions to global warming to date and outlines ways for all of us to move them along. The mbg Lifetime Achievement Award winner and revitalize 2017 fan favorite sees climate change as the problem of our time—and says that you play a role in solving it. Find out how to get started with this inspiring conversation. We've teamed up with Thrive Market to give you $60 of FREE organic groceries + free shipping + a free 30 day trial. Go to thrivemarket.com/mindbodygreen to redeem. Keep in mind, Thrive Market's prices are already up to 50% off retail, and now they're giving you an EXTRA $60 free! And if you want to shop Jason's picks for Ellie, be sure to check out the "Moms" section! To contact Jason with comments, questions, or speaker ideas, please e-mail podcast@mindbodygreen.com. For all sponsorship inquiries, please e-mail sales@mindbodygreen.com. To join our podcast email newsletter, please visit http://bit.ly/mbgpodemail.

JJ Virgin is, without a doubt, one of the biggest names in health and wellness. She's a certified nutrition specialist and health and fitness instructor, has had numerous books hit the best-seller list, and leads a new class at mindbodygreen called Boost Your Metabolism. Raised on Pop-Tarts and Cap'n Crunch, she went rogue and visited a health food store at the early age of 12, which sparked her interest in health and nutrition. Virgin never looked back and has since dedicated her life to helping people break through weight loss resistance and maintain their healthiest weight—all the way from Jazzercise and low-fat diets to HIIT workouts and eating to balance blood sugar and insulin levels. In this episode of the mbg podcast, JJ opened up about a tragic hit-and-run accident that left her 15-year-old son in critical condition. It was a long healing process, physically and emotionally, and she shared the things that kept her family moving forward, now stronger than ever. Sun Basket delivers delicious recipes made with organic, sustainable ingredients that suit all dietary needs. Visit SunBasket.com/mbg for $35 off your first order! ThirdLove creates bras that look as incredible as they feel. With over 60 sizes, ThirdLove guarantees your bra will fit perfectly. Feel the ThirdLove difference and visit thirdlove.com/mbg for 15% off your first purchase. To contact Jason with comments, questions, or speaker ideas, please e-mail podcast@mindbodygreen.com. For all sponsorship inquiries, please e-mail sales@mindbodygreen.com. To join our podcast email newsletter, please visit http://bit.ly/mbgpodemail.

Within a few moments of being in Shaman Durek's presence, you'll feel that it's obvious he has a gift: His hugs are electric and spiritual. And I'm not the only one who feels like that: as a world-famous third-generation shaman, he has a reputation for giving the best hugs ever. Shaman Durek is an author, activist, and women's empowerment leader who focuses his practice specifically on helping people learn how to make shamanism a lifestyle choice for evolutionary adaptation. Upon sitting down with him, you feel that it's clear there's so much more to him than the amazing energy he emanates. In our hourlong conversation, Shaman Durek and I cover a lot of ground. He opens up about everything from the moment it became obvious that there was something different about him to why his family rejected shamanism and how he talks to people who fear him. Shaman Durek gets particularly candid about his painful near-death experience and the wealth of knowledge he gained from it. He also opens up about wellness as a whole and why the You. We. All message is so important: It's time to put the "we" back in wellness. Calm, winner of Apple's 2017 App of the Year, is a mindfulness app that helps you to cultivate a regular meditation practice, sleep better and breathe deeper. Get started with the 7 Days of Calm, take a mindful minute with our Breathe Bubble, or get cozy with a Sleep Story. Side effects may include health, happiness, and clarity. Visit calm.com/mbg for 25% off an annual membership. The Laundress is an eco-friendly line of detergent, fabric care, and home cleaning products that take excellent care of you, the things you love, and the environment. If you want to kick off the new year with a nontoxic deep clean for wardrobe and home, visit thelaundress.com and enter code MBG20 to get 20% off your first order. To contact Jason with comments, questions, or speaker ideas, please e-mail podcast@mindbodygreen.com. For all sponsorship inquiries, please e-mail sales@mindbodygreen.com. To join our podcast email newsletter, please visit http://bit.ly/mbgpodemail.

Some of us know what it's like to reach a moment of reckoning—a low point in life when we know that something has to change, and there's nowhere to go but up. For Dan Harris, this moment occurred on live television in front of 5 million people. It took a panic attack reading the news on Good Morning America to make the journalist and anchor realize he needed to address his anxiety. After years of searching, Harris found his savior in meditation. But ever a skeptic at heart, Harris had to first cut through a lot of what he perceived to be flowery language and woo-woo jargon that diluted the practice's power in order to home in on his own brand of simple, straightforward mindfulness meditation. In the process, he wrote a book, 10% Happier, which went on to become a No. 1 New York Times best-seller, a practical meditation guide for the modern day. In this podcast episode, Harris—who first shared his story with mbg on the 2014 revitalize stage—dives into the genesis of his legendary first book, and his latest one, Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics. Along the way, he gets real about his rock-bottom moment, his first foray into mindfulness, and the tips that have helped him meditate every day for the past nine years. He also speaks candidly about the "gurus" of today and why you don't need to shell out for a silent meditation retreat or travel to an ashram to harness all of meditation's truly life-changing benefits. If you're a skeptic, or just someone who has trouble quieting the mind regularly, you're going to want to give it a listen. Calm, winner of Apple's 2017 App of the Year, is a mindfulness app that helps you to cultivate a regular meditation practice, sleep better and breathe deeper. Get started with the 7 Days of Calm, take a mindful minute with our Breathe Bubble, or get cozy with a Sleep Story. Side effects may include health, happiness, and clarity. Visit calm.com/mbg for 25% off an annual membership. ThirdLove creates bras that look as incredible as they feel. With over 60 sizes, ThirdLove guarantees your bra will fit perfectly. Feel the ThirdLove difference and visit thirdlove.com/mbg for 15% off your first purchase. To contact Jason with comments, questions, or speaker ideas, please e-mail podcast@mindbodygreen.com. For all sponsorship inquiries, please e-mail sales@mindbodygreen.com. To join our podcast email newsletter, please visit http://bit.ly/mbgpodemail.

Norma Kamali is 72 and has been an ageless wellness queen since she was born. Her mother juiced, educated herself on supplements, and introduced Kamali to healthful foods at a very young age. Although she rebelled at first, wellness became a part of her DNA, and her company's. Back in 2001, Kamali opened her wellness cafe uptown in New York City in response to the September 11 attacks—she was way ahead of the wellness curve. Since then, she's written a book called Facing East, started a campaign called Stop Objectification to empower women who have been subject to misconduct, and has continued to run her namesake fashion brand. Kamali is a true renaissance woman. Her endeavors are more relevant now than perhaps ever before, and she's a living, breathing example of our You. We. All. mission to empower the planet. Listen to her interview to learn about her No. 1 wellness priority (hint: it's not food), the routine that makes her skin look youthful and glowy, and the sage advice she'd give her younger self. We've teamed up with Thrive Market to give you $60 of FREE organic groceries + free shipping + a free 30 day trial. Go to thrivemarket.com/mindbodygreen to redeem. Keep in mind, Thrive Market's prices are already up to 50% off retail, and now they're giving you an EXTRA $60 free! And if you want to shop Jason's picks for Ellie, be sure to check out the "Moms" section! To contact Jason with comments, questions, or speaker ideas, please e-mail podcast@mindbodygreen.com. For all sponsorship inquiries, please e-mail sales@mindbodygreen.com. To join our podcast email newsletter, please visit http://bit.ly/mbgpodemail.

What makes for a healthy, happy human? Dan Buettner, author, athlete, and National Geographic explorer, has traversed the world searching far and wide for the answer—and he's found it. His book, The Blue Zones, identifies the five areas of the world where people live the longest and are healthiest, snagging the secrets to longevity along the way. (Hint: Nurturing your personal relationships, eating a plant-based diet, and sleeping eight—yes, eight—hours a night all play a role.) His latest project, The Blue Zones of Happiness, goes a step further to look into the pockets of the world that have the happiest people. In this extremely candid podcast episode, he spills the extent to which money buys fulfillment, the most joyous age, and what you can do to become the happiest version of yourself every day, no matter where you live. Along the way, he shares whether exercise, coffee, and social media are helping or harming our moods, and his insights will definitely surprise you. We've teamed up with Thrive Market to give you $60 of FREE organic groceries + free shipping + a free 30 day trial. Go to thrivemarket.com/mindbodygreen to redeem. Keep in mind, Thrive Market's prices are already up to 50% off retail, and now they're giving you an EXTRA $60 free! And if you want to shop Jason's picks for Ellie, be sure to check out the "Moms" section! To contact Jason with comments, questions, or speaker ideas, please e-mail podcast@mindbodygreen.com. For all sponsorship inquiries, please e-mail sales@mindbodygreen.com. To join our podcast email newsletter, please visit http://bit.ly/mbgpodemail.

This special edition episode is a reflection on mindbodygreen's 2018 wellness trends! Every year in December, we release a report of our biggest trends and predictions for next year, and this time we have a sneak peek into the thought process behind the trends with our founder and CEO, Jason Wachob, along with co-founder and chief brand officer, Colleen Wachob. "It is a really exciting time to be in wellness," Jason said, as he reflected on mbg's track record for setting and predicting trends. In 2015, we were one of the first to call out supplement startups and telomeres as a trend. Two years ago in 2016, we accurately predicted guac would become a healthy staple, wellness tourism would go mainstream, and foretold the wellness world's now long-standing obsession with succulents. Last year, we reported that women's spaces and circles would grow, and from a food standpoint, we pegged personalized nutrition, medicinal mushrooms, and ketosis as wellness trends too. In this special, abbreviated episode, Jason and Colleen discuss four of our biggest and buzziest trends this year, and they're asking the questions no one else wants to ask: Will technology be the next tobacco? And when will we as consumers start to move the needle for big tech, the same way we did this year with big food? Healthy food startups are being acquired left and right—they discuss why that's a really good thing. In that vein, accessibility in wellness is another trending theme that resonates strongly with mindbodygreen's new mission. Breathwork will join meditation as a practice people use anytime, anywhere to change their energy. Similar to big food, green beauty is experiencing a surge of financial interest, acquisitions, and support from big-box retailers, who are stocking naturals now more than ever. And a question: Where will athleisure and boutique fitness go? They both are becoming more diverse and less exclusive, with at-home workouts like FlyWheel's new stationary bike and Peloton's rumored treadmill. Tune in to hear their points of view and get a behind-the-scenes look at the thinking behind these trends. To contact Jason with comments, questions, or speaker ideas, please e-mail podcast@mindbodygreen.com. For all sponsorship inquiries, please e-mail sales@mindbodygreen.com. To join our podcast email newsletter, please visit http://bit.ly/mbgpodemail.

GT Dave is the founder of the world's most successful kombucha company, GT's Kombucha. A native Californian, he was born a vegetarian and raised by two very holistic parents who always looked at life—and more importantly, health—from a holistic perspective. His journey with kombucha began in 1994 as a teenager when his parents starting making and drinking it regularly. Not long after, his mother—who was healthy and active—was diagnosed with breast cancer. When weeks later her doctors downgraded her tumor diagnosis from cancerous to precancerous, they asked what she was doing differently in her diet. The answer was kombucha. Still, he had no idea that just a few years later he would be bottling 60 to 100 bottles in his house every morning before driving them to local stores in a van. Through the course of his career, which is far from over, GT has made kombucha a staple in every health food store and all great wellness regimes. He brought this now wildly popular probiotic drink into the mainstream. His journey was not without its challenges, from family tragedies to a learning how to run a business to the time when all his products were taken off the shelves over concerns about its potential trace alcohol content. GT opened up about his spirituality and why he feels like he and his brand grew up together. We discussed narcissism, why we need to be authentic in a social media world, and how he balances purpose and profit as an entrepreneur. His definition of success is making an effort to be the best he can be and to give love and spread love. You won't want to miss this one. Calm, winner of Apple's 2017 App of the Year, is a mindfulness app that helps you to cultivate a regular meditation practice, sleep better and breathe deeper. Get started with the 7 Days of Calm, take a mindful minute with our Breathe Bubble, or get cozy with a Sleep Story. Side effects may include health, happiness, and clarity. Visit calm.com/mbg for 25% off an annual membership. To see if you qualify, get your free quote today at healthiq.com/mbg or mention the promo code MBG when you talk to a Health IQ agent. To contact Jason with comments, questions, or speaker ideas, please e-mail podcast@mindbodygreen.com. For all sponsorship inquiries, please e-mail sales@mindbodygreen.com. To join our podcast email newsletter, please visit http://bit.ly/mbgpodemail.

As founder and CEO of 22 Days Nutrition and author of the New York Times best-selling book The 22-Day Revolution, Marco Borges is one of the most sought-after experts in the field of plant-based nutrition and functional foods. Growing up in Miami in the late '70s—and attending public school during the heyday of cocaine in the city—he credits his strong sense of self and determined personality for his lack of interest in drugs and alcohol. He originally wanted to be a doctor, but the more he learned about health care, the more he realized that it's a much too reactive system. Eventually, Borges became interested in fitness and cycling and learned what to eat, what not to eat, and how foods made him feel. He says he owes his success to being eternally curious about everything and refusing to compromise. In this episode we discuss starting his own business and why it's not really work when you're doing something you love. He talks about creating 22 Days Nutrition abd how one Instagram post by Beyoncé caused everyone to go crazy overnight about the 22-Day Challenge. Borges has dedicated his life to teaching people how to transform their lives through movement and nutrition—including people like Jay-Z and Beyoncé. His incredible energy and wisdom make him one of my favorite people in the world, so don't miss this one! Calm, winner of Apple's 2017 App of the Year, is a mindfulness app that helps you to cultivate a regular meditation practice, sleep better and breathe deeper. Get started with the 7 Days of Calm, take a mindful minute with our Breathe Bubble, or get cozy with a Sleep Story. Side effects may include health, happiness, and clarity. Visit calm.com/mbg for 25% off an annual membership. To see if you qualify, get your free quote today at healthiq.com/mbg or mention the promo code MBG when you talk to a Health IQ agent. To contact Jason with comments, questions, or speaker ideas, please e-mail podcast@mindbodygreen.com. For all sponsorship inquiries, please e-mail sales@mindbodygreen.com. To join our podcast email newsletter, please visit http://bit.ly/mbgpodemail.

Six years ago, Ella Mills was so ill that she could barely get out of bed. She spent hours watching Keeping Up With the Kardashians and browsing her friends' Facebook feeds, growing increasingly depressed. Doctors had diagnosed her with postural tachychardia syndrome, a rare disease, and pumped her full of medicine, but she knew there had to be a better way. Eventually, while browsing the internet, she read about the power of diet and lifestyle to heal and began experimenting with a plant-based diet. She was able to come off her medication after two years, and now, after healing her gut from rounds of antibiotics, she's feeling vibrant and healthy again. In this podcast, she chats about her healing journey and how she went from being sick in bed to the mega-successful blogger behind Deliciously Ella—and now, a businesswoman with four cookbooks (including the No. 1 best-selling debut cookbook ever in the United Kingdom), three delis, and three product ranges in over 5,500 stores. She also opens up about her relationship with her husband, Matt, whom she married only 13 months after they met. She shares how they navigate being business partners and life partners and how he experienced his own health crisis, which prompted them to finally prioritize work/life balance. Whether you're a wellness business owner, someone looking to take control of your own health, or simply a fan of Ella, this is an episode you won't want to miss. To contact Jason with comments, questions, or speaker ideas, please e-mail podcast@mindbodygreen.com. For all sponsorship inquiries, please e-mail sales@mindbodygreen.com. To join our podcast email newsletter, please visit http://bit.ly/mbgpodemail.

Mark Sisson is the founder of Mark's Daily Apple and Primal Kitchen (the mega-popular brand of salad dressing, energy bar, protein powder and more), the author of the brand-new The Keto Reset Diet: Reboot Your Metabolism In 21 Days to Burn Fat Forever, and the man responsible for empowering millions of people to take back control of their health. While he's now renowned as the founder of the modern-day paleo or primal diets, he wasn't always this way. Once an Ironman athlete and competitive runner, Mark used to eat a primarily carbohydrate-rich diet to fuel his athletic endurance. Seventeen years ago, he gave up grains, and it was then that pieces of the puzzle finally began to shift into place and the diseases that had been weighing him down—from IBS to chronic upper respiratory tract infections—began to clear up. He started Mark's Daily Apple, the mega-popular wellness blog, and now—nine books, hundreds of talks, and a product line later—well, the rest is history. In today's episode, Mark shares how his rigid diet has evolved over time (you'll want to tune in just to hear his take on legumes and lectins), how he optimizes his mitochondria, his thoughts on Bulletproof coffee, and much, much more. He also shares how long you have to do keto for it to have a lasting effect (it's not as long you'd think!) and why he thinks "virtually every disease of civilization can be mitigated by lifestyle choices." Tune in to find out exactly how. We've teamed up with Thrive Market to give you $60 of FREE organic groceries + free shipping + a free 30 day trial. Go to thrivemarket.com/mindbodygreen to redeem. Keep in mind, Thrive Market's prices are already up to 50% off retail, and now they're giving you an EXTRA $60 free! And if you want to shop Jason's picks for Ellie, be sure to check out the "Moms" section! To contact Jason with comments, questions, or speaker ideas, please e-mail podcast@mindbodygreen.com. For all sponsorship inquiries, please e-mail sales@mindbodygreen.com. To join our podcast email newsletter, please visit http://bit.ly/mbgpodemail.

Byron Katie is a wellness icon. Unlike a lot of popular theories today, her system of self-inquiry, known as "The Work," helps people to separate their beliefs from what is true. In other words, she cuts through the bullsh*t pretty quickly. "The Work is not meant to support you to feel good. There’s no feel good in it. It’s about waking up to the reality," Katie said in our interview. That's the good stuff. She wasn't always the super-successful author, teacher, and beacon of light she has become. When I sat down with Katie, she shared intimate details about her awakening and what life was like beforehand. It wasn't easy. As a mother of three, she—understandably and relatably—was always worried about money, quite depressed, and stuck in a cycle of compulsive eating and smoking until one day in 1986 when everything changed. She started to see the world through different eyes and recalled with great detail exactly what that was like. That's how "The Work" was born. In this episode, Katie shares several examples that illustrate "The Work," dives into the six essential questions to ask yourself as a starting point, and helps us see ourselves as entirely separate from our belief systems. In her words, "suffering is the flip side of our true nature," and "The Work" is one way to guide yourself in the right direction. We've teamed up with Thrive Market to give you $60 of FREE organic groceries + free shipping + a free 30 day trial. Go to thrivemarket.com/mindbodygreen to redeem. Keep in mind, Thrive Market's prices are already up to 50% off retail, and now they're giving you an EXTRA $60 free! And if you want to shop Jason's picks for Ellie, be sure to check out the "Moms" section! To contact Jason with comments, questions, or speaker ideas, please e-mail podcast@mindbodygreen.com. For all sponsorship inquiries, please e-mail sales@mindbodygreen.com. To join our podcast email newsletter, please visit http://bit.ly/mbgpodemail.

If you've seen more men with mustaches growing in lately, you can thank Justin Coghlan ("JC"), one of the founding members of The Movember Foundation. With 20 participating countries, more than 5 million individual participants, and $850 million raised to date, Movember has become the world's largest men's health movement. Like most brilliant ideas, it started at a bar and was kind of an accident. After having a drink together almost 15 years ago, Travis Garone and Luke Slattery decided to revive the mustache as a style statement. Then a funny thing happened: People started asking them why. Once they realized they'd stumbled upon conversation-starting gold, they decided to leverage it for a good cause. JC and Garone's brother Adam joined the following year to increase momentum. "There's a women's hospital, a children's hospital, but there's no men's hospital. What are men doing for their health?" said JC. In addition to raising funds for prostate and testicular cancer, Movember is shining a light on men's mental health. Seventy percent of suicides are middle-aged men, and JC says it's because they're not talking to one another about life's ups and downs—at least not the same way women do. Movember aims to save lives by starting the conversation. In this episode, JC reveals how Movember went viral, shares moving personal stories of Movember's impact, and deconstructs how the brand has evolved. To contact Jason with comments, questions, or speaker ideas, please e-mail podcast@mindbodygreen.com. For all sponsorship inquiries, please e-mail sales@mindbodygreen.com. To join our podcast email newsletter, please visit http://bit.ly/mbgpodemail.

Sakara Life co-founders (and mbg class instructors!) Whitney Tingle and Danielle DuBoise weren't always the glowing, vibrant, successful women most people are familiar with today. The friends, who met in Sedona, Arizona, as kids, suffered from various ailments in their 20s: Danielle from an addiction to dieting that left her fed up and feeling terrible, and Whitney from acne and the side effects of the various Western ways she relied on to treat it (Accutane included!). They started designing a diet for each other to feel better, and that diet eventually led to Sakara Life, the meal plan and functional food delivery service that's helping thousands of people eat healthier nationwide. Their secret? A mix of hard science (they have an advisory board that includes luminaries like Dr. Aviva Romm) and ancient practices inspired by their mystical Arizona upbringing, including ayurveda, traditional Chinese medicine, and more. They also firmly believe that wellness is about feeling good—not taking measurements in inches and pounds or counting macronutrients. In this episode of the mbg podcast, they discuss the secret to their success and the details of the unique food philosophy that's helped them and so many others heal. To contact Jason with comments, questions, or speaker ideas, please e-mail podcast@mindbodygreen.com. For all sponsorship inquiries, please e-mail sales@mindbodygreen.com. To join our podcast email newsletter, please visit http://bit.ly/mbgpodemail.

Jimmy Chin is an adventurer, artist, and filmmaker whose awe-inspiring photos have graced the pages of National Geographic and Outside magazine, not to mention the feeds of his 1.7 million Instagram followers. He's directed and starred in Meru, a moving documentary following his attempt to conquer the most daunting mountains in the world, and has been named one of the most influential climbers in the world. Considering his career in the clouds, you'd never guess Jimmy grew up in the cornfields of Minnesota, where he dreamed of one day moving to the mountains he'd seen on family vacations. In the early stages of his career, he lived out of his car and chased the peaks and climbers that inspired him. It wasn't until one of his mentors passed him a camera on an expedition that he realized he had a knack for photography and framing. Over the decades to come, his camera earned a place in his pack as he took risks to get to the top, with a few stumbles along the way. A class-4 avalanche sent him 2,000 feet down a mountain at 80 mph and showed him the veil between life and death. Extreme weather events forced him to power through days of climbing on a third of an energy bar. All of these experiences helped him hone his definition of risk—something he credits as the foundation of any meaningful experience. In this episode, Jimmy opens up about it all and delivers one of our favorite definitions of wellness to date along the way. We've teamed up with Thrive Market to give you $60 of FREE organic groceries + free shipping + a free 30 day trial. Go to thrivemarket.com/mindbodygreen to redeem. Keep in mind, Thrive Market's prices are already up to 50% off retail, and now they're giving you an EXTRA $60 free! And if you want to shop Jason's picks for Ellie, be sure to check out the "Moms" section! To contact Jason with comments, questions, or speaker ideas, please e-mail podcast@mindbodygreen.com. For all sponsorship inquiries, please e-mail sales@mindbodygreen.com. To join our podcast email newsletter, please visit http://bit.ly/mbgpodemail.