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[00:00:00] Hi everyone, and welcome to Words of Wellness, the podcast for anyone interested in the ways we think, talk, and write about wellness. Why do we use so many motifs like journeys, gardens, even battles when we talk about wellness? How do writers explain science and wellness concepts? How can we make sense of the wellness information overload we all face?

These are the kinds of questions we explore. I'm Daniel Anderson, and we're coming to you from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Today we have a special Book Talk episode in store. Our guests are Joseph Chin, Darsh Shah, Neel Patel, Laini Grant, and Adriana Vigil. Let's get started. I'm Joseph, and my book was The [00:01:00] Body Keeps the Score.

I'm Darsh, and my book was The Six Pillars of a Rewarding Life. I'm Neil, and my book was Tiny Habits by B. J. Fogg. I'm Laney, and my book was Developing Coaching Skills. I'm Adriana, and my book was How to Hear, Listen, and Validate Others. Wow, what an awesome group we got going on here. I was just wondering if you guys are still actively implementing maybe frameworks you saw present throughout the book.

Cause, I found myself before class just now scrolling on Reddit about people's opinions on the book and how it continues to just change and shape the way they about life. I think one thing with my book was definitely the fact that it was all encompassing and a lot of you guys might find themes that reside with my book because mine again had six pillars.

The first one was self reflection and understanding, what your personal values are and building upon that the choices you make from there, implementing those choices and then the [00:02:00] small habits you take to rather than achieving an end result. Achieve smaller steps along the way to achieve the end result in the long run.

But make sure you avoid that yo effect where you get to that kind of end result and then come back to your previous habits. And then you have the last two, which are, I think, the most profound, which are having optimal performance. And then understanding that performance isn't the only thing you're looking for, but also balance your relationships, your family.

And understanding what comes first. That also has to be required in having that rewarding life and that was the final pillar So my book was like very similar to yours and that it talked about like a step by step journey on how to develop better habits So the first thing that you were supposed to do is you like find like something that you like want to improve Then you like change it like little by little every single day until it becomes a habit and then it like also talked about like The difference between a behavior and habits because a habit is something that you can do like right here right now With no second It's no second thought and just like [00:03:00] purely based off instinct, whereas like a behavior is like temporary and you have to think about doing it instead.

My book, Developing Coaching Skills, focused a lot on leadership habits and how you can implement that into your own life. Not just from a coaching standpoint, but just in general. And for somebody that plays on a sports team here at UNC, being able to take some of those lessons and bring it back to my own.

To my own team and being able to implement that's some things I took away from My book was all about validation and how we can work to better understand how to hear others and how to validate ourselves and other people and I think it was really relevant to like the topic of wellness because I'm just learning how to communicate is very important just in general So Yeah, I really appreciate you guys giving kind of a brief overview of your books and Darsh jumping a little more into his book than you guys, but what Lainey said really got me thinking.

So you mentioned you implemented some of those changes you saw from the [00:04:00] book into your own life. How did you go about that? One of the main parts of the book talked a lot about trust and the trust between a coach and a coachees relationship, and I feel I'm already pretty close to my teammates, so I didn't have to take that extra step to really get to know them because we already know each other really well and we're already connected on that level, but continuing to be mindful on how I can continue to get to know them better and to continue to develop that trust relationship.

So when say we're in a really close game and I look over and I know that For example, Jordan, who's also in this class, I can look over and trust Jordan and I know what she's gonna do and she knows what I'm gonna do and just being connected on that level along with other things. But that was there are ties with what you said and what you've implemented in like physical health overarchingly?

There was yes I do actually, cause there was a When like when I think of coaching, I think of like in a sports dynamic, because that's how I've always like seeing coaches in my personal life and there was a section also that was talking about creating healthy habits, and I think that can help because that's [00:05:00] what a coach there was a chapter that was talking about how that's what a coach does.

It helps you form healthy habits to get to your end goals. So I feel like you can connect that to the physical health with coaches can help Help you cultivate some healthy habits that you can implement into your life. I think the idea of trust is really relevant to my book as well.

Just because learning how to validate others helps you to build trust within relationships. Yeah, trust is like also big in my book because you have to trust yourself to implement these changes because like my book is mainly like individual based instead of based on other people because no one else is going to tell you what you need to change.

So you have to take the initiative like upon yourself to make these small changes that like will overall improve your life by like a ladder effect where like It goes like small and then it becomes like massive like over time. Yeah, I think mine actually took it a step further and it said, and one of the chapters was about actually achieving what you seek.

So rather than just [00:06:00] setting goals, having a structure to them. And so you can trust yourself, that's what kind of my book told me, but if you don't have the tracks in place for the train to actually ride on, then you don't have, that structure set in place for you to take step by step towards your end goal.

So I definitely think that having that kind of structure or system in place is necessary, even when you're trusting yourself. Yeah, I really appreciate that bit about the train tracks that you're mentioning, Darsh. But, I'm noticing a common theme just amongst our responses about really taking action and making changes.

I, I know that in my book, there was a pretty clear call to call to action at some points. I was just wondering what some of the call to actions in your guys books were, yeah. Yeah, so one of the call to actions in my book was it talked about a woman. I don't really know her name, but it talked about like how she was like an active runner and like how she like ate ice cream like every single day because she thought like, why not?

[00:07:00] Because I'm like doing all these healthy habits. I'm like running like a mile every day. I'm like burning weight, right? But then she like the death of her mother came right and like slowly but surely she like stopped yeah. She was like doing all the running stuff and she like gained 15 pounds of weight just by purely eating ice cream.

So then like whenever she like weighed herself on a scale again after two years, she started to know, she found out the problem and she was like, I need to do something about this life. So she took it step by running. Instead of running, she like walked 30 minutes every day.

And then she like gradually progressed to running like two miles after. Like every day because it, she like lost all that she gained, or she like lost all that she had previously. And so like, when she like regained it back, she regained it like step by step. Yeah, sorry to interrupt Neal, but could you pivot from giving a description like of the [00:08:00] woman eating ice cream, that anecdote, and more into The call to action.

So I think this case, I would be like, what can the audience like take from that, like anecdote, like maybe is it taking a step by step, like towards whatever goals you have, like that kind of stuff. Yeah. So I think like the audience can take from this, that they can take their goals like step by step because you can't achieve your goal in one step.

You have to do, it's like little bits and pieces. It's like a puzzle and taking it step by step will help you like achieve your end goal over time. Yeah, that's awesome. I think one thing that I thought was super profound was the chapter about optimal performance. There were two kinds of things that stood out to me.

I think the first one is the fact that there are four types of kind of energy and emotion that you have to control throughout your day. Cause again, burnout is probably common to all of us as college students, but more so the fact that you have physical. mental, emotional, and spiritual kind of [00:09:00] emotions and energy that you have to manage throughout the day, right?

There are a lot of emotions that you might have every single day that can be automated, that should be automated, and you should be focusing that energy, rather, towards something that's more productive of your time, the things that actually take critical thinking, and so what that kind of implies to me is, by automating several things in your life and by honing in your energy and understanding these are the things I have to focus on, You can get better in certain aspects of your life by 1 percent like what you're saying.

I think that's the biggest call to action. Is to understand what requires your time and what needs your time and what doesn't. And then just understanding from there, what am I going to do today that I didn't do yesterday. Rather than trying to do all of it within one day and trying to, reach an end goal just in a couple days.

Yeah, it's really interesting. I think what I'm drawing from it is back to your train track anecdote, but just having that basic groundwork framework that you can always kind of fall back on while making those like leaps. So yeah, Laney, I know you mentioned that you were a [00:10:00] basketball player, so I'd imagine your framework would be your diet, your consistent like training, like Yeah.

What do you think separates like you from any other player with that same kind of foundation, like train track framework that they might have? Yeah, that's a really good question. I would say that it's not just the physical side, which I think that reading all these wellness books, we've realized just how important the mental side of it is as well.

And I would say that just as much work as I have to put into, like you said, like my training and focusing on my diet and my sleep and like watching film, there's just as much work I have to do for the mental side. So I feel like continuing to, we talked about balance earlier, but finding that balance between making sure that I'm in my peak conditioning and being able to perform at a high level physically, but also mentally.

And then Just loving what I do. I think that's important. I feel like that's another common theme in wellness books is like you have to love what you do or else you're going to be unhappy. I love basketball, so it makes it pretty easy. That's awesome. I'm also wondering maybe [00:11:00] some aspects of the validation stuff might tie into her books.

So I was wondering if you guys could have a little conversation about that. I think that'd be really insightful. Yeah. Do you want to start it off and give A little bit more about the validation in your book. Yeah, for sure. I think just in general my book has different lays like a kind of framework for how we can try to be better at validating others because in a lot of ways we in an inherently invalidate others just by maybe like little comments.

We say have you ever felt I guess one question I could ask is as an athlete. Have you ever felt and like maybe invalidated in some way and how that has affected your physical wellness or your performance in any aspect or your mental as well. How that is another really good question, actually.

So I feel as an athlete, it's safe to say that you feel invalidated all the time. And on the flip side, you also feel validated all the time. So like figuring out how to manage that, if you get yelled at by coach and you don't take it the right way that's very invalidating.

And [00:12:00] sometimes if you don't understand that it's not personal and that it's just like she's trying to help you get better and your teammates are all there for you, then you can take it personal and then it might drag out into other aspects of your life. And I think that coming to college, I've gotten really good at keeping everything that happens on the court and not letting it drag into my other personal life.

I think that's really important. But on the flip side, like all my teammates are very validating. If I make a mistake, they pick me up. If I make a shot, they celebrate my win. So it's, I would say that it's a very very fluid back and forth between that. But, as an athlete, I think you get used to managing that, but Yeah, that's really incredible.

Yeah. Maybe you guys could, do you think that kind of pressure has been applied on you from an earlier age? And do you think it's helped you adapt? Going back to the habits, right? Have those kind of habits you've enforced the infrastructure with allowed you to continue to play at this optimal level, like taking a coach's critique as something that's going to help you rather than bring you down.

Yeah, I would [00:13:00] definitely say that. Yeah. Like the pressure part of it. My dad was my coach growing up, so sometimes like it was personal what he was saying, because that's my dad. But so I think that from a really early age, I did learn how to deal with that pressure and it was never too much because I had an amazing support system around me, which.

I think is also another common theme you'll find in wellness is you can't do it on your own. You gotta, like in my book, like a coach and a coachee. There's two, two people in that relationship and that dynamic. But I would say yes, if I had got to college and then it was just this bunch of new emotions and pressure and all this thing.

I don't think that I would be able to do that. And I was conditioned, pretty early on, like how to deal with that and on my high school team and my club teams, like having that position of leadership. And I think that helped me when I got to college. Yeah. Yeah, I'd love to hear your thoughts on how you think the habits you learned about even the small habits can shape, like something even less large is playing basketball for the UNC team.

Yeah, so as like one of my favorite role models, Kobe Bryant, right? [00:14:00] He took 2000 shots a day. Which is a lot for practice, right? But, to start, he had to learn how to play basketball to get to this level, and then he had to play multiple games, go through a bunch of workouts grow 6'6 which was out of his control, but he got lucky with it.

But anyway, he was, like, the primary example of hard work, and, like, How he built little by little, he got better and better until he like became a top 10 NBA player of all time with just off of pure hard work. That's really interesting you say that. So do you think that it was just pure hard work?

I actually have a background in trombone. I started playing like from five years old, all the way up to college, but I think I had far exceeded the 10, 000 hour mark in my early days, like in middle school. So if following the logic that you were saying, so through [00:15:00] pure hard work would I just be able to grind my way to the top?

What would that kind of look like? Could you navigate me through that? Yeah, it's like great that you did 10, 000 hours of trombone and I'm pretty sure you're like a really great like trombone player because of it, right? But I think it's because the type of practice that you do instead of like how many hours you put in.

And so can you like take me on to what types of practice you did for like trombone? Yeah, of course. So throughout my entire life, my academics was cast aside like for music. So a lot of times that meant me pretty much skipping all my classes to go to masterclasses, just like around because trombonists don't all live in the same area.

But I'd say it's very deliberate, like a consistency and really solid mentorship, which isn't free. Yeah. I can see a really big relationship between this idea of not only so you working to be, like, the best [00:16:00] trombonist you can be, I think that not only relates to working hard but also the kind of idea that's presented in Lainey's book with having a good mentor and a good coach and really building that relationship, because I think that's a very important aspect of building these kinds of skills, because in any profession or any area that you want to improve in, I think having a good mentor and Having a good mentor is important to improving those kinds of skills.

Yeah, I think having someone that's invested in you really goes a long way. And yeah, I made the full pivot from music to finance at pretty much the last minute possible. Second semester, senior year. And I think something I'm really just trying to recreate right now here my second semester is just finding the right mentors again.

Yeah. How's your experience of mentors, Laney? I know you've probably had a bunch. Yeah, I've had a lot of mentors across my career. I've had some that are related to basketball and some that aren't, but I've [00:17:00] been really blessed to have really amazing ones across the board. I've had players who've played professionally that have trained with me and and he's been giving me advice to how to navigate like when I get to college and stuff like that.

I've had amazing coaches. Obviously, I mentioned my dad. He's been an amazing mentor for me. And then I get to college and I'm surrounded by professionals that really know how to coach and really know how to train and elevate athletes. But like mentors don't just have to be adults or people that are older than you.

They can be one of your closest friends. They could be your family members. Anybody that you respect and that kind of helps you along and to help reach your goals and just in life in general. Yeah, it's really cool how you put like a kind of lens on how anyone could technically be your mentor, but maybe taking a different like perspective at it.

What do you think really makes like a great mentor? I'll start like a little bit but I think that it's someone that really puts themselves in your position And [00:18:00] except they have that insight of being on the other side. So they're just able to navigate you through exactly how you should approach it.

What do you think that kind of looks like? I'm here to, I'm ha, or I'm excited to hear about what you think about it. No, I think that you hit the nail on the head. Empathy is really important. You can't, have somebody that doesn't really care what you're going through.

Bringing it back to the sports realm. Because that's all that I really know. If you're coached by somebody that doesn't understand a day when you're Not feeling well your body's hurting then it just makes things really hard in that open communication and like the trust But like a mentor has to have empathy they have to love what they're doing too.

It won't work and they have to respect The person that they're coaching and just as much as you know The person that's getting mentored has to respect the coach and I think that's really important because if there's a gap between that then It won't work at all. Yeah that's really amazing.

I'm wondering what your guys relationships with mentors are too, yeah? Yeah, I can start this. For me I think mentors have been crucial because I think, [00:19:00] for me I'm someone that gets inspired easily by the people that I want to emulate. The people that are better than me in the fields that I want to go into.

And I grew up in California, right? I had people around me selling their companies for 50 million out of high school. I was like, how are you doing this? I need to learn how to do this. And so that's driven me to be self sufficient and learn about it and then go back to these kinds of people and ask them, I'm at this step right now in my journey.

How can I do what I'm doing to get to where you are, right? And so I think for me, the biggest thing when I'm looking for a mentor is someone that inspires me, but also someone that's willing to stick by me for the next couple of years when I progress. Because when I see a mentor, I see someone as someone that's going to be on my side for a longer period of time rather than just, a couple months when he's going to get me through one specific period.

I see someone as a mentor that I can essentially reciprocate that benefit to once I get to a point where, I'm confident enough that I can help them as well. And so I think of a mentor as someone that I think I can actually learn from in an extended period of [00:20:00] time. So I think of like a mentor as like someone who would go above and beyond.

to teach you about what they're, like, mentoring you about and pass on their knowledge to you. And basically, I think that a mentor should help you navigate life's challenges how to be a better person. If you're, like, if it's a mentor in an activity finance or something, then they should help guide you through finance.

And I agree that you should surpass your mentor one day to the point where you can help I would say I agree with definitely everything that's been said so far, someone, as you guys mentioned on someone like who's really on my side, but also someone I would like in like for me personally a mentor, I want someone who pushes me to be, to experience comfortable discomfort.

So getting me out of my comfort zone and pushing me to be better because I know If you don't get out of your comfort zone, whatever that may be it's really hard to break out of the box that you've like already set for yourself. But moving on, I want to [00:21:00] ask because Lainey mentioned the idea of building empathy, and that was a really big topic in my book especially in terms of communication and validation.

And I want to ask you guys what do you think is the relationship between communication and building, building relationships and physical wellness? Like how do you think? Building relationships and being able to communicate effectively affects our physical wellness. Do you guys see a correlation in those two?

Yeah, that's actually really interesting you mentioning that. In my book The Body Keeps the Score it's basically saying that trauma is directly tied with physical reactions. And a trauma may cause someone to basically shut down physically, like for their immune system to shut down. Leading to a lot of cardiovascular issues worst case cancer, but maybe even IBS.

I think I'm really going to be nicer to my friends with IBS going forward. I would say for me, I think the biggest thing that I read about in [00:22:00] terms of empathy is the last chapter and the first chapter, and they tied back together. So the first one, again, was building self awareness and understanding your values.

And the last one is having that balance between your personal and just like achievement based life, right? I think there's a fine line you can draw between that and understanding and being able to communicate effectively with other people kind of fosters those relationships in the first place And if you don't have those relationships, you're gonna be making a ton of money You'd be raking in anything you need in your life But you're not gonna have the right people around you to share that wealth, right?

Because I think one thing I've learned about Is the fact that if you're not sharing your wealth, whether it's physically or just with your knowledge with your emotional well being, with your kind of two cents for how they can grow themselves as well. That kind of ties into empathy and understanding the fact that there's people around you that might not have the same wealth of knowledge that you have.

And so being able to allow them to learn about, everything that you've done up until this point, to build out the knowledge you have, to build out the empire you have, that's very crucial. [00:23:00] I think that's the fine line between building out that balance.

My book didn't really mention empathy or communication, but it did mention being empathetic towards yourself, right? Because reinforcement builds habit. And so if you reinforce if you have positive reinforcement for like something small that you do you cooked a meal for someone, right?

Then you're gonna keep on wanting to do it over and over again so you can develop the same feeling. It becomes ingrained in your brain that if you cook food for someone, then you're gonna feel really good about yourself. . Yeah. Communication is like one of the key topics in my book because without communication in a coach and coachee relationship, like it just won't thrive.

So I feel like you can tell pretty quickly whether that's with the friendship, relationship, or a mentorship if you don't have open and clear communication, and that just causes. It's unnecessary problems that [00:24:00] could, filter into other aspects of your life. So communication is mentioned a lot in my book and it's a prime focus along with kind of what I talked about earlier with the empathy between once again, the coach and coachee relationship.

Yeah. I think it was very interesting what you said actually before we got into this, which was the overarching theme of, seeking discomfort and like trying to find comfort in discomfort. I would love to know if you guys have seen that in your own lives and like how it's helped you guys get to where you are now.

Yeah, so I can relate to this like personal experience because like when I was in like middle school I didn't really communicate much to people. I was like very introverted. And this stemmed all the way over to COVID and like to the end of high school, right? Like, whenever I came to college I started meeting more and more people and I started putting myself more out there and I realized, wow, there's nothing to be ashamed of with communicating to people because I used to be, like, scared if people would judge me when [00:25:00] I said something but now I realize that communicating well with someone doesn't really mean that they'll judge you and it's better to have clear communication instead of no communication at all.

Yeah I would say that as an athlete, I live in a constant realm of that comfortable discomfort. And for me personally, the most uncomfortable thing is failing. And I fail every day in little ways and learning to, to work through that, whether that's like losing a game or getting scored on or missing a shot, there's always something where it's like developing like a next play mentality.

And I feel like that has translated into other aspects of my life as well, but. I think just in general something that we can all relate to is being college students because that's just a really big theme that, coming to college is very, makes you uncomfortable because you're away from family, you're not at home, so I think that's a really big, that's one thing for me I can see where I I'm pushing myself to be uncomfortable.

I think also like coming here to UNC I'm a part of the band [00:26:00] program as well, I play the trombone. And Coming here everyone is obviously like the top of their class the best players. They know how to play really well. It's definitely, it definitely pushes me as a player to be better and practice more and puts me out of my comfort zone for sure.

Yeah, wait, Darcy, could you restate your kind of question again? I want to really answer it. Yeah. Yeah. It was just. My kind, like how seeking discomfort struck a chord with me. That's something I've always tried to live by. Yeah, of course. I'd say I've taken an insane approach to that.

I was originally committed to Juilliard for a full ride on trombone. And pretty much last minute, I UNC because it was the only school that I applied to without any music portfolios that would allow me to pivot into a field that wasn't music. So I it was a lot of alone time with [00:27:00] myself during those couple months because I'd My, my mentors did not like that, like whatsoever, a couple of them cause, they pushed me through the audition process, pushed me through my entire life really, but I'm someone that's very I take pleasure in steep learning curves, and I take pleasure in discomfort I think just being able to expose myself to this new learning curve that I'm facing and meeting all these insightful people in this realm of being financed has really shaped my experience.

I think we'll continue to, yeah, I think, go ahead. So this is like a question for Joseph specifically. Do you still maintain trombone in your life, or have you switched completely to being just a finance only person? Yeah it's actually really interesting. Before my club interviews, I find myself explo or listening to old concerts solos I just have recorded online taking me back to the same intense, competitive feeling that I would have from trombone into what I'm doing right now, yeah.

Trombone [00:28:00] is still a big part of your life because of the former concerts that you do and how it motivates you in the field that you want to study, right? Exactly, yeah. I think that there's no, or this is a very extreme statement, but there's no point in doing something if I'm not going to be the best at it.

I'm in this to be the best at finance, right? I mean it's the definition of what that would like what kind of look like is really gonna flesh itself like out like over the Next few years, but I think that I'm really gonna be really deliberate and consistent about it Yeah, I think taking a step back here you did mention like a steep learning curve I think for me that was and I'm sure that's also a part of it for you But going to Korea first semester.

Yeah, I was with this kid in Korea all the last semester traveling like all across East Asia during our first semester at 18 without ever having gone to East Asia in my life in the first place. That for sure for me was the learning curve. We were at like one of Korea's top universities.

And being able to study with people who are a lot older than you [00:29:00] because in Korea life just happens so much later. That was a really big change for me and I think that's something that I've found discomfort in is exploring new cultures, understanding how life is outside of my little bubble.

I think that's where the most learning has happened for me. Yeah that's really amazing. But I think all of this kind of ties back down to that we need to have this solid groundwork. And I think these books are really trying to get us to take action to create these groundworks which I find really inspiring.

If you guys had to summarize your book just really shortly, what would you guys say? Like in the realm of who it's intended for and just like the overarching theme. Yeah, but you can also tie it into yourself 100%. Okay. So I would say that if you're learning or interested in learning how to be a good coach, then this is definitely the book for you.

It's just walks you through how to exactly do that. And as somebody that wants to get into the coaching field later on in my life, it was very insightful for me because you think, a lot [00:30:00] about. coaching as an athlete until you take a deeper dive into it. So it was it was a good read.

My book can be like meant for everyone, but the main people that it's gonna target is probably gonna be like people who want to self improve themselves, but they want to self improve in a way that doesn't like overhaul their entire lifestyle. So they like want to do it gradually instead of like at one.

In one moment. Yeah, my book was just my book, The Body Keeps the Score, was pretty much trying to repair everyone's basic foundation except it took a more trauma oriented approach to it repairing any really traumatic aspects of really traumatic aspects of preventing them from creating a really solid groundwork.

My book was mostly just about communication, learning how to better communicate with others, how to hear them and how to listen to them. Which I think is very relevant in terms of building relationships with others. Whether it be personal or [00:31:00] work I think it's very relevant in today's world.

Yeah. And mine was just I've reinforced it here, but like that line between understanding the balance, right? Understanding the fact that your achievements Don't just go single handedly rather the fact that you prioritize other things also play into it I think that kind of applies to me because I get stuck on one side or the other the spectrum I think this book definitely helped me understand, Self awareness as a whole and using that self awareness to understand my values and what I want You know 50 years on the line when I'm on my deathbed and I'm looking back on my life and I'm like these are the Things I did in my life.

These are the things I wish I did I don't want to have any of those right so the people around me right the relationships I have I want to value those a lot more, and I want to make sure that those kind of come 50 50 in my life alongside all these professional pursuits that I have. Yeah, I really appreciate that.

I think 50 years till your deathbed is a little too soon there. Maybe.[00:32:00] 

Dar Shah discussing the six pillars of a rewarding life. Neil Patel talking about tiny habits, the small changes that change everything. Lainey Grant taking us through developing coaching skills. And Adriana Vigil with how to listen, hear, and validate. Many thanks to all of the guests and thanks to our listeners.

Stay tuned for another episode of Words of Wellness.