← THE ED MYLETT SHOW
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- [00:00]
Ed Milet
So, hey guys, listen. We're all trying to get more productive and the question is, how do you find a way to get an edge? I'm a big believer that if you're getting mentoring or you're in an environment that causes growth, a growth based environment, that you're much more likely to grow and you're going to grow faster. And that's why I love Growth Day. Growth Day is an app that my friend Brendan Burchard has created that I'm a big fan of. Write this down growthday.com forward/ed. So if you want to be more productive, by the way, he's asked me, I post videos in there every single Monday that gets your day off to the right start. Got about $5,000, $10,000 worth of courses that are in there that come with the app. Also, some of the top influencers in the world are all posting content in there on a regular basis, like having the avengers of personal development and business in one app. And I'm honored that he asked me to be a part of it as well and contribute on a weekly basis. And I do. So go over there and get signed up. You're going to get a free tuition, free voucher to go to an event with Brendan and myself and a bunch of other influencers as well. So you get a free event out of it also. So go to growthday.com forward/ed. That's growthday.com forward slash ed. If your gut is off, everything feels off. Your digestion, your energy, your mood, your focus, it all starts in your gut. That's why I love Just Thrive Probiotic. Go to just thrive health.com and use code ED to save 20% off on your first bottle. It's time to stop surviving and start thriving. Take the 90 day Just Thrive challenge today at Just Thrive Health.com and use code ED. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease or condition. These statements and information are not a substitute for or alternative to seeking care from your health care providers. This is the Ed Milet Show. All right, welcome back to the show, everybody. So we were just talking about intelligence off camera. I'll just start it out. Let me just set the field for you. My guest is much smarter than me. She's a Harvard Business School graduate, she's an award winning entrepreneur and she's got a great book out. I was just asking her, make sure I pronounced this correctly called sun and suat. And I think I'M getting it closer is pronouncing that right. But you're going to learn a lot today. So am I. Here's what's cool about today's show, you guys, I promise you, you're going to learn things today you have never heard in your life before because their perspective is very unique, particularly in the podcast space. And, and you're going to hear about how her Korean American heritage sort of changed her viewpoint of life, gave her a perspective that most of us don't have. And we're going to talk a lot today about the Korean art of self care, wellness and longevity. So this won't be the same stuff you hear all the time about self care and living a longer time, different perspective. So, Michelle Bang, welcome to the show. Good to have you.
- [02:49]
Michelle Bang
Thank you. I'm so honored to be here.
- [02:52]
Ed Milet
So I'm so glad you're here today. And the first question I want to ask you is about walking. Because you recommend it in the book is like one of the primary recommendations. And the reason I want to recommend it is, you know, the Internet's a very interesting place. I had Dr. Gabrielle line on my show and we were doing a podcast. Her book was about building muscle, muscle building. And there's this offhanded exchange we have where I go, when did walking become exercise? And we kind of go back and forth. We were talking about building muscle, but like everything in the Internet, so it ends up being this viral clip. He doesn't take walking's exercise, which is absolutely insane. I think it may be the overall most beneficial form of walk, of exercise. So, for example, and I want to ask you about this. Like, for me, I have a really bad L3 L4. I can no longer run. Walking's been a savior for me. My father had eight years of cancer. He walked daily. As his primary form of exercise, you're going to get the right optimum heart rate, burn fat as opposed to sugar because your heart rate's not getting too high. Flexibility, circulation, all of these benefits come. I've recommended walking as exercise on probably 10 different podcasts of mine over time. But you say there's ancient wisdom also in this concept of walking as exercise. So I want to start there today because it's a fundamental. There's a lot of gym rats listen to the show. They lift, they pump iron, they do, you know, sprints and interval training in the gym, but they don't really take walks. And they're missing out on something that probably would extend their life more than any of those other things. Why is that such an ancient practice and why does it matter?
- [04:32]
Michelle Bang
It is the most common pattern that I actually found across all of the centenarians, all the people that are long relations. The Buddhist nuns actually do it very naturally. You know, in the mountains that they live in, they are naturally going outside with the walking. They're getting close to dirt. They're being exposed to microbial diversity. You know, it does a lot of different things. And especially now, I've actually transferred, you know, the way I used to. I used to go to the gym all the time, really working out. And, you know, one of the biggest things I would say is walking is so easy, that is sustainable. You can do it every day. You can do it for a long time, and it's just very natural. And it's. It's, you know, something as simple as, you know, getting off of your subway stop and making sure that we're stepping outside, and you start forming a lot of, you know, health benefits if you do it after a meal as well. So I've now, you know, I take an evening stroll after dinner. And, you know, it helps with maintaining weight control. You know, it decreases my glucose spikes. I am digesting food, which is so important. It's actually, when we study what the Buddhist monks are doing, it's all about digestion.
- [05:47]
Ed Milet
I got to tell you something funny. There's this great lady on the Internet, and every night she. After she eats, she takes. She literally calls it this. She's precious. She takes fart walks with her husband. They literally eat dinner, and it's the funniest clips you've ever seen, but she's dead serious about it. And she. They both look great. She calls them fart walks after dinner. The other thing about walking, which I. I've never said that term in my life on a podcast before, but the other thing about walking for me is it's almost become a form of meditation for me, even though I'm moving. I don't know if you've experienced that, but some of my best ideas, my most peaceful moments, my body is almost saying, when I walk, thank you for this. Which is why I broke my heart so much that people would think that. I don't think walk. I don't think walking builds a bunch of muscles, but I do think it's maybe the best form of exercise overall that you could experience. Do you ever experience that, too when you're walking? Almost a sense of peace in your body, like your body's saying, could we do this more, please?
- [06:46]
Michelle Bang
Yeah. And it's A way for me to actually slow down and spur creativity. I get my best ideas walking.
- [06:54]
Ed Milet
So do I. So do I. Most of my original podcast ideas that I do on Thursdays or these solos episodes come from my walks. That's usually where I get them from. It's almost like my time with God alone. I get to see his creation all over the place. And it, it slows me down as well. So I'm. I'm completely with you. So there's so many things I want to ask you because I didn't grow up like you did. You say in the book this is. It should be fundamental to everybody. But like, if you actually want to live longer and achieve more, you better start taking care of yourself. That's like a foreign concept to people that live in the United States. Even though this show's heard around the world, we, like, think we'll get around to doing that stuff someday. So let's just start with the basic kind of overall premise of your work in this book. I'll let you go from there.
- [07:39]
Michelle Bang
It sounds so simple, and that's why it's actually so radical, because in the modern world, we go straight to the pill. We forget to take care of ourselves. I mean, I certainly went through that, you know, when I fell ill. So I'm just going to go back, you know, to my background. As you say, I'm a foodian American. And although I'm a social impact entrepreneur, I ended up training in functional foods and on holistic preventative care through this journey. And I grew up in a world of east west medicine. I was born and raised in Brooklyn. I ended up living two decades in Hong Kong. And this is kind of where my story started. You know, my father is a US based doctor who trained at the top medical school in Korea, you know, with something like a 0.8% acceptance rate. And I grew up in this world where, you know, he exposed me very early on to the practical and holistic applications of medicine, which is so ingrained in our culture. You know, for example, using whole foods on holistic measures to recover from surgery, from colds, pregnancies, from injuries. I mean, think about, you know, when you come out from surgery in an American hospital, you are, you know, you're fed often jello, but that's certainly not the case in Korea. You are fed something that's very nourishing. It's helping the body to heal. You know, it's. The idea echoes back to ancient times where we are using food as the spectrum of care. So these are concepts that are very embedded in our Korean culture. And then later I married into a traditional Chinese family that embodied these nourishing traditions past some generationally. So over the last two decades, my family and I have been splitting our time between Hong Kong and New York City as expatriates. So I live very much in this east west, you know, between both worlds, I would say.
- [09:31]
Ed Milet
Yeah.
- [09:31]
Michelle Bang
And so very much lends, you know, my perspective of writing the book and, you know, what I experienced.
- [09:37]
Ed Milet
That perspective is, you know, obviously pretty unique. I've never heard a podcast with somebody that has your background and your perspective, especially the combination of the three cultures, frankly, that you sort of experienced. The book is cool, guys. So this is kind of the premise of the book. Soil, Sun, Water, Care. There's like this books broken down into these different parts, right. And it was really interesting for me to learn that there's stuff from like many, many, many years ago, centuries ago, that the modern world hasn't even caught up with yet that are holistic things that you can be doing for your well being, your gut, especially from when I'm reading your work here. So let's just start like way back when and we'll catch up to now. We're going to spin all around this thing today. What's something that the ancient people did that the modern world still hasn't caught up to, that we should be doing in terms of our wellness?
- [10:30]
Michelle Bang
So the ancient kings used to be very well cared for in terms of their longevity. The people were very concerned about him and his family living for a very long time, reigning over the kingdom. And what they did was really smart. You know, they would place their kingdoms in areas that were, you know, filled with wild plants, you know, right next to seas and oceans where they can get really wholesome ingredients. But what they did was so smart. They actually used their royal physicians and they worked in tandem with the cooks. So, you know, these are sort of like very simple concepts that we're still not using today. They're taking a look at what the king is eating, how they're feeling, you know, and then they're recording what is happening in the kitchen and feeding him something that's going to help him feel better, recover from something that he's going through, and to, you know, help him to live longer. And so this was just like a beautiful partnership that they were forming to make sure that the king was alive for a really long time. And, you know, it just when you go back to the dossiers or royal dossiers, one of the most Important jobs is actually keeping and tending to the fermented condiments, which was meant. And we're only now tapping into the importance of fermented goods. You know, how that is so healthy for a microbiome, which is, you know, really the seed of our immunity. And we just are starting to uncover that there's microbiome everywhere, including our brain, which has impact on our research for Alzheimer's. So they were doing that a long time ago and we're just now uncovering.
- [12:11]
Ed Milet
Well, what's crazy about that too is the gut brain connection is something, to be honest with you, just even this year, and I've had a show for a decade that I'm starting to understand how the gut affects the brain and, and that a lot of these diseases are not caused in the brain, they're caused in the gut. And somehow the ancient world, the world that your ancestors are from, understood this stuff or somehow stumbled into it. I don't know which one it was. But actually the statistics tell us that they suffer from these ailments at percentages that are way less than people that live here suffer from them. So let me ask you this, and it's a naive question in the beginning, but I think a lot of people won't know the answer to this. What is kimchi? And why is this something that's like more than just food to you? I just want them to know this because it's something I pulled from the book.
- [12:59]
Michelle Bang
It is really part of our cultural identity, I think, you know, as a way for them to get through the harshest Mentos, because there was no cabbage is a really humble produce which actually has, you know, it's very easy to get. It's not, it's very budget spending and there's hundreds of varieties in Korea. But what they managed to understand is that when you ferment it, when you start preserving it, add the produce with salt water and thyme, it becomes this thing where it's filled with probiotics, filled with really great bacteria, and it doesn't require any cooking. So there's a lot of culture and tradition around making kimchi. And if you think about this idea of they are in this healthcare system, which is like beautifully marrying two schools of medicine, you know, this idea of preserving old ways, you know, which is, you know, if you want to encapsulate it in self care, you know, what you can do at home with home cooking and taking care of yourself. But also, you know, if you wanted to use advanced medicine, if you were to sort of think about it in a more tangible way using kimchi. You know, let's say you had to take in antibiotics and you know, it is very much part of their culture to eat kimchi. They're refilling the probiotics, that's right away by the antibiotics. And so it's just this beautiful marriage of, you know, what is so normal and natural for them to do. So Kimchi is very much, it's this little, you know, side condiment that is in every single meal. And it was actually fermented cabbage, basically sauerkraut before the spice grew.
- [14:37]
Ed Milet
Yeah, I didn't know that until the book. That's why I asked you, what the heck is it? Right? Because I mean, obviously we know off the rack what it is, but actually its orig pretty unique, you guys. So hey, if you're running a business, every single time you miss a call, you're leaving money on the table. And that may be the difference between staying in business or not. Every single conversation matters with a customer and you need a phone system that keeps and helps you stay connected 24 7. Think about this last time you called like a plumber and you missed them. Did you keep calling that one back? No, you called the next one until you reach somebody. Right. Open Phone is the number one phone system that streamlines and scale scales your customer experience and communications. It works through an app on your phone or your computer. So no more carrying two phones at one time or anything like that. So whether you're a one person operation or you've got a very large company, Open Phone is what you need. It's a no brainer. And here's what's cool. Open Phone is offering my listeners 20 off your first six months at openphone.com mylet that's O-P E N P-H-O-N-E.com mylet and if you have existing numbers with another service, Open Phone will port them over at no extra charge. Open Phone, no missed calls, no missed customers. All right, guys, so it's an interesting time in business, that's for sure. Things are changing. You got the tariff thing going on. Policies are changing. Dynamic stuff's happening. Supply chains might be a little bit squeezed. Cash flow might be tight. If your business can't adapt in real time, you're in a world of hurt. You need total visibility from whatever you need global shipments to real time cash flow reports. Netsuite by Oracle, powered by AI has a business management suite trusted by over 41,000 businesses that suites the number one Cloud ERP for many reasons. It brings accounting, financial management, inventory, HR into one suite. Start switching program to program trying to find stuff. It's all in one place. I don't even know what I would do without my net suite. In our businesses, NetSuite helps you know what's stuck, what's costing you, and how to pivot fast if your revenues aren't at least in the seven figures. Download the free ebook Navigating Global Trade. Three insights for leaders@netuite.com Mylet that's netsuite.com Mylet what did, what did these Buddhist nuns know that about the, the microbiome and its health that right now science is proving? What did they know about that stuff? Because I think the vast majority of people listen to my show, they work out, they drink water, they are trying to eat a little bit better, they got like the basics of this stuff or they've got some biohacker hack that's modern, but the real stuff, the people that are really living a long time, and by the way, everybody, not just living a long time, but living well, a long time, know some of these secret practices. What did, what do those Buddhist nuns know?
- [17:22]
Michelle Bang
Yeah, I mean, what you're talking about is health span. It's not necessarily how long health span, okay, not living to 200 years old. It's how well you're living, you know, for the time that you have. What they're doing is their focus on terrain based living. You know, it was so interesting when I was starting to go through this research because I grown up, you know, really afraid of germs, actually just sort of veering away from germs. But what they're doing is a focus, it's sort of a refocus on building the soil and strengthening the terrain of their bodies by eating things, by going outside. So it all goes back to the microbiome. You know, even something as simple as, you know, exposing yourself outdoors, which is what they do, you know, they're around produce, they're outside, you know, foraging. And you know, if you think about, you know, what the average person does, you know, we're spending in the modern world much of our time indoors. Moles rub off in front of the computer, driving screen time. You know, we're spending actually 93% of our time indoors, which means we're exposed to very little micro microbial diversity, just even being exposed to dirt, you know, so this is what the Buddhist nuns are naturally doing. It's a very naturalistic way approach to living life, which we forgot.
- [18:41]
Ed Milet
What do you mean exposed to dirt? What do you mean by that?
- [18:44]
Michelle Bang
Being outside, being close to dirt? I mean, we're, we're living in the city. We're not getting close to nature. We've forgotten.
- [18:52]
Ed Milet
So what do you do? You're in New York, right? So all that stuff about living around the green stuff and the plants right now, at least I assume when you walk out your door, that's not the first thing you see. Maybe I'm wrong. So what do you do?
- [19:04]
Michelle Bang
I think in every city there's trees. You can get close to trees. It's very simple.
- [19:09]
Ed Milet
Do you do it daily? To me, do you take a walk into Central park or wherever in New York on a regular basis?
- [19:13]
Michelle Bang
I used to be a gymnot. I mean, it completely transformed, you know, the way I work out. And I feel so much better. I feel better than my 20s. I would even say even more skin health. So what I've done is I sweat every day and I make sure that I walk every day. So there is a certain number of steps where I start to feel a burn, I start to feel energy and it's completely transformed, you know, my health. Resume my health regime. I, I don't necessarily work. I use weights, but I'm not going. And I'm. Yeah, it's, it's quite gentle, I would say.
- [19:49]
Ed Milet
Here's a biggie for me. So remember, the book is Soil, Sun, Water Care. Something about water for me has a calming presence. That's why I, when I ever made any money, I'm like, if I could live near water. I just feel differently. When I didn't have money, I lived in an apartment. I always had like a little fountain in all my apartments with running water, hydration, etc. What the heck is. I'm going to mispronounce it. And you know, I am Jim Jill Bang. These, these are the, these are traditional bath houses. Is that. Pronounce it correctly so I don't look like a fool. I'm willing to look like a fool. Okay. Bong. And then, and then overall just water. That whole part of the book, just take that and go for a little.
- [20:30]
Michelle Bang
Bit, is the Korean word for traditional bath house. And it really is a culture in Korean. In Korean society. I mean, they are very budget friendly saunas. It's a complex of saunas. So for just a few dollars a day you can go. And it's gender neutral. I mean you're and age neutral. I mean children are going with their grandparents and they're just stripping off their clothes or getting down into these bath houses, you know, going into saunas, and it's sort of like this really fun experimentation with hot and cold. Yes, bone marrow has so much benefit to our health, but also the skin. So they're starting to learn all these health tools from a very young age, all the way through their life, and they're bringing it back home. So even if you don't live in a Jim Jobang, you can bring it back home into your bath, which is what I do now when I live in New York City. But the Jim Jilbang is very deeply embedded in Kuwan culture. There are steam rooms, there are saunas. You're getting a massage. You know, massages are very normalized in Korean culture on a regular basis, which is so important for lymphatic drainage. You get the best and roughest exfoliation of your skin. You come out, you know, with baby soft skin. And yeah, you're just spending time to kind of de. Stress, you know, I think stress is not necessarily a bad thing. It can actually push you to reach your goal. But chronic stress is actually a problem that leads to inflammation and disease, which is sort of one of the hard lessons that I learned along the way. And the Jim Jilbang is part of that self care toolbox where they're regularly going, if not every day, into this Xinjiang. So that's something that is very normalizing their culture.
- [22:21]
Ed Milet
Check this out. So preparing for this. I couldn't pronounce it. It's Jinjil bong. So I got that. Now, although bang is easy to remember if you say it my way. But I gotta tell you something. I did some research, and here's a staggering thing. For people that visit a bath house once a week over the age of 30, they have a 77% less likelihood of ever having a heart attack in their lifetime. That's a staggering stat. So I'm like, wow, what's that correlated to? There's another study that just came out that said if you sauna four times a week, you have a 50% less likelihood of having a heart attack. So it's not just some genetic thing. Culturally, this hot cold concept, especially the steam hot cold, has huge longevity benefits. And again, you called it. You didn't call it longevity, you called it. What did you call it? It's. It's something jevity where about? It's the quality of how long you live and how well you live. What did you call that? What was it?
- [23:17]
Michelle Bang
Health span.
- [23:18]
Ed Milet
Health span. It's just. It's an absolute fact. So let Me ask you a question here on this. There's people listening to this are like, yep, this is cute. I got it. Some of the old stuff's connected to some of the new stuff and I should be really self caring here, but I'm in the grind right now and yeah, I'm get around to it, you know, there'll be a point, you know, three years from now, five years now, once I have this much money, once I get this job title, once I do this. And what would you say to somebody who's in this like crazy high achiever? When I say crazy, I don't mean it's crazy to do it. I mean just crazy pace high achiever culture. They're listening right now and they're ignoring every warning sign in their life that they should be taking some care of themselves. What would you say to them based on your own experience?
- [24:03]
Michelle Bang
Self care is a magic bullet leading healthy life, healthy healthspan. It's the pattern that I saw across China, across Japan. I mean, I was living in Hong Kong for two decades and then ultimately I connected it to my Korean culture. I think what is happening in today's world is that self care actually needs to be redefined. It's often equated to external beauty. But if you take a look at all of the top medical organizations, it is a medically critical term. It's something that should be happening more often. People just don't know about it. And so if you take a look at the World Health Organization, for example, you know, over 70% of chronic illnesses can actually be preventable with lifestyle changes that include self care. It's really important.
- [24:58]
Ed Milet
Well, here's how important it is. I've said this before, but I'll say it again. I'm an example of not doing it. So now I'm in my 50s, I didn't do any of these things. I mean, I've always worked out, lifted weights, I did everything that you would do in the current priorities, personal development, culture, lifted heavy things, grinded, you know, ate pretty well. I did these basic things, didn't care about my gut, didn't meditate, didn't stretch, didn't do yoga, didn't sauna, didn't do any of these things until a few years ago. And you know what happened once I got to in my 50s? Cancer, heart attack, L3, L4 compressed in my back, chronic jaw pain, massive fatigue, which then contributes to your emotional well being. So a lot of you that are like, hey, once I get a bunch of money or all the houses I want or all the accolades. Well, I got all of that and then I got to an age where I can't even enjoy it. I'm spending most of my time with doctor's visits now, most of my time with my family concerned about me, most of my time contemplating what do I want to do because I don't know how much time I have left now. I've worked very hard the last four years or so on making up for that. But you don't need to wait till you're my age. And if you are my age listening to this, you really need to pay attention to what we're talking about right now. Because I'm a product of not doing these things. And that's why I have guests on my show like Michelle, because I think it's that important in your life as you're achieving and growing and climbing, that you have these things in place.
- [26:29]
Michelle Bang
I mean, I'm, I'm a perfect example of that. So when I embarked on Journey, I was in Hong Kong and I myself was in the middle of, you know, this high achieving, you know, sort of trying to reach my dreams. You know, I have just launched a social impact startup that was experiencing tremendous growth, winning awards and major contracts. And I was so deeply passionate about what I was doing and managing teams, you know, around the clock. I thought I was too busy to sleep, to eat. And in the middle of all that success, I landed in the emergency room for the time, first, first time in my life. And this such a pivotal moment for me because prior to that hospital visit, I thought it was really healthy. You know, I was just. And later I discovered that the doctors, you know, put a camera down my throat and into my stomach. There was actually very little of my gut that was left healthy, turned home. It was kind of like night and day. I became constantly ill and I just, it was just so befuddling to me and I just started realizing, oh, this has actually been brewing for a really long time in my body because I was just not taking care of myself. So if you can imagine, like an iceberg, you know, above the water, you know, everything seems fine. But you know, what was happening was that the roots of my health was just falling away. It's the perfect example of, you know, I waited until my body was framing, until I landed in the hospital. I needed, I needed to do something to, to get better. So it just was like that, that aha moment that. Well, actually, you know, I used to really discount self care, but it is really that important. You need to do that every.
- [28:10]
Ed Milet
Every day with little steps, you know what people think. And then I want to ask you, if someone just said, hey, I didn't read your book, what did you do? I want to hear what your answer would be in a second. But you know, a lot of people. Here's what I thought. I'm going to have so much money by the time I get there. I'm going to have special doctors that could fix whatever thing that probably won't come up anyway, I can fix. If you're thinking that there's no such thing. The other thing I thought was I'm getting my labs drawn regularly. All my markers look pretty good. So a lot of these things that are going on in our bodies that, you know, may prematurely turn on some gene expression, for example, that wasn't supposed to get turned on till you're 85, but you flip it on at 45 because of chronic stress in your body, aren't going to show up in your labs all the time because you're going to. I had good labs forever. Then I got to 50 and I didn't. And these things happened. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp, and I'm really glad that it is. I'm gonna tell you why people ask me all the time, what do all the guests on your show have in common? It's not all of them, but most of them, they've been to therapy or they're in therapy. And I've had athletes on business, people, thought leaders, musicians, actors, you name it, across the board. Most of the people I know that are happy and successful have been to therapy. Whether you've got something really traumatic you need to work through, maybe you're just not clear and focused right now and you want to talk through some stuff. Maybe something's bugging you. What I love about BetterHelp, it's affordable. And if you don't click with your therapist, you can switch to another one right away. They got 30,000 licensed therapists with an App Store rating of 4.9 out of 5 from over 1.7 million reviews, it's clear it's helping a lot of people. As the largest online therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of expertise. Our listeners get 10% off their first month month@betterhelp.com ed show. That's better. Hp.com ed show so what if someone said, well, then what did you do? You had this incident. You're like, well, read my book. But in general, you know, we've covered certain things. But if someone said, what did you like? We haven't covered so far, let's say, what did you do? Main thing you did was what?
- [30:14]
Michelle Bang
I realized that there were a lot of things that I grew up with, and I just started reconnecting the dots that, you know, it was this old wisdom that I had grown up with in Asia. So what did I do? I mean, there was a lot of research before, you know, I started writing the book. I started taking steps. I experimented a lot. The book is a culmination of all of the, you know, I'm all about easy, efficient, effective. I'm really busy. I don't have time for things. I just started researching. And so I came home and a couple of things happened after the visit. You know, my husband, who grew up in a traditional Chinese household, he started cooking me healing foods that he had grown up with. Eating me pineapple, for example, because it has digestive enzymes. I actually, I eschewed fruit because I was worried about the sugar. You know, as a gymnot, I just didn't eat fruit at all. And here he was, you know, feeding me pineapples and a lot of nourishing soups. And I just started going back to a lot of the things that I had grown up with, especially my father, you know, who's a doctor, and, you know, the recipes that he fed me when I was, you know, healing, recovering from illnesses. And I just. That was kind of the first step. I started taking a look at the pantry and started cooking. I didn't cook before I was. I started understanding, okay, I need to start understanding what I'm putting in my body, because that's driving me biochemistry. And I started training to learn more about foods so that I think the food was the biggest part. And then the other thing, too, was I realized, wow, I live on a. A continent that breathes another way of life. You know, just. I had grown up with a narrative that, you know, older age was a guarantee for a decline, for mental and physical decline. And, you know, I started noticing around me that there are a lot of people who are sort of defying age expectations. You know, just. There was an aha moment. I was walking down the beach, you know, when I used to live in Hong Kong, and there was a group doing, you know, laps in the open ocean. And they looked like they were in my 20s. But actually, you know, when you got closer, they all had silver skin. They, you know, got together. They got together in the early morning, and they were doing something in community, you know, doing A lot of deep stretches and I just realized there was another way of life and I started noticing a lot of people around me doing a lot of things and I just started interviewing and traveling. So that was the beginning stages. You know, I started with the food and then I started interviewing people and then I started traveling across Asia.
- [32:52]
Ed Milet
What is the ideal 90 year old self for you look like? Sound like what did she believe?
- [33:00]
Michelle Bang
I don't think about age anymore. It's sort of like this very optimistic perspective on changing my psychology that is much more positive. Yes, I just, I don't, you know, it's not in the equation anymore. You know, I don't have a mental clock anymore about the time is ticking. I, I feel like I've gifted myself time. I just allowed myself the permission to just. If I, if I want to go after something, I have a lot of time. If I'm self care, if I take care of myself. I didn't think about that before because I used to think internally, well, 50 is that marker and everything's going to start going and things are going to start declining. But actually just watching the average person casually living in Asia, it just, you know, just rewires how you think about age and what is.
- [33:53]
Ed Milet
Thank you. Thank you for bringing that to us because most of us don't see that. We've not been there, we don't live it. And I have to tell you something so fascinating that you just said this at the time of recording this. This Sunday will be my 54th birthday. It'll come out after that. However, I feel really good right now and you know, I'm much thinner and more flexible. I've just been doing a lot of self care, a lot of stretching, a lot of, a lot of work, working out without weight, more meditation, more sun, more walking, more hydration, more longevity stuff I've been putting in my body. Just really caring for myself for a while now. And I thought to myself today about the not worrying about aging thing. Literally I said to myself, maybe two hours ago I was sitting there getting ready for a couple podcasts and I went, what if like I just said I was 45. Like what if I just change the number? It's like such a stupid label that I'm putting on myself as if I'm ticking down to some number where I won't be well anymore. And I wonder if like I just, I'm 45, I mean I don't sound silly but like, or there is no number but like identifying with an age when you get over 30 is sort of silly because there's such a variation of 30 year old wellness. There's a 30 year old right now on this planet that is likely to live to 130, but there's another one that's not going to make it to 56 and not because of a car accident, just because of the way they live. So 30 is this bizarre label or so is 40 in terms of longevity. So it's so amazing that you just said that because I, I thought the same exact thing to myself today. Like what a silly thing to do, like put a number on this.
- [35:31]
Michelle Bang
Well, I mean they are doing, regularly doing things that we reserve for the young with yo yos, you know, and hacky sack. They're dancing, they're getting together in the park in groups and having fun. I mean it does not mean sitting idly and you know, doing nothing. In older age they're doing, they're really active and doing a lot of, they're not thinking about their age.
- [35:54]
Ed Milet
The reason that I also wanted you on is, is that I want to talk about Korean culture, even Chinese culture as well. There's almost like two camps in the world. There's like the US thing which is like hustle till your, everything falls off your body and just accumulate, acquire, climb. That's for the most part it's not everybody, but that's kind of the culture. And then there's other countries where it's like hey, four hour lunches, achievement doesn't matter. You know, it's everything's about the food and the fun and the celebration and that's a beautiful culture. And to visit there is incredible. And I'm sure to live there is what's fascinating me about kind of traditional Asian culture is it. It is. Work is important, growth is important, education is important. Being able to take care of your entire family is important. Yet at the same time in the east, so is self care. In other words, they're almost like both worlds. Would you agree with that? It is an achievement culture. Very much so. And it's, it's expected in many families. But also a self caring culture. It's not either or. I kind of, I'm right about that, aren't I? Is that true?
- [37:05]
Michelle Bang
Yeah. And you know, I, I don't think they use the word self care. You know, I'm putting that, you know, in terms of an American framework, but it's very deeply embedded in their culture. I mean it's even things like relationships, you know, how they think about relationships for their well being. So you know, there are what I call two schools of medicine. You know, it's sort of, you know, the natural ways of living, you know, and self healing. But it's also, you know, being part of the modern world and being akin to, you know, all of the discoveries that are happening, you know, in medicine. I would say that, you know, there is a little bit of fading that's happening, you know, with modern culture. There's a lot of North Korean kids who are adopting a modern way of life. You know, it. The ones that are actually living longer, living better, are the ones that are retaining the tradition. That was one of the reasons why I wanted to write the book, to preserve that tradition, to make sure that they're still working in tandem.
- [38:04]
Ed Milet
What would your grandmother think of your book?
- [38:07]
Michelle Bang
I. My parents and my family are very happy about the book. They're happy that, you know, there's someone that's continuing to speak about our culture. I think there's always a point in time where the culture dies in family. You know, if you're not continuing to talk about it, to value it, to pass it on.
- [38:26]
Ed Milet
What's another thing that's in. Let's just say Korean culture that you think should be in every Western household within the next decade should be something that we haven't covered.
- [38:37]
Michelle Bang
There is a word called jung.
- [38:39]
Ed Milet
Yeah, I was hoping you're gonna say that.
- [38:41]
Michelle Bang
There's no equivalent in English. It means a lot of different things of love, friendship, empathy, compassion. It's really a call to action for the entire Korean society to take care of one another. And I feel like that's the answer to a lot of conflict and challenges that we have today. It is so important in Korean culture that it spawned a whole dictionary of a lot of different types of words. But it's very ever present in all the K dramas that you might watch, you know, the folk tales. But it's really, you know, it's this idea of, you know, when the country is in crisis, like Covid or, you know, financial crisis, they will come together and help a stranger to make sure that everybody's coming out on top.
- [39:24]
Ed Milet
I learned that word in the book, by the way. J E O N G Everybody look it up. All right, last question. This has been so good. This is why I like when these come out on Thursdays, because it's topics. I. I usually do solos Thursdays. Unless it's a topic that I just can't cover. Someone's just far more qualified to do it. By the way, there's people more qualified to cover other topics. I cover, but you know what I mean, this one I'm completely unqualified to cover. So if I just threw this to you like you were up at a lecture and you were taking Q A and someone said I need to help finding balance between ambition and inner peace. Almost like Western, Eastern, that's way too. It's distilled down to way too basic of a thing because I don't think Western is necessarily not about peace and Eastern necessarily is. But the difference, how do I find that balance between ambition and peace?
- [40:19]
Michelle Bang
I think that they can work in collaboration. Just because, you know, I find slowing down doesn't mean that I'm still not going after a lot of ambitious projects. In fact, I'm quite ambitious of a lot of different plans after the book, for example. But I think the difference is that you just have to make time during the day. I mean, even little periods where you're taking time to breathe for a moment. And I think it's very achievable to do both.
- [40:51]
Ed Milet
All of you listening to this, stop for a second and evaluate, take an audit on your well being as you're climbing. And by the way, could the fact that you begin to care for yourself a little bit better contribute to your climb, as Michelle asserts, contribute to your ability to climb higher and achieve more? If you just take care of the one person you're going to spend the rest of your life with, you for sure. There's one person that you were born to make sure you're supposed to care for, and that is you. And the vast majority of us have done a far better job of caring for others than we have ourselves. And Michelle's work will help you reverse that cycle where you can at least give yourself some of what you're giving to everybody else. So, Michelle, Bang, thank you so much for today. I'm very grateful.
- [41:37]
Michelle Bang
Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.
- [41:39]
Ed Milet
God bless you. All right, everybody. Share this episode this is the Ed Milan Show.