Latest / I Am Wiser Podcast with Dr. Laura Purdy / You Are Allowed to Be More Than One Thing

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You Are Allowed to Be More Than One Thing · I Am Wiser Podcast with Dr. Laura Purdy

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: Everything, everything has a trade-off, and everything has a opposite, and you know, uh has a reaction, has a trade-off, there's no such thing as a free lunch.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_02: So this also comes back to decision making.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_02: In a personal professional sense, your choices make all the difference.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_02: It determines which trajectory you're going to go in life, and then also when you become a bona fide health professional, your words and your actions will also repeat.
• 0:31
  Dr. Laura Purdy: Welcome to the I Am Wiser Podcast, where the biggest questions in health care and wellness meet the collective wisdom of industry leaders and innovators.
• 0:40
  Dr. Laura Purdy: I'm Dr.
• 0:41
  Dr. Laura Purdy: Laura Purdy, and here we explore the intersections of AI, care delivery, telehealth policy, and more through the lens of those who are reshaping healthcare.
• 0:53
  Dr. Laura Purdy: This is not just about theory, it's about lived experience and real industry insights.
• 0:59
  Dr. Laura Purdy: Let's dive in and get wiser together.
• 1:02
  Dr. Laura Purdy: Welcome to today's episode of the I Am Wiser Podcast with Dr.
• 1:05
  Dr. Laura Purdy: Laura Purdy, where we explore the moments of breakthrough, resilience, and reinvention that shape the way we live, lead, and care.
• 1:15
  Dr. Laura Purdy: I am thrilled today to welcome Dr.
• 1:18
  Dr. Laura Purdy: Colin Zhu, a double board certified physician in family medicine and lifestyle medicine, plant-based chef and founder of the Chef Doc.
• 1:29
  Dr. Laura Purdy: He believes that our daily choices from what we eat to how we connect ripple out to shape not just our health, but also our communities and our planet.
• 1:38
  Dr. Laura Purdy: Through his work, he's redefining what it means to practice medicine, blending science with compassion and nourishment with purpose.
• 1:48
  Dr. Laura Purdy: Welcome, Colin.
• 1:49
  Dr. Laura Purdy: Thanks for being here today.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much for having me.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_02: I'm really excited.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_02: It's good to see you again, too.
• 1:55
  Dr. Laura Purdy: Likewise, I had appeared on your podcast a few years ago, and I hear you're kind of moving away from that venture, but I'm really excited for you to be here today and tell me about the impact that you're making in the world.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_02: I appreciate that.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for having me on.
• 2:11
  Dr. Laura Purdy: So let's talk about it.
• 2:12
  Dr. Laura Purdy: So you're a physician, you're family medicine by training, as was I, and obviously we've both diverged from the traditional industry in which we were raised and told that this is what we must do for the rest of our careers in order to be uh valuable to our industry.
• 2:27
  Dr. Laura Purdy: But yeah, we've both kind of broken away and found different purposes and to put our energies in different places.
• 2:34
  Dr. Laura Purdy: So tell me how your journey's going.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_02: It's good.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it's always evolving.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_02: I think that like life, it's it's really meant to be dynamic.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_02: So for those of your audiences that don't know me, um, I'm originally from New Jersey, based in Southern California.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_02: And like you were saying, double boarded in family and lifestyle.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_02: So my journey started uh with my mother.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_02: Can't start the story without my mother, who's a practicing, still practicing.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, she is, let's see, the year is 26.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_02: So she'll be 76, 77, and she's still practicing.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um, she's trained in traditional Chinese medicine, and she does a lot of advanced um other different types of um alternative care.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_02: She gave me the values of compassion, integrity, and authenticity, and that really pushed me towards looking at a patient in a very holistic approach.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_02: And so, fast forward to medical school, I realized that no matter who we saw, no matter if it's a reason for visit of cough or low back pain, everyone had some sort of chronic lifestyle-related risk factor attached to them.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_02: And so a lot of what we've learned, as you know, um, is it's really about how disease manifests and how drugs work.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_02: Very little to do with nutrition, how do we take care of ourselves, prevention, wellness, lifestyle.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_02: And so after that, I took a lot of detours, went to culinary school, got my health coaching certification, and then just used that to enhance my training.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_02: And now I speak worldwide, I hold demonstrations, workshops, and really my personal and mission, uh, professional mission is really to impact people in my own authentic way.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_02: And that's really educating and empowering the individual.
• 4:24
  Dr. Laura Purdy: That's beautiful.
• 4:25
  Dr. Laura Purdy: So you were already a doctor, and then you went back to school to be a chef.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_02: I uh I graduated off-cycle.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_02: It was a lot of fun.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_02: It was like it was it was game changing for sure, because I graduated off-cycle.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_02: I stayed back to be a teaching assistant, so I had about a year to play around with.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_02: So while others, while trying to beef up the resume to do more, you know, extracurricular stuff, research before they matriculated to training, I decided that I needed to understand more about food and where it came from as opposed to just purely nutrition.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_02: And so I was very curious on how where food came from and all the disconnecting points in between before it arrived to your plate.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_02: And so I was very lucky I found a health-supportive plant forward culinary school in Manhattan, uh, very, very pioneering at its time.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_02: It was very, it was founded in the 70s by a uh PhD uh founder, and she knew what she was doing.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_02: And um, it was, you know, game-changing, three kitchens and a very small, you know, two-floored uh, you know, culinary school, and um, you know, had the time of my life.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so yeah.
• 5:38
  Dr. Laura Purdy: I bet you did.
• 5:39
  Dr. Laura Purdy: I honestly I I love to cook, I love to experience food, and I would love to go to culinary school, although it's not in the plans for me, I don't think.
• 5:46
  Dr. Laura Purdy: But did becoming a chef make you a better doctor?
• 5:50
  Dr. Laura Purdy: And did becoming, you know, being a doctor make you a better chef?
• 5:53
  Dr. Laura Purdy: What was that intersection like?
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_02: That's a good question.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_02: I think uh both, I think both for sure.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_02: I think that the culinary experience is very interesting uh because in our world, you know, this is a podcast, right?
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_02: It's very one-dimensional, two-dimensional at best, right?
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_02: We live in a virtual world.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_02: We're inundated by just a lot of virtualness.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_02: And although it has its benefits, what it does is that, you know, see, you know, also from, you know, when I first experienced Facebook way back when in in college, you realize that we become over time more connected, right?
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_02: But at the same time, we're also being more disconnected as human beings.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_02: And so an interesting question is what makes us human at the end of the day?
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_02: Because when you have AI, AI does incredible stuff.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_02: It's able to copy, mimic, and replicate and machine learning, as you will, right?
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_02: So at the end of the day, what makes us human and not a machine, right?
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_02: And vice versa.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_02: So to answer that question, the culinary experience is different because it you really have to engage all five senses.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_02: It's a hands-on experiential experience.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_02: And it doubles because you have to be able to cook with others.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_02: It brings, it brings the concept of family dinner back, right?
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_02: When we are more disconnected, eating out, eating separately, eating independently.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_02: We see mental health skyrocket, you know, from COVID, right?
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_02: And so I like it because it's very multi-layered in terms of how it benefits the end user.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so yeah, um, and it makes me a better doctor because, you know, I I practice what I preach, and the patients see that.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_02: And a lot of the behavior change and the lifestyle changes uh to be able to help is already the half of the battle is already won because it's um, you know, I'm already practicing this lifestyle, the patients see it.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_02: And so, yeah, it it works both ways.
• 8:01
  Dr. Laura Purdy: Well, there's a piece of wisdom in there, and I think let's call it out, right?
• 8:04
  Dr. Laura Purdy: Like we are not one-dimensional, and it's okay.
• 8:08
  Dr. Laura Purdy: It's okay to be a doctor and a chef.
• 8:11
  Dr. Laura Purdy: It's okay to want to be an allopathic physician or osteopathic physician, I guess.
• 8:16
  Dr. Laura Purdy: I'm allopathic, you're osteopathic, and also focusing on lifestyle medicine.
• 8:20
  Dr. Laura Purdy: We can be, uh, we can practice evidence-based, and we can also practice lifestyle, and we can say, I know this is what the regulation says, but this is what I can tell you about food and nutrition.
• 8:31
  Dr. Laura Purdy: And we can be all of that, and that can all be great and really authentic.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_02: For sure, for sure.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_02: I uh I resonate with the words diversity, I I resonate with the zest, the gusto of life.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_02: And so, and I resonate with being, you know, a jack of all trades.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't know, I just kind of feel like life is more enjoyable that way.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_02: And I think in our generation, we've steered away from the boomer generation of being in a certain career path for so long and just clocking in and out and doing that type of shift work where we have to do so many different hats, so many different layers, because the world has changed.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I think if you one thing you learn from the pandemic is that if you don't adapt, right, if you don't find the tools to be more resilient, then you know, you're gonna get left behind.
• 9:27
  Dr. Laura Purdy: You are going to get left behind.
• 9:28
  Dr. Laura Purdy: But I have noticed, and I'm sure you have too, that there are still lots of people in the healthcare industry that are a little bit more in the older mindset, in the not older by age, but let's say the um old fashioned prior G.
• 9:47
  Dr. Laura Purdy: We'll say old fashioned, right?
• 9:48
  Dr. Laura Purdy: Old fashion, the legacy, the legacy mindset.
• 9:51
  Dr. Laura Purdy: And they look at people like you and me branching out and doing something a little different, maybe being public-facing, maybe having something else that they're interested in or involved in.
• 10:00
  Dr. Laura Purdy: And there can be a little bit of shade thrown from the traditional healthcare industry.
• 10:05
  Dr. Laura Purdy: Have you experienced you've never experienced that, have you?
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I actually have not uh directly to my face.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um Wow.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I you might get comments here and there from social media posting, but I don't, I've trained myself pretty well to not take things personally because it's never really about you at the end of the day.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_02: Your internal, your ex your internal world is a is a reflection from the external world and vice versa.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_02: So it's really about your individual pathway.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_02: We're not here, I'm not here to compete, right?
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_02: I'm here to live as authentic of a life as possible.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_02: We did uh you know carry that Hippocratic oath of doing no harm.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_02: And so even with these different types of approaches being more front-facing, super important, right?
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_02: Because we live in a day and age of mis and disinformation, right?
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_02: So it's at the same time, you can still apply that same concept of doing no harm.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_02: I, as a public, you know, educator is I gotta make sure that I'm behind my words, I say what I mean, and there's you know credibility and evidence and you know good science behind what I say.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_02: So it's um, yeah, people will throw shade.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_02: I think that you could see that in every industry, but you know what?
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_02: It's kind of like Pitbull, the the music artist.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, you know, he he thrives on, he kind of thrives on naysayers, right?
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_02: And that makes him uh such a go-getter.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_02: And I resonate with that.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_02: So um, so yeah, it's um, you know, it is you'll always have people that you can't please everyone at the end of the day.
• 11:46
  Dr. Laura Purdy: You cannot.
• 11:46
  Dr. Laura Purdy: You cannot please everyone all the time.
• 11:48
  Dr. Laura Purdy: And one of my mentors used to say, you are not for everyone, and everyone is not for you, right?
• 11:53
  Dr. Laura Purdy: And so we have to own that and embrace that and be like pit bull and thrive on that.
• 12:00
  Dr. Laura Purdy: Well, let's shift just a little bit to talk about.
• 12:02
  Dr. Laura Purdy: I want to hear more about your passion and also your practice of lifestyle medicine.
• 12:09
  Dr. Laura Purdy: How ingrained into your doctor-patient interactions is that?
• 12:15
  Dr. Laura Purdy: Do you seek out patients that are also like-minded, or do you have to have those conversations about lifestyle and diet and those types of things with the patients that come to you?
• 12:28
  Dr. Laura Purdy: What's what's that like in the practice setting?
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_02: So, to give you context, I never worked as a very traditional slash conventional type of doctor.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_02: So I never really stayed in one place.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_02: I participated in a career path called locum tenance, which is Latin for to hold a place.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_02: And basically I was a substitute teacher uh for doctors.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_02: And I traveled around the country because I didn't know what kind of doctor I wanted to be, not in terms of specialty, but in terms of what kind of professional that I needed to be.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_02: And so I needed that experience, that real world experience to be able to have some time, have some experience on my belt, you know, see a few thousand patients to be able to really get a feel of who I was going to be, right?
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_02: And um, doctors are interesting breed because you spend a lot of your 20s, sometimes into your early 30s, and and you a lot of those good years are spent studying, right?
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_02: Going through training, and you delay, you delay a lot of stuff that a lot of our peers, you know, basically, you know what I'm saying?
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_02: So now it's like, you know, my peers would have families, you know, would have a loved one's families, and now divorces.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so my point is that our rare breed, uh, we spend a lot of exorbitant amount of time to be on this pathway.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_02: So um, so it really depends.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um, the patients usually have an idea of who I am, and so they already self-selected in terms of how they're going to come to me, either for a consult or for a session.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, so, you know, being a substitute teacher, I was per diem and kind of worked and did what I needed for that specific office and clinic.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_02: But having my own private practice and private coaching, uh, you know, clients and patients already self-selected to already come to me.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_02: And because I'm a public face, they already have an idea of what I'm about.
• 14:32
  Dr. Laura Purdy: That makes good sense.
• 14:33
  Dr. Laura Purdy: So you don't feel like you're constantly having to break down barriers with more traditional patients to get them on board with lifestyle medicine interventions because they're coming to you or you're finding them because they're already pre-selecting to be interested in that.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_02: So lifestyle medicine for your audience who don't know is is is based off of six pillars.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_02: So it is uh using evidence-based approaches to prevent, treat, and sometimes reverse chronic lifestyle-related diseases, such as high blood pressure, diabetes, cancer, heart disease.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_02: Heart disease and cancer being our top two killers every single year.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_02: And so these six pillars are diet, nutrition, physical activity, stress management, social connections, avoiding risky substances, and restorative sleep.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_02: So um I don't use, I don't, I don't use, honestly, I do my best as an educator, I'm sure you know, is communication, effective communication and wordplay and the power of words are very important, right?
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_02: In terms of how you use it, uh, you know, the finesse, the styling, the body language, et cetera.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_02: So when I communicate with patients, they don't know that I'm practicing lifestyle medicine in a way.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_02: They just, you know, I just kind of weave it into the actual patient or client session, and it gets to the heart of their habits, routines, lifestyle, how they function on a day-to-day basis.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_02: And they don't know it's lifestyle medicine.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_02: They just know it to just be their foundation, and it just makes sense.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, this stuff makes sense, right?
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so it just depends on how you use the words.
• 16:16
  Dr. Laura Purdy: That makes sense to me.
• 16:17
  Dr. Laura Purdy: And I think that's great because the healthcare industry needs this kind of revolution where we get rid of the paternalistic, older, olden, old-fashioned ways of practicing medicine.
• 16:28
  Dr. Laura Purdy: When I was going through education, it was still very paternalistic and telling patients this is what you must do and it must be done in this way.
• 16:35
  Dr. Laura Purdy: To shift that relationship to be a little bit more collaborative, coaching, giving the patients some autonomy in their healthcare decision making and providing that education, it really represents an evolution from the system that we trained in.
• 16:49
  Dr. Laura Purdy: So I'm glad to hear that you're a big part of that change.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_02: Well, thank you.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_02: I appreciate that.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's it's very, very important, especially in nowadays.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_02: Like I said, because we're surrounded by miss and disinformation, you have to be a good, effective communicator.
• 17:06
  Dr. Laura Purdy: You do.
• 17:07
  Dr. Laura Purdy: It's just part of it.
• 17:09
  Dr. Laura Purdy: Especially when there is an overwhelming abundance, and we're gonna talk about this: an overwhelming abundance of people out there telling you medical stuff when maybe they don't have the right type of training, education, background, credentials, or qualifications to be telling you medical stuff.
• 17:28
  Dr. Laura Purdy: So, how do people become good consumers of the information that they see?
• 17:33
  Dr. Laura Purdy: What do they look for and listen for when they are consuming public education as it pertains to their healthcare and their lifestyle?
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_02: It's a very good question uh question.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I would probably say the number one source is your physician or healthcare professional.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I think they still represent the cornerstones of your health and wellness for sure.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it does present it as a challenge, um, and it is tricky because, unlike myself, uh not many of us, and as you know, have received that training.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_02: I had to purposefully take a lot of detours in order to equip myself, right?
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_02: And not not enough doctors, you know, have gotten received that, right?
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_02: If they didn't make the extra steps.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_02: And surveys and studies show that when you don't have that knowledge base, your confidence in terms of dispensing that information also goes down, right?
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_02: So basically, a lot of patients commonly just leave the office visit with more questions than answers.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_02: So if I was a patient or consumer, I would go to things like webmd.com, look at the mail clinic, look at uh, you know, Harvard, you know, medical.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I would probably say the American College of Lifestyle Medicine is a great resource, but your doctor is your number one resource.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_02: I would definitely place a word of caution with health influencers, right?
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I think you gotta have you gotta raise a skeptical eye if they've never seen patients before, they've never conducted clinical research, if you know they don't know how to read medical articles.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_02: So at the end of the day, where is their information coming from at the end of the day?
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_02: Everyone can have an opinion, everyone can have a platform and talk about stuff.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_02: That's why we have free speech in this country, right?
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_02: But not everything is credible.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_02: So I think you kind of have to be, you know, kind of like a health detective, I would probably say, like a sleuth, right?
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_02: Is that is that like too old of a word?
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_02: Sleuth, uh health detective.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_02: Well, for you know, like um, so but yeah, you have to be like uh a little bit of a Sherlock Holmes, you know, in terms of your own health, because you only have one body, right?
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_02: I like to use uh I like to use uh analogies a lot, and I use cars as an analogy.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, your body's a car, right?
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_02: In our lifetime, we go through many cars, like we lease it, we sell it, we buy it, you know, we go through many cars, right?
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_02: But in our human body, imagine your body as one car, right?
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_02: We only get one car.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_02: So you have to be very, very good in terms of just being like a hawk in terms of taking care of yourself.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_02: And that also means health information, because, like I said about the Hippocratic Oath, people can potentially do more harm if they are not receiving a good sound um information.
• 20:33
  Dr. Laura Purdy: And they do.
• 20:34
  Dr. Laura Purdy: There have been people who have been harmed.
• 20:36
  Dr. Laura Purdy: I've seen the the stories on the news by taking advice from people that is misconstrued as medical advice when in fact it never was to begin with, and that's unfortunate.
• 20:48
  Dr. Laura Purdy: Wow.
• 20:48
  Dr. Laura Purdy: Okay.
• 20:49
  Dr. Laura Purdy: So shifting just a little bit, I'm gonna hopefully you have a mentor hat that you can put on.
• 20:54
  Dr. Laura Purdy: And I would love to hear a word for the young folks that are training in family medicine right now in the traditional allopathic or osteopathic education systems.
• 21:05
  Dr. Laura Purdy: And I know a ton of them are looking up to you and they're saying, I want to be like that guy.
• 21:10
  Dr. Laura Purdy: He went and be a chef, and that's really cool.
• 21:12
  Dr. Laura Purdy: And I'm gonna graduate off-cycle and I want to do that because I didn't receive enough lifestyle education in my MD or DO school, and I want to do that.
• 21:21
  Dr. Laura Purdy: What type of advice or what type of wisdom would you impart on the up-and-coming generation of physicians, the ones that are gonna take over from us and teach the generations under them?
• 21:34
  Dr. Laura Purdy: What do you want them to know?
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_02: I think in three words, I could probably sum it up uh three words, or maybe two words.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_02: Ripple effect.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: Ooh.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_02: Ripple effect.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_02: Everything, everything has a trade-off, and everything has a opposite, and you know, uh has a reaction, has a trade-off.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_02: There's no such thing as a free lunch.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: Which everything has a trade-off, everything has a consequence, right?
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_02: So this also comes back to decision making.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_02: So I would probably say, in a personal professional sense, your choices make all the difference.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_02: It determines which trajectory you're going to go in life.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_02: And then also when you become a bona fide health professional, your words and your actions will also ripple, right?
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_02: Because your patients and clients will look up to you and it makes a huge difference.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_02: So lifestyle medicine is what I love about it is that it really you're also practicing self-accountability.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_02: So meaning that it's very hard to look at yourself in the mirror, practice lifestyle medicine and not do it yourself, right?
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_02: It really puts a mirror against yourself.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, if you decide to pursue that, right?
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um, which I heavily, heavily emphasize you do.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_02: But it's accountability.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_02: So it goes back to that ripple effect that your words and your actions has that effect.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's kind of like COVID.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_02: What we say, don't say, do, don't do has an impact on someone else, right?
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_02: This is very rare in our timeline that it, you know, we've had a global event, right?
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_02: And so I hope it brings about more compassion and empathy, right?
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_02: And it matters.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_02: It matters so much in terms of what you do, don't do, say, and and don't say.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_02: So it's really a ripple effect.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_02: So as you move forward through your professional career, you just gotta pay, pay, pay that in mind.
• 23:41
  Dr. Laura Purdy: I love that.
• 23:42
  Dr. Laura Purdy: It is important, young doctors, that you develop a practice, a career, a profession, and a lifestyle of integrity.
• 23:49
  Dr. Laura Purdy: Integrity.
• 23:51
  Dr. Laura Purdy: Live with integrity.
• 23:52
  Dr. Laura Purdy: And I know it's really scary because it feels like the system owns you and you have to perform.
• 23:58
  Dr. Laura Purdy: It can be very performative going through healthcare education, but I promise you, on the other side of it, you can be a podcast host dressing in sparkly clothes, or you can go back to culinary school and be a chef and graduate off-cycle and travel around the world.
• 24:13
  Dr. Laura Purdy: You can do whatever you want to do.
• 24:15
  Dr. Laura Purdy: As long as you do it from a place of integrity and authenticity, the world is yours.
• 24:20
  Dr. Laura Purdy: The industry is yours, the future is yours.
• 24:23
  Dr. Laura Purdy: Go get it.
• 24:24
  Dr. Laura Purdy: And you don't have to be anything that anybody says you have to be.
• 24:28
  Dr. Laura Purdy: That's our words of wisdom from us old doctors.
• 24:32
  Dr. Laura Purdy: From us old mid-career doctors.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_02: Wise.
• 24:35
  Dr. Laura Purdy: Wise, from us wise doctors.
• 24:39
  Dr. Laura Purdy: I love it.
• 24:40
  Dr. Laura Purdy: Colin, next question for you.
• 24:42
  Dr. Laura Purdy: Where are you going to be speaking in the near future?
• 24:44
  Dr. Laura Purdy: I want to I want to hear have some call in bragging moments.
• 24:47
  Dr. Laura Purdy: Where can people come listen to you speak if they are feeling inspired to do so?
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_02: Ooh, uh that's a good one.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_02: So depending on you know where we are with this episode, it could mean anywhere, you know, domestically or internationally.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I do leverage social media platforms and a YouTube space.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I do I did have a uh podcast which is still archived, um, so you have access to be able to hear me speak.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_02: And uh like uh you know Dr.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_02: Burdy, um, you know, I've been blessed and fortunate to be a guested on many other platforms as as well.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_02: So um, you know, you can just Google me and it will just pop up.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_02: So let's just yeah, I just Google my name um and I pop up.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um hopefully there's no like weird, you know, shady stuff there.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_02: But um, yeah, so um, yeah, it's it's a blessing.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_02: I think that speaking, public speaking is very impactful.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_02: And at a time that we are at as in the world, you need to be able to impact as much as possible.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_02: So platforms like this um and and other platforms, it's it's important to understand your voice, carry your voice, and be able to lend it for others that don't have a voice.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's very important, very, very important.
• 26:09
  Dr. Laura Purdy: That's great.
• 26:10
  Dr. Laura Purdy: Do you do you by chance, do you go to health?
• 26:12
  Dr. Laura Purdy: Do you know that conference, HLTH?
• 26:14
  Dr. Laura Purdy: Do you go there?
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_02: I have heard of it.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_02: I have heard of it.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_02: So I've not yet.
• 26:20
  Dr. Laura Purdy: I highly recommend it.
• 26:21
  Dr. Laura Purdy: You would be an awesome speaker for what it's worth if you're doing applications for 2026.
• 26:26
  Dr. Laura Purdy: I highly recommend you throw your hat in the ring because you would do awesome at that conference.
• 26:31
  Dr. Laura Purdy: Um just saying, and I I have no financial like there's no conflict of I haven't even been in three years, but you would kill it on the stage there.
• 26:39
  Dr. Laura Purdy: So HLTH for what it's worth.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 26:41
  Dr. Laura Purdy: Awesome.
• 26:42
  Dr. Laura Purdy: Well, Colin, thank you so much for spending time with me today after all these years.
• 26:46
  Dr. Laura Purdy: I'm really happy to see that you're thriving and pursuing your career in the way that's best for you and being the chef doc.
• 26:54
  Dr. Laura Purdy: That's so cool.
• 26:56
  Dr. Laura Purdy: I just think it's really, really cool.
• 26:57
  Dr. Laura Purdy: So, and if anybody wants to find you, they can find you on the internet.
• 27:01
  Dr. Laura Purdy: Just Google him, look for his podcast, look for his social media.
• 27:04
  Dr. Laura Purdy: That's where he's at.
• 27:06
  Dr. Laura Purdy: Is there one final piece of lifestyle medicine wisdom that you can drop on our listeners before we call it a day?
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, yes.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, we are in the midst of a sixth mass uh extinction in terms of our uh humanity.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, we do a lot not just with food, but also how our food choices affect, again, that ripple effect, our community and planet.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_02: So uh we have a cookbook uh that's in the works right now.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_02: So if you like food, right?
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_02: If you like cooking and you want to know how it betters your health, then come check it out.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_02: And uh yeah, so better for you, better for the planet.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah.
• 27:52
  Dr. Laura Purdy: I love cooking.
• 27:53
  Dr. Laura Purdy: I'm excited.
• 27:54
  Dr. Laura Purdy: Does it does it does it have a name?
• 27:55
  Dr. Laura Purdy: Can we say the name?
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_02: Or is it it's called uh the empowered kitchen?
• 27:59
  Dr. Laura Purdy: I love it.
• 28:00
  Dr. Laura Purdy: The empowered kitchen.
• 28:01
  Dr. Laura Purdy: Did you did you write the recipes for it?
• 28:03
  Dr. Laura Purdy: Are you the are you the chef of the cookbook?
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we have many chefs on the cookbook, and so I'm one of them, and um, I direct the project.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_02: So, yes, uh, you will find my recipes and you'll find a lot more others.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_02: And it is a very diverse, very diverse and expert uh team from doctors to dietitians to coaches, farmers, environmentalists, and so it's really, really cool.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_02: Again, going back to what I said before, I needed to understand the disconnecting points from where food came from and how it arrives to your plate.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_02: So if you ever wondered about that in terms of how it improved what those choices affect how our ecosystems are as an individual, but also outwardly, that ripple effect, our community and our planet, because we're all made up of different types of ecosystems, uh, definitely pick it up because it definitely answers your most commonly asked questions.
• 28:57
  Dr. Laura Purdy: And that'll be empowered kitchen, if I heard you correctly.
• 29:01
  Dr. Laura Purdy: Yes, yes, empowered kitchen by the chef doc and all of his associates from all across these industries who just want to teach you how to live healthy, live longer, eat healthy, cook healthy.
• 29:13
  Dr. Laura Purdy: That's amazing.
• 29:14
  Dr. Laura Purdy: I'm so excited.
• 29:15
  Dr. Laura Purdy: That's gonna be a lot of fun.
• 29:16
  Dr. Laura Purdy: Thank you, Colin.
• 29:17
  Dr. Laura Purdy: Thank you so much for being here today, for educating, inspiring, empowering, for sharing your upcoming book.
• 29:23
  Dr. Laura Purdy: I am so honored to be sitting here with you today with all the good things that you're doing for the world.
• 29:28
  Dr. Laura Purdy: So I wish you the best.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_02: Pleasure is all mine.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much for having me.
• 29:34
  Dr. Laura Purdy: Of course.
• 29:34
  Dr. Laura Purdy: Have a great day.
• 29:35
  Dr. Laura Purdy: Bye.
• 29:36
  Dr. Laura Purdy: Thank you for tuning in to the I Am Wiser Podcast, where each episode brings us closer to a wiser, more human approach to healthcare.
• 29:45
  Dr. Laura Purdy: If today's conversation inspired you or sparked new ideas, share it with someone who's ready to rethink healthcare.
• 29:52
  Dr. Laura Purdy: And if you have a story or innovation that could light the way for others, reach out.
• 29:58
  Dr. Laura Purdy: We'd love to hear from you.
• 29:59
  Dr. Laura Purdy: This space is yours too.
• 30:01
  Dr. Laura Purdy: Don't forget to follow, rate, and review us on your favorite platform.
• 30:05
  Dr. Laura Purdy: Until next time, stay curious, stay courageous, and stay wiser.