Smartest Person in the Room

This is the beginning of a new series and this time we're trying something a little different. I'm sitting down with my good friend Yasmin Dunn talking heart-to-heart, friend-to-friend about inherent racial bias. Yasmin and I have been having these conversations privately for a few years now, and we thought that bringing these honest exchanges forward might be helpful for an audience who wants to learn more and ask more about race reconciliation.

That said, Yasmin and I are not perfect people and this is not a perfect conversation. We want to stress that neither of us claim to speak for the entirety of our respective races and in these episodes you’ll hear us speaking as friends do: candidly, with a slight shorthand, and with knowledge that the other is bringing only the best of intentions.

We want this series to be a launching point for YOU to start having your own conversations. At the end of the series we’re going to talk more specifically about how to do this in your own life.

In lieu of show notes for this episode, we’ve created a blog post with book, podcast, movie and documentary suggestions that can serve as a resource on this topic. We’ll add to this as the series goes on. You can find that and all of our show notes on the Smartest Person in the Room website under the episodes tab.

We're talking about the best books we read in 2017! My guest is Yasmin Dunn, a friend and member of my real life book club. We cover all the best novels, self-help, memoirs, and general nonfiction that we read in 2017. 

Read the full show notes here.

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After 6 episodes, we've concluded our Mind/Body connection series. In this wrap-up episode, host Laura Tremaine and producer/editor Megan Tietz talk through the series as a whole.

We discuss the origins of this series, what stands out to us from concepts and guests, and which episode broke download records (I'll give you one guess).

The wrap-up episodes are for people who enjoy the insider play-by-play. We like to break down what worked and what didn't in a series, and sum up what we learned while making it. 

See all the episodes in the Mind/Body Connection series here. 

Thanks for listening!

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Bethany Cole is an only child born to conservative Christian parents who was assigned the gender of male at birth. By the age of five, she realized there was something different about her as compared to her cousins and playmates, but she didn’t how to express how and why she felt so different from other kids.

Read the full show notes for this episode here. 

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There is no way to cover the vast topic of Mind/Body connection and not explore the issue of sexuality. We are sexual beings, and yet culture often prevents us from discussing sex in a realistic way. The truth is that sexual gratification enhances many other aspects of our lives, including relationships, mood, and overall health. 

And yet many people live unfulfilled sexual lives because they're afraid to explore what they find pleasurable. That aspect of their mind/body connection languishes out of fear or because of cultural norms. In this episode with sex therapist Dr. Hernando Chavez, we set aside all moral judgements to have a frank discussion about how to identify and ask for sexual pleasure. 

We discuss a number of books in this episode, including:

Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness. And yet this disease is widely misunderstood and vastly under researched. 

But before one is diagnosed with an eating disorder, there are many steps that fall under the umbrella of disordered eating. And as it turns out, a lot of us have a complicated relationship with food. 

In this conversation with registered dietician Nicole Avila, we talk about a person's relationship to food and how we can reach a healthier mindset about hunger.

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Read the full show notes at www.smartestpersonintheroom.com 

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Mark Zupan is known for a lot of things: his Gold Medal for rugby in the 2008 Paralympics. As the star of the award-winning documentary Murderball. Inspiring a character on the tv show Friday Night Lights. 

But even without all those accolades and extreme experiences, his perspective on the life-altering accident that rendered him paralyzed would be remarkable. 

This is a conversation about what happens when the mind/body connection is severed. Permanently. 

Read the full show notes here. 

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What is acupuncture and how does it work?

Most of us have a vague idea of the ancient Chinese practice involving thin needles stuck in your skin all over your body. Acupuncture has been used for thousands of years to treat pain, depression, fertility, and to promote general health and wellness. But do you understand how it works? What are those needles actually doing?

Guest Salena Hanrahan is a licensed acupuncturist and she explains the basics of acupuncture and how to find someone credible to work with you on this intense mind/body connection. She also talks about how acupuncture is becoming more popular here in the west, and how it's often prescribed by doctors as part of an overall treatment plan.

Get full show notes here.

This is part of the Mind/Body series. Other episodes include:

Pilates with Kerri Campbell

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This is the first episode in the Mind/Body series and we're getting personal.

We’re exploring a topic that is relevant to every human on earth: how our minds and our bodies are intrinsically connected, maybe more so than we ever knew. We’re talking about this from an emotional standpoint and a medical one. It’s a subject that’s been getting a lot of attention lately, and for good reason. The truths behind the mind/body connection are changing lives. 

I’m going to start this series with my own life-changing story. In my thirties, after two babies and a lifetime of bad eating habits, I didn’t even know how disconnected I had become from my body until a series of physical and mental ailments sent me looking for answers.

By chance, I landed in a personal Pilates class. What I learned in just my first few sessions put me on a path that has transformed my body and my brain. The teacher behind this transformation: Kerri Campbell, owner of the Pilates Body Shop here in LA. 

Kerri practices Fletcher Pilates, and has been named one of the top 10 Pilates instructors in Los Angeles. In this conversation, we talk about how reconnecting to the body can bring about happiness, how tweaking just the smallest movements can eliminate pain or bring about energy. 

Pilates has taught me a whole new way to live in my body. Kerri explains why and how this practice can work for everyone. 

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