Speaker 1 (00:00:00):
Welcome to the Dr. Gundry Podcast, the weekly podcast where Dr. G gives you the tools you need to boost your health and live your healthiest life.
Dr. Gundry (00:00:14):
Welcome to the Dr. Gundry Podcast. Okay. So you go to school, you get a job, you climb the corporate ladder, and eventually you retire. It’s the professional model we’ve all been taught to follow. But here’s the thing, a whopping 70% of Americans say they feel disengaged at their jobs, and nine out of 10 Americans say they’re willing to take a pay cut to do a more meaningful work. So how can you set yourself up for career joy? Can you make a switch even if you’re 20, 30, 40 years into your current profession? And do you have to make financial sacrifices to do what you love? And finally, how can you help college students in your life find the right career path? Well, my guest today has the answers. She’s Andrea Koppel, the founder and CEO of Time4Coffee Podcast, and College2Career Academy. Andrea has been extremely successful in multiple careers, says it’s never too late to make a career jump, and I’ll back her on that, no matter how big a jump. And then for some people, it’s one of the best decisions they’ll ever make.
After a quick break, Andrea and I are going to reveal the secrets to helping your college age family members find the career they love, the professional pivoting, and how switching up your career could lead to a happier more fulfilling life. So stay tuned. This episode can help you or those college age kids in your life reach full potential and get paid to do what you are they love. We’ll be right back.
With the holidays right around the corner and all the social gatherings that come with it, it’s important to have a game plan to make sure you keep eating clean. As I always say, my eating protocol is not about deprivation from the food you love, it’s about finding healthy substitutions. And when it comes to popcorn I found a great alternative, Nature Nate’s Popped Sorghum. It pops up a little smaller than popcorn but the taste and mouthfeel is the same. Nature Nate’s Popped Sorghum comes in a variety of delicious flavors, including avocado oil and sea salt, rosemary and garlic, and coconut oil, Pink Himalayan sea salt, my wife’s favorite. Unlike regular popcorn that wreaks havoc on your gut lining, Nature Nate’s Popped Sorghum is easy to digest, lectin-free, non-GMO, organic, and most importantly, tastes and smells delicious. So for those holiday get togethers or even Sunday football parties, try setting out a bowl of Nature Nate’s Popped Sorghum for your guests. They’ll thank you later. Just go to www.naturenatesllc.com or Amazon and use the promo code, Dr. Gundry, to get 15% off your first order. That’s N-A-T-U-R-E-N-A-T-E-S-L-L-C.com and use the code, Dr. Gundry, for 15% off your order.
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Okay. Let’s get to the point. I love the bread from Uprising Food. It’s that simple. You might be asking, “Dr. G, do you just like the fact that these breads from Uprising Food, which by only containing two net carbs for serving six grams of protein and nine grams of fiber is what you like or don’t you just like the fact that they come in perfect cubes?” Well, that’s definitely part of it. Look, I don’t know what it is about seeing my bread and a perfect cube that pleases me so much, but I can’t deny I’m also a fan of their superfood plant paradox compliant ingredients like almonds, MCT oil, apple cider vinegar, egg whites, psyllium husk, and olive oil. Another cool fact from these baking wizards is that their patent pending breakthrough in psyllium husk activation. Uprising Food is helping boost our fiber intake in such a tasty way.
Now, we at the Dr. Gundry Podcast are always trying to look out for you by saving you some bucks. So if you head over to uprisingfood.com and use the code, Gundry, you’ll get $10 off the starter bundle. It’s kind of like a mini trip to the grocery store minus all the unhealthy distractions. They ship directly to your door. And did I mention that the bread comes in these perfect cubes? Oh, and they have delicious crackers, too. That’s uprisingfood.com and use my code, Gundry, to get $10 off your first order. Andrea, it’s great to have you on the show. Great to see you again.
Andrea Koppel (00:06:52):
Oh, it’s wonderful to see you, Dr. Gundry. Thank you so much for inviting me.
Dr. Gundry (00:06:57):
So your professional background is actually really inspiring. Can you share a bit about your career journey and how you got to where you are now? I think it’s really great story.
Andrea Koppel (00:07:09):
I would love to. And I’m going to begin the story with when I was in college. I was a political science major who concentrated in Asian studies and Mandarin Chinese. And I studied that because while I was in school, I thought I wanted to become an American diplomat. And then at my senior year of college, I took the Foreign Service exam. I didn’t study, I didn’t realize you should, and I failed the exam. And so there I was in the spring of my senior year like, “Well, what the heck am I going to do?” And the US Peace Corps came to recruit on campus.
I love adventure. That’s why I wanted to go into the Foreign Service. I love living abroad. And I thought, “Well, that sounds pretty good for a couple of years.” And I was accepted to go to Nepal. And then a few months later after I graduated, a curveball came my way. It wasn’t quite like the Coronavirus curveball, but it was a curveball that affected me. And I learned some troubling things about what had happened in Nepal and so I stepped away from the Peace Corps. I decided I wasn’t going to do that and I had no plan B. And out of the blue, a friend of my parents who usually lived in China, just happened to be in the US and he had just come from New York. And he said, “Oh, Andrea doesn’t have a job? I just met this woman in New York, Virginia Kamsky, and she only hires young women who speak Mandarin Chinese. And she has a job.”
So I wasn’t interested in business, Dr. Gundry, but my parents encouraged me to go and at least interview for the job. And what do you think happened? I got the job. A couple of weeks later, I was on a plane flying to Beijing to do this job working for an American trading finance firm. I didn’t like the job, but all of my friends outside of work were journalists. I heard their stories and I said, “Wow, that’s what I want to do.” So after six months, I quit that job, I flew back to the US, I ended up spending 20 years as a journalist, and when I was 43 years old after I had been a correspondent with CNN for 14 years … I’ve been a foreign correspondent, a diplomatic correspondent and I had covered Capitol Hill, the new president of CNN decided I wasn’t his cup of tea and he didn’t renew my contract. It was such a blessing in disguise because that forced me to reinvent myself. I decided I didn’t want to stay in journalism. I had a three and a half year old son at that time. I didn’t have the courage to quit my job with CNN. I’d actually been unhappy there because I didn’t think there was anything else I could do other than journalism.
So once I wasn’t with CNN anymore, I met up with all kinds of people to have coffee. I asked them about what they did, I educated myself, and I learned that there was a niche in the PR world that works with nonprofits and foundations. And I thought, “Well, that aligns with my values. I want to be contributing to the greater good.” So I ended up getting hired as a Senior Vice President of Communications for this boutique firm.
I did that for a couple of years and then I moved into the nonprofit world. I stayed in the nonprofit world for seven years. I worked in policy. And then four and a half years ago, in June of 2017, I quit my job to be a full-time stay-at-home mom because my son was then 13 years old and I wanted to deepen my relationship with him. And it was when I had that radical headspace, the freedom to dream and not be distracted by the nine to five, that I decided I would start this podcast Time4Coffee to interview professionals like you, thank you again for coming on the Time4Coffee Podcast, in dozens of different industries, to learn about what you do in your current job and how you built your career as a way to help college students and young professionals get an insider’s perspective on all the opportunities that await them and bring to life those job descriptions which are usually one dimension that you read on job boards … Excuse me. On job boards and discover what these jobs are really like. And after interviewing hundreds of people, I began to see these patterns that I wasn’t hearing career coaches talking about, that I wasn’t hearing career counselors, that I wasn’t hearing within the conventional wisdom of today about how to start a career, about how to build a truly meaningful professional life and that’s how I became a career coach.
Dr. Gundry (00:13:15):
Well, I certainly agree with everything you said so far, but most people … Let’s talk about college for now, things seemed to be so regimented even kind of from the pre-school days of, “You’re going to do this, you’re going to get into this high school, you’re going to get into this college, and you’re going to do this, this, and this because that’s your track. And if you don’t start at age five, it’s over for you. It’s almost like training to be a professional tennis player, I guess.” Number one, is that still going on, and number two, how do you interfere with this process? Because clearly, that system doesn’t work?
Andrea Koppel (00:14:14):
Well, great questions. And I would like to say let’s crumple up the piece of paper that was written and throw it out because in this new world that we’re living in, this current whether we call it post-pandemic, current-pandemic world where things are changing so rapidly, the idea that you’re going to stay in one career is so unrealistic. Let’s just talk about when young people get into college. The fact is 73% of them change their majors. Why is that? Well, it may be because their parents or their high school counselors told them they should study whatever it was and then they got into college and they realized, “I don’t like this. I may be failing certain courses. It doesn’t play to my strengths.” Or they discover, “Oh, my gosh. There’s this field that I didn’t even know existed. I want to study that.” And that is actually a microcosm for what happens to us when we get into the “real world.” We start somewhere, we do certain tasks, we say, “Yeah. I like this.” Or, “No, I don’t.” And more often than not, unfortunately, people give into fear and they stay put where they were. They figure, “Oh, I’ve already invested three years, or five years, or 10 years.” And they listen to that … the amygdala, the fight or flight and they freeze, and they just stay put.
What I try to teach the young people that I work with, is that you can start anywhere in your professional life, anywhere. And there was no such thing as making a mistake. I would say in your first, second, third, or even your 15th job. Why is that? Because you’re learning. And in fact, Dr. Gundry, I’ve come up with a bit of a metaphor. And I think it plays to your field, which is, rather than thinking of how you build your career like it’s a recipe, you’re a chef, you’re following whatever steps one through five, you’re getting your ingredients, let’s say you’re making lasagna, and you have your ground beef, and your ricotta, and your … maybe your non-dairy ricotta, and maybe it’s your plant-based noodle that of course doesn’t have any gluten in it, and you’re making your lasagna. You put it in the oven at 375 and there you take it out and there is your perfect career with a crispy crust. No. It’s more like you’re a mad scientist. You’re in the laboratory. You’ve got those big plastic goggles on, and your bunsen burner, and your test tubes, and you’re putting different ingredients in those test tubes.
The reason I say you’re a mad scientist is that sometimes it blows up in your face. And maybe you took a wrong move, maybe you went to a company that had a toxic work environment. So what are you doing? You’re experimenting. You’re trying to find the right formula for you because each of us is a unique formula. We’re not a recipe. And the only way that we can learn what the right formula is for us, just like that mad scientist, is by experimenting, by testing, by iterating, and by doing. So you have to do, you have to try. And sure, it’s scary to push yourself outside your comfort zone, but that is where the richness of our lives is. I can tell you with every pivot that I made, I suffered from imposter syndrome, I experienced fear, but I also … the more that I stayed in it, the more excited I became because I was learning new skills.
Dr. Gundry (00:19:23):
Is imposter syndrome the same as fake it until you make it?
Andrea Koppel (00:19:28):
Absolutely. And I have learned, Dr. Gundry, from the hundreds of people I’ve interviewed and most of them are incredibly successful like you, just about everybody experiences imposter syndrome. It’s just we don’t talk about it. We’re not telling our colleagues, “I’m really feeling out of my depth here. I don’t feel so comfortable because this is new to me.” We put on our mask, we suck it up, and we do it.
Dr. Gundry (00:20:04):
It’s funny. After my first book years ago where I talked about a few people with autoimmune disease going into remission or being cured by following my program, it was almost incidental in the book. People started showing up in my office saying, “What do you know about autoimmune disease?” And I go, “Well, I don’t know anything about autoimmune disease, but I know a lot about how the immune system works because I was a transplant immunologist as a surgeon. So I know how to fool the immune system. No guarantees here because I don’t know anything about this, but if you want to play, let’s play.” And now 80% of my practice is autoimmune disease. So you’re right. I think I learned early on maybe the same way with you, if you’re honest with people and say, “Look, I’m not an expert on this, but I’m learning and I want to learn with you.” Makes a big difference I think as you advance in a career choice.
Andrea Koppel (00:21:16):
Absolutely. But I think the reason that you were able to say, “Look, I’m not an expert in this.” Is because you’re a self-confident man. And there are plenty of people out there who are insecure and who don’t want to show their cards and admit that they don’t know. So they move forward with the imposter syndrome and that kind of perpetuates, unfortunately, the narrative for college students and young professionals that they’re the only ones who feel that way.
Dr. Gundry (00:21:55):
How do you teach somebody to not do that or to embrace the imposter syndrome as they’re learning?
Andrea Koppel (00:22:07):
Well, the first thing that I do is I try to break down the silos in their brains. And what I mean by that is, our universities and colleges here in the United States do a pretty good job, let’s say sometimes they do a great job of educating our young people in a particular major, but they do a pretty terrible job of helping these young people recognize that they are learning transferable skills. And so most young people graduate self-identifying by their major. “I’m a history major, I’m an English major, I’m a natural sciences major.”
Dr. Gundry (00:22:57):
Mandarin Chinese major.
Andrea Koppel (00:22:59):
I’m a Mandarin Chinese major. And what I tell them is that you are not going to be forced to live in the tiny house that is your major for the rest of your life. In fact, your major is a compilation of hard and soft skills that are the foundation of a professional skyscraper that you’re going to be building over the course of your life with each new job and each new career adding a new floor in their skyscraper. And this generation is going to have … And by that I mean Gen Z. They’re going to work in at least four to five different careers and they’ll have on average 17 jobs over the course of their professional life. And so the imposter syndrome is really the amygdala in the brain, that primitive part of the brain, that is saying, “Oh, I’m learning something new. Danger, danger. This is not familiar to me.” And I try to get them comfortable with being uncomfortable and recognize that, that means that they are going to be learning. They are going to be learning new skills and basically expanding their toolkit and that, that is the way that they are going to advance in their career.
There’s a wonderful study, Dr. Gundry, a report, that was done in 2019 just before the pandemic by PwC, the accounting firm, the consultancy in which they put this survey to 1,300 CEOs at 75 large companies around the world and it’s an annual survey. And they said, “In effect, what’s keeping you up at night?” And their number two answer was that they weren’t going to find a workforce that would be adaptable, that would be open to learning and growing, and that they are more concerned about adaptability than they are on the hard skills, that those employees would come into their firm learning, because they can teach you the skills. You have to have the right mindset. The ability to pivot even in your job, the ability to keep learning whether it’s to upskill or to reskill because due to all of the rapid changes in this technological society that we’re living in today, you have to be able to learn and relearn just constantly in order to thrive.
Dr. Gundry (00:26:22):
It sounds like so often particularly in colleges where we’re being taught to this day hard skills. And I think what you’re saying and I agree with you is, it’s probably far more important that we should be teaching anybody how to learn. And it’s the ability to learn that is actually what’s so useful in whatever we decided to do.
Andrea Koppel (00:26:55):
Absolutely. And I actually have jotted down here some notes because I found this piece fascinating. Actually, I got it from this terrific book that I’m going to tell your listeners about. It’s called Let Go, Learn Fast, and Thrive in the Future of Work, The Adaptation Advantage. And in this book, they talk about … You would expect. This is probably our listeners will not be surprised to hear, “Oh, if you study pre law or if you go to law school, you’re guaranteed a good job.” And the average salary for somebody who goes into the law, whether becoming a judge or a lawyer, is about $94,000. Well, guess what major has a better chance of earning $54,000 more?
Dr. Gundry (00:27:56):
I give up.
Andrea Koppel (00:28:01):
[inaudible 00:28:01] your guess. Do you give up?
Dr. Gundry (00:28:00):
Yeah.
Andrea Koppel (00:28:02):
The linguist.
Dr. Gundry (00:28:07):
Because he’s learned how to learn.
Andrea Koppel (00:28:10):
Learned how to learn, learned about working through different cultures, learned how to empathize with different cultures. The other majors that are your chances of getting a higher salary, a history major, civilization, and ethnic studies. So why is that? Because they’re learning critical thinking, pattern recognition. This world that we are living in right now requires people who know how to communicate, whether through email, whether verbally, even scientists. And I think you and I talked about this in our interview earlier. What good is someone’s research? It can be the best research out there. If they can’t get other people in their field to read it, if they can’t communicate why that research is so compelling, it’s almost like if a tree falls in a forest, and no one’s there to hear it. Did it fall?
Dr. Gundry (00:29:27):
No. You’re absolutely right. In fact, when I was teaching residents in research, we’d have to write an abstract of our findings and that would go before various committees or various organizations for presentation at a national meeting. And it was very evident, luckily, from early on that it was literally how you wrote that abstract that would you entice the committee into really wanting to learn more about your finding. And your finding may be actually not very important, but the way you wrote that little, come on, if you will, made all the difference in the world of whether somebody was going to put that on a program for a national or international meeting. You’re absolutely right. It’s the ability to communicate your ideas that eventually was the most important part of that paper.
Andrea Koppel (00:30:33):
Absolutely. And so, adaptation, and the ability to communicate and learn quickly, and to have empathy for whether it’s your customer, your colleague, your employer. All of these soft skills are hugely important in the workplace of the 21st century.
Dr. Gundry (00:31:00):
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As there’ve been a lot of changes in the last … almost two years now, tell me about professional pivoting because that’s what’s happening almost on a daily basis. What does professional pivoting mean? You and I know what it means because we both done that, but talk me through it. What is professional pivoting?
Andrea Koppel (00:37:58):
Sure. So when my dad was coming up in the world, he expected to stay in the same profession, and in fact he has. He’s been a journalist for over 50 years. And his father was an entrepreneur and he stayed an entrepreneur his whole life. There are so many people, I’m guessing many of your listeners, who were company men or women. You stayed with the same firm. Today, the world is changing so quickly and the idea that you would have lifetime employment with one company is no longer a guarantee. It just isn’t. And so you may well find yourself moving into not just another job, but another industry. And it’s true, whether you’re 20 something college grad or whether you’re a 40 something mid career professional, you have transferable skills. And one of the things that I do with the young people that I coach is, I have them write down what all their hard and soft skills are and I recommend this to older listeners as well.
I also recommend they check out Dr. Howard Gardner, who is a Harvard University developmental psychologist, who 40 years ago said, “The idea of the IQ test is being the sole definition of a person’s intelligence is just too narrow. It’s not true.” And he developed the theory of eight intelligences. I call them our superpowers. These are things that come naturally to us, whether it’s dance, whether it’s the arts, whether it’s communication, whether it’s interpersonal, or intrapersonal skills.
So write down your hard and soft skills, identify your superpowers, and then see how those align with different job functions. Whether it’s finance, technical, project management, communications, marketing, on and on. Then write down your interests. Where do you spend your free time? For college students, whether it’s extracurriculars or clubs or volunteer work, the same thing for our older listeners. The hobbies that you have the volunteer work that you have, the side hustles that you may have. Those interests align with a gazillion different industries. So stop thinking of yourself, if you’ve been in the world of marketing for the last 20 years or the last 30 years, as only being a marketer if you’ve only done sales. All of those skills are cross cutting into industries that align with your interests. So what it requires is you to develop a narrative, a story about how your passion, your interests, has led you into this new industry, but how your skills, hard soft, skills, and those superpowers provide you with the experience to do those jobs in those different industries.
Dr. Gundry (00:42:04):
So should we be practicing these side hustles even in a job that we like and we say, “Oh, this is what I’m going to do the rest of my life. I can’t imagine I’m going to do something else.” Is that something we should practice particularly in this day and age when things change dramatically?
Andrea Koppel (00:42:31):
Yes. I would say absolutely, especially if you want to earn a little extra money. Who doesn’t need a little whatever if it’s for retirement, whether it’s for vacations, whether it’s for splurge money, going out to dinner, things like that? And it’s an insurance policy, isn’t it?
Dr. Gundry (00:42:57):
Yeah.
Andrea Koppel (00:42:58):
Because you are doing something presumably that you really enjoy, you’re building expertise in that area. And should you, God forbid, lose your job, or your company puts you on furlough, or you just decide, “You know what? I don’t want to do the nine to five anymore. I want more freedom to do what I want when I want.” You’ve been building up your side hustle. And there are so many people who are going all in, in their side hustles. I think it’s a fantastic way for you to spend your free time and to do something that kind of gives you that just in case insurance policy.
Dr. Gundry (00:43:45):
So is disliking your boss or co-workers a good enough reason to quit your job and try something else, particularly in this day and age?
Andrea Koppel (00:43:55):
I would say absolutely. You don’t even have to dislike your boss or be in a toxic working environment to say, “I want to quit.” I would highly recommend, however, that you find that next job, if it isn’t going to be your side hustle before you quit, because one of those age old expressions that it’s easier to find a job when you have a job, yeah, to begin with is still true. There is a psychological component to it. I would say even just from the negotiating standpoint, they don’t think you’re desperate, they don’t think that you’re you need that job, that you’re actually exploring your options, or whatever you want to say, when you’re talking to prospective employers.
Dr. Gundry (00:44:45):
Where does luck fall into this? In listening to your story, there would be what you might call an element of luck that there’s this person who just happens to be looking for someone who speaks Mandarin Chinese and you just happen to meet this person. Is there such a thing as luck in all of this?
Andrea Koppel (00:45:12):
Oh, Dr. Gundry, I am so thrilled that you asked me that question. I don’t call it luck, I call it magic. I’ve developed a framework that I use with the young people that I coach and it’s the 6M framework. And one of the Ms is magic. Sometimes it’s black magic. The pandemic is an example of that. Or you could say small M black magic when I had my opportunity with the Peace Corps go sideways, but other times it’s fairy dust magic. You could call it serendipity, you could call it luck. But I have seen this happen over and over again. And I’m thinking about the story that you told me about when you and your wife were at that conference and you happen to run into that young guy who said, “Hey, Dr. Gundry. Have you ever thought about making supplements.” And you thought, “Oh, boy. Here we go again.” Right?
Dr. Gundry (00:46:29):
Yeah.
Andrea Koppel (00:46:30):
What are the chances that you would need? So the truth is, we have the opportunity at all different stages of our life to have these magical encounters. You will be in a job that you may not like, but your colleague is doing something that you, “Wow, that really looks interesting.” And you discover a whole different type of job that really lights you up. You could be standing online at the grocery store and you strike up a conversation with somebody next to you and they start talking about the company that they work at and you learn that there’s an industry that you never heard of before, that somehow or another really interests you. And that person says, “Well, give me a call. I’ll be happy to introduce you to people here.” So put yourself out there, experience life. And I recognize that even in the pandemic, so much is still virtual, but you can have conversations with friends. You can network on LinkedIn and meet new people that will lead you to these magical experiences that will uncover different jobs, different careers that will truly light you up.
Dr. Gundry (00:48:13):
Yeah. Last night, I was at a John Legend concert in Santa Barbara.
Andrea Koppel (00:48:20):
Lucky you.
Dr. Gundry (00:48:21):
Yeah. And he actually spent about 20 minutes on stage alone at his piano talking about his life. And one of the fascinating parts of his story, I won’t go into the whole thing, but he went to the University of Pennsylvania and went into a business career, which, that’s why you go to that school. And he had a musical talent. He says, “I was doing Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations. That’s what I’m supposed to do, but I was always kind of fiddling with music and writing music. And my roommate said, “Hey, I’m going to Chicago. We’re going to go into a recording studio and Ariana Grande is going to be recording. Why don’t you come with me? We’ll have a good time.”
So he’s in the studio and they’re kind of kicking around between these tracks that she’s recording and they get to talking and he says, “Well, I play piano.” And she says, “Oh, really?” She says, “Let me hear you play.” So they drag him out into the recording studio and he starts playing. She says, “You’re good. Why don’t you play piano on this next track?” Track 13, as he said. So he’s playing piano on track 13 And who would be walking into the studio? Kanye West. And he says, “I’ll leave it there.” He said, “Now you’re going to say, okay. Kanye West, He supports me. Blah, blah, blah, and Ariana Grande.” He said, “I was turned down by so many record labels, I can’t tell you. But he said, “I currently work for the record label that turned me down twice before.”
And the point of all this was, here’s this magic, here’s this … My daughter calls it God’s wink, whatever we want to call it, but if he hadn’t been there, he wouldn’t be here. But I think the other part of that was, it was perseverance once he got that new option that people don’t hear about the story. They don’t hear the hard work that went into … Oh, you’ve always been famous. No. He was working stiff in business. Did he have a great break? Yes. But that great break took years, and years, and years, and years to finally become his career, which he loves. You hear the story all the time.
Andrea Koppel (00:51:09):
I love that story. And if I can tie it back to where we began, and the fact that after I took that job in China after that magical encounter with a friend of my parents, I went there and all of my friends outside of work were journalists. And I mentioned how I thought, “Wow, this is what I want to do.” What I didn’t realize until then was that your extracurricular activities, your hobbies, where you spend your free time, what lights you up and fills you with energy and gets you into flow, are the breadcrumbs that you should follow to find your passion.
When I had been an undergrad at Middlebury College, I had been involved in the college radio station. And my senior year, I was the news director of the radio station, but I just thought that’s what you did for fun. I didn’t realize that that was a big clue, that that was something that I might do for my profession. So be open to the universe. I know that sounds maybe a little airy fairy, but the positive energy that you put out, and I am a huge fan of Carol Dweck and her book, Mindset, and having a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset, as well as Angela Duckworth’s book, Grit, which is, to your point, Dr. Gundry, The Power of Passion and Perseverance. You can identify what lights you up, but it is going to take a lot of hard work and perseverance to achieve what you want to achieve.
Dr. Gundry (00:53:13):
Yeah. Absolutely. People talk about, “Oh, he’s a natural-born athlete or a natural-born tennis player.” And I used to take my resume and I said, “There’s no such thing as a natural-born surgeon. It’s someone who has worked for 10 years learning the skill set and then learning it so well and applying it so well that when someone walks into the operating room and watches you work, they go, “Wow, that person is a natural-born surgeon.” Yes. You got to have a passion to do it, but it’s the hard work that really makes the difference in the end.
Andrea Koppel (00:53:54):
And actually, even those great athletes like Kobe Bryant. You heard about his legendary [crosstalk 00:54:03].
Dr. Gundry (00:54:03):
Exactly.
Andrea Koppel (00:54:05):
Even the greats. Whether you’re a surgeon or a sports person, they are putting in hours of hard work to achieve their success.
Dr. Gundry (00:54:17):
All right. Actually I’m going to wrap it up, but I got to tell you a story about my wife which relates to this. My wife has had multiple jobs in her lifetime from Pan Am flight attendant to multimillion dollar real estate agent. And when she turned 50, she had bought a handbag in New York City that was made out of [inaudible 00:54:45] and it was circular. And we were walking down the strip in Las Vegas 20 odd years ago. People would stop her on the street and said, “Oh, my gosh. Where’d you get that handbag? I’ve never seen anything like it.” Literally, people would stop her.
And she came home and she said, “I wonder if there’s a business in selling this handbag.” She said, “This is very interesting.” So we found the designer. We actually met him in New York City. And his name was Dak Kim, and we signed a contract in a McDonald’s on 57th Street in Avenue of the Americas, seriously with him. And my wife was also an interior designer. So she designed a very small store in Palm Desert and called it Zense handbags and accessories. She’s now had the store for over 20 years, totally pivoted from being a real estate agent to fall … It just on the fact that people would stop her on the street and said, “Look at that handbag. I’ve never seen anything like it.” And morphed into a business that she loves that she’d been doing for 20 years. She started when she was age 50.
Andrea Koppel (00:56:02):
Oh, I love that. And Dr. Gundry, if I can bring it back to what you do for a living, I would like to advise our listeners and our viewers to get out of their heads and into their heart and their gut. Because if they’re listening to your podcast, they know that the gut, especially a healthy gut, is known as the second brain. Listen to your gut. Listen to your heart. Recognize that we’re all afraid. Lean into your strengths and follow your heart and your gut and you will have a fulfilling and exciting professional journey.
Dr. Gundry (00:56:58):
So well said. And I happen to think the gut is actually the first brain that controls this silly little piece of fat up here, but we can get into that next time. I think that’s what’s so exciting, giggly in women. I have two daughters, and three female dogs, and a wife. And you guys are so empowered because you really do have gut feelings. And we need to encourage everyone listening, but particularly our female listeners, to trust that gut instinct. It’s real. Females need to embrace that ability, that sadly, many males don’t seem to be connected with their gut as well.
Andrea Koppel (00:57:49):
So well said.
Dr. Gundry (00:57:51):
All right. I got to let you go. How do people find you? Tell us about what you’re up to and we’ll go from there.
Andrea Koppel (00:58:02):
Sure. Well, they can find me on LinkedIn, Andrea Koppel. Follow me, reach out and connect with me. And if you have any young people, whether they be college students or young professionals who are stuck, overwhelmed, don’t know what they want to do, you can reach out to me on LinkedIn or you can go to my website at time, the number four, coffee.org. You can see for career coaching, there’s a tab. Click on that you can set up a free 30-minute consultation with me.
Dr. Gundry (00:58:43):
Wow, for free?
Andrea Koppel (00:58:43):
For free.
Dr. Gundry (00:58:47):
Oh, my gosh. All right. Don’t flood the phone lines and the Internet, folks. But thank you for doing that. That’s really exciting news, particularly in this day and age.
Andrea Koppel (00:59:01):
You’re very welcome.
Dr. Gundry (00:59:02):
And good luck with all of this. And hopefully we’ll be talking in the near future. You can tell me about how many people you’ve given the free council to.
Andrea Koppel (00:59:14):
I would love to. Thank you so much for having me on.
Dr. Gundry (00:59:17):
All right. Great seeing you again. Take care. All right. It’s time for our audience question. This review comes from Zaida K on YouTube. “What about broccoli sprouts, Dr. Gundry. Can I eat them?” Well, not only can you eat them, but they may be one of the greatest health foods of all time. In fact, there are compounds in broccoli sprouts that have actually been patented by Johns Hopkins University. They are sulfur containing compound, sulforaphane. And these compounds have the ability to stop cancer cell growth in their tracks. There’s some of the best ways to make probably the most important antioxidant called glutathione. And so there are now broccoli sprout capsules, but get yourself some broccoli sprouts, sprinkle them on your salads, you can even cook with them, put them in your pasta, broccoli sprouts. If you’re going to eat sprouts, that’s the one to look for. They’re really, really good for you. So thank you for bringing that up. Time for the review of the week.
Heather Dubrow (01:00:40):
Hi, everyone. It’s Heather Dubrow, telling you to check out Heather Dubrow’s World on PodcastOne. Every week, we discuss the hippest hottest newest trends in health, wellness, parenting style, and so much more, including all things housewives and botched. Download new episodes of Heather Dubrow’s World Thursdays and Fridays on PodcastOne, Apple podcast, Spotify, and Amazon Music.
Dr. Gundry (01:01:08):
This review comes from Free Mandela on YouTube. “For four days now, I’ve applied lectin-free diet. Thanks to you, Dr. Gundry. I can already see and feel many benefits. No more pain during digestion, normal transit, better breathing. Thank you very much for all that content that you share so generously with the world.” Well, Free Mandela, who had a great handle. Thanks very much. It’s exciting to hear that this is what’s happening for you. And your experience is so true of so many 1,000s of people who write back and say, “G, I didn’t know in a way how bad I was feeling until I started feeling good and remembering what good actually felt like.” And so thanks very much for that review. And remember, please, if you like what you hear or see on the Dr. Gundry Podcast, write us a review wherever you get your podcasts, particularly on iTunes, and I’d be happy to read your review on the air. And this is what keeps me going every week in week out. So thanks a lot. You know why I do this? Because I’m Dr. Gundry and I’m always looking out for you. See you next week. Disclaimer. On the Dr. Gundry Podcast, we provide a venue for discussion. And the views expressed by my guests do not necessarily reflect my own.
Thanks for joining me on this episode of The Dr. Gundry Podcast. Before you go, I just wanted to remind you that you can find the show on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. And if you want to watch each episode of The Dr. Gundry Podcast, you can always find me on YouTube at youtube.com/drgundry, because I’m Dr. Gundry and I’m always looking out for you.
