Building Resilience In The Face of Adversity With Dr. Peter Nieman

Welcome to the Conscious Pivot podcast with international speaker, business mentor, best selling author of Pivot, and your host, Adam Markell. The Conscious Pivot shares the stories and wisdom of people who have successfully reinvented some area of their business and personal life. You'll gain powerful insights into how you can fully embrace new opportunities, increase your performance, and master the art and science of innovation and resilience. So please join Adam as he guides you on your Conscious Pivot.

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Conscious Pivot Podcast podcast. I'm your host, Adam Markell, and as you may be able to detect through your hearing senses, or perhaps you're watching this on YouTube, I am in a different location for this show, having moved in the midst of the corona pandemic. Not sort of at the beginning, certainly we stayed stationary and we were quarantining at home and doing all that we were asked to do. But when we were given permission and the signs were good, Randy and I packed up and we moved to the east coast. We have a home on this little island off Cape Cod and we are here and I'm in my studio and really feel incredibly blessed in this moment to be able to do something that I love to do. I have tremendous passion around conversation with great people and podcasts are wonderful tool. It's sort of a more interesting form of TV for me today, and it is the way in which I get to express my voice and our guests get to express their voice. And by the look of it, with so many amazing shows that are available in this podcast arena, it really has become a new media that, that has leveled the playing field, that has actually given, given all of us sort of equal footing in a level playing field to have a voice in the world, which is something that, that we have as a, as a species. We have fought for that from the beginning of time. The thing that, that makes sentient beings and human beings really so, so unique and special is this capacity to share ideas, to share stories, to connect with people through those communications. And I paused there for just a second because of course, when we think of sentient beings, it's not just human beings. And we know that whales communicate and dolphins and birds, and there's so much communication that goes on. And we've been dog lovers, we've had dogs, and they certainly would communicate with us all the time, always telling us, telling us, you know, what they wanted, how they felt, you know, just, they never, just, they never complained, let's put it that way. One really wonderful thing about being a dog owner and having those members, those additional members of our family was the fact they didn't complain, they never did, and they also didn't judge. I just got nothing but unconditional love from all of our dogs across the years that we've. We're lucky enough to have them. I have a wonderful guest today, somebody that I'm so excited that he is the first guest that I will be podcasting with from our new location. We'll be here for several months and I feel just really, really excited and honored that I have him as a guest on the show. We actually have a mutual friend. We'll probably talk about that a little bit today to honor that, that other individual. My guest today is Dr. Peter Niemann and Dr. Niemann has worked as a community based pediatrician since 1987. He believes in living by example and is a plantation. I'm going to talk about that. A doctor who promotes plant based whole food nutrition. As we were saying just before we started the show, we have a lot of things in common and some things that not in common, which we will talk about in just a bit as well. Peter also, this is funny, also runs marathons and has completed 112 so far. I just want to give that a moment for people to take that in. Let that land. I did say 112 marathons so far. The goal was to reach 100 by age 60 and by the grace of God. This took place when he crossed the finish line with his beautiful wife Corrine and four children who joined him for the last few meters. Peter is also a streaker. I'll let that one land. Thus far, he has maintained an uninterrupted streak of running every day since December 16, 2009, which happens to be a day I remember every year because it's our son's birthday. Our son max is a December 16th baby. In 2016, he became a holistic life coach under the training of our mutual friend, Alan Cohen. He has authored a book, Moving the Power of Consistent Choices in Everyday Life. That book came out in 2015. On January 1, 2020, he became a member of the world's worst club when he and his wife discovered the body of their son Ben, who ended his life after a long battle with depression. He is married to Dr. Corinne Zamonsky. I hope I've pronounced that right. Zamonsky, who also shares the same passion of inspiring healthy living. They have three children, Katie, Matt and John. Peter continues to learn what it means to be sustained by the love of God as he and his Family, move forward on the journey toward developing more and more resilience. It is just a pleasure and I'm so happy to have you on the show today. Peter, welcome.

Adam. What a joy to be with you. And I think you don't know this, but you go with me on many of my runs. You've been running with me quite a bit. When I listen to your podcast, that's when you come with me. And I'm inspired by your work and cannot, cannot tell enough people to tune into this podcast if they want to pivot their life and move forward and be strong and resilient.

Thank you, Peter. Thank you. Just the thought of having been with you on some, on some of your runs, when I hear that you've done 112 marathons, I go, I'm getting in shape, and it's the most efficient way.

For me to get in shape. Beautiful. Beautiful. Well, you're welcome. I'm looking forward to many more runs with you, many more podcasts.

Beautiful. So I love this question. I think you've probably heard it a time or two before. But, Peter, what's not written in that bio that you would love for people to know about you?

Well, looking at me in totality, holistically, what probably doesn't come out in the bio is just my love for the creator and how much I depend on God for my strength. And having gone through this difficult time, losing a child really as pivoted as Alan as you can imagine. But you know what I think Viktor Frankl said? He is a Holocaust survivor. He said, what doesn't break you makes you stronger. And now we're getting to experience that. And we're not alone, which is a wonderful, reassuring thing. People like you, people like Alan, many other people have come right alongside us. And, you know, my favorite marathon is New York, and the crowds are amazing. And when you do this distance, it's 26.2 miles. It's the same for the Kenyans as it is for mere mortals like me. And, you know, we all like to have people cheer us along, but isn't that a metaphor for life? Even though we have people on the sidelines cheering us on, being there for us, we still have to do the running. And the beautiful thing about running, another metaphor, is that everybody has their unique pace. There's no need to compete or compare. You find what is your pivot, what is your reason to get up in the morning, what is your purpose? And that's how we run the race together. And, you know, the one thing we discovered after the loss of our son Benjamin, who died at age 16, when he ended his life quite unexpectedly, as these things often happen, was that, you know, there's an African proverb. I'm from South Africa originally. I've lived in Canada now since 83. But there's an African proverb, it takes a village to raise a child. And I see that as a pediatrician. But I've also learned that it takes a village to say goodbye to a child. And we've been very much supported by so many good and kind people and really hopefully be able to help other people later. Adam. Because this problem, unfortunately, is getting worse. Where teenagers end their life because they don't have resilience.

Yes, it's something I think a lot of people don't actually know, that those statistics have not gotten better over the last 15 and 20 years. They've gone precipitously in the other direction among young teenagers. Younger and younger, actually.

Absolutely.

And shockingly too, in some of the studies that I've read about this, women past the age of 50. I just couldn't, just mouth open, couldn't believe it, just would have assumed that you get to a certain age, you've gone through a lot, so you have seen enough in your life to recognize the old adage that this too shall pass. Which I want to talk to you about that cliche as well. But I want to go back to something else you said earlier about Viktor Frankl. And the reason is probably by no coincidence. We talk about Viktor Frankl in our work quite a bit in regard to a specific part of the makeup of resilient people. And even when we're sharing this with organizations and companies, what makes for resilient teams, and that is this concept of finding meaning in things, especially things that seem to be meaningless, devastating, irreconcilable things that we think that we believe are wholly unnecessary, like what Viktor Frankl endured and survived, which was to be a Holocaust camp prisoner and ultimately survivor and someone that witnessed the deaths of countless people. And while he was a prisoner, he was thinking about what meaning might come out of this, if you can imagine, I mean, it's something I don't know that most of us can even put ourselves even in the mind space to imagine that, similar to the way that I think many people cannot put themselves in the headspace of what it would be like to lose a child. These similar irreconcilable things, to find meaning in something like that has fundamentally been a part of the process of creating resilience, not just that you're in. That you're. You are demonstrating resilience, but you're actually creating it as you go along, that you're building resilience. And I think a lot of people don't know that, that you. That you're not just born resilient because it's in our DNA as human beings. That's how we have evolved to this point and made it through so much, but that we can actually learn resilience and create it, develop it. And Viktor Frankl's work is one of those. He not only got out of the camp, but he also wrote Man's Search for Meaning, and he shared his meaning therapy work with millions of people around the globe. So if you could speak to. Where are you in that process of finding meaning in the loss of your dear son, Benjamin?

It's been six months now, so half a year. And there's a pastor in Southern California, Rick Warren, who also lost a son. He's helped a lot. He's actually reached out to me and my wife and supported us. But he said something. He says it's something you never get over. You will never get over this, but you will find ways to get through it. He also said that, you know, we have a choice really, as humans to get something like this, develop, develop us. But some people, unfortunately, choose to let it destroy them or define them. So to answer your question, I'm very keen to let this develop me and my wife so that we can help other families who may go through this. And I'm a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the Academy has asked me to join them in this effort, too. So, yeah, the whole thing about meaning is an important one. I'm not sure if you're familiar with David Kessler's work on grief. If any of the listeners or viewers want to Google David Kessler, K E S S L E R, maybe we can put it in the notes. He is a real guru when it comes to grief. He also lost a child, and he worked with Elizabeth Kupner Ross. You know, the stages of denial, bargaining, depression, acceptance, which, by the way, are not linear. But he got permission to add a six stage, which is meaning. And so many, many times, if we lose a spouse or a child or a leg or whatever we may lose, can we grow from it? Can we let it develop us? Can we make that choice? Adam? I often think of, how would I define my own definition of resilience? And I got it this morning again when I was running. It was such a beautiful day. You know, got out there. The birds are singing where I live. If I look to the west, I look at the Canadian Rockies, I'm running next to a body of water, and I looked up, there was the moon setting toward the east. And I thought about this, you know, here I am training for my next marathon, and this is a mental marathon we're going through. So the definition for me of resilience is to train our mind. As you say, we have that choice to train our mind to have the capacity, almost like fitness, to have the capacity to stay strong. It's a continuous thing. And to move forward, which is continuous, when life gives us what we didn't want or didn't choose. In the Buddhist tradition, as you know, there's the four noble truths of suffering. The first one is that pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional. Now, people say that's a cliche or a. What's the word? A platitude.

Yes.

But I think it's sometimes important to pause and meditate when we hear the word cliche and platitude. Why? Why is it that those things are named as such? And I think it's because we don't spend enough time to just think about it. And the wisdom of the Buddha who lived 2,600 years ago is amazing. And it's very true that nobody can escape pain or loss or setbacks or.

Or. Or impermanence.

Impermanence, exactly. But the question is, how do we want to respond? And a lot of people react. And the good news is that there's a way out of suffering if we respond appropriately, if we have the right view, the right thoughts, the right action, the right words, the right livelihood. It's important to make sure that we spend time to be mindful and meditate and that we. And that we also have the right concentration. I just love the conscious part of your podcast. It's not just the pivot, it's the conscious pivot. Yes. And I think we should remind ourselves. That's a very important word.

It is. I believe as well, Peter, because there's so much of what we. What we experience, we experience by default because we're not actively choosing.

Right.

I mean, we take a lot for granted. Like, we take our breath for granted.

Absolutely. Or at this moment, I think it was Jack. Jack Cornfield said he has a quote about a man who used to live one inch away from his body, not fully present. We're not there. We're not in the moment, and we don't appreciate things. And I know I can Say, every morning, I have a ritual in the morning. I know you like to talk about rituals. My ritual is one that I learned from a fellow Davidji, who lives actually in Southern California, too. And David taught me that in the morning. He has for 40 years, gone by the RPM method, not revolutions per minute, but he says, you rise, you pee, and you meditate.

Yeah.

And so in the mornings when. When I wake up, I do what you tell us all to do, which is take that first breath and be thankful. Be in the moment and realize somebody else elsewhere on this beautiful planet, actually, at that very instant, is leaving with the last breath. These things are so basic and yet not always easy to do. But, you know, the beautiful thing is, as you say, we have a choice. We do it or we don't. And if we end like Nike, the Nike ad says, just do it. So get busy and just do it.

So David Kessler is somebody. We will absolutely add his work, a reference to his work in the show notes. We have a dear friend. By we, I mean my wife, Randy and I, and our daughter Chelsea, who's also involved with the company. And this dear friend lost a child unexpectedly many years ago. His name is Ken Druck, and Ken is a grief expert specialist. He was a guest on our show, I think about a month and a half ago. So for those of you that have not yet listened to and watched the episode with Ken Druck, please feel free to check that out as well. There. There's something I want to. I want to get to as well. You said a moment ago, which is to let it develop us. I've not really. I've not heard that language used before. And I'm curious if this is language that you've created or where whatever the origin is less important than what this means to you. Let this develop me is such a. I mean, I'm wrapping my own. My own head and heart around that term right now. That something that's happening like. So, for example, as this show is airing, we're still in the midst of a pandemic. And this event that we've called a crisis and a lot of other things that this event has changed people's lives in profound ways. More than 100,000 people in the US alone have. Have passed. I don't know what the global total is. I ought to know that it's too many. One is too many. And yet the disruption and the change to people's lives has gone beyond health. It's gone into the area of their economics, their finances, their businesses. And so it's interesting in thinking about these unexpected events, the loss of a child, being held prisoner because of your religion, your family being exterminated, or genocide, or things happening because of the color of your skin, your religion, any number of things. The way that black people, people of color in the United States, have been systematically discriminated against and murdered, as we've seen recently as well, things that are unthinkable, that happen. And in trying to make sense of those things so that we can both evolve as a community, as a society, and individually involves finding meaning, as we said, it involves some other things that we may get to talk about. And then I think it involves. It feels like it involves this statement that you made to let this develop me.

Peter.

Peter, what do you mean by that? Please unpack that concept for us.

Well, first and foremost, this is a mental marathon for me and Corinne to adjust to this new reality. And you know, I used to be a Dale Carnegie instructor, and in one of Dale Carnegie's books, he talks about a cathedral, I think in Belgium. Inscripted on the cathedral are the words, it is so it cannot be otherwise. So the loss of a child is the reality that has happened. It cannot be otherwise. And by develop, I think I'm a holistic coach because of Alan Cohen. And just if people go to my website, movingforward daily.com there are three gears there. All three gears have to be engaged. And that's the issue of the spirit, the mind and the body. And for me, I want all three of those muscles to be developed. I want all those three gears to be engaged in order to move forward. And it means that first and foremost, you have to not fight with God. Like somebody said, when you fight with God, you always gonna lose because your arms are not as long as his when you box with him. And then just to get closer to knowing that we are sustained. There's a line in the course of miracles. Adam, I think you've talked about the course before and it says, I think it's lesson 50. It says we are sustained by the love of God. And Corinne and I are really experiencing that. So it brings us closer to him. I know for some people who don't believe in God or people who are mad at God, they may disagree with me, but that's my experience, that's my story. Like Alan Cohen says, that's my story and I stick to it. It's bringing us closer to our Creator. Even in difficult, difficult times. It teaches us about patience, endurance. It helps us to not think about ourselves. All the time, but also to consider other people, to comfort them with the same comfort. We've been comforted. But it also helps us to be resilient mentally. As you say, sometimes people are born with it and sometimes they not. But for people who find they are not very resilient, there's hope. It's like, you know, you don't have to run a marathon, but you have the ability to get fit physically. And I also think we all have that ability to get fit or more fit mentally, and we just call it resilience, for lack of another word. I have a little friend of mine who is in Calgary, where I live, who's a social worker and an author, introduced me to the speech that Bobby Kennedy gave the politician, famous Bobby Kennedy. And if it's okay with you, I'd like to. I'd like to read that. It was poem that he ended up with, and I think it could have been even in the time of racial unrest in the 60s when Bobby Kennedy ran for the presidency and he quoted a Greek philosopher, Aescaplus, who lived 500 years before Christ, who lived in Athens. And it's about pain. Here are the words from Kennedy's speech. He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep, pain cannot forget. And pain falls drop by drop upon the heart. And in our own despair, against our will comes wisdom to us by the grace of God. And, you know, I underlined, he who learns must suffer. It's not morbid, it's not negative, it's real. And the Buddha told that 2,600 years ago, we cannot escape pain, we cannot escape suffering.

Learning, learning comes at a cost. And I don't think. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Personally. My dad was apt to share this with my brother and I frequently. He would say that there's a front and back to everything, that there is a. That there is a cost to things. You pay. You pay a price for things. And that's, again, you know, that's a good thing. I don't want a free. I don't want a free lunch. I think people that think they want something for nothing or something to be easy, they're really selling themselves a bill of goods. They are diluting or being untruthful with themselves, because I think we know in our core how good it feels to put in a good day's work, to come through something that's tough and difficult. As painful as the process is, as excruciating as it can feel, as exhausting, even the Other side of that is a joy that, that helps you to sleep well at night. It's a joy that gives you peace of mind. It's a joy that helps you have clear eyes. And when you look in the mirror with those clear eyes, you see something looking back at you that you respect, that you even love. And that's. That comes, that doesn't come cheaply, nor, nor should it, in my opinion. But I love, I love what you said earlier. So I want to repeat it and I want to, I want to just share how it landed for me. Let this develop me, let it develop us. So in light of everything that's happening in the world right now, tremendous loss, loss of all kinds, pain of every conceivable kind from the loss of a loved one. I have a dear friend from high school, kid, I kid. We were both kids on the high school swimming team together when we met. And he lost his dad to COVID 19, and couldn't even attend his funeral. Couldn't have a proper send off memorial or mourning in the way that traditionally it's done. There's every imaginable loss that's occurred over the last few months. And I feel so deeply that it is, it is going to serve us in some way that it's already serving us in ways that we couldn't have ever predicted or imagined. So the idea of letting these things develop us to me feels like a surrender. It feels that we are surrendering to a wisdom, to a knowing meaning. It's in the book Pivot. I say something along the lines, if you knew you couldn't fail, what would you do exactly? What would be your approach to things if you just knew for a fact that you couldn't fail? There was no failing at it. Just like there is on some level. No failing. But for not learning, but for not experiencing the grace and the gift of a learning that comes from that experience. Pain is pain. I don't know that you can ever compare pain. You can't say my pain is different than yours is. Yours is tougher than mine. Because pain feels the same.

Yeah, yeah. No, absolutely. And it's not a competition. You know, perhaps some can look at what, what happened in 2020. People on December 31st of 2019 said that May 2020 be the year of perfect vision. 2020. Perfect vision.

Yes, 2020 vision. Right.

And I think it's not the vision that we were guessing.

No, it's going to be 2020 hindsight now.

Yeah. And we're learning more about resilience. Who we are and we're learning about caring for each other, but, you know, in the Jewish tradition. I just spoke to a rabbi friend of mine yesterday, and if I can just digress a little bit and then, please. That's the beauty of the podcast. You know, we can. We can just talk as friends. And the rabbi told me about a story of Jewish men that were in prison when Stalin was around. And it was a rabbi and a few other guys. And in the prison, and the rabbi was always smiling and happy and laughing. And these other men in his prison cell looked at him and thought he was going off his mind, he was losing it. But they realized the rabbi was for real. And so they asked him, rabbi, why are you so happy? And he said, well, let me ask you, what do you do? One guy said, I'm a doctor. And the other guy said, I'm a lawyer. Another guy said, I was a baker. And they all sad because their profession was taken away from them. So the rabbi said, I see now you are sad because your profession was taken away from you. You lost your profession. He says, but I can never lose my profession. That's why I'm so happy, because my profession is to serve God. And I think it's really quite symbolic of how when we find meaning, when we find purpose, when we find our calling and we're there to help other people, it makes a huge, huge difference, not just to us, but to others, because we are interconnected. And so when we get enlightened, when we learn, when we grow, when we talk about these things, yes, it does help us. But if we keep it to ourselves, it's not a good thing. We need to share it to help other people.

And that's a part of the development, right?

Absolutely. And my hope is, as so many people have said, my hope is that something good will come from this. Of course, there will be something bad, too. And that's what the rabbi reminded me, that while we are alive, there will be good and there will be bad. Sometimes more of the one, more of the other. And that's just called life and our. You know, I mean, I'm sure there are people listening to us, and they say, well, what about the wife beating? What about the child abuse? What about this suicide rate? What about alcoholism and addictions because of COVID And that's all true, but it's also true that there's a flip side to the coin where people allowed suffering and bad times and unprecedented times to help us to just simply move forward in the right direction at a speed that's a match for them and hopefully in the right direction. So I'm all with you. I think one day we'll look back at this whole thing, and even, you know, being in the medical field, I have some thoughts about it, too, which I don't think we'll have time to talk about. But I think the key thing is just may we learn the right lessons so that when the next pandemic comes, we'll be probably a bit more prepared.

Well, it's a process of it developing us, and I think that's the point, is to allow for things at times that we don't understand that don't apparent. You don't have an obvious meaning to them. You know, this idea of, you know, when people say everything happens for a reason, I think a lot of people feel like it's a hollow statement. And I've pushed back on that, called BS on that from. From time to time in my life, too, because it's incomplete. It's not just about the fact that something is happening for a reason, but that the reason is there for our development. It's there to develop us. The reason that something's happening is there for our greater good as a whole.

Adam, it's hard to see it when you're in the middle of the marathon, but when the race is finished and you put the medal around your neck and you look back and you extract from every marathon the lessons to help you do the next one better.

You.

Know, that's that moment that you can actually see what happens when preparation and opportunity meet. I've got a quick story about Las Vegas if you. If it has a bit of humor. So we have to make sure people don't give them chance to laugh. The good book says there's a time to cry and a time to laugh. I was training for Boston. I'm wearing my Boston shirt here. Probably people who listen just have to trust me. It's a Boston Marathon shirt, and it was one of my.

You have to say Boston.

Yeah, exactly. Park the car in the gar. Yes.

Come on. You're training for the bass in marathon. Yeah. Yeah.

So I'm training for getting back to Boston, and I chose Las Vegas because it's fast and it's flat. And the first year I get there, the race is on a Sunday. On the Saturday, you can light a candle. There's no wind. Yeah. On the Sunday, I'm running into a headwind. Almost blows my butt off. It's terrible, you know, and on the Monday, no wind. I'm thinking, this Is bad luck. I'm coming back. This is resilience. Right. You fall down, you get up, you come back the next year. Exactly same thing. 100%. Exactly same thing. The wind just. There was no way I could make it running into this wind. So the third year, I didn't think it could happen three years in a row, and he did. But at about mile 24, I'm hearing a fellow behind me swear like a sailor. It's a word that starts with the letter F and rhymes with the word duck. The guy was just giving it the gears, you know, I had to stop. I laughed so hard, I had to hang on to my.

So he's just out loud, running.

And so I'm saying to him as he passes me, what? Why are you so upset? And he says, for three years in a row.

Yeah.

He chose to run this race, and it's. And he got, you know, the wind was the enemy. And so what I took from that is sometimes we can prepare, but the opportunity isn't there. And sometimes the opportunity is there, but we're not prepared.

Yes.

And I think it was Gary Player, a golfer from my own country, South Africa, who said, you know, I think he was putting, and he sank a very good put. And somebody said, gary, that was very lucky. He said, you're right, but the more I practice, the luckier I get.

Yeah.

And luck is that which happens when preparation and opportunity meet, collide. And this is a great opportunity, 2020. And if we are prepared to meet this opportunity, I believe we can come out stronger.

We will be better than before. It's not just an attitude, even though attitude is everything. So I shouldn't even diminish the fact that it's an attitude to just look at things in that way. But I do believe, truly that we are going to be better than before in so many ways. So I do want to talk about the marathon. So I'm really glad that you brought that up, by the way. I've been to Vegas many, many times and done many workshops and things there, and it is a tale of two cities. It is a schizophrenic town, for sure, in so many ways. But the mother nature there, I mean, it can be, as you say, peaceful, calm, still, hot, dry, and then below, like nobody's business. I mean, winds howling in that place. I can't even imagine running a marathon in those conditions. You, sir, I've got to understand the mind of a man that runs the way you run. What started this? What started this? How many marathons do you run in a single year?

Typically on average about 4. Houston is always my favorite one. We get away from the cold of Canada in January and Houston is very reasonably. The temperatures are good in Houston in January.

So when did you start? What year did you start?

Well, it is interesting. It was a Saturday morning in South Africa. No, actually, sorry, it was a Friday evening and there was a knock on my door in Toledo, Ohio. I was in medical school and another medical student says to me, we're running a marathon tomorrow. I signed you up. I said, you're kidding me. I haven't even trained for a marathon. But we were in good shape because of squash. And so we ran the thing together. The next day, Saturday morning, I did my first marathon and I figured if I can do this without training, I was young, you know, I'm 64 now. At that point I think I would have been in my early 20s.

Yeah.

And I just got bitten by the bug. And then in medical school, I was so focused on training and residency in pediatrics. And when I landed here In Canada in 83, it took me about 10 years to start running again. And so my second or third marathon was in the early 1990s. And ever since I've averaged about four or so a year. And it's, it's really, it's one of my meditative states is just to be out there and to run and to pray and to be thankful. I don't know if I mentioned, I don't think I did mention my 3M, you know, the company 3M. I have a 3M method for coping with stress and adversity. And it's to move, to meditate and music. And so I get a lot out of it. I mean, obviously it's a ritual of mine now. And by the way, the word ritual comes from Latin, which means to come together, to fit together. That's the root meaning of the word ritual. It's so things come together for me when I out there and it's just a real privilege to celebrate health and, you know, to fill my body with plant based nutrition too, is.

So you came through your hundredth marathon at what, at what age?

Just before 60. Just before 60. As you said in the intro, I was. So I did it here locally and they gave me a bib number with the number 100 on it and they allowed my wife and at that time the four kids to run next to me for the last hundred meters. So we crossed the finish line together. Lots of tears, but tears of joy and tears of gratitude that you can do something like that. And that I had my family with me at the time was beautiful.

And speaking of the bio, we mentioned that you're a plantation. So I want to get a little bit into that because, you know, I think doctors for the most part don't, at least not sort of in my own experience, they haven't so much talked about nutrition. I think it's a tremendous failing in the, I would say in the medical training, in medical school training that this more focused on.

No doubt. I call it a Swiss cheese doctor. As you know, Swiss cheese has these holes, right? Yeah. And the hole in the doctor's ability to be compassionate and wise is that he or she does not give enough credit to nutrition. And so a plantation is a physician who believes in plant based whole food eating. And maybe we can put in the resource pages or the notes. Pcrm.org it's called the Physicians Council for Responsible Medicine, based out of Washington D.C. they also have a podcast called the Exam Room. And this podcast has helped a lot of people to lose weight, to get their blood pressure down, to reverse heart disease and diabetes. So based on my research and my wife's research in this area, we know this is not for everybody. Some people are vegetarian, some people are pescatarian. But to my knowledge, it's the only dietary plan that can reverse heart disease. If you go on keto or if you go on the carnivore diet and you actually do studies of coronary vessels, there's evidence to show that the story is not that happy in there. The vessels are clogged up and it's a problem. And yet with with eating plant based foods, you can, you can reverse it. And you know, there's the gut health access too. If you have a healthy gut, a healthy gut microbiome, it's good for the brain, good for depression. And the one thing that I really like about this is that I'm never having cravings and that I can eat guilt free because of the fiber. And you're eating real food. There's a book by Michael Pollan, I think, called In Defense of Food.

Yes.

And the book can be summarized. I think NPR summarized it. There's only three things. Eat real food. That means food that rots, not processed foods. Real food, not too much. Mostly plants, not exclusively, but mostly plants. And so it works well for us to talk like this. As a coach, when people call me and talk to me and they want to talk to me about that, I'm happy to give them resources. I'm happy to help them and encourage them, but it's definitely not for everybody. And I can be evangelical about this because not everybody. Who was the guy that said, I like my salad, but also with some meat on top of the salad? Right.

So let's talk about rituals.

So I'm sure there's good fish right there where you are.

You defined rituals earlier and as this coming together. And for me, rituals is really the key to. So much of how I organize my own life is based on my rituals. And I feel like the quality of my life really equals the quality of the rituals that I maintain consciously, as you pointed out. So what are some of the rituals that you. That you are consciously creating and maintaining? And maybe there's a new one. I don't know if you've swapped any out or tried something new that you're feeling really good about at the moment.

Well, I think the reason that I have rituals is because of results. And I think all of us, whether we choose a certain way to eat or a book to read or a podcast to listen to or whatever comes down to what results are we getting. So I'm extremely certain that how we start the day is so important. You know, you've had people on your show who talked about journaling and gratitude and stretching and so on, but for me, it's important to start the day off just being quiet, just to be still. And I'm a fountain pen lover. And so just to sit in my study with a white sheet of paper and use my fountain pen, just get ideas that come for book writing. That's blissful. That's to be in the zone, to be energized, to be in the present moment. I'm not sure if you know about the 10% happier app for mindfulness by Dan Harris.

You know, it's one of my favorite books. It was the first book I read in 2020, and Dan Harris's. But work is really has really taken off. I haven't gotten the app, but you're talking now of the 10% Happier app.

So what Dan did was if you're a physician and you're working in the COVID era, he allowed physicians to get some access to this app. And my wife and I both, she's a doctor, too. We just enjoy it. I can't say enough about it. And again, people have different apps, but it really teaches how to be mindful, how to have inside meditation. Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg, number of other famous people. Judson Brewer are the teachers on the app. So I tend to do that as A bookend. Because my other ritual is in the evenings before I go to bed. Norman Vincent Peale is one of my heroes. And by the way, he was a good friend of Emmett Fox, the guy that you talk about so often as being inspirational from a spiritual point of view. And Peel introduced me to this whole idea to have the rituals of bookends. It's how you start the day, how you end the day with gratitude, with meditation, with mindfulness. Peel also has a little booklet called Thought Conditioners. You can just Google it online and just download it. And I saturate my mind with. With these thought conditioners before I go to bed. Feel also. Actually, this is kind of fun, these things, because he taught about how we drain the sink and then fill it up again. And so that's. That's another thing that I do is at the end of the day, like, you empty your pockets. You know, you empty your mind and you let go of some of the things that didn't work out. I mean, I'll never forget where I was running when I heard you talk about a Blue Monday. It was a bad day for you. One of your clients didn't want to continue with you, and you perhaps took it personally and fussed over it as you would. Most people would do that. It's just very normal. And then at the end of the day, the story goes, correct me if I'm wrong, that you sat with your daughter overlooking the Pacific, watching the sun goes down. And I think she said to you, your attitude isn't very good right now. And she knows that. And that's okay. That's okay. Just to be with what is. To surrender, not to struggle, not to fight it, just to be with it. Because this too shall pass. Right? Comes and it goes. It arises and it goes away. But what a wonderful time for all of us in the evening before we have a proper sleep to empty our mind and to fill it with something positive, whether it be gratitude or scripture or meditation or. So I think there's evidence that we sleep better, actually, without a doubt.

At least I would say my sleep took a turn for the better when I started to think before going to bed, what I. Well, for me, personally, and this is a part of my just before, I guess, before losing consciousness ritual to thank God for forgiveness, for forgiving me my own trespasses and to forgive everyone, really. Not leaving anyone out, not holding back forgiveness from anyone, especially those that have maybe hurt me or hurt my feelings or done, you know, whatever thing that I might be still holding on to. Some resentment or some grudge over and then asking. And really, I think gratitude is such a powerful form of prayer that I always form my prayers in the structure of being grateful. So giving thanks for them, giving thanks for a sleep that is forgiving, a forgiving sleep that I'm thankful for, forgiving dreams and dreams of forgiveness. So I want to, as we're wrapping up here, I want to maybe not so much close any open loops, but to just go back to a couple things. And one is the fact that you are from South Africa. And I thought for a moment that your accent might be from Kentucky or Louisiana or so I don't couldn't place it right away, especially you living in Calgary. But then it became quite clear I'm familiar with that accent because I've listened to an Audible book for a couple of years now and I'm due to listen to it again, so I'll bring it up for myself as well. And it's written this is a book written by a South African. His name is Michael Brown. I refer that book to you, Peter, in what you and your lovely wife are working through as well as anybody that is working through a grief process now themselves. Again, that's grief over anything. The loss of the job, the loss of the business, the loss of a loved one or anything loss of our youth. There's so many things that we're that we are grieving from time to time. And it's called the book is called the Presence Process. So Michael Brown wrote this amazing book. He's South African. It is in many ways a book about so much more than the process. But there's a magnificent breathwork process that's introduced in the book as well. And it's the Audible is not ready by the author. I wish it had been. But it's read by his editor at Namaste Publishing. I think his name, this gentleman's name is Michael Ord. And it's beautiful. I mean, his South African accent is just something for me personally, I could listen to. And interestingly enough, as you take podcasts on your marathons, on your training, whenever I'm on the elliptical machine or sometimes walking out in nature, I'll listen to this audible version of the Presence Process. So it's really, really cool. So I'm gonna, I'll ask you, as we end, if there's anything that you sort of finally, at least for this episode, want to share with folks. And then I'm going to transition into something else you said as I wind down my own thoughts. But, but But I will say before we do that, just for a second, you said earlier that, you know, there's a saying that you can't fight with God because you'll lose because his arms are too long. It had me thinking that we can't fight with ourselves for the same reason, you know, to fight with yourself is, is, is a, it's illogical it, to quote your buddy from 10% Happier, Dan Harris, who was quoting someone else. But it's a really powerful question to ask yourself, is this useful? And when you're fighting with yourself, if you could just pause even for a moment to take a breath and ask yourself the question, is this useful?

That is the fastest way to probably end what some people call the monkey mind. You know, it's where your mind goes in circles and circles and circles. And there comes a point where you clearly have to say, is this useful? Just a quick story about Ringo Starr, the Beetle, which I got from Alan Cohen because as you know, Alan likes to tell stories. He tells the story. And this is in the context of how we view ourselves and how we fight with ourselves and how we lack compassion. And in terms of self compassion, if you can ever get Professor Kristin Neff from Austin, Texas on your, on your show, I highly recommend you ask her to join you. She's the guru on self compassion. Kristen Neff. But Alan tells a story about Ringo Starter, the Beatle who felt like a fraud, an imposter. You know, it's called the imposter syndrome. So he didn't feel worthy, Adam. And he figured, look, tomorrow I'm going to talk to my three friends and just tell them out of the four guys here, I just don't belong. I'm not as good as you guys and it's time for me to quit, to get, get away. I'm embarrassed to be with the three of you, John, Paul and George. So we went to George Harrison the next morning and he says, george, I want to sit down with you guys and discuss our future. I just don't belong here. You guys are too good. I'm not good enough. And George listened to Ringo and he paused and he said, you know, Ringo, funny, I've been thinking those same thoughts. I've been thinking those same thoughts. And I think so many times we box with ourselves or wrestle with ourselves. And you know, the great commandment in the good book in the Bible is love God and love your neighbor like yourself. And I think a lot of pastors, ministers, preachers, teachers teach a lot about the love God part as they should and love your neighbor as you should. But I think they forget the other part, which is love yourself. Give yourself credit as a child of God, you're special. Everybody is unique and like Gandhi said, meet everybody as if he's a best friend. And so by, by taking good care of yourself. Self care. There's a saying that you cannot pour from an empty cup. You cannot pour from an empty cup. And I deliberately avoided the analogy that we've all heard. When you fly, put the oxygen mask on your face first and then other ones. But I like the cup part. If your cup is empty, it's hard to pour.

Yes.

So to invest our time growing, getting more resilient, having a pivot, having rituals and doing it consciously is, to me a great way to just work on that tendency of wrestling with ourselves and fighting with ourselves.

Indeed. Indeed it is. Yeah. It's. That concept of the Golden Rule is so interesting because I'm going to take maybe a little bit of a different slant on that for a moment to say that I think people do in many ways treat people the way they treat themselves. You know, love thy neighbor as you, as thy, you know, as you love thyself or something. You know, that's the essence of it. I think people do that. And by that I mean most people do not treat themselves well, they don't love themselves. They certainly don't love themselves unconditionally. And self care is seen as selfish. So it's not that striking, if you look at it through that lens, that people are as awful at times to each other, to other people, because it in many ways models how they are to themselves. So the Ringo story, I think would be, even if I pass it, if I pay it forward and tell that story again, I'm gonna add something to it. I just want to add it. I want to say that I'll probably have to tell Alan as well that I embellished on the story, but I feel like there's a joke that's, that's, that's there for the, for the taking. And the joke would probably be something along the lines of. So, you know, he goes to George, who was his buddy, and he says, you know, I feel like an imposter. And George says, you know, I was just gonna have say the same thing. I feel like an imposter. You know, so then they go to, you know, they go to Paul or they go to John. He got to figure out which one it is probably just gonna, gonna stick with. Probably stick with John on this one and say, hey, John, you know, this is how, you know, Ringo and, and I have. Have felt, you know, a bit of imposter. And John says something along the lines, you know, I was going to tell you guys the exact same thing. I think you're both imposters as well.

That is so good, you know, because.

Because it really was a big gap. I think in on some level you have four ridiculously talented fellows and, and. And sort of one or two that were. That were exceptional, as exceptional goes, they were exceptional on top of that. So. But they never. John, in my opinion, I'm a huge music fan. John, as great, as talented as, you know, gifted as he was, as gifted as Paul is and was. They were never and could never be what they were individually as they were as the Beatles as a group. And for some, maybe they find that, maybe some folks will take exception to that, that's perfectly okay. But so I think, I think there's something in that for me that says, you know, each of us individually, we have our unique gifts and talents, and to aspire to share them and grow them is believe, honoring. Honoring our Creator for sure. And at the same time, when we collaborate with others, when we come together with others to solve problems like the kind of problems that we are seeing in our world now and have been around for a very long time, but are seeking redress now, we are so much stronger together and so much better together than we are any of us on our own. We are.

We are interconnected. You know, it's like the waves of the ocean. One wave cannot say, I'm not part of the ocean, or one branch of the tree cannot say, I'm not part of this tree. And together we achieve more. I mean, this is a cliche, but it's true. There is no I in team and team stands for. Together, everyone achieves more.

Indeed. So my final thoughts on from this show really are relative to that term this too shall Pass. And clearly with what's happening in your life and what's happened in all of our lives more recently, there is this concept of this too shall pass. And I do believe that that is a truism, that it is a fact if you've lived long enough, you know that time is a great healer. And I use that word healing, heal really sparingly. But I also look at this too shall Pass for some time now, as is not just about things that we want to be resolved and that we want to get past. But if you think about what this too shall Pass really means, it's about the fact that every moment shall pass. So even when you're in joy, when things couldn't be better, it's the sunny day and you're doing exactly what you want, and you feel great about yourself and confident and loved and money is not a worry. And all the things that, that can contribute to somebody feeling joy, that too shall pass. So it cuts both ways, or it operates it operationally, working all the time. And I think that takes a bit of the sting out of what we might be dealing with, the difficulties we might be dealing with in a situation, in a single moment. It is what you said earlier about the Buddha, it's this, this law of impermanence, that when we appreciate that everything is impermanent, that everything is passing, and that that's the nature of being. It's. You know, as much as I want to hang on to it, we're here in this beautiful place, and we've never seen some of the things that some of the plants on our property we've never seen bloom. So what we've seen bloom in May and in June have been breathtaking. And some of them right now are in the latter stages of that bloom. And as much as I want to hang on to it, I want my mom who's going to be visiting us in a couple of days to see it in peak, in its peak. And I couldn't hang. I can't contain the peak. I can't make it stop. What it's. What it's evolving into, right? And there's this, you know, this, this. That cycle of going from, from something that is born to something that dies and then something that's born again is just what life is about. And for me to try to hang on to the rose or, or to the, or to the azalea or to the rhododendron bloom is futile again. It's, it's, it's a useless task and one that only I think will can create pain. So it's.

I think the Buddha would have said it's delusional. It makes no sense. Exactly. Delusional will make us suffer more.

Yes. Well, I want to ask you right now if there's one single thing that you could share with our audience, one thing that they could do, a small change, perhaps a micro pivot, if you will. Is there something that comes to mind that you would encourage people to try on for size today?

I would say mindful meditation, mindfulness meditation. The beautiful thing about that is it's independent of your religion or where you land with God or your belief system or your political party or your country of origin or grace or, sorry, race. I really think it's an investment that anybody can do, even if they start small, find something that can be customized for you. But to be really, really experiencing the beauty of being more mindful, being more present, being more aware and bringing the mindset. I think one of your previous guests talked all about a mindset. And as I was running, listening to the two of you guys talking, you know, it's your outlook, it's your attitude, it's a mindset. And I think it's a muscle inside here that can be developed over time so that whatever life brings you, you can bounce back, you can be resilient, and you can just have, as Dan Harris said, your life can be 10% better. Maybe not 100%, but 10% at least.

Yeah, I love his attitude and how cheeky he is. I think it's an approachable thing. You think about, can I just be 1% better? I like to use the British cycling performance director, Dave Brailsford as the example for what 1% improvement, what 1% progress looks like, because he was able, in the course of a few years to take a team that had never won the Tour de France, had not won a medal in the Olympics since 1910. And through this principled and disciplined practice of making, identifying and implementing 1% changes, 1% progress to their. To their. The way that they approached the. Every aspect of cycling, they, in a few years, not only were the. Were Olympic medalists, but they were the top Olympic medalists. I think he started with the team in 2003. They won an Olympic medal for the first time in whatever that was, almost 100 years, in 2004. And by 2008, they won more Olympic medals than any other cycling team, and then went on to win 5, 6, 7 Tour de France simply because they were able to adopt this 1% philosophy. And so as we end right now, I've got my own 1% progress ritual, which everybody who's listened to the show before is familiar with, but it involves waking up. So it is the waking ritual. And that's where I'll leave everybody today, which is that if you're listening to this, the good news is you did wake up. And that as a lawyer, I can say there was no contract for that. Last night when you put your head on the pillow, there was nothing that said, you're guaranteed to get to wake up tomorrow. So that was an unexpected event and a gift as well. So there's three small pieces to this 1% change in how you greet the day, one, is that you wake up, that you've already done. Two, that you have some recognition that that wasn't guaranteed. There was no contract for that, that it was truly something that you can be thankful for, that you can even feel blessed by. So gratitude being that second piece that you're awake, one, that I leave to God this idea that we are waking, getting another day is out of our hands. And two, it's up to me to feel grateful, so I get to choose to do that. And three, that when I put my feet on the floor, I get to say something if I want to. I get to think something if I choose to. And the four words, the simple words that I've repeated now for more than 10 years are these four words that I shared on a TED stage and I've shared in these podcasts time and time again, which is I love my life. And some people, they love to say that. They write to us and email us to let us know how that practice has worked for them. And others have pushed back. Others have said, you know, those aren't. Those are not words that I'm ready to say. Or I don't feel that those words feel true. It feels like a lie. I feel like an imposter when I say those things. And in my answer to those folks is, well, great, you don't have to say it because I say it, certainly. But what do you want to say? What is. If you had the choice to plant a seed, as we all do at the very beginning of the day, what do you want to grow out of that soil and choose some words that make sense to you to reflect what it is that you actually want to prophesize into existence for the day. So as the last question right now, it's simply going to be this one. Peter, I say I love my life when I put my feet on the floor in the morning, what are the words that you choose to say?

It's very similar. And again, I got this from Dr. Peel. Love, life and life will love you back. Love, life and life loves you back. I forgot to mention, in the Japanese tradition, there's a word called I have to look it up. Naikan N A I K A N. And it's the Japanese term that they say, by having gratitude, we can do something about feeling sad. It's an antidote to sadness. Or, as somebody else said, the cure for depression is expression. And so, you know, it's so true that people who listen to us, who cannot do these things themselves. Let the two of us encourage them to dig deep and to seek what would work for them. What? How are they gonna run their marathon, at what pace, in which shoes, and then just finish the darn thing. Just get there, move forward, don't quit.

Well, my brother is a runner and so I know he'll love this show. He'll love to listen to, to someone that has such an appreciation as he.

Does if he wants to stay in touch. My email and probably be in the notes is info at Moving Forward. Anybody who wants to stay in touch and learn more or be encouraged or look at the book, whatever, you know, I'm happy to. I'm here to help because I think it was Zig Ziglar who said you can get anything in life if you just help enough other people get what they want.

Yes, indeed. Thank you for being a guest on the show today. Doctor.

Thank you so much.

It's been an honor. And give an extra, extra squeeze, an extra hug to your lovely wife as well.

From my heart to your heart. Lots of love, lots of peace, lots of joy.

Beautiful. Everybody, please feel free to leave your comment. Let us know what you think of the episode, any questions that you have. Obviously, Full Show Notes will give information about every reference that we've made, made mention of, including how it is that you would get Peter's book and find out more about the work that he's doing in the world. All right, we love you and look forward to more and more of our interactions going forward. Peace and ciao for now, everybody.

Thank you.

Thanks for listening, everyone. We hope you now have the tools and greater insights insights to navigate your own pivot. Help us inspire others by sharing this episode and leaving your comments over@adammarkel.com podcasts for more tips, strategies and support as you consciously pivot into a new business and lifestyle you love. Join our Pivot community on facebook@pivotfb.com.