https://www.listennotes.com/e/cd7899486a444b17bf9dc39790c5d77f

Welcome to the Legacy All-Stars Podcast, where we talk to successful individuals in their respective fields who do things to help others and make an impact for the greater good. Here is your host, Alan Pavlowski.

Hello, and welcome to the Legacy All-Stars Podcast, where we celebrate extraordinary individuals making a lasting impact. I'm your host, Alan Pavlowski. You can find all episodes at legacyallstarspodcast.com Please subscribe and enable notifications so you're notified immediately when new episodes are released. For those of you who know me, you know that I get super excited about talking with people who make a difference. And today we have a very inspiring guest who happens to be a personal friend of mine whose work bridges philanthropy, public health and brain health advocacy. Dr. Nicole Roberts is the author of Generosity Wins and a leader in the fight for brain health awareness. She also spearheads the Brain Health Summit at the annual Lee Steinberg Super Bowl Party, one of the most prestigious events merging sports, health, and social good. And now please join me in welcoming my friend and colleague, Dr. Nicole Roberts.

Thank you for being here. Hello, how are you? I'm great.

I know you were really busy, busy, busy last time I saw you at Super Bowl. You always are at that event. And you're inspiring, though, in the way that you put it all together and the way it all comes across. It's just so powerful. So I just want to personally compliment you on that because I haven't talked to you since we saw each other.

Correct. And I think the last time I saw you, it was saying hello to you and your wife, and I was like running by you in heels on grass. wet grass.

That was fun.

Like sinking in.

A lot. That was a blast.

It was a good time.

Always a pleasure to see you. Yeah. Before we dive into your work on brain health, let's start with your book, Generosity Wins. What inspired you to write it? And what message do you hope readers take away?

Well, the inspiration actually comes from my co-author. He gets all the credit. Monty Wood. It started as his idea and he had this, he's just like an absolute business genius and very kind, thoughtful, a generous man. And as he was thinking about sort of what's next for him, he was taking all the lessons of his career. And what he really started with was this idea from his personal experience in business that When one gives of themselves genuinely, you deeply care about the people around you, your colleagues, your employees, your peers, your clients, whoever it may be, you attract success to yourself. People know when you're authentic. And so we're here and it really started as this business idea of attracting success. How do you build success, especially when you're younger? How do you bring it to you? And it's not just going to this certain business school, doing this certain thing, but it really is about building like what we came to discuss is like a spirit of generosity. Someone who genuinely gives of themselves, their time, their talent, their treasure, and you do so with no expectation of return.

Right?

We can step a little bit into science if you want, which is my half of the equation, but People we inherently know when it's a transaction. Oh, I'm gonna do this nice thing for you, but I expect something from you and you know what it is. And so to give like a gift, right? When you give and you have no expectation of return, it is truly a gift. And people know that they're here to listen, they're here to share their wisdom, to give a shoulder to cry on, whatever it is that we need. We know the difference between true giving and being generous from our heart, our soul, our spirit, and a transaction. And so Monty had this idea and he wanted to write a book and he very bravely, I think, decided that he would like a co-author, someone who brought not a business perspective but more of a science perspective. And so I met him and I knew immediately this very much aligned with the way I thought about the world, the work I do by background. I'm a doctor of public health. My background's in neuroscience. So I'm always thinking about the bigger implications of how people think and behave. And so I just was fascinated by this idea. And I knew from personal experience you you can't necessarily measure karma. And you can't say like there's an ROI of being nice and put a number to it. But I think we all know that when we put good out in the world, good things come back to us. And so it was a really difficult but fun challenge to explore the science of generosity, the wisdom behind generosity. And for us, what we did is we wrote a book that's very unconventional. So it's a business fable. And you're nodding along when you've read it, but, like, there's a main character.

I've read it. I love the book. I think it's very powerful. Yes. What?

You know, you read it like a story and you follow this woman, Emily, and at the same time, every single person interviewed in our book is a real person. And what we did is at the end of each chapter, we put a QR code. And so you can put your phone right over to it, and it takes you right to their LinkedIn page. And so everyone that you're gaining wisdom from personal stories, you know, career stories, whatever it is, you can actually, like, tangibly touch the person, reach out to them and connect with them. And it, it was really fascinating to dig into the science of and the health and wellness and because we all define success differently. Sometimes it is business, sometimes it's, you know, more structured career wise. Other times it's a longer marriage, a happier marriage, a happier life, better sleep, longer life, all these things are success. And so for us, it was really exploring how do we give to attract success? The kind that we're looking for.

Yeah. Wow. You know, it talks about the power of generosity and I, you know, it reinforces that with these, with the stories in the book. But can you share a personal story or experience that reinforced your belief in the impact of giving?

Well, we'll talk about, and I'm sure it's top of mind because you had mentioned the Super Bowl, For me, career-wise, we all have those moments where I've done so much, and then other times we're like, I have no idea what I'm doing. But for me, years ago, I met Lee Steinberg, who you mentioned, it's his annual Super Bowl party. And when we met, I didn't know who Lee was. If one of your listeners doesn't know, Google. But, you know, he was just this nice guy I ended up talking to. We were at the United Nations on World Brain Day, and some mutual people said, you two should really talk. I thought he was kind. I thought he was funny. Of all silly things, we came to find we had the same birthday. And so we said, okay, well, we're friends. It was that simple, right? You're friends. People who share your birthday. But then I got to know him because again, advice from someone in our mutual network. And he had talked about in the 80s, he wrote a mission statement. So he's affectionately kind of known as the original basis of the movie Jerry Maguire. And in the movie, I don't remember what the manifesto was written about, but in real life, he wrote it on concussions. and he had this crisis of conscience and said, I have guys who have won a Super Bowl and don't remember being in the city. And there's something here that as clients, colleagues, friends, family, like we have to honestly talk about. And from what I gathered in the 80s, that didn't go over very well. That version of the NFL. And so when we met, we said, I'd like to do a continuation of these summits I created, of these gatherings I created. And I said, oh, let me know how I can help. And I meant it, but it was one of those sort of like, oh, let me know. I didn't expect anything that followed, which is Lee doing what I consider to be both personally and professionally some of the most generous acts of my life. and he said, well, given your background and knowledge, why don't I give you a space at my annual Super Bowl party, arguably the longest running day party of the Super Bowl, 38 years now? And he tasked me to do good. That's it. Do good. That opportunity has changed my life. and what someone gave me was a platform. So I don't want to undersell that, but they tasked me with doing good and then said, here's a space in which you can do that. To this day, I I. I mean, I'm hard-pressed to think of many acts of just being generous with someone's time, space, resources. that has changed not only my life, but many, many, many others. I mean, every year in the host city of the Super Bowl, we bring together advocates, scientists, researchers, those dealing with whatever issue it is that we're unintentionally tackling that year. The number of public-private partnerships research studies, even startup companies, clinical trials that have come to fruition because of using a medium like that to talk about healthcare is incredible. And he did it because he thought it was the right thing to do. And for whatever reason, he thought I was the right person to sort of manifest it, I guess. what a leap of faith on his part. I, to this day, like it leaves me pretty speechless. It's to take a brand, a name like that and go, well, let me just give you a piece of it to do good.

Yeah. Well, you know, Nicole, I'm informal with you because we've known each other a lot of years, but so I call you Nicole. But I'll honor you with the Dr. Roberts title many times today because it's well warranted and I gotta say that there's one of my favorite recent business books of the last few years is a book called who Not How. And I absolutely love the concept of who Not How because essentially what Lee did by offering you that space was to allow you to execute an area of your expertise that he knew he could change the world with. And so he made a great decision because he brought somebody in that was capable of carrying that torch. And that's the book who Not How is all about tasking people and giving them the power and the autonomy to do that. And so it reminds me of what you were just saying about how Lee offered you that platform and how you executed that and took it to the next level.

Yeah. And I like, so I didn't, in my ear, I didn't hear it quite so it's who, not how.

Who, not how.

I get it.

And the who is you. Oh. And the how is what the outcome But that was intended.

Well, that's very kind, but that is brilliant. Yeah, now I wanna get that book.

It's a great book. What are some common misconceptions about generosity that you aim to challenge with that book?

I think Monty and I were both very surprised, disappointingly so, I think in the early days, that in the United States in particular, when you Google, generosity. It is almost always associated with a monetary donation. It's often philanthropy. But when you see it in a magazine, you even hear it in a podcast, people say like, oh they were generous enough to give to this thing. And I think for us, one of the biggest misconceptions is that it's not about money. Yes, one can be very generous with their treasure. And in that vein, you can give to things and your donor dollar, whether it's one or many, can change the world. We know that, right? We can feed people who need nourishment. We can house people who need shelter. We can provide clean water to those who have very basic human rights. So I don't want to diminish a donor dollar, but what we found and touched me. I think the deepest is time and talent. You and I will never get this moment back. Something could happen to either one of us as soon as we hang up or, you know, whatever. We'll never get time back. So when one gives of their time, you're truly giving away something that cannot be replaced. You can earn another dollar, but this. time we spend together, the conversations we have, particularly the face-to-face ones, whether it's via this medium or in person, they really change our human dynamic. We are a species that needs to interact. And secondarily, our talents, mentorship is the one that really struck me that giving of oneself, it could be half an hour, it can change the trajectory of someone's life, a piece of information, an experience you share, those things that we often really undervalue carry so much weight with other people. And we should never take advantage of that.

That is so powerful.

We should never take those for granted. And so I think, you know, for me, step one of dispelling what is being generous, Again, it gets back to you give with no expectation of return. I want to give advice to someone over coffee because I know where they are in their career and I've been there. Or you need a, it sounds silly in a way, but a smile at the right time, you can change someone's day. You don't know what they're going through, but you remind them that they're seen. They're seen and it's okay. Absolutely. And so I think that to me is the biggest misconception I'd love to change is what is generosity? I think the other is that it's always towards other people. We often think it's about giving and by giving you have to give to someone else. In our book, we challenge people to do a 5050 split. Each day to do something where you give to someone else. Again, it could be as simple as a smile. But the other is to do something generous for yourself. We all hear the saying like, you can't give from an empty well or lots of people point to the plane kind of cliche. They always say put your own mask on before you try to help those around you, right? Because if you can't breathe, you're really not going to be that useful to the people around you in a matter of moments. But I think it's true. I have seen it in practice that people, and we interview people in the book who have reached points where they had nothing left to give. It's about how do you find that place within you? How do you find that spirit? And it's often about you have to take a step back and you have to start not only thinking about ways that you can meaningfully contribute, but you have to do it in the space that you're able to give.

From?

And how do you be generous with yourself? It's so important.

Wow. I always love these conversations, but I'm glad that my audience gets to hear that as well. You know, dovetailing right into the Brain Health Summit. I mean, this just leads us right into the next topic. To bring the context into this discussion, you know, I have attended the Brain Health Summit almost every year since its inception. I have been a witness to the incredibly positive impact the Brain Health Summit has achieved. I must say that this year was amazing and that it seems to get better every year. And candidly, I mean, sometimes you're fighting with the party atmosphere, but candidly, this was by far the most impactful and the most meaningful that I've experienced. And I've been going to these Super Bowl parties since before the Brain Health Summit existed. So I res, What you said to me resonates because I know that he's always kind of had that, you know, intention. But I would love to really hear about how you first got involved. You talked about meeting Lee, but how to give me a little bit more granular detail on how the Brain Health Summit came to be.

Well, I think there's equal parts. I love the word you just said, which is intention. And if I'm being truly honest, a little bit of make 'em ups. because I certainly was a doctor of public health. I don't think I had any, it was said, create something in a Super Bowl party. Like, I think it just kind of went right over my head, like, okay, sure, I've never even been to one. What? What do I do? So I think, you know, honestly, I went for some runs. I had some big ideas. Lee gave me some guardrails and parameters. I knew it's like for example, I had one hour the first few years. It was like, well, the party really kicks off at one, red carpet opens at one, but the space will be available from 12 to one. So 12 to one, invite a smaller group of very dedicated people around whatever it is you want to do. And that's your time. So I have some, okay, I have one hour. I have to convince people who in some instances were out very, very late on Friday night to get dressed, be present at noon, you know, in the host city. So you've got traffic issues, you've got road pleasures, you've got other competing parties. I mean, a lot of the big parties kick off around, you know, 1 o'clock as well. And so I think those first couple of years, my approach was to follow A, Lee's intention, which was concussion. And of course, we've moved far beyond that word. But I think it was also that I had this very, I don't want to call it spiteful, but it kind of was like placed in me from a public health perspective of, like, for whatever reason, we cannot get people to have an honest conversation about what's happening here. And. Right. And I know there are certain team owners, general managers, League Executives that would disagree with me, but I just felt like we were not having an honest conversation. And I felt like the general public, the cognitive dissonance of knowing something's happening, but enjoying the hard hits. and the chat, like it just, they didn't want to hear it. They didn't want to look at it, see it, talk about it. And so those first years, I think it really came from a place of advocacy of like, if there was a rooftop and the one in San Francisco 10 years ago now, because we'll be in San Francisco next year, you know, we were literally on a rooftop. And for me it was like, I'm literally standing on a rooftop shouting like, these are humans. We have to be thoughtful. We have to be intentional. We have to have the hard conversations because as Americans, we love American football. It's not going to stop. So how do we make it better, safer, or how do we prolong lives? And then over the years, E.T.I. was a learning experience. And so I think the one thing I did really well, and I don't know, it was part intention, part not. was I said to Lee, we cannot call it concussion because that is going to be an ever-changing word. And when you look at Healthcare specifically, like a different code and insurance, everything gets, you know, the lowest common denominator becomes an insurance code. And I called it was the brain Health Summit. And I just said, at least this way, we don't pin ourselves in and what it ended up doing was being the best thing that I or we could have done because it means every year we can talk about what's going on in the world right then. We can talk about what's happening in our host city. We can be so flexible and fluid with the themes. It's not just concussion, concussion, not at all. So for example, in Texas, you know, we, I filled the panel with Department of Defense, military. We had this incredible physician who was a military doctor and he had been assigned to the 49ers for two years because guys who are special forces and special teams were so similar in their cognitive sort of behavior thinking. Put them in an MRI machine and they look so similar. In Minneapolis, it was inherently purple. So I made it all women. We talked about women not only in sport, professional soccer players, etc. but women who are, for example, I had Dave Duerson's wife on the panel to talk about from a woman's, a mother's and a wife's perspective, how does sport impact, you know, what happens in your family dynamics when you lost someone to suicide? And then the most recent New Orleans, and I saw you a couple weeks ago, we made the entire theme of the entire day music and the mind, and it was our way of exploring exploring alternative therapies, the power of music. We touched everything from music to ketamines to testosterone. It really is a space to just explore the possibilities and then bring together the best scientists in the world in those areas to meet the athletes, to talk to the local community. So this year, obviously in New Orleans, Tulane. Chulan was our greatest partner. They were amazing in California, you know, LA, you see Irvine. Like it's so fun to get to really use each anchor city and their universities, their researchers, their advocates. Those are the people now who drive the Brain Summit every year. So Lee and I sort of Yeah, we're intentional, but we just kind of flow along with what each new city tells us are the most pressing issues and things to talk about.

Yeah, it particularly resonated with me this year. The music side is obviously very close to my heart being a musician since I was in third grade. So it really hit me at a very granular and deep, you know, meaningful level. So again, really enjoyed it. How can everyday people take proactive steps to improve their brain health. This is your area of expertise and people can learn from you on how they can take steps to improve their lives.

Well, there's a few ways to approach that. I would say there's the very tangible side of things. The one I advocate for the most that people overlook, I think the most, is sleep. What happens inside of us when we sleep is remarkable. Our brains, our bodies, They heal, they grow, they do all kinds of things. Improved sleep leads to improved performance in every aspect of your life. Obviously, we are starting to see lots of not only degeneration, but even cancers that are coming in. We can see where they're happening in our body and they're coming from processed foods, our gut microbiome, And it's easier said than done. Like, don't eat so many processed foods. But the truth of the matter is, like we're really, like I said, particularly when it comes to different kinds of cancer, we're really starting to see that the more sugar and the more processing there is in our food equation, the higher and younger, much younger diagnoses are happening. We've seen that over a decade plus now. Beyond that, some of the things that are a little, I don't want to call them cheesier, but our book. Daily acts of kindness go a long way. The Harvard Health Study, which is in its 90-some year at this point, and almost 100 years of research, has found people who are more generous, who are more kind, they really do live longer. healthier in their older age. Their marriages last longer. I mean, they have better careers. They tend to have higher income. And, and those are, you know, not saying people who started at different places, people who start, you know, in the same, in the same place, in the same boat. And so I think there's enough self-help folks out there, all the ways to whatever. But at the end of the day, you know, we find that fresh air, physical activity, good sleep, and honestly being kind are some of the absolute best things you can do. Just like people get a runner's high, that same cascade of events of neurotransmitters, hormones, dopamine, serotonin, all those things when we give of ourselves, when we do something good, it starts in our brain. We see vast brain improvement. It's going to cascade effect of lower blood pressure, better sleep, all those other things I mentioned. Sometimes it's honestly like it's not that hard.

Yeah, it's a nice starting place for anybody to just say, Look, it's not that hard. It's very simple. Here's some simple steps you can take to improve your life.

And I guarantee if you do it daily, smallest act of kindness. And again, it could be one towards yourself. It could be going to bed 15 minutes earlier. sleeping 20 minutes later, something like that. Add it up. The first couple days, no, the first couple weeks, it takes two plus weeks for your brain to really start to, you know, turn something into a pattern or a habit. But I guarantee if we do like a 30-day journal, writing down those little changes, you're gonna see and feel them at the end of that first month, and it only gets better from there.

I mean, I do. I Feel it daily. I know whether I've, I mean, I use trackers, I use all the technologies. I mean, yeah, you know. So, I mean, I don't have to have those trackers on to know how I feel though. And it definitely makes a difference.

But sometimes it really helps to see it. I mean, it does, right? Like we, it does. Earlier I had said, you know, part of the challenge when Monty first had this idea for a book was he said, well, I don't know how to measure karma. I don't know how to measure ROI on being nice, but sometimes what it really takes is for us to see, oh, the number went up by this many, or the scale went down by that many. The blood pressure changed by... Sometimes, you know, objective measures really give us the validation we need.

Yeah, for sure. All right, I'm going to shift gears. And this is a cheat, because with next year's Super Bowl being hosted in my city, in San Francisco, I would love to hear about the plan for next year's Brain Health Summit and how potential sponsors and supporters can get involved.

Okay, well first, I appreciate that. You're almost a year in advance, so it's a mix.

That's what I do.

I'm a planner. I can actually tell you what our theme is. And yet I will put the caveat in there that it is such a vague concept. I can speak the words. I cannot tangibly tell you exactly what it looks like. But that is where external people come into play, 'cause it's like a chicken egg. So next year's theme is going to be the environment. Now, from a Steinberg party perspective, I assume we have the greatest production team on Earth called Zoe Productions. I assume that's going to look like a very cool nature oriented venue and space and vibe and, you know, from a brain health perspective, I think it's gonna take some really weird turns because when, and I'm wearing my doctor public health hat here, when we talk about environmental contributions to our cognitive health and our mental health. I mean, that could be a hundred things, right? Like, I mean, that could easily be literal environmental, like the surroundings around you. I could see it looking like even the world we're headed with AI and virtual reality of like resetting, right? Like, you could be in a city full of noise and you could put on something and next thing you know, you're in a waterfall on an island. so there's that literal, literal interpretation environment. I can also see all kinds of, like, very creative takes on our mental wellness, like environmental cues. And this is what, like, even some of the alternative therapies we talked about this year, about changing your mental state, I can. Yeah, I can see a lot of elite performance things tiptoeing into environment. So I don't know. This is the fun part.

Usually about- yeah, I mean it takes shape over the years. So I'm not asking for specificity.

It does, yes, environment. That's like, yes, the big word is environment.

But it's nice to know about the general theme.

Yeah, we're open to all ideas. And if anyone has cool research- I.

Always enjoy seeing how it evolves.

Well, I start putting a folder on my desktop.

Yeah, for sure.

And so people have very cool research, data points, startup companies, send them. I mean, I just, I start collecting ideas and then the closer we get, we start building out in an ideal world of a panel and or whatever sponsors, vendor, like you can create an experience for people that includes like 20 of these. What do you pun intend? Like what do you bring to the table? Yeah.

So there you go. Anybody who wants to get involved can reach out to you and provide their input on what they think would be an amazing subject matter to cover. And if you have enough data to back it up, then let's run with it.

Run with it. And I welcome that athlete perspective as well because that one is always sort of, I put it towards the end. because it's the Super Bowl. So there's always athletes who are right there, but they always throw, I think, the biggest curveballs because they've got these lived experiences where when you ask them, like, what does this mean to you? The things they end up saying or the examples they give leave you going, holy crap, I had never thought of that because I'm not a professional athlete, right? Like, I don't work mentally and physically from that place of an elite performer the way they do. So those are always also very fun. So yeah, athletes as well. What is environment mean in terms of your mental and cognitive health and well-being?

That's going to be great. I cannot wait. Well, listen, we've come to the end, unfortunately, and I just really want to thank my good friend, Dr. Nicole Roberts for being on the show. You are truly inspiring. Between your book and your advocacy for brain health, you're making an amazing impact. What's next for you? Are there any upcoming projects or initiatives that you haven't mentioned that we should look out for?

I don't think so. I'm on a personal journey to figure out what's next. I feel like I've sort of closed out a few big things in the last couple of years. I read a book and I had a child. And so I'm very excited about what's next, but I don't know what it is. Alan, what is it?

Tiny little detail there.

What's next?

I'll let you know when I figure it out.

Tell me, Nicole.

So let me, listen, I'm going to ask you one final question though, because we like, on this show, we like to ask, what legacy do you hope to leave behind?

I just probably said it, which is I had a child. I had our first child. son and oh, and then I get choked up. It's a whole different perspective. I've had a long career. I had my child very late in life. When I think about legacy now, it's very different. I hope to leave, I mean, a reputation and a legacy for myself that is one of giving and one of care and thoughtfulness. But now I see him and I also think like it is, I hope to instill those qualities in him to have a very good person to go out into the world and take anything and everything I ever thought of and just like exponentially do it better.

Yeah, well, you said a mouthful there. That's wonderful. And you know, I have a six-year-old grandson now, so It's a whole nother cycle I'm going through, so I'm loving it.

Yeah. Yeah, I hear that's the best day on earth.

It is. It's fantastic. Trust me, you'll get there. Absolutely. So, Nicole, thank you so much for being here, sharing your wisdom and passion today. Listeners, be sure to check out Generosity Wins. It's a great book. You should definitely either read it or listen to it because it's available on all platforms, including Audible and It's really fantastic. And then stay tuned on the latest on the Brain Health Summit. If you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to subscribe, share, and leave a review.

Five stars.

If you want to learn more- Five stars. Five stars, absolute 10 stars. If you want to learn more about how I help people learn about building a legacy through passive income, visit legacyallstarspodcast.com and follow the instructions to schedule a meeting with me. Before we end the show, I want to encourage everyone viewing or listening to challenge yourself to find a path to making a difference. You'll feel better, you'll have a better life, you'll enjoy things like we just talked about on this show. And until next time, I'm Alan Pavlowski signing off for Legacy All-Stars.