Ancient Practices That Work In A Modern World w/ Michelle Bang

Are You Trading Your Health for Your Hustle? I thought I had to grind nonstop to win, but what if taking care of yourself is actually the key to achieving more? In this conversation with Michelle Bang, we unpack why “self-care” isn’t just a buzzword—it’s a non-negotiable if you want to live well while you climb. Michelle’s journey from landing in the emergency room at the height of her success to rediscovering ancient Korean wellness practices is a wake-up call for anyone who thinks they’ll get around to health “later.” Michelle breaks down why something as simple as walking after dinner can transform your energy, why fermented foods like kimchi are more than trendy side dishes, and why traditional Korean bathhouses have been quietly reducing heart attacks for generations. We talk about healthspan—not just how long you live, but how well you live—and how embracing practices like daily movement, mindful nourishment, and building community can give you back the edge you need without burning out your body. She shares how she went from ignoring her gut health and running on fumes to reclaiming her vitality by reconnecting with the wisdom she grew up with in Korea and Hong Kong. It’s a reminder that no level of achievement is worth trading your health for, and taking small, consistent steps now will let you actually enjoy the life you’re building. I challenge you today: Audit your well-being while you’re chasing your dreams. Could taking better care of yourself actually help you climb higher? You are the one person you’re going to spend your entire life with—take care of you. Key Takeaways: Why self-care is essential, not optional, for high achievers. How daily walks can improve digestion, reduce glucose spikes, and enhance creativity. The gut-brain connection and why fermented foods matter. The impact of “healthspan” versus just living longer. How traditional Korean practices like “jjimjilbang” and the cultural value of “Jeong” can be applied to your life now. If this hits you where you’re at right now, share this episode with someone who needs the reminder, and let’s start taking care of the one person who’s with us for life: ourselves. 👉 SUBSCRIBE TO ED'S YOUTUBE CHANNEL NOW 👈 → → → CONNECT WITH ED MYLETT ON SOCIAL MEDIA: ← ← ← ➡️ INSTAGRAM ➡️FACEBOOK ➡️ LINKEDIN ➡️ X ➡️ WEBSITE Get my exclusive Monday Motivation training in GrowthDay, the world’s #1 app for advanced mindset and personal development. Visit https://growthday.com/ed. This show is sponsored by GrowthDay. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Ed Mylett?

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• 1:30Ed Mylett?

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• 2:08Ed Mylett?

  This is the Ed Meyer Show.

• 2:12Ed Mylett?

  All right, welcome back to the show, everybody. So we were just talking about intelligence off camera. I'll just start it out. Let me just set the field for you. My guest is much smarter than me.

• 2:23Ed Mylett?

  She's a Harvard Business School graduate. She's an award-winning entrepreneur. And she's got a great book out. I was just asking her, make sure I pronounce this correctly, called Sun and Sugat. And I think I'm getting it closer, is pronouncing that right. But you're going to learn a lot today. So am I. Here's what's cool about today's show, you guys. I promise you, you're going to learn things today you have never heard in your life before. Because her perspective is very unique, particularly in the podcast space. And you're going to hear about how her Korean-American heritage sort of

• 2:56Ed Mylett?

  changed her viewpoint of life, gave her a perspective that most of us don't have. And we're going to talk a lot today about the Korean art of self-care, wellness and longevity. So this won't be the same stuff you hear all the time about self-care and living a longer time. Different perspective. So Michelle Bang, welcome to the show. Good to have you.

• 3:15Speaker 01

  Thank you. I'm so honored to be here.

• 3:17Ed Mylett?

  So I'm so glad you're here today. And the first question I want to ask you is about walking. Because you recommend it in the book as like one of the primary recommendations. And the reason I want to recommend it is, you know, the internet's a very interesting place. I had Dr. Gabrielle Lyon on my show and we were doing a podcast. Her book was about building muscle, muscle building. And there's this offhanded exchange we have where I go, when did walking become exercise? And we kind of go back and forth. We were talking about building muscle, but like everything in the internet. So it ends up being this viral clip, he doesn't take walking's exercise, which is absolutely insane. I think it may be the overall most beneficial form of walk, of exercise.

• 3:59Ed Mylett?

  So for example, and I want to ask you about this, like for me, I have a really bad L3, L4. I can no longer run. Walking's been a savior for me. My father had eight years of cancer. He walked daily as his primary form of exercise. You're going to get the right Optimum heart rate, burn fat as opposed to sugar because your heart rate's not getting too high, flexibility, circulation, all of these benefits come. I've recommended walking as exercise on probably 10 different podcasts of mine over time. But you say there's ancient wisdom also in this concept of walking as exercise. So I want to start there today because it's a fundamental. There's a lot of gym rats listen to the show. They lift, they pump iron,

• 4:42Ed Mylett?

  they do, you know, sprints and interval training in the gym, but they don't really take walks. And they're missing out on something that probably would extend their life more than any of those other things. Why is that such an ancient practice? And why does it matter?

• 4:57Speaker 01

  It is the most common pattern that I actually found across all of the centenarians, all the people that are long with operations. The Buddhist monks actually do it very naturally, you know, in the mountains that they live in. They are naturally going outside with the walking. They're getting close to dirt. They're being exposed to microbial diversity. You know, it does a lot of different things. And especially now, I've actually transferred, you know, the way I used to, I used to go to the gym all the time, really working out. And, you know, one of the biggest things I would say is walking is so easy that is sustainable. You can do it every day. You can do it for a long time. And it's just very natural. And it's, you know, something as simple

• 5:42Speaker 01

  as, you know, getting off of your subway stop and, you know, making sure that you're stepping outside. And you start forming a lot of, you know, health benefits if you do it after a meal as well. So I've now, you know, I take an evening stroll after dinner and, you know, it helps with maintaining weight control. You know, it decreases my glucose spikes. I am digesting food, which is so important. It's actually, you know, when you study what the Buddhist monks are doing, it's all about digestion.

• 6:15Ed Mylett?

  There's this great lady on the internet and every night she's after she eats, she takes, she literally calls it this, she's precious. She takes fart walks with her husband. They literally eat dinner and it's the funniest clip you've ever seen, but she's dead serious about it. And she, they both look great. She calls them fart walks after dinner. The other thing about walking, which I've never said that term in my life on a podcast before, but the other thing about walking for me is it's almost become a form of meditation for me, even though I'm moving. I don't know if you've experienced that. Some of my best ideas, my most peaceful moments, my body is almost saying when I walk, thank you for this, which is why it broke my heart so much that people would think that I don't think walk, I don't

• 6:58Ed Mylett?

  think walking builds a bunch of muscles, but I do think it's maybe the best form of exercise overall that you could experience. Do you ever experience that too? When you're walking, almost a sense of peace in your body, like your body saying, could we do this more, please?

• 7:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. And it's a way for me to actually slow down and spur creativity. I get my best ideas walking.

• 7:20Ed Mylett?

  So do I. So do I. Most of my original podcast ideas that I do on Thursdays are these solos episodes come from my walks. That's usually where I get them from. It's almost like my time with God alone. I get to see his creation all over the place and it slows me down as well. So I'm completely with you. So there's so many things I want to ask you because I didn't grow up like you did. You say in the book, and this is, it should be fundamental to everybody, but like if you actually want to live longer and achieve more, you better start taking care of yourself. That's like a foreign concept to people that live in the United States, even though the show's heard around the world. We like think we'll get around to doing that stuff someday. So let's just start with the basic kind of overall premise of your work in this book. I'll let you go from there.

• 8:04Speaker 01

  It sounds so simple and that's why it's actually so radical. Because in the modern world, we go straight to the pill. We forget to take care of ourselves. I mean, I certainly went through that, you know, when I felt ill. So I'm just gonna go back, you know, to my background. As you say, I'm a Korean American. And although I'm a social impact entrepreneur, I ended up training in functional foods and on holistic beginning of care through this journey. And I grew up in a world of East-West medicine. I was born and raised in Brooklyn. I ended up living two decades in Hong Kong. And this is kind of where my story started. You know, my father is a US-based doctor who trained at the top medical school in Korea.

• 8:49Speaker 01

  You know, with something like a 0.8% acceptance rate. And I grew up in this world where, you know, he exposed me very early on to the practical and holistic applications of medicine, which is so ingrained in our culture. Um, you know, for example, using whole foods on holistic measures to recover from surgery, from colds, pregnancies, from injuries. I mean, think about, you know, when you come out from surgery in an American hospital, you are, you know, you're fed often jello, but that's certain in that the case in Korea, you are fed something that's very nourishing. It's helping the body to heal. You know, it's the idea that goes back to ancient times.

• 9:28Speaker 01

  Um, where we are using food as the spectrum of care. So these are, you know, concepts that are very embedded in our Korean culture. And then later I married into a traditional Chinese family that embodied these nourishing traditions passed on generationally. So over the last two decades, my family and I have been splitting our time between Hong Kong and cities as expatriates. I live very much in this east-west, you know, between both, I would say.

• 9:56Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 9:57Speaker 01

  And so it very much lends, you know, my perspective of writing the book and, you know, what I experienced.

• 10:02Ed Mylett?

  That perspective is, you know, obviously pretty unique. I've never heard a podcast of somebody that has your background and your perspective, especially the combination of the three cultures, frankly, that you sort of experienced. The book is cool, guys. So this is kind of the premise of the book. Soil, sun, water, care. There's like this book's broken down into these different parts, right? And it was really interesting for me to learn that there's stuff from like many, many, many years ago, centuries ago, that the modern world hasn't even caught up with yet, that are holistic things that you can be doing for your well-being, your gut especially, from when I'm reading your work here. So let's just start like way back when and we'll catch up to now. We're going to spin all around this thing today.

• 10:45Ed Mylett?

  What's something that the ancient people did that the modern world still hasn't caught up to that we should be doing in terms of our wellness?

• 10:55Speaker 01

  So the ancient kings used to be very well cared for in terms of their longevity. The people were very concerned about him and his family living for a very long time reigning over the kingdom. And what they did was really smart, you know, they would place their kingdoms in areas that were, you know, filled with wild plants, you know, right next to seas and oceans where they can get really wholesome ingredients. But what they did was so smart, they actually used their royal physicians and they worked in tandem with the cooks. So, you know, these are sort of like very simple concepts that we're still not using today. They're taking a look at what the king is eating, how they're feeling, you know,

• 11:38Speaker 01

  and then they're recording what is happening in the kitchen and feeding him something that's going to help him feel better, recover from something that he's, you know, going through and to, you know, help him to live longer. And so this was just like a beautiful partnership that they were forming to make sure that the king was alive for a really long time. And, you know, it just, when you go back to the dossiers or royal dossiers, one of the most important jobs is actually keeping and tending to the fermented condiments. Um, which was meant, um, and we're only now tapping into the importance of fermented goods. You know, how that is so healthy for a microbiome, which is, you know, really the seed of our immunity.

• 12:20Speaker 01

  And we've just, you know, are starting to uncover that, you know, there's microbiome everywhere, including our brain, which has, you know, impact on our research for Alzheimer's. So, um, they were doing that a long time ago. And we're just now uncovering.

• 12:36Ed Mylett?

  Well, what's crazy about that too is the, the gut-brain connection is something, I'd be honest with you, just even this year, and I've had a show for a decade, that I'm starting to understand how the gut affects the brain. And that a lot of these diseases are not caused in the brain, they're caused in the gut. And, and somehow the ancient world, the world that your ancestors are from, understood this stuff or somehow stumbled into it. I don't know which one it was. But actually, the statistics tell us that they suffer from these ailments at percentages that are way less than people that live here suffer from them. So let me ask you this, and it's a naive question in the beginning, but I think a lot of people won't know the answer to this. What is kimchi? And why is this something that's like more than just food to you?

• 13:21Ed Mylett?

  I just want them to know this because it's something I pulled from the book.

• 13:24Speaker 01

  It is really part of our cultural identity. I think, you know, it's a way for them to get through the harshest majo's because there was no. Cabbage is a really humble um produce, which actually has, you know, it's very easy to get. It's not, it's very budget spending and there's hundreds of varieties in Korea. But what they managed to understand is that when you ferment it, when you start preserving it at the produce with salt, water and thyme. It becomes this thing where it's filled with probiotics, filled with really great bacteria. And it doesn't require cooking. Um, so there's a lot of, you know, culture and tradition around making kimchi. Um, and if you think about, you know, this idea of

• 14:09Speaker 01

  they are in this healthcare system, which is like beautifully marrying two schools of medicine, you know, this idea of preserving the old ways, you know, which is, you know, I, if you want to encapsulate it in self-care. You know, what you can do at home, like home cooking and taking care of yourself. But also, you know, if you wanted to use advanced medicine. If you were to sort of think about it in a more tangible way using kimchi. You know, let's say you had to take in antibiotics and, you know, it is very much part of their culture to eat kimchi. They're refilling the probiotics. That's right away by the antibiotics. And so um, it's just this beautiful marriage of, you know, what is so normal and natural for them to do. So kimchi is very much, it's

• 14:51Speaker 01

  this little, you know, side condiment that is in every single meal. Um, and it was actually fermented cabbage, you know, basically sauerkraut before uh the spice. True.

• 15:02Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, I didn't know that till the book. That's why I asked you, what the heck is it, right? Because I mean, obviously we know off the rack what it is, but actually its origins pretty unique, you guys. This episode is sponsored by Ro. A lot of people assume GLP-1's cost a fortune, and that assumption keeps them from even looking into treatment. Ro helps people find a more affordable path to FDA-approved GLP-1 treatment. Ro wants to help people lose weight. That's why they have more affordable GLP-1 options, whether you're paying with insurance or cash. Ro's free insurance checker makes it easy to see if you're covered for GLP-1 injections. Just submit your insurance card and Ro handles the rest. No paperwork, no waiting on hold, no confusing phone calls. And if insurance doesn't cover treatment, there are still options.

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• 17:15Ed Mylett?

  What did these Buddhist nuns know?

• 17:19Ed Mylett?

  That about the the microbiome and its health that right now, science is proving. What did they know about that stuff? Because I think the vast majority of people listen to my show, they work out, they drink water. They are trying to eat a little bit better. They got like the basics of this stuff, or they've got some biohacker hack that's modern. But the real stuff, the people that are really living a long time, and by the way, everybody, not just living a long time, but living well a long time. Know some of these secret practices. What did what do those Buddhist nuns know?

• 17:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, what you're talking about is health span. It's not necessarily how long.

• 17:56Ed Mylett?

  Health span, okay.

• 17:58Speaker 01

  Not living to 200 years old. It's how well you're living, you know, for the time that you have. Um, what they're doing is they're focused onto a running base living. You know, it was so interesting when I was starting to go through this research because I grown up, you know, really afraid of germs, actually. Well, just sort of veering away from germs. But what they're doing is a focus, it's sort of a refocus on building the soil and strengthening the terrain of their bodies by eating, thanks by going outside. So it all goes back to the microbiome, you know, even something as simple as, you know, exposing yourself outdoors, which is what they do. You know, they're around produce, they're outside, you know, foraging. And, you know, if you think about, you know, what the average person does, you know,

• 18:42Speaker 01

  we're spending in the modern world, much of our time indoors. You know, it's revolve in front of the computer, driving, screen time. You know, we're spending actually 93% of our time indoors, which means we're exposed to very little micro microbial diversity, just even being exposed to dirt. You know, so this is what the Buddhist nuts are naturally doing. It's a very naturalistic way of approach to uh, living life, which we forgot.

• 19:10Ed Mylett?

  What do you mean exposed to dirt? What do you mean by that?

• 19:13Speaker 01

  Being outside, being close to dirt. I mean, we're, we're living in the city. We're not getting close to nature.

• 19:20Ed Mylett?

  So like, so what do you do? You're in New York, right? So all that stuff about living around the green stuff and the plants, right now, at least, I assume when you walk out your door, that's not the first thing you see. Maybe I'm wrong. So what do you do?

• 19:33Speaker 01

  I think in every city, there's trees. You can get close to trees. It's very simple.

• 19:38Ed Mylett?

  Do you do it daily? Do you mean, do you take a walk into Central Park or wherever in New York on a regular basis?

• 19:43Speaker 01

  I used to be a gymnast. I mean, it completely transformed, you know, the way I work out and I feel so much better. I feel better than my twining is, I would even say, even my skin health. Um, so what I've done is I sweat every day and I make sure that I walk every day. Um, so there is a certain number of steps where I start to feel a burn. I start to feel an increase in energy and it's completely transformed, you know, my health regime, my health regime. I, I don't necessarily work. I use weights, but I'm not going and I'm, yeah, it's, it's quite gentle, I would say.

• 20:19Ed Mylett?

  Here's a biggie for me. So remember the book is Soil, Sun, Water Care. Something about water for me has a calming presence. That's why I, when I ever made any money, I'm like, if I could live near water, I just feel differently. When I didn't have money, I lived in an apartment. I always had like a little fountain in all my apartments with running water, hydration, et cetera. What the heck is, I'm gonna mess pronounce it and you know I am, Jimjilbang. These, these are the, these are traditional bath houses. Is that, pronounce it correctly. So I don't look like a fool. I'm willing to look like a fool. Okay, bong. And then, and then overall, just water, that whole part of the book, just take that and go for a little bit.

• 20:59Speaker 01

  Jimjilbang is the Korean word for traditional bath house and it really is a culture in Korea.

• 21:07Speaker 01

  In Korean society, I mean, they are very budget friendly saunas. It's a complex of saunas. Um, so for just a few dollars a day, you can go and it's gender neutral and you're and age neutral. I mean, children are going with their grandparents and they're just stripping off their clothes or getting down into these backhouses, you know, going into saunas. And it's sort of like this really fun experimentation with hot and cold.

• 21:34Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 21:35Speaker 01

  Which now has so much benefit to, you know, our health, but also the skin. So they're starting to learn all these health tools from very young age all the way through, you know, their life and they're bringing it back home. Um, so even if you don't live in a, you know, a Jim Jeong Bang, you can bring it back home into your bath, which is what I do now when I live in New York City, but the Jim Jeong Bang is very, you know, deeply involved in Korean culture. Um, there are steam rooms, there are saunas, you're getting a massage, you know, massages are very normalized in Korean culture on a regular basis, which is so important for lymphatic drainage. Um, you get the best and roughest exfoliation of your skin. You come out, you know, with baby soft skin.

• 22:19Speaker 01

  Um, and uh, yeah, you're just spending time to kind of de-stress. You know, I think stress is not necessarily a bad thing. It can actually, you know, push you to reach your goal, but you know, chronic stress is actually a problem that leads to inflammation and disease, you know, which is sort of, you know, the, one of the hard lessons that I learned, you know, along the way. And the Jim Jeong Bang is part of that self-care toolbox where, you know, they're regularly going, you know, i- if not every day into this Jim Jeong Bang. So that's something that is very normalizing their culture.

• 22:50Ed Mylett?

  Check this out. So preparing for this, I couldn't pronounce it. It's Jin Jeong Bang. So I got that now. Although Bang is easy to remember if you say it my way. But I gotta tell you something. I did some research and here's a staggering thing. For people that visit a bath house once a week over the age of thirty, they have a seventy-seven percent less likelihood of ever having a heart attack in their lifetime. That's a staggering stat. So I'm like, wow, what's that correlated to? There's another study that just came out that said if you sauna four times a week, you have a 50% less likelihood of having a heart attack. So it's not just some genetic thing. Culturally, this hot, cold concept, especially the steam, hot, cold, has huge longevity benefits. And again,

• 23:35Ed Mylett?

  you called it, you didn't call it longevity, you called it, what did you call it? It's, it's something longevity, we're about, it's the quality of how long you live and how well you live. What did you call that?

• 23:45Speaker 01

  Health span.

• 23:46Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, health span. It's just, it's an absolute fact. So let me ask you a question here on this. There's people listening to this are like, yep, this is cute. I got it. Some of the old stuff's connected to some of the new stuff and I should be really self caring here, but I'm in the grind right now. And yeah, I'm gonna get around to it. You know, there will be a point, you know, three years from now, five years now, once I have this much money, once I get this job title, once I do this. And what would you say to somebody who's in this like crazy high achiever? When I say crazy, I don't mean it's crazy to do it. I mean, just crazy pace, high achiever culture. They're listening right now and they're ignoring every warning sign in their life that they should be taking some care of themselves. What would you say to them based on your own experience?

• 24:32Speaker 01

  Self-care is a magic bullet leading your healthy life, healthy health span. Um, it's the pattern that I saw across China, across Japan. I mean, I was living in Hong Kong for two decades. And then ultimately I connected it to my Korean culture. I think what is happening in today's world is that self-care actually needs to be redefined. It's often equated to external beauty, but if you take a look at all of the top medical organizations, it is a medically critical term. It's something that should be happening more often. People just don't know about it. Um, and so, uh, if you take a look at the World Health Organization, for example,

• 25:17Speaker 01

  you know, over 70% of chronic illnesses can actually be preventable with lifestyle changes that includes self-care. It's really important.

• 25:27Ed Mylett?

  Well, here's how important it is. I've said this before, but I'll say it again. I'm an example of not doing it. So now I'm in my 50s. I didn't do any of these things. I mean, I've always worked out, lifted weights. I did everything that you would do in the current personal development culture. Lifted heavy things, grinded, you know, ate pretty well. I did these basic things. Didn't care about my gut. Uh, didn't meditate, didn't stretch, didn't do yoga, didn't sauna, didn't do any of these things until a few years ago. And you know what happened once I got to in my 50s? Cancer, heart attack, L3, L4 compressed in my back. Chronic jaw pain, massive fatigue, which then contributes to your emotional wellbeing.

• 26:12Ed Mylett?

  So a lot of you that are like, hey, once I get a bunch of money or all the houses I want or all the accolades. Well, I got all of that and then I got to an age where I can't even enjoy it. I'm spending most of my time with doctor's visits now. Most of my time with my family concerned about me. Most of my time contemplating, what do I want to do? Because I don't know how much time I have left. Now, I've worked very hard the last four years or so on making up for that. But you don't need to wait till you're my age. And if you are my age, listening to this, you really need to pay attention to what we're talking about right now. Because I'm a product of not doing these things. And that's why I have guests on my show like Michelle, because I think it's that important in your life as you're achieving and growing and climbing. That you have these things in place.

• 26:58Speaker 01

  I mean, I'm, I'm a perfect example of that. So when I embarked on this journey, I was in Hong Kong and I myself was in the middle of, you know, this high achieving, you know, sort of trying to reach my dreams. You know, I have just launched a social impact startup that is experiencing tremendous growth, winning awards and major contracts. And I was so deeply passionate about what I was doing.

• 27:21Speaker 01

  And managing teams, you know, around the clock. Um, I thought I was too busy to sleep, to eat. And in the middle of all that success, I landed in the emergency room for the first time in my life. And this is such a pivotal moment for me because prior to that hospital visit, I thought I was really healthy. You know, I was just, and later I discovered that the doctors, you know, put a camera down my throat and it's my stomach. There was actually very little of my gut line that was left healthy. Um, so I turned home, it was kind of like night and day, I became constantly ill. Um, and I just, it was just so befuddling to me and I just started realizing, oh,

• 28:01Speaker 01

  this has actually been brewing for a really long time on my body because I was just not taking care of myself. So if you can imagine like an iceberg, you know, above the water, you know, everything seems fine. But you know, what was happening was that the roots of my health was just falling away. Um, I'll just, it's a perfect example of, you know, I waited until my body was scrambled, until I landed in the hospital. I needed, I needed to do something to get better. So it just was like that, that aha moment that, well, actually, you know, I used to really discount self-care, but it is really bad important for me to do that every, every day, little steps.

• 28:41Ed Mylett?

  You know what people think, and then I want to ask you if someone just said, hey, I didn't read your book. What did you do? I want to hear what your answer would be in a second, but you know, a lot of people, um, here's what I thought. I'm going to have so much money by the time I get there. I'm going to have special doctors that could fix whatever thing that probably won't come up anyway I can fix. If you're thinking that, there's no such thing. The other thing I thought was I'm getting my labs drawn regularly. All my markers look pretty good. So a lot of these things that are going on in our bodies that, you know, may prematurely turn on some gene expression, for example, that wasn't supposed to get turned on till you're 85, but you flip it on at 45 because of chronic stress in your body, aren't going to show up in your labs all the time. Cause you know, I had good labs forever. Then I got to 50 and I didn't.

• 29:26Ed Mylett?

  And these things happened. So you know those pieces in your closet that you find yourself wearing like on repeat all the time, that sweater that kind of just goes with everything, or these perfect pair of pants, those are the pieces that make getting dressed easy, and that's what Quince does best. Quince focuses on high-quality wardrobe staples with premium materials like 100% Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton. The styles are timeless, versatile, and designed to become the dependable pieces you reach for every day. It's what I'm wearing right now. They give you the softness and quality you'd expect from a luxury brand without the price tag. Quince also makes premium pants, fitted tees and polos, and breathable activewear. Quality basics designed to work with your wardrobe and hold up to everyday wear. I love their cotton tees. I'm wearing one now, and I get a ton of compliments when I wear

• 30:10Ed Mylett?

  them on the podcast and when I speak. So find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers, or go to quince.com/ed for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK, too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com/ed. So what if someone said, "Well, then what did you do?" You had this incident, and you're like, "Well, read my book." But in general, you know, we've covered certain things. But if someone said, "What did you..." Like, we haven't covered so far, let's say. What did you do? Main thing you did was what?

• 30:43Speaker 01

  I realized that there were a lot of things that I grew up with, and I just started reconnecting the dots. I, you know, it was this old wisdom that I grew up with in Asia. So what did I do? I mean, there was a lot of research before, you know, I started writing the book. I started taking steps. I experimented a lot. The book is a culmination of all of the, you know, I'm all about easy, efficient, effective. I'm really busy. I don't have time for things. I just started researching. And so I came home, and a couple of things happened after the visit. You know, my husband, who grew up in a traditional Chinese household, he started cooking me healing foods that he grew up with, eating me pineapple, for example, because it has digestive enzymes. I actually, I eschewed fruit because I was

• 31:28Speaker 01

  worried about the sugar. You know, he's a gymnast. I just didn't eat fruit at all. And here he was, you know, feeding me. Pineapples and a lot of nourishing soups and I just started going back to a lot of the things that I had grown up with, especially my father, you know, who's a doctor. And you know, the recipes that he fed me when I was, you know, healing, recovering from illnesses. And I just, that was kind of the first step. I started taking a look at the pantry and started cooking. I didn't cook before. I was, I started understanding, okay, I need to start understanding what I'm putting in my body because that's driving the power of chemistry. Um, and I started training um, to learn more about food. So that, I think the food was the biggest part.

• 32:13Speaker 01

  And then the other thing too was I realized, wow, I live on a um, a continent that breathes another way of life. You know, just I grew up with a narrative that, you know, older age was um, a guarantee for a decline for, you know, mental and physical decline. And, you know, I started noticing around me that there are a lot of people who are sort of defying age expectations, you know, just there was a aha moment, I was walking down the beach, you know, when I was still living in Hong Kong. And there was a group doing, you know, laps in the Golden Ocean. And they looked like they were in their twenties. But actually, you know, when you got closer, they all had silver skin, they, you know, got together.

• 32:56Speaker 01

  They got together in the early morning and they were doing something in community. You know, doing a lot of deep stretches and I just realized there was another way of life and I started noticing a lot of people around me doing a lot of things and I just started interviewing and traveling. Uh, so that was the beginning stages, you know, I started with the food. And then I started interviewing interviewing people and then I started traveling across Asia.

• 33:21Ed Mylett?

  What is the ideal ninety year old self for you look like, sound like, what does she believe?

• 33:30Speaker 01

  I don't think about age anymore. It's sort of like this very optimistic perspective on changing my psychology, but it's much more positive.

• 33:40Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 33:41Speaker 01

  I just, I don't, you know, it's not in the equation anymore, you know, I don't have a mental clock anymore about the time is ticking. Um, I, I feel like I've gifted myself time. I just allowed myself the permission to just, you know, if I, if I want to go after something, I have a lot of time if I'm self caring, if I take care of myself. I didn't think about that before because I used to think eternally, well, fifty is that marker and everything's going to start going and things are going to start declining, but actually, just watching the average person casually living in Asia, it just, you know, just rewires how you think about age and what is possible.

• 34:23Ed Mylett?

  Thank you for bringing that to us because most of us don't see that. We've not been there. We don't live it. And I have to tell you something so fascinating that you just said this, at the time of recording this, this Sunday will be my fifty fourth birthday. It'll come out after that. However, I feel really good right now. And, uh, you know, I'm much thinner and, uh, more flexible. I've just been doing a lot of self care, a lot of stretching, a lot of,

• 34:48Ed Mylett?

  a lot of work, working out without weight, more meditation, more sun, more walking, more hydration, more longevity stuff I've been putting in my body, just really caring for myself for a while now.

• 35:02Ed Mylett?

  And I thought to myself today about the not worrying about aging thing. Literally, I said to myself maybe two hours ago, I was sitting there getting ready for a couple of podcasts and I went, what if like I just said I was forty five? Like, what if I just changed the number? It's like such a stupid label that I'm putting on myself as if I'm. Ticking down to some number where I won't be well anymore. And I wonder if like, I just, I'm forty five. I mean, I know it sounds silly, but like, or there is no number, but like identifying with an age when you get over thirty is sort of silly. Because there's such a variation of thirty year old wellness. There's a thirty year old right now on this planet. That is likely to live to a hundred and thirty. But there's another one that's not going to make it to fifty six and not because of a car accident, just because of the way they live.

• 35:47Ed Mylett?

  So thirty is this bizarre label, or so is forty. In terms of longevity, so I so amazing that you just said that because I, I thought the same exact thing to myself today, like what a silly thing to do, like put a number on this.

• 36:00Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, they are doing regularly doing things that we reserve for the young, um, playing with yoyos. You know, and hacky sack, they're dancing, they're getting together in the park. In groups and having fun. I mean, it does not mean sitting idly and, you know, doing nothing in older age. They're doing, they're really active and doing a lot of things. They're not thinking about their age.

• 36:24Ed Mylett?

  The reason that I also wanted you on is, is that I want to talk about Korean culture, even Chinese culture as well. There's almost like two camps in the world. There's like the US thing, which is like, hustle till you're, everything falls off your body and just accumulate, acquire, climb. That that's for the most parts, not everybody, but that's kind of the culture. And then there's other countries where it's like, hey, four hour lunches, achievement doesn't matter, you know, it's, everything's about the food and the fun and the celebration. And that's a beautiful culture and to visit there is incredible. I'm sure to live there is. What's fascinating me about kind of traditional Asian culture is it, it is, work is important. Growth is important. Education is important.

• 37:09Ed Mylett?

  Um, being able to take care of your entire family is important, yet at the same time in the east, so is self care. In other words, they're almost like both worlds. Would you agree with that? It is an achievement culture. Very much so. And it's, it's expected in many families. But also a self caring culture. It's not either or. I kinda, I'm right about that, aren't I? Is that true?

• 37:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, and you know, I I don't think they use the word self-care. You know, I'm putting that, you know, in terms of an American framework, but it's very deeply embedded in our culture. I mean, it's even things like relationships, you know, how they think about relationships for their well-being. So, um, you know, there are what I call two schools of medicine. You know, it's sort of, you know, the natural ways of living, you know, and self-healing. Um, but it's also, you know, being part of the modern world and being akin to, you know, all of the discoveries that are happening, you know, in medicine. I would say that, you know, there is a little bit of fading that's happening, you know, with modern culture.

• 38:16Speaker 01

  There's a lot of, you know, Korean kids who are adopting a modern way of life, you know. It's the ones that are actually living longer, living better, are the ones that are retaining the tradition. That was one of the reasons why I wanted to write the book, to preserve that tradition, to make sure that they're still working in tandem.

• 38:33Ed Mylett?

  What would your grandmother think of your book?

• 38:37Speaker 01

  I, my parents and my family are very happy about the book. They're happy that, you know, there's someone that's continuing to speak about our culture. I think there's always a point in time where the culture dies in family. You know, if you're not continuing to talk about it, to value it, to pass it on.

• 38:55Ed Mylett?

  What's another thing that's in, let's just say, Korean culture, that you think should be in every Western household within the next decade? Should be something that we haven't covered.

• 39:06Speaker 01

  There is a word called jung.

• 39:08Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, I've heard you say that.

• 39:11Speaker 01

  There's no equivalent in English. Um, it means a lot of different things of love, friendship, empathy, compassion. Um, it's really a call to action for the entire Korean society to take care of one another. And I feel like that's the answer to a lot of conflict and challenges that we have today. It is so important in Korean culture that it spawned a whole dictionary of a lot of different types of words, but it's very ever-present in all the K-dramas that you might watch, you know, the folktales. Um, but it's really, you know, it's this idea of, you know, when the country is in crisis, like COVID or, you know, financial crisis, they will come together and help a stranger to make sure that everybody's coming out on top.

• 39:53Ed Mylett?

  I learned that word in the book, by the way, J E O N G, everybody. Look it up. All right, last question. This has been so good. This is why I like when these come out on Thursdays because it's topics. I usually do solos Thursdays unless it's a topic that I just can't cover and someone's just far more qualified to do it. By the way, there's people more qualified to cover other topics I cover. You know what I mean? This one, I'm completely unqualified to cover. So if I just threw this to you, like you were up at a lecture and you were taking Q and A and someone said, I need to help finding balance between ambition and inner peace. Almost like Western, Eastern. That's way too, uh, it's distilled

• 40:36Ed Mylett?

  down to way too basic of a thing because I don't think Western is necessarily not about peace and Eastern necessarily is. But the difference, how do I find that balance between ambition and peace?

• 40:49Speaker 01

  I think that they can work in collaboration. Um, just because, you know, I find periods of slowing down doesn't mean that I'm still not, you know, going after a lot of ambitious projects. In fact, I'm, I'm quite ambitious. And I have a lot of different plans after the book, for example. Um, but I think the difference is that you just have to make time during the day. I mean, even little periods where you're breathing, you're taking time to breathe, um, for a moment. Um, and I think, you know, it's, it's very achievable to do both.

• 41:21Ed Mylett?

  All of you listening to this, stop for a second and evaluate. Take an audit on your wellbeing as you're climbing. And by the way, could the fact that you begin to care for yourself a little bit better contribute to your climb, as Michelle asserts, contribute to your ability to climb higher and achieve more. If you just take care of the one person you're going to spend the rest of your life with. You, for sure, there's one person that you were born to make sure you're supposed to care for, and that is you. And the vast majority of us have done a far better job of caring for others than we have ourselves. And Michelle's work will help you reverse that cycle where you can at least give yourself some of what you're giving to everybody else. So Michelle Bang, thank you so much for today. I'm very grateful.

• 42:07Speaker 01

  Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.

• 42:09Ed Mylett?

  God bless you. All right, everybody, share this episode.

• 42:14Ed Mylett?

  This is the Ed and Marlon Show.