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Our ability to communicate and collaborate is core to our humanity. Yet we live in a time where many of us seem to have a very tough time having real, powerful dialogues. In this episode of Follow Your Different, Celeste Headlee shows us how it’s done.

Celeste Headlee is the author of the bestselling book; We Need to Talk: How to have conversations that matter. She has also given out a TED talk, titled 10 Ways to have Better Conversations, which has 25 million views. Her most recent book is called Speaking of Race, which emphasizes the need to talk about racism, and how to do it.

What you’re about to hear is a deep conversation on why authentic conversations matter and how to have them. Also, pay close attention to her ideas on how you can be a more powerful conversationalist, and why our brain rewards us when we have real dialogue.

Celeste Headlee and the Passion for Conversation

The conversation starts off with Celeste sharing where her passion for conversations came from. Celeste shares that there are a few things that bother her as one gets older. Though the one thing that upsets her is when there are things that can be fixed, that are totally fixable, though having proper conversations.

“I mean, there’s just very little that we can’t talk through as human beings. And so I’m passionate about it because it’s universal. Every single person on the planet needs to be able to converse with others and communicate with others well, and be it’s just the root of problem solving. I mean, this is what solves problems, period, whatever they are.” – Celeste Headlee

Why People are not having Meaningful Conversations

Celeste shares her thoughts as to why people seem to have lost the ability to have a meaningful conversation. She has discovered an interesting tidbit while researching for her second book, and it dates all the way back to the Industrial Revolution.

While recent developments and social norms may have exacerbated the situation, the turning point seems to have happened when one guy discovered how to use steam to make our lives better.

“Prior to the Industrial Revolution. Most people lived in rural areas, most people interacted with maybe 100 or 150 people over the course of their lives. Then all of a sudden, the Industrial Revolution came in. Everybody flips over till most people are living in urban areas. Because of that, most people are encountering 1000s of people over the course of a week or a month instead. And it just happened too quickly. We weren’t able to adjust evolve that fast.” – Celeste Headlee

Bringing Back Good and Meaningful Conversations

Celeste thinks that most people don’t know what conversation is anymore. There are some who say that they are good conversationalists. That is, they are good talkers. Those are not the same thing at all.

In order to be a good conversationalist, you have to not only be a good talker. You also have to listen as well as you talk.

“I imagine (Oscar Wilde) was not a good conversationalist. Fantastic talker, but not good in conversation. Why? Because you have to be able to listen as well as you talk. And the smarter you are, the harder that challenge becomes. The wittier you are, the funnier you are, the harder that becomes. But also, listening is just hard. It’s hard for our species.

I think that some of the people that we think of as not being good in conversations are much better than they get credit for. And those are the people who speak less than they listen.” – Celeste Headlee

To hear more from Celeste Headlee on the importance of having a meaningful conversation, download and listen to this episode.

Bio

Celeste Headlee is an award-winning journalist who has appeared on NPR, PBS World, PRI, CNN, BBC and other international networks.  She was formerly a host at National Public Radio, anchoring shows including Tell Me More, Talk of the Nation, All Things Considered and Weekend Edition. For many years, Celeste has been a mentor and managing editor for NPR’s Next Generation Radio Project, training young reporters and editors in broadcasting.

Celeste is co-host to the Scene on Radio podcast—MEN with the podcast’s producer, Duke University’s CDS audio director, John Biewen. John describes the season: “Co-host Celeste Headlee and I will take a similar approach to the Seeing White series, which explored the history and meaning of whiteness. With MEN, we’ll be asking questions like, What’s up with this male-dominated world? Is male supremacy inevitable? How did we get sexism/patriarchy/misogyny, and what can we do about it?”

Celeste will co-host new episodes of The Retro Report with Masud Olufani. Retro Report is a non-profit news organization that produces mini documentaries looking at today’s news stories through the lens of history and context.

Until February, 2017 Celeste was the Executive Producer and host of the daily talk show called “On Second Thought” for Georgia Public Broadcasting in Atlanta.

You can listen live to On Second Thought, weekdays from 9 – 10 a.m. EST on the GPB News website. Click here for archives from past shows.

In 2014, Celeste narrated the documentary “Packard: The Last Shift” for the Detroit Free Press. She has won numerous awards for reporting from the Associated Press and SPJ.

Celeste was selected twice to be a Getty/Annenberg Journalism Fellow and was selected as a fellow with the Institute for Journalism and Natural Resources. She was also among the first fellows in Reporting on Native Stories for National Native News.

Until September of 2012, Celeste was the co-host of the national morning news show, The Takeaway, from PRI and WNYC and anchored presidential coverage in 2012 for PBS World Channel.

Links

Follow Celeste Headlee today! 

Twitter: @CelesteHeadlee

Check out her new book: Speaking of Race

Watch her Ted Talk: 10 ways to have a better conversation

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

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In this episode of Follow Your Different, we are joined by Brittany Fuisz, the founder of Malibu Mylk. She is an entrepreneur and a friend who I respect and admire deeply.

When Brittany was trying to have a baby for the first time, she was having some difficulty. So she went to work, specifically on improving her diet. She then discovered some huge problems with some of the major categories of alternate milk, like oat and almond milk. So she got busy in her kitchen.

What you’re about to hear is an extraordinarily powerful example of what a mission driven founder is. Someone with a point of view, someone who wants to move the world from the way it is, to a new and different place.

Brittany Fuisz and How Malibu Mylk came to be

Brittany starts off by sharing how she got the idea for Malibu Mylk. She got the idea for it around March of 2018, when she was still working at Yelp. Though she didn’t really go for it full time until she left Yelp later that year.

She had the idea for it when she was trying to have a baby for the first time. After consulting with the doctor, she opted to try a strict diet called the Elimination Diet or Autoimmune Protocol. Basically, she had to eliminate all major allergens in her diet. This means no dairy, nuts, gluten, soy, etc.

So while looking for milk alternatives, she discovered a huge problem: most milk substitutes either have nuts, soy, or gluten. That’s when she had the idea to use something different.

“I was driving past downtown LA and I thought, what if I make milk from flaxseed? Like it was just a sign in the sky. I needed to make flax milk. And so I went home that day, I pulled out my blender. I did go to culinary school many years ago. So I know how to cook.” – Brittany Fuisz

Hitting the Ground Running with Malibu Mylk

After trying out and getting her desired results with the flaxseed milk, Brittany did what any aspiring entrepreneur would do. She reached out to Whole Foods Market with her idea. Brittany pitched the idea for Malibu Mylk, and was surprised when the buyer immediately set up a meeting for it.

While Brittany wanted to delay the meeting to better prepare for it, the buyer said that the meeting was set. So she had to take a crash course on the food and beverage industry and learn the ropes quickly.

“I did a crash course in food and beverage with a friend who’s in the industry the day before the meeting. And I went in with little samples. I had some mock packaging made up. Then I learned about margins, which is how the grocery world works. I went in and I pitched the buyer on the dream that is now Malibu Mylk. She tasted my samples and she said, “Well, I’d love to get this in stores the coming weeks”. I thought well I can’t do the coming weeks, but we can do it in the coming months.

Actually, the timing worked out beautifully because I’d have to go into my first production run, knowing that Whole Foods is going to be a customer.” – Brittany Fuisz

Brittany’s Challenges with Malibu Mylk

Brittany further explains the challenges she had at the beginning of Malibu Mylk. The biggest challenge for her was finding a great manufacturer, a co-packer. There weren’t many that produced her type of product, and the ones she found were awful and expensive. When she finally found one she liked, they said no to her.

So she got an acquaintance who was already manufacturing something in that company, and asked for an introduction. She wasn’t deterred by the first and succeeding No’s that she received, and kept pushing on.

“You’re gonna hear a lot of No’s that you’re gonna hear no, again and again and again. And if you’re not willing to turn it into a yes, some way or another, it won’t work.” – Brittany Fuisz

To hear more from Brittany Fuisz and how she created Malibu Mylk to what it is today, download and listen to this episode.

Bio

Brittany Fuisz is the Founder/CEO of Malibu Mylk, the world’s first organic flax milk. Allergen-free (dairy free, gluten free, nut free, soy free), full of fiber and omega-3s, Malibu Mylk is creamy and thick and is good for our bodies and our planet.

She is a seasoned Marketing Maven and published writer with leadership skills and a track record of driving growth and brand building. A social connector with experience in consumer apps, direct response, media and sales.

Brittany attained her degree in marketing and management from Georgetown University, and then a diploma from Le Cordon Bleu. She began her career with Hillstone Restaurant Group in their manager training program. She spent time working on the line at three Michelin star Le Bernardin in NYC, as well as the Food Network in new business development. Brittany has also appeared on KTLA news, as a guide to the City of Angels.

Links

Website: MalibuMylk.com

Instagram: @MalibuMylk

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

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Do you know what it feels like to be duped, or lied to in an extraordinarily manner? Imagine falling in love, and having a whirlwind romance with a doctor, who also serves in the military, claimed to have been stationed at Guantanamo Bay for a time, and claim many other extraordinary things about his life and career. Imagine being proposed to and expecting to marry this amazing man who also worked at the Pentagon. Then imagine it was all a big lie. In this episode of Follow Your Different, Abby Ellin shares her story and more.

Abby Ellin is an extraordinary bestselling author, New York Times writer, and contributor to a ton of other prestigious publications. Her book is called Duped: Double Lives, False Identities, and the Con Man I Almost Married.

In our dialogue, we go deep into her story, and find out why agrees that you can’t see red flags through rose colored glasses.

Abby Ellin on being Duped

The conversation starts off reminiscing about meeting famous people in the past, when we can all actually go outside. The topic then got to Leonard Cohen, and how they were a fan of his work. This segues into the topic at hand, as Leonard Cohen himself was duped by his longtime manager.

Abby Ellin’s book, Duped, seems very personal, and it was radically transparent on what transpired in her life. She didn’t appear to do anything to make herself look good. It was an unembellished account of what she had gone through, and the manipulation that she was subjected to.

“When I write, I can write something but I’m also controlling what you know, and I was totally willing to sound like an asshole and duped because that was part of what needed to be done for that story. I was trying to channel the way other people think about someone who gets deceived, that I was engaged to a pathological liar. He went to jail. And everyone I know who I said that story to have their own story or knew somebody who did. Some of them didn’t want to tell the story publicly or use their names because they felt like such idiots. I was like, “Hey, man. I’m an idiot and I own it. Because it happens and it’s real.” – Abby Ellin

Monetized Suffering

I then comment on Abby’s book, and how it reads and feels like a suspense novel. Abby appreciates the description, and shares that she actually sold the rights to it. So at the very least, someone shares that sentiment as well.

“The operative words here are monetize suffering. So when, when life gives you lemons, you make lemon meringue pie and you eat it and you don’t worry about getting fat. I saw the podcast writes and it’s coming out in September, I think, but it’s going to be like a six part series, and it’s like a suspense thing.” – Abby Ellin

Abby Ellin on Quitting Diet Coke

We then talk about the article that Abby wrote about Diet Coke, and how she quit from it. She has had it since she was around 12 years old, and had been drinking it ever since.

People have told her to quit, but she told them to mind their own business. Yet she knew she was addicted. She was drinking three to four cans a day, and go looking for it when she didn’t have any in reach. But something happened that prompted her to consider quitting.

“My stomach started hurting a lot recently and no one knew why. And I was tasting this diet coke and it started to taste really chemical-y. I asked them if they changed the formula and they said no, but I just was like, I’m done. And I that was it.” – Abby Ellin

To hear more from Abby Ellin and her story on being duped, diet cokes and her thoughts on the Madoff scam, download and listen to this episode.

Bio

Abby Ellin is an award-winning journalist and the author of “Duped: Double Lives, False Identities and the Con Man I Almost Married” and “Teenage Waistland: A Former Fat Kid Weighs

In On Living Large, Losing Weight and How Parents Can (and Can’t) Help.”

For five years she wrote the “Preludes” column about young people and money for the Sunday Money and Business section of the New York Times.

She is also a regular contributor to the Health, Style, Business and Education sections of the New York Times.

Her work has been published in The New York Times Magazine, New York, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times Magazine, Psychology Today, Time, Newsweek, the Village Voice, the Boston Phoenix, Salon, Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, and Spy (RIP).

She has been a resident at the Yaddo Corporation and Wildacres Retreat in North Carolina, and has two useless Masters Degrees: an MFA in creative writing from Emerson College and a master’s degree in international public policy from Johns Hopkins University.

As of this writing, her greatest accomplishments are learning to play the cello at age 35, summiting Kilimanjaro (with a broken wrist in a cast!) and naming “Karamel Sutra” ice cream for Ben and Jerry’s.

Links

Follow Abby Ellin today!

Website: AbbyEllin.com

Twitter: @AbbyEllin

Check out the 6-part series, Impostors: The Commander

More on Abby Ellin:

NYTimes: Why do we love scammers so much?

NYTimes: I was powerless over diet coke

Washington Post: A Journalist almost married a con man. It turns out, she wasn’t the only one.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

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Frederick Nietzsche was one of the most important philosophers of all time. In this episode of Follow Your Different, Dave Jilk and I talk about a new book that fuses Nietzsche and modern entrepreneurship in a fascinating, provocative, and very thought-provoking way. The new book is called Entrepreneur’s Weekly Nietzsche, and Dave co-authored it with Brad Feld (FYD 175).

In this dialogue, we go deep on many of the dichotomies we face as company founders and builders. We examine the difference between passion and obsession, and what Nietzsche means by creativity and super abundance. We also talk about how to know you should keep driving forward with your idea or maybe change course. You can also listen to us discuss how founders should evolve their role in the company that they started over time.

This is a super-smart, deep-insight bearing conversation about some ideas for company creators with a big-brain, been-there-done-that kind of guy. So fire up your cerebellum and get ready for a fun ride through thinking town!

Dave Jilk on Fusing Nietzsche and Entrepreneurship

The dialogue starts off with the elephant in the room: why fuse Nietzsche and the world of entrepreneurship? Dave explains that he wasn’t very fond of most business books, in general. For him, most of them contain a few important things, but wrapped around in 200 pages of text. Though reading them is an unavoidable occupational hazard for him and his co-author, Brad Feld.

So he and Brad got the idea of writing their own book, containing their thoughts and experiences in entrepreneurship. But they don’t want it to be just another business book. That’s where their attention turned to Nietzsche and his works.

“I was reading him (Nietzsche) a little earlier than Brad. When I was reading it, we notice things that apply to entrepreneurship. It was striking though, and of course his languages is very interesting and colorful, right? So we started playing with, “Hey, could we write something”, and we wrote a few of the essays and grabbed a couple of Brad’s blog posts and stuck them in his stories to see how that worked and, and it kind of clicked.” – Dave Jilk

From there, they managed to get enough content to write an entire book.

Nietzsche, Entrepreneurs, and Being a Little Bit Crazy

There are some people who referred to Nietzsche as sort of a crazy person. Dave thinks the better word to use is “Wacky”, and that Nietzsche himself revels in that description. As someone studying human nature, he was open to exploring different situations and experiences, which might have gotten him this reputation.

Going back to entrepreneurs, Dave thinks that one has to be a little bit crazy and explore the possibility without worrying about looking bad or weird. That is especially true for startups and early stages of most businesses.

“Some people would argue that you have to be extremely rational, analytical about this. But we say, to create something truly disruptive, you have to have a vision. You have to have a vision of what the world could be like, after your disruption is successful. What is the world going to be like, with no evidence whatsoever, no particularly good reason to believe that the world will adopt that. You have to have to be, as you say, a little bit crazy.” – Dave Jilk

Being Brave and Different

When asked if Nietzsche had been very courageous because he was challenging the preconceived norms despite the pushbacks, Dave agreed to some degree. For him, Nietzsche was more like someone who bravely dives headfirst into something before worrying about the consequences to his reputation and the like.

“Nietzsche’s essential project was to transform the moral tradition of Europe. It’s a moral tradition that that went back, at least, two millennia, and possibly longer. He was trying to dis to disrupt that, to change it to, and to explore what it would be like when it did change. And the that exploration is, was frightening to him. And he thought it should be frightening to everyone. But what he was trying to do is it was both brave, and also clueless, right? So yes, he had to be both a little crazy and a little bit courageous. And probably more than anything focused on what he cared about.” – Dave Jilk

To hear more from Dave Jilk about Nietzsche, Entrepreneurs, and their ties to Human Nature, download and listen to this episode.

Bio

Dave Jilk is a former serial entrepreneur and startup CEO in information technology.

He now writes on entrepreneurship and artificial intelligence, and he enjoys writing poetry as well. Dave earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from MIT, and currently lives near Boulder, Colorado.

When not writing he is likely to be on a mountain.

Links

Follow Dave Jilk and his works!

Website: Jilk.com

LinkedIn: in/DJilk

Check out his work at Amazon Books

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

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Welcome to the first of two episodes that we are doing on the new work paradigms that are emerging. In this episode of Follow Your Different, I talk with Joe Sanok about designing a life that works for you by in part, making Thursday the new Friday.

Joe Sanok is the opposite of many hustle porn stars, who’ve been screaming at entrepreneurs, marketers, and executives to work until they drop. When in reality, if you never stop hustling, you’ll likely end up dead with nothing to show for it.

No matter what stage you’re at in your career, this dialogue with Joe will stimulate your thoughts and get you thinking…

Thursday is the New Friday

Joe talks about his new book, Thursday is the New Friday, and how the timing of it seems to be spot on.

There have always been discussions of how to balance your life between work and personal stuff. Though said discussion has hit its peak because of the current situation with COVID, and people working from their homes. People who usually spend the 8 hour daily grind have figured out that they don’t really need the whole 8 hours for it.

“Looking at Spain moving to the four day workweek, Denmark trying it out. There’s so many companies trying a four day workweek. Even if it’s not a four day workweek, to start to think about why are we working the number of hours we’re working. But then we realized that, you know, if you’re in a traditional job, you didn’t need 40 hours. A lot of people started saying, “Well, why are we working this way, our outcomes are the same, we’re doing the same or better work, working fewer hours.

“Then people with the industrialist mindset are like, “We want butts in the chairs, we want to get back to the cog in the big machine.” And that’s just not gonna work anymore. Like it’s already blown up, we’ve seen behind the curtain and things are shifting.” – Joe Sanok

Joe Sanok on the Evolution of the Work Week

Joe talks about how humans eventually ended up with our current notion of a work week. In his book, he looked into why we have the seven-day week, and how we even got to have weekends. It even delves into how Ford started the 40-hour work week.

The point of all this is that humanity, or at least the business and working people, are the ones to decide what a work week would be like. With today’s tech and the evolution of business from industrialist to a new frontier, people are looking for ways to make lives easier for everyone, without the drop in quality of work.

“I would actually argue we actually are leaving that industrialist mindset behind and that we’re in the messy middle of what’s emerging next. And we get to decide the same way the Babylonians said seven days a week, we get to decide what that looks like. And that autonomy to me is so important that we do this well, that we think about it, we look at the research, we look at case studies, we look at even just how we feel on the inside.

When I tell people I wrote a book about taking Friday’s off they’re like yeah, it’s about time because they know Fridays are a blow off day. But everyone sits there and talks for 20 minutes and we’re already blowing it off. Why don’t we actually just call it what it is and have a three day weekend.” – Joe Sanok

Joe Sanok on Hustle Culture

Joe talks about how he has dedicated a whole chapter to the hustle narrative and why it is wrong. He points out that looking at productivity alone, “hustling” is not a very efficient way of doing it.

“There’s so many better ways to do it. We see it in big businesses or community colleges. (There) are tons of the case studies that I’ve seen and researched that it actually is better for business, for mental health, and for health outcomes (not to hustle). That people actually make more money at it. So why would we keep hustling 90 hours a week so that we can have the “status that Instagram gives us” when it’s not even needed?” – Joe Sanok

To hear more from Joe Sanok and how to be more efficient and not fall into the Hustle trap, download and listen to this episode.

Bio

Joe Sanok is the author of Thursday is the New Friday (HarperCollins) releasing Oct 2021. He is a keynote and TEDx speaker, business consultant, and podcaster. He has the #1 podcast for counselors, The Practice of the Practice Podcast.

Joe is also writer for PsychCentral, has been featured on the Huffington Post, Forbes, GOOD Magazine, Reader’s Digest, Entrepreneur on Fire, Smart Passive Income Podcast, and Yahoo News.

Joe has articles releasing in 2021 through Harvard Business Review, CNBC, ThriveGlobal, Inc., and Money. He is the author of five books and has been named the Therapist Resource top podcast, consultant, and blogger.

Joe Sanok helps private practitioners to find innovative ways to start, grow, and scale a private practice. For resources go to: http://www.practiceofthepractice.com/resources

Joe is also the founder of Podcast Launch School, A curriculum that teaches new Podcasters how to attract amazing guests and monetize their podcast nine months.

His podcast is available at http://www.practiceofthepractice.com/category/podcasts/

He does one-on-one consulting, Mastermind Groups, and other approaches to start, grow, and scale a practice: www.practiceofthepractice.com/apply

Links

Learn more from Joe Sanok today!

Website: www.PracticeofthePractice.com

Check out his past and upcoming books here.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

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In this episode of Follow Your Different, let’s talk about food. On the base level, food is about survival, sustenance, and safety. Yet it is also a centering point for life and culture, and even expressing love. Joanne Molinaro joins us today to talk more about it.

Joanne Molinaro is a lawyer-turned-author and Tik Tok info-tainer, as well as a social media rockstar. She has developed a massive following by fusing Korean cooking, veganism, life lessons, and story-telling into a legendary stew that her fans can’t get enough of. Her food blog “The Korean Vegan” is one of the top in the world, and her social media and Tik Tok have millions of followers.

She also has a new book called The Korean Vegan Cookbook. We get into it and much more in this episode, so stay tuned.

Joanne Molinaro‘s Relationship with Food

The conversation starts off with checking in on Joanne and how she feels about her new book. Joanne shares that she’s a bit nervous since it was her first cookbook, and she’s worried that people might not like the recipes in it. Though given the quality of her content, it should not be a problem at all.

From there, Joanne shares her relationship with food, in which she loves it so much. She loves cooking, but she especially loves eating, as well as trying out new foods and cuisines. Though she realized early on that she particularly like eating her own food best.

“I realized pretty quickly that I like eating my own food best. Not because I’m persnickety about what goes into my food, although that’s part of it. But mostly because I think my food tastes the best, because I know what I like, and I know how to make my food the way that I like. I think a lot of people are like, Oh, I love eating grandma’s food, I love eating my mom’s food. And sure I love eating my mom’s food too. But a lot of times I’m like, I can make this better for me.” – Joanne Molinaro

For Joanne, food makes her very happy, and it is something she looks forward to.

Joanne Molinaro on the Contradiction of Safety and Danger in Food

For a lot of people, food gives them a sense of safety, because it gives them sustenance, and they are made with love by our parents and grandparents when we are young. It reminds them that they are loved and cared for.

Although for some, it can be a source of insecurity as well, and Joanne had to deal with both when she was younger. As society’s views on a “healthy and proper” body leaned on being slim and thin, eating and enjoying food seems like a bad thing to do. Not being to enjoy what you like can cause anxiety. Not being able to comfort that anxiety by eating your favorite food just adds to the stack.

“In the past, I’ve also had a very fraught relationship with food. I was told very, very young that part of my value was tied to how I look and how thin I was. Unfortunately, food consumption contributes to your size. And as a result of that, however much I love eating food and how much I love cooking food, it also creates a great deal of anxiety and danger. So it’s sort of that very strange juxtaposition where a bowl of kimchi-jjigae makes me feel so safe, but a bowl of kimchi-jjigae also equals calories which makes me feel unsafe.”- Joanne Molinaro

Being at the Forefront of Food Creation

Now that she has become a food superstar, Joanne feels like she has to be more fastidious about guarding against or obsessing about food she eats. While it has become an impulse that was brought on by years of being careful of what she ate, she does not want it to influence her work as a food creator.

“Now that I’m front facing about my relationship with food, and as a food creator, I feel very responsible about not just sending the correct message out into the world, but by living in accordance with that message. I can’t, on the one hand, tell people, “Hey, stop counting calories!” While I, myself, am counting calories. That doesn’t make sense.” – Joanne Molinaro

Instead of focusing on calorie counts, she dwells more on what goes into one’s diet, and how you can make an amazing dish while still keeping healthy.

To hear more from Joanne Molinaro and her thoughts on food and life, download and listen to this episode.

Bio

With over 2 million fans on TikTok, Joanne Molinaro, also known as The Korean Vegan, has appeared on The Food Network and Al Jazeera English, been featured in Salon, Healthy-ish by Bon Appetit, and the Kitchn, and will release her debut cookbook + memoir with Penguin Random House this fall (2021).

Molinaro is a Korean American woman, born in Chicago, Illinois. Her parents were both born in what is now known as North Korea.

Joanne Molinaro started her blog, The Korean Vegan, in 2016, after adopting a plant-based diet. In July 2020, she started her TikTok (@thekoreanvegan), mostly as a coping mechanism for the isolation caused by the global pandemic.

She began posting content related to politics and life as a lawyer during quarantine.

However, after a single post of her making Korean braised potatoes for dinner (while her husband taught a piano lesson in the background) went viral, Molinaro shifted her attention to producing 60 second recipe videos, while telling stories about her family—immigrants from what is now known as North Korea.

Links

Connect with Joanne today!

Website: TheKoreanVegan.com

Check out her new book! The Korean Vegan Cookbook

TikTok: @TheKoreanVegan

Instagram: @TheKoreanVegan

Youtube: The Korean Vegan

Facebook: fb.com/theKoreanVegan

Pinterest: @TheKoreanVegan

LinkedIn: in/Joanne-Molinaro

More on Joanne Molina and The Korean Vegan

CBS: TikTok star Joanne Molinaro shares her Korean culture and life lessons

Today.com: The Korean Vegan serves up spicy tofu, life lessons, and stories from her childhood

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