Akkermansia, Cancer & GLP-1: How Your Gut Microbiome Shapes Immunity & the Brain | Dr William Li

30:31I think that that'll go a long ways in terms of providing the right answers, even for something like which probiotic should I take? Yeah. Well, I guess if people write down those three microbes that you just mentioned, would you be able to easily find that on a probiotic or would they list those ingredients or not? I mean, I would look for them, you know, I mean, listen, when I tell people like looking for a probiotic is recognize when there is a healthy bacteria Make sure it's in there, what you're buying. And I think it's a little bit buyer beware. You've got to do your research to pick it out.

31:10Listen, you're going to book yourself a hotel on a vacation to a place you haven't been. All right? Listen, you've got to do your research. Maybe if you do your research carefully, when you arrive at your destination, it should be exactly what you had hoped. It should be all you had hoped it would be. If you don't do your research and you just book wildly, who knows what you're going to get. You might be disappointed when you get there. So I think the same thing is when it comes to probiotics. So I'm not trying to plug any brand or manufacturer probiotic, but those three, I think, Lactobacilli, the Plantarum, the Ruderi, the Acromantia, those have a growing mountain of information about them that makes me take it really seriously in my own life.

31:56And I try to communicate this to people as well. What does Acromantia do? What's the research there? Is that for the brain mostly that you're talking about? Okay, so Acromantia mucinophila is a bacteria. So first of all, let's back up one second because we've tossed around a lot of Latin terms. Bacteria have a first name and a last name, a genus and a species. So Acromantia is the first name. Mucinophila is the last name, so to speak. All right. And then there's subspecies, relatives of all those. And it's actually only recently discovered. Only in the 1990s was this bacteria discovered. So it's not like Charles Darwin had it, you know, Acromantia in his logbook, you know, when he was around the Galapagos Island.

32:42This was really, really recent. The fact that we're still discovering new bacteria and identifying new bacteria, it's like going into the Amazon to see what kind of animals are out there. Well, we got our own Amazon we're walking around with, and it's the jungle of our gut bacteria, right? Amazing to me. I get really excited about this. So acromantia has been termed a keystone bacteria, meaning it's a really fundamental bacteria for health, and it does a lot of things. It helps to control our metabolism. So it makes our body's cells more sensitive to insulin, so we can absorb glucose more readily, which helps us lower our blood sugars in a better, more consistent fashion, so we have more energy.

33:31So that could be important for diabetics. It could be. Actually, it's very important for diabetics. In fact, there have been clinical studies done with acromantia showing that you can actually lower hemoglobin A1c by taking this one probiotic. So what I like actually are those - Why did doctors not say that? What I like is when these probiotic companies, which some of them regard, view themselves, portray themselves as biotech companies, they are investing in clinical trials to take a look at what these bacteria do. That's not food is medicine, it's probiotics is medicine. I'm a believer, and I like to see that data.

34:06So acromancy has been shown to to lower hemoglobin A1C, improve glucose regulation, insulin sensitivity, that's really great. It's not a great weight loss bacteria, but it can actually help your metabolism kind of like sharpen up a little bit. Newer research shows it actually helps your body release its own GLP-1. So, rather than paying hundreds of dollars for something you have to jab into your belly or your thigh, you know, take a bacteria that's gonna also help your body released GLP-1. Now, why is that, why could that be important? Okay, well, that might actually be helpful for weight loss or weight management, let's call it.

34:45It's probably a better goal to actually have. But GLP-1, and this is kind of emerging research, is not just for body mass, lowering body mass. GLP-1 is present, receptors present on every single blood vessel in your body, blood vessel cell. So 60 ,000 miles worth of blood vessels, 400 miles of which are in your brain, blood vessels, they all contain receptors for GLP-1. So now if you think about, again, this theme that we've been talking about, gut-brain, longevity, health span, brain health, think about that. So acromancy not only helps your whole body improve its glucose metabolism, but also can help to trigger blood vessels to be healthier, potentially, in all throughout your body, including your brain in terms of the circulation of your brain.

35:42So this is, like I said, a new frontier that's out there. The most jaw-dropping data on acromancy that I've seen doesn't have anything to do with metabolism, has to do with immune system, and it has to do with response to cancer treatment. And in 2017, myself and a group of colleagues across Europe convened a meeting in France called Rethinking Cancer. And this was intended to bring world-leading cancer researchers to the table to talk about their work with one ground rule. And that ground rule is you cannot talk about chemotherapy or drugs. Okay. So what's in a cancer research conference where you can't talk about cancer drugs or cancer therapies, right?

36:37Well, you got to talk about stress, sleep, diet, exercise, social wellness, all of the important things that cancer patients ask about, right? Well, the star presentation of that conference was a woman named Laurenta Vogel in Paris who was presenting work that she had done just then on 200 patients with different types of cancer, and they were receiving immunotherapy, which is not chemo. It actually activate your body's own natural immune cells to tackle cancer. And she was explaining her discovery that only about 20 % of people respond positively, meaning they benefit from having their own immune system woken up.

37:26Well, that really sucks if you're a cancer patient to know that immune treatment that could be lifesaving only works in 20%. So she set out to look at the differences between between responders where their immune system was woken up and supercharged and then goes after the cancer, whittles it down, in some cases to zero, stage four to stage zero. Okay, quite amazing. Versus people whose immune system are like duds. They don't do very much to the cancer. What's the difference? So she looked at gender. She looked at age. She looked at comorbidity. She looked at medications. Nothing. She looked at genetics.

38:04Nothing. The only thing that she found that was the difference between responders and non-responders was in the gut, the gut bacteria. And it was one bacteria, and it was acromantia. The people who responded to immunotherapy to cancer, life-saving, were the people who had acromantia. The people who didn't respond were missing acromantia. So when I saw that, I'm sure people sitting next to me heard my jaw drop and hit the floor, like that was just such a bombshell to recognize this is another important dimension of our gut health. It's not a nice to have, it's a must have. It's not makes you a little bit healthier.

38:47It could be the difference between life and death, you know, for a cancer patient. So for me, it sort of changed the way that I approach cancer as a disease, as a medical doctor advising patients and, you know, helping to guide patients. And so these are just examples of the profound discoveries that are being made with gut health, brain health, gut health, immune health. This is an area that if you want to have health span, like you got to survive cancer, you got to avoid dodge heart disease, you got to dodge dementia, you got to, you know, dodge all these other conditions. How do you do that?

39:26And I think it starts with the gut. Your circulation, our circulation is vital because we have the 60 ,000 miles of channels, highways and byways to bring oxygen and nutrients and blood cells to any medications you take to every single cell in the body. And they also may be kind of a transit. They might actually be public transportation in our body for our healthy bacteria as well. So can we get, what food is rich in, I can't even say it now, acromasia? I was literally completely fixated then on that. I literally had a text from one of my oldest friends last night to say that her dad is now going through six weeks of cancer treatment because they found cancer in his glands and his throat, but because it's too close to all the other glands, they can't operate.

40:19So he's going through really intense treatment. i'm now naturally thinking i need to tell her about well this microbe you know so again i can't give medical advice uh sort of on a podcast but you know and um but i would tell you that for um all cancers immunotherapy is something that every cancer patient should ask for should have a conversation with their oncologists about. And the reason is this is the first time in history, modern history, where a cancer treatment has the potential of completely reversing your disease. And if you can reverse your disease, the impossible becomes possible. And I've seen it now time and time and time and again in people receiving immunotherapy.

41:10Of course, if you're going to get immunotherapy, you want it to work. And now we're beginning to realize that what is in your gut, like acromantia, can make that difference. So for example, should someone we know be recommended to immunotherapy, they should also think very carefully about their gut health because we know organisms, healthy bacteria like acromantia, can play a critical role. So what foods should, I mean, I know it's very hard maybe for going through treatment, but thinking about this even for prevention, right? What are the foods that are rich in this microbe as well as a probiotic?

41:46So acromantia is not really present in food. So that's one of the reasons why taking it as a probiotic can be very helpful. Beneficial, okay. Beneficial. But foods that you eat can actually grow acromantia. So again, let's use the Amazon example again of digging in there, right? So here we have discovered this new bacteria. It's only about 30 years old or so. that we've even recognized it. And we have to observe what it does. You know, just like any new animal you discover, you know, in the Amazon jungle, what does it eat? Where does it live? What makes it thrive? And all that kind of stuff. Well, it turns out acromantia lives in the colon, the lower part of the large intestines.

42:30It tends to live in an area called the cecum. It's kind of like just the first part of your large intestines coming out of the small intestines. It's this kind of sack. Most of the bacteria, healthy gut bacteria live there. Incidentally, that same area, the cecum, is where the appendix lives. We used to think about the appendix as a vestigial organ. Get rid of it. No, it doesn't do any good. I don't know. Sometime when we were crawling out of the swamp as humans, you know, like we developed an appendix and we didn't need it anymore. We're rethinking that. we now are starting to believe that the appendix in the intestines and the cecum, which is located right where the gut bacteria are, which are so important for our health, might actually be a storage area for replenishing healthy gut bacteria, right?

43:22So it's really quite amazing to think about it. And also maybe immune reservoir as well. Okay. So Aggraminza lives there and what does it eat okay it eats mucus that's normally found in our gut people might say that sounds really disgusting but actually our gut is filled with mucus naturally we know this like if you ever had diarrhea you know like a lot of mucus comes out but even for normal stool your regular healthy mucus is part of our gut okay just like and it starts in our mouth we have mucus all throughout we've got mucus. Acromantia is called acromantia mucinophila. It likes mucin. It eats mucus.

44:05It actually eats it all up. So the more mucus you have, the more acromantia you can grow because you've got more food for it to eat. So how do you grow, get mucin? Fiber? Fiber is helpful. And acromantia will eat fiber. But it turns out that elagitanins, which are polyphenols found in certain foods can help your gut secrete mucin, which then is the natural food for the acromantia. So you can actually grow more acromantia with food. You can't eat it, you can't eat acromantia from your food, but you can actually get it by, you can grow more of it, nurture it by putting more fertilizer, more food in for the acromantia.

44:43So the foods that actually grow acromantia, pomegranate and pomegranate juice, cranberries, I'd say dried cranberries because not cranberry juice, because cranberry juice is so sour that you would almost have to put a ton of sugar to make it palatable. Don't do that. Just have dried cranberries. It's a wonderful little snack to give you those polyphenols. Concord grape juice. If you ever had grape candies when you were a kid, that flavor of grape candy is exactly how real Concord grapes taste. That's the model and what they were. But other things as well. It turns out Chinese black vinegar. If you've ever had soup dumplings, they have a little canister of black vinegar next to it.

45:28You put it in your spoon to have the soup dumplings with. That grows acromantia. Hot chili peppers, like dried chili flakes, actually will also grow acromantia as well. Peach juice has been shown to grow acromantia. So again, this is another one of those areas of research where we're beginning to discover more and more foods that can actually help your body grow. The acromantia, most of them actually work by helping your gut secrete more mucus that the acromantia thrives on. So it's got food to eat. So more of it will actually grow there. So question, a lot of those were juices. So if you had peaches, would it do the same thing?

46:03If you had grapes, would it do the same thing? If you had cherries, would it do the same thing? Yeah, I mean, that's exactly what it is. These are ways to, you know, my book Eat to Beat Disease, the whole point is, you know, like we can eat things that we like. I love grapes. I love pomegranate. Integrate those into your lives because you like them, but also because you recognize that researchers like me and others have figured out they actually do something good for your body. They help your body perform better. So if you're into optimizing your health, you know, live better, be weller, then these are the foods that you can actually add to your life to really enhance what you do.

46:45So next time you're, I don't know if you like spicy food or not, but next time you have a little - I love spicy food. Yeah, I love it too. You know, next time you see a little canister of dried chili flakes, think about it. That will actually help your body grow acromasia, which helps your body metabolism by using insulin more effectively and actually activates your immune system and potentially helps your immune system fight cancer if you are on cancer treatment. So these are the kinds of things that are, there's a lot of complicated science, but I would sort of encourage people to think about this conversation if you're listening or watching this.

47:22These are moments of joy to recognize the foods that we already love can actually be good for us. So we don't have to, you know, I think I like to think about health as something that we lean into. It's full of abundance, not deprivation, which is exactly flipping the script on what we used to think about healthy food, which is you got to cut everything out. Now, I think it's about identifying and recognizing the healthy things you can add in. Absolutely. Well, it's interesting because you mentioned a lot of foods that basically are fruit and vegetables. What do you think about people that have a very strong keto diet that don't include these foods?

48:02Because this feels very connected to the gut microbiome. Yeah. Well, look, I mean, I first learned about ketosis when I was in medical school. I'm bringing it back to my origin story as a doctor. And ketosis is not a good state to be in. Ketosis is like what happens to be out-of-control diabetes. And it's not sustainable. Like you should not be long-term in ketosis. Your body develops ketones really as a rescue mechanism because you're not actually having enough carbs or sugars. So it's got to do something in order to survive. You can't do that very long and expect to be very healthy. So I say anybody who's really truly interested in living long and living well, that health span, ketosis is not the way to go.

48:52I know that some people might beg to differ, but I'm just telling you, as a scientist and as a doctor, that's not what I'd recommend because it's not a sustainable state of health. And it'll actually pull the rug out from other systems in your body that also need to be healthy and work well together. Now, the thing is that I think it's important to recognize that those polyphenols that come in and the dietary fiber that come in the foods that are healthy for us, you know, and it's called plant-based foods, they actually help us sustain our systems overall. Ketosis is sort of this reductionist way.

49:34Let's look at ketones. Let's focus on one thing. And it worked. I mean, listen, it turns out that ketosis actually can be a powerful, has been shown to be a powerful way clinically to intercept epilepsy in children. It's also been surprisingly useful to intercept certain brain cancers to change the speed of growth of brain cancers. So, you know, there clearly has profound effects. The question is, and I think this is the one that really needs to be asked, anytime anybody thinks about any kind of diet that's kind of extreme, is it going to be good for you in a long run? It might be actually very useful for you in the short run.

50:13It's kind of like when you're trying to train for a marathon. You want to be disciplined or an actor, you know, training for a film role or a model, you know, needing to be prepared in a certain way. These are not necessarily healthy habits, or I would say in general, not healthy habits that you don't, you cannot sustain them for a long period of time. Here we are talking about living well and healthspan. You want to actually find that sweet spot where you get to do the things that you enjoy, where the things that you enjoy also do something good for your body and your brain and allow you to take your entire journey in kind of like a satisfying way.

50:51Yeah, well, I love that we're talking about that now because, you know, as this episode comes out, it's the end of 2025, beginning of 2026. this is naturally the time when people cut things out and I always find it quite an interesting period because it's like new year new you and there's so much pressure to live in this you know quotations optimized way and people kind of cut the joy out which also makes me believe that's why people don't sustain long-term goals and so for people like starting this journey going into 2025, 2026, what advice would you give with all the noise that's going to be around them and all their goals that they're going to want to achieve, like how to stay aligned to healthy aging and actually keep the habit going?

51:40So much to unpack there. I'm going to try to boil it down very simply because this is something that everyone can do no matter where you stand. I say start with beverages. I'm not talking about beer or alcohol. I'm talking about what I call the Holy Trinity of beverages that we should all do more of. And the Holy Trinity of beverages is water, which hydration is the key to life itself. You know, we don't have water, we quickly desiccate, we dry up, and we will not live a long time. Water, and then tea, which has water in it, but then the polyphenols from tea and some of the dietary fibers from tea.

52:23If you have matcha, for example, you're having dietary fiber from the tea plant, that's good for the gut microbiome as well. And then coffee. It turns out coffee actually is very, very robust with polyphenols and also good for many different parts of your body. I want to move the conversation about caffeine aside for one second. I'm happy to talk about that. But the polyphenols from tea, the polyphenols from coffee, and just the inherent goodness of water. If somebody wants to actually clean up their act and kind of like get into a new state of being, there's a million ways you can do this, you know?

52:58And this is why people hire life coaches and nutritionists and, you know, get into programs. And those are all things that you can do. And everyone's got a different starting point. But I'd like to boil it down simple. I say, start with your beverages, make sure you drink plenty of water and then drink tea and coffee and alternate with tea and coffee in order to be able to hydrate yourself and get those polyphenols in. Turns out that, and you can fine-tune those as well. With water, try to drink purified water, meaning some kind of filtered water, because we're now beginning to realize that the contaminants in water, which include microplastics and heavy metals, those things will eventually compromise your health span.

53:39So we want to get the cleanest water you can. simple way to do that just avoid drinking water out of a plastic bottle so and we've all done it right I mean for for years we were all being handed a plastic bottle of water on vacation now no don't do that anymore don't drink out of a plastic cup and then I think tea try not to use tea bags use loose leaf tea like they do in Asia and the little trick to get kind of the pro tip to actually get loose-use loose-leaf tea is you have really hot boiling water. Just get a pinch of tea leaves and put them in a cup. Pour in the hot water, like boiling water, just after boiling.

54:24Take it off the heat and then use it. And what happens is the tea will properly be steeped and ready to drink when the leaves have soaked up in a fluid and they actually drift their way down to the bottom of the cup. When the leaves are at the bottom of the cup you're ready to sip the tea and you can actually put more add more water to re-steep the tea like that two or three times and get more polyphenols out of it coffee you know there's it turns out that the polyphenols in coffee are in the you know you can anytime you're brewing coffee through grounds you are extracting those polyphenols the chlorogenic acid many other things good for you.

55:04And what you want to do is find what is the best kind of like roast of coffee. Turns out that it's medium roast that gives you the highest polyphenols that are beneficial to you, right? And organic coffee actually has a higher level of the polyphenols compared to conventional coffee. So again, three simple beverages that most of us probably like, Have to have water, tea, coffee. There's not a lot of controversy around those. There's no schools of thought about them. If you are sensitive to caffeine, decaf is okay. Just recognize that by removing the caffeine, you're also removing some of the polyphenols.

55:47You're not going to get them all, but you'll get still some. And even decaffeinated coffee or tea still has a little bit of caffeine left in it because it's impossible to remove the whole thing. The other little tidbit I would say about the beverages, if you wanted to start a new chapter, fresh, clean with these beverages, is don't add dairy milk to it. Plant milk is fine. Almond milk is fine if you like. But cow milk actually has dairy fat, which forms little soap bubbles around the polyphenols. So when you drink it, you're actually flushing through your gut. most many of the polyphenols about 80 you're only absorbing about 20 but plant-based milk won't form those little soap bubbles and don't add sugar to it i like my coffee straight i never put tea in my sugar in my tea and absolutely avoid artificial sweeteners which although we're still figuring it out does look like many of the common artificial sweeteners actually can damage your gut microbiome Back to our conversation, the gut, the brain, the overall body, the metabolism, we don't want to be hurting that.

57:00So if you want to actually start your new year with a new you, I think beverage is a simple weight actually that anybody can actually do. Yeah, I love that. And also, I see one of the biggest mistakes. Because hydration feels so simple, we overlook it more than we should. and then when we're dehydrated our thirst mechanisms switch on so two percent dehydration we're already sending signals to say I'm thirsty but the problem that I see is that a lot of people get that mixed up with hunger signals and so people end up turning to food instead of water to actually hydrate which also means that that's just a healthy habit but like my the thing that helped me the most and then has helped the clients that I work with is just always keeping water in eyeline.

57:47Because the amount of times that people might become hyper-focused on a task or they're busy running around, it's just not in their train of thought. And so I always say to people, put it in front of your eyeline because you're basically creating a stimulus of a signal to tell your brain, oh, I should maybe drink water, rather than having to seek water out when it comes to your mind. So that's such a... It's so simple, but I think it's one of the most important overlapped messages of health. It's a brilliant and simple tip that, you know, that we encounter all the time. And I will also tell you what's interesting about water.

58:24If you drink a little water at the beginning of your meal, you'll actually start to stretch your stomach a little bit because water takes space, right? Like if you've ever gone to a pet store to buy some fish, what do they do? They take a plastic bag and then they put some water in it. And then before they catch the fish, put your tank at home. Right. So think about it. You put a little bit of water in your stomach by drinking water. Just take a few, take a few gulps in the beginning. You're starting to stretch your stomach like that plastic bag in the pet store. And that stretch of the stomach actually starts sending signals to your brain to say, oh, we're getting filled up.

59:02So you're also less likely to eat as much. You'll start to feel full a little bit sooner. So that can be a little tip to help you eat a little bit less, which can be also healthy. The other interesting thing about water, if you have cold water. Now, I know different cultures have different feelings about warm water, hot water versus cold water. Like in Asia, they never want you to drink cold water. But I will tell you that there is some wisdom in drinking cold water. Like I always put ice in my water. I like ice. I would never think you'd do that. Let me tell you why. this isn't why i like cold water but though when you actually put cold when you drink cold water into your stomach guess what your stomach is is has got receptors uh that actually sense temperature and so it senses that it's got really cold temperature in your core right that's core your core temperature is down with some water and so what it does is that she turns on your brown fat to generate heat.

1:00:02And when your brown fat is turned on, the mitochondria are in this brown fat actually start burning to generate literally heat to warm you up from the inside out because you drank something cold. That actually, the brown fat, in order to get that energy for the mitochondria to burn hot to create heat, thermogenesis, it actually draws fuel from harmful white fat. So your good fat burns down bad fat when you drink cold water. And this has actually been studied clinically with people drinking cold water. Wow. Is that similar as why it works with ice baths? Well, that's another reason. That's another way to get it, except that now you're being surrounded.

1:00:42Now your whole body's being dipped like a popsicle into cold water. Yes, thermogenesis is actually, it's sort of a reboot to your metabolism, a wake-up call, right? And then, And oh, the other thing about cold water, this is not about drinking it, but this may not be well known to most people. If you splash cold water in your face, so you're getting up and you're like, oh, I feel so sleepy, I'm going to splash some cold water. You know, that actually, that cold water can be sensed by your face and it actually will stimulate your sympathetic nervous system. It'll turn down your vagus nerve and it'll snap you awake as well.

1:01:23So again, I'm just talking about cold water not being a harmful thing that they talk about in Asian cultures. Like you should never drink cold water. You have room temperature or slightly warm water. I'm just telling you, there is a biological reason why drinking cold water can be helpful. I love that. Well, I think these are really easy habits to put into the start of a new year, maybe post-Christmas. or even I always try and say like adding these in throughout even the hardest periods because I think the reason that I feel people I hate using the word fail but become deterred from eating well is because they always try and set themselves up for the best days like these are the most optimal even though we don't even know what the word optimal means but these are the most successful days and so if I can integrate it in these days then I'm going to be successful in keeping it going.

1:02:16But actually, we don't have great days every day. We also have really hard days. So you've got to make sure that when you start putting these habits in, you set them up for your hardest possible days, because that allows you to try and keep the retention of the habits that you're putting in, rather than, oh, I feel great today, so now I'm going to start, because actually that's the easiest. You know, I think what you're saying is so true. the, when we talk about health span, which is how long you can live in a good, healthy state, overall good health, the scorecard is not just your good days. The scorecard is really looking at all of your days and averaging them all out and seeing how you come out at the end.

1:03:02And I think this is why extreme, pursuing anything in extreme actually can work pretty effectively in the short term if you are having a very, very specific goal. So let's be really clear. I'm totally championing people who know their goals in the short term and really are dedicated to kind of achieving them in safe ways. But I think that overall, when you're talking about living a long, healthy life, you got to look at that scorecard as really the signal average of how you're doing overall. You're going to have some good days. You're going to have some bad days. And if you try to really, and this goes back to what my point about joy is, if you try to find joy in your own life, if you aim towards joy, like joy shouldn't be a gift that somebody else gives you.

1:03:53Sure, every now and then you might be surprised by somebody else doing something nice for you. But joy is something that we're all responsible for in our own lives. And I think this kind of self-empowerment is something that we almost are taught to remove from our psyche from the time we're young in school. You know, like, you must work hard. You must—no pain, no gain. I actually think that in order to get to good healthspan, we need to rekindle our own self-awareness of joy and give ourselves permission to seek it. Yeah, absolutely. And so I'm guessing, you know, the understanding that I've got from today is how important the mind, the body, but your emotional self-awareness is on your journey of your healthy lifespan.

1:04:42How important it is to have friends and social connection and feel supported by yourself and by others. The importance of polyphenols for acrymansia, which seems to be a bit like the supercharger when it comes to our health. and actually taking time to understand what brings us joy along that journey and also making sure that you're kicking up with your hydration and having lots of green tea and cold water, apparently. You know, I think those are all... You summarized that beautifully. But what's nice about it is that they're all practical. I know. Well, this is the thing. I think sometimes...

1:05:23And we spoke about this just before you came on, you know, So much now is over complication of health. And the sadness is that it's also marketable. And everyone wants to have good health. I mean, everyone has the same end goal, to feel well, to look well, to be well. But getting there now feels a little bit more foggy because we're just blocked by so much information. And it's not someone's job to understand what's right or wrong. We're hoping that people are telling us the right things. But actually, it's just so muffled now that we're trying to fight against it. And so it creates a longer distance and also a big friction point to getting there.

1:06:05Yeah, my philosophy is always, you know, keep it simple, make it joyful, and make it possible for you to do in the long run. Absolutely possible is so important. And joyful. It's a joyful season. We are recording this in December. so um will thank you so much for coming on thank you for having me on again it's always a pleasure so i have to leave with the last question i don't know if you remember i can't remember what you said on the last three times i might do a compilation of you four times saying the answer the question the answer to this question i'm about to ask you and see if it's changed okay we'll see if it stayed the same so my fourth time i'm asking you this which is will what does live well be well mean to you?

1:06:51I would tell you it's taking it easy on yourself because I think especially people who are high achievers who really are goal oriented we tend to be really hard on ourselves and one thing that I think is important to do is to be able to give yourself a break. Allow yourself to be able to find that joy. Make it easy for you to do that. And that's hard for a lot of people who are strivers. Yeah, I call them optimizers. And it's hard. It's hard to take a step back, but important. So thank you. I don't think you said that before, but I feel like this has been a bit of your own journey. Maybe. I think we're always connected to things that, you know, when it changes, it's like science.

1:07:41Exactly. Amazing. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.