RMV 35 Bonus Episode! Psychedelic Medicine x Design Pop Up at Stanford University d.school

Hello Results May Vary listeners, it’s Tracy! I’m excited to share this very special episode featuring a panel conversation on the topic of Psychedelic Medicine and Design. I recently co-hosted this live event at the Stanford University Hasso Plattner Institute of Design aka the dschool, with my teaching colleagues Elysa Fenenboch and Dr. Gianni Glick. 

We set out to explore the question, what IS the role of design as we transition psychedelic medicine from the research lab to medical clinics and journey spaces? How might they be used for the most good to individuals, cultures, and ecological ecosystems, including the plants and molecules themselves. 

Let me introduce our guests in order of how you’ll hear them in the recording:

Ismail Ali is the Director of Policy and Advocacy for MAPS, the Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies 

Dr. Allison Feduccia is a neuropharmacologist, psychedelic researcher and educator

Ayize Jama-Everet is an author, professor, producer, and guerilla theologian

Dr. Kyra Bobinet, who you may know from being a guest on this show twice, is also known as Me’me and is an enrolled member of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe, and the founder and CEO of health tech company FreshTri

RMV 21 Saeeda Hafiz: You Can Design Healing Out Of Childhood Chaos

Saeeda Hafiz is a yoga teacher, author, and wellness expert. As a holistic health educator with the San Francisco Unified School District, she focuses on sharing her knowledge of physical and mental wellness within the school system.

On this episode of Results May Vary, Saeeda talks with Chris and Tracy about how growing up in a household of chaos, gave her the freedom to choose a different life for herself. Saeeda shares how yearnings for something else started out as intuition as a child, until she could put words to those yearnings as an adult. She works to set a tone for people on how they can care for themselves through food, movement, and holistic living.

Saeeda Hafiz is the author of The Healing: A Memoir of Food, Family and Yoga. You can learn more about her work on her website, saeedahafiz.com.

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RMV 20 Barbara Knickerbocker Beskind: You Can Design Aging

Barbara has been designing her life for almost a century, with a stint at global design firm IDEO starting when she was just 93-years-old. After seeing founder David Kelley featured on an episode of 60 Minutes, Barbara wrote to the company offering to help design for aging and low-vision populations. Hailing from the field of occupational therapy, after training through the U.S. Army’s War Emergency Course, and serving for 20 years before retiring as a major in 1966, Barbara’s own experience with macular degeneration led her to design glasses to help her and others with the condition. 

In this episode of Results May Vary, Barbara shares her fascinating story of personal reinvention, and how rather than allowing her illnesses and advanced age to hold her back, she simply used them as new constraints to redesign her life around.

RMV 19 Kristen Berman: You Can Design Your Behavior

Kristen Berman spends a lot of time thinking about human behavior. As a behavioral economist, she helps people make the changes that they want in the long term, but are hard to implement in the short term.

On this episode of Results May Vary, Kristen talks with Chris and Tracy about the ways our environment can alter our behavior and how incorporating small changes can yield giant results. Kristen shares strategies and tips on how to approach life from a behavioral economist’s perspective in order to “hack back” our lives and design the lifestyle changes we want.

In 2013, Kristen co-founded behavioral product design company Irrational Labs, with Dan Ariley. She also founded Common Cents Lab at Duke University, which aims to increase the financial well-being for low-to moderate-income people in the U.S. and abroad.

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Surprise, Listeners...Results May Vary is Back!

Updates from the hosts of Results May Vary

Surprise, listeners! It’s been quite awhile since our last episode, but that doesn’t mean you’ve heard the last of me and Chris, or the amazing individuals we’ve met who have been intentionally designing their own lives. In fact, we dug into the Results May Vary vault and found 3 previously unreleased, yet truly inspiring episodes that we’re excited to be sharing with you now. 

In addition, Chris and I have big news: we’d already been planning to launch a comeback even before Covid hit, and now seems like a particularly useful time for us to follow through! Because a quarantine can’t kill our creativity. In fact, now that our well-worn habits and daily and even institutional structures have been thrown out the window, this transition period is an unprecedented opportunity for all of us to imagine new futures for ourselves, our communities, and the world. 

And you know what? Launching a brand new season of Results May Vary isn’t even the biggest news. Chris and I are absolutely thrilled to announce the addition of a third co-host, Katia Verresen. Katia provides transformational coaching for inspired leaders at companies like Airbnb, Facebook, Refinery29, Mystery Science, and The New York Times. Her passion is to help ambitious leaders achieve their full human potential, and once you meet her in episode 1 of our new season, you’ll understand from her infectious energy exactly why we had to add her to our team. Another team member we’re infinitely grateful for is Jenny Luna, who joins us as our first ever professional producer. Jenny has made auditory magic happen on podcasts for Mother Jones and Stanford University Graduate School of Business, and we’re excited to have her do the same for us. 

So stay tuned. We’ll be launching our 3 Vault episodes soon. And will follow up with our new season in short order after that. 

Now without further ado, feel free to dig into the treasures we discovered in our vault. And then we’ll talk to you soon in our new season, starting off with our interview introducing you to Katia!

RMV 18 Stanford d.school Civic Innovation Fellows: You Can Design Impact at Scale

In our last episode, community architect Sandra Kulli talked to us about fostering human connection through the design of extraordinary places.

Today we are excited to share this very special episode of Results May Vary. We’re featuring this year’s Stanford d.school Civic Innovation Fellows, which this year was sponsored by Knight Foundation. This event was recently recorded live as the fellows wrapped up their program and reflected back on their journey of learning design thinking.

Fellows are “restless experts” in their field, accomplished professionals who are focused on accelerating large-scale impact. Over the course of the year, they learn human-centered design and use it to explore, experiment and advance ambitious projects in their sector.

You’ve already met one of the fellows. In Episode 16, Dr. Mick Smyer, talked about his organization Graying Green which is focused on tapping older adults as a resource for climate action.

Today you’ll also be introduced to Angie McKee, the Director of Innovation and Strategy for San Francisco Unified School District's Future Dining Experience. Her project uses student input to reimagine and redesign the school dining experience in order to make it more equitable and enjoyable for all students.

You will also meet Mark Brand, one of Canada’s most recognized social entrepreneurs. Having successfully created eleven businesses in Vancouver, Mark and his teams are determined to breathe new life into marginalized and isolated communities through food, training and meaningful employment.

Mario Lugay is a one-time community organizer turned philanthropy entrepreneur with his initiative, Giving Side. Mario explores bringing the best of technology to the best side of ourselves, testing initiatives that will catalyze and support our society's single largest, shared civic act: giving.

And finally, a fifth fellow, Sydney Smith-Heimbrock was unable to join the conversation. But her work is no less than helping make our government a workplace that unlocks creativity to solve the complex problems facing our Nation. Within the Federal government, she leads the Innovation Lab@OPM, where they teach human-centered design through workshops and immersion projects with Federal leaders and professionals.

Tracy had the honor of working with these fellows over the past year and we are pleased to introduce them to you today in partnership with the Stanford d.school.

Show Notes:

Predictably Irrational, Revised and Expanded Edition: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions by Dan Ariely

Dataclysm: Love, Sex, Race, and Identity--What Our Online Lives Tell Us about Our Offline Selves by Christian Rudder, Co-Founder of OkCupid

Design Thinking Stokes: Workshop warmups

RMV 17 Sandra Kulli: You Can Design Community

In our newest episode, we introduce you to Sandra Kulli, a community architect, dedicated to creating extraordinary places that focus on fostering human connection.

As she practices the business and art of placemaking, Sandra is an advocate of thoughtful design and innovative problem-solving.

Starting her career as a teacher in a rich and vibrant inner city school system, over the years, Sandra has learned that community is local. And personal. So in her work, and her daily life, she is always looking to connect with others in a more meaningful way.

Today she shares her story and experience with us, including her 5 steps for building community well-being.

Show Notes:

Tres Santos in Todo Santos, Baja California Sur
Happy Planet Index
Daybreak, Salt Lake City, UT
The Pinehills, Plymouth, MA
MIT Age Lab
M Train by Patty Smith
Little City Gardens, San Francisco, CA
Ron Finley, Gangsta Gardener
Alone Together by Sherry Turkle
Ride-Arc, Los Angeles, CA
CicLAvia, Los Angeles, CA
Summers Corner, Charleston, SC
Inventing Desire by Karen Stabiner
XPrize
Orbiting the Giant Hairball by Gordon MacKenzie

RMV 16 Dr. Mick Smyer: You Can Design Climate Action

On the newest episode of Results May Vary, we introduce you to aging and climate change expert, Dr. Mick Smyer, and his Graying Green movement, which aims to engage more older adults in taking impactful action on climate change.

Among his many accomplishments, Mick is the former Provost and a current Professor of Psychology at Bucknell University. In addition, currently on his second year of sabbatical, he is working on Graying Green as a Civic Innovation Fellow at Stanford d.school, learning the power of applying design thinking to social activism. And maybe most impressive are his prodigious skills as a washboard player with New Orleans’ own Rustical Quality String Band.

Show Links

Follow Mick on Twitter

Old People Don't Care About Climate Change is Mick's Facebook page prototype for one of his d.school assignments. 

Before The Flood is the powerful National Geographic documentary starring Leonardo DiCaprio as he travels the world to witness climate change firsthand.

Laura Carstensen, author of A Long Bright Future, gives a compelling TEDTalk on how people become happier as they age.

Yale's Program on Climate Change Communication conducts scientific studies on public opinion and behavior; informs the decision-making of governments, media, companies, and advocates; educates the public about climate change; and helps build public and political will for climate action.

RMV 15 Jenny Jin: You Can Design For College (and Beyond)

In our newest episode, we introduce you to designer, Jenny Jin, whose motto is “always be learning!” A graduate of Stanford and MIT, she recently worked at the Alicia Foundation, founded by world renowned chef of El Bulli, Ferran Adria, to promote healthy eating for everyone.

Jenny is an entrepreneurial learner and doer, and is here to inspire us with her a sense of optimism, and roll-up-your-sleeves, kick-open-your-own-door attitude. Living up to her motto, we recently caught up with Jenny as she was preparing to lead a class at MIT’s Edgerton Center for Experiential Learning to teach undergrads how to apply design thinking to their lives.

Always the collaborator, Jenny wanted us to let everyone know that she is grateful for her amazing graduate TA's for the class - Lea (background in education), Nila (background working in oil rigs), and Prerna Sekhi (background in social enterprises) - who all dropped other classes to make helping facilitate this class a priority.

RMV 14 Aaron Sklar: You Can Design Healthcare

As the U.S. healthcare system undergoes a technology revolution, the impact on us as patients, and for providers, often falls short of the promises made. In our newest episode, we ask healthcare innovator, Aaron Sklar, how we can fix our broken system. You may not be surprised to hear, he thinks it involves a whole lot of Design Thinking! 

Aaron is the VP of Design at Welltok, and the founder of Prescribe Design, a network of healthcare experts and design professionals collaborating to re-imagine medical products and services. Its underlying intention is to use design (and designers) as key contributors to fulfilling the promise and creating healthcare experiences that are useful, usable, delightful and impactful.

The work he's doing today could have a huge impact on how we engage with the healthcare system tomorrow. What does his vision look like? You'll have to listen to find out!

RMV 13 Story Musgrave: Should You Really Try To Design Your Life?

What CAN'T you say about Story Musgrave? He holds 7 graduate degrees in math, computers, chemistry, medicine, physiology, literature and psychology, and has been awarded 20 honorary doctorates. He was a part-time trauma surgeon during his 30 year career as an astronaut, AND has had a cameo on Home Improvement.

Today, in his 80s, he operates a palm farm in Florida, among other things, including giving amazing talks about human performance, and raising his youngest daughter, also named Story.

We asked him how he designed such an incredible life and he told us he’s not sure you can, or should. However he does it, his perspective, and life story is absolutely fascinating.

RMV 10 Mike Duncan: You Can Design The Past

We’re in the double digits, y'all! (sfx: NYE party horns)

In the newest Results May Vary episode, we talk to fish-monger turned award-winning history podcaster, Mike Duncan, about how you can design the past — to engage more people in our shared human history, as well as to gather insights that our useful for us to design our future. His approach to design thinking is as much guided by passion and creativity, as it is intentional and exhaustive.

Best known for The History of Rome podcast, Mike’s latest endeavor, Revolutions, is a weekly podcast series examining great political revolutions. His upcoming book, "The Storm Before The Storm" will examine Roman history between 135 B.C. to 80 B.C. with special attention given to the question: "If America was Rome, where are we on the historical timeline?"

Today, Mike Duncan offers incredible insights on how to:

- Make history accessible to more people through storytelling
- Use podcasts to fill in knowledge gaps in education
- Supplement your mindful, creative work with paid work that doesn’t drain your brain
- Shed light on the current Syrian refugee crisis by examining the past
 

How can you use Mike Duncan’s experience as inspiration to design your own life and increase your creative confidence? You have to listen to RMV 10 to find out!

Show Links

The History of Rome Mike's 5-year labor of love to cover the history of the Roman Empire from start to finish. Pretty much the gold standard for all other history podcasts.

Revolutions Mike's current labor of love, a weekly podcast series examining great political revolutions. Now: The Haitian Revolution. Next: Simon Bolivar and Gran Columbia.

The History of Rome Tours History-focused trips to some of most amazing locations in the ancient world, led by Mike himself and a series of knowledgeable guides.

The Ancient World Scott Chesworth's history podcast, which takes a broad view of the very early development of human society from the earliest civilizations down through to the Greeks and Romans in THREE epic series: The Ancient World, The Ancient World - Rediscovery, and his current creative pursuit, The Ancient World - Bloodline, tracing the generations from Cleopatra to Zenobia. (full disclosure: Scott is also Tracy's extremely handsome husband and she wrote this sentence, so you know it's true)

RMV 9 Steve Almond: You Can Design Your Creative Practice

In the newest Results May Vary episode, we talk to New York Times bestselling author Steve Almond about how you can design your creative practice and make a career out of following your artistic passions. Steve's way of design thinking is intentional and intuitive, and offers incredible insight around:

- Living a more examined life
- Finding a patron to support your creative work (pro tip: your patron is probably you!)
- Fighting depression with candy (or other passions)
- Being honest about your needs so you can create habits and behavior change that will stick.

How can you use this inspiration to design your life and increase your creative confidence? Listen to RMV 9 to find out!

About Steve Almond

A former newspaper reporter and the author of Candyfreak and My Life in Heavy Metal, Steve’s latest book, Against Football: One Fan's Reluctant Manifesto, details why, after forty years as a fan, he can no longer watch the game he loves.

In addition to writing thoughtful and often hilarious commentary for The New York Times Magazine and The Boston Globe, Steve Almond is also the more baritone half of the popular and profound Dear Sugar podcast with Cheryl Strayed.

Show Links

Against Football: One Fan's Reluctant Manifesto is RMV guest Steve Almond's synthesis of the NFL detailing why, after 40 years as a fan, he can no longer watch the game he loves.

You Had Me At Beheading is a collection of Steve's self-deprecating and thoughtful responses to the inevitable hate mail he has received for his position against football and the NFL.

Dear Sugar The universe has good news for the lost, lonely, and heartsick. Dear Sugar — the cult-favorite advice column — is back, but this time speaking directly to your ears. Hosted by the original Sugars, Cheryl Strayed and Steve Almond, the podcast fields all your questions — no matter how deep or dark — and offers radical empathy in return.  *New episodes weekly beginning in January.*

Cheryl Strayed is the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling memoir Wild, which was chosen as the 1st selection for Oprah's Book Club 2.0, and turned into an Oscar-nominated movied staring Reese Witherspoon. She has also written New York Times bestsellers Tiny Beautiful Things, Brave Enough, and the novel Torch.

Esalen Writer's Camp In sessions led by authors Cheryl Strayed, Pam Houston, Steve Almond, Samantha Dunn, Alan Heathcock, and Faith Adiele, you'll generate new work and listen to lectures about the art and craft of prose writing. Plus there's amazing mineral fed hot tubs overlooking the Pacific Ocean!

Five Star Bars The ultimate chocolate bars, according to Vogue magazine. Steve gives them an entire chapter in his book Candyfreak. And yes, they are every bit as good as he claims!

John Prine Grammy award-winning folk singer's song, All The Best features the lyrics "Your heart gets bored with your mind."

Naked and Afraid One man, one woman, 21 days with no food, water, shelter, or clothes.

RMV 8 Dr. Ellen Vora: You Can Design Healing With Holistic Psychiatry

Today we’re so grateful to introduce you to Dr. Ellen Vora, a psychiatrist who prefers NOT to prescribe drugs. Instead, she really looks at the whole picture from sleep, nutrition, relationships, diet, and spirituality, in order to help people repair, heal, and optimize their lives in the least risky way possible.

Dr. Vora studied English at Yale University, attended Columbia University for medical school, and completed her residency at Mount Sinai. Currently, she practices at the Eleven Eleven Wellness Center in New York City. She's boarded in Psychiatry and Integrative and Holistic Medicine, and is also a licensed medical acupuncturist and certified yoga teacher. She specializes in depression, anxiety, insomnia, adult ADHD, bipolar and digestive issues.

To Tracy and I, she represents the new face of mental health practitioners — rather than uniformly treating symptoms, Dr. Vora designs solutions based on the root causes for each individual she cares for.

Show Links

Meridian Psychiatry is Dr. Vora's collection of resources and information about her unique, holistic approach to mental health.

Eleven Eleven Wellness Center offers patient-centered care to help people get healthy and keep them healthy. Their treatment strategies take an integrative approach by combining Western Medicine with what are considered "alternative therapies."

Ayurveda is one of the world’s oldest medical systems, originating in India more than 3,000 years ago, and still practiced today. Its concepts about health and disease promote the use of herbal compounds, special diets, and other unique health practices.

Chris Kresser runs one of the top 25 natural health sites in the world and is a leader in the fields of ancestral health, Paleo nutrition, and functional and integrative medicine. He is the author of the New York Times best seller, Your Personal Paleo Code.

Jon Kabat-Zinn is the creator of the Stress Reduction Clinic and the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical school and wrote Full Catastrophe Living, a book about using the wisdom of your body and mind to face stress, pain, and illness.

Thích Nhất Hạnh is a Zen Master, global spiritual leader, poet and peace activist, revered around the world for his powerful teachings and bestselling writings on mindfulness and peace, including Peace Is Every Step about the path of mindfulness in everyday life.

The New Health Rules by Dr. Frank Lipman and Danielle Claro wades through the often contradictory information that bombards us daily and delivers more than 100 actionable tips that will improve every aspect of our health—body, mind, and soul.

The Autoimmune Solution by Amy Myers offers her medically proven approach to prevent a wide range of inflammatory-related symptoms and diseases, including allergies, obesity, asthma, cardiovascular disease, fibromyalgia, lupus, IBS, chronic headaches, and Hashimoto's thyroiditis.

Kelly Brogan, MD is a Holistic Women's Health Psychiatrist in NYC, caring for the whole woman naturally.

Kat Toups, MD is a Functional Medicine Psychiatrist at Bay Area Wellness in Walnut Creek, CA, and is the organizer/administrator for Bay Area Functional Medicine group since 2012.

RMV 7 Dr. Kyra Bobinet: You Can Create A Well Designed Life

Today we are proud to introduce you to Dr. Kyra Bobinet, whose specialty is combining two medicines together: behavior change and design thinking. After completing med school at UCSF, she decided to change course in order to dig deeper into the science behind behavior change.

After graduation from Harvard School of Public Health, Dr. Bobinet worked in the healthcare industry, building programs and algorithms to change behaviors at the million-person scale. Today she is the founder and CEO of EngagedIN, a design firm to help people and organizations change behaviors for the better.

Like Chris and I, she believes that every individual is a designer of their own life every day, and that all we need is to recognize and expand this intuition into full-blown life design skills. In her new book, Well Designed Life, she gives you many of those skills, as well as the approachable science behind it all.

Show Links

Well Designed Life is Dr. Bobinet's collection of the most helpful, useful concepts from her decades of studying neuroscience and design thinking.  The primary goal of this book is to empower you as the designer of your life.

EngagedIN is a behavior design firm for the health and wellness industry.

BJ Fogg creates systems to change human behavior. He runs the Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab, which focuses on methods for creating habits, showing what causes behavior, automating behavior change, and persuading people via mobile phones.

Carol Dweck researches “growth mindset” — the idea that we can grow our brain's capacity to learn and to solve problems. Her book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success  explains why it’s not just our abilities and talent that bring us success—but whether we approach them with a fixed or growth mindset.

RMV 5 Andy Weir: You Can Design Life For The Martian

Today, we are BEYOND THRILLED to introduce you to Andy Weir, a computer programmer turned New York Times #1 Bestselling author of The Martian. He joins us to talk about turning his nights-and-weekend hobby into, not just one of the most successful self-published novels of all time, but also a soon-to-be major motion picture directed by Ridley Scott, and starring Matt Damon.

How did he do it? And how exactly does a guy survive life on Mars with only a handful of potatoes and a thumb-drive full of disco? Andy was kind enough to fill us in. (HINT: Science!)

Show Links:

The Martian Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars. Now, he's sure he'll be the first person to die there. Read the book. Then listen to the audiobook. Then, see the movie! Seriously, so gooooood.

The Egg The short story by Andy Weir that first got him noticed online.

Theft of Pride The first novel for Andy Weir (under the pen name Jack Sharp), detailing how Shanex Exxel stole the Pride Diamond, Sephalon's national treasure. It's a Sci-Fi story of theft, scams, racism, culture-clash, and money.

Packing for Mars Author Mary Roach tackles the strange science of space travel, and the psychology, technology, and politics that go into sending a crew into orbit. Why is it impolite for astronauts to float upside down during conversations? Just how smelly does a spacecraft get after a two week mission? This is a book for grownups who still secretly dream of being astronauts.

Episode 1: You Can Design Your Life!

Results May Vary is a thoughtful experiment to see just what happens when you set out to intentionally design your life. In our inaugural episode, we talk about what design means to us, how we've applied the tools of design typically used in business to our own lives, and what it could all mean for you.

In future episodes, we'll talk to people already designing their lives, as well as those curious to get started. Maybe that's you! Our dream is to build a community of people who can create and take advantage of any opportunity that interests them.

View Full Transcript

Show Notes:

Camp Grounded Summer Camp for Adults - Trade in your digital devices, schedules, and work-jargon for an off-the-grid weekend of fun in the redwoods.

Leadville 100 The legendary "Race Across The Sky" 100-mile run is where it all started back in 1983. This is it. The race where legends are created and limits are tested. One hundred miles of extreme Colorado Rockies terrain — from elevations of 9,200 to 12,600 feet. You will give the mountain respect, and earn respect from all.

Ironman Triathlon is one of a series of long-distance triathlon races organized by the World Triathlon Corporation (WTC) consisting of a 2.4-mile (3.86 km) swim, a 112-mile (180.25 km) bicycle ride and a marathon 26.2-mile (42.2 km) run, raced in that order and without a break.

Lose Yourself by Eminem Best running Power Song of all-time!

Born To Run Isolated by Mexico's deadly Copper Canyons, the blissful Tarahumara Indians have honed the ability to run hundreds of miles without rest or injury. In a riveting narrative, award-winning journalist and often-injured runner Christopher McDougall sets out to discover their secrets.

Girls On The Run Non-profit after-school program that encourages preteen girls to develop self-respect and healthy lifestyles through running. One girl at a time, Girls on the Run has changed 1 million girls' lives. One girl at a time, we're going to change one million more.

The Tim Ferriss Show Each episode, Tim deconstructs world-class performers from eclectic areas (investing, sports, business, art, etc.) to extract the tactics and tricks you can use.

Good Guy Discount This American Life producer Ben Calhoun tells Ira about a secret move his friend uses all the time — the "good guy discount" — that gets Ben's friend money off all sorts of items when he's shopping.