The mindbodygreen Podcast

Siggi Hilmarsson is the founder and CEO of Siggi’s Dairy, dubbed the fastest-growing yogurt brand in America by Forbes. Siggi moved from Iceland to the United States to study at Columbia University, but after graduating and heading to Wall Street with so many of his peers, he soon realized that this straight path wasn’t a good fit.Loving his life in New York but missing the food from his home country, Siggi started playing around in his kitchen, whipping up Scandinavian staples like Skyr (Icelandic yogurt) after work. He was disturbed by the fact that the average American yogurt contained more sugar than a can of Coke and committed himself to perfecting his own low-sugar, grass-fed dairy alternative. Now, 15 years later, Siggi has gone from delivering his yogurt personally by hand to selling 35 unique products in more than 25,000 stores across the country.In this episode, we’ll find out more about how Siggi’s Dairy went from a one-man show to a company with more than 40 employees and the important lessons Siggi has learned about growth along the way. He opens up about the challenges he’s faced on his road to success, from going bankrupt in 2008 to figuring out how to transport cold yogurt via the NYC subway in the middle of summer. He’s also sharing the best and worst entrepreneurial advice out there, why he thinks you should always hire people who are smarter than you, and a foolproof way to plan for success.To contact Jason with comments, questions, or speaker ideas, please e-mail podcast@mindbodygreen.com. For all sponsorship inquiries, please e-mail sales@mindbodygreen.com. Want to join our podcast newsletter? Sign up here! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

John Mackey is the co-founder and CEO of Whole Foods Market, a company that has shaped the American diet for the past three decades. After joining a vegetarian co-op as a teenager, Mackey discovered a philosophy that would drive him to create one of the nation’s biggest and most beloved supermarkets. Whole Foods has changed the way the world thinks about food and what we expect from a grocery store, thanks to their decision to exclusively sell foods without artificial preservatives, colors, flavors, sweeteners, or hydrogenated fats and their commitment to creating a truly unimagined shopping experience.John is not just your average, brilliantly successful entrepreneur. Embracing the vegan lifestyle for nearly 15 years, he is vocal in his belief that a plant-based diet can not only save the planet but also everyone living on it. John goes to great lengths to ensure that his company is run as consciously as possible—such as by sending his sickest employees (those struggling with obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and more) through the Whole Foods Total Health Immersion—a $4,000-per-week, medically supervised program designed to reset their diets and kick-start their health journey.In this episode, we’ll learn more about how the small, organic grocery store running out of a Victorian house (that John also happened to live in) morphed into the international success that is Whole Foods. Mackey will dive into his meditation practices, his go-to matras, his positive associations with stress, and what gets him excited to jump out of bed every morning. If you’re ready for a jolt of motivation, listen on. John’s new book The Whole Foods Diet: The Lifesaving Plan for Health and Longevity comes out this month.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Melissa Hartwig is the creator of one of the most successful diets of all time, Whole30. Chances are you or someone you know has tried Whole30, with the goals of increasing energy, losing weight, and improving health but also to cut the damaging emotional ties we all hold with food. What started as a husband-and-wife experiment quickly became an international movement that has spawned a mega-successful website, three best-selling books, numerous must-follow social media accounts, and more. Melissa is known as the super-fit poster child for the Whole30 lifestyle, displaying the kind of positive, entrepreneurial, and vibrant life that so many of us aspire to lead. However, many people are unaware of the fact that Melissa’s interest in health started after she hit rock bottom as a heroin and ecstasy addict who spent all day, every day, using. In this episode, Melissa shares her untold story for the first time, touching on everything from the trauma that started her drug problem to her divorce, the creation of Whole30, and her life as a thriving single mom who has positively affected millions. To contact Jason with comments, questions, or speaker ideas, please e-mail podcast@mindbodygreen.com. For all sponsorship inquiries, please e-mail sales@mindbodygreen.com. Want to join our podcast newsletter? Sign up here! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices