Interview with Mayim Bialik about the mental health journey, starting a media company, and the power of authenticity.
Mayim Bialik found fame by pretending to be other people. Now she's built a media company by being real.
Mayim Bialik is helping people avoid breakdowns by broadcasting her own "Breakdown." Every week.
The beloved actor and neuroscientist is the host of "Mayim Bialik's Breakdown" podcast, among myriad other projects. She uses her many platforms to share her authentic self — no matter how vulnerable. Sharing your story can help others.
Mayim Bialik found fame by pretending to be other people. Now she's built a media company by being real.
Mayim Bialik is helping people avoid breakdowns by broadcasting her own "Breakdown." Every week.
The beloved actor and neuroscientist is the host of "Mayim Bialik's Breakdown" podcast, among myriad other projects. She uses her many platforms to share her authentic self — no matter how vulnerable. Sharing your story can help others.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Welcome to Restaurant Influencers, presented by Entrepreneur.
00:09I am your host, Sean Walchef.
00:11This is a Cali BBQ Media production.
00:14In life, in the restaurant business, and in the new creator economy, we learn through
00:19lessons and stories.
00:21I am so grateful to Toast, our primary technology partner, for believing in storytelling in
00:27the hospitality space and giving us the platform and the opportunity to have conversations
00:32like we get to have today.
00:33I have to pinch myself because this is an incredible opportunity.
00:38We have Mayim Bialik, and she is a mom, she's an actor, she's a director, she's a host,
00:45she is a PhD in neuroscience, she is known for her roles in Blossom, Big Bang Theory,
00:52a Jeopardy host, and what we're here to talk about today is the amazing work that she is
00:58doing with the Bialik Breakdown, her podcast that she is so graciously publishing all over
01:05the internet to help so many people get vulnerable, learn from vulnerability, learn about mental
01:11health.
01:12Mayim, welcome to the show.
01:13Thank you.
01:14Thanks for having me.
01:15Where in the world is your favorite stadium, stage, or venue?
01:22Gosh, to perform or to see things?
01:28To perform.
01:29Oh, gosh.
01:30I mean, you know, the sweeter answer is like in my car with my kids where I think I'm actually
01:43often the funniest.
01:44Yeah.
01:45I mean, most of my life, you know, I live on a soundstage, so, you know, it's kind of
01:53an interesting, it's an interesting question.
01:57Yeah, but I'm kind of funny in my car with my kids.
02:01Give me a stage, a more intimate stage, something where you'd be giving a speech, a venue maybe.
02:10Yeah.
02:11No, for sure.
02:12You know, I've spoken at universities all over the country and all over North America
02:17and even other places in the world.
02:20I really love speaking, you know, for, yeah, I love speaking in kind of college environments,
02:27especially when you pull both like faculty and students and members of the larger community.
02:33I do a lot of public speaking and, you know, for the podcast, my podcasting partner, Jonathan
02:40and I just, we were just at South by and we had, you know, a packed room of people
02:45really excited to learn about our podcast and science and spirituality.
02:49And that was a really special kind of venue too.
02:52So.
02:53Beautiful.
02:54Let's, let's go back to South by for this audience.
02:57And I would love for you to share your podcasting journey specifically, why, why you started
03:03the show, where did the idea come from and the lessons that you've learned along the
03:07way?
03:08Yeah.
03:09So, you know, at the time that I was thinking about, you know, trying to do more as a science
03:15educator, you know, I'm really trained as a science communicator.
03:19I have a doctorate in neuroscience, but I'm, you know, specifically someone who really
03:23likes to explain things, you know, maybe to people who don't have a background in science.
03:27And I actually designed a neuroscience curriculum when I was out of grad school for junior high
03:31and high schoolers in the homeschool community here in Los Angeles.
03:35And so I love, you know, talking about science and originally thought of like, gosh, should
03:41I do a talk show where we talk all about science?
03:44And it was my, you know, my partner, Jonathan, who was like, no, you should do a podcast.
03:49And I said, well, I've never listened to one what's a podcast and it was, you know, really
03:55COVID hit and then the lockdown happened and we were thinking like, how are we going to
03:59do this?
04:00And so we ended up, yeah, we ended up turning the house that I used to live in, which had
04:07been rented for years and the person who had rented it had just moved out.
04:11And so we turned that house into a podcast studio.
04:16And, you know, a lot of the producing really, you know, goes to my partner, Jonathan.
04:21He much more has the brain for that.
04:23He also is a co-founder of a startup company.
04:25So he knows about workflow and all those things.
04:29And, you know, I really kind of took hold of the content, you know, side of it.
04:35And when we started, we really wanted to democratize mental health.
04:38We figured, gosh, if people like him and me, you know, who had a history of having access
04:42to therapy and to healing and managing anxiety, like if we were struggling, imagine people
04:48who had no vocabulary for what they were even experiencing when there was a global pandemic.
04:52And so that's really was our motivation was like, let's just explain to people, like,
04:56if you're having trouble sleeping, if you're having trouble, you know, eating, if you're
04:59thinking about the future, like this is called anxiety, if you don't know.
05:02And for those of us who know, we're happy to tell you what works and what doesn't.
05:06And, you know, so anyway, that's sort of how the podcast started was much more informational.
05:13And then we started having some pretty awesome guests on and we found that people really
05:16wanted to be vulnerable and felt like opening up to me in particular.
05:22And we found that there were some themes that kept running through the episodes and we've
05:27sort of kind of kept shifting the podcast to, you know, to adapt to what we were hearing
05:31and you know, where we've kind of landed and what we ended up talking about at South by
05:35Southwest was like, mind, body and spirit.
05:38They're all connected in some way.
05:40And each component is critical for the health of the other systems.
05:44So having a relationship to something greater than yourself actually helps your physiological
05:49wellness.
05:50It helps your emotional wellness.
05:52And we talk about the science of why that is.
05:55And that's sort of, you know, where our podcast has evolved to.
05:57But we have incredible guests, you know, who want to come on and talk about their stories
06:01and incredible experts, you know, who are helping us explain these things.
06:09As a host, the reason why I'm assuming I'm taking a big assumption here that the guests
06:16feel OK to open up on your show is that you lead with vulnerability.
06:21Yeah, I mean, I hadn't thought of it like that, but apparently that that seems to be
06:27like people feel comfortable when there's a place of comfort.
06:31And we do.
06:32You know, we Jonathan and I both speak very openly about our history with mental health
06:36challenges and what's worked and what hasn't worked.
06:38And also that we're still works in progress.
06:41You know, there's a lot of especially celebrity platforms out there that will tell you like
06:44how to fix it.
06:45Here's what I did.
06:46Like, I look great on the cover of People magazine because like everything's great.
06:51And that's kind of not our vibe.
06:52Our vibe is like, wow, every week in your life has, you know, some complexity or thing
06:58or thing with your kid or with your boss.
07:00And, you know, like you get to keep practicing all these things, you know, and there's not
07:05really like a destination per se, but there's a journey, you know, that we're all on.
07:10And like, what are the resources and what are the tools that we can have that make it,
07:14you know, a little bit easier?
07:15But there's no cure for being human, you know, and it's true.
07:19Once you kind of start from there, I think people do feel more comfortable, you know,
07:24joining you there.
07:25So you had a quote in Vanity Fair and they asked you, is there anything you won't share?
07:31And you said, there's a whole part of my life that's just mine.
07:35A lot of things are left on the cutting room floor.
07:37My kids don't listen to the podcast.
07:39They barely listen to me when they have to.
07:42I humiliate myself all the time on TikTok.
07:44So podcast is probably the least embarrassing thing that I do.
07:48Yeah, I mean, my kids might disagree with that also.
07:52Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, I think what's true is while there are things that I don't
07:58necessarily, you know, go into great detail about and I do try and leave a lot of my kids,
08:03you know, life and identity and experiences and I think for the most part, I leave that
08:06sort of out of it.
08:08You know, the fact is what you're you're not getting an inauthentic version of me, you
08:13know, just because you're not getting a 101% version of me.
08:18What I show on the podcast is pretty accurate to what it's like.
08:24And then yeah, there's other parts that necessarily don't get shared the same way.
08:29What have you learned in the podcasting journey as far as publishing cadence?
08:33How many episodes are you putting out the format?
08:35Yeah.
08:36Um, I mean, I've learned that I don't know a lot.
08:40And you know, when I try and figure it out, I, I often still need a lot of help, you know,
08:46having it, you know, process for me and with me.
08:50I a lot of times, you know, think that someone doesn't like me and it turns out they do,
08:57you know, so I've learned not to trust my first instinct of like, is this going well?
09:00Like what's happening here?
09:03And also editing can save a lot, you know, meaning if I'm feeling awkward, or I make
09:06a mistake, you know, that stuff, you know, it can feel like it'll flow a little bit better
09:10with editing, but we're not a highly edited show that way.
09:14You know, we're a four camera show, which is unusual in that, you know, about one and
09:18a half million, you know, subscribers on YouTube, you know, get to see us or anybody who wants
09:22to subscribe can see us.
09:24So that's, you know, heavier on the editing, but, you know, we, it really makes a difference
09:30when people know they can count on you once a week.
09:33That's a thing.
09:34It really makes a difference.
09:36With very few exceptions, you know, we put out an episode a week, we do sometimes have,
09:41you know, two things in a week, sometimes we'll drop something in there.
09:44This is much more Jonathan and our producer, Valerie Floyd's, you know, kind of, you know,
09:49they do a lot of testing and, you know, seeing what might work and what can help.
09:55But people like novel content when we post it, which kind of surprised me.
10:00Like I once did a guided meditation thing and like people loved it.
10:04Or I did, I started using the 10% happier app, which like, they're not paying me to
10:08say that it's Dan Harris's, you know, meditation app.
10:11And, you know, I posted, I basically kept like a little video journal and people really
10:14like that.
10:15And so you never know what people will like.
10:18Jonathan and I will do lives sometimes.
10:20I played the piano.
10:21I played Matisyahu's One Day and people like lost their minds.
10:25Like I didn't know you played piano.
10:26I didn't know you sang.
10:27So I think like, you know, really being open to trying stuff out has been important.
10:33I'll always second guess myself.
10:34I'll always have the reason not to do it.
10:36And so it's really helpful to have, in particular, Jonathan as a real cheerleader.
10:41You know, he really like, he thinks people really will get a lot out of a lot of the
10:45things that I'm afraid to try.
10:47So I'm really lucky to have a partner.
10:48I mean, he's much more in that sort of like, let's try it out space.
10:53You know, he has an MFA in screenwriting.
10:55So he like, you know, he's a creative in ways that I'm, you know, I can be a lot more stringent
11:00with myself creatively.
11:02You said four cameras set up.
11:04Is that right?
11:05Yeah.
11:06So is that are you in the same studio?
11:07Are you still producing in the same studio from code?
11:09It's literally my it's where the bedroom that I used to and it's a it's a small space.
11:16But yeah, we have, you know, the ability for for two different size singles and then
11:19a shot of Jonathan and then we have a two shot and then he's remote, you know, for part
11:24of the time.
11:25And so we have a whole setup for a monitor to make it, you know, at least so that I feel
11:28like I can talk to him.
11:29And then if we have a guest, you know, I'm not being pulled too many directions.
11:34So yeah, it's a pretty small space.
11:36We used to be at two desks.
11:38And this is one of the things I was like, I think we need to be at one desk.
11:40And Jonathan said, No, we need two desks.
11:42And then finally, he gave in after, I don't know, a year or so, and now we're at one desk.
11:47And now a quick break from restaurant influencers to welcome our newest sponsor to the show.
11:53It's Zach Oates, the founder of Ovation.
11:55Ovation is helping restaurants to improve operations with the human touch.
12:00We are a guest experience platform for multi unit restaurants like Friendly's, Muya, PDQ,
12:05Taziki's and even Cali Barbecue with thousands of others that starts with a two question
12:10survey and drives revenue, location level improvement and guest recovery.
12:14So here's how it works.
12:16The guest answers two questions.
12:18The first one is how is your experience and then from there, happy guests are invited
12:21to do things that are going to drive revenue and unhappy guests share privately what went
12:26wrong.
12:27So you and your team can resolve that concern in real time.
12:30Our AI will even help you do that.
12:32Then the magic happens.
12:33We take all the public reviews, we take all the ovation feedback, we categorize it using
12:38our AI and give you detailed feedback in 34 restaurant specific categories to improve
12:44your operations.
12:45So we make sure that guests feel good, that you look good.
12:47And if you're interested in learning more, visit OvationUp.com forward slash Sean, because
12:52any listener of Sean's is a friend of Ovation's.
13:03When you first started, you said you didn't know about the podcasting space.
13:07Once you started getting going, did you start to follow any other shows that you admired
13:13up to?
13:14You know, there's there's definitely people kind of in our space that I don't regularly
13:20listen to.
13:21It's just not part of my, I don't know, my brain just sort of doesn't work in the listening
13:25to podcast space.
13:27I also don't watch television, though, and like really how like there's a couple shows
13:30that I have watched in the last 20 years.
13:33But that's not really how I consume information best, I guess.
13:37I read a lot more than I listen or watch.
13:42But you know, there's definitely people like Jay Shetty and like Huberman and Atiyah and
13:46those kind of people.
13:49You know, Jonathan loves Kara Swisher, like he's really big, and like Scott Galloway and
13:53you know, there's different things.
13:55Sometimes it's format, sometimes it's content.
13:58You know, for me and sort of the mental health space, like there's a lot of people in that
14:01space.
14:02There weren't when we started.
14:03And so now it's kind of like hard to sift through.
14:07But but yeah, Valerie and Jonathan also do a lot of that kind of stuff.
14:12But you know, it's clear that people are getting more flashy with their advertising.
14:18People are using AI.
14:20People are, you know, doing a lot more to be seen in this space.
14:22And I understand the need for that.
14:25I just personally don't have a brain for kind of tackling it so much.
14:30But you know, it's my job to try things out and that I can do.
14:34How have you learned the process of interviewing?
14:38The craft of interviewing?
14:40Um, you know, it's still a process.
14:43Um, sometimes I talk too much about myself, especially if someone's really quiet, you
14:49know, I just have that like anxious need to fill space, which I'm trying to learn to just
14:53like chill out about.
14:55Jonathan has to keep reminding me like we can edit like if they're quiet, and they need
14:59a minute, like it's okay, it'll all come together.
15:04You know, I think it's important to really let the guests shine, you know, and to find
15:09the places for them to really feel like they have space to, you know, to have their their
15:14platform. I was recently interviewed by Taylor Lautner and his wife for their podcast.
15:20And it was really weird because I'm not used to being interviewed like that, you know, on
15:24a podcast about mental health.
15:25And I was like, this is uncomfortable.
15:29And then I realized like, oh, that's how I do that.
15:32Right. And also, like, I'm just I wasn't used to it.
15:35I wasn't used to being on someone else's podcast where they said, wow, tell us about eating
15:39disorders and tell us about alcoholism and tell us about all these things.
15:42So. So, yeah, I think it's also important to to let people know, you know, who they
15:48are, meaning, you know, I would never, you know, I would never like just kiss someone's
15:55butt just to make them feel comfortable.
15:56But I do want people to know because I do read people's books when they come on.
16:02I do. You know, Valerie does research and I do.
16:04I'm the one who reads the books.
16:06Like Jonathan says, we put the information in the computer and the computer spits out
16:10what we need to know. So I am a fast reader.
16:14And and it's important to me for people to know, like, I really appreciated this about
16:18your book or this touched me or, you know, to let them know that they mattered enough
16:23to me before they were sitting in front of me, you know, for for us to to have a
16:28conversation. And also, I do think it's important to have some levity.
16:32You know, we have like a rapid fire that we do.
16:34And I'm very curious in how people got to where they are.
16:38Sometimes people are less interested in that.
16:40But I've also found that it's a really good icebreaker because it lets people kind of
16:44like, yeah, lets people sort of talk about, you know, the things about us that we often
16:49forget that make us who we are.
16:51I remember when we had Joe Dispenza on, I was like, where'd you grow up like your life?
16:56Like, how do you become Joe Dispenza?
16:57Like what's going on in there?
16:59And he was actually pretty open to it.
17:01And I was like, oh, he's like a dude from I think he's from New Jersey.
17:03I was like, oh, he's like a guy.
17:05And then he becomes Joe Dispenza.
17:07Right. But I'm really interested in sort of like what, you know, what anchors people to
17:11other people, like how is Matthew McConaughey story not very different from, you know, the
17:15person who reads Auras, right?
17:17How's Dustin Hoffman and Ben Stiller story not that different from, you know, Sarah
17:21Silverman's or the lady who got struck by lightning and met God?
17:25You know, everybody's got a very similar template.
17:29Like we were all born somewhere and raised somewhere and we pretty much all felt like
17:32either we didn't fit in or something wasn't right.
17:34Or if we had success, it wasn't enough or it wasn't the right kind or we didn't deserve
17:38it. So like that's the human experience.
17:40So helping people find that, you know, when you interview them, I think is important,
17:44too. Did you feel like you fit in in San Diego?
17:48I'm from San Diego and you know, I was actually very
17:52early. But go back to my grandparents lived there.
17:55And so, you know, my grandparents fled the pogroms leading
18:00up to the Holocaust from Eastern Europe.
18:02And they lived like like survivors.
18:04You know, they lived in a community of survivors and they didn't really speak English very
18:07well. So like my San Diego experience was like a community that was like three blocks
18:11long of like everyone who spoke like my grandparents and had these like heavy Eastern European
18:15accents. And like I would go to their synagogue and I would go to the park and then my
18:20parents would go to like we'd go to Bazaar Del Mundo and they would have margaritas to
18:23recover from seeing my grandparents.
18:25Like that was my San Diego experience.
18:28So I love you.
18:29I have a strong a strong identification with it because like, you know, we were living
18:34in my grandparents living room when I was born.
18:35So like that was a real refuge.
18:37My parents had just moved from New York.
18:38And but yeah, I definitely didn't feel like I fit in in Los Angeles because I was raised
18:42like a New Yorker in Los Angeles.
18:46So I, too, I was raised by my grandfather and never met my father.
18:50He's from Bulgaria and something that you had said in one of your
18:54interviews about cooking specifically your grandmother.
18:58Can you share a little bit about why you're so passionate about cooking?
19:02Yeah. I mean, I was someone was asking me the other day, like I, you know, I was cooking
19:06from the time I was like in preschool.
19:08My mom, I had my own set of pots and pans and my mom, you know, learning to wash dishes
19:12was like the first skill that I learned regarding cooking because it's what my mom did.
19:16And we didn't have a dishwasher, you know, until I was I mean, till well later in my
19:21life, maybe junior high or high school, you know, like so I
19:26grew up as a domestic, you know, and having Eastern European grandparents meant that
19:30like you were raised to sew and to cook and to clean.
19:34And like it was also a thing of like pride, like it wasn't like, oh, well, we're our own
19:38housekeeper. It was like these are the skills that I learned.
19:41And, you know, my mom was a fantastic cook and my grandmother
19:46was Hungarian. And so like cooking was like it was like a you know, that's like a national
19:50tradition is like to cook.
19:53And, you know, my my grandmother, we would say like she could turn anything to gold,
19:57like whether it was food or like a piece of fabric or, you know, she was just like this
20:01amazing, you know, she was an artist, but like she was an artist who like never graduated
20:06elementary school and like was a sweatshop worker, you know, but she was she was brilliant
20:10in the kitchen. And, you know, people would tell stories like, oh, she made a goulash that
20:14I'll never forget, you know, like it changed her life.
20:17But yeah, I was raised to cook and to bake.
20:20So those are skills that I still have and use and try to teach my boys.
20:24It's a little harder to compete with the phone these days.
20:27You know, when I was a kid, it was like either play alone in your room or come cook.
20:31So, yeah, huge, huge culinary, you know, I mean, we didn't call it culinary.
20:36It was just like cooking, you know, it was cooking and baking and it was feeding people
20:39and it was taking care of them.
20:41But also, you know, raised in a kind of traditional Jewish community, cooking is a huge cornerstone
20:46of our culture.
20:48You know, every holiday is about the food that represents the liberation or the struggle
20:52or the victory or the this, the that, you know, we have fasting days, then we have like
20:56how are we going to break the fast, you know, it's like very important and also spiritually
21:01significant.
21:02You know, our food often has spiritual meaning.
21:04And so, yeah, I actually I published a cookbook called Mayim's Vegan Table, you know, a million
21:09years ago when people were like vegan, what's that?
21:12And so, you know, I happen to have raised my kids vegan.
21:17They have hair and rosy cheeks and they're, you know, both very tall, taller than me.
21:21So yeah, I did used to cook meat.
21:25It's been a minute, but but yeah, that's sort of my cooking life.
21:29Can you tell me more about the cooking content about TikTok, YouTube, some of the stuff that
21:34people love to watch people cook and I'm happy to cook.
21:37I do.
21:38I really love doing, you know, Instagram lives in particular where I cook and sometimes it'll
21:42be spontaneous or I'm like, oh, I totally forgot I'm baking hamantaschen for this Jewish
21:47holiday like let's talk about it.
21:49And yeah, I really I don't do it perfectly.
21:53You know, I still haven't even figured out the best way to like rig the camera so that
21:56you can like see what I'm doing.
21:58But I cook like a real person, you know, like I wipe my hands on my apron and sometimes
22:04on my face and, you know, it's messy.
22:07It's not perfect.
22:08You know, I have a lot of like like I have a bunch of like my grandmother's bowls.
22:12I have like the rolling pin that my paternal grandmother literally like someone brought
22:16it from Poland when they came over.
22:18And so like I have this like beautiful wood, like, you know, classic Eastern European,
22:22you know, rolling pin.
22:23So, you know, I have a smattering of dishes.
22:25I don't have a full set of everything.
22:27I literally have like my mom's dishes that like she used, you know, it's like my kitchen
22:31looks like a normal person's kitchen, I would think.
22:33I mean, I have like open shelving and it's, you know, very pretty.
22:36But a lot of the stuff on there is like mason jars and like weird, like, you know, old olive
22:41jars that now hold flax seeds and, you know, it's like a real kitchen.
22:46I think maybe that's what people like.
22:48You know, I'm messy.
22:49I like to drop things.
22:50Like sometimes I burn things.
22:52Yeah.
22:54From what from what we've found in doing the work that we do, talking to the people that
22:58are creating the best content that have built audiences and, you know, communities, people
23:02that actually buy in.
23:04Sam, the cooking guy, he's a close friend of mine, and he always talks about if you
23:08don't like me on video, you're not going to like me in real life because I'm the same
23:11person.
23:12Pretty much like I think I may have left some veggie broth on the stove while we've been
23:17doing this interview and I'm starting to smell it.
23:18Exactly right.
23:19Can you talk a little bit about your YouTube vlog?
23:24So you've put out some videos that have done really, really well and videos that most people
23:29wouldn't think to be vulnerable back to being vulnerable.
23:33You know, why I stopped having kids for me is remembering wedding after my divorce.
23:39Divorce.
23:40Why I'm vegan.
23:41I mean, these are all topics that most people would probably steer away from.
23:46Yeah.
23:47I started my YouTube channel because a friend of mine, his name's Emmanuel Shalev, and he
23:52was actually part of the Macca Beats, a group of a cappella singers that went viral many
23:58years ago when I was on Big Bang Theory.
23:59And he and I connected because he was much more skilled in the tech space, you know,
24:04and he, you know, he had gone viral as an a cappella group.
24:08Like who does that?
24:09Right.
24:10And we became very close friends.
24:12And he believed in me more than I believed in myself, which has been kind of the story
24:16of my whole career.
24:17And he said, you have you have a voice.
24:20You have a thing that people really love when you're vulnerable.
24:23And I believe that you can build an audience from this.
24:26And I was like, I don't even know what YouTube is like.
24:28What does that mean?
24:29And, you know, he pointed me to people like Grace Helbig and, you know, John and Hank
24:33Green and people who were like making unusual kind of like geeky content.
24:37And I was like, oh, I have things to say.
24:39And it was it was, you know, he was my first kind of editor.
24:42And we started this YouTube channel.
24:44And he literally, you know, he pushed me to be vulnerable, vulnerable about things
24:48and really resonated with people.
24:50I've talked about science and God.
24:53I've talked about vaccines.
24:54I've talked about all those things I've talked about extended breastfeeding.
24:57And yeah.
24:59So that was kind of why we use the YouTube channel to sort of launch the podcast, because
25:02in many ways, it's an extension of that.
25:04You know, it's an extension of that vulnerability.
25:07And really just kind of me being an authentic person.
25:11And I think there's a lot of people who will show you a shiny world and a world where everything
25:15gets, you know, tied up like that's not that's not what I do.
25:18It's not my life experience.
25:20It's not I can't really pretend to be that.
25:23So I just get to be myself.
25:24And a lot of people do resonate with that.
25:27Can you share a little bit about the other social platforms?
25:30Which one's your favorite digital playground?
25:32Um, look, you know, before October 7th, I really enjoyed Tick Tock, which is not to
25:38say I don't enjoy Tick Tock after October 7th.
25:40But, you know, the situation with, you know, the the sort of attack on a lot of Jewish
25:47celebrities really having nothing to do with politics.
25:50You know, I'm a bleeding heart liberal and, you know, have argued for the rights of Palestinians
25:55for decades.
25:57But that that became a really difficult platform to exist on just even with neutral content.
26:04And so that's been a challenge.
26:07Every platform has been a challenge for many of us who are, you know, prominent just for
26:13being Jewish, again, having nothing to do with politics.
26:15So it's been really hard.
26:17There's things that I love about really each of the platforms.
26:19I still love Facebook.
26:20You know, I remember back in the day, that's actually where you would like share with people
26:23who really want to talk about stuff, you know.
26:25So, yeah, I have, you know, I think everybody has their issues with different aspects of
26:29X and Instagram and all of them, you know.
26:33So I have a really great, you know, social media team that sort of helps do the actual
26:37posting, because as a the kind of brain that I have, I will constantly get locked out of
26:42things, constantly forget my passwords.
26:44Everything changes.
26:45I get locked out.
26:46I don't understand what's a real.
26:47So, yeah.
26:48How did you build the social media team?
26:50When did it start?
26:51Um, actually, my publicist, Heather Bezignano at ICON, it's a team that that she's worked
26:57with.
26:58And so it's Amanda C is her name.
27:00And yeah, it's like real people, you know, you know, who understand also how to interact
27:05with me and help me, you know, craft language.
27:08We used to do a lot more.
27:09I'm literally going to turn off the stove.
27:12That is awesome.
27:13Oh, it's fantastic.
27:14Totally like the fire alarm may go off because we don't want that kind of viral video.
27:23Let's go.
27:24Really hilarious.
27:25I'm going to open the window.
27:27Like, literally, I started it before we started our interview.
27:31And anyway.
27:32Oh, it's fantastic.
27:33So tell me, tell me about the you.
27:36You built a team that you trust, which is, yeah, it's a small team.
27:39And honestly, you know, it's yeah, it's just a couple a couple of women and and Valerie
27:45Floyd, who does our podcast stuff, you know, she handles sort of like the podcast universe.
27:50So so yeah, it's sort of a conglomeration.
27:55You know, we post a lot less than we used to.
27:57That's just sort of a fact now.
28:00But but yeah, I think that especially for the podcast, you know, you really you want
28:06Addy don't know my cat's going to run outside.
28:08This is real.
28:09I can't.
28:10I'm fantastic.
28:11With the podcast, you know, it's really the challenge of like drawing people in and teaching
28:19them about, you know, it's about finding language that doesn't feel sensationalistic
28:26while also trying to capture attention.
28:28And that's like a really hard balance.
28:29And I think it's harder with the podcast because you really want people to tune in.
28:33And if you haven't heard of it or maybe you like this, if you didn't like that.
28:36So that language and that kind of stuff is a little bit more delicate.
28:40My personal stuff, you know, you know, we actually we post a lot for the podcast.
28:45So that's kind of I think where a lot of the attention goes.
28:47Can you share a story about going on The Howard Stern Show or The Stephen Colbert Show?
28:54Two of the two of my favorite interviewers, I mean, there's a story from either one of
28:59them.
29:00Yeah.
29:01I mean, look there.
29:02I mean, Colbert is great.
29:03You know, I got to go on Colbert.
29:06I mean, I've done a couple Colbert's and he's always just been really, really generous.
29:11You know, I went on and got to talk about my book and which I really appreciated.
29:15You know, it's not something that he necessarily always does, like with people who are writing,
29:19you know, science books for teenagers.
29:21But but yeah, I mean, he was really terrific.
29:25You know, Howard Stern is like that's like a whole that I was terrified to go on Howard
29:28Stern.
29:29A lot of people say that's one of their favorite Howard Stern interviews is the one that we
29:32did.
29:33You know, I didn't have a plan of like, here's how I'm going to act.
29:36But like, you know, when when he asked me gross things that I don't want to answer,
29:39I just like didn't answer it.
29:40And it felt pretty easy.
29:41And he actually seemed kind of like a big softie.
29:44Like it was actually he was really cool.
29:46That's awesome.
29:47Can you share about the books?
29:49Girling up?
29:50Yeah, I wrote.
29:51Yeah.
29:52I mean, I have four books.
29:53I wrote a book about attachment parenting called Beyond the Sling.
29:55I wrote, you know, the vegan cookbook, and then Boying Up and Girling Up.
29:58Those were both New York Times bestsellers.
30:01And those are about puberty, like the, you know, the process of puberty from from a neuroscience
30:07perspective, from a psychological perspective.
30:10You know, girling up is more kind of obviously.
30:13My experience in Boying Up, we use the voices of people who actually went through male puberty
30:17throughout the book.
30:18But yeah, it's like the science of growing up.
30:21So it's, um, they're really, really fun to do.
30:24And like I said, I'm a science communicator.
30:26So I love that stuff.
30:27You plan on writing any more books?
30:29I thought about it, you know, as our podcast focuses more on the intersection of science
30:33and spirituality.
30:34That's a field I think I would probably love to write about.
30:38So yeah, I might.
30:40How was the live event experience with the show?
30:42Is that something you'd be interested in?
30:44You mean like at South By?
30:45Yeah.
30:46Yeah, we loved it.
30:47Jonathan and I would actually love to speak more in that format.
30:50The audience really liked it.
30:52It was fun interacting with them.
30:53And I think also people have a lot of questions.
30:55You know, I think we'd love to open that up to be able to do Q&A as part of the live podcast
31:00experience. So we had a great time.
31:02Is there anything that you haven't done recently because of fear?
31:06Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of things.
31:11Yeah, I had to have a hard work conversation on Friday that I had been putting off and
31:17it actually went really well, like it went really healthy, but I put it off for a long
31:20time because of fear.
31:23I had a very difficult work conversation for our restaurant business a couple of weeks
31:28ago. I, too, had been putting it off.
31:30And how did it go?
31:32There you go. See, we always imagine that it's going to be worse than it actually is.
31:36And the restaurant is still open and still going strong.
31:40Good.
31:40Yeah, we're happy about that.
31:42Is there any kind of advice that you'd like to share with the hospitality community
31:46specifically? I mean, one of the things that I frequently share is my struggles.
31:50I'm in a program of recovery.
31:53I've been sober, been trying to get out of the hospital for a couple of weeks now.
31:59I've been trying to do the things as a restaurant owner and bar owner that I didn't do
32:05when I was burning the candle on both ends.
32:07There's incredible resources.
32:09We'll put links into the show notes to some of the hospitality resources, but
32:12specifically to the restaurant owners and hospitality professionals that tune in our
32:18audience. Is there anything that you can share with them?
32:21I mean, look, COVID was exceptional in so many ways.
32:26I actually was a partner in a really sweet little restaurant, a little vegan restaurant in
32:30downtown L.A., and we didn't survive COVID, you know, and, you know, I think.
32:39You know, I think a lot of us got very comfortable, even more so ordering in and, you
32:45know, using services like Instacart and all these things, and, you know, that was a
32:50source of comfort for a lot of people.
32:52But I think what we what I'd like to acknowledge is that that food did not come from
32:58nowhere. The people who were actually going to work and putting their lives at risk, you
33:04know, that's how we got the ability, right, to order in and to get all this food that,
33:12like, you know, kept us sustained.
33:14And and it's really important.
33:16And that business has thrived tremendously.
33:19However, you know, there's different kinds of frontline workers and the people who were
33:24actually, again, people who were going to work, people who were working in kitchens,
33:28people who were making deliveries, like that's actually how a huge component of
33:32people's existence was.
33:34You know, I raised my children to be very conscious of the people around them who are
33:39making things happen.
33:40And my older son recently said to me that, you know, he says hi to everybody at his high
33:45school. He was homeschooled until 11th grade.
33:47And he said, he's like, I say hi to everybody who works in the kitchen and they act
33:50like people aren't usually saying hi to them.
33:52And I said, well, they may not always get people saying hi to them.
33:56So it's important, you know, for us to acknowledge that it takes everybody, you know,
34:02to make this go around.
34:04And we're still recovering from covid.
34:06And for people who had to go in and people in any case who chose to go in, you know,
34:12it's something to to not take lightly that that is how a lot of this this industry was
34:17was asked, you know, to keep the economy going in many, in many cases.
34:23That is Mayim Bialik.
34:25You can find her, the Bialik breakdown on all podcast platforms.
34:30You can find her on YouTube.
34:32We'll put links to everything that she does.
34:34If you guys want to reach out to me, it's Sean P.
34:36Walchath, S-H-A-W-N-P-W-A-L-C-H-E-F.
34:40I am grateful for your time.
34:42You've been so gracious.
34:43Thank you. Thank you for what you're doing, not just for our audience, but for sharing and being vulnerable, being a creator.
34:51Someone is in the position that you are in.
34:53We believe in storytelling.
34:54My grandfather, he asked me to help him write his life story.
34:58We self-published a memoir.
35:00It's something that now we're helping other leaders, hospitality leaders and brands do.
35:05But everyone has a story and you don't need to be a New York Times bestseller.
35:09Your story can make an impact on one boy in one village, one girl in one village, one girl in one city.
35:14That's all that matters.
35:16Well, thank you.
35:16Thank you for what you do.
35:17So nice to talk to you.
35:18So nice to talk to you.
35:19Thank you.
35:20Thank you.
35:23Thank you for listening to Restaurant Influencers.
35:25If you want to get in touch with me, I am weirdly available at Sean P.
35:29Walchath, S-H-A-W-N-P-W-A-L-C-H-E-F.
35:34Cali Barbecue Media has other shows.
35:37You can check out Digital Hospitality.
35:39We've been doing that show since 2017.
35:42We also just launched a show, Season 2, Family Style, on YouTube with Toast.
35:47And if you are a restaurant brand or a hospitality brand and you're looking to launch your own show, Cali Barbecue Media can help you.
35:55Recently, we just launched Room for Seconds with Greg Majewski.
36:00It is an incredible insight into leadership, into hospitality, into enterprise restaurants and franchise, franchisee relationships.
36:10Take a look at Room for Seconds.
36:12And if you're ready to start a show, reach out to us.
36:14Be the show dot media.
36:17We can't wait to work with you.