Joy Is a Superpower - Why Dr. Meena Julapalli Prescribes Play
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It’s all about kids today
I recently sat down—actually, I stood up, because who am I kidding—to talk with Dr. Meena Julapalli, Dr. Meena Julapalli, aka "The Joy Doctor," is a pediatric dermatologist, TEDx speaker, and founder of Bluebird Dermatology and The Joyful Path. Meena is a former board member of the American Camp Association and is deeply involved with The Playmaker Project, using play to help kids overcome trauma. When she's not changing the face of medicine through joy, you'll find her knitting with friends, learning taiko drumming, or exploring hidden trails.
We started with the obvious: resting smiling face. You’ve heard of resting bitch face; this is the exact opposite. Dr. Meena can't wipe the smile off her face. Cashiers, strangers, random passersby—they constantly ask her: "What are you smiling about?" Her answer: "I don't know. Smiling's my favorite." (Elf, anyone?)
Joy, Not Just Happiness
But here's the thing: Meena doesn’t just smile. She’s built an entire medical practice around joy. Joy isn't happiness—it's deeper. Happiness happens to you (new car smell, likes on Instagram, free ice cream). Joy comes from you. It's the ability to connect deeply with yourself and the world, even during life's toughest punches.
According to Meena, we get joy wrong. It's not about seeking it out there—it's about cultivating it right here. She wakes up every morning and refuses to leave bed until she feels grateful. She doesn't “go to work,” she "goes to play." It's a mindset shift—sounds fluffy until you realize it's backed by neuroscience and common sense.
Medicine Done Differently
The coolest part? Her clinic. It doesn’t feel like medicine; it feels like camp. No clocks, no rush—just eight patients a day. She starts every session with one question: "What brings you joy?" Imagine your doctor asking you that instead of "Where does it hurt?"
This approach isn't just fluffy positivity; it's clinically strategic. If you heal from the inside out—reducing stress, improving nutrition, building real connections—most external problems clear up. Medicine becomes the side effect of wellbeing, not the other way around.
The Camp Effect
Meena credits camp as one of her greatest medical teachers. Camp is transformative because it builds the exact things kids need most: resilience, independence, belonging. She describes it as "the most powerful medicine" she's ever prescribed. At camp, kids who’ve been defined by their limitations become defined by possibility. They don't hear "can't," they ask "how can I?"
That's magic, but it's also biology. Kids heal when they feel safe, seen, and free. It’s exactly why kids leave camp healthier and stronger—not just mentally, but physically.
Scaling Joy
I asked Meena how to scale this—how do we get every clinic to feel like Bluebird Dermatology, every interaction to feel like summer camp? Her answer was clear: grassroots action. Change doesn’t happen top-down—it happens when enough of us refuse to accept the status quo and start building parallel systems, communities, and practices that prioritize connection and humanity over metrics and bureaucracy.
From Purpose to Playmaker
We talked about "Ikigai," the Japanese concept meaning "reason for being," where your passion, skill, the world's need, and reward intersect. Finding purpose sounds grandiose, but Meena broke it down: ask yourself, "What's something I love or I'm good at, and how can I use it to solve a problem?" A five-year-old told her once, "I love hot chocolate, and homeless people are cold—I'll give them cocoa and blankets." Boom. Ikigai, kindergarten style.
She’s also part of the Playmaker Project, a nonprofit connected to Life is Good, teaching adults to use play to help kids face life's toughest challenges. This isn’t theory—it’s practically applied joy, scientifically validated.
Toxic Positivity vs. Real Joy
I pushed her on toxic positivity—the "smile and everything will be fine" crowd. Meena dismantled it beautifully: toxic positivity ignores pain; real joy embraces it, transforms it, and finds meaning in it. It's not dismissive; it’s deeply human.
AI, Social Media, and True Connection
We ended on tech. Social media connected Meena and me, but she argues we must quickly take these relationships offline and into the real world. Use tech to plant seeds, she says, but water and nourish those seeds face-to-face.
Meena’s practice, her philosophy, camp—they all come down to connection. In her words, "When 'I' becomes 'we,' illness becomes wellness."
Meena’s ideas are powerful because they’re both obvious and counterintuitive. We know joy matters, but we rarely prioritize it. We know kids need freedom and safety, yet we cage them in rules and schedules. We know relationships matter most, yet we obsess over productivity, metrics, and screens.
Maybe it’s time we stopped overlooking the obvious. Maybe it’s time to take joy—and camp—a bit more seriously. After all, camp isn't just for kids. It might be exactly what we all need.
—Jack Schott
Thank You!
Meena—thank you for bringing your unstoppable joy, wisdom, and contagious optimism into this conversation (and my life). Your perspective on healing, connection, and play has me fired up about what's possible in medicine, camp, and beyond. I appreciate you deeply. Let's keep planting those seeds.
Get my newsletter every week.
It’s all about kids today
Jack Schott
Summer Camp Evangelist
Transcript:
Cabin Chat Ep 6
Jack Schott:
And we're back. I'm Jack Schott and today I'm sitting down, sitting down. I do these talks standing up. Let's not kid ourselves. can't, I can't sit for, for an entire meeting. And I'm here with Dr. Mina Jullipali, who is the Joy Doctor. She's the founder of the Joyful Path Bluebird Dermatology and was on the board of the American Camp Association. She loves camp. She loves kids. She can't sit still. She's been to 50 states. She's been to seven continents. But here's what I'm the most interested in.
Mina, I need to get this solved. A lot of people talk about resting bitch face and you talk about resting smiling face. What is it?
Dr. Meena Julapalli:
there, right? Um, yeah, it just, I can't wipe it off my face. I don't even know that I'm doing it. So much so that this happens on some types of daily basis, definitely weekly basis for sure. But random strangers at coffee shops, gas stations, grocery stores and elevators everywhere I go will will will ask me, what are you smiling about? Like, I don't know. I'm just smiling. Smiling is my favorite. Points if you get that right.
but Elsa's one of my favorite Christmas movies. Yeah, it's just, and I think, mean, now I know when I, cause I've been deep diving into it a little bit more, I think it's just a reflection of that inner joy and light. And I think everybody has the ability to do that.
Jack Schott:
And you have been called Dr. Joy, you call yourself a Joyologist. Listen, I know a lot of doctors. I know a lot of doctors. Most of them spend most of their time worrying about all kinds of physical health. It's really important things I definitely don't understand like medication and stretching and getting good exercise. And instead,
Dr. Meena Julapalli:
Bye.
Jack Schott:
You have a huge focus on joy and spreading joy and bringing joy. And you're also a dermatologist. spend all day working with clients. you're not like it's not an either or for you, but break it down for me. Why joy? Why bother? Why does this matter?
Dr. Meena Julapalli:
Because everything is interconnected. think that's going to be a running theme in everything that we talk about today. is, Joy, know, lot of, love, you know, when I started to talk more about Joy, the Disney movie Inside Out just came out and I was like, this is perfect because people can see kind of visual representation of what I'm talking about because to me, joy is very different than happiness. A lot of times happiness,
happens from something outside of ourselves. And joy to me is this state of being that we, where we are deeply connected to ourselves and the world around us that we can create and cultivate even in the face of overwhelming adversity. And by that I mean like joy isn't the absence of sadness. It actually is what allows us to experience all of what makes us human. And so, you know, there's no good or bad emotions. This is kind of the meaning that we ascribe to it and.
If we pay attention to everything that we experience, good, bad, everything in between, and acknowledge it, learn and grow from it, then we can choose how we intentionally respond as a result. So that even through the fear, the problems, the challenges, we can still find meaning, purpose, and joy. And one of my favorite questions to ask my patients is what brings you joy, which, like you said, throws people off because that's not a question that most doctors probably will ask. But it's important because it gets to the heart of what
what makes someone tick, what makes their heart sing, because if they are connected to that, then all of the things that physically ail them, if you can focus on your, just basically your inner health, even with kids, I often talk about in order to take care of what's on the outside, it's really important to take care of what's on the inside, how you think, how you feel, what you put inside your belly, how you move your body, and when they understand that, they really get it, and guess what? Almost all the way, knock on wood, the physical ailments.
get better if they're focusing more on that. And Camp does an incredible job with that.
Jack Schott:
Well, and you know, I'm a sucker for camp and I'm going to ask you a thousand questions about camp and your involvement. But first, how did you find your way to this idea? Again, like I said, most doctors aren't talking about joy. Most doctors first question isn't what brings you joy. So how did you find your way to merging these two ideas of the physical health and the sort of inner health, the joyfulness that you try to help kids cultivate?
Dr. Meena Julapalli:
Hahaha
Dr. Meena Julapalli:
Yeah, I mean, I think I always had this insatiable curiosity, wonder, and awe about the world and everyone and everything in it. And Jack, if you knew me when I was a kid, elementary school, you could ask all my elementary school teachers. They would say I was a very different person than I am now. I was very shy, quiet, unsure of who I was, which guess what? happens a lot for kids who come to camp at the beginning, and then it completely changes.
You know as they start to understand and have a better connection to who they are And honestly a lot of this had by the way, there's some some big truck But a lot of this I think it's done from hardship I Took a deep dive into a lot of a lot of you know
different kinds of healing modalities because about actually almost nine years to the day, my mom had a spontaneous ruptured brain aneurysm. And that was honestly a really rude awakening. mean, it's one thing being on the side of medicine, taking care of patients. It's another thing being a family member of someone who needs that care. And it really was a rude awakening because what I discovered was that the medicine that I had trained in saved her life, but it didn't teach her how to live and thrive in this new state of being where she couldn't.
physically, mentally, and emotionally do things that she used to be able to do. So then I kind of went, I took a deep dive into traditional Chinese medicine, Ayurveda, meditation, yoga, trying to find something that helped her through this process and in doing so, it actually helped heal me and then also I realized I could teach what I learned along the way. so a lot of, this goes back to joy is not the absence of sadness, it's what allows us to actually
tap into that joy even more. And so one of the things that I often tell my, I don't call my patients, I call my kids, because they're really my kids. But I often say the struggles and hardship you're facing right now is gonna become a superpower. And at the moment, they don't get it. They think I'm crazy when I say that. But what I mean by that is that that pain and suffering that you're experiencing is gonna make you
Dr. Meena Julapalli:
kinder, more compassionate towards the pain and suffering of others. And the world could use a lot more love like that. the way that I practice medicine is actually, what's that book, Everything I Learned, I Learned in Kindergarten Road? I mean, so much of the way I practice medicine, I learned at camp, by the way. But I have this practice philosophy of educate and power advocate. And educate doesn't mean just me telling you what to do. It's
learning your story, you've come from, your hopes, your fears, your dreams, because if I don't know where you've been, I can't help you get to where you wanna go. And once I've built that sacred relationship of trust, then I can take whatever knowledge and wisdom that I have, including the things that I don't know and the experience that they've had and put that together, and then they become, we come up with something that's very individualized to what they need, and they now feel empowered with the knowledge of how to build the intuition of how to,
take care, nourish their mind, body, and soul. And then from there, that's when they learn how to advocate for themselves. They don't need me anymore. And because we're inherently compassionate human beings, they now advocate for others. And that is this full cycle that happens in my clinic, that happens at camp, that really builds community. And that to me is where true healing lies.
Jack Schott:
Thank you for sharing. We're gonna come back to camp. Tell me about your clinic and like, this all sounds great, but what does it look like every day? You're gonna have a kid come in in a couple hours or whatever. What does it like actually look like to go from somebody sees your website, comes to talk to you, to that you're helping them by educating, empowering and advocating?
Dr. Meena Julapalli (08:42.653)
Very different than what it used to look like. So I used to work in an academic center, which I loved because it was a place where I could teach residents and students. were colleagues of all different specialties that I could just walk to the next door and be able to talk to them about difficult cases. But at some point, was in any big
institution, it kind of becomes corporatized. In that sense, mean, just that, like, you lose sort of the sense of the mission of who you're actually taking care of. It just becomes how many patients can you see in the shortest amount of time possible to make the most amount of money for the institution? And at one point, was near the end, I was seeing 50 patients a day and just completely felt disconnected. Like I was just, you know, pressing record or play, you know, when I walked into a room and didn't have the chance to connect with them, hear their stories.
And so I got to a place of burnout where I felt I wasn't connected to the people that I was serving. didn't feel, I didn't find, I wasn't connected to the meaning in what I was doing. I didn't feel like I was valued and didn't feel like I was growing in that. then I took a break. Let's call it an existential crisis because that's really what it was. I wasn't actually even sure. Do I still want to practice medicine? What does that look like?
And that's when a lot of what you talked about at the beginning of the intro happened where I traveled the world. I did a medical mission in Thailand. I, I hiked the Alps cause it's something that I always wanted to do. I went to Antarctica, my seventh continent and just along the way, I realized that I had never really lost my way. was, you know, if I wanted to practice medicine in the way that I, you know, valued and how I lived, loved and served in the world, it would have to be something that I created myself.
So I opened up my own practice. I moved back home to Houston where my family was, which is good when you start a new small business because I got to share office space with my two older brothers, which helped a lot. And then I opened, but we grew into lockdown, which was another curve ball that I didn't expect, but it just allowed me to build it organically. And now a full day for me, it maybe is eight patients. So what that means is I never have to look at a clock.
Dr. Meena Julapalli:
They get as much time as they need. All I start doing is listening. That is the very first thing. And I don't interrupt them. They get to share whatever it is they need to share, everything that comes out. And I have to say that most of the kids that come to me and the families that come to me at this point, so pediatric dermatology, if you don't know, is a very super specialized field. There's only 400 of us in the whole country. So a lot of times, by the time they get to me,
they're kind of at the end of their rope. They've been to a lot of people and they've lost hope. And so part of my job is not only listening to their story, but also reinstilling hope and possibility for them because I think that is the precursor to feeling enjoy. And so they get to talk about their story and then I might sort of, and with kids, it's always about.
Trust, you have to play. They're not gonna trust you if just go in and just, you're mainly talking to the parent. I mean, my patient is the kid and I don't care how old they are, could be a baby, it could be a college student, whatever it is, I still have to connect with them first and foremost because they're the person that I'm trying to help. And so that part's really important.
A lot of times, even with kids, I'm speaking to them. The parent is there, but I want them to know that I am here for them. I have to build that connection of trust with them first as well. And so a lot of it is playing. And then once we play, that part to play builds safety. And with safety comes trust. And so once that happens, that's when I might start talking about, mean, that's like an afterthought, like kind of talking about it. And most of the time is actually spent
on not anything medical to be honest. I we talk about nutrition, we talk about stress reduction, we talk about lifestyle changes, we talk about what brings you joy. And then maybe we talk about kind of a band-aid of hey how do we use medicines to maybe get back to a baseline of balance so that all the things that you are now going to do to nourish your mind, body, and soul are actually gonna start kicking in and you don't need anything else anymore, anything outside of yourself.
Jack Schott:
And Mina, you say that, I don't know anything about medicine at all, right? I'm a camp guy. I have a degree in engineering, hospitals, who knows, right? I have no idea. There's nothing. But when you say that, I'm like, hell yeah. Why isn't that how all medicine is practiced? And not a rhetorical question. What would it take to have more places like...
Dr. Meena Julapalli:
Yeah.
Jack Schott:
Bluebird Dementology all over the country, all over the world.
Dr. Meena Julapalli:
time, space, being connected to the original mission. think a lot of it is lost along the way when things get bigger. And so if you don't actively cultivate that, you know, as things are growing, they get lost. And so, that's, I don't believe that that can't happen in bigger institutions, but it has to be something that's always at the forefront of your mind every day. And when you start to notice that you're losing it,
to get back to that. then also as an individual, for people to know if you're in a situation or an environment where you don't feel like you're thriving in that environment, you also have to take a step back and look at is this still aligning with my values? And if it isn't, how do I create that? Maybe it's in this current environment that I can create that change, and if it's not, can I do it somewhere else? And that is...
I mean, that's life, right? That's just the constant evolution of the way things are. And in some ways, honestly think, you know, thinking in ways that are different than that's ever been done before, know, academic institutions are supposed to be centers of creativity and innovation. And I will say for me, I found, I again, I am grateful for everything that I learned, you know, in that setting.
But for me, the way that I work, I actually felt like it ended up kind of stifling my creativity and innovation. And for me, it had to happen outside of that setting. I think that's a good thing, to have multiple different settings for these things to build, because in many ways, I don't know if things can be necessarily, know, we oftentimes will say our healthcare system is broken, our education system is broken, our government is broken.
So what does that mean? mean, it's not going to be fixed from the top down. We have to create kind of almost parallel systems from the bottom up, grassroots movements of people who have realized that they've become disconnected. So now let's reconnect and how do we build it from the ground up? And people are doing it all the time. And that to me gives me hope because you can look at the news and it seems like so much doom, but the things that you're doing, the things that I'm doing, the things that so many of the people that we know are doing is what-
Dr. Meena Julapalli:
that allow that hope and possibility to come back.
Jack Schott:
And I mean, that's one of the reasons why I'm obsessed with summer camp is that it's sort of, I don't know how to fix schools. I have plenty of takes on the struggles that schools are and the hardship that is created for kids because of school. Not all kids, many kids. And I know awesome teachers and whatever, but like you're saying, the system is broken. And I don't know how to fix that. My friend Simone would say,
Dr. Meena Julapalli:
You
Jack Schott:
that the system isn't broken, actually doing exactly what it was designed to do. but my, I and I want to come back to that, but first I want to be really, really, really, really practical because you don't get, to talk to awesome doctors who are thinking differently very often. And so, there's a lot of parents that listen to this. Let's say that, that, I'm a parent with a, a child who has just gotten some diagnosis that's outside the norm.
Dr. Meena Julapalli:
Hahaha
Jack Schott:
whether it's skin related or really any sort of, you know, needing more personalized care. What advice would you give to me in that setting? So what advice would you give to a parent with a new diagnosis for their child that's a little bit lost looking for what to do next?
Dr. Meena Julapalli:
One, think probably the most powerful medicine that I can prescribe and it happens also I can't, but is just the knowledge that you're not alone. I think so many people go through life feeling that they are struggling alone and then they can't see all the helpers that are out there. And that comes back to me establishing a sense of trust with them so that they know that
I am an advocate for them. I know you don't know how to do this yet, but I am a cure for you and we are going to figure this out together. And also that we will all go through hard things in life. I I think a lot of times in this day and age as caregivers, as teachers, as doctors, we try to put kids in bubbles and...
And it's actually a little bit of a disservice for them. I mean, I think our job is to keep them as safe as possible. But in that safe arena, they need to be curious. They need to explore. They need to fail and to fall so that they know that they have the strength to get back up again. I mean, these kids were born with inherent superpowers to navigate life's challenges if they're given the time, the space, and the safety to explore them. so, you know, for us, we just, need to make sure that they have a soft place to land. But
give them the space to realize that they have the strength to get back up again. the other thing is just we kind of over schedule kids too. I mean, allow them to be bored because it's in boredom that you develop your creativity. mean, we're such a technology driven world, there's good and bad to that. But I just remember, if we didn't have anything to do, we would make it up.
My parents were, they're moving and so everything's out of their house and all my nephews and nieces were there over one day and so there was nothing there to play with. So they took a piece of paper, just crumpled it up and then they were just playing, you know, keep the paper ball up in the air and I think they were doing it for at least an hour, hour and half, I don't know, but they were having the time of their life with a paper ball. So I mean, point being is that.
Dr. Meena Julapalli:
Sometimes we just have to let kids be kids. And then the magic happens.
Jack Schott:
Okay, you talk a lot about building joy versus finding joy. What are many of us getting wrong as we search for joy as opposed to trying to build it?
Dr. Meena Julapalli:
Hmm.
Dr. Meena Julapalli:
That's because joy doesn't come from anything outside of you. It's from here. so cultivating joy is really just finding our way back home to ourselves, to our heart. And so for me, what that looks like is just I don't get out of bed until I feel grateful for life and a joy for existence. Because why not? know, every day is a new day. Why not give myself the gift of starting the day that way? So that might be.
a gratitude practice that might be like meditation, know, whatever it is, sometimes it takes me a few seconds. Sometimes it might take me like, well, it can take me a long time, but I always start my day that way. And then it's also, and then after that, it's also about what intention do I want to start the day with? You know, a lot of people is, I have to go to work. know, even saying that actually kind of changes the way you feel about the day.
So I don't say I have to go to work. don't even say I get to go to work. I say I come into play. Just putting that intention out there already kind of changes the way I feel about the day and what's to come. And so when you have that intention of playing, then my mind, my heart, my body are all going to pay attention to the things that will validate that intention. so then when I actually, so playing involves, I mean, a lot of it involves
staying curious, know, finding opportunities to create wonder and awe. I will say I love learning new things and I probably learn something new every day. I am a jack of all trades, master of none, but I'm okay with that because it means that I am just, you know, again, constantly learning new things that kind of keeps that joy alive in me that knows that.
if I set my mind to something that is possible for me, that there are endless possibilities. I also make sure that I do things every day that intentionally take care of, purposefully take care of my health, my mental well-being, my physical well-being, my emotional well-being. So doing things that bring me joy, going to the gym, and making time for that because one of the things that
Dr. Meena Julapalli:
that we haven't talked about yet, but I'm involved with an organization called the Playmaker Project. And it's all about, it's using play as a way to teach kids that they, you know, through life's challenges. it's, you can't give what you don't have. So, I mean, this comes back to this epidemic of burnout, the mental health crisis, loneliness, all of it. You can't give what you don't have. Self-care is not selfish. And so, I'm actively,
do that for myself every day so that I can give myself to others. I became a morning person, so I have those hours before the world wakes up that I get to have for myself. And then I also think at the end of the day, it's important to reflect on all the things, like how did you make yourself proud today? Who did you serve? How did you uplift or encourage someone? What did you do for yourself? All of those things are important because the last thing that is on your mind before you go to bed is the first thing that your subconscious mind integrates.
which is why they say don't go to bed angry because you don't want to integrate that into your next day. You want to take that into your next day. So, so, you know, beginning and ending the way you began and end your day is really important. So again, nothing I said really came from anything outside of myself. It's, it's everything that I'm doing to, to cultivate that joy inside of me that actually helps me project whatever energy that I want to put on there. That actually helps me,
kind of define how I live, love, and serve in the world. And I'll say that that makes a huge difference because when my mom had, you know, a ruptured brain aneurysm nine years ago, I went back to work and I was like a shadow of myself. I was just going through the motions, just walking, you seeing patients not completely connected. And I will say there was a retired professor who comes back every summer to teach students.
having not known that I've experienced a tragedy in the time that he was gone, came back and realized something was very different. And he's a blunt guy from New Jersey, but he basically looked around the room and he said, man, what happened here? It's like someone died. And I'm not gonna lie, it felt like a slap in the face, but I didn't say anything. I went to go see a patient and someone had filled him in the meantime. And when I came back, he profusely apologized, but.
Dr. Meena Julapalli:
The thing is, he was right. I had let a part of myself die with a part of my mom that I had lost. And it not only affected my energy, but the energy that I put out into the world, the energy that lit up the room, the energy that brought people hope and joy. So again, you can't give what you don't have. And so when I get to cultivate that light and that joy in me, it allows me to do the same for others and be a reflection of their own love and light as well. And then again, it's their own journey to be able to find that in themselves. But that's what we can do for ourselves and each other.
Jack Schott:
Mina, a reductive view of what you're saying would be to say, just put a smile on your face and everything's going to be okay. How do you respond to this backlash? This is for me selfishly because I've been accused plenty of times in my life of being toxically positive. I imagine that you've gotten this feedback before. How do you respond to this idea of toxic positivity versus building joy?
Dr. Meena Julapalli:
Yeah.
Dr. Meena Julapalli:
I think it's really hard to tell someone whose kid just got diagnosed with cancer, everything happens for a reason. God wouldn't give you something that you couldn't handle. Honestly, it's very patronizing and it diminishes that sense of grief and sorrow. But that goes back to what we were talking about before. Toxic positivity is just that, just kind of putting a brave face, putting a smile on her face.
and dismissing the depth of human experience. Joy is the opposite of that. It is taking all of that, acknowledging it, and what is this trying to teach me? You know, really exploring that about what is it about our needs and values that aren't being met? And then from that space, you have clarity of mind and thought and an open heart to be able to do something about it. So it's actually acknowledging
that pain and suffering, but being able to, how do we transmute it into meaning, purpose, and joy? It is part of it. It is actually very important part of life. so toxic positivity is just dismissing it and not acknowledging it at all. And joy is actually acknowledging it so that it can be part of your experience and transcending to a new level.
Jack Schott:
Thank you. I'm glad we're recording this so I can next time I can just push play for folks. Actually, Mina has an answer for you. Thank you very much, So I do a lot of work with kids, obviously, and there's there's all this talk about how you're supposed to either not follow your passion or follow your passion, do something practical, find your purpose, be purposeful.
Dr. Meena Julapalli:
You
Dr. Meena Julapalli:
You
Jack Schott:
And sometimes I get super overwhelmed thinking about I've got to have a purpose that's like changing the world. And that is, you know, like, how do I, how do I make it so that I have a purpose that's big enough, but also practical, but also it's following my passion, but it's not too proud. It's, it's also in this intersection of what I can do that actually makes money. Like, you know, you follow all these same people on the internet that try and, they try and tell you how to live your life. Right. So how do you think about helping kids?
Dr. Meena Julapalli:
Yeah.
Jack Schott:
feel purposeful without it seeming too overwhelming but also feeling real.
Dr. Meena Julapalli:
Okay, I love this question because I actually have an answer for you. So I talk a lot about, well with adults anyway, I actually, I talk about it kids too, but there's this Japanese term called ikigai, which is strictly translated means reason for being, but so much is lost in translation. It is the cross section of what you love, what you're good at, what the world needs and what you can be rewarded for. And by that,
Sometimes it's through financial, but there's lots of different ways that you can be rewarded. And when you can find the holy grail of being able to choose what you love and love what you do, then you have joy in the workplace. And it's one of the antidotes to kind of burnout. Now, how do I do this with kids? So there's an exercise that I do where I ask them, what is something that you are really good at or that you love? And what's a problem that you want to solve?
And then how can you use that thing that you're really good at or that you love to solve that problem? I've had six year olds tell me, you know, I really love hot chocolate and I would love to make hot chocolate, gather gloves and hats. And there's a lot of people out there who don't have homes that get cold during the winter. So I'm going to gather all that stuff and make sure that they stay warm.
Pretty profound, right? Another kid, I think she was five, she said, I really love to sing. And there's a lot of people out there who aren't really happy right now. So I'm just gonna go around and sing to the top of my lungs and put smiles on people's faces. Again, like, wow, okay. I mean, these are things that I think, this happens at camp at the end of a summer season. I still maintain friendships with a lot of the counselors.
And they've just spent this whole summer being a part of changing these kids' lives. And now they go back to their regular life. Maybe it's college, whatever it is. then there's just this, camp world probably has a word for it. But it's almost like a depression of just, what do I do? mean, every day I was doing something to change someone's life, and now I'm just going to college. It almost seems like it's just deflated the balloon.
Dr. Meena Julapalli:
all of a sudden. the thing is, like, is no, what you learned, the tools that you learned, I can't, is the things that you can take into your everyday. I mean, even as doctors, we think like we have to change the world. I had a question at a conference recently when I was giving a talk is, how do you, yes, that's great that you're talking about all these things that we can do to manage burnout and cultivate joy in our patients and ourselves and all of that. But how do you do that in a setting that's resource limited?
And sometimes they just, don't know how they're getting their next meal. They don't know how to, they can't afford care. All of these things kind of pop up. And then it's a perspective thing because I'm telling them, you think that when they come to see you, they're looking for some kind of life-changing moment. All they're looking for is for someone to hear them, to feel.
seen, to feel heard, to feel understood, that in and of itself is transformative for them. Any of us can do that in any given moment with nothing. so I think sometimes we think of this huge, big grand picture. Great, it's good to have a mission of what you can do every day and a grand vision of what you want to accomplish with everything that you're doing. That's important to have like kind of that direction. But you have the ability to do something that's that's life changing.
for you or others every single day, in even the smallest ways, such as this resting smiling face. I mean, you made a point to open the conversation about that. I don't even know that I'm doing it, and yet people go out of their way to tell me that I'm doing it. Why? Because they're bright in their day. I don't know them. I probably will never see them again, but they made a point to come over to tell me that because it made a difference for them.
I have no idea what's going on in their lives, but maybe it was a huge deal to see a smile on someone's face reflected back to them. Maybe it wasn't even directed at them, but they needed to see that in that moment for whatever reason for themselves. So, so much of life we walk through having impact on people that we'll never even know about. And I actually think that is incredible to think about.
Jack Schott:
You talk about reason for being earlier you talked about My words not yours partnering with kids to help them get more of what they're wanting, right? You have to understand what they want before you can help educate and power and advocate for them so Mina, how do you think about your reason for being your intersection of? Both what you can do for the world what matters what you're good at
and I lost the other sort of intersections, but I will look them up.
Dr. Meena Julapalli:
What you're going to be rewarded for, what you're rewarded for, because that energy exchange actually is really important. I think a lot of times when we're in the nonprofit world, it's always doing everything as much as you can for free. Nonprofits are still businesses. In order to stay afloat, you still have to bring in some money to be able to do what you do. But I think in a lot of these worlds where they rely on
on people's altruism, sometimes that can get lost, but there needs to be that energy exchange. To me, really, it comes down to connection. Honestly, like everything that I'm doing, I think kind of the three big things that I've kind of become crusades for me is burnout, loneliness, and the mental health crisis, particularly in kids. to me, if I had one word to describe joy, it really comes down to connection.
You know, one of the, there's the Harvard 75 year, actually it's more than that I think now, but it's the longest study on happiness and wellbeing came out of Harvard, Dr. Robert Waldinger. And one of the biggest things that came out of that study was that one of the biggest predictors of the quality of our lives is the quality of our relationships. And so,
everything that I do in medicine, like I have one foot in medicine, one foot in wellbeing, one foot in camp, one foot in education, all of this, comes down to the importance of connection. mean, that's relationships. That's what we're doing. Everything that we're talking about here is that. And if we focus primarily on that, I I honestly think so many of problems in this world stem from disconnection, disconnection from ourselves and the world around us. So if we focus on how can we
redefine those relationships with ourselves, with Earth, with nature, with food, with art, with music, with each other, with community, I think we'll solve a lot of problems in this world.
Jack Schott:
think you told me that from that study that the largest predictor of health, physical health at 80 was relationship health at 50. Was that true?
Dr. Meena Julapalli:
I don't know the details of that in particular, but that was one of the biggest, so the quality of relationships, the intimacy, the safety, the trust that you build actually was a big factor in physical health, emotional health, mental health. So again, it goes back to kind what we're talking about, what happens in like a clinic setting. You don't have to focus completely on just physical health. I think that's what medicine in many ways gets wrong.
Medicine is really kind of what I trained in was really about fixing disease. It was learning how to survive. But that's not life, know? Everything that happens outside of that clinic setting, I actually feel very limited in all the ways that I can help heal patients in a clinic setting. Because out there, whether it's camp or at school or in home settings, that's where you're learning how to live and thrive. And if you focus on that,
Gosh, the medical part is just like, it's kind of a side afterthought, because things just get better.
Jack Schott:
Okay, can we come back to the camp counselors that you're talking to that come to camp every summer with you and they feel purposeful and like everything they do matters that they get these smiles back from kids. It's like the absolute best drug in the world, right? As being a camp counselor. And a lot of them, I imagine that are working with you and that work with me are have high ambition. They're high achievers. They want to go out and become doctors. They want to go out and have these like sort of conventionally successful careers.
Dr. Meena Julapalli:
Yeah.
Jack Schott:
you have checked a lot of conventionally successful boxes. How do you give advice to 18, 19, 20 year olds who are striving, high strivers, but also want to feel connected, want to feel this sense of purpose? Like, how do you bridge this gap for folks without just being like, just connect with folks?
Be joyful.
Dr. Meena Julapalli:
To not get into just going through the motions. This is probably the same for engineering, you tell me. Medicine has kind of a, there's a path. You go to college, you go to medical school, you get into a residency, you do maybe a specialized fellowship. It's just, everything's kind of set out for you. mean, yes, you have to get in, obviously, but it's just, it's.
It's regimented, it's just, this is what happens next. And I will say my biggest growth period's happened when I had no clue what was gonna happen next. And it's a lifelong process to get to a point where you're actually excited about that unknown and not afraid about it, afraid of it, because I will tell you, that's where the magic really happens, when you're at a crossroads of not knowing exactly what's next.
That's when you know that you're kind of stretching out of that comfort zone. You're in an uncomfortable space, but that is the place where new things happen. And so I think, I guess the biggest thing that I would say to them is to be okay with the unexpected.
things won't, the path to joy, honestly, the path to anything really is not ever gonna be a straight road. It just isn't. And honestly, I think life would be kind of boring if it was. There's going to be roadblocks, there's going to be things that are thrown at you that you didn't expect. And again, know, just like with kids, that you can do hard things. it is, those are the times that are actually going to really define who you become.
Jack Schott:
and you spend time at camp every summer, what makes camp special?
Dr. Meena Julapalli:
I mean, that's a lovely question. I'll say so I became involved, it's probably gonna be like 20 years now, became involved with camp. And it was so life changing for me that I became involved with like five more camps. I started a family camp when I was in Colorado along with Roundup River Ranch at a serious fun network. And then became so involved that I became...
of the National Board of Directors for the American Camp Association because it's such a big part of my life. I oftentimes will say camp is the most powerful medicine I can prescribe because what I witness there is nothing short of magical. These kids come for, you know, I work mostly with medical camps, so chronic medical illnesses, and most of the time it's a week, you know, a week at a time or maybe a weekend. But even then, in such a short period of time, incredible magic happens. But they come
You know, I'm a dermatologist, so most of these kids have visible skin conditions. So they can't hide from their challenges. It is literally written on their faces. So they come to camp for the first time. They're not stared at. Everybody there has something that's on their skin. And, you know, they come shy, quiet, and sure of who they are. And over the course of the week at camp,
in that safe environment, they are given space to challenge themselves a new way, stretch out of their comfort zone, become independent. Like so many of these kids have a lot of times have never been, know, had time away from their parents. Their parents have done everything for them. And so they get a chance to meet new friends. And some of these kids have conditions that are extremely rare, that they've never met anybody else who had something similar to them.
And so again, comes back to the, so they have this opportunity to become independent, confident, develop and discover their big personalities. And then the biggest thing, again, the most powerful medicine is just the knowledge that you're not alone. That in and of itself is life-changing. And actually when people tell me that they're interested in pediatric dermatology, I tell them to do two things. Go to a conference that...
Dr. Meena Julapalli:
where there's gonna be pediatric dermatologists where they'll meet people, colleagues who will become their family. And then two, probably even more important, should be number one, is going to camp. Because there is an education that happens there that you'll never find in a textbook. When you actually see what these kids have to deal with, the bullying, the self-esteem issues, the depression, the anxiety, when you get to see how they navigate that and you get to be a part of that, that is what's.
you know, spurs you to want to do this even more. It goes back to being connected to the meaning purpose of why you're doing what you're doing. Because if you're just going and seeing patients getting a paycheck, you're not connected to it. It's not you get back to burnout. And so to me, being at camp actually fuels why I do what I do in the in the clinic setting. It's not either or it's it's both ends. And I'll give you an example.
So I was part of a camp called the Camp Spirit in Colorado. It's at the National Sports Center for the Disabled. So it's four kids with epidermolysis bullosa. So epidermolysis bullosa is probably one of the most severe and debilitating skin conditions that I see. So it's a genetic skin condition where the slightest amount of friction basically sloughs off their skin. So it's almost like they're constantly burned. It's very painful. It's debilitating.
And for the longest time, so many of these kids didn't live for very long because they would succumb to infection or skin cancers and things like that. technology and medical advances have improved greatly so they can live full lives. But you have to imagine that if their skin is almost constantly burned, they have dressings. So much of their daily life is hours and hours of dressing changes.
and taking care of their skin. So they come to this camp, first time that they ever come without their families. And it's because they have so many needs, it's almost like a one-to-one ratio of adult to kid. And it's at the YMC out there. But so many of these kids are always told no, so much of their life. At this camp,
Dr. Meena Julapalli:
they are dog sledding, they are skiing, they have these kind of sit skis. So National Sports Center for the Disabled is located in Winter Park, Colorado, and they have a lot of adaptable technology there. And so they have these sit skis where they padded up with like sheepskin that can kind of help protect their skin. And they have instructors that are holding the reins, but they still do all the turns. And so by the end of the week, we have like race courses set up so that they go down and win medals.
There are snowmobiling, there are dog sledding, there are skiing. I just distinctly remember we had one camper who was there, I think she was eight or nine, this was her first year at camp. She had never been away from her family. And we put all her dressings out on her, dressings, bandages, out on her bed. And we were like, my friend is also a pediatric dermatologist, and we were like, oh, do you know how to use a scissor? Yeah.
Okay, well, she loved Justin Bieber. So we put on some music like, we'll be here to entertain you but but go for it. You can do this. And so and she's like, Wait, what do mean? I don't do my own dressings. My parents do my dressings like, Yeah, but she said you knew how to use a sister. Let's do this. You can do it. And it took her. I don't know. I think it took her like two hours to do this. But we sat there. We entertained her. We kept her company. We encouraged her. And and and for the first time and she's now
She graduated, this was many years ago, she's now graduated college. She's someone who wasn't independent at all. She drives, she has a boyfriend, she has a job. I think she does things with social media. She's this YouTube sensation talking about her life. But it was those moments where an adult gave them some independence to say, hey, you can do this. That was game changing for her, life changing for her and transformative for her. And that's just one example, but it happens at camp all the time.
Jack Schott:
what you're describing, David Jaeger calls the mentor mindset, which is he draws a one of those classic four by four grids and on the y axis is high support and low support. And on the x axis is high standards and low standards. And the mentor mindset and he's a longtime camp counselor on the board of the camp he grew up at classic camp guy and now he's like a big shot going on all the you know, all the all the
you know, big podcasts and writing his book and all that kind of stuff. Anyway, the aim is to be in the mentor, the mentor quadrant, which is high support and high standards, right? Like you're in that setting. It's not like you're going to let her, you know, not use the scissors properly. It's not like you're going to be like, it's okay if you don't, you know, wrap your, your wounds in the proper way. No, you're going to be there at high standards, make sure that she is taken care of in the appropriate way, but also have high, high support to say, what do you need to help you make this happen?
because you're incredible and it's not me. I'm not the center of attention. You're the center here. How can we help you accomplish that? Okay.
Dr. Meena Julapalli:
Well, just to add to that, you know, one of that shift in perspective is you go from, can't, to how can I? And that, to me, is such a powerful transformative thing for all of us, to be honest. Like, we're always telling ourselves, you can't do this, I'm not worthy, I'm not enough, I'm all of those things. And so when we shift that kind of, that limiting belief to a supportive belief, it's life changing.
Jack Schott:
Dr. Mina, you're on a mission. This is how I understand it. I'm gonna repeat back to you what I think you've said to me, to combat burnout, loneliness, and the mental health crisis. And a big part or a part of that for you is the Playmaker Project. What's the Playmaker Project and how does it connect to this larger purpose that you're working on?
Dr. Meena Julapalli:
So the Playmaker Project, I was actually introduced to the Playmaker Project through Camp Friends. And it's been around for about 30 years. It's part of the Life is Good apparel company. You've probably seen where they have phrases all about optimism. There's a little stick figure. I think his name is Jack, actually. The stick figure's name is Jack. But they have a nonprofit sector called the Playmaker Project.
Fun fact, actually, before they became the Playmaker Project, they were known as Project Joy. I just recently discovered that. So, synchronous is abound if you're just paying attention. it's all about using the power of play to help kids through life's challenges. In the US, anyway, one in three children experience trauma like abuse, neglect.
poverty, violence, and the Playmaker Project is really about making sure that every child has loving relationships and joyful experiences that they need to heal and thrive. There are good studies to actually show that a kid just needs one safe relationship with an adult outside of their kind of home unit that is there to encourage them and be a big part of their life. Even that
that can be life-changing because it's such a critical time in a child's development. so the Playmaker Project has, well, it plays the language of children, right? So it's how they process the world and communicate complex feelings and bond with others. And so I got introduced to the Playmaker Project from a friend of mine who was the director at Roundup River Ranch in Colorado. And she said, need
you need to go talk to these people. They are your people. I was like, okay, whatever that means. And so they have this curriculum called the Playmaker University and they've trained 25,000 people all over the world to, again, use the power of play. And mostly they've been focusing on kind of early childhood education so far, but they also have gone into like settings of like,
Dr. Meena Julapalli:
devastating, like disasters like the Haiti earthquake, when the Sandy Hook shooting, they've gone to a lot after Hurricane Katrina to be a kind of a light at a time of darkness. And it's so for me,
when I actually went through the training myself and it just kind of validated honestly the way that I live my life. And yes, they were my people but then my wheels started turning because like I said, I have one foot in medicine, I have one foot in the nonprofit center, one foot in camp and education and all of these things. so to me, so I have intentions that I have when I start the year, know, one year it was clarity, another year was abundance, another year was creativity. This year,
It really was about connection and collaboration. And to me, there's so many things that I'm involved with that I just like, we don't have to reinvent the wheel. We're all kind of on a similar mission and yet each of us has kind of a unique gift. And what incredible magic can we accomplish if we just all kind of collaborate together and figure out ways to help each other. And so then my brain started and then the ACA had their character at camp.
you know, initiative that came out. And then I was like, wait a minute, Playmaker University is all about building relationships and building character. And so how can that come together? And so that's another thing that I've been working on, because I love when my worlds collide. And so that's actually even how we got introduced. Someone sent another Playmaker, sent me a post that I think you had posted on LinkedIn.
And it was just in complete alignment with all the things that I had talked about with that person. And then I was like, you know what? I'm just going to slide into your DMs. Thank you for not ignoring me. But I was just like, we need to know each other. Because I think that our values and mission align. And when you find people like that, you got to figure out how do we work together to make this world a better place.
Jack Schott:
Well, thank you for doing that. I'm stoked that we're gonna be pen pals this summer. So tell me about the Playmaker project. What do I learn if I become a Playmaker? If I go to Playmaker University, what am I gonna be at the end of it that's slightly different than what I am today?
Dr. Meena Julapalli:
So they, it has some, it has practical tools. again, it gives you, there's a whole section about you being able to take care of yourself. Because again, you can't give what you don't have. So there's a lot about how you can cultivate, play in your own life and how that can be, that is an important factor for, we are children to the day we die. It is something that we have to actually cultivate throughout our entire lives so that we can give of ourselves to others.
And then they actually have some practical tools to be able to use to help kids. have an entire kind of, so they have this, so optimism tree, you're learning kind of about how can we, let's say you have some kids that you need to focus on gratitude, that you need to focus on curiosity. So all these superpowers that they have, have super powered kids that you can actually use with, like just a library of activities to be able to,
to figure out different ways to kind of cultivate these superpowers and relationships with kids, whether it's in a camp setting, whether it's in an educational setting, whether it's in a trauma setting, because really it's, it goes back to the concept that it takes a village. All of us are co-parenting, raising children. I mean, it takes a village and it's all about what it means to guide and nurture.
and help someone develop in a healthy way. And there's no greater responsibility than that. And I think, you know, we talk about some tools that schools have built. We talk about tools that camp has built. You know, lot of the youth development sector and the nonprofit has built. And why can't we all work together to use each other's tools and be able to do what we all are here to do, which is, you know, nurturing relationships and building the greatest natural resource we have, which is...
Cheers.
Jack Schott:
I, well, I'm in sign me up.
Dr. Meena Julapalli:
Hahaha!
Jack Schott:
Okay, I have two more questions. First one, you told me about knitting.
Dr. Meena Julapalli:
Okay Here I'll show you cuz actually Because Monday's okay. Let me back up. Okay, why this even came about so Jack was trying to book this this This interview out on a Monday afternoon and I was like actually Jack. Can we do it in the morning because
Jack Schott:
And that's about as much as I know. So, Mina, when I say knitting, what do you think about?
Dr. Meena Julapalli:
I meet with this group who's teaching me how to knit in the afternoon. So this is how this happened. So I told you that I love learning new things and I think they just kind of find me because I, so last year I just kind of fell upon taiko drumming and it's just something that I got, I started to learn about and it was all about just kind of connecting to the rhythm of your soul.
So, taiko drumming is a giant Japanese drum and you learn at a dojo. It's almost like a martial art. It's very, I don't want to use the word strict, but it's very respectful, I guess. It honors that rhythm. And so you go and you play it it literally connects you to your...
the earth, the beat of your heart. There's such a peace that happens there when I go. When you go into the dojo, you have to leave all your negative energy behind. And so you bow just like you do in any dojo and then you enter with a very positive energy of what you're trying to create. the sensei always says that, you everybody has rhythm in their soul because the first sound that you ever heard was the beat of your mother's heart.
And I was like, I felt that. And it's true. So then I started to do that. this past summer, they kicked me out of the beginner class. It's like, need to audition for the apprentice class. So I did that. And then around the same time, was seeing, so my friend's sister is in a jazz band.
And I went to go see her perform. And then all these people kept asking us to dance. My friends and I did dance and they're like, I don't know how to swing dance. No, we're not going to do that. And then at some point we're like, screw it. We'll just do it. And so it was so fun that I were like, OK, if we're to do this, we need to learn how to do it. So then I started to go for lessons to that. And honestly, you know how people ask you if you could be an animal, what animal would you be? If I could be a dance.
Dr. Meena Julapalli:
it would be Lindy Hop because it's literally happy feet. is joy on the dance floor. so again, learning new things, right? And so this knitting thing came about when I was, was at a random coffee shop. I was just, I go to a lot of coffee shops. was at a coffee shop and I was just doing some work and I saw these cute ladies sitting at a table and they all were enjoying each other's company. They were just knitting. And so I went to go talk to them because that's what I do. And, and
The next thing I know, like, so they are part of a retired Jewish, they all go to the same Jewish synagogue and they're all retired and they make little quilt squares that they put together and give it to people who need a pick-me-up. And so I started talking to them about that and at some point I got adopted by them and they said, come back, come back every Monday, we'll be here, we'll teach you how to knit. And so now,
I mean look at this Jack. So I know how to do all kinds of different stitches, the rib stitch, the garter stitch, the stocking stitch. mean, I'm making hearts.
So yeah, it's become a thing. So that's my new skill, jack of all trades, master of none.
Jack Schott:
One of things I love about that is I'm a huge fan of self-determination theory. Richard Ryan is hopefully going to be on this podcast soon. We're emailing back and forth the founder of self-determination theory. And he says that the humans flourish and thrive when our physical and psychological needs are met. Psychological needs being autonomy, relatedness, and competence. And so connecting that to you thinking about purpose
is sometimes purpose to me seems like such a big word. It's like, what is your purpose, Jack? And it's this big weighty question that I sort of shrink under on some days and rise up to on other days. finding little things to learn each year or being open to being welcomed to a community and learning is a different way to make purpose much more tangible to me.
because you're relating your big purpose of connection and fighting burnout and loneliness and the mental health crisis to this purpose that is, I'm gonna learn how to do this little stitch, or I'm gonna learn how to play a new form of music or this dance or get to seven continents. Some of them are bigger and some of them are smaller, I think...
Showing that for kids, not just saying it, but showing this is how I'm living my life. How do you want to live yours is a superpower that thank you for sharing with the world. My final question, Mina, you start every one of your kid visits. Notice I'm not saying patient. Your kid visits with what brings you joy. What's been bringing you joy recently?
Dr. Meena Julapalli:
Gosh, so many things, but I think there's this, there's this air of hope that I, you know, I mean even just in this conversation with you, Jack, it's just that it kind of comes back to just I, when my worlds collide, it just, it brings me joy because I actually feel like I am living out my purpose of connection, because it really comes down to that.
how we are all in this world together. that in and of itself, when we acknowledge each other's unique gifts and figure out ways to collaborate and allow us to live out our purpose together, mean, that in and of itself, think is, I'm a healer. And I think that community, someone told me recently,
I don't know where it's from, but when I becomes we, illness becomes wellness, and that's the power of community. And I think that's such a powerful way to put why we're all here. I humans were built for connection. We are social creatures. And what do we all want in this life to be seen, to be heard, to be understood, and to be appreciated for who we are in the end, because we're inherently compassionate human beings. want the same for others.
And I feel like a hope and energy in the air that I think that people are more in tune with that and want that for ourselves and each other. And so I don't spend a lot of time on social media more than I have to because I think it's a lot of noise and a lot of negative energy. But what I do intentionally spend a lot of time and invest time in is connection because that is always what brings me the most joy.
Jack Schott:
I lied, wasn't my last question. Nobody's surprised. Nobody, this is classic, classic Jack. Nobody's surprised. So,
You say you talked about social media and I just want to spend a minute here and try to understand this because I'm I struggle with this Personally social media. I don't know. It's easy to hate it. It's easy to hate it I like to throw it under the bus all the time Also, we wouldn't be here Having this conversation without LinkedIn, which is one of the the sort of yuckiest of the social medias maybe the Twitter's Twitter's probably
Dr. Meena Julapalli:
Yeah.
Dr. Meena Julapalli:
you
Dr. Meena Julapalli:
I'm a new I'm a LinkedIn newbie Jack. I just joined it because I because someone was like, look, if you're gonna do all this stuff that you're doing, you need to be on LinkedIn. Like do I have to
Jack Schott:
So, right, same. Same. I started posting on LinkedIn in September, it's April. And my friend Sam calls me, he owns a camp in Wisconsin. He calls me LinkedIn boy now because I post on LinkedIn so much. And here's the thing. I think it's, I roll my eyes at it too. But also there's some opportunity for connection.
right here, right? We are talking because of, of LinkedIn. how do we balance this sort of yuckiness that, that we both feel around social media with the opportunity that social media provides to actually, you know, Mark Zuckerberg in my mind is mostly full of crap, but the, the sort of bogus line that he talks about is that Facebook's mission, Metta's mission is to connect the world.
Dr. Meena Julapalli:
Okay, by what we just did. So we used it as a tool for an initial connection, an electronic connection, and then we moved it offline. I mean, by that I mean, you know, we're still online. However, we're off that method. I mean, obviously, if we could do this in person, we would do it in person, but we live in different places. Use it as a way to start a connection, but not continue it.
Because I think if I ever did another TED Talk, it would be, I actually have so many ideas, but we're so electronically connected, but so emotionally disconnected than ever. And this is something that I actually really worry about with even my own nephews and the kids that I care for, because we have this big monster of social media, but we don't teach people how to use it responsibly.
And we're seeing the effects of that on their mental health. And so there is no balance. We just tell them, no, you can't be on it until a certain time. I there's studies that are coming about, don't even let the people be on, not even have us kids have a smartphone until they're 16, because they're really need it. didn't cope with it. But it's there. So it's this piece. we can go down. The whole thing about AI now too, like I now, I I have to this day, I don't know how long I'm gonna last.
but I have not used chat GPT because it terrifies me because at some point I don't know when someone sends me a message now. Is it their original thought? I mean, I have no idea anymore. Is it an original creation? I we're using chat GPT. I mean, just the other day I was on a group chat with somebody and someone said, hey, I got this message from somebody. How can I respond to it in a diplomatic way? And then I said something. And then the other person on the group chat said,
Well, I put it in the chat GBT and this is the response that it gave and I'm like, wait, we're asking chat GBT how to feel now? I mean, it's just, I worry about that. I understand and I don't like the idea of AI is here to stay. We're just gonna have to figure out how to use it. Sure, however.
Dr. Meena Julapalli:
if it is overtaking our humanity, our creativity, our individuality, we're asking you how to think and act and feel, and that is who we're building relationships with, something is really wrong. so again, use electronic means as a way to start a connection, but then take it offline as quickly as you possibly can. I mean, one of the other things that I do along with the Joyful Path is,
is create offerings where we are engaged in nature and food and art and music off this. I it's ironic, just like you're saying, that I have to use social media to talk about what I'm doing so that people know about it, but then I want people to get off. And every month I'm taking people out into nature. Houston, where I live, gets a bad rap because we don't have a lot of, that it doesn't have a lot of nature, but it's there. There are just some hidden gems. And so,
For me, I've been spending every month trying to get people out to these hidden gems in nature, getting them reconnected, just again, building community, but just getting them to enjoy fresh air. so we, I keep coming back to Japanese words, but shinron-yoku is Japanese practice of forest bathing. And it's just, it is a reminder of how we can be more present.
you know, noticing the big things, the little things and everything in between. you know, so much of life, we're just going, going, going. And it's important to remember that we're human beings, not human doings. We're all constantly in survival mode. And the problem is, know, we, ancestrally, we were only supposed to be in survival mode when we were running from dinosaurs. But now, even sitting here, because of all the things and responsibilities that we have to do, sometimes we feel our body feels like it's in danger, when it in fact is not. And so,
How do you balance that? How do you get back to that homeostasis? You have to do things like cultivating joy, play, laughter, all of these things. They're signals to your body, to your autonomic nervous system that you're safe. It really comes down to that. When you feel safe, then all of these things that we're talking about today can flourish.
Jack Schott:
There's so many nuanced things that you just said we'd have to have another multi-hour conversation here. I think...
Dr. Meena Julapalli:
you
Jack Schott:
I think there's a gap between what both of us are thinking about with AI and with social media to a small degree, which is that I think that what we're agreeing on is that the people that I know that seem to have the most joy in their life are the people that have found a way to use technology, whether it's social media, AI, whatever, know, next thing coming down the pike.
is to deepen relationships with individual humans. And so that sometimes social media is a really great way to cast a big net, to say to the world, this is who I am and this is what I believe in at the most surface level. And if you're intrigued by this, guess what? There's more of me. Let's talk more. And you're incredible at this, right? Like this is you sending me a DM that's just like, hey, this is who I am. We should talk more. And then we quickly...
Dr. Meena Julapalli:
You
Jack Schott:
moved to a phone call where I was washing dishes, cleaning up after I was at camp and so was doing dishes anyway. And, and that we could have a real conversation that this is a conversation that's just a tiny bit deeper. And if you're listening to this and it resonates with you, please reach out to us. The point is that we put out these things into the world so that we can start to build actual deeper connections and not just social media connections, but that social media is useful for some of this in my mind, I believe.
Dr. Meena Julapalli:
Yeah.
Jack Schott:
And I'd love to talk more about AI with you, because I think that there's so much more to unpack there, but we're going to have to put a pin in that for now, because I can't spend all day on this topic, and I'm already going to be thinking about it for the rest of the day.
Dr. Meena Julapalli:
I like the analogy, a more, I guess, vivid analogy of what you're describing is that we're planting seeds. And so you can use technology to help plant the seed, but the nourishment, the watering, the feeding, all of that is gonna really happen in cultivating the relationship with whatever it is you're trying to build.
Jack Schott:
And that's why I love camp so much, right? Camp is the systemized way to plant all these seeds and then have a very clear garden that we're inviting people to spend time in and say, I promise you we're gonna build deep relationships in this garden. Come hang out. I promise that's gonna happen. And I've planted all these seeds, now come hang out. And the same is true as you do the Joyful Path and you invite people to go for hikes or to do some form of time in nature like.
Dr. Meena Julapalli:
Yeah.
Jack Schott:
And I think that what I hope is that we can inspire more folks and that more kids can see this as the opportunity. And the unfortunate thing for kids is that they spend most of their time being told what to do and they don't have a lot of chances to say, hey, come hang out with me on the playground anymore. But, hey, we're working on that. And that's Camp can do. Mina, you're absolutely incredible. Thank you so much for this last hour or so. I appreciate you so much. If people...
have seen a seed be planted and want to reach out to you. What's the best way for them to get in touch?
Dr. Meena Julapalli:
So www.thejoyfulpath.org you can sign up for the newsletter and or email me at info at the joyful path org. If you are in Texas and want to see my dermatology stuff it's bluebirdermatology.com
Jack Schott:
Thank you so much.
