Andrea Nakayama – Functional Medicine

Episode Summary

Join us for an inspiring conversation with Andrea Nakayama as she shares her transformative journey into functional nutrition.

Sparked by her husband's illness, Andrea delves into the gaps in the medical system, the need for individualized patient care, and the core principles of functional medicine.

Episode Timestamps

(00:00)- The Catalyst for Change: A Personal Journey

(02:54)- Understanding Functional Nutrition and Systems Biology

(06:00)- The Individualized Approach to Patient Care

(08:51)- From Passion to Practice: Building a Career in Nutrition

(12:05)- The Evolution of Functional Nutrition Alliance

(15:01)- Marketing Strategies for Growth and Engagement

(18:03)- Navigating Business Transitions and Exits

(20:54)- Reflections on Personal Branding and Business Building

(29:34)- Reflecting on Business Growth and Challenges

(33:22)- Balancing Clinical Work and Education

(36:41)- The Evolution of Personal Branding

(38:34)- Understanding Narrative Medicine

(43:43)- Empowering Educators in Functional Nutrition

(49:09)- The Reward of Teaching and Impacting Lives

Episode Transcript

Martin  

So Andrea, you’ve built a remarkable career around functional nutrition. What was the most pivotal moment in your personal life that set you on this path?

Andrea Nakayama 

Yeah, so for me, my journey to functional nutrition really began, and I didn’t call it functional nutrition at that point, but it really began when my late husband was diagnosed with a very aggressive brain tumor. This is back in April of 2000. He was diagnosed with what’s called a glioblastoma multiforme. It’s a stage four brain tumor. At the time I was just seven weeks pregnant.

And so we were kind of catapulted in our early thirties into the medical system, the U S the Western medical system in a way that we had never been before. And what I realized through that journey were two things that surprised me not having encountered the system in that way. Number one was that people were treated like their diagnosis. So everywhere we went, he wasn’t Isamu.

who he was to me, soon to be father, a brother, a musician, a software developer, a son, a brother, all the things that I knew him to be. He was just a glioblastoma, a multiforme, or a GBM. And the other thing that I recognized is that everybody with the same diagnosis is treated the same. So there’s a protocol for a diagnosis. There might be some variability, but those two gaps, people treated like their diagnosis and

people with the same diagnosis being treated the same really kind of woke me up to some of the challenges with the medical system and the way we treat patients or patient care. And so that over time, he actually outlived his prognosis. He was given about six months to live. He lived almost two and a half years, but that journey really catapulted me to…

change my career, start studying nutrition, which I had brought in during his time going through treatment, really looking at nutrition in a new way. But it took off from there in ways that I didn’t anticipate and ultimately aligned with the practices of functional medicine, which I know we will talk about. But it was that personal health crisis that really woke me up to some of the gaps.

that I then worked on finding a solution for.

Martin  

Yeah, got you. Such a powerful story. you know, those gaps that you mentioned there, of sort of every patient being looked at as, know, given the same treatment and looked at as just their diagnosis. Talk us through that a little bit more. And what were some of the other gaps that you were seeing? And ultimately, how are you helping solve those gaps?

Andrea Nakayama  

Yeah, so over time, I started to realize that it wasn’t just diet and lifestyle modification, that there were a lot of clues in the body’s physiology, that once we understand how the body works, there’s a lot of insight for us there. And that really helped me align with the philosophies of systems biology and functional medicine as a practice.

at least historically, it’s kind of gone in a lot of different directions, at least here in the States, but functional medicine is all about systems biology. Systems biology recognizes that we’re not a bunch of ologies. We are all connected. Everything is connected. The gut’s connected to the brain, as we now know. Hormones are connected to liver and detoxification, which is also connected to the gut. The immune system and the gut are related to that.

the entire ecosystem in the body is connected. And when we see it as such and understand that baseline physiological function, we have clues for each individual that go beyond the tipping point of the diagnosis. So that alignment with functional medicine really started to help me put what I was already doing.

into a system that worked in one way and then evolve it from there. So the three primary tenants of a truly functional practice are that systems biology, everything is connected. We are all unique, which is really based on bio individuality. You are not just your diagnosis. You’re a person who has a diagnosis and all things matter. Sleep matters, lunch matters, poop matters, really understanding that

the things we do can make a difference when we understand the connection between the actions and the physiological function.

Martin  

Amazing, amazing. And I want to focus on that second pillar that you mentioned there of every patient is individual. What are some of the markers that you look for when you’re looking at a patient? Like what are some of those indicators? And then how do you tailor your treatment to them individually?

Andrea Nakayama 

Yeah, so for me, this is one of the juiciest parts of the journey. And it’s really informed my most recent work going into narrative medicine. So in functional medicine, we see the story part of the patient as what we call the ATMs, the antecedents, the triggers, and the mediators. Now our mediators are the things that make us feel better and worse.

And so with any patient, I want to really look at that journey with them. What do you know makes you feel better or worse coming in to see me? So I can already embrace that. And some people will say, I don’t know. I just feel bad all the time. I don’t know what makes you feel better or worse. And that tells me we have some work to do.

Other people will know those details. When I do this, I feel better. When I go to sleep this time, when I meditate, I’m able to. They’ll know when I eat cheese, I run to the bathroom, whatever it is. They’ll know those little details and be able to tell you. And then there’s the people who are so limited and so restricted because they’re trying to control how they feel with their diet and lifestyle. So they’re walking a very narrow path.

But that understanding of your mediators and what you know to be true, takes some inquiry and some assessment. And it really helps me and the people I train to know where we are. So if I go from antecedents to triggers to mediators, our mediators are the things we know make us feel better, make us feel worse.

Our triggers are the things that have happened throughout our lifetime that would add up as sort of insults. And I’m putting that in bunny ears, air quotes to say there are things that happen through our lives that have acted as added stressors on our individual bodies. So even though we might have the same diagnosis, we’ve had different life journeys, different insults, different triggers.

One person may have had adverse childhood experiences or gotten an infection or taken a lot of antibiotics. Another person may have had adverse adult experiences, whether it’s related to their work or a loss of somebody close to them. Also, did you have root canals in your mouth? What’s your dental history? So the assessment for me is more important than the markers.

There are markers that I want to look at, but I really want to understand the individual, where they came from, what their life journey has been. What’s the story of you as a patient so that I can tailor my recommendations, not just to a marker, but to an individual. What’s your access to food? What’s your relationship with food, your body, eating foods or not eating certain foods? All of that is going to inform.

Martin  

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

Andrea Nakayama 

me not putting you on a diet, but really being able to tailor what it is we’re talking about to meet your needs and to progress you forward instead of giving you something that you’re gonna do for two weeks, struggle through it, and then not have sustainable results.

Martin  

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah, no, that’s, that’s really, really cool to I’m sure that takes quite a long time to go through all that with with every patient. But I can imagine all that effort upfront makes for just such an easier treatment plan sort of further down the road. really like a long term approach. So that’s so cool to hear that. And yeah, I want to sort of just go back to your personal journey a little bit there.

As you’ve started to learn all of this process, and obviously this has been developed, your understanding and education around this has been developing, I’m sure, year after year, you’re probably always learning, I’m sure. But what was that process like for you as you started to research this, study this? Did you go into a clinic yourself and start practicing? And then how did that transition into the functional nutrition alliance from there? Would love to hear that.

Andrea Nakayama  

Yeah, I mean, I call myself an unexpected or a, know, accidental entrepreneur. I didn’t expect it to be like this. It was really the passion for working with people. And I started my own practice. I taught classes in my living room for like a five to $10 donation, starting to like make connections. I mean, I come from an art background.

not a science background. So I think that really helped me to make connections in a way that made sense to people.

I’m a writer, I love the analogies. One of the things that I think I’m known for is making the complex understandable. And so taking that part of myself and bringing it forward instead of thinking, I’m dropping that, leaving that history behind of who I am, but also allowing myself to be different than the kind of practitioners that are out there and infuse.

what I was doing with who I am and what I was seeing was resonating for people. So it really grew in what I’m going to call a feedback loop. And there’s lots of feedback loops physiologically and in the body. But when we are delivering something to an audience or a new audience, that feedback loop is really key. And I think a lot of people create things in a vacuum. They think it’s about the product or the offer.

and not about the response. And so as I was teaching, I was seeing what are people responding to, including me, what’s working? Like not things I knew about myself, being a leader or being a teacher, those weren’t labels I would have given myself. So just seeing what works, what doesn’t work, paying attention, and then continuing to iterate on that in addition to my subject matter expertise knowledge.

Really really evolved from there. So I started with a practice then without even having a website Put you know offered classes. This is way back, you know, so like almost 20 years ago offering classes with flyers and Locally and then seeing what people were interested building a website building an email list

growing, growing, growing, really rolling that snowball, as I like to say, to see what’s next, what’s next, what’s next. When I first offered full body systems in 2012, that’s the 10 month training we have in the science and art of functional nutrition. I really thought it was gonna be like a little mentorship group for a few.

Martin  

Hmm.

Andrea Nakayama  

health coaches who wanted some added training in functional nutrition. And I started it out just by offering the first module and I had hundreds of people showing up. They then wanted more. went into the 10 month training and then it was an every year offer. We now offer the program six times a year. I’ve trained over 8,500.

practitioners, new and advanced in over 68 countries. And it’s hard, it’s hard work. I’m not going to say it’s easy. definitely taken years off my life and it’s a lot of stress. But I also feel just so privileged to take each next step and evolve the offering in that way.

Martin  

Yeah, that’s so cool. So if I understand that correctly, you had your clinic running and then by, know, was it people reaching out to you asking, hey, can you teach what you’re doing? Or was it more or less like, maybe I’ll offer this to a few people, as you said, a mentorship program, like what was specifically happening there? How did the idea for the program come about?

Andrea Nakayama  

Yeah. So I had a business coach who’s still a dear friend and a colleague. And, she and a partner were teaching other health coaches how to build their business. Now I was a private client, so a more advanced client, but I would show up at their conferences.

And I’d be on their stage as one of their successful clients. And when I came time to introduce myself, I would say I’m a functional medicine nutritionist and people were like, what? And so that feedback loop made me think, wait, people are interested in this. Maybe I should offer something to teach what I’m learning. And so it was that exposure. And I think this is something a lot of my students

Forget that you have to be in front of the audience. You can’t just create in a vacuum So when I was building my practice I was teaching those classes in order to get people to say they wanted more when I was thinking I’ll build a mentorship program. I was in front of the audience that wanted the mentorship so

Martin 

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Andrea Nakayama 

It’s that first seed. it’s not just about what I wanted to do. It was seeing that there was a need for something and then trying my hand at it. The first year was very different. It’s evolved considerably over the last 12 years. And that came from me paying attention, seeing both what was needed in the community, but where my work was evolving and what I wanted to bring in as well.

Martin 

Yeah.

Yep.

Andrea Nakayama  

So I think you have to be in front of the people. And that’s something I think a lot of new entrepreneurs forget when they have an idea.

Martin  

Yeah.

Totally. I love I love that approach and your whole mindset around like this feedback loop and listening, paying attention. You said there are a couple of times and yeah, I think that’s such solid advice because yeah, entrepreneurs often fall into the trap of I’ve got this idea, let’s go run with it. But actually you were listening, you were getting exposure, speaking to people and then listening to what they were saying and then seeing the gaps, seeing what was needed, which

Yeah, it’s just very organic, but obviously then you’re solving a problem and actually responding to demand. You’re seeing that there’s demand there and stuff. And I think by the fact that you’ve trained over eight and a half thousand people now, it sounds like you in the right place and responded really well to what was happening there. And yeah, I’d love to hear after training that many practitioners, what are some of the methods you found, you know,

most effective in scaling the education side of the business so quickly and getting that many people through what things have worked in your growth over the years.

Andrea Nakayama  

Yeah, my gosh, such a journey as you know. So it was mostly organic marketing until 2018. We did a little bit of paid and I think this is what you’re asking. Do you want to know those tactics?

Martin  

Yeah, yeah, talk me through exactly sort of exactly on the marketing. that’s where I’m coming from, from the marketing side. But however you want to answer that question, tell me. Yeah.

Andrea Nakayama  

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, it’s a huge part of what I do. And I think it was a big leap for me to understand where marketing fit in my mission, because my mission is healthcare and serving people. so marketing can have a bit of a ick factor.

when you’re like serving healthcare, but I realized that it was a tool for me and that it’s all marketing. Ultimately, it’s all marketing. Even the product itself, I’m marketing functional nutrition as a practice to really make a difference in chronic healthcare. And so I started out with that organic marketing, showing up, committing to a weekly newsletter, providing value.

at a very low hanging fruit area. And then you my team grew and we did start to do a little bit of paid social advertising back in the day. It’s a different landscape now. And in 2018, I sold my business. I had gotten to the seven figure place on my own and realized that it was a lot of effort and I couldn’t push it to the next level.

past where I had reached. And so that’s come with blessings and curses. It’s hard. I’m still in charge. And then that business sold a year ago. So I’m still the face, the leader, the running the business, but it’s under a larger organization that can put more spend behind it.

So getting from the seven figure to the eight figure, that’s like, does take a bit more muscle that comes from cash. if in a lot of cases, I’m not going to say for everyone, but I was able to build it to that seven figure level completely organically and with a lot of blood, sweat and tears. And it was definitely focusing on knowing

Martin  

Yep.

Andrea Nakayama  

and committing to the quality of the product and the delivery. That’s number one for me. But then making sure that whatever we did with marketing was tied in and a congruent messaging all the way through.

Martin  

Yeah, yeah, that’s awesome. I’m actually I want to ask about the the the exiting from the business and stuff because that’s a very interesting topic, of course, but just getting to you mentioned a lot of like organic methods that you mentioned email, what other things were you doing? Were you I guess we speaking at events? We hosting a lot of like workshops online. We on social media a lot like what we doing back then.

Andrea Nakayama 

Well, I’m going to say at the time I was doing this social media isn’t what it is now. And I’m glad because I don’t love being on social media. The sound bites for me with what I’m talking about are challenging. And so I am on social media, but it’s not like it’s not my favorite place to be. And I don’t love what it’s done to functional medicine. I feel like it’s

Martin  

Hmm.

Yep.

Andrea Nakayama 

really distilled it to a practice that’s something other than what the core principles of a functional practice really are. So in those days, it wasn’t that long ago, but time changes pretty drastically in this world.

Martin 

Hehehe

Andrea Nakayama  

But it was mostly email marketing, which is harder to rely on, but we still do it. It was speaking at events, both live and there were a lot of like online summits in the industry. It was lead magnets. So, you know, having eBooks that I’ve written. So people were getting that lead magnet, then going through trainings kind of.

Martin  

Okay.

Andrea Nakayama  

what in the day was called the OVO model opt in value, value, value offer. So making sure I was constantly growing my list so that people were seeing what we were doing and were having interests and engaging and then saying, yes, that’s for me, as well as finding partners who were speaking to.

my ideal audience and getting in front of their audience with them as affiliate partners and relationships. So it was a lot of industry smooching to be able to be in the space where my people, which is a very niche population, know, it’s coaches, it’s clinicians, it’s all different kinds of clinicians and aspiring clinicians, but it is still very niche. Nobody knows.

Martin 

Yeah.

Hmm.

Andrea Nakayama  

Not a lot of people know what functional nutrition or functional medicine are. It’s not like health coaching or personal training. It’s kind of a little more narrow. So really making sure I was in the right places to show up and gather that list. So the list building in those days was pretty key.

Martin 

the traffic.

Yeah, yeah, no, I like that approach sort of really getting stuck in the industry and finding different ways to connect with different audiences. with your writing background, were you doing a lot of blog writing and stuff like that as well? Yeah.

Andrea Nakayama  

Yes, that’s really, I was committed to blogging, to a newsletter. And that was like, I developed what I call a 5P model that I teach my students and that’s passion, permission, purpose, persistence and perseverance. So we often come to entrepreneurship with the passion. We then need to give ourselves permission to do all the things to get where we want to go.

For me, the purpose is the heart of it because purpose, when you’re really aligned with what you want, helps you to do the things you never thought you would do. So like I was talking about marketing or like being in front of people teaching all the time, that wasn’t something that came innately to me, but I was willing to learn it because I believed in…

the purpose of what I was doing and the end result and that persistence and perseverance the persistence is you got to be regular you got to show up whether you’re committing to social or youtube or you’re blogging or you’re Committing to speaking you have to be persistent with it. You are committing to a schedule so I was sending a weekly newsletter and I was

Committed to that weekly newsletter, but whatever it is you choose today and that perseverance is knowing Not everything’s gonna work. You’re gonna fall down pick yourself up learn from that feedback loop keep going and I think that was the cycle I was just constantly in with that purpose Guiding me forward

Martin  

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, awesome, awesome. think that’s such great advice. Yeah, pick your schedule and stick to it. It’s a theme that comes up a lot in this podcast, you know, speaking with professionals and educators like yourself, particularly talking about content. It’s just, you know, get in the game, stay consistent with it. And it sounds like you’ve obviously done a great job of that over the years. So very interesting, just very quickly on the exiting of the business, if you can speak about that.

That’s obviously very interesting. And what does your role look like now? Like, and how did that come about? Was that something you pursued because you wanted to? Or was it the opportunity come to you? Yeah, we’d love to hear a little bit about that.

Andrea Nakayama  

Yeah, I’m not exited. I function sort of as the president or general manager of my brand. So I still have my team that is devoted. I also have other team members who share other brands and there’s three brands on the current platform and also work on my brand. And that’s a lot to manage because to keep everything on brand and make sure it’s driving in the right direction, but ultimately,

I’m responsible for the performance of the brand, even on this platform. So it’s a different responsibility than when it was all on my back and people’s paychecks were related to how the business did for me. So there’s different challenges. It’s hard when you’re an entrepreneur to, I make a joke being somebody who talks about poop a lot and I call it going number two.

It’s not easy to go number two when you’re used to being an entrepreneur. So somebody else being the boss, I definitely developed. I’m not a good employee in the like, I’m going to like just do it for the job. Like I’m very driven about what we do. And

Martin 

Hahaha

Yeah, that must be tough.

Can’t imagine.

Yep.

Andrea Nakayama  

It’s changed multiple times. I sold the business to people I knew. They then were kind of pushed out and a new CEO was brought in. this, like there’s been multiple situations. So I think a lot of times with my colleagues, it sounds like the dream scenario. We build a business to sell it. And I think that’s true if it’s not your heart and your brain.

Martin  

Mm-hmm.

Andrea Nakayama  

For me, this brand is like, it’s got my voice, my face, my passion all over it. The story of my late husband is in it. know, like the teaching is very first person. And so it’s not easy for me to walk away from in the way that I think somebody who might build a widget and then go on to the next thing. So.

Martin  

Yeah.

Andrea Nakayama  

Yeah, it’s an interesting journey. And if I think about like the story and the patient’s story, it is definitely a part of my story and my triggers through my own health journey.

Martin  

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, in hindsight now, like looking back on it, because I think that’s a really interesting topic you’re touching on there of, you know, and it’s really common these days, a lot of people start a business based out of their personal brand, their personal story. And I think it’s the fastest way to actually start and grow a business because yeah, it’s very personal. People, you know, more and more these days want to buy directly from someone like, you know, the founder of

my marketing agency, clients want to speak to me, the founder of it, you know, we have a great team. Ultimately in that beginning part, it’s people want the person, the one person that they sort of sees the face of that brand. So knowing what you know now, and I guess, know, hindsight’s a beautiful thing, but would you do it differently going back? you, yeah, yeah, it would have been not as intertwined in your personal story.

Andrea Nakayama  

Hehehehehe

I don’t think I would do the business differently. I really feel passionate about what I’ve built and the results that it delivers. I feel very proud of our product and my entire team. mean, we’re very protective of the product of our audience, our students, of client stories. So I feel like there’s nothing I would have done differently with the building of the business.

Would I do the selling of my business differently? I would. That’s hindsight is 2020 for me. I didn’t know what I was getting into at all. And I think the only thing I would say, cause they came to me, I didn’t go looking and I would just say that’s another place where I had done more discovery and learned more and understood more. I did have a legal team.

I mean like team, but I don’t think we were asking the right questions. It’s a very hard product to understand. And I think like the intellectual property and all those aspects aren’t as tangible again, as like a widget. So I think in retrospect, I just wish I had slowed that process down. It’s interesting, Martin, as I talk to you about like the building of the business.

Martin 

Yeah.

Yep.

Andrea Nakayama 

I hear the same principles that I apply to clinical care coming out of my mouth. And that’s what my team will also reflect. And so even that feedback loop of deep listening, of really understanding the audience is what I apply to the patient. If I come in with that protocol or that idea of what we’re gonna do because of the diagnosis they have or the signs and symptoms they have.

Martin  

Hmm.

Andrea Nakayama  

I’ve missed the opportunity to really listen to them and right size a plan for them. And I think that’s true of building a business. And I think in this area, I didn’t know to apply those same principles in that process. So that’s where, again, so many blessings have come from this opportunity. So it is an opportunity, but it’s also come with

Martin  

Yep.

Andrea Nakayama 

challenges and I think that’s just that’s the growing process.

Martin  

That’s part of the journey Yeah, I can imagine it was probably so yeah, a totally new challenge for you to get to that point. And it sounds like, I mean, you’ve got a full legal team to go through it. And I’m sure you’re thinking very, critically about it. But and I guess it’s hard for those big stake decisions that you make where it’s hard to get it exactly right, you know, and you’re not going to know so you can, I guess.

Andrea Nakayama  

Yes.

Martin  

I hope that you’re not critical on yourself or anything from it because you know those high-stake decisions you don’t have the privilege or the space you know from slowly building a business organically and constantly getting that feedback loop for a one-time selling process it’s a shorter time frame higher stakes so I guess maybe there could have been ways to delay the process as you said slow down a little bit but nonetheless

Andrea Nakayama 

Thank you.

Check out other options. you know, know like what are the other options here? I think, you know, something comes our way as an opportunity. I see this happen a lot with my students. Like they get seduced very quickly by one opportunity and we need to vet those opportunities. This happens a lot with partnerships. Like people will come forward and say, we’ll work together. But every partnership, this, whether it’s with another business, you know, two people coming together wanting to create.

Martin  

Yeah.

Hmm.

Yes.

Andrea Nakayama  

something together. It’s all a relationship and all the same work we have to put into every relationship is going to come there and I think that quick start thinking and only seeing possibility can often crash and burn in any kind of relationship. You know the fireworks die down.

Martin  

Yeah, totally.

Yeah.

Certainly. Yeah.

And then the reality kicked in. Yeah. No, yeah, just good principles. As you said, anywhere in life. mean, we’ve got relationships everywhere, it’s selling a business or making friendships or whatever. So yeah, I think that’s really cool. And I guess it’s been a really powerful learning experience for you. And I just want to pivot now after chatting a little bit about that. I’d love to hear about the part.

Andrea Nakayama  

And then comes the work. Yes, exactly.

Martin  

entirely sure if you’re still doing clinical work yourself, and if you are or when you work, how did you balance building the education side of the business and education itself and also doing clinical work? Did they feed each other? How did you sort of balance those two pieces?

Andrea Nakayama 

Yeah, I mean, this was also a process and I think my team was like, you know, pulling clients out from, so I have a team of clinicians, but there were people that I had carried on my caseload and I didn’t want to give up on them. They didn’t want to give up on me. And so ultimately my team was like, we need your time over here. And it was a slow journey of me releasing. I always have a client or two just to keep me fresh and thinking.

for my teaching. My clinical team does see people, but we don’t market that service very much. We often just end up word of mouth or working with students who need additional help, who are coming into our virtual clinic. So for me, the work has really transformed into the writing that I’m doing over at my personal website and that connection with narrative medicine. And how do I…

Martin 

Yep.

Andrea Nakayama  

take the clinical learnings forward in a not prescriptive but larger way. So it’s not about me and an individual. It’s about me being able to write a book, to speak to people about adopting some of these principles for themselves. And those principles then have to be less clinical, like I can’t teach them to read their labs, like I would do for them.

but I can teach them to collect their labs, to look for patterns, to think about their triggers and their story. really just trying to bring it forward so people have more of the slowdown skills in their back pocket is where my work clinically, I’m going to say, is more focused. Like how do I train the patient to think differently as opposed to farming out their care? So

bringing more of that agency back without having to be the expert or the doctor on your case. You’re the one on your case that’s another one of the gaps. Like there’s a lot of gaps between your medical visits and time. And even if you’re working with a functional nutrition counselor, there might be a week or two weeks or a month gap. You’re with you every single day, every single decision. How can you…

Martin 

Yep.

Andrea Nakayama  

exercise self-care in a different way that is therapeutic and listening in with that same feedback loop. So that’s where I think of the evolution of my clinical work, one to many versus one to one.

Martin  

Yeah, that’s really cool. And what do you plan to do actually in that area? I mean, I’m sure people would love to hear about ideas and plans you have for, you know, to grow your, your own personal brand and your voice now. We’d love to hear a little bit about that what you’ve got in plans. Yeah.

Andrea Nakayama  

Yeah. So thank you for asking. This was also a negotiation. had to negotiate back my name. So andriannakiyama.com is my personal website and it leads back to functional nutrition Alliance. You know, they’re both my passion projects, essentially functional nutrition Alliance is where we mostly train practitioners at andriannakiyama.com. I’m really doing a deeper level of writing that will go into a book.

Time is hard for me to manage, but I do have a book deal. I essentially write what I’m going to call chapters over there to kind of test how are people responding to this. And that work is about functional nutrition, but it weaves in more of the narrative medicine. How do we slow down? How do we develop that feedback loop for ourselves, that deep listening to our own bodies and our own factors of resistance?

so that we can take better care. And again, another niche audience, this is really for people who are sick and not getting better. Like when we’re just optimizing our health, we can change our diet or wear a wearable and something shifts. But when we’re dealing with chronic health challenges, which is really my passion, it often just takes a different way of thinking, a kind of reframe. So.

That work, I’m hoping to go into books, speaking, really being able to bring a different methodology forward in long-term patient care.

Martin  

Super cool. Well, excited to see what comes from that. You’ve mentioned there a couple of times narrative medicine. Could you go into that a little bit deeper and also talk about maybe the differences between narrative medicine and functional medicine?

Andrea Nakayama 

Yeah, I would love to and I’m actually here in New York because I was just attending a narrative medicine workshop at Columbia where I’m doing my training. So talk about getting niche on top of niche. Functional nutrition is niche enough and then I throw like another term on there that like people don’t know what it is. So narrative medicine is a newer practice or pedagogy. It really was developed a little over 20 years ago.

at the Columbia University School of Medicine, and it is a practice of deep listening. It’s mostly for providers. So there’s mostly people bringing it about to kind of allow us to touch the humanities as a way to remind us as providers that the person we’re talking to is human. So we might engage with art or some art form, whether it’s poetry or dance or…

music to really just sit and feel and listen and tune in as a practice of seeing the person, hearing the person, feeling the person that we’re sitting with so we can quiet our diagnostic, fix the problem minds to be with a patient. What I’m trying to do with that practice is really give it back to

Martin 

you

Andrea Nakayama  

the patient. as an example, when’s the last time you can feel you were moved by something? It could be a commercial or a song or a movie or a conversation you had and getting in touch with those moments inside of us that really tell us a lot, give us a lot of texture about ourselves and are as much a part of our healing journey.

as taking that supplement or going for that run or meditating in the morning, understanding the fabric of ourselves really guides a lot of what we do. So narrative medicine is a practice of tuning in, of deep listening. And for me, it really relates to one part of my mantra. So if I say everything is connected, everybody’s unique, all things matter as my mantra for functional nutrition.

Everything’s connected is the system’s biology. We are all unique is that narrative medicine and that understanding of individuality and all things matter is what I connect with the practices of epigenetics, how we change our predestined outcomes with our everyday choices.

Martin  

Wow, yeah, that’s really, really cool. can you speak a little bit more about the book that you’ve got in plans? Can you share much about that or, yeah, where’s that?

Andrea Nakayama  

feel like it’s still evolving and that’s uncomfortable. have to say like it’s uncomfortable and I just want to relate that to business. Like sometimes you don’t know where is this going? Like I need to put the stuff out there and that’s why I say I’m writing chapters on my website. Like how do people receive this? Where does this land? These are the topics I want to be talking about. So yeah, I think it’s

Martin 

Mmm.

Yeah.

Andrea Nakayama  

still evolving. I’m very grateful that I have a publisher that is patient with me, but I think it’s becoming. Stay tuned.

Martin  

Stay tuned. Stay tuned. Well, I think, you know, you’re practicing what you preach right there with, you know, producing the chapters on your website, getting feedback and you’re trusting your own process in that. you know, I’m sure you’ll, you’ll a hundred percent get there. And it sounds like you’re also, as you said before, taking the space and, and, you know, not rushing it, which, you know,

Andrea Nakayama 

Thank you.

Martin  

I’m sure it can be maybe frustrating a little bit for the publishers and also maybe a bit frustrating for you to want to try and get it done. But I think that’s, yeah, really cool that you’re taking that approach. So can’t wait to see what comes out and sounds like you’re on a really exciting path there. Just talking a little bit again, more sort of future vision. I’ve got a question here. You’ve been involved in the movement to make

Andrea Nakayama  

Thank you.

Martin  

functional nutrition and narrative, sorry, narrative medicine, narrative based, narrative based medicine. Sorry to have to spit that out. You’ve been on part of that journey to make that more accessible to everyone and continue to, you will continue to do that. What other steps can other educators in this space do to make their teachings also more inclusive and impactful? Like what are some of the other, you know, people that are in this same space with you?

Andrea Nakayama  

Narrative. Yeah.

You

Martin 

What can they be doing to also make their message heard more and get more people involved in what they’re educating about?

Andrea Nakayama 

Yeah, I think this is a really important question and it really is true for any educator that if there’s something we do that’s working and that was my case, I wasn’t teaching a subject matter. I was teaching something that I was actually doing and having success with. I had to kind of take it off my like stripping off my skin because it was something I was actually doing.

and create a system to teach it something very easy. use lots of threes. So how am I going to teach this in a way that anybody can do it and that anybody can relate to? So I will say that I love personality tests, which is a little silly, but I also think they’re all true but partial, but they remind me that not everybody thinks like I do.

And so I can’t just teach what I know in the way I learned it or make sense to me. If I really want to land this message, I have to teach it in a way that is accessible to all different people and that is adaptable to all different situations within what I am actually looking to teach. And so the systems and the mental models,

are really what helped me to land it because I have three main mental models. I can teach into those. I can show up in any situation on any stage. I don’t need notes. They’re my systems. They’re my models. I know how to teach them. I can teach them with any question, with any, like they are clear and I’m giving those same systems to others to be in front of their audiences to be able to use and spit it out quickly.

Martin  

Yeah.

Yep.

Yeah, that’s awesome. And I have to say, like, it’s been super clear from the get go of this this podcast, you know, your, yeah, your mental models, as you said, the three sort of cool ones that you touched on. Did that take a very long time to develop those? How did you you specifically set out? Or was this more just a byproduct of, you know, the clinical practice and, and like explaining to the patient or yet how did which came first, I guess.

Andrea Nakayama  

Yeah, think the work came first without the context. I think it was when I had to teach the context to other practitioners and saw what they weren’t getting. And I was like, why are they not, like, why are they keep going back to that question? What’s happening that they’re asking that because I was clear that I was teaching something else. And instead of being frustrated,

Martin  

there.

Yep.

Yeah

Andrea Nakayama 

Well, I won’t say I wasn’t frustrated, but instead of anchoring on that frustration, I was like, wait, if they’re not getting it, there’s something I’m not messaging. And so I would step back and really think through what are these, you know, pieces that I’m trying to define here? How do I put context in them? Is there a visual to describe this so I can be graphic at the same time as

Martin 

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Andrea Nakayama  

being descriptive and really just getting clear with this is the system. Go back to the system. Why does systems thinking work? A protocol in healthcare is for a very specific case and it’s going to work some of the time, but not all of the time. A system works every single time and it tells us where to go when we don’t know where to start. And that’s for me.

Martin 

Yep. Yep.

Andrea Nakayama  

where I can then anchor on the core teachings. Like the teaching is in functional nutrition. You may be working with people with auto-immunity. You may be working with people with cancer. You may be a doctor. You may be somebody who works with skin. You may be a dietitian looking to add this, like whatever it is, I’m not here to create the protocol for everybody to use. I’m here to give systems.

Martin

Yep.

Andrea Nakayama  

that then let everybody bring it into their world, their practice. And that’s how the reach multiplies because I’m not gonna work with those children. I’m not gonna work with people who have Lyme disease. I’m not gonna be touching that indigenous community in that corner of the earth, but that person is. And I’ve just given them the tools to be able to do their work more effectively. So it’s kind of backing out of the,

Martin 

Yep.

Andrea Nakayama  

particular to create a system that works for every single time. And like I said, the systems thinking applies to all aspects of life. It’s not just clinical care. And that’s what I love about mental models.

Martin  

Yeah.

Hmm.

Yeah, no, and I love I love the connections that you make between the way that you deal with a patient and how you run your business and how you talk about teaching other educators as you said, it’s all connected. And I think there is a lot of congruence in the way that you speak and the way that you you are operating and being and living. So I think that’s really, really cool to have had that chance to chat with you today and hear that come through.

Andrea Nakayama 

Yes.

Martin 

There’s just one more question I want to ask you, because as you started to speak there about teaching other practitioners and other educators, what do you personally find most rewarding about empowering them with these systems about teaching functional medicine and obviously that flow and effect to all of those patients? When you think about the impact that you’re having, what comes back? What stands out to you most? What do you find most rewarding and empowering about all of this?

Andrea Nakayama  

my gosh. I love being in the classroom and it’s all, you know, virtual. always has been. So the whole company was always virtual, but I love being with them and kind of hearing when the light goes off because they see possibility where they weren’t seeing it anymore. And being able to hear their client or patient successes, how the kind of reframed thinking gave them more confidence as providers helped

them fill those gaps and where they saw clinical outcomes. You know, we have one graduate who has taken her practice into a free clinic once a week. So in addition to doing her private practice once a week, she’s in a free clinic and she’s working with all different providers who turn to her as an expert and she’s able to teach classes and give these principles

to people to just take with them. And that’s so exciting to me to see the different applications that people have, whether they’re working with fertility issues or menopausal issues, or like I said, cancer or autoimmunity or long COVID or whatever it is, hearing and seeing the kind of wake up, the light come on where they take it forward and can make an impact on people’s lives.

is really exciting for me. The narrow thinking is I have to play doctor when I’m not one instead of filling the gaps or I’m supposed to know the protocol or I don’t know enough to help this person. And when I hear those things like put down and the openings arise, then I’m just like so excited because they’ll touch so many lives.

Martin 

you

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Exactly. It’s sort of like removing the limitations that they’re putting on themselves, I guess, the story that they’re telling themselves. So yeah, I can imagine that’s a really cool moment. And it probably is, I guess it, there probably is a lot of moments where the penny just drops for a lot of your students, where they make that shift. And then all of a sudden, yeah, you could feel it. probably hear the way that they speak and the way they’re talking about, now I get it.

Andrea Nakayama 

Yes.

test.

Yes.

Martin  

I think that’s really cool that if you can empower practitioners to approach every patient of I can help you no matter your situation in some capacity, that’s incredible. That’s really incredible work. So congratulations to you. And that’s a really, really cool thing that you’re doing. So look, we’ll wrap it up there. If anyone wants to learn more about functional nutrition or deepen their understanding or learn more from you, where could they go?

Andrea Nakayama 

Yes.

Yeah, thank you. Thank you.

Martin  

What other resources could you recommend to them?

Andrea Nakayama  

Yeah. So if you head on over to andreannakiyama.com, that will lead you everywhere. My most recent writing and offerings that I’m doing that are more narrative medicine-based, but that’ll also lead you back to the functional nutrition alliance. There’s so much. had a podcast I was producing. There’s 376 episodes. There’s lots of blogs in both locations. And so

Lots of resources. If you just go to that one place, it’ll lead you to multiple places and be a bit sticky for you to find out more and more about other people as well.

Martin  

Awesome, awesome, fantastic. Yeah, we’ll put those links in the bottom of the show notes. And Andrea, thank you so much for your time. This has been an absolute pleasure and yeah, keep up the great work and can’t wait to see what you do next. Yeah, thanks a lot.

Andrea Nakayama   

Thank you, Martin. So much fun to talk to you.