Hi everyone. It's Dr BCW with Beyond Clinical Walls. I am so excited to introduce you to Ivan Ting. He is an influential, amazing man who is not only a world traveler, an amazing chef and just connoisseur of food and wine, as well as an expert with skiing and so much more. And so I am here today at the Everland Resort and it is a pleasure for me to introduce you to him, because I'm excited for you to know more about why he does what he does. So welcome, ivan to the show.

I'm so excited to get to know you, and so forth. So I shared a little bit about you, but I'd love for the listeners to learn more about you.

So thank you for that kind introduction. My name is Ivan, born and raised in Hong Kong but studied in the States during high school and college. I've been coming to Palisades, tahoe for the past I think 30 years now. So I learned skiing when I was young and continue to like it. The other you mentioned that I like cooking. I'm not sure if I'm a chef, but I do like cooking, but more importantly, because I like to eat what I cook. So that's one of the reasons. And then, yeah, and I love traveling around to different cultures to taste different things and to see different, you know, aspects of people's lives.

Excellent. Well, when I was getting to know you and doing the research, when I saw your love and passion for food, I was really intrigued, because when we talk about food, I think we often forget how food is often associated with celebratory moments, sad moments, and so when you pour love into whatever you're making for someone to eat and really have a healthy lifestyle, I think it's really important for us to kind of talk about that. So tell me more about your love for just food and cooking and so forth.

So I think I like eating from a very, very young age and one of the most memorable kind of cuisines I love is the teppanyaki. And I remember going to the Benihana's of the world and then seeing how they cook, you know, even though it was a performance in some of them, but you know, that kind of showed me how to do some sort of skills in cooking like cutting a prawn. But then I just slowly, as I went to boarding school and then college and you slowly had to, the enjoyment came along with it as well, and that's how I got into it and then I didn't study it, but it's more to, you know, with the prep kitchens or the performance or the show kitchens you can kind of pick up some skills here and there.

Well, the reason I like to bring that in because you never know who's listening. There might be someone who's listening right now who may not have been trained in cooking but knows they love to eat, they know they like this, and I think when people get to hear those stories it can sometimes be the kind of like ignition to think, oh, I should pursue that. And so I think it's really neat for people to hear that. Now, with skiing, can you share more about your love with skiing and how did you fall in love with skiing?

Okay, so fortunately, when I was young, we would always go to Japan first for skiing, and so I started when I was young. We would always go to Japan first for skiing, so I started when I was three. I was always a mediocre skier, up until, I think, even throughout college. One of the reasons why I love Palisades Tahoe was because, you know, when I first graduated from college, I was able to stay here for a couple of months. Oh, nice.

And then that's when I got to know some of the better skiers here and they constantly challenged me and I think that's when that love started. And it's a very counterintuitive sport and I think the challenge that you could do something that is a little bit beyond your comfort level is something that I think it builds confidence in myself and other things as well, and also enjoy the great outdoors.

So I'm going to bring a couple of things together. When you talked about food and your love and passion for that and even the performance part, and then skiing it's challenging but it kind of still helps you kind of pursue, would you say, all of those areas, whether it's skiing or you know your, your love for food, how does that really become a part of your life with your business and and so forth? All of those avenues? Because you know, as a physician I really encourage my patients to think about their mental and their physical health, because often you can have these great successes, you can be doing all of these wonderful things, but if you don't take care of your mental and your physical health with doing the passions that you love or enjoying those hobbies, you are not able to fulfill. You know all of those areas of your health, so share with me those. You know what your thoughts are on that.

So maybe I'll go on a little bit of a tangent. So a few years back actually, first of all, I didn't used to be fit. I was about 200 pounds. In college I was not eating very healthily. But a few years back I actually got into a conference and one of the things that they talked about was mental health and how you can make yourself happier, and one of those tips was tohe gave a few, but one of the things that resonated with me was just to do 15 minutes of exercise a day, and so I started doing that since 2012, but not just 15 minutes a day. So it started with swimming 15 minutes a day. To now I'm doing an hour of swimming or running every day, even if I go skiing.

The reason is, first, it does help with the mental, like the endorphins and one of the things that the person was telling me there's happiness comes after you've earned something, instead of just if you eat something. It's just a very short period of time, but happiness is you have to because you've earned it. Then you actually the duration is a lot longer. So for that I remember when I was first starting and still now when I'm doing it, there's always in the middle. I want to give up, right. I was like, oh me, today. I could, you know, stop. Yeah, I can skip it all, or, you know, I could just do, you know, one kilometer instead of two. But I was like, no, you have to. You know, you'll be happier if you finish, and so that's how I this is. This is something that I've been doing, and the other reason is because I eat a lot as well, so I need to do this too. So there's's two benefits to that, and skiing helps.

See, I think it's going to be really powerful for people to hear that story, because there's so many challenges in life and we all have our own personal challenges, but to hear that it started with just one moment, one thing, and it turned into the ability to have this long-lasting benefit for your mind and your physical health, like that, is just an important, amazing piece.

You know and you do feel a lot more refreshed every day and actually now I'm addicted to it.

Everything I don't do, I'm like ah, and I often share with my patients. You know, it's that one moment, that one thing, that if you can take that first step and often when we hear about different health conditions, whether it's hypertension, diabetes and so forth, sometimes it can feel overwhelming, or if you want to lose weight or if you want to get fit but just taking even one micro step can be the trajectory or the change that you need to really make that long lasting change. And I think that's really neat for people to hear that, because someone right now listening will think about a personal challenge that they have and then thinking about okay, whether it's I'm just going to walk half a block or I'm going to do a couple of steps in my house, that can change someone's life. So I love hearing about that.

I'm very grateful for hearing that during that conference.

Right. And then when we talk about happiness because you know happiness can be fleeting sometimes, but finding something that can be consistent and allow that to kind of come through Can you share with me you know we talked about all the amazing hobbies and the things that you're doing, but share with me, like with happiness. Where does that come from? In your life, in your family, in your work?

A few things in your life, in your family, in your work, a few things. I think one of the reasons why we invested in let's say so, I work in a family business and our core business is actually in model trains. I saw that, yes, so we do model trains. So, other than model trains, we also used to make OEM traditional toys for some big brands, and I think one of the things I love that we transitioned to just making model trains with our own brand is because I like the fact that I make a product that people appreciate.

Model train enthusiasts are very critical, but they are also very passionate and they tell you if you did a bad job, or they tell you that you could really appreciate if you did a great job. So I love having that kind of feedback and satisfaction. So that's what drives me at work in the main core business. Here as well, I think I like the fact that you know when we get feedback from people. It's very important. And and, yeah, I guess I like the what's it called, the reaffirmation or affirmation of your work.

Well, you know, and as we're speaking, I always look for common threads, and so you were sharing food, and then you were sharing about skiing, how that challenge of like being facing something that's difficult but being able to kind of push against it. And then when I hear about you know the sustainability, the love and happiness in your life we say mental and physical health I tell my patients memorialize something that's important to you and take those steps. So, just hearing your story and all of the things that you incorporate in your life, it has been fantastic to be able to amplify, highlight but also get to know more about why you do what you do, and so this has been fantastic just to get to know you, your story, your family story would be wonderful and I think more people need to hear about it. This is Dr BCW with Beyond Clinical Walls and, as always, thank you for watching.