Cathy Nesbitt

Jarie Bolander 21.Jun.2021

Laughing with the Worms and Cathy Nesbitt as we talk about Vermicomposting, and Laughter Yoga.

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Summary

Hey everyone. Stay tuned to the end of the interview where I’ll give you some actionable insights that I learned from my guest. These insights are also in the show notes. As always, thanks for listening.

Now on to my guest today, Cathy Nesbitt, who has a dual mission: to help save the Earth with worm composting, and to help us all feel better through laughter.

Cathy didn’t see herself as an entrepreneur for many years. She was a secretary, where she was “one of the annoying ones” who enjoyed her work and sought to create a more positive work culture and bridge divides. In 2002, when nearby Toronto closed its landfill, she became curious and bothered by the realization that all that garbage was being trucked away. She dove into vermicomposting - the use of worms for composting, which enables apartment-dwellers to do composting indoors. It wasn’t an easy sell - even though she had a solution to a problem, people still weren’t buying. She began telling her story and educating people, garnering interest from local media and eventually one of the larger Toronto newspapers.

Ten years in, she was getting discouraged. She was introduced to laughter yoga and got hooked. She now teaches laughter yoga and trains others to do so, too. As Cathy explains, laughter is a potent antidote to stress because it replaces badly needed oxygen to the brain. When we’re stressed, we literally are not in our right minds, because blood and oxygen get funneled to the rest of the body. When we laugh, we can’t help but take deeper breaths. Smiling and laughter also send messages to the brain telling it to replace cortisol with dopamine, the “love drug.” Laughter yoga, a movement founded by a doctor and yoga teacher in India who believe laughter is one of the keys to world peace, teaches people activities and practices to make them laugh, helping to reduce stress and spread more joy.

Now let’s get better together.

Actionable Insights

Nesbitt’s story offers a lot of kernels of wisdom, including:

A key to being successful is in-person connection. PIck up the phone, or even better, meet face to face, to help spread your message.
Cultivate and follow your joy. What turns you on? Do more of what you like to do. Also, instead of striving to have more, strive to have more joyful moments in a day.
Find one problem and help solve it. No one person can solve everything, but you can make a difference.