It started with a bottle of magnesium.
It was the late '80s. I was a few days into my first job in health and wellness, sitting on the floor of a health food store stocking vitamins. I didn't know anything about nutrition yet — the most I could do was match the bottle colors to the right sections and try to keep them in alphabetical order.
A woman walked up and asked if I could grab her some manganese. I paused. She helped me out: "You know. The mineral." Confident now, I walked to the right section, picked up a bottle, and handed it to her.
She looked at it and said, "That's not it."
"Actually," I told her, "it's pronounced mag-nesium, not manganese."
She pushed the bottle back into my hand, raised her voice, and said, "People like you shouldn't be working in stores like this."
I put the bottle back on the shelf — and there, sitting right next to it, was a bottle of manganese.
She was right. I didn't know what I was doing, and I was handing out supplements to people who trusted me to know better. That night I drove to every bookstore I could find and bought almost every nutrition book on the shelves. I read on every break. I read every night when I got home.
A few months later, regular customers started coming back to tell me how much better they felt — people who thought they'd never feel good again. And I remember thinking: this is just a little of what I know, and look at the impact it's making. Imagine what's possible if I actually go learn this.
That's what started it. That woman — whoever she was — changed the direction of my life.