June 25, 2026 • 55 mins
John Hope Bryant sits down with world-renowned neurosurgeon and journalist Sanjay Gupta for a powerful conversation about the connection between health, wealth, mindset, and longevity. The two explore how stress, financial wellness, environment, and hope can shape the quality — not just the length — of our lives.
From the impact of zip codes on health outcomes to the power of optimism, healing, and purpose, John and Dr. Gupta break down why a thriving life requires more than success — it requires balance, awareness, and a commitment to well-being.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome The Money in Wealth with John hob Bryant, a
production of the Black Effect Podcast Network and iHeartRadio. Hey, Hey,
John Hope Bryant, And this is the Money in Wealth
podcast Series, Season three. And I want to thank iHeartRadio,
(00:25):
iHeartMedia and the Black Effect Network for supporting what has
now become one of the top one percent of all
podcasts in the world, Money and Wealth, one of the
top entrepreneurship podcasts in America top fifty, and one of
the top business podcasts on six continents.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
And when most of you.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Know I ramble on every week myself sorted my ministry
of finance, trying to dump mine into your head and
then your body and your soul to get you positioned
from the streets to the suites, and to help to
understand the suites that they need the streets, and that
we are in a ecosystem. This is my new book,
(01:15):
Capitalism for All that depends on everybody getting the memo.
When I bring a guest on, you can count on
the fact that they're extraordinary, singular and special. That is
certainly the case today with my dear friend, doctor Sanjay Gupta.
(01:39):
Now most of you would know that name and know
his face. For those who get to watch this on
replay on line. You would know him from CNN. You
know him from documentaries and even television shows. You would
know him from public speaking. You know him as really
(02:00):
the moral voice for health and wellness and the medical profession.
In my opinion, I met Sign Jay formally at dinner.
We had run across each other before, but we read
formally at dinner through a mutual friend, Tony Wrestler, and
(02:21):
hit it off instantly, and or at least I did,
and he sort of stuck with me.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
And I call Sign Jay one of my brothers from
other mothers. So let me formally read something I prepared
around his credentials because I think it deserves that, and
I'm gonna say something personal about him, and then we're
gonna get into a conversation I would only have with
one other person other than Signjay, which is my wife Shaeitra,
who is a registered dietitian who is a wellness expert.
(02:52):
We talk about health and wealth and why they're connected,
how they're connected. She has helped to transform my well
being in wellness. The person who she would agree is
a step above that is doctor Sanjay Gupta. He is, well,
let me get into who he is. He's one of
(03:12):
the most trusted voices in medicine in America, and America
is the largest economy and the soul superpower in the world.
So this is a big deal. But more importantly, he's
become a translator between science and everyday life. He's a
practicing neurosurgeon. That sounds so dangne cool to say. By
(03:33):
the way, that just talking about a brother making smart
sexy as my brother Sonjay Gupta. He's a practicing So
he's not an influencer. He's not. He's not somebody out
here marketing or talking about something.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
You know.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
It's not what these guys said, Oh yeah, I'm an
expert in trucking I learned at our drive on YouTube. No,
that's not him. He's a practicing neurosurgeon at Emory University,
high one of the best platforms in the world. A
multiple Emmy Award winning Chief Medical correspondent for CNN see
(04:08):
that transition.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Brilliant, best selling author, brilliant.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
He does a new book that just came out recently,
by the way, and some which we have it in
our house. And someone who has spent decades helping Americans
make sense of health, wellness, crisis, stress, longevity, which we're
all interested in in the future of the human condition.
But what makes doctor Gupta especially important in this moment
(04:34):
is that he doesn't just talk about medicine. He talks
about humanity. He understands that health is connected to mindset.
You know my obsession with mindset, community, economics, opportunity, and
how we live our lives every single day. From reporting
on the front lines of war zones and global pandemics
(04:56):
to helping millions navigate COVID. He was our big brother,
booked big you know, our uncle during COVID, mental health,
brain health, and aging. He has earned credibility across political
lines and across generations. Today's conversation is not just about
(05:16):
health care, okay, It's about how we build healthier lives,
healthier communities, and ultimately a healthier America and the world.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
And health is wealth. It doesn't make any sense for
you to build.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
All this wealth, make all this money, be achieved his success,
and then you're basically broken down by the time you
get there. You have no quality of life. It's not fun,
ladies and gentlemen. I want you to help me give
a warm welcome for my friend doctor Sanjay Gupta. Now,
Sanjay did something really special at our whole global form.
(05:53):
He's spoken in a couple of them. He pushed personally
to get clearance to be there, which I appreciate. He
came at a CEO dinner meeting and we had had
three days of strong programming. At this last form, it's
maybe our best we've had ever. And it was a
private session of CEOs, some of the best of the best,
(06:14):
top of the top in this room, from the mayor
to Bishop TD Jakes, I mean, just everybody there, Charlemagne,
that God, Jess, hilarious, Killer Mike So, hip hop stars, Ti,
the mayor, political politicians, and bastard Andrew Young. I mean,
it was unbelievable. And of course CEOs are some of
(06:34):
the biggest companies and Sonjay blew them away. I mean,
is it with our question? Kevin Bouche told me rated
one of the top sessions of the entire form. And
it's the genius and the brilliance.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Of what he does.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Yes, but car through with his humanity, with his decency,
with his warmness, with his humility, with his heart. Okay,
you I'm a fan boy. Now let me welcome you
to my friend. Welcome my friend. And he's used to
you doctor sand.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
Wow, John, I don't even know how to respond to that.
That's uh, that's you know, so meaningful, obviously in particular
coming from you. I have just so much respect for you,
and as I as I've told you, you know, we
did hit it off right away. I remember that dinner well.
But also you know, I you're one of these guys
who's taught me a lot, not just by what you say,
(07:33):
but how you act and how you interact with people.
And you know, part of the reason I always want
to come to your forums is because you know, as
far as communicators go, you're the guy. You're You're able
to do things and and talk to people in ways
that I'm trying to emulate. So I'm really honored to
be here. I've been looking forward to this. Thanks so
(07:53):
much for having me.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
No, it's my honor and and and uh we were
talking offline about how we share a uniqueness and I
hope others emulate this. I don't know of another friend.
There may be one, so I'm not trying to offend.
Maybe Michael Milkin would qualify in this actually, but I
have very few friends that have a platform for doing
(08:17):
well and a platform for doing good, not like a
you know, an aspiration or gee volunteer sometime. Either our
friends are all just committed to doing good running nonprofits,
et cetera, or the committed to doing well personal wealth
creation and all that stuff. But Sonjay and I both
(08:39):
have platforms and our friend Michael Milkin for doing well
and doing good at scale. And I think that that's
the new model. And that's certainly what I reflected in
my new book, Capitalism for All. By the way, the
audiobooks out today, and so what's your newest book that's out.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
It's called it Doesn't Have to Hurt. It's It's all
about the chronic pain epidemic in this country.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Well, let's get into that, because that's sort of indirectly
what I want to talk about. We have modeled we
have we have modeled every operation Hope. We we have
modeled every zip code in America by credit score. It's
called the Hope Financial Wellness Index and are the nominker
(09:25):
the the AKA is a HOPE seven credit score index
and TransUnion and Experience gave us the data along with
censes et cetera. And we found something shocking. In urban cities.
You live approximately twenty years longer in a seven hundred
(09:47):
credit score neighborhood then you live in a five hundred
credit score neighborhood. In a five hundred credit score neighborhood.
Sign Jay, the data shows you live to about sixty
one years of age. And by the way, I'm happy
to give you all of this data offline if it's
useful to you. You probably already know it. And for
every fifty point increase in credit score, you actually end
(10:09):
up living another five years. And I say to people,
it's not about the credit score, It's about the trending
indicators of hope, well being, believe, confidence, faith, joy. As
a stress comes off of you and you go from
a surviving mindset. I'm saying this, but I want your
opinion about whether I'm right or not, because you're the expert,
to a thriving mindset, to a winning mindset. You go
(10:31):
from five hundred credit score, you just got too much
month at end of your money, You're stressed out, you
know the weight of the world's on your shoulder. You're
maybe you feel resentful, maybe you're depressed, maybe you're angry
at the world because where it's not treat truck treated
you fairly. And then you go to a thriving middle
class environment, let's say six fifty credit score, six eighty,
(10:54):
and then you get the seven hundred and seven to
fifty credit score, parks, two, print, households, restaurants, quality, medical services, whatever.
It's a completely different state of mind. And I think
state of being. Am I onto something here or am
I got the data data in my assumptions and presumptions incorrect?
Speaker 3 (11:17):
No, you're spot on. I mean I think the way
that I sometimes frame it with my own students, and
it's a bit jarring to hear, is that your zip
code is now a bigger predictor of both your lifespan
and your health span than your genetic code. Wow, which
is quite a remarkable thing. You know, this raises all
(11:38):
these discussions about nature versus nurture, and you know how
much of our lifespan is sort of programmed into our DNA,
but zip code is a bigger predictor. And I'll just
tell you, John, I think what's fascinating is someone who's
been you know, thinking about this, reporting on this for
a quarter century. Now there was this famous study that
came out a while ago called the China Study, And
(11:58):
the China Study was a study that for the first
time sort of showed that poor Chinese farmers were actually
doing better from a health standpoint than wealthy Hong Kong businessmen.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
That surprised everybody at the time because the idea was,
you know, wealth buys health. But that China study showed that, look,
people who were poorer, they were eating a less processed diet,
they were more at they had more connection with people.
All the things that we know now make a difference.
But what has happened over the last quarter century, as
(12:32):
you outlined, is that people who are poorer in the
United States, people who live in these zip codes that
you're talking about, with poorer credit scores and things like that,
they just don't have access to basic things, including healthy diets.
There was a study that came out of the Clinton
Foundation years ago, and I don't want to over exaggerate this,
(12:55):
but they said in some of these zip codes, it
was easier to find a weapon, for example, versus a
healthy produce, which was which was very jarring basic fruits
and vegetables. For basic fruits and vegetables. But this point
you made at the end is something that I really
tried to dig into, which is to quantify the impact
(13:17):
of living in a stressful environment, living in an environment
where you have a lot of disparity in terms of wealth, Like,
we know that's not good. But what we've been able
to see now over the last you know, ten twenty
years is an objective measurement of that. So fifteen years,
fifteen to twenty years. You mentioned shorter lifespan by virtue
(13:39):
of the fact that you live in a certain zip code.
That means you don't see your grandkids grow up, right,
I mean, you know, just to put it in some
context for people, it means something in terms of what
the end of your life's going to look like. But
what we now know is that during your life, the
impact of that stress, you live a less healthy lifestyle.
(14:00):
So even if you we know you don't live as long,
but even during the year as you do live, it's
a fundamentally different life, different quality of life. And you know,
the wealth disparity in the United States, John, nobody knows
this better than you. But it is similar that there's
a thing called the Jinny coefficient, which is basically a
(14:20):
measure of disparity. Are any coefficient in the United States
is on par with Sudan. So while the wealth countries
in the world, and there's a lot to celebrate in
terms of what happens in the United States, but that
disparity is on par with some of the countries that
we think of as models of disparity, and that affects everybody,
(14:42):
and that certainly leads to many of the things that
you just you just mentioned.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
So of course, let me ask us jarring question as
you gave you this jarring stat why. I think I
know the why, But you're the medical and expert here.
You bring it all together. Why is it on par
Then I have a follow up question.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
Well, I you know, in terms of the wealth disparity
part of it, I mean, we get a better sense
of the impact of that.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
You know.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
I did this documentary years ago called One Nation under Stress.
We did this for HBO, and and the question we
were trying to answer there was how does a country
that's spending four trillion dollars a year on healthcare? Why
do we have some of the worst outcomes in terms
of overall mord morbidity and mortality in the world, certainly
among the developed nations, and it's it's complicated to say
(15:35):
the least. But I think one thing that sort of
came out of this was there was this there was
this experiment and just stick with me for a second,
but there was this experiment of monkeys where they basically
had these two monkeys in cages where they could see
each other. So there are glass cages, they could see
each other, they could see the examiner, and they would
(15:57):
do what are called these task oriented expires. So monkey
does a task and they're given some sort of reward
for that, and in this case, they were given a
piece of cucumber, which is considered a very desirable reward.
Do the experiment, do the task, which was to hand
the examiner a pebble, get cucumber back and forth, dude,
And they did it twenty five times in a row.
(16:18):
No problem. Then they go to the next capution monkey
and they do the same experiment, except this time they
give that monkey a piece of grape. Okay, a grape
is considered a much more desirable reward. So what do
you think happens here? Monkey on the left, cucumber receiving
monkey sees the other monkey and says, wait a second,
I just did the same exact thing, and that monkey
(16:41):
is getting a better reward than me. So then how
they go back to the cucumber monkey and they say, okay,
give give the pebble and you get your reward. And
they give cucumber again, and this monkey, John you should
look at this on YouTube, literally chucks the cucumber back
out of the cage at the exact Yeah. And during
the entire higher experiment, they're measuring stress levels, okay, and
(17:04):
they measure the stress levels, and what do you think happens?
The stress levels go through the roof, the monkey's literally
rattling the cage, and high cortisol levels associated with heart disease,
associated with a stroke, it fuel some types of cancers,
all these things coming about from the stress. But here's
the thing that I think surprised a lot of people.
(17:27):
Monkey on the right, great perceiving monkey, stress levels also
go way up. Okay, So whether you are a have
or a have not, whether you're wealthy or poor. Obviously
being wealthy that offers all sorts of advantages in terms
of health care, but living in an environment where there's
a significant disparity regardless of where you sit on the spectrum.
(17:49):
It's stressful for everybody. We live in a highly stressful environment.
Cortisol levels are through the roof, and there's all kinds
of reasons for that.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
You know.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
There's wars going on, hunt of ice risks, you know.
But this disparity in a society has all sorts of ramifications.
We see that around the world, but we especially see
it here in the United States.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
This might become one of the most important interviews I've
ever done, because as I'm listening to you, you're bringing
together scientifically something that I just know aspirationally and can
just talk from the subjective aspect of my life and
our experience of clients and Operation Hope. But it's not scientific.
(18:34):
So let me bring a couple of important things together.
It's gonna throw some stuff at you as you were talking.
It just these items just jump out at me. The
some of my friends, when I wrote this book Capitalism
for All, they would say, oh, John, you know my
(18:56):
family they all hate rich people.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Responses, No, you don't know. They don't.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
They hate rich people until they become rich. What they
hate is a game system. What they hate is a
system that, no matter how hard they work. They can't
seem to get ahead, and they see somebody else, the great,
the monkey with the great, see somebody else who's working,
they believe half as hard with who's a half wit
(19:25):
who's not very bright, and they're getting all the benefits,
and they're chilling on a yacht somewhere, and this family
is struggling. And now they resent, They resent the person
and the system that is on the other side of
that fence, versus saying, let me aspire to be that person.
(19:46):
Because the ladder does not go any down to the
ground anymore. They can't find the ladder or the levers
to come up themselves, and so they resent. And somebody
just asked me this yesterday, like, what about you know
people who these young people by the way of all races,
particularly wealthy white young people, who are now talking about socialism,
(20:08):
they don't like capitalism. And I've got to remind them,
you know, even if you want to destribute money like
a socialist, you got a first collected like a capitalist.
But excuse me for being rational, I said. I understand
their frustrations because for them, the cost of everything's going
up once again. Here I just gave you an urban
example of resentment. And here's a wealthy, sort of white
(20:30):
young person. Example, I can't buy a house. They're saying,
my student loans are killing me. The affordability is not
an issue. I mean, it is ridiculous, and so they
resent just like the poor person resents. And this, I
imagine creates internal stress. Am I am my own point.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
I think this is this is Look, this is a
profound conversation we're having, John, because I think I think
most people sort of get to square one, square two
of this conversation where they say, Okay, look, capitalism on
one side, socialism on one side. We're obviously looking at
this from a from a health perspective. But first of all,
I would say, you know, as a physician, as a neurosurgeon,
as a as a community member, you know, a neighbor
(21:15):
of yours, capitalism has done amazing things for this country.
It certainly has done amazing things in the medical sphere.
I mean, there's a reason why we have had some
of the most explosive and wonderful scientific developments in the
world coming out of the United States. We're not even
five percent of the world's population. You look at the
outsized contribution they've had on. You know, medical advancements all
(21:37):
over the world, save lives, improve lives all over the world.
But at the same time, this this other, this other
thing that you're you're raising the the idea that there's
an inherent stress of living in a society where there
is a lot of disparity. And again, regardless of where
you sit on that spectrum, have or have not wealthy
(21:57):
or poor. Obviously you have all sorts of different advantages
if you're someone who has resources. But you know, I
think what what I see and I have you know,
I have kids now in the early twenties, and I
talked to them a lot, and I talked to their
friends a lot, maybe some of the same age people
that you're you're referring to. There is this there is
this unease. I think a little bit sometimes with the
(22:21):
idea that there is so much disparity. When I travel
around the world, I see that. You know, you go
to India, there's there's you know, a growing middle class now,
but thirty years ago there was hardly any middle class.
It was either very make sure, it was very poor.
And look, it felt unsettling at times when you sort
of walk through that environment or you here like, you know,
(22:41):
in the same week we heard that we may have
the world's first trillionaire. We also heard that as a
result of USAID cuts, there may be six hundred thousand
people who would die. Four hundred thousand are children. Look,
I think I think most people in the United States
would say that they are capitalists. But to what degree
I mean that does that sound right to you? That
(23:02):
a trillionaire and six hundred thousand people dying, those two
things would happen in the same week. I'm not saying
six hundred thousand people died in one week, That's all
I'm saying. But I'm saying that that's what protections were
as a result of the USA I D cuts. So,
you know, I think this is what a lot of
people in terms of their overall views of society, but
also again the impact on their health, the the invisible
(23:26):
impacts on health, the invisible impacts of that stress living
in that sort of environment. Even those guys that you're
talking about chilling on their yachts, maybe they still feel
the stress of that. You know, I don't know, I
don't know what yeah saying, maybe they still feel the
stress of that sort of that sort of lifestyle.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
I was at I'll just say it, I was at
the Milk and Global conference last week, and I was
at a private dinner in a one hundred million dollar
home and in the Milk House, or it wasn't Mike House,
one of his boys, one of his friends. And the
(24:06):
constant conversation amongst the wealthies of the wealthiest was their
stress around this uneven system and is not sustainable, and
they were concerned for their safety, their parent their their
children and wives safety. There the people seem seeming to
again want to choose an alternate system other than capitalism,
(24:28):
and I told them, well, look, you need to do
more because capitalism has done a crappy job of marketing
itself and making itself available to the least of these
God's children like it did one hundred years ago. You know,
Sam Walton was a had a high school education and
a pickup truck in a storefront, and at forty four
(24:48):
years of age created Walmart. Well, the landlord took his
idea the first time. People don't know that and try
to steal it, and he had enough mindset and fortitude
whatever in the resilience to say I'm gonna do it again.
He ended up in Bittonville by accident. Benville was just
a second Bennville, Arkansas, which is where Walmart is now headquartered,
(25:09):
now the largest retailer in the world. That was a
booby prize. That was where he went to open his
second location. And and and But we're not telling young
people or middle and age people trying to reset themselves
in an ai world that you can go and do that.
And here's how you do that. Don't resent success, Let's
become it. Let's us gain the system that has to
(25:32):
reduce the stress once once that light comes on. That's
been our experience at Operation Hope that it has to
reduce the stress and increase the joy. Another thing, again,
there's so many questions my team had given me, prepared
questions for you. I've not asked you one because I'm
so passionate about it. I mean, so I'm gonna just
(25:53):
throw stuff at you because people want to say to me, oh, John,
you're different, special, No, I'm not. My mother told me
she loved me every day my life that mattered.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
Here.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
I can't guarantee you that being optimistic is going to
make you a success, but I absolutely guarantee you that
being negative is going to make you fail.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
That the glasses not half not empty.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
Well, whether the glasses have empty or half full depends
on who's looking at the glass and whether you believe
you can or whether you believe you can't. You're absolutely right.
So we're talking about mindset here, right, And if we
can get peoples to be optimistic and aspirational, I think
it kicks off. The right side of the brain opens up,
(26:35):
the right side of the brain where creativity, hope, well
being believed, confidence joy sits and it allows you to
transition over to the left side of the brain, where
logic sits. And I think a lot of places where
you and I care about, whether it's poor white in
West Virginia or whether it's black and brown urban in
Detroit or wherever, or in Atlanta, that they're sitting in
(26:59):
this environ struggling and struct and trying to survive whether
right side of their brain. Other than going to a
concert or something to relieve themselves, it's shut down. Primarily
they can't get to the left side of the brain
as logical. I mean, is there anything I'm saying is
making any sense? And it please on real time just
disagree with me. So we can give you a good information,
(27:21):
but I really want to get to the heart of
this mental health and depression issue.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
Well, you know, part of the reason, I'll just say
this headline first and then we can sort of retro
engineer it. But I think part of the reason I
want to be on your podcast first of all, because
this point you're making about optimism versus negativity and the
impacts those things have on your mental health and your
overall health. To be quite honest, I totally agree with you.
(27:47):
I do feel like a lot of people feel that
the system is rigged against them. So as optimistic as
they may be, they still live in that zip code
and they still like are going to have fifteen years.
There's a shorter life expectancy as a result of that,
and stressful life. But what you do with financial literacy, Like,
(28:08):
I think people they fear things they don't understand, and
knowledge is power. I think when it comes to financial literacy,
I think so many people they don't have it. They
you know, look, even as a doctor myself, I wasn't
taught anything about financial literacy. I know nothing about this,
and so many times I feared it, or I certainly didn't.
(28:28):
I probably wasn't as most as logical as I could
have been, as rational as I could have been when
thinking about that. So the idea that you arm people,
So if the enemy is this idea that people feel
like the system is rigged, I don't understand the financial system.
The idea that you teach that to people, you offer
that to people, I think is so critically important and
(28:49):
frankly I think it should be taught in middle schools
and high schools. Again, our good friend, common friend, Tony Wrestler,
he's someone who talks about that as well. I think
that's important. But right now, I think again, for the
next generation, people who are twenty five to thirty years
younger than us, what do we What is the message
we send to them? We have to send that message
(29:12):
of hope and optimism because and make it true, but
also recognize that there are rewards to that that maybe
they don't fully appreciate in terms of the impact on
their physical and mental health. Simply by looking at the
world in a more favorable way is healing? I think
is healing. I think hope is healing. You know you
(29:36):
you are John Hope. You know the idea that people
often think of hope and healing as sort of two
forces that may be at odds with each other. Oh, hope,
Hope is not a strategy this and the other thing.
And yet we know that if you are hopeful that
all these other things they start to become more common,
more likely in your life, including the impact on health.
And that's that's that's powerful. I mean, as a physician,
(30:01):
I take pair of patients who have tough problems, you know,
as a neurosurgeon, brain tumors, you know, spinal cord injuries,
things like that. I'm always hopeful with them, John, Not
because I'm some person who just wants to give false
promises and things like that, but because I believe hope
can be healing in and of itself. Hope is a construct,
(30:22):
can be healing in and of itself. And now we've
got to figure out how to democratize that across the
generation at a time when there's this incredible wealth disparity
and all the other things, the wars and the pandemics
and all these other things. You know, when I grew up, John,
I was born in nineteen sixty eight, Vietnam War was
basically ending. There was no new war horizon. We probably
(30:44):
should have been talking about climate change more. We really weren't.
There was certainly no pandemics that we, you know, were
in our lifetime. My kids were born into two wars,
my kids into a pandemic. They were born into a
constant conversation about climate change. Never once considered the end
of the world. I couldn't think about that, like the
(31:05):
world ending, Like wait, well it just philosophically, you know, logically,
there was nothing about it that made sense. Mike contemplated
the end of the world. It's a very different environment,
and I think that's why what you do, and to
some extent, what I do, trying to provide that hope
has never been more important.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
I think again, I'm gonna underscore it. I'm gonna encourage
everybody listening to this podcast. Out of the three seasons
that I've done this, I need you to take this
one and share it with your friends and take a
five or ten minute piece of it and unpack it.
Because of a lot we've concentrated here, just in the
thirty minutes we've been on all so far already, that
(31:50):
we could change your entire life. Yes, whether you believe
you can, whether you believe you can't. You're absolutely right, right,
And mindset matters. In fact, Uh, mindset is everything, not everything,
but most everything. Because and this is a spiritual statement
that I'm gonna make that I don't I'm not attributing
to doctor Gupta. We're not human beings having a spiritual experience.
(32:15):
We're spiritual beings having a human experience. And energy matters. So, uh,
if you walk into a room with an attitude, people
are gonna feel that, they're gonna vibe that.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
If you're angry at the world.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
People are gonna feel that they're not gonna want to
do business with you. And so it becomes a self
manifesting destiny. If you think the world is racist, and
you think the world stacked against you, and you think
that everybody's you know whatever, every capitalist is bad or
whatever the thing is, and you walk into an interview
or you meet somebody and you got that energy hanging
on you. You don't think they can feel that. You don't
(32:52):
think that they're not They're like, WHOA, I don't know
what that is, but keep it away from me.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
You can be the hardest person in the world, but
no one wants to deal with you, So.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
You may not listen to me, because you think I'm
some of some kind of Martian aberration or something.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
But listen to doctor Gupta.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
He's given you hard science, hard facts that says this
is no this is global, it's universal, and it tracks
with human development and science over time. And you've heard
me now on camera. Now be willing to be embarrassed.
I've told him my philosophy right here, willing to have
it shut down. And so take this podcast and share
(33:37):
it with everybody you know, and start a conversation in
your living room amongst your fraternities and sororities. We want
you to live, not just a longer life. We want
you to live a better life, a better quality life.
Don't get to sixty one and drop dead or sixty
five and you're so fractured and torn that you can't
even benefit from your You know you, And I know
(33:59):
Ambassador Andrew Young who is ninety four years young, and
he's still giving two speeches a day. And I really
believe that. And I'm not for anybody who wants to retire.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
You go ahead and do it.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
I'm not, but understand retirement was a political creation in
the early twentieth century America's trying to create jobs. The
president was they looked at a European model where they
encouraged older people to stop working. They called it retirement
so that young so they could create jobs for eighteen
(34:33):
year olds. It was a replacement of jobstra they're not
ever growing economy, so they replace jobs. That's where retirement
came from. We look at that now that somehow it's
something written in the Bible or something that at sixty
five year out of gas and you're no longer useful,
and I just disagree with that. I say, don't retire, rewire,
go do whatever you want, whenever you want, but have
a purpose in a life. And most of them Bass
(34:55):
Young's friends. Every week he tells me to going to
a funeral. They're dropping dead. They want to go play
golf and sit down and knowing, you know whatever, the
light of aspiration turned off. And I think that something
turned off inside of them. He's turned on all the time,
and I think that that's consistent with how he's lived
and continues to live a long energy in case life,
(35:17):
you and I talked to him, he's ninety four. It's
like I talked to a fifty year old. Mentally, when
I was in high school. I'll tell you just a
quick thing. We had a field trip that we took.
I was living in Michigan at the time.
Speaker 3 (35:29):
We came to Atlanta and the reason we came to
Atlanta was to hear Andrew Young speak. And I'll tell
you what that was sort of a life changing thing
for me. By the way, you're like this as well, John,
But I was a high school student of sixteen seventeen
years old, and I watched this guy speak and it
was like the best rock concert I'd ever been to.
(35:49):
Right the place was just just totally vibing with him.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
And by the way, look at this. Look at this.
This is crazy. Look at this. Look who's calling?
Speaker 3 (35:57):
Come on? Really? You got he can't leave the ambassador.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
Hanging Ambassador Andrew Young, you're alive on a podcast. I
think I just missed him. I'll call him back. But
that's a great Ange Young quote. Coincidence is God's way
of remaining anonymous. Okay, anyway, so.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
Funny, I'll tell you there's an energy out.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
There, isn't there There's an energy, man, So this just.
Speaker 3 (36:23):
Can't be random events. They campaign that he calls you
that exact that's unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
And he was calling it.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
I'm sure he was calling about something about changing the
world or what we're gonna He was just only on
the phone me last night.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
You know what.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
There we going to the Obama Library because they're naming
a room after him, the area after him in the library,
and and uh, you know, I mean he's on the move,
he's on the run all the time, but he's got purpose.
He's leaning into meaningfulness.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
All the time.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
You're your reach out, your reach should exceed your grasp.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
I let me ask you a question.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
When you hear the phrase financial stress, and I'm gonna
go to the we're over at Hope. Let's go back
to where a lot of people are sitting right now.
Because the last factoy that I'm gonna throw in here,
I was in a hotel and coming out of a
hotel in New York and the bellman who's also an artist,
(37:23):
and we bought some of his art. I asked him
how the art was doing and he said not good.
I said, well, I don't understand. Are your clients working classes?
You know they're all wealthy. And I said, well, I
don't understand the stock markets at record highs and economy
is booming, even though I think it's not sustainable in
the way it's structured. And he said people by art,
(37:46):
he said, based on how they're feeling. So yes, they
economics have to be doing well, but they're not feeling
good about the world or the country or their lives.
They don't buy art. It's an emotional purchase. Tie to
how they're feeling. They have to be asked race And
I thought that was extraordinary insight and I hadn't thought
about it. But it's not just that they got the money,
(38:07):
but they have to feel inspired something in their I
guess the right side. Their brain has to be popping
in a way that they are in you know, mentally
want to buy by art. I'm gonna tie that to
the next question. Now we're about wealthy people here, Let's
(38:28):
go all the way over to folks who've got too
much month at the end of their money and help
them understand how financial stress what that does inside please
the body and the brain.
Speaker 3 (38:42):
I think a core ingredient here that maybe in some
ways ties this together, including the health angle of this
as well, is uncertainty. What does uncertainty do to someone's
mental and physical health? You know, there's this great quote
that I always come back to. It was from the
eighteenth century Kant, and I'm not going to get it
(39:04):
exactly right, but he basically says something like his greatest
concern for society was a false confidence, bred from the
ignorance that we live in an inherently probabilistic world. That
people want to see black and white where they should
rightly seek gray. And I think, you know, I think
about this all the time. Every time I walk into
(39:26):
a patient's room. People want certainty, Like I'm going to
talk about their brain tumor or their spinal cord, whatever
it may be. They want certainty. And I think for
a lot of people, the temptation is, let me inject
certainty into this. So I'm one hundred percent confident xyz.
But I think what we've sort of missed in that
(39:46):
whole thing was the idea of not necessarily trying to
be certain in an uncertain world, but teaching people how
to be more comfortable with uncertainty, teaching people how to
understand risk better, you know, And I mean you do
that so well, John, I mean, and I think the
financial world is the best example of it. It's so tangible,
(40:08):
so objective. But I do think that probably with your
friend that you're talking about in New York, you know,
walking out of that hotel, if things feel uncertain for people,
maybe their spending habits change as a result of that.
I think it's certainly true in the health world people
behave differently when they feel a lot of uncertainty. So
(40:28):
this gets back to what you do again. And I'm
not just trying to compliment you over and over again,
but it is true that you know, teaching people financial literacy,
you're teaching them as an objective thing, but I think
maybe one of the more fundamental things you're doing is
teaching them how to deal with risk and the uncertainty
that comes with risk. And that's that's healing again, that
(40:49):
it's just so important. So you can't inject certainty into
an uncertain world and we live in a probabilistic world,
but you can get people more comfortable living in that
world world and dealing with uncertainty.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
Yeah, that guy goes back to Hope with a business plan.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
Yes, faith is what you do when you don't have
all the facts right right.
Speaker 3 (41:12):
I love that I got I gotta write these down.
Speaker 2 (41:13):
I go.
Speaker 3 (41:15):
And write down the gym Hope quotes.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
So, so what does living in a constant state of
barely making it due to the nervous system over time?
I'm gonna give a couple of these at the same time.
From a medical standpoint, how harmful is shame, especially around money, debt,
weight as in personal weight, physical weight, pain, addiction, or
(41:39):
mental health? How do we talk to people about behavioral
change without making them feel blamed? Are there some hacks
that we can do give to people listening to this.
Speaker 3 (41:53):
That that that's such a great question, and there's a
lot in there. Let me give you one example which
I think maybe sort of speaks to this at least.
And this has to do with something that I think
a lot of people have heard about over the last
few years, which are these GLP drugs tempic Monjarro, you know,
w Goovi, all those drugs. And I've been doing a
(42:14):
lot of reporting on this, and I traveled to Denmark
where these drugs were originally developed, and I spoke to
the scientists and everybody who was involved with that not
only from a science perspective, but from a social perspective.
They didn't want to release these drugs initially because yeah,
because there was this idea that hey, look, obesity is
(42:34):
a failure of will. Why are we medicalizing it? Right?
And what I think change there? And I'll tie this together,
but I think what change there? Was this notion that
for some people who are overweight or obese, they simply
never get a message to their brain after they've eaten
(42:54):
that they're full. Okay, So the signaling is off. The
brain doesn't signal that, hey, you've just eaten, you don't
need to eat anymore. They don't feel full, they don't
feel what is known as satiation satiety. Now, if you
think of it that way instead of just thinking, oh,
this guy just eats too much, he can't stop eating,
if you think about it as a failure to do this,
(43:14):
which we now know as a result of these studies
that came out around these drugs, I think your whole
way of looking at someone that you see on the
street who's obese or overweight may change. You may think
of them more from a diabetes sort of model. They're
not making enough insulin in this case, they're not making
enough of this particular glucagon like pepti GLP, and their
(43:36):
brain isn't working as well. And the reason I bring
that up is to say, under knowledge is power with
regard to if you feel shame from something like obesity
or something like that, then listen to what I've just
said and understand that not for everybody, nothing is absolute
or one hundred percent, but for a lot of people
(43:56):
out there, this isn't a shame issue. Just like you
shouldn't be shamed aimed that you've got cancer or something
like that. These are medical issues that as we learn
more and more about them, we can explain them. Addiction
you mentioned, I mean, even over my twenty five year career, John,
I think the understanding of what happens in the brain
for someone who's an addict has changed. You can line
(44:17):
up ten people, you give all ten of them an
opioate for eight of them, nine of them they may say, Okay,
well that was interesting. I don't really ever care if
I do that again. But for one of them it
was a euphoric, profound experience and they can't live without it. Wow,
Okay why because their dopamine hit was just surge so
much that it became something they craved and they had
(44:39):
to have. So when people say addiction is a brain disease.
That's kind of fundamentally what they're talking about. And I'm
just using these examples to say, hey, look, shame should
not be the first thing that you should go to
if you're thinking about issues like this, it should be
a greater understanding what exactly is happening in your body
and your brain. And once you under stand that, I
(45:00):
think it helps mitigate a lot of the shame and
despair that people feel around these things.
Speaker 1 (45:10):
Again, we're gonna fortunately, we're gonna wrap up here a second.
You's gotta go do surgery and a bunch of other stuff.
But my God, has been so amazing When you just
said the thing about shame and addiction would trigger in me.
I will often say, non scientifically clearly that an addiction
(45:31):
is a response to an emotion you can't handle.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
That.
Speaker 1 (45:36):
We have a bunch of ings in our life, shopping, drinking, drugging, oversleeping, sexting, texting,
and not dealing, not healing that if you don't do
these things, then you're you're like I got cup with
(45:57):
a hole in the bottom of it. No matter how
much you or in that cup is coming out the bottom.
It may be slowly coming out, but it's coming out,
and so you need more of the same hit to
give you the same buzz, and after a while you
become addicted. This stuff literally kills you in many cases.
And now that was my non scientific, non anything translation
(46:20):
of what I think you just said. And so you
don't blame somebody for that, whatever that that is. You say, Look,
you're dealing with the knock on effects, that's the reaction.
Let's deal what you need is the one I g
is positive. Let's deal with.
Speaker 3 (46:36):
Healing absolutely absolutely and understanding you know I understanding. Yeah,
that knowledge is power. I mean, I think we make
so many assumptions about people. You know, you're going back
to the example of somebody that you say walks into
a meeting with obviously negative energy. I mean, I think
you and I are both evolved enough individuals to take
(46:59):
a beaty, Hey, what could be going on in that
person's life? Right, you know, what's what's going on there?
As opposed to just falling into the same trap that
they fell into, which was to make assumptions about you
maybe or to make assumptions about the situation. You and
I don't do that, and you know it's it's it's
why I love you, John, it really is. You said
(47:20):
all those nice things about me at the top, and
I really appreciate it. But I and I don't do
this often, but but I want to reciprocate that to
you because you were you were one of those individuals
who is a bright ray of light for us and
and I feel I feel better when I get to
spend time with you. But you do that for so
many people. And you know, you know, I'm a doctor,
(47:42):
You're a healer. You're a healer, and so you get
to you know, it's good, good combination. I think you and.
Speaker 1 (47:47):
I it's good juju uh. I would love for us
to do this again, schedule permits. I think this has
been powerful. I I I knew it would be strong.
I did know it would be transformational because a lot
of I want to gallup initially twenty years ago with
my concept of hope because people would roll their eyes
(48:09):
with me back then Oh here comes John Brian again
with financial literacy and hope and okay, but you know,
and I wanted to prove that hope could be measured,
and so they helped me do that. And you have
just helped to prove that mindset matters. And and that
that also that it's changeable, like there's things that you
(48:30):
can change with a change of the mindset and with
understanding and healing scientifically. I'm gonna leave you with a question,
one last questions. I want to mess up your whole
schedule today. This has been powerful, and then maybe when
pick it up again in the next session, and any
of whatever else you want to add as we close?
What is the difference? So people talk about longevity today
(48:54):
and I guess what do they often misunderstand about that?
Speaker 2 (48:56):
And let me give you an example.
Speaker 1 (48:58):
What's the difference between lifespan and.
Speaker 2 (49:01):
And health span? Yeah? Right?
Speaker 1 (49:04):
And how much of longevity is genetics? And how much
is behavior, environment, stress, access and daily choices? And I
guess the drop the mic is if somebody's listening to
this and going, okay, this has transformed my thinking, how
do I transform my life? What can doctor Sandia group
to leave with me, leave with the audience that they
(49:25):
can work on tomorrow.
Speaker 3 (49:28):
Well, the way I would sort of think about lifespan
versus health span is a simple one. And I always
try not to sound too euphemistic or too simplistic, but
it is. It is years of life versus life in
your years. I mean, you know, for years you live.
Obviously that has importance for a lot of the reasons
(49:49):
we talked about the top of the podcast, you know,
seeing people in your life grow up and all those things.
But the life in your years, I think is what
we all sort of want, and I think with health
span and to put a more of a punctuation mark
on it, because you know, I'm in my late fifties now,
so I think about things maybe a little different than
I did twenty years ago, but when I'm in my
(50:10):
mid sixties and mid seventies, to be as functional as
I can possibly be, but also sort of warding off
what some people call the horsemen of aging, you know,
cardiovascular risk, stroke risk, cancer risk, dementia risks, things like that.
So that's what I consider health span, the life in
my years, but also being able to ward off some
(50:32):
of the biggest predictors of mortality later on in life.
Biggest thing I would say, you know, and again I
very careful about not being too reductionist here. We should
all be eating right, we should be exercising, we should
be doing all those things. Social connections with people I
know are very important. You create hormones in your body
(50:53):
that are very healing hormones just by spending time with people,
are having conversations like we are. It's really important if
you are retiring, don't go buy a nice house somewhere
that is isolated from everybody just because it has a
nice view. You need to be interacting with humans on
a regular basis. So let me give you a very
specific thing and that and just because I think it's
a little surprising, but bone density is probably one of
(51:17):
the biggest predictors overall of your long term health span
because so much, so many things built into bone density. Fractures.
Having a fall and having a fracture something later on
in life that can be a terrible event that could
potentially be the beginning of the end of your life.
So my mother, right, and and I think we talked
(51:41):
about this. My mom also fell, she had a fraction
in her back, and it's she told me that she
didn't want to live anymore. I mean, which is a
very hard thing to hear from your from your from
your mom or anybody, but from your mom. So do
the things that you know that you should be doing
in terms of a better life, you know, sort of
(52:01):
healthy diet and exercise and all that, but really start focusing,
especially when you get into your late fifties and early sixties,
on bone mass and muscle mass and things like that.
So if you were an aerobics person like John, you're
you're a very fit guy. And my guess is you
do a lot of resistance training and things like that.
That's those are very predictive things for your health span
(52:23):
later on in life.
Speaker 1 (52:27):
This has been extraordinary, Sanjay, thank you, and it's been
a healing and I just want to you are a
gift man and you have literally made my day just
by spending time with you. You are a light. Talk about me.
You're a light in the world. And now you're going
to go heal people with not just theory, but you're
(52:48):
going to do surgery. You're going to get people their
life back. You're going to make sure the lights can
continue to come on with all the receptors in their brain.
It is transformationally important what you do. Somebody just called me.
I don't want to mention their name because they're a
public figure. It just called me. Three days ago. I
was in Turks and Kekos getting some more sun and
(53:10):
energy back in my life in the water, also trying
to work on my resistance, and they called me and
out of the blue they said, you know what Sanjay
said blah blah blah back at that December session, I'm
now acting on in a very meaningful way that in
other words, it literally got them thinking about something that
changed their life trajectory. This is one of the most
(53:33):
important people in the world, So you never know the
impact you're having, but just know you're having an impact
even though you don't know.
Speaker 2 (53:41):
And all my.
Speaker 1 (53:42):
Own requests for you is that we spend more time
together as friends, the four of us, and that our
wives and that personally asking for professionally if you come
back at some point when you're free to do a
part two of this podcast, because I think as we
think about this, more things going to come up. Wow,
should have talked about this and that, and this competition
(54:02):
is just not happening. So thank you anytime.
Speaker 2 (54:06):
John.
Speaker 3 (54:06):
I love our conversations and I really value our friendship.
I really do, so thank you. Stay clean, stay pure,
stay stay stay you John, and and and best of
Chai as well. You know Chi has become a close
friend as well. You should listen to her caring you.
Speaker 1 (54:24):
I will let her know that you send your love
and care. God bless you, ladies and gentlemen. This has
been Money and Wealth on the Black Effect Network on
iHeartRadio with none other than doctor legendary Doctor Sonjay Google.
Speaker 2 (54:41):
Thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (54:50):
Money and Wealth with John O'Brien is a production of
the Black Effect Podcast Network. For more podcasts from the
Black Effect Podcast Network, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome The Money in Wealth with John hob Bryant, a
production of the Black Effect Podcast Network and iHeartRadio. Hey, Hey,
John Hope Bryant, And this is the Money in Wealth
podcast Series, Season three. And I want to thank iHeartRadio,
(00:25):
iHeartMedia and the Black Effect Network for supporting what has
now become one of the top one percent of all
podcasts in the world, Money and Wealth, one of the
top entrepreneurship podcasts in America top fifty, and one of
the top business podcasts on six continents.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
And when most of you.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Know I ramble on every week myself sorted my ministry
of finance, trying to dump mine into your head and
then your body and your soul to get you positioned
from the streets to the suites, and to help to
understand the suites that they need the streets, and that
we are in a ecosystem. This is my new book,
(01:15):
Capitalism for All that depends on everybody getting the memo.
When I bring a guest on, you can count on
the fact that they're extraordinary, singular and special. That is
certainly the case today with my dear friend, doctor Sanjay Gupta.
(01:39):
Now most of you would know that name and know
his face. For those who get to watch this on
replay on line. You would know him from CNN. You
know him from documentaries and even television shows. You would
know him from public speaking. You know him as really
(02:00):
the moral voice for health and wellness and the medical profession.
In my opinion, I met Sign Jay formally at dinner.
We had run across each other before, but we read
formally at dinner through a mutual friend, Tony Wrestler, and
(02:21):
hit it off instantly, and or at least I did,
and he sort of stuck with me.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
And I call Sign Jay one of my brothers from
other mothers. So let me formally read something I prepared
around his credentials because I think it deserves that, and
I'm gonna say something personal about him, and then we're
gonna get into a conversation I would only have with
one other person other than Signjay, which is my wife Shaeitra,
who is a registered dietitian who is a wellness expert.
(02:52):
We talk about health and wealth and why they're connected,
how they're connected. She has helped to transform my well
being in wellness. The person who she would agree is
a step above that is doctor Sanjay Gupta. He is, well,
let me get into who he is. He's one of
(03:12):
the most trusted voices in medicine in America, and America
is the largest economy and the soul superpower in the world.
So this is a big deal. But more importantly, he's
become a translator between science and everyday life. He's a
practicing neurosurgeon. That sounds so dangne cool to say. By
(03:33):
the way, that just talking about a brother making smart
sexy as my brother Sonjay Gupta. He's a practicing So
he's not an influencer. He's not. He's not somebody out
here marketing or talking about something.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
You know.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
It's not what these guys said, Oh yeah, I'm an
expert in trucking I learned at our drive on YouTube. No,
that's not him. He's a practicing neurosurgeon at Emory University,
high one of the best platforms in the world. A
multiple Emmy Award winning Chief Medical correspondent for CNN see
(04:08):
that transition.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Brilliant, best selling author, brilliant.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
He does a new book that just came out recently,
by the way, and some which we have it in
our house. And someone who has spent decades helping Americans
make sense of health, wellness, crisis, stress, longevity, which we're
all interested in in the future of the human condition.
But what makes doctor Gupta especially important in this moment
(04:34):
is that he doesn't just talk about medicine. He talks
about humanity. He understands that health is connected to mindset.
You know my obsession with mindset, community, economics, opportunity, and
how we live our lives every single day. From reporting
on the front lines of war zones and global pandemics
(04:56):
to helping millions navigate COVID. He was our big brother,
booked big you know, our uncle during COVID, mental health,
brain health, and aging. He has earned credibility across political
lines and across generations. Today's conversation is not just about
(05:16):
health care, okay, It's about how we build healthier lives,
healthier communities, and ultimately a healthier America and the world.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
And health is wealth. It doesn't make any sense for
you to build.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
All this wealth, make all this money, be achieved his success,
and then you're basically broken down by the time you
get there. You have no quality of life. It's not fun,
ladies and gentlemen. I want you to help me give
a warm welcome for my friend doctor Sanjay Gupta. Now,
Sanjay did something really special at our whole global form.
(05:53):
He's spoken in a couple of them. He pushed personally
to get clearance to be there, which I appreciate. He
came at a CEO dinner meeting and we had had
three days of strong programming. At this last form, it's
maybe our best we've had ever. And it was a
private session of CEOs, some of the best of the best,
(06:14):
top of the top in this room, from the mayor
to Bishop TD Jakes, I mean, just everybody there, Charlemagne,
that God, Jess, hilarious, Killer Mike So, hip hop stars, Ti,
the mayor, political politicians, and bastard Andrew Young. I mean,
it was unbelievable. And of course CEOs are some of
(06:34):
the biggest companies and Sonjay blew them away. I mean,
is it with our question? Kevin Bouche told me rated
one of the top sessions of the entire form. And
it's the genius and the brilliance.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Of what he does.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Yes, but car through with his humanity, with his decency,
with his warmness, with his humility, with his heart. Okay,
you I'm a fan boy. Now let me welcome you
to my friend. Welcome my friend. And he's used to
you doctor sand.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
Wow, John, I don't even know how to respond to that.
That's uh, that's you know, so meaningful, obviously in particular
coming from you. I have just so much respect for you,
and as I as I've told you, you know, we
did hit it off right away. I remember that dinner well.
But also you know, I you're one of these guys
who's taught me a lot, not just by what you say,
(07:33):
but how you act and how you interact with people.
And you know, part of the reason I always want
to come to your forums is because you know, as
far as communicators go, you're the guy. You're You're able
to do things and and talk to people in ways
that I'm trying to emulate. So I'm really honored to
be here. I've been looking forward to this. Thanks so
(07:53):
much for having me.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
No, it's my honor and and and uh we were
talking offline about how we share a uniqueness and I
hope others emulate this. I don't know of another friend.
There may be one, so I'm not trying to offend.
Maybe Michael Milkin would qualify in this actually, but I
have very few friends that have a platform for doing
(08:17):
well and a platform for doing good, not like a
you know, an aspiration or gee volunteer sometime. Either our
friends are all just committed to doing good running nonprofits,
et cetera, or the committed to doing well personal wealth
creation and all that stuff. But Sonjay and I both
(08:39):
have platforms and our friend Michael Milkin for doing well
and doing good at scale. And I think that that's
the new model. And that's certainly what I reflected in
my new book, Capitalism for All. By the way, the
audiobooks out today, and so what's your newest book that's out.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
It's called it Doesn't Have to Hurt. It's It's all
about the chronic pain epidemic in this country.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Well, let's get into that, because that's sort of indirectly
what I want to talk about. We have modeled we
have we have modeled every operation Hope. We we have
modeled every zip code in America by credit score. It's
called the Hope Financial Wellness Index and are the nominker
(09:25):
the the AKA is a HOPE seven credit score index
and TransUnion and Experience gave us the data along with
censes et cetera. And we found something shocking. In urban cities.
You live approximately twenty years longer in a seven hundred
(09:47):
credit score neighborhood then you live in a five hundred
credit score neighborhood. In a five hundred credit score neighborhood.
Sign Jay, the data shows you live to about sixty
one years of age. And by the way, I'm happy
to give you all of this data offline if it's
useful to you. You probably already know it. And for
every fifty point increase in credit score, you actually end
(10:09):
up living another five years. And I say to people,
it's not about the credit score, It's about the trending
indicators of hope, well being, believe, confidence, faith, joy. As
a stress comes off of you and you go from
a surviving mindset. I'm saying this, but I want your
opinion about whether I'm right or not, because you're the expert,
to a thriving mindset, to a winning mindset. You go
(10:31):
from five hundred credit score, you just got too much
month at end of your money, You're stressed out, you
know the weight of the world's on your shoulder. You're
maybe you feel resentful, maybe you're depressed, maybe you're angry
at the world because where it's not treat truck treated
you fairly. And then you go to a thriving middle
class environment, let's say six fifty credit score, six eighty,
(10:54):
and then you get the seven hundred and seven to
fifty credit score, parks, two, print, households, restaurants, quality, medical services, whatever.
It's a completely different state of mind. And I think
state of being. Am I onto something here or am
I got the data data in my assumptions and presumptions incorrect?
Speaker 3 (11:17):
No, you're spot on. I mean I think the way
that I sometimes frame it with my own students, and
it's a bit jarring to hear, is that your zip
code is now a bigger predictor of both your lifespan
and your health span than your genetic code. Wow, which
is quite a remarkable thing. You know, this raises all
(11:38):
these discussions about nature versus nurture, and you know how
much of our lifespan is sort of programmed into our DNA,
but zip code is a bigger predictor. And I'll just
tell you, John, I think what's fascinating is someone who's
been you know, thinking about this, reporting on this for
a quarter century. Now there was this famous study that
came out a while ago called the China Study, And
(11:58):
the China Study was a study that for the first
time sort of showed that poor Chinese farmers were actually
doing better from a health standpoint than wealthy Hong Kong businessmen.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
That surprised everybody at the time because the idea was,
you know, wealth buys health. But that China study showed that, look,
people who were poorer, they were eating a less processed diet,
they were more at they had more connection with people.
All the things that we know now make a difference.
But what has happened over the last quarter century, as
(12:32):
you outlined, is that people who are poorer in the
United States, people who live in these zip codes that
you're talking about, with poorer credit scores and things like that,
they just don't have access to basic things, including healthy diets.
There was a study that came out of the Clinton
Foundation years ago, and I don't want to over exaggerate this,
(12:55):
but they said in some of these zip codes, it
was easier to find a weapon, for example, versus a
healthy produce, which was which was very jarring basic fruits
and vegetables. For basic fruits and vegetables. But this point
you made at the end is something that I really
tried to dig into, which is to quantify the impact
(13:17):
of living in a stressful environment, living in an environment
where you have a lot of disparity in terms of wealth, Like,
we know that's not good. But what we've been able
to see now over the last you know, ten twenty
years is an objective measurement of that. So fifteen years,
fifteen to twenty years. You mentioned shorter lifespan by virtue
(13:39):
of the fact that you live in a certain zip code.
That means you don't see your grandkids grow up, right,
I mean, you know, just to put it in some
context for people, it means something in terms of what
the end of your life's going to look like. But
what we now know is that during your life, the
impact of that stress, you live a less healthy lifestyle.
(14:00):
So even if you we know you don't live as long,
but even during the year as you do live, it's
a fundamentally different life, different quality of life. And you know,
the wealth disparity in the United States, John, nobody knows
this better than you. But it is similar that there's
a thing called the Jinny coefficient, which is basically a
(14:20):
measure of disparity. Are any coefficient in the United States
is on par with Sudan. So while the wealth countries
in the world, and there's a lot to celebrate in
terms of what happens in the United States, but that
disparity is on par with some of the countries that
we think of as models of disparity, and that affects everybody,
(14:42):
and that certainly leads to many of the things that
you just you just mentioned.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
So of course, let me ask us jarring question as
you gave you this jarring stat why. I think I
know the why, But you're the medical and expert here.
You bring it all together. Why is it on par
Then I have a follow up question.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
Well, I you know, in terms of the wealth disparity
part of it, I mean, we get a better sense
of the impact of that.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
You know.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
I did this documentary years ago called One Nation under Stress.
We did this for HBO, and and the question we
were trying to answer there was how does a country
that's spending four trillion dollars a year on healthcare? Why
do we have some of the worst outcomes in terms
of overall mord morbidity and mortality in the world, certainly
among the developed nations, and it's it's complicated to say
(15:35):
the least. But I think one thing that sort of
came out of this was there was this there was
this experiment and just stick with me for a second,
but there was this experiment of monkeys where they basically
had these two monkeys in cages where they could see
each other. So there are glass cages, they could see
each other, they could see the examiner, and they would
(15:57):
do what are called these task oriented expires. So monkey
does a task and they're given some sort of reward
for that, and in this case, they were given a
piece of cucumber, which is considered a very desirable reward.
Do the experiment, do the task, which was to hand
the examiner a pebble, get cucumber back and forth, dude,
And they did it twenty five times in a row.
(16:18):
No problem. Then they go to the next capution monkey
and they do the same experiment, except this time they
give that monkey a piece of grape. Okay, a grape
is considered a much more desirable reward. So what do
you think happens here? Monkey on the left, cucumber receiving
monkey sees the other monkey and says, wait a second,
I just did the same exact thing, and that monkey
(16:41):
is getting a better reward than me. So then how
they go back to the cucumber monkey and they say, okay,
give give the pebble and you get your reward. And
they give cucumber again, and this monkey, John you should
look at this on YouTube, literally chucks the cucumber back
out of the cage at the exact Yeah. And during
the entire higher experiment, they're measuring stress levels, okay, and
(17:04):
they measure the stress levels, and what do you think happens?
The stress levels go through the roof, the monkey's literally
rattling the cage, and high cortisol levels associated with heart disease,
associated with a stroke, it fuel some types of cancers,
all these things coming about from the stress. But here's
the thing that I think surprised a lot of people.
(17:27):
Monkey on the right, great perceiving monkey, stress levels also
go way up. Okay, So whether you are a have
or a have not, whether you're wealthy or poor. Obviously
being wealthy that offers all sorts of advantages in terms
of health care, but living in an environment where there's
a significant disparity regardless of where you sit on the spectrum.
(17:49):
It's stressful for everybody. We live in a highly stressful environment.
Cortisol levels are through the roof, and there's all kinds
of reasons for that.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
You know.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
There's wars going on, hunt of ice risks, you know.
But this disparity in a society has all sorts of ramifications.
We see that around the world, but we especially see
it here in the United States.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
This might become one of the most important interviews I've
ever done, because as I'm listening to you, you're bringing
together scientifically something that I just know aspirationally and can
just talk from the subjective aspect of my life and
our experience of clients and Operation Hope. But it's not scientific.
(18:34):
So let me bring a couple of important things together.
It's gonna throw some stuff at you as you were talking.
It just these items just jump out at me. The
some of my friends, when I wrote this book Capitalism
for All, they would say, oh, John, you know my
(18:56):
family they all hate rich people.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Responses, No, you don't know. They don't.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
They hate rich people until they become rich. What they
hate is a game system. What they hate is a
system that, no matter how hard they work. They can't
seem to get ahead, and they see somebody else, the great,
the monkey with the great, see somebody else who's working,
they believe half as hard with who's a half wit
(19:25):
who's not very bright, and they're getting all the benefits,
and they're chilling on a yacht somewhere, and this family
is struggling. And now they resent, They resent the person
and the system that is on the other side of
that fence, versus saying, let me aspire to be that person.
(19:46):
Because the ladder does not go any down to the
ground anymore. They can't find the ladder or the levers
to come up themselves, and so they resent. And somebody
just asked me this yesterday, like, what about you know
people who these young people by the way of all races,
particularly wealthy white young people, who are now talking about socialism,
(20:08):
they don't like capitalism. And I've got to remind them,
you know, even if you want to destribute money like
a socialist, you got a first collected like a capitalist.
But excuse me for being rational, I said. I understand
their frustrations because for them, the cost of everything's going
up once again. Here I just gave you an urban
example of resentment. And here's a wealthy, sort of white
(20:30):
young person. Example, I can't buy a house. They're saying,
my student loans are killing me. The affordability is not
an issue. I mean, it is ridiculous, and so they
resent just like the poor person resents. And this, I
imagine creates internal stress. Am I am my own point.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
I think this is this is Look, this is a
profound conversation we're having, John, because I think I think
most people sort of get to square one, square two
of this conversation where they say, Okay, look, capitalism on
one side, socialism on one side. We're obviously looking at
this from a from a health perspective. But first of all,
I would say, you know, as a physician, as a neurosurgeon,
as a as a community member, you know, a neighbor
(21:15):
of yours, capitalism has done amazing things for this country.
It certainly has done amazing things in the medical sphere.
I mean, there's a reason why we have had some
of the most explosive and wonderful scientific developments in the
world coming out of the United States. We're not even
five percent of the world's population. You look at the
outsized contribution they've had on. You know, medical advancements all
(21:37):
over the world, save lives, improve lives all over the world.
But at the same time, this this other, this other
thing that you're you're raising the the idea that there's
an inherent stress of living in a society where there
is a lot of disparity. And again, regardless of where
you sit on that spectrum, have or have not wealthy
(21:57):
or poor. Obviously you have all sorts of different advantages
if you're someone who has resources. But you know, I
think what what I see and I have you know,
I have kids now in the early twenties, and I
talked to them a lot, and I talked to their
friends a lot, maybe some of the same age people
that you're you're referring to. There is this there is
this unease. I think a little bit sometimes with the
(22:21):
idea that there is so much disparity. When I travel
around the world, I see that. You know, you go
to India, there's there's you know, a growing middle class now,
but thirty years ago there was hardly any middle class.
It was either very make sure, it was very poor.
And look, it felt unsettling at times when you sort
of walk through that environment or you here like, you know,
(22:41):
in the same week we heard that we may have
the world's first trillionaire. We also heard that as a
result of USAID cuts, there may be six hundred thousand
people who would die. Four hundred thousand are children. Look,
I think I think most people in the United States
would say that they are capitalists. But to what degree
I mean that does that sound right to you? That
(23:02):
a trillionaire and six hundred thousand people dying, those two
things would happen in the same week. I'm not saying
six hundred thousand people died in one week, That's all
I'm saying. But I'm saying that that's what protections were
as a result of the USA I D cuts. So,
you know, I think this is what a lot of
people in terms of their overall views of society, but
also again the impact on their health, the the invisible
(23:26):
impacts on health, the invisible impacts of that stress living
in that sort of environment. Even those guys that you're
talking about chilling on their yachts, maybe they still feel
the stress of that. You know, I don't know, I
don't know what yeah saying, maybe they still feel the
stress of that sort of that sort of lifestyle.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
I was at I'll just say it, I was at
the Milk and Global conference last week, and I was
at a private dinner in a one hundred million dollar
home and in the Milk House, or it wasn't Mike House,
one of his boys, one of his friends. And the
(24:06):
constant conversation amongst the wealthies of the wealthiest was their
stress around this uneven system and is not sustainable, and
they were concerned for their safety, their parent their their
children and wives safety. There the people seem seeming to
again want to choose an alternate system other than capitalism,
(24:28):
and I told them, well, look, you need to do
more because capitalism has done a crappy job of marketing
itself and making itself available to the least of these
God's children like it did one hundred years ago. You know,
Sam Walton was a had a high school education and
a pickup truck in a storefront, and at forty four
(24:48):
years of age created Walmart. Well, the landlord took his
idea the first time. People don't know that and try
to steal it, and he had enough mindset and fortitude
whatever in the resilience to say I'm gonna do it again.
He ended up in Bittonville by accident. Benville was just
a second Bennville, Arkansas, which is where Walmart is now headquartered,
(25:09):
now the largest retailer in the world. That was a
booby prize. That was where he went to open his
second location. And and and But we're not telling young
people or middle and age people trying to reset themselves
in an ai world that you can go and do that.
And here's how you do that. Don't resent success, Let's
become it. Let's us gain the system that has to
(25:32):
reduce the stress once once that light comes on. That's
been our experience at Operation Hope that it has to
reduce the stress and increase the joy. Another thing, again,
there's so many questions my team had given me, prepared
questions for you. I've not asked you one because I'm
so passionate about it. I mean, so I'm gonna just
(25:53):
throw stuff at you because people want to say to me, oh, John,
you're different, special, No, I'm not. My mother told me
she loved me every day my life that mattered.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
Here.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
I can't guarantee you that being optimistic is going to
make you a success, but I absolutely guarantee you that
being negative is going to make you fail.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
That the glasses not half not empty.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
Well, whether the glasses have empty or half full depends
on who's looking at the glass and whether you believe
you can or whether you believe you can't. You're absolutely right.
So we're talking about mindset here, right, And if we
can get peoples to be optimistic and aspirational, I think
it kicks off. The right side of the brain opens up,
(26:35):
the right side of the brain where creativity, hope, well
being believed, confidence joy sits and it allows you to
transition over to the left side of the brain, where
logic sits. And I think a lot of places where
you and I care about, whether it's poor white in
West Virginia or whether it's black and brown urban in
Detroit or wherever, or in Atlanta, that they're sitting in
(26:59):
this environ struggling and struct and trying to survive whether
right side of their brain. Other than going to a
concert or something to relieve themselves, it's shut down. Primarily
they can't get to the left side of the brain
as logical. I mean, is there anything I'm saying is
making any sense? And it please on real time just
disagree with me. So we can give you a good information,
(27:21):
but I really want to get to the heart of
this mental health and depression issue.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
Well, you know, part of the reason, I'll just say
this headline first and then we can sort of retro
engineer it. But I think part of the reason I
want to be on your podcast first of all, because
this point you're making about optimism versus negativity and the
impacts those things have on your mental health and your
overall health. To be quite honest, I totally agree with you.
(27:47):
I do feel like a lot of people feel that
the system is rigged against them. So as optimistic as
they may be, they still live in that zip code
and they still like are going to have fifteen years.
There's a shorter life expectancy as a result of that,
and stressful life. But what you do with financial literacy, Like,
(28:08):
I think people they fear things they don't understand, and
knowledge is power. I think when it comes to financial literacy,
I think so many people they don't have it. They
you know, look, even as a doctor myself, I wasn't
taught anything about financial literacy. I know nothing about this,
and so many times I feared it, or I certainly didn't.
(28:28):
I probably wasn't as most as logical as I could
have been, as rational as I could have been when
thinking about that. So the idea that you arm people,
So if the enemy is this idea that people feel
like the system is rigged, I don't understand the financial system.
The idea that you teach that to people, you offer
that to people, I think is so critically important and
(28:49):
frankly I think it should be taught in middle schools
and high schools. Again, our good friend, common friend, Tony Wrestler,
he's someone who talks about that as well. I think
that's important. But right now, I think again, for the
next generation, people who are twenty five to thirty years
younger than us, what do we What is the message
we send to them? We have to send that message
(29:12):
of hope and optimism because and make it true, but
also recognize that there are rewards to that that maybe
they don't fully appreciate in terms of the impact on
their physical and mental health. Simply by looking at the
world in a more favorable way is healing? I think
is healing. I think hope is healing. You know you
(29:36):
you are John Hope. You know the idea that people
often think of hope and healing as sort of two
forces that may be at odds with each other. Oh, hope,
Hope is not a strategy this and the other thing.
And yet we know that if you are hopeful that
all these other things they start to become more common,
more likely in your life, including the impact on health.
And that's that's that's powerful. I mean, as a physician,
(30:01):
I take pair of patients who have tough problems, you know,
as a neurosurgeon, brain tumors, you know, spinal cord injuries,
things like that. I'm always hopeful with them, John, Not
because I'm some person who just wants to give false
promises and things like that, but because I believe hope
can be healing in and of itself. Hope is a construct,
(30:22):
can be healing in and of itself. And now we've
got to figure out how to democratize that across the
generation at a time when there's this incredible wealth disparity
and all the other things, the wars and the pandemics
and all these other things. You know, when I grew up, John,
I was born in nineteen sixty eight, Vietnam War was
basically ending. There was no new war horizon. We probably
(30:44):
should have been talking about climate change more. We really weren't.
There was certainly no pandemics that we, you know, were
in our lifetime. My kids were born into two wars,
my kids into a pandemic. They were born into a
constant conversation about climate change. Never once considered the end
of the world. I couldn't think about that, like the
(31:05):
world ending, Like wait, well it just philosophically, you know, logically,
there was nothing about it that made sense. Mike contemplated
the end of the world. It's a very different environment,
and I think that's why what you do, and to
some extent, what I do, trying to provide that hope
has never been more important.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
I think again, I'm gonna underscore it. I'm gonna encourage
everybody listening to this podcast. Out of the three seasons
that I've done this, I need you to take this
one and share it with your friends and take a
five or ten minute piece of it and unpack it.
Because of a lot we've concentrated here, just in the
thirty minutes we've been on all so far already, that
(31:50):
we could change your entire life. Yes, whether you believe
you can, whether you believe you can't. You're absolutely right, right,
And mindset matters. In fact, Uh, mindset is everything, not everything,
but most everything. Because and this is a spiritual statement
that I'm gonna make that I don't I'm not attributing
to doctor Gupta. We're not human beings having a spiritual experience.
(32:15):
We're spiritual beings having a human experience. And energy matters. So, uh,
if you walk into a room with an attitude, people
are gonna feel that, they're gonna vibe that.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
If you're angry at the world.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
People are gonna feel that they're not gonna want to
do business with you. And so it becomes a self
manifesting destiny. If you think the world is racist, and
you think the world stacked against you, and you think
that everybody's you know whatever, every capitalist is bad or
whatever the thing is, and you walk into an interview
or you meet somebody and you got that energy hanging
on you. You don't think they can feel that. You don't
(32:52):
think that they're not They're like, WHOA, I don't know
what that is, but keep it away from me.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
You can be the hardest person in the world, but
no one wants to deal with you, So.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
You may not listen to me, because you think I'm
some of some kind of Martian aberration or something.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
But listen to doctor Gupta.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
He's given you hard science, hard facts that says this
is no this is global, it's universal, and it tracks
with human development and science over time. And you've heard
me now on camera. Now be willing to be embarrassed.
I've told him my philosophy right here, willing to have
it shut down. And so take this podcast and share
(33:37):
it with everybody you know, and start a conversation in
your living room amongst your fraternities and sororities. We want
you to live, not just a longer life. We want
you to live a better life, a better quality life.
Don't get to sixty one and drop dead or sixty
five and you're so fractured and torn that you can't
even benefit from your You know you, And I know
(33:59):
Ambassador Andrew Young who is ninety four years young, and
he's still giving two speeches a day. And I really
believe that. And I'm not for anybody who wants to retire.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
You go ahead and do it.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
I'm not, but understand retirement was a political creation in
the early twentieth century America's trying to create jobs. The
president was they looked at a European model where they
encouraged older people to stop working. They called it retirement
so that young so they could create jobs for eighteen
(34:33):
year olds. It was a replacement of jobstra they're not
ever growing economy, so they replace jobs. That's where retirement
came from. We look at that now that somehow it's
something written in the Bible or something that at sixty
five year out of gas and you're no longer useful,
and I just disagree with that. I say, don't retire, rewire,
go do whatever you want, whenever you want, but have
a purpose in a life. And most of them Bass
(34:55):
Young's friends. Every week he tells me to going to
a funeral. They're dropping dead. They want to go play
golf and sit down and knowing, you know whatever, the
light of aspiration turned off. And I think that something
turned off inside of them. He's turned on all the time,
and I think that that's consistent with how he's lived
and continues to live a long energy in case life,
(35:17):
you and I talked to him, he's ninety four. It's
like I talked to a fifty year old. Mentally, when
I was in high school. I'll tell you just a
quick thing. We had a field trip that we took.
I was living in Michigan at the time.
Speaker 3 (35:29):
We came to Atlanta and the reason we came to
Atlanta was to hear Andrew Young speak. And I'll tell
you what that was sort of a life changing thing
for me. By the way, you're like this as well, John,
But I was a high school student of sixteen seventeen
years old, and I watched this guy speak and it
was like the best rock concert I'd ever been to.
(35:49):
Right the place was just just totally vibing with him.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
And by the way, look at this. Look at this.
This is crazy. Look at this. Look who's calling?
Speaker 3 (35:57):
Come on? Really? You got he can't leave the ambassador.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
Hanging Ambassador Andrew Young, you're alive on a podcast. I
think I just missed him. I'll call him back. But
that's a great Ange Young quote. Coincidence is God's way
of remaining anonymous. Okay, anyway, so.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
Funny, I'll tell you there's an energy out.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
There, isn't there There's an energy, man, So this just.
Speaker 3 (36:23):
Can't be random events. They campaign that he calls you
that exact that's unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
And he was calling it.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
I'm sure he was calling about something about changing the
world or what we're gonna He was just only on
the phone me last night.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
You know what.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
There we going to the Obama Library because they're naming
a room after him, the area after him in the library,
and and uh, you know, I mean he's on the move,
he's on the run all the time, but he's got purpose.
He's leaning into meaningfulness.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
All the time.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
You're your reach out, your reach should exceed your grasp.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
I let me ask you a question.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
When you hear the phrase financial stress, and I'm gonna
go to the we're over at Hope. Let's go back
to where a lot of people are sitting right now.
Because the last factoy that I'm gonna throw in here,
I was in a hotel and coming out of a
hotel in New York and the bellman who's also an artist,
(37:23):
and we bought some of his art. I asked him
how the art was doing and he said not good.
I said, well, I don't understand. Are your clients working classes?
You know they're all wealthy. And I said, well, I
don't understand the stock markets at record highs and economy
is booming, even though I think it's not sustainable in
the way it's structured. And he said people by art,
(37:46):
he said, based on how they're feeling. So yes, they
economics have to be doing well, but they're not feeling
good about the world or the country or their lives.
They don't buy art. It's an emotional purchase. Tie to
how they're feeling. They have to be asked race And
I thought that was extraordinary insight and I hadn't thought
about it. But it's not just that they got the money,
(38:07):
but they have to feel inspired something in their I
guess the right side. Their brain has to be popping
in a way that they are in you know, mentally
want to buy by art. I'm gonna tie that to
the next question. Now we're about wealthy people here, Let's
(38:28):
go all the way over to folks who've got too
much month at the end of their money and help
them understand how financial stress what that does inside please
the body and the brain.
Speaker 3 (38:42):
I think a core ingredient here that maybe in some
ways ties this together, including the health angle of this
as well, is uncertainty. What does uncertainty do to someone's
mental and physical health? You know, there's this great quote
that I always come back to. It was from the
eighteenth century Kant, and I'm not going to get it
(39:04):
exactly right, but he basically says something like his greatest
concern for society was a false confidence, bred from the
ignorance that we live in an inherently probabilistic world. That
people want to see black and white where they should
rightly seek gray. And I think, you know, I think
about this all the time. Every time I walk into
(39:26):
a patient's room. People want certainty, Like I'm going to
talk about their brain tumor or their spinal cord, whatever
it may be. They want certainty. And I think for
a lot of people, the temptation is, let me inject
certainty into this. So I'm one hundred percent confident xyz.
But I think what we've sort of missed in that
(39:46):
whole thing was the idea of not necessarily trying to
be certain in an uncertain world, but teaching people how
to be more comfortable with uncertainty, teaching people how to
understand risk better, you know, And I mean you do
that so well, John, I mean, and I think the
financial world is the best example of it. It's so tangible,
(40:08):
so objective. But I do think that probably with your
friend that you're talking about in New York, you know,
walking out of that hotel, if things feel uncertain for people,
maybe their spending habits change as a result of that.
I think it's certainly true in the health world people
behave differently when they feel a lot of uncertainty. So
(40:28):
this gets back to what you do again. And I'm
not just trying to compliment you over and over again,
but it is true that you know, teaching people financial literacy,
you're teaching them as an objective thing, but I think
maybe one of the more fundamental things you're doing is
teaching them how to deal with risk and the uncertainty
that comes with risk. And that's that's healing again, that
(40:49):
it's just so important. So you can't inject certainty into
an uncertain world and we live in a probabilistic world,
but you can get people more comfortable living in that
world world and dealing with uncertainty.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
Yeah, that guy goes back to Hope with a business plan.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
Yes, faith is what you do when you don't have
all the facts right right.
Speaker 3 (41:12):
I love that I got I gotta write these down.
Speaker 2 (41:13):
I go.
Speaker 3 (41:15):
And write down the gym Hope quotes.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
So, so what does living in a constant state of
barely making it due to the nervous system over time?
I'm gonna give a couple of these at the same time.
From a medical standpoint, how harmful is shame, especially around money, debt,
weight as in personal weight, physical weight, pain, addiction, or
(41:39):
mental health? How do we talk to people about behavioral
change without making them feel blamed? Are there some hacks
that we can do give to people listening to this.
Speaker 3 (41:53):
That that that's such a great question, and there's a
lot in there. Let me give you one example which
I think maybe sort of speaks to this at least.
And this has to do with something that I think
a lot of people have heard about over the last
few years, which are these GLP drugs tempic Monjarro, you know,
w Goovi, all those drugs. And I've been doing a
(42:14):
lot of reporting on this, and I traveled to Denmark
where these drugs were originally developed, and I spoke to
the scientists and everybody who was involved with that not
only from a science perspective, but from a social perspective.
They didn't want to release these drugs initially because yeah,
because there was this idea that hey, look, obesity is
(42:34):
a failure of will. Why are we medicalizing it? Right?
And what I think change there? And I'll tie this together,
but I think what change there? Was this notion that
for some people who are overweight or obese, they simply
never get a message to their brain after they've eaten
(42:54):
that they're full. Okay, So the signaling is off. The
brain doesn't signal that, hey, you've just eaten, you don't
need to eat anymore. They don't feel full, they don't
feel what is known as satiation satiety. Now, if you
think of it that way instead of just thinking, oh,
this guy just eats too much, he can't stop eating,
if you think about it as a failure to do this,
(43:14):
which we now know as a result of these studies
that came out around these drugs, I think your whole
way of looking at someone that you see on the
street who's obese or overweight may change. You may think
of them more from a diabetes sort of model. They're
not making enough insulin in this case, they're not making
enough of this particular glucagon like pepti GLP, and their
(43:36):
brain isn't working as well. And the reason I bring
that up is to say, under knowledge is power with
regard to if you feel shame from something like obesity
or something like that, then listen to what I've just
said and understand that not for everybody, nothing is absolute
or one hundred percent, but for a lot of people
(43:56):
out there, this isn't a shame issue. Just like you
shouldn't be shamed aimed that you've got cancer or something
like that. These are medical issues that as we learn
more and more about them, we can explain them. Addiction
you mentioned, I mean, even over my twenty five year career, John,
I think the understanding of what happens in the brain
for someone who's an addict has changed. You can line
(44:17):
up ten people, you give all ten of them an
opioate for eight of them, nine of them they may say, Okay,
well that was interesting. I don't really ever care if
I do that again. But for one of them it
was a euphoric, profound experience and they can't live without it. Wow,
Okay why because their dopamine hit was just surge so
much that it became something they craved and they had
(44:39):
to have. So when people say addiction is a brain disease.
That's kind of fundamentally what they're talking about. And I'm
just using these examples to say, hey, look, shame should
not be the first thing that you should go to
if you're thinking about issues like this, it should be
a greater understanding what exactly is happening in your body
and your brain. And once you under stand that, I
(45:00):
think it helps mitigate a lot of the shame and
despair that people feel around these things.
Speaker 1 (45:10):
Again, we're gonna fortunately, we're gonna wrap up here a second.
You's gotta go do surgery and a bunch of other stuff.
But my God, has been so amazing When you just
said the thing about shame and addiction would trigger in me.
I will often say, non scientifically clearly that an addiction
(45:31):
is a response to an emotion you can't handle.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
That.
Speaker 1 (45:36):
We have a bunch of ings in our life, shopping, drinking, drugging, oversleeping, sexting, texting,
and not dealing, not healing that if you don't do
these things, then you're you're like I got cup with
(45:57):
a hole in the bottom of it. No matter how
much you or in that cup is coming out the bottom.
It may be slowly coming out, but it's coming out,
and so you need more of the same hit to
give you the same buzz, and after a while you
become addicted. This stuff literally kills you in many cases.
And now that was my non scientific, non anything translation
(46:20):
of what I think you just said. And so you
don't blame somebody for that, whatever that that is. You say, Look,
you're dealing with the knock on effects, that's the reaction.
Let's deal what you need is the one I g
is positive. Let's deal with.
Speaker 3 (46:36):
Healing absolutely absolutely and understanding you know I understanding. Yeah,
that knowledge is power. I mean, I think we make
so many assumptions about people. You know, you're going back
to the example of somebody that you say walks into
a meeting with obviously negative energy. I mean, I think
you and I are both evolved enough individuals to take
(46:59):
a beaty, Hey, what could be going on in that
person's life? Right, you know, what's what's going on there?
As opposed to just falling into the same trap that
they fell into, which was to make assumptions about you
maybe or to make assumptions about the situation. You and
I don't do that, and you know it's it's it's
why I love you, John, it really is. You said
(47:20):
all those nice things about me at the top, and
I really appreciate it. But I and I don't do
this often, but but I want to reciprocate that to
you because you were you were one of those individuals
who is a bright ray of light for us and
and I feel I feel better when I get to
spend time with you. But you do that for so
many people. And you know, you know, I'm a doctor,
(47:42):
You're a healer. You're a healer, and so you get
to you know, it's good, good combination. I think you and.
Speaker 1 (47:47):
I it's good juju uh. I would love for us
to do this again, schedule permits. I think this has
been powerful. I I I knew it would be strong.
I did know it would be transformational because a lot
of I want to gallup initially twenty years ago with
my concept of hope because people would roll their eyes
(48:09):
with me back then Oh here comes John Brian again
with financial literacy and hope and okay, but you know,
and I wanted to prove that hope could be measured,
and so they helped me do that. And you have
just helped to prove that mindset matters. And and that
that also that it's changeable, like there's things that you
(48:30):
can change with a change of the mindset and with
understanding and healing scientifically. I'm gonna leave you with a question,
one last questions. I want to mess up your whole
schedule today. This has been powerful, and then maybe when
pick it up again in the next session, and any
of whatever else you want to add as we close?
What is the difference? So people talk about longevity today
(48:54):
and I guess what do they often misunderstand about that?
Speaker 2 (48:56):
And let me give you an example.
Speaker 1 (48:58):
What's the difference between lifespan and.
Speaker 2 (49:01):
And health span? Yeah? Right?
Speaker 1 (49:04):
And how much of longevity is genetics? And how much
is behavior, environment, stress, access and daily choices? And I
guess the drop the mic is if somebody's listening to
this and going, okay, this has transformed my thinking, how
do I transform my life? What can doctor Sandia group
to leave with me, leave with the audience that they
(49:25):
can work on tomorrow.
Speaker 3 (49:28):
Well, the way I would sort of think about lifespan
versus health span is a simple one. And I always
try not to sound too euphemistic or too simplistic, but
it is. It is years of life versus life in
your years. I mean, you know, for years you live.
Obviously that has importance for a lot of the reasons
(49:49):
we talked about the top of the podcast, you know,
seeing people in your life grow up and all those things.
But the life in your years, I think is what
we all sort of want, and I think with health
span and to put a more of a punctuation mark
on it, because you know, I'm in my late fifties now,
so I think about things maybe a little different than
I did twenty years ago, but when I'm in my
(50:10):
mid sixties and mid seventies, to be as functional as
I can possibly be, but also sort of warding off
what some people call the horsemen of aging, you know,
cardiovascular risk, stroke risk, cancer risk, dementia risks, things like that.
So that's what I consider health span, the life in
my years, but also being able to ward off some
(50:32):
of the biggest predictors of mortality later on in life.
Biggest thing I would say, you know, and again I
very careful about not being too reductionist here. We should
all be eating right, we should be exercising, we should
be doing all those things. Social connections with people I
know are very important. You create hormones in your body
(50:53):
that are very healing hormones just by spending time with people,
are having conversations like we are. It's really important if
you are retiring, don't go buy a nice house somewhere
that is isolated from everybody just because it has a
nice view. You need to be interacting with humans on
a regular basis. So let me give you a very
specific thing and that and just because I think it's
a little surprising, but bone density is probably one of
(51:17):
the biggest predictors overall of your long term health span
because so much, so many things built into bone density. Fractures.
Having a fall and having a fracture something later on
in life that can be a terrible event that could
potentially be the beginning of the end of your life.
So my mother, right, and and I think we talked
(51:41):
about this. My mom also fell, she had a fraction
in her back, and it's she told me that she
didn't want to live anymore. I mean, which is a
very hard thing to hear from your from your from
your mom or anybody, but from your mom. So do
the things that you know that you should be doing
in terms of a better life, you know, sort of
(52:01):
healthy diet and exercise and all that, but really start focusing,
especially when you get into your late fifties and early sixties,
on bone mass and muscle mass and things like that.
So if you were an aerobics person like John, you're
you're a very fit guy. And my guess is you
do a lot of resistance training and things like that.
That's those are very predictive things for your health span
(52:23):
later on in life.
Speaker 1 (52:27):
This has been extraordinary, Sanjay, thank you, and it's been
a healing and I just want to you are a
gift man and you have literally made my day just
by spending time with you. You are a light. Talk about me.
You're a light in the world. And now you're going
to go heal people with not just theory, but you're
(52:48):
going to do surgery. You're going to get people their
life back. You're going to make sure the lights can
continue to come on with all the receptors in their brain.
It is transformationally important what you do. Somebody just called me.
I don't want to mention their name because they're a
public figure. It just called me. Three days ago. I
was in Turks and Kekos getting some more sun and
(53:10):
energy back in my life in the water, also trying
to work on my resistance, and they called me and
out of the blue they said, you know what Sanjay
said blah blah blah back at that December session, I'm
now acting on in a very meaningful way that in
other words, it literally got them thinking about something that
changed their life trajectory. This is one of the most
(53:33):
important people in the world, So you never know the
impact you're having, but just know you're having an impact
even though you don't know.
Speaker 2 (53:41):
And all my.
Speaker 1 (53:42):
Own requests for you is that we spend more time
together as friends, the four of us, and that our
wives and that personally asking for professionally if you come
back at some point when you're free to do a
part two of this podcast, because I think as we
think about this, more things going to come up. Wow,
should have talked about this and that, and this competition
(54:02):
is just not happening. So thank you anytime.
Speaker 2 (54:06):
John.
Speaker 3 (54:06):
I love our conversations and I really value our friendship.
I really do, so thank you. Stay clean, stay pure,
stay stay stay you John, and and and best of
Chai as well. You know Chi has become a close
friend as well. You should listen to her caring you.
Speaker 1 (54:24):
I will let her know that you send your love
and care. God bless you, ladies and gentlemen. This has
been Money and Wealth on the Black Effect Network on
iHeartRadio with none other than doctor legendary Doctor Sonjay Google.
Speaker 2 (54:41):
Thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (54:50):
Money and Wealth with John O'Brien is a production of
the Black Effect Podcast Network. For more podcasts from the
Black Effect Podcast Network, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Host
John Hope Bryant
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