September 16, 2025 • 45 mins
Dr. Vivek Murthy, U.S. Surgeon General under two presidents, has been a trailblazer in redefining public health, naming loneliness as the next great epidemic. But behind the national advisories is a personal story.
With his partner in purpose and in life, Dr. Alice Chen, Vivek joins hosts Martin Luther King III, Arndrea Waters King, Marc Kielburger, and Craig Kielburger for a deeply moving conversation about purpose, parenting, and the powerful medicine of connection.
Together, they reveal how:
- Social disconnection is as dangerous as smoking—and what we can do about it
- Parents can protect kids from social media's silent epidemic
- Love, purpose, and service form the real blueprint for fulfillment
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
An immortality impact that we saw with social disconnection was
comparable to smoking and obesity.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
As Surgeon General under two presidents, Doctor Vivik Murphy made
history by bringing mental health to the center of our
national conversation, warning that loneliness is a public health crisis.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
That there was this mail of shame that kept those
experiences hidden and increased the suffering.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
And to sound the alarm on social media's impact.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Three and a half hours were more per day on
social media, faced double the risk of anxiety and depression symptoms,
and turns out the average amount of use per day
among kids.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Was Joint hosts Martin Luther King the Third Andrea Waters, King,
Mark Kilberger, and Craig Kilberger, as doctor Murphy shares the
urgent truth that could save lives.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
So many of our listeners or viewers are terrified about
our kids growing up in this world of unchecked social media.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
In a world that is now more divided than ever.
Speaker 5 (01:00):
Well, can we what are you seeing in your own patience?
Speaker 6 (01:04):
What's the prescription of solving disconnection?
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Need a second opinion? He's brought along with doctor he
trusts most his wife, Doctor Alice Chen.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Why are so many the people that I meet struggling
with this sense of unhappiness and emptiness. Why do so
many of them feel like something is missing in their lives?
And I realized that.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Welcome to my Legacy. Today's guest is doctor Vivic Murphy.
His mission isn't just policy, it's deeply personal, and as
always in the show, he's not here alone. He's brought
someone who sees a side of him that the world
rarely does. Vivic, we'd love for you to introduce your
plus one, your partner in purpose and in life, doctor
(01:46):
Alice Chen.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Well, Thank you so much, Craigan. What an honor to
be with you and Mark, and with Andrea and with
Martin today. I'm really excited to introduce you both and
to everyone who's listening to Alice. My wife, Alice is
incredible human being. We are about to celebrate our tenure
wedding anniversary, and she is so many things. Most importantly,
she's a mom who are a wonderful two kids who
(02:10):
are seven and eight. We actually met working together and
building a national movement of doctors to advocate for better
access to healthcare and more affordable health care for every American.
So it was doing that work that brought us together,
and we've been partners in every sense of the words
since then. Every important speech I give, every project I
(02:31):
work on that matters to me, like I always run
it by Alice first to get a gut check on it.
And we've worked together like that ever since the beginning.
Alice is also a doctor by training. She's an internal
medicine physician. She's very passionate about climate change. I will
be clear that Alice is the reason that I compost
and recycle. She's the one who inspired me to do
(02:53):
that back in the day and keeps reminding me to
do that even when the composting and recycling rules get
really complicated.
Speaker 4 (03:01):
So how magnificent, And let me just say a seven
and an eight year old we can do a full
podcast just on that. You all get medals just for
that along and of course we're going to get into
the Surgeon General and the incredible work in medicine that
you both are doing and have done for, particularly for
(03:22):
our country. But before that, let's go back to the beginning. So, Vic,
I know that your father was also a doctor who
also did house calls, coming actually going directly to his patients.
And I'm really curious is how did that shape the
type of doctor and the type of care that you provide,
(03:44):
And what was the biggest lesson that you learned from him?
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Well, he has been an inspiration and my mother as
well in my desire to pursue medicine. My father did
make house calls from the earliest days, and in fact,
when my parents lived in Newfoundland many years ago, he
would make house calls and weather that was incredibly cold,
sometimes minus seventy degrees outside, and he would trudge to
different homes, put on his snowshoes, snowshoe into their houses,
(04:12):
and then see them to make sure folks were okay.
So would He taught me early on, and my mother
also modeled as somebody who built and ran the medical
practice that he worked in. They taught me something powerful
about medicine that went beyond biology and prescriptions and diagnoses.
They taught me that medicine was fundamentally about relationships and
(04:35):
it was through those relationships that you could help people heal.
I would see people coming in to the clinic who
were stressed and worried and feeling alone, and they would
leave knowing that they had a partner in their healing.
And so long before I was old enough to understand
what was happening inside the body at a biological level,
I could see that there was something powerful that was happening,
(04:56):
this bond that was being built between my parents and
the they cared for.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
It's such a powerful idea to your point that so
many are struggling alone. And I you know, one of
the memories I treasure was when we were sitting with you.
Was Martin and I with you in the basement of
a restaurant in DC and were you were working on
your final prescription for America, your final letter, And I
remember how you know, of course people think that a
(05:23):
surgeon general is going to write about seat belts or nicotine.
You know, it's all the images we have in our mind.
And you were so open and so honest and so vulnerable,
if I can phrase it that way, during your time
as surgeon General, where you talked about the importance of
social connection and how alone people feel, and you very
famously of course, spoke about the connection. You know, being
(05:44):
alone was equivalent to smoking cigarettes and just shaped the
public dialogue. I asked you the question why, and you
were incredibly kind and being so open with Martin and
I talking about how personal it was for you your
own experiences that you had felt of loneliness, and I
(06:04):
wonder if we could, and if I could ask you
to actually share it with our listeners and our viewers,
because I think what you have done is shift the
topic of social connection and loneliness into the public discord
through year own lived experience and your platform. Unlike anyone else.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
For me, I realized the experiences I was having struggling
with loneliness were actually not unique. A lot of people
were having these experiences, but we weren't able to really
talk about them. That there was this veil of shame
that kept those experiences hidden and increased the suffering that
many of us were experiencing. And that's what I had
felt as a child, when I was having a tough
(06:44):
time making friends as as really shy, introverted kid, and
where I worried about walking into the lunch room every
day and not having someone to sit next to. But
that whole time, I not only felt ashamed about it
and never mentioned it as a result of that to
anyone else, but I also thought I was the only
one dealing with that, and because everyone else looked like
(07:04):
they were having a good time. And by the way,
that distortion of reality that tells us we're the only
ones struggling is even more heightened today, thing for young
people who are because of the experience of social media,
where people are constantly posting their highlights, not their low lights,
and so the experience we have is that, oh, my god,
everyone is living this great life and I'm the only
one struggling. So that's how I felt even back then,
(07:27):
but it sensitized me to the issue. But I saw
a lot of it around me when I was a
doctor and I have patients would come in, maybe for
an infection or for complications of a medication they took,
or because they had cancer or heart attack or a
clot but often as I sat and talked to them,
I'd realized that they were struggling with loneliness. And then
(07:47):
I came to see that at scale when I was
searching general traveling across the country. So that was the
reason I decided I wanted to do something about this,
and to me, it was in fact a health issue.
When you dug into the data as I did on
loneliness and isolation, it became very clear that this is
so much more than a bad feeling, and that people
(08:07):
who actually experienced loneliness and isolation, they had higher risk
of not only depression and anxiety and suicide, but also
heart disease and dementia and premature death. And that's where
the data point we shared that I think became quite
striking for people was that the immortality impact that we
(08:27):
saw with social disconnection was comparable to smoking and obesity.
And we think about smoking obysia's classic public health issues,
but stories and statistics were telling us that social connection
was just as important a public health issue for the
country and really for the world.
Speaker 5 (08:45):
Alice as a primary care doctor, a national healthcare advocate,
what are you seeing in your own patience and the
effect loneliness and disconnection is having on their health.
Speaker 7 (09:00):
It's so multifaceted, the way loneliness impacts people's health. I see,
you know, I take care of people who are largely
kind of working class, low income, and people are just struggling.
They're trying to make sure, you know, their kids go
to school, that they're able to get from one job
to the next job. I ask them, have you exercised?
(09:23):
They're like, how when I have? I don't have time
to sleep or make a meal, when am I supposed
to exercise? I see it in and people who are
struggling with with like with with with whether it's obesity
or depression, they're struggling with something that's sort of like
part of their day to day life, and they don't
feel like they have a partner a community that somebody
(09:46):
that will, you know, drag them out of the house
and go on a walk with them every day. I
always ask my patients do you have Do you have
somebody that you can call upon? Do you have somebody
you know? Do you have people to lean on a
lot of times they say yes. But then when you
dig a little bit deeper, have you talked about this
issue that you're talking to me about this anxiety about
your job, about your your diagnosis? Have you talked to
(10:06):
people about them? They're like, no, no, I don't want
to bother anybody. And so I think it's it's not
only it's it's both the structures around us where people
are struggling so much that they just have to sort
of put their heads down and go, go, go. And
then it's also there's a bit of sort of like
ingrained people feel like oh, I shouldn't bother others. I
should I should be able to deal with all my
issues on my own. But on the flip side, I
(10:27):
do have patients who are very connected to their community
where they do you know, they always come with a
member of their family, where they they have people, They're
always around other people, and it just makes everything they're
just they're just lighter. It feels like no matter what
their diagnosis is, no matter why they're coming in, their
arm hurts, their knee hurts, it's just a totally different
flavor of the human experience when they have.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
People coming up. The former Surgeon General's remedy for the
loneliness epidemic and what he wants you to know about
the hidden risks of social media.
Speaker 4 (11:00):
Now back to my legacy, Alice, do you find that
when you talk about some of your patients that are like, Okay, now,
I don't want to bother anyone. And do you find
that that's more with your female with women patients, that
you know that it's kind of shouldering everything or do
you find that with both male and female.
Speaker 7 (11:21):
I think it's both. It's it's very it's it's different
between the men and the women. I think the the men,
there's more of a sort of macho don't talk to
people about my issues, don't show vulnerability, And with the women,
it's more of a like, I just have to get
it all done. It's it's on my shoulders. I just
(11:42):
have to get it done. So it's it's there for both,
but a little bit different.
Speaker 4 (11:47):
Absolutely, Yeah, we have to work on that superwoman cape
right as women all the time and receiving and also
being able to share more our sorrows and our joys together,
And which brings me back to the idea of relationships.
So and I know Vivik that you said that relationships
(12:08):
are the foundation of health and fulfillment. In a world
that is now more divided than ever, how can we
build relationships out in the world. What can we do
to overcome so much of this division that we all
are feeling right now.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Yeah, it's such a timely question. And I think there's
a lot that's telling us in the world right now
to define ourselves based on political differences or differences and
how we feel on policy issues. But the reality is
that obscures so much of what we do in fact
share in common, Like we have common concerns as parents,
as community members, as caregivers for aging parents, for people
(12:51):
who are contending with a lot of common challenges, but
a lot of that those common challenges get obscured. So
we found that one of the things that's important to
do now is one to be able to create spaces
where people can come together and talk about shared challenges.
Right and because where our kids are school age, and
we think about the parent community in our school. Alice
(13:11):
Is is the co president of our Parents Association in
school and really helps create these opportunities for parents in
the community to come together and talk about shared concerns.
And that's very powerful because a lot of parents just
feel like they're struggling alone. I think the other thing
that we can do is to create experiences of shared joy.
(13:32):
So there is so much it feels heavy in the
world right now, but when we can experience joy together,
whether that's coming together as we have so often in
our school to see our kids all perform, you know,
for a holiday or just for an end of the
year's show, or whether it's coming together for music. We
(13:52):
recently had the pleasure of taking our kids and my
sister and brother in law to a music concert. We
all experienced that together, and it was one of those
things where were initially hesitant, it's late, it's going to
be far away that the kids are going to fall asleep,
is it really worth it? But it was so beautiful
to be with thousands of other people just uplifted and
(14:17):
just invigorated and inspired by this powerful music we were
all hearing. That was an experience of joy and upliftment
and we need more of those. But having those experiences
Andriya means that we have to actually come out of
our homes and be physically together. These experiences are very
different online versus when you're physically in the presence of
(14:38):
other people. And it's one of the reasons why I
think it's especially important for young people that we model
how to do that, that we create opportunities to do that,
because I think that we have, maybe in prior generations,
assumed that everybody just develops robust social skills as they
get older because pre sort of digital era, you had
(15:00):
to go and just talk to people find out how to, like,
you know, if you make things work with your roommate
in college or if you went to college, or figure
out how to talk to somebody in middle school and
the lunch room. You know, the middle school is hard
for everybody, myself included. But these days, actually there's an
off ramp. If you feel distress of isolation or social anxiety.
That off ramp is your phone. Right So, and this
(15:22):
is what young people would tell me all the time
when I traveled around the country and spoke to high
school students and college students, as they would say, yeah,
it's when things are stressful. We don't necessarily have to
interact with each other. So maybe there's a mixer or
an orientation, but if we get uncomfortable, we just pull
out our phones. Right. So, I think it's especially important
for us to cultivate these skills and these opportunities for
(15:43):
in person interaction. I want to just share one quote
with you what I actually just came across which moved
me very deeply. It was written by a college students
about thirteen years ago, in twenty twelve, who had when
she was just about to graduate from college, and her
essay that she wrote was called the Opposite of Loneliness,
(16:05):
And this is the quote that really stuck with me.
Her name is Marina Keegan, and tragically, she died five
days after a graduation in a car accident, She says,
we don't have a word for the opposite of loneliness.
It's not quite love, it's not quite community. It's just
this feeling that there are people, an abundance of people
(16:28):
who are in this together, who are on your team.
When the check is paid and you stay at the
table when it's four am, and no one goes to
bed that night with the guitar. That night, we can't
remember that time. We did, we went, we saw, we laughed,
we felt. I think about that quote all the time
(16:52):
because what it reminds me of is that this belonging
that we all need, that's part of our just basic
huven requirement to be alive and thrive. That sense of
belonging can come through these powerful shared experiences. It can
come from knowing that we're in it together, that we're
(17:13):
not alone. During the pandemic, in those early days when
everybody was staying at home, many of us realized that
it meant something to us to be in a coffee
shop with other people, even if we weren't there with
all of our best friends. It meant something to be
in a grocery store and to be passing other people
and seeing, Ah, there's a fellow parent who's shopping for
(17:34):
her child, and I can relate to that. All of
these moments of connection, whether it's with a best friend
or with somebody in our kids school or somebody in
a coffee shop, that contribute to our sense of belonging.
And this is what we need to now intentionally build
in our lives and in the world, because it's a
(17:55):
foundation on which build everything else, from our health, to
our economy to our education. And that's why I think
it has to be such a priority at this moment.
Speaker 7 (18:04):
I feel like so much of this is about these
like individual acts and like and just like like small
decision points like do I reach out to this friend,
do I invite somebody over for dinner? I have nothing
to do this afternoon. Do I spend it with people
or do I spend it but with myself? And I
feel like we all just have to Like it's like
(18:24):
a million of these acts and it's and it's all
of us working that muscle of I will have people
over for dinner today, I will go on a walk
with a friend instead of by myself. I mean, it's
wonderful to have solitude, but it's also it's choosing to
make those make those putting yourself out there a little
bit and having the discomfort of being with another person
who has different thoughts and how do you navigate that.
(18:46):
We had this experience we started this social committee in
our in our condo building, and there was event that
we were going to do on the roof and it
was raining, so we just had everybody over to our
house and everybody kind of just hung out at our
house for hours, and as people were leaving, we had
a strange experience where people said thank you for being
so brave and having us all over, and it just
(19:08):
felt like we're all we've all been living in this
building together for years. We passed each other in the
hallways like like I hear your noise upstairs, Like how
is it brave to have people over? But I think
we want to work toward a world where that is
no longer strange And oh my goodness, wow they did that,
but something that's just normal.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
Because I think it's so easy to your point, and
you know, Vacu made this comment just to reach for
our phones, to zone out, to accept things how they are,
to let us become more disconnected, even the act of
just reaching for our phones. My my wife, actually I'm
gonna say it on air, although she told me to
originally stay it off air, wanted me to actually thank
(19:45):
you for the work that you have done on social media.
We got three boys, and I am yes. Now you're
not in your head like, ah, that's why, because like
so many of our listeners or reviewers are terrified about our
kids growing up in this world of unchecked social media
and the thing we just accept and I'm we know
(20:07):
it as parents, but the two of you know this
as doctors. So I'm so curious to hear from you.
Speaker 7 (20:13):
Recently, I told our kids, mommy's going to start using
my phone less, and I'm gonna I want you to
call me out on it when I'm picking up my
phone and being on the phone instead of like talking
to you, and it's it's shocking how many times that happens.
Why are you on your phone?
Speaker 4 (20:31):
I'm impressed that you had to give them permission to
check you, she automatically checks.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
I love the tangibility that for all of our listeners
viewers like, what a great action as parents to not
just harp on their kids like listen, I have on
my kids a bit on this. So to actually tell
our kids you can have permission to call us out.
It's a powerful suggestion. I love that, Thank you, Alice.
It's very silent. Right now, do they call him out?
Has he given permission? Also?
Speaker 1 (20:58):
You know I haven't given them permission, but they call
me out.
Speaker 4 (21:03):
Welcome to our world.
Speaker 7 (21:06):
It's telling them don't take my example because I'm not
doing a good thing. And that's kind of the reason
of doing it, is to say, like, I'm working on this, like,
don't become like me. Because they're young enough that they
don't have their own phones, they don't really know what
social media is, and so it's really like trying to
like start now of saying this is not this is
not good even though you see me doing it.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
I think this is really important for as a topic.
And I'll tell you, like Craig, one of the reasons
that like I did that advisory on social media and
youth mental health was because this is the most common
question that parents were asking me when I traveled around
the country. They were saying, is social media really okay
for my kids? And they were worried that it wasn't
and they were wondering like, why aren't we hearing more
(21:50):
about it from medicine or public health authorities if it
indeed there are harms here. What we were seeing in
the data is that kids who were spending on average
three and a half hours were more per day on
social media faced double the risk of anxiety and depression symptoms.
And turns out the average amount of use per day
among kids was four point eight hours, so it was
(22:11):
nearly five hours significantly higher than that three and a
half hour threshold. But even if you go beyond those
studies and you look at what are kids telling us
themselves adolescents about how social media is making them feel?
Nearly half were saying that social media made them feel
worse about their body image. Many were saying that it
detracted from their sleep. And also students would tell me
(22:32):
all the time when I traveled, because they would bring
up social media first. Actually in conversations around mental health,
they would most commonly say social media made them feel
worse about themselves as they constantly compared themselves to others.
It made them feel worse about their friendships as they
saw people doing things without them, but they couldn't get
(22:52):
off it, and they felt worse about themselves, and many
of them said that they noticed after those initial years
of the pandem that their friends became glued to their
devices in a way that they hadn't even seen before then,
that it significantly increased because when kids were out of
school in those for early months of the pandemic, they
had their devices and that's what kept them going to
(23:14):
some extent or connected. But now we've come out of that,
but still the addiction to our devices is still there.
So people sometimes have said, is it really accurate or
okay to talk about this as an addiction? And if
you look at the patterns, and I've actually talked to
the normal valcow who's in the head of the National
Institute for Drug Abuse, one of our nation's foremost authorities
(23:37):
on addiction, and to others as well, the patterns that
you see of behavior in people who have problematic use
of social media and their phones is very similar to
what you see in people who are addicted to other substances.
And anyone who's been a parent, you know, as it
sounds like most of us have here and who have
ever given a device to your child early on or
(23:58):
seen them just take the device and then try to
take it away from them. You know that there is
a reaction that is triggered that is often quite unusual.
Our child, the first time that happened with our son,
he's incredibly good nature, like very kind. But when he
was early on, when he was like maybe I don't know,
a couple of years old, he like found a phone
and he was like looking at him and we took
it away. Like the screech and anger from him was
(24:21):
like something we had never experienced before. Who is this
child inside our kid's body? But it is the key
thing to understand here, though, is that is not a fluke.
These were designed to maximize how much time we spend
on them. The entire business model of social media is
based on maximizing your time spent because that translates to
(24:45):
advertising dollars. Right. So you've got the best product engineers
in the world figuring out how to use cutting engineuroscience
to design the features that will keep you on for
longer clicking more, reading more, scrolling more, right, And so
it's one thing to do that to a forty or
fifty year old adult. It's another thing when a child
(25:07):
early in adolescence is at a critical phase of brain development,
when they're more susceptible to social suggestion and social cues
or impulse control has been developed, and you subject them
to that kind of environment, and it's no surprise that
we've seen this sort of addictive behavior. And we have
so many kids who say they want to reduce how
(25:27):
much they use social media but are having a hard
time doing so.
Speaker 6 (25:31):
I'm blown away. I think we're all blown away. We're
all parents here, and I think many parents are probably listening.
But the fact that the pattern of behavior of social
media is the same or equivalent, as you just eloquently said,
to the patterned behavior of other substances, and that's just
that's shocking, and of course that creates greater disconnection. So
if that's the challenge, my question to you, and you've
touched upon it, but put your doctor hat on, take
(25:54):
out your your prescription pad, take out a pen, and
what's the prescription of solving disconnection?
Speaker 1 (25:59):
Well, since you asked for a prescription, it turns out the
final document that I issued when I was search in
general was actually called a parting prescription to America. It
was about what you're getting at, which is there was
this deeper question that had been bothering me for years
when I was in office, meeting people talking to them,
which was this, The question is why are so many
(26:21):
of the people that I meet struggling with a sense
of unhappiness and emptiness? Why do so many of them
feel like something is missing in their lives? And I
realized that many of the narratives that were told that
it's due to economic challenges, security challenges, These are real. Actually,
these really contribute to the unhappiness and anxiety and pain
(26:43):
that people feel. But even when those needs were met,
I was finding there was something else that was missing,
that people were still feeling that sense of unhappiness, they
were still suffering. And what I came to understand through
many conversations and research and data, etc. Was that there
is a story that we have told ourselves, and young
(27:04):
people in particular, a narrative that society has created about
what constitutes success. And young people would often say this
to me most eloquently and clearly, because when I would
travel I would always ask the same question, how do
you define success? And they would say, well, society is
defining for it. Is it for us as money, power,
and fame, And if we can achieve those three things.
(27:27):
Then we will really have made it. People make documentaries
about us or our books about us, it'll be great.
It's why I met so many people who were saying
that there what I would say, what are you focus
on right now? They would say, I'm focused on building
my brand right and there's a small part of me
which you know, died every time. Like somebody said that
because it's I think it's emblematic of a broader problem.
(27:47):
But when you look at what really leads to fulfillment,
it's actually remarkably consistent in research in life experience and
history and in scripture across faiths, which is that it's
a different triad that try to modern day success maybe wealth,
power and fame, but the triad of lifelong fulfillment is
(28:09):
actually relationships, purpose, and service. It's the people we love,
the people we help, and it's how we find purpose
in our lives and lifting each other up and being
a part of something bigger than ourselves. That's actually how
we find fulfillment. The core though, the key about the
try to fulfillment is it has to be rooted in
a core virtue, and that virtue is love. Love and
(28:32):
all its manifestations of generosity, kindness, but also hope and
courage those come from love as well. And in writing
this parting prescription, I was deeply inspired by Reverend Martin
Luther King, by your father and father in law, and
he is call for the beloved community because I saw
the beloved community, and Alison I we'd spend a lot
(28:53):
of time talking about this, because we talk about this
in the context of what when you become a parent,
you start realizing that child is going to need a
lot more than you can provide to live a fulfilling life.
They're going to depend on the world around them, and
the question for us is what can we do to
help make sure that that world is going to be
there for our kids and for all kids, that it's
going to be a nurturing world where if they fall down,
(29:14):
somebody is going to be there to help them up,
if they make a mistake, somebody is not going to
judge them in the worst possible bay way, but give
them the benefit of the doubt and where they will
do the same for others. And to me, that beloved
community is about belonging. It's about making love the ethic
and the compass through which we are guided in our lives.
(29:35):
It's about building a life rooted in relationships, purpose and service.
We want to also build out this narrative and conversation
around how to live a better life right because people
want to live a better Many people in their gut
are saying, right now, is this all like? Isn't there
something more? There is something more right, and we can
(29:56):
find it together, But only if we talk about it,
only if we are open about it, Only if we
come together and start creating opportunities for ourselves and for
our children to engage in a life that's rooted in relationships,
in service, and in a sense of purpose. And when
you keep in mind the fact that right now, more
than half of eighteen to twenty four year olds say
they have little to no sense of meaning or purpose
(30:17):
in their lives, that tells us that we've got some
work to do to make the future brighter for current
and future generations.
Speaker 4 (30:25):
And one of the things that the four of us
are working on together. You talked about shared joy and
shared experiences and is this the project realized the dream
which I know that you all both also are participating in.
And you know we certainly encourage you know, anyone listening
in as well. It's really about how we can come together,
stand together and heal some of this device that we're
(30:49):
talking about through serving, so finding service projects and being
involved and building the world that you want to be
a part in. So is something that I know the
four of us are very exc and honored to be
working on together, and we're so happy that you all
are joining us in that endeavor as well. Now, Alice,
you're at the White House when the Affordable Care Act
(31:11):
was signed.
Speaker 5 (31:12):
Yay you.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
But most importantly, you really helped rally doctors across the country.
You really helped to organize to support the act. So
as we're looking at a time now when more and
more people are losing their health care or in danger
of losing their health care, what do you think it
will take for this country to finally decide that healthcare
(31:35):
is a right and not a privilege.
Speaker 7 (31:38):
I think this actually goes back to the conversation we're
just having about being feeling connected to one another. I
feel like we're in a moment when there are a
lot of forces telling us to otherwise others that there
are many people who are worthless, who don't deserve food, shelter,
(32:00):
they don't they don't deserve healthcare, they don't deserve the
basic building blocks of life, And I think that we
need to just have a much better understanding that we're
all actually very connected. I think there are there are
very very few of us in the modern world who
can survive on their own. I we couldn't. We couldn't,
(32:22):
We couldn't survive a couple of days on our on
our own. But feeling connected to when we eat a meal,
who are the Who are the farmers who put those
seas in the ground, Who are the truck drivers who
drove that to the grocery store? Who are the people
picking your food? Who are all those people? And shouldn't
we make sure that they are all taken care of?
For the reasons of just shared humanity and very practical
(32:45):
reasons of like we need all of those people. I
think we need to start with that basic understanding that
if we all do well, we all do well, and
that's what leads to us being able to decide, okay,
healthcare should be a right that it doesn't matter who
you are and what choices you've made in your life.
(33:07):
If you have strep throat, you ought to be able
to go to the doctor and get some antibiotics. If
you have appendicitis, you ought to be able to go
to the hospital, get your appendix taken out, and not
feel like you're going to lose your house and everything
you own because of it. I think we just have
to see each other as our brothers, as our sisters
in order to make sure that we're all taken care of.
Speaker 5 (33:28):
We're building something real here, one episode at a time.
If you want to be part of it, to subscribe,
It's free, it matters and weird. Yes, getting started.
Speaker 4 (33:40):
Now back to my legacy.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
We moved to my wife's families farm to reconnect with nature,
to let our kids run outside. Because I don't think
these things that you're describing here happen by accident. We
have to put an environment around ourselves, in rituals and
traditions around ourselves to facilitate connection, to facilitate friendship, to
(34:04):
facilitate family rituals. So can we take a peek into
your family? Forgive me, but give me a little personal here.
What are some of the rituals that you have that
as a couple, or with your children or in your
water extended family that help anchor you.
Speaker 7 (34:20):
Like rituals are some of the like goofy things that
we do.
Speaker 4 (34:22):
Tell us that's what we want to hear. Okay, let's
not okay, don't tell us the family rituals. Please tell
us the goofy things.
Speaker 6 (34:29):
Yes, I just want to say, just it was really endearing.
Just for a moment, you were like such a powerful
force of good everybody knows you are, and you just
took a sip of water with a Hello Kitty cup
and you put that Hello Kitty cup back up. Because
I thought that was so enduring. I wanted to give
you a hot and mean like I love you because
(34:49):
you're using a Hello Kiddy cup and my girls will
think you're cool.
Speaker 7 (34:52):
Now. I did not think you're actually going to take
a simp of that. Vic is an amazing storyteller. I
mean of stories like in life generally, but also making
up stories for our children. So that's part of our
like bedtime when if the kids go to bed on time,
(35:13):
which doesn't happen that often, but when they do, we
all lie down in bed together, turn off the lights
and Vic spins these like crazy tales and they're like
favorite characters that we all have when we get really
excited when they when they show up on the scene.
Oh my gosh, So and so is back. So that's
definitely one of my one of my favorites.
Speaker 3 (35:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
One of the trisions we have which we love is
in this summer. We always try to split the summers
between our grandparents, between our kids grandparents, so our parents,
so it's half the time in California, half in Miami
and that, you know, it's interesting because that means that
like our kids aren't like you know, taking classes or
in like you know, summer camps for the whole like
(35:58):
duration you know, with other kids and d see. But
for us, we're like, you know what, even if they
miss those things, like being with family is important, so
we want to do that.
Speaker 7 (36:06):
And the morning on the way to school, will often
ask them to say one thing they're grateful for, and
it's so fun to hear from the kids what that
thing is, and same at the end of the night,
like you know, what's you know, what's your rose, what's
your bud, what's your thorn? What the nice thing that
happened to when we look forward to it was a
bad thing. Sometimes the thorn really surprises you, like I
(36:28):
didn't get that, Like I didn't get to eat that
orange and you're like, that was a that was your
biggest path that It's a fun little insight.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
We also we want them. We know that there's such
a big emphasis on science and you know, stem learning, science, technology, engineering,
math stuff. But we actually it's really important to us
that our kids are creative, that they have like I feel,
they have the liberty to to just express that and
cultivate that side in them. So we just recently started
doing this fun thing where we'll give them three words
(37:02):
and we'll ask them to make up his story with
his three words, right, so they could be three and
they're often very unrelated, like caterpillar, like orange and New Jersey,
you know, something like that, and then they'll they'll have
to like spin a story with those. And I just
the other thing I actually really love doing with them
is and we do this often when Alice is on
(37:24):
a conference call and she needs quiet, so I'll take
the kids to another room and then we'll just play
these music videos and then dance together, you know, and
and that'll just it's just us just like dancing together,
and it's fun. And so it's, uh, yeah, we have
all kinds of there's a lot of goofiness at our house.
This is like, it's yeah, like and I'm probably the
(37:47):
the goofiest person and that's what the kids say.
Speaker 7 (37:50):
So very few people know that one of the Biggs
core traits is goofiness.
Speaker 4 (37:54):
Well now the world knows, so thank you.
Speaker 6 (37:58):
I just want to put your parenting hat on, I
mean a pharmaceut to general. You've obviously impacted so many parents,
But put your dad hat on, and then NOALYSI if
youre going to put your mum hat on. We recently
helped launch a platform called This Way Up that helps
to empower girls and their moms around the issue of
mental health. What's the pep talk? What's the words of
advice you're going to tell to your own kids?
Speaker 7 (38:17):
Keep an eye out for ways that you can help people,
even if they're like teeny tiny, or like holding a
door for somebody who's coming in with some groceries. But
to do that, to not only keep an eye out,
but to choose to oh should I should not? Is
it intrusive to hold the door? Just do it? I
(38:38):
think making that a part of what you do in
the world is I think it will be really important
for them.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
Yeah, I completely agree, and I think we would also
want to tell them that it's normal to feel ups
and downs, that they're not bad or doing something wrong
or broken, because they feel that, but all of us
feel it, even if we don't always talk about it.
I'd also want them to know it's okay to ask
for help, it's okay to share what you're going through.
And I think the worst feeling for a parent is
(39:08):
to see your child suffering, and even worse to know
that they're suffering in silence and alone. And I think
being able to help our kids know that it's okay
for them to talk to us and then to others
about how they're feeling is really important. One of the
things I'll just share with you, this is actually a ritual,
if you will, that we do with our kids, is
(39:32):
we also want them to know, in a world that's
constantly telling them who they should be and why they
are not enough, we want our kids to know that
they are enough, that their worth is intrinsic, that it's
not extrinsic. So like we will often like you know,
whisper to our children, you know at the you know,
(39:52):
before they go to bed at night, is something to
that effect. So like I'll often tell my son, as
I did last night, that always remind him that just
always remember that doesn't matter what other people think, that
what matters is that he believes in himself. And I'll
tell him that we believe in him, that we always
believe in him, and to remember that he's strong and
(40:15):
that he's brave and that he's kind. And that's what
we tell our daughter too, So those are the words
that we wish rich of them before they fall asleep
at night.
Speaker 4 (40:24):
Do you intentionally choose that time? Because one of the
things that I know is that the two most potent
times are when we first wake up in the morning,
but even more powerful of a seed planting time, if
you will, is what thoughts, visions, prayers, what's in your
mind right before you go to sleep, because you literally
(40:44):
are programming yourself for the next eight plus hours. So
is that do you intentionally choose that time with that knowledge?
Speaker 7 (40:53):
So?
Speaker 1 (40:53):
Yes, Actually, when I was growing up, my mother was
a strong believer in the idea that what you are
exposed to before you go to sleep just percolates through
your head throughout the night, and so she always used
to tell us like, don't watch like scary things on TV.
Like when we were kids, she was tell us at
or don't read books that are disturbing or whatever. Like
read something that's going to commune center. You make you
(41:14):
feel peaceful and so thankfully, like our kids aren't on devices,
so they're not you know, looking at their devices right
before they go to bed, and so that's good. But
we wanted to fill their head with something positive. So
we always actually do we have a prayer ritual. We
always do prayers together, you know, before they go to sleep,
and then once the lights are out and the sheets
are over them. This is what will whisper into their ears,
(41:36):
the reminder for them to believe in themselves, and we
tell them that they're kind, they're brave, and they're strong.
Speaker 4 (41:42):
Well, we've talked a lot about loneliness and disconnection. I'm
very curious because if any of our listeners are experiencing
that or their children, what are things that any of
us that are feeling lonely or loneliness? What can we
do to overcome that? What are some suggestions?
Speaker 1 (42:01):
The first thing I'd say anyone who's experiencing loneliness is
it's important to know that you are not broken. This
is a common experience a lot of us have. It's
our body's way of telling us that something we need
that's essential for survival. In this case, social connection is missing,
and it's just like hunger or thirst in that way.
I think what's also important is to recognize that the
(42:22):
path toward connection actually starts with simple and small steps.
That we don't have to overhaul our entire life or
uproot ourselves, quit our job, move to a different city
in order to build connection. And here are a few
simple things that I would offer. One is that we
can start by just taking five minutes a day to
reach out to someone we care about. That could be
(42:43):
a friend, just to check in and say, hey, I
was thinking about you, wanted to know how you're doing.
It could be to a family member, but those five
minutes make a difference. The second thing we can do
is we can make sure that when we're with other people,
whether it's talking on the phone or visiting with them
in person, that we're fully present, that we're not on
our devices all the time, because five minutes of uninterrupted,
(43:05):
focused conversation with somebody is often more powerful than a
half hour of distracted conversation. But the last thing that
we can do is find one small thing each day
that we can do to help someone. It could be
something very simple, like we see somebody in the grocery
store who's spilled their groceries on the ground and we
lean over to help pick them up. Or we're see
somebody who's lost in the street or co work who's
(43:27):
having a hard time at school, or a classmate who
looks like they're struggling and we just pause and say, hey,
you wanted to check on you. Are you doing okay?
These small moments of service are really important, not just
for the other person, but for us as a person
rendering the service, because service turns out to be one
of the most powerful antidotes to loneliness. It connects us
to somebody but reminds us that we have value to
(43:49):
give to the world. And that's so important because one
of the corrosive effects of loneliness over time is it
can erode our self esteem. It can make us feel
that the reason we're lonely is because we're not likable,
that something is wrong with us. Fundamentally, the moments of
service remind us that that's in fact not the case.
So these small things five minutes a day to reach
(44:11):
out to someone we care about, being present when we're
with other people and off our devices, and one small
thing to help someone each day. These can help us
build a stronger and stronger sense of connection.
Speaker 3 (44:22):
I love the prescription that you have given for all
of us and our listeners. I love the fact that
you have dedicated yourselves to showing up. You may not
do house calls nutritional sense, but you've been in our lives.
You've been in the lives of Americans. And for speaking
about service purpose connection, for talking about the goofy family
(44:45):
rituals that you so kindly shared with us today that
I loved, For being so open with us in such
a beautiful and moving conversation on behalf of all of us,
but on behalf of so many whose lives you've touched.
Thank you both so much, Thank.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
You so much.
Speaker 2 (45:05):
Thank you for joining us. If you enjoyed today's conversation, subscribe, share,
and follow us on at my Legacy Movement on social
media and YouTube. New episodes drop every Tuesday, with bonus
content every Thursday. At its core, this podcast honors doctor
King's vision of the beloved community and the power of connection.
(45:27):
A Legacy plus Studio Production, distributed by iHeartMedia. Creator and
executive producer Susanne Hayward, co executive producer Lisa Lyle. Listen
on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
An immortality impact that we saw with social disconnection was
comparable to smoking and obesity.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
As Surgeon General under two presidents, Doctor Vivik Murphy made
history by bringing mental health to the center of our
national conversation, warning that loneliness is a public health crisis.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
That there was this mail of shame that kept those
experiences hidden and increased the suffering.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
And to sound the alarm on social media's impact.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Three and a half hours were more per day on
social media, faced double the risk of anxiety and depression symptoms,
and turns out the average amount of use per day
among kids.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Was Joint hosts Martin Luther King the Third Andrea Waters, King,
Mark Kilberger, and Craig Kilberger, as doctor Murphy shares the
urgent truth that could save lives.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
So many of our listeners or viewers are terrified about
our kids growing up in this world of unchecked social media.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
In a world that is now more divided than ever.
Speaker 5 (01:00):
Well, can we what are you seeing in your own patience?
Speaker 6 (01:04):
What's the prescription of solving disconnection?
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Need a second opinion? He's brought along with doctor he
trusts most his wife, Doctor Alice Chen.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Why are so many the people that I meet struggling
with this sense of unhappiness and emptiness. Why do so
many of them feel like something is missing in their lives?
And I realized that.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Welcome to my Legacy. Today's guest is doctor Vivic Murphy.
His mission isn't just policy, it's deeply personal, and as
always in the show, he's not here alone. He's brought
someone who sees a side of him that the world
rarely does. Vivic, we'd love for you to introduce your
plus one, your partner in purpose and in life, doctor
(01:46):
Alice Chen.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Well, Thank you so much, Craigan. What an honor to
be with you and Mark, and with Andrea and with
Martin today. I'm really excited to introduce you both and
to everyone who's listening to Alice. My wife, Alice is
incredible human being. We are about to celebrate our tenure
wedding anniversary, and she is so many things. Most importantly,
she's a mom who are a wonderful two kids who
(02:10):
are seven and eight. We actually met working together and
building a national movement of doctors to advocate for better
access to healthcare and more affordable health care for every American.
So it was doing that work that brought us together,
and we've been partners in every sense of the words
since then. Every important speech I give, every project I
(02:31):
work on that matters to me, like I always run
it by Alice first to get a gut check on it.
And we've worked together like that ever since the beginning.
Alice is also a doctor by training. She's an internal
medicine physician. She's very passionate about climate change. I will
be clear that Alice is the reason that I compost
and recycle. She's the one who inspired me to do
(02:53):
that back in the day and keeps reminding me to
do that even when the composting and recycling rules get
really complicated.
Speaker 4 (03:01):
So how magnificent, And let me just say a seven
and an eight year old we can do a full
podcast just on that. You all get medals just for
that along and of course we're going to get into
the Surgeon General and the incredible work in medicine that
you both are doing and have done for, particularly for
(03:22):
our country. But before that, let's go back to the beginning. So, Vic,
I know that your father was also a doctor who
also did house calls, coming actually going directly to his patients.
And I'm really curious is how did that shape the
type of doctor and the type of care that you provide,
(03:44):
And what was the biggest lesson that you learned from him?
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Well, he has been an inspiration and my mother as
well in my desire to pursue medicine. My father did
make house calls from the earliest days, and in fact,
when my parents lived in Newfoundland many years ago, he
would make house calls and weather that was incredibly cold,
sometimes minus seventy degrees outside, and he would trudge to
different homes, put on his snowshoes, snowshoe into their houses,
(04:12):
and then see them to make sure folks were okay.
So would He taught me early on, and my mother
also modeled as somebody who built and ran the medical
practice that he worked in. They taught me something powerful
about medicine that went beyond biology and prescriptions and diagnoses.
They taught me that medicine was fundamentally about relationships and
(04:35):
it was through those relationships that you could help people heal.
I would see people coming in to the clinic who
were stressed and worried and feeling alone, and they would
leave knowing that they had a partner in their healing.
And so long before I was old enough to understand
what was happening inside the body at a biological level,
I could see that there was something powerful that was happening,
(04:56):
this bond that was being built between my parents and
the they cared for.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
It's such a powerful idea to your point that so
many are struggling alone. And I you know, one of
the memories I treasure was when we were sitting with you.
Was Martin and I with you in the basement of
a restaurant in DC and were you were working on
your final prescription for America, your final letter, And I
remember how you know, of course people think that a
(05:23):
surgeon general is going to write about seat belts or nicotine.
You know, it's all the images we have in our mind.
And you were so open and so honest and so vulnerable,
if I can phrase it that way, during your time
as surgeon General, where you talked about the importance of
social connection and how alone people feel, and you very
famously of course, spoke about the connection. You know, being
(05:44):
alone was equivalent to smoking cigarettes and just shaped the
public dialogue. I asked you the question why, and you
were incredibly kind and being so open with Martin and
I talking about how personal it was for you your
own experiences that you had felt of loneliness, and I
(06:04):
wonder if we could, and if I could ask you
to actually share it with our listeners and our viewers,
because I think what you have done is shift the
topic of social connection and loneliness into the public discord
through year own lived experience and your platform. Unlike anyone else.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
For me, I realized the experiences I was having struggling
with loneliness were actually not unique. A lot of people
were having these experiences, but we weren't able to really
talk about them. That there was this veil of shame
that kept those experiences hidden and increased the suffering that
many of us were experiencing. And that's what I had
felt as a child, when I was having a tough
(06:44):
time making friends as as really shy, introverted kid, and
where I worried about walking into the lunch room every
day and not having someone to sit next to. But
that whole time, I not only felt ashamed about it
and never mentioned it as a result of that to
anyone else, but I also thought I was the only
one dealing with that, and because everyone else looked like
(07:04):
they were having a good time. And by the way,
that distortion of reality that tells us we're the only
ones struggling is even more heightened today, thing for young
people who are because of the experience of social media,
where people are constantly posting their highlights, not their low lights,
and so the experience we have is that, oh, my god,
everyone is living this great life and I'm the only
one struggling. So that's how I felt even back then,
(07:27):
but it sensitized me to the issue. But I saw
a lot of it around me when I was a
doctor and I have patients would come in, maybe for
an infection or for complications of a medication they took,
or because they had cancer or heart attack or a
clot but often as I sat and talked to them,
I'd realized that they were struggling with loneliness. And then
(07:47):
I came to see that at scale when I was
searching general traveling across the country. So that was the
reason I decided I wanted to do something about this,
and to me, it was in fact a health issue.
When you dug into the data as I did on
loneliness and isolation, it became very clear that this is
so much more than a bad feeling, and that people
(08:07):
who actually experienced loneliness and isolation, they had higher risk
of not only depression and anxiety and suicide, but also
heart disease and dementia and premature death. And that's where
the data point we shared that I think became quite
striking for people was that the immortality impact that we
(08:27):
saw with social disconnection was comparable to smoking and obesity.
And we think about smoking obysia's classic public health issues,
but stories and statistics were telling us that social connection
was just as important a public health issue for the
country and really for the world.
Speaker 5 (08:45):
Alice as a primary care doctor, a national healthcare advocate,
what are you seeing in your own patience and the
effect loneliness and disconnection is having on their health.
Speaker 7 (09:00):
It's so multifaceted, the way loneliness impacts people's health. I see,
you know, I take care of people who are largely
kind of working class, low income, and people are just struggling.
They're trying to make sure, you know, their kids go
to school, that they're able to get from one job
to the next job. I ask them, have you exercised?
(09:23):
They're like, how when I have? I don't have time
to sleep or make a meal, when am I supposed
to exercise? I see it in and people who are
struggling with with like with with with whether it's obesity
or depression, they're struggling with something that's sort of like
part of their day to day life, and they don't
feel like they have a partner a community that somebody
(09:46):
that will, you know, drag them out of the house
and go on a walk with them every day. I
always ask my patients do you have Do you have
somebody that you can call upon? Do you have somebody
you know? Do you have people to lean on a
lot of times they say yes. But then when you
dig a little bit deeper, have you talked about this
issue that you're talking to me about this anxiety about
your job, about your your diagnosis? Have you talked to
(10:06):
people about them? They're like, no, no, I don't want
to bother anybody. And so I think it's it's not
only it's it's both the structures around us where people
are struggling so much that they just have to sort
of put their heads down and go, go, go. And
then it's also there's a bit of sort of like
ingrained people feel like oh, I shouldn't bother others. I
should I should be able to deal with all my
issues on my own. But on the flip side, I
(10:27):
do have patients who are very connected to their community
where they do you know, they always come with a
member of their family, where they they have people, They're
always around other people, and it just makes everything they're
just they're just lighter. It feels like no matter what
their diagnosis is, no matter why they're coming in, their
arm hurts, their knee hurts, it's just a totally different
flavor of the human experience when they have.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
People coming up. The former Surgeon General's remedy for the
loneliness epidemic and what he wants you to know about
the hidden risks of social media.
Speaker 4 (11:00):
Now back to my legacy, Alice, do you find that
when you talk about some of your patients that are like, Okay, now,
I don't want to bother anyone. And do you find
that that's more with your female with women patients, that
you know that it's kind of shouldering everything or do
you find that with both male and female.
Speaker 7 (11:21):
I think it's both. It's it's very it's it's different
between the men and the women. I think the the men,
there's more of a sort of macho don't talk to
people about my issues, don't show vulnerability, And with the women,
it's more of a like, I just have to get
it all done. It's it's on my shoulders. I just
(11:42):
have to get it done. So it's it's there for both,
but a little bit different.
Speaker 4 (11:47):
Absolutely, Yeah, we have to work on that superwoman cape
right as women all the time and receiving and also
being able to share more our sorrows and our joys together,
And which brings me back to the idea of relationships.
So and I know Vivik that you said that relationships
(12:08):
are the foundation of health and fulfillment. In a world
that is now more divided than ever, how can we
build relationships out in the world. What can we do
to overcome so much of this division that we all
are feeling right now.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Yeah, it's such a timely question. And I think there's
a lot that's telling us in the world right now
to define ourselves based on political differences or differences and
how we feel on policy issues. But the reality is
that obscures so much of what we do in fact
share in common, Like we have common concerns as parents,
as community members, as caregivers for aging parents, for people
(12:51):
who are contending with a lot of common challenges, but
a lot of that those common challenges get obscured. So
we found that one of the things that's important to
do now is one to be able to create spaces
where people can come together and talk about shared challenges.
Right and because where our kids are school age, and
we think about the parent community in our school. Alice
(13:11):
Is is the co president of our Parents Association in
school and really helps create these opportunities for parents in
the community to come together and talk about shared concerns.
And that's very powerful because a lot of parents just
feel like they're struggling alone. I think the other thing
that we can do is to create experiences of shared joy.
(13:32):
So there is so much it feels heavy in the
world right now, but when we can experience joy together,
whether that's coming together as we have so often in
our school to see our kids all perform, you know,
for a holiday or just for an end of the
year's show, or whether it's coming together for music. We
(13:52):
recently had the pleasure of taking our kids and my
sister and brother in law to a music concert. We
all experienced that together, and it was one of those
things where were initially hesitant, it's late, it's going to
be far away that the kids are going to fall asleep,
is it really worth it? But it was so beautiful
to be with thousands of other people just uplifted and
(14:17):
just invigorated and inspired by this powerful music we were
all hearing. That was an experience of joy and upliftment
and we need more of those. But having those experiences
Andriya means that we have to actually come out of
our homes and be physically together. These experiences are very
different online versus when you're physically in the presence of
(14:38):
other people. And it's one of the reasons why I
think it's especially important for young people that we model
how to do that, that we create opportunities to do that,
because I think that we have, maybe in prior generations,
assumed that everybody just develops robust social skills as they
get older because pre sort of digital era, you had
(15:00):
to go and just talk to people find out how to, like,
you know, if you make things work with your roommate
in college or if you went to college, or figure
out how to talk to somebody in middle school and
the lunch room. You know, the middle school is hard
for everybody, myself included. But these days, actually there's an
off ramp. If you feel distress of isolation or social anxiety.
That off ramp is your phone. Right So, and this
(15:22):
is what young people would tell me all the time
when I traveled around the country and spoke to high
school students and college students, as they would say, yeah,
it's when things are stressful. We don't necessarily have to
interact with each other. So maybe there's a mixer or
an orientation, but if we get uncomfortable, we just pull
out our phones. Right. So, I think it's especially important
for us to cultivate these skills and these opportunities for
(15:43):
in person interaction. I want to just share one quote
with you what I actually just came across which moved
me very deeply. It was written by a college students
about thirteen years ago, in twenty twelve, who had when
she was just about to graduate from college, and her
essay that she wrote was called the Opposite of Loneliness,
(16:05):
And this is the quote that really stuck with me.
Her name is Marina Keegan, and tragically, she died five
days after a graduation in a car accident, She says,
we don't have a word for the opposite of loneliness.
It's not quite love, it's not quite community. It's just
this feeling that there are people, an abundance of people
(16:28):
who are in this together, who are on your team.
When the check is paid and you stay at the
table when it's four am, and no one goes to
bed that night with the guitar. That night, we can't
remember that time. We did, we went, we saw, we laughed,
we felt. I think about that quote all the time
(16:52):
because what it reminds me of is that this belonging
that we all need, that's part of our just basic
huven requirement to be alive and thrive. That sense of
belonging can come through these powerful shared experiences. It can
come from knowing that we're in it together, that we're
(17:13):
not alone. During the pandemic, in those early days when
everybody was staying at home, many of us realized that
it meant something to us to be in a coffee
shop with other people, even if we weren't there with
all of our best friends. It meant something to be
in a grocery store and to be passing other people
and seeing, Ah, there's a fellow parent who's shopping for
(17:34):
her child, and I can relate to that. All of
these moments of connection, whether it's with a best friend
or with somebody in our kids school or somebody in
a coffee shop, that contribute to our sense of belonging.
And this is what we need to now intentionally build
in our lives and in the world, because it's a
(17:55):
foundation on which build everything else, from our health, to
our economy to our education. And that's why I think
it has to be such a priority at this moment.
Speaker 7 (18:04):
I feel like so much of this is about these
like individual acts and like and just like like small
decision points like do I reach out to this friend,
do I invite somebody over for dinner? I have nothing
to do this afternoon. Do I spend it with people
or do I spend it but with myself? And I
feel like we all just have to Like it's like
(18:24):
a million of these acts and it's and it's all
of us working that muscle of I will have people
over for dinner today, I will go on a walk
with a friend instead of by myself. I mean, it's
wonderful to have solitude, but it's also it's choosing to
make those make those putting yourself out there a little
bit and having the discomfort of being with another person
who has different thoughts and how do you navigate that.
(18:46):
We had this experience we started this social committee in
our in our condo building, and there was event that
we were going to do on the roof and it
was raining, so we just had everybody over to our
house and everybody kind of just hung out at our
house for hours, and as people were leaving, we had
a strange experience where people said thank you for being
so brave and having us all over, and it just
(19:08):
felt like we're all we've all been living in this
building together for years. We passed each other in the
hallways like like I hear your noise upstairs, Like how
is it brave to have people over? But I think
we want to work toward a world where that is
no longer strange And oh my goodness, wow they did that,
but something that's just normal.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
Because I think it's so easy to your point, and
you know, Vacu made this comment just to reach for
our phones, to zone out, to accept things how they are,
to let us become more disconnected, even the act of
just reaching for our phones. My my wife, actually I'm
gonna say it on air, although she told me to
originally stay it off air, wanted me to actually thank
(19:45):
you for the work that you have done on social media.
We got three boys, and I am yes. Now you're
not in your head like, ah, that's why, because like
so many of our listeners or reviewers are terrified about our
kids growing up in this world of unchecked social media
and the thing we just accept and I'm we know
(20:07):
it as parents, but the two of you know this
as doctors. So I'm so curious to hear from you.
Speaker 7 (20:13):
Recently, I told our kids, mommy's going to start using
my phone less, and I'm gonna I want you to
call me out on it when I'm picking up my
phone and being on the phone instead of like talking
to you, and it's it's shocking how many times that happens.
Why are you on your phone?
Speaker 4 (20:31):
I'm impressed that you had to give them permission to
check you, she automatically checks.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
I love the tangibility that for all of our listeners
viewers like, what a great action as parents to not
just harp on their kids like listen, I have on
my kids a bit on this. So to actually tell
our kids you can have permission to call us out.
It's a powerful suggestion. I love that, Thank you, Alice.
It's very silent. Right now, do they call him out?
Has he given permission? Also?
Speaker 1 (20:58):
You know I haven't given them permission, but they call
me out.
Speaker 4 (21:03):
Welcome to our world.
Speaker 7 (21:06):
It's telling them don't take my example because I'm not
doing a good thing. And that's kind of the reason
of doing it, is to say, like, I'm working on this, like,
don't become like me. Because they're young enough that they
don't have their own phones, they don't really know what
social media is, and so it's really like trying to
like start now of saying this is not this is
not good even though you see me doing it.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
I think this is really important for as a topic.
And I'll tell you, like Craig, one of the reasons
that like I did that advisory on social media and
youth mental health was because this is the most common
question that parents were asking me when I traveled around
the country. They were saying, is social media really okay
for my kids? And they were worried that it wasn't
and they were wondering like, why aren't we hearing more
(21:50):
about it from medicine or public health authorities if it
indeed there are harms here. What we were seeing in
the data is that kids who were spending on average
three and a half hours were more per day on
social media faced double the risk of anxiety and depression symptoms.
And turns out the average amount of use per day
among kids was four point eight hours, so it was
(22:11):
nearly five hours significantly higher than that three and a
half hour threshold. But even if you go beyond those
studies and you look at what are kids telling us
themselves adolescents about how social media is making them feel?
Nearly half were saying that social media made them feel
worse about their body image. Many were saying that it
detracted from their sleep. And also students would tell me
(22:32):
all the time when I traveled, because they would bring
up social media first. Actually in conversations around mental health,
they would most commonly say social media made them feel
worse about themselves as they constantly compared themselves to others.
It made them feel worse about their friendships as they
saw people doing things without them, but they couldn't get
(22:52):
off it, and they felt worse about themselves, and many
of them said that they noticed after those initial years
of the pandem that their friends became glued to their
devices in a way that they hadn't even seen before then,
that it significantly increased because when kids were out of
school in those for early months of the pandemic, they
had their devices and that's what kept them going to
(23:14):
some extent or connected. But now we've come out of that,
but still the addiction to our devices is still there.
So people sometimes have said, is it really accurate or
okay to talk about this as an addiction? And if
you look at the patterns, and I've actually talked to
the normal valcow who's in the head of the National
Institute for Drug Abuse, one of our nation's foremost authorities
(23:37):
on addiction, and to others as well, the patterns that
you see of behavior in people who have problematic use
of social media and their phones is very similar to
what you see in people who are addicted to other substances.
And anyone who's been a parent, you know, as it
sounds like most of us have here and who have
ever given a device to your child early on or
(23:58):
seen them just take the device and then try to
take it away from them. You know that there is
a reaction that is triggered that is often quite unusual.
Our child, the first time that happened with our son,
he's incredibly good nature, like very kind. But when he
was early on, when he was like maybe I don't know,
a couple of years old, he like found a phone
and he was like looking at him and we took
it away. Like the screech and anger from him was
(24:21):
like something we had never experienced before. Who is this
child inside our kid's body? But it is the key
thing to understand here, though, is that is not a fluke.
These were designed to maximize how much time we spend
on them. The entire business model of social media is
based on maximizing your time spent because that translates to
(24:45):
advertising dollars. Right. So you've got the best product engineers
in the world figuring out how to use cutting engineuroscience
to design the features that will keep you on for
longer clicking more, reading more, scrolling more, right, And so
it's one thing to do that to a forty or
fifty year old adult. It's another thing when a child
(25:07):
early in adolescence is at a critical phase of brain development,
when they're more susceptible to social suggestion and social cues
or impulse control has been developed, and you subject them
to that kind of environment, and it's no surprise that
we've seen this sort of addictive behavior. And we have
so many kids who say they want to reduce how
(25:27):
much they use social media but are having a hard
time doing so.
Speaker 6 (25:31):
I'm blown away. I think we're all blown away. We're
all parents here, and I think many parents are probably listening.
But the fact that the pattern of behavior of social
media is the same or equivalent, as you just eloquently said,
to the patterned behavior of other substances, and that's just
that's shocking, and of course that creates greater disconnection. So
if that's the challenge, my question to you, and you've
touched upon it, but put your doctor hat on, take
(25:54):
out your your prescription pad, take out a pen, and
what's the prescription of solving disconnection?
Speaker 1 (25:59):
Well, since you asked for a prescription, it turns out the
final document that I issued when I was search in
general was actually called a parting prescription to America. It
was about what you're getting at, which is there was
this deeper question that had been bothering me for years
when I was in office, meeting people talking to them,
which was this, The question is why are so many
(26:21):
of the people that I meet struggling with a sense
of unhappiness and emptiness? Why do so many of them
feel like something is missing in their lives? And I
realized that many of the narratives that were told that
it's due to economic challenges, security challenges, These are real. Actually,
these really contribute to the unhappiness and anxiety and pain
(26:43):
that people feel. But even when those needs were met,
I was finding there was something else that was missing,
that people were still feeling that sense of unhappiness, they
were still suffering. And what I came to understand through
many conversations and research and data, etc. Was that there
is a story that we have told ourselves, and young
(27:04):
people in particular, a narrative that society has created about
what constitutes success. And young people would often say this
to me most eloquently and clearly, because when I would
travel I would always ask the same question, how do
you define success? And they would say, well, society is
defining for it. Is it for us as money, power,
and fame, And if we can achieve those three things.
(27:27):
Then we will really have made it. People make documentaries
about us or our books about us, it'll be great.
It's why I met so many people who were saying
that there what I would say, what are you focus
on right now? They would say, I'm focused on building
my brand right and there's a small part of me
which you know, died every time. Like somebody said that
because it's I think it's emblematic of a broader problem.
(27:47):
But when you look at what really leads to fulfillment,
it's actually remarkably consistent in research in life experience and
history and in scripture across faiths, which is that it's
a different triad that try to modern day success maybe wealth,
power and fame, but the triad of lifelong fulfillment is
(28:09):
actually relationships, purpose, and service. It's the people we love,
the people we help, and it's how we find purpose
in our lives and lifting each other up and being
a part of something bigger than ourselves. That's actually how
we find fulfillment. The core though, the key about the
try to fulfillment is it has to be rooted in
a core virtue, and that virtue is love. Love and
(28:32):
all its manifestations of generosity, kindness, but also hope and
courage those come from love as well. And in writing
this parting prescription, I was deeply inspired by Reverend Martin
Luther King, by your father and father in law, and
he is call for the beloved community because I saw
the beloved community, and Alison I we'd spend a lot
(28:53):
of time talking about this, because we talk about this
in the context of what when you become a parent,
you start realizing that child is going to need a
lot more than you can provide to live a fulfilling life.
They're going to depend on the world around them, and
the question for us is what can we do to
help make sure that that world is going to be
there for our kids and for all kids, that it's
going to be a nurturing world where if they fall down,
(29:14):
somebody is going to be there to help them up,
if they make a mistake, somebody is not going to
judge them in the worst possible bay way, but give
them the benefit of the doubt and where they will
do the same for others. And to me, that beloved
community is about belonging. It's about making love the ethic
and the compass through which we are guided in our lives.
(29:35):
It's about building a life rooted in relationships, purpose and service.
We want to also build out this narrative and conversation
around how to live a better life right because people
want to live a better Many people in their gut
are saying, right now, is this all like? Isn't there
something more? There is something more right, and we can
(29:56):
find it together, But only if we talk about it,
only if we are open about it, Only if we
come together and start creating opportunities for ourselves and for
our children to engage in a life that's rooted in relationships,
in service, and in a sense of purpose. And when
you keep in mind the fact that right now, more
than half of eighteen to twenty four year olds say
they have little to no sense of meaning or purpose
(30:17):
in their lives, that tells us that we've got some
work to do to make the future brighter for current
and future generations.
Speaker 4 (30:25):
And one of the things that the four of us
are working on together. You talked about shared joy and
shared experiences and is this the project realized the dream
which I know that you all both also are participating in.
And you know we certainly encourage you know, anyone listening
in as well. It's really about how we can come together,
stand together and heal some of this device that we're
(30:49):
talking about through serving, so finding service projects and being
involved and building the world that you want to be
a part in. So is something that I know the
four of us are very exc and honored to be
working on together, and we're so happy that you all
are joining us in that endeavor as well. Now, Alice,
you're at the White House when the Affordable Care Act
(31:11):
was signed.
Speaker 5 (31:12):
Yay you.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
But most importantly, you really helped rally doctors across the country.
You really helped to organize to support the act. So
as we're looking at a time now when more and
more people are losing their health care or in danger
of losing their health care, what do you think it
will take for this country to finally decide that healthcare
(31:35):
is a right and not a privilege.
Speaker 7 (31:38):
I think this actually goes back to the conversation we're
just having about being feeling connected to one another. I
feel like we're in a moment when there are a
lot of forces telling us to otherwise others that there
are many people who are worthless, who don't deserve food, shelter,
(32:00):
they don't they don't deserve healthcare, they don't deserve the
basic building blocks of life, And I think that we
need to just have a much better understanding that we're
all actually very connected. I think there are there are
very very few of us in the modern world who
can survive on their own. I we couldn't. We couldn't,
(32:22):
We couldn't survive a couple of days on our on
our own. But feeling connected to when we eat a meal,
who are the Who are the farmers who put those
seas in the ground, Who are the truck drivers who
drove that to the grocery store? Who are the people
picking your food? Who are all those people? And shouldn't
we make sure that they are all taken care of?
For the reasons of just shared humanity and very practical
(32:45):
reasons of like we need all of those people. I
think we need to start with that basic understanding that
if we all do well, we all do well, and
that's what leads to us being able to decide, okay,
healthcare should be a right that it doesn't matter who
you are and what choices you've made in your life.
(33:07):
If you have strep throat, you ought to be able
to go to the doctor and get some antibiotics. If
you have appendicitis, you ought to be able to go
to the hospital, get your appendix taken out, and not
feel like you're going to lose your house and everything
you own because of it. I think we just have
to see each other as our brothers, as our sisters
in order to make sure that we're all taken care of.
Speaker 5 (33:28):
We're building something real here, one episode at a time.
If you want to be part of it, to subscribe,
It's free, it matters and weird. Yes, getting started.
Speaker 4 (33:40):
Now back to my legacy.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
We moved to my wife's families farm to reconnect with nature,
to let our kids run outside. Because I don't think
these things that you're describing here happen by accident. We
have to put an environment around ourselves, in rituals and
traditions around ourselves to facilitate connection, to facilitate friendship, to
(34:04):
facilitate family rituals. So can we take a peek into
your family? Forgive me, but give me a little personal here.
What are some of the rituals that you have that
as a couple, or with your children or in your
water extended family that help anchor you.
Speaker 7 (34:20):
Like rituals are some of the like goofy things that
we do.
Speaker 4 (34:22):
Tell us that's what we want to hear. Okay, let's
not okay, don't tell us the family rituals. Please tell
us the goofy things.
Speaker 6 (34:29):
Yes, I just want to say, just it was really endearing.
Just for a moment, you were like such a powerful
force of good everybody knows you are, and you just
took a sip of water with a Hello Kitty cup
and you put that Hello Kitty cup back up. Because
I thought that was so enduring. I wanted to give
you a hot and mean like I love you because
(34:49):
you're using a Hello Kiddy cup and my girls will
think you're cool.
Speaker 7 (34:52):
Now. I did not think you're actually going to take
a simp of that. Vic is an amazing storyteller. I
mean of stories like in life generally, but also making
up stories for our children. So that's part of our
like bedtime when if the kids go to bed on time,
(35:13):
which doesn't happen that often, but when they do, we
all lie down in bed together, turn off the lights
and Vic spins these like crazy tales and they're like
favorite characters that we all have when we get really
excited when they when they show up on the scene.
Oh my gosh, So and so is back. So that's
definitely one of my one of my favorites.
Speaker 3 (35:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
One of the trisions we have which we love is
in this summer. We always try to split the summers
between our grandparents, between our kids grandparents, so our parents,
so it's half the time in California, half in Miami
and that, you know, it's interesting because that means that
like our kids aren't like you know, taking classes or
in like you know, summer camps for the whole like
(35:58):
duration you know, with other kids and d see. But
for us, we're like, you know what, even if they
miss those things, like being with family is important, so
we want to do that.
Speaker 7 (36:06):
And the morning on the way to school, will often
ask them to say one thing they're grateful for, and
it's so fun to hear from the kids what that
thing is, and same at the end of the night,
like you know, what's you know, what's your rose, what's
your bud, what's your thorn? What the nice thing that
happened to when we look forward to it was a
bad thing. Sometimes the thorn really surprises you, like I
(36:28):
didn't get that, Like I didn't get to eat that
orange and you're like, that was a that was your
biggest path that It's a fun little insight.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
We also we want them. We know that there's such
a big emphasis on science and you know, stem learning, science, technology, engineering,
math stuff. But we actually it's really important to us
that our kids are creative, that they have like I feel,
they have the liberty to to just express that and
cultivate that side in them. So we just recently started
doing this fun thing where we'll give them three words
(37:02):
and we'll ask them to make up his story with
his three words, right, so they could be three and
they're often very unrelated, like caterpillar, like orange and New Jersey,
you know, something like that, and then they'll they'll have
to like spin a story with those. And I just
the other thing I actually really love doing with them
is and we do this often when Alice is on
(37:24):
a conference call and she needs quiet, so I'll take
the kids to another room and then we'll just play
these music videos and then dance together, you know, and
and that'll just it's just us just like dancing together,
and it's fun. And so it's, uh, yeah, we have
all kinds of there's a lot of goofiness at our house.
This is like, it's yeah, like and I'm probably the
(37:47):
the goofiest person and that's what the kids say.
Speaker 7 (37:50):
So very few people know that one of the Biggs
core traits is goofiness.
Speaker 4 (37:54):
Well now the world knows, so thank you.
Speaker 6 (37:58):
I just want to put your parenting hat on, I
mean a pharmaceut to general. You've obviously impacted so many parents,
But put your dad hat on, and then NOALYSI if
youre going to put your mum hat on. We recently
helped launch a platform called This Way Up that helps
to empower girls and their moms around the issue of
mental health. What's the pep talk? What's the words of
advice you're going to tell to your own kids?
Speaker 7 (38:17):
Keep an eye out for ways that you can help people,
even if they're like teeny tiny, or like holding a
door for somebody who's coming in with some groceries. But
to do that, to not only keep an eye out,
but to choose to oh should I should not? Is
it intrusive to hold the door? Just do it? I
(38:38):
think making that a part of what you do in
the world is I think it will be really important
for them.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
Yeah, I completely agree, and I think we would also
want to tell them that it's normal to feel ups
and downs, that they're not bad or doing something wrong
or broken, because they feel that, but all of us
feel it, even if we don't always talk about it.
I'd also want them to know it's okay to ask
for help, it's okay to share what you're going through.
And I think the worst feeling for a parent is
(39:08):
to see your child suffering, and even worse to know
that they're suffering in silence and alone. And I think
being able to help our kids know that it's okay
for them to talk to us and then to others
about how they're feeling is really important. One of the
things I'll just share with you, this is actually a ritual,
if you will, that we do with our kids, is
(39:32):
we also want them to know, in a world that's
constantly telling them who they should be and why they
are not enough, we want our kids to know that
they are enough, that their worth is intrinsic, that it's
not extrinsic. So like we will often like you know,
whisper to our children, you know at the you know,
(39:52):
before they go to bed at night, is something to
that effect. So like I'll often tell my son, as
I did last night, that always remind him that just
always remember that doesn't matter what other people think, that
what matters is that he believes in himself. And I'll
tell him that we believe in him, that we always
believe in him, and to remember that he's strong and
(40:15):
that he's brave and that he's kind. And that's what
we tell our daughter too, So those are the words
that we wish rich of them before they fall asleep
at night.
Speaker 4 (40:24):
Do you intentionally choose that time? Because one of the
things that I know is that the two most potent
times are when we first wake up in the morning,
but even more powerful of a seed planting time, if
you will, is what thoughts, visions, prayers, what's in your
mind right before you go to sleep, because you literally
(40:44):
are programming yourself for the next eight plus hours. So
is that do you intentionally choose that time with that knowledge?
Speaker 7 (40:53):
So?
Speaker 1 (40:53):
Yes, Actually, when I was growing up, my mother was
a strong believer in the idea that what you are
exposed to before you go to sleep just percolates through
your head throughout the night, and so she always used
to tell us like, don't watch like scary things on TV.
Like when we were kids, she was tell us at
or don't read books that are disturbing or whatever. Like
read something that's going to commune center. You make you
(41:14):
feel peaceful and so thankfully, like our kids aren't on devices,
so they're not you know, looking at their devices right
before they go to bed, and so that's good. But
we wanted to fill their head with something positive. So
we always actually do we have a prayer ritual. We
always do prayers together, you know, before they go to sleep,
and then once the lights are out and the sheets
are over them. This is what will whisper into their ears,
(41:36):
the reminder for them to believe in themselves, and we
tell them that they're kind, they're brave, and they're strong.
Speaker 4 (41:42):
Well, we've talked a lot about loneliness and disconnection. I'm
very curious because if any of our listeners are experiencing
that or their children, what are things that any of
us that are feeling lonely or loneliness? What can we
do to overcome that? What are some suggestions?
Speaker 1 (42:01):
The first thing I'd say anyone who's experiencing loneliness is
it's important to know that you are not broken. This
is a common experience a lot of us have. It's
our body's way of telling us that something we need
that's essential for survival. In this case, social connection is missing,
and it's just like hunger or thirst in that way.
I think what's also important is to recognize that the
(42:22):
path toward connection actually starts with simple and small steps.
That we don't have to overhaul our entire life or
uproot ourselves, quit our job, move to a different city
in order to build connection. And here are a few
simple things that I would offer. One is that we
can start by just taking five minutes a day to
reach out to someone we care about. That could be
(42:43):
a friend, just to check in and say, hey, I
was thinking about you, wanted to know how you're doing.
It could be to a family member, but those five
minutes make a difference. The second thing we can do
is we can make sure that when we're with other people,
whether it's talking on the phone or visiting with them
in person, that we're fully present, that we're not on
our devices all the time, because five minutes of uninterrupted,
(43:05):
focused conversation with somebody is often more powerful than a
half hour of distracted conversation. But the last thing that
we can do is find one small thing each day
that we can do to help someone. It could be
something very simple, like we see somebody in the grocery
store who's spilled their groceries on the ground and we
lean over to help pick them up. Or we're see
somebody who's lost in the street or co work who's
(43:27):
having a hard time at school, or a classmate who
looks like they're struggling and we just pause and say, hey,
you wanted to check on you. Are you doing okay?
These small moments of service are really important, not just
for the other person, but for us as a person
rendering the service, because service turns out to be one
of the most powerful antidotes to loneliness. It connects us
to somebody but reminds us that we have value to
(43:49):
give to the world. And that's so important because one
of the corrosive effects of loneliness over time is it
can erode our self esteem. It can make us feel
that the reason we're lonely is because we're not likable,
that something is wrong with us. Fundamentally, the moments of
service remind us that that's in fact not the case.
So these small things five minutes a day to reach
(44:11):
out to someone we care about, being present when we're
with other people and off our devices, and one small
thing to help someone each day. These can help us
build a stronger and stronger sense of connection.
Speaker 3 (44:22):
I love the prescription that you have given for all
of us and our listeners. I love the fact that
you have dedicated yourselves to showing up. You may not
do house calls nutritional sense, but you've been in our lives.
You've been in the lives of Americans. And for speaking
about service purpose connection, for talking about the goofy family
(44:45):
rituals that you so kindly shared with us today that
I loved, For being so open with us in such
a beautiful and moving conversation on behalf of all of us,
but on behalf of so many whose lives you've touched.
Thank you both so much, Thank.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
You so much.
Speaker 2 (45:05):
Thank you for joining us. If you enjoyed today's conversation, subscribe, share,
and follow us on at my Legacy Movement on social
media and YouTube. New episodes drop every Tuesday, with bonus
content every Thursday. At its core, this podcast honors doctor
King's vision of the beloved community and the power of connection.
(45:27):
A Legacy plus Studio Production, distributed by iHeartMedia. Creator and
executive producer Susanne Hayward, co executive producer Lisa Lyle. Listen
on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hosts And Creators
Craig Kielburger
Marc Kielburger
Martin Luther King III
Arndrea Waters King
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