September 12, 2022 • 39 mins
Neurosurgeon Dr. Mark McLaughlin is a best-selling author, inspirational speaker, coach, and philanthropist with a passion for teaching and sharing. Dr. McLaughlin shares with parents how understanding the brain development of a child can enable parents to foster positive outcomes for their children for the rest of their lives.
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(00:05):
Hi, I'm Barrie Farber, andthis is in search of the magic tree.
What magic are we looking for?Well, if you think about a
tree, several things come to mind. One the roots, the foundation for
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something great. Two the branches representingthe connection and continuation of our legacy as
we pass down the values and beliefsto the next generation. And three potential,
something that starts as small as anacorn and becomes a giant oak.
We're going to explore how we canbuild the mind, body, and spirits
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of our children. How to raiseour kids with key traits like patients,
positive attitudes, courage, empathy,determination, and more. Join me on
this adventure as we talk to celebrities, athletes, entertainers, business leaders,
educators, brain surgeons, and moreabout the magic to building success at an
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early age. Doctor Mark McLaughlin,it's it's great to have you on again.
It's great to talk to you again. Welcome. It's a pleasure to
be here, Barry. You know, before we even start, I was
thinking to myself all the things you'vedone, and even before talking about how
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the child's mind works, the adultmind and so forth. You were fascinated
by the brain at an early ageand the magic of the mind, what
makes it work? And I wantto understand how you even got into this
at an early age. What startedyou on the path of becoming a brain
surgeon. Sure, and I'm terrificallygrateful for where I am now and the
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people that have helped me along theway. I just wanted to start off
with saying one of my greatest memorieswas the last time I was on your
show and you pulled out an operationgame and you made me do an operation
on the spot. So it always, it always stuck with me, and
so I was eager to speak withyou today. And the topic that you've
chosen is so important and so criticallyinteresting in this day and age because we
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know so much more about the brainthan we did years ago when we were
kids. I was so fortunate tobe brought up in a family of doctors.
My grandfather was a doctor, myuncles were doctors, my great uncle
was a doctor. Now, myfather wasn't a doctor. He was an
attorney, and he played an importantrole with my mom and dad both in
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my education. But I was aroundmy grandfather. I had a very close
relationship with him. He lived inWest Orange. I used to and we
lived the street below, and whenI was a little kid and I wasn't
happy with what mom was telling meto down down at home, I would
just run away to Grahama and Grandpa'shouse one block up, and I would
hang out with my grandfather. Ijust remember from a very early age,
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you know, that he was adoctor that people called him. He helped
people, and he was on calla lot, and he was a needed
person and saved a lot of lives. So I was I was, you
know, so so lucky to havesomebody like that. I mean, I
used to carry his black bag onhouse calls when I was a kid.
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And then as I got into youknow, my my adolescence, it really
stuck with me the interest of caringwith people. And it wasn't necessarily the
brain at that time. That sortof came when I got to medical school,
but but definitely the interest in servingpeople and caring for people. I
was the pool doctor at the swimclub, and I would wear this yellow
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hat and walk around the pool andgive out band aids to people with who
stubbed their toes. And so itwas really ingrained in me very early to
serve people and to care for themand in their health, and that really
stuck with me my whole life.That's an amazing story because it just sounds
like you have a very You knowthat, Maulu, that successful surroundings at
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an early age allowed you to kindof pick up information that way, and
that I see that in later yearswhen we talked previously, what you've done.
You know, you dedicated your adultlife to understanding the brain and how
it works, how it functions.You know, your job as a neurosurgeon
is to repair the brain when itbreaks down. And I was just curious,
how do you look at a youngMark McLaughlin when you started out doing
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this as a career. What what? What did you say? Well?
It actually I think that the importantconcept is stimulation of the brain. And
I remember when I would run awayto my grandparents house. I'd go sit
on my grandfather's share on his lapand he had the television on but the
volume at zero. He had theradio on. He'd listened to W I.
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N. S. And he wasreading a book while at the same
time. And what a great lessonfor a little kid. You know,
here's a person who wanted knowledge somuch. He was drinking from three different
sources at the same time. Thebrain, we say it's like a muscle
in many respects. It is becauseyou need to stress it for it to
get stronger, for it to improve, and it for it to thrive.
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It's not a muscle, it's anorgan, but it's the same concept.
You know, you go to thegym and do curls, and its strengthens
and grows your biceps. If youchallenge your brain by learning a piano,
or learning a new language, orlearning a new hand eye coordination skill,
all of those things will strengthen theconnectivity in your brain and it will lead
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to a fruitful life, and itwill also decrease the chances of you having
neural degeneration in the form of dementiasand other type of neurodegenerative diseases. You
know, one of the breakthroughs thathappened in my life is, you know,
I have three kids. They're allgrown, but my daughter was young
three four years old, and Iwas interviewing doctor Fred Plum and doctor Fred
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Epstein, and you're familiar with them, and they were saying to me,
you know, you should start readingto your kids at the age of like
a month, two months and Iwas like, really, you know,
they pick up sounds and vowels andand and it's a bonding effect. And
the plasticity of the brain at anearly age is just amazing what it can
learn by the age of two anda half. Look what that looks,
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walks, it talks. So mything is what makes me amazed is there's
one hundred and forty million babies borna year and there's the brains that are
open for nurture. You know,Nature's there, and it's amazing the brain.
But what can we do at anearly age to really create the foundation
so that once this brain does forhim, even though I know you mentioned
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it's plasticity can be ongoing up intoour later years. But but at that
maximum stage, at an early age, what can parents do to really impact
the kids that way? Well,you know, Barry, the brain grow
four times its size during the preschoolyears of a child's life. So from
being born to being a preschooler,it grows four times in size and connections,
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and it reaches I never knew thatfour times. Never. A child's
brain reaches ninety percent of its adultsize by the age of six, So
your brain size is essentially determined bythe age six, and it's growing rapidly
from your birth up until that thatage. And it is it's you talk
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about reading, it's critical. Imean there, they've done studies of reading
to one year olds in this reignsfrom one to three, and what they
see is it's the quantity actually translatesinto quality. And what I mean by
that is that a child that isread to between the age of one and
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three essentially has a much stronger vocabulary, much stronger comprehension of words, and
a motivation to read. And youknow, the scientific journals use the word
motivation, but I would say whatit is is a curiosity. And that
is what is so critically important ininstilling in children is to coax out the
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natural curiosity that a child has.And that's something that I think we all
lose as we get older, andit's important for us to really rekindle it
and gain it back and encourage it. And not only do the children that
are read to have higher vocabulary andcomprehension the parents that read to them.
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This is scientific proof the parents thatread to them have better vocabulary and syntax
after reading to their children. Soit's not just the child that benefits me.
Why is that? Doctor? Whywould that be especially at the level
of the one year old two yearold because most children books, most children's
books actually have good sent acts andthey have really good vocabulary words in them.
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They're not complex. You don't needto be an extremely high functioning intellectual
person with fancy words. The wordsthat you see in Doctor SEUs, the
words that you see and hey,I loved Little Billy. That was great.
The words that you see in thatbook are fantastically simple and important,
and the more an adult hears thosewords, the more they're likely to live
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up to them. There's a questionI have for you now, speaking of
the adventures Little Billy in search ofthe Magic Tree and that whole search process,
and you know from Diamond and theRough my goal was to take the
different attributes of attitude or courage orempathy and all that. Do you think
that can have a huge impact ona child's life, like especially the books
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you choose and look, we haveiPads and we send them off and we
let them see a show or whateverthey do. But I want to understand
the difference between that and reading somethingpositive with a story that makes their imagination
go wild and the bonding effect,and then go into a talk about museums
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and hands on applications and building blocksand so forth. Well, you know,
Barry, a teacher taught me along time ago that you are the
author of the dictionary you carry around. And I tell that to my wrestlers
all the time. What words areyou putting in your dictionary? If you're
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putting words like respect and courage andwisdom and compassion and those types of words,
and you're talking about them and you'resaying them, they not only reveal
your thoughts, they create your thoughts. So I'm a big advocate of words
and the choice of words and howthey actually shape the way we think.
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You know the old William James quote, I'm not whistling because I'm happy.
I'm happy because I whistle. Itcan cause you to feel that way.
And that's the beauty of reading isit stimulates your brain. It puts words
in vocabulary in your brain, andwords become thoughts become action, and that's
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really what it comes down to.That's a powerful message. And if I
had to look back on my owngrowing up, I really was never into
school. When I say not intoit, I got bored. I looked
out the window. I daydreamed.I had to go to a place where
my parents took me because they wantedto understand what was I a slow LEARNERD
Why wasn't I interested? And myfather was an art teacher of vice principle,
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my mother and nurse from education,they read a lot. You know
now I'm a voracious reader, butback then I couldn't get into it.
So can you describe what happened withmy early childhood and maybe many kids and
then what can somebody do a parentdo to engage them more and make a
difference at that early age. I'msimilar to you. I was not a
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strong reader as a child, andI think that it does come down to
the earliest days were you read to. I was a third child. I
think my older brothers got read tomore than I did because my mom was
just so busy taking care of everybody. But I think you can cultivate it
and coax it out of anybody atany time. If I had to do
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it all over again, I wouldabsolutely be reading more and more to my
kids. But we also have technologyon our hands that can assist with that,
and I have to say, notonly do I read a lot,
I also listen a lot. Audibleis a great way to still take in
a book. And I think thereare bridges that you can cross to help
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kids that are maybe slower readers.Maybe it's more frustrating for them, but
I think if you truly can finda subject that a child is interested in,
that curiosity is going to pull themthrough. That is what's going to
be the best carriage to get themhooked on reading is going to be to
find something and interest them, andonce it interests them, then really broaden
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it gradually and slowly. I lovethat's that's right on. To find the
passion early on and see how theyare attracted to that and then want to
read about it and want to hearabout it as young as we are,
when we're know the ages from zeroto five. I've heard this said that
we can learn five six languages,which really blew my mind that you know
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five six languages by the age offive. Can we talk about that about
the brain, the plasticity of thatbrain at an early age, you know,
absorbing that type of information and thatkind of learning five languages. Yes,
in a child's brain really from immediatelyafter they're born till probably around eight
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years of age. There is moreconnectivity at that time in their life than
any other time. The brain hasthe most connect actions. And then what
happens as we move into adulthood isthere's something they call it's called pruning,
and pruning occurs when we start,you know, selectively choosing activities that we
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start to master. And what happensis some of those other pathways will atrophy
and fall away. So the reasonthat a child can learn multiple languages is
they have many more pathways for thatto be digested by their brain. So
think of it as as like umin an infant and a young child,
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think of their brain almost as likea gigantic network of hundreds and hundreds of
roads to get from here. Um, you know, I live in Princeton,
New Jersey to Miami. There's justthink of the hundreds and hundreds of
roads that you can get there,and think of there there are advantages to
that, like if there's a problemor a fire in some area, you
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have another route to go, Youhave multiple roots to go. But as
we get older, we form thoseroot ones in those ninety fives and all
the other roads kind of atrophy.They grow weeds, they get trees that
grow on them, and they're notaccessible. So really that's that's what brain
plasticity it is is it allows pathwaysto bypass and obstruction. So, for
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instance, up to the age ofabout eight, if a child comes in
with a brain tumor in their speecharea, and most of the time speech
is contained in the left frontal lobeof the brain, and if a child
comes in eight and under with atumor in their speech area, we can
operate on it, remove it,and even if a large portion of their
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speech apparatus in the left hemisphere isdamaged, their speech will come back and
they will learn and have normal speechbecause the right front the lobe takes over.
But if that surgery happens generally aftereight, they lose that speech and
they'll lose that speech forever. Asa child. They have multiple pathways for
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them to figure something out. Andthis is what leads me to talk about
something called cognitive reserve. And cognitivereserve is a way of setting up your
brain to not malfunction as you enterinto your elder years. And we can
talk more about but basically it's creatingother pathways as an adult, so that
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you have more words to describe anobject, so that you have more ways
to articulate what you're thinking. Andthe reason that's helpful is as you get
older, let's say you have astroke in one area, you have another
pathway that will allow you to articulateyourself without struggling. And so that's something
that you can do to strengthen yourbrain as an adult, But as a
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child, it's already hardwired into you. How old are your kids now,
doctor McLaughlin. I have a twentynine year old, twenty eight year old,
twenty six year old, and atwenty five year old. Right,
okay, So I'm thinking to myself, I'm curious and I know what I
would do, But what would youdo differently knowing what you know now when
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they were two years old, threeyears old, one years old? Or
would you not do anything different?Oh gosh, you know, we all
think of things we could do betteras a parent. Educationally, I was
lucky than my wife, Julie.It was a Varie is a voracist reader,
and she read to the kids muchmore than I did because I was
busy in the operating room. ButI think being more curious about their lives.
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You know, what I would dois I'd come home after a long
day and I'd want, I wantto play with them, but they would
be doing her homework or something,and Julie would say, look, you
know, you have to adapt totheir day. They can't adapt to your
day. And so I think definitelyin that respect. But you know,
as a young adult, what I'mdoing, Barry is most people in that
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age group, they're not strong readers. They take in podcasts, they watch
TV, and they play a lotof video games. Fortunately, my kids
don't do a lot of that.But what I do is I try and
help them along reading. If Iread a good book, what I'll do
is I'll literally highlight a couple ofparagraphs that I think are really important,
or one chapter. I'll put apost it note on them, and I'll
mail them the book and I'll say, you don't have to read the whole
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book, just read this one chapter. Just read these paragraphs I highlighted.
Here's a speech that I saw thatwas really good. Read this. And
so it's a way of just sortof digesting it making it easier for them.
And I think in children that's thesame way too break it down.
For one kid, you could sitthere and read them a whole chapter,
and another kid you probably just needto read them one page and then have
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a conversation about it. So peopledigest information at different rates at different times
in their lives. Now I cantake in I can read three or four
books at a time. You thinkof these kids when I like Diamond in
the Roughs. They're they're born,they're right there in your hands. You
can mold them. And you wantto know that what you're doing is important
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and has value. And I'd liketo understand your view on nature versus nurture
and what we can do with thesurroundings they're in and and and ken and
is there a huge difference? Um? You know, everybody says you know
you have great kids. You knowit takes a lot of work. So
I wanted to hear what kind ofwork is important for parents to do with
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their kids at that early stage.You know, it's great you asked that.
I just came across a recent articleabout that, and I can,
I can. I can send youa copy of it for for your listeners.
Um, but they looked at youknow, the complex ways that our
brain develops, and no question,there is a genetic code and it does
unfold in ways that we don't havea lot of control over. But there's
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there's also very strong evidence that thereare multiple factors that affect how those genes
play out. And this one articlethat I recently read cited eight factors,
and those factors were these are theseare sort of the nurture factors, not
the nature factors. And the nurturefactors were sensory input as a child.
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So that's again what you're talking about, reading, singing, reciting poetry,
um, all of the sensory inputsthe children get. Unfortunately it's drugs.
If kids are exposed to drugs,either prenatally with a mother's addiction or drugs
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in childhood and adolescents, it canclearly affect brain function. Hormones. Third
third effectum parent child relationships, peerrelationships, early stresses on the nervous system,
gut flora very interesting finding, anddiet. So there are eight factors
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that affected brain development, and Ithink each one of those, you know,
we have influence over. We canas parents, we can control or
at least assist in our kids diet. We can make sure that they're eating
the right foods that you know,they have a good microbiome in their in
their gut with some yogurts and somehealthy bacteria, we can assess the types
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of levels of stress that they're undergoingand not protect them from all of it.
I think we're seeing a lot ofpeople that have been over a lot
of kids have been overprotected. Youknow, there's a there are important factors
in stress that help us develop.The relationships obviously are key both peers and
with adults. I'm a big believerin really spending as much time as your
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kids with your kids as you can. Nowadays, kids are on the computer,
and they're on their phones texting,and their closest friends are they're also
their trusted advisors. And these advisorsare kids that have no experience, So
they're advising your daughter or your sonon important topics that they don't know anything
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about. That You've been around forthirty years and you know what's what's right
and what's wrong in terms of guidingsomebody to right decisions. So pure relationships
are and parent child relationships are soso important. So those are the sorts
of things that can affect development,and so it's it's truly a dance between
nature and nurture. You know,we might do a deep dive one day,
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because you could just keep talking aboutall the talk about eight essential facets
there you're talking about, And Iwant to come back to diet in a
moment that you just mentioned. ButI have something in my mind that that
has bothered me, and it's sometimesyou know, Sherman the turtle and the
story I send you is all aboutdiscipline, about effort, and I think
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of sometimes reaching for the ball togive it to him, or you're letting
him crawl to the ball, oryou know, at that stage, all
the way up to the point ofletting them fail sometimes and learn on their
own and be there to support butnot to do everything for them. I
would like to understand that, especiallyat an early age, where that becomes
the foundation for later in life.Now I have more experience in kids,
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you know, from basically from fromsecond grade to eighth grade, because I
coach a youth wrestling team, andmy experiences with those kids are again,
I talk to them about the importanceof words, and I give them various
different sayings. So one of thethings I tell them is that the mind
has to lead the body. Thebody can't lead the mind, and so
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the mind has to You have totrain your mind to sometimes do things that
are a little bit uncomfortable for yourbody, i e. Push ups or
sit ups or running or you knowthose types of activities. And I talk
to them about I talk to themabout the hardest, the hardest workout they're
ever going to do, the hardestmaybe run they're ever going to do.
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Is when they they plan a courseand they're running the course and they come
to a place where they can takea shortcut. There's no one around but
them, and they have to makea decision. Am I gonna take a
shortcut here? Or am I gonnado what needs to get done? And
I tell them, you know,this is a very important decision you have
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to make, and that decision,the only person that's going to have to
live with that decision is you.It can shape everything that you do beyond
that, because that's a metaphor,right, this is a metaphor. If
you are going to take a shortcuton your workout, then maybe you'll take
a shortcut on your math homework,and maybe you'll take a shortcut on your
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science exam, and maybe you'll takea shortcut when you're in a business someday,
and maybe you'll take a shortcut andnot do the right thing. So
it's really important when you're on yourown to do what you think is going
to be best for you. Youknow, they've done the great studies with
kids in Halloween candy leave a bigbowl of candy in a room and the
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sign says take one, please,please take one. And then they have
one room that has a mirror init and one room that doesn't have a
mirror in it, and the onethat has a mirror in it where the
kids can actually see themselves taking thecandy, they they're more likely to take
one candy than if the room doesn'thave a mirror. So I tell them,
hey, you need to act likeas if there's a mirror following you
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every day, because there is.So if you extrapolate that to young kids,
now that's a that's a complex lesson. But I think healthy challenges.
I think that's what you're talking about, and I think those are those are
key healthy challenges. Talking to akid about what it challenge is. It
challenge is something that you you shootfor, you aim for you're not sure
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if you can get but you makethe commitment to go for it and try.
And it's okay to fail with thesechallenges because that's how we grow.
So I think that same level ona lower on a cerebral level can be
taught to even you know, preschoolers. Right, Well, that's great,
great advice that you're talking about withthese kids and when you're coaching, and
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that that whole statement about you knowyou're gonna make that decision, you're gonna
live with that decision. And Iremember the quote that said hard work beats
talent when talent doesn't work hard.I'd like to repeat it, hard work
beats talent when talent doesn't work hard. And it's almost like somebody's talented,
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they take it for granted and theydon't think they have to work as hard,
and somebody who works twice as hardrealizes that they can get past that
person. I just think effort andand that that intense passion for something,
it just makes such a huge differencein people's lives. Later on that that
if there was a way to teachthat at an early age without making it
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easy for kids sometimes or you know, I think that's an important piece of
the puzzle to build a successful child. You wrestled your your state champ.
You know, I can go intoall the details of your background, but
I brought that game operation and Ididn't even tell you. I know,
I didn't tell you, and Iwas nervous about that. But you performed
under pressure like nobody. You know. My son still tells me about this
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when he saw the show. Isthat how you put your rested your arm
on the table as you moved thepieces in the operation, so that it
gave it much more of a sturdystance. And he does that now with
certain things and anything about operating thatyou can share with us that's given you
insights into breakthroughs in your life thatyou'd like to share with the listener.
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Yes, I've had a recent breakthroughwhich I really I'm really excited about and
goes back to a statement I madeto somebody and I said, you know,
I wrote this in my book CognitiveDominance, the story about me getting
ready to do a difficult operation.And I'm sitting in my car in a
parking lot at the hospital on aFriday afternoon, and you know, as
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I'm unbuckling my belt, my seatbelt. I realize I'm I'm physically tired.
You know. It's been a longweek. I've had seven operations that
week. My surgery that I'm supposedto do now was bumped from eleven o'clock
to two thirty, which is notan ideal time to operate because the shift
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change happens at three, and I'mgoing to have somebody who's competent, but
somebody who isn't familiar with the instrumentsthat were set out on the table at
one thirty when they were preparing theoperation. And I'm doing an operation that's
got significant danger to it. It'sa tumor that's near a very large vein
in the brain. If I'm workingin that area, it can be some
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very serious bleeding. And it's it'sit's a procedure that I've done many times,
but it's it's not a procedure thatI've done recently. So I've got
this significant get level of anxiety goinginto it. I get a phone call
from my father's doctor and he tellsme that my father has leukemia and his
prognosis is very poor, and soI'm just like, oh my gosh,
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I got to go talk to mydad, I can't do this surgery.
There's no way. I'm mentally,I'm just I'm not ready for it.
I'm going to have to cancel thesurgery. So I knew I had to
go in and I had to gotalk to this patient. As I walked
in the hospital, I just,you know, I was sort of thinking,
Gosh, I mean, how amI gonna tell this guy this?
How am I gonna you know,he's ready, And but I just I
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did not feel like I could dothe surgery. So I had convinced myself
I was going to cancel the surgery. And as I started walking in,
I heard like this, this standsup from Rudyard Kipling's if that my father
had given me many years ago.And then this is again the power of
reading, the power of literature.And I remember the verses that they just
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stuck it right out like a lightningbolt in my head. If you can
meet with triumph and disaster and treatthose two impostors just the same, if
you can fill the unforgiving minute withsixty seconds worth of distance run, if
you can force your heart and nerveand sinew to serve their turn long after
they're done, and as I lookeddown the hallway, I saw this gentleman
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and he was there with his wifeand his three children at the bedside.
And at that moment, I said, you know what, what would my
father want me to do. Hewould want me to do my job.
He would want me to help thisman who needs my help right now.
And you know what, I'm notgoing to cancel this surgery. I'm going
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to dedicate this surgery to him.I'm not going to quit. I'm going
to make this my finest hour.And I shook this man's hand and I
said, we're ready to go.I took him back, did the operation,
did it well, took him tothe recovery room, and then I
went to go see my father.And I realized that I was inspired by
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that poetry. If you'd asked methat a year ago, I would say
I was inspired by that poetry.But you know what my teacher taught me
the other day is he said,you weren't inspired by that poetry. In
the presence of that poetry, youbecame a better person. In the presence
of that poetry, you became lessfearful and more loving, more loving of
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your father, and more loving ofthe profession that you chose, and when
you became less fearful, you becamemore effective. I'm telling you, I
remember that quote. Treat those twoimpostors the same. Just that whole scenario
there that was That's an amazing situationyou were in and what you've done and
looking back on that, how doesthat make you feel today? I love
(31:56):
it and I tell my wrestlers thisall the time. You know what triumph
and disaster is. It's thinking aboutwhether you're gonna win or you're gonna lose.
Forget it. It's in the past, it's in the future, it's
not where you're at. Just goout there and follow your drilled and your
rules and everything that you practiced,and let it all hang out and the
rest will take care of itself.There's a saying I go by and it's
(32:21):
one of the most difficult sayings toconvey or also believe yourself. It's those
who desire nothing possess everything. Andyou know we had this discussion in the
past, those who desire nothing possesseverything. What does that mean? Meaning
that you know, the desire towin is not blocking your focus and your
action and just want to take abreak for a second and let the listeners
(32:44):
realize how powerful some of the thingsyou're saying are. And I also the
things you're talking about and the thingswe've talked about about a child's mind.
And this is what it's all about, is helping parents understand what they have
in front of them before it's toolate, before you look back and say,
I wish I did that, Iwish I tried something different. I
wish I took them more out tomuseums, hands on museums, or I
(33:07):
wish I built blocks with them atan early age, or built cities,
or I used to wonder why,like one son wouldn't talk a lot to
me and my wife, and Iwould wonder. And so some kids talk
more than others. It's not aproblem just the way they are. They're
they're quiet. But if you goand you do something with them that they
like, and you stop asking questionsand you just do the action, things
(33:28):
come out of them naturally. Youmentioned earlier about being with your children and
being there for them and doing thingswith them. I think that's really important.
Barry. You mentioned the action,and that is so critical. You
know, action is always so muchbetter of a of a lesson than a
lecture, right, And you juststirred up you know, we talked.
(33:49):
You're talking about childhood, and youjust stirred up a memory about my father.
And I'm gonna, I'm gonna makea little sound and I want,
I want you to hear this.I don't know if you can hear this.
This is a little click, littleclicking. My father used to keep
a gripper in his car, oneof those little wall grippers that you squeeze.
(34:09):
He had one in his car,and whenever I was riding with him,
whenever we stopped at a stoplight,whenever we were at the airport waiting
to pick somebody up, whenever wewere at the grocery store waiting for my
mom to come out, he wassqueezing this swing, squeezing and squeezing and
squeezing. Think about the lessons thatwere just subliminally placed into my mind with
(34:32):
that small, little two dollar trinket. It is unbelievable. Number One,
your health is your priority. Youcan always exercise, You can exercise anywhere.
And the greatest lesson was mark,never waste a second of your life
(34:52):
when you're sitting there waiting for somebody, You can be reading, you can
be listening, you can be squeezingyour gripper, you could be doing something
to making yourself stronger, better,And again, the action conveyed the lesson.
And I think that if I couldgo back in time, I'd want
to do more actions and less talking. One of the last things I'd like
(35:12):
to ask you and talk about isa word that's been close to me for
years, ever since martial arts,and the word is motion Japanese word for
no mind and getting to a pointwhere if you're in combat or in a
situation where you're thinking at all,you're slowing down your reactions to the point
where it can cause a problem.And I remember training for weapons competition using
(35:40):
the bowstaff and going through these differentmotions. I'd be traveling at the time,
so I didn't have time to youknow, I woke up in the
morning, an hour in the morning, an hour at night. But when
I was traveling, I wanted togo through the motions and the moves and
the blocks and strikes in my mind. And what was amazing was if I
watched it the films of the greatestmartial artists doing the routine, or if
(36:04):
I kept doing the routine over andover. I was able to sit back
on a plane and visualize the actualmovements and improve upon them, and where
my stepping in my form was notaccurate, to increase that. It was
crazy going inside the mind like that. But the most important thing I learned
is that once you get to thepoint of performance, like you as a
(36:25):
neurosurgeon operating on the table, thebody works so much better when you let
go and feel confident that what you'vetrained to do is going to come out
naturally and work. And that isone of the hardest things for people to
look at, because you know,to trust yourself that much. Where you
know, in basketball, whatever,when you see somebody in the zone and
(36:46):
they're just they're they're not thinking,they are doing what they've been training for
for years in that moment. Yourcomments on that and about the brain and
what happens to the mind there,you know, I had the same thing
in my career, exactly what you'retalking about. Early on in my career,
I would get very anxious before surgeries, particularly surgeries that were harder,
(37:08):
more difficult, complex longer, andI would I used to think that that
anxiety was good. I would Iwould trick myself. I'd say, now
this is good because it's going tomake you more meticulous, and you're gonna
double check and triple check and quadruplecheck things. And and as I became
(37:28):
more mature again, I substituted theword anxious for prudent. I said,
Okay, I'm not going to beanxious about tomorrow's surgery. I'm going to
be prudent. And being prudent meansthinking of all the steps and thinking of
all the things that could go wrong, and then putting it to bed again.
I think it's what words you useto think about things. So some
(37:53):
people say they're nervous for foreign event. I try to tell my wrestlers a
better word is exciting. But aneven better word is eager, because if
you say you're nervous, that againis going to interfere with your performance.
If you say you're excited, you'resaying, well, it's a good kind
of nervous. But if you sayyou're eager, all you're saying is I
(38:14):
can't wait to get on that madAnd so like you've made an important point.
You have to be trained, youhave to be drilled, you have
to gone through all the schooling andexperience. First, it's it's dangerous if
you trust yourself before you're before you'retrained fully. But once you are trained
fully, there is no place foranxiety and there's no place for second guessing.
(38:37):
It is go for it, Mark, you're a good man. I
love having these conversations. It getsit inspires me. I've taken notes,
it makes me think differently, andyou're always on your game with new information
to really help the listener pull someinformation for their own lives. I really
really appreciate this. Thank you veryThe pleasure and honor is mine and I
(39:01):
always learned something when I talked withyou as well, so it was mutually
beneficial. And very much enjoyed beingwith you today, doctor Mark McLaughlin
Hi, I'm Barrie Farber, andthis is in search of the magic tree.
What magic are we looking for?Well, if you think about a
tree, several things come to mind. One the roots, the foundation for
(00:26):
something great. Two the branches representingthe connection and continuation of our legacy as
we pass down the values and beliefsto the next generation. And three potential,
something that starts as small as anacorn and becomes a giant oak.
We're going to explore how we canbuild the mind, body, and spirits
(00:49):
of our children. How to raiseour kids with key traits like patients,
positive attitudes, courage, empathy,determination, and more. Join me on
this adventure as we talk to celebrities, athletes, entertainers, business leaders,
educators, brain surgeons, and moreabout the magic to building success at an
(01:11):
early age. Doctor Mark McLaughlin,it's it's great to have you on again.
It's great to talk to you again. Welcome. It's a pleasure to
be here, Barry. You know, before we even start, I was
thinking to myself all the things you'vedone, and even before talking about how
(01:34):
the child's mind works, the adultmind and so forth. You were fascinated
by the brain at an early ageand the magic of the mind, what
makes it work? And I wantto understand how you even got into this
at an early age. What startedyou on the path of becoming a brain
surgeon. Sure, and I'm terrificallygrateful for where I am now and the
(02:00):
people that have helped me along theway. I just wanted to start off
with saying one of my greatest memorieswas the last time I was on your
show and you pulled out an operationgame and you made me do an operation
on the spot. So it always, it always stuck with me, and
so I was eager to speak withyou today. And the topic that you've
chosen is so important and so criticallyinteresting in this day and age because we
(02:25):
know so much more about the brainthan we did years ago when we were
kids. I was so fortunate tobe brought up in a family of doctors.
My grandfather was a doctor, myuncles were doctors, my great uncle
was a doctor. Now, myfather wasn't a doctor. He was an
attorney, and he played an importantrole with my mom and dad both in
(02:46):
my education. But I was aroundmy grandfather. I had a very close
relationship with him. He lived inWest Orange. I used to and we
lived the street below, and whenI was a little kid and I wasn't
happy with what mom was telling meto down down at home, I would
just run away to Grahama and Grandpa'shouse one block up, and I would
hang out with my grandfather. Ijust remember from a very early age,
(03:07):
you know, that he was adoctor that people called him. He helped
people, and he was on calla lot, and he was a needed
person and saved a lot of lives. So I was I was, you
know, so so lucky to havesomebody like that. I mean, I
used to carry his black bag onhouse calls when I was a kid.
(03:28):
And then as I got into youknow, my my adolescence, it really
stuck with me the interest of caringwith people. And it wasn't necessarily the
brain at that time. That sortof came when I got to medical school,
but but definitely the interest in servingpeople and caring for people. I
was the pool doctor at the swimclub, and I would wear this yellow
(03:50):
hat and walk around the pool andgive out band aids to people with who
stubbed their toes. And so itwas really ingrained in me very early to
serve people and to care for themand in their health, and that really
stuck with me my whole life.That's an amazing story because it just sounds
like you have a very You knowthat, Maulu, that successful surroundings at
(04:10):
an early age allowed you to kindof pick up information that way, and
that I see that in later yearswhen we talked previously, what you've done.
You know, you dedicated your adultlife to understanding the brain and how
it works, how it functions.You know, your job as a neurosurgeon
is to repair the brain when itbreaks down. And I was just curious,
how do you look at a youngMark McLaughlin when you started out doing
(04:32):
this as a career. What what? What did you say? Well?
It actually I think that the importantconcept is stimulation of the brain. And
I remember when I would run awayto my grandparents house. I'd go sit
on my grandfather's share on his lapand he had the television on but the
volume at zero. He had theradio on. He'd listened to W I.
(04:56):
N. S. And he wasreading a book while at the same
time. And what a great lessonfor a little kid. You know,
here's a person who wanted knowledge somuch. He was drinking from three different
sources at the same time. Thebrain, we say it's like a muscle
in many respects. It is becauseyou need to stress it for it to
get stronger, for it to improve, and it for it to thrive.
(05:17):
It's not a muscle, it's anorgan, but it's the same concept.
You know, you go to thegym and do curls, and its strengthens
and grows your biceps. If youchallenge your brain by learning a piano,
or learning a new language, orlearning a new hand eye coordination skill,
all of those things will strengthen theconnectivity in your brain and it will lead
(05:39):
to a fruitful life, and itwill also decrease the chances of you having
neural degeneration in the form of dementiasand other type of neurodegenerative diseases. You
know, one of the breakthroughs thathappened in my life is, you know,
I have three kids. They're allgrown, but my daughter was young
three four years old, and Iwas interviewing doctor Fred Plum and doctor Fred
(06:02):
Epstein, and you're familiar with them, and they were saying to me,
you know, you should start readingto your kids at the age of like
a month, two months and Iwas like, really, you know,
they pick up sounds and vowels andand and it's a bonding effect. And
the plasticity of the brain at anearly age is just amazing what it can
learn by the age of two anda half. Look what that looks,
(06:23):
walks, it talks. So mything is what makes me amazed is there's
one hundred and forty million babies borna year and there's the brains that are
open for nurture. You know,Nature's there, and it's amazing the brain.
But what can we do at anearly age to really create the foundation
so that once this brain does forhim, even though I know you mentioned
(06:46):
it's plasticity can be ongoing up intoour later years. But but at that
maximum stage, at an early age, what can parents do to really impact
the kids that way? Well,you know, Barry, the brain grow
four times its size during the preschoolyears of a child's life. So from
being born to being a preschooler,it grows four times in size and connections,
(07:14):
and it reaches I never knew thatfour times. Never. A child's
brain reaches ninety percent of its adultsize by the age of six, So
your brain size is essentially determined bythe age six, and it's growing rapidly
from your birth up until that thatage. And it is it's you talk
(07:34):
about reading, it's critical. Imean there, they've done studies of reading
to one year olds in this reignsfrom one to three, and what they
see is it's the quantity actually translatesinto quality. And what I mean by
that is that a child that isread to between the age of one and
(07:55):
three essentially has a much stronger vocabulary, much stronger comprehension of words, and
a motivation to read. And youknow, the scientific journals use the word
motivation, but I would say whatit is is a curiosity. And that
is what is so critically important ininstilling in children is to coax out the
(08:18):
natural curiosity that a child has.And that's something that I think we all
lose as we get older, andit's important for us to really rekindle it
and gain it back and encourage it. And not only do the children that
are read to have higher vocabulary andcomprehension the parents that read to them.
(08:39):
This is scientific proof the parents thatread to them have better vocabulary and syntax
after reading to their children. Soit's not just the child that benefits me.
Why is that? Doctor? Whywould that be especially at the level
of the one year old two yearold because most children books, most children's
books actually have good sent acts andthey have really good vocabulary words in them.
(09:03):
They're not complex. You don't needto be an extremely high functioning intellectual
person with fancy words. The wordsthat you see in Doctor SEUs, the
words that you see and hey,I loved Little Billy. That was great.
The words that you see in thatbook are fantastically simple and important,
and the more an adult hears thosewords, the more they're likely to live
(09:26):
up to them. There's a questionI have for you now, speaking of
the adventures Little Billy in search ofthe Magic Tree and that whole search process,
and you know from Diamond and theRough my goal was to take the
different attributes of attitude or courage orempathy and all that. Do you think
that can have a huge impact ona child's life, like especially the books
(09:46):
you choose and look, we haveiPads and we send them off and we
let them see a show or whateverthey do. But I want to understand
the difference between that and reading somethingpositive with a story that makes their imagination
go wild and the bonding effect,and then go into a talk about museums
(10:07):
and hands on applications and building blocksand so forth. Well, you know,
Barry, a teacher taught me along time ago that you are the
author of the dictionary you carry around. And I tell that to my wrestlers
all the time. What words areyou putting in your dictionary? If you're
(10:28):
putting words like respect and courage andwisdom and compassion and those types of words,
and you're talking about them and you'resaying them, they not only reveal
your thoughts, they create your thoughts. So I'm a big advocate of words
and the choice of words and howthey actually shape the way we think.
(10:50):
You know the old William James quote, I'm not whistling because I'm happy.
I'm happy because I whistle. Itcan cause you to feel that way.
And that's the beauty of reading isit stimulates your brain. It puts words
in vocabulary in your brain, andwords become thoughts become action, and that's
(11:11):
really what it comes down to.That's a powerful message. And if I
had to look back on my owngrowing up, I really was never into
school. When I say not intoit, I got bored. I looked
out the window. I daydreamed.I had to go to a place where
my parents took me because they wantedto understand what was I a slow LEARNERD
Why wasn't I interested? And myfather was an art teacher of vice principle,
(11:35):
my mother and nurse from education,they read a lot. You know
now I'm a voracious reader, butback then I couldn't get into it.
So can you describe what happened withmy early childhood and maybe many kids and
then what can somebody do a parentdo to engage them more and make a
difference at that early age. I'msimilar to you. I was not a
(11:58):
strong reader as a child, andI think that it does come down to
the earliest days were you read to. I was a third child. I
think my older brothers got read tomore than I did because my mom was
just so busy taking care of everybody. But I think you can cultivate it
and coax it out of anybody atany time. If I had to do
(12:20):
it all over again, I wouldabsolutely be reading more and more to my
kids. But we also have technologyon our hands that can assist with that,
and I have to say, notonly do I read a lot,
I also listen a lot. Audibleis a great way to still take in
a book. And I think thereare bridges that you can cross to help
(12:43):
kids that are maybe slower readers.Maybe it's more frustrating for them, but
I think if you truly can finda subject that a child is interested in,
that curiosity is going to pull themthrough. That is what's going to
be the best carriage to get themhooked on reading is going to be to
find something and interest them, andonce it interests them, then really broaden
(13:07):
it gradually and slowly. I lovethat's that's right on. To find the
passion early on and see how theyare attracted to that and then want to
read about it and want to hearabout it as young as we are,
when we're know the ages from zeroto five. I've heard this said that
we can learn five six languages,which really blew my mind that you know
(13:28):
five six languages by the age offive. Can we talk about that about
the brain, the plasticity of thatbrain at an early age, you know,
absorbing that type of information and thatkind of learning five languages. Yes,
in a child's brain really from immediatelyafter they're born till probably around eight
(13:52):
years of age. There is moreconnectivity at that time in their life than
any other time. The brain hasthe most connect actions. And then what
happens as we move into adulthood isthere's something they call it's called pruning,
and pruning occurs when we start,you know, selectively choosing activities that we
(14:13):
start to master. And what happensis some of those other pathways will atrophy
and fall away. So the reasonthat a child can learn multiple languages is
they have many more pathways for thatto be digested by their brain. So
think of it as as like umin an infant and a young child,
(14:33):
think of their brain almost as likea gigantic network of hundreds and hundreds of
roads to get from here. Um, you know, I live in Princeton,
New Jersey to Miami. There's justthink of the hundreds and hundreds of
roads that you can get there,and think of there there are advantages to
that, like if there's a problemor a fire in some area, you
(14:54):
have another route to go, Youhave multiple roots to go. But as
we get older, we form thoseroot ones in those ninety fives and all
the other roads kind of atrophy.They grow weeds, they get trees that
grow on them, and they're notaccessible. So really that's that's what brain
plasticity it is is it allows pathwaysto bypass and obstruction. So, for
(15:20):
instance, up to the age ofabout eight, if a child comes in
with a brain tumor in their speecharea, and most of the time speech
is contained in the left frontal lobeof the brain, and if a child
comes in eight and under with atumor in their speech area, we can
operate on it, remove it,and even if a large portion of their
(15:41):
speech apparatus in the left hemisphere isdamaged, their speech will come back and
they will learn and have normal speechbecause the right front the lobe takes over.
But if that surgery happens generally aftereight, they lose that speech and
they'll lose that speech forever. Asa child. They have multiple pathways for
(16:03):
them to figure something out. Andthis is what leads me to talk about
something called cognitive reserve. And cognitivereserve is a way of setting up your
brain to not malfunction as you enterinto your elder years. And we can
talk more about but basically it's creatingother pathways as an adult, so that
(16:25):
you have more words to describe anobject, so that you have more ways
to articulate what you're thinking. Andthe reason that's helpful is as you get
older, let's say you have astroke in one area, you have another
pathway that will allow you to articulateyourself without struggling. And so that's something
that you can do to strengthen yourbrain as an adult, But as a
(16:45):
child, it's already hardwired into you. How old are your kids now,
doctor McLaughlin. I have a twentynine year old, twenty eight year old,
twenty six year old, and atwenty five year old. Right,
okay, So I'm thinking to myself, I'm curious and I know what I
would do, But what would youdo differently knowing what you know now when
(17:06):
they were two years old, threeyears old, one years old? Or
would you not do anything different?Oh gosh, you know, we all
think of things we could do betteras a parent. Educationally, I was
lucky than my wife, Julie.It was a Varie is a voracist reader,
and she read to the kids muchmore than I did because I was
busy in the operating room. ButI think being more curious about their lives.
(17:30):
You know, what I would dois I'd come home after a long
day and I'd want, I wantto play with them, but they would
be doing her homework or something,and Julie would say, look, you
know, you have to adapt totheir day. They can't adapt to your
day. And so I think definitelyin that respect. But you know,
as a young adult, what I'mdoing, Barry is most people in that
(17:51):
age group, they're not strong readers. They take in podcasts, they watch
TV, and they play a lotof video games. Fortunately, my kids
don't do a lot of that.But what I do is I try and
help them along reading. If Iread a good book, what I'll do
is I'll literally highlight a couple ofparagraphs that I think are really important,
or one chapter. I'll put apost it note on them, and I'll
mail them the book and I'll say, you don't have to read the whole
(18:14):
book, just read this one chapter. Just read these paragraphs I highlighted.
Here's a speech that I saw thatwas really good. Read this. And
so it's a way of just sortof digesting it making it easier for them.
And I think in children that's thesame way too break it down.
For one kid, you could sitthere and read them a whole chapter,
and another kid you probably just needto read them one page and then have
(18:37):
a conversation about it. So peopledigest information at different rates at different times
in their lives. Now I cantake in I can read three or four
books at a time. You thinkof these kids when I like Diamond in
the Roughs. They're they're born,they're right there in your hands. You
can mold them. And you wantto know that what you're doing is important
(18:57):
and has value. And I'd liketo understand your view on nature versus nurture
and what we can do with thesurroundings they're in and and and ken and
is there a huge difference? Um? You know, everybody says you know
you have great kids. You knowit takes a lot of work. So
I wanted to hear what kind ofwork is important for parents to do with
(19:21):
their kids at that early stage.You know, it's great you asked that.
I just came across a recent articleabout that, and I can,
I can. I can send youa copy of it for for your listeners.
Um, but they looked at youknow, the complex ways that our
brain develops, and no question,there is a genetic code and it does
unfold in ways that we don't havea lot of control over. But there's
(19:47):
there's also very strong evidence that thereare multiple factors that affect how those genes
play out. And this one articlethat I recently read cited eight factors,
and those factors were these are theseare sort of the nurture factors, not
the nature factors. And the nurturefactors were sensory input as a child.
(20:08):
So that's again what you're talking about, reading, singing, reciting poetry,
um, all of the sensory inputsthe children get. Unfortunately it's drugs.
If kids are exposed to drugs,either prenatally with a mother's addiction or drugs
(20:29):
in childhood and adolescents, it canclearly affect brain function. Hormones. Third
third effectum parent child relationships, peerrelationships, early stresses on the nervous system,
gut flora very interesting finding, anddiet. So there are eight factors
(20:52):
that affected brain development, and Ithink each one of those, you know,
we have influence over. We canas parents, we can control or
at least assist in our kids diet. We can make sure that they're eating
the right foods that you know,they have a good microbiome in their in
their gut with some yogurts and somehealthy bacteria, we can assess the types
(21:17):
of levels of stress that they're undergoingand not protect them from all of it.
I think we're seeing a lot ofpeople that have been over a lot
of kids have been overprotected. Youknow, there's a there are important factors
in stress that help us develop.The relationships obviously are key both peers and
with adults. I'm a big believerin really spending as much time as your
(21:40):
kids with your kids as you can. Nowadays, kids are on the computer,
and they're on their phones texting,and their closest friends are they're also
their trusted advisors. And these advisorsare kids that have no experience, So
they're advising your daughter or your sonon important topics that they don't know anything
(22:00):
about. That You've been around forthirty years and you know what's what's right
and what's wrong in terms of guidingsomebody to right decisions. So pure relationships
are and parent child relationships are soso important. So those are the sorts
of things that can affect development,and so it's it's truly a dance between
nature and nurture. You know,we might do a deep dive one day,
(22:22):
because you could just keep talking aboutall the talk about eight essential facets
there you're talking about, And Iwant to come back to diet in a
moment that you just mentioned. ButI have something in my mind that that
has bothered me, and it's sometimesyou know, Sherman the turtle and the
story I send you is all aboutdiscipline, about effort, and I think
(22:44):
of sometimes reaching for the ball togive it to him, or you're letting
him crawl to the ball, oryou know, at that stage, all
the way up to the point ofletting them fail sometimes and learn on their
own and be there to support butnot to do everything for them. I
would like to understand that, especiallyat an early age, where that becomes
the foundation for later in life.Now I have more experience in kids,
(23:08):
you know, from basically from fromsecond grade to eighth grade, because I
coach a youth wrestling team, andmy experiences with those kids are again,
I talk to them about the importanceof words, and I give them various
different sayings. So one of thethings I tell them is that the mind
has to lead the body. Thebody can't lead the mind, and so
(23:32):
the mind has to You have totrain your mind to sometimes do things that
are a little bit uncomfortable for yourbody, i e. Push ups or
sit ups or running or you knowthose types of activities. And I talk
to them about I talk to themabout the hardest, the hardest workout they're
ever going to do, the hardestmaybe run they're ever going to do.
(23:55):
Is when they they plan a courseand they're running the course and they come
to a place where they can takea shortcut. There's no one around but
them, and they have to makea decision. Am I gonna take a
shortcut here? Or am I gonnado what needs to get done? And
I tell them, you know,this is a very important decision you have
(24:18):
to make, and that decision,the only person that's going to have to
live with that decision is you.It can shape everything that you do beyond
that, because that's a metaphor,right, this is a metaphor. If
you are going to take a shortcuton your workout, then maybe you'll take
a shortcut on your math homework,and maybe you'll take a shortcut on your
(24:40):
science exam, and maybe you'll takea shortcut when you're in a business someday,
and maybe you'll take a shortcut andnot do the right thing. So
it's really important when you're on yourown to do what you think is going
to be best for you. Youknow, they've done the great studies with
kids in Halloween candy leave a bigbowl of candy in a room and the
(25:00):
sign says take one, please,please take one. And then they have
one room that has a mirror init and one room that doesn't have a
mirror in it, and the onethat has a mirror in it where the
kids can actually see themselves taking thecandy, they they're more likely to take
one candy than if the room doesn'thave a mirror. So I tell them,
hey, you need to act likeas if there's a mirror following you
(25:22):
every day, because there is.So if you extrapolate that to young kids,
now that's a that's a complex lesson. But I think healthy challenges.
I think that's what you're talking about, and I think those are those are
key healthy challenges. Talking to akid about what it challenge is. It
challenge is something that you you shootfor, you aim for you're not sure
(25:48):
if you can get but you makethe commitment to go for it and try.
And it's okay to fail with thesechallenges because that's how we grow.
So I think that same level ona lower on a cerebral level can be
taught to even you know, preschoolers. Right, Well, that's great,
great advice that you're talking about withthese kids and when you're coaching, and
(26:12):
that that whole statement about you knowyou're gonna make that decision, you're gonna
live with that decision. And Iremember the quote that said hard work beats
talent when talent doesn't work hard.I'd like to repeat it, hard work
beats talent when talent doesn't work hard. And it's almost like somebody's talented,
(26:33):
they take it for granted and theydon't think they have to work as hard,
and somebody who works twice as hardrealizes that they can get past that
person. I just think effort andand that that intense passion for something,
it just makes such a huge differencein people's lives. Later on that that
if there was a way to teachthat at an early age without making it
(26:55):
easy for kids sometimes or you know, I think that's an important piece of
the puzzle to build a successful child. You wrestled your your state champ.
You know, I can go intoall the details of your background, but
I brought that game operation and Ididn't even tell you. I know,
I didn't tell you, and Iwas nervous about that. But you performed
under pressure like nobody. You know. My son still tells me about this
(27:17):
when he saw the show. Isthat how you put your rested your arm
on the table as you moved thepieces in the operation, so that it
gave it much more of a sturdystance. And he does that now with
certain things and anything about operating thatyou can share with us that's given you
insights into breakthroughs in your life thatyou'd like to share with the listener.
(27:41):
Yes, I've had a recent breakthroughwhich I really I'm really excited about and
goes back to a statement I madeto somebody and I said, you know,
I wrote this in my book CognitiveDominance, the story about me getting
ready to do a difficult operation.And I'm sitting in my car in a
parking lot at the hospital on aFriday afternoon, and you know, as
(28:06):
I'm unbuckling my belt, my seatbelt. I realize I'm I'm physically tired.
You know. It's been a longweek. I've had seven operations that
week. My surgery that I'm supposedto do now was bumped from eleven o'clock
to two thirty, which is notan ideal time to operate because the shift
(28:26):
change happens at three, and I'mgoing to have somebody who's competent, but
somebody who isn't familiar with the instrumentsthat were set out on the table at
one thirty when they were preparing theoperation. And I'm doing an operation that's
got significant danger to it. It'sa tumor that's near a very large vein
in the brain. If I'm workingin that area, it can be some
(28:48):
very serious bleeding. And it's it'sit's a procedure that I've done many times,
but it's it's not a procedure thatI've done recently. So I've got
this significant get level of anxiety goinginto it. I get a phone call
from my father's doctor and he tellsme that my father has leukemia and his
prognosis is very poor, and soI'm just like, oh my gosh,
(29:14):
I got to go talk to mydad, I can't do this surgery.
There's no way. I'm mentally,I'm just I'm not ready for it.
I'm going to have to cancel thesurgery. So I knew I had to
go in and I had to gotalk to this patient. As I walked
in the hospital, I just,you know, I was sort of thinking,
Gosh, I mean, how amI gonna tell this guy this?
How am I gonna you know,he's ready, And but I just I
(29:37):
did not feel like I could dothe surgery. So I had convinced myself
I was going to cancel the surgery. And as I started walking in,
I heard like this, this standsup from Rudyard Kipling's if that my father
had given me many years ago.And then this is again the power of
reading, the power of literature.And I remember the verses that they just
(30:02):
stuck it right out like a lightningbolt in my head. If you can
meet with triumph and disaster and treatthose two impostors just the same, if
you can fill the unforgiving minute withsixty seconds worth of distance run, if
you can force your heart and nerveand sinew to serve their turn long after
they're done, and as I lookeddown the hallway, I saw this gentleman
(30:25):
and he was there with his wifeand his three children at the bedside.
And at that moment, I said, you know what, what would my
father want me to do. Hewould want me to do my job.
He would want me to help thisman who needs my help right now.
And you know what, I'm notgoing to cancel this surgery. I'm going
(30:45):
to dedicate this surgery to him.I'm not going to quit. I'm going
to make this my finest hour.And I shook this man's hand and I
said, we're ready to go.I took him back, did the operation,
did it well, took him tothe recovery room, and then I
went to go see my father.And I realized that I was inspired by
(31:11):
that poetry. If you'd asked methat a year ago, I would say
I was inspired by that poetry.But you know what my teacher taught me
the other day is he said,you weren't inspired by that poetry. In
the presence of that poetry, youbecame a better person. In the presence
of that poetry, you became lessfearful and more loving, more loving of
(31:33):
your father, and more loving ofthe profession that you chose, and when
you became less fearful, you becamemore effective. I'm telling you, I
remember that quote. Treat those twoimpostors the same. Just that whole scenario
there that was That's an amazing situationyou were in and what you've done and
looking back on that, how doesthat make you feel today? I love
(31:56):
it and I tell my wrestlers thisall the time. You know what triumph
and disaster is. It's thinking aboutwhether you're gonna win or you're gonna lose.
Forget it. It's in the past, it's in the future, it's
not where you're at. Just goout there and follow your drilled and your
rules and everything that you practiced,and let it all hang out and the
rest will take care of itself.There's a saying I go by and it's
(32:21):
one of the most difficult sayings toconvey or also believe yourself. It's those
who desire nothing possess everything. Andyou know we had this discussion in the
past, those who desire nothing possesseverything. What does that mean? Meaning
that you know, the desire towin is not blocking your focus and your
action and just want to take abreak for a second and let the listeners
(32:44):
realize how powerful some of the thingsyou're saying are. And I also the
things you're talking about and the thingswe've talked about about a child's mind.
And this is what it's all about, is helping parents understand what they have
in front of them before it's toolate, before you look back and say,
I wish I did that, Iwish I tried something different. I
wish I took them more out tomuseums, hands on museums, or I
(33:07):
wish I built blocks with them atan early age, or built cities,
or I used to wonder why,like one son wouldn't talk a lot to
me and my wife, and Iwould wonder. And so some kids talk
more than others. It's not aproblem just the way they are. They're
they're quiet. But if you goand you do something with them that they
like, and you stop asking questionsand you just do the action, things
(33:28):
come out of them naturally. Youmentioned earlier about being with your children and
being there for them and doing thingswith them. I think that's really important.
Barry. You mentioned the action,and that is so critical. You
know, action is always so muchbetter of a of a lesson than a
lecture, right, And you juststirred up you know, we talked.
(33:49):
You're talking about childhood, and youjust stirred up a memory about my father.
And I'm gonna, I'm gonna makea little sound and I want,
I want you to hear this.I don't know if you can hear this.
This is a little click, littleclicking. My father used to keep
a gripper in his car, oneof those little wall grippers that you squeeze.
(34:09):
He had one in his car,and whenever I was riding with him,
whenever we stopped at a stoplight,whenever we were at the airport waiting
to pick somebody up, whenever wewere at the grocery store waiting for my
mom to come out, he wassqueezing this swing, squeezing and squeezing and
squeezing. Think about the lessons thatwere just subliminally placed into my mind with
(34:32):
that small, little two dollar trinket. It is unbelievable. Number One,
your health is your priority. Youcan always exercise, You can exercise anywhere.
And the greatest lesson was mark,never waste a second of your life
(34:52):
when you're sitting there waiting for somebody, You can be reading, you can
be listening, you can be squeezingyour gripper, you could be doing something
to making yourself stronger, better,And again, the action conveyed the lesson.
And I think that if I couldgo back in time, I'd want
to do more actions and less talking. One of the last things I'd like
(35:12):
to ask you and talk about isa word that's been close to me for
years, ever since martial arts,and the word is motion Japanese word for
no mind and getting to a pointwhere if you're in combat or in a
situation where you're thinking at all,you're slowing down your reactions to the point
where it can cause a problem.And I remember training for weapons competition using
(35:40):
the bowstaff and going through these differentmotions. I'd be traveling at the time,
so I didn't have time to youknow, I woke up in the
morning, an hour in the morning, an hour at night. But when
I was traveling, I wanted togo through the motions and the moves and
the blocks and strikes in my mind. And what was amazing was if I
watched it the films of the greatestmartial artists doing the routine, or if
(36:04):
I kept doing the routine over andover. I was able to sit back
on a plane and visualize the actualmovements and improve upon them, and where
my stepping in my form was notaccurate, to increase that. It was
crazy going inside the mind like that. But the most important thing I learned
is that once you get to thepoint of performance, like you as a
(36:25):
neurosurgeon operating on the table, thebody works so much better when you let
go and feel confident that what you'vetrained to do is going to come out
naturally and work. And that isone of the hardest things for people to
look at, because you know,to trust yourself that much. Where you
know, in basketball, whatever,when you see somebody in the zone and
(36:46):
they're just they're they're not thinking,they are doing what they've been training for
for years in that moment. Yourcomments on that and about the brain and
what happens to the mind there,you know, I had the same thing
in my career, exactly what you'retalking about. Early on in my career,
I would get very anxious before surgeries, particularly surgeries that were harder,
(37:08):
more difficult, complex longer, andI would I used to think that that
anxiety was good. I would Iwould trick myself. I'd say, now
this is good because it's going tomake you more meticulous, and you're gonna
double check and triple check and quadruplecheck things. And and as I became
(37:28):
more mature again, I substituted theword anxious for prudent. I said,
Okay, I'm not going to beanxious about tomorrow's surgery. I'm going to
be prudent. And being prudent meansthinking of all the steps and thinking of
all the things that could go wrong, and then putting it to bed again.
I think it's what words you useto think about things. So some
(37:53):
people say they're nervous for foreign event. I try to tell my wrestlers a
better word is exciting. But aneven better word is eager, because if
you say you're nervous, that againis going to interfere with your performance.
If you say you're excited, you'resaying, well, it's a good kind
of nervous. But if you sayyou're eager, all you're saying is I
(38:14):
can't wait to get on that madAnd so like you've made an important point.
You have to be trained, youhave to be drilled, you have
to gone through all the schooling andexperience. First, it's it's dangerous if
you trust yourself before you're before you'retrained fully. But once you are trained
fully, there is no place foranxiety and there's no place for second guessing.
(38:37):
It is go for it, Mark, you're a good man. I
love having these conversations. It getsit inspires me. I've taken notes,
it makes me think differently, andyou're always on your game with new information
to really help the listener pull someinformation for their own lives. I really
really appreciate this. Thank you veryThe pleasure and honor is mine and I
(39:01):
always learned something when I talked withyou as well, so it was mutually
beneficial. And very much enjoyed beingwith you today, doctor Mark McLaughlin
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