August 1, 2025 • 36 mins
Segment 1 with former Phoenix Mayor Paul Johnson starts at 0:00.
Let me be honest; as a result of the current presidents on again off again policies and head turning daily flip flops, I am not quite sure what the future of the economy is in the US. Where are we headed as a democratic and capitalist society?
My guest is Paul Johnson is a civic entrepreneur, investor, and former Mayor of Phoenix whose career spans public service, private enterprise, and global policy engagement. He is President of Redirect Health, and he has led multiple successful acquisitions and investment ventures, particularly in the healthcare and real estate sectors. His book, "What’s Right with America"—explores the fusion of free markets, free trade, property rights, and the American civil rights tradition.
Segment 2 with Tom Hogan starts at 22:40.
I remember in one of my favorite movie, "Starship Troopers", before going to war, the sargeant says to his new recruits before going to war- “You want to live forever”. My answer was yes, I do
With the average US lifespan of men at 76 and women at 82, is there a way for people to routinely live to 100 or more? Tom Hogan, former Oracle executive, is the author of four novels and his latest is "The Forever Factor", a suspense novel about the quest to extend human life to 150. He believes babies born this year will live to that age.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-small-business-radio-show--3306444/support.
Let me be honest; as a result of the current presidents on again off again policies and head turning daily flip flops, I am not quite sure what the future of the economy is in the US. Where are we headed as a democratic and capitalist society?
My guest is Paul Johnson is a civic entrepreneur, investor, and former Mayor of Phoenix whose career spans public service, private enterprise, and global policy engagement. He is President of Redirect Health, and he has led multiple successful acquisitions and investment ventures, particularly in the healthcare and real estate sectors. His book, "What’s Right with America"—explores the fusion of free markets, free trade, property rights, and the American civil rights tradition.
Segment 2 with Tom Hogan starts at 22:40.
I remember in one of my favorite movie, "Starship Troopers", before going to war, the sargeant says to his new recruits before going to war- “You want to live forever”. My answer was yes, I do
With the average US lifespan of men at 76 and women at 82, is there a way for people to routinely live to 100 or more? Tom Hogan, former Oracle executive, is the author of four novels and his latest is "The Forever Factor", a suspense novel about the quest to extend human life to 150. He believes babies born this year will live to that age.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-small-business-radio-show--3306444/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Get ready for all the craziness of small business. It's
exactly that craziness that makes it exciting and totally unbelievable.
Small Business Radio is now on the air with your host,
Barry Moltz.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Well, thanks for joining this week's radio show. Remember this
is the final word in small business. For those keeping track,
This is now show number eight hundred and forty two. Well,
let me be honest. As a result of the current
presidents on again, off again policies and head turning daily
flip flops, I'm not sure what the future of this
(00:39):
country and the economy is where we headed as a
democratic and capitalist society. My guest is Paul Johnson's the
civic entrepreneur, investor, and former mayor of Phoenix whose career
spans public service, private enterprise, and local policy engagement. He's
president of Redirect Health and has led numerous acquisitions and
investment ventures clean.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Healthcare, in real estate. He's got a news book out.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
It's called What's Right with America explores the fusion of
free markets, free trade, property rights, and the American civil
rights tradition.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Paul, welcome to the show.
Speaker 4 (01:14):
Oh very I'm honored to be one of your guests.
You have a great show.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
I appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Well, I'm so glad you have a book that says
what's right with America because so many times we're focused
on what's wrong with America?
Speaker 3 (01:25):
So what is right with America?
Speaker 5 (01:28):
Okay?
Speaker 4 (01:28):
So I have to start by telling you since I
put this book out, I have never had so many
online people call me a moron.
Speaker 5 (01:34):
I mean it's like, you know.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
They're all saying that they can't see anything that's right
with it. They don't like the name. But here's this
is my belief. First, I think we have this politics
of pessimism that's going on to me, and it exists,
and it sells, and it sells that sells really well,
and that you know, the idea where we're sold this
(01:55):
bill of goods.
Speaker 5 (01:56):
It says our.
Speaker 4 (01:57):
Industry and our jobs have been hollowed out. The corporates
as left and one side blames the global lead and
the other side blames the rich. The problem with that is.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
I'm blaming Jeff. I don't know about you.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
Yeah, we've got to get to the conspiracy theory before
we're done. But the truth is, if you look at
the data, neither one or write effectively. I'll just give
you some stats that I think might help. And in
nineteen ninety two, the GAD Agreement was passed by the
United States, which really kind of opened up free trade.
I can tell you I served on that committee, and
(02:29):
the goal of it was to try to protect intellectual
property rights, which weren't protected around the world, and to
give up some free trade for doing that, because people
were stealing our music, they were stealing our movies, they
were stealing our ideas. Now it's not perfect, but we
definitely gained foothold in that and that was very helpful
to the growth of companies like Facebook and Google and
(02:51):
other companies from then on out. But statistically, here's what
happened of the G seven nations. At that time, we
were equal to all of them GDP per person. Today,
the United States, these are the richest countries in the world,
were double the next country in GDP per person. In fact,
in Mississippi, which is our lowest GDP per person of
(03:14):
fifty three eight hundred dollars per person, close enough that
would make it higher than any other G seven nation
other than Germany. So the point here is is that
if you look at the statistics and the data.
Speaker 5 (03:30):
We've never done better.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
In fact, the United States is the greatest superpower in
the history of the planet. No country has ever done
more to advance human progress than we have, and no
country is doing nearly as well as we are. And
that's kind of the starting point of the book, is
to try to get people to think about this great
prosperity that we have and then to think about how
(03:51):
did we get it?
Speaker 2 (03:53):
So, is this whole focus on which seems to me
the current presidence is trying to take away free trade,
is trying to control capitalism to what form he wants.
Is this all about the era now of the other
of the outsider of you know, nationalism and things like that,
even and we're going to back that even though it
hurts free trade and capitalism.
Speaker 6 (04:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (04:15):
I think we have a close to a socialist movement
going on in both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party.
I mean, mom DOMI in New York is kind of
an indication of what's happening on the left. The idea
of terrorists that used to be a labor policy in
the Democratic Party. I registered Democrat years ago and I'm
an independent today, but that was a democratic kind of
(04:35):
socialist policy. The issue is here's what I would tell
you that is really taking place. There's this thing called
the amygdala in the human mind. In the human brain,
this amigdalant. When you engage it, when you terrify someone,
it overpowers the neo cortex where all rational thought exists.
(04:56):
Optimism love those types of things, and when it overpowers it,
all you can think of is fight, flight or freeze.
But if you're the news media and you can get
people to focus on those things that terrify them. And
if I know if you're a Republican or Democrat, I
can tell you the five buttons to push on either
side that will get you there. You will be terrified
and you'll watch the news tomorrow. It also is beginning
(05:17):
to work extremely well in politics. It doesn't matter that
it doesn't reflect the truth. It's in many ways it's
much more powerful than optimism. But here's what I would
say to I know you have a really strong business group.
The key for us to be successful in our own
lives in a democracy that has been focused on things
(05:39):
like civil rights, equal rights, human rights, property rights, free markets,
free trade, the individual, the concepts that surround the individual.
For us to be successful, we must have agency. An
agency means we need to be able to see clear
about what's happening. Otherwise, you listen to the political leaders
on either side, or you listen to the media on
(06:00):
either side, and you start making bad decisions about whether
you should invest, whether you should continue to try to
grow your business, whether you should hire employees. If you're
making your decisions based upon them, they're intentionally trying to
terrify you because it is beneficial for them to do so.
They can take your agency and they can benefit from it. Politically,
(06:22):
we have to recognize that unless we're able to get
that agency back and really look at data in an
accurate way, it's problematic.
Speaker 5 (06:31):
Now.
Speaker 4 (06:31):
We lay out in the book a series of things
we think that you need to do, including being accountable
for yourself, making certain that you're watching the right information,
being willing to listen to people who maybe you disagree with,
knowing that they have some benefit that they can give
you as well.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
I think that Paul, it's hard because, as you say,
you've got to see clearly and a small business and got
be able to see clearly, but there's so much misinformation
out there. Every single thing that I see in social media,
the news. I got a double track trickle chap from
different sources to see if it's even real because you
see fake videos, you see fake statistics, and people can
chop them up anyway they can. How can the small
(07:11):
business owner be optimistic about the future with everything going
on when it's seemingly every day it's a different episode
of the Apprentice.
Speaker 4 (07:22):
So one way to start is to gain perspective. So
when people tell you how bad things are, asked this
question compared to when and compared to who? All right,
when has it been better than it is right now?
You can't find it historical.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
We're talking to some people.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
They say it's back in the fifties, right, I mean
that's what they'll tell you.
Speaker 4 (07:45):
And for anybody, well my age would tell you then
you didn't.
Speaker 5 (07:50):
You don't know what the fifties was like.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
You weren't there, right, The sixties weren't better, the seventies
weren't better. Also read in that can give you that
gives you more of an optimistic outlook. There's a great
book I recommend to people. It's now a little dated.
It's about eight or nine years old, maybe ten. It's
called The Rational optimist and it's about Yeah, it's a
great book. It talks about trade and how trade has
(08:15):
played a role in America in the evolution of mankind.
But most importantly, as long as we stay dedicated to
the fundamental principles that made this country, we're going to
do fine.
Speaker 5 (08:27):
Now.
Speaker 4 (08:27):
I hear from a lot of people tremendous fear about,
you know, what Donald Trump is doing, and then I'll
hear from Republicans fear about what the Democrats are doing.
And here's what I would tell you. Take solace in
the fact that we have a constitution. Take solace in
the fact that eventually a lot of this is.
Speaker 5 (08:45):
Going to fade out.
Speaker 4 (08:46):
It just is going to It has a shelf life.
And politics is I've spent a lifetime in it. It's
never static. It just isn't static. What you see today
politically will not be what you're seeing two years from now.
What I think is happening today is there's a giant
shift that's happening politically. I think you're going to see
(09:06):
counter forces, third parties, political reforms, things that are going
to take place because our political system is way under
serving how great we are as a country. But step
away from the political environment for a moment and take
a look at you know, I remember when I was
a little boy. I remember running home to watch the
(09:29):
space landing on the nineteen sixty nine, and I remember
laying on my grandmother's floor was a concrete floor. She
you know, they didn't have much money. But we get
there and we watch this thing happening. I could tell
you the name of every astronaut. There's spouses, many of
the engineers. You know, I knew some of the technical
things that were happening with the spacecraft, But what I
(09:50):
remember most was how proud we were after that happened. Now,
the question that we should ask is, okay, are those
moments behind Well, watch television about six months ago, and
you'll see Elon Musk taking this spacecraft into outer space
and bringing it back and capturing it with something that
(10:10):
looked like a pair of tweezers on a platform. And
he did it with private money. He did it with
his own desire to try to get to Mars. My
point is, these things are still happening, inventions happening at
a tremendous pace. Be The ability for us to change
(10:31):
the world is as big now as it's ever been.
Speaker 5 (10:34):
The ability to move business is better than it's ever been.
Speaker 4 (10:37):
But if you continually are looking at the downside, that
not that you shouldn't observe it, not that you should
ignore it. Being optimistic doesn't mean ignoring the bad things.
It's just that the people who are going to make
it better are the ones who believe that you can.
Speaker 6 (10:52):
Right.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
But folks, again, and I really appreach your optimism, are
worried about all the cuts and science and these kinds
of things that's happened.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Under the current administration.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
That innovation is going to dry up, right, It's going
to go to other countries or whatever it is. So
I guess, how do you how do you hold on
to this you know, this optimism or what can entrepreneurs
do right now? I guess the better question, Paul, is
what can we do right now to heal the divisions?
Because unfortunately, in my opinion, my opinion, it didn't start
(11:22):
with Donald Trump, right, that's exactly right, but he has
a tendency to focus on dividing us. Right, we as
Americans have to heal divisions, and part of the healing
divisions is obviously talking to each other. But as entrepreneurs,
how do we help heal the divisions as business people?
Speaker 4 (11:38):
All right, let me let me hit that as two questions.
And the first question I want to answer is the
question of should we be afraid of the science cuts?
And the second question I want to answer is how
do we heal the divisions? So on the first question,
our country has done a great many things great, a
number of great things. We've built bridges and dams and
(12:00):
invented vaccines, and we even put a.
Speaker 5 (12:02):
Man on the moon. I mean, it's it's amazing.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
But making you believe that some people think we did
it was just a conspiracy.
Speaker 4 (12:08):
Yeah, that's true. I can't help with that group, although they.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
Are capricorn one that movie.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
You remember that, I do remember you're dating yourself there.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
I get it.
Speaker 4 (12:21):
But the answer is the single greatest thing in our
country ever did was in the very beginning. It empowered
the individual over itself. Civil rights, equal rights, human rights,
property rights, the ability to own what you create, free markets,
free trades, free elections. Those are going to get dinged,
(12:41):
but they're not going away. They're going to be here,
and the next group that comes in may may even
liberalize them more. That's our secret of success. Now, I
personally think we shouldn't be cutting what's going on with
our science foundations. I personally think that our investment in
science and innovation is really important, but it's not the
most important thing. The most important thing is that you
(13:05):
continue to empower individuals. Now, let's move over to the
other question, because I think that's maybe the key question.
There's a guy named Alexander Soljannitzen who wrote a book
called The Gulag Archipelao. I love this book, but there's
a great lesson to learn in it. And the lesson
is so he ended up going to the front in Germany,
(13:27):
and then he was in a German prisoner war camp.
And then when he came back, Stalin was afraid, so
he sent he in a number of other people to
the Gulag. And in the Gulag he was trying to
figure out, like, what had he done wrong because he
had been a good member of the Communist Party. Well,
he began to think about the job that he had
in the Communist Party before he went to the front,
(13:47):
and it was to pick up these guys that were
considered to be rich farmers. They were called kulax, which
means you had two cows instead of none, and to
move them to the Gulag, to move them into Siberia.
He moved sixty thousand families, he said, and they all died.
None of them survived. He said, Now, how did I
(14:09):
do that?
Speaker 5 (14:10):
He said? I did that because I was a.
Speaker 4 (14:14):
Communist and we were the good guys and landowners and
business people.
Speaker 5 (14:20):
They were the bad guys. They were evil. He said.
Speaker 4 (14:23):
It allowed me to transfer the evil that I had
inside of me to do unbelievable things to a group
of people. The point is this, each of us have
that capacity to do good or evil. It's inside of us.
And the minute we place a label on someone else
and we say, well they're bad because of the label,
(14:45):
you cannot be successful. Now take this all the way
down to your spouse. You know, if your wife's coming
in and she seems to be mad at you all
the time, and I'm going to use the nice word
with the W here so it's not mistaken, and you say,
in your mind, she's such a wis right, she's such
a witch, And you just keep saying that. Well, if
the answer then is okay, I'll tell you how we're
(15:06):
going to solve this.
Speaker 5 (15:06):
Problem. We need to talk more.
Speaker 4 (15:08):
That's not going to work because in your mind you've
already fixed a label on top of her that has
objectified her, that says she's bad because she's a witch. Right,
And now the communication that you have is not going
to work. It's going to be ineffective. It will only
work if you look at your wife and you go, hey,
she's a human being just like me, and she's dealing
with challenges just like me and fears, and I need
(15:30):
to think about her as a human being and have empathy.
So if we want to fix this, it starts with
me recognizing that I have the propensity to be evil,
that when I label someone, i'm objectifying them. When I
do that, I'm betraying myself because I'm denying myself the
gifts that they have to give me, and that if
(15:53):
instead of doing that, I enjoin them, I can create
an environment where I can learn more, gain more, prosper more,
have better friends.
Speaker 5 (16:01):
Here's the key.
Speaker 4 (16:03):
If you want to be patriotic, quit insulting other Americans.
Find a way to reach out to them. But it
starts with me.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
And that's hard, and I totally agree with you, well,
but it's hard when you have the top American constantly
insulting and bullying people.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
Right, So we have to go.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Beyond that, right, and we have to reach out, I believe,
to our neighbors and not label them the others.
Speaker 7 (16:27):
Right.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
We have to stop the name calling, it bullying. We
have to get more empathy. I mean, I was reading
article this morning, Paul how when Elon Musk was on
Joe Rogan, he talked about one of the weaknesses of
the Democratic Party was empathy. That empathy is on the
way out, and it just can't be that way. We've
got to be able to have empathy.
Speaker 4 (16:44):
Right.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
We have to have empathy with our fellow American.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Again, I believe when you put a face, when you
actually get to know the next door neighbor who disagrees
you politically, you.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
Realize you got a lot more in common than you don't.
Speaker 7 (16:57):
Right.
Speaker 5 (16:58):
You may have heard this story.
Speaker 4 (17:00):
That's one of my favorites, and I think it's a
story of how empathy should work. I don't remember the
name of the artist, but there was an artist that
was a saxophone player. You can find him on YouTube,
and he was African American. He would go play a
saxophone well, one day after he was playing, this guy
comes up to him. He's a white guy, and he says, hey.
He said, I want you to know that I hate
(17:22):
and he uses the N word, and then he says
but he says, I've also been a member of the
klu Klux Klan, and.
Speaker 5 (17:30):
He said, I just want you to know.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
I was really surprised when I was listening to you, too,
because I've never heard anybody play that saxophone as well
as you did. So instead of being offended or arguing
with him, he said, oh. He goes, well, tell me
where you grew up. Oh were you poor? Where you
did you have money? What happened to you in life?
Speaker 5 (17:46):
Well?
Speaker 4 (17:47):
Why did you join the klue Clux plan, never being judgmental,
listens to him. Two weeks later, he goes to play again.
This guy shows up and he says, hey. He goes,
and it really bothered me after my last conversation with you,
because I was telling you all these spiteful things and
in some ways trying to cite you, and he just
kept listening to me and being nice to me, and
I realized that I'm not being right and he hands
(18:09):
them his clue Clux klan hood.
Speaker 5 (18:11):
He says, I quit. Well, I wanted to give this.
Speaker 4 (18:13):
He goes, but I also brought these other two buddies
that are in the group with me. Would you talk
to them? So he talks to them right as it
turns out, a couple weeks later, these guys give it up. Well,
his band who's black, tells them. They get mad at him. Hey,
we're getting all these clue Cluts clan members. They come
in to listen to our music and he goes, that's
(18:35):
not who we want listening to it. He goes, no, no, no, no, no,
He goes, I don't judge myself by who wants to
listen to my music. I judge myself by how many
Clueklux clan hats I have hanging in my prod that
if we want to listen to them, we can't preach
to them. It isn't going to work. They're not going
to listen. My wife and I wrote a book. She's
(18:56):
a clinical psychologist that's worked on terrorist Her family was
by Saddam Hussein, and we wrote a book called Addictive Ideologies.
And one of the things that's clear when you study this,
you are not going to change at somebody's ideological point
of view because you think you have a better argument, Absolutely,
but you may change it by being concerned about them.
(19:20):
There are a number of people who have turned to
the far right or the far left, and I think
our best answer is we need to be empathetic and
listen to them. That doesn't mean we have to give
up our principles. That just means that they're fellow Americans
and they have a different point of view, and our
best chance to influence them is if they like us.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Paul all great points to tell. The book is called
What's Right with America? Where can people catch up with you?
Speaker 5 (19:49):
A couple of places.
Speaker 4 (19:50):
You can buy the book on Amazon, but if you
want to get through to me direct, you can do
Paul at Opdamerican dot com. That's the easiest one, or
you can go onto our website. We have a website
called Optamerican dot com. And then I also have a
website for our healthcare company called Redirect Health.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Paul, thanks so much for the small business radio show.
This is the small business radio show.
Speaker 3 (20:09):
We be right back.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
My work with thousands of small business owners over the
last twenty years inspired me to write my next book
on how to make changes.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
Well, that's not exactly true.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
More accurately, my frustration and the resulting challenges working with
small business owners forced me to write this new book.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
Let me explain.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
I'm often asked by companies and small business owners that
I don't know to help them. Typically, they're feeling stuck
by a problem and their companies can't move forward. After
analyze the situation, we mutually decide on a go forward strategy.
I help them assemble a detailed plan to make any
changes and the critical sess factors and actions that need
to be completed. They agree that taking these actions will
(20:54):
help them solve their issue for their company and make
them more money, and then almost nothing happens. Unfortunately, most
small business owners implement a few easy steps but never
take the critical or difficult ones that could make a difference.
This has long frustrated me, since we worked really hard
(21:15):
putting together this plan, and at the beginning we were
both excited about the result. I wrote my new book,
change Masters, How to actually make the changes you already
know you need to make to figure out why small
business owners do not make the changes or take the
actions that they know will.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
Help them reach their goals.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Where is the gap between sincere intent to make these
changes and the actions to actually do it. What holds
most people back and keeps them stuck on the same
path over and over again.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
Why are they still so comfortable.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
In not making these changes and staying on a path
that clearly doesn't work for them? One thing is it's
not adding to their happiness and it's not adding to
their feelings success. What steps they need to take to
slowly break free and start to make those changes today
that will help them in the long run. In my
new book, I reveal much of the psychological research around
(22:10):
why change is just so hard for so many people,
and real life strategies that every small business owner can
employ right now to make the changes they need to
make in their companies to grow. So get my new book,
Change Masters. Remember I'm not trying to convince you to
make a change, but rather help you make the changes
you already know you need to.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
Take stick around to get your small business unstuck. More
of Small Business Radio with Barry moles.
Speaker 6 (22:44):
Well.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
I remember in one of my favorite movies, Believe It
or Not, is a show called Starship Troopers, which is
kind of a spoof on US sci fi movie. There's
these two people talking, two soldiers talking, and before they
go to the war, one character says the other do
you want to live forever?
Speaker 3 (22:59):
And is yeah, I do.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
But with the average lifespan of men in this country
being seventy six and women being close to eighty two,
is there a way for people to routinely live over
one hundred? Is this something that Silicon Valley is really
focusing on. My guest is Tom Hogan. He's a former
Oracle executives. It's the author of four novels. As latest
(23:22):
is called The Forever Factor, a Spence novel about the
quest to extend human life to one hundred and fifty years.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
Tom, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 6 (23:31):
Thanks.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
So how'd you get interested in this topic being an
Oracle executive.
Speaker 7 (23:36):
Well, it actually came about because of the background. After Oracle,
I went over to the venture capital side of things,
and I would be brought in by startups to help
them get launched in the marketplace. And one of the
venture capitalists who was a good friend of mine, who
(23:57):
had always said.
Speaker 6 (23:58):
Hey, I want to write a book with you.
Speaker 7 (24:02):
We got together and I said, you bring me the topics,
and he came up with all these esoteric topics that
you and I wouldn't be at all interested in, Barry,
but would be tremendous for nerds in Silicon Valley. So
I said, well, let's just table this, let's get caught
up on what you guys have been up to. And
he said, well, I just got back from Croatia where
(24:23):
I was on a boat with six other venture capitalists
and we were all talking about biohacking and what we're
doing to expand our life expectancy. And he went through
all of the things they were doing, and I just
stopped him and I said, well, there's our book, right.
You know, this is the strangest damn thing I've ever
(24:43):
heard of, and I'm sure that our readers would be
the same.
Speaker 6 (24:47):
So that was the whole genesis of it.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
Why do you think there's so much interest in people
living much much longer, like, you know, one hundred percent
longer than they live today.
Speaker 6 (24:59):
You know, Well, I'm with you on this one.
Speaker 7 (25:01):
I'm not quite sure because as I get a little
bit older, you know, I lose a little bit of
elasticity simply and physically every time I turn around, and
I'm sitting there going so what you'll see in this
book is a lot of people will look for that
until they realize, WHOA wait a minute, my mind is
not keeping up with my body. These are all physical
(25:22):
changes that can make me extend my life expectancy to
one twenty five or one point fifty. But as I
look at it as a civilian, I'm going to be
a vegetable with great looking abs, you know, if that's
what they're talking about, because I'll be over in the corner.
You know, I'm in my food at one twenty five,
(25:44):
but you know, can still run a four minute mile.
So it's a it's an odd kind of dis been
safe that they're they're involved in. And to be honest,
until the brain keeps up with the body, I'm not interested, well,
you know.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
And it's a strange thing because I have a mother
in law who's ninety one years old and she's got
Alzheimer's and she basically doesn't know who she is. And
her boyfriend is ninety nine years old and he's still
moving furniture right right, And so it's a very different
kind of thing. So what did you discover, Tom in
the research of this book about the science behind living
(26:17):
to one hundred and fifty years old.
Speaker 6 (26:21):
The science is there. It's interesting.
Speaker 7 (26:24):
I'm talking to you from Austin, Texas, which is like
a baby Silokon Valley in some ways, and.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
Everybody's living lost in Texas now, you know.
Speaker 6 (26:34):
Yeah, we just moved out.
Speaker 7 (26:36):
We moved to Boulder because it's just too many people
coming here. But yeah, it's a very interesting thing because
the head of the Longevity Institute, a doctor named Peter Atcia,
is kind of the guru for longevity.
Speaker 6 (26:53):
And then all of the.
Speaker 7 (26:56):
Benjam capitalists that I talked to had two things in common.
Of them had something to do with longevity and of
extending their lifetime through everything from microdosne with LSD or
kenymene to you know, having bunkers in New Zealand where
(27:18):
they can get to if the end of the world
comes or they're part of the United States becomes unlivable
in their old age. So everyone's looking ahead, and I'm
with you, you know from the standpoint my mother lived
to be one hundred and two and was sharp as
attack up until the.
Speaker 6 (27:34):
Day she died.
Speaker 7 (27:36):
My father was manic depressive for the last fifteen years
of his life. And if you combine those two everyone says, well,
you've got great genes, and I go, yeah, but I
could be a vegetable from seventy five on and lived
to be one hundred and two, and I think that's
not the best life I can think of.
Speaker 6 (27:55):
So everyone has that kind of fear.
Speaker 7 (27:58):
They know, people such as you and I know, and
then they look ahead and say it's a young person's
world and they want to be a part of it
for as long as possible.
Speaker 6 (28:08):
You know, it's going to be a while.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
You know. It's funny because my stepfather and mother in
law before he died, they used to go to this
longevity institute I don't know which one it was, and
they would take a bus around to go to various
events or dinners whatever, and people would watch them come
out of this bus that said like the longevity institute,
and people would look at them and Mike would say, Mike,
my stepfial law would say, you know, I'm actually one
(28:31):
hundred and thirty five, right because this long jevity institute.
But you know, it seems to me that people, you know,
last two undred years obviously are living much longer. I
mean people used to live in their furies and fifties
people now routinely live into their their eighties. What's the
next step in science that's going to get us to
routinely live to say, you know one hundred, one hundred
and twenty five.
Speaker 6 (28:53):
Well, it's a good question.
Speaker 7 (28:56):
The one thing that everyone puvid to me and I
don't know, it's hard for us to prove it, but
they say that the person who lives to be two
hundred two hundred is already alive today. You know, they
maybe may maybe a six week old baby, but wow,
they're just saying that. The that the that the sciences
(29:20):
is getting.
Speaker 6 (29:20):
There very quickly.
Speaker 7 (29:21):
I mean, you see what's going on with AI now
artificial intelligence. You apply that to what they've been doing,
and you can see why they feel like they're going
to be making significant steps forward in making all of
this happen. So, you know, if I have to guess,
I would say within the next fifteen.
Speaker 6 (29:43):
Or twenty years, it's going to be.
Speaker 7 (29:45):
Something that is certainly not commonplace, but that people can
actually opt for and try for and start you know,
adapting their their exercise program and their diet. But mostly
just the audience in the medicine will be there to
take care of anyone who's taking care of themselves.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
And in your research, what's the next big step? Like,
we eliminated so many different you know, diseases obviously the
last you know, fifty years. Unfortunately some of those are
coming back now because the lacks of vaccinations. But what
do you think the next step is to be able
to eliminate cancer or what's the what do you think
that big breakthrough has to be.
Speaker 6 (30:25):
I think you're right about the cancer. As part of
my research, I.
Speaker 7 (30:30):
Went back to MIT and the Institute there for longevity
is also linked to the same effort in cancer, so
they're obviously tying the two of them together. As cancer
is one of these things where the cells multiply and
multiply within your body, you know, anytime you can retard that.
Speaker 6 (30:54):
I think that's one.
Speaker 7 (30:55):
But as I said earlier in both the book and
eng this conversation, the mental aspects have to keep up
with the physical. That if I'm one hundred and I
feel seventy, I need to be thinking like I'm seventy
or seventy.
Speaker 6 (31:11):
Five or else.
Speaker 7 (31:13):
This is one of these parties that I'm not sure
people are going to want to attend.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
Right, I mean, I keep thinking about what are the
implications for society if people live to one hundred and
fifty years old?
Speaker 3 (31:24):
Right, I mean there's not going to be any room left.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
I mean the society economically, socially, physically relies on people
dying after certain.
Speaker 7 (31:33):
Per Absolutely no, and you've hit on what the big
theme of the book is.
Speaker 6 (31:41):
In addition to the scientific.
Speaker 7 (31:43):
Breakthrough is you know exactly what you're talking about politically,
how the people campaign when they start talking about moving
You know, the when does medicare kick in?
Speaker 6 (31:56):
For example, when you're ninety. Now, you know, how do
people reach higher at.
Speaker 7 (32:01):
Sixty or sixty five if they're going to live another
sixty years.
Speaker 6 (32:05):
Politically, the estimate is.
Speaker 7 (32:07):
That as people get older, they get more conservative, and
so you may see more of democracies falling as strong
men come in. Ethnically, yeah, you know the Obama death squad.
Speaker 6 (32:21):
You know, all of a.
Speaker 7 (32:22):
Sudden, you know, government's involvement on who gets these treatments
and for how long, et cetera. You know, and then,
like you said, you hit the number one problem, and
that is resources is you know, by the time these
people are you know, ready to kick off, the planet
is almost doubled Now that won't happen because the Third world,
(32:45):
and this is a big part of the novel.
Speaker 6 (32:47):
This is all a first world issue.
Speaker 7 (32:49):
I mean, the death agents that you just quoted to
me would be forty five and fifty for men and
women in third world countries. So it'll be a question
two of whether those people, as part of the world
contracts with itself, get to live as long. And if so,
then you're talking about a planet that's not only unlivable
(33:11):
because of the heat, but also because of the lack
of resources.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Yeah, if current experience is any guide, it probably will
not be available except for the richest countries at least
the start exactly. Yeah, you know, I mean, especially with
the USA now cutting all the aid for vaccines and
things like that to other nations. I mean, these people
are going to die and this is going to come
to us. And I think you bring up a really
good point. It's like, yeah, do you want to live longer?
(33:37):
Of course, because I'd like to experience more, But are
you physically and mentally able to do it?
Speaker 3 (33:43):
If you had to choose between being losing.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
Your physical first or your mental first, which way would
you go?
Speaker 6 (33:51):
Oh?
Speaker 7 (33:51):
I if my mind goes I don't want to be around.
Speaker 6 (33:55):
So yeah, I'll.
Speaker 7 (33:56):
Say that I want the mental acuity and I'll trade that.
Speaker 6 (34:02):
You know, not that I'm wishing.
Speaker 7 (34:04):
For anything that on the physical side, but you know, uh,
that would be it for me. Is my concern would
be that my body is uh is not my mind
is not keeping up with my body.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
So the last question I want to ask you was
the tellable is called the forever factor. What is the
forever factor?
Speaker 7 (34:25):
I think the forever factor is number one is you
need to find what the what the guide is to
what's the underlying elements of aging? And we don't know that.
Speaker 6 (34:38):
And that was the premise of the book.
Speaker 7 (34:40):
Is what happens if this woman who is researching something
completely other, starts looking at the idea of how can
they how can they finally uh figure out which are
the causes of of the u of dying in a
common way across all kinds of diseases, and that's what
(35:00):
she comes up with. And when that happens, then that's
the factor that's been missing in all of the discussions
and things like that.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
Yeah, I mean again, look at how society has really
changed over the last one hundred years.
Speaker 3 (35:13):
Have people lived longer.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
I mean, so much of the GDP is associated with healthcare.
You know, so much of the industries are associated with
taking care of people are older, either independent living or
memory care centers or.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
Things like that.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
And people spend most of their money in their lives
in the last five years of their lives having someone
take care of them. So I mean someone lives all
this time and has huge impact. So the top book
is called The Forever Factor.
Speaker 3 (35:39):
Tom. Where can people catch.
Speaker 7 (35:40):
Up with you? I'm at www Tom Hype and Hope
and h og An dot com and the book is
available in some Barns and Nobles, but definitely on.
Speaker 6 (35:56):
Amazon.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
Well, Tom, I look forward to picking it up. And
I want to thank everyone for joining this week's radio show.
I got to thank our incredible staff, our booking producer
Sarah Schaffern, our sound head or Ethan Moltz. If you
are serious about being more successful in twenty twenty five,
you got to give me a call. If sub a
private line seven seven three eight three seven eight two
five zero, or email me at Barry at Molts dot com. Remember,
(36:18):
love everyone, trust a few, impal your own canoe. Have
a profitable and passionate week
Speaker 1 (36:23):
You can find Barrymoltz on the web at Barimoltz dot com,
or more episodes of Small Business Radio at small Business
radioshow dot com.
Get ready for all the craziness of small business. It's
exactly that craziness that makes it exciting and totally unbelievable.
Small Business Radio is now on the air with your host,
Barry Moltz.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Well, thanks for joining this week's radio show. Remember this
is the final word in small business. For those keeping track,
This is now show number eight hundred and forty two. Well,
let me be honest. As a result of the current
presidents on again, off again policies and head turning daily
flip flops, I'm not sure what the future of this
(00:39):
country and the economy is where we headed as a
democratic and capitalist society. My guest is Paul Johnson's the
civic entrepreneur, investor, and former mayor of Phoenix whose career
spans public service, private enterprise, and local policy engagement. He's
president of Redirect Health and has led numerous acquisitions and
investment ventures clean.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Healthcare, in real estate. He's got a news book out.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
It's called What's Right with America explores the fusion of
free markets, free trade, property rights, and the American civil
rights tradition.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Paul, welcome to the show.
Speaker 4 (01:14):
Oh very I'm honored to be one of your guests.
You have a great show.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
I appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Well, I'm so glad you have a book that says
what's right with America because so many times we're focused
on what's wrong with America?
Speaker 3 (01:25):
So what is right with America?
Speaker 5 (01:28):
Okay?
Speaker 4 (01:28):
So I have to start by telling you since I
put this book out, I have never had so many
online people call me a moron.
Speaker 5 (01:34):
I mean it's like, you know.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
They're all saying that they can't see anything that's right
with it. They don't like the name. But here's this
is my belief. First, I think we have this politics
of pessimism that's going on to me, and it exists,
and it sells, and it sells that sells really well,
and that you know, the idea where we're sold this
(01:55):
bill of goods.
Speaker 5 (01:56):
It says our.
Speaker 4 (01:57):
Industry and our jobs have been hollowed out. The corporates
as left and one side blames the global lead and
the other side blames the rich. The problem with that is.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
I'm blaming Jeff. I don't know about you.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
Yeah, we've got to get to the conspiracy theory before
we're done. But the truth is, if you look at
the data, neither one or write effectively. I'll just give
you some stats that I think might help. And in
nineteen ninety two, the GAD Agreement was passed by the
United States, which really kind of opened up free trade.
I can tell you I served on that committee, and
(02:29):
the goal of it was to try to protect intellectual
property rights, which weren't protected around the world, and to
give up some free trade for doing that, because people
were stealing our music, they were stealing our movies, they
were stealing our ideas. Now it's not perfect, but we
definitely gained foothold in that and that was very helpful
to the growth of companies like Facebook and Google and
(02:51):
other companies from then on out. But statistically, here's what
happened of the G seven nations. At that time, we
were equal to all of them GDP per person. Today,
the United States, these are the richest countries in the world,
were double the next country in GDP per person. In fact,
in Mississippi, which is our lowest GDP per person of
(03:14):
fifty three eight hundred dollars per person, close enough that
would make it higher than any other G seven nation
other than Germany. So the point here is is that
if you look at the statistics and the data.
Speaker 5 (03:30):
We've never done better.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
In fact, the United States is the greatest superpower in
the history of the planet. No country has ever done
more to advance human progress than we have, and no
country is doing nearly as well as we are. And
that's kind of the starting point of the book, is
to try to get people to think about this great
prosperity that we have and then to think about how
(03:51):
did we get it?
Speaker 2 (03:53):
So, is this whole focus on which seems to me
the current presidence is trying to take away free trade,
is trying to control capitalism to what form he wants.
Is this all about the era now of the other
of the outsider of you know, nationalism and things like that,
even and we're going to back that even though it
hurts free trade and capitalism.
Speaker 6 (04:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (04:15):
I think we have a close to a socialist movement
going on in both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party.
I mean, mom DOMI in New York is kind of
an indication of what's happening on the left. The idea
of terrorists that used to be a labor policy in
the Democratic Party. I registered Democrat years ago and I'm
an independent today, but that was a democratic kind of
(04:35):
socialist policy. The issue is here's what I would tell
you that is really taking place. There's this thing called
the amygdala in the human mind. In the human brain,
this amigdalant. When you engage it, when you terrify someone,
it overpowers the neo cortex where all rational thought exists.
(04:56):
Optimism love those types of things, and when it overpowers it,
all you can think of is fight, flight or freeze.
But if you're the news media and you can get
people to focus on those things that terrify them. And
if I know if you're a Republican or Democrat, I
can tell you the five buttons to push on either
side that will get you there. You will be terrified
and you'll watch the news tomorrow. It also is beginning
(05:17):
to work extremely well in politics. It doesn't matter that
it doesn't reflect the truth. It's in many ways it's
much more powerful than optimism. But here's what I would
say to I know you have a really strong business group.
The key for us to be successful in our own
lives in a democracy that has been focused on things
(05:39):
like civil rights, equal rights, human rights, property rights, free markets,
free trade, the individual, the concepts that surround the individual.
For us to be successful, we must have agency. An
agency means we need to be able to see clear
about what's happening. Otherwise, you listen to the political leaders
on either side, or you listen to the media on
(06:00):
either side, and you start making bad decisions about whether
you should invest, whether you should continue to try to
grow your business, whether you should hire employees. If you're
making your decisions based upon them, they're intentionally trying to
terrify you because it is beneficial for them to do so.
They can take your agency and they can benefit from it. Politically,
(06:22):
we have to recognize that unless we're able to get
that agency back and really look at data in an
accurate way, it's problematic.
Speaker 5 (06:31):
Now.
Speaker 4 (06:31):
We lay out in the book a series of things
we think that you need to do, including being accountable
for yourself, making certain that you're watching the right information,
being willing to listen to people who maybe you disagree with,
knowing that they have some benefit that they can give
you as well.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
I think that Paul, it's hard because, as you say,
you've got to see clearly and a small business and got
be able to see clearly, but there's so much misinformation
out there. Every single thing that I see in social media,
the news. I got a double track trickle chap from
different sources to see if it's even real because you
see fake videos, you see fake statistics, and people can
chop them up anyway they can. How can the small
(07:11):
business owner be optimistic about the future with everything going
on when it's seemingly every day it's a different episode
of the Apprentice.
Speaker 4 (07:22):
So one way to start is to gain perspective. So
when people tell you how bad things are, asked this
question compared to when and compared to who? All right,
when has it been better than it is right now?
You can't find it historical.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
We're talking to some people.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
They say it's back in the fifties, right, I mean
that's what they'll tell you.
Speaker 4 (07:45):
And for anybody, well my age would tell you then
you didn't.
Speaker 5 (07:50):
You don't know what the fifties was like.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
You weren't there, right, The sixties weren't better, the seventies
weren't better. Also read in that can give you that
gives you more of an optimistic outlook. There's a great
book I recommend to people. It's now a little dated.
It's about eight or nine years old, maybe ten. It's
called The Rational optimist and it's about Yeah, it's a
great book. It talks about trade and how trade has
(08:15):
played a role in America in the evolution of mankind.
But most importantly, as long as we stay dedicated to
the fundamental principles that made this country, we're going to
do fine.
Speaker 5 (08:27):
Now.
Speaker 4 (08:27):
I hear from a lot of people tremendous fear about,
you know, what Donald Trump is doing, and then I'll
hear from Republicans fear about what the Democrats are doing.
And here's what I would tell you. Take solace in
the fact that we have a constitution. Take solace in
the fact that eventually a lot of this is.
Speaker 5 (08:45):
Going to fade out.
Speaker 4 (08:46):
It just is going to It has a shelf life.
And politics is I've spent a lifetime in it. It's
never static. It just isn't static. What you see today
politically will not be what you're seeing two years from now.
What I think is happening today is there's a giant
shift that's happening politically. I think you're going to see
(09:06):
counter forces, third parties, political reforms, things that are going
to take place because our political system is way under
serving how great we are as a country. But step
away from the political environment for a moment and take
a look at you know, I remember when I was
a little boy. I remember running home to watch the
(09:29):
space landing on the nineteen sixty nine, and I remember
laying on my grandmother's floor was a concrete floor. She
you know, they didn't have much money. But we get
there and we watch this thing happening. I could tell
you the name of every astronaut. There's spouses, many of
the engineers. You know, I knew some of the technical
things that were happening with the spacecraft, But what I
(09:50):
remember most was how proud we were after that happened. Now,
the question that we should ask is, okay, are those
moments behind Well, watch television about six months ago, and
you'll see Elon Musk taking this spacecraft into outer space
and bringing it back and capturing it with something that
(10:10):
looked like a pair of tweezers on a platform. And
he did it with private money. He did it with
his own desire to try to get to Mars. My
point is, these things are still happening, inventions happening at
a tremendous pace. Be The ability for us to change
(10:31):
the world is as big now as it's ever been.
Speaker 5 (10:34):
The ability to move business is better than it's ever been.
Speaker 4 (10:37):
But if you continually are looking at the downside, that
not that you shouldn't observe it, not that you should
ignore it. Being optimistic doesn't mean ignoring the bad things.
It's just that the people who are going to make
it better are the ones who believe that you can.
Speaker 6 (10:52):
Right.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
But folks, again, and I really appreach your optimism, are
worried about all the cuts and science and these kinds
of things that's happened.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Under the current administration.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
That innovation is going to dry up, right, It's going
to go to other countries or whatever it is. So
I guess, how do you how do you hold on
to this you know, this optimism or what can entrepreneurs
do right now? I guess the better question, Paul, is
what can we do right now to heal the divisions?
Because unfortunately, in my opinion, my opinion, it didn't start
(11:22):
with Donald Trump, right, that's exactly right, but he has
a tendency to focus on dividing us. Right, we as
Americans have to heal divisions, and part of the healing
divisions is obviously talking to each other. But as entrepreneurs,
how do we help heal the divisions as business people?
Speaker 4 (11:38):
All right, let me let me hit that as two questions.
And the first question I want to answer is the
question of should we be afraid of the science cuts?
And the second question I want to answer is how
do we heal the divisions? So on the first question,
our country has done a great many things great, a
number of great things. We've built bridges and dams and
(12:00):
invented vaccines, and we even put a.
Speaker 5 (12:02):
Man on the moon. I mean, it's it's amazing.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
But making you believe that some people think we did
it was just a conspiracy.
Speaker 4 (12:08):
Yeah, that's true. I can't help with that group, although they.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
Are capricorn one that movie.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
You remember that, I do remember you're dating yourself there.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
I get it.
Speaker 4 (12:21):
But the answer is the single greatest thing in our
country ever did was in the very beginning. It empowered
the individual over itself. Civil rights, equal rights, human rights,
property rights, the ability to own what you create, free markets,
free trades, free elections. Those are going to get dinged,
(12:41):
but they're not going away. They're going to be here,
and the next group that comes in may may even
liberalize them more. That's our secret of success. Now, I
personally think we shouldn't be cutting what's going on with
our science foundations. I personally think that our investment in
science and innovation is really important, but it's not the
most important thing. The most important thing is that you
(13:05):
continue to empower individuals. Now, let's move over to the
other question, because I think that's maybe the key question.
There's a guy named Alexander Soljannitzen who wrote a book
called The Gulag Archipelao. I love this book, but there's
a great lesson to learn in it. And the lesson
is so he ended up going to the front in Germany,
(13:27):
and then he was in a German prisoner war camp.
And then when he came back, Stalin was afraid, so
he sent he in a number of other people to
the Gulag. And in the Gulag he was trying to
figure out, like, what had he done wrong because he
had been a good member of the Communist Party. Well,
he began to think about the job that he had
in the Communist Party before he went to the front,
(13:47):
and it was to pick up these guys that were
considered to be rich farmers. They were called kulax, which
means you had two cows instead of none, and to
move them to the Gulag, to move them into Siberia.
He moved sixty thousand families, he said, and they all died.
None of them survived. He said, Now, how did I
(14:09):
do that?
Speaker 5 (14:10):
He said? I did that because I was a.
Speaker 4 (14:14):
Communist and we were the good guys and landowners and
business people.
Speaker 5 (14:20):
They were the bad guys. They were evil. He said.
Speaker 4 (14:23):
It allowed me to transfer the evil that I had
inside of me to do unbelievable things to a group
of people. The point is this, each of us have
that capacity to do good or evil. It's inside of us.
And the minute we place a label on someone else
and we say, well they're bad because of the label,
(14:45):
you cannot be successful. Now take this all the way
down to your spouse. You know, if your wife's coming
in and she seems to be mad at you all
the time, and I'm going to use the nice word
with the W here so it's not mistaken, and you say,
in your mind, she's such a wis right, she's such
a witch, And you just keep saying that. Well, if
the answer then is okay, I'll tell you how we're
(15:06):
going to solve this.
Speaker 5 (15:06):
Problem. We need to talk more.
Speaker 4 (15:08):
That's not going to work because in your mind you've
already fixed a label on top of her that has
objectified her, that says she's bad because she's a witch. Right,
And now the communication that you have is not going
to work. It's going to be ineffective. It will only
work if you look at your wife and you go, hey,
she's a human being just like me, and she's dealing
with challenges just like me and fears, and I need
(15:30):
to think about her as a human being and have empathy.
So if we want to fix this, it starts with
me recognizing that I have the propensity to be evil,
that when I label someone, i'm objectifying them. When I
do that, I'm betraying myself because I'm denying myself the
gifts that they have to give me, and that if
(15:53):
instead of doing that, I enjoin them, I can create
an environment where I can learn more, gain more, prosper more,
have better friends.
Speaker 5 (16:01):
Here's the key.
Speaker 4 (16:03):
If you want to be patriotic, quit insulting other Americans.
Find a way to reach out to them. But it
starts with me.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
And that's hard, and I totally agree with you, well,
but it's hard when you have the top American constantly
insulting and bullying people.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
Right, So we have to go.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Beyond that, right, and we have to reach out, I believe,
to our neighbors and not label them the others.
Speaker 7 (16:27):
Right.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
We have to stop the name calling, it bullying. We
have to get more empathy. I mean, I was reading
article this morning, Paul how when Elon Musk was on
Joe Rogan, he talked about one of the weaknesses of
the Democratic Party was empathy. That empathy is on the
way out, and it just can't be that way. We've
got to be able to have empathy.
Speaker 4 (16:44):
Right.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
We have to have empathy with our fellow American.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Again, I believe when you put a face, when you
actually get to know the next door neighbor who disagrees
you politically, you.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
Realize you got a lot more in common than you don't.
Speaker 7 (16:57):
Right.
Speaker 5 (16:58):
You may have heard this story.
Speaker 4 (17:00):
That's one of my favorites, and I think it's a
story of how empathy should work. I don't remember the
name of the artist, but there was an artist that
was a saxophone player. You can find him on YouTube,
and he was African American. He would go play a
saxophone well, one day after he was playing, this guy
comes up to him. He's a white guy, and he says, hey.
He said, I want you to know that I hate
(17:22):
and he uses the N word, and then he says
but he says, I've also been a member of the
klu Klux Klan, and.
Speaker 5 (17:30):
He said, I just want you to know.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
I was really surprised when I was listening to you, too,
because I've never heard anybody play that saxophone as well
as you did. So instead of being offended or arguing
with him, he said, oh. He goes, well, tell me
where you grew up. Oh were you poor? Where you
did you have money? What happened to you in life?
Speaker 5 (17:46):
Well?
Speaker 4 (17:47):
Why did you join the klue Clux plan, never being judgmental,
listens to him. Two weeks later, he goes to play again.
This guy shows up and he says, hey. He goes,
and it really bothered me after my last conversation with you,
because I was telling you all these spiteful things and
in some ways trying to cite you, and he just
kept listening to me and being nice to me, and
I realized that I'm not being right and he hands
(18:09):
them his clue Clux klan hood.
Speaker 5 (18:11):
He says, I quit. Well, I wanted to give this.
Speaker 4 (18:13):
He goes, but I also brought these other two buddies
that are in the group with me. Would you talk
to them? So he talks to them right as it
turns out, a couple weeks later, these guys give it up. Well,
his band who's black, tells them. They get mad at him. Hey,
we're getting all these clue Cluts clan members. They come
in to listen to our music and he goes, that's
(18:35):
not who we want listening to it. He goes, no, no, no, no, no,
He goes, I don't judge myself by who wants to
listen to my music. I judge myself by how many
Clueklux clan hats I have hanging in my prod that
if we want to listen to them, we can't preach
to them. It isn't going to work. They're not going
to listen. My wife and I wrote a book. She's
(18:56):
a clinical psychologist that's worked on terrorist Her family was
by Saddam Hussein, and we wrote a book called Addictive Ideologies.
And one of the things that's clear when you study this,
you are not going to change at somebody's ideological point
of view because you think you have a better argument, Absolutely,
but you may change it by being concerned about them.
(19:20):
There are a number of people who have turned to
the far right or the far left, and I think
our best answer is we need to be empathetic and
listen to them. That doesn't mean we have to give
up our principles. That just means that they're fellow Americans
and they have a different point of view, and our
best chance to influence them is if they like us.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Paul all great points to tell. The book is called
What's Right with America? Where can people catch up with you?
Speaker 5 (19:49):
A couple of places.
Speaker 4 (19:50):
You can buy the book on Amazon, but if you
want to get through to me direct, you can do
Paul at Opdamerican dot com. That's the easiest one, or
you can go onto our website. We have a website
called Optamerican dot com. And then I also have a
website for our healthcare company called Redirect Health.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Paul, thanks so much for the small business radio show.
This is the small business radio show.
Speaker 3 (20:09):
We be right back.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
My work with thousands of small business owners over the
last twenty years inspired me to write my next book
on how to make changes.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
Well, that's not exactly true.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
More accurately, my frustration and the resulting challenges working with
small business owners forced me to write this new book.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
Let me explain.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
I'm often asked by companies and small business owners that
I don't know to help them. Typically, they're feeling stuck
by a problem and their companies can't move forward. After
analyze the situation, we mutually decide on a go forward strategy.
I help them assemble a detailed plan to make any
changes and the critical sess factors and actions that need
to be completed. They agree that taking these actions will
(20:54):
help them solve their issue for their company and make
them more money, and then almost nothing happens. Unfortunately, most
small business owners implement a few easy steps but never
take the critical or difficult ones that could make a difference.
This has long frustrated me, since we worked really hard
(21:15):
putting together this plan, and at the beginning we were
both excited about the result. I wrote my new book,
change Masters, How to actually make the changes you already
know you need to make to figure out why small
business owners do not make the changes or take the
actions that they know will.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
Help them reach their goals.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Where is the gap between sincere intent to make these
changes and the actions to actually do it. What holds
most people back and keeps them stuck on the same
path over and over again.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
Why are they still so comfortable.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
In not making these changes and staying on a path
that clearly doesn't work for them? One thing is it's
not adding to their happiness and it's not adding to
their feelings success. What steps they need to take to
slowly break free and start to make those changes today
that will help them in the long run. In my
new book, I reveal much of the psychological research around
(22:10):
why change is just so hard for so many people,
and real life strategies that every small business owner can
employ right now to make the changes they need to
make in their companies to grow. So get my new book,
Change Masters. Remember I'm not trying to convince you to
make a change, but rather help you make the changes
you already know you need to.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
Take stick around to get your small business unstuck. More
of Small Business Radio with Barry moles.
Speaker 6 (22:44):
Well.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
I remember in one of my favorite movies, Believe It
or Not, is a show called Starship Troopers, which is
kind of a spoof on US sci fi movie. There's
these two people talking, two soldiers talking, and before they
go to the war, one character says the other do
you want to live forever?
Speaker 3 (22:59):
And is yeah, I do.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
But with the average lifespan of men in this country
being seventy six and women being close to eighty two,
is there a way for people to routinely live over
one hundred? Is this something that Silicon Valley is really
focusing on. My guest is Tom Hogan. He's a former
Oracle executives. It's the author of four novels. As latest
(23:22):
is called The Forever Factor, a Spence novel about the
quest to extend human life to one hundred and fifty years.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
Tom, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 6 (23:31):
Thanks.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
So how'd you get interested in this topic being an
Oracle executive.
Speaker 7 (23:36):
Well, it actually came about because of the background. After Oracle,
I went over to the venture capital side of things,
and I would be brought in by startups to help
them get launched in the marketplace. And one of the
venture capitalists who was a good friend of mine, who
(23:57):
had always said.
Speaker 6 (23:58):
Hey, I want to write a book with you.
Speaker 7 (24:02):
We got together and I said, you bring me the topics,
and he came up with all these esoteric topics that
you and I wouldn't be at all interested in, Barry,
but would be tremendous for nerds in Silicon Valley. So
I said, well, let's just table this, let's get caught
up on what you guys have been up to. And
he said, well, I just got back from Croatia where
(24:23):
I was on a boat with six other venture capitalists
and we were all talking about biohacking and what we're
doing to expand our life expectancy. And he went through
all of the things they were doing, and I just
stopped him and I said, well, there's our book, right.
You know, this is the strangest damn thing I've ever
(24:43):
heard of, and I'm sure that our readers would be
the same.
Speaker 6 (24:47):
So that was the whole genesis of it.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
Why do you think there's so much interest in people
living much much longer, like, you know, one hundred percent
longer than they live today.
Speaker 6 (24:59):
You know, Well, I'm with you on this one.
Speaker 7 (25:01):
I'm not quite sure because as I get a little
bit older, you know, I lose a little bit of
elasticity simply and physically every time I turn around, and
I'm sitting there going so what you'll see in this
book is a lot of people will look for that
until they realize, WHOA wait a minute, my mind is
not keeping up with my body. These are all physical
(25:22):
changes that can make me extend my life expectancy to
one twenty five or one point fifty. But as I
look at it as a civilian, I'm going to be
a vegetable with great looking abs, you know, if that's
what they're talking about, because I'll be over in the corner.
You know, I'm in my food at one twenty five,
(25:44):
but you know, can still run a four minute mile.
So it's a it's an odd kind of dis been
safe that they're they're involved in. And to be honest,
until the brain keeps up with the body, I'm not interested, well,
you know.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
And it's a strange thing because I have a mother
in law who's ninety one years old and she's got
Alzheimer's and she basically doesn't know who she is. And
her boyfriend is ninety nine years old and he's still
moving furniture right right, And so it's a very different
kind of thing. So what did you discover, Tom in
the research of this book about the science behind living
(26:17):
to one hundred and fifty years old.
Speaker 6 (26:21):
The science is there. It's interesting.
Speaker 7 (26:24):
I'm talking to you from Austin, Texas, which is like
a baby Silokon Valley in some ways, and.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
Everybody's living lost in Texas now, you know.
Speaker 6 (26:34):
Yeah, we just moved out.
Speaker 7 (26:36):
We moved to Boulder because it's just too many people
coming here. But yeah, it's a very interesting thing because
the head of the Longevity Institute, a doctor named Peter Atcia,
is kind of the guru for longevity.
Speaker 6 (26:53):
And then all of the.
Speaker 7 (26:56):
Benjam capitalists that I talked to had two things in common.
Of them had something to do with longevity and of
extending their lifetime through everything from microdosne with LSD or
kenymene to you know, having bunkers in New Zealand where
(27:18):
they can get to if the end of the world
comes or they're part of the United States becomes unlivable
in their old age. So everyone's looking ahead, and I'm
with you, you know from the standpoint my mother lived
to be one hundred and two and was sharp as
attack up until the.
Speaker 6 (27:34):
Day she died.
Speaker 7 (27:36):
My father was manic depressive for the last fifteen years
of his life. And if you combine those two everyone says, well,
you've got great genes, and I go, yeah, but I
could be a vegetable from seventy five on and lived
to be one hundred and two, and I think that's
not the best life I can think of.
Speaker 6 (27:55):
So everyone has that kind of fear.
Speaker 7 (27:58):
They know, people such as you and I know, and
then they look ahead and say it's a young person's
world and they want to be a part of it
for as long as possible.
Speaker 6 (28:08):
You know, it's going to be a while.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
You know. It's funny because my stepfather and mother in
law before he died, they used to go to this
longevity institute I don't know which one it was, and
they would take a bus around to go to various
events or dinners whatever, and people would watch them come
out of this bus that said like the longevity institute,
and people would look at them and Mike would say, Mike,
my stepfial law would say, you know, I'm actually one
(28:31):
hundred and thirty five, right because this long jevity institute.
But you know, it seems to me that people, you know,
last two undred years obviously are living much longer. I
mean people used to live in their furies and fifties
people now routinely live into their their eighties. What's the
next step in science that's going to get us to
routinely live to say, you know one hundred, one hundred
and twenty five.
Speaker 6 (28:53):
Well, it's a good question.
Speaker 7 (28:56):
The one thing that everyone puvid to me and I
don't know, it's hard for us to prove it, but
they say that the person who lives to be two
hundred two hundred is already alive today. You know, they
maybe may maybe a six week old baby, but wow,
they're just saying that. The that the that the sciences
(29:20):
is getting.
Speaker 6 (29:20):
There very quickly.
Speaker 7 (29:21):
I mean, you see what's going on with AI now
artificial intelligence. You apply that to what they've been doing,
and you can see why they feel like they're going
to be making significant steps forward in making all of
this happen. So, you know, if I have to guess,
I would say within the next fifteen.
Speaker 6 (29:43):
Or twenty years, it's going to be.
Speaker 7 (29:45):
Something that is certainly not commonplace, but that people can
actually opt for and try for and start you know,
adapting their their exercise program and their diet. But mostly
just the audience in the medicine will be there to
take care of anyone who's taking care of themselves.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
And in your research, what's the next big step? Like,
we eliminated so many different you know, diseases obviously the
last you know, fifty years. Unfortunately some of those are
coming back now because the lacks of vaccinations. But what
do you think the next step is to be able
to eliminate cancer or what's the what do you think
that big breakthrough has to be.
Speaker 6 (30:25):
I think you're right about the cancer. As part of
my research, I.
Speaker 7 (30:30):
Went back to MIT and the Institute there for longevity
is also linked to the same effort in cancer, so
they're obviously tying the two of them together. As cancer
is one of these things where the cells multiply and
multiply within your body, you know, anytime you can retard that.
Speaker 6 (30:54):
I think that's one.
Speaker 7 (30:55):
But as I said earlier in both the book and
eng this conversation, the mental aspects have to keep up
with the physical. That if I'm one hundred and I
feel seventy, I need to be thinking like I'm seventy
or seventy.
Speaker 6 (31:11):
Five or else.
Speaker 7 (31:13):
This is one of these parties that I'm not sure
people are going to want to attend.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
Right, I mean, I keep thinking about what are the
implications for society if people live to one hundred and
fifty years old?
Speaker 3 (31:24):
Right, I mean there's not going to be any room left.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
I mean the society economically, socially, physically relies on people
dying after certain.
Speaker 7 (31:33):
Per Absolutely no, and you've hit on what the big
theme of the book is.
Speaker 6 (31:41):
In addition to the scientific.
Speaker 7 (31:43):
Breakthrough is you know exactly what you're talking about politically,
how the people campaign when they start talking about moving
You know, the when does medicare kick in?
Speaker 6 (31:56):
For example, when you're ninety. Now, you know, how do
people reach higher at.
Speaker 7 (32:01):
Sixty or sixty five if they're going to live another
sixty years.
Speaker 6 (32:05):
Politically, the estimate is.
Speaker 7 (32:07):
That as people get older, they get more conservative, and
so you may see more of democracies falling as strong
men come in. Ethnically, yeah, you know the Obama death squad.
Speaker 6 (32:21):
You know, all of a.
Speaker 7 (32:22):
Sudden, you know, government's involvement on who gets these treatments
and for how long, et cetera. You know, and then,
like you said, you hit the number one problem, and
that is resources is you know, by the time these
people are you know, ready to kick off, the planet
is almost doubled Now that won't happen because the Third world,
(32:45):
and this is a big part of the novel.
Speaker 6 (32:47):
This is all a first world issue.
Speaker 7 (32:49):
I mean, the death agents that you just quoted to
me would be forty five and fifty for men and
women in third world countries. So it'll be a question
two of whether those people, as part of the world
contracts with itself, get to live as long. And if so,
then you're talking about a planet that's not only unlivable
(33:11):
because of the heat, but also because of the lack
of resources.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Yeah, if current experience is any guide, it probably will
not be available except for the richest countries at least
the start exactly. Yeah, you know, I mean, especially with
the USA now cutting all the aid for vaccines and
things like that to other nations. I mean, these people
are going to die and this is going to come
to us. And I think you bring up a really
good point. It's like, yeah, do you want to live longer?
(33:37):
Of course, because I'd like to experience more, But are
you physically and mentally able to do it?
Speaker 3 (33:43):
If you had to choose between being losing.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
Your physical first or your mental first, which way would
you go?
Speaker 6 (33:51):
Oh?
Speaker 7 (33:51):
I if my mind goes I don't want to be around.
Speaker 6 (33:55):
So yeah, I'll.
Speaker 7 (33:56):
Say that I want the mental acuity and I'll trade that.
Speaker 6 (34:02):
You know, not that I'm wishing.
Speaker 7 (34:04):
For anything that on the physical side, but you know, uh,
that would be it for me. Is my concern would
be that my body is uh is not my mind
is not keeping up with my body.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
So the last question I want to ask you was
the tellable is called the forever factor. What is the
forever factor?
Speaker 7 (34:25):
I think the forever factor is number one is you
need to find what the what the guide is to
what's the underlying elements of aging? And we don't know that.
Speaker 6 (34:38):
And that was the premise of the book.
Speaker 7 (34:40):
Is what happens if this woman who is researching something
completely other, starts looking at the idea of how can
they how can they finally uh figure out which are
the causes of of the u of dying in a
common way across all kinds of diseases, and that's what
(35:00):
she comes up with. And when that happens, then that's
the factor that's been missing in all of the discussions
and things like that.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
Yeah, I mean again, look at how society has really
changed over the last one hundred years.
Speaker 3 (35:13):
Have people lived longer.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
I mean, so much of the GDP is associated with healthcare.
You know, so much of the industries are associated with
taking care of people are older, either independent living or
memory care centers or.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
Things like that.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
And people spend most of their money in their lives
in the last five years of their lives having someone
take care of them. So I mean someone lives all
this time and has huge impact. So the top book
is called The Forever Factor.
Speaker 3 (35:39):
Tom. Where can people catch.
Speaker 7 (35:40):
Up with you? I'm at www Tom Hype and Hope
and h og An dot com and the book is
available in some Barns and Nobles, but definitely on.
Speaker 6 (35:56):
Amazon.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
Well, Tom, I look forward to picking it up. And
I want to thank everyone for joining this week's radio show.
I got to thank our incredible staff, our booking producer
Sarah Schaffern, our sound head or Ethan Moltz. If you
are serious about being more successful in twenty twenty five,
you got to give me a call. If sub a
private line seven seven three eight three seven eight two
five zero, or email me at Barry at Molts dot com. Remember,
(36:18):
love everyone, trust a few, impal your own canoe. Have
a profitable and passionate week
Speaker 1 (36:23):
You can find Barrymoltz on the web at Barimoltz dot com,
or more episodes of Small Business Radio at small Business
radioshow dot com.
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