Courage to Leap & Lead with Dr. Mark Goulston, part 1 - Episode 154

You've got courage to leap, courage to lead.

Be brave and be bold. Whoa, let it roar.

Welcome to the Courage to Leap and Lead podcast, where each of our guests share the stories of courage that helped them become powerful leaders. Before we start today's show, please remember to visit courage-consulting.com Where you can find all the episodes and other excellent resources, all at courage-consulting.com. Now, here's your host, Leadership Courage Coach CB Bowman.

Everybody, well, it's Tuesday and I'm back and I feel rested and ready to talk. Gab, right? So today I have a special— you know, all of my guests are quite special. Wouldn't you agree? I mean, can you wait till the Seth Godin interview comes out? I did it and he was amazing. So now we're going to talk to Dr. Mark— Mark, pronounce your last name for me. Goldstein?

Goldstein. So you mentioned Seth Godin. I mean, You know, you know, you shouldn't follow Children Animal Acts or Seth Godin Acts.

Well, to tell you the truth, I don't know what order they're gonna air things on. So you might be in 2024 and he might be in 2023. So I leave it up to the techy people to determine that. But yes, I did interview him last week and he was amazing, of course. So, and he sort of opened the door that I could do another interview with him. So I was very happy about that. I, I really like the guy. He's got a really fascinating, fascinating brain. So, and a nice guy on top of it. So, Mark, tell us, what, what are you— you're a doctor of? What?

Psychiatry.

Psychiatry. Okay. So do you help people like me?

I don't know if I could help you, CB. Do you think you're helpable?

Probably not, at least according to my husband.

Well, what does he know?

Oh yeah, I know. Gosh, he's just a good guy, right? So how did you get into your field? Let's go back and go back, back, back when you are a young lad. How did you— what did you tell us about your parents? Tell us about how you lived. We want to know it all.

Well, I grew up in a middle-class family. I have 2 older brothers outside of Boston. Massachusetts.

And, um, they just heard the accent.

Well, I— yes, you know, I wouldn't be throwing stones about accents, my friend.

But I have absolutely no accent.

No accent. Yeah, there you go. Um, so I, I grew up outside of Boston. And I think what I've discovered is, and it didn't serve me well when I was young, I've been curious my entire life. So I was the person, and I wasn't trying to be obnoxious, but I was the person who would ask why. Why? Why are we doing this? Why are we studying this? Why? Didn't go over that well either with my parents. Because I say so.

I got that too.

And it's because when things didn't make sense and I would ask why. And so a lot of my friends would say, why do you ask why? I said, well, you just asked it.

I like that.

What they were saying is, why do you bother with that? And teachers, you know, who were teaching things because it was always the way they did it, they didn't necessarily question it. Well, we've always done it this way. And I think that led up to a certain, yeah, maybe resentment. I'm not a great fan of arbitrary authority.

Mhm.

You know, where people are just— they're authorities without even thinking it through, but they're in a position of power. And so I've always questioned things. And then I think that evolved into my seeing the elephant in the room. And sometimes It would grow into seeing the elephant in the room, and I couldn't see what was obvious. So when I— I'm skipping something, then I'll come back to it. Like, for instance, when I finished medical school and went on to become a psychiatrist, one of my focus areas was suicide prevention. And in 35 years, none of my patients died by suicide.

Wow.

And I think the reason was I totally tuned into their pain. And to me, the elephant in the room was if I could— they were suicidal because they couldn't make hurt go away. And also they couldn't find hope. So the combination of not being able to make hurt go away, other than by death, got in the way of their finding hope. So, but I want to backpedal a little bit, because I didn't have a smooth journey through medical school. In fact—

Wait, wait, Mark, you're going way too fast.

Oh, way too fast.

Okay. Let's take it slow here. First of all, you grew up in a middle-class family. What did your parents do?

So my mother was mainly a stay-at-home mother, although I'm the youngest of 3 boys, and when I went off to college, she opened a little teeny dress shop. at Boston University. Oh. And it was a girls' dress shop, and all the girls would come in and they would all chatter with my mother, and I think she loved it. And, and my dad, for many years, he worked at a—

Is that— did she, did she pick out a wife for you during that period of time?

No, no, no. I think she couldn't stand any of my wives, and it was, and it was reciprocal.

Wives, plural. Okay, Mark, let's talk. How many?

I was married for a— I met— well, you're racing ahead. So—

I know, I know, but that one stopped me cold.

No, we'll get to it. But—

Okay, tell about your dad.

Okay, so my dad worked at a liquor distributing company in Massachusetts. And, and so they would be a distributor for— so they would send liquor and beer out to bars and package stores and whatnot. And he was the controller. He was an accountant.

Okay.

I think he rose to the position of chief financial officer. And he was, he was very good with numbers. He wasn't that good with people, but he was very good with numbers.

Okay.

And, and, and, and that played itself out because at home he wasn't that good at emotionally connecting with my brothers or my mother.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, and when any of us came up with stuff that was kind of outside his area of expertise, he could be critical. So I was also— I didn't know it, but I was also very creative. And when I'd bring up something creative, he'd say, well, what does that have to do with anything? Well, what are you gonna do with that?

Hmm.

And, you know, which You know, felt like a putdown. If we get to it, I'm gonna share one of the, the biggest breakthroughs in my life, which happened 25 years after he died, when I, I found a way to forgive him and ask his forgiveness.

Hmm.

So we can get to that a little bit later. And I'll share something, you know, for your viewers or listeners. So I finished high school. I started my freshman year at the University of Vermont in Burlington, Vermont. I came down with pneumonia and I said, this is cold. This is freezing. What am I doing here? And then I went to Florida for Christmas vacation and I said, What am I doing up there? And it was the coldest winter up in Vermont over for many years. They had snow in May.

Wow.

Wow. It was, it was a little bit chilly and I caught pneumonia there. So when I went to Florida, I said, this is neat. I'm gonna eat, I'm gonna go to a, you know, a more warmer climate. And So I applied to the University of California at Berkeley, which is a pretty good school, still is. And, uh, and I didn't tell my parents that I was applying. Um, and I remember I came back from freshman year and I brought all my, you know, belongings back, and I hadn't told my parents I was gonna transfer. And so When I got home, they said, well, why'd you bring everything home? You know, why don't you put it in the storage? I said, oh, I didn't tell you. I'm going to UC Berkeley. And this was in the 1960s, the anti-Vietnam.

Yes.

You know, Kent State, People's Park. I was there. The Fillmore, Jefferson Airplane, all the, you know, You're speaking my language. Janis Joplin.

Yeah.

You know, Woodstock. Yes, I did inhale. And I remember, you know, we came from a family where nobody really went that far away from home. I mean, California is pretty far. And so I was a little bit manipulative because that year UC Berkeley was chosen as the top university in America by The Atlantic Monthly.

Okay.

And I said to my parents, I said, how can you keep me from going to the best, you know, university in America? You know? And so—

But that was true. So—

That was true. So, you know, I was able to make my case. And then, and so I went to UC Berkeley during those days, and I was a pre-med student. But here was one of the conflicts, so I guess we're both gonna be a little tangential here. I remember I was thinking of majoring in a bunch of things which were somewhat creative, you know, architecture or maybe something having to do with the arts. And my dad could be, he was very smart and he was also the person who fired people in his company. You know, the CEO was conflict avoidant. And so he always turned things over to my father who was very fair, but he was very direct. And I remember he said to me, you know, he would drill me about, well, you know, you can't do anything with that. And, you know, and plus some of those professions, you know, we were raised Jewish. You know, they're antisemitic. You know, you're not gonna make a living. And then one thing happened, which I held as a grudge for many years. I remember I said, I'm gonna be a pre-med. And he said, that's my boy.

Ah.

And, and—

That's right.

And in retrospect, you know, he was looking out for what would be the best thing for me to do. But what I resented is he didn't drill me about that. He didn't say, why do you want to be a doctor? You know, it's, you know, we never had doctors or lawyers in our family. You know, that's going to be 8 years. It's going to be pretty hard. Why do you want to do that? Do you, you know, and so there was a part of me unconsciously that said, well, if he had drilled me about that, you know, then I would have felt okay. But when he said, that's my boy, It felt like as long as I was doing things that he agreed with, I was okay. But again, when I was doing anything that was out of alignment with his view of the world, you know, I'd get lectured, I'd get criticized and whatnot. But in spite of that, I did finish UC Berkeley, and then I went off to Boston University Medical School.

Mm-hmm.

But segueing back to wives, I had a girlfriend towards the end of being at UC Berkeley, and it had run its course. You know, we'd gone to the Fillmore enough times. You know, we'd driven across the Golden Gate Bridge on my crappy motorcycle enough times. But it had run its course, and so it felt like when we graduated it was a good time to break up. But we each made the mistake after we graduated of going back to our respective families and living with them for the summer, and we got, and so we got lonely for each other, and distance makes the heart grow fonder and delusional. So we were writing love letters; they were wonderful. I miss you, blah blah blah blah blah. And so. So we got married, you know, you know, after, you know, after the summer. And, and so then I went to Boston University Medical School. But I think I've suffered— this would be a good book, by the way, I'm not going to write it. I think I have flirted with depression all my life.

Wow.

That's a good book title. Yeah. I never—

you realized that after you married her or what?

No, no. I, I think I might have felt depressed, you know, because of the childhood, the criticism. You know, depression is anger turned inward. So, you know, I might have turned that inward when I was really angry at my dad or something. And at any rate, you know, so I start medical school. And I think I had a bout of depression, but I was passing everything, and I took a leave of absence. 'Cause most schools will allow you to take a leave of absence if you're in good standing. But at that point, my wife wanted to cut her losses, which I can understand. You know, because I mean, if I looked at me through sort of the mentality of the business world, I would've cut my losses with me too. You know, he drops out, he's a dropout. What's gonna happen to him? And so I took the year off and it was And I worked in these blue-collar jobs that I love. And, you know, one thing that my dad was helpful with is one of the jobs was I would deliver— I would do— I would go to bars and liquor stores, and I would put up the Heineken windmill, I would put up the marketing pieces. That's great. I love I loved it. I, I'd go to the slums of Boston. I'd climb up these rickety ladders. I'd see rat skeletons. You know, I'm about to fall off when I'm putting up that Heineken windmill. I'd do a little negotiation and I'd say to the barkeeper, I'd say, I'll, I'll give you 2 of these. If, if you put up this Heineken windmill for a month, I'll give you a second one. to put into your, your bar at home. Because a lot of these bartenders, I'll tell you, I, I can't imagine that they didn't get cancer because you go into their homes and it's lit up like Las Vegas, you know, because everybody likes these little design things, these little tchotchkes you get. And, but I loved it. And I'd be, you know, and I'd be talking to the truck drivers when they're delivering things. And, and so my mind came back from the depression probably to a, that, that'll pass. They're not going to lock me up today, hopefully. And, and so the depression went away and my mind was functioning, you know, at a very basic kind of blue-collar level.

Yeah.

And I loved it. It was great. So I go back to medical school and then 6 months later the depression comes back and I'm highlighting every book, hoping I can absorb it. So my books were all yellow. So I'd read things, but I couldn't hold on to it. So at that point, I asked for another leave of absence. So the first time I was depressed and confused. I think the second time I was purely depressed.

And, and how did you recognize the depression? Other than you couldn't remember things? Because you weren't a therapist at that point.

I wasn't a therapist. I, I alternated between being low down and cynical. And the cynical was my armor. You know, so at times when I could be cynical, I think it was a protection against, you know, feeling the brunt of the depression. If I could say everything is a bunch of BS, you know, then I could blame it on everyone else.

Mm-hmm.

And, but what happened, and this is what changed my life, They'll give you a first leave of absence, but what people don't realize is when they do that, they lose matching funding. So tuition alone doesn't pay for your education. And so they were willing to lose matching funding for the first time, but here it is that I come back and I I want a second leave of absence. I'm still passing, and I meet with the dean of the school. And the dean of the school was a good guy, but he's into fundraising. I don't remember the conversation, and I thought I was going to get a, you know, second leave of absence, maybe see if I could figure myself out.

Mm-hmm.

And the dean of students, uh, a guy named Bill McNary, we called him Mac. He had He had a thick Irish, Boston Irish accent. Mac, Mac, Mac. He called me, said, Mac, I got a letter from the dean here. You better come in. We got to read this together. And so I go into Mac's office, and the letter from the dean of the school said, I've talked with Mr. Gulston. We discussed an alternate profession. And I'm, uh, I'm asking the promotions committee that he be asked to withdraw. Meaning, you know, I, I wasn't failing, but they wanted to cut their losses. I can understand that.

Yeah.

And, uh, and I was really low. I was at the bottom. And I said, what does this mean? And he said, Mark, you've been kicked out. And again, I'm not, I'm not religious. People think I'm spiritual because I'm an emo type of guy, emotional, you know, empathy and all that sort of stuff. And he said, you've been kicked out, Mark.

Mm-hmm.

And then what happened is I felt something wet on my cheeks and I thought I was bleeding. I mean, and I'm touching my cheeks and I'm looking at my fingers. And it's not blood, it's tears.

And— Tears, why? Because you were kicked out or because you're happy that you didn't have to deal with medical school?

No, I think it's, it's because I was at a low point and I didn't want that option taken away from me. You know, even though I had mixed feelings about it. I knew from the first year off that I didn't really, you know, even though I liked relating to blue-collar people, I loved it. I didn't necessarily wanna have a blue-collar existence. So, you know, I thought I was—

Medical school, right?

Yeah. But, but I had the, when I took the first leave of absence, I realized I came back to medical school cuz I didn't know I was gonna come back to medical school. It's not like I worked in some laboratory. I wanted to, you know, heal my wounds of feeling really stupid. And so, but I realized that after that year off and working in blue-collar jobs that, you know, you know, a better option would be to go back to medical school. And so I, so I went back to medical school. These sirens are killing me. I went back to medical school, but then the depression, it was an untreated depression, you know, came back. And I was highlighting every book and nothing was going in. And so Dean McNary, when he said, you've been kicked out, it just felt like a gunshot wound. And I know what that's like 'cause I had a perforated organ about 15 years ago and I almost died from it. So when he said that, I literally prayed in front of him and I— And I started crying. And, uh, and then he said something to me. He gave me what I call the trifecta of hope. And he said to me, Mac, uh, you didn't screw up because you're passing everything, but you are screwed up.

Hmm.

But if you could get unscrewed up, I think this school would be glad they gave you a second chance. So he was going against the dean.

Mm-hmm.

And he was just a PhD, you know, he was an anatomy teacher, and he was gonna— he was standing up against the dean of the whole medical school. And he said, but if you got unscrewed up, I think we'd be glad that we gave you a second chance. And here was the trifecta of hope. And this is important because I went on to be a suicide prevention specialist, and it seemed to work. He, he said, but even if you don't get unscrewed up, Mm-hmm. Even if you don't become a doctor, even if you don't do anything with the rest of your life, I'd be proud to know you. So the first leg is he gave me unconditional love and belief in me. So the first leg is unconditional love and seeing something of value in someone when they can't see it.

Mm-hmm.

And the second leg is he said, I'd be proud to know you because you have something in you, um, That we don't grade in medical school, but the world needs more than you will ever know. And you won't know it till you're 35. So he saw a future for me that I didn't see. And then the third leg of it was, he said, you do— he pointed his finger at me. He said, look at me, because I'm just crying from all this compassion and belief. I don't know what to do with it.

Mm-hmm.

And he says, he, and he pointed his finger at me like this. Look at me. Look at me. You deserve to be on this planet.

Wow.

And you're gonna let me help you. So he arranged an appeal, and for years I was trying to figure out what the, what the heck was he standing up for me like that? And then what I realized is that during the first leave of absence, I wrote a poem and it got published in the Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry. So, and the poem is called Lament for the Old. And I won't read the whole thing. It's not that long.

Well, read it. Read the whole thing.

Okay, so here I am, you know, somewhat depressed. And so I had sent this to him during my first leave of absence. So I'll read it to you. It's not that long, but I have to hold the paper up. When I was a doctor, it was common practice to avoid the geriatric floor. The most widely used rationalization was the reminder of our own ultimate demise. But since my colleagues knew not how to celebrate life, I doubted that they truly feared death. I then thought it was because we had been taught to salvage life quantitatively and not qualitatively. And it was obvious that this group was a poor bet. And, and the next couple things are relevant because I wrote this when I was I wrote this when I was 25, and I'm 75. I then took the time to get to know some of these marvelous people 3 times my age, who offered a wealth of experience that spanned hundreds of years. What was so obviously missing was someone to share the fullness of the past, to help relieve the loneliness of the future, And maybe someone to give a damn when they died. Wow. So I realized that I had sent that to him, you know, during my first leave of absence.

Right.

So I think that got through to him that, you know, there's more to this kid than just, you know, some messed up kid. And so he said to me, you're gonna let me help you because I will tell you, If he had said, uh, call me if I can help you, I would have gone back to my apartment, and like a lot of men, I wouldn't have asked for help.