Surgical Empathy: A Unique Take On Treating Suicidal Patients With Dr. Mark Goulston

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Welcome to beyond you'd why podcast, where we go beyond just talking about your why and actually help you discover and then live your why. You see, we believe that knowing your why, that driving force behind every decision you make and every action you take, is the essential first step to really knowing yourself. It allows you to move forward faster and have a bigger impact. If you're already a fan of the show, then you know that every week we talk about one of the nine whys and then we introduce you to somebody with that why so you can see how their why has played out in their life. This show will be more powerful for you if you've already discovered your why. If you still need to do that, head over to why institute.com and discover your why today. It'll only take you about five minutes.

Now, welcome to beyond your why podcast. We go beyond just talking about your why and actually helping you discover and then live your why. So if you're a regular listener, you know that every week we talk about one of the nine whys and then we bring on somebody with that why so we can see how their why has played out in their life. And so today we're going to be talking about the why of challenge. To challenge the status quo and think differently. So if this is your why, you don't believe in following the rules or drawing inside the lines. You want things to be fun and and exciting and different. You rebel against the classic way of doing things. You typically have eccentric friends and eclectic tastes because, after all, why would you want to be normal? You love to be different, think different. And you aren't afraid to challenge virtually anyone or anything that is too conventional or typical for your tastes. Pushing the envelope comes natural to you. When you say you want to change the world, you really mean it. And so today I've got a great guest for you. His name is Mark Gulston. Now so. Mark Gulston, M.D. is a founding member of Newsweek Expert Forum and a Marshall Goldsmith MG100 coach who works with founders, entrepreneurs and CEOs in dealing with and overcoming any psychological or interpersonal obstacle to realizing their full potential. He is the co author, along with Diana Handel, of why Cope when youn Can Heal How how healthcare heroes of COVID 19 can recover from PTSD and Trauma to Triumph, A roadmap for leading through disruption and thriving on the other side, as well as being the author or co author of seven additional books. With his book Just Listen, becoming the top book on listening in the world. He is the host of the My Wake Up Call Podcast and is the co creator and moderator of multi honored documentary Stay An Intimate Conversation about Suicide Prevention. He's on the board of advisors to Health Corps and Biosync and is an advisor to no Worry, no Tension, the leading company in India focused on emotional wellness and the co creator of the Gulston Vohra Happiness Scale. He was a UCLA professor in psychiatry for more than 20 years with a subspecialty focus on suicide prevention and and helping the surviving family members following a completed suicide and is also a former FBI hostage negotiation trainer. Mark, welcome to the podcast.

I got to send out shorter bios.

Really helpful. That's a lot to live up to.

Well, it's a lot that you've done that means that you've been here for a while.

I have been. And it's interesting because as I was listening to you and also if you're watching this and you're listening in, his analysis was exactly correct about me being having this challenge kind of Persona where I'd like to weigh in. Because if you're listening in, I challenge what's out there. Not because I'm trying to be a rebel without a cause, I can't not do it. In fact, what is obvious to the rest of the world, I often don't see because the elephant in the room screams out to me so loudly that I can't see what other people see. But often because I see the elephant in the room and it starts talking to me, I can often bring that out and people will say, how did you know that? I said, well, it's the only thing that I saw. In fact, I'll share something with you. This is how crazy it is. So I was the psychiatrist for many years and none of my suicidal patients die by suicide. I remember I was seeing someone for about five months, you know, in my office, and I sort of said something, I don't think it was racist, but he said to me, said, he said, mark, I'm black. And I said, what? He said, I'm black. And he was very black. I said, I didn't know that.

Because I was so focused on the pain that was going on inside him. The fear, the anger. It just screamed out at me. He just screamed out at me, I'm running out of time. Find me.

You know what's interesting about the why of challenge that we always talk about is people with that why actually do see things differently than the rest of us. Their reticular activating system is programmed differently and they see things that the rest of us don't see. And that's fascinating that that's the first thing that you brought up because you're seeing that thing that the rest of us didn't notice.

Yeah, absolutely. And I guess I'm getting to know Gary and I hope I get to know him even more because I took his quiz. And if you're watching this or listening, at the very least take it, it's going to tell you stuff about yourself. And this is not a paid advertisement. It was just remarkable. And. But if you're listening in, I can understand people saying, why do I have to care about my why? I've got all kinds of other things going on. And you'll have to listen to my Wake Up Call episode with Gary because he talks about how things. He reached a point where things weren't going that well and then he had to pivot. And what he landed in is he wasn't paying attention to his why and it caused him pain, caused him to be a bit lost. And what he's sharing with the world, which is why he's so excited and enthusiastic, is he pivoted to something that is necessarily, say, was life saving, but it was life changing for him. So if you're listening in and you live a highly transactional life, and there's nothing wrong with that, but you find that it's not making some pain inside you go away. You thought it would deliver happiness and it delivered immediate gratification for 20, 30 years. Maybe if you're lucky, it may be that you're on the same path as Gary and it may be that you do well to discover your why.

Well, Mark, let's do this. I want everyone to get to know you. So let's start back at where are you from? Where did you grow up? Tell us a little bit about your childhood and give us the quick version of your life. Where'd you start? How'd you get into psychology? Ucla, writing books kind of take us through that path.

Well, I grew up in a suburb outside of Boston, Massachusetts.

I'm told I've lost a fair amount of my Bostonian accent, you know, even though I hope this is going to be a pissa interview. And then I went to undergraduate school at UC Berkeley, and I looked pretty good for my age. I was there during the late 1960s, and then I went to medical school in Boston, and then I trained in psychiatry at ucla. One of the things I'll share, and I don't know what you'll do with it, one of my greatest personal accomplishments, and you listed a bunch of things and I was pretty impressed by who you were describing, although, you know, it's hard to believe that was me. But I think one of my greatest accomplishments was I dropped out of medical school twice and finished.

And why did you do that?

And I don't really know anybody who dropped out twice and finished. I think I had untreated depression, and so I dropped out because what was happening is I was passing everything, but I couldn't hold on to the information. The first time I dropped out, I worked in blue collar jobs, which I still romanticize. I mean, life was so much simpler. You'd get off at 5, you'd go back to your apartment, you'd have a beer. And what I used to do this was I worked in Boston. I would put up liquor displays and Heineken windmills at bars and liquor stores. And I just loved getting to know the bartenders and the people delivering liquor to those places. So I came back. And then after six months, it happened again. So I asked for another leave of absence because I wasn't flunking. And the Dean of school cared more about finance than students. So I met with him, and I don't remember meeting with him that clearly, but then I got a call from the Dean of Students, who cares about students. And so you're going to find out a little bit about my why and the suicide prevention work, because he called me and he had a deep, thick, Irish boss, Boston accent, and his name was William McNary. We used to call him Mac. And he'd call me and he said, Mac, this is Mac. Mac, Mac. You better get in here, Mac. Got a letter here from the Dean. I think we need to read it together, Mac. And so I go in there and I read the letter, and it says, from the Dean of the whole school who cares about finances. I've met with Mr. Goulston. We talked about another career, and I'm advising the promotions committee that he'd be asked to withdraw. And so I said, what does this mean? And Dean McNary said, Mac, you've been kicked out. And Gary, it was like a gunshot wound to my stomach. And I know what that feels like because I almost died from a perforated colon about 12 years ago. I just sort of collapsed a little bit. And I came from a background where, you know, depression, age, hardworking parents, and you're only worth what you do in the world. And if you can't do, you're not worth much. And so I didn't think I was worth much. So imagine you come from that and you've been kicked out, so a little bit of a safety net is ripped away from you. And then he says this to me, Gary, he says, Mac, you didn't mess up because you're passing, but you are messed up. But if you get un messed up, I think this school would one day be glad they gave you a second chance. And I just started to cry because I didn't know what compassion was. And then he looks at me and he points his finger at me. He says, you look at me. He said, mark, even if you don't get unmessed up, even if you don't become a doctor, even if you don't do anything the rest of your life, I'd be proud to know you because you have a streak of goodness and kindness in you that the world needs. And we don't grade in medical school. And you won't know how much the world needs that until you're 35, but you got to make it till you're 35, and you deserve to be on this planet, and you're going to let me help you. If he had said, if I can help you, give me a call. I probably wouldn't have called him. I probably wouldn't be here today. And so the combination of not believing in yourself at all, your future cratering, having someone reach in, see a future for you that you don't see, and then he went to bat against the entire medical school. He arranged an appeal. He was just a PhD. He stood up against the rest of that promotions committee, who were all MDs, heads of hospitals, because he saw something in me that I didn't see. And so the combination of that, I took a year off and I went to a place called the Menninger foundation, which was a very famous psychiatric foundation institute that was in Topeka, Kansas, then it's now in Houston. And this is how old I am. It was during the oil embargo, I think, in the early 1970s. And so I drove from Boston to Topeka, and I grew up in the suburbs, but I was able to connect with schizophrenic farm boys. And I remember asking these, the psychiatrists at Topeka State Hospital, is this legitimate?

And they said, what? I said, I mean, is this a legitimate specialty? It's not like anything else in med school. And they said, no, it's legitimate, and you've got a knack. So knowing that I could do that, I went back, finished med school, and then went to ucla, trained in psychiatry. And one of my earliest mentors was probably one of the top three pioneers in the study of suicide prevention. And he just kept referring me these very suicidal people. And I just paid it forward, Gary. I just did with each of them what the dean of students did for me. So thank you for giving me a long leash to tell. I hope a story that wasn't too boring.

No, no, not at all. And you know, Mark, take us back even to high school. What were you like in high school?

What happened is I guess I was pretty smart, so I skipped the grade when I was young. So I was probably intellectually or intelligence wise, able to keep up with the people a year older than me. But I was socially kind of backwards. And it was really weird because in high school, I don't know if you remember that, I mean you were an athlete. But in high school or even in little league, I would play right field. Right field is the worst position on a baseball team. It's for people who can't do anything else, but you have to include, include them in gym. So it wasn't even high school because I didn't make the high school baseball team. But during the summers I would go to this camp in which I was with people my own age and I was in the infield, I was hitting home runs in that abbreviated field. But you know, when I was back in my playing with people, but that's how I was socially also. So I was socially very introverted, very shy.

One of the interesting things about the why of challenge is they people with that why either do extremely well or do very poorly. If they look at their why as a gift like you are now, you do amazing things when they're younger, oftentimes they see themselves as an outcast, as different, doesn't fit in, I'm not like everybody else. And they go the other direction and oftentimes end up medicating to get away from themselves. And so that's why I kind of wanted to go back and say, okay, what were you like in high school? And it sounds like maybe you weren't typical nor in college, nor in med school. And you didn't take the typical path and you didn't follow the traditional route, but you got to a place that's been amazing for so many people that you've been able to touch.

You know, it's interesting, I don't know if you know this statistic, but someone told me because I do suicide prevention programs with a friend of mine whose 14 year old son died by suicide. He reached out to me and we present a YPO and EO and he made a documentary called Tell My Story because that one of the suicide notes from his son. But he shared something with me. He said about a quarter of entrepreneurs became entrepreneurs to deal with their depression of being different when they were younger. So many of them aren't that bothered by failure because they were depressed, because they didn't fit in. Richard Branson, Herb Kelleher, you know, they had dyslexia addiction. But what happened is they became entrepreneurs because they just couldn't work in other settings where they had to follow all the rules.

Yeah, exactly. And it's unfortunate that you went to ucla, because I went to usc. And so those of you that are listening may or may not know that USC and UCLA are fierce adversaries. And so no matter who it is that goes to ucla, I have to tell them it's unfortunate that they went there. But when you got out, then did you get into private practice right away or what happened after you finished medical school?

Well, what was interesting is one of my mentors was a suicide prevention specialist, one of the top ones in the world. And so something that was very fortunate for me is when I finished training, I was supposed to go into a fellowship, but the fellowship fell through a week or two before I graduated. So I just went into practice. But this mentor of mine, Dr. Ed Schneidman, he would refer me suicidal patients. And here was my good fortune, because if I'd gone into an institution, when I saw patients, I would have had to make sure that I really followed all the guidelines. But what happened? As I was seeing suicidal patients, I learned to listen into their eyes. And their eyes were screaming out to me, you're checking boxes, and I'm running out of time. So I had a choice. Check the boxes or go where their eyes took me. And I still, you know, I wasn't a rogue psychiatrist. I still followed certain standards, but I didn't have to report what I was doing, and I just followed where their eyes took me. I share one, I think, funny, funny anecdote. I remember a. This dentist who was highly paranoid came in, and he comes in and he sees me, and he says, you're the seventh psychiatrist I've seen in a couple years. And I said, well, it sounds like you've been busy. And he says, yeah, I'm looking for one that I think will work with me. And he says, but before we go any further, I need to tell you something. The people above my bedroom make noise all night long. They won't shut up. It's driving me crazy. And I was about to say something empathic, that sounds really frustrating. And he says, but before you answer me, you need to know that I live on the top floor of my building and there is no access to the roof above me. And then he gave me a Chris Rock gotcha smile, like, what are you going to do with that one? And so I'm playing in my head. So he said this to six or seven psychiatrists, and they probably said, I can understand how that must be frustrating. You know, that may be part of the things that we can help with. Maybe we can treat it in such and such a way. But he looked at me. So I'm playing all the normal responses, you know, kindly responses. And in my mind I said, do I want to help him or do I want to just give him another reality check and have him go look at another psychiatrist? So he's looking at me with that look, and we'll call him John. And I said, john? He said, yeah. And I looked right into his eyes and I said, I believe you. And he looked at me and his eyes just filled with tears and he just started sobbing and almost convulsing. And I thought, oh, great, I've just release someone. Yeah, I've just pushed them over the edge. But I know this territory pretty well, and I knew it would be like a tropical storm. And so I just let him cry. And he cried for about five minutes, and then he stops and his eyes are all bloodshed. And then he looks at me with a huge smile and he says, it does sound crazy.

And we connected.

That's great. So is that a common thing for people that are struggling with suicidal tendencies? Is the fear to want or they need to be heard, or is there a common theme or is there not a common theme? I've never experienced somebody in that situation. I don't know what I would do if I ran into somebody that was struggling.

It's interesting. The week after Kate Spade and I think Anthony Bourdain, they died by suicide around the same time. And I wrote a blog, which you can find if you look, and it's called why People Kill Kill Themselves. It's not depression. It got 500,000 views in 10 days. It's on medium. I think it's elsewhere. And I said, there's hundreds of millions of people, maybe a billion or more, who are depressed in the world, and the majority of them don't commit suicide. There's people who lose marriages and lose jobs, and the majority of them don't die by suicide. And then I thought, One of the things that nearly all the suicidal patients I saw had in common is they had despair. And if you break the word despair into D E S, dash P A I R, they feel unpaired with reasons to live, hope less, without a future, helpless, powerless, worthless, useless, purposeless, meaningless. And when they all line up together like a slot machine, pointless. And they pair with death to take the pain away. And so one of my recent books that you mentioned, you mentioned two books, why Cope when you Can Heal? And then the second book was Trauma to Triumph. But in why Cope when youn Can Heal, I introduced the approach that I've finally given a name to that I use for 25 years. It's called surgical empathy. Surgical empathy. And something I didn't go into, but I am now, when I give talks on it, is, you know, the term dialysis and the term lysis, it breaks things. So the way surgical empathy works is it works through a process of empathy empatholysis, which means that you break the destructive connections that people are connected to that are holding them back. So one of the things that people who are highly suicidal feel, that you wouldn't feel if you haven't been there, is death is compassionate to hopelessness and pain that won't go away. Death is like the sirens calling out to the sailors, we'll take away your pain. And that's what death does to people who feel highly suicidal. So they feel not just understood, but felt death will take it away. So in my book Just Listen, which did so well around the world, is I talk about how do you cause people to feel felt? And feeling felt is not the same as feeling understood. Feeling felt is you don't feel alone in the hell you're going through. So I learned how to interact with my patients who were feeling suicidal and they felt less alone in hell. And I didn't push treatments on them. What I basically said is, I'm going to find you wherever you are, and when I get there, I'm going to keep you company. And then if you want some treatments, because all the ones you've tried haven't really worked, you'll say, maybe we should try something. The job one is, I want to find you in the dark night of your soul and keep you company. Interesting.

So when you talk about how to help people feel felt, dive a little deeper into that for us.

Okay? Because I'm going to give. I'm going to give a tip to anyone who's worried now about their teenagers or their spouse. And there's actually some videos of me doing this. Actually, I shared this at. I'm a Marshall Goldsmith MG100 coach. And I shared these four prompts. So it's up on YouTube. And here are the prompts if you're worried about a teenager or child or your spouse. But let's focus on teenagers because the suicide rate's going up. It's alarming. And my advice to parents is don't have a heart to heart talk with a teenager unless they initiate it. So do this when you're doing something together, like driving, you know, doing an errand, and say, you know, all of us parents are kind of worried about our kids. Can I ask you a few things? Okay, mom. Okay, dad. And here are the four prompts. The first one is, at your absolute worst, how awful are you capable of feeling about yourself or your life? And they're going to go, what? Yeah. How much pain are you capable of feeling about your life or yourself when it's at its worst? And your teenager is going to say, pretty awful. And using surgical empathy, you say, pretty awful or very awful. Okay, dad. Okay, mom. Very awful. The second prompt, when you're feeling that, how alone are you capable of feeling with it? And they say, pretty alone. And again, you want to go deeper. Pretty alone or all alone? Okay already. Okay, mom. Okay, dad. All alone. Then the third thing you say to them is, take me to the last time you felt it. And they're going to say, what was it? 2:30 in the morning? Because we heard you walking around in your bedroom the other night. Take me to the last time you felt it. And Gary, a special thing happens when you get someone to describe something so clearly that you can see it with your eyes. As the listener, they re experience the feeling. So as your kid describes that. Yeah, I was walking around, I couldn't get back to sleep. I didn't know whether to put my fist through the wall or my head through the wall. Then what happened? I started looking for your outdated sleeping pills. I couldn't find them. You know, Then what happened? I didn't know what I was going to do. And then what happened? The sun rose. I felt a little better. And then the fourth thing you say to them is, I need your help with something. Your mom, your dad, need your help. Also, when you're feeling that way or you're even heading down that way, I want you to do whatever it takes to get our undivided attention. Because we get preoccupied, we get distracted, and there is nothing more important than our helping you to feel less alone. When you feel that awful. Do you understand me, honey? So if you follow those steps or tactics, may need to modify it, but that can help. I'm expanding my work now from suicide prevention to stubborn children who grow up to be angry teenagers or defiant teenagers or failure to launch 20 somethings who are being passed by by their younger siblings. So one of the ways to prevent it, and I'm partnering with a great partner and we're launching this and we're having families do this and I can send a link to an article where actually the writer tried it and said it was amazing. So every day we're asking families when you're with your children and it works when they're about 6 or 7 or older, you say, we're going to have an exercise every day and we're going to talk about four things. And the parents go first. What is something that you felt upset about? That's the first thing. Second thing is, what did it make you want to do? That was your impulse. What did you do? And the fourth thing is how did that work out? What did you feel upset about? What did it make you want to do? What did you do? How did it work out? And what you're teaching your children and what you're modeling is self restraint. Because a lot of times children don't listen to their parents. They imitate their behavior and they don't see self restraint. They see mom and dad snapping at each other. And so the children model the behavior. They often don't listen to lessons. And so by doing this, what the parents are modeling is, yeah, whenever we feel upset, we have an impulse to do something that's probably not a good idea. And we recommend to the parents, don't bring up something that's going to freak out your kids. Don't say, well, mom and dad lost their jobs and we're going to be in the street tomorrow. You know, try and pick something that's not going to freak your kids up. And what we're hearing, Gary, is how it's helping marriages. Because what's going on is moms and dads, after they do the exercise, they go upstairs and one of them will say to the other, what I was feeling upset about was you. So what I usually do when I'm upset with you is I either yell or I mope, but I didn't do that. What I'm doing is I'm telling you what I felt upset about. And going forward, please don't do that again. So by going through this exercise, what the whole family is modeling is self Restraint. I don't want to get into politics, but I think what we're seeing right now and why I think this country is in so much trouble is you're seeing people not modeling much self restraint and we're seeing the negative consequences of that.

So let's talk about that for a minute. What are the negative consequences of not practicing self restraint?

Well, now I hope your listeners know that you're an amazing athlete.

No, really. No, really. He's going to look up, you know, everything you can find out about this guy. But part of what you learn as an athlete is you need to be able to show self restraint and turn your anger into focus and determination. What was really interesting, because you were at ucla, John Wooden, one of the things he would say to his players is, we'll play to our strengths and we're going to make the other team angry. We're going to make them lose their cool, because if they lose their cool, they're going to lose. We'll play to our strengths and we're going to be very centered. And you probably know the story where he taught his players to lace their shoes and spend a lot of time lacing their sneakers to avoid blisters. He might have been the most admired college coach ever.

Yeah, I like what you said there. Lose your cool and you lose. So that's how you help. Those questions there is how you help people practice self restraint so they don't lose their cool, so they stay in the with their strength.

Right.

No, I love that. And so that's been very helpful just hearing what you've got to say there about working with somebody who's going through those kinds of challenges. Because I think most of us, especially parents, I mean, we don't have any idea what to do. We do what maybe we would have done, but that's not necessarily going to work. So those four questions were very helpful. Thank you for sharing that.

Oh, thank you for giving me a platform. Thank you.

Yeah. So now you transitioned, or I'm assuming you transitioned from doing suicide prevention into working with CEOs and executives. And how did that happen?

Well, I think as I mentioned to you earlier, it seems like a long time ago, I see the elephant in the room and I somehow make it safe for people to open up. And so what happens is I'm not just a coach, I'm a confidant, an advisor to CEOs. And a couple of them have said, you know, I can't hide from you.

I said, is that good or bad? One said, it's Weird, but it's not bad. Another one said, I hide from everyone, including myself. And so if you go to my LinkedIn profile, basically, I seem to be able to be helpful to founders, entrepreneurs, and CEOs about any psychological or interpersonal challenge that they're having.

So how are you able to see the elephant in the room? Tell us about that. What do you mean by that? What does that look like, feel like for you? Because you're seeing something we don't see. How do you do it?

Can I give you three quick anecdotes? And this is how I learned to listen into mind, into eyes, and into souls. So the first one, I was on rounds at a VA hospital in Boston. And this was, I think, you know, just before I was going to drop out. But, you know, I was probably quite depressed. And we were outside, I'll call him Mr. Smith's room, and all the other medical students and the interns and the residents and the attending physicians, they were all jockeying. You know, Mr. Smith needs chemo, Mr. Smith needs surgery. Mr. Smith needs such and such. And I'm just like a ping pong ball, not knowing what he needs. And a nurse comes over to us. We're outside Mr. Smith's room, and she said, didn't you hear Mr. Smith jump from the roof last night? He's in the morgue. And as loud as your voice is right now, I heard a voice say to me, maybe he needed something else. So that's listening in the minds. My second thing was listening into eyes. And this is how I learned how to listen to eyes. I was paged to see an AIDS patient way back when. I think in the early 1980s. I don't even think it was given that diagnosis yet. And I was paged by the doctors up in one of the medical floors, and they said, we need you to okay these restraints on his arms and legs and an order for an antipsychotic medication. Because he's pulling at the IVs, he's pulling at his respirator, he's kicking and screaming. So I go in the room and we'll call him Mr. Jones. And Mr. Jones looked at me and his eyes were like saucers. And he couldn't talk because he had a respirator tube in his throat. And he's going. And I say, what is it? And he's going. And they said, he's just psychotic. And I gave him a pencil to write something in his right hand, and he just scribbled. And I thought, well, maybe they're right. And I said, look, you were pulling at your IVs, you were kicking. You were writhing off the bed. You were pulling at the respirator tube. You were just. So we had to put down your arms and legs. And I gave you something to calm you down. And then when you calm down, we'll take everything off. So a day later, I get paged, and they say, Mr. Jones told us to page you. And I go into his room, and he's seated up in bed. He's off the respirator, you know, off the heart, the restraints. And he looks into my eyes, and they were in saucer shape, but he looked into my eyes, and he grabbed my eyes with his eyes, and he said, pull up a chair. And he wouldn't let go of my eyes. And he said, what I was trying to tell you is that a piece of the respirator tube was broken and stuck in my throat. And you do know that I will kill myself before I go through that again. Do you understand me? And he wouldn't let go of my eyes. And I just said, yeah, I'm sorry. I get it. And then the third case, which was really when I was out practicing as a psychiatrist, seeing suicidal patients, I used to moonlight at one of the state hospitals. So once a month, I cover for other doctors on a weekend. And sometimes you'd be up 24 hours and you'd be sleep deprived. And I was seeing a patient that was referred to Me by Dr. Schneidman. And I'll call her Nancy. That's not her real name. And I didn't think I was helping her. She'd made two or three suicide attempts before I started seeing her. She'd been in the hospital several times a year. And back then, you could be in the hospital for a month. Now it's. You know, they get you in, they get you out. And I didn't think I was helping her at all. And she didn't make much eye contact. So this is where I learned how to listen into people's soul. So it's Monday. I hadn't slept much. I'm in the room. There's Nancy. She's not looking at me like you and I are looking at each other. She's looking 30 degrees to the right. And as I'm seated with her, the color in the room turns to black and white. And I'm looking out of the room, and it's black and white. And then I get the chills. And I thought I was having a seizure or a stroke, so I did a Neurologic exam on myself. I'm tapping on my knees. I'm tapping on my elbows. And I said to myself, I'm all here. I'm not having a stroke or seizure. And then I had this crazy idea that I was looking out at the world and feeling what she felt. And because I was sleep deprived, I blurted something out that normally I wouldn't say. And I said, nancy, I didn't know it was so bad, and I can't help you kill yourself, but if you do, I will still think well of you. I'll miss you, and maybe I'll understand why you had to to get out of the pain. And I thought, did I think that or did I say that? And I thought I just gave her permission to kill herself. I'm really screwed. And she looked at me for the first time, and she looked and she held onto my eyes. And I thought she was going to say, thank you for understanding. I'm overdue. And I said, what are you thinking? And she said, if you can really understand why I might have to kill myself to get out of the pain, maybe I won't need to. And then she smiled. And that's when I started going into their world because I didn't want to let go of her eyes. This is the first time we made eye contact like that. And I said, I'll tell you what we're going to do. I'm not going to give you any treatments that you've been tried on before that really haven't worked. And have you come back and tell me that you didn't try them because they didn't work. Would that be okay? And she looked at me like, I'm listening. Keep talking. And then I leaned in, Gary, and I said, what I am going to do is I'm going to find you wherever you are, because you've been there all alone too long. I just don't want you to be alone anymore. Is that okay? And then her eyes watered up and she said, I think I'd like that. So does that give you an example of kind of my journey? And the point is, people will say, oh, you know, he's not a challenger. He's also outside the box. But I'm trying to teach the world that. In fact, I spoke this book behind me, Just Listen became the top book in listening in the world. I don't teach it in America because America is one of the worst countries when it comes to listening. Americans want to be listened to. So I've spoken in Moscow twice, India three times. The uk, Canada, and I was speaking. Here's another tip I would like to everybody to take from our episode, including you, Gary. So I gave a talk in Moscow along with a Nobel Prize winner named Daniel Kahneman. He wrote a book, thinking fast and slow. So five of my nine books are bestsellers in Russia. And the title of my talk was change everything you know about communication. And there's little video clips of me up in YouTube. And the whole point of it is what I said to this audience of a thousand Russian businessmen, CEOs, managers. I said, I'm going to change everything you know about communication, because the way you communicate now is people listen to you and you give them information, and then you listen to them. And it's a very nice transactional conversation. And if you're lucky, you know, you might get some business from it. I said, but if instead of focusing on people listening to you and being transactional, you focus on what they're listening for and you get what they're listening for without their telling you, and you deliver on it when you focus on what they're listening to. As long as you have good stories, good points, they'll give you their mind for an hour. If you focus on what they're listening for and you get it right, they'll give you everything. And so I said to them, I said, let me see if I got it right. And I'm speaking in English, but it's in real time. It's translated into Russian. I said, if you're business people, you're listening for a way to get greater, positive, measurable results because that's how you get a raise. Is that true? Duh. You're listening for a way to get those that's less stressful because you're all drinking too much, you're eating too much, you're people. It's a real mess. So you're listening for a way to get those positive results that is less stressful. Is that true, too? Duh. And then I said, most of all, what you're listening for is for me to give you tactics that you can use immediately that are doable by you. And you don't have to be a psychologist, you don't have to buy a book because I haven't written this book yet. You don't have to take a course because I haven't created a course yet. So you're listening for tactics that you can use immediately right out of the box. And you don't have to buy a book which you don't have the time to Read or take a course which you don't have the time to take, that gets you better results, that's less stressful, and that will be worth the more than $500 in a day of your time that you spend to be here. Is that true? And they go, da, da. And I say, sit down, sit down. I got to give the presentation. But. But do you follow? What I'm saying is that. And so my counsel to you, because if you're watching and you're listening, you need to go to the Y Institute because Gary is still that incredible athlete and he wants to share something with you that changed his life for the better, changed how he's going to spend the rest of his life. And my counsel to you, Gary, is if you can share how that happened, you'll get more buy in. Because if you try to convince people how it's good for them, you might get some. But what people are listening for, Gary, is they're saying, I need to change my life too. Something's not working right. And all the stuff that I did that got me some positive results aren't working. I don't know what else to do, Gary, but I got to do something else because I'm like a broken record. I'm living the definition of insanity. I keep doing the same old things, expecting different results. It's not happening for me. Gary, how did this change your life? And then I'm just hoping you will share that as you share that on my podcast, because people, it'll be a field of dreams for people who know what that's about and people will come.

I love that, man. That's awesome. I love that. So share, focus on what they are listening for. That was a really good example. And it's almost like what I think I'm hearing you say is if you're able to kind of play back to them what you think they're listening for, then you know you're right and then you can deliver on that.

Right? And I think what they're listening for, Gary, is they're in pain because they're stuck. And all their usual approaches to getting unstuck aren't working. And they're getting frustrated and they're not taking very good care of themselves because to cope with the frustration, they're eating poorly, they're drinking poorly, and they need to make the discovery that you made. And I think if you were to share how that changed your life, you, like you said, you've never been suicidal, but it kind of saved your life from where you were Stuck. That's your audience.

I love it. And, you know, when I was on your podcast, I didn't elaborate enough on that aspect of it. More the convincing versus the compelling. Compelling. Yeah, I love that. That's super helpful, and I appreciate you bringing that up. And I know we're kind of running out of time here for you, but before you go, I have one last question for you, Mark. What is the best piece of advice that you've ever given or that you've ever gotten?

Well, I've received a lot of advice. I'll give you two pieces of advice because one will change all your relationships and could be cause you to be happier than you've ever been in your life. So I'll start with that one. And that one is. It's a quote from a friend of mine, Dr. Shani Duperon, and she said, forgiveness is accepting the apology you will never receive. Forgiveness is accepting the apology you will never receive. After I heard that, I tried that with my dad, who's been dead since 1995, and I tried it three years ago. And the apology that I never received from him was one of the things that he used to say because he was a sort of a numbers person, an accountant. And when I would come up with creative, challenging ideas that kind of made him a little crazy, like his CEO, who was like a sales type person. And so when I come up with one of my crazy ideas, he'd say, what makes you think you know anything about anything? Because I made him nervous. So the apology that I never received was his saying to me, you know, Mark, I can't even imagine what you've accomplished in your life. And I said, when I used to say to you, what makes you think you know anything about anything? I was talking about myself. I knew numbers, but there's a lot about life I didn't know. And the stuff you know about life, I am so proud that you're my son. And then I apologized to him and I said, I am sorry that I had a chip on my shoulder and I miss you. Maybe I'll stop with that piece of advice because the next one's rather transactional.

Yeah, that's really good. I love that. That is awesome. So, Mark, if there are people that are listening that are wanting to connect with you, they want to hear more from you, maybe they want you to come speak to at their event or come work with them, what's the best way for them to get in touch with you?

I think find me on LinkedIn, because that's probably the best place where it's most current in terms of what my focus is. My website is pretty robust also. Markgoulston.comm A R K G O U L S T O N and I hope they'll visit my podcast so they can hear you. And you're my guest on my Wake Up Call.

And you'll check that out and you'll hear Gary being a wonderful and even compelling guest.

Tried. Yeah, that. I love the name of your podcast. I love what it stands for. Maybe tell people a little bit about what Wake Up Call stands for.

Well, everybody has wake up calls, but not everybody wakes up. And a wake up call is something that's your opportunity to shift in your life, focus on something that maybe you weren't focusing on. So I start all my podcasts the same. I say, what's most important to you in life currently that you think will be most important to you at the end of your life, beyond family and friends and et cetera. And people share what that is. And then I say, share the wake up calls that led you there. And then people share stories as you did on my podcast. And this was a left turn, this was a right turn, this was a U turn. And people share those. And the way I use my podcast is I introduce my guests to each other so I get to know people and I say, why don't you listen to each other's podcasts and if you like what you hear, I'll introduce you. And I've had people like Larry King on Ken Blanchard, Jordan Peterson, Esther Wojcicki. Daughters are the CEO, I think, of Netflix and 23andMe, and Tom Steyer, he ran for president. All kinds of people. And I'm up to episode 215 or something.

That's awesome. Well, Mark, thank you so much for taking an hour out of your day to be here. It's been a joy listening to you and learning from you. And I've got three pages of notes here just from our conversation today. So I appreciate that and I look forward to staying in touch as we continue on our journeys.

Absolutely. Because I just got the beginning of clarifying my why with Gary's help and the WHY Institute. And if you're listening in, you need to do the same, even if you don't think you need a why. Just be curious enough to just find out some stuff about yourself. It's only going to make your life better.

Awesome. Thank you. Have a great day, Mark.

You too. Thank you, Gary.

So it's time for our new segment. Guess the why? And for this week, I want to talk about the celebrity or the singer. Justin Bieber. Justin Bieber. What do you guys think his why is? Is he somebody that thinks differently? Is he somebody that follows the rules? Is he somebody that stays the course and does things the way other people do? I believe that his why is to challenge the status quo and think differently. I really do. I think he's somebody that, you know, went from a picture perfect little kid to playing a completely different part as he's gone along in his life to getting lots of tattoos, to always surprising people and doing something unique and different with his musical career, his appearance, his new songs, changing genre of music where you can go from pop to hip hop to lyrical to despacito. So I think he's somebody that thinks outside the box, challenges the way things are done, comes up with something new and different, and he is somebody who thinks differently. So that's my take. I'd love to hear yours now. Thank you so much for listening. If you've not yet discovered your why, you can do so@why institute.com you can even use the code podcast for 50 to do it at half price. If you love the beyond your why Podcast, please don't forget to subscribe below and leave us a review and a rating on whatever platform you are using to listen to the podcast. Have a great week and I will talk to you next week. Thank you.

I really hope you enjoyed today's episode and that through today's guest, you heard how important it is to know your why and how impactful it can be in your life and the lives of those around you. Be sure to head over to whyinstitute.com and discover your why today. Remember, the more you know about yourself, the more you'll know about others.

I'm Dr. Gary Sanchez and I'll see.

You on the next episode.