248: Horseshoe Theories and Ongoing Pandemic Pivots with Dr. MJC

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What's next? This is a question we're all having to ask and answer more frequently. I'm Jenny Blake, your host of the Pivot podcast and author of Pivot. The only move that matters is your next one.

For show notes from this episode, visit pivotmethod.com podcast if Change is the only constant, then let's get better at it. Here we go.

Hello my friends. I am so happy to be back today with my now very good friend, Dr. Michael J. Consuelos. This is our 15th episode together in the Pivoting Around a Pandemic series. Our most recent episode, the previous one before this was episode 235 on on co journeying and reopening a roundtable we did with Dr. Anthony Harris. That was many months ago. I don't even know the exact date and Michael and I are now back to check in and probably talk about all kinds of things in a big, vast, wandering, uncertain 2020 style unfoldment of a conversation. So if that does not interest you, then maybe this isn't going to be the episode for you. It's really a place for us to touch base, talk about how our summer has been and how Michael is thinking about this crazy year from the perspective of a doctor and a business owner and my own ups and downs, which you have heard me document in episode 245. Quick background on Michael. He is the principal at his business MJC Solutions. It is a veteran owned small business because Michael himself is a veteran and he provides professional consulting and advisory services to organizations in healthcare. You can imagine MJC has been very busy this year and I'm very impressed by all that he's been doing to pitch in and help out wherever he can. He has held several leadership roles in emergency preparedness and pandemic response since 1997, including his time in the military. And he also has a a deep background as a pediatrician. So. So with that, Michael, welcome back to the show.

Jenny Blake it's been way too long. Way too long.

It really has. I know. June 12 that was when we recorded Last.

I miss this. I do miss the kind of wanderings, the intellectual and sometimes not so intellectual wanderings.

Me too.

Of JB and mjc.

Well, you said it. These have been a documentation because we recorded our first one right in mid March as everything was starting to shut down. You were so generous to just hop on a mic with me. You even bought a microphone this year.

I did.

Look how many podcasts you've done now with it. I know your mic ROI is on point.

Thank you. Yeah. And actually, I've been working on my podcast voice. Every once in a while, I'm in a meeting and people literally stop and I know what they're looking at. They're looking at the mic, the headphone, and the question comes like, where did you get that? How often do you. Do you do podcasts? And there's this constant thing like, yeah, the. I do that maybe.

But yeah, I love it. Well, we've. We've been tracking so much. You said it. That these are kind of like an audio journal. I mean, we always try to provide helpful information to listeners. Cause that's our style. But it also is this documentation of how we're thinking at any given moment. I know that since we recorded. So we're recording this one today on Wednesday, September 23rd. I don't know exactly yet when I'll get my act together to get it out.

Happy Fall. Happy second day of fall.

Yes.

Yeah, we go.

Happy Fall. And it's the. The thing about episodes like this one is I can't even delay too long till putting it out because the entire world rotates on its axis yet again, changes. So nothing can be delayed too much. But I kept texting you this summer, saying essentially like, sorry, having a mental breakdown right now. Can't. Can't record anything yet, but I'll reach back out. And you've been very patient. So thank you for not just your patients. I know you were out in the field doing all kinds of stuff too.

Yeah, we can talk about that. But, yeah, you know, so for me, it's. To me, this is a huge indulgence. So for me, it's all positive. So when it happens, it's great. And if things don't work out, for whatever reason, it's just, you know, it'll. The time will come. I knew I know where to find you, Jenny Blake.

That's true. And then I'm always saying, like, oh, yeah, it will be perfect timing. Or these JP isms.

Yeah.

So where should we even start? Do you want to share a little Bit. I mean, I kind of want us to, on some level, just jump in with where we're at. But maybe let's do a brief, like 12 minute update each on the summer and how 2020 has impacted or not, how we're thinking, what we're doing, and we'll go from there.

Sure.

You first?

Okay, I'll be first. So a couple big things happened in my world since we last talked. I think probably one of the major events is I spent two weeks in Corpus Christi, Texas, and as part of a team who went down there to help out in that region. So Southeast Texas was having a huge COVID 19, obviously, as you can imagine, hotspot issue. And they're running out of beds in the ICUs or beds in the hospital. And so I went down there to help set up an alternate care site, which is basically a fancy word for you're opening up new space to take care of patients. And so early in my experience, you do these kind of things in tents or in temporary settings. And we were lucky to actually be able to use a hospital that had been shuttered for a few years and reopen it. And we were able to take care of some patients and help sort of decant or vent off extra patients to allow the core of the hospital take care of the more ill patients, which was just in time, which is great. So that experience was interesting because it's the first time I traveled. And so maybe I'll put a little pin there, we can talk about traveling. The other thing I've been doing is helping Both K through 12 schools and universities open safely and stay open, which has been a really interesting experience. And we can talk a little more about that. But that was a big deal to try to ramp that up. And then actually having the schools open and then hopefully stay open, which is great. And I think the other piece that has happened since we last talked was, I think I mentioned in some of my earlier conversations with you is my business really took a. If you. If you see a bar graph of my cash in and work, things were good kind of beginning of the year. And then Covid hit when I thought I'd be doing a lot of work, and things got really clamped down. Organizations were going through some serious financial stress. And so a lot of that work kind of just evaporated. And then in July, Jenny, it just boomed. And now I'm at the point where, I know this is hard to believe, but I'm starting to say no to things because it's finally coming to the point Where I want to remain balanced. Yeah, I know. So I want to maintain that balance as part of some of the things I've learned from you and the rest of the Momentum community about trying to bring some. Continue to have balance and do the work.

And I know this is longer than two minutes, and you asked, I have to say.

The one thing that. That you shared with us in the past, which is, you know, when you get an offering for a position for a job, it's like, I forget the three different levels, but it's that one sort of, you know, it's get out of bed with joy. You know, something that you really want to do. So now I'm at the point where I'm only taking engagements and working with people, where it's that getting out of bed for the day with joy. It's work that brings me joy, that is meaningful, that is impactful, and I'm also balanced with things that I can learn. So also taking things that I have expertise in, yet I'm stretching myself into new places, so it's hitting all these different elements for me. And so anyway, so I can go on.

I love that. I love that I have a huge, huge smile on my face because I doubt that was a driving factor in your career as a doctor. Just knowing the culture of a lot of the medical field. Go for it.

No, no. So to say something. So my wife and I were taking a walk two days ago, and I was talking. We were sort of just talking about some of the jobs that are sitting in front of me. Like, some of the work that I'm going to say no to. Yes to. And I want to say something that literally brings tears to my eyes that I shared with her is literally like, I. Since I've started this new journey, I have not had a bad day at work.

Wow.

Yeah. So it's been really kind of, you know, there have been tough days. Right. There's days where, yeah, it's hard. The work is hard. You're stressing about deliverables, but I don't consider that bad. There has been a day where I go, why am I doing this? Like what? Like. Or. Right. So the usual kind of things. When you think about work.

Just I look back.

Cool. That's so beautiful. Because I know that when we first started these conversations, you were about a year into launching your own business full time. Right, Right. So to be experiencing that and to have so deliberately created that joy, and now to know you're saying no to things and having this compass of what has you jumping out of bed with Glee. And what has you learning the most? I think those two metrics. It's not even the right word, Those two considerations for taking on any client, any product, any job.

Are so incredible. And. And of course, we can optimize for Glee. We can optimize for learning, and we can optimize for revenue, but they can happen at the same time. And it's just so freaking cool to hear how you've implemented that for yourself, to have had this conversation with your wife and to have looked back, even on this crazy year and say, I haven't had a bad day at work.

Yeah. No, I mean, there's. Yeah. And of course, I didn't prep for, like, I was thinking about what should I talk about with you? And this sort of was in the back of my mind somewhere. And I have, as you know, we prep for this, and I have a full couple pages of stuff to talk about. For whatever reason, this didn't land. And also, just being in this moment with you, I like, you know, I felt the urge to kind of share that because I look as I. What I enjoy about our conversations, it gives me a little bit of time of reflection and talking to you. And I just also like, oh, yeah, I had this conversation. And now looking back, yeah, that's really important. And your words in the past year or so have been very helpful, but also the support from Momentum community and other folks who have helped me through this process.

There are those days where you go, am I doing the right thing? Am I doing the right work? Is this going to work?

And.

The questions occur that they're normal, especially in this time, in this COVID 19 time, when things are not stable at all, people are losing jobs, and there's all this uncertainty, and you go, am I. Should I just run to the shelter of an employer? Should I just, you know. And I keep on telling myself, why? Why? You know, this is working out. This is going to be fine. And it does. So again, there was a period of time where things really slowed down. And I think we talked about in a couple of our episodes, I was just out there helping people. I wasn't charging them. My phone was open. You know, my cell phone was shared with people. If they needed my help, I was more than happy to help them. Right. And I knew that at some point this was all. And I wasn't doing it for the benefit of getting business back. I was just like, okay, this is what I can do. This is how I can contribute. My options are to kind of go into my shell and feel bad for myself that I'm not doing well in my business, or just pour it out there and just trust that, that something will come of it.

I love it. And it's just so powerful. I mean, look, I think sometimes business owners rack their brains about marketing and like, how am I going to market my business and get the word out? And you just rolled up your sleeves and said, how can I help? And you did that for free. And obviously we're not all going to work for free forever. But you're such a good example of not. You had just launched your business and I would imagine that if you just launch and then a pandemic hits, there could be this reaction of, oh my God, I've launched at the worst possible time and the sky's falling, I'm not earning the income that I thought. And you just took that quote, free time. We know no time is free. You also live and work on a farm. But taking that free time and then saying, all right, let me just, let me just pitch in. Because that's who you are and that's momentum too, is heart based business. And I just love you reflecting back how that's been a boost because I think we all need community, but especially, especially to remind us that what you want is possible. And you just put it so well, just because it has. Hasn't happened yet.

It can. Like the tipping point can happen. And I'm just in awe. Michael, I'm, I'm so happy to hear you say and share for everybody listening that there was a time my business took this massive dip and now here we are, that in July you started to get more business than you could handle and you had to start saying no to things.

Yeah.

And that's available to all of us, believe it or not. I mean, I know nothing is guaranteed, especially in business work. Working hard doesn't guarantee anything. Actually. It still has to be aligned with what the market wants. But thank you, thank you for sharing that and providing that example. And I love that this was not even in our pages and pages of Brainstorm notes. It's so great. It truly is the alchemy of a conversation.

Yeah, no, it is. And you know, also it helps, I think at some level that you said, you mentioned that it's a way for us to journal. So, you know, thinking back now, maybe in years from now when I listen to this, this will be a good way for me to recall this.

Absolutely. I love it.

So that was way beyond my two to three minutes. So how about you, Jenny? Blake.

No, it's okay. I kept going because it's a good example of so many things. A great example.

Oh, my goodness. I'm recording this and it's a good day. What does that mean? It means that I actually have energy. I actually have life force. I. I feel positive and optimistic. And I shared this in episode 245. I sent it to you, this article that blew my mind on your surge capacity is depleted. That's why you feel so tired. I think that's what happened to me this summer. I just, I don't want to get too. I won't get too far into it because I think listeners, if you've already heard episode 245, I'll just be repeating myself. But for me and many people I know, it's just been a really tiring summer. In my case, it's sort of the chaos of New York. I love New York. I've been here nine years. It has been a tougher year in New York than certain other years. The humidity, the summer. Having a puppy who has a ton of energy, just not having a choice, like, of going out and engaging with the world twice a day for two hours a day in a city where there's just constant sort of stimulation and agitation. I just wasn't finding these pockets to really recharge. So I think for some people, taking their dog out for a walk is this really peaceful thing and you just stroll around the block or around a park or in a trail. And in New York, it's not going to be like that. Every walk is interacting, talking, monitoring. It's so intense. And it's twice a day. So it's not just the, the length of time because he's a big boy, he's £100 now. He's not even a year old. And. And it's also just the nature of being in the city. And for the first time, I can't believe I'm even saying it, but it's like for the first time, I understood why people move out of New York City city once they have kids or a dog, because it is a factor. It really. So this is my long rambling way of saying. And I'm not blaming anything on the cutest pup ever. Sorry, sorry, mjc. No, no, no. Attica competition.

Yeah, thanks.

It's not, it's not on him, but it's just this dynamic because I'm a very introverted, like, sort of quiet needing person and I've always been able to cocoon in my apartment and then go out into the city when I wanted that stimulation, and that changed this year. And. And then combine that with the stimulation of a city that is hurting and people are afraid of catching COVID Others aren't. It's crowded, people are unemployed. There's nothing to do. Like the same activities and jobs and what kept everyone busy. So it's. It is crazy. There is a really strange energy in the air. And Michael and I did just didn't figure it out to leave. You were so sweet to offer us to come stay on the farm. We never quite figured out the logistics and the timing of getting out for longer than a week. So all of this is to say I had many existential crises. Not so much of living in New York, but the responsibilities of taking care of a new being this year, combined with the pandemic, combined with such massive shifts. You know, I adopted the theme in late summer, radical reimagining. Everything is up for grabs. And I think that was out of, like, desperation, you know, Like, I just. And I. I know the spiritual significance beyond it, which is like, oh, yeah, this is a goo state. Like, this is a liminal state. But we have a podcast with Penny on this is a goose date. But it doesn't change the fact that sometimes goose dates are exhausting and frustrating and tiring and sometimes a little hopeless. And I just kept saying to myself, like, I'm not cut out for this. I know that's not good self talk, but I really felt like I love my business. I love creating. I love being thoughtful and strategic and creative. And when I'm tired, as I have been this summer for so many reasons, including not sleeping through the night for two, three months, all that goes away. So my source of joy, like, my joy, my way that I express my spirit, it just goes away when I don't have the energy to do it. And that's been tough. That's been really tough. So.

Then I had to prepare. Not had to. Had the privilege to prepare for the interview with Seth Godin, which will come out closer to his book launch. I promised it sooner, but I gotta wait till early November. But his book is called the Practice. And bottom line, get back on the horse. Do your practice. Don't let it be. You know, it doesn't need to be perfect. So preparing for that and interviewing him, it did re. Energize me. And it did have me say, at least get back on the microphone. Even if it's. Even if I feel like I'm dropping the ball everywhere else, I'm really happy to be Back on the mic and back here with you.

Yeah. I have a question for you that came to my mind. So obviously it was. It was a tough time the past couple months for you, and you're maybe in a different place today. Would you trade what you learned about yourself, the city, your puppy, all those things for anything?

I'm laughing because right now, Michael. Yes, right now. I would if you could tell me. Yes, we'll. Yeah, we'll shift your summer. We'll give you a place out in the country, and you'll sleep in a cabin for three months. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I don't think I learned anything other than I felt so discouraged. Like, it made me. I don't have kids, but it made me feel like I can never have kids because I can't even have a dog without losing my mind with the added responsibility. And I think that's kind of sad on some. I'm not someone that's always dreamed of having kids or anything. Um, I mostly am in awe of anybody who does, including you. But no, the summer was, you know.

Past the point of helpful stress, like whatever paths you stress. You're the doctor.

Yeah. No, no, no. I think that's an interesting conversation because I think sometimes through that, sometimes we come out the other end differently and we learn something about ourselves. And without that, we didn't. We couldn't have learned that about ourselves because I guess maybe that's. Maybe I'm trying to.

Yeah, I know what you're saying.

Frame a little bit. Like, would you have learned the same things about yourself? I mean, obviously it wasn't fun. Right? So I'm not saying, oh, yeah, let's do that again. But I'm thinking back to what I learned about myself when the business went south. Oh, yeah, I'd like, oh, you know what? I learned something there that there's. Without that I could have been. If you're successful all the time. I guess maybe from my. This is my feeling and my interpretation of when things don't go well is if you're always winning, you're always whatever.

It's always positive. I mean, that's great, but that's not reality. That's not how people actually live their lives. And sometimes the universe steps in and goes, hey, oh, by the way, I'm going to knock you down a couple of steps so that you can learn something about something new about yourself. But also. And as I work with organizations and individuals, I coach them, I see that firsthand with people, and I try to think about myself, like, try to have some self awareness about, like, yeah, I've been there too, but I'm in a different place today. I don't know, maybe I was just trying to get a little bit kind of reframe positive because like, sure, I.

Think 2020 has brought us all to our knees in various ways. The business side having most of my income go away, I've learned a ton. So for some reason when it's business ups and downs, I'm more quick to see what I'm learning. Oh, okay. All my clients went away except for a very small handful. Okay, great. What's this creating space for? I'm going to launch a new podcast. And that idea only came to me because I had the time and space to rest, recharge, recalibrate, reimagine for some reason on the personal front. And I was talking to my friend Sarah and her friend said was talking about the concept of grit and saying past a certain point, she doesn't want more grit. She's gritty enough. What she wants is to soften. And I hope it's okay that I anonymously quoted a friend because it was such a brilliant bit of wisdom. And I think for me this summer it was the level of exhaustion. And I think what those moments bring as you. Exactly as you said, at the very least, those moments bring empathy and compassion. And that's a very Buddhist pema chodrone and even loving kindness. Meditations are all about like, in your suffering, you can acknowledge others who are suffering in that same way or much worse. I mean, my, my summer compared to so many others was. Was really privileged, you know, with a roof over my head. And we weren't, we weren't food insecure and so there was a lot to be grateful for. But in those moments and months of sleep deprivation and so on, it's really hard to even reframe or even have gratitude and have that gratitude actually reorient the day. It's like I was trying to work out and have gratitude and do all my mind ninja ry to reframe. And so I think looking back, it's probably just too soon. I'm probably just still in it. Honestly, it's too volatile for me to say, oh yeah, I learned some massive gem. I if told me I could have spent the summer somewhere more relaxing, I would take in a heartbeat. You know, I don't think there's anything so massive that I learned by being a shell of myself other than how hard it is to get anything done when I'm a shell of myself.

Yeah, I, I, I think you're, I, you know, as I talk to other people, there are so many people who have, have found that edge and have found themselves on the other side of that edge, and it's not good.

Yeah. So, you know, it's true. Like, we're, we're, we're all going through this together. My friend Mike's Mike Robbins, his podcast name and his latest book is called We're all in this Together. He was interviewed a couple episodes ago. I'll have to go find the number. But at least we are all in this together. And the fact that someone else wrote about surge capacity being depleted meant that I could put a label to what I was feeling. And, and good things are happening too. And you're right, it's like, it's always darkest before the dawn. There's always a silver lining, you know, but sometimes, yeah, I think at the very least.

Well, it kind of circles back to Covid of just health. It has us all really focused on our health right now. And the fundamentals. I'm definitely, I know we're going to get into talking about vaccine stuff because you signed up for a vaccine trial. I personally do not want plan to get one. I don't want to, I'm not going to like, tell anyone what to do. I'm not the doctor Michael is. But what I am doing is trying to stay really healthy. So I'm trying to get enough sleep and take my magnesium, zinc, calcium, you know, work out every day. Like, I, I do think that health, we see how fundamental it is right now for all of us. So I think that's a big theme of 2020 is just all this awareness around our, our health and our immune system.

Yeah. But, you know, I think, you know, in our sort of pre, pre work things, one of the things that I liked about how you set things up is it's not just one virus. Right. So it's not just.

Can I talk about that?

Yeah, please do. Because I, I think that's very interesting because I've got some thoughts about the same sort of thing. Right. It's not just like, oh, it's COVID 19. It's one stressor. Right. It's.

Oh my goodness.

Yeah. So talk more about like.

Yeah, it is. Weirdly, Covid is real. Well, some would even debate that. Okay. So we live in a crazy world now where nothing is certain and it's hard to say anything.

But it's almost like in addition to Covid being a real virus, it's also this metaphor. It's this vehicle to transmit these other. So the way I see it, my take on 2020 is that we have at least. I bet there's more, but at least five gnarly viruses, meaning something that is spreading and, and kind of jumping quickly from one thing to the next. So we have the physical COVID virus and that's, you know, so at the time of this recording, about 200,000 people have passed in the US and anytime I think about that or say that is, I just want to send love. If you've lost a loved one or someone who was immunocompromised and got very sick this year. So there's the physical virus, we're aware of that. That's been the catalyst for a lot of what's happened this year. Then there's the psychological virus, fear of COVID So I think for a lot of us, in especially mid March, became hyper paranoid, depending on your degree of fear around it, but some level of fear. And even now, when I think about getting on an airplane again, which I haven't yet. I know you have, there's this fear of COVID where I think about visiting one of my family members or having them visit me and coming through New York airports or so. The psychological virus of the fear, and not just fear of catching COVID but the fear of each other. And so there's this. That kind of takes me to the social virus. So the social virus is not the fact that we're being social, it's fearing each other.

Yeah.

Things like fake news cancel culture.

Violence, destruction. You know, so much of the social justice movement this summer and those protests have been amazing and incredible and there's all kinds of things happening in the periphery where socially I think there's so much division in the country. There's this virus of fearing the other side, whoever that is like. And I, I get, I. I'm so sad, you know, when, when just to see how much division and disinformation we have. And so there's one. And then fourth, we have the economic virus. So starting mid March, everything was shut down. So it spreads, this economic virus spreads because if businesses can't run, if theaters can't open and restaurants can't open and house cleaners can't go in to their jobs, it's. Then everything shuts down and it's a domino effect or a virus where we're all affected at many points down the chain, except for a handful of companies who are doing even better now than they were before. And that's great too. But I Think many more people are experiencing the real tremendous economic insecurity of this time. And then the last gnarly virus we have is political. So is it a coincidence that this is happening in an election year? I don't know. I really. There's a lot of theories out there. We're not going to get into all of them today. But politically speaking, we have fear mongering, divisiveness, a lot of politicking pre election on all sides, scheming, gaslighting.

Yeah. And now with, with RGBS passing away, we have a whole nother. It's like.

Gallons of gasoline on top of a huge fire.

Oh my God. And it's like this icon of our era has passed and we didn't even get a day.

No, no, I think it was an hour. I mean like. No, I mean my son texted me before. I don't know, he's got a lot of connections in the news world and he's literally texting us. I'm like, what? What happened? And it took like about an hour for it to hit the mainstream media, whatever. And within the hour of that it was already, you know what you're talking about. So. Yeah, I mean I like, actually I don't like the fact that we're going through this, but I do, I sort of reflecting on what you just mentioned and also an article or an opinion piece you sent me around the COVID 19 from the virus standpoint, which is something that I've been talking, when I actually speak to employers and hospitals and especially universities, I talk about this is what people are giving too much credit to. The virus. It basically is a piece of DNA wrapped up in a little protein coat. It doesn't have any feelings, doesn't have any political connections, does its thing. Nature has made it that way. And what I liked about that opinion piece you shared with me and the thing that I talk about is that in order for it to spread from just a small batch of whatever animals to humans and then go on and on, there has to be something inside of that virus, but also the hosts have to have receptors. So when I'm thinking about the physical, psychological, social, economic and political viruses that you mentioned, it's not just that these things are happening and that it's able to do that, but somehow our society, our families, ourselves, our mentality, however we have those receptors available to allow this to happen. If we weren't good hosts for the fear mongering and the politics, if we were different in some way, then it wouldn't affect us. This way.

I agree with that because we can see examples of other countries.

Yeah.

That don't have the same social, political, economic issues because they've handled it differently. So it's not that anybody escaped the physical effects of COVID I mean everyone globally had to practice social distancing or you know, stopping flights in and out for a period of time. So everybody, everybody had to deal with the first virus, the COVID virus. But I agree, I love what you're highlighting in that article was called consider the virus's point of view. I also mentioned to you today this book on 20 Lessons from the 20th Century is by Timothy Snyder. It's tiny. It's inspiring me to create a tiny book, but it packs such a powerful punch. And when you talk about open receptors socially, economically and politically with the state of affairs in the U.S. this book on tyranny is so. It just clicks right in like this is not new what's happening in the US and with the precedents that are being set and the, and the mores and things that are being unraveled. It's playbook. It is playbook. And so many of these things, like creating mass confusion, creating controversy, questioning facts, you know.

Projecting somebody's ill intent as what the other person is doing. You know, all of these things are our playbook. And if you are listening to this and you have not read and you don't own this book on tyranny, it's tiny. It's less than $10 at the time. Today it's about $6. It's so good. I think it's mandatory reading.

I'll have to read. I have not had a chance to read it yet. So the other thing I think about is the Fall of Empires, which is not a book but, but is, but you know, throughout history, every. We'll call them empires. At this point right there, something happened. Empires.

The Romans, the Greeks, the Persians, da da da. The Turks. Every, every, everywhere you turn. The British Empire, they all saw an end. Right. And I just think we're, we're just happen to be in the, in witnessing the fall of the quote unquote American empire, whatever that would look like our political prowess, whatever. We throughout the world are financial and economic. It's just, we're just seeing the downturn. And I'm not probably the only person who's saying this, but I just think, okay, this is how it's going to happen. Right. And also I think that what makes us so incredibly strong is some of our greatest weaknesses. Right. The fact that we are think More about that. Yeah.

And also same word. Because you're such an optimistic guy. So it's kind of surprising to hear you talk about the fall of the empire. I think a lot of people in this book on tyranny completely addresses the sort of like kind of ignorance is bliss in a way of being like, oh, that will never happen to America, you know, but talk to us. Okay.

That's hubris.

Just saying. Right?

Yeah. So again, I'm sure there's probably people way smarter than I am, political scientists, historians that probably can, could probably say this either better or completely topple my thinking. Usually there's some sort of event or some sort of war, or there's something that tips the scales against whatever the empire is. Right. It's usually there's a stronger person on the block and the bully gets bullied and that's the end. But not always, right? So a lot of times there's overextension, both political militarily and influence. Just things change and then the world changes. The technology that allowed them to be the empire passes them by and then there's a new technology that now is more powerful and usually on the military side that they get sort of, you know, pushed aside. So I just think that at some level this is sort of what we're happening. It may happen, it may not happen. Maybe I'm hoping, but. But I think it's. We're seeing it. But also I think what you were saying was the things that makes us strong, it makes us unique in the world also is some of our biggest, biggest weaknesses. Right. So the fact that we're at some level a federal.

We are a federal political representative republic that we have individual states that are self governed and tax their own citizens and have a say.

Very strongly in their own.

Governing of their people, but then get rolled up to a national federal government allows us to do some really interesting things. But what we're showing now, for example in the pandemic, so what you saw in other countries that people said, look, we trust the science, we trust that mask wearing is important, that social distance, all these things, and the country as a whole moved in that direction on force, we, for lots of reasons we could talk about, did not. Right. And so the other piece is that because everybody did their own thing, which is in sometimes a strength because we can grow differently. We can have states that are more agricultural, pass laws, do things that help their industries or their marketplace versus others within that the variability and diversity probably plays to our strength. But let's take just the PPE the personal protection equipment and now the vaccine. We'll talk about vaccines here, hopefully, in a little bit. So if. If we had a countrywide perspective of how we're going to distribute our protective equipment, our ventilators, all that stuff, and had a coordination of, like, well, things in Kansas are kind of slow, so we're going to divert these supplies to New York for now, and then a few months later, oh, things are pretty good in New York, and now things are bad in Texas and Arizona and Florida. We're going to start making sure that nationally, we start moving supplies where it's most needed. And so if you do that, you can have a much more rapid and more holistic response to something like Covid. But if you don't, if everybody's out on their own, if everybody's trying to figure this out on their own, that individual states, cities, jurisdictions, hospitals, everybody's doing their own thing, there are just immense inefficiencies in how that is done. And so that allows what we're doing in different levels of understanding of the science and everything like that. We don't have a coordinated effort. There's no coordination. So, again, what. Our strength, in my mind, as a country, in our diversity and ability to adapt quickly individually, is actually allowing us to do some of the things you're describing, which is that fear of each other, that economic turndown was not equal throughout the country. So if you had places in the Midwest, Jenny, that were doing fine financially, and they're looking around going, why is my bar and restaurant closed when there's literally no Covid in my. In my area? Right. And so that individualistic response then allows. Puts people at odds with what we're trying to do as a nation.

So maybe, I mean, even if I. Even if I put this out there without taking any sides, we could see that there were protests initially of people that didn't want to wear masks and that didn't want to shut down their businesses. And the, you know, health community is like, you got to do it. And they're protesting that. And then we saw the social justice protests and. Which is so important, but it's like all of a sudden kind of the opposite side in quotes, you know, rushes to the streets and is protesting something else nonetheless. But in. In that way, there were groups on all sides that were saying, sorry, you know, sorry, not sorry. Like, this is more important to us. So everybody has these different priorities, and that is very American. Like, a company built on freedom and independence is inherently going to stoke that within people. If you can't tell me what to do. You know, I'm married to a rebel who says that you can't tell me what to do.

Yeah. Something you've mentioned at a prior Momentum meeting about a different company that we won't mention about what's in their DNA. What started that company, what started our country. We're a rebellion.

That's true.

Right. I mean, we're basically rebels. Right. We're basically explorers and sort of add all these positive adjectives at the same time. We are also a country that for decades tolerated slavery.

And internment camps and all kinds of other things. Right. So how does that same country who looked out for freedoms also allowed things that were completely against what we thought should be our freedoms?

You know, I was studying this when I was at Union Theological Seminary. I became very interested in this because I was, okay, we know that America has a separation of church and state, but primarily it was Christianity was the dominant religion. But then there were all these splinters or denominations that evolved because inherently, in the American promise and is rebellion and is freedom and independence. So even within the Christian denominator, denomination is like, people splintered and said, no, we believe this. No, we believe this. Okay. So then I think at the two years ago, there were at least 80 denominations. And I found that so interesting. Like, the project of religion itself is challenged in a country that emphasizes freedom and independence and separation of church and state. And so even. Even within religions which, you know, at least in Christianity and Christianity and Judaism share some of the same holy book.

Right.

Even. But even that, like, the book itself isn't the end all be all, because people interpret it in so many different ways. And I think we're seeing a lot of that play out here, which is. And especially with where things have gotten politically and the division that. That obviously happened prior to 2016. I mean, we can't say, oh, yeah, it just came out of absolute nowhere. I think income inequality is a huge contributor of people just feeling increasingly restless and pissed off. But of course, no one's gonna. Of course people are not gonna kind of like trust. I think trust has been broken for a long time now in America. And that's something that you. You also put on our list of stuff to talk about. There's just one thing. I happened to run into a woman yesterday. I took Ryder over to Columbia. It's a little longer from our usual walk. And she told me about this phrase. I've never heard it. It's called horseshoe theory. So I'll just read it because it was so interesting. I don't know if you know this, but I was a poli sci major, mjc@ucla.

Awesome.

Yeah, poli sci comps. So this is like really dusting off the poly sci books. But in political science and popular discourse, the horseshoe theory asserts that the far left and the far right, rather than being at opposite and opposing ends of a linear political continuum, closely resemble one another, analogous to the way that the opposite ends of a horseshoe are close together. The theory is attributed to French philosopher and writer Jean Pierre Fay. Proponents of the theory point to a number of similarities between the far left and the far right, including their supposed propensity to gravitate to authoritarianism or totalitarianism. And then of course, the last line. However, the horseshoe theory has also received some criticism. Footnote, footnote, footnote. AKA of course the far left and the far right are going to bristle at being. Don't you dare lump me with those. You know. And so of course the criticism is no effing way of from both sides saying don't you dare put us closer to each other than the center. But I think this was just. I don't care where you fall on it, whether you agree with this or not, it's an interesting concept for us to wrap our minds around. Like a horseshoe. See, just put a little.

Yeah, I like that. So I'm. So I'm gonna drop, drop the Joe Rogan story now.

Okay, great. Cause I think I really love Joe Rogan this summer. Not, not because I agree with everything he says, but I love his fearlessness of just being willing to have conversations. It's. It's so impressive to me.

Yeah. So I'm dropping. So if you haven't. Folks, if you haven't read this news, it's been out for probably about a week or two where we all know Joe Rogan moved over to Spotify. And I think Jenny and I spent about a half an hour of a prior podcast just talking about the money and everything else has happened. And if you haven't read, there's several news outlets have reported that. Well, and one thing that you'll see is we moved over to Spotify. There was a significant number of podcasts that did not go from other podcast provider onto the Spotify playlist. So the Alex Joneses of the world, so to speak, weren't there. Right. So that raised some eyebrows. And then most recently he made some comments. I'm not going to get into the comments, but he came back and apologized about what he said because he wasn't fact checking Himself. It had to do with, I guess, fires in Oregon. And then more stories start coming out that there are folks within the ranks of Spotify that are basically saying within they should have some editorial control over his podcast.

Right? So it's like, whoa. Right. And so what's even more interesting, so to take sort of your horseshoe thing a little bit, why I'm bringing this up is because it's interesting that first of all, Joe Rogan, who is known for what exactly you said, just having this conversation and he speaks about the cancel culture, that how people who are liberal sometimes are illiberal, right? They're, they, they vote, they, they want to be. Have the freedoms at the same time, when there are certain people who they used to want to have those same freedoms. Freedoms, we could. Freedom of speech and freedom of religion wherever it may be, right. So there is that sort of dichotomy that lives there. And then you have a person who basically, I think, speaks to that and talks about it all the time now is in that box he's going to put himself into economically, you know, the money. And again, I, one of the things I thought about was what happened to the trust that he built up with his.

Listening audience, to the people who he works with, his guests. So one of the great things, Jenny, was he would bring people on and they knew like, hey, he's going to ask you some hard questions, he's going to be fair, but he's going to be always trying to learn from that guest. Now if you start hearing, well, maybe there's some editorializing that's going to happen. It no longer becomes the Joe Rogan experience.

Well, a hundred percent. And again, I'm not saying the whole point. And I think why Joe Rogan is the number one podcast. I'm not saying that emotionally, it's like a fact that I think he's leagues beyond even. The number two podcast is that he actually is willing to have conversations on all sides. And, and he, and he always says, he's like, I was raised by hippie parents. I'm very liberal. But he always is willing to, to ask questions and be, be provocative, but not on purpose. I think he genuinely, he says, like, I have a good heart. I know where my heart is. And yes, sometimes he gives a platform to people who later are completely discredited. And, and yet he's willing to, and, and I'm. There are some terrible things that those said guests have said and done. But on the whole, he's really making an effort to have tough conversations about really Tough topics and do them in a non like super splintering way. It always will piss somebody off. I mean, I think he knows that by now, but I just admire so much that he's willing to dive into topics and, and give people space to share why they believe what they believe. It doesn't mean he agrees with even every guest that he has or everything that they say. But he's one of the only places that really gives this long form forum. I almost think of it as like the new water cooler and I'm late to the game. I mean, I'm so late to JRE because I've had friends send me episodes in the past and I think I just got turned off by every other episode being MMA or comedian. But increasingly he has these very interesting authors, scientists, researchers, especially in 2020. I have not found an information source like it that's so long form, that's so exploratory. That's so. I think he's very smart and he, he.

So I have found it to be a real outlet and a real water cooler. Like you and I will talk about episodes. A couple other friends and I will. And, and now. And so we, of course, we even talked about it in one of our episodes. Michael of the him getting the Spotify deal. Some say it's a hundred million dollars, some say it's 190 million. But then in these last few weeks, when the news came that some Spotify employees are trying to rally together and say that they need to have editorial oversight on the guests or they need to flag trigger warnings in the episodes or sensitive content or fact check and take that out. That's just completely antithetical to how Joe Rogan operates, which is have the conversation, take the risks, and then let things sort themselves out. But that's not. He doesn't censor himself. And this is why people love and appreciate him. And it's so hard for you to even say this because it's like it's very easy to go back and then pick apart even what I'm saying. What is so that the thing that. And I texted you when you sent me that article, I said, what is your freedom worth? Like, is your freedom to say and have the guests that you want, Is it worth a hundred million dollars? Would you turn it down? Would you, would you end the contract? Because I would imagine his contract must have said before he signed it that Spotify will not have editorial say right over the guests, the timing or the topics. But the second that any kind of measures are put in place, to say, we're gonna check you or check things before they come out. The entire thing shifts. The entire thing shifts. It is this like. Well, it's an invisible little virus. And I'm not saying we have, of course we have to protect against hate speech. I'm not saying this. Joe Rogan is not a fear, Fear mongering, division creator. He wants everybody to hug each other and love each other. That's his goal. That's what he's speaking from. So I, I agree. Like, there's some hate speech that exists that we used to have to monitor for. When I was teaching people how to approve ads at Google, we had to look out for hate speech and things that were illegal, things that were horrible, horrible things that nobody should have to see. That's different than what Joe Rogan is trying to do. And that's my opinion. Some people would say, no, it's not different. You can't censor anything. Some people would say, you gotta censor it. Because any little misinformation can be seen as hate speech. But at the end of the day, the minute you start putting in these monitoring or censoring or editorial controls, it really, like, pops like a bubble. The cocoon that he's created for almost 10 years, if not more, of.

Conversation, of like, unfiltered, raw, you, listener. He actually places his faith in you, the listener, to be intelligent enough to.

Sort out for yourself what puts responsibility on you.

Yes.

He's like, it's a shared responsibility. And then, I mean, the reason I wanted to. First of all, we've been talking about this offline and I saw the chance here with the horseshoe thing, because I think sometimes what he does is because he interviews the person. Not, I mean, he interviews what they believe in, but he also, I think, does a great job in interviewing the person and how they think. And he questions how they think. And he, he's not afraid of asking, like, well, and I think he's aware of that horseshoe. Right? He, I think he has people on the far left and far right. And again, they're, they're really far apart, you know, for. By distance, maybe, but they're actually very similar. Right. And again, these employees who may be sort of, you know, I'm imagining are against some of the more right wing controversial guests you may have. I'm just putting that out because that seems from, from what I'm hearing, right, they're probably more on that other side of that horseshoe, but they're exhibiting the same sort of tyrannical control and lack of Trust in the talent and the guest, that they can put out a message that people can have a shared responsibility to understand. And that's what's missing.

Right.

We can't have these conversations.

Right. And I think if you, if you take it out of Joe Rogan, I don't know where it's left. I mean, in a way that reaches kind of enough that we can all talk about it and debate like he has become the new. There's another New York Times article, Barry Weiss, his friend, and she's a controversial in and of herself, right. She wrote an article about why Joe Rogan experiences the new mainstream media. And it's like if you. Because it's certainly that level of discourse and open dialogue does not exist in news media. I really don't think it does. I don't think it's in mainstream media. It's really in podcasts. It's why we're talking about it now because I think, you know, people might wonder why are we obsessed with Joe Rogan? It's kind of a canary in a coal mine of.

Not to conversation, really important, critical dialogue.

Right.

And I admire and I understand what those Spotify staffers are trying to do. These things come from a good place. There's a. I'm sure this is extremely controversial, but a Sam Harris episode with a guest, now I'm forgetting the guest's name, but on the new religion of anti racism and just saying the title is very controversial. But one thing that, that guest said, so listen, listen at your own will, you know, like whether you agree with it or not, it's what someone's thinking about. He said, you know, on all sides, like people are bright eyed with let's say any religion or evangelism. The people who are, you know, missionaries going off into foreign lands are really bright eyed. Like, remember the kid, was it last year where he was trying to go to the last place that had not been industrialized, like this little remote island off the co. Off the coast of India and he wanted to bring them Christianity.

Right. And he was killed.

Yeah. So he, he meant so well. He really wanted to spread the word, spread the gospel. He, he was really well meaning. And so that, that great intention doesn't. Doesn't change that. Okay. That was not the right application, you know, of that. And this was very, as you can imagine, very heated topic at Union as well. But I think so. So it's not, I'm not saying the Spotify employees are like trying to, you know, ruin discourse or ruin. Barry.

Yeah. And I think Both sides feel the same way. Right. So I think that there are. There are sides of. On both sides of the horseshoe, that.

There are freedoms and logic and understanding that the individuals have for what they're trying to do from their perspective. And taken to the extreme like this, I should read this tyranny book. To the extreme, you get tyranny, right. And so I can see where things that are controversial for the left, which is pro choice and gun control and those other things on the right are seen as rights and protection of life. You know, there's different. They're the same coin just from the other different sides. So what I also found interesting is we're going back and forth is that Joe Rogan actually, a couple of years ago, actually had a podcast with Steven Tyler and said, oh, this is why we didn't join Spotify. It had to do with money.

Yes.

But it's also, to me, it's kind of interesting, just as an outside observer, like, what changed? Like, did the money. The money could be so ridiculous.

Oh, my gosh. Okay, I've been thinking about this, and I'm thinking about this.

Stephen Tyler are badmouthing, basically the record industry and people like Spotify and how they take away money from the talent. Right. It wasn't had to do with the actual cautionary tale about the right of expression, but rather on the monetary side. And it's just hilarious. It's episode 1116. I think I just looked it up. So if you go back and it's like, I think I actually looked at it. It's like an hour and 40 minutes or so into that. They just slam the recording industry and like, in Spotify and like, what. And back to. Again, your question, original question, what is your freedom worth? So maybe a couple years ago when he recorded this, the number wasn't right, and now, like, what changed? Because he also moved his studio. A lot of things changed.

Oh, yeah, and.

Hey, it's Ryder. He wanted to say hi, folks.

He's chiming in. So let's pause for just a second so Ryder can have it say, sure, Rogan. In terms of the money, he did say that he. What he said to Spotify several years ago is, why are you. Why do you get to rake in all the billions? You're a publicly listed company, you're earning billions of dollars or you're worth billions. Why don't. Why wouldn't I see that money? I do think they gave him a nice enough contract two years later to. To have him say yes. Although.

Are we surprised that this is happening. So I have a story that I want to share and I think I've shared it one time on the podcast. Let's say Joe Rogan, okay, 100 million is worth some of the headaches that he might have to deal with on Spotify. And that's if we're being conservative. And we're now going with $190 million.

Figure that really conservative of you. Thanks.

And yeah, yeah, sure thing. What I'm not clear on is was it Joe Rogan and probably his kids set for life prior to the Spotify deal? So. So for me, it's a strange choice. And you know, Michael, like how I am with heart based business and a momentum. Money is not the metric. That is not. It is. And it is certainly not worth, you know, compromising your core values. And I think one of Joe Rogan's core values is unfiltered and totally able to follow his own heart gut instincts and sometimes apologize for them when he needs to, when he feels like it. But he's not overly apologetic. He's also not going to let himself be canceled. You know, he has enough of a diverse audience that he's not really cancelable because just everyone's. Someone's always pissed off that he's fine with that. That's why he's not cancelable, because he has his. His base kind of appreciates him. And then even if. Yeah. So anyway, I don't have to say more about that, but let me just share a story.

Especially with me thinking about a new podcast. And don't worry, I'll still release episodes on Pivot as well. I'm just gonna have another one. I often think about how do I support these shows, how do I monetize them? Of course, what everyone else is doing online is getting sponsors, if you're lucky enough to have enough downloads to even get a sponsor. So several years ago, a company reached out and they said, we'd love to sponsor the Pivot podcast. And before I got clear on where I stood with this, I was very excited and I thought, okay, great. And at that time, I gave a rate that was high. I mean, beyond what the actual market rates would be for podcast ads of my size. But I might have even quoted $1,500 or something, which is way more than my downloads would have indicated. But. And you know, I'm like, it's Pivot, it's primo, it's premium, and it was a work related company, right. And all of a sudden, as soon as I thought that that was happening, I started to change the editorial calendar. Oh, well, they're going to advertise in September. Yeah, I should line up some work related episodes. I should line up some career related episodes because it's a career change HR platform or something like that. So I started to instantly make. And almost subtle because it was not so direct, where I thought, oh, I'm gonna have an advertiser, let me rework my whole podcast. But I started to think, oh, for the month of September, so and so's on board and maybe I should line up the content or I certainly won't talk about quitting your job during the month of September when I'm promoting this career related platform. And. And I certainly wouldn't have anything controversial come out that month because, well, this advertiser is paying for it. And I want them to have a good experience. Experience. I want them to have a good roi. And it ended up falling through. And I'm so glad that that fell through because now I see how subtly and how quickly and how easily it is to make even imperceptible changes to oneself, let alone the big ones. If you think that someone is listening, tagging, editing, removing, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, that the proposal is for the Joe Rogan experience on Spotify. And it's very hard. And I think Joe Rogan has, like nerves of steel when it comes to speaking his mind and being courageous, having courageous conversations.

But as soon as one measure gets put in place, how do you not ever so subtly, how does something not change? I think that's my question. Maybe he can thread that needle, I don't know. But nonetheless, it means that there's a control in place now and there are certain things that would get filtered out from the audience that weren't before. And I think that's kind of sad, really. Sad?

Yeah. No, it is sad and surprising because he speaks about going against that so often during his podcast. It's not just like one podcast a year. He talks about censorship and cancel culture and these kind of intimidations by the government or by any group. Right. What's interesting is probably on that horseshoe you're describing before, his base probably is the whole horseshoe. Right. So I think one of the. Some of the magic that he brings to the table is that I think he probably has people on the far left and far right who listen to his episodes. Maybe not all of them, but I think he's got such a diverse population. But anyway, so, yeah, that's a good.

Way to put it. The whole horseshoe can you imagine if I hadn't just serendipitously met. Serendipitously met this person yesterday on a dog walk.

Yeah, it's great. The visual is great, right?

Yeah. Maybe someone will try to cancel us because we talked about the horseshoe and it's some cancelable offense.

I know. Hopefully. Yeah.

I didn't do my research in advance of how controversial is this concept really. But listen, a Columbia biology student told me about it.

Exactly right. It's happened. It's right. The universe put that person in front of you to tell you that. So I will share with you that I've had a similar experience as I'm speaking to.

Potential engagements around COVID 19. I have made sure that I'm not. That I'm fact based, but also I'm not kind of politically maybe questionable. And I found myself do the same thing and sort of said, oh, I would have said this on name your social media or Twitter or whatever. And I go, huh? How would this be perceived by a potential person? Right. Because you want to come in as the expert, but not as someone who is potentially politically charging what they're politically charged in one direction or the other. So I've.

I've been guilty or I've noticed that about myself. So I don't think we're the only two people on earth who've noticed this about themselves, but at least we noticed about it. Like it's part of the victory is you.

Oh, oh, I have so much less courage than. I mean Joe or some of the people I've mentioned. I just, I don't. I have such thin skin of same as you. Like, I mean, it goes to wanting to be liked or wanting to be hireable, wanting to write. Like the thing is, and this is why I appreciate jre is because they'll share examples like, okay, the newscaster who said something that many people find inappropriate and he was fired, or the professor who shared controversial data from controversial research and he was fired. And so there are real instances of people losing the positions that they have. And again, if. If your audience is only on one part of the horseshoe, I think there is a bigger risk because if you say the one wrong thing these days in our society, you're. You're gone.

Yeah.

If your audience is more along the entire horseshoe, well, you can, you can be controversial, but by nature, not everyone will leave at the same time because you're saying one thing and you're pissing this group off, you say another thing the other. But I think.

I mean, we even saw over the summer, the Harper's letter, and how immediately that was met with just scorn and disdain. And.

So even a letter saying like, basically, let's all be friends is very controversial. And it's like, well, who's writing it? What privilege do they have? And I'm not saying whether I think the letter's a great idea or not. I'm just saying even to talk about, talking about things, it's controversial. You know, we're in such a fraught society, and it's scary to have to, to risk saying anything at all and then risk any consequence at all, especially if, you know, you, Michael, you're, you're support. You're a medical expert and a business consultant. And I understand why you wouldn't want to have come out with very controversial views, even if inside you were debating with those.

Right.

And it could be scary in a, in a year that's tenuous financially for every, for, for most people, not everybody, but for many to say anything at all that might risk future business or clients. And, and I, I get it that, you know, from the, from even the protest movements, like this phrase, silence is violence.

It's tough. It's tough. There's a lot of like, you know, economic impact that, that, that can come from speaking up, which means that we have the fear of our survival because our survival is tied to our ability to provide for ourselves economically. So it's. And not. And not just fear of survival, but survival from standing out from the social pack. You know, I think there's so much research that shows, you know, if we feel, if we fear being ostracized by our clan, that's a fear of death.

No, I, I absolutely go agree. I mean, you know, so it, so we started this conversation around the COVID and how this is all. And I think we are a country who, because of its diversity and built upon diversity in the old melting pot of many, many cultures. I think there's some rude awakening we're having.

That these differences exist. And there's some folks who want to have one action plan. There's other folks who have a different action plan. But I think we as a nation are having, in my opinion, an existential crisis about how we're going to go forward. Right. I mean, I think one thing that worries me is that any one side will have complete tyrannical control of the other side because it's going to create more problems than it's going to solve if we don't come together. And how do we build the trust and how do we Work together. How do we improve as a country? How do we improve as individuals if not by together?

I have difficulty with either side basically saying the other side is worthless and isn't useful. Those are. No matter which side you're on, those are human beings who have family, who have kids, who have needs, who have wants, who are trying to do the best they can. And you don't agree with them on a various and sundry level. I get that and I understand and I have those feelings too. I'm not, I don't somehow, I'm not a robot. I'm like, oh, this is all, you know, logical. I'm not, you know, Dr. Spock or Mr. Spock on this. I feel the same way. I get upset and with certain comments that my friends will make on social media and I have those same feelings. Just how do we, you know, the folks who are listening this as, as, as we go forward in our business, in our life, how do we move together? How do we do things? How do we do, how do we stop doing certain things? How do we do certain things that will improve trust, that will get us together? How do we, we're on this blue marble together.

There's a book that I think you would love and many listeners too. Van Jones, he wrote it. It's called beyond the Messy, how we Came Apart, comma, How We Come Together. I'll put the link in the show notes along with all these other articles we've talked about. And he. In that book he alternates chapters. So speaking to, for lack of better terms, Democrats and Republicans. And someone said to me the other day, it's a lonely time to be a centrist. By the way, I never thought of myself as centrist. I always thought I was born and raised San Francisco. I've only lived in sf, New York, Louisiana. I'm not even saying I identify as centrist. I'm like a very, I always thought I was a very liberal, sort of like progressive person even. I'm not all in all on board with what I see happening among others. And I think even when I was at Union, I was very surprised coming in thinking, wow, I'm so liberal and open minded and progressive and like want us to all come together. And there was so much more division happening even amongst a group that would define itself that way. Like, I just couldn't believe how much sort of like arguing and cutting down. Granted it's in a university setting, but how much cutting down there was within a group that in theory wants the same thing. And I think I See and hear that from, from friends who are Republican too. There's like some, yes, of course, there's like MAGA hat wearing, you know, Trump loving voters. But there's also ones that are saying like, it's a tough time to be a Republican because maybe I'm not buying into it. So I'm again, I'm really trying to speak to this on all sides. You know, you mentioned Michael, you mentioned trust and coming together. And isn't it amazing that like just the idea of coming together is kind of controversial, you know, because it involves somehow accepting and bridge building with the other side, which some people would say is don't you dare. Yeah, don't you dare. That's. Here's my question. We've been hinting at the vaccine part of the conversation.

Oh, let's talk about that.

Yeah, you sent me very interesting research that actually a majority of Americans at the time of this recording say they won't be in the first wave of the vaccine and partly because they have no so little trust in pharmaceutical companies. And I definitely fall into that camp. Like, you think we're going to watch what happened with the opioid crisis and then like jump to take your drugs. Sorry, not going to happen. And what I've heard, you're the doctor and everybody listening. I am not a doctor. This is my personal, you could even call it crazy, wacky opinion. But what I've heard from other doctors on other podcasts is that it's very hard to even land on not even just COVID 19, but a coronavirus or flu vaccine because it mutates so quickly that everyone who's like, you know, punting into the future when we have a vaccine, everything's going to be utopian again is so strange to me because in my understanding, it's very difficult to even have a, quote, a vaccine. But regardless, the trust is so broken of our government and our pharmaceutical companies and the political and economic interests and who benefits from, from. Okay, so with all that said, I'm curious to hear your thoughts. And you signed up for a vaccine trial, so clearly you're like at least pitching in on that front, which I find very interesting.

Yeah. So looking back, and I appreciate the question and the opportunity to talk about this, I get an email because I'm still credentialed at a large integrated healthcare system, multiple hospitals, multiple clinics, and my wife works for the same system. And we both get the email at the same time that they're one of the trial for this region that we live in.

I won't name the drug company is doing the trial for Covid. Literally, she and I are across the room from each other reading. We're doing something else. We both look at the email and independently we respond to the email saying, we start answering the questions like, two people who are married, we start doing it like, oh, what are you doing? Like, yeah, let's do this. I'm gonna do this. And so we're actually competing almost who gets done with the survey first. And we don't have a conversation about what that means, which is interesting to me. And reflection, like, there wasn't like, oh, what are your thoughts around this? Or is this safe?

It's very interesting. Yeah. Especially.

Yeah. Or would you want to do this? Or are you okay with me doing this? It wasn't like. And at the time we just did it like, we're both physicians. We both, after we answer the questions and kind of thought the questions were kind of interesting. And I talked about that. We were very like, scientific, logical, you know, Spock, you know, kind of version of the world. And.

We get the. The consent form, we start reading it, right? Like, and then we. It, you know, so you find out who's kind of running the study. I'm like, oh, I know these people. And because we're part of the same system. And then you talk about trust. All of a sudden I literally. I didn't think about it twice. I literally, neither one of us thought about it twice. And afterwards, we both sort of talked about, like, well, that was. We sort of did this. We probably should have talked about it, but we both already put our names in. Okay, we'll see what happens. It was sort of like. It was like a fatal complete. And what was really funny. So I get called like the next day, and she doesn't get called for like two or three days. And she's like, oh, why am I not getting called? And now I've also by this time have sent the same email to friends and colleagues, say, hey, if you're interested in doing this, people are coming out of the woodwork to sign up. So all people that I know, and again, probably because we travel in the same circle, a lot of them are engineers and physicians and science related people. And almost everybody that I knew, if they could, they're starting to sign up, which is interesting. Back to the trust issue, right? So now a few people who I communicated with this were a bit like, what are you doing, Michael? I thought, you know, like the same thing you're discussing, which is it's unproven we don't know much about this. And I got some of that feedback, which I thought was interesting from physicians and other healthcare people. And I was like, oh, yeah, you're right. And I was answering it in an odd way, which was I, my heart signed up.

I think, like, I think my brain was like, oh, this is okay. And then my heart signed up, I.

Think.

I mean, you, you entered the military probably with this. I would enter, I would imagine, with a similar heart jumping, right? Like, I don't know if they have anything in common, but it seems to me like, yeah, you have a value of like jump up and serve.

Yeah, that was my response because my, their response to me questioning my entering the trial was really about the logical stuff. And I'm like, yeah, but I want to help out. I know that they were looking for people of color, right? And so I'm Hispanic and my father's Mexican. And that population, you can look it up as being both the black and the brown populations in the country are being hit way out of proportion compared to the white population. Having to do with multiple reasons. I sort of felt like, okay, I have to do this. I know they need people from the Hispanic population. I'm over the age of 50 and I'm healthy, so I can do this. And maybe it was again, I didn't do a lot of thinking about this, Jenny. It wasn't like, oh, weigh the odds, look at the consent form. It's like, I'm doing this. My mind was already made up and I think my wife sort of felt the same way.

She kind of did this probably also from the heart perspective. But my reasoning to people who questioned me were heart based answers, not science based answers.

What I find so interesting about that and thank you for sharing because it's hard. It's not always easy to unpack a heart based response because it just is. It's the little voice inside that just moves you to do. What I find interesting is it must mean that even prior to that, to filling out that survey, you must, as you are the doctor here of the two of us, but you must believe that a vaccine is even possible. And that's what I get curious about. Or maybe not. I don't know. I'm curious where you stand on that because I've just heard other doctors saying.

Just flu vaccines in general are notoriously difficult. And even when we all go get the flu vaccine every year, I don't, I actually don't get the flu vaccine. But.

People who do, it's. It doesn't Inoculate you against.

Yeah.

Most flu strains. It just inoculates you against last year's flu strain.

Yeah. So I think there's. In an episode, probably our second or third episode that we did together, I talked about vaccines and the coronavirus family, the RNA family and the fact that we. For basically, I mean coronavirus, I've said that many times, is the common cold. It's basically one of three or four viruses. Rhinovirus, respiratory syncytial virus or RSV coronavirus, a couple other virus and influenza are basically the. The wintertime viruses that are in the population. Right. And we single out influenza because it is worse than the other ones I just named. So we have never literally found the cure for the common cold. We are going to have to find the cure or at least a vaccine that will at some level help prevent the common cold. For a lot of people, this is literally either asymptomatic or they just have a runny nose, cough, maybe a little bit of fever.

Right.

So it is the common cold. And that in itself because it does mutate, as you mentioned, as Milo said. Yes. It's going to be very difficult and knowing that I still did it. Right. I mean, so in science and in business and in life in general, sometimes we do things and if they don't work out, we still learn.

That's true. So as part of this trial, is the indicator of the success of that vaccine in this case gonna be that you don't catch a particular strain of COVID 19 or. Well, I mean, ideally you wouldn't catch any strain at all. You wouldn't catch COVID 19 at all.

But yeah, it's at all. I mean, I think. Yeah, yeah. No, it could be. Right. There could be. There could be. Absolutely. That's completely. That is possible. My understanding of what's the vaccine. Because the vaccine makers aren't telling you exactly what's in the vaccine. I mean, they sort of tell you in generalities. Right, okay.

And that to me is very problematic as well. Like, I know there are people out there who believe they're going to put microchips in vaccines. Do you know what I mean? Like there are really extreme theories.

Yeah. Have that technology. We would not. If we, if we knew how to do that, there'd be a lot less problems in the world if we actually knew how to do that. What they're not making, you know, as part of the study, they're not giving you the details of the exact DNA sequence or the protein, the shell that. So some of this is what's on the virus. I think they're saying in general what this is and if I did a little more research, you probably could find out what Moderna and Pfizer and JJ and the other companies are doing specifically. I think that's knowable. But honestly, what they are doing is. So to get a little bit more wonky here is they're trying to take those pieces of the virus that you then develop an antibody to that piece of that virus that is common to all or most of the mutated strains. For example, let's say the virus is a person inside of a car and every person in each car is different. Right. Could he cadets differences. But all cars have four wheels and there's something very common. So the antibody would be to wheels. It doesn't care what kind of wheel it is. It's just going to attack the wheel.

Up until this point, because my understanding was with other flu vaccines, the yearly ones, that's not even possible. Is the hope that we. Is that wrong? A, that that's not entirely possible and then B, so you can just correct me if I'm wrong about other flu vaccines, but maybe there's a hope now we can find the way to get the vehicle, the car.

Yeah, exactly. Right, Right. So the flu vaccine is wily because it does mutate in a couple different ways. And what we actually do is Australia has its winter right there. They just went through their winter. And so we look at what the strains in Australia and other parts of the southern hemisphere, mainly to the west of us, because it travels from the west, the western part of the world. Let's say I'm using Australia because it's most typically what we discuss and works its way across the United States from California all the way to the across the east, goes as the wind blows, so to speak. And what we do is we look at the three or four different prominent strains that are available during that period of time. We take a calculated guess. But any one time in the world, there are probably a dozen or more influenza strains.

Evident. They exist, but then there's predominant ones. So you're hedging your bets that the ones that you're seeing in one part of the world, which will then affect you, you're gonna hedge your bets. That's gonna be the predominant strain. And then again, vaccines are a tricky business because just because you're vaccinated and have the antibodies to it and your cells will react to it, it doesn't mean that you're always gonna win that battle, that you're always gonna amount an appropriate, completely, completely appropriate response. And coronavirus is gonna be that kind of battle. Right. There's multiple mutated strains that will. And every opportunity it infects somebody. Every time that it affects another host or another, in this case potentially even another species, it can bump into another virus, exchange its RNA in this and take little pieces of it, exchange it and that creates a mutation. So that's the reality of it.

Well, this reminds me a couple questions. This reminds me of HPV of which there's now an HPV vaccine. It's one of those sexually transmitted diseases that they say almost everyone has or will have or did have. Okay.

Yeah.

And that I just looked it up. There's more than 100 types of HPV. At least 14 are cancer causing. And I don't know how many the vaccine. Do you know how many the vaccine protects against?

I'm luckily not sitting down for my pediatric boards, but I think it's. I'm not sure it's all 14. I think it's.

Oh no, I don't think so at all. I think it's like four.

Yeah. So you take the predominant. So that. So this is the same thing for true for the meningitis vaccine targets four strains of HPV. Right.

The most, four out of a hundred.

But four of the 14 that cause cancer. And I'm going to make a leap here. People can check on me. This is like a Joe Rogan show. You can disagree with me. So my understanding of that vaccine because I've sort of lived through that vaccine coming through. Right. And the reason is so, and I.

Got it, by the way, I did get that one. I was like, yeah, that one seemed to make sense to me.

It helped prevents. It helps prevent cervical cancer, penile cancer and throat cancer. Michael Douglas famously. I think it's Michael, right? One of the. Douglas famously had throat cancer. That was hpv. That's why he's one of the people who speaks about it. Which was traced to a certain strain of hpv.

Right. It's not going to get all of the HPVs that are out there. They still exist. But what you're doing is it's been shown that it will prevent in this case sexually active people as they get older if you vaccinate them before adolescence. Because it actually what's interesting about HPV is when you give it actually dictates how good of a response you have. So if you give me a 52 year old, the HPV vaccine, I will have some response to it. But it's not as Good. As they've shown kids, I think under the age of 14 or 15, specifically around 9, 10 or 11, 12, a much better response for antibodies. And so it seems kind of weird as a pediatrician when you're talking to a parent saying, we're going to give this vaccine that yes. Prevents cervical cancer in girls, penile cancer in boys and throat cancer in all humans because of these HPV and it's sexually transmitted. They're like. But they're not having sex. Well, yeah, got it, got it. But this is the time period when you're here and studies have shown that this is the time to give it because as you get older, you're not going to mount as a good response to the vaccine. You're just not going to have that response. So it's probably more than we need to talk about.

I know you didn't think you'd be talking about.

I think I was like 26 when the vaccine came out and.

Maybe a little younger. No, maybe I was 22. I don't know. It came out in 2006.

That sounds about right. Yep.

Of course there's a part that feels good, like, okay, I'm getting this vaccine, I'm older than maybe even is ideal. But all right, at least it will protect against something. And maybe you have the mindset something is better than Nothing. And protecting 4 out of 14 cancer causing strains is something. But just look at that. There's a hundred strains. It's just interesting here. Here's the piece that still gets me.

I feel like Covid in the US has been such a shit show.

I do not trust the like pure humanity saving motives of pharmaceutical companies which they have just shown us with OxyContin and their aggressive advertising of OxyContin to doctors. Yeah, why I will go pay a company or let them give it to me for free when they're profiting off of it. Like I, I know I have a friend who works at a pharmaceutical company and she. They're very proud of the work that they do there. So I'm not trying to judge like the very good work that's happening, but I have to say that watching the opioid crisis, epidemic, it is also an epidemic in the US unfold. I'm very angry even talking about it now. I can feel myself like this is getting me most riled up of anything on this podcast. The destruction that, those choices and that aggressive advertising from certain companies.

It makes me livid. And now you're going to try to like, oh, you're so pious. And oh, now you're going to get Bill gazillions of dollars in your race for a vaccine and gazillions of dollars to now tell us all that it's mandatory. It's like enraging to me. And that's the science aside and I know I'm bringing my emotions into it and you being the cool headed doctor that you are, probably don't do that.

Clearly not. I jumped into a study without really thinking about it.

But yeah, okay. And listen, like I have to keep saying it. I'm not a doctor. These are my personal opinions. But like I'm so pissed off by what has happened in this country with pharmaceutical companies and prescription drugs. And I'm not saying all prescription drugs are bad and that no one should ever take them. I'm just saying they got way out of control like giving even ADD medications and over prescribing them to very young children when maybe it's the way school is handled that is the problem or.

The amount of sleep they have or.

Whatever sleep or stress or any any which way.

I'm not disagreeing with you at all. I think that you are saying what most people say and that same, in that same survey, 60% of Americans do not trust pharmaceutical companies to look out for their best interests. Right. And there's been a very storied and problematic recent past and all kinds of different stories we can tell. You're 100% right. And maybe so saying what you say, what you're saying and seeing look at the survey data, maybe that's the reason why just yesterday, I think it was yesterday before yesterday they've come out and said we're going to make sure that we have very stringent. So initially they said look, we don't care about the politics, we're going to do the studies like they should be done. Right. That was the first wave. Now they have a second wave of saying because I think they're looking at and hearing exactly what you're saying is like we understand, I think not saying exactly. We understand people don't trust us. We are going to make sure that before we release this we do a great job. And then you have the FDA saying we're going to make sure that we've raised the bar for this vaccine for an emergency use order.

So yes, I do not disagree. I think there's a lot of, of reasons why people should not trust pharmaceutical companies. Right.

My personal experience that I want to share is that as I enter this trial, the physician who and I didn't, I Mean, I sort of knew the group of people who were doing this. The physician who sat me down and went over my consent, I know quite well. And he had a good conversation. The nurse that was helping with the trial also, and talking to me about stuff. There's a. I'm going to go in details, but personal connection through family and friends with my dog. Like, people in my community are doing this. And it wasn't until I prepared for this podcast that I start reflecting on.

That I'm trusting people because I don't know all the details. I don't know everything behind this study. But everyone who I met, I had a personal connection. And I know that hundreds and thousands of people are not going to have that same connection. And I'm wondering if that's part of just how I kind of flowed through this. It was kind of like, oh, I know you and, oh, you know my family. Yeah. And like.

Yeah. And that's really powerful. It's people, you know, like, and trust and. And you're a doctor, so you feel equipped. Not only are you a doctor, you're a pandemic expert, like, pandemic response expert. So you probably, on an instinctual level, feel equipped to even make a decision like this.

Yeah. If this vaccine. So, folks, if this vaccine does end up not working or not being viable, it will not be a surprise to me.

Is there any downside to you physically other than you might get Covid from the vaccine?

My arm really, really hurt.

To the point where any other potential risk of a vaccine that isn't. That isn't.

Yeah, I mean, so they've done the. So they've done the safety trials, the phase one safety trials, which, you know, came out okay. The interesting part is that this was a combined. We're actually collapsing phase two and phase three. So you go from tens of people to test to make sure that it's safe. So that's the first round. And then you start having the second sort of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people in phase two. And then phase three is much more your efficacy trial. So you kind of go from small amount of safety to a larger amount of safety, and you start collecting some efficacy, which is important, but you don't know the true efficacy, meaning the placebo control, meaning that some of the patients will not. Some of the test subjects won't get the vaccine, some will. And then you follow them out and see if you actually protect. If there's a statistical significance between the placebo and the drug you're testing against whatever you're Trying to look for. Right. There has to be some statistics behind that. Right. So we're kind of. We sort of mushed two and three together. That does bother me, I have to be honest with you, that when I figured out that it was a 2 and slash 3 trial go. Okay. I would felt a lot better if I was in phase three, because I know they've done all the safety part. So. Yes. Is there a small piece of me that worries about it? Yeah. But I know that that risk is likely to be very, very low because it's been given to hundreds, if not thousands of people already. So, yeah, there is risk to be well.

And if we, if we go to the spiritual place, like again, your heart, your heart, your heart and your, Your, Your gut, your. Your inner voice said do it. So it's like that was actually because you're a doctor, because you're an expert in this. You have thousands of data points that had. You probably leap when you did.

Yeah.

And I just want to highlight for listeners one of my favorite conversations of all time on the Pivot podcast is episode 83, pivoting from working in the morgue to the ministry with former forensic pathologist Dr. Thomas Andrew. And he was so shocked by seeing what was happening in the morgues with opioid deaths that he pivoted to the ministry. And I think by now he. Dr. Thomas Andrew, if you're still out there listening, I think he's almost getting ready to graduate and finish his ministry program, if not already. And we've kept in touch ever since that interview. And, oh, it's just one of my favorites of all time. So that's 83. If you want even yet another perspective from the end of life on this.

I do want to say it's because as a brown person in America, knowing that people who belong to the same ethnic group as I do are being affected two to three times more than the rest of America, part of me.

Also feels it's like, okay, I do know the science. I do know this is probably okay. I know they're having difficulties. In fact, one of the reasons they've gone for that the companies have extended the sample size is because they're not getting enough minorities to sign up. So I think there's. If you look at minorities, the amount of mistrust for this study is significantly.

And with good reason, too, because the, the outcomes for minorities through traditional medical practices is stark. They've done a lot of research on that, too.

Yeah, the disparities are huge.

The disparities in care and outcomes. I wanted to ask you because you had mentioned something I had asked you, Evan, what's the word on the street on vitamin D? I keep hearing people in addition to other things to keep our immune system strong, like working out, getting sleep, eating well. I've heard vitamin D thrown around so much this year. Can you either debunk that or.

Delighten. How can I give a D word for. Enlighten us on the importance. And the reason I brought it up is you mentioned it may be the case that those with darker skin have it's more difficult to get vitamin D. But certainly for all of us that spend a lot of time indoors. And I'm curious, just how much time do we need outdoors to get natural vitamin D and do supplements even work? And is this even relevant in the COVID 19 conversation?

Yeah. So let me walk back that a little bit. So we think about vitamins sometimes as they're like these inert or inactive compounds. Right. And that they don't have that. They do like, oh, they do this thing. We should have all. And we should take our vitamins. And vitamin D is very interesting in that it's. It is actually a steroid.

It's active, most active. And what people think about most often is on the bone. So it allows.

Your gut to absorb or reabsorb the calcium that you eat. But also at the bone level, it acts at the bone level for there because your bones are actually constantly remolding themselves. It's a living tissue. It's not like a building where they build the building. And that's it. It stands there and it's okay. It's. Imagine a building where you're constantly renovating and constantly changing the outside. And that allows us to basically continue to walk around and do things because our bones are constantly responding to stresses. And so vitamin D acts at that level, too. So it acts many more and more levels as time has gone on. And I don't know when this research first started, but it's been several decades, is they've noticed that in certain vitamin D deficiencies, meaning you have enough vitamin D that there was some immune problems also. Right. And as you mentioned, people who have dark skin, one of the reasons we have pigment in our skin is to protect us from the sunlight so that we don't burn from the UV rays. But actually vitamin D gets converted. You make vitamin D and you convert it to its active form, like through your skin and through your liver. It's again, I'm not going to go to details, but there's your skin as an organ is very important in your ability to produce active vitamin D and it goes to liver and changes from there too. So liver injury can affect your vitamin D level and then dark skin is almost protecting you from the sun, but also you able to make less vitamin D. So if you're outside, if you're a dark skinned person who has through the millennia been outside, you make plenty of vitamin D just from being outside. In fact, you need to protect yourself at some level or get burned. People with lighter skin just need small amounts of UV rays to make the same amount of vitamin D. And what we see in pediatrics is actually is in the dark skinned, popular inner city, dark skinned population. And in fact in we, you know, one of the things we look out for is actually in the Islamic community that.

You know, especially girls will cover themselves, you know, significantly when they leave the home. They're literally getting no vitamin D from the sun. Right. And so long way of saying is that because you have dark skin, your, your ability to make vitamin D is somewhat lessened and if you spend less time outside, you're gonna, you're gonna make even less vitamin D. And it does have a role in your immune function at, at your different T helper cells and go into a lot of details, but there is a level, at the level of the cellular immunity that vitamin D D has. So yes, vitamin D will help you fight off infections, all infections, not just Covid Jenny. And so in fact, even Dr. Fauci is like, oh, I take vitamin D. Right. So but it's not the cure. It's not something it is not. It just allows your immune function to your immune system to function properly, if that makes sense.

Can supplements even work or. Because I mean you hear so much about supplements and their efficacy or not, and even certain brands or not. And then if someone wanted to do it the natural way, how long would they need to spend outside? And is it at certain times of day?

So it's difficult, especially in the northern hemisphere at this time of year to get enough sunlight unless you're literally out there all day long. So it can't be all day. Yeah, for some reason it can't even.

Be an hour if you're out there, an hour in the sun.

So there are tables somewhere I'm sure you can look up that tells you kind of like how much sunlight you need to have. But the problem is that, that if you think about vitamin D as a leaky bucket. Right. So you're constantly kind of losing vitamin D, kind of constantly have to kind of replenish it. And if your bucket is already kind of not full at all and it's already leaky, just a little bit of sunlight isn't going to make the difference. Right. You need to actually do replacement vitamin D therapy.

This one article, not vetted. Okay. Just an article. How's that for. A source says to maintain healthy blood levels, aim to get 10 to 30 minutes of midday sunlight several times per week. People with darker skin may need a little more than this. Your exposure time should depend on how sensitive your skin is to sunlight. But you think it's more than that? Probably, yeah.

Well, again, I'm not. This is not my area of expertise, so my concern would be, if you're vitamin D deficient, that's not going to be enough.

Well, there is an article, someone had the same idea as me that's called Vitamin D Myths Debunked, and it's from Yale Medicine. So I'll at least put that in the show notes or I'll at least have you review it. Michael. But probably Yale has a good word on this.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. No, I believe it.

Yeah.

So. So just in general, because, I mean, I think that it's just hard for do that. So I'm getting them from my perspective. We. We, you know, we do several times the daily allowance for vitamin D and kids who are vitamin D deficient. And it's just, look, if you take it every day and, you know, kids are in school, like, kids aren't not. They're just not outside as much as they used to. So it's, you know, I think it's hard for. For us as physicians to say, yeah, just go outside. Because there is that threat that I'm having someone go outside and expose their skin to uv, which does cause cancer. It's just complicated. It's not easy.

Nothing is easy to ask you about that is spending 30 minutes in the sun several times a week. Like, I. I think there's a sunscreen conspiracy of, like, why. Why not buy and put on this product on your skin that smells horrible every single day for the rest of your life so you don't get cancer? Like, again, call me a quack, that's fine. But I just think who's benefiting from telling me to slather this thing on my skin before I leave the house every single time, otherwise I'll get cancer? That just seems a little extreme.

Yeah. So. Yeah. So I. Again, it's not a matter of expertise.

You can disagree.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

I Just always like to ask, I'm a questioner, four tendencies. I'm like an upholder questioner. And I just always question who's benefiting from this. And so much research gets debunked like 10 years later or 20 years later. It's just hard not to question it in the moment.

Well, what we do know is that fair skinned individuals that have had long periods of UV exposure have damage to their skin which lead to both non cancerous and cancerous skin lesions.

That's not debatable. Darker skinned individuals, you still do see.

Melanomas and other skin cancers in dark skinned individuals, but a much lower rate. And that's probably because they have greater amounts of melanin. So the UV rays actually at the cellular level cause damage to the DNA and your DNA is always being repaired. And if you're lighter skinned, it's a dose. It's radiation, Jenny. It's like anything radiation. Right. So and again, emergency preparedness. Here I go. This is like if there's a radiation bomb or a dirty bomb or like that. There's three ways to protect yourself. In fact, this is the way we protect ourselves from COVID which is you want to be as far away from the exposure as possible. Right. You want to put a, you want to, if you do get exposed, you want to limit your exposure and then you want to use some sort of barrier between you and the radiation. Right. So not being exposed near the radiation. If you have to be near it, you're there for a short period of time. If you have to be near it for that period of time, you put a bear in front of, you know, between you and the radiation. And so what we're saying with you with in the UV instance is it is a type of radiation that does help us to some degree, like vitamin D and probably also from, you know, there's also psychiatric psychological implications of not seeing the sunlight for many days. Right. We see that. Right. With seasonal affective disorder disorders. Exactly. So there clearly is benefits.

Again, I'm kind of, I'd like to try to be optimistic and drive down the middle of the road which is that for fair skinned individuals, 20 or 30 minutes of regular sunlight is probably not going to be harmful to them. Right. Even if it's every day. But the problem is that we have individuals who lay on the beach for hours and hours and hours and that's really where the sunlight. Right. And it's also your exposed parts. Right. So your, your nose, the areas where you're going to get different types of both either malignant or non malignant skin cancers tend to be in places like your nose, your earlobes, around your back of your neck, your forearms, because that is what is exposed at all times. I don't know how we got here.

But yeah, thank you for, thank you for outlining that. I know. And then it strikes me that we have a lot of cancer cells in our body, not just from the sun or radiation. So we all have a lot of cancerous cells. Right. And it's that absolutely. Keeping our immune system strong also. I guess not in all cases, but that's the whole job of our immune system is actually like fighting those cancerous of all different kinds. And that part of the stress of. I mean, I was doing this research a couple years ago because I had hyperthyroidism that has since subsided because of lifestyle changes. And that made me very curious. I had a doctor who said, we have to kill your thyroid. You have to take this radioactive iodine. And I said no. I felt like he was bullying me and I didn't take it. And it magically cured through lifestyle changes. Can't say anyone else will have that experience, but it was mine and it had me.

Start doing a lot of research. And just the notion that because of the way modern life is and even living in a city, our stress response often gets hijacked to things that are not true emergencies, like being chased by a lion, just like an email is stressing me out, contract renewal is stressing me out, whatever. And, and that that moves our body's immune response to short term, non actually life threatening threats. But we feel that they are. And I think the statistic at that time is like a hundred a day, you know, some insane amount. And that that's what is hard because your body stops doing the long term preventative care for things like cancer. And I think part of 2020, I guess to bring it back to the pivoting around a pandemic conversation, I do think, look what's happening in 2020. We're completely rethinking the way we work and the commute and the offices and you know, just so much has actually it has called into question and this is now really, I think a positive is this radical reimagining and saying, was that working for me? And of course anyone's fortunate to have any kind of job, but do I want to go back into an office? If so, when? If so, how many days a week? If so, do I want to move to be closer from it? Do for those that can work remotely, do you still want to live where you live, you know. And I think it's, it's opened up a lot of thought provoking questions for so many of us around lifestyle as it relates to health and balance. Just like you started the conversation with.

Yeah, and back to the word. I for some reason was fumbling adversity, you know, and sometimes supercharges the change that needs to happen. You know, I think that we were as, as a nation and as a culture we were moving to more and more remote meetings and remote kind of, you know, the virtual team. That's a real thing like 30 years ago. Like virtual team. What? They're not real people. Right. So now there's lots of literature around leading virtual teams. And you know, I mean part of it was offshoring, a lot of different types of work. And how do you put that together? How do you put those products together? And people started understanding that because the time space continuum, it was very expensive to have people travel across the country for one hour meetings. And now all of a sudden like whatever direction we were headed, this virus has accelerated all what was probably going to happen anyway.

That was my feeling too in the early days there were so many tech trends that just got put on fast forward. Even cashless payments.

Exactly. There's like no one.

Too that's controversial.

Too because a lot of lower income people don't have access to banks and to checking accounts and credit cards and a lot of cashless payments are dependent on that. And now.

So there's a lot that has accelerated. I'll just say for better and for worse. And we. It's so important during this time that we are thinking about all these downstream effects.

Absolutely. Yeah.

Technological acceleration too.

I can count on two fingers how many times I've gone to an ATM to get cash out this since this whole thing started. I'm at.

Right.

Like I have so much cash in my house. Like no, don't come to my house and rob me. Not that much house. But it's sort of like my wife and I were actually talking about it and I was talking to a friend about it. It's like I don't carry cash or like I literally don't ever use cash anymore. Zero.

And then it does pose an interesting question. Even if you don't think there's a cash conspiracy, which some do. And I'm not even denigrating the word conspiracy by the way. I think questioning things is appropriate, especially during the times we're in. But who's benefiting by cashless everything? Who Benefits and do big banks benefit? Is it the tech companies that benefit? Like, I always think it's interesting to look at what are the positives and how is this convenient. But who is it convenient for? Who is who is it not like who's being left out by this trend and, and also who's benefiting. And I just think that is so fascinating because so much of our society is being. So much is changing so quickly that I think even what we talked about on the medical front as it relates to vaccines, I mean the average, I'll say American, but I, I know there are many of you listening who are international, so you can apply this to where you are. The decision fatigue. I mean if you, if we want to talk about surge capacity being depleted, decision fatigue around what is real, what is true, who are the powers at play, who, who's benefiting, who. You know, just being so discerning is exhausting right now because it's so chaotic and with social media and mainstream media and TV media and it's just wild how much information is flying around, how hard it can be to discern facts or powers behind the throne. Oof. And it's all happening so fast and it's all happening at the same time that no wonder we're tired, you know, like, no wonder some of us are having a really hard time getting motivated for what, what used to be in the scope of our day to day capacity.

Yeah, I'll share one thing I've done. July 6th or 7th was my last like social media post on anything really like real post and I've dropped. Well, not my, like I made an announcement, I'm going off and I've maybe had, I don't know, two or three random reasons why I wanted to post on something on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. And that was part of my, I just was getting exhausted. I was getting really frustrated. Back to the horseshoe thing of people on the other side of the horseshoe, you know, that I just couldn't stand anymore, Jenny. I just like, okay, it was taking up too much my time to have these philosophical arguments in a medium that it was never meant to be responding or seeing what other people are doing or I, it just, I had to cut it out. And I don't really miss it. I mean I go, I go back every once in a while to just kind of like I wonder what's going on, but I really limit myself. And just that exhaustion you're mentioning that surge capacity just like, okay, I had to like peel a layer off. Now I want to Go back in at some level. And I'm trying to decide, like, how do I do it, what I put out there, how often am I going to engage and why am I going to engage? Because I was actually questioning myself, why am I doing this? Like, why am I getting into these? Like, I don't know, just. It was, it was, it wasn't obsessive, but it was, it was just wasting time and energy.

Yeah. And I get it, but the times I've dipped into social media, and by the way, I did episode 228, how I run my business without social media, and I can't believe that that one's actually been the people who come and email or invite me to their podcast to say how much that episode resonated. It's like this pleasant surprise because I just think I'm a crazy person. I'm like, you know, you're just a trendsetter.

You're a trendsetter.

I mean, on my good days and then on my bad days, I'm just a curmudgeon. But the cool thing about social media is that it's ground level. It's like anyone can post anything practically. The thing that gets me about it is that it's run by some monopolies. One in particular that was, as we said when we're talking about the DNA of the company that shall not be named was like judging women on their appearance. It makes my blood boil. That's the second time this podcast that I'm enraged. This growth at all costs mentality. If you read anything about any, if you read any article, if you go read the book, no filter, the inside story of Instagram, you'll see how they don't care what you're doing on social media as long as you're on it. There's a movie that just came out. The. It's not the Social Network, but it's a play on that. What the. What the heck is it called? It's on Netflix. The social dilemma. Anyway, the thing that bothers me is that if I'm on social media and I find myself in the infinite scroll.

Who'S benefiting from that? Yeah, I'm not. Because I always feel worse when I get off. Unless as I've curated most of my feeds to be about cute overload puppies, piglets, bunnies, and then the times that I am immersed in the horseshoe. Let's just call it the horseshoe. And you know, my husband Michael, like, loves social media in a certain way. He loves it for deep research and he will go all the way around the Horseshoe. He will go to the depths of every element of the Horseshoe and he'll surface memes for me and things that some of it makes my head explode and then some of it is like fascinating. And so I have to kind of take the good with the bad on that front too, of just being a secondhand consumer.

Right.

Secondhand social media. Oh my gosh, we can coin this term, Michael.

It's like a secondhand. It's like it's did like secondhand smoke. Right.

So you're like, yeah, like social media. But I don't.

Like the feeling. That's all I can say. I mean, you can leave it there. I'll put the episode in the show. Notes that if anyone wants to listen to 228. But I think what you're saying is so important is that the self care is to pause anything extraneous right now and notice, do you miss it? And I think when you dive back in, it can be informative. Certainly if we're preparing for a podcast and we just go do a deep dive, I mean, oh my goodness, you get so much exposure to where? To so many people on the Horseshoe. If the algorithm hasn't edited out of your feed already. Because that's something that also annoys me is that it's, it's. It's meant to stoke emotion. So inherently what succeeds in social media is catchy, viral, emotional and shareable. It's like. And so even what you're seeing is not this like accurate mirror of society, it's what the algorithm thinks that you might want to see so that you stay on there longer and maybe share something with someone.

Right. It's showing you the ends of this horseshoe, the very tippy tips.

Yes, yes.

That's what drives traffic and that's what drives time. Right. It's the, it's hearing people just like you and being reinforcing and then getting agitated and triggered by the people on the other end of the Horseshoe.

I think that's what I appreciate about podcasts and a conversation like this. I have a lot of like nervousness about. About this conversation. But does it does take effort. I mean, it's hard unless someone just pulls out a clip, which I've heard podcasters say has happened to them, where someone pulls a clip completely out of context and then they get pilloried for it. But you kind of have to put in a lot of effort to even get this far in something, which means just engaging to a certain extent that I personally value. And I'm so grateful for you, Michael. Like, this has been so such. It's clear we haven't recorded in three months.

Like, I'm looking at our, like, oh, we didn't talk about this. But you know what?

It's like a good rock band. Right. If you're a really good rock band and you walk off stage, what happens? Right. They want encore. Exactly. Right. So if we give everybody everything, they'll.

Either ask for an encore or we'll get canceled. Or we'll get both.

Well, because if we give them everything, they. If we give them the whole show, then they won't be back.

That's true.

You got to tease them about, like, all kinds of stuff, like about travel and.

Because you've been on multiple airplanes and I have not.

Oh, my gosh. I could. We could definitely talk about that and talk about. Anyway, I don't want to give it. I don't want to give too many teasers because then we'll be.

Give some teasers. I've learned. Oh, oh, okay. We'll talk next time. We'll talk about travel. We'll talk about tenant as it relates to. Would you go to the movies? Because that's what I wanted that to go.

Yes.

There's so travel. Tenant. We need another.

And how about schools? We talked about schools.

Schools. Because your daughter's at university. And in fact, I wanted to ask you earlier. So now we're going to have to leave this here as a teaser. Very controversial, even among professors. More so than I'm hearing from the students of going back to school. So you've. You've seen that from all sides. With your daughter going back to school and being on campus and then consulting to the universities, There must be a certain segment of professors who are pretty pissed off.

Yes.

So.

And listen in, listen in.

Next time, tune in for our next pivoting around a pandemic. What do you call this? A stroll, a wandering.

A mental. A mental meander, A conversational.

I don't know, pivoting around a pandemic.

Path. I don't know. Dr. Michael J. Consuelos. Another epic conversation for the book. See, look, we're getting better at this. What can we thank 2024 our podcasting skills, because I have not done this many episodes with the same co host other than Penny. Penny Pierce.

Yeah. She holds a special place in all our hearts.

Yes.

But, yeah. The mental meanderings.

Yeah. Of JB and mjc. Thank you so much, Michael, if you're still here listening listeners. Thank you. It's These are tough conversations, even in the best of times. And thank you, especially during the apocalyptic times we find ourselves in. So if you're here, I really value you tremendously. From the bottom of my heart. Thank you for being here. And I say this a lot, but I really mean it, especially because we happen to have Dr. MJC here. If there's something you want us to address, you want to throw out a topic teaser, please leave us a voice note pivotmethod.com ask and I'm going to put all the links in the show notes@pivotmethod.com 248 that will be the episode number for this one and you'll find all the links there. So that's pivotmethod.com248 and if you want to leave us a voice note to either say thank you, to say how much you're mad at us for something that we said, or to ask a question or to correct.

Yeah, to correct either of us, please, please correct me.

Yes. Pivotmethod. Com Ask Michael, thank you so much again for being here.

Jenny, always a pleasure.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Pivot Podcast. Make sure you don't miss an episode or my insider tips and templates by signing up for Pivot List, a curated twice monthly newsletter where I share the inside scoop on what I'm reading, watching, listening to, and the latest tools I'm geeking out on. Sign up@pivotmethod.com pivotlist get show notes from this episode@pivotmethod.com podcast and connect with me on Twitter ennyblake.

Remember, build first, then your first courage will follow. Hasn't it always.