217. Dr. Robert Melillo | Disconnected Kids

Hello, Book Thinkers family, and welcome to our personal development podcast, Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books. During each episode, we interview one of the world's top authors, and as a listener, you can expect to discover new books, new mentors, and new resources that you can use to achieve more and live better. In today's episode, we have the pleasure to interview Dr. Robert Melillo, author of Disconnected Kids: The Groundbreaking Brain Balance Program for Children with Autism, ADHD, Dyslexia, and Other Neurological Disorders. Dr. Robert Melillo is a leading expert in childhood neurological disorders, a university professor, bestselling author, and brain researcher. With over 30 years of clinical experience, he's helped thousands of children overcome challenges like autism, ADHD, and dyslexia. He pioneered the concept of functional disconnection, now a key theory worldwide, and founded Brain Balance Achievement Centers to address these conditions. In this episode, Dr. Melillo talks about his journey into understanding neurological disorders such as autism, ADHD, and dyslexia, influenced by his personal experiences and his wife's advocacy. We talk about the concept of functional disconnection syndrome, or FDS, the importance of early intervention, and the brain's remarkable neuroplasticity. We also talk about the importance of proactive parenting and understanding the root causes of these disorders, challenging the traditional views on genetics and environment. He shares impactful stories, including his work with Kevin James, and offers practical advice for parents to help their children thrive. Now get ready to learn and enjoy this incredible conversation with Dr. Robert Molello. Dr. Molello, welcome to the Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books Podcast. There are so many amazing places that we could start, but I'd love to understand how your wife Carolyn influenced you into learning more about autism, ADHD, dyslexia, and all the other neurological disorders in the '90s.

Well, listen, my wife is the smartest person I know. And, women, I think, have a certain instinct, especially when it comes to children. But, I was in my practice and I was in my practice for 10 years and focus was always on neurology and rehabilitation. But, I didn't work a lot with kids at the time, but I did have 3 small children at home. And, I was often getting home late at nights as I'm sure you young guys do when you're working hard as a young man and came home one day. It was around 1995 and there was a woman sitting at the kitchen table with my wife and she was crying. And, my wife introduced me and said that she had met her at a fundraiser she had for an organization she started to raise money for kids with ADHD and other types of developmental issues. And, she was frustrated because she had tried everything, all the traditional psychological and medication approaches and none of it seemed to work for her. And so, my wife knew I knew a lot about neurology. I knew a lot about diet and nutrition. I knew a lot of more kind of cutting-edge rehabilitation tools. And so, she said, why don't you come and speak with him? Maybe he can give you an idea on other things you might be able to try. So, I walked in and there's this woman and I understood my wife and I said— I took her aside and I said, I see what you're trying to do with this woman. That's great, but I don't really know a lot about ADHD and I don't really have a lot of extra time if you haven't noticed. So, Do you really want me to take this on? And she said, listen, this woman needs help. And she said, and I just have this feeling that this is something you're supposed to do. Like, you're supposed to do something with this. And every time I tell that story, I still get emotional. I remember it. And so I said, okay, you know. So I started doing some research into it. And interestingly, like the next day, I heard a statistic on the radio that said, the use of Ritalin in the United States had increased to 250% between 1990 and '95 and nobody knew why. So, that caught my attention like, wow, okay, this is obviously a problem. And then, I went a couple days later to a parent-teacher meeting for my older son and I sat down. It was really one of the first ones I had. He was in first grade. And, the teacher right off the bat said, I don't know how to say this, but I think your son might have ADHD or something like that. He's very bright, very talented, but he can't sit still. He's always moving around when everybody else in the class is sitting. And so now, I felt, wow, okay. Now, I felt kind of a little bit embarrassed as a professional who taught clinical neurology and I didn't really know, I didn't see this in my own sons and a teacher was telling me this. And then, I also felt bad as a parent as most parents do. felt in some way I was to blame because I wasn't there enough or whatever. But then, I heard my wife saying to me, I think you're supposed to do something with this. And, I really believe in those types of signs and things like that. And, I kind of caught my breath and said, okay. And, my first question that popped into my head is, well, what is it? What is ADHD? What's actually happening in the brain?

Yeah.

Because I knew a lot about the brain and neurology already. And, for me to try to figure out, okay, what can I do to help my own son or Denise's son or somebody else? I needed to understand what it was. And, that's really where it started for me.

I love hearing that story. It gives me goosebumps just like you rehashing that. So, thank you so much for sharing. Now, what led you to discovering the functional disconnection syndrome, FDS? Like, you go from, okay, I need to learn about this stuff. How long did it take you to learn this stuff? Were you able to help your son out? Like, what was the process there?

Yeah. So, I jumped into— well, first thing I did was I went to colleagues because I tried the easy way out, right? And, I said, okay, well, let me go to somebody who knows the answer to that question, like what is actually happening, and then I can try to figure out if I can do something about it. And, I went to people that I thought would know, colleagues of mine, pediatric neurologists, pediatricians, psychologists, neuropsychologists. And, I asked them the question and each one of them really said, I really don't know what it is. Might have something to do with the frontal lobe or dopamine, but really not sure. But, I don't think there's anything you can do about it. And, I said, okay, well, you don't know what it is, but you're absolutely sure we can't do anything about it? That doesn't make much sense to me. So, I realized I needed to do the research myself. So, I literally started going to different medical school libraries. At the time, remember, it was the '90s, the internet wasn't a big thing yet. But, the '90s was the decade of the brain as it was declared by Bill Clinton. So, all this new brain research and all of these tools to look at the brain in real time like fMRI and SPECT scans and PET scans and all these tools were coming out that we could look at the brain in real time, which didn't exist before. And so, it really started to change the way people were looking at brain issues and mental health issues, rather than by looking at lesions, like some sort of damage or stroke or a problem in one area, it became really much more apparent that it was really more of a communication problem. And the concept of functional connectivity was really starting to make a big way in the research that the way that different networks communicate with one another is really the primary problem. It's not actually damage or injury to the brain. And, the idea of chemical imbalances was already becoming kind of passé at that point. So, I dove into that and looked at all the research I could in regard to functional connectivity, what was going on with ADHD, and why was there this kind of interruption of communication between areas of the brain.

Yeah, when I first read your book, there were so many light bulbs that went off in my head. I was like, whoa, you know, I had growing up, I had all those little issues too that they didn't know what to do with. And it's really interesting that even in 2024, we are still trying to look at it almost through this chemical lens, it feels like. Why is that?

Why is it? Because, you know, we still Even though we in the United States are fortunate that we have a healthcare system that is very diverse, that we have the most innovative healthcare in the world without a doubt, nothing else is even close because of people outside of the traditional medical approach, but even people within the medical approach that are willing to step out of the box. But, the traditional medical model still is the model. And obviously, that's influenced heavily by pharmaceutical companies. And so, in medical school, they primarily learn a lot about the biochemistry of the body and looking at infectious disease, which is really where it all kind of started. And so, they're still very heavily biochemically based that they may go out and do what we call functional medicine, where they're looking at things like diet or nutrition or supplements or other types of innovative treatment, but it's still looking at things biochemically. But, in the brain and in brain research, it's really been moving for the last few decades away from a chemical model and more through a physiological model. Again, electrical, chemical, but electrical and even a physics, like looking at the physics of the brain and how things communicate and how networks form and all of that type of thing. So, we're still stuck a lot in that old medical model, and that's still an important thing. And, even if we go into diet and nutrition, we're still looking at things chemically. But really, when we're talking about the brain, it's about stimulating the brain and really using more rehabilitation principles in the brain itself.

So, if you could go back in time to that parent-teacher conference with your first grader and you were to receive the same information, hey, Really bright, really intelligent, but just can't sit still. How would you approach that conversation differently today? How would you respond to that teacher?

Well, first of all, I'd want to know more about that aspect of it. But, you know, at that point, she didn't have any sort of solution or anything. So, you know, for me, like, if a parent now is faced with that same thing, if they're going in there, and if they say, what's the first thing you should do? The first thing I should do is get my book, Disconnected Kids, because what I did from that was, again, no one could really explain to me what it was. And she had no idea, obviously. And so I went and dove into books and scientific literature. I started reading a lot of books and I read so many papers to try to understand it. And I reached out to researchers that were doing some innovative stuff. And all of that I put into my book, Disconnected Kids, which was really designed to be a manual for a parent. It was like, okay, what is actually happening in your child's brain? What is the real deal? And that's where understanding the imbalances between the right and left hemisphere and how they present with different symptoms, because just putting a label out there doesn't really say much. You can have a left brain deficit and be diagnosed with one type of ADHD, which is typically what we call Type 1, the ADHD, or you could have a right brain delay with overactivity of the left, and that would be maybe Type 2 or Type 3. So again, just throwing a name or a label out doesn't really tell you what the actual issue is. And if you don't know what the issue is, you really don't know what to do about it.

Now, is there a way, and I know you allude to this in your book, you talk about it in your book, but is there a way for anybody listening today that they can get ahead of a neurological disorder like ADHD from the start? Nick is actually about to have his first child. I have 3 kids, so we're very much in this world of ADHD and neurological disorders, and I have a lot of friends who have similar problems. So what can somebody do? What can a parent do to kind of get ahead of these things?

Really good question, and there's 2 things. One is A number of years ago, my nephew, who was my business partner at one point, he was a young guy, graduated from Penn. He had a lot of bright Ivy League school, Wall Street-type friends, and they would spend their summers out on Long Island, on the Hamptons. And he came back one weekend and he said to me, a lot of my friends were discussing this weekend that they don't want to have kids. Because they see the statistics on autism and what's happening and they're afraid. And I said, wow, okay. And they're choosing not to have children. I said, wow, okay. Well, that's not a really good answer, right? So maybe I should look and write something for people as far as what can be done that might be able to mitigate the risk or identify your risk of having a child with some sort of disability and be able to mitigate that. that risk before you have a child. And, for years, because I work with many families and kids with autism, parents would come to me and say, hey, we want to have another child, but we're a little concerned. Is there something that maybe we could have done differently? So, my third book was really about what causes it. Why are we seeing this epidemic rise? What are some of the environmental and genetic factors? or what we call epigenetic factors that can be done preconception. And, there's a lot out there. So, that book called Autism: The Scientific Truth came out, I think, in 2016, and it's pretty comprehensive. It's the first book that was really written from a preventative perspective. And so, that's one thing. I tell people you should read that book. And, the bottom line is it's about kind of training your body. I tell people when I did 2 New York City marathons, and before I did that, I trained for a year. And, that was a marathon, right? So, before you have a child, you should really train your body for at least a year in preparation. And, that doesn't always work out, obviously. People get pregnant spontaneously. But, if you're in that age group, you should be aware of that and you should know that there are definitely risk factors that you can lower. You can have a direct impact. You can't say you can prevent something, but we definitely can say we can lower your risk of having— a child in measurable ways. The second thing is when you're talking about getting ahead of it once the child is born, really looking at these early milestones, especially motor milestones, is so important. There's a lot of my work and this is really the new thing. So, when you do another edition of a book, it needs to be at least 25% difference. It's really like doing a whole nother book, right? So, this is the 3rd edition. And what we added was a whole new chapter on something called retained primitive reflexes, which has really been my focus of research over the past 5 to 10 years. And especially last year, we published about 7 or 8 papers alone just on that topic. And that is all about, you know, what's happening during that first year of development. And if anything goes off the rails a little bit, that's a big red flag and you can intervene right away and you can put it right back on track. And, that can save you years of difficulty and pain.

I think it's so cool that the thing that I learned in your book that I thought was really awesome, I was reading through it and I'm like, oh, man, what if you have a kid that has ADHD or autism and they are so behind in all their developmental milestones? But then, you said you can actually catch up pretty quickly. So, why is that the case?

Yeah. Nature is an amazing thing and the brain is unbelievable, right? I mean, we have a capacity, something known as neuroplasticity. plasticity, which means that the brain has the ability to change and reshape itself and grow until really we die. I mean, we never lose that ability. Of course, it's highest when you're a child, but we never lose it. And so, I think that the nature of it, again, when I first started looking into this, the concept that jumped out at me when I first started reading papers on ADHD was something called unevenness of skills. Meaning that kids with ADHD and other disabilities weren't delayed or deficient in everything. In fact, they were often very gifted. And that's true whenever I work with somebody now. And when you even see a young person complaining that they have ADHD or some other thing, they're usually very gifted in an area. You know, they may be very talented in one thing or another. And so there's this imbalance in the brain that right from the beginning, and I recognized when I started looking into it, that like everything that somebody with traditional ADHD does well are left-brain dominant skills. And every— everything that they struggle with are really right-brain dominant skills. And that we could really identify it that way and that we could do things to change that. But, the idea that looking at early development and trying to do that as early as possible and intervene was really very, very important, that there was never a point when you couldn't change it. And, as I was going along, I read some work, some early work from some pioneers who had started just doing some basic stuff with sensory stimulation and trying to really rehabilitate kids with brain injuries. And, they had found that once they started to really do a decent program with them that some of these kids, their brain would seem to grow at 300% normal size until it caught up. Because your genetics determine what your size should be and your age. And, the good thing is that if you get your body back on track and you get your brain growing, It pretty much kind of zooms up to the size that it's supposed to be. And so, the trajectory, and that's what we're trying to do, we're just trying to change the developmental trajectory where it may be a little flat in most kids and there's some maturational delay. And, by changing that angle, we can get an accelerated growth so that they can catch up. And again, because they're coming from a standpoint that they're actually gifted to begin with, that they may even shoot beyond where other people and other kids their age is and really get to where they're supposed to be.

Yeah, this is fascinating. It's more fascinating too because, like Luke mentioned, my first kid is due in early October. And, what my wife and I are doing right now is every night, we're supplementing a little bit of that TV time with reading books about early childhood development and raising children because we're newbies and we want to be, you know, as well-researched as we can be. And I'm fascinated for my physical copy of Disconnected Kids, the 3rd edition, to show up in a couple of weeks here because following that first year, sort of the developmental milestones and making sure that we're on track, I'll definitely be doing that and providing a testimonial for the book. Now, speaking of testimonials, One of your most famous is the story with Kevin James. And so I'd love to have you share that with everybody because prior to the two of us ever getting connected, I heard Kevin on Joe Rogan talking about you. And then when we met, I'm like, are you the same guy that I just heard him talk about? So tell us a little bit about that story.

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Yeah, so Kevin, you know, came to me because he had some issues with his older daughter, um, who was on the autism spectrum, very high functioning, and again, a brilliant girl. I mean, absolutely amazing artist. I mean, she was writing a book that was almost like The Lord of the Rings. I mean, her own language. It was really amazing. But, you know, she had a lot of issues that she struggled with. She couldn't sleep, she had terrible eczema, and she also had a lot— really bad OCD. And, you know, she struggled obviously socially, and, uh, but she really developed these tics. And the tics were really very difficult. I mean, they were— they came on all of a sudden, and they were violent and aggressive, and they were full body. And, she would hit herself in the head and scream. And literally, I had known Kevin because he had consulted me before and his wife had found my book and we had talked. But then, these tics came out and he reached out to me and he said, we went to this emergency room and my wife asked the doctors what could be done and they literally laughed at her and said, what do you think we're going to do for these tics? And so he said, so you're kind of my last hope. I'm going to bring her, you know, is there anything you can do? I said, yeah, bring her in. And, you know, she has the type of profile neurologically. We did an exam and we identified that there were certain areas and networks on the right side that were very underdeveloped or immature, but areas on the left were so overactive. And she had a tendency to get certain infections. And this time, And, she didn't really feel it. A lot of people on the autism spectrum, they may not feel their body. And, because the brain regulates everything, it has a big impact on your immune system as well. I mean, autoimmune issues, chronic infections, many of them are founded in imbalances in the brain itself. And, we don't think that way, but actually, this is functional neuroimmunology is a big area of research now in an area where we're going. And so, it triggered— these tics in her and they were really violent. He brought them in and we really started working on her primary issue to just kind of quiet down the left brain, bring up the right, get rid of these primitive reflexes, do all the different tools that we do. We started modifying her diet to try to reduce inflammation to help her with the eczema as well and to get her to sleep. And, after about 3 or 4 weeks, I mean, she just walked in one day and bam, They just stopped. And so he was just incredibly grateful for that. And, you know, for her too. I mean, she was grateful for it as well. And it was really an interesting story. And he said to me, you know, as a parent, he realized it was so scary for him what he was going through and they didn't have any hope. And he said, you know, I want to be able to help other parents. And so we've talked about doing a fundraiser and being able to develop a, you know, a not-for-profit research institute to do more of my work and research it. And in the interim, he said, you know, I don't want to come out and tell people and say a lot because I don't want to seem like I'm promoting anything. He said, but sooner or later, I'm going to be on somebody's show and I'm going to be talking about something. And I knew him and Joe Rogan were good friends. And he said, but when I get that opportunity, I'm going to let the world know because people need to know that there's hope. And that's why if you listen to that interview on Joe Rogan, he kind of specifically directed it towards— he started talking about his kids and his daughter, and he took that there because he wanted so badly to make sure that he brought this out. And that, you know, he's a total man of his word. I mean, Kevin said he was going to do it and And he did it. But, that was really great. It's got a great response and his daughter's doing fabulous now.

I love that story. And, similar to Nick, that was the first interaction I had with you, at least knowing about you, was through Kevin James. So, that very powerful. And, Joe Rogan obviously has a huge reach as well. Now, speaking of hope, I love how you talk about it not being a genetic So, can you maybe speak to that and what are some of the root causes for maybe the right brain deficiency versus the left brain deficiency and just unpack that a little bit?

Yeah. This is something that is very confusing for people because we always hear that there's a genetic— that these are genetic and most people don't know what that means. And, even especially in the autism world, you always hear that these are genetic disorders and people think that there must be some mutated gene or damaged gene. And, the truth is with genetic disorders, true mutations like Down syndrome or something, there's not a lot you can do to change that gene. But, there's no mental health disorder out there that is due to a single gene mutation, not one. So, people need to know that. When we talk about genetics, there's something called epigenetics, which means that that environmental factors, things that are happening in your body, inflammation, the way you use your body, the way you use your brain, what you eat, do you sleep, all of these things can create different molecules called methyl molecules. And, these methyl molecules can attach to parts of our gene and can inhibit the gene from being expressed. So that it can look like if a gene is damaged or not there or a gene is just shut off, the end product looks the same or looks similar. The difference is that you can turn the gene back on by modifying diet or exercise or doing the right type of activity or stimulation or changing your lifestyle and your environment. And, when we look at even things like autism, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, ADHD, there is a trait that is more predisposed to that. So that is something that is also— it's genetic, but it's a genetic trait. So for instance, like people that are on the autism spectrum, they may have what we also refer to as an intellect trait. In the family, there's somebody named Simon Baron-Cohen. He's a big autism researcher out of Cambridge, showed that in the families of people with autism, There's a much higher percentage of people that are mathematicians or physicists or professors or lawyers or doctors or work in the IT industry. And, in fact, anywhere he showed anywhere in the world where there's a cluster of people that work in IT that are basically software engineers, there's an explosion of autism in those areas. And, that's not a genetic mutation, but there's a trait. And, the trait is The way I look at it is these are people that are very left-brain dominant in their thinking style. They are more logical. I mean, people will say, I'm a logical person. I think kind of linearly and sequentially and I look at every detail and I read a manual when I get it. I'm going to read it before I do it. And, these people tend to be really good in math and engineering and physics and science and they gravitate towards that. And, that's the way that they think. And they may struggle a little bit with some of their right brain skills where they may not be the most social. They may not always pick up on the joke. They may not be able to see the big picture as well as somebody else. They may not be as in touch with their own body or their own emotions as much. But, you know, they're very high-functioning, bright, brilliant people. And this is a trait. Now, bipolar is another trait that is more what we call a creativity trait. And these are people that, you know, that tend to be more in the artistic, creative world, that tend to be more right-brain dominant in their thinking style. And they may, you know, see the big picture really well but not be good with details. They may feel emotions very strongly but maybe too much. They may be over-emotional and they may be overreactive emotionally. They may struggle with some left-brain skills. They may be dyslexic. They may struggle with basic reading or spelling or math or may have had trouble with memorizing facts or details, but they're really good at reading people and they're really good at understanding intuitively what to do and they get these gut feelings. So, there are these genetic traits that are advantages, but the way traits work, is that, you know, too much of the trait can then lead— as you get an advanced version of a trait, you also have a vulnerability on the other side. And that vulnerability can lead to some sort of label or disorder or disability.

That was a great explanation. I have 2 final questions for you as we get towards the end of the podcast today. My first is this. I think you've done a great job at explaining the case for reading this 3rd edition of Disconnected Kids, but I'm curious if somebody's still on the fence, if they're not quite sure whether or not to head over to Amazon or their favorite bookseller and buy the book, what message do you have for them?

Well, I don't want to sound alarmist, but you just told me you're 2 young guys that are thinking about having kids or having a family, and that's wonderful. But, right now, You have about a 1 in 4 to 1 in 5 chance that your child will have some sort of diagnosis. That should be scary, right? And, we are literally facing a childhood epidemic that's been going on and coming on over the past 30 years and it's only accelerating. And, to me, children are our greatest resource. And now, we see this epidemic of adult Mental health issues. And so, to me, I don't think there's a more important social problem of our time. And, we have a lot of social problems right now, but I think this is the number one problem. And, almost anybody that knows anything will tell you that it's primarily lifestyle-driven and therefore it can be changed and it's also preventable in some way or another. And, there's nothing that is more challenging. I work with parents and families that literally fly all over the world. I mean, this week alone in my center in New York, we have people from Australia, from Jakarta, from Brazil, from Milan, from Venezuela, literally all over the world. And they'll do— because parents will do anything to help their children. And after the fact, it's very hard. It's harder than the further you go down the road. And so, the earlier you can identify if there is something going on and then change that because that's the one thing is that it can be changed. In almost every instance, we can significantly change or even eliminate these problems. And, the other thing is that if they do develop a problem, I can almost guarantee you that they're very gifted And, that they may never be able to fully tap into that gift unless we create balance in their brain or eliminate things that are holding them back like these retained primitive reflexes. Or, what do we want for our children? When you have children, all you're going to want is you want them to become the best version of themselves. You want them to be happy and you want them to go out and have friends and be social and be able to form good relationships. And, more and more, we see that impacted today and it's really heartbreaking to see it, but the good news is that we can change it. At any point, we can change it, but the earlier we can intervene, the better. So, it's just this is something that you really need to educate yourself even before you get pregnant or early on so that you can create the best environment And then, after the fact, you can always intervene, but the earlier you learn about it and the earlier you can look out because like I said, if you just watch these early milestones, and the problem is that the average pediatrician isn't telling people this. They're telling them that actually the milestones don't matter much anymore. I mean, the CDC during COVID came out with a statement actually saying that crawling isn't a milestone anymore. And so there's a lot of mixed signals out there. And I'm telling you that these milestones are hugely important. They're the first sign that your child might have something going off and might need some help. And it's also the earliest way we can intervene.

I mean, this has been an incredible interview, and I don't think it's alarmist. I think it's realist. And I'm happy that you're out here promoting this. Uh, message. You know, I kind of have 3 major takeaways today. One was the marathon metaphor. I can't believe when you put it that way that people would prepare a year or more to run a race, but they won't prepare to have a child. And that child will live, you know, for 70, 80, 90 years as a result of what you do before you, before you get pregnant. So that was great. Um, number 2 is that The milestones matter and we're getting a lot of conflicting information, but they matter a lot. And then number 3 is we have control. You know, we can change things. If you pay attention, you can readjust and the brain has neuroplasticity and can accelerate and catch up. And that's, that's a wonderful message. My final question for you today is about your tattoos. So I'm curious. Yeah. Can you, can you explain any significance with your tattoos as somebody who is covered in them myself. I always love to ask.

Yeah. The idea of wearing your heart on your sleeve, right? So, this is literal in our case. And, for me, it was about really the things that are important to me and that drive me. And so, it starts out on my shoulder with the Big Bang. I'm really into physics. I'm into human evolution and brain evolution. And I'm into— I like art. My wife's an artist. And so combining those things together. So we started out with the Big Bang, the Higgs boson, the God particle, kind of the beginning of it all in the universe and coming out. And I'm a big fan of Einstein, E equals M squared, but it comes down into the cosmos. But then what's really cool is I have the picture going up here. And here is actually the Sistine Chapel that Michelangelo painted of God with Adam. There's been a number of scientific papers that have actually written that the image of God sitting there is actually— Michelangelo drew it as the brain and the brainstem. And that what's really cool is that if you look at where his hand is coming out of the prefrontal cortex, which is what really makes humans unique, and he's giving it Through fine motor touch to Adam. So, it's kind of like Michelangelo knew somehow. I mean, he did do dissection of human bodies. So, he knew that that prefrontal cortex was unique and that kind of that was something like God in us is really that. And then, I have skulls that represent the different stages of human evolution. And then, this right here— is the 6 layers of what the brain looks like under a microscope. So, I have all of those kind of as part of it. I have a line from one of my daughter's songs. She's a very good singer-songwriter in Nashville. She's awesome. I have a drawing that my son drew. He's an incredible artist. So, I have my family over. I have my wife's name 3 times. She told me I had to have her name. 3 times somehow on my body because 3 is her favorite number. And my wife loves tattoos. So, that's also a big influence.

Oh, I love it. Well, thank you so much for sharing. Like I said, this has been a great conversation and I know Luke will bring it home here for us in a minute. But I can't wait to read the book cover to cover with my wife and implement and pay attention because like you said, children are our greatest resource and I can't wait to have a bunch of Yeah, I think the last thing that I want to say is that what we know now is that almost all adult mental health issues start in childhood.

So, this is not just a book for children, it's about brain development and everything. 20% of children have some sort of clinical diagnosis and 20% of adults have a clinical mental health diagnosis. That's not a coincidence. It's basically the same population that never got help. Because if you don't deal with it, medication and most of the treatments out there can be helpful, but they're really just managing symptoms. They're not dealing with the core issue. And so, I think a lot of parents might recognize themselves in these books as well and really understand when you start looking at the right and left brain and how it works, the reaction I get from people from the very beginning was always like, wow, this makes so much sense. It explains my child. How did you know my child? But, But, it also explains me like, okay, now I get it, I understand. And so, I think it's something that is not just about childhood, it's about brain development and that's what we see even in adult issues. And, if you don't deal with it as a child, they're going to struggle with it for the rest of their life. Yeah.

Reading through your book, I literally— I mean, I can't even tell you how many quotes I sent my wife over, but I was like, oh, this is my problem. Oh, this is what happened.

This is—

so I 100% agree that it's not just for your kids, but it's also for yourself. It's understanding your brain better, and you do such a great job at making it in practical language that anybody can understand. I've never considered myself a very smart person, but when I read through your book, I did feel— I was like, okay, I get this. This makes sense. So I thank you for putting that time into that book and doing such a good job at getting it down to a level that even somebody like me can understand. All right, I have 2 more questions, Dr. Melillo, and then I'll let you go. The first is, where can people go to find out a little bit more about you and learn about all the stuff that you're doing? And we'll link all that stuff in the show notes.

Okay, so my website is drrobertmelillo.com, but I'm very active on Instagram. I have almost 800,000 followers at this point, and, and I'm putting a lot of information. And we get so many good stories and, and info from moms and from kids around the world that we put out there. So, I think it's a real educational resource to see what we do on Instagram. Again, that's also @DrRobertMelillo. And Facebook, of course. Other resources obviously are my books. There are several books. Disconnected Kids, this is the 3rd edition, but I have also Reconnected Kids, Autism: The Scientific Truth, Disconnected Kids Diet and Nutrition Plan. And then, I have a novel that I wrote about this called Einstein's Desk that I wrote with my brother that's pretty cool. And then I also have a textbook called Neurobehavioral Disorders of Childhood: An Evolutionary Perspective. My wife and I also did a web series that is on a new streaming network called Your Home TV. It was started by Kathy Ireland and other people, and that is a show called Disconnected Kids, Reconnected Families. And we have almost 4 million views in one year on that show. And it's a pretty cool 2 seasons of a web series where we show what this looks like when we bring it into someone's home and how to be able to adopt these different lifestyle things and, you know, do some of the activities that we talk about in the book.

Well, that is so amazing. Thank you so much again for putting all this information out there. Okay, this is my final question that I'd like to ask all of our guests. I can't wait to hear your answer. It's this: you pass away All the information, the books, courses, TV shows, everything disappears, but you can leave the world with a single piece of advice, what would it be?

Wow. In regard to, like, my work?

It can be, yes. It can be that or it can be very practical, whatever you feel.

Yeah, I think what we need to know more of is that we need to understand that the brain is the key to it all. It's the key to everything. Understanding the brain is the key to unlocking the universe. that all health really stems from the brain. And, I think that when we look at healthcare, mental health, and everything, happiness, forming relationships, all of it, it really starts with the brain and understanding the brain as a functional dynamic organ that we can change and we can understand and that many of the principles in the universe are embedded in the brain itself. So, I would just say that understanding the brain and being able to do things to change the brain in real ways is the single most important thing I think we can do for society at all levels.

So incredibly powerful, and I 100% agree. Dr. Molelo, thank you again for being on our podcast. We appreciate it so much.

Thank you, guys.

That is a wrap. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books. It would mean the world to us if you could write a review and share this episode with a few of your friends. I mean, these books truly have the power to change people's lives, and by reviewing or sharing our podcast, you're helping us make an impact. If you have any recommendations for future guests or any constructive feedback for us on how we can improve our show, Please feel free to submit a form on our website, www.bookthinkers.com, or send us a direct message on Instagram @bookthinkers. With that, I am signing off, and I hope you have a wonderful day. Don't forget, go read something.