Yeah, it's a pleasure, and thank you for that very generous introduction. I appreciate that.

Yes, and maybe a little more back story. Growing up as a child, I was in an extremely challenging situation. My father was an alcoholic. My mother had had a stroke when I was young and was partially paralyzed. She had a seizure disorder. Unfortunately, she became chronically depressed and attempted suicide. We were on public assistance my entire childhood. We were evicted from different residences. So, of course, this was not an ideal situation for anyone to grow up in. That being said, at the end of the day, I always felt my parents loved me, but it was not obviously expressed in a way that would be the most beneficial. But at the age of 12, what happened was I was in a situation where I did not believe I had a future. I was angry, hostile. I was also in despair. And I had become interested in magic, and I would do fairly simple tricks, but they amused me and allowed me to separate myself from my home environment. And when things would get challenging at home, I would jump on my bicycle and ride as far and as fast away as possible. And there was this orange stingray bike with the banana seats. On one of those journeys, I went further than I normally would, and I ended up at a strip mall, and in the strip mall was a magic shop. I decided to go in, and at the counter was this woman probably in her 50s with grey-black hair glasses on her nose reading a book. And she looked up, and she smiled at me. It was a radiant smile, one of those smiles that embraces you. I started asking some questions about magic, and she informed me she knew absolutely nothing about magic and that this was her son's store. We ended up having a conversation, and we talked about how you needed to create a net of psychological safety to be authentic in certain situations. And generally speaking, as a 12-year-old, I was very distrustful and carried a lot of shame because of my background. I normally didn't tell my story, but she created an environment where I felt very comfortable, and the reason was that she allowed me to maintain my dignity. She didn't look down on me and make judgments. She treated me as if I was her equal. And so, instead of shying away from telling her the truth about certain things, I was quite open. She said that she really liked me and wanted to teach me something she thought would help me. Now, of course, I had no idea what that meant. But she was giving me cookies during our conversation, and she said, I'm here for another six weeks, and if you show up every day, I think I could teach you something that could help you.

I did show up, and this led to her teaching me the concept of meditation, which was nonexistent in the town I lived in. This idea of being able to change your brain or the idea of neuroplasticity was not accepted. With that introduction, I spent the next six weeks every day with her for two hours in the back of a magic shop in a small room. She taught me a variety of practices, which frankly took me from a scared, angry child to understanding that I had agency and that I held with me the tools to change my own life. And fundamentally, that interaction led to a change in the trajectory of my life.

You're correct. I think what one has to understand, and I think it is prevalent among many people, is the reality that many people are stressed and anxious. A lot of people carry baggage from their childhood, which has impacted them and often in a very negative way, and it's been exacerbated by modern society. Previously, people lived in villages. They were born there. They grew up there. They died there. They knew everybody. Their neighbors stayed the same. They had family, relatives, and friends who embraced them. And the important thing was that regardless of what happened and regardless of the situation, at the end of the day, you were embraced by your community and accepted for both the good and the bad. The responsibility of the community in many ways was to help you learn. As a result, this environment of connection, deep relationships serve as the basis for what we now call blue zones in the world—these areas where people generally live well over 100. The reason is that this idea of community and social connection was extraordinarily powerful. When you come from a background where you don't have those components and of course, in modern society, people don't live with relatives or their parents; often, because of the nature of their jobs, they've moved to areas where they don't have support systems. And frankly, they're afraid of being vulnerable. They're afraid of being judged. So they hide behind a projection of how they want people to see them, not how they actually are. As an example, when you walk down a hallway and somebody says, oh hey, how are you? 99.9 percent of people say, oh, I'm fine. The reality is that many people are not fine, but they don't want to reveal this to people because they believe it could impact their situation or how they're treated. But getting back to your point, she taught me a type of training, and the first part of it related to what you mentioned was being relaxed in the body because what we don't appreciate when you're stressed, and you're anxious, your muscles tighten up. You're not attentive or present. And why is that? Because at least in my situation, I never knew what was going to happen next. Whether I would come home and my father would be drunk or arrested, or my mother was passed out or in the hospital. Of course, this is extraordinarily traumatic. This fear that you carry in those situations because you don't know what's going to happen makes it very difficult to move forward in the sense of learning or performing.

The first thing she taught me was this idea of relaxing the body, what's now called a body survey, which of course, is associated with mindfulness. That's how we initially started, with this idea of very consciously relaxing the body, in conjunction with the breathing exercise, slowly breathing in and exhaling, and then ultimately focusing on a candle. The nature of those practices allowed me to relax and be calm. When you're relaxed and calm, you're present, and we can get into a little bit of the neurobiology of this bit later. But what happens is that these brain parts associated with what we call executive control function work at their best. When you're in that situation, you're much more thoughtful, you're much more discerning, you're much more creative, and ultimately you're much more productive because you're not anxious, you're not afraid, you're not expecting something unknown to happen, which puts you at risk and which of course, then stimulates your fear, response or stimulation of your sympathetic nervous system.

Well, I think that's exactly right. Often we go through our lives not deeply thinking about our lives. It's as if, unfortunately, we're on a treadmill like a rat or in a cage, and you believe you're on the right path. You do not understand the deeper nature of yourself. You're mentioning my age. It's interesting. I'm sure you've heard the saying that the teacher appears when the students are ready. And the other thing is that if you create the right environment and you make your presentation or your teaching relevant, then I think almost anyone will respond almost at any age beyond seven or eight. I don't want you to think in any way that I was self-aware at that time or knew what was happening.

Frankly, the reality was two things. One, I had absolutely nothing else to do. Two, it was a safe environment where somebody nurtured me, and probably the most important part was that she was plying me with Chips Ahoy, chocolate chip cookies. And so those were the motivating factors. It was only as this proceeded that I understood more and realized the changes occurring.

Well, I think we have to go a little bit backward for that. As I mentioned, she taught me this technique of relaxing the body. She taught me a breathing exercise that allowed me to be present and focused and parts of mindfulness. The practice is successful for many people because of the internal dialogue for many people when they tell themselves a negative statement. In some ways, they turn to that and are attached to it and listen to it. That's how traditional mindfulness works. But the reality is there are two more parts here that were not explicitly present in the context of teaching mindfulness, which she taught me. The first aspect was this concept of self-compassion, which of course, now if you look at the research of Kristin Neff and Chris Jeremiah, they've done many studies on how powerful this is because most of us have an inner voice that tells us, we're not good enough, we're not smart enough, we're not worthy, we're an impostor. Of course, the very nature of that dialogue is very distracting. And unlike traditional mindfulness practice, we ignore these because it has a negative physiological effect when you attach yourself to them. She taught me that you could also change the channel, if you will, from the dialogue you're hearing. The technique of doing that, at least in this situation, was giving yourself affirmations. I am worthy. I deserve this. I'm not an imposter, and I deserve love because many people tell themselves this narrative that they don't deserve this. They don't deserve that.

On the one hand, it can propel people to perform, out of trying to show others that they're not an imposter. There's an immense amount of psychological baggage that comes with that. It negatively affects your physiology. So when you're able to change the narrative when you're able to tell yourself you're worthy of love, you're worthy of acceptance, that you're confident that you're good enough, then that results in a huge positive physiologic effect. You're much calmer. You're much more thoughtful. But it also does something else because when you stop being critical of yourself, it allows you to look at the world through a different lens. If you're always hypercritical, it's not just towards yourself. It's towards how you look at others in the world, and you're distrustful. You're not sure what's going to happen. You're wondering what their agenda is. When you're able to bring down this barrier of self-criticism and criticism of others, you see that on some level, everyone is suffering. They may be suffering differently. You don't have to grow up in poverty or have an alcoholic or disabled parent to be traumatized as a child. You can come from a very affluent background, but one that has certain other aspects. I mean, it could be domestic abuse. It could be physical abuse. As a result, you're not able to again be present, perform, and walk in the world with a different vision of others. These traumas occur for many people. They associate themselves with them and don't even understand what has happened to them. But as they move into adulthood, they continue to have problems either potentially with drugs and alcohol, potentially with mental illness, potentially not being able to perform or be the person they want to be. So these are very powerful lessons.

Now to get back to your initial question about intention. Once, she was able to tell me that I was worthy, and the voice that was talking to me was not really me. It was a narrative resulting from evolutionary baggage. We are taught to fear things. And of course, generally, those are negative situations. Our DNA has not changed since we were in Africa 200000 years ago. So if the grass was moving based on prior experience, there was probably an animal lurking there. So this, of course, engaged your sympathetic nervous system, and you acted. The reality is negative things stick to you because they put your life at risk. Unfortunately, as a side effect of that, negative commentary about yourself sticks to you much more than positive commentary. And this is why it's interesting. It's so common for a person not to accept a compliment. It's this negative dialogue that goes on. So once I overcame that, and don't get me wrong, I did not necessarily affect it. But it was part of the beginning of a journey that I was on—so getting back to manifesting. Once Ruth gave me the tools for relaxing my body like a breathing exercise and focusing on a candle, which allowed me to be present and learn, you have to be present. You can't be distracted all the time. She taught me to be kind to myself and look at the world through a different lens. The next thing she taught me was the power of manifestation. And what is that? Of course, let's think about athletes, and this is a very common thing. Coaches teach them to visualize the action that they want to do. Whether it's running a race or doing a pole vault or whatever, you go through an exercise of visualizing how you want the situation to unfold. And that is very powerful. Interestingly, this woman had already intuited this, and what she had me do was write down ten things that I saw in terms of my life unfolding. And of course, I was 12 years old, and some of them were not necessarily the best things.

I mean, I had a friend as an example whose father had a Rolex watch, and I admired that and put that on my list. I saw a fellow drive by in a Porsche in high school, and I said, I want that, but I also wanted to be a doctor. I also wanted to do other things, and I put all of those on the list, and what she had me do was to visualize those events occurring. But to support that, she had me write down those things multiple times a day. I mean, physically write a list, then read the list silently and then read the list aloud and then sit and think about every one of those things in a way that would hopefully turn to reality. I saw myself as a doctor in a white coat, walking down the hospital hall, and I did that innumerable times every day. What we don't understand is that our sensory organs receive about six million bits of information a second or so, but we are only able to process 50 to 100 of them. So what happens is there's an immense amount of data that we ignore, but it is the data that gets in that decides everything. This technique allows these manifestation wishes to get into your subconscious, and then amazing things happen. Now I'm not going to call this the law of attraction, which is so common and unfortunately so focused on material aspects, as you saw from my own 12-year-old mind. What it does is it can embed these motivations into your subconscious, and then under cover of that which you're not actively necessarily pursuing, certain things happen. For example, I'm sure you've been in a situation where you're at a party, people are talking, and you hear your name across the room, and that's because your name and who you are are deeply embedded. So you're always constantly aware of it.

Another example is, as a neurosurgeon, I will tell a patient they have a diagnosis, and what they'll do is say, that's amazing. I've never heard of that. Is this common, et cetera. And then they'll come back and see me six weeks later. It's the most amazing thing. I've run into five people who do the same thing, right? Because you, especially in this situation where they're anxious, embed this into their subconscious, and then they're attuned to it. And what happens is when you're manifesting as an example, let's say, as I was in an event last night, there were quite a few people. But the point is that it attunes me to hear parts of conversations that could benefit me. It manifested in my dreams, right? I normally would not pay any attention to it again because you made that wish salient in some ways. And there's a part of our brain that is attuned to that.

No, I think you're exactly right. Again, the other aspect is that we know that we strengthen neural pathways through repetition and intention. So these types of practices embed these thoughts deep inside of yourself. It creates a narrative at an unconscious level for things to manifest. Now we can talk a little about what you're manifesting and why certain types of attempts to manifest on some level may be successful but ultimately are not.

Exactly. It's so true. For example, in modern western society, there is a narrative that success is manifested through position, power, and wealth. So people are driven in that direction, thinking that if they accomplish X, accomplish B, accomplish C, that suddenly they're going to be happy and fulfilled. The problem is it's not true. Suppose you look at my own journey. And again, the thing here is that when I learned these techniques, I was 12. I was not particularly self-aware. I certainly imbued them, and it allowed me to accomplish certain extraordinary things. But the other side of the coin is that each time I accomplish something, for example, I go to college and then to medical school, become a neurosurgeon, and become a very successful entrepreneur. Suddenly, I've done these things, and I don't feel in any way fulfilled. The problem is that in these types of journeys, what we're looking for is affirmation from others, believing that that affirmation will make us feel okay inside. And it doesn't. As a result, you keep upping the ante. Sadly, there will never be enough to give you that gift.

What it does is it then makes you understand, at least if you're listening, that this concept of success or happiness is not an external journey. It's an internal journey. When you're not looking at those external affirmations, and you're looking inside yourself and you connect with yourself and understand what you want to be or who you want to be, it makes you realize that the agency to manifest that is internal. And it's interesting if you look at the sports philosophy as an example, there's a fellow by the name of Epictetus who was a slave, and he commented that the only thing in his power to control is how he responds to things. As a result, external events no longer affected who he felt he was or what he could accomplish. It was superfluous. In my own journey, I ultimately realized this. In fact, at the peak of my success at that time, I had a situation where I lost about $78 million in about six weeks and was about $3 million in the hole during the dot-com occurrence. That was not good, and I had to sell everything. When you're in that situation, two people become your best friends, your banker and your lawyer. During that time, I spent a long period self-reflecting. Finally, I understood Ruth's message all along, which was this power within myself and understanding that only I could make myself happy. And it wasn't by doing all of these things. It was by having a sense of self and purpose. Ultimately, the lesson was being of service. I looked over my life. While I was never bad and was in service by the very nature of being a doctor, I was still not focused in the right place.

During this period, I had made arrangements to give a lot of my money to charity. Now I had no money left. As I was dealing with the lawyers related to all of this stuff, my attorney had pointed out that the documents I had done to give away every part of my wealth at some point had never been completed. The junior attorney had not filed certain things, and he said to me, he said Jim, you have stock in this company. I'm sure it will ultimately be worth a lot. You do not have to give it away. After this period of reflection, I gave it away. And when that company went public, and you have to remember, I had $3 million in the hole. When that company went public, that was $30 million. And that $30 million, though, went to a variety of charities that created health clinics, blood bags, and programs for the disabled. It gave me insight into what it means to be of service, how powerful that is for me, and how it made me feel complete.

I was no longer chasing the western definitions of success. There's this concept of the hungry ghost, and no matter what you give it, you can't satiate its hunger. This is the nature of these external affirmations of success. No matter what you do, the ghost will never be filled, and you realize that it is only through service to others caring for others that the ghost is ultimately satiated. The sad thing about Western society and capitalism is that, unfortunately, this country has a narrative that wealth and position of power are worthy of chase. And if you get them, you will be happy. This, of course, puts many people down the wrong course. When you finally realize what the nature of happiness is and it gets back to the quote you had read, it's this internal journey of becoming whole. When you are of service, when you do that, when you care for others, it also allows you to release the baggage you've been carrying within yourself that drives many people's behavior. Because if you grow up and you're traumatized, one of the things you carry is a certain degree of shame. And you can be traumatized in many ways. It's not just physical abuse or sexual abuse, but you can be verbally abused. As an example, if you look at how a lot of children are raised in affluent environments or even environments where, if you will, the parents place great emphasis on education and striving to improve life for the next generation, they put within children the notion that their only value is tied up into academic success. If the child comes home with the B or B minus, they directly tell them that they're not worthy and need to work harder. The sad thing is that when your value is defined by something like that, if you don't get that A or if you don't win that race, then there's nothing. You are nothing. As a result, once you tell yourself you're nothing, there's no reason to live. My son goes to a high school that's fairly high-performing, and they have suicides. Fortunately, the numbers have decreased, but they've had several suicides because children fail a test and then feel that their parents don't love them anymore and they're not worthy. So they've tied their worth into a grade, and it's sad.

No, no, go ahead. I'll add to that in a minute.

That's exactly right. And, it's interesting because when you attach yourself to outcomes versus attaching yourself to the journey. If you don't reach the outcome, then you create suffering for yourself and this whole narrative, if I failed or I'm not good enough. And this is the nature in some ways of craving that if I just do this, everything will be perfect again. So there's a concept which I'm sure you're familiar with, which is equanimity. It is wonderful to succeed and get accolades for that success. But the reality is that it is transitory. When you're chasing that, and you get the success, you feel so good, accepted, and accomplished. Then you come down from that. People want to get there again for that brief high, but it's not sustainable and chasing that, an attachment to that again, as I said, causes suffering. But the other side of it is that in these times when things are not going so well, people want to avoid it. But the reality is two things. One is that it is transitory as well. I've personally been in some situations where things were not going well. And I'm sitting there going, God, I'm a failure. This is horrible. There is no future here. I don't see how I can overcome this. This is often the narrative we tell ourselves. But again, it's transitory, and in most cases, you can overcome it. But the thing about that is that you learn certain lessons as well. And this is where oftentimes we get our greatest wisdom.

We demonstrated your own power within you to be resilient and be you again, not the narrative you created. And so this idea of equanimity and having this, even this temperament, I think, is very profound. You indicated that this idea of the brain and the heart being connected, and they're connected through what's called the vagus nerve from the brainstem, which goes throughout all of your organs and especially as expressed in the heart. And it's a two-way street. When you're stressed, when you're anxious, it affects your heart. Conversely, certain physiological activities can also affect your brain, as a side note related to this. At the end of my pool at my home, there is a modern art sculpture of a Buddha and the Buddha is sitting. But the Buddha has no head and the Buddha is sitting with its hands in front of it and is holding a persimmon. And my jacuzzi is at the other end of the pool. I tell you the story because I will sit there and reflect on this and that so many people are driven by their head and this narrative we're talking about, of chasing success. So when I look at that fruit, it reminds me not to get lost in my head but to live through my heart. A persimmon starts hard and bitter. But if you're patient and appreciate the transitory nature of it and what you learned from it. The fruit ultimately gets soft and sweet, and this is there for all of us if you're patient. So I think that this type of reminder is very helpful for me.

Well, I think both metaphorically and literally, the heart is the place where a lot of our humanity lies. There was a research study among Tibetan monks, and at the time the study was done, they were using these EEG electroencephalograms. These caps were put on people's heads, and I'm sure you may have seen some of those photographs of monks with these caps on. So the scientist Richard Davidson at the time was presenting what they were trying to find, and actually, they were trying to study compassion. So he showed them how they were going to test it and put this helmet with these electrodes on it. When he showed them, they all started laughing. And he thought it was because of how ridiculous it looked to have this cap with electrodes. But what was explained to him was that compassion is not in the head. Compassion is in the heart. Interestingly, that has been proven to be the case. What's fascinating is if you look at the nature of many of these practices, especially from eastern traditions and many Western traditions.

Experientially, these individuals over thousands of years have demonstrated certain truths through some of these religious practices that, if you remove the dogma associated with them, are extraordinarily powerful and have been validated by science. There's something called broken heart syndrome and this was described in Japanese women, where an event occurs in a relationship where it suddenly ends and their heart will just stop. And they examined them, and there was absolutely no coronary artery disease or anything. It was a healthy heart. But this sudden release of these catecholamines associated with the sudden onset of a severe stress response negatively affects the heart. And so these work in partnership in a homeostatic relationship, hopefully, that allows us to be our best selves.

The other aspect of this, and I'm sure you probably read about Viktor Frankl's Man's Search For Meaning, is a quote attributed to him, but not from him. So he did not say this, but the reality is true, between stimulus and response, there is a pause and that pause allows you freedom. He means by this that many of us are reactive and cannot control our emotions. This is why if somebody challenges you or is negative to you, you immediately feel like you have to confront them. In some cases, you may also run away, but you have to confront them, which can lead to consequences. Of course, that we do not want to occur. But the other side of it is that often when people interact with you, you are under the false notion that their behavior is related to you. And so often, that's not the case. We're talking about some events that have created trauma, distraction, or fear in yourself. For example, if you argue with your spouse or some negative event has occurred before, you're going to a meeting on how you react to that. A meeting does not necessarily have anything to do with the meeting whatsoever, but it can have huge negative consequences.

Another example is I'm sure that you've probably been almost run off the road by a driver who cuts in front of you, and you have to slam on the brakes. And of course, generally, there is on your side, not you specifically, but a hand gesture oftentimes by some people and an expletive. And, of course, you immediately decide the person has done something to you. They're selfish. They're not interested in your safety, et cetera. But if I tell you that the driver of that automobile is rushing his wife to the hospital who's pregnant, she's broken her water. Suddenly you go, Oh my God. I understand why that happened. God, if I could escort them there, I would do it. I would have done the same thing, right? And here, in a microsecond, your perspective has changed. You've got this intense anger and feeling that you've been wrong. And this is the nature of how we interpret events, which can often not be correct or even if they are correct. You realize that that anger and hostility does nothing. And this is part of the problem, but that is in your power, and you can learn not to be reactive, but to take that pause because when you're reactive, it shuts down your prefrontal cortex that shuts down your executive control areas, which give ledge from memories, etc. That allows you to make a much more discerning decision versus a reactive decision, which, of course, is how we evolved this to make quick decisions and ignore other data that's available because you think it puts you at risk. In modern society, that's not necessarily the case. But we still react the same. And so it also demonstrates again that all of these powers are within you and that you can control these and with certain types of mind training. If you want to call it that, you can teach yourself to be calm, thoughtful, and non-reactive. When you do that again, you switch from the sympathetic nervous system, the fight or flight response. This has a huge negative consequence, certainly in the long term effect on your blood pressure, your immune system, the release of stress hormones, the release of inflammatory proteins to the other system, which is really how we're supposed to live, which is the engagement of your parasympathetic nervous system or this rest and digest system. We are calm. You have an even temperament where your blood pressure is low and heart rate variability increases.

Conversely, a lack of heart rate variability, which happens in the stress response, is one of the greatest causes of sudden cardiac death, and we were talking about broken heart syndrome. So if you can self modulate which is within your power, then that has huge positive consequences. It's also associated with increased longevity and more social connection. So it's very, very powerful. And again, to emphasize, it is within your ability to learn these types of techniques. At the end of the day, you will be much happier, much more thoughtful, and you will perform at a much higher level.

I think that's exactly right, and if I reflect on my own life, I used to have a lot of anger and hostility towards my parents because I was ignored or did not receive the love of nurturing that I needed. But what I realized was that they had their own struggles with alcoholism, with mental illness, which prevented them from giving me what I needed. As a result, their own suffering, their own response to that suffering without the tools to overcome that suffering was not their fault, and it allowed me to dissipate that anger. Again, that helps remove the baggage that so many of us carry. The other thing about this is that when I have this internal conflict of anger, hostility, feeling, I was ignored that I wasn't nurtured, combined with despair and hopelessness. It changed how I walked in the world. It changed how people reacted to me because, as a species, we are very intuitive in regard to determining others' emotional states.

When I shifted how I thought to one of openness, having an open heart, not being terrified or afraid, having an optimism about the future versus hopelessness, magic happened and what that magic was is that people, then if you will, came to my aid. People then were helpful to me. People then wanted to see me succeed because I was not giving out this impression of anger and hostility. I was giving the impression of openness and a desire to be of service, to care.

Again, this change and attitude which you hold within yourself, you can't change is everything. There is nothing that I have done that has been me doing it alone. This is another false narrative that oftentimes, sadly, people who lack self-awareness intuit. That everything is about them. They did it. Nobody helped them. It's sad to see these people because, again, this falls back on this narrative of demonstrating, frankly, your ego and how important you are and how you did it. That comes out of insecurity. I have never accomplished a single thing without immense effort and help from other people, and I'm completely appreciative of that and thankful for that. As an example, as a doctor, I cannot be a neurosurgeon without the help of nurses. I cannot be a neurosurgeon without the help of the people who empty the bed and make the bed. They are an integral part of my success, and I go out of my way to express gratitude to them, and it makes a huge difference. For example, I've had colleagues who have this inflated sense of self-importance and treat people horribly. They don't treat them with dignity. They don't treat them as equals. And these people, of course, have resentment about that. When I was in the military, after I trained as a neurosurgeon, I had a colleague who was completely abusive to people. I mean, they disliked him so much because he was just so mean to them and treated them like they were nothing. And so, when he wanted something, no one would do it for him. For example, the supply sergeant would say, I'm sorry, sir, I'm not able to order that for you versus myself, and I'm not trying to say I'm so great. But, patients would give me bottles of alcohol, wine, or whiskey or whatever, and I would give them to the supply sergeant to say, Listen, I just want to give this to you to thank you. And so what I wanted to say? Oh yeah, Dr. Doty, I'll get that to you tomorrow. It was a completely different narrative. I also had an experience where I was at a private hospital in the south, and I was leaving to come back to California. I interviewed a neurosurgeon. I walked into the hospital of my lady with the information, that's a doctor, Doty, it's so good to see you again. I heard you leaving. I'm so sorry. So I hugged her. The next place we go to is the cafeteria. The woman there says, Dr. Doty, listen, I know you're leaving, but I have some croissants back there that I saved for you. Let me make you your latte. We go from there to radiology and the tech firms that we talk to. Doty, I just want to thank you so much for the gift you gave my baby. To the intensive care unit. Thank you for taking the time to take care of my mother. And then we went back to my office, and I said, what do you think of the hospital staff? What the hell just went on? I looked at him, and I said, what are you talking about? What's all this hugging and crap? And what are you talking about? I said I have found that when you're trying, thoughtful, and look at everyone with respect and dignity, and you're appreciative, magically, people are there to help you. And I said, what is your leadership style or what do you do? And literally, here's what he said, I tell them this and they say where and how much? I said, well, obviously, that's why you can't hold a job. This type of thought process is this ego, which frankly translates to deep insecurity in these people's behavior. Look, I've accomplished certain things that I'm proud of, but everyone has accomplished certain things. Also, we're all in a struggle to survive in a very harsh environment. When you feel cared for when you create a work environment where people are not widgets that are disposable. When people are recognized for their contributions, where people are given the opportunity without criticism to take chances to perform when the leader himself or herself is vulnerable and shows that they're part of a team, and without the other people, the company cannot be a success. When you create that environment, you cannot pay people enough for their work. I'm sure you've experienced this. You walk into a meeting, and there's a guy sitting there with his arms crossed and a scowl on his face. That immediately engages your sympathetic nervous system. You're suddenly scared. You're anxious versus somebody walking and going, hey, how are you today? Listen, I just want to thank you for this. I think you're doing a great job. But there are a couple of things we need to focus on to help you do your job better. I mean, these are completely different narratives. Still, everyone has the ability to be open, vulnerable and kind, and you emanate this, which then makes everyone comfortable.

I think that if you always keep that in mind because our success frankly is not us, it is the weakest link in our relationships or in our work. So, if you ignore others, you're not authentic. You're not kind. Well, the system will fail, and it often fails at a place where you think it should and have failed. But it emphasizes exactly what you said. I'm not particularly more important than anyone else. Now, do I have opportunities? Do I interact with people? Those are wonderful. But at the end of the day, I can sit down with someone and have a great conversation with them and not feel as if they're wasting my time because they're not. They're teaching me something. They have an energy about them, and whether it's hanging out with them or spending time with them, it's wonderful. It's fantastic. But I never see it as any different. They're all human beings. As you've noted, I mean, I've told my story and in an elegant way, which hopefully is transformative. I don't take all the credit because I had an incredible editor. But my point is that if you sit down with anyone and take the time, everyone has an incredible story. It's just their story.

I used to work in a liquor store, and a guy would come in every day and buy a quart of vodka. And to be honest with you, I was not nice to him. One day he confronted me. It turned out that his daughter had died in a horrific accident. He was actually a professor. His daughter had died in an accident, and then within three months, his wife died of cancer. This fellow had nothing to live for. And when he would come out, he'd be disheveled. He sort of had this anger about him, and he really did confront me. What he told me was, I know nothing about his life, right? And he was absolutely correct. I was sort of ego-driven. This led to us having conversations every day and where I learned to respect him and honor his story. And in some ways, support him. In six months, he stopped drinking. In the transition, his dress improved. And he realized he had a purpose in life and stopped drinking altogether. That was a demonstration of this reality that I knew nothing about his story. I knew nothing about what was driving him, and I made assumptions. Frankly, I was a jerk, but fortunately, he confronted me. I learned a big lesson. And it was a profound lesson. And it was never to judge anyone because we don't know what's inside of their heart. We don't know what experiences they've had. We don't know what they've suffered. That idea of not being judgmental of being thoughtful allows people to grow and overcome and realize what their life really is about.

People ask me what my practice is. Often people ask what my meditative practice is? People shouldn't get lost in what meditation is. Because then, especially for high-performing people, they go, I can't do it, I can't do it. Every day as I sit by the side of my bed and I close my eyes and I slowly breathe in and out. I think of the joy and awe of being in this world and that blessing. And then I go through this alphabet of the heart, if you will, with intention. And it starts with C for compassion for self and others. D for recognizing the dignity of every person. E practice equanimity as we talked about. F for practicing forgiveness. So many people get angry, and that anger only negatively affects them, but it does nothing. Being able to forgive somebody, which is not the same as forgiving, allows you not to carry that burden and go forward. G, as you mentioned, is gratitude. This appreciation of the gifts that you've been given and sort of constantly looking out and thinking what you don't have when you're comparing yourself to others looking down and saying, I am so blessed and I am so thankful. H is humility, which we've talked a bit about. None of us does anything without the help of other people. And you are no more important than anyone else. It is having integrity and values that bound your behaviors. J, is this concept of justice or fairness or our response as being privileged to care for those who are vulnerable. K, of course, is kindness. There has to be there doesn't have to be any suffering involved. You simply are nice in every act that you do. And, of course, all of this is contained by love.

The thing is, of course, throughout the day, there may be stresses or strains. And what I'll do is I'll pause and take a minute or two, either choose a letter of the alphabet or just repeat the things slowly while breathing in and out, and it resets my intentions. So I don't allow things to get out of control emotionally. And because all of us have stress and strains throughout our days. Just to mention, two other aspects of that is there was a 16-year-old high school student who came to me after reading the book, and she said, will you help me make an app for kids who have mental health issues? All I did was mentor her, but she created an app that is on the different platforms iOS or iPhone called Alphabet of the Heart, which goes through this.

The other thing is, I received a note from a woman who said, I'm a person of faith. I am the spiritual director at the largest homeless shelter in the United States. I had burnt out from my job. I had resigned. My friends sent me all these scriptures, and nothing helped me. On my last day at work, as I was packing my box. Someone shared with me the alphabet of the heart. She said it gave me the strength to return to work. So how moving is that? And I sent her, of course, a response to thank you for making my day. A few months later, she sent me another email. She said this is so powerful. We've started using this as a practice in the homeless shelter I've got. Oh my god, this is amazing. A few months later, she sent me another note, and she says I was telling my best friend her daughter was there about this experience. Her daughter is 9 years old, and she makes beads. And she said on her own, she created these ten wooden beads to represent each letter. And on her own, she added the goal to represent the golden rule. I created the video, and it shows this little girl's hands on this golden cloth stringing these beads where she talks about, and she talks about how you can create and strengthen neural pathways of compassion through intention and repetition. And if anyone wants to look at it, it's compassion.

I was hosting the Dalai Lama at Stanford, and I wanted to honor her because she has two heroes, the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu. So I sent a note. I said, listen, I would love for you to come and meet the Dalai Lama. I'm hosting him. And she says I would love to come, but I have very little money, et cetera. I said, well, listen, I'm going to hire you as a consultant to bring about your beads. We'll have the Dalai Lama bless them and you'll get to meet the Dalai Lama. So she did come, and all of that happened. It was wonderful. The thing about Tutu is she has the same date of birth as Tutu, and he's also, of course, her hero. So I had the privilege of being invited to Tutu's 80th birthday. And it was an extraordinary experience that I was there for his wife's birthday a period of time later. We had become friends, and I was invited to his 85th birthday. I was giving a lecture in Oslo, Norway. I sent her and said, listen, you have to do me a favor. I said I was not going to be able to attend. I want you to attend by place, and I'm going to pay for it and you'll get to meet Tutu. For me, that was a relatively insignificant amount of money. For her, that was huge. So she got to fly to Cape Town and spend time with Tutu, and it was a very small gathering of a few hundred people. And so she got to see both of her heroes and. That was my reward for her thoughtfulness, kindness and being a wonderful human being.

I will send you some.

Well, she sells them. And if people want to go, there's a website called Into the Magic Shop.com about the book, and it actually tells that story, and she actually sells them to support the homeless shelter and this peace initiative that she does. I don't get anything for it. I'm just thankful that she does that so readily. The other thing we talked about was the alphabet of the heart. I can actually send you a PDF of a poster that was made that lists the alphabet of the heart and can easily be downloaded if people are interested.

Sure. Now I would love that. But let me just tell you, because so many people get lost in the dogma of a religion, and it's fine as a support tool. But these spiritual leaders can assess your humanity in a microsecond. And the reality is these people live above the dogma. And what I mean by that is they intuitively know if you have an open heart, if you're caring, if you're compassionate, if you love and I mean, frankly, I'm an atheist. The only thing I believe in is this present moment. But people say to me, how is it possible you can sit on stage with the Dalai Lama or other luminaries embracing you? And I say it because first of all, I don't want anything. Second of all, I am not interested in their dogma. I'm interested in their humanity and how I can learn from them. Maybe the other side is, I'm the exact same with them as I am with anyone else. And so, I don't worship them or look at them as evolved human beings. And I think all of us can learn something from that because it's not dogma. It's about who you are inside of yourself, how you carry yourself, and then that emanates from you to create this energy. That allows you to connect with these evolved spiritual leaders because they immediately sense that.

Thank you so much for the work you do and how you inspire others through your work because that's what it's all about. How can we be our best selves? And it's not a manifestation of the steps of success defined by society. The inner journey allows us to recognize that being of service is the expression of our greatest humanity. What I'd like to leave you with is that following each and every one of us every day can improve the life of another person. Never forget that you have that within your power. Sometimes it can be simply saying hello. Sometimes it can be giving hope to somebody. Sometimes it can be taken a minute or two to simply converse with somebody. Sometimes it could be giving them money so that they can eat.

These are very, very simple things that can be extraordinarily powerful to another person. But frankly, end up being extraordinarily powerful within your own life. And if you practice that and walk that walk, you will find that your entire life will change because you will no longer be focused on yourself. You will be focused on the other recognizing that the other issue, and when you do that, that creates a life and it's the life you want to live.

Well, thank you, my friend, and it's been a joy and a pleasure, and I appreciate your guests taking the time to listen. And I do hope that some of these words will help them in their own lives.