Dr. Gundry: 00:00 Hey there. Welcome to another exciting episode of The Dr. Gundry Podcast, the weekly podcast where I give you the tools you need to support your gut, boost your health and live your youngest, healthiest life. Welcome to The Dr. Gundry Podcast. Ever wonder what it would be like to get in the head of L.A. Lakers’ Pro Kobe Bryant, the celebrated boxer and activist, Muhammad Ali, the Oscar-winning actor, Tom Hanks, the nation’s 39th President, Jimmy Carter? Well, my guest today knows. In just a moment, I’ll be chatting with the New York Times best-selling author, corporate consultant, host of the Big Questions Podcast, Cal Fussman. As a long time author of the famous Esquire column, what I learned, Cal has interviewed some of the most famous and infamous influential legendary people on the planet. Actually, including me. Connecting with them on an intimate level and sharing their wisdom and insights with his readers. Cal began his career as a sports writer. He says he knows how to ask the right questions. A skill that served him not just professionally but personally too. Today, we’ll discuss Cal’s unique journey, what he’s learned from some of his interview subjects and how asking the right questions can help you change your life for the better. Cal and I will also discuss his weight loss journey, insights on longevity and how asking the right questions can benefit your health too. Cal, thanks for joining us.
Cal Fussman: 01:49 I’m so happy to be here and see you in that hat.
Dr. Gundry: 01:52 You know, I just had to get the hat on for you because you’re a hat guy and here’s to you.
Cal Fussman: 01:58 And to you.
Dr. Gundry: 02:00 You had the opportunity to speak with some of the biggest names in sports, science, politics, business, and entertainment. Tell me a little bit how you got to that point.
Cal Fussman: 02:12 Okay. I can actually trace it back to a single day. You probably remember it. November 23rd 1963. I’m in second grade, middle of the class. Miss Jaffe walks out the room, comes back in and looking like a different person. Her face was blenched, wearing the same clothes but completely different. Starts speaking in a tone so calm it was scary and she tells us that President Kennedy has been shot. You probably remember where you were in that moment.
Dr. Gundry: 02:49 Yup, I was in fifth grade.
Cal Fussman: 02:52 Here we go.
Dr. Gundry: 02:53 In Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Cal Fussman: 02:54 You were in class when it happened?
Dr. Gundry: 02:56 Yeah.
Cal Fussman: 02:57 So many of us. We’re all led home and we find out that President has been assassinated. Lyndon B. Johnson, Vice President, has taken the oath of office. That night, my parents realized it was the first time I had ever confronted death. They were nervous that I wouldn’t sleep well so they call me over the kitchen table and they said, “Cal, we just want you to know this has happened before in our country’s history. We’ve gotten through it. We’ll get through it this time and for you, you’re going to wake up tomorrow morning and you’re going to have breakfast just like you did today. You’ll go out and play. It would be just like last week so just be reassured. You can go to sleep and everything is going to be all right.” They go to tell my little brother. I’m sitting at the kitchen table. I was so young that I had a fascination with these presidents and their middle initials, Lyndon B. Johnson, John F. Kennedy. In my mind I’m thinking, if you had a middle initial, you are destined to be the president because that’s the only people that I ever heard of with middle initials. I’m thinking, is Lyndon B. Johnson, he probably knew he was going to be president. He probably wanted to be the president. Is he happy that he’s president? Is he sad because the only reason he’s president is because of the assassination? Maybe he’s scared that they’re going to try and kill him too.
Cal Fussman: 04:40 I can’t wrap my head around this so I picked up a piece of paper, pencil and I just started writing. Dear, President Johnson. How does it feel? Are you happy? Are you sad? Are you scared? I wished him well, fold it up. I had just learned how to address an envelope. Put a stamp on it. Didn’t tell anybody, but the next day when I went out, they’re in the mailbox. Over time, forgot about it until six months later my mom comes running up the apartment steps holding an envelope in her right hand from the White House, from the president to me. It was amazing because everybody from the apartment came up, they wanted to hold the letter from the president. The principal of the school wanted to see the letter to the president. The thing about that, I’ll never forget, it was not written to a second grader. It was written with great reverence and I knew this because the second sentence began, “In answer to your query … ” I didn’t know what a query was. The commotion that came about because of this letter taught me that a question could get you to the most powerful person on earth and that’s been a guiding principle for me every since.
Dr. Gundry: 06:08 You were a big deal at age seven?
Cal Fussman: 06:12 I was the shortest kid in my class but a very big deal after November 23rd 1963.
Dr. Gundry: 06:21 Did that moment say, okay, this is how I’m going to approach people, this is how I’m going to approach life. Did you say, I’m going to ask questions.
Cal Fussman: 06:33 Well, about little less than three months later, February of ’64, Muhammad Ali won the heavyweight championship. He was Cassius Clay when he won the title.
Dr. Gundry: 06:45 I remember that.
Cal Fussman: 06:46 Then a day or two later he changed his name to Muhammad Ali. I remember asking my father why did he change his name. It was a very difficult concept to explain to a seven year old but it made me realize that there was so many questions that I had that I needed answers to and it just sprung me on the journey. I knew back then that one day I was going to write a magazine story about Muhammad Ali. From the time I was a kid it was my dream and eventually I was able to do that.
Dr. Gundry: 07:28 Speaking of him, what’s the most standout interview you’ve ever had that was particularly inspiring?
Cal Fussman: 07:38 That would have to be the most inspiring one for me because I got to spend a week with him. It’s a 12 minute story so I don’t know that you want me to tell the whole thing now. What happened is, this was when he had Parkinson’s disease and his voice was down even below a whisper at that point. Here, it’s my job to get information out of him and he can barely speak. On the last day where I was very nervous because we had gone through so much and I had seen him do magic tricks for people and need a wheelchair to cover long distance. It was very hard to figure out. Maybe as a doctor you would look at it and say, well, that’s the case in Parkinson’s disease. He’s going to be tired. He took some medication at one point and it turned his tongue orange and he fell asleep on the couch with his leg jangling into … I just sat there wondering how am I going to explain all this in amazing story.
Cal Fussman: 08:58 On the last day, his wife, Lonnie, said, “You know, Muhammad, you never workout anymore. Why don’t you take Cal over the gym? Do a little exercise.” He takes me into the gym and it’s like a museum. There’s a boxing ring in the center. Looks like nobody set foot in it. There’s exercise equipment, looks like it’s right at the boxes. No smell of sweat. There are mirrors around the gym and photos of Ali’s iconic fights above the mirrors. Just to condense the story for the sake of the podcast, while I’m looking at those photos, those fights were the thrill of my childhood. I realized that I need to find out what is still in Ali’s well because always he would get in difficult situations against Joe Frazier or George Foreman and he’d reach into this well and pull out whatever was there to rise to the occasion. I realized I needed to ask that question now. What is still in the well? I looked over and I saw a lack of boxing gloves and I said to myself, should I take the risk here? Should I try? I pulled four gloves off the rack and I put two on his hands and two on mine and we’re staring looking at each other. I didn’t go at him but I had done some boxing and actually trained in the style of his archrival, Joe Frazier. I got in his stance. I could even sound like Joe Frazier. I went in the big heavy bag just like Joe Frazier would have and I just started wailing into it with this left hook. Hit me that, hit, hit. Ali knew exactly what was going on. His eyebrows arched like a sleeping lion awakened by the old familiar scent.
Cal Fussman: 11:03 He started to go to the bag and he started throwing punches. I see you think that’s going to keep me off, I went back to the bag. I’m throwing out left hook. He goes back to the bag. On and on this goes until finally I throw everything I own into this bag and his eyes tell me, “Oh, so that’s your question.” He waves me to the corner of the gym then I saw something I never thought I’d ever see again. Muhammad Ali started to dance around this bag and he’s looking at himself in the mirror and his chest comes up and his his head comes up. Then he stopped, pivots and he throws like 50 shots faster than my eyes could take them in and I was stunned. It’s a longer story but the point is that in that moment, I was able to give him something that he had given me from my childhood. I was able to help lift him to a higher place. The story goes on but the ultimate point here is we all have heroes. Many of us get to meet the hero and become disappointed but I got to meet my hero in real life and he rose above where I was as a child seeing him and he just took it to a higher place so that’s why it was such an important day for me.
Dr. Gundry: 12:44 Wow. You have to box to get things out of other people?
Cal Fussman: 12:53 I think that’s the only one.
Dr. Gundry: 12:56 That’s fantastic. You know, there’s a line in a song I listened to, it says, we still show up for the singer who can’t sing. There he was, he was still there and you got him to reach.
Cal Fussman: 13:14 That was the point, that he went as deep as he could go.
Dr. Gundry: 13:20 Okay. You’ve got lots of people that you’ve interviewed. Super successful people that you speak with. What are the common denominator? Are there common denominator with all these people?
Cal Fussman: 13:34 I believe there are. There are. I believe number one, they all aspire to something great. They go out generally and achieve it and then get knocked down and they rise and go back higher than they were before. Classic case, Steve Jobs created Apple then got thrown out of the company. You know what? This actually revolves, there’s a lesson and storytelling here because he released a computer named after his daughter, Lisa very early on. I think it was eight or nine page supplement in New York Times filled with geek talk because they were so proud of all the eccentricities and mechanical eccentricities in this computer. It bombed, he was pushed out of Apple. He went to Pixar and he learned the power of story. When he came back, he was behind that whole Apple campaign, two words, Think Different. That made all the difference and he was able to take Apple much higher than it had ever been. That’s a classic case of somebody who does something great but they do go down. The greatest part of the journey is where they take it from that point.
Dr. Gundry: 15:15 You know, you brought up storytelling. Is that another key feature of most successful people? The ability to tell a story?
Cal Fussman: 15:26 Well, I think it was Plato who said, “Those who tell stories rule society.” Steve Jobs said, “The most important person in the room is the story teller.” Most recently, there’s a book out called, “21 Lessons for the 21st Century,” written by Yuval Noah Harari. It starts with this sentence, “Humans think in stories rather than in facts, numbers or equations,” and the simpler the story, the better. I think those three examples sum it up. You could probably even look without getting political, look at the last presidential election. Donald Trump was able to create simple stories. Whether it was Lying Ted, low energy jeb, crooked Hillary, and nobody came at him with a story to beat his. Now he’s the president. There’s extreme power in story.
Dr. Gundry: 16:36 I totally agree with that.
Cal Fussman: 16:38 Look, your books are testament to that.
Dr. Gundry: 16:41 Yeah, you know it’s interesting, even as a heart surgeon, I was told that my ability was to take a complex subject in heart surgery or a complex operation and make it simple.
Cal Fussman: 16:56 There you go.
Dr. Gundry: 16:59 When people read my books, I think the feedback I get is I’m sitting there telling them a story. I’m sitting there chatting with them. It’s as if I’m in the room with them.
Cal Fussman: 17:11 To be a master at that and to make us feel like he’s talking to me, he’s telling me, “Cal, better watch those tomatoes.” I got to say, I love your philosophy, I love your work but the tomatoes, man, I can’t resist. The tomatoes love me. I love the tomatoes and I know what you’re saying. They get me every time, doc.
Dr. Gundry: 17:41 It breaks your heart. I know. I was talking to a reporter from Canada this morning for a newspaper. Tomatoes came up. She said, “Well, everybody knows that you can’t eat the peels and seeds on tomatoes.” I said, “I’m glad you said that.” I said, “How does everybody know?” She said, “Well, I was taught in Canada that they’re too bitter. The bitter is a warning from the plant not to eat them.” I said, “Man, can I take you on the road with me? This is fantastic.”
Cal Fussman: 18:18 I heard after you told me about this, from somebody who is Italian that in her family history, they always knew to take off the skins and remove the seeds. You’re definitely right. I’m not arguing with you.
Dr. Gundry: 18:42 I know.
Cal Fussman: 18:44 I’m a sucker for tomatoes.
Dr. Gundry: 18:46 You’ve interviewed a lot of super athletes. Do they have the same qualities or they have different qualities that make them super athletes?
Cal Fussman: 18:57 I think they share a quality of excellence that you exhibited in the operating room when you’re doing heart surgery on an infant. When I was interviewing Kobe Bryant, he brought up an interesting analogy because he was asking me how I prepare for an interview. I was explaining I have this jukebox method where I basically turn my head into an old fashioned musical jukebox except I’m not playing records, I have questions up there. I do all my research and then I sit down and maybe I write out 200 questions on a pad. Then I walk around with my pad and I inhale the questions. Don’t memorize them. I’m just reading them over, thinking about them. It’s almost like osmosis. I’m taking them in. Then, right before the interview I rip up the questions so that when I walk in I’m just completely relaxed but the questions are here. That forces me to listen really carefully because when the subject is saying something, they’re pressing the buttons on my jukebox and the question is coming out or maybe something I have to improvise because the interview might have gone in an unexpected way.
Cal Fussman: 20:32 To take it back to Kobe, he was saying that when he was playing for the Lakers for Phil Jackson, Phil would show up early before team meeting and he go to the board and he’d write out everything that he wanted to get across. He look at it and then he take it all away and so when the players came in it was just a white board or the black board, whatever it was. What Kobe was saying is there are habits of excellence that just go across the arch of all kinds of jobs. You can point to one, point to another but you’re going to find the same consistent habits of excellence somewhere in there. The details may be different but the habits will be the same.
Dr. Gundry: 21:32 No, I think that’s right. I used to give a lecture to surgical residents that people like Tiger Woods, or Serena or Venus Williams, or Jerry Rice aren’t necessarily naturally born athletes. It’s repetition, repetition, repetition. One of my mentors at the University of Michigan, Mark Orringer, would say, “We do it the same way every day, every day the same.”
Cal Fussman: 22:01 It’s a great quote.
Dr. Gundry: 22:04 Practice makes perfect because eventually like you and your jukebox, you no longer have to think. It flows. I could tell who’s going to be a great heart surgeon because the great heart surgeons don’t think during the operation. It just flows.
Cal Fussman: 22:24 You could just watch for 15 seconds and know? There it is.
Dr. Gundry: 22:29 Yeah, there it is. Oh no, this guy is thinking. It will never work. I’ve always actually been right about that. I used to watch the great Denton Cooley. Denton Cooley, people would say was a very slow surgeon. Denton Cooley was one of the greatest heart surgeons of all time. I got to know him, thank goodness. Denton Cooley looked like he was moving slowly but there was not a wasted effort in any of his movements. There was never a pause and so you would watch this and you’d think, yeah, this is such a slow thing. You’d look up and 30 minutes were gone and he was done with the operation that would have taken three hours for a normal human being. You never got the sense that he was actually moving quickly. It’s like Jerry Rice.
Cal Fussman: 23:20 Right, yeah, they’re moving faster even though it may not seem like it.
Dr. Gundry: 23:25 Yeah, there’s no thinking, no wasted move.
Cal Fussman: 23:30 Did you ever get to see Michael DeBakey do his surgery?
Dr. Gundry: 23:33 Yeah.
Cal Fussman: 23:33 Was it different from Denton Cooley?
Dr. Gundry: 23:36 They were actually quite different.
Cal Fussman: 23:38 This is a case of two excellent surgeons. What’s the difference and how does it play out?
Dr. Gundry: 23:47 They both passed away. I actually got to know both of them. In fact, I was a visiting lecturer at both places. I’ll tell you a funny story. As you know, they finally made up.
Cal Fussman: 23:58 At the very end of their life. Right.
Dr. Gundry: 24:01 I was speaking at Dr. DeBakey’s hospital across the street from Cooley’s. I called Dr. Cooley and said, “Dr. Cooley, you know I’m going to be speaking next door. Do you want to come over?” He said, “Steve, you know I’d love to but geez, you know I can’t.” He says, “I just wish that old man would die.”
Cal Fussman: 24:23 No.
Dr. Gundry: 24:25 He say that all the time. He said, “If that old man would die then I could die.” Dr. DeBakey was really the Joe Frazier to Denton Cooley’s Muhammad Ali. I really mean that sincerely in both cases. Dr. DeBakey was a puncher. He would be in the gut. I’d give you a great story. One of his young trainees who eventually went over to join Dr. Cooley, he was Bud Frazier. Bud has been in the news recently but anyhow, Bud was on a plane with Dr. DeBakey coming back from overseas. They landed about 4 o’clock in the morning in Houston. Bud’s exhausted, he’s going to go home. Dr. DeBakey says, “Well, Bud, you know it’s 4 o’clock. We can get over there and make some rounds.” He go, “Dr. DeBakey, don’t you want to go to bed?” “Are you kidding? It’s time to start work. Let’s go.” Bud says, “Yeah.” He was in his 90s at this point. He said, “Geez, I wish he would die.”
Cal Fussman: 25:41 Wow, that’s an amazing analogy to see those guys as Ali and Frazier and to know why. There must have been an intense rivalry between that you could understand why they would feel that way.
Dr. Gundry: 26:00 I didn’t know them well but I knew them a lot because I had become a famous heart surgeon. I was actually one of the few heart surgeons that wasn’t trained by them that were in both of their societies. I was in the DeBakey society and the Cooley society.
Cal Fussman: 26:14 You’re allowed to do that in good standing?
Dr. Gundry: 26:18 Yeah.
Cal Fussman: 26:19 You weren’t seen as a traitor?
Dr. Gundry: 26:19 No, I was invited by both of them. I’ll tell you one more DeBakey story.
Cal Fussman: 26:25 Please, as many as I can get.
Dr. Gundry: 26:27 When you’re a resident for DeBakey, you actually live in the hospital. You have a room. Your family got to visit for two hours a week. That went on for two years. Now, why would anybody do that? Well, because you were trained by Dr. DeBakey but again, that’s the punch fighter in your face I’m going to break you down style of Dr. DeBakey. They’re both brilliant surgeons, brilliant men. I’m delighted I’ve known both of them just like both Frazier and Ali were great fighters but totally different styles.
Cal Fussman: 27:13 It’s amazing when you think about excellence and how it can play out in these different ways and yet it gets to the same place.
Dr. Gundry: 27:26 Exactly. More than one way to skin a cat. Okay, what piece of wisdom after meeting and talking to all these people have you picked up that’s affected your life?
Cal Fussman: 27:38 For me, it’s being prepared to improvise because every time I would go in to an interview and I’ve spoken with hundreds of people who have shaped the world over the last 50 years, including you. I always have to go in not knowing what’s going to happen but being just like you were saying about the heart surgeon, just being prepared to be fluid. You know, last week on my podcast I have the daughter of Bruce Lee. He talks about being water and how water can flow or it can crash. It goes into a teapot and it becomes the teapot. How it’s just so fluid that it can fill any place that it goes and then he caps off this little bit of an interview by saying, “Be water, my friend.” Maybe that’s what I learned, be fluid and be able to dance and move with the situation and not get caught flat-footed.
Dr. Gundry: 28:59 That’s great advice. All right. Your brand, you interview high profile people, you speak to company’s conferences about the power of questions. You say, change your questions, change your life. What does that mean?
Cal Fussman: 29:19 Okay. I’ll give you an example. I’m speaking in an event for airline executive. The president of a small airline company was in the line, a long line of people to meet me after the speech. She was standing with her daughter and she said, “Cal, I got to tell you, it’s my dream to get up on a stage and give a speech in front of people. I’m too scared to do it, I can’t do it.” Her daughter is nodding along. I said, “What if you just change your questions? For instance, can you write the speech you want to give?” She said, “I can write the speech. That’s not the problem.” Then I said, “Well, can you read that speech that you’ve just written in front of a mirror?” “I can do it in front of a mirror, no problem.” I say, “Can you do that five times?” “Yeah, no problem.” “10 times?” “absolutely.” “Could you then after you did it 10 times in front of the mirror go down to the kitchen and ask your daughter to sit in front of you and try and speak it out?” “I can do that. That’s not a problem either.”
Cal Fussman: 30:45 I said, “Can you do that five or 10 times?” “Sure.” “Once you’ve done that, can you just imagine that you’re in the kitchen with your daughter when you’re stepping on stage?” I got a call from her a few months later, “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I just gave a speech on stage and I was asked to come back and speak.” It’s really very simple questions that can take you a long way but you got to stop and ask them. It’s what we’re talking before about being flat-footed and just saying, “I can’t do this.” You have to be loose enough to throw out the question and try on an answer.
Dr. Gundry: 31:43 Is there a trick for knowing what are the right questions to ask to benefit somebody?
Cal Fussman: 31:50 Well, you can’t go wrong with why. A parent cannot go wrong with how because many times a kid will do something crazy and the parent is like, “Why did you do that?” If you stop and ask a child, how did that happen? It’s a very different conversation. You can actually learn a lot about the child and the child can learn about him or herself to the answer that comes out. Very simple questions like why and how. They’re open, they don’t have an agenda. They’re not trying to hurt anybody. Just trying to understand. Those are two words that I love.
Dr. Gundry: 32:41 Okay. This is a health program. How can you ask the right questions to benefit your health?
Cal Fussman: 32:50 I think the first thing is asking yourself what books you’re in, who should I be watching on YouTube video and sitting down and just taking it all in.
Dr. Gundry: 33:09 I think that’s a really good place to start. A lot of my patients ask me why their doctors don’t know some of these things. The doctors can’t see what appears to be quite obvious now that a patient has gotten great heart or a disease has gone away. I always say, you can’t see unless your eyes are open.
Cal Fussman: 33:40 It doesn’t get any simpler than that. You’re talking about telling a story, that one sentence basically says it all.
Dr. Gundry: 33:48 One of my blessings, I think from my parents, was always question. Always have your eyes open and don’t believe dogma. Like Patton said, “If everybody’s thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.”
Cal Fussman: 34:03 Right. Well, it really comes down to curiosity.
Dr. Gundry: 34:06 Yeah, that’s exactly right.
Cal Fussman: 34:09 That’s really the answer to the question. If you can be curious to ask yourself why am I feeling this way? Why am I eating this way? I mean, isn’t that the first step? Why am I eating this Twinkie? The more you ask yourself why, the more you’re going to find out about yourself. Then you can start going to people to find out, you know, what should I be eating?
Dr. Gundry: 34:54 You recently lost quite a bit of weight.
Cal Fussman: 34:57 Yeah, I did.
Dr. Gundry: 34:58 How did you do it?
Cal Fussman: 34:59 I did it through diet and through sport and obstacle races. These races I go, I did a trifecta. The sprint is three to five miles. The super is eight to 10. The beast is 14 to 17 with I think it’s 36 obstacles. You got to go over eight foot walls and climb ropes and go through mud. It was a delight and absolute craziness. Tell me if I’m wrong here. Is it easier to get yourself healthy when you try something completely different from what you’ve been thinking and it puts you out in a strange place and you’re challenging yourself as opposed to trying something that you’ve tried before? You’ve got on a diet and maybe you lost some pounds but then you put them back on, to just go to some place completely new and challenge yourself. I mean, it seems like everybody who showed up in your office when you’re a heart surgeon, they were in that place where they needed to go some place deeply new. Is it easier to make these changes when you put yourself completely out there?
Dr. Gundry: 36:36 I think some people, if they’re having a health crisis almost like an addict has to hit rock bottom to make a change. A lot of times a health crisis is what makes people change. I have several pictures and statues of Yoda in my exam room. Try not, do or do not. There is no try. When people say, “I’m going to try this,” I said, “No, I don’t want you to try this because when you tell me you’re going to try, you give yourself permission to fail.” That’s basically what you do.
Cal Fussman: 37:22 You don’t have to do it.
Dr. Gundry: 37:23 You don’t have to do it. You’re not going to try to do the spartan race because you just get to the first obstacle and say, “Yeah, that’s too high. Okay. I’m going to try something else.”
Cal Fussman: 37:34 You’re right. That’s exactly right.
Dr. Gundry: 37:38 Okay. We’re running out of time. I’ve been asking people because The Longevity Paradox, what’s the one thing listeners can do to live a longer, healthier life? Coming from Cal.
Cal Fussman: 37:53 Okay, let me see if you agree with this. I would say to reduce stress. I’m thinking now of stressful, incredibly stressful moments raising teenagers and you know what? They’re graduating from college. They came out fine. Did my stress helped the situation? Probably not. Probably not. My sense is obviously, you got to eat right. Great to exercise but if you could just learn to look at something that would normally stress you out and smile, my feeling is, I got no scientific proof, I’m not a researcher but my feeling is it will take you a long way. I have this sneaking suspicion I’m going to live to 93. I feel like-
Dr. Gundry: 38:58 Not a bad run.
Cal Fussman: 38:59 I’m 62 now and I’m starting my third act. That gives me another full act and at that point, 93. Now, you know what, I’ll get to 92 and I’ll say, give me a few more.
Dr. Gundry: 39:20 Yeah, you know there’s a book-
Cal Fussman: 39:22 Why did I have those tomatoes?
Dr. Gundry: 39:23 That’s right. If you stop then, I can guarantee you, you’ll get to 93.
Cal Fussman: 39:29 Okay.
Dr. Gundry: 39:30 I read a book and I don’t remember the author. The book is, I’m going to live to 120. It was written in his 60s. He basically said, okay, I have decided to live to 120 and now, how am I going to do that? What am I going to do in these next 60 years? How am I going to act during these next 60 years? What will make me arrive at a 120?
Cal Fussman: 39:57 What a great idea.
Dr. Gundry: 39:58 I think it’s a great idea. I really do. You know, the whole idea of elders, we’ve lost the concept of elders in our society. Elders as a fountain of wisdom. They’ve been there and we haven’t.
Cal Fussman: 40:16 They have the stories.
Dr. Gundry: 40:17 They got the stories. That’s exactly right. Coming full circle, it’s actually about stories. It really is. Okay, what’s next for you? I hear you got new projects.
Cal Fussman: 40:30 Stories.
Dr. Gundry: 40:30 Stories.
Cal Fussman: 40:32 I’ve gone through this transformation, and that’s why I needed to talk to you because it feels a little like what you went through in a very different way. I was a writer for magazines for many years. I’ve interviewed all these very famous people. Then much like you, my life was changed at summit when I got up to give a speech. I thought only 17 people would show up, it was at Summit at Sea.
Dr. Gundry: 41:09 I was there.
Cal Fussman: 41:11 We might have been on the same ship out. That’s wild. I was asked by Elliott Bisnow to go up and give a speech. I thought, well, you know, a couple of days in Miami and the Bahamas, that would be nice. I had no idea that they would market the speech as, “Decoding The Art of the Interview with Mikhail Gorbachev, Muhammad Ali, Donald Trump.” Everybody came in expecting Donald Trump and Gorbachev to be there. When I showed up, the room was completely packed. There were people sitting in the aisles with their legs folded to the back wall. There was a line out the door. It’s like a night club. You couldn’t get in. I got up to speak. I had never spoken before. At the end, I got a standing ovation. My life changed on that day. I started to use my voice to communicate as opposed to my fingertips. This took me to companies to speak and then when I spoke at these companies, they started asking me to help tell their stories. This is where I’m going now and it really applies to everything you’ve built here because if I can go into a company and tell their story. Now, keep in mind, and I read this on the internet so I can’t guarantee the accuracy but it seems right to me. If you look at all the content that’s been created from the dawn of humanity to now, 90% of it has come in the last two years.
Cal Fussman: 43:01 It’s overwhelming amount of information swirling around like a tornado. If you can’t tell your story, how are you going to get through it? If you’re a company and you can’t tell that story, it’s like you don’t exist. I know how to do this. I’m now going out to companies to help them tell their stories. Very much like you went from working in a hospital with maybe a very small staff and growing your company and your brand into a place where you’ve got 600 people working. If I can execute the story telling, these companies can grow. People are going to get jobs and kids will go to college. It puts me in a place to do exponential good I never thought that I would be on this journey maybe the way you never thought you’d end up in this chair and this hat but you’re here and so as [Orkin 00:44:16], so as [Laynie 00:44:19], and so as Katie and everybody else. That’s what I want to do now. I want to help to build things. I don’t know where this is going but your story has showed me, Cal, go on that path you, believe it and follow it, do it. Don’t try it, do it. That’s what I take from both of our conversations.
Dr. Gundry: 44:46 Young Cal, do it.
Cal Fussman: 44:49 Can all use a little Yoda.
Dr. Gundry: 44:51 There you go. All right, as you know we finish with an audience question. This question comes from an Instagram user. “Is there really any difference between Spanish, Greek, or Italian extra virgin olive oil when using on salads?” Quite frankly, the terms extra virgin actually refers to the acidity in it, so no. There’s really not a difference. There’s lots of difference in flavors between them. Also, first cold pressed by mechanical means, you should look for. It just means the process it wasn’t smashed to smithereens. Now, unfortunately, tons of olive oil that says made in Italy comes from other places. Just because it says made in Italy doesn’t mean it came from Italy. Italy this year, this past year has had another terrible season in olives. You’re not going to see a lot of genuine olive oils. If it says that, be careful. All right. Cal, it’s been great to have you on the podcast. It’s great to see you. How do our listeners and viewers find you?
Cal Fussman: 45:57 Calfussman.com and that’s the website, C-A-L-F-U-S-S-M-A-N.com and my podcast is called Big Questions with Cal Fussman. One of the two will get you to me.
Dr. Gundry: 46:13 Do you have big answers on the big questions?
Cal Fussman: 46:18 Usually, I’m asking the questions and other people are coming up with the answers but you know what? Maybe now is the time, my third act, that I have to come up with the answers.
Dr. Gundry: 46:31 All right. We’re going to leave you with that. I think that’s a great ending. That’s it for The Dr. Gundry Podcast and we’ll see you next week because as you know, I’m Dr. Gundry and I’m always looking out for you. Exciting news, my friends. My new book, “The Longevity Paradox,” is out now. Like the, “The Plant Paradox,” this will be a game-changer in helping you live a long, vital life. Pick up your copy now at your local book store, Barnes & Noble or Amazon or my audiobook which I actually recorded this time. Make sure you tell your friends and family about it. For more information about this week’s episode, please take a look at my show notes below on drgundry.com. In the show notes, you’ll also find a survey and I’d love to find out more about you. Please take a few minutes to fill it out so I can do my best to provide the information you’re looking for. Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of The Dr. Gundry Podcast. Check back next week for another exciting episode and make sure to subscribe, rate and review to stay up to date with the latest episodes. Head to drgundry.com for show notes and more information. Until next time. I’m Dr. Gundry, and I’m always looking out for you.
