0:00

Loneliness is as big

0:02

a killer as anything else. Some have said

0:04

it's equivalent to smoking two packs of cigarettes

0:06

a day. There's a huge biology to it.

0:08

Why aren't doctors prescribing to spend more time

0:10

with friends? I do. We

0:16

are what we eat, or

0:18

so the adage goes. But it turns

0:20

out that statement is actually medically true.

0:23

Dr. Mark Hyman is one of the leading

0:25

voices in the field of functional medicine, which

0:27

basically means that if we feed our bodies

0:29

the nutrients it needs, not only does it

0:31

help us prevent illness, but we can

0:33

actually supercharge our immune systems to heal

0:36

us when we get sick. So

0:38

I wanted to talk to him about something we need

0:40

in our lives as much as we need food. Friendship.

0:44

World leaders ask Mark for health

0:46

advice. He's the author of 15 books, many

0:49

of them New York Times bestsellers, and the

0:51

host of the podcast The Doctors Pharmacy. So

0:53

I really wanted to get his take. And

0:56

it turns out if we give our friendships

0:58

the same attention as we give our diets, it

1:00

benefits our minds, our spirits,

1:03

and our bodies. This is

1:06

a bit of optimism. Mark,

1:09

thanks so much for coming today. It was such a treat

1:11

to sit down with you. There's so much

1:13

I want to talk to you about. My big thing

1:15

right now is I'm writing about friendship. Yeah. Sort of

1:18

mildly obsessed with it. And so- It's a good thing

1:20

to be obsessed with it. It's a good thing to

1:22

be obsessed with it. So I want to go down

1:24

the path of the connection between health and community and

1:26

health and friendship. You made a comment that

1:29

you can't be a good friend if you're not healthy. If you

1:31

feel like shit, you know, you can't show up and be present

1:33

and be there. Be there

1:35

for someone. And be there and yeah, just even

1:38

be present to have a conversation if

1:40

you're foggy and fatigued. You

1:42

feel like crap and you're dealing with all kinds of issues.

1:45

It's hard to really be present and that's what you need

1:47

to do to be a friend. Except paradox because you need

1:49

mental health to be a good friend. But

1:51

if you don't have friends, it's

1:53

hard to have good mental health. We have

1:56

such a crisis of mental illness in this

1:58

country and part of it's because- because of

2:00

loneliness, isolation, disconnection, social

2:03

media, all the

2:05

things that you're thinking about and actually writing

2:07

about, hopefully with your new book on friendship.

2:09

Yeah. But for my lens,

2:11

when I look at people's mental health,

2:13

I look at it through the lens of biology

2:16

because we now understand that the

2:18

brain. Is

2:21

obviously connected to the body, which has not actually been

2:23

part of medicine. Isn't that a weird thing? That that's

2:26

a discovery that the brain is actually a part of

2:28

the body. The old joke in

2:30

medicine is psychiatrists pay no attention to the brain

2:32

and neurologists pay no attention to the mind. Right.

2:35

But now psychiatrists are paying attention to the

2:37

brain and they're finding that brain

2:39

dysfunction, brain inflammation is actually driving

2:41

much of mental illness, everything from

2:43

depression to anxiety, to OCD, to

2:45

bipolar, to schizophrenia, to autism. All

2:47

these things are connected to brain

2:49

dysfunction. And yes, it can be

2:51

caused by an external stressor like

2:53

a spouse dying or trauma or

2:56

things that are external. But it also

2:58

can be caused by nutritional deficiencies in

3:01

your microbiome and environmental toxins and things

3:03

that actually are treatable and measurable. There's

3:05

a very famous trial in

3:07

Australia called the Smiles trial. I think I'm

3:09

only all these great names for studies. But

3:12

is that just Smiles? No, no,

3:14

I don't forget the acronym. But

3:16

it was essentially they swapped out, did

3:18

a randomized control trial of giving people

3:20

healthy whole foods and then versus processed

3:22

food. And there was a

3:24

huge improvement in mental health by eating

3:27

whole foods on a depressed population.

3:30

They've done studies, for example, in

3:32

juvenile detention centers where there's a lot of

3:34

mental illness and these kids

3:36

by swapping out the crap for healthy

3:38

food had a 97 percent reduction in

3:40

violence and 75 percent

3:43

reduction in use of restraints, 100

3:45

percent reduction in suicide rates, which is the third leading

3:47

cause of death in teenage boys, profound.

3:50

It presents the same thing. You get prisoners healthy

3:52

food compared to the crap. 56

3:54

percent reduction. And it's not like you're putting

3:56

them on like they eat the food you give them. It's not like they're

3:58

going to the fridge and choosing. No. It's a

4:00

great space for a controlled study. Yeah, it is. It

4:03

is, right. Because there's no choice involved. Right,

4:05

it is, yeah. And so it's... It's not

4:07

like they have a mindset of health. No. They're just

4:09

eating whatever they're given. Right. And then they,

4:11

you know, they've violent crime goes down 56% in prison. So if you add a

4:13

multivitamin, it goes down to 80%. Wow. And

4:16

with function health, we're finding huge amounts of nutritional

4:18

efficiency. So I just had a friend who's a

4:20

vegan and he was severely omega-3 deficient, very depressed.

4:23

And he's piling on omega-3s and his mood is

4:25

completely different. And we know that omega-3s play a

4:28

huge role in mood. We know that folate and

4:30

B vitamins play a huge role. And

4:32

we know that many people are deficient in these

4:34

nutrients. And we can measure those biomarkers with testing

4:37

that wasn't available before for people. Now it's accessible

4:39

to anybody. Do you know what I think is

4:41

really significant about this little insight, especially as we're

4:43

relating it to friendship and having the mental capacity

4:45

to be there for someone, to having the strength

4:48

of mind to be present for someone else as

4:50

they're dealing with happiness or sadness or whatever they're

4:52

dealing with. Just being there to be a friend. So

4:55

often when we talk about nutrition, we talk about eating

4:57

right. We talk about you. We talk

4:59

about so that you can be healthy, so that you can

5:01

live longer, so that you don't suffer from chronic disease. And

5:04

most of us, let's be honest, it's the same reason we don't save

5:06

money. If

5:08

it doesn't have an immediate impact, it's

5:10

a slow boiling frog. Nobody

5:15

plans to get diabetes. It just

5:17

shows up after years of being like, I'll deal with

5:19

this tomorrow. In other words, we're crap at

5:21

doing things for ourselves even though the data

5:24

is overwhelming and you just exercise, sleep and

5:26

eat right, you'll be fine and healthier. But

5:28

to think about eating well as

5:31

an act of service. Yeah, to others. That

5:34

I choose to eat well, not for me,

5:37

though I may get benefits from it as an

5:39

unintended byproduct. Yeah. I

5:42

choose to eat well so that I can be a better friend

5:44

to you. I choose to eat well so that I can be

5:46

a better parent to my kids, so I'm less grumpy and less

5:49

agitated. That's right. And to think of

5:51

that, I think as an act of

5:53

service. Yeah, that's right. Well,

5:56

illness starts with I, wellness starts with

5:58

we. Well,

12:01

infectious diseases like malaria or measles or

12:03

TB, right? These are the things that

12:05

all were killing us a century ago.

12:07

Now they're pretty much not except in

12:09

certain parts of the world. But

12:11

the disease we now have are

12:14

what we call non-communicable diseases. But

12:16

that's a fallacy because they are very

12:18

communicable. They're not infectious, but they're

12:20

contagious. And chronic diseases like heart disease,

12:22

diabetes, cancer, and dementia, autoimmune

12:25

diseases, these are diseases that are driven

12:27

through our diet, toxins,

12:29

but also through our social networks.

12:32

And I realize that our social networks were

12:34

more important than our genes. The social threads

12:36

that connect us are more important than the

12:38

genetic threads. And the data is really clear

12:40

on this. Christakis' work out of Harvard outlined

12:42

this very clearly. He wrote a book called

12:44

Connected about this. But he's published a research

12:46

that showed, for example, if your friends are

12:48

overweight, you're 170% more likely to be overweight than

12:50

if your families are overweight, we are 40% more

12:53

likely to be overweight. Your social networks

12:55

are driving your behavior, for good or bad. So

12:58

I realize that, yes, we have a society where

13:01

the default is to do the wrong

13:03

thing. And that we as a

13:05

society aren't supporting each other to do the right thing.

13:08

And I realize that community was

13:10

medicine, just like food is medicine,

13:12

and that love is medicine. And that's our

13:14

anthropology, right? We're

13:16

tribal animals that grew up historically in tribes,

13:19

about 150 people, and that's how we

13:21

lived. We lived in these relatively small. We

13:24

help each other communities, communes. That's

13:27

the history of humankind. We've only started farming

13:29

10,000 or 12,000 years ago. But

13:31

for most of human history, we lived in these small

13:33

groups where we couldn't have populations larger than about 150.

13:36

What's very interesting about the little statistic that you threw out, the

13:39

thought that I had, which is when our family

13:41

is overweight, we're 40% more likely to

13:43

be overweight. But when our friends are

13:45

overweight, we're 170% more likely to be

13:47

overweight. The

13:51

immediate thing that popped into my head was

13:54

when you think about children, right? Children,

13:58

all they want is their parents' approval. Hey

14:00

mom, hey dad, watch me watch me watch me

14:02

watch me, right and they have no inhibitions in

14:05

the outside world They don't care what

14:07

the world thinks about them at all. Just mom. I'm

14:09

gonna dress like a princess I'm gonna dress like spider-man

14:12

But I want mom and dad to watch me jump

14:14

off the step All right, and I desperately want mom

14:16

and dad's approval, right and that's where all of the

14:19

Learning about what's appropriate what's inappropriate

14:21

comes from strictly from our parents.

14:23

Nothing else Yeah until they reach

14:25

about adolescence That's a peer and

14:27

adolescence we convert to only needing

14:29

our parents approval to only needing

14:31

our friends approval Frustrating

14:34

for the parents But very very important for

14:36

social animals because what we're doing is a

14:38

culturating outside of our families beyond our families

14:40

into the broader tribe Yeah, and

14:42

that lasts for the rest of our lives. We

14:44

don't actually go back to the family It's all

14:47

friends, which is why I have to believe and

14:49

I'm just sort of thinking about this out loud

14:51

now I have to believe that's the reason so

14:53

many of us go on Instagram And

14:56

wish our parents happy birthday when our

14:58

parents aren't on Instagram It's

15:02

for the social approval that I'm a good kid Like

15:08

scroll through all those pictures and everybody likes

15:10

that I'm a good son and

15:13

yet my dad's not on Instagram

15:15

Right and so I have

15:17

to wonder if that same drive that

15:19

same weird need To

15:22

want social approval for being a good son

15:25

The same it comes from a certain route I mean

15:27

a hundred percent of your if your friends are all

15:29

drinking green juices and doing Green juice and you're gonna

15:31

do the same thing if all your friends the amount

15:33

of shit that I take Because a friend's like you

15:35

should do you know that you know Because

15:38

you because you're in the industry, I'm gonna say something that's

15:41

potentially insulting to you, please I

15:44

like to talk to guests and then insult them

15:48

Everybody so I need you to

15:50

work this through me It

15:53

feels like I can't say that it is

15:55

but it feels like that

15:58

the complete explosion

16:02

in the supplement industry where

16:04

nothing is evaluated by the FDA.

16:06

Yeah. And every influencer now

16:09

has a vitamin or a supplement

16:11

or powder or a drink with

16:13

all kinds of nonsense

16:15

claims, maybe they're good,

16:18

maybe they're bad. It feels like we're

16:21

living in the dot-com boom of

16:23

supplements. Maybe, yeah. That, you know, in

16:25

the dot-com boom, you were

16:27

like, I'm investing in this tech company. Yeah.

16:29

Because my neighbor told me I had to.

16:31

Yeah. And now that's been replaced with, I'm

16:34

now taking these 87 pills per day. Yeah.

16:37

Because one friend told me to take

16:39

these four. Another friend. And just

16:41

like the dot-com boom, you can't live

16:43

in a bubble like that. It's going

16:45

to have repercussions and it's going to

16:47

be unexpected and it's going to be

16:50

pretty violent. Right. So riddle

16:53

me this, like, is it time for the FDA

16:55

to get involved? Like, I can no longer tell

16:57

the difference between a claim

16:59

on a product you're selling or

17:01

a claim on something that some, like,

17:04

literally their only qualification is they have

17:06

a following on Instagram. Yeah. Isn't

17:09

that a job? If you're going to

17:12

influence her, it's like, where was my

17:14

course in college? Influencer 101. We're

17:17

living, I think we're living in a supplement

17:19

boom. Yeah, it could be. And it's going

17:22

to, I don't know how it suddenly, you

17:25

know, kicks back. Yeah. But this kind of,

17:28

this kind of lasts forever. Yeah, I think there's

17:30

got to be. And it's counted everything you're trying

17:32

to do. Yeah. What I

17:34

want people to do is do the right thing. It's what

17:36

I've, I've spent my whole life trying to do is help

17:38

people understand how to create health. And

17:40

part of the new company I co-founded, Function Health,

17:42

is really empowering people with their own health data

17:45

to make choices that are personalized that aren't just

17:47

random because somebody said do this or do that.

17:50

And so that's what I love about the testing. I had a,

17:52

for example, a friend the other day who

17:54

showed me her results from Function and she was low in

17:56

zinc. She was low in iron. She was low in vitamin

17:58

D. She was low in omega 3 fats. I'm like, oh,

18:00

that's why you feel like. crap, you know, you need to

18:02

take these things and here's what to choose. But most people

18:04

don't have a way of navigating this sort of morass of

18:07

products that have again no regulations

18:09

in terms of quality or efficacy.

18:11

Now because people aren't protected in

18:13

the sense that they don't know if the product

18:16

they're taking has the exact

18:18

ingredient it says, if the dose is what

18:20

it says on the label, if there's any

18:22

contaminants in it, if there's any fillers or

18:24

products that kind of may be harmful to

18:26

you. So it's kind of a shit show.

18:28

And so as a physician, I've spent

18:30

a lot of time investigating which companies

18:32

are using pharmaceutical manufacturing practices

18:35

which do testing before and after their

18:37

products. So they know that's a purity

18:39

and potency is exactly right. And they

18:41

throw the product out of it isn't.

18:43

So there are good companies that are

18:45

doing that. But it's like, you

18:47

can't unless you know what to ask. I

18:50

did a thing a while ago where they

18:53

took my blood and they evaluated all of everything in

18:59

my blood from, I mean

19:01

you name it, all the

19:03

minerals and everything I'm supposed to get and have. And

19:05

then they made a personalized cocktail,

19:07

a personalized smoothie that

19:10

replaced all my things and I'm supposed to come back

19:12

every six months. And it was really

19:14

interesting. Then I talked to

19:16

a doctor who walks me through my results and

19:19

then they give me my smoothie and the only choice I

19:21

get is what flavor. And

19:24

it sounded good until

19:26

I was like, I don't even know if this

19:28

is bullshit. If they're just like, I don't. Well,

19:30

that's a problem. If someone's selling you something off

19:32

of something else, that can be a problem. It's

19:35

not always a problem. But if you're

19:37

saying I've done all of the things for a little

19:39

bit, like I took AG1 for a few months and

19:41

I mean, I do all these things. I

19:43

feel the same. Like, like

19:45

I've done AG1, I've done Clostrum,

19:47

I've done, I mean, I've, you

19:49

know, and again, all because somebody's like, you should try it.

19:51

And there are people who I trust.

19:54

That's why I did it. And, you know, like you

19:56

take these things like it boosts your immune system. How

19:59

do you measure that? I exactly I got a cold.

20:01

So does it work or does it not work? Well,

20:03

you would have been worse if you didn't I mean,

20:05

like, I don't know. And I you know, you start

20:07

I get very cynical. Sometimes I'm all in and sometimes

20:09

I'm very cynical. I'm in a very cynical mode. No,

20:11

I hear that. And I think it's fair and you're

20:13

right to be cynical. And I think there's a lot

20:16

of garbage out there and a lot of people pushing

20:18

stuff. And there's a lot of companies, for example, doing

20:20

tests and then selling you products in the

20:22

back end. I think there's a problem with that. Okay.

20:24

For example, function health, we don't do that at all. We

20:26

just say, okay, for example, you have these things that

20:28

you found that you need to fix that are affecting your

20:30

health and well being. And here's how to make a

20:32

decision. For example, we have a 30 page

20:35

guide on how to choose the right and you don't take

20:37

we don't sell and you don't take kickbacks from the product.

20:39

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, we're

20:42

completely agnostic. We don't have any do whatever

20:44

you want. You just need this. No,

20:47

but not only do I want but if you're going to

20:49

if you need something, here's how to choose the right product.

20:51

Here's how to investigate the company. And here's the questions to

20:53

ask. And here's what to look for. And here's how to

20:55

make a good decision. So we're teaching how to fish, not

20:58

giving you a fish. I like that you're doing this,

21:01

but I remember I'm in a cynical mode. What

21:04

else is new? Which

21:09

is when there's when there's a good business model,

21:11

even if it's for the greater good,

21:14

because money is fuel and that's totally fine. That

21:17

means you will have competition and other people will

21:19

start doing similar things. And then we're back at

21:22

square one, which is all of these

21:24

companies are going to be funded by VC. And

21:26

you and I know too well, unfortunately,

21:28

the way VC and PE works, which

21:31

is they all are wonderful return, they're

21:33

all fantastic in the beginning. And they

21:35

are so behind you and your vision at the

21:38

beginning, and just wait three to five to seven

21:40

years. And all of a sudden, the pressures start

21:42

to show up. And the growth, we want growth,

21:44

because that's our business model, not your business model.

21:46

And then all of a sudden, especially if you've

21:48

given up controlling interests, you will

21:50

have built up this beautiful brand, you

21:53

get fired from your own company. I mean,

21:56

the number of companies that have like the

21:58

brand of Veda, Burt's B. Kashi,

22:01

Amy's. These were... Well, they got bought

22:04

by Kraft and big food company. They

22:06

were all great brands that built their

22:08

brands based on natural ingredients.

22:10

And we believed it because the founders

22:12

were true. And then they sold to

22:15

Kraft and L'Oreal and whoever

22:17

buys these companies. They stripped the beautiful

22:20

things out, put the shit in because

22:22

they can increase margin. But we're none

22:24

the wiser. We don't know which CEOs

22:26

got fired from beautiful companies. We don't know

22:29

that these companies are owned by large conglomerates

22:31

that are driven by shareholder value. And then

22:33

we end up suffering for these products that

22:35

we were told were good and they were

22:38

good until they weren't good. And we're back

22:40

at square one. So I think we should

22:42

just have friends. Well,

22:45

let's get back to the conversation about

22:47

friendship because I think that the fundamental

22:51

thing is... We should garden and farm

22:53

with our friends and eat our own

22:55

food. Well, we can't live... I mean,

22:57

when you look at the problem... Subsistence

23:00

farming. That's what... I think that's right.

23:02

I mean, I think community gardens are

23:04

amazing. I think they're a great service

23:06

for people. And I think that what

23:08

we're finding is that

23:10

loneliness is as

23:12

big a killer as anything else. Some have said

23:14

it's equivalent to smoking two packs of cigarettes a

23:17

day. And how many, especially

23:19

men, don't have someone

23:21

who's a good friend. How

23:23

many people don't have somebody to call when

23:26

shit goes down? I

23:28

go back to the work that I did some years ago

23:30

when I was writing Leaders Eat Last with

23:33

Alcoholics Anonymous. If you

23:35

want to overcome alcoholism as a 12 step program, most

23:38

of us are familiar with the first step. Admit

23:40

you have a problem. Okay, let's say

23:43

I'm depressed or I'm lonely. Let's admit that's

23:45

the problem. But

23:47

it's the 12th step that people don't

23:49

talk about. And Alcoholics Anonymous knows exactly.

23:51

Alcoholics Anonymous knows that you're a you

23:54

can master 11 steps and

23:56

not the 12th and you also come to the disease. And it's the...

23:59

Exactly to help another. alcoholic, it's service. And

24:01

so I think the people who are the most

24:03

lonely are the ones who have to go

24:06

first. Because the way

24:08

to solve your problem is to help your

24:10

friend who's suffering from the same problem. If

24:12

you're an alcoholic, you help another alcoholic. If

24:14

you're lonely, help a friend who's lonely. And

24:17

I think that the the therapeutic

24:20

benefits of helping someone who's

24:22

struggling with the same thing that you're struggling with, rather

24:24

than worrying about yourself goes right back to the gym. You

24:27

know, there's a huge biology to it, dude, I don't know if

24:29

you know, but there's a whole field of socio genomics, which

24:32

is how our social interactions affect our

24:34

gene expression. Say more. So

24:37

if you're in a conflictual relationship

24:39

with someone, your inflammatory

24:41

genes are turned on literally not just your

24:44

emotions are inflamed, but your biology turns on

24:46

the inflammation system fight or

24:48

flight kind of stuff, not fight or flight,

24:50

just if you're like in a shitty relationship,

24:52

or if you're fighting with someone or you

24:54

have a conflict, you turn

24:56

on inflammatory genes that then increase

24:59

expression of cytokines that cause inflammation

25:01

and that cause disease and all

25:03

chronic disease from depression, to heart

25:05

disease, to diabetes, to obesity, Alzheimer's

25:07

are all inflammatory diseases. Conversely,

25:10

if you have a connected loving

25:12

relationship with somebody, it

25:14

turns on anti inflammatory genes. And

25:16

this inflammation is the core of like everything. Yeah. And

25:19

maybe the study of an entrainment, you know, where you

25:21

have where if you sit with someone and you have

25:24

an authentic connection that

25:28

you can put EEG and EKGs on basically

25:30

brainwaves and heart waves, you

25:32

can see the heartbeat of

25:35

someone you're having a deep connected relationship with

25:37

in your brainwaves. It's

25:40

wild. So it's not just a

25:43

feel good thing on an emotional level. It's a

25:45

physiological response that happens of being in connection. If

25:47

you take animals and put them in cages

25:50

and separate animals and

25:52

feed them exactly the same thing and have

25:54

everything else the same, the one that's isolated

25:56

versus the ones that are connected will

25:58

shrivel and dying at sick. And so humans

26:01

are the same way. And we've gotten into a situation where

26:03

friendship and connection is sort of like. Okay.

26:08

So why aren't doctors prescribing to spend more time with friends?

26:12

I do. Like doctor, I'm suffering

26:14

from X, Y and Z. Yeah. Okay. I'd like you

26:16

to try and get an extra hour of sleep. Go

26:18

to bed a little earlier. I'd like you to stop

26:20

eating before, you know, eat. No, don't

26:22

eat past eight o'clock at night. And I want you

26:24

to spend at least three hours a week with a

26:26

friend. How come that's not on a perspective? It

26:29

should be a prescription. It should be. It should

26:31

be. I mean, I prescribe it. In fact, based

26:33

on this work that I did in Haiti, I

26:36

met a pastor after Rick Warren who

26:38

wrote the purpose driven life and had a church

26:40

with 30,000 members. And I

26:42

met him. He came to my office and we started

26:44

talking. And I said, Hey, you know, Rick, tell me about

26:46

your church because I really I'm a Jewish doctor from New

26:48

York. I don't know much about even total Christian church. Like,

26:50

yeah, we got 30,000 people. Like, wow,

26:53

it's a lot of megachurchies. Like, yeah, we got

26:55

5,000 groups that meet every week. Small groups in

26:57

the church to help each other live better lives.

26:59

I'm like, Oh, this isn't a megachurch. This is

27:01

thousands of mini churches. Yeah. And I had that

27:03

the light bulb moment. I'm like, well, I just

27:05

come back from Haiti. I said, why don't we

27:08

put a healthy living program into the groups

27:10

to see what happens? Yeah. He's a great idea because

27:12

I was baptizing my church last week. And after

27:15

about the 800th person, I'm like, man, we're a fat church

27:17

and I'm fat. And we got to do something about it.

27:20

And so we put a program together through the

27:22

small groups where people were just helping each other.

27:24

There was no doctor, nutritionist, health coach, nobody. There

27:26

was just a curriculum. We had a

27:28

big rally. So a big event where we talked

27:31

about and Rick talked about the biblical rationale

27:33

for why God wants us to be healthy.

27:36

I gave a bunch of speeches and talked about how, you

27:38

know, God lives in you. Why are you feeding him crap

27:40

and things like that? I mean, you know, Jesus came to

27:42

dinner. Won't you feed him? You know, big Mac fries and

27:44

a Coke and they got it. Ain't that

27:47

the truth? And ain't that the truth?

27:49

If Jesus came to dinner, what would you feed him? Exactly.

27:51

So they got it. I said, you know, if you feel

27:53

like crap, how are you going to serve God? How are

27:55

you going to serve each other? You've got to take care

27:57

of your body. And as they got it and they did.

28:00

this together in community was jogging for Jesus and

28:02

they all these incredible it was incredible and they

28:04

lost together a quarter million pounds in the first

28:06

year and they did it together and then I

28:08

took that same model and I applied it at

28:10

Cleveland Clinic where we created small groups where people

28:13

helped each other we did research

28:15

on us and published it there were three times

28:18

better health outcomes on validated

28:20

metrics of health outcomes compared

28:22

to one-on-one visits for the

28:24

same condition with the same

28:26

doctors so the doctors at

28:28

our clinic could see them in one-on-one or they

28:30

support them in a group right the group was

28:33

three times as good as seeing the doctor one-on-one

28:35

in terms of why but why aren't these things

28:37

then being implemented across the

28:40

medical field trying why aren't we

28:42

going to the doctor with our

28:44

friends yeah to dealing

28:46

with similar issues why aren't we

28:49

like everything's so yeah siloed

28:52

it is essential I

28:54

mean I think you know the models of

28:56

support whether it's coaching whether it's one-on-one coaching

28:58

or support whether it's group models they have

29:00

to be the thing that's going to change

29:03

because our we get healthy together or we

29:05

get sick together what did Benjamin

29:07

Franklin say we we must all hang

29:10

together or surely we'll all hang separately I mean

29:12

and I think that's kind of where we're at

29:14

in society where we are yeah one

29:16

of the problems we have in our society is community

29:18

things you know bowling leagues don't exist anymore church

29:21

attendance is down yeah and church attendance

29:23

and faith are not the same thing

29:25

you know you can have faith and not go

29:28

to church and you can go to church and

29:30

not have faith that's right the church would rather

29:32

that they're overlapping yeah but the idea of doing

29:34

things in commune in community this is why I

29:36

love things like comic-con or burning man or whatever

29:39

you're you know then you've never been to burning

29:41

man I have been to burning you have yeah

29:43

Oh sturgis that the

29:45

motorcycle thing yeah I was angels like

29:48

all of these things doing things in

29:50

community with people who have common interest yeah

29:53

and one of the questions I'm getting since I've

29:56

started talking about friendship it's amazing how many people

29:58

are coming up to me who

30:00

are of all ages, of

30:03

all income levels, who

30:05

are saying to me, I don't

30:07

know how to make friends. I struggle to make

30:09

friends. Because we're afraid to be authentic. I

30:11

mean, that's the hard part, right? Have you

30:13

ever struggled to make friends? When I was a

30:15

kid, I didn't have any. I was

30:17

a weird kid. I just was in my head, read a

30:20

lot of books, was a little weird and kind of

30:22

a nerd. I was living

30:24

in Toronto in the 70s. It was a spiritual wasteland.

30:28

In fact, I actually, my first real friend,

30:31

I met on the top of a mountain in

30:33

the Canadian Rockies. We were backpacking and it was a

30:35

week out in the middle of nowhere

30:37

by myself. He was a week out and

30:40

we crossed over on Badger Pass in

30:42

Banff National Park and we just had

30:44

this kind of moment of connection and

30:47

we both found out we were gonna be at Cornell in

30:50

the fall. He was in Ithaca College, I was at Cornell. We

30:53

got back and we got together and we didn't know if

30:55

we were gonna be friends or not, but

30:57

we became like brothers and we

30:59

did well this. Still friends today? He's

31:01

my best friend. Oh, no kidding. 46

31:04

years later. Wow. Yeah, 46 years later, we

31:06

do mountain bike trips all over. We're

31:09

very close and we

31:11

help each other and when one's down, the other picks one up.

31:13

When I'm down, he picks me up. When he's down, I pick

31:15

him up and we've had

31:17

this really sustained, deep, authentic, intimate

31:20

relationship for 45 years. That's

31:23

amazing. We love each other,

31:25

we hug each other, we cry together, we

31:27

laugh together. And it

31:30

was a place where I could

31:32

say and be and do anything and

31:35

it was a remarkable experience for me to actually feel

31:37

seen and loved. It was like the first person who

31:39

loved me who didn't actually have to love me like

31:41

my parents. Here's something

31:43

I discovered about Close Friendships. Which

31:46

is we always talk about close friends as

31:48

the person you would call when

31:50

you're in need, when you need help, the person

31:53

you can cry with, the person when you're in

31:55

pain. And I actually think that's true. That's a

31:57

level of close friendship that you can call that

31:59

person in a time. time of struggle or need. But

32:01

I think there's even a closer level

32:03

of friendship, which is when you can call

32:05

somebody when something amazing happened. And they're not

32:08

jealous. And there's no jealousy and you can

32:10

call them and what you're doing is bragging,

32:12

but not really. You just

32:14

need to tell someone about this amazing thing that you

32:16

accomplished or that was given to you or that you

32:19

won or that you know whatever it is and if

32:21

you were told anybody else they'd be like they

32:23

think you were bragging. But to

32:26

that friend they have unbridled joy

32:28

with you and for you and what

32:30

I've learned is the number of people I would call

32:32

with good news is actually smaller

32:34

than the number of people I would call with bad

32:37

news. That's interesting. Well you can call me with good

32:39

news. Oh thank you. Do you

32:41

know what I mean? Yeah. Well it is. It's

32:43

important to take an inventory of your life and

32:45

your friends and and if you don't have good

32:47

friends it's really important to cultivate them, to invest

32:50

in them, to find them. And

32:52

there's ways to do that. I mean there's ways to

32:54

put yourself in environments and situations and I

32:56

don't know probably so those articles in New York Times

32:58

about men and friendships and it was just it was

33:00

just so heartbreaking and when Covid happened you know we're

33:03

all isolated we're all alone and in September

33:06

2020 my

33:08

wife and I split up I had

33:10

just had back surgery I was alone it

33:12

was Covid and what did I

33:14

do? I sent an email to my

33:16

closest men friends, six other men

33:20

who I you know done men's work

33:22

with, done men's retreats with, done medicine

33:24

journeys with and I said hey

33:26

guys like can we start a little Zoom

33:30

once a week for an hour maybe and

33:33

they're like how about we do two hours every

33:35

week you know and we've been

33:37

going for it's plus four

33:39

years now and it's it's

33:42

remarkable to have this container and what's

33:44

been interesting to watch is that even though these these were

33:46

all my close friends for 40 years

33:48

30 years that the depth

33:51

of our friendship has gotten more profound

33:53

the more vulnerable we've gotten the more

33:56

we open our hearts the more we share our fears

33:58

the more we share our