Latest / The iAlign Podcast with Flint Mitchell / #37 - Stitching Together a Life of Neurosurgery and Surfing with Dr. Peter Weber

Transcript

#37 - Stitching Together a Life of Neurosurgery and Surfing with Dr. Peter Weber · The iAlign Podcast with Flint Mitchell

0:03
SPEAKER_02: What I decided was that you you can take time for yourself and appreciate those moments, but there are times when you have to focus and to do something and even sacrifice and move whatever you're doing forward because uh life is a forward progression, not a backwards one.
0:36
SPEAKER_01: What's up, y'all?
0:37
SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Seeking Authenticity.
0:39
SPEAKER_01: My name is Flint Mitchell, and I get absolutely psyched by having conversations with authentic people that I admire about the things they value.
0:48
SPEAKER_01: Their stories and perspectives don't just make me smile, laugh, and think.
0:52
SPEAKER_01: They inspire me to wake up earlier, listen better, focus, and work harder, and help make me a better version of myself.
0:59
SPEAKER_01: And it's my hope that sharing these conversations through this podcast might do the same thing for you.
1:07
SPEAKER_01: The priorities of life have kept me from posting these podcasts for a little while, so I'm excited to bring them back.
1:13
SPEAKER_01: I have a book coming out this October 2021, and I'll be releasing episodes of this podcast at a slightly slower pace this time, during the process of publishing that book.
1:23
SPEAKER_01: The book is also called Seeking Authenticity and follows similar trends from this podcast, providing commentary on things that I find important in life.
1:31
SPEAKER_01: I'll be releasing more information regarding the book soon.
1:34
SPEAKER_01: Now, in this episode, I talk with Dr.
1:36
SPEAKER_01: Peter Weber, a surfer and neurosurgeon from the Bay Area, California.
1:40
SPEAKER_01: Dr.
1:40
SPEAKER_01: Weber is a super humble and rad dude.
1:43
SPEAKER_01: I loved having him on.
1:44
SPEAKER_01: We talk about his path to becoming a physician and neurosurgeon, witnessing medicine abroad, balancing both work and play, but also meditation and reflection versus action, finding true focus, and making sacrifices in life.
1:56
SPEAKER_01: I hope you enjoy the conversation.
1:59
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for doing this with me, Dr.
2:01
SPEAKER_01: Weber.
2:01
SPEAKER_01: I appreciate it.
2:03
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I'm so excited to be talking to you.
2:06
SPEAKER_01: Very excited to have you on as well.
2:08
SPEAKER_01: No, I've I've always looked up to you.
2:10
SPEAKER_01: I think that you've created this really cool balance between uh the massive responsibilities you have as a surgeon, as a doctor, with also creating a lot of adventure with your family and through surfing and traveling.
2:25
SPEAKER_01: So I'm pretty excited to hear your take on kind of that work-life balance as well as how you've pursued those adventures over time.
2:35
SPEAKER_01: With that said, I'd love if you could tell me a bit about how you chose medicine.
2:40
SPEAKER_01: What was the time period like when you decided to commit to it?
2:45
SPEAKER_02: Well, well, I'll try to make it interesting.
2:48
SPEAKER_02: But first, let me say I look up to you too, man.
2:51
SPEAKER_02: And you're uh you're kind of my idol, too.
2:54
SPEAKER_02: Because uh that whole van thing and uh you know being a surfer and and having a good attitude, that's that's I think what we should aspire to is getting the most out of life.
3:05
SPEAKER_02: But let me uh let me go back.
3:10
SPEAKER_02: So uh my dad was a doctor, my grandfather was a doctor, but you know, it's not it's not in the genes.
3:18
SPEAKER_02: I don't think that's really real, but I think it was in the family.
3:22
SPEAKER_02: And we had a a lot of exposure growing up.
3:25
SPEAKER_02: My dad worked really hard, but I showed a little interest early on, and he he kind of pulled me in, he brought me into the operating room when I was 15.
3:35
SPEAKER_02: And I remember there was this guy, Doug Pinto, operating, and I and I walk into the room, and Doug was the best surgeon ever.
3:45
SPEAKER_02: I mean, he still is talked about as a legend.
3:48
SPEAKER_02: How fell.
3:49
SPEAKER_02: And I totally admired the guy up until the time he passed, and still do talk about him, but he was doing a kidney transplant, which was really early in the days of kidney transplants.
4:00
SPEAKER_02: And I walked into the room and there's smoke everywhere, and it smells like human flesh.
4:06
SPEAKER_02: And I'm thinking, wow, this is gross.
4:11
SPEAKER_00: What's going on, man?
4:13
SPEAKER_00: But he was he was using one of the cottering devices to take down the incision.
4:19
SPEAKER_00: And literally, man, the room was filled with smoke, wasn't good ventilation.
4:23
SPEAKER_02: Oh, darling, and uh, but anyway, I I uh I remember that was my first experience, and I I kept an interest and was kind of looking at it from afar, and I had a science sort of a mind.
4:40
SPEAKER_02: I would never be a good English teacher.
4:43
SPEAKER_02: Like I still don't understand what the green light means in the Great Gadsby book.
4:51
SPEAKER_00: Because I can't get the metaphor and I can't get the symbolisms.
4:56
SPEAKER_00: You know what?
4:57
SPEAKER_00: That's just not me, man.
4:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
5:00
SPEAKER_00: So wait, I knew I wasn't gonna be an English teacher.
5:04
SPEAKER_00: So doctors are next best one.
5:06
SPEAKER_00: Wait, so so that's my fallback was like, yeah, yeah, maybe I could do the doctor thing.
5:13
SPEAKER_00: So pretty heavy fallback.
5:16
SPEAKER_02: So I ended up in in uh I was a I was a dumbass in high school.
5:20
SPEAKER_02: I mean, everybody that that knew me well in high school meets me now and says, dude, you were like the last guy I would have imagined to become a neurosurgeon.
5:32
SPEAKER_02: It's kind of funny to meet those guys because like at the high school reunions, like, really?
5:37
SPEAKER_01: That's what you do?
5:39
SPEAKER_01: Well, all right.
5:40
SPEAKER_01: I I actually tell this to my friends about you because I I love telling people about you, um, and kind of how you've mixed surfing with uh with medicine.
5:51
SPEAKER_01: And I usually say it's the word humble, is that when when people when you talk, you don't put off any sort of vibe like you're better than anyone else, or that your your job gives you, I don't know, uh any sort of arrogance.
6:09
SPEAKER_01: If I need to, but no, I'm just saying you you don't come off that way, you don't do that, and so I think that first perspective, maybe that's something that I don't know, people see in those careers, you know.
6:21
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I I you know there's all kinds of people going into the field, but we'll we'll get into that.
6:26
SPEAKER_02: But let me like I got I got a little more story here.
6:29
SPEAKER_02: Wait, so on the on the uh becoming a doctor thing.
6:33
SPEAKER_02: So then uh I got to college and I said, okay, maybe I gotta like get get going in life kind of thing, because I wasn't really going anywhere in life.
6:44
SPEAKER_02: And I uh I decided that when I got to college, I said, well, if I get good grades, then maybe I'll go to um well, I try getting into medical school and see what happens.
6:56
SPEAKER_02: But I gotta get good grades, I know that.
6:58
SPEAKER_02: And if I don't, I'll I'll I'll do something else.
7:00
SPEAKER_02: Not really sure what the something else was gonna be, but I knew I was gonna have to have a plan B somewhere.
7:06
SPEAKER_02: But I got good grades, and then uh in my sophomore year of college, it was uh 1980, uh 1979-80, and my uh dad uh and mom were working with a volunteer organization that was providing health care into the refugee camps for the uh refugees coming out of Laos and Cambodia uh during the time of the Khmer Rouge and uh the extreme migrations that occurred.
7:33
SPEAKER_02: Um, the boat people, you heard about those.
7:36
SPEAKER_02: And their group was running a little hospital in one of the refugee camps, and uh, my dad uh and mom brought all four of the boys over there uh over a long Christmas break.
7:48
SPEAKER_02: And we just dove in and he was uh spelling the guys uh in the hospital.
7:55
SPEAKER_02: It was just a makeshift thing in this refugee camp.
7:58
SPEAKER_02: And what do you mean by had an operating room with sketchy electricity and flies buzzing around, but they were trying to do the best they could.
8:06
SPEAKER_02: It was called the Tom Dooley Heritage, and that hospital and the people that worked there, like Peter Anderson, was was a real eye-opener.
8:15
SPEAKER_02: And my dad said, Hey, you know, come on into the operating room and we'll do stuff.
8:19
SPEAKER_02: And I said, Cool.
8:21
SPEAKER_02: And so I was literally his first assistant at the age of 18 in an OR in Thailand in a refugee camp, and him showing me like how to hold stuff and what to do, and something clicked there, and it was so much fun.
8:39
SPEAKER_02: I mean, in a in a humbling way, but also in an exciting way, like, hey God, this is really cool.
8:45
SPEAKER_02: I think I could do this.
8:47
SPEAKER_02: So I came back with uh a renewed uh vigor for this, and I went, I transferred out of UC Santa Barbara, probably for the wrong reasons, but um probably should have stayed there, but uh and then just kept moving, and then things kind of fall into place.
9:03
SPEAKER_02: You you you like look at the endpoint and you try to see yourself there, and you just take every day as the next step in that direction, and things just kept falling into place, and it eventually turned into this, you know, a job.
9:18
SPEAKER_02: And yeah, you know, it's just what what I do, and I I figured I I had some exposure that was nice, but I had the interest, and that was nice, and I figured out after getting the grades that I had probably had the intellect, and then you got to just develop a skill set, and that's how it all happened.
9:35
SPEAKER_02: I mean, there's more to the story, but it's sure, yeah.
9:38
SPEAKER_02: That's how the the wheel started turning.
9:40
SPEAKER_01: Definitely.
9:41
SPEAKER_01: Why so you transferred universities?
9:45
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, it's totally fallacious argument at this point, but when I was I told you I was a dumbass in high school.
9:54
SPEAKER_02: So when I when I uh applied to colleges, I applied to all these East Coast and Ivy League schools, thinking, yeah, that's what I need to do, uh, get into a good school.
10:04
SPEAKER_02: But I had shitty grades and nothing to show for in sports because I wasn't very athletic.
10:11
SPEAKER_02: And my basically not much.
10:13
SPEAKER_02: So but I applied to top schools like Dartmouth, Amherst, Williams, Brown, and I thought, hey, I need to go to Brown, but you know, they would have had they would have considered me like a uh a special case if they had taken me.
10:27
SPEAKER_02: They would have had to because I wasn't showing any kind of promise at that point.
10:31
SPEAKER_02: So I ended up in a really good school called UC Santa Barbara, and and uh because I didn't get anywhere on the East Coast, and for a guy who surfs, it's like the best place in the world to go to school.
10:47
SPEAKER_02: So I had a wonderful time there, but I I got in with a crowd of people that was just crazy.
10:53
SPEAKER_02: I mean, out of control crazy.
10:55
SPEAKER_02: Santa Barbara has that, man.
10:58
SPEAKER_02: I thought, I thought I cannot spend my life doing this, uh departing like this and and getting good grades because there's something that's a mismatch here.
11:09
SPEAKER_02: And since I got good grades, I realized, well, why don't I use this opportunity to transfer to like that East Coast school that I could maybe put on my application, thinking that UC Santa Barbara was not as good as East Coast schools.
11:23
SPEAKER_02: So I got into Duke and I went to Duke, but you know, 20 years down the road, I should have just stayed at Santa Barbara.
11:29
SPEAKER_02: If I had a good friend crew, I could have just adjusted my partying a little bit, not been so crazy.
11:35
SPEAKER_02: It's surprising.
11:36
SPEAKER_02: I would have gotten into a great medical school.
11:38
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it was fine, but in the end, I got I graduated from Duke, and I I even sort of uh parlayed Duke into uh a little more ocean time by becoming a marine biology minor.
11:53
SPEAKER_02: And uh that was um a semester on the coast uh at their marine biology lab.
11:59
SPEAKER_02: So the ocean's always been a part of the story, so it'll keep playing in as we keep talking.
12:05
SPEAKER_02: But that was that was good experience, but I probably should have stayed in Singapore.
12:11
SPEAKER_01: No, that's that's I I uh actually had a very similar mindset.
12:16
SPEAKER_01: Uh in college or in high school, I wasn't I wasn't a bad student, but I definitely wasn't a top-tier student.
12:25
SPEAKER_01: And everyone I knew was going to schools in California, right?
12:30
SPEAKER_01: I was from California and I was going to SMU in Texas.
12:33
SPEAKER_01: People are like, Why are you going to Texas?
12:35
SPEAKER_01: I was like, Well, I didn't get into a single California school.
12:40
SPEAKER_01: So there's that.
12:43
SPEAKER_01: Uh I actually had the exact same mindset because my sophomore year, this is actually this is really funny parallel.
12:50
SPEAKER_01: I was living in my fraternity house, sophomore year, and I was just getting to a point where I was kind of over uh the that scene.
13:01
SPEAKER_01: And so I was actually looking into you know what what better schools would be the ones that could that could pull me out of this.
13:09
SPEAKER_01: Uh and I I ended up realizing that I just had to switch my own attitude.
13:14
SPEAKER_01: But uh it's it's it's it's not about them, it's about you.
13:19
SPEAKER_00: 100% that's a great parallel.
13:24
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
13:25
SPEAKER_01: That's so funny.
13:25
SPEAKER_01: I didn't know that.
13:27
SPEAKER_01: How how has this is an interesting one though?
13:30
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's better to answer later, but I'll ask you now.
13:34
SPEAKER_01: Is how do you decide?
13:36
SPEAKER_01: Uh because it sounds like the ocean and surfing and marine biology and all that is is a big draw for you.
13:42
SPEAKER_01: Um, how did you decide that that wasn't the the path to go down instead of medicine?
13:51
SPEAKER_02: Oh, hmm.
13:52
SPEAKER_02: That's a tough one.
13:53
SPEAKER_02: There's no jobs in marine biology.
13:57
SPEAKER_02: You know, if you you look at the total number of job postings for highly qualified marine biologists in the country, there's it's probably you know 10.
14:08
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
14:08
SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm over stadium.
14:10
SPEAKER_02: Right.
14:10
SPEAKER_01: No, no, but it's a good point.
14:11
SPEAKER_02: But then it was always just a a it was it was it was more of a pastime and a way of keeping connection with the ocean than it was a diversion that would have taken me away from medicine.
14:26
SPEAKER_02: So I I don't want to put too much import on it because it wasn't it wasn't like that.
14:31
SPEAKER_02: It was I wasn't thinking I was gonna discover the next, you know, jellyfish, hemoglobin, you know, molluscular.
14:38
SPEAKER_01: Sure, you can I got you.
14:40
SPEAKER_01: I I I guess it's less about that, it's more on just uh I mean, being a being a doctor, you don't get to spend probably as much time as you would like.
14:51
SPEAKER_01: Maybe this isn't true, uh, but in those kind of hobbies and passions, surfing or fishing or boating or what uh sailing, whatever it is.
15:01
SPEAKER_01: Um, how do you balance that desire to go out and have fun in the ocean with uh I I guess maybe it's just the fact that you found a job you really enjoyed.
15:14
SPEAKER_02: No, it's a hundred percent true what you're saying.
15:16
SPEAKER_02: You know, it's a job that does take a lot of time and it pulls you in a direction that asks you to make sacrifices in other parts of your lives.
15:28
SPEAKER_02: And I I've been lucky in many ways.
15:31
SPEAKER_02: Um, I married a woman that um put up with all this.
15:35
SPEAKER_02: She's a marvelous travel companion, uh a best friend in the way that I've uh I've moved around the country looking for the next opportunity for myself in medicine and her going with me and making the best out of every one of those scenarios just tells you how much character is involved in that.
15:58
SPEAKER_02: And I think that's a really important part of this.
16:01
SPEAKER_02: It pulls you from your family, it pulls you from your wife, it pulls you from the ocean, it pulls you from uh all these other things that make you whole, but you uh I I I analogize it.
16:13
SPEAKER_02: Uh I was telling somebody the other day that if imagine you you standing on a high dive and you're about to take this jump into medicine, and you you dive off the the board and you don't you land in the water, and when you enter medicine, you're entering into the the water, and you go underwater for a little while.
16:37
SPEAKER_02: And if you're comfortable with the ocean, you look around while you're down there and you go, Yeah, this is pretty cool, and you spend a little time swimming around underneath and the surface, and and eventually you come back up on the other uh uh side uh where the the water gets back into the air, and that's where you are at the end of your training.
17:01
SPEAKER_02: And when you take that dive, you're you're in a whole new world.
17:05
SPEAKER_02: It's got its own language, it's got a really interesting group of people, you travel to amazing places, you do incredible things, you learn from really great role models, and that's but you're underwater and you're the rest of the world is sort of going on around you and you don't really know it.
17:26
SPEAKER_02: But until you come out of that training, you're just trying to make the best of what you're doing at the time, and then you come out and you you kind of get to live your life again, but you spend a lot of you sacrifice a lot of time and and um personal time with others and doing things that you do uh during that training time, and it's a sacrifice.
17:48
SPEAKER_02: But once you come up with the other end, you you can kind of design it the way you want to, but you got to put in the time.
17:53
SPEAKER_02: So that's that's kind of what it seemed like at the time.
17:58
SPEAKER_02: But having then gotten into a program in Texas that was on the coast, the whole ocean thing uh was able to still uh continue to be a part of my life.
18:09
SPEAKER_02: And I remember the like the first days of of internship, I'm I met one of the orderlies, and I I had a pair of clothes that I've been wearing for four days, and I smelled really bad because I my stuff hadn't showed up yet.
18:23
SPEAKER_02: And and he and I just hit it off, and and he was a surfer, and you know, you you can figure things like that out in an elevator ride, right?
18:32
SPEAKER_02: It's like an instant friendship thing, and uh we ended up uh surfing together and and the hurricanes would come through, and uh I would try to get off when the hurricanes came through.
18:47
SPEAKER_02: We we had a lot of fun.
18:49
SPEAKER_02: It was in Galveston, Texas.
18:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
18:51
SPEAKER_02: Uh but but we worked our asses off, and it was a huge sacrifice to my life.
18:57
SPEAKER_01: No, and and I I like that analogy.
19:00
SPEAKER_01: It's it's a pretty good one.
19:01
SPEAKER_01: And being under the surface is not only are you in a different world, but it's almost uh, I mean, you only have so much breath, right?
19:11
SPEAKER_01: You it no one can stay underwater forever.
19:13
SPEAKER_01: At some point, you have to come back up to the surface and kind of see where you're at, right?
19:17
SPEAKER_02: Um that's a that's a great extension of the idea.
19:20
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
19:21
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you're right.
19:22
SPEAKER_02: You gotta you gotta come up and live your life at some point, but you gotta understand that there's a sacrifice involved, and it's not for everybody.
19:29
SPEAKER_02: And it's it's not like you can preach it and to a room of a hundred people and convince them all that that's the right thing that they should do, because it's not the right thing that they should do for for a large number of those people.
19:40
SPEAKER_02: It's only the right thing for a small number of those people willing to make those sacrifices, but dedicated to the idea.
19:46
SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean, I and I would definitely agree in the context of medicine, but then at the same time, it feels like that is most likely the path, even if maybe it's on a lesser level, for uh becoming successful in any career.
20:02
SPEAKER_01: I I guess my question to that would would be how do you what do you tell yourself, or do you tell yourself, are you just living that the sacrifice is worth it?
20:14
SPEAKER_01: That when you're missing out time with friends or the perfect swell on the coast, you know, the perfect snowstorm in the mountains, right?
20:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, these are sacrifices, whether it's frivolous or not.
20:25
SPEAKER_01: How what do you tell yourself that you're doing the right thing?
20:29
SPEAKER_01: That's a great insight, Flint.
20:30
SPEAKER_02: And I think your your emotional intelligence is off the charts.
20:35
SPEAKER_02: Uh what I I think is important to take from that question is that you you um if you went into investment banking, you would spend the first 10 years at the bottom of the rung.
20:49
SPEAKER_02: You know, you're not gonna go into the top job.
20:54
SPEAKER_02: Back in those days when you know they were making you stay up all night and you have to get this proposal done by the morning, and you're ordering out pizza, your life was on hold.
21:04
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
21:06
SPEAKER_02: Maybe you're living in New York City and and you're you're the you're the you're the bottom of the barrel, and nobody gives you respect, and you get you get uh heaved on, and and uh you're not surfing, you know.
21:20
SPEAKER_02: Maybe you you don't get to do that, but at some point you come back up out of that.
21:25
SPEAKER_02: So I think there's a lot of jobs and and a lot of ways you could take that same thing, uh, that same idea, plug it into you gotta work hard in the beginning.
21:34
SPEAKER_02: That's just what you do, and that's just how life is.
21:38
SPEAKER_02: And and the generation that came before me, uh, I think instilled that in us.
21:43
SPEAKER_02: I think the millennials have a slightly different view of it.
21:46
SPEAKER_02: And I don't know where the pendulum is eventually gonna settle.
21:50
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
21:51
SPEAKER_02: But uh it is an aspect of uh decision making that I don't think you appreciate when you're in it, you only get to look back on it in a Sense and say, oh yeah, God, I guess I did lose a couple of years of my life when I was doing all this.
22:06
SPEAKER_02: But it seems like it might have been worth it in the end.
22:10
SPEAKER_02: So your your point is really good.
22:12
SPEAKER_02: You you you maybe don't have to make if you're smart, smart enough and you have something that you're interested in early on that allows you to have all these other things like the extracurriculars and even your surfing, uh, then power to you.
22:28
SPEAKER_02: But if instead you've made this choice to fix to do something that has uh the requirement of these sacrifices, well, understand that that's just the payment that you're you're gonna have to make.
22:38
SPEAKER_02: And hopefully the people around you understand it and are are willing to go the the mile with you.
22:44
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
22:45
SPEAKER_01: And and that, you know, I think that you're right, it does speak true to a lot of different industries and a lot of different careers, probably most paths in life.
22:57
SPEAKER_01: And then really tying that into uh your comment about your I mean you've made a couple comments related to both your wife and the people around you, is it sounds like one of the really important aspects of going down one of these difficult paths is building um a group around you that can support you, you know.
23:28
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I I do think that much of life though is self-directed and having a support network is a really essential part of being human.
23:40
SPEAKER_02: But you you you make most of um your own decisions and you you you uh uh but but you have to make them in the context of the people that you live with and love and uh want to keep in touch with.
23:57
SPEAKER_02: I I think uh perhaps I'm not the best at that.
24:01
SPEAKER_02: And uh there though I've met amazing people along the way and have lifetime friends uh and uh a wonderful family, and they've been tremendously supportive.
24:12
SPEAKER_02: Um I I think if you asked me what what regret there would be, it would be that uh because of all the time spent, uh I haven't been as great of a friend or as great of a husband or as great of a father.
24:27
SPEAKER_02: It's not a it's not a rejection of the path.
24:31
SPEAKER_02: It's more of a well looking back and saying, you know, had I had more time to develop friendships and um keep in touch.
24:40
SPEAKER_02: Uh uh I in the end, it's not about um how many plaques you have on the wall or dollars in the bank, it's about how many friends you have and the quality of those friendships and the quality of your experiences.
24:54
SPEAKER_02: And uh I think I have had to make some sacrifices and and and that's a minor regret.
25:02
SPEAKER_02: But it the more you know me, the more you might understand that I have very few deep regrets in life.
25:09
SPEAKER_02: And though I've made though I'm really good at making decisions, and uh sometimes they're the wrong ones.
25:16
SPEAKER_02: I've I very I I I'm not I'm really good at not um dwelling on those and regretting things.
25:24
SPEAKER_02: And you just make the best of the situation that you're in, and you just enjoy the adventure and the path along the way.
25:31
SPEAKER_02: And and that that path for me was a pretty long path, but I I did have some really good times.
25:38
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I believe it.
25:39
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it is while you do jump off the deep end and and spend your life in effectively working in whatever that field is, you're still like alive, you're still working working and experiencing life.
25:52
SPEAKER_01: So I'm sure you had a bunch of wonderful experiences.
25:55
SPEAKER_01: I'd love to ask a bit about that comment then of not, it sounds like you are very committed to this to the decisions you make.
26:09
SPEAKER_01: Why is it important not to regret them?
26:14
SPEAKER_01: Or how do you decide what decisions to make, knowing that you won't regret it in the future, regardless of the failure or success?
26:24
SPEAKER_02: Without knowing it, I was a Buddhist light.
26:28
SPEAKER_02: And it's something that I've learned after studying a little bit of Buddhism, that you can take these regrets of the bad decisions that you've made or the things that have not gone right, and be weighed down by them if you if you choose to.
26:49
SPEAKER_02: And if you're weighed down by them, your uh ability to experience the here and the now and to enjoy the place that you're in uh are impaired.
27:04
SPEAKER_02: And though I I didn't do it consciously, I think I was always pretty good at getting past my bad decisions and those regrets to be able to be able to um to live in the moment and to not have to worry about uh what went on before.
27:26
SPEAKER_02: So uh it's a Buddhist principle, I think, to be able to live in the moment.
27:32
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I I think surfers in general have that idea.
27:36
SPEAKER_02: And when especially when we're surfing, we're in the moment, most of us.
27:40
SPEAKER_01: I think that maybe is one of the allures of it, is how much there's going on for the most part when you're surfing, is it's pretty all-encompassing while you're there.
27:55
SPEAKER_01: That's probably one of the reasons why it's so enjoyable, is it really is an escape from uh whatever's going on in life, you know.
28:03
SPEAKER_01: And I think that that is probably an issue that I can't say this for sure because I wasn't alive, you know, before I was.
28:12
SPEAKER_01: But most of us weren't, unless you believe in reincarnation.
28:20
SPEAKER_01: The point being, it seems like this has become a pretty large issue for people of my generation, and and I can't imagine the generations after me is that technology is growing in a way that's connecting us, which is fantastic, but it's also providing a platform to show you all the things that you are missing right now and pull you away from that moment, that presence.
28:54
SPEAKER_02: That's a trap.
28:56
SPEAKER_02: And I think it's even uh uh it was it was uh well described in the recent movie the social dilemma, uh where you're it it it puts a guilt on you for not being as happy as the people that you see on your Facebook posts or your Snapchat.
29:20
SPEAKER_02: Um all the stuff that's being fed to you is a false perfection uh view of the world.
29:29
SPEAKER_02: It's the world's not perfect.
29:31
SPEAKER_02: Those people aren't having as much fun as they look like they're having in the picture, and you're not really missing out, uh, especially if you are in the moment and and you're enjoying who you're with and where you are.
29:44
SPEAKER_02: And I I I I uh I feel bad for your generation, but I think you guys are figuring it out.
29:53
SPEAKER_02: And I don't have a LinkedIn Facebook, I don't have any of that, and I'm not missing out, I think.
30:02
SPEAKER_01: No, I mean I completely agree.
30:03
SPEAKER_01: That was a the only reason I re I got back on Instagram for this podcast to share it, but that was one of the greatest decisions I made.
30:12
SPEAKER_01: I made it in college, so it's been probably six years now, right?
30:16
SPEAKER_01: I got a Facebook when I was 13 years old.
30:18
SPEAKER_01: I deleted it when I was 19, 25 now.
30:22
SPEAKER_01: Uh, and that was one of the best decisions I made, along with while I was on this trip.
30:26
SPEAKER_01: I it was uh it was a balance because I wanted to share what I was doing with close friends, but I also feel like there is a this is probably part of this trap, is that I feel like there's an entitlement that has already that has been created by social media and by this world where it's not just from your perspective looking out that you might be missing out on what all these people are doing or their success or their happiness.
30:58
SPEAKER_01: But also it's created from my perspective a position where people feel entitled to know what you are doing, or to be able to go onto their phone and find out what what others are, where they are, what they're doing at the at that moment, you know, because because it's become so connected, because so many people are on it, it's almost as if people have come to expect that that is you know something they they should be able to do, is find out what you're doing or where you're at at any any given time.
31:32
SPEAKER_02: Your generation, I hope, figures this out.
31:35
SPEAKER_02: And the book, The Circle, uh, was the epitomization of that statement.
31:41
SPEAKER_02: And it is uh an invasion, I think, that we should not be complacent about to expect that people are gonna know where you are and what you're doing, and that you should be feeding them that information is so wrong in my mind.
31:57
SPEAKER_02: Uh we need personal time, we we need space, and we need to be able to disconnect.
32:04
SPEAKER_02: And uh uh just going camping is the single most simplistic way of defining that where you have to disconnect because there's no connection.
32:15
SPEAKER_02: You you you can pay attention to where your next meal is coming from, to the smells and the sounds and the sights, and and I I I do believe that we will come to a new reckoning with this, but it's it's mostly on an individual level at this point, and I'm glad to hear that you've uh you've learned that lesson.
32:38
SPEAKER_01: Well, I would say I'm continuing to learn it like everyone else, because everything is changing, you know.
32:42
SPEAKER_01: Um, but no, I I I like the way that it's it's been an interesting one for me too.
32:50
SPEAKER_01: I haven't really dove into any sort of Buddhist practices, but I've read a couple books relating to them.
32:58
SPEAKER_01: And I think you're right.
33:00
SPEAKER_01: I think it's a lot about that ability to stay present.
33:04
SPEAKER_01: There's something pretty dramatic that shifts in a day when it's spent doing whatever you're supposed to be doing and not checking on what you could be doing.
33:19
SPEAKER_01: Uh you know?
33:21
SPEAKER_01: Would you have any do you have any methods for because you know, no one's perfect?
33:26
SPEAKER_01: I I find myself pretty good at at staying present during my days, but I find myself off track sometimes for a week at a time.
33:34
SPEAKER_01: Do you have any ways of resetting yourself if you find yourself kind of off track?
33:39
SPEAKER_01: Is that what camping is for you?
33:42
SPEAKER_02: I just use camping because it's such a simplistic and easily appreciated experience for people.
33:51
SPEAKER_02: But I admit that I'm not very good at that.
33:54
SPEAKER_02: Uh I'm admitting my faults.
33:57
SPEAKER_02: I shouldn't be, but I am.
33:58
SPEAKER_02: I appreciate it.
34:01
SPEAKER_02: So uh uh one thing that I have found the few times that I've done it is meditation.
34:12
SPEAKER_02: And yet I'm not good at it.
34:14
SPEAKER_02: I'm not a practicer, and I think that's the next phase in my life to to aspire to be somebody who meditates more.
34:24
SPEAKER_02: Uh and and yet I I uh we keep getting back to uh surfing because we share that, but uh surfing is that other way for me.
34:36
SPEAKER_02: It's a it's a way to disconnect because it requires my focus, and it's a connection with nature that is so beautiful that I can't think of anything else at the time.
34:49
SPEAKER_02: And I'm not a great surfer, but I've surfed all my life, and I I know that that connection is a really important thing for me innately.
35:00
SPEAKER_02: And I I do it as much as I can, which turns out to be not very often based on workload, but it's it's still my way of just turning that light off.
35:12
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, then I'm in that place and I'm in a good place.
35:17
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
35:18
SPEAKER_01: No, I I I'm sure that is why we always come back to surfing, is it's it's that kind of it's the way you talked about the ocean, is it's the kind of an underlying feature.
35:29
SPEAKER_01: And I bet most people have this with some regard.
35:33
SPEAKER_01: There's maybe it's music, maybe it's art of some sort of reading, is that there's probably some practice that everyone has or should have.
35:44
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's just having a hobby, that is so enjoyable for whoever the person is, that they're able to use it as a method for kind of re-establishing balance in their own head.
35:58
SPEAKER_01: Um, it's an interesting, I I so I started surfing pretty late.
36:03
SPEAKER_01: I was 18, uh, and just kind of fell in love immediately, which is pretty obvious considering I quit my life to go do it.
36:14
SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, I'm I'm calling that out.
36:18
SPEAKER_01: But but I mean, with that said, you know, I'm not the greatest surfer.
36:22
SPEAKER_01: I just I just love it.
36:24
SPEAKER_01: How do you has there ever been a mindset for you with surfing that you should you know constantly be getting better at it?
36:35
SPEAKER_01: Because, or is it just something that you've always accepted is solely for the purpose of enjoyment?
36:43
SPEAKER_01: I mean, have have you ever been like spent a couple of years going, I need to surf bigger waves, I need to surf better, I need to be more in this realm of my life.
36:53
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's a good question.
36:55
SPEAKER_02: I don't look at it like that.
36:56
SPEAKER_02: Uh I know that if I did it more, I would get better.
37:00
SPEAKER_02: And I want that.
37:02
SPEAKER_02: And I aspire to that, but I don't focus on it, obviously.
37:08
SPEAKER_02: And and yet uh anytime I can I can serve, I will.
37:14
SPEAKER_02: And I'll take it in any form or shape in any weather.
37:19
SPEAKER_02: And it's it's good for me.
37:21
SPEAKER_02: But I don't uh I I I think as humans, we uh are many, most of us perhaps.
37:27
SPEAKER_02: Maybe I shouldn't speak for anybody but myself, but I think most of us, if we enjoy something, we also wouldn't mind getting better at it.
37:36
SPEAKER_02: But that hasn't been the focus.
37:38
SPEAKER_02: Like I haven't decided that I'm gonna um take five years of my life and just become a better surfer because I've always known that it's just something that I do, not something that I have to do better than anybody else.
37:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
37:51
SPEAKER_02: And I want it to stay that way.
37:55
SPEAKER_02: Yet I I wouldn't mind being able to surf a bigger way.
37:58
SPEAKER_02: I wouldn't mind being able to to uh to do a better floater.
38:03
SPEAKER_00: I've only done like three in my life, but I wouldn't mind being able to to duck dive a big wave uh and and come out without being a little stressed.
38:15
SPEAKER_02: So I I I think there is uh a great opportunity for me to continue to get better as I get older, but it it doesn't have to happen for me to continue to enjoy it.
38:26
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, that's a great perspective to have.
38:29
SPEAKER_01: Uh the only times, I mean, the only times I've found myself truly frustrated generally have to do with fitness.
38:35
SPEAKER_01: You know, you paddle out into it's been two or three weeks, you pile out in the surf that's a a little too big, and you get washed back to shore three times and go, you know what?
38:44
SPEAKER_01: I've surfed this before.
38:45
SPEAKER_01: I've I've gone into this before.
38:47
SPEAKER_01: I should be, I should be able to get out right now, but I'm not.
38:51
SPEAKER_02: Dude, it's more embarrassing like what happened to me last month when I went out at Ocean Beach.
38:55
SPEAKER_02: And it was one of those days where it was eight second intervals and about six feet.
39:00
SPEAKER_02: And I came with a guy, right?
39:03
SPEAKER_02: I came with gets out, and then I can't get out because my physical abilities uh are not as great as his.
39:10
SPEAKER_02: He surfed like three times a week, and I surf like once a month, and so I don't get out.
39:15
SPEAKER_02: And I'm thinking, okay, am I gonna wait here for him to get out until you give me a ride home?
39:21
SPEAKER_02: What am I gonna do now?
39:23
SPEAKER_02: So the physicality of it is sometimes embarrassing, but I'd like to be I'd like to be better, but I can't surf three times a week.
39:32
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
39:33
SPEAKER_01: No, for and for uh just I'm getting better at this part too.
39:36
SPEAKER_01: For listeners who don't understand, the shorter the period wave, so an eight-period wave is is pretty much every time you come over one, there's another one coming onto your head.
39:46
SPEAKER_02: Uh it gets hard to catch your breath in between going under waves when they're that short together.
39:54
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, it's and I guess it all comes back to this aspect of creating presence, though.
40:02
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's it seems as if it's a pretty central factor in a lot of the conversation we've had, right, with your practice as a doctor and with your training as a doctor.
40:18
SPEAKER_01: Using that analogy again, when you dive under the surface, it's a very present moment.
40:24
SPEAKER_01: You're the the point of it is you are no longer above the surface.
40:28
SPEAKER_01: You're completely engulfed in whatever you're doing, whatever activity that is, in this case it's medicine.
40:35
SPEAKER_01: And then with surfing, it's about kind of bringing yourself back from the distractions of life.
40:40
SPEAKER_01: You know, I think that there's something to be said about this ability to create presence in life.
40:46
SPEAKER_01: I think it's a really hard one because there are so many distractions.
40:48
SPEAKER_01: It's something I find myself failing at um quite often.
40:53
SPEAKER_01: You know, maybe it's that's always the constant balance is having to come back to those moments.
40:58
SPEAKER_01: Maybe life isn't all supposed to be spent in a calm state, though, you know.
41:07
SPEAKER_02: I know a couple of people like that.
41:09
SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's there's an aspect of that which is comes on touches on this aspect of meditation, because I got into that as well over the past couple of years, and I've come to this place where, yeah, it is wonderful to meditate, but then how long is it really necessary to do it for?
41:31
SPEAKER_01: Right?
41:31
SPEAKER_02: Because something I was thinking, I was reading this book about the Buddhist principles, and and the guy says, yeah, no, you have to you have to be present and you have to uh you know appreciate what's going on around you.
41:46
SPEAKER_02: But then I'm thinking, if you spend your whole life just yeah, sitting there appreciating the moon, you'll never get out of your house.
41:53
SPEAKER_00: You'll never do anything.
41:54
SPEAKER_00: You won't do anything.
41:55
SPEAKER_02: So some people I I think that the the what I decided was that you you can take time for yourself and and appreciate those moments, but there are times when you have to to focus and to do something and even sacrifice and move whatever you're doing forward, because uh life is a forward progression, not a backwards one.
42:20
SPEAKER_02: And going back to that that diving analogy, it's turning out to work pretty well for this conversation.
42:28
SPEAKER_02: The diving analogy can be shortened on a time scale of even in any given day.
42:33
SPEAKER_02: Like for me, if I go into an operation, then I got to turn out the whole world.
42:39
SPEAKER_02: And I'm not really good at cracking jokes during the procedures like some of my friends are.
42:44
SPEAKER_02: They can they can spout them off.
42:46
SPEAKER_02: I'm not even really good at listening to music while I'm operating because I'm kind of underwater doing what I do.
42:53
SPEAKER_02: And I'm I'm not gonna be able to talk until I get out of it, get above the surface.
42:58
SPEAKER_01: I'm sure your patients appreciate that.
43:03
SPEAKER_00: Good point, good point.
43:05
SPEAKER_02: So it's a uh it's a a technique that uh can be applied to uh meditation or or hanging out or or operating uh on someone's brain.
43:19
SPEAKER_02: So but you you're right, you you do have to keep moving forward, you do have to spend time doing the things you have to do.
43:27
SPEAKER_02: You you can't spend your time meditating unless you want to be one of those Buddhist monks who does what they do.
43:35
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's not me.
43:37
SPEAKER_01: I I agree.
43:38
SPEAKER_01: Here's here's one for you.
43:41
SPEAKER_01: Were all the sacrifices worth it to get to the position that you're in right now?
43:48
SPEAKER_02: I went to a party uh many years ago in the Bay Area.
43:52
SPEAKER_02: Once I moved back, a friend of mine put it on and he handed out a piece of paper.
43:57
SPEAKER_02: And on the piece of paper, what is like five questions?
44:00
SPEAKER_02: So what's your favorite color?
44:01
SPEAKER_02: What's your favorite movie?
44:03
SPEAKER_02: Um the fourth question was if you had any job in the world, what what job would you have?
44:12
SPEAKER_02: And he collected all the pieces of paper and he starts reading them out, and you gotta try to figure out who's who.
44:17
SPEAKER_02: It was kind of a game.
44:18
SPEAKER_02: But I was the only person in the room of 20 plus people that had put the job that I was doing.
44:28
SPEAKER_02: That was a revelation to me.
44:32
SPEAKER_02: Either I'm crazy or I'm missing something here.
44:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
44:36
SPEAKER_00: And the uh maybe I missed the point of the question.
44:40
SPEAKER_02: So but in the end, I I I keep thinking about that moment.
44:45
SPEAKER_02: Like, no, I I the sacrifices were to me worth it.
44:52
SPEAKER_02: And and yet I wouldn't wish it on anybody.
44:56
SPEAKER_02: I I've I've gotten a lot out of this job.
44:58
SPEAKER_02: I think it's a wonderful profession in general.
45:01
SPEAKER_02: It's it's great to be able to um see somebody smile when they weren't able to walk and now they don't have pain anymore.
45:10
SPEAKER_02: It's it's uh nice to be able to take a tumor out of somebody's head and say, Yeah, you're cured, you don't need to worry about this anymore.
45:17
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and yet uh not many people would look at what I did and say it would have been worth the sacrifice.
45:24
SPEAKER_02: So from the outside, you you say, Well, God, I I wanted to surf more and I wanted to um spend more time with my friends.
45:34
SPEAKER_02: But for me, it's just like I sort of follow, I just kept going forward and and I wasn't really thinking about all that stuff to my detriment, um, that that said I should be regretting having spent all that time.
45:48
SPEAKER_02: And there was one time I was awake for five days with only in literally for five days with only eight hours of sleep doing neurosurgery training.
46:00
SPEAKER_02: And that's wrong, and we don't do that to people anymore.
46:03
SPEAKER_02: But imagine that there is no life outside of that, and that is a sacrifice that very few people would see as reasonable to make, but it was just what I did, and I think that was there, and I'm fine.
46:18
SPEAKER_01: That was a comment that I didn't I didn't uh someone I was talking with a friend whose dad's also a physician, and something came about the topic of residency, and he goes, Well, you do understand the name, right?
46:36
SPEAKER_01: You're a resident, so you live there.
46:38
SPEAKER_01: That was the that was why why why it was named then when my dad trained, he was paid$75 a month.
46:47
SPEAKER_02: They did his laundry, and he would eat in a cafeteria and never leave.
46:53
SPEAKER_02: And that was residency, that was what it was called.
46:56
SPEAKER_02: It was residency.
46:57
SPEAKER_02: Now it's toned down a lot since then, yeah.
47:00
SPEAKER_02: And that's a good thing for the most part, definitely, but we digress.
47:05
SPEAKER_01: No, yeah, we don't have to go into that.
47:07
SPEAKER_01: I think it is is also a pretty interesting topic, maybe part two.
47:11
SPEAKER_01: Um we talked about a lot of cool stuff, though.
47:14
SPEAKER_01: I appreciate you coming on.
47:16
SPEAKER_01: I I wonder if you could look back over this conversation.
47:19
SPEAKER_01: Is there any one subject or message that you want someone that you would want someone to take out of it?
47:30
SPEAKER_02: I strongly believe, and I live by the principle that everybody has something to teach you.
47:38
SPEAKER_02: And it might be good and it might be bad, but you have something to learn from everyone.
47:48
SPEAKER_02: And that implies a level of humility that uh allows you to be open to learn from all the people that you meet.
48:00
SPEAKER_02: And it's been a great way of approaching uh meeting every patient that I take care of, because I want to know something about them and maybe learn something from them as a result of being their doctor.
48:17
SPEAKER_02: And I it's not just about taking care of that problem for which they came to see me.
48:23
SPEAKER_02: And so my life has been enriched by the opportunities to meet a bunch of people, not only through my practice, but in my life and along this journey.
48:32
SPEAKER_02: So if you keep your mind open and uh listen, then even understanding things like our recent politics and elections becomes easier to bear because we have uh we we should have an open mind in that sense.
48:50
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
48:51
SPEAKER_02: And I've lived in North Carolina, Georgia, and Texas, and and uh I believe we all are very similar.
49:00
SPEAKER_02: It's just that because of experiences and where we grew up and who our parents were and what books we read and what happened to us along the way, that uh we might make different decisions under different circumstances, but we're all uh very similar people.
49:17
SPEAKER_02: But all of us have something uh in their story or that they know, or where they've been they they can that that uh you can use to learn from.
49:32
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, if you're open to it.
49:34
SPEAKER_02: That's that's the message I I have.
49:37
SPEAKER_02: I I I think your life will be a lot better if you if you keep that kind of principle in mind.
49:43
SPEAKER_01: I love it, man.
49:44
SPEAKER_01: I completely and emphatically agree that we are all very similar people, at least at the most fundamental levels, and the way that we use those or use our environment and the information around us to create decisions will differ, but the the underlying features of our personalities and our character tend to be very similar.
50:08
SPEAKER_01: So thank you very much.
50:09
SPEAKER_01: I really appreciate your commentary and your message and for having you on, man.
50:13
SPEAKER_02: Oh, it's been my pleasure, Flints, and I hope we get to surf together sometime.
50:18
SPEAKER_02: I hope so too.
50:18
SPEAKER_02: You'll have to come out to Oahu.
50:21
SPEAKER_02: That is not a bad idea.
50:30
SPEAKER_01: If you like this episode of Seeking Authenticity, that's freaking awesome.
50:34
SPEAKER_01: All I want to ask of you, the listener, in return for the time and effort I put into making it, is that you take a deep breath.
50:42
SPEAKER_01: I mean really breathe.
50:44
SPEAKER_01: Breathe so that it stretches out your shoulders and your back and your chest and pushes out your stomach.
50:50
SPEAKER_01: No more of these shallow, bullshit breaths.
50:52
SPEAKER_01: They're barely keeping you alive, my friend.
50:54
SPEAKER_01: And after you exhale, go out and soak up today.
50:58
SPEAKER_01: Because in the end, your actions and the way they interact with the world and the people around you right now are all you have in this life.
51:06
SPEAKER_01: So be authentic with them.
51:08
SPEAKER_01: Peace.