The Mightiest Warriors
The Mightiest Warriors is a podcast that shines light on the remarkable stories of humans who have transformed profound adversity in their lives into a force of compassion, leadership and service to others.
"He who has a why to live for can deal with almost any how."
Victor Frankl
The Mightiest Warriors
Transforming Trauma into Resilience: Dr. Joseph Maroon's Journey from Burnout to Balance
What if the key to brain health isn't found in a pill bottle but in how we live each day? Dr. Joseph Maroon, neurosurgeon and former medical director for the Pittsburgh Steelers, brings forty years of experience to this profound conversation about transforming our approach to brain health.
Dr. Maroon's journey begins with a breakthrough moment in sports medicine. When legendary coach Chuck Knoll demanded objective data before benching concussed players, Maroon created what would become the IMPACT test—now used over 25 million times to protect athletes from dangerous second impacts. This quest for prevention rather than just treatment defines his revolutionary approach.
The discussion ventures into cutting-edge science as Maroon reveals how oxidative stress damages our brains, creating the conditions for everything from traumatic brain injuries to Alzheimer's disease. While pharmaceutical companies focus downstream on removing symptoms like amyloid plaques, Maroon's research targets the upstream causes—inflammation and antioxidant deficiencies that might be addressed through lifestyle changes and targeted interventions.
But what transforms this episode from merely informative to deeply moving is Maroon's personal story. At the peak of his career as chief of neurosurgery, his world collapsed. Within one week, he lost his father, his family broke apart, and he had to leave medicine—ending up flipping burgers at a truck stop while battling depression. His redemption began with a single run around a track that gave him his first good night's sleep in months and ultimately led to completing eight Ironman triathlons well into his eighties.
Through this powerful narrative, Maroon reveals how physical movement literally rebuilds your brain through neurogenesis and synaptogenesis. He outlines his five pillars of brain health—anti-inflammatory diet, regular exercise, avoiding environmental toxins, stress management, and quality sleep—that form a comprehensive approach anyone can adopt.
Whether you're concerned about brain health, seeking performance optimization, or simply in need of inspiration, this conversation offers profound wisdom about resilience and transformation. As Dr. Maroon wisely notes: "You cannot acquire resilience without adversity"—a reminder that our greatest challenges often become our greatest gifts.
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This is a podcast where we talk with people who have committed their lives to transforming challenge into service, into humbling and heroic stories, and this episode is brought to you by Essential Provisions, which is a food and nutrition company that commits itself to nourishing the warrior in each of us. My guest today is Dr Joseph Maroon, who's a clinical professor and vice chairman and Heindel Scholar in neuroscience in the Department of Neurosurgery at the University of Pittsburgh, and Dr Marone has a huge CV but has committed his life to the prevention and treatment of traumatic brain injuries. He's the co-developer of IMPACT, which is a neurocognitive assessment tool that has become the standard of evaluation, treatment and monitoring of individuals at high school, collegiate and professional level who've sustained head injuries. This is a tool that I have used many times in my professional work with student athletes in my professional work with student athletes, and Dr Maroon, as you'll see, has a depth of background, not just in the management of central nervous system diseases but really, as I've reviewed, his history has evolved in the direction of prevention, looking at novel and innovative ways to prevent progression of degenerative neuro-launcher diseases like Alzheimer's and ALS, and that's such a huge and important area of research.
Speaker 1:He's also served as a consultant for the Pittsburgh Steelers research. He's also served as a consultant for the Pittsburgh Steelers for also NFL with chronic traumatic encephalopathy, and WWE, which I have a 33-year-old son with Down syndrome, joe, who is a huge fan of WWE. So when I told him I was going to be talking with the director medical director, his eyes lit up, and so we enjoy that. And then, lastly, an author of a recent book in the category of prevention in burnout, which is such a huge area in health care and one that I personally have been very committed to in my work, and his book is called Square One A Simple Guide to a Balanced Life. Dr Maroon has also competed in at least eight that I'm aware of Ironman, triathlons, triathlons, and so, joe, you are someone who walks the talk and it's just a real delight to be with you.
Speaker 2:Thank you for spending some time. My great pleasure, mark. I've been very blessed, like you, to carry on in medicine and you know the things you mentioned, my in quotes, accomplishments, close quotes. You know, hippocrates, the father of medicine, said the first responsibility of a physician is to prevent disease. If that be impossible, to cure it, if that too be impossible to relieve pain of. What physicians do today for the most part is trying to cure diseases after they've occurred or relieve pain, which is so ubiquitous in particularly the elderly population. So I've been very fortunate to be able to assist in the prevention. You mentioned the impact test. Assist in the prevention. You mentioned the impact test.
Speaker 2:It's an interesting story. I've been the team doctor for the Pittsburgh Steelers for really 40 years. I was the first neurosurgeon actually appointed by Chuck Knoll, four-time Super Bowl coach, and Dan Rooney coach and Art Rooney, dan Rooney, way back when, and in 1990, I told Coach Knoll that his starting quarterback couldn't play against the Dallas Cowboys in two weeks because he had a concussion and he had to stay out at least two weeks. And Coach Knoll said he looks good to me, he knows his plays, he has no symptoms. Why not three weeks and why not one week? And he said, maroon, you want me to keep somebody out of play. I want objective data, not specious guidelines. And I was a little taken back by that. And I was a little taken back by that and I subsequently realized he was correct. There were no really good guidelines or neurocognitive tests.
Speaker 2:At that time I went to my associate, mark Lovell, a brilliant neuropsychologist, mark, what can we do? So we came up initially with a pen and paper test and I went back and I said, coach, if you want objective data, I have to baseline the whole team. And he thought for a minute. He says OK, that's reasonable and fast forward. We subsequently converted that paper and pencil test to a PC-based and now online, and we've done 25 million tests of the impact test and it's become the standard of care actually in all contact sports baseball, football, basketball and so it was a challenge and had no idea where it would go, never thought about it for a second. It was just solving a problem and it turned out to be the most significant preventive thing that I've done in my career in terms of preventing the second impact, when individuals go back too soon after a concussion, when the brain is more vulnerable to a lesser hit and more prolonged recovery or damage. So an interesting anecdotal story to begin our walk here.
Speaker 1:And it's a remarkable story. And it's a remarkable story, joe. We're not talking too long ago, back in the early 90s, I started my training in the mid-80s and there was really so little understood about what it was to have a concussion.
Speaker 2:If you had a concussion, it was how many fingers do you see? You said two. You could go back in the game.
Speaker 1:You could go back in.
Speaker 2:There was no consideration of memory brain speed. All of the important things that we elucidated.
Speaker 1:Yes, that we've elucidated. Yes.
Speaker 2:But it really took 15, 10 years for it to become really accepted. It just there's resistance to anything new, as you know.
Speaker 1:Yes, and that journey of sort of challenging what at the time was a standard of care that didn't have a whole lot of depth. It was very subjective and you know, as you were suggesting, I, when I look at the sheer scope of an assessment to like impact today, just given the number of athletes now that at very young ages are confronting these head injuries that historically would have kind of been left to chance, it really is a remarkable story in the education that this has brought to the general public. I meet and talk with a lot of collegiate student athletes who are very locked in to. They have much greater self-awareness, even though there's always that pressure to perform, as you well know, to not let your team members down. And I've been so struck at how coaches, trainers, the entire culture of coaching and management of athletes has shifted with such tremendous awareness. It's really an incredible story, joe.
Speaker 2:Initially, when I started, athletes would deny their headache, deny their dizziness, deny their unsteadiness. Now they come off the field and they say coach, I think I doctor, I think I had a concussion. And so the self-awareness, the self-awareness because of potential long-term effects.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And that's something that obviously I've been very interested in also.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:I mentioned to you a little earlier, mark, we're taking the next step in terms of diagnosis and possible treatment and basically we've recruited to the University of Pittsburgh, here in the Department of Neurosurgery, an absolutely brilliant scientist who is the director of the Indian National Brain Research Institute and he's a world specialist in magnetic resonance spectroscopy, and this is an MRI algorithm that's used to measure the chemicals in the brain. The glutamate, the various and Parkinson's disease are very deficient in a substance called glutathione. So what is glutathione? So I have a test question for you, mark. This is an easy one, I'm ready.
Speaker 1:I'm ready. Joe, this is an easy one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is an easy one. I'm ready, I'm ready. Joe, this is an easy one. If you leave an apple or a banana out overnight, what color does it turn in the morning?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it'll be very brown.
Speaker 2:It'll be very brown and the reason for that is it's exposed to air and it oxidizes. It oxidizes so as we age, like right here, as we age, our brains also oxidize, meaning in the production of ATP we take glucose and oxygen and make ATP. The side product of doing that are things called free radicals and reactive oxygen species, and these free radicals are like the carbon dioxide or dioxide that comes out of your exhaust pipe in a car from a combustion engine. Unless these free radicals are squelched by an antioxidant, they oxidize the brain, they destroy mitochondria, they destroy DNA, they destroy cellular membranes, needs the neurodegeneration, cellular membranes, needs the neurodegeneration. So glutathione is the primary antioxidant in the brain. So if you're deficient in glutathione, your brain oxidizes and you develop neurodegenerative problems. So we also know, and you can Google, oxidative stress, which is what we're talking about, oxidative stress and traumatic brain injury, and you'll see that oxidative stress is a major progenitor of damage in traumatic brain injury. What does that mean? It means that your antioxidant system gets overwhelmed by the generation of free radicals and the hypermetabolic state that develops associated with traumatic brain injury.
Speaker 2:So our hypothesis is that patients who have had repeated hits to the head, repeated head injury, like Navy SEALs, like combat, special warfare, combat crewmen. I don't know if you're familiar with these. These are the men who drive these high speed boats, 40, 50 miles an hour over waves, two to four foot tall. They're constantly having wave slamming. It's called wave slamming. It leads to, again, multiple forces that can damage the the structures of the brain. So we want to examine these individuals with mr spectroscopy to see if there's a deficiency, which our hypothesis is that, and then attempt to replace it with a precursor to glutathione that is readily available and non-prescription over the course of several decades. And, as I was talking to you earlier, I'm having more fun now, actually, than when I was operating and doing neurosurgery. So, because of the implications of what we're doing and what we can do and what we hope to do, of what we're doing and what we can do and what we hope to do.
Speaker 1:That is such a remarkable and very much upstream perspective on this huge and growing epidemic of degenerative brain diseases. And you know, as you said at the outset, joe, you know 98% plus of what people present to their physicians with will tend to be more downstream and engage a paradigm that tends to manage the damage that's already done. But I've been very inspired by this new wave of aging longevity science and research that and you're right at the vanguard of that that really takes an upstream approach. As a nephrologist, I've always been sort of intrigued by the extent to complex diseases of 21st century continue to grow even though our approaches to intervention have improved. And so, yeah, glutathione and oxidative stress and having tools now that allow you to measure that is very exciting because we know that there are nutritional and lifestyle ways to enhance our own antioxidant capacity. When did that shift begin to occur for you, joe?
Speaker 2:Well, mark, I mean you mentioned a few words that I want to pick up on. You mentioned upstream and downstream. You are absolutely correct about oxidative stress being the upstream progenitor of many, many diseases that affect us, and I'm particularly, because of my age, interested in Alzheimer's and neurodegenerative disease. So, as you know, drug companies Biogen, eli Lilly have spent billions of dollars on developing antibodies to remove beta amyloid plaque from the brain, which we actually have published a paper stating that it's really the oxidative stress that leads to the deposition and the formation of beta amyloid plaque and neurofibrillary tangles, which are the hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease. Yes, the oxidative stress that leads to these problems. So, spending billions of dollars on mecanumab and donanumab, which are antibodies to remove the beta amyloid plaque, that works in only 29 to 30 percent of the cases. That slows the disease, does not cure, it, does not reverse it. It slows, it is associated with a 21% incidence of adverse effects in terms of brain swelling and micro hemorrhages, and costs $26,000 a year and needs to be injected every two weeks, and it's FDA approved. And needs to be injected every two weeks, and it's FDA approved. So, and obviously what we're suggesting is that the attention really needs to be directed to the oxidative stress.
Speaker 2:So and you also intimated you know what what causes the oxidative stress? Well, it's the deficiency of of antioxidants, but it's also the inflammatory diet that is epidemic in in our country, with 70 percent of people overweight or obese, diabetic syndrome, the metabolic syndrome, people overweight or obese, diabetic syndrome, the metabolic syndrome, pre-diabetes in almost 40% of the population or so. All of this leads to inflammation and the common factor in neurodegenerative disease, cancer, arthritis, is inflammation. So how do you and this is where you're such an expert yourself, you know how do you counter inflammation? How do you counter inflammation? And there's five ways.
Speaker 2:And this is you mentioned my book, square One, a Simple Guide to a Balanced Life. You know, I emphasize this in the book. Number one is diet, diet. Every day, three to four times a day. What we ingest determines whether we're going to produce inflammatory or anti-inflammatory cytokines and inflammatory agents that lead to the generation of the intima of our blood vessels or degeneration of our brain or our joints. So a Mediterranean diet, a mine diet vegetables and grains and nuts and seeds and green leafy vegetables, fish, omega-3 fatty acids, olive oil, not too much red meat, if any, a highly plant-based diet. Number two is exercise, and the most significant anti-aging factor is aerobic activity. It's the one thing that actually does counter aging and the most effective. Number three is avoiding environmental toxins, alcohol, smoking, drinking drugs, clean air as best we can, good water.
Speaker 2:Number four is controlling stress. Stress is a very inflammatory factor in causing brain fog and also cardiac disease. And number five is sleep. Five is sleep. When we sleep we have a way of clearing the beta amyloid plaque through the lymphatic system that subserves our brain like a lymphatic system in our body. And, very importantly, and it's what I described in my book Square One, we know the brain. Anxiety, stress, worry, concern can harm the body Cardiovascular disease and irritable bowel syndrome, dermatologic problems. Very critical thing that many, many people don't really consciously apply is that exercise and the physical activity can cure the brain. There's a very, very powerful brain-gut and brain-body connection and what we put into our gut affects our brain and if we exercise or not also has a profound effect on mood, on behavior, on cognitive processing, on memory, et cetera, et cetera. So my little soliloquy.
Speaker 1:You just gave a beautiful summary of the state of the art of lifestyle medicine, joe, and the extent to which I think in modern life this has been my experience people have, you know, our ancestors. If we were to sort of go of whole foods that were available to those individuals, wherever they may have lived, very limited burden of these new-to-nature molecules we would call environmental toxins. Most spent a lot of time outdoors under natural light and had these very well synchronized circadian rhythms. You know, it feels like we're a species with amnesia. In modern life we've sort of lost touch with just sort of those fundamental principles that you lay out and I sort of like behavioral economics, the architecture, the choice architecture of the environments we are in can make it harder to choose wisely, particularly if you're not sort of consciously aware. So I love what you laid out. It's such a holistic approach. I love what you laid out. It's such a holistic approach and when I look at research, some of the people that I look at, like Dale Bredesen who used to be at the Buck Institute, I like a lot of the work that the Buck Institute does, the Salk Institute in La Jolla, some of the work that they're doing in circadian rhythm.
Speaker 1:But this connection between environmental inputs, inflammation, our immune systems that have kind of lost their way and oxidative stress, you begin to have this sort of unifying sort of understanding of why it is we're struggling so much today and why it is that a very advanced pharmaceutical enterprise has fallen short on the promise. The promises that many, I think, americans continue to sort of cling to, that I think are going to continue to be elusive because of this. The paradigm it's not a paradigm that lends itself to all of the things that you are talking about. So it's so inspiring for me, joe, to hear a neurosurgeon, an academic, deeply experienced neurosurgeon, talking so eloquently about things I know you didn't learn in medical school.
Speaker 1:When did that shift begin to occur for you? I know you're a triathlete and I would love to hear you expound a little bit on what motivated you to push to that extreme and what that gave you, how that's influenced, maybe the way that you think about brain health prevention, some of which you've touched on. But it's such a metamorphosis, joe, of what most of my neurosurgical colleagues don't really know what an anti-inflammatory lifestyle or diet is. And so, yeah, how did you get there?
Speaker 2:And so, yeah, how did you get there? Actually, quite a while ago, probably in the 1990s, I attended a meeting of the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine and I heard David Perlmutter. David Perlmutter is now a good friend, he's a neurologist from Florida. I know him well Anti-inflammatories he's written several very good books on the subject. But he spoke about anti-inflammatories. It was kind of like an awakening for me, a whole new concept how the pathogenesis of the various diseases that I was treating and then the triathlon stuff came about. In my 40s I had a very adverse experience. I had a very adverse experience. My father died at age 60 of an MI, a heart attack from the anterior descending artery, the widowmaker's heart artery, and my family broke up and I had to quit neurosurgery all the same week.
Speaker 2:It was a kind of a triple whammy, life quake and I literally could not operate anymore and I had to leave the University of Pittsburgh where I'm sitting right now. I was chief of neurosurgery now I was chief of nurse surgery and my father bequeathed to my mother an old, dilapidated truck stop that was heavily mortgaged and at that time academic neurosurgeons still weren't paid very, and John too knows this. So I ended up going to Wheeling, west Virginia, and I literally worked in a truck stop flipping hamburgers and filling up 18 wheelers for a year and was pathologically depressed. And one day the banker who held the mortgage on the truck stop called me and said hey, joe, you want to go for a run? I think you need to get out. I said run, I can't walk up a flight of steps, I'm 20 pounds overweight, truck stop food. But we made it down to a local track and I made it around four times and I said never again. I was out of breath, my diaphragm was in spasm.
Speaker 2:But that night something strange happened. It was the first night I slept in about three or four months, wow. So I went back the next day and I did a mile and a quarter, then a mile and a half, then two, three, four, five and I I read about cross training. So I got a bike and I started to bike and then I learned how to swim and then I entered a small triathlon, sprint triathlon, and it was like Roger Bannister breaking the four minute mile. When I finished it I felt so good.
Speaker 2:So what was happening, mark, as the unintended side effect of doing aerobic activity and the right diet, and also got back to my religious, spiritual upbringing. Uh, I was resetting my neurotransmitters. My dopamine, my acetylcholine, my serotonin levels were all getting readjusted, normally, without pharmacogenetics and drugs. So I kept running, swimming, biking, because not to boast in any way to survive, boast in any way to survive. And I was able to get back to neurosurgery, back to the university and really the most productive part of my career. But if I hadn't taken that run around the track, I might not even be here today.
Speaker 2:And so, knowing how my body healed my brain, I'm working out every day to this day, 40 years later, and I eventually my diet changed, I got into various supplements and, as I said, there are four components in our lives there's the work, there's the family, social, there's the spiritual and there's the physical. And it's a square work family, spiritual, physical, and if you draw a line somewhat equivalent to how much effort you put into each one of those, it should resemble a square Family, spiritual, physical and work. Well, mine was a straight line EKG. It was flat line, all work. There's no family, no spiritual.
Speaker 2:I neglected major parts of my life and I was very fortunate to be able to get back into balance, so to speak. You know, the Buddhists say you have to be mindful or aware. I wasn't mindful and I wasn't aware of what I was doing. I was very successful in quotes, but I was a mess physically, spiritually and in the family.
Speaker 2:That's what the book's about and it's a story. You know, there's a saying that every man's life is a diary in which he means to write one story but oftentimes writes another. His humblest hour is when he compares the story as it is with what he vowed to make it. I didn't. My story wasn't to work in a truck stop the rest of my life, which is where I ended up. So it was a humbling experience to flip hamburgers, fill up 18 wheelers and do that, and realizing that there's a second mountain, so to speak.
Speaker 2:There's a great book actually, by Mr Brooks the Second Mountain, the first mountain we climb is the mountain of ego, approbation, validation, success and, oftentimes, like experience. To me, there's a cataclysmic event that leads to a major reorientation and recognition that maybe that's not what it's all about, recognition that maybe that's not what it's all about. And the second mountain is when you realize that, like the poet Khalil Gibran said, we give but little. When we give of our possessions, it's when we give of ourselves that we truly give. And that's what you and I are doing now. You know we're giving back, so to speak. We're taking our experiences, our knowledge, sharing it with other people, and hope that the sea falls on ground that's well prepared, not amongst thorns or gravel.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for sharing that, joe. What a beautiful story, interesting story, you know. I'm sure the average trucker pulling into a Trump stock is not anticipating that an academic neurosurgeon will be filling their tank and cleaning the windows and climbing up. Yeah, cleaning their windows. And somehow this is the hero's journey, right as I think of it, because I had a very similar journey. My parents died when I was much younger. They were consumed with chronic disease. Both my parents had end-stage renal disease and were dialysis dependent. Really, is that what prompted?
Speaker 2:you to go into nephrology.
Speaker 1:Actually, this happened after I went into nephrology. I've come to see it as one of the great synchronicities of my life. I now accept that nothing is random, nothing is without meaning, and it totally shifted the timeline that I was on from disease diagnosis and management to one of prevention, one of much greater awareness and self-resiliency, and it's yeah right. So at that critical time in your life, Joe, the outcome could have ended up very different than it has. And, as you point out and I just love this I too am at this chapter in my life where there's such great joy in just giving, sharing, you know, those lessons with others, and ultimately it's a story of hope. I look at emerging sciences like epigenetics and the power to literally rewrite the software that runs our biology, which is what you were doing back then, as I think about it, as you started to take those steps and to build on that. And the rest, as they say, is just that garden continuing to grow and thrive, and it's a beautiful story because it could have ended up very differently.
Speaker 2:Well, two things, mark, you mentioned. You have to read this book if you haven't.
Speaker 1:Fluke, I've heard of it, but I've not read it.
Speaker 2:Brian Klass yeah, it's exactly what you said. Nothing happens by chance in our lives. Everything is predicated on something that has gone before a decision, a meeting, a conversation, and how it comes back in so many ways later on. There's nothing that really is chance. The fact that you and I are on this show, how did this happen? Okay, you know a mutual friend. I gave it. No. How it happened is I gave a grand rounds to the children's hospital on success and failure, okay, and Mark Michael. Michael was there as a general surgeon and we spoke about nutrition. He gave me a couple of packages of this nutrition and he connects me with you. You knew John too, who is one of my heroes. John's much older than I, by the way. Tell him I said so. And here we are talking on a talk show, on a podcast. I mean, it's not a fluke. If I hadn't gone to Children's Hospital to give that talk, we wouldn't be talking. So it's just, it's an interesting way things work out in our lives.
Speaker 1:Very much so. My perspective on all those things has shifted significantly and I'm kind of an amateur, uh, quantum physics explorer and, uh, you know, I, in the presence of someone like yourself, joe, if there's complete resonance, uh, whatever the unique electromagnetic, biophotonic, the non-material that manifests in what I, you know, what for us is, this material experience is totally in sync with where my in the 60s, right, let's just say it's, you've the vibe and uh, you definitely have the vibe. I think people would be stunned to know your age.
Speaker 1:Uh, joe um, uh, yeah, I'm 85, I used to hide it and lie about it, but no sense in that anymore yeah, do you? Um, uh, in the aging longevity space, have you looked at your biologic agings with some?
Speaker 2:of the epigenetic. I've done, I've done, looked at my methylation and, uh, so I'm about. You know, I'm 85 chronologically, and 72, 73.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, I mean I, I it's quite clear that your biologic aging is much slower, uh, and that that alone is a fat, slow and same diet. But when he died it really was a big shock.
Speaker 2:And then again, that run around the high school track really changed my entire life and that's why I'm here. I wouldn't be here, clearly, if I hadn't gotten into the five things that I talked about Diet, exercise, avoiding environmental toxins, controlling stress and sleep. You know? The other thing, maybe before we wrap up, is you know what happens to the brain when you perform aerobic and resistance training? So what happens is that the brain produces a molecule called BDNF, brain-derived neurotropy factor. It's called the miracle grower of the brain.
Speaker 2:So what does it do? It literally creates neuronogenesis, or new brain cells, particularly in the hippocampus, which is that part of the brain that subserves memory. Number two, it increases synaptogenesis, meaning it makes new synaptic connections of the 86 billion. The gym you're actually making new synaptic connections and new neurons. And then it enhances neuroplasticity, which is the ability of their brain to make those connections in our hippocampus and our limbic system and our executive cortex, and converse on a podcast. So all of that happens when you open the door to the gym or walk around the block. You don't have to be a triathlete and adhere to an appropriate diet no sugar, little fat. You know all of the poisons that the food industry promotes for us and and do the right thing. So, anyway, that's the story, mark, so I think we've covered a lot of ground.
Speaker 1:That is a beautiful summary and recapitulation, joe, as I, I, um, uh, I think it was the Dalai Lama that once said, joe, to pay full attention to another is a generous gift. I like that, and one of the things that I love about about this Mightiest Warrior podcast is it it brings brings me to people like yourself who serve others in such a noble and generous and spiritual way. And while we've touched on a lot of the scientific underpinnings of the work that you do and the implications of that work, it really is a story of hope at every level and I think people need to understand that they're much bigger than they give themselves credit for and the possibilities within arm's reach are much nearer than I think people might be aware of, and your story so powerfully reminds us of that. Joe, what an honor to meet with you.
Speaker 2:Well, it really, mark, is how we confront. You know you're talking about mighty wars. You told me you interview previous Navy SEALs and SWCC operators and combat people. You know how do you build resilience. It's about resilience. So how do you acquire resilience? You cannot acquire resilience without adversity. So the question is all of us, all of us. There was another very good book entitled Lifequakes and the author interviewed hundreds of people about their life history and discovered, realized, realized everyone goes through major cataclysmic events, from one to five, that completely uproot and disturb their lifestyle, and he called them lifequakes. And he found that it takes one to three years to get over a major lifequake the loss of a child, the loss of a parent, a divorce over a major life, loss of a child, the loss of a parent, a divorce, these kinds of things. And it's how we handle adversity, how we reach back to the roots of our upbringing, our spirituality, god, the quantum universe, however we want to describe the power that's higher than us.
Speaker 2:Yes, and how we overcome adversity. That makes us who we really are, and you can't get there without being tested, and then it's how you respond. So you've lost your parents, both to kidney disease, which is so ironic. I lost my parents due to cardiovascular disease, a stroke and a heart attack.
Speaker 1:And and sorry that's OK, that's okay.
Speaker 2:But anyway it's been a real pleasure and you know I hope your audience can get some pearls or tidbits or something they can use from our conversation.
Speaker 1:Well, I've taken many things away and I know anyone listening to this will as well. Joe. Thank you for showing us the way and for fighting the good fight and shining your light. And until our paths cross again, something tells me they will. Maybe you, John, too, and I need to get on a call.
Speaker 2:You should do that. You should definitely connect us with John and have a little walk down memory lane.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, that would be a great ride. Well, joe, you take care. Have an awesome day.
Speaker 2:And thank you and send me a link to this. If you wouldn't, I will indeed. Okay, sir, take care. Bye now.