Snippet 22: Professor of Neurosurgery Reveals The Secret To Longevity - Dr Jim Doty
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The thing that causes the greatest amount of suffering is craving and attachment. So if you're so involved in sort of doing this thing to help others, you're

and you do it so much that it harms yourself, then, and that, you know, being able to say, you know, I helped like effective altruism. I helped 10,000 people today. The ROI here is incredible. Yet, you know, you've been up for days at a time. You're exhausted. You have no relationship with anybody. That's not a healthy thing. And if you don't make it to whatever that goal is, then you start all these self recriminations and,

saying, you know, I knew it wasn't real. I couldn't really do it. I tried, but I wasn't good enough and I wasn't worthy and I don't really deserve this and I'm an imposter by telling people that I'm trying to do this and you beat yourself up. Well, that's only causing you suffering. So if you sit there and say, you know, my goal is to, let's say, help 10,000 people or whatever it is,

And you sit there and you help 8,000. You go, you know, I did an incredible job. Was it exactly what I want to know? But I'm okay. Because at the end of the day, I did an incredible job. And, you know, even for some of the stuff I do, do I have dreams and aspirations about helping people? Of course. And a zillion times, I've not been able to do what I wanted. And I failed. And I've made mistakes. And it's...

painful for myself but i'm still a worthy person deserving of love right one thing i wanted to ask you so you've had like by any sort of definitions of success like stupidly large amounts of success um a lot of books i've read from people from people who are very successful

They often lament that they didn't spend enough time on their relationships when they were sort of on the road to that success. I wonder if you can speak to that at all, maybe in your life, or if you were to give advice for other people who are all sort of aiming for success, this balance between taking care of your personal relationships alongside climbing the mountain. So let me give some information that correlates or relates to our conversation on compassion.

I'm sure you're aware of the blue zones in the world. Butner's work, I think it is, Butner. So these are places in the world, and I'm sure many of your listeners have heard of this, where people live routinely over a century. And why is that? And this is substantiated by a number of studies. So one part of it, which people will claim, is these are people who eat a Mediterranean diet.

who exercise, who are at their ideal body weight, who don't drink alcohol. And there's no question that is a significant contributor. But by far, far, multitudes more important is depth of relationships and human connection. That is the secret sauce. All the other stuff can be a benefit.

But the secret sauce of actually longevity is human relationships and connecting with others. And what does that involve? It involves having generosity, being nonjudgmental, being accepting.

And, of course, those are the fundamentals of how to develop relationships. And you're right. Some people are so goal-oriented, and, in fact, they have no problem stepping on other people to get what they want because they want some external validation.

And probably there's some degree of insecurity that they want to hold that over other people. But, you know, that's not going to create happiness or longevity. And I'm sure you know a number of – and I hate to beat up the hedge fund business. But, you know, there are people who are, you know, in that business of making money for the sole purpose of making money at whatever cost. Right.

And, you know, they work ridiculously hard. And is it great to live in a big penthouse and drive sports cars and hang out with supermodels?

I suppose I'm being, I've been in that position on some level. And frankly, I, at the end of the day, my whole life I felt was completely empty. I had tons of external people going, man, dude, you're living this incredible life. You know, you've got this penthouse and you know, you've got this Ferrari and you're dating so-and-so man, you should be so happy. And I was never happy in that situation. I was miserable actually. And to the point where I couldn't understand because I did all of this stuff and

And I was miserable when all my friends would say, God, if I was in your position, I would be so happy right now. But again, if it's all about the money or all about killing yourself to get some external validation, you're going to be unhappy. At least that's been my personal experience and my observation.