In coming to you live from Houston, Texas, home to the world's largest
medical centers. On the day, we're going this is your Health First,
the most beneficial health worlde. I'm on radio with doctor Joe Blant. During
the next hour you'll learn about health, wellness and the prevention of disease.
Now here's your host, doctor Joe Blanti. Well, it is as always
a marvelous Sunday evening and I'm so happy all of you can join us on
the radio tonight for another installment of Your Health First. I'd like to think
that we are the beacon of light for the health and wellness information you all
need to know, your guiding light. We want to inspire you, guide
you, educate you on what you need to do to stay healthy. That
is it. We're not trying to sell any potions, lotions or elixirs,
just good information that you can learn. And I like to say, make
it actionable tonight, so you'll hear something and you can say to yourself or
your family, Hey, we can do this right now. Incorporate whatever we
hear tonight on your Health First with yours truly, doctor Joe Glotti. All
right, so our website, doctor Joe Glotti dot com, doctor Joe Glotti
dot com. Signer for the newsletter. There's a tab on the web page
that says newsletter sign up. We have a newsletter that goes out every Satily
morning. It, I would say, it takes about five minutes to read,
good links, good information ranging from and really is what we talk about
on the program. It is disease prevention, disease awareness, nutrition, exercise,
latest and technology and research. So go there. All of our social
media is posted there, and you can get information about my book Eating Yourself
Sick, available on Amazon. The last several probably the last four weeks or
so, we sent out about thirty books. We had listeners calling in during
the show for free books. Sign them all, sent them out and lots
of good feedback there. Now tonight on the program, special guest David Goldberg.
Now Dave and I go back close to fifty years. Now you may
be saying, how old am I if I've known this guy for fifty years,
Well you'll have to do the math. But anyway, David and I
went to high school together on Long Island. Long Island's New York. Dave
is still in New York, so his new York accent may still be a
bit stronger than mine. But he is an advisor, a ghost author,
a writer, strategic marketer, brand amplifier, and thought leader, and I
would say all around smart guy. Now we are going to be discussing an
article that was in the Wall Street Journal a week or so ago. The
title was would life be better if you worked less? From part time hours
to four day work weeks Americans experiment with living more. Now, while it
is talking about work life balance and people coming back and enjoying life, I
am going to try with David to put a health and wellness spin to the
discussion, because really, at the end of the day, that is what
it is about our own health and wellness. So David will be coming up
in just a few minutes. The one thing I want to chat about now
before we finish up this first segment. I have been posting for the last
week or two on Instagram pictures talking about the pill mentality. Now I write
about it in my book, and what is the pill mentality? Well,
it is where the general public, my patience, maybe you listening listening audience
has this idea that they are going to achieve wellness or achieve health by simply
taking a pill. Now the typical scenario, and this happens almost every day
in the office when we're seeing patients. We see a patient and of course,
you know, I take care of patients that have liver disease, and
usually by the time they see me, though not always, they have a
more serious case. And myself and my staff we will present to them the
results of their laboratory tests or their cat scans or biopsies procedures that they've had,
the old records that we review and we size it up and we say,
look, this is not a totally irreversible problem. This is something that
we can turn around. But we need to intervene now. The waiting kicking
the can down down the road. Those days are over. This is what
we need to do, and we and we outline a plan, a reasonable
plan, and after we spend a good thirty minutes with them going through what
they need to do to achieve or regain wellness, they will look at us
with a straight face and say, well, okay, thank you, doctor
Gli, But am I going to get a prescription for this at the end
of the day. And we look at them and say, not really,
unless I give you a prescription for ocra twice daily or a zucchini every evening.
Now, the dependence on medicine, they all of you, all of
us together, we have to understand the value of self determination. You have
the ability to take control of your health and wellness. Relying on others,
relying on the medical system. Yes, we need surgeries and medications and intravenous
and chemot there, Yes we do. Eighty percent of it is through lifestyle.
What about the food you eat? Are you exercising, are you getting
the right amount of sleep? Are you paying attention to your mental health?
What about healthy relationships? A pill is not going to fix that? And
are you putting in the time to learn about how your body works? Is
what we talk about here versus the mentality of oh the heck with eating better,
exercising, getting more sleep, paying attention to my mental health, improving
upon my relationships with either your significant other, your children, your boss,
your neighbor, or your dog. They shoot to a pill and that is
a problem. That is the pill mentality at its best. All right,
everybody, Doctor Joe Glati is our website. Go check it all out.
David Goldberg good friend of mine, probably one of the smartest people I know
is on hold. We'll be getting to him in a moment. And the
big question would life be better if you worked less? I don't know.
Stay tuned, we'll right back. Thanks very much for tuning in on this
Sunday evening. We are here raising your health IQ. That's right, there
is a health IQ, but we could only do it one listener at a
time every Sunday. Don't forget Go to doctor Joe glati dot com that is
me and send me a message. Sign up for all of our social media
links there and be part of the community that we're trying to build here.
All right, Well, it's really exciting. On the phone. David Goldberg
a high school buddy of mine. He is an author, guest author,
writer, I should say, advisor, strategic marketers, brand amplifier, thought
leader. David, I've been on the radio twenty one years. I can't
believe this is the first time we've had you on so well, I'm very
happy to be here. My wife said, I said, Joe, I'm
going to go on with Joe tonight. She said, does he know how
you ignore your health? You better be honest with him? So here I
am and everything's on the table. That's it. Well, you know what
I tell people every day that the wake up call is far better than neglecting
it and having all go to hell in a handbasket. So I look,
everybody out there has a little bit of you, a little bit of me.
We've all got our story to share. So nobody is perfect out there,
and we are not trying to talk down to anybody. So we all
have our own little little skeletons in the closet with regard to our health.
Well, you know, it really is the truth. So I you know,
the first thing I'd like to ask you, and really, and this
is really more of just a reset. Where are you? Know? Where
are you at now in your life, in your general approach and views on
health? Tell us where David Goldberg sits? Yeah, you know, the
simple answer is a work in progress. But but certainly I'm maturing work in
progress, and I think I'm finally getting it. Joe, And I'm sixty
four years old, and I'm out of place where I spent the lion's share
of my career and traditional corporate roles, and for the past fourteen years have
been in non traditional much more entrepreneurial roles also coincides about the time of my
second marriage. And my wife is a much better caretaker of herself and health
aware than I am. She grew up with nutrition being an important thing.
She grew up a lot like you did. That's right, and so it
has awakened me. I'll actually tell you that I have spent the last six
weeks going back to a lot of the appointments I should have done during the
pandemic but didn't for a lot of reasons. And um, and I will
say so in general, in terms of my health, I'm fortunate, but
I'm much more aware. You know, you go to you see your a
one sea creeping up. You see um, your your lower back hurting.
You see some some challenges, um, you know, breathing after less exercises
than it used to be. Um. And all of a sudden you say,
you know those the doctors are right. Those three things are all related.
And I need to lose fifteen pounds um, and that has to do
with how I eat and how I live. So yeah, short answer,
Joe's I'm I'm maturing. Yeah, And I think you hit along the head.
It is the awareness, because what shocks me. And again, I
cannot crawl into the head of every patient of mine or anybody that I talked
to. They literally limp around with symptoms and it could be something as minor
as a headache, blurred vision, let alone the more serious things of blood
in their stool, difficulty urinating, and you know, painful backs and things
like that. And it's at awareness to say this is not right, let
me get help now, rather than waiting three, four or five years.
Yeah, it's it's really hard though. It's actually double edged. I would
suggest the you know there there's part of the way that that some of us
are wired that say I'm going to think about health when health isn't there.
It's when when the light comes on, you know, um, there's something
wrong with me. I better go to the doctor. So that that's that's
part one, and then part two is maybe I'll take the doctor's advice and
maybe I won't. Right, So I say, you know, going from
if you're wired that way, going all the way back to awareness and to
preventative care, it's a pretty big step. But you know what, we
make a lot of big steps in our lives as WEMA tour right right now,
you mentioned your wife. What about your kids? Where where do you
think they are? They're they're about the same age as my children are,
and they're all bulletproof in a sense. Yeah, you know what, I'm
I'm fortunate that way. I've a certainly bulletproof as a kid. My kids
are are very health aware. My older daughter is you know, she's terrific.
She does a lot of research. She has some autoimmune issues that complicates
some things for her, and so and so she's very much to preventive care.
And my younger just you know, finished just got her degree and health
sciences. She was on a premed track and she works for a healthcare company
at the moment. So so they are that they are good for themselves and
they are very good for me. I'm around it with three family members whom
who worry more about my health than I ever did. Yeah, but I
think they're all pretty good about their own. Yeah, No, that's good.
So when you know, I look back to say, or you know,
you look at a picture and you say, what you looked like when
you were thirty or forty or fifty, and we look, we say,
yeah, a little bit more hair, we were a little leaner, and
we just looked a little bit younger. And I don't think we were necessarily
thinking about your health. But with those long hours that you were putting in
with corporate America and all of the sort of the rat race that we all
fall into, did you give your health any thought? Did you did you
think when you clocked in the eightieth hour for the week that you said,
shit, i've had a slowdown. Never, I'm all honestly, I mean,
I'd like to say that I did that, but I but I never
did that. And I'll even tell you that there was there was sort of
a an unspoken or a rarely spoken awareness that you might speak about your team.
So you're working on a big event, which which is going to necessitate
nights and weekends, um and and all sorts of ungodly hours for an extended
period. It's one thing to do that occasionally, but maybe you're building up
to something where you're doing that for two, three, four months, and
and and there's a quietly spoken reality that I'm going to get sick after this.
Once the once I stopped running on adrenaline, uh, once I you
know, allow my shoulders to slump, I'm going to get sick. And
you know, getting sick at thirty and thirty five is not as not the
same as it is now. But the but but what we were aware of
the downside. But I don't think anybody. Um, first of all,
a lot of the information wasn't out there. Let's be honest, there's no
internet. There's nobody was saying make sure you hydrate because it's gonna be a
hard week and you're not going to get a lot of sleep. Right.
Um, nobody was saying, you know, be care full about eating this
and not eating map during these periods. Right. So, so a lot
of it does come to awareness. But but I'd be lying if I said
it was something that was you know, if I had to make a list
of where that fell, it would be a very long list before I got
to my own health. Yeah. Now, how about people you worked with,
either you know, people that you went to school with, went to
college with, or those early days that you worked in that rat race corporate
life which really takes no prisoners. I mean, it will chew you up
and spit you out and say, if you're sick can't do the job,
the next guy will take it. But does anybody come to mind that maybe
back into thirties and forties, there was one person and we have one minute
here, David, before the break. Was it one person that stood out
to say, this guy got it when we were thirty or forty years old.
Yeah, I just want to make sure by you say thirties and forties,
you know, I mean nineteen thirties and four right, But yes,
there there were and and to me, Joe there that there's three people who
jump right to my head. And but they started either being you know,
growing up in a place where nutrition was stressed, or being children of medical
people. Right, it was not common. It was when you think of
how much time we spend talking about ailments today versus then, I am very
you would have been looked at cross eyed if you said, if you started
talking about it was one thing if it was a little bit, a little
bit Butch and I, it's about your workout right and getting strong and fit.
But it was another thing if it was about wondering if you were a
nimic. Yeah, no, exactly, No, I think I think you're
right. All right, David, we're gonna take a break. We're going
to put you on hold. We're talking with David Goldberg coming in from Long
Island, New York. After the break, we're going to get to the
Wall Street Journal article which poses the question would life be better if you worked
less? We're gonna take the health and wellness spin on it. I'm doctor
Joe Glotti. Stay tuned, we will right back. Welcome back, everybody,
a marvelous Sunday. The weather here in Houston has been delightful. If
I could put a pause on the weather for us of the year, this
is this is what I would want. But again, we are here every
Sunday evening making you all better consumers of healthcare. And we do that by
having on the air with me people like David Goldberg. David, welcome back,
Thanks for sticking around with us. A little music trivia, because you're
a music guy. What movie was that from? Ah, you know,
I am. The funny thing is, I was asking myself that question as
you were, as I was listening. Yet great music before that. I
do not know that from I think it's very personally, Joe. I'm a
I consider myself a trivia fish. And yeah, what was it? Uh?
It was m Oh, what was the guy's name? I'm drawn a
blank here, I knew it. I knew it. Uh, I'll get
it before the end of the show. Okay, yeah, it was well
Quincy Jones. Actually that was his album from about nineteen sixty five. It
was the Mike Myers movie. It was the Halloween No no, no,
like not The The Spy That Shagged Me and things those movies. What was
that? Oh? Okay, Austin Power, Austin Powers, Austin Powers.
And the reason he chose that song to be such a such a big role
in the movie was because he's Canadian. In Canada, there was it was
either the nightly news or there was sort of a variety show, sort of
the Johnny Carson of Canada. That was this theme song that went Jones song.
So anyway, that's where it. Kid, it's perfect. Hey,
you know, look we'll learn about heart disease and cancer and music and music.
All right, So, David, the article I want to chat about
was in the Wall Street Journal and it's posted on the Facebook account at doctor
Joe Gilatti. Would Life be Better if You worked less? Now? It's
an article basically about life balance and making sure you could pick up your kids
and take them to school and be a better parent, be a better husband,
significant other I look at it on the health twist here. Now,
let me just start off as a fellow baby boomer and many of our listeners
or baby boomers, is this counterintuitive to the hardwiring that we were trained with
of work, work, work, work, work, don't take any time
off. What do you think? Yes, it is. I wouldn't call
it hard wiring, but it's certainly counterintuitive to the way we were raised,
which was, you know, put your head down, do a good job.
More is better, Harder is better, right, and all those things.
And you know you had as we became leaders in our fields, Joe,
and you start to manage more people, you know, you work with
a younger group who would talk about validation, who would talk about being appreciated,
and and if your dad was like mine, you know, appreciation came
on Friday in an envelope, right, And that's that's the way we were
raised. So and and the way you're raised as a I have a friend
who says, the way things have always been done is a cruel mistress.
If you're raised a certain way, it's hard to break out of that.
Yeah, it really is. And it seems like for now and certainly since
COVID. So much has happened since the pandemic that you almost don't recognize the
way life was, you know, four or five years ago. But there's
a different reward system in place now. Where there is a premium on your
personal time, there is a premium on doing these other things now. As
I said earlier, I'm not here. This is not a social science program
in the traditional sense, but I look at the health and wellness of it.
Do you think when people write about, hey, would life be better
if we didn't work as long? Are they thinking about health and wellness versus
prosperity? And are you going to have that that summer house on the coast,
or the boat or the whatever, the big car? What do you
what do you think? I think there's certainly thinking about wellness maybe, if
not health, they're certainly thinking about wellness. I think to a certain extent,
Joe, that's thinking about mental health, right, And I think it's
it's a great conversation to be having. You know, I answered your question.
Is it is that statement counterintuitive of that question? Right? And I
think it is. But I also think the answer to that question is yes,
you know, obviously with a million caveats. If we could all find
places to to to to work less and retain other things that are important to
us, it would, Yes, our lives would be better. Yeah,
you talked about Yeah. Now going back, we're going to go to David
Goldberg Version one point, Corporate wonk versus David Goldberg Version two point. Oh
Um, did you think of work life balance in the true sense of that?
And or in your health assessment you sort of alluded to that already that.
Yeah, not that you did in my health assessment. Not my health
assessment, Joe. But I think I think I was pretty typical in the
sense that our generation we got. You know, you get into the workforce
out of college, and wherever you are, whether it's a whether you're entrepreneurial,
whether whether you're working you know, a retail or a trade or especially
if you're in the corporate world, you it's hard to separate the things that
comprise balance. And what I mean by that is, you know, the
success I'm having by the measures my company have put on me will help me
achieve that balance. It will make my family happier, It will help me
live where I want to live, It will help me afford the things that
make me happy outside of work. And I think that that's typically very true
and very valid to a point. You know, you can justify the time
you're spending away from your family when I say you, I'm talking about David.
One point out, I can justify the time I'm spending away from my
family as a young executive because it's for my family. Right Um. I
think there's a time where that stops being true, or where the the the
returns begin to menace on that being true. And I don't think very many
of us recognize that time in real time. Now you're sort of you're now
the hard wiring comes in right now, you're just working off. And you
know how many of us were proud to say I work sixty hours a week,
eighty hours a week, when we maybe should have been ashamed to say
it. Oh now, now I think if you brag about that, stick
put a little button on your lapel and say I'm part of the eighty hour
work week, you'd be You'd be put down in public, it'd be publicly
shamed. But again, we're going to take a break right now. Final
segment coming up, David, I really want to get into where we go
from here and are these reductions are we taking full advantage of it from a
health and wellness standpoint. We're going to be back with David Goldberg in just
a moment. Stick with us, Doctor Joe Glati dot com. Sorry for
a newsletter, get a little message from us on Saturday mornings. Stay tuned,
we'll right back. Welcome back, everybody. There's no doubt what group
this is. David and I were stumbling as far as our prior segment.
It is the David you know this song in your sleep? Yeah? Roll.
So that's about our high school time problem. It really is. And
you know I tell people when I talk about you and your successes, I
said, look, I really got to know David, and I'm stealing your
line to tell you the truth. We got to know each other sitting at
the end of the bench during basketball, and I guess the two of us
are of figured out what were we going to do in life, realizing we
were never going to make it to the NBA, so plenty plenty of time
to talk on fortunately, that's right, that's right. You know. I
did reach out to coach McKillop to tell him if he wanted to tune in
but he was tied up. But I think I'll send him a copy of
this and say, two of your students have done okay, tonight was a
guy. Yes, absolutely well. The article that we are talking about with
David Goldberg to summarize it, and this is the way I would look at
it. This is an article that basically says, for the people that are
working sixty eighty hours a week, even forty hours a week, there are
benefits to cutting back, but you have to figure out how you could do
it in your own situation in a sense, and like you said, there's
a million caveats to doing this, and that the stories are similar. More
time with their family, more time with themselves, more time with their children,
more time to explore these secondary type things we like to do now.
I have said from the beginning this is health and wellness and having a better
life. But the sad negative part of all this just in general, this
is at thirty thousand feet. Obesity is up, diabetes and fatty liver up,
alcohol and drug abuse up, mental health down, suicide up. This
forty of the young, that sense of I'm just not happy up. Life
expectancy is down. Is this going to be trying to turn the titanic by
making these changes, or are these negative health statistics we see the nitis to
really take stock in our lives. I think, Joe and I can't answer
this with the expertise that you can from a health standpoint. From a business
standpoint, I don't think these are great challenges. And I'll be a little
contrary in saying that, I think we know what we need to do here.
This is a matter of of of changing expectations at the corporate level.
And you're already seeing that in the article talked about that, and it's and
it's a matter of of of of adapting a different culture and what work means
a lot of us. You know, you you alluded Joe into my um,
you know, the second phase of my life, which is far more
entrepreneurial and and far more under my under my own control. UM And I
always tell people because I think those all those things you listed, Joe,
those negative health factors, I would suggest that you know, stress is the
dominant or at least a major factor in every one of them. Um And
I and I always say to people the difference between my two point, oh
and my one point I said, I may work as many hours at the
end of the day in my second phase as I did in my first,
and I may stress as much, but it's selective stress. Right. I
don't stress about Sarbanes Oxley compliance. I don't stress about um the you know,
a third quarter performance. I don't stress about um you know, employee
reviews and understanding they affect other people's lives. I stress about my own family.
I stress about you know, a small circle of people. I stress
about excellence and and doing things that and all those things, all those things
are are you know, positive in terms of health outcomes as I'd see it.
I worry Joe Moore from that article about you know, the the practical
ability for a lot of people. Are we Are we being elitist in a
sense? You know? Yeah, that article was about two doctors. I
decided to work less and ran off to Grease to play for part of the
year, right. You know, if you're a union bricklayer, that's not
as easy rum and it also ignores from a you know, I think there's
some very practical things from a health standpoint, one of which is insurance.
Right, Um, you know, it's very hard. A lot of corporations
have gotten good about wellness and they provide insurance that that are often needed.
So there is a unity yang there that can be had to balance. Yeah.
Sure, you say, Look, okay, I work a solid,
legitimate forty hours. I'm going to cut that to thirty. You may lose
your healthcare. Like you said that, that doesn't make any sense. Yeah,
I would. I would think at the corporate level, at the Exxon
Mobile level, or at the level of the hospitals that I'm affiliated with,
if we were to cut out the meetings and the discussions. Laugh, let's
have a meeting to plan the next meeting. Right there, You're going to
cut ten hours out of the week, and you're not First of all,
you're not even dealing with what we deal within New York, which is commutes
on top of that. But but I would look at my weekly calendar and
my last corporate gig and and basically there was no time between meetings, between
presentations. Uh, there was no time to do the work, so to
speak. So that got done after hours, and there's no doubt about that.
I'd also suggest here, Joe, there there is a this is a
phase reality. Uh, you know in your I finished a book recently writing
a book for a guy who's an HR superstar, and he's he talks about
the phases of your career when you're in your early years in corporate life.
He compares it to choosing a major. So there's a lot of learning.
There's a lot. Lou we lost Dave. Sure, Okay, Dave,
in the middle of a sentence, dropped off, this is live radio.
What can I tell you? We're here? You know. The point is,
I think that we do want to try to cut back the stress,
and the stress may be related to the hours of work, you know,
working forty fifty hours. Dave mentioned something about the commute, the stress at
work. It does take away from our health and it is difficult for a
lot of people to have that luxury to go into their boss and tell them
that they want to cut back their hours. There's going to be a price
in a sense for these changes that you make. Now. The article,
as we've been talking about, it's posted on the Facebook page. If you
go to the website doctor Joeglati dot com, the Facebook link is there,
you could read the full article. And Dave is right. They do talk
about a neurosurgeon. All right, you'd have to think that this neurosurgeon is
pretty high on the pyramid of financial success and authority and calling the shots versus
that line bricklayer, the line worker at the assembly plant, the guy that
drives the truck cross country. But it is something to think about, and
we look at our own staff and our practice that we want them to work
hard, but we strive all the time to have that life work balance.
We try to have people work remotely. So by working remotely, you are
saving anywhere from thirty to ninety minutes a day driving. We're hoping that this
can, in a sense, parlay into better health, so that maybe they
can cook a meal at home, they could go shopping, they can spend
more time with their kids, they could exercise or just decompress at the end
of the day. Now, Dave, are we able to get David back
on the line. You couldn't. My god, sun sun spots have knocked
David Goldberg off. All right, Well that is that is it. Well
we'll have to get David back to finish it next week maybe, But what
I would say for everybody lessons of today. We talked a little bit about
the pill mentality. Keep in mind that you have so much control over your
health and wellness. Do not relinquish that. You can make changes in what
you eat. We talk about eating all the time. The name of the
book I wrote is eating Yourself Sick, and so clearly I have a bias
towards nutrition and food and wellness and the exercise your sleep. Mental health is
key. You should all be thinking tonight and tomorrow, how is my mental
health? How are the relationships that I am in? And we have all
been in relationships or people in our family, people we work with, that
these are toxic relationships that negatively impact our health. But it's not always going
to come down to a pill. I'm hopeful that the discussion of trying to
work less, we could use that time and plow it into better wellness.
That is it? All right, that's it for tonight. I'm doctor Joe
Glotti. You've been listening to your health First. Don't forget doctor Joe Glotti
dot com is our website. I want to hear from all of you next
Sunday night at seven. We will be right back here. Take care.
You've been listening to your health First with doctor Joe Glotti. Need more information
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