The Peter Attia Drive - The impact of gratitude, serving others, embracing mortality, and living intentionally | Walter Green (#288 rebroadcast)

Episode Date: November 24, 2025

View the Show Notes Page for This Episode Become a Member to Receive Exclusive Content Sign Up to Receive Peter's Weekly Newsletter Walter Green is a remarkable philanthropist, mentor, author of This Is the Moment!, and founder of the impactful "Say It Now" movement. In this episode, Walter delves into the unique insights gained from his challenging upbringing, discusses embracing mortality, and highlights the mindset of "finishing strong." He shares insights on intentionality, thinking in reverse, saying "no," prioritizing relationships, and the essence of focusing on others. The conversation focuses on the "Say It Now" movement, which stresses the importance of expressing sentiments to loved ones well before the end of life. We discuss: How Peter and Walter met through Ric Elias [3:30]; The unique perspectives and life lessons provided by Walter's challenging childhood [6:00]; Walter's harrowing experience with a sudden mental breakdown and his subsequent recovery with the help of therapy [12:15]; A diverse professional journey ending in great success [19:15]; The birth of a movement: celebrating friendships through public tributes and expressing gratitude to those who have shaped your life's journey [23:30]; Intentionality, thinking in reverse, saying "no", and other guiding principles for Walter [30:45]; Walter's global journey of gratitude on his 70th birthday, visiting friends, and creating memorable experiences [40:15]; The profound impact of acknowledging and expressing gratitude for the people who contribute to our lives [47:15]; The key elements for creating meaningful connections and cultivating deep, authentic friendships [53:15]; The "Say It Now" movement: the inspiration behind the remarkably impactful initiative [59:15]; What "finishing strong" means to Walter [1:08:15]; Finding peace at the end of life through expressing gratitude and finding purpose in serving others [1:16:45]; Resources to learn about "Say It Now" [1:27:00]; and More. Connect With Peter on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube

Hey everyone, welcome to the Drive podcast. I'm your host, Peter Attia. This podcast, my website, and my weekly newsletter all focus on the goal of translating the science of longevity into something accessible for everyone. Our goal is to provide the best content in health and wellness, and we've established a great team of analysts to make this happen. It is extremely important to me to provide all of this content without relying on paid ads. To do this, our work is made entirely possible by our members, and in return, we offer exclusive member-only content and benefits above and beyond what is available for free. If you want to take your knowledge of this space to the next level, it's our goal to ensure

members get back much more than the price of the subscription. If you want to learn more about the benefits of our premium membership, head over to peteratia-md.com forward slash subscribe. Welcome to a special episode of The Drive. For this week's episode, and in light of Thanksgiving approaching, I wanted to rebroadcast my conversation with Walter Green on the impact of gratitude, serving others, and living intentionally. Walter's a philanthropist, a mentor, and he's an author of This Is the Moment and founder of the Say It Now movement. In this episode, we discuss the unlikely path that shaped Walter's worldview,

embracing mortality, and the mindset of finishing strong as a compass for how to live life now, the power of intentionality, thinking in reverse, setting outcomes first, and learning to say no to protect what matters, prioritizing relationships over achievements and the small habits that build deep authentic friendships, the origin story of say it now and why expressing gratitude publicly can change both giver and receiver. Walter's years-long journey at 70, visiting the 44 people who shaped his life and what he learned about meaning, memory, and legacy, finding peace at the end of life through service, gratitude, and purpose beyond oneself, and practicing ways to start, simple prompts, living tributes, and resources for bringing the Say It Now movement into

families, classrooms, and communities. I'd like to also point out that the Gratitude Express, which is a series of stories inspired by the Say It Now movement is going to be coming out shortly, a book by Walter Green. And finally, I'll add one very personal anecdote here, which is that I'm incredibly grateful to Walter for the impact he had on my life personally. It was directly as a result of my friendship with Walter that I was fortunate enough to pay tribute to my father before he passed away this year. I, as a direct result of everything I learned from Walter wrote, what would have been a eulogy to him, but was able to read it to him six months before he died.

And I am incredibly grateful for that. It slightly eased the pain of his loss and made me realize that at least in the final months of his life, there was nothing I left unsaid about my gratitude towards him and all he had done for me. So without further delay, I'd like you to enjoy my conversation with Walter Green, which, again, has been an important part of my own journey. Hey, Walter, thank you so much for making the trip out to Austin from San Diego. It's been two years, about a year and a half since we met. For folks listening, we met at the home slash party of a very close mutual friend to both of us, Rick Elias, who's also been a guest on this podcast.

And Rick did something very special for that two-day event, which was really not a celebration of anything. It wasn't a birthday or anything like that. It was simply Rick decided. He wanted to bring a handful of his closest friends together for no reason other than to let us meet each other, which I thought was a very beautiful expression of friendship. And I suppose exactly as he planned, I am still in very close touch with a number of the people I met there, which I think means it was mission accomplished. Did you have a similar experience? First, I thought that's perhaps one's greatest gift. If you can give the gift of a special relationship to people you care about, there is no more beautiful gift. And he structured that in an incredible way, providing entertainment, but mostly the opportunity where there was no introduction needed. Everybody knew each other because we all knew Rick. I've heard about impact of some of the words that I shared. Rick has also shared what's going on with others. So I've been in touch with a few.

It's very special when you can, at this stage of my life, to connect with people that have been qualified, discriminated, selected with very high standard. So it was a real treat. It wasn't that we got to sit with everybody in an intimate setting because we were only there for basically 30 hours. So I don't know how many meals that turned into. But clearly the most interesting discussions, or at least the closest discussions, took place over meals. By fortune, you and I happened to be seated next to each other. And maybe it wasn't an accident. My recollection is they were assigned seating for every meal.

So for one of the meals, you and I sat next to each other, which led to the inevitable, hey, what's your relationship to Rick? Because that was, I think, the way we all started our discussion. And your son and Rick's son went to business school together. Actually. I'm sorry, your son and Rick. I'm sorry, went to business school together. Yeah. Let's not make Rick older than he is.

But somehow we pivoted quickly from that into your story and what you're passionate about, which is really what we're here to talk about today. But again, my recollection, Walter, is that it wasn't you talking about your current project as much as it was an evolution of your life story. I probably, in my usual way, just started pestering you with questions. Where did you grow up? Tell me about your childhood and what brought you to where you are. I was really riveted by the discussion.

So I think maybe for the sake of the listener, I'd like to reproduce as much of that as possible. So tell me, tell us. Where did you grow up? Yeah, so first of all, I consider that the ultimate compliment when someone shows the interest in someone else. It's never pestering to me. It's always very satisfying. So, you know, I was thinking about my life, basically. You know, I'm in a very reflective mood at this age.

It's basically been three stages. I probably would call the first stage, and they've been running around 28 years in their 28, 29, seems to be my staging. Haven't quite completed my, well, pretty much completed the third stage. How old are you, Walter? I'll be 85 next month. So the first 29, 28, 29 years were pretty much finding myself. Just big picture.

The next 29 were making myself. and the last 29 have been becoming myself. What would you like to know more of? Well, I feel like so much of what defined the second and third, we're talking probably a lot about the insights that have come in the third phase, but I suspect the seeds of those were sown in the first phase. So if you're 85, it means that you were born the tail end of the Depression. You're born in the late 1930s.

1938? Yeah. And so you're born before the war. You come of age when the baby boomers are coming alive. What was your childhood like? And where was it? I know you were on the East Coast, but I can't remember where. When I think about it, I think what doesn't break you makes you.

Childhood was for me, challenging. My father was a dreamer when I was one year old and my brother was two. he found a place that he thought in the Adirondacks would make a great dude ranch. And he had been relatively successful. He had saved, I think, $40,000 back then, which was a lot of money. And so he actually, it was a chicken farm that didn't work out as a chicken farm, converted it to a dude ranch. And the third year after it opened, there was a big flood, wiped out the bridge,

and we went essentially bankrupt. So my father at the time was in his 40s. And so we had to move back into Bronx in New York and a two-bedroom with his parents who didn't speak English. Really that first stage, I think I lived in 16 different cities. So I won't go into all the details except to say that it really did set the stage for my life. But it wasn't just the movement from the Adirondex to the Bronx. to Elizabeth, New Jersey, to Albany, New York, Connecticut, New York, Coral Gables, Florida, Jacksonville, Florida. It wasn't the cities. It was that my mother got cancer when I was nine.

We went on our first vacation as a family. She recovered. Back then, they were doing major mastectomies for breast cancer. And her first vacation to Florida when we were living in Albany, New York. My father was coming a couple days later. It was our first family vacation, the four of us. And my mother got a call that he had a heart attack. So she had a fly home, which was never easy from Florida, New York, as it is today. And so began a very different way of life. I was 11 years old, and we were reminded that we needed to make sure our dad was okay. He was 47 at the time. So that was a game changer. The two things I remember specifically were all this movement preempted any chance to have a relationship. I didn't have any friends. They made no sense to have

a friend I was going to be moving in a year or two. So this absence of a relationship, and I've always found in life, that I think people who are really motivated are people who haven't had it. when you have had it, I think it's a little bit more difficult to be motivated. So not ever having a friend, really, and had a few in high school, but prior to that, none. So the combination of no relationships and a fear that back then with breast cancer, five years was a long time. I got very lucky with my mother. She lived a long life.

had cancer again but survived that as well. I went off to school at University of Michigan. Two months later, I got that phone call that my father had died from a fatal heart attack. He was 53, and his brother died at 53. So my dad was a little older than I was as a father, and so we didn't have much in common, and most of my concern was his welfare, and his concern was his welfare and trying to provide for the family. The gift that I got was this incredible branding that life is short. It's unpredictable. You never know. And from then on, I've been walking up escalators. That's the way I live. I'm very intentional. I don't take anything for granted. And so that was my major gift for my father. That was a tough period.

I graduated from University of Michigan, which was a struggle because academically, that was really tough for me. But I managed to get through. Then after a short stint in the Army, took a job with a fraternity brother. I had no place to go. Wasn't going to go back to Jacksonville, Florida. His father was in the industrial textile business, and I got assigned to Pittsburgh. Industrial textiles is another word for shop towels or rags, depends on how glamorous you want to make it. That was probably my 11th or 12th job.

I was selling women's shoes when I was a teenager. I had been working ever since I could get qualified to get a job. I was always afraid that I'd be on my own. In any case, I didn't have many options, so I went to sell rags in Pittsburgh. Two months after, I started. I came back to Ohio at the corporate offices, and I was told I was doing a really good job. and the man who had been training me, who was an older man, I thought was a really nice guy.

And at that sales meeting, I got this message, Walter, you're doing so well. Just as soon as you could learn that job, we're going to let that man go. And I went back to Pittsburgh, and I couldn't get out of my bet. There was no mental illness in our family. Nobody really understood because I couldn't see it. So I ended up being hospitalized. Didn't talk about that for 40 years because back then it was a real stigma. I thought it would influence getting into a profession, relationships.

Being in a mental hospital was not something that you told people about. Tell me a little bit more about how that happened. So you're obviously in your mid-20s at this point. You hear this news. It obviously upsets you. You go back home. When you say you couldn't get out of bed, I assume you mean the feeling of dysthymia and helplessness was so great that you had no desire to do anything. Yeah, so when I said, go back home, I want to clarify home for me at that time was an apartment with three guys.

I had moved into a YMCA for a couple nights trying to figure out where I was going to live. And so I was in a room with three strangers. That's who I had been living with for two months. So I came back from the corporate meeting from Ohio to where I was living. I didn't call it home. It was a rental apartment with three other guys. I never had it before, never had it since. But what happened was that I essentially, I don't know, I would say it became catatonic.

I just froze. I could not move. Somehow they got me on a plane to Florida and got me to Miami, and then they said you'd be best off in a hospital in Massachusetts. so I flew up. What was the length of time from when you returned to Pittsburgh to when you wound up in that institute in Massachusetts? Less than two weeks.

Your mom was obviously still alive. What was her reaction and what did you say to her? They had no idea. They just knew that this young boy who was president of his high school fraternity and president of his college fraternity and this very mature young man was incapable of moving. And to show you how things were. At that time, I had an uncle who was very close to our family, and he saw me in bed, and he said, Walter, just get up.

Just get up. You're fine. No comprehension of what being mentally sick was. What happened when you got to the hospital? So it was a series of treatments, mostly dialogue and medication. And when I arrived there, it was very difficult because when I saw others, I thought, wow, It really looks like, but I really couldn't do anything on my own. So, went from there to moving to Cambridge, which I always have to laugh about because when I tell people, I graduated from University of Michigan and then spent some time in Cambridge.

They always thought how this guy is really smart and he's really modest, man. Went to that little school back east just outside of Boston. Right. Really, that wasn't what brought me to Cambridge, but it was a terrific experience for him. me. I learned so much about myself. I was so afraid of failing and I failed and I survived. So it was a great experience. I spent two years in therapy. He learned a lot about myself. How long were you hospitalized? Two, three months. Again, you mentioned that there was medications involved. Do you remember what types of medications of the era? I don't have a deep enough knowledge of the psychiatric, presumably some sort of era appropriate antidepressants? Apparently.

Did they use shock therapy? I didn't have any shock therapy. It was a great learning opportunity for me. It was fantastic. How did you know you were ready to leave? Well, that's a funny story. Actually, I was seeing a therapist, and it was inconvenient. I was seeing them a couple of times a week, and I'm thinking, at the time, I was in

public accounting. I was selling mutual funds on the weekends. I was really busy in having to go to this therapist that wasn't convenient. I finally said to him after two years, I said, said, when do I finish? He said, I think you're done. That was it. But I mean, when did you leave the actual hospital after two to three months? What prompted that? Oh, what prompted leaving the hospital, not what prompted the leaving of the therapy. My guess I felt that was okay to return to society. And how frightening was that? You know, Peter, I can't actually say that

it was frightening. I felt like I was in a pretty good place. I had always been in a good place. It was like just this two or three months, I just completely lost it. And it might have been an accumulation of losing my dad in the freshman year, never really dealing with that, feeling the pressure of, oh my God, what am I going to do, then finally getting a job. And now my job is if I'm successful, I'll let this guy go. And I think it was just more than I could handle. Yeah, it's interesting. It seems that one of the real challenges of getting over an episode. So traumatic would be the fear of not knowing if it could happen again. Did you feel that through the experience of speaking with the therapists while you were an inpatient, you had sufficient resolution

of that such that you weren't worried that you were kind of an accident waiting to happen, an emotional train wreck that you couldn't anticipate? I'm sure that was present. I was sufficiently back to who I was. This is a guy who had been in pretty good place for all but three months his life. And he had dealt with a lot of challenges along the way, a lot of moving, a lot of unknowns and parents' health and challenges at school that were really tough for me. So you can't say it'll never happen again because that's just being a little naive, but I never feared that it would happen again. So you mentioned insurance. So I assume when you got out of the hospital, you did not go back to the textile company. Oh, for sure. I mentioned a public

accounting. So I was in public accounting for three years, so I got certified as a public accountant. In the evenings, I was selling mutual funds because I wasn't paid enough in public accounting at that time to survive on my own. I had two jobs. All right. So continue with the story. I love it. Yeah. So my brother called actually, my brother Ray called from Florida, and he said he had just made $1,000 in his part time. And I said, that's more money than I'm making for my other two jobs. He described he was involved in a multi-level marketing for a fellow by name of Bob Cummings. You'd be impressed because it had to do with health. There were nutrition through biochemistry.

It was a sale of vitamins and minerals. And Bob Cummings, I think he had like seven kids and he looked half his age. I was anxious to make $1,000. So I became a distributor. That was my third job. I put a little card up in the laundromat near where I was living. And the first person had said, if you want to earn money in your part-time, please give me a call. You wouldn't get away with that today.

But back then, that was okay. So I answered the phone, the person on the phone said, I'll come over. And I had my little audiovisual kid and the slides and everything. And she seemed really interested in selling the vitamins. And as it turned out, Bob Cummings said it solved arthritis. And they shut them down three weeks later. So I lost my $500, which is all I had. But my first salesperson became my wife.

So it was the best thing that ever happened to me, and that was at 22. We were married at 24. So what did you continue to do professionally? Okay. Sorry for this long list of activities, but I then went into the hotel field. Actually, we moved to New Orleans, another move. Really decided hotels weren't for me. The search firm called and said there's a large food service.

company in New York. I'd like to be the vice president of administration. Lola, my wife and I were, I call herself single. We didn't have any children at the time. But right prior to the move, she became pregnant and delivered twins when we moved to New York for my other job. And I decided, really, the restaurant field wasn't for me either. So now I'm with twin boys in a field that still didn't work for me. I had really developed a lot of competencies. And when I mentor people, and mentor young people as I do today. Those competencies I knew were transferable. I was contacted by someone who had a startup company

in a new industry, a new niche of an existing industry, which is the development of high-end executive conference centers for corporations, mainly Fortune 500 companies, as an alternative to meeting in hotels. So there were specially designed facilities with guest rooms and fitness and dining in recreation instead of the folding walls and the bad acoustics. And so that was a startup company.

I put my $10,000 that I had into a very, very, very small percentage of the company. It was funny. It wasn't until I did that. And I began to think with more compassion about my dad, who had taken his 40,000 and put his life savings when he had a one and two-year-old. And I had twin one-year-olds. and I was doing the same thing as he did in a very unestablished brand new niche of the hospitality business. As it turned out, the company almost went bankrupt in three years. Same pattern.

The founders were asked to leave and I was given the opportunity to become president. I was 32 years old, had 400 employees. And over the next 25 years, became the major shareholder. We had 10 centers, ran about 6,000 conferences a year with 100. 150,000 executives. And that was my main event, became a company that was owned by myself and some key executives. Where in this journey does the thesis emerge for what became your 50th birthday, if I recall? You did something special at your 50th birthday, which in many ways became the central theme of what we're talking about. So now I'm into Act 2, the second 29 years. And so what I never really had, as I described in Act 1, were good friends.

And so now I was in my same home, and I was going to live there for an extended period of time. And so I began to make friends. I'm not talking acquaintances. I'm talking about people who I had authentic conversations with. And I was so joyful that when I had my 50th birthday that I wanted to celebrate those friends and so I invited the five of them with their spouses and my family. There were 17 of us. I remember it like it was yesterday.

It was just the opening weekend of Phantom of the Opera. I really spoiled these people for a whole weekend. And I really, at that time, was still limited in my cash. But I knew I was coming close to 53. So it was important for me to celebrate those friends. And so at the reception, I paid tribute to each one of them in front of everybody about how they enriched my life, what they had meant to me. And like Rick's affair, some of these people didn't even know each other, but they became

connected through me. And so that was really my first iteration of this paying profound tribute to people while I was alive. I want to talk a little bit more about that. I mean, a lot of people would say, sure, I could invite some friends over for my birthday and I'll make a toast to my friends, but this isn't exactly what we're talking about here. This is a bit more profound than that. How deliberate were you in this first rendition or manifestation of, say it now? And how much preparation did you put into what you would do with your five closest friends for that celebration? It began with the invitation and I mailed out a carton of apples and in each apple I planted a flag and each flag

was a representation of another activity during that weekend and everybody appreciated the invitation except my son who was going to school at Dartmouth and he said it was quite something carrying that crate of apples in the snow but everybody else seemed to like the idea. In any case, case, our twin sons played the role of the phantom. They came in off of the platform outside the room before with the smoke prior to the reception. We had some wonderful dinners, wonderful show, rides on the carriage. It was a life event that everybody really thought was extra special. I also created for each of them a memento of a picture and then a summary, which I still have to this day of two lines, two sentences, what each one present had meant to me, and I distributed that

memento at the end. How surprised do you think they were by what you said and how much you made this day, which look for most people when they're celebrating their 50th birthday, it's all about them? You seem to make this more about your friends. Do you think that caught them off guard? And can you tell how moved they were by that? Well, it was my first experience seeing how much people appreciate being appreciated and made more so when you do it publicly. I received within a couple months, I think, a leather-bound book. Well, I still read to this day of what that weekend meant to them. Meaning they collectively put this together as a gift back to you.

Right. So did you think at that point that this was a movement that could be larger than just something you did at your birthday? No, this was at the time, you know, I'm thinking about my life, I've never won any academic awards ever. And yet, when I look back on it, I seem to lead most groups. and I began to wonder why is that. I'm never the smartest in the room. I think I began to realize that I am kind of like an experiential learner. I kind of watch what's going on and I learn from that experience.

So for me, though, that left an indelible impression, but for me that was still locked into this fear that 53 may be done for me. So it had no longer-term view than that. I'd never had a longer-term view of my life. I remember attending a seminar when I was in a young president's organization. The woman had an experience where she said, I'd like you to close your eyes. I was, I don't know, must have been less than 50, maybe late 40s. And they said, just close your eyes.

Picture what an ideal future would look like. I closed my eyes and it was black. Tears ran down my face. I went up to her because she was a psychologist. I said, I don't understand. I assume this was a positive experience for everybody. This was painful. She said, does that have any to do with how long you think you might live?

And, of course, that was what it was related to. So to your question, Peter, this was never the beginning of what happened later on. There were two more. It seems like things happened in threes. That was the first act. There was a second act when I was 70. That was a different story. Before we talk about that, you alluded to the idea that a part of the magic of this experience was that you didn't just tell these five people how much they meant to you.

You did it publicly. Why did you decide to do that, even at the time? Was that just intuition? Or did you have a stronger belief set that it was more meaningful to do it that way as opposed to tell each of them privately? the exact same things that you would have said. Oh, I love that question. I had spent by that time 20 years in the conference business, and one of the focus that I had that was transferable

was that I always saw the power of expressing something in a group, so that if 10 people told you individually something, it was not as powerful as 10 people gathering to tell that person. In the positive and the negative? Both, for sure. And for me, it's always generally been depositive. So once again, the life experience is Walter. There's power in a group.

There's power there. And so it seemed quite natural to me. Is there anything between 50 and 70 that, I mean, aside from the obvious, which is at some point, you're 54 and you realize you did it, at what point does the fear of, well, you know, it's funny. Mortality is 100% guaranteed. So this idea that we're afraid of dying is a bit misguided. In some ways, it's we're afraid we don't know when we're going to die. There's probably some fear of not existing as well and understanding that life is finite. But how did you come to grips with that as with each passing year you found yourself alive?

Well, it was a gift that kept on giving because I always had my foot down on the pedal, not to the metal. not to the metal, but down on the pedal. I acquired an innate intentionality. People to this day say, how do you do what you do? And I said, one of the big reasons is I'm really good at deciding what I don't do. It's guided my life. So I knew however long I would have, I was just going to make the most of it. I was very grateful for every year.

That's a really important point, Walter. At what stage in your career did you go from always incoming, receiving, taking every opportunity that comes your way to this more deliberate focus on saying no? Because I'm sure that the day you graduated from college, you would have done anything. I mean, you did anything. But at some point, as a person matures and becomes more successful and they have more and more obligations, the no button becomes a very important button. How did you discover that and what were your guiding principles? I would say that the fine tuning of that, I always was concerned how much time,

but that doesn't give you focus. That gives you just a concern for time. But I attended a program at the Center for Constructive Change when I was in my 30s. It was taught by Fred Jervis, may he rest in peace. And it was a process of thinking that has changed every day of my life. I do not think in traditional ways that I thought before that. I always think in reverse. So when I'm thinking, I'm going to have the pleasure of spending time with you. I don't think, I never would ask you, what will we do? I would specifically say it, if this conversation is really successful, what would have happened by the end of it for us to know that our time was well spent? I asked that question for everything important that I do, every day.

Including personal interactions? Including personal interactions. Hmm. I want to talk about that a little bit because that makes me. a lot of sense in some contexts. It makes a lot of sense at a meeting. If you have your senior leadership in for a meeting, it's really important to say, what is the desired outcome of this meeting? How do I want behavior to change? How do I want people to feel? Whatever. On the other hand, I have a hard time wrapping my head around that. I'm not pushing back on the idea. I'm just

sort of thinking through it, which is I'm going away with one of my kids for the weekend. And you're saying, instead of thinking through the activities you're going to do, walk me through what you're thinking. I'll give you a real live example. I was actually doing mentoring with one of Jason's friends. He came to see me and he said, you know, I- Jason's one of your sons. Yes. Sorry.

So one of his friends, he was, I think, in his 30s at the time. He just came down to see if he could get some coaching. And so I said, well, give me some situations you're dealing with. he said, Walter, I work so hard during the day. And then I go home and I spend all my energy with my kids. From morning to night, at the end of it, they don't seem very fulfilled and I'm exhausted. And then I start all over again. Wow, that's a tough life.

I have a question you might want to ask them. They're now, I think, nine and 11 years old. I said, when you get home Friday night, why don't you ask them the question to each of them? If this were really a fantastic weekend, what would you like to have happen over the weekend? They obviously gave them specifics. He was able to do it in like a third of the time. The kids had a fantastic time, and he had two-thirds of his time to relax. Now, do you always need the input of someone else when you're thinking through that?

No. Sometimes, sometimes not? No, I would ask myself, so if I were even meeting a friend or meeting a mentee, I'd say, well, Walter, if this were a really successful experience, what would have happened by the end of it? To me, it's like saying good morning. It's just so intuitive. There's not a formality. It's a freeing. Peter, it's a freeing. It is not a limitation. It may sound like too much structure. It's the ultimate of being free. Because I don't ask myself, what will I do? I ask, what is it that I'd like to have happen? If I'm meeting with a friend who's going through a difficult time, when I'm done, I would like to figure out some time during that time that I will help him lighten that load.

I'm not sure when, but when I leave, I want to be able to do that. To me, it's very natural, very powerful, very intentional, very focused, and very gratifying. Say a little bit more about what you learned or how you developed your palate around, saying no to things. Oh, well, that's the larger question. So this process of asking about what success would be for an individual one for probably over 40 years, I asked myself the question, if my life is successful over the next three years, used to be five, now it's down to one, but it's far enough out that I'm

not thinking about what I did last year. If I had an ideal life in the next three years, how would I know it? What would be happening? And I would go from my personal relationships, my family relationships, my financial relationships, my health. Every key area of my life would have an indicator. And that would be like my ideal outcomes. And then I would kind of, what I think, think backwards. Well, if I want to be my cholesterol at under 100, and I'm at 100.

10, what would it be each six-month period? So each one of them have benchmarks. I may be getting into too much detail here for you, Peter, but each benchmark is to me powerful because it says to me at six-month intervals, if I make it, I'm on track. If I don't, I haven't failed. I just tell myself, well, whatever you're doing isn't sufficient. So what are you going to do differently? Wow, is that powerful. That's how I've been leading my life. So to your question, it is so easy for me to say no when it isn't consistent with the outcomes and the indicators that I've been committed to. Yeah, that takes a bit of discipline, doesn't it? The first time, it'll seem awkward. After 44 years, it's awkward not to do it.

Yeah, but I mean, the discipline is in the ability to contemplate something that in the moment seems enticing. People talk and are familiar with this idea of fear of missing out. Someone comes to you and says, Walter, I've got this great opportunity for you and da-da-da-da-da. And on the surface, it sounds pretty interesting. But then you have to say, wait, how is that aligned with the goals that I have? one of the tools that I've learned for that, and it's been very helpful for me, I've been in a very concerted effort for the past five years approximately of trying to be more disciplined about

that, is forcing myself to never say yes to anything when asked. So even if I'm really leaning towards doing it, just asking for a couple of days to think about it. And if I just commit to that one rule, that's literally the only rule that is absolutely black and white, which is this sounds very interesting, Walter, let me think about it for a couple of days and get back to you. And then it just buys me the time to try to do my own version of that. I still think I probably say yes to more than I should. But that one step has probably saved me 80%. That's great. We all have our own techniques for me. I have to say, when you say it's a lot of structure, my structure provides freedom. It provides a built-in discipline. And it allows for a lot of creativity.

because I never, never talk about how I'm going to do it. So I am completely free to figure out how. You mentioned something at 70, the second phase of insight. Say a little more about that. Now I had this experience when I was 50. And so still being sensitized to the 50s thinking, well, my father never worked out. And I've been working out since I've been 30. So I've got a few more years over him.

So my adjusted age is 58, 59, 60, so it's still present. Well, they have these moments. It was Tim Russert's funeral that I saw. Yeah, died at about, what, 2007, 2007, 2008, 2007, 2007. 2008, 2007. And he was in his early 50s. I thought he was brilliant with meet the press, never been a moderator in my view that's been better.

And at his funeral with former presidents and astronauts and celebrities that tributes were unbelievable. And it occurred to me. He never got to hear it. He's never going to hear a word of it. That registered. I thought, that doesn't make sense. And I briefly mentioned, I'm reading challenge, so reading books are very difficult, unless they can be done in small chapters with no recall of the previous chapter. I was able to read Tuesdays with Moray that had been written, where in his final years, he got very authentic and very deliberate. And I remember reading part of the last lecture, which a professor at Carnegie Mellon, I think. And he wanted to do one last lecture because he was dying from cancer.

And he wanted to leave a message for his kids. I'm saying, wow. And then the KPMG chairman in his 50s got brain cancer. I believe it was brain cancer. Had four months to live. and he wrote a book called Chasing Daylight about what he wanted to do in the last four months. Experiences, experiences, experiences.

It's either too late or it's almost too late. I don't want that to be my life. That may be customary, but sometimes customary is not good. It's just usual and common. but not smart. And I made a commitment, and it was in my late 50s when I had those four or more impact that I was going to do it differently. And I was coming on 70.

And I thought, oh, I did my 50, and now my 70. And I asked Lola, I said, you know, I have an idea for a gift from my 70th. She said, what is it? I said, I want to spend as much time as I need in the coming year to sit down with everybody that had been important in my life. I wanted to go visit with them. I want to sit with them. I want to have an experience with them after I talk with them. And I want each one of them to know how important they've been in my life.

Lola has been either the creator or the supporter of everything important in my life, said, if that's the gift you want, you should take it. And that's what I did for the following 11 months. After I was 70, I visited with 44 people, brought me to Kenya, to Mexico, to Canada, many places in the United States, it was a remarkable moment of my life. Give me an example of what such a meeting was like. Obviously, if you're seeing 44 people across the globe in 11 months, we're talking about only days that you're spending with each person, right?

Oh, literally a day. So you would fly into Mexico City? Yeah, so most of them were domestic. In fact, some of them I was able to do two in one trip or three in one trip. I had a few in Florida, so I would combine them. So it wasn't like I had 44 trips. Some were from Southern California, which is where I live. It didn't require traveling.

I don't want to make this seem like this was a extensive travel, whatever. But I want to highlight the simplicity of it. First of all, I hesitate to typically tell this story about 44 people because people and your listeners will probably say, oh, I don't have 44 people. You have one at least. And that's all I'm trying to inspire. So for me, the journey was my personal journey. Had nothing to do with inspiring anybody for anything.

It was my personal journey. And I said, well, what process will I use? Took out a legal pad, and I wrote the question, what difference did this person make in my life? And I would put bullet points down underneath it. Sometimes it could be two pages, but typically one, I've got to go see them or her by the product of that process. I took that legal pad with me, and it was I had four bases that I covered in every conversation. So yeah, there's some systemization to this, but each one was so different. but they followed a similar pattern.

And what was that pattern? Well, the first base was just, how did I have the good fortune of meeting you? How did that happen? And we talked about next base with all these shared experiences we had. Wow, amazing. Third base was the major one.

I had my pad, and I said, this is for me to express to you, how important you've been in my life, and I want to tell you why. Because to me, the specificity, never do say that word too easily, was where the richness of the conversation. It wasn't, I love you, it wasn't, although I did tell them I love them, it wasn't a general remark, it was a specific remark. So third base was the big one.

The fourth one was kind of for me, which is that I had known these people over a thousand years. And I said, this is my only opportunity. Incidentally, I recorded every conversation. And because it's so hard to take in acknowledgement and appreciation, at the end of this year, I mailed to each one of them, a picture, a 120-word letter, summarizing it, and the CD, which summarized our conversation, and framed them and mailed it to 44 people. But the last piece of it was that I wanted to learn something.

about myself. And so I said, listen, I would appreciate it. If you could give me one piece, I'd like to create a mosaic about who I am, would you be good enough to share with me? What would that piece have been from your perspective? And that was my fourth base. That's the whole experience. That's the whole process. What was the most interesting thing you learned in that year about life, not necessarily about yourself, but just about life and the richness of it? First thing was how blessed I was. Relationships are interesting in the sense that I equate it like I put a flashlight in a dark room. Those qualities of the friends were always there, but I just brought them to light.

And when you bring them to light, it's an extraordinary feeling. I mean, if you had one or two or three, it matters not. I mean, here's a guy who never had a friend until he went to high school. Come on. So I felt such a richness from the experience. Actually, towards the end, I was in Kenya on actually another mission, actually building a school over there. And the founder of this nonprofit heard what I was doing. And in fact, was on the journey.

And he said, well, would you tell the story at dinner about what you're doing? and they all broke into applause at the end. I said, you know, maybe this story has to be told more. Maybe it shouldn't just be a personal story. And so once again, Lois, I guess it was about right during this time, had lunch with an acquaintance, told the acquaintance about what I was doing. Acquaintance, I'd like to hear the story. Turns out she was the editorial director of Hayhouse.

and three days later, I had a contract to write the book. And that became another platform. It's called This Is the Moment, how one man's year-long journey captured the extraordinary power of gratitude. It's interesting. You talked about how some people might hear that 44 people made this list. And this is a pretty selective list. You were very deliberate in saying, these are not acquaintances.

These are very close friends. These are people who, I mean, these are big questions. Not how did we meet, not what are the shared experiences, but telling them with great specificity, the impact they've had on your life, that's not a big group of people. The fact that it's 44 for you is probably not surprising to anyone who's listening to this conversation or to anybody who knows you. And it probably speaks to how deliberate you are at cultivating relationships. I think it's a cliche, but it's a cliche for a reason that richness in life is much more about

relationships than other successes, whether it be success in victory, success in material, or monetary means. Do you find that one can realize that without some suffering? In other words, how much of a role did the pain that you experience? in the first 29 years of your life paradoxically become the greatest asset to allow the second and third 29 year periods to have this degree of richness? That's a wonderful question. Clearly, I was at an advantage because of my deprivation.

But I think there's a level of consciousness and that I have, there have been thousands of people who have since acted on this message. And there have been, remember, I knew it was going to be good because he was an acquaintance and he's a motorcycle cigar smoking, really tough dude. He said, that's a hell of a message. He said, there are some people I need to speak to. And so the wide range of people that realize we are not self-made, everybody really knows that. The question is, are we going to acknowledge those people that help make us? while they're here. It's not complicated. It's not complicated. What I find incredible and why I'm

really excited about this latest movement, and we can maybe get into more of that in the discussion. But I think my contemporaries and even people in their 40s and 50s, they've been so focused on the traditional measures of success that relationships don't have the focus. focus. And at the end of the day, another couple chapters I read of a book called How Do You Measure Life or something like that, written by a professor at Harvard. Now, these are all these bright guys who graduate from the business school, go out and become financial who-was. In five or ten years, they've made a fortune. They come back for a reunion and they're miserable. He said, there's something wrong with this picture. And he changed his focus to have them look at what

successful life looks like, not how much success you may have in business. And I think there is an enormous opportunity, missed opportunity in really placing education around what's really important. And I don't know about you, but to me, there's nothing more important than my marriage. I have 60 years, over 20,000 days. My children, they're grown. twins, my good friends, what did they ever teach me about that? Where did I ever learn about what it is to be a compassionate, loving, caring husband, or a father, or a friend? What do you do when your friends are struggling? How are you helpful? How do you show compassion? Show me a school, and that's where I'll go. One of the things that I want to understand a bit better at Walter is I know a lot of

people who are surrounded by people that are supposedly friends and they have world-class experiences constantly. But deep down, they don't seem particularly enriched by them. And I don't want to sound judgmental because one can never know from the outside. But my appearance is that both these so-called friendships seem superficial and the experiences maybe seem too hedonic and not relationally rich. It's also clear that when you talk about these 44 people, that that's not what it was about. I suspect that when you talked about the experiences you shared with them, it wasn't when we went to Vegas that weekend and gambled all this money away and partied really hard or something like, I suspect that some of the experiences you talked about sharing were very

subtle. How do you think that you naturally gravitated towards that? And why do you think that is not necessarily a natural thing for people to do? Yeah, wonderful. I think it has to do with our life experiences. I don't have much time to waste. This urgency from literally the fear of death. I don't know if it's a fear of death. It's a realization. Somebody wasted an hour of my time this week. It was a pure waste. I really resented it. They didn't do it intentionally. It just turned out to be a wasted hour. I would have rather written out a check. I can't get that hour back. So I tend to not have a lot of time. I have to laugh because one of the fellows, I've been in these what we call forums there, of 10 or 12 presidents, one I've been in for 37 years, one for 20 years, another one for 22 years.

I've been to like 800 of these sessions. Well, they're all authentic. They're all about life. I've spent probably 4,000 hours talking about president's issues as deep as you could be. So that's where I spend a fair amount of time, all my mentoring. My mentoring is about real life issues. It's not about entertainment. And friends that I hang with are typically ones where I can have meaningful conversations.

So I really think it's how you normally relate in your life. I think it's getting to the point where people are more comfortable being open. I also find when people get older, they're getting a little bit more comfortable. I myself was very secretive in my 20s. I'm not secretive now. they're all lessons. So it's kind of interesting in these men's groups. I would not be the smartest, for sure.

I would not be the first one I would call to go have a beer with. I don't drink it, but they wouldn't ask me anyway, not the bantering kind of person. But the moderator of the group said, Walter, I don't know if you know it, but this is the person who was on the journey. He said, of all the members of the group, you'd either be the first or second person

that everyone would come to if they had. had an issue. Why do you think that is? Is that innate? Is that deliberate? Meaning, is that a skill you are cultivating? Is it simply part of your personality? I mean, let's be clear. I think it's interesting to me that the straw that broke the camel's back in your own mental breakdown was one born of empathy. I mean, it was that you couldn't stand to take this older man's job. And while I'm sure many people would be disheartened by that proposition, and even if someone just chose to say, well, I'm not going to go back to work, it impacted you in a way that was so much deeper. If someone's listening to this thinking, I would like to be a person that at a minimum my friends

could come to when there's a problem. Not necessarily everyone would feel that way who knew me, But those who know me well, but it's not happening. I can't tell you the last time someone came to me because they have a problem. What do they need to do to cultivate that skill? And let me ask you a follow-up question in a moment, which is, why should one want to have that? Well, first, the question is, how do you develop that skill? I think it's based on authenticity and empathy and compassion. And I think we all have it.

I don't know that we all use it. But I think deep relationships, you mentioned earlier, the people who have these wide range of friendships and they say, I don't want to correct. These were not all good friends of mine that were on the list. These are all people who had significantly impacted my life. That doesn't necessarily mean that they were my good friends. I see. Many of them were good friends.

The primary selection criteria was these people altered the course of your life. And some of them might have been a professor in college. Exactly. Well, the blind man in New Hampshire who taught me how to think, I might have seen him 30 times in my life. He would not be someone who's a friend. In terms of why would someone want to be more authentic? That's an individual choice. I think there's a natural aptitude to show and tell.

And for me, authenticity transcends show and tell. I find it very rich. I find a lot of these apparent friendships were really just, we were in the same organization together and they were very friendly. You leave the organization and you don't see them again. That's not a friend. That's just an association. And I think sometimes the kids confusing. And sometimes as you elevate yourself in the world, people will befriend you in ways that you actually think they're a friend. but they're really, in some cases, just because of an association. So let's go back to Tim Russert's death, circa 2008. This has a profound effect on you, right?

You see all of these people coming to say the most amazing things to him that he never got to hear. What else crystallizes for you there? That was one of three or four that came right at me and it followed a real memory of my 50th. and the fact that, oh my God, I'm going to make 70. I think those compounded it, the 70th experience in which I wrote the book, I spoke about the book. People wrote me about what the message had meant to them because the book was structured in three ways. One is, how did I come up with this idea? Where did it come from?

It's absolutely unbelievable to me. And now I'm seeing more research come out because mental health is becoming so much more of an issue. They're now coming out with studies that are done five and ten years ago about the the power of gratitude, makes you feel better, it's less depressed, and none of mine was based on any study. It was all experiences. So the feedback I got from speaking on the subject matter really elevated my appreciation of the power of the message. It has been gaining, and then really a decade after the book was published, it still had legs. I heard from a girl in a Philippines, who had picked the book up in a library, and she wrote me an email, and she said, I just wanted you to know I was thinking of killing myself.

First of all, I had no idea how the book was in a library in the Philippines, but she said I had been abused in my family, and I was so angry I wanted to end it. She said, but I read your book, and I realized there are a number of people who have actually helped me in my life. and how can I forget that at this moment? We had one or two exchanges. Decade later, I heard from her. She's married, living in, I think, Denmark or Sweden. There are many of these stories. It elevated to me the importance of thinking about maybe there's a more powerful way to do it.

Most of my life has been spent one-on-one in small groups. All my mentoring is one-on-one. All my small groups is 12 people or less. My conference business was 25 people. or less, typically. The book was the first time that I have influenced thousands of people. And during the pandemic, I thought, oh, this is going to make this group get together end. And I actually was having a conversation with my son.

He said, you know, you could do it by Zoom. I said, really? And so three days later, we did the first of the living tributes. He insisted on using me and brought my mentees together. and that evolved into what became the Sayah Now movement today. And this may be my biggest legacy. How does a person go about doing this? Well, first of all, this is not a business of mine.

I invest in it. There's no royalties. There's no rewards. There's nothing. I want to make it really simple. This is not complicated. Once again, I will tell you of the thousands of stories that I've heard over the years. I've never heard one that the person said, I'm sorry. I just got a card from someone this

past week. He sent me and he said, I just want you to know you inspired this. The card was printed 70 for 70. And he proceeds to say, he has written to 70 people on his 70th birthday. He outdid me. So I dropped him a note. Asked him what the experience was like. Very similar experience. Oh, my God. was so easy to do. It felt so good. It reconnected me with people at levels I haven't been at. It's not complicated. They were short notes to each of those people. And I say it doesn't matter how, but it does matter now. I recently came across an interview by Hadley Vahas. Vajos. She is a hospice nurse. She just wrote a book called In Between. And in it, they asked her the question, if you had an ideal death, what would it be like after you see these people who have had

these for months before they die? And she said, well, for me, I would want people to come to me and tell me that I mattered before I died, right? When I was dying, I'd like to hear that. She said, I was with these people for six months before they died, their central word was, I don't matter to anybody. Then she would go to the funerals of these people and hear the tributes that are paid to the person who is dying, who feels unloved, unappreciated, unacknowledged. So what I decided was, in some ways we have to unlearn this idea that what is customary, You have to unlearn. Celebrations of life are great for some things.

Memorial services are great. But they're not for paying tribute to somebody who's been important in your life. Those are not the moments for that. Why do you think we do that, Walter? Custom. But is there some level of discomfort we have? I mean, when you say it this way, it's so obvious. There's nothing you're saying right now that anybody listening to this would go,

no, that doesn't make any sense. we should absolutely let those people in hospice die thinking that they didn't matter and wait till they die to tell a bunch of other people how important they were. You know, again, when you state it that way, it sounds ridiculous. But there must be some reason that this custom has stuck. And it's wonderful that you're going to shatter that. But as I even examine my own life and I think of these people in high school, in college, at all stages of my life who mattered.

It's clear to me that most of them might not realize it now. I was with a limousine driver, and we started to, he said, what do you do? And so I told him the story. He said, oh, my, my immediate thought goes to my basketball coach. Now, he must have been in his 40s. That guy taught me so much about life and about playing. It wasn't about the game. And I said, well, is he still alive?

Yeah. maybe you should connect with him. Next time he picked me up to go to the airport. He said, I got to tell you something. I met with my basketball coach. I said, what was that like? I guess you can come out of all these stories, right? He said, I called him, I said, coach, I haven't seen him a long time.

I like to come see him. Sure, come on. So he comes and he said, I'll see you on the basketball court. So the young fellow says, coach, I didn't come to play basketball. What did you come for? I said, I need to have you sit down on the bench. I want to tell you what you mean to me. Change their lives.

So the reason that I think it's a little hard is because not too many people are modeling that this is the way to do it. So I thought strategically what we should really do is teach younger people about doing it. They don't have to unlearn anything. So my major thrust this past year has been to educate young people, and they are teaching materials now. I think we're in 38,500 classrooms around the world. And so 75 different countries. So it is a global movement.

They are primarily fifth through the 12th grades, and they all have materials on practicing, say it now. And so that's where it's starting because they're going to go home, tell their parents. I got a note from Joanne in Ontario, Canada, a fellow Canadian, and kindergarten teacher, who had been so committed to her profession. But during the pandemic, it was so tough. And then when she went back to school with these kindergartens, where it was their first experience, she introduced Say It Now to Kindergarten. And she writes and she said,

One child chose to express what I meant to her by doing a drawing. And she told me what the drawing meant and why she appreciated me in the drawing. And how she helped me learn how to sing and why that made a difference. This is a kindergarten. So my hope, I set a goal for a million expressions of gratitude by my 85th birthday, which is next month. we crossed a million four and we're just beginning. What does finishing strong mean to you? Well, you'll see the pattern.

So I had a recent medical scare that I thought, hmm, maybe this is 53 after all, except this 83 or 84. And so I asked myself the question, Peter, I think you could probably ask it right now. You've heard it for our conversation. I said to myself, if you could ideally finish strong. Now, in this case, it was end of life. What would be happening? How would you know?

And I detailed key results. And for the last year, I achieved all of those results. What were some of those things? Well, one is we have two homes. when something happened to me, I think it would be a lot for my wife. And so I said, I need to find an environment for her that would provide a lifestyle. And so last week, we moved into a place that would provide that lifestyle. We still have our primary home.

But this place would be a place we're already starting to transition. So she would feel comfortable. I'm very current. I talk about currency. I'm very current with my relationships, really current. I make sure I've circled the block with all my mentees that have been important. They all came to my TEDx talk, or most of them came to my TEDx talk, which gave me a chance once again to publicly acknowledge how they each had changed my life.

Now, is that counterintuitive? Not for me, because I had. So as much as I enjoyed my TEDx talk this year, the dinner following was so significant for me. So in terms of additional things, there was one investment that would require some work. It's not an operating company, but just a little involved investment. I don't want my wife to have to think about that. So I'm just finishing liquidating that. So everything is very easy.

My wife has a list of here are 15 things to do from a financial point of view. If something happens to me, this is exactly what you do, 15 steps up to date. Financial affairs are up to date. My friendships are up to date. Still working out. Still hoping for the best. And I got some good news. Cancer that I had a year ago is in remission.

and somebody up there thinks I got some more work to do. When do you think people should be thinking about this? I mean, in some ways you could argue, given that we have no idea when we're going to die, obviously being 85 versus being 45, the odds are much longer. But how should a person operationalize that? Because that's a very tactical list of things. Some of those are at least the financial planning, the consolidation, all of that stuff. Do you have a sense of how many people, I'm assuming it's men typically dying before their female spouse, are kind of leaving their spouse, I don't know, ill-suited to deal with the chaos of their demise?

Yeah, I've been doing this for 35 years, Peter. This one was a little grander before I always had my estate in order and provided life insurance and homes and the things that are for their comfort. This one had a different tone to it. I also want to say that I think we wait too long to give it now. Part of what I accelerated was I've been spending the last 30 years in philanthropy. I accelerated that program, not just for nonprofits, but for people who have been important to me, but haven't been as successful. I accelerated it.

Is it normal? No. Are you worried about giving people money? a little, but I'm worried more about not. Same thing. It's not customary. I understand. And one person said it's difficult. Of all the people, one person said, I just can't do it. I said, well, meaning one person couldn't accept the money. And I said to them, I really understand. And I appreciate you being so honest about it. But let me tell you a little story. And that is,

you're keeping me from the pleasure of giving a gift. So give some thought to it. She said, I can't keep you from that pleasure. And I gave it to her. How much of this do you think your twins have naturally been infused with through the osmosis of your example? I have had evidence that the modeling is more important than the speaking. I'm very proud of them.

And I think they get the message and they'll do it in their own way with their own approach. How much of this is something that you think happens between parents and children as well? In other words, do you find yourself also having the same discussion with your kids and with your wife? And I can't imagine you don't feel that way about them. I know how much I do. I sort of look at my wife and my kids and acknowledge that without them I'd be in a pretty rough situation, it wouldn't be the person I am, including whatever external successes I've had. Do you have a different way in which you communicate that to family?

Well, one of the things I recall is, and perhaps this isn't an exact answer to your question, but what I heard the question being is how do they model some of what they may have learned from you and how do you learn that they in fact get it? That may not have been the precise question, but I remember one of our sons writing, he used Father's Day for the occasion and he said, you know, when I think back over our life together, he always gave me footsteps to follow when I needed someone to lead. You always walk behind me. when I needed encouragement. And you always have been by my side when I needed a friend.

I've read that a thousand times. That was from my son Jonathan. From my son Jason, he has written both on the occasion of my 80th birthday and most recent Father's Day. All of the messages that he got from me over the years, in his own way. So it means a lot to me. As a matter of fact,

one thing I wanted to highlight was when I was going through this, and this is really what I've learned in the last year that I never knew beforehand. When I was kind of thinking that this could be the final year, for sure, and there were some other issues going on that I was also preoccupied with.

at the end of the day, I have a portrait of the 44 people on my journey in my office. I have next to that pictures of my mentees, and I turn on Brooks Violin Concerto, which I love, and I go one to one. There are probably almost 60 lives that I touch during it, reminding myself what they had given me. I feel so blessed. I have so much oxygen. I have never been in a better place than in the toughest year of my life this past year. That's just amazing, Walter.

I certainly don't doubt the sincerity of how you say that. But again, that's a very counterintuitive way to describe what could easily be the last days of your life, the last year of your life. I want to understand a little bit more what you think is driving that sense of peace, because it can only be described as a sense of peace. I have to say I don't personally feel peace in that way. If I try to imagine this being the last year of my life, I wouldn't take a positive thought from it.

I'd be very sad. And you could say, well, Peter, that's because you're 50 and Walter's 85. maybe, but I would bet that there are a lot of 85-year-olds who also wouldn't have much peace knowing that they're at the end. How do you reconcile the peace that you can have at the end of your life with the fact that you undoubtedly have more to do? Because to me, that's the struggle. I love that question. First of all, I think there is a difference between being 50 and being 85. I was on the island of Corsica, and I literally was on a cruise, taken off the cruise,

and had to be operated on immediately in a clinic. If they didn't, I would have died. And I said in my 60s, just give me a little more time. I promise I'll be of service. I had already been of service, had no intention of doing anything else, haven't done any business in the last 30 years. All I've been, it's been in Sir. So that was not a big commitment.

It was a natural commitment. and I bought more time. I think if we don't turn on the flashlight to bring light on what we've been blessed with, there is no opportunity to get much fulfillment at the end for the gratitude that these blessings have provided. So in a sense, it's to your point, and it relates to whether you're saving money for your kids' college, if you wait until they're junior in high school, it's tough. Not much time. If you want to save a retirement, if you wait until your 60s, it's really tough.

If you want to start being grateful and you want to wait till your 80s, it's really tough. But if you can build that, which I hope I'm building in millions of young people, this awareness and expression of gratitude is not just awareness, it's expression of gratitude because they will be enriched by expressing it and the person receiving it will be. So I actually think in my dream and my hope is when I say the word pay it forward, most people know what I'm talking about. They know the concept of pay it forward means if somebody does something nice for you, you in turn will do something nice for three people,

not necessarily have to do something for the person who was nice to you. I want say it now to become as ubiquitous as common as that. And someone says, you know, I need to do a say it now for Gene. I need to do a say it now for Peter. I believe that will elevate our own sense of value. I want to make the other point. It may be helpful to you and others. I always want to get done with this project before I go.

But I came to two conclusions during this last finishing strong exercise. One was that I never wanted to leave my wife a widow. We've been married 60 years, never wanted her. I work out every day, almost every day, most every day, because I wanted to outlive my wife. I came to the realization that is not for me to decide. That's going to just be what it is. You can do the best.

But if she's a widow, just take care of her as you would want or taken care of and relax. Have peace. Have peace. The other thing was, I got to finish the project. And I said, Walter, you've been doing projects for the last 30 years. And you're not going to stop doing projects. so you by definition will die with an unfinished symphony. That is the nature of your life.

And don't stop just so you could finish. I think back to one of the other friends that Rick introduced us to at the event, which was the gentleman who was a little over 100 years old and who's still working on deals. He's still talking to Rick about business ideas. and it's like he's 50 years old. And I really think it's impossible to prove these things scientifically because you can't do randomized controlled experiments. So we'll never truly know the causative nature

of having a purpose in longevity. But it's very hard for me to believe that there isn't causality there, meaning that the people who continue to have a purpose in life, and again, your purpose for the past 30 years hasn't been to make a dime. It's been in this say it now movement. For some people, their purpose in life is public service through politics. For some people, it is indeed working in the private sector. The point is, I think the people who continue to have some sense of purpose that is far beyond themselves and their own joy and plight. pleasure undoubtedly seemed to live longer. Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised of people. You know, I was thinking today of the word past time. Well, past time, you know, well, it helps past time.

It takes my breath away when somebody says that. Past time. Wow. For me, it's purpose time. You can meet time. It's purpose time. I can't imagine not living that way, but I don't see you. that everybody will live that way. I can only suggest that for me, it's given me an extraordinary

life. And it didn't start when I was 80. It didn't start when I was 70. It started when I was in my 20s. And I don't want to suggest that the purpose of a person's life needs to be as grand as your ambition or starting a new business. It can be simply taking care of another person. And one of the things I do with all of our patients is take a detailed family history before we start. I can't tell you the number of times I go through the family history and we're talking about their grandparents and they'll say one of them died from some disease and the other one died very shortly thereafter despite being completely healthy. They just lost interest in life. They describe it to me as they died of a broken heart or they just stopped thriving. I think that's an extension of this as well.

Having that other person there is part of purpose. Peter, you really, not only are you making these keen and important observations, I just want to take a moment to say, you know, you work really hard at this. And you need to know, on behalf of those people who have read your book, unfortunately, I had to choose just one chapter because I'm only a one chapter guy. Of course, I'd choose the one on emotional health. To me, it was the door to you. It was the one that proved to me you're really authentic and the person that I wanted to connect with. And I think your conversations that you're having carry that chapter 17 with you in all that you do and that you are enriching lives of millions of people through your writings and through your podcasts and through your good work. I personally just wanted to acknowledge you for that. And I wanted to just piggyback the thing, you know, after 60 years of marriage, best decision I ever made.

And nobody ever helped us being a good husband. Nobody ever helped us. And for sure we didn't have great models. My father died, as I have described so. I didn't have a good model. So where do you learn it from? The most important decision in our life we have no training for, as I mentioned earlier, nor with kids. But one of the things that is amazing to me, and I'm getting very respectful.

of why so many marriages don't last. And that is, there are so many stages. I described three stages of my life. But in marriage, you've got dating, you've got marriage with no kids, then you've got the kids, and then the kids leave the house, and then you retire, and then the last chapter is one of them slows down a little bit. I'm married to an energizer bunny who's slowing down a little, And during the pandemic, I got a chance to love her in a way that I never did before. And that's another thing you never know. You always know you love the person you married. The question is, can you always love the person equally or more when they're not quite the same person you married?

And I want to suggest that Lola is still super active, but she's not as active as she used to be. So this is to your point is I love caring for her when she needs it. I love it. And I do think that story that you just mentioned is to the extent to which we are so self-focused. I don't know if you can die from it, but you won't live from it. You won't live a long life from it. And I think it's the focus on others that provides me with my energy. I said to myself during this recent challenge, don't take anything away from me that'll prevent me from helping others.

I refuse that treatment. I'll take as long as I have, as long as I could be helpful to others. So, Walter, first, I want to thank you, by the way, for what you said a moment earlier. That means a lot to me. So thank you. Well, deserved. If someone's listening to this conversation and hearing about this idea of saying it now for the first, time, and it resonates with them. Where do you recommend they start? Well, it's going to sound

self-promotional, but I have nothing to promote. So there's no business here. I would go to just say it now.org and it'll give you the concept. You'll also have my TED talk on it. I have a theme song for Say It Now. So there's a song. And then coming months there'll be a book. But for a person who says, you know, that makes sense. But I don't know how to do that. There are tools right on that website that could help. Whether it's a note, a phone call, it is very uncomplicated, and I've never seen anybody. I come back to the story of the fellow I had a few years ago, I had dinner with, he said to me, what do you do? The same kind of quay, what do you do? I said, it doesn't really matter. You can call them, and you can do all these things. And so the website

will help you with that. He called me about a month later, and he said, I want to come tell you, what happened. I said, I love these stories. I always encourage people tell me about him, because that is my psychic income in this transaction. And so he said, Walter, I want you to know I wrote 17 letters. I said, that's great. And he said, one, I wrote to my sister that I haven't spoken to in 10 years. I realized she was a great sister. What she did that ended the relationship always bothered me. But when I looked at our life, I realized she'd made a real difference. and it rekindled our relationship. It's easy to do.

The outcomes are sometimes very surprising and always rewarding. Walter, thank you very much for coming all the way over here. I wanted to do this in person, and I know it's been hard for us to get together, and we could have done this a year ago remotely, but I really believed, and I believe now that this is a discussion I wanted to have with you sitting a few feet away from me. So thanks for trusting me to take time, which is precious. And I know it's taken you away from something else and someone else.

But I think sharing this story with a lot of people here through this podcast is a great way to continue your legacy. So thank you. I appreciate the opportunity. You know, when I'm committed to something, I do it when it's inconvenient. When I'm interested in something, I only do it when it's convenient. And I have no interest. I only have commitments. and I was committed to having this moment happen with you.

So thank you for the opportunity. Thank you for listening to this week's episode of The Drive. Head over to peteratia-md.com forward slash show notes if you want to dig deeper into this episode. You can also find me on YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter, all with the handle Peter Atia MD. You can also leave us review on Apple Podcasts or whatever podcast player you use. This podcast is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute the practice of medicine, nursing, or other professional health care services, including the giving of medical advice. No doctor-patient relationship is formed.

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