GLADYS MCGAREY: Living Life Well

0:00Everything that happens to you is there for a reason. and you can either learn from it or you don't. Hi, I'm Michael Hyatt. And I'm Megan Hyatt Miller. And you're listening to The Double Win Show. So today we're talking with Dr. Gladys McGarry, who was born when Woodrow Wilson was president. For some scale on that show, Biden is the 46th president of the U.S. Wilson was number 28. Wow. So that's how far it goes back. But Dr. Gladys is a pioneering holistic physician, a medical activist, and she's now 103 years old, and she still has an active medical practice. She's the founder and the past president of the American Holistic Medical Association, now called the Academy of Integrative Health and Medicine.

0:50She's a founding diplomat of the American Board of Holistic Medicine and a lot of other credentials as well. When you've been alive for 103 years, you've done a lot of things. Absolutely. She's the author of The Well-Lived Life, subtitled 102-Year-Old Doctor's Six Secrets to Health and Happiness at Every Age. And my wife, Gail, introduced me to this book. Well, she did. And I think the only person more excited than the two of us about Dr. Gladys being on today is mom, actually. She's so excited, in fact, that we were talking about it. And I said, you know what? I need to like step out of this podcast and let mom be the co-host with you because I think that this book has been so meaningful to her and Dr.

1:36Gladys' work has been so meaningful to her that she's the perfect person to sit in this chair for this episode. So I'll be stepping out. She'll be stepping in and then I'll be back with you again next week. Enjoy.

1:54Gail, welcome. You have not done a podcast episode with us, at least in this new format. And so I want you to talk about the story before we introduce Dr. Gladys. I want you to talk about how you found this book and what it's meant to you. Yep. I'd love to do that. So we have a lake house that's about an hour and 45 minutes from us. And so we try to spend as much time as we can down there. And when we're down there, we do a lot of walking. And when I walk, I typically listen to a podcast or a book or something. And so believe it or not, Gladys, it was one year ago to this very day, July the 18th, 2023, I listened to your interview with Ed Milet.

2:44and I was completely captivated by the interview and your whole story and just you as a human being. Everything resonated with me and so I kept walking and walking. It was a pretty long interview and I just kept walking and then as soon as I was done, I searched to find other interviews that you had done and then I said, well, I got to get the book. So then I downloaded the book on Audible and started listening to it. And once I really got into the book, I was your best evangelist. I was trying to encourage everybody, regardless of what age they were, to read what you had learned through life and your philosophy toward living.

3:32And it's just absolutely beautiful and I particularly love the whole holistic approach to wellness and to health and the body, the mind, the spirit, every part of it. And it just really meshes with the philosophy of our business and what we are trying to put out to the world as well. So I just want to thank you for just choosing to write the book and to do the interviews and to make your wisdom accessible to people. Well, thank you for taking it to the next step because life and living and love have to grow, and they only grow by being shared. And so that's what you're doing, and I'm so grateful for that.

4:22And then giving me the opportunity to do it now is wonderful. Well, your message really resonates with us because as a company, you know, we most, we serve a lot of business owners and leaders who think that work is a hundred percent of everything. And a lot of them don't have meaningful life outside of work. And we're committed to helping people get what we call the double win, which is to win at work and succeed at life. You know, so it's not either or, it's both and. And we feel like you're such the perfect embodiment of the message that we're trying to communicate to the world. So I wonder if you could start with just your personal story growing up in India and all the things that you learned along the way.

5:05Oh, I can't do all the things I learned. 103 years in five minutes. But I'll try. I'll put a little niche in it. Just for some context. It was wonderful to have the parents that I had. They were both osteopathic physicians at a time when women were not doctors. In fact, when my mother came out to India with my dad, she came as his luggage. I mean, she didn't have a passport. Wow. Wow. So it was because women, you know, it's the way it was. They came to India, and they just took on their work with the Indian villagers particularly. As a child, I responded to that so at a gut level. You know, it was like, yeah, these are the people that we need.

6:06These are the ones that are, and so on. So I would play with the little Indian kids, and they would try to rub my arm and get the white off. They wanted me the same color as they were. And I think that's a wonderful statement for us to hear from other people around the world. You know, that we're one race. I mean, we're just one group of people. We're humans. That's right. And we're all the same, so we have different things, but it's that actual deep humanity that we're reaching for when we're reaching for understanding each other. One of the things that you talk a lot about, and I'm sure your parents exemplified this, and you certainly have, but you talk about the role of purpose in both health, physical and mental and emotional, but also in longevity.

7:13So could you just give us a few thoughts on purpose? Absolutely. You know, it's really nice to get up and wake up and know that you have something to work for. You know, it's not just, oh, I got to go to work. I got to, I'm working for this, you know, and it's something that reaches to my inner space, and then it can reach to yours and to the next and to the next. It's the way life works. Life and love have to move, and they have to reach out to other people, as well as deeper within ourselves. And the interesting thing is as we learn to accept and respond to our own inner knowing, we actually can learn to love that part of ourselves.

8:17When I was a kid, I was so dyslexic that I was a class dummy and had to repeat first grade twice, and I really thought I was stupid. Fortunately, at home, it wasn't that way. I had an Aya who I would be the class dummy, but I would climb up the mountain where we were. Our house was up higher in the mountain, and our Aya would be waiting at the end of the path for me, and she'd hold her shawl out and she'd say to me, Itharau, come here. And I'd go and she'd wrap that around me and I'd sit down and wait until my world came back into focus because at home things were great. School? Uh-uh. It was another story.

9:17That's fascinating. And then you went on, though, and continued your education to the extent that you became a doctor. And you're involved with helping educate other people and consult with people. So somehow you overcame all of that because of the community that you were a part of. You know, and interestingly enough, when I was in medical school, the dean didn't think that I understood what medicine was supposed to be about. So she sent me to the psychiatrist three different times because she thought I should leave. And the psychiatrist would send me back and say, no, I was okay material for medicine.

10:04Fortunately, I had a nice psychiatrist. So, Dr. Gladys, you were talking about how you struggled in school. Yes. And yet, at the same time, you continued your education. You went all the way to medical school, graduated. You have a medical practice. You consult. You teach. You speak. And so was that hard? Tell me the journey of that because that purpose for your medical degree must have just kept propelling you forward. Well, you know, the way medicine is thought about in the overall scheme is it's there to kill diseases and get rid of them. And I don't think of it that way. I think of it as that these diseases are here for us to learn something from.

11:00And so because I had that attitude while I was in medical school, the dean sent me to the psychiatrist three times because he thought I didn't belong. And the psychiatrist thought it was okay. So I came back. But even after I've been in practice for many years, I was reported to the board, the Maricopa County Medical Board, and called up in front of them. and this one time I had gone to the meeting and I'd accepted my reprimand and I had the piece of paper in my hand about how I was supposed to start doing things. Anyway, as I walked out of the door, one of the doctors from the room came out behind me and he walked up to me and he taps me on the shoulder and he says now let me tell you something honey oh that word honey just pushed a button and i turned around i had my keys in my hand and i started punching him on his shoulder and i said you will not call me honey i'm your peer age-wise and professionally and you will not call me honey so he kind of backed off and And I looked over and my lawyer was leaning against the wall laughing.

12:33I came back to my office where my daughter, who was my partner at the time, you know, we worked together. I told her what happened. She said, oh, mom, you didn't. You know? In my life, there is a limit to which I'm going to be pushed. and because if it's going to affect the message that I'm here to give, I'm not going to let that happen. And so it's that kind of acceptance of how people think and how they want to do things and so on. But to have them tell me that I shouldn't be doing something pushes the wrong button And because I know what I'm here for and what I've been working towards. And, you know, and people around the world are beginning to know it, too.

13:35And it's absolutely. It really is awesome.

13:48to me uh you are a pioneer in so many ways so as i have learned your story and and read your books and listen to you speak and on podcasts not only were you a pioneer for women in the medical community because, and your mom was too, as you tell her story. And so that was, when I think of the magnificent female doctors that I've known over the years, it's just, you paved the way for them. And that was just such a gift. But not only were you a pioneer in the medical field, but you were a pioneer, I mean, for women, but you were a pioneer in the medical field itself by introducing this holistic approach to healing.

14:38And I would love to hear you talk about that a little bit more because one of the things that we try to teach in our business and to our clients and podcast listeners and people who we work with is that you have to see yourself as a whole person. And the challenge for our clients a lot of times is their primary focus is just on, I'm a business person. I run a business. I hire and produce this or that. But they're also a human being. They're also probably a parent or a spouse or a brother or a sister or whatever. And so they have to see themselves in a holistic way. And you helped pave the way for that view and way of seeing life.

15:28And I'd love to hear how did that even come about? Because you were going against the grain well you know i'm calling it living medicine now because okay that's that yeah word puts puts it in perspective because life has to live and love is a way to make it live and reach it and life and love see i have these five in my mind i have these five l's that help me structure what I'm working towards and what I'm working with. The first two are life and love. They have to go together. It's like when you're pregnant. When I'm pregnant, the baby and I are one. What I eat the baby eats, what I think the baby thinks, up until that baby takes its first breath, and then it becomes its own being.

16:32It accepts its place in the earth. Until that time, it was my joy and my responsibility to have that unit as one complete unit. But when that baby took its first breath, that baby became its own person. And you know, when I was working with helping mothers have babies, I swear, when that baby took its first breath, I heard the angels sing. It was like this, ah. And for me, it was such a blessing to have that energy coming in with this new being on the planet, you know, on its own breath, on its own person.

17:32One question I have about purpose, would you say you've always had the same life purpose or that's changed in the various seasons of your life? Is your purpose today different than it was, say, 50 years ago? Oh, it has to grow or it dies. So it's not exactly the same by any means. When I was a kid, I knew I was a doctor. My sister wouldn't let me play with her dolls because my dolls got sick and hers didn't.

18:11and so anyway it was and I told my parents when I was quite young that I was a doctor and it wasn't I was going to be one it was that's what who I am one of the things too Gladys that I noticed in your book is that you talk about at 103 years old now having a 10-year plan. And to some people, that seems audacious. But I just was riveted when I heard that. And then you talk about exactly what that is. But maybe you could briefly tell us why you even have a 10-year plan and what is it? For me, it's something to reach towards, and it's a village for living medicine. I don't know where it's, you know, it can be any place.

19:12In fact, it is any place. There are blue zones around the world that are places where people have lived quite a long time, but they have lived in a way that is, well, it reaches for life and love. It doesn't reach for the conflict and stuff that comes along. It deals with, but that's not what it's reaching for. It's reaching for life and love, so it's constantly growing. so a village for living medicine is what i think uh would is a purpose that i can reach for however that's happened i don't know how it's going to happen but it's happening it's happening so how does that um how does that vision that you have for this this community what is what is that how does it impact your daily life having a vision having goals, looking forward, having purpose.

20:19How does that impact your decisions that you make each day? It lets me talk to you. You know? Okay. It gives me a voice because there are certain things that I think human beings are reaching for. See, I have this idea. This isn't a theology. It isn't anything. It's just my idea. Okay. When God created the universe, it was beautiful. It was exactly everything that was in place. It was just right. It was so gorgeous and everything. And then he created the human being. And he said to us as human beings, now here's the universe that is just exactly perfect. And now I'm giving you humans dominion over this earth because you are the only beings in this entire universe that have free will and choice.

21:33so I therefore give you dominion over this earth and we in our arrogance decided he said dominance so we said oh boy and we took it over and now look what's happened dominion means taking care of I love that if we are here to take care of mother earth let's do it you know what a privilege that is but if if we don't even even understand that then we misunderstood our mission on this earth and that is to help each other help every other being every other living process on this earth let me tell you about a friend of mine and it's because this carries the message, the story. I tell stories because I think the message gets across better from me.

22:38We love stories. We do it this way. So this man was a family friend of ours. He used to eat dinner with us a lot of the times, and the kids loved him, and, you know, he was just a family friend. And then he moved into dementia. and so we found a really nice place where he could we knew he was being taken care of and things were going along just fine and so one week I took a little plant a little pot, a little green plant to him as a gift so when I came into the room where he has this really nice room and all I came into the room and I gave it to him and I said, James, here's a plant and it's here for you to love.

23:34And I'm talking around that theme and he's just looking around. It seemed to me he wasn't paying any attention to us. That's all right. I knew him and I loved him and it didn't matter. He could take what he needed to take. And so when I was finished, I put it on the windowsill, and I gave it some water, and I said, you just need to give it, you know, so on and so forth. And then I left. And I came back a week later, and he meets me at the door, and he says, magic, magic. And I said, what, what? And he said, look, box. And he takes me into the room over to the box, which is the air conditioner box.

24:29And, you know, like right now it's 112 out here. Well, we need to air conditioner, you know. So he says, magic. He says, push this button. Everything gets cool. Plant loves cool. Oh. And then he pokes over the other button over here. He says, push this button. Everything gets hot. Plant doesn't like hot. And I said, oh, my, isn't that amazing? He, in his dementia, has connected with this plant who obviously has dementia too. What does the plant know? But it knows something enough that it connected with him and he connected with that. And they have a loving relationship going on that I never would have imagined.

25:35But it's so amazing when you begin to really see and feel what's happening with the world around us.

25:51Do you think that this idea of having a future you're looking forward to is related to longevity? And if so, what have you seen in your practice with people? Because we meet people all the time that they're so stuck in the past. All they can reflect on is the past. And the people that don't look forward to something that's bigger and better, you know, There are people that are often struggle with mental issues like anxiety or depression or whatever. But how is this related to longevity? Oh, it's critical. I like to think of it as like if we have a bag of stuff that we've been carrying, and we've been carrying a long time, and it's not very nice, and it's actually kind of nasty or maybe not nasty, but it's not something that we brag about.

26:49But we carry it on our shoulder. So it's this bag that's on our shoulder. And if we keep looking at that bag, if we keep turning our head and looking at that bag of stuff that we've been carrying all this time, we're going to get a stiff neck. I mean, how are we ever going to pull our neck back again, you know? That's what we're looking at. If we know we've got that back there and it's taken care of itself, but we're looking for the light, we're going to find the light. We don't need to be stuck in that bag over our shoulder. It's there if we chew. actually we can let it go. We may not need to let it go because there may be a lot of lessons that we still have to learn in there.

27:46And so maybe we need to hang on to it for a while, but we don't need to be stuck with it. Yeah, that's a good answer. We don't have to be stuck with it. And I think that progress really happens when we can, when we can learn from the past, but not be stuck in the past. and we begin to look forward. Yeah, it's part of our story. It's part of the story we have to tell. And everything has lessons. So if we learn from that story, and don't just try to get over it, like we say, oh, well, just get over that. Uh-uh. Learn from it and grow from it and live from it. Everything that happens to you is there for a reason.

28:34and you can either learn from it or you don't. One of the things you say in the book is spend your energy wildly. What do you mean by that? Usually it's wisely, right? Spend wisely. You can be wise about it, and it probably should be, but don't hold back. There was a time when I had to punch that doctor. he really needs to be punched you know so that you spend it if the energy rises and you need to have your voice heard use it and don't be afraid that somebody will judge you because of course they will yeah inevitably it's not it's not if somebody is going to criticize you of course somebody's going to criticize you.

29:33Because, you know, we criticize ourselves all the time, but the whole fact that what we're doing is working with understanding things that we need to understand. And if we need to understand something, we need to talk about it. And if we need to talk about it, sometimes we need to write about it. It's a process. Life and love have to move. In order to stay alive, they have to move. I have the guy who started to talk about the five L's. The first two are together and that's the pregnancy. When the baby takes its first breath, It's on its own. It has its own space in the world. But then those two are together.

30:35But the third one is laughter. Laughter without love is cruel. It's mean. It breaks up families. It causes wars. It's just not nice. But laughter with love is joy and happiness. And the fourth one is labor. Labor without love is drudgery. Oh, man, I've got to go to work. Too many diapers. This is too hard, you know. And we drag this heavy load along. But labor with love, you work twice or 15 times harder with labor with love. Think of what you're doing. Think of what I'm doing, the time that we're spending doing the thing that we love because we love it. I mean, I love talking to you, and you love talking to me because that's where the energy is flowing.

31:46And the fifth L is listening. listening without love is empty sound but listening with love is understanding so these five l's so kind of form a foundation on which we can build a lot of of really good stuff for ourselves and for the people that we work with dr gladys thank you so much for visiting with us here for a few minutes. We've really enjoyed this conversation. You're kind of a hero to us. And I want to encourage all of you listening to buy the book, The Well-Lived Life, A 102-Year-Old Doctor's Six Secrets to Heal with Happiness at Every Age. And it's got a forward by one of my medical heroes, Dr.

32:42Mark Hyman. So that was really the first thing that got my I also want to say that the Audible version is fantastic. The person you got to read it was extremely talented in capturing your voice and your enthusiasm and everything. It was a very enjoyable book to listen to. I hope our paths cross again. And you're just an inspiration. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

33:14okay so let's talk about our takeaways and i think the biggest one i have is that health and longevity have more to do with your psychological state and your connections with community than they have to do with all the things that we do to our bodies and i'm not saying that's not important. But I think our psychological state and the connections we have with other people, love and life, trump everything else. Yeah, exactly. And when you get to know Gladys more and her story, you also learn that she had cancer twice. And so it's just her journey of healing through that is very inspirational. So I know that the mental, physical, the spiritual and psychological aspects helped her healing so much in those days.

34:08For me, I think the takeaway was I have to just say I love her positive view of life. And I think when you see all of life as a teacher, regardless of what happens, there's the illusion that life will be hunky-dory and have no issues if you do everything right or whatever is just fantasy. It's just not reality. And so in this world, you will have tribulation. I mean, that's just a reality. And so what are you going to do about it? How are you going to respond to it? And I think when you do begin to see everything as a gift, everything as a teacher, which she talks so much about, she also talks about gratitude a lot.

34:53And the fact that gratitude is just knowing that you have enough, you know, I forget the exact quote that she has, but it's just a, it's a whole huge way of looking at all of your life. And I think when you start living from that position of abundance and gratitude and love, love, as you heard her talk about with the five L's, love was in every single one of them and it transforms and experience into something growth-producing and valuable, which leads to a longer, more satisfying life. Well, the longer I live, the more I see love as the essential ingredient. You know, and hatred and conflict and division is not healthy.