Discovering Love, Life, and Laughter at 103: Dr. Gladys McGarey's Guide to Thriving Through Adventure and Compassion Across a Century

0:00Look, as a manager of people, as an employer, as an entrepreneur, and as even an investor in startups, I can tell you the most important thing for your business is the quality of the quality of people. you hire. The best part is that great candidates are already on LinkedIn. Employees hired through LinkedIn are 30 % more likely to stick around for at least a year compared to those hired through the leading competitor. And I will tell you that the great thing about LinkedIn is that you're not just looking at random people. You're able to see the people who your friends and trusted peers and colleagues who they trust and who they've hired in the past and who they recommend.

0:42And hiring doesn't have to be complicated. Realistically, when you have a business to run, you don't want to spend hours on hiring. You want to hire the right person as quickly as possible. That's why LinkedIn Jobs AI Assistant suggests immediately 25 great big candidates daily so you can invite them to apply and keep things moving. Hire right the first time. Post your job for free at linkedin.com slash altature. then promote it to use LinkedIn Jobs' new AI assistant, making it easier and faster to find the top candidates. That's linkedin.com slash Altachirk. Post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply.

1:26This is the second time I've talked to Gladys McGarry. Last year, she was 102 years old. This year, she's 103 years old. She wrote a book, The Well-Lived Life, a 102-year-old doctor's six secrets to health and happiness at every age. And it's coming out in paperback. And every time I read this book, I've read it twice now, and I talk to her, I almost feel like crying. And I don't really know why. It's almost as if she was born with wisdom, but then kept even growing for the next 102 years. like she drove a ford model a car and now she's talking to me through you know zoom on the internet and going on podcasts writing books she was a doctor her whole life she's been all over the world had so many amazing experiences also has suffered of course much loss i don't think you're gonna live to be that age and not have an incredible amounts of loss that you have to learn to to move past and and still be positive and still live every day to its fullest which i mean we first we like jay we did we get on the zoom with her and she's like oh i'm getting over my tricycle accident she had she was riding a tricycle and it threw her off into the street and she broke three ribs yeah and she's now totally healed and on the podcast and as jay was saying right afterwards, boy, she's like a wise Kung Fu master.

2:57Well, anyway, I really look up to this woman a lot. Here's Gladys McCary. We have a great conversation about all sorts of things. And she's the author of The Well-Lived Life.

3:13This isn't your average business podcast, and he's not your average host. This is The James Altucher Show.

3:30How are you feeling? I'm feeling fine. I had that accident with a tricycle, broke three ribs, but that's five weeks ago and I'm all well. Wait a second. You had an accident with a tricycle. you broke three ribs. And of course, any statement like that has to be followed with. And now you're 103 or 104 years old. How old are you? I'm 103 still. Okay. I don't want to, I don't want to make you older than you are. I have to live each moment to get to be 104. So I still am 103. You know, and so, okay, you've had this tricycle accident. what happened? Well, I was riding my tricycle and she got stuck in one of the dips in the road and tossed me.

4:23She threw me off and I landed on my back and broke three ribs. And now I've got, I'm punishing her because she's in the back of my porch and I've told her she shouldn't have done that. But anyway, we're writing our story about how she tossed me. And can I ask, were you scared when you realized you had been hurt? Well, it hurt. I don't know whether I was scared or not. I guess I was. But, you know, those things are frightening. And I didn't know what had happened, but I knew I hurt. And so we got an x-ray and there it was. And the first x-ray said that I had one of the ribs that was not attached.

5:11I mean, it was, you know, it had not gotten, it had gotten detached. But the next x-ray we got, it had found its place and we were back in shape. And now you're feeling fully recovered or mostly recovered? It's healed. Oh my gosh. Well, you know, and this is why, look, in your book, The Well-Lived Life, you share these six secrets, which really are more difficult than they sound, a lot of these secrets. And, you know, I read the book a year ago when we first spoke, and I've read the book more recently to prepare for this. And I really find myself kind of in tears when I'm reading it, particularly towards the end and you're describing, you know, painful experiences that you've been through.

6:02And I don't know, this is going to sound weird, but I don't know if I want to live to be your age. Does that sound weird? No, because I don't know that I want to live, but how long I want to live that, you know, that's, it depends on how much I can do to accomplish what needs to be accomplished. I mean, there's life that needs to be lived, people that are reaching for their true humanity. I think all around the world, that's what's happening, because that's what I'm hearing from people. The stories that I'm getting from people are about how they were in a spot where they feel really, really stuck.

6:53And some of the words that they read or heard or lived help them to get out of that stuck place and go on with their lives. And so it's that kind of life-giving juice that love carries through from one person to the next. Let me ask you, like when you were going through your divorce, for instance, with Bill, which happened after 46 years of marriage, did you feel, for instance, loved during those moments? I was so shattered. I was so broken. I was totally useless. I was in my car. I was screaming at the universe i was yelling at god i was saying all kinds of you want to know no don't want to know and stuff but i was so broken that i i just i'd gotten to the point where i couldn't go on any further and i pulled the car over to the side of the road and i said to myself am i going to spend the rest of my life this way, feeling this way?

8:13And the words came down to me. This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. It had my name in it. Be glad. Oh, oh, okay, okay, okay. I back up. and I went to my home, which at that point was empty except for the dog, and I changed my license plate, and my license plate read Be Glad for the rest of the time I was in Phoenix doing my medical work, and so that every day that I went to my car, I had to see that, and people behind me in the traffic had to see that. So I was carrying the message of Be Glad around for the rest of the time I was in practice here. It was that kind of a moment in time when my total brokenness brought me to my knees enough that I was able to answer that.

9:34Yeah, because you mentioned how people are trying to find their true humanity, and how you say in the book is, you were always identifying yourself as Bill's wife, and then Bill's divorced wife, and you guys introduced yourself as Drs. Bill and Gladys, and you had to almost find your true humanity then. I had to. I then became Dr. Gladys. Up until then, I was Bill and Gladys. Yeah. And you talk about how it's possible to learn lessons in these moments when it seems like it's impossible to learn from them. Like, you look back over prior times where you had been hurt, and you almost have to make this lawyer-like argument with yourself that, okay, I've had bad moments in the past.

10:25I learned from them in the past, which means I can learn from them now, which I think is an interesting and useful technique. But I'm sure when you're actually in the moment when you have to do that, it's very difficult. Well, it's difficult because you don't know the next step and you have to live it. You know, because the next step was, okay, if this is what you're going to spend the rest of your life doing face up to it you know and it was horrible i mean the things i was saying the things i was doing that my whole life at that point was in tatters so i had to do something with it the important thing was just stop long enough to be glad about what it is and then see where you go and that's what's happened.

11:23And it's, I mean, look, you've lived such an interesting life starting from your parents, like your parents worked as, you know, doctors in India. You grew up all over the place. You've met so many interesting people and you've been all over the world. I mean, but it's hard to think. Like you're, I mean, you mentioned how you used to drive a Model A Ford and now people are like casually going into space. it's almost like hard to to to grasp but i wanted to ask you specific things like you know you mentioned in the acknowledgements about edgar casey for instance so edgar casey is known for um you know he he had he wrote books about having psychic powers and he was able to predict things you also met with you know so many times with milton erickson who was like the the founder of various branches of psychology.

12:20I mean, you've had this fascinating adventure, 103-year adventure. And what was Milton Erickson like? He created hypnotherapy, and he hypnotized himself into not believing he could be crippled from polio. I just wanted to ask you specifically, what was that like meeting him and seeing him go through this experience? He was a funny guy. I mean, he was colorblind. His wife had all of his clothes in one color because he was colorblind and he would get the weird colors off. Anyway, he was a very opinionated and actually, amazingly, his opinion used to, they'd stop us in the middle of what we were saying and think, you know, what was that he said?

13:27You know, it was that kind of a guy. He didn't just say empty things. He said things that stopped us where we were thinking and made us think again. So when we had, when my husband Bill met him at a meeting, a medical meeting, and brought him, and they came home, and we started these evenings on Tuesday nights of having, there were about five, I was the only woman, but there were about five of us who would come together on a Tuesday night just to talk about stuff that Milton was talking about. But at that point, I was pregnant. And by the time I was eight months pregnant, they were staying until two o 'clock in the morning on this.

14:19And I finally kicked them out because I had to get my arrest. But it was a good thing because when they left, they had to create something else and they created the American Hypnosis Association. Anyway, it's that kind of amazing aspect to life itself. If you have to go through certain things and you're actually able to step and take a step forward, it may seem like the wrong thing to do, but if it's for the right reason, just do it. Like what's an example? Yeah, kicking them out to start the American Hypnosis Society was the right thing to do. I didn't know it was the right thing to do. I just knew I had to take care of this baby and myself.

15:19And so they better take care of themselves. And they did. And do you think, how do you think he did, like how does the mind work? Like how did he basically get himself going again? You know, having polio seems to have permanent physical effects. And yet through the mind, he was able to recover some abilities they had lost through polio. Well, he found his juice, okay? He found the words that he could say that would allow other people to pay attention to the things he was thinking. And that's what happened with us as a small group. We began to listen to the things that Milton Erickson was saying and thinking, you know, he's right.

16:08and how do we put that into context with our lives? And so from that step on, it took them that step the way life does.

16:32Look, as a manager of people, as an employer, as an entrepreneur, and as even an investor in startups, I can tell you the most important thing for your business is the quality of the people you hire. The best part is that great candidates are already on LinkedIn. Employees hired through LinkedIn are 30 % more likely to stick around for at least a year compared to those hired through the leading competitor. And I will tell you that the great thing about LinkedIn is that you're not just looking at random people, You're able to see the people who your friends and trusted peers and colleagues, who they trust and who they've hired in the past and who they recommend.

17:15And hiring doesn't have to be complicated. Realistically, when you have a business to run, you don't want to spend hours on hiring. You want to hire the right person as quickly as possible. That's why LinkedIn Jobs AI Assistant suggests immediately 25 great fit candidates daily so you can invite them to apply and keep things moving. Hire right the first time. Post your job for free at linkedin.com slash Altature, then promote it to use LinkedIn Jobs' new AI assistant, making it easier and faster to find the top candidates. That's linkedin.com slash Altature. Post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply.

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19:10Get 20 % off your first order with code STAPLE20 at American-Giant.com. That's 20 % off your first order at American-Giant.com with code STAPLE20. you know sometimes i would like to believe these things and kind of use the enormous power of the mind to to help my life and to move it forward but there's so much baggage in there at least telling me that it's just not going to work that i don't i don't have that kind of power over reality to, you know, people always say you view the world from your perspective only, and it's only your perspective that you see the outside world. But I also sort of feel like there's this reality too.

19:59We all kind of share this reality and world, and sometimes things are bad and sometimes things are good, but I can't have any control over that. Well, let me tell you a story, okay? Because my life goes on a story about another James. I had a friend named James McCready, and he was a family friend. We all loved James. And then he moved into dementia, so we had to put him into a facility where he'd be taken care of. And so he had his room, and it was a nice room and all of that. I went to visit him one day and took him a little plant, a little green plant in a little pot. And when I took it to him, I said, now, James, this is your plant.

20:52But it needs to be loved and it needs to be taken care of. Now, he's looking all around the world.

21:02He didn't respond so that I thought he was even understanding what I was saying. But I was saying it anyway. And I said, it's going to need water and it's going to need sunshine. But it's your plant to love and take care of. And I talked to him a little bit about this, and I put the parent on his windowsill, and I left. And a week later, I came back, and he met me at the door, because he knew that I was coming up. And he met me at the door, and he said, magic, magic, magic. And I said, what, what? And so he said, come, magic. And we went into his room, and he says, box. And he took me over to the air conditioning box on the wall.

21:52And he says, look, push this button. Everything is cool and nice, and plant loves it. But he says, push this button. Oh, everything hot, awful. Vlad doesn't like it. That's what he told me. And I realized that he, in his state of whatever you want to call it, being alive, had taken the message and had put it into action and created a relationship, a loving relationship with the plant in a way that was giving him juice. It's that amazing kind of ability that we each have to reach to some other living thing. Now, that little plant wasn't anything to speak of. I mean, I just took a little grin plant to it.

23:12And he took that and was able to create a story for himself that allowed him to get some juice back in his life because he connected with another living thing. So who are we to say what is the process of reaching to other people and reaching to other aspects of our lives around the world because all of the living stuff in this world is here and it's life and it's love that keep it going. And towards the end of the book, when you talk about the sixth secret, which is spending your energy, I'm recalling the name of the... Juice. Spend your energy wildly. Juice. Yeah, so what does that actually mean, the word wildly there?

24:13Well, like with me taking a plan to that, I mean, what sense does that make? when I gave my plan to that little plan to James it made no sense at all how is this man who knows nothing from anything going to it was a juicy stupid thing to do but look what it did yeah and why did you get the inclination to do it because I had the juice to do it and I did it you know in other words I thought about it and I thought yeah James might like that it was just a passing thought and so I did it it was that kind of thing that I mean wildly what kind of a wild thought is that you take a little green plant to James you know so but it doesn't just end up so because the plant was a living thing James was a living thing the the the refrigeration was energy that was a living process in other words he connected his living process with the living process of the plant enough to love the plant enough to create this story that's what stories are all about telling each other and allowing each other to understand what life is about.

25:53What strikes me too is that, okay, you could visit your friend, Jim, because on the one hand, maybe there's a sense of obligation. Oh, he's in this facility and you want to stop by, check in on him and see, but you infused more into this visit. You kind of, like you said, you kind of almost created a story out of it. Like you did this ridiculous thing, but that's, that's what stands out and, and creates a story that we could tell today, many years later. Right. Right. If you can put some life into actions that you're taking and doing, then you're spending your juice wildly. Who, who cares? You know, when you throw it off, the whole idea, into the air.

26:47Well, who cares that you took a little plant to James? Nobody cared. Nobody else cared. James and I are the only two that did. And so what? You know? Well, I cared and he cared, so we connected and the plant was there. A living process is that ability to accept life at its own terms Now, having dementia is not a pretty thing. So this wonderful man had shifted into dementia, but he was still the same man who I knew and who, as a family, we cared about. He used to spend a lot of time with our family, with our kids, and so on. but then he wasn't able to. He had shifted into this phase of his life and he was still alive.

27:55And as long as there was life there, I cared about him. And how old was he when he suffered from dementia or when he started suffering from it? Oh, probably in his 60s. When you were younger, What did you think was old? 20. I remember saying to my cousin who had a brother who was 20 years old and I was 10, and I said to her, how does it feel to have a brother that's 20 years old? I remember that because 20, oh my goodness, I'm 10. How can he be 20? Yeah, and I was thinking this when I was reading your story, how you went to Afghanistan when I think you were 86 years old. Right. And so that's almost 20 years ago now.

28:50Yeah. But 86 is also old. Oh, yeah. And yet you had confidence to kind of take these adventures. It seems like you were always open to adventure. You said yes to adventure a lot. Well, my parents did. They went to India in the middle of World War I to take their message of love to Indian people in the jungles. Okay, you started, and I was, my mother went into labor with me at the Taj Mahal. You start your journey with parents like that. It's not an empty journey. Nobody's life is an empty journey. But what if you don't start with parents like that? That sounds amazing. Well, type what you've got.

29:45What do you have? You know, you have, maybe it's an empty plan. You know, something that's like that empty plan. who cares it's something that's alive maybe it's a dog that you have in your life that's that's alive maybe it's a a tree maybe you have a tree that's a friend maybe you have a a friend that you don't like very much but he's your friend and you you play with him or you you know whatever is going on in your life it's that what that life creates life and love creates life and love and life go together like a pregnancy a pregnancy is a manifestation of a life force within the mother and the baby that are one for nine months or however, and then they become two.

30:51You know, the love of the mother creates the life of the baby. The life of the baby takes its first breath. But when the life of the baby takes its first breath, that baby becomes a different soul, a different person. But until at that time, it's one with the mother. It's that kind of an amazing universe that we live in. Do you think it's true the saying that you're only as happy as your saddest child? as what you're only you can only be as happy as your saddest child

31:44well whatever however you want to say that you know i think we each have to find our own way of saying that kind of thing that that allows us to accept what the status that we're in you know whatever it is then let's accept it the way it is and and see where we're going with that see what's building what's around us what what what is there out there i can love okay you know or in here that i can love or what what did what happened yesterday that kind of a thing Do you think as, like at what point, you know, through the past century, did you ever think, oh, I need to slow down now. It's too much.

32:38I need to just slow down. I never had a chance. I mean, I never thought about slowing down. It was something, because there is always something interesting popping up. yeah like going to Afghanistan in your 80s for instance I had this brother who was Carl Taylor who started Future Generations which is still his son is carrying on the work of Future Generations around the world which has created communities around the world who are doing the kind of thing that we did in Afghanistan with the women but you see my parents started that they lived their life wildly and took a chance during World War II there were U-boats in the water when they went to India but they went because they had a vision they had a thought they had something that was offered to them as the possibility for their life, and it excited them.

33:56It gave them juice, and they went to India. All right. My mother went into labor with me at the Taj Mahal. She almost died. I almost died. I had a hepatitis, a malarial hepatitis when I was two. I almost died I didn't die I didn't look through that and so on and so on and so on and it's that amazing process that um love and life create and keep love going and life going it's it's it's how you and I connected I'm talking to you your name is James I'm connecting you as my friend James, who the story of James and the little plant is now a story that can be, you know, I mean, this is the way love and life goes.

34:57Yeah. And, you know, you mentioned earlier people trying to find their true humanity. Do you think it's different now than it was, let's say, 30, 40, 60 years ago that people get lost in the roles they play in society? so that it's harder for them to find their true humanity. Do you think it's different now than it used to be? I think it's different because life is different, and life changes, but that doesn't make it any harder or any easier. It is what it is, and it's as hard as it's going to get. And as long as we take the next steps as hard as they are to move to the next step, which makes it as hard as they are, which takes the next step a little easier.