Health Longevity Secrets

A Facelift Without A Scar?

• Robert Lufkin MD • Episode 230

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A facelift without a telltale ear scar sounds like sci‑fi—until you hear how Dr. Mark Mani designed it. We sit down with the Beverly Hills surgeon, artist, and inventor to explore how endoscopic deep‑plane lifting repositions the face where gravity actually acts, delivering natural contour without the stigma of visible incisions. Mark traces the decade it took to refine the approach, publish the first academic description, and train surgeons worldwide, and he explains why subtle, anatomically honest work beats skin‑tension shortcuts every time.

That precision sits inside a larger philosophy. Mark’s childhood bridged Indian and American worlds, his studies spanned Harvard to Baylor, and his curiosity leaps from quantum theory to biology. He argues that humans cooperate far beyond what selfish‑gene logic predicts because we chase legacy—phenotypic immortality—through service, craft, and knowledge. That belief shows up in his operating room and his volunteer work with Face Forward International, where reconstructive surgery helps survivors of burns and abuse reclaim identity and voice. Beauty, in this frame, is not an algorithm; it’s dignity, agency, and the confidence to meet another person’s gaze.

We also challenge a big myth: you can fill your way to youth. Mark makes the case for conservative strategy, fat over filler when volume is needed, and why overfilling often makes faces look bigger, not younger. Then we shift to recovery and daily life with the Mani Flow, his travel‑ready neck wearable that supports back sleeping, protects facial ligaments, and turns red‑eyes into real rest. If you care about natural results, subtle scars (or none), and the future of endoscopic facelifts, you’ll find clear takeaways, practical nuance, and a humane way to think about aging and aesthetics.

If this conversation sparked ideas, follow and share the show, leave a quick review, and tell us: what’s one mindset shift that changed how you see aging?

https://marcmani.com/

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SPEAKER_00:

Well, go ahead. No.

SPEAKER_01:

No, I was going to say I I just um last week I had to give the keynote lecture at the British aesthetic meeting and I had to do it virtually. And it was like I got everything set up and then my I realized my Wi-Fi was too slow to run my surgical videos because they're high def. And I was like, damn. So I had to go to my office and my lectures were from 2 to 6 a.m. Pacific time. And then at the end of my first lecture, my camera, my external camera crashed. And all I can hear him is we lost Dr. Mani's feet, and there's like 200 people in the auditorium. So yeah, it's that's uh that gets even more dicey when you're you know 8,000 miles away or however far it is.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah, for sure. All right, well, we're good to go. All right, so here we here we go. Hey Mark, welcome to the program.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you. Thank you, Ralph. Great to be here.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm so excited about this episode. We haven't had a we haven't talked about plastic surgery yet on this program, and it it's really so important, and there's so much we've overlooked. And you're you're not only a plastic surgeon, you're you're an inventor, an artist, and an author, and also someone with a deep spiritual interest as well. You're practicing in Beverly Hills, California, the the hope of ground zero of plastic surgery, and you perform uh an endoscopic procedure that we're gonna talk about later, that you've you've invented. You were the first to perform it. It's called uh a facelift without a scar, known as the scarless lift, and you teach that around the world. So I I want to talk about all those things, but but um before we do, I want to maybe invite you to tell us a little bit about your journey, you know, how you became a plastic surgeon, given your artistic and spiritual learnings, you know, what what what drove what there?

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, that's a very good question. It's it's been quite a journey. Um, you know, I was um my father, I guess starting ancestrally, my father uh was Indian. He was born in southern India, Madras, to a you know, a great family and with comfortable upbringing until he was 14. His father died. He ran away from home on his own, um, managed to get to England, got went to Cambridge on a full scholarship, uh, you know, academic scholarship, and then came over to Texas, where he met my mom and did your urology, went to you know, surgical residency at Baylor, where I also trained. So we had quite a journey. And uh, you know, my career has sort of been a process of trying to honor that journey by actualizing whatever I can bring out in myself and whatever deeper gifts I have to be able to bring out. So, you know, and my mother was an artist, so the combination of things kind of lent itself to becoming a plastic surgeon. Um, I went to Harvard undergraduate, and then I during that time I like I knew kind of just I had this feeling that I have the hands to become a you know fairly good surgeon and and just followed that. And um, but you know, I went initially to medical school to Baylor where DeBakey was and all the heart surgery, Mecca is, and wanted to do heart surgery. And then like a good proportion of the people that go to Baylor and other schools, they decide no, I don't want to do that, which I'm glad. You know, I I think um uh that that it's it's better um now I mean in retrospect, and because plastic surgery is more artistic and it's much more uh variable from patient to patient. And I was always a portrait artist, so that really kind of um excited me. So that's how I came into plastic surgery, but at the same time always had uh desire for something deeper, and I ended up doing a lot more charity work now, the reconstructive surgery. So that's kind of about 10% of my practice is Face Forward International, which we provide reconstructive surgery to victims of uh burns from domestic violence and uh human trafficking victims and other uh acts of terrorism. And it's a it's a good portion of my practice. It's nice because it takes the sting out of listening to people bitch about their wrinkles all day, is what I like to tell people.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah. Um, well, we're gonna we're gonna talk about plastic surgery, but just one one more follow-up, that will, you know, if if you weren't operating, inventing or writing, what did you ever think what your life would be would be like? In other words, what's your heart work beyond your public life?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, it's connected, Rob. I think part of my um, I had sort of an epiphany when I was in college about the connections between modern physics and spirituality. And I was a little ahead of the time because people were like, what the hell are you talking about? You know, I just looked at the variability, the malleability of time and space within relativity theory and the sort of uh mystery of time and space within quantum theory with uh quantum entanglement and just this realm where you know probability seems to be not what we thought it was, and reality is not what we thought it was. And now there's certainly a lot of people that think that way. And so um that's the that's the deeper thoughts that I've had for a long time, and that's really from my heart. And so that's what I write about and I've taken time to write about. But at the same time, it's kind of connected to my surgical practice because I think you know, we as surgeons and you as a radiologist, you know, doing interventional work, especially, you have a connection to the inner protoplasm of a living being that other non-physicians don't have. And so we we understand the beauty of human anatomy, the harmony of cells working together and like mitochondria, you know, doing what they do and being able to explore how we can exploit that for longevity. Um, these are connections that I think are on a deeper level. I think it's important to appreciate that as a surgeon. So that's kind of what leads me to the curiosity of approaching a deeper understanding of sort of biological reality as opposed to just being a you know glorified cosmetologist as a plastic surgeon.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and then we were we were talking offline about that, fascinating, and uh hope that book comes out at some point and get the get those thoughts out, or at least in a blog or or something. It sounds like you're really some rich, deep ideas there that the world needs to hear.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it's sort of the ideas for me. I feel like I'm a bridge between East and West, you know, my father being Indian, my mother being American. I think those genetic factors play a role in how you think and you look at the world. And so my mission is sort of to look at tell scientists that the the secular atheist paradigm is kind of farcically short-sighted and has a bunch of gaps in it. Um, I've never been religious, but at the same time, I kind of found a way towards um transcendent thought through science. So if you just don't just look at the atheist paradigm of of uh evolutionary theory and reductionism, if you go forward into the mystery of quantum theory, that's when the window opens up and then you can't turn back after you've kind of seen into that that mystery. So that's what I like to talk about.

SPEAKER_00:

And and how does that inform the way you look at the world or or your practice even? How does that reduce reduce to real world such as it is, the reality that it is, I guess.

SPEAKER_01:

One way, you know, it's that's a good question, Rob. I mean, I think as a business person, and I think if you you asked me what would I be doing otherwise if it weren't, you know, for plastic surgery, it I definitely have no regrets about plastic surgery, especially vis-a-vis the reasons I was kind of saying about that manual visceral connection to the protoplasm. But at the same time, uh the way it connects is that when when I thought through all these things and wrote through all these things, the ultimate um thing that distinguishes humans from animals is our collectiveness and the harmony that we how we work together. And uh, you know, I remember in college an animal behavior class watching a video called uh Mysterious Castles of Clay about termites. And I just saw this similarity between the termite mound and the little highways that they build, the things they build, and human beings, the way we build cities and this extreme cooperation that we have that science and natural selection theory really doesn't consider. And so we go straight from just genetic procreation among animals. That seems to be the thing that makes them motivated and us motivated to some degree, to humans which are extremely cooperative like social insects, but the natural selection paradigm doesn't explain that because it sort of mandates that we operate based on reproducing our genes only. But there's a higher level of cooperation in the human species that I think is one of the fundamental mysteries of biology. So ultimately, the upshot of that is that my my sort of thesis of my philosophy is that no matter what you do in life, whether your career is, whether you're a captain of industry or you're a clerk at a subway sandwich shop, the end product of what you do, the most important thing about what you do is the service to humanity that it provides. And there may be selfish means you're making a living, but at the same time, that's the offshoot of what you do. So that would be how like it applies to me as a business person is that just remembering that and trying to combine business with service. And that's certainly natural for us as physicians. I think it's something that as a plastic surgeon, I was missing. And I kind of went through a period of soul searching, of you know, had some time to think and uh and and found that when you look at the ability to do reconstructive surgery, things that are more helpful on a deeper level, that you should use that. And that's uh that's kind of how I apply it. Just uh from a point of view of service and uh and uh compassion and empathy.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that message of service uh certainly applies to all of us in our lives as we as we wind down our journeys through through the world such as it is, you know. Uh yeah, and I I I wanted to highlight one thing you said too, the the idea of uh selection, uh natural selection and all, and how you know in the longevity space where I work a lot, you know, there's the the the belief that well, we're selection favors uh people until they leave reproductive age, and then basically you die off because there's no selective pressure for old people to stay alive, right? Because they can't reproduce. So we know that natural selection is all about reproduction, but there's a this emerging concept about social benefit and it it it it's about social animals when they're not individuals but as a social group, and that in a nutshell, it's basically if one tribe uh basically kills off its old people, everyone dies off after their you know, reproductive age, and the other tribe across the valley reverse its its age people as sources of wisdom and knowledge and seeks to learn from them. And then these two tribes fight over, you know, whatever tribes fight over well, what's gonna happen. The tribe with the elders is gonna win because they remember all the strategies and the tricks and everything. So there's actually a species-level survival advantage for social animals that sure, the selfish gene and the individual reproductive age, but for humans, you know, there's an argument that that the social things apply. Anyway.

SPEAKER_01:

No, I totally agree with that. I think that's the leap you have to make, and it has to be explained because we're much more cooperative than any other, you know, wolf packs, yeah, maybe, but and chimpanzees with their tribes. But I think in the human, it it's a quantum leap more than just an extension of a qualitative change where, you know, you're right, you have the elders and the advice. But the other, if you if you kind of back off and look at natural selection theory, you have the selfish gene theory for animals and fungi and plants, and that's the reproduction of the gene, right? Of the genotype. But in humans, you, the main transition to humans is that we have legacy and we have history. So it's not just the elders spreading things by the oral tradition, it's also writing things down, historical traditions, scientific theories where we cooperate across generations. And on an individual level, what that allows and in fact mandates is individual, sort of what I call phenotypic immortality, where you're not just responsible for your survival, you're not just responsible for the survival of your genes through your children. You're you're responsible for the um integrity and the quality of your legacy. And then that kind of dovetails into religion, maybe Judaism, but that's just sort of something that's always seemed natural to me. And I think that's part of the touchstone of the secret of why humans cooperate so extensively. But yeah, yeah, you're absolutely right. I mean, with the elders, we have to defend ourselves getting older from extinction by the younger, you know, like we're no longer reproductively viable or no longer um, you know, interested in that. There's something more important there in the human situation, I think.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that's a great point. Well, so often we hear uh about the value in plastic surgery, about the best plastic surgeons also are great artists, or you know, they're interested in the artistic side, the spiritual side. So it all seems to, you know, check the boxes, you know, in in your your story as well. Have you ever um um if you have you ever has there ever been a patient you treated whose result inspired uh art or painting, or or vice versa?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I think in general, um, yes. In general, you know, and this is something I just gave the keynote lecture at the British Aesthetic Society meeting. And one of the things I've decided to be more forthcoming about is, you know, they say plastic surgeons have to, they well, you put it better, the best plastic surgeons are artists. Some people say plastic surgeons have to be artists, but the problem is they don't have to be, you know, so you just have to finish your residency, have the motivation. But the the quality of the results definitely is better in surgeons that approach the face and particularly and the body with a right-brained approach. And so I tell, you know, my uh students or other plastic surgeons I'm teaching, learn art, learn how to draw. And that will change the way you look at the world in general. It'll change the way you look at faces, where you don't have to decode the procedure into words and then translate it back with your hands. It goes straight from, you know, sort of your psyche or your creative mind to your hands, and you can get better by doing that. So in general, I think that's true. And I like as far as art, I always do like a portrait. If I'm doing a rhinoplasty in particular, I'll do a profile picture, and I think that that shows patients that I do. And I do my own medical illustrations, which definitely helps my work get published quicker, and they like that. And it all it also does inform my own anatomic appreciation. Just doing the drawing and I do digital drawings, and then it helps me understand the three-dimensional anatomy even better with that.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and and a lot of um I mean a lot of plastic surgery certainly can have functional benefits, you know, with uh improved uh uh aeration through the nose or structural things. Certainly there's a functional component to it. But but you know, as as you mentioned, many m much of plastic surgery is cosmetic too. It's it's pay making people look look better, which usually translates into looking younger, you know. Yeah. And and it it's funny. The um it used to, there used to be a saying, you know, about about people who do anti-aging things, you know, they you know, dye your hair or you know, Botox for your wrinkles or or whatever, and it makes you look younger, but you don't actually live longer. It doesn't affect your longevity. And and now there's this growing body of evidence that actually when people change their mindset about the way they think about longevity and maybe change their appearance, that mindset may be one of the most powerful tools. And there's you know, hints at evidence that it actually can improve lifespan too.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that that that would be nice. Yeah, I mean, I think number one, when patients come in for cosmetic work, I don't want them to be so wrapped up in their themselves and their own contours and wrinkles that they don't have a healthy outlook. So, you know, as a plastic surgeon, you kind of get that right away, a sense of is this person happy and are they gonna become out of this with a better attitude that will make them live longer? But I, you know, they talk about how plastic surgery and facial surgery, when they people look in the mirror, they're more confident because they see something they like more. But I think at the same time, you know, the human situation is very visual. You know, we live in kind of a world of light. And uh, and um, so when you look younger, other people look at you longer, their gaze stays longer. And so it's not just the inner confidence that you get by looking in the mirror, it's the fact that people respond to you differently if it's well done. People, people pay more attention to you. I think it's a little extreme with social media now that like this obsession with looking younger and worse yet different. But there definitely is something that helps your psyche, but it has to be done in the right order. The psyche has to be healthy before you go under the knife, I think. That's a really important thing to consider.

SPEAKER_00:

I mean, yeah, like like plastic surgery is often critiqued as sort of the ultimate vanity industry, right? Obviously. So, how do you respond to the idea that that surgical enhancement deepens self-absorption?

SPEAKER_01:

It it does, and it can. And I I see that. And then it's funny because patients come in and you never you do know sometimes, but sometimes you think a patient's gonna be perfectly normal and easy and follow directions, and they don't. And sometimes you think they're gonna be really difficult and they're a cakewalk to deal with recovery-wise. Uh, part of the joy of being a facelift, a facelift surgeon in particular, is embracing that and not fighting it and understanding that, you know, I might my patients are 85% female. I have more and more men, but uh the there's something about the the facelift. You know, I what I say sometimes is that for a woman, the facelift surgeon is sort of like a man's financial advisor. You know, we're more valued, and this is a strictly evolutionary way of thinking, which is not maybe outdated, but men are you know known for our resources, valued for our resources. We're lucky to be able to have a few wrinkles and people don't, you know, respond that that like with revulsion, um, and uh nor should they with women, but it's just sort of biological reality. And so um that definitely enables it to get you more confidence. Uh but yeah, I it is it can be hard to reconcile if you really think about it a lot. I mean, I I've dealt with that and grappled with that, and I think it's healthy to grapple with that because it there is a vanity component that a lot of plastic surgeons don't even look at. And for me personally, there is a component of an ambition to do something deeper and more meaningful. Um that's where the for me, one thing that's helped as we were talking about is the charity work. I do for FaceFord International, I'm their chief surgeon, one of multiple surgeons, but we provide reconstructive surgery for victims of domestic violence, acid burns from all over the world, and human trafficking victims and uh other terrorism victims. So it's just a joy to have these patients. You can never make them look normal, but you know, I did training in a lot of different areas of plastic surgery, obviously at Texas Medical Center, MD Anderson, so I can do it, and it seems like kind of a waste not to do that. But then the other side of the coin of my practice that's made been very gratifying has been inventing a procedure. And so that's the scarless lift that you were mentioning. It's an endoscopic facelift without a scar in front of the ear. And it's really taken me to another level of appreciation of the anatomy, the facial nerve anatomy, because with an endoscope, when you're trying to lift the deeper layers of the face without cutting here, you really get in, you can see the nerves better than ever. And so it's been a staple of my education. I've traveled to 15 different countries teaching it over the past. I'm actually on my way to Istanbul tonight to do a live demonstration in Turkey. So that will be uh it'll be a fun experience. Um my surgical technology.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I want to I want to uh dive into that. It just one or two follow-up questions just before we leave the the that last discussion. Um are there are there cases you've treated where the the classic surgery catalyzed true transformation beyond ego, you know, other other things that happen.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I mean, for cosmetic work, definitely. I mean, the the best, I guess the best situations I can I have a lot of patients that are very successful um entrepreneurs, and some of them depend upon their image and and their their purpose in their business is goes beyond you know selfish reasons. They're there to fulfill a niche, which I think is important in business, to see things as they benefit the greater good. And I've definitely seen them transformed into a more confident person, and I've seen their business grow because of that. And so, you know, as as their plastic surgeon, they really value that. And so I that that's the way that my kind of philosophical shift has helped is I get closer to my patients and I understand their entire psyche better, which I think is a much more healthy way of looking at it rather than the um just the superficial.

SPEAKER_00:

And and are there any any key questions you might use to the to ask patients before you operate to ensure that there is that alignment and it it will make sense for them?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, exactly. But like, why are you doing this? If it looks like their boyfriend or husband or wife is pushing them, that's a red flag. I want to make sure that they do. Um, a lot of my patients are fairly artistic. They see their face objectively, they know the human face. And so one of the things I always ask, no matter whether that's true or not, is what is it that you have noticed about the aging process? You know, I don't look them as a blank canvas and myself as the artist that's gonna do what I want to them. I want to make sure that I'm keying in on the thing that bothers them the most because that'll make you get a happy patient. But I I think in general, I think one of the gifts we have as a physician is the obligation to uh be observant about people, how do they move, what is their spirit like, are they young in spirit? And I look at those things as much as looking at the objective features. So you get a kind of a gestalt of how mentally healthy they are. Um, you know, if they're successful, why are they successful? What do they do for a living? You look at all those things in terms of uh whether to select a good candidate, definitely.

SPEAKER_00:

So now let's talk about the scarless lift. This is the surgical procedure that you you invented um that um so maybe talk about the the the advantages. Also, perhaps I understand it was a decade-long journey from from idea to mastery, and and how easy was it to convince the surgical world to adopt it? A bunch of questions there. Take your pick on any of them or all of them.

SPEAKER_01:

I love I love those questions. Um yeah, you're exactly right. I mean, coming up with a new procedure is a big step. Um, and you know, they always ask who is the first patient you did it on, and it was actually a Saudi royal. I had a practice in Dubai for a while, and um I she really didn't want to scar and she trusted me, and I'd operated on many family members of hers and her daughter's nose and her husband's face also. And I said, I can do this without, you know, I was forthright about it. I said, I'm very experienced with the anatomy. I know I can do it without cutting hair to a certain degree, and it worked out well. And so um then you just become, you know, you have to be facile with facial nerve anatomy and open facelift surgery for really years or decades before trying something like this. But we've, you know, we've done endoscopic brow work and brow lifting, so that's a precedent for an operation where the face is lifted or parts of the face are lifted without removal of skin. And so that's the key step that people wonder about is how is it that when you lift this up, aren't you going to have extra skin here and don't you need to cut that out? Well, facial aging is a result of gravity, right? Primarily. And gravity acts like any physical force along the path of least resistance. And the deep plane of the face, which is not this under the skin, it's under the muscular layer, is the most mobile layer. And it's mobile because we have to talk and eat, and that's one of the unique things about the human face is the expressive expressiveness that we have. So, in order to reverse what gravity has done, you have to get into the deep plane and lift it up. So you're not really depending upon skin tightening and skin elevation, you're depending on lifting the muscular undercarriage of the face, like this. And and so if you can get in from here and separate everything, you know, surgically, and I go behind the ear and right here, and then for the brow, there's little incisions hidden in the hair. And then you lift everything up and use sort of modified permanent sutures to lift it up. And um, so that that's the advantage. You know, I go back to philosophy again when I lecture about this and I talk about people ask this question why do it in a scarless fashion? Well, number one, when people well, we take care of a lot of actresses here, right? Obviously, and they're under a lot of scrutiny, and people will see the scar, they'll see it in paparazzi photos. So that's one of the things that was the genesis of this idea. And number two, like for me personally, I want it done without a scar. Even if you can't see it, there's a psychological stigma. Like, I have a scar here, people can tell. Most patients can't see their own scar that well, but their friends and their hairstylists, and I think most importantly, their frenemies will see it and they'll talk about it, like she's got a scar here. So it's that type of patient that's really right in the wheelhouse. And it's, but that's a it's a great question. How hard was it to convince people? Um, it is, it's still hard, you know, because when you're a surgeon and you don't know how to do something, you're gonna tell your patients it doesn't work because you want to operate on that patient with what's in your wheelhouse. And that's fair enough, but it definitely does work. Um, and like the surgeon that's hosting this conference in Turkey saw me present it in this in uh Vienna in 2021. He read my article in 2023, which is the first academic description of such a procedure. And now he's written a textbook about it. So that is a big step that, like, that's I mean, I've written textbook articles and stuff, but this guy's very, and he's an excellent technician, and I can see their technical skill because it's on an endoscope, and I make them send me videos, and then I'll say, okay, I can teach you. But you know, it's not for every patient and it's not for every surgeon, but um it when you decide the right category, I mean, these are some of the most grateful people ever because they could be famous, no one knows, no one will ever know. They don't have to talk about it, and I think that's fine. I don't think everybody should be blabbing about their facelift. It's kind of boring, sort of, to to talk about your plastic surgery all the time.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, you also invented another device, uh, uh sort of a neck restorative wearable called the Manny Flow. So how tell us about that and how how that came to be.

SPEAKER_01:

So that is something that I had a kernel of an idea when I was, and you know about this. I was running the county ER in Houston, which is like the you know, back in the 90s, it was the knife and gun club. And so there was one night I did three ER thoracotomies as a third-year resident, and that that changes you. That's like nothing phases you after you've had to sort of do triage in those situations. And I thought I would hate it and I loved it, but I was very tired after every shift. So one day, uh you know, post-call, I put on a cervical collar because I was too tired to drive home, sat in a chair like this one, and fell asleep for three hours. And I was ready to go, deep sleep, no problem. So that's where the kernel of the idea was planted. And then, you know, fast forward about 25 years later, um, I took my time and I invented this device, which has now, I think, eight patents internationally, and it's called the Mani Flow. And it has Monty right there. And you have to have a chair with a back on it, but it fits like this, and you lean back, and I can I can be on an airplane and a in a bolt upright and sleep for I take red eyes now because I want to minimize my time away from my practice. And I'm going to Miami several times and New York to do live surgeries, and I just use this and don't waste any time. I could sleep all night. When I was doing my London lectures last week, I was here and I was it was two to six in the morning, and between lectures, I was so exhausted because I'd been operating the day before, and I used it and took just an amazing power nap. I had my aura ring and I got like 30% deep sleep in that power nap. So um, but yeah, it's and it fits into this case because I figured out a way to fold it where it collapses like that and like that, and it goes into the case. So it's kind of a luxury brand, and you you can take it on a plane and not be ashamed of having something that looks like an empty toilet seat around your neck. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

You know, yeah, it seemed it we we we've we've all seen the rings around the the neck and the C thing. So this is different. It looks like it's higher in the back and uh Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01:

It's it's supportive but but soft, and it but it took many, many iterations and 3D printing and uh and everything, but we got it to the perfect level of softness. And if you lean back against the support, it really I think most people like it. And then we're gonna have another version called the Mani Glow, which would be more for you know people to sleep on their back because you know we spend a third of our lives sleeping, and if you sleep on your side, then gravity is pulling your face away from your facial skeleton. Where if you sleep on your back, gravity is actually stabilizing your retaining ligaments. And I can tell people that sleep on their back, I mean it's mostly women that come in for this, but I can tell, and they'll say right away, yeah, I sleep on my back, and that noticeably younger. And you it's never too late to start, but that's one thing that this will help people do that to sleep on your back. That's something I have trouble doing, but I can do it with my uh with the pillow.

SPEAKER_00:

You you talk about your about contribution to humanity as as as really being central. So in your legacy vision, what do you hope the world remembers you for?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I think um for someone that thinks outside the box, you know, I think I like to I like to envision myself um, and this is part of part of my epiphany like I feel like I, you know, can leave the planet and and look at the planet as as if I've never seen an animal or a human before and sort of have a completely novel interpretation of. Of reality. And it starts for me with biology. I love physics. I love modern physics. And I love the mystery of, you know, the fine-tuning of all the physical constants. And I just really was taken by the uh the beauty of general relativity theory, which is something that I've studied. Um, but I think that's uh so that's a big part of my legacy is the book that I'm working on. And so that's really the most important thing. And just with all the lecturing and all the travel and a busy facelift practice, finding the time is difficult. So I'm I'm working with an editor to kind of hone it down and make it more linear, the things that I wrote. But that that's a big part of it, is just sort of something that I think will be helpful to people looking. I've always had a positive view of humanity. I think we're here to help each other. I think it's kind of axiomatic if you really look at the the world objectively. What are the differences between humans and animals? Well, we we help each other out. You know, that's what we're born to do. And um, you know, it may be what you were talking about where the you know the the wisdom of the elders is something that's important to pass down for the success of the tribe. There's a sort of component of group selection, but I think there's something larger than that that we're all part of. And I think it ties into legacy. And so just my my journey is not done yet. I'm still in, and I think that keeps me younger, is that I still have curiosity and I have ideas that I want to bring out and and to continue that. But definitely the, you know, if I can set an example as a plastic surgeon, loving the charity work that I do, and it's not that I do it, you know, for any uh any other reason than to be of benefit and just I love these patients. They're so inspiring. And to give that's you asked about transformation. The best transformations I can remember are our patient Rebecca from Ghana, who was burned. We did a total nasal reconstruction on her and just burn um nanofat stem cell, adipose-derived stem cells throughout their burn scars. And I mean, she can smile now and she's has a very soft voice, but it's the most powerful soft voice that you can see because she's become a public exponent of domestic violence prevention. And her, and then there's another one named Tanya that we also did a forehead fleck reconstruction on, and they they're just so powerful, and they've lost what you would think of as the most human thing about them, which is the integrity or the expression of their face, but they still have hope and support each other. And so that's a good, I think, example of the way we're we're here to help each other.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I want to be respectful of your time. Maybe we have uh just a couple more questions. These are questions from from our listeners that have uh that have written in and we'll just uh pick a couple of them. Here's one what's the worst piece of conventional wisdom in plastic surgery that you'd like to bury forever?

SPEAKER_01:

Uh this is something that I think it's that volume and adding volume to your face uh makes you look younger. And you can avoid a facelift by adding volume because this is where you end up with people getting filled to the point where they look like aliens. And so that that's it really for me is that the this idea of injecting whatever it is to make your face, it doesn't make you look younger ultimately, it makes you look bigger. And now we're sort of in a golden age of facelift surgery, where myself and four or five other key surgeons have been educating surgeons around the world on deep plane lifting, and it's really caught on, it's very popular. Um, and so it's it's not that everybody should be having plastic surgery, though. I think just to go to a surgeon who's conservative that understands that the best way to replace volume is with fat as opposed to filler. Um, you know, the filler companies don't like that, but at the same time, they've made a lot of money making these products. They need to come up with a better product that goes away when they say it's gonna go away, it doesn't last forever, and that doesn't block lymphatic channels. And I'm certainly here to help. But that that's a very good question. I like that question. That would definitely be my answer.

SPEAKER_00:

There's one more. And uh, what are you most excited about as a plastic surgeon for the future of plastic surgery, let's say 10 years out, or what what how is this field going to change?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that's a great question too. I mean, I think I'm I'm I like to think I'm on the edge of that, cutting edge of that, um, pun intended, with the endoscopic work. I do think that endoscopic work is really already taking off. You know, like I said, I'm about to go to Istanbul. I was just in London, a London lecture, and the British surgeons are amazing technicians and they're great reconstructive surgeons, and they're taking that up. So, and then in Turkey, they're already doing it. And the, like I said, the surgeon I was teaching has written a textbook already. Um, and so uh that's the most exciting thing for me. You know, I like surgery, I like working with my hands, and so all the molecular things, the you know, the internal things that we can do for longevity, I love and love that for myself. But I think my special talent is thinking three-dimensionally, figuring out your my way around these critical nerves and stuff to lift the face. And that's it's just gonna get better and better and more invisible means of rejuvenating um people, I think is the future.

SPEAKER_00:

Last question. One spiritual truth that you wish every surgeon, every biohacker, every human being would internalize.

SPEAKER_01:

I think that um they're all thinking about the human body. And I think it's important to understand the importance of biology. I think that biohacking and philosophy in general in the West has gotten away from biology and a sort of an abrogation of biological reality and biological truth. And um the truth of biology to me is that you know, we have the privilege of operating on people and seeing the glistening living matter inside of a body. And we have the privilege of working on cadavers as opposed to live bodies, and we understand in a sort of visceral way what's the difference between a cadaver and a live body. It sounds absurd, but it's the life force, you know, the Elan Vital is something that's real. And we we went away from vitalism in the 18th century, but I think that was a mistake. And I think there is something unique about living things, and I think that's why the public in general rejects um natural selection theory and rejects the the atheist sort of foundation of the you know, the law of entropy governs everything. It's it's it's it's violated by living things. We we're anti-gravitational and anti-entropic, is the way I like to put it, and that can just be planted as a seed to think about. But we are, and I will argue that to my grave. Um, and I think it's something that will come out that there's a beauty and a harmony and uh and a special quality about living things that violates the physical laws as we know them.

SPEAKER_00:

Wow, thank you so much, Mark, for spending time with us today. Maybe you could uh uh let us we're gonna put in the show notes your your website, the best way to reach you on social media and your Instagram account also, if you may mention that. Too for people who are listening, maybe just tell the tell us that.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, my Instagram is at drmarkmani, so it's at D-R-M-A-R-C-M-A-N-I. And um, I have social other social media, but Instagram I kind of focus on. And then my website is just markmony.com. Um, like a lot of surgeons, it's kind of outdated, but I am working on it now, revising it. But most people go to Instagram to see the latest things that I'm doing. So that's definitely, and then I have the pillow which will be out coming out, uh, the Maniflow, I should say, uh neck wearable, which will be coming out um late this year or early next year. So I'll have a I'll have plenty about that on my Instagram also.

SPEAKER_00:

Great. Well, thanks again, Mark. I hope I want to we need to we need to do this again. What talk about your pillow when it comes out or talk about your book, or just get an update on on what you're doing and uh all your all your travels and experiences.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah, would love to. Definitely a pleasure.

SPEAKER_00:

All right, thanks again. Okay, thank you, Rob. Thank you.