Age Proof
Age Proof: Unlock the Real Fountain of Youth
What if the secret to staying young isn’t a myth, but just hidden in plain sight?
Age Proof is where real science meets real-life results.
Each episode brings you inside conversations with doctors, biohackers, and longevity experts who are redefining what it means to grow older. Together, we unpack breakthrough treatments, debunk outdated health myths, and explore everything from anti-aging supplements to the newest regenerative therapies.
No trends, no shortcuts, just practical, science-backed tools to help you feel better, move better, and stay sharp as you age.
This is Age Proof, where growing older comes with smarter choices and stronger health.
Age Proof
Relationship Advice: Make Your Love Last Without Regret
Want a relationship that lasts longer than a swipe?
In this episode, we explore a values-first approach to love, drawing from clinical psychology and thousands of hours at the bedside of hospice patients. Instead of chasing chemistry, we dive into compatibility through core values, emotional intelligence, lifestyle alignment, and personality traits.
We get honest about regret, grief, and loneliness, showing why connection and presence are more powerful than proximity. You’ll also hear practical insights on boundaries, self-care, and building healthy relationships both personal and professional, without losing yourself.
Ready to rethink how you choose and nurture love?
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So, what got you into this? You're matchmaking now, right?
SPEAKER_00:So, yes, I, my cousin, who's my very, very best friend, and um, she's an amazing licensed clinical psychotherapist. And I had been retired for almost three years out of hospice and palliative care. I worked in hospice and palliative care for 20 years and um just spent a couple years doing self-care and mentoring and getting back all that life that I didn't have while I was grinding 24 hours a day. And she came to me with this idea to do clinical matchmaking based off of core values, belief systems, personality traits, the big five model, and not the superficial crap that goes on. And I said, Marnie, if you can actually build that program, I will help you build the business. And that's exactly what we did. And it's been amazing.
SPEAKER_04:So is it like a written test or an like an interview? Like, how do you build those uh the numbers or whatever it is, the statistics behind like what you think will work?
SPEAKER_00:Total culmination, but it is science-backed because Marnie's got her brain. So even though she is working in the capacity right now as a matchmaker and a coach for liability reasons, she's still a licensed clinical psychotherapist. So she is constantly doing uh screenings for addiction, for emotional regularity, for personality disorders. Now it doesn't mean that we don't work with flawed people. Everybody's got a flaw. Yeah, yeah. But you've got to match it up and you have to know what it is. Yeah. And so that's where it, that's where it gets really, really fun. So she has created this amazing program to where we're very selective with what who we work with, not in the fact that's typical of like looks or money or things like that, but people who just really want a long-term sustaining relationship and not a dating service. Like we're not a dating service, we're not madams, we don't want to deal with that crap. You know, 65-year-old guy comes to us, I don't care what they want to pay, and they say, Yeah, we we date 20-year-olds. Well, that's bullshit. Go on down the road. There's plenty of websites for you. But um you want to find a long-term sustaining relationship, and maybe that is with a 25-year-old. Yeah, we can talk about that when we talk about age and biological age. There's so many different factors with that. But if that's what you're looking for, you're just looking to fill a hole.
SPEAKER_05:What are you usually seeing with like, you know, are you is age not even a factor that is looked at, or are you are they you know what's usually generally attracted to people at like what age difference?
SPEAKER_04:Yes.
SPEAKER_00:So most people like to have about a 10 10 year spread, where as we get older and older, it truthfully does make sense. But here's where the key comes in.
unknown:Are we filming?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, we just go. Oh, we just go, okay. I was like, wait, am I supposed to save something? Okay, sorry.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, I'll pause and I'll go.
SPEAKER_05:No, no, we just we just go that.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:There you go.
SPEAKER_04:And we don't we don't even we don't even watch it again, so it doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_00:No, I don't ever watch either anything I film.
SPEAKER_05:I'm like, don't even yeah, as long as we keep on calling it, they're like, hey, I heard this.
SPEAKER_04:I like this, or like or business manager's like, you guys can't air this. We told the people to take all these off. I was like, uh no, I think they should all go. It's like, have you listened to it? I was like, no.
SPEAKER_05:We thought it was good.
SPEAKER_04:We were there.
SPEAKER_00:I mean we were there. Yeah, uh, that's interesting.
SPEAKER_05:Now we free flow and like perfect almost like the Joe Rogan thing.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, we just yeah, okay, we just gotta start so so age. So when somebody comes into us and they want to talk about age, so it is a factor, especially when you're screening, right? Because we've got to start somewhere, yeah. But there's so many things to consider. So, first of all, let's talk a while about people who have a hard time dating anyway. Yeah, and everybody has a hard time dating. I mean, you both are married now? Yes, would either one of you want to be single in this?
SPEAKER_05:Okay, I was just thinking about it even without knowing about doing this podcast. Like, I don't know. Like, I I think it was even Sunday or like a couple days ago, I I went to the ice cream store and I'm like just hearing these awkward talks between two people, and like there were two different groups like dating, and I was like, I was like, Oh, thank god.
SPEAKER_04:Um I think I think it's as you age, because like you're always told uh the grass is always greener on the other side. I've gotten to a point where I'm like, no, it the the grass is greener on this side. I there's no way, like, I'm gonna go to like Tocomadeira.
SPEAKER_05:I just want to plant more I just want to plant more seeds.
SPEAKER_00:You're certainly not gonna go there and find that there.
SPEAKER_05:I want to plant more seeds on this grass than go somewhere else.
SPEAKER_00:You're not gonna find the perfect person. We're not gonna find you the perfect person. We're gonna find you the person that annoys you the least. Because the fact of the matter is that's what what it is. And so here's here's where people have problems is that most of them aren't self-aware.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And that doesn't necessarily change with age, it morphs with age because you get comfortable in, well, I've been this way for so long, so this is just how I'm gonna be. And there's an element of truth to that, but it's not completely factual. So people aren't self-aware. So, first of all, you've got these people who come in and we'll go, we could go gender either way.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But let's say we've got this, you know, 65-year-old guy who plays pickleball, who golfs, or whatever, and he's like, look it, 60-year-old women can't keep up with me. I gotta date a 45-year-old. I I mean, I just have to. Okay, so there's a way to kind of break that down because there's biological age, there's physical age, there's emotional intelligence age, there's lifestyle age, there's life experience age. So when we're considering age, it's not just that number. Because I can tell you something. There are some 60-year-old women that are hot as heck and can run circles around 45-year-old men. So let's not start.
SPEAKER_05:Especially on the pickleball coat.
SPEAKER_00:Especially on the pickleball, and they're fierce.
SPEAKER_05:We meet it, we meet a lot of them because we're in plastics and they're coming to us and they want to look like they're 40 because they have boyfriends that are in their 20s and 30s.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, well, I will tell you, it is the evolution. I am digging the cougar evolution. I mean, I actually, when I was single, after I left hospice and um I left a 15-year relationship. And so I did the whole Tinder thing. I was, I was like, yeah, let's just have some fun and whatever it is.
SPEAKER_04:Until you a couple times.
SPEAKER_00:No matter, yeah, no matter what parameters I put on there, I kept getting these young guys. And there was one that I just befriended and we would message back and forth. And I said, tell me this, what are these young guys doing with a you know, late 40? What do you want there? And he's like, Well, y'all don't need your house fixed, y'all don't need me to pay for your car, you don't want to have kids, and you don't want to get married, you just want to have sex. And I'm like, it's brilliant.
SPEAKER_03:It's brilliant. Now I totally get it, right? A lot of sense.
SPEAKER_00:Um that's not what we do with the matchmaking company, but that's where you get it in different things.
SPEAKER_05:I mean, that's what you're doing in your 20s, then you need a matchmaker in your 30s. That's what happens.
SPEAKER_04:Can I tell you what one unrel kind of semi-related story because you said like emotional intelligence? Yes. I was in my uh second year of like surgery residency, and they're running this pilot study on uh a test. And we we've been tested with written tests the whole way through med school training, getting board certified, and they they gave this test for emotional intelligence, and like my program director had to pull me in, was like, hey, it's like this like experimental stage, so I don't know what to make of the results, but I think I have to talk to you about this. Like just talking to it. It's like you scored in the first percentile, so like the bottom one percent of this. And I was like, I I kind of like look back and understood why, because I was like my initial reaction was like, what the fuck? I actually tried, and it was like, oh goodness, that's not what you're supposed to do. Like, I was like, I tried to answer the questions the way they wanted me to answer it. I was like, There you go, I'm I'm I'm emotionally retarded, and I was I I was I was so pissed off. I went back and told Sarah, I was like, you won't believe it. They made us take this like two, three hour test, and they told me I'm in the first percentile, and I was just pissed off because I scored poorly in like high school and stuff, but when I came to med school, I was always like like a high performer. And this was the first test, even in training, that like I didn't score well on. Not to mention not well on, like everything's like 80th, 90th percentile. This was first percentile, it was way out of whack. And I told her, I was like, I can't believe this. They have this test, this test gotta be bullshit, and I can't believe I scored so poorly. She's like, She looks at me, she's like, I would have given you first percentile on emotional intelligence too.
SPEAKER_00:I was like, oh, I guess I guess you're gonna be great at everything, you can't be great at everything, but that makes perfect sense, but that's okay, and maybe it just wasn't important to you before, like, right?
SPEAKER_04:The studies and the other things were so like especially like there's a difference when you have kids. Like when my daughter was born, I was just like, like, I was just watching a movie, and I'm like feeling like sad and stuff, and just like this feels awkward. What am I feeling? Oh, that's emotions. That's what I'm feeling. Like, I I did that repeatedly. It's like, oh, emotions are getting to me. Inside out, yeah, it's hadn't come out in your head. Oh, and they had inside out. Inside out nails it, by the way. Yeah, I think. I was a psych major in undergrad. Okay, and I think they both movies they've done a bang out job with that. But either way, like just movies I wouldn't expect to have an emotional response to. I started being like, oh my god, this is like I need a box of tissue paper.
SPEAKER_00:Right. But see, that's where you found so Sarah is your partner? My wife. Your wife. So that's so she knew it and she embraced it. That's the difference, right? Like, she's like, Yeah, I agree with that test score. I already knew that. I'm okay with it. This is where we talk about self-awareness or awareness of partner, right? Like, we say now, if you don't do something, don't say that you do. So, you know, these these men will be like, oh yeah, you know, I I go work out every day, and these women are like, yeah, I cook these beautiful meals. Don't bullshit. Don't say it if that's not what you're gonna do because it's gonna well for it's gonna fall apart at some point. It doesn't speak to you. So you know what? I mean, uh, I don't like concerts. Ugh, shoot me. I don't like concerts. Don't ask me to go at a concert. I'm not gonna do it. I'm also not a sports girl. There's so many girls who really, really are. Now, is that important to you to be my partner that I have to like sports, or is it important to you that I respect that you do and that I will not inhibit you? And I will go have brunch with my girlfriends every Sunday during football season. Or you'll support it.
SPEAKER_04:Like once in a while, you'll just, you know, yeah, let's host the party.
SPEAKER_05:So when I was in my dating phase, it was actually like I wanted someone that didn't want to do what I wanted to do. Okay because it seemed like they kind of like it's like they were almost too into me and like wanted to do make everything right.
SPEAKER_04:What do you mean to me? Do you feel like she's the opposite of you and partially very similar?
SPEAKER_05:Somewhat, yeah. I think so. I think she's very well very driven. So like we have that, but like she's not into sports at all or anything like that. Um, she's not into like most of the stuff I'm into, and emotional intelligence. Yeah, I like I think in our house we grew up. Our family's like our families, like no emotional intelligence.
SPEAKER_04:Like looking back on that, like 10 years later, 12 years later, I'm like, I actually understand it. And the funny part is like I was actually answering it, trying to be better than who I am, and I reached first percentile.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, I shut down, so it like I'm like, I'm gonna make it worse. So let me just shut down so I don't make it worse.
SPEAKER_04:I I was the most emotional growing up in the family. I cried all the time. And when we moved to the US, we moved in with my uncle, and he he was just fresh out of college, but he would just like kind of like badger you to the point where like you don't your your defensive instincts is to not show intelligence. So I went from like crying all the time about everything a little too much to oh, I'm I'm not, I'm not that I'm not even tapping into that, I'm not even getting into that side. Which which kind of called like a PowerPoint for a surgeon, like this is actually a strength point because you don't want anybody to get emotional when things get out of hand. Nope. Something gets like, okay, this person didn't bring this instrument in time or knows what that instrument's called. It's like that's actually like it it helped out in surgery.
SPEAKER_05:So yeah, especially when we're in like the trauma bay, and one of my attendings was like, I thought you didn't know what the fuck you were doing, but then she's like, I realized like, no, you were there calling all the shots, yeah. You know, just calmly.
SPEAKER_04:Like so at the end of that discussion with that program director with my low emotional intelligence. I was like, but I I think uh if these numbers are correct, this makes me a better surgeon. He's like, I think so too. I don't know what to do.
SPEAKER_05:I think you know, like this kind of brings me back. It's almost like we're having like, you know, a ketamine trip or something bringing back like I I think the switch for us was like we came from like war-torn country, like it was during the Iran Rock war. We moved here, and like people called us terrorists, and like we didn't fit in. My parent, my mom would dress us in stuff that was more European, and people thought, like, you know, you couldn't wear pink as a guy those days. And they had barbecues for the first year. Yeah. Well, they weren't barbie shoes, they were just they had pink outlining on them, and like people just and like you you just shut down, you're like, I can't show any emotions or anything. And I think it was just like kind of tough getting used to it and kind of blending in with the people here that made it made it really hard. I think that's that makes sense. That's why we c I I think that's kids are assholes where we came to the house.
SPEAKER_00:But there's there's childhood things that you bring into life, yeah, but this also leads into something else is culture. Yeah, right? And and um interculture dating and relationships. Oh, yeah. There are things that are genetically in your genetic code, yeah, from passed down from generation to generation that you were born with, yeah, that people that didn't have your same family trauma, particularly when you're talking about an entire culture that experience things, can never quite understand.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Right? So there's also that to consider. It doesn't mean it doesn't work, yeah. But this is where self-awareness, self-actualization, knowing your weaknesses, your strengths, your limitations, that's where that all comes in.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, yeah. So that it's funny you say that because none of us are married to Iranian women.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Well, it's saying like similar, but half, yeah, so four boys, half are with first generation, okay, technically, uh, similar area, but not Iran, and the other half actually in a similar area, similar origin, but American, like third generation, second to third generation.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, so a little more Americanized. No doctors, no doctors married to doctors.
SPEAKER_05:Um yes. Yeah, I'm married to a doctor. My youngest brother is married to a pediatric dentist. Okay. So and he's married to well, his wife's a doctor too. Technically, she's a doctorate in physical therapy. Physical therapy, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, and what's your wife?
SPEAKER_05:My wife's an anesthesiologist.
SPEAKER_00:She's an anesthesiologist.
SPEAKER_05:Okay, so not the same discipline, but yeah, and then the doctor is nurse practitioner and uh nurse.
SPEAKER_04:I think she because she teaches. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:It's interesting, even in my whole career, even in hospice and palliative care, my dad was a physician too. It's very interesting that people either marry in the medical field, very rare doctor to doctor. That's actually pretty rare from what I've seen. But in the medical field, or something completely opposite. Yeah, so that's that's the wife that is the social butterfly, the business person, the one who can run the office, the one who can run the social gatherings, the one who can do the networking, and yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Well, it's rare for you to see it because if it's doctor and doctor, they don't make it that low. Yeah, they kill each other. We don't need hospice.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah, it's gonna take care of itself. You need snapped. That's what you're gonna be on.
SPEAKER_04:Oh man. So um, in were there any common things you saw with people, whether it's regret or things they showed like extra joy for in like their final moments or like their final months of life, where where you were just like, this this seems like a common thing that like most people in this situation, not necessarily everybody, but like that stood out to you.
SPEAKER_00:Ooh, we could go down a couple different rabbit holes here. So three guide me if you want me to. So I'm gonna start with the negative part. Yep, regret. Regret and grief. Danger, danger, danger. It is a killer. You guys know as physicians, it's an absolute killer. It is a wasted emotion, and it will eat away at you. So we'll start at um war-torn veterans. I once had a patient, he had cancer everywhere. He was probably in his 80s, and he had gone, I'm gonna say nine to ten days with no food. And people always say for people who aren't in the medical field, they say they're not eating. Look, guys, sips of your insurance is still eating. Yeah, I'm talking no sustenance and four or five days with no water. Now we're not doing IVs, we're not doing anything. And he would not go. And my chaplain came to me one day, and she is amazing, amazing. And no matter what your belief is, I don't necessarily share all of hers, but she came to me one day and she I said, What's what are we doing? What's going on with him? Like, is he in where's his pain? Where's his this? I'm going to all of those things that I know. And she says, Tiana, he's in spiritual warfare. And I said, What are you talking about? And he said, All those years in the war, he is regretting what he has done, he is fearing that he's gonna go to hell, he is doing all of these things. So he had to get closure with his God before he could do. And my chaplain spent hours and hours and hours there, and that's when it could happen. Now, on the flip side, you see people who you have no idea how they're hanging on, and the one daughter walks in the room and they go in that moment, or the wife that has been vigilant and bedside for years taking care of this person, and they go take a shower, and that's the moment that this person passes, right? Like there's a deal, there is a deal that your soul and God makes. And I think that from that position, they're trying to save their spouse from that moment, whatever it may be. So, for when we talk about longevity, we talk about wellness, we talk about aging, regret, um, unresolved grief issues, it's a killer. And not only is it a killer, but it's gonna make you a painful death.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_00:So let's let's let's try to alleviate that.
SPEAKER_04:It just like eats at you for years.
SPEAKER_00:Death by a thousand cuts. It is death by a thousand cuts. It eats at you every day. Now, on the flip side, what does everybody talk about? It's the people. And yes, I have heard many, many stories of the companies they built and the cars they bought, but that's just filler. Yeah, yeah, that's just filler talk when they're just wanting to talk to somebody about it. It really comes down to the people that they built. And I had a practice, and and when I tell you this, and you're gonna say it, but when I tell you I have sat bedside with thousands, I'm not kidding you, this is not an exaggeration, thousands of patients and families over my tenure, and I'm not a clinician, yeah. I'm admin, and I owned the hospices, but I always stayed bedside. The one thing I heard all the time, anytime I met somebody who was married for a long time, I always asked them, what is the key? Two things I heard over and over and over again. Sometimes one has to love enough for both, yeah, and number two, the man has to love the woman just a little bit more. And I have trouble translating this into homosexual relationships because I can see that too in different ways. So I don't know if it's that energy or what it is, but if you think about it, if you think of all the true happy, happy marriages that you have seen over the course of your life, there is nothing different about the way that that man looks at his women, at his woman when he was 25 versus 95. There is a twinkle in his eye, and he still wants to pat her butt. Yeah, there is just something about it. It's very, very special. So having those connections is is completely amazing. And we have seen so many times people do all the right things. They ate well, they never smoked, they never drank, they just ran a marathon you know six months ago and they get pancreatic cancer and die at 43.
SPEAKER_04:That's why I don't exercise.
SPEAKER_00:There you go. See, stay true. Um, but what mattered is did they have that quality of life? Did they have that longevity in the quantity of their life, not the quantity, the quality of their life, not the quantity, versus living a very, very long time in a very lonely space?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, it makes sense. It's probably again, it's it's all all encompassing. Like it has to do like with like things we do with longevity is like hormone balances, yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Like everything, like it's not like all make you a happy, more energetic person so you can enjoy life while you are around.
SPEAKER_04:And it's like just well encompassing rather than like super boosting one aspect. The one thing I related to is uh been playing way more FIFA recently than usual, but they actually put the attributes of the player in around a circle, and then like okay, if you're a defender, maybe it's skewed this way, or if you're well-rounded midfielder, the whole thing's filled out. Like, that's how I've been like thinking of like with like hormone imbalances and stuff. It's like so. If you're if you're like if that shape is like the least away from being round, that's the like you're gonna have certain attributes that other people are gonna like admire you for, but that's you're most likely lacking in other attributes that are necessary, not not just for longevity, for for just people getting along with you. Um let's just say like you could bench press 600 pounds and just be a huge asshole.
SPEAKER_00:Right. And then what's it for? But isn't that the beauty of what what you can do with medicine is it's a catalyst in the physical body to get somebody the boost, the confidence, whatever it is, to do the work inside, right? So um, I'm sure y'all see it all the time in what you do with plastics. You will see a person's personality change from the boost that they get and the confidence that they get from that. Um, and that's the reason to do it, right? For yourself, not for anybody else.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00:And so I have seen very, very, very, I wish Marnie was here for this. She tells a story, but like very, you know, beautifully big, curvy women that can get any man, and I'm talking any man that they want, anything that they want, and they look at themselves, they're like, I am freaking perfect. And then you have seen somebody that on paper would have the most perfect body, the most perfect this. If they don't got it there, what's it for? Because it's always the next quick hit, it's always the next quick fix. It's never gonna be good enough.
SPEAKER_04:Like, even when I was wrestling in high school and undergrad, I I would I was pretty fit. I wasn't the most fit by far on the team, but I was like very cut up, very fit. But I was always like, oh, okay, if I can get this a little bigger, tone down here. And now looking back, I'm like, oh man, if I was like that, that would be freaking killer. And like but it was always it was never good enough. It was just never good enough.
SPEAKER_00:Well, but that's the whole point.
SPEAKER_05:You gotta drive yourself though. That's the you gotta have goals and you gotta at least approach them. If you don't have goals, then just like we were talking about, you gotta have purpose, right? Yeah, and then if you those goals are gone, you're you're like gonna be depressed if you don't have a lot of people.
SPEAKER_04:But if artists setting goals is like if you attain it, like let's let's say like body image, and then what are you gonna keep on?
SPEAKER_05:Well, social media is making that whole body image thing and lifestyle image much worse, like for a lot of people. It's just made everything so awful. How many people drive a frickin' Bugatti and you you know, where it was like one in the world, now it's like you know, go you go to Miami, there's 16 of them lined up.
SPEAKER_00:Until the next thing, yeah, until the next thing, but social media we're in dating too. I mean, but but back to the business, please. It's great for your business. Are you kidding me? Right, it's great. It's great. But talking about purpose, you have to have purpose even within your relationship. Yeah, it's not enough just to be in a relationship. So when we talk about how that sustains you and the studies you were telling me about earlier about people in happy marriages, what was it, 60%?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, like longevity-wise, length of like 60% were long-term married. They lived longer, I think.
SPEAKER_00:Family unity is the key. That is that is a big one. Well, it was just during you know, COVID, and then all of a sudden, loneliness actually got put on the map. And those of us knew that for forever and ever. And now there's all these studies. Loneliness is equivalent to smoking a pack and a half of scissor, you know, cigarettes a day. Well, bullshit, it always was. Yeah. Um, and now we just forced all these people into it, and the way the people were doing it.
SPEAKER_04:So I picked up a pack of cigarettes a day. Oh, good. All right, perfect. It's like, oh good, I'm making up for it. Whatever you gotta do. So now I can uh and I only smoke uh menthol cigarettes for the fresh breath.
SPEAKER_00:Right, right. Well, they say those are better for you. Oh god.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, and like I think the blue zones kind of showed that. Um I I think it it's not necessarily just being married, but it's like, you know, they're even like if their spouse died, they had that little community that loved them. So yeah. Especially the Italian ones, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, especially the Italian.
SPEAKER_05:They're so cute.
SPEAKER_00:Humans are not biologically designed to be alone. There are those those offshots, right? There are offshots of people that really do well by themselves and off the grid. But by and far, humans are not designed to be alone and they need that kind of connection. Yeah, and so that's where it really, and if you think about it, and if you think about what makes people happy, a lot of it is um giving, sharing, teaching, learning, all of those things that come from other humans in connection.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So yes, your primary relationship is a huge factor in that, but it's not the only one.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. Yeah, it's you know, with your kids and some even with like, you know, their religious belief, with you know, what they think of God as like, that that's almost like a relationship itself.
SPEAKER_00:It is because you're not lonely if you believe in God and you know that God is never leaving you and will never forsake you, and all of that. So that's I mean, Earth is a tough planet. Yeah, there's some really big things going on here. So to know that you have somebody who truly has your best interests at heart and wants good things for you and has your back, yeah. Um that's gonna carry you a very far away.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
unknown:One
SPEAKER_05:They say toxic in this study. I wonder what you know what's considered toxic.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, let's talk into that. So I think a lot of these big buzzwords, toxic, I mean, you know, everybody's on this narcissist kick now, all of these things. There's very it's it can be very subjective, right? So there's a scale, there's a sliding scale of it. So people are totally overusing the word narcissist.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:There's people with narcissistic tendencies. But truthfully, you have to be properly diagnosed, and it's in the DM5 about what a narcissist is. But there are people who are not.
SPEAKER_05:Who we have as a president that's predicting that. Not talking politics. I voted for him, but like I think that's got a huge part to do with it.
SPEAKER_00:Well, sure, sure, absolutely. But when we talk about toxic relationships, there's a couple of factors to it. So what may be awful to you may be like mildly irritating to you. Okay? So it could still be toxic, but it's where I can receive it and give it that affects the toxicity level. So there are things that are just absolute game changer deal breakers for some people. Yeah. But there are things that other people tolerate. So the fact of the matter is, if you spend your time thinking you're in a toxic relationship, you are. And guess what? You may also be the problem. Because the other thing that we see is there's a lot of people that are addicted to trauma. Yeah. They are addicted to chaos. Okay. I have found myself when I was a very, very, very busy professional. If I had, and this is unrelated to relationships, but we can bring it there. If I had 10 minutes of downtime, what am I doing? I'm a loser. I should be doing something. I probably forgot something. I'm so I would create more jobs for myself, right?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So people do that in relationships. People who don't grow up in healthy relationships with healthy relationship um styles around them, with not advanced coping mechanisms or coping skills, have grown up in a life of chaos and trauma. When things become peaceful, that is so uncomfortable for them.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So they can create that. It doesn't mean you can't change that. But you gotta be, again, self-aware. You've got to learn your own cycles.
SPEAKER_05:That's what we've brought to our wives. They don't understand it.
SPEAKER_00:Oh.
SPEAKER_05:Once they figure it out.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, oh, it's them, right? It's them. Oh yeah, let's get them in here. Give them my phone number. We'll have all no, I mean, everybody.
SPEAKER_04:Okay. And she had to extend her trip from two days to four days for like a course she was taking. She came back and it was like I I didn't say anything back because I I understood like what she meant. I got like this new like area rug that just shed all over the house. So she spent the whole day, first day back, like just vacuuming. Yeah. I had to unload the vacuum canister like three times. That's how bad it was. So by the time I get home, just a lot of complaints, a lot of family stressors, too. That's perfectly understandable, like with with like health concerns with the family. So I I wish I had more to say. I just couldn't say anything. I was just like, I I know you're right. And I'm not like my silence isn't saying like I'm against what you're saying, but it's it I don't I just don't know what to say.
SPEAKER_00:So let me tell you about this demographic of women that we see these days. Okay. We are raising our children, we are professionals, we are ball busters, a lot of times they are the breadwinners. There is all of these factors, and it's not the way it's been for centuries on past, right? And so there's this shift of what's happening. So sometimes what's really hard is we don't need you to fix anything, we just need you to hold space. So perhaps by you just holding space and not offering, that's exactly what she needed. Because I guarantee you she came home, no matter how great this course was, she's a wife and a mother.
SPEAKER_04:Wow, the course was stressful for her. Okay, so that was stressful.
SPEAKER_00:She had guilt probably about leaving her children. She had guilt. Whether she speaks or there's something that's ingrained in us, right? And it comes out in different ways. So the easiest thing is to get pissed off at that effing carpet. Because that's right in front of us. It wasn't. And we can't do it. Shame on you, dude. You should have vacuumed up the carpet.
SPEAKER_05:I mean, I I but maybe not maybe it's better because now she knows how bad that carpet is.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, well, if you want to get rid of the carpet, that would be totally different wooded. It's gone. It's gone. It's gone. That's like when I'm like my kitchen.
SPEAKER_05:All of a sudden, like she's in a concern.
SPEAKER_04:Not quite gone. No, I would have lived with that. I think it's a beautiful rug. Yeah. Um, it's it's nice, but she was just like, we gotta get rid of this. I was like, I really don't want to, but if you do, let's go. Let's go.
SPEAKER_05:She has two large dogs too, so and two cats.
SPEAKER_00:And two, yeah, that's a lot. That's a lot to come home to. Yeah. Yeah, just have the housekeeper come next to the case. And I date.
SPEAKER_04:I wasn't I wasn't giving the dogs the right supplements and stuff. Okay. So I wasn't gonna bring out like, okay, I still took out the trash, cleaned up the dog poop, cleaned up the dishes, kept everything else orderly. These couple things were wrong, so the whole house is a disaster. Like that, that that's a constant battle that I just we find ourselves in. I just like, and if I do bring it up, it's like, oh, you want a special reward for that? Like, it's like, no, just don't like diminu throw all of that out the door because a couple things weren't done. Like, don't throw the baby out with the bath water.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, but this is the dichotomy of the kind of environment that we're in today that wasn't in. There were clear um roles, there were clear boundaries, there were clear jobs, there was all these things before, and it's getting murky on both sides. You probably spent a lot more time with the kids than you know, men did 40 years ago. So there this is where it's it's hard.
SPEAKER_04:Way more than my dad did with us. He was a great dad, but definitely.
SPEAKER_00:He was a great dad. It doesn't mean that anybody was wrong in what we're doing, but we are evolving as a society, and that is very hard to date. And it's very hard to date when you come into your 40s and your 50s and your 60s and you're single again, and then now you've got this 60-year-old woman who got divorced, raised her kids on her own, started her business, makes a crap load of money, makes decisions all day, is in this boss bitch energy. Well, that's hard for a man to deal with, but you like it, right? Like it's cool. But how do you allow her to go into her feminine side and still recognize her and uplift her for the boss bitch she is? Like it's like there's a there's a whole learning curve for men and women to be able to do that. Yeah, I think, you know, I in all honesty, that's why my 15-year relationship failed. Yeah, all of a sudden I built these businesses, I got into this mode, and I found myself in energy that I didn't want to be in.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Then it's nobody's fault.
SPEAKER_04:But energy in what, the relationship or the professional side?
SPEAKER_00:Uh the relationship. I think that's why my relationship failed. Is we were not able to mold with the way that the roles were changing.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And in my mind, okay, much like you, where it was, I got dying people calling me all day or night. I can't answer that email tomorrow. Like, I'm I'm building businesses, I have 600 employees, I have this, I have that. That that is gonna wait. Well, that's not fair. But at the same time, when I'm fighting these battles all day long and doing this, don't come to me. Like, I I don't have the capacity to be flooded by your bullshit, and I don't want to know, I don't want to be asked what's for dinner.
SPEAKER_05:But did you did you take time to yourself? Like like meditate or no, you know, no, and I think that's what a lot of women get away from. They turn like my wife, she's like self-care isn't even secondary, it's not even secondary. Because she's like, I don't understand why I'm like, I'm like, dude, I care about myself. I'm like, I don't give a shit. I'm like, I can be late to this, I can be late to this. People can wait. I'm gonna get my workout done. I'm gonna do my meditation, you know. And I I don't like all the time.
SPEAKER_04:I I can't just put out a workout.
SPEAKER_05:And it's not like I'm doing like an hour workout or two hours and messing around. I'm there 20 minutes in and out, and like even meditation and stuff. I usually do it before bed, before I go to bed, or first thing is I as soon as I wake up, like just to do self-care. And I think I think meditations beyond anything like help me so much because like we're you have a short fuse. Anytime I don't meditate, it's like you know, she hits you, she hits you, she hits you, and you know, like you you you answer back, you know, and and but like when you meditate, it's like comes comes at you with rocks, you just block them, block them, and you know how to block them the right way. You know, you turn it into gold and give it back to her almost.
SPEAKER_00:But that's the problem, is that we have been taught that self-care is a pedicure. Pedicure is not self-care. I don't getting your nails done is a pain in the ass. For somebody like me who has to sit still for an hour, that is not self-care. Getting your hair done is not self-care. Again, you are in a chair, you are locked down. So, this is the thing, there's these things that we do as women that we that we now feel obligated to do, right? Because it's just part of society, and that's our self-care. That's bullshit. Yeah, it's not self-care. We have to really tune into what that is. And I was actually speaking with a wonderful woman this this morning. I'm starting to look into gene coding and human design. Freaking phenomenal. And she was talking about meditation. And for me, that is a scary word because I don't sit still. Yeah, but she said, look it. Some people meditate when they're chopping vegetables. Yeah, some people meditate when they're picking, and I was like, Oh, and the first place I went was treadmill. I hate the treadmill. I hate the treadmill, but my best thoughts come like when I'm on the treadmill, when I'm not thinking. And I was like, okay, so it meditation doesn't have to be the traditional, like what everybody thinks about. Some people it's painting, some people it's prayer. It's a checkout time. And here's the thing, guys, when we're getting our nails done, when we're getting our hair done, they're talking to you, you're doing all this stuff. It's not self-care. So I think as women and as men, because I do believe work workouts are self-care. Because I'm I now I make it to the gym five days a week and it's the same thing. If I skip it, my boyfriend will literally go like be like, hey, you want to go work out today? He doesn't work out. He's telling me to go work out. My my fuse got shorter. I do believe that is, but we have to retrain ourselves on what self-care actually is. Yeah, and because it's not that superficial card. And like meditation, it's not getting Botox.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, and meditation, like if if you're not like and people think meditation's like staring at a wall and not seeing anything in your brain, that's meditation, but it's not that, like, it's about clearing whatever's in your brain. Yeah, but it's about like clearing that out, cleaning that out, especially if you don't get enough sleep, and which usually cleans out a lot of that junk. And like with meditation, oh kind of you those thoughts come to your brain because it needs to get cleared out.
SPEAKER_04:So that's clearing out isn't necessarily like you're not saying like clear now it means like blank out your mind. It's actually like thoughtfulness and thoughtfulness about who you are, how you're thinking, and what's coming to mind. So like gradually going process by process by trying to clear your mind. Things are gonna come up that you think of, but you have to you have to address it kind of thoughtfully before moving on to the next thing, or or coming to peace with it.
SPEAKER_00:Like makes perfect sense. I I told a story to actually somebody I'm working with right now who's a very, very busy professional starting his company. I was trying to get him to sit still, and I said, one day back in the day when I would do good grief, 400 miles in my car a day. Because I had a patient in surprise, I had a patient in Gold Canyon, I had a patient. Yeah, I mean, it was just like that. Yeah, it was crazy, and I just never knew where I was gonna end up, and I didn't mind. Like that's was the job. And you'd I'd be with in front of a patient, and then you get in the car and you check your emails real quick, and then you're calling people back, right? So I never had the radio on. And it was, I don't know how long I had been doing this before I realized there were lots of times where I wasn't on a phone call or I wasn't and I was driving and it was just silent. And then I would kind of snap too, and I was like, Oh, and that was kind of my job.
SPEAKER_04:Usually when you hit the rumble strip, the rumble strip.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so I used to purposely kind of try to try my my last appointments far away so that by the time I got home, yeah, I could like get into home mode.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, it didn't work very much, but you gotta do that. You need a little bit of home mode before you go into different modes. Yeah. Like right now, I I need to get off of the screen. Like, I need to reduce screen time. Okay. It's like just I know that's what I need to do, and that's like just unhealthy for my my home life, is the amount of time I spend on the screen. Because screen time's like a flywheel, because like I spend more time on a screen, my daughter spends more time on a screen, it goes back and forth, and the easiest thing to do for both of us is to just spend the whole time on the screen. Yeah, but like you're not getting any like like actual value from that, you're kind of giving your brain that dopamine kick it needs at that time, and then it just like becomes like just what you're used to.
SPEAKER_00:Well, and that's the thing is everybody says, okay, so we're talking about relationships and we're talking about happy, healthy relationships and sustaining longevity in life. So you can say, Well, I was home, but were you present?
SPEAKER_04:Present.
SPEAKER_00:So that's the difference is being next to somebody, but being in now, sometimes binge shows are fun, like if you can watch them together or whatnot. But when both of you are on your phones, it doesn't matter if you sat next to each other for an hour and a half. You were better off taking a 15-minute walk together.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, really that is the quality time, that is the connection, that is the build. And you can't do that, it's not about proximity, proximity of closeness. It's about actually quality engaged time.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:That's why sometimes hobbies are important if you can do them together, but not necessary because you can do plenty of other things.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Plenty of other things.
SPEAKER_04:But there's again, not to like just go like, oh, okay, screen time. There, there's sometimes my daughter and I will play video games together, and we're into the same, so we're in the same world. Yes, that's the same. So it's just like us two walking around the block, and but it's different than when she's on the phone doing something and I'm playing a video game, or vice versa. So like we we try to find those common hobbies, like she's picking up volleyball. So uh what sucks is it's like 110 degrees out, right? So we can't go out and play, but like she kind of gets disappointed with me sometimes because I'm just like, I'm just too tired to go out and play. I really want to. Um, but like just hitting a volleyball, you're not you have no time for the screen. So like it's very enjoyable time together, and she like really opens up to it. Or like what I notice when she's not allowed to have her screen, I'm just driving her to school or or her friend's house. That's when she's like really. They just start talking.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's amazing what will happen when you remove those barriers because that's all they are, is a distraction. So when you remove those barriers, magical things really happen, and that's where the connection is. Now, again, if you can connect on something, that's very different. But you know, the I don't know.
SPEAKER_04:We and that that's a hard thing to get the kids to open up. It's like, how is school today? School, yeah, oh it was good. Yeah, it's like okay, then you gotta work on follow-up question, follow-up question. But like again, the the best times is when she opens up about school, and and it's not like oh, this is what we learn in science, it's not what gets her excited. It's like, guess what happened with this kid? It's like um, and and those stories, that's when I start getting entertained. I'm like, oh, this actually like takes me back to like junior high.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, fun stuff happens. I was reading something about um a mother who changes the way they ask. I I wish I would have done this. I have one child, she she'll be 23 next month. She's in Boston um law school, but where at Suffolk?
SPEAKER_04:Boston College, Boston College, okay. Nice.
SPEAKER_00:I know she's doing well, she's doing so she's brilliant. My father was brilliant. That stuff skips a generation. Yeah, she she did it. Yeah, she's amazing. But um, I I did not make enough time for my daughter growing up. I can say that in it was interesting. I was I was mentoring a um another young entrepreneur, and he asked me uh a question that stopped me dead in my tracks. And I've been asked a lot. I've been doing a lot of things for a lot of years. And he said, Tiana, if you would have made half the money, but you would have spent more time and had a better relationship with your daughter, would you have done it? And I said, you know, even as even as recent as three years ago, I would have said no. I I did what I had to do. Today I would say yes. Yeah, I would have taken half the money I made and done it different.
SPEAKER_05:How's your relationship with her right now?
SPEAKER_00:It's good. It's good now, but it's taken a lot of work. So when your daughter looks at you and says, just kind of like the trash thing, like like you know, you didn't do the you didn't feed the dogs right, you didn't do this. And she says, Mom, you never spent any time with me. I I I I made you dinner every night. And and now her I left her dad when she was, yeah, I was I her I left her dad when she was a year and a half old.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:So when I was building my businesses, I was very, very succinct of Wednesday and Thursday nights were his nights. Those were my meetings with my doctors, those were my meetings with uh board, those were my networking meetings. And every once in a while I had to do it outside of that. Yeah, she went to before school, she went to after school, a lot of kids do, but like I when I had her, I was really good about it. So I was like, but Sage, I was, you know, I made you dinner every night. I I got you from school every day. It was a handful of times I had to get help. And she goes, Mom, how many conversations did we have where you didn't stop in the middle of it and go, oh yeah, go ahead and approve that or answer an email or whatever. And I go, so so. You know what I mean? You're not wrong. Yeah, you are not wrong. And so do I I I will not say I regret it. It was my path, it's her path. And if anything, I showed her how to work really hard.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um, so I'm proud of that.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, there's you know, there's the two different ways of looking at it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I'm also not gonna buy into this bullshit victim mentality that a lot of these kids have. You can't. I'm not, and I'm not gonna go there. Am I gonna accept responsibility for my part, which is what you do in any relationship, because I'm gonna tell you we all have a part. Even the other person is super wrong, we still have our part.
SPEAKER_04:And no matter no matter how you did it, how much you tried, or how little you tried, you could have always done less and you could have always done more.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. You know what? And I think I think that that's a lot of things that we have to deal with. Our our parents, our childhood. We have to admit that with the except for the extreme crazy outliers of true like psychopathy or whatnot. Yeah, um, our parents bid did the best they could with what they had. At some point, if we have trauma from it, deal with it, face it, get over it. But like, don't we?
SPEAKER_05:That's what made you strong, you know. I think it's a good thing.
SPEAKER_04:But it's also it's also you can't um live up to expectations of like because you said everything's evolving, so you can't live up to expectations of how things are today with how you did it 10 years, 15 years ago. Not to make excuses, but like it's it's like my dad went back with one of my brothers like this like 10-15 years ago to like back to the village where he grew up, and all of a sudden he starts yelling in his dialect, which my brother can't understand, to the sheep herder. Just you're a villager in Iran, like just herding sheep, and my brother's like, What are you doing? What are you doing? And he's just like, Oh, I went to elementary school with him. And we're just like thinking of like how, like, okay, we thought, like, we're accomplished, we we went, we all became successful after not doing too well early on in school and stuff, and like a whole family of physicians, but then like was that easier scripted than my dad going from a village in Iran, my mom from another village in Iran to eventually Tehran to the US, then raising a family of four four physicians. Yeah, like oh, maybe we had it easy.
SPEAKER_00:So but there's always somebody who had it easier, there's always somebody who had it harder. Yeah. That's also, you know, another dialect that we can get to, which again talks to like acceptance and awareness and all of those things and connection. And again, connection means different things to different people, right? That's the attachment styles and things that we were referencing and and things earlier. It's really about making that ultimate connection. I mean, you guys are very different personalities, it seems, right? Like obviously very close, very brothers, like, but at the end of the day, do both. Oh, that is cute. That was really cute. I love that. That was awesome. Um, but but at the end of the day, no matter what your personality is, is it important for you to have special relationships with people, to be loved by people, to be wanted by people?
SPEAKER_04:Absolutely. Certain people, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Correct. Correct. Correct.
SPEAKER_04:Not all, but but but that that's that's one thing we uh share in common. There's certain people that like it really doesn't matter, so it doesn't affect us, but the people closest to us, we want to make sure that yeah, like they're they're happy. We might like we don't respond to certain questions or when people are yelling at us, because one thing, we either care enough about you and we know our responses aren't gonna make a difference, or we really don't give a shit about what you say or what your opinion is. So we're gonna stay silent. But if if the moment arises where I could be either well, pretty much helpful, because we really don't like even like you hear about surgeons and stuff yelling the OR, we like I did it like two months ago for the first time in like five years, but like we were like the emergency CO people even in the operating room.
SPEAKER_05:So well, I almost got fired multiple times in my general surgery days because they thought I couldn't be a leader because I wouldn't yell at the students that would come or the lower residents than me. And my way of teaching was I'm gonna teach you behind the back door, and you're gonna learn from and I scored the highest like year after year on all all our in-service exams and everything. And like I even had my attendings asking me how they should have answered some of the questions when they were taking their boards. And you know, but like year after year they tried to fire me uh because they were like, I don't think you know how to be a leader, you're not teaching these kids. And I had read every book. I've I would teach the everyone behind closed doors. I didn't want to like make them look like idiots in front of the other physicians or the attendings. I was like, I'm gonna do it where they need to do it. And like, you know, we'd have grand rounds and whatever, and like the teach the my attendings would ask me questions and I would prove them wrong and what I did. And like it was continuous, it was it was kind of traumatizing because I'm like, I didn't do anything wrong. Like my my advisor would be like, What's wrong with you? I'm like, dude, I look at my exam scores, look at my operative skills. I'm not presenting cases that I did wrong things for the like idiotic things over and over again, and they've presented the same thing like multiple times. I'm like, I don't have that record. They don't like me because I'm one thing I'm Middle Eastern. Um, second thing, I'm quiet, and my wife thinks I'm on the spectrum. So it's like but like you know, others do too. But like when when they saw the exams, they'd be like, uh, but there's a stereotype, right?
SPEAKER_00:There's a stereotype that goes with surgeons, with different doctors. Stereotypes are based off of some fundamental truths. Oh, yeah, right. It doesn't mean that everyone every tool's that way. Stereotypes are are for a reason.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, it's not just a stereotype, it it's just it's built with time like throughout history. Like anybody that knows anything about like if you go one generation, two generations back, like that's what a surgeon is supposed to act like. Yeah, and throw instruments.
SPEAKER_00:It's kind of gone away because like because it's not, well, it's now it's just not acceptable. No, like that's not the way that you've got to be able to do it. People get fired. Yeah, people will get fired now, but they didn't used to. I've been working with my dad, was a doctor, I have several family members, and I mean I've had 50, 60 doctors working with me in any given time. Not just that.
SPEAKER_04:That gave better results. Yeah, who can that would have been prevalent right in time?
SPEAKER_00:I if I I have said it a hundred times. If I want a surgeon, like I want a surgeon almost with a not a great bedside manner. Yeah, like come, I don't need a small talk with you, don't do it. And secondary, all of my physicians, I want to be on the spectrum. I'm not even kidding you, at some way, shape, or form. Because there is a true absolute brilliance to that.
SPEAKER_04:I will I will tell you one thing. You should, as a patient, seek a physician with the best bedside manner. I know that because we'll give you insight into their whole thought process. Yeah. Because at least like you have to connect with them when you're communicating with them. And if someone comes in there and you just cannot get along with them, and then you have a serious medical issue, yeah, then you gotta deal with them, then it's just like becomes tough to it's it's horrible. So, like in this day and age, you need to have good bedside manners no matter what what's going on, even if the patients like going off the rails, whatever, you you need to know to like just step away.
SPEAKER_00:Do you guys fire patients?
SPEAKER_04:Um rarely. But with my brother had a patient that said, Oh, this might be showing I show it to all my physicians just to make sure I get good care of me.
SPEAKER_00:A gun? Yeah. Oh.
SPEAKER_05:Actually, he showed him a shank too. He showed him a shank and said he takes his gun to this dentist. Yeah, so he was just like, um, he's not comfortable seeing you. And he's like, he's like a year and a half, two years out of training. He's fresh out. What does he do? He's occurplastics. Oh, and he's like, he's like, hey, I got something weird to tell you. And he brings up this story. He's like, what should I? I'm like, I wouldn't see the guy. I would not see that guy. No, absolutely not.
SPEAKER_00:Would you fire a patient?
SPEAKER_04:I have, I but I've taken like like have I actually? No, I would, I would definitely fire a patient.
SPEAKER_00:Right? Like you're not all cash-based.
SPEAKER_04:We do a lot of breast reconstruction for breast cancer patients. We do spine and scalp recon, some lower like leg uh reconstruction, too. Um we we try to weed that out by not doing operations on the wrong people.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, we just pretty much like tell them because when I first started, I did office share with another um plastic surgeon that he and he died like within the first six months of me being in practice, and I was good friends with a guy. And like his patients, there were a lot of crazy ones, but um I said I wouldn't, you know, I stopped seeing them, but I saw him for a little bit and I was like, I was like, all right, there's almost no operation. I you know, he had done tons of operations on him. I'm like, I'm not touching so that that way, but like really firing patients, it would take a lot.
SPEAKER_04:Like they would have to be completely unreasonable, and for them to be that unreasonable post-operatively, we I I'd say we do a good job at catching most of them pre-operatively. So, like, because you you look out for things to be like um either unrealistic expectations or like unrealistic drive, like, why are you getting this done?
SPEAKER_05:There's two things to look out for. It's like some of the patients come in and complain about other plastic surgeons. And and you you you gotta look at the results. Sometimes the results are botched and you're like, all right, I can help you out. Others, you know, they they had A decent job, but they they talk it they talk way worse than what was actually done about the plastic surgeon. Then you're like, all right, this is kind of questionable. Probably don't want to operate on them. So yeah.
SPEAKER_00:In hospice, I mean, because we were Medicare, I we had very strict rules about what we could do when we could discharge a patient, but we were able to get everybody pretty under control. I had I had one funny guy lived by himself, crotch the old dude. I did the intake on this one for some reason. I don't know why. He was over on the he was over on the west side. And I mean, there was the United States flag, the Confederate flag outside. I walk in, he's got guns all over the place. He's just hanging out, smoking his cigarettes, knows he's gonna die. Had a group, use the F-word, every other word, loved him, right? But I was like, okay. So I get out there, I sign his team. The nurse calls me or calls into the administrator, and I eventually hear about it like after the first visit, like, hey, not really comfortable with all the guns around the table. Then, so he advises her to have the conversation, no problem. Now he decides that it's cool when everybody comes over. This is about two weeks in. And um so we have our nurse going in, our chaplain, our social worker, our certified nursing assistants. You get a lot of you know visits throughout the day. Now his new thing is he doesn't wear clothes, but he has a little hand towel over him, right? But he's got his a gun or this or whatever. And so how old is he roughly?
SPEAKER_04:70s?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, yeah, late 70s. Okay. So there had been several people that had talked to him, and he was nice enough, but he's he's crass. Like he'd be like, you know, it's my fing house, I can do it. I do you cuss on this or no?
SPEAKER_03:Oh, yeah. Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. He's like, it's my house, I can do whatever I want, blah, blah, blah, blah. So fine, it gets it gets to a point where I call him because he needed us, and and I just I do, I love people. And I call him and I knew how to talk to him, and I said, We're gonna use the name Randy. That was not his name. And I said, Randy, it's Tiana. And he says, Holy fucking shit, Tiana, I fucking love your people. They're the best people that have ever been. There's this, there's that. I mean, that's just the way he talks. And I said, I am so glad to hear that, Randy. Do me a favor. And he goes, What? And I said, put the guns away and put your dick away and be respectful to my team, and we don't have any problems. You hear me? And he's like, Okay. And that was it. But you know, you just have to kind of get there.
SPEAKER_04:But sometimes it's hard to get that respect, whether it's like nurses, even female physicians see that a lot. They're just like, you you don't tell me what to do, like and like Sarah being a physical therapist, it's like, well, they listen to you a different way being a physician than they do therapists. So yeah, I was the owner of the company. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But I don't even know if he knew that, but it didn't matter. But I I can get I can get rough. I can get rough.
SPEAKER_05:I mean, you yeah, some some of the weird weird patients like that we'd get like I'm like, just charge them more. And that doesn't work. That doesn't work. Because they pay right, they pay more and actually they're actually more happy.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:What do we what do we need to cover here?
SPEAKER_04:I don't have no idea. Whatever we're talking about. Because your guys' podcast, so you told me I just want to make sure you've got what you can use. You got stuff you can use. Yeah, we we use all of it. That's good.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I in in my business, I couldn't wait until I went to cash pay businesses so I could fire people.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:You got you eventually have to when you just like just like uh I I either go cash pay or I lose money.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, but I would fire referral sources. So if doctors or facilities were nasty to my nurses or didn't take good care of patients, when I got to the point where I was big enough where I was sustainable and I didn't have to take those referrals anymore, because you know, I was you're out begging for business in the beginning. That was a that was a big turn.
SPEAKER_04:That's the whole thing about like it's still a small business, it's not like a large corporation, you're still running a small business. Yeah, you gotta know everybody. You have to appease, whether it's like your referral base, patient base, because like obviously if you're not treating your patients well, you people aren't gonna refer to you. Yeah, or if you're not being responsive to your referral base, they're not gonna send you patients, blah, blah, blah. Um, so it it's it's multifactorial. It's I I personally think it's more difficult than like actually running a restaurant, even though people are like, oh, most restaurants go out of business. I I keep joking around I worked in restaurants for eight years.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, like I I want to own a restaurant just to say but now the restaurant employment's a lot easier than employment and like plastic surgery. Well, it's the same price point.
SPEAKER_00:We have the we have the it's the same, it's the same demographic. Employment is just hard. Well, that's uh the restaurants have a hard time because they get over their head with um overhead. Yeah, it's just mismanagement.
SPEAKER_04:It's always mismanagement of like pretty much supply and demand, offer too many things, they don't keep track of stuff in the back of the house, things get ruined all the time.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, but let me ask you this. So you guys are in your own practices now? Yeah, yeah, and it's is it together or separate? Yeah, you have your own. Okay, there are very few doctors who actually are decent businessmen.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, right?
SPEAKER_00:Have you encountered that?
SPEAKER_04:They they say that, and on the same hand, like the physicians almost like athletes, because like you go through so many years of not making any money, yeah, that you don't know how to manage money, and that's never taught.
SPEAKER_00:You shouldn't. And this is what the beauty of that is is that one of the most brilliant things my daddy always said to me is you don't have to know everything, you have to know the people that do. Where people fail in business, yeah, because this is what I do now, is I translate it and I help people start businesses or grow or sell or whatever, they try to do too many things. Like when you get to now, when you open a first business, you're doing everything, right? Yeah, the smartest thing you can do as you start to grow is to offload either the things that you're not good at or that you don't like. And the thing that you can do better than anybody else, which is which is also often front-facing, yeah, because nobody's gonna care about your business the way it is. Yeah, let everybody else take care of that, let them take care of the finances, the ordering, the this, the that.
SPEAKER_04:But that's tough also, because you can like hemorrhage money for the money.
SPEAKER_00:You can hemorrhage money and you can have extortion and you can have um people that are stealing from you and all that stuff that always happens to be.
SPEAKER_05:But like plastics, the thing different about being a plastic surgeon is unless you're an academic, which we're not, in private practice, you kind of need to be an entrepreneur and a businessman. You you gotta figure out the ways to like get through market. You you learn a lot of things about a lot of different things, but like also like you know, we just want to operate. And like that's what you know, my wife gets mad because she runs our practice and she's like, you know, she wants us to do a little more, but like, you know, I I do take time to interview my employees and make sure like I go through everyone's resumes and I'm like, all right, these are the ones to interview, and like you know, they go through a different, you know, they have virtual virtual interview, in-person interview, and then we make sure they work with our team while we bring them in for a work and interview before hiring them. And like I think that's made a huge difference in like the group of people that we keep in the office, and it's just made a better work atmosphere for us. But like, yeah, business so much better to degree. The thing is for us, the the only thing I see is like, yeah, we could add other physicians and stuff, but like to kind of try to. I'm like classic surgery makes us decent money where we can feed other businesses that could be automatic for us rather than you know, yeah, rather than you know, I think trying to grow the just like our plastic surgery office. I don't know, part of it's I grew the group to five-person group without my two brothers in it previously. And that kind of you know, once we split, that kind of left a bad taste in my mouth. Then I'm like, I don't really want to do that.
SPEAKER_00:Well, the dynamics are different, the dynamics are different.
SPEAKER_04:But it's also like the scalability, the scalability and like how much money you could make using your funds to put into different investments, as long as you're smart with investing and stuff, that's probably higher than putting your funds towards hiring additional people and trying to grow the practice.
SPEAKER_00:But see, that goes back to your purpose. Like if your heart is full and you are happy because you're getting to operate all day, you're making enough money, the dynamics of your office is good. And by the way, because you are being able to stay focused on what you like to do, you can offset your money to make money other places instead of having to scale. That's still that's your purpose. Yeah, and but there's people who are like, I want a 10 physician practice. I want that. Well, that's their purpose.
SPEAKER_05:That's what I wanted, and it's kind of gone away.
SPEAKER_04:I've I've lost all drive for that. Every time I'm like, Oh, we're building up this much, we we should add a physician, do this, and like, yeah.
SPEAKER_05:I may want to add one person just to keep uh like I think we need to, but other than that, like I'm like, I'm gonna do it.