I've heard you say that at the age of 103 you have no regrets many people have a negative relationship with their past so I'm interested to know Gladis what is the difference between people who live with regrets and people like yourself who don't well you know I think I have a choice I could spend my time rate trying to fix something from the past or I could get on with what life is doing let me tell you a joke I mean this actually happened I'd had my 99th birthday party and I was at the grocery store and I got my groceries and I was taking them out to my car and elderly gentleman came by and he said he greeted me and he said uh oh may I help you and I said no no you don't need to I can do this and he stood up straight and he said well I'm 86 years old well I stood up my by my cart and I said well I'm 99 and I marched off and got into my car and sat down and said you nasty old lady what a terrible thing he was just a nice old man that was trying to do a nice thing and you better get out of this car and go into the grocery store and apologize to him because that was a terrible thing to do and then I got to thinking about what it was and I got to laughing CU I thought I said to myself to your two kindergarten kids in the uh you know trying to outu each other and I got to laughing so hard I couldn't get out of the car and I finally said you know what's going to really happen is he's going to go home and he's going to say to his wife you know what happened I tried to help an old lady and that nasty old lady and he goes up and so I thought the two of them would have a good laugh about it at home I have the laughing about in my car and I didn't need to go and try and fix it now so what I'm telling this is there are times when we do things that we regret and we can spend a lot of time trying to fix and it may be totally unnecessary because it may be just a process that needs to be gone through in order to live through it and not just get over it so so my thoughts are that if there are things if I mean there are many things that I would rather have not had happened but they happened if I can live through those not just try to get over them but live through them understand them do what I need to and then go on with my life they're not going to hold me back you know it's sort of like having a bag of heavy things on your shoulder and if you keep looking at them all the time you're going to get a stiff neck it it you can't you have to get let that stuff be where it is and get on with your life you don't have do but this is what I like I'm trying to do do you think gladus you've always had that ability to let go of things in the past and move on or was it something you developed at some point during your life oh I think my mother helped me develop this I had an amazing mother but when I was in in grade school I had to repeat first grade twice because I couldn't read or write I was the class dummy I was the stupid one in the class the teacher called me the dumb one and and the kids so I was that so I was my self-image as a small child was very uh damaged because I thought now not at home at home everything was got patched up and worked okay but in school it was terrible I was very unhappy and very hurt and very broken and all of that but when I got into third grade the teacher there saw something in me that the first grade teacher had not seen she realized that I couldn't read or right she didn't know why I guess but that I couldn't do it but I could talk so she appointed me as class Governor so I got to take things that Mar class did to the whole student body so it put me in a whole different category so that in that category I was accepted and I could do it so as part of that whole process there was a play and the play was the call the a frog jumped over the pond and I was and we were to take that play to the whole student body well since I was the tallest one in the class now since I had to repeat the first grade uh I was chosen to be the Frog and so the idea was that there was a pan of water and I was able to jump over that pan of water and go on with the play it was a whole uh play that we were going to do for the student body well I was very confident because my mother had made me a a frog suit and dyed it green and all of that and I was sure I could do this and I could do it just fine so I walked out with great confidence onto the stage and the whole student body was there and I walk onto the stage but just as I look down at them audience I see my two older brothers in the first line first row of the of the student body and it just threw me off my step enough that when I jumped over the pond I didn't jump over it I jumped into it so I landed in the pond not over the pond and the student body was hysterical they were laughing so hard and I was standing in the P my suit my mother had youed very some cheap Dy so my suit was beginning to fade and I was crying I couldn't move I was totally broken I had just you know this was the end of everything the world had ended I was done I couldn't get out of the pond the teacher had to come and get me take me off the stage and go on with the whole thing but the student body was hysterical they were laughing so hard about what had happened so when we got home that night my brothers are telling the family this whole scene I'm giving them the devil's eye and they're not paying attention to me but they are telling this and finally my mother says to them all right boys now you've had your fun what can we as a family do so that if something like this ever happens to gratus again she'll be able to get the people to laugh with her not at her and whatever it was that we as a family did at that time really really changed things because I've had so many times when I've stumbled or something has happened and I you know some process getting onto the stage but I could always find something funny to say so that the student so that the audience was in my hands before I ever started my lecture so it was something that I I was blessed with this mother who had the ability to take things that were difficult and painful and twist them just enough to get some humor out of them yeah and it it it saved my life it saved my career it saved all kinds of things so yes yeah that's a wonderful story thank you for sharing it you know it's interesting hearing that as a parent myself it makes me think of H it makes me think how important the little things that we do with our kids are every time they go through adversity the way we interact with them the things that we say to them can have quite a profound impact on how they view obstacles and adversity for the rest of their life so I guess clus as a parent myself and my children at the moment are 13 and 11 I know you have got kids grandkids great grandkids in the context of lesson I wonder what kind of advice you would have to a parent like me or any parent frankly said what are some of the key things that we should be thinking about doing with our own children for my children the son of mine John when he was seven he came into the living room one day and he said I wish Jesus was here and I said oh well I do too why why you and he said because I have questions and I said well try me he says you don't have those answers and I said well maybe I have something try me and so he says all right and he says how can God be if he never got started and I said oh all right well maybe it's like a circle it doesn't have a beginning and then end he says I knew you didn't have the answers and he goes running off but of course he turned into a a minister he's a retired Presbyterian Minister it's that he was giving me that information about where he wanted to go with his life and my next son came in one day and he says he was four he saysi know something I know something and I saidwell what's yours he says if I make a friend and he makes a friend and he makes a friend it's going to go all around the world and come back to me of course he's a psychologist you know it's that kind of being aware of what these amazing new Souls that come in are bringing with them as their not just luggage but their Heritage and what their dream is and who they think they are and for me it's been a just a not just an eye opening event in my life when these things happen it's been a pure joy and now it's happening was my great grandkids it's just great if you look for what these children are really saying oh boy what they say yeah it's so profound that it you know I I hear that and I'm I'm reflecting on so much this idea that our kids know what they're here to do perhaps even at that young age and perhaps as adults we we don't allow them to nourish that part of themselves and so it gets suppressed down kind of reminds me of the first Secret in your book the well-lived life you know these six secrets that you talk about the first one is you are here for a reason now that story with your two children absolutely speaks to that that they were seemingly showing you what that reason was at a very young age through the questions they were asking you but why did you start your book with secret one you are here for a reason and this idea that our purpose is really really important because I think purpose Gladis is something that me more and more people are talking about these days but I think for some people it's getting really really confusing so you know broad question to you what is purpose and why is it so important that we find our own because purpose is what feeds your soul and inner knowing knows why you're here and if you try to pay attention to that you it's amazing now let me tell you about my great grandkid this just happened now it's another story may I tell another story please please I'm enjoying the stories well they take sometimes well for me anyway stories tell more than a long dissertation about um you know so on anyway I have a uh a five-year-old Grand great grandson by the name of Ian and he his mother told us last week that Ian was standing with two of his uh friends there was a little girl and a little boy they're 5 years old so the little boy little girl and Ian who is 5 years old and they have in front of them a little dish and in this dish are some nickel and dimes and pennies and so on because this group of little children and their teacher have put the this money together to send to somebody I don't know who um I don't know that the kids knew who but somebody had needed to have a well and they didn't have enough money to dig for a well so they were collecting money in this little dish for the and to send to the people that uh uh me were going to dig a well and when they had finished putting all their not nickel and dimes in and stuff the little girl said should we pray and the little boy S standing next to her said I don't think we can pray and E in standing beside them said of course we can pray God's all around us let us pray so you know these if you give the people who are coming in um the opportunity to let you know what it is that they're thinking and what they're reaching for they'll reach further if we if we shut it down oh that's that's sad yeah so let's let's pay attention to them because they've gotten messages not just for themselves but for the rest of us for someone who perhaps is you know an adult they are working maybe they've even retired and they feel that that inner knowing was suppressed when they were a child and that they have lived a life that wasn't true to them I mean one of the key one of the key learnings I get from studying your book and your life is that it is never too late to change course but for for that person who is struggling and thinks well that's all very well if you have parents who allow you to speak your truth and find your purpose but I didn't have that I don't have it now I don't like my job I don't like my life how can they use this idea of yours that you are here for a reason to help them improve their own life well nobody can choose for you unless you allow them to choose for you what it is that you want to be and what you want to do I mean we you know we as human beings have the opportunity and actually the responsibility to choose what our uh direction is and what we're going to pay attention to see I have this kind of this isn't a theology or anything it's just kind of an idea I have in my mind God whatever God is to any one of us created the universe it was perfect everything was right the way it was supposed to be it was do running the way it was supposed to be and all of that and then he created he she created the human being and said to us now look at this universe it's perfect everything's just the way it's supposed to be it's perfect but you're the only creation which has Free Will and choice and I am now creating you and you have free will and free choice and you're the only living entity on this whole universe that has though that quality so therefore I give you dominion over the Earth or over the the the universe actually the whole thing and we in our arrogance thought he said dominance so we took over you know if we have dominance oh boy we can do this look what we've done to Mother Earth and to the universe and we're the only ones who have free choice so we can either go on destroying or we can take what's there and by our ability with the free choice and Free Will recreate and do what we can to reclaim the way the universe is which is perfect but it's it's that ability of using our own each one of us and so it's not just for the universe but for ourselves are we going to go on um making it as bad and worse and so on because we we have the idea that we have dominance over the Earth then we we're we're mistaken and we need to relook at who we are as human beings and take over the responsibility that we have reclaim that and and do something for Mother Earth yeah try and and there are a lot of people who are doing a lot of work so I'm I'm not CR criticizing but we're doing but we can start fixing things that were that were uh damaged that we didn't know any better yeah I mean there's this idea isn't there that you you talk about a lot you write about a lot that we have choice we have choice at where we direct our life energy and I think that's what you're speaking to a little bit there that all of us have a little bit of choice at least where we direct Our Life Energy now where this gets complicated I think or where I think these days the whole idea of purpose can sometimes get confusing for people is that they may think okay well you know I loved art when I was a child but my parents said you can't be an artist you have to get a real job and do art on the side for example right now you could argue that their parents were wrong by not allowing their children to pursue art or you could flip it and go well maybe their parents were right maybe the job that they do now allows them to feed their family feed their children and they can pursue art on the side so my broader thought and I've been thinking about this all day say in preparation for this conversation with you Gladis is I'll be thinking about purpose and you say in your book we're all here for a reason but is it that we need to find things to do that are aligned with our purpose or is it not that we need to find purpose in everything that we do I think it's both I think it's more uh productive to find purpose in everything that we do if we're in a situation where we had to do a certain thing find out the best way in which we can do that and allow that to come into our purpose in other words we take what it what is coming towards us and was sort of like my story about the going into the grocery store and uh or not you know if if if we have something that we can take either to go and correct the the issue or see how it lines up with what we are doing within our purpose because that would have taken me if I'd gone in to try and correct it and try and find the family and so on it would have taken me clear off of my purpose for that day and so it's it's it's a matter of choice and if we can find something that allows the thing that we've done that was not the certainly not the good thing to do but if we can find a way in taking that and allow it to align itself with where it is that in the process of doing which is our purpose then we keep going yeah it makes me think that maybe our purpose is less about the things that we do but more about the attitude we bring to those things absolutely because that's what life and love are because you know the five eles that I said they helped me to sort of put a a kind of a foundation on how to use the purpose and so on oh I'd love to hear them please please share those five hours the first two are life and love the first two have to go together they life and love are are like a a pregnant mother when when she when we're pregnant um um everything we eat the baby eats everything we think the baby thinks so throughout that pregnancy we are one unit the mother and the baby that growing within her so we're festing this whole process as as uh as a woman and the baby but the moment the baby is born and takes his first breath he becomes a separate unit so life and love have to grow together and then the part that is the one that that needs to step forward which is life life needs to grow it steps forward and becomes the new entity but the starting part of them is together so life and love have to be one unit that grows into its own the third one is laughter laughter without love is cruel it breaks up family it's cold it causes Wars it's terrible but laughter with love is joy and happiness the fourth one is Labor uh I've got to go to work this is too hard too many diapers and all of that and we just drag ourselves through it but labor with Love Is Bliss it's what you why you're doing what you're doing it's why I'm doing what I'm doing it's what makes our hearts sing it's it's it's lifts us up it's it's just really important to us labor with love and the fifth one is listening listening without love is empty sound but listening with love is understanding and for me these five L's have helped to um direct and allow me to make choices and so on in ways that have been very very have been productive and and life so that I can live through my process not just try to get over it yeah thank you for sharing those those five hours life love laughter labor and listening um yeah really really great little short dizy for us to think about the third one was laughter and it struck me right the start of this conversation gladus as you were telling stories about your children and your grandchildren you were laughing a lot there was a really cheeky sense of humor as you were telling these stories particularly the one of you in the parking lot with that 88y Old Gentleman who you called at 99 an elderly man which I found really really fascinating but it reminds me of a conversation I had with um bronny we I'm not sure if you're familiar with bronnie she wrote a book called The Five regrets of the dying she was paliative care nurse and she documented what were the common regrets of people on their deathbeds and when I spoke to her on this podcast we had the most gorgeous conversation Gladis I asked her did everyone have regrets and if not what were the qualities that you saw in people who were on their deathbed with no regrets now she identify three qualities one of them was laughter she said the ones who didn't have any regrets had a strong sense of humor you appear to be someone to me at least who has a strong sense of humor how important do you think that laughter that cheeky sense of humor is for you to live to the rip old age of 103 that's what my mother taught me you know the story about uh jumping over the pond and and getting people to like laugh with you and not at you at my young age that was pivotal wow and it's it's uh gone with me all through my life because it did with my mother and it did with my brothers you know it was it was her example of living her life we'll be back to the conversation in just a moment now many of us struggle to find time to eat all all of these incredible Whole Foods that's why I'm a big fan of good quality Whole Food supplements like this one that's been in my own life for over 3 years now it contains over 75 Whole Food Source ingredients vitamins minerals pre and probiotics and can help us support our energy Focus digestion and our immune system ag1 are giving my audience a fantastic offer one-ear supply of vitamin D and five free travel packs with your first order you can see all details at drink a1.com more or just click on the link below and now back to the conversation my mother was a an osteopath she got her osteopathic license in 1913 women didn't do such things you know but um she was an oath but she went to India uh on my dad's passport she was not she was not considered a a actually a person she was part of his luggage so she you know she did what she did she didn't um take uh offense at that because there wasn't any sense in taking offense you know you do what you have to do it's sort of like when I got a offer opportunity to have an internship in Deacon's Hospital in in Cincinnati but when I got there there wasn't any place for me in the hospital uh they never had a woman doctor before there was no place for me to sleep the guys all had a room and a bathroom and all but there wasn't anything but I got an x-ray table and a pillow and a blanket and I used it because for me I I wasn't going to complain about this because at least I'd gotten in the door so you take what you can take and use it for what you can use it for and then you go on with the process of life which is life living the way you need to live it so but my mother was was was my teacher on that she was just she could like for instance the three days before she died when she was 89 she fell and broke her leg and so she and my dad and I were sitting out on our back porch and she looks at at a plant in the garden and she says to my dad look at that petunia plant it must have 400 blossoms on it and my dad says oh Beth doesn't have more than 40 she says what's another zero you know it's the ability to take things that come your way and just tuck a little bit of humor into it and it changes everything you know one of the hottest topics in health at the moment gladus is anti-aging I don't know how much you follow this field of research but it's a big thing these days you know people trying to well first of all they're trying to make sure that they live with good mobility and good cognitive function as they get older some people are also trying to extend human life now as a 103y old who's been practicing medicine I think for what 70 80 years something like that which is you know pretty remarkable I'm fascinated throughout your life did you think about what can I do to make sure I live past a hundreds or is this something that has just happened I guess what I'm asking is have you got to this age because of your lifestyle or in spite of your lifestyle be both but uh actually I don't like anti-aging thing I'm calling it aging into Health what does mean in other words growing into Health you know I I feel like there parts of my life that are healthier now than it have ever been I can't see I'm I'm uh legally blind I my hearing is bad I have to use hearing aids I can't walk without a walker I mean you know there are lots of things I can't do but I'm talking to people around the world I mean this is this possible so I call it aging into health I can do things now that I couldn't i' never been able to do before I mean how how can I talk to you you know in England and with it all of this is coming together now because I'm still alive so I'm a in my mind I'm aging into Health now the health that I'm aging into is something that I couldn't have done when I was 95 yeah so let's look at this yeah as you was saying that I thought when you were my age in your mid 40s I wasn't even alive it's it's just fascinating to think about I wasn't even alive when you were my age right now and um it's it's a really interesting concept that aging into health I don't know what your perspective is on this gladus or how this may have changed over the years but I would say the pulse of society these days certainly in the UK is that aging is often seen as a negative thing oh I'm getting older my skin isn't as good as it was my hair's getting a bit white what whatever it might be there's a negative connotation to the idea of Aging but you saying with a smile on your face aging into Health that's quite a positive outlook on Aging isn't it oh absolutely I acknowledge the disabilities that my body is is working with because I as Gladis M Gary am working with them because I've got assistant I mean I if I hadn't had the the people who could you know fit me with the things that fit me so that I can do the things that I can do uh I I I'd be immobile or whatever I don't know but but it's finding the things that you can do because you're going to do them no matter what one way or another and it's it's because they in in your gut in the inner part of you you know that you've still got work to do and if you've still got work to do then you find a way that you can cooperate and uh uh line up with other people I couldn't even begin to do what I'm doing here if I didn't have my son John here with me yeah you know he he can do the things that I can't do because uh I'm 103 and be 104 and he's just 75 and you know he's a young spurt so yeah well that's one of the the beastful things when I reflect on your life you know I went for a walk at lunchtime glis and I I share with you what went through my mind you know I take the attitude of curiosity to pretty much everything I do I'm always looking to learn from every experience positive or negative one of the reasons I resonate so much with your book is because I share a lot of those philosophies myself and I didn't have some of them maybe 10 or 15 years ago so I think now in my mid 40s I look back on me in my mid-30s and go well you didn't really know that much then did you rongan come on you're so much wiser than you were just 10 years ago now that's how I feel today but I'm thinking yeah if you take the attitude of curiosity towards your life as long as you are alive does that keep happening am I going to think at 55 oh man in your 40s wrong you didn't know much did you you know so much more now and will that keep going do you get what I'm getting at yes I do because it all depends on what you want I found my voice when I was what 93 something like that because you know when I was a kid I was a dumbbell I was I I I my psyche was traumatized with that idea that I was stupid okay well I had lived all of those years I'd um written books I'd done lectures I'd raised my kids I had all these but all the time I looked for somebody else to to help me understand that what I had written or what I had said was okay in other words I'd write an article that was going to be published and I'd ask my uh secretary to check it through and make sure that was or somebody in other words I was always second guessing what I had written and then I had a dream when I was 93 and in this dream I woke up laughing and singing and when I stepped into the dream which I was sort of in and out of I saw myself as nine-year-old gladus in the jungles of North India she just peeking through the temp the tent flap making sure my brother wasn't out there because he would tattle on me and I'd be in trouble because in our family on the Sabbath day we didn't sing anything but hyms and pons budgeon are were Indian hymns we weren't allowed to sing anything but those and I thought it was a stupid Rule and I was going to break it and I knew I was going to break it and if Gordon my younger brother was there he'd T tattle on me and I'd be in trouble he wasn't anywhere around so as fast as I could I ride to the Bingo tree and climbed clear up to the top and I'm sitting at the top of a mango tree and I'm singing I mean I'm singing Everything I uh could think of the caterpillar song and another song you know and I'm just having a great time but every so often I look over my left my right shoulder and Jesus is up in the tree with me and I look over my right shoulder and I say to him Jesus loves the little children right and he's laughing and he says yes so I go back back to my singing and I'm still going on and then I get to second guessing myself again and I say did he really say it was okay so I look back over my shoulder and I say I'm still a little child right he says yes and so I go back to my singing No I say Jesus loves the little children right and and uh he says yes so then I go back to my singing then I that's when I question it again but that at that point I woke up and I was singing and um laughing at the same time and said to myself for pity sakes if Jesus can accept you why can't you accept yourself and so after that I stopped the business of having to uh second have somebody else check what everything I was doing so you know you're never too old to learn yeah it's if you give yourself a chance to keep growing and uh uh when I was in my 40s let's see what was I doing I was in full practice helping women burst babies created the Baby Buggy program and all of that my raising my uh six children and just having a life that was so busy that um it was I just had to do the next thing that came up would you say then gladice that there are things you know now at the age of 103 that perhaps you didn't know at the age of let's say 97 five years ago absolutely I I I tell you I learned something every day something surprises me every day yeah I can't help but thinking your attitudes towards life is one of the main reasons why you seem to be thriving past the age of hundreds there are two I mean I I I was going to say two elderly ladies who live near to me that I know I kind of struggle to say that in front of you at 103 because these ladies are probably in their late 70s early 80s so I don't know if they sound elderly to you or they actually sound quite young to you but what I've noticed about them one is my piano teacher when I was a kid right so she taught me and my brother how to play piano she was teaching me when I was 4 years old she is now teaching my children she's teaching them singing and she's full every night you know after kids finish school she has got backto back kids that she is teaching now I don't know her exact age but I can't help but thinking the reason she's so fit and mobile and active and sharp possibly into her late 70s early 80s is because she has a purpose she loves teaching children how to sing how to play piano and she's still actively engaging in that one of these other ladies that I know she hosts uh a performing speaking festival for children and last year when my kids were there I remember on the Saturday nights when you know the kids who'd won various events were actually all performing I was chatting to her and I think she's 84 and she said I've been thinking about the order tonight's of tonight's show all day I've been trying to think what will be the the right balance for everything to give everyone a really special evening and then I think about the longevity movement or I should call it the anti-aging movement that I've already mentioned and I've spoken to many of these experts on this podcast before but I can't help thinking we're missing something massive we're reducing it down to biochemical markers blood sugar you know lipids all kinds of things in blood tests which I'm not saying a not important but what's the point of perfect blood results if you have no reason to get up and live every day you that that's it's got to be the most important thing I'm sure of it I have a really good friend I've known her for years and years she's in her 90s and um the other day she said to me oh I get up in the morning and I think not another day and I almost cried because I get up in the morning and I think wow another day you know because it's to me um it's my choice as to whether I'm going to live this day or just drag myself through it and I don't want to just drag myself I've done enough of that so it's it's a matter of choosing what it is that you want to do and and you know the choice can be the littlest thing let me tell you another story okay um I had this wonderful friend uh he was a family friend for years and he had ate dinner with us a lot of the time and so a bachelor just a great guy and we all all the kids loved him we loved him and so then he moved into dementia and he wasn't wasn't understanding anything and so we found a lovely home where we could have him taken care of and and all of that and we did what we could and one day one week I took a little plant over to him and it was a little in a little pot a little green plant and uh and when I came in I said now James here's a gift for you this plant is going to love you and as you love it and let have water and uh take care of it it's going to love you and I don't know what I said but I talk like that to him and he's just not paying any attentions he didn't as far as I was concerned looked like he wasn't understanding anything but I went on through my little Spiel and I put the little plant in the window and gave it some water and then and then I left and a week later I came back and he met me at the door and he says magic magic and I said Woo what and he says look box and he goes over to the a a air conditioning box on the wall and he says push this button everything cool Plant loves [Music] cool push this button everything hot plant doesn't like hot and I thought here we are I didn't think he would be able to really understand anything that I had said to him and maybe he didn't understand anything I said to him but that plant got through to him and when he took care of that plant he understood something about what his life was still doing and to me that was just like wow James I think this is just wonderful wow what does the word happiness mean to you gladus everything joy happiness it's a it's a choice uh uh you know my name is gladus and when I was in college my sorority sisters called me happy bottom glad ass anyway I I shouldn't have said this on the air but erase that thing oh it's fine there's that cheekiness throughout everything you say I I absolutely love it well the point is that you know you take what you have and you use it in the way that serves you best and serves the people that you were working with with best and I love the whole process of working with the little people I mean they need us as older people and we need them the sweetest thing happened uh my great granddaughter was here visiting me from California and I was sitting in my chair and I didn't under quite understand what was happening because I felt something weird on my neck and I finally realized that she as a little six-year-old was just trying to feel my neck and her little fingers were just going up and and I was so thrilled to have that actual connection where this little great grandchild is making contact with me in a loving way that has no words yeah you've obviously navigated lots of transitional periods in your life right you know before you were a mother you become a mother um your career you know I know last time you came on my show you shared uh the situation leading up to your divorce at the age of 70 so these transitional periods in our life I think many people struggle to navigate one thing I've seen a lot with patients over the years is you know mess syndrome when let's say a mother has devoted her life to bringing up her children and then the kids leave home I've seen many times people struggle with that to kind of successfully navigate that transition you're someone who's been through many many different transitions have you got any AD advice on how people can think about them absolutely what can you find that gives you uh that allows you to go forward it's like when I started my internship and I didn't even have a room you know I had to find a place I I found an x-ray table and a and a pillow and and I I didn't reject what I could find in other words look for what's available to you and use it to your advantage make it become something that is useful to what you're doing at the time because hopefully what you're doing at the time is constantly changing and growing and as it grows and changes you have to find other are ways of adapting to it of of of living it not just getting over it but living it and understanding it so therefore is it fair to say that our purpose can continually change throughout our lives it should grow you know if we're growing our purpose grows it's we've put Roots down we've been like a tree we've reached up we've had blossoms and we've had our children and we you know our fruit and so on it's a matter of taking the you know like right now I could not in my farthest imagination imagine that I could be talking to you in England the way we are I mean isn't this awesome yeah it is and talking to you really highlights how amazing this is but it's something that we just take for granted now that my children will take for granted that you can on a screen video call a relative four 5,000 miles away and talk to them in high definition but even I know 25 years ago that was kind of like science fiction and obviously when you were a child this must have seemed if someone said that you know in 90 years time gladus you're going to be able to talk to people all around the world through a screen in your kitchen I know would you have believed them no no because I did uh we didn't even have a telephone and as a matter of fact when I was born in 1920 the only way that my dad could let my family in Cincinnati know that I was born was through a cable gr so I have this cable gr upstairs it's a sheet of paper that has um girl well Taylor that was that's what came across and they knew that that I had been born but the cable gram was a cable that went under the Atlantic and came up and every letter counted so that Dad paid quite a bit of money to get that cable to my grandmother in Cincinnati you know isn't that isn't it awesome yeah man it's amazing to reflect on that to make sure you're taking action after watching this video I've created a free guide to help you build healthy habits we can all make short-term change but can those changes become a fundamental part of our life often they don't and that's why in this free guide I share with you the six crucial steps you need to take they're really really effective if you want to get hold of that free guide right now all you have to do is click the link in the description box below something else I wanted to ask you Gladius as a fellow physician you've obviously had many more years of experience than I have as a doctor but I'm absolutely fascinated how the health landscape has changed throughout your career So I myself in you know just over two decades I've seen quite marked changes in terms of the amount of type 2 diabetes obesity the amount of mental health problems we're seeing relative to when I started practicing is quite profound you have got a much longer time frame to draw from you know what kind of things have you seen change over the years in medicine technology has change but but I pray that the real reason we became Physicians hasn't changed in other words well let me tell you another story my eldest son is a retired orthopedic surgeon and when he came through Phoenix he said to me he was just on his way down to Del Rio Texas where he was going to start his practice of Orthopedics and he came through and he said Mom I'm real scared I'm I'm going to have people's Liv lives in my hands I don't know that I can handle that and I said to him well Carl if you think that you're the one who does the healing you have a right to be scared but if you can understand that the patient that you're working with has within them a colleague for you a they have within them the actual healing pH who is the person who takes what you're doing and saying and working with and create within that patient the understanding of what it is that needs to be done it's a a living Cooperative uh relationship of colleagues because each patient that we have has that colleague within them because you can do everything that you have been trained to do and it's awesome believe me if I have something broken I don't want somebody who doesn't know what they're doing trying to fix it but to have somebody who a trained orthopedic surgeon there to do the fixing and then let the actual healing Within Me do the healing in other words Carl could do the fixing of things but then how do you make it work and the way the way it works is is as the patient takes in an understands because what you've been doing is with love reaching that person's inner being and sharing with them how you would see this working and it becomes a uh ongoing relationship that is based in love because in the in the long run love is the great healer it's what really really does the healing yeah I love hearing your wisdom there I think many of us leave Medical School thinking that we've been given the tools we need to fix our patience but actually what I've learned over the years is is is just as you beautifully said is that we don't really do the fixing we just help facilitate or create a space and an environment for the patients internally to find the resources they need to heal I really do believe that more and more particularly with these sort of more chronic um conditions as opposed to the acute sort of leg break that you might be talking about for example right right no yes I I agree with you you know I think the heart of our job as Physicians remains love because in the long run that's what really does the healing you know I've I've had patients that I've sent to a a specialist some you know for one reason or another and the patient has come back and said they didn't even listen to me and when they when I hear that from a patient about one of my colleagues it makes me very sad because if we don't listen to what the patient is telling us how in the world are we going to know what they really are doing and what's really happening within them the third lesson you write about is all about love love is the most powerful medicine and there's very powerful bit at the start of that section gladus that I'd like to read to you there were plenty of patients whom I struggled to like and I'm sure the same was true if my parents were the patients they treated but if I can't love someone I consider it my problem not the other person's so I'd find a way to love them anyway so what's the difference then between liking a patient and loving a patient and why is loving that patient so important well because it's love is a we have to live and love or we don't understand you know if uh if a if a child has has not experienced love in their home it's very difficult for them to understand love in the outer world and a lot of times the the person who is is not likable is a person who has not been loved enough that they can really experience the process of loving and uh so it's it's that kind of a understanding uh if you reach to a person who is really an ugly person in the way they act uh just try not to get entangled with the ugliness of it and find see if you can find something that is uh at least acceptable in that person and and work with it if if you're going to have to work with them otherwise you bless them and and and let them go on about their work and doing what they need to do because each life each day is each person's life choice and how they're going to great and so if if I can accept them to be who they are and just respond to who I uh can see in them maybe I'll be able to reach to them in a way that they'll be able to respond in a more loving way but maybe they won't well why is that important though why couldn't you just see a patient and go you know what I don't really like the way this patient is behaving I don't like what they seem to stand for but I'm going to be professional and do my job as a doctor why why is it important that you do find part part of your being that can love that patient if you're going to truly help them because maybe that person never had somebody to love them and maybe uh it's like I when I was in active practice I hugged everybody that came through my door I I big Husky man and little tiny children for me I I it was important to actually make that kind of contact and and so people knew I was doing that it was something that I wanted to do and I made the contact and that's the way it was so um and everybody can't do that I I'm not saying that's what what every doctor should do it's just I happen to be be a mother figure to a lot of people and it it was acceptable so I didn't always do that it was after I oh I don't know when I started doing anyway yeah it's interesting you say that of course that patient who is displaying behaviors that you perhaps aren't a huge fan of it's the compassionate approach isn't it to say well maybe that person has never experienced love they've never had it from their parents so of course they're going to come from a place of fear and maybe be attacking people and doing stuff because they never had that so I guess the followup to that is how important is self-love the ability to love and be compassionate to ourselves it's essential we we need to recognize that um we're as vulnerable as everybody else on the planet and there are things that can hurt our feelings and we can take those in and let them injure us or we can do like my mother did and do a kochani a kuch Perani is it doesn't matter you take somebody says something nasty or does something you know you can take it in and say oh that that hurts me in which case it does it hurts you or you can let it hit your palm of your hand and just let that drop down and say it doesn't matter it's not worth spending a lot of energy on in that way when somebody uh says something nice about you or to you or or for you you can take it in but if you don't have to take in everything that is said or done or created or even done in the the politics of your life and and and suffer from it you can just let it go why don't you think glad is that so many people these days are struggling with their mental health oh because it's very confusing you know it's hard for people to know what is a healthy thing to do or or what isn't that's why I think it's really important for those of us who understand some of these secrets of life to share them with each other we we if we've learned something yeah we need to share it if and women particularly when we learn things we need to share them that's why I went to Afghanistan to help the women when I was 86 I went there they were the the death rate in maternity was higher in Afghanistan than any place in the world and my brother was working with future generations and they weren't able to even get into do anything about that and um because the men wouldn't let any man talk to their wives or talk to the women so there was no way of finding out what was going on so when I had the opportunity my brother Carl gave me the opportunity to uh spend time with these women and I was able to do it and those 32 women took what they learned back to their homes and taught other women and the maternal death rate improved Within months so that it was something that these 32 women were able to take back to their communities and teach their people and things change um and if they don't share them they what what are they going to do with them you know so it's it's uh my hope is that when you learn something that's a healing process and a loving process for others you'll share it with others any way that you can if you ever gladus feel that you're having a bad day what do you do well I I guess I identify it and figure out what I can uh do to correct it or live through it but anyway I it's something that I will not uh dwell upon if it's if it's you know if I had indigestion all night and woke up with not feeling good I better do something about that and get over it but the same thing with whatever it is that's that's uh uh causing me to think that life isn't quite where it should be right now then I'll do something to try and understand why and if any way I can put some humor into it I will yeah I'm interested gladus personally but also professionally as a doctor what are some of your favorite Health promoting practices I don't know things like exercise meditation journaling gratitude whatever it might be like in your own life are there things that you have found to be really helpful and also what are the things that you've found to be helpful with your patience over the years well I think a diet is important I think it's important to understand the kind of diet that you can have where you are I can't tell people what they should eat yeah I don't know where they are where they live I don't know what the food's like there but you know you can understand foods that are healthy and support your health and if you eat those Foods as fresh as possible and as uh you know clean as possible and all of that we have really great food available to us in all sorts of ways if that's what we're looking for we'll find it and and do that and then make sure you have plent water you know get the exercise that you need I try to use my Walker and walk around here all that I can and it keeps my body moving and and active and um I also uh knit because I have hands that have to keep working and so I knit little washcloths that I give away and you know it's find something that you can do I mean who who wants a wash cloth you know I mean that's a stupid thing except they're kind of pretty and and uh people like them and so I keep on doing them and and uh you find something that that you can do that you can continue to do and that people can reach for yeah I try to get eight hours of sleep at night and um I breathe fresh air and and uh I'm not going any place in these days because first place I can I'm I'm a liability I trip over things and then I fall and break something and that's not good so it's uh but but I can see with this Doom stuff I can see things and do things you know yeah so you find something that you can do that you can do that isn't um uh a Jeopardy to your body I'm not allow my my kids won't let me uh ride my tricycle anymore because the last time my tricycle threw me and I broke three ribs so but they're all healed now so I love how you said that your tricycle threw you the tricycle did it well you know I turn turned a corner with a tricycle and it was like a Bucky horse just threw me over onto my uh side and is that is that the tricycle you got for your 102nd birthday uhhuh yeah that that one yeah it's out on my porch it name is bluebell and it knows that it it was a bad blue belt because it through me oh it's a it's an amazing Vision that you I've seen it online that you got that red tricycle for your 102nd birthday and I think it says a lot about you and your character and the playfulness and the humor within you and that sort of cand do attitudes you mentioned earlier that you are legally blinds I know when we spoke a year ago you said something very powerful that you may be losing your eyesight but there's nothing wrong with your Insight right which I thought was absolutely such a beautiful way of looking at it from what I understand your vision has continued to decline what what has that taught you you know one of the key senses that we attach a lot of value to is our vision you've lost some a lot of your vision what has the process of losing it taught you about a good life well you know I have I can listen to audio books now I would never have listened to an audio book when I when I could read it but when I can't read I could listen to an Audi book and so there are ways to compensate and fix it for ourselves any way that we can and then of course I have this wonderful son of mine who it helps me with all things that I can't read and right and we kind of like each other you know so I don't think he objects to doing the things he's here to do with me it's because it's something that has to be done and and and uh we kind we love each other and work together so do you still have a daily step goal I think in the past you said you tried to get 3,800 steps a day has that now changed or you still tracking that it's not as much it's more like a thousand steps but you're still moving right and you're and that secret of course your second Secret in your book is that all life needs to move yes yes I've got this walker his name is Skywalker and he and I travel all around this property and uh you know it's it's it's a good thing are there days where you don't feel like moving but you push through anyway oh yeah and some days I don't move some days it just there's just it's just too hard so I I finally was able to understand that to take a rest is doing something because you know uh I used to think of if I had to take a rest I was wasting time but then I realized while I was working with patients that if I told a patient to go home and take a rest that was telling them to do something not to not do something h and so I figured well I guess I better listen to what I'm saying so if I'm saying to myself yeah you need to take a rest I take a rest yeah gladus I think what you're doing is absolutely incredible you at the age of a hundred started to write this book which I think is inspiring for all of us it's inspiring for anyone who thinks that life has passed them by and that it's too late now to make a change you have shown that repeatedly in this conversation in our first conversation together and you're also living What You Preach you said to me that it's important that if we have leared the secrets to a good life it's on us it's Our obligation to share that with the world around us and you are doing that beautifully with all the interviews you're giving and with the book that you've written right at the end now of our conversation gladus I wanted to ask you this when you are no longer here in this world what is the most important message or idea that you would like to leave behind that love is the great healer and that everything that I have loved and touched that loving thought and feeling and Essence goes with it so it's it's a matter of uh understanding that when when something has been created and is a living thing it needs to be loved we were're looking for how we can reach with love to touch other living things and even the UN the inanimate things need to be touched with love I I mean I love all the stuff that's in my house here and uh uh you know it's it's it's still something that uh is carrying a message in its own form that other people can understand it's all about love gladus I've loved my conversation with you thank you for all the work you're doing and thank you for coming back on the show oh thank you it's been a joy if you enjoyed that conversation then I think you are really going to enjoy this one if I were to choose to live my life over again I wouldn't live it in this way yeah I wish I hadn't worked so hard when you driven to work too hard you actually ignore what matters and where does that come from a game that comes from childood trauma