Transcription
So because I was sleep deprived, I blurted out something that normally I wouldn't. I said, "Nancy, I didn't know it was so bad. And I can't help you kill yourself, but if you do, I will still think well of you. I will miss you, and maybe I'll understand why you had to get out of the pain."
And that was the first time she looked at me, Michaela. And when she looked at me, she grabbed onto my eyes like I'm grabbing onto yours. And I thought she was going to tell me, "Thank you for understanding." I'm overdue. So I was a little nervous because this is the first time she made eye contact. And I said, "What are you thinking, Nancy?" And then she leaned into me and she said, "If you can really understand why I might have to kill myself to get out of the pain, maybe I won't need to."
[Music]
Welcome to the Michaela Peterson Podcast, episode 115. The guy I spoke with on this episode doesn't have a social media following, but he's absolutely brilliant. This was one of the best podcasts I've ever done. I cried in it. He's possibly the best storyteller I've ever spoken with. He is Mark Goldston, the creator/co-founder of Michelangelo Mindset, executive coach, best-selling author of nine books, and host of "My Wake-Up Call" podcast. He was originally a UCLA professor of psychiatry for over 25 years and a former FBI and police hostage negotiation trainer. He shared absolutely fantastic anecdotes, and we delved into his work with depression and suicidality and his development of something called surgical empathy and the Michelangelo Mindset, both of which he helped create. We discussed what people should want to create in a conversation and tactics you can use against bullies. This guy's insanely smart. He really knows how to read people and have them react in the way he wants. I think everyone would benefit by learning some of his techniques, or if you want to know more about how to help people who are dealing with depression, this episode is for you. If you enjoy this content, please consider subscribing. I hope you enjoy the episode.
[Music]
Mark Goldston, welcome to my podcast. So glad to be here, Michaela. Before we get started, can you give a brief background about who you are and what it is you do?
Well, I was trained as a psychiatrist, UCLA-trained psychiatrist, and one of my sub-specialty areas was suicide prevention. I've been blessed to have eight mentors. They've all passed away. And one of my early mentors was one of the top pioneers in suicide prevention. He was at UCLA, and so he would refer me still suicidal patients who had to be discharged from the inpatient unit, but they weren't acutely suicidal, and the residents didn't want to see them. So he'd go up to a consultation, call me on the phone, put them on the phone, and they would be discharged, and I would see them. And one of the most fortunate things that happened to me was that I was signed up to do a fellowship, which fell through a week before I finished training. And I figured, "Oh well, I'll just go out there. I have this guy referring me these suicidal patients." And but this is what I discovered, Michaela. I discovered that when I was with people and they were talking to me, and I looked into their eyes, they were screaming out at me in their eyes, "You're checking boxes, and I'm running out of time."
And so I had a choice: check the boxes or throw away the boxes and see where their eyes took me. And I was fortunate because if I had gone into a fellowship or worked for an institution, I'd be so busy checking boxes that people would be saying, "Well, you left protocol. Why'd you ask that question? Why'd you follow up with that?" But what happened is it was so penetrating when I looked into their eyes that I just learned to look for where it would take me. And I actually wrote an article after Anthony Bourdain died by suicide and Kate Spade, and it had 500,000 views in 10 days, maybe because the title was "Why People Kill Themselves: It's Not Depression." So there's a little hook there. And I said, "There's hundreds of millions of people, maybe billions, who are depressed who don't kill themselves. It may contribute to it. People have lost marriages. Most people don't kill themselves." But what I observed by listening into people's eyes is what most of them had at the end was despair. And if you break the word despair into D-E-S-P-A-I-R, they feel unpaired, hopeless, without a future, helpless, powerless, useless, worthless, meaningless, purposeless, and when they all line up, pointless. And so they pair with death to take the pain away because death feels their pain. And if they can feel that you feel their pain without trying to treat them or throw stuff at them because they scare you, they will often detach from death as the relief to something that I call surgical empathy.
Wow. Okay, this is a lot. Surgical empathy. So did that, did that mean that you ended up with patients that became attached to you?
Well, I think they became attached to the empathy. And of course, since I was the therapist, they were attached. But now I'm retired. Now I'm still licensed, and so I'm going around the world teaching parents and anyone who'll listen to me, in the time I have left in my life, you know, how to connect with the people you're worried about and that you love. Let me share an anecdote which will, which kind of turned things around. So there I was, a freshly minted psychiatrist, mentored by this suicide expert. And there was one patient that I will call Nancy, that's not her name. And she had made two or three suicide attempts before I started seeing her. And I was seeing her for about six months, and I didn't think I was helping her at all. I mean, really. I mean, she'd come in, she wasn't catatonic, and she would always look, you know, 30 degrees to the left or right of me. She wouldn't make eye contact. And I used to moonlight at a state psychiatric hospital once a month where I'd cover for the other psychiatrist. And sometimes you don't sleep for 24 hours or more. So I remember I had just come back from moonlighting, and there was Monday. And there I was with Nancy. And so I'm sleep-deprived, and she's there, not looking at me. And as I'm looking out of my room, all the color turned to black and white. So I'm looking out of the room, and it's black and white. And I thought, "I'm having a stroke or a seizure." So I did a neurologic exam on myself. I'm a psychiatrist, not a psychologist. So, you know, I'm looking at my fingers, tapping my tapping my elbows, tapping, you know, and like this to see if I'm all there. And I realized I'm all here. I'm not having a stroke or a seizure. And then I had this crazy idea that I was looking at the world through her eyes, feeling her feelings. And I just got the chills. And it got colder and colder.
Oh, it gets, it gets, it gets more. Michaela, so because I was sleep deprived, I blurted out something that normally I wouldn't. I said, "Nancy, I didn't know it was so bad. And I can't help you kill yourself, but if you do, I will still think well of you. I will miss you, and maybe I'll understand why you had to get out of the pain."
And that was the first time she looked at me, Michaela. And when she looked at me, she grabbed onto my eyes like I'm grabbing onto yours. And I thought she was going to tell me, "Thank you for understanding." I'm overdue. So I was a little nervous because this is the first time she made eye contact. And I said, "What are you thinking, Nancy?" And then she leaned into me and she said, "If you can really understand why I might have to kill myself to get out of the pain, maybe I won't need to."
Wow. And then she smiled. And then I held onto her eyes and I said, "Here's what we're going to do. I'm not going to give you any treatments or that you've been through before unless you tell me, 'Maybe we should try another treatment because this has been going on for five years.' Would that be okay?" And I'm holding on to her eyes. And she had a look that said, "Keep talking." She said, "Yeah." And then I leaned in and I said, "What I'm going to do is I'm going to find you wherever you are and I'm going to keep you company. God, man, I just don't want you to be there alone. Would that be okay?" And then she started to tear up. And you know, I mentioned before we started this, getting me, can you feel it sort of, Michaela?
Oh yeah. Well, I'm, I feel like I'm kind of in tune to those things and I've been to some pretty dark places. So, yeah, keep going. Keep going.
So, uh, something we'll talk about, hopefully later in the interview. I've, I've started a company called Michelangelo Mindset. And Michelangelo has a quote that says, "I saw the, I saw the angel in the marble and kept carving until I set it free." So he would look into a piece of marble and see the statue of David, or he'd see a Pietà. And what I realized with my suicidal patients, I saw the hope in them that they couldn't see or feel. And I just carved away everything that got in the way of their seeing it or feeling it. And I think what got in the way is they scared people. They worry. I saw one patient. I said, "What helps in our meeting?" And he said, "You're the only person I'm not a worry or burden to." I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "My parents are worried. My siblings think I'm manipulative." Which I am.
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The other doctors I've seen, you know, were very good and very professional, you know, but you have this smile when you see me like you're glad to see me. And it's not about whether I followed, you know, taking my medication. And so I thought you were crazy, Dr. Gulstan, but you were the only place where I'm not a burden. Because something people who aren't suicidal don't realize is if you feel like this burden to the world and you have no happiness, why don't you just relieve the world of that burden? So you're tracking with me, kinda?
Oh yeah. Like I've had, so I've been in chronic pain from the arthritis. I had multiple surgeries. I've been on a lot of medication. I'm not on anything anymore. Everything's in remission. I haven't taken a psychiatric medication since I was 23, and I'm 29. So I got off of those, which was hell in itself. But I am very familiar with those feelings. And my dad, we've made this pretty, pretty, um, we've been vocal about this, but my dad experienced akathesia from psych meds, which people kill themselves when they experience akathesia quite frequently. So it was like, just terrible. And it, when you're dealing with someone, or if you yourself are in that kind of state, you do feel like a burden. And you do get blamed a lot. And you're told you're manipulative. So yeah, I am totally on board. I also found it interesting that you said that things went black. You know, you were sleep-deprived, so there was that, but things went black and white. When I stopped taking, um, I stopped taking my SSRIs way too rapidly over a period of two weeks. I'd been on them for like 12 years. Bad idea. But I had very severe SSRI withdrawal. And during the first maybe like couple of years, but particularly the first year, when the withdrawal got bad, because it kind of went in cycles, I couldn't see color like that happened to me. Reds went less vivid, and everything kind of went gray. And I was like, "There's so little joy in the world." You don't even notice when color gives you joy. You don't even really notice that. But when it was way away, I was like, "Oh, I can't even see red very well." So I must be getting some joy from that that I'm not getting anymore. So yes, we're on the same page, definitely.
Well, I'm glad you're in a better place.
Oh yeah, much better. You know, something I, I, I, I have a friend. He became my friend a couple of years ago after his 14-year-old son died by suicide. And his name is Jason Reed. And he reached out to me. And we've been doing programs for an organization called EO, Entrepreneur Organization. In fact, we're going to do a live presentation to 500 members in Reno in October. And on September 22nd, we're doing two 90-minute presentations globally to YPO. So YPO is Young Presidents Organization. So we're doing a global Zoom call to the whole organization because one of his, the suicide notes that his son left was, "Tell my story." And he put in over $200,000, and he has a documentary called "Tell My Story." And you can see it still for free if you look up "Tell My Story Film." And it, you can't watch it in one setting because it's so heart-wrenching. And he went up and down the West Coast of the United States to find out why people kill themselves, why his son killed himself. And he did a Goldcast video, which had nine million views. And he spoke to about a dozen male entrepreneurs. And he's a serial entrepreneur. And he said to them, "It was my fault." He said, "You know, when you're an entrepreneur, you solve problems, you give people answers, you give people advice. And also, you don't share with your family that you're afraid from all the failures. You know, you're the man, you're the guy." And so you don't show vulnerability. And he basically said, "I made it impossible for my son to open up to me because I would just give him answers." And he shared this interesting observation, which I use everywhere. He said, "You know, when you talk to your teenager and you say, 'Hey, how you doing?' and they say, 'Great,' they're usually good. But when they say, 'I'm fine,' they're not. 'I'm okay.'"
Yeah, "I'm okay." Or just, "Leave me alone. I don't want to talk about it." So he actually has something. Maybe we can put a link to it. If you look up "Teen Mental Health Webinar," okay, it has on YouTube. You'll find his Goldcast nine-minute video. And then for 20 minutes is me giving advice to parents. If you're worried about your your teen or your 20-something and they're in a dark place, here are some of the things that might open them up to you.
Great. I'll link a bunch of these things below. I'll link those events too. And "Teen Mental Health Webinar." Okay. I hope you're enjoying the episode.
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Okay, so you strike me as someone, in order to be able to look into somebody's eyes and recognize what's in there, um, not to sound too sure of myself, and possibly because I've been in really dark places, I can see that like it hurts me. I can look into people's eyes and I can like feel that. But I don't think that everybody, everybody can as easily. Perhaps. So with your Michelangelo Mindset, are you trying to teach people how to do that?
Well, Michelangelo Mindset teaches people to see into their future and then make it happen. So, for instance, I work with a number of entrepreneurs, and and we're writing a book. I have a co-author, uh, and the subtitle, uh, is "How Michael, How Michelangelo Mindset Can Free Success, Happiness, and Fulfillment in Your Life," just like Michelangelo freed the statue of David. And so, for instance, when I speak with startups and entrepreneurs, I say, "The secret to success is you have to increase self-discovered urgency in other people." Because if you try to convince them, you'll scare them away. Especially after COVID, everybody feels pushed around and bullied by COVID. And so when you come on strong and you're pushing at someone, they're going to resist. They're going to smile politely because you're making them nervous. So what you really want to do is discover, and help them to self-discover, some a sense of urgency. Because urgency makes them act. And usually, what causes people to have self-discovered urgency, I'll use an acronym that we, that's overused, is FOMO. It's the fear of missing out on something terrific. You know, that's why you see when everyone's selling such and such, "Oh, this is time-limited. You know, you can get it, you know, before the, before the new Apple laptops come in, get the, get the latest one with the new chip on special at such and such. It's going away this week." Yeah. And then they'll give it a week break, and then it'll be the same price in two weeks. So, but what you want to do with other people is find a way to help them discover, uh, on their own, urgency. Does that make sense?
Oh, completely. Completely. I think when I talk, so I told, I don't know if I told you earlier, but I changed my diet dramatically, and that's what I'm, that's how I managed to get my autoimmune symptoms and mental disorder under control. And I think that when I talk to people about that and describe what I've been going through, um, I think potentially part of what I do is try and create a sense of urgency. Like, but back to you, what, what are you trying to keep, what are you trying to create a sense of urgency towards? Are they entrepreneurial ventures, or is it, or what is it?
Well, I'm, I'm, I'm creating a course with an international accelerator that's home-based in Southern California. And so they have cohorts of about, uh, 20 startups from around the world. And every three months, I do a presentation. And the CEO says, "You know, these people just want more of you, Mark." Uh, I'll share something because that's a little bit lighter than what we've been talking about, uh, and and hopefully it'll put a smile on both of our faces. My Caleb, because right about now, we get, so these are startups that are basically getting to the end of their friends and family money. So they have to go to investors. So, and, and what I've told them is, I said, "Do you ever speak to investors?" And they smile after a few minutes, and you think it's a yes, and it isn't. And they say that happened just yesterday. I said, "Here's the deal. Investors don't smile. It's, it's about money. Here's why they're smiling. In two and a half minutes of a 20-minute presentation, they've already decided they don't want to give you money. And they're smiling because they don't want to be rude. Because they start all the time you put into your your PowerPoint. And so they're smiling like this, but they've already decided it's a no. That's why at the end of it, you think they're going to say, 'How do we get started?' And they say, 'Well, let me think about it.'" Very interesting. And you never hear them again. And, and these people in the Zoom calls, oh my God, that's exactly what they're doing. And I said, "So here's, here's a little bit of a Michelangelo Mindset and how you can see into people, find out where they're coming from." So I'm glad this is on video. I think you'll like this. So when they smile, and you know that the smile is not a yes, it's a no, but they don't want to be rude. What you say to them, and I give them a script, is, "Can we pause for a moment?" And they're worried because they're afraid that you caught them being rude inside and smiling. So they don't see it. And they go, "What?" "Yeah, can we pause for a moment?" And they go, "Okay." And then you look at them and you hold them in your eyes and you say, "When we started this conversation, we were like this. Here was you with money. Here is me with a company that needs money. And now we're like this. Here is you with money. Here is me with a company that's not going to get any of it. So you were listening for something or looking for something, and you didn't see it or hear it. So in the time remaining, you know, if you get the rest of the presentation, what were you listening for or looking for?" And what's happened is you've totally disarmed them. And they're going to go, "What?" "You could say, 'I think what you're looking for and listening for is an investment that's going to work, especially to make up for the investments in your company that haven't worked. So why don't you, can you tell me about a big winner that someone in your company brought in or you brought in?'" And so you get them to talk. And the more they talk, the more they're invested in you. And here's where you turn around a conversation that was at a dead end into an ongoing relationship. And you say, and then you say, "Oh, we could cover those things. But if you can't cover them, you say, 'You know, I'm in a group of a bunch of startups, and I could introduce you to three companies that fit what you're looking for, and I can send you information on them. And I'm not going to tell them, you know, so I'm not going to have them hitting on you. But might I send you some information from some of the other startups that might be a good fit for you? And then if you like it, I'll make an introduction.' So what's happened is you took a relationship where they were smiling and you were never going to see them again, and now you're focused on their success. You're not focused on yourself. You're going to introduce three other startups to them. And so everybody's going to be grateful to you. And you can go back to all of them afterwards because you've just started a relationship built on generosity."
Wow, that is brilliant. So then you end up with people who are in sales meetings that aren't going to go well, helping out the other companies in the startups on the presumption that these other companies are kind of doing a similar thing for them, and you're only offering people companies that you think suit them, what they're looking for. So people must be very familiar with the companies in, in the Michael, Michelangelo Mindset. Correct?
Absolutely. And in fact, I'm going to, I'm going to give you, um, when we write the book, there is a statue of David in the Michelangelo Mindset that you need to create. And I've already created it at least three times with you. Do you want to know what it is?
Yes, indeed.
What you want to create in a conversation with other people is for them to go, "Wow. Hmm. Yes." And what "Wow" is, "I can't believe what I just saw, heard, or read." And with my suicidal patients, they couldn't believe what they felt because they felt hope. The "Hmm" is, "This is too good to ignore." And then the "Yes" is, "This is how I see we can use it. Sold." So for a year and a half, I've done a bunch of things. And this, I didn't send you in my bio because it's a little dated. But for a year and a half, I played Steve Jobs coming back from the dead. I had the turtleneck on, I had the glasses on. And the whole purpose of this presentation, where I played him from 1996 to 2007, when he came back to Apple and introduced the iPhone, was to show a two-minute video, which was a dramatization of Steve Jobs discovering the mouse and the graphical user interface at Xerox Park. And if you're watching this or listening, look up "Xerox Park National Geographic Steve Jobs," and it takes you right to it. And in the dramatization, and we could even play it, but I'll imitate it here. Here's my Steve Jobs. "Things, I'm not going to run." Get the turtleneck. And so in, in the, uh, in the video, and you'll see, and I'll just play him, and you'll see the "Wow." Yes. So he's like, this smartest man in the room, you know, there at Xerox Park. He sees the Xerox technician using the mouse and the icons. And he leans in, and you see on his face this "Wow." "I can't believe what I'm seeing." And then the smartest man in the room says to the technician, "Can I try it?" And so then he sits down. And when his index finger touches the mouse, and the icons go on the screen, he starts to sweat. And Steve Wozniak is with him. And actually, on this video clip, Wozniak gives some commentary. And Steve Jobs looks back at Wozniak. And Wozniak said, when he looked at me for the whom, because Steve Wozniak was a thinker. Steve Wozniak said, "I told him once, 'They go there, they're not going back. They're not going to go back to typing.'" And then, uh, and then the video goes on, and Steve Jobs is playing with the mouse. And then Walter Isaacson, who wrote one of the books, comments, "They didn't know what to do with this at Xerox." And so what was happening is Steve Jobs was thinking, "Hmm, we got to do something with this." And then the clip ends with Walter Isaacson saying, "They didn't know what to do at Xerox, but Steve Jobs went back to Apple and here's the 'Yes' and created the Macintosh." So can you see that that whoever you're with, and I think, am I right that I've created a few "Wow" "Yeses" with you in, in our conversation already?
Oh, definitely. I think right away at the beginning. So that's what you, that's what you want to do. And by the way, why we call that the statue of David is, isn't that what you felt when you finally met the person you were going to marry? You know, when you thought to yourself, "This is the one." Wasn't there a "Wow" "Yes"? You know, when you didn't know if you could buy that Tesla, and it was more than you could afford, but when you went there, it was irresistible. And if you think about it, the way Steve Jobs and Elon Musk make presentations, it is overflowing with triggering "Wow" "Yes."
That's got to be difficult for the average person to do. I mean, you're talking about people who have IQs that are through the roof. Is there something that the average person can do to get that kind of reaction? I mean, you're clearly very smart.
Well, I think what you can do is, first of all, you need to have some self-awareness and realize that the more pushy you are, the more anxious you come off, and you come off as hungry. And all you actually have to do is have a beginner's mindset, which means you have an open mind. And all you have to be is curious. What they're listening for. I spoke in Moscow along with a Nobel Prize winner, Daniel Kahneman. He wrote "Thinking, Fast and Slow."
Oh yeah, I've read that.
Yeah. And, uh, and it was interesting because I, I asked him, I said, "Why are you having me? You know, I, I, I'm not Daniel Kahneman. I'm not a Nobel Prize winner. I'm not Jordan Peterson. Why the heck would you have me?" And they said, they said, and here's a "Wow" "Yes." They said, "Doctor, his book did not go viral." So here's some, here's a little tip on creating titles. So here's a tangent, but it's a good nugget. What you want to do is expand mental real estate in people's minds. And the person who introduced that term to me was a fellow named Tony Baxter. He was one of the lead imagineers at Disney. And he said, "Pirates of the Caribbean owns the word 'pirates' in the minds of kids." So Disney owns pirates, and they think of Pirates of the Caribbean. So what you want to do is come up with something that seems familiar, that gets in, and then you twist it, and you get more mental real estate. So the English version of the book they're referring to is here, it's called "Talking to Crazy." And again, this is not about mental illness. It's about how do you deal with people who drive you crazy. So that has some mental real estate because when I told people I'm writing a book called "Talking to Crazy," they said, "Oh, I need that today." You know, because I deal with that every day. But when it went to Russia, the title became "How to Talk to Assholes." And it went viral. That was the translation. That was the translation. Russians, uh...
That's great. But can you see, but that's a "Wow" "Yes"?
Oh yeah. So, so you want to grab people like that.
Oh, that's interesting. I can't believe that they switched the title that badly.
Yeah. Well, um, the, I spoke with who wrote "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck," Mark, Mark, Mark Manson. Thank you very much. That could have been bad.
Yeah. And I mean, that's another one of those titles that really takes off. Oh, the book's valuable too. But interesting. There was a book I was going to write, but it's too negative for me in my life. But this is an automatic bestseller. And if you're listening, you want to write it, it's a bestseller. And it's called "Get Even Plus 10."
Yeah, that's a good one. How to never be taken advantage of or bullied again. Do you have wisdom on how to never be taken advantage of or be bullied again? We could delve into that a little bit.
Absolutely. Well, I think, I think the first thing is realize that the more eager or the more you want something, the more vulnerable you are. Okay? So you have to play a game. Yeah. And I'll share an anecdote because in my, I give talks. I, I was one of the few male speakers at the Women in Technology International Summit. And there's a couple thousand women and, you know, probably 15 or 20 men that spoke in the two or three days. And my topic was "Never Be Bullied Again." And you like my anecdotes? Can I share an anecdote that?
Oh yes, I love your anecdotes. Yes.
So, uh, this is where, this is before you were born, I believe. But I, I say to people, "Do you know where you were on September 6, 1995?" And people said, "What? What the heck are you talking about?" And I said, "Let me refresh your memory. There was a trial going on in America. Maybe you've heard of it. It was called the O.J. Simpson trial. And on September 6, 1995, one of the characters in that trial was a fellow named Detective Mark Fuhrman. And he may have brought the case down because towards the end of the trial, he had said that he had never said the N-word. And then there was proof that he did say the N-word. And things really fell apart after that. And on that day, Detective Mark Fuhrman was questioned by a famous lawyer, F. Lee Bailey. And Detective Mark Fuhrman took the Fifth Amendment." Why am I bringing this up? Because everybody in the world who watched that trial saw him taking the Fifth Amendment, except me. Because I was sequestered in the top floor of the criminal courts building because I worked with the prosecution during the trial. And F. Lee Bailey had accused me of drugging him or coaching him in his testimony during the cross-examination earlier in the trial. So in the middle of the trial, Detective Mark Fuhrman came on, you know, came across as like John Wayne, really strong. And I got subpoenaed to come in to see if I did anything with him. And I didn't do anything with him. But the subpoena never reached me because it went to a building that I was in that fell down in the 1994 earthquake. So the subpoena couldn't find me. I have it framed on a wall somewhere. So they just couldn't find me after that. And so the trial went along. And then it was towards the end of the trial, and I was there by myself. And I was wondering what's going to happen. And one of the crazy things about me is I always put myself in situations that seem impossible. And I get to the brink of panic, but I never panic. I get smart. And one of these days, I'm going to have a massive stroke with a smile on my face because I will figure out the secret to peace on earth and I'll die.
So what happens is I'm there waiting. I'm getting anxious. I'm getting nervous. I'm thinking I'm being set up. And, and, and then about 5 p.m., I suddenly figure out F. Lee Bailey and 80% of what I know about difficult people. One thing that nearly all difficult people have in common, and this is not just the venters, this is the whiners, this is the stonewallers, this is the sullen people, it's everyone. One of the things they all have in common is, uh, sometimes they will charm you, or else why would you have them in your life to begin with? Then they'll frustrate you, then they'll anger you, then they'll outrage you. And many, most people are uncomfortable with becoming enraged. So when you're there and you're outraged and you're uncomfortable becoming enraged, you will do everything you can to keep a lid on it because you feel like you're going to go out of control. So difficult people push us into our feeling enraged. And I knew he was going to do that with me because I'd watched him in the court. So I knew that when he came up at 7:00 p.m. and he was there with a, uh, an associate of Johnny Cochran, and I was there with one of the other prosecutors, I knew he was going to charm me, frustrate me, anger me, and outrage me, and then hope that I become enraged.
So you're going to like this, Michaela. So what he didn't know is that I had long cultivated that ability to look into people's eyes and hold their eyes. I can, I can hold your eyes wherever I go, and I could almost hypnotize you by looking in your eyes. And so when he came in, I had him so figured out, uh, that I started fumbling, you know, with pens and whatever. And Bill Hodgman, one of the prosecutors, said to me, "Mark, Mr. Bailey's here. He's going to ask you some questions." And I, and I said to Bill Hodgman, one of the prosecutors, "Oh, okay, Bill." And then F. Bailey sits down across the table from me. And then when he sits down, I lock on to his eyes. Oh, and I can do whatever I want with his eyes. And I go like this to make sure that I'm locked on to them. And he doesn't know what I'm doing. And then he starts sharing. He says, "You know, we don't exactly know your role here, Dr. Golston." And here's what I realized about innuendo. Innuendo is when people make statements instead of questions. And when people say something like, "We don't really know what your role is," what we usually do when someone makes a statement is we go, "Uh-huh." And when we go, "Uh-huh," they put a hook in our neck and reel us in. And, and we're here to find out, you know, what your relationship with Detective Mark Fuhrman is. And normally, people go, "Uh-huh." But instead of going, "Uh-huh," I just kept looking in his eyes. And I blinked. And then he made six or seven more statements. And I could tell that he was wanting me to go, "Uh-huh." But instead, I just kept looking at him. And I blinked. And then after about five minutes, the prosecutor says to me, "Mark, you haven't said anything." Meaning I didn't say, "Uh-huh." I didn't say anything. And here was my moment of David, speaking of the, statue of David and Goliath. I looked at Bill Hodgman and I said, "He hasn't asked me a question." And then I looked back, and I looked at Bill, and I looked back at F. Lee Bailey. And F. Lee Bailey sort of flinched a little bit. And I think he figured out, "Maybe there's more going on with this guy." So he started asking questions. And I looked at him. And here's my picture. As I'm looking into his eyes, I'm not perfect, but I'm not protecting someone who killed two people. What's your story?
So that was my mindset. And clearly, there wasn't even a reason for me to be pulled in because he had taken the Fifth Amendment. If he hadn't taken the Fifth Amendment, you know, then it made sense to interview me to see if he purged himself. So I'm not even sure why they, we even had this conversation. I think it's because he may have been frustrated that the subpoena didn't reach me from earlier in the trial. And so, so he starts asking questions. And in the trial, there was a famous phrase that he used where he pushed Detective Fuhrman and said, "So you're here to say that you've never said the N-word?" So again, F. Lee Bailey would start out calm. He'd frustrate you, he'd anger you, he'd outrage you, and hope you go off balance. So I knew he would do that with me. And he starts picking up speed. And I'm, you know, just giving him, you know, one-word answers. And there was a point in which he says, "So you're here to say that you would never, you didn't medicate, you didn't coach, you didn't do anything to affect Detective Mark Fuhrman's testimony?" So he, you follow me? He built up this crescendo. And so there's like five people in the room. I'm looking into his eyes. In my peripheral vision, I can see everybody wants to hear what I have to say. Here come the sirens to take me away. But, uh, uh, and so he, I'm looking into his eyes. I count to seven. And then I go. And when I do that, everybody looks, leans in. I can see in my peripheral vision because they want to hear what, you know, what the shrink has to say. And then I said, "Really?" And then I did some innuendo with him. I said, "Mr. Bailey." And he goes, "Uh-huh."
[Laughter]
I said, "Mr. Bailey, um, my mind wandered the last six or seven minutes. And it seemed very important what you were saying. Can you repeat everything?" Anyway, what I said, "Yeah. Uh, you know, it's 7 p.m. My car is locked in a lot. I don't know how I'm going to get it. But it seemed important what you were saying. So could you run it by me again? Because my mind wandered." And see, people who are bullies, they don't care about having substance. Because if they can provoke you, and you're off balance, you know, then they push you over the edge.
Um, sorry about that. We don't exactly have a studio here. You know.
Don't worry about it. Yeah. But, uh, and so, so he looked at Johnny Cochran's associate, Carl Douglas, and said, "What did I say?" Because see, again, bullies don't have to have substance if they can provoke you enough.
Oh, that's, that's interesting. So he was just doing a game.
What did I say? Yeah. Yeah. And so, and so he shared some of those things. And the point is, I had nothing to hide. Because I had nothing, you know, I didn't do anything with Fuhrman. And so after a few more minutes, he looks at the prosecutor, at me, and he says, "I don't think we have to call Dr. Golston on the stand." The point is, it was a moot point. He was just doing it for ego because Fuhrman had taken the Fifth Amendment. I don't even know why I was still up there. And so he gets up to leave. And I said, "Mr. Bailey, I have a question for you." And Bill Hodgman, the prosecutor, is about eight inches taller than me. So we're standing up. And he says, "Mark, Mark, it's the end of the trial. It's okay." Uh, I said, "Uh, you know, how earlier in the trial, there was a statement that once you bring the N-word out, you can't unring a bell. Meaning, once black people hear the N-word spoken by a white person, you can't unring the, uh, the, the anger that is triggering them." And he says, "Yes." So, and I said, "Well, yesterday, in front of the world, you said you were going to interview me about Detective Mark Fuhrman. And so you associated me with the most despised cop in America today. So you slurred me. Do you have any idea how we can unslur a slur?" And so Bill Hodgman says to me, "Mark, Mark, they misspelled your name. Don't worry about it." And, and F. Lee Bailey looks at Bill Hodgman like, "Who's your little friend?" And so F. Lee Bailey leaves the room. And I'm gathering my papers together. And then he comes back into the room. And he looks at me and he says, "I will trade you a retraction in tomorrow's newspaper if you tell me what you figured out about me." And I said, "Ah, that's okay. That's fine. But can you, but I hope that lived up to my promise of a good anecdote. But can you see how much you can teach all of us about people who mistreat us?"
So here's, here's the tip. Because your listeners love tactics, make a list. Take a sheet of paper out. Draw a straight line down the middle. On the left side, write down the names of all the awful people you have to deal with that trigger you, that bully you, that frustrate you, that make you crazy. And on the right side, write down all the names of people that make your life wonderful. Those people that you don't thank enough because you're too busy, you know, feeling frustrated by the people on the left side. And look at that list. And whenever you're about to deal with anyone on the left side, hold a little bit of yourself back. So never expect them not to be difficult. So don't be aloof, but listen to them. And then when they pull that difficult thing, you can say, "What I said, 'Can you say that again?'" Or you can say, "Can, can you say that to me, kind of in a regular voice? Because the way you said it got me all kind of agitated." Or the simplest way to respond to it is, "Huh?" And then here's the important thing. Make a point of reaching out to the people on the right side of that sheet of paper. Reach out to them and let them know how grateful you are to them. Because one of the worst things we can do in life is fail to be grateful to the people who've been wonderful to us because we're so caught up with all the people that are negative.
That's really smart. I agree. I think there's a lot of evidence that practicing gratefulness can be very beneficial and just turn away, turn around how you think, especially if you've had a hard life. And lots of people have hard lives, right? But there is something to that. I always underestimated the role gratefulness could play because I was so sick and so angry and on so many medications. I was like, "What am I grateful for?" Like, what? But so I do have an easier time now that I'm feeling better because it's more obvious. But I definitely understand where you're coming from there. Those were wild stories.
Okay, I've got, I've got a question before we stop. You seem to be incredibly stable. So it's interesting that you've come up with a way to really read into people and understand what's behind their eyes, because I would assume that that's more of a compassionate thing. But I know that a lot of people who are compassionate, I think, can be kind of drawn into these battles with triggering individuals. So like, emotionally, are you, is it hard?
To bug you, are you stable emotionally?
Yeah, can I share one story and I'm gonna get a little emotional about it?
Yes, definitely. Um, one of my greatest accomplishments personally is I dropped out of medical school twice and and graduated. And I think I dropped out twice for untreated depression. So the first time I dropped out, I took a leave of absence. I worked in blue collar jobs and I just loved it. It was just so simple. Work was, you know, I'd work from nine to five, you know, go back to the apartment I was staying in, you know, didn't bring it home with me. And then I, my mind came back probably to a blue collar level. I came back to medical school and I lasted for another three months. And so I asked for a second leave of absence. And when you take a leave of absence from medical school, the medical school loses matching funds. So I met with the head of the medical school, uh, the dean. And he cares about funding it. I mean, you know, I was naive, uh, way back then. And so I don't even remember the meeting, but the dean of students calls me and says, I got a letter here from the other dean and you better come in. And the dean of students was this wonderful man named William McNary. And we called him Mack. Shows me the letter and he says, in the letter, it says, I've met with Mr. Ghoulston, we talked about another career. I'm advising the promotions committee that he'd be asked to withdraw. So that's from the dean of the whole school. And I said to Mack, I said, what does this mean? He said, you've been kicked out. And I cratered in front of him. I mean, it was like a gunshot wound. And I know what that feels like because I had a perforated colon about 12 years ago, I almost died. It felt just like that. And I came from a background, you know, hard-working parents, but it was a depression background where you're only worth what you can do in life. If you can't do anything, you're worthless. And so I was feeling pretty low.
So something I had done during that time is I wrote a poem called Lament for the Old that got published in a geriatric psychiatry journal. And in the poem, I basically talked about how, how the medical profession was abandoning older people because older people had so much wisdom to share, so many stories to tell, but younger doctors are into saving things quantitatively, not qualitatively. And I think the, uh, I'll read the last part of the poem. It said, I then took the time to get to know some of these marvelous people, three times my age. So I'm three times the age of me when I wrote this, who offered a wealth of experience that spanned hundreds of years. Uh, what was so obviously missing was someone to share the fullness of the past and to help relieve the loneliness of the future. And maybe someone to give a damn when they died.
So I think he saw that. And so he says this to me when I'm at a low point. He says, Mark, you didn't mess up because you passed everything, but you are messed up. But, um, if you get unmessed up, I think this school would be glad they gave you a second chance. And so I start to cry. I mean, this is compassion. And I didn't know what to do. You know, you started to cry earlier in our, in our session here. And, uh, and he said, he said, and even if you don't get unmessed up, even if you don't become a doctor, even if you don't do anything the rest of your life, I'd be proud to know you because you have a streak of goodness in you that we don't grade in medical school. And you have no idea how much that the world needs that goodness. And you're not going to know how much the world needs that goodness until you're 35. And you deserve to be on this planet. And you're going to let me help you. And he stood up to the school. Here's where I get emotional because after that, I finished med school and I became the suicide specialist. I was the David to the dean of students. He looked into my future and he saw someone who could do something for the world. Oh, no, you can't start crying, you'd make me cry again. No. So it's all come full circle because that's what he saw. Because I didn't see a future for me. I didn't see any value. I didn't think the world would need me. I didn't think I could do anything. And it's just come so full circle. And, and he, my future was the marble. And so I think that's how I might have reached some of my suicidal patients is I saw the hope inside their hopelessness.
Wow, that was amazing. Thank you so much for coming on. That was really cool. Uh, I think people will find it helpful. I'm going to link all the links that we talked about below. Um, specifically the the teen mental health webinar, make sure that's down there. Where, where can people go or what should people, where, where can people go to find you?
Well, I have a podcast called My Wake-Up Call that you're going to be on. Your dad was on it. Um, I, I'll share a little anecdote. I don't know if you saw your dad's, uh, interviewing. I didn't, I didn't yet. No, it was interesting because, you know, everybody wants part of your dad's time, yeah, you know. And we had met because I was honored at a black tie gala in New York, uh, for, uh, Dr. Dr. Oz's foundation. And, and I met your dad there. And so, uh, so we're having the conversation with your dad. And I know everybody wants his time. I mean, I can't tell you how many people say, can you introduce me to Jordan Peterson? I said, I'm not that close to him, you know. And, and so we go for about 40 minutes. And, and I'm just feeling so grateful that he took the time to be on. And I said, you know, I know you're really busy and I want to thank you for giving me time. And, you know, your dad, in the podcast, he said, I have more time, ask me another question. We went for another 30 minutes. Nice. That's cool. That was really good. You, you are an amazing storyteller.
Well, you gave me a long leash, so I hope they, I hope they were more compelling than they were boring. Oh, not at all. They were great. You've got the timing down perfectly. It's just like, that was great. That was great. So thank you very much for coming on. So the link's My Wake-Up Call. Please, you know, check out my podcast. And, and how I use the podcast and you'll be a guest is I don't have really a big team, but I introduce my guests to each other when I get a sense you'll like each other. So I've had Larry King on, I had Norman Lear, who did All in the Family, Tom Steyer, who ran for president, Marshall Goldsmith, Ken Blanchard, Esther Wojcicki, Sam, Sam Horn, Margaret Heffernan. I get 12 requests a week to be on, to be a guest on it. But I introduce my guests to each other and say, listen to each other's podcast. If you like each other, I'll introduce you. And just go make the world better. Go on. Come on, leave me alone. Just, just, just go make the world. And that's the whole purpose of the podcast.
That is so cool. Okay, well, I'm honored that you would have me on. I will definitely do that. Thank you again for, for coming on. That was, that was crazy. That was really good. And they can check out Michelangelo Mindset and, and, and they can check me out on LinkedIn. In fact, if I can stall for a second, uh, that's a QR code there. We go. That if people use your camera and you focus on that, it'll take you to my LinkedIn profile.
That's so smart. That's a really good idea. I might have to start implementing something like that. That's cool. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Mark. Thank you for coming on. Thank you for the long leash. We'll be in touch.
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