1 Dan Diamond, MD, author of Beyond Resilience, on the movement to purpose Transcript Mike Kearney: Today is such a cool day for me. I’ve been doing this podcast since April and I’ve been getting a lot more engagement on social media—LinkedIn, Twitter—I guess it’s just LinkedIn and Twitter. A few months ago, Dr. Dan Diamond reached out to me. He had been listening to the podcast and he really enjoyed my conversation with Mark Riley. Remember Mark Riley, several episodes ago? He was a deputy director of disaster recovery in the state of Louisiana. Dan shared that he was there. He was there when Katrina happened. He was there helping triage all of the people who needed medical help. He was with a team of physicians. He also wrote the book on resilience. Literally, he wrote the book on resilience, it’s called Beyond Resilience. So here I am, after Dr. Dan reached out to me via LinkedIn. We connected, I loved his stories, and now I’m sitting here with Dr. Dan in Bremerton, Washington. What an unbelievable experience. Talk about the power of social media and connecting the story of resilience and all these great episodes to somebody that’s out there that’s actually lived it. And he wants to share his story with our listeners. Dan Diamond: If somebody wants to say, “I want to become the most valuable person in my organization,” it’s not going to be the guy who says, “Somebody has to look out for number one.” If you do that a lot, the other people will let you step out in front of a bus. If you’re the guy who becomes the conduit, you become so valuable that people will fight to keep you on the team, even when there are budgetary cutbacks. They will figure out a way to keep you on the team. Mike Kearney: Welcome to Resilient, where we hear stories from leaders on risk, crisis, and disruption. We get those stories by meeting our guests on their home turf. And, literally, we meet them on their home turf. As I’ve talked about before, my name is Mike Kearney, and I lead Deloitte’s Strategic Risk practice. You know what the cool thing is? I have the unbelievably good fortune, kind of a little side
23
Embed
Dan Diamond, MD, author of Beyond Resilience, on the movement to purpose Transcript · 2020-03-18 · 1 Dan Diamond, MD, author of Beyond Resilience, on the movement to purpose Transcript
This document is posted to help you gain knowledge. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think about it! Share it to your friends and learn new things together.
Transcript
1
Dan Diamond, MD, author of Beyond Resilience, on the movement to purpose
Transcript
Mike Kearney: Today is such a cool day for me. I’ve been doing this podcast since April and I’ve
been getting a lot more engagement on social media—LinkedIn, Twitter—I
guess it’s just LinkedIn and Twitter. A few months ago, Dr. Dan Diamond
reached out to me. He had been listening to the podcast and he really enjoyed
my conversation with Mark Riley. Remember Mark Riley, several episodes ago?
He was a deputy director of disaster recovery in the state of Louisiana. Dan
shared that he was there. He was there when Katrina happened. He was there
helping triage all of the people who needed medical help. He was with a team of
physicians.
He also wrote the book on resilience. Literally, he wrote the book on resilience,
it’s called Beyond Resilience. So here I am, after Dr. Dan reached out to me via
LinkedIn. We connected, I loved his stories, and now I’m sitting here with Dr.
Dan in Bremerton, Washington. What an unbelievable experience. Talk about
the power of social media and connecting the story of resilience and all these
great episodes to somebody that’s out there that’s actually lived it. And he
wants to share his story with our listeners.
Dan Diamond: If somebody wants to say, “I want to become the most valuable person in my
organization,” it’s not going to be the guy who says, “Somebody has to look out
for number one.” If you do that a lot, the other people will let you step out in
front of a bus. If you’re the guy who becomes the conduit, you become so
valuable that people will fight to keep you on the team, even when there are
budgetary cutbacks. They will figure out a way to keep you on the team.
Mike Kearney: Welcome to Resilient, where we hear stories from leaders on risk, crisis, and
disruption. We get those stories by meeting our guests on their home turf. And,
literally, we meet them on their home turf. As I’ve talked about before, my
name is Mike Kearney, and I lead Deloitte’s Strategic Risk practice. You know
what the cool thing is? I have the unbelievably good fortune, kind of a little side
attentiveness, and higher energy levels. Talk about higher gratitude in the
context of this resilience conversation.
Dan Diamond: Gratitude—and now we’re kind of on the cutting edge of what I’m learning
personally. I’m going to kind of invite you backstage and you can see how my
brain is changing, literally, and how I’m understanding. This has been an
interesting year for me. My wife has been very sick, in and out of the hospital
this year, and it’s been a challenging time. I’ve had opportunity to apply this
firsthand. The research on gratitude is so rock solid. But if I came in and said to
you, “Hey Mike, I got something for you here, it’s a little pill and it’s going to
make you live longer, you’re going to feel better, you’re going to have more
19
energy.” You’re going to go, “It either doesn’t exist, or it’s illegal.” You’re not
going to believe me on this because it’s just too good to be true.
This data is rock solid data and it’s really easy to do. One of the studies looked at
keeping a gratitude journal. You write down in this gratitude journal three new
things that you’re thankful for on a daily basis. It can’t be repeats. It can’t be,
“I’m thankful that I have a warm shower, or I’m thankful that I have a car and a
house.” You can’t use those over and over again. Eventually you run out of all
the easy stuff and you start looking at other things. The one that I always laugh
at now is, “I’m thankful that oranges come in slices,” because I can eat a couple
of slices of an orange, come back and it still looks like an orange. An apple, on
the other hand, looks like a science project when you’re coming back.
It’s a silly little thing but when I eat oranges, I smile. My brain goes, “Those
oranges are pretty cool, aren’t they?” It makes me laugh a little bit, which
releases serotonin and dopamine in my brain and causes all kinds of cool
chemical changes that makes my brain go, “Yeah, life is good. Life is good.” One
of the studies show, if you write down three new things every day, and you
need to pause and look at them and feel it. You can’t just write them down
brain-dead. You have to look at it and go, “Oh yeah, that is good. I’m glad that I
have a hot shower, that’s a good thing because I lived in Thailand where I didn’t
have a hot shower and it was not fun to start the day out with a cold bucket of
water over my head. This is good, yeah.” You feel it.
They found that if you do that, every day for a week, and then stop – they had
the control group six months later, the study group was happier than the
control group. Six months after just one week of work. What if you just did it on
an ongoing basis? One of the apps that I use is the Five-Minute Journal. It’s an
iOS; Droid people, I’m sorry you don’t have it, but it’s an Apple app. I just write
down three things that I’m thankful for every day, three things that I’m going to
do to make today great. At the end of the day, I write down three things that
went well during the day.
Mike Kearney: You do it during the beginning of the day? And then at the end of the day?
Dan Diamond: It takes me five minutes; it makes a profound difference in how my noggin
works.
Mike Kearney: Was it the research that drove you into that or was it just your personal
situation where you just started to do it organically and then you found out
there’s research that supports how I feel now?
Dan Diamond: I went through a dark time. It was really, really a tough year. I knew that I
needed to get out of this hole and I was aware of the research on it and I
thought, “Well, I’m going to try it. How hard can it be to write down three things
that you’re thankful for everyday?” It’s amazingly effective, it really is.
20
That I would call gratitude 1.0, and there is gratitude 2.0. Gratitude 2.0 I learned
about a year ago when I spoke at the TEDx Rainier meeting. There was a friend
of mine there named Dr. Tanmeet Sethi. She spoke and she talked about the
difference between being thankful during, which is what we’re talking about
now, gratitude 1.0, versus being thankful for. The difference between those two
is phenomenally important.
Mike Kearney: Say that again? Thankful during versus thankful for. Can you unpack that a bit?
Dan Diamond: If you broke your ankle walking out of my house—please don’t—but if you
break your ankle you could be thankful during that. You could say, “Well, I’m
thankful I’m going to get some ice cream out of this deal because my mom
always gives me ice cream when I get hurt. And I’m thankful that I’ll probably
get upgraded to first class when I fly back.” You can find things that will be good.
Versus being thankful for the fact that you broke your ankle. Oh yeah! That look
that you just gave me is the one that my brain did when I heard her talk.
Mike Kearney: Why would I be happy that I broke my ankle?
Dan Diamond: Yeah, really. She said that suffering equals pain times resistance. You get a bad
ankle that hurts, it’s painful. If you fight that and you say, “My life is miserable.
This is horrible. I’m going to have crutches. It’s going to cause chafing. I’m not
going to be able to do anything. I’m not going to be able to go to a football
game because I’m not going to be able to get down the stands. I’m not going to
be able to drive. What am I going to do?! I’ve got to travel. I’ve got to do my
podcast. I’ve got to travel all over the place with my team and record people.
I’ve got to do that in person because it’s my passion, but now I’ve got a broken
ankle. Podcasts are all going to be derailed. What are we going to do? This is
horrible!”
Now you have a broken ankle and a whole bucket of misery to go with it, versus,
“I’ve got a busted ankle. Probably going to learn some cool stuff from this one.
This is going to be all right. I’m going to get through this. I’m thankful I’ve got a
busted ankle. It’s going to be all right because I’m going to learn some stuff
through this. It’s going to be okay.”
Mike Kearney: Meaning, “I’m not going to be able to travel, I can spend more time with my
family.” Is that what you’re getting at, or is it literally, “I’m thankful that this
happened to me because something good is going to come out of it?”
Dan Diamond: “It’s going to change who I am. I’m going to learn some different stuff about
gratitude that I didn’t know before. I’m going to be a different person because
of this whole experience and I’m going to come out the other end of it happy.”
Mike Kearney: So, did you see this manifest itself in some of the folks you called the resilient
people in a time of natural disaster when you’re like now looking back, I could
see. We keep going back to Auggie, but Auggie may have just been grateful for
21
the fact that this allowed him to give back and connect to the city of New
Orleans?
Dan Diamond: Yeah.
Mike Kearney: This has been a fantastic conversation, I think we’re going to have to do this at
some point in time, but you talked earlier about that you want more heroes in
this country. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think American Red Cross named you
their real hero. If you want to share on that a little, that’s great, but I’m curious,
who’s your hero?
Dan Diamond: The ultimate hero for me would be Jesus because he put other people first and
laid it down and paid the ultimate price. That’s my ultimate example of, you talk
about impacting the world, He had a phenomenal impact. But a couple of the
guys that I look up to, one would be one of my best buddies, Chris Clark, the guy
that started the Children of the Nations. He grew up in Africa and then he
moved here. He’s kind of different; he’s not really an African, he’s not really an
American, he’s not African American because he’s a white guy.
He wanted to take his wife to explain to her why he’s different. He took her to
Africa, to Liberia. When he came back, he sat in my living room, this is 1991,
weeping and saying, “I gotta quit my day job. I’ve got to do something to take
care of these orphan kids in Africa. Are you in?” I said, “Of course I’m in! I’m
your best buddy, of course I’ll help! Sure!” So, that’s 27 years ago and we’re
now taking care of over 20,000 kids worldwide.
Mike Kearney: If he grew up there, what compelled him during that trip to say I need to change
my entire life?
Dan Diamond: I think he saw it from a different perspective. He lived it.
Mike Kearney: Right, that’s why I asked.
Dan Diamond: Then he came back and went, “Oh wow.” Sometimes you don’t see something
until you leave and you come back and you see it for the first time and it made
such a huge impression on him. We sat around the living room thinking about,
“What would the mission statement be?” It’s not just taking care of the kids to
feed the kids, but the mission statement that we came up with was raising these
orphans and destitute kids to transform their nations. We’re raising kids to think
it’s not about them and what they can get, it’s about how they can invest in
their own nations and transform their own nations.
Mike Kearney: That goes back to your definition of purpose, giving back to others.
Dan Diamond: Teaching them that mindset of they have the right to choose they’re going to
respond and they need to be givers and they need to transform the nations. I
would say Chris is one of my biggest heroes.
Mike Kearney: Thank you, this was one of my favorite podcasts, so thanks.
22
Dan Diamond: Thank you, I appreciate it, it’s been great spending time with you my friend.
---------------------------
Mike Kearney: Wow, what an incredible conversation. Thank you everybody for listening to
Resilient. As I’ve talked about before, although we don’t talk about it a lot, this is
a Deloitte podcast and it is produced by our friends at Rivet Radio, you can hear
us by going to Deloitte.com, or go where I go. Go to your podcatchers, places
like iTunes and Stitcher and SoundCloud and all those cool places.
When you go there, just put the keyword in, resilient. I’d also encourage you to
check out previous episodes. We are really coming up with a great library of
authentic conversations with CEOs, board members, and leaders. Also, hit me
up on LinkedIn and Twitter. You heard at the beginning how I connected with
Dr. Dan Diamond through LinkedIn. Social media works, so provide me with
your comments, give me recommendations for future guests. Even if you’re one
of those future guests, hit me up on social media. My profile is under Michael
Kearney, last name spelled K-E-A-R-N-E-Y. On Twitter, it’s @mkearney33. You
know how Twitter works, it’s hard to get a good handle, so now I have
@mkearney33; I wish it was just mkearney, but it’s 33.
If you like these conversations, this is where I’ve now given you about 15
episodes. If you like these conversations, please share it with your friends or
your colleagues at work, or even your family members. I’ve talked about before,
my sister actually even likes this and she’s an art teacher. Finally, I would be so
grateful if you could just spend one minute and provide us with a rating. Go
onto iTunes, where I think most of you guys get the podcast, and just rate us. It
is so important in driving traffic to Resilient. Remember, leaders who embrace
risk improve performance and are more prepared to lead confidently in the
volatile world we live in.
This document contains general information only and Deloitte Advisory is not, by means of this document, rendering accounting, business, financial, investment, legal, tax, or
other professional advice or services. This document is not a substitute for such professional advice or services, nor should it be used as a basis for any decision or action that
may affect your business. Before making any decision or taking any action that may affect your business, you should consult a qualified professional advisor. Deloitte Advisory
shall not be responsible for any loss sustained by any person who relies on this document.
As used in this document, “Deloitte Advisory” means Deloitte & Touche LLP, which provides audit and enterprise risk services; Deloitte Financial Advisory Services LLP, which
provides forensic, dispute, and other consulting services, and its affiliate, Deloitte Transactions and Business Analytics LLP, which provides a wide range of advisory and
analytics services. Deloitte Transactions and Business Analytics LLP is not a certified public accounting firm. These entities are separate subsidiaries of Deloitte LLP. Please
see www.deloitte.com/ us/about for a detailed description of the legal structure of Deloitte LLP and its subsidiaries. Certain services may not be available to attest clients under