The WAY to WOW Shows
Career Advice from a NASA Flight Surgeon
November 2, 2022
Automatically generated from YouTube captions; names and wording may contain errors.

[0:00] okay and this meeting is being recorded that's never happened before uh oh really yeah usually you know you're it's recording but then you don't get the second one saying it's being recorded yeah good afternoon welcome to the way to wow show uh I am your host Kevin demmel and we are here every week 12 30 p.m uh Pacific time and 3 30 p.m eastern time and then an hour in and uh my my guest

[0:35] today I'll introduce him in just a minute is is you're on Central Time right so it's indeed yes I am uh what is it two two three there you go so um just want to mention um that you can see past episodes of the show on uh on our YouTube channel just search the way to just you can go to youtube.com see as in Channel slash the way to wow and you will find the way to wow uh Channel and and we have um all of our episodes I somebody told me earlier today we have 99 episodes so I guess you

[1:12] are the 100th episode wow awesome what an honor at the beginning and here at the 100th anniversary so um some of some of the episodes that you might like um some of the past ones include I did an episode back in March on how you can use LinkedIn to connect with the kind of people that you'll want to know in order to get the kind of job you want or start the kind of business that you want so I encourage you to take a look at that it's a step-by-step process for doing it to expand your network and and and meet

[1:47] you know interesting people who are in the field that you want to be in it's the best way that you can enhance your professional prospects so I just want to throw that in there and I I don't want to take any more time away from talking to my very long-standing friend Bob Sanders Dr Bob Sanders uh who is you know all my life well not on my life but all the time you've been a doctor you you've always been a dive doctor and I guess you still are but now you are a flight surgeon as well so um Bob was one of the first guests I had

[2:23] on the way to wow show and when he and he he shared his philosophy of just say yes and and I have said that so many times since then I I just I just love that I I just love the whole idea behind it if you haven't seen Bob's first episode I encourage you to go to our channel search just say yes that's how I titled his episode and and take a look at that and and you can hear about that and and I I asked Bob to come back because we were talking I guess this is going

[2:58] back a few weeks ago now and Bob said hey I've I've got a new job and I'm like oh what's your new job and he said well I'm going to be training the uh Artemis astronauts to walk on the moon like what so and and it was I you know you correct me if I'm wrong but it's because you know this opportunity came your way and you just said yes so so first of all Bob welcome back to the way to wow show thanks thanks for being here thank you Kevin it's an honor and a pleasure to be back I do enjoy anytime I

[3:33] have to speak with you it certainly enhances my day but more than that I think it's a great opportunity to build on some of the things we've talked about and some of the purposes of your show in taking advantages of life and opportunities and how that can help you grow in fact uh I think that we can also touch in with LinkedIn and this idea of selling yourself and the importance of that in in one's career no matter what the career may be yeah so so tell us before we get to what you're doing now um give us just kind of the if you don't mind because this will somewhat repeat a

[4:09] little bit about your first your first appearance once you give us kind of the Reader's Digest version of your career progression so people can get an idea of you know you you didn't start as a flight surgeon at Nasa I don't think most people do that right you had a you had a path to getting there so summarize that for us if you would wow I thought we only had about a half an hour in this show um my degree is yeah great because we'll take the first half just in my career path um I've had quite an interesting path I was a scuba diver learned to scuba dive in high school and that was always a

[4:44] passion of mine but my degree from college is in theater my first job was the Metropolitan Opera where I worked as a technical intern on the artistic side the development of Art and putting it on stage but throughout that time I was still passionate about scuba diving and teaching diving on the weekends I then worked in Paris for a while came back worked in set design and construction for commercial photography in New York and then when that dried up an opportunity presented itself to follow my heart in diving and throughout the time I was in New York I was working as

[5:20] a research diver in Antarctica in short stints going down for three months at a time to work as a research diver so then I came to back to LA where I grew up and worked as a manager in a dive shop and really got to build a lot of my sales experience and really mastering that communication with the public which has helped me throughout my career than continuing to go to Antarctica I had an opportunity to work as a first aid person for the film and television Studios now I was passionate about EMS I'd worked on an ambulance in

[5:56] college I had it was still ski patrolling so I loved that first aid I loved that emergency care I volunteered actually was volunteering one day at a fundraiser for the Catalina hyperbaric chamber and there I met a gentleman that I had lectured with and he said oh there's a scholarship if you want to get training you should think about that again this opportunity threw itself in my lap the application was due the next day so I had to pull an all-nighter to get it done but did and had this scholarship and learned to become a hyperbaric chamber technician and volunteered with the Catalina hyperbaric

[6:32] chamber in Los Angeles and that really got me to learn more about diving medicine and starting to see some of these glass ceilings that I had reached how I wanted to learn more I knew I was capable of learning more so then finally and ayadashi also taken another stint where I spent a lot more time having the opportunity to work with you when I ran the city of Beverly Hills CPR training center taking leave from the film and television Studios for a year and that was great and I learned more about emergency care and I learned about public service and I learned about

[7:08] fundraising a lot more and that also helped me throughout my career then I had found though I had achieved so many things at a certain level but if I wanted to take the next level if I wanted to go to the next step I kept hearing oh go back to school and complete this degree or go back to school and get a hard science degree my wife was a criminalist for LAPD and fascinated by what she was doing and when I looked into that because I had a hard Science Background having been pre-med in school well we can't really put someone on the stand who's got a degree in theater that just won't

[7:44] won't hold the uh sort of emphasis it needs so go back to school and get a hard science degree and we'll hire you so I realized it was time to to go back to school and it was a question of how do you go back and do it what what degree do you go for there had never been a time where I didn't see myself happy and effective as a physician but I knew I wasn't ready at the time to give up in life what one needs to give up to become a physician at that point I knew that I needed a change so I was willing to give it a shot so I I took the opportunity to to apply to medical

[8:19] school um the first year I ended up with about 22 rejection letters a nice stack one day we'll come back and tell you about the one I got from your alma mater because USC's was quite a uh an enjoyable rejection letter um then I found myself at a school reunion a College reunion and I'm like you know what maybe I should just talk to the the pre-med director there and I did and again taking advantage of this opportunity Williams had said hey once you graduate from here you're always a graduate we are career counseling is

[8:56] always available to you now that never dawned on me here for 10 years I'd never gone back and never asked them for help but now I thought gee maybe it is time to and wow what an incredible guidance I got from them it's just like I was still in school there and that really helped me and in fact it was because of that guidance that I found I was applying to the wrong schools and all of the sudden going from you know that stack of rejection letters to the acceptance letter I got to go to medical school so in 2001 I went to Chicago Medical School

[9:32] and my career definitely took a different path I now was focusing on emergency medicine got into one of the top emergency medicine residencies um at the University of Pittsburgh trained at the University of Hawaii in diving medicine and still managed to be a dive bum throughout my career I was working in emergency medicine and undersea medicine kind of splitting my time when I made one mistake in my career which was following a paycheck rather than following my heart and that led to

[10:07] a little bit of a bumpy job but that also brought me into a situation where I learned about the opportunities at NASA so in 2014 I started as the at the large pool where we train astronauts NASA's neutral buoyancy lab became the medical director there a year later I was there for about eight years and really took advantage of all the opportunities to learn and it meant for some sleepless nights and some late nights and taking on more than my share of the work but by doing that I found I

[10:44] became more and more indispensable and then when a new position opened up at Nasa as a federal flight surgeon to become the program medical officer for all of space walking Eva and human surface Mobility lunar Rovers it was very clear that was an ideal fit for me and then in September of this year I started as the program medical officer for ehp which is Eva and Human Service Mobility Program wow so I wanna before we get into that that that more sort of forward-looking piece there's a few questions that I want to ask you about your career

[11:20] Journey that that hopefully will illuminate um your your progression for for for the viewers so one of the things you mentioned is you have a theater degree and and how you know being on the stand you know and going what is your degree in theater it says on the other hand I've I've had a um I had another guest on um I think a couple of months ago who also had been um involved in theater um in the early part of his career actually I've had two guests um who were involved in theater one of them got into

[11:56] later into um training um first of all police officers and the other one got into um uh promoting uh whiskey brands so I you know and and I I I know another one of the um bartenders who was on the early brother show she became a a Spirits brand ambassador as as well and she had a background in musical theater right so I'm wondering you know how do you see this time that you spent in in theater the time you

[12:33] spent earning a theater degree how do you see its impact on your overall career progression is you mentioned it kind of well you know you need something else I'm wondering is that the only way that it ever impacted you this is an excellent question and I think it gets to the root of so many struggles in many careers today and that really comes down to communication and understanding how people think and how to connect with others theater absolutely teaches about connecting with

[13:09] your audience and that's real important you want to take them on a journey you want to control their emotions and guide what direction their journey goes so many of the careers that exist today you learn a new language I've heard that in medicine in your first two years you'll learn 50 000 words about medicine and yet the human usually only uses about 1800 words in a year and has a lexicon of about 12 000 words the total amount your total language is about 12 000 words and we learn fifty thousand so I don't think

[13:46] that it's doctors don't want to communicate with their people they've just their patients or Engineers or lawyers it's just when we learn a new language and we speak that language day in and day out it almost becomes hard to remember our native language the time I spent in theater which really learned about that connecting with people and how to take them on a journey I have never lost that thought when I worked in sales in the dive shock it was very important to learn who your client is learn who your customer is and be

[14:22] able to connect them and understand what their real needs are and what they're really looking for it's not about making a sale it's about taking your customer and getting them to what they really want and what they really need and then you have that happy that happy joining when I worked for the film and television Studios I was doing paramedicine pre-hospital care but still needed to be able to communicate and be able to help people understand what their what they're dealing with and then becoming a physician again what is one

[14:57] of the hardest things that we find in medicine is doctors speak and medspeak and they speak in a way that their patients don't always understand them and I never gave up that ability to connect that ability to to help people along this Trail and so as a physician as a caregiver I've made sure I speak in plain clear English that anyone can understand but I think that is why theater has helped so many people in their careers it's just that understanding and not giving up that

[15:32] communication that connection yeah I mean and and that that's so interesting I I wouldn't have thought about it in that context and yet it makes all the sense in the world I will say that one of the challenges for example people coming out of the military has is like with medicine law Etc you have this whole language and people have a hard time communicating with you know their fellow civilians now right um and it occurs to me that one of the recommendations I can make is for them take a an acting class

[16:07] where basically you're immersed in this environment where you have to learn to connect and communicate with this other person and you have to be you you're you're taking yourself somewhat out of yourself if you will right you have to sort of be this other room yeah yeah um another question I have is several times you mentioned that you volunteered to do things that then later you were able to engage in professionally so what led you to volunteer and to devote your

[16:42] time you know for no compensation right that's what volunteering is what led you to do that that I mean was there a sense that sometime in the future you might you know do this professionally or how what guided you through your volunteer work I guess is is the question foreign question because this is something that I really struggle with in society today how volunteerism doesn't play the same role in so many people's lives that it

[17:18] did when when you and I were younger I did grow up with with a family who was committed to volunteerism whether it was active in the church active in in my father was very active in child abuse centers and trying to help non-profits uh succeed there so I saw what that the importance and understood the role that volunteerism can play in other people's lives but also I learned early on the rewards

[17:55] that come with volunteerism I was very passionate about teaching we met you were volunteering at a CPR training center and I saw the enjoyment that you got out of teaching in that scenario and thought wow that could benefit my life um I was still in high school so I wasn't in a situation where I needed to work or where that would compete with earnings and I thought gee I would like

[18:30] to be able to do this to share to give other people the ability to Save a Life and really saw how much that added to my life and not only the rewards of the teaching but the rewards of teaching for other than monetary purposes in college the ambulance service that I worked for you volunteered your time you got paid when you were on a call so again I knew that the community needed an ambulance service and it couldn't afford to staff 24 7 365 paying

[19:09] paramedics what they're worth so if it weren't for volunteers then the community would be hurt so I did that and then all of the sudden that put me in a situation where I got to know security usually because it was trying to get out of parking tickets because when responding to calls I would park wherever I needed to park but all of the sudden they offered to pay me to teach their guards CPR so it it is something that I did it because I wanted to and because the

[19:45] rewards were personal but just saying yes to opportunity other opportunities presented as I guess good karma if you will that came out of it the time I spent at the Catalina hyperbaric chamber I was just very passionate about first aid and about diving and wow I could go work at this facility as a volunteer but I could learn I could improve my diving medicine skills through my time there I got to be a diving medical technician and actually

[20:21] made contacts that got me involved with LA County Sheriff's department and their dive team so now I was in a situation where I was doing something that I enjoyed that I felt passionate about but it also helped me learn to put me in a better situation when professional opportunities came along and honestly I had no idea when I joined the hyperbaric chamber that it would help guide me on this path to diving medicine but I met and worked with someone a physician Dr Jeff sipsy unfortunately he's passed away but who

[20:57] probably has treated more scuba diving accidents than virtually anybody else in the world and so having that contact having that ability to learn from someone of that level because of a volunteer opportunity was just incredible and that's this whole just say yes to Opportunities because you don't realize where they're going to take you but if you have passion for it if it's something that gives you rewards you're not going to lose you only stand to gain from it so it again you know interesting earlier

[21:34] today um I I was speaking to a a service member I I volunteer for this organization called veterati and basically what they do is they connect people coming out of the military with people who are already out who can mentor them and what I find is you know the people I speak to are are very grateful that you know I will take my time right to to speak to them and and I said to the the young man that I was talking to earlier today I said I said I I you're welcome sincerely so I said I think what you

[22:13] know you and the people I speak to through veterati don't understand is I get at least as much out of these conversations as you do the the kind of enthusiasm that that he has for this transition that he's going into and and how he sees the potential of his life now he's I I would guess he's probably in his late 20s it's it's it's really it really gives you a a boost right to talk to them and and I found that that was the case throughout like you I I grew up in a family where you volunteered to do stuff my dad did

[22:49] all his life um and I've I especially with teaching I find I I seem to get more out of it than the students do which either means I'm a terrible teacher right or um uh or or I think there's there's something sort of you know emotionally or spiritually satisfying in in helping someone learn something new and seeing that light go on and that kind of thing right and and there's I think there's lots of when we think of volunteering now I think it's too often volunteering for some kind of cause and and I'm not sure if that's the most

[23:26] nourishing kind of volunteering that we can do um just volunteering for the sake of helping other people seems to me to be more aware I'm just I'm curious if you have any thoughts on on that that is actually fascinating when you talk about volunteering for a cause because you said that it's like wow I think about television shows or or like you said volunteerism today and so much of it you're right it is for a Cause I also find that sometimes people

[24:04] choose a cause because it makes them feel like they're part of something when they may or may not really believe in it or have a stake in it we come from a time where volunteerism was more of a norm and you volunteered because you want to help out you want to give back I think you talk about teaching are you a bad teacher well I'm sure there's a few people walking around there because of the CPR that I perform that show that you are not a bad teacher in any way shape or form um and I have to agree I don't volunteer for a

[24:42] cause per se I'm trying to think of any causes that I've really gotten involved with and I haven't it's programs that I believe in things where I can help others teaching wow you're right that the sense of reward that you get when that light goes on when you can share a passion or build a passion in someone there's nothing like it and if I could do that if I didn't it'd be great to not have to need to work so then I you know not have to earn money it's wonderful the emphasis of the show but we all know that we do and yes I

[25:17] earn money so that I can continue to volunteer and not volunteer for a cause but volunteer for a people for a person for helping others yeah yeah so one of the other through points I I I think I picked up on in your story is uh um I don't know if it's a drive if that's too strong a word but certainly it seems to me growing or having opportunities to grow and I think not just professionally but

[25:52] you know holistically as a human being that seems to be um a consistent theme in in your professional career so how does that strike you I mean am I picking up on something and and and let me just add to that real quickly if it is was that intentional or is is that something that just kind of happened how did that play into um you know your your you know your career up up to this point your second question I think is the more

[26:27] powerful one we say was that intentional it's fascinating so the gentleman that I work with at the Catalina hyperbaric chamber Carol Huggins he's the program manager there he has seen me from the conceited little Williams graduate who uh got the scholarship and and you've known this all along too who wow look at me I'm great I got this scholarship to getting beat down enough times in life to becoming a physician and and onward and it's fascinating as I look back too

[27:03] you asked these opportunities this desire for growth is that intentional the answer is no That Never Was though it's something that I know is part of me and I love to learn and so the just say yes to opportunity just say yes to learning just say yes to trying something new and not everything that one tries one necessarily likes I mean I don't know if you've ever gone skydiving again after the time we went back in the early 90s but once was twice

[27:39] twice was enough you know I I didn't need to continue that although I'm really glad I did because how many people have I talked about skydiving too absolutely this desire to learn and try and grow as a person is something that's inherent in me and I think it's really inherent in most people I think that that we really want to learn people are passionate about it if you look at preschoolers preschoolers don't shy away from finger paints they want to touch they want to feel they want to explore so it's in our

[28:14] bodies it's in our nature but then Society sometimes pushes it down we get jobs where we're told just do your job how many of your listeners have been told that at some point that's not part of your job just do your job I've even been told that at times within NASA but at least if I come back and say well I understand this is outside of my scope but in order for me to do my job the best I can I need to learn more than just my job I think that was also as I

[28:50] say this one of the reasons why I went to medical school I was renewing my diving medical technician my DMT cert and I had a paramedic who was a lecturer out of a dive School in in Long Long Beach and I sat thinking wow this gentleman is one of the best lecturers I've heard but also it's very clear that his knowledge scope is really bounded by the paramedic scope of practice and I wanted to know more I heard him and I saw his passion but I wanted to take that a step further

[29:25] and the only way I could do that is to learn more and to grow more and to go to medical school so I think that that it's there that drive is there and I just didn't realize it as I look back and I think my goodness here look at my career I was teaching here I was running a CPR training center I was working for the film and television Studios and I have a degree in theater how does this all tie together last week I was in the desert in Arizona where I was working as a medical monitor when we were doing some work looking at

[30:00] lunar rover operations working with Japanese Aerospace agency because they're wanting to build a lunar rover for the Artemis program and I realized what was I doing I was doing exactly what I did for the film and television Studios event medicine but at a much higher level because now I'm a physician and I have much more knowledge and experience and yet we're doing this for something that we're planning on and dreaming about and envisioning theater when I was in theater I had we were I was at the Metropolitan Opera Philip Glass was

[30:36] commissioned to do a piece called The Voyage celebrating the 500th anniversary of Columbus's discovery of the new world it was a futuristic piece the designers wanted to learn about the space program so I brought the team here to NASA this is before I even thought about working at Nasa and had a red carpet treatment and we got to learn about the future of the lunar Mars project and here I am working on a lunar and a Mars project so even my time at the Metropolitan Opera is directly related to what I'm doing

[31:11] now so it's fascinating as I look back there is no question that everything was about building up to be where I am now um and I don't think that it's that it's coincidental obviously I've been able to follow a passion and take learn from all these different opportunities take advantage of these different opportunities and bring it together and just from trial and error and Kevin you know I've had quite a few jobs in my day

[31:46] but it's from trial and error that I found the right job and the right fit that has pulled in all of these opportunities and experiences yeah so this that that leads into uh my next question which is it seems to me that um you haven't hesitated to do what I think many people would consider to be take steps back at times where either I don't know you saw you were going in a particular direction and didn't like that or or you you somehow

[32:24] they they almost sound strategic and yet again what was the context that allowed you because I know this for myself I find it very hard to think about uh you know I'm at a certain position in my life now the idea that I'm going to do something you know less prestigious or whatever it can has at times really been difficult for me to deal with and yet it seems like you've done that rather seamlessly so I'm wondering if you would talk about that aspect of of your professional life that is an amazing a great direction to go and I

[33:00] think that that we should take some time to talk about that taking a step back less prestigious those are some words you used and those words have very negative connotations there's no question in in society and in our thought processes and that's that's something that I think we need to learn to break from that taking a step back doesn't necessarily mean failure

[33:35] doing something that's not right that isn't right for you doesn't necessarily mean failure I had mentioned there was a period of time where I followed a paycheck and took a job that I thought was the title of my dreams thought it was the right job for me and it was a terrible fit the number of people I worked with who would literally open up and be in tears telling me about how how unhappy they were with their jobs but they had somehow convinced themselves that they had to stay

[34:11] and that's really unfortunate I think that if we understand that that learning isn't always succeeding isn't always doing the right thing I we both laughed and smiled at skydiving we tried it we didn't like it but yet we both are very passionate about scuba diving and really enjoy that both of its diving so trying something

[34:46] that you don't like is just as important as trying something that you do like let's think about Foods and I had Indian for lunch um this wonderful Himalayan restaurant it's new it's a young group of people that tried to make it in a different restaurant came and formed this one I think it's it's wonderful I like going there I'm I like their story but I also really like their food for many years in my life I said oh I don't like Indian food but yet I'd never tried it and then I was in in New Zealand

[35:23] going down to Antarctica one time and the group went and I had a choice I could take my belief that I didn't care for a cuisine or and miss out on a meal with a really fun group of people that certainly have impacted my life or I could just bite the bullet and just whatever they're going to serve me they're gonna serve me and I'll just go for it and I learned that I really did like this Cuisine it's it's an incredible Cuisine with tons of flavors and each dish is wonderful

[35:58] flavors and spice that's spice for flavor not heat for the sake of heat and so again it's that it's okay to try and fail if we take the opportunity to learn from that experience and so yes I've stepped back but it's not stepped back it's stepping back to the highway you take this Branch The Road Less Traveled and if the load Rush travels leads to a dead end you just turn around go to the highway and go to the next off-ramp and so I don't necessarily think of that as as a bad

[36:34] thing and as I look back every job opportunity every career every job that I've been fired from whether it's getting fired from the movie Castaway or or from a dive shop or taking a job that wasn't the right fit when I when I was in in Minnesota these things have all helped me grow because I've taken the opportunity to learn from those experiences as I've moved forward in my career um I mean it's

[37:10] you know we've known each other for a long long time and it's so it's it's um it's extremely valuable to hear how my how the things I say and the thoughts that I have are you how you process them so you know when I say you know taking a step back I I don't I didn't I can hear how that sounds negative when you say it um and yeah I'm not I and so then I have to think about this you know obviously in

[37:47] some ways I'm processing it as a negative thing and yet I don't tend to look at life in in that kind of negative way right so I think we sometimes we're not even aware of how loaded the words that we're using are with respect to how we we craft Our Lives no question and that's that's that exact point that I'm getting at is it right we we have to take steps back you you take a step forward you hit a wall you can't move forward so you have to take a step back so that you can move forward in another Direction and I agree and I understand

[38:24] how you visualize that and where the words what what was intended by the question but as we sit and listen to those words you know we have to realize what the impact means and yet that impact isn't a bad thing when we talk about life in general Foods Cuisines tasting gee I don't care much for mustard that's okay I don't like mustard on my ham sandwiches but it's a good thing that I've tried it I never knew that about you I've got like 10 mustards in my refrigerator I

[38:59] love mustard there you go but it's it's great in in the sloppy joe mix that we make at home you need mustard and it's great in a lot of different you know as a spice but it's not on my ham sandwiches okay there you go well you don't have to worry about me serving that when you come over so true to what you're doing now um I mean the idea of working with astronauts to walk you

[39:35] know on another planet or or walk in space I mean on some level it's just so mind-blowing to to even think about doing that and then to be the one who I was like I don't know if anyone I've ever spoken to said when I grow up I want to teach astronauts to be able to walk in space right it's just it's not in anybody's kin to do that so talk to me if you would but but how did you you mentioned you know you you this opportunity kind of came along but how is it that you had it in your your

[40:13] uh some that only have a Yiddish word kishkas how did you have it inside of you to think I can do this and there's no school you go to as far as I know you know training to you know school to train people to walk you know on the moon so talk talk to talk to me about that I'm I'm very curious about that so first of all I am I am a physician and I make sure they do things healthy I don't actually do the training directly although there is some training that I am directly involved in and it's interesting because so many of the young

[40:48] people that I work with did grow up always saying I want to work with the space program I want to be a trainer for the space program and they do and they study aerospace engineering and so there are pathways but those people obviously are few and far between that are the pathways that say from day one this is what I want to be and I mean let me ask you this Kevin when when we were young and having our our youthful Antics together would you have thought gee I want to host a a YouTube TV show or a YouTube

[41:26] YouTube video show and podcast and I'm gonna have such a good following that I'm going to have 100 my 100th episode is going to be with a good friend of mine I mean who would have thought of that YouTube didn't even exist when when we were in college so there is no question that it's more about these opportunities and learning what's out there I went to a high school where you were a doctor lawyer politician movie star or disappointment those were your five choices

[42:01] it's all right that's I mean I I know lots of high schools like that right right exactly and yet the careers that are out there um I I mentioned this earlier my wife was a crime scene investigator for LAPD there's a whole TV show a whole not only TV show but a whole franchise of TV shows that's about crime scene investigation but we didn't know about it when we were growing up so this is one of the frustrations that I have in our educational world that we don't get exposed to all these incredible opportunities that are out there and I

[42:37] think more people would be passionate about the Space Program if we did do a better job of of exposing them now I'll admit I had the seed planted early on in medical school when I wanted to do a diving medicine rotation line love diving I wanted to learn more about diving medicine but no one wanted Med students they only wanted residents because of the insurance that the malpractice insurance will be realistic this is the world we live in you want to touch a patient you need malpractice insurance so that you know the med schools they pay for the malpractice

[43:12] insurance the residencies when you're a resident you come with that so okay I couldn't do diving medicine but I really love the physics of diving so yeah can't go down might as well go up look into space medicine and lo and behold there was a clerkship a month-long training program in Aerospace medicine at Johnson Space Center well I'll go ahead and apply to that very competitive but I had taken enough opportunities learned enough about I'll use the word alternberic change in pressure so this is high pressure

[43:47] environments that all of a sudden they're like oh well be very interested in having you come work in our program and got to spend a month with one of the probably foremost decompression researchers in the country at the time Johnny concham and looking at gender differences and decompression risk and really had a great opportunity and took this further forward to help me get involved in Aerospace medicine and learn about this whole field that existed and I had no idea this even existed even in medical school there wasn't really in my

[44:23] in my school there wasn't an aerospace medicine residence and Med students interest group talked about certainly wasn't a diving medicine interest group either and I tried but I couldn't get anyone interested besides me um so learning about these things it was always there and always ah this is great this is so fascinating but I had this drive in this direction that I should be going and Diving medicine so it was always like this just this little voice in my head said don't forget don't forget and I was having a very tiresome

[45:00] frustrating day at uh in in Minnesota and thinking I just wonder what jobs are out there let's just let's just Daydream you know let's not except that my future may not be one that brings me joy and happiness and have time for family time for volunteerism and lo and behold there was a job posting NASA was looking for flight surgeons and so I of course applied even though I had a job went well you know

[45:35] what the heck I'm frustrated I might as well just send an application a couple days later I had another very frustrating day and I'm like let's just Daydream and I couldn't find that ad anymore it was nowhere so right I looked all over for like did I dream this I mean I go into my email I sent out an application and so once again this take advantage of opportunities wow if I didn't apply that day that night even though I had a job even though I wasn't certain I would be leaving

[46:10] uh this opportunity never would have come up but it did and I sent it in and nine months later there's stories there I ended up moving to Houston and starting with NASA so I think that a lot of it really just comes to you don't always know where things are going to be but try learn see what excites you see what you're passionate about because honestly there's nothing more that that we can ask for in a job than to have passion for it and it may be 10 years down the road yeah

[46:45] so I want to shift gears on you a little bit I have another um very long-standing friend of mine on the show a few months ago he happens to be in the business World um and um I I know Christine is not here his his he he was actually on a trip with his wife so his wife joined us in the meeting and I I actually had known her um I met her shortly before I met him they weren't they weren't married at the time and they've really had um a remarkable marriage partnership

[47:21] um for gosh I think 40 some odd years at this point um and and look I've known you and Christine while I was at your wedding right so I've known you really your whole your whole married life and I I I'm wondering if you would talk a little bit about what is it like to lead what I think some people would call a somewhat peripatetic life while you're married right so you have this other person in your life that you have to be concerned about who's

[47:57] um happiness at least in part rests with the decisions you make for your own life not to not to mention Kimmy right before you have a child um Kimi will eventually grow up and leave the nest right and and but you know presumably you know with our spouses we're that's hopefully going to be you know enduring so which which you talk about how you I'm not looking to get into any personal stuff of course but how do you contextualize making sure that you're fulfilling

[48:32] yourself while at the same time keeping your marriage intact because I think a lot of married people struggle with that in general I think just a lot of married people struggle what percentage of marriages don't don't succeed and I think a big part of that is do we really know who we are at 22 26 28 whatever age it is because again let's

[49:07] be realistic most first marriages are likely in the 20s and so I think that's probably one of the biggest issues is if we don't know who we are and wow we discover who we are and it's in Conflict when our our partner discovers who he or she is that can just create a lot of strife in this in in my case Christine was someone who had an invent who has an adventurous Spirit as well

[49:42] we met scuba diving we didn't meet in a bar we didn't meet um in you know not that there's anything negative about meeting in church but Church brings so many different people together that yes they have a basic Foundation but they might be very different people so we met in in somewhat unusual setting to be she also worked in law enforcement she was a crime scene investigator so she had this

[50:19] this other side tour where she did take call where she was working some at weekends and holidays so she already had a job that meant I always had to share her with a job so that helps when all of a sudden she has to share me with a job as well we started dating three months after we started dating I went down to Antarctica for three months in a time when there was no just picking up a phone it was ten dollars a minute if you needed to make a call so they wanted a

[50:54] phone calls and it was three weeks to send mail back and forth so we already from the very beginning had to have an understanding about that she has an adventurous Spirit let's talk about going to medical school because things became very different when all of a sudden you need to pack up your life move halfway across the country and all of the sudden have a job medical school but a a job that takes up

[51:30] 200 300 400 of your life and there just isn't room for another person that is a very hard time and there are many marriages that don't succeed medical school graduate school in general for that reason so when when it was decided that indeed I wanted to go to medical school and I had this opportunity in Chicago I sat down and I said with her okay if we're going to do this if we're going to uproot your life you need to write down your goals and

[52:05] present and let me see them let's put them on paper let's let's make it important and she thought whatever her professional goals and she gave me a list and so now it became not only my responsibility to myself but my responsibility is part of this relationship to see to it that I support her goals happening as well as mine now at the time she thought they were somewhat lofty goals but because she also has an adventurous spirit and willing to say yes to opportunity not

[52:42] quite at the level that I do not the insanity of my life but she was willing to at least try that all of a sudden in the next five years she achieved every single one of her goals and then some now that presented its own problem and what do we do next but um it really kept things going and helped our relationship remain very strong because I could help her I could at least introduce her to people that could help make her opportunities come true

[53:17] and it the the medical school I went to was the perfect medical school for her to come in and get a research position and she got her own Grant and got to do work and then got recognized to the National Justice and got to do some internet some national even it's an international training and teaching and work and so really it was a partnership and never forgetting that that relationship is a partnership and we've been able to do that but not only professionally but also on personal lives too um this summer my daughter wanted to take a leadership

[53:52] course through scouting she's involved in Scout's BSA and of course we're going to support that but then we find ourselves for a week without a child what did we do we went down to Mexico and took a cave diving course which is probably getting to some of the most extreme technical dieting out there and our final dive we went a mile deep underground underwater for over 140 minutes where we used more air than you could even carry with two tanks we take a third tank and you drop it off halfway in the cave and continue on with the two tanks come back pick it up to find your

[54:28] way out so it's also making sure that I I listen to her listen to her needs and that we're a partnership and that we find where our interests and passions merge and come together and follow them together [Music] so you know it and as I'm listening to you talk about I've lost you are you hearing me yes I am sorry uh for some reason your sound is kicked off let me make sure that nothing's happened on my end nope I'm still having sound

[55:05] um let's check your microphone for a moment and my apologies to the viewers my my mic shows that I'm I'm definitely not hearing you okay your lips move but I can't hear what they're saying okay I guess I shouldn't cite uh songs you know now you're gonna have to call ASCAP and give them rights right there you go so not sure how we want to handle this do you want me to log out and log back in do you want to we're um we're almost we're almost done we've only got four minutes so that's

[55:41] okay so I'm just I'm gonna wrap up anyway oh you're gonna wrap everything up okay well thank you um I'm gonna read lips as best I can and turn it over to you Kevin stay here with me um what I want to make one observation unfortunately you can't hear it um but I'll share it with um the the viewers one of the through ideas for if if you listen carefully to how Bob has spoken about his career and his marriage is the value he places on relationships and it is something that I am I do my

[56:18] best to emphasize in this show as well I I think that you can see that Bob's success as a professional and as a husband and father all boils down to how he values people and relationships with people it's one of the reasons why we've been friends for I think over four decades now um we we both have that and so that's kind of a a parting a parting idea for all of you I I wish I wish Bob could have could hear this I'm gonna I'm gonna put in the chat

[56:53] um uh this is what I put in the chat was what I was just commenting on some why don't you uh maybe give us just give us a minute we can hear you so just give us uh two minutes

[57:46] right yep yep so that's right I don't have to respond by typing my apologies really the opportunities the growth that I've had in my career even this new position really are exactly what we talked about in the first episode and just saying yes to opportunity but understanding that we don't live in a bubble and friends are there to help us taking advantage not taking advantage taking the opportunity to say yes to the help that friends may offer so many of

[58:23] us want to do things ourselves I remember my daughter growing up I can do it Daddy I can do it myself coming out of the military many people who have who have built their careers and working with people I see they really feel she I want to do this on my own I need to do this on my own somehow we've gotten into the idea that asking for help or taking advantage of help is a sign of weakness and it's not it's a sign of strength we talked a lot about volunteerism the rewards we get from helping others that's when you when you ask for help you give

[59:00] somebody else an opportunity to succeed as well and so it's not a sign of weakness it's a sign of strength it's a sign of community it's a sign of being open to relationships it's a sign of being open to others and together we have these opportunities I'd say that that my jobs my life my world has has been that sort of merger of coming together well and and I'm gonna I'm gonna let that be the the final words because that segues beautifully I always sign off saying the same thing paying tribute to

[59:37] a friend of mine who helped me and I helped her it was one of the most wonderful mutually supportive relationships I ever had and that is to say Marie darling you are still my vow so please join us join me next week um for for the way to wow show uh again um 12 30 p.m Pacific Time 3 30 p.m Eastern Time thank you even though you can't hear me to to my guests Dr Bob Sanders it's just always just so great to to talk to you and and a lot of times when

[60:12] we're just talking we don't talk about these kind of things we just talk about our lives kind of what's going on so it's it's wonderful to have these with you and and look forward to just catching up with you again um real soon give my best to Christine and Kimmy and have a wonderful rest of the week Bob and and for all of you out there thanks so much and I'm not sure we're still on but thank you thank you for this opportunity the recording has I it told me the recording has stopped I hear that I don't know what happened they just silenced you yeah I maybe not

[60:50] with that thing you know if I had the power to silence you that would that'd be kind of powerful I kind of like that but uh yeah it doesn't work like that in life does it it does but I think we pulled it off we did thank you thanks I enjoyed it and that was really good I think that was uh a good secondary one where we spent a little less time talking about hard work and more about opportunities I like that I think that went very very nice questions it was great thank you good I'm glad you liked it take care my friend we'll talk soon