Show Notes

• The deadliest disease, and it’s largely preventable
• Screenings and checkups
• The role of diet and exercise in the prevention of heart disease
• Why metabolic equivalents (METS) matter
• Tests to assess risk of heart disease
• Exploring the secrets of superachievers
• 3 foundational factors
• Barry’s goal in writing “GPS for Success”
• Time management for superachievers

Connect With Barry Franklin

✩ Website: https://drbarryfranklin.com 

✩ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-barry-franklin-phd-9a4b04168/

Additional Resources

Book: GPS for Success: Skills, Strategies, and Secrets of Superachievers

Summary

Dr. Barry Franklin is Director of Preventive Cardiology and Cardiac Rehabilitation at Corewell Health. He is a prolific author and speaker, and has been engaged for the past four decades in the study of highly successful people in all walks of life. Barry discusses what each of us can do to prevent cardiovascular disease, and shares the secrets of superachievers from his latest book, “GPS for Success.”

Full Transcript

Brian  

Welcome to another episode of LifeExcellence with Brian Bartes. Join me as I talk with amazing athletes, entrepreneurs, authors, entertainers, and others who have achieved excellence in their chosen field so you can learn their tools, techniques and strategies for improving performance and achieving greater success. 

Dr. Barry Franklin is Director of Preventive Cardiology and Cardiac Rehabilitation at Corewell Health (formerly known as Beaumont Health) in Royal Oak, Michigan; and is a professor of physiology and internal medicine. His research interests include the prevention of heart disease, cardiovascular risk reduction, obesity and metabolism, exercise testing and lifestyle medicine. Dr. Franklin is also a prolific author and speaker. He has written or edited nearly 700 publications, including 547 papers, 100 book chapters and 27 books. He has also narrated 42 educational videos since 1976, he has given over one thousand presentations around the world, both within and outside the medical profession. In addition to his primary vocation in medicine, Barry has been engaged for the past four decades in the study of highly successful people in all walks of life. He has presented his findings in a college course, and an escalating number of media and speaking invitations and commencement addresses at major universities. Most recently, Barry published his 27th book titled “GPS for Success: Skills, Strategies and Secrets of Super Achievers.” I’m super excited for this conversation, and I’m thrilled to have him on the show. Welcome, Barry, and thanks for joining us on LifeExcellence

Barry  

Brian, thanks for the invitation. I follow your work as well. This should be a real kick tonight working on this spotlight, so to speak.

Brian  

Well, I’m looking forward to it. I look at the show as a double feature, which is unusual, actually, for our podcasts, because I definitely want to discuss your research on super achievers. But of course, I’d be remiss if we didn’t talk about heart health. I think many of us know someone who has had a cardiac event, maybe a fatal cardiac event; I certainly have. The frustration that I have, Barry, is that heart disease is largely preventable. How is it that even though we know more than ever about heart disease and prevention, cardiovascular diseases are still the leading cause of death not just in the United States, but globally. I’ve got a couple statistics. According to the CDC, one person dies every 33 seconds in the United States from cardiovascular disease, and the World Health Organization reports that an estimated 17.9 million deaths occur globally each year. Where’s the disconnect between education and action?

Barry  

Brian, your question is an excellent one and I’ve been doing this since my hair was black so this goes back a lot of years. You’re exactly right. Coronary disease is largely preventable. The best statistics indicate that of every 500 individuals, only one to five – and no more – really have a genetic predisposition to develop coronary artery disease. So you’re exactly right. It’s largely preventable. Cardiovascular disease is the major killer and crippler in our society; we have about 800,000 heart attacks every year, many are fatal. We also have more than 300,000 what we call sudden cardiac deaths – your friend is here today and gone tomorrow. That high risk group, by the way, is men 55 to 65 years of age. I think a major important factor is people need to know their numbers. We now know unequivocally that risk factors predispose to acute coronary events or heart attacks. In fact, 75-90% of all heart attacks are now explained by existing risk factors so that’s critically important. If you say, Barry, so what’s the take home message? The take home message is – I tell my patients – know your numbers. In other words, what’s critical? Diabetes, what’s your glucose? What’s your hemoglobin A1-C which of course tells the doctor, over three months, how good is your blood sugar. Are you hypertensive, are you obese? We look at BMI. BMI, as you well know, above 30 indicates obesity, but above 35, a markedly heightened risk for cardiac events. In sudden cardiac death, we have good news and that good news is even for the overweight and obese individuals. If they lose just 5% of their body weight, there are substantial health benefits. Smoking, cigarette smoking…if you said to me, Barry, what’s number one? I would say number one would be cigarette smoking. In other words, lifetime smokers lose on average, Brian, 10-12 years. It’s not weeks, that’s not months, that’s years, off their life by cigarette smoking. Just living with a cigarette smoker has a 30% greater likelihood of developing coronary disease. Cholesterol, cholesterol is critically important. My mentor Bill Roberts recently passed away at 92, director of the Baylor Heart Institute, said to me on a plane trip one time, Barry, remember the rule of 40? And I said, what’s that, Dr. Roberts? And he said for every 40 points you lower your cholesterol, you cut your risk in half. So Brian, if your cholesterol is 280, and you take it down to 240, you cut your risk in half of a heart of heart attack, if you take it from 240, down to 200, you cut your risk, and if you take it from 200 to 160, you’ve cut your risk in half again. We also have powerful drugs today, statins, that can lower cholesterol markedly. If you’re intolerant to statins, there is a new drug called PCSK9 inhibitors that lowered the bad LDL cholesterol by about 50%, lower mortality by about 50%. And last but not least, we want your fitness to be higher, if possible, above what we call five METs and we’ll talk about this later in the discussion. But above five METs markedly reduces the risk of acute coronary events. So those are the key things. Last but not least, bad genes double the risk of acute coronary events – f you pick the wrong parents, double the risk. On the other hand, a favorable lifestyle cuts it in half. So I now tell patients combine lifestyle, combine it with pharmaco-therapies and remember the ten most empowering two letter words – if it is to be, it is up to me – you the patient.

Brian  

Barry, you’ve devoted your entire medical career to preventative cardiology and cardiac rehabilitation. I love that you’re talking about prevention rather than talking about treating after a cardiac event, or treating disease with drugs after the fact. I love the idea. I’ve known about you for a long time and it’s always impressed me that you are focused on prevention rather than treatment. So you had a whole list of things that we ought to be doing. Help us to understand because I think a lot of people don’t go to the doctor, they maybe don’t even have a primary care physician. But they’re certainly not as preventative oriented as you are, so what should we be doing in terms of screenings and checkups? Again, you’ve mentioned some things. I’m talking about timing of certain tests or timing of screenings. At what age should we really begin this regimen? You gave a statistic that actually hit kind of close to home when you said 55-65, because I won’t say my age, but let’s say I fall on the lower side of that range. Help us to understand more specifically what it is that we should be doing and when.

Barry  

Well, I think the most important thing is a regular physical exam. On that regular physical exam, Brian, you’re going to get blood chemistry studies, you’re going to get an EKG, you’re going to get blood pressure measured. Those studies provide tremendous insights in terms of an individual’s risk for cardiovascular disease. I think it’s also important to note, I see patients every day, and a lot of times I’ll see a guy 60-65 say I don’t have heart disease; unfortunately, I know the research. The research…two major studies say if you’re over 50…one study said 45% of the people have underlying heart disease. Another study from the Cleveland Clinic said 85%. In other words, if you grew up on Ben and Jerry’s and McDonald’s and so on and so forth – with those dietary habits – you’re at much greater risk, no question about it. So recognize that if you’re over 50 in the US, you’ve probably got underlying heart disease even though you have no major symptoms. Recognize genetics does play a role, recognize that favorable lifestyle cuts the risk in half.

Brian  

So we’re in agreement that cardiovascular disease is largely preventable and that we can at least mitigate the risk of cardiovascular disease through lifestyle. What can we do in terms of diet and exercise to prevent heart disease?

Barry  

Whenever I meet with patients, the first thing I say is a positive thing. I’d like you to eat six to eight servings of fruits or veggies every day and number two, don’t leave the breakfast table unless you’ve had two servings. So if you said to me, Barry, what did you have this morning? I had Cheerios with some blueberries on it. I had a glass of V-8 vegetable juice, low sodium, and I had a banana. I left the breakfast table, Brian, with three of the minimum six servings that we’re talking about. Drink more water. Eat fish, chicken, turkey. Ideally, the piece of meat should be the size of your palm, it shouldn’t be this big. It should be very, very small complemented with cauliflower, broccoli, carrots, and so on and so forth. Avoid sugar sweetened beverages, avoid even diet colas, drink more water. Stay away from processed meats. Bill Roberts, editor of AJC, who I mentioned earlier, said we fatten our cows and pigs, we kill them, we eat them, and then they kill us – how sobering. Stay away from fatty meats. Too much salt is not good. I have some patients who say well, I don’t salt the food. My answer is 75-80% of the salt you eat is already in the food so it’s important for you or your wife or spouse to look at labels. Here’s a simple rule, Brian, look at the calories per serving, look at the milligrams of salt. A really healthy food has about the same number. Let me give you an example. I’ll eat Skinny-pop popcorn. It’s 150 calories per serving, 110 milligrams of salt, it’s a fairly good food along those lines. Stay away from excessive amounts of alcohol. Stay away from bakery goods – cookies, cakes, pies, paczki, donuts, cinnamon rolls – all that stuff contains trans fats, which in my humble opinion is the worst kind of fat, even worse than in meat. So those are probably the key things. Salads are great, but you can ruin a salad with Roquefort or blue cheese dressing. You want to use vinaigrette or you want to use oil and vinegar. Relative to your question on exercise, we now know 30 minutes of moderate intensity exercise on most days of the week can reduce the risk of cardiac events by up to 50%. If you want to do more vigorous exercise, don’t start with that, but gradually start with walking and gradually increase the intensity; 20 minutes of vigorous exercise three to four days a week is just enough. Always use a warm-up. Always use a cool-down. We recommend people use what’s called perceived exertion. That’s a chart that goes from six to 20. Ideally we want you ranking the exercise as fairly light to somewhat hard, it shouldn’t feel hard or very hard, complement that with flexibility, with resistance training. Recognize that for the average person starting an exercise program – this is critically important, Brian – you want to be training above three METs, that’s multiples of the resting metabolic rate. So you and I talking here today are each at one MET, you say very well, what is three METs? Three METs is equivalent to walking on the flat at three miles an hour. Or if you say well, that’s too fast for me, walking at two miles an hour up a three and a half percent grade. That gets you out of the high risk group, what we call the bottom 20%, the least fit, the least active, the highest risk subset. And last but not least, exercise is most dangerous or risky for the person with known heart disease or hidden heart disease, who once a year or once every decade, goes out and plays vigorous racquetball or goes out to shovel his driveway full of heavy wet snow. It’s that sporadic unaccustomed high intensity exercise in somebody with known or hidden heart disease, the relative risk of a cardiac event can increase more than a hundred fold. Those are the keys.

Brian  

Yeah, and I appreciate that. There’s a lot there both on the diet side and and on the fitness side. As you were talking, I was thinking about how contrary everything that you were saying is to how the average American lives. I think in many respects, you’re preaching to the choir with our audience. Our listeners and viewers, I think, tend to be healthy and fit and they’re developing themselves both personally and professionally. But there’s a very large segment of the population, no pun intended, that isn’t engaging in a healthy lifestyle, whether we’re talking about diet or fitness. I’m sure you encounter a lot of those folks because they end up coming to you post cardiac event. How do we go from the couch, or the recovery after a cardiac event, to the lifestyle that you were talking about for the last few minutes?

Barry  

I think for the most part, we’ve got to make it simpler and we’ve got to put greater responsibility on the part of the patient. Brian, I see people all the time say I see the best cardiologist…everybody’s got the best cardiologist in the city, and I say, how often do you see him or her? They go, I only go see him once a year for my regular appointment. And my answer is, how long do you spend with him? Well, I spend usually 20-30 minutes in the office; some time with the PA, some time with the nurse clinician, and then usually five, eight, ten minutes with the doctor. My answer is, what are you doing 16 waking hours a day, seven days a week? Because that’s far more important than the five or eight or 12 minutes you spend with a doctor per se. The other problem in medicine today is many doctors see 12-20 patients a day. Many, on a bad day can see 40 or 50 patients, they can write a script to increase the cholesterol medication, they can recommend a diagnostic study, but they’re not doing the diet, the exercise or smoking cessation. Those are things that the patient has to take responsibility for. You heard it first here, I predict, increasingly, health care providers will put greater responsibility on the part of the patient; you’re responsible for your job, you’ve also got to be responsible for your health. We can’t have people coming into the office and saying I’m not diabetic, we’ll check their blood sugar, Brian, it’s 170. How many years have they been walking around as diabetic? More of the responsibility has to go to the patient. We’ve got to adjust things so we incentivize patients to hold their weight or lower their weight, exercise regularly, stop smoking, eat healthier. I think that’s going to be a key message in terms of the future of changing medicine.

Brian  

So if you say that to somebody and they respond, okay, I’d like to do that but I don’t know where to begin. I don’t exercise at all, I don’t eat particularly well but I’m interested in doing that. Can you provide just some basic tools to to get started? How can I get off the couch and start doing something? Because I think what happens is people hear about diets and diets are sort of extreme by definition. So I’m going to go on this diet and I’ve eaten whatever…I eat three hamburgers every meal and a bunch of potato chips or french fries or whatever; it is processed foods, now I’m going to go on a diet and I’m just going to eat a lettuce and carrots and no salad dressing. Somebody does that for about one meal, obviously, and it’s not sustainable. On the fitness side, somebody says okay, I’ve never really exercised, I mean I did when I was in in middle school, but I’m 45 years old now and I’m overweight. I’ve never really exercised but I’m going to go out and I’m going to run five miles. They haven’t run since seventh grade. There again, it’s not sustainable. People go out and they try to do something and of course they hate it and they stop doing it immediately. Again, I’m sure you encounter patients like that so how do you get them on the right track, starting out with something that’s doable, that’s easy to do, that isn’t overly cumbersome, and a way that they can get a small win – whether we’re talking about diet or fitness – and lead them on the road to health?

Barry  

I think first and foremost, how we counsel patients clients is critically important. Although I’m not a psychologist or a trained behavioral therapist, there are certain principles called motivational interviewing or readiness to change that can help us guide the patient according to where he or she is ready to make those changes. I think another disservice is [that] the National Guidelines discourage the hell out of people when it says, you’ve got to do this, this, this, this. If you came to me and you said, Barry, how much exercise do I need? I’d say, Brian, what are you doing? And if you said nothing right now, believe it or not, I would say, Brian, can you give me ten minutes three times a week, for four weeks? You would probably look at me and say, well, I just read in the New York Times that you need 60 minutes, five days a week. And I’d say, Brian, can you give me ten minutes, three times a week? I can’t tell you the number of times I gave that advice and I’d see somebody a month later and they’d say, Doc, I didn’t follow your advice. And I said, what do you mean, you didn’t follow the ten minutes? No, they said, the first thing I did was 12 minutes and the next day I did 14 minutes, and I’m now up to 30 some minutes, five days a week. Key point, a body at rest tends to remain at rest, a body in motion tends to remain in motion. I want to get them moving and I don’t want to discourage the heck out of people. So we tend to use downscale goals. For lunch, for example, you tell me exactly what you’re eating. And I’ll say, can you add two or three fruits or vegetables throughout the day? That’s it right now, can you do that? Yeah, I can do that. Can you gradually move them in that direction, you want to make it as simple, as easy and as accessible as you possibly can. You don’t want to discourage people. You want to counsel them according to where they are and what we call the readiness to change scale. They may need some counseling, they may need some additional encouragement. But I think small changes over time can have a big impact. I’ve seen it my own practice.

Brian  

I appreciate that. So do something, take action however small is better than taking no action at all. And by the way, that’s true in areas other than just health and fitness. You mentioned METs, Metabolic Equivalents and I know that’s a big hot topic, I see that phrase everywhere. Now – and maybe this is for folks who are more physically fit – tell us more about what that is and the significance relative to cardiovascular disease. Specifically, I’m wondering how do we incorporate that into our tracking, if we keep track? It seems like rather than minutes or miles – if we’re talking about running – now, there’s a lot of emphasis on METs. Can you unpack that for us?

Barry  

Yeah, let’s first start off with the definition. The definition of METs is a Metabolic Equivalent. It’s the amount of oxygen you consume at rest. And if we measure thousands of people like I have, it’s about 3.5 milliliters of oxygen per kilogram body weight per minute: 3.5 ml/kg/minute. Brian, if I had you on our treadmill and we’re measuring oxygen consumption, and you’re at a fairly low workload, and I get 14 ml/kg/minute, what does that mean? You’re at 14 ml/kg/minute, one MET is 3.5. If I take 14 divided by 3.5 – you don’t need calculus or algebra here – 14 divided by 3.5. Brian’s working at what we call four METs, he’s increased his energy expenditure fourfold. We can measure METs directly or we can estimate it based on what speed and grade you’re on, on the treadmill or if you’re on a stationary bicycle. We know for example, that if you’re walking at two miles an hour, Brian, it’s two METs, three miles an hour is three METs; the rules of two and three miles an hour. You say what about singles tennis? It’s about seven METs. What about jogging? At six miles an hour it is about 10 METs. We use that for this reason. If I did a treadmill test on you, Brian, and I know you’re much higher than this, but let’s say we had a five MET capacity. And you said to me, Barry, I want to go back to playing singles tennis. Singles tennis is on average six to seven METs. I’d say Brian, you’re going to be able to play that but I don’t think it’s realistic right now because your capacity on our treadmill test is only five, I don’t think it’s safe and effective. Clinical applications…we basically use the treadmill test to determine can somebody do this activity or not. Last but not least, the maximal METs that’s on a treadmill is very insightful. If I put you on our treadmill and you reached 10 METs that means you’d be consuming 35 ml/kg/minute. In general, Brian, very, very important, the higher the METs on a treadmill test, the better the prognosis, the less likely to develop cardiovascular disease. Each MET reduces your risk of a cardiac event by 15-20% each MET higher on the fitness continuum. So that’s critically important. A lot of the doctors prescribe aspirin, statins and beta blockers; for your information, each one of those reduces cardiac events by about 20%. You get almost the same thing with – I’m not saying throw the aspirin, beta blockers and statins out – I’m saying complement it by raising your fitness level so you get the best of both worlds. As a general guideline, we want your fitness to be over five METs that gets you out of the high risk group. And lastly, just for your listeners, your viewers, a good friend of mine in Australia has developed a formula to estimate METs based on heart rate. It’s called the Wicks Theorem after the scientist Gian-Carlo Wicks. Basically, it calculates METs as the following:  six times the heart rate index minus five. The heart rate index, Brian, is your exercise heart rate divided by your resting heart rate. So if you said to me, Barry, I play singles tennis, and I get my heart rate typically up to 140. And I say, Brian, what’s your resting heart rate? You said about 70. Exercise heart rate divided by 70 is two. Two times six is 12 minus five is seven. I’d estimate your METs at around seven. Seven METs when you’re playing singles tennis with an exercise heart rate of 140, resting heart rate 70. So that’s how we use some of the clinical applications. Most fitness devices do not track METs to tell you the truth. I’ll tell you what’s nice is many of the treadmills can estimate METs. You can put the grade and speed in the treadmill. The most accurate device for estimating METs is the treadmill and many of the treadmills show that, yes. I still think risk factors, Brian, are underestimated, as I said, 75-90% of all events can be predicted based on the risk factor profile. I do believe coronary calcium score is increasingly utilized in the United States. The reason for that is it provides independent and additive information beyond the risk factor profile in terms of it quantifies the calcium in the coronary arteries, and we know that that calcium is a forerunner for cardiac events. So in general, Brian, the higher the calcium, the greater the likelihood of acute coronary events. A classic study I oftentimes cite; they looked at a large cohort of men and women. These are all men and women who were symptom free, that had many risk factors. They measured coronary calcium, they follow these men and women for about three years and they looked at how many had heart attacks, how many died suddenly. What they found were three major findings. Number one, as I said, the higher the coronary calcium score, the greater the likelihood of a cardiac event. Number two people ask me all the time, well, my coronary calcium score was this or my coronary calcium score was that. If your coronary calcium score, Brian, is zero, your likelihood of having a cardiac event is less than 1% over the next ten years – ten years, not a year, ten years, okay. If your coronary artery calcium score is 1-99, your risk over the next ten years is 20%. If it’s 100-400, your risk is 40% and if it’s over 400, you’ve got a 50% likelihood in the next ten years for experiencing an acute cardiac event, a heart attack. What was also insightful from this study is if your coronary calcium was over 100, you had a greater risk than the average patient who has known coronary artery disease. So the coronary calcium score can be very insightful. If the current coronary calcium score is high, those are the people who need to be on aspirin, beta blockers, statins, regular exercise, etc. The other hot topic today is what’s called lipo-protein a (LPa) which is a component of the LDL, which I call the lousy cholesterol, which really deposits inside those arteries. We now know from a variety of studies, if you get a heart attack under the age of 60, more often than not, they go back and look at the LPa, it was elevated. What’s the problem with this LPa? It does several things that are not good. It promotes oxidation of LDL cholesterol, the lousy cholesterol, which means it helps it get inside your vessel wall. Bad news. Secondly, it promotes higher levels of inflammation. Thirdly, it promotes the tendency for blood to clot. Study after study after study shows if your LPa is elevated, you’re at higher risk for a cardiac event. Then you might say, okay, what are the cut points? Many doctors recommend an LPa under 30:  30 milligrams per deciliter. Some people are even more aggressive today and say it should be under 20. So those are two hot emerging areas in preventive cardiology.

Brian  

How often should those be measured?

Barry  

I think once every two, three, four years would be fine. The LPa, I would probably do more often.

Brian  

So the coronary calcium. Tell us how that gets administered. How is that tested?

Barry  

It’s a scan. It’s an injection and it’s a scan. It’s rapidly determined and they can determine the level of coronary calcium in the arteries. Once again, you’re hoping for zero, that’s somebody who doesn’t need aspirin, statins, beta blockers. On the other hand, if it’s higher than that the individual cardiologist will adjust the regimen depending on what the coronary calcium score is and what the other risk factors are.

Brian  

You’re saying that that should be measured every two to three years?

Barry  

I think that’s reasonable. Yes. 

Brian  

Good. Barry, we were talking before the show and I mentioned that I’ve known your role in healthcare for several years. I’ve had the privilege of hearing you speak and that talk was actually the catalyst for my pro-active stance toward heart health specifically, but also more generally on health, fitness, and eventually the study of longevity. But I had no idea until recently – and you’ve been doing this, apparently, for more than 40 years and I’ve been doing it for longer than 30 years – that we share another passion and that’s the study of super achievers, highly successful people in all walks of life. Tell us what led you to explore the secrets of super achievers and how your research developed into far more than just a fleeting hobby.

Barry  

Well, I became very, very interested in 1967. Brian, I was a gymnast at Kent State University. My goals at the time were – I worked on still rings – twofold:  what new trick I was going to learn on the still rings and what attractive co-ed I was going to take out over the weekend. Those were my goals as a senior at Kent State and I realized those goals were leading me nowhere. I’m not going to have a meaningful career. I’m not going to be financially stable. I thought, I need more education so I decided to get a master’s degree from the University of Michigan. By the way, we’ll leave this for a different topic but I got into Michigan with a 2.7 accumulative from Kent State University which is unprecedented. I’ll tell you – if you want to know – later, how I did it. I got into Michigan then I got into Penn State. I have ten years of education, got out in the real world working in Millard Fillmore Hospital in Buffalo, New York and I realized that ten years of education had prepared me poorly for the real world of work. I lacked what I call, you call probably, soft skills. Let me just go through these. The power of positive associations and collaboration, people skills. I wasn’t a good writer, I wasn’t a good speaker. I didn’t know anything about goals or really about goal setting, serving others, dealing with setbacks. I didn’t appreciate the virtues of patience and persistence. I didn’t appreciate the potency of preparedness; prepare, prepare. I didn’t understand the law of attraction and the law of sow and reap. I didn’t understand how valuable being a member of an organization could be and I didn’t understand the number one success principle, in my opinion, which is taking action; get off your butt and move in the direction of your goals. I also became fascinated at the time, Brian, with the guy – and I know you know this guy – Peter Drucker. Peter Drucker, management guru, business guru said – and I was in my 20s, 30s – everybody should have a secondary pursuit. My primary pursuit was physiology rehab and so on. But everyone should have a secondary pursuit and make it more than just a hobby. I decided to study, in my 20s, highly successful people. I became fascinated with people like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett and Tiger Woods and Gary Player, the list goes on and on and on. I read countless books, books that I’m sure you’ve read:  “Think and Grow Rich,” I read “How to Win Friends and Influence People” and so on and so forth. But the most important thing that really influenced me was a writer by the name of Tolstoy. Tolstoy said the most important knowledge is that which helps you guide the way you lead your life. And unfortunately, all the university courses that we – you and I – took didn’t teach us those kinds of things. So I started reading everything I could on leadership success strategies. And you know what? The stuff works.

Brian  

It certainly does. You’ve mentioned some of these already but what are some of the common success traits or characteristics that you’ve discovered among super achievers in your research?

Barry  

As I looked at it super achievers, I found in my research three foundational factors. Number one, they love what they do. The late Steve Jobs said, if you haven’t found what you love to do, keep looking because you’re never really going to be highly successful. Number two, take 100% responsibility for your life. I hate it when people say the manager didn’t like me; you’ve got to find the way to do it. I was giving a talk one time on self responsibility at Kent State University 30 years ago, and a student came up and she said, Dr. Franklin, do you know the ten most empowering two letter words? And I said, I don’t have a clue. And she said, if it is to be, it is up to me. I can’t tell you the number of times I say that to people. And three, focus on serving others. Talk to young people:  I want a big car, I want to travel the world; my answer is you’re focusing on the wrong end of the scale. Focus on your contributions and the rewards will come via boomerang effect. Ten specific behaviors. Number one, be an optimist, look for the good in people in situations. Number two, radiate, exemplify what I call HOG, which is Happiness, Optimism and Gratitude. Number three, be a goal setter, number one factor be a goal setter. Famous study, Lewis Terman, 1921, looked at high IQ students, looked at their grades, looked at success in life. Grades, IQ weren’t factors for success. It was perseverance, self-confidence, and the number one factor was setting goals. So I started setting goals years and years ago and I write them down. It’s not just a matter of setting goals, take action every day to achieve your goals. There’s a guy – and I know you know him – by the name of Tommy Hopkins. He’s trained more salespeople than anybody in the world, he coined the law of GOYA – Get Off Your Ass and move in the direction of achieving your goals every day. Be persistent. Recognize –  you know this – that setbacks line the road to success. I’ve studied Edison who had 8400 setbacks, I studied Lincoln who lost eight elections before becoming president. I’ve studied Colonel Sanders who had more than 1000 rejections for his chicken recipe, Kentucky Fried Chicken. Although, as an aside, Colonel Sanders kept a lot of us in the cardiac rehab in business over the years. [Laughter.] Ask for what you want, people can’t read your mind. You want to be on that program or you want to do this, ask them, become a master communicator. I love Malcolm Gladwell when he said if want to get good at something, you’ve got to devote 10,000 hours to it. That applies to speaking or writing or whatever:  10,000 hours, 20 hours a week for ten years or ten hours a week for 20 years; that’s a lot of time. Power of positive associations, collaborations and relationships. Collaborations, in particular, are critically important. I heard movie director Steven Spielberg one time…they said Spielberg, you’re a genius, how do you do all these great movies? And he said, very simple. You want me to do your movie [you’ve] got to hire two guys, Steven Spielberg and a friend of mine by the name of George Lucas, because George makes me look good. Guys who did “Chicken Soup for the Soul” – Canfield and Hansen – two average writers that combined their skills. They’ve sold about three quarters of a billion books today, “Chicken Soup for the Soul.” Exhibit great people skills, be nice to people and be a person of integrity. I’ll tell you something else that is critically important. You cannot know too many people. I say this to young people; you cannot know too many people because you open doors for yourself but somebody who likes you and respects you can open up unimagined [sic] doors for you. And finally, pay the price; the law of sow and reap. Real quickly, it pays to be just a little bit better. In 2002 I was interested in what’s the difference, Brian, between the number one and number ten golfer for 18 holes. Number one golfer, a guy by the name of Tiger Woods, averaged 68.56 shots. Number ten golfer, a guy by the name of Sergio Garcia, he averaged 70 shots. What does that mean? It means that Tiger Woods would beat Sergio Garcia by an average of 1.5 shots when they played 18 holes. Why is that important? Tiger Woods made 6.9 million that year, Sergio Garcia 2.2 million, neither one a bad pay day but a company called Nike, you may have heard of them, gave Tiger Woods a 60-80 million dollar marketing contract because he was the number one golfer. The point I’m making is, I say to young people, anything you can do to make yourself a little bit better do it because it pays immensely. Those are my thoughts.

Brian  

Those are great. That list is really a personal operations manual. I think if we go back and just grab the transcript, grab the text, listen to the last segment by Barry again and just make a list of those and make that your personal operating manual, that will set you up for success however you define it. Barry, your book “GPS for Success” is truly a personal development textbook. And I say textbook because of the extensive research that’s clearly been conducted to uncover the strategies and tactics that cause people to be successful. I really appreciate…I think you’re a learner. That has to be one of your strengths, because I see how the appendix and the resources and the quotes…and you have invested hundreds and hundreds of hours, years and decades in creating this culminating book “GPS for Success.” I really appreciate you having written that book. What was your goal when you started writing “GPS for Success?”

Barry  

Well, thank you very much, Brian, for your generous comments. In a nutshell, I guess to provide – as my students refer to it – the missing course. They’ve read my book and they now say that this is the course that’s been missing. We learned oxidative enzymes and how to take blood pressures on heart rates; years we really enjoyed…I also wanted to write – and I say this not boasting – the most comprehensive book on achieving success ever written, or one of the most comprehensive books ever written. I wanted to put together a compendium of behavioral skills that if carefully followed would guarantee success. I wanted to go far beyond “The Secret” which you’re well aware of, Rhonda Byrne’s book sold 30 million copies. You say, Barry, what’s the take home message? You become what you think about. The other book, “How to Win Friends and Influence People” talks about people skills. I talk about all that in “GPS for Success.” My book really could be summarized by three words:  believe, act, achieve. Those are essentially what I was looking for. I wanted to write a book that had legs, that had timeless information, that kept on giving to high school students, college students, early career professionals. My hope is that it’ll be my legacy. I started teaching a course, lastly, at Central Michigan University, 2012-2017. Brian, after reading the students’ comments about the course – it was rated number one at Central Michigan University those years – the students positive and complimentary comments on the course, I realized that I was filling a critical void in their educational curriculum and  that I was onto something big. When the course ended, I started writing the text for future generations. In many respects, it was the essence of all I learned over 40-45 years. I would put it… hopefully, I’ll be around for a few years to…Randy Pausch, the last lecture where…he died, unfortunately, of pancreatic cancer at 47 but he gave a lecture about a month before he died on everything he learned about life and he wanted to share it with his students and his colleagues. So that’s, to me, what I hoped to accomplish in writing this book and once again, I very much appreciate – especially coming from you – your generous comments. Thank you.

Brian  

Well, you’re welcome. It’s my pleasure. It’s certainly a wonderful legacy that you’ll leave. I’m sure the other 26 books are great, too. I think they’re more medically oriented than personal and professional development oriented, but I know this one because I’ve read it cover to cover. I have pages dog-eared and lots of underlines. I’ll go back because, as I said, it’s a textbook and with a textbook, you go back and you refer to it from time to time. This isn’t a fiction book where you read it and you’re entertained and then you close the book and move on to the next one. This book is chock full of tools and techniques and strategies that readers can use to apply in their business and personal lives. Now, we don’t have time to cover everything in the book but I do encourage our listeners and viewers to go and buy the book; the content is tremendous. I talked about how the appendices alone are worth the cost of the book. One of the appendices is the list of all the books that you’ve read in researching; I think there are over a hundred books. Literally, if you’re looking for a reading list of success of the very best success books ever, it’s in Barry’s book. The other thing is, I think you have about 10-12 pages of inspirational and motivational quotes and those are terrific too. As I said, we can’t talk about the entire book and you’ve given so many great strategies already but Barry, if our listeners and viewers were only able to implement two or three of the most important strategies contained in the book, what would you advise them to do?

Barry  

Let me add – and I really appreciate your…to me, the quotes are wisdom sound bites of our time. Mark Sanborn wrote the foreword and I think that’s great. I also think the best books and the best talks are stories and you’re well aware that there were lots of stories – and embarrassing stories sometimes – that I shared with readers. I can’t give you the top three, but I will give you the top five and hope you’ll accept those. Number one, find something early in your life that you’re good at and you really love to do, and get somebody to pay you to do that for the rest of your life. Or if you’re really successful, you pay yourself, you start your own company and you do your own thing doing what you love. Number two, become goal oriented. Write down your goals all over the place for each day and for long term. Number three, take action. The Tommy Hopkins law of GOYA, remember, the universe rewards action, not talk, it rewards action. Sometimes I’ll hold [up] a book at a big lecture and I’ll say who wants this? And finally, somebody says is that for free? Yeah. Somebody will run up, take it from me. Who took it from me? Brian took it from me. What did Brian do that nobody else did? He took action. He wanted it and he took action. Number four, become a voracious reader. Jack Canfield read a book every two days in his prime. It improves your writing, speaking skills – critically important – and your vocabulary. Your vocabulary is a barometer for your ultimate success. Lastly, if at all possible – and I did this unconsciously – early in your career, try to work with the top people that you really [want to] emulate, the people who you think, wow, I’d love to be where he is or she is 20 years from now. Because you can learn an immense amount of things by working with top people. So those five.

Brian  

I love that. And those are certainly five of the six or seven most important things that I would have on my list for sure. I just wanted to add one thing. You mentioned reading – and I’m a voracious reader, I know you are, you’re a voracious reader and learner – we have a phrase in our family, “always learning, always growing” and our kids subscribed to that. I subscribed to that. I’ve tried to model that for everybody in my sphere of influence. I alluded to this before, but one of the things to realize is the investment in a book is about $20, sometimes it’s not even that much, sometimes it’s a little more. But the thing to realize – and I said this about Barry – is what you’re getting is…I don’t know the exact page count, 200…is not the 217 pages. What you’re getting is four decades of reading, research, experience, and the hundreds of hours that it takes to distill the essence of all of that experience, all of that research, all of that reading into that 200 plus page book. And I think people…I don’t know what it is…that we devalue, sometimes, the the worth of a book, because sometimes you can get a book for ten dollars, sometimes 99 cents on Kindle. And we think, well, it’s only 99 cents, it can’t be worth that much. Barry’s book and probably every single book in his reading list is worth a thousand times the cost of that book. So just keep that in mind when you’re choosing what to read and when you’re choosing how to invest your time. Barry, let’s connect your two areas of expertise, health, and success. I think one thing a lot of people struggle with today is what I’ll call life balance. In today’s fast paced world, a lot of people say they just don’t have enough time to do it all, to excel in their career or business, find time to exercise – which is super important, as we talked about earlier – maintain the quality of our relationships, which you also mentioned as being important, and also that little thing called getting enough sleep. How can people achieve in all the important areas of their life, and still make sure that they’re maintaining a healthy lifestyle?

Barry  

I must preface my response by saying a big help to me is the lady I married 52 years ago who’s put up with a lot. Occasionally over the years – I’m here smiling – I’d say, I’m really too busy to go to the parent teacher thing, can you go? She would very nicely say, I’m going to burn those slides, I’m going to throw those reprints out, you’re going with me. I’d always go and I’d always feel good that I went. I happened to marry somebody who said no, that’s too far. To get back to your point, you’re really talking about, I think, time management and how you manage your time and try to get all these things in. I love a quote – I oftentimes say it – by Henry Ford, he said, “It’s been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others waste.” I think there’s something really telling, their time is precious. It’s the great equalizer. Our success depends on how well we use this resource. We don’t know really how much time we have. I’ve always been impressed when I’m waiting for a plane and I see somebody working on their computer as opposed to just doing nothing or in the cab, I’m going to do some work on that cab ride. So those are things super achievers use, small periods of time throughout the day to accomplish big jobs. Another example, sometimes patients say to me, do I have to do exercise all at one time? I said no, you don’t have to put the dollar bill in the bank all at one time, you can put in four quarters. You can do a little bit of exercise repeated throughout the day and still get the benefits. What are other productivity tips? Number one, you say? Barry, give me the number one:  start the damn job, okay, start the job. You overcome inertia, you gain momentum. A lot of times people say wow, this is going to be so time consuming. Start the job even if it’s lousy; start the job. In fact, I’ll be so bold as to say starting the job is more important than achieving it. Because if you don’t start the job, you’re never going to achieve it. Number two, start making to do lists. I have to do lists all over the place. And the reward for me is when I cross it off or highlight it, I know that that thing is done. I also included my to do lists and I’ve been doing this for years. Exercise, healthy diet, six, seven servings of fruits are on my to do list. That list is sacred. If I put it on that list, I’ve got to do it. So I started including some things that you’re talking about. Turn off the TV. Very famous mentor of Jack Canfield, W. Clement Stone, multimillionaire, successful, guru, the first thing he told him, Jack, turn off the damn TV, okay, or turn it off at least an hour a day. He highlighted the fact that if you turn off your TV an hour a day and devote that time to inspirational reading or devote that time to more worthwhile things, you’ll gain nine 40 hour work weeks each year, you’re saving an hour each day. The Pareto principle, many people don’t realize that I’ve studied the Pareto Principle. It’s called the 80-20 rule and a lot of people don’t realize this; 80% of your success oftentimes come from only 20% of your effort. Years ago I found out what is that 20% where I really get the biggest bang for the buck. Sometimes I’ll do those things in the evenings or on weekends. Lastly, I’ll share with you a secret that I seldom tell anybody, but this works. It’s not even in my book. If something’s important and has to be done and included in your day, what I’ve gotten in the habit of doing is making it a password on my computer, which I’m in and out of all throughout the day. When I wanted to get “GPS for Success” done, what was my password – GPS#forsuccess. That subconsciously activated me, that’s something I’ve got to do today, I’ve got to write a paragraph, and so on and so forth. So all those kinds of things can enable you to do anything you want to do, whether it’s physical activity, whether it’s relationship building, whatever, those are the keys.

Brian  

Those are fantastic. I’m smiling, because the the password secret that you gave, I thought that was my secret about that. So I teach about a broader concept, which we’ve alluded to, if not talked about, specifically the idea of surrounding yourself with success. Most people think about surrounding ourselves with people – and you’ve mentioned that specifically – but it also includes environment. What kind of environment are we working in that’s surrounding ourselves with success? The very simple example I give is the same one that you just did – your password. You’ve mentioned action orientation two or three, or maybe more, times, what if your password was “action now” so every time you type in your password, you key in action now, action now, action now; you do that 10 or 12, or 15 or 20 times a day. And of course, as you know, that seeps into your subconscious, and you’re more prone to taking action now, because of that one little simple technique. It’s not the huge changes. We talked earlier about how do you go from hamburgers and french fries to six or eight servings of fruits and vegetables every day? It’s not 100% black to white transformation, it’s little by little by little, just taking a little step, a baby step. You’ve heard the question, how do you eat an elephant? We all know [the answer,] one bite at a time. That’s the way you have to do it. Any little thing that we can do to move us toward the direction of our desired results is worth doing, and that password suggestion that you gave is spot on so I appreciate that.

Barry  

I certainly agree with your point for action. And even in my book…I read a book years ago – I forgot the author – but it said the ultimate success secret – they made a very compelling case – was taking action. It’s not just hey, here’s my strategic plan, let me think about this. It’s taking action. It’s getting up out of your seat, coming down to the podium to take the book away from me, which I think really makes the point, taking action, number one.

Brian  

I wholeheartedly agree with that. I’ve said numerous times – I’ve tried to pin you down on give me two or three – there are so many things that go into success however we define it, whether we’re talking about health or fitness or relationships or finances, career success, business success. But the number one…if a gun was held to my head, if I had to just say one thing, it’s absolutely take action. Brian Tracy says action now, action now, action now, and he’s absolutely right.

Barry  

There’s another guy by the name of Art Williams, he’s a billionaire living in Florida now in the philanthropic community, but he says, “Your life is not about what you say you’re gonna do. It’s what you do.” And that really is so true. We’re so much on the same page.

Brian  

Clearly. Barry, our show is called LifeExcellence, I’m curious, with your vast experience and knowledge. What does excellence mean to you?

Barry  

Excellence to me is achieving, in many respects, your highest potential and having no limits. In other words, if you think you can do it, you can do it. I’ll give you an example. Guy by the name of Roger Bannister, Roger Bannister in the ’50s ran a mile under four minutes. The medical community said it’s physiologically impossible, can’t be done. Roger Bannister said I’m gonna take a half a second off this month, I’m gonna take a second off this month by making my quads stronger, this wind resistance…Roger Bannister beat the four minute mile and the next year 220 some young runners around the world beat it as well, because he took that mentality that you can’t do it and showed you could do it. That’s critically important. Set no limits.

Brian  

I love it. Barry, thank you so much for being on the show today. It’s wonderful to speak with you. And I’m so grateful for your time today.

Barry  

Brian, thanks for the opportunity, love talking with you and we should get together offline and pursue this a little bit more.

Brian  

Thank you, Barry. Thanks for tuning into LifeExcellence. Please support the show by subscribing, sharing it with others, posting about today’s show with Dr. Barry Franklin on social media, and leaving a rating and review. You can learn more about me at BrianBartes.com. Until next time, dream big dreams and make each day your masterpiece.