← Chasing Life with Dr. Sanjay Gupta
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- [00:01]
Google Health Announcer
This episode is brought to you by Google Health. Stop chasing someone else's definition of health. What matters is what's healthy for you. Google Health offers a new kind of coach built with Gemini for effortless tracking, sleep insights and holistic coaching tailored to you. Visit googlestore.com to learn more and start a new relationship with your health. Requires Google Account, Google Health App, Internet and Google Health Premium Subscription. Features subject to change. Availability and results vary. Not intended for medical purposes or works independently of Gemiini apps. Check responses for accuracy.
- [00:31]
Quaker Oats Announcer
Mornings have a rhythm. You can hear it, feel it. And at Quaker, we fuel it with 100% whole grain oats and a good source of fiber in every bowl, helping you turn that rhythm into your soundtrack for a great day. Fuel to start whatever's next Quaker Official sponsor of FIFA World Cup 26 I oh, let's go.
- [00:57]
Dr. Marshall Leonard
I oh,
- [01:01]
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
hey there. Welcome to Chasing Life. You know, earlier this week we had this fascinating conversation with neuroscientist Rui Costa about the concept of flow.
- [01:11]
Interviewer (possibly Dr. Sanjay Gupta or co-host)
To me, it's not the muscles P this is a very cognitive process, right? So when I see that, it's almost like some magician revealing something extraordinary.
- [01:24]
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
Think of it as being in a state of effortless effort. And it got me thinking about how flow isn't just limited to sports. A person can experience it in all sorts of ways while they're creating art, for example, or writing or even gaming. I sometimes get into the flow state while on a long distance run and also, believe it or not, when I'm in the operating room. From the moment I go to the scrub sink area and I start washing my hands. Several minutes of just washing my hands, I'm thinking about the operation. I walk into the operating room, hands up, keep everything sterile, put on my gown and start the operation. Take the knife. And from that point to the end of the operation, oftentimes I'm in this state of flow. Hours can go by, sometimes without me even realizing it, and it's this incredibly joyous experience. It's really sometimes hard to describe. I have been able to find that flow in medicine, but I'll tell you, I've never experienced flow, for example, on the soccer field. Well, this week's guest knows both worlds, Dr. Marshall Leonard. He once defended goals as a Major League Soccer player for the New England Revolution, but now he's defending life as an emergency medicine doctor at Stony Brook in New York. Today, he's going to talk about these skills that he cultivated as an athlete. He translated those skills into his new life as A physician. And then he even passed down those lessons to his daughters, something I can certainly relate to. Well, today he's going to transmit those lessons to all of us. I'm Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN's chief medical correspondent, and this is Chasing Life.
- [03:05]
Interviewer (possibly Dr. Sanjay Gupta or co-host)
So I gotta start off by asking, have you been watching the World Cup?
- [03:08]
Dr. Marshall Leonard
Oh, absolutely. As much as I possibly can, I've been watching it. I obviously I was watching from the coverage before for the US Game all the way through, and I've been watching, trying to catch as many games as I possibly can.
- [03:20]
Interviewer (possibly Dr. Sanjay Gupta or co-host)
You know, we really want to talk about flow state. And as I've been thinking about this topic and watching soccer games, football games, I have tried to understand, can I see when a player is in flow state just as a spectator? Can I sort of observe this in some way? You have such a unique lens on things now, both, again, as a former player, but now physician, can you tell?
- [03:47]
Dr. Marshall Leonard
So the way that I understand a flow state is what I would call and as athlete would call just being in the zone. And when I'm watching the World Cup, I think that I can sort of see when a player's feeling it and is in a zone.
- [04:00]
Interviewer (possibly Dr. Sanjay Gupta or co-host)
You know, in neurosurgery, a lot of times when we have applicants come through medical students who have been athletes in their life, I always look at that as a huge asset. And, you know, I think part of the reason it may be obvious is that the amount of discipline and the amount of sort of fortitude that one needs to be an athlete, often at the college level, but certainly some of them, even at the professional level, is enormous. And I think a lot of those, those are translatable skills, I think, to medicine and vice versa.
- [04:31]
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
What about for you?
- [04:32]
Interviewer (possibly Dr. Sanjay Gupta or co-host)
What was the inflection point? You're a professional athlete. You're living the dream.
- [04:38]
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
Every kid has this dream.
- [04:41]
Interviewer (possibly Dr. Sanjay Gupta or co-host)
And you're now an emergency room doctor doing incredible work. How did it happen for you?
- [04:47]
Dr. Marshall Leonard
One particular story is that I was a player on the team that wasn't a superstar, a really solid role player. So there wasn't many fans that had my jerseys that I saw. But there was this one young child that I saw with the meet and greet that we had. He was a young child and he had an eye patch over his head. And I remember him very vividly, spoke to his father. And then about a month or two later in the locker room after one of our practices, our coordinator came up to me and said, there's a young child at the Providence Hospital. Would you be Willing to see him. He has a brain tumor and would you be willing to just see the family? And he mentioned who it was. And I remembered exactly. I actually left practice that day. I said, yeah, absolutely, I'm going. And so I drove to the hospital. A big hug to his father. We had a great conversation. But, you know, unfortunately this young child had an inoperable tumor. And I was with this family and I felt somewhat helpless as just a normal person would. I comforted the family just as an athlete, you know, but that stuck with me. And after that particular time, I kind of thought about how do I go about pursuing this or pursuing something in my next sort of life after soccer?
- [06:04]
Interviewer (possibly Dr. Sanjay Gupta or co-host)
It's quite a story. I mean, the impact of these somewhat chance interactions that you had with that boy and the impact that it's had on your life is enormous. I think people don't always recognize it at the time, but as you're sort of saying in retrospect, you can kind of see how that really changed or at least informed the trajectory of your life, which is incredible. How are you a better doctor because you're a professional athlete?
- [06:28]
Dr. Marshall Leonard
I do think about scenarios that I would be in and what I would be doing and how I would be acting and how I'd be interacting with the people in the room. For example, if I'm running a trauma or a code, I do think about those things and I kind of have good self talk for myself about, you know, how I'll be positioning myself and what roles I would be delegating to those around me. Those are the things I do. You know, we have different areas that we work in the emergency department, but those are the things that I think about and I talk about, I talk to myself about before I begin work. I would say that as a professional athlete, I do remember doing those things. I remember thinking about a lot of the positive effects that I can do of the game. If I was marking somebody, I knew exactly what their tendencies were and what I wanted to do. And I never tried to let negative sort of thoughts or things on the negative side, you know, kind of go into my brain at that time. Yeah, it was always, you try to be as positive as you possibly can. So same type of thing when I, you know, go into work as well.
- [07:38]
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
Yeah, that's really interesting.
- [07:39]
Interviewer (possibly Dr. Sanjay Gupta or co-host)
And I think this idea of not letting the toxicity creep in. So again, sort of establishing the criteria of this getting into the zone or flow state, it can be hard to define for any particular individual. But I think the idea again of calming Yourself, not letting toxicity come in, in some ways, sort of turning your brain off, not overthinking things at a minimum.
- [08:02]
Dr. Marshall Leonard
You know, I tell my children this. They play soccer in their own right. Very quality athletes. And lacrosse is one of their sports as well. And they have this similar sort of thing called an 8 meter. In women's lacrosse, I have all girls, and so I'm all about women's lacrosse.
- [08:16]
Interviewer (possibly Dr. Sanjay Gupta or co-host)
I have all girls, too, by the way.
- [08:17]
Dr. Marshall Leonard
Yes, you do.
- [08:18]
Sports Commentator
Yeah.
- [08:18]
Dr. Marshall Leonard
Three daughters.
- [08:20]
Interviewer (possibly Dr. Sanjay Gupta or co-host)
One of them 17, just like your.
- [08:22]
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
Your oldest or.
- [08:22]
Sports Commentator
That's.
- [08:23]
Dr. Marshall Leonard
My oldest is 17.
- [08:23]
Interviewer (possibly Dr. Sanjay Gupta or co-host)
That's my youngest. I'm a little.
- [08:25]
Dr. Marshall Leonard
A little ahead of you. You can teach me all types of. My youngest is 11. I have 17, 14, and 11, so. Got it. We're loving it. But I always think in sports, I tell her, let your athleticism take over. Don't think about all this, because you have that ability. So calm your mind, take a breath, and just. I just say, just do it like Nike. Just do it. But it's hard to sort of. You know, it's not. I don't think it's something that you can. It's just something like, okay, calm your mind and let your body take over.
- [08:55]
Interviewer (possibly Dr. Sanjay Gupta or co-host)
Look, I think you're giving them great advice, for sure. I think what's challenging about it is that it feels a little different than what kids have been told their whole lives, which is to really. I mean, they think about things maybe too much. This idea that prepare, obviously, be prepared, practice, do all that. But then when it comes time for the big moment, the big game, whatever it might be, to count down your preparation at that point, turn your brain off. And again, I'm exaggerating that a little bit, but in essence, inhibit your brain, inhibit the overthinking part of your brain, and that's probably gonna be your best shot at getting into flow state. It's probably true for your daughter on the lacrosse field, but it may also be true for your daughter when she's taking one of her college entrance exams. Study hard, but at the time, you're actually taking the test. Now, getting into flow state in some ways means, okay, don't think so hard now. Count on your preparation. And it's challenging, I think, doctor, to get people into that mindset as an athlete.
- [10:03]
Dr. Marshall Leonard
You know, they say, take it on the chin. Understand them. Like that's. Those things happen. It takes a little bit of time to sort of understand it. But once you start back the process again of playing the fundamentals, of just loving the game and then getting back on the field and competing in the same thing. You don't forget those things. You definitely don't forget, like when you lose big championship games, but you definitely build from it and you learn from it. And I think that that's really an important thing. And as a physician, I think it's the same thing. You know, one thing that we do in the emergency department, when we have difficult outcomes or somebody may pass after codes or traumas, we do something called a debrief where we get myself as the physician, the attending, but as well as the nurses and everybody clinical assists everybody, residents in a room and we discuss, we give it an open ended conversation. They could provide whatever information, they could cry, they could say anything that they would want to do. And I asked them as an attending, is there anything that anybody wants to provide or let's talk about what just happened. Because sometimes those things are hard to understand, they're hard to deal with. And if you just go about your day and not really deal with those things, I think like afterwards it would be, it would be harder. You don't learn from those things and you don't get to decompress from those things. So I still try to do that when I'm practicing now.
- [11:31]
Interviewer (possibly Dr. Sanjay Gupta or co-host)
Yeah, I think therein may lie the great tragedy, right. If something like that happens in the hospital world and there's no learning that comes from it, I mean, it's almost like a double insult to the entire event. What happened and then the fact that nothing came of it. And you know, in hospitals they have these gatherings, morbidity and mortality they're called in some hospitals, death and complications. And it was just, it was always one of the most fascinating cultural things to me as a physician. When I started attending those, first as a med student, then as a resident, people got up and talked about their mistakes. And it was very candid. I mean, jarringly so at times. I mean, people don't talk like that in society. It's not that they're using bad language or anything. They're just talking about such difficult things that have happened to them. But it was all in the spirit of learning. And again, and I think there's a lot of crossovers, as you're sort of alluding to with athletics as well, with everything that you've learned and this incredible life that you're leading. What is the advice you give to your daughters?
- [12:41]
Dr. Marshall Leonard
Trust, the process of learning. Trust the process of developing trust, the process of being a teammate and learning from others. And I'm speaking about sports and I'm talking to advice about the game or game they're about to play or the season. But I hope that I'm sort of telling them something about, like, outside of the game. Because, you know, me being a retired from sports for so many years, I understand that youth sports especially, you know, you learn a lot about life and about jobs and about interacting with people, even the people that you may not really see eye to eye on from sports. And so when I'm talking to my daughters, I'm hoping that I'm getting across that. Trust the process of learning sports and doing the things right and preparing yourself for the game. But don't, don't under. Don't really think about the results, but just understand that this thing that you're playing, this sport that you're going to play for the next several years is going to really build on what you're going to do as, you know, young females, as they're growing sooner, quicker than I can really think right now. But, you know, within their jobs, within their lives, within their relationships with significant others, and just trust the process. And it's not always going to be roses. It's a lot of times it's not going to be great, but there's always something to learn from that. You know, there's always people in your team that you're going to get along with, but there's always players on your team that you're not going to see eye to eye on. But the end result or the common goal that you're trying to get is to win a championship, win games, do better, and so just to trust your preparation and trust the process of building and doing that.
- [14:22]
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
They say the one constant in life is change. And yet when that time comes, it can be difficult to trust the process. Whether you're moving on from a job or relationship, transitions have a way of making us realize just how attached we have become to our external identities. So when we come back, Dr. Leonard's gonna reveal how he made peace with retirement. Plus, he's gonna share this amazing story about going up against a future pro Brazilian footballer, the one and only Ronaldinho, when they were both teenagers.
- [14:55]
Dr. Marshall Leonard
We'll be right back.
- [15:01]
Chevrolet Announcer
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- [15:28]
Sports Commentator
And we're live on matchday, as Doug reaches for a Buffalo wing. He's got it. Oh, and he's gone for a can of Pepsi, too. What a finish. There's no doubt about it. It just tastes better. Match days deserve Pepsi.
- [15:43]
Interviewer (possibly Dr. Sanjay Gupta or co-host)
So you're on the pitch, and the most fearsome player is somebody that you have to defend against. Tell us about that game, that moment,
- [15:53]
Dr. Marshall Leonard
what you were feeling, so I can tell you exactly who it was and where it was. This brings me back. But this was on the under 17 national team. We were preparing for the World cup that we actually ended up playing in Egypt, but Brazil was one of the countries that would play. And Brazil has been known for the best soccer and the most offensive type of players that you can imagine. And my role throughout this game was to defend somebody named Ronaldinho. And many people that know soccer know who Ronaldinho is. He's retired now, but he is an incredible, incredible player. And at the time, you know, we were. We were 15, 16 years old, and I, you know, I was a 15, 16 year old that I was like, all right, put me up against. I don't know. Yeah, let's go. And I was confident. But this guy did things that I could never imagine. I mean, and I remember, you know, I had a good game against him, to be honest with you. To be honest. But I remember I was on the left side. He brought the ball out on the right side, and he got the ball. And when you're a defender, you approach the player and you get into a stance so that you can move right or left. And usually that stance is with your feet a little bit wide open so you can move right up. And he was known for doing this for many different players, but he got the ball and he did what we call the snake move. But basically, it means that the ball stays on his foot, and he is very difficult to do, but he basically moves it around so much that he puts it right through my legs. We call it a nutmeg. And then he gets on the other side, and he would embarrass me and get on the other side, probably shoot and score. But I actually knew that what he was doing wasn't good enough to stop it before he got it through my legs, but he didn't get it on the other side. And the only reason why I didn't get on the other side, because I fouled him down. But he was incredible. I mean, honestly, I left the game, I'm like, wow, that's what soccer is about. That's a player that you have to go against. I was prepared to play against him, but he was an incredible, incredible player. Actually. I followed him. Obviously. He played in Europe for many, many years. He was the best player in the world for, like, probably, definitely once, probably even more than that. And played with the national team of Brazil on many, many World Cups. I always met the challenge.
- [18:12]
Interviewer (possibly Dr. Sanjay Gupta or co-host)
Were you scared? What was your sentiment?
- [18:16]
Dr. Marshall Leonard
No, crazy enough. I don't know why. No, I wasn't scared. I was. I mean, even crazy enough, my kids would laugh about this. But, you know, I'm washed up, right? But my mind tells me that I could go and I could still play against the best players. I can't. But. But, you know, as an athlete, and, you know, if you speak to any athlete, so. And I guess it deals with preparation, but as an athlete, defending player, you never. I don't think you're scared. I don't. I can't imagine many athletes would say, I'm scared of that opposing player, even if they're outmatched.
- [18:51]
Interviewer (possibly Dr. Sanjay Gupta or co-host)
You know, I think there's two different things here. When you are up against a really difficult challenge and, you know, whether it's a, you know, the. The most feared sort of player, you know, in the world at that time, or maybe even being in the hospital, some people get scared. And some people look at it as a. As a time to shine, as your opportunity to shine. And I think sometimes that separates things as well. And that's a conversation I have with my daughters a lot. You know, when they. When they are this. That's going to be hard.
- [19:21]
Sports Commentator
This.
- [19:21]
Interviewer (possibly Dr. Sanjay Gupta or co-host)
And this is your chance to shine. You actually don't get a lot of opportunities in life. You've also, you know, had this ability to find this identity after sports. And I've interviewed a lot of athletes over the years, and sometimes that is challenging to find a new identity. And your new identity is an awesome one. You're a physician. You take care of patients, save lives. Was it a struggle at all once
- [19:48]
Dr. Marshall Leonard
it stopped, meaning that you retired or you didn't have an opportunity to play again? It stops. And it's no. Like, there's no other feeling. I haven't been able to recreate it. Like, even as a physician in stressful situations, there's no other feeling that you have as an athlete to play a competitive game and to prepare for it with your teammates, win, lose or draw, there's nothing else than that. And playing in front of fans that are cheering your team or your name, once that stops, as they call it, and, you know, lights go out. It stops. And I truly feel that because of that, and I'm speaking general, in general terms, but it's very common that athletes sort of have an issue, have a time period of reflection or time period of sadness or depression or like, trying to find what the next steps are. Even if you try to prepare for what they may be, it's difficult because, you know, I always felt, and my parents were very influential, they always told me that there's more to a lot of things than where you are right now. And as a, you know, I was a great soccer player, but I always thought that I had many more things to do and provide, but. And so there was always, like, plan B, C. There was many more things than a doctor that I may have wanted to actually do. But still, once soccer ended, I definitely did not know that I was going to be a physician. And I had a period of time where I didn't really know what I was going to do really. And it was hard. It's not easy to not play, and it's also not easy to not have that regimented schedule of getting up, preparing for practice, cooling down from practice, messing around in the locker room, going to the weight room, and then the next day you get up and you physically become fit again. Once you start working and you have a family and you got to take the dog out and all this types of stuff, you know, you got to fit that in, and it's a positive thing. And actually, you know, going to medical school, that was very difficult for me to even figure out that schedule of trying to do that and be physically fit. So. But there was a lot of times when myself, but also teammates, you struggle. You struggle with, like, finding what that next. That next steps are. I think a lot of people ended up continuing with soccer as a coach, as a commentator, in the front office, as scouting, which I think is an awesome thing as well. You know, maybe when I retire and my kids are all going, maybe I'm going to pop back into the coaching.
- [22:17]
Sports Commentator
Is that right?
- [22:18]
Interviewer (possibly Dr. Sanjay Gupta or co-host)
Something like that.
- [22:18]
Dr. Marshall Leonard
Who knows? Who knows?
- [22:19]
Interviewer (possibly Dr. Sanjay Gupta or co-host)
You know, the name of this podcast is Chasing Life. You know, obviously we wanted to talk a lot about this very intricate sort of thing called the flow state or getting in the zone.
- [22:31]
Dr. Marshall Leonard
Yeah.
- [22:32]
Interviewer (possibly Dr. Sanjay Gupta or co-host)
But I'm just curious.
- [22:33]
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
Are there.
- [22:33]
Interviewer (possibly Dr. Sanjay Gupta or co-host)
Are there? You know, when you're hanging out with your friends at a backyard barbecue and they're asking about your life and the things you've learned, the wisdom you could. You could dispense, what do you tell them?
- [22:44]
Dr. Marshall Leonard
I entered medical school and pass a post Baccalaureate program without any sort of guarantees that medical school was the trajectory that would be able to do, getting great grades and things like that. As an older person with children, with all the things and with that, it was very easy for me to say, don't go and do this. It's a long road ahead of you. But I had a good friend and teammate of mine who was. Who ended up being an orthopedic surgeon. I remember having a conversation with him, and he knew me as a person. He, like, really knew who I was, what I stood for in my thoughts and curiosity. And I asked him, is this crazy at this age, Should I go and go to medical school? And he very quickly could have said, no, just don't do that. Do something different. But he told me one thing. He said, you know, and it wasn't chasing life, but it said, this life is a long time. Your career is a long many years to actually prepare and do things. So if this is something you're very passionate about, if it's something that makes you curious and you have questions to ask, you know, pursue that, pursue that. If it makes sense for yourself, if it makes sense for your life. Obviously, if you have a wife and you have children, make sure that they fully support you in different ways as well. But don't cut yourself short just because you don't know if you're going to meet those goals. Right. Like, for example, being a professional athlete or even pursuing and getting drafted. There was no guarantees in that. And I could have said, well, I don't want to chase that goals because what if I fail? You know, and as a physician, I'm not going to do this specialty, because what if I don't match to that? But if that's what you really are thinking, that's your passion, supported by yourself as your family and things like that. So pursue it, but pursue it, like, with the whole heart, knowing that that's what you want to do, but also knowing that if you fail, it's not a failure, it's just something that you learn from and you can navigate and continue doing something different. So it's interesting. Chasing life is such a cool phrase because it is like your life, and I see it now, is such a. It can be such a short time. You know, as a physician, we know that. But it can be such a. My grandmother's 108 years old.
- [24:58]
Interviewer (possibly Dr. Sanjay Gupta or co-host)
Wow.
- [24:58]
Dr. Marshall Leonard
In Houston, Texas. It can be such a long time. So we have a long time to sort of pursue or chase whatever it is that we want to do. And so I would say to your listeners, and I say to my children and I hope they can listen to me as a father, is that just do what you're interested in doing, you know, pursue it with a whole heart, write it down, go back to it next year, write something else down and know that if you don't meet that goal, it's not like you're a failure, but it's something that you learn from and keep doing something.
- [25:29]
Interviewer (possibly Dr. Sanjay Gupta or co-host)
Something. I love it. And by the way, you know, with that flow state again, you do get to expand time. So, you know, time goes slower, as you said, so you get even more time. So cool to chase life and be in service. We appreciate your time. And you are a, you know, I mean, like I said, I mean you've kind of done this remarkable thing, you know, going from these incredibly high level of athleticism to, to taking care of patients, saving lives. It's, you know, life gets procedural sometimes and sometimes people don't get a chance to reflect. So thank you for doing that with us.
- [26:06]
Dr. Marshall Leonard
Yeah, it's a good, good time for me to reflect. I may actually speak, take some more time with my wife and daughters to reflect a little bit more about my life and our lives and as we go forward as a family, you won't regret it.
- [26:17]
Interviewer (possibly Dr. Sanjay Gupta or co-host)
You won't regret that time.
- [26:19]
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
That was my conversation with former MLS player turned emergency medicine doctor Marshall Leonard. Thanks so much for listening.
- [26:35]
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- [27:06]
Catherine Nicolay
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