561 Make Mistakes with Dr. Oz

"If you make no mistakes in life, it's going to be a pretty tedious experience" - Dr. Oz If you ever feel discouraged by mistakes, remember that living a life without mistakes would only mean you weren't trying nearly enough things. On this 5 Minute Friday, Dr. Oz talks about the mistakes that he has made in life as well as in the operating room, where the difference can be life and death. While the emotional toll of mistakes can be immense, they show us that we are on the road to success, as we learn from them and overcome what caused the mistake next time we face it. I want to remind you that mistakes are an essential part of your path to greatness, on this 5 Minute Friday, Episode 561. Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This is Five Minute Friday!

• 0:10Lewis Howes?

  What's up guys, Lewis Howes here and I'm with the legendary Dr. Oz. Really grateful for you and appreciate everything that you do to impact people, to not only impact people on their health when you're working on them, but also to help people around the world who are watching your show.

• 0:26Speaker 00

  Make mistakes. If you make no mistakes in life, it's gonna be a pretty tedious experience. And that was always one of the jokes you would tell in cardiac surgery. When you describe me a complication during an operation, and you're talking to somebody else, and the other surgeon says, "Well, you know, I have no personal experience with that problem." Yeah, that's not because he's a good surgeon. It's because he hasn't done enough to have the problem. And that's the bigger epiphany that a lot of us need to appreciate. Yeah, I'd rather, I never regret the mistakes. I regret the things I never tried.

• 0:54Lewis Howes?

  Really? What's the biggest mistake as a surgeon that you've made?

• 1:01Speaker 00

  I've done things in operations that I have to believe hurt that patient painfully. And there's no way any surgeon could argue otherwise. Because you make subjective decisions. I'm gonna cut here or here. The patient is dying as they hit the operating room. I'm gonna quickly go for this problem or that problem. Gunshot comes in. Do I check, open the chest first or the belly first? You have to make these decisions without all the information. And if you're wrong, the patient pays the ultimate price.

• 1:25Lewis Howes?

  And how do you cope with that mistake, knowing that it may have hurt someone?

• 1:29Speaker 00

  You get back in the ring again. The biggest mistake, I think, that surgeons make when they've been involved in a complication, any physician, is that you don't go back in and do it again. Try to do it better. Learn from what happened. And it's not that it's easy, it's just you can't live with yourself otherwise. You've got to move to the next play.

• 1:47Lewis Howes?

  That's a skill to master.

• 1:48Speaker 00

  It was in the birth of heart surgery, the number one challenge, I think, those pioneers felt. They would do operations where they would take the mother and the child, because the child would have congenital heart defect, and they would use the mother's blood to keep the child alive while they were stopping the heart. Because a mother's heart could pump blood to make the child into her. And she does it in utero, right? Before the child's born. But when the kid's two years old, it's a lot more difficult. This is an operation has a 200% mortality rate, right? I could lose the kid and the mom. So despite the fact the mom was previously healthy. And they would have catastrophic complications because they were doing things the man had never done before. And they'd have to take the kid in the morning, go to the operating room, do an operation, do the best they could, and then lose the child. And then go back out to the waiting room, get another child,

• 2:33Speaker 00

  have the parents give you the child, trusting you to save your blood.

• 2:38Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 2:38Speaker 00

  And then have to do it again. And that takes a lot for anybody to wrap their mind around that. And I remember speaking to one of the pioneers in this field who said that was the single biggest challenge he faced. It wasn't even being innovative and, you know, the science would eventually catch up. It's the emotional burdens while you're catching up that hold us back.

• 2:56Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 2:57Speaker 00

  Humans don't die from the dark, they die from the cold. Metaphorically, it's not wisdom or knowledge which is life. It's the lack of emotion, lack of love that kills us.

• 3:07Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 3:08Speaker 00

  And remembering that will always push you back to second truth, which is what matters more than anything else is making sure that people around you know you love them. It's not that you did love them, which I'm hoping is also true, but they have to know you love them, which means you gotta go the extra step. The extra little nudge to make sure that you're in people's lives in the right way. And the third tip, which is the corollary, because if without this one, you can't do the other ones as well, is no one's a jerk on purpose. You'll meet a lot of people you don't like, but they probably don't realize what they're doing both to themselves and to you. And when you open yourself up to that reality, you become much more forgiving, both to them and to you.

• 3:46Lewis Howes?

  Wow. Okay. Powerful truths. Last one. And before we get to the last one, make sure you guys get his new book. It's out right now. We'll link it up and everything, so make sure you get it.

• 3:55Speaker 00

  Food can fix it. If I take one second on this?

• 3:57Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 3:57Speaker 00

  So I, I, I love food. But for many, and I've written a lot of books, but I took a long break because I wasn't sure that the science could really describe forcefully enough the power of food. But when you walk into a grocery store, you're walking into a pharmacy. That is the power of food, to recover from injuries, to excel, to, to do your best, to, to make sure that the people around you are thriving. You have to pay attention to this. It's not just the nutrients. It's literally things like the substance, the texture, the, the taste. All these play into the, the bigger reality that what makes food most sacred is it brings us together.

• 4:30Lewis Howes?

  Wow. Yeah. So make sure you guys get the book. We'll link it up. And what is your definition of greatness? I promised us the last question. Definition of greatness.

• 4:39Speaker 00

  Greatness is when the people who are closest to you love you and respect you. And you wanna have both ideally. You know, you do. And I don't care if they like me. I just want them to love me and respect me.

• 4:50Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, Dr. Ross, thank you very much. Appreciate it, appreciate it.