Alrighty folks. Welcome back to SDYT the podcast. I'm your host I'm Porter, and we're gonna talk about again here in the month of March, our core values of growth, confidence, and compassion.

 

This particular month, we've covered a lot of different topics, but here we are now the third week of the month, and we're also gonna add in servant leadership with a reconnaissance commander as well, but we'll get more into that in a second, first of all, if you're new to the podcast, welcome.

 

And if you're a continuing listener, welcome back. I appreciate your support. Appreciate you guys stopping by. So without further ado, I'm Porter. I'm your host, and this is SDYT podcast.

 

Alright, folks. Welcome back to SD YT, the podcast. Today's episode, Marine reconnaissance Commander, husband, father, and in my opinion, most notably class of 20 26 medical student, Alec Littman.

 

He's had a couple posts on Facebook and Instagram on our channel specifically. So if you've seen his face, that's who we're talking to.

 

Without further ado, Alec, what's up man? How you doing? Hey. I'm doing well. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate this time that we're gonna take today to go into some of these these values.

 

Oh, yeah. I'm I'm really excited. So for all of our listeners, we haven't Alec and I. We haven't really talked in too great of detail, I think, in probably I don't even remember, 4 or 5 years, maybe longer now.

 

At least at least 5 years. Yes. Yeah. Something like that. There's there's been a lot of changes, notably, obviously, in the world since then. But from what I understand in your life as well.

 

So let's start with you. I think everybody's familiar to a certain degree what's happening in the world. Let's turn that off for a little bit and let's let's just hear about Alex world. So what's what's going on with you, man?

 

Catch us up to speed in the last couple years? What's going on in your life? 2 years in the Air Force. I was enlisted, and then transitioned over to the Marine Corps, became an officer. I had my bachelor's degree before.

 

And then I ended up choosing to become an an infantry officer, which I know can seem kinda crazy when you think you're going from the Air Force, which is generally known as more of the more milder more mild branches of service, and then now you're doing 1 of the more extreme things in the in the brink for.

 

So as a marine officer and I'm a pure officer, I enjoyed that, so I decided why not take it to the next level and became a reconnaissance officer.

 

And and now at the at this point in my life, my wife and I, and I have AA1 year old, currently looking for a house to buy, and Doke in Alabama, which is where we're going to be for the next 4 years of our life for medical school.

 

That extra push can help you to develop as a as a human being in so many ways. And so that's something I'll always be thankful for just between how it was then and how it is now for me.

 

You know, it's interesting you say that the military giving you focus or or helping you focus more, I suppose, There's a lot of people that I've talked to active duty, reservice, or just prior active duty, service members who because of the stress of what military life entails or sacrifice or sleep deprivation or or any other number of factors that they find it harder to focus because their minds sort of spread out and scattered covering a whole bunch of different variables at once.

 

How did you deal with any of that? Or did you even encounter that?

 

So I did. And not only have I encountered that. But I've also, I would say, encountered that to a a pretty significant degree, which I'll hopefully, I'll be able to get into more as we go throughout this when it comes to growth.

 

Sure. I think that the the difference is And I'm not saying that this is true for everyone, like I said earlier.

 

But I think a key difference is something I learned when I was studying for the medical college admission test as as this concept of an internal locus of control and an external locus of control. What does that mean? So what that Yeah.

 

What that means is an internal locus of control means that I have control over my situation, and that if something happens in my life, if something goes poorly, I have control over that, meaning there was something I could have done better in that instance.

 

And then an external locust of control basically says that there's nothing that I can really do and my my my environment, my surroundings pretty much control my life.

 

And if my life is going poorly, it's not my fault, and there's really nothing I can do about it.

 

And and the studies show it. Studies show it every time, it's is that people with an internal locus of control typically do better. Than people that have an external locus of control.

 

So just that simple mentality of in every situation, no matter what happens to you, being able to look at it and say, okay, well, that didn't go well. But what did I do? That I could've done better in that situation.

 

What did I do poorly? And so that's something that I feel has helped me in my military career, because as you were speaking to, there are many things that I could pinpoint and say, okay, that was that was traumatic.

 

That was stressful. I experience some some terrible things, I will say. And I look at them as opportunities for growth. Am I am I alone to say months? Is it fair to say that this internal That's that's a perfect way to put it.

 

And and locust the word locust just means point so point in space. So so basically, origin or way you described it was perfect though, exactly. Okay. What you paraphrased was that it was spot on. Alright.

 

So if that's the case, between the 2 I mean, learning to take ownership of your decisions, I think, is difficult, and I understand why the military gives anybody, but in this case, you an opportunity to do that because especially coming in from being a student, whether it's a student for let's call it 18 years or a student for 22.

 

Coming into the military is a student, basically. You don't have to really take ownership for much, but it's easy I think to make excuses in a lot of aspects.

 

Once you get in the military, you really can. It Right. The the more you pass the blame in any scenario, the less likely you're gonna have any longevity in your career.

 

But 1 of the things that's interesting that you just brought up, we've talked about rhetoric before as a way of persuading an audience.

 

How you speak, what you say, your knowledge base on a topic being rhetoric in this example for a clear definition. But but how you persuade an audience, that skill set.

 

Right? And the difference between forensic rhetoric and deliberative rhetoric, where you focus on the past, why did this happen? How did this happen? How could this happen? Vice the future? How do we avoid this?

 

How does this work better in the future? What can we do to get through this, if this happens again? And I think that's a similar difference too between this internal and external locus of control concept you brought up. Where -- Sure.

 

-- if you live in the past based on forensic rhetoric or the words in your head, even if you're not saying them out loud, it's difficult to dig out of that because then you're focused on what happened, or you just can't seem to or this internal locust of control and ownership where we're talking about more, I think, deliberative rhetoric where it's more future focused and more growth oriented.

 

More of a a positive direction. So it's interesting you brought that up though. The other Let's see. The other aspect that you were talking about aside from the military though is you've got a 1 year old man.

 

Congratulations. Thank you. Yeah. I'm sure that was an adjustment in itself. Absolutely. The the beginning where my wife had to see sections.

 

She couldn't even get out of bed. So I got a a rude awakening to what it's like to wake up. Every night and get the baby because she wasn't able to do it. Of course, I couldn't feed the baby. But I -- Yeah.

 

-- was bringing the baby to her and I would stay awake. Till he was satisfied, and I put him back to sleep, and then kept waking up. So I thought I had gotten a little sleep during the reconnaissance patrols, during the patrol phase.

 

Yeah. Man, that is I bet waking up every hour, every couple hours. Every every couple hours. Sometimes it felt like I was up every couple of minutes.

 

I'm sure it was kinda frustrating too when you look over because you've gotta wait for him to be done and fall asleep before you take him back to bed. But he's been laying there sleeping.

 

He fell asleep while he was eating or something. You're like, man, come on. Just, you know, work with me a little bit. Yes. Yeah. I remember there was 1 patrol. I don't remember when it was exactly, but I was on FireWatch.

 

There was another guy. I can't remember his name. Either way, the 2 of us walking. We were just patrol and making sure nobody was bothering anybody's stuff while everybody was asleep.

 

And as we're walking around, I remember I just blacked out. And then I looked up basically, picked my chin up off my chest and looked up in front of me, and the guy I was walking next to was, like, 3 or 4 steps in front of me.

 

But we were just having a conversation. I was like, I don't know what happened. It was weird. And my brain, I couldn't process what was going on. I was too tired. And so I kept walking mumbling through the conversation, you know?

 

And he kept talking and then I picked my chin up off my chest next thing I knew. He's 10 steps ahead of me. I'm like, what is going on? It was this weird time lapse, but I kept falling asleep while I was walking.

 

It wasn't anything I could do about it though. My brain was it just had enough and hit a wall, you know? Yep. Yeah. That's what I imagined that to have been like for you.

 

And then on top of that, you add in med school, you add in well, obviously, working with your wife trying to build a family and and and some semblance of stability as you transition out of the military.

 

How's that been for you? That's been a great experience because I would say, to keep critics my wife, she's she's a wonderful person. And I just feel like she makes my life so much easier. I mean, she does so much around the house.

 

I'm taking the class right now because in in my current situation, 1 school has accepted me and then the other school has wait listed me, but the school we really wanna go to that has has wait listed me requires me to take this class, and it's it's only at full credits.

 

But it is it is just incredible amount of time and effort is my job right now is a company commander, probably between 60 and 80 hours a week.

 

I say this class takes about 30 hours a week. So it's just you start to wonder, where is this time coming from?

 

Where? How am I having the time to do any of this? Yeah. 30 hours a week on top of active dude. Wow. But I guess that's sort of where compassion comes into this. Right? Because then you've got to rely on your wife.

 

She's got to rely on you Yes. And then you you help each other out as you go. I'm sure there's I'm sure there's plenty of moments when you guys don't want to do that, but that's what it requires, That's right.

 

And it's 1 of those things where it's the little little things. I'll I'll try to I'd write her a note every morning she writes me a note.

 

She packs me to lunch, which also makes my life easier. And then there's a Saturday mornings, where it's because she doesn't get to sleep as much as she would like to because she has to wake up.

 

Because at this point, when the baby when Benjamin wakes up, I don't I'm sorry. I just Yeah. But she has to wake up, feed him, and then disrupts her sleep.

 

So anything I can do on a Saturday morning, I'll watch him. If he wakes up, and I'm already awake, I'll go in there and I'll get him hang out. Kinda just hang out. And it's an opportunity to bond with him, really.

 

It's pretty pretty incredible. It's just amazing how how much he how quickly he's learning and and moving around, walk pretty much get to that point where I think he's about to start walking.

 

Have you memorized, I guess, or picked a favorite Cocamelon episode yet? Are we there? I could probably sing you at least 20 different Cocamela.

 

That's right. I think it's sort of unfortunate that I can't I'm not well versed. Don't get me wrong in 1 year old TV, but I can't name you any other popular shows other than Kokomo.

 

Like, that's it. That's the only 1 that exists. Like, oh, what do your kids watch? Well, it's gotta be cocoa mountain. What could they watch more cocoa mountain? Like, there aren't other shows.

 

Right? But you think back, say 30 years ago, my god, what are your kids watching? You got reading rainbow, mister Rogers, Sesame Street. Anything on PBS who knows. Right? But I it's okay. I guess you gotta specialize in something.

 

So it's it's gotta count for it, I guess. Alright. So the last thing I wanna touch on real quick, you have mentioned med school to do what? What are you getting into now? What are you looking at?

 

So there seems like there's so many specialties out there. But the the thing that intrigues me the most is oncology. Because as I was studying for the the test you have to take to get into medical school, I mentioned it earlier.

 

It's the medical college test. Mhmm. I was learning about how when we get cancer in our bodies, contrary to popular belief, it's not something where cancer came in and then infected us or something along those lines.

 

What it actually is is there's the risk of cancer is is happening all the time inside of us. The reason we don't get cancer is because there are special cells stopped it from happening, that don't ever let it get to that point.

 

And so nobody gets cancer, it's because 1 of those cells has failed in is broken down, and then you get abnormal cell growth, and then these bad cells, these cancerous cells just go out and get out of control.

 

There's usually something there to keep them in check. So what I learned about that, that's fascinating to me. Yeah.

 

Being able to help people through that process and identifying a medication or what have you to treat them with that can stop that because I think there are many ways that exist, and that we're looking that we're developing now that we can really help people.

 

And eradicate cancer is on it's that's on the horizon. Iradicating cancer, I believe, is on the horizon for us. I mean, Biden's just brought it up in his state of the union.

 

Eradicate cancer or make it more regularly curable. I don't remember exactly how it worded it. So yeah, if that counts for anything, you're not alone there. I think I think we'll touch on that here in the next segment a little bit more.

 

A moment. I've got a couple things I wanna ask you about that, but I don't wanna get too carried away. So before we get there, let's take a quick break for a couple minutes.

 

We'll come back. And we'll talk more about growth, confidence, compassion, and, of course, servant leadership from all of these aspects in your life. Here on SDYT to podcast.

 

Hey, everybody. This porter with SD YT the podcast. When we're talking about spending time with your family and even remembering loved ones, maybe when you can't be there. I'd like to pass to Mike for a second over to my buddy, Dax.

 

He's gonna talk about the bee and the bear creations. That's BE, and the BEAR, be in the bear creations. Tex? Hey, everyone. And Stac's here. I just wanted to take moment and give a shout out to my wife, Julie.

 

She is a artist of sorts, but she has a Facebook page called the B and the Bear Cre and what that page is for is basically if you wanted to do a specialized item like a tumbler or a hat or if final or a decal or a shirt, you can go there.

 

You can ask some questions, look through the wares, but then give a DM and try to sort it out.

 

And then work at adjust pricing. But if you're interested something like that, go ahead, like her page. It's the Be and the Bear creations on Facebook.

 

So Go enjoy. Alrighty, folks. This is Porter with SD YT the podcast. If you haven't heard about Anchor by Spotify, it's the easiest way to make a podcast with everything you need all in 1 place.

 

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So you're interested and you want to find some value for your values, download the anchor app. We'll go to anchor dot f m to get started. Alrighty, folks. Welcome back to SD YT, the podcast.

 

We're talking growth, confidence, compassion, and servant leadership. Here this third week of March 20 22. Alec Littmann, so first of all, before I get into all of these questions I have for you, Alec. Welcome back. Thank you.

 

Alright, man. So where we left off, if you're just joining the podcast, we're talking about, I guess, you could say, Alex fascination with oncology and pursuance of this this as a medical career, a locus of medicine, if you will.

 

But what we're talking about specifically that I I really wanna jump into is this aspect of servant leadership. You can take it from a lot of different perspectives and industries.

 

Right? If you talk about it from a religious perspective, obviously, there's Jesus and prophets and apostles and disciples and everybody doing these things, biblically related, that revolve around servant leadership.

 

I don't think It's as widely publicized in any capacity, how, especially in the infantry, particularly in the marine corps, commissioned officer serves the enlisted service members.

 

It's not quite the other way around despite the hierarchy. Am I even close?

 

I would say that you're spot on, and that's something that to give credit to the Marine Court, not that I'm a recruiter, But I would say it's something that the Marine Corps does a really good job of instilling in their officers is that aspect of servant leadership.

 

I can remember when I was at the basic school, so Marine Corps officers go through 10 weeks of officer candidate school. Typically, unless they went to the naval academy. And then after that, every marine corps officer doesn't matter.

 

If you're a lawyer, a pilot, what have you? You go to the basic school for 6 months, and you get incredibly good training. At the basic school, I can remember my staff platoon commander.

 

That's the captain that kinda leads you around and keeps you going throughout. The 6 month course. Mhmm. Always talked about how he was eating lettuce, when marines, when the food came out to the field, they did get a hot meal.

 

He would always say he was eating lettuce. He probably wasn't actually just eating lettuce, because we have never actually been served lettuce appeal. But what I will say is that's just 1 small instance, leaders eat last.

 

Leader and Simon Synek wrote a book. Called Same title. Yeah. Yeah. And so and and that's really important because what you see is I've been around all the other branches.

 

I've been in there for been around the navy. I've been around the the army. And seldomly, did I see that mentality of of leaders eat last of you serve serpent leadership is the supreme leadership.

 

Because if we're talking about a situation, we're We may be in mortal danger. You want men and women to trust you in those situations.

 

And who are you gonna trust more than someone that serves you rather than demands things of you and never gives you anything in return. So that's that's the concept that I find to be so important as a as a leader for any kind of leader.

 

Okay. So let me ask you this. And if you're talking about from a leadership perspective, but then how do public servants get treated? As if they were in leadership positions, I don't think so.

 

So how do you differentiate between this picture, I guess, or this image or this portrayal? Of servant leadership, but then all of these basically servants of the public aren't viewed as having leadership positions.

 

I think personally, that without them serving in these positions, Post to workers, nurses, medical professionals, whatever, teachers, without them, the the public society would crumble.

 

Like they are the foundation, but they don't get treated that way. What's what's your take on any of this, especially since this is the direction you're going into?

 

I'm curious. So that that I think is a a very good point that you bring up right now. And that that's more of a cultural shift that would have to take place in order for everybody start seeing that differently.

 

But at the same time, I also believe that in order to be a servant leader, you don't you don't actually have to viewed as a servant leader. And, yes, I I think that public servants a hundred percent are are servant leaders.

 

They're serving every people every day and they're leading them and their care of what whatever that may be, whether it be a postal worker, is leading you and your ability to receive mail, which is something so crucial to us to get a package every day almost.

 

Yeah, to communicate, to be social? Sure. Absolutely. Keeps the world going, keeps things going. So, that's another thing I'll I'll bring up is there's an There's always gonna be, there's always be formal and informal leaders.

 

And informal leaders at the end of the day are the ones, as you and I know all, too well as is being served alongside each other with you as a platoon sergeant, and then I, of course, was a platoon commander.

 

And the infantry and and sister platoons, adjacent platoons, that there's there are informal leaders within those platoons, and there's informal leaders within society.

 

And so, I do not think you necessarily need to have a title or even a level of respect.

 

In order to do that, respect comes with trust. Trust and respect go hand in hand. In most times, trust is not granted, taken for granted, it's earned.

 

So that's that's how I think those public servants kind of are gonna have to continue to operate because like you said already, the public as as by and large is is not going to to see things that way.

 

When I think conversations like this can help start the process.

 

Wow. Yeah. I hope so. So let me ask you this then. HIPocrates and his oath. Factor fiction. I don't know if he came up with it or not. I have no idea the relevance between this ancient Greek guy and medicine.

 

But I understand that at some point in your future, you're going to have to swear and affirm some semblance of allegiance to this that you will do no harm. Right? So this isn't obviously just physical.

 

And I I have to believe that as a medical professional or even aspiring in your case, you have to exemplify a positive trend in your added to, your thought process, your carriage, your bearing, your influence on people, patients, co workers.

 

Because otherwise, I think, it becomes detrimental, it becomes harmful, to be in a workplace environment with you if you don't maintain a positive mental attitude, or any sort of positive perspective, I guess.

 

Right? And and try to help other people grow or or heal or recover or whatever. Like, is that is that part of the the definition here? Am I just reading too far into that oath?

 

So you're you're you're right. I I'd say you're you're spot on there and another thing that kind of comes to the forefront on this 1 is we talked about external internal looks of controller earlier.

 

Another thing I think is really important here when it comes to positive mental attitude and have a good attitude of these scenarios.

 

First, you know, harm, right, beneficence is another way to say it, and then malfeasance is doing harm.

 

To others excuse me, non malfeasance would be doing no harm. But when it comes to we talked about internal and external, but there's also something called intrinsic motivation and external motivation.

 

So when it comes to intrinsic motivation, things that would be examples of that would be for passionate about, so you're passionate about something. You do it because it makes you feel good.

 

You wanna be good you you enjoy doing an excellent job because it makes you feel good in external motivator or extrinsic motivation would be money or some kind of rewards, some kind of outside thing.

 

So I'm gonna pay you money to do your job. And you can you can just think of examples.

 

Who does a better job at something? Someone that loves what they're doing or somebody that got a whole bunch of money to do but hates it. It's always gonna be the person that loves what they're doing. Yeah.

 

So the key to that is really what I think this comes down to is Let's let's If we can, let's put people in in in jobs they enjoy. And the counterargument to that, of course, is Bloom where you're planted. You hear that a lot military.

 

Yeah. You you gotta bloom where you're planted. Yep. But and this is something that 1 of my old executive officers would say, is people do better when they love what they're doing. Even if they moderately enjoy what they're doing.

 

If they hate what they're doing, tend not to do very well. No matter how much No no matter how many extrinsic motivators you give them, no matter how much pay or praise, praise is an intrinsic motivator, actually.

 

It is not an intrinsic motivating factor. And the most powerful motivators are intrinsic. It's got to come from within resistances in order to sort of develop, define, qualify these character traits. Right? So -- True.

 

-- for example, let's say, naturally. Well, like earlier, we're talking about oncology and cancer. Sure. Naturally, your cells have an ability to take care of other cells. They become servants in their own capacity or go out of control.

 

They maintain order in the body. This quality control aspect of cell phases. That's natural. But once it becomes broken, Do any of the number of factors, you have to supplement that and nurture the process. Right?

 

And I'm sure it's the same on a cell structure or like microbiological structure and context as it is when you're dealing with people in the infantry, I kind of feel like now that I'm saying it out loud, you're taking this microcosm of a positive perspective and servant leadership of dealing with people and your experience and perspective, and just really shrinking down your focus, Micro Scott, quickly, but you're not really changing what you're doing and how you're doing it.

 

Right? Like, you're still it's the same principles. Right? That's true. I think what what you're saying here when it comes to nurturing, there has to be something that exists already.

 

So if you have somebody that's in some sort of field, and they just don't have it, which I've seen before, I I know you've seen it before too.

 

Then there's really little to nothing that you can do. Now, I'm not saying that extrinsic motivation, no motivators don't help, but they only get you so far.

 

What really is gonna carry you through are those intrinsic motivators. So that's why I do believe the the best thing we can do is for people.

 

Help them figure out what they love and try to get them into that. But, yes, I do think there's a certain amount of of exposure that has to take place in order for that to happen.

 

So by doing what you're saying, you're actually helping them figure out what they are gonna be good at and what they're most interested in doing.

 

In fact, I'll put it like this. If if somebody is loves some doing something, they're passionate about it. Extrinsic motivators actually decrease their passion for it. No.

 

I'm not exactly sure what you mean. Do you have an example? So what I thought is think about people that always say, I love playing video games, but I wouldn't wanna do it for a living. Oh, okay. Do it now, you're getting paid to do it.

 

And it became work, they would hate it. So it's the same way with intrinsic motivation is if you have something that you truly love and you're passionate about, a reward is not gonna motivate you.

 

In fact, and studies to show and demotivates you when you get rewarded for doing what you're passionate about.

 

I think it's important, though, because when you run into stressors, which inevitably you will in life, that's just how life works, you're either gonna push through or quit.

 

I don't think there's any middle ground. Right? Now to what extent do you succeed or fail, I think, is the variable there, but you're only either going to push through whatever the resistance is or quit.

 

And and try something different. And so I think that's interesting when you're talking about studying, say, for a test, you realize, I need to change my major.

 

I'm not interested in this anymore at all. Or find a new job. I wanna stay in this industry. But I don't like this organization or I don't agree with this company's values. That's a big trend now. Do you know those?

 

People quitting their jobs within the last 2 years, I think, more than prior was the statistic, but people quitting their jobs, not because they're dissatisfied with work or with the workplace environment, but because they no longer associate themselves as directly parallel with that company's value system.

 

Beautiful. Yeah. I think there's something to be said there. And and there's a lot that you can parallel to anything else. Right? Like, why would you work with people in a military environment.

 

1, you have to. You don't get much of a choice. But 2, how often you work with them and how you interact with them. You have full control over what you call this an in internal locus of control, I I think, where -- Yes.

 

-- how you interact with people and how you take what they put out into the universe and then reciprocate is is entirely within your control, which actually brings me back to Serent leadership.

 

Cancer for 1, for you to make that a focus of your profession already says a lot about your character.

 

You don't have a choice but to take care of people through ridiculously varying stages and grades of locations of cancerous cells. So my hat's off to you there, just for pursuing that as a career.

 

Matter of fact, I spoke with a gentleman. Maybe you heard his episode maybe you haven't. I don't know. His name is Micah Johnson, and he talked about how within the last 8 years, He's been diagnosed with cancer 4 times.

 

Wow. He's currently undergoing chemo. And hopefully, Micah, if you're listening, come June, we'll be able to get a follow-up.

 

See how you're doing. But he talked a lot about his experiences from the opposite side of the perspective of what you're describing, where, obviously, you're the doctor.

 

He'd be the patient in this parallel, but He talked about his experiences specifically with this little girl who had cancer and had to take these chemo pills.

 

Each day, and they'd make her sick. They were obviously helping in the long run. He takes these chemo pills. I think he said the dose was similar to what he was taking, the size of the pill.

 

This little girl was young, 678 years old. And he's a grown man. So what he's gotta put up with and deal with to accommodate cancer, kids do too. My my grandfather, both of them ended up dying because of cancer.

 

Unbelievable. It is. It's it's pretty crazy. Matter of fact, 1 thing that you mentioned to me, I think it was 4 or 5 primary causes of cancer or contributing factors to cancer growth, I think is what you said.

 

Let's talk about that for a second while we're on the topic. These these factors, what they are, and and how they affect your cells?

 

Absolutely. So something my my father always says, my father is actually a physician. As the top the top 4 calls of cancer. And I I can't necessarily tell you what order these are in, but these are usually considered top 4.

 

So a big 1 is obesity. Or even even actually even being overweight, a lot of times people get uncomfortable when you start talking about the body mass index.

 

But what it actually is based on is reality. When we what we found is when people are in the overweight category. Their odds go up of all these problems like cancer, heart attacks, what have the list goes on.

 

And when you're in the obese category, which is higher, though they go up even more. And that is independent of being muscular, body fat composition, etcetera.

 

And even as far go to go as far as when you're at an older age, your risk of of getting injured from a fall goes up if you're overweight because you have more weight.

 

So even if you're muscular, it's harder on your body. Your organs are working harder to be overweight. So just just as a quick aside on that 1.

 

But anyways, when it comes to cancer, you're you're more likely to come develop cancer because when you have more cells, and your cells are growing and dying and getting recreated more so, then that's the higher likelihood of there being an error.

 

And that error, that mutation is what causes cancer. It's when something goes wrong, like like we spoke about earlier. So that's why obesity is gonna increase your odds of getting cancer.

 

Another big 1 that'll hurt you is is alcohol. Drinking alcohol will increase your risk of cancer. Because it's a toxin to your body. And once again, it causes those mutations in your cells.

 

And those mutations mean that my cell doesn't work right. And that's what cancer is. It's when you have cells, abnormal cells that just keep growing and and reproducing and growing and growing. Smoking is another 1.

 

The amount of carcinogens and a standard cigarette are far more than what you would find in an electronic cigarette. So same thing, it causes a mutation. Then the last 1 is is sunlight ultraviolet radiation exposure.

 

So I recently was reading an article about pilots. Pilots get cancer, they're they're more prone to cancer in the areas and the regions of anywhere from the chest down to the prostate.

 

Why are they getting cancer there? That's because that's where the ultraviolet radiation is reaching them, because that's what's exposed when you're flying around in a plane.

 

When you think about that, you realize it doesn't just mean that I'm gonna get skin cancer if I'm outside.

 

I could get all forms of of cancer potentially, because the radiation goes and passes through us. So these are these are the interesting things about cancer. If you if you can And I'm not saying you have to eliminate all those things.

 

Obviously, sunlight's good for you. Obviously, alcohol and moderation is is fine. Obviously, if you wanna smoke, you know, that's 1 of those things that kind of takes over.

 

But even being the the weight thing, a normal healthy weight is the best. If you can kind of moderate those things in your lives, that doesn't mean you can't eat dessert anymore.

 

That's not what we're saying here. You you are greatly reducing your odds of getting cancer just by paying attention to those those 4 things on that list.

 

So let me ask you this then. If these are the, let's say, top 4 contributing factors for cancer cell growth, that doesn't mean they're the top 4 causal factors of cancer cell growth, though.

 

Right? It's it's correlation, not causation. That is true. Because as you and I were talking about earlier, what actually causes them is the cell not working properly.

 

Yeah. So this is what, by chance, the cell's just not working correctly, as it replicates and goes through the process, it's just chance?

 

It it it really is. When you say that, it's it's interesting because it it really is by by chance. There's a mutation that happens because as we get older, our cells are always replicating. They're going through the cell cycle.

 

As we get older, that's also more likely to happen. That's why you see people get cancer usually when they're older. Right? Because of the breakdown of the process, it happens And that's why you talked about chemotherapy.

 

That's why chemotherapy works. And that's why it makes you sick. The cells inside of your body that go through the cell cycle quickly would be the cells in your stomach because they're always getting melted by acid.

 

Your stomach has a lot of acid in it. Right? So those cells have to go through the cycle very rapidly, so that's why people get sick to their stomach when they take the chemotherapy pills because it stops the growth, it stops it.

 

Stops growth of those cells, which also stops growth of cancer. But this is because it's not targeted.

 

Right? The rate Not Yeah. Okay. So I heard astronauts, the International Space Station, were doing medical experiments where certain chemicals I think they were all fluids, but I don't remember exactly.

 

But certain chemicals that here on earth would not combine, due to whatever forces and and other factors here on planet Earth -- Absolutely.

 

-- in space, they weren't bound by the same forces, and they were finding that these chemicals were better able to merge, so they're making cancer treatment pills.

 

In space, And once everything combines and bonds and whatever, they put it in a capsule or some sort of pill form, and then send it back down here to earth.

 

That is incredible. Yeah. And I'm gonna write that down. Yeah. I I can't remember the name, but it was definitely international space station, cancer drugs.

 

You can find something on Google if you search those 2 things with a plus sign. But, yeah, this was just in the last couple days to couple weeks. So pretty recent.

 

And the thing that I thought was cool about it, aside from the obvious actuarial science, I guess, is that then outsourcing medical drugs, cancer treatment drugs, to space, the cool thing was that these pills, we're able to what's the word?

 

What's the word? Identify and target, which cells lost control and were abnormally growing, as opposed to targeting everything in this blanket burst of, I don't know, light is what I'm picturing in my head, but whatever the word is.

 

Radiation, I guess, as a wave. That it's more like a laser and it's focused on just the cancer cells.

 

Super cool. Super cool. I have no idea what it's called, what the company was, I don't know. Anybody listening, feel free to pull it up and and send me an email or something.

 

But but we talked about things that cause cancer, the correlation of these factors, obesity alcohol and and whatnot to cause cancer, but I'm curious, is it genetic?

 

Because if it's all based on random chance, but then we wouldn't have increased chances. Of people that had cancer to their children. Right. Well so why would chances go up if it's not genetic?

 

It's a great question. So it it absolutely can be genetic. And it depends on what form of cancer it is. So, for example, breast cancer is 1 of the main offenders when you come talk about genetic inheritance.

 

Your odds of getting cancer are going to go up if your parents or either 1 of your parents have cancer. And the reason for that is because when you think about DNA, where do you get your DNA from?

 

It comes from your parents. Sure. Right? So that from your mom, 50 percent from your dad, So people say, then how come I don't look exactly like a direct combination of my mom and my dad?

 

Well, the reason for that is that's what is actually expressed. It's called phenotypes. So there's genotypes, which is all the genes you have But phenotypes are what actually shows is what you look like.

 

So just because out of the genes, doesn't mean that is what actually comes out on on top. So So you you still have the genetic codes for 50 percent of your what your mom has, 50 percent of what your father has.

 

So what I'm what I'm getting at there, though, is when it comes to cancer, that means that they have that, and and it's something that was already a mutation in their DNA when you were born.

 

Then you would increase your odds of getting cancer.

 

Now it may not be expressed like we're talking about with phenotypes and genotypes. It may not be DNA that is actually expressed, which is good, because then you wouldn't have to worry about it.

 

Depends if it's dominant or not. But -- Sure. -- that means that you have, yes, you have increased odds of of getting cancer. In fact, 1 of my bosses, his father had cancer, and he ended up getting cancer in the same exact spot.

 

Oh, wow. And that's how I do the check for it. Same his life. You know, I think that's something that the military offers that is a definite advantage, I think.

 

As far as I understand other civilian careers, especially, that generally speaking every other year active duty service member gonna deploy. That's just the rotation for the majority of ground forces anyways.

 

And so before you deploy, you have to go in to get a checkup. When you get back, you to get a checkup and then 90 to a hundred and 80 days after you've been back. You have to get another checkup.

 

Right? So, essentially, twice every year, you're going to get looked at. And I think for those of us that give or take over a decade of service start to get told more frequently is What's your history of cancer in your family?

 

You might wanna consider getting checked here in the next couple years. So it's funny you bring it up That's that's an interesting point.

 

Before we get too far into this, and I wanna get back into this radiation piece real quick. But I'm gonna save it, I think, for our next segment. Let's take a break for a couple minutes.

 

We'll be back with Alec Littman talking about growth confidence, compassion, and servant leadership. If you're looking for high quality locally sourced groceries, The Keystone farmer's market is the place to be.

 

Alongside our signature homemade boiled peanuts, we strive to offer only the best locally sourced pasta baked goods, jams, and jellies, farm eggs and dairy products, meats, and even seafood, as well as a great selection of fresh produce.

 

That's the Keystone Farmers Market. 12615 Tarpon Springs Road in Odessa, Florida, the place with the boiled peanuts.

 

Alrighty, folks. Welcome back to SDYT, the podcast to get on Porter. I'm your host, and we're talking growth. Confidence, compassion, and servant leadership with Alec Littman.

 

So, again, Alec, welcome back. Thank you. Oh, you're welcome. You're welcome. I appreciate your emotion. Alright. So the topics that we were covering in our second segment was an awful lot about cancer and oncology contributing factors.

 

I I learned a lot, but 1 of the things that I think is pretty interesting and I'd like tie this back into a value system.

 

So bear with me for a second. You had mentioned that pilots have increased risks of cancer due to radiation because they're higher up in the atmosphere.

 

So there's less protection from UV rays to the people around you who you work with, who you live with, who you interact with at the grocery store, whatever, but what you put out into the universe affects other people too.

 

It radiates out from you. Personality based on your upbringing, your perspective, and your values. And so I'm curious, 1 of the things we haven't discussed yet, why are these values even important to you to begin with.

 

What do you care about serving leadership or compassion or or growth? Why are they important? 1 of my favorite quotes from the bible, and this is actually something Jesus said is from the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.

 

So what you're saying there, when you talk about what you put out, is so true. You can't help but to put those things out. So whatever's inside of you is gonna amount.

 

It's just it's gonna happen. So when you talk about growth, competence, compassion, servant leadership. If those things are not inside of you, and whatever else you've got going on is what's gonna be coming out of you.

 

So to speak, what's gonna be left over. When it comes to competence, Why is competence so important to me? So I see competence just briefly here. I'll touch on this.

 

A lot of people talk about if you're incompetent, you can't make it in life, but when I think about competence, I think about competence as present being present. If you're not present in the moment, you will be incompetent.

 

Doesn't matter. Give it your all on everything that you do. And wherever you are, be all there. If you're with somebody, and you're talking on the phone the whole time or you're texting on the phone the whole time.

 

Why are you there? Be where you are, be present where you are. And that's part of being competent. Yeah. If you find it somewhere else, you're gonna be incompetent.

 

So that's why that's so important to me because you tie it all together and you do an excellent job. When it comes to compassion, there have been many times in in my life where I've been shown a great deal of compassion.

 

But even if I had it, even if that was not the case and never had been, I still believe that compassion is is what keeps the wheels going. It's it's the grease on the wheels, so to speak.

 

Without compassion, there's going to be something that happens where everybody's gonna feel that or or the wrath of of imperfection because we all suffer from it. Right? Nobody's perfect. Show me a single person that's perfect.

 

You can. There's no 1, no person alive today that's perfect. German leadership tying it all in together is important to me because of the fact that my favorite leaders have been servant leaders, the ones I enjoy the most.

 

And 9 times out of time, if you ask people why they're not sticking around a job, They'll tell you, it's because of the people. I'm not saying that's always the reason.

 

That's why I said 9 times out of 10. They probably didn't mesh well with others. And why did they not mesh well with others? I'd say a big reason would be selfishness. The more that we suffer and we all suffer from selfishness.

 

It goes back to us being imperfect like I talked about. But the more we suffer from selfishness, the more unpleasant we are to be around. Who likes to be around a person that all they do is they talk about themselves.

 

They never ask you about yourself. Nobody likes that. In fact, the people that we find most interesting are the people that are interested in us. The people are interested in us.

 

We find them to be very interesting, if you ever have a conversation with somebody, and they engaged with you the whole time, and they were in sort of asking questions about you, but not just a 1 way conversation where it was just you talking about where you were kind of having it back and forth, but you were talking about something that's interesting to you.

 

You will find that person may know nothing about what it is that's interesting to you.

 

But if they can engage you in that subject, you will find them to be very interesting. And that's kind of what I see as as a big aspect of why servant leadership is so important.

 

And that's what it comes down to, is being about others, being about serving others. Steve Harvey, I think it was, on a video clip this morning, I was Listen into him, talked to the audience.

 

I don't even remember what the show was or where the clip came from. It was just him on the stage holding some sort of a card dressed in a suit talking to the audience.

 

So there's the setting. Anyway, he said it's impossible to think about what's impossible. Did you can't do it? Because it's impossible, which means everything you think about then becomes possible.

 

Which means you're the only 1 putting the limitations on yourself. So if you think about it in terms of probability, Your introducing risk may be likely due to fear of succeeding or fear of failure.

 

If you talk about whatever you're thinking about in terms of possibility, you're more likely to play off of affirmation and succeed. And I thought it was interesting as you were bringing that up with servant leadership.

 

1 of the things that I remember when we did work together directly anyways, 1 of the things that I remember you did is there was this let's call it a conflict, managerial dispute of sorts.

 

And instead of getting worked up there in the office between you and 1 of the other colleagues, let's say, Instead of getting worked up and and mirroring or or matching, you deescalated the situation, diffused it, and then we're able to talk through the problem with I'm pretty sure it was a a staff sergeant Nelliance corporal in that particular moment.

 

But but I was impressed. It was I don't think the first time I saw somebody defuse an argument, but it was definitely the first time between those individuals where it hadn't always escalated to that extent.

 

But that somebody had been able to diffuse it to a point that it was overall a positive outcome.

 

And I I was impressed by that capability. Which brings me right back to what you're putting out in the world, people see whether you know it or not, and you impact people, whether you want to or not.

 

Unless you live by yourself and never come across anybody else. It's just being human. Anyway, I appreciate you taking some time to sit down and talk about this.

 

I know these are kind of odd topics to discuss because they don't come up in conversation that often values specifically let alone servant leadership and compassion, especially to dudes talking about compassion.

 

It's just not a thing. It's true.

 

Yeah. But it's like you said earlier, sometimes to change a culture, you just have to have a conversation. And and who knows where it goes as it radiates out and people hear it. So I guess with that, let me wrap this up first off.

 

Good luck in your medical career. Transitioning out of the military, raising a child, fostering a healthy relationship with your wife, and I guess all things considered learning to juggle in your late twenties.

 

But otherwise, thank you for coming in and and talking about some of this stuff. And and so if we get the opportunity down the road, to have you back.

 

You can fill us in on how your medical career is going, and and we'll talk a little bit more. I'd appreciate it if you can carve out some time down the road too. Yeah.

 

I really appreciate Shake, you having me, as I said earlier, I'm happy to be here, and I've I've immensely enjoyed our our conversation and the the sort of the back and forth exchanges that we've gone to have, you're you're very inquisitive and just kinda fun talking to you.

 

So I I appreciate it this this time. It's meant a lot to me. Yeah. No problem. No problem. And I I am actually grateful you you put out a bunch of positive stuff about me on live feed.

 

So thanks. But, no, genuinely, I appreciate it. And to everybody out there listening, thanks for tuning in. Thanks for sticking with us and listening to the conversation.

 

As always, got anything you wanna contribute to an episode, or you wanna be interviewed, or you've got topics for consideration, feel free to send an email to survival dead y t at gmail dot com.

 

Send us a direct message on Facebook, Instagram, check out our other segments from our video series survival dead y t up on TikTok and YouTube. And until next time, I'm Porter. I'm your host, and that was SDYT.