A song, a.
Book, and a dish. I'm seven o two, twelve minutes to six.
Normally, when we introduce our guests for the closing feature at the end of a week on seven oh two Drive, it's pretty easy to introduce them. But if I had to do this with my next guest, it really would take a while. Because he's a medical doctor, he's produced and presented on television, he's an international speaker, he's involved in the world of healthcare, and on and on it goes.
I'm not even going to try. I'm just going to say, welcome to seven oh two Drive, doctor Michael Mole, thanks for your time.
Thank you so much, mister John Pulman. It's good to be with your the show, and thank you for the invite.
So, Michael, let me ask you this. I mean, one could look at all the things you've done and someone might say, well, this guy didn't really know what he wanted to do. Another interpretation that might be you had a very good idea all through your career of the kinds of things you wanted to do. You just wanted to do them in a whole range of different ways, which is.
John. I wish it was the latter the truth is the former. It's okay, just kind of was being the yes guy, like I'll take that opportunity, I'll jump at that, and yes, yes. My very first sort of screen test for top billing this I just qualified. I was a
medical doctor. I was working in trauma and then I get put in front of a camera and lights and all I remember was forgetting my lines and getting stupid and you know, make me some sort of ad lib comment and thought, well, that's the first and last time I'll ever be on camera. And they came back and said, hey, man, we love that, you know, would you consider work with us? So it was that was honestly the edge on It was kind of just opportunities that always grabbed them and
went with it. And yeah, I'm still trying to figure out what I should be doing with my life.
So well, it's a nice position to be in in many ways if you're always finding things you like doing. But let's go back to varticle of primary. You're the oldest of three kids. Your dad is doing lots of things, authors, speaker, management consultant, your mom's a school teacher. Those primary school days, what did did you have fantasies? I mean, was medicine already on the horizon for you.
It wasn't you know in primary school I was a Liverpool fan. It was it was kind of football that was really you know, all that sort of took up my headspace. That and probably probably music. Medicine was late into my high school career, kind of thinking what am I going to do, and just there was something about committing to people, you know, human flourishing just seemed to sort of well open me. And that's kind of where
medicine landed. So my poor brother, who's an team surgeon, you wanted to be a whole life and he just felt like, as the oldest brother, I scupper his plans and dreams just before and kind of picked medicine. So yeah, it's as I said the first question, it was really just giuristic and you know, went to what was in front of me.
We have to go to food, and I may as well, well, no, I'm not going to go there yet on your dish that you've shared with us, because perhaps I ought to warn the listener. Let's first of all, start off at the mole dinner table. There's three of you. You're the oldest. Your dad sounds like he's involved in interesting stuff. Your mom coming back with stories from school. What was going on? Firstly, what were you eating? And spoiler alert, it wasn't Vietnamese steak, Philip.
We'll get snake Philip. We'll get to that in the moment. But meal times at the moles give us a sense.
Of it, John, we were eating all the wrong things, okay, having sceneal, I promise you like honey smacks and strawberry pops and foods and pasta. If I to think about what we ate as kids and bless my mom. I mean, she was a stay at home mom and she looked after us and loved us and still in good health. But what we ate them and what we know now about what's good to eat and whole food and ditching the process with I'm surprised I even made it to
fifty plus. So we weren't eating the right things at all, but we were eating together. I think that was huge for my CHILDO growing up, as we'd gather around a dining table and at least for one meal a day, there'd be five of us at the table sharing the day ideas thoughts. My dad would kind of lead with some sort of Bible kind of prayer and story. So it was a wonderful family time gathered around meals. And I think that was way more helpful and healthy than actually what does on our plate?
All right, let's do the Vietnamese snake phill. It's sooner you than me. Why are you telling us about this? We asked you for your favorite dish and tell.
Us it's the opposite, John, I mean, I know, ask the favorite dishes and you always change. Let me give you what was my antithesis of a favorite dish? We bring Vietnam? It was a toppling story. We got to a snake restaurant. Now I had a terrible fear of snakes, so already this is a big stretch for me. We get to the restaurant, the owner sees the camera, he sees the lights, brings out this prized cobra and starts kind of with its tail, manipulating the snake. It's obviously
been defanged, but the snake's rarey. It's beautiful. Team. I mean, it's just the cameraman's you know, in his element and then out of the blue. John. And this is if you're listening to this, you might want to turn the volume down. For a moment out of the blue, this this restaurant snake. Restaurant owner guts the snake, just takes a life, cuts its heart out, puts it in a little glass with a little bit of blood, a shot glass. The heart is still beating, and then he hands it
to me. It's like a guest of honor. And camera's kind of rolling up on me and here I am with a beating snake's heart and a glass of blood, and I kind of got a down it because that's the respectful thing to do in that culture. It was. It was awful. I mean, I felt terrible doing it. It went out on air, actually, and that's the when email was still fairly new. You know, we just got more hate mail than I'd ever gotten for something like that. And I can understand now why it was. Guys, this
is culturally appropriate and acceptable in Vietnam. Quite the opposite. But this is the beauty of cultures. And this is what we're trying to teach you. But my word, and in fact, later that evening was a bottle of wine on the table, John that had bamboo shoots in it. You do you know what a bad shoot is? You know that we can sell it to ask someone who could barely speak English, like, what why do you why are you good bamboo shoots on this wine? You know? And he came with a big grin in his face.
And it turns out again this is snake penis wine. Had penis full of them.
Well, they did have penises until they made the wine.
I guess that just makes my skin crawl. And I thought I should share that with you, just as an you know, an empty to what you normally hear on the show.
Yeah, and I suppose some nostalgia for the honey smacks, as bad as they might be for you. I want to talk about your book, Michael, because because this reflects what I understand to be a very very central part of your life now. Peter Attire m D. Is the author, co written with Bill Gifford. Some people may know the book. It's called Outlive The Science and Art of Longevity. Is it fair to say this is your new central passion? And if so, tell us why.
I think what Atya did is he captured a passion in many of us. And the big idea behind behind out Live is focus on health span, not lifespan. Lifespan is how we live global average seventy three. Health span is how long we live free of disease and disability, and the average is around sixty three, which means John, for ten years, we are dying slowly, and that's what we want to avoid. As a doctor, I was trying to extend lifespan. That was kind of the old way
of looking at things. Medicine two point zero, medicine three point oh, says guys, let's look at health span, let's look at quality of life, let's look at good years as opposed to long years. And he just dives into the science, and it's good science, and it's you know, it's just there's such valuable information that it's a tough read if you're not medical, if you don't know any games. But the concept is just a slam dug. It tells the story about Toathonis in Greek folks or to Furnas
ask the god's for eternal life. They gave it to him. It was overjoyed until he started to get older and older and older and more decrept and suddenly relatives should have asked for eternal youth too, because getting older is just awful. And that's the premise of the book. And the science is there. It's a good read if you hadn't read it, highly recommended.
Okay, let's go from good life to good times. We asked you to pick a song. You picked bon Jovi Born to Be My Baby, all the way back in nineteen eighty eight. Normally we play in a little soft intro of a song, but this one begins with a bang. So do tell us why you picked this and then we'll play out with it.
I don't have a tattoo, John, but if I did, it might say something like bon Jovi forever. I was a huge fan. There's all of my big disappointments in life. I love Bussy Kamalo to Bits. My fellow co host, we had an opportunity to interview John Bonavie and she took it and I like, you just don't know what you've done.
Well, I mean you got the snake cards and I think.
That, yeah, exactly. You know this is the flip side. I'll tell you why that song in particular is special to me, John. It's it triggers all sorts of nostalgia. And there's a medical term for what that is. A contra member quite now, but I was lip syncing in the age of millieven Lily remember that, yes, yes, this song on stage, Born to Be My Baby by Bono Vi guitar in hand, just one big you know, fake fake musician, and a young girl walked in at the
back who was gorgeous, looked at me. I looked at her, just kind of this moment. And I've been married to that young girl for a big partner two the timing thanks her, in fact, for three years. So I met my wife singing bon Jovi is Born to Be My Baby, will pretending to sing it anyway, And that's why that song's just got this phenomenal nostalgia attached to it.
Well, fabulous, thank you. Wish we had more time, but let's play out with bon Jovi, A classic from nine