Unlocking Success: The Secrets of Delayed Gratification with Dr. Emilio Justo

Well, Doc, welcome to the podcast. How are you doing today? Fantastic. Reverend Keith, it's just a delight to be with you here, sir. It's a pleasure to be with you too. I'm going to ask you my favorite question of all my guests. What's the best piece of advice you've ever received? Wow, that is a great question.

So, you know, truly, I think the best piece of advice, which comes from a negative experience that I had of my own doing, is my wife basically telling me that when life deals you lemons, you gotta make lemonade. And she's told me that several times and I've taken it to heart. And, and truly it's that, that's, that's what we've done is we've made lemonade from the lemons. And so I've been led a very blessed life. Yeah, that's it. I've heard that one before. That it's also always sound advice.

Yes, I definitely think so. Advocating from your wife is really, really good advice. Yes, yes.

So I'm curious, tell us about your journey from being a Cuban refugee to becoming a respected doctor. Wow, that's a jam packed question. So just in general, I'll kind of talk quickly so as not to bore your audience too much, but basically my parents and I came to the United States as Cuban refugees when I was three years old. And unlike many Cuban refugees who escaped via Miami, we actually escaped via Mexico. So we were in Mexico for six months.

And then back then in the 1960s, in the mid-1960s, it was commonplace that church organizations would sponsor Cuban refugees entry into the United States. And so our church who sponsored us, Central Christian Church, relocated us to Gary, Indiana, you know, home of the Jackson 5, you may recall. That's when they were getting their start.

My grandparents came over a few months later in the church that sponsored them, relocated them to a small college town in northwest Missouri called Tarquillo College, Missouri. And so because my parents were starting over from scratch, you know, they didn't know the language. We came over with just the clothes on our back. My father worked two full time jobs.

My mother, who actually had her doctorate in education in Cuba, relocated three hours south to Bloomington, Indiana to Indiana University to restudy. So my parents made the courageous decision to send me to do my early years of growing up with my grandparents in Tarkhio College. So from kindergarten through the end of fourth grade, I grew up on this college campus. My grandparents and I lived in this dorm room which I went to visit about six, seven, eight years ago with my Family.

And I kid you not, it was at most 400 square feet. And growing up, it just felt like a regular home, you know, I didn't know any better, but. So I grew up in a dorm room with my grandparents, had a wonderful, wonderful upbringing, was surrounded by college students all the time. Finally, in fifth grade, we relocated back to Indiana. By that time my father could go down to just one full time job. My mother was now teaching high school Spanish. Spanish.

And my parents had saved enough money to buy a home and we relocated just slightly south of Gary in a little town called Crown Point, Indiana. There I did my growing up through the remainder of high school. I was blessed. Having worked extremely hard in high school, I was blessed to be valedictorian of our graduating class. I got into the University of Michigan's Accelerated Premedical Medical Program, graduated medical school at age 23, then went to Washington D.C. to do my residency.

Finished there at the age of 27. And then I decided that I was tired of having the winters and the cold weather and the dreary skies. And so I relocated then to Phoenix, Arizona to start my practice. And that's where I've been now. And this is my 36th year of full time medical surgical practice. And the rest is history. Wow. The American dream. What a cool story. Thanks for sharing that. Yes, yes. So what led you to write the Power of Pause? Well, a great question.

So the backstory is that from first, before writing the book, I wrote a TEDx talk. And the reason that came about is I was just on my stationary bike at home, pedaling away, and I was just kind of going through YouTube videos and I came across a YouTube advertisement video talking about an organization that would help people prepare and formulate TEDx talk.

So I decided to join and I worked on that weekend after weekend because they would preach that it would take an average of 90 applications to land a TEDx talk. Of course, that's just an average. Some people might hit it their fifth time, other people might take 200 times. So I started working on that every weekend that I would spend my whole weekend. And after about two months, about eight weekends, I had finally submitted 86 applications.

And then it was time to go on our, basically our summer vacation, which we went to Western Canada. And then I'll never forget July 5th, we're having lunch outside in Banff, Alberta, Canada, and I get a phone call and it's basically inviting me to present at TedxCherry Creek HS. The difficulty was that the, the talk was going to be the date was going to be in five weeks from that phone call.

And I hadn't actually written the talk because the way it was explained to us was to basically do some bullet points for the application, but not actually the talk. And I'm thinking, wow, you know, I still have another week of vacation, so I know I'm not going to get anything done during that time. So by the time I home, I'm going to have four weeks to basically write the talk, practice the talk, memorize the talk, and then deliver the talk. And so it was a lot of stress, but I pulled it off.

And as the months went by, this was August of 2023, as the months went by, and the talk was actually released within six weeks, which is very, very fast. Sometimes it takes up to six months for the TED organization to release it on YouTube. But as it was released in September of 2023, it started taking off and I started getting a tremendous number of views. And then towards the holiday season, my wife said, hey, you know, you're doing so well with this talk.

You should consider expanding on it and writing a book. And I thought, that's an interesting idea. I've never written a book before, but so I started doing just that. I started writing the book. And that, of course, took a tremendous amount of time. And as I'm writing the book, I'm getting this inkling that maybe I should write another talk. So I'm kind of doing both things simultaneously. And so in.

In February 24th, I actually delivered a second TEDx talk on a completely different subject on obsession. My first one was on delayed gratification. And then finally, earlier this year, in the summer of 2024, I published my book. But ultimately, Reverend Keith, the short answer to your question, that was the long, drawn out answer. The short answer is that all of this started because I truly wanted to leave kind of a message and a legacy to my family.

You know, my wife and I started a little bit later in life. And, you know, we have three teenage kids and we're just trying to impart some lessons and to show them that what I feel are the keys to my success and the keys really that could be for anyone's success. And also as we get older, maybe you can appreciate this. I may be older than you, but as I get older, I start thinking about my own mortality. Right. You know, when you're young, you think you're invincible.

You're going to live forever, you know, but now as you start getting older, you reflect, you know, you reflect back on your life. What have you done right? What have you done wrong? And I just wanted to kind of leave a message out there for primarily my family, but also for others out there who are willing to listen to what I have to say. And furthermore, when I wrote the book, I also decided that. Reverend Keith.

That I wanted to narrate it myself because I wanted to leave my voice as an imprint for generations to follow. And so I really, really enjoy that process of narrating the book. And that was really just a joy for me. We live in a society where delayed gratification is not a popular topic. It's almost as popular as healthy eating, right?

So how do you convince a generation that has grown up on instant gratification, instant contact, constant contact, to really relish in this idea of delayed gratification? Boy, that's an incredible challenge. And I share that with you because I know the challenges that I have faced and continue to face with our own children, who I love deeply, as you can imagine. But in today's society, you know, more and more it's all about instant gratification.

Because certainly there's a certain dopamine rush that you get when you get things instantly. There's no doubt. But I firmly believe that truly, deep down, we've been wired with delayed gratification, right? If you think back to caveman days, they had to delay their gratification. They had to plan and hunt for their meals. It wasn't all, you know, the delivery, the Ubers and, and that sort of thing.

So I think that there's a certain DNA wiring for delayed gratification, but it's been taken over by the dopamine rush of that instant gratification. So all I can do, you know, it's like the old expression, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them. Dr. All I can do is to try to preach, pardon the pun, but when I say preach, you know, the first thing I tell anyone is that, look, instant gratification does play a role in our lives.

At no time am I saying that instant gratification shouldn't be there or that we shouldn't exercise it. No, but it has its own role. But in terms of long term growth and success, that I think if we delay gratification, that it will have a much, much greater and exponential influence on our life to achieve greater, greater success. But again, getting the younger generation to catch on to that and to digest that and to internalize that is a tremendous challenge.

And if I had the secret to that, you know, I would be, you know, perhaps on, on late night TV shows because I don't have that exact secret. But all I can do is just keep, keep pounding the hammer and preaching what I firmly believe in. That'd be TED Talk 3, 4 and 5, if you could figure that out. That's right. There you go. You know, I, when you talk about delayed gratification and resilience, to me those two things are tied together, together or at least connected.

And I, and I wonder how much this generation struggles with resilience because of the lack of instant gratification, because of the lack of delayed gratification. I just kind of wonder if you, as you think about how important it is to have that in our lives, can. Are there some real life examples that you can share that illustrate that delayed gratification is so meaningful for us?

Certainly. Well, first I want to echo what you just said, because my definition of delayed gratification is the practice of resisting that temptation for immediate rewards and instead choosing to invest time and effort into long term goals. And as you correctly pointed out, one of the critical benefits of delayed gratification is, is the development of resilience, you know, strengthening our ability to overcome obstacles, endure challenges, and persevere through setbacks.

So the delayed gratification allows us to gain clarity about our goals and aspirations and it forces us to reflect on what truly matters and then identify the steps needed to achieve those goals. So by delaying that instant gratification, we actually become the masters of our own desires rather than the slaves to our impulses. But in my own life, I mean, there are very various examples.

Number one is just the obvious, that when we came over as refugees, we had nothing, so I had to delay gratification. I mean, simple examples of. And I talk about this even in my TEDx talk, that when I was in high school, I wanted so badly to play for our high school hockey team, but we had to purchase our own equipment. Our high school was a parochial high school and they didn't have a lot of money. So you had to buy your own equipment.

Well, purchasing all that hockey equipment was not an insignificant amount, and it was, I think, maybe a couple hundred dollars back in the 1970s. And I knew I didn't even have to ask my parents. I was very cognizant of the fact that we didn't have a ton of money. So there was just no way that I could look my parents in the eye and ask for that. So I had to delay that gratification.

You know, fast forward to in medical school, I talk about this in one of my TEDx talks that on a Sunday evening I get a call from one of my best friends in college and he, he wasn't in the medical school and he all of a sudden got tickets to a Beach Boys concert that evening. You know, and I love the Beach Boys, right? Most of us do. And he wanted to invite me to the concert. And I, I looked, looked at him and said, look, man, I have a gross anatomy test the next morning.

And gross anatomy is one of those courses that's super difficult and it's bulk memorization. And I said, there is no way that I'm going to be able to pass this test if I don't study, you know, and he's basically telling me, oh no, no, you're smart, you can do it, no problem. And no, I basically delayed that gratification. And I said, thank you, but no thank you, you know, I needed to study. And that was another example of delayed gratification.

Another one going back to my days at University of Michigan is that because as a student I didn't have a lot of money to spend on frivolous things that my parents did give me enough money to buy season football tickets, right? And if you know anything about college football for your audience that does, right? The University of Michigan Wolverines are one of the blue blood programs in college football. Also won the national championship last year, but that's another story.

And I distinctly remember, Reverend Keith, that back then it would cost $36 for student end zone tickets. And this was for a pack of six tickets. Back then it would be six home games and I would take that $36, I would buy the season tickets and I wouldn't go to the games. I would sell them because there was such a demand for tickets that I would take that $36 and I would turn it into 200, $250 by selling those tickets, right?

For, for those of us today, it doesn't seem like much, but that profit back then, you know, allowed me a little spending money that on the weekends, if I got tired of the dorm food, I could go and, and get a pizza or something like that. So that was another example of delayed gratification. And then the final example before I bore you too much, is that just in my professional life is that, you know, early on, probably the first, easily the first 10 years of my practice career, right?

I'm in my 36 year practice, but the first 10 years, you know, any profits I made from the practice, I didn't just pay myself out to, to go Have a good time and buy fancy things. I reinvested those funds into the practice to get better equipment, to hire more skilled staff members, to, to provide better benefits for them. I basically reinvested into the practice to allow it to grow and mature over time, which later on paid huge dividends for me.

So I think there are numerous examples of delayed gratification in my own life, and those are just a few of them. Those are all cool. It's funny because I was thinking when you talked about your education, to be a pastor in our church body. It takes us eight years of higher education. And so I always joked we have as much years to become a doctor as we do a pastor, but a lot less. Sure. But it depends what kind of pastor you are. If you're, if you're one of those mega church pastors.

Yeah, that wasn't, that wasn't me. But.

No, but, you know, it's, it's so interesting because when you think about the journey to get where you are, the delayed gratification makes the end of your journey so much sweeter because you know, what it took to get there. And all along the way, even some of the struggles, the lemons that life throws at you that you turn into lemonade make you such a much deeper, well rounded individual if you take advantage of those opportunities to grow. Correct, correct.

I firmly believe that, Firmly believe that. I just, to my core, I just am such a devout believer in delayed gratification. Again, not to say that, you know, especially as I've gotten a little bit older in my life, you know, I've had my, my pleasures, my instant gratification that I've consciously allowed myself to, to participate in. But to my core, I do believe in delayed gratification. And, and I will say, and I talk about this in my book, it's, it's highly embarrassing.

But, you know, I mean, it just, I want to show the world that I don't, I'm not perfect. Right. And, and I make huge errors, and I still continue to make huge errors in my life. But, but the one time that I strayed away from my delayed gratification ideology, it really just haunted me immensely and almost sent me into bankruptcy. And that was basically, I think, a little over 20 years ago.

You may recall that there was a time when the real estate market was getting very hot and prices, and certainly in the Phoenix, Arizona area, which was one of the hotter markets in the country, prices were just going through the roof. The banking industry was essentially unregulated, and you could just sign on the dotted line with either no down payment or minimal down payment and you could acquire these big, big old homes.

And I, I went to the seminar and I got sucked in and all the, you know, all the excitement, you know, that instant gratification. Next thing you know, Reverend Keith, I kid you not. Within a period of 12 months, I had acquired 20 residential real estate properties that were each over $300,000 and with little or no money down. And my wife kept telling me that, you know, this is bad, you're not doing the right thing.

And I just wasn't listening to her because I was so fixated on this instant gratification. Come to find out that, you know, I couldn't support those homes financially, right? Because when you think about it, when there's very little equity in a home, your mortgage payments are so high that the rental income that you're getting doesn't even come close to offsetting the mortgage payment. So, you know, it just, it was a bad, bad decision.

And I slowly had to start unwrapping that huge mistake to get out of that incredible situation before literally, I mean, I was on, I, I spent my, my life savings up to that point and nearly sent me into bankruptcy just by stupid, stupid decisions. I mean, I just, when I think back, I think to myself, what the heck was I thinking? Right? But it, but it was getting sucke in to that instant gratification. That's all it was.

And so it just taught me again, it redirected my focus into focusing on delayed gratification and, and not acting haphazardly. And so since then, since I got out of that situation, I mean, life's been much better and it's been a slow climb upwards and, and, and it's a blessing really. I look back and that's been part of my life and part of what's shaped my, my future.

As you think about delayed gratification, are there some practice, best practices that you have used in your own life and maybe in your book as well, to kind of give people who are just trying to figure this out for themselves some good first steps in doing that? Certainly. Well, good first steps would be, number one, to set out very, very clear, structured goals. And I mean I'm talking about clear goals, goals that you can identify, that you can visualize, that you can reflect upon.

And then once you have those goals, then I believe that you need to create some sort of structured plan to achieve those goals. Now that plan, it's okay to break down the goals and the plan into smaller, more Manageable chunks. Right. And then assign realistic timelines to achieve each goal along the way. And as you do achieve them, then celebrate those milestones. Right? You got to be able to celebrate, to give yourself the positive feedback, that drive to continue.

And then finally practice what I call mindful decision making. And that is when you're faced with choices that involve immediate rewards but could hinder your progress toward a long term goal, to pause. That's where the pause and the patience comes into play. So pause and consider the consequences and then embrace self discipline. I'm a huge believer in self discipline. And choose those actions that align with your long term vision. So that's just a very simplistic outline.

And I know it's easier said than done, but, but I think if one sticks to that, that outline, one can achieve a delayed gratification and achieve your long term goals. You got, you gotta, it's a long game, right? I mean, this is not a sprint, it's a marathon. Right? Exactly. So I love to ask my guest this other question. It's my other favorite question. What do you want your legacy to be?

Wow. You know, I truly feel that what I want people to remember me as is someone who was honest and ethical, committed to their goals. A good human being, not a perfect one. I have my flaws like everyone else. And one who has always been loyal to their family and friends and has always tried to do his best for myself, for my family, and for the world around him. That, that's, that's really what I want to, how I want to be remembered. That's amazing. So what projects are you working on now?

Anything new you got in works? Well, I would like to, I haven't had a chance to work on it, but I would like to do a third TEDx talk. And I'm thinking right now, I mean, there's a lot of different ideas going through my head, but one of them is on the negative aspects of multitasking. Right. Because many of us, including myself, have preached over the years, oh, I'm a great multitasker. I can juggle all these things simultaneously.

But the more I've looked into this and the more research I've done, I've actually found that there's a whole body of neuroscientific work and psychological work that shows that multitasking is actually a detriment and that single tasking is really the way to go. So I'm thinking about doing that. I, my wife and I would like to write a book together that's another project and also I need to set aside the time. Time is always the biggest issue, but I have a commitment to write a book with.

You probably are familiar with Les Brown. And so I need to find the time to do that because I've already committed to that and I'm greatly looking forward to it. Just need to find that.

And while I juggle all these things, you know, I'm still practicing full time and I love the work that I do and I love serving patients and improving their vision, improving their, their aesthetics, their self esteem, their self confidence.

So, you know, a lot going on and you know, Reverend Keith, you know, I've lived such a blessed charm life with a lot of challenges, you know, including I had my own medical crisis in high school that I had to overcome and I missed two and a half months of my freshman year of high school, etc. But you know, these challenges in our life make us better. Right? So, so a lot of times people ask me, well, if you had to live your life over, what, what would you change?

And truly my answer is I wouldn't change a thing. Because all these challenges, all the failures that I've had, they've all contributed to who I am today. And so if had I not had them, who knows where I would be today. So I'm a person grounded in the present and looking ahead to the future, but I'm one who does not reflect and look back in the past. That's amazing. So where can people find your books and connect with you on social media?

Well, the, the easiest way where all that is located is to go to my personal website, which is Dr. Emiliohousto.com and that's spelled D R E M I L I O J U S T O dot com. That's not my practice website, that's my personal website. And within that website there are links to all of my social media platforms which I participate in. All of them.

You know, LinkedIn in particular, I'm a big LinkedIn person, but also Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube, etc. There's a link to my book which the link goes to Amazon, but the book is available through any major retailer such as Barnes and Noble, Target, etc. And additionally a lot more links and there's a contact page.

So if anyone wants to communicate with me or write me questions, I'm extremely good at being efficient at writing back usually within the same day and if not within 24 hours for sure. So they can communicate through the website and they can see my body of work. I mean, I have all sorts of as we're doing here today, Reverend Keith I have tons of podcast appearances that are there, a lot of articles and the like. So definitely my website is the go to place.

Well, thanks so much for taking the time to share with us and making us think about delayed gratification and learning to appreciate the challenges, but also the benefits of not getting everything we want, when we want it, immediately as we want it. So it's good to kind of wait and turn those lemons, as your wife pointed out, and eliminate in our lives. That is correct. That is correct.

And, Reverend Keith, it's been a sincere delight and pleasure and privilege to spend a few minutes with you, and I've greatly enjoyed it. And I wish you many blessings for the New Year. And you as well, Doc. Thank you.