The ideas expressed in the Akron Roundtable Signature Series are those of the speakers, not of the Akron Roundtable, its partners or sponsors.

Today's guest speaker is Doctor Vivek Murthy.

He's the 19th and 21st Surgeon General of the United States and chair of the Together Project.

An initiative to build connection and community in America.

The conversation with Doctor Murthy will be moderated by Jeremy Lile Chief of Leadership and Learning with the Center for Immersive Leadership.

I'd like to acknowledge our title sponsor, State and Federal Communications, and today's program sponsor, the Knight Foundation, for partnering with Akron Roundtable to make today's event possible.

Doctor Murthy has agreed to take questions following the conversation with Jeremy.

If you'd like to submit a question, you can reference the QR codes that will be projected on the screen or also the QR codes on your table.

You can ask to submit a question at any time during the presentation.

And we'll make sure that those get to our moderator.

If you have a if you don't have an electronic device with you and you do want to ask a question, there should be no cards on the table.

Just that jot a question down and one of our staff members will come by to collect that.

And we'll we'll submit those questions as well.

At this point, I'd just like to remind you to, to turn off your electronic devices if you have any of those with you.

Out of respect for our speakers and other audience members, and I'd now like to invite Mayor Shammas Malik to the podium to, introduce our, our speaker and our moderator.

Mayor Malik, good to see you.

I should mention if, our mayor and his wife depart quickly.

That's because they're expecting a baby any moment.

So, matter of fact, I had in my notes.

If Mayor Malik isn't here because he's, off with his wife or their first child.

So we are.

We look forward anticipations to you.

And thank you for being here to introduce our speakers.

Good morning, everybody.

Although I get it, the clock has turned over, so.

Good afternoon.

But, it really is a profound honor to be here.

Introducing, this, presentation today.

We're really honored to have Doctor Murthy here, to visit with our community and share really powerful, personal experience and, powerfu I say that not just as, the mayor of the city, but also as a fellow public servant married to someone named Al.

We both share that distinction.

Alice and I are very excited to welcome a children.

Back in January, I was at the U.S.

conference of mayors in Washington, D.C., and actually had the honor of hearing from Doctor Murthy at his very last address as U.S.

Surgeon General.

And he shared, you know, it's conferences.

We all pay attention.

But every now and then there's a part of the program that really grips you, right?

And, I sat there and really was was transfixed by what he was sharing, because I think all of us, in the time that we're living in, know that we are grappling with questions about loneliness, questions about, belonging, questions about meaning in life.

And how we give back to others and how we find fulfillment in the challenging world.

I want to thank, as Barry did a few people who have made this possible.

Councilman Jeff Fusco is is already shaking his head in the back, but, really deserves an awful lot of credit for, bringing this idea to, a lot of folks, both in the administration and across the city and saying this book.

Doctor Murthy wrote together.

Really, touches on a lot of issues we have dealt within Akron, particularly our status as a welcoming community and the work that has been done, to try to build bonds of community and neighborhood.

And so we are looking forward to, seeing where we take that.

And it is in large part due to Councilman Fusco that we are all here today.

I want to thank you for, you know, I'll give him a round.

It is also due to the generosity of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, which is actually partnering with the Together Project to bring Doctor Murthy to a number of Knight city Akron, of course, alphabetically being the first.

So we are very honored.

And Kyle, thank you for your leadership.

And to our trustees of the Knight Foundation, and thank you for your leadership and helping make this happen.

I also want to thank the moderator.

As we know, Jeremy Lile as someone who cares deeply about these issues.

Someone who really has made it his life's purpose to try to help unlock, this together, spirit in all of us.

And, I'm I'm personally grateful to Jeremy that I think our community owes huge debt.

With that, I will get out of the way because he's not come here to hear me speak.

Doctor Murthy, as you all know, served as the 19th and 21st Surgeon General of the United States of America under the administration of President Obama and President Biden.

He widened the lens through which we understand the forces that shape our health and well-being.

Understand that it's more than just primary health care, that primary health care is critical.

But all of the other things that impact our life, especially this epidemic of loneliness, impact social media and youth mental health, parental mental health and, health worker burnout are all key pieces.

In 2020, Doctor Murthy published that best seller together the healing power of human connection in a sometimes lonely world.

And in 2025, he released The Parting Prescription for America, laying out a vision for rebuilding community as key to health, happiness and fulfillment.

And I would just say, that at any time, good days and bad days in this community.

It is, absolute honor to be your mayor.

We have beautiful things, difficult things going on in Akron every single day.

And sometimes in these conversations around loneliness, we can get down.

But I have tremendous hope for this community.

And I have tremendous hope for this community because of the faces that I'm looking at.

People will work hard whether the government shut down or not, the people who work hard, whether things are easy or not.

The people who believe in this community, because I believe like Dr.

Murthy that we can do this together.

So I would introduce you to Jeremy Lile and Dr.

Vivek Murthy.

Good afternoon everybody.

We met all of you.

And I want a level set on something as we get started.

Well, a couple of things.

First of all, the question will be coming in through my cell phone.

So if you see me checking my cell phone, it's not because I'm that, you know, disengaged or anything like that.

I know I will be very as Mayor Malik, transfixed by, you know, just getting to spend some short time with Dr.

Murthy last night, and, What what we will be sharing today.

So, you see me doing that?

It's just like monitoring the questions that will come in from all of you.

And then the other thing I want level set on is I would refer to as Dr.

Vivek Murthy.

Is that correct?

Call me Vivek, informal.

So, but, grateful to have you here, and I do want to jump right in, because I know we have limited time and lots of great questions, but we want to get to.

So the first question is, you previously served as a nation's top doctor and were responsible for calling attention to the country's most pressing health challenges.

What compelled you to focus on health?

The health impact of loneliness and isolation, both when you were in office and now, as you can see it all with the together?

Well, first let me just say, how happy I am to be here in Akron.

I came in, yesterday in the morning and had a chance to spend the day with a lot of organizations here, they're doing incredible work and very inspiring dinner the other last night, the mayor, Jeremy, myself, a number of folks, and I got to say, I just so deeply appreciate the spirit of this city you know, the people are optimistic.

They're hopeful.

They're cognizant of the challenges that they're facing.

But I saw such hope, optimism and unity, and people coming together to fight powerfully for uncertain times with our faith leaders this morning.

And for that same answer, his spirit echoed there.

So, you have so much of what I wish for in every city in America, which is good hearted people who are willing to come together and tackle hard problems so that we can all live better lives.

So I just I commend you on that.

That's not an easy thing.

To cultivate.

You know, for me, you know, I this issue of loneliness and isolation is not something that I, I talked about when I testified in front of Congress for my Senate confirmation, in 2014, for my first term.

And the reason I didn't talk about that before Congress is it wasn't on my radar as an issue that was a public health matter.

This is despite knowing loneliness up close.

You know, I think shy and introverted kid, I struggled a lot with being alone.

Serious time of day for me was lunchtime, going to the cafeteria worrying that there'd be somebody to sit next to.

And not long ago.

You know what I would do?

I should just tell you as a confession is, I would fake having stomach aches so my mom wouldnt make me go to school.

Because I didn't want to deal with that loneliness every day.

And I never told my mother this, but just a few weeks ago, she texted me, my sister, a picture.

And she said, hey, look what I found going through old boxes.

And I found this note that I wrote for Vivek.

For school, he has a stomach ache.

I was like, oh my God, I'm never going to take her back to take some.

Okay.

But, at some point I may have to fess up.

But despite knowing that and despite, by the way, becoming a doctor and and realizing so many too were struggling with loneliness.

I just never really thought that this would be.

Or felt that this was just a bad feeling.

It was only when I became surgeon general and began with a listening for a started traveling all across the country and asking people the simple question, how can I help that?

I started to learn more about their lives and to see that so many people of all ages across the country was struggling from this.

Now, by the way, people do come up.

Hi, my name is Vivek.

Im lonely.

You know, people didn't say that.

That's not how it happened.

But when you listen carefully to their stories and keep hearing like that college student in Texas who told me that she was on campus, surrounded by thousands of other students that nobody really knew her.

And she didnt feel she could be herself.

So she followed through, following her own, or the busy parent who would often stay together around people a lot at work and school and drop off, sports activities back in the day to shoulder all of their responsibilities as a parent.

Completely on their own.

CEOs have told me how lonely it felt to lead.

And and and culture and couldnt really be themselves.

Members of Congress would number one and produce on the sidelines without a staff presence said, look, I know you're kind of do something about loneliness for the country, but could do something for Congress because were really lonely too, and he wasn't even only half joking that, you know, that expereience is quite lonely.

And so I just thought everyone.

And then finally, as I started to dig into the data on this, thas when I realized an is pretty surprising, which is not only does the data speak you know, how common this is.

1 in 3 adults affected by loneliness, 1 in 2 young people.

I've been struggling with loneliness, but it turned out that it was also consequential for our health or our mental health.

The doubling and the increase, the risk of depression in those who are socially disconnected, increased risk of anxiety and suicide.

But also, I feel marking increased the risk of physical outcomes as well.

So we're talking about a 29% increase in risk for heart disease 31.

And so that increased risk of stroke and a 15% increased risk of dementia among older people who are struggling with social disconnection.

When I look at the overall mortality impact associated with social disconnect that, you know, is comparable to smoking and obesity and I was realizing that sitting in an office as the Surgeon General of the United States where my office for generations that focus on smoking and obesity because of the public health concern and this data and the stories that I was hearing were telling me that loneliness and isolation were just as important as public health concerns.

And that's ultimately what I chose to focus on this as a public health issue.

Look, I'll actually say that of all the issues I worked as Surgeon General, there are few that resonate as deeply with the public as this.

And I stay connected and happy with New York office, largely due to the fact that so many people are struggling with this in the shadows.

You know, fear.

Like maybe you're the only one feeling lonely.

Okay.

Admit that they're lonely.

And I can say that some of you broken or wrong with them.

And nobody wants to feel that way.

I that shame, I felt as a kid.

That's why I never told my parents about my struggles with loneliness.

So a lot of people I realize are their feeling that if you can pull the curtain back, and let people talk honestly about what many of us are struggling with, then not only can we help reduce some of that shame, but we can start to prioritize our investments in community and in connection and in.

That was actually some that came up this morning at our Faith breakfast.

Is that, you know, folks say, you know, a lot of times when we get together, we're so solution oriented, but in a traditional way, like you want to get together, talk about a solution to the problem.

We want to get together, too theoretical.

How do you handle that bridge?

How are we going to, knock down, the, you know, the, structures, causing problems in the community and all those are really, really important.

But there's something in the process for doing that often involves in bringing people together, having a talk to one another and get to know one another.

And we I, we have lost sight of the fact that that process of people getting together.

Is this as important as the outcome and we result from it.

I would even say that the process of building a connection is an outcome in itself, and that we should value that we should invest in whether we're businesses and workplaces, whether we're schools, whether what's left to be or whatever local government, or government or federal governments.

We should see build building relationships.

It's a community which is essentially about building trust, which you see that as an end in of itself.

Because when that is built, we're very strong as a foundation, which we can build everything else.

But I would argue that a lot of the problems that we see in our country today, including at a federal level, are the result of sometimes having great policy and great programs.

And I that they don't have a foundation of trust and relationship.

And so they crumble quickly.

Opposition to the bill quickly because people are on top of each other.

They're not understanding the tenant.

So this is why I see this issue as truly fundamental to not just help in how we operate as a society.

Thank you.

Yeah, I want to get to those pillars of community that you write about.

But give it permission to follow curiosity.

And so you mentioned the lunch room and all that.

But I know you also get to speak with some youth from our community right before this, this morning.

I'm just curious, like, what help you come out of that shell or you find besides having your mom right, you know, letters and things like that.

But you know what?

What did you what did you experience personally?

Maybe.

What what are some things you're seeing among youth?

You said one in two and, you know, kind of self-report of being isolated, lonely if something a lot of us see is, an issue, especially with the health outcomes that you're mentioning for starting that early, half of our youth feeling that way.

So, yeah, just just curious kind of what helped you and what are you maybe seeing?

How do you go out and do your work and.

Listen to others?

Yeah, well, I certainly would I yeah.

It shares a sense of how it's the high school students are okay.

Thank you guys for coming out.

And spending time with me.

I would not recommend getting your mom to write a note for school.

Not a good idea.

I had a lot of the, the, my wife and I have very different philosophies around attendance.

So I came up with this for.

All right.

It's not necessary for anyone to know.

I call this a lot of school.

I think that, but go to school.

I for me, what ultimately helped me, actually, it wasn't like 1% in surplus or not.

Elementary.

Super lonely middle school, was tough, you know, and it was only in high school that I started so we started to make friends.

And I think part of what the challenge for me was that my loneliness started to shred my self-esteem over time.

And this is a very common thing, like when you, are lonely for a long time, you start to believe over time, the reason you're alone is that you're broken.

Something's wrong with you.

And that makes it harder to go, like, say hello and or build a friendship, it involves taking risks, right.

Be worrying every day.

Okay.

So I started to build a little bit of confidence, and that actually came from, just actually being a good academically, navigating my, my, as I started to have a little bit more success, there was a little bit more confidence.

And that gave me, you know, up a little bit more gumption to go out and say hello, you know, or start conversations with other people.

So the real thing that helped me is I answered, and that started again when I went to college.

Because why do you call it?

I didn't know anybody.

But, you know, I like I grew up in a public school, you know, in, in my family didn't have a lot of money or fashion, but we just we get along very well.

And I was going to this fancy college where, like, the people, you know, you know, went to schools that cost like 40, $50,000 a year and like, they had the private tutor about this time.

And I was like, I felt this life so behind it.

I didn't know anyone, apart from family.

So I was lonely a lot, but what helped me at the end, and it's why I was I never really understood, like, or why people felt so much loyalties about college and like, why people donate money for their college.

I feel like, I think it's so lonely in colleges, and I just wanted to, like, we sometimes associate possible.

So what changed everything for me was actually it started with a college for my father.

One day, when I was a freshman, and, he called me and said, there's this guy who just made it there, and, he's a successful businessman, and he wants to get involved.

in philanthropy.

I want to give money to charity but he doesn't know what to do with me.

So my father, who's a doctor, that is quite it's been, you know, it's it's a no.

He said he has you or your sister have any ideas you should pitch them.

And I was like literally a freshman in college.

I'm like, is that study?

That's a job here.

I, I, I don't have any idea.

So I thought about it a lot of stuff.

My sister, you know, he said the summer before joining the working in HIV prevention programs and young people.

And we realize that there's a lot of need there.

We thought, what if you could build here education so that, you know, this isn't the 90s when HIV is still happening in India?

And so we say, this is our idea, I don't know.

We did and I got funded and we ended up listening to actually, you're building programs in India and the United States and the experience of doing that, creating ideas, around something that could actually help people and then bringing other people together around that idea and then executing on it together.

This ultimately became a service and the bonds built through service, I realized they're incredibly powerful.

And the people that I worked with, to this day, the other students, they became friends for life is a weaving light.

And shortly after that, each of us notice that there is at the then there I was mentioned, you know, I had this the closing ceremony, which is to mark the end of our time in office, and it was, snowed out.

That could be the first time in a decade massive snowstorm in DC, the whole city, ground to a halt.

And then it shut down.

All kinds of things happen with a friend from those early days who was living in Azerbaijan, made the trip over despite that snowstorm, and brought her children.

Because of that bond that we built.

So that's one of the times I realized that service is one of our most powerful antidotes to loneliness.

And that's the document says that only at stake.

So but great.

Thank you.

And that's a great transition into that.

That next question, when you say the importance of finding strengths, you have things you're good at at an early age and being affirmed in that.

So I think for those of us.

Who who.

were children at 22 down to 17 and but yeah, helping with that.

But then also how do those gifts out into the world in meaningful ways alongside of others and that collaboration?

So.

Yes, it was it is just one thing.

I almost paused the moment I told you that it was academic success to give us some confidence, because I do think that that occurs to me a little bit later in the sense that I sort of that I got this idea, this notion I had that that was my source of work, that was being smart and successful academically, that made me valuable or working in the world.

And it means that somebody might want to be friends.

And but that may lengthen my work with additional.

Right.

And much of my time in college, before I got engaged in the service work, I was working so hard you know, at my classes than not with the sense of joy or the sense of desperation, because I was so worried if I didn't do well enough, what would that mean?

That around me?

But what else was valuable about me as a human being, if that wasn't good at school.

And so that is dangerous, you know, I think so I realized and I have kids as well.

They're seven and nine and I struggle, you know, like every other parent does if during that or I had a raise, well, I had to prepare them for a future I barely understand and certainly cant predict.

It's not an easy, but one of the things that I am trying to figure out how to do is highly encourage my children, you know, to try new things.

So of the things that they love and pursue them, but also help them understand what their true source of worth is, that it's not about the grades that they get or how they perform on a sports team or what college the eventually get into or how much money they earn.

All of this is a great you to do all the things.

How do you we be super clear on where our work comes from, and I want them to know that their work is rooted in their ability fundamentally to do it, and to receive love.

That love may come in the form of compassion and generosity, I mean, manifests in the service they provide, to a community or the service they provide to a friends, that love idea and how they show up for somebody during difficult times.

But that is where my kids value comes from, where all of our value comes from.

And the good thing about that is that it is intrinsic, right?

We are born with the ability to do that.

But I think over time so much in society tells us a different message, tells us, hey, no, no, no, it's, if you don't earn a certain amount of money and you're not as valuable here and has status and position of you today like a high school student, that you don't have worth and you don't have power because you're not valuable.

And this is something that I ended up writing about at the end.

You know, my time in office, was the last time I was having a career parting gift from the doctor.

And in that, what I was reflecting on was this question that had been going on for years, during my time in office, which is why are so many of the people that I meet across America feeling a sense of emptiness.

Why do they feel like something is missing in their lives?

And the urgency to read some of the papers to ourselves.

That's why people are unhappy because of economic insecurity.

They're unhappy because of concerns for our public safety.

Above all of those things are really important.

But I'm saying if you think about it, even though people who were economically well-off were not worried about sick, these kids were all grown up and successful in time, they often they were to say, if there's something I know, something's missing, something more right than this, I don't know, something this.

So I was trying to understand what is missing.

And that's the where my conversation with young people in particular became very helpful, because I would often ask them, as I ask, students today, how do you define success?

We're really asking this as a society defining success for you.

Oh, would actually great consistency was that the model of success is fame, money and power right here, all three of those and really made it right to be able to write books about you going to make documentaries about you were the news all the time.

You got to be an influencer in every, you know, configuration of the work.

That is the triad of modern day success, that it turns out that triad of modern success does not guarantee your happiness in design narrative.

You will be fulfilled.

What we need actually for fulfillment is a different triad.

As I understand what that was, I actually did tons of research podcasts across many fields and read a lot of scripture across divisions and realized that there was a consistent theme that kept coming out, which is that the triad of fulfillment is rooted in relationships, purpose and service, and it's anchored in the core virtue of love.

Right.

That is the key to the fulfillment.

And it turns out that when you receive, because these elements, by the way, are all the core elements that form a true community, right?

Because a community is a place where we know each other well, we help each other, and where we find purpose in lifting each other up.

It's what motivates our actions fundamentally is love and not fear, right?

Well, we reach out to neighbors from a place of compassion, generosity and reach.

Help a fellow student who might have fallen down or struggling at a sense of compassion and generosity.

So it is that triad or fulfillment that I believe we now need to focus on and build our lives of communities, our country, and the world around.

It is, by the way, the struggles that I saw with unhappiness, the lack of fulfillment in America are not American problems.

They become global problems.

But when I travel to India and to Japan, at the United Kingdom, and that with young people and older folks, and I saw the same trends happening, they pulled toward a model of success rooted in money, power and fame.

A weakening of the ties that actually bind us together.

A diminishing emphasis on service that is searching for a sense of purpose, that was gnawing at people.

So that's why I issue that in my final, because I do think that if we truly want to live a fulfilling life, if we were born to raise kids who are fulfilled, if we want our grandchildren when they will be fulfilling lives, then we have to figure out how do we build our lives around this height of fulfillment, how to make relationships, purpose and service, and this core virtue of the center of our life excellence.

So could you say a little bit more about each of those, you know, how do you understand or define relationship to service purpose?

And then that core virtue.

Of love and love, that love especially.

But yeah, folks like you touched here.

So your specific thoughts.

About your first day and I think there are three types of relationship we need in our lives, we need intimate connections.

Those are the relationships that we have with people who we trust deeply and could rely on a crisis that could be your spouse.

It could be a friend.

It's somebody who's you're very, very close to.

And by the way, intimate connections take more time.

So we tend to spend about 40% of our time, on our intimate connections.

The second type of connection that we need are relational connections.

So those are the friends that we hang out with every week, but, you know, have them over for birthday parties.

We have them over for barbecues.

Maybe we go camping trips with family, go to the movies with them.

These are friends, we enjoyed our company.

We had a great time with it.

And we're there sharing and real sharing.

And real sharing means that you're talking about what's really going on in your life, right?

Not just the things that are on the surface, but what's really happening inside.

The third type of connection that we need are called collective connections.

So these are the connections that we have with a faith that they were a part of this, a volunteer organization that we're a part of, maybe the colleagues in our workplace or classmates in our school.

We may not hang out with them all the time, but when we see them, we feel good.

It feels like home, you know, when they're around, you enjoy their presence and they enjoy us.

And all of these three classic connections that are the reason to see are important to remember is because if you, let's say, are feeling lonely, you might say you've got a partner, a spouse.

They might think, wow, my husband or wife is lonely that must means something is wrong in our relationship.

Something that the deficiency, not providing, my spouse what they need.

You may have a. Perfectly fulfilling partnership in their.

But if you're missing those relational connections because you're in our friends, if you're investments in this collective connections then you may struggle.

Right.

And this is actually what happened to me, you know, after I finished my first term research and I had this time in between where, you know, I suddenly had lost this community that I had at work.

And largely neglected the community that I had before I started a job, which is my mistake, and something I had to learn from, that I put myself so much into the job of telling myself this story that maybe for some of you with this, hey, only a limited amount of time to do this.

I'll catch up with everyone else later as I focus on the work around.

And those are the stories we tell ourselves that they are realize it came at a cost.

So I was like, without a work community item by myself, a community that dramatically weakened and I had thank you.

I was blessed to have a wonderful wife.

Whose name is Alice.

Right.

Okay.

But, and Alice was a lifesaver for me and for my parents.

My sister.

But I was missing the relational and collective connections.

And so I was actually quite lonely during that time.

I shovel that.

So those are the kind of relationships in that, a word about service and purpose, service and trying to think about it, a personal sense, as am I volunteering, with a charitable organization, our community.

That's one point of service that I would love for us to think of as service more broadly as the moments we step up to help one another.

And that could mean, that, you know, there's someone in your class in school is having a really bad day.

And, it's very quiet and that's saying and it's high.

And then you just want to let me just sort of phone them aside after school or walking with them to the next class and the second element and seeing how they're doing, being with them, it can mean they can do better calling the work of this program.

And if they stop by, it's, you know, get a cup of coffee or the soon to be there to let them know that if you're thinking that theres small and big ways that we can serve, that show serving is ultimately about showing up.

In each other's lives.

And if I have one point of encouragement about service for all of you, it's something that I've tried to remind myself of, which is that when it comes to showing, you have to reframe the question.

So a lot of us are maybe hurting at times, and we need somebody else in our life.

But we may be reluctant to ask for help because we just feel embarrassed about it.

Maybe because we feel like we're going to inconvenience somebody else at a time where everyone is so over schedules and busy but the truth is, we all need to show up for each other.

And, you know, just recently I, you know, I, you know, I encountered health difficulties in my own family.

And, my wife a couple weeks ago was just diagnosed with breast cancer, and I remember the moment that we found out and it was a Friday night after she had received this automated alert that her chart in the not fit in.

And that's exactly how she found out that, you know, breast cancer and illness.

But, you know, ultimately that's how we found out.

And I remember when she was a Friday night and, kids went to bed and, and then she sat down on the couch.

That's when she said, I got my pathology results that have this positive for breast cancer.

And I just remember that about 4 or 5, it feels like when you learn that some of you are on set and the thoughts that broke through your head at night thinking like, you see the life that we had imagined for us through a rose stroke that one day we will be old and deaf together, you know, yelling?

Because we cant hear that is a life and to happen like, all right, are my kids going to have a mom.

You know, I think with a lot of her, the reason I say some of these are the terrible thoughts that go through your head.

And I remember in the aftermath that we reached out to one friend, to to ask for some help, but soon after there are a couple of close friends who found out what was happening and they didn't wait for us to call and reach out to tell them.

Three things we they just showed up right?

Who realize that you are a pain.

You realize that we need to know and you also in here, as in times of pain, is our presence as human beings that has the power to help each other heal.

And it was something I was reminded of in medical school.

So when I was pulled, I don't know if sometimes you will know what is wrong with the patients.

Sometimes they may even has a cure for what ails them.

But they will also be sometimes.

And there's nothing but he has to offer in terms of medicines.

And you can so offer your presence so you can still ensure that you lend your shoulder to them to help carry the pain of illness and to remind them that they're not alone.

So that is what our friends did for us in those early days.

Okay, so we begin today as we have a little bit closer.

I mean, when it comes to purpose.

Purposes are a lot.

It's why we get up in the morning is what sustains us during difficult times.

Living a life of purpose is.

And what is easy.

But it means that we have clarity on what we're meant to do in the world.

And our purpose is in change.

But our purpose has to be rooted fundamental in lifting other people up.

There are a thousand ways to be the, you know, we can be, amazing, you know, uplift others as teachers.

We can be amazing uplifters as parents.

And if your purpose is to to bring the best you know of your children into the world and enable them to be great human beings and members of society, that's of a sense of purpose.

And if your purpose is to be an extraordinary mayor, for this purpose for this wonderful city of Akron, that's also a powerful purpose.

You can all find purpose.

But the problem is when our purpose is entirely rooted in ourselves.

And that's one of the things that I worry that I would need, folks, especially young people.

I don't mind talking to them about what's successful, etc.. So what do you focus on right now?

And if you say, well, you know, I'm focused on building my brand, is that so?

We've got to do, the successful, at least thats what everyone keeps saying And so that there's nothing wrong with you building a brand, so to speak.

But if one's purpose is to build your brand, then I worry that we're often left to wonder, you know, at the end of that there.

So these three elements relationships, purpose and service, these are the core elements of a fulfilled life.

But each of them has to be fueled by love, right?

If we pursue our relationships out of a sense of fear, that rarely ends well.

If you've ever been in a unhealthy relationship or two, people were seen together because they were scared or never find anyone else.

Those relationships aren't always they're not optimal, right?

But when two people are together because they love each other, that's powerful.

When friends are there for each other and a sense of love and compassion that's powerful.

We serve from that place of love.

When we find a purpose, a sense of purpose is driven by love, that is where we get the most, you know, out of our lives.

That's where we are enriched the most.

And it's because fundamentally, that love is our superpowers.

It's what we come into the world having the power to give in, to receive.

And we forget that over time.

Some have.

We had difficult experiences.

We get disappointed.

People hurt us.

Society tells us that many people are nice, and I think they just get taken advantage of.

So you got to be careful, you know, all of these messages can sometimes push that instinct to love further and further and further down.

But the truth is it is still there in each of us.

It's why we respond so viscerally and powerfully when we see acts of compassion or generosity.

And it's why I always remember, the example of my own kids who were in their own way taught me about the power of love.

And whether it was a parent, grandparent, uncle or aunt, any of us with kids in their lives, knows children become somebodys teachers, and in my case, you know, a few last year I was struggling with this program for and everything fulfilled it.

Anyone had a frozen shoulder?

You know what that is?

Well, there and I had a really good point, a very different so here I let this also, but anyone who has a, you know, a frozen shoulder and we certainly are so thankful that it's hard to be the normal things you do that these months.

The result.

But the one thing we're not supposed to do with a frozen shoulder is make sudden movements, which is why this one day at dinner when my kids came to the table, I noticed my daughter is hiding something behind her back.

It's like, what is this?

And all of a sudden is that this tennis ball and throws it over.

And the reason she did that is because I do the same for my kids, throw stuff at them.

Not only is this like, you know, tennis balls, you know, soccer ball, etc.

so they may they sharpen their reflexes.

You know, we grow with that's allowed to keep the ball around a lot.

So it's I promise them that, and so she did that and I instinctively tried to catch the ball and then immediately regretted it.

So I'm there on the ground, clutching my shoulder.

Eyes squeezed shut, waiting for the pain to subside as at that moment.

So in the midst of that thing that I feel the small shoulder, the small hand on my shoulder, and I feel as small hand.

I open my eyes and I see my son, who was seven years old at the time.

He never went to sensitivity training.

Nobody taught him what to do when somebodys injured.

But he reacted on instinct.

The same instinct that all of us have when we come into this world that tells us to be empathic, to be kind, to be generous, to respond to somebody in need.

And that is what our charge is now.

It's to reach back into ourselves.

But to find that instinct again, just so we so that we can remind ourselves of what we're capable of.

But as so we can also model that our families so that we can inspire others around it.

And I know even from the time I spent here in Akron just in the last 24 hours with the stories that I've heard of people who are reaching into their own pockets, reaching into their own wells of time, and serving their communities not as the work for glory.

For headlines in the paper, because they want to make somebody else's life better.

Because they want to make sure, again, a young person in Akron can move forward to a future that inspires.

Those are coming from places of love.

And I felt inspired hearing those.

And those are the ripples of love that take place in our community.

And we need more ripples, you know?

I mean, each of us stands up or acts from a place of love.

We're like a stone that's still in the water.

You never know how far as their pulse or reach and feel confident that they are people saying that they're reaching for, and that ultimately those small acts of love.

And that matters Wonderful.

Thank you.

I love you know, I kind of, visual person just thinking about all of the self-diagnosis of looking at those pillars, that core virtue of love.

And how am I how are we in those various circles of relationship, how even into the community, you know, doing.

So, so.

Helping to anchor people in need by opportunities to discover purpose.

Serve shoulder to shoulder together.

And so I just appreciate, The simplicity and yet the complexity of that, but it gives.

Us so many things to reflect on and think about and and just to elevate.

Both conversation and that they're not anything we have to earn.

They're not anything we have to go discover on our own that they're innate.

And so we just need to allow them to come out, we're going to pivot to some questions because they relate to somebody saying, well, one of them is, and maybe I'll explain both of these, but one is just around, trauma being considered as a factor in all this last night in our conversation.

So that came up around face and and diverse childhood experiences.

You know, the impact of trauma, and, and it's relationship for loneliness.

Just anything you could say about that.

Yeah.

Well.

Many people are living lives that are impacted by a trauma.

Trauma of losing a parent.

Trauma from a violence you're experiencing violence, directing or witnessing, violence is so at that happens with gun violence in particular, it could be single parent, who's incarcerated or could be experiencing addiction in the home.

But we know that these are all part of the broader set of adverse childhood experiences that have a real impact on physical and mental health.

But one of the other things that I find encouraging is that in this study that actually looked at kids, with high or low quality scores, or at this time the experience was called a college study, quite like what they found is that when kids even with high trauma levels had secure attachments in their life.

And what that means is when they had healthy relationships in their life, that that seemed to mitigate the significant negative effects of the trauma on their lives as measured by their health matter, graduation rates and other indicator.

What that means is not that we shouldn't care about some.

We should absolutely do everything to reduce the source of that trauma in our lives.

It.

If I have the heart to hear about the efforts to make sure people have affordable housing or address gun violence to address the broader trauma we have with substance use and addiction, they think about how we can get help for people before they end up in jail.

These are all so vitally important to families to help reduce trauma.

But what it also means is that because you've had trauma, there's also hope for you right.

And that healthy relationships can be a powerful source of feeling in our lives as well.

And so I think these two go hand in hand.

And yes, we need more awareness of trauma in our health care system, in how we deliver care.

But, trauma informed care is essential.

Otherwise, you don't understand why patients encountered challenges, they know why they behave in the way that they do.

It's something I learned early on in medical school.

Sometimes I prescribe certain medication to solve a point in a certain form.

They wouldn't go out.

They would take the medicine.

As a young, doctor, why is this important that they're important to start?

Started over time.

Doctors.

They know people's story.

As I. It's so much more complicated than that.

Because the trauma they have in their lives may impact what's the priority for you.

So if you worried about survival and safety and going to the pharmacy to pick up your cholesterol medicine may be the eighth priority in your list, not top priority.

So this is how I think the relationship that's been in is so, because if we serve our people who don't have healthy attachments, they don't have relationships with people where they feel like, yeah, that person would be there for me in a crisis, or I can rely on them, or I can be open and vulnerable with them.

Thats because we all need that.

And that's the one thing that I would hope we can all is keep close to our hearts.

This idea that when we foster a relationship with somebody, we are a source of healing in their lives.

And it doesn't matter if we went to medical school or nursing school or not.

You don't need a degree to be a hero.

You just said the ability to show up in someone's life, to be kind and compassionate, to remind them that they're not alone, and that it turns out is a medicine that is deeply needed for society right now.

My wife, who's here who does have frozen shoulder, but she's able to raise their hand at several.

Points.

She she does what?

I'm good at asking multiple questions and one question from the time bundle of few together here and let you riff off of this how you.

Well, but they're all kind related around this sense of, you know, the Covid 19 pandemic and we're told, stay away from everybody, you know, isolate, be alone.

And so the effects of that but then we also have technology and social media.

Now we have artificial intelligence and people maybe developing attachments to that in numerous ways.

Can you just speak a little bit to, you know, that these things that are working to pull us apart, that are in someone one of the questions about the divisive nature in our politics, but just in almost everything, right now we have, like, everything is you've got to be on one side or the other.

There's no middle ground.

So, so all these factors that contributing to that, what have you seen?

You know, in addition to those relationships and those connections that help mitigate that, that help bring us, help us to focus on what unites us more than what divides us.

Yes.

Yeah.

And the impact of technology, I guess, is that.

In 2 or 3.

Minutes, you know, you know, you said your name in having worked in Washington, DC for, gave it around as a political operation in that city, Folks always tell you the best way to get people on your side is picking an enemy and go after them.

Right.

That's how you consolidate and support and certainly a tried and true strategy in, in politics, perhaps, I actually believe that there are real enemies.

That is something that we need to also, or so I think part of the enemies we face that are driving a culture of loneliness and isolation, the kind of structure where so many people are not going to fulfill that, to do with a broader culture that tells us that our work is dependent on our achievement and how much money he had and what our fame and status is.

It's a consumer culture that tells us that youre constantly not enough, and then tries to sell us things to make us, you know, it's a political culture, that tries to turn us against each other all the time.

I think each other is the engine for political gain.

And it's a set of technologies that have created this culture of self comparison, where we are constantly comparing ourselves through kind of this daily human kind is never experienced, and we're constantly feeling, that we're falling short of the result of, you know, technology is an important piece of this because what we saw with social media in particular in the last 15, 20 years, was an experiment that was run on humanity with very little accountability of ideas.

And that started off as an experiment to say, hey, can we connect people more and build community.

And it rapidly changed into something that became a revenue generating machine based on how much of your attention they've monopolized.

Right.

Business model based on third party ad revenue and more attention, more time spent means more ad revenue.

And so you have some of the most talented, best and brightest product engineers in the world using cutting edge neuroscience resource by some of the wealthiest companies in the world to create technology that will take you on as long as possible.

And then we tell a 13 year old who's using social media and having trouble moderating her use to just summon the real power to curtail.

There needs to be more discipline.

That is the definition of an unfair fight.

And by the way, I said a 13 year old.

I would imagine that there are 33 and 53 and 73 year olds who are struggling with this as well.

All for the same reasons I my worry is that the attention was the, was the sort of source of value, the social media, the real currency with AI, artificial intelligence is the intimacy.

So what it's trying to create is a sense of deep intimacy.

75% of adolescents have already use AI companions.

About 1 in 8 of them say that the reason that they did so is because they literally have no one else to talk to.

Right.

AI is very good, its getting much better literally everyday and making you feel like it understands you.

It knows you that it can be your best friend.

And Ive even heard one of the leaders of one of the largest tech companies in the country say that they're going to solve loneliness by just making sure everyone has an AI companion.

And ten years ago, if I said that to you it would have been dystopian.

Today it is a business strategy, right?

So what we have to do is be mindful of the fact that how we use technology, how we design, actually has profound consequences for our mental health and for our connection with one another.

And look, I don't necessarily assume that anyone in this room and by themselves can go and fundamentally change the direction of technology.

I know that can feel overwhelming, but there are decisions we can start to make in our own minds about how we draw boundaries around the use of technology.

The truth is that we all need portions and times in our lives where technology doesnt invade our spaces, right?

And that could be time at dinner, right.

Where we just focus on our family.

For that hour we put our devices away, mean that an hour before bedtime and everyone's closing their phones.

And then we go to sleep and in the morning you get our phones, it protects quality and quantity of sleep.

It could mean that, and we were talking about this last night, I was telling Mayor Malik and others, like, when I was sitting down in my first term, I work secretary Sylvia Burwell, secretary of health and human the services and you can imagine when your in a position, like mayor or secretary or something like my own job, emergencies come up.

Right?

And sometimes you have to be available to respond.

You know, if it's literally like, you know, something is burning down, you think of this is happening, I need time, you know, multitasking later and you got to be available.

But what she would do is very interesting.

She would tell the whole team, look, emergencies come up and heres where Im going to be.

In this time, you know, from 5:00 to 8:00 or 7:00 and 9:00, whatever it was.

That's my time for my family right now to be there for my kids.

And I'm going to keep my phone on.

The volume will be on but its going to be in a different room.

So this is emergency call and I'll hear the phone, but I'm not going to be on my email.

I'm not going to be checking the news.

I'm not going to be checking in social media.

Dont expect me to be responsive because Im unreachable.

I'm reachable for emergencies.

I'm not saying it's up to my device during that sacred time.

So we're yet the setting here.

But I know we're we're winding up on time.

As Barry comes up to close this out.

I because I hear you're kind of leading into this.

Our final question is just if I could take one thing away from today to act on, what would you hope that is?

Well.

I hope weve reached certain people to remember the power that we have that transforms someone else's life.

That is the greatest gift that you have.

That is very easy to forget that gift, because we think often that to change someones life, that can only be done with money and with power.

The ability to write a law, or the issue of regulation or to build a home.

And those are all powerful tools as well.

But it turns out the intrinsic tool that we all have is the ability to show up in someone else's life.

And the research is very clear that many underestimate how other people perceive us when we show up in our lives.

Example, we may think, oh, this part of that personality or whatever is a broad smile.

They hope they're all ready to move on in their life.

That's actually not how people perceive them.

The person being smiled at will often remember, for example, kind of.

Which means how they feel.

The kind word we offer to somebody who's struggling first.

Or maybe I did something in the hallway and I just told them, you know, just thinking about, you know, because I'm on is ill.

But to them, struggling alone with the pain of a loved one was life may be a risk that did about is an expression of compassion.

They help tide them over under very hard times.

Look, I know that this is a time of any of us.

You look at what's happening in our communities, in our countries, in the world, and it can be easy to talk a sense of despair, to worry, because the forces that are creating these hard at this beyond any one of us to address it, or it's easy to feel powerless.

I felt that too.

I looked at my own children in this backdrop of all these challenges and ask myself can be something we see coming.

Let me answer us.

Let me tell.

And our ability to be so is fundamentally rooted in our core value.

You know, a lot in our compassion, in our generosity and our hands because it is it turns up in any moment of challenge and despair, which every generation is apparently faced.

We cannot overcome this moment without hope.

And you find hope most reliable in each other.

In each other.

And it is a small acts of kindness and generosity is the person who stands up for someone who has no voice.

It's a person who rushes to the monkey bars when a child falls off, even though it's not their own stem, it's a person who chooses, to say hello to somebody really struggling on the streets without a home.

It's those acts of kindness and generosity and love that open it and give us hope.

The conscience of our community, the conscience of America, is there.

Its still there rooted in our values.

But it needs stirring.

These are both.

And we stir that conscience when we choose to stand with courage.

And lead with love.

That is how we serve the conscience of our community of individuals and a country.

And just by sharing every one great story.

Yesterday when we were at dinner, somebody brought up 9/11 and and some of you may not have been alive when 9/11 happened, you had to read about it, some of you may have been in New York when it happened.

Some of you may have just heard about it and felt the trauma of that moment.

I remember very clearly where I was when 9/11 happened in 2001.

I remember is how surreal and existential to think about, in the months that followed and the years that followed.

But one thing that I also learned about speaking a source of hope for me, was this story of the 9/11 boaters.

You see, when the.

And as anyone does any know the story of the 9/11 boaters that I put you for people to.

But when the Twin Towers were struck, imagine thousands of people poured out of those buildings and they didn't know what direction for going because you couldn't tell what was going south.

And from east or west with all the smoke and debris.

And so people rushed in all directions, but some a small group of people rushed south first, thinking it was actually north.

And what they ultimately found was not relief but the unforgiving waters of the Hudson and the they were stuck in growing and growing numbers as the inferno behind them as well.

And they didn't know what to do.

The U.S.

Coast Guard did something in never done before, and that was which is they issued a call to all the civilian boats in the area calling for everyone to respond and go to the southernmost tip of Manhattan and help rescue people.

They had never done that before.

And one of the people who they called and received that call in a boat was a man named Vincent.

and Vincent so recalls he said, when I got that call, I told my wife, he said, I got a boat.

She said, Vincent, you're a maniac.

Why would you go?

You've been hit like this is a disaster.

You dont know what's going to happen.

Everything is going to explode.

But there was something in him so he went to the southern tip of Manhattan and within moments of the coastguards call, you could see, dozens and dozens of boats streaking for Manhattan, mostly civilian boats that were responding to the call.

They brought people on board, take them water, and ultimately ferry to safety.

And all in total, the 9/11 boat that rescue more than 500,000 people.

It became the largest boatload in the history of the world.

And that is what ordinary civilians did.

It's not people who are trained to respond in an emergency.

Those are people who regarded themselves as heroes, with ordinary people born with the same capacity.

Each of us who view loving compassion that we chose to act on that day.

And that took courage.

But they also encourage each other.

When you saw one boat streaking, that encouraged another one to say, okay, I need that I should ship and require that courage.

Seeing some dangers.

So as we set about going back to our communities and for our lives, I want us to remember that we have the capacity for that kind of courage for that and that compassion to lead lives that are grounded in love.

And that is our greatest asset.

If we export anything as a country for the rest of the world, if we help shape the world in any way, I want this to be the most powerful way in which we do it.

That we show that it is possible to lead the globe, to build a community thats rooted in kindness that ultimately brings people together across backgrounds and differences and life experiences to make everything you understand that fundamentally, at our core, we are all human beings who are worthy because of our ability to give and just show up.

Thank you.

Thank both of you so much for his very powerful message today.

I especially appreciated the personal stories that you shared with us.

At how you brought this to life for us through those stories.

And.

Our thoughts to.

Be with you and your wife and your children, because you deal with this health journey and you just know Akron, we'll be on it here with you.

Thanks again for being with us today.

Again, thank you, Doctor Murthy and Jeremy.

Stellar job moderating the currency.

He has some incredibly powerful questions.

So thank you for.

This has been a production of Akron Roundtable, PBS Western Reserve, the University of Akron, and Ideas Stream.

Public media.