Mike Capuzzi: Welcome back to another episode of The Author Factor Podcast. My guest today is Dr. Laura Gabayan, who is a world renowned physician and researcher regarded internationally as an expert in the field of research. She has published dozens of papers cited by hundreds of researchers. Earlier this year, Laura published her first book, congratulations. Common eight scientific elements of living a meaningful life, which summarizes the findings of the Wisdom research project. This was a project that took place between October 2022 and April 2023 involving 15 to 30 minutes face to face Internet interviews with 60 wise adults aged 50 to 79. Laura, welcome to the show.

Dr. Laura Gabayan: Thank you for having me.

Mike Capuzzi: Well, first of all, again, congratulations. Your first book, it's a new book, relatively new, so congratulations.

Dr. Laura Gabayan: Yeah, thank you. And, you know, many have said, do you plan writing? I'm like, no, this is it.

Mike Capuzzi: You're one and done. You're one and done. No, you're not.

Dr. Laura Gabayan: I don't see.

Mike Capuzzi: I don't think so.

Dr. Laura Gabayan: Thank you.

Mike Capuzzi: You know what it is? You're too close to what you did. Right? It's too close. I always say that when I'm done writing a book and I'm like, you know, then a couple years elapsed and you sort of forget. And plus, your book was a little bit different. Right. You did a research project which is, you know, that much more involved. So. But before we talk about your book, Laura, you have a very interesting background.

Mike Capuzzi: Why don't you share with my listeners, you know, what you've done and what you're doing today.

Dr. Laura Gabayan: So in. So I went to college, med school, residency. I specialized in emergency medicine. And then I did research and I did a fellowship, which is more training and research. And then I was publishing a lot research, and. And then my body started to fall apart and I developed, like, muscle pain, weakness. I just developed a lot of issues. And you can see my features are 100%.

Dr. Laura Gabayan: And. And that's when it's funny because I always learned, you know, medicine was the holy grail, but that's when I was like, well, they don't, they like to label physicians. No offense to them. I can take them one. But the idea was, let me put you in a box. Let me label you. Let me this, treat you for this. And that was it.

Dr. Laura Gabayan: And that's when I was like, well, who thinks outside the box? And it was the wise. And the wise also have a bigger lens. And then I was like, well, I have no idea what wisdom is about. I looked at the history behind it, and it seemed as if all dimensions of wisdom were based on anecdote you know, were subjective or in religious texts. And that’s when I was like, okay, so we don’t know what wisdom is. Let me interview people who are wise, because that was the only I knew how to do a research project. And that’s when I decided that’s what ill do. And I'll talk to people who are wise.

Dr. Laura Gabayan: And that's why I interviewed 60 wise adults across North America and then put it into the book.

Mike Capuzzi: Wow. So let me, before you let me unpack a little bit there, are you saying that your, your medical challenges, your physical challenges, that was sort of the impetus to drive why you published this book?

Dr. Laura Gabayan: Well, I'm a researcher, and I'm a scientist because, you know, to be a researcher, you train differently. And so, and I was like, well, I want to approach this from a very objective way. And that's what it is. So, yes, if I had not, and that's why I believe wholeheartedly that things happen for you and not to you, because had I not encountered these medical challenges, that had turned out to be a gift. They kind of allowed me to reroute my life. I wouldn't have written this book.

Mike Capuzzi: And the book, which we both know will have impacted your readers and others. So you're right. It's sort of that domino effect. And you were kind enough to send me a digital copy of the book. And it's interesting. So I'm an engineer by degree. I haven't done it in years, but I appreciated the scientific. I could tell we're kindred spirits that analytical, the way you outline the book and the way it's put together in a very sort of logical, the different factors of wisdom, if you will.

Mike Capuzzi: We're going to talk about that in a moment. I do have a question about what, in your opinion, makes for a wise individual. You said you interviewed 60 of these.

Dr. Laura Gabayan: So the reason my book is called communism is I identified the eight common elements that had, and that's why it's called communism. But in order of what's more prevalent, the first one was resilience. And I'll tell you all eight, but we get resilience, kindness, positivity, spirituality, humility, tolerance, creativity, and curiosity. And the resilience one was big because it was, it was number one, but it was amazing the amount of difficulty people had overcome. And they weren't bitter, they weren't angry, and they were just peace. It was fascinating.

Mike Capuzzi: It is a common theme with a lot of, if not everybody. Right? And to your point of it didn't happen to me. It happened for me, that is such a little mind shift thought. But it's so profound if people think about it.

Dr. Laura Gabayan: It really is. And so I, it's funny because I was, you know, I have a website, and people often email me questions with their challenges. And I'm like, look, you know, I started to discover that problems in 2013. It took me years, six years to realize, okay, I approach you a different way. But up until that, I just want to get better and continue being in the art position, seeing our patients again, if I could.

Mike Capuzzi: Being a scientist, how did you find wise people? Like, what were your parameters? Tell me. I'm interested in knowing more. Like, what do you mean by a wise person?

Dr. Laura Gabayan: So as a scientist, you can't involve yourself in the study because that would be bias. The only thing I based it off of was age, because in the past, they had found that wisdom had an inverse you relationship with age. And that's why we suck to people age 50 to 79. And it all, they all, I just approached it like, who can identify wisdom? It was only people, right? And so then I was like, well, I can't, I don't know who's why. So I started in the whole, in the over seven months of interviews, I started on a regular basis, setting up calls with community leaders, with clergy, with people, random people. And the question was, do you know someone, Washington? And that this is a project I'm doing. And then once I spoke to someone, I asked them if they knew. So that's how I got 60.

Mike Capuzzi: Very interesting. As an aside, I was just looking it up, and actually, he's out from your area. He's a rabbi in LA area. Rabbi Steven Leder. L E D E R. There's a book, you might want to check this out, Laura. It's called. I bought multiple copies, gave them out to my family members.

Mike Capuzzi: It's a little short book. It's called more beautiful than before. How suffering transforms us. Definitely one of the most profound books I've read in a long time. I really would like to go reach out and interview him, but just a really good book. So wise. And he writes in such a great way. He's a rabbi, so he's a teacher.

Mike Capuzzi: To your point of just shifting because we all have bad stuff happen to us. Yeah. More beautiful than before. Check it out. Highly, highly recommend it. And to my listeners too. Check it out.

Dr. Laura Gabayan: That was actually, I'm glad you wrote it, but that was my issue with books, was that they're usually one person's perspective. I know that's what you do. You speak with authors, but I was not okay with that. Being a scientist, I was like, no way am I going to listen to one person give advice. And so for me, it was really important to get the advice of many people.

Mike Capuzzi: Yeah. And did you see, as you went through the process, did you force the wisdom that was shared into your eight buckets, or was it without a doubt, sort of just very common?

Dr. Laura Gabayan: So we, I definitely noticed that a lot of people said similar things around 20 interviews, but being the scientist, I am not being okay with that. I kept going. And then also in terms of the elements, the eight elements, I commonalities, we started with over 20 and we collapsed them. And there was a team of three of us, and we looked at online interviews, and when we collapsed them, we applied that element to the person that had the other ones. For example, positivity. Humor went into positivity, and so did being grateful, gratitude. And, and so those two people, if people showed a lot of gratitude, they were also given positivity. So they were collapsed.

Dr. Laura Gabayan: And that's how we came up with eight.

Mike Capuzzi: Before we go too much further, why don't you mention them, but why don't you just, if you don't mind, mention all eight again and give a 1 minute, you know, or 32nd synopsis just to give it a taste for our listeners.

Dr. Laura Gabayan: So the eight elements of wisdom that were common around the people we interviewed were, and that's why, hence the name communism was resilience, kindness, positivity, spirituality, humility, tolerance, creativity, and curiosity. And I definitely feel like they're all related. They're all related like you. The way you perceive something, if you're positive, it'll help you be resilient. If you're kind and humble, help you connect with others. If you're creative and curious, you'll be more positive. So I think everything kind of connects to one another. So I think it's just a way of approaching life.

Dr. Laura Gabayan: But the reason I really feel like breaking it down is important because we don't know what wisdom is. By breaking it down, we can say, okay, I'm good at this and I'm not good at that. It's not a, oh, I see it when I know it. It's more of, you know, it's broken down into these elements. And so it helps you build a skill you may or may not have. Like, for me, being a physician and a scientist, spirituality was my hardest chapter to write, and it's because we never learned about that. And it was something, you know, I always learned. If it doesn't if you can't see it, it doesn't exist.

Dr. Laura Gabayan: And if you can't measure it, it doesn't exist. And so, and so that was hard for me. Or kindness. That was a surprising one for me because I'm Middle Eastern and kindness is views a weakness in the Middle east. And so I think, I think all of it kind of interacts, but it also teaches you what are you good at and what are you not.

Mike Capuzzi: Does the book suggest and does your find, do your findings suggest that an individual really needs to encompass all eight?

Dr. Laura Gabayan: So of the 60 people, most had two, most had five, some had two or five. And only one had eight, really. And the one, it's so funny because he didn't know broken down with him, but he was an older gentleman who taught with them too young or to people be above the age of 60, he just happened to. And that was what he did. And so only so when I say that, you know, we break it down, we definitely kind of. It's important for you to say I'm good at this nugget. That is definitely nothing easy. And don't be hard on yourself, but realize of all the 60, and it was hard to get these 60, these were 60 across North America, above all the 60, only one had already.

Mike Capuzzi: Now it would be interesting. Maybe this would be a second book lover scare you, but even culturally, I'm sure as a scientist you've even thought about, well, geez, what if I interviewed, you know, 20 or 30 people in Europe or Africa or Asia like that would, you know, you could have a series of books.

Dr. Laura Gabayan: So when you do research, before you do it, you have to see what's out there and what's been published. And so I looked at both psychology, sociology, and geriatric journals, and they have attempted to understand wisdom by publishing a lot of stuff on it. And, and that's why I kind of got the foundation for what I'm doing. And the foundation was only humans can identify the why. It's our test or a computer or whatever, and it's limited to location, like region, like you said, and it is not different based on gender or political affiliation or race. And so, and that was until you're right, wisdom in Europe or wisdom, Asia will be different. I think I, for me, being English speaking, that's all I wanted to focus on was the, was North America.

Mike Capuzzi: Well, you wonder almost, it begs thoughts of, is this a cultural thing? Is it a human, a species thing? Like I would think if it's not all eight, most of what you've found is probably across the board. I would think.

Dr. Laura Gabayan: I would think so, too. I mean, I definitely. I mean, if you look at it like it makes sense, my top three, resilience, kindness, and positivity, makes sense to. And fourth, being spirituality. I definitely feel like realizing there's something bigger than yourself gives you a sense of peace and gives you a sense of, okay, there's a bigger plan to all of us, and. And things are not easy, and things may not be emotionally agreeable, but they're happening.

Mike Capuzzi: So when you put this work together, and probably I'm going to guess, I kind of know the answer, but I'll wait to hear you say it. Were you thinking of a specific reader that you were creating this book for?

Dr. Laura Gabayan: I was not. I mean, I'm an immigrant, and I came here at the age of six. I wasn't in ESL English as a second language for a long time, but I definitely wanted someone to appreciate it and realize that it's simple yet powerful. So I wrote it very simply for that reason. So initially, I was thinking, okay, people would be interested in wisdom for ages 30 and up, and it applied everyone. But after I listened, these eight elements, I'm like, well, we want are kids, or people want humans to have those traits. So I would say if you can read, whatever level you are, if you can read, it'd be good for you.

Mike Capuzzi: And what do you hope is the outcome? Like, what are you? Obviously, it was a, it was, you know, important to you based on what, you know, you've gone through, and that was the impetus. But, like, what do you want readers to come away with when they read your book?

Dr. Laura Gabayan: When they read my book, first of all, I want them to get a sense of, okay, I can do it, I can grasp these, but also to pay attention to these as well. These are important. And nowadays, I feel like with the whole Internet culture, a lot of elements are not that important, like humility. It's not, you know, and so being kind, people are using Internet as a way to be unkind, and so I feel like it will. What I want is for people to feel affected and to change lives. People have already told me it's changed the way they think and the way they see life. So that. And that in itself is a big one.

Mike Capuzzi: As we get ready to wrap up here, just a couple more questions. This was a big undertaking, what you did, as far as from a research angle. So you layer that on top of publishing, writing, and publishing a book, which is in and of itself a big undertaking. I'm not sure in the 250 or so interviews I've done on this podcast, Laura, if I've, I don't recall right off the top of my head any of my guests, you know, doing what you do, which is literally a research project. So I'm interested in hearing maybe there's somebody listening to this that has a similar idea that we would require. Is there anything that you, you know, if you were to do it again, or if someone were to ask you, what did you learn in the process of writing this book, but you wouldn't do it again the same way a second time. So a mistake made or just something that you would say, you know, I would do it this way, what would you say to that person?

Dr. Laura Gabayan: So if I were to think about what mistakes I made before, I think, look, I think having published beforehand in academia helped me a lot, and that kind of made me realize I don't want to write something boring and dense. And that's what I made sure I didn't do that with this book. I made sure it wasn't boring and dense. I got the opinions of many people, so I don't know if it would change. I don't feel like I'm a first time writer. Cause I've been writing for so long, and I've been doing research for so long.

Mike Capuzzi: What about the research phase? Just out of curiosity, if somebody was interested in doing something similar, which is, I think, is a very interesting idea. I love this concept. I've written, published several anthology style books, which are compilation books. So essentially, one person writes a chapter, and one of the benefits of that kind of book is, to your point, of different perspectives, different ideas, not just the one author. So this idea, I've never done what you've done here. Would you do anything different in the research phase at all? Just out of curiosity, would there be anything you would do differently if you were to, you know, do it again?

Dr. Laura Gabayan: I don't think so. I mean, I got lucky. I found a great research, and she, she was very interested in learning more from these people. She thought it was a great. She was, and it was a gift to talk to these people. And so she helped set up interviews. I had a really great marketing person who initially created a website called the Wisdom Research Project. I still have that website, but that was what we used to recruit the 60, and now I'm using it to sell the books, too.

Dr. Laura Gabayan: And so I don't know if I would change anything there. I think it's funny because it just happens so quick, but when I look back enough, there's anything I would change. I mean, it was subject, objective, and that was my goal. So I don't know if I would change that.

Mike Capuzzi: What about, just out of curiosity, I noticed with your book, and correct me if I'm wrong here, but even though you mentioned, like, first names of the subjects, you really didn't profile this. The 60 individuals are not profiled at all. Right. You don't really get to know. The reader doesn't. You don't, you know, you don't give, like, a little synopsis of each one. Is that correct?

Dr. Laura Gabayan: I don't. Well, first of all, some people want to remain, and some people, it's funny because I didn't know what it would turn into, and I did. They didn't know either. They were honored to be nominated as wise, and that was it. And I won. When push came to shove, when I came to publish the book, I asked him, do you want me to use your first name? I did not profile them because I wanted you to remember, for example, I don't know if I mentioned what he does. Like, for example, Albie, if he's a record producer, I don't. I need to mention more than that because when we, the reader read it, that's what we remember.

Dr. Laura Gabayan: So I think as long as someone fit the bill, you know, they were age 50, 79, and they were nominated for the project. That was all that mattered.

Mike Capuzzi: Very good. What about also just. I'm interested in knowing this myself, the timeline. So when did you come up with the idea? What date was that close to that? And then how long did it take you to get through and actually have a published book?

Dr. Laura Gabayan: I don't know. I mean, I knew that I wanted to look into this. I didn't know this timeline. I did know that. So around Covid. So I would say around 2020, I started looking at other articles. 2019, 2020, I looked. I mean, by then, my party had fallen apart for six years.

Dr. Laura Gabayan: And that's where I was like, okay. I'm like, maybe this is something I should look into. And I did. I started looking at. And I remember I didn't have articles on how to identify wisdom, but all of them used the gold standard of a humanity being the person, the person that identifies them, no other, because they have all these tests. I'm okay. So humans are. It all came about.

Dr. Laura Gabayan: But I would probably say for before 2022 is when I started interviews. I spent a good three years learning about wisdom. And then 2022, I, you know, I looked for a research system, and then in October, I started, I had my first interview, so it came together pretty quick.

Mike Capuzzi: Once that. Once that happened.

Dr. Laura Gabayan: Yeah.

Mike Capuzzi: Nice job. Well, listen, Laura, as we wrap up here, I always like to ask, and the fact that this is, even though you're published with technical papers and stuff like that, research papers, first time nonfiction book authorization.

Dr. Laura Gabayan: True.

Mike Capuzzi: You're on the author Factor podcast. What has it meant? What has the impact of being a published book author meant to you? I know it's still new to you, but if whether it's you, your readers concisely describe what it means to be.

Dr. Laura Gabayan: A published book author, it's very, very. It's special to know that you can impact the lives of others. And when I get emailed or people say, oh, you changed my life, or anything, you know, you saved my marriage. I got that recently, or I changed away. I think all of that makes me feel so good. And it's not about the money. Not about it. Just.

Dr. Laura Gabayan: It's not about just selling books. Of course not. It's about changing lives. And that's what my goal has been, and that's what it will be.

Mike Capuzzi: Laura, how can our listeners learn more about you? And where's the best place to buy common wisdom?

Dr. Laura Gabayan: So. So I had. You can buy it off my website, lauragovine.com, or Amazon has as well. And as I, if you forget my name because my name is so difficult, you can always go the Wisdomresearchproject.com. and that leads to my website as well.

Mike Capuzzi: And we'll have you in the show notes. Yeah, we'll have it there.

Dr. Laura Gabayan: Yeah, either one.

Mike Capuzzi: Okay. Well, Laura, again, congratulations. I know I'm guessing this is not your only book, but that's okay. No pressure. But congratulations on a very meaningful and worthwhile project here.

Dr. Laura Gabayan: Thank you. It was good talking to.