House Calls Podcast

Meet My Moai, A Powerful Friendship Tradition

With guests Dr. Sandeep (Sunny) Kishore and Dr. Dave Chokshi

Hello, and welcome to "House Calls." I'm Vivek Murthy, and I have the honor of serving as US Surgeon General. I'd like to introduce you to my friends, Sunny Kishore and Dave Chokshi. Today, we'll be talking about our moai, a friendship tradition from Okinawa, Japan which we've adopted for our friendship. Here on "House Calls," we've talked a lot about loneliness, connection, and friendship. There's so many kinds of friendship and connection with old friends, colleagues, neighbors and I'm always interested in what other people's friendships really look like. That curiosity inspired my decision to share a friendship of my own. In today's episode, I'm joined by my friends, Sunny and Dave. Together we have what's called moai. Moais are a tradition from Okinawa, Japan. It's a support group that starts in childhood. Young children are grouped together in a moai and make a commitment to each other for life. Over the years, moais meet regularly. Moais offer emotional and moral support and the effect on people's health can be remarkably positive. In Okinawa, where people are known for their longevity, some moais have lasted for over 90 years. I'm really excited to share this conversation with all of you, to invite you into the sacred space that I share with my moai, as we talk about the power of being seen and heard and being valued for who you are. I hope this inspires you to build and strengthen connections in your own life. As always, we're eager to hear your feedback and questions about this episode. You can email us at housecalls@hhs.gov. I am so excited for this episode of "House Calls." This is a very special episode where we have two in incredibly special guests who mean a great deal to me in my life and I'm about to introduce them to you. But before I do, let me just tell you that this episode is about moais. That's a term many of you may not be familiar with, but it's spelled M-O-A-I and it refers to, I would think of it as a special bond between friends, a construct that draws from Okinawa tradition and one that we're gonna talk about today. The reason we're doing this episode though is because we have gotten so many questions about moais. I've mentioned them in the past on the road. I've talked about them in some of the publications that we've put out recently on loneliness and isolation and so many people have asked what is this moai that you talk about that's changed your life so fundamentally? How can we learn about it? How can we build our own moai? So I thought what better way to discuss that and answer those questions than by inviting my two moai brothers on so that we could let you know firsthand what the experience has been like and we'll also talk a little bit about how to think about starting your own moai. So without further ado, let me introduce the two members of my moai who I call brothers who have been incredible forces in my life these last few years, Sunny Kishore and Dave Chokshi. Sunny and Dave, welcome to the podcast.

So excited to be here, Vivek. Thanks for having us.

Thank you both so much for doing this. And just to tell everyone who's joining us here a little bit about your background, Sunny is a doctor. Dave is a doctor as well. All three of us sort of overlapped in various points during our medical school training and then at points in residency as well. We were part of a joint fellowship together which is how the three of us met, although Sunny and Dave knew each other before from college days. But I will say that it's not until we started our moai that all three of us actually became incredibly close and came to play the role in each other's lives that we'll talk about today. And so I'm eager for us to jump into this. Let me first just start by asking each of you what you're grateful for today? There's a lot that's going on in our lives, life is crazy. I know we were in touch over text over the weekend, but tell me one thing you're grateful for today.

Sunny, after you.

All right, brother, I am grateful for the idea that we can do conversations like this. It's sort of love in the public square and no matter what, we can always kind of stand and embrace that publicly.

Beautiful.

I really resonate with that. Well, first, of course, I'm so grateful for our moi. It's been such a source of not just support, but strength for me over the years and particularly so over the last couple of years. And the other thing that I'm feeling particularly grateful for is just being in a place with my family where I feel extraordinarily fortunate to have the time that I do with the people that I love the most.

Beautifully said, Dave. And as for me, today, in particular just really grateful for the love I have in my life from family and friends. I spent Father's Day with my father and with the rest of my family which is unusual. I don't always get to be with my dad in Miami during Father's Day, but we were all able to be together and I woke up this morning knowing that I was gonna speak with both of you. And when I think about both of you, I think about gosh, so much that we've been through over the last five years, hard decisions that we've helped each other make in our work lives and our personal lives, and I just feel so grateful to both of you. So even just seeing both of you puts me in a good place, so I'm grateful for this time we've got together. And I wanna start by digging into what a moai is for those who may not be familiar and let me start here, and Sunny, Dave, please chime in. But as we all know it, a moai is a tradition that draws from Okinawa. It was started there a long time ago, but it's a tradition where a group of young people come together and they make an explicit commitment to be there for one another in the future no matter what may come. You can think of it as an explicit commitment to have each other's backs. And that tradition has morphed, and changed, and shifted over the years in Okinawa, but it's a tradition I learned about from Dan Buettner who wrote the book "Blue Zones" and who studied Okinawa as a place that has an unusual number of people who live to the age of 100 and beyond. And so he sought to look into what exactly they were doing that made them so healthy and contributed to this longevity, and their social ties were one of them and that's where he uncovered and discovered, I should say, the moai tradition and helped many others in the world like me learn about it. So that is what the moai is, but Sunny, Dave, let me turn to you. What is the moai, sort of how do you define it when friends ask you what this is?

Well, one of the phrases that comes to mind for me which all three of us have used is that it's kind of being primary care friends. I'm a primary care doctor and both Sunny and Vivek trained in primary care as well, and I think we just really appreciate the idea that it's not a flash in the pan kind of relationship. It is a friendship that sustains over years. And just as we've derived inspiration from that Japanese tradition of moai where people, they get together over the span of decades, I think we really appreciate that aspect of the moai for the three of us as well. One of the things that it really helps us get to is there are just conversations that we can start with a lot of unspoken concord in terms of the values that we share, in terms of what we already know about one another personality wise and what we've struggled with, and that allows us to really leap forward and also bring out the best in one another because we've been been there for each other in times thick and thin. So primary care friends.

Yeah, I like that.

I love that, yeah, I think building on what Dave is saying, one analogy I've been using, I actually can't swim, so I don't know if this is the right analogy. But one analogy that I've been using is imagine an ocean and how many times have you met with friends? You're like I'm so sorry, we need to catch up and we need to have that. We need to dig a little bit deeper. But I often find that if you're on this ocean, I'm often at the surface and tiny, tiny ripples. And I think with this group, with Dave and Vivek, we have this opportunity to just learn to swim, learn to dive little by little and then it builds up upon each other. And then I started to ask what's behind that? And I think it's this idea of reciprocity 'cause one person shares and in some friendships, you may feel and for folks listening out there, that it could be asymmetric, maybe even transactional. And I think here it somehow feels just different. There's a reciprocity, there's a love. There's a genuine wish for progress in each other that I just think is really sacred in a way and it's definitely allowed me to swim and go a little bit deeper than I would.

And Sunny, that word you just used at the end, sacred, that just gave me chills because I feel like that's so accurately describes the place that the moai has come to occupy in my life. It is so fundamental now to how I operate and to how I course correct, to how I recenter myself. I do feel like it's sacred, and one thing I also just wanna mention about the moai is how it's about making implicit commitments explicit, right? I would say before that three of us formed our moi, we would've counted each other as good friends, right? We would've said that yeah, I would've said I love Dave, I love Sunny, they're fantastic people. I love hanging out and spending time with them. Yet we weren't occupying the kind of place in each other's lives that we occupy now, even though every time we got together we would say gosh, wouldn't it be great to spend more time together? Which leads me to how our moai started in the first place and do either of you want to tell that story?

I think you should tell it, V.

Okay, well, this is 2018. Sunny, Dave and I are at a retreat. I'm about a year out from my first stint serving as Surgeon General. And at that time in between where I had become a private citizen again, that was a really tough time. It was rocky, I wasn't sure what I was doing in my life. I started wrestling with issues around identity. I was feeling lost to put it simply, and lost and I would say lonely as well because for all the reasons that I've talked about in prior episodes, I was really struggling without the kind of connections I had in earlier times in my life 'cause I had largely neglected my friendships during my time as Surgeon General. So I was lost, I was lonely, and I'd come to this retreat and I meet Sunny and Dave. And we decide to blow off one of the sessions that was scheduled and just take a walk together around the lake that was on the retreat property. And at the end of that walk, I remember us saying gosh, it would be great if we could see each other more often, and I think we all sort of realized two things. One is that we were in a somewhat similar place of trying to figure out things in our life and wanting more connections than we were experiencing. So a little bit lost, a little bit lonely perhaps. But I think we all realized in that moment that just saying I wish we could see each other more often wasn't gonna make it happen. And so what we did at the end of that walk is something that I'm so grateful for which is we made an explicit commitment to each other that we would video conference about once a month. That we would do so for a couple hours and that during that time, that we would be fully present with each other. We wouldn't be distracted by our devices, and we would also be honest with each other and open about what was really on our minds including the things that friends don't always get to talk about or sometimes feel squeamish about talking about like our insecurities, or our health, or our finances. And all of that was what came to fruition in the months that followed and I'm so grateful to both of you, number one, just for all of us being on the same page about wanting to make that explicit commitment, but for also just sticking to it. And I'll lastly say that one of the key parts of it was it wasn't just about once a month. It was an in between when we needed each other or when something happened in our life, whether it was something exhilarating or something deeply troubling or whether it was something that was confusing to us, we would reach out to each other. We would have spontaneous moai calls sometimes or we would just help each other out over text or over email. We would look at documents that each other had drafted for work. We would do all kinds of things to help one another, but that support system just came to mean everything to me. But that's my memory. For all I know, your memories are totally different about how it started. So what do you recall?

I'll just add a little bit. I think that was really well described, Vivek, and I mean, I just remember that walk that we took together in Colorado where the idea came about in the first place. I remember it so vividly because it was just a beautiful moment and maybe I have a little bit of a unique vantage point because I was lucky enough to be friends with with both of you even before that. But the moai really added something where the sum was much greater than the parts, and I think the chemistry and the sort of the unique attributes that each of us brings to our conversations is part of what what has made that work. Also just for people who are hearing this and maybe thinking well, it sounds wonderful, but how did that actually happen? I wanna just build on a little bit of what Vivek was saying about what those early months after our initial walk together looked like. And it didn't happen instantaneously where we had all of this sort of trust and the reciprocity that Sunny describes. For me, it felt like what I think of as a slippery slope of vulnerability. Each of us kind of gingerly extended ourselves by sharing something that was very private, that felt difficult to confide in someone else about. Aspects of our lives that we felt some shame about or were just really worried about how they would be perceived. But as each of us decided to do that, that sort of opened up the permission for Sunny or Vivek to do the same. And so that's what led to that slippery slope of vulnerability where now five years later we can look back and say this is such a unique space where we feel very comfortable in sharing some of our innermost feelings. - Yeah, very, very little to add on what Dave and Vivek have mentioned. The one thing I will say is that there was a component of vulnerability that we often talk about, but can sometimes feel forced. And for all those out there listening, I think one of the questions is and I think just to name it for Vivek, is I think it's helpful to have someone just try to catalyze it and say imagine if we could do this 'cause honestly if Vivek had not proposed that, I don't know if we'd be sitting here. So sometimes it takes one person and so if you're out there and you're like boy, I'm just feeling, a question is that if you wanted to go to a movie tonight, would you have someone to call? If you had something come up health wise, would there be someone that you could confide in? If the answer is I don't know, my mom often says in life you can sometimes count on the number of your fingers the people that you can actually truly count on in times of need. If you do that finger exercise and you're coming up short as I sometimes have, I think it's okay to give your permission to be the Vivek and to put yourself out there. And it brings me back where a lot of South Asian heritage, there's this idea of namaste which means my soul honors your soul. And so it's past the body, it's past the sort of exterior. I sometimes call it the mask that we sometimes wear especially in public service or leadership. There's something deeper and inside and just to try to get to that I think would be the key.

Yeah, and I like how both of you describe this. This has really been an exercise for me of taking that mask off, of just trying to really show up as who I am even when it's scary, even when it feels uncomfortable. Even when it feels embarrassing like I'm talking about something that I'm may be ashamed of or that I haven't done well and that I feel like I should have done better on. So that feels real, but the deepening also over time, I think it's so important, Dave, that you mentioned that 'cause it's not like magic from day one, but it becomes deeper and deeper and deeper as time goes on. I wanna also just for those who are wondering, the nuts and bolts of what this looks like to just talk for a moment about how we set these up, right? So we sort of settled on trying to do once a month on average. Sometimes it's more frequent. Sometimes it's less frequent than that, and usually a call is triggered by one of us just reaching out saying hey, can we do a moai call this weekend or next weekend? And then we'll work on scheduling it. And during that time, during that moai call, we used to do a round robin where we went around and each person sort of talked about where they were their life, how they were feeling, what was on their mind, what was bothering them, and where they could raise questions to the group about personal or work stuff, or spiritual things, or any question that really comes up. And I think over time, that's evolved too. Sometimes we focus and more recently we focused more on one or two people for a given session that we have depending on who's got something that's big that might be happening in their life at that time. But what I like also are the in-betweens because I feel like that's really evolved a lot for us, the spontaneous outreach that we do when we're sharing a moment of joy, or a concern, or I remember, Dave, you recently had something that you wrote that I thought was really brilliant when you gave us a chance to read it, and I know Sunny did too. But you sent that to us just to get some input on it and to ask hey, does this really reflect me? Is this my voice coming through? I'll share the one moment I will always remember that both of you helped me through was during that time when I was in between government stints, I was approached about a job and it was a job that, it was a big job, it was a fancy job and I was feeling lost at the time. And so I was drawn toward it and I brought it up to you guys, and I could actually feel internally that I was trying a little bit to sell it to you. I was like hey, this is what I should do, right? Right, Dave, right, Sunny? And you listened patiently as you always do and you pause, and at the end you both said you know what? You're saying all the right words, but you don't really sound excited about it. It sounds like something's missing here and you helped me realize one of the most important things ever about that job and a good filter for life in general and looking at opportunities which is he helped me realize this would be a great job to get, but not a great job to do. And that was an important distinction for me 'cause I realized that just meeting that momentary sort of pain or angst I had around the uncertainty in my life, that that wasn't the big solution. That I also needed to be doing something that I truly love that was a good match for me. But those stand out to me as great examples of how the spontaneous outreach we've had in between have been really pivotal, at least for me, in helping shape decisions I made at work and then also at home because there have been some times, just to be open here, where I've struggled in terms of my role at home. Where I felt like I have not been doing as much as I need to on the home front and where I've allowed too much to fall onto Alice's shoulders in terms of home responsibilities. And I felt guilty about that, I felt bad about that, a bit ashamed about that and tried to figure out how to course correct. And bringing that up with both of you to just game plan and strategize about that has been really helpful and you've been incredible accountability partners in keeping me honest. So those are a few moments that stand out to me where our moai has made such a difference. Are there moments that stand out for both of you where the moai made a big difference in your lives?

All right, I'll go for it, Dave. I think one that comes to mind, there's so many, it's almost a feeling that you get. And it's interesting, V, I was thinking about those moments when we reach out to one another, there's often no agenda. It's just we feel like we need a moai chat and then we will just sort of take it from there kind of ad hoc, and it just speaks to kind of the sustenance and kind of food for the soul that this provides. For me, I think it comes related to identity. I stepped away from clinical medicine. To just say it out loud, this is something that I struggled with but I think I was just burnt out. And I think the feelings of shame, the feelings of I was supposed to be really good at this and then for a moment, to just resonate with what you're saying earlier, I felt lost for a bit, and I think part of that meeting in Colorado is in that era. And then slowly, slowly, you sometimes have these paper cuts to the soul and then you realize that some of the healing is from your friends and colleagues and family. And so with the support of Biva, my partner, my family, decided to go back to clinical medicine. And I thought this was an interesting conversation with you both. I remember it pretty vividly. It wasn't a rubber stamp. It was actually one critical interrogation first and so I think this is important. The moai is not just yay, great job and validation all the time, it's about accountability and you have to have that trust to get there. And the question was why? Why do you wanna go and be a clinician and see patients again, Sunny? Where is that coming from? And we sorted through that. It would involve pretty significant life changes. My mother and father are incredible clinicians from India. My little brother, Sanjay, and his partner, Margaret, where gonna be in training too, so we had this moment but it would involve kind of uprooting our lives. And I would have to go back into training and there'd be financial implications. Maybe status for lack of a better word. I would have to sacrifice a fair bit to sort of, and some of my colleagues had said you're foolish to kind of go backwards. And so after we had gone through that with both of you, you then gave me the space to believe that I could do it and that after several years away, you could realize that I was healed and to go back and train. And I remember during COVID, you both had sort of public positions and were leading New York City and the nation. It was really hard. It was really hard and I would share cases, I would text you, I would do so many things. And I remember even after a patient passed away, it was a young patient, I remember going to the chapel and just sitting by myself. I texted Biva, I texted my parents, and then I texted you guys. And just in those moments when you feel helpless, having you guys there almost like companions to sort of believe and keep going. And now it sort of got me through a critical phase, I feel so much more comfortable in my skin, I was told by a lot of folks to sort of inhabit a different identity. My full name is Sandeep and so it's a formal place, but now I told all my patients call me Dr. Sunny, and that was in part inspired by the love and encouragement to be myself from both of you. So both from life changes, professional changes, and honestly being able to go within myself and feel who I really am, the moai gets a lot of credit for that.

It's so powerful, Sunny, and just I mean, hearing you tell those stories again, it's really moving. And I think Vivek would say something similar. It's just been a privilege to get to accompany you and be a small part of that journey which is another reason that the moai is so fulfilling. To just be able to witness that and the courage and it's inspiring for us to just be along for those difficult moments and the ways in which you've been able to become yourself, who you are authentically. And I think as both of you have alluded to, that's a real function of the moai is to remind us of who we are, particularly when we forget. It's one of my favorite definitions of friendship and I think it takes the primary care friends, this really deep relationship where even when we, ourselves, are unmoored by whatever the forces are in our life, the external circumstances, centering ourselves is something that our friends through the moai, that's something that they're able to help us with. And I remember that too in so many of the toughest moments, certainly during the pandemic. I guess the one that comes to mind for me is I remember it was just two days after I had started my new job serving as health commissioner for the city. And I came in under charge circumstances and I was encountering a team, a staff who were perhaps rightfully a bit skeptical of this new leader that was coming in. And I remember spending an entire day writing my first remarks for an all-staff town hall and you guys were the ones that I shared that with, who I spoke with as I was turning them over in my mind, and helped me to make sure that that was coming again, from a place of authenticity so that people could feel where my head was at and what I was thinking about. So it's those toughest moments where the moai has been so critical for each of us. I also just wanna give a flavor for the fact that it's also the most joyful moments that I think about the moai, and one concept is it's the antithesis of schadenfreude. And this is something that I think everyone should aspire to, have friends whether it's a moai or otherwise, but friends for whom you genuinely feel unbridled joy at their success. And I think that that's where we've been able to get to and why I wanna share in a very just sort of plain way when I feel good about something that's happening in my life because I know it's something that will be welcomed and embraced, and reciprocally I feel that way anytime one of you shares something good that's happening in your lives. So yeah, it's the lowest moments and also the highest moments for us to experience together. There's one last thing that I just wanted to mention briefly which is maybe some people are wondering well, how does this relate to family? And isn't what we're describing what family members, the roles that family members usually play in people's lives? And I think all three of us are lucky to have such supportive families, partners, parents, siblings who are just truly always in our corner. But there is one thing that feels a little bit different about our moai which is one of the challenging aspects of family is that it's sometimes hard to reinvent yourself when it comes to your own family, right? They've known you longer than you've known yourself actually in some cases and so you sometimes get pigeonholed into a particular identity or just get chalked up for a narrative that they've already established for you. And the moai is different in that it is deliberately about saying no, you are an individual who can change with time, and in fact we love what we've seen when you have been able to change and we have helped you to embrace that change. And so in that way it does feel a little bit different than family because we are deliberately trying to help one another become different selves and optimally better selves.

Yeah, that is so well put about the reinvention piece because it does feel like we need to reinvent ourselves periodically, at least reexamine ourselves, and sometimes that's challenging to do in existing longstanding relationships that we have with family. But speaking of family though, I do wanna ask both of you how being in the moai has impacted your family? We're all married and we have spouses that we're very committed to that we want to spend time with. We have extended family we wanna be with. Dave and I both have kids as well. The time with the moai is decidedly time that we're not spending elsewhere, right? And so I'm just curious to look at how have your families reacted to your being in the moai? Have they seen any changes or differences in you that they've mentioned?

Yeah, I'm happy to start on this one, Sunny. Yeah, I mean, I think what my wife, Mela, reflects back is that I get buoyed by our moai sessions. I actually come away from them lighter and often inspired by both of you. And so it does come at a, we have so many demands on our time as partners, as parents, all of it. But it does feel like a place for us to recharge, to derive energy so that we are better for all of those other relationships as well. And I think by this point because we have encountered some difficult decisions that we've all had to talk through together, again, my partner, Mela, and my parents are often, and my sister, they're the ones who I often turn to for some of those toughest decisions. But now part of that conversation is well, what did Sunny and Vivek think? Because they know that the moai has been a part of it as well and the respect that I feel for both of you has kind of been extended into the entire family.

Beautiful.

Yeah, that's really on point. I mean, I think the only thing I would add is there's an element in which members of the family can also become part of a moai in ways. So I know when Alice and Vivek come out to California, we make it a point to go visit. Dave and Mela and their beautiful daughter, Ava, came to stay with us in California and having these sort of dyads and spouse partner moais as well. There's just so much trust and love there and it gets to what Dave often calls, not just the day one conversations, but the day two or day three conversations about all the stuff Vivek was saying. About marriage equity, about are we showing up in the right way? Where are the tolls and the hidden taxes? And I think that's really, really important to kind of uncover and discuss. And related to that, I know my brother, Sanjay, he starting incredible project with his partner, Margaret, down with Brian Stevenson in Alabama and he views both of you as another unknown older brother. He will often say well, this is what Dave said, this is what Vivek said and so I think there's an element in which there is a blurring of the boundaries at times between the family and the moai, and that is in some ways keeping with the Okinawa tradition, right? That these boundaries in some ways are artificial and if we're truly talking about social and human connection, an elemental thing, then you don't just need blood to be family.

Oh, I got to say. Our spouses feeling good about our participation in the moai and being able to just see the impact it's made on us, that has been so powerful and helpful honestly for me too 'cause Alice has been so kind and supportive and always making sure that if I need some time to talk to them moi, that we make that time. And I think it's because she's also seen the impact that it's had on me. And every time we get together and I hang up the phone, I just have this this thought like gosh, what if we had not made that explicit commitment to one another? All of this extraordinary change, and power, and beauty, and this positive force in my life wouldn't necessarily be there and it reminds me just as I think about other dimensions of life, of the power of taking an implicit commitment and making it explicit. I think when the three of us got married to our spouses, that was actually an example, right? Of taking an implicit commitment that we had to them already by that time as partners and making it explicit through this incredible ceremony. But in some ways I think with our moai what we did is we made explicit our commitment as friends to one another and that helped us be more present for each other. I think it was incredibly powerful. I also just wanna draw attention to just one word that the three of us use often when we refer to each other which is the term brother, right? We actually refer to each other as brothers and I think, Sunny, I think you may have started that. I think, I'm not sure. Maybe you did, Dave, I can't remember. But it definitely wasn't me, but I was so glad to adopt it because it describes so perfectly the relationship we've built which as you said, Sunny, is that blurring of lines between friendship and family. I mean, you both are my brothers, you are family to me and you're the ones that I look to during good times and bad. And last week actually something happened which reminded me of how much you were family which is that something good happened to me at work and it was the kind of thing where I never tell people when good things happen to me with the exception of my parents and my sister and now since I got married, Alice. But I never ever share. I don't wanna be immodest or I don't wanna make it seem like I'm tooting my horn or this or that or whatever, but my parents will understand and they'll feel genuinely proud or happy on my behalf, right? So that's why I share with them. But this thing happened at work and I actually texted both of you and I shared it with you, and you were both of course, just as you always are, just so encouraging and so thoughtful. But it was one of those moments where I was reminded Sunny and Dave truly are family now because I would never, ever share this with anyone else. So that was a powerful moment. - I love that, and you know what it makes me think of, what you're invoking is the unconditionality of it and just the idea that the reason that we often don't share that, and in the really great example that you just gave, Vivek, the internal monologue is often oh, what will others think if I if I say this? It will come across as boasting or arrogant or whatever and so let me just keep it to myself. And the internal monologue changes as a result of the depth of our friendship in the moai to well, I know that Sunny and Dave are not gonna think those things about me, and in fact they'll share this joy. This will genuinely make them happy to hear about it as well and so I think that's tied to the unconditionality of our friendship. It's interesting, I mean, I'm just thinking this through as we're talking. It's this really unique mix of unconditional love for one another with accountability, and we have both of those things and they actually are mutually reinforcing in a beautiful way. We can say look, when one of us falls short or when one of us is feeling dejected and wants to change that, we can provide a bit of accountability in terms of okay, well, what are the things that you're gonna do as a result of this? And then we'll come back and ask about them. There will be a text a week later or we'll raise it at our next moai call, and so I think it's a combination of those things. And I just have to share one other thing that that brought to mind for me which is I'm realizing that some of the best, some of the things that I want to impart to my own daughter like Mela and I have a tradition of telling her when we're dropping her off in the mornings to school, we tell her three things. We say be gentle and kind, ask good questions, and have fun. And I think both of you exemplify those elements and that has helped me to hone what I want to pass on to my daughter as well.

Dave, I had no idea that that's what you said to Mela when you dropped her off. That's that's so beautiful, wow. I love that, Sunny, did you know that?

I did not know that. I was thinking though, just this conversation made me think about the feeling that you were describing, Dave and Vivek, about when we hang up, what is that? And so I asked Biva to unpack it one time and I was like if you had to just give a one line on why it is that I feel lighter and that I'm smiling? And it was the idea that you feel heard. You feel understood and you feel that you could be. You don't have to pretend your authentic self. And I think when people are thinking about starting a group like this, one question that I would just have is where can you just be you, right? Get off the pre, there's no agenda, no transaction. Just where can you be yourself? And so I feel with both of you, it's a 360 and can just be. And I don't know, it's almost like a stethoscope for the soul or something. You guys have a way, and it brings me to the second point and I think I really learned this from watching Mela which is one of the biggest gifts that you could give somebody is simply your presence and attention. Especially a lot of the work that Vivek's done, national level, we were seeing that our attention can be pulled in so many ways. Devices or just multitasking, and just sitting for an hour and bearing witness and listening, I think I've learned so much on how to do that from both of you 'cause I think that's something, that you guys are just incredible listeners and the questions you ask. Yeah, so I just wanted to feed that back. - Yeah, and I think you're both, you're both just highlighting I think something that's so important in how the moai conversations work which is it's not just the three of us going around and talking, talking, talking about what's happening in our lives, right? I think that three big elements that you both mentioned are listening, asking thoughtful questions, and follow-up, right? Those three things are so vital and I think that the deep listening that both of you do so well is something I've learned from. I think that being with both of you in the moai has made me a better listener and has also I think pushed me to ask the kind of thoughtful questions that both of you ask of me all the time which pushed me to go levels deeper than what I normally do when I'm just sharing what's on the top of my mind. But the follow up, I'd say that's probably where I've learned the most from both of you because it's those texts afterwards that you send following up. Sunny, I feel like you particularly do this well for me and Dave which is that you'll proudly just send texts saying hey, checking in, how's everyone doing? If I was struggling with something about let's say my health and sticking to the right exercise and diet plan, you'll say how are things going with that specific challenge? If Dave was wrestling with something, you'll ask him specifically about that. But that kind of follow up is so important 'cause it's the thread that keeps the moai going in between the calls that we have, and I just think that that is incredibly powerful. And one last thing I'll just say about what you just said, Sunny, about Biva's observation about why you feel light after the moai about the power of being seen. This really resonates with me 'cause I feel like in retrospect, I spent years of my life trying to be someone that I thought that the world valued, right? Somebody who achieved certain things, who made certain contributions, that would be lauded or appreciated by the world. I was trying to be someone who I thought the world wanted and I felt like I was hustling all the time. And I hear this so often from young people around the country, that they feel caught up in this hustle and the question is what are we chasing? What exactly are we chasing, is it the right thing? And you both have pushed me to really grapple with that question of what am I chasing? Am I chasing what really matters in life? And I feel like the only times where you can really grapple with that question is when you know that you can be yourself, when you can be in a safe, comfortable space to truly be open and vulnerable. And so I think knowing that we are enough in our moai circle has opened up a world of possibility in terms of reflection, in terms of honesty, and in terms of accountability, and that's really changed my life.

I'm glad we got a bit tactical as well. I think you guys have put out the big questions related to how does the moai work and so just to echo what both of you had have already said, it's about creating a space where you can be you. Where your authentic self is valued. And then as Sunny said, it's about having the person who's just the catalyst to create that space as Vivek was for us. And I guess the other piece that I would add to get even more tactical is then it's about no wrong door to communication. We have a very multimodal way of keeping in touch. So we have a text chain going. We have our monthly moai calls. We try to get together in person once a year. Sometimes that's been difficult over the last few years, but we all derive so much benefit from that. So again, despite all of our other obligations, we make space for that as well. And the check-in texts that Vivek was describing that Sunny is particularly good at, they're so important because it just gives you permission to respond with whatever happens to be on your mind. It's like this always-on reminder that the moai is there for you. So again, for people who are thinking about oh, this sounds great. I'm glad that Dave, Vivek, and Sunny have this, but how do I forge something like this in my own life? Those are I think the most important tangible steps that one can take to try to do something similar.

And Dave, building on that and interested in what you and Sunny would say to folks who are looking to start their own moai, who are even asking is this the right thing for me to do? How do you suggest that people go about identifying the right people to be a part of their moai and then how should they approach those people?

Yeah, it's a great question. I think yeah, flowing from what we were just saying, usually there are people in our lives, right? Who we reach out to in our most difficult moments and I think that should be the starting point. Who is already there for us and how do we forge a stronger connection to them? I think that's a really key element, and then the other thing that comes to mind is who has taken the time to listen and understand who I truly am? That's sometimes a harder one to solve for, but I think that's really the secret sauce in terms of why it works so well it our case as we've already described and because I think it just generates this alignment between who we want to be and who we actually are. And it takes someone who both understands what makes us tick, but whom we respect and love enough to be able to seed a bit of our own identity I guess is the way that I would put it and say well, there is more that I that I want. There might be more professionally but also more importantly I wanna be better for my relationships, particularly for the people that I love the most. So who is it that can help me grow in that direction?

Well said, Sunny, what do you think?

Yeah, it's a really good question 'cause it's one thing to say it and then honestly, Vivek, it's another thing to do what you did and to kind of put yourself out there and be like hey, guys, I'm feeling this. And we both could have been like nah that's cool, man, we're good, right, right? I mean, to just say it out loud, we could've been like well, dude, kind of. But I think in Okinawa, it was five people total starting from birth and I think a group of three is I think a good number even for scheduling purposes. So I would even just think, I mean, even one honestly, but I think having three allows for just a little bit of being able to look around the corner in different perspectives. I think if you asked yourself, just count on the number of fingers on your hand, who are folks who you feel seen and loved by? The kind of feeling that when you talk to family maybe that you get and in the next week after this episode comes out, make it a point to call that one person and just say what would it look like if we had a conversation about supporting one another? I really care for you and I'm feeling, and what would it look like to actually put that as an accountability marker to just start? So I think that's probably the one thing. The other thing I learned from Vivek on this is sometimes our calls are two hours, 2.5 hours on a weekend. But sometimes with friends, even those who are really close, it's a weird relationship. The longer time passes and you haven't talked to them, you feel a sense of guilt or you feel like when you call them you now have to cover so much ground and it's gonna take an hour. You're gonna have to spend the first time apologizing. And one thing I've learned from Vivek is just even a one-minute call and if someone calls and just answering the phone or just responding to that text even for a minute to set up something later can go a really long way. And I know that I've been not so great at this and so that's something to work on. So are there folks in your life who have done that to you, have reached out, wanted to catch up, and you've just haven't had the chance because you're worried that it could take too long. That might be a good signal that that person could be a candidate for the moai 'cause someone's already reaching out to you.

Yeah, and I would just lastly say on the logistics of setting this up, that it doesn't have to be overwhelming or intimidating or all or nothing. You can start sort of lightly in the beginning. You can, as Sunny and Dave were saying, think about one or two people in your life that you would like to actually spend more time with or talk to more often, and then make a commitment to doing that. That could be calling them once a month. That could be calling them once every two weeks, whatever frequency you think is best, but being intentional about doing that. And it could also then evolve to having a conversation with them about your engagement with one another about your friendship and to say hey, look, we always enjoy talking to each other. We don't get to talk to each other often enough. What if we made a commitment to actually doing that? What if we once a month, and we may miss a month here or there, but what if we decided that we're actually gonna show up for each other. We're grappling with a lot of similar issues or we can help each other in a lot of ways, and we always have when we're together and let's just make that real and happen more often in our lives. So having that explicit conversation with a friend is important and then from there you can figure out what rules make sense to you. I mentioned that for the three of us, that we knew that we wanted to explicitly get into issues that we weren't talking about often enough with our other friends like our health and our finances and how we were managing challenges with extended family. But we also knew that we were living in worlds where we were constantly distracted by things and we wanted that time to be time where we could truly just be there for each other, not distracted by devices or anything of that sort. So that's why we made those things actually an explicit part of how we were gonna be with one another. And I know that sometimes it can seem a little funny to be explicit about these things, but gosh, I will tell you that we have benefited so much from being explicit because it gave us the permission to show up for each other in a way that felt really good and to know that the other person was also gonna show up, that we weren't inconveniencing the other person by calling them when something came up in our lives or by taking time to actually dig into something that was really meaty and meaningful. And that's important 'cause that's a big part of what holds us back a lot of times. We're not sure if the other person really wants to hear it or if we're burdening them too much, and being explicit about these commitments to one another as you build your moai is a way to free yourself from that burden. It's a way to know that yes, the other person does wanna spend this time with me, hear from me, and wants to really know what's going on, not just get the masked version of who I am. So as our time draws to a close here, just maybe one last question I'll ask both of you and then we'll wrap it. As Dave mentioned, we try to get together around once a year in person. If you think about the future and I will just say from my end that my hope is that our moai lasts for the rest of our lives because it's been incredible these last five years and I never wanted to end. But if you think about an ideal place for us all to get together at some point in the future, where would that be? Our dream moai location? - Well, I'll go with hopefully an answer that doesn't sound too pat, but I would love for us to go to Japan, to go to Okinawa and really just sort of steep ourselves in that history and tradition a bit further. And I think a lot of what we've been talking about does connect to Asian traditions across the continent. But I think there would be something really special about experiencing that all together, so, yeah.

I love that, Sunny, what about you?

Yeah, I think I have a tie in my mind. So I was in Nepal in December and I saw a version of the moai with my father-in-law. And I think having you both in Nepal, Buddha's birthplace, at the foothills of the Himalaya would be a really interesting place for. And I think that the second in my mind is Dave and I are both the Duke grads and when we get together, we will play basketball. So it's a little-known fact that, I mean, I don't know if we're good, but we go on the court and we can shoot, but it'd be fun to do it at Cameron Indoor Stadium and have a special session there. Yeah, that'd be great.

Oh, my god, those are great examples. I really have nothing to add. I would go to any of those three places with you guys. I think Okinawa would be particularly amazing for us and I've also been drawn to Buddha's birthplace as well. I would love to go there. Our basketball games, by the way, are just so much fun and it's like different parts of us come out on the basketball court. But to date, we've only played on raggedy sort of courts, asphalt courts that are outdoors in the random cities that we gather in. To actually play in Cameron or in any halfway decent professional or collegiate court, that would be pretty epic. So one day we will do these things, but until then, Sunny, Dave, I can't thank you enough not just for this conversation, but just for being my brothers. For being the force in my life that I have needed for a long time and you showed up when I really needed you in life, and I will always be grateful for that. I'm a better man, a better friend, a better surgeon general, a better father and husband because of you, because of our conversations, and I will just forever be grateful for you. - Likewise, likewise, Vivek, I mean, what you just said is, the thought that enters into my mind is, the English translation of moai is a support group and it is about support, but so much of it is about strength. And I hope that that is something that people take away when they hear our story is that this is a source of strength for each of us. It gives us more confidence to confront our challenges and to inhabit our best selves. So I feel like I have a superpower because of you guys, because of the moai.

Beautiful. Any more to add?

I got nothing to add. It's an honor to just spend time with you guys as always and just really grateful, really grateful for all that love and support.

Well, I'm grateful to both of you and for our moai and thank you again for joining me for this episode of "House Calls." And my hope is that when people listen to this, they will not only be inspired by everything you've shared but that they may take steps in their own life to make their friendships stronger, to perhaps make explicit commitments to one another, to maybe even begin their own moai. And if you're out there listening and you've decided that you wanna build your own moai, (light music) tell us about your experience. We're eager to hear from you and we'll certainly hope to cover this topic on future episodes. So Sunny, Dave, thank you so much, love you both. That concludes this conversation with my friends, Sunny and Dave. Join me for the next episode of "House Calls" with Dr. Vivek Murthy. Wishing you all health and happiness.