Welcome to a special holiday edition of Mind Your Body with an equally special guest.
He’s Chesley B. “Sully” Sullenberger, III, but we all know and revere him simply as “Sully” Sullenberger. He’s been dedicated to the pursuit of safety for his entire adult life, and put his knowledge to the ultimate test during what’s called the “Miracle on the Hudson.” We watched with utter amazement and relief as he and his crew safely landed US Airways Flight 1549 on New York’s frigid Hudson River on Jan. 15, 2009. The Airbus A320 lost both engines from goose strikes just after take-off from LaGuardia Airport, with 150 passengers aboard.
I really hope you’ll read his biography here, the chronicling of a life of accomplishment and honor. Sully was ranked second in TIME‘s “Top 100 Most Influential Heroes and Icons of 2009” and was awarded the French Legion of Honor. Now he serves as the CBS News Aviation and Safety Expert, and is the founder and chief executive officer of Safety Reliability Methods, Inc., a company dedicated to management, safety, performance and reliability consulting.
Sully is married to fitness expert and television personality Lorrie Sullenberger. The couple and their two daughters live in Danville, Calif. Now, let’s get started:
Sully, there’s much more to get into, but first, how do you Mind Your Body with your diet—what you eat?
It’s really about being mindful and being thoughtfully aware of your health, and to make it a priority like brushing your teeth. It’s too easy to get distracted. At home, we try to plan meals before we shop and then stay on the periphery of stores, where generally the fresh produce, meat, and fish are displayed—and not the processed foods.
So your family is into healthy eating…
Yes, and here’s a funny story. One of our babysitters once told us she’d gotten a call from a friend who asked her, ‘What are you eating there? You know they don’t have any junk food and no sodas.’ I considered that a compliment!
What about exercise?
Every day I try to do something active, and enjoy getting outdoors here in the wonderful San Francisco Bay area. I take our two dogs for a walk for about an hour. We support and are custodians for Guide Dogs for the Blind in San Rafael, Calif. Right now we have a wonderful retired female breeding dog that produced 27 puppies for use as guide dogs.
And you run! Me, too, and I can’t imagine not doing it. You told Runners World that ‘I’m not a great runner. I’m just a regular guy who just tries to stay fit and I get some enjoyment out of it.’ What does running do for your mind and body?
Recently, I’ve gotten back into it a bit more. Life is pretty intense, and running helps. I pace myself. I wish my stride was as fluid as it used to be. I’ve been doing strengthening with weight exercises and stretching. Running frees my mind and helps me be more creative and not just focus on what’s in front of me. I enjoy those moments of clarity when I’m out running.
What would you say to Parade.com readers who are ‘thinking’ about running but haven’t laced up their shoes yet?
Just start. Go walk around the block and tomorrow do it twice. Find something that you enjoy and schedule it, just as you would a business meeting. Take the stairs instead of the elevator. Don’t use parking spaces closest to the door. Make this a focus of your life, and not something you do on occasion. The small choices you make are cumulative, and there’s no magic bullet, but they’re going to affect the quality of your life.
About other physical activity: Do you do anything else?
I love to ski. I bought a season lift ticket.
What else are you working on health-wise?
I don’t think I get to the gym enough—that’s something I’m trying to do a better job of. I’m also trying to knock off earlier in day. I’m most successful if I go to the gym first, otherwise I don’t get there.
Sully, when I think of ‘calm and in control,’ yours is honestly the first name that comes to mind. Most people would have panicked or worse during your harrowing flight episode. How do you calm yourself and how did you? Yes, I realize you had lots of training but it takes ‘something’ inside, above and beyond that…
Like other people, I get impatient and irritable. You have to learn ways to control and cope with it. It helps if I remind myself that everything is not a ‘10’—not that important. I try to rein myself in when I react to something I don’t like. Shall I save my real indignation for something that’s critical? Yes. Being a perfectionist, I place importance on a lot of things that are not appropriate for that.
You’ve talked about achieving balance in life. What’s your secret? I mean, you sure seem to be doing it.
I’m getting better. I’m scheduling more family time more often. I’m choosing not to work as late in the day, saying ‘no’ more often to more things. I’m relaxing more. And I do those pro bono things that mean the most to me, like Guide Dogs and supporting the American Red Cross—but I don’t spread myself too thin.
What do older adults need to pay attention to most when it comes to mental or physical health? Better yet, what would you like to say about that to some of your friends? Here’s your forum!
I’m thinking that 60 is the new 40! I can mentally calculate when our parents were the age we are now. My parents weren’t as physically active as my wife and I are now at this age. We live a very active and engaged life.
I believe one of the most important things is for us all to model the kind of behavior we want to see in our society. If we bemoan the coarsening of our culture and those kinds of behaviors, we need to make sure we behave the way we think we should for our families and others.
And what about children?
Remember that when children are toddlers they repeat what they hear us say on the phone, so we need to be careful around these ‘little sponges.’ The kind of world they see starts at home, no matter our station in life.
How can we each be on own hero?
We overuse the word ‘hero’ and that cheapens it. A lot of people do remarkable things, set good examples, have courage, integrity and a moral compass. They just haven’t been as publicly tested as we were. Be sure to take notice when they do something good.
Let’s shift to medicine, for this is a health blog. You’ve been an advocate for doctors’ checklists, like the ones you pilots use—to reduce preventable medical errors. More than 200,000 people die from them each year. What is your progress report on this?
There’s much more to that. We’re ultimately talking about how to improve human performance in complicated systems that involve inherent risk. It’s not just one simple intervention. Whether it’s a checklist in aviation or in surgery, it’s not really just the list itself that’s so important, it’s formalizing best practices, developing leadership, team-building and other human skills that really make that kind of protocol effective.
So where does the checklist come in?
The checklist is just a focus—there’s more to it. In medicine now we’re seeing people do what we’ve done the last 30 years in aviation. We’re teaching leaders not to be solo acts, but how to build and maintain a team, formalize best practices and instill a shared sense of responsibility among those team members for the outcome. This builds a robust, resilient safety system. Not enough is happening. Medicine is so complex, with such a fractured, fragmented system. There’s no FAA or NTSB, but hundreds of entities.
Both you and I worked in the airline business ‘back in the day’ when it was actually fun to fly. Now it’s highly stressful and consumers feel they’re getting less for their money. Unless one is flying at ‘Super-Platinum Million-Mile’ status, it’s easy for some people to be resentful and to misbehave on flights—which are not very comfortable with a seatback nearly touching your nose. What’s your tip ‘for the rest of us’ on how to adapt to this airborne reality?
First, it’s never been safer to fly. It has become cheaper, too, and it’s become ‘democratized’—so more can afford to fly. Airlines have become more efficient in an extremely cost-competitive industry. It’s been a race to the bottom. People now fly in cramped, stressful conditions, with many add-on charges. The Internet has definitely impacted pricing. I hope people will say ‘enough is enough’ and that carriers will treat passengers more humanely than current business models dictate.
Thank you, Sully, for such a valuable conversation with so much to think about. I appreciate you sharing your wisdom. This was a rare opportunity to get to know a real American hero in such a meaningful way—I know I used that word ‘hero’ again, but I must. Happiest of holidays to you and your family and the dogs, Sully, and we know we will be hearing much more from you in the coming year.
And to my visitors here at Parade.com: Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and Happy New Year to you and yours! I’ll take next Friday off, but will be back the following week. Enjoy and be safe! Don’t forget to check out this week’s health news headlines here>>
Stephanie Stephens, M.A., is a spokesperson and host for the active, mature female demographic—midlife and boomer. She writes, produces, and hosts her multimedia channel, Mind Your Body TV, featuring timely health and lifestyle blogs, podcasts, and videos—also seen on YouTube and syndicated by AOL/On.
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