life only demands of us the strength we
possess only one feat is possible not to
have run away it’s one of my favorite
quotes it’s by DAG hammarskjöld who was
a United Nations secretary-general
during the 1950’s President Dwight
Eisenhower once commented that died was
the only person he knew who consistently
could work on two hours sleep and do a
great job every day but the real reason
why I like that quote is because it was
first presented to me by my high school
English teacher she knew that I was very
frustrated and that I was struggling
with grammar with writing and above all
with public speaking so I guess we’ll
have to see how that works out tonight
my name is Ray singer and I’m a
cardiothoracic surgeon at Lehigh Valley
Health Network I’ve been here my entire
career since 1992 26 years I reached two
milestones this year the first I hit
another birthday with a zero in it I
just turned 60 thank you I know I look
fabulous and the other is that I just
performed recently my 7,000 operation
7,000 heart and lung operations I was
going to give my 7,000 patient a toaster
but I decided just to wish him well
instead you know a funny thing is ever
since I was young I always wanted to be
a doctor
there are reels of 8 millimeters silent
movies from the 1960s showing me as a
five-year-old with my play doctor’s kit
examining everyone in the family so the
question that I would like us to think
about tonight is how do we take that
exuberance of that five-year-old that
excitement that fun and continue it
throughout our lifetime what is that DNA
that pixie does that allows us to
continue that passion and drive through
a lifetime of
and aspirations in essence what I’m
asking you is what does it take and what
does it even mean to be happy or
successful I’d like to suggest to you
that it has everything to do with your
inner candle and I don’t believe that it
matters if you’re that five-year-old
with the plague doctors kid or if you’re
30 or if you’re 60 my mom is a very
youthful 95 year old in I would like to
dedicate this talk to her and even
though she’s youth Allah doesn’t mean
that she’s all together healthy she’s
been in and out of the hospital of late
she faced two cancers in her lifetime
she had open heart surgery she had valve
and bypass surgery she doesn’t hear that
well anymore see that well she still
drives her Ferrari no that’s not true
she doesn’t drive her world but she does
live independently and more importantly
she lives youthfully her inner candle is
as bright today as it was 40 years ago
and I can assure you that her in real
candle will stay bright until she takes
her last breath you know last week was
Nurses Week my mom was a navy nurse in
World War two my dad was a marine who
fought in the Pacific they met during
the war they fell in love they come from
what we refer to as the greatest
generation they survived the Great
Depression in World War two and after
the war they came back to the states
they got married and they raised two
children and they worked every day to
give their two children the
opportunities that they themselves never
never had that is special and you might
say well you know we get a doctor singer
you know you had great parents had a
nice childhood your you know an
accomplished heart and lung surgeon
you’re working at a very prestigious
network of course you’re happy you know
of course you’re successful and I would
say to you tonight my friends that I
could not disagree with you more I could
not disagree with you more
do not believe for one moment that
whatever you know success or happiness I
may enjoy my life it’s solely because of
the way my parents brought me up where
my circumstances or the fact that I
decided to be a heart and lung surgeon
or moved to the beautiful Lehigh Valley
and for willyou I don’t believe that
your circumstances dictate your success
and your happiness I don’t think it
matters what titles you have or even
what money you accumulate in your
lifetime see what I believe is that
successful people bring success to what
they do it’s not what they do that makes
them successful they bring success to
what they do they bring success to
everything they do every moment every
interaction every relationship and every
failure yes
they bring success to every failure look
at me I am a failure I fail every day
but you see the thing is that successful
people don’t really see it as failure
they see it as opportunities they see
the challenges and adversities in their
lives as learning experiences to do
things differently to learn from it to
do it better to innovate that’s what
successful people do and I believe that
if for some reason I fall off this stage
this evening which is possible and I
can’t perform heart surgery again that
in short order I will find a way to be
happy and be successful who knows maybe
I’ll open up the next great restaurant
in allentown we’ll call it chez ray or
something like that
in the operating room in my world and
tonight of some of my magnificent nurses
and physician assistants here this
evening in our world they can tell you
that we face adversity every day we face
challenges every single day we’re often
called for emergency operations just
this Saturday our patients are very sick
sometimes we’re faced with bleeding or
tissue that doesn’t seem to want to hold
and here’s the thing we know
who were operating on we know our
patients and more than that we get to
know their families some of the most
poignant and haunting moments in my
career or when you’re about to take that
patient to the operating room and
there’s a small child there who looks up
at you and says please take care of my
pup up or that son who flew back from
Stanford had just started college and
his father needed urgent surgery and he
had tears going down his eyes and he put
his hand on me and he said dr. singer
you’ll never know how much this means to
me
please bring my father back to me on
Christmas Eve this year Cristina one of
my PAS and I took care of a young woman
in her 50s we knew it would be
miraculous for what she had and we stood
in that emergency department and she was
laying there saying goodbye to her 15
year old son who was very stoic and she
said to him be strong for me those were
the last words he ever heard from his
mom sometimes were called to take care
of colleagues sometimes our neighbors
sometimes their friends and I can assure
you in those moments there is no failure
we can only bring success to what we do
and when we take that patient to the
operating room and that aorta begins to
tear which just happened to me yesterday
in my case trust me if you see that as
an obstacle
neither the patient or you are going to
do very well it is in those ultimate
moments when the decision that you make
can be the difference between that
patient living or dying you can only
bring success to what you do you need to
find that inner candle you must win you
must focus on that inner candle now I am
sure you don’t have to be as
dramatic as a heart surgeon we all have
challenges and responsibilities in our
lives each of you there’s probably 200
stories here tonight each of you have
challenges in your careers at home your
health there’s two stories I like on a
lighter note my beloved Philadelphia
Eagles won the Super Bowl this year and
they beat arguably the best quarterback
of all time and before you boo which is
okay Tom Brady was picked in the sixth
round of the NFL Draft he was the
overall 199 pick no one believed that he
was going to be this successful in fact
probably most people the time didn’t
even think he would survive in the NFL
but to understand Brady’s success is to
simply to look at his inner candle to
look at his DNA that pixie does his
mental fortitude how he approaches every
game every play every moment brings
success to it Steve Jobs the creator of
Apple and the inventor of the iPhone he
was a college dropout he was fired from
multiple tech jobs people didn’t see his
vision he was bankrupt several times and
even when he was facing terminal cancer
he kept that inner candle strong and he
continued his life’s work at Apple what
Tom Brady and Steve Jobs understood is
that they never once saw a setback as
failure they saw them as learning
opportunities to do things differently
to innovate to reinvent yourself always
keeping that inner candle lit that’s
what they did Henry David Thoreau said
successful people success usually comes
to people who are too busy to be looking
for it success usually comes to people
who are too busy
to be looking for let me tell you the
story about two dogs in the alley so
there’s these two dogs in the alley and
the one dog is a young preppy dog
wearing little preppy jacket and the
other is this old salty dog he’s a
junkyard kind of dog and the young
preppy dog is running around in circles
just chasing its tail running around and
the old soldier dog says what you doing
there and the young preppy dog says well
you know I went to preppy dog school and
I learned two things I learned that the
most important thing for a dog is to be
happy and the second thing I learned is
that happiness is in my tail and so I
believe if I just go around and chase my
tail
eventually I’ll catch my tail and then
I’ll be happy well the old Salty Dog
said well you know it’s funny I didn’t
have all the advantages you had in life
I didn’t get to go to a preppy dog
school but I came to the same
conclusions that you did I concluded
that the most important thing for a dog
is to be happy and yes that happiness is
in my tail but what I have come to
believe is that if I just go along the
path of my choosing if I just live life
to its fullest and stay on that path my
tail and my happiness
will follow me wherever I go
something to think about and look it’s
not to say that there aren’t real
threats and concerns that make
legitimate demands on us as I said all
of you have challenges every day that’s
the whole point of this talk it’s
difficult to turn on the television or
read a newspaper without seeing
something that’s distressing and sad all
of us collectively here tonight are
worried about one thing and that’s the
future of this world for our children
and their children I have two beautiful
teenage daughters one is here tonight
miss julia is going to be turning
switched sweet-16
next Wednesday
miss Lana unfortunately is at home with
a cold couldn’t be here this evening mom
is taking care of her
one thing about teenage daughters is
that if you’re a physician leader they
really help you in areas like
negotiation management and conflict
resolution as parents what do we want we
want our kids to be happy healthy and
successful and the whole story here is
that those things are all connected
they’re connected to that inner feeling
that inner candle in fact I have told my
daughter’s their entire lives that they
actually hold two candles one candle
they hold in their hand and the other
they hold in their heart and I tell them
that the candle that they hold in their
hand can and will get blown out two
three four five ten times a day they may
get a bad grade in school someone may
say something to them that hurts their
feelings they may witness the tragedy
they may lose someone they love but I
tell them that no matter how many times
that outer candle gets blown out that
they can never let that inner candle
flicker not even for a moment so let me
conclude tonight by asking you a very
simple question what’s inside of you
what’s inside of you Wayne Dyer was a
great psychologist author speaker I’ve
listened to all of his works he used to
use the metaphor of an orange I’d like
to share it with you if I held an orange
in my hand and I squeezed as hard as I
could what would come out and you would
say juice right juice why because that’s
what’s inside because that’s what’s
inside see it doesn’t matter if it’s
raining outside like it’s been here for
the last three months okay
it doesn’t matter if you’ve got a bad
grade in school it doesn’t matter if
they change your titles five times and
shipped you to the mountains when you
squeeze that orange okay the only thing
that can come out is juice because
that’s what’s inside so let me ask you
again what is inside of you what is
inside of you when you get squeezed and
I would suggest you that if you have
sadness inside of you when you get
squeezed sadness will come out if you
have anger inside of you and I know this
when you get squeezed you get anger to
come out if you have anxiety sadness a
feeling of insecurity or even a sense of
failure when you get squeezed that’s
what will come out but if you have peace
and contentment if you have
understanding if you have hope if you
have gratitude if you have a sense of
success then when you get squeezed
that’s what will come out my friends the
preservation of youth that exuberance of
that five year old your happiness your
health and yes your success all comes from within thank you
possess only one feat is possible not to
have run away it’s one of my favorite
quotes it’s by DAG hammarskjöld who was
a United Nations secretary-general
during the 1950’s President Dwight
Eisenhower once commented that died was
the only person he knew who consistently
could work on two hours sleep and do a
great job every day but the real reason
why I like that quote is because it was
first presented to me by my high school
English teacher she knew that I was very
frustrated and that I was struggling
with grammar with writing and above all
with public speaking so I guess we’ll
have to see how that works out tonight
my name is Ray singer and I’m a
cardiothoracic surgeon at Lehigh Valley
Health Network I’ve been here my entire
career since 1992 26 years I reached two
milestones this year the first I hit
another birthday with a zero in it I
just turned 60 thank you I know I look
fabulous and the other is that I just
performed recently my 7,000 operation
7,000 heart and lung operations I was
going to give my 7,000 patient a toaster
but I decided just to wish him well
instead you know a funny thing is ever
since I was young I always wanted to be
a doctor
there are reels of 8 millimeters silent
movies from the 1960s showing me as a
five-year-old with my play doctor’s kit
examining everyone in the family so the
question that I would like us to think
about tonight is how do we take that
exuberance of that five-year-old that
excitement that fun and continue it
throughout our lifetime what is that DNA
that pixie does that allows us to
continue that passion and drive through
a lifetime of
and aspirations in essence what I’m
asking you is what does it take and what
does it even mean to be happy or
successful I’d like to suggest to you
that it has everything to do with your
inner candle and I don’t believe that it
matters if you’re that five-year-old
with the plague doctors kid or if you’re
30 or if you’re 60 my mom is a very
youthful 95 year old in I would like to
dedicate this talk to her and even
though she’s youth Allah doesn’t mean
that she’s all together healthy she’s
been in and out of the hospital of late
she faced two cancers in her lifetime
she had open heart surgery she had valve
and bypass surgery she doesn’t hear that
well anymore see that well she still
drives her Ferrari no that’s not true
she doesn’t drive her world but she does
live independently and more importantly
she lives youthfully her inner candle is
as bright today as it was 40 years ago
and I can assure you that her in real
candle will stay bright until she takes
her last breath you know last week was
Nurses Week my mom was a navy nurse in
World War two my dad was a marine who
fought in the Pacific they met during
the war they fell in love they come from
what we refer to as the greatest
generation they survived the Great
Depression in World War two and after
the war they came back to the states
they got married and they raised two
children and they worked every day to
give their two children the
opportunities that they themselves never
never had that is special and you might
say well you know we get a doctor singer
you know you had great parents had a
nice childhood your you know an
accomplished heart and lung surgeon
you’re working at a very prestigious
network of course you’re happy you know
of course you’re successful and I would
say to you tonight my friends that I
could not disagree with you more I could
not disagree with you more
do not believe for one moment that
whatever you know success or happiness I
may enjoy my life it’s solely because of
the way my parents brought me up where
my circumstances or the fact that I
decided to be a heart and lung surgeon
or moved to the beautiful Lehigh Valley
and for willyou I don’t believe that
your circumstances dictate your success
and your happiness I don’t think it
matters what titles you have or even
what money you accumulate in your
lifetime see what I believe is that
successful people bring success to what
they do it’s not what they do that makes
them successful they bring success to
what they do they bring success to
everything they do every moment every
interaction every relationship and every
failure yes
they bring success to every failure look
at me I am a failure I fail every day
but you see the thing is that successful
people don’t really see it as failure
they see it as opportunities they see
the challenges and adversities in their
lives as learning experiences to do
things differently to learn from it to
do it better to innovate that’s what
successful people do and I believe that
if for some reason I fall off this stage
this evening which is possible and I
can’t perform heart surgery again that
in short order I will find a way to be
happy and be successful who knows maybe
I’ll open up the next great restaurant
in allentown we’ll call it chez ray or
something like that
in the operating room in my world and
tonight of some of my magnificent nurses
and physician assistants here this
evening in our world they can tell you
that we face adversity every day we face
challenges every single day we’re often
called for emergency operations just
this Saturday our patients are very sick
sometimes we’re faced with bleeding or
tissue that doesn’t seem to want to hold
and here’s the thing we know
who were operating on we know our
patients and more than that we get to
know their families some of the most
poignant and haunting moments in my
career or when you’re about to take that
patient to the operating room and
there’s a small child there who looks up
at you and says please take care of my
pup up or that son who flew back from
Stanford had just started college and
his father needed urgent surgery and he
had tears going down his eyes and he put
his hand on me and he said dr. singer
you’ll never know how much this means to
me
please bring my father back to me on
Christmas Eve this year Cristina one of
my PAS and I took care of a young woman
in her 50s we knew it would be
miraculous for what she had and we stood
in that emergency department and she was
laying there saying goodbye to her 15
year old son who was very stoic and she
said to him be strong for me those were
the last words he ever heard from his
mom sometimes were called to take care
of colleagues sometimes our neighbors
sometimes their friends and I can assure
you in those moments there is no failure
we can only bring success to what we do
and when we take that patient to the
operating room and that aorta begins to
tear which just happened to me yesterday
in my case trust me if you see that as
an obstacle
neither the patient or you are going to
do very well it is in those ultimate
moments when the decision that you make
can be the difference between that
patient living or dying you can only
bring success to what you do you need to
find that inner candle you must win you
must focus on that inner candle now I am
sure you don’t have to be as
dramatic as a heart surgeon we all have
challenges and responsibilities in our
lives each of you there’s probably 200
stories here tonight each of you have
challenges in your careers at home your
health there’s two stories I like on a
lighter note my beloved Philadelphia
Eagles won the Super Bowl this year and
they beat arguably the best quarterback
of all time and before you boo which is
okay Tom Brady was picked in the sixth
round of the NFL Draft he was the
overall 199 pick no one believed that he
was going to be this successful in fact
probably most people the time didn’t
even think he would survive in the NFL
but to understand Brady’s success is to
simply to look at his inner candle to
look at his DNA that pixie does his
mental fortitude how he approaches every
game every play every moment brings
success to it Steve Jobs the creator of
Apple and the inventor of the iPhone he
was a college dropout he was fired from
multiple tech jobs people didn’t see his
vision he was bankrupt several times and
even when he was facing terminal cancer
he kept that inner candle strong and he
continued his life’s work at Apple what
Tom Brady and Steve Jobs understood is
that they never once saw a setback as
failure they saw them as learning
opportunities to do things differently
to innovate to reinvent yourself always
keeping that inner candle lit that’s
what they did Henry David Thoreau said
successful people success usually comes
to people who are too busy to be looking
for it success usually comes to people
who are too busy
to be looking for let me tell you the
story about two dogs in the alley so
there’s these two dogs in the alley and
the one dog is a young preppy dog
wearing little preppy jacket and the
other is this old salty dog he’s a
junkyard kind of dog and the young
preppy dog is running around in circles
just chasing its tail running around and
the old soldier dog says what you doing
there and the young preppy dog says well
you know I went to preppy dog school and
I learned two things I learned that the
most important thing for a dog is to be
happy and the second thing I learned is
that happiness is in my tail and so I
believe if I just go around and chase my
tail
eventually I’ll catch my tail and then
I’ll be happy well the old Salty Dog
said well you know it’s funny I didn’t
have all the advantages you had in life
I didn’t get to go to a preppy dog
school but I came to the same
conclusions that you did I concluded
that the most important thing for a dog
is to be happy and yes that happiness is
in my tail but what I have come to
believe is that if I just go along the
path of my choosing if I just live life
to its fullest and stay on that path my
tail and my happiness
will follow me wherever I go
something to think about and look it’s
not to say that there aren’t real
threats and concerns that make
legitimate demands on us as I said all
of you have challenges every day that’s
the whole point of this talk it’s
difficult to turn on the television or
read a newspaper without seeing
something that’s distressing and sad all
of us collectively here tonight are
worried about one thing and that’s the
future of this world for our children
and their children I have two beautiful
teenage daughters one is here tonight
miss julia is going to be turning
switched sweet-16
next Wednesday
miss Lana unfortunately is at home with
a cold couldn’t be here this evening mom
is taking care of her
one thing about teenage daughters is
that if you’re a physician leader they
really help you in areas like
negotiation management and conflict
resolution as parents what do we want we
want our kids to be happy healthy and
successful and the whole story here is
that those things are all connected
they’re connected to that inner feeling
that inner candle in fact I have told my
daughter’s their entire lives that they
actually hold two candles one candle
they hold in their hand and the other
they hold in their heart and I tell them
that the candle that they hold in their
hand can and will get blown out two
three four five ten times a day they may
get a bad grade in school someone may
say something to them that hurts their
feelings they may witness the tragedy
they may lose someone they love but I
tell them that no matter how many times
that outer candle gets blown out that
they can never let that inner candle
flicker not even for a moment so let me
conclude tonight by asking you a very
simple question what’s inside of you
what’s inside of you Wayne Dyer was a
great psychologist author speaker I’ve
listened to all of his works he used to
use the metaphor of an orange I’d like
to share it with you if I held an orange
in my hand and I squeezed as hard as I
could what would come out and you would
say juice right juice why because that’s
what’s inside because that’s what’s
inside see it doesn’t matter if it’s
raining outside like it’s been here for
the last three months okay
it doesn’t matter if you’ve got a bad
grade in school it doesn’t matter if
they change your titles five times and
shipped you to the mountains when you
squeeze that orange okay the only thing
that can come out is juice because
that’s what’s inside so let me ask you
again what is inside of you what is
inside of you when you get squeezed and
I would suggest you that if you have
sadness inside of you when you get
squeezed sadness will come out if you
have anger inside of you and I know this
when you get squeezed you get anger to
come out if you have anxiety sadness a
feeling of insecurity or even a sense of
failure when you get squeezed that’s
what will come out but if you have peace
and contentment if you have
understanding if you have hope if you
have gratitude if you have a sense of
success then when you get squeezed
that’s what will come out my friends the
preservation of youth that exuberance of
that five year old your happiness your
health and yes your success all comes from within thank you
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