In this episode of The Good News with Angie Austin, special guest Jim Stovall shares an enlightening perspective on positivity. With anecdotes from his past experiences, Jim explains how a positive outlook can transform the mundane into the extraordinary. Alongside, the episode delves into the incredible impact of gratitude with the inspiring story of a woman who listed over 32,000 things she’s grateful for. Angie and Jim discuss how this practice aligns with Jim’s Golden List and the life-changing power it holds.
00:14:52 Children’s Heart Health with Dr. Mauli Shah
SPEAKER 01 :
Welcome to The Good News with Angie Austin. Now, with The Good News, here’s Angie.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hello there, friend. Angie Austin and Jim Stovall here with The Good News. And I was asking Jim, I said, Jim, are you having a good day?
SPEAKER 03 :
And I said, I’m having a great day. I said, do you ever have a bad day? Well, yeah, they’re all great. I mean, anytime you don’t think you’re having a great day, try missing one. They’re all great. I mean, you know, and my late great friend and mentor, Zig Ziglar, years ago, we were doing an event when I was just a kid, and we were backstage, and the stage manager at the arena was going nuts. The lights weren’t right, and the sound wasn’t working, and he was just yelling and screaming at everybody. And Zig just walks in and says, boy, it’s a great day today. And it really annoyed this guy. He says, well, you’re always having a good day. And Zig said, yeah, 31 years ago I decided to have a good day today. And every day since then I have a good day. And it just, you know, it’s a decision. Because Angie, as you and all your listeners know, there’s always plenty of reasons to be in a good mood. And there’s always plenty of reasons to be in a bad mood if you want to find them. And so, you know, we always find what we’re looking for.
SPEAKER 04 :
You know, I was talking to Dr. Gregory Jantz’s wife, and he is a counselor, a very strong Christian, and they worked together. He got in an accident in July and he died very suddenly. And Lafon, his book that was coming out was about grief. And so right as he passed away, his book was coming out, how to, you know, walk through grief. So, of course, that really helped Lafon. And I said, you know, you seem like you’re doing really well. You’re carrying on his work. It seems like you have a real purpose. And then she said, yes. And today I wrote down my thirty two thousandth gratitude. And I thought of you. I said, oh, my gosh, my friend Jim Stovall does his golden list. And it’s ten things that he’s grateful for. And I thought, wow, how cool to like number them and figure out how many she had her third thirty two thousandth gratitude that day.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, I am grateful for the fact that I do not keep track of them all. That would be another thing on my list to do, but it is one of the great things in life. You want to get great things in your future, the first step is to be thankful for what you already got.
SPEAKER 04 :
No kidding, right? No kidding. Well, speaking of being thankful, today I’m thankful we’re talking about your Winner’s Wisdom column, and it’s titled this week, Credibility. So what are you teaching us this week?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, credibility is an interesting thing. Our ancestors, 100, 150 years ago – When you lived out on the farm or it was more of an agrarian society, everybody knew how to do everything. Here’s how you fix a fence. Here’s how you plant. Here’s how you cultivate. Here’s how you do all these things. Here’s how you can your food. And everybody knew how to do everything. And now the world has become so specialized, Angie, that you’ve got to – it’s not only – Is this person smart? What are they smart at? And I was reading about this Nobel Prize winning economist, brilliant guy, mathematical genius. And he, for whatever reason, had done an analysis, a mathematical analysis on the NBA and professional basketball. And he had decided that no one should shoot anything but three-point shots because they’re inefficient. because, you know, uh, in the NBA, the average is they shoot about 50% of two point shots, but they hit 40% of three point shots. So there’s a 20% differential or an advantage. And so you should shoot nothing but three point shots. So I have a friend of mine that was a professional basketball player for seven years. And, and I called Jay Henderson who happens to be seven feet tall. Whenever I’m around him, he, he makes me feel like a midget. And, um, I said, Jay, this Nobel Prize winning guy says that no one should ever shoot anything but a three-point shot. And after he got off the floor laughing, he finally said, well, obviously he’s never played basketball because if you do that all the time, you won’t get any because they’ll just camp out at the three-point line and stop you. But then, you know, it causes longer rebounds. It causes amazing, you know, it’s just a difference. I mean, your expertise does not… And then while I was writing this, I had one of my favorite pieces of music on. It’s a collaboration between the classical cellist Yo-Yo Ma and Carlos Santana. And the two of them got together, and they did a tribute to George Harrison on his While My Guitar Gently Weeps. If you don’t get anything else out of the show, go listen to Yo-Yo Ma play with Carlos Santana. But these are guys, anything musical, I would listen to anything they have to say. I mean, they are undoubted, unquestioned experts. But if I want to know how to change my oil or what transmission fluid to use or how to take a deduction on my taxes, I’m not going to ask Yo-Yo Ma because credibility doesn’t transfer. You know, just because you’re an expert in one thing doesn’t mean you’re an expert in anything else. Interesting. Yeah, my mentor, as you know, was one of the greatest basketball coaches of all time, Coach John Wooden. And in his 90s, we lost him four months before his 100th birthday. And a lot of evenings when I would call him, he lived out in L.A., And I had to double check before I called him because he would always be watching a basketball game. But he did not watch the NBA and he did not watch college basketball. Oh, you told me this. I love this. I love this. He would always catch the NBA games, the women’s games. Because he said, you know, Jim, they play defense. They pass the ball. It’s a much better game. And, you know, he just loved it. And this is before it got really a big thing. I mean, they had a couple of games a week on television. So I learned don’t call the coach during the WNBA game. He wasn’t available. And, yeah, it’s just a better, more fundamental game.
SPEAKER 05 :
I love that. I love that, that John Wooden stopped watching men’s basketball and was watching women’s basketball. Oh, my goodness.
SPEAKER 04 :
OK, so with that said, oh, just one more thing about women’s basketball. You know, it’s hard to get good refs now because they’re harassed so much, you know.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 04 :
And my daughter got pulled down by her her jersey. And then when she got pulled down something, I don’t know if the girl stepped on her cap or what it was or something with her knee. So they pulled her for a few minutes. And we were tied at halftime. And then by the time my daughter got back in and, you know, whatever they did to her knee, they were down by 20. So we ended up losing by about 20. But the the interesting thing to me about. Now people are like, why is Angie so into basketball? And I’m like five feet tall. I just watch so much of it. Now I stay for her game. She plays on JV and varsity. And then I watched the JV boys and then I watched the varsity boys. Like it’s like our date night now for my husband and I to watch high school, you know, basketball. But anyway, what I see so much is there’s no like, if we think that reffing is bad in, you know, in the NBA, it’s so bad with the younger kids because they, Some of them, it’s like streetball, they call nothing. So you can really just really womp on the other team and vice versa. And then some they call everything, you know. So there’s not like that continuity that flows through to each game because they judge in such a different manner. And then you get guys like you who were athletes or guys like my husband, for instance, who really knows the game of basketball, who’s better than most of the refs. And he was calling things out. And what’s funny is that sometimes then they will kind of listen to him and they won’t change a call, but I’ll see them call it a few minutes later, something they may have missed or something to that effect. It’s just interesting.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh yeah, and they take so much abuse. As you know, I’m getting ready to do another movie, and I’m going to do my normal little cameo, but instead of being the limo driver, I’m the umpire in this movie. Hilarious. Yeah, I called an umpire the other day, and I said, can you help me? And he said, well, when I started out, I did high school games, then college, and then now major league games. I said, so tell me something. He said, well, I remember doing a high school game where it was a Catholic school. So I go over there, and he said, Jim, I got cursed out by a whole bleacher of nuns. And then he said, I’m trying to think, can I throw a nun out of the stadium? I don’t know if you can do that. And I said, so they were. I said, was it profane? He said, well, all those words are in the Bible, Jim. They just, these nuns had them in a different order. And I said, yeah, I kind of get it. But yeah, he said, it’s just, and he said, sometimes you just, you know, you just stay focused and you don’t listen to it.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, I think a lot of them don’t listen much anymore. You know, they really don’t pay attention to what the crowd’s saying. You know, speaking of nuns and catholic sports i just sent um my father-in-law they and they’re catholic and all the kids went to catholic schools and including my husband and i sent grandpa a clip of uh these catholic school moms it was like maybe the kids were like 13 12 13 middle school game and the two moms got into a brawl and then more people got into the brawl and then the diocese was talking about you know how they were no longer going to put up with it and that there was a lifetime ban on the two moms. They’re no longer allowed to go to any of the Catholic athletic events anymore. And I was like, oh, my goodness. These are like private Christian schools, and the moms are whomping on each other in a middle school game. It’s so appalling to me. So, Jim, I have to tell you, I have to sit away from the other team’s fans. I tell my husband, I’m like, I’ve got to move. I can’t sit by them because there’s so much complaining going on. and i’m we’re starting to do these like kind of three camera shoots for my daughter’s um tapes that we’re sending the videos that we’re editing for um colleges because she’s starting to get college attention so anyway i’ll be under one basket and then i’m under the other basket after halftime and then my husband’s up in the stand so then he can cut all these clips together so anyway i had to sit by the coach of the other team and they were ahead by 20 as i told you and I have never heard a bigger whiner than this Arapahoe High School JV coach. He complained about every call that was against his team. And I’m like, bro, when you have two minutes left and you’re ahead by 20 points, do you have to complain that much to the ref? It’s just bad sportsmanship. Just be quiet and accept the call and move on. You know you’re going to win anyway, so stop being such a baby. He was like a 12-year-old boy who got his baseball bat taken away from him, and he’s crying to his mommy. It was just so disgraceful, I thought.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, and people need to remember, these coaches and officials, I mean, they’re giving up their time just to help some kids out, generally speaking.
SPEAKER 04 :
Exactly, and they’re making nothing.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right, and you need to have a little respect. And plus, you know, I… And Coach Wooden told me, he said, I never argued with a ref ever.
SPEAKER 04 :
He never does any good, Jim. They never change. He said to the female ref, well, you can overturn it. They never overturn it.
SPEAKER 03 :
No, they don’t. And he told me he would applaud when they – now, that was a good call. That was a good call. And he said, the most I would ever do is call timeout and said, sir, can I – He said, if it wasn’t for that call, I wouldn’t even have known you were human. You’d been calling a perfect game up to then, and now at least I know you’re human like the rest of us. But I know you’ll do better. And that was all he’d ever said.
SPEAKER 04 :
That is so funny. Well, that Arapahoe JV coach was no John Wooden, let’s suffice it to say, but not many people were John Wooden. All right, so in terms of credibility, we have a minute left. What’s your takeaway from – what do you want us to take away from your column this week? I don’t want all three-pointer games, I’ll tell you that much.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right. No, I think the important thing when you – you’ve got to get advice. You’ve got to follow the leader. You’ve got to – in the world, it’s so specialized, so you’ve got to find somebody who knows what they’re doing. But please always remember, just because somebody knows something about one thing doesn’t mean they know anything about anything else. I was on the same Olympic team with Kathy Rigby. I was a weightlifter. She’s a gymnast. And we would hang out together and occasionally get interviewed. And, you know, I mean, when they would ask me a question… And she said, I think that’s for you, Jim. What, are you going to answer my question? And I’m not going to answer any question about her floor exercise. I don’t even know what you’re talking about. So you can be a total expert in one area and know little to nothing. So it’s important to know that a person is an expert and what is the area of their expertise. And then you can follow the leader and have a great life.
SPEAKER 04 :
I love it. Have a great life, Jim. You’re the best. Be well.
SPEAKER 02 :
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SPEAKER 06 :
Holy Oak is tuned to the Mighty 670 KLT.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, changing gears now, if you are just joining us, this is Angie Austin with the good news. Well, February is American Heart Month. Did you know that one out of every 110 babies in the U.S. is born with heart disease? I did not know that. And that makes heart defects the most common birth defects. But there is good news. Innovations in cardiac care are now saving and improving the lives of children with heart disease worldwide. And joining us is a real expert in the area, Dr. Mauli Shah. Welcome, doctor.
SPEAKER 06 :
Thank you very much.
SPEAKER 04 :
I’m thrilled to have you. I love CHOP. I understand you’re an attending pediatric cardiac electrophysiologist in the cardiac center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, otherwise known as CHOP. So welcome.
SPEAKER 06 :
Thank you. Happy to be here.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay, so let’s just start off with the basics. Congenital heart disease affects 1 in 110 babies in the U.S., and that makes heart defects the most common birth defects. That’s quite a number.
SPEAKER 06 :
That is, and if you translate that to actual numbers, 40,000 babies are born annually in the United States with congenital heart disease, and taking it to a global level, that’s 1.3 million children being born annually. annually with congenital heart disease.
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh my goodness. Okay, so let’s get into how are these heart defects diagnosed and how are they treated. I have to say I’m fascinated by some of the work that you do there at CHOP. I have interviewed Dr. Scott Adzik many times and it’s just unbelievable to me that you can operate on a baby in a womb and the things that you can do to help babies at CHOP. I mean, really what you’re doing there is cutting edge. It’s probably one of the most advanced hospitals for children in the world.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, so I am pleased to report that just as Dr. Adzik has spoken about fetal interventions, we are able to make most of the diagnoses for congenital heart disease in the fetus. Wow. And this is done by a test called an echocardiogram, which is an ultrasound evaluating the fetal anatomy at approximately 20 weeks. This gives us clues and sometimes very, very accurate diagnoses to the complexities of the heart defect. After birth, in the United States, there is a mandatory newborn screening test for critical congenital heart disease, and all babies get a pulse oximetry test. It’s a very simple finger sensor to measure the baby’s oxygen level, and that helps us determine If the baby has critical congenital heart disease, which would require surgery in the first year of life.
SPEAKER 04 :
Now, in terms of the treatment, well, I want to get into some of the specifics. Let’s say you’ve got a baby and it wasn’t diagnosed in the womb. I know one of my kids, they heard something weird in the heart, kind of, I think it’s an arrhythmia. Can you talk about cardiac arrhythmias and what symptoms you might see in a child that might make you want to go get them checked for a heart defect if it hadn’t been discovered, you
SPEAKER 06 :
So as you said, an arrhythmia is an irregular heartbeat. Sometimes the heart beats too fast or too slow, and this is caused by disruptions in the heart’s electrical system. As far as symptoms go, children who are able to express their symptoms will often report palpitations or a very rapid heartbeat. Sometimes it manifests as a fainting episode because the heart is beating so fast that it cannot deliver blood or cardiac output to the entire body. These cases of abnormal heart rhythms can also be inherited or genetic. Some of them potentially could be serious, and therefore extreme care and attention needs to be paid to the patient’s symptoms. A lot of the times an irregular heartbeat may be a skipped beat that doesn’t require any intervention, but any child who’s complaining of shortness of breath, Irregular or fast heart rates, especially with exercise, or fainting with exercise. So exercise-induced symptoms are very crucial to detect. But even without exercise, if a child is complaining of shortness of breath, fainting, irregular heartbeats, they should be evaluated at least by their primary provider, and then if need be, referred to a pediatric cardiologist.
SPEAKER 04 :
Now, it’s always interesting to me, doctor, when I hear I’ve got my kids are athletes in high school and college. And it’s always interesting to me, sad, really, when I hear about an athlete that should maybe 18, 19 years old. And then they find out they had some kind of a heart issue when the kid passes away on the field. Are sometimes these things not detected at all, but, you know, throughout their childhood?
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, so some of these conditions, as we said, are inherited or genetic and may not manifest early on in life. Some conditions can be detected by screening processes, such as getting an electrocardiogram or an ultrasound of the heart, but this is not what we call a standardized approach in the United States. Every athlete is not screened. And therefore, we really have to pay attention to an athlete’s symptoms and family history because when a condition that is inherited, there’s really a story in the family that we need to pay attention to. And even if there is an incident on the field, we hope to prevent death by providing immediate treatment on the field with automatic external defibrillators and having a team that can perform CPR. So even if there’s no diagnosis, we should be able to intervene immediately to treat that athlete on the field with CPR and an automatic external defibrillator.
SPEAKER 04 :
You know, I have seen those defibrillators a lot more outside of gyms and high schools and colleges and some of the big sporting venues we go to. They’re a little more common than, you know, back in the day when, you know, I went to high school. You didn’t see anything like that around. In fact, I’ve just really been seeing them or at least noticing them more, I’d say, the last 10 years or so.
SPEAKER 06 :
They’re absolutely essential. They save lives. And they should be present at every public place as well as in every school and in every gym.
SPEAKER 04 :
Now, Doc, you were saying, you know, pay attention to those symptoms. So, Wendy, you know, a lot of these old school coaches and, you know, these kids maybe out on the field, like… not getting enough water working and you know it’s 97 degrees and they’re making them run and they’re throwing up and just be tough and you know get through it so you’re looking for things like are they fainting are they vomiting are they having difficulty breathing are they really struggling to breathe things like that should be really paid attention to that’s absolutely correct and you know it’s really important to know that there could be an arrhythmia that is silent and only triggered by extreme stress
SPEAKER 06 :
And so while physical training is important, I think it’s extremely important pushing a child beyond his or her capacity or endurance may trigger arrhythmias. It’s extremely important to listen to that child’s symptoms and not push a child when he or she is symptomatic.
SPEAKER 04 :
Thank you for saying that because I’m shocked at how we thought my daughter had a broken wrist and she was still playing and she had it wrapped and they did the x-ray and it took two weeks to get the results back and then we had to do an MRI, right? Well, she asked during practice one day, she said, could I just give my wrist a break for a few minutes? It’s really hurting me. And they didn’t believe her and let her sit out. And then when she’s ready to come back in, kind of chastised her like, oh, I thought you were hurting. I thought you had to sit out. It’s like no kid that is in sports, in my opinion, is lying about pain. They’re voluntarily in the sports generally, you know, of their own free will. At least my kids are. And so if they tell you they’re hurting or they can barely breathe or something like that, I don’t. We have to believe them. I mean, you have to err on the side of caution. You can’t embarrass them or, especially with boys, push them past their limit because they’re supposed to be tough and humiliate them in front of their teammates. I’m shocked in this day and age that we still play these kinds of games with health. Now, when you talked about the arrhythmia, Doc, you said – you know, keep an eye out for the symptoms, but what treatment options are available to kids who experience a cardiac arrhythmia?
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, so starting with the underlying arrhythmia, there are certain arrhythmias that only require evaluation, maybe follow-up surveillance, and maybe some modification of a patient’s lifestyle. But when we’re talking about persistent treatment, arrhythmias that cause a rapid heartbeat, result in other symptoms like shortness of breath, fainting. Those arrhythmias should be taken seriously because there are excellent, excellent treatment strategies. If diagnosed appropriately, many of these arrhythmias can be cured. So fast arrhythmias can be cured with a minimally invasive procedure called a catheter ablation. in which a small catheter or a tube is inserted through the blood vessels into the heart, a three-dimensional map of the patient’s cardiac anatomy is made, the electrical system is mapped, the abnormal cells are mapped, and hot or cold energy is delivered through the catheter to destroy or ablate these abnormal cells. This results in a complete cure for a patient who has been suffering from a fast heartbeat. Similarly, if there are inherited genetic conditions, then the fatal arrhythmias that we’re all afraid of on the field can be completely prevented by appropriate medications or devices or surgeries. And we can still return these patients to athletics. In the old days, you know, they would say, oh, you have a heart condition. Coach is not taking a risk. We’re not taking a risk. The child cannot play. Our goal is for our patients to live healthy. a full life despite their heart condition. And we are partners with them. We partner with the schools, with the coaches, help them understand the patient’s condition, and then create a safety net so our patients can participate in sports, you know, enjoy life with their peers. without, as you said, you know, having the stigma of sitting on the bench. They need to be treated appropriately and evaluated appropriately before we put them out in the field.
SPEAKER 04 :
You know, interviews like yours and you taking the time to do this, I think that it’s such an eye-opener for coaches and parents. I think that my daughter that almost broke her wrist, she fell, someone fell on her while we were playing basketball last year and she couldn’t move, like literally couldn’t move. And my girlfriend is a head of a surgery department at one of the major hospitals in Denver. And we both ran over and coaches on the opposing team wanted to move my daughter so they could continue the game. And she said she can’t move. We have to keep her head still. She cannot move her body like you cannot. They literally tried to drag my daughter off of the court. And these are coaches. at like a big tournament where you’ve got trainers there and you’ve got, you know, officials overseeing it. And it’s that you pay a big fee to be part of it. Like it’s supposed to be real professional. Right. So anyway, the doctor drove my girlfriend, who’s the doctor said, what do you want to set cones, orange cones up around her and you can just play around her body. And so finally, you know, the, the fire department arrives, they take her away and it was some kind of a shocked her spine, right? She was able to walk within like an hour or so she could move. But can you imagine? I mean, thank goodness you’re doing interviews like this. That’s how archaic we are in our knowledge about the human body that two coaches would try to drag a child’s body off the court that cannot move.
SPEAKER 06 :
I am very disappointed to hear that, and I hope we can all partner together to really help kids play safely. I mean, we have to listen to them. We have to acknowledge their symptoms, but that doesn’t mean disqualification. We can partner with coaches, with teams, with schools, with parents, with the athlete, and our goal is always to return them to play safely.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, that’s the thing that I learned from you today, that it’s not like the old days when you’re like, well, maybe it’s best if you just don’t play sports, that you can still get that physical benefit out of it. And you mentioned, you know, different options, including medication and other interventions that can get the child back into physical activity. So when we started the interview and I said that I mentioned there were a lot of innovations that were really going to make a difference and are changing the future for these kids with the cardiac issues and It’s true. I mean, I’m fascinated by how far you’ve come, how far we’ve come. Where can people, Dr. Shaw, get more information?
SPEAKER 06 :
An excellent website is chop.edu slash heart. CHOP is Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, I just love all you’re doing for others at CHOP. You and Dr. Adzik, I love speaking with your physicians, and I just thank you for all you’re doing for kids.
SPEAKER 06 :
It’s a pleasure and thank you so much for having me today. You are welcome.
SPEAKER 01 :
Thank you for listening to The Good News with Angie Austin on AM670 KLTT.
