The premise at the heart of Wonder Drug: 7 Scientifically Proven Ways That Serving Others Is the Best Medicine for Yourself by Stephen Trzeciak, M.D. and Anthony Mazzarelli, M.D. is straightforward: By serving others, the authors say, “your life will crack wide open in only the best ways.” A partial list of the benefits of serving others includes living longer, more happiness and fulfillment, more stamina and energy, better sleep, and less depression. The book is clearly well-titled. If serving others can do all this, it is truly a wonder drug.
How many times have we heard someone promise longer life, greater happiness, stamina, and more? Wonder Drug doesn’t over promise and under deliver. Trzeciak and Mazzarelli are scientists at heart, and are careful to only reach conclusions that are supported by peer-reviewed research. Furthermore, they aren’t selling any cream, diet, or pill that will crack open your life. They are sharing data, and the data are compelling. Serving others does change us, and impact entire communities.
Wonder Drug is the second book from Trzeciak and Mazzarelli, who wrote the highly influential Compassionomics in 2019, a book that brought together all the evidence for the value of compassion in healthcare. By cumulating the overwhelming volume of evidence in a single book, it is harder than ever to ignore. Wonder Drug shines a spotlight on the value of serving others in the same way Compassionomics illuminated compassion in healthcare. This evidence, also, is too compelling to ignore.
This book was written by two medical doctors, and its structure reflects that. It is divided into three main parts – Diagnosis: An Epidemic of Self-Serving; Cure: Serving Others; and, Prescription: Seven Steps to Take Now. Part I, the diagnosis, needs little explanation. We live in a world heavily influenced by a “survival of the fittest” mentality, when a “survival of the kindest” mentality is what our global community requires today. We find that many aspiring compassionate leaders understand this challenge, but are also intimidated by the fierceness of the world, and wonder how they can possibly succeed with compassion as their guiding principle.
Fortunately, this is where Part II, the cure, comes in. Compassion works, and it works in many dimensions, including in organizations. The section devotes chapters to how serving others benefits the brain and body, physical health, mental health, happiness, and success. These benefits are all interconnected and supportive of leaders. The chapter on success through serving others especially addresses the concerns that leading compassionately is not the path to thriving in organizations. Leaders who serve others – their teams and colleagues – will find that their organizational life will “crack wide open in only the best ways.”
The book closes by translating conclusions from 250 cited research studies into a prescription for seven distinct actions: Start Small, Be Thankful (for others,) Be Purposeful, Find Common Ground, See It, Elevate, and Know Your Power. Each of these powerful general actions can be applied to circumstances of compassionate leaders, making this book a particularly valuable resource for leaders. If you want to humanize your relationships with your team and colleagues and strengthen performance, read this book, and follow the Doctors’ orders.
The number of valuable evidence-based conclusions is substantial. Here are three that we find especially relevant for compassionate leaders. In the prescription, “Be Purposeful,” the authors make a simple recommendation: ask. Asking and carefully listening to the responses is a fundamental, yet often overlooked tool for compassionate leaders. For the prescription, “Elevate,” part of the solution is to model desired behavior. Compassionate leaders go first, and the power of elevation simply establishes how the impact of our actions ripple out into the world. In a prescription that seems particularly needed throughout our fractured world, Trzeciak and Mazzarelli encourage us to “Find Common Ground.” Shared goals, and motivating others to move toward them, reside at the heart of leadership. Each of these – asking, going first, and finding common ground – establish a clear path to organizational success.
Wonder Drug addresses two frequently expressed concerns about compassionate leadership. Earlier in this review, we have referenced the book’s answer to the first concern, “Can compassionate leadership lead to success?” Yes it can. Yes it does. The book’s chapter, “Motives Matter,” speaks clearly to a second concern, which is that organizations may use compassion as an instrument to achieve their own goals instead of offering compassion for compassion’s sake. The research is clear. The benefits of serving others only accrue when the service is sincerely for the other. We don’t “serve” others if our goal is to gain a happy, energetic, long life for ourselves or improved results for our organization, either.
The book is written in a very readable, humanized style. For a couple of doctors who would appear to have their nose buried deep into research journals, they bring the data to life with real-life stories of their own experiences, and translate what the data say into straightforward language.
At the Center for Compassionate Leadership, the use of evidence-based science undergirds all that we do. Wonder Drug: 7 Scientifically Proven Ways That Serving Others Is the Best Medicine for Yourself is also built on the foundation of scientific evidence. Compassionate leaders are invited to take the persuasive evidence supporting the value of serving others to create a road map for the benefit of themselves, their organizations, and the whole world.
Dr. Trzeciak is a member of the advisory board of the Center for Compassionate Leadership.
Photo by 🇸🇮 Janko Ferlič - @specialdaddy on Unsplash.