Podcast Episode #9 - with Dr. Steve Johnson

Dr. Steve Johnson

Physician, Founder, Engage Health

SHOW NOTES

In this episode of the No More Carbon Copies podcast, Roger and Dr. Steve Johnson explore the intricate relationship between leadership, health, and emotional well-being. They discuss the challenges leaders face at an inflection point in their careers, where their habits may hinder their effectiveness. Dr. Johnson shares insights from his transition to a concierge medical practice, emphasizing a holistic approach to health that considers physical, emotional, and relational aspects. The conversation delves into the symptoms of stress in leaders, the illusion of work-life balance, and the importance of emotional awareness in decision-making. Ultimately, they highlight the need for leaders to reflect on their health and well-being to sustain their impact.

TRANSCRIPT

Roger (00:35)

All right, welcome back to the No More Carbon Copies podcast. My work with leaders, I often talk about an inflection point where a leader's habit, their focus, their patterns of leadership stop being an asset and start hurting their impact.

when a leader is stuck reacting and consumed either not in their sweet spot. The business suffers as well as the leader's own body, mind and spirit. So I'm joined today by a physician who sees the clinical side of this every day. He's been a physician for 25 years and three years ago, he left his very successful practice in the hospital system to launch a new concierge medical practice.

here in Brentwood, Tennessee, is called Engage Health. And they go beyond just simply troubleshooting the symptoms of health. And instead, they try to keep people healthy over the long term. So they look at nutrition, exercise, hormone imbalance, mental health, and the whole complexity of the human condition. And really trying to help people live longer, more healthy lives. And so Dr. Steve Johnson, he's married to Trudy.

and ⁓ has three kids and a grandchild and Steve happens to not only be a brilliant doctor but also my brother. So I grew up with him putting a beanbag in my head and sitting on me and abusing me terribly. But we come out the other side of it as best friends, really enjoy Steve and cheer him on and what he does. So Steve, thanks for joining today.

So let's jump into it if you're with that.

Steven Johnson (01:54)

Yeah, great. Glad to be with you, Roger.

Roger (01:57)

All right. just a little about your background. What prompted you to move from your employee practice as a physician to launching this new business?

Steven Johnson (02:08)

Yeah. So I, you know, been employed physician in a large hospital system here, in middle Tennessee and did that for about 25 years. successful practice. I'm a family physician. So, seeing all age groups, was there for a long time, built a lot of great relationships.

Just through my own experience in healthcare, really began to see increasingly that we were not able to get into a lot of the issues that impact health, wellness, what it even means to be healthy.

much more having to put out fires and ⁓ deal with health issues, but more on a superficial level. And the more and more as I grew into understanding that, you know, what really impacts health is more comprehensive than just what the blood pressure reading is, what the cholesterol is. Health is a really complicated

interchange between physical, mental, emotional, spiritual health. And I increasingly experienced that myself, but also saw in patients, that happening and yet was really ill equipped within the system most patients when they go to their primary care physician, so much of what they're dealing with is impacted by.

things outside of just their physical wellbeing. So stress-related conditions are deeply tied into why people go to the doctor and yet there's so little ability to really delve into those in the current system.

That led me to really think about what other components of practice I'd really love to have available to me to be able to deliver And that led to,

as you know, developing and opening up Engage Health here in Brentwood. in this model, it really allows for us to do those things.

Roger (03:53)

So if I put it in my non-medical language, what you're saying is, it's not that the information or the tools that you needed weren't available when you were in that practice, but it was more that the volume of work that you had limited the amount of depth you could go to with patients.

it was hard to get into that level of detail with the amount of time that you had to deal with you wanted to say, hey, let's look at the whole person. Is that a good synopsis?

Steven Johnson (04:17)

Yes.

Yeah, I think that's right. I think the limiting factor in the traditional healthcare system is time. if you had more time, what would you do with that time? And really what we're able to do at Engage Health, because it's a membership practice which allows us to take a lot fewer patients, so we're not limited by reimbursement from insurance, the membership really covers

the business side of the practice. So that really allows for the magic to happen. once you have time, then it's just a matter of thinking through what needs to be a part of that. to really be able to incorporate some of these other facets to the practice. So you have time to really learn, get to know the patient.

know their story, know the things that impacted their life from childhood on. getting to know the stressors in their life, the passions that they have, the struggles that they've had, these greatly help you to begin the process of

developing strategies based on their goals, based on data that we're able to find.

It allows us to develop those strategies to really help them be healthy. And so much of that does involve their mental, emotional health in regards to its impact on their physical health as well. yeah, we all knew that if we could do more of that, there's so much more you could do

being a personal physician and working with the patient. And so this model has allowed us to do that.

Roger (05:44)

Yeah. it seems to me like you're trying to look at it at a broader picture rather than just dealing with with the acute symptoms that someone might be having This is much more of a holistic approach to saying, hey, let's not deal with symptoms. Let's try to keep you healthy for the long term by looking at the systemic other things that are impacting health.

I want to talk to you a little bit about, know, a lot of your members are leading a significant level. They're leading companies. They're really driving a lot of good growth in the economy. They're doing big things.

And so curious, what are some of the physical symptoms? What are some of the things that you see when they get to a point where they're stuck or they're frustrated really under the gun with a lot of stress, how do you see that affect their health?

Steven Johnson (06:28)

It varies.

I will say a lot of it is just a sense of not feeling well. There's ⁓ fatigue, stress, less energy. can find that they're not sleeping as well. They wouldn't say happy, but on some level, there's a...

a sense that something's off. That's super common. Certainly there are physical and objective symptoms that come out of that, whether it's high blood pressure, hormone imbalance, there can be a lot of different things that can impact that But I think

You know, generally there's a sense of more difficulty with energy, often very vague symptoms but they are common. Generally, this demographic's pretty driven, pretty successful in their career, definitely has had or does have a lot.

going on and they've been able to do really well But there comes a point at which they start to feel like something's off. You know, it can be more specific, more direct, but it's amazing how often it's a sense of just like something's missing in their health. And that's a

a big reason. And then we take it from there and we can find all kinds of things. Certainly metabolic health, cardiovascular health, these are big factors impacted by stress, no matter really what the age, but in those 40s to 50 range is really where the price starts to show up. Price of

you know, living a pretty stressful life. it starts in that arena usually.

Roger (08:07)

Yeah, so there's a little bit of like a an interesting thing, successful folks put their head down, they're working, they're driving a lot of stuff and then continue to push through, continue to push through. And at some point they might come in and talk to you and describe that kind of general sense of something's off. But it comes from the sense of like, I'm

I don't know what's wrong with me physically, but I don't feel well.

Steven Johnson (08:30)

Yeah, yeah, generally, I think, this can be, you know, with men and women, but I will say there is a sense at which there is a compartmentalization of their life that is going on. So a lot of energy in those 20s, 30s.

early 40s is into careers, into family, but there is a sense at which they do have their head down and are working hard and achieve quite a bit. But what I find is that

compartmentalization of their life tends to force them to neglect other parts of their life, the way they're made. whether it's healthy ⁓ meaningful social relationships, whether it's meaningful marriage.

relationships with kids, many people have in their professional life, that's really where a lot of their socialization happens. so professional life is very different than a personal life, than it is a relational life with family and things outside of work. so that's sometimes what

begins to be a struggle is they've achieved, but they're not feeling the joy, the satisfaction in what they've created. And what is that's missing? And that missing, that can be psychological. Certainly a lot of people feeling fatigue and run down, there is an element of just a dysthymic emotion that's where they're.

just not happy, not reaping the rewards. And yet even more powerfully, they realized they should be because they now are more financially independent and yet that hasn't really brought what they thought it would. They've been more successful, respected, achieved a lot, can show a lot, but they're not feeling the benefits of that and that can be physical and emotional.

So that's, those two go together.

Roger (10:27)

Yeah, yeah. So I want to talk a little bit about my experience with that. But before I do that, lot of people talk about work-life balance. It's a really common topic of like, well, if you just have more work-life balance, you'll be better. I just put my cards on the table. I think work-life balance is a little bit of an illusion. And

because how many leaders want to just want to stop being effective at work and spend more time in leisure? It's not really what we're looking for. It's not really what high achieving leaders are looking for. So it seems to me like what are we trying to get? What are we trying to do with leaders to be able to perform at a high level and lead at a high level and get stuff done?

but yet pay attention to these other things. Because like you said, there's some things with time, there's a constraint. But But how do you think about balance?

do you talk about health in a broader perspective?

Steven Johnson (11:16)

Well, I I try to help patients look at themselves as, like I said earlier, we're physical, emotional, relational, and spiritual beings. And health, and I'm gonna say joy, glad, meaning, is really the balance of all of these things together. And they greatly impact each other. So how I'm relationally impacts

My health, the stress of work impacts my health. My health can also impact those other facets as well. you know, beginning with understanding how those things are linked together is how I would approach, is your life in balance? What areas are out of balance? Because...

Work-life balance is true. A lot of times those are out of balance, but what does that really mean for an individual specifically? So beginning to look at the health of the relationships around them. Are they growing and understanding themselves, what makes them tick, what they enjoy?

hurts they've had, what their story is, that's super important to at least begin to explore knowing ourselves and then really, knowing what I want in my balance, what I want in my life outside of work. and obviously looking at work. think...

Yeah, the ideal scenario is a person to be working in a career in which they're passionate about and they can't help but do and they love what they're doing. That's not everyone has that type of job. But somehow looking at all of these areas

to see how they're related to each other and begin to look at those areas that are more anemic. Often in people's lives, there's one area that's thriving, but the other ones that aren't. When an area is not thriving, we tend to actually ignore it. It's a painful place to deal with. So we tend to work into our strengths and ignore the areas maybe failing at or not as good at or aren't as easy for us.

And, you know, what needs to happen is whether it's getting help, to deal with the areas that are not as easy, not doing as well or what we need to do to bring all these things into a

balance.

Roger (13:35)

Yeah, what I experienced and as I work with leaders, some of the things that I hear from them is this sense of like, you kind of go on autopilot and you start off, you might start off doing some stuff that you really enjoy, it's motivational. And you wake up like five, 10 years later and you're doing things and you're making a lot of impact, you're making a lot of money, you're doing some stuff. But you find yourself in a place where you're like, what is joy?

I don't even I don't have a choice to I have to do what I have to do today because I've I've got to lead a business. I've got to do this, especially if you're an entrepreneur and you built a business like you're doing everything you can to hold on and build that business. If you work in a corporate environment, you you get invited to more and more leadership stuff. And there's not really a question about joy. There's more of a question about can I do the job and is it going to reap rewards for the organization? I think that idea we talk a lot about is the intersection between

what you're good at, your competencies, your joy and your motivation, and the value you create in the world, the intersection of those things. And it seems to me like what you're talking about is the place where joy loses its way in the equation, really because about what I can do and what people pay me to do. And joy, motivation gets a little bit lost in that equation. And so you can find yourself

got a point where you're like, this is not going to work. There's a dissonance between who I want to be and where I found myself. Does that connect with what you're saying?

Steven Johnson (15:02)

Yeah,

I don't personally think that work is enough to really provide joy. and to give deepest fulfillment. There can be for seasons. And the reason it's hard to see is because the payoff is so great when we're achieving.

whether we've started something that's been successful, the connections that we have with other people in those areas, the relationships that develop in those, they do actually feel good. They kind of meet a need for us to feel important, successful, like we matter.

And so, for a season and for a long season we can run on that and feel like we are doing really well. But, when, when we're doing those things,

meaning and joy is that that's not going to satisfy.

Roger (15:56)

Is it like the connection between those spheres of your life that you talked about, physical, emotional, mental, spiritual? if you get all of your mattering from your vocation, from your work, and you leave those other things

less mature, invest less intentionality in those. What you're saying is that you can get meaning and matter from that, but it's not going to fill you completely with joy. You're saying there has to be some intentionality about those other spheres of your life. Is that what you're saying?

Steven Johnson (16:22)

Yeah, other parts of our life, whether it's our marriage, family, what we care about outside of work, it can be hobbies, it can be...

church, can be a lot of different things, If our work is what's defining us, what happens is the other parts of us have to go away, and those areas are really at the core what give us

satisfaction tells us who we are.

we're much more complex, much bigger than the career that we have, the business we've created, There are so many other facets.

to us and needs we have outside of that that need to be met. And those aren't gonna be completely met when our main focus has been work. And that starts to add up and become more apparent usually in those middle age years when those things start to hit from what I've seen in...

working with so many people like this.

Roger (17:22)

Yeah. I often see leaders that are very stuck in a reactive mode. They got their head down. They've been doing their thing. They're not really reflective. And they're doing what they have to do. So they're stuck there.

And I'm curious if you have any thoughts on what happens to a leader's ability to make good decisions when they're stuck in a reactive mode for year after year. What do you notice in the decision making ability or the ability to live intentionally after years of living in that way?

Steven Johnson (17:52)

the longer the

a person is in that track that you're describing.

more anemic the other parts of their life are, the harder it is and the more energy it takes to sustain them in that career. they end up, often it can be physical symptoms, the emotional and physical strain of that begins to...

take its toll. And that can be in so many ways, but often the physical and emotional manifestations are most apparent. whether they're sleeping, whether they're developing high blood pressure, they're gaining weight, they're

emotionally more edgy, they're withdrawing more from other things. So there's a number of different ways that that can manifest, but it seems like that tends to be happening in those mid 40s to 50s range where, they're starting to feel like, something's off. Or

others in the family are. It can be a spouse, can be situations that come up with kids, you know, that can bring this to light. what ends up happening, is other parts of the life pay the price, other relationships outside of work, and it can be at work that start to pay the price, whether it's with kids, spouse, can be colleagues at work,

and then when problems develop in those areas, there's, less ability to take care of them in a healthy way. so, that can, bring to light that, that something's off and, some people will then.

start to think, am I okay physically? And that brings them into us

Roger (19:32)

there's impact on the individual there's impact on that on their surrounding world that they live in their family, I talk a lot about with leaders is the idea of this of a feedback rhythm that uncovers blind spots uncovers things that we need to know and we need to learn about ourselves

Steven Johnson (19:36)

Yeah.

Roger (19:47)

how our world as a leader impacts the folks around us. And so this idea of utilizing feedback proactively. And I'm wondering how you see leaders physical ailments actually as part of that feedback I think you alluded to this, but the idea of insomnia, can't sleep, or gut issues.

seem like they're actually blind spots to go, hey, it's a physical symptom, but hey, here's some things you need to think about over here that aren't necessarily related to what you're eating or it's not just sleep. It's pointing to something

Steven Johnson (20:15)

Yeah, I I think when we're taking them through our process, what we're often working with initially is symptoms, so what is a person feels like it's off? So let's say it's, you know, gut or headaches or not sleeping well or whatever,

Then when we start to look at all of the data and everything that's going on in the context, again, knowing that we're physical, emotional, relational, spiritual beings, and we're taking data and hearing the story, we can get a good sense of, is there truly something pathologically wrong? Is there something that's out of balance? And what might be impacting that?

And you don't have to look very hard into, how powerful lifestyle is for being healthy to really see that, hey, these things are related. and usually, of course, when there is pathology, obviously we have to deal with that directly.

then you have to think, how did this pathology develop? Sometimes we don't find anything that's off from a pathological perspective, but clearly something's off based on symptoms that the person's having. even though we're all different, there's great similarities.

between all people on what impacts their health. So we can begin to explore and understand what's out of balance and what are strategies to deal with those. But if you look at the power of healthy lifestyle to address

so many of these things, you have to look at all of these areas, not just, you know, are we exercising, sleeping, what are we putting in our bodies, but also looking at these relationships. We know that stress in work, stress in relationships is super stressful on the body. know hormone imbalance, inflammation, cortisol,

gut health, these things are hugely impacted by chronic stress. so teasing all that out and what's exactly causing what we try to do, but

If you can encourage people to begin to look at their life more holistically and really build into their life these other healthy habits, it has a dramatic impact on how healthy their body is. And we can demonstrate that over time often to show people that, but they almost don't need convincing once they start to move into these other areas.

And literally it can be greater efforts in relationship with spouse. can be greater efforts in relationship with church or other organizations. could be coaching soccer. you you start to build into these, these other parts of their life and it could certainly is almost always a nutrition, exercise, looking at sleep, but then helping

over time in the context of the relationship to see how that impacts their perspective on work. Often work has to become less important. It still is what allows you to do the other things and you have to do it. But it being the thing that often has to go down and these other things that are

super important, had to become much more important. It takes a person experiencing that to really see how that impacts their health and then makes them a better leader at work, makes them more clear on their direction, makes them more confident in decision making, more trusting of their skill. I mean,

The impact takes time to see, but it's powerful.

Roger (23:56)

Yeah, some of the conversations I have with leaders regularly is they've amassed this sense of the world their business needs them. And so they're trying to be good and trying to stand up and hold a lot of things in the air.

And so it takes a lot of mental energy, a lot of physical energy, a lot of time. they're doing these things, like you said, at the expense of some of those other things. And so part of the idea of is not necessarily doing just less work, but doing more, more effective work, which is where do you need to spend your time at work? What do you do that makes you uniquely effective?

How do you know that? How do you spend your time on those things and let go of some of the things that maybe you're not effective in or somebody else could do better? And that gains you some time to then build up some of those other areas of your life. And I think one of those things is on autopilot, people live less intentionally. They don't make those intentional decisions because they don't have the information to know what would be the highest return on investment for my time.

They just are, they're just doing what comes in front of them. And so I see that that connection from the leadership side, not the medical side, but this idea of that kind of clarity about knowing what you do that makes you uniquely effective actually allows you to create more time to have more health and to be more intentional about the other areas of your life.

Steven Johnson (25:19)

Yeah, I think it, I mean, I'm sure you find with the, with what you're doing and it's similar here. it's often strange for, for people to probably realize that they have to go back and look at some really basic things about the way that they're wired and, ⁓ what their strengths, what their weaknesses are, and do some reflecting.

on those things, getting feedback from other people on what it's like to work with them, for example. So it's a little bit strange when people first start to understand why we're looking at some of the things we're looking at, why we're having them even think about some of the things we're asking them to think about. And it's probably very similar for you because

You have to go back and look at how did this person get to where they are. They're obviously great strengths and great weaknesses. The same is the same on the health side is true. You've got your genetics. You've got the family you grew up in. Yes, it's what you eat, your lifestyle, what you've been doing for the last 20 years related to your health. those all are what has the person to where they are. And so,

looking back and understanding those are essential to make real change. And that change can be realized in a number of different ways, but we tend to be creatures of habit, so we tend to

Repeat, recreate, we go to our same coping mechanisms, we have our same ways of doing things and a lot of that has allowed us to succeed at a great level. but, being really well rounded, understanding strengths, weaknesses, passions, what I really enjoy, where my creative skills.

Who do I need help from? Who do I need with me to help with the weaknesses that I do have? How do I harness the people around me to make me better? And so that I'm operating in my strengths in the most powerful ways, but also either growing in my weaknesses or having people help me through those weaknesses. And the same is true for health. And so

coming to someone to ask for some feedback and the feedback can be very strange initially for a patient that, was missing some of those important components we have to do a lot of educating

helping people to understand those. There is often an aha moment. It's kind of like, yeah, this makes sense and I haven't even thought about this before. So it's very, very grounded information that we're giving, very solid, evidence-based, but it's not something that people have thought about or understand.

so I suspect in doing what you're doing, some of what you have to do, and my work with you show me that too, is you have to look more deeply before you can move forward. And being open to feedback, being open to really other people looking deeply at how you're wired, what's going on with you,

It's hard work, but super, super rewarding and critical, to strike this really healthy balance.

Roger (28:27)

You know, as people get more and more successful in their career and get further in their career, they actually have less people in their life that are speaking truth to them. They have more people that are dependent on them, but not as many people that are

invited to provide them that feedback. I think you're also looking for what are the things that keep people from actually receiving feedback. some of it is because the focus of that feedback they think is going to be you're going to tell me everything that's wrong with me. You're going to tell me about my weaknesses. You're going to focus on those. And I like to change the dynamic to say, no, feedback is about really understanding what you do that's uniquely effective. And the best thing

find out isn't your weaknesses, the best thing to find out is about what hinders you from utilizing that gift set. What gets in the way? What causes self-sabotage? What causes friction interference between who you are when you're operating at your best and what gets in the way of that? Which isn't about weaknesses, it's about things that trigger...

behavior that is counterproductive. And so I was going to shift it a little bit to talk about one of the things that you've taught me a lot about is emotional health and the idea that we actually do feel and we need to pay attention to what we feel. And I remember, I can think back on years of my life where I actually believed that I'd be okay if I didn't feel anything. I just need to think out of my head.

Now I think totally differently because of some things that you've helped me with. But talk a little about the connection between what we would call our heart and our head or our emotions, our feelings and why it's important. Why are feelings connected to health or maybe addictions that we have like

You talk about kind of going to those places where you get comfort. How do you talk about emotions and why do you think that that's so important and not something to be neglected?

Steven Johnson (30:08)

Well, I mean, a lot of my perspective on feelings, comes from my long relationship with Chip Dodd, who really introduced this so I definitely credit him a lot, but I think, yeah.

Roger (30:21)

Yeah, shout out to Chip Dodd Voice of

the heart. Good stuff.

Steven Johnson (30:24)

Yes, good stuff. I mean, unfortunately, or fortunately, we're feeling creatures. we have feelings all over the place. So whether we know it or not. anger, fear, sadness, loneliness, shame. we experience them on a daily basis and the feelings are.

A strange thing for guys to talk about, maybe more than women, but feelings are like the doorway. They're the symptom of something else going on. And that something else going on can be very good or it can be very, bad. And if we're ignoring those, they're going to take their toll and

they're not just gonna go away. We can suppress them, we can numb them, we can forget them, we can look past them. But bottom line, especially in certain areas, they can drive us into a lot of pain and dysfunction. We're relational beings, so how other people think about me,

I'm going to care about that. do they like me? Do they not like me? Are they going to reject me or accept me? Am I enough for them or not enough for them? You know, the reason leaders tend to get so, in a tough place and why leadership is such a lonely place to be in is most of the people that we're working with,

⁓ around us, we're employing them. They need something from us. So there is a gap and a chasm between that for any kind of real relationship. And yet that's where most of our relationships exist. you never really know how you're doing with other people. You can get this distance between because you...

you have a lot of power over the people underneath. so, and we like, we like power, we like influence, we like to do those things. whether you're at the top or the bottom, you still, there's this deep desire or this deep question that we carry of am I okay with you? Are you okay with me? Just.

not by what I do, but just who I am. it's a tough position for leaders to be in, especially if they have less and less of those people in their life that they can feel that connection with that's not performance oriented. So feelings really provide us,

with, the sense of what's going on with us. So, if I'm operating out of a lot of fear, I can become very controlling. can, ⁓ be very angry. which then impacts other people. But if I know that I'm afraid, well, then then the question is it's like a doorway into what's going on. Like, what am I afraid of?

be afraid of failure? What am I afraid of failing about? And so you can start to look into what other areas are out of balance that I might need to pay attention to and work on, And so, feelings are essential. Without feelings, we can't really know ourselves and where we're at. And I'll say, you can't really know how anyone else is doing. Um,

They really are the first step in understanding more deeply what's going on with us and then move us into what we can do about it. we have these deep desires for connection. have hopes, dreams, longings that are down inside of us,

unless you're starting with feelings, exploring those things, then you become more of a machine rather than a, healthy being.

Roger (33:38)

Yeah.

full confession, think when I was in my 20s and 30s, I think that's what I was trying to be as a machine. And I find feelings actually are actually a superpower if you pay attention to them because they allow you to act much more intentionally to more quickly identify where there's friction in an organization, a group of human beings working together.

Where is their friction? Where are there things that are causing a drag on the organization? Actually, costing the organization real costs because we're not paying attention to some of the things that we can sense and then we can act more intentionally. So fear and shame are the big ones that affected me and I think do affect me. And being able to pay attention to those and proactively identify

why they're affecting me, when they're affecting me, and be able to make more intentional decisions rather than being on autopilot and being a machine that just continues to grind and make poor choice after poor choice and reaction after reaction because it's not being intentional. And I found myself in that position back in the day and grateful

feel really glad that I have more tools to be able to solve conflict and see things.

Steven Johnson (34:48)

if you're aware of feelings, you definitely live a lot more honest life and

you benefit and everyone benefits. The more that I can own how I'm feeling, the more that I can be in relationship, the less harm I'll do to other people. I still may have to have very hard conversations and difficult conversations, but I'm not dragging a lot of dysfunctional.

I'm not dragging all of that along with me and therefore hurting myself and others. Because you know, if you carry feelings that you're not dealing with along with you too long and you're not

moving into the right things to do with those feelings, like what are they meaning, then you're gonna end up hurting yourself, you're gonna end up coping in ways that are unhealthy, you're likely gonna be hurting all the people that you love and that matter the most to you, and you're gonna hurt the people that work for you, under you, above you,

it is a critical thing for people to understand. And you don't outgrow feelings. Feelings, you they're your constant litmus test of what's going on deeper inside. so the ability to move past them, beyond them is to go through them.

So they're not controlling you because they will end up controlling you if you don't deal with them. all you have to be around is someone that's angry all the time. mean, they're just, you know, they're gonna take it out on themselves and others constantly. Well, that kind of a leader.

is is destroying themselves and others sometimes slowly, sometimes fast, but certainly it's going to lead to a lot of regret and deeper pain and trauma. So it is vital to start with that. and that's not easy to do when you, if you've never thought about them

Roger (36:33)

yeah, I mean, I can think back to a couple of seasons of my life where I defaulted to working like an unbelievable amount of hours.

not necessarily because the work needed to be done because I was avoiding other things in my life that I didn't want to deal with. I dealing with stuff in my personal life. was like, if that's uncomfortable, I'm just going to stay at work and kind of lie to myself like this is really important work. It's really needed. But reality is I was was avoiding other things and it affected my relationships in my personal life and ⁓

And

there's other symptoms, I think, that I found myself having to deal with.

For me, I went through a season of life where I was so unhappy, so kind of stressed, constantly stressed, that I felt like the physical symptoms I was dealing with were significant. And was super concerned about the possibility that I might be sick. But after going through all this testing, realizing it's...

It was just a manifestation of years of stress and years of a disconnection of just going on autopilot, being a machine, doing things that need to be done, scared of making a change and how much just being able to deal with that and own that adjusted and allowed me to feel like a completely different person now.

But I remember how those things have manifested physically, medically, that were really related to this disconnect between.

what I needed to be about as a leader or in work.

Steven Johnson (38:01)

Yeah.

I think, ⁓ you know, common visits that we often will see are some variation of anxiety and depression. And the amount of data out there on the impact of health, emotional health on physical health.

It's all over the place. But how does a person get to that place where they're labeled with anxiety or depression? Well, it's a series of experiences over time impacted by a lot of different things. But there is certainly a truth in that it's a

a buildup of negative feelings, whether it's fears, hurts, shame, over time to get to the point at which all of a someone meets this criteria. So,

There is a situational kind of depression and anxiety, I'm not necessarily talking about major depression, anxiety disorders at their extreme, but there is a whole continuum of emotional dysfunction that fits into that category of anxiety, depression, dysthymia.

that we're talking about. And there's certainly how a person gets that point. The patterns are usually a dysfunctional approach to stress feelings and things in their life when you look back at their story that have gotten them to where they are. And now they're paying a real price for that. So the earlier on that a person learns how to navigate

this emotional pathway, the less that things build like that.

It's amazing how simple it can be once you unpack it.

It can be a long pathway but the strategies are very similar for all of us and super effective. and can make life so much richer, so much more full,

And I think really brings the meaning and fullness of life into such a richer place. So yeah, it's important.

Roger (40:01)

yeah, I had no idea where this conversation was going to go, Steve. So this is fun to do. I'm sure we'll do more. I'd love to dig into more conversations about, your journey as a physician, your stepping into being an entrepreneur leading a practice. So many more things that we could we could talk about.

thanks for the time. really appreciate it. It's fun to dig into the connection between how we show up as leaders to how we connect to our health and the fact that we're all very complex human beings, physical, mental, emotional, what are they, biological.

Steven Johnson (40:34)

Yeah.

Roger (40:35)

But I miss.

Steven Johnson (40:35)

physical, emotional, mental, spiritual. Yeah, we haven't even talked about things like, the data on longevity and wellness and lifespan but the emotional part of our life is one of the pillars of those. so thinking about living well, what it means to be

Roger (40:38)

There you go.

Steven Johnson (40:55)

fully alive and what that looks like.

Roger (40:57)

Yeah, I think one of things that I get excited about having these conversations is because to achieve great things, a lot of people put their own health on the back burner and then they find themselves in a pretty unhealthy place.

And understanding the connection between all these things can actually help us have not just a longer, healthier lifespan, but a longer impact as leaders and ⁓ a longer productive, engagement in our careers.

I hope this conversation is something that gets around to leaders who are in a place where they're stuck, they're stalled out, their leadership is actually hindering their business. The way they're leading affects their health, also affects the way that they're showing up in their business, which they're paying a cost whether they know it or not. So hopefully

invite them into a conversation to go, hey, how does this affect me?

thanks for being here. I'm sure we'll jump on a lot more conversations, but really appreciate your insight. And thanks for spending the time with us.

Steven Johnson (41:49)

Yeah, thanks, Roger. I love what you do. Appreciate it.