Overall: Training has been poor the past 4 weeks. Was hopeful post tax day that things would calm down and that hasn’t been the trend. Overall challenging 6 months and recovery has been very poor the past week. The week following drill weekend is generally taxing and this was the case. Flared up my wrist arthritis pretty significantly at BJJ which was frustrating because training has been poor over the past month. Think it was just the combination of poor sleep, shooting a

Risk Tolerance vs. Reality in Health A financial advisor told me something recently that stuck with me: "Everyone says they have a moderate risk profile. Their behavior says otherwise." The same thing is true in healthcare. Most people say they want to be healthy, functional, and independent as they age. They say they want low-risk, sustainable solutions. But their daily behavior doesn't match that goal — and that gap is where most health problems are born. The Gap Between Wh

Overall: Feels like it’s been the least I’ve trained over the past couple of weeks. I think it’s impacting me from a decompression standpoint. Didn’t realize how reliant I was on BJJ for social support and decompression, but it really helps. Between illness in the home that’s lasted the past couple of weeks and some scheduling challenges it’s been a tough couple of weeks. Good news for the practice this week that I hope puts us in the right direction long term. I’m really h

Just Try to Be Less Stupid Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger are two of the most celebrated figures in American business — not because they were born brilliant, but because they spent a lifetime trying to do things the right way. As the architects of Berkshire Hathaway, their advice was refreshingly simple: Don't be stupid. You only need to make a few good decisions per year. It turns out this is equally wise counsel for your health. Stupid Health Behaviors Are Everywhere We

Happy Easter - He is Risen Overall: My bad joke this week was it was an unholy week in our household. Both kids got gastroenteritis and our home was filled with diarrhea, vomiting, and love… Sleep was impacted considerably. Our kids were so generous they shared this with us, good times. My uncle positively reframed it for me and stated that we are all just purifying for Easter Sunday. It’s disappointing to not be able to go to church today. Training of course suffered. Was

In the first article in this series we discussed a simple framework borrowed from Morgan Housel’s work in The Psychology of Money : Happiness = Expectations – Reality This equation applies to almost every area of life, including health. When expectations are reasonable, people tend to feel satisfied with progress. When expectations are unrealistic, even objectively good outcomes feel like failure. One of the biggest drivers of unrealistic expectations in modern health culture

Overall: Busy week and physically was down. Will probably need to do some sort of recovery modality, massage/float/sauna. Tried adding cortisol manager and slept very poorly all week long which is atypical. Uncertain if it’s just overtraining from modifying the current training program and it will just take a couple of weeks to adapt or if it’s just too much. Had some interesting conversations and hopefully we’re implementing some tools to improve clinical care. It’s a challe

In The Psychology of Money , Morgan Housel does an excellent job articulating a simple idea: Happiness ≈ Expectations – Reality The gap between what we expect and what actually happens determines a large portion of how satisfied we feel with our lives. The same concept applies to health and the healthcare system. Over the next few articles, I want to explore how expectations vs reality shapes how people perceive their health, their fitness, and ultimately their well-being. T

Overall: Still in a rut over the past couple weeks. Sleep is all jacked up. Felt good to be able to get in a do some admin work this past weekend and getting started on ACLM board review. Finished Spirit Gym which took about 10 months to complete. Had promotions at supersystem this past weekend and it’s always wonderful to see long term friends move up the ranks. It’s a journey. It’s also fun to get to see people I haven’t seen in a while and roll with people I haven’t in a

Walking With People Through Loss There are very few constants in our existence: birth, change, taxes, and death. Everything else is variable. Death is the one appointment none of us can cancel. The finish line looks different for each person, but it is certain for all of us. In that way, death may be the most honest teacher we have. It reminds us that our time is limited. And because it is limited, it matters. Yet in modern society, death is largely removed from daily life or

Overall: Uncertain if it’s the time change or just the grind of life, but recovery was poor all week long. Was hitting minimums all week in the gym and have really emphasized increasing sleep. Assume the busy period will continue for the next month or so. Wrapping up the Spirit Gym course and I’m very impressed with the content Paul has put out over the years. He is one of the drivers of holistic health - mind/body/spirit, and this course seemed to be a culmination of his li

On the Clock: The Limited Window of Time With Our Kids While reading The Art of Spending Money by Morgan Housel, I kept thinking about something he implies but doesn’t explicitly say: the most meaningful investments in life often involve limited windows of time. One of the most finite resources we have is time with our children. We are on the clock. On average, you get about 18 years with your kids under your roof. After that, they begin building their own lives. Studies sug

Overall: This week is typically challenging. Had travel this weekend and the Arnold classic brings a fair amount of external pressures. Was feeling a little run down. Have had a fair amount of patients struggling with this winter, and I think I felt the same. From Thanksgiving - Tax day seems to be the winter at this point with increased stress. Need to think about strategies to help break this up. A long term goal is to snow bird, but that’s not realistic at this point or in

Parenting is one of the strangest callings in life. It is exhausting, frustrating, ego-crushing…and at the same time, it is one of the greatest privileges you will ever experience. Both things are true. People are a lot like dogs. We are wired differently. Some kids are calm and compliant. Some are intense and explosive. Some are natural pleasers. Others are relentless negotiators. Some require very little guidance. Others require enormous energy, structure, and patience. The

Overall: It’s been a stretch over the past several weeks. The winter months are still here and I’m seeing the impact on patients and personally. There’s been glimpses of the winter breaking and it’s nice to get back outside again. There’s a price you pay when you go away, but I still find it very necessary to get a break from the monotony and connect with those closest to us. Training has been very flat over the past couple weeks and I know the root cause is insufficient sl

In my time in practice, I’ve had some genuinely goofy conversations with patients. For better or worse, open-mindedness has never been my problem. One conversation in particular, spoke about the bond—almost a cord—that exists between parents and children. At the core of that bond is a simple but powerful desire: every child wants to be seen by their parents. Not for what they could become, not for what the parent wishes they were—but for who they actually are. That is uncondi

I think a lot about the concept of a RINO — Republican In Name Only . It describes someone who claims a label but doesn’t live by the principles behind it. The same thing exists everywhere in life. I call it LITO : Leader In Title Only. There are few things more frustrating than a LITO — someone who carries authority without carrying responsibility. A title is not an identity. A title is a job . If you carry one, you have to earn it every day. Parent Is a Profession The titl

Role Models, Rituals, and the Humbling Education of Parenthood Having children has been fascinating, humbling, and at times brutally exhausting. There’s truth to the cliché: the days are long, but the years are fast. But beyond the fatigue and unpredictability, the greatest gift of parenting has been the education I’ve received from my kids. Children are expressive, opinionated, curious, selfish, imaginative, joyful, and wildly observant. They are not subtle. They want to kn

The Long Drive: Health, Pace, and Preventive Maintenance One of the core principles of this practice is little and often, over the long haul . Real progress almost always happens in small, stepwise advances. A wise patient once told me, “God gives you only the challenges you’re prepared to handle,” and over time I’ve found that to be remarkably true. Life rarely moves in dramatic leaps—it moves in steady miles. I often think of the human body like a car on a long road trip. O

Overall: Well that weather was interesting. Big wrench in the week and was probably the most bizarre training week I've had in a long time. All the closures impacted life and was the perfect ending to is seeming one of the more challenging months of the year for me personally. What I seem to notice throughout the past several Januarys is you're coming off the stress of the holidays and then you enter into the Ohio darkness in a cold. Currently I'm working through the Dan Joh