Open Source Health with Tripp Johnson

Retention, Trust, and Culture: Reimagining Mental Health Leadership

Tripp Johnson Season 5 Episode 10

In this episode of Open Source Health, Tripp and Marcus reflect on a pivotal leadership meeting that marked a shift in the company's culture, operations, and leadership mindset. What began as a review of utilization data turned into a celebration of people-driven progress—proof that investing in culture isn’t fluff, it’s infrastructure.

They explore what it means to transition from founder-led intensity to trust-based leadership, how true patient-centered care requires internal alignment, and why the best organizations hold the tension between business and care, metrics and meaning, structure and soul. Also: thoughts on AI, algorithmic silos, and why MCT oil might just ruin your day.

Key Takeaways:

  • Culture isn’t just a vibe—it’s operational scaffolding for healthcare delivery.
  • Real leadership means knowing when to let go and let your team lead.
  • Patient retention must come from connection, not coercion.
  • Organizational success stems from ontological alignment—being, not seeming.
  • AI will transform healthcare, but human connection is our competitive edge.

Chapters:
00:00 Leadership highs & coalescing culture
01:40 Values-driven strategy meets utilization data
06:00 Building vs maintaining tension
08:20 Honest feedback, trust, and evolving leadership
10:38 Letting go: the CEO's job after startup mode
13:00 Local knowledge and decentralized expertise
15:00 A case study in mentorship, data, and retention
19:00 Alignment between values, outcomes, and sustainability
25:00 The future of healthcare: AI vs human connection
27:30 Culture at scale + unexpected hiring wins
30:00 Keto, self-awareness, and digestive caution


Follow & Connect:

Tripp Johnson

  • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/trippjohnson
  • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/trippjohnson
  • Website: https://www.trippj.com/

Tripp Johnson (00:00.683)
All right.

Marcus Shumate (00:01.706)
Here we are. What's on your mind?

Tripp Johnson (00:07.669)
man, I am just, I'm just really thrilled. We had a just get out of our leadership meeting and it was a really cool experience. feel like over the past week, especially I've seen a lot of people and initiatives, projects kind of coalesce. And it just was an unbelievable, kind of a surreal experience for me to see like things coming to fruition. So

Marcus Shumate (00:25.986)
Yeah.

Tripp Johnson (00:37.011)
I'm in like just a really cool kind of grateful and excited headspace.

Marcus Shumate (00:42.25)
Yeah, dude, that was really something else. To me, that felt like this benchmark of some sort for culture and the elevation of culture and watching it permeate throughout every sort of facet of the company. That was cool, man. mean, we were like...

weaving in and out of data reports and then, which sometimes I think can feel a bit stale, but what was really, really cool to me was watching how that stuff started to translate into the human component of it, right? Like looking at some of the data and then we're sitting there with two psychiatrists and we get to watch them.

Tripp Johnson (01:15.263)
Mm-hmm.

Marcus Shumate (01:21.742)
parcel out some of the data and the utilization stuff and then really start to hang like human to human supervision mentorship on that in a way that was really really cool man. That was like the I don't know it felt like proof of concept for this whole thesis.

Tripp Johnson (01:39.529)
And the thesis being.

Marcus Shumate (01:41.794)
Yeah, if you prioritize organizational culture, leadership, being a people first company, right? If we do that and we make ourselves a healthcare organization that's really focused on that, then the patient care takes care of itself, right?

Cheneau sounds like lot of empty words for anyone that's of listening, but I think it might be kind of an interesting topic for you to maybe elaborate for a few minutes off this values and culture push that you really try to get solid on this year. But to me, it just felt like a lot of stuff coalesced in that moment. Very, very cool.

Tripp Johnson (02:24.915)
Yeah, like I would say that one of, in terms of our strategic pillars, we've articulated people, risk and technology. But, you before that even like there's always been my thesis around like what we need to do in healthcare to really see the system work better overall is that like we need, we need great providers working together over a long time. And so how do you do that? And I think like,

Marcus Shumate (02:34.188)
Yeah.

Tripp Johnson (02:54.727)
it ultimately it goes back to the culture that you build and how well people feel appreciated and connected and see the work they do is meaningful to them, but also meaningful to the company as a whole. And I mean, I feel like we struggled so much. if you think back to when you joined the team, 2019,

Marcus Shumate (03:18.35)
2020 September. Yeah, yeah.

Tripp Johnson (03:19.627)
2020. So, you know, like in some ways, like I've been beating the same drum for five years or even, I guess, probably longer, eight years, seven or eight years on the culture, on our values. But it has felt empty and hollow at different points because we weren't truly embracing that. We weren't modeling it on a daily basis.

But now it seems like we've hit some sort of critical mass with the culture where now people are carrying our culture and putting their own spin on it in a way that like I'm just sitting back and watching and feeling so grateful that people, you know, not just their behaviors, but their beliefs. Like, I feel like we're really aligned and have, you know, as we've joked a ton about, like people are in their algorithmic little bubbles.

but it feels like at least at work and in a lot of meetings now that we have this community and shared experience.

Marcus Shumate (04:25.718)
Yeah, and I've got two thoughts on that. I'm not sure which direction I want to take it in. Maybe I'll put a pin in the algorithmic experience and like what I think AI, future of healthcare, if I'm going to do a dummy stab at that looks like. But what I'm mainly interested in right now is

is something you just mentioned that is the values piece like you have, right? Like you've been hammering this stuff. That was part of the recruiting pitch. I think for me, was like, I wanted to be a part of this sort of culture and the values and the organization and sort of the vision that you and I will talk about, that you were really kind of articulating and that pulled me in, right? Like I wanted to be a part of something like that.

I want to pause at a hypothesis for why I think maybe that's felt hollow and I'd like to hear maybe your response to it, like an agreement or disagreement. I think in some ways that we kind of messed up, right, is we missed some of the, something's more basic than culture, right? Like culture can feel like this very esoteric sort of out there idea. And in some ways we've always been moving.

Tripp Johnson (05:15.369)
Yeah.

Marcus Shumate (05:34.566)
so fast and obsessed with big ideas that I think sometimes we maybe have missed some of the most basic behavioral stuff. And so it's tough to think about culture stuff or the value of culture when you feel like you're drowning because you haven't established some sort of foundation. And so that's my hypothesis, but I'd be curious what your thoughts on like if we were to reflect on this bio time.

Tripp Johnson (06:00.957)
Yeah, so I think you're you're pretty much spot on that there's there's a tension between building and maintaining. And I think like you can really do great work when you've got a lot of people like maintaining a system. But a lot of times as you're building it, it's just a move fast and break things kind of mentality. And there's a lot of you know, there's just a lot of figuring it out. And I'll say for me personally, what

what it came up and really the discussion I had with Nick over the last few days has kind of unfolded was, I think I have immense trust that not only does he have all of the general operations covered and that our clinical director, our medical director, like that they have everything covered from a patient care perspective.

But I trust that they're actually, and it's, you know, going to sound foolish when I say it, but I trust that they're actually better and smarter at me in their jobs. And I like just to make it more personal on like the, you know, I've been doing a ton of reflecting on like what, how my leadership hasn't been showing up correctly. And, you know, I got feedback from, from Butler a while ago that basically he told me that sometimes in our relationship, you know, me and you, Marcus,

Marcus Shumate (07:05.303)
Right.

Marcus Shumate (07:15.214)
Mm-hmm.

Tripp Johnson (07:25.439)
that like I'm stifling your creativity and I'm stifling your ability to produce good work because I have like unset expectations and I'm not being kind of reasonable about some things. And then yesterday when I told you I didn't have time to look at the email you were gonna send out and then you sent the copy, the draft over to me and I was like, holy shit, this is like way

Marcus Shumate (07:41.442)
Yeah.

Tripp Johnson (07:53.867)
better than I would have done? And is the only thing I had to do is shut the fuck up and get out of the way? And I think the answer is like, yes. And then, you know, it's kind of like, take it a step further. It's like, well, you know, I'm sure there were times where I was providing valuable information to you. But again, if we just look to our values now, you know, you know, honest conversations, thoughtfully delivered. One of the things I have always struggled with

Marcus Shumate (07:56.065)
Yeah.

Tripp Johnson (08:23.795)
and especially during the building phase and when things aren't stable is the thoughtful delivery piece. And so one last thing before I let you talk again, like in talking with Nick the last few days, you know, what I was saying was like, I show up the best when I am not actually in the weeds. When like I have trust that the team is doing what they're supposed to do. I can use whatever my unique skills are.

Marcus Shumate (08:28.28)
Yeah.

Marcus Shumate (08:34.414)
Yeah

Tripp Johnson (08:53.823)
if I have any, which I think I do, but I'm not sure what they are sometimes, to just kind of see the playing field and just to share, Hey, this is what I'm seeing. And this is what I'm thinking. Is this useful or not versus we've got to fix this problem. I want to see these metrics improve. Like there's an element of performance that is my job as a CEO. But when you've got a lot of like really, really competent executive leadership.

I think your job as a CEO becomes much more external facing and you really need to embody the culture. so it's just been a full circle kind of moment and a lot of personal insight and lessons learned about my own kind of leadership journey.

Marcus Shumate (09:39.8)
You know essentially like the way you were just describing this and it reminded me of the podcast Farnham Street where we're talking to leadership. There's always this like inflection point where you're transitioning out of startup to something that's more stable and scalable. And it's not a everybody wears hats, but you start to develop into your specific lanes and that, and there's always this tension of when can you kind of let go.

Tripp Johnson (09:46.601)
Mm-hmm.

Marcus Shumate (10:09.484)
And the metaphor, the imagery that comes to my mind on that is like watching a kid learn how to ride a bike and you first take the training wheels off. And it's this inflection point of when is the time to release and let it go. And I think there's just, I've never heard of anyone doing, being able to do that well or knowing what it is. I think it's just one of those like, eventually you just do it and it turns out all right or someone falls and you're up and it goes, right?

Tripp Johnson (10:38.217)
Yeah. And I think like one of the other interesting kind of paradigms that I've been playing around with over the last week or so, I have a mentor kind of Brad Wilson. He's former CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield, North Carolina, unbelievable kind of philanthropist and humanitarian now. And I was asking him one day, you know, how much of your time as the CEO was spent on internal matters versus external?

Marcus Shumate (10:43.554)
Well done.

Tripp Johnson (11:07.475)
and how do you think my time should be spent? And he's like, well, as the CEO of a big company, 80 to 90 % of my time is spent externally, managing our brand, managing key relationships, understanding the entire macroeconomic conditions that are out there and bringing that back to the organization. And he said, at your stage, and this is maybe a year ago, he's like, I would imagine at your stage, your

you know, 70 to 80 % internal focused. and I like, that was true. And then, you know, I was like, okay, so I'm probably doing the right thing, but anytime you ask for advice, right? Like it, whether you want to apply it or not, like you're the only person who knows your exact context. So the same thing like writing therapy or any coaching relationship, you know,

Marcus Shumate (11:47.95)
Mm-mm.

Marcus Shumate (11:58.851)
Yes.

Tripp Johnson (12:02.303)
Their job is to give you a suggestion and it's your job to make the decision. I think we heard that in our leadership meeting. And I just thought that was great. And I think that what I came to recently though was we've always been trying to run this like a real organization, like a real company. And so if a CEO at a big company needs to be very outward facing and I'm trying to run this like a real company,

Marcus Shumate (12:09.422)
Yeah.

Tripp Johnson (12:31.539)
then I probably need to be more outward facing and not focused as much on the details as I have been. And granted, like I was, think I was very valuable in like kicking off initiatives. But now it's time to like let the operations go at the organic pace for them. I shouldn't be, you know, putting pressure to do more faster, better, whatever that is. Everyone else is already concerned about that.

Marcus Shumate (12:38.488)
Yeah.

Tripp Johnson (12:59.549)
I've got a lot of things I need to be concerned with externally.

Marcus Shumate (13:04.108)
You know, there's this Wendell Berry essay that comes to my mind that I read years and years ago, and he talks about, I've referenced him a lot on here, but if anybody's interested, he's well worth reading. Agrarian essayist, works a farm, writes on a typewriter essays. And something he talked about was this idea of locality of knowledge.

And that there's this idea that when someone is intimately tied to what they do, then they're going to have some degree of knowledge and understanding that is so specific and so applicable that outsiders will ultimately sort of...

outside expertise will sort of fall flat, right? it, whatever it is, there'll be cultural barriers. There'll be like lack of knowledge. There'll be any number of things for the reason that something sort of fails. And I think essentially what's happened is like we're at this inflection and this, this cool point where everybody's actually sort of flaunt, like starting to slide into what their niche and their role is. And they're developing this degree of really local knowledge relative to the silo that they're.

Tripp Johnson (13:51.007)
Mm-hmm.

Marcus Shumate (14:17.592)
they're working in and they're developing like some degree of expertise and You know, think credit to you right like that's a you've built this really cool sort of culture where even in this I think in our tensor moments and the company's tensor moments there's always been this like Listen, we were going to fail over and over and over and like failure is fine Like it just happened like this. That's how we sort of have to learn it sucks. Whatever we pick up and move on we learn we iterate

And so like, think even in the tense of moments, there's always been this like risk tolerance for allowing failure and growth and learning. And so I think what's interesting is to me, there was a lot of that sort of played out in that meeting that was very surreal. It felt very dreamy to watch like, holy shit, man, there's this degree of mastery that everybody has slid into that's phenomenal. And then watching, you know,

Tripp Johnson (14:57.929)
Mm-hmm.

Marcus Shumate (15:10.35)
There's one moment in particular that no one would be privy to, and I don't know how entertaining this is, I think that I was just enamored with. was watching our medical director and our new psychiatrist sort of consult on a utilization issue that in a way that was so beautifully human and cool, and to me represented this idea of learning and mentorship and sort of cultural development. It's just a perfect...

you know, like I think proof of concept for this emphasis on culture.

Tripp Johnson (15:42.729)
Yeah. And I think the thing that I'll try and recap it. So we were talking about how, you know, because we've gotten so into the data over the last year, you know, we, we are very concerned with the operational data and eventually how that translates into outcomes. think what we've done so quick sidebar, like what we've done differently and where I think we, we had a lot of growing pains earlier was not only is the vision of what we want to do incredibly expansive.

Marcus Shumate (16:12.813)
Yeah.

Tripp Johnson (16:13.151)
But we never actually gained complete mastery over one domain, right? Like a lot of people would tell you, be the best at this and then move on to the next thing. So be the best at IOP and PHP, then move on to the next thing. But that fundamentally does not agree with my thesis on what's needed, which is integration. Like we need all of these tools and we need to bring them all to bear.

Marcus Shumate (16:18.414)
Thanks.

Marcus Shumate (16:26.433)
Right.

Marcus Shumate (16:32.238)
Yeah.

Tripp Johnson (16:43.189)
So we have a lot of kind of maybe suboptimal from a business standpoint, lines of service. And the goal now is to get them all working together for the patient experience and for the provider experience to show that this can be a different place to receive care, somewhere that you wanna be here long-term. And so I like that, I think is part of the challenge we had over time.

Marcus Shumate (17:02.371)
Mm-hmm.

Tripp Johnson (17:08.447)
But then when we were talking specifically around, there are a couple of providers here who seem to be getting new patients, but they're losing a lot of the patients. They're not coming back for a second or third visit. And our new psychiatrist is actually going to be our medical director here in the triangle. And then Dr. Book's going to be moving into the chief medical officer role. So teaser for that. So the Dr. Spessett said,

Marcus Shumate (17:33.121)
Okay.

Tripp Johnson (17:37.835)
Hey, like I happened to overhear part of a patient conversation because I hadn't didn't have the white noise machine on. And basically like the medical provider kind of jumped straight into talking about medication. And she was like, you know, we really need to make sure that we're training all of our team, that the first thing we need to care about is an establish is that they want to come back for another visit.

Marcus Shumate (17:53.634)
Mm-hmm.

Marcus Shumate (18:07.192)
Yeah.

Tripp Johnson (18:07.251)
And that's not because we want to, you know, and she, and so she said that, and then she said, the reason this is so important is it can be so hard to work up the courage to make the call and ask for help that the worst thing you can do is make it feel like that was all for null, or this is going to be a typical experience. So it had nothing to do with, Hey, we need to retain patients. That's our bottom line. Or we need to fix utilization.

Marcus Shumate (18:18.424)
Yeah.

Marcus Shumate (18:30.221)
Yeah.

Tripp Johnson (18:36.959)
but it was just a beautiful demonstration of how, you know, really all of this can work together. It doesn't have to be patient care or the bottom line, but that like, we have worked really hard to have a system where incentives are aligned. And now we just need to insert really good clinical and medical training. And I think we're going to have this, like these just beautiful results and

the relationships between supervisors and supervisees and amongst our team. It was incredible.

Marcus Shumate (19:14.894)
Do you know what I thought it like for me, it's, it's like ontological alignment, right? Like, it's this idea, say one thing, how do you be that thing, right? That's better to be than to seem. And for me, what that moment really, really captured and represented was this idea that in order to have a good sustainable business model, in order to have a good patient experience, in order to have a good provider experience, all of those things have to be in alignment. And it was.

Tripp Johnson (19:20.105)
Mm-hmm.

Marcus Shumate (19:43.712)
At no point in time in the course of the conversation did I hear patient retention being framed as revenue. And I think that's a lot of healthcare companies miss out on, right? Like, I think what we've tried to do is insanely difficult. It takes a high threshold for, you know, masochism to some degree, right? Like how stupid are you willing to look for how long until you gain some degree of integration and mastery of something, right?

Tripp Johnson (19:50.271)
Mm-hmm.

Marcus Shumate (20:13.312)
And so to me, what was really, really, really cool about that was, okay, the business model works, the provider model works, the culture works and the like, all of this stuff sort of threads together. And so now what you have is like, in the, clinical model works, right? Cause the idea is, Hey, do we, it's so tough to reach out to get help to try to figure something out.

that you cannot miss that window or that opportunity, right? And all of those things are in alignment when you hold the tension of all of them at the same time. And I think very often what happens is we need more leads or we need to milk this person's insurance or we need to... People use this sort of brute force way of ultimately jacking the revenue and controlling that versus

organizing the system in a principled way.

Tripp Johnson (21:14.249)
Yeah, it's really interesting because we needed a critical mass of people who the baseline assumption is we're all doing the right thing. Because otherwise it's really hard to hold that tension. And our leadership has to fully commit and know and trust that we're all in service of the best outcomes for our patients and that the best outcomes for our patients are this unbelievably complex

web of variables that are everything from our HR and our culture to the clinical training that they've got. And all of that has to come to bear for the patient ultimately. And I think what's, you know, like when I, when I hear the, I was, I was trying to play this other side because I think a lot of other people, a lot of other organizations, oftentimes I'll say maybe less reputable, not as a comparison, but

Marcus Shumate (22:09.192)
Yeah.

Tripp Johnson (22:11.039)
You know, like one thing that gets weaponized, especially in the substance use treatment space is, hey, this is your window. We have got to get this. We've got to like, we need to save this life. And you're like, yes, I mean, like we are all literally like our job is not just to save lives to help people flourish in my mind, but like that is just weaponizing, you know, like that is trying to make money off of sick people. And you can use whatever language you want.

Marcus Shumate (22:15.852)
Yes.

Marcus Shumate (22:36.962)
Yeah.

Tripp Johnson (22:40.903)
and, what it feels like in super great ontological alignment for me now is no one has to talk about the fact that like, yes, our expectations on provider utilization and how many patients you're going to see a week, like all of this has to work together so that you want to continue to work here and get paid more and grow in your responsibility. But we don't just have to talk about this. Like it's not, it's not a discussion around patient court.

care or, you know, successful financial performance and sustainability. It's both and. And they're the same thing. And I think like so much tension over the past few years just goes back to people only wanting to lean into one or not having the, you know, maybe the cognitive flexibility or the experience to hold all of this together at once.

Marcus Shumate (23:18.541)
Yes.

Tripp Johnson (23:36.041)
And now that it's there, it's like, I don't have to like explain anything. Like y'all just solve the problems the way you see fit. I'll go do a little more yoga.

Marcus Shumate (23:42.668)
Right. Yeah.

This is a little bit of a pivot, I put a pin in it earlier, so I do want to come back. both you and I have been deeply concerned about AI and its influence on healthcare. What does that look like? I just sort of...

build off of that idea, this sort of, we've talked about this idea of like algorithmic silos, know, hedonic cocoons, sort of like loneliness epidemic, right, like all this sort of stuff. These like large social things that are moving, right, and so

you know, my general thinking is that historically we could look and say that we're going to lose more more human connection with our health care providers and all that sort of stuff and people will argue that like it's important to maintain a relationship with a human. But ultimately what that comes down to tension between is the ease accessibility convenience of technological innovations versus the human sort of

experience. And while this may be better for us long term, there may be more benefits to this. They just will never be captured by this. The path of least resistance is always going to be here. Right. And so where I sort of think about this in terms of what's coming, what healthcare looks like, you know, obviously I think we're going to lean into how do we utilize AI's augmentation to help our providers, to allow them to be more human, to allow them to be more effective. But

Marcus Shumate (25:22.112)
I think if we're talking about loneliness, this lack of human connection, we know that that is one of the more vital and important things for healthcare outcomes, then effectively, are we able to create a culture and an environment?

Tripp Johnson (25:40.619)
Thank

Marcus Shumate (25:42.584)
that is human and provides that in a way that's like a meaningful experience for providers, but you know, and see that passed down to our patients. And I think that's like a, where our value proposition is and maybe where our competitive advantage is going into the future, where AI is really going to be sort of permeating all corners of healthcare, right? Is the human element, people are the point, right?

Tripp Johnson (26:08.563)
Yeah. So my thought on some of this is like,

I think you can, you can have this in, smaller organizations more naturally too. Right. And this gets, this just gets increasingly complex when the lines of communication expand. Um, so I think sometimes it's easier to have that, like you can imagine walking into a 10 bed residential treatment facility that is $50,000 a month. And you can imagine like, it looks like a, and I don't like the word family, but like,

Marcus Shumate (26:20.94)
Yes.

Tripp Johnson (26:44.765)
It's a family environment. People are have that deep trust and understanding of each other and a shared experience. I think that's a lot harder as you get bigger and it does have to happen organically at different levels within the organization amongst different teams. So it's not necessarily just one homogenous culture, but there are.

know, subsets of the culture, but they all adhere to a broader kind of, you know, narrative and culture. And I do think like, quite frankly, I mean, it has been the strategy for a long time. It hasn't always like panned out in the short run. But over the last two, three months, we literally are not

Marcus Shumate (27:32.504)
Right.

Tripp Johnson (27:39.467)
hiring for like medical providers and we just keep getting people saying Hey, I heard so-and-so works here. I heard this is like a different place to be Like could I come like what do I have to do? Like I just want to be a part of this and it's not coming to me So this like isn't about me like I'm getting these messages from people in our organization and I'm just like this

Marcus Shumate (28:00.012)
Yeah.

Marcus Shumate (28:06.317)
Yeah.

Tripp Johnson (28:08.309)
You know, got chills. Like this is what it's about because ultimately like, look, like hell, there's going to be major disruption from AI and I'm super scared. But the best way to be positioned for that is having the best team that knows how to navigate it and deal with difficult situations and learn how to adapt together. Cause the healthcare system isn't going anywhere, but it's going to change dramatically. And so if we want to change well with it, like we need really smart, competent people.

Marcus Shumate (28:09.816)
Yeah.

Marcus Shumate (28:29.592)
Bye.

Marcus Shumate (28:38.796)
Yes, agreed. mean, like I don't know how to add any more to that. And I probably ruined that sound bite by even chiming in, like, yeah, I I think one of the cool things from my part of you, right, is weekly now I'm getting messages from team members asking to be involved in going out into the community and representing us. And man, I don't...

I don't know of very many organizations, I'm sure there are, right? But I don't know of very many people that are wanting to have their company or their sort of place of employment be this extension of themselves or something like that, right? Like however you want to frame that. I think that's just, there's something very, very cool that's come together in the last couple of weeks that feels very, very exciting.

Tripp Johnson (29:32.267)
Totally, What else you got? We got anything? I mean, that was like our hype. Like, I feel like I'm like coming down from like the leadership meeting and then talking about it. But anything else rattling around before we get out of here?

Marcus Shumate (29:46.638)
I don't think so. I would be curious to if the keto helped with the... I can't believe you had the downside in energy. How's the keto going?

Tripp Johnson (29:54.389)
Oof. Oof. Oof.

Oh man, it's been good, man. I really thought a few days ago I was kind of over it. I just like, I can't eat rice, I can't have spring rolls. There's just so much I'm not eating now. But from a physical perspective, it's been a really interesting experience. Today, ran three miles, a weight

Marcus Shumate (30:14.412)
Yeah.

Tripp Johnson (30:28.831)
workout and did an hour and half or so of yoga and physical performance in all three domains was more enjoyable than ever before. And I got pickleball tonight. And I'm just amped. So I don't know if I'm going to be able to sustain this much longer, but it's definitely been a worthwhile experiment. I think the super exciting thing is just getting this in tune with your body.

You know, even if you're not going to be strictly keto or strictly vegan or this or that, you know, you can learn how, you know, your, your diet, your exercise really affects both your physical health and your mental health. yeah, it's been cool. I mean, the only problem, right. As, as, as you may know, but you know, when you're subsisting off of, you know, fat and protein, essentially, you got to like supplement sometimes with a little extra oil and

Marcus Shumate (31:23.565)
Yeah.

Tripp Johnson (31:27.391)
For those of you who've never, you know, taken shots of MCT oil or coconut oil or something, this can cause an absolute panic in reaching the toilet fast enough to evacuate yourself. And it can be a pretty brutal experience. So you gotta be careful there. So if you were thinking about keto, maybe now you're not. What?

Marcus Shumate (31:47.564)
Yeah, I gotta tell you, I actually made this podcast. I'm genuinely surprised we made it this entire podcast. That's it. That's the exit.

Tripp Johnson (31:55.113)
I know, I really need to go. I really need to go. until next time.

Marcus Shumate (32:03.502)
Uhhh...