Open Source Health with Tripp Johnson

Slow Down to Scale Up: Leadership, Leverage, and Living Well

• Season 5 • Episode 11

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In this episode of Open Source Health, Tripp and Marcus unpack a different kind of leadership discipline—the kind that doesn’t show up on your calendar. They explore what it means to lead with intention rather than intensity, and how slowing down can actually be the most strategic move for a founder, parent, and partner. 

Tripp reflects on his upcoming month-long trip to Spain as a forcing function to step into a more strategic role, and what it means to run a values-driven company without falling into the hustle trap. From hyper-productivity and masculine-coded “grind culture” to the real emotional labor of leadership, this episode asks: how do we balance growth with flourishing? 

Takeaways 

Hustle isn't always helpful—clarity often beats effort. 

Asking for help is a superpower, but over-advising can derail you. 

Leadership means managing your inner state, not just your output. 

Leverage isn’t just capital—it’s time, trust, and media too. 

If you want to scale a values-driven company, start by living your values. 

Follow & Connect:

Tripp Johnson

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

Hey, hey, hey. I'll do there. You're gonna play us a little tune in that guitar you got back there? Nah, man, it's not even in screenshot. That's bad. I'm not supposed to be white guy without having a good car in the background, You got band posters, it's good enough. Yeah, that counts, Oh man, how's the, what are we, T minus seven days before you're in Spain, huh? So aside from the stress of all that, how's it, how are things going? ah I've got my in-laws in town this week, which is great. And I have people in my house, which isn't great, but overall very much a net positive. It's been a good week. It's been an in, you know, just a, I'm really trying to get acquainted with this. reading a slow productivity by Cal Newport and pretty similar to the book I've talked about some probably with you, 4,000 weeks or slow productivity is kind of a work related more work related kind of same theory concepts about how do we slow down and actually do things that are meaningful and that in our world of distraction, like we end up in this busyness trap and we're not actually productive. So the idea of being that especially like for knowledge work and when you're you know, higher up and especially like the larger the organization, the more the knowledge work actually has to go at a slow pace for you to do anything, you know, novel or useful. Otherwise you're just doing hustle porn. Yeah. Hustle porn's a good phrase. I like that. Yeah. Yeah. You should have just claimed it. No one would have really called you on it, I don't think. um Yeah, I'm pretty interested in these concepts and ideas. There's something I've been thinking a little bit about since there was this kind of random moment, I think, during the like... right around the time that Trump was becoming president and was onboarding some, he was looking at the visas and bringing in high school labor. And one of the arguments someone had for it was like different cultures place bigger priority on work. And they're willing to work 80 or 90 hours a week when maybe Americans or something aren't. And I remember reading that and I had this like weird crisis moment. I was like, dude, I don't. Oh, I'm not made for that. I get like 25 hours of solid work a week and then the other 15 are just garbage. don't know. But then it brought into focus this question of what kind of work am I interested in? What is the purpose of employment and work? So it's something I've been reflecting on for a little while. And I for you, just having known you for years, this is... been an interesting shift. if you'd asked me four years ago, would you ever disappear to space for a month or like, I couldn't have imagined that. Yeah. Yeah. mean, you know, like m I'm torn. This is one of those. I don't think it's necessarily a paradox, but you know, I very much value for myself and like a lot of times, like the people I really like and respect and tend to be friends with, oftentimes are a little bit off in the sense that they have what I call my family jokes about it. they call it the Johnson gene. And what it means is like, you know, we have this fancy word hyper-focus now in mental health, but it's just this, you know, it's a little like it's OCD and like an intensity, you know, manic intensity to do things. And I like, quite frankly, like it's something I can tap into. And, you know, I think one of my, like my former business partner, you know, we were having a discussion one day and he's like, one of the big mistakes I made was trying to keep up with the pace or outdo you. Cause I always outdo other people. I always produce more work and work more hours. But like doing that against you trip is just a losing battle. So like I take like a huge pride in my ability to just grind certain things out or, um, but I've also found like, again, recently, like there are just huge limitations to that and like, You know, I can grind away on a problem, but it doesn't necessarily look like work. And quite frankly, that's a lot of times like what's important. Like I do, you know, so anyway, I keep going, but. Yeah, actually, I do want you to keep going for a second. What do you find the liability to that? Right? Because like that, I think this is one of those things I, I'm very tuned in right now to this like hustler grind in culture, right? Like just grind yourself to a bone work, like this weird sort of like vacuum that's being filled by a lot of, think like masculine, you know, coded influencers. I actually think it's like really destructive because I don't think it's ever actually showing what's you know, the actual like what's actually happening, right? So it leads to this illusion that everyone's more productive and way more efficient and all this sort of stuff. I, this would, I'd like to peek behind the scenes on this. So here's my suggestion for this, like the rest of our discourse, grill me on like whatever you think is interesting to you, because like I have probably thought about the answer to it, or at least like my framing. All right. So like the first thing is, like I said, I very much value discipline. Like one of the coolest things, like when I look at, you know, a lot of the people that we've worked with over the years, I don't really like, I don't really get the soft kind of like, you know, we don't want to work so hard. Like we won't work life balance. I'm not saying any of that's wrong again, like now we are, we are firmly in this consensus reality. We're not talking about any non-dualism purpose of life. This is just strictly like professional settings. What do I want to deal with? Who do I want to be? All right. So that's just, at least for this part. So I just want people who can do hard things. And I think there's tremendous value in it. And I think it's like everything is context dependent. And a lot of the context has to do with your experience, your age, and the skills that you're bringing to bear. And the same is true about how we engage as individuals for the company. or when like we need help, like everything needs to be like age stage experience appropriate. And what I mean by that is like, I don't think we could have gotten through a lot of the hard times. Like if I didn't have the ability to sit there and learn how to, you know, bill insurance companies when one of our mini kerfuffles happened where we almost went out of business. ah And I'm just willing, but I also like, I don't think I'm special in that discipline. mean, quite frankly, my back was against the wall. And so, you know, you, you can do amazing things when you've got that much adrenaline. And I think like, so shifting out of that, because again, that's been a dominant theme for me from tennis. Like I was known for this since I was 11. Like anyone who knows me from my childhood remembers Like that guy like trained, I would get up at 5 a.m. to go to the gym with my dad. I'd go to school. I'd practice tennis from like 2.30 or 3 until 7. I'd go home, I'd eat dinner and I'd do an hour of conditioning. That was a school day. ah And then I started, you know, partying and I got really good or bad at that depending on how you think of it. But then I was like an army ranger and even there I was like, this is like, this is tough. Like this sucks, but. you know, like other people can do it. So so can I. And then like starting law school, you know, and then dropping out to start Green Hill and then aim and vital health. Like I tapped into this a lot and it's been generally like necessary. Maybe. Right. Like there's always that like I didn't know another way to do it. Number one at the time. And so I think it's always like tough. Like, yeah, in retrospect, like, I'm going to be. I'm going to accomplish more with a slower pace of life now is all kind of bullshit because like it took a lot of the work to get to a place where I could add more value at a slower pace. Maybe, right? Like you just, it's tough to play the contra positive out. Right, right, right. What would the, if you were to play that out though, what is the maybe? You're couching something in the maybe. I mean, like at the end of the day, the right information or the right decision trumps hundreds of hours of work. Like it just, so, you know, one of the practices I've gotten in and I would encourage, you know, others to get in some sort of similar practice or routine, whether it's weekly, daily, monthly. But I try and wake up almost every day and just ask like, you know, kind of myself or look at my list, however, you know, what is the problem that I want to solve? Like what, is just, if I could solve a problem, what would it be? And then who's already solved this problem? And like, usually you can identify a few people who have. And then from there, it's just like, okay, like I can exert a lot of effort to learn on the internet, reading books and which obviously I'm a huge fan of both. or like, I can also like, reach out and say, Hey, it looks like you know how to do this. You know, any chance you'd spare 15 minutes for a call. And so I come up with like better information. None of it's all other people's information. As we said, you know, there's nothing new under the sun. Um, so I get to it. Say that again. So people love to be asked that too. It's a funny, social propriety barrier that I think maybe you're not encumbered with that other people perhaps are, right? Like this idea of, man, I don't want to ask this person for their input or their take, or there's some weird, but it's like, man, I know for myself, it doesn't matter. You grab me and say, you seem to know something I don't know. Will you talk to me about it for the next 20 minutes? It's like, brother, I've got two hours. Right. Like, I mean, and this is this is like a fundamental thing that I got comfortable with early. And I think everyone needs to understand that asking for help is a superpower. Like whether it's professionally, personally about mental health, physical health, how to work out better, anything you want to accomplish, other people have already accomplished. And so if you are willing to humble yourself and ask for help, you will get where you want to go faster than you will on your own. And like, and it is super important. I want to throw a little story on this that I learned that was a really good learning experience for me. uh There was a summer where I lived on an organic farm and traded like day labor or something to save money. Ridiculous experience, the sort of thing you only do when you're like 21 and you recently read Jack Kerouac, but you don't have money to get on a train and like travel the country or something crazy, right? um The labor we traded was like hanging a roof or something on the guy's house that he was building. And I remember being petrified because I didn't understand any of it. Like I'd never done any of this stuff. And anytime I did shit with my dad, he would always just yell at me if I asked questions. So I like was afraid to show my hands, right? But I was working with another guy that constantly asked questions. And I realized that the entire summer had been this anxiety provoking, I don't know what the fuck I'm doing, but I'm afraid to ask. versus the other guy had this like total open book. And I realized by the end of it, not only did he have an easier experience doing it, he actually learned a lot more than I did. And it was just a more effortless, fun experience for him versus his consternation and like this. And since then I've tried to apply that generally in about anything that I do is if I can formulate the question and I, then I can find the expert and then I can ask them and. I unequivocally have never had someone not offer to help. Yeah. I mean, again, it's a huge, and I think like one of the, you know, there, there are a lot of, uh, ideas that I've been kind of teasing out or patterns that I'm observing in my life and the lives of others. You know, I think one of the most fundamental is we talk about experience, but I would honestly prefer to just use the word age a lot of times. I think, I think people's life circumstances change so much as they get older that the things you just care about and have to care about are different. And so there's this subtle shift as you age about like, you know, what really matters. And sometimes you just want people with more experience. So the same idea from a young person versus a battle tested person can be very different. And like the authority, um, And I guess the other, one thing I wanted to say from that too, was like there is a qualification I want to have, cause I love asking people and I like identifying a specific problem to ask for help on. Or, but I think what can be really, really detrimental as an individual or to an organization, if you're in a leadership position is asking for too much help. Um, you need to be able to ask for the right help. And what I mean by that is like, I, one of the other things I try and practice is like, I will ask people for their opinions, um, or for, for how they'd approach something. But if I'm not likely to accept their recommendation, I'm going to quit asking them because I got, I got myself and I think like in, you know, um, because I got myself in this pattern earlier, you know, probably four years ago, I was just overloaded with advisors. And I was in this CEO peer group where we met monthly and I drove myself crazy trying to incorporate everyone's advice and like synthesize it so that I made like everyone happy. And so I think you've got to be really careful about like, you know, you like you should assemble a kitchen cabinet if you don't have a board or something, but you got to be really careful about like who you're assembling and like, are you going to ask for their guidance and quite frankly, you know, people are often going to give you their thoughts regardless. And like, should you believe them or not? And what you have to remember is that you are the expert in your own situation. And so you need to remember your context, ideally share as much of that context so that they can map their experience on to what you're going through. But you can get in trouble when you just blindly ask advice. Like when you're getting advice, like, you know, one of my mentors and advisors, Brad Wilson, it was the CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield, North Carolina. So he was responsible for a $13 billion revenue company. Right. How does that experience relate to the entrepreneurial path where you're just having to figure out a lot of stuff on the fly and make a lot of imperfect decisions. You're not surrounded by an executive team that has 30 years of experience for every person in healthcare. Yeah. I do think there's this general tendency where we want to take, we learn something and we think it's the way, right? Like you develop expertise or mastery in something and there's a tendency to sort of try to apply that to sort of everything. And it's usually, think, broad principles that can apply, but in general, there is knowledge. domain locality, specificity, and expertise in certain things, right? And what applies to a $13 billion company or something's not going to apply to the $10 million company, right? And if you try to apply those solutions, you're going to fall woefully short or incomplete or misaligned or any number of failures, right? And like we're in an interesting position kind of right now. Like I just had lunch with our CFO and we were talking kind of more strategically as I leave, you know, for about six weeks and like, what is the strategy, you know, in terms of like capital, like, are we going to take investors? And the answer is generally like, no. And like, we have to be creative because as we continue to grow, like, you need more capital to continue to grow once your team's at a certain size. Like it just takes more. So a year, you know, three, four years ago, four, four years ago, we moved into our office on St. Giles street and that was a, you know, $1.1 million real estate purchase. Our next office is likely going to be somewhere like three to $6 million. And that's a very different profile of lending. ah Now, when it's real estate, it's a little bit different. But then when you start talking about like, do we have the proof of concept because of behavioral health to start primary care? Is our bank going to like that? Who's going to lend for us to start primary care? So, you know, like those are just really interesting, you know, things to think about. And we're at a place where, you know, most people like in I would say like for, you know, just for me personally, like it is, it is very possible to say, Hey, uh, guys, I'm sorry. I'm, I'm done. Uh, I'm going to sell a company in a year. Like we can either figure out how the employees, everyone who works here can buy it from me. Uh, or I can sell it to private equity. And like, quite frankly, it's a, it would be obviously a life changing amount of money, uh, for me, but like that's not. That's not even part of the calculation because the sales pitch to so many people working here is like, we're not selling to private equity. And so like, we're not selling to private equity, but then how do you continue to fuel growth? ah And you got to, you know, like that's where you got to take on a lot of uh risk and liabilities. Yeah, it's interesting. know this may be Veer. This seems like what you're describing Veer's off topic a little bit, but I actually sort of conceptualize them as very similar, right? Like what you're talking about are. sort of deeply philosophical values driven decisions with large implications, right? And these aren't, there's nothing to be grind, like to grind out. There's no like 40 hour work week to crunch on this. This just has to, like these sort of decisions and clarity can only come from creating the space to be able to think, do that thought work. And I think, you know, I'll speak for myself and then I want to kick this back to you because I'm kind of fascinated by. uh That kind of very fascinating. But I know for me, as we've grown and expanded and my department's relatively small, that a lot more of my day and time now has to be sort of dedicated to thinking through something. And so, you know, I take more walks during the day and... just try to conceptualize and think through something and create sort of atmosphere, rituals, behaviors, things where I can get clarity and think about something. And a lot of times that doesn't feel good, right? Like I can be a masochist and grind through something, knock out things, but that's my role is sort of shifted and different and I have to think differently. And I know that's even more so for you. uh And so when you're sitting here balancing these questions of like, how do we take, like, do we take on equity? the oh answer's no, right? Do we take on private equity? Do we take on investors, that sort of thing? Like, how do we scale? How do we do that in accordance with our values and our overall mission? Now it becomes like really, really valuable and important to like, no, man, you got to go clear out the space to not work a 14 hour day, because at a 14 hour day, you're not going to be able to weigh those decisions well. Yeah. Not only that, but this gives me an opportunity to segue into the topic. One of the topics I want to talk about, which is the idea of leverage, right? Um, I was talking again, talking to a CFO about this summit lunch and obviously like financial leverage is, one thing, but, um, I got a book over here, the almanac almanac of renault, Naval Ravicon, who's a serial entrepreneur turned angel investor. but also very philosophical about life. and you know, he talks about the oldest form of leverage is labor. You get other people to do work for you. And like, as a entrepreneur, like that's literally like what you do from kind of day one for the most part, unless you're on your own, then there's like the capital leverage. Like I can borrow money to make these bets that I think are going to return more money in excess of what I owe back with interest. Um, so I can use. financial cat, can use capital to accelerate what I'm doing. And now, you know, in the last 50 years, the greatest form of leverage that people have used, uh, is, is technology software. You know, you code something once and the cost of replicability essentially falls to zero. So a lot of upfront costs. but then you can scale it pretty quickly. So like that's huge leverage. You can build something once and serve millions of people. the more, I guess it's older, but in some ways newer, especially as we talk about our little algorithmic bubbles is media. know, brand and media are another form of leverage. So this all leads me to the fact that like I am going to... in some shape or fashion, try and become an influencer. And that is not because like I actually think I'm like special or unique, but like I want to get us more leverage that does not compromise our incentive structure when it comes to taking on capital, you know, having the wrong, in, know, having any investors quite frankly, but, certainly like even when it comes to like how You know, how do you, how do you de-risk it? And it's like, well, I mean, quite frankly, if we're really well known, that helps us in so many ways. So over time, like, no, I'm not really that interested in becoming like, Tik Tok or LinkedIn influencer. I would love, love, love to have my own magazine about flourishing. It's where I got to, you know, write long form pieces and synthesize ideas. talk a little healthcare all in the, you know, under the auspices of flourishing, but like a lot of print is dying. And so I'm not ignorant to the fact that like, I got to get comfortable on camera. If I want this type of leverage, I need to increase my public speaking skills, et cetera, et cetera. Um, so anyway, all of this, you know, conversation, um, you know, just reaffirms the fact that like, yeah, like you're going to face trade-offs. Like if you want to grow and you want to have this impact, then you're going to have to get comfortable with the cringe if you're not going to take on, you know, equity investors. So I'm, I'm okay with that. Yeah, you've always been good with the cringe. Your ability to tolerate cringe is borderline superhuman. It's impressive. Yeah, I mean, well, when you really think your ideas are cool, I guess it's okay. exactly. You're a convert to yourself. You're a zealot. eh I know we started off with the Spain piece and I want to kind of move back to that real quick because I think that anchors a lot of this in some more practical terms, right? Like, how do you see this you forcing yourself like as a forcing function as a company right how do you see going to Spain for six weeks or what you know four weeks five weeks and then coming back and you know all that stuff how do you see this as being consistent or congruent with this or maybe the next iteration of this stuff Yeah. Um, so I think the first thing, and then this goes back to, want to connect to that between like the age and experience type thing. And one of the places that this has been, like I've had a theory about this, but never the money to do it either necessarily. And what that is is like, You got to be doing the things that other successful people are doing. Like you got to fit in enough. So just like asking for advice, you can't just be someone on the internet asking for advice. Like you do have this reputation and you build social capital. And so like a couple of years ago, I was like, should I join a country club? Like I don't really want to golf or play tennis, but like that's where like the people who might have the ideas that I need, you know, like this is one thought and I'm like, no, I don't want to join a country club that is not aligned with like my values or my personality. Like I want to do yoga in a dingy, you know, office space and burn incense and shit like that. Like I don't want to, you know, put on my all whites to play tennis. Yeah. So, but, like with that, like I've noticed that, you know, the, the people I really look up to that are doing so many cool things are also getting all of these like very like broadening experiences. Like they are spending money on travel. They're paying themselves well. And like there's some of this has to move together. Like, you know, there are anomalies for anything, but for me, it's like, yeah, I mean, one, like I need the company to be able to function without me. And it already does is the thing. So for me, this is a forcing function is really like, would say the, you know, this year, I mean, the past five, you know, months, I have started a more deliberate transition into being more strategic. And with that, so back to this idea of leverage, I've got a post I'm working on because I think there's a real asymmetry in leadership. And, and the asymmetry that I've recently become really interested in is, um, is the idea of how quickly I can ruin someone's day. Uh, and I cannot make it just as quickly, right? Like I can ruin your week. can, I can put a voice in your head that ruins someone's confidence for a long time with an off-handed remark and giving one compliment or a couple compliments doesn't make up for that. So for my position as the CEO of the company, like I have to be really careful about managing my emotions, you know, my mood so that I show up correctly because I like, I need more time to dedicate so that I can just present well to others than I would like to admit. Dude, yeah, what a fascinating, like, in these like. Let, let me just give you, let me, let me go on this riff for one more second, because this is going to be good. This is going to tie in like the personal side. And I was talking to my wife about this. Thank goodness she doesn't listen to this. Cause I don't know how much she wants me to share, but here we go. Um, so my wife came in today. Uh, she was, uh, you know, doing some work in our office and then came over to talk. you know, there's been a, like, I was not the first few months of, uh fatherhood for each kid is just really rough for me. I'm not my best self. In any way. And we had talked about over time, like she kind of resented me for, you know, some of that and like feeling like she had to manage the logistics, the children. And here I am just, you know, gallivanting around going to the sauna on Fridays with my work buddies and you know, whatever else. Not as suspicious. And you know what, what we talked about today though, was like, uh, she has a much more like stable baseline, like her mood. We were talking about the difference and I, again, I had to not push back too much on some of the therapy speak potentially, but you know, like what's the difference between mood and emotions? Like don't give me the actual answer. I don't give a shit. It's all language. So I'll just, you know, contents and consciousness. But the point being is like, you know, people with the way that we kind of came to agreement was like, like she has like a stable mood and she will experience emotions, but that's not going to change her mood super dramatically. Like she can read an email, get really ticked off, but her mood and how she shows up with others isn't likely to change that much. I'm the opposite. Like I am like a volatile person in a lot of ways. And one of the things that I've really worked on communicating with her and like prioritizing was like, have to essentially burn a ton of energy every day just to level out some. And so I'm not proud of the fact that like, it feels like I need 90 minutes or something like that of yoga and a run or a lift on top of that, where she's like, Hey, I just want to like work out for health. I want it to be efficient and move on with my day. Like That seems like a much more well adjusted human than me, but like I need these things. And I also, you know, I think the flip side of that is like, you know, there is, there is some good stuff that comes with my moods and my personality. Um, but it's gotta be, it's gotta be packaged correctly. So I'm seeing these parallels play out both at work and at home about like what it actually means like to be a successful trip and like, That's going to be different than a successful Marcus or successful Jim or Joe or Bill or Diane or whoever. Yeah. Yeah. I, I love that. I think this, this is like, this is a very interesting concept to me. Right. Cause like it, we can't control anything. Right. Like really other than like how we struck, try to structure our days, what do we generally sort of think works for us so that we can show up to whatever chaos unfolds in front of us. Right. Like whatever the unknowns are that unfold under us in front of us. And so Essentially the work of being a good leader, running a good company, running is creating the space to do exactly sort of what you're describing. I find this very, very fascinating in the sense that you're right. With your power, your position, where you sit in the company, a quick three second quip or word or phrase or just anything, comment unmoor someone in a way that just drastically impacts everything from that person down. And so then the work for you becomes like this idea, and I think really for all of us, this is true, not just of you, but then the work really becomes how do I show up in the most well-regulated way that I can so that I can solve whatever sort of, know, respond to whatever unfolds in front of me and do it the best way that I can. So then the work actually becomes, yeah, okay, maybe going to Spain for a month is the best type of leadership because it, you know, swab that out with anything else. Yeah. And then like, you know, to kind of like tie, tie this trip back to some of our kind of principles at work, this idea, you know, one of the, the foundational elements that I want everyone to be aware of who's in a management position, but really throughout the entire organization is this idea of being a deliberately developmental culture, which means like working here is helping you towards your personal goals and you're helping the organization towards its goals. And I think I have to lead by example with some of that. And like, quite frankly, I don't think it's like inspiring or maybe it is. Like, I don't, I don't know. I don't think people. All right. First thing people don't think about me that much. And I know that. Right. Uh, and, that's like one of those, you know, weird cognitive biases that we always think people are considering our actions. So they don't even care anyway, but for the people who do interact with me a lot, whether it's, you know, you or, you know, our general executive team. um my behavior does matter and my behavior, if I'm not prioritizing like my family and I'm not doing things outside of work, then I am showing by example that the only thing that matters to me is work. And that is not a life well lived. Generally speaking, seasons life, all the necessary qualifications. But like one of the things that really hit me was, you know, I hadn't traveled in, you know, since my daughter was born three years ago, uh, it's something like my wife and I had initially connected around was like, was important to her. It was, you know, somewhat important to me, uh, just new experiences, novelty. And then, you know, Dr. Book was like, Hey, he went to Spain for two weeks last year. Loved it. Really wanted to spend a month in Spain this year and is planning to go in September. And I'm like, Well, he's actually more important than I am on a day to day basis for sure. And if this is important to his life and him being here, and this is going to be meaningful, then I should also be able to do this and show that it's possible because quite frankly, when we want to, you know, attract other people with 30 plus years of experience. Like they're going to want some of this flexibility. They're going to want to know that they're not like fighting to have some sort of work-life balance or integration, they're going to want to see examples of it already playing out. so ultimately, like as we're going about this project of making a, you know, more affordable, accessible, higher quality mental health system, then like we have to care about like the mental health and the wellness of the people who work here. And we need to make this you know, a place that people want to be at a long time. Yeah. You know, what's fascinating to me about this is this is very much like a, this concept of Udaiomonio, right? Like in action, in play. It's this idea of balance tapping into these sort of things that generally make, you know, seem to make for a happy, well-content person. Like, and so there's no reason to not structure or try to build a company that that practices what it's of preaching, right? Like the idea that we become this sort of beacon or something for like-minded people, there's no way for me to believe that you attract enough of that, that you don't deliver better care, everybody gets better, right? Like we all, like that's one of the things that's always sort of killed me about like therapy or, you know, med providers and behavioral health. Like so often you hear like... Does it look like your therapist takes their own advice? Like almost never, right? Like, so this idea of, how do we sort of create this really nice sort of balance that emphasizes flourishing. so that we attract more people that are sort of like-minded and then that trickles down to patient care, all this sort of stuff, right? It's fascinating. And I do want to push back a little bit on something you said. You said that like most people aren't really sort of paying attention and I agree with you, right? Like I don't think anybody cares that you're going to Spain or is going to ignore that or extrapolate the message from that that maybe, but I think what's, you know, I'll speak from my own personal experience with you. I think what I do take, from you, right? Are these like, the sort of moments where like you shoot me a text and you tell me where, like where you're at on your lifts or something, right? Like these human exchanges, are these like really pleasant sort of. like moments, right? Like that to me becomes like this oddly meaningful, enjoyable sort of interaction that it makes, you know, but that only comes from someone that's like, you know, you're balancing your life so that you're able to do those sort of things, right? And so like, yeah, sure. notice, you know, more than likely people aren't going to actually notice that you're going to Spain or give a shit that you like doing that or whatever, right? But It is those like little moments where you show up more regulated and there's probably 10 million of these little micro examples that everyone experiences that's unique to them in relationship to you. And then like, how does that permeate a culture? Like that's a really sort of, I think, know, oddly simple, but probably profoundly impactful thing, I think, from a leadership, right? Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I, and that's why, like, I think I'm my, uh, recent blog that I shared with you, like I talk about, this is like a new form of discipline and, it, is really interesting to me because the discipline that I'm used to is, you know, training to be a competitive athlete, an army ranger, an entrepreneur going through this shit. And what's really difficult about some of these transitions is like, what actually helps you get here? needs to be shed in order to do what is necessary to get to the next phase. And in order to make that kind of level up, you just need space to figure it out. Otherwise, like I got to hire like someone who can do this better than me to do the CEO role, or I've got to figure out how to upgrade my own skillset. Um, because like at some point, like, I mean, at the end of the day, like we're well, where it stands today is like, we've got a lot of like competent leaders that understand our vision and values. And there's like so much creative energy happening that's not being driven by me right now. Um, so what does that mean for me? Right? Like I used to like take pride in the fact that I knew so much or could demonstrate that like, I can talk about family therapy too, or I can talk about how we should structure groups. I know a lot about CPT codes and no one gives a shit that I know that they care about how I make them feel. And they want to feel like they're meeting their own goals. And if they look at me and I'm some miserable curmudgeon who knows a lot of stuff, like they're going to be like, I don't want to make this miserable guy like more money or like, I don't want to work for a guy who's like clearly not flourishing outside of being an entrepreneur. Like that's a very one dimensional life. And most of the people who work here don't have one dimensional lives. So like I can't either. Nor do I want to, let me say. Right, right. I love that. That's such a good point, right? So many systems issues are always going to be human issues. And I wish it was like, it's just as simple as that, right? At the end of the day, I don't want to work with or someone, anything like that. It's just a... miserable shit, right? I want to be around people that I enjoy being around and at the end of the day, it's like I'll go somewhere else if I don't enjoy the company that I'm in, right? that's, I, you know, I know we're wrapping up, but the way that I tend to, as I'm getting older, one of the things that I tend to think about is like the quality of my time, right? How I give in moments spent and as I've gotten older, like I'm better at just saying, no, I don't want to, You know, I don't want to do that. Right. And when Rachel asked me to, you know, my wife asked me like, do you want to do X? Like, well, no, I don't want to do it. Are you asking me, will I do it? That's a separate question. Like, no, I don't actually want to do it, but I will. Right. Um, but I will tell you what I want to do. And like, I try to prioritize doing more of the stuff that I enjoy and spending more of the time around the people that I enjoy doing that with. And ultimately work, career, all this sort of stuff is. serving that master is how do I do more and spend and have better quality time in my day and that's the purpose of I think life in general. We got one shot at it so we have to enjoy it. I feel like that's just where we're supposed to end. You got one shot, like, and to tie it back to one thing is like, you got one shot at this, shoot your shot, ask for help and, you know, go after the things that you find meaningful. And if you don't know what's meaningful, do the work to figure it out. You know, cool. Till next time. Until next time.