Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Medicine 3.0 - Jason Reynolds
84 Plays16 days ago
Join host Phillip Ramsey on the Uncommon Wealth Podcast as he interviews Dr. Jason Reynolds, a pediatric palliative care doctor and advocate for "Medicine 3.0." Dive into Jason's journey through diverse medical fields and his innovative approach to healthcare. Explore the balance between extending health span and managing end-of-life care. Learn about Jason's personal experiments with health optimization and the valuable life lessons he’s gained from his career and personal experiences. Discover insights about living well and staying healthy longer.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to The Uncommon Wealth Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Everyone dreams of living an uncommon life and the best asset you have to achieve your dreams is you. Welcome to the Uncommon Wealth Podcast.
00:00:12
Speaker
We're going to introduce you to people who are living uncommonly. We're also going to give you some tools and strategies for building wealth and for pursuing an uncommon path that is uniquely right for you.
Meet Dr. Jason Reynolds and Medicine 3.0
00:00:27
Speaker
Hello and welcome everybody to another episode of the Uncommon Wealth Podcast where I'm your host, Philip Ramsey. Today we have the one and only Jason Reynolds, which is a pediatric palliative care doctor. But the reason why I want to run the show is because he is implementing Medicine 3.0.
The Power of Community and Friendship
00:00:42
Speaker
And what the heck is that, you say?
00:00:44
Speaker
That is when he takes the medicine and the knowledge that he knows from the medical field and tries to implement that to live a longer, healthier life. Holy cow. I feel like I need that in my life. That's why he's on the show. So Jason Reynolds, thank you so much for being on. Dr. Jason Reynolds, everyone. Well, thanks, Phillip. I'm just so excited to be on your show today and and get to get this opportunity to reconnect with you. It's just such a blessing.
00:01:11
Speaker
So yeah, so reconnect. What's that mean? So 17 years, or no is 18? Yeah, think coming up on 18. 18 years ago, Jason and I were in a small group or a Bible study together. His wife, Nicole, and my wife, Erin, were all in the small group. We got to do life together. And I always connected with Jason. I just loved the way he thought about things. He had a different perspective on the medical medical field back then. And then it's evolved to this point now.
00:01:38
Speaker
But i always i want I want you to talk about your background. But before we do, I want to give you a personal story about Jason Reynolds and how he's impacted my life. Do you know what I'm going to talk about? Oh, I have a couple of ideas, but I'm anxious.
00:01:50
Speaker
Okay. All right. Well, i want to let i won't I won't let you guess. I'll tell you. Okay? So back when we were all living life together, doing our Bible studies, meeting every week, I thought it was a great idea to run a marathon. and That was the rule of thumb. Yeah, I know.
00:02:07
Speaker
And and so I had two goals in my marathon. It was to get under four hours and to not walk. Those are my two goals. Okay. And so I, I trained and I trained hard. Um, but not, no one can really train you for the last four miles of a marathon because you don't ever train that much. You end up going to like 20, 20 miles or maybe 21, maybe 22, maybe. But after that, it's like, you're in uncharted territory and you got to let your adrenaline carry you through. So I'm in this marathon and I'm about 20 miles in and I'm like, Things are not going well. Like I am tired. I'm worn out. I'm bored out of my mind. You can only imagine. And ah there's these, I call them Sherpas, but there's these people that run with signs and they hold up a sign and the sign says the time that they're going to finish the race. Right. This is important because you can run with those people and smart people would probably get with the group that they'd want. So in this example, the four hour group would have been a really good person for me to run. Well, I didn't do that because I was young and naive at the time. And so I just go off my own.
00:03:13
Speaker
About three hours three and a half hours later, I'm looking behind my back. This is about 22-mile mark. And I'm like, that four-hour group is going to pass me pretty quick. So I'm just like dreading that time because I'm going pretty slow. And my indicator was I looked over at some – some cheer honors, I guess you can say the crowd. And there's a person in a walker, like a walker, you know, like old water. And I'm like, either they're going fast or I'm going really slow. And I'm like, i don't think he's going fast.
00:03:43
Speaker
Sure enough, about five minutes later, the four hour group passes me like I'm walking backwards. Super defeating because again, one of my goals, four hours.
00:03:53
Speaker
So I'm now going kind of uphill and I'm like hating my life and I'm about ready to walk. And I'm, I, I kid you not like my next step. I'm walking because I can't, I can't get my four hour group or I can't beat my four hour goal benchmark. And so might as well just throw in the towel and out of nowhere, I hear Philip, I'm Jason Reynolds. Again, this is Sunday. i didn't I didn't mention this. Jason comes from church in his all of his Sunday's best, his Sunday church shoes. He's got his nicest shoes on. He's dressed for church. And he's yelling at me from the crowd.
00:04:29
Speaker
And I'm like, oh my gosh, I kid you not. Like the Lord used Jason that day. And he ran with me to get me past the four-hour group in his in his church clothes. yeah my churches Yes, you remember this, right? I remember the church shoes. Okay. So we get past the four hour group and now we have like maybe a half mile left, maybe three fourths of a mile. And Jason's sweating, you know, like he's in no, no shape to be doing this with his attire on. He probably is in great shape by the way, at that time and now, but so then he's like, Hey, you can take it on from there.
00:05:02
Speaker
um True story. The four hour group passed me again. Like I was walking backwards after Jason left And then there was another guy that ran it. ah Aaron Sage. Remember that guy? Yep. Yeah. remember him. Yeah. Yeah. He came back and we beat him. My official time, I think was three hours, 58 minutes. He was probably on his second lap. when He probably was. Yeah. He finished it and came back for me.
00:05:21
Speaker
But I think the cool thing about that one, it tells you, Jason's good at reading people because he saw that I was like a walking zombie, not looking great, but he knew my goals and he cared enough to just run alongside of me. The other thing too, I would say is just the power of community because there's no way I could have got that goal without a community. And so such a cool life lesson, but it also kind of shoots your character of like, I'm in my church clothes, but a buddy needs me and here we go. yeah. Oh, that's right. Wow.
00:05:49
Speaker
There you go. There's my story.
Jason's Career Evolution and Calling
00:05:51
Speaker
Yeah, that's a great story. That was number one on my my list of of stories from from that time, are sort of our time in in Iowa. That was that was that was fun. that was Okay. Well, I appreciate you saying fun. It was a memory, for sure. But right, how did you get to where you're at now? Because you haven't always been in this palliative care, um pediatric pal palliative care place. Like when I met you you, were an ER doctor. You've gone through kind of the gamut of the medical field. Tell me kind of your journey to get you where you're at today.
00:06:20
Speaker
That's a great question, Philip. And, you know, I sometimes I look back over my career and ask myself the same question, like, how how did I get here? And and to some degree, it's it's it's almost like I'm a little bit of a medical sort of vagabond or a nomad. I go some from place to place. And. But I think I think, you know as as you've mentioned before, I think sort of God has a plan for you. And sometimes you're not ready for the for for where he ultimately is leading you. So, yeah, i started off in pediatrics, ended up in the ER when I was in Iowa with with you guys. Um, uh, when we left Iowa, we went and worked, uh, down in Houston at Texas children's and, um, helped build a, a sedation program in the anesthesia department there to, to, to work with kids that were having procedures done while awake. It's quite traumatic as you, as you might've managed. Oh man. I imagine. And so we spent a lot of time working out a program to make that sort of a peaceful and painless process for the kids and their families. Um, and then I did that for about 10 years, but,
00:07:21
Speaker
I felt like I was really being pushed sort of in a little bit different direction. And um it was, it was kind of a fortuitous scenario. I had gone to St. Jude for a conference on pediatric palliative care. It it just seemed like something that would be interesting to learn more about. And maybe I could use that in my my practice and in Houston.
00:07:42
Speaker
um And ah you know, it was obviously a lot of cancer kids there and and how their symptoms were being managed and sometimes how end of life was being managed. And, Um, it, it really resonated with me as a sort of ah a purpose-filled meaning, meaningful place to work. Um, and I noticed sort of around me that, um, sometimes that work was not done well sort in the medical community.
00:08:03
Speaker
We, we tend to lean in on things that we can fix. And when we run into something we can't fix very well, we tend to sort of lean out and, and there's probably no part of the the medical journey that needs your doctor to lean in than the end of that journey. Um,
00:08:19
Speaker
So as as luck would have it, um they had somebody that was coming to to work in their training program that had to back out last minute. So and I want to say in in about the middle of June, they sent out an email saying, hey, all you people that are at this conference, if you'd like to come and do some specialized training, we've got a spot.
00:08:38
Speaker
um And then three weeks later, I sold my house and moved to Memphis. um he quite quite unseen It was one of those things where I i told him Nicole, I said, hey, there's this opportunity at at St. Jude in Memphis. this sounds This sounds like this might be a ah good thing to consider. What do you think? And she said, let's do it. And, and you know, when when your wife says, let's do it, you're doing it.
00:08:58
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. How many kids did you have at that time? Because so Nicole's your wife and then you have four children, three bulldogs and a princess. So that's right. We we had all we had the whole circus at the time. So that we sold the house, picked up the the circus and moved to the side of scene. We rented a house, which, by the way, was like one the one of the best, best life, best years of my life from a sort of ah responsibility standpoint. Call the landlord. Yeah.
00:09:25
Speaker
Um, you know, the kids were, gosh, they were, Anna, our youngest was, was not, I don't think she was in school yet. And then our three boys were in elementary school. So we, we, we plugged them into the school system there. you know, Nicole was our domestic manager, uh, that new location.
00:09:44
Speaker
and then we spent a year in Memphis learning how to do, pediatric palliative care, um, and hospice. Um, and then, um, uh, you We're native Texans. And so there was an opportunity in Fort Worth where I'm at now Cook Children's um to to join the program there. And so I've been here for about eight years working in in hospice
Faith and Palliative Care
00:10:02
Speaker
and palliative care. and And most of what I do is not hospice. Most of what I do is helping kids with medical complexity and their particularly their families sort of navigate the medical system, make sure they're getting all their questions answered. Sometimes there's hard choices to make. It's not clear what the right thing is to do. and We help them with that.
00:10:20
Speaker
um And then, um you know, we we do a lot of symptom management. For those kids that do have a life-limited condition, we make sure that their journey and transition into that space is as painless and peaceful as possible. and And we support the whole family. it's it's ah it's a sure more yeah It's a whole deal. Right. You know, you think about the doctors that have high knowledge and very...
00:10:41
Speaker
poor bedside manner. I can only imagine that you're, one, you're just wise. The knowledge is there, but also just the care and understanding through a very tough time. My two questions are, how do you not take that home? And then the other is, how does your faith play into the overall conversations and just talking to these families in like the hardest position in their life. Right. So, sure.
00:11:09
Speaker
Sure. So I'm going to, I'm going to answer the the second question first. okay I get that question quite a bit. And, and I'm not sure how anybody could even begin to operate this space without a sort of a a Christ centered, Christ focused, God centered view. um You know, at the end of the day, I mean, it's hard to imagine losing a child.
00:11:30
Speaker
um But there's probably no no better test of faith than, than, than losing a child, right? Because you're, you're, Oh yeah. Your child is, is, is is going where we're trying to get right. It's sort of my, my, my general construct over that. Now, if there's something that we can do to keep them here a bit longer, or certainly if there's something we can do to, to cure an underlying condition, but when we get into the space where there's really,
00:11:59
Speaker
Not a lot of medical options that can delay the process or worse. There's a lot of medical options to just add lot of additional burden without much benefit. um You know, it's sometimes trying to help families navigate that journey to allow their children to get where they're going. Right. Right. Which is the the place that we're all trying to get.
00:12:19
Speaker
Yeah. um So without that construct, I mean, this would be an impossible job. And and and for families that don't have ah a faith structure, it certainly is a different, much different yeah um experience.
00:12:31
Speaker
um So that's how I do this. I mean, yeah I know where these
Understanding Medicine 3.0
00:12:35
Speaker
kids are going. I know it's a better place. I know there's no suffering. And so when it's when it's their time, I want to help them get there in a painless and peaceful way and support their families through that. And support their families. Like that's probably almost a bigger position, a bigger job description. You know, it's the it's that that's where the healthcare care system really...
00:12:56
Speaker
Um, struggles because that's when you have to lean in, right? you have to lean into these families and in uncomfortable situations. Um, there are no words. Um, there are no treatments. There are no labs. There are no medicines. There are no, there's no books out there that's written for this, you know, there, there are, there are, and even if there were, that would maybe work for one circumstance, but probably not a lot. Right. That's right. That's right. You just gotta, you gotta be present, right? You know that you gotta be present.
00:13:22
Speaker
um meet them where they're at, and then sort of walk the journey with them. um and And so that's that's that's how i I do this. I think I have you know some sort of really God-given composition to work in this space. I agree. like There's a gift there that God has given to you, and not many people have it. So praise the Lord you found where you're at. because And when you look back over over my journey, working in the yeah ER, working the ICU a lot, you know my my journey has been bringing me to this. Yeah, totally. Preparing me. And I wouldn't have been able to operate in this space if I was trying to start out there, you know, but the breadcrumbs were laid, the breadcrumbs were laid.
00:14:00
Speaker
That's right. Okay. Heaviness. take yeah so So your first question though, is like, how do I not take this home? Yeah. um And, and I, I, I asked that question a lot when I was doing my training some of my mentors, like, how do you not take this home?
00:14:16
Speaker
um And I don't really have a good explanation for how I don't take it home other than sort of God protects me in that context. It's gift. Yeah. um um and And my mentors, my my my main mentor is Justin Baker, who was at at St. Jude and just an incredible individual. You can YouTube him. He he is just an incredible individual. So we've got some great TED talks and um um he was super helpful, but, but he told me that you like, you know, you'll, you'll leave work at work and you'll go home and, and, and do home and and try not to sort of co-mingle the two. And I've been pretty good about that where, um where I do my work when I'm at work, I have a, you know, 20 to 45 minute commute at home, depending on what's going on. And it's like this transition phase where work stays behind. And then there's certainly enough sort of domestic distractions to help me forget about work. but I don't have a lot of trouble. but The one thing that I have to do is I can never see my kids in the I care for.
00:15:14
Speaker
yeah So there's one sort of mental process that that i that I boundary, if you will, that when see an 18-year-old boy that looks or has the same name as as my kid, like I don't go there. I don't yeah um right you go there. I can never see my kids and and the kids that I'm caring for. And occasionally you can't help it, right? like Occasionally you And we have a you know, one of the things that that we do in the program here is we're we're really focused on building resiliency and mitigate burnout. And so we we have plenty of other physicians and nurse practitioners and other clinicians that can on and step in when we do find ourselves in a situation that we're struggling to sort of not see our own kids. Yeah.
00:15:56
Speaker
Well, that's good. Okay. So I read a book or I should say, listen to a book, Jason. It was called The Art of Dying. I can't remember who wrote it. I'm sure you've read it. but yeah I have, yeah. Yeah. It was really good. And he said basically in history with all the bubonic plagues and plagues, it was like we had to learn how to die well. Right. And then it's it's quickly turned into Western medicine of like now we have to the art of living. Right. and living as well as we can. and And that's why I kind of wanted to get you on the podcast because you have a really good balance of both. Like yeah there is a finality of death that we need to die well, but we also can we can set ourselves up for that moment to die well. And so this is where Implementing Medicine 3.0 kind of came in. And so all these breadcrumbs has led you to be able to, one, be an amazing gift to the people that you get to um
00:16:53
Speaker
practice with and just just meet with and and work through some really hard situations. But the other thing is then taking the medicine that you've known, the history that you've known, and try to implement this on yourself in order to live a life that you're excited to live and be healthy and enjoy things in a way. So let's talk about this, the art of living a little bit and how implementing medicine 3.0 started and where it's at now and all that. Sure.
00:17:21
Speaker
Sure. Yeah. I mean, that's that's a great question. That's a big question. ah A lot to cover there. But R's More Indie, did you read the R's More Indie book? Yes. The original R to feeling that. Incredible book. Incredible. Yeah. Incredible book. and It's almost a philosophical book. You have to. It absolutely is. And it changes that way of like, oh, okay. Like, and community is a big thing there, right? Right. Absolutely. Absolutely. And and it's it's interesting, you know, that you point that out in that You know, dying was a was a community process. It was a a community experience is probably a better way to say it, that yeah that everybody experienced starting from the time you were old enough to recognize that you were losing someone. And in fact, you know, most people sort of second living living room, if you will, historically was that's where they would go to die. And and and and everybody in the community, young and old, would come over and pay their respects and be part of Absolutely.
Personal Family Experiences and Career Impact
00:18:14
Speaker
The people knew how to die because they watched and they watched people go through the dying process and they And they went through a a a normal and natural dying process, which is usually painless and peaceful if you allow it to play out in a normal way. Yes. And it was around the corner for them. Like it was like, and this could happen to me tomorrow. but Like, so it was a little different, right a different deal.
00:18:34
Speaker
Right. So ah I think, i think one of the, one of the concepts that you're talking about is this, this concept of compression of morbidity, know, really medicine 3.0, which is not my concept that that's Peter at T is concept in his book outlive. I think he was the one who, who, who originally coined the concept and, and, and wrote a book on it has ah an incredible podcast that really dives deep called the drive. um It's really his concept. And,
00:19:04
Speaker
And and I read the book and and I said, OK, this this makes sense to me. um And I want to I want to see if I can apply these principles in my own life. no I actually looked into getting into his clinic, which is was just out of my price range.
00:19:19
Speaker
so i know those I know that feeling, Jason. so So I subscribed to the $20 a month podcast and or maybe $20 a year. it's something I could afford. i learned a lot there and then tried to start implementing these these concepts in my own life since I couldn't afford the the real thing. um But what you're talking about is is really compression of morbidity. And and there's this incredible graph that he has in the chart that that shows sort of the the normal lifespan. Let's just call it 80 years. And, you know, somewhere around 55 to 65, you kind of cross this you know arbitrary dotted line where your quality of life is not.
00:19:58
Speaker
not what it once was. And I'm not talking about like, you can't run a marathon, like that quality of life, but like, maybe it's hard to get around. You can't go hiking in the mountains like you used to have trouble picking up, you know, the grandkids. um There's some sort of arbitrary line that you cross. And a lot of people cross that line, you know, somewhere between, you know, 55 and 65, depending on sort of um how, how their health, what their health looked like prior to that.
00:20:22
Speaker
um And and the first the first concept that he presents in the book is is is is health span versus lifespan. And so health span is the cons is the idea that instead of this line dropping off,
00:20:33
Speaker
ah it stays flat for as long as possible, stays well above the 50th percentile or well above that area where um you start to lose some of those capacities, if you will, that that may um that that many people enjoy with life. And so you want to optimize your health spans, keep your your health span high for as long as possible. But what the medical system does, and this is what I've seen in my own personal life, is the medical system will does a great job of when you get to the very end, sort of dragging that process out or spending a lot effort. Keeping the vegetable state-ish. Alive so much, but keeping you from dying. And there's a long period of what we call morbidity where you've got a lot of, you know, maybe you can't breathe well, you can't walk well, you can't really participate in life in the capacity that you'd like to because your underlying condition.
00:21:29
Speaker
And what we want to do, what what we all want to do is we want that period of time to be as small as possible, compressed morbidity. yeah We're all going to have some morbidity is inescapable. We're all going to die. Like the whole concept is not about like, I don't want to die or live forever. i mean, who wants to do that?
00:21:45
Speaker
um But rather than have a long period of being hooked up to machines and and and living in and out of the hospital, why not have a short period of time where, you know, yesterday or last week or six months ago, you were sort of functioning at that at a very high level. And then there's a very sort of short and precipitous decline and you can pass away quickly and peacefully.
00:22:04
Speaker
generally in the, in the, in the context of being surrounded by loved ones who they love and care for you. So compression of morbidity is something that's really, really a big concept that, that, that aligns with me. And the reason that the reason in my own personal journey that that's come up is because Nicole's mom went through Alzheimer's journey. That's tough. That is tough to watch. It's so tough. It's so tough.
The Financial Burden of Long-Term Care
00:22:29
Speaker
And and it's just hard. I mean, hard, hard, obviously, for her, but also hard for all of her children. there there are not a lot of good options. Family.
00:22:41
Speaker
Yeah. and And here I am, I'm a physician, you know, I've got training in palliative care, which is sort of helping people navigate the end of life space. And even for me, I found it very hard help navigate that space. um You know, my own mom had Parkinson's and passed away with dementia. And so I also got to see her journey. And so in my own personal life, and and of course, having friends and family members that are dealing with with the same thing, you start to ask yourself, you know, is is there anything that I can do to Right now. Right, right now to either, you know, really it's not about, it's not about
00:23:18
Speaker
not dying or, or completely eliminating these conditions is about, it's about delaying them for as long as possible and sort of compressing that time that you have to deal with these things, you know, in the shortest, and into the shortest period possible. and And it's, you know, sure. Some of it's selfish, right? Like, like I'd rather not be in a memory care facility for a decade. But it's really more from my perspective, it's more about like what I leave behind, right? Like, I don't want my children to have to care for me. Any longer than they have to. I mean, I i hope they will care for me when when I need care. But, you know, if if they can do that for six months instead of six years, you know, I want to do everything I can to support that. And then from a financial standpoint, I mean, it's it's got a map it is absolutely catastrophic. You know, memory care is ten thousand dollars a month.
00:24:04
Speaker
um You know, many patients with ah dementia or Alzheimer's will live, you know, five to 15 years. Ten years. Yeah, right. In memory care. You know, the average the average sort of total cost of care for dementia patients about 400,000, you know, from diagnosis to to death. And and the out of pocket expense is about 70 percent of that. So, you know, just your average family that has a dementia diagnosis is going to be out three hundred thousand dollars, you know, carrying.
00:24:27
Speaker
you know And, of course, you you do whatever you have to do to carry family members. But still, um if you can mitigate any of that sort of financial harness, if you will, you certainly want to do
Sharing Health Journeys Online
00:24:38
Speaker
that. So that's that's a lot of— And then just from a biblical perspective, like we're supposed to be good stewards of what they' god what the Lord has given to us. And so that it also includes our body, right, and the temple. Absolutely, right? you know um Absolutely.
00:24:52
Speaker
So that's kind of how I got here and and and what I've been up to. Okay. So the the way that I kind of connected this is LinkedIn. You do a great job of posting things on LinkedIn and things that you've tried or like things that you've read about and then you try it on yourself. And so I used to be a pharmaceutical rep, which only really not a lot of people know, but Jason knows this. And I would come up to physicians and be like, hey, here's a double blind placebo study with this many things. like all this sudden Anyway, the average person doesn't really care about those studies. Like the person off the street not reading these journals that have these things. Right. But what we do care about is like people who are implementing this stuff on themselves and then helping us understand from a medical perspective what's happening and how the progress is going and what they're learning. And that's what you've done on your LinkedIn. So Jason Reynolds LinkedIn, he'll say, yeah, he'll accept it. And then you can read some of the stuff he's doing. And I think it's fascinating. So- Let's talk to our listeners just about that kind of what you're posting, what you're learning, kind of like. And then at one point, I would say, what's the top five principles that you are like, these are the things that I think probably have the most impact, but not yet. Let's just talk about LinkedIn. hey Okay.
00:26:02
Speaker
So I think there's there's there's two things that you hit on there. You know, the the the main reason that I started with LinkedIn was accountability. um You know, there's probably nothing...
00:26:14
Speaker
well more help than having some level account of accountability. And when you get into a public space and you start saying, hey, I'm trying to do these things.
Lessons from Health Experiments
00:26:22
Speaker
These are my goals. um And, you know, 100 50 200, anybody, if anybody's watching, um you have this level of accountability. Absolutely. You sure do. Yes, you do.
00:26:34
Speaker
So that was my initial impetus of of starting starting that. But the this the the other side of it was, you know, we don't have a knowledge problem in America or, you know, and in the West. We have an implementation problem. We know yes absolutely what we need to do or we should do, but we have no idea how to actually do those things. And the reason we have no idea how to do those things is because people just like me, ah people in the health care industry,
00:26:58
Speaker
world, um don't do them. um And we've never tried to do them. We know what you're supposed to do. And we tell patients all the time, well, you should eat a healthy diet and you should exercise and should get good sleep and all these things, but we don't do them ourselves. and we have no idea how to actually do them, right? It's an implementation problem that we all have. And so that's how the sort of the the name came around of implementing Medicine 3.0. I'm going try to figure out how to actually do this in my own life. and and And the reason that I came to that conclusion is because When I was a pediatric resident, I was you know single, unmarried, no kids, 20-something. And I have these moms come in with like six kids. And here I was like, giving them parenting advice. and it just totally Totally. I know what you, I know. It's such a joke. I have credibility here.
00:27:43
Speaker
right So I said, you know, I want to be able to, you know, help other people with this, but the only way to really help other other people with this is to figure out how to do it myself. If I can't do it, I certainly can't, um you know, help other people do it. So that's, that's really been what the journey has been about. since That's cool. Yeah. Okay. So top five things that you feel like you've learned from this journey of implementing medicine 3.0 and things that you'll like continue to do after you've tried them out.
00:28:11
Speaker
Right. So, you know, I think there, there, there are really three, three big pillars. And I think we, this is a sort of and another knowledge thing. I think we all know that we need to move around and get some exercise. Yep. I think we all know that we should eat right. And I think we all know that we need to get good sleep. Sleep seems to be the thing that's the most in the news lately.
00:28:33
Speaker
um You know, and and I would say my whole life, I felt like I've done pretty good at all three of those things. So the the first thing that is important is to have some sort of metric.
00:28:48
Speaker
that Measuring. bra How do you measure this stuff? objective measurement that you can track that actually it tells you if you're actually doing those things right and and and i think what probably lit the fire the most for me was I went and got a DEXA scan. don't if you know what a DEXA scan is. It's a, it's a, it's a body composition scan. They're, they're pretty widely available now. You can get one for like, I get them for like 40 bucks. You know, there's like a van that, that drives around and parks in Whole Foods and they, they, super safe, super sketch van, just get in, pay them money. But what it does is it tells you exactly what your lean body mass is and what your fat mass is. you know, and I'm six, four, and, you know, I probably oscillate between 185 and 205. And I never really look like I'm obese.
00:29:35
Speaker
But when I got the DEXA scan, my visceral fat was like off the charts. Okay. and And visceral fat is, it's exponential. Like it's not that bad as you accumulate visceral fat. But once you start accumulating too much, it really sort of takes off in an exponential fashion. And even though I felt like I was pretty healthy, my visceral fat was like wildly off the chart, put me at about six, six fold greater risk for, you know, cardiovascular disease and, and, and diabetes and other things. And at the same time, i actually, I got a hemoglobin A1C, which is sort of the, the test for diabetes. And I was actually pre-diabetic, which, which, which shocked me. Shocking. Yeah. Yeah. So what I thought I was doing or what I was doing and what I thought was healthy was was not actually translating to to some of the markers that we know are are strongly tied to all cause mortality and and clinical outcomes.
00:30:28
Speaker
um So those those two metrics were probably the most important metrics, but there are a number of other things that are that are easier to measure that that support those those those those metrics that predict all-cause mortality. So it's important to have some some some some metrics, I think, or some measurement to assess, am I healthy, am I not healthy, so that you have some goals that you're working toward. So once you get the DEXA scan results, what do you do next? Like, okay, got to eat healthier, got to exercise. So that's that's that's ah another ah great question, like leading perfect.
00:31:04
Speaker
So, you know, I follow every health influencer for the most part. And and just like when when we lived in Iowa, i've I've had this sort of self-experimentation mindset. um You know, i read ah I read a book by Dean Ornish and then another another guy, Michael Greger, and they're like, oh, you just got to eat plants all the time. You know, I know those. I know those ones. If you eat a steak, you're going to die tomorrow. And and so I was like, OK, I'm doing it. No steak for us.
00:31:33
Speaker
Yeah. So yeah um anyway, then then I then I, you know, i I tried various other diets, but, you know, the the diet that I was working on at the moment or at that time was this this sort of ketogenic diet. I was losing weight. I felt pretty good. But again, my sort of metabolic markers or, you know measurements, if you were, didn't didn't really correlate to to what I, what I was seeing. And did you get the DEXA scan? That was how you kind of measured that. And then did you do it what once every three months or what was your cadence of that? So I, I thought, well, I'm going to, I'm going to, going to optimize getting rid of visceral fat. Like I'm going to, I'm an extremist, right? I'm going to, I'm going to knock this out in six weeks, you know? so Dude, you and I are kindred spirits. i'm like ah Tell me how much exercise I need to do and what I need to, I need to lift weights or you know high intensity. What what I need to do. I mean, so that's part of the implementation process, right? It's not that easy. um It's not that easy. um And it's really multifactorial. And so,
00:32:33
Speaker
I implemented the zone two training. I learned what is zone two training. Um, you know, what is the heart rate that I need to be targeting? How often do I need to do it? How long do I need to do it? So I put that layer in, I put in a little bit more resistance training, but I didn't feel like that was going to be a big part of it. Um, I put in, um, you know, some high intensity interval training cause I felt like, you know, there was some research that said that was helpful. it' got to help, right? It's got to help. Right. It's got to help. ah You know, I tried to. Yeah, but I stuck with the the ketogenic diet, if you will, because I felt like there was some data to support that. And that was going to was going to help me get there faster. And all those things were helpful.
00:33:12
Speaker
But really, the the the thing that that that helps me understand the big picture better. And this is probably, you know, lesson number two.
00:33:23
Speaker
Is it right about, and I wrote a post on this on the, I think it's the surprising benefits of vacation or something along those lines. But um I was working hard for about six months and I've made a lot of progress. And then it was time to go on vacation with the family. And we'd been planning for a while, this sort of epic adventure through France and Italy and and and and Switzerland. And I just like, this is, you know, I've been working hard for six months. i'm goingnna totally blow it. Like I'm going to come back and and the wheels are coming off. coming off I'm going to eat the gelato and all the French pastries. hello And it's, is it's going to be terrible.
00:33:56
Speaker
But, but what happened was i went over there. um it was a three week vacation, which was a rarity. I went over there. it took me about a week to forget about all the daily stresses of my life here in in the States.
00:34:09
Speaker
um And then I walked everywhere. I ate the food that was available, which was all sort of locally sourced, fresh, organic food. you know, I didn't have to to try to find that stuff. That's just all they have over there. i was walking up and down through the mountains, probably getting some higher heart rate training, getting fresh air out in the forest with the trees, you know, looking at the mountains when I got up in the morning, getting the morning sunlight and all these sort of little things. And I was actually living physically.
00:34:34
Speaker
the healthy lifestyle. I wasn't just doing this or that or this or that. um I sort of put it all together in a, in a, in a, in a way that was sort of hitting all the boxes. And when I came back,
00:34:46
Speaker
My visceral fat magically dropped by about half. It was finally sort of in that ease category. I'd lost about five pounds. Let's go. My VO2 max, which is which is another sort of good measurement or marker for for longevity, was the highest it had ever been. you know um Despite the fact that I wasn't sitting on the Peloton or right doing these other things, I was just hiking through the mountains and walking everywhere and... And and that was a real eye-opener. And so it's it's it's it's there's not a single thing that you can do, right? And that's why everything fails. We want like a pill.
00:35:18
Speaker
Tell me is the one thing that I need to do and I'm going to be fixed. And it's not a one thing. it's It's really, it's all of it. And it's putting it all together, you know, and and moderation in all of them is is is is much better. It's all synergistic, if you will. Doing a little bit of each thing good um is much better than doing a lot of one thing.
Wearable Tech and Health Insights
00:35:37
Speaker
So do you like the wearables, the whoop, the ring? Which one do you like or which one do you decide? what i just want you to endorse one because I wear one. I'm not going to tell you which one until you tell me which one's better. than so as you might imagine, I've tried them all. So, um um you know, i have um I would say the one that I use the most is just a Fitbit. um um um And I don't use them all all the time. i i try to use them in a targeted way because if if and when when I'm using them in an untargeted way, they tend to sort of create some level of anxiety. yeah I'm so checking it What does this mean? There's validity that for sure. And there's, there's, there's a, there, there, like the whoop in particular, there's a concept. And I mean, the aura ring could be the same, but there's this concept with trying to improve your sleep that makes your sleep worse. going with those somnium. Yep. and Or you have a great night's sleep and you look at your whoop. You're like, wait, I didn't. And then you're like, I guess I feel like crap. Right. And you feel terrible that the day it's, it's,
00:36:38
Speaker
So um at the moment I use, I'm working on my sleep. I'm really spending a lot of time trying to understand how to improve my sleep. and And at the moment I'm using the aura ring for my sleep because I feel like it has,
00:36:51
Speaker
a bit better. ah I don't know that the sleep metrics are markedly better than the whoop, but there are a couple of other things that that come with the aura that are, that are unique, like the pulse wave velocity to assess your vascular health. And it has a six minute walk test to give you ah a different way to look at your VO two max. And, and I just wear it at night. I don't wear it during the day. yeah Less intrusive.
00:37:15
Speaker
Right. Man, it's fascinating. Just when you start going down these rabbit holes, how, I don't know, like you can just get pigeonholed and you're kind of a kindred spirit myself. But what I like about what you're doing is you're keeping that data and you're putting that out so we can consume it. And I love it.
00:37:30
Speaker
So i I just think it's great. So last thing I want to say, because I give ah get our guests pretty much every time we have somebody on the show, I give him this time to say like, where would you be without Nicole? Yeah. Because, you know, like if you think about it, it's bananas, but we never get to really edify them. And so this is my thing. So you've had a very successful career. I feel like the future with which what you have and the way that you've uniquely connected the breadcrumbs and how God's gifted you is like the sky's the limit with you, Jason. yeah But where would you be without Nicole and what she's done for your career and your family? Yeah.
00:38:06
Speaker
I mean, there's one word I would be lost, right? Like I was lost before Nicole came into my life. And I would be lost if she was not in my life. I would be totally lost. You know, um she is, is really the glue that holds our family together. um you know, I'm a, I'm a, I'm an extremist. I'm a type, it type a, um um and, and, and, and she can see a little bit different picture. She is, she is the CEO of our domestic operation. she,
00:38:36
Speaker
she You know, she is is heavily invested um in our kids and her husband and our family and our faith journey. And and especially, you know, especially keeping our kids on track. Right. Like, um i think yeah I think you mentioned it earlier. There's kind of a like ah a yin and a yang or whatever you want to call it between moms and dads and dads kind of like, yeah, just let them burn their hand
Acknowledging Personal Support and Achievements
00:39:03
Speaker
and they'll learn. And mom's like, well, what can do without the burn and they can learn?
00:39:07
Speaker
We can do things different. Can we though? Are we okay? We should do that different. That's probably right. Yeah. So, I mean, yeah you know, she is, is really the glue for the family. Um, um, I would be totally lost without her. She, um, there's no way I would have gotten, um, to where I'm at professionally, without her. Um, I think we, I can't remember if we talked offline about this, but you know, when I,
00:39:32
Speaker
when, when we went to do the palliative care thing, it's because like, she's like, yep, that's it. That's, that's what you We're doing this and we're doing it. Um, you know, and, and I never would have done that on my own. you know, and clearly that's what God had in mind for me. Um, and, and, and he put, put her on this earth to, to, to help me accomplish what he had in mind. Totally. Right. That's good.
00:39:54
Speaker
Yeah. But i and the the real thing, the the last thing I want to say about, about that is that, um, you know, marriage and, um, parenthood is clearly about sanctification, right? Like, you know, I would have, i would have zero chance, I think of, of, of, of working myself and into heaven without, uh, without, uh, without my wife, um, you know, to help me sort of work on my my own sanctification. You know, I tell people there's three huge sanctifying things in my life. The first one is I got married and I'm like, wait, what? I'm not perfect. Like what? Then it was kids. It was like, oh, I see them do things. And I'm like, that's not going to benefit you because that's like me. So don't do that. And the third thing is running a business. Like that has been really humbling. And I feel like you're basically business owner as well. um Just with the leading things you're doing with your practice and medicine. And so um I agree, but so grateful for our where our spouses take us and the support they give us. Because I tell people, this is kind of my tagline. Like if
00:40:58
Speaker
The whole world's against me, but Aaron's with me, my wife, I'll tackle the world. Let's go get them. right But if the whole world's with me and Aaron's against me, like I'm upside down, you know, like, so it's that one person that can really fuel you to be all that God's kind of intended you to be. um And they also the barometer, right? Like if you would have told her like, Hey, we're doing this. And she's like, no, we're not. And you'll be like, okay, I guess we're not. Yeah. They're also the first the reason. It's so true.
00:41:23
Speaker
yeah Yeah. So Jason, thank you so much just for your wisdom and just putting yourself out there as not only be held accountable, but authentic and just using the the way that God's wired you and your giftings to benefit not only just your listeners of readers, our listeners of LinkedIn, but also the people that you get to interact with every day because it's yeah Super impactful. And that's part of the reason why I wanted you on the show is like Uncommon Wealth is a lot about how much are you impacting other people? You're not just using these gifts to just make you rich. You're you're using these gifts to know, go serve people, go serve God people. And you're doing a great job with that. So if our listeners wanted to hear more about what you're doing or read your LinkedIn, how would they connect with you?
00:42:04
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I'm on i'm on LinkedIn at implementing m three for for Medicine 3.0. So you can find me there. And I have a small little Twitter account, but I don't use that too much.
00:42:15
Speaker
And I have a website that's not sort of fully up and running right now at implementing M3.com. um But really, LinkedIn is is is really my platform. I'm not trying to make a ah a lot of money or or really any money at the at the moment off of this. I'm just trying to, one, hold myself accountable, try to understand how do we implement these things in in my life and and and so that I can help others implement the same things in their life if they if they so desire. So.
00:42:40
Speaker
LinkedIn is really the way to find me. It's good. It's worth it. It's worth checking them out and you're putting up great content. So yeah again, thank you so, so, so, so much for being on the show. i have a feeling you're probably going to be returned guest and we're going to talk about all the things that we're learning.
00:42:53
Speaker
But it's grateful. I'm grateful just to have you in my corner or to be a part of my community. um And I'm thankful for just all the ways that you've impacted my life. So thank you for listening. Thank you for being on the show, Jason. You've been listening to Uncommon Wealth Podcast. Until next time, Go be uncommon and hold yourself accountable.
00:43:09
Speaker
Thanks for listening.
00:43:13
Speaker
That's all for this episode brought to you by Uncommon Wealth Partners. Be sure to visit uncommonwealth.com to learn more about our services. Don't miss an episode as we introduce you to inspiring people who are actively pursuing an uncommon life.