Black Sheep Medicine: Why Standing Apart Leads to Better Health

Introduction to personalized medicine 0:00

I think as a doctor, you're like basically, not that you are a therapist, but you need to know these things because if you aren't uncovering them, then you just kind of guessing and you treating something when you don't know the root cause of it. I definitely try to take the time to get to know somebody. I ask a very long list of medical questions that takes them 20, 30 minutes to fill out. Cause I want to everything about you. And then I wanna know kind of like, where do you think you're at? Like, do think your like.

some athlete you know rock star super health right now or do you think you're like really unhealthy because usually it's the people that think they're oh yeah i'm super healthy and i'll like dude you are a absolute train wreck right and we we gotta fix this So I just, I'd really try to meet people where they're at. I do not try. To discriminate, you know, everybody deserves to get 1% better every single day or 1%, better remod. However you want to do it, but incrementally everybody should be getting better.

Welcome to My MD Unscripted, where healthcare gets personal and the script gets tossed. I'm Dr. Clint Carter, ER doctor turned to direct primary care freedom fighters on a mission to challenge how our healthcare system treats patients in America. In every episode, my expert guests and I dive into real conversations about what's broken and how we can fix it by making healthcare about people, not just managing disease. It's time to rethink what healthcare should be and Hey y'all and welcome back to the My MD Unscripted podcast.

I'm your host, Dr. Clint Carter. And today I am honored and I mean that because his practice is much too much like mine. It's just going to be fun to have a conversation. We're joined by Dr Russell Van Mailey. He is the founder of Black Sheep Health. where he helps patients break away from the one size fits all medicine junk and pursue true optimization, hormones, peptides, movement, nutrition, and purpose driven living. He wraps his faith into his practice. I think it's beautiful. His approach blends performance medicine with a deeper focus on longevity and resilience and what it actually means to live well.

And we're going to get all into it today. So Dr. Russ. Thanks for joining us, man. And I'm going to let you introduce yourself properly, but I guess I'll open with the question that drives, it almost drives my practice. I mean, why most people come to me. The question is, Why do so many people feel like they're doing all the right things? Their labs look relatively normal and they still feel off. So with that, I am going let me introduce myself, and tell us how we got here. Yeah, my name is Russ Van Mealy.

Went to medical school at Michigan State. I grew up in Michigan. That's my career backstory, but my things that I'm really proud of. I've been married three years to my wife. Uh, I have two young children, a boy who's two years old and loves to play with trucks and get on my tractor every single day, which he is much too young for. And then my daughter was about to turn one in May and then You're in the throes, man. We are, we are in The Trenches right now, but thankfully I have a loving wife that is willing to stay at home because her job is a lot harder than mine.

So yeah, for sure. It was funny, actually one day she came, I had like a, this office is like 12 by 20 office and she in here one and it was like perfectly silent and that's how it is most of the time when I'm not talking to people and Is this how it is every single day? Yeah. It's gotta be, it's got to be quiet. Although they can't do, can do my job. So she doesn't get too much quiet, but I love my wife, love, my kids. And then, you know, at the, the core of everything is that I'm a follower of Jesus and I want to just walk with God every day.

Dr. Russ Van Mailey and Black Sheep Health 4:06

I stumble a lot, But I've always trying to get back up and that is my purpose in life is to follow him. Cause that's where I believe I am going one day, God willing. So yeah, man, trying to have every aspect of my life revolve around that. Well, we won't turn this into a sermon, but ultimately, forever starts now. The kingdom of God overlaps here. We're participating in God's plan going forward and trying to bring a little touch of heaven to those around us. I love that God has put you in this place.

How did you end up creating Black Sheep Health? And, uh, what does all that mean? Yeah. So, you know, I think it's like, was actually go back a second. I was reading Matthew this morning in the Bible and I always go to the, the parable of the talents of 10, 10 talents, 5 talents or one talent. 5201, but God gives everybody something. I might not have a billion dollars in the bank account, I may not a hundred dollars on the account but I can multiply that with whatever I have been given. And I certainly don't want to bury it in the sand.

I'm truly blessed. Honestly, I have to constantly tell myself how blessed I am because this life and this career being an entrepreneur is very hard. But to be able to in this situation and still support my family is the ultimate blessing that I just want give back to God and multiply his kingdom with those talents that have been given. But the story of Black Sheep, you know, I've been in the telehealth space for a long time. I kind of know the ins and outs of the whole game because I started in it basically right out of residency because that's when COVID happened.

That was in my senior year. or chief year of internal medicine and it all started there. I was like, you know, I'm a DO, so I do OMT there and I am cracking backs and necks and using my hands and everything in person and then go figure I become a telehealth doctor. I was always a little bit different as you can say as far as like how I handled medicine. I didn't like to put anybody on medicine if I don't have to. One, I always incorporate lifestyle first. And I wanted to incorporate my spirituality, my faith, and kind of push it on people, but encourage people to find their purpose.

Then I found out that a lot of times that worked for people. To get them to get healthier. So I felt like I've always been kind of the, everybody rolled their eyes at what I was doing. But then I always had a waiting list of people that wanted to see me too. So that being said, like a couple of years ago by and my brother calls me the black sheep of this family. Yeah, I moved to Arkansas just recently actually the rest of my family lives in Michigan. I still love every person in my Family and I Still love Michigan, but I do things a little differently.

And I'm not afraid to do it and take chances on things. Yeah. So at first when he called me that I was like, Dude, are you serious? So that's like pretty, it's a low blow, right? It's not, It doesn't always have a positive connotation to it. Thinking about it, I'm like, that a perfect name for a health company because of what I want to coach people and, and you know, treat people with like not like everybody else. I do not want everybody to follow in line with. all the sheep basically that are living in this world and nobody's thinking nobody is acting on it and everybody's just getting worse and worse so more and more unhealthy and I think there's a much better simpler way to do that so I kind of channeled that in and obviously you know a sheep has a lot of biblical ties to it as well because you Jesus like having the He, we are ha we're following him and we should be led by him.

So I just, I like the name. I took a long time to come with the logo and whatnot, but it's like, it'd fun to do this whole entrepreneur thing, But I'm really, really enjoying it. And it it, you know, as soon as I saw the names, like this guy already. Cause they are, I mean, people, what does everyone's complain when they go to the doctor? Well, they're moving us through like cow, you know, just spending time with us. We sit over here, then we go through this shoot to this room where we sit. The doctor comes in and stares at a screen and then he moved me down another shoot.

And I was like, and in the black sheep, there's like we're going to do it differently. Cause lifestyle modification is indeed a punchline in residency. They're like oh yeah, no one's going do that. So that's stupid. Yeah. Exactly. candy bowl of statins and start passing them out. And so it's tough. It's frustrating. You know, in residency, which a little window into like what residency is like for the non-doctor listeners out there. In residency clinic, you take over another resident's patients who took them over from another one and maybe they were with you for one or two years.

But these patients have seen like 10 docs in the last eight years and everyone just added medicine and no one ever took medicine off. These med lists are insane. Largely a lot of the patients are sick. Very much a ministry to be in a residency clinic if you've got the right mindset. However, like as soon as I got to my third year, maybe even second, but definitely third, I was like, okay, time to start taking you off some medicine. It's like let's find out what, figure out where we can stop. And the patients were confused like no, need all of these.

I'm like I don't think you do. Yeah. That's all they've known. that thought hasn't crossed my mind in like six or seven years, But you're so right. Those poor people just keep getting a new doctor every Yeah, sometimes it's less than that, but yeah, that was tough. That was, you know, residency clinics are by far the, I would say the hardest, one of the harder spots to practice medicine because it is culture. And it comes to you loaded with diagnoses and medications. Yes. It just gets, the list, both lists just get longer and longer.

Yeah. But that's a little, yeah. You're trying to avoid that. That's why we exist. They can't do that, you know? Something that satisfies me the most out of any patient that I see is having them come off of a medication that they didn't need. Every patient that I come in, I call it my medication reconciliation. It's got a nice ring to it. Every single one of my patients knows what med they take, how much of it they need to be taking and what is it doing for you.

Why patients still feel unwell despite normal labs 11:48

And then finally, can you supplement this with something else that's not a medication? Like something like exercise or eating healthy. Yeah. And that how I try to get people motivated to be like, hey, this one, you'll be on this forever. Okay. You had a heart attack. This one. I don't think you need to me on some forever and people are like oh, wow. Don't need it to on my antidepressant. Are you sure? We'll find out. Let's go. We will never know unless you try and there's certainly times that you tried and it doesn't work and you put somebody back on, but at least you've tried.

Antidepressants are great because there is a place for them to share. Absolutely. Well, however, you know, for me, when I got my antidepressant, I was, burnout from the ER, trying to start a practice, got another job, and it was just... Low tea, eating crap, overweight, just all the, yeah, of course, my brain was like just survival mode depression. And then eventually you start replacing the hormones and you get the exercise and start eating a little more healthy and it was time to focus on. something other than work.

And now, you know, with the grace of God, I'm not on antidepressant right now. I've been on it in the past. Been on vacation or two that we paid for it because I was off my antidespressants. But over the years, learned my lesson. So that's why this, and let's start talking personalized. You have a very personalized approach small panel of patients, a personalized approach to medicine because this thing that we're doing in life is a journey and it'd be great if your doctor knew you well enough to go on this journey with you.

Yeah. You know, instead of just like, well, I guess I'll go to the urgent care or the ER or this random telehealth guy or you know whatever. Tell me about your sort of how you approach taking on these patients one at a time. Yeah. Yeah, so I am all about the relationship with people. I get fueled by human interaction. Uh, I'm very much a extrovert and I just, uh, love getting to know people and, you know, tie in like faith in this when you kind of, Not that you're pulling the faith card, but you like, hey, I'm a Christian and I think I am going to the same place as you.

Like I trying to get to same places you in life. I try to walk the walk that your trying do. It's like the doors and the walls come down. And that's when you really get to know somebody. That's you find out about the family trauma or the childhood trauma that came out early in life and that is now why you are depressed. You find that dad was an alcoholic and thats why I have a problem with alcoholism. Dad hit me or mom wasn't around or some of these traumatic things that you can pull out of people.

I always, I spend a lot of time just chit chatting and that's why I'm blessed to have a small panel because I spent a whole lot time with people and you know, previously like other jobs and other job that I supplement with right now it's like, if I had a dime for every time I said I am sorry I was late. You know because am that guy, am like five, at least five minutes late for like every single person because 30 minute appointments, like I'm just so bad at it. I know I need to like do better. Have been told in all my reviews like, Hey, you need you better on a time.

But I was like enjoying the conversation. So, um, I think as a doctor, You got your, your like basically not the, not that you're a therapist, but you to know these things because if you are not uncovering them, then you just kind of guessing and you treating something when you don't know the root cause of it, So I definitely try to take the time to get to know somebody. I ask a very long list of medical questions that takes them 20, 30 minutes to fill out. Cause I want to everything about you. And then I wanna know kind of like, where do you think you're at?

Like, do think there's like some athlete, you know, rock star, super health right now? Or do you think you're like really unhealthy? Cause usually it's the people that think they're, oh yeah, I'm super healthy. And I like, dude, you are a absolute train wreck, right? And we, we got to fix this. So I just, really try to meet people where they are at. I do not try discriminate. You know, everybody deserves to get 1% better every single day or 1%, better, every month, however you want to do it. But incrementally everybody should be getting better.

And then for the aging population, which is longevity medicine, and which has literally every single person on the planet is aging. Thank you. Preserve it, you know, preserve the process. Do not have this downfall of hormones or just like, ah, throwing a towel. I just, it doesn't matter anymore. Well, I'm going to eat this junk. And I don't need to exercise anymore, too tired. It's like. Honestly, not that I don't have a good relationship with those patients, but we just don' drive. I want people that are motivated to want to take care of themselves and have goal in mind.

We're constantly setting new goals because what is the finish line in health? I don't know that there is a finish line, you call death the finish and everybody's trying to die healthy, but in reality, it's going to be a decline. It's just how fast do you want the slope to Right. I mean, we've had several generations now where the lifespan and the health span were very different. Right? Yeah. It's almost a decade of senescence, of just painfully, slowly dying, asking God to take you home for like 10 years before you finally, mercifully pass away and move on to the next.

the next life and it's like, that's not how it used to be and medicine got really good at lifespan. Yes. But it just, it was hard to measure healthspan sometimes. It wasn't, just it wasn' on the radar and now it is. And there's this whole longevity movement and quite frankly, every patient is a longevity patient. Right? And you are going to, your practice is and will be self-selecting for the folks. Like I also want people all in and trying to be healthy because number one, You're going to feel better.

You are going be happier. We can have better mental health. They're gonna have a better physical health, you know, we can talk spiritual health you can't just sit there and take enough medicines to keep your cholesterol down and expect that to make you fulfilled. Um, God put, there's a reason, the two most important days of your life is the day you were born and the date you found out why. Right? You know, then while, and it will have all these, you know especially all those years in the ER, someone have a big old terrible accident or a heart attack or whatever.

You're like, I don't know why you're still alive bro, but God's not finished with you yet.

Building trust through long-form patient conversations 19:48

That's that patient that gets us all fired up. All right, let's go. Let's help you. Patients come to me and I'll be like. I guess I'm doing. I mean, I don't know why I am here. Guess I doing well. No, it's great. You're not on fire. That's awesome. There's nothing wrong with that. Let's talk about the next decade. Yes. So let's go. Tell me about your personal longevity. Yeah. So my approach to longevity, you know, goes back to the root, find out if they're, meet people where they are at, do they have, are they on medications?

Do they a medical history that's been managed by residents or whoever in the past, basically put out any fires at first. Right. Build the foundation. And in my practice, and I know it overlaps with you too, but my foundational principles are always going to be exercise, nutrition, how you manage stress, How you sleep and your faith and purpose. I'm trying to add community in there, but I think that's part of the faith and purpose. Because you got to have people around you to support yourself. All of these Blue Zones, they all have wonderful communities that they are very much socialites.

They're hanging around people, laughing. You know, I can easily right now, if I wanted to I'm in a, my, you know empty office with just me talking to a computer all day long. I could do this like all, day, every day. And I need to see people. So my wife hears all my stories and whatnot and my kids and what not. But, so those, those core principles are where I start everybody. and I very much follow a natural approach. I am not natural in the sense that I don't use hormones, I do not use peptides, because I absolutely use all of those things.

But like with a house, if you build on a terrible foundation, it's going to crumble. I think that's what most people are doing right now, especially with like GLP-1s. They're trying to build a building house that looks nice on the outside, but it has a horrible foundation. I really think we, in medicine, we always underestimate the core concepts of just basic health. That kind of gets pushed to the side and we're always like, all right, what's the biohack that I can do? How many minutes do I need to be in that cold plunge?

I'm like dude, forget about the cold Plunge right now. When's last time you've exercised? I love it. I loved the peptide consults. Like I want to talk about peptides. You've got way bigger problems. Much bigger problem. Do you think a BPC's 157 is going to fix your arm that's falling off right now? I don't think so. So yeah, everything goes back to natural. And then, you know, I try to be the first example of that. I tried to practice what I preach. Try to exercise most days in the week. Last six months I got into jujitsu.

So I've got like a guy yesterday kind of smashed my face in. You should see what he looks like though. Oh, of course. But you should just see the other guy. But I love to do hobbies that are active. I loved a mountain bike. This jujitsu has been a hobby of mine. Biking with my family, we raise our own chickens. We'll probably have horses one day. If I had it my way, I'd be living off the land. And then I've got a buck hanging from my wall on the other side. Yeah. But hunting and fishing, living off the land, exercising, bare feet most of the time.

I try to be as natural as possible, but then meet people where they're at. If you're in New York City, you can't live my lifestyle, right? So we got to work around that. Yeah. But that's where this type of medicine is really cool because we're all about what's your longevity protocol? What's you're peptide protocol, what your hormone protocol. I'm like, I don't know how to put it into a protocol everybody's going to be a little bit different and this person might not need that peptides or that. hormone and your hormones might be fine on your own.

I think it really does come down to personalized care, knowing the person, and establishing that relationship where they trust you, not only as a person but your knowledge too, carrying out the journey like you said. Yeah, and I was going to ask what tools you use, but you covered a lot of them. I mean, obviously the foundation of exercise and diet and you know, they don't teach us anything really about exercise or nutrition in medical school. Well, I'd like to get that out there for the listener.

Yeah. If you make an appointment to go talk to your doctor about nutrition, he's going have to Google it. Like unless they've done extra education and really dug into what's really going on, Cardiology has been telling people to do low-fat diets for 50 years. I mean, how's business? Yeah, it's not good. It's, you know, just luckily it is the information age. The information's out there. Sometimes it's hard. The problem is you can get someone to tell you whatever you want to hear, whatever, you're listening for.

Sure. But you know, the plastics, toxins, just the processed crap. It's lovely that it is becoming more mainstream. The functional food and exercise a bit, the grounding and even some of the spirituality of it is becoming a little more mainstream because you're largely a post-Christian society and technically in most of country. Maybe not East Texas and maybe not all of Arkansas, but largely like the spirituality is kind of cool again, because it's, cause your grandma's not preaching to you every Sunday or something.

I don't know. But, it was great. It's kind become a mainstream because. And then of course the peptides and hormones and the GLPs, which is technically a peptide and all the other, the functional medicine tools of supplements and that kind of stuff. And we're not even technically functioning medicine trained over here at my office. My partners in some other related offices are. Are you functioning, medicine-trained? You know what? So I wouldn't say I'm a carnivore, but I eat meat and eggs every single day.

But I like eat, meat, and veggies is kind of my go-to 90% of the time. My first conference was the Institute of Functional Medicine. And I did that in residency. And I was like hardcore keto at that point. Like that's when keto is really... Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So I'm like, hardcore Keto. I haven't had over 50 grams of carbs in six months at this point and I, I I show up at the conference. And this is for me. that it was a vegan conference after like the first or second lecture. And I'm like, it, was all vegan speakers.

No way. Like the Esselstyn's of the world and whatnot. I mean, they're like meat's going to kill you and eggs are going kill, you saturated fats are gonna kill and everybody's like. Yeah. Whoa. I had like, I just had eight eggs for breakfast. Yeah. But, um, so, that was like the only like functional medicine conference that I've ever. You went to the wrong conference. Um, honestly I'd never been to an A4M. Just do, have to do a lot of reading. And I got to stay up to speed with that. Honestly with the access to information these days, you know, can you can go down the rabbit hole and make your own functional medicine.

I actually don't even like the term functional Madison because I feel like everybody and their mother is a functional Medicine doctor like overnight like

Foundations of longevity: lifestyle before biohacks 28:30

influencers on a Functional Medicine expert. I'm like, hey, my bachelor's is in physiology. I've always been a nerd when it comes to science, and that will never change. Like, physiology doesn't change, so if you can restore your natural, God-given physiology, that's what functional medicine is. That's right. I don't like to say I'm functional medicine trained, but like I do, I definitely go to conferences and whatnot. I went to the last A4M, you want to know what their pillars are? On every, every lecture, Every topic, it all comes down to, diet, exercise, sleep, stress, and gut health is a part of that.

And so like, I mean, those are your pillars. I know. It's not rocket science. What I like about, what I do like, about the A4Ms or, you know, IFM, functional medicine training places, is they are expanding the reach of people that can get that, I guess, certification, get knowledge base and help people out, right? Sure. So I'm happy that more people are going to be exposed to that except that It's not really apples to apples, I mean, you know, it's extra special to me when it is the MD or DO that also has the functional medicine training, right?

You at least have the ability to go, ooh, wait, no, your not ready for that. You need actually traditional medicine right now or we won't get all the function stuff. Absolutely. To be able to offer both is a sweet spot. Yeah. But I wondered, cause you, you know, I wonder if you were going to say no to that question because you're doing it all right. I'm the same way I would go get functional medicine certified, but I am a little too busy trying to grow direct primary care so that more patients and more providers and staff get to experience medicine this way.

Right? Yes. And then it's an important part of what we do, it is not where we're spending our time just now. Yeah, and I was all for like this movement. If people are getting healthier from this movement, great. And I am all for it and I want to be part of it. As a physician, I wanna take on the people that are maybe a little bit more complicated or that need a combination of Western medicine with functional physiology. Right. So, and it's all about just having that long-term relationship. Cause I do, I believe that, you know, should be invested in your health.

I think it kind of crazy that somebody can make a million dollars a year and not want to spend a couple thousand dollars on their health when, when in reality they have close to a hundred thousand coming in a month and they're afraid of spending 1% on. It's kind, that's a crazy concept. Because at the end of the day, if you don't have your health, you're kind of done. You're not going to do your job as well. to the fullest if you're not grounded in those things. So, I totally want to transition to purpose and how you see that affecting people's, you know, how their spirituality and their purpose affects their physiology, not just their philosophy, right?

And it goes kind of to what you were just saying to some extent, and like, He came from the wealth management world, but it was a leadership thing. But he was like, hey, all these wealth-management folks, the studies all proved that in order to retire well, you need three fits. You need money and everyone expected the other two things to also be money. It was money, purpose, and health. Right? You have money in health, if you have no purpose. Who cares? You could have money in purpose, but if you're not healthy enough to enjoy it, whatever.

And if he had health and purpose because you don't have any money, that's probably the best of the three, frankly. Yes. But it's hard to remember that way. Entirement's not really a biblical thing anyway. So tell me how you handle this, how do you bring purpose in? I know you said you were trying to bring community into purpose and I would say that Literally no one's purpose ever is themselves. Purpose by definition is outside of oneself, which brings in some sort of community. I think that's definitely, so if you want to tie that into this pillar, but how do you see people's health?

Yeah. So you got to establish, I mean, you gotta have that rapport. You know, you got to get that rapport later. You got get to know them before you kind of unleash that bomb. Hey, what's your purpose? People aren't just going to like come out and say it. It usually honestly happens at the second or third meeting. And once they've established like that, they trust you. Right. So I do, I am careful about like, What's her purpose. I will start with like who are you doing this for? Are you doing it for yourself in regards to getting healthy?

Are trying to get healthier for your self or are you trying do it to do for somebody else? And whenever anybody says themselves, I'm like, okay, but that's probably not going to last. Because as a Christian and as Jesus did when he was here on earth, it's servant mentality. Right. I find so much more purpose when I'm serving my family, serving, my wife, Serving my kids. When I kind of back out of my own selfish desires, that's when find that I am at my best self. And then magically things just fall into place.

It's kind wild how that happens. Well, you're way less likely to let them down than you are to, let yourself down about something you've told no one about. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. That's two different worlds. Yes. So, you know, I'm always trying to do things for other people. I am not always good at it. Honestly, like being married, having kids, and I found out how selfish of a person I was, how much I actually think about myself. And I have to catch myself a lot going like, like be better to your wife or like, you know, like get off your phone.

Like that doesn't matter. Your kid playing in the bath right now, You don't need to be checking emails while you're doing bath time. Actually be present. So, and that's my world. Right now, and I love it, but how I translate that into my patients is really finding out, hey, like, yeah, you've got your job. You know, most people that I work with are very, they're very high up in their careers, right? They've been very successful on paper. But you and I both know that you're not taking that with you when you go to heaven.

So there's got to be more to it. And that's why I try to just always just pick away at until you find out like I have, you know, one of my patients has a young daughter that has cerebral palsy. And everything he does is for that little girl and her quality of life to everybody else is not good. Right. She was unfortunately born with that terrible disease, but his purpose is making sure that she is loved, she has cared for, and she just loved every single day. So when you find that out. then you can start tapping into, all right, we've established like what you are, you feel like you're here on this earth for.

And I encourage you to keep asking God what that purpose is because the goal posts in life constantly change. Like, I think the ultimate purpose for Christians is to follow God, follow Jesus. But as far as like, that's the long-term goal. What are like tangible goals and purposes? What does that look like in the moment? What does it look like? Let's establish that right now. So once you find that, it's really amazing because you'll find these biomarkers and whatnot that you're following and measuring health off of really do get better.

And that's where he asked like, where does physiology take place? Well, I think it first starts in cortisol, the hormone of adrenaline, fight or flight. That is wrecking every single person and from social media, from thinking that, you know, me being 35 years old, You know I follow guys that are 35-years-old making millions of dollars a year. I'm like. I'm never going to be like that. Right. That's like not good for your health.

Purpose, faith, and physiology 38:00

So just trying to eliminate the noise, have a clear focus of where you're trying go and put blinders on the rest. And once that happens, you are sleeping better. You're finding out that when you're exercising, you can just actually meditate on the muscle fibers that are actually just pulling the weights up and down. And if you ever had like one of those sessions of exercise, it's amazing because you literally come out of it going like, whoa, what just happened? It's actually amazing. That's why I try to meditate.

The bicep is the easiest one. You can just pick out all your fibers contracting. When you build these muscle-neural connections, it's very amazing because you're just going to When you're blocking out the noise, you can focus on doing things with purpose. You're more intentional and you are present. And when in this world, when we're like so scatterbrained because we don't know what our goals are or where we are going, You do a little bit of everything and your not good at anything. Or you fail subjectively because you aren't doing one thing really good.

Your bad at everything else. So, I don't know if I really answered your question because it's tough to answer, but I do find that when people find what they're searching for, and that's evolution too, they might not know initially, once they find out, They're sleeping better. They are wanting to exercise more because they understand that, hey, if I do this, I can be mentally more clear. And if they need to hear that like, Hey, did you know that if you are mentally thinking clear, you could probably increase your salary by X amount, right?

If you do that you can maybe work five less hours a week that. You get to spend that with your kids. So like you always got to find where people like find that like touch point that carrot you dangle in front of people they're like that's that what I'm finding. Go ahead. Lastly, just like from a physiology perspective, you see inflammation drop, hormones get better, sleep improve, IGF-1 recovery improve. You see organ health improve there's a lot of things that go along with that. And sometimes you can look at how purpose helps health by, by looking at the opposite, right?

What does a lack of purpose look like in people's lives, like burnout, inflammation, really bad habits. You know, there's no, I'm not failing at my purpose if I just give up and stop trying. And so that it's really, you, can't optimize a life that has no direction. What are you optimizing for? Right? You can, you know, the best pickup truck for hauling things is optimized differently than a race car. What is your why? What I've loved about being an entrepreneur over the years, because I became an entrepreneurs because, I couldn't do anything else.

I was either going to quit being a doctor or I'm going start something special and I hope God blessed it. And if not, I wasn't going go build tree houses. That's actually a tree story. Okay. Another story another day. But, but what I liked when I, when, uh, started diving into how to do this well, well I started getting into the goal oriented. Where's your why? Get some good who's around you. Like all of these get, get the right people on the bus going in the direction and all these. this business world wisdom that you can apply right here.

You know, it's, true. The reason it works in business is because business full of humans and humans, they can't, humans work in a 90 day world because if you try to give me a goal more than 90 days from now, I don't care and or I'll forget. And I need to be able to have closure on. So that's why. frequently have 90-day follow-ups on a lot of my patients. I'm just like, well, I think I am good. And I was like yeah, you probably are. But if I check some labs on you in 90 days, then you definitely won't fall off the horse, right?

So that's not where they are on there. Some people are so highly motivated. who literally I would be in their way if I saw them every night. Most people, it's fun to be like, hey, I'm just gonna be some accountability and a way to check in and encourage you and maybe help you take a next step and it could be a short visit. I know we have an hour planned. You don't have to spend it all. We always spend. Yeah, exactly. And I do that with my patients too. Everybody gets 90 day labs, regardless of what tier they're in.

Some of my higher tiers, like hey I am checking in on you monthly. Yeah. And I always schedule it for a 15 minute, but I block out the next half hour of my schedule because sometimes the conversations get deep or maybe you found that purpose on that call randomly. You weren't expecting it, it just happened to come out. Once again, I'm very blessed to be able to have that. I know most doctors do not have the luxury of time, But I have it thankfully. But, Peg, what you just said, my therapist, counselor, whatever you want to call her, I think it's a very healthy thing.

You have a, you know, like a doctor you have when you're healthy. If you don't get a Doctor when your sick, then you get one when healthy, but you got a therapist when mentally healthy you, know? Pretty much added a point. I'll think of something. Yeah. Wow. Don't worry. And honestly, it has been one of the, she's like, a faith-based counselor that I got referred to by another, I consider him like an older brother of mine. He's in the same space. We work together. And, but something that she said, which applies to her case and as a counselor and us two as physicians was she, said I wish would hit the fan sooner.

Yeah. Because if people could see, like in her world, if you could that your actions right now are going to lead to divorce in 10 years, would you change what you're doing right? If you can see that you actions or lack of actions, I should say right. Now you are gonna get a heart attack in ten years or you going. To get dementia. You're not going roll the dice. I say it's 75% of people don't get it. And you, you know, hit the lucky number. What if I could guarantee you that? You were going get. would you change right now?

Because everybody is in this kind of, and we play this game all the time of like, I can't play God here, or I cant tell you if you're gonna get a heart attack. And it's crazy, some of the people that we expect to get heart attacks, don't get hearts attacks. There's people we don, you know, expect it, they drop dead. It doesn't make sense, so we can expect play god, but, Man, if people could just see that their little tiny actions, because they don't see them right away. If I don' work out today, does it really affect me tomorrow?

Not really. Maybe, maybe not. Then that just becomes normal. And then you start developing other bad habits, which aren't going to kill you right away. It's just kind of wild. You wish you could just hit somebody with a hard reality right off the bat to just get them clear and be like, hey, you need to figure stuff out right now. It was a great Simpsons episode where Marge walks in on Homer, eating a jar of mayonnaise and drinking a 12 pack of beer. And, and she's like, I won't try to do her voice, but she was like Homer you really think that's a good idea?

And he's, like that future Homer's problem. I sure am glad. And you're like, the writers are so good. That's so human nature. I'm so glad that's not, I don't have to worry about that.

Accessing Black Sheep Health and closing thoughts 46:30

This future Clint's problem. Yeah. Not my problem right now. Yep. Cause we can deal with it. It's it's, not the end all. Man, that funny. Gosh. What you're doing is awesome. You're stationed in Arkansas, but you are telemed, so I mean, what's your reach? Who can reach out to you? How do we get ahold of you, tell us about all that. I got a big reach, I'm licensed in all 50 states, So I can see anybody anywhere. within nine, not any time. I like to work regular hours, but I, my company, black sheep health is a personal, you know, doctor patient relationship.

It's, it's me and my other employee and she handles just about everything and I handle the people. So it a, a small company but it we have access to just. Anything and everything in the whole longevity space. so the blacksheephealth.com and Yeah, would love to find out if anybody wants to be a client. People will call. I know that you're young in this business and you already got a lot of momentum and it's not by accident. This is a need people want personalized. you know, medical advice. They need someone, they need a relationship with a provider to walk through this.

And if you're not a Christian, it doesn't matter. You still have a purpose and you were created for a reason. So your faith is super valuable to all your clients from whatever walk of life they come from. Absolutely. Really, it's really great to meet you, man. You as well. I spied in on your website. It was like, oh, I'm going to like this guy. Yes, yes. it has been a pleasure and I appreciate you having me on. Yeah, man. Well, we should definitely circle back, check in from time to time. Yeah. I'm going to do something like more, more topical with you because you've got a great sort of, you know, this whole longevity space and, and your foundation, your pillars and all of that are all beautiful.

So likely we just need to come back and talk more typically from the time, but I'd love to have you back on. Appreciate you coming on the show. Yes, thank you so much. Appreciate you. Absolutely. Have a good one. Thanks for joining me today on My MD Unscripted. I hope today's conversation opened your mind and inspired you to imagine a better path for your health and therefore life. If you found value in this episode, be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone passionate about transforming healthcare.

Real change starts with real conversation, so let's keep on going. Until next time, stay well,