Hey friend,

I ended my last email with something I believe deeply:
We’re not the hero of your story.
You are.
Now, before you think this is about to turn into some hoorah email telling you to take control of your life, believe in yourself, and go conquer the day…
It’s not.
Actually, I want to go somewhere quite a bit deeper than that.
Because being the hero of your own story isn’t always exciting.
Sometimes it’s humbling.
Sometimes it’s uncomfortable.
Sometimes it means admitting that what you’re doing isn’t working.
Sometimes it means listening when you would rather push.
Sometimes it means letting go of who you thought you were supposed to be.
And sometimes it means trusting someone enough to let them help you see something in yourself that you can’t quite see yet.
I’ve had to learn every one of those lessons myself.
And I want to share that story with you.
Not because my story is your story.
It’s not.

But because one of the privileges I have as a doctor is getting to sit across from people and hear pieces of their lives they don’t always get an opportunity to say out loud.
I get to ask questions.
I get to listen.
I get to hear what happened before they walked through our doors and what happens after they leave.
I get to hear about the good days and the really hard ones.
The things they’re worried about.
The things they’ve tried.
The things they’re frustrated by.
The things they desperately want to get back to.
And the things they’re almost afraid to hope might still be possible.
And after doing this for years, I’ve noticed something.
Sometimes I can see something in a person that they can’t quite see in themselves yet.
Not because I know them better than they know themselves.
I don’t.
And not because I have some magical ability to know exactly what’s happening in somebody else’s life.
I definitely don’t.
It’s because I’m standing in a different place.
I’m not inside their problem. I’m standing beside them.
And from there, sometimes I can see a pattern that’s really difficult to see when you’re the one living in the middle of it.
I can ask a question they haven’t thought to ask.
I can connect two things they hadn’t realized might belong in the same conversation.
I can remind them of progress they’ve forgotten because they’re so focused on how far they still have to go.
Or sometimes I can see that the person sitting in front of me is trying incredibly hard to force an outcome…
when what they actually need might be permission to stop forcing for a minute and listen.
I know that one particularly well.
Because there was a time when somebody did exactly that for me.
And looking back, I think he could see something in me that I couldn’t see in myself.
I told you in my last email about the concussions I experienced and how hard I was fighting through them.

Here’s the interesting part:
On paper, I knew a lot about concussions.
I was in school learning to become a doctor.
I knew the information.
I was getting adjusted.
I was trying different therapies.
Lasers.
You name it.
If I thought it could help me heal faster and get me back to what I wanted to do, I was willing to try it.
But underneath all of it was the same question:
“How do I FIX this so I can get back to being me?”
And eventually, my mind and body made something pretty clear.
What I was doing wasn’t working.
Then a doctor entered my story and did something I wasn’t expecting.
He didn’t start by trying to fix me.
He started by trying to understand me.
And that distinction ended up changing far more than my recovery.
It changed the kind of doctor I wanted to become.
He asked questions.
But they weren’t just the questions I was used to hearing.
Where does it hurt?
How bad is it?
What does it feel like?
Those things mattered.
But he wanted to understand what was happening outside the walls of the clinic too.
What was I trying to accomplish?
What was I asking of myself?
What was happening with school?
What was happening with rugby?
What was I doing between appointments?
How was I sleeping?
What seemed to make things worse?
What allowed me to recover?
What was I afraid of losing?
And ultimately:
What did I want my life to look like?
He wasn’t only trying to understand my concussion.
He was trying to understand ME.
And that was different.

Looking back now, I can see what he was doing.
He wasn’t stepping into my story as the hero who was going to save the day.
He was becoming my guide.
Come to find out, he had walked through some similar experiences himself.
So he brought training and expertise.
But he also brought empathy.
He could meet me where I was because, in some ways, he understood what it felt like to stand there.
And because he took the time to understand the whole picture, he could give me feedback that actually meant something.
Sometimes he’d evaluate what was happening and essentially tell me:
“You’re pushing too hard. Dial it back. You need to rest.”
That was NOT what I wanted to hear. 🙂
Remember who you’re talking to.
Fight.
Push.
Don’t quit.
Find a way.
I wanted him to tell me what else I could DO.
Give me another therapy.
Give me another exercise.
Adjust something.
Laser something.
Tell me what I can add.
Instead, sometimes the guidance was:
Do less.
Rest.
Recover.
Wait.
And I’ll be honest…
There were times I didn’t listen.
My ego would get involved.
I’d feel a little better and decide that surely meant I was ready.
I’d push.
I’d cross a threshold my mind and body weren’t ready for.
And I’d end up going backward.
Sometimes significantly.
Those setbacks were frustrating.
But eventually, they taught me something I apparently needed to learn more than once:
Taking ownership isn’t the same thing as taking control.
I couldn’t force my body to heal on my timeline.
But I could become responsible for how I responded to the information I was getting.
That’s a very different thing.
Eventually, I started trusting the process differently.
If he said:
“Rest.”
I’d ask:
“How long?”
If he said:
“You’re ready to push a little.”
I’d ask:
“How far?”
What should I do?
What should I watch for?
What does too much look like?
How will I know if I’m ready for the next step?
Sometimes the answer was a light workout.
Sometimes it was something so small that an average person looking from the outside might have thought:
That’s it?
Yep.
That was it.

Because that seemingly small thing was what I had the capacity for in that specific moment.
It wasn’t about what I used to be able to do.
It wasn’t about what the guy beside me could do.
It wasn’t about what my ego thought I should be able to do.
It was about meeting me where I actually was…
and taking the appropriate next step from there.
Then we’d get feedback.
Learn.
Adjust.
Take another step.
Sometimes push.
Sometimes pull back.
Sometimes rest.
Then try again.
And slowly, something inside of me began to change too.
I stopped obsessing quite so much about getting back to the old me.
And started asking a different question:
“Who am I becoming through this?”
That question was hard.
Because if I’m truthful, I wanted the old me back.
I wanted the guy who could push through anything.
The athlete.
The fighter.
The leader.
The guy who could take the hit, get back up, work harder, and find a way.
There were parts of that person I loved.
There still are.
But life had happened.
And taking ownership required me to acknowledge that.
I could spend all of my energy trying to force myself backward into a version of me that existed before all of this…
or I could take an honest look at where I was and start building forward.
I had to stop trying to become who I was and become willing to discover who I could be.
That didn’t mean giving up.
It didn’t mean becoming less driven.
And it certainly didn’t mean abandoning the things that made me who I am.
It meant growing.
Learning.
Adapting.
It meant recognizing that the very thing that served me beautifully in one season of life might need to mature in the next.
My willingness to fight wasn’t bad.
I still have plenty of fight in me. 🙂

But I needed to learn something I hadn’t learned yet:
When to fight.
When to rest.
When to push.
When to listen.
When to ask for help.
When to let someone I trusted see something I couldn’t see for myself.
And when to put my ego aside long enough to actually follow through.
Maybe your version of that looks nothing like mine.
Maybe there’s no concussion.
No rugby.
No scholarship.
But I wonder if there’s something in your life you’re trying desperately to get back to.
The person you were before the injury.
Before the baby.
Before the diagnosis.
Before the stressful season.
Before you started taking care of everyone else.
Before life changed.
Maybe you’ve thought:
“I just want the old me back.”
I understand that.
But sometimes I wonder if there’s another question worth asking:
What if the goal isn’t only getting the old you back?
What if there’s an opportunity to become someone with even greater understanding?
Greater wisdom?
Better boundaries?
More capacity?
More appreciation?
More clarity about what actually matters?
Maybe ownership isn’t only about recovering something you’ve lost.
Maybe it’s also about participating in who you’re becoming.
That changed things for me.
And that’s where the relationship with my doctor became so valuable.
He could see things I couldn’t.
He could give me feedback.
He could challenge me.
He could encourage me.
Sometimes he told me to push.
Sometimes he told me to back off.
Sometimes he gave me the tough love I needed when my ego was getting louder than the feedback my mind and body were giving me.
But there was one thing he could never do.
He couldn’t do the work for me.
He couldn’t make me rest.
He couldn’t make me listen.
He couldn’t make me follow through.
He couldn’t make me ask better questions.
He couldn’t decide what mattered most to me.
And he couldn’t take ownership of the direction of my life.
That part belonged to me.
I had to listen.
I had to ask questions.
I had to make decisions.
I had to act.
I had to stop chasing every shiny object promising another fix.
I had to learn from setbacks.
I had to trust.
I had to put my ego aside.
And ultimately…
I had to take ownership.

That’s what being the hero of my own story actually looked like.
It wasn’t standing on top of a mountain with my hands in the air.
It was often much quieter than that.
Sometimes being the hero meant resting when I desperately wanted to push.
Sometimes it meant doing the boring little thing nobody else would celebrate.
Sometimes it meant admitting I was wrong.
Sometimes it meant asking for help.
Sometimes it meant trusting someone.
And then getting up the next day and doing the next right thing again.
And friend, that’s the relationship I want with you at Live Better.
I don’t want you dependent on me.
I don’t want you blindly doing something because “Dr. Joe said so.”
I don’t want to pretend I know your life better than you do.
Because remember:
I’m not inside your problem. I’m standing beside you.
You live your life when you leave these four walls.
You know what it’s like to wake up in your mind and body.
You know what happens at home.
You know what your family is navigating.
You know what matters to you.
You know what you’re hoping for.
And if you’re making decisions for your child, nobody knows that child the way you do.
You see the mornings.
The bedtimes.
The great days.
The really hard ones.
The meltdowns.
The laughter.
The setbacks.
The wins nobody else notices.
The tiny pieces of progress that might look meaningless to somebody on the outside…
but mean EVERYTHING to you.
I need that perspective.
Because your voice matters.
My role is different.
My job is to listen.
To ask better questions.
To evaluate.
To bring the training and experience I have.
To look for patterns.
To help you understand what I’m seeing.
To give you honest feedback.
To tell you where I believe we can help.
And to tell you when I don’t believe we’re the right answer.
To celebrate progress with you.
To challenge you when that’s what you need.
And sometimes, because I genuinely care about you, to tell you something you may not particularly want to hear.

That’s what a guide does.
A guide doesn’t take your story away from you.
A good guide helps you understand it more clearly so you can participate in where it goes next.
And I think that’s incredibly hopeful.
Because taking ownership doesn’t mean:
“I’m on my own.”
I think it’s almost the opposite.
You can intentionally surround yourself with people you trust.
You can ask questions.
You can learn.
You can listen.
You can get feedback.
You can change direction.
You can admit when something isn’t working.
You can rest.
You can push.
You can grow.
You can dream again.
You can ask for help.
You can choose the people you want walking beside you.
And then…
you have to take the steps.
No one else can do that part for you.
That’s where the hero comes in.
Not because the hero knows everything.
Not because the hero never struggles.
Not because the hero doesn’t need a guide.
But because eventually the hero has to decide:
“This is my life.”
“This is my family.”
“This matters to me.”
“And I’m going to participate in what happens next.”
Sometimes that’s the enough is enough moment we’ve talked about.
Not rock bottom.
An awakening.
A decision to stop waiting for somebody else to take responsibility for the direction you’re going.
Looking back, that’s what changed for me.
I stopped asking:
“Who can fix me?”
And started asking:
“What do I need to understand?”
“Who do I trust to help guide me?”
“What do I actually want?”
And then the most important question:
“What is my responsibility from here?”
That changed the trajectory of my life.
And it changed the kind of doctor I wanted to become.
Because I don’t believe the best doctor—or coach, mentor, parent, or guide—should make you less capable of navigating your own life.
A great guide should help you become MORE capable.
More informed.
More confident asking questions.
More aware of your patterns.
More willing to listen.
More connected to what matters.
More capable of making decisions.
And more willing to take ownership of the life you’re actually living.
That’s what that doctor did for me.
And it’s something I hope we can do for you.
But there’s one last lesson from that season I want to leave you with.
For most of my life, progress meant one thing:
MORE.
Work harder.
Push harder.
Do more.
Get stronger.
Keep going.
But recovery taught me that progress doesn’t always work that way.
Sometimes before I could build…
I had to settle.
Sometimes before I could push…
I had to recover.
Sometimes before my system could handle more…
it needed to become better organized around what it was already dealing with.
And then…
when the time was right…
we could build.
A little more.
Get feedback.
Adapt.
And build again.

Looking back, there was a rhythm to what my guide was helping me learn.
Today, we have language for that rhythm at Live Better:
Calm.
Organize.
Build.
Those three words sound simple.
But there’s a much bigger philosophy underneath them.
Because the goal isn’t to make you dependent on a perfectly calm life.
Life isn’t calm.
Kids aren’t calm.
Marriage isn’t always calm.
Work isn’t calm.
And anybody who’s been alive long enough knows life has a way of changing the plan. 🙂
So if we can’t remove every stressor…
what exactly are we trying to build?
That’s where I want to go with you next.

Dr. Joe

LIVE BETTER.