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Scot: Wins, what we're working on, and what's next. That is today on "Who Cares About Men's Health," with information, inspiration, and a different interpretation of men's health. My name is Scot. I bring the BS. The MD to my BS is Dr. John Smith.

Dr. Smith: Good afternoon.

Scot: And he's a "Who Cares About Men's Health" convert, it's Producer Mitch.

Mitch: Hey there.

Scot: All right. So one of the things that us as guys should do is we should be paying attention to our health. Health is something we kind of have to actively manage, and I think a lot of times us guys can take it for granted. We've talked about this before.

The other thing, too, is we can tend to just focus on what we need to do without focusing on the wins. And that's important.

So today on the show, we're going to talk about our wins, what we're still working on, and what's next as a way to kind of model how maybe all of us guys could start thinking about health in a more healthy way. First of all, by celebrating those wins, acknowledging that we've got stuff to work on, and acknowledging that there are things that we would like to make a little bit better.

So, as we work through this episode, I would love you to think about what are your wins, which I bet you that's going to be the hardest one for most guys to come up with, what you're working on, and what's next.

We'll share ours and it'll be interesting to see . . . Guys, I'm curious to see if ours overlap, if the three of us overlap, if there are any common themes.

Mitch: I'm sure it is.

Scot: I'm imagining there will be, but I guess we'll find out.

So I'll go ahead and kick off mine. My wins, I've been consistently strength training two times a week for a year now, which is a huge win for me.

Mitch: That's way good. That's consistent.

Scot: Yeah. I weight trained all my life for two months at a time, and then eight months not. So this has been huge for me.

Another one of my wins, two months ago, I stopped drinking. I stopped drinking beer. That was normally my beverage of choice.

My other win is my social media time is way down, which is something I know is not super healthy. I'm not saying social media is bad, but I'm just saying it could be a waste of time when you could be doing some other things. And there is research out there that shows too much consumption is not great for your mental health.

So those were my wins. I guess I lied. Let's go ahead and do an overview of your wins, Mitch, and then we'll get Dr. Smith's, and then we'll talk wins.

Mitch: So for me, a couple of things. Number one, I quit smoking again for my eighth time back in March. And then it was, what, the last week of May, I was completely off of nicotine again.

That was kind of something that . . . I hate to have done this big quitting on the episodes and everything, and then to back slip, but I was able to do it again. And so we're now two months strong of absolutely no nicotine and feeling pretty good about that.

Scot: Good.

Mitch: I've been doing a very slow version of the Who Cares About Mitch's mid-May 5K, trying to get back up to going after my more recent ankle injury, two in a row. And I'm back to being able to jog for the full 30 minutes without worrying about my ankle hurting again.

Scot: That's awesome.

Mitch: And I finished couples therapy, which was a weird thing we might want to revisit in the future.

Scot: Really?

Mitch: Yeah.

Scot: I didn't know you were doing couples therapy.

Mitch: I know. So without going into too much specifics just yet, it was 10 months of figuring out relationships. And it was a ride. It is a very different place today than it was last fall or whatever. Really kind of cool. I'm really proud of that.

Scot: All right. Dr. Smith, since you're a doctor, I'm sure you've got none of these because everything is just A-Okay, A++. You're just smashing it, thrashing it all over the place. But if you had to think hard, what are your wins?

Dr. Smith: Yeah, I was the guy who graduated residency only 75 pounds overweight. So that was a big W, right?

Mitch: Only?

Dr. Smith: So yeah, there's plenty to work on here, trust me. And if you don't believe that, just ask my wife. She'll give you a few other things I can work on too. I'm just kidding.

I think the health stuff for me has been paramount the last several years. I had actually put the effort in to try to slim down a little bit, and I'm down about 60 pounds from what I was at my heaviest, which has been good, but it's been a slow slog of a process.

It's been years of me taking a couple of pounds here and a couple of pounds there, and then gaining a few on a vacation, and then having to get back into routine. I'm very happy that I've been able to just kind of whittle that down. As time has gone on, it's been very beneficial for me.

But more recently, I've started to do a little bit more of the strength training and working out on a more regular basis. I used to just say, "I'll go play basketball," or, "I'll go play soccer with a pickup team," or whatever, and that was my exercise. But now I've actually been more proactive in the last six months to eight months or so of being consistent, working out about three times a week with a good friend of mine.

I have somebody that I can be accountable to, which is huge for me, is to have an accountability partner in that. That's really what I've suffered from a lot.

The other thing I've tried to do is to be more cognizant about my sleep recently. I feel like I'm just a better person. My temper is better. My temperament is better when I'm rested.

And so those are the three wins that I think I have, obviously. And not perfected yet, but working on it. Those would be three things that I can kind of hang my hat on and feel pretty good about.

Scot: I love it. I love that we were all able to recognize that it's a journey and that, like you just said, Dr. Smith, I'm not necessarily where I'm at, but I'm going to go ahead and put that in the win column, right? I'm going to go ahead and acknowledge that down 60 pounds or consistency with strength training, which we both seem to be sharing.

I'm sure we both now understand the importance of strength training, especially as we age and we start losing muscle mass, and the importance of muscle mass just to our overall health. And the sleep thing as well.

Anybody have any questions for anybody else that you want to dive into?

Mitch: Yeah, I want to know what was the one that you guys are most proud of? What was the hardest one and what was your strategy this time that made it work?

Scot: I have a feeling that's a guy that just quit smoking again. I'd imagine that would be your answer. Would that be your answer out of the couple's therapy, running a 5K, or smoking?

Mitch: Oh, that's a hard question.

Scot: Really? I would think smoking would hands down be the hardest, but no?

Mitch: Well, I had done it before. I've done it before a lot. And so, especially this last time, which was the one that was the longest, it was the one that was the best, most step-by-step, one that I worked on with my doctor and stuff like that. I knew what to do this time around. It still sucked.

But honestly, I think it's the couple's therapy thing. That was something where you had to kind of look at yourself. You had to do a lot of being really vulnerable and talking about things and talking about how you talk about things, etc. And that's next level. So that was the one that I think was harder than quitting smoking of all things.

Dr. Smith: Fair enough.

Scot: I think for me, consistently strength training two times a week for a year, much like your smoking, I've stopped and started this thing a lot, right? And I think we talked about some of these strategies for being successful with your goals. I implemented some strategies that I found in some books about, "Can you habit stack? Can you put the habit you want to develop on top of another habit?"

I was able to put the strength training right after an obligation I have on Tuesdays and Thursdays outside of the house. It's on the way to this obligation both there and back, and it's just like, "All right. I'm done with this obligation. Now I'm going to go do my exercise."

I did have a couple of little hiccups in it. The gym that I was going to was in our office building. We're no longer in that office building. And it was awesome because nobody else used it, so I was the only one there. It was like a private gym.

I've since had to go sign up for kind of more of a public place to exercise. But I knew what I was looking for. I was looking for machines probably over free weights, and I was looking for a place where there weren't a lot of people around.

And I guess after being consistent with it for like six months, that transition actually turned out easier and I was dedicated to it.

And also, with drinking, I've stopped numerous times for prolonged periods of time. But I think that's the hardest because so much of having a beer for me is habit. It's, "Oh, going to do some yard work, grab a beer. Going to go out in the garage, do some cleaning, grab a beer. It's a Friday night, going to sit down have a couple of beers."

I'd imagine smoking is kind of the same way. I had to replace that habit with something else, which was drinking water, which is not nearly as fun.

Another strategy was I would always make sure I would eat a meal any time I had an urge to drink. And I started kind of getting these drink mixes to satisfy my sweet tooth, like your Crystal Lights or stuff like that. And that helped.

So I would say for me it was drinking. How about you, John? Which one was it for you? I'm going to guess with the 60 pounds, based on the fact you said it took a while.

Dr. Smith: Yeah, it took a long time. It's funny, there's a picture in one of our clinics on the break room refrigerator. The first couple of months I was in the office, we had a meal with the staff. We just brought in lunch or whatever, and someone was taking pictures, and they put one up on the fridge. There is a clear distinction of the way I look now and the way I looked then.

We have new employees that come in from time to time, and someone will say, "Oh, yeah, Dr. Smith's picture is on the fridge." And they'll walk in there and they'll go, "Where?"

Mitch: Oh, that's cool.

Dr. Smith: And then I'm like, "The fat guy in the back with the glasses," because it was during COVID where we had to wear eye protection and stuff. It was right when we had kind of come back from being out of the office. And so it was kind of funny.

No, it's really great. For me, it was just kind of a paradigm shift. I love to eat. It's part of the things I do. When I go places, I look for opportunities to have the cuisine of the place that I'm at. I feel like food to me is . . . there's so much that you can gain and garner from food and also sitting down and breaking bread with people, so to speak.

And so it was a paradigm shift because I love breakfast and I will just eat like 1,000 calories of breakfast, then I'll have lunch, then I'll have dinner, and by the time I'm done with the day, it was huge.

So I kind of did a pseudo-intermittent fasting where I don't intermittent fast because of necessarily the benefits of intermittent fasting, but just the benefit of me not taking in 750 calories during that first meal of the day.

So that was really the thing, and it's one of the things I've stuck with. I always joked with my wife, because after I got out of residency, I was like, "Man, I need to lose some weight." And it took me a minute to get the kind of the desire and drive to just say, "Okay, I'm going to do it."

And then once I did it and I felt better, it was so much easier to keep doing it. I was like, "Oh, I feel so much better than I did now that I'm down 25 pounds, 30 pounds, 40 pounds, 50 pounds." You feel better, you move better. There are just all those things. And so that's really been a good motivator for me, is feeling better, being able to move better. When I do go play pickup basketball or I play soccer with people, my body moves better. I feel better.

And so that's the one I'm probably the most proud of because it's not something that is super easy, and I do enjoy eating. It's one of those things where it's more of I do have to have the discipline to do it.

Scot: Well, that's cool. I think kind of a theme I heard here that can be important for us guys to remember is sometimes success takes time. And sometimes there are a few failures before we start getting to a point where we're like, "Oh, I'm starting to see some success."

You might try something and you might do all right for a little while, and then you kind of fall off the wagon or whatever. I mean, that's fine, right? That's part of the process, I think.

And sometimes I think as guys, we can think, "Then that means we're a failure. Why do I even continue to try? If you can't just decide you're going to do something and do it . . ." But that's not realistic, I don't think. I'm hearing a little of that in all these stories.

Dr. Smith: I was just going to say the sports analogies, you've got these teams that are these amazing teams, and none of them are ever undefeated except for the Dolphins. And guess who didn't win the Super Bowl?

I mean, in reality, you've got to look at it. You're going to have the days where you're going to take an L. That Chicago Bulls team still lost 10 games, 9 games, whatever it was.

Those are the things you look at and you really have to keep perspective of, "Hey, man, I'm not going to be perfect at this. There's going to be a day where I'm going to wake up and go, 'I want a breakfast sandwich really bad,' and I'm going to go get a sausage, egg, and cheese breakfast sandwich. I'm going to eat the hell out of that thing, and it's going to be 600 calories."

Scot: Is that really an L, though?

Dr. Smith: No. I mean, it's not for that day, but, again, it's not the norm to help you reach your goal, right?

But I think the other thing that you brought up is replacing that beer with something else. I think that's a huge one when you're trying to overcome some of those things, like cigarettes and if you wanted to stop drinking or other habits that you have. You've got to replace it with something, because our lives do become so habitual. You wake up, you go to the bathroom, you brush your teeth, you shower. You have this routine.

When I do my yard work, I grab my weed whacker and a beer. That has to become a new paradigm. When I go out with my friends and I do have a beer, I always have a cigarette with it. You've got to change that mentality if you're going to do that.

And I think over the years of patients that I've helped through different things, that's a huge thing while we get to the things we're still working on, is that.

And then the other thing that I've found is having an accountability partner. And that for me, to parlay into the workout that I've been doing, I had zero interest in waking up to go work out. Then this good friend of mine was like, "Hey, I don't like working out either. What if we both wake up and we're accountable to each other, where we both have to meet each other at the gym, and then you're expected to be there because I'm going to be there? And I'm going to expect to be there because you're going be there and I don't want to leave you alone."

And so that's been huge for me. That's probably the only reason I've kept it going so long. I wake up and I go, "I can't leave that dude hanging out at the gym by himself."

I think those are the two biggest things that we kind of look at to help us get to that next level. Those are the things that help me get to the next level.

Scot: Yeah. And another thing with these wins is sometimes you've got to look at the mini-wins, right? Something you said, Dr. Smith, reminded me of . . . With the habitual nature of beers, you're absolutely right. I went out to socialize with some people and I'm like, "How am I going to handle this? I kind of want to keep this streak going. I don't want to do it." But that's normally what I would do, is I would have a beer.

I have a friend of mine that we get hot wings every month, and I had to say, "All right. I just need to do it this one time. I just need to prove to myself that in this situation where it's a habit for me, I can say no. I'm going to buck that. I'm in control. I'm not going to give into that habit."

And then after that, if I decide next time maybe the modified version is I don't drink at home, but when I go out with this friend, I can have one.

But I find that once you get those little mini wins, you start building on those and it starts building your confidence, or whatever it is it builds. So yeah, thanks for reminding me of that. I appreciate that.

Dr. Smith: Yeah.

Scot: All right. I think we could talk about wins a lot longer, but let's go ahead and start on our "still working ons." So my still working on, even though I've strength trained for the past year consistently two times a week, even though one of the reasons I gave up beer was to see if I could shed some body fat, I'm still working on my body fat percentage.

It is higher than what is considered healthy. I thought that the strength training and getting rid of alcohol would help, because my diet is already pretty healthy, I think. But I must be eating too many calories because I'm really just kind of staying at the same weight.

I went and got a BOD POD, which is this thing where they take your body fat. I wish I would've done it a year ago when I started strength training because I would like to have compared it to that. But instead, what I'm comparing it to is the very first BOD POD I got six years ago. I'm in the exact same place I was six years ago, both in body fat and in muscle mass, which is a little disheartening because I've been doing this strength training for a year.

Now, I don't know, maybe a year ago I was five pounds lighter on muscle mass. I have no way of knowing that. So maybe actually what's going on is good.

I will say a little mini win for the body fat percentage in the BOD POD is my lean body weight is exactly the same six years later as it was then, which I know as we get older, guys start losing that. So I'm like, "Oh, I'll take that. That's good."

Dr. Smith: That is a W.

Scot: Yeah, so I could throw that. But still, my body fat percentage is higher than what is considered healthy and I'd like to work on that. I've got to figure that out. And that's kind of my main one, I guess.

My energy level is another one we've talked about on this podcast. Sometimes it's tough for me getting through the day. I feel like my sleep schedule is pretty good. I think otherwise I'm doing the right things. So maybe I do need to make an appointment for sleep apnea, like we've talked about. I do have restless legs like Mitch does. Maybe I'm micro waking up numerous times throughout the night and I'm not getting a good night's sleep.

But those are my working ons. Those are the ones I'm paying attention to. Mitch, what are your working ons?

Mitch: Same on the body fat thing. I'm back to jogging, I am back to working out with my buddy Rob once a week, etc., and I am the same. And it's at unhealthy levels and I try to track calories. I try some of these online programs, and I'm still heavier than I'd like to be.

Scot: Trying to get that out and working on it, yeah.

Mitch: But the one that's a little different for me that I'm working on is that this past year, I've been working with an ADHD specialist to get all of my meds, all my brain chemistry zeroed in.

But one of the side effects of changing from one thing to another to another is my sleep schedule is wrecked. I have the hardest time from . . . you spend a couple of weeks on medication trying to see if it works, what it does to your brain, etc., and you lose a bunch of sleep, or you can't fall asleep, or whatever.

And so I'm now to this point where I'm having insomnia again. I'm finding it difficult to stay asleep, etc. And so, for me, that's something that I really, really need to either find a specialist about or just really recommit to some of that sleep hygiene stuff, because it has been a rough couple months.

Scot: That's tough. Dr. Smith, what are your still working ons?

Dr. Smith: So many things.

Scot: I wonder if for a lot of guys this would be their longest list.

Dr. Smith: Oh, yeah. I'm still working on my weight. I'd still like to get down to what I would consider my fighting weight that I was at back in college. I think I could get down to that and still be very healthy. But that's going to take the next level for me to change my diet. The ice cream bar I ate last night at 10:30 when I got home will have to disappear, that kind of thing.

Scot: Dude, let me just say in my diet thing, the ice cream, I've been eating ice cream a lot lately. And when I started counting my calories recently, it's shocking how many calories ice cream has for the serving sizes that most of us serve up.

Dr. Smith: Oh, yeah. I mean, if you really get down to it, there are a lot of those things you look at and you go, "Holy crap."

Scot: Yeah. I mean, we're talking when we're trying to lose fat, sometimes 200, 300 extra calories a day can make the difference between losing and not, or gaining.

Dr. Smith: Well, the fun fact of the day is an extra 500 calories in your diet a day is a pound a week.

Scot: Okay. Yeah.

Dr. Smith: So 3,500 calories is a pound. You extrapolate that over seven days, and that's . . . Looking at the actual math of caloric intake is what kind of started me losing weight. I was like, "Well, if I can drop 500 calories a day, that's a pound a week." And I was like, "Well, that breakfast sandwich I eat is 750, so if I ditch that, that's a pound and a half a week." And that's me ditching just the one thing, changing one thing in my diet. Not to get off topic.

But yeah, I'm still working on a little bit of weight loss. I think I'm very healthy. I think when people see me, they're like, "Oh, you look great." I mean, I do definitely see improvements in my body mass and just my overall look. But at the same time, personally I would like to get down to where I feel my best.

And so it's kind of lame that it's a win and a working on, but I think it also speaks to what you've said, is it's a long-term process, right?

Scot: Right.

Dr. Smith: Another thing that I'm working on is sometimes my wife is like, "Are you not excited about this?" And I'm like, "What do you mean? I'm very excited." She's like, "You look absolutely like you'd rather be anywhere but here right now."

And in reality, I'm excited about it, but I just don't . . . I guess I have a blunted emotion or something where I don't show it, and I'm trying to be better because I think it does change the mood when I do show a little bit more excitement.

I don't know if that sounds weird to anybody out there, but I am kind of just a . . . I mean, as much as I like to joke around and cut up and have fun, when there are things like that, it's like I do have kind of this, "Oh, that's great." And they're like, "That's it?" I'm like, "Yeah. I mean, it's great. What are we doing? Are we jumping around? Are we high-fiving? I mean, are we spinning in circles?"

But I've noticed that when I'm more upbeat with celebrating the wins for my kids, I think that's where I've noticed that. And so I'm trying to be better with that.

Generally when things happen, I just kind of take them at face value, like, "Oh, that happened. That's great." But it's not something where I kind of go a little bit more. And I've seen my kids, when I do that, I think it seems that they work harder or they feel the pride that I have in them.

Does this sound weird, guys?

Scot: No, it doesn't sound weird at all.

Mitch: No. I'm into it.

Dr. Smith: It's something that my wife will talk about, like, "You seem like you . . . I understand you're proud of them," but it's literally like I'm the dad that's like, "Good job, son." I want my kids to know how proud of them that I am because they work hard and they do their thing, and so I'm working on that.

That's something that's just my personality. I don't have that as much with those things. I kind of take it matter of fact. When my wife and I found out we were pregnant with our first kid, she called me and she was like, "Hey, I took a pregnancy test." I was like, "Cool." And she's like, "And it was positive." I was like, "Awesome." She's like, "That's it?" And I was like, "I mean, it's not like we're abstinent and I'm kind of shocked by this."

Scot: Awesome is awesome.

Dr. Smith: I was like, "That's great, dude. We were planning to start a family. This is great." I think she wanted a little bit more out of it. And I get it from her perspective. It was a super exciting time. I was also probably terrified out of my mind at that point to go, "Dude, you're going to have to take care of kids too. You're probably not going to be good at this."

But those are the things that I work on because I think that those things are important for me as a father more so than anything, with my kids to have them feel that.

I mean, I could go on with other things on the list, but those are two that I've kind of put at the forefront at the moment.

Scot: The excitement and enthusiasm, exuding more of that, I think that's . . . I resonate with that to the extent that I have a trait that I tend to be a little bit of a downer at times and I'm trying to change that as well.

I don't know if this ties back to health. This is "Who Cares About Men's Health," and I'm not a psychiatrist, but I'd imagine, John, in your instance, if you exude more excitement and enthusiasm, like you said, other people react to it. And it's kind of also for oneself, the fake it until you make it mentality, right?

Dr. Smith: Yeah.

Scot: If one is more excited and enthusiastic about the exciting and enthusiastic things in life . . . And let's just face it, when those things come along, we should celebrate it and be excited about them. It can be hard sometimes to remember that because us guys can be kind of stoic in that way. We're excited, but we're not jumping up and down, Muppet flailing, or anything like that.

Dr. Smith: And I don't think it even takes that sometimes. I think it's just a little bit more of a bigger smile or a bigger hug or a second high-five or something like that. I get accused of being like the dad from any movie that you see where the dad is just ho-humming it and he's like, "Good job, son," but he's really proud of his kid.

You know they're proud of their kid, but it's kind of like the dad has to be the dad still where they're like, "I'm still watching you."

Mitch: One of the things that my therapist has actually brought up before is . . . I think he called it the vulnerability of emotional participation. And it's this idea that men in particular need to be strong, and we need to subdue one thing or another. Even when we are excited, we don't necessarily participate. We don't bring that energy in because who knows how people will react to it. And so I think I'm struggling with the same thing too.

Scot: I like that one. That was a good one, John.

Dr. Smith: I think that's really a way to . . . I mean, the way Mitch just put that, it's like, "Boom." But yeah, appreciate it.

Scot: I think it has to be beneficial to our mental and emotional health, right? I think there's research that says if you smile and laugh more often, you're healthier. You're mentally healthier. So why wouldn't exuding more excitement and enthusiasm and sharing those moments with people and then feeding on their excitement, enthusiasm? I would have to believe that there's some research out there that says that this is a good thing. I love it.

Dr. Smith: I think I've mentioned, too, at work for me, I tell my staff that I'm not allowed to have a bad day. I don't know if I've mentioned that to you guys before, but people don't care what's going on in my life. They're there with a medical problem and I'm there to help them with it. And so I need to be on when I'm at work. Not in a fake way, but I need to put that stuff behind me as a professional and say, "Hey, I'm here to do this."

And I can do the same thing with my kids of, "I'm here to be your dad," and having that emotional vulnerability for that moment. I can celebrate this with you and really give you what you deserve in that situation.

Scot: Yeah, I like that. I like that comparison to your work life versus your personal life. Why would they be different? I mean, they're both kind of performative in a way. And I'm not talking performative in a bad way, but like you said, you can't have a bad day and you want to bring your best you and the best energy and attitude you can to the environment that your patients are in. So why wouldn't we try to do that around the house as well with our family?

Dr. Smith: For sure.

Scot: All right. So what's next? I'm going to go ahead and throw out my what's next first. My mental health. Lately I've kind of been struggling to find motivation to do things and find things that bring me satisfaction. Don't put me on suicide watch. It's nothing like that. I have no desire to do any of that sort of thing, but everything is kind of eh/meh.

I actually had a session with a licensed clinical social worker, because what ended up happening with this is I go through my brain in circles of what could be causing this. Is it external stuff? Is it my current job? Is it something at home? Is it something inherently with me that's going on? Is there a medication that needs to be taken? And why am I trying to figure this out when I have no knowledge of any of this?

So I had a really great session where we talked through some of those issues, and just saying them out loud was really powerful. Saying them out loud welled me up a couple of times. It helped me think about them just slightly differently.

So I'm excited for the next session coming up, but that's the next thing I want to work on, is trying to find more in life that brings me satisfaction and joy. I think sometimes we get caught up in what we have to do to survive that we . . .

I mean, what a place of privilege I'm talking about trying to achieve this, and I realize that, but I think it's something, just like our physical health, we need to actively engage in to try to live the life that's the most rewarding for us, whatever that might be.

Mitch: Well, congrats, by the way, of noticing there was something that was not leading you to live the best version of yourself for your life and going in talking to someone.

Scot: Don't congratulate me yet, because this has been going on for 10, 12 years.

Mitch: Well, sure. I know. But we need to celebrate those little, "Hey, I went and talked to someone and it's not . . ."

Scot: I would tell Scot from 10, 12 years ago, "Go do it after 5:00." If you haven't figured it out by 5:00, you're probably not going to figure it out on your own. I mean, I've done a lot of work. I've read a lot of books, listened to a lot of audiobooks. I've tried to search for answers on my own.

And in a class that I teach, I teach an audio editing class, I tell them Adobe Audition can be brutal because you might run into a little problem that's going to take you a day to figure out what's not working right, and it's going to take me eight seconds to show you why it's not working.

So why aren't I doing that with my mental health? Somebody else might be able in eight seconds to go, "Well, have you considered this, Scot?" And I'd be like, "Oh, okay. No, I hadn't." And you're on your way.

So that's my what's next, is really kind of pursuing that, because that's part of my strategy for trying to age well. As I get older and head towards retirement age, and I'm still years away, like 10, 12, 14 years, but I want to set myself up for the best possible position for the next years of my working life and also for my retirement life. So that's why I've decided that's my what's next.

What's your what's next, Mitch?

Mitch: Same. What's funny is that it's just been over the last couple of months that I just kept telling myself . . . I was struggling with motivation. I've been struggling with, "What am I even doing?" I'm having a hard time not zoning out or just kind of going through the motions, etc.

And in my brain, I was just like, "Well, I know what I need to do. I need to figure out my brain chemistry. Oh, I know what I need to do." And so I spent like eight months doing that. And then it's like, "Oh, I know. It's because I don't have a super strong relationship right this moment." And so I went and did all the super hard work, and I'm like, "Okay, great. Now, I got that." I'm still struggling with it.

And so it doesn't matter that all of these other pieces and parts were kind of finally solved. I'm in a much, much, much better place today than I was a year, two years ago. But I'm still struggling with finding excitement. Where can I find successes?

My next is to recommit to the things that I have done in the past that I know have worked before, the journaling gratitude, really focusing on that Core Four stuff so I'm in my best physical state, so my mental state can actually enjoy being in this body that I have. And so that's what I'm working on. That's what's next for me.

Scot: Got it. What's next for you, John?

Dr. Smith: So mine, and Mitch kind of hit on it at the end, is my gratitude or just being grateful for the things around me. It's like you said. We've got the first-world problems of trying to fix certain things or different things. I'm beyond blessed in the things that I've been able to do in my life and be a part of. And I made a New Year's resolution to tell the people in my life what they mean to me and how they've affected my life.

I recommitted to this after we did that episode with the mental health guy, where he talked a little bit about that kind of stuff, and I realized I had not been good at that.

And so I've been really trying to focus on that because I think strengthening those relationships, especially with people that I'm close with, and then just people that I don't see very often, friends, family members that I see that have really made an impact in my life, giving them the gratitude and letting them know what they mean to me has helped me to want to be a better person in a lot of ways.

And so that's the thing that I want to just continue to work on and do, and that's my what's next, is to try to be as consistent as I can with that. I think it makes the world around me a better place and builds my community to a better situation where it's beneficial for all the members in my "community." And that's what I'm doing next.

Scot: I love it. I love that all of our what's nexts had nothing to do with physical health. Our what's nexts had to do with mental health or emotional health or the social aspect of our lives brings good mental health as well. I think that was kind of interesting.

Dr. Smith: I think that's a huge part. I think we look around, and that's really what makes everything good. I mean, you can sit in a room by yourself and you'll go absolutely nuts.

Mitch: But you can be super fit and super healthy in that room alone, right?

Dr. Smith: Right. And then you're still going to go nuts, but you'll be doing pushups while you're nuts.

Scot: Just put a mirror in there so I can see how good I look, how young I look.

Dr. Smith: Yeah. But those other relationships of . . . You doing the couple's therapy, doing those things and letting those people know around you, "Hey, you're the reason that I do this or that, and you really inspired me to do these things." I mean, a lot of those people . . . you may not know the impact that that puts on somebody, but I think those people, I want to make sure they know that they've affected my life in a positive way.

But I think that that stuff is the essence of life. And as I get older and mortality kind of sets in as I see people around me as we age, those are the things that become important. That's what I'm noticing.

Scot: Well, this was a good conversation, I think. I think this was a fantastic conversation. Thank you for being honest and sharing very openly, as I know that can be really hard for guys to do, while we talk about our wins, still working on, and what's next.

It's always good to take stock of those things, not only trying to pull out where your successes are, but acknowledge that you want to continue to improve on those. I think that's where most of us really do well. I mean, I think we all identify the places we'd like to improve, but we don't celebrate the wins.

And then maybe even looking at the horizon. How can I build on what I've built on already and take it to the next level?

Hopefully, as you listened, you thought about your wins, your working ons, and your what's next. If you would like to reach out and share any of those with us or have any thoughts or comments on the show, you can email us hello@thescoperadio.com.

We'll schedule another one of these conversations I think maybe in another six months or a year from now.

Mitch: I like it.

Dr. Smith: That sounds great.

Scot: I think that's good. I think it's good to continue to reflect and talk about it. Thanks for listening, and thanks for caring about men's health.