Episode 754: How to Overcome Burnout + Stress

 Kiera is joined by Steve Adams, CEO and founder of Tiger Medical Institute, to talk about the ever-timely topic of overcoming burnout and stress. Steve shares both quick tips and long-term strategies to disarm stress on demand and improve sleep methods, including:

• Watch a diaphragmatic breathing video on Youtube

• Have a regiment morning and night

• Stop looking at your phone after 6 p.m.

• Plan an ideal daily schedule

• Create a goal stack

• And more!

About Steve: Steve Adams is a former corporate banker and veteran entrepreneur. His passion lies in optimizing the performance of entrepreneurs and high achievers. Steve has the expertise and extensive experience in building and scaling organizations through disciplined execution, direct-response marketing, and a culture that leads to extraordinary client experiences. Steve earned a bachelor’s in marketing (Northwood University) and MBA in Finance from Grand Valley State University.

Steve is the founder and CEO of a personalized medicine organization based in Seattle called Tiger Medical Institute, serving individuals seeking comprehensive restorative medicine for professionals, executives, and entrepreneurs.

Steve is also the author of several books, including Passionate Entrepreneur, Unleashing The Peak Performer Within You, The Eye of the Tiger Manifesto, and Patient Number One.

Episode resources:

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Transcript:

Kiera Dent (00:01.223)

Hello, Dental A Team listeners, this is Kira. And oh, I'm excited today. I always geek out with people that can help me overcome burnout and stress because I don't know about any of you, but that tends to be like my daily mantra. And so with that, I have Steve Adams, CEO and founder of Tiger Medical Institute. He's here, I'm excited. I'm gonna like geek out and ask all my questions. That's selfishly why I brought you on the podcast today, Steve, so how are you? Welcome.

 

Steve Adams (00:26.57)

I'm doing well and you can ask me any question you want. I'd be happy to share what I know.

 

Kiera Dent (00:31.211)

Excellent. Well, okay. You got my interest. You picked my interest when you guys submitted in I get inquiries constantly. I mean, truly the podcast, I probably get five to 10. Like within every single day. So we're getting inundated with it. I usually say no to most. But when you said you're going to have science back strategies for overcoming burnout and stress, I'm like, sign me up. I'm asking selfishly for myself. So that was what piqued my interest. But Steve, you got to tell us a little bit of background. How did you get here?

 

Steve Adams (00:37.982)

I'm sure.

 

Kiera Dent (00:59.875)

What's your credibility? I mean, I'm all for it. Even if you're not credible, like sell me some like snake oil and if it will take away burnout and stress, like I'm here for it, but kind of just walk me through your journey and how you got here.

 

Steve Adams (01:05.298)

Ha ha!

 

Steve Adams (01:11.058)

So I'm anti snake oil, I'm a science guy. So let me, my story is I started out in life as a corporate banker, got my MBA, was really successful at that, walked away from a very promising career in banking. I was actually a regional bank president at 35 years old, but I literally hated it. I couldn't imagine doing that for 25 more years.

 

Kiera Dent (01:14.415)

Okay, great.

 

Steve Adams (01:38.186)

And so I left and jumped into a pet franchise called Pet Supplies Plus. I don't know where you are, where you're located. I don't know. No, I don't think there are any stores there, but yeah, it's isolated a little bit. Yeah. Right. Well, so I jumped into that back in 1996 and over 21 years became the largest franchisee in America and we had almost 50 stores.

 

Kiera Dent (01:47.351)

Reno, Nevada. I'm a little far away from you. It's a weird place. It's okay, Steve. My family's from California. My other family's in Utah. Like it's okay. I travel a lot.

 

Steve Adams (02:06.886)

And, uh, but in the process of that, I was taking care of everybody else except me. And, uh, so I hit severe burnout and I had a lot of health issues. I wasn't sleeping. I had acid reflux. Uh, I was exhausted literally every day and I felt like I was in quicksand. Uh, I was 53 and so I ended up exiting the company. I sold it to my partners.

 

And I went on a journey to find someone who could help me because the traditional health care system is not built for someone who has complex things like I had. But I wasn't diagnosable with any quote disease and it's not an indictment. I mean, these folks do a great job. If you are sick, it's just it wasn't built for them. Kind of 40 plus person that's had a lot of miles.

 

Steve Adams (03:02.515)

you know, what I can tell other people on that. I'm sorry, I got distracted by my camera, just to stop for some reason, but we'll, yeah, we'll fix that. Yep.

 

Kiera Dent (03:10.387)

That's okay. It did stop, but that's okay. I can hear you. So we've got audio, but I'll just mark this so they can edit it out for you.

 

Steve Adams (03:21.143)

Mm-hmm. Yeah. And so I'm OK. So let me let me go back where I was. So anyway, I went on this journey to look for a solution and I found a physician who did what's called functional medicine. And there's a lot of people who do that across America, not a lot relative to mainstream, but this person was at another level. And I since added two more to our network of doctors.

 

And the whole premise behind it is looking for those underlying mechanisms that really drive why you feel the way you do. And my physician was saying, there's absolutely nothing wrong with you. You're on the average of all the labs. When I worked with Dr. McNamee, he said, I can identify over two dozen things that are wrong with you. And we're going to go to work on them. So five years later,

 

We've resolved 95% of those and everything that I just described for you has been resolved and without prescription medication, lifestyle change, supplementation. And so I've been pretty excited about the impact of that. So that's how I arrived here. So our doctors though, I have a Mayo trained doctor in Florida. I have another Johns Hopkins.

 

Kiera Dent (04:33.567)

Bye.

 

Steve Adams (04:41.031)

you know, very credible place. He was an interventional cardiologist there and he learned functional medicine. So he's on the team. And then I have a naturopathic MD in Seattle, Washington. So we have that network of doctors. And so everything we do is driven off hard evidence and data. Our protocols are proven over the last four years and we integrate health coaching.

 

Kiera Dent (04:47.711)

Mm-hmm.

 

Kiera Dent (04:55.913)

Thank you.

 

Steve Adams (05:09.196)

and P Performance Science in with it as well.

 

Kiera Dent (05:12.327)

Amazing. Well, I am I'm super intrigued because I think a lot of our listeners and selfishly, this is my podcast, I podcast meet really cool people like yourself. I feel like I don't like to listen to podcasts. That's a that's a funny fact about me. Because honestly, I'm just

 

I don't know, Steve, I want to just go to the person, ask them my questions and move on. And I want to ask the questions I want to know. So that's why I podcast, like, I think it's super fun to meet cool people ask the questions I want to know, and then share it with the world. And so I'm really curious, burnout and stress, I think are heavy hitters in dental. And I know you guys work with a lot of dentists, which is a great, and I wanted to bring you on a dental podcast, but kind of walk me through like, what are some of the pieces like, okay,

 

Steve Adams (05:48.855)

We do.

 

Kiera Dent (05:57.639)

We're feeling stress, we're feeling burnout. Like right now, I don't sleep. I've got weird tingling in my body going on. We don't know what's going on. I'm taking a bunch of people for it. But like walk me through, what are some tactical things right now that could like, like when I go into an office, I love to give them quick wins, quick wins to where they're gonna see instant results. I wanna see things very quickly. What are some quick wins? I wanna talk quick wins and then I wanna talk longer term strategy. What are quick wins to overcome burnout and stress that you've found for clients, for yourself?

 

Steve Adams (06:04.489)

Mmm.

 

Steve Adams (06:15.487)

Yep. Right.

 

Kiera Dent (06:27.623)

Things that we can implement today, tomorrow and see results.

 

Steve Adams (06:27.795)

Yep. Well, there's it's burnout is just a generic term for basically a complex set of physiological imbalances. Okay. And they're unique for each individual. There are two power strategies, though. One is learning how to mitigate stress on demand. And the second one is, and they're related, how to optimize your sleep. And it's not as it's not a simple thing.

 

Kiera Dent (06:57.159)

Mm-hmm.

 

Steve Adams (06:57.291)

So I studied and followed Bruce McEwen. He's since deceased, but he was the preeminent endocrinologist in the world. And his quote that I always loved was that, stress is cumulative. Meaning, when you're 50 or 40 or even 30, whatever stress, if you had trauma as a child, as a teen, as a college student, and then on top of that, your career stress, it is all cumulative.

 

Kiera Dent (07:10.643)

Mm.

 

Steve Adams (07:24.775)

and it shows up in a unique biomarker called heart rate variability, which is something we go deep on. I won't do it in the podcast. I mean, I can explain a little bit if people wanna know more about it, but maybe I'll do a follow on answer after this on HRV. But when you can learn how to deactivate stress on demand and pair that with improved sleep, what you're doing is you're setting the foundation now

 

Kiera Dent (07:31.665)

Yeah

 

Yeah.

 

Kiera Dent (07:38.271)

Sure.

 

Steve Adams (07:54.491)

medically improving your medical markers and conditions. And so that's what's made our program so unique. I've searched the whole country and I can't find medical practitioners who integrate both HRV and sleep optimization in with their medical protocols we do through the health coaching process. So what people can do right away on the podcast is go to YouTube and search for diaphragmic breathing. It's spelled really weird. It's like D-I-A-P-H.

 

Kiera Dent (08:11.944)

Mm-hmm.

 

Steve Adams (08:23.595)

R-A-G, you know, M-I-C, I think, breathing. Learn how to do that. And it basically is learning how to breathe with your belly instead of your chest. And what we do though, is we breathe in through the nose for four seconds, and then we exhale through the mouth because you can control your breath better through the mouth for six. So we follow that breathing pattern.

 

Kiera Dent (08:51.485)

Mm-hmm.

 

Steve Adams (08:51.791)

You don't need to do Wim Hof. You don't need to do all these fancy box breathing like the Navy SEALs. For most people, if you'll do that four in, six out, that elongated exhale, what that does is that activates the recovery side of your autonomic nervous system. There's something called your autonomic nervous system. That's what manages your pulse, your respiratory rate, your body temperature, all kinds of things. And

 

You know, William James is like the original American philosopher and he says, you want to learn how to make your nervous system work for you rather than against you. And when you're, when you're in chronic stress, and if you don't learn how to disarm that it will lead to anxiety, depression, and chronic disease. And that's called your nervous system is working against you, not for you. I have a little funny story. You know, um, I read a book called why zebras don't get ulcers, but people do.

 

Kiera Dent (09:29.928)

Mm-hmm.

 

Kiera Dent (09:51.007)

Uh huh.

 

Steve Adams (09:51.791)

And you don't want to read it. It's way too geek of a book. But the big idea is animals are one to one with their environment, meaning they see the lion, they run. And soon as the lion's not there, they shake it off and they go to sleep. You know, dogs do the same thing. Bark when the door knock. Humans though, we think about the podcast we're going to go on, or we think about a big, you know, sales goal that I need to hit by the end of the month, or I'm going to have to write a check and put it in the business.

 

Kiera Dent (10:05.523)

Right.

 

Steve Adams (10:21.759)

That's anticipatory stress. Our brain fools us and our body doesn't know the difference between a lion or that. And that's how we get in chronic stress. And so if you can learn to do that kind of breathing, when you feel stressed, do it, you'll disarm on demand.

 

Kiera Dent (10:38.863)

It's really interesting. I'm literally sitting over here taking notes because I think that it's just a piece that we all have. I've thought about this a lot of how much different our world is. And I've been hearing like a lot of different studies and different things of like, the world used to be eight to five. People used to go to work. We had phones at the office. We had computers at the office and we would leave and we literally left.

 

Steve Adams (10:46.187)

We do.

 

Kiera Dent (11:02.523)

and we could go home, we would be with our families, we'd have shut off time. Yes, your mind might still be thinking about it. We also used to have jobs that were more like task oriented and now we're shifting to more mind oriented and like it never shuts off. My brain never shuts off. It's always thinking like about this podcast, about this and like we're constantly in that. So I think it's really important to have tips because like last night, I mean, prime example, last night we have a new product launch and it's going next week and I was like, I'm not ready for this and.

 

Like I left the office, when my husband and I talked about for the next two hours, I was stressed, I didn't sleep last night. And so I'm curious, what do you do to improve sleep? Like even when you're stressed, because the stressors I don't think will go away, I think it's learning how to like, have stress in your life, but not respond to it constantly. So how do you improve that sleep? Cause I used to be a champ sleeper, Steve, and I'm getting annoyed, cause I'm like sleep is my superpower.

 

Steve Adams (11:42.4)

Yeah.

 

No, right.

 

Right.

 

Kiera Dent (11:56.311)

always can sleep, it's very consistent. And now I'm like, what is happening? Like I am not sleeping like I used to. So what are some tips you guys have found around sleep and how to improve that?

 

Steve Adams (11:59.703)

and you can't. Right.

 

Steve Adams (12:05.427)

Yeah, well, sleep involves, first of all, if you do the first thing I said, 10 minutes before you go to bed, four 10 minutes, that will help you sleep.

 

Kiera Dent (12:10.803)

Mm-hmm. Okay. Do not get lightheaded. See, I'm just gonna ask honestly, because when I do these like breathing things, for 10 minutes, do you get lightheaded? This is a real question I'm asking.

 

Steve Adams (12:22.343)

Yeah, no, if you do it properly, that's why I said go get a YouTube video. Because I mean, I can't do this through the podcast and teach you how to do it. But I can. But it would take too much time. So just you know, YouTube's got a million videos on it. But do that. No, you don't. You will if you start chest breathing. You've got to learn to engage your diaphragm, you know, by pushing it out when you breathe in and pulling it back in when you breathe out.

 

Kiera Dent (12:27.459)

Okay.

 

Kiera Dent (12:34.056)

Okay.

 

Kiera Dent (12:37.433)

Got it.

 

Kiera Dent (12:43.431)

Mmm.

 

Kiera Dent (12:50.025)

Mm-hmm.

 

Steve Adams (12:51.595)

But at first it will feel weird because you haven't done it since you were a baby. Babies do it naturally and then we unlearn it. Okay? So I have a six-month-old grandson and I watch him do it. It's amazing. So that's one thing. Second thing is you need to have a routine at night before you go to bed. Most people don't. You've got to get off your devices in the last hour. If you can't find a way to do that.

 

Kiera Dent (12:58.581)

Okay.

 

Steve Adams (13:19.147)

then you need to buy on $20 on Amazon. You can get blue blocker glasses. Wear them at night while you're watching TV or looking at your devices. Okay. The other reason you don't want to look at your devices is I wrote a book and if I'm just going to be crazy and give my cell phone out, if people want a free copy of this, text me and I will mail them one free, including I'll pay the shipping and everything. Okay. It's called Unleash the Peak Performer Within You.

 

Kiera Dent (13:42.383)

Awesome. Yeah.

 

Steve Adams (13:48.551)

And it goes through all of everything I'm saying now. Tips how to sleep better. It's beyond tips. It's like extensive. OK? But you've got to breathe to set your calm set point so that you can get your body to calm down and go to sleep. You can't stimulate it at night. So you need to have these blue blocker glasses. The problem with looking at your device is invariably there's going to be a stressful text.

 

Kiera Dent (14:05.716)

Mm-hmm.

 

Steve Adams (14:16.019)

or email in there, and then it's going to activate your mind, and you're not going to be able to shut it off. So that's why ignore the phone if you can after 6. I have research that shows people are less productive when they look at their phones after 5.30 PM. Yep. Because you need to break off that time and recover. And then the third thing with sleep is you need to have good hygiene, meaning

 

Kiera Dent (14:20.868)

Mm-hmm.

 

Kiera Dent (14:30.904)

No way. Okay.

 

Steve Adams (14:41.559)

No TVs in the bedroom. If you're one of those people that goes to bed watching the news at night, guess what? You're going to have to give that up. You need to have a cool, dark room. Spend a little more money in air conditioning and bring it down so you're cool. And then the other big thing is to have three hours between last calories and when you go to bed.

 

Those would be my top three areas to look at and sleep.

 

Kiera Dent (15:10.535)

Well, good news is I feel like I'm doing actually reasonable on it. No TV in the bedroom. That was just something we decided. I like the no phone after six. I mean, that does feel a little extra, but I can see the benefit of it. I see the benefit. And I started doing, cause they used to be really stressed and I'm like, I can't handle this. So I have my phone where it will go to sleep at 7.40, but I can just like notch that up to six o'clock and easy because it actually is shocking to like.

 

Steve Adams (15:22.259)

Yep. It'll be hard. Yeah, it's hard.

 

Kiera Dent (15:38.943)

go put it on the charger, be with family, go hang out outside. For the first couple of days, I felt weird. What am I supposed to do with myself? And I liked the no stimulant and then the breathing before bed. I think the breathing before bed because I like to almost ramp myself up and start thinking about, hey, what's everything coming? It's like a racehorse getting ready to run before I fall asleep. Like, hey, don't forget that, don't forget this, don't forget that. Right?

 

Steve Adams (16:01.311)

Yeah, that's the opposite of what you need to do. That's called you're creating cognitive load. And what you need to do is before you breathe is that go dump all that out in a journal or something that you can open in the morning. Because you're not sleeping well, so there's a reason. Okay. So even though you're doing some of this stuff, there's something not right. And I can, when we're done with the podcast, we can do a little mini coaching session. Let me try to help you.

 

Kiera Dent (16:13.314)

Mm. Mm-hmm.

 

Kiera Dent (16:21.144)

Right.

 

Kiera Dent (16:25.401)

Mm-hmm.

 

Kiera Dent (16:30.143)

Oh cool. Thanks. Okay. So then I'm going to ask the next question of burnout. Like, okay, we've got some sleep. We've got some stress like the breathe to reduce the stress. What about burnout? Because I feel like, I don't know, Steve, you work with a lot of people and I hear this from coaching hundreds of clients. They almost feel like they're on the rat race. Like it just feels like it's this churn and it doesn't matter how hard I work.

 

Steve Adams (16:31.199)

Yeah.

 

Steve Adams (16:49.956)

Yep. Yeah.

 

Kiera Dent (16:53.659)

I just have, like, there's always more to work. And I feel in today's society, you've got TikTok, you've got social media, you've got comparisonitis across the world. We're constantly comparing, we're constantly feeling like we're not doing enough. And then we just shut down and then it's this burnout and then it's exhausted. And I just feel like it's like, it constantly feeds. And then you're not sleeping well and then you're more stressed. And like, how do you prevent burnout? How do you stop the burnout if you're in the burnout? What are some things around that?

 

Steve Adams (17:00.608)

Right. Yep.

 

Steve Adams (17:11.168)

Right.

 

Steve Adams (17:16.147)

Yep. Well, there I wish I could draw on her name right now. There's two core causes of burnout. One is that you're not managing stress, you're not sleeping well, and it's a physiological solution. Okay. And the other side of it, though, is if you are in a toxic environment, and it's creating a lot of stress.

 

Kiera Dent (17:33.083)

Mm-hmm.

 

Steve Adams (17:46.367)

You know, you can address all the physiological side and that will help. But if you're in a highly toxic, you absolutely hate it environment, you're going to have to exit that environment somehow. Now, well, yeah. So for a dentist or a lawyer or an entrepreneur like me, what we have to do is we have to re-engineer it in a way that it works for us. And that can be done. Okay. That's a simplistic answer to a very complex problem.

 

Kiera Dent (17:59.399)

What happens if that's your business?

 

Steve Adams (18:15.819)

but we don't have the time to really go deep into that. But I wanna make sure people understand that there are two drivers of burnout. One is you've got a set of circumstances that if it's disempowering and tearing you down moment by moment, you've got to address it. And I will tell you that in my past, I've had that in my own business. And what I had to do was re-engineer the model and how we delivered the service.

 

or I had to move people out and put new people in to address that. I was good at that part. I wasn't good at taking care of my health. Now, as an overarching statement, I want to say something. And this, again, is in my book. And I'm not trying to sell books. I'm trying to give them away, honestly. But the big idea here is we are living in a period of change. Steven Kotler wrote about this with Peter Diamandis. We're experiencing

 

Kiera Dent (18:46.724)

Mm-hmm.

 

Kiera Dent (19:01.107)

Yeah.

 

Steve Adams (19:13.483)

hundred years of change in the 2020s alone, because there's multiple technologies and medical advances and all these things that are exponentially accelerating all at the same time. And it's changing how we literally function in society. We're seeing AI just literally explode onto the scene and it's gonna eliminate a lot of people's jobs. And we're all in this period of time where we're trying to sort this out.

 

Kiera Dent (19:16.831)

Totally.

 

Kiera Dent (19:33.71)

Mm-hmm.

 

Steve Adams (19:41.287)

And I'm 59 years old. I will liken it to Y2K, come out of the 90s. It was pretty analog. And all of a sudden, boom, everything was becoming digital. And it was a very stressful time for anybody who was in business. And so you've got that overlay happening. And in my book, what I talk about is, we're facing an exponential problem. You can't attack it with a linear solution. A linear solution is,

 

Kiera Dent (19:56.264)

Mm-hmm.

 

Steve Adams (20:10.527)

Go a little bit harder, be a little more efficient, and kind of squeeze. And that's not the answer. The answer is you've got to learn how to engineer your lifestyle to be like a high peak performer. And that involves optimizing your physiology, your psychology, and how to optimize your day. And I talk about all of that in the book. The book literally teaches you step by step how to do that.

 

Kiera Dent (20:31.112)

I love that.

 

Kiera Dent (20:36.051)

which is fun and I do think like absolutely send it my way. I'm ready to read it. I love learning these things. You guys know I'm a huge fan of Tony Robbins. I'm a huge fan of these things but I also feel like I want to, there's so many options out there for health, for sleep. Like you can, I mean, I feel like we're inundated like with knowledge, like there's so much out there but I'm like, I'm searching for wisdom. I'm searching for like what really is going to optimize my life. So I am curious, like from your perspective, working with high CEOs, working with people who are prone to

 

Steve Adams (20:39.381)

Yeah.

 

Steve Adams (20:48.34)

I know.

 

Steve Adams (20:52.427)

We are.

 

Kiera Dent (21:06.043)

long hours, you've got type A personalities to just drive and grind constantly. And it's like gladiators all day long slaying. What is an optimal day? Like in a quick nutshell, and I know it's going to say it's for every person, but like, is there founded studies? I'm super curious on this. I've been curious on it to like start your day later or to meditate or to work out or to consolidate.

 

Steve Adams (21:07.467)

Yep. Yes.

 

Kiera Dent (21:29.655)

I feel we're in this shift of how we work. I mean, the eight to five that was built back with like Henry Ford when they needed people to work more. It had like no foundings behind it. And that's just what we've adopted into today's society. So have you found anything with how to structure your day or how to structure your life, the balance of how much work time, how much, because that's what people get to. They're like, I can't Steve, I've got to hit the business. I've got numbers. I'm going to crank my time here and I'll pay for my health later. But I think.

 

Steve Adams (21:35.465)

Right.

 

Steve Adams (21:52.65)

Right?

 

Kiera Dent (21:57.115)

people are getting smarter and not wanting to live that way. So what's your optimal day in a quick nutshell or any tips around building that to optimize and be a peak performer.

 

Steve Adams (22:06.703)

That's a good question, Kira. What I will tell you is there are principles because a dentist going in every day with a schedule is different than a writer who is different than a podcaster or somebody like me. So what I'll tell you, what are the building blocks are number one, you've got to have a morning routine. Whether you know that includes some kind of physical, some kind of higher power, spiritual,

 

feed your soul, and some learning. And there's all kinds of research, if you'll commit an hour in the morning before your day will feel so much more in control. The other thing I would encourage people to do is you've gotta have extreme clarity about what you want and then create a goal stack. A goal stack is,

 

you know, five years to one year to quarterly to monthly to weekly to daily priorities. Okay. And again, I sound like a broken record, but in this book, it has all of the how to do that. Okay. So morning routine and then a goal stack. So because if you wake up in the morning every day at the same time and you have this routine and it centers you and you've done the work and you have your goal stack and you know that today I'm going to do these specific things.

 

Kiera Dent (23:14.751)

Cool. Yeah.

 

Steve Adams (23:32.167)

in blocks of time, it settles you because you're like, okay, I know I'm marching toward my intended future. The third thing is people need to learn how to be corporate athletes. And let me unpack that. Athletes, you know, play at a high level, and then they recover. That's not what we do in business. We just go, go. And we never commit to recovery. And so, think like a corporate athlete means

 

having cycles of productivity followed by cycles of recovery. And what I do every day, I'm not perfect at it, is about every hour to 90 minutes, I'll stop for five minutes and I'll breathe, or I'll go out and take a walk. Or for me, I'll pray, you know, whatever, or meditate for five minutes. And if you'll do this, what it does is it, it'll actually, um, strengthen your energy as your day goes on through the day.

 

Because when you just go nonstop, because type A's hate timeouts. But what it does is there's that law of diminishing return by the late afternoon, you're cooked. And if you'll cycle, you'll find yourself never having the afternoon lulls anymore. So those would be my three things. Learning how to cycle your effort as a corporate athlete, building a goal stack, having a morning routine.

 

Kiera Dent (24:37.38)

Right?

 

Kiera Dent (24:43.425)

Mm-hmm.

 

Steve Adams (24:58.963)

So you notice I didn't tell people how to schedule their day because you can't do it. I can't tell anybody to do that.

 

Kiera Dent (25:02.211)

Right? No, I agree with you. But I am always curious because so many people talk about morning routines, they talk about evening routines, they talk about building your goal. And I think it's just interesting. What I think I've found is it takes discipline to just build it and to commit that. Because Steve, do you notice how many people and clients, because I feel like there's two types of people. There's your proactive people that wanna be proactive and preventative.

 

Steve Adams (25:18.73)

It does.

 

Steve Adams (25:28.788)

Right.

 

Kiera Dent (25:28.879)

And then there's your people who do nothing until they're in pain and they have to and they're forced to be there. So how do people become more proactive? Because honestly, Steve, I'm this person where I'm like, forget that, I'm young, I've got so much going on. And now I'm like, oh my gosh, my arm's tingling, my leg's tingling, like I'm not sleeping at night. And I'm like, Kara, you're like in your 30s, honey. Like clearly you've been burning it for so long. So how do you, how can we like help change society?

 

Steve Adams (25:33.387)

Correct.

 

Steve Adams (25:41.878)

Yeah.

 

Steve Adams (25:54.109)

Yep.

 

Kiera Dent (25:58.915)

And all the listeners today to become more proactive, to commit to, I'm not going to like have to go and fix my health because I've been proactively doing this. What are any of the things you have that could help out in that regard? Cause to me, I think that that's. Truthfully society's greatest lie is teaching us that like, take care of yourself later, like you wrote this and you said like, help yourself become the number one patient, which I thought was like, I thought it was kind of a funny phrase until we started talking, honestly. And now I'm like, Oh, I get it.

 

Steve Adams (26:11.648)

Hmm?

 

Steve Adams (26:21.963)

Patient number one, yep.

 

Kiera Dent (26:27.859)

Like if I take care of me first, it's like the oxygen mass in the plane, I can go for a lot longer. So how do we change people's mindset to realize like this is important instead of forcing them when it could be too late?

 

Steve Adams (26:40.883)

Well, willpower is unreliable and discipline flows out of clarity. And so, you know, what I tell like, because I still do some health coaching myself with our clients because I want to stay close to it. And what I find is if someone has extreme clarity, then they have no trouble with discipline and willpower.

 

Kiera Dent (26:43.504)

Agreed.

 

Steve Adams (27:08.683)

The people that have trouble with discipline and willpower have not found their why. They don't have a reason to do it. And so they falter because our natural inclination is to be lazy, to do nothing, because we wanna be in that comfort zone. And what you and I are talking about is teaching people how to become comfortable being uncomfortable. And the other thing I would say is...

 

Kiera Dent (27:30.953)

Right?

 

Steve Adams (27:34.011)

And I've got to find a better way to say it, but I challenge people all the time. Why are you letting what an insurance company says they'll reimburse your doctor for dictate your investment in a billion dollar asset, which is your body. You only get one of them. And I realize if you have no means, then you have to do that. And I understand that's no judgment. But if you've arrived at a place in life where you do have discretionary income, why would

 

Why wouldn't you defer buying the next Beamer or going to Starbucks 300 days a year and invest some money in your health proactively? Become a health investor instead of a healthcare consumer. Because, you know, I love this quote, he who has his health has a thousand dreams, he who doesn't has only one. And when you get to that point, you have no options and it's gonna cost you a ton of money to get better.

 

Kiera Dent (28:11.232)

Mm-hmm.

 

Kiera Dent (28:22.612)

Totally.

 

Kiera Dent (28:27.323)

Mm-hmm.

 

Steve Adams (28:28.091)

If you'll do it proactively, you'll have the choice, and it'll be cheaper.

 

Kiera Dent (28:32.527)

I love it. This year I committed, Steve, it's funny that we're having this conversation this year because I love cars. People who listen to podcasts, they see me as this tiny little girl and then they find out I'm a straight up drag racer and love fast cars and definitely enjoy Lambos, Ferraris, Teslas. I just think it's so fun. I love a good fast car. I enjoy them. I love classic cars. And so my analogy this year, I actually bought a sign on Amazon.

 

Steve Adams (28:42.483)

Me too. Ha ha.

 

Kiera Dent (29:01.523)

does it identify as a Ferrari? And I put that up, I mean, there are some like whatever nuances to it, but I did it intentionally to remind myself, cause I thought if I had a Ferrari in the garage, how would I treat this? Like, you know, Steve, car people, we would be like, like shining this thing, like we would be pampering it, like only premium gas, only going to the best mechanics. Like you are not going to do anything. This thing is gonna sit covered.

 

Steve Adams (29:15.915)

Right.

 

Kiera Dent (29:29.996)

I'm going to drive it and we're going to drive it hard for a little while and it's gonna be real fun. And then it's going into the garage and we're going to take care of it and we're going to just really love this. And I thought we do that for body or we do that for cars. We do that for kids, we do that for patients. How can we help ourselves see it so that this year is like, all right, my body's a Ferrari like I eat optimal food and we eat optimal sleep and I don't work all the hours because guess what this body needs to rest.

 

Steve Adams (29:48.983)

Yeah, that's great.

 

Kiera Dent (29:54.991)

And so like whatever I feel like people love, like whatever it is for you that can be that image, because honestly, like I don't have kids, Steve. I don't have another thing. Like it's me and my husband and it's fun, but like something happened to me, he'd be fine. My family, they're fine. So when people were like, find your why, I'm like, I don't know what my why is. My why is like, I just enjoy having fun. But for me, it was like figuring out something of, I also wanna live until I'm in my hundreds. And if I'm not taking care of my body today,

 

Steve Adams (30:05.832)

Yeah.

 

Kiera Dent (30:23.443)

How many more opportunities am I going to miss out on? How many patients am I not going to be able to serve? And so sometimes it can be like, what's your why that way? But also like, what's it going to cost not to take care of your body? I wrote it down on my computer. I have one, I'm a Foxy Fit billionaire babe. Said fall in love with what is. And next door to it, I just wrote, my body is a billion dollar asset. Because I don't think people view their bodies that way. I think it's a taken for granted machine. Exactly. And then you regret.

 

Steve Adams (30:45.98)

Right.

 

until it's broken. Yeah. You know, I mean, that's really good on the why, what you're talking about. I, you know, for you, you know, like, if you someday have children, you know, this is the someday thing. I always talk about, you know, I had a guy that owns a law firm on the West Coast, big one, and he was like 50 years old, he had a four-year-old daughter. And I said to him, like,

 

Okay, when is she going to graduate from college? And he did the math and he said, Oh my gosh, I'm going to be like 69 years old or something like that. And I said, yeah, and you'll probably be 75 potentially before she's married. You might be 80 before she has a kid. And like, I just had, we just had our first grandson and five years ago, I was so unhealthy, I don't know if I'd even be alive today and I showed up big time at lunch today, I went and visited my daughter and my grandson.

 

Kiera Dent (31:26.504)

Mm-hmm.

 

Kiera Dent (31:42.535)

Wow.

 

Steve Adams (31:48.875)

And I'm this fit guy who can get on the ground and play with him and do all this stuff. And I said, who are you going to show up as when you go to her graduation? And he's like, that's what it is. But also today, you know, Kira, you've got this communication platform, you're coaching dental practices. Who are you showing up today as? Like it's, you know, what we tell all of our professionals. But like, Dennis, it's easy. It's like.

 

Kiera Dent (31:58.109)

Yeah.

 

Kiera Dent (32:09.587)

Mm-hmm.

 

Steve Adams (32:15.999)

What do you do with your own patients? You tell them invest in prevention, and then when you're 60, your teeth won't be falling out of your head. But the dentists have to apply what they do with their own patients to themselves, because when you do, everybody and everyone and everything around you gets better.

 

Kiera Dent (32:29.861)

Right?

 

Kiera Dent (32:34.34)

Totally. Isn't that funny though, Steve? This is my wrap up question to you, Ana. I've loved today. I feel like I've got so, I mean, taking more notes on your podcast than anyone else and I'm like, awesome. I need to recharge in the middle of the day. I love the corporate athlete. That was brilliant. How do you get people to change their mindsets around that? How do you get people to, like you said, invest? We tell all the other people, but I feel like we think we're Superman or Superwoman and we can beat the odds.

 

I don't need that, Steve. I don't need a five minute break. Like, Steve, I've been sitting here all morning since 3 a.m. this morning. I think I've gotten up one time because I'm like, I got this. Like just power through the podcast. Like how, is it just, is it just committing that you're a billion dollar asset and like you deserve it and you're gonna just set an alarm on your phone every hour and get up? Like, is it just those small little things that make the changes?

 

Steve Adams (33:11.071)

So sorry.

 

Steve Adams (33:23.431)

It is. It is because, you know, look, you can get away with it for a long time. I did. I was I hit a wall about 47 years old. And but also, you know, you described what you're experiencing. I had that same thing happen to me in my late 20s. So offline, we can talk about that. But but so, you know, I guess what I would wrap up with is, you know, what we're doing at Tiger Medical is we're educating people.

 

Kiera Dent (33:40.364)

We will. Thank you.

 

Steve Adams (33:51.931)

That's why I write the books. I got another one, I hope, coming out early next year. We use data to confront them with the truth. And I'm gonna share an opportunity at the end here that will give people the opportunity to do that. By the way, I should give you my cell phone number. I've never done this publicly like this, but it's 616-403-.

 

Steve Adams (34:19.087)

1985 616-403-1985. If anybody listening wants my book, you just text me and I will get a book to you. And I won't, I'm not sucking you into a sales funnel. I'll just send you the book and then if you want to talk more you can. So that's one piece. But you know, we've got like three levels of programming at Tiger Medical and

 

Kiera Dent (34:36.446)

Cool. Thank you.

 

Steve Adams (34:46.779)

Those three levels are accessible for a lot of people, but I'm really excited. I can't say yet, but we're about to launch a partnership throughout the US nationally with a name brand longevity research organization. And we're gonna bring to the world $149 a month membership program, wellness program. Yeah, and it's gonna be pretty exciting to do that. So...

 

Kiera Dent (35:08.411)

Okay, cool.

 

Steve Adams (35:14.303)

That's how we're doing it, Kira. It's a challenge because dentistry took 100 years to train people. They need to come in twice a year. And we're on the early end of this. The traditional medicine world still scoffs at everything that is not what they do. And to me though, it's the gift that keeps giving because we keep getting people that failed with that side and they come to our side and we get them better.

 

Kiera Dent (35:22.406)

Mm-hmm.

 

Kiera Dent (35:30.427)

Right. Mm-hmm.

 

Kiera Dent (35:42.223)

Totally. And I think it's just a matter of like, definitely figuring it out. And I am a huge fan. I believe I remember I went to Tony Robbins, and I was sitting in there. And I remember something like I was in this big wealth conference and like Ray Dalia was there and Paul Tudor Jones and like it was just nuts of who these people were that we were getting exposure to. And he said, there's going to be a lot of people that are going to have different opinions.

 

and you have to figure out the opinions that are right for you and use your intuition. And that was for financial, but I also think it goes for your body. And I feel like being educated, I'm always pro science. I like science, I don't like as much. Willi-Nilli, I like to give offices proven systems that I know are going to help you and make you successful. Just like I know you guys are very big on, like let's definitely deal with having.

 

Steve Adams (36:16.371)

Yep. It does.

 

Kiera Dent (36:36.931)

our health be our optimal thing. So I hope everybody like reach out, Steve, I appreciate that. Definitely get the book. I'm excited. I know you're shipping it to me. So thank you for that. I'm excited to read with it. Um, but I really feel like it's something of, I hope everyone today, see what you, you gave me and gifted me was. I love that my body is a billion dollar asset and to really prioritize our health, um, to prioritize who we are so we can show up for our patients, our teams, our communities, our families, but more than that, like for us.

 

Steve Adams (36:45.003)

Yeah.

 

Steve Adams (37:02.303)

Yeah, absolutely.

 

Kiera Dent (37:05.479)

I think we each deserve an incredible life to be able to say yes to things. Like I thought about my trajectory of life. And I mean, I don't wanna live to be a hundred plus if I'm in pain and miserable and can't be with the people I love. I wanna live until I'm like 99, 100, 101. And my last maybe one year is hard, but the rest of my time was incredible as my body decides to phase out. But to truly give myself that gift, I think is one of the best things. And I think about it when I'm...

 

Steve Adams (37:17.448)

right.

 

Kiera Dent (37:34.099)

hundred, one, hundred and two, will I regret standing up every hour for five minutes or breathing before night to sleep better, to give myself more years and more opportunities and more life? It's a small price right now that will pay undue dividends. So thank you for that, Steve.

 

Steve Adams (37:44.439)

Sure. Yep. Small. Oh, you're welcome. And this is a calling for me. I mean, I'm so excited about it. And, you know, let me share this with the Akira. So we have a way for people, low impact, zero risk way for them to start this journey. And there's no obligation to work with us. What we have, I just started it two weeks ago.

 

Kiera Dent (38:05.307)

Awesome.

 

Steve Adams (38:14.499)

And what it is it's a data health assessment. So you know how people always say, hey, get on an assessment with you and it's really disguised as a sales call? That's not what this is. We're gonna have you do an online survey, health survey, all your history, and then we're gonna order a blood panel for you, a comprehensive one, not the kind you get at the doctor's office once a year where you get slapped on the back to see if you cough. This one's actually a functional medicine panel.

 

Kiera Dent (38:22.127)

Yeah.

 

Kiera Dent (38:38.678)

Hehehehe

 

Steve Adams (38:42.579)

It's $497 and if you get the results and you feel like, and then you meet with me and I go through it with you, if you feel like it's really didn't help you, there was no value, I will give you money back. I'll eat the cost of the lab. If you love it, but you wanna work with another practitioner, fine, go for it. And then the third option is if you work with us, I credit 100% of that investment toward the next thing you do with us.

 

And so that's real easy to find. It's just a Tiger P.I. That's our old website, but I tied it to this Tiger P.I. like Paul International Tiger P.I. Dot com forward slash health. So Tiger P.I. Dot com forward slash health. And you can it has stuff there explains how it all works. There should be a video in there of me, too, talking about it. And then go from there.

 

Kiera Dent (39:37.215)

Mm-hmm.

 

Cool, no, I love it. I just went to that as well. I think it'd be awesome. I just remember I went to an event once and they said like, like what's the greatest risk is not finding out? I'd rather know now in proactive, just like your patients, like you know those patients who don't wanna take X-rays and you're like, listen, if you just took this X-ray and found out, we could solve this one. It's a quick little like M-O versus it being an extraction, an implant, bone grafting. Like it's just simple. Why not find out now?

 

Steve Adams (39:50.067)

Right.

 

Steve Adams (39:56.915)

Right, right. Well.

 

Steve Adams (40:06.471)

I agree, Kara. And what I found when I work with people is the reason I do this now is because they didn't really know if what we're going to do is going to be helpful or not. So I'm like, let's just get the truth now. Now it's not all the truth. We do a lot more testing, but this would give somebody a real clear indication of, yeah, I probably need to get to work. So that's why we do it. Yeah.

 

Kiera Dent (40:17.704)

Yeah.

 

Kiera Dent (40:28.431)

I love it. Okay, so tiger pi.com slash health they also can text you I wrote down six one six four eight three one nine eight five to get your book as well guys check Fix it

 

Steve Adams (40:39.667)

Nope, it's, let me fix it. 616-403-1985.

 

Kiera Dent (40:45.171)

Oh, well good thing because I wouldn't have been able to text you so 616-403-1985. I mean, that's a pretty great, pretty great date. It's not my birth year, but you know, it's almost like but close. So anyway, Steve, I appreciate you. It was so fun to have you today. For all of you listening, Julie, you are your body is a billion dollar asset, take care of it, make sure that you're taking care of it. And I think these are two great ways the book and the free health assessment, where it costs you literally nothing to find out.

 

Steve Adams (40:56.233)

Hahaha

 

Steve Adams (41:01.995)

Thank you.

 

Kiera Dent (41:14.983)

Think of two awesome ways that you guys could get started on the health ring. So Steve, thank you so much. I appreciate you today.

 

Steve Adams (41:19.883)

Thank you, Kira. I'm grateful to be on.

 

Kiera Dent (41:22.231)

Awesome. All right guys, for all of you listening, thank you and I'll catch you next time on the Donnelly Team Podcast.