Embracing Realistic Optimism with Dr. Gary Sprouse, MD

with Dr. Gary Sprouse, MD

Jun 20, 2025 · 00:42:18

Today's guest is Dr. Gary Sprouse. He is a retired primary care physician who practiced in Maryland for 38 years. He graduated from George Washington University Medical School in the top 10% of his class and is a member of Mensa. He is committed to helping people improve their mental health, and he has taken everything he has learned about stress reduction and crafted his book, Highway to Your Happy Place: A Roadmap to Less Stress. Dr. Sprouse is extremely passionate about bringing happiness into people's lives through humor, compassion, and understanding. He has a unique perspective on stress that no one else is talking about. He has uncovered a groundbreaking new way to define where the majority of human stress originates, and this new insight and the tools he developed to deal with stress are changing lives. Welcome to The Total Entrepreneur Mind Body Spirit, where we turn cutting-edge science into practical strategies for entrepreneurs. I'm your host, Dr. John Torrance, Entrepreneur Inc. 5000 honoree and professor of entrepreneurial practice at Syracuse University's Whitman School of Management. Each episode, we dive into mental, physical, and spiritual health with expert guests offering actionable insights to help you thrive and perform at your highest level. Let's get started. Dr. Sprouse, welcome to the podcast. Really great to have you.

John, thanks for having me on. This has been great.

Yeah, I was looking forward to talking to you. So, my first question is that you've said that you've uncovered a groundbreaking way to define the origin of most human stress, and every human experiences stress, right? So, can you walk us through that?

Yeah, sure. So, I'm a primary care doctor, or I still am, but I'm retired now. So, when I would write— when I'd see patients for high blood pressure, diabetes, I would say to them, hey, I got this great medicine, it'll get your blood pressure down. It's great medicine, but it might have a few side effects, like it might make you dizzy or it might make you gain some fluid or something. So I used that concept and I applied it to humans and I said, well, wait a second, let's look at where our stresses come from. So when we talk about worry and guilt and regret, what I realized was those are side effects to our skills.

Hmm.

So let me explain that. So we have the ability to envision the future so we could say, hey, I'm gonna meet you at 2:30 and we're gonna do a podcast. Right. And we did that, you know, a couple weeks ago. So we were able to envision the future. But the side effect is then we have to worry about it. Oh, what happens if my clock broke? What happens if I was doing something I couldn't be? Right. So we have to worry about it. So I have a 1.5-year-old grandson, so he can't really envision the future yet. So he doesn't sit at his table eating breakfast going, Dad, how are we gonna pay for college? Right. It doesn't come up. Right.

Right.

Because he doesn't have the skill So then he obviously doesn't have the side effects, so he literally can't worry. And when I was, when I was working, I spent a lot of time taking care of dementia patients. And when they get severe, they've lost a skill. So they used to have it, but then they lost it. So now they no longer can envision the future. So again, they don't sit around going, huh, how's my son going to pay for my nursing home experience? It doesn't come up because they, they don't have the side effect because they don't have the skill. So when we talk to psychologists who will recommend, they say, well, just live for today. You're like, well, that's a great idea. That'll stop you from worrying. But it also gives up your greatest skill, which is envisioning the future. And what I say to people is, you can't, as a human, you can't not have future, right? We spend way too much time in the future.

Right.

So to say to someone, just live for today, you're like, wait, what? That's like my greatest skill. So what I say to people is, keep the skill, lose the side effect.

I like that, how you frame that. It's a side effect, right? Because I don't think anybody chooses anxiety or chooses worry, right? It's just like you said, it's like a natural effect of knowing what's coming in the future, right? And I've, I've actually heard people say that worrying is just, you know, using your imagination or praying for something that you don't want, right?

Right. Well, well, no, but you bring up a good point, which is when I would talk to my patients, And they would like I would have a patient come in and say, Doc, I'm worried that I worry too much. I'm like, yeah, well, you probably do, right? Yeah. What I said, I said to them, well, tell me what worry is. And when I said to them, when I asked them to define it, what I got back was this: Wait, I got this. And then they'd get this puzzle looking like, well, it's uh you know it's it's worry. And I'm like, okay. And so what I see is people can use the word in a sentence. They know what it feels like. They know they don't like it, but they can't really define it. And if you can't really define it, then how are you going to change it? How are you going to fix it? And so what I had to do then was go, okay, if worry is a side effect of being able to envision the future, let's define worry as, hey, I have this incredible skill that I can envision the future. 2, that I can— and here's the key— I focus on all the bad things that can happen.

Mm-hmm.

And then the thing that actually makes it bad is then I have a fear reaction to that concept. So now I'm having fear reactions to something that hasn't really happened. It's just the concept that I came up with. It's something that's some possible thing that's gonna happen in the future. And I start having a fear reaction right now. You're looking into the future, focusing on all the bad things that can happen and having the fear reaction right now. There's nothing to make that stop. So it can just go on and on and on. And that's what I see where patients are coming in and they're stressed out because they're worried because they're having that fear reaction. It was meant to be maybe 10 or 15 minutes, but it's gone on for hours and days on something that might never happen and most likely won't. And so what I found is when people, the smarter people are, the more bad things they can think up. So the more they actually worry.

Yeah. The, the more, the more risk you could imagine and then you have to go into mitigation mode, right?

Yeah.

I think we, I relate to that. So, so, so that brings me to, to something that entrepreneurs face all the time, right? We're always in risk mitigation mode. We're operating in a constant state of urgency. So what is your advice to entrepreneurs to help them shift from reactive to reflective, um, I guess, disposition under stress?

So in the book that I wrote, Highway to Your Happy Place: A Roadmap to Less Stress, I, I give people 2 tools. I mean, I gave 'em, there's like 10 tools for how to worry less, but I'll just talk about 2 right now cuz they're quick. So the first one is what I call realistic optimism. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs already have this or else they wouldn't have taken the risk to be in the first place, right? So realistic optimism says, hey, I'm gonna be able to envision the future, but instead of focusing on the bad things that can happen, I'm gonna focus on the good things. So when I was writing this book, I could have said, ah, I'm never gonna get this book done. And even if I get it done, no one's gonna publish it. Even if I publish it, No one's going to read it. And even if they read it, it's not going to help them. You know, so you're focusing on all the bad things. That makes me feel bad, which then makes you not want to write the book. So what I did was I focused on the good things. And when I first started this, I was like, this was a long time ago. I was like, when I write this book, it's going to be great. It's really going to help people. I'm going to be on the Oprah Show. Yeah. Then she retired. Then I was like, well, I'm going to be on the Ellen Show. And then she retired. And I'm like, oh. And now I'm gonna be on the Kelly Clarkson, whatever, right?

Yeah.

But you get it. So then I'm envisioning myself with the positive results of people getting better, having less stress, which then makes me feel good right now. So realistic optimism, but it also says that I had to be realistic about it. I could be— so optimism is great, but you have to be realistic. So I didn't quit my day job in the beginning because I was like, no, no, I still need to make some money until this thing becomes successful. So you have to be realistic with your optimism. And that leads me to the second point, second tool, which is what I call the worry organizer. So the worry organizer says, hey, how can I keep my future without fear? How can I look into the future without fear? And the answer is I can plan, but without fear. And that's critical. And so what I did was devised— Well, what happens is people think about a lot of stuff in their head and it goes around and rolls around. And it's very inefficient because they do it over and over and over and over and over again. Mm-hmm. So by writing it down, you only have to do it once because it's, it's there. And as my friend tells me, that the palest ink is stronger than the best memory. Hmm. So when you write it down and you go, okay, here's the 5 columns. First column is, what is it that I'm worried about? So I'm gonna use a patient of mine who was worried that she's gonna get breast cancer. So her worry was, doc, I'm gonna get breast cancer. 2, well, how, you know, well, why, you know, why are you worried about it? What's the, what's the reason? So in her case, her mother and her sister both had, had breast cancer. So that was why she was worried. So then the 3rd column, and I think this is a critical column, which is, well, how likely is it to happen? And if it happens, how bad would it be?

Hmm.

So in her case, she said, well, it's 100% chance I'm gonna get it. My mother and my sister both got it. And if I get it, I'm gonna die like they did. And I'm like, okay, well, I hear that, but now, so you're now talking to the expert, the doctor. And I go, here's the real statistics. So you have a 15% chance of getting breast cancer if you have a family history. And because we're gonna catch it early, you have an 85% chance of survival. And she looked at me and you could watch her body language change right in front of us because we had just given her life back. Like for her, 100% she's gonna get, 100% she's gonna die. She was just waiting for the end. Now she's like, wait, it's only 15%? Like, yeah. So you could see that she got her life back just by looking at the statistics. And if I didn't go through this worksheet with her, we would've never known that that's what she was thinking. So we could've corrected her statistics.

Yeah.

So I see this fight with parents and kids. Like parents are going, you can't go to the concert. And you're like, well, why not? And they're like, because you're gonna get in trouble. Like, well, what's the likelihood I'm getting in trouble? Well, right. And so you end up fighting, you know, you're a snotty little kid, you're, you're a controlling parent, right? So when you start throwing statistics into there, now you can actually have a meaningful conversation without a lot of anger because you can go, hey, look, I called the police and the chances of getting in trouble at a concert is only like 1% and blah, blah, blah, right? That column becomes important. The next column is like, okay, well, what can I do to make sure it doesn't happen? So like in my patient with breast cancer, we like we're going to get a gene test. We're going to get mammograms. We're going to do self exams. We're going to do all these different things. We're good, right? So that we'll be we can make sure we can do everything we can to make sure it doesn't happen. And then the last column is okay. Worst happens. You get breast cancer. What do you do about it? And you go okay. Whoa! So now I can make sure my will is done. I can. Scope out all the best cancer treatment programs. Like, but the key is you're doing all this planning, but without fear, cuz now you're just making these things down. And when it's done, now you go, okay, now I have it. I have it written down. I can show it to my doctor. I can show it to my best friend. I can show it to somebody who's had breast cancer and say, hey, is there things you can add in here? And then when you wake up at 2 o'clock in the morning going, oh, what am I gonna do? You go open up your book. You go, oh yeah, there it is. It's already done. So I know I can go back to sleep.

Yeah.

And I, with businesses, same thing, right? Because businesses, I mean, they have to, they have to look into the future and figure out what, what bad things could happen, but you don't have to focus on that. And even if you do, just write out the organized fashion and then you can go to sleep at night.

Yeah. You know, it's fun. Most CEOs I know are the ones I talk to. Um, they, they say they get paid to worry, like they get paid to worry about, you know, what's coming down the line, what are the competitive pressures and that sort of thing. So. One thing you mentioned about optimism and like when using your breast cancer patient as an example, it sounds a little bit like the placebo effect, right? And I was wondering on your perspective as a physician, you've probably seen this play out, right? Like just somebody just thinking somebody's true or something is true often makes it true. I don't know if that's kind of the best interpretation of the placebo effect, but I'd love your thoughts on that.

Yeah, no. Well, so placebo effect is really strong. So I'm throwing this out here, right? So when Viagra was getting studied, they had a really hard time getting it approved because when you gave people, when you gave guys a placebo, 50% of them got better with just the placebo.

Wow.

50%. So they had to be better than that. Now they were, so they, they were 80% effective, so they got approved. But 50% got better with taking something that didn't have any effect at all, right?

Uh-huh.

So yes, mine makes a huge difference. Part of it is what you think is gonna happen makes it more likely to happen. But I think the other thing, and I've read books by like, um, Jack Canfield, and what they talk about is as you focus on whatever it is that you're trying to achieve, so if you're trying to make your business better, as you focus on that, things come into play. So I'm gonna use this as an example. So part of my work leads to a, a different definition of addiction, right? So I call it a stress reducer loop model. So I was reading a book on a, a new model for addiction, and the guy went through this whole history of addiction and had all this background information. And I got to the end and it said, hey, you know, I'm, I'm a professor and I, and I work outta the University of Amsterdam. And as I'm finishing the book, I'm on, I'm on a river cruise and it's gone to Amsterdam. And I'm like, what? So I email the guy and say, look, hey, you know what? I got this new model. Maybe we can get together. So I emailed him and 5 minutes later he emails me back on, Yeah, let's get together. So we did lunch in Amsterdam. It was like, wow, you know, but that wouldn't have happened if I wasn't focused on something and that, that piece showed up and I took the, uh, I took the effort to email him knowing that he might've said no, maybe he would've never even looked at the email, but he said yes. And then we had this great productive conversation. So by thinking positively, things come into play that you pay attention to and you're willing to take the risk and go for it. Yeah.

So it, it really just speaks to the importance of your mindset and your thoughts, right? Because, because when you're thinking positively, you're more likely to experience positive outcomes. But the reverse is also true, which is kind of what we led with, right? If you're thinking negatively all the time, that's gonna be your experience.

Yeah. Well, and, and the, the negativity adjusts your, uh, emotions. And so emotions start becoming the negative emotions, the fear, the angers and things like that. When you're on the positive side of things, your positive outcomes, it gives you that positive emotions of like, yeah, I'm gonna help people. I'm gonna fulfill, fulfill. I'm gonna, you know, the good things, which then makes you feel good inside, which then makes you way more likely to keep working and doing it because you go, yeah, that's gonna be good stuff.

Yeah. So, so when you're in your, um, medical practice, have you, have you witnessed the placebo effect over time? Like just kind of, maybe not giving somebody a sugar pill, but like just getting them to think in a different way and then having those thoughts play out. For their benefit?

Yeah. Well, so one of the things that I found is self-esteem. So we all have some factor of self-esteem, but what I, when I started writing in the book about self-esteem, what I realized is self-esteem is sort of, first off, it's broken into 3 parts. There's a self-worth, like how worthy am I? A self-respect, like, you know, am I doing a good job? And third is self-efficacy is like, hey, if I had a future task, how good would I be at doing it? Right. So when you break it down into those 3 categories, then you go like, well, why don't everybody have good self-esteem? And what I found was a lot of times self-esteem starts when you're a baby. Like, you know, you're 5 months old and your mom is coming because you're crying, or she's not coming because you're crying. And so you start developing with your idea of self before you even know, before you even have awareness. So like, if I said to my 1.5-year-old grandson, 10 years from now, remember what you did when you were 1? He was like, nah, I don't remember any of that. Right? But all those actions, all those things that happened, all that self-assessment, self-esteem assessment was starting to occur, but he wasn't even aware of it. So what happens by the time you're 10, your self-esteem's kind of set and you don't even know how it got set. And so then it becomes really hard to change and it becomes self-fulfilling because you go, well, I'm not a— you know, if you start out with bad self-esteem, you're like, well, I'm not a good person. So what happens then is information comes in and says you're a bad person. You're like, ugh, I don't like hearing that, but it's true. If somebody says, no, no, you're a really good person, you're like— they call it cognitive dissonance. And they go, yeah, it doesn't really fit. And so then you start doing things to modify the information so then it does fit. So you go, oh, that guy doesn't know what he's talking about, or what'd you say? I didn't hear what you said, or— Let's just change the topic. So what happens is then you're only exposing yourself to the negative information and you miss the positive information because it doesn't fit. If you change that around and go, you know what, I got really good self-esteem, I'm a good person. Now you change. So now when people say you're a good person, you're like, yeah, that fits.

Yeah. No, that's, uh, that's a really good point. So it kind of makes me think of the— so, so it's, and it's not just What people say in your head, right? And it, it doesn't just live up there. It doesn't stay there. It's not contained to just your head. So, you know, maybe could you talk a little bit about the connection you see between chronic stress and chronic illness, right? Because this stuff has gotta show up somewhere. It's not, it doesn't just stay in your head, right?

Well, that's, I was talking about this earlier, like when you have a fear reaction, it goes on. So fear was really designed to last only about 10 or 15 minutes. So like if we lived in a jungle, right? And I see a lion, ah, right? My fear reaction goes off. I don't have to think, wait, was that a lion or a tiger? Right? No, I don't have time for that. I'm like running, right? I'm running fast as I can, or I'm hiding somewhere. But after 15 minutes, either the lion's gone on and found something else to eat, or I'm dead, right? So it was only meant to go for 15 minutes. What happens to humans, because we can think about what's gonna happen, it can go on for days and hours. So your body's running through these chemicals. Adrenaline, cortisol, those things are jacked up and they do all kinds of bad things. So there's a book I read called Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers, and it does— it's 300 pages on what happens to you physiologically when you're under a lot of stress, and it's not good. Your immune system doesn't work as well. You can't think— like, your thinking actually gets turned off because when you're, when you're running away from a lion, you're not going, hey, what was I supposed to do tomorrow? Right? No, you're just like— your whole thinking process gets turned off. So the less fear you have and the shorter it is, then the more effective you can be and the more physically you can be really better physically because you're not running around with all this extra cortisol and adrenaline.

Yeah. So, so we were never meant to stay in that fight or flight state, right? It was, it was meant to give us a boost of energy when we absolutely needed it and then just kind of get back into a rest and recovery state. That's exactly right. But yeah, I think this, you know, the society we're in, or especially in a business setting, we're just bombarded with stimuli that gives us that stress reaction, right?

You took the words outta my mouth. In this society, think about this. Like when you heard, when we, in the 1950s, when World War II or war, you know, was going on, when the Vietnam War came on, difference, right? So when, when World War II was around, We could see a newsreel or we could write an— read an article in the newspaper. When Vietnam came, we had reporters that were out there with a camera. We're watching live people getting shot, bombs going off. Nowadays, it's in your phone, it's on your watch, it's on your TV, it's on your computer. You are literally inundated. And here's the key, with visual images. So if I hear somebody got shot, I go, that wasn't very good. When I watch somebody getting shot, oh man, that's way more reactive. And so we spend our life being reactive and people don't put on the internet, oh, my mom had a birthday party and we blew out candles. No, we watched like people getting blown up and so bad stuff. So anything bad that you can think of, somebody's put it on a video somewhere. So any of our worst fears, like if we haven't thought of it, Somebody on the internet did. We have to learn how to filter that information so that we're not freaking ourselves out all the time.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the information we feed ourselves kind of drives our reactions for sure. Yeah. So, so if, if that's true that, you know, stress and anxiety and negative emotional states could manifest in chronic physical conditions, then is the opposite also true? So if you're really good at positive thoughts and affirmations and visualization, could that manifest as better physical health?

Absolutely. So I'm, I'm gonna be 69 this year and I read my book, right? So I'm much better at handling my stresses and people look at me like, whoa, which stress do you have? You're a rich doctor. And I'm like, yeah, trust me. Literally every patient comes in my door. Every decision that I make is a million-dollar decision. Because if something doesn't go right and that person sues me, they're going to sue me for a million dollars. Every single patient, every single decision I make could be a million-dollar decision. So yeah, no, that's— and, and it's their life, so they're way more hyped up about making sure the answer is right. So there's a crazy amount of stress, and doctors don't even realize how much stress they're under because they taught— they have to minimize that Because they're like, I can't worry about every single patient suing me. That would be, you couldn't, you'd, you'd be paralyzed. Right. So yeah, it makes a huge difference. I saw lots of patients that came in and their blood pressure would be high for 10 years and then they retired or they changed into that. They went from, I have to work to pay the bills to, well, I don't need to work so much anymore now. So I'm choosing to work because I like it. Their blood pressure would go down. They didn't need any medicine anymore. And you're like, whoa, that, that was pretty dramatic.

Wow.

Yeah.

So just that basic mindset shift, right? From, from I have to do this to I'm choosing to do it. I want to do it.

Right.

So, so I suppose you could do that artificially, right? So even if you have to work, you could train yourself to believe that, hey, I'm, I'm choosing to do this. 'Cause in fact you are, right? If you're, if you've started a company, you don't have to start the company. You've chosen to do it. And you've chosen all the crazy stuff that goes along with it, right? So maybe, maybe you just kind of trick yourself in a way, right?

You don't even have to trick yourself. Here's what I say. So humans like to feel like they're in control. And so when you're in a startup business, you don't really feel like you have a whole lot of control here, right? So where our control comes from is through our choices. But most people give up that control and say, I had to do this. I must do that. I ought to do this. When you take, then that means you have no choice, which then means you have no control. So what I say to people is, look, if you think of yourself as having a choice. So I'm gonna give you an example. One of my patients, he was toward the end of his career. He had like one more year and he came to me and said, Doc, I'm freaking out. I got one more year to put in, so I just gotta do this, but my boss is being a pain in the butt. Because he wants me out because, you know, he wants to save some money on my salary and he wants me gone. He wants to bring in some new person. And he was like, couldn't sleep. He was having a hard time eating. His stomach was all upset. So I was like, well, why are you staying another year? Why don't you just quit? And he was like, well, because if I stay another year, my pension will go up another 10% or 15%, and that'll be for the rest of my life. So I gotta stick, I have to stick it out another year. So I went back and said, whoa, whoa, whoa. I said, let me get this straight. So you could retire, you just get 15% less money. He goes, well, yeah, I could probably live on that, but I really want that extra money. I'm like, okay, you really want that extra money. So you're making a choice here. So your choice is I'm going to keep working because I want that extra benefit, but I could choose not to work. So when you looked at it in those terms and you're like, okay, so you're now choosing to do this. But if you're gonna choose to do it, well, how can we make it so it's more pleasant? I go, how much leave do you have? He goes, well, I got like a year's worth cuz I never really got sick. So I didn't, you know, I have like a year of time built up. And I'm like, well, let's do this. You're only gonna be there another year. You're not trying to get a promotion. You're just trying to stick it out. So how about you take a week vacation every month? Why not? Right? You got way more enough time to do that. So now you get 3 weeks of work, And a whole week to get off, which then lets you go, oh, okay, now in another 3 weeks I get another week off. And that's what he did. But just thinking that he had the choice changed how he approached the, the situation. And he went through his year, he had a happy-go-lucky year, and he got done. And now he's retired with his extra 15%. I watched my wife do this cuz she does a lot of this. I should, I have to, I must. And it drives herself crazy. I'm like, you have a choice. No, I don't. Yeah. Well, no, you do. You always have a choice. And when you see life as choices, then that makes you feel like you have some control.

Yeah, I think that's the key, right? And in almost every situation, you are choosing whether or not to be in it, right? For the most part. Or if nothing else, you can just choose how you think about it. Right? I guess so.

Choices might not always be good choices, right? You might.

Yeah.

I mean, they might be really crappy. I use my, an example of my, When I, my previous wife, she came to me and said, hey, I wanna get guinea pigs for the kids. And I was like, no, we don't need guinea pigs. We got enough pets. Right? The next day, like 5 guinea pigs showed up. So I could, and I'm like, man, what am I supposed to do? I could have felt outta control, but here's what I said to myself. Okay, look, I have a choice. Like I can let the guinea pigs stay and my wife will be happy, my ex-wife now, and my kids will be happy. And I'll be miserable. Or I have the choice that I could go kill the guinea pigs. Yeah, I could let 'em out. They could run away. The cat would eat them, right? This is my choice. Now, they might not be the greatest choices, but when I saw them as a choice and I just, just say, well, no, I let them live. Um, I felt better about it cuz I go, you know what? I have the choice. I could always let these guys die and it'd be all, you know, then I'd, I wouldn't have guinea pigs anymore. So even though it wasn't the greatest choices, it still had choice. And I still felt like I had at least some control over the situation. Yeah.

Well, and I imagine if the guinea pigs died, then you'd have a whole new set of problems to deal with, right?

That's it, right? And so, right, when you're in a business, this is always what you're dealing with. You're always dealing with, like, you know, when we're talking about tariffs and it's like, what do I do with all these tariffs? And you're like, one day they're on, one day they're off. I don't know. How do I run my business when I don't even know what's gonna happen? Yeah, but when you see it as a choice, you're like, well, you know, I have to see these as choices. They might not be good choices, but when I see 'em as choices, that makes me feel like I have some control over, over the situation.

Yeah. No, I think that that's important. So, so you spent decades in, in medicine and you teach wellbeing now. So, you know, you've got the physical, the, you know, mental part of it, uh, sorted out. I was wondering, you know, your position on spiritual health and if you see a connection between spiritual health and health in other areas like mental and physical health.

So spiritual health is— spiritual is an interesting concept, right? My religion is Christianity, right? So I come from that perspective, but I've read a lot about Buddhism and Islam and all the other different major religions, Hinduism and stuff. And they all have some of the same basic tenets, which is, where'd you come from? Where are you going? Here's some rules that you can live your life by in harmony, you know, so you can get by. And they all have that same basic tenet, but they all, like in Christianity in particular, one of the things that it says is there's this supreme being that knows everything, understands everything, and knows you and loves you. And you're like, wait, what? Some supreme being loves me so much just because of me, no matter how I am, and he's never going to change? Well, how freaking awesome is that, right? So that makes people feel good. And all you have to do is believe there's a supreme being and you get all the bennies. And it's like, yeah, how nice is that? So I, what I find with spirituality is that we all want that person, that entity in our life that gives us that feeling that we're worthy and that gives us our self-esteem. We're worthy. We're going the right direction. We can, we can face the problem in the future. 'Cause I got this person, this entity on my side. And so, yeah, I think there's, and here's what I learned. There was a movie, uh, it had Jodie Foster in it. And, and she's there, they, they have a first contact. I think that's what it was called with an alien society. And so she was supposed to go up and her, her boyfriend, husband, wherever he was at the time said, no, you can't go. She's like, why not? She goes, 'cause you don't believe in God. She's like, what's that got to do with it? He goes, 90% of humans believe in a supreme being. So there's gotta be something there, whatever it is, even if it's just a belief, it's a belief that changes how you look at things. Yeah.

And how liberating would that be just to know that, you know, maybe it's not like a, an old guy with a white beard on a cloud, but just like, you know, a universal energy, right? Like an omnipresent, universal, all-knowing, all-loving entity, but not like the, the white bearded dude, right?

Well, so here's what I see. Like, I've been to Tony Robbins and Jack Canfield, and what they talk about is when you focus, good things happen. And then you go to church and they go, if you focus and you pray, good things happen. Well, so if you're Tony Robbins or Jack Canfield, you're going, you made the change. If you go to church, they're going, God made the change.

Right.

Somebody, something happened, then the change happened, but it came down to you focusing. That's the real critical part, whether it's through prayer and spirituality or whether it's through writing down your worry organizer, whatever it is, by you focusing, things happen. Good things happen.

Yeah, no, that's true. So, so tell, like, if a, if a busy founder or CEO came to you, they're all stressed out. Um, you know, what does that first conversation look like? And then maybe are there some daily micro practices that you could recommend that work well for people who are just, you know, managing in a high-pressure environment?

So, so I talk about worry, tell me what you're worried about, and we go through the worry organizer, talk about realistic optimism. The other thing that I see, particularly with entrepreneurs, is they get overwhelmed. And again, this is a side effect of humans, right? So humans can handle more than one thing at a time. Like my dog, one thing. I'm hungry, I'm eating. I'm not hungry, I'm not eating. Hey, there's a female dog. What? Yeah, let's go, right? So they tend to be one problem, so they don't get overwhelmed. Humans can have 3 problems, 10 problems, 55 problems, right? So what I see is when people get overwhelmed, That's when bad things start happening because they feel like they're out of control. As they feel overwhelmed, that's one more problem. I'm overwhelmed. Ah, right? They're past their coping skills of what happens. And they go, so I use this example, like if you got $100 in your pocket and you bet somebody $10 that you can make this golf putt, like, okay, if you miss, you lose $10, you still got $90. If you bet $10 and you only got $1 in your pocket, oh, now you're freaking out, right? Because you're— the amount of reserve that you have isn't even enough to handle the problem you have. So somebody comes along and says, hey, here's another bet for $5. You're like, no, I can't handle that cuz I don't even have enough for the first bet. So even though it's a $1, if it's a $2 bet, that's what? No, I don't have— right. I can't do that. So when I saw, when I see people who are overwhelmed, The problem that in medicine, when you go to a primary care doctor or a psychologist, psychiatrist, first thing they want to do is diagnose you with depression. Say you're overwhelmed. You know, they don't go, you're overwhelmed. They go, you're depressed. Like you can't eat, you can't sleep, you can't this, you can't that. Oh, that's all signs of depression. Here's a medicine to fix it, which it doesn't, doesn't really fix the problem. It just makes you feel a little better. Alcohol would make you feel better if you use the right dose, right? So what I say to people, and this is the picture that I want in their head, I call shoeboxes. A good friend of mine gave this to me. If you walked into your bedroom and there was 100 shoeboxes and the lids here and the bottoms here and the left shoes here and the right there and a piece of paper, and there's 200 shoes and 100 boxes, 100 lids, and they're strewn all over your room, you would go, ah, what am I supposed to do with that? Right? If you walked in the same room, but now the box has the lid on and the shoes are inside and the piece of paper's there and they're all organized up in the closet, There's the same amount of shoeboxes, but now when you walk in, you're not overwhelmed. You go, oh.

Right.

So you just take down one shoebox, you look at it, you put it back. So what that means is, so here's what I tell people. When you're overwhelmed, you tend to lump. So you go, I got this going on and this happened and then, oh yeah, and then this. And then I don't know why we do this. We go, wait, I gotta think of something else to throw on top so it can make it even worse. End up with a big giant blob of crap. And you don't even know where to get started. So the answer then is compartmentalization, and that's the shoeboxes. So the more compartmentalized these problems are, the less overwhelming they become. So I got this problem. That by itself is not overwhelming. And I got this problem. That by itself is not overwhelming. It's only when I let them all merge together that I get into trouble. So what I say to people that are overwhelmed, don't lump, compartmentalize, use your shoeboxes.

Yeah. And I think that's good advice for tackling any project, right? They always say, just, you know, take it in small manageable chunks and, you know, like how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time, right? You don't look at the whole thing. Yeah.

Well, and what they say then is, well, a lot of these problems are, are connected and you're like, well, I get that. So you can't totally compartmentalize everything, but the more you do, the less overwhelmed you're gonna be because, and then the other thing I say is like, Hey, if you can't fix that problem, then don't, let's leave that alone. Put it off to the side. We'll come back to that later. Let's, let's prioritize the important ones now so that you're not looking at all 10 problems. You're only looking at the 3 that need to be fixed right this second.

Yeah. Prioritization, a key skill for sure. So, so let's talk a little bit about your book. So Highway to Your Happy Place. What was the inspiration for it? And, and you know, what would people get as a result of reading it?

Yeah. So when I, I started this project like 25 years ago, right? So for the first 23, 22 years, and I was busy being a primary care doctor and it was on the back burner. About 3 years ago, I was like, you know what? This book needs to get written. 'Cause when I would say to my patients, hey, I'm writing this book on how to love stress, they go, oh, I need that book. I haven't talked to a single person who I said I was writing this book who didn't say, I need that book. So I realized there's a great need out there. Because as you said in the beginning, like people are stressed out and we're getting more stressed out, even though our lives are pretty successful, we're actually more stressed out than we used to be because we get to see so many things that go on that we can worry about. So then as I'm talking to patients like, hey, where would you be if you didn't have so much stress? And they were like, uh, I, I don't know. I never got that far. I only wanted to have less stress. You're like, well, we need to have a destination.

Yeah.

Like, you know, if you're starting a business, if you don't know where you want to get to, you're never going to get there because you don't know where you're trying to go. So that's when I started, because I had started half the book on let's have less stress and worry and guilt and regret and boredom and being overwhelmed and low self-esteem. But then I'm like, wait, I need to give my people a destination. And that's when I started developing this idea of a happy place. And the happy place turned out to be this interesting place because as you said, you're in Costa Rica now. And it's like, that's a happy place for you going out there surfing every day. It's like, yeah, that's a happy place. Mine is not, right? I like to sing karaoke. So I'm in Amsterdam wailing out a song, you know, Love Shack with my wife, right? That's my happy place. But here's what I learned, that everybody's— think of happy place as a room, a house, right? With rooms. And I'm in Amsterdam and they have kitchens and they have bathrooms and they have stairways. Different than they have here, but they have the same ingredients. They have the same rooms. They're just decorated differently. They're just put up differently. So what I realized was everybody's happy place has the same rooms. They're just decorated differently. So then I had to go, well, what are the rooms? Right? So then I, here's what I figured out. First room, contentment. And that's where mindset really matters. 'Cause I've seen a lot of rich people who aren't content at all. And I've seen a lot of poor people who are really contented. Second is having pleasurable things in your life. I enjoy karaoke. You like ski surfing. So it's like, yeah, these are things that give us that jolt of pleasure, but they're short-lived. They kind of come and go, right? So you don't surf every single minute of every day. So you enjoy that time when you're surfing and then you go do something else. But the next day you come back and you do it again. You're like, oh, so you fall back to that level of contentment where the mindset really matters. The third thing then is having gratitude. and feeling grateful. And what I find is people don't even realize how good we have it. Because when you go to foreign countries, like, and I've been to Costa Rica, and you go to places where it's much poorer, and you're like, dude, we were in places, we were in castles. They don't have indoor plumbing. They didn't have air conditioning. They didn't have windows. You're like, wait, what? It got cold. What the hell did you do?

Right? Right.

So we have these incredible things that we don't even take We, we take them for granted because we don't know any, we didn't know any different, right? And then there's anticipation of pleasure. So like I was going to go on this cruise. We knew for 6 months we were going to go on the cruise. So I had 6 months going, oh, this is going to be awesome. So I had 6 months going, woo, nice, nice, nice, right? And in my mind, it was going to go great. Like my luggage wasn't going to get lost. The boat wasn't going to get stuck. There wasn't going to be, you're right. We weren't going to get lost. It's like everything was going to be great, right? So I had 6 months of that. The vacation only lasted a couple weeks and there were things that didn't go right. Um, uh, next one is fulfillment, and this is an important one. So fulfillment is made up of learning because humans are curious and we need— curious is a— we need to, we need to continue to focus on learning something new. We're also a communal organism, so we like sharing. So giving to other people is the way we share. So if you're in need and I give you something, that makes me feel good. Right? And then I added the, and then there's a thing called, I call purpose. And purpose means I get up in the morning going, oh, I really wanna do that. Like, and so for me, the book has become my purpose, helping people have less stress. That gets me out there and I'm going, yeah, I need to do this podcast because that's gonna help somebody.

Right?

And then the last thing is something I came up with. I call it CASH. It's an acronym and it stands for being connected, being accepted, and being appreciated. Then having, feeling safe. And that's where I throw in the spiritual part, right? And then the last thing is hope. So if you put all those rooms together, what? That's a great place to be. And that's the place you can get. Now that I know that I want to get there, if I'm feeling grateful, like I came home, right? I just was in this huge-ass castle that didn't have windows and didn't have indoor heating and didn't have an elevator and did, right? And I'm like, dude, my house is way better than that castle was, right? Right?

Yeah, no, that's great. Hopefully people will pick it up. And is that available on Amazon?

Is that where people buy it? Yeah, it's both on Amazon. It's on, so I just, I don't know what Barnes Noble did, but they just changed it. Only the audio, no, the ebook is available in Barnes Noble. So I recorded the audiobook and, ah, this is where there is some frustration in all this, right? So it's been a year that I recorded it and right before I left for my vacation, the guy Okay, we're all set. 10 days, it's gonna be out. And while I was on vacation, I checked my emails like, oh, there's a problem. And I'm like, anyway, so that should be out by the end of this month or certainly by the beginning of next month. And then I also did an online course, which I think will help people. 'Cause what I realized is for me to get the information, a book's one way, but people get their information way different ways now. So they get it through podcasts, they get it through online courses, they get it through ebooks, they get it through all these different things. So what I've tried to do is get this message out in a number of different formats. So people can consume the information and use it.

Amazing. So if people are interested in learning more about you and your work and what you do, where can they find you?

Sure. So, so I have a website called LessStressDoc. It's thelessstressdoc.com, so they can go there. But if they have a specific question, cuz when you write a book, one of the things that happens is like, as a doctor, I'm used to having one-on-one conversations so I can look in their eyes and go, oh, they're not getting what I'm saying. I gotta say it a different way. But when you're writing a book, you have to be a little more generic because the person's not sitting in front of you, so you don't really know what they're thinking or what their basics of knowledge are, right? So if they need to, they can just, uh, email me at lestressedoc@gmail.com.

Amazing. Well, Dr. Sprouse, thank you so much for sharing your time and talent and expertise with us. Really appreciate it.

Great conversation. Yeah, no, thank you for having me on here. And here's what I say to people.

This is my final statement.

Whatever you do, do not resign yourself to being stressed out. There are things you can do to not be so stressed out. My book's one of the things. There's other things out there, but do something because you don't have to live a stressed-out life.

Thank you so much for listening to the Total Entrepreneur Mind Body Spirit Podcast. If you liked what you heard or heard something interesting today, please give us a like, share a comment, or better yet, subscribe to the podcast. Thank you.