The Dev is in the Details

From Navy to Project Management: Kevin Pannell on The Fundamentals of Leadership and Balance | The Dev is in the Details #15

• Lukasz Lazewski

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► What does it really mean to lead without losing yourself? 

In this episode, Kevin Pannell – Navy veteran, emergency responder, and healthcare IT leader – takes us from the intensive care units of a hospital ship to high-pressure project rooms in healthcare. Drawing on his military training and years in emergency management, we discuss how triage principles, clear objectives, and decisive communication can transform both crisis response and project delivery.

We explore his Stability Equation framework built on 7 life pillars: ownership,  mindfulness, movement, boundaries, connection, sleep, and faith; and how they anchor leaders facing chaos, burnout, or overwhelming responsibility. Kevin shares personal stories of setbacks, resilience, and practical tools like breathing techniques, jiu-jitsu, and redefining what “done” really means.

This conversation is about more than leadership: it’s about finding clarity, balance, and strength when everything around you is uncertain. 


► Our guest 🌟

Kevin Pannell 👉 https://www.linkedin.com/in/pannellkg/  

Healthcare IT Leader, Navy Veteran, and the author of The Stability Equation: 7 Pillars for a More Balanced Life, and host of the People, Process, and Progress podcast. 

👉 https://linktr.ee/peopleprocessprogress 


► In today’s episode:

  • How Kevin’s previous experience in the U.S. Navy helps him navigate complex IT and healthcare projects 
  • How to find the right balance in leadership and life
  • The 7 pillars for successful projects and life, and how to incorporate them 
  • Approaching challenges and project roadblocks
  • Practical advice on moving forward when you feel stuck or overwhelmed


► Decoding the timeline:

00:00:00 - Leveraging Lessons in Leadership from The U.S. Navy to Project Management

00:04:20 - The Ladder to Building Experience and Expertise  

00:07:03 - The Comparison Between IT Projects and Military Structures

00:10:01 - Finding Stability Through Hard Times and an Approach to Find Balance in Life

00:13:04 - The 7 Pillars for Successful Projects

00:19:48 - Communication Challenges in Projects and Standardization Tips

00:28:49 - Incorporating The 7 Pillars for Balanced Life in Practice

00:32:15 - Owning Mind, Body, and Spirit Philosophy in Leadership 

00:35:52 - Picking Your Own Tool Set for Handling Stress 

00:40:40 - The Impact of The Movement and Exercises on Your Mind  

00:42:57 - How to Apply The Life Pillars Principles for High-Stress Roles

00:48:30 - The Direct Link Between The Pillars for Life and Projects

00:51:16 - How to Balance Projects, Deliverables, and Team Wellbeing Without Cutting Corners

00:53:50 - The First Steps to Start Moving Forward


► Materials and information mentioned in the episode: 

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The Dev is in the Details is a podcast where we talk about technology, business and their impacts on the world around us.

Łukasz Łażewski 👉 https://www.linkedin.com/in/lukasz-lazewski/
Write to us 👉 podcast@llinformatics.com

Kevin:

The cover of the book is a person sitting in front of a window. Well, that's me. There's a window right here. Looking for answers, finding answers, planning. And, as a planning person, right, you're like, let me grab all this, put it together, see what works. It's just good for you. And that links to your mind, right? You know, like, what's the real root of why these numbers on a dashboard or a report are that way?

Lukasz:

We're constantly being told to move faster, do more, and keep up, but at what cost? Whether you're leading high- stakes healthcare project or just trying to avoid burnout, the fundamentals of leadership and balance are more connected than we think. My guest today is Kevin Pannell, Navy veteran, emergency responder, healthcare IT leader, and author of the book The Stability Equation. He has led through chaos, disaster, and complexity, and now helps others find clarity and strength through his seven-pillar framework for a more balanced life. Kevin, welcome. Let's get into what it really means to lead without losing yourself.

Kevin:

Thank you so much, Lucas. I appreciate the invite and the conversation. It's always good to talk to folks, especially fellow IT folks, you know, it's a big profession, but always good to talk shop, so to speak with other folks.

Lukasz:

Brilliant. Thank you. So, before we get into the frameworks that you proposed and you alter and they resonate with me very strongly, tell us a bit more about your journey. How did your experiences in Navy shaped your emergency management and how did that impact your healthcare IT work? What do you think about the leadership and life balance through your experiences, please?

Kevin:

Sure, yeah, I joined the Navy when I was 19. So very young exposure to both how being led and then becoming a leader, and that's the thing, the military, of you know, all over the world. But you know, for me, the U. S. Navy taught me is when you're very young, you become a leader right away. Through your experience. You know both that you learn as leadership through the, through your specialty, which I was, a corpsman, which is people don't know what this is, it's a medic, but in Navy we call it a hospital corpsman, and so I work mostly in critical care and intensive care units, on the emergency room, essentially on the hospital ship comfort, and so I was exposed to folks that were really sick, really hurt.

Kevin:

You have to make snap decisions, and so that immediately set me up for triaging patients right, triaging people, triaging problems, which means treat the sickest people first, you know, get the things that are going okay kind of out of the way, so to speak. And then in between, you kind of manage the yellow patients, if you will. And it's just like a stoplight, right? Red is worse. Yellows, you know, not quite as bad in greens, it's kind of walking wounded. So you can do the same thing for a project, which a lot of projects do jump into that. And then, so emergency management. It's also similar, but it's a bigger scale.

Kevin:

So when you're an emergency manager, you're more facilitating solutions and logistics and planning and things like that. But you could take it from the individual patient, like I did as a corpsman, to a whole locality.

Kevin:

So I was a public health emergency planner for a long time, and my objective, and I know we're talking about objectives in a little bit, it was to provide a 10-day supply of antibiotics to over 300,000 residents in 48 hours, right. So that was my overarching objective for my whole job. But it's a grant-funded thing with the Department of Health, and so training nurses how to use the incident command system, which is a methodology that parallels project maintenance with that kind of stuff. It really resonated because in the Navy, you learn how to put together big operations, and in incident command, you learn how to put together big operations. It's just different terminology, and that's what I carried with me to that into project management. It's like, oh, I'm bringing people together and I'm moving stuff around, and it's all the same. It's just, you know, I'm in this uniform or that uniform, or khakis, or you know something different.

Kevin:

So it just really carried over, and I won't say that at the time I always went oh here's the parallels like and then write about them or talk about them, but in the actions that took I could tell they were related, just from the experience I'll say I guess.

Lukasz:

And this happens from the very beginning in the Navy, because my imagination of I never served right, so my vision of it is like you go in and you start somewhere at the very bottom of the ladder of the command structure, right.

Kevin:

For sure.

Lukasz:

So do you need to go up in that ladder before you gain this experience, or is this something that happens naturally at every stage?

Kevin:

Yeah, good point. It's kind of both. So you're for sure, unless you've got like a certain amount of education. And I was enlisted. So I was enlisted in officers. Officers typically have a four-year degree or up and then you're commissioned, so and then enlisted. I had, you know, a semester of community college that I wasted, but I had, you know, so it didn't really count toward giving. You can go in a little higher in the enlisted rank if you have like two year degree or something.

Kevin:

So, yeah, so I was an E1 or enlisted one. And the litmus test for which is interesting, which is you could equate this to other things. But litmus test for being advanced while you're in boot camp, because there's what's called petty officers, like supervisors level folks. And basically, if you stencil your t-shirt accurately and you don't screw up the simple things. Then they promoted about eight people in the class to be in charge of different things, right. And so I was okay at that, and other people had different leadership skills and they go, oh're in, and so my, I wasn't, I was called the chalkboard petty officer. So now this. Now I was in the 90s. So take people back a little bit. So I had to write really nicely like the plan of the day, and then you know, stand watch and things like that. But when you do that and then out of boot, I've actually got advanced because I also painted our flag. And so you do things incremental, like good jobs, and they notice it, and they go, oh, let's give you an advancement, which is money and more authority and things like that. And so if you basically keep doing a good job as you move up there, then there's tests you have to study.

Kevin:

So when I was a core, that was before I was trained as a corpsman, I was just a basic sailor, so to speak. Then, after that, I went to court school. I was actually second in charge of my class, and they base it on kind of what they see from you when they assemble you, and who's squared away and does your uniform look good and like are you good at exercise and all these different factors. And so when you you know it's, it's a merit based thing, just like in our workforce, right? Did that person do good? Whether your evaluation is going to be probably higher than the person who just kind of showed up and didn't do good.

Kevin:

So it's very similar. At first, for sure, you're getting barked at, you're getting dropped to do pushups, you know all these things, because it's the whole break you down but you back up thing. But then after that, depending on what you do, or really overall the military, then it's largely merit based. If you do good work, if you try hard, you're going to advance and then that obviously resonates in life. Could there be barriers, could there be obstacles, for sure, but largely if you put the work in, you're going to do good.

Lukasz:

Brilliant, brilliant. Thanks for this detailed explanation. It surprises me, because when I think of military, any military, right. I think about the huge rigid structure. But when I think about IT projects, I think about agile, small, independent, you know, self-managed, self-governed teams, right? How does that compare?

Kevin:

Yeah, so that definitely depends on, probably, the branch and the unit and all that, just like it depends on the company, right. Like your software company, where Agile, Scrum, we're doing stand-ups like all these kinds of things, whereas if I'm a construction company, I'm probably waterfall all day long or largely. We have to put the power in before we put the data in, before we. You know that kind of stuff. So I think it just depends.

Kevin:

So in the military, so when I was in the critical care unit, it would be like me and a nurse and we'd have like three or four patients. Right, how we took care of those patients was based on, you know, the right thing to do, the moral stuff, all that. But also medically, what did we do? But I didn't plan my shift exactly like the other corpsman or nurse. So there's some variability in you know and in quality, right, you know, and if you've been to the hospital with somebody or family, friends, whatever, you know that people take care of other people at different levels. Some people you go in and visit your person and their hair is combed really nicely and they're shaven. Sometimes you go in and they're not and you can tell that's from the person's is that person burnt out? That kind of stuff.

Kevin:

So that still applies in the military there are, for sure, rigid structures. There's a whole rank thing, you know, and saluting, and all that, and and the paperwork you have to do and now I'm sure it's more digital but requests to like go do something, or request for leave or it's, you know it's not dissimilar to the civilian workforce. It's for sure a bigger machine. I mean, it's the Department of Defense. It's enormous. There are other units that are much more Spartan.

Kevin:

I wasn't a Ranger but I know some folks that were from the standpoint of. They are very regimented, even at the high level of a special operations force, but they live that just life. Because you need to right, if you're going to deploy and go, take over an airport or be at the, the cutting edge, you got to be always ready to go, so not, you know, hanging out and that kind of stuff. So it's. It varies largely by unit but there is rigidity. I think that's something I've heard too and other discussions and podcasts is like you know, they think it's locked down. Everyone tells you what to do and all that, but I think you're actually rewarded more for being a free thinker, and the higher trained and skilled you are, the more people let you do that.

Lukasz:

Fascinating. It's fascinating because it goes against my common sense, right, but it makes a lot of sense at the end, as you explained it. Brilliant. I think I read the book about, I don't know what branch was it, I think it might have been some sort of special forces, and it was a while ago. Extreme Ownership by Jaco?

Kevin:

Jaco Willing. I'm a huge fan.

Lukasz:

Yeah, Extreme Ownership, we love it in here as well. Good, it's a welcome book for a lot of people.

Kevin:

Do you listen to the podcast as well?

Lukasz:

No, just a couple of episodes. I know how he looks like because I've seen some youtube videos with him when he was in different interviews, but not regularly. Super. And in your book when you talk about finding stability and you know, especially through hard times, was there a moment in your own experience when you realized you needed a new approach to balance things in your own life?

Kevin:

Yeah, I mean, in hindsight, there were probably many, and some I ignored completely. Some I did some about, and in fact it's great you mentioned Jocko because he was a big catalyst for it. Years ago probably in 2016/ 17, I was an emergency manager. I was on calls, also a volunteer firefighter. I was doing a lot but not doing enough for me and not taking care of myself, right, not sleeping good, staying up late, having too many beers, like all this stuff that you're not supposed to do too much of I did, and then being cranky and all this kind of stuff. And so a good buddy of mine, Mike, said hey, you should listen to this guy, and it was his podcast, Shaka's podcast, and I just put it off. Right, I didn't, and then I finally did, and one which you'll like. There's some pretty heavy stories early on, but it also gives you perspective on, you know, taking extreme ownership, and of course, I read the book and the in this follow-up book too. But, um, and that was the whole thing then. And so I followed suit of okay, well, tomorrow, and I wasn't unfamiliar with exercising and getting up. I, you know, I did that, did really well in the military and on my own but I'd gotten out of it. So I was out of shape and so I set my alarm, got up 5:30 and then just started that and since then did it and that was kind of a reset.

Kevin:

And then let myself kind of get back and you know the past few years. You know COVID being isolated, working remote all the time and similar thing. And then my dad got diagnosed with stage four cancer and again I was in a similar habit where I would work out a lot but then I would stay up and I'll play games. You know too much, you know beer and that kind of stuff and not eating. And so then really reset myself after I had a big panic attack, went to the hospital, did the whole thing. It's not your heart, you're just, you know this and that and went down conventional medicine roads, we'll say, and the first thing they want to do is give you pills, frankly, and so not necessarily skills, and I forget who had said it, but they said you know skills over pills, which I was like oh, that's it.

Kevin:

So worked through the system, I was like you know what? I have to own this myself and where I am now, which is the cover of the book is a person sitting in front of a window. Well, that's me. There's a window right here looking for answers, finding answers, planning, and, as a planning person, right, you're like, let me grab all this, put it together, see what works. And so that's how I started to build those seven pillars for more stability. What helped me and what I knew helped others because the other sources that I looked at. But it all started with ownership and falling back on some of the concepts and I knew him and even when you listen to Jack, he knows it. He got it from other folks. It's like the first thing, whether it's a project or your personal development, is you have to realize you have to change something and you're the only one that can do it. You can't be looking for external guidance, help push at all. Not at all, but not only.

Lukasz:

Sure. Yeah, absolutely. You got to believe in it. You got to have what I call a buy-in right internally to do this. Brilliant. Since you already mentioned your seven pillars for successful projects, could you share which one you consider the most important and tell us why you believe they all matter in the end together?

Kevin:

I think, and they've changed, but I think overall, probably the definition of done, like what does really done mean? Because you know, and I'm sure you've seen too, is projects can jump right to the solution. They can never talk about the solution. And I really started this, these seven pillars, with what was called the big three. So one of my mentors in incident management, which is that would be essentially a project team that would show up in a disaster and say how do you need what do you need help with, like you know, the Texas floods or a missing person or a big fire or whatever. And he was like hey, if you can have objectives, smart objectives, if you can get resources and you can communicate, you can do anything. And so I was all in and it worked and for years we used that. And then I added you know a couple other things. And so now, yeah, that I think the definition of done and that's come with me being exposed more to agile and scrum and those kinds of things and just adding a perspective. But yeah, you know, starting with the leaders and like we have to know what the leader, who's paying for this, who approved it, who did all this? We have to know what their intent is, which then leads you into like what is done, what's the problem you're trying to solve, which I think can easily get lost in. Either someone went to a conference and like, hey, this new product's good and, of course, selling things is everything looks perfect. When you're at a conference and it's on, you know, as an example, um, but then you know what's the intent of this project, whether it's big, small, it's devices, it's software, it's whatever. And then what does done look like right, is it just more of them? Is it saving time? It's to me along the lines of kind of a KPI, but not quite. And if you're an agile shop or scrum, like you've used, definition of done or hopefully do a lot, and so I think that one actually goes in there.

Kevin:

And then the objectives. I'm still a big fan of smart objectives, that specific, measurable, achievable, realistic time base, because every kind of tactical thing you do should tie to one of those, and that was ingrained in me with you know, if we're standing with a big laminated board, with a locality that's overwhelmed, and we say, okay, um, what are the problems you're facing? And then you know we can narrow that down to two or three objectives that we can gear all the people, all the stuff, all the buildings, all the everything towards just those objectives, like sandbag this area within 12 hours, or triage these patients, you know something like that. And then we can go okay, we're going to need 2000 bags and this many people and that kind of stuff.

Kevin:

And that then leads you to the org structure for a functional one. And I say functional because to me it's easy to say this is the IT group, this is the policy group, this is the nursing group. It's very straightforward, like who's in that box on the org chart, um, and because we in the incident management and then in projects they do the two or programs, it's, you know, a functional one is what does the group do, what does that box of people do? And then a geographic one is, you know the North American branch or the European branch or something? So you could. Those are the two dividers we would kind of use. Is the geographic for, like, a big fire area, um, or is it functional like a, you know, a project team or something?

Kevin:

But then those folks need stuff. So the next thing is resource coordination. And then I added realistic, because you can ask for anything, but do you have the money, do you have the logistics to do it, especially in some of the times where the supply chain was just a mess over the past five, six years, where it's hard to get equipment, people, that kind of stuff. And I say realistic again because where I came from from incident management, you had to be very specific because, for example, there's like seven different types of bulldozers. So I could say I need a dozer and you're like cool, then you get the biggest one that costs $10,000 an hour and you're like oh, no, I just wanted like a little backhoe for my shit yeah for sure.

Kevin:

And the same thing happens in hardware software projects, right? Do I need the best coder in the world or someone that can do super basic work for now, you know? So it helps?

Lukasz:

Yeah, and how many times do we build, you know, reinvent the wheel right, just because everyone wants to build something on their own instead of using one of a ready out of the shelf or open source solutions. Yeah, absolutely.

Kevin:

Yeah, absolutely. So then the resource, and then communications. Always you know something, but right, sizing it. And I say that probably more for projects, because you know the out of the box that I've seen in project management is, you know, you have a weekly check-in with the team, you have a monthly steering committee meeting and then that's pretty much the tempo. But do you need the steering committee or do you need a different level, one that's down or something? Because you know a lot of that's reporting? And then, if you're stuck, can we have more money? Do we need more money? That kind of stuff? Um, but I think you know it's good to have the standards.

Kevin:

But then to me it's more important. Like with my team, like you know, do the meetings you need if you're stuck, if there's a crisis, like an issue, then meet every day until you solve the crisis. You know, and I think that's a big thing, especially when we talk about, like, project reporting. So what's? You know what's at risk to us as a yellow light, right, which to me means yeah, we have versus or maybe an issue, but we have a plan, right, we're working it. It's just we have it. And then a red or a critical one is yeah, we have version issues and we don't have a solid plan yet, but communicating that. To me, communication is literally what are the tasks on the plan, or here's the problems we're having, but it's all aspects of it and making that fit.

Kevin:

What works for that project and then circles back to this meet the intent and get us toward done. And the objectives and um, and the last one I have is a newer one for sure that I added from you know is the handoff, both the incoming and outgoing um. You know from business case through. You know, because often, um, when there's, you know, either people movement or things change or we need to move someone to another assignment, I need to hand off or get a handoff from somebody else. And it's important to do that. Well, right, if someone's coming to take over a project, I don't want to be like cool, thanks, bye, and then they have to figure everything out and that's not just having a pile of documentation, but kind of a succinct.

Kevin:

Here's what's happening, here's the environment of the project, like the people and you know the politics or whatever. Here's where all the resources, all that kind of stuff and that was again another thing one in project management that I've gotten better at and learned. But in incident management, emergency management is when you hand off to somebody coming in. It might be after I've worked like 15 hours and I just want to leave, but if I just drop everything and someone's now in charge of 150 people, it's not fair. So to scale that to just a small software enhancement, it's still just as important.

Lukasz:

Absolutely, yeah. Awesome. And when you deploy this the seven pillars and you have an actual running project and the pressure mounts up. What's the first one that tends to be a challenge?

Kevin:

Oh yeah. I think on every lessons learned after action improvement, it's communication for sure.

Lukasz:

Communication?

Kevin:

Yeah, I think so from not necessarily that there's not enough, but maybe it's too much, it's too wordy. I'm a big fan of every project manager should be able to give an elevator pitch of what's going on with their project and like a sentence, right? And so if you could do that and then add a little bit more when there's a problem, then that's really what high level leaders need, because they don't have time or, you know, for your team, that's like well, why are we doing this? You can quickly give them the impact. You know positive or negative and what happens.

Kevin:

But communication, I think, and probably ever. We do lessons learned, surveys after every project, right, and then not just that, but an improvement plan, because we can gather the data and go, cool, thanks, and then just let it sit there and do it, but it's helpful to go, okay, well, how are we going to act on these ones that make sense to, or improve on the ones we're doing well. But communication is always on there, whether and that's the tough part, I think of owning things as a project manager or program manager is owning that you know you communicated stuff. But people say you didn't communicate stuff. You know, you know what I mean.

Kevin:

It's like right, I never knew and you're like, oh, it was on message and it was an email and it was in the meeting. And you're like, okay, well, that's that, I think, humility part of going well, how can I do it better then?

Lukasz:

What do you do to standardize comm channels, like you just mentioned, right, because nowadays folks have Zoom and MS Teams and Slack and chats and email obviously still and WhatsApp messages. It's just crazy.

Kevin:

That's a lot. Yeah. am, now that what the health system is, you know, within, I think, 15 or 20 minutes for messages, like if you messaged somebody because we should all be online during the day, which is, of course, a challenge, you know, if people are hybrid, remote, in person, that kind of stuff. Um, in a system, because if you're chatting with clinical people or operational people, they're up walking around a lot more than I am, you know, because I'm not in the hospital or I'm not the nurse manager or something like that.

Kevin:

But we have standards for how long it should take to respond to an email, to a message being on camera, those kind of things. And then for projects, we have, you know, a standard using obviously we're using email for kind of general updates. I'm going to ping you directly on a messaging, you know if I really need something. And then the default, the end stop. Can't be well, I emailed a message. It could be well, did you call them? Cause that still works.

Kevin:

You know what I mean. In 2025, people forget oh, I can directly phone call you also. And some people get stuck. Then you're like, well, you got to, especially if it's a big deal and you're going to miss the deadline, you know whatever the problem is. And then tax so you know, we make contact lists for every project. You know cell phones, especially for go lives, not just people's well, probably less people have desk work phones and more it's all cell phones, which is an interesting transition.

Kevin:

Right when people were so protective of their cell phones and now, like it's all cell phone communication, I feel like, um, yeah, but get direct contacts. So when all the other cool messaging things or email doesn't work because everybody has a lot of email, we just go direct with you know, or face-to-face, because most of our lives, too, were. But you need to be there unless you really can't or something. So there's a lot of value in that. But yeah, it's just setting standards. And then there's the standard which you could Google communications matrix for a project, and it's what's the meeting, how often, what's the medium, who's involved, what's the point? And it's good to plan that stuff out. It's good practice. I'm not a big fan of extra administrative overhead, but those that's one of the things that's worth documenting and talking about with the team, I think.

Lukasz:

Yeah, it was actually my next question uh, regarding the right size communication, what are you? How do you isolate topics per project, per group, per feature in either something like Slack, when you have designated channels, or something like this? But I guess that's part of the framework that you just mentioned.

Kevin:

is yeah, and that's up to what I expect in the onus in the delegation and the discretion for the project managers, at least on my team and in our whole organization of. We have their standards. We know whether it's Scrum, scrum agile, waterfall, pmi, PMI whatever standard. There's tools, cool. Start with that and then talk to your team and see what works for everybody. And so, right, right- really is about the conversation you have with the people on the team.

Kevin:

That's going to make sure that there's not gaps in communication, to the extent possible, because there will be, whether it's you gathering requirements or you're planning for the go live, or you're during the go live, or you're at the meeting or you know. And so if, if what you know, the other pm does or I do doesn't work for your project, then don't do it. But you have to do something and knowing when to flip the switch on. We keep going back and forth in email and we can't solve the problem. So get people on the phone and talk to each other every day. Do a stand up for 15 minutes, right, figure it out, have a work session pull people in.

Kevin:

You know, and that's the thing too. I think that's super valuable is, you know, if you're going back and forth like we deal with a lot of vendors, right with internal folks that are IT and clinical and a vendor, and we're just like going in circles, be like we have to get a call and get in the same virtual room and like hash it out, and that's where I think the like escalation not being a four-letter word helps, right where, if nobody's getting on the call at some point you have to go. Hey boss, can you please help pull everybody together. You know, because and that's that circles back to earlier conversation about the military where rank matters. Well, rank does matter when you need help right in the business world, and it's not a punitive tool. But you know, if a vice president calls someone, it's more impactful than me, you know, unless I've built a super strong relationship with them.

Lukasz:

Of course I totally get it. And for learning purposes, in within that setup, do you encourage like retrospective meetings of some sort, or?

Kevin:

Oh for sure.

Kevin:

Absolutely. Yeah, I'm a huge fan of. There's a whole methodology that I learned from Homeland Security. It's called a Homeland Security exercise in variation and the last part of that is improvement planning. So it's either in person or survey. You know, three up, three down, kind of as a quick way.

Kevin:

What are three strengths, what are three improvements? Or there's the whole. You know, stop, start, keep doing, kind of stuff, you know, and so for sure.

Kevin:

And we're a hybrid really. So we have a whole lot of agile stuff going on with our development of our electronic health record, and then we have a whole lot of waterfall stuff with infrastructure and just other things, or just where it doesn't fit the team and or just where it doesn't fit the team. And I think, just like right size communication, right size the methodology makes sense, because not everybody's got every day to do a standup, you know, during a sprint, and that you know, and not every project needs to take however long, just because of you know you want to use waterfall or something like that. So yeah, so I think it's important to right size what you do and how you do it and how people meet and how they work together is really important with them.

Lukasz:

Absolutely. Have you ever had an experience or tried doing this asynchronously, like people just write their updates and leave it on the chat or email it to you to the PM, every morning or every evening or whenever they get the chance, and then by the end of the day you have a compiled input from everyone, where they are, what their blockers are and impediments and whatnot?

Kevin:

We have to some extent, probably more. We're doing, I think, some training module development, and we up Your in teams like a Kanban board and each trainer or developer was responsible for just moving it to the right phase. So it wasn't, we weren't gatekeeping. You know we're slowing anything down, probably less of a do your update. But I've done that before too, where you know, whatever the tool is, it's like hey, you know, before this time, just make sure you're updated.

Kevin:

The PMs do that across the teams. They talk to their teams. So when we get to, you know our weekly or bi-weekly hey reviews or standups for the whole portfolio. It's just there. So we have a mix of that and it varies too by project where you know is a PM assigned on the project or not, or is it like a manager, and then you get some variability. But the good thing is we're cross-pollinating kind of some of what we use as pms um, and what. That's some basic, you know, tracking things, and I'm a huge fan of doing that, having folks here drag and drop the status on a board like it's just, it's so easy, it's so straightforward and you pull it up and I know for me pictures work and I know for a lot of leaders they were like there it is, you know, or stoplight colors or same kind of things.

Lukasz:

Absolutely. I love the visual information sharing as well. Yeah, perfect. So let's shift gears a bit. Sure, your book outlines seven pillars for more balanced life, and these are taking ownership, living with mindfulness right getting regular movement, setting and pushing boundaries, creating or reestablishing connection, prioritizing sleep, having faith in something larger than yourself. And of these all that I just listed, which has been the hardest for you personally to practice?

Kevin:

That's a good question. I knew you were going to ask this too. So it's like the uh, you know, I would say probably the one that just popped in my mind, without trying to filter or sound, or it's probably faith, honestly, cause I've gone back and forth and it's been a rollercoaster. I grew up going to Catholic school, you know, going to Sunday school, and then, uh, got old enough where I could say I don't want to go cause it's early on Sunday, uh, sunday, and then get away from it. And then I remember reading the Navy issued little Bible sitting in the, you know, the critical care unit, depending on what's happening with patients or my personal life, or something like that. And then, you know, circling back to it, so that one, I think, because it's it's less directly provable and noticeable, I will say, if that makes sense, you know, and I've been the same person that's like, oh, I want to see a sign or this.

Kevin:

And then, when you have it more so, which I've learned and just been so appreciative from folks, family and friends that do, I've always been like man. I just I wish I could have that Right, even when I was not in a headspace to have it, when I was like raging at the sky and you know just all horrible things and stuff. It's like it's just amazing to me, folks, that um have that. And you know I'm developing more than that and it's a practice. It's just like all the other pillars or anything else too.

Kevin:

It's there's no, to me at least. You know aha moment as far as oh,, now I've got it. It's a constant. know practice and you know big, big helps to me. Where I mentioned family, so my mother-in-law and then also my, there's someone I listen to named Joyce Meyer, who she went through a horrible childhood. She was abused, right, and she's a great spiritual leader, but then she's also one of the things she said that's great and her message is like this, right, she's like believe, she gives you some stuff about the Bible and then she's also but God's not going to come tie your shoes for you. .

Kevin:

So you're like it's a great balance of believe, do all that, but you got to get off your butt and do some work, and so I.

Kevin:

That really resonates with me. And then kind of how you know the the outline of of the faith and what you choose to believe is is, uh, to me less important as far as sharing with others, but when there's something that you believe is bigger than you, then it takes a lot off your shoulders, particularly when you think about you know, I'm 51, midlife, right, so I'm closer to not being here than you know my kids, just on a practical level. And you start to think about it when you get older and then when you start to lose you know parents, or your friends start to lose parents around the same age. You're like man that's, it's heavy, it helps, it helps and it does. It does to me at least. I found, uh, it's helpful to look for practical things to help shore up your faith, like by looking at my kids, my wife. I'm like, oh, that's pretty, pretty amazing miracle, you know that, that they're here. And if you look at the stats on the probability of us being alive, it's, yeah, pretty astounding.

Lukasz:

It's very humbling for me. Yeah, absolutely for sure, thanks, thanks for sharing this

Kevin:

Yeah, absolutely..

Lukasz:

So your own philosophy of owning your mind and moving your body and anchoring your spirit. How does it show when you lead others?

Kevin:

Yeah, it's kind of a short saying of the pillars. Essentially, I think, the owning your mind part, because we mentioned ownership and even when you know, like I did not do this update, I did not do this thing but I was asked to lead this project, so I have to own it all or being on a meeting where we're going round and round and it's not quite time to step in because that's a skill, is okay, how can I help this conversation? But sometimes you just need to let conversations go or you hear something on a call and you shouldn't show all that emotion on your face. So part of it is kind of your emotional control. The other part is you know working through hard things you know I mentioned, you know jujitsu to cold plunges, like I do deep breathing Wim Hof stuff, which I highly recommend, and so that helps you control your mind that, like, doesn't want to hold your breath. When you're holding your breath, it doesn't want to be in the cold thing, it doesn't want to push them. You know, do you know get gets crushed by other people or thrown or whatever. Or you don't want to fold the clothes that you just took out because you're tired at the end of the day.

Kevin:

So it's, it's the little things too. It's not just big, cool sounding stuff, it's it's all the little things. Or maybe I want to go, you know, surf the net or play games video games but my kids want me to go see the cool thing they put together Right. So I think going to your mind is really, you know, you deciding, not your emotions only deciding, and I'm a huge fan of emotions and letting them out and showing me. With my boys I'm like, hey, man, you don't, you don't have to hide what you're feeling in the right way. But uh, I think it's all kind of tied around that helping push through hardship, helping be where you are, you know, in the mindfulness thing, and that you know, regular meditation, I do, is very helpful because it's just you and again, it's you, not on your phone or on a laptop or lost in a movie or something like that.

Lukasz:

Absolutely, and there are so many distractions right with social media and whatnot

Kevin:

Oh my gosh, yeah Yeah, and the movement, the, the moving your body, I think is is critical. It's, um, you know if there was an order of of the pillars that's in for for one for me, because that's you know when you're it's, it's proven. You know exercises as good as some of the medications people get for depression, anxiety and and other stuff. Right, it reduces the risk of almost everything. Essentially right, and that doesn't mean something bad couldn't happen randomly.

Kevin:

, when you're really anxious, moving, muscle changes, thought is real. Right If you're dancing in place and walking and it's just good for you and that links to your mind. Right If you're going to go push yourself, to do pushups or hard yoga pose, which is amazingly hard to do when you're like, wait a minute, I'm just trying to stand here and do this and balance, and you see that you know I do a lot of yoga just from YouTube in my living room I'm like it's way harder. I'm like I can go deadlift 350 pounds and I can't do this pose. What's going on, but it's great for you too, you know so the body movement is just.

Kevin:

It's connected to everything else and you'll feel better yeah. You know all that kind of stuff and then anchor your spirit is it's not just faith, like we were talking about, I think it's walking in the woods, right it's. You know, being nice to other people, right, it's practical stuff. You know taking your shopping cart back like. You know being just, you know trying to be the best person you can.

Kevin:

And and one thing I found when I was going through hard stuff is helping other people helps you way more than you think it does so.

Lukasz:

ou mentioned jujitsu and deep breathing techniques, how, how one can pick up their own, you know um tools, tool set of these exercises and those activities to fend off stress and yeah.

Kevin:

Yeah, the great thing about the um deep breathing is on youtube.

Kevin:

Look up Wim Hof breathing and he's got like guided sessions. Um, and I just sit in my living room and hit play and it's, you know, three rounds. You breathe in and out 30 times, hold your breath for a minute. They do the same thing, except you hold your breath for a minute and a half, the second, the last two, and so I just do it there. I did read his book, uh, you know, which I recommend. It's kind of a cool story and I came out, did research on how it helps, what it does, um, but the breathing you can do on your own in your living room, which is great. So if you have an internet connection, which a lot most people do these days on your phone or something, you can do it, which I think is awesome because there's a lot of good, healthy things. And then there's probably folks that are like that doesn't work, but for me, I feel like my lung capacity is better.

Lukasz:

Would you be able to share a link after the show and I'll just put it in the notes for our audience.

Kevin:

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that's great, very helpful. Yeah, I mean and again, that's kind of the anchor your mind. I mean. I know I'm sitting on my couch and when I first started doing it, when I'm at like 45 seconds holding my breath, everything in me is like breathe, breathe. But you're like, no, the point is hold your breath. So it's just a quick mental exercise and you know if you're in the hospital, you've seen people in the hospital after surgery or they're sick or something. They have this thing called an incentive spirometer. So you it's like a tube to where you raise the ball you go, and so it it's lung workout to help you your lungs get stronger, and that's a sense. It's very similar to that right, you feel it in your lungs afterwards. For Jiu Jitsu. There's the good thing about this. There's jujitsu gyms all over the world. It's a matter of Googling jujitsu near me, and proximity is a huge factor. Like I'm spoiled, mine's 10 minutes away. Some people drive 45 minutes an hour, but yes.

Kevin:

So, but there are a lot there's, you know, I'm sure, some of you. So there's. It's gotten popular, which is good, and if it's close to you you'll go, and if it's not, you probably won't. Uh, but my recommendation is call the one near you, say, hey, can I come in and either watch it or trial class, um, and then see if you like it or not. It's essentially a mix of wrestling, judo and japanese jiu-jitsu so.

Lukasz:

I was just going to ask if if it's for anyone at any age.

Kevin:

Yeah, I mean I'm 51. I started when I was 44. So, and now, uniquely, I'm in a college town. So every spring and fall we get, like you know, 18 year old guys that come in and you're like all right, let's test your jujitsu, cause you've got these young athletic folks that speed wise you maybe can't keep up with, but jujitsu wise you can. It's pretty immediate. I mean we have women that you know aren't that big and they they would choke the life out of some people and it's just, it's a really cool.

Kevin:

So there's and in fact I actually wrote a post and shared a story. There's the guy in the class, he's 67 and he started like a year and a half ago. So it's, it is hard on you, it's hard on your body, but also he's lost probably 50-some pounds. So there's a saying. So even if you work out I worked out regularly before, I started years ago but there's in shape. And then there's jiu-jitsu in shape. But if you think about wrestlers, you can tell wrestlers they're just going to go and it's not quite that intense, a different kind of thing. But if you think about you know you're moving constantly for at least an hour, two, three times a week. It's a lot, but it's, it's great. I recommend it for sure. And back to Jaco he's always talking about jiu-jitsu. I was like yeah, I should try that.

Kevin:

So part like in 2018 is, when I started, I was like you know what, I'll also try this.

Lukasz:

Brilliant. I mean there are so many different fighting styles in schools. Yeah, methodologies, I don't know how to even call them, and I was just curious how did you land on jiu-jitsu in the first place? Because when I was very young we're talking like six, seven years old my dad brought me to a karate Shotokan class and it stuck with me for a couple of years and then by the age of 12, I got into other things, started getting into other things in high school and whatnot. So I gave it up and it's probably one of these things that I regret in life, that I have never continued.

Kevin:

Never too late. Get back in there yeah

Lukasz:

To get back, yes.

Kevin:

And I think that's the thing too. Like you mentioned, you know Shotokan karate. Like you know, it doesn't have to be jujitsu or shotokan. It could be like, if you go, if there's something near you and you enjoy it, awesome, you know and use it for what it is. I mean it's, it's a great workout. You're moving, you're kicking, you're punching.

Lukasz:

Exactly. I mean, one of the reasons why I asked this and how did you land on these activities had when I had an episode depression episode in 2016, everyone around was like go, you know, get some shoes and start running and I realized I hate running.

Lukasz:

So it was really helpful.

Lukasz:

Yeah, so eventually someone showed me that I'm really into. It turns out I'm really into cycling, but it took me a while to figure it out. I really enjoy the fact that you know I push the pedals and off I go and I can do 40 clicks around the city. It's not a lot like in two and a half hours, still not major speed, but at that point I realized the trip itself became a reward, which is fascinating because I really hated running and I don't like gym still. So it's a massive, massive issue for me to go out and train.

Kevin:

That's a huge point for movement right. Getting your, your movement in general is uh, and exercises is that has to fit what you like or what you're going to do now. That is, I'm sure during every ride. You're not like I love this, because sometimes you're like this sucks, there's a hill or you know something. But I think yeah, headwind coming at you or something.

Kevin:

Yeah, I think that's the thing is some folks whether they go to a gym and then it's a bad experience and now they're just burned out of it, or they could go to a jujitsu class, they get crushed, they're out of it, or they could take like not every exercise fits everyone, and that's where you know, you see, there's so many fitness influencers where, if folks that are looking to get end up working out, to moving, to exercising something more than they're doing now, if you start following folks or seeing folks and they're like never do this, always do this, unless it's like a you know a super dangerous move which makes sense, like don't drop barbells on your face, you know something silly.

Kevin:

But if they're like you should never do these kinds of exercises, you should never do this kind of sport, you like it's. I usually don't listen to them because there's not a lot of you know definitive yeses or no's when it comes to exercise. Um, I think anyway, I mean it's as far as you know, some people just do body weight stuff, some people do olympic, like there's just so many you know cycling, rowing, swimming, it's just, I find, do a mix of everything. It's helpful and you know, keep your eye on it or find the thing you love, and you know, stick with it. And to your point, like you said, you know the output of it is mentally and physically, you feel better.

Lukasz:

Absolutely. And for someone who is already in this vicious circle of high stress roles like in healthcare, like in tech, in public safety. How can they find a moment to stop, to change the perspective, to start applying those life pillars with their days being so chaotic.

Kevin:

Oh yeah, a shameless self-plug. They can go to my website and do this, pillars pathfinder. So there's a cool thing. I mean Chat GPT is very helpful. So I was like, hey, could we make a form where someone could say I'm experiencing this or that and answer a series of questions? And the logic took them to.

Kevin:

You should work on this one, whether it's you know movement, mindful, you know whatever, but I think I think you know. The first thing is movement, like start working out every day. Do something right. Go for a walk in the morning, do yoga, go cycle, do push up something. That starting your day with that changes your whole day. Right, you've already done something hard.

Kevin:

So when you're in the meeting and someone's complaining that the coffee's warm, you're like cool, I just cycled 40 kilometers. You're like great. Yes, the perspective is huge. But then I think the other thing is, as far as the mindfulness piece is, I actually have on my calendar every day for 10 minutes, get some headspace. So 10 minutes I'd like to say I do it every day.

Kevin:

Sometimes I don't the majority of each day I do. So I'll go do a 10 minute meditation using an app of the same name, but it can be anything, right. Just 10 minutes of breathe, follow your breath. You know, just sitting there you don't have your phone, you're listening. You know whether it's city sounds, country sounds, whatever. Um, but it's just you with your eyes closed, breathing, uh, and that's a huge difference. And you know you can even do that in five minutes so you can have a stressful meeting and you have another meeting in 15 minutes. Um, go, take some time, go, walk around, go, you know, do something. I think is just build it into your schedule. And I know folks are busy, but folks aren't back-to-back every minute of every day. Busy, right, unless? Yeah, I can't even think of what you would be if you're working in the assembly line, but even then you get a break. You know what I mean. So it's different.

Lukasz:

Sure, sure. I'm more thinking about situations like something very stressful happens in the morning and you know adrenaline response kicks in. And it sets my mood for the entire day to be honest with you.

Lukasz:

Until I run out of fuel by 6, 7 pm, I'm just going to be, really, you know, in the zone and that's not healthy. Not every day, not even for a single day, doing like 9, 10 hours or more like this. Especially as we get older, and I realized that I can't break this. You know, when I'm'm in this, it even has a physical response, like I get tense in my back and I feel like I'm in a tunnel, you know. Yeah, a laser focus. I'm getting very productive, don't get me wrong. I love it afterwards with the results most of the time, but I just feel like, you know, I just run a marathon, which I don't know how it is, but okay so, and that's not great day to day, right?

Kevin:

Yeah, I think acutely, uh, similar to breathing. There's all different types of breathing. You know box breathing, the Wim Hof breathing, there's like the two in your nose, one out of your mouth, real quick. That lowers so many different things, but the breath is is a key to your nervous system as well. Um, taking that time to just disconnect and then, I think, also perspective.

Kevin:

Another, the most influential book I've ever read is called Man Search for Meeting by Victor Frankel, and you know, for folks that haven't read it, it's him and his family were taken during the Holocaust. He was in concentration camps four different ones and he put started to put this story together. And even in all that circumstance, right, his you know one of his perspective I think I actually got this from nicha was basically, if you know he has any, why, you know has a, why I can figure out any how, but that's another perspective, right? So, uh, and everybody gets that, I get that.

Kevin:

You know you can have a just a horrible start today, like you said. You know, like, why am I doing this. Right? And so one, it helps feed my family. Keep my lights on, keep say you know all that kind of stuff and then go okay, how am I going to get through it? And the easy answer could just be where you're going to. Because then I think back to I'm not barefoot in the winter, having to break rocks, apart when someone's going to beat me if I screw up. You know what I mean. And that's a huge to me cycle of feedback of okay, that was it's, it's not that hard.

Lukasz:

Let's get perspective, for sure.

Kevin:

I think. I think getting perspective is all, but it doesn't have to be that extreme. But there are plenty of people in much worse situations and I think it's helpful to remember that and I don't remember all the time. Sometimes I'm like you know, complaining about the silliest things, first world problems, right as we call them, and you're like um, but you know, sometimes we do need to give ourselves a kick in the butt too, or that's the other thing is phone a friend that you know will, or family member that you know will, kick you in the butt and be like you know my, my age, talking my dad when I was frustrated about your jobs or wanting a new thing, or I was looking for that new thing or this or that, and he's like, yeah, but does your paycheck show up on time? Like yes, yeah. So I think practical reminders and perspective is also really helpful in addition to the physical stuff.

Lukasz:

Yeah, I think this is a sinful human nature that we got used to so fast and so easily to the current state of affairs that we don't see how it used to be right, even for the previous generation. I don't know. Poland was being rebuilt after World War II and sometimes we complain about the most ridiculous stuff ever and my parents would say, yeah, but you know what? We were happy to have a roof over our heads.

Kevin:

Right, when's the last time you were in a bread line?

Lukasz:

Exactly. Cool. So where do you think is the direct link between your pillars for life and your pillars for projects? Where do you think they overlap most clearly?

Kevin:

Probably the intent, the ownership. Like you know, you are your leader, right? You don't have to have a team, like you're leading yourself in this life, which means you have to own where you are in this life. And there's folks you know that have that are in and have been in, like we just said, in horrible situations and they've come out to be super successful, not just monetarily but in helping, like the world you know. So I think the intent for yourself of what is my mission and this is a lot for folks coming out of the military or law enforcement or retiring from something they've done their whole lives they lose their mission and so reestablishing the intent for yourself, giving yourself that new mission and then taking ownership of like, okay, how are we going to get there? You know what education you need or resources or whatever. Um, I think that's the overlap, is is the intent and the ownership, uh, for yourself, before you can do that well for anybody else.

Lukasz:

This is brilliant. Re-establishing the intent. I love that. It's really cool. I think at any age, a lot of people could really benefit from having that in their mind.

Kevin:

I you know it's great you say that because, um so I uh go on reddit. I'll take it as gospel, like wikipedia, yeah that kind of stuff, but it's very helpful to one to get exposure, to give ideas to. So in the project management forum I give feedback and then even like the life for self-improvement. There's so many 20 somethings that'll ask like is it over, is it too late? I'm like you're 22 years old, like you know what I mean? And so I think that, yeah, in today's there's a very unrealistic expectation because we can see these very small percentage of random people and all these platforms, like on a yacht or in a largely probably a fake plane fuselage that they have. But you know, whatever, whatever it is. But I think to your point, like you know, you can reset if you're 60, it's, you know, and some of the folks like I mentioned Joyce Meyer, she didn't start and she's an international person in her forties. Other hugely successful folks didn't start till forties, fifties, you know, whatever, the whatever it is it's, it's never really too late, right to start now.

Kevin:

If you're 75, you're probably not going to play professional football but in the business or for yourself. And there's there's other stories of you know folks that old starting to like lift weights and now they're can walk more and they're not hunched over. You know all these, all these things.

Kevin:

So correcting yourself in many different ways or improving yourself's. It's never too late to start.

Lukasz:

When you mentioned that metrics matter but people matter more, right, that's one of your quotes. I really like this one.

Kevin:

Thank you.

Lukasz:

And how how does that philosophy play out in balancing your project KPIs, your deliverables and actual team well-being? Do not make any, you know, cut corners or sacrifice people along the way basically.

Kevin:

Yeah, I um, you know it's, it's. It's interesting. I thought when I put that out when the episode was like, wow, that's a really good perspective. And then on my drive home this past week, I heard a better one from somebody that's more well-known. I was like, wait, that's the same thing.

Kevin:

So, Simon Sinek if you've heard of him huge leadership, you know, guys, start with why that kind of stuff. He was on a podcast called Masters of Scale, who's Reed Hoffman, who started LinkedIn. So cool conversation. And so one thing Simon Sinek shared was he studied leadership, particularly the Marines, and they have a basic school where they train all their officers and they have a checklist. They'll have teams and they solve problems and here's a puzzle and things like that, and they will know we're on that checklist. As he said, did they have, did they complete it? Right, it's just a matter. Did they work together? Did they delegate? You know, did someone make decisions? They were decisive, it's all these attributes more. So they're looking for that.

Kevin:

Did you finish it? And then some extent of sharing you in business, we do the opposite. So we're all about did you complete it? What's the measure? Is it at risk? Why is it at risk?

Kevin:

And then we freak out as opposed to like what's behind that right? Is it us, is it the people? Did the person have a family member that said, you know, like, what's the real root of why these numbers on a dashboard or report are that way? Or are we in a recession and everything takes three weeks longer? You know something like that? So I think I can look at a dashboard and there's a bunch of reds and yellows and think, oh, my gosh, what's going on? And other folks can look at it and that's where, to me, the ownership comes in of, well, which one of us owns helping get that better right too, because it's easy to go. Oh, why aren't you doing this, like well, let's look at it holistically and figure out what we are doing. You know, you know fixing something or whatever the problem is. So, um, to me, it's just really looking at the human factor behind anything.

Lukasz:

Yeah, yeah. And separation. I call it separation of symptoms with an actual cause. Right, because the actual cause is very visible when you, when you focus on individuals and human beings, but symptoms, is your business KPIs potentially right? It doesn't necessarily have to be the cause for actual stress, I think. Brilliant

Kevin:

Right., and I mean I love reports. They're easy, they're quick to share that kind of stuff. But it's the real scoop you get, obviously when you have a conversation with somebody, like what's really happening on there?

Lukasz:

Totally. So, if someone is listening to us today and feels overwhelmed and stuck either with their professional life or personally, what's the first small, encouraging step you would suggest they take to start moving forward?

Kevin:

Set your alarm in the morning and go for a walk or do a workout. I always come back to it because, again, you start your day, it gets your mind not thinking about what you're thinking about, probably, or what you're ruminating on, or something like that. And it doesn't have to be a 30 minute mile I'm borrowing quotes and stuff from all over the place it's still a mile right. And whether you walk it or not, it's like before I exercise in my garage gym I walk a mile with my dogs, right, that's not fast. Half the time I listen to kind of daily devotion. They're having to take my ear pods out and just listen to the birds. It's a great way to start the day and then go okay, now I'm going to do whatever thing I'm going to do. But I really think that the whole movement is medicine, which multiple people have said is so true and so helpful, and then from there determine what's the legitimate.

Kevin:

I talk about this in my book of what am I doing well, what am I not? And a lot of the self-assessment stuff is super straightforward and certainly I didn't come up with it. It's like a pros and cons list. It's like we were talking about lessons learned. This is your lessons learned for your life. So what have you learned that got you here? What were you doing that was not good that got you here? What were you doing that was good? That is helping you.

Kevin:

And then plan towards fixing what's not going well and build on what is going well. And I don't think it needs to be much more complicated than that. There's a lot of other stuff out there, but if you keep it simple, you'll also just like going to the gym. Right? If you keep it simple and do something you like, you'll follow up on it. But the key is you have to keep following up on it and not look for somebody else to solve your problem for you. That doesn't mean don't go to the doctor. That doesn't mean talk to somebody if you know what I mean, but you have to own it. It's just like if you know I talk about being in health and I work in health care, but going with like my dad when he was sick, like you have to have an advocate that's going to talk to you, but now you're your advocate inside your own head. So keep doing that, keep advocating for yourself.

Lukasz:

And, uh, setting up that clock or for waking up earlier. You mean like 5: 30 right away, or do you do it gradually? You know eight, seven?

Kevin:

Yeah, I mean, I think enough time that you can get up, get dressed, do whatever exercise you're going to do and then have time to, you know, shower, get dressed and go to work whenever you do is what makes sense. You don't have to pick a time. You know, if we were strictly you know Jocko followers we'd say, 4:30, but I don't get on the fourth or, you know, unless I'm traveling or something like that. But I think it has to work for what gives you time to then do the rest of your day. So if early for you is nine because you get to work at 11, great. If it's 5.30 or six, excellent. The other thing about getting up early to me is one in the summer it's not as hot, so practically it's much better.

Kevin:

And you get a sunrise usually right. So if you can time it where you get up a little before sunrise, that's pretty awesome.

Lukasz:

Absolutely. And does it mean always getting that full eight hours of sleep? So getting to bed like at 8 pm previous day to wake up at 4 or 9 pm to wake up at 5 for sure?

Kevin:

Yep, yeah, definitely adjust, you know, and that's why you know, uh, to me, the pillar six is sleep, because that was an area I was horrible at, and that's the thing.

Kevin:

If you're not sleeping well is you have to. You got to put time in to improve your sleep and it's not going to be fun, because then you do. And I talk about these and something I learned is like sleep restriction, which is awful, so if I get in bed and I lay there and I'll actually fall asleep till two, well, next time I'm not going to go to bed till then and still get up on time. So basically, you're going to make yourself more tired over and over again. Don't drive long distance, don't do unsafe stuff. This is my caveat, right. But? But to the point is yeah, but ideally, uh, seven, eight hours of sleep I try and get every night. And yeah, if you have to adjust, and I think when you get a better handle on your sleep then you can adjust it. So was super strict, right, when I kind of did my roost out of nobody be loud, don't turn any lights on at eight o'clock. But then you're, you know, and my family was great for a while. Then I realized like, hey, dude, like you know it's, you live with everybody else too. Um, and as you get better at it and as you kind of normalize your sleep and try and adjust it, you know, sample a late and watch a movie with the kids, or sit on the porch as the sun goes down. You, you know, do that kind of stuff and not you're not going to get that sleep every day, but if the majority of the time you get enough sleep, it's very helpful.

Kevin:

The other thing, the other thing to that point which we really think of, is if you don't, there's another thing that I do every now and then, called Yoga Nidra, which I heard about from Andrew Huberman, of like a 20 minute kind of nap, right, where it's like a guided relaxation thing and that's actually pretty restorative. So if, whether it's travel or you just stayed up late in front, whatever reason, um, you know, do 20 minutes of that to me has been helpful in those days too.

Lukasz:

What, what is it called?

Kevin:

Uh, it's Yoga Nidra. I forget the person I listened to, but if you look it up on Spotify there's tons. If you do like 20 minute, um, nidra, I think it is, but yeah, it's basically like a, a deep relaxation thing where you're not quite asleep. Um, I always make sure I set an alarm though, so I don't fall asleep for the rest of the for the rest of the day, that's another one of those resets.

Kevin:

You know, if it's a work day and you have a gap between meetings, you'd be like, oh, let me go do one of these, set an alarm well before you have to be somewhere. But it's helpful too. But yeah, I focus so much on movement or have talked so much about that, but the recovery is just as important as the activity stuff.

Lukasz:

Totally. Yeah, wow, awesome. That's really, really insightful. Thank you,

Kevin:

Absolutely.

Lukasz:

Kevin, thank you for sharing your story and your insights with us. You've shown us that good leadership and good living often share the same roots. Uh, the clarity, the purpose and caring for people and, most importantly, it's all about ownership and starting with ourselves and setting an example.

Lukasz:

So to all our listeners. Thank you for tuning in into The Dev is in the Details today. If you enjoyed today's episode, subscribe, leave us a review and share it with someone who might be facing big projects or big lifestorms, and if you're wrestling with how to build projects or teams that last, or how to anchor your own stability, feel free to reach out to myself or Kevin. Thanks for joining us and until next time.

People on this episode

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Lukasz Lazewski

Host
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Pedro Paranhos

Co-host