[00:00:02] Speaker A: You know, AAA can pull you out of a ditch and jump your battery, but we can also help you save on home and auto insurance, take the hassle out of planning your next vacation and get you exclusive discounts on entertainment, shopping, restaurants and more. What are you waiting for? Join
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[00:00:27] Speaker B: The following program was pre recorded and the views expressed do not necessarily represent those of this station or its management. This is open your eyes radio with Doctor Kerry Gelb.
[00:00:38] Speaker C: Good morning. I'm Doctor Kerry Gelb, and welcome to Wellness 1280 on open your eyes radio. Please listen as I discuss the newest information in the world of health, nutrition, sports every Saturday morning 06:00 a.m. central time on AM 1280. The Patriot. Also, please share your thoughts by emailing
[email protected] that's d r K Dash e dash e l bmail.com and visit my new website, wellness 1280 dot, where you have all the guest links, wellness 1280 info and previous shows. Your wellness is taking over the Patriot Airways for the next hour. So sit back and enjoy my conversation with doctor Steve Fargo. But before I get to Steve, there was a study out that I like to share with my audience, and you know, my audience knows how much I'm interested in lifestyle, medicine, health and nutrition. I go to the gym at least every other day, sometimes every day. I play softball in between. So when I'm not playing softball, I'm in the gym. So I'm very interested in nutrition supplements. And there was a new study out in the Journal of Ophthalmology, JAMA, and just came out in June of 2024. It's June 11, 2024 for those listening where we're recording this, and it was 121,000 patients that had dry macular degeneration or they didn't have macular degeneration, but everybody was over 50. And they used a database, it was a retrospective database that they used for healthcare organizations and they found that those people who, who took melatonin, so they don't really have an amount that they say, but for those people who took melatonin at night to help them sleep, and people know about the benefits of melatonin for sleep, there's been some benefits for migraines and Alzheimer's and even ava cancer, helping decrease your risk of cancer. But this study showed that if you take melatonin, you decrease your risk of progressing from dry macular degeneration to wet macular degeneration by 50%.
And the group that actually took melatonin that didn't have macular degeneration decreased their risk by 58%. So I think that's pretty interesting. And now I think if you're going to take melatonin, of course you want to check with your doctor first, but you want to start with a low dose at night, maybe an hour before you go to bed. You start with 1 mg is a good amount, and that doesn't help you go to bed. You could go up to five milligrams, and some people even go up to ten milligrams, but you don't want to start with that. You want to start low with about 1 mg about an hour before you go to bed. All right, back to our show.
So today we're speaking with Steve Vargo. He's an optometrist. And, you know, many of us take our sense of sight for granted. In fact, there was a new study in envision, there was a poll, and they found that sight was our most important sense. It's so important that people said they would rather die than lose their ability to see, which is a crazy, crazy statistic. Today's guest, optometrist doctor Steve Vargo, will help us understand the importance of a proper eye exam, not only for glasses, but for contact sports and overall health as well. Doctor Steve holds an MBA and is an optometric practice management consultant. Doctor Vargo has performed over 3000 consultations and coaching sessions for hundreds of independent eye doctors across the country. Doctor Vargo is an author, podcaster and speaker. He has a very popular podcast. I own a business podcast. Doctor Vargo has authored four books. His latest is called Prescribing Change. You could find his books on his website, Dr. Stevevargo.com. that's Doctor Steve Vargo, and of course on Amazon you could buy his book. Doctor Steve Fargo, thank you for joining.
[00:04:50] Speaker B: Me today, Harry, thank you so much for having me. I'm really looking forward to this.
[00:04:55] Speaker C: I was really excited to hear about that study on melatonin and being into health and nutrition. I want to ask you, what should an average person out there, they're looking to find a doctor, an eye doctor to see? What should they look for?
[00:05:12] Speaker B: Well, I think there's a few different things you're going to want. One is obviously competency, but I think we can assume that if optometrists made it through school, passed their boards, and is practicing, that they have the competencies to do a good, thorough eye exam. I think some of the intangibles are what people should also be looking for. There was a study done by, I think it was Zocdoc to find the number one in reviews of doctors. What's the number one word that kept showing up? Do you know what that word was, Carrie?
[00:05:47] Speaker C: No. Take a guess what was friendliness.
[00:05:52] Speaker B: Friendly. Very good. Very good. Friendliness. That's it. So for all the degrees and all the fancy lab coats and all the education, I think sometimes it's those intangibles that people want. But I think friendliness also leads to likeability. What does that mean? It means the doctor who's going to ask questions, listen to you, show empathy, show compassion. And I think those things show up online and in reviews.
[00:06:15] Speaker C: Let me interrupt you for a second because I play softball, as I said before, and I had achilles injuries and my achilles are bothering me. So I was looking for a foot doctor and I spend some time in New Jersey where I see patients and sometime in Florida, where I'm new to Florida and I was looking for a podiatrist and I didn't know, I don't know many people down here so I couldn't get a recommendation. And you go on Google and they give you stars and I'm not sure I could I like that that much either. But I mean, that's the beginning part for me. So I started calling podiatrist officers and the one I chose was the one who had the most friendly receptionist. What do you think about that way of picking an eye? I was picking a podiatrist, but picking an eye doctor, I think it's an.
[00:07:01] Speaker B: Excellent non traditional way to pick an eye doctor. You have to make assumptions sometimes when you're going to a doctor that you've never been to before.
I think the staff speaks to the culture.
Kerry. I stopped going to a doctor before for the exact opposite reason. The staff wasn't friendly.
And it was interesting because what I found out later was that came down from the doctors. That was basically the culture that was part of that practice. I like to look at the entire operation because I think that leadership, like any company, is going to drive what kind of culture there is. So I would definitely use that as a means to pick an eye doctor.
[00:07:47] Speaker C: You know, you have an MBA, so not only you're a doctor, an expert on business as well. What makes a great leader? The doctor? The doctor is in the office. He has to be a leader, but he's also the worker. A lot of times people say doctors are the worst business people is because doctors don't run their business, they're the worker. They have other people running their business. If you're a CEO and you're running your business, you're not the worker, you're the manager. But the doctor has to be both. What, to you, what makes a great leader?
[00:08:19] Speaker B: Well, I think there's a few different things. One of them, I think it starts with clarity and being very clear on expectations and managing those expectations with everyone. One of the first downfalls, I think, for a lot of companies and cultures is that people just aren't clear on what expectations. Now, if we just stopped there, we'd probably have a fairly micromanaged work environment. So I think that needs to be balanced with autonomy as well. And you're right. In our field, we can be very isolated at times, and you actually need the people on your team. So something I'm constantly trying to impress as a consultant is the need to listen to the people on your team and instill some autonomy. But if you're clear on what expectations are and you still have some autonomy, I think that can be a healthy combination. Otherwise, what you essentially end up doing, you try, try to do everything yourself, which is a struggle because then you're fighting your staff instead of collaborating with your staff.
[00:09:14] Speaker C: I think that's a good point.
When salespeople, I think the best thing for a salesperson is to listen. If you could comment on that.
[00:09:24] Speaker B: Well, you're preaching to the choir on that one.
I'll refer back to a study that was done where people observed salespeople on sales calls. And what they found was that the people who performed the highest in sales exhibited one particular characteristic pretty consistently across the group, and that was this. They were the ones doing the least amount of talking. Now, I've sat in and observed and I've been asked to coach sales teams as part of my role. And that's one thing I'm constantly trying to impress upon them, is to stop talking so much, ask more questions and do more listening.
[00:10:03] Speaker C: We're speaking with Doctor Steve Vargo. He's an optometrist, he has an MBA. He's great in business, and he's helping us learn what it takes when you see an eye doc. This is Doctor Kerry Gelb for open your eyes radio. We'll be back in just a moment.
[00:10:28] Speaker A: I went to the eye doctor the other day with my daughter Maggie. I was shocked when the doctor told me that my daughter was already becoming nurse eyed. It turns out that this problem affects more than 40% of Americans. My eye doctor thinks this disease is getting worse. Perhaps its getting worse because of kids prolonged time spent playing with smartphones or maybe because kids now spend less time outside. My genetics probably arent helping her a whole lot being nearsighted myself. But the good news is that the doctor told me about a new FDA approved product called Mysite. This specific one day contact lens is already worn by thousands of children in the US. It has proven to slow down the progression of new and best of all, Maggie loves these contact lenses. The doctor taught her how to use them. Now it is so exciting to see her have even more success in the classroom and when she plays sports. I recommend you visit openyoureyesradio.com to find an eye doctor that specializes in this treatment program. Learn
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[00:12:28] Speaker A: I went to the eye doctor the other day with my daughter Maggie. I was shocked when the doctor told me that my daughter was already becoming nearsighted. It turns out that this problem affects more than 40% of Americans. My eye doctor thinks this disease is getting worse. Perhaps it's getting worse because of kids prolonged time spent playing with smartphones. Or maybe because kids now spend less time outside my genetics probably aren't helping her a whole lot being nearsighted myself. But the good news is that the doctor told me about a new FDA approved product called Mysite. This specific one day contact lens is already worn by thousands of children in the US. It has proven to slow down the progression of nearsightedness. And best of all, Maggie loves these contact lenses. The doctor taught her how to use them. Now it is so exciting to see her have even more success in the classroom and when she plays sports. I recommend you visit openyoureyesradio.com to find an eye doctor that specializes in this treatment program. Learn
[email protected] dot this is open your.
[00:13:30] Speaker B: Eyes radio with Doctor Cary Gell.
[00:13:33] Speaker C: We're back with doctor Steve Vargo, and we're talking business. We're talking eye doctor. Let me ask you a question. Patients are out there. They're looking for an eye doctor, and they're looking for contact lenses. There's contact lenses now that you wear one day. There's contact lenses that you wear two weeks. There's contact lenses that you wear one month. What do you think are the best way and the healthiest way to wear contact lenses?
[00:13:58] Speaker B: You know, I think that technology and science would probably point toward daily wear as being one of the more popular brands. And the consensus is they're one of the safer brands out there. There's other options. And it's, you know, I think the doctor has to take into consideration each individual patient, but not just from a clinical standpoint, but from their, what they want as well and what works for their lifestyle and what works for their preference. I think we're back to listening. Right. And I think sometimes where I've seen doctors stumble a little bit on contacts is only focusing on the clinical aspect but not really listening to the patient's preferences, which I think is important as well.
[00:14:39] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, how about for sports? I mean, kids that play sports, I mean, you're a doctor, you're an MBA for your son. You have a son that plays baseball, very competitive baseball.
If he needed contact lenses, would it be one day? Would it be two weeks? Would it be one month with him?
[00:14:57] Speaker B: I'd probably go daily. But again, I fortunately haven't had to cross that bridge yet because both my kids have not needed any, any prescription. So we've been lucky from that standpoint. But I would probably lean toward dailies, especially in sports, with the amount of, you know, touching the eyes, dirt flying up. He plays baseball. So I think overall, it would probably be safest that he would have something that he's taking out and putting a fresh one in every day.
[00:15:28] Speaker C: You know, I think, you know, I've understood. You have a great story with your son. He was kind of an average player, and he's become a player that may be recruited by division one. Tell that story. I'm very interested in that.
[00:15:42] Speaker B: Well, I've learned a ton from watching and basically just being his dad, and I've tried to impress upon him all the things that he's learning along the way, how that's going to transfer into real life. So basically, he played baseball his whole life, and he was always a very good pitcher, but he hit a phase where a lot of the other kids were becoming a lot more, become bigger, more, you know, more physical than him. And even as a pitcher, he was starting to see other guys advance faster than him. They were throwing harder, they were bigger, they were stronger. But he consistently put up better numbers than they did as far as a pitcher. But what he continued to hear is, you got to get bigger, you got to throw the ball faster, you got to increase your velo. And we hit a point where he tried out for the high school team as a freshman, and he didn't make the team, which was kind of devastating for him and for us because these were the kids he had grown up with, the kids he had always excelled at. I think there's an identity, good or bad. Then you start to develop somewhat of an identity, and he didn't make the team. And I said, after that, we got two choices. You can either crawl into a hole and feel bad for yourself, or you can do the things you need to do to make the team next year. I convinced him to go talk to the coach, say, what do I need to do to get better?
And he really put the work in and got a lot bigger, got a lot stronger. What I didn't anticipate is that he would grow from about five nine to six foot two that I didn't see coming. So when he went back the next year, not only made the team, but he was the best pitcher on the team. And then last year, his. By the end of his junior year, we're now getting scouted by some pretty big schools. So it's been really fun to watch him go through that transition and that adversity of being at a point where you could question whether or not you have a future in this to saying, yes, this is something I want to do, and then putting in the work to get there.
[00:17:44] Speaker C: And what part of the country do you guys live in?
[00:17:46] Speaker B: We're in North Georgia, so it's saying something when you can excel at. I know I'm bragging, but allow me to have this proud dad moment, but it's saying something in this part of the world, in North Georgia, and anyone who's from this area knows exactly what I'm talking about. To excel in baseball here, because there's so much competition, a lot of schools and travel teams from around the country come to our area to play in tournaments. And there's so much competition here that it's good for him because he's gotten more noticed by schools. But also I think it really speaks to the talent level and the competition that we have locally.
[00:18:23] Speaker C: And what kind of training did he do to go from somebody who got cut to somebody that's at a level that he is now?
[00:18:31] Speaker B: Kerry, you have a son who plays baseball, so I'm sure you know how it goes. Baseball never really ends, does it? It's, it just bleeds into another.
When there's not a season going on, there's usually some kind of a conditioning program. So, yeah, it's, obviously he plays high school and then when he's not in that, he's in travel ball. There's gaps in between, but it's usually a combination. Sometimes it's conditioning work for the arm. He does get some breaks. So one benefit or positive, our coaches have always been great about the amount of, with the conditioning with the arm and not overworking the arm, but a lot of lifting. I mean, he, he's, his build is not naturally strong. So he had to work really hard hitting the weights to gain the weight and gain the muscle and get to the point where he had the strength where he was, no, it was no longer a liability. He wasn't the short, skinny kid anymore.
[00:19:20] Speaker C: And does he have any kind of special diet that he uses?
[00:19:26] Speaker B: So hes great with the weights. I have to open up his mouth and shove food down there. Im like, buddy, you got to eat the food. So I wouldnt say he has a special diet. When me and his coach talked, we basically said just have him eat anything. Right now its probably not the healthiest thing, but the pastas and anything we can get just to gain weight. Now Im getting the point now where Im starting to focus more and impress upon him the value of eating healthier foods, too.
[00:19:54] Speaker C: You know, my son also is on the smaller side and, you know, and, you know, I make him smoothies and so to help him gain weight and we will put protein in and we'll put collagen, we'll put all different types of fruit and, you know, you know the deal with that. And the only one that was gaining weight in the house was me and my wife because we were taking some of the smoothie with the protein and we were starting to gain weight. So, yeah, so now my, myself and my wife is staying away from the smoothie and just leaving it for him.
[00:20:27] Speaker B: So we, we do the smoothies, too. And some of those protein powders have like 100,000 carbs and calories in them, which is good for him if you're someone younger trying to gain weight, but yeah, they're you. You will put on weight pretty quick if you're not trying.
[00:20:42] Speaker C: Evan, you know, I make sure we use under natured protein, and we use all very good ingredients. Everything's organic. But still, myself and my wife were putting on weight. Have you guys tried. I know he's a pitcher, so it doesn't apply as much this, but I know you interviewed Amanda Nanase. She's a sports vision expert. I interviewed her a long time ago as well. And these new types of contact lenses, these performance contact lenses with the tints, the amber tint or the gray green tint, have you tried any of that? Have you had access to that, or has your son tried it?
[00:21:20] Speaker B: We haven't tried it, but I've heard good things. And the interesting thing about being in our field is you have some visibility to these sorts of things that I think can give you a competitive advantage. And Amanda's a sports vision guru, so I think a lot of people aren't aware of the strong connection between sports and vision in that context. But I think there's a lot of things within our field worth looking into. We haven't tried those contexts yet, but if you're looking for a competitive advantage, can probably give you one.
[00:21:52] Speaker C: You know, I'm looking at getting him those strobe glasses. I don't know if you ever heard of these strobe glasses. They kind of flicker on and off, and you hit with that and you take it off and you might be able to hit better. So, you know, I should have gotten him that a while ago. I mean, he's 14, I'm in the field, and every time I say I'm going to get it, I haven't gotten it yet, but I. I am definitely going to do it and see if that helps. I do give him the carotenoids. I give him Macahel, Lutein, Zeaxanthin, measles, zeaxanthin, and it works great. I mean, he, he built up his macular pigment. He really swings and misses. It's incredible how, how you'll have somebody who hardly ever swings and misses. Very, very rarely. Well, if you never swings and misses, he almost never strikes out. I mean, he won, like, he won 70 at bats in the last season, struck out three times and one Washington on a bad call. So I swear by maca health, lutein, zeaxanthi, measles, zeaxanthin, eating the healthy vegetables, the vegetables that have lutein, zeaxanthin and measles, zeaxanthin, like kale, spinach, collard greens, eggs, orange, yellow peppers, goji berries. For people out there who've never heard of Goji berries, you could get them in the health food store. Even Costco has them now. And why put that in this smoothie? You know, make sure the spices in the smoothie to increase the macular pigment. So, you know, working with kids, you know, you always want to try to give them the, the advantage. And for us, as being eye doctors, you know, we have a little, these little nuances that we know about for communication. You're an expert in communication. How is, can you communicate with your son the way you could communicate with patients and, and doctors?
[00:23:43] Speaker B: It's similar. But what I've tried to better understand, Kerry, this all started nine years ago when I started doing consulting from a communication standpoint, I started to recognize that some doctors were just more successful than others in getting patients to go along with their treatment plans. And I came to the realization of something every doctor says, they educate patients, but they don't all get the same results. And what I started to do once I started observing this and working with doctors and looking at their approach was I realized that some doctors communicate better and it's different. Education is just giving you information and you can sit there and nod your head. It doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to act on that information where people that have good communication skills are more likely to get people to go along with that. So I lean more toward trying to understand somebody else's motives for wanting to do something. If you're the patient and I'm the doctor, I'm trying to approach it by understanding what's important to you, what are your goals, what is important to your lifestyle, what fits within the things that are relevant to you. And then how can I support those goals? I think we have more success when we do that, and it's not that much different with kids. I've found more success as a parent not working so hard to try to force things on my kids.
[00:25:03] Speaker C: Hold that thought. Doctor Vargo, this is Doctor Kerry Gel for open your eyes radio. We're speaking with doctor Steve Vargo, who is an MBA. He's an eye doctor. He's an expert in business. We're going to be back right after the break.
[00:25:28] Speaker A: I went to the eye doctor the other day with my daughter Maggie. I was shocked when the doctor told me that my daughter was already becoming nearsighted. It turns out that this problem affects more than 40% of Americans. My eye doctor thinks this disease is getting worse. Perhaps it's getting worse because of kids prolonged time spent playing with smartphones, or maybe because kids now spend less time outside. My genetics probably aren't helping her a whole lot being nearsighted myself. But the good news is that the doctor told me about a new FDA approved product called Mysite. This specific one day contact lens is already worn by thousands of children in the US. It is proven to slow down the progression of nearsightedness. And best of all, Maggie loves these contact lenses. The doctor taught her how to use them. Now it is so exciting to see her have even more success in the classroom and when she plays sports. I recommend you visit openyoureyesradio.com to find an eye doctor that specializes in this treatment program. Learn
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I went to the eye doctor the other day with my daughter, Maggie. I was shocked when the doctor told me that my daughter was already becoming nearsighted. It turns out that this problem affects more than 40% of Americans. My eye doctor thinks this disease is getting worse. Perhaps it's getting worse because of kids prolonged time spent playing with smartphones, or maybe because kids now spend less time outside. My genetics probably aren't helping her a whole lot, being nearsighted myself. But the good news is that the doctor told me about a new FDA approved product called Mysite this specific one day contact lens is already worn by thousands of children in the US. It is proven to slow down the progression of nearsightedness. And best of all, Maggie loves these contact lenses. The doctor taught her how to use them. Now it is so exciting to see her have even more success in the classroom and when she plays sports. I recommend you visit openyoureyesradio.com to find an eye doctor that specializes in this treatment program. Learn
[email protected] dot this is open your.
[00:28:30] Speaker B: Eyes radio with Doctor Kerry Gell.
[00:28:33] Speaker C: We're back with doctor Steve Vargo. We were talking about communication, about kids communicating with your kids, communicating with doctor professionals. Tell us if you could finish up on what you were saying about communicating with your son. But how hard is it to communicate with your son as compared to communicating with other people?
[00:28:54] Speaker B: Well, parenting, as anyone with kids knows, is sort of trial by fire, right? You figure it out as you go along. And not every kid's different. And I've got two sons and they're complete opposite. So I've had to learn individually with the Ichuwan how to engage with them. And what I've found is that I'm more effective as a parent when I first understand them. And I think it's important that we do make that connection with kids and understand where they're coming from. And then I feel like I've had more influence as a parent. So, Kerry, if I could flip this around a little bit, I'm curious, the same question from you because I think a lot of listeners might be wondering when you mentioned all the things that you give your kid, all very healthy, did you get any pushback on that? Was that easy? Or did you have to really kind of force him to eat all those things and take the supplements and eat the greens? Or was that just something he naturally embraced?
[00:29:52] Speaker C: That's, that's a great question. It was easy for me. I've been interested in lifestyle, health, nutrition for many, many years before he was born. So we started off that way. So he, you know, when he wants something sweet, he's going to eat fruit. He doesn't grab something cupcake? Well, we don't have it in the house, but he won't grab it because he's not used to it. So it's not like he was eating, you know, he was eating these chicken mcnuggets or something. And then I'm taking it away and now I'm making him eat regular chicken. He never had it. He's never been in a fast food place to eat something. So for him, he's not used to it. So that's why it's easy for me to give him healthy foods. I do have to admit, he doesn't eat enough vegetables. He eats a lot of fruits and proteins. He eats a lot of steak and organic grass fed, grass finished steakhouse, organic chicken and organic turkey and fish. You know, I like fish, but I'm always worried about the mercury content in the fish and, you know, so, you know, so he eats very, very healthy. In fact, he takes fish oil. He's been taking it since he's a baby. He actually takes the oil. He doesn't take pills. He actually takes the oil. Now, try giving that to a 14 year old that's never had fish oil. I mean, it would be impossible. So I think for me, it's just a little bit easier because he's used to it, and he takes the macular health. He could take pills, so he'll take macular health. He wasn't, he never took an antibiotic until he was 13 years old. Was the first time you ever took an antibiotic? So, uh, you know, and then, you know, he'll take, then we put him on antibiotics. We get made sure I give him probiotics to replace the good bacteria that we, we kill. Because you take an antibiotic, it's not only going to kill the bad stuff, it'll kill the good stuff. So you want to replace that. So the answer is, yeah, I mean, you know, that's why he eats healthy.
[00:31:49] Speaker B: So it's building the habits, right?
[00:31:51] Speaker C: Yeah, you know, we build the habits. And to get back to what you were saying before with kids, you know, and athletes, I think what I try to do, and it's very difficult as a parent because, you know, you're always in a rush, and you're thinking of this and that and trying to, you know, just say, do this, do that, do that. You know, I think what you said before, I think being a good salesperson is listening, and I try to listen the best that I can. I'm not always great at it, but I try to listen with my son, and I want to see where he's coming from. And before I try to throw out all kinds of advice to him, it's.
[00:32:31] Speaker B: I think, the most important way to connect. And you can apply this to sales. You can apply it to leadership. There's a. A piece of research I used in one of my presentations that I preface it by saying, doctors get a lot of credit for being good listeners, but do we deserve that credit? So there was a book called how doctors think, which is a really good book. I'd recommend any doctor read it, but they did some research to find out how fast doctors interrupt patients. From the point the patient sits down and starts giving their reason for coming in for the visit. And it's about 18 seconds. So we're probably not quite as good of listeners as we think we are. The thinking is we get enough information and then we start jumping in with the solution. I think that's where people go wrong. I think it's where parents go wrong. I think it's where leaders go wrong. I think it's where doctors go wrong. We get a little bit of information and then we try to solve it before we really understand the problem.
[00:33:23] Speaker C: You know, that brings up something. Motivation.
What do you think makes a good coach to be able to motivate kids? You got the coach that screams at the kid, the coach, the parent, whatever, that screams at the kid all the time. You got the coach that doesn't say very much at all, just lets the kids play and doesn't say a word, and then you got the kid, the coach that's super nice to everybody all the time.
What do you think is the best way to motivate as a coach and as you know, say, a doctor working, trying to motivate their patient to do the right thing to help themselves.
[00:34:05] Speaker B: So motivation is kind of an interesting term because I think in, if we look at business and leadership, I actually think we lean on that a little bit too much because what is motivation? It's a feeling, and it's a feeling that's very fleeting. Kerry, are you motivated all the time to do this podcast, to go to work, to do? No. Nobody is. So there's, I think, two aspects to that. One which I always try to impress upon our clients is to create systems that people follow regardless of whether or not they feel motivated. I think the same as your son. Your son might not always be motivated to eat healthy, but once we've got systems in place and one of those systems might be not keeping unhealthy foods at home, right. Then it's easier to control our environment than to control our feelings. The other side of that, there is a such thing as motivation. And I think it goes back to understanding what's most important to that individual, what are the goals, what's their vision of success and then supporting that vision, I think when you can understand what's important and what gets someone else excited, and you step in as someone who can help them get that. I think that's a great way to motivate them versus you coming in or me coming in and saying this is how you need to do things. Basically, you're just telling them what should, should be motivating instead of really understanding what's motivating to them and then trying to support those reasons. It's the same as fitness. Okay. If we look at the fitness industry, people don't join gymshe just to lose weight. People join gyms because they don't like the way they feel or they don't like the way they look or they want to get a girlfriend or a boyfriend or they need, they want to be able to play with their grandkids. There's usually something else driving that. If you understand what that motivator is, I think you'll have much more success as a coach.
[00:35:56] Speaker C: And you talk about the motivation part of the brain. If you could talk a little bit about that. So, or the emotional part.
[00:36:06] Speaker B: The emotional part or the emotional part. Yeah. Which is really what research has found, is that the majority of our decisions, which is basically we're motivated to take action on things that lead to our decisions, comes from the emotional side of the brain. But a lot of times as doctors, we're guilty of this. We're guilty of trying to logic people into doing something. So, Kerry, the way it works real quick and admittedly oversimplified is when were presented with information or a decision, all that stuff goes to the thinking side of our brain. And that part of the brain is really good for planning and analyzing, but it really kind of sucks at making decisions. So it punts that off to the emotional side of the brain. The emotional side of the brain will send forth a suggestion in the form of fulfilling and go, heres what I feel like doing. And we dont always go along with that. What we almost always do, about 95% of the time, we go along with that suggestion, that feeling, which means most of our decisions are driven more by feelings, which brings us right back full circle to understanding how somebody feels about something. If we can connect with that, instead of just throwing facts and data and information at them, we can understand how they're feeling about something. We're much more likely to tap into what's going to motivate them to take action on it.
[00:37:20] Speaker C: You know, most people are going to go with the emotions like you said. But why do you think that small percentage of people will go with not the emotion, but they'll go with the intellectual side of saying, yeah, I want that doughnut, but I'm going to instead I'm going to eat grapes. What do you think? What do you think that is that makes that person do, do it that way rather than the emotion?
[00:37:47] Speaker B: Well, I mean, we have the ability to override our emotions and some people are probably just wired up that way, a little bit more driven. The brain is a complex thing. So I'm sure there's people out there that would be more likely to be swayed by a statistic than others would be. But for the most of us, information is not. Information alone is a surprisingly weak motivator because we're all exposed to information, right? We see it everywhere. We're exposed to somewhere to four to 8000 marketing messages a day. And it doesn't motivate us in many cases to take action. So you can cover both of them. I like to reference back to something that's real common in public speaking, which I call story study, where basically if you've got information that you want to share, you lead with the story. And what does the story do? The story connects emotionally and it makes them care about the information. So you don't feel, and this is great to know if you're in sales because now all of a sudden you don't feel like you're forcing information on somebody. You put them in a position where they actually want the information from you. Kerry, you've seen TEd talks, right? I just described the format of every TED talk you've ever seen. It leads with a story, gets you to care about the information before they go into the information. And also when you do it that way, the information that you share with people is much more likely to be remembered.
[00:39:06] Speaker C: Yeah. I mean, telling a story to get your point across is a great way of doing it rather than just regurgitating facts. Like we talked off camera a little bit about regurgitating facts. So when you're putting together a lecture that you're trying to help professionals, doctors, how often do you use stories in those presentations?
[00:39:29] Speaker B: I would almost consider myself a storyteller anymore in terms of how I'm building that because I learned early on I can see the audience, they don't, the facial expressions, how they're engaging. When I'm up there just reciting bullet points, I can tell they're not with me. I'm not connecting. When I start telling a story, I can see literally people start to lean in and pay attention. And I've tried that apply to other areas of my life as well.
[00:39:56] Speaker C: I'm speaking with doctor Steve Vargo. He's an expert on leadership. His new book, prescribing change. Go to his website, doctorstevebargo.
That's v a r g o. Get his books. He has. He's written four books. This is Doctor Kerry Gobb for open your eyes radio on am 1280. The patriot.
[00:40:28] Speaker A: I went to the eye doctor the other day with my daughter Maggie. I was shocked when the doctor told me that my daughter was already becoming nearsighted. It turns out that this problem affects more than 40% of Americans. My eye doctor thinks this disease is getting worse. Perhaps it's getting worse because of kids prolonged time spent playing with smartphones, or maybe because kids now spend less time outside. My genetics probably aren't helping her a whole lot, being nearsighted myself. But the good news is that the doctor told me about a new FDA approved product called Mysite. This specific one day contact lens is already worn by thousands of children in the US. It is proven to slow down the progression of nearsightedness. And best of all, Maggie loves these contact lenses. The doctor taught her how to use them. Now it is so exciting to see her have even more success in the classroom and when she plays sports. I recommend you visit openyoureyesradio.com to find an eye doctor that specializes in this treatment program. Learn
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[00:42:27] Speaker A: Went to the eye doctor the other day with my daughter Maggie. I was shocked when the doctor told me that my daughter was already becoming nurse sighted. It turns out that this problem affects more than 40% of Americans. My eye doctor thinks this disease is getting worse. Perhaps it's getting worse because of kids prolonged time spent playing with smartphones or maybe because kids now spend less time outside. My genetics probably aren't helping her a whole lot being nearsighted myself. But the good news is that the doctor told me about a new FDA approved product called mysite. This specific one day contact lens is already worn by thousands of children in the US. It is proven to slow down the progression of nearsightedness. And best of all, Maggie loves these contact lenses. The doctor taught her how to use them. Now it is so exciting to see her have even more success in the classroom and when she plays sports. I recommend you visit openyoureyesradio.com to find an eye doctor that specializes in this treatment program. Learn
[email protected] dot this is open your.
[00:43:29] Speaker B: Eyes radio with doctor Cary Gel.
[00:43:32] Speaker C: We're back with doctor Steve Vargo. His website, doctorstevergo.com varg.
His newest book, a prescribing change, go to his, he could go to his website. You see a little bit of his public speaking. He does public speaking. Motivational speaker, could hire him as a speaker for your company. All right, we're back. Why are we talking about Steve? Steve, Steve, I want to go back to when we were talking about your son and my son. We were talking about, my son is a hitter. You mentioned to me off camera a little bit about your son hitting and tell me that story.
[00:44:09] Speaker B: Well, as you were talking about your son's success at hitting, we were unfortunately having the opposite experience. Great pitcher, but I mentioned his size wasn't, he's falling a little bit behind in that category. And the hitting wasn't really keeping up. So we had a tough decision to make, and it was one of those, those situations as a parent, you're not quite sure how to approach.
Does the conversation circle around, keep working harder to become a better hitter or really lean into what your strengths are? And ultimately, what I ended up telling him or suggesting to him was that it doesn't seem like the hitting is working out real well for you, but you are a phenomenal pitcher, and I think that's where your future's at. And what I told him was I think it's better to be great at one thing than average at a lot of things. So moving away from hitting, which in baseball, if youre familiar, the term po picture only, thats what we ultimately became. And I think it was the best move because it gave him an opportunity to really focus on that. I think sometimes in life thats a decision we have to make, too. Do I keep trying to do this thing that Im maybe just average at, or do I really go all in on that thing that Im great at? Because I think that's where you'll make a name for yourself.
[00:45:22] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, I think that's a group. You know, I think that was a great decision. As, as it turns out, he's being scattered by division one's colleges, and it will. It is going to be a great decision. And now that he's six two and he's not undersized anymore, I mean, and he's building up muscle, how fast can he throw?
[00:45:43] Speaker B: Now, everybody probably answered that, yeah, he's upper eighties and he's working on a few things. So he wants to hit 90. That's sort of this arbitrary goal. I think last year as a junior, he's up to 88. So he's always been more of an off speed pitcher curveball, but he got, with the size, he went from low eighties up to 88. So when you're high eighties now, you start getting on the radar. And then if we can get up to 90, that's when you really start to get interest from colleges.
[00:46:19] Speaker C: Wow, that's great. So getting back to patients choosing an eye doctor, we talked a little bit. We opened up with that somebody that wants to go and they want to get glasses, they can't see good. And a lot of times they don't realize there's a whole medical part of eye care, and there's probably close to 300 systemic diseases that's affected in the eye, and many times it hits the eye first.
What do you have to say to the patient out there that's looking. I'm just looking for glasses, and they're not really focused on the eye disease part of it.
[00:47:00] Speaker B: Yeah, it is really important. And unfortunately, I think there's still a little bit of that misconception out there that optometrists are just capable or there to prescribe glasses and contacts where the field itself is advanced so much in the education and the schooling. So I've seen too many patients wish that they had taken what you just said more serious before something was found. Right. Someone's got glaucoma, someone's got macular degeneration, other vision problems, or something that was found in the eyes that's indicative of something else, like diabetes or high blood pressure or some other systemic disease. So in my opinion, I would rather find that out earlier than later. And I've just seen too many patients when I was practicing that, I felt terrible for them because that was their feeling at that point was, wow, I really wish I would have taken this more serious early on. I could have caught this, I could have treated it. I would have known some things I could have changed to improve not just my vision, but my overall health.
[00:48:05] Speaker C: There's always that patient who's had a headache, and they've been to a few different regular doctors, and they've been given all kinds of headache medication. And they come into the eye doctor, and we look in their eye and have swollen nerves, and they wind up with a brain tumor. That's what was causing the headache. And that happens more commonly than not. And I just think those stories don't get out enough.
[00:48:33] Speaker B: When I first started practicing, and maybe within the first six months of practicing, I had a patient, she was a little girl, and she came in and her mom was with her. And her mom said she gets headaches all the time. But all that, I remember her saying, all the females in our family get headaches. I wasnt too worried about it. I did the exam and everything looked pretty good at the time. I didnt see any cause for concern with the headaches. And id looked inside the eye. No issues there at that time. And I remember it was a couple weeks later, a call came in from the mom saying, now shes seeing dogs. Well, as you know, thats problematic. And I said, I had my coat on. I was walking out. I took my coat off. I said, well, to have her bring her in. And I looked in her eyes, and at this point, she had what you just described, swollen optic nerves. And I had to turn around now and tell the mom what Im seeing. And I remember the mom was a nurse, and Im just thinking, how am I going to, how am I going to communicate this to her? And it ended up being, they did end up being malignant tumors. The girl was okay. She had surgery, and they were able to successfully treat it. But those sorts of things do get found on routine eye exams.
[00:49:49] Speaker C: Yeah. I mean, with the technology that we have in the eye doctor's offices now that are so good, we could see the retinal vessels when we look in the eye at eight microns. And in the old days when someone had diabetes, we knew they had diabetes. And if we saw hemorrhages, we would see it, but we knew they had diabetes. Now we're many times the first ones to diagnose diabetes because our technology is so good, we'll pick up these little hemorrhages or little micro aneurysms in the capillaries to be the first to see if somebody is diabetic.
[00:50:24] Speaker B: Doctor Justin. Yeah, I remember showing retinal photos to patients, and that was the one piece of technology that got the biggest wow factor, because people would always look at that and they look at me and say, wow, you can see all that in my eye. And when you point it out to them, all the little blood vessels and all the little things that you could see, that could be indicative of not just vision problems, but health related problems. I think it clicked for a lot.
[00:50:44] Speaker C: Of them, and also medications. A lot of times the medications people are on could cause problems with their eyes. Not that anyone listening should stop taking their medication, but if they are on medications, especially if they're on prednisone, usually the doctors that will tell them to go to the eye doctor if they're on prednisone. Cause there's a side effect of glaucoma and cataracts, or plaquenil for our rheumatoid arthritis patients or lupus patients, they come in and it could affect the macular after. Usually it takes about five years if it's gonna affect. It's rare that it happens, but it could happen. Birth control pills with dry eyes. The big one now is all the people, all the men on flomax, because before they have cataract surgery, it could cause the iris, what we call floppy Iris syndrome. So if you're going in for cataract surgery, you must tell the surgeon, the eye surgeon and the optometrist that you're on flomax and a lot of people on it. Tamoxifen could cause, a lot of women are on tamoxifen because of breast cancer, and that could cause the front of the eye to swell. There's a lot of things that the eye could do that the eye could tell us. So getting your eyes examined is extremely important, even if you don't see well. Have you comment on that?
[00:52:10] Speaker B: Yeah. And what people need to realize, too, is that the eye is made up of a lot of nerve tissue. So if something is advancing or developing, it can get to the point where it's irreversible. So that's why it is very important to get regular eye exams, because it's not just the vision. Don't just not go to the eye doctor, because I'm still seeing good out of my glasses. Just go let somebody, somebody look at you. Let them look at the inside of your eyes, the outside of your eyes, and make sure everything looks good at that, because it could potentially prevent some serious issues, not just with the vision. But with your health in general, we see it all the time and we either treat it or we refer it. But that's how we help people. Optometrists help people a lot more than most people realize. If you let us come see us.
[00:52:55] Speaker C: Our technology is so amazing. I think in the eye care field, our technology seems to advance so fast, so quick. It's just amazing what we could see. You know, I've been an eye doctor for so many years, but I'm still amazed every time I look at these retinal photos on how incredible what we could see inside the eye.
[00:53:17] Speaker B: It's amazing. It really is.
[00:53:20] Speaker C: Well, I'm speaking with doctor Steve Vargo. I want to thank him for joining me today. He's an expert on leadership. His new book, Prescribing Change. Go to his website, doctorsteve vargo.com dot.
Steve, anywhere else, if people want to find you, how could they learn about you?
[00:53:40] Speaker B: Well, I'm on LinkedIn, but I think you gave the. My website is, as you've said a number of times, so I won't repeat it. But yeah, the typical instagram, LinkedIn. But I appreciate the shout outs. And Kerry, I really appreciate the opportunity to do this.
[00:53:55] Speaker C: Well, I want to thank doctor Steve Argle for joining me today. This is Doctor Kerry Gelb for open your eyes radio on Amazon 1280, the patriot. And we'll be back next week with another exciting interview on either sports or health. Thank you.
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