NOTES FROM THE FIELD
How to Read the Health401k® Blog
This blog is not organized around tips or trends.
It is organized around how people actually change.
Some posts explore the core ideas that shape Health401k®, how we define health, effort, environment, and long term investment. Others document real world observations from the field, or reflect on moments that clarified what works, what fails, and why.
If you are new here, start with Health401k® Philosophy to understand the framework.
Field Notes capture patterns we see in practice.
Reflections explore meaning, tradeoffs, and the human side of change.
HealthBroker by Health401k™ designs and coordinates environments at the individual and organizational level so the right effort is reinforced at the right time and for the right reasons..
These are not separate ideas. They are different lenses on the same system.
The Programmer, The Therapist, and a Styling Guide
I am always stunned at how principles, true principles, scale and span every dimension. Principles are the Rosetta Stone to life’s many conundrums. Curiously, experts in each professional lane recognize them in their own field, yet we often miss their application in...
Welcome to Health401k®: Your Health Portfolio Starts Here
Most of us were handed a script about health that sounded something like this: eat better, exercise more, try to be less stressed, sleep if you remember. If you do all of that perfectly, you win. Real life is messier. It took me years to admit that many of my...
The wildly unexpected multi dimensional investment of learning an instrument
Michael Jerome Kagan and Ryan Travis Woods ahead of the Jacob Collier performance at Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts. Circa 2009, I sat in on a lecture about brain aging by Professor Mark Moss, Emeritus Professor of Anatomy and Neurobiology at the Chobanian...
HealthBroker by Health401k™: The Tremor We Could Not Fully Resolve
The tremor was escalating, unrelenting, and deeply destabilizing for someone who had never considered herself fragile. Stacey was in her mid-30s. Highly capable. Widely trusted. Someone with a sharp read on people and a deep professional network. When she reached out,...
A Lawyer, a Therapist, and a House: The Transformation of Michelin Jeffries
A Life Under Load Michelin Jeffries had been navigating life untethered since the age of sixteen. A gifted mechanical mind. A full time Army serviceman. A father. By 2019, the systems that had held his life together fractured all at once. He was newly divorced....
When Effort Stops Being the Point
Most of us grow up believing effort is the answer. Work hard. Try harder. Stick with it. When something is not improving, the explanation usually feels simple: not enough effort. Over time, effort becomes both the solution and the story we tell ourselves when things...
A Different Way of Thinking About Health at Work
Most organizations do not struggle with a lack of information about health. They struggle with alignment. Employees know they should sleep more, move more, manage stress better, and take care of themselves. Leaders know that burnout, disengagement, turnover, and...
Two Johns and a Sammy: Lessons Learned From a Language I Do Not Understand
Principles as a Shared Language I have often said that principles are the Rosetta Stone to life’s many conundrums. What I mean is simple. The same truths quietly govern movement, relationships, technology, health, and identity. We just recognize them faster in domains...
More Than a Game: How Late Night Gaming Became a Health Investment
I have lost count of how many times I have watched well intentioned adults misread a behavior and rush to fix the wrong thing. This was one of those moments. The Problem That Was Easy to Name A high school teacher shared a frustration. One of her students, Roderick,...
A Case of Self-Advocacy: What Certainty Missed
I do not often open up about my own health. Since the age of 23, I have taken diet and exercise seriously. I come from a long lineage of cardiovascular disease and premature cardiovascular events on both sides of my family. Prevention was never abstract to me. As I...
HealthBroker by Health401k™: The Curious Case of Bell’s Palsy
It was 2020. An early-30s gentleman was referred to us after a sudden and alarming onset of Bell’s Palsy. The symptoms came on quickly and visibly. Facial asymmetry. Loss of control. Uncertainty that arrived without warning. He did what most people would do. He went...
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