“If you want to be a better leader, improve your health. Period.” – Rachel Leigh
Brief Summary/Overview:
In this episode of The Leadership RaDar, we’re diving into the direct impact of your health on your leadership. If you’ve ever found yourself exhausted, unfocused, or mentally scattered while trying to lead a team, this discussion is for you. Darren and Rachel break down how poor health—whether it’s stress, lack of sleep, diet, or overall wellness—affects decision-making, communication, and productivity.
We explore how small but intentional changes in health habits can lead to massive improvements in leadership performance, plus how setting boundaries and addressing stress at its root can make all the difference.
Key Takeaways:
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- Your health is your leadership baseline. If you feel like garbage, you’re leading like garbage.
- Poor health is a distraction. You can’t be sharp when your brain is foggy, and your energy is tanked.
- The way you handle your health mirrors the way you lead. If you have no discipline with your diet, don’t be shocked when your leadership is all over the place.
- Stress is the silent killer of productivity. Ignore it at your own risk.
Timestamps:
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- 0:00 – Welcome! Darren and Rachel kick off with some real talk on health and leadership.
- 1:30 – Darren’s dad joke: You’re either going to laugh or groan—there’s no in-between.
- 3:00 – Why your health is directly messing with your leadership.
- 8:00 – Leaders who don’t prioritize their health: what could possibly go wrong?
- 14:30 – Darren’s personal rollercoaster with diet, exercise, and focus.
- 19:00 – Rachel on why most leaders don’t even realize they’re running at half-capacity.
- 24:00 – The hidden ways stress is ruining your performance.
- 29:30 – Set boundaries or prepare for burnout.
- 34:00 – The hard truth: Unhealthy teams cost real money.
- 41:00 – Why just showing up isn’t enough—hello, presenteeism.
- 46:00 – Action steps that don’t suck and actually work.
- 50:00 – Final thoughts: Stop making excuses. Do better.
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Transcript
Rachel
Welcome, everyone, to the Leadership Radar. I’m Rachel Leigh, and we’ve got Darren Kanthal, our CEO of The Kanthal Group. We are executive and leadership coaches. We value health and understand how our personal health impacts our business. We also coach clients whose health is affecting their leadership.
Me being a longtime nutrition therapist with an exercise science background and executive coaching experience, and Darren being—I’m going to call you a connoisseur of—there’s a word I was looking for that isn’t as nice as a connoisseur, but you’re a consumer.
A consumer of all things health, wellness, fitness, and weight loss. Ultimately, for you, health is one of your top three values. You make sure your health is always optimized. Since I’ve known you, you never compromise—or at least that’s how it seems. We know how much of an impact our well-being has on our business, and for our clients, it affects their leadership, too.
So today, we’re going to talk about what exactly that impact is, and what you can do about it, and then we’d love to hear your tips and tricks. I hate the word hacks, but everybody loves hacks—so share them with others. As always, before we get going, Darren, dad joke.
Darren
Look at that. You didn’t say a “bad” joke. All right. Did you hear about the new fragrance for introverts? It’s called “Leave Me the F*** Cologne.”
Rachel
I didn’t. Where’d you get that one?
Darren
I’ve known that one for a while. I saw it on “Yeah, Mad People,” and then as I was researching this morning, I saw it again and thought, “That’s a good one. I’m going with that.”
Rachel
That was a good one. I like that one. Well done. Okay, so let’s dive in.
Why don’t you start with what you’ve experienced regarding your health and how it affects how you show up? You were in corporate America for 20 years and have been an entrepreneur for the last six going on seven. When your health isn’t optimal, what’s the outcome?
Darren
I think it’s important to say that, while you are a trained nutritionist with all this background and science that’s way over my head, and you coach clients on this, I don’t. Health isn’t often a topic I coach on. Most of my experience is firsthand with me. That’s how you and I met, and that’s what you asked me about.
It’s funny—when you said in the intro that I never compromise, that’s not exactly true. I compromise plenty of times.
Rachel
Go ahead, keep going.
Darren
No, say it—I saw your face.
Rachel
Well, before I met you, you compromised a lot.
Darren
Yeah.
Rachel
And then, as you like to say, I ruined you with health. Yes. And when you say compromise, let’s be clear—your compromise is eating too many Oreos when you decide to binge. And by “too many,” I mean the whole package. You’ll come home and sometimes binge on crackers. We’re not talking about McDonald’s every day or drinking constantly.
Darren
Ruin me with health. Yes.
Rachel
Right. It’s not a complete disregard for your health. You have moments, but you quickly course-correct because you know how terrible you feel when you do it.
Darren
That’s the key thing you just said. We’re not here today to talk about eating more salads, working out, or having apples. Everyone knows that. If you want to be healthy, you have to eat healthy—period. But the bigger point today, and I think what you’re asking, or at least how I’m going to answer, is how I feel when I’m not eating healthy.
It’s not just about being hangry. It’s not just about eating a package of Oreos. When I’m off, for me, it’s GI issues. I get irritable, I get headaches, I don’t think well, I have a hard time stringing sentences together, I stutter, and I’m quick to be defensive or offensive. I’m not operating at my best. You and I argue, I’m not totally present with clients sometimes, my brain is foggy.
Actually, it’s not even foggy—it’s unfocused. I get easily distracted. I mean, I’m a self-proclaimed squirrel chaser, but when I’m not at my optimal best, my brain just doesn’t function well. And then to expect myself to operate with a half-functioning brain, solve big problems, be there for clients, be a good partner—it doesn’t work.
You say this a lot: So many people don’t even know what it feels like to feel good. Their baseline isn’t even close to optimal. Who knows what they could accomplish if they improved certain elements of their health?
Rachel
Yes. Poor health is distracting, whether you realize it or not. If your baseline is poor health, that’s just how you operate. It is what it is. But if you don’t know any different, the big question is: What could it be like if you had optimal health?
Now, my clients don’t come to me for health advice. They come to me because they want to be better leaders, sustain leadership, reduce stress, improve communication, reduce conflict, quiet rumination, and have better boundaries and systems. And because they’re in high-stress positions, their health suffers. It’s twofold—I help with both.
When you optimize both, you level up so much faster than if you only focus on leadership. Yes, you’ll grow, but if you’re trying to implement new communication styles, navigate conflict, and manage stress, that requires a lot of energy. If you don’t have energy and clarity because of your health, it slows your progress.
I see it all the time. Like you said, you get grouchy. For me, it’s lethargy—the inability to motivate. I always say I go to step on the gas, and it’s like there’s nothing. Like a little four-cylinder struggling up a mountain. You barely make it through the day, and even then, it’s not quality.
What steps have you taken to ensure your health stays optimal, especially now that you’re running a business? Your paycheck comes from you. The stakes are high.
Darren
I’m just laughing.
Rachel
Sit back, everybody. We’ve got an hour.
Darren
Well, I’m laughing because I look over to my left, where I have my goals for the year posted on my corkboard. Each year, I choose a word or saying, and this year, the word is consistency. I joke that I’m a professional expert at being inconsistent. I do consistently eat gluten- and dairy-free—that’s just part of my routine. But then, when I go off the rails, I eat an entire package of Oreos, or we go to Woody’s Pizza, and I eat 20 pieces of pizza. Those are just moments in time, but I find that I’m inconsistent.
So when you ask what I do to ensure I stay healthy and consistent, I think of the bigger picture—having effective guardrails. I literally have this conversation in my head: Who do I want to benefit more, the present me or the future me? Who is going to handle this task, present Darren or future Darren? This actually started with getting gas. There were times when my tank was near empty, and I’d think, “Who’s going to deal with this—me now or me later?”
I apply that same thinking when I’m drinking, ordering at a restaurant, or planning for the week ahead. I’ve been trying to be more mindful of my schedule—where I’m going, what I’m doing, who I’m meeting, how many clients I’m seeing. If I’m not healthy and I can’t perform well, it doesn’t feel good. When I don’t take care of myself, I complain about my weight, my GI issues flare up, and I end up frustrated. That doesn’t help anything.
I try to have overarching guardrails, rules, or habits—whatever you want to call them—that work well for me. By the way, speaking of habits, I created a Google Doc and started using an app as a habit tracker. That’s been hugely effective.
Rachel
What I’m hearing you say is that it’s less about the moment-to-moment, check-the-box tasks—like eating a salad, having two cups of vegetables, taking supplements, or working out—and more about getting to the root cause. It’s about your relationship with health, your behaviors, and your intentions. Once those are in place, the downstream effects follow naturally. You eat fewer Oreos. You go to Woody’s Pizza less often.
The way I see it, how you approach your health reflects how you approach everything else in life. You said you weren’t consistent, you liked to live in the moment, and you chased squirrels—those behaviors led to an on-and-off cycle with your health. The behavior had to change first. You had to become consistent, set clear boundaries, think ahead, make decisions in advance, and choose temporary discomfort over long-term regret.
This is what I talk to my clients about all the time. If your health isn’t great—you’re overweight, dealing with an autoimmune disease, not working out, feeling lethargic, struggling with sleep—then we need to look at the habits that created that. And then, ask yourself: How are those habits showing up at work?
How do you communicate as a leader? How do you stay committed to projects? I wrote some things down—lack of self-control, for example. You need self-control to maintain your health. You can’t just indulge in whatever you want all the time and expect to be healthy. The same applies to leadership.
Rachel
Where is self-control showing up—or not showing up—in your leadership?
You also have to create and communicate boundaries. You have to set boundaries and communicate them to others. Say you visit the in-laws, and they serve mashed potatoes with dairy and a loaf of bread, but you’re gluten- and dairy-free now. Instead of saying, “Oh, it’s just one meal—I don’t want to offend anyone,” you have to hold your boundaries.
How does that show up at work? How are you handling boundaries with your team? With yourself? Health is a direct reflection of how you show up as a leader. Most people don’t want to look at it that closely, but if you fix the root cause, everything else in life improves.
For you, Darren, it was never about not knowing what to eat or which supplements to take. You already had a trainer and a functional medicine doctor. The real change came from shifting your habits, behaviors, and mindset.
Darren
You know, the big thing that came up—and you’re right—if we’re not focused on health, or the excuses we make around our health, or really anything for that matter, it does persist. It shows up in other areas. And for me, the big thing is I always want what I want. My want is so important. Like, I want the Oreos, I want the Woodies, I want Dairy Queen, I want to lay on the couch. Whatever I want is such a strong pull for me. It’s visceral.
But when I give in to my wants, it’s too much. And then it also shows up at work. I’ll have a time block, I’ll have a commitment to you to do something, and I’m like, I don’t want to do that right now. So then I don’t. And then I don’t hold my commitments. And then I get annoyed with myself. And then, if you call me out, I’m annoyed with you for calling me out. And it’s all because I’m giving in to the want, which is universal across the board.
It shows up in all these different places. Sometimes, the want is laziness. It’s like the child in me saying, I don’t want to. It’s this little whiny kid that just doesn’t want to do the thing because—what? I’m lazy? I don’t want to? Whatever, right?
The other thing that came up—and I know we both see this in plenty of clients and even some people in our families—is avoiders. They avoid focus. And I’m just going to tie this to health because that’s what we’re talking about, right? They avoid the things that are healthy. And that pattern shows up across life—avoiding conflict, avoiding conversation, avoiding advocating for themselves, avoiding speaking up, avoiding progress.
So I really like what you’re saying. And again, we’ll focus on health because that’s what we’re talking about. The things we do related to our health show up in other areas—our leadership, our partnerships with our spouses, boyfriends, girlfriends, whoever we live with, our families, and all sorts of other things.
Rachel
Yeah, yes. And there are a lot of different definitions of leadership. I also believe leadership extends beyond work. There’s leadership within your home, within your community, within different organizations you’re in. You get to choose your definition of leadership.
However, you have to recognize that if you are now a leader and you’ve been assigned that position, you have an impact on other people. Like it or not, what you do, what you say, what you model—your team is going to follow.
So if you’re modeling being unhealthy—sending out emails at four o’clock in the morning, saying Hey team, let’s go to the gym! and then bailing on it, or saying I’m trying to eat healthy and then ordering Chick-fil-A for the team meeting—this all affects awareness. How you reflect on what you do and say about your health, your leadership, and your family impacts your team.
If you’re a leader and you want your team to behave differently and operate differently—if you want to show them a different way—it has to start with you. That’s a no-brainer, right?
But when we talk about health in particular, this is why it’s so important. The Integrated Benefits Institute, a nonprofit health and productivity research organization, states that illness-related lost productivity costs in the U.S. total $530 billion a year.
And healthcare benefits for employees and dependents cost $880 billion.
So from an individual perspective, if you’re not healthy, that sucks. You feel like crap, right? You don’t like the way you look. You don’t like the way you think. It’s a distraction, and you just don’t feel good. The most important thing is how you feel every day—how you experience and participate in life.
But from an organization’s perspective? That’s real money. Those are big dollars. So why wouldn’t you encourage your team, your leaders, to prioritize their health? And how do you set up a culture that creates that?
I’ll tell you—it’s more than just saying, We have a culture of wellness. Here’s a gym membership. We put a salad bar in the cafeteria.
Number one, people have to choose their health. And number two, while those are great perks, unless you actually hire someone to come in and help individuals change from a mindset perspective, those things go underutilized. And you’re still left with $530 billion a year in lost revenue.
Darren
Yeah, two things come to mind.
First, I would assume that $530 billion includes people calling out sick, people on FMLA for chronic or severe illnesses, and so on. But there’s also an unknown cost—how much productivity is lost due to a foggy brain, being hungover, or being celiac or gluten intolerant and not knowing it?
Rachel
I’m going to interrupt right there. That’s called presenteeism. It’s when you come to work sick. And to me, there’s overt sickness and covert sickness—the known and the unknown.
There’s the obvious I have a cold, but I’m still going to work kind of thing, but then there’s the unknown—like an undiagnosed autoimmune condition where your brain, energy levels, mitochondria, and immune function are all compromised. You don’t even realize it, but you’re still showing up with reduced capacity. That’s a huge factor in that $530 billion.
Darren
Got it. Interesting.
The other thing that stood out to me was that you used the word model. You probably haven’t read this book, it’s a dry read, but The Leadership Challenge is one of my favorite leadership books. It’s based on a framework with five exemplary practices of leadership, and the first one is to model the way.
When leaders model the actions, behaviors, and performance standards they expect, the team follows in time. The same thing happens at home, with friends—especially for leaders. The book gives an example: if you say being on time is important, but then you show up late to every meeting, what you’re actually modeling is that it’s okay to be late.
And to tie that back to leadership and health—so often in corporate settings, happy hour is the default for socializing. My coach, Cam—if you’re listening, what’s up?—he’s big on changing the happy hour meeting to a breakfast meeting.
All the benefits of starting the day right—yada, yada, yada. I love that as a hack, and I’ve been leaning into breakfast meetings for networking instead of just coffee.
Rachel
That’s a great idea because it automatically—
Darren
Unless you’re camping and you like your morning drink, as I do.
Rachel
Right! But in a professional setting, you’re not slamming mimosas, old-fashioneds, and fried food at breakfast. It’s a different way to start the day while still having that connection point.
One of the biggest things I see is how stress from big positions directly correlates with health conditions. I’m not saying people with lower-stress jobs don’t have health issues, but in my 15 years in this industry, I’ve seen that higher stress often leads to lifestyle-driven disease.
And this is what I want people to really hear—because this is where I bang my head against the wall. Unless you’re willing to change your lifestyle habits—including your mindset, which drives your actions—don’t expect your health to improve as much as it potentially could.
Rachel
So many people say I’m doing everything! And I’ll be as direct as I can—I’ll say, No, you’re not.
You’re unwilling to offload meetings. You’re unwilling to set boundaries around work. You’re unwilling to communicate your needs—like I’m going to the gym at lunch, or I’m ordering a salad for team meetings.
It’s not just about checking the boxes.
And I’m done.
Darren
You said we weren’t going to talk about salads, and you just talked about a salad.
Rachel
I love salads. You know I love vegetables.
Darren
Two things, just to say it.
One, some people’s biggest stress is at home—the distribution of responsibilities, relationship dynamics, and so on. And I’ll speak for you here—some of the clients you’ve shared stories about aren’t willing to make changes at home, so their stress load stays consistent.
They never address the stress. Exactly. And then whatever they’re working on persists because the stress persists.
The same goes for work, whether someone’s in a senior role or a junior one. If their job is consistently overwhelming—back-to-back meetings all day, no breaks—it’s the same cycle.
Rachel
It doesn’t just turn off when they leave the office.
Darren
Right. There’s barely time to go to the bathroom or eat a sandwich.
And when they’re dealing with all the things you mentioned—weight loss, autoimmune issues, whatever it is—unless they address the stress at home or work, nothing really changes. Sure, there might be small improvements, but the root cause, as you always say, is still there because they haven’t tackled the actual stress.
Anyway, I’ll get off my high horse—I feel like I’m preaching a little. But stress is a big deal, and a lot of us don’t even realize how much it’s affecting us.
Rachel
It’s huge. What was it, two weeks ago? I can’t remember the date—three, I don’t know—somewhere in January. We did the LinkedIn Live and the Leadership Radar, and we brought in our top five tools for leaders. These tools directly lower stress levels—at least, that’s what we think. They weren’t mindset-focused; they were action items.
All the things we’re hearing that are causing stress—causing people to ruminate and over-function—those tools specifically helped address some of that. So, we could reduce the load you’re managing, which opens up more time, hopefully, for you to de-stress, be with your family, create—whatever it is. I want to read some statistics for you because I think this is fascinating. And this is why this is a call to action. I can’t say it any more passionately.
For those interested, this is a call to action because this will affect your livelihood. It will affect it. So rather than sitting there thinking, “Why doesn’t my brain work? Why can’t I find those words? Why am I so tired all the time? Why am I bloated and puffy? Why don’t I sleep well?”—instead of racking your brain trying to figure it out, I want you to listen to this. This is why it’s so important because this could be part of it.
Number one: 78% of people with autoimmune disease are women. Think about that—78%. 95% of patients with systemic lupus and Sjogren’s syndrome, which are both autoimmune conditions, are female. 95%.
Arthritis and multiple sclerosis occur in females 60% more than in males. And many autoimmune disorders tend to affect women during periods of extensive stress—which, yes, can include pregnancy—but plenty of these women aren’t having babies. It also happens during great hormonal changes.
Menopause, perimenopause—by the way, stress changes your hormones. And we’re not just talking about estrogen, testosterone, progesterone, and DHEA. We’re talking about hormones like cortisol. We’re talking about your thyroid hormones—T3, T4, TSH.
Why is this important? Because most of these people are misdiagnosed. The average number of doctor visits before women are finally diagnosed with an autoimmune condition is up to eight to ten different visits. So now, you’re a leader. You have a big position. You’re trying to—well, I don’t want to say prove yourself—but you’re trying to perform at the highest level. You’re trying to be a role model. You have a lot of responsibility. You are important to so many people. But yet, you’re running at 50%. You step on the gas, and there’s nothing there. You’re questioning, “What’s wrong with me?” No one is listening. “Why can’t I produce?”
And it could be because of these undiagnosed conditions that are directly tied to stress. Did I make that clear enough?
Darren
I think so. I want to put a different spin on mindset—just hear me out. And let me preface it by saying I get annoyed with people like me—like my contemporaries—who use all the buzzy words in our industry. I’m not saying that about you; I’m just saying in our industry, right? We always hear, “Just change your mindset.” So, forget mindset. It is important, but I have a different take.
When I think about mindset—and this is something I coach a lot—it’s the conversations we have in our brains. Now, apparently, based on research, upwards of 50% of the population does not have an internal narrative. They don’t talk to themselves. I talk to myself all day long. I can’t speak for those who don’t, but most of my clients do. So, my spin on mindset is thinking about these internal conversations.
Using what you just said—if someone is constantly thinking, “Why don’t I have energy? Why am I so tired? Why am I lethargic? Why can’t I figure out these words? Why can’t I solve this problem?”—this is the internal conversation, the internal narrative in our brain. When we keep contemplating questions that don’t have answers, that’s stress. It’s this constant buzz in your brain: “What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I figure this out?” Even when it’s not a conscious thought, it sits in the back of your mind, idling, adding to stress levels.
The thing I coach to is helping people reduce that chatter in their brains. And the way to do that is to identify what questions don’t have answers and what you’re curious about. If I’m wondering why I don’t have energy—okay, that’s a question without an answer. How do we start getting information? Maybe we don’t need eight to ten doctors. Maybe we can do it in four to five. Maybe the first call is to you, Rachel—which is always my first call.
The point being when we ruminate on this stuff—and I do this because I spin—I spin on thoughts. Other people talk about spiraling or being stuck on a thought. The stress just stays there. The only way for it to stop being stressful is to take action.
The action is inviting someone else into the conversation—getting a coach, seeing a doctor, asking a friend—doing something other than just thinking about it.
Rachel
I 100% agree. Knowing what I know about the body, I’ll tell you—that thought in itself creates a chemical reaction, which creates a hormonal response. And beyond that—an inflammatory response, a blood sugar response. Every thought we have as humans triggers a chain reaction in the body.
Even if you’re sitting safely at home reading a book, then suddenly start ruminating—your brain doesn’t know the difference. I remember when I was super stressed out, my adrenals were shot. Going through my divorce, I would have these horrible thoughts about my kids dying or us being attacked. I was on such high alert my hormones were completely dysregulated. Just sitting there, a thought could invade my brain, and that alone would create the downstream chemical response.
So, what you just said is so important. I say mindset, you say narrative—to me, they’re kind of interchangeable, just slightly different angles. But if you’re trying to repair your health, protect it, or change it in any way, every thought you have will create something. It will either have a positive effect on your body or a negative one.
That’s why if you’re trying to work on your health and saying, “Nothing is working,” but you’re not exploring what’s going on in your brain—that could be your answer. That could be the thing reducing stress, improving blood sugar, and helping anxiety. Because when you have that invasive thought, it triggers fight, flight, or freeze. Your digestive system slows down. You don’t process food. You don’t absorb nutrients. Then you have gut issues and bloat—it’s a whole cycle.
That’s why I get so passionate about this. People are suffering. People are confused. But there are solutions. Most of the people we work with—they’re action-takers. That’s why they’re successful. So, break that neural pathway. Take action.
Darren
For me, the biggest takeaway is the impact of stress. Sometimes, we don’t even realize we’re stressed. You’ve asked me plenty of times, “Are you stressed?” and I’ll say, “No.” But home and work—those are the two places where we spend the most time. If something’s off, that’s where to look first.
And, like you said, action is the antidote. Do something other than just ruminate.
Rachel
Yes.
All of that will impact how you show up at work, like you said, how you show up at home and how you show up for your health.
Pay attention. How are you doing this one thing? And how does that translate to how you’re doing the other thing? How are you letting yourself off the hook with your diet? How are you letting your team off the hook with a deliverable? It’s not super fun, right? When you have to look at the things we’re doing that are causing a negative outcome.
But if it’s the solution, why wouldn’t you do it? And I think that’s what our clients do. We have the healthiest leaders. We help them become healthy as leaders—physically and mentally. We ensure they have good communication styles, they’re communicating their boundaries, and they’re shoring up any type of conflict. They’re finding a resolution. And we’re at 10 o’clock, so…
I’m going to cut myself off because I’m going to honor our commitment of 45 minutes. I could talk about this all the time, and I’m getting sucked down the rabbit hole.
Darren
Do you want to finish your thought, or do you?
Rachel
Right? No, no, no, no. Listen, if you want to be a better leader, improve your health.
Period.
All right, we are back here next Tuesday. Can’t remember what we’re talking about. Do you?
Darren
Yes.
Nope.
Rachel
I do. Hold on. Everybody stay with us real quick. “The Home Advantage: How Leveraging Your Personal Life Helps Your Leadership Success.” Kind of what you were touching on.
Never mind. I need a snack. I need to go fuel my brain. All right. Good to see you, babe. Bye. See you next Tuesday.
Darren
Bye.
