I Tried Botox. It Didn't Work. That's Not the Point. It’s July 2020. I’m on my twelfth video call of the day. Maybe thirteenth. I stopped counting around June. The pandemic turned my home office into a place where I stared at my own face for more than ten hours a day. I had never spent this much time looking at myself. Nobody had. Before, you saw yourself in the bathroom mirror or checked your hair in the elevator, then moved on. Now my face stayed in the corner of my laptop screen from eight...
11 days ago • 11 min read
You Already Know What to Do. That Was Never the Problem. Flying over Frankfurt at 35,000 feet, I listen to Andrew Huberman talk about winding down for sleep. He says to dim the lights two hours before bed, avoid screens in the last hour, and let melatonin work without blue light interference. It’s Monday morning, and I’m flying to a client. I’m on my third coffee after five hours of sleep. The podcast is solid. Clear science, sharp delivery. I jot down mental notes, planning to start tonight:...
18 days ago • 11 min read
Why We Die: The Midlife Risk Factors You Can See and the Ones You Can't Back home, getting your motorcycle license at 16 was just what you did. It wasn’t about loving motorcycles. It was about living out in the German countryside, where you needed one to get anywhere at all. Small town life meant no buses after six. Friends were always a village away, and the sports club took twenty minutes by road. So as soon as you could, you got your license. Everyone did. That motorcycle was your link to...
25 days ago • 12 min read
by Andre Heeg, MD, DDS Your Bones Peaked at 30. Nobody Checked. It’s 1987. I’m eight years old, standing on my grandma’s king-size bed. My cousins are with me. One pretends to be knocked out on the pillows. Another acts as the referee, counting to three as seriously as only a second-grader can. The bedframe is solid oak, built to outlast its owners. We ignore that. All that matters to us is WWF wrestling. This was the golden age: Hulk Hogan, Andre the Giant, “Macho Man” Randy Savage, Roddy...
about 1 month ago • 14 min read
by Andre Heeg, MD, DDS Sexual Health Is a Vital Sign. We Just Don't Treat It Like One. Hawaii, 2016. Tilda just turned two. She’s sitting on a beach towel eating sand, completely unconcerned with the fact that her parents’ entire life is in a shipping container somewhere between Arizona and New York. My wife and I ended up in Maui for four weeks. Not a vacation. We just didn’t have anywhere to live while the moving truck crawled across the country. I had opened a new office for a startup. The...
about 1 month ago • 10 min read
by Andre Heeg, MD, DDS I'm a Doctor. I Know Exactly What Ultra-Processed Food Does. My Kids Still Want KitKats. Karla walks in from school and drops her backpack on the floor. I open the lunchbox my wife packed this morning. Bell peppers, cucumber, avocado. Biltong, which has become a family favorite since we arrived in South Africa: dried meat, sometimes beef, sometimes ostrich, sometimes game like kudu or springbok. Apple slices and a plum. Dried dates for dessert. More came back than...
about 2 months ago • 13 min read
by Andre Heeg, MD, DDS Surrounded and Starving: The Hidden Biology of Leadership Loneliness It’s 9pm on a Thursday. You just closed your laptop after the fourth video call that ran over. Your inbox shows 43 unread emails. Slack has been pinging since 8am. There are seven WhatsApp messages you haven’t opened and five texts you haven’t answered. Your partner asks how your day was. “Fine,” you say. You mean it. And you don’t. You’re not depressed. You’re not antisocial. Your calendar is full of...
about 2 months ago • 13 min read
by Andre Heeg, MD, DDS Leadership Under Load: Why Your Best People (Including You) Can’t Sustain What They Start The laptop is open. The Notion board is loaded. Fourteen medical bills sit in a column labeled “To Process.” Some have been there for months. I know what needs doing. Upload the bills. Assign them to the right person. Dispute the mistake. File the receipts. It should take twenty, maybe thirty minutes. I’ve handled strategy for Fortune 500s. I’ve rebuilt surgical protocols under...
2 months ago • 11 min read
by Andre Heeg, MD, DDS Bloodwork That Matters: A Calm, Non-Hyped Executive Guide If you search for information about bloodwork online, you’ll find yourself overwhelmed long before you find any real answers. You’ll see headlines like "Longevity blood testing: 8 biomarkers to check" or "5 Biomarkers Everyone Should Test." The articles all sound the same, but the companies behind them are easy to spot. They’re selling you test panels, subscription services, and a subtle sense that you’re not...
2 months ago • 17 min read