Unpacked with Ron Harvey
People Always Matter. Join Ron as he unpacks leadership with his guests.
Unpacked with Ron Harvey
Prescribed Life AI: The Trillion-Dollar Impact of Preventative Health and Burnout with Oli Johnson
We explore how AI can shift leaders from reacting to burnout to preventing it, using clear data that makes coaching measurable and culture more humane. Oli Johnson shares a candid burnout story, then breaks down practical tools that help leaders protect performance.
• AI’s impact on preventative health and performance
• The real cost of burnout to teams and the bottom line
• Early warning signs leaders often miss
• How data makes coaching measurable and actionable
• Physiological, emotional, and genetic inputs that guide care
• Building a culture that resists quiet burnout
• Where coaches and leaders can connect with the platform
You can find me on LinkedIn, you can find Ollie on LinkedIn, respond to the question, send us some, hey, here's how they will describe me. Or if you want either one of our services, feel free to reach out to us. We'd love to have a conversation with you.
Connect with Ron
Just Make A Difference: Leading Under Pressure by Ron Harvey
“If you don’t have something to measure your growth, you won’t be self-aware or intentional about your growth.”
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Disclaimer:
The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers and guests and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any organization or entity. The information provided in this podcast is intended for educational and informational purposes only and should not be considered as professional advice. Listeners should consult with their own professional advisors before implementing any suggestions or recommendations made in this podcast. The speakers and guests are not responsible for any actions taken by listeners based on the information presented in this podcast. The podcast is not intended to be a substitute for professional advice or services. The speakers and guests make no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability or availability with respect to the information, products, services, or related graphics contained in this ...
Welcome to Unpack Podcast with your host, Leadership Consultant, Ron Harvey of Global Core Strategies and Consulting. Ron believes that leadership is the fundamental driver towards making a difference. So now, to find out more of what it means to unpack leadership, here's your host, Ron Harvey.
SPEAKER_02:Good afternoon, everyone. This is Ron Harvey, the Vice President, Chief Operating Officer for Global Core Strategies and Consulting. If you've been following us around for about the last 18 months, you know we do everything around leadership. People always matter. Our job is to really help leaders be better connected to their workforce. But what I do on this podcast is really invite leaders from around the world, all backgrounds, all perspectives, to share about leadership and their challenges and things that they see, do, experience, or have tried and worked and didn't work. So I'm always excited to bring another guest on and really allow them to introduce themselves. But let's dive into some of the stuff. So I'm excited to have Oli Johnson on with us. And I will invite him and hand him the microphone and get out of his way as he shares what he wants you to know about him. Oli, thank you, man, for coming.
SPEAKER_00:Hey Ron, thank you so much. Very excited to be here with you today. Yeah, so I'm Ollie Johnson. I am the CEO and founder of Prescribe Life AI. We're building the world's first human resilience platform. And uh yeah, I'm living in Ibiza in Spain. I think Ibiza, as perhaps your American audience might uh be more familiar with. Yes. So yeah, I mean, obviously excited to talk to you today about uh about leadership and some of the things that I've done in the past and what I'm doing now. I'm currently leading a team of 10. In the past, I've led bigger teams as well. And uh yeah, excited to dive in and get into some of the topics around leadership. Awesome, awesome.
SPEAKER_02:Well, well, thank you so much. I mean, I know that you're like you say, you're the CEO. I mean, you're doing a lot of stuff around, you know, prescribed life AI, um, human resilience platform. Tell us a little bit. I mean, AI is everywhere now. People are listening to this podcast, people that that are in leadership, people are trying to figure it out. It's like the new buzzword, almost like when when COVID happened, the word was pivot. We're in this place of AI is the new buzzword for everybody right now. Help us help us kind of get our how do we, if I'm I'm I'm concerned about it or I'm using a lot, what help us out, get us started. Like, how does it tie to leadership and is it relevant?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's a good question. I I think probably a dive in specifically on the health side of things, that's where we're tackling it from. Yeah, so you know, as you're totally right to point out, AI is absolutely everywhere these days. And I feel like it's getting a bit of overwhelm for some people as well because it's just it's so pervasive and it's hitting every single area. And the rapid change of pace that it's bringing as well, I think is bringing discomfort to a lot of people. So I probably stake that first of all to say that it's not all roses, you know, it's not all a great picture. Interestingly, in health tech, particularly, it's having a huge impact. And in terms of funding, it's really interesting to see what it's doing to the landscape of health tech. So, in the first quarter of this year, for example, it was record levels of inflow of capital into AI and health tech, which you know hadn't been seen since there was so much money uh around during the COVID era. And really, that's because the potential from AI in that sector is absolutely enormous. And the key component of that is a focus on preventative health over reactive health. So, you know, so much healthcare, so much money goes into fixing people when things go wrong. And the potential of AI that it's bringing is able to prevent things happening. And that is a that's a massive change. It's something which we're we're seeing across the board. So it's a very, very exciting time. Um, and it's something I'm I'm particularly interested in myself. So we're very focused on performance optimization, and with that is you know, human resilience. And if you think about that from the other way around, preventing burnout, you know, are you probably aware yourself, Ron, that burnout is a huge, huge issue across leadership teams, across many, many different industries, whether it's you know within the corporate world, whether it's in healthcare, whether it's in education, so many people are burning out. And the cost of burnout is absolutely huge in terms of recovery. And if we're able to prevent it, that's a that's a huge, huge bonus.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I mean, I I love I love where you're going because it's in every space. I don't know if I had any guests come on and talk about, you know, it in a preventative measure piece of it. You know, I'm a veteran of the armed services, you know, one of the things that we always try to do is be preventive versus reactionary. Um, and so getting ahead of it upstream is super important. When you say it's expensive, have you done any research in the Ali about what is it costing to not use AI to do what you're doing? What is it? What's that dollar amount? And then what are the other ways that it's costing organizations other than just from a financial way? So, what's the financial cost if you've done any research around it or read anything on it? And then what are the other costs associated with it?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, certainly. So I've got some very big statistics which uh really bring to life the fact that this is a huge impact on the bottom line. Obviously, with burnouts, there is a huge human cost, you know, to the individual, to the team that somebody's working within, and to you know, individuals' family situation to friends. Um, but there is a very, very big number attached to this in terms of what it does cost. So in 2019, the World Economic Forum, together with the World Health Organization, did a deep dive into mental health issues within the workplace and burnout being a major contributor to that. And there is a trillion dollar impact to the world economy every single year to mental ill health, with burnout being that large segment of it as well. So it's a it's a real, real issue. And the other side of that, which I think is an interesting way to look at it and helps to bring it to life, is that there's a$60 billion corporate wellness industry at the same time. So you've got$60 billion being spent on corporate wellness, and then you've got a trillion dollars of impact to there being ill health within corporations. So, you know, there's there's obviously a very poor return on investment. And when you look into those numbers and start to break it down, you can see the kind of costs associated to each person burning out. And I think it's particularly interesting when you look at leadership and how burnout impacts at that leadership level. You think of you know, the cost of that person's salary, typically it's very high. You know, if you're looking at the C-suite, there's obviously a large salary attached to that. You then have poor performance when people are not performing optimally because they're burning out, they're making poor decisions, and those poor decisions lead to direct impact to the bottom line. And then when that person does burn out, you have all the healthcare costs that go with it, all the insurance costs, you have the time that somebody's out, and then you have the cost of replacing somebody once they've burnt out, and that person on the sidelines as well. So if you think about that compound effect as that ripples through an organization, all of those things together, you can see how it easily adds up to a large amount of money very quickly.
SPEAKER_02:Yes. What it I love you, Shannon, because oftentimes you you know you look at from that financial piece of it of what it's costing over a long period of time. What's the advantage for a CEO C-suite that's running an organization? You and I are running companies, we don't have time to slow down. Customers are asking for things faster, the pace of things are a lot faster, people have higher expectations. When do we have time to deal with this thing called burnout or mental health when we're really trying to just keep our head afloat as a company? A lot of people say we don't have time, Ali, to do it.
SPEAKER_00:My advice in that situation, and it's it's hard-earned advice, having been there and done that myself, is a reframing of that and looking at it from a different angle. So I'll give you a little background from my side. So I had a uh a startup. So I worked in the corporate world for about 20 years in the city in London, investment banking, asset management, private equity. Um, I worked for the Bank of England for a few years. So I worked in a very high-pressure environment, used to working long hours, you know, used to that kind of hustle and grind culture. And towards the end of my time in the city, I had my own cyber tech business, which we we built um pretty quickly, had a lot of success. Uh, but I had the classic founder mentality of myopically focused on growing the business. And, you know, we had this five-year plan that we were executing, and I was doing 80, 90 hour weeks back to back for weeks on end and then months on end. And really, I just was so focused that all of the things that are good to do to stay healthy, to stay resilient, to avoid burnout, all went by the wayside. And I had a huge incident of burnout myself. So, how I'd answer your question is that if it's something that you just ignore and carry on and just get your head down and keep going, it's something that will come to bite you eventually. You might be able to stave it off for a while, but it's completely unsustainable to work in that kind of way whereby you just keep going. You know, I had the view, I'm gonna be fine, it won't happen to me, it's all gonna be okay until it's not. And for me, you know, recovery looked like nine months, 12 months out of you know, not working just to recover. You know, luckily I'd sold out of a business, so I had the luxury of being able to take that time off. I had the financial security, so I was fine, but many people don't have that. You know, if you burn out of a corporate job, you don't necessarily have the funds and the means to keep yourself um, you know, comfortable while you recover. So I would say very much that it's in the interests of the individuals and it's in the interests of corporations to keep their individuals healthy.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I love it. And I 100% agree with that. I don't think you can afford not to pay attention to it. I think it'll cost you much more in the reactionary on the back end of it of trying to fix a problem. So for those leaders that are listening, it's uh preventive maintenance is always less expensive than repair maintenance, you know, and I think that's super important for you. So, so when you look at it, Ollie, what are some signs for people that are listening, that are that are putting in the 89 hours? Thank you for the transparency and know you're chasing after this thing of success. And we all, you know, at somewhere in our life chase this thing called success that costs us up a lot. What are some signs? What did you notice? Um, or what would people notice when they get into this place of burnout? Because sometimes you just think, uh, I'll be okay. You know, I'll sleep it off, or I'll take a I'll take this or I'll take uh an hour here. What are some signs for people to start realizing that burnout is around the corner or or they're starting to experience burnout?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I mean, it can really vary. It absolutely can. I can bring it to life perhaps in the context of how I experienced it and how that showed up for me, because it was a series of things that happened over a period of time that began to escalate and it got to a point where it was really, really significant. But like the first thing that really came to life for me was well, I mean, there were things like sleep, for instance, where you know I just couldn't sleep, my appetite started to go. Um, so those are the sort of physiological signs. But beyond that, um I had this degree of apathy that crept in, and my appetite for what I was doing, the actual work itself, decreased dramatically. And you know, I'll just be completely transparent here. It was a commercial venture that I was running, and a measure of success, a metric for me was financial for sure. And you know, the business was growing fast, we were onboarding some fantastic, you know, tier one clients, and revenue was was growing way better than we thought it was gonna. And I remember one particular month where I personally benefited to an amount that if you'd have told me that five years ago, that I would have, you know, made that in a month, I would have been dancing on the ceiling. And this month, when that happened, that was on top of you know what we were already doing, it barely flickered on my radar. I was just completely disinterested. And for me, uh, that was a real warning sign that I, you know, I I'm no longer reacting, it's not it's nothing here is actually making me happy. And I was not enjoying any of my time working, and the financial reward, the thing that had been driving me, was no longer hitting the mark. So that that was something that you know it got my attention, definitely got my attention. And then things just progressed, and you know, crucially, I think the thing that really really pushed me in the end to taking action was I'd been traveling for business and I was flying back to London, and I had a I had a really tight five-day schedule planned. I had you know back-to-back meetings, clients, colleagues. I had a big co-founder meeting and a board meeting. We were doing some filming for some content, it was it was a lot, and I wasn't looking forward to it. And I remember I was on this flight and I was looking out, and I honestly I had this moment of if this plane crashed, I just I wouldn't care. I wouldn't, you know, not I didn't feel actively suicidal, but I felt so numb and so disconnected and just so low that I just I honestly didn't care if the plane crashed. And that when I reflected on it a day or two later, you know, I think it was after after the business trip, it really got my attention because what what a way to live, you know. And and from the outside looking in, I had everything that I wanted. I had this business that we built and were continuing to build that had taken off way better than I thought. You know, it was a huge indicator of success to me prior to starting the venture. You know, beautiful young family, living in, you know, like a beautiful Mediterranean island. I had everything that I dreamed of, and I was feeling like I didn't care if I lived or died. That was a major, major wake-up call for me. So, you know, perhaps that's uh an extreme example because I really was uh at a low ed there, but you know, that's certainly how it showed up for me.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, which is why I love the show, you know, Unpack when we come on and people have conversations. You get to share because people will watch us, Ali, and think like it's all together, how can you not be happy? You know, and you're working all this, like it happens, and you don't realize what's going on with you. So your story helps someone that is actually listening to, hey, when this is what is going on, and make sure you got people around you. How did you how did you build people around you that to help you? Would you go through that process and you're at the top? How important was it for you to have people that will listen or people that you talk to, or uh where did you go initially, like that circle? Because sometimes it's lonely at the top.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's a great question. And there were challenges. You know, one challenge I would surface is in the leadership team that we had, you know, in the founder team, we were all you know, pressing ahead very severely with the with the work. And I I believe we found it difficult to express to each other how we were showing up. You know, as an example, when I when I first felt that I was burning out, at risk of burning out and actually burning out, I remember having the conversation with our leadership team, and I was asked, What does that mean? You're burning out. Like, how how what do you mean by that? And I wasn't able to articulate it. I didn't have the vocabulary, I couldn't explain it. I had nothing tangible to point to. So that was challenging. On the other side, I actually had a couple of really good professionals helping me, and even then, it wasn't enough to stop me going down the route I was going down. So, you know, again, I was seeing a therapist once a week, and you know, I can look back and kind of laugh on it now, to be honest, because I would see a therapist for an hour on a Wednesday and it would be like mid-afternoon, and prior to that call with her, I would have done eight hours of calls in the morning, and then I'd have eight hours of work after that hour with her, and I'd be speaking to her, saying, Oh, why isn't this working? Why aren't I feeling better? Why aren't we going deeper? And she would just laugh at me and say, How can you expect, how can you possibly expect to be making any progress when you're so jammed with work, you've got no mental space, no capacity to you know go in the right direction. And coupled with that, so I had a therapist and then I had a coach, a business coach with me too. And the business coach I see normally like once a month. And again, I was getting this advice of you're gonna burn out if you carry on like this, it's unsustainable. And I just I just didn't listen. You know, I just had this view that I'm gonna be fine. So my advice is not only do you need to have the right people around you, you need to make sure that you listen to their advice as well, because there's no point getting great advice if you're just gonna ignore it. I love it.
SPEAKER_02:I love it because people will ask for it, and then when someone gives them the answer, they ignore it anyway. So I love that you said, hey, look, if you're gonna have people around you, at least listen to them. Otherwise, they they're of no help to you. And I love that you're you're sharing here in the moment of transparency, is that you're you're a CEO, you're an organization that empower and help coaches and you guide them. And so when people look at us and say, Hey, but you're the coach, you're the coach that helped coaches. Even coaches need coaches. Can you speak to that?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, certainly. So, one of the one of the things that has led us to building what we're building right now, and it is a platform that helps the coaches of high performers to get really deep data-driven insights into their clients. So, what I just articulated there around ignoring the advice of my coach, one of the things that was missing was the component to to show me how I was showing up. You know, when you see someone once a month, there's a huge amount that happens in that time. And as an individual, if you're doing that level of work and you're so focused on running your organization or building your business, you don't necessarily have the mental capacity to keep tabs of what you're doing in that time and being able to play that back to a coach and have the physiology and the understanding. So we're building something to partner with executive coaches, with founder coaches, with high performance coaches that gives that data, you know, so we can see on a physiological level, you know, how someone's heart rate is variability, it's a very good indicator of stress, you know, what their biomarker data is saying about how they are, because that is absolutely crucial when it comes to predicting and preventing burnout and at the same time optimizing someone's performance. Uh, we also take it to the next level. So we're measuring someone's emotional state, how they're showing up, the things that are causing them angst and difficulty on a on a day-to-day basis. You know, it could be co-founder relations, it could be stakeholder relations, you know, it could be with the board, any of those things are really indicative. Um, and also even down to a DNA level as well. So we actually look at somebody's DNA and we can see like neural pathways, how you're made genetically, we can work out how to best help an individual. So with that level of data, it can be completely transformational for your coach to have this, you know, shortcut and deep insight into an individual to help much more. Wow, I love it.
SPEAKER_02:I love it. It is the new way of being a better service to your clients, you know. So if you're a coach and you're listening, you know, what Ali is sharing is how do you show up better for the people that you're serving? You know, what else is available? So if someone is a coach, what is it, what is, you know, I want to lean a little bit so people know when they should reach out to you and what's going on in their business. What are some reasons that coaches or people that are helping other people develop and grow? What are some things that they that they will see in their organization or lack thereof that says, hey, give Ollie a call? This may be helpful for you to be more effective for the people you serve. What would they notice in their organization that says give you a call?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think one of the biggest things that We do the best way. Obviously, we the end client, the individual is helped by the coach having better data. The thing from a coaching perspective is uh it's making progress and insight measurable. It's so hard. One of the biggest problems or challenges within the coaching industry is having a measurable view on the impact of your work. And if you don't have that, it's very hard to show you know the return on investment, to keep people engaged long term. So if you use a data-driven approach, you know, now we can have this amazing level of detailed data insight. You can suddenly show someone how they're improving over that time. And that in itself is absolutely crucial. You know, it can be such a needle mover in terms of getting somebody engaged, helping people, and then you know, even as a coach commercially, to show that you can help someone in this way and the impact you're having, it's a it's a complete game changer that's currently not available. I I I 100%.
SPEAKER_02:And everybody's asking for a return on investment and metrics. You know, um, if if you're expecting it, you got to measure it. And so you're giving people uh opportunity. And the platform you're speaking of, is it the human resiliency engine? Is that the platform that you're speaking of, or is it something else?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's right. So prescribed life AI, that's the core component. So it's something that we've developed. And with all these different data insights and metrics, we pull everything together and we make it very much um easy to interpret as a coach. So if you think of a typical performance coach, an executive coach or a founder coach, we we have in our team, we have a team of medics, we've got leading neurologists, psychiatrists, you know, other types of doctors. So we've done all of this work to provide very detailed physiological and genetic data, and we present it in a very easy to understand way for the coaches. So, you know, you as an exec coach, you can focus on you know the key things around strategy, leadership, execution, but that foundational layer around human resilience, we take care of that for you, and we make it very, very easy for you as a coach to be able to provide that as a platform for you to you know elevate your own coaching. I love it, love it.
SPEAKER_02:So as we can as we begin to wrap up on it, um, when you look at Ali, what is the best way for people to reach out to you? And do you have anything um where people can learn a little bit more about your program um as they do research on you? Because I think it's phenomenal and it is moving fast, it's changing fast, and we have to have bet better data. You know, I tell people all the time, you know, data will drive decisions, and you're gonna need data so you can make better decisions for your clients. How do people find you and learn more about your product?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, certainly. I mean, any coaches out there for sure, please contact me. LinkedIn is a great place to get hold of me. It's Oli Johnson. Uh, that's my handle there, O-L-I Oli. And that's probably the easiest way. Uh, we do have the website as well, prescribelife.ai. Uh, so either of those are a great.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, yes, yes. Anything you got coming out? Anything you want to you want to drop if anybody, anything um, you know, that you want to share with people, you know, last minute tips or uh notes to to get people um you know more curious about what you're what you're doing and and to reach out to you. Anything you want to share last minute as you wrap up?
SPEAKER_00:The final thing I'd say is uh I we haven't really touched on culture and the cultural element is so key. You know, really if you're a leader listening to this, I would ask you a question of how would your team describe your leadership when you're not in the room? And associated with that is you know, are you leading a culture that you actually want to work in? So I, you know, I'd ask that because I behaved in a way with my leadership that I wasn't proud of, you know, looking back on leading a culture of burnout. So I urge leaders to have a think about that themselves and you know, could they perhaps lead in a in a better way? Yeah, I love it, I love it.
SPEAKER_02:So the question for you that are listening, for you to to that that Ali just posed to us is how would people describe your leadership when you're not in the room? And and that speaks to your culture. And I love it, you know. Um, the reality for all of us is that you do have a culture, whether you intentionally create it or not, it does exist. And uh, I will tell you, you like you may want to pay attention to it. So I love the question. Uh, for those of you that are listening, send us a message. You can find me on LinkedIn, you can find Ollie on LinkedIn, respond to the question, send us some, hey, here's how they will describe me. Or if you want either one of our services, feel free to reach out to us. We'd love to have a conversation with you. Um, we are business owners, but we also give back all the time to try to help other people. So, Ali, thank you so much for joining. Thank you for what you're doing in our community and would love to have you back on the show at any time. Um, if you release something new or you've got something new you want to share, love to um ping me and we'll bring you back on the show to continue. This show is all about for those of you that listen, adding value and making a difference. That's what business owners do. Um, thank you again, Ollie. And for those of you that followed us, thank you for following us. Thank you for staying with us. And until next time, Ollie and I will sign off. You guys have a wonderful day.
SPEAKER_01:Well, we hope you enjoy this edition of Unpack Podcast with leadership consultant Ron Harvey. Remember to join us every Monday as Ron Unpacks Sound Advice, providing real answers for real leadership challenges. Until next time, remember to add value and make a difference where you are for the people you serve. Because people always matter.
