2. How Mental Health Emotional Health Physical Health & Fitness affect Husbands Who Lead

Being a leader comes with pressure. Whether it's providing for your family, making tough decisions, or being the one everyone depends on, leadership can feel overwhelming. But here’s the truth—you don’t have to lose yourself in the process.

In this episode of Call Me First, host Damian Lewis breaks down how to lead with strength, purpose, and confidence—without sacrificing your identity, peace, or personal growth. Leadership isn’t about burnout or constantly carrying the weight alone. It’s about balance, discipline, and knowing how to pour into others without running empty.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• Why many men struggle with losing themselves in leadership and how to avoid it
• The difference between healthy leadership and self-sacrifice
• How to set boundaries that protect your energy and peace
• The importance of self-mastery in becoming an effective leader
• How to lead your family and community without neglecting your own growth
• A simple strategy to stay focused, strong, and in control

If you’ve ever felt like leadership is pulling you in too many directions, this episode will give you the clarity and tools to lead effectively while staying true to yourself.

Hit play now and start leading with confidence and balance.

Follow, download, and share this episode with someone who needs it.

#Leadership #PersonalGrowth #MenWithPurpose #Fatherhood #CallMeFirstPodcast #LeadWithBalance

Transcript

 Hey, it's Damian Lewis and welcome back to call me first, the podcast, all about helping us as men become better leaders in our homes, to our families, and to the people who rely on us for guidance. Today's episode is all about how to lead without losing yourself. Now, let me ask you a few questions just to start off.

One, when was the last time you felt completely overwhelmed by the demands of being a leader? Two, are you leading others while neglecting yourself? Three, have you been so focused on guiding your family? or your team that you've forgotten how to guide yourself. I know I've been there, and I bet many of you have too.

Leadership can be a heavy load to carry. It's not just about making decisions for others, guiding them, and taking charge. It's also about the responsibility of everyone's well being, and sometimes, often, we end up forgetting about our own. We put our heads down, work hard, keep giving, and forget to refill our own cups.

But here's the thing, if we keep giving without filling ourselves back up, we'll run dry. And when we run dry, it's not just us that suffers, it's our work, and it's your family too. Today, we're going to break down the real problem here, amplify it so that you can understand the cause of not addressing it.

And I'm going to give you real practical, efficient steps on how to lead your family without losing yourself in the process. Now the struggles of leadership, being a leader sounds great in theory, right? You've got the vision, the authority, the responsibility. People look up to you, but it's not all sunshines and rainbows, is it?

The truth is, leadership, especially in a family context, can feel like a full time job, and often it feels like it's never done. When you're a leader, whether at home or in your career, you end up juggling a lot of the responsibilities. And after a while, it can start to wear you down. I've put together what I believe are the top six challenges that men like us usually face.

Let's start with number one. Number one, the pressure of constant decision making. Every day you're making decisions, big ones, small ones. It could be deciding what's for dinner, or it could be making a huge financial decision that will affect your family for years to come. I know on a regular, I am tasked by my wife to choose what's for dinner.

And it's a simple task, but it's still a decision that needs to be made. Right? So even the little decisions, you're still going to be a part of, right? And of course, we're not complaining that we have options on what to eat for dinner. But what I'm pointing, I'm trying to make here is still a decision. As far as financial decisions go, it could be whether to rent, whether to buy a house, whether to finance a car, whether to lease the car, whether to buy the car is still a major decision, something that can affect your family for years to come.

And let's face it, as men, sometimes the weight of these decisions can start to build up, right? It feels like you can't get a break and you start questioning whether you're making the right choices. Number two, it's the strain of being the go to guy as a leader in your family. You're the one that.

Everyone turns to that is our job as the leader. And we are pretty much the go to person for everyone. And me personally, I embrace that job with wholeheartedness. I am very happy to be in a position that I have gained the trust of my family to be the one that people come to for advice and guidance.

Whether it's your spouse, your kids, or even extended family. A lot of people come to you for guidance and trust me, I know what the weight of that is, but what happens when you're always given and never receiving the advice, the guidance, the time to yourself, the opportunity to regenerate, recuperate. Over time, you can feel like you're being drained emotionally and mentally, right?

Number three, the guilt of neglecting yourself. You've probably been there. You're working hard to provide for your family, but in doing so you forget about your own health, both physical and mental. I can tell you a story here. Right. This was back in August of 2024. I'm sitting right here at this computer, and I'm doing some work.

I've probably been sitting here maybe an hour or so, and I feel a sense of nausea coming on, lightheadedness. I'm starting to feel weak, and I'm not doing any physical activity, really. I'm pretty much just focused on the work I'm doing on the computer. So I brushed it off. I sat here and kept working, but the problem got worse to the point that I had to yell out and call my wife to tell her like, listen, babe, something is wrong.

So me being a man, we do stupid things. I decided just to go upstairs and go lay down. Well, it didn't pass. That feeling stayed with me for hours, right? It got to the point that I say, listen, I told my wife, let me use your, um, your blood pressure machine. Let me see what my blood pressure is. I'm gonna check my blood pressure.

And you wouldn't believe the number. The number was 172 over 119. If I'm not mistaken, that's hypertension and stroke stage. My wife says, listen, babe, you really might have to go to the hospital. And I said, no, no, no, I don't want to go. I don't want to go. I don't want to go. Let me lay here. I'll drink some water.

Stupid man stuff, right? Now I drink some water, get the water going through my system, it'll bring my blood pressure down. It did come down after a couple hours, right? Because I laid there, I wasn't thinking about anything, I wasn't stressed out about anything, I just laid in bed. I don't even think I even watched TV, I don't think I picked my phone up or anything like that.

I just laid there. Next day I woke up, check the pressure again, it's a little bit lower this time. But it's still high. So I went to work that night as I'm driving, driving this truck, I feel hard palpitation, like I almost feel my heartbeat in my throat. And I'm like, what the heck is going on here? What is this?

And I'm starting to feel pain in my chest while I'm driving. I'm in full blown panic mode here, right? But I just kept doing it. And after about maybe three minutes or so, the pain and the palpitation actually subsided. I came home that morning and I told my wife what was going on. She made an appointment for me to go see a doctor.

So I went to go see the doctor, told the doctor everything that was going on. Doctor, you know, told me it sounds like a stress. This was a general doctor. It sounds like a stress. You're probably doing too much. You need to take some time off and take care of yourself. Long story longer the problem never stopped.

It started getting worse. The heart palpitations and the pain started getting worse So now I decided listen, I'm gonna go see a cardiologist. I go to the heart doctor. I Explain all the symptoms that I'm having with the palpitations the pain just overall everything that was going on with me based on his experience the doctor Diagnosed me with what's called arrhythmia Arrhythmia is like a irregular heartbeat.

Your rhythm, it changes from time to time and it causes this issue. So this is what he diagnosed me with, but he also wanted to make sure that nothing else was actually happening. So what he did was scheduled me for a bunch more tests. I can't remember what all the tests were, but I remember a few of them.

It was an echo test, and a stress test was two of the tests. I know I had to do about three or four. They scheduled me for the stress test. The stress test is where you run, or not even say run, you walk on a treadmill. And what they do after a couple minutes at each level, as far as speed and incline, they raise it.

So my daughter and I, we go to the stress test. My daughter is five years old. She sit on a chair. I get on a treadmill. They help me with a bunch of wires and things just so they could get a reading of what's actually going on with me. I am on the treadmill. I'm walking. Two minutes go by. Two minutes go by.

It's a chart that's actually printing out as I'm walking. When the two minutes go by, the nurse that's actually in the room with us looks at the chart. When she looks at the chart, she looked at me and said, Mr. Lewis, are you okay? I said, yeah, I'm fine. She said, you're sure? I'm saying, yeah, I'm fine. She said, okay.

I kept walking. Boom. We are at the four minute mark. We'll get to the four minute mark. She looks at the chart again. She said, Mr. Lewis, you sure you're okay? I said, yeah, I'm fine. Nurse, what's going on? She said, nah, just want to make sure you're okay. Six minute mark. I'm at, and the speed is up. The incline is up higher.

I'm at the six minute mark. She reads the chart again. She looks at the chart. She says. Mr. Lewis, are you sure you're okay? I said, yeah, nurse, I'm fine. And it's like, she had a look of concern on her face and it kinda threw me for a look at the time too. So, I have to do a total of eight minutes on the treadmill.

I continue with my last two minutes. The speed is up a little higher now. The incline is up a little higher. When it's all said and done, the chart prints out and the nurse looks at it. She reads the chart. Whatever nurse and doctor things that she read, she must have saw something that really had her concerned.

Okay. Thank you. So I'm putting my coat on and I'm getting ready to leave and the nurse says, no, no, no, no, just wait here. Let me go get the doctor. A minute goes by, the doctor comes in, he looks at the chart and he says, are you feeling any shortness of breath? I said, no. I said, I'm fine. He says, are you feeling any like tingling or panting in the arm?

No. Have your feet or anything started to swell lately? I said, no. I said, doc, what's going on man? Cause these don't seem like normal questions. He says, well, Mr. Lewis, I have some concerns on what I see here on this chart before we jumped the gun or anything, what I want to do is I want to schedule you for what's called a nuclear stress test, where they put some type of dye or something in your blood to see which, how your heart is actually pumping the blood.

And if it's going to every place it's supposed to go. So he told me neither. I said, doc, come on now. Why is that? He said, I just have some concerns that you're not getting enough oxygen in places where you should be getting it right now. It was no big deal because you're not feeling any type of symptoms.

And you said you'd none of these things are affecting you. So I'm not really in a panic, but I still want to see. So, they scheduled me for a stress test. I haven't taken a stress test yet, but I'm actually concerned about what it's actually going to show. One of the things that my wife and I like to do, we like to spend quality time together.

And one of our ways of spending quality time together, we watch TV shows together. So we watched a few series. One of the series we actually watched was Chicago PD. Chicago PD was a great series, but that led us to Chicago Fire. Chicago Fire, for me, is probably one of the best drama TV shows that I've watched, period.

It is emotional rollercoaster of a show. It's a great show. If you haven't seen it, please start from episode one, season one, watch it. It's about 13 seasons right now. So we're watching Chicago PD at this time, and we usually have dialogue back and forth about what's going on in the show. So my wife is talking and she's sitting towards the bottom of the bed in a chair that she loves to sit in.

Nobody can sit in this chair but her, right? So she loves to sit in this chair at the bottom of the bed and I'm actually laying on the bed watching TV. She's talking to me and I'm not responding. The reason I'm not responding is because I've been thinking about what happens if this nuclear stress test comes back with something life threatening or something happens to me before then and I'm out of here.

I started panicking on the inside. When I say I started panicking on the inside, I'm panicking. I'm not saying anything, but I'm panicking and tears are rolling out of my eyes. I am in full blown cry mode, but without making a sound. So, as she's talking, she realized that I'm not responding, so she looks around at me and she sees that I'm in full blown tears.

She gets up out of her seat and she comes and she lays down next to me and she consoles me a bit and she asks me what's going on and I tell her, I'm not even worried about me. What happens to you guys when I'm not here? What happens if I, this thing comes back and I got short time to live. I'm in panic mode.

I don't even know what's going to be on this test. Whatever it is, babe. I don't really care about what happens to me. What happens to these kids? What happens to you? Who's going to take care of you? Who's going to raise my boys? Who's going to raise my daughter? What's going to happen. And when I say I'm there, I am losing it.

And my wife does what she does. She holds on to me and starts praying. She started praying, and while she's going through prayer, I actually felt the sense of relief. I felt the sense of relief at the time. And she went through prayer, she consoled me the best that she could. And listen, without her that night, I probably would have definitely lost it.

She made sure I was in a good space after that. What happened is we continued to watch the show and I went to sleep or we're still with a heavy heart on things that was going on. I just told a friend of mine this the other day, when I woke up that morning, I was in a sense of relief. Right. I am not a spiritual person.

I am fully believe in God, but I'm just not a person that's like overly spiritual. If that's even a term, and I'm sorry if I offend anybody, but I'm just not real locked in like that. Right. But what happened that morning is I woke up and I felt a sense of relief. What happened was I've heard this terminology forever.

When people say, whatever your problem is, just give it to God. And I just couldn't understand when you give it to God, what happens? I've never understood what that was. And I actually felt a relief. The terms I came to was regardless if I'm here or not, life is going to happen. And when you're not here, God is going to take care of them.

You're going to be fine. They're going to be fine with or without you, bro. You don't have the power here. The power is in the hands of the Lord. Give me your problems and I'll take care of the rest. For me to get that revelation, it was a major thing for me. And then, so what I actually started doing at that point was every time I'm in a conflict or, and I say conflict, when I'm stressed out about something, I'm feeling anxiety about something, I just, Hey, listen, God, this is what he told me to do.

This is what you said. This is what everybody's saying. Give it to God. Huh? This is you. Take this and tell me what to do after you figure it out. I know that ain't the way to do it, but that's just the conversation I have with God. Right. So that is where we are with health. I was neglecting myself. I wasn't taking time to work out as like I should.

I wasn't taking time to walk or get some time to myself, read, whatever it is. I wasn't taking the time. Now maybe you miss out on sleep or you skip meals or just not making time for things that bring you joy to help you grow. And then you feel guilty when you do take time for yourself. But here's the thing you can't lead.

If you're not functioning at your best. Right. And that leads me to number four, the fear of falling short. Oh man, this one is a serious one for me. As men, we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to be perfect. And believe me, when I tell you, there is no such thing as perfect here and there, we are going to fall short.

We want to be the best provider, the best father, the best husband, but guess what? That pressure can lead to feelings of inadequacy and self doubt. And when we feel inadequate, we become less effective leaders. Yes, that is true. We second guess our decisions and we struggle to stand firm on our convictions.

The fifth one would be the sacrifice of personal time. When you're leading your family, your personal time often takes a backseat. You put time, energy, and focus into your responsibilities. Your job, your wife, your kids, and before you know it, you've completely neglected yourself. Maybe your hobbies take a hit or you stop hanging out with your friends, which sometimes is not a bad idea.

Sometimes you do have to take a break from your friends. Your world revolves around being there for others. But here's the issue, when you neglect yourself for too long, you lose touch with who you are. The sixth one will be the disconnection from your own needs. When you're constantly serving others, sometimes you lose touch with your own needs.

You start to feel lost, unsure of what you need outside of what everyone else requires from you. And disconnect can lead to frustration, burnout, making you question who you are outside of leading others. Now, let's dive deeper into these problems. I don't want you to just brush past them. Let's really think about the impact of not addressing these struggles.

If you keep pushing through and neglecting yourself, thinking that you can keep leading without taking a break, here are five things that will most likely happen to you. Number one, it'll be burnout. Eventually, your body and mind will shut down. You'll get tired and frustrated. Leadership will feel like a chore and your ability to make clear decisions will diminish.

You will struggle with doing what's right. You will struggle with making clear, firm decisions with a clear mindset. You won't be able to be the best version of yourself for your family. And when you're not the best, Guess what happens your leadership falters and your family feels it right number two You put a strain on your relationships when you don't take time for yourself Resentment starts to build up you feel unappreciated because you've been given and no one seems to notice You might even snap at your kids or your spouse.

That's not the kind of leader you want to be. But if you don't fix this, your relationship will start to suffer. I am a big advocate for taking time to yourself. I'm a big advocate for having boundaries with your family. I am one of these people that when I do go downstairs in my basement to go work out, I don't want to hear or see anybody else at that time.

I'm only there for 45 minutes, maybe an hour during that time. You guys can find something to do, get, figure it out during that time. That's my personal time. That's the time I'm taking. I don't care what else is going on unless it's a life or death situation. Everything else go away. I need these 45 minutes, right?

Number three, it'll be lack of personal growth. Leadership isn't just about managing the people around you. It's about growth, your growth. If you're not investing into yourself, learning, evolving, you'll find yourself stuck in old patterns and being stuck doesn't make you a better leader. Let's get that clear.

Being stuck does not make you a better leader. Being one dimensional does not make you a better leader. Personal growth is the key to leadership. You can't grow if you don't make time for yourself. Now, we just spoke about this. Number four would be the negative impact on your health. Neglecting your physical health, whether it's through a lack of exercise, poor eating habits, it catches up to you.

It's not just about looks, it's about your energy, your stamina, your longevity. If you're not healthy, you won't be able to show up fully for your family. Trust me, as I mentioned before, I've learned that lesson the hard way, right? Number five, it will be emotional disconnect. When you stop addressing your own needs, you start to feel disconnected emotionally.

You start losing touch with your feelings, your motivations, and even your purpose. And that's dangerous for any leader because how can you lead others if you don't even understand yourself anymore? So let's be real here. If you don't take care of yourselves, all of these issues will start to compound.

They affect not only us as leaders, but also our families who look to us for stability and support. They depend on us to be strong. They also need us to be whole. And that requires balance, right? Now let's talk about some of the solutions that we can actually implement to get us through these times. Now that we fully unpack all the problems, I want to be clear.

The solution doesn't require you to sacrifice your responsibilities. It doesn't mean abandoning your family and running off to go find yourself. That is not what these solutions are. That is not what I'm saying. It actually means finding a balance between leading others and leading yourself. It means setting yourself up for long term success by focusing on self care and personal growth.

Okay, so here are five things I want you to focus on. Number one, set boundaries and stick to them. You need boundaries. As a leader is easy for you to say yes to everything, but that's a recipe for burnout. Set boundaries around your time, whether it's work hours, family time, personal time, stick to them.

Your boundaries are extremely important. I know your family has a lot going on. They need you for this and that. This is what we signed up for. That doesn't mean you can't take some time to yourself, right? No one else is going to do this for you. If you're available all the time, you won't have the energy to be the leader you need to be right.

Number two, carve out that time for yourself. Make, I don't care how you do it every single day, find at least 15 to 30 minutes just for yourself. This is non negotiable. It could be as simple as sitting in silence, reading a book, going for a walk, or listening to a podcast, listening to my podcast, right?

Make it a habit to check in with yourself. What do I mean by that? Take time to reflect, do some self reflection, make sure you are still holding the standard of who your family believes you to be, right? When you're more in tune with your own needs, you'll show up as a stronger, more engaged leader for your family, right?

Number three, prioritize physical health. It's simple. If you don't have health, you can't lead. Make time to exercise. It doesn't have to be intense. Just get moving. I don't care if you're doing air squats. I don't care if you're walking 15 minutes for the day, get a watch that counts your steps, try to get 6, 000 steps in for the day and make sure you're eating healthier, take care of your body and don't forget to sleep.

This is something I struggle with. I'm barely in four to five hours a day, but I have a lot to do. So me even having these conversations with you guys, these are things that I need to work on. Also, I don't have these things totally figured out. I don't, as I'm doing the research and I'm bringing my own experiences and information to you guys, I am a learning.

Also, I am right with you in this journey. I know how easy it is to push past a little rest. But that's not sustainable. Your body will let you know when it's had enough. And at that time, it's probably going to be too late. Next, number four, I want you to invest in mental and emotional health. Your mental and emotional health are just as important as your physical health.

Don't be afraid to seek help when you need it. Talk to someone you trust, consider a therapist, make time for self reflection. I cannot stress that enough. Whether it's journaling, just some way to process your thoughts and remember a clear mind is essential to make a decisions. Whenever you are going through something or you need information, you just want to see if someone is relating to your thoughts, see if someone has insight, see if someone has experienced what you're going through.

My advice is tune into this podcast. There were a ton of topics that I'm going to cover, and I'm pretty sure one of them will resonate with whatever it is that you're going through, right? Number five, keep growing as a man. Leadership requires constant growth. Like I said before, read books, listen to podcasts and learn from other leaders.

For me, a huge part of my growth came from taking a year off from relationships and working on myself. I dug deep into my character before I got married and really focused on the man I wanted to become. I'd encourage you guys to do the same. Even if you're already married, start doing self reflection, start looking at where you could take account of belief of things.

Start looking at what you could do better. Start looking at how you can manage the success of your family by you becoming better. You become better. You'll be able to lead better. You'll be able to lead your family better. The more you grow, the better you'll be at leading your family period. Right now, I want you to start putting all this into practice today.

I'll give you four actionable steps that will help you commit to being more in tune with the things that you need to continue being a successful leader. Number one, commit 15 minutes of alone time to yourself. Starting today, commit 15 minutes of alone time to yourself without any distractions. Whether it's in the morning, during your lunch break, before you go to bed, use that time to check in with yourself.

It's your time to reset, right? Number two, say no to something that you don't have time for. This week, say no to that thing that is draining your energy. Whether it's a work commitment, Whether it's family obligations or something else, set a boundary. That is so important. Set a boundary. You'll be amazed by how much better you feel when you take your time back, you take control of your time.

This is important. Number three, move your body. I don't care if it's 15, 20, 30 minutes, make physical health a priority this week, commit to moving your body for at least 30 minutes. Let's try for 30 commit to moving your body for 30 minutes. If it's a walk, a workout, a bike ride, whatever it is, this is about building consistency, not perfection.

Number four, read or listen to something that helps you commit to reading 10, 15 pages a day of a book, right? Commit to listening to my podcast. This podcast would challenge you in ways that you weren't even thinking of. Invest in your growth. There was always something new to learn. We learn more so that we can return more to our families.

All right. That is it for today's episode. But before you go, I want you to do me a favor. If this episode spoke to you, share it with someone who could use this message. Download it, save it, and make sure you subscribe to Call Me First, so you don't miss any of my upcoming episodes. Leadership is tough, but it doesn't have to come at a cost of losing yourself.

Take care of yourself, and you'll be able to lead your family with strength and clarity. Thanks for listening, and remember to look at your family and say, Call me first.