Opinion
Johns: Clients need therapists who match or exceed their own intelligence
“You're going to want a therapist that is at least as intelligent, if not more intelligent than you, because I think part of that openness to learning from them and to feeling somewhat comfortable, but also feeling inspired and kind of looking forward to it as …”
Opinion
Johns: Constantly optimizing your life for edge cases is complete nonsense
“To quit thinking about all the edge cases and trying to optimize our life, which I think is a bunch of bullshit.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Johns: Over 50% of mid-career tech workers experience psychological distress
“From some of the surveys I've put out from my own anecdotal experience and from some proper research that's been conducted by experts who focus on entrepreneur and high performer wellbeing, you know, I, I'd say that it's a fair estimate to say that at least 50…”
Disclosure
A heart scare forced Andy Johns to step down as Wealthfront President
“I became president and was next in line to be CEO before I had a health scare with my heart that led to me stepping away from the company because I knew I couldn't take on the CEO position.”
Disclosure
A 45-day mental health facility stay catalyzed Andy Johns's career departure
“I ended up actually spending 45 days in a mental health institute myself, and it was something that was extremely difficult to do. It was something that certainly contributed or was really the tip of the sphere of me stepping away from my career.”
Insight
Johns: Deep self-understanding is achievable alone using just pen and paper
“It is possible for somebody to do that entirely on their own with just pen and paper and a quiet room. I know people that have arrived at a deep place of self-love and self-understanding through those methods.”
Insight
Johns: Listing recent acute emotional triggers accelerates the path to self-understanding
“If the goal is to understand oneself, then one of the quickest ways of doing that is to quickly write down a list of simple bullet points of
The most recent situations you can think of where you became most acutely reactionary and emotional.”
Insight
Johns: Discovering fundamental personal truth feels either deeply uncomfortable or epiphanic
“And you'll know what the truth is because it always feels either deeply uncomfortable or it feels like an epiphany.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Severe burnout caused Andy Johns a heart scare and shattered teeth
“I almost had a heart attack at 35 and I got the classic talk from a Stanford cardiologist saying, like, you're just going to gonna be another 40 something year old CEO with a broken heart. The years of really poor sleep, the number of teeth that I had broken t…”
Insight
Johns: Major personal transformations typically take seven to eight years
“There are many other examples I can pull up like that, including Siddhartha Gautama, Lord Buddha himself. That wasn't a couple weeks or a couple of months, his journey towards liberation from his own mind. If I can recall, that was also a seven or eight year j…”
Insight
Johns: 90% of people undergoing change need micro-transitions like changing jobs
“90, 95% of the time, pretty confidently I can say that those changes are more of the micro transitions. It's okay. Let me change my job. Let me downsize my house. Let me break up with my partner. Still hard things. And for them, that may be all that is needed …”
Insight
Johns: People fail to transform by sacrificing individuality for social acceptance
“I would say that that is the number one reason why transformation doesn't take place is because a long time ago, we made that exchange to forego our individuality in order to be accepted by others because of that deep primal need for love and acceptance.”
Disclosure
Andy Johns earned early seven figures as a venture capital partner
“Suddenly I found myself in a position where I was making, you know, high six figures per year into early seven figures.”
Insight
Johns: Primary therapists often function as routers to specialized wellness practitioners
“They're not gonna have all the answers, but they can act like a router, where as they're helping you understand yourself, and they're really understanding you, they're thinking about, okay, Who might this person also benefit from speaking with? You know, let, …”
Insight
Johns: Disrupted sleep and diet signal acute burnout over routine stress
“When their fundamental functions, when their core behaviors of diet, exercise, playfulness, socialization, sleep, when those things get disrupted, Like it's a sign that there is something going on here that you need to take a look at. And so the same is true w…”
Disclosure
Andy Johns reached his career peak at his lowest mental health point
“As my career sort of reached its pinnacle, that from a professional, from a financial perspective, I was at my highest, but when it came to other aspects of my life, I was arguably at my lowest or close to my lowest.”
