There Is a Statistic That Should Stop Every Man Reading This
Primary care physicians, the first line of defense in this country’s healthcare system, miss the diagnosis of depression in men upward of 70% of the time. Not because they’re bad doctors. Because men are conditioned to show up at a doctor’s office with physical symptoms and never once mention that they are barely holding it together inside.
That gap between what men feel and what they’re willing to say out loud is exactly what psychologist Dr. Dan Franz addressed in this episode of The Vitality Journey Podcast. After 30 years of sitting with human beings in some of their darkest moments, Dr. Franz offered something rare: clarity, compassion, and a practical path forward.
The Problem Is Bigger Than Any One Man
The numbers on emotional and mental health are staggering. One billion people worldwide are living with a mental health condition. One out of five adults is diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. Twenty-one percent of adults reported symptoms of depression in the past two weeks. And yet only 14% of adults sought any form of mental health support in the last year.
As Brene Brown says plainly: we are not okay.
Dr. Franz offered his own framing for what’s happening at a cultural level. He called it an existential malaise. Not just depression, not just anxiety, but a dull, pervasive fog that most people carry without ever naming it. The contributing factors are layered: the food supply, the erosion of responsibility as leisure has expanded, too many choices and too much time to turn inward, social media filling the gap where genuine connection used to live. And for men specifically, decades of cultural messaging that vulnerability is weakness.
Why Men Won’t Go to Therapy
Dr. Franz put it simply: John Wayne still lives.
The image of the self-sufficient man who handles everything, never cracks, and never asks for help with his feelings didn’t die in the 20th century. It lives in gyms, group chats, workplaces, and in the silent suffering of men who believe needing help makes them less of a man. Terrence Real, in I Don’t Want to Talk About It, argues that the more invulnerable a man appears, the more “manly” he is considered. The more vulnerable he is, the more “girly.” And girly, in the social code most men were handed, is emphatically not acceptable.
The result: men don’t speak up. And here is where it gets dangerous. Dr. Franz made a distinction that reframes the entire conversation.
Guilt is a healthy emotion. It signals that something went wrong and prompts you to repair it. Shame is what guilt becomes when it festers without resolution. The shift goes from “I did something wrong” to “I am something wrong.” Shame becomes identity. And when shame becomes identity, it stops feeling like something to fix and starts feeling like something to hide.
Men who carry unaddressed shame will often feel it first in their bodies: elevated cortisol, cardiovascular stress, fatigue, physical symptoms that bring them to a doctor who misses the root cause because no one in that room ever mentioned what’s really going on.
Three Insights That Can Break the Pattern
1. The opposite of depression is not happiness. It is connection.
Johan Hari’s research, cited in Lost Connections, makes a case that much of what we call depression is actually a crisis of disconnection: from people, from meaning, from purpose. Dr. Franz sees this confirmed every week in his practice. Many of his clients in their worst moments have no real community, no men’s group, no close friend they can call at 10 p.m. without feeling like a burden. The first and most powerful intervention for men is not a prescription. It is a relationship.
2. To get out of yourself, get into service.
Dr. Franz draws from the work of Viktor Frankl, the founder of logotherapy, who argued that meaning is found primarily in self-transcendence: giving yourself over to something or someone beyond yourself. When men who are stuck and isolated make the shift from inward focus to outward investment, something changes. It does not happen overnight. But it is the direction healing moves in.
3. Small, meaningful decisions compound over time.
When asked where to start with a young man who is struggling, Dr. Franz did not hand down a complicated treatment protocol. He said: what habits do you want to form? Start there. Changing habits changes mindset. Changing mindset changes behavior. Changing behavior changes the entire picture. The path forward is built one small, meaningful decision at a time.
Practical First Steps for Any Man Ready to Start
Dr. Franz offered a simple framework for emotional health assessment based on The Vitality Journey’s four-step approach. Here is how to apply it today:
- Assess: Ask yourself how you wake up. Are you ready for the day or dreading it? Are you energized or grinding through? Are you excited to be alive more days than not? Honest answers to those questions are the beginning of real awareness.
- Dream: What do you actually look forward to? Not what you think you should look forward to. What genuinely lights you up? Next weekend, next month, one year from now. If you cannot answer that question, that is important information, not a reason for shame.
- Decide on a first step: Walk around the block. Text a friend. Sit outside for 20 minutes without your phone. Write three things you are grateful for. These are not small things. They are the first bricks in a different foundation.
- Find your mentor: Whether that is The Vitality Journey Podcast coaching, a therapist, a pastor, a men’s group, or a friend who will push you, you need someone. Every good story has a hero who finds a mentor. You are no different.
Two Myths About Men’s Emotional Health That Keep Men Stuck
Myth 1: Strong men handle it alone.
Dr. Franz was blunt about this one. That form of self-sufficiency is not strength. It is, over time, inwardly toxic. The men who believe this the most deeply are often the ones who end up sitting in his office years later, having spent a decade paying for it in cortisol, strained marriages, and a body sending distress signals that no one ever properly decoded.
Myth 2: Therapy is for people in crisis.
Any time is a good time for a therapist, Dr. Franz said. You do not need to be in crisis to make a call. You need to be honest enough to admit that something is off and willing enough to do something about it. The greatest predictor of success in therapy is not the severity of the problem. It is whether you believe the therapist can help and whether you can have a real, two-way conversation with them.
Conclusion: Tending to Your Emotional Health Is an Act of Courage
Dr. Franz was asked what breaks his heart most. His answer was quiet and direct: when clients are no longer here. When they decide they don’t want to be around anymore.
If that is where you are, this conversation is for you. You do not have to white-knuckle your way through. You do not have to fix it alone. As Dr. Franz put it, the tools are already within you. Sometimes they just need to be uncovered.
Tend to your emotional health. According to Dr. Franz, it is not just smart or strategic. It is an act of courage, honor, and freedom.
Your Next Step
Watch the full Episode 8 of The Vitality Journey Podcast: https://youtu.be/WVJr45ATwIw
If you are ready to go deeper and take an honest look at all six dimensions of your vitality, explore The Calling Quilt™ coaching at destiny-works.com/the-calling-quilt
Full Transcript
Dave: Someone has said this about men: a man is as likely to reach out for help with his depression as he is to ask for directions. Is that you? Unwilling to be open and honest about your emotional health? Stay with us. We might convince you that it’s time to try some vulnerability so that you can live again. Welcome back to The Vitality Journey Podcast.
Dave: Welcome back to The Vitality Journey Podcast. I’ll introduce our guest in just a moment. We’re glad to have Dr. Franz with us. Before we do, I thought, we’ve been at this now, Dimitri, for a couple of months. And I thought maybe before we launch into our conversation with Dr. Franz, just remind people what we’re trying to do here with this podcast. It’s about vitality, leveling up in life in six areas: Physical Health, Relational Health, Behavioral Health, Financial Health, Vocational Health. And today’s conversation, as it was last episode and today, is about emotional health. So we’re bringing you in as the expert on emotional health, Dan. Are you ready?
Dr. Franz: That will be interesting.
Dave: Well, if anybody is looking for an expert on emotional health, it’s got to be him, whether you want to admit that or not. Dr. Dan Franz: husband to an amazing wife, father to outstanding young women, and proud owner of a beautiful Great Pyrenees named Daisy.
Dr. Franz: Only about 60 to 70 pounds. She’s small for her breed. There’s a lot of fur that has to be taken care of. You can see it inside my Jeep.
Dave: Do you have all the ducks?
Dr. Franz: Absolutely not. I just can’t get behind that. They have to be given to you. People just buy the ducks and put them on, contrary to the spirit of it.
Dimitri: I was at Costco the other day and I saw a man pull up in a Jeep with about 35 ducks on it.
Dr. Franz: That seems kind of dangerous if you were just to take a turn a little too fast. An obstruction of visibility.
Dave: Professionally, Dr. Dan is a logotherapist, which I’m fascinated by. We need to have you back just to talk about meaning therapy, which I think is absolutely fascinating, especially since Destiny Works started around the idea of meaning, and calling and purpose. You’re also a psychedelic-assisted psychotherapist. You’ve also taught as a professor at undergrad and graduate levels at several universities, host of the Meaning Project podcast, and founder of the Meaning Project community. What’s that?
Dr. Franz: That’s an opportunity for people to gather and discuss meaning, a virtual platform. I can’t be everywhere all the time. I try to bring people together in a setting where they can discuss meaning, grow meaningfully, a lot like your work that you do here.
Dave: Destiny Works started and still is founded on the idea that a person has a calling given to them before they were born. Is that near the top of the pyramid of self-actualization, finding your calling in the world?
Dr. Franz: Absolutely. I would believe so.
Dave: What is your story of how that became the source of meaning for you? How did you get here?
Dr. Franz: I think the best way to sum it up is that it was a series of meaningful decisions. At the time, I didn’t realize they were meaningful decisions. I actually asked my father this several years ago. I said, Dad, why did you send me to college? It wasn’t like I was a great high school student, mediocre at best. I enjoyed socializing far more than studying. And he said, I don’t know. It was what everybody else was doing. It just seemed like the right thing to do. That really launched me into a series of meaningful decisions. I didn’t want to join a fraternity, so a friend and I started one. We still stay connected. From there, the fraternity experience really launched me into different directions I’d never expected, on into psychology and different kinds of work experiences. And each step of the way, there was kind of a fork in the road. I made a decision and it led me down a path to where I am today. In those days, I didn’t realize they were meaningful decisions. Now when I look back, I know they are. And I’m also more aware of the decisions I make on a daily basis. We make over 2,000 decisions an hour.
Dave: An hour?
Dr. Franz: An hour. When you add the question, what is the meaning behind this decision, why am I doing this, they can become much more meaningful decisions.
Dave: What about the human mind attracted you? Why specifically did you want to be in there and tinker?
Dr. Franz: That is a great question. I love books, all kinds of books. Back in the days when we still had Barnes and Noble. I went to one and found Sigmund Freud, probably not the best one to start with, but it intrigued me. I started trying to read Freud. It was quite dense, and I kept going. I had an intro to psychology course in high school, and it just swept me away: the idea of emotions and behavior and motivation, what makes us tick, why we do what we do.
Dave: How long have you been doing this now?
Dr. Franz: About 30 years.
Dave: 30 years sitting with human beings, helping them make sense of life?
Dr. Franz: That’s a great summary. And helping them deal with what Arthur Brooks, Harvard professor, said is one of the keys to happiness: having the tools to deal with when life goes upside down. I believe we all have those tools within us. Sometimes they’re hidden. Sometimes we don’t know about them. Sometimes we need to uncover them. Having a mentor, a therapist, somebody to bounce ideas off of can reveal those tools and help us sharpen them.
Dave: So what’s a good day for you?
Dr. Franz: It starts out with Daisy waking me up on her schedule. Making coffee for my wife. Then we go out and take a breath of whatever temperature the air is in Northern Indiana. Get some fresh air, sit down and read and meditate, then get off to the day. Usually it’s five, six, seven clients a day, Monday through Thursday. Fridays are reserved for creative work: thinking, writing, podcasting, finding different ways to help people discover meaning rather than sitting in my office.
Dave: Five to seven clients a day. Does that drain you and enliven you?
Dr. Franz: Right. When I look at my schedule and I see five or six blocks in a row, it is draining. But then I get there, and it’s much like this. It’s beautiful. It’s enjoyable. It’s meaningful. But usually by Wednesday evening, I’m kind of tapped. You-peopled out.
Dimitri: Where’s the wine?
Dr. Franz: Wednesday’s a long day. I’ll go in early and I’m there until about 7 p.m. By the time I get home, it’s a restful evening.
Dimitri: Dave has pastored for how long?
Dave: Almost 50 years. Just through being adjacent to him and learning and watching him, the spectrum of human behavior he’s encountered has weighed on him. How do you decompress after a day, or some aggregate span of time, of being inside the operating system of human behavior? What do you do? Where do you go? Who’s your therapist?
Dr. Franz: I have many. Every good therapist has a therapist. Today when I go home, my men’s group will meet and we’ll sit and chat virtually for four hours. It’s a long meeting every month. I have my good friend here in town that we stay connected with constantly. Staying connected is really important. Staying connected with good people. Then also my own individual time: reading, exercising. I’m training for a hundred-mile bike ride. Finding meaningful ways to decompress is essential to being able to do this and maintaining life.
Dave: That idea of connection. Johan Hari’s book, Lost Connections, says what I just heard you say: the opposite of depression is not happiness, it’s connection.
Dr. Franz: The opposite of depression is connection.
Dave: And that goes with the Harvard longitudinal study: the number one indicator of happiness is the quality and content of your relationships. When people come to you in a bad place, I’m guessing most of them don’t have the kind of relationships that sustain them.
Dr. Franz: Unfortunately, surprisingly, many people don’t have those kinds of connections. That is a lot of the problem that I see. These are not the things I was taught to treat in graduate school. You meet these criteria, you form a treatment plan, you have 10 to 12 sessions, and you’re terminated. I hate that word. Any more today, it is much more of a relational journey, and helping people find connection outside of my office.
Dave: Let me cover the real-world statistics about emotional and mental health. One billion people worldwide are living with a mental health condition such as anxiety or depression. One out of five adults is diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. 21% of adults report symptoms of depression in the past two weeks. And only about 14% of adults received some kind of counseling from a mental health professional in the last year. Brene Brown says we’re not okay. And only a small percentage are seeking help. How would you characterize the state of our emotional health as a society?
Dr. Franz: As Brene Brown says, we’re not okay. We are not in good shape. I would say it’s an existential malaise that we’re all feeling. It is just this constant state of meh, this existential malaise that we all feel more than just one billion. I would say it’s all seven billion of us who feel that at some point, sometime daily.
Dimitri: Looking at it from a corollary perspective, is it the water? Is it the food? Why can’t we see the correlation between an institution, a framework, a chemical, and identify the issue and remove it?
Dr. Franz: I think it’s the food supply. When we go to Europe and see how they eat and then we come home, we are not doing something right here. But that’s just one of the villains I focus on. My mentor Victor Frankl says that to have meaning, we need to be responsible. In the past hundred years, we have gained ever-increasing free time, leisure, and opportunity, and we don’t know what to do with it. We have lost our sense of responsibility. Frankl said this of the US: you have this beautiful Statue of Liberty on the East Coast, and it needs to be balanced with a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast. Too much freedom, too much leisure, and not enough responsibility.
Dimitri: Would you add too many choices?
Dr. Franz: Absolutely. I read something that said depression is actually quite selfish. Because you’re never depressed about someone else’s issues. You’re the main character. And the correlation they were making was that back in the day, there was no time for depression. We had stuff to do. We had cows, we had hay, we had to build the village. There was no time to sit and be so inward about what’s not happening. This convenience factor, the affordance of time, has now made us sit here and turn inward, and we’re not built that way. I see that so much in our younger generation. Twenty-somethings are really struggling with that. They have a depth of self-analysis that goes too deep, too far.
Dave: Is that the Googling they’re doing?
Dr. Franz: The Googling, the WebMDing, the ChatGPTing, all of it. But I think it’s also these sub-micro groups. Everyone wants to belong. If I can just find one other person that’s like me, we’re going to create our own little group. Part of this is that social construct trying to fill in the cognitive and emotional gaps that exist.
Dave: How important is social media and technology in this picture?
Dr. Franz: A lot. Again, with so much free time and leisure opportunity, if we don’t know how to fill it, those devices will fill it for us. As Hari says in Stolen Focus, when we allow that to dictate our choices, we’re not making meaningful decisions. Something else is deciding for us. And it’s not always the most meaningful. It’s the most capitalistic, quite frankly.
Dave: So let’s just play this out. You have a 20-something client sitting in front of you. They’ve diagnosed themselves. They’re digitally immersed. What’s your encouragement to them?
Dr. Franz: Find something or someone else to be of service to. That’s right out of logotherapy and Victor Frankl’s work: to be of service, to transcend the self, to be self-transcendent, to give yourself over to something or someone. It is unselfish and one of the most meaningful things you can do.
Dave: So to your point about depression being selfish, the idea of emerging from deep emotional ill-health begins with: who are you investing in? Where are you serving somebody else?
Dr. Franz: Exactly. And it takes time. Therapy now, at least my therapy, is much more relational. Sometimes we do eight to twelve sessions, things are better, call me if you need me. And six months, a year, three years later, I got a text this morning from a gentleman I haven’t seen in at least 18 months. He said, are you still taking clients? I said, for you, absolutely. Let’s find a time.
Dave: Going back to an earlier stat: how few people actually seek therapy. What’s keeping people from coming to get help?
Dr. Franz: I think there’s still a stigma around it, even as much as we publicize it. There’s also a belief that the internet will heal me. WebMD, ChatGPT, things like that. I actually had a client come to me and say, I put this conversation into Claude and it gave me four different psychological perspectives. Which one is correct? I said, how do we have a conversation first? Let’s start over. When it comes to your own unique issues, your own existential malaise, it’s good to have somebody to bounce it off. Only a human. It’s a human-centered service.
Dave: And that’s why with The Vitality Journey Podcast, the coaching we offer helps a person set a pattern or a strategy in place for all those health factors. It’s important to have somebody. So back to your example. You have a 20-year-old who’s struggling, not at the level of crisis or risk to self. Where do you start? Is the recalibration biochemical? Is it programmatic?
Dr. Franz: Sometimes it’s pretty overwhelming. But we have to start somewhere. I’ve adopted this framework: if we’ve got a lot of issues going on, we can make a few small changes in a couple of areas. What habits do you want to form? How can we change this? By changing habits, we change mindset, change behavior, change attitude, and change the whole picture.
Dave: I’m going to shift gears here for a second. I was in high school, sitting in choir, and I looked over at the door and I saw my mother standing there. Sure enough, she said, I just took your father to the hospital. He’s having a heart attack. Make a long story short: it ended up not being a heart attack. It was a panic attack. And I did not know that it was a panic attack until five years ago. Decades later. And that illustrates what I’m pointing out: back in the 1960s, you don’t admit you’re having an emotional breakdown of some kind, especially as a man. So I want to talk about men in general. In our last episode we talked about the emotional health of moms. Now we’re talking about men. Why is it that men are reticent to seek help?
Dr. Franz: John Wayne still lives. I think it’s a lot of that from that time period. As we transitioned from having all of that work to do to more free time, we were confronted with images of manly health that weren’t healthy. “I’ll take care of this myself. I got you, little lady. It’s all on me.” We now live in a world where we need connection more. We need community. Men are hesitant to go find it. And it’s hard. It is hard to find it unless you do it mindfully. We continue to sink into poorer and poorer mental health and don’t know how to pull our way out.
Dimitri: Are you noticing a trend in the type of men that you’re treating? Are they men raised in single-family homes? Rural versus suburban? A certain type of mindset?
Dr. Franz: It’s all of us. My men’s group this afternoon is made up of gentlemen from all across the country, different walks of life, different religions, different sets of resources. It’s universal. For many men, what I find is that those who seek help are dragged there by their wives or highly encouraged by their partner or spouse to go seek help.
Dave: Terrence Real writes, in I Don’t Want to Talk About It: the more invulnerable you are, the more manly you are. The more vulnerable you are, the more “girly” you are. And “girly” is quite emphatically not a good thing. Do you see that in men, that they feel it is not manly to be in therapy?
Dr. Franz: I think that’s the toxic masculinity we hear about so often. “I can do this myself. I’m going to do this myself and I don’t need anybody else.” But it’s interesting: that toxic masculinity in this case is toxic to you. Inwardly toxic. When I cannot bring myself to admit that I’ve got issues, I get sicker.
Dave: Real also suggests that just as shame makes it less likely that a man will admit his distress, it often makes it less likely that those around him will acknowledge his condition. Primary care physicians, the first line of defense against depression, miss the disorder of depression in men upward of 70% of the time. What is that about?
Dr. Franz: Quite honestly, it’s not their job. They are being tasked with too much as the front line. If you recognize shame, if you’re feeling shame, it will take an effect on the body. For many of us, we’re not recognizing the emotional and mental effects of it, but over years we’ll feel the physical effects. We go to our physician and they’re going to try to treat a heart attack when it’s actually mental, emotional, or rooted in shame. Frankl talks about the difference between shame and guilt, and I love this. Guilt is a healthy emotion. Guilt is something that tells me I made a mistake. I need to correct that, make amends, change my behavior. When we don’t do that and guilt festers, it becomes shame. And rather than recognizing “I did something wrong,” the thinking becomes “I am something wrong.”
Dave: It goes from what I did to who I am.
Dr. Franz: Correct. And it becomes part of your identity.
Dave: You’re sitting across from a guy who is drowning in shame. What do you do?
Dr. Franz: We have to start breaking that down and recognizing: it’s not who you are. It’s what you did, or what happened to you. We need to move the shame to guilt, and then relieve the guilt through repairing whatever damages were done, where possible.
Dimitri: The amount of cortisol in your body when you’re feeling all these things is unhealthy. Sustained over time, you’re going to have system failures across the board. Why can’t we just prescribe: two weeks, 14 days, get up, do exercise, connect with others? The biochemistry alone will help reset the mindset.
Dr. Franz: First of all, it sounds amazing. I’m in. And we know that it does work. Those people I work with who go on retreat or take a four or five-day weekend to focus on health, not on the self but on health, come back a lot better. If you can do that a few times a year, it does make things better. But some people won’t invest in that. And we live in a beautifully broken system. I believe we need to help individuals first. And if we help enough individuals, they’ll help their families, their communities. And eventually the system will change. It has to. This is unsustainable.
Dave: The person’s feeling bad. They’re getting feedback from those around them. What’s the next step? Who do they call?
Dr. Franz: I think it starts with recognizing you want help. What kind of help do you want? Is it something like The Vitality Journey Podcast? A men’s group? A pastor, a priest, a minister, a rabbi? Is it a therapist? Is it a mentor you already have and forgot was a really good mentor? I believe deeply in Campbell’s hero’s journey. Any good story that sticks with us is about a hero or heroine who has a problem and finds a mentor.
Dave: Their choices are: The Vitality Journey Podcast is on one end of the spectrum, a strategy of self-improvement you can work on yourself. On the other end of the spectrum is sitting down with a therapist. And in between are a mentor, a friend, a pastor. How does a person decide what level to start at? When do they call a therapist?
Dr. Franz: At any time. Of course I’m a little biased here. Any time is a good time for a therapist. Then you have to make sure it’s a good fit. The greatest indicator of success in therapy is believing the person can help you and just being able to have a good conversation. A two-way conversation.
Dave: And there aren’t enough therapists to go around. Even if I want to call, I might be two weeks out.
Dr. Franz: That’s why I take Fridays and try to find new and adventurous ways to help people. Most of us in the field are pretty well booked up. We don’t have enough therapists. If you’re looking to get into a meaningful career, psychology is a great field to be in. The field is growing and we’re able to do better research.
Dave: What does that schooling look like?
Dr. Franz: To be a therapist, you need a master’s degree, so that’s two years beyond a bachelor’s. Many people go on for a doctorate, that’s another four years. For me, I waited for that. I never really planned on it. And then I found Victor Frankl’s work sitting on the porch, reading Man’s Search for Meaning. I just kept reading and reading, then called one of the authors, who said, we have a school, and it’s in Vienna, Austria. My wife said no. But I found one closer, a distance learning opportunity ten miles from my house. And that was one of those things where I said, I think I’m being called to this.
Dave: Let’s do a lightning round as we start landing the plane. How important are relationships to emotional health?
Dr. Franz: Incredibly important. Number one, maybe. Healthy relationships in a variety of directions are so important.
Dave: How important is meaning and purpose?
Dr. Franz: Those are two out of my three words for my tagline: meaning, purpose, and resilience. Vastly important. Easily a number two next to relationships. And relationships are meaningful, so they go hand in hand.
Dave: Gratitude?
Dr. Franz: Yes. Beautiful thing. It’s a science. We have a science that studies gratitude, and it’s one of the most important ways you can start your morning. Wake up and find three things you’re grateful for. Write 100 things. I used to love this exercise working in adolescent substance abuse: can you come up with a thousand things you’re grateful for?
Dave: Faith?
Dr. Franz: Very important. Research tells us those with a spiritual life, and maybe even a religion to express that spirituality, are 60 to 70% healthier than those that don’t.
Dave: Physical health and exercise?
Dr. Franz: Very important. Vital. It’s a key to vitality.
Dave: Can you think of anything else?
Dr. Franz: Connections, breaks, time away from the grind. Things that you find meaningful, whatever that may look like. That’s probably the key tool. What brings you meaning? Making meaningful decisions of those 2,000 decisions every hour: how many can you make meaningful?
Dave: So in quick summary, if you’re two weeks out from getting to someone like yourself, I can start with a gratitude list, move my body, make a standing commitment to get outside for 30 minutes, and find my closest friends and make sure I get some time with them.
Dr. Franz: Little meaningful decisions, made a few ways, can really be helpful. And that relational bond can take place over a hobby: shooting hoops at the YMCA. Being physical, being active, and being social. What a great combination.
Dave: The way The Vitality Journey works is a four-step process for each health factor: assess what’s going on, dream about what could be, set some goals, and establish new habits. Let’s play this out for emotional health. How would you help someone do an honest assessment of their emotional health?
Dr. Franz: I think it starts with how you wake up. Do you wake up ready for the world, excited to get your day going? Or do you just want to stay there? And once you’re up and moving, how does that feel throughout the day? Are you energized? Are you motivated more days than not? Are you excited to be alive? Or is it a grind? Simple questions to ask yourself.
Dave: And if they’re having trouble getting out of bed, how would you help them dream of what could be?
Dr. Franz: That’s one of my favorite questions. What do you have going on this weekend that you’re looking forward to? Next month, three months, six months, one year, what do you look forward to? And if there aren’t any answers, we start thinking about: what do you like? What do you want to do? I’ve developed a habit of not allowing the phrase “I don’t know” in my office. I’ll just keep asking questions and we’ll get to that point eventually. We’ll start dreaming. And then we need to make the dream the reality. If you can define what you don’t like, then you can define what you can have. Just look at the other side of the paper.
Dave: This has been incredible. At some point I’d love to invite you back to talk about behavioral health, specifically how I manage my time, my space, and my impulses. Can you come back and talk about that?
Dr. Franz: Absolutely. It’d be my pleasure.
Dave: What breaks your heart about your clients?
Dr. Franz: When they’re not here anymore. When they decide to give up. That’s hit me today quite personally. One of my peers told me someone he’d been working with just decided they didn’t want to be around anymore. I think just the day-to-day sadnesses of people not getting it, especially in our 20-somethings right now. Not wanting to get better. Not seeing the world as a worthwhile place to be invested in. That’s heartbreaking.
Dave: As a pastor, I’ve had too many of those as well. Last question: what gives you the most joy or the most sense of fulfillment with your clients?
Dr. Franz: The light bulb. The light bulb moments for both of us. When they see it, when they feel it, when they know the path forward, I am blessed to be able to do this kind of work. I tell my good clients often: I am not a patient therapist. If I start pushing you harder than you want to be pushed, you can call me back. But it’s not going to be easy. I want the best for you as soon as possible.
Dave: That’s the kind of therapy I want. It’s urgent. I don’t want to feel this way anymore. And you have the power, as soon as you’re ready. Thank you. This is amazing. What we do with our podcast is close it with a blessing. This blessing is for men in particular, since we talked about men.
Dave: Guys, may you have the courage to face your feelings and the wisdom to honor them, even when they feel heavy. May you find safe spaces to speak your truth and companions who listen without judgment. May you know that strength is not silence and that vulnerability is a form of bravery. May the weight of the world not crush your spirit, but shape it into resilience, compassion, and clarity. May you forgive yourself for the days you struggle and celebrate yourself for the days you heal. May peace settle in your mind and joy find its way into your heart, even in small, quiet moments. And may you walk through life with the knowledge that tending to your emotional health is an act of courage, honor, and freedom. We’ll see you next time on The Vitality Journey Podcast.