In this episode, Matt Lawson interviews Josiah Middaugh, a world champion athlete turned health coach, about his journey from competitive sports to coaching and the lessons he's learned along the way. Josiah shares insights from his unique upbringing in a commune in northern Michigan, where he developed a strong work ethic and a love for the outdoors.

He discusses the importance of resilience, grit, and the mindset required to succeed in endurance sports, emphasizing that success is often built on a foundation of failures and learning experiences. Josiah also reflects on his transition to coaching, where he focuses on helping others achieve their health and fitness goals, particularly through the HealthSpan program, which promotes long-term health and lifestyle changes.

Throughout the conversation, Josiah highlights the significance of setting realistic expectations and the importance of incremental progress in achieving fitness goals. He shares his philosophy on healthy aging, emphasizing that it's never too late to start making positive changes in one's life. The episode concludes with Josiah encouraging listeners to take ownership of their health and to recognize that even small steps can lead to significant improvements over time.

What if healthcare didn't begin when something went wrong?

In this episode of Healthspan Voices, Matt Lawson sits down with Chris Lindley, Chief Population Health Officer at Vail Health and Executive Director of Behavioral Health, for a conversation about rethinking what it means to help people become—and stay—healthy.

Chris's career has taken him from military service and public health to entrepreneurship, behavioral health, fitness, and population health. Across those seemingly different worlds, he sees a common thread: creating environments and communities that help people improve their health.

Matt and Chris explore the philosophy behind Healthspan and why lasting health involves much more than exercise, nutrition, or a set of numbers on a lab report. They discuss the connection between behavioral and physical health, the power of community and accountability, what healthy aging actually means, and why meaningful change doesn't have to begin with a dramatic transformation.

Sometimes it starts with a walk. Better sleep. More water. A different choice.

One percent better.

It's a conversation about moving healthcare beyond simply treating illness—and toward helping people build lives that allow them to remain active, independent, connected, and engaged for as long as possible.

What happens when the person running a health system decides to become one of its patients? In this episode of Healthspan Voices, host Matt Lawson sits down with Will Cook, President and CEO of Vail Health, who enrolled in the Healthspan program not just to endorse it, but to live it.

Will shares the personal wake-up call that pushed him to prioritize his health at 52 — being "skinny fat," carrying visceral fat, and facing concerning cholesterol numbers — and how becoming a father later in life reframed his goals around longevity: staying active enough to walk his daughters down the aisle and be a present grandparent. He talks candidly about learning to train in zone two, discovering strength work he'd never tried (Bulgarian split squats included), and the slow-building "aha moment" when consistent effort started to actually feel like progress.

The conversation goes beyond personal fitness into what Will's experience taught him about the future of healthcare itself — the shift from "sick care" to true prevention, the role of behavioral health as a foundation for lasting change, and how Vail Health is working to weave the Healthspan philosophy through its broader system. Will also gets practical, offering his approach to fitting health into an unrelenting schedule: treating it like a budget, building in "twofers" with family, and dropping the guilt when a week doesn't go perfectly.

In this episode:

• Why Will decided to go through Healthspan himself, not just fund it
• The mindset assessment that comes before any physical program
• Learning to train by zone (and fighting the urge to always go faster)
• What changed physically and mentally once momentum kicked in
• How this experience is shaping Vail Health's approach to preventive care
• Practical advice for fitting health into a packed schedule
• Why "something is always better than nothing"