Angie Austin welcomes award-winning author and motivational speaker Jim Stovall for a timely conversation on how clutter—whether physical or mental—can hold us back. With personal stories, practical strategies, and a dose of humor, they unpack the dangers of hoarding time, ideas, and to-do lists, and how clarity can lead to greater peace and productivity. Plus, Dr. Payal Kohli joins to raise awareness about OHCM, a hidden heart condition, alongside patient John, who shares how treatment helped him reclaim an active life.
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SPEAKER 05 :
Welcome to The Good News with Angie Austin. Now, with The Good News, here’s Angie.
SPEAKER 07 :
Hello there, friend. Angie Austin and Jim Stovall with The Good News. And The Good News today is very timely because we’re talking about this winner’s wisdom column titled Handling and Hoarding. And this is very timely, Jim. I’ll tell you why in just a moment. Welcome.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hey, it is always great to be with you.
SPEAKER 07 :
So my kids actually just left to go to Chicago. One of my kids graduated and then they headed out with grandma and grandpa because we call grandma an organized hoarder and their entire unfinished basement of their home, which is a three bedroom ranch, but a big ranch, not the old school ranches. The entire basement is filled with stuff from my husband’s early 50s now. So all the stuff from his childhood and on. And one thing that makes me giggle about her is she’s changed sizes over the years. So she has every size of stretch pants, like the stretch pants some of the grandmas like to wear. She’s got every size of stretch pants from about a four or small up to extra large in every color of the rainbow. And they’re the entire length size. of the basement, which has got to be, I mean, a hundred feet. I don’t know. I mean, if I sent you the picture and I know your peeps describe my pictures to you, you’d be like, that’s a lot of stretch pants.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, you know, and we all deal with that in various areas of our life, you know, and you know, I don’t know what we’re, I think it’s our sense of You know, there’s only two ways you can look at the world, scarcity or abundance. And when you start keeping stuff you don’t need that takes up space you don’t have, you’re dealing in scarcity. And, you know, I wrote this column about… You know, kind of, first off, I want to make sure everybody understands. I’m not talking, there are people that have a mental condition and they hoard and it’s frightening. No, I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about all of us who deal with just not cleaning out the junk. But in this case, I’m talking about the junk in our daily schedule, our routine. I run a number of businesses, and I have the Stovall Center at the university, and I deal with classes, and I deal with a lot of travel and arena events and books coming out and movies in production, and it takes quite a bit of planning and juggling. So I have a system we deal with here. You know, if there’s something I need to handle and I can handle it in 10 minutes, I don’t put it down anywhere. I just do it. If you can get something done and out of the way, don’t take the time to put it on your list or deal with that or type it into your calendar. Get rid of it. But then the other things that come in. immediately, whether it’s mail, appointments, calls, emails, all the things people want you to do, it is, number one, delete it. This is not our deal. It doesn’t mean it’s a bad deal. It’s just not our deal. Number two, we put it on our pending list. That’s something I might want to do, but I don’t want to do it right now. So we put it on the pending project list. And then the other one is it goes on my calendar. I definitely want to do that, and I pick a day and time to do that. And what I did, you know, the thing that has made us successful, I think, is our pending and project list. Because the 15th of every month, I go through that entire list. And it worked wonderfully for so many years. And then, Angie, I started becoming a hoarder. I didn’t want to take the time to mess with stuff, so I just shoved it on the pending list. I’ll deal with it later. It got so big that the 15th of the month would roll around, and I don’t want to go over my pending list. It’s just such a daunting task. Finally, during the holidays last year, I always take a couple weeks off to plan my year. I took time and went through that thing and cleaned it out. committed to not letting it get that way again because, you know, I let a tool that was designed to serve me turn into something that was an impediment to keeping me from doing what I wanted to do, and it doesn’t work. So, you know, success in any area of life is simply a matter of doing the next thing right and the right thing next. But you don’t know what the right thing to do is unless you have something that tells you that. And you don’t want to be thinking about it all the time. You just want to react. And that can happen when you take control of those things and put them somewhere. And, you know, so for me it’s delete, put it on the calendar, or put it on my beloved pending list that now I’m happy to go over the 15th of every month. But, you know, sometimes… You know, we need to clean out our lives, and it’s not a matter of cleaning out the closets, the garage, or even our calendar. It’s a matter of cleaning out our mind. It’s what my late great friend and colleague Zig Ziglar used to call the checkup from the neck up. It’s time to go in and clean stuff out and realize we don’t need all this stuff. This is, you know, and my wife and I actually hired a woman to come in, has a business that helps people organize, and she came into our house, and had her van parked out there, and we had four appointments with her, and, you know, she went through everything. You know, it’s a, are you keeping this? Are you throwing it away? Are you going to donate it? And, you know, and she would take the stuff away with her, and it was amazing. When we were done, you know, Angie, I felt like we built onto our house. I mean, you know, it’s just like we got all this space, and, you know, You know, and I don’t even know what we got rid of. It doesn’t matter because, you know, we’re like anybody else. You know, I’m convinced if we moved into the Superdome, it would be full in a couple years. We just, all of us do that. We collect junk. And we need to establish priorities and control that. But, you know, the junk we have, the stretch pants we have in the basement, all the things we have, you know, those can come and go. But our time, we never get any more of it back. So we really got to be careful with what are the activities and what do we do every day.
SPEAKER 07 :
So you got busier and busier with all these book deadlines and the over 60 books now, the ninth movie, and then I know you have a couple of books now optioned for movies. So the work just increased to the point where you had too many things on the pending list that you looked at on the 15th of the month.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, and that’s how I get started. It’s not a matter of we can’t decide to keep or get rid of something. It’s, hey, I’ll put it here and think about it later. Maybe I’ll want it later. And later never comes. And that’s what I was doing with my pending list. And it got so big. I have a project list, books and movies I want to write in the future. And there’s about 75 or 80 books or movies I want to do. The title and the synopsis. Yeah, yeah. And then my pending list is just… The things I want to write about, columns I want to write, people I want to meet, things I want to do. But it’s not time to do them right now. But it doesn’t mean I want to forget about it and throw it away. And there’s two mistakes there. Number one, we can let things pile up on us. Or number two, we throw things away that are really great ideas. And so you want to have a system to where that’s a good idea, but I don’t want to do it right now. So the 15th of every month, I decide… okay, is this still a good idea? If it is, do I want to do it now or keep it on my pending list for another month and look at it again? And there’s things that have been on my pending list four or five years and then I’ll do it. And, you know, when the idea is right and the time has come, you do it.
SPEAKER 07 :
But the list of like potential books and those things, the 75, is that not on a pending list? Is that a separate list?
SPEAKER 03 :
It’s a separate list, but I review it at the same time. It’s just the project part of my pending list. Yeah, it’s… And there’s about 70, but we read through every one of those every month. And, you know, and it’s interesting because from time to time, things will come up that impact those. And I’m considering it a historical moment. novel based on the life of Mark Twain and to follow up on my Steinbeck book and you know and some things have come out recently and I found some connections to Twain and some of his letters and amazing amazing things and they’ve just uncovered Mark Twain was married to a woman much younger than him and he loved to go out socialize and go to parties but he would party a little too hardy at times and And she would keep a list of everyone he had insulted throughout the evening, and the next day he would write them all a letter. Well, it became known in the late 1800s and early 1900s that if you were at any of these parties with Twain, if you would hang around, he would insult you, and then he would write you this wonderful letter the next day. And they have found over a thousand of these letters. What? People wanted to get insulted by Twain. It’s amazing.
SPEAKER 07 :
That is hilarious that you’d follow him around. Oh, my goodness. All right, so there’s something else that stood out to me in your articles. You’re like, if it’s important and it can be done today and you can fit it in, get those things off your list.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, those are what I consider fleas. They’re not big things, but you leave enough of them around, and they’ll pull down an elephant after a while if you have enough of them. They’re annoying, and they keep you from doing things. If you can get some stuff done, get it done. For many years, I had a talented, gifted woman named Dorothy that handled my calendar. We would go through and do a whole bunch of those five- or ten-minute things, and she would actually write it on the list and then scratch it out. And she said, it just makes me feel better. And it’s my goal by the end of the day to get to the bottom of the list. And I’m not a slave to the list. If something urgent comes up that needs to get handled right now, I can do it. And I control the list. It doesn’t control me. But it helps me control myself in a way that makes us very productive.
SPEAKER 07 :
I like that, that she physically liked writing it down and scratching it off. And you say something like changing oil is important, that it’s not a big deal until it is a big deal. And if you can get it done today or schedule it that week, that is very beneficial. I remember our kid was near where they get the emissions test done. It did take him like three hours that day to wait and get it done. But to get that done, you know, if you don’t, you know, and your tags go into the point where they’re overdue and blah, blah, blah, and you get a ticket, then it becomes a real hassle. Or if you don’t change the oil and then you have an issue with your car because you weren’t taking care of it, then it is a lot more than just kind of important. It’s very, like you said, one flea is not a big deal, but when you get, you know, a thousand of them, they can take down an elephant.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah. And when I was a kid, there was a commercial for an oil filter company. And this mechanic is standing there. And in the background, they’re pulling an engine out of a car that’s a blown engine. And he said, it’s important to get your oil changed. And he said, I know you don’t want to take the time or pay the money. But he said, either you pay me now when he held up the oil filter or you pay me later. And he points at this brand-new engine they’re putting into this car that costs thousands and thousands of dollars. And, you know, that’s the thing. It’s never critical that you get a change today if you get a change tomorrow. But you procrastinate long enough, and it does turn into an emergency. And that’s where it gets to be a problem. And, you know, it’s so much better to control those than have those things control you. And so I just think one of the most powerful things you do is how you control your time, your morning routine, and then how you control your day. And when I meet successful people who I admire, I always ask them, what system do you use? How do you control your day and your time and all of the things that come in and interrupt you? I mean, Angie, I remember when nobody wanted to talk to Jim Stovall. and nobody wanted to offer me a thing or nobody wanted me to come and do anything. And so when people started doing that, it was hard for me to say no. And, you know, I have to say no to some really good things so I can say yes to some great things. And that’s not easy to do.
SPEAKER 07 :
Oh, that’s so true, just saying no to some things that you really wouldn’t mind doing or might even enjoy so that you have time for the great things and you really have to go over what you say yes to.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah. I had a friend call me and he said, hey, I’m going to be in town on this date next month. Can we get together? And I would love to get together with him. It would be a great thing. I mean, it would be one of the top things I would do is get together and go out for lunch or dinner with him. But that’s my anniversary. And that is already taken. So thank you. So, I mean, he actually, when I told him that… I said, you came in a close second, okay, but you’re in second place on that deal. And he said, no, second place to Crystal ain’t bad. And so he’s going to stay over a day, so I get to do both. But, you know, you need to say no to the right things, and if it’s not the right thing for you, it’ll be the right thing for somebody else.
SPEAKER 07 :
I love it. JimStohol.com. Thank you, friend. Thank you. Be well. You too.
SPEAKER 04 :
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SPEAKER 06 :
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SPEAKER 07 :
Hello there, Angie Austin here with the good news. I have a little good news for you. You know, my daughter went to a really cool young life camp last summer and they took their phones for the entire time. So I couldn’t contact her unless there was an emergency and vice versa. And she said it was the best week of her life. She did not miss her phone. And there were so many wonderful things going on that, you know, it was like irrelevant to her that she didn’t have the phone. Well, this kind of caught my eye. It’s about young people who are doing something really interesting regarding being offline. It’s called an offline club. And so in this offline zone or offline club, they do other things. And so you can find it on Instagram, and I found it. I just sent it to my kids. Apparently, they surveyed teenagers. 46% of teenage respondents to a recent survey found that 68% of respondents said they felt worse when they spent too much time on social media. That’s, I mean, that’s a lot. It’s almost three quarters of the teen survey said they felt worse if they spent too much time on social media. Despite often being seen as the most vulnerable generation to smartphone addiction and social media use, it appears teens who in any generation are extremely quick to pick up emerging social trends are picking up on the negative social impact that social media has had on their lives looking to cut back. Enter the Offline Club. They have over half a million followers on Instagram, and it’s a Dutch social movement, but it’s spreading to other areas as well. And they host digital detox retreats where participants unplug from not only their smartphones, but their computers and experience life before the Internet. And the Dutch club has locations. But there’s other ideas for people who don’t live in those areas. And I just thought that it was such a neat idea, particularly since my daughter had said how that was the best time in her life. when she was at a camp when they couldn’t have their phones. So I thought that was pretty cool. All right, changing gears now. If you are just joining us, this is Angie Austin with The Good News. And today we are talking heart health. Joining us is Dr. Payal Kohli. Dr. Kohli is a board-certified cardiologist currently practicing at Cherry Creek Heart in Denver. right here in Colorado and heart patient John. John is a patient who has returned to his active lifestyle and his passion playing pickleball and he’s talking to us about how addressing his chronic and progressive heart disease helped him return to that sporty active lifestyle. Welcome to you John and Dr. Coley.
SPEAKER 08 :
Thank you for having us.
SPEAKER 07 :
You are welcome. You are welcome. Well, Doc, I’ll start with you. We’re talking about something specific regarding the heart, symptomatic OHCM. Please explain this to us and how it impacts people like John.
SPEAKER 08 :
So anti-symptomatic obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is actually a condition that’s called the great masquerader because it’s often missed both by patients and by doctors. In fact, there are data that tell us that 80% of cases are undiagnosed or underdiagnosed. And so it’s a genetic condition, and it affects the way the heart looks and the way the heart behaves. So if you think about the heart, it’s a pump that’s pumping blood to our body all day and all night long. And in symptomatic obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, the heart is stiff. So instead of being like a water balloon, it’s like a lead balloon. It doesn’t fill normally with blood. And then the blood doesn’t leave the heart normally. So normally the blood leaves through a hallway. And in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy with obstruction, that hallway is thickened and narrowed. So the blood has trouble getting out, essentially. And you can imagine when you’re exercising and being active, the heart is beating harder and faster. The blood needs to get to the organs more. And if it doesn’t, you can start to have symptoms. So if it’s not getting to your brain, you can feel lightheaded, dizzy, or faint, like you’re going to pass out. If it’s not getting to your heart and lungs, you can feel short of breath and have chest tightness and have palpitations. So it’s really important to raise awareness of this condition, and that’s why John and I are here today and working with Bristol-Myers Squibb, because we really want people to be plugged into their symptoms and to understand not to blow off symptoms because some days are better and some days are worse with this condition, and I don’t want people to say, I’m just getting older or just getting out of shape, or dial back what they’re doing as a way to accommodate, essentially make up for the fact that the blood’s not doing what it’s supposed to.
SPEAKER 07 :
All right, so let’s talk about those symptoms. And, you know, John, I understand you were into tennis and then pickleball. And can you talk about the symptoms that you experienced and how that was holding you back from what you wanted to do with your life?
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, so like so many people, I think, you know, I really value being an active person and exercise has been a big part of that. I played college tennis back in the day and really appreciate an active lifestyle and It’s interesting to side note that both my two older brothers and I were misdiagnosed with heart murmurs when we were in our 20s, and all three of us would later be diagnosed with this disease, OHCM. My symptoms actually started in my mid-50s when I started feeling dizzy during workouts, and these symptoms continued to get sort of worse, and I also experienced shortness of breath. These things became so difficult and so overwhelming that I couldn’t go on a simple walk without needing to constantly stop and catch my breath. A few years ago, I switched from tennis to pickleball, thinking it would be easier, but even then I struggled to finish a match. These symptoms continued to interfere with some of the things that I really valued, and that is my ability to stay active. So about three years ago, I saw another cardiologist, and that’s when I was diagnosed with OHCM.
SPEAKER 07 :
All right, so let’s talk about then, Doc, and I’ll start with you, but, John, you can join in as well. So this is holding him back from his lifestyle. Like you said, Doc, you don’t want to just ignore this and say, oh, I’m getting older. So how can it be treated and the lifestyle be improved for the patient?
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, thankfully we do have some good tools in our toolbox. So certainly surgery is an option. We don’t start there just because it’s more dramatic and we sort of start people on medications. But the surgical option is to actually cut out part of that hallway to allow more space for the blood to leave the heart. But there’s also medical options. And where we usually start is a medication called a beta blocker, which… reduces the heart rate, so it allows more time for that blood to leave the heart. And if somebody is, you know, still having symptoms on that, then we can reach for other medications like Camzias or Mavacamcin, which is a medication for obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy that decreases the force with which the heart squeezes. So one of the problems in this condition is the heart is squeezing really hard. It’s trying really hard to push against that obstruction and that actually makes the problem worse because it kind of collapses in on itself and it causes the hallway to sort of be sucked closed when it’s squeezing. So by reducing the force with which the heart is squeezing, you kind of give it a little bit of a break and allow the blood to leave the heart a little bit better. And the patients that I’ve treated with Mavacampton, I’ve seen a dramatic improvement in their symptoms, and they’re able to sort of dial back that level of activity and get back to the things that they love. But you can imagine, Angie, for reducing the force with which the heart squeaks, we have to watch the heart carefully because you don’t want the heart to get too weak. And that’s why any patient taking Camsize or Mavacampton actually needs echocardiograms or ultrasounds of their heart on a regular basis in order to monitor how the heart is functioning.
SPEAKER 07 :
All right. So let’s talk about then, John, you know, you’re pulling back from your lifestyle and then you get treatment. Talk about the treatment and returning back to, you know, your activities. Talk about, you know, your life’s journey with that.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah. So I started with a beta blocker like so many other patients, it seems, but I was still having symptoms. And then my doctor did tell me about this medication called Camxios to treat symptomatic OHCM. And After a few months, I took Camxios and I really noticed a difference in my symptoms. I was delighted that I could play pickleball again and even my friends noticed a big difference in my stamina. And so today, my symptoms such as shortness of breath and feeling faint are much better. And after working closely with my doctor and my medical team, And they’re allowing me to play amateur pickleball tournaments in Florida and here in Wisconsin. And that’s important to me because I thought I may never be able to participate in these activities again.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah. And in Wisconsin in the summer, I mean, come on, it doesn’t get any better than that for whether to get outside and play pickleball.
SPEAKER 09 :
Right? You know, last year, the summer happened on a Tuesday, but no, seriously, we have nice summers here in Wisconsin, but they are short, and you’re absolutely right. I’m so thankful that I can get out and, you know, appreciate it. an active lifestyle once again.
SPEAKER 07 :
I love that. I love that, you know, that you shared your story with us. And Doc, besides living up there near in Minnesota and Wisconsin, I actually have been in Denver for a very long time. So we’re lucky to have someone like you. I was a little bit blown away because I don’t know that I’ve ever interviewed someone that has five board certifications. You went to Harvard. You went to MIT. You’re an associate adjunct professor of cardiology at both Duke and Johns Hopkins. I mean, you’re associated with four of the top universities in the world. I mean, that’s pretty cool.
SPEAKER 08 :
Thank you, Angie. I appreciate that. I love being a Denver native, and I work on Nine News. Actually, I’m their medical expert as well. Oh, cool. I’m so privileged to live here with our beautiful weather.
SPEAKER 07 :
Oh, that’s awesome. I interviewed with Nine. I worked at Channel 2 for many years, and my husband was at Channel 9, and so we’re very into watching the show, so I’m going to look for you with the news and look for that. What gave you a passion for doing this? I’m always interested. I’ve done news all over the country, and I love to ask people how they got into their area of expertise. What gave you a passion for this kind of work?
SPEAKER 08 :
You know, I love being a cardiologist because there’s a range of diseases from prevention all the way to ICU care, but really education is my passion. because I feel that knowledge is power, and I feel that if you change one small action in somebody’s life, you can change the trajectory of their entire life. And so for me, educating people about their health is one of the greatest privileges of all time, and being able to work on the news to have that sort of platform to help empower people, because a lot of diseases, as we’re learning, are not just preventable, but if they’re diagnosed early, they’re highly treatable. and the prognosis of the disease can be changed if you teach people what they’re supposed to look for. So I’m just really privileged to be in a position where I can help people understand their bodies and their health and understand how to take control of their outcomes.
SPEAKER 07 :
And I like what you said, too, in the beginning when you just said, you know, a lot of us are starting to have symptoms of something or feel different. And we just chalk it up to, you know, we’re getting older or whatever. And I think about my father and I he was having heart attacks or heart issues. And he was telling my mom, my stepmom, who’s from Iran, you know, cannot call the ambulance. And she was like, this is bullshit. Bryce, I am calling 911. And so she just told him, I refuse to let you die. And he just would always say, you know, I wasn’t good. I would have died. But she would refuse to let me just ignore these symptoms that he had been ignoring for years. And then through the two heart surgeries he had, he lived many more years because she would not allow him to ignore it. And I think maybe men in particular, but many of us as we’re getting older just want to, you know, shut our eyes to the symptoms. So I like that you say don’t chalk it up to getting older. Go in and get, you know, some expert, you know, advice. So true, so true. All right, so where do we go for more info?
SPEAKER 08 :
So I would say talk to your doctor.
SPEAKER 05 :
Thank you for listening to The Good News with Angie Austin on AM670 KLTT.
SPEAKER 01 :
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