Host Tim Culbert welcomes Dr. Alicia Newsome, functional medicine doctor, executive advisor, and bestselling author, to the show for a conversation about burnout, high performance, and building a successful career without sacrificing health, relationships, or personal values. Drawing on more than fifteen years of clinical experience, Alicia works with high-performing leaders through an Integrative Leadership Framework focused on three areas: business, body, and belief. She shares how her own experiences with exhaustion, divorce, health challenges, and burnout ultimately transformed both her medical practice and her understanding of what sustainable success looks like. Alicia and Tim explore why high performers can become particularly vulnerable to burnout and why physical health, mental well-being, identity, and professional performance cannot always be separated. Alicia explains the importance of recognizing the body's "check engine lights" instead of simply pushing through fatigue, stress, poor sleep, and other warning signs. The conversation also explores perimenopause and the physical and emotional challenges women may experience during this stage of life. Alicia discusses the role of stress, sleep, nutrition, hormones, gut health, and environmental factors, while offering insight for partners, family members, and colleagues who want to better understand and support women navigating these changes. Alicia also introduces her forthcoming book, Worthy of Rest, which challenges a culture that rewards exhaustion and explores why high-performing people may struggle to believe they are worthy of slowing down. She and Tim discuss different forms of rest—including physical, emotional, sensory, and spiritual rest—and the importance of creating space for joy outside of work. When asked what she would change about the legal profession in relation to mental health, Alicia advocates for more opportunities to step away from the constant analysis and pressure of legal work. Whether through meaningful breaks, creative activities, movement, social connection, or a deliberate end-of-day routine, she encourages lawyers to find practices that help them transition out of their heads and reconnect with themselves and the people around them. About Dr. Alicia Newsome Dr. Alicia Newsome is a functional medicine doctor, executive advisor, and bestselling author who helps high-performing leaders build successful careers without sacrificing their health, relationships, or values. She is the founder of Body Wellness Institute and AM Clinical Research Consulting and brings more than fifteen years of clinical experience to her work, including involvement in clinical trials that led to five FDA drug approvals. Through her Integrative Leadership Framework, Alicia works across three domains—business, body, and belief—to help people scale their careers and lives sustainably instead of burning out along the way. Her work combines individualized assessment, functional medicine, leadership guidance, and a focus on the beliefs and identities that can drive people to overwork, avoid asking for help, or continually put their own needs last. Her forthcoming book, Worthy of Rest, explores the physiological and emotional consequences of living in a culture that celebrates exhaustion, along with the beliefs that can make people feel they must continually earn the right to rest. Resources discussed in this episode: Body Wellness InstituteAM Clinical Research ConsultingWorthy of Rest by Dr. Alicia Newsome (Coming Fall 2026)— Contact Tim Culbert: LinkedIn: Tim CulbertPurvis Culbert Law LinkedInInstagramFacebookContact Dr. Alicia Newsome: Website: dralicianewsome.com LinkedIn: Dr. Alicia Newsome
