Robert Kress Functional Pharmacist, Newburgh, MI (2025)

11/10/2025

I read once (Schopenhauer, paraphrased) that there comes a point in life where you can look back and see your experiences line up like chapters in a novel… and realize you were the one writing it all along. 📖

He was talking about this in his later years. I’m taking it into my practice now—in the day-to-day.

Through the wins and the wounds, the lessons, the people who arrived and the ones who left, the choices that made sense and the ones that didn’t… it was all part of the script. Even when I couldn’t see the pattern, it was still being written.

These days I’m trading expectation for wonder—waking up and asking, What will today reveal? And from this place I can see: I’m exactly where I’m meant to be. And that’s perfect.

So if I’ve put in this much work, heart, and history to get here… the least I can do is bet on myself and pay attention.

Because I don’t want to miss a thing. 🌲✨

The real kicker?
To keep seeing it this way through the good, the bad, the ugly, and the beautiful—and to stay present for all of it.

👉 For patients and practitioners:
Whether you’re navigating your health, your career, or searching for a deeper sense of purpose and meaning in this next chapter, DM me. I’d be honored to help you see the pattern, align your story, and move toward where your goals—and your life—line up.

11/07/2025

Midlife Isn’t a Breakdown. It’s a Wake-Up Call — To Be Better, To Be You.

I don’t think me launching The Midlife Man Collective and Midlife Man Executive Coaching this year is a coincidence. I was waiting to be “ready.”

But the truth is, it wasn’t about being ready. It was about finally being honest.

Honest about what I’ve seen in myself—and in other men—as we move through midlife: that quiet question, “Is there more?” The realization that so much of life has been lived under other people’s expectations. The moment you recognize you’ve lost a piece of yourself—your edge, your fire, your truth.

These platforms are my answer to that moment—a place to recalibrate, reclaim, and rebuild from a deeper place. 🔥

And you don’t have to wait until you’re 55 to do this work.
If you’re 45, start now.
If you’re 65, it’s not too late.
Midlife is not an expiration date—it’s an invitation.

To be a better version of yourself than you were yesterday requires four things:

1️⃣ Silence
At least twice a day, even five minutes. No phone. No email. No notebook. No noise. Just you.
Silence is a forgotten art—and it’s where you actually meet yourself. 🕯️

2️⃣ Deep Listening
To your outer world, your inner world, and others.
The more you practice silence, the more clearly you can hear what life—and your own body, mind, and soul—are telling you. 👂

3️⃣ Space to Understand
Don’t rush past what you hear.
Create room to reflect, connect the dots, and sit with what confronts you instead of numbing out. 🌌

4️⃣ Embodied Action
Go beyond rationalizing, explaining, or defending—it’s time to get out of your head.
Take aligned action that matches what you’ve learned. Live it in your words, choices, and presence. 🧱

This is how midlife becomes an upgrade, not a slow fade.

11/05/2025

Free from urgency—do you recognize it? ⏳➡️🕊️

What urgency feels like:
⚡ Tight body, short/quick breaths
🎯 Hyper-focus on “what’s next” or replaying “what just happened”
⌛ Feeling chased by time

What freedom from urgency feels like:
🌿 Muscles soft, jaw unclenched
🫁 Calm, steady breath
🧭 No fight with the clock—just the next right thing
Not feeling—embody.

60-second visualization (save this):
1️⃣ Exhale slowly; drop your shoulders.
2️⃣ Name where tension sits (jaw, chest, belly).
3️⃣ Breathe in 4, out 6—three rounds.
4️⃣ Widen your gaze to the edges of the room.
5️⃣ Think: “I have time for the next right step.”
6️⃣ Whisper your anchor word on the exhale: Unhurried.
7️⃣ Notice the shift.

Call to action
👤 Individual: DM me about the Midlife Man Collective or Midlife Man Executive Coaching to go deeper.
🩺 Practitioner: If you want to grow, implement, and enhance your functional medicine practice (for men and women), DM me to see if I have something that fits—and if we’re a match.

11/03/2025

The Male Libido Continuum

Your libido tracks your nervous system—restore desire, function, connection.

🔴 Code Red (Sympathetic)
Anger, overwhelm, apathy. Story loops kick in: “She doesn’t desire me,” “I’m not enough.” Walls go up, you disconnect from self.
Do now (not intimacy): 60–120s of hard movement, nasal breathing, long exhales. Reset first.

🟡 Transition (Still Sympathetic)
You’re aware of frustration and chasing release—focused on your needs, not your partner’s.
Warning: Grabbing supplements/alcohol/quick fixes to “down-regulate” without honoring and releasing the charge keeps you stuck here.
Better move: shake/bounce, push-ups, brisk walk, or a primal scream → then Breath Reset + Gratitude (4 slow breaths; think and feel one gratitude).

🟢 Parasympathetic (Rest • Relate • Connect)
Calm, present, engaged or mellow. Safety and communication come online—sex is 1,000,000× better here.
Do here: longer exhales, soften jaw/shoulders, eye contact. Ask and hear your partner’s needs; share yours without urgency.

Checkpoint: 🔴/🟡 = reactionary. If you’re not 🟢, regulate first. Desire follows safety.

—
Want tools to move from 🔴→🟢 reliably? Join the Midlife Man Collective or apply for my 90-Day Executive Coaching (link in bio).

11/02/2025

The literature and “experts” point to Low T, prostate issues, metabolic disarray, and overweight/obesity as root causes of ED. Those matter—but they’re not the whole story. Here are 5 core factors no one talks about (and what we work on inside the Midlife Man Collective and my Executive Coaching):
1. Dysregulated nervous system — constant fight/flight blunts arousal and blood flow. 🧠⚡
2. Not feeling desired — when a man doesn’t feel wanted, drive shuts down. ❤️‍🩹
3. “Not enough” loop — old shame stories crush confidence and intimacy. 🔁
4. Communication walls — unsaid truths create pressure and distance. 🧱
5. Distraction & addiction — numbing habits disconnect you from self & partner. 📱🍷

If this hits home, you’re not broken—you’re out of alignment. Rewire the system, repair the story, rebuild connection.

Join us: Midlife Man Collective (community + tools).
Go deeper: Midlife Man Executive Coaching (private, focused).
DM “ED” and I’ll send next steps.

11/01/2025

Thoreau called it “quiet desperation.” David Brooks calls it the Second Mountain. Mythology calls it Chiron’s Return. I call it the moment you finally see the next summit—and choose to climb.

Midlife isn’t a crisis; it’s a course-correction. Our priorities stop whispering and start shouting. We notice what we’ve ignored: energy slipping, thinking getting cloudy, weight creeping up. That’s not “just getting older.” It’s your body and story asking for a rebuild—from the foundation up.

What we rebuild:
• Strength, sleep, and metabolism
• Hormones and nervous system balance
• Mindset, boundaries, and purpose

If you’ve waited 30 years to become who you really are, that’s okay—just don’t wait another 30. The path your father or uncles took isn’t the only path. The time is now.

Join the work:
→ Midlife Man Collective for brotherhood + momentum
→ 90-Day Executive Coaching for focused strategy and accountability

DM me and I’ll send next steps.

10/31/2025

Reading Hemingway reminds me: midlife isn’t about collecting more—it’s about what you refuse to trade.

Notes from To Have and Have Not for men in midlife:
• Decide your code before the storm; pressure reveals it.
• Isolation is the costliest poverty—brotherhood compounds.
• Boundaries create freedom; say “not at that price” to numbing habits.
• Agency beats circumstance—build skills, own your choices.

This is our work in the Midlife Man Collective: fewer trophies, more truth. Less “have,” more be.

Two three to step in:
• Join the Midlife Man Collective—community, training, accountability (link in bio).
• 1:1 Executive Coaching (90 days)—custom plan + weekly momentum. DM EXEC90 for details.
- you're a practitioner who wants to build a midlife medicine practice of their own, DM me now

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10/30/2025

🧭 Lead Your Own Journey

Helping is beautiful—when you’re asked. But steering other people’s boats becomes an energy leak, a procrastination tool, and a quiet way to avoid your own path.

Why this matters:
• You trade what you control (your choices) for what you don’t (their outcomes).
• You delay your progress while breeding resentment and dependency.
• People don’t own their wins if you row for them.

“Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens.” — Epictetus

How it sneaks in (examples):
• Turning every text into a mini-coaching session—even when no one asked.
• Cleaning up a coworker’s mess before they’re aware of it.
• Managing your partner’s mood so you don’t have to feel your own discomfort.
• “Fixing” your grown kids’ challenges instead of letting them learn.
• Doom-scrolling advice accounts about their problem while you ignore your next step.

A better stance: Be a lighthouse, not a tugboat—steady, visible, available when invited. Keep your hands on your oars: your training, your work block, your word kept.

If you’re ready to build the inner strength and structure to stay on your course, the 🧭 Midlife Man Collective leads with functional medicine, story, and community. DM me or hit the link in bio.

10/29/2025

🎸 The Nebraska Moment 🛣️

Bruce rode the big wave—live from Asbury Park, Born to Run highways, Jersey in his bones. Stadium sing-alongs, sure…but underneath the noise? A rumble. Old stories, father gravity, that urge to keep running because it feels easier than feeling.

Then came Nebraska. Not an accident—a confession. Four-track on a kitchen table. Songs like skeletons. The soul saying: tell the truth. Dark years, real depression. Not a marketing plan. A reckoning. (And somewhere on that road west, a quiet diner and the realization: she’s right.)

Here’s the turn: facing the shadow didn’t end him—it made him. The writing got deeper. The storytelling hit marrow. Iconic didn’t come from polish; it came from honesty.

Every man carries a shadow. Different origin stories—fathers, hometown gravity, the myths we told ourselves to survive. None of it random. It’s the map. If you want the real voice, you spend time there. Not to move in—just to listen. That’s where the surface songs end…and the marrow songs begin.

🧭 Midlife Man Collective — We lead with functional medicine to build you from the ground up—foundational strength for your next steps—woven with story, myth, and a supportive community.
DM me now or click the link in my bio.

10/29/2025

🧭 “Where you come from is gone. Nothing outside you can give you any place. In yourself, right now, is all the place you’ve got.”
— John Landau, Deliver Me From Nowhere

That line landed because it’s what men in midlife are starving for: presence.

Not more productivity.
Not more hacks.
Not more noise.

Presence.

We talk a lot about “getting out into nature to reset.” And yes — nature is medicine. Nervous system downshifts. Breath slows. The signal clears.

But here’s the pivot:
You don’t actually need to be in nature to access that state.

You have to be able to access it in real life — in conflict, in fatigue, in work, in your relationship, in the moment you feel yourself getting hijacked.

That’s what I coach men to do.
And that’s what I train practitioners and coaches to deliver.

Through my Men’s Health Coaching Program, you get both tracks:

1️⃣ Your personal work
• nervous system regulation
• stronger energy, sleep, clarity
• dismantling the old narratives that keep you performing instead of living

2️⃣ Your professional work
• how to coach men from presence, not pressure
• how to integrate men’s health, emotional resilience, and functional medicine
• how to build a practice around real transformation, not surface-level optimization

This isn’t just “get healthier.”
This is: become grounded enough to lead.

If you’re ready to walk that path for yourself — and learn how to offer it to other men:

🔥 DM me to talk about the Men’s Health Coaching Program.

⸻

10/28/2025

Step into nature to step back into yourself.
We all know the metrics—lower cortisol, steadier blood pressure, stronger immunity. But the deeper ROI is reconnection: outside is how many leaders remember who they are inside. Freedom. Possibility. Play.

If you’re building a life with more signal and less noise, schedule time outdoors the way you schedule meetings.

🧭 Midlife Man Collective: we lead with functional medicine, story, and community to rebuild from the ground up. DM me to join.

10/27/2025

🧭 “You have to risk to find life.” — Joseph Campbell

Most people don’t stay where they are because it’s fulfilling.
They stay because it’s familiar.

Comfort has a gravity to it — it pulls us toward the predictable, even when it no longer serves us.
We mistake numbness for peace, avoidance for calm, and comfort for safety.

But the path to growth — in health, business, or leadership — always requires a willingness to step into the unknown.

To risk.
To feel.
To heal.

And healing isn’t about bypassing pain — it’s about giving your nervous system the message that it’s safe to experience it.

That safety doesn’t come from force.
It comes from foundation:
🌙 Right sleep — to anchor your recovery
🥗 Right food — to stabilize your energy
🏋️‍♂️ Right movement — to discharge tension
🤝 Right community — to remind you that growth isn’t meant to happen alone

When the body knows it’s safe, the mind can explore what it once avoided.
That’s where transformation begins.

Because what we often call pain is usually just potential we’ve kept hidden in the shadow.

The work, then, isn’t just to chase more — it’s to meet yourself more deeply.

🔥 This is the heart of what I teach inside The Midlife Man Collective and Beyond the Labs Functional Medicine Training —
how to integrate physiology with psychology, and courage with clarity.

If you’re ready to step out of numbness and into purpose —
👉 DM me to learn more about The Midlife Man Collective or Beyond the Labs.

Robert Kress Functional Pharmacist

11/10/2025

11/07/2025

11/05/2025

11/03/2025

11/02/2025

11/01/2025

10/31/2025

10/30/2025

10/29/2025

10/29/2025

10/28/2025

10/27/2025

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