Ken Huey 0:00

Welcome to the Voice of Hope, where bold leaders and healers share how they're building hope, not just talking about it. I'm Dr. Ken Huey. Let's meet the changemakers transforming lives from the therapy room to the boardroom. Welcome. Today's guest is Roy Leitstein, advisor, investor, and president of LifeChef Health, and a longtime behavioral health and healthcare executive who has scaled mission-driven organizations to serve tens of thousands of individuals and families. From leading major nonprofit systems to building innovative food as medicine platforms, Roy brings a rare mix of purpose, operational leadership, and growth strategy to healthcare. Roy, welcome.

Roy Leitstein 0:40

Thanks so much, Ken.

Ken Huey 0:41

Yeah. Talk to me if you would. I'd love to start with. How did you land in this space? What brings you here and what's your why?

Roy Leitstein 0:49

Oh, I have a very personal mission. I was an abused and neglected kid when I was 10 years old. I was kicked out by my biological mother who was abusive, and my father was an addict. And so I decided over the course of my life that I wanted to try and help kids and get into behavioral health. So I joined the army, served in the infantry, and started volunteering. Not because I had a big heart or this huge passion for behavioral health, but because got me out of being shot at for six weeks. But I fell in love with a kid who had an intellectual and developmental disability. I didn't even know what that was. I was 18 years old, changing diapers and just decided that if I could help kids that were maybe were going through something like I was going through, that's how I wanted to spend my time. And as soon as I got out of the army, so I volunteered in the Army Exceptional Family Member Program. And then as soon as I got out of the Army, I worked at UPS, and then which is still my favorite job, and then worked direct care in a psychiatric residential treatment facility helping kids. And by the time I was 30, became an executive director. And for me, it was always about and is always about just the ability to help. And there's probably nothing more pure or better than helping kids.

Ken Huey 2:05

Oh man. We've got some overlap. This is exciting for me. Do you know your ACE score?

Roy Leitstein 2:11

4,000. 4,000. I eat trauma daily. I am a magnet for trauma. So my ACE score is horrible. Love ACE, by the way, and an evidence-based, clinically evidence-based treatment to help kids. Profound. Probably only second to John Lyons and the strength and needs assessment that the Cans assessment that really helped transform the country in trying to be able to help kids that struggle and face mental health challenges. So I would say statistically speaking, I'm an anomaly. I have all of them, right? So I grew up poor. I was physically and mentally abused. I was neglected. I have triggers for addiction treatment and addiction. My father passed away from opioid addiction, cancer, but lost them for his life. My biological mother suffers from schizophrenia, had no relationship there. And then I get the multiplier because I'm a vet. Poor infantry veteran. Yeah, no, I'm not even supposed to be talking to you right now.

Ken Huey 3:20

Yeah, man. I feel you. So I've got an ACE score of seven out of the ten and similar kind of background, but not exactly. I'm adopted and had a lot of abuse and neglect and sexual abuse and all that kind of stuff growing up. And it drives me too, as far as what can I do that helps what I see as my people? So I always appreciate talking to somebody that has a similar heart. Thanks very much.

Roy Leitstein 3:42

Oh, but like I said, I truly appreciate the forum and you're giving voice to folks that often don't have it.

Ken Huey 3:49

Well, I appreciate that. So you've talked openly about growing up in the child welfare system. Could you talk a little bit about that experience and how it it shapes your understanding of trauma and resilience?

Roy Leitstein 4:00

Yeah, so I think I say it before, right? I kind of eat trauma for breakfast. I'm a magnet for trauma. So anytime you sort of put yourself into the fray of behavioral health and kids and mental health and social services and health equity, right? And you've been a victim of trauma. My own totally unvalidated, non-quantified experience is that you're going to be a magnet for that stuff. You're going to attract that in your life. And so you have to decide whether you're going to actually get demolished by it or not. And so, as growing up as a kid in New Jersey, it was used to be called Division of Youth and Family Services. Difus has since become the Department of Children as a families. And I quite frankly, without sounding like a jerk, helped pioneer what that system looked like for kids because I was one of those kids. I just happened to be fortunate enough to be a CEO of nonprofit at the time. So growing up inside that system was a lot of I'll date myself at 50. For if anybody is a Bugs Bunny fan or a Daffy Duck fan, right? It was like duck dodge. Right. Like when I was 13 years old, I was riding my bike to school, Miami Vice style, all white, and got hit by a car. My father had dropped 200 bucks on the dresser, was away in Puerto Rico, and I got hit on the way to school with uh I have a twin brother and some friends and riding my bike to school, and I had to like low crawl out of the hospital because I didn't have anybody to come and get me, and I didn't want Difus to come and take me out of the home. And that was back in the late 80s, early 90s. And so for me, it was really in that era, Dyfus wasn't considered a support, it was the enemy, right? And you had these two single parents who uh never really should have had kids in the first place. I'm uh one of six, I got a twin brother, right? And so in that system, it really meant that like it was something that you kind of accounted for. You have an absent parent, you're really independent at a super early age, right? And sustaining for yourself, but you know, and I knew at least then instinctually, like that's not gonna be helpful, right? That's not gonna be good for me.

Ken Huey 6:11

Well, it's kind of amazing you've gone from survive to thrive, then that was my agency's name.

Roy Leitstein 6:17

Sorry, Ken, to interrupt. So before it became a thing, and seven bazillion different organizations did from surviving to thriving, the organization, a nonprofit organization that I was blessed enough to be the CEO of the children's home in Berlin County, which became Legacy Treatment Services. When we became legacy in New Jersey, the mission was to change the social service and behavioral health come out behavioral health outcomes for all people from surviving to thriving.

Ken Huey 6:48

Yeah. What do you attribute your surviving to thriving to?

Roy Leitstein 6:53

Oh, everybody but me. That's what I would do. I would say I am super blessed with good sense of humor and a high pain tolerance, which is really a deficit, but uh we'll take it as a win. And then I was really good at finding people to help love me and care about me, and quite frankly, forgive me because there's no way, I don't care who you are, that you uh go through that trauma and you don't have some traumatic behaviors and thoughts, and you can be super annoying and needy and catastrophize. I mean, this is just me, right? But I went through that, right? And about this beautiful life, and I'm just really good at trying to recognize it every day.

Ken Huey 7:41

Man, so surviving to thriving, but then leadership. What took you to leadership positions and changing this for other people?

Roy Leitstein 7:49

Well, I'm sure we differ here, Ken, but the in the beginning it was angst, it was trouble with authority. So it was this notion that there's a better way to do things in behavioral health and where I was, and then necessity was part of it, right? Was very tough field. Everybody works two, three jobs. Was how can I make enough money to support my wife and my kids? And and then honestly, I was selfishly altruistic when you get that feeling. Like when you help somebody, my favorite entrepreneur story of all time at Legacy, there was a family that cleaned our offices, and Gabrielle is I locked myself out of my office one night, and she was 17, and she was gonna go into the National Guard and go to school, and and she wind up going to school. But the short version is I locked myself out of my office, she helps me back into my office, and within a month, she had formed her own LLC as a uh creating a cleaning company, and her parents were now working for her. And so when you're able to help folks and deliver that vision, it's selfish because it feels so good when you do it. That's sort of bull-headed, dogheaded. I often describe myself as the non-racist archibunker of the healthcare world, sort of dogmatic way of no, if we know that it's right, we know that it's worked, that this works, then let's do that. And it's been enormously fulfilling and successful.

Ken Huey 9:17

What's interesting if you look at resilience, you're just bringing naturally some of that channeling kind of anti-authority sentiment or I can do it better, which is fantastic. It can help you pull it out. But when you're trying to lead and you've got folks that maybe don't have that natural ability, what do you do to help foster whatever it takes to let people get out of the Aces world? I mean, it can just hold you down if you let it.

Roy Leitstein 9:46

Yeah, so great question. I mean, I think the first thing I would say is that dogheadedness and that dogmatic notion and really arrogance isn't sustainable over the long haul. It's a good catalyst to start and fuel, but but at 50, looking back at you know, I was 30 as an executive director, you're like, whoa, that is let's uh take a breath, move forward. And really, I think it's about coming from a place of strength. I think that when I hear of aces and I love aces and I love being able to identify problems, but it's a little bit like Elliot Ness and the Untouchables, like knowing, right, trying to find where people are drinking during prohibition or the fact that people are drinking during prohibition isn't particularly challenging. It's what do you do right when you find it? And for me, what it really is about building on strength, I think was super impactful from a clinical perspective. For me, was the circle of courage, Martin Broken Leg, Native American Indian culture, really valued youth and sort of filling those needs, and that everybody has a sense of mastery. And if you don't find it in a positive way, you're gonna feel that in a negative way. So for me, weeding was always about listening first and finding the strength inside of the teams that I had. I was super blessed at Legacy. My team was together for 19 years and scaled from helping 150 kids a year to more than helping more than 20,000 people a year. And from a fiscal perspective, because I come from unique places, they from an organization that was generating six million dollars in revenue and was 2.2 million dollars in the hole for the year to an organization that will generate upwards of a hundred million dollars a year and is part of a half a billion dollar system of care and can continue to help people and be judged and make mistakes along the way, right? But in perpetuity, which was the goal, as opposed to in an investor-backed universe where you're an operator and you found and you exit, right, in that world where the focus is quite frankly, really the same. It just becomes a question of reading to scale, and how do we get the most out of the folks that are with us? And the army and the infantry were super impactful for me and made a huge impression on me because in the military, you don't get to choose your teammates, you don't get to interview them, you don't get to sort of pick them out, right? You're just in a foxhole next to them, and they're helping you dig the foxhole, and you sort of figure it out. And so I really try to live a life where I have love for everybody, and I find the best in the folks that I have, and I put them in positions and in places that are suited towards their strengths to get the most out of them.

Ken Huey 12:41

Fantastic. So Legacy was quite the adventure, turned into something beautiful, fantastic. And now you're at Life Chef. Tell us about the transition there and what you're trying to accomplish at Life Chef.

Roy Leitstein 12:53

Yeah, sure. So after Legacy, I had launched Reservoir Health, Telehealth, and then Pax Health, and then I was an advisor to Life Chef Health. I've been moved, I have very good friends. Huge shout out to Kroger Health and the Little Clinic and the Convenient Care Association around the food is medicine space and how nutrition could really move biohealth markers and impact health outcomes from a long-term sustainability and a fiscal perspective, right? It's how can we help people and save a ton of money? And I was so drawn to from the food is medicine space is that it was it was every day, right? And so sometimes quantity can impact quality from a behavioral health perspective. And what I found so unique about the food is medicine space is that not only was there like a decade plus of data that I had no idea even existed, but imagine the notion of being able to help somebody with a clinical intervention that they're going to use every day, whether they want to or not, unless you fall into the black hole of entitlements where you don't where you're starving. You have food insecurity. We like to wrap pretty words around it. But if you eat every day, food is medicine, is part of your life, whether you're a conscious participant in that or not. And so, from a behavioral health perspective, what I was always moved by was the ability to actually impact and get individuals at scale to be able to change their behavior in a healthy way. And then I did what anybody who was born in the late 70s, middle 70s, into the 80s was I looked at how food impacted my behavior. And I go back to food as a ritual and the fact that I have a good day, I celebrate with food, I have a birthday, I have an anniversary, someone dies. Food was such a impactful part of my life that I didn't really view as something that was impacting my health. I really viewed food as like you ran through this sort of hockey stick of life where the older you got, the less stuff that you got to eat the way that you want it. But I never bothered to look at the why. And so that's what brought me to Life Chef Health was this I'm a like addicted to startup and sometimes operations. And so there was this unbelievably innovative company and does help people with chronic care conditions, and the ability to mold that and shape that was unbelievable. And I'll eternally be grateful to uh Mike Korski and Front Row Fund for seeing value in me and being part of that.

Ken Huey 15:45

Yeah, that's just fantastic. So you're a visionary startup turnaround kind of an energy, and that person is phenomenal catalyst material. You're sort of like yeast in a loaf of bread. You you need a tablespoon, but you don't need a cup, you can need a tablespoon, right? And then around you, you need others that help balance that out with analytical skills and slow and ponderous and consider the right things. How do you make that part happen? Sure.

Roy Leitstein 16:14

So over the span of 30 plus years, I really established the most amazing network of friends and colleagues. And because I don't even like to call it workaholic, I don't differentiate my life and my work. So those two things are intertwined with each other, whether that's my kids, my son, I have a 24-year-old son who's a 911 dispatcher, communication. We live behavioral health every day, we live food as medicine every day. And so what I really do is find and cultivate the most wonderful relationships in the world. And then when a platform or an opportunity presents itself, again, I don't want to overstate this because a lot of it is super ugly. You could fill a crater in the moon with the mistakes that I've made since this morning. You you could just act my wife. I've been you know married for 26 years, but you want to surround yourself. I choose to surround myself with the smartest, autonomous, most intelligent people that are super passionate about what we're doing. And then when it doesn't work, at least you can go out and have a drink and yell together and call it and have a good time. But quite frankly, it's just been a wonderful journey.

Ken Huey 17:26

As we finish, let's talk a little bit about this because we're uh when we're done, I'll ask another question off the record. Okay, so build, grow, fantastic. You've had a great career doing it. How do you want to finish out the next 10 years, 15 years?

Roy Leitstein 17:41

Yeah, Ken, great question. There's no stop. I'm not finished with anything, right? So I actually run my family office. I invest and find these unbelievable platforms in healthcare across the way. And as each one of these may exit or right, we give our time to and funds to the the goodness web and to these efforts to constantly keep going. So for the next decade, what I would love to see is my family, my colleagues, and my friends help me continue to build VeraBus1R, which is our family platform. And you we have three rules can help people, right? First and foremost, through healthcare. The second rule is to make money, and we want exceptional return on our investment. And then the third one, which is probably most important, is no assholes, because in our experience, they cost you number one and number two.

Ken Huey 18:31

Oh, I love that, man. Gary V does a good job describing that, and it has become just listening to him, I I kind of know it, but it's solidified the same thing. And it's like that you just have to have a no assholes rule. Life is too short to be miserable doing work that takes up as much time as the rest of your life. Very cool. Okay, so if you were to give one message to somebody who feels defined by their past experiences, what would it be?

Roy Leitstein 18:57

I would say that you're right. Your past experiences do define who you were. I would say that your actions and experiences today and into the future would define who you are.

Ken Huey 19:14

Very nice. I don't know a better place to stop, Roy. We'll finish there. I you're doing just beautiful things in the world with an energy that is so enjoyable. I really want to say thank you for spending some time with us today.

Roy Leitstein 19:27

Oh, Ken, thanks so much. Like I said, I can't thank you enough for bringing voice to so many people that that actually might not be heard otherwise.

Ken Huey 19:35

Thanks for joining us on The Voice of Hope. If you were inspired, share the light. And remember, hope's not just a feeling, it's a force. We'll see you next time.