Welcome to our blog!

The Leaders Workout is a resource created by us – Tom Pappas and Dr. Sam Pappas.

Our goal is to teach you strategies, practices and wisdom to upgrade your leadership growth and personal health. We call this integrated approach to your growth and health Leadership Health.

Wisdom has been called: “deep understanding and practical skill in the central issues of life, especially existential and spiritual issues” [Roger Walsh]. This sense of “deep understanding” and “practical skill” is at the heart of our content.

We are honored and humbled that you chose to spend your precious time online with us.

Thank you for being here.

Who are we and why should you listen to us?

Our ideas are a combination of the experience of twin brothers who have a passion for leading, learning, healing and mentoring other leaders.

Tom is a West Point grad, Army veteran and international business executive working and living in Europe for more than 20 years. Here is his LinkedIn profile.

Sam is a board-certified physician in Internal Medicine and founder of Pappas Health, a health and wellness practice in Northern Virginia which combines the best of traditional and integrative medicine

Together they combine a loyalty to their Greek heritage (ancient and modern) and years long experience in leadership, personal transformation, optimal health and vitality.

When Tom finished his military service and entered the business world, he began to develop his own ideas on leadership growth. Tom combined hard-won experience from West Point and the US Army, and a growing world view living and working overseas with the health wisdom of his brother Dr Sam Pappas.

Tom realized that the combined wisdom of a leader and a healer was the key to his personal and professional growth.

Here are the 4 major life experiences that informs our perspective:

1. Sons of Hellenism: The wisdom and values of Greek immigrants. We are the products of the Greek diaspora. We are proud “Sons of Hellenism:” inheritors of the wisdom and values of Greek immigrants and their rich history and traditions. Our parents, like thousands of emigrants in history before them, left their homeland following war. If you’ve seen the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding, you’ve got a good picture of our family life growing up as the sons of Greek immigrants. We often thought as youths, not too modestly, we must admit, that we were the product of two of the greatest civilizations in history: The ancient Greeks and the modern Americans. This experience of being a part of two worlds informed our future leadership and health experiences.

2. Experiencing the world’s greatest leadership training institutions: West Point and the US military. It was a fascination of the heroes of our Hellenic heritage that lead Tom to his first career and initial leadership experience in the military. Inspired by the martial vigor, service to noble causes and the wisdom of the warrior-philosophers and warrior-statesmen of our ancient Greek ancestors, he was called to begin his career path in the military. He was fortunate enough to attend West Point and become a junior officer serving in the US Army, Europe.

3. An overseas American working and living in Europe. Tom’s entire career has been an overseas American living and working in Europe. He began his career as a young lieutenant working for the US Army in Europe. He transitioned to the civilian world through business school and then began working throughout Europe. His travel, work with different cultures and leading people of different ethnicities, languages and worldviews has expanded his perspectives on influencing others.

4. Combining traditional and integrative medicine. Sam realized that years of traditional medical training and academic knowledge proved an inadequate compass to add value to his patient’s health beyond “taking a pill to match the ill.” This triggered a pursuit for a more comprehensive understanding of real health and wellness, what Hippocrates called positive health. He vigorously pursued the study of the Greek origins of health, not only in its ancient forms but also of the amazing data emerging on the health and longevity of the resilient post World War 2 and pre-industrial age peasant farmers of Greece, in particular Crete and more recently the Blue Zone of Ikaria. This resonated with what he was witnessing first hand in regularly visiting the rural villages of our forefathers in Greece. The result was a fusion of traditional and integrative medicine that combines the best of ancient wisdom and modern science.

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