Beyond the Title: 12 Questions with Dr. Nestor Rodriguez
Dr. Nestor Rodriguez
Medical Director, Carbon World Health | Board-Certified Emergency Medicine Physician
Dr. Nestor Rodriguez is a board-certified emergency medicine physician and Medical Director of Carbon World Health. Born in El Salvador, he emigrated to South Central Los Angeles and became the first in his family to graduate high school. He earned his undergraduate degree in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology at Yale University, then his M.D. from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. He trained in UW's inaugural emergency medicine residency class, serving as Chief Resident and Assistant Residency Director before moving into private practice, blending emergency, sports, and cosmetic medicine into a holistic approach to health.
01Built to Last starts with a strong foundation. What is the foundation your leadership is built on, and how do you return to it when things get shaky?
My foundation is faith, family, and remembering why I started.
For a long time, I thought leadership meant being the strong one, the person who could carry more, work harder, solve the problem, and keep moving. Life has humbled me enough to realize that isn't always strength. Sometimes leadership is knowing what you shouldn't carry and being willing to ask for help.
When things get shaky, I try to return to God, my family, and the values underneath whatever I'm building. I ask myself: Am I doing this because it's aligned with who I am and what I believe, or because I'm trying to prove something? That question usually tells me when I've gotten off course.
02Where do you come from, and how do your roots keep you steady when leadership gets hard?
I was born in San Salvador, El Salvador. I spent my early childhood with my grandparents before coming to the United States and eventually being raised by my mother, Rosa, in South Central Los Angeles and the King Villages housing projects in Pasadena.
My mother was a single immigrant mother who worked incredibly hard to create opportunities for me that she never had herself. She cleaned homes and cared for other people's children while making sure her own son stayed focused on education.
I eventually went from those housing projects to Yale, medicine, and entrepreneurship. When leadership gets difficult, remembering where I came from gives me perspective. A difficult meeting or business problem looks different when I remember what my mother and grandparents had to overcome just to give me the opportunity to be in that room.
03What's a piece of advice that has stood the test of time for you, the kind you still come back to years later?
One of my mentors taught me a very simple framework:
Event + Response = Outcome.
I can't control every event. I can control my response.
That became much more meaningful after I ruptured both triceps tendons at the same time and suddenly went from physician, provider, entrepreneur, and the guy who fixed everything to someone who couldn't brush his own teeth.
I didn't choose what happened. But I was responsible for who I became in response to it.
That's something I now think about in business, medicine, marriage, parenting, and leadership.
04What's a book, quote, lyric, or scripture that has stayed with you and shaped how you lead or live?
There's a quote attributed to Tupac that I've carried for years: “I may not change the world, but I guarantee that I will spark the brain that will change the world.”
What that means to me has changed as I've gotten older.
When I was younger, I wanted to accomplish things myself. Now I think much more about multiplying people. If something I've learned helps one physician practice differently, one entrepreneur lead differently, one young person see a possibility they couldn't see before, or my children carry something forward that makes them better that matters.
I've learned that impact doesn't require ownership.
05What's something you've had to rebuild after it broke or fell apart, and what did that teach you about building things that last?
Ironically, I literally broke down physically.
A freak accident resulted in complete ruptures of both triceps tendons. After surgery, I couldn't use either arm. My wife and sister had to brush my teeth and tuck me into bed. At the same time, I was forced to confront things that were harder than the physical recovery, my identity, marriage, faith, leadership, and how much of my worth I had attached to being productive and useful.
Then, during that broader season of rebuilding, I lost my mother.
What I've learned is that the things built to last aren't necessarily the things that never break. They're the things with foundations strong enough to be rebuilt. And sometimes rebuilding produces something more honest than what existed before.
06What's one question every leader should ask if they want to build something that outlasts them, and why?
“If I'm no longer here, does what I'm building continue, or have I just built something that depends on me?”
That's a difficult question for entrepreneurs because being needed can feel like evidence that you're succeeding.
But if every decision, relationship, idea, and solution has to run through me, I haven't really built an organization. I've built myself a very complicated job.
Something that lasts requires developing people, creating systems, sharing knowledge, and eventually allowing other people to do things differently and sometimes better than you would.
07Who are you actively preparing to carry this work forward, and what are you doing to set them up to succeed without you?
This starts with my family and extends into Carbon World Health.
Ashley, my wife and co-founder, and I are trying to build something that is larger than either of us. At Carbon, that means developing providers and leaders rather than creating a healthcare organization where the answer is always, “Ask Nestor.”
It's also why education and mentorship matter so much to me. I'm increasingly focused on taking things I've learned through medicine, emergency care, entrepreneurship, failure, and life and turning them into systems other people can actually use.
Ultimately, I don't want my legacy to be that people needed me. I'd rather know that because I was there, other people became capable of carrying the work forward.
08When leadership feels heavy, what do you turn to (music, travel, culture, faith) that restores you and keeps you feeling like yourself?
Faith and family bring me back to center, and increasingly, so does music.
What's funny is that these days it's often Christian music, which is something I never would have expected myself to say years ago. I used to think of faith much more intellectually. Now it's become something I experience and live.
I'll put Christian music on and it can completely change where I am mentally. It inspires me, sometimes it makes me want to dance, and other times it simply heals my soul. It reminds me that I'm more than the physician, CEO, entrepreneur, or person responsible for solving the next problem.
Between prayer, Scripture, music, and time with my family, I reconnect with who I am underneath all the titles. That's usually what I need when leadership starts to feel heavy.
09When you think about the legacy you want to leave, what do you hope still stands long after you've moved on?
I've wrestled with this a lot because I used to think legacy was primarily what you built or passed down.
I see it differently now.
I hope my family knows that I loved them and was present. I hope Carbon improves lives long after I'm no longer running it. I hope physicians or leaders I've mentored pass something forward to people I'll never meet. And I hope my children take whatever was good in me and our family and build something even better from it.
My mother didn't leave behind a company, title, or fortune. But her resilience, faith, sacrifice, and love are alive in me.
That taught me that legacy isn't only what has your name on it. It's what continues because you were here.
10What's a small daily habit or discipline that has compounded into something meaningful over time?
Every morning, I pray and read the Bible.
That may sound simple, but it's actually a significant change in my life. For years, faith was something I understood more intellectually than intentionally. I believed in God, but as life became busier, faith slowly moved into the background while work, ambition, and responsibility took the foreground.
Now I start my mornings in Scripture and prayer, asking not just, “What does this mean?” but, “What does this mean for how I live today?”
I also share many of those reflections publicly. That's become part of my testimony. I'm not posting because I have faith figured out, I don't. I'm sharing what I'm learning while I'm still learning it.
That daily practice has taught me that faith isn't about perfection. It's about proximity and returning, every day.
11What's a moment in your life where the music playing in the background ended up meaning more than you expected, a song that showed up right when you needed it, or made an ordinary moment stick with you?
Music has always marked different versions of my life, but Tupac is probably the strongest thread.
Growing up in Los Angeles, his music spoke to the combination of anger, ambition, survival, and possibility I felt but didn't necessarily know how to articulate. When you come from an environment where expectations for you aren't always very high, there is something powerful about hearing someone insist that where you started doesn't determine where you have to finish.
What's interesting is that I hear some of that music differently now. When I was young, I heard defiance. Today, I hear the complexity underneath it.
The music hasn't changed. I have.
12What's a tradition in your life or family that you hope lasts for generations?
I always try to be the first person to call someone I love on their birthday.
Birthdays come every year, so it's easy to treat them as insignificant. I see them differently. I believe everyone deserves at least one day when we intentionally stop and celebrate the fact that they're here.
For me, it's first about gratitude to God for bringing that person into this world. But it's also about celebrating them exactly where they are regardless of what season of life they're going through, what they've accomplished, or what they may be struggling with.
Being the first call is my small way of saying, “Before this day gets busy, I want you to know that your life matters to me.”
I hope my children carry that forward. Because traditions don't have to be elaborate to become meaningful. Sometimes legacy is simply making sure the people you love never have to wonder whether they matter.