2.25M Q&A | My Morning Routine, Managing Stress, and Mindset Shifts with Growth

Hey everyone, welcome to the Dr. Josh Axe Show. On today's episode, I'm going to be answering your questions. So we'll be doing a Q&A. Here are a few things I'm going to be hitting on. Number one, what you should consume first thing in the morning. Also, I'll be going through deficiencies that could be causing anxiety.

I'll be answering a question about the secrets to longevity and how to fight an immoral society and more on today's podcast. Also, hey, if you have questions, I have answers. Feel free to go on Instagram. That's where I tend to post these Q&As. You can submit your questions and then I'll answer them as part of the show.

And also, I do regular Q&As on Instagram as well, so you can follow me on there. Also on YouTube, if you're watching the video there, I can answer your questions there. But again, run over typically to YouTube or Instagram and And submit your questions, and that's where I'll be answering most of these questions.

If you have a burning question that you want answered, and I love these because I never know what I'm going to get, I'm always surprised by some of the fantastic questions you're asking. So, let's dive in. First question, what should someone consume first thing in the morning? Well, I believe consumption goes beyond food, so I'll get into that, but I want to start with food.

The first thing I would say is, You want to consume protein, fiber, a little bit of healthy fat, and lots of nutrients. Okay, you can get some carbs there as well, but really you want to make sure you don't want to spike your blood sugar too much early in the morning. So what I tend to do every morning for breakfast is I will do a collagen superfood smoothie.

And so I put in 1 scoop of bone broth protein, I put in a scoop of collagen. So I tend to get— and then I might even put in a little bit of plant protein. I try and get about 40 grams of protein. Wow. First thing in the morning, and a mixture of muscle-building proteins and collagen-building proteins at about 40 grams, probably 20 and 20. The next thing I'll put in is some sort of berries.

It'll be blueberries. I also like adding in sometimes goji berry powder or maqui berry, some sort of superfruits in there. And then, and so, and by the way, I'm getting my protein, I'm getting loads and loads of nutrients and a little bit of carbs and fiber from the berries. And then I might add in something like just water or coconut milk if I want to get some healthy fats in.

And on occasion, maybe I'll add some super greens or a handful of spinach. But that's pretty much what I do almost every morning for breakfast. But the idea there is you want to get protein, fiber, and nutrients first thing every morning.

And a few other examples would be you could do something like a small amount, like a half a cup of oatmeal with some walnuts and collagen and a side of eggs, or sweet potato hash with, uh, that you cook, fry up, or cook up in some coconut oil with some sea salt, and then do a couple eggs that are pasture-raised there on the But what I tend to do in the morning again is do that superfood smoothie.

It's so easy. Try and get those antioxidants and nutrients from the berries, get some collagen and some good protein there as well. So that's what I would recommend for consumption in the morning. Then in terms of supplements, what I do, I do a lot. I'm going to answer these more with longevity later, but there are certain things that I really try and get.

And by the way, sometimes it depends on how I'm feeling, it depends on the year or the time of season, but I always try and get my supplements first thing. So according to Chinese medicine, your digestive system and absorption is the strongest first thing in the morning, and here's why. Your body has just been through a fasted state. So let's say maybe you're 12 hours fasted.

You ate at 6 o'clock, and maybe you're eating— or 7 o'clock or 6, and you're eating again at 6 or 7. So your body has 12 hours of sort of resting, recycling, healing. It's when your gut is typically the strongest and healthiest. It's also when you're going to tend to have maximum absorption according to ancient physicians.

And so I tend to do almost all of my supplements in the morning, and it's also the time when people I found with patients, they have the best compliance and they're the least forgetful. So first thing in the morning, and I tend to do again bone broth protein and collagen, I will tend to do some sort of herbals. I do a lot of turmeric, um, I do ashwagandha frequently as well as an adaptogen.

I do a lot of reishi mushroom in my supplements or a multi-mushroom mix. I tend to do a liver supplement or an organ blend of organs, um, and then I'll do some sort of maybe greens powder And that's typically what I do. Now, on occasion, if I, if I'm not getting much fish that week, I might do an omega-3 supplement. If it's the middle of winter, I'll probably do a vitamin D supplement.

If I'm feeling like I need my bowels to move more, I need some relaxation, I might do something like a magnesium or CBD. So it really just depends. If, or if I'm not feeling the best, I might do some elderberry or zinc or astragalus. But generally speaking, what I just shared are probably the 5 to 7 things I do on a regular basis.

Now, I also do some longevity supplements that have And I will mention some later on that sometimes I cycle in when it comes to longevity. Here's the other thing. So, biggest things consumption-wise, I think you wanted me to answer the foods I eat and the supplements I take in the morning, and I did that.

I also want to mention though, I think there are other things that are vitally important in the morning. And for me, it's spiritual connection. I do every morning what I call my spiritual triathlon. I wake up in a state of gratitude saying, God, thank you so much. I'm grateful for this day. I'm grateful for my family.

For how blessed I am to have the incredible family I have, to have a roof over my head, to have helped me grow in my health the way that I've grown, to be blessed, uh, in a career that I love where I get to help people.

So I spend time getting really grateful for in the morning, and then I might read something, could be my Bible or spiritual growth book, and then I might spend some time praying or, uh, or meditating or while going on a walk. And so that tends to be sort of my thing in the morning. But I believe in connection to the spirit, to, to God in the morning. And then I believe in human connection.

And so So, I love to give my baby girl a hug, you know, my, my 3-year-old and my, my 10-week-old right now. I love to give my wife a hug and sort of human connection. One big hug in the morning helps nourish the soul. Uh, and then movement, that'd be the last thing that I try and really get in the morning is that I, and by the way, I try and always stay off social media in the morning.

I try not to look at social media really until the afternoon. Now, sometimes because of work, I get on there and connect with, with, with, with, with you all and others, but overall. I really try and limit my social media. And in the morning, I will try and either I exercise or I will go for a walk. So like this morning, I'll just share with you my morning. Same thing.

I woke up, did my spiritual triathlon. I woke up, said what I was grateful for, brushed my teeth. Um, and then I walked downstairs and I did that superfood smoothie while reading my, uh, my Bible devotional. And then I went to the gym and worked out. I got home, I hugged my wife, I hugged my, My, my, my daughter, and then I jumped into work, and then now I'm filming actually right now.

So, so that's, so that's sort of what my, my, my day looks like. And then I'll try and walk. By the way, there's just great research on walking. It— listen, if you are not exercising, any day you don't exercise, you should walk. And I would say doing just a brisk walk, a brisk walk where you're just a little out of breath, where you can still talk, have a conversation. It's called zone 2 cardio.

So, so if you can do that, Where you're doing a brisk walk for 20 minutes a couple times a day. Studies have shown it increases your longevity, so you'll live longer. It helps in balancing out blood sugar. It helps with numerous conditions. And so, but that's, that's what your morning should look like ideally. All right, next question here. Can deficiencies contribute to nightmares or anxiety?

The answer is yes. So if you are struggling with anxiety, or depression or OCD or a mental health disorder, or again, if it's a child with a nightmare, there are numerous studies on the nutrients that are related to these sort of issues. Now, listen, I think it tends to be a deeper issue though. Most often if somebody's having anxiety or nightmares, that tends to be the feeling of lack of safety.

Anxiety also tends to be more tied to the future. You're worried about a future event where depression tends to be more You're living in the past with something that you regret or shame, or, or something didn't go your way, so you're living in the past. Anxiety is more future. So that being said, um, but, but let me get into the nutritional deficiencies here.

Let me first talk about nightmares in children. Uh, research shows that vitamin D and low calcium intake are linked to higher likelihood of nightmares. Now, the nutrients I'm also going to get into now as well, I think also Maybe play a bigger role than this one single study I just referenced. Here are the nutrients that most likely contribute to anxiety and potential nightmares.

Number 1 is magnesium. Magnesium is known as the relaxation mineral. It's responsible for over 300 different, different activities in the body, whether it be, you know, helping take one amino acid to another, enzyme interactions. Anyway, it does a lot. Okay. So magnesium, Is very important. And if you have anxiety, it's the number one mineral you should take.

Now, the next thing you should consider taking— there's a study on this, there's an animal study that has shown that choline supplementation during pregnancy can prevent or dramatically reduce the chance of offspring developing anxiety disorders. So here's the reality. It's something called epigenetics.

If the mom struggles with anxiety, And by the dad, this is true too, because the mom is also passing on the dad's DNA. But if the parents struggle with anxiety, depression, or any medical condition, that can be passed on to the kids.

However, if you are up on and taking and getting enough nutrients and absorbing them well via having a healthy digestive tract and liver— typically those are the most important organ systems for, for digestion. I would throw in the pancreas there as well. Uh, but I would say that it's going to decrease your likelihood of your kids having these same disorders.

So choline, and choline is found in the highest levels by far in organ meats like liver, following that, egg yolks. Okay, so, so these are, these are, these are, these are animal-based products. Organ meats like liver are high in all of them. All of them, every single one, the highest source. When I look at the ones I'm going to mention.

So here, here's what they found if you're struggling with anxiety to be deficient in: magnesium, choline, B vitamins, especially vitamin B6, amino acids, iron, and zinc. Again, the one food you can eat that would actually address almost every one of those issues would be consuming organ meats.

Now listen, you don't have to go and eat organ meats if you really hate the bitter sort of metallic taste of liver, you can just take it in capsule form or tablet form. In fact, Ancient Nutrition, that's the brand I take, they have a great one-a-day organ supplement where you just have to take literally one single tablet. They also have their higher dose, but, but that's what I take.

And they have a blend for women, uh, called, called, I think it's Women's Vitality Organ Blend. And you could go online and search or go to Ancient Nutrition, look up organ supplement. And then I take one called Male Performance. It's really helping men I'm in my 40s, really trying to keep testosterone higher, which helps slow the aging process. It's a great anti-aging supplement.

And I'm trying to be, you know, I want to be 100. I want to be the next Jack LaLanne. So all that being said, that is the, the supplement or the food that actually is going to best address these issues. But again, choline's important. I mentioned B6, certain amino acids.

This is why kids, you need to make sure also if they're having nightmares, they're getting plenty of protein in their diet and they're not going too carb heavy because sugar. Will deplete their body of all of these minerals, or if their diet's too acidic, if they're doing fast food, they'll start pulling these minerals and nutrients out of their bones and organs. Uh, iron, of course, and zinc.

Okay, so these are, these are, these are the ones we're looking at here. So, um, I, I'd recommend if you do have anxiety or mental health issues or anything that's affecting your mood, I would recommend taking organ supplements. I would recommend, or get these individual nutrients on the list by taking a good quality multivitamin would help address a lot of these issues as well.

Um, and then eating a diet really high in meat, vegetables, fruit, and healthy fats would help address this. All right, next question here: what longevity practices do you incorporate into your daily life?

Well, before I jump into the foods, I want to, I want to dive into exercise, because when you look at the clinical research Um, the studies on exercise are just as efficacious as what you eat when it comes to longevity. So movement is really important. There are really 3 forms of movement you want to focus on if you want to live a long time: strength, stamina, and stability.

When it comes to strength, it's not having just big muscles, it's more just being strong. It's like if you, if you want to pick up your grandkids when you're in your 70s off the floor, You know, that's the equivalent of, let's say it's, you know, let's say it's a 25-pound kettlebell. Can you do a sumo, like, like a squat?

Squat down with your back not rounded, grab a kettlebell off the floor and lift it back up. Okay. So you need that sort of functional strength if you wanna live a long time. So for myself, I really am not in the phase now where I'm trying to lift to build bigger muscles. I'm trying to lift to live longer, uh, and improve my longevity.

So I do a lot of exercises with kettlebells, a lot of functional movements of things like that. Some of the most important movements are hip hinges, where you're sort of, again, hip hinging or doing— it's a version of a squat or what could be a deadlift without weight, but you're hinging at your hips, you're grabbing something like a kettlebell and coming back up.

That's one of the most important movements. Another very important movement is pulling, whether it be a pull-up or a row with a dumbbell, whatever it is, that's an important movement to have. Pushing movements could be a push-up or just holding a plank in that position as well, um, is very important.

So those are some of the ones you probably want to think about, uh, areas of strength there you want to build. And then stamina, that's going for a really brisk walk. Okay, so that's very important. And then being able to do a little bit of— if you want to do something that is going to help increase your VO2 max, and that's going really hard between a minute to 4 minutes.

And then resting for that equivalent amount of time. That could be jogging at a track and walking for the same amount of time. It could be getting on a spin bike like a Peloton and doing interval training. You know, there's a lot of different ways, or it could be in the pool doing this depending on your joint health.

But I would say you want to build strength, stamina, and the other big thing is stability. And you're going to tend to build stability through what I talked about earlier, doing those exercises that are functional movement related where you're really Working on doing things very thoughtful.

Uh, and, and there are, if, if you do wanna increase stability, there are a couple great ways to train for this. There's one called DNS. Um, it's really training your nerve system. It's starting out like you're a baby. There's another one called PRI, Postural Restoration Institute.

Um, but basically all that being said, if you wanna live a long time, work on strength with weights, work on stamina, doing that sort of brisk walking. Uh, sort of exercise with a little bit of sort of that HIIT training, um, and then do a little bit of stability. It's basically— stability is balance.

One of the number one reasons why, uh, elderly people, uh, can die, uh, is— and, and suddenly, if there's a slip and fall, okay, lack of stability, it's you're stepping off a step that's a little bit steeper than you thought, right? Broken hips. I mean, clinically, that's something that happens very frequently.

Strength St— stamina and stability slash balance, being able to stand on one foot for 30 seconds, that will help increase your lifespan. Now, in terms of supplements, uh, what I try and get are most of them in food form. So let me get into foods first and then I'll talk about supplements.

So when you look at longevity, and I think this is both demonstrated by sort of the Eastern mindset of ancient Asian medicine as well as Western medicine today, of what foods best promote longevity. Today we hear of a lot of diets like a Mediterranean diet. Or an Okinawan diet being best for longevity.

And the foods I'm gonna share with you tend to fall in these categories, but you wanna do foods that are both nutri— nutrient dense, uh, easy to digest, and have some sort of benefits for helping regenerate your cells. By the way, that's the key to longevity, that you have really good— you slow cellular breakdown and you increase cellular regeneration. And you do that in 3 ways.

You do it by Um, getting more energy to your cells, so getting good sleep at night is critical. So sleep and stress being lowered, or how you react to stress, that's number one for longevity. Number 2 is you got to reduce cellular, uh, poisons, right? We're constantly have these toxins that we're exposed to, and we, and we have to limit that.

And the other one is making sure your body has the right building blocks to regenerate your cell walls and your body's mitochondria, which is the energy, sort of the engine of your cell. So we need to have certain nutrients to do that.

So here are the top foods that are going to support cellular— prevent cellular breakdown, which is basically when cells divide and break down, that shortens your telomeres, which reduces your lifespan. You want to keep those telomeres long. And so here are some things you can do. Number 1, you want to get a moderate amount of bone broth, Red meat, wild fish.

And so, you want to get some healthy quality protein in your diet because having more muscle mass and strength is going to help you live longer. The next one is going to be organ meats. Again, liver, kidney, heart, doing those organs is helpful. Healthy fats, olives in particular help increase lifespan because they have a unique type of antioxidant called a polyphenol.

And so, getting olives and extra virgin olive oil, by the way, When you're buying olive oil, it should be expensive because most olive oil today, it's, it's filtered and watered down. By the way, I did a podcast episode years ago, I remember this, and I had an expert on olive oil come in and they did a study at a university. So this wasn't a, a survey or an idea, this was an actual study.

And they found that most things that are labeled olive oil are not purely olive oil. Most of the time they're laced with canola oil, Or a vegetable oil, or the olives were not fully ripened. And so there are major issues. And I want to say it was close to 70%. I mean, really, when you look at the studies, it really was astounding.

So just know you want to get— when you taste olive oil, it should be herbaceous, it should be strong, it should be like herbs bursting in your mouth. It should taste almost a little green. And so— and I know I just said something should taste like a color, but I think you know what I'm talking about. Okay. It should be herbaceous. Okay. So, but olives are a great longevity food.

Avocados are great. Coconut is another great— but those are my 3 favorite healthy fat sources when it comes to longevity, along with probably something like I mentioned earlier, wild-caught salmon or fish that has those omega-3 fatty acids. The next would be onions and garlic. You know, onions are very high in a compound called quercetin. Quercetin is oftentimes found in longevity formulas.

It really helps modulate your immune system, also helps with the health of your body's mitochondria, repair of your those cellular engines. Pomegranates are probably the number one fruit or one of the top fruits. The reason is they contain a compound called ellagic acid. Okay, and ellagic acid also turns into a product or compound that's popular today called urolithin A.

Now most people don't fully digest this ellagic acid, and so they're not fully. Getting this urolithin A, uh, that helps support longevity. But again, pomegranates in particular are a very, very incredible longevity food because of all of this ellagic acid and antioxidants, all the fiber. So that's probably the top— one of the top things I could mention here. Next would be berries, of course.

I think you'd recognize this: blueberries, raspberries, blackberries. And in Chinese medicine, goji berries were known as being the top berry for anti-aging. And all of these berries have a number of things. In fact, some of these berries have, uh, like blueberries have resveratrol, which, which really slows the aging process.

Anthocyanins, which are found in blueberries and cranberries and some of those berries. And so you do want to get a lot of berries in your diet because they sort of reduce that free radical damage and they protect your cells from— and those telomeres from being shortened. The next is going to be vegetables, right?

Uh, lutein, xanthine, A lot of those compounds in there will help slow the aging process. Mushrooms are fantastic. Listen, here's why mushrooms are so powerful. They contain a very, very unique compound called beta-glucans, which help support cellular communication.

One of the reasons why you age more quickly than you want to— and if you're one of those people out there and you want to reduce the wrinkles, you want to put them off as long as possible, or the age spots, or just generally you care less about how you look, you just want to Feel younger and be working out still, playing with your grandkids in your 80s and 90s.

If that's you, mushrooms are amazing because what they do is they support cellular communication.

One of the reasons why you don't heal, if you have a cut that is taking longer to heal, if your immune system or your— it's taken you a long time to overcome a virus or you're not beating it, if you're not beating hypothyroidism or diabetes, one of the reasons why is your cells have lost the ability to fully communicate. Now, this happens with type— with diabetes, right?

You have these insulin, these receptor sites that essentially become deaf because all of the sugar starts to burn them out. But, but that's a signaling issue. That's a cellular communication issue where those cells of the pancreas are no longer hearing or receiving the messages from the other cells of the body. Mushrooms help repair and fix this.

And so they also tell your body to send stem cells or growth factors or certain nutrients to areas to repair and create a whole new, new healthy cell. And so if you want to heal and live a long time, this is why mushrooms are the most prized food in traditional Chinese medicine for longevity.

Reishi mushrooms, shiitake, maitake, oyster mushrooms, they all contain these beta-glucans that help with this cellular communication Improving longevity. Also, many mushrooms have other compounds which act as adaptogens to lower stress hormones, like reishi mushroom does, or to charge your cellular battery and strengthen your mitochondria, like cordyceps mushrooms.

And so mushrooms— and here's what I would say is, hey, if you're grilling up a burger, buy some mushrooms like shiitake and oyster or some of those wild mushrooms or maitake and, you know, fry them up in a little bit of coconut oil and have those with your burger. If you're making a soup, Add some mushrooms to it.

But getting mushrooms and onions on a regular basis, loads and loads of benefits there. And those go great with a lot of different food dishes, just in terms of your own enjoyment. A few, a few last things here, and then I'll get into the next question that is just so important for you living a long time.

And if you're one of those people, again, you want to live to be 100 years old and healthy, or here's the thing, let's say, because I— here's what's crazy. I did a social media post. This is about 6 months ago. And I said, here are some things you need to do to live to be, to live to be a centurion. You know, the most common comment I got from a certain group of people?

I don't want to live to be 100. Now, let me, let me ask you this. If you felt like you were 25 years old and you were 100 years old, would you say that? Would you say, well, I don't want to live to be 100? You wouldn't. No. It's because pain and the breakdown as we age and just not feeling well. Or maybe you saw a family member suffer with Dementia, right? There's a lot of pain there.

And so, what I would say is, here's the thing. Today, we're seeing this more than ever before. You can feel like you're in your 50s if you're 80, if you follow these longevity practices like I'm sharing here. Couple more things. Honey is fantastic. Don't do too much of it, just a little, a teaspoon or so of raw local honey, Manuka honey, especially if you can get it as royal jelly.

If you can buy honey that has royal jelly in it, That's what the queen bee uses for and consumes for increasing her lifespan, which is much greater. I believe it's 3 times longer than other bees in the beehive. It's very, very good.

So getting some honey slash royal jelly, and there's other foods that are great— figs and walnuts and, and some others that would be good for longevity— but this list here are some of the best. In terms of supplementation, again, getting some of those superfruits could be goji berry powder, maca, those sort of things.

Like acai, getting greens in your powder like super greens like spirulina and chlorella, NMN powder— that's a form of NAD, which is really a, a, it's very similar to niacin, vitamin B3, but it's the most— people believe it's probably the most convertible. NR or NMN, both. Um, astragalus, reishi mushroom— these are probably some of the best longevity supplements.

And so look out for things with those ingredients will help you live longer. Um, let me go through the full list here though. You know, ellagic acid from pomegranate, reishi mushroom, ginseng. In Chinese medicine is known— and you shouldn't, you really shouldn't use ginseng until you're probably in your 60s, unless you're sick, then you should, at least that as a higher dose.

But ginseng is great for longevity. Green tea, matcha, contains a compound called EGCG. I mentioned goji berry, fo-ti for men, very good for anti-aging. Um, resveratrol, which is found in grape skins and Japanese knotweed, ashwagandha, turmeric, and then dong quai for women. And in terms of nutrients, zinc and vitamin D, also important for longevity. All right, let's go to the next question here.

How has your mindset changed with success and growth in your life? You know what, I think early in my life I believed that success was What somebody accomplished.

I think I thought if somebody, uh, you know, built a big social media following or made millions of dollars or, uh, or got recognized on the COVID of a magazine, or like for me, like I remember when I was a young doctor thinking like, okay, if I got on the Dr. Oz Show— now I was honored to be on there probably nearly 10 times.

I was, I was a regular guest on his show, but I used to think, Wow, like that would, you know, maybe that's success. Or I had the opportunity to work with the Olympic team, you know, and, and work with those athletes. And I thought, wow. But, but, but as I got older, I realized that stuff isn't success at all. Success is not what you accomplish, it's who you become.

You know, I had an opportunity to sit at my grandfather's funeral and he lived to be 96 years old. And, and so many people were there and just loved my grandfather so much. And when I was standing there with my grandfather at my grandfather's funeral, I realized This is success, that your family loved you. They wanted to come see you. Like, like he blessed so many people.

Now, my grandfather was not wealthy. In fact, they were fairly poor, my grandparents. And, you know, they, yeah, they just didn't have a lot. And he was never on the COVID of a magazine. You would never have heard about him. His name was Howard Wellman. But he lived a really successful life because he had a great relationship with God. He, his family, he had incredible relationships.

I mean, he would go once a week to a hospital, even if he barely knew somebody, and sit there and pray with them, hold their hand, bring them food, talk with them. He, he was one of those people that just did it on a regular basis. Um, and so my point there is, is that think about this: your success is not based on what you accomplish, it's based on who you become.

And who you become is based mostly on 2 factors: the greatest version of you Growing in your character, and then also taking your God-given gift, that thing that you are very unique in, and growing in that to the highest capacity.

So for instance, Michelangelo's an example of, he took the gift of an artist and took it to the absolute max in creating the Sistine Chapel and the Pietà and the Statue of David, right? As an example of that, or somebody in character, think about Mother Teresa, right?

So if you can grow in your unique gift and your character, Then you become the greatest version of yourself, and you should do that towards the greatest good. The greatest good is what makes Earth— it brings heaven to Earth. It makes Earth like a heavenly place.

Like the entire world becomes like the Garden of Eden, and everybody's feeling loved and connected, and they're growing and helping others do the same. So I would say this, my mind is very much changed on success is not accomplishing things.

Now listen, if you become a certain type of person full of character and worth, work ethic and wisdom and leadership and love, Then you're going to accomplish great things. But you can do certain things, accomplish great things that aren't for good.

I mean, I think about people like Bill Gates or Klaus Schwab or George Soros, and they're doing great things towards evil, towards destroying the earth. They actually think of people as a virus. And so all that being said, if you want to live the most successful life possible, and by the way, I heard a billionaire say this recently.

He was in an interview and he was asked, hey, what is the thing you're most proud of? Like, what's your greatest accomplishment? And everybody thought he said, well, that I built this billion-dollar company. And he answered, he said, it's that my kids want to come home and spend the holidays with me. So they all love coming home. I have really great relationship with my kids.

He's like, that's my, definition of success. And while I don't think that's the pinnacle, I do think that that is part of the pinnacle. That is one of those things that, that we should all aspire to have. And so for me, my perspective is who I become. I'm more loving, more generous, more kind, uh, and my priorities are really God, my family, my health, and impacting this world for good.

So that to me, that's success, uh, more than anything. Okay. Number 6, do you have tips for managing stress? Yeah, I would say this. When it comes to managing stress, here's my first tip: change the way you perceive stress. Okay? Understand that all stress isn't bad. It's too much stress is bad. It's, it's like lifting weights.

If you are, you know, doing bicep curls and you're doing the right amount of weight, your core is really engaged and you're, you're doing a certain amount of weight. Then, then that's going to only help build your muscle. Okay?

But if you try and do way too much weight and you're arching your back and you can hardly get up and you do it for too long and then you tear your bicep, well, that's not good. That's like too much stress. You start really causing damage. Sometimes even, you know, could, could be even permanent. Uh, and, and not, not, not usually, but could be, of course, like anything.

So all that being said, Yeah. Alia Crum has a study. She's a Stanford psychologist, and, and she really talks about that stress is more about how you perceive it than the actual stress itself. So if you're in a stressful situation at work, you have a deadline, there, there, there's 2 ways to look at that. One is you could be thinking about all the bad things that could happen.

They're gonna be dis— my boss is gonna be disappointed. I'm gonna have to work all night. I'm gonna be exhausted the next day. You can think about all the negatives related to the stress you're about to go through. Or you could say, you know what, I'm gonna do my best. I'm gonna put in an extra few hours today, 11 hours. I'm gonna give it my all, and then I'm gonna go to bed.

And you know what, that's all I'm called to do is just give it, give it, give it my all and not be connected to the outcome. Just be connected to just get doing your best. It's gonna be very, very, there are very, very different levels of stress hormones and cortisol that will be, be released based on your mindset about the stress you're about to experience. Or that you're going through.

So number one way to manage stress is perceive stress as sometimes being good and knowing. And, and then, and then here's the second thing, schedule time for things you love to do that build peace. You're going to have stress, you're gonna be in traffic jams. Now that's perception too. Just think about, you know what, hey, this is nice.

I'm gonna put on my favorite song, or I'm gonna listen to an audiobook, or I'm gonna call a friend I haven't talked to in a while, right? So there's different ways. So perception is number one. Number 2 is schedule things that help free your mind. Here's what I found for myself. If I work after dinner, I get unhealthy. I can tell, like it affects my body physiologically. Like I feel it.

If after dinner, if I just shut it off and I don't work anymore and I spend time with my family and my kids and just do, then I'm really healthy. So I know my limit is once it's time for dinner. Do not work after dinner. Like, that's for myself. Okay? If I'm exercising, maybe also get a 30-minute walk in around lunch and that sort of thing.

And I'm working on reading my spiritual growth, re— you know, on a, a spiritual growth book or the Bible regularly. If I have all those practices, and then I also have a date night with my wife, I have maybe a guys' night with some of my closest friends, or we have a couples' night. And I also schedule in these pockets and I take a Sabbath.

I take one day off on the weekend, either Saturday or Sunday, where I just do No work. So, so my point is, is, is one, change your perception about stress. Number 2, have a plan. Have weekly things scheduled, daily habits and weekly things you're doing that build joy and peace to where you're not thinking about things that are stressful.

And if you can do that, that will really, really help you manage stress. Next question. How can I learn to not be bothered by other people's opinions of me? You know, I read a book years ago and here was the title, When People Are Big and God Is Small. And the book was about this specifically.

If the opinion that others have about you is more important than God's opinion about you, that's when you will suffer. So for myself, by the way, the way I overcame this, and if you've ever jumped online, I have people that throw out, you know, insults at me constantly. I mean, constantly. It's crazy. And so in, in early on, it bothered me even more.

And then over the years, it's less and less and less. And now I really don't care at all. Uh, and not, not, not say, I shouldn't say at all. I care very little, right? I'm not perfect in this, but I would say is the more that I spent time reading and meditating on, this is who God says I am.

These are, this is who the people that I care most about as well, the people I, that are very high in integrity say about me. The less I cared about what other people said about me. Okay? And the other thing is I changed my perspective. So again, here, here's what happened. I went and said, okay, God said I'm made in his image. He says he loves me. He said I'm uniquely made.

He said he, he formed me in the, like, I'm created with a plan and purpose. So I embraced and, and grabbed ahold of all those things about what God said about me. Okay? And then I went and I thought about who are, who are the people that are really high in character? That are leaders that have said things about me and some things that they've said. Okay?

It could have been my teacher, Mrs. Williams, who told me I was a great writer. It could have been my soccer coach who congratulated me for having the hardest work ethic on the team. It could have been my dad who told me he was proud of me, or my grandfather, or just people I really respected.

And I gravitated towards the good, and I cut out the negative for the most part, unless I worked on it and got better. Sometimes we need to listen to to the negative. We should a lot, a lot in terms of if it's somebody that is admirable, but we take those things and we focus more on those things. And so that's number one. And I think if, and by the way, there's a quote by J.R.R.

Tolkien that I love. He's the author of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. And he says this in The Lord of the Rings. He said, the praise of the praiseworthy is above all rewards. Who do you find praiseworthy? Right? And so now go and look again. God is praiseworthy, right? People that are saints, people that have transformed the world, they are admirable people.

And so we should care more about their opinion than others, right? So most the people that are throwing around or have negative opinions of you, they tend to be low character people. Most often. Okay. And so what I would say is, and, and, and, you know, and, and focus on the positive comments more than the negative. Okay. Now listen, I wanna share this.

If I get a comment on YouTube and somebody has some criticism, criticism of me, if it is a non-slanderous criticism, I read it and I take it to heart and I think about, okay, is that right? Um, could I do that better? And so I learn a lot from people's comments. But if it's like, I'll give you an example. You know, my degree is not as an MD, it's as a, it's as a DC, Doctor of Chiropractic. It is.

I have a Doctor of Natural Medicine degree. I have a CNS, and actually I graduated Johns Hopkins. So those, those are all great. But still somebody say, well, you're not an MD. Well, I could let that really bother me, but it doesn't because I'm actually more well-trained than 99% of MDs out there.

All that being said, You know, you need to really be able to, um, focus on the positive, not on the negative. And so that's what I would say. But I think, you know, read more about what God says about you. Read more, you know, think more about the positive comments in the past. Read more of the positive comments. A lot of it's about perception again. Okay, next question.

What are the best ways to, uh, to be strong in character And act like Jesus in a modern world. Okay. Most all of us act the way we act because we're modeling someone else. You know, I have a, I have a 3-year-old daughter, 3-and-a-half-year-old daughter right now. And so what she sees me do, she does. What she hears, we say, like, I'll give you an example.

Like my mother-in-law now started saying, whoa, Nelly. So now my daughter says, whoa, Nelly. Like, where else would she have learned that? You know? That saying. And, um, and so like she, she models everything we do. You still do this, you just don't, you're not as aware of it. Okay. But for the most part, we're modeling other people.

And so it's very hard to act like Jesus or act like, if, if you're not a, a Christian, you know, act like Moses or act like Gandhi or act like somebody who had amazing virtuous character. It's hard to act like that in a modern world when you don't know them. You have to know the person. Ancient rabbis, there was a saying that you should be covered in the dust of your rabbi.

That's how close you follow them. You go in the bathroom, they go. You eat what they eat. You study what they study. And so it's this form of mentorship, discipleship, of following in their footsteps, right? So if you want to have strong character, You've got to know him.

And so if your role model is Jesus, you should read the New Testament, the 4 Gospels over and over and over and over again on audiobook. You should read in hardcover when you're working out, when you're driving places. You should have studies deeper into it. You should have— and that's— and you should pray and have a 2-way conversation. And so that's the best way. And then also do what he does.

Even if you don't understand why, do what he does. Okay? And a very similar thing, it's like if you want to be different in a modern world, listen, this applies to every— let's talk about wealth building. If you don't want to succumb to the pre— if you're a financial investor, Warren Buffett was asked why he's so successful at investing.

And one part of his answer was, Because I ignore all the media. He goes, I read the newspaper, like the back pages. I read, you know, I, I go and read up on the leadership of the group. I meet people, like I do that, but I completely ignore the media and the hype.

So a similar thing, if you don't want to be part of the modern world and modern culture, and by the way, nobody that goes with modern culture is successful. If you're part of modern culture, for the most part, outside of the entertainment industry, And using character, you tend not to be the most successful. Like Warren Buffett is not normal. Elon Musk is not normal. Okay?

These people are not normal. And so, if you want to not be normal, you need to study the person that's not normal, the 1%, and act like them and follow in their footsteps. Read about them, watch their videos, do everything you can to be more like them. Here's another thing I want to give you an example of. There's a lot of false ideas out there.

There was a Super Bowl ad recently, and it was actually about Jesus, and it was called He Gets Us. Okay? And that Super Bowl ad actually really what they were trying to say is, and they were showing Jesus washing feet, okay, which Jesus did. But also it became very political and more left-wing in the sense of, They were showing somebody that would be protesting, like Planned Parenthood.

Like they sort of portrayed them as sort of the evil person in the video. But I want to say this. I think that it's really important that when you look at, you really know somebody. Because when you look at, again, I'm going to see, because you asked about Jesus, I'm going to give you an example here. Here's what Jesus was. He was radical. Again, he was the 1%.

He was the one in Well, the one ever, but he was the 1%. And he was radical in love. And there's really, there's really 2 forms of sort of this, what you need to do to help somebody change and transform. You have your radical in love, you're washing their feet. Okay.

It's that sort of thing where you're doing something that's, that's the only typically a servant or somebody who was poor would do is actually washing someone's feet during those, those times. But also, he was radical in truth and challenging people to change how they were. So he was radical in love and acceptance and bringing them in.

But then once they were there, it was, hey, here's what— Jesus went from washing people's feet to after saying, pick up your cross and follow me and die. Whoa. He went from radical love and nourishment, which is more of the feminine Virtues and qualities of love and compassion and acceptance and those to the justice and courage and challenging you to the highest level possible.

So he comes all the way down to the lowest level where you're at, and then he calls you to rise to as close to him as you possibly can in terms of sacrificing yourself, this radical sacrificial love for everyone, even your enemies. But it takes radical change.

So when I watched that Super Bowl ad, you know, it was this form of like showing maybe a form of radical love without this entire second half of him, which is radical truth, challenge, and calling you to the highest level, to call you to stop sinning in every way possible.

So my point here is, going back to this, the greatest way that you can act different in a modern world Is expose yourself to people that are the 1%, people that are radical in character and that don't follow the modern world.

And so you're, you know, if you can be, you wanna be around them in person, you wanna read about them, you wanna watch videos about them, and then you wanna model what they're doing. It's the greatest way to stand out in culture today, and it's true for being successful in anything in life. Question number 9, what do you think about the current society in terms of conformity?

You know, I, I think this is that we have a real need for wisdom and then courage. Okay, now you can have courage by itself, but if you're courageous for doing the wrong thing, then you just ended up doing evil in the world and harming yourself and others. So you need wisdom and then you need courage. The problem that I see in society today is that there's a real lack of wisdom.

By the way, wisdom is not knowledge. It's not memorizing facts. When kids go to school today, or anybody goes to any type of school, the university systems now are full of these left-wing ideologies that basically are teaching kids, you know, like evolution is an absolute fact in the terms of the way Darwin taught it when he didn't even fully believe it himself. It was a theory.

You know, it's teaching, you know, It's just, it's absolutely crazy. I don't want to get too much in the curriculums here, but just to say this, kids are taught to memorize a bunch of facts today. They're not taught how to actually think and how to actually go and discern truth. There's a verse in the Bible and it's this, it's, um, I think it's the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.

That's really interesting. And that's part of the whole Judeo-Christian faith is, is the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. And so, well, that means that I am so concerned that I am doing the right things and that God's seeing what I'm doing, that I'm then going to— it's going to dictate the way that I act in making sure I'm doing things that are true and virtuous.

So, going back to this, so what do you think about the current society in terms of conformity? Yeah, I think people lack wisdom. They just lack wisdom. And so, and here's part of the wisdom people lack is they don't actually know what truth is. There are sayings out there like, find your truth. No, there's one single truth. An apple is an apple. It's not an orange. A man is a man.

A man can't be female. There's 2 genders. Those are examples. So we have a need for wisdom today. And people actually believe this relativism idea that there is no truth or there's many different truths. So we need wisdom today more than ever before.

And wisdom is being able to discover what the absolute truth is and then having the courage to stand for that truth and live out that truth yourself, not only knowing it, but living it out. So that's what we need to change society today. And again, I mentioned this earlier, if you want to be average, then do what society's doing.

If you want to be part of the 1%, The Mother Teresas, those people that help change the world. You need to do what the 1% do, which is something very, very radically different than what society does. So, if you want to be successful in your finances and stand out from society, do what Warren Buffett does. Do what Elon Musk does. Do what Cathie Wood does. Do what somebody does.

And then here's what I would say. Look at 10 people that are really good in finance with their finances, and then look at the overlap and patterns of what all of them do. That's wisdom, okay? Is actually partly being able to recognize patterns. So when you are able to see what these 10 very wealthy people do and what do they have in common, then you can take those things and do that.

Same thing when you think about somebody that, you know, has acted very virtuously. What are those common character qualities they have, or how do they treat people? So that's, that's how you want to think about that. I want to say, hey, thanks so much for your absolutely awesome and fantastic questions.

Remember, Make sure to subscribe on Instagram and on YouTube if you're watching on either of these platforms. And you can submit your questions because I'm doing a regular Q&A. By the way, we're going to do something cool here in the future. We're going to be adding in your voice. And so, I'm going to have you ask the question with your voice.

We're going to add that here to the show here in the near future. And I'm excited, by the way. Go and listen to some of the past Q&As I've done. I think we had some really good ones here recently. And again, I want to say thanks for tuning in. Make sure to subscribe. Thanks, guys. Thank you for liking and sharing this.

If there's a segment here that you really enjoyed that you need a— that you want a friend to hear or listen to, make sure to share with them, share it with them, because you never know. I've literally had people say, I had a friend of mine share one of your podcasts with me, and because of it, it changed my health. Like, I reversed my diabetes or my hypothyroidism, or I lost 20 pounds.

So, you never know that by you sharing this episode, sometimes it can save or transform a life. Hey, thanks so much for watching. Thanks so much for listening. I'll see you next week.