Awaken the Power of a Healing Mindset - How I Overcame a Debilitating Disease

I was in a really serious health crisis. And so I went in one more time, got a stem cell injection. However, after the injection, something just didn't feel right. And then over time, it got to the point where I could barely get up in the morning, and then I couldn't walk.

I lost 40 pounds and didn't know if I would ever— at points, there was one point I thought, I don't know if I'll be able to walk fully normally again. I spent the first half of my career believing that food was the most powerful medicine in the world. I'm here to tell you That mindset is the most powerful medicine in the world.

Hi, I'm Dr. Josh Axe, and welcome to the Growth Lab Podcast, where we discuss the science behind how to grow yourself, your wealth, your health, and take your career and relationships to the next level. Again, I'm Dr. Josh Axe. I'm a graduate of Johns Hopkins University. I'm the founder of Ancient Nutrition and Leaders.com. And on today's episode, we're going to talk about the power of mindset.

We'll go through how mindset can help you experience a breakthrough in nearly every area of your life. And you might have heard of different types of mindsets, such as a growth mindset, an abundance mindset, a positive mindset, a strategic mindset, and others. Today, we're gonna hone in on some specific mindsets that can help you experience a breakthrough and become more resilient.

And I wanna start off sharing a story about my past year now. Some of you might be new to me. Some of you may have listened to my past podcasts and seen some of the videos I've put out there. But up until about 8 weeks ago, I was in a really serious health crisis. And so my entire career, I've tried to be a role model of health.

And so I've worked out every single day and eaten very, very healthy throughout my entire career. And about a year ago, I went in for just a routine injection. And an injection was a stem cell or PRP injection where they take your own blood and stem cells, re-inject them into an area of injury. And so I was doing CrossFit.

I was, I was working out many years ago, about 9 years ago, injured my back a little bit and, and had some back issues. But over time it had gotten pretty good. But I still had this nagging issue in my low back. And so I had learned the power of regenerative medicine. And I had gotten stem cell a couple of times before, and every time it helped my back. And now I just had a little problem left.

And so I went in one more time, got a stem cell injection. However, after the injection, something just didn't feel right. And I started noticing more and more pain in my low back. And then over time, it got to the point where I could barely get up in the morning, and then I couldn't walk. Finally, we had to call an ambulance to come pick me up.

Because the pain was so bad and I hadn't been able to walk for 2 weeks. And at first I thought, well, maybe I just reinjured my back. And they went in and did an MRI and they found out I had a spinal infection. The infection had gotten into my bone, an abscess had formed, and I met with a doctor and he said, you know, this is really serious.

Even with treatment, you may be disabled the rest of your life. And so I want you to think about this for myself. So this was just over a year ago, and I was at the point where I was swimming a mile Every other day I was doing squats and deadlifts and working out and throwing my 2-year-old little girl in the air and very physically active and strong.

And I went to the point where I literally could not walk or move. In fact, the pain got so bad that I literally couldn't even roll over in bed. I lost 40 pounds and didn't know if I would ever— at points, there was one point I thought, I don't know if I'll be able to walk fully normally again. And so I started doing a lot of different natural treatments. I started doing ozone therapy.

I started doing hyperbaric chamber. I did every vitamin and supplement you could think of. I ate perfectly. I did vitamin IVs, all kinds of things. And then I did some conventional treatment too. And I started doing all of these treatments. And even after a month, I didn't notice a difference. And finally one day I started feeling a little bit different. I started feeling a little bit better.

But this was almost 5 to 6 months later after that initial pain. And I got to a point after months and months of not being able to figure out what was going on, because just to jump back a little bit, that MRI didn't come for months later because that was my second MRI. I had 2 MRIs. The first MRI, they said, well, it just looks like there's some damage here. The infection was not showing up.

And so I was doing everything imaginable to heal. And I got to the point where, and I'll say this, I'm generally a very positive person. I felt the emotions of depression and despair and hopelessness for the first time in my entire life. I'd never felt those emotions in that way before because I had tried so many things and nothing seemed to be working.

The other thing was, is I've been, you know, practicing— I practiced functional medicine for 15 years before moving over, as I am now, into the leadership and personal growth space. But I didn't know, I didn't know what to do. So again, I lost 40 pounds. I didn't walk for nearly a year.

And when I went in and met with an infectious disease specialist, he said, Josh, I want to let you know that you may be permanently disabled from this infection that's in your disc. And what the specific diagnosis was also osteomyelitis. And that's when infection gets into your bone and actually starts eating away at the bone in the disc. And those parts of your body.

And so, I was in this place, but you know what? I had just maybe a day or two of this feeling of despair, and then I said, you know what? I've got a strong mindset. I'm going to change my mind the way that I think about this. And I started visualizing and believing, you know what? I'm going to be throwing my 2-year-old up in the air again.

I'm going to be swimming a mile a day and squatting and deadlifting and doing all the things I want to do. And I really sort of visualized myself doing those things in the future. And around that same time, I slowly started to heal and get a little bit better and better and better every single day. And by the way, so this happened in July, this injection.

And then the first time I was able to walk was around May. That was on a walker. And the first time I was able to walk without a walker was really in June. And I was able to go back— actually, I was living in Puerto Rico at the time— back to Nashville. And was able to officiate my sister-in-law's wedding. I slowly got back to working out, and now I'm in video in front of you right now.

And listen, this was only about 3 or 4 months ago where I was in that state. And so the thing I want to share about this is, is that, you know, there are a lot of lessons I learned about mindset. You know, I think when you experience something, there's a greater level sometimes of understanding and wisdom than maybe if you just learn about it or read about it in a book.

And so what I want to share with you today is the power of your mindset. Listen, no matter what you're experiencing in your life right now, maybe it's a health crisis, maybe you've been diagnosed with something very serious and it's been affecting your whole life, maybe it's chronic pain, maybe it's cancer, maybe it's diabetes, there's some sort of issue and it's affecting your life.

I'm going to share with you the most important thing you have to do to break through and some of the power of mindset with that. You know, maybe you've got a relationship and It's just, you feel trapped and you don't know how that relationship could get better. I'm gonna share with you some of the mindset principles behind it.

Or maybe you're a person saying, you know what, like, I need a breakthrough in my career. I've been doing the same thing year after year. My pay has hardly grown. Or if you're an entrepreneur, my business has hardly grown and I need to experience a breakthrough. Listen, I'm telling you, the key is mindset.

I spent the first half of my career believing that food was the most powerful medicine in the world. I'm here to tell you that mindset is the most powerful medicine in the world. And if you think rightly and you start to understand and think things the right way, it will impact in a positive manner every area of your life.

In fact, I truly believe that mindset is the most crucial aspect to your health as well. For instance, there's something called neuroplasticity. And that means your brain can change and your body can change based on your thinking. So I want to give you an example. There are medical studies around this. One is done by an incredible Stanford researcher. Her name's Alia Crum.

By the way, this study is called the Milkshake Study. And they gave a group of people a milkshake. They told one group, this is a 170-calorie, really healthy shake. And they told another group of people, This is a very indulgent, filling, you know, filling shake. Here's the crazy thing. They said this was like 800 calories, okay? Very high calorie shake. By the way, both shakes were the same.

They were both like 350 calories. And so the group that were told, hey, this is only 170 calories, they were hungry all day. They felt like they were being deprived. They needed more to eat more food. And the group that ate that, what they thought was an 800 calorie shake, They said throughout the whole day, oh, I'm full. I don't, you know, I don't know if I need to eat lunch.

I can eat smaller meals. And they felt more satisfied. Now, here's the other crazy part of the study and other studies is that your body will change what it's actually doing physiologically. You can actually, even through your thinking, burn more fat or hold on to more body fat based on your line of thinking and what you think a food is actually doing to your body.

And so it's crazy what happens when you think about the power of mindset. Now, I wanna share some of these lessons and some things you can do to develop a resilient mindset that can help you break through anything that you're battling in your life. Now, one of my first lessons was this. When I was in this state of suffering, and again, remember this, I wasn't able to hardly get out of bed.

When I say the only thing I could do was sometimes crawl. And so I didn't get out of bed for nearly a year. And when I was in that position, you know the biggest thing I thought about, it wasn't, Hey, can I build a bigger business? It wasn't, can I make more money? The biggest thing that I regretted at the time was not being able to play with my 2-year-old.

That was the biggest thing tugging on my heartstrings at that time. And I told my wife, Chelsea, I said, Chelsea, if we lost everything we had and I only had you and Arwin, that's all I need. And when you're in that position in life and you get in difficult situations, you realize what matters most. And oftentimes this happens at the end of our life.

But here's the thing I want to encourage you to think about what matters the most now. What should your priorities truly be? So often we spend time chasing after different accomplishments and accolades and recognition. And I'm telling you, the most important thing you'll ever have, the most important position is probably as a spouse or a parent or a friend or a leader to somebody.

And so you want to be thinking about what are my true priorities? And Here's another thing that's so important in regards to mindset. It's how you view suffering. If you view when you're going through suffering in life, and listen, there's a lot of forms of suffering. There's physical suffering, there's emotional suffering where maybe you've been the victim of some sort of verbal abuse.

It could be past trauma of some sort, right? There's many forms of suffering. It could be regret. You have pain of regret of something that you wished happened and it didn't. There are lots of forms of suffering, but here's, here's one of the most important mindsets you can cultivate, that you will be refined through your suffering and it will be used for good. Think about that. That's the thing.

I will use suffering for good. And when I was in that situation, not able to get out of bed, I thought that to myself. I said, how can I use this situation of suffering for good? Not to benefit necessarily myself, but to benefit others. And that's the mindset you want. Here's another key when it comes to mindset. Taking the— you're taking the focus off yourself onto others.

We'll talk about that with one of my 5 key points here in a minute. But prioritization is so important in saying, I'm going to be refined through this process of suffering and really focus on and meditate upon, hey, what's the most important thing in life? So that's step number 1. Okay. When you think about what are some lessons learned when it comes to mindset, it's prioritize.

What are the most important things you have going on in your life? Focus on those things. And if something is outside of, you know, the health of your family or your faith or your health or certain things that are the most important, then maybe don't make a big deal out of them.

You know, for instance, if it rains on your parade, it's really not that big of a deal, probably, as long as your family and your health and other things are intact. And so it's important to allow yourself to be refined through that suffering process and not view yourself as a victim. View yourself as a hero breaking through. Number 2, you want to have a spirit of hope.

You want to have a hopeful mindset because here's what happens. Let me ask this. When you think about the way you're thinking, you need to ask, is this serving me? I want to give you an example. So when I was in this state of not being able to walk and I didn't know what was going on, and I literally had— and when I say the pain was so severe, I literally couldn't roll over in bed.

It was that bad. And when I had this pain, I thought to myself, you know what, what if I never walk again? What if I'm bound to a wheelchair? What if I— and my head started going here. And then I thought to myself for a minute, I thought, you know what, that's not going to help me get better based on, you know, what every religion says and based on what scientific literature shows today.

Scientific literature actually demonstrates that if you believe you're going to have a good outcome, you will likely have a good outcome. And we're going to hit on more on this research in the medical literature here in just a little bit. But it's important to know that if you believe you're going to get a bad outcome, you're more likely to get a bad outcome.

If you believe you're going to have a good outcome, you're more likely to have a good outcome. How? And here's what I started to think about.

I started to think about I need to stop feeling sorry for myself for being in a state of hopelessness and thinking about all the people that, you know, first off, I felt like I was a victim a little bit because this injection I got, this stem cell PRP injection, was not my fault. Somehow a little bit of bacteria got on the needle and they went into my disc and injected.

And I'd had this done a couple times before with no issues, really helped my back. And I thought, this is going to be getting me back to 100%. But somehow I didn't know if it was negligence on someone's part or what happened exactly. We still don't know. But either way, I could have sat there and said, you know what, I'm a victim.

And I could have sat there and felt bad for myself and just sat in a state of hopelessness. But that doesn't serve me. That doesn't help me or anyone else. So if you're in that state of victim mentality, you need to get out of it and you need to hope in the future.

You know how many people have been given diagnoses that they're going to die a few months from now or that they'll never walk again and they did? It happens all the time. It happens every day. And so you want to fix your eyes on the outcome that you want and believe that. That's the key. And that's even what our scientific literature shows us today.

So if you want to double your business, You want to focus on that. You want to read as much as you can about other people that have doubled their business. Similar thing, you want to read about a great marriage. Maybe you're in the midst of a marriage struggle right now and your spouse doesn't agree with you on something and you haven't been able to fix it.

Fix your eyes and think about who are some people who were at the bottom of their marriage and ended up being, you know, restored to a great marriage. Read those things and find out how they did it and do your part In order to do that. But hope for the best future. That is such a key part of you healing.

And by the way, even neurologically, what happens in terms of dopamine and oxytocin release, and these are neurochemicals that actually can support your healing when you think about something in a positive versus negative manner. Here's another lesson I learned. Foster an attitude of gratitude.

I woke up in the morning and I was in pain and I was feeling bad and I thought, I don't know what's going on. But what I did anyways is I said, you know what, I'm grateful for my family. I'm grateful for my career. I got grateful for so many things. And so you want to facilitate an attitude of gratitude.

Another thing you want to do, and we just have a few more here before we jump into the 5 key points, and you want to have grit. There's a great book by Stanford psychologist Angela Duckworth, and the book is called Grit. And the book is all about how to develop a mindset of resilience, a mindset of perseverance. And basically, here's what you do with grit is you say, you know what?

I've got a great prize in front of me. I've got a purpose and I'm determined I will get through it. I will get through it with a positive mindset. And that's really what grit is, is saying, I'm going to be resilient. There's a another professor from NYU. His name is Jonathan Haidt, and he wrote a book called The Coddling of the American Mind.

And one of the things that he's shown is that oftentimes even younger generations, Gen Z and some early millennials— now, this isn't the entire population, but compared to older populations, they tend to have less resilience. They're not as gritty. They can't handle the pain. They give up more easily.

And it's important that you recognize if that's you, in either way, you want to have a resilient mindset of knowing you can get through anything. You know, when we're talking about mindset, also being strategic. I learned that, you know, I needed to plan out my days. I had one friend who said this. He said, hey, what have you been doing when you've been, you know, bedridden for 6 months now?

At that point, I was bedridden for 6 months. He said, what have you been doing? And I said, I shared with him, he said, you know what, if I were you, I just would've been eating Cheetos and surfing the internet all day and watching movies. And I said, you know what, that's not me. You know, I've got a big purpose. And so we're gonna jump into that now.

I wanna talk to you about 5 keys to building a resilient mindset. Those keys are really related to purpose, related to heroic action, your identity. This is probably the biggest thing of all. Your community, and becoming great. So we'll talk about these 5 keys in order for you to develop a resilient mindset that can overcome anything. The first key is tied to purpose, why you exist.

Let me ask you that question. If somebody asked you, why do you exist? How do you answer that question? That's a big part of your mindset. And so for me, mine was really tied into the spiritual of believing that I was made in the image of God and I was a child of God. And so that gave me a big purpose.

And so that was a big part of it, of believing that I'm called to love people and really turn earth into a paradise. This is one reason why I love regenerative agriculture. In fact, I own 4,000 acres of certified organic land with a friend of mine, Jordan Rubin, in Missouri and Tennessee, where we do— we raise animals and fruit trees and all kinds of things, which I'll share here as well.

But going back to this, What is your why? Simon Sinek wrote a great book about this related to business is Start with Why. Your why is so incredibly important. Why do you wake up in the morning? Why do you do what you do? And so you really want to think more about what is your purpose. And this really led me to and motivated me. I wrote a book while I was in this state.

This book will come out in April of 2024. It's called Think This, Not That. And the book is all about cultivating a powerful mindset of breakthrough. It's a, it's a book about the mindset. It's 12 different mindsets, but specifically overcoming limiting beliefs. And we're going to do an episode here very soon about limiting beliefs and how to break through those. But what is your purpose?

And so there is a— by the way, listen to this study. This is a research study. And they surveyed Americans, thousands of Americans, and they said, how many people have a clear sense of purpose? Listen to this. Only 25% of people that live in America have a clear sense of purpose. So 75% of people don't know what their purpose is. And think about that for yourself.

If you don't have a clear sense of purpose, it's one of the things that's the most detrimental to you having a healthy mindset, to you being a leader, to you having great relationships, to you having great health if you don't have a sense of purpose. In fact, medical studies show if you don't have a sense of purpose, it causes more depression and anxiety in your life as well.

So there's lots of side effects on your health and your career, your spiritual life if you don't know what your purpose is. Now, there is a Japanese exercise called Ikigai, which stands for purpose. And here's how they help you determine your purpose. I'm going to go through these. Number 1 is, what do you love? So there's 4 questions you answer. Number 1, what do you love?

What is that thing that you just absolutely love in the world? Number 2, what is it something the world needs? What's that thing that pulls on your heartstrings? And you might even say something like, that's not right. That's an injustice. That needs to be fixed. So what is that thing? Something you love, something that a need in the world.

The third question to answer is, and maybe the most important, is what are you good at? What are your talents and your gifts and your unique abilities? Right? Maybe you're a great writer. Maybe you're great with people, customer service. Maybe you're great at practicing medicine. Maybe you're great at psychology. But what are you great at? The fourth thing is, What gives you a great reward?

You get done, and this could be tied to finances, most of the time it is, or it could also be tied to a feeling of fulfillment knowing that you've done something that's very meaningful and significant. So answer those 4 questions to find your purpose. Now, I love soccer. I grew up playing soccer, but is it a need in the world, something people truly need? Maybe not. Can I get rewarded doing it?

Well, If I was really good at it, yes, but I'm not that. I'm not, you know, I was good in high school and in college, but I wasn't good beyond that, right? So all that being said, so you need to think about that, and that's where you have to ask all 4 of those questions, and that will help you identify your purpose. Listen to a few of these quotes about the power of purpose.

This is by Miles Monroe. The greatest tragedy in life is not death, But a life without purpose. Franklin D. Roosevelt said, we have always held to the hope, the belief, the conviction that there is a better life, a better world beyond the horizon. Now, I wanna say this as well.

What I believe our global purpose is, all of us together, is to love God, love people, and make Earth a more heavenly place. Think about how incredible, you know, I'm a big Lord of the Rings fan, and you'll find that as we get into this podcast, I'll share a few insights of J.R.R. Tolkien, who had such a brilliant philosophical mind.

But, you know, when you look at, like, what would your paradise look like if you could have any home anywhere? Chelsea and I took a trip not that long ago to Italy. And when we were there, we went to places like Amalfi Coast and Cinque Terre. And they had these mountains that were on the Mediterranean Sea.

And I thought to myself, how incredible would it be to have a house nested into this mountain where you're overlooking the ocean? And then you go out the back of the house and we have a vineyard and And we have all the sort of crops and foods that we could just go and pluck off a tree. And we do that with, you know, my daughter, you know, our kids. And so think about that for yourself.

Most people are going to have a similar answer, right? Your house is going to be somewhere in just this lush, beautiful nature, whether it's on the ocean or the mountains or a lake or rolling hills. But it's something like that. It's something natural. And then your house is probably going to be made of things that are natural as well.

It's going to be Wood and marble and stone and those sorts of things, right? And then again, we think about how incredible would it be if you could just walk out the back of your house and grab any food you wanted at almost any time? And that's paradise.

So think about if we were able to take the deserts that are on this planet and these areas that are just rock and dirt, and we could turn those areas where there's poverty and people not being fed. We could turn the entire earth into a paradise. It's really possible.

When you study regenerative agriculture, you start to learn and understand that it's possible through science and through agriculture to actually make the planet that if people would act with wisdom and lack of selfishness, you— we could literally— you can turn deserts into rainforests. That's the reality. If you can play a part in loving people, Right?

Creating that sort of paradise within for other people and turning the planet into a paradise, you're doing something truly meaningful that's tied to purpose. A few other quotes here, one by the great and brilliant mind of Albert Einstein who said, only a life lived in service to others is a life worth living.

So when your life is less about you and more about serving and adding value to others, that's meaningful. That's significant. And what our culture's done today is made it all about us versus, hey, how do we serve others?

But you're going to find that mindset of, I'm here to serve others, I'm here to add value, contribute to the betterment of others, it lifts their life, but it lifts your life even further the more you serve others. It's that idea, the greatest of all is the servant of all. Listen to this study on purpose.

Participants' goals were placed into 3 categories: self-focused, achievement-focused, and family-focused. Those with more family-focused goals had a higher rate of well-being and fulfillment than those who had more self-centric goals.

So you can see when your goals are more about benefiting others and less about benefiting yourself, you have more happiness, fulfillment, well-being, even health in your life. And so you can see there the outcome with that servant-driven mindset. So this is mindset. It's taking it the mindset from yourself to others. Very important. So that's step number 1.

If you want to cultivate a resilient mindset, a powerful mindset, step number 1, find your purpose. Do that ikigai exercise. Step number 2, find your mission, right? So your purpose is finding that thing you're great at. The mission is attaching a goal to it.

So saying, I want to give $5,000 a year to this charity to end human trafficking or to dig clean wells in Africa or build roads or whatever it might be, or something regarding healing the planet or people, right? So you have a mission there, and maybe your mission is also tied to something for your family.

I want my kids to go to a school where they can, you know, get an education that's very virtuous and not sort of this immoral education that many kids are getting today and wrong thinking, right? So, so, so you have these, these missions tied to your career and your finances and your marriage and your kids. And so you really lay out this mission-driven life.

It's all about the mindset of a hero versus a villain. Here's what happens. Most of us at some point in life could end up as a victim, and a victim is feeling like you're helpless. There's nothing you can do. You live in a state of fear and hopelessness. A villain says, others have hurt me. I've, you know, for instance, I got this injection into my back.

And then because of this and my suffering, I wanna make everyone else miserable and I wanna complain and everyone to know how bad I have it and make others feel bad. I sort of want others, you know, what is that? There's a quote, something like misery loves company, right? So that's what a villain does. It's all about pride and resentment or envy.

Well, I'm suffering, so that's not fair that other people are out there enjoying their life or having a good time. That's what a villain thinks. Here's what a hero does. A hero takes personal responsibility. So for myself, when I was going through this crisis, I thought to myself, you know what? I can— I'm going to do everything that I can right now. I'm going to eat healthy.

I'm going to do any sort of physical therapy that I can. I'm going to, uh, I'm going to encourage and add value to others and help them fulfill their dreams and goals in life. Right? That's the idea there, is this heroic mindset of saying— here's the difference. A villain says, I'm going to use my pain and suffering for evil. A hero says, I'm going to use this pain and suffering for good.

You know, my mom was diagnosed with cancer many years ago, and she survived it by learning some of these principles around mindset medicine that we're talking about and around food as medicine. And my mom didn't use her suffering to complain or anything else.

And in fact, she teaches other women now how to make— who suffer with breast cancer, how to make superfood smoothies and anti-cancer meals and things. So she's using that for good. And so you want to do the same thing. And so another key mindset is having a mission-driven mindset. Take time and think to yourself, what are my important missions in life over the next 1 year, 5 years, 10 years?

What are some missions you have? And then go and fulfill those in a heroic way by contributing to the lives of others. Number 3, identity is a key, is a key part of mindset. Listen to this quote by psychologist Carl Jung. The world will ask who you are, and if you don't know, the world will tell you. That's the reality. This is happening in culture today.

We're living in this victim culture where everyone feels like they're a victim. They're not really a victim. The world's just telling them they're a victim. There's an ancient Persian proverb that says this: I cried because I had no shoes until I saw a man who had no feet.

You know, when I was dealing with the chronic pain I was having, I was on Facebook at one point and I was kind of— I was looking at some things in my feed and I saw this man who had lost one of his— he had lost his foot in a, uh, in a jet skiing accident. And I thought to myself, you know what, he's got— he's having a harder time than I am right now.

I think he just— he lost a limb and he actually had many other injuries there as well. And I thought, you know what, I'm going to— I'm going to— you know, I'm thinking about him right now, how I can add value to him and his recovery. All that being said, right, it's all your perspective is so important.

So as we talk about identity, there tends to be three identities: modern, traditional, and divine. By the way, here's here's what an identity is. Your identity is tied to your roles and your responsibilities. For example, my role one of my roles right now is as a dad. Okay, so that's a role I have. So my identity, I'm a dad, and then my responsibilities as a dad are.

To train up my daughter in the way she should go in terms of being virtuous in her character, in terms of being kind and generous, into having a good work ethic. So these are all my responsibilities of a father, of to nurture her and tell her how much I love her, but also to challenge her to be the best she can be, right?

So, so I'm aware that's a role I have as a dad, and then I have responsibilities that come with it. And the more meaningful your roles are, and the more you take on and embrace those responsibilities, the more significant and meaningful your life is. This is really, really important to understand. So modern identity, what it's all about, it's all about labeling yourself as something, as a victim.

So it could be your race, it could be your gender, it could be your sexuality, it could be your nationality, could be your upbringing, could be your disability, right? Like I used to— when I ran my functional medicine clinic, I would have patients come in. I remember one time I had a patient come in.

I'm thinking of 2 actually in my head now, one with fibromyalgia and another that came in with Lyme disease. And I do want to always be sensitive and compassionate because I do understand that it's hard when you're suffering. It's hard to take the focus off yourself. But they had their identity. In fact, if you would ask them, their identity, like, who are you?

One of the first things that would come out of their mouth in a conversation would be, I have fibromyalgia, or, I'm a Lyme disease patient. Like, it was— their identity was very— and by the way, have you ever met anyone like that? Their identity is tied to— they have a victim— it's what we call a victim mentality. They live with a victim identity.

And we see this in the world today where everybody is having this victim mentality. But that's the modern identity today because it's all about them. Now, a traditional identity— by the way, I'm going to do a very big breakdown on a future podcast episode all about identity.

If you're not subscribed, make sure to subscribe to the podcast because we're going to really dive into the science and psychology behind all these things. But the traditional identity is more about national pride and patriotism. It's about your tribe and your community. So think about ancient tribes and groups of people.

They weren't just fending for themselves; they were fending for the community. And you tended to have within the community maybe a baker and a blacksmith and a farmer and a seamstress and a you know and a hunter. You had this group of people, and essentially the whole tribe took care of each other. That's a traditional identity, and it's more virtuous, and it's better than a modern identity.

But the traditional identity sometimes it's about your tribe, but also. It sometimes becomes very negative about other tribes, and they can attack other tribes and only think about their tribe and their community at the expense of others. And so that can happen in a traditional identity. Think about modern identity is marry whoever you want.

It doesn't, it doesn't, it doesn't matter what your parents want, what anyone else thinks. It's what you want and your feelings right now. That's a modern identity. Traditional identity is all about what's best for the community. Think about an arranged marriage, right? Okay, so that's There's an example, real-life examples. Now, let's go to this next identity mindset.

And it's not about— this identity is not just about you. It's not just about your community. It's about the world. And it's called a divine identity. And this is where your divine identity— by the way, you always attach your identity to something. It's your community or your feelings or some form of the divine. And listen, this could be pervasive to many different religions.

Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Taoists, you know, this is true. If your identity is attached to something that's divine and eternal, you— it builds a stronger identity. Because think about this for myself.

If I'm in this state of suffering and physical disability, if I lived in that state, I would think about, this is the only life I have, it's kind of over for me, you know, like, or— and by the way, I don't think that for myself now, even if I did, but generally saying, That if I really believed that, hey, this time on earth is all there is versus if I believe, and there's a great quote by C.S.

Lewis and he says something like this. He says, the people that make the biggest impact in this life are the people that think most about the next life, right? So if you believe that after you die, maybe there's a heaven or a hell or an eternity, then, then, then you operate differently. You're storing up treasures for yourself. Maybe On heaven rather than on earth, right?

So it's important to understand this is an important mindset. Do you have a temporal, just here and now only, or an eternal mindset? And so if you have more of an eternal mindset, the way you act— in fact, think about Mother Teresa. If Mother Teresa didn't believe there was an eternity, would she have done— would she have lived the life she lived exactly like she did?

She was very, very aware of eternity, and so she served others in lieu of that. So this is called a divine identity. Your identity is tied to something divine. Now listen, We know in Christian thought, we see Martin Luther King and Mother Teresa and many others have this sort of mindset. We see this though as well, even with Gandhi, you know, in his religion or Confucius or Buddha.

So when you have a more of a divine identity, it's tied to something eternal. The way you think and you act, your mindset becomes very different. And I wanna encourage you, develop a divine identity. It makes your life more meaningful. And so a divine identity is really about being connected and serving everyone, not just yourself or not just your community. It's sort of the betterment of all.

And I really believe the most powerful identity is where you get a God-given identity. It's not something you necessarily only have to earn or just earn. It's something that is given to you with grace. And so we're going to do a deeper dive on identity here in the future. One of the last couple of things here is the identity surrounding going solo or running with a community.

And we really saw this during the COVID pandemic. I'm gonna read a couple and go through a couple research studies here that I think are very enlightening. Listen to this. Loneliness is on the rise, having doubled since the 1980s. So again, loneliness and feeling of isolation has doubled. Social media has made it worse than ever before.

Research tells us the higher the social media use, the more pervasive the loneliness is. Just how prevalent is loneliness? Studies show that nearly half of Americans report feeling alone or isolated. Listen, 50% of people in America feel lonely or isolated, and 40% say their relationships aren't meaningful. That's a huge percentage of people.

And most of us, even if you say, I have some meaningful relationships, it's not what I want, most of us want more. We know it could be so much better. And most of us have this mindset of, I've got to do it all. It's all, you know, it's, it's, it's, I'm going to go at it alone. Former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy relayed a shocking discovery in an article wrote.

This was written in Harvard, Harvard Business Review. He reported that having weak social connections is as harmful to our health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. By the way, being lonely or you not having a strong community around you is worse for you than being obese for your health. That's not even to mention your mental health and other areas of your life.

And so it's important to know that you really want to build a strong sense of community in your life. You want to have a community mindset. You want to ask the question, not how, but who, who else, who can help you with something? Who can you serve? You know, who can you, who can you start a business with? So oftentimes we just think about me, me, me, me.

Think about we, we, we as much as you possibly can. There's a 2013 study published in Psychological Sciences, and they found that people who are low in self-control, if they just spend time around people that are more self-disciplined, it was incredibly statistically significant in them achieving their goals. So think about this.

If you're a person and you're not disciplined, the most important thing you can do according to studies is spend time around disciplined people. There's a law called Dunbar's Law, and basically the law states that you become like the people you surround yourself with. Now, people, we've heard this probably, you know, the 5 people you spend the most time with is who you become.

It's true, but not entirely true. The 5 people have the greatest impact on you, but if you have another 50 people that you spend some time with, Those people also do impact you fairly, you know, in a fairly significant way as well. And so it's important to understand, but really you do want to focus on who are those 5 people and you may want to upgrade your inner circle.

I'm not saying get rid of all your friends. I am saying though, you want to focus on who are the people in your life that have a strong mindset and spend more time with those people. So the mindset of others will influence your mindset in a positive or negative way. Last point here when it comes to mindset is you want to have a mindset of not just accomplishing things, but of who you can become.

You've probably used at some point in your life a to-do list. You know, you check off the tasks you have on your daily schedule. Rather than a to-do list, start a to-be list. Who do you want to become? Think about yourself, the most powerful you in the future.

That person who— think about the person you respect most in the world, in their character and in maybe their accomplishments, but especially their character. You're like, this person just has incredible character. What are the things that define them? Who do you want to be known as? For instance, myself, like, I want to be wise. I want to be compassionate. I want to be generous.

I want to be— I want to be thought of as somebody who embodies servant leadership. Right. And so I think about that. So rather than a to-do list of I've got to do this today or hit this goal. I think about myself saying I want to be a servant leader. And so I'm focused on becoming— my mindset is that of a servant leader.

I'm studying the people in history, whether it be Jesus or Gandhi or Mother Teresa or MLK or others who embody servant leadership, studying and reading about their life and trying to model what they've done. So this is the other mindset you want, a mindset of to be. What do you want to be? So take time and think about what are 5 things you want to be regarding your character?

And it can be skill as well. Maybe you want to be a gourmet baker. My wife Chelsea actually just before this, I came up, my wife is experimenting and getting really good with making sourdough, whole grain bread and things like that. So she's, she's doing a lot of fermentation. And so, you know, I want, I want my wife to be a great baker. It's awesome. And some of the incredible food she makes.

But also, in addition, you know, so think about myself. I want to become maybe you could say yourself a a leadership expert or or a great mom or great dad, right? Those are other things, right? So think about what is your to be list. That's another thing in terms of mindset. Your mindset is not about your accomplishments. Your mindset is on becoming. The greatest version of yourself.

You know, so, so to wrap up the podcast here, I want to go through a few last things. And that is, one, cultivate a more powerful mindset. Understand that mindset is your greatest form of medicine. And I want you to think to yourself, where am I missing out in my mindset? Could, could my mindset get stronger in certain areas? Where could I improve?

You know, especially in regards, we talked about purpose, and mission and community as well. So really think about those areas. And in future podcasts, we're going to talk about a growth mindset. We're going to dive into that. We're going to talk about a strategic mindset. We're going to talk about how to overcome limiting beliefs. We'll go through goal setting.

We're going to go through a lot of really incredible topics I'm excited to share with you. Also, hey, don't forget to subscribe here. I've got a lot more. We have a lot more podcasts coming out on a regular basis where I'm also going to get into A lot of relevant news.

What's going on today and how should you think about it, uh, in terms of, uh, the right mindset and leadership around some of these topics? Well, thanks for tuning in to the Growth Lab podcast. Again, remember, each week we're going to uncover the science behind how to grow yourself, your health, your wealth, and take your career and relationships to the next level.

Again, thank you for subscribing. Thanks everybody who has sharing this, liking it, and I appreciate everybody taking part. And feel free to leave comments. I'd love to hear from you. What are some upcoming topics you'd love to hear from me talk about, whether it be personal growth, professional growth, wealth building, health, anything? Let me know some topics you'd like me to cover.

Thanks for tuning in. I'll see you next week.