Cut Toxic Friends & Build Your Dream Team | Mindshift 6

Hey everyone, welcome to the Dr. Josh Axe Show, where each and every week I dive deep into the science and principles behind how to grow in body, mind, and spirit, and take your health and your life to the next level. On today's episode, I'll be teaching my number one rule for life.

This is the number one thing it takes to have great health, to have success in your career, have great relationships, and overall become the person you were born to be. All on today's episode. But I wanna get into a stat that is mind-blowing. Listen to this. Did you know that a recent study demonstrated that loneliness is worse for your health than smoking 15 cigarettes a day?

And on today's episode, I'll be diving deep into how to create an inner circle and a community that's iron sharpens iron and allows you to become the best version of yourself. And this is something That so many people are missing today. And by the way, this is incredibly important for your physical health as well. Again, along with being successful in every area of life.

Hey, before I dive into the content though, make sure to subscribe to this channel and hit the notification bell so you never miss an episode. I also want to mention, hey, every time you subscribe and help share this, podcast, you're actually allowing me to make the show better, bring on higher-profile guests with more wisdom, and allowing me to do more and more episodes.

So again, thanks so much for subscribing, and thanks so much for sharing this as well. Hi, Dr. Josh Axe here, and I just released my latest book, Think This, Not That. This book tackles the 12 mental barriers that obstruct your personal growth and hinder your success in so many areas of life.

Each chapter explores one of these barriers with helpful visuals and practical exercises that you can use to peel back the layers of the false narratives that have held you captive and finally experience the transformation that comes from thinking this, not that.

You can order a copy at JoshAxe.com, and if you order before April 2nd, you'll get an exclusive to my 3-part mindset masterclass, also a 12-week workbook, also numerous other bonuses that are worth hundreds of dollars to help you think this, not that, and experience that breakthrough you've been waiting for.

Here's another mind-blowing statistic and why what I'm going to talk about today is my number one lesson for life. A recent meta-analysis, and a meta-analysis is where They take multiple studies. In this case, they took 150 studies with a combined 350,000 people. And by the way, obviously 150 studies are much more credible than just taking the research and data from one single study.

So this is 148 studies compiled. Here's what they found. People with strong social connections had an increased survival rate and an increased lifespan. So longevity of 50% greater than those that didn't. So think about this. If you have a close inner circle of iron sharpens iron, people that encourage you, love you, challenge you to be your best, you will live 50% longer.

I mean, that, that, that is a, I mean, that is a tremendous stat. 50% Longer. I mean, that might take you from living only to, uh, let's say 60 years old to, you know, almost 90 years old. And so it's really, really a significant difference. It's not quite that, but it's close to that. And so anyways, it could add 20 years to your life or more by just having a close inner circle.

But it's not just about having length of life, it's more about quality of life and you growing into the greatest version of yourself. And here's the reality, you cannot grow into the greatest version of yourself, your best you, and run your be— your, your best race and live your best life if you don't have incredible people in your inner circle. That's the reality.

Every success that I've personally ever had in business, it wasn't because Josh Axe is great, it's because I surrounded myself with great people. Anytime I was able to overcome hardship in my health or have great health, it was because my inner circle. Anytime I've had great relationships, great marriage, great relationship with my kids, the reason wasn't because Josh Axe is really smart.

The reason is I had incredible people around me that I learned from, caused me to grow and get better, and that allowed me to be a great dad, a great husband. And so it's so important That you surround yourself with high-quality people. And the reality is, if you're going to thrive in your personal life, at work, in anything in life, you need to build a team. Okay?

And this is part of something called the hero's journey. My friend Donald Miller taught me this. There are a lot of other wise people like Joseph Campbell and Jordan Peterson who really dive into this as well. And that is called the hero's journey. And this is where one of the things that you'll notice when you watch a good movie, Is that the hero is, never goes at it alone.

They always have a team around them and they always have a guide. And so, you know, Maverick, even in the end, needed Goose. Frodo needed Samwise Gamgee and, and the fellowship. You know, the Avengers wouldn't be the Avengers without Iron Man, right? So it's so important that the main hero of the story has a team around them in order to help them grow and achieve greater things in life.

And if you are missing that team, Then you're missing something in your life. And that's a question I have for you today is, do you have people around you that are absolutely incredible people? I'm talking about 10 out of 10 people that nurture you, love you. They encourage you, they cheer you on, and also they challenge you. And you say— they say, you're better than that. You're capable of more.

And pour into you and sow into you, helping you achieve greater things than you ever thought you could yourself. If not, you're missing something. And if you want that in your life, then I'm gonna talk about how to get that today and also get into more of the studies and ancient principles of how to make that a reality in your life.

Now, first here, I wanna dive into the problem, and then really we're gonna get into the practical solutions of what you need to do. But the problem is this, is that loneliness rates have doubled since the 1980s. Studies show that nearly half of Americans Report feeling lonely and isolated, and 4 in 10 people say their relationships aren't meaningful.

Now, that's pretty incredible for somebody, for 40% of people to say essentially no one in their life, they have really no truly meaningful relationships. And so now some people may have one meaningful relationship, and that's better than zero, but we should have a lot of meaningful relationships. It, it's what makes life meaningful, and rich.

And former, former Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy reported that having weak social connections is as harmful to our health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. And here's one of the biggest culprits: increased social media use equals more pervasive loneliness.

And so if the more you're using social media, the more you're on your device and you're scrolling through, connecting with your Quote unquote friends, the more lonely you actually are because you're not building meaningful relationships. You're out there replacing fake relationships, artificial relationships, instead of having real ones. And that's what so many people are experiencing today.

You can't hug Instagram, you know, you can't, uh, call TikTok and say, hey, I just lost a loved one. You can't do that. Uh, you can't. Again, it, it, it doesn't work the same way on social media. Even getting a text, it's not quite the same. Now listen, texting can be really encouraging. Uh, but again, getting on the phone with somebody and more than anything, being in person is so important.

Now I wanna share with you something that Chelsea and I experienced that was absolutely incredible for our life and something that I've done in my life as well. Let, let, let me, let me go to first, uh, and, and talk about how I experienced changing my communities and how that changed my life and how you can do the exact same thing. First, it started in college. Okay?

When I was in high school, I had an incredible friend, friend group. Absolutely incredible. A lot of people, great morals, great values, really inspiring people. And so I just had an amazing friend group. When I went to college, though, my focus was a lot less on sports and being around people that my parents approved of that were thought were valuable.

And my first couple of years of college became about partying and just having a good time. And so the people I hung out with were a bunch of frat guys and, you know, a few of them were good people. Maybe a lot of them were generally good people, but they weren't purpose-driven, iron sharpens iron, making me a better person.

And so my first couple years of college, I remember, um, really going into my junior year, I just felt really empty inside. And I thought about what was missing from high school to college. And really there were 2 main things. One was I wasn't pursuing God in the same way in my life.

And the second one was I was just hanging out with a completely different group of people with completely different values, completely different morals, a completely different purpose. And so I decided to change that. I decided to stop going out and just drinking a lot and instead, and, and partying and just saying, I'm just going for life for pleasure. And I went for purpose.

So I went from focusing on just having pleasure to focusing fully on having purpose, and I changed my friend group. Now here's what happened at the time. I had a couple guys I was living with that were part of the pleasure group, and I ended up, uh, here, not, not going out with them hardly. On occasion they would say, Josh, come out with us.

And I would go out maybe on occasion, and maybe I would have like one drink or not drink at all. And so, and here's what they started saying to me. They said, we want the fun Josh back. And you know, one of the things I realized was I, I started becoming proud of this and that, and, and, and the reality of like, I had changed. And they even said this to me.

They, they, they say, you're different now. And I said, I am. And so I really though started, I st— I went to a church group, started hanging out with a group of, of, of people that were just amazing people, purpose-driven, going on mission trips, looking at serving the community. And I was full of, here's the difference. It was a different type of pleasure.

I went from having the sort of pleasure you get when you're drinking too much at a party and feeling bad the next day. And I went to the form of pleasure you get after having a good workout or giving someone a good gift or. Yeah. Or, or just blessing someone's life, you know, growing personally, growing spiritually, that sort of fulfillment and pleasure. It's a different type of pleasure.

It's what Aristotle calls true happiness, called eudaimonia. And it's, it's, it's a really, it's a true form of happiness. And so I experienced that in college and it radically changed my life. And by the way, I couldn't have done, changed my life if I didn't change my friend group. Listen, if you wanna change your life, The first step oftentimes is changing your inner circle.

Who are the 5 people you spend the most time with? Swapping those out for a different 5, and maybe you have 2 or 3 that are good, and there's 2 that, you know, just are, are sucking life from you and keeping you from becoming the greatest you. But you have to pursue a community of greatness.

Now, Chelsea and I, in a very different way, after we got married, I had my friend group, she had her friend group, and I think one of the things we realized, and you've experienced this in marriage if you're married, likely, is, is that oftentimes, you know, the friends that you have when you're single are different than the friends you have when you're married because you have to get along perfectly with other couples, or at least in a certain way.

And so it's just, it's just different, right? It's, it's a, you know, the two become one flesh. And so now it's, you're, you're a different person. And so, and, and so sometimes friend groups need to change out of necessity. But Chelsea and I really, for a couple years, I think really felt like we— We loved each other.

We moved to Florida for a year, which was so great for our first year of marriage, growing closer together. But then we moved back to Nashville and we felt like it was a totally fresh start, something new. And so for about a year, we just, we searched for a friend group and didn't really find one. And then we just, we really spent some time praying about this. And really this happened.

It was, we felt like it was very divine. We were at a coffee shop. In Nashville, Tennessee. It's called Barista Parlor. And, um, we were sitting at this coffee shop. Chelsea and I had this great, uh, little, uh, little ritual on Saturday mornings, and we would go to this coffee shop. We would sit with espresso, have dark chocolate, talk about life. It was, it was, it was such a good time.

And, um, and we, when we were there, we had a couple that were sitting down the table from us that were doing the exact same thing. And I looked down there and I said, I think that's Shawn Johnson. She was Olympic gymnast. She was sitting down there.

And I said, you know, I think that our teams, uh, my publicity team and hers were trying to connect us at some point to do a podcast or to connect on something. I said, I'm gonna go say hi. Now here's what Chelsea does. Chelsea says, no, do, do not. She's like, they're having their, you know, special time together. We're having our special time together.

And she said, you know, don't go and be weird. And I said, I'm not gonna go and be weird. I said, this could be a great couple. I could see us connecting with them. And then she was, you know, turned her head and kind of acted like she didn't know what I was doing and, or didn't know me.

And I walked down there, introduced myself, and at first her husband Andrew looks at me like, oh, who's the guy trying to get my wife's autograph? This is, you know, not the right time to do it. And I introduced myself and Shawn said, oh, hey, I recognize you and I've taken your products and, and a number of things. And so we ended up.

Going down, talking with them, having a great conversation, doing a date night later on, a couple's date night. And then from there we became, we became best friend couples, you know, and hung out with them pretty much every day for, for, for, for, for, for a few years. And then we even bought houses next door to each other.

And then anyways, and they're still very, very close, dear friends of ours. But the reason that we connected with them so well and why I pursued a relationship with them, listen, I believe pursuing strong relationships with individuals or other couples is a lot like dating or a lot like pursuing a marriage.

It's, you know, you don't just have relationships that fall into your lap and those are the only relationships you have, those relationships outta utility. Now listen, those relationships can be necessary and good, but I think that you should find relationships and pursue people.

That really are gonna be iron sharpens iron, where you share the same values and you help each other grow and support each other along the way. And that's really what I saw in Sean and Andrew. We pursued a relationship together, became very close.

And one of the things I admired about them is, you know, Sean was an Olympic gymnast, Andrew was a NFL, uh, played in the NFL, and they were both very competitive, very all about commitment, like being the best. And Chelsea and I share that. So they caused us to grow in that.

We, at one point, Uh, on Saturdays and Sundays, we'd do a workout in the morning and then go do brunch afterwards at a True Food Kitchen or Urban Market or another favorite place of ours in Nashville. Uh, we had our daughters around a similar time. Uh, they had Drew, we, we had Arwen. And anyways, became very, very close friends of ours.

All that to being said, you need a Sean and Andrew in your life. It's so important that you have other couples and other individuals that make you grow. And if you don't have those people, Write down what the qualities are and the sort of friends that you're looking for. And you wanna do this when you, if you're trying to find a spouse as well.

When I thought about who was the woman I wanted to marry, I started writing it down. By the way, the things I wrote down about Chelsea were, I wrote down, I want a woman who is mentally stimulating, physically breathtaking, spiritually on fire for God, and that makes me grow. That's iron sharpens iron. Those are really the 4 things I wrote down. And then I had other things as well.

Like the water, because growing up we loved water skiing, a number of other things. So I wrote down all those things, like, like she's generous, she's kind, she'll be a great mom, all those things. I wrote those down. And then what I did after I wrote those down is I thought about who do I need to become in order to be the sort of husband that would attract that sort of woman into my life?

Okay, I need to be a leader. I need to be wise. I need to be generous. I need to hold the door open for her. I need to do all of these things. I need to be complimentary. I need to be her protector. I wrote down those things. And you wanna pursue your relationships with other people in the same way. If you wanna build great relationships, you need to not be a narcissist.

You need to make sure that you make it about them, that you are engaging in conversations, asking them deep questions, that you are supporting them in their life. So you need to be a great friend. To them. You need to be the sort of person that they'd wanna leave their kids with because you're such an incredible, uh, you know, parent in that way. And so I would encourage you to do that.

If you don't have a spouse, do that exercise, both what their qualities are and what yours need to be, and you start working on yourself. And the very same thing in those friendships. Know this, life is better with people that make you better. Now I wanna share with you an interesting, uh, An interesting study. And this is— it was a, you know, this was not a double-blind placebo study.

This is a study done on animals. And you may or may not know this, but did you know that one working horse can pull a load of 6,000 pounds? Okay. And you would think if one working horse can pull 6,000 pounds, then 2 horses can pull 12,000 pounds. But that's not true. Here's what's true. 2 Working horses can actually pull 18,000 pounds, or 3 times the load of 1 horse.

Here's something I've experienced in life. Partnership does not double your success, it multiplies it. You know, when I created a friendship with Jordan Rubin, and I again pursued him as a friend, I didn't know that eventually it would lead to— I was in a clinic that was doing $1 million a year in my clinic. Okay? And, and my, my goal, by the way, is never money.

I'm just sharing the number to give you an example. My goal was always to bless people, love people, and help them heal from disease, reverse their disease and use, so that, that was the, the primary goal. But, but I, but I, I, in business, when I partnered with Jordan Rubin, was able to do things that I never imagined I could do.

I built a business that wasn't $1 million, that was over $100 million. I didn't own— I want— I eventually, I, I, at one point in my life said it'd be great to have like 4 or 5 acres of land. I own with Jordan Rubin 4,000 acres of land where we practice regenerative agriculture.

All that being said, when you have the right partners in your life, everything from your spouse to this inner circle friend group to the people you have in business, it can not just double, it can multiply your life. In so many ways, and this is why you need to be so conscious about who you're doing life with.

Same thing if you ever go into business with a partner; you need to make sure their values and integrity are impeccable. You need to make sure that they're trustworthy, hardworking, and that you are that you're the same for them. And if you do that, you can accomplish far more together than you would on your own. Far more.

I want to get into another study here that I think really proves my point here. According to psychological scientists at Duke University. One of the most effective ways to stay on track and reach your goals, including your health goals, is to, is to surround yourself with people who are more disciplined than you are.

You may lack self-control, but being around people who excel in this virtue of self-control and self-discipline will make you more self-controlled and more self-disciplined. You become who you surround yourself with. That again, that, that is my number one rule for life. You become who you surround yourself with. And so be very, very conscious of that.

So listen, if you wanna be healthy, hang out with healthy people. If you wanna succeed in your career, hang out with more successful people. Dave Ramsey shared with this, this with me when I had him on my podcast. He said, the, the, your wealth is determined by the 10 people you spend the most time with outside of your family.

That's what determines how much money you'll make in your career and how successful you'll be. Almost everything comes down to who is your inner circle. You know, the ancient King Solomon taught that principle in Proverbs. Just as iron sharpens iron, friends sharpen the minds of each other. It's so, so important. Do you have iron sharpens iron relationships in your life?

In a 1993 study, Brit— British anthropologist Robin Dunbar found that the magic number for your inner circle is 5, 5 people. Now, sometimes it can expand beyond that to a total of 15 people, but really it's that 5 people and those 15 people that you spend the most time with that have the biggest impact on your life.

Now, there's also a few circles beyond that, 50 friends and 150 meaningful contacts, but really people can only handle 50 friends at a time or 15 good friends in their life and really only 5 close friends at a time, or, you know, within a few percentage points of that. And I found that to be true in my own life. I mean, I tend to have about 5 people in my life, maybe 5, 7, you know.

And now listen, I think I've got my family, okay? Uh, and then outside of my immediate family and other just really close family members, outside of that, I've got probably 5 to 10 people that I am close with that I connect with on a regular basis. And I have about 50 people I stay in contact with, look at what they're doing on a regular basis.

But really the 150 contacts, that's more social media based in that. And if you're watching on YouTube, you can see this chart. This is a great example of this and something to think about. And think about for you, who are your 5 family and then best friends, and then also your 15 close friends? I want you to write those down right now. I want you to write down and think about Who are your five?

You know, you have your family, but outside of your family, who are your five to ten close friends? Now here's the thing that really hurts my heart.

There there are a number of you that are going to sit down here and and you're going to say, "Now these are my close friends, but I really don't feel close to them," or "I don't really feel like." Some people might say, "I really don't feel like I have any close friends." And listen, it's so important then that you go and plug into the wrong places.

You know, I told a friend a friend of mine this recently who was. Was looking for a wife. I said, well, you know, where are you going to look for a wife? And, you know, he was going to bars. And I'm like, you know, you, you, you go to church groups, right? You go to synagogue, you go to a place of worship, you go to, you know, Habitat for Humanity, and you go on a mission trip.

You know, you, you go on, um, you go somewhere where you're gonna find— you know, you need to fish in the right pond. You're not fishing in the right pond. And so you want to make sure, if you want to build the right friends, close friends, that you are fishing In the right pond. Because oftentimes we don't do that. And so really go and pursue and figure out those people.

Now, here's the next thing I want you to do. Write down the 5 people outside of your family that you spend the most time with. And I want you to rank them on a scale of 1 to 10 on how— on are they iron sharpens iron for you? Okay? Scale of 1 to 10. And that typically means 2 things. Okay? One, they nurture you, they encourage you, they love you, and they also challenge you to be better.

And they're growing themselves. Okay? So write down, are those 5 people growing in their life? You know, where are they on a scale of 1 to 10 of being your encourager, your cheerleader, being there for when, when, when, when you need 'em and helping you grow. Okay?

And, and so I want you to think about those 5 people and, and let's say you have one of them and they're a 10 outta 10 or an 8 outta 10. Great. You should keep spending time with that person. But if you have a couple people on that list. That are 1 outta 10, 2 outta 10.

For instance, they're the sort of friends, they're not real friends that, you know, when you're on a diet or trying to get healthier, they try and sabotage you saying, hey, just let's cheat on this for a minute. You know, the only thing they want you to do is just drink more with them. You know, uh, they're constantly negative. They're all about themselves.

When you really needed 'em, they didn't, they don't show up. You know, those sort of people, they're scaling the 1s, the 2s, the 3s. Remove them from that list now. Okay? And I want you to just keep the people that are 7 outta 10s or above, maybe even 8. Just the, the higher numbers on your list.

And then I want you to go and write down who are 5 people that you might know or think you could know that you wanna pursue spending more time with. Now, you might only be able to think of 3 people, but then I want you to write down where would some of those people that have the qualities that you write down, where do they, what, where do they hang out? Who are they friends with?

Where do they convene? What part of groups are they in? And go to those places and get connected with those people. You know, we spend so much time wasting time on social media, scrolling, watching Netflix and streaming services, just wasting time when one of the greatest things we could ever do with our time is pursue meaningful friendships.

Because nothing will magnify and multiply your life more than having a close inner circle of powerful friends that are there for you, that are there when you need them. You know, uh, I wanna share an expert insight here. One of the, uh, wisest people that have ever lived. In fact, I would say he's one of the 10 most influential people of all time, if not the 5 most influential people of all time.

And his name is Aristotle. And here's how he divided up friendships. He said, there's really 3 types of friendships you're gonna have. One based on utility. So that's, that's sort of the, the, the practical relationships, pleasure and purpose. So practical pleasure, purpose or utility, pleasure and virtue. So number one, A friendship of utility is one in where a benefit is shared.

So for instance, like my parents growing up were friends with some of my friends from high school, their parents, because we were all on the soccer team together, right? So we would carpool, support each other in that. And so those are really friendships, most of them of utility. And those are great friendships. We need to have those in our life. You know, we're there to help and serve each other.

So that's a great friendship, utility. The second friendship is a friendship of pleasure. It's one in which both parties get fun out of it. Okay. You know, these are the friends to where, you know, you just, you laugh with, you share a good time with. Now, I think there are different types of pleasure. There are friends like this that are where it's, it's pleasure that is gonna hurt you tomorrow.

And again, drinking too much. And there's the pleasure of, hey, we really had fun together. It was good, harmless fun. Our kids got along together and, and, and we had a good time playing game, board games, that sort of thing, or whatever it might be. And, and that's a great type of friendship too.

But by far the most powerful form of friendship you wanna pursue is called a, a friendship of virtue or a friendship of purpose. And it's one that's based on shared values, purpose, and a deep respect for each other's standards and goals in life. So these are friends where they will your good. They want you to win just as much as you want you to win. And so I'll give you an example of this.

Like, I, I've had friends who— we recently had a loss in the family and it's been so hard. And I have a friend of mine, Dan, and he's, he, he's texted me 4 or 5 times. He's called me twice. How can I serve you? Even if I tell him he can't, he'll find a way to do it. He'll send flowers to the funeral. He'll show up. He'll do everything you can think of.

And that's the sort of friend you want in your life. And the other thing about him and his family is like, we share the same values of like, you know, knowing that we're gonna live for eternity and, and, and that we need to be generous and kind and loving and respectful. And we want to raise up great kids that, that, that are, that are virtuous people, right?

So it's, so, so we share those same values, those same morals, religious beliefs, those things, have a deep respect for each other. And the same for Dan. Like, Like, I wanna see him win as much as he wants to win. I'll go out of my way to help him in his business or, or in, in his goals or whatever he has in life. And I'm thinking about him. I don't just think about myself.

I think about him on a regular basis to think about how can I help him break through and achieve goals? Can I introduce him to somebody? What could I do to support him in his life? And it's those sort of friendships that we need to have today. But if you're spending all your time on social media with artificial relationships, you won't have real ones.

And so pursue those sort of relationships in your life. Now, along with having those sort of friends in your life, there's another sort of relationship you want to have that will take your life to a whole nother level. And it's the relationship between a mentor and a mentee, or the guide and the hero.

There is nothing more transformative than being in a community of greatness where there is a mentor that's a part of it who's pouring into everybody. If you watch a movie like The Lord of the Rings, this is the role of Gandalf. Okay? Gandalf brings wisdom, compassion, a sound mind, and guides everyone to, to victory. It's a very similar thing if you watch Star Wars. It's Yoda or Obi-Wan Kenobi.

They're the wise sage. They're the voice of wisdom, of leadership, of reason, helping guide all the hero. To, to, to, to win on the quest. So listen to this study. People in business who are mentored report a 70% improvement in their decision-making skills and are promoted 5 times more often than those that are not in a mentoring program.

Guys, 5 times more success, 5 times more promotions if you have a mentor. If you don't have a mentor in business, You're missing out. If you don't have a spiritual mentor in your life, you're missing out. If you don't have a mentor in relationships and marriage and being a parent, you're missing out. So here's what you need to do to find mentors.

First is think about the mentors that you might not be able to connect with as much in person. Okay? You know, some, there's some amazing people. You know, I'm thinking about, again, I mentioned Jordan Peterson, I mentioned John Maxwell, I mentioned Craig Groeschel. John Bevere, Lisa Bevere, Sadie Robertson, Tim Tebow. Write them, you know, write those people down.

Listen to everything they put out. Okay? And then the next thing you want to do is write down the 1 in 3 people you believe you can learn from and connect with in person. Now, sometimes you could pay for this. It could be a mastermind group, life coaching, could be counselors, people. It could be a church group, things like that. Either you pay for it or some, of course, you don't pay for.

But, but you, you wanna be part of these groups if you can, and it will help you move ahead in just an incredible way. And then, you know, try and meet with them on a regular basis. Now, if you're joining a church group or mastermind or whatever it is, you're naturally going to get those connections on a regular basis, but you wanna go ahead and set those up on a regular basis.

And ideally what you do with a mentor is connect with them regularly, ask some great questions, never show up without, without good questions. And then take action immediately on whatever they share with you. You need to be humble, hungry, coachable in order to be worthy of being mentored. The next step after getting a mentor is mentoring others.

Now, I hear from a lot of people, I think they believe, or you might believe, that you need to be some perfect person, a saint, or this massive, well-known leader in order to lead others or be a mentor. And that's not the case at all. If you're a parent, you're a mentor. If you're an older sibling, you're in the place of being a mentor. So you don't need to be 10 steps ahead of someone in life.

You need to be one step ahead of them in life and just committed to growing in order to mentor others. And you know, this is an amazing statistic, but 89% of mentees mentor others. And so if you get a mentor and they pour into you, It's almost automatic. Nearly 90% of the time you will then mentor others. You know, I love to see this in history. You know, Socrates was Plato's mentor.

Plato became Aristotle's mentor. Aristotle became the mentor of Alexander the Great. Now, you don't have to be, you know, a Yoda or a sage or be the wisest person in the world in order to guide others. Again, you just need to know a little bit more than others. I'll give you an example of this. When I went on to work on my doctorate, I wasn't that old.

I was probably 23 years old, and I started going and working with college students and high school students leading youth group at a church. And so, you know, for some of them, I was only a few years older, but I led those groups and it helped me grow tremendously.

I mean, since then, I just continually have done that and led a growth group almost every single year of my entire life, and nothing has helped me grow more than mentoring others. I mean, you would think that me having mentors would've caused me to grow the most, but I don't know that that's the case. Now, I do think it's a 3-pronged approach, right? You are being mentored by someone above you.

Your iron sharpens iron with someone beside you, and then you are mentoring someone below you. And when you are doing all 3 of those things at one time, it, it maximizes your growth and potential in life. And so you wanna write down who are the people that are iron sharpens iron for you, those 5 people. Who are the 1 or 3 people that you need to mentor you?

And then who are those people that you have an opportunity to mentor? And if you can do that, you'll maximize your life, probably doing that more than anything else you could ever do in your life. You know, I do this in a men's group I have. I started a men's group and I've been doing that now. This is our 6th or 7th year, and I have an unbelievable group of guys.

And what I did when I was putting this together, I said, okay, I want guys that share my same values, guys that are— here's the most important one— they are humble and hungry to grow. And the same with women, right? I know like my mother-in-law, she, you know, she leads a group.

There are other people that have groups that they lead in a similar fashion, but I wrote down, okay, do they share values? Are they humble? So, so they, they, you know, there's no pride here, so they actually have room to grow. They're really hungry. If I tell them to read it, they'll read it.

Um, and, and then, and then I also wrote down for this group in particular, I said, okay, I want them to have, uh, I want them to possibly be entrepreneurs or influential in business because that's the sort of impact I wanted to have them have. They needed to have similar spiritual beliefs and those sort of things. And I invited guys in the group.

Well, we're on our 7th year now, and, and we, we've kind of phased through a few guys over the years, but we still have mostly the same core group. And, and really it's just amazing. Iron sharpens iron. I mean, the guys in this group, a few of them, Dan Sullivan, Colt Morton, Isaac Meek, Andrew East, like Isaac Meek. I just, I wanna share a few things about these guys in my group.

Isaac Meek started Five Daughters Bakery. By the way, if you're ever in Nashville, he, they, they do paleo donuts. They, they, they, they're made with honey and I think cassava flour and almond far. They're the best things you'll ever have in your life. Okay? But he started this amazing business, has locations starting now all over the country, and he has 5 daughters.

Of course, that's why it's called Five Daughters Bakery. And he's one of the most amazing dads I've ever seen in my life. So, I mean, I learn from him even though in, in this group constantly, and he's, he's a close friend of mine, but he's in the group. I've got Andrew East.

I mean, he brings this thing of just tenacity and commitment You know, being a former NFL athlete and just being an amazing person building this amazing media company with his wife, Shawn. I've got Colt Morton. He's the president and CEO of Ancient Nutrition. He was a former Major League Baseball player for the San Diego Padres. Just 10 out of 10, just amazing person.

And then again, Dan Sullivan, I mentioned him earlier, just an amazing guy. He's a doctor, a leader, a coach, amazing family, Has 3 daughters, one of the best dads I've ever seen. And so these are guys that I just, we, what we do is we get together once a month for 3 hours to talk and train, typically from like 2 to 5 or, or from 3 to 6. And then we'll do dinner afterwards.

And we do that once a month. And now we talk and hang out outside of that a lot. But once a month we read a book together or go through a podcast series together and we get, and we basically, I'll share for maybe 10, 10 minutes at the beginning. Everyone will share their biggest takeaways from the book, and then we might go around and share something we're gonna take action on.

And on occasion, we don't do this every time, but sometimes we'll do prayer requests or something like that. Or, and we do different exercises as well. Sometimes we'll create a vision board or we'll do, you know, have to take our spouse on a date and say the 10 things we love about them most, create a family plan, goal setting, all kinds of things. And so we have a template.

And by the way, if you look in the show notes, Here, we'll put this up somewhere, my exact template. Actually, if you get my book, Think This, Not That, this book has the exact template in chapter 6 of the exact books we read from a couple years ago, the questions we ask, all the things.

So if you get my book, Think This, Not That, in the book in chapter 6, you'll see exactly what we went through as a template you can use. Use as you lead your group there as well. By the way, this book has been selling so, so well. I'm so excited. Uh, we were one of the top books on Amazon. It continues to grow, selling tens of thousands of copies.

So thanks everybody who's bought it and supported it. It's the book Think This, Not That. If you wanna get a copy, just go to Amazon, search Josh Axe Think This, Not That. The book is all about mindset, crushing through limiting beliefs. And what you've been listening to, this is part of a podcast series I think we're on number 5 now or 6.

And so, if you go and you can watch all of these in the thumbnails, you click if you're watching on YouTube and listen to those, or if you're listening on iTunes or Spotify, you can also listen to the whole series here on Think This, Not That and overcoming limiting beliefs. All right.

I wanted to show you here as an example, if you're watching on YouTube, look at the benefits of the learning retention rates based on these different actions. If you sit in a lecture, you're going to remember the information about 5%, about 5% of the information. If you read it, you'll keep about 10%.

If you do an audiovisual together, like a YouTube, like you're like, let's say you're watching on YouTube now and you're doing audiovisual together, you'll typically remember 20%. If you demonstrate something, Or watch a demonstration. You'll— it's about— I'm sorry, if you watch a demonstration, it's about 30%.

Now, if you're part of a discussion group where everyone's talking about it and you're learning together, that's about 50%, which that's one of the things I do in that group is we do discussion of the group about the book, hitting on those principles, which helps us learn it more. Practice by doing. So you then go and implement the things in the group. Now, here's the crazy thing, though.

If you teach others something that you've learned, you'll retain it 90% of the time more long-term, and you'll understand it in a deeper way. And so this is really, really powerful. A really, really powerful tool to remember is that, you know, if you can lead a growth group, you're getting 90% of the benefit where some people who read it are only getting 10%. Okay?

If they don't follow through, uh, or if they just, just read the material. But this is why, again, teaching others and mentoring others Will help you grow as much as anything in your entire life. Remember this principle: you become who you surround yourself with. You become the 5 people you spend the most time with.

I mean, it is the number one determining factor of your success in life is the people you spend time with. So be conscious of it. Pursue the right type of people. And we can only become who we were meant to be and the greatest version of ourselves. When we create a dream team of people, a purpose-driven community, uh, that we are committed to growing with.

I mean, this is important for families as well. You know, Chelsea and I really practice hanging out with other couples that have great kids so our daughters can grow up to be great kids. You know, and, and if you really want to listen, everything from overcome failure to, uh, have more self-discipline to, again, having a breakthrough in your life, you need to intentionally build community.

So going back to the top 5 people in your life, the people that should be in your inner circle, ask these questions about them. What kind of impact do they currently have on your life? Number 2, do they encourage you to work out or go for the big dream or goal even when you don't feel like it?

Are they merely a sounding board for your problems, or do they actually help you come to good solution, support you in overcoming your troubles? And also, can you rely on them when the going gets tough? And can you always rely on them to do the right thing and tell you to do the right thing even when you don't agree with it?

So they're telling you those, those tough things in life and challenging you in that way. The reality is this: the community you choose will either push you forward in life or hold you back. Imagine what your life could look like if you were surrounded by people who were purpose-driven, who pushed you to be your best. How much more would you improve? How much more would you accomplish?

Who could you become if you surrounded yourself with a community of greatness? Remember this principle. Think this: life is better with people who help you grow. Don't think this: life is better solo and on your own. In my new book, remember this, Think This, Not That, you're gonna find specific ways you can build a community of greatness.

Again, in chapter 6, you'll learn all about that in detail. And there are so many other great chapters. We're getting so much feedback. So make sure you check out more on my Instagram channel, @DrJoshAxe. Also, hey, if you, by the way, if you go and buy a copy of the book today, if you buy it on Amazon, you'll get a code. If you then go to joshaxe.com, you will get $500 worth of free bonuses.

You'll get a free workbook, you'll get bonus interviews, you'll get these incredible cards that help me grow more than anything called Virtue Cards. You'll also get a whole mindset masterclass and video series, all of it for free if you get the book today. Again, go to joshaxe.com in order to take advantage of all of those bonuses there only.

Well, I wanna say, hey, thanks so much for tuning in here to the Dr. Josh Axe Show, where each and every week, I uncover the science and principles on how to grow in body, mind, and spirit and take your health and your life to the next level. Hey, make sure to subscribe, like, and share this.

Listen, if there are people you know need to hear this, or maybe you're already part of a group or a mastermind or a church group, whatever it is, share this with all the people in the group because they need to hear the truth. And because I, I don't think a lot of times people fully understand how important it is.

Like, I'm gonna take this episode And share it with my men's group and, and several groups that I have, because I know that the people we spend time with is one of the most important things that we can do in our life to help us grow, to help them grow, to make a big impact on the world. Hey, thanks so much for listening to this week's episode. I'll be back next week.