How Your Mindset Can Change Your Life

On today's episode, I'll be covering how to grow personally and mindset. This is so important to success. And I think about any success that I've had in life, it's been due to my mindset. And, you know, I think about relationships. And so if you want to have a successful, uh, marriage or, uh, a great relationship with your kids, you've got to have the right mindset about it.

When I— when you think about, uh, career success, I've been fortunate enough to found 5 multimillion-dollar businesses in a lot of different spaces. All the same principles apply, the same mindset applies on how to become more successful. And so on today's episode, I'm gonna be answering the questions that you posed to me via Instagram and YouTube on the power of personal growth.

And I think back at my life, what allowed me to experience success, and it was that I had a personal growth plan and I made decisions early on in my life about books I would read and podcasts I would listen to and habits I would form in order to experience growth every single year. And I'm so, so grateful for it.

So I'm going to share with you today some of, of my tips and some of the advice from some of the wisest people that have ever lived, whether it be Aristotle or Jordan Peterson or many others, on how to grow personally and create a powerful mindset. All right, so let's go ahead and dive in here. First question is, what advice would you give to someone who feels behind in life?

And I think a lot of people might feel somewhat behind in life. And I know even at points in my time, I felt like, well, gosh, I could have used my time better here and here. And I think about the past. But one thing I would say is that the first thing you should do is stop worrying about the past and focus on the future.

So, if you feel behind, I would say that don't focus on the past, start focusing on the future. And also realize that there are many, many people in this world that didn't experience a high level of success. Yeah. Until later on in life. I think about someone like J.K. Rowling, and she really didn't become a successful writer until, I believe, late into her 40s. Similar thing with Albert Einstein.

Many, many people, you'd be surprised, didn't experience success until their 40s, 50s, or even their 60s. And so, know that, again, you have the capability to make a big impact almost no matter when you get started. Now, Here's what I would say. If you feel behind, here's the best way to catch up. And here's something that not a lot of people do, but all the most successful people do.

And that is pick one thing and master it. One thing. Benjamin Franklin said, become a jack of all trades, but a master of one. You want to master one thing, one topic. And I've tried to do this in my career, first with health and then with the topics of leadership. But when you look at health, and here's how I did this as well, and I just want to encourage you because I think this would help you.

Yeah. I've been known throughout my career in the health field as sort of different things. So early in my career, somebody called me, oh, the detox doc. And then I started focusing a lot on gut health. And so people started saying, oh, Dr. Axe, he's the gut health expert. And then after a period of time, it was cancer, cuz I helped my mom overcome cancer.

And then they said, oh, he's the guy that knows a lot about essential oils and then keto diet. And then, oh, Dr. Axe is the guy with Ancient Nutrition and collagen. And all that being said, know that you're not, not pinning yourself in by picking one thing to master, but, but it's the best way to learn and grow.

You've probably heard the best way to learn a new language is to submerge yourself, submerse yourself in that topic. And so, if you want to learn Spanish, the best way to learn Spanish would be to listen to everything in Spanish all day long, study Spanish, talk to people in Spanish, move to Spain or Mexico or somewhere where they speak Spanish language for 6 months.

And in 6 months, you can know it incredibly well versus if you kind of dabbled in it for 3 years. That very same principle applies that if you devote, let's say, 3 years to something, you can become an unbelievable expert in that area. Let me give you an example. One of the things that I did early in my career, I talked about health.

And so, I would take a year and study everything about essential oils obsessively a few hours a day. I'd watch videos on it, podcasts, read medical literature, read books. And then, I would do presentations on it. And so, in 1 year, I probably knew more about essential oils than almost anyone alive.

Now, there are a few people, so I'm not saying I knew the most, but I knew a lot because I spent so much time studying it. In a very similar way, one of the things I'm doing now is I've spent the last 2 years studying a lot of psychology, and I'll take college courses on this.

In fact, I went and studied, went back and got a degree at Johns Hopkins University in leadership, and then now I'm going to do the same thing in psychology. All that being said, what you want to do is like, what I'll do is I will read, I'll listen to an hour a day of psychology lectures. I'll be reading a psychology book. So I'll consume about 2 hours a day at least.

And then I'll start doing presentations on psychology. And then on Instagram, I'll follow psychology posts on YouTube. So here's what I would recommend. Let's say you wanted to, let's say you wanted to, if you feel behind and you wanted to become a life coach. Okay? And part of that is becoming a personal growth expert. Here's how you should do that.

You should write down, you should read one book a month, and when you read that book, you should highlight and take notes. You should then type them out, okay? And then you should be able to do a presentation on it. So you read, let's say you read 12 books a year and you did a pre— 12 presentations on all of them, okay? Let's say you did that for 3 years.

That means you will have read 36 books on personal growth and self-development and had 36 presentations on those topics. Now, that might seem like a lot, but it's not. I do this constantly to where I'll read a book and let's say that takes me 10 hours. Okay? And then the notes I take, once I type them out, let's say that takes maybe 3 hours.

And let's say creating a presentation, that's another 3 hours. Let's even say that's 18 hours, maybe even 20 hours. Okay? So let's say that might be that could take up to 20 hours a month. Now, you can probably do it in less, uh, but, but basically, let's go back to the 18-hour thing just, just for simplicity.

Um, you know, if you took and you did, um, you know, uh, let's say 2 hours a day, okay, towards something, what, what you can— I mean, you could actually do all of that in almost a week. You could do almost a presentation a week. But going back to this, you know, if you did probably 4 hours a week, okay?

So, you just devoted an hour, 4 days a week or 4.5 hours, then you're going to be able to do that program I just talked about. So, 4-hour week. If you have 4 hours a week to totally engross yourself in this new topic, you can master it. And so, all that being said, if you feel behind, join an accelerated program.

Pick a topic, pick a problem in the world, something you feel passionate about, something you want to learn about and grow in. Spend a lot of time, have a 3-year plan or at least a 1-year plan of the books you're going to read, the podcasts you're going to listen to, the articles, and then schedule out time in your schedule where you're going to do an hour, maybe 4 to 5 days a week.

And listen, some of you might be able to do more. Maybe if you're like me and you're studying psychology now, even though I have a full-time job and I have kids and all these things going on, what I will do is I'll be reading a hardback book and listening to a podcast or a book on audio. And when I'm working out an hour a day, I listen to that audio.

Sometime during the day, I read for about an hour, and then I'll listen to something about an hour before I go to bed. So, I'm getting at least 2 hours a day of training and learning psychology right now. And if you do a very similar thing, you'll get— and it'll blow your mind. 3 Months from now, you'll be like, okay, I know a good amount.

3 Years from now, you'll be blown away by how much you know and how fast you caught up to everybody and started surpassing everyone. In your field. And so whatever that field is that you want to grow in, you can catch up if you have a plan and you follow through. That's it. So, so that's what I would encourage you to do.

Next question: How can I renew my mind after growing up with lots of instability like foster care and childhood trauma? One, I want to recognize that that can be incredibly difficult. Having these childhood traumas. I think they start showing up in different areas of our life. It creates a lot of limiting beliefs and a lot of beliefs about yourself, about other people, about the world.

And so, just to give you an example of this, let's say you had childhood trauma, you may think of yourself as you're not worthy. And then, you might also have limiting beliefs around other people thinking that no one is really kind, everyone has an ulterior motive and is kind of wicked deep down. And you might also feel like, well, hey, the world is just unfair.

So, so, so I would say the first thing is to— if you want to heal from that trauma and that instability you have, is write. You need to become aware of exactly what it is and try and pinpoint the emotion and the events that happen. So, the first thing I would do is get out a sheet of paper. I actually think it's more beneficial to write with a pen and paper rather than actually typing it out.

But if you want to do it on a computer, that works as well. But sit down and write down a couple things. One is, What are those events that still bother you today? It could have been the fact that if you're an orphan, your parents gave you up, okay? Or you had a parent-like figure who abused you in some way. But write that down, even though it hurts, write it down.

What is that event in your life that still plagues you and pains you today? Okay? And then, I want you to write down the story that's come out of that. What is the limiting belief that was born out of whatever that is, that thing that's still holding you back and creating that mental instability. So, write down what that means to you, that event.

Then write down, the third thing is the emotions it's creating in you. It could be anger, it could be resentment, it could be a feeling of you're not good enough. And so, then write that down, the feelings that you're associating with it. And then what I want you to do, Is write down, okay?

And this can be difficult, but this is something that is powerful, is you write down sort of this, you write down your perspective as being a victim, okay? But then I want you to write a new narrative and write down how all of these things you can use them for good, okay? And I think when you read the best stories in the world, whether it be a story about Harry Potter, right?

An incredibly popular story today where he was an orphan, right? And he was abused by his parents, but look at what he went on to do, right?

That's a fictional story, but there are many nonfiction stories, great examples of this, where people were orphans or they were in foster care or they were in this place in life that's incredibly unfair, and they went on to do great deeds and they went on to be great people and they went on to have the most positive impact in the world far beyond others.

And so, that's what I would do is write down this narrative on what you've learned from these things, how you can use them for good. By the way, that's the difference between a villain and a hero in all the stories. Use the Harry Potter example again. Guess what? Harry Potter was an orphan. Voldemort, that evil person in that story, guess what? He was an orphan too.

Dumbledore goes and gets him out of an orphanage. And if you haven't watched the movie or read the books, that's okay. But just to give you an example, they both end up orphans. The one person who has trauma inflicted upon them, the evil character, he takes that same pain and inflicts that upon others. So he uses the pain for evil.

And what Harry Potter does in the story is he uses the pain for good. He uses his suffering to help others not have to suffer like he had. He He becomes the great friend to others. He becomes even the father figure to younger people. He becomes that person. And so that's the thing I would do is say, you know what, I can use, or God can use, all these things for good in my life.

And so change your perception around those things. But the first step to healing is self-awareness of the event that happened, the beliefs that you've created because of it, and the emotions you're experiencing. And then write down your new narrative and what you now should believe about the world that will create the best outcome for you.

Because believing people are inherently evil or don't change, that won't help you in the future versus believing people can change, people can be good, and realizing that will help you in the future. So, so here's a few things to, to renew you. You said, how can I renew my mind? Here's how I would renew your mind. One is read a lot of good books.

Read books that have those stories of redemption where those, you know, those, you know, the kids in foster care, those, those kids that orphans and that went on to do great things. You can do— now, some of them can be fiction, more of them should be nonfiction, but reading books that kind of build virtue. I would read a lot of books that sort of promote Judeo-Christian values.

It could be authors like C.S. Lewis or Tim Keller or others. There's a book by Bill Johnson I love called Born for Significance, John and Lisa Bevere. But I would read— I also like John Eldredge and Stacy Eldredge. She has a book Captivating. He has a book Wild at Heart.

And so I think that reading those good books regularly, constantly will help renew your mind, and the Bible would be included in that. Again, as I mentioned, work on self-awareness, becoming aware of where you're at, and then aware of where you want to be and who you want to become.

And then the last thing I would recommend here to overcome the instability and trauma in your life is all of these things typically are tied to relationships. And our relationships are the most impactful thing in terms of what impacts our identity.

And so, this instability, that word typically is tied to, or, and you may know this or you may not know this, but it typically is tied to your identity about who you feel you are, your own value, your own self-worth, who you are in this world. And that also your identity is what actually feeds and gives you purpose in life. But that's all tied to relationships.

So, our identities are more tied to relationship, to— Relationships. Our relationships or communities, and then our roles and responsibilities within those communities. So for identity, I would say, and I'll give you an example of this too, it's important that you, if you want to be a good father or a good mother or a good friend or a good boss, it's important that you have those people to model.

And so for myself, I was really blessed to have a great dad and a great mom. They weren't perfect. There were deficiencies in certain areas, but overall they were amazing. And so I can, I know my dad taught me discipline. And so I know how to teach my kids discipline because I had that father figure. I also had coaches. I also had mentors.

And so what I would say, one of the greatest things you can do is find those people. If you never had a father figure in your life, go and find a father figure now, even if you're 60 years old. Okay? Find a good father figure, somebody who's virtuous, who's selfless, doing great things in the world, and learn from them and model them, model the way that they're living.

And maybe they they're in a similar place than you. You know, I remember my mom, she used to watch this female pastor, her name is Joyce Meyer. And Joyce Meyer was sexually abused as a child by a family member.

And so if somebody had been, you know, a woman and she'd been sexually abused, Joyce Meyer would be a good person to follow because you can really relate to what she's been through in life and who she is now. And so all that being said, I think there's a lot of power from Going and finding— and by the way, I did this in business. For instance, my dad wasn't really an entrepreneur, okay?

My dad worked for Ohio Bell, working out on telephone lines in the cold, you know, more blue-collar worker. But my dad wasn't an entrepreneur, so I had to go and find a father figure, a business figure, an entrepreneur figure in my life in order to model and learn how to behave and act like that.

So, I found people like Ben Lerner and Greg Lohmann and Chuck Majors and some other people in business, Danny Actor. These were, these were doctors who were entrepreneurs, and I was able to model what they did.

But I think that's really important that if you don't have those relationships and you never had that mother or father figure, a great place to find those typically is, I would say, a couple of places. One is go to a place of worship, whether it be a church or a synagogue or someplace where you can go and be around virtuous people that are selfless, that have high character. Okay?

So, try and get plugged in at places like that and find those people. Also, you can find those people at a distance. As I've studied a lot of psychology, I've studied a lot of Jordan Peterson, and people are constantly coming up to him saying, you were the father I never had.

Now, some of these people have never met him or they meet him one time for a few minutes, but because of his books and lectures, they're learning how to be men because their fathers never taught them that. My point is this is powerful. If you want to create stability and overcome these traumas, you might've had a really bad example of what a father and mother look like.

Well, go and find those figures now, even if it's not biological, go and find those people that can help you grow in that area. And by the way, this is really important too, because I think also this is why I think reading the Bible so is important because you get an idea of what a perfectly loving parent and father looks like in God as you read the story of, you know, the narrative of the Bible.

And so that's what I encourage you to do. Read lots of good books, Work on your self-awareness, go through those practices, and build out those really great relationships with mentors and with people that you can be discipled under. How do you combat negative thoughts is the next question. Here's what— here's how I would answer this. It is all about what you decide to focus on. This is so big.

It's your focus. Fix your mind on the things above. Fix your mind on the good things. If I decide to watch TV shows that are in movies and read books that are redemptive, I'm reading and watching Lord of the Rings, okay? And I'm learning about the sacrifice of where Frodo is willing to sacrifice himself, be the sacrificial lamb for all of the world, right?

And you're seeing Samwise Gamgee and he's this sacrificial servant, or you're, again, just When you're reading books about saints like Mother Teresa and Saint Francis of Assisi and Thomas Aquinas, all these people, these amazing people, and when you're reading the Bible, when you're reading things and watching things, when you're on social media and you're watching people that are posts that are incredibly selfless people that are focused on love and truth and those sort of things, that's going to instill in you positive thinking, positive thoughts versus if you are— and by the way, I saw a post.

Ashley, who works with me as a producer of the show, she sent me a clip here this week on Sadie Robertson. And Sadie is somebody I really admire. In fact, Chelsea and I, my wife and I, were saying, hey, if we could have our daughters model some people living today, who were a few of those people? And one of those people we said was Sadie Robertson because she is so outspoken about her her faith.

She's doing good things in the world. I think about if I had a son, you know, Tim Tebow, I think he's doing some amazing things for kids with special needs. And so all that being said, one of the things that Sadie said in one of her recent, in a recent video that was posted from her was if you go to her Instagram feed, you'll know what she's about. Okay.

And you'll know what she is constantly plugging in her mind. And it's a very similar thing for me. She said, you know, you'd feel like you were at church if you were following Sadie Robertson. Okay. That's, that's the sort of feeds. And if you were following my feed, you would see a few things. You'd see basically, you'd see leadership, you'd see a lot of spiritual stuff.

You'd partly, you'd feel like at least half the time you were at church. So there's a lot of accounts. You'd see a lot of philosophy from the Stoics. You would see a lot of leadership and personal growth, a lot of health. And that's what you'd see. You know, that's all you'd see on my account. You're not going to see anything negative. Now, I might have one or two news sites.

And so I guess just to keep up on what's going on in the Middle East and And different wars just to be aware. But overall, on my feed, it's virtue. It's positive, positive, positive. And so, what I would say is if you are on Instagram, if you're on YouTube, follow those people that help inspire you and create those positive thoughts.

Because if you're constantly focused on debt and you don't have enough money and sort of the lack of in the world, Then it's going to create that within you. You're going to start going towards that versus if you start focusing on how do I build wealth? How do I attract money? How do I build up a skill in order to make more wealth? Well, it's going to lead you there.

And that's just a principle of this, of the— it's a principle. It's not an opinion. It's a principle. What you focus on, it's sort of this quote from Solomon in Proverbs. He says, as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. Think about that. As this is from the Bible, as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.

As you thinketh, what you fix your eyes on, what you start thinking, that's what you become. And so what I would encourage you to do is really focus on, like, on your social media channels, on the books you read, be very aware of the TV shows you watch.

If I'm watching TV, Chelsea and I are watching things that are redemptive, that have a moral of a story, that are uplifting, uh, versus we're not watching these dark, you know, constantly dark shows with a lot of immorality. Morality and, uh, and those sort of things. And so how do you combat negative thoughts? You fix your eyes on the right thing.

Now, there are some good books on these sort of topics. The Power of Positive Thinking is an example of a classic book on that. So that's one book you might run out and get.

But I would say, you know, go and delete every account on your social media that is not incredibly positive and redemptive, that doesn't make you feel good about yourself, that doesn't instill some sort of moral value and character within you. Delete the rest and then go and find out. Follow those accounts that are promoting sort of a biblical worldview. And that's what I'd suggest. Next question.

How can I balance a growth mindset with being submissive to God's will for my life right now? You know, I don't think those two things are— it's not like a scale, like you have one or the other, a growth mindset or sort of being obedient to the Creator's calling in your life. What I would say is what a growth mindset is, is saying, You know what, I'm not worried about being perfect.

I'm not— my goal is not for everybody to look at me and think how great I am and everybody applaud me. My goal is to give my best effort. My goal is to be the best I can be in my character and be the best I can in the talent I have, give my best. So really, a growth mindset is, is it's about working hard to grow versus working hard to be perfect so everybody likes you and thinks you're great.

Okay. So, and I would say that really aligns with what God wants for us is that, you know, we should really be focused on growing and becoming our best selves. And so I would just say overall, I would say that, you know, and I think part of this question might be, you know, sometimes we get put in positions to where we don't love where we're at.

Like, for instance, you might be in a job right now that you just don't love. Okay. And I've been in those situations in life, right, to where I'm like, okay, this is not what I feel gifted to do. This is not where I necessarily want to be, but I know that at this time I'm called to do this. I think realizing and understanding no matter where you are, take lemons and make lemonade.

No matter where you're at in life, you might be in a job that you hate. You're like, this is not where I want to be long-term. Be faithful with that talent you've been given. Let's say there's a parable of the talents you've been given to turn that into 4. Okay? Let's say you're working as a janitor at a Wendy's or a fast food restaurant. Okay. Be the best at that thing, the absolute best. Okay.

And if you do that with greatness, I think God's going to open a door for you to do something else. And so I would just say wherever you're at, do it with a full heart and give it your very best. Next question. I feel out of my comfort zone leading a small group at church. Do you have any advice? Well, one, I can really empathize with you feeling that way.

And I'm— I want to first encourage you and say, way to go. Way to get out of your comfort zone. Way to lead a small group at church. Way to do something that you— that, that, that, that you're uncomfortable with. I think that, you know, here's one thing I'm encouraged by when I go back and read. If you ever watch the TV show The Chosen, which, by the way, is one of my top 5 TV shows of all time.

I mean, I think in terms of a positive impact, it's the top TV show I've ever watched. And so if you haven't watched that TV show, TV show, The Chosen. Um, you can go and watch it on almost every streaming network, on— or at least a couple different streaming networks. And I want to encourage you to watch. I think it's on iTunes and Amazon Prime.

Uh, but, but I would watch— or go to The Chosen app. But I think watching that TV show is great. One of the things that's encouraging about it, you see even the disciples of Jesus early on, they weren't, they weren't perfect. Like, they were, they were constantly out of their comfort zone. So no, if you're out of your comfort zone, You're doing the right thing.

So, I was talking to a friend of mine, Michael Hyatt, years ago, and he told me he started a small group. And he said they did mostly leadership and personal growth books. Now, I wanted to start a group where we did a mixture of leadership and business and spiritual growth. Okay? So, we would kind of alternate books. One month, we do a leadership or business book.

The next month, we would do a spiritual growth book. And the people that ended up in my group, now, I was sort of selective in who I had in there, and I wanted to create this iron sharpens iron community. And within my group, I ended up having a missionary. I ended up having a person who had a PhD in theology and ended up having a pastor of an incredibly successful church.

And that wasn't initially what I was going for. But one friend said, oh, I think my friend here— I said, hey, I'm looking for really top quality people in their character who really want to grow. But that's who ended up in my group. And I also— so when I was going into this group, I don't have a seminary degree. Okay.

And I was sitting there and going into that first meeting and even the first few feeling really out of my comfort zone because when we're teaching the topics on spiritual growth in terms of a degree and experience, again, one of them worked for 5 years in Africa as a missionary and then became a pastor. And so there is a level of, I guess, feeling— I felt unqualified.

But as I was thinking and praying before I went in there, I really felt like God just telling me like, listen, I don't, you know, I don't call the equipped, I equip the called. And so for me, I knew that I'd be equipped. I knew that it would help me grow. And so what I tried to do throughout this time was, one, here's the biggest thing. I was prepared. Okay?

So before we went into meetings, I was as prepared as possible. Now, listen, I've grown up and read and probably done as much reading as a lot of seminary students. And so I've read books on church history. Not just one, like probably 20, and a lot of other topics too.

And so, I was fairly educated, but at the same time, again, I didn't have the degrees or the full-time job as some of these incredible people in the group. But again, one, I went in prepared. So, if we read a book, I read a book and I took the notes and I did extra study and I went in prepared.

So, that's one thing I would say is that one thing that will help you would be the most prepared for that group. Number 2, you don't always have to use your own authority. You can use the authority of others.

For instance, if I would read someone like Thomas Aquinas or a Martin Luther, and I'm going into that group, I could share, hey, here is the view of Thomas Aquinas or St. Augustine or Mother Teresa or Martin Luther King Jr. or someone else who has authority on this topic. And so you don't always need to sort of expose your own authority.

You can use the authority of somebody who has a greater authority than both of you, uh, in— as you lead a group. The other thing I would say is be authentic, be vulnerable. Hey, you know what, guys, this is something I'm struggling with. Hey, this is something I don't know. So one of the people in the group, and he was the most experienced, he was the missionary and the pastor.

Sometimes I would say, hey, you know what, um, uh, Pastor, you know, uh, you know, Pastor, hey, would you go ahead and share your thoughts on this? And by the way, as I led a group, I didn't try and stand up and be the leader and sort of, you know, lecture everybody. My focus was being the facilitator of growth.

And so, I was leading the group, but more than anything, I generally would let everybody do a lot more talking. I would try and give instructive feedback. I would share my thoughts. But more than anything, I tried to facilitate growth and other people sharing. And if somebody had greater expertise than I did, I would let them share more than I did and help even lead the discussions.

And so, I would say be authentic. Be real, be vulnerable with where you're at. You're not called to be perfect. You know, I'm reading a book right now by St. Augustine. It's called The Confessions. And in the book, this is probably known both in Catholicism and Protestantism.

So in just general, all of Christianity, he is known as probably one of the most 4 influential church fathers, period, in every denomination. And, but St. Augustine, it's called The Confessions because he is being real and authentic about where he's at emotionally, his doubts, the things he's working through, his addictions in his past life, all of those things.

And I don't think we do that enough today. Some of the best leaders are authentic, they're vulnerable, they're sharing their hearts. And so I would say if you want to be a great leader of the group, share where you were at, what you're struggling with, and where and what the truth is. And I think that's a great way to lead as well. And here's the last thing. Walk the walk, act with virtue.

You know, I would say as an example of this, I mentioned Tim Tebow earlier. He is somebody that, uh, there's a, there's this quote by Saint Francis of Assisi, and he said this. He said, preach the gospel, use words when necessary. So, so the idea there is like, when I watch Tim Tebow and what he's doing, he does a Night to Shine for kids with disabilities.

So he spends a great deal of his life working with kids with disabilities. Now, I can appreciate this a lot too, because my mom was a teacher who worked with children on the autistic spectrum and with a lot of disabilities. And that's a really hard job.

And it takes a really, really, I would say, somebody who's incredibly compassionate to work with kids and have that level of patience with a lot of these kids. And so when I look at somebody like Tim Tebow, just being around him, I'm convicted. He doesn't even have to say anything. Just watching his action, his rushing to help other people. It impacts me.

So I would say being that person in the group, being that person where you're serving everybody, hey, you're giving out drinks, you're putting your hand on their shoulder, how you're doing, you're the one that's praying for them when they're in need.

You're the person that is rushing to help others with compassion and acting with that action that will do more and say more than anything that you could speak. And so I would say that's another piece of advice. And that's something I've tried to be really conscious of is taking care of the food and the drinks and praying for people. My hand on them.

And here's another thing that I think great leaders do. They see the greatness in others and they call it out. So one of the things I try and do with people that I lead and have given me the honor of being able to disciple or mentor is, let's say I've got a young man in the group or a man even my age, I'll put my hand on their shoulder and say, you know what? You are doing such a great job here.

Or, hey, you're not doing this, but I think you're capable of doing this. I see this in you. Okay? So I see in you, I see the ability, I see the unique calling God has on your life. And so I think if you could also do that, because some people have never had anyone in their entire life speak those words of encouragement. They've never had anyone in life tell them the greatness they're capable of.

And sometimes it just takes one single person to do that and it breaks a limiting belief. It breaks off. Something that's within that person allows them to go on and to do more than they even thought they were capable of. And so again, that's another thing I would just say is be that person and think about every group. Go around to at least one person and say, I see this in you.

You're doing a great job here, and I think you're capable of this. All right, next question here. Do you have any recommendations for spiritual growth books for my young adult daughter? I do. I've got a few here. You know, one of my favorite books, it's a book really about identity. It's tied to King David, but it's a book that we can really take about how to grow in our own identity.

And it's a book by Dale Mast, and it's called And David Perceived He Was King. This is one of my absolute favorite books. I've actually read it multiple times. Every time I read it, it allows me to strengthen my own identity, which is needed today. A lot of these, a lot of people with mental health disorders and feeling unstable and insecure in It's a lack of— it's a weak identity.

And so this helps really kind of help instill in people a more divine and powerful identity. So that's a great book, And David Perceived You as King. Another book I love that kind of, I think, creates more of just a solid foundation of belief is a book by Tim Keller called The Reason for God. Tim Keller's an incredible author.

He just passed away last year, but his books are some of the best I've ever written— I've ever read on spiritual growth. Born for Significance. This is a book by Bill Johnson. This really goes through, again, I think it's a book that impacts identity and really purpose in life. So Born for Significance by Bill Johnson. Another book I love is by Lisa Bevere. She has a couple of them.

One is called Lioness Arising, but another one is Girls with Swords. And so I think as a female, hearing from another female who's a really powerful, passionate leader is another book I think is great. So Girls with Swords. And Linus Arising by Lisa Bevere. Her husband also has a great book, John Bevere, called The Awe of God, sort of living in awe. And then there's a book I love.

This is an older book, but it really gets into more of the mystic and the, I would say, supernatural. And it's called The Fourth Dimension by David Cho. Now, he's a— he was a pastor from South Korea and built one of the largest churches in the entire world. Uh, and so again, the book is called The Fourth Dimension, David Sho. It's another fantastic book.

And listen, there are a lot of great books for spiritual growth, but these are 5 books that I think that she might really enjoy. Of course, I, I would mention C.S. Lewis because he's probably my favorite, at the top of my favorite authors. Um, and, uh, but I think that, I think that sometimes for some people, maybe those are kind of like books once there's a certain level of spiritual maturity.

There's another book I love by Philip Yancey called The Jesus I Never Knew. That's another book I really like that I think is fantastic. So, those would be some of the top books I would recommend. Next question here, how can I help someone realize they need personal growth? This is a hard one. My advice to you is, I guess if I had to answer the question point blank, I would say you can't.

You can't make anyone realize they need to grow. Here's my best advice to you. Grow yourself, make your own life extraordinary, and then they will want what you have.

I think for me, the greatest thing I've ever been able to do to help others grow is grow myself and serve others and act more like, you know, Christ and Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King Jr. Model those great people that change the world, and other people will want what you have. They'll want to become more like you.

That's the greatest thing you can do, is the single greatest thing you can do to help somebody else is to grow yourself spiritually, grow yourself in your character, grow your own skill, and then people will want to become like you. Now, here's an unfortunate truth. There's a lot of people out there with low character that people want to become like.

Now, by the way, these people I'm about to say aren't low character, but there's a lot of people saying, I want to become like this person. And so, you know, the more successful you are, the more people want to become like you. The more you grow, the more people want to become like you. So, think about an Elon Musk. You know, people want to become like Elon Musk. Why?

Because he's incredibly innovative, ultra successful. And here's the reality. If Elon Musk would say, I'm an atheist, or if he would say, I'm a Christian or a Jew or a Muslim, whatever he decides to do, it's going to cause more people to follow his lead because he's a leader.

And so the— so my point here is, is that the more that you can grow in your character, in your skill, what you're great at, the better you can become, the more people will want what you have. And want to model you and learn from you. So that's my first piece of advice. Now, how can you help someone realize they need personal growth? Again, that— my best answer is you can't.

You can only grow yourself, make your life extraordinary. And then here's— here, here, my last statement is this: your best chance is praying for them, asking God to intercede on their heart and convict them in that way. Now, I do think sometimes if you're having a conversation with somebody, I think about if there was somebody Anybody who I knew needed to grow and they had issues.

And let me just give an example of if I had a, let's say a child, and they, they, they, they, I, I knew that they weren't living up to an area. What I would do is first sit down with them and just say, hey, you know what? I love you so much. And I see you doing this in life and this in life, and I'm so proud of you for this. And I think you're doing so great here.

But, but could I ask permission to just mention one thing I've noticed that I think if you were able to improve in this area, would benefit your life greatly. And if they give me permission, I would then say, here's the thing. I feel like you're kind of stuck here.

And I've been able to experience myself as I started reading a book regularly and doing these things, I have more joy and happiness and fulfillment than I've ever had in my life. I'm now making an impact. And I know that you have this gift and this skill. And I think if you were to devote some time to growing in this area, you would feel more fulfilled than ever before.

And I can see you impacting this world in incredibly positive ways. So not to go back on my first answer, but I am a little bit. My point there is, is that you can't force somebody to grow or make them grow.

However, if you do want to help somebody grow, I would pray for them for a change in their heart, and I would have a heart-to-heart with them, letting them know their potential, the greatness within them, and then say, hey, here's some things that would probably help you live your best life. And that's how I would go about that. Next question here.

Have you ever heard of tumors shrinking or disappearing with a positive mindset? Yes, there are many cases. In fact, there are thousands of cases where this has happened. Part of it is due to neuroplasticity. Now, by the way, this works both ways.

I know of people that have had tumors grow because of a negative mindset, because of fear, because of meditating on their trauma and not letting it go or living in the past. And so, know it works both ways. If somebody's focused on that tumor and thinking it's growing, it's probably growing, it's growing. It will likely grow.

If somebody believes it's going to shrink— and by the way, just do a simple online search, whatever your search engine is, DuckDuckGo or Brave or even Google, whatever it is, go online and search, um, uh, tumors disappearing or shrinking tumors or, or, or, or other search terms related to just tumors disappearing, and you'll see there are lots of cases of this.

And the doctors just say, well, we can't figure it out. But basically, I think a big part of it is due to— oftentimes there's infection, there's virus, there's mold, there's things in that area, there's pathogens. And, your brain, if you start focusing on it shrinking, your white blood cells healing it and your body healing yourself in the future, your body will work on healing it.

The more you can get into a positive mental state, being in a state of joy and gratitude, the more strong your immune system gets and the faster your body will shrink and get rid of a tumor. So, your mindset is tied to your health, your physical health more than even the food you eat.

Your mindset and belief about your own health and what your body's doing, what it's capable of, how long you'll live, what's going on in terms of your immune system is more tied to your mindset than it is your, your, the, the, the food you're eating or your genetics or anything else. And so, and we did this with my mom when my mom had cancer.

We had her visualize herself 25 years from then bringing her grandkids to Disney World, holding them up in the air, running around with them with a big smile on her face. And she would feel that emotion of joy and gratitude and thanking God that she was able to do that. So the more that you can— and now my mom's in her 70s doing just that when she had a 40% or less chance of living.

And so the reality is, and her tumor just shrunk and shrunk and shrunk over 4 months, almost to nothing. And so all that being said, I've seen it in the life of my own mom. I saw it with patients. You can read about it online. So yes, have I heard of it? Not only have I heard of it, I've experienced it with friends and family members and patients. And so yes, it absolutely is a reality.

And you want to help get in that state of mind as much as you can. Man, of joy and gratitude. Hey, I hope you've enjoyed this episode. And by the way, if you have more questions, feel free to ask them on YouTube if you're watching on YouTube. And I'd love to hear your comments on what was your biggest takeaway from the show today? Was there a question and answer that really impacted you?

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