What Failure Taught Me & Why You Should Fail Forward | Mindshift 10

Hey everyone, welcome to the Dr. Josh Axe Show. I am your host, Dr. Axe, and every week on this show, we explore the science and principles behind how to grow in body, mind, spirit, and take your health and your life to the next level. On today's episode, I'll be going through how to break free of the fight or flight response.

Almost everyone today, especially those suffering with chronic diseases, are living in a fight or flight state. Our cortisol is high, our melatonin is low. That throws off all of our hormones. And causes us to age more quickly. Also, living in a state of fear sabotages our career. It sabotages our relationships. It sabotages our growth in life.

And I'll be going through exactly how to overcome fear in your life, whether it be fear of failure, fear of disappointing others, fear of success in some cases for some of us. I'll be going through how to break through that mindset. And some of those limiting beliefs that are holding you back in life. And here's the reality.

According to a recent survey, only 18% of Americans feel like they're in a mindset and their life is flourishing and growing. And when you live with a fear-based mind, what happens is it keeps you stuck. You're either frozen or you're running in the wrong direction rather than moving forward in your life.

So if you feel like you're in a place in your life, whether it be your relationships or your personal growth or your spiritual growth or your health, and you feel like you're stuck in the same place, you're on a treadmill in life and you don't feel like you're moving forward as fast as you should be, then in this episode I'll be going through exactly how to experience that breakthrough in all the areas of your life.

Before I jump into the content though, make sure to subscribe to the channel and hit the notification bell so you don't miss a single episode. And by the way, if you haven't watched all of the videos in this series, make sure to go back and watch the entire video series on Think This, Not That, and check out my new book, Think This, Not That, as well. Okay, so here's the reality.

We often see failure as something we should avoid at all costs, okay? Because we believe that, well, if I fail at something, if I fall flat on my face, if the business fails, if I, if I try and initiate that relationship and that fails, It's gonna be embarrassing. It's gonna be hard to accept.

It might be demoralizing, or I'm, I'm just, or, or maybe it even affects your identity and you feel like you are a failure. Not that you failed once, but that you yourself, your self-image is that you're actually a failure. And that is so many people today. Most of us do not take risks because we don't wanna fail because we don't wanna feel those feelings. Of failure.

Here's the reality though, is failure is essential to success. You know, everyone from Michael Jordan, Michael Jordan said, I've missed, you know, tens of thousands of shots in my lifetime, and it's before that that I succeed.

You know, you think about it that way, is in order for you to succeed at something, you have to fail a bunch of times to learn what works and what doesn't work in order for you to succeed. Now, a lot of people today, here's what I found in my study of psychology and working with tens of thousands of patients, Many people, because of our parents, have a tendency towards perfectionism.

And, and, and sometimes we've had really unrealistic expectations, uh, for ourselves, or maybe our parents or someone in our life had really unrealistic expectations for us, and we felt like we were disappointing them. And so we did everything we could to keep up the appearance on the outside and to please them. And then we did, basically, we pretty much did everything we could.

To not fail at anything. And so we just started doing the easy things in life because you're less likely to fail if something is easy. Here's the problem though, you won't grow to your max potential if you don't do very hard things and fail a lot along the way. And, you know, failure again is essential.

When I think about Walt Disney, when you read his biography, you'll see he failed over and over again. Steve Jobs failed a lot. Dave Ramsey. I failed a lot in my businesses and, and, and relationships in certain areas, but I learned and grew along the way, and that's essential. So let me share a personal story of how I failed big time, but how it actually allowed me to leap forward in my life.

So I ran a full-time functional medicine practice from 2007 through 2012, 2013. And in 2013, or, or, and actually in 2012, I sort of pushed all my chips forward and decided to go all in on a And I took my life savings, everything I'd earned at the time, and put it all in. And this is about a year after Chelsea and I were married. Well, that business failed by the end of 2013.

So after 2 years of, listen, I traveled around the country. And by the way, the business was a food company. I started a food company with my friend Jordan Rubin, and we did things like grass-fed beef, kale chips, kombucha, this type of kefir called amasi, fermented herbs that were a liquid. So, we created this big food-based company and we shipped to people across the country.

Well, the shipping logistics of grass-fed beef and raw dairy and organic dairy shipped across the country failed. We just didn't have the right finances and the right system and infrastructure. There were just a lot of things we didn't know. And because of it, I ended up losing Every dollar I had.

And Chelsea and I got to the point to where we didn't have enough money to pay for the next month's rent. That's how bad financially we got. Now, what we did was at the time is we got down on our hands and knees and we prayed and we asked God for intervention, for wisdom. And then I flew out to a conference. I learned how to grow an online business teaching people how to use food as medicine.

And all of a sudden, 3 months later, Everything started taking off for draxe.com, eventually became the number one natural health website, and that turned into Ancient Nutrition and some other companies I had. All that being said, here's the reality though.

I went from a point to losing hundreds of thousands of dollars, losing everything I had, because I went from being in full-time practice and I felt like I wanted to be a full-time educator and teaching people and getting— focusing on food, getting food to people, real food. Uh, and I— my heart was in the right place. I think it was a need, but it ultimately failed.

Here's the thing though, if I would have just stayed in full-time practice and wouldn't have ventured out and tried doing this business, I don't know that I would have ever gone full-time with draxe.com or started a supplement company or done some of the things that I started doing in my career. And ultimately, when I look back at my life, Here's what happened.

I went like this in my career, and then I saw this big dip down to losing it all. But then over time, all of a sudden it was like this. So I might have gone like this my entire career. And basically what I'm saying here is I might have seen a steady, gentle incline, very gentle increase.

Now what happened was I saw a gentle increase and then I saw a dip, but then I saw this hockey stick growth where my business and my life exploded and grew.

And so when I I look back over the past, let's call it 12 years, if I would've stayed safe and wouldn't have taken the risk, I would not be near as far as I am today in my career and in my family and success and the relationships I've been able to build and finances, all of those things.

So again, even though there was more fluctuation along the way, I am further along now in my life and career because I took risks. And every entrepreneur would tell you the same thing. Anyone that has seen an extraordinary amount of growth in their life will tell you the same thing. Even though there were more hardships and trials and losses along the way, I have grown more in my character.

I've grown more in my business. I've grown more in every area because of the mentality of I'm not going to be afraid of failure. I'm going to take risks because I want to do the most with my life. And you can only do the most in your life if you fail at some points. I mean, this is a principle of fitness as well, by the way.

If you never go to failure at anything, if you're lifting weights and you only do it to where you're comfortable, you're— you do not maximize muscle growth. It's the same thing if you've ever— if when you were— whether it's today or when you were younger, if you ran. I remember I, I did track and I ran track in high school, ran 800 meters and did triathlons.

And if you don't push yourself to the breaking point or to where you are in major pain versus you just run in a comfortable pace, you're not maximizing your growth. And this is a question I would have for you. Is that the way you're living your life right now? Are you pushing yourselves in the right way? And I'm not saying pushing yourself to a breaking point in busyness.

I'm saying you're push— you're taking risks, smart risks, to the point to where you're failing on a regular basis. But what your learnings from those failures is going to accelerate your growth both now and in the future. So that's my personal experience is I am so much further ahead in certain areas of life. Because I was not afraid of failure.

And you know, most people—here's the problem—is you fix your eyes on the pain, not the purpose in the future. And so, if I were only thinking about failure, oh, if I do this, I'm going to fail; we could lose it all—if I were fixed on that, then then then I'm probably not going to take those risks. But if I keep my eyes fixed on the prize, if I keep my eyes fixed on my purpose and the ideal future.

Future I'm looking to create, I can get through the suffering, the pain, and the dips and come out better on the other end. And you want to develop that exact same mindset in your life. In fact, Carol Dweck is a psychologist from Stanford, and she calls it having a fixed mindset versus a growth mindset. A fixed mindset says, well, I want to just sort of keep things the way they are.

I want to grow maybe 5 or 10% a year and just keep getting a little bit better and better every year. A Or it's just fixed, or it's just like, I just want to maintain safety. I'm not concerned about growing. I'm just going to stay the same. Versus a growth mindset is saying, it's okay to fail. It's okay if I fall on my face. It's okay to try and write the book. It's okay to say no to things.

I'm just going to do everything I can to maximize my growth in the future. And what happens is it's really thinking in the short term versus thinking in the long term. If you're thinking about only the here and now versus you thinking about eternity or your entire life or 5 and 10 years from now, these are very, very different mindsets.

And so, you know, the reality is this, failures are so valuable because of this. Failures expose the weaknesses we need to work on. You know, when I failed at things, I realized, I'm not very good at this. I need to get better at this, or I need to hire people that can make up for my weaknesses. Failure also teaches us wisdom. Okay?

So when you make a wrong decision in the future, if you come across that same decision, that very similar situation, you'll know how to make the right decision in the future. So you get wiser, better at making choices. It also allows you to build a better team because you realize you can't do it all by yourself.

And also, I think failure helps us understand the value of of using data and making our decisions. Like sometimes people just use their gut or say, hey, I'm just gonna do whatever I feel like, following our feelings.

I think we also realize, okay, I'm gonna listen to my feelings, but I'm also going to listen to other people, try and find the wisest mentors in my life in order to make a better future decision. And as I mentioned, most people let fear trip, absolutely sabotage and cripple their progress in life. So here are a few signs that you might have a fear-based mindset.

If you ever have any of these statements you say say out loud or even internally. Here's an example, okay? If I don't get this promotion, my career is over, right? Or if this thing doesn't happen in my life, it's over, okay? That's a warning sign that you have a fear-based mindset. Here's another one: there are no room for mistakes. I must be perfect, okay?

So you feel like you're walking on eggshells and everything must be perfect all the time. Or here's another one, um, Okay, I wanna go and say hi to that person. Uh, but what if they reject me? There's another fear-based mindset. Or, uh, what are my parents going to think? Now, now I do wanna be, uh, you know, I, I wanna discuss something like the last one.

We, we should want to make our parents proud. Okay. But if that's the only reason you're doing things and you're not listening directly to God, Or to wiser people in your life along the way. If you're just doing things because you don't want to, you want your parents to be proud of you, then that's not the right reason to do things. I'll give you an example of this.

Like my, I want my parents to be proud of me. That matters to me. I want my mom to be proud of me. I want my dad to be proud of me. I want my in-laws to be proud of me. I want my grandparents when I was younger to be proud of me. And that's a good thing. We wanna honor our father and mother.

But my dad, for instance, uh, once he, he, he discouraged me from selling my practice because when I had my functional medicine practice, it was incredibly successful and so many lives were being transformed. And so he looked at that and again, he was really proud of me and, but he, he was really like, Josh, I would not go and start another business. Listen, you're doing so well.

And that was just my dad trying to protect me, but I knew in my heart of hearts. That I needed to go and take a risk and try things like starting draxe.com and go out on a limb and go all in on educating people because God had put that in my heart. And so even though I knew that maybe if I would fail, and by the way, my dad would've still been proud of me.

Now, he, he might have, you know, you know, thought that it was unwise or not the right decision, but, but I did maybe still have a little bit of that fear, like, well, gosh, if I fail, Well, my dad told me maybe this isn't the best thing for me to do, then, you know, maybe he won't be as proud of me.

But I realized the most important thing for me was that God was proud of me and I did what I was called to do in that way. And then I continued to honor my father in my life. And ultimately, I think my dad is even more proud now looking back saying, you know what, my son took risks. And even though he failed at that one point, he was able to continue.

To build character, to work, have good work ethic and diligence in order to succeed in life. And so all that being said, I think it's important to know that we oftentimes have fear, and it's almost always related to relationships. We don't want to look bad in front of other people, but you have to push that aside and say, "You know what?

I care the most about taking the gifts I've been given and maximizing my life." You care most about what God thinks about you and what those closest about. Those who are closest to you care about you in terms of your character, that you were willing to take a risk, have courage in order to do so.

You know, one other big reason why so many people live with a fear-based mindset is they get locked in this mindset that if, if they see their life as maybe a single or a series of just a few events, and if they fail at those events, that they are a failure. Again, that it's not just that they failed, it's that they themselves are a failure.

And so what people will do is they'll do anything to start to protect their self-image. This happens all the time in marriage where somebody will say on the outside, you might look at a couple, and by the way, all of you have experienced this. You've looked at another couple and you've thought they have the perfect marriage, they have the perfect relationship.

And then all of a sudden, years later, you find out, oh, there was, uh, what, they're getting a divorce and there was infidelity and there, you know, all of this stuff comes out. Yeah. And you might think to yourself, well, why did that happen? Or how could that happen? Everything looked perfect on the outside. Well, most of those people had a fixed mindset.

They cared more about what was happening on the outside and the appearance on the outside than what was actually going on on the inside. And this is where somebody, let me give you an example. I remember talking to a man once who was having marital issues and I said, you know what would really, I think would really bless your life? Is if you went and you and your wife saw a counselor.

And he absolutely refused. He was like, you know what, we're not the sort of people that need counseling. And I told him, I said, listen, Chelsea and I, some of the most amazing, virtuous people we know, we do preventative counseling. Like, like Chelsea and I did premarital counseling before we got married and right after because we wanted to have a great marriage.

And I, my mindset was never, oh, there's something wrong with Chelsea and I and we're failing or we're failures. And so we have to Get counseling. I always saw counseling as coaching and I'm like, I wanna be the best I can possibly be. So I wanna get counseling and coaching in business, in my marriage, in being a dad and a parent.

Like I'm all about, hey, I'm like walking with humility in that I need other people. I need more wisdom in my life. I need counselors and coaches and pastors and voices of wisdom in my life. But a lot of people go through life and they feel like, well, if I get a counselor or I go for advice, that person might judge me or they might think— and listen, who cares? Here's the reality.

You're only thinking in the short term about your self-image. You're not actually thinking about your marriage, the other person. You're not thinking about your kids. They're generations after you. They're gonna be affected by the divorce, all of those things. Now, this isn't a conversation about the divorce. My point is, is that did you do everything you can?

In, in the marriage in order to let the marriage grow and flourish? Did both of you have a growth mindset where you're saying, I'm willing to change, I'm willing to be vulnerable, I'm willing to go to other people and share, listen, we're having marriage problems and we need your help, and saying that humbly and honestly?

And by the way, that is the number one quality of somebody that wants to grow in their life. It's somebody that wants— that it's the opposite of, of the fear-based mindset. If you have a fear-based mindset, mindset, you're in protective mode. You're trying to protect your outside, okay? And you're saying, I'm going to do everything I can to not be vulnerable and not let anyone in.

A growth mindset starts with humility. It says, you know what, I'm imperfect. I need God. I need others. I need to get better. And when you have that mind, when you start with humility, you now lift off You're, you, you, you take the lid off and now you have an endless capacity to grow in your life in all areas when you walk with humility. And so I'd ask you, what is your mindset right now?

What is your mindset with your health? With your health? Are you willing to go ask anyone and everyone in order to find out the truth for your health? Are you willing to go to that spiritual leader, the pastor, the priest, the rabbi, that person that can speak into your life? This is important, or the business mentor, the coach, the guru.

So we want to be able to do this in all areas of our life if we're going to maximize our growth. You know, one of the most incredible examples of having a growth or flourishing mindset versus a fixed or fear-based mindset was seen in Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck.

She did a study on 5th graders where they were tested on a series of math problems and were praised over the course of these tests either for being smart, so for their natural intelligence, or for their work ethic, such as their drive and ability to just work hard over time and take on harder problems. Here's what they found in the study.

The children who were praised for how intelligent they were cared more about their performance rather than what they were learning.

And after experiencing failure, these same children struggled with self-doubt Negative feelings and had poor performance versus the children who were praised for their efforts and hard work understood the process of learning was important and that the reward is found in growth and in hard work.

And so again, what they found is the, the kids that were told, you're work— great job for working hard and for your work ethic, they did much greater. And had greater learnings and outcomes than those kids were told, you're so smart, you're so perfect. That actually destroyed the brains of those children.

And these 5th graders, by the way, even used their failure, the ones that were successful, to motivate them when they were given more difficult math problems to work on in the future. Now, if you're watching here on YouTube, you can see this, the growth mindset in terms of their GPA versus the fixed mindset and how actually the fixed mindset literally started to destroy their children's brains.

So this is important as a parent or a teacher of any sort, or a leader to understand. If you're, let's say you're an entrepreneur and you're telling your team, wow, you're so naturally gifted. Wow, you are very, very smart and very intelligent. Look how perfectly this employee did this. Versus if you say, you know what, I wanna let you know how grateful I am.

For how hard you're working, that you're going out, taking initiative, going the extra mile, doing all of those things in order for the company to succeed. I wanna let you know how truly grateful I am. Do you see the difference there in terms of what the, the way that we should be praising people?

It's important that you are able to praise something that is going to encourage somebody to grow in, especially somebody's character. Here's the other reality I don't want you to forget. What happens to kids, they almost carry those psychological narratives along with them their entire life.

Now, the great news is you can break free of them if you decide to operate with a high level of awareness and decide that you're going to grow. You identify this being a limiting belief or mindset and you want to break through it, you can. But the reality is we train our children in this way.

And so you want to make sure that you are helping your kids grow grow a flourishing mindset, because if not, it impacts the, your identity. It paralyzes people, it limits their potential. And so you wanna make sure that you're doing everything you can for yourself to have a flourishing mindset, not a fear-based mindset. Now, if you're watching on YouTube as well, I wanna show you this graphic.

This really sums this up as a great example of this. Here's what a fear-based mindset looks like. A fear-based mindset avoids challenges. Gives up early and easily, sees effort as fruitless or worse, ignores useful negative feedback, and feels threatened by the success of others. Those are all warning signs you have a fear-based mindset.

A flourishing mindset, on the other hand, embraces challenges. They want things to be hard because they know it'll help them grow. They persist in the face of setbacks. They see effort as the path to mastery. They learn from criticism, and they find lessons and inspirations in the success of others. I mean, this is an incred— there are incredible lessons here. Again, let me ask you this.

When it, when it comes to a challenge, do you try and do everything you can avoid the challenges? Or are you saying, I'm gonna embrace a challenge and I love a good challenge? Do you give up easily or do you, or do you dig your heels in and try even harder when you have an obstacle in your way? The next question here again, do you see effort?

When you see somebody working really hard, you think, oh, that person just has to work hard because they're not gifted. Or do, when you see somebody working hard, you are moved emotionally saying, wow, I applaud that person giving their heart and soul for this thing. Are you able to take criticism?

You know, if somebody gives you criticism or negative feedback, are you able to fully embrace that and learn from it, or do you get defensive? And then do you feel threatened by the success of— again, when someone else succeeds, do you have a sense of envy and jealousy, or do you, or do you say, wow, good for that person, what can I learn from them to grow myself?

These are incredible lessons you want to embrace if you want to experience breakthroughs in your life. And I want you to be real with yourself of where you're at in these areas.

And I also wanna mention today, when you look at younger generations, Gen Z and early millennials, most of them have more of the fear-based mindset because of a lot of the soft parenting versus a lot of the more disciplinarian parenting that had more rules and really applauded more work ethic. I mean, you think about something, let me give you an example about this in the sport of basketball.

Michael Jordan. Michael Jordan almost never missed a game. He embraced every challenge. He persisted in setbacks. He learned from criticisms. I mean, again, he was all about work ethic, work ethic, work ethic. When you look at him, he was the first person that practice, he was the last person to practice. Now, let's compare that to a lot of the prima donnas in today's NBA.

And by the way, again, it was all about hard work. You look at a lot of the people today, whether it be LeBron James or some of the others, and I'm not saying they don't work hard, but it's not the same killer and relentless mentality as others. And so, it's very, you can see this in sports today. You can see it in school.

You can see it in almost every area of life, how we've gone from a flourishing mindset to more of a fear-based mindset, and even our school systems and the way we teach our kids. And this is also why today mental health disorders have grown dramatically.

We have more— if you look at how many Gen Xers or baby boomers have mental health disorders versus Gen Z or, or, or millennials, it's— it is night and day radically different. And it's simply because schools and parents and teachers have embraced a fear-based mindset in people. Think about even the media today, how it's constantly driving fear versus a flourishing and growth-based mindset.

Now I want to get into the medical side of things and the health-related side, side of this. In medicine, doctors correlate a fear-based mindset with something called the fight-or-flight response. And you have an area of your nervous system, 2 areas, your sympathetic nerve system, which is your fight or flight response, and your parasympathetic nerve system.

Your sympathetic nervous system is, is called the fight or flight response because historically, if you had a lion or bear chasing you or, or an opponent, you were either gonna fight with them to survive or you were gonna run the other way to survive. Okay. These are survival mechanisms that are hardwired into our nervous system.

Now, the other nerve system known as your parasympathetic nerve system is wired for what we call rest and digest. It allows our body to— when you're in more of a sympathetic state, you're going to feel calm, you're going to feel serene, your gastric juices. So you're going to have better digestive digestion. Your hormones are more balanced.

Progesterone, estrogen, testosterone, cortisol, melatonin, insulin. Everything is more balanced. Everything is really the blood and energy of your body. Is going towards your internal organs versus fight-or-flight mode. Your blood flow is going to the area of your brain for alertness and going to your extremities because that's what you need to fight someone or fly away in the other direction.

So when you're in that fight-or-flight state, the other thing that happens is your body releases those— these corticosteroids to dampen processes like digestion, your immune response, creative thinking and other functions because it is prioritizing survival. Now, here's the reality.

Did you know that studies indicate 75 to 90% of all doctor visits have to do with complaints related to stress in their life? So 75 to 90% of doctor visits are stress-related. And when you attack stress at the source by consciously and deliberately quieting your fear, And activating your parasympathetic nerve system, your rest and digest response, here's what happens.

Cortisol lowers, insulin lowers, your blood pressure starts to drop. You direct blood and nutrients back to your organs and digestive tract. Your body starts healing and functioning at a better, at a higher level. Now, here's the other thing you might say to yourself. Well, I'm— I don't have a bear chasing me. And I'm not going to war.

But if you are spending time scrolling on your smartphone and you're looking at blue light, if you're looking at a TV or a computer screen, whether it be TikTok or Instagram, whatever social device, and you're fixed on that, that blue light coming off there and those hits, tho— those are, it's putting your body in a higher sympathetic state when you are fixed on something like social media.

There are so many things in our life, our busyness. When you're driving in a car, automatically your sympathetic nervous system is higher because you're having to have a high level of alertness and being aware of other drivers changing lanes, getting to where you need to go. So naturally, blood flow is not going to your digestive system and your organs as much.

You're living in a sympathetic, a fear-based state when you're driving a car, when you are having an argument in a relationship, when you're fixed in on social media or looking at devices. All of those things put our body in a fear-based state, a sympathetic state. Now you can see what this looks like as well. Um, this is what I call the mindset spectrum.

And so, uh, you know, think of this fight-or-flight response as a, as, as a full spectrum, as a line. And on the very, very far end of the left, you can see your body actually freezes. So it not only goes to fighting or flying, it actually goes to protection, freezing, or just shutting down.

So think if somebody gets so afraid that they go beyond fear, that they go to being frightened, they will freeze and they will huddle in a corner. They're so afraid. And so organ— everything starts shutting down in their body. And the emotions that are associated with freezing Are very serious depression.

You feel like you're stuck in life, shame and guilt, helplessness, and absolute hopelessness and despair in life. Okay? If you are feeling those emotions neurologically, what happens even to your organ systems is they're shutting down. If you have really heavy shame and guilt and hopelessness. Now, a little bit better actually is living in a, in, in a fight or flight response.

Now, Now, here's what happens if you live in a fight-or-flight response for too long. You eventually end up in the freeze state where you're, where you're completely shut down. Um, and this happens neurologically with organ systems. An example is you can have cortisol get really high if you have a lot of stress. Cortisol and adrenaline get really high in your body.

If those stay too high for years though, those will actually start to Cortisol will actually start to dip and go lower to where then you actually have absolute adrenal fatigue insufficiency to where your adrenals just have no energy left whatsoever.

And so this fear state is connected with stress, fight or flight response, worry, anxiety, anger, uncertainty in life that will keep you in these states. Now, the flourishing and the growth mindset that are connected to resting and digesting and healing, Remember this, your body cannot protect itself and heal itself at the same time at the highest level possible.

Your body is either protecting itself or it's regenerating and healing. And so if you are flourishing, you are more creative. You have a sense of peace in your life. You're more compassionate towards others. You think about others more because you're not worried about yourself.

You also have a sense of hope towards And you can get yourself out of a fear-based mindset by cultivating these positive virtues and qualities. And so if you have worry and anxiety and anger and shame and guilt and depression, number one, you need to realize those aren't serving you. And you need to go and say, okay, I want to go and build peace in my life.

I want to move the focus from myself to others. I want to build a more Hopeful mindset and several ways to do that. One is build your identity about who you are in life. And you can go back to the episode I did on this. If you just look up Josh Axe identity, I did a, I did a, a really in-depth episode on, on this.

Um, but getting into who you are, who does God say you are, getting around a more positive group of people, that will also help you with cultivating the right mindset, but also reading and growing. If you're watching videos like this or you're listening to podcasts like this, it's going to help you grow and break free in life and help you grow in these virtues.

But it's really important to do this in order to break through a fear-based mindset. You know, I also wanna encourage you to go to the, read the best book on this of all time, the Bible. You know, I've read Joshua partly because my mom named me after him in the Bible, Uh, quite often.

And if you read Joshua 1, go and read it right after this, but you'll read especially in verses 8 and 9 where God says to Joshua over and over and over again, do not be afraid. Do not be discouraged. I am the Lord your God. I will go with you wherever you go. And so the Bible, one of the greatest messages you'll see throughout the entire Bible is God says, don't be afraid, for I am with you.

That's the message. Though you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I'm with you. And so I think when we feel like it's all about us and we have to maintain perfection on the outside, it leads to more worry and anxiety.

When we realize and believe God is for me, not against me, when you realize and you bring people into your life at church or synagogue or wherever you go, positive, virtuous people that are for you, that encourage you, encouraging you, It takes the stress away when you find and realize God's given you gifts and you have a purpose in life, and your purpose is not to be perfect, but your perfect purpose is to grow and become more like Christ.

When you realize those things, you go from that protected and that fear-based mindset and living in a fight or flight response that is destroying your organs in your body, and you start growing, healing, and regenerating. I can tell you from working with Again, tens of thousands of patients, that one of the greatest things keeping people from healing is living with a fear-based mindset.

Fear of failure, fear of disappointing others, fear that they are going to be a failure if they mess up, fear of people finding out that they failed or that they're not perfect in life, or fear that, that somebody's gonna know that their marriage isn't perfect or everything about their life isn't perfect.

If you're operating with that mindset, It actually causes adrenal fatigue, which then causes hypothyroidism, which then can also affect your sleep and your melatonin, which can then cause a heart attack, which also can lead to cancer. Fear is very tied to cancer in your body, especially breast cancer.

Um, and so I could show you where fear— and the stat I went through earlier, 75 to 90% of doctors' visits are stress-related. And even more than food is medicine, mindset is medicine. The food affects our body in a really positive way or negative way. You know, food can be one of your greatest forms of, of, of medicine or your greatest forms of poison, but so can your mindset.

And so what I have equally seen causing people to be ill and sick and have to get on medications and, and deteriorate over time, what has equally caused it to poor diet and lifestyle choices has been somebody's mindset. And that really is a lot often tied to their identity and to their relationship with God and others.

Uh, and so again, I wanna encourage you, if you wanna build a growth and flourishing mindset, watch podcasts like this and, and, and shows like this. Read the Bible, read spiritual growth books, do things to build your mental health, your mindset, your spiritual health, and it will tremendously help you get Out of fear-based thinking. Now, I also wanna say this.

There, there was a study done on this, on how many people are flourishing today. And according to the study, and by the way, here, here I wanna define flourishing. Flourishing is not just saying a little growth, it's growing in abundance. Okay?

So imagine, you know, if you've ever done gardening, I know Chelsea and I, when we had an herb garden, uh, we I grew basil and cilantro and parsley and chives and all kinds of herbs. And I got some really good soil for this. And we had a big box. And in the herbs, like we couldn't keep up with them. I mean, we couldn't use enough basil, chives.

I mean, it was flourishing and growing and tasted amazing. It was flourishing. That's what you want your life to be. You're flourishing physically. You're growing, you're regenerating, your relationships are flourishing. Deep intimate connections, your career is flourishing. Only about 18% of people feel like they are flourishing and, and experiencing just good growth in their life. 18%.

So that means that 82% of people feel like they're really not growing in life. They're stuck. They're not moving forward. That is so many people today. And I wanna also mention a mindset here that's important. It's, and, and it's about comparing yourself to others. Sometimes comparing yourself to others can be healthy if you have a healthy mind.

If you don't have a healthy mind, comparing yourself to others, or if you're immature in your mind, it will actually destroy your mind. Let me give you an example of this. There's a study done on Instagram and social media. TikTok would be the other one especially.

And when young girls are on TikTok and Instagram, Their self-esteem declines dramatically when they're between the ages, I think it was 15 to 19 years old, but it was somewhere in that range for young girls because they were on their social media comparing their bodies to the bodies of, you know, a woman taking, you know, these girls were taking, you know, an hour to get the perfect picture of themselves and then they post it online and then other girls are comparing themselves to those girls.

And so it was really, really traumatizing to teenage girls' self-esteem. Part of it is a lack of maturity and a lack of virtue and the parents being able to really instill confidence in those girls. But, but that was very destructive versus you could have somebody else, let's say Michael Jordan, and let's say he's comparing himself to Wilt Chamberlain or, or Larry Bird or Magic Johnson.

And, and he did that and he'll tell you. Yeah. But for him, it might've actually been to where he's like, I don't have to be like them. I just have to learn from them. I'm gonna compare myself not in order to feel like I'm a failure, but in order to say, I'm gonna learn from them and grow. There's a very, very different mindset there. And here's the other thing I wanna encourage you to do.

Don't compare yourself to where someone else is today. Compare yourself to who you were yesterday or a year from a year ago. Like, let me give you an example. If I were to compare myself right now to, I don't know, let me think about somebody, John Maxwell, where he's at right now in his life, okay? The amount of people he's helped internationally.

And I said, oh, John Maxwell has done so much more and he's 80-some years old, but he's done so much more than I have. It, it's gonna decrease my confidence. I'm gonna feel like I failed. But if instead of Comparing myself, I could think about where was John Maxwell at 40?

Or what's even better is thinking, okay, when I look back in my life, have I grown mentally and spiritually and in my character? Have I grown from where I was 3 years ago? And I can say undoubtedly, yes, I have grown dramatically spiritually and in wisdom and in my compassion and all those areas. And because of that, I feel good about myself. Okay?

And so here's the thing, don't compare yourself to who someone else is now. Compare yourself to how far you've come in your life. Okay? That, that's really how you wanna think about that. Now, I wanna share with you 4 keys to overcoming fear and living with a flourishing mindset. Number 1, think of failure as your guide. Don't correlate it with your identity that you, that you're a failure. No.

So failure is your guide to grow and get better. Number 2, embrace your fear. If you're afraid of public speaking, then creep into speaking in front of one person and then 2 and then 3, but embrace that fear you have. Number 3, optimize your skills. Take those God-given skills you have and just say, I'm gonna get better and better and better.

Even if I fail some, I'm just gonna focus on growing and optimizing them. Raise your standards. Okay? Now, I don't want to encourage you to have impossible standards, but try and have standards that are a little higher now. Okay? And then reach that standard, then a little higher and a little higher. You know, when I was in high school, I did the, uh, I did high jump.

And, um, and, and I remember, um, you know, the bar, I mean, we would raise it like a centimeter. I mean, it was barely anything and you just barely try and go up and up and up. On, on doing that event. And it's a very, very similar way. You're not trying to beat your, you know, if you've ran a mile, beat your next time by a minute. You're maybe trying to beat it by a few seconds.

And so, but you want to continually raise your standards in life if you're going to flourish. And we want standards. You have to have standards to maximize your growth, something to aim for, something to reach for. But you want to make sure you have those right standards and you're continually very gradually Raising your standards over time. By the way, that's the fastest way to become successful.

Let me give you an example. If you decided you wanted to be a podcaster or, or a person that, that, that has a YouTube show or TV show or whatever it is, you should say every single month, okay? Or every show, I wanna make this show a little better than the last show. How can we do that? Right? And continually doing things to bring it to another level and another level and another level.

Now listen, you may start off and the only option you have is to You record it on your phone. And so that, that's a, that's a great place to go. Hey, you're getting started. Here's what Bear Grylls says about fear. I don't know if you like Bear Grylls, but I think, you know, his show is, is fantastic.

He says, I've learned that if I do the things that I'm scared of and I do them often enough, I become good at managing fear. He said, it's like a muscle and it gives me an edge. Listen, you can train your brain to believe it doesn't have to be afraid of something. By confronting that fear in gradual amounts.

In fact, did you know that in the field of psychology, studies have shown the number one way to face your fears is to actually do something called exposure therapy, where you get microdoses of your fear, but you, you gradually increase to where you're fully confronting the fear over time.

So an example of that could be something I said earlier, where again, if you're afraid of speaking in front of people, Well, first just speak to yourself in the mirror and then speak to one person and then 2 and then 3. So, so you are slowly confronting that fear. So if you eventually wanted to have your own podcast or, or show, like, here's how I think about standard of excellence.

You know, number one, you, you're failing if, if you know you're called to do that and you never do it and no action gets an F. Okay? You're failing. Okay? So, but, but let's go up a notch. What, what is, what is you actually getting better than an F? Just recording a video and posting it. Okay. And, and it doesn't have to be perfect.

Maybe it's just on your phone and lighting's just generally okay and sounds not perfect. But one big step up from failure is getting a D, which is recording a video and posting on social media. Now, in a way, I might even grade that as an A because you took a step and, and you know, if you're you're seen as being an element— an elementary at it, well, doing something is, is, is great.

But I want to, for, for visual sake, uh, record a video and post on social media. And then you say to yourself, well, I want to go up a notch. Okay? I'm gonna actually get one of those ring lights and I'm gonna use the right settings on my phone, and I'm going to have thought through an episode that I'm gonna record, and I'm gonna start recording one day every single week. Okay?

Well, hey, now you're at a C level. That's great. You've raised your standard. And then, and then in the future you decide, okay, I'm not gonna just record one a week. I'm gonna record 2 a week. I'm gonna be better prepared. I'm gonna have research. I, you know, I'm gonna quote one, one thing of research when I do mine and have greater evidence and some good stories and be really planned.

And now you get a B. And then you're like, okay, I wanna go to A level, so I'm gonna hire somebody to help me with this. And we're gonna do 3 videos a week and we're gonna have a whole, you know, plan out a content guide and, and, and in a branding guide and do everything we can to maximize the growth.

And then maybe there's a whole nother level of you want to build a media company one day and mentor others in their media creation. And so that's a whole nother standard that you're going to. But I think you can see my point here. You want to continually raise the standard of excellence over time in order for you to maximize your growth and flourish in life.

And the reality is, if you get 1% better at something today and continue the effort for several weeks, you're going to notice a significant difference in who you are and what you're accomplishing 6 months from now. Here's the reality: aim high, but also continue to grade yourself and adjust as you need to, and just upgrade your standards along the way. Okay, like, let me give you an example.

Like, your video quality is not going to be as good as, you know, Andrew Huberman or, or somebody that has like, you know, or, or I'm thinking about, you know, when I went to Dr. Oz Show, I was on there I think 7 times. I was a regular guest on there. And, um, he had like 20 producers for his one show at least. And that was only his content producers. There's video people.

I mean, the whole The whole team was like 70 people. It was absolutely crazy. I, I recently went to Dr. Phil's show and saw that, and it was a very similar thing. Now they have endless resources, so what their best is and what yours is are gonna be a different level when you're starting out. But if you just keep— but, but they started off small too.

So you just need to keep raising your standards slightly over time, and you will be blown away where you'll be in life if you just continually raise your standard. And get a little bit better every single day. Here's the reality. Here's what you want to think. Failure leads to flourishing. It's good when you fail in a way, in terms of if you are committed to growth.

Don't think this, that you must avoid failure at all costs. If you avoid failure, you're going to avoid flourishing as well. Failure is part of growth. You need to embrace a flourishing mindset so you can operate with excellence and also expand your skills for the good of the world. Again, failure is essential to becoming successful.

And here's the reality: failing does not mean that you're a failure. And so I want to encourage you again, remember, this is important for your career, it's important for your relationships, it's important for your physical health. You must adopt a flourishing mindset in order to become the best you can be.

And if you want to dive more into this topic, I cover it in great depth in my book Think This, Not That. This book's a New York Times bestseller. And, uh, so many people have said it really is from the 12 chapters, really go through exactly how to create these breakthroughs in your life, really practical action steps that I think will really help transform you and your life.

And my last piece of advice here is if you wanna overcome fear and start flourishing, you need to really change your mindset. Here, here's a few things that, that have in common. When you have a fear-based mindset, mindset, you're thinking about yourself and the here and now, and you're focusing on the failure. It's all about your perspective.

Versus if your focus becomes on God, eternity, the long-term of your life, the 5, the 10 years, the 25 years in the future. And when you're focusing on others and on your purpose, then you have a flourishing mindset. So really it's just a shift in your perspective.

You stop focusing solely on yourself in the here and now and failure, and you start focusing on the fruit, your purpose, on God and on others, and all of a sudden now you have a flourishing mindset. It's actually that easy.

I want to say, hey, thanks so much for tuning in here to the Dr. Josh Axe Show, where each and every week we dive deep into the principles and the science behind how to grow in body, mind, spirit, and take your in your life to the next level. Hey, make sure to subscribe, like, and share this episode.

Remember, anytime that you are sharing this episode with others, you're helping transform their mind, transform their life. I can't tell you how often I have people come up to me to say, Dr. Axe, somebody shared your YouTube video with me and it radically changed my life. I reversed a medical condition. It saved my life. It, it helped improve my marriage and my thought life. Thank you so much.

I just wanna say thank you to all of you for being on mission with me and for liking and sharing, subscribing, leaving a review. I'm so grateful for you. I'll see you on the next episode.