Unlock Your Potential, Overcome Limiting Beliefs & Own Your True Identity with Dr Josh Axe

Hey everyone. Welcome back to the Earn your happy podcast. I'm so excited you're back and if you have not tuned in yet, welcome. I'm always so excited when new people find the podcast. You guys, on the show today we have the incredible Dr. Josh Axe. I'm sure you have seen his products in stores. He is a physician, a leadership expert and entrepreneur. The co founder of Ancient Nutrition, one of his companies is ranked number 35 in Inc. 5000 fastest growing companies. He's the best selling author of Eat Dirt, Keto Diet and Ancient Remedies. And on this podcast, Josh talks all about his process for overcoming limiting beliefs, which I love hearing about because he was not born the way that he is now. A completely fierce entrepreneur who has built massive companies. He's also a leadership expert who shares how to surround yourself with the right people who are gonna help you grow the strategies and systems to turn your vision into a reality. So let's get started.

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Doctor Josh Axe. Thank you so much for coming on the Earn your happy podcast.

I'm honored to be here. Thanks so much for having me.

So this is so much fun because what people don't know is that I just got to be interviewed by you for your podcast.

That's right.

Which is I feel like thank you for going first because now you've set me up for an amazing interview because I got to learn so much about you throughout too, because I love a podcast. Podcast that is super conversational and I feel like we just got to have like the best hour long conversation ever. So great. I kind of, I get, I get the advantage. I feel like I have the advantage on this one. So I'm really, really excited to have you on. I feel like your name has been in my world for a really long time because if you're in the health and fitness space, I think it's impossible to not know who you are. So for anybody listening, I'm just really excited to have kind of the original trailblazer of just health and wellness. And now you're really, really into what I. What I'm loving right now is that you're so into mindset and obviously this is not something you just got into. This has probably paved your entire journey. So that's where I want to start. Josh is, you know, what is a limiting belief that you used to have, like, that you grew up with, that you thought was who you. That you had to change in order to become the Josh that's sitting with me right now?

Yeah, well, my biggest limiting belief was I'M not smart. And I had that because when I was a freshman in high school, I had a teacher tell me. She actually, I remember she said, hey, Josh, would you stay after class? This is freshman English. And I stayed after class. And she said, hey, what do you want to do when you, you know, if. She said, actually, if you graduate? And I said, well, I'd like to be a doctor. And the reason was, is my mom had battled cancer, and. And I just saw the devastating effects of her just the year before, literally went through chemotherapy, overcame it. And I thought, I want to help people get healthy. She literally laughed out loud. And she goes, with your GPA already and what you're getting in this class. She's like, you just got an F on this paper. You'll never get in. She said, you know, my daughter had a 3.8 GPA and she had a hard time getting into PT school. And she said, I would go ahead and consider doing a different career. And I just walked out of freshman English class. I just remember being really down. And then a couple weeks later, my mom brought me to the doctor and. And they said, your son has adhd. And so I thought, oh, gosh, not only am I not smart, I'm medically not smart now. And so throughout high school, I just never tried. I ended up having a C minus grade point average, barely graduating high school, and finally I got to college. The only reason I got into the college, at least that I kind of wanted to go to, was because they had summer class and they had this thing where if you get above a 3.0 in these summer classes, we'll let you in. And so I went in there and I said, okay, I don't want to be the kid that doesn't go to college and whatever. And so I just said, I'm going to try. So I had freshman English of college. So I went. We had our first paper assignment. I wrote the paper and turned it in. And then a few days later, the teacher said, Mrs. Williams, she said, hey, would you stay after class, Josh? And I was like, oh, no. You know, this is going to be it again. I probably failed it. And she goes, hey, I want to let you know you got the highest grade in the class. And she said, hey, have you thought about being an English major and a writer? And I was. And I was like, no, it never crossed my mind. But she said, okay, well, you should. And that was it. Then I walked out and I had what I'll kind of call this like a memory transplant, where I had this memory that was plaguing me in the story I was telling myself that I'm not smart, I'm not smart, I'm not smart. And then I had this teacher tell me, you're a great writer. And I kind of saw that as, no, I am smart, I am capable. And I literally just said, okay, I'm done with that belief. I now have this new belief, this new memory. And I started believing that. And then I started thriving and doing great in school because of that. So literally, just by changing the story I was telling myself, I went from, you know, C minus, you know, barely graduating high school to eventually later on. And I only share this not to boast, but just to say, because I think that there's a lot of people that doubt themselves who. But I've been able to start 5 multi million dollar businesses. One that ancient nutrition grew over to be over a hundred million a year. Just do some things that today I can be really proud of because I changed my story, like, I changed the things I was telling myself and created new beliefs. And so that's something that's really, I think is so important for people to understand that there are all of these narratives we're telling ourselves constantly that are holding us back. And I think about what. What if I would have had one person say this negative thing and I would have only believe that, and I wouldn't have believed this the truth. I probably wouldn't have started a supplement company or draxe.com or a number of things if I would have continued to believe a lie.

Okay, so you and I share that. That was a huge thing for me growing up was, I am not smart enough. I didn't graduate high school. So that was just something that was just over and over and over in my head. I'm not smart enough. I'm not smart enough. And the funny thing is that we didn't talk about on your podcast was I had one person when I got into the fitness industry, like, one person who I kind of looked up to. Who. One sentence to me. She doesn't remember saying this, but it was. It was kind of like that. What did you call it? Transplant.

Oh, I called a memory transplant. Yeah.

And she made us do this exercise where we did this, like, stage walk for fitness in front of her. And she had said in front of everyone, she was like, oh, you're made for this. Has no clue. She said that. But it changed my entire life. I was like, I decided in that moment to take that memory and be like, no, you're Made for this, like, you're going to be good at this. So it was that moment that I decided to cling to. But that leads me to this question for you. There are people who are so stuck in that initial memory still. Like they're listening to this and they can grab it right away. They know exactly what that limiting belief is, but they don't feel like they've had this person who has come and given them that moment of memory transplant. Like, what do we do? Do you think it requires those people or can we transplant on our own?

We can transplant on our own. And by the way, there's a Columbia psychologist and he wanted to do a self study on this. And so he created something called the ABCDE method. I'm not gonna get into all the details, but he did this because he was so scared of approaching women. And so he was deathly afraid. He was in college and he thought, okay, so he took baby steps to. Because he thought he was gonna be so rejected. He had this fear that, okay, women think I'm weird, I'm bad at relationships, all of these things. And he said, okay, well really, one of the keys is to first identify that belief. Okay, so I believe I'm not smart. Okay. So that's the first step. The next step is going to be to say, okay, what should I believe? Okay, well I should believe that I am smarter, talented in this area. Okay, well that's why I should believe. But your brain doesn't believe it. You've got to prove it to yourself in a way. That's the thing. And so those people out there that just say, I'm smart, I'm smart, I'm smart, I'm smart. Your brain doesn't believe you unless you get micro wins. If you start getting a little win at a time. And so what we need to start doing is saying, like for myself saying, okay, you know what, I'm going to do something to prove that I am. By the way, I'm just going to go back to yours. When I was interviewing you, you told me that you felt like you weren't a finisher, right?

Yeah.

But you went and said, okay, I'm going to do a three mile run and I am going to finish. So you not only said, you said, okay, the lie is that I'm not finishing. But then you said, I know I need to believe that I'm a finisher. But then neurologically you need to prove it to yourself. Even if it's just doing something incredibly small and facing that fear, facing that, that Lie, whatever it is. And so that's really the thing that we need to do is if you believe you're not worthy. Well, one is you need to believe you are worthy. But how do you prove and believe that you're worthy? Well, let me just share like from a religious perspective and listen everybody. I know there's probably a lot of people that, a lot of different religious beliefs, but if somebody's listening, let's say your faith is as a Christian. Well, you could go to the Bible where God says constantly, you are worthy, you are special. I know you to the very hair on your head. I know everything about you. I created you for Jeremiah 29:11 for a plan and a purpose for your life. So that's just one example. But you need to go and write out and prove it to yourself in some way by going and doing certain things as well. So that's sort of, I mean the way that I think we, and by the way we should think of these, these toxic memories as like disease organs. I mean they are things that you need to clean up or remove or to get rid of because they will sabotage us if we don't address them at some point.

So I, I love talking about limiting beliefs, but also the limiting beliefs of the people that you hang around. So can you tell me a little bit about how do we, if we're around the people who don't think it's possible, how does that affect us?

Well one, it affects you incredibly negatively. Listen, the truth is you are who you surround yourself with, right? And there's actually a law, it's called Dunbar's law, that you become like the five people you spend the most time with, but then also the 15 people and the 50 and the 150. So I was interviewing Dave Ramsey two weeks ago and he shared a study with me on this is a really great long term study and he found that the 10 people you spend the most time with that would become your average financial success.

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So if you hang out with a lot of people that are worth 10, $10 million that's the average and you're most likely to be about that. That's where you'll end up financially in the future.

So is it okay if my husband and I come to your house?

Hey, yeah, let's hang out. But anyway, so listen, so this principle is important for your financial success, for your relationship success, for raising great kids, for your health and fitness. We become who we surrounding ourselves with. So my first answer is this is going to sound terrible or maybe insensitive, I think, but get new friends. I really think that that's the. Now I will have a secondary solution, but I think the best solution is you mentioned this too, but you want to crowd those people out. It's not like, listen, there are certain people that are going to be in your life no matter what. And so. But I do think what the way that I focus on this is. I write down. Here's an example. I write down who are the five people I need to spend the most time with. I have a mastermind group and I've coached a lot of people in business. And one of the things I have these business entrepreneurs do, I have them do this in a similar fashion. I say write down the five people you spend the most time with. And now I want you to rank them on a scale of 1 to 10. The principle iron sharpens iron. Okay, a 10. Being this person really sharpens you. They help you grow personally, they help you grow spiritually. They help you grow in business. You can even break it down into different areas. But write down 0 to 10. Those five people now, okay, now write down five people that would be really iron sharpens iron for you. Who are those people you need to spend the most time with? Go and start pursuing relationships with those people more. Spending as much time as possible. So I think that's the first goal is you want to go and find those people, your tribe. And it can take time. When I came to this realization, it actually took me, I want to say, even a couple of years. I know that seems like a long time, but it actually took a couple of years before I was like, I've got my tribe, okay? Or I've got the. The beginnings of my tribe that's continued to grow over time. And so I think that's the first goal. Now the second one is you are going to have people, especially if it's family. I'm thinking about, like, by the way, my dad probably won't listen to this one, but my dad can be super negative and I love my dad. My dad's like an Old military guy, like eats meat and potatoes every meal, you know, sort of thing. And so. And my dad is awesome, taught me discipline and justice and courage and a lot of great things. But my dad is a real pessimist. And so if you're getting around somebody who is, let's say, negative or pessimistic, the goal is you're self aware. You are aware of there's going to be negative energy, there's going to be this negative self talk. And my goal, I turn into a sort of a challenge of this is a ministry, this relationship. This is a relationship of I am going to do everything I can to bless this person with my language, to add value to their life, to help them see life in a new light. So if my dad starts complaining about the weather, I'm just, I'm not going to go there. Or I might say, you know what, you know, on rainy days, here's something we like to do. You know, we like to do this. This is fun. You might try this. I think you and mom would love this. So anyways, I think just being able to go in there and be self aware, I think there's a lot of people today, they're not fully self aware. And this is something that you mentioned during our interview. People that are some mystics, right? And when I look back at the mystics of, whether it be you, Saint Francis of Assisi or, you know, you mentioned someone like a Richard Rohr of today or someone else like that, these people tend to be incredibly self aware in realizing that, you know what, I'm going to be around these negative situations. But if it's raining. There's a guy, Anthony Mello. Do you know who that is? He's, I mean, he's one of my favorites. There's a, there's a book I think everyone would love. The book is called Awareness. And it's just actually it's like a two and a half hour lecture he did. But he talks about if it's raining and you're in a bad mood, you're not in a bad mood because the rain, you're in a bad mood because you're choosing to be in a bad mood. So I think that's the key to realizing you have a choice in all of this. And if you can be aware, that's something people that are really spiritual have a really high level of spiritual growth. They're incredibly aware of. Okay, there's negative over here, there's over here. And I'm going to influence all of these things in the Most positive manner possible. So that's the way that I try and, you know, go into those types of situations and relationships.

Oh, man, so many good things there. I love almost like having your listing being intentional of who you want to spend time with. Like, your five people if they're not in your life yet. Like, I literally was at that level where I was like, okay, well, they're doing what I want. So I would put their name down on paper, like, so that I would remember this is who I want to be in rooms with. So do they have an event coming up? Do they have a mastermind? Are they going to be somewhere? Like, if those people. I even think just writing it down, like, actually creates, like, who knows what it does? It sends a message to God, universe, whatever. Like, getting intentional about who do you want to be around? And I find it crazy how within that year, somehow you will find yourself in a room with those people, because it'll start to be your focus. If it's as simple as it's just gonna be your focus. So it's just gonna start to come into your realm and into your reality and into your point of reference. Because you're looking for it, right? We get what we're looking for.

Can I tell you, I overdid this at one point, so I believe this. Actually, early on, I had a mentor teach me this. And so I wrote down people that were like. Everyone was like a home run, big name personality. So I was moving to Nashville. So I put Dave Ramsey on my list early on of like, hey, here's one of the five people I want to spend time with. And I remember I went up to Dave. This is after he taught this entree leadership seminar. And I went up to him and I said, hey, Dave, I would really love and be honored if I could spend time with you, learn from you, be mentored by you. And he goes, josh, I'm so honored you asked, but I don't have the time. And I thought, oh, man. And I just. You know what I realized at that time? I'm like, you know what? Maybe I'm trying to, you know, maybe I'm trying to go too big right now. But I did find some amazing guys and women to hang out with and spend time with and grow with. What's crazy is years later, and I'm becoming, you know, somewhat friends with Dave and hanging out with him, going to his house and. Anyway, so it's. Sometimes it may just take 10 years.

You know, I love that you said this, though, because that's. That's like how it works, I think in the beginning, because right in the beginning I put like those home run people on there who I'm still maybe not friends with some of them. It's like I was trying to always reach up to the person on the stage or who was doing the big things. And I guess it's more of like if you even put them in your focus, you're going to start to go be in the rooms that they're even in. And even if they don't have time or you know, the mentorship question can be a lot for some people because a lot of these people don't have time. You're going to get in the rooms where you're going to meet the people who think like them though, and then you can create friendships with the people who are in the like minded room. And that's typically like I was going for them, but I met these other people who are kind of at my same level but think like them. So I like that you said that because it can actually be discouraging to people if we put these five down and they're not in our life because we put the home run people on and really it's kind of getting in that energy and into that mindset and into their rooms. But to go meet the people who maybe are sort of at your level that you can connect with. So I love, love, love that you said that. Okay, so talking about limiting beliefs, because I know that you probably still have some limiting beliefs or old ones that like probably still come up. So for you, you know, we look at, we look at your trajectory, we look at your career, people are definitely like, oh, he's got it all together now. He did the things. Can you tell me some of the limiting beliefs that you saw come up over and over again for you as you were building your different companies because you, you weren't good with math and you just told us you had never built a company before. Like what did that process of your mindset look like as you were growing your companies?

Yeah, you know, I was thinking about one I had yesterday. I had somebody say something. I thought, no, that's a limiting belief. I can't, I can't think that that's going to sabotage my success. And so I had a limiting belief that when I got early in business I got frustrated about something because I found it at one point I thought it's really hard for people to change. Like it's really difficult. I felt like I was trying to help. It was a point in My career where maybe I was trying to help some patients change and they just weren't changing. I'm like, I'm giving you all this advice. Like, all you have to do is follow it, and I promise you'll heal. I promise you'll get better. And they weren't changing. And then there was some, like, really difficult relationships. And I thought, gosh, this person is just unwilling to change and grow. And so I had this narrative in my head that it's really hard to get people to change. And then here's what that led to, though. I started then thinking, well, I'm not even going to bother saying anything right now. I'm just going to let this go. So then I actually stopped trying to help people change in certain areas. Not as much in health, but in certain people in my business that would hire certain things like that. And so I was like, oh, that's not good. Because I'm smart enough to realize that if it's that thing of, like, okay, if I don't believe people can change, then I won't try. And then I'm not going to even try to help patients get healthy. I'm not going to help try to improve the life of my friends or add value to people. Whatever. I said, well, what should I believe? Well, I need to believe that people can totally transform. They can become entirely new people. And so I started proving to myself to where I would read and go on and read about people that reinvented themselves and changed themselves. I thought about myself. I thought I went from being this kid who thought I wasn't smart and, and having different issues in life to overhear. So I realized, oh, wow, no, people can transform. And so that's one of those sort of limiting beliefs, I think that, listen, we all have them crop up constantly. But I think I always. I take it captive. I write it down. I write down, what do I need to believe? And then I write down sort of this. We talked about this a little bit. Pain and pleasure. I wrote down, what if I keep believing this thing? What is going to be the side effect? If I believe this negative thing, what's the outcome going to be? And then I'll start writing down, okay, if I believe the truth, what will the outcome be? And then it's just obvious. It's like, wow, I realize that I'm going to put myself in a terrible position if I keep believing the lie.

So had you learned that pretty early on, you know, with limiting beliefs, had you learned how to overcome them pretty.

Early on, you know, what's crazy? No, let me say this. I grew up in a home where I had really great parents and I was constantly exposed to the Bible. And so the take your thought captive thing to me that was a biblical principle that somehow I started using in every area of life. And so I think there's others like that be transformed by the renewing of your mind. I thought yeah, I got to change the way I think yeah I got to start thinking differently. So for me I just being real honest I think for me just being so reading the Bible and having it read to by my parents and just sort of being in that growing up, that sort of faith. I think I started taking all of these different biblical principles and just they sort of naturally came up when I got into difficult situations.

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Yeah. So for me, and by the way, I feel like because I have a strong sense of purpose, by the way, there's a study that came out, and this is really. I want to. I want to say a little bit eye opening, but the study found that 75% of people don't know their purpose. Okay, so only 25% of people know their purpose. And if you think about it, I mean, purpose fuels so much of our life. Like, for me, because I have a great sense of purpose. I feel energized. I think I work harder, I put more into relationships. I think life is more meaningful. So when I read that stat, like, my heart hurt for some people because I know just how important, like, how enriching that has been to my own life. And if I didn't have a sense of purpose, I think that would be. That. That would be challenging. And so. And by the way, I think there's multiple, multiple purposes. I think as humanity, all of us together, we have a global purpose. Now I want to share what that is, what I believe it is. Now, everyone, el might believe it's something else, and that's fine. But I believe we're all called to love God, love people, and make Earth a heavenly place, and so turn this entire planet into a garden of Eden, like paradise, a garden city, and live for eternity. So that's my belief. It's a very Christian worldview, but that's my belief in terms of what we're globally called to do along with. And part of through that is discipleship, mentoring others. That's part of love there. So that's kind of that global purpose. Now, I believe we're all called to help out with an individual purpose as well. And so our individual purposes is going to be tied to our unique gifts and skills. What is that thing that God has uniquely designed you to do where you can really contribute and add value in a. In a really, really special way? And I think when I go and think about finding that and then also utilizing that, there's a few things that come to mind. And the first would be, what is that thing like? Like, I think when I found my purpose, I can. I can just share personally, was I found my first purpose when my mom was sick with cancer. I remember my mom being diagnosed with cancer. I remember her going through chemo. I remember her throwing up in a bucket. I remember her. Her. I remember her. I was watching behind her. I still have this picture in my mind of her taking a comb, combing her hair, and then just hair, all her hair just coming out in the comb. And I remember her seeing her just sob with that. And, you know, that just impacted me so much as a kid, seeing your mom go through that. I think I was in eighth grade at the time, and just. And there's these. A couple things that went through my head at the time. And one was, I never want to see anyone have to go through this again. And the other was, there has to be a better way. That was the other thing that was in my head. Is this really the best way to help somebody get healthy and overcome an illness? And so from that point on, I remember in high school, the next year, I realized that I want to be healthy. So I didn't know anything about health, but I stopped drinking soda because I just knew that was bad. That's not the only thing I knew. But I stopped eating soda and eating candy bars and started sort of gradually moving towards this thing. Because there was this thing in my heart that, like, this bothers me. This is not right in the world. This needs to be fixed. Like. And so I think if somebody can tap into and find that something like that, like, this isn't right in the world. And by the way, for me, right now, I still have that sense, but I also have a new sense of leadership. I started a new website. It's called leaders.com. i've got a new book coming out that's really focused on the helping people grow to their maximum potential, overcome belief. So I'm kind of a little bit in a shift of going from more in the health space to more in the, you know, helping people grow space. And with that, like my. The new thing is there needs to be better leaders. People leaders that are more compassionate, leaders that are more virtuous, that are more loving. Like I look in the educational system today, there are so many teachers that lack wisdom. I mean, what they're teaching kids is all propaganda and not actually what they should be learning. Like, that bothers me. Like, it bothers me that actually a lot of leaders in the church and religion are not outspoken about relevant issues, that they should be talking about our government. Do I need to say anything there? How much bad leadership there is, how many bad leaders there are in business that just kind of fall to these sort of side agendas rather than doing what they're called to do with purpose. So I think that one of the first things. This is one of the keys, and I'll hit on others. But one of the keys to leadership, or one of the keys to finding your purpose. Purpose is. Is what is that thing where, you know, if you do that, it's going to be meaningful, right? So you're doing something where you're really contributing. Maybe there's something that breaks your heart, you can help with that in some way. But I think that's one of the keys. If you can find something where it kind of like gets you excited and that, you know you're helping. Part of this is tied into passion. I think that's the first thing. Okay, so. So actually, let me first say, I think that's finding the need. What is something that needs fixing? What's a problem that needs solving? And you're part of the solution. So that's number one. Number two is, can you be passionate about? Is it something you're going to like? Is it something you're going to enjoy? I think that's an important part of your purpose, that it's something, again, that you just at least don't hate. Okay, so I think that's important. I think that you're good at it. That's really important. This is part of your unique gift and skill that you were designed to do. And the last one Would be now, by the way, it gives you a reward. Now it might be treasures in heaven. It might be you need to make money so you're actually getting paid well for it. Right. And I think that getting actually paid monetarily tends to be one of those important factors. So I would say those are the most important factors. If you're like, oh, what's my purpose? Write down what's something in society that really, you know, you'd like to be a part of helping remedy the situation. Okay, what are you passionate about? What are you good at? And what can you get rewarded for financially? I think those are the keys to finding your purpose. And by the way, this is an ancient Japanese exercise called ikigi, oftentimes, at least encompasses many of those ideas.

Okay, I love this. It's such a great place to start. And I want to talk about how maybe, can you share examples how sometimes in the beginning, maybe for you, you don't necessarily get paid right away on what you're passionate about. Yes, let's chat about that. Like, because someone might be trying to put this all together and being like, well here's what I love, but I don't see how I'm going to get paid for it. Should I quit my job and figure this out? Like, tell me about this like middle part where you're trying to figure it out.

So this is something I was able to do. I launched a website many years ago. It's called draxe.com just named just after my name. And so at first I started off in a, having a practice. It was more of a functional medicine practice. We did nutrition, chiropractic, physical, physical therapy, cleanse, a number of things. And so I started off doing that and that was a full, that was a full time job. But my passion was really educating. Like I loved teaching and educating people. And that was, and I felt like that was going to be the greatest again. It filled all those boxes. But making money, okay, didn't make money to start at all. And so but I said I'm going to take four hours a week. And I actually read Tim Ferriss book. Yeah, it just came out. I read Four Hour Workweek and I thought, okay, I'm just going to start taking Saturday mornings or two hours twice a week and I'm going to start doing a four hour work week on a side project of my purpose. This is part of my biggest purpose. And so what I did was I started taking off in my clinic from Friday afternoons. And so I would go from one to five And I would say, okay, I'm going to write an article and film a video. Okay? And I did that. And so. And I. And it was. It was. It was a lot of fun for me. So in my downtime, I would sort of read and sort of prep for writing the article and videos and those sort of things. And then I would actually do it on. On those Fridays. And then after a couple years, I went and I was wondering, well, how much traffic am I getting? And it was like, well over 100,000 people were coming a month. And I'm like, wow, that's amazing. And then eventually had people start coming in from other states. Like, I'm like, where are you in from? They're like, from California. They were in Nashville. I'm like, well, why? They're like, to see you. I'm like, how'd you find out about the clinic? Well, the website. So it was just sort of crazy to me. But all that being said, I think that, you know, it can start off as a small side project. By the way, your passion doesn't always have to be tied to your career. You might be passionate about doing something else, like helping kids in the inner city, you know, and that's something you're just doing four hours a week or two hours a week or whatever it is. And that's a big part of it as well. Now I think it can be great if it can be tied to a future career. Let me share this as well. My clinic was early on that was part of that purpose. I know that was part of my purpose and led to just this and another thing and another thing. But my clinic, I did not like. Like, if we took X rays of somebody, like, I did not really. I wasn't full of joy marking an X ray or getting the business started and running to Costco to get, you know, some organic snacks for Patient Appreciation Day or whatever it was. Like, those are. I'm not an errands guy. Like, that wasn't my favorite thing, but I was driven by this good that I knew it was doing in the world. And I think that's the most important part of that purpose is you need to have a certainty of, I know this thing that I'm doing, it matters. It's going to be really meaningful to somebody. So I think as much as you can tie a greater meaning to things. And by the way, this is important for identity as well. I think your identity feeds your purpose. And so, by the way, this is a question you didn't ask me, but I've Just got to go on because I think it's.

I love this.

Yeah, this is important for me to learn is that if you want to live the most meaningful life possible, you need to have the most amount of meaning attached to your identity. And what your identity is, it's tied to, tends to be a person or a group in addition to your roles and your responsibilities. So for instance, Martin Luther King Jr. Okay, when you think about his identity, who is he or who he thought he was? That's probably a better question. Not who we think is, but who he thought he was. He would first and foremost say, I'm a child of God. He was the son of a pastor and so he thought like he was an extension. I mean he was doing the will of God. So that was first and foremost part of tied to his identity as sort of this, this group identity. His identity was tied to God and then his identity was as a pastor, as a husband, as a father. And here's the thing. If somebody has a role, like let's say for instance, my identity, let's say I believe, okay, part of my identity is tied to being a father or dad. Okay, if what I believe a father is, is somebody that just helps a woman conceive and then I just run off and I don't have any other responsibility, that's a very low level of meaning of what a father is. And so it's not going to enrich that person's life at all. That role isn't. And that's not going to strengthen their identity versus if a father believes I'm called to provide for my family financially, I am the person that is literally saved. Like the protector, the provider of this group of people. Wow, that's a lot higher level of meaning. That's a much stronger identity and role that you have now. And it means even a great, that's a greater responsibility. But now take it at another level and say, okay, my role as a father is to create world changing kids that do the greatest good in the world and they're going to live for eternity and they're going to have kids and they're going to have kids. So I'm going to be so conscious of showing my kids love and compassion, but teaching them discipline and how to be courageous and being the best dad possible and knowing that I need to show up as much as I can and keep my promises and I know that my role as a father is eternally significant. Like if I know that in my heart of heart, like that creates such a level of meaning, and creates such a strong identity in me. Like, wow, I'm a father. And I think that, like, a lot of moms are missing this today. Like, if you're. To me, like, I watch my wife Chelsea, and I'm like, wow, you're a mom. Like, that is one of the most incredibly important jobs in the world. And so, like, I think a lot of people devalue their roles and what they do instead of understanding, no, your role can have eternal significance. And when you tap into that identity for yourself, that fuels your purpose. Because my purpose as a father, my purpose as a husband, my purpose as a business leader, it's just. It's like fuel, you know? And so, anyways, I probably got a little bit off track here with some of your question, but I think understanding what identity truly is, because I think people are really confused today. I think people think identity is all about the gender. You think you're deciding. And, yeah, that is. It's an important part. And then we have this sort of identity hierarchy where it's like, what's the most important part of your identity? I could go for hours about this, but. But it's. This is something I cover in my new book, by the way. Think this, not that, really getting into your identity and purpose and. And a lot more. But it's, you know. Yeah, I think it's important.

Okay. You have me thinking a lot on identity, because people right now, essentially, everything you're saying, they get to decide. You get to decide your identity.

That's right.

Like, so what. What is coming first when we think about doing this? Because just the things that you were saying, I'm like, oh, well, I identify as this. And I. I was like, oh. I think one of the reasons that I have really great female relationships right now is I identify. I decided to be a good friend, and so every action that I take, I measure against, because I didn't even know what that meant, how to be a good friend. But I would ask myself, okay, what would a good friend do if I wanted to be friends with this? Like, better friends with this woman? And so it's like, I'm trying to explain to people, maybe you can help me pick that apart. What comes first, the choice of identifying or the action? Or what is that? Like, do we just get to pick our labels of identity?

Well, it depends. Okay. But here's. I think a question that should come first of all is, what identity or truth leads to the best? Sorry, this can get really deep stuff. But I would say, so what leads to the best Outcome. There's something called human flourishing. And that's the idea of what truth, like one is. There is a truth today. There's this idea that, like, it's all subject, like, it's all subjective. No, it's all objective. Like, there is one truth. An apple is not an orange, and orange is not an apple. There's one truth. And so the first thing you need to do is, as a person is embrace. Embrace the truth and be a pursuer of truth, not of ideology. Right. And so first, if somebody believes, well, I believe being a good friend is gossiping behind their back. Well, that's not true. And so you're not going to flourish and you're not going to thrive. There's this idea in the book of Genesis when we read the Bible is Adam and Eve were supposed to take the Garden of Eden and cause this garden to flourish and grow into something beautiful, not just in this little area of Mesopotamia, but over the entire world. But there's something deeper going on where God's like, I'm not only want the garden to flourish, I want humans to flourish and flourish amongst each other. And that's part of what we've talked about some today. And even in your book, you cover that, you know, if you want to thrive in life, you got to get around other people that are flourishing, and it will cause you to grow as well. You got to get in good soil. That's our environment. So kind of going back to this, I think the first thing is, is that recognizing when it comes to your identity is you want to believe the thing that's the truth. And what the truth is, is the thing that will lead to the greatest, the greatest good in the world, that will lead to the best life for every single person alive. So going back to this, all that being said, I think that when it comes to our identity, sometimes action may come first and then you realize it. But I think for a lot of people, your identity should be tied into what are the roles that I can thrive in that do the greatest good in the world. Okay, so give me an example of this. Like, one of the people I wrote about in the book is Michelangelo. And Michelangelo is amazing. I mean, you know, have you ever walked through the Sistine Chapel or looked at the Pieta or any of his. I mean, you're like, how did somebody possibly do this? And if you read some of his own, literally, yeah, he's such a person of purpose. And there's a story where somebody went in and saw the Sistine Chapel and they went to one of those corners in the. They pointed up and they said, why did you spend so much time on the details in that corner? Almost nobody will ever see that. And he says, well, God will see. And I think there, you know, his identity of being an artist was really fueled by doing the greatest good. He thought, like, I'm not painting for just to be painting. I'm painting to glorify God. I'm painting because the person that does see that will be inspired to do greater things in their life. And he was right. You know how many people were inspired as artists to go and take their game up to another level and another level and another level. So I think if you want to build a strong identity, you need to realize, okay, I have a role that is meaningful in the greatest way possible. And so like for instance, my role as a father, like my role is tied to my responsibility. My responsibility is to create world changing kids that are more. More like Christ, more like God, more like Mother Teresa, more like Michelangelo, more like whatever. So I know the end goal is I'm creating kids that are high in two things. They're high in character and they're high in skill. I'm going to take their God given gift and I'm going to take it as high as possible. I'm going to take their character, I'm going to take it high as possible. That's my responsibility as a father, to help them in that. And then I know that's going to help the entire world flourish. And so going back to this, like for your, for you, it's like, okay, you understand you're a friend. That's your role. Your responsibility is to be the best friend possible. What does that look like? It probably looks like a couple things. One, you're going to nurture and love and help your friends, be an encourager, but you're also going to challenge them. If they're not doing the right thing, you're going to say, you know what, you're better than that. I know you're capable of more. Right. It's a sort of nurture and challenge. So I think it really is tied to what is your role and then what are your responsibilities. And then knowing what the end goal is, I think is an important part of that. And so for you, you might think about, well, an end goal is we're there for each other. We're iron sharpens iron. We're helping women as a whole become more successful and we are helping people grow personally. And so you're kind of seeing and you Visualize. Right. So what's the visualization of the end goal 25 years from now? What does life look like if your role and responsibilities are fulfilled?

Okay. I love how layered this is because every single one, like, they. They all play off each other, and they're all super tied to each other. And you just mentioned visual visualization. I know that. Visualize. You talk about visualization in your book, correct?

Yeah.

Okay, tell me, why is that so important to you? And, like, what role do you think that actually plays in our life and who we are?

Yeah, so I had a mentor. I was at a retreat. It was like a mastermind event. And this was. This was when I was in school, a student, before I opened my clinic. And this is why I'm a big believer in masterminds and coaching and just relationships, getting around other people, because, like, my biggest life lesson is you become who you surround yourself with. And so, like, I've in my career, always invested in going, like, doing those things, because I look back over my life, and I'm like. Like, those things move the needle for me in my career and life more than anything. And so I'm at this retreat, and I had a mentor say to me. He said, hey, I want you to practice visualization. And I'd never done it before. Well, you know, maybe I'd done it once, but I'd never done it for my business in certain areas. And so. And I never done it this in depth. And so he said, I want you to picture, you know, your greatest weakness or addiction or whatever it is, and now view it getting out of control. And what? And I. And I got to the point of actually tears. I thought, or are you never accomplishing any of your biggest goals in life? I remember actually crying and thinking, wow, Like, I like, how bad would life be if I just wasted my entire life, all my gifts, all my skills, all the things God's called me to do, and I just wasted it. And it really moved me emotionally. And I visualized the worst possible outcome of my life. And then he's like, visualize the best possible outcome of your life. It was just really encouraging. And by the way, when I visualize, I get incredibly detailed. And so, like, I remember visualizing, like, okay, who do I want to marry? And so I remember and think about the situation, the environment. So one of the things, I always loved the water. And my family always grew up water skiing. So I imagined being at this lake house, specific Lake Norris Lake in East Tennessee, and looking over and seeing my wife, and she turned around, she had blonde hair, she was fit. And I just, she smiled at me, I smiled back at her. We were making food together, like all the details. I saw a few little kids running around the house and us going and getting on the boat. And so I started visualizing and picturing all of these, like all the details. I wrote out all the details. And then, you know, I ended up marrying a woman who is very, Chelsea is very, very much like that. And I would pray, I said, God, would you send me a woman that is mentally stimulating, physically breathtaking and spiritually on fire for you and that helps me grow. And God sent me that. And then Chelsea and I started practicing this visualization process together. And I got to share this story because it was just so amazing. So we got married in this area of Florida called seaside. It's 38, it's where the Truman show was filmed, down in Panhandle of Florida. So we got married down there. We took like a mini honeymoon there. So the day after we got married, we rented these little bikes and started going around this neighborhood. And when we got back after riding bikes, I said, hey, would you want to do a vision board? And she said, yeah, that sounds fun. I said, okay, great. So we spent the next three days kind of doing this vision board. So one of the things we did is we, we said, hey, we would love to eventually have a vacation home here one day because we got engaged here, we got married here, we love the beach, it's awesome. And we're both water people. So I got home and I started printing off pictures for our vision board. And I just went online, did a random. There was a neighborhood we liked, it was called Watercolor. And I looked up Watercolor home Florida. And I saw a picture of a home, never seen it before, took it, put it on the vision board and then started then planning on, okay, well how much is it going to take to buy this type of home? Okay, we're going to start saving this much of our check a month, start putting it away. Well, this was about, you know, about five years later. About five years later. We didn't have enough quite money yet, but I was with my father in law and we were riding bikes to this neighborhood again, a lot was for sale and I said, hey, I just have this idea, just running it by you. My father in law, Joel. I said what if. I know we can't afford to buy a house right now here, but would you guys be interested in going in with us together? And they said yes. And so we ended up buying this lot, it was a better lot than we could ever have thought possible. Awesome lot. And we started building on it. And then I got home the next week, and I'm looking at my vision board, and I was like, man, there's something so familiar about that house. And I pulled up my phone, I took a picture of the lot, and I realized the lot we bought was next door to the house that had been on my vision board that I never thought I'd ever seen for five years. And actually, that lot, part of it was on the vision board. And there. Listen, there are tens of thousands of homes down in this area. And so the power of visualization is to me, I mean, I've seen this happen over and over and over again in my life. It's like, if you don't have a clear vision, it's like running a race and not knowing where the finish line is. You've got to have a clear picture of where is that finish line. And so I have a process. I call it visualization to realization. Now, I do want to say before I visualize, I prioritize because I want to make sure. Okay, let's say I'm like, well, I want to drive a Lamborghini one day. Well, is that like. And by the way, I'm not saying anything negative about that. If somebody wants to drive a Lamborghini, that's fine. But for me, I thought, does that align with me making Earth a more heavenly place and having this sort of family I want and faith and the number of things? And I thought, well, that's really. That's not on my vision board. And it's fine if it's on someone else's. Listen, I wanted a nice house, right? So I'm not saying it's any more or less virtuous, but I'm just saying that that just wasn't on my vision board. But I have priorities. And so it's like faith, family, fitness, my finances and work, and then my free time. And so I have those areas. And so number one is I prioritize, and then I visualize it's exactly what I want. And then the third step is strategize. So what is the strategy if I want to have this house? It's not, you know, I don't plan on it just magically appearing. I know I'm going to do my research. Okay, it's going to cost a million dollars. Okay, well, how much do we need to save a month for the next five years in order to put a down payment on that House in order to make that a reality. So then I strategize exactly the numbers, what we need to do to make this happen. The strategy, by the way, I did the same thing with everything. GrowingDoctorACte.com at one point, it was the number one natural health website. I wrote down exactly how many articles, the exact word length, where it would be this year and then next year and the next year. So very specific strategy. The fourth step, by the way, it's not really complicated. Sometimes it's just. It just takes sometimes an hour or two. And a lot of times you can know the entire strategy if you want to get healthy, walk 30 minutes a day and then every other day work out for 45 minutes and then eat this. Just write it down. Takes a couple hours. That's it. So that's the strategy part. The third is systematize, which is your habits and rituals. Okay, let's say I want to have a great family life and marriage is incredibly important to me. Well, I then will go and do research. It's like first principles, thinking, what are the most crucial elements to a great marriage? And I did research on this and I found, okay, date nights. This is incredibly important for a great family life and a great marriage. Okay, date nights. What's another one for a great family life? Family dinners. Whoa. Studies show that if you do seven or family meals, if you do seven family meals a week, that's optimum to creating the best family life possible. Okay, what else is important? Kids getting a really virtuous education. So making sure our kids and our teachers, they're really learning and growing as they should. Religious attendance on going to church or synagogue or something, some sort of having something like that in your life. And so I went through and had like 10 things of these. You know, creating really meaningful family traditions was on the list of science of things like that. And so I. And then, so, so then I put those in a schedule. That was the system of habit of, okay, I want a great marriage. Well, Thursday nights are date nights. Sundays we go to church, and then we go to brunch afterwards. And then we get a family meal in. Right. We have family workouts on there. That's another one. So we had a list of all those things. And if you can go through the process of prioritization, visualization, strategy, and then prioritize, then you're going to realize your hopes, your dreams, your goals, all those things are going to come true. So that's sort of like, I think, visualization. It's not just, I Think a lot of people just sort of just do the visualization part. But I really think the prioritize, the strategize, and the systematize are equally as important.

Oh, my God, yes. I love that. And I think that's so good for people to hear, because visualization, they know it works. They hear that it works in sports. They hear that it works in all of these different places, but it's because they also have all of these other things in place. And I think that even the people who don't understand this part are doing this part without realizing they're doing it. So I'm like, oh, I've always had a vision board. We do one every single year. We do it in, you know, on New Year's Eve. It's what Chris and I have done for, like, the past 15 years. And what happens is you looking at it. I, like, tweak my month and my day and what I'm doing because I'm like, oh, yeah, that's right. I want that I should do this. So I actually prefer now having this system that I just wrote down, because I'm like, of course, you just figure out what is most important. Because sometimes I just throw stuff on there that I'm like, yeah, I think I should put this up there where it's like, no, what do I really want this year and why? And does it really impact our larger purpose? And then strategizing and systematizing like genius. It's literally just a really incredible plan that keeps you excited because you're constantly thinking about it as well. I love, love, love that. Okay. Your book has so many different things. I know that you have 12 different steps, 12 different mind shifts to overcome limiting beliefs. But when is your book out? Who else is this perfect for? Like, tell me all the details.

Yeah, so the book comes out April 2, and you know what? I walked you through there. That's covered just a small portion of that in one of the chapters of the book. But this is the book I'm the most proud of I've ever written. I think if people. If anybody who wants to find their purpose, breakthrough, limiting beliefs, wants to grow to, you know, become the best version of themselves, I think it's an. I think the book is really great for that. And the audiobook, we have bonus interviews from some just unbelievable people. People like Dave Ramsey, John Deloney, Shade Zahary, Tim Tebow. A lot of people we'd recognize who are. Who are. Are part of the book on the audiobook there as well. But, yeah, I think the book four is anybody that wants a breakthrough in life, achieve their greatest level of success, whether that be in their family or their business or just their personal growth, it's for those people. It's in bookstores nationwide. Amazon.com, the book's called Think this, Not that. So it helps people change the way they, you know, in order to think, to find the truth. And so, anyways, I'm extremely excited about it. If you can't, can't tell. So.

Oh, I love. I love that. And, you know, sometimes I think that's how it works, is like, after you've done all the things you thought were going to bring you, like, the great life, which it did. Right. It adds on to this. But you want to go back and you want to teach all of the things that you did to get to where you're at. And truly, I love having mentors and reading books of people whose life I would actually want in relationships. And you're absolutely one of those people. So you guys go and grab this book. And something that I like to do on this podcast is I am going to do a book giveaway. So I'm going to buy 10 books to the first people who share this story on Instagram. So make sure you tag Dr. Josh Axe, and I will personally send you a book for the first 10 people who do that and let him know what your biggest takeaway was from this podcast. So I'm so grateful for you. Thank you so much for coming on the show.

Thanks for having me, Laurie. It was so much fun. Again, I had a blast interviewing you, and you're a great interviewer. The question questions were amazing. And thanks so much for having me.

Yes, absolutely. And, you guys, we're so grateful for you. Thank you for tuning in. Definitely. Make sure you go tag him and let him know what your biggest takeaway was. And I will send you that book. And until next time, everyone earn your happy.

Bye.

Bye.