048: How a Cancer Diagnosis Lead to an 8 Figure Brand with Dr. Josh Axe

Hi, I'm Natalie Jill, fat loss expert turned high performance coach.

When odds are stacked against us, how.

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Leveling up and creating everything from nothing.

Today on Leveling Up, I have a very special guest. If you have Googled anything ever in health, then you have likely come across Dr. Axe's work. Now, in 2008, he started a functional medicine center in Nashville, which grew to become one of the most renowned clinics in the world. And his website, draxe.com which, at over 17 million monthly visitors, is considered the number one natural health website in the world today. Today, I go deep with Dr. Josh Axe to understand why he stepped into the field he is known for today. How his mom's cancer diagnosis forever changed his calling, and how he bounced back from massive business failures by shifting his mindset and approach. Now we also go into why he loves collagen, bone broth, and the keto lifesty and more. Join in today and learn exactly how Dr. Axe leveled up and created everything from nothing.

Today I've got Dr. Josh Axe here. I am so excited to talk to you today, Dr. Axe. I know you've got a new book out, and, you know, people see you everywhere online. We see you look like this big brand. You have such credibility. So many people know and love you. But I know that's not always who you were. So thanks for being here. Dr. Axe. I am dying to jump into who you were before you were this mega brand online.

Awesome. Well, thanks for having me, Natalie. I know myself and my wife follow a lot of what you do, and we're big fans. So again, honored to be here.

Thank you. So take us back. Because, you know, people see you online, and it can get, you know, intimidating to somebody that's wanting to start their own business or that they're. They're new to researching what you do online because they see that you're just everywhere. You've got this great product line. You've got books. You've got a big following. That's not who you always were, though. Can you take us back to who you were before all of that?

Yeah, sure. So I'll kind of go through just a few phases of where I've been and how I ended up where I am today. But, yeah, when I, you know, I grew up in Dayton, Ohio, and my dad worked outside on telephone lines, and my mom was a gym teacher, and then she went on to teach special ed. So growing up, you know, we, you know, grew up in the Midwest, and my family was kind of into, you know, kind of into fitness, Natalie. But we knew nothing about health and nutrition. And at 40 years old, my mom was diagnosed with cancer. And that was kind of a surprising thing for our family because we thought that, hey, if you look good, that means you're healthy. But she went through all the conventional medical treatment. She went and had a mastectomy. She went through rounds and rounds and rounds of chemotherapy. And I still remember this day seeing her hair fall out. I remember looking at her and thinking she had aged 20 years in a couple of weeks after all of her chemo treatments. And even as a kid, I said, I never want to see anyone have to go through that again. And I thought to myself, there has to be a better way. And that's part of what set me on my path. Now, my mom went through those treatments, was eventually diagnosed as being cancer free, but she actually seemed sicker than ever afterwards. She got put on antidepressant drugs, anti anxiety drugs, thyroid medication. She was just sort of sick and tired all the time, diagnosed with chronic. So my memory of my mom growing up was she went from being this athletic, seeming like fit person, to having chronic fatigue and just was sick all the time.

Yeah. And you also, I'm assuming you're seeming. You're seeing, like, medicine, basically, like having the chemo, radiation, whatever, the medicine, and then the medicine after just making her sicker and sicker.

Exactly, yeah. And so I really connected that. Just sort of saw that as a kid and started saying to myself, I want to be a solution. It's what drove me to become a doctor is that experience. And then a year before I graduated from graduated to open my own clinic, my mom was diagnosed with cancer again. And she called me just in tears, just distraught on the phone and said, what do I do? And I flew back from where I was studying in Florida back to Ohio, and we sat down and we felt really led to take care of her all naturally. So she started juicing vegetables every single day, doing supplements like reishi mushroom and turmeric bone broth, all this stuff, and just radically changed her diet, her lifestyle. And the other big thing was her mindset. One of the things we did, Natalie, was we had her quote herself saying things like Bible verses, positive affirmations but she took this tape recorder and recorded herself saying these. And then she would listen to it 10 minutes in the morning when she first woke up and just practiced gratefulness, did that before bed. And also she just was very stressed. She had a lot of fear in her life, a lot of worry in her life. So she really worked on getting rid of all that fear and worry. Another thing, we practiced a lot of visualization. So one of the things that she did was she imagined her T killer cells in her body that kill cancer going and gobbling up and destroying the cancer cells. And she would picture herself 25 years from then, running on the beach, like, playing with her grandkids, bringing them to Disney. So, you know, we took care of every area of her health from her spiritual and emotional health, her physical health. And so she followed this treatment protocol for four months, went back to her oncologist, and they redid a CT scan and they called the next day and they said, this is highly unusual. We don't typically see this, but the tumors have shrunk by more than half. They said, we want to see you again in nine months. She went back nine months later in complete remission. And today my mom turned 67 here next month, and she water skis. She's ran several 5Ks and finished second, third in her age group. And so she says she feels better now in her 60s than she did in her 30s. But that was a big part of what drove me in the first place to become a doctor.

So back up a little bit though, because this is. We heal it. We'll hear a lot more now about, you know, the mind, body connection and how powerful it is. I mean, there's. There's just documentaries and studies and research now on that power of that mind, on reversing disease or preventing disease. But that was really cutting edge for that, for that. When you're talking about. So what made you think to that, had that worked for you in areas of your life before? Like, how did you even come up with that?

Yeah, so, you know, a few years before, and we always grew up as more of a spiritual family. And I hadn't believe. Believed in, you know, having a relationship with God. So that was sort of already in place. But I had some amazing mentors and coaches in my life who were in the health industry, you know, some doctors of functional medicine who, you know, who trained me. So one of the things one of my mentors did is he would have me, even in practice, like, write down, like, what I wanted my vision to look like, he had me start doing vision boards. And I would picture myself, you know, with a certain practice with a certain spouse in the future, like myself, having great health. So I actually did practice in visualization, my business being very specific about what I wanted. So I already started seeing that. And then, you know, when you have a family member who's that sick, like, for myself, I spent probably thousands of hours both online and going to libraries, looking up, because this is about, at that point, 13, 13 plus years ago, and just spent a lot of time just studying how to beat cancer. And I remember I came across articles as well on visualization and mindset with cancer. In fact, one of the things I. And you may have read this before, it's kind of crazy, but when you look at studies about sometimes people are diagnosed with cancer and they haven't had it, and they've died six months later because they believed that they had it and they only had so many months to live. So I realized that, hey, if that's true for the opposite, then it's got to be true as well for my mom having this sort of positive mindset of her survival.

So what would you say? Okay, because I know there's got to be somebody listening to this right now that's saying that either they have cancer or a family member has cancer. And. And obviously. And they might be triggered by this. Like, well, but I didn't choose this. And I do have a positive mindset or my family didn't. What would you say to them?

Yeah, and I think it's not just a positive mindset. I think, and Natalie, this is a principle of Chinese medicine is that specific emotions cause disease in specific organs. So, for instance, the emotion of fear. And think about this. If somebody gets really afraid, they can wet themselves. Well, that's because the emotion of fear causes dysfunction of the bladder and the kidneys and adrenals and reproductive organs. So somebody has a lot of fear. It can cause infertility. It can cause ovarian or uterine cancer. And so, and same thing, worry causes disease of the stomach. Anger and unforgiveness cause disease of the liver. Grief and depression cause disease of the gut and the lungs. And so, all that being said, I think it's important to figure out not just, hey, are you tend to be more positive, but is there an emotion in your life that is causing, that you battle, that is causing disease to build up in the body, the one emotion that is the most healing. And again, this isn't me saying this. This is Chinese medicine and ayurvedic medicine, the two oldest forms of medicine today, the motion of joy. So really gets that gratefulness. It's joyfulness. It's being able to really practice that. And so again, I think positive mindset can help. Again, taking it a step further, it's combating those negative emotions and really staying in a state of joyfulness.

Yeah, that's powerful right there. Because there are people, we all know that are they acting positive, but they're not. They're hiding their feelings and their emotions deep down. So like an unhappy relationship or stressful job or whatever it is. So then they might be saying positive things, but not actually feeling those things. That's. That's pretty powerful there. So. Wow, that's incredible. So. So that started you on your journey because you knew obviously you were onto something with this was. Take us back a little bit then, because when you started this, it wasn't as wildly while as obvious, as accepted as it is now. Right. The mind, body connection and sort of this alternative medic, which is a lot of what you focus on. So what was that like starting a practice based on that?

Yeah, you know, this is about 1112, I guess. 12, 1112 years ago. It was, you know, it definitely. It's amazing in the past 10 years how much more natural medicine has grown in popularity and things like ayurvedic medicine, I mean, they've really continued to grow. But you know, I remember that there's a lot more. Especially, you know, there was just the medical community was not for this at all. Now we've got some other doctors that I'm friends and colleagues with, like Mark Hyman and David Perlmutter. You know, I was on Dr. Oz last month and those are guys too that are really widely respected and the entire medical community is really moving in this direction. But yeah, there was a lot of resistance early on. But, you know, I knew that these principles had saved my mom's life. Then I started applying them with patients and the results were amazing. One of the first communities I really got plugged into in Nashville was the community of children that have autistic spectrum disorders, ASD disorders. And we started seeing incredible results. I would put them on a gluten free and casein free diet, sometimes keto. And the results with them were just really powerful. Same thing. I started seeing type 2 diabetes reversed. I started seeing people with autoimmune diseases and severe digestive issues get better hypothyroidism. And so for me, you know, when you start seeing positive results like that and people inpatients coming up and hugging you, saying, you've changed my life. And I'd been to 10 other doctors. And so even then there was all that resistance. I was seeing such positive, you know, I was getting affirmed on the other end because I actually did see people getting well.

Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. So it's almost like it doesn't matter the judgment that's happening because you're serving people and you see that and you.

Feel it a hundred percent.

Wow, that's pretty, pretty cool. Now why you mentioned that you also had a hardship starting your online brand and starting your business and everything. Can you take us back to that and how you powered through that?

Yeah, sure. So, you know, even so, when I was in practice, I loved working with patients. But my favorite part of my operating my clinic was on once a week I would do a night lecture. And so I would basically teach a health workshop on everything from how to fight cancer naturally, how to beat hypothyroidism, how to heal with a keto diet. Those are some of the topics I loved educating. That was my biggest passion. I remember at one point just sort of coming to realization that I want to educate full time. And so I started writing a newsletter in my practice and I had a radio show. And anyways, they started doing really well. So online. I eventually published my newsletter online. It kept growing. So I realized I want to be able to do this full time, but it wasn't quite financially stable enough to do that. And I had a really great associate at the time who actually wanted to take over my practice. And so I gave him my practice and then I went out and started to pursue, you know, educating, just educating full time. And I started working with a company called Beyond Organic. It's my at the time, now he's my business partner today, but Jordan Rubin. And it was a company where we were starting a food company and we were the first company to ship grass fed beef. We had kefir, we had kale chips, we had kombucha. We're the second ever kombucha company. And we were going to do this and ship these products all over the country. And anyways, and I invested everything I had in that, Natalie. And so the company, we didn't realize that the margins for the industry we were in, you had to have large margins. So no matter what we did. So like for instance, try shipping, you know, grass fed beef frozen and kefir frozen across the country, but in the summers it's melting.

Like I can only imagine.

We had no Idea. So I lost everything I had. I ended up with, you know, and I. For operating my functional medicine clinic for years. Like I had made money but put it all in that business, lost everything. And my wife Chelsea and I ended up with about less than $10,000 left total in our bank account. And by the way, this is only four, four and a half years ago.

Wow.

And I remember we got down and we just decided we're. Again, I hope no one gets offended by this, but we prayed, you know, and then we just. And then we just really felt like we were being led to. I felt like God kind of said, Give 100% to your website and to helping people online. Because before that it was still kind of like I was doing several things at once.

But, you know, I love that you just shared that because this is powerful because four and a half years ago you were popular online. People would have thought, oh, he's making millions. This is amazing. And I know from talking to so many successful entrepreneurs that you're not alone with that. That's happened to almost everybody at some. How did you. I'm curious how you guys rallied and kept going because I heard you say, you know, we prayed, but there's. You had to have had those thoughts, like, maybe I shouldn't be doing this, maybe I should give up. Like, why not just get a regular job? Like, how did you, how did you self talk yourself into continuing? Because that's stressful.

Yeah. So, you know, again, Chelsea and I, as we said, we're both prayerful people. So we just, you know, I think we both went back to. And started thinking about. For myself first was what's my greatest passion and what am I called to do in life. And I felt like it was to really focus on draxe.com and educate people on how to use food as medicine. And that's around the tagline. When we changed my tagline to food is medicine because I felt like that's my mission and calling. There were definitely doubts. I mean, you know, for, you know, for, for at least a day of me thinking about, you know, am I even supposed to be doing this? Am I, you know, maybe I'm supposed to go back into full time practice and do that instead and sort of forget any of these aspirations to do a supplement company or to educate people online and do these health programs. And so absolutely I had those thoughts. But then again I just went back to. And I remember mentors saying this and I remember, I just kind of thought that, you know what, like, I'm uniquely Gifted, too. And my greatest passion is educating and teaching people. And that's what I need to do. Despite how grim things look right now. I need to teach people how to use food as medicine. And I just decided that's. I'm going to give it my all, because something else, too. Natalie. A year before, I had Dave Ramsey's chief marketing officer, Bill Hampton. I took him out to lunch, and he said to me, hey. He said, josh, what do you really want in business? And I said, I want to have the number one natural health website, and I want to do this. He said, well, what are you doing now? I'm like, well, I'm doing this business, and I'm doing this kind of two things. And of course, he quoted the ancient Chinese proverb, you know, if you chase two rabbits, you catch none. And I was like, well, Bill, that's kind of, you know, that's great advice, and I agree, but I still didn't do it. So finally, like, those words kind of came back to me realizing, sort of like, go all in.

Yeah. Isn't it funny? So many entrepreneurs are guilty of that, like, just focusing on too many different things, too many ideas, and it really. It's when you get clear on your passion and your purpose and that one. One focus, it's what works.

Yeah, Again. And that was so big for us because, you know, and I couldn't believe that once I was able to fully devote myself to, you know, writing articles and doing videos and then just also investing in my team, you know, one of the things we started doing as a team, because I always did this in practice. In practice, my team and I, my, you know, my office manager and my assistants and everything. Like in associate doctors, like, we'd go through a book on leadership and growth, so we'd read lots of John Maxwell, you know, Malcolm Gladwell, you know, a lot of books on leadership and growing ourselves and serving others. And so then I also started doing that with my team. So I had my. Who eventually. Actually my. Just a quick side story. So the person who became my company president, his name was Evan Tardy, and he was graduating. I knew his brother, and I wasn't even hiring at the time anyways. He said, hey, my brother might want to work for you. And I said, well, I'm not really hiring right now. He said, well, he loves your brand. And so he just would love just even if you do one call with him. So I got on the phone with Evan, and Evan said, and I wasn't going to hire him, but he said this thing to me. He said, hey, listen. He said, because he was just graduating Texas Tech. And he said, hey, I love what you do. He said, listen, I'll do anything. I'll even, I'll just go, I'll stack chairs. He said, I'll do whatever you need me to do. I'll stack chairs all day. I'll bring out the garbage. I'll clean the bathroom. I said, okay, you know what? You're hired. And so like somebody like that, like I was able then to start pouring into Evan, sending, you know, like working with him on leadership and growth. And it was amazing. He went from essentially working shipping products out of my garage to being the president of our company and managing over 150 people.

Wow. Wow.

Did you learn a lesson from that?

It's interesting that you, like here you're shut down, like, I'm not going to hire anybody.

And then, yeah, I did. I learned that. You know, I read the book, the book Good to Great years ago. And I realized one of the principles of the book is get the right people on the bus. I mean, that's actually even before you decide what you're going to do. The book says get the right people on the bus. And so I realized that I can't win by myself. I have to win with people.

That's so true.

And you've experienced this too. Another thing, I've had some really great mentors over the years. And one of my mentors, his name was Dr. Ben, and he told me, you become who you surround yourself with. And that's been my biggest life lesson, both in business and my personal life. So I'm very, very conscious of who are the five people that I spend the most time with personally and in business. And again, I'm very conscious about who I spend my time with. So that lesson really, really came into fruition. And so, and the other thing, and I remember in this now, so not to get too, just to go a few years later. So my business started doing really well four and a half years ago. Well, three years ago I was doing CrossFit and doing Olympic weightlifting. And you know, it's hard in CrossFit because you're doing things for time. And I ended up bulging or herniating two discs in my back.

You and I connected over this about a year ago. I remember this.

Yeah. And so I went down and I'm telling you now that Chelsea was half. And I couldn't walk for a month. I had to lay on the ground and nerve pain. I couldn't sleep it was so bad. And I know what to do. The day I got hurt, I had an acupuncturist at my house, a chiropractor, a kinesiologist, all working on me. And it was the strangest thing. Still, for a month, I hardly got better. And it took me really up until this is. It took me two years. Finally, two years ago, I turned a corner and like my back was like 95% better. But anyways, all that being said, for that first year, I could hardly move. I didn't go in the office. All I did was, I sort of, you know, I laid down or was in my own office and I just, I kind of did the four hour workweek. Like, I just stayed on the phone with my leaders and told them what to do. And I found we saw more business growth in that one year of me being injured and able to do almost nothing.

That's crazy.

Than we ever have. And it was. And I realized it was because, like, I was having the multiplication effect. It wasn't all about me trying to do everything. It was about me. And, and that's the other thing. Like, I thought to myself, okay, I can still probably write better than my writers and do. But when I was able to invest and pour into five of my, you know, to multiple writers and my entire team, everyone grew exponentially on the team. And that. It was huge.

That's ginormous. Yeah, that's. That's a huge. It's funny looking back on why things happen to us. And I mean, that could have been a big part of that. For you to have that lesson in that trusting other people and investing and growing them, that's really.

Yeah. You know, it's something I think a lot of entrepreneurs are guilty of. And now that I've coached doctors and business entrepreneurs some over the years, and we feel like we have to do everything and we can do everything the best. But here's the deal. Even if that's true, if somebody can do a job about 70% as good as you can, you should still have them do it instead of yourself. That's sort of the rule of thumb. Because if that can. Because if not, you just, you know, obviously there's only one of you and there are. Yeah, you're just gonna see more of a multiplication effect that way.

Yeah. Do you have any advice on that, though, for people listening? Because I know that's also scary because people, if they tend to hire or delegate too soon, they could have the wrong people too. So do you have you sort of figured that out? Like is it, do you, are you of the camp of learning it first and then bringing somebody on or what's, how do you approach that?

Yeah, so we have a very specific system for this that we follow and it's essentially, I'd call it a 90 day process. And so, and I'll share with you so early. So four years ago I was writing most of the articles on draxe.com and, and then I got to the point where I said, okay, I want to continue to grow and reach more people. I can't just write everything myself. And now I'm traveling and all this stuff. And so I, so I decided, okay, what I'm going to do is I'm going to create the playbook. And so with articles. For instance, now like if we have a topic, let's say it's on turmeric. Well, now on turmeric, the playbook is you have a interesting sort of opening statement and then you quote a study and then you let them know what they're going to learn in the article and then you answer the nutrition facts, the historical facts, you give them a recipe. So we have a very specific template for all of our articles. So what I did is like I wrote a template on turmeric and then I would have. And then once I hired a writer, I said, I'm going to have you write the article on ginger and on cinnamon. And so I would write the outline for them and show them how I wrote it. I would have them write the article and then I would go back and coach them saying, no, don't do this, do this, quote this. And then for 90 days of them writing, I would continually go and essentially coach them on how to write the perfect article. And then, you know, and then I just had to check in on them only occasionally. And then I brought in an editor in chief who was brilliant, who followed the same system. So again, but for me that's the whole thing is you can't just give somebody something and think, oh, you know what, they should be good at it. There's got to be a period of time and for us it was about that 90 day period where they are really getting coached up. And for a lot of times it can be years, but most people should spend more time coaching and developing their team than they. Then they should be doing things themselves.

Got it? Yeah, that's actually really, really good. Because what I also, what I'm hearing is you taking, literally taking the time to invest in not just like paying for their training, but like you're investing your time and making sure it's done right. So I think if I'm listening correctly, a lot of people, what they'll do is they, they think it's just easier to do it myself, it's shorter, quicker to do it myself. But then they're not thinking long term where it took you longer to basically train them and make sure they're doing it right and give them a template and check it. But now look at what that's returned for you.

Yeah, absolutely. And another thing, Natalie, and this might seem a little counterintuitive, but one of the things that I've realized over the years too, and this is again, some of this is, you know, biblical wisdom. It's not mine, but we live in a world today that's all about personal growth and sort of self actualization, individualization and just making life better for you or making yourself better. The truth is you don't make yourself better by focusing on yourself. This is where all the self help gurus get it wrong, is they think your mindset should be all about growing yourself. It's not about growing yourself, it's about growing others, it's about serving others. And so that's the whole thing. Like when I look at my team now, like, I'm not sitting there growing myself. Like the, like the people that to me have the greatest degree of influence and multiplication are those people that go and serve and love others and help others reach their dreams and goals. And that's what I think it's really all about, is, you know, for. I'll give you an example. I heard this recently from a friend. She said she had a significant other who said, she said, hey, would you come visit my family? And he said, well, why would I go visit your family? How's that going to benefit or grow me personally? I thought, man, you've maybe been listening to a few too many self help gurus that you're all about, how can this help me grow? Well, again, real growth is going and putting others before yourself, sacrificing things that you love for others. And it all comes around though. But again, that's the thing about team is that it's about you serving them, not them serving you.

I love that. I've noticed and you probably have to, just based on saying this, that even though there can be a tendency to fight wanting to be of service and help others, sometimes because I've been there, you almost get a break from your own head when you're doing it. And for me, I get that meditation Effect, like, if I'm out serving and helping somebody else, it's like when I have new clarity for myself later, it's like I had a break from my own head. Do you. I don't know if you can relate to that or if that's something that comes up for you.

Yeah, well, it makes me think of this quote as. Well, you know, I am. Anyways, I was reading a book on Mother Teresa and it's a great. It was a Grams, her biography, and it was great. And they asked her why she has so much joy, and she says, because I'm not thinking about myself all the time. I think a lot of times and this happens, like, I, you know, in practice, I always try to be sensitive to this, but sometimes people start to develop this sort of victim mentality and they get to this point where they, like, they become their disease. Like, I remember I had a patient with fibromyalgia and she kept saying to me, I have fibromyalgia. I have fibromyalgia. And I said, lucy, can you do something for me? Don't say that you ever have it again. In fact, I believe that you're going to be free of those symptoms and you're going to be healthy. But I said, you know, instead, let's say something opposite. So, you know, I think that, yeah, people's mindset with those things and overcoming being a victim, I think it's. Anyways, I think it's important and I think it's.

Yeah. Super powerful. Super powerful. Okay. I want to go back to what you're doing now and how this ties into everything. So talk to us about your new book because originally you started with your interest in nutrition and how that can be so powerful. Why keto now?

Sure. Well, for me, I've done keto and used that with patients for way before it got popular, you know, a few years ago. So when my mom had cancer that second time and I was spending out, you know, putting together her program, I was doing a lot of research. And one of the things I was looking up was diets for cancer and studies proving that certain diets work for certain types of cancer. And I came across a study on the keto diet for cancer. And I started reading and finding out that many types of cancer cells feed off of sugar, essentially fermentation. And so when I put together my mom's cancer plan, I put her on a keto like diet. Here's the thing, though, I just want to. I just want to throw this out there that I was on Instagram the other day, and somebody was talking about the perfect keto recipe. And their keto recipe was taking conventional shredded cheese, frying it in butter, putting bacon in the middle, frying more cheese on top, and making a fried cheese bacon quesadilla.

Which is not what you mean by this, I'm sure.

Exactly. That's not what I mean by keto. So with my mom, it was a mixture of. It was keto, but we followed a lot of the Gerson therapy with vegetable juicing and also using Chinese medicine. And so her diet consisted of almost her only carbs really came from some berries, like blueberries, raspberries, and some carrots and beets. But aside from that, there was no grains, no carbohydrates. She was consuming lots of, you know, avocado, coconut, wild caught salmon. And then more than anything, it was vegetables, you know. And so that's the sort of keto diet she followed. But I discovered the keto diet, which was a diet that helped my mom beat cancer. And so that's why I wanted to write this book. And so I wanted to teach people how to do the keto diet the right way. And so in the book, I actually have different types of keto plans. I have a keto plan for cancer. I have a keto plan for hormonal health, like for instance, thyroid conditions and pcos and infertility. I have a keto plan for joint health, like for inflammation. I have a keto plan for boosting collagen and beauty. But this book I think is really great for anybody who's looking to lose weight, balance hormones, boost brain health, just generally reverse disease. And I also put a lot of great recipes in there that are healthier forms of keto. Now we still have keto recipes for like keto brownies and keto pancakes using almond flour, coconut flour, pastured eggs, those types of things. But yeah, I just wanted to write a book that taught people how to do the keto diet the right way.

So what I like about your approach, and for those of you that are listening that do my programs, I teach an unprocessed diet. So they actually are similar when you really dive in. So I teach, first of all, everything's gluten free, and I'm heavy on avoiding grains and casein for the majority of foods as well. Heavy plant based, lean proteins, things like that. Can you talk a little bit into what keto means to you specifically? Like, I know you said sugar and all that, but I want to kind of break that down because, like, what you shared, you saw a recipe on Instagram that was cheese and fried bacon. And that's not what you mean. But talk about the power of vegetables and how. Because vegetables are a carb. But I think people get stuck on, they don't know what to do with vegetables at this point. So could you help on your perspective with that?

Yeah, absolutely. Well, one thing to note about vegetables is that they're super high in fiber and other nutrients. And so because of the fiber content is so high and the carbs still, there are carbs in there, but they remain relatively low. For instance, if we're talking about a spear of asparagus, you know, you might have, I don't know, you know, one and a half grams of carbs in there, but also one and a half grams of fiber. So it really sort of evens itself out and there. So. So it's really not going to affect your body getting into ketosis. And for people that aren't familiar with the keto diet, essentially what it is is it's a diet that's high in fat, moderate protein, very low in carb, and your body typically burns sugar for energy. Well, you, when you remove carbs and sugar, your body needs an alternate fuel source. So fat is the next thing it can burn for energy. So your body will start burning dietary fat, but also your own body fat for energy. And so it's amazing, people will actually be breaking down body fat even while they're sleeping at night. But your body takes fat, breaks it down, turns it into something called ketones or ketone bodies, which your brain and body can use as fuel. And the biggest benefit of the keto diet is it balances insulin and insulin. Like when people hear insulin, they tend to think of just diabetes. The root cause of pcos and fertility issues, the majority of the time oftentimes can be insulin issues. Alzheimer's disease is called type 3 diabetes because it's an insulin issue. So most inflammatory issues, again, think about too much sugar because insulin is off, so it causes inflammation. But yeah, I wanted to create a diet that really does it the right way. And I kind of call it healing keto. You know, the way that I do keto because it's full of anti inflammatory foods and herbs and giving an example of this too, like, I'm very focused on and believe that Chinese medicine and Ayurvedic medicine are what we should be following today in terms of a lot of our health principles. So, for instance, you know, in the section on keto for hormones, like I go through how Younger women can balance their hormones, doing, you know, certain fats and doing keto. But also, like, women can supplement with Vitex and Ashwagandha. Women that are postmenopausal can do black cohosh and wild yam. And both especially younger women can benefit from dong quai, especially on their menstrual cycle to balance hormones. And so.

And do you have all this in your book?

I do, yeah. We kind of. Yeah, Put all those things together.

Amazing. Okay. I do have two questions specifically about. About keto, too. So. So my husband, Brooks, he was on a super strict. He wasn't trying to do keto, but he was on a super strict. I'm going to get lean like men do. Like, I'm going to get lean in the next few weeks. And he had cut all of his carbs and he started smelling like fruit. Like, literally, I kept saying, you smell like fruit. And it took me researching, and I was like, you know what? I think you're in ketosis, because that's what's happening. You smell like. What is that about? Why do people start smelling like fruit? And is that too much when you start having that odor?

You know what? Yeah. When your body gets into ketosis, your breath oftentimes, and actually even some of your body odor can smell. So those are ketones, actually, that you're smelling. And so it's not a. It's not a bad thing. I do think that depends on who you ask.

Dr. Axe. I mean, I'm sitting next to us, and he smells like fruit.

That's true. Yeah. And I want to say this about keto. My perspective, too. I don't believe the keto diet for most people is a lifetime diet. I think people should be doing keto. I think they should think about it like they would a long term fast or a cleanse.

Okay.

Now, there are civilizations like the Eskimos and the Hunzas that lived on a keto diet and lived to be over and had a long lifespan. So somebody can live long on a keto diet. Of course, just like any diet that's based with real food. But I think that, you know, the keto diet was developed in the 1920s by John Hopkins researchers who are trying to find a solution for children that were having epileptic seizures. And they found that when they had the children fast, the seizures went completely away. So they wanted to create a diet that mimicked fasting. And the keto diet is the only diet where you're eating food that mimics fasting, where you. So when you fast, like fasting, you get into ketosis or the keto diet, you get into ketosis. So again, I think most of the time people can do a keto diet for 30 to 90 days, but then just go back to eating a more, you know, a diet that's just nutrient dense.

I like that.

So I think that's the ideal long term way for you to think about it.

No, I like that, I like that approach a lot. And then what about, because there's another camp of thought about, for cancer prevention or cancer reversal about being on a strict vegan plant based diet.

Sure.

What are your thoughts there?

Yeah. So one of the plans in my book by the way, is a, is a keto vegan plan.

Okay.

And so, so we actually do have. That's one of the six plans people can follow in the back of the book. But you know, I think that, that, I think that people need to consider, you know, all of the different nutrients their body needs to function properly. And I think, I do think being a strict vegan, I do think it's difficult but not impossible to be healthy long term. And can you ask me that again?

Yeah. So the question is sometimes you'll hear and I mean this is a lot of documentary stuff into not necessarily hard research because people can spin research however they want, but there's a lot of people that believe that by being on a full plant based vegan diet that that's what is what's going to reverse or prevent cancer. So I guess when you look at a keto diet that's not typically vegan, I know you have part that is. But what would you say, do you think there's not a lot to that research? Is it one sided? I'm just curious, your take on that versus keto.

Yeah, there's really very little to no research there. I'll give you an example. If you look at some of the documentaries that are out there, basically what they do is they don't have any positive studies towards being a vegan. They'll take certain studies like eating vegetables is healthy for you and use that. And then they'll also say eating conventional meat is bad for you. But there's not a study saying vegans live longer than omnivores or even carnivores. Like there's not, there's nothing to that. They're extrapolating based on saying hey, vegetables are good for you and conventional meat is bad. I agree with that too. I don't disagree with that. But I think, I do think people are better off eating more plants than they do meat. I do think, like in my book, again, it's really, there's a load of, you know, of plants and especially vegetables in there. But I do think if you look at what our cells and body are made up of, you know, getting collagen, for instance, you know, broth is a huge part of Chinese medicine, Ayurveda, especially fish broth. But you know, broth, broth is a, is a meat based product that we can't get collagen unless we are consuming broth. Our body can produce collagen and things like vitamin C rich foods and, and those types of things. A little bit of biotin and iron, those help a little bit. But I think overall, and B12 is another one, it's very difficult and I'll say near impossible, if not impossible to get B12. So anyways, and I've worked with a lot of patients, listen, if a vegan diet worked better for cancer, that's what I would have had my mom do and all the other patients I've cared for. But I think eating a small amount of meat, especially meats like wild caught salmon and drinking and getting broth, I think those two in particular are really good for a lot of people.

Yeah. And I think that it is very biased, especially on a lot of documentaries. They always talk about meat, but they're talking about conventional meat. I've never heard them really talk about. But what if you do grass fed and finish or what if you do wild caught? So I do think it gets biased there. And I also agree with you on the collagen. I can't tell you how many messages I get. Can you recommend a vegan collagen? I'm like, there is not a vegan collagen or vegan bone broth. There isn't. Speaking of which, Dr. Axe has a great product line. I use his bone broth and his collagen. Can you talk a little bit about that? Why you developed that?

Yeah. So again, I saw. So one of the things I used to have my patients do, Natalie, was a, was a bone broth or collagen cleanse. And I would just have them drink bone broth or I'd have them do bone broth, veggie juice and herbal tea. And that's all they would do for three days to a week. And the results were just really powerful. So then myself and Jordan Rubin found a way to take bone broth, the stuff you make at home, just dehydrate it and turn, turn it into a powder. And so we created bone broth protein, which is really rich in collagen. It's also really rich in hyaluronic acid, glucosamine and chondroitin, which are essentially collagen boosters by the body. And so we have that. And we also created a multi collagen protein. It's the only collagen that has multiple sources of collagen. So as wild marine collagen from wild caught fish, grass fed beef collagen, pastured chicken collagen, so as all of those together and actually eggshell membrane collagen. And because our bodies are made up of multiple types of collagen, like our skin, hair, nails, bones, discs are made up of type 1 and 3 collagen. Our ligaments, tendons, connective tissue, fascia are type 2 collagen. Our arterial walls are type 5 and 10 collagen. So we need multiple types of collagen in our diet. So we created our collagen products called multi collagen protein. And we've had people say that they just feel like they've noticed a huge, huge difference. And I think most companies out there are just doing a beef collagen. I actually believe the fish. And then I think the most powerful is actually the chicken collagen, because chicken collagen also contains the hyaluronic acid, glucosamine, chondroitin, which we know is really big for the joints, the gut, especially people that have gut issues. But yeah, so those are two. And I consume those every day myself.

Yeah, I swear by your products with that. I've been using them since Chelsea gave them to me a few years ago. They're awesome. Okay, so I have a few final questions for you. And this is. I want to go back to a little bit of the business side of it just to help people with the mindset here. I'm curious how you structure your mornings and your day. Like, do you have a specific routine? How do you stay so on point and stay on focus with what you're creating?

Yeah, I do. So for me, every single morning, first thing I do is I go out to, I have a vision board and I go up by it, I'll look at it for a minute, and then I typically get down and well, I kind of do what I call my spiritual triathlon. So I'll spend about five minutes just, just being grateful and just praising God. And again, I know everybody's different religious beliefs, but that's what I do is I just get grateful and just spend time in praise for five minutes, and then I'll spend another five minutes or longer reading. I'll read a personal growth book, read a Bible, read another book that I just feel like puts me in that state that it's not about me, it's about serving and taking care of others. And so I'll read and then I'll spend another five minutes typically sort of in visualization meditation or prayer. And I do that every morning. So sometimes it's 15 minutes, sometimes it's an hour. Just kind of depends on my schedule. But I always do that the first thing I do. And then I tend to make a smoothie every morning. It's kind of like a collagen smoothie. So I'll put a scoop of multi collagen protein and bone broth powder. I'll doi do a lot of blueberries and raspberries and then I'll do coconut milk and sometimes I'll throw some herbs in there, ginger and cinnamon. And so I do that smoothie. And then I almost always go work out. And that's sort of my morning routine. That's what I do almost every morning. And just as a side note, this might sound really personal, but the other thing I do is once I go out in our living room, we keep our dogs and our, we got a big laundry room that both our dogs stay in. So Chelsea loves to cuddle with the dogs in the morning. So I walk up, pick up one of our dogs, Flash, put them in bed. They're cavalier King Charles spaniels. They're like 20 pound dogs. So if you want to know everything I do, that's the other thing. I love it.

I love it, I love it, I love it. Okay, so you, and you have reinvented yourself a few times. I mean, like thinking about how you basically developed your career and your calling, your passion from something with your mom. And then when you had a hardship in your business, you redeveloped it. If someone's listening right now, and this is something I ask everybody on the show, if somebody's listening right now and they're on their own personal hardship, I mean, it could be anything from they hate their job and they want to start a business to maybe they're rock bottom financially. Maybe it's their health, maybe it's their, they've just been diagnosed with cancer like you were referring to with your mom, but they're in their own personal rock bottom. If you were to give them three pieces of advice so they can start shifting and leveling up and changing their mindset, what would you tell them to Do.

Yeah. Number one, again, I would spend time. Again, I'm just going to share what I do.

Yeah.

So, number one, I spend time in prayer and seeking wisdom. You know, I don't know everything, and I know that there's a lot of smart people out there, and I include, you know, God in that. And so I'll spend time in prayer and then going to mentors or just people, even if they're not my closest friends, people that I really trust in seeking their advice. But I spend time with prayer and seeking counsel. The second thing I'll do is I'll look back at, like, what am I uniquely designed to do? And I really believe, Natalie, that everybody is uniquely designed to serve humanity in some way and is gifted in some way. And so I would really reflect on, what are your greatest gifts? What are your greatest strengths? Asking yourself that, then asking those closest to you that exact same question to find what are your strengths and gifts? And then the third thing I would do is, hey, set some goals and go out there and get after that, if you realize that, hey, you're a musician and you are uniquely designed to be Nashville. So I'm just using that one. But, you know, you're uniquely designed to be a musician. Like, I see a lot of people give you example Nashville. You know, you'll go to. I'll go to a restaurant, and somebody's a waiter, slash musician. Like, everybody is a something slash.

In la. They're a slash actor.

Yeah, exactly. Yes. And so, but what I. If I would sit down and talk to those people, Like, I can tell if they're gonna make it pretty early on, because the people are gonna make it. They're not saying to themselves, I'm just waiting for my break. Yeah, no, they're going out there. They're starting on YouTube. You know, I'm saying they're going out there and they're. They're. They're posting videos on YouTube and they're watching themselves, and they're getting better, and then they're going out and they're networking to see counts on how can I be a better songwriter? How can I be a better musician? They are getting after it, and they're setting a specific goal. So the third thing is set a goal and then go hard after it. Do whatever it takes. Don't let it, you know, don't wait for it to fall into your lap. It's not going to happen. Go out there and. Yeah, so that's it.

I love that. Thank you. Okay. Where can they find more about you? Can they get your book now? Where is it available? Like give us some more information there.

Yeah, you can get the book. Yeah, you can get the book now. It's out there nationwide. It's in Barnes and Noble, it's in bookstores. Every independent bookstore across the country. You can run out and get it also. It's on Amazon.com in fact, I think nationwide in this week right now it's $10 off. It's usually 30. It's like 18 right now.

Okay.

And the book's just called Keto Diet. And if you do an Amazon search, just look up keto diet, Dr. Axe, and you'll find find my book on there. It's bright green, but yeah, I think people love it. We've got plans in there. If somebody is struggling with, whether it be, you know, cancer or brain issues or hormone imbalance or needs to lose weight, I have 30 day meal plan, shopping list guide, the whole thing in there. And then also on Instagram and Facebook, you can search Dr. Josh Axe. And also I have a great wife. She's into fitness. She's a yoga instructor and a doctor. She's Dr. Chelsea Axe. You can find her on Instagram as well. And by the way, Natalie, my wife, when we follow you, her favorite videos of you. And I hope you don't take offense to this, but she loves you. But she also loves when your dog flops in there.

And I've been, there's been several videos I've done with Chelsea. So yeah, people can find those too. I love that.

That's right. Yeah.

Well, thank you so much for being here and sharing so much with us today.

Well, thanks so much again. Chelsea and I are big fans of you and your fam and what you do and I was really honored to be on today. So thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks for leveling up with us today.

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Creating everything from nothing.

Sam.